reality...really

It happens sometimes. I get in touch with reality. I open my pantry door and reach for the loaf of bread and pray that it hasn't molded yet. No big deal, right? Where the reality happens is when it has molded and I realize that I don't even have enough money to buy a new loaf. In my prideful attitude I call that "tight times." The reality is those "tight times" are just my stupidity in dealing with my finances. Some people deal with those "tight times" everday of their lives. It's not an instant in time for them, it's life. Working two jobs to make ends meet, getting your children through school, and all the while trying to make it appear like you have it all together, but sometimes the dark circles under your eyes give it a way; evidence of sleepless nights and worry about the future. Is that my situation? No, not even close, and I still complain. I've never been in a situation where I've had to go without. There are those out there that mostly do with out, and when they don't it's a big deal. So where do I align myself now that I realize that I don't have it quite so bad? Maybe it's time for those of us "who don't have it so bad" to do something with what we've been given. I challenge readers to look for opportunities to help those around you who are less fortunate. Volunteer at inner city missions in your community, buy someone a meal, or donate to charities that make life easier for those that don't have much. Don't do it when it's a culturally acceptable time of year either. It should be a responsibility for those of us to use what we have to help our brothers and sisters who don't have what they need. It should be a way of life each day.

Christmas Philosophy

So, I know it's the 28th and Christmas was 3 days ago, but I've got a few thoughts rolling around in my head. Is it just me or does Christmas get less and less eventful each year. I remember when I was young I couldn't wait for the day to get here so I could open all my presents. As I got older it became less about presents and more about the possibility of changing the world. There was something about the holiday that made me believe that all things were possible on that day. As I've grown to learn, all things are possible in Christ, all things not just some things. So the youthful, niave idea of limiting him to one day has disappeared, but in my current state of mind I feel so lost in the money making juggernaut that is Christmas that it all seems hopeless anyway. Why hope for something bigger and deeper when the world has set guidelines and a status quo that goes against the true meaning of the holiday. Why do our friends and families need to know that we love them enough to give them gifts on only one day a year? Does the love that I've come to share with my friends and family need to be limited to a gift? Shouldn't we love those people each day instead of just one day a year? This whole idea of Christmas has become misdirected from the will of God. Every year people go into debt buying Christmas gifts. How would Jesus condone a time of the year when his children would suffer just to buy gifts for other people. In ancient Jewish tradition there were no words for the ideas of spiritual and secular lives. God never intended for there to be a separation from him and his people, so why would he expect that separation now. That separation is no more apparent than at Christmas time. Call me crazy but a holiday including the name CHRIST should not be about stimulating all of the things that Jesus was against while he was on earth. He wasn't a commercial person, but society has turned his "birthday" into a very commercialized holiday. Christmas is not a holiday to be celebrated once a year, but it's a way of life that Jesus challenged us to remember and perpetuate every day of lives the very day he was born on this earth. The gift to celebrate is the very life that we live and the people God has given us to share it with. Everyday is Christmas and just as the word includes it, everyday of our lives should include Christ.

Some people!

Hey everyone
If you know me the slightest bit you'll quickly find out that I truly enjoy Christmas, but I don't necessarily enjoy hanging out with my family for extended periods of time. If you would like an example and reason for why, here you go.
So a week before Christmas I went out to dinner with my grandparents, because I had not seen them for awhile and they wanted to visit with me. Needless to say all illusions that this was going to be a pleasant visit evaporated within the first five minutes. My Grandma is a very strong willed and firm individual, well sometimes she decides she needs to be right regardless the issue and she becomes abrasive. She asked me about my job, which is a source of great joy for me, and if you don't know what I do read the entry 2 posts ago and that'll bring you up to speed. I shared with her what my student's situation was and what my duties were and in the most condescending way she replied, "so in other words taxpayers are paying for that boy to have a babysitter follow him around all day." So in one sentence all my credibility as a professional had disappeared. To add insult to injury she says, "I know you don't have any control over that you're just doing the job you were given." Yeah, that made me feel better. Forget the fact that I feel purpose in what I do and the fact that the presence of that young boy, who will never be able to "support himself" as she put it simply changes everyone around him. I have had conversations with staff members at the school that have had their lives truly changed just by his example and his attitude. Her solution for "the problem" was to put this young man in an institution where he'll never be used as he has been. The truth of the matter is that maybe all of us need to be reminded that our lives are not all about us, maybe once in awhile we all need evidence that shows us that life happens in many different ways and we truly are fragile just as life is. Maybe we need to look beyond labels and see people as individuals with personalties, struggles, and resolve just as God sees them. Maybe people like my grandmother hide behind their solutions because they don't want to be reminded that life extends beyond their own boundaries and God stretches past their own small, infintesimal lives. I pity people like her and I pray that one day God shows her life in all its potential and I hope she's broken by it. I just hope it's not to late. For those of you that read this post I hope you realize that the God I serve in my opinion is an opened minded God and in order to follow him we too must be opened minded. I encourage you to stretch the boundaries in your life and try your patience in order that these qualities may abound in your heart so that your ability to see God will allow you to see him in the least likeliest places. That you could see him in mundane tasks like taking the garbage out, or in the beggar, businessman, or waitress you pass on the street. Or maybe you could find him in a fourteen year old mentally and physically handicapped boy like I have whose wisdom in life sometimes is leaps and bounds beyond my understanding of life and the God we serve. Seek him and you will find and when you find him, cling to him. In Jesus name I pray.

snow

For some reason the first really big snow of the season makes me feel like a little kid again. I've always had this wierd fascination and, or love affair with winter and snow. It's hard to explain. I mean I get stuck in routines and live my life everyday, then one day I'll step out of my front door and everything will be the most gorgeous shade of glowing white and it will be so bright even without the sun that I have to close my eyes because the brightness is so intense. It reminds me that purity still does exist, it reminds me to stop and realize that everything is real. The truck lumbering by pushing snow out of its path with the plow hanging from its bumper. It reminds me to listen to every little thing I overlook each day. The sound of the wind as it zings past my ears and stings my cheeks, the squirrels scurrying to find a hidingplace with the last few nuts from the fall onslaught stuffed in their cheeks. It reminds me to enjoy just being still, reflective, and thankful for life. I love standing outside as the snow is just blanketing the ground and taking that first deep, cleansing breath of the day and drinking in all that's around me. The air rushes in and over takes me as I inhale so deeply it burns my lungs as it's going in. It's times like that that make me feel truly alive. God is truly visible and has a place and purpose for everything. There's time to grow and flourish, a time to rest and replenish, and a time to enjoy. Let the snow fall and let it renew my heart so that I may see where the Lord has been the past year and be hopeful of where he is going.

Chris

P.S. word of the day:
Harangues-(h-rng)
n. A long pompous speech, especially one delivered before a gathering.
A speech or piece of writing characterized by strong feeling or expression; a tirade.

I found this word while reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac it kinda fits after a post don't you think.

How Life Becomes Real

Okay, so tonight I was talking with some friends of mine about the job that I have. Just so you know I work at a middle school and I'm a student aid with a student who has special needs. When I had started this job I felt like this would be a perfect opportunity to pour into a kid and be a good example and role model for him, but the longer I've known him I've learned more from him than I'm sure he has ever accidentally learned from me. To give you a little background into his life he contracted tuberculosis when he was 2 months old. Later the tuberculosis escalated to meningitis. With that came encephalitis and seven strokes, so needless to say he has been through many things that most of us could not even begin to describe, let alone construct how we would feel if they were to happen to us. Through all of these hardships and struggles he has gone on to achieve much than what many people initially thought he would. I soon learned in August at the beginning of the school year that there was something much different about him. His attitude did not show that he was unaware of his shortcomings or furthermore, upset about them. Instead he enjoyed school, the people around him, and most importantly life in general. I got the feeling that each day was a new experience for him. A new test of what he was capable of and a new opportunity to show that there are no boundaries on the possibilities of any one life. He had this angelic, excited smile each day he entered school and he gave full effort. I began thinking to myself someone who seems so ubpeat and appreciative of life has got to have personal thoughts on how precious it is, whether it me faith in a higher being or a general appreciation for life as a journey. I began asking him questions that he seemed unable to answer every now and then. I would never force anything and he would always say "I don't know" if he had no clue how to answer the question. Well I stopped asking questions and one day I was suprised when he decided to divulge some wisdom about heaven upon me. We were in class one afternoon and we were working on a worksheet on which he had to write an exclamatory sentence. The sentence he chose to write was I like thunderstorms.
"You like thunderstorms ?"
"Yeah, I do."
"How come?"
"It means God is bowling."
"Okay."
"I've met God."
"You have?"
"When I was sick I went to heaven and I met God and my two gaurdian angels. God and I played Legos and cars. My guardian angels sent me back down after awhile."
"Why did they send you back?"
"My mom was worried about me."
"What did God look like?"
"Like the sun."
"These guardian angels are they relatives that have past away or are these specific beings that God has assigned to you?"
"God assigned them to me."
"Do you feel like you have a purpose in your life because you have experienced that?"
"Yes."
When he was six years old he had some complications and was in a coma at Riley Hospital and during this time he had an out of body experience and God revealed all of these things to him. I quickly realized that this wasn't about what I could enstill in him, but what I could learn from him. I mean he is someone that truly knows what it is like to be truly in touch with God and anything outside of that he doesn't concern himself with. The grace and joy that he approaches life with inspire all around him. He truly "knows life" as Jack Kerouac said in "On the Road." He knows what it's like to enjoy the glint of sun off a window on a brisk autumn day, to savor the hug from a friend, to revel in the accomplishment of a good grade on a test. Everything he experiences he appreciates more because he knows how fleeting and special it is. If I could ask God for one thing it would be the simplistic, yet solid understanding of what is truly important in life that this student shows me everyday. It's when I am truly confronted with people like this that life becomes real to me. People that show me that life isn't about what you achieve and how socially well connected you are, but what you do with the time you're given. I only hope that I do a tenth of what my student has done with my own life.

thoughts inside my head

Hello everyone,
Well, this is my first ever blog, so I'm just going to write some thoughts down I have inside my head.
You know it's funny, whenever there is a single goal in your head somehow there always comes to be another thought that wants to achieve the same goal just in a different direction or way. This could occur in anything, whether it be in relationships or careers or even hobbies. The two directions that present themselves are the comfortable solution and the adventerous solution. They both meet the goal theoritically in your mind, but one takes little or no sacrifice and the other takes focus, work, and much sacrifice. Although each leads you to the thing you want where does one plot his path and in what direction. The comfortable solution tells me that I can get what I want without jeopardizing my feelings or goals and that could be fine, but what's life without tripping over your shoelaces once in awhile. That's how God reminds us that we are only human and the reality that he even accomplishes amazing things through us is a miracle. This is the economy we are all a part of. Some of us may be oblivious to the economy of the one true God that uses our life experiences to open our eyes to who he is. Some may think they are there, but they are really not, because eventually their pride will be bruised somehow and they will be reminded. Still others live each day conscience of who God is and the fact that he could send a giant eraser from the sky and rub each of us out if he wanted to. This breeds fear and uncertainty, but if you're not sure what you're doing you are free to be fallible, human, and make mistakes. This brings me back to my first point that by living for the adventerous solution life becomes a miracle. Every breathe, every conversation, and every movement becomes blessed by God, because in the midst of so much fallibility which is reality God brought about clarity, vision, peace, and love. In fewer words he brought life.

Chris

P.S. here are some lines I've read in books lately: We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, but battle on.- J.K. Rowling
and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes "Awwww!"- Jack Kerouac

Books I've read since August: Mere Christianity- C.S. Lewis
The Wanderer- Sharon Creech
Mr. Popper's Penguins- Richard and Florence Atwater
Bud, Not Buddy- Christopher Paul Curtis
On the Road- Jack Kerouac

test

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