When you’re about five or six years old you ask, “Why?”, because you don’t know, and you want to know.
I’ve noticed that I don’t ask that often anymore. I don’t ask it with my words. I’m silent, but my soul is screaming the monosyllabic word like a maniac.
Why?!?!?!
Life, it seems, is the period of existence where we are meant to discover our purpose for existence.
Dear, America.
We’re at critical election in U.S. history. Our country faces a decision between presumptive nominees Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. It’s not about them, though.
It’s about the power we’re about to give them, and there is no power, but from the consent of the governed.
There is no power, except what is agreed upon by the people. We sacrifice our total autonomy for the benefits of a society. We don’t sacrifice our autonomy totally, mind you, but we do give up the totality of our autonomy, so that a functional society may be had.
Responsibility is a wonderful, terrible, beautiful, awful curse.
I’m going into my senior year which means I’m burdened with plans and thoughts about my future responsibilities. Admittedly most of the burdening is done by me, but I’m on the brink of adulthood, and I’m reaching desperately for that autonomy but I’m clinging to my childhood at the same time.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Which, doesn’t mean you can’t own a cake and eat it, it means you can’t have a piece of cake, and then eat that same piece you just ate. Just FYI. I found that out a couple weeks ago, thought I’d share.
Anyway, I’m rambling, my point is about responsibility. I think the position that everyone really wants to be in is the situation with the most power, or control, with the least responsibility.
I started thinking about it when analyzing the forfeiture of power that has occurred in America. Over the last hundred years or so, America, the people, have relinquished the power of government to the “Government” a monstrous entity designated to take all of the responsibility away from the people.
Whoa. Bold statement, Ian, you may be thinking.
Yeah, probably.
Responsibility is closely tied to power. Because if you’re making decisions, you’re responsible for those actions. So, if you don’t want the responsibility, you give up the power, correct? America have given up their power to
Okay, a couple short paragraphs ago I mentioned that my point was about responsibility. That was my first point.
My father once said, “Treat other people the way you want to be treated.”
My dad has told me that since before I knew how I wanted to be treated.
I hate to make a point with math, but it seems logical to treat other people the way you want to be treated, because there’s only one of you, and 7 billion of them. So if you’re treating other people how they want to be treated. That’s a lot of happy or comfortable people.
Conversely (I love using that word), if you’re out to treat yourself the way you want to be treated, then you’re only going to make one person “happy or comfortable”. I added my little comfortable qualifier because people aren’t always happy, even if you treat them the way they want to be treated. Similarly, even if you treat yourself the way you want to be treated, you may not be happy. We’ve all heard that story, a successful person, who sacrificed his friends and family to get to where he/she wanted to go.
Wiping the dust from his face, the Sculptor smiled at his marvelous marble creation. His face searching the creation for it’s story. He pondered the bleached figure, examining the smallest details, noting the blemishes, but more importantly the lack of blemishes.
The young man in marble was reaching skyward toward an unseen wonder. The colorless boy full of awe, stretching his imagination, growing. The boy’s face innocent, young, clear.
Picking up his chisel, the Sculptor began to chip away at the cheery resolve of the boy. The boy’s brow began to crease, and his eyes to sink, and his cheeks to more stark, his chin a little bolder. The boy now a man, the Sculptor set his chisel down.
The man reached skyward toward an unseen objective. His boyish face still hopeful and wondering. His brow creased slightly, though, as he strived for a goal yet unreached. His eyes fixed with purpose. His gaze unwavering, his outstretched arm untiring.
Raising his chisel, the Sculptor struck, swiftly and certainly, deepening sorrow into the man’s eyes. He carved away the wonder and replaced it knowing; he shaved the hope from the man’s face, leaving a bare understanding. The man now wizened, the Sculptor rested his chisel.
The man, beaten, his bleached face still raised, but he was searching as if uncertain. His eyes, showed pain, and his expression was graver. His body, had hunched a little, recoiling from reality’s harshnesses. The man’s outreached arm endured.
The Sculptor peered at the man with puzzlement. He lifted his chisel, and withered the man’s body, aging him beyond recognition, wrinkling his face, sagging his skin, curling his posture, resigning him.
The man, now experienced, had a rougher finish. Wary now; one step ahead of cruelty, yet his arms stayed outstretched, and his eyes fixed upward. Knowing what he knew, understanding what he now understood, he should crumble, yet the man had the heart of the boy he once was. His imagination continued, his hope prevailed, and his arm, stretched out, remained waiting.
The Sculptor set his tools down, finished. He left the man in the marble to rest.
It’s Thursday, April 28th, 2016. Draft Day.
For the past two and a half months, football fans have discussed the top prospects that declared for the 2016 NFL Draft. Fans have exhausted numerous arguments on every player associated via rumor with their teams.
Media analysts have published enough mock drafts to choke a black hole, and they’re coming out with their “final” versions.
The NFL is basking in the glow of the only thing that’s happening related to football right now; the Draft. (Be quiet, Arena Football, I know your regular season just started, I meant real football.)
Unproven, underage, undersized, and sometimes unethical draft prospects have been national news stories for a month or more. They’re advertised as though they come in a package with a rebate for 10 free wins.
These players are paraded about as the next generation of Pro Bowlers, and Super Bowl Champions and Hall of Famers. Does (California, QB) Jared Goff have any right to be mentioned among the likes of, Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, Joe Montana, Jim Kelly, Joe Ferguson, or John Elway? No. Except of course to mention the fact that a lot of great QBs have first names that start with the letter ‘J’.
Until they make the rosters, and get past Training Camp, until they start a game and handle the pressure, until they contribute to a winning team meaningfully, until they make the clutch play to deliver the Super Bowl to their adoring fans, until they’ve payed their dues, they’re nothing but status quo football players.
Lauded as the Future Super Bowl Champions, these rookies bring a metaphor to my mind: Having your album release party before knowing how to play music.
The draft prospects that are being discussed as Hall of Famers have only proved one thing. They can play collegiate level football fairly well. This is the NFL, boys.
Now excuse me while I watch 4 hours of pre-draft coverage, and bite my fingernails down to the cuticles.
Boy, I hope the Bills take–
Now they are launching a sister site where we can list everything else other than homeschool materials for free. Here’s their blurb about themselves:
Late one night I was reading and thinking about God. I was comparing us to him, as we, human beings, are created in his image. I was imagining the immensity of a being who could feel love for all of the people to ever walk on this planet.Try to think of your own emotions. When acting, I try to portray an emotion as honestly as possible. It often helps me to analogize the emotion of the character, to an emotion I’m familiar with. The joy of winning a football game, for instance, could be likened to the joy of winning a battle. Though I’ve never been in, let alone won, a war, I can express a similar emotion to sort of simulate the experience.
There are far more emotions than just joy, though, like love, fear, anger, hate. Depending on the person, each emotion can control that person. A person feeling fear will act irrationally, just as a person feeling love, hate, or anger, would also act irrationally.
That’s because we can’t control our emotions as well as we’d like. I’m sure everyone has, at one point or another, lost their temper, even if it’s just in your thoughts, you’ve been angry and lost control of yourself. I’m not accusing anyone, obviously, I’m just saying it’s part of being in a fallen world.
Now, the strongest of these emotions, in my humble opinion (the author laughs as he types the phrase “in my humble opinion”, knowing full well humility has nothing to do with his opinions) is love. Love is the root for nearly all emotions, if you look for a common denominator. Anger, hate, joy, sadness, all those really can be traced back to love.
Now imagine being in God’s situation. If you believe that God made each person, (which I do) then doesn’t it follow that he loves each person? I think it does 🙂 With that in mind, imagine the emotions that God feels just daily. In one day God deals with countless ups and downs in his emotions.
One could argue that God doesn’t have emotions, but the Bible has verses about his wrath, and love, and joy. I would also conclude, since people are so emotional, and they are made in his image, that he is an emotional being as well.
Each day we are faced with decisions. C.S. Lewis believed that we have a central self, and each decision we make moves us closer to, or further from, God. Imagine how God feels each time he sees someone make a decision that drives them away from him. Think of the tears he must cry. For each decision! This is not his reaction to the general state of humanity, this is for a single lie, for a thought, for a reaction, mere moments, yet I feel sure he cries over each.
God doesn’t just deal with the sadness of the world, and the sickness, but he feels joy with those who feel joy, and he rejoices for each decision that we make that brings us closer to him. These decisions probably bring tears to his eyes as well, but these are tears of joy, cried because he’s bursting with happiness.
I can’t fully realize the emotions God feels. If his joy for the man who says, “Please help me, God,” is higher than heaven, then his anger with Satan must burn hotter than hell. If he cares for each person’s soul individually, then his anger has to be enormous, compounded per individual, growing with each devious prodding of the devil.
His sadness can’t be any less than his anger, in fact, it may be twofold. Each time he sees one of his children hurting, how badly does he hurt? Imagine when someone you love is hurting. He weeps with those who weep, and rejoices with those who rejoice. How sad he must feel for them!
But God doesn’t just laugh and cry like a person in the movie theater. God created time, and therefore exists outside of it, and he is able to laugh with us, cry with us, and at the same time lead us. Each time something happens, God tries to show us something. I think I might have whole other article on that concept, but I’ll write that later 🙂
Any time you’re having a hard time getting through something, know that you’ve got (literally) the biggest cheerleader, who loves and supports you, and is trying to show you the right way, and not only that, but he’s big enough to do that for you, and every other person. His immensity dwarfs your problems. He will always be bigger.
If God is for us, who can be against us?
If a man is united with God how could he not live forever? If a man is separated from God, how could he not wither and die? —C. S. Lewis
No argument that is founded on logic can answer those questions. Our relationship with God is our eternity.
Heaven, simply put, is a oneness with God. There is no doubting yourself, there is no questioning him. Everything is set so you can be the person you were meant to be. You also get a relationship with the maker of the universe, so, there’s that, too.
Hell is the opposite. Hell is life with no God. For real. You aren’t pretending there’s no God, God just is not there. It is chaos, it is disorder, it is pain, it is suffering. It’s everything we were not meant to be. All with no hope.
Heaven isn’t a place we earn. Heaven is a place we “inherit” because of a relationship with God. It follows our bond with him. It is the natural course. If you love him, you are bound through eternity to the one who created eternity and you. We don’t inherit it by friending God as if he were on facebook, keeping him in your contacts in case you need him. You need a real relationship founded on trust, and love. It’s not required by rule, but by law. The law of this world. If you’re not united with God, what is keeping you from withering and dying?
Hell is not a place that God sends us. It is a place we send ourselves. When God created us, he gave us the freedom of choice, because otherwise it wouldn’t be an honest relationship if he created us to naturally love him.
Neither Heaven, nor Hell, can be used as a coercive bludgeon in an honest relationship. God doesn’t hold anything over our heads, he simply presents information and allows us to make an informed decision.
We play games with ourselves, though. Our fears of hell drive us to falsify a relationship with God, and our desire for Heaven, without a loving relationship with God, does the same.
Leave it to us to screw up the relationship, right?
Thank God for Jesus, because he’s so much wider than our narrow-mindedness. He’s so much longer than our short-sighted views. So much taller than our shortcomings.
He’s so much more than our less.