Adverse affects of an online world

 

    I am not a fan of modern technology. So to express my feelings and reasonings towards a small portion of technology, I shall use the internet!
   Before I get ahead of myself, let me give an example: have you ever been walking up to, I dunno, say your car. You've had a pleasant enough time at the gym/grocery store/ doctor's office (okay, maybe not that last one) when you notice something on your windshield. It's white, folded gently in half, and placed tenderly beneath your windshield wipers. You, unlike most people, grab it and examine it. Your suspicions were correct, it is indeed a piece of paper. To your surprise, when the paper is unfolded you see a message scribbled on it. Not signed by anyone in particular, in flawless cursive, it reads,
"Hey buddy! Learn to park whydontcha? Because of you I had to park all the way on the other end of the parking lot! You have officially ruined my day, and I sure hope your*Grammatical error purposefully and realistically placed* satisfied! People like you should find a hole to crawl in an die!"
   Upon these wise words, you examine your car and find that you are well within the parking lines. And despite your efforts, and the apparent thoughtfulness with which this gentle soul solicited information to you, you are slightly unsettled.

   I don't know if any one of you has actually had this happen; but I personally know of three cases which happened to people very close to me within a few months.This is one of the more extreme, though not uncommon, ways people are manifesting their selfish need for making sure they are heard. Look at bumper stickers reading "Coexist" or "Go green" or "Make tacos, not war" or "has anyone seen my Constitutional Rights?" or "I fish, therefore I lie." Do you think these are really being used to solve a problem? To make people think about their actions and convince them of their shortcomings? Are you questioning whether that last one was a legitimate bumper sticker *answer is yes*?
     Personally, I think people are trying to END the conversation, as if their word is final. There is no controversy, I'm infallibly right because it is MY opinion. Kinda contradictory if you think about it.
    
     Something strange has begun to happen in the world today, unlike anything that has happened before: people in the world...are not always being nice *take this moment to breathe from the shock that is obviously taking place*
   More particularly, people are being cowardly, selfishly unkind.  How is it selfish? Well, are they necessarily waiting to see what might be said in return? Are they trying to solve a problem? Are they really trying to teach anyone by this kind of behavior? Or do you think they really just want to ruin someone's day because they are being sourpusses?
      Now personally, and I am something of a radical, I think the last scenario is most likely. First, people have become so wrapped up in their own lives, that they believe they are the only ones who can know truth.

     Now I don't know if bumper stickers are contributed to technological advances, but I think the first example is. Today, online, you can say whatever you want, and if you want, no one will even know it was you. People can be downright mean, tear someone up and down and all around, and never reveal who they are. Because of this, people think they can do the same thing in real life. They will write nasty letters, choose not to wait to discuss their problems in person, and leave. They don't want to solve the problem, they just want to hurt people. And I think technology has desensitized people towards humanity. You can make posts without thinking twice about who you're hurting, what their life is like (whether it be a living Hell, or they are a mother Teresa.)
   People have had a taste of what it's like to have their opinion heard, and not have to face consequences for the way it is presented. Nor do they have to waste time with the other side of the argument.


What is to be learned from this? I think several things 1) People are not always nice. 2) You should try to be nice. 3) Technology is not always good. 4) Lexi is somewhat incoherent and abruptly stops writing when she is tired and trying to create an article. 5)Don't let your day be ruined because someone will go to extreme extents to ruin it. 6) Jst Like w/ txt splling, witch has began 2 coz people 2 forgit how 2 spell, the internet haz rezalted in wot may b a other downside.

"You'll never be alone"

"I'm the street lights that guide you home
I'll be the GPS when you've lost your phone
I'll be the song that's rockin' in your headphones
I'll show you the signs to let you know
You'll never be alone"

This is the chorus from "Capital Kings"'s new song: "You'll Never Be Alone." I don't know if any of you have tuned into your local Christian radio stations lately, but you may have heard this song. I just thought I'd share some of my thoughts on it.

The first thing I noticed from this song was its fun, dance-like beat. Now, usually I prefer music under the genres of classical, showtune, opera, and orchestrated. This song uses a techno style. Meaning a very computer generated sound, which I'm am typically against for this reason: if everything in the world only uses autotuning, real talent will begin to be overlooked, and ultimately become unimportant in success. But setting that aside, I think they used it pretty well. It's pleasant enough to listen to, and it an all around fun sounding song.

The song's techno-style tune is also very fitting in regards to the content, which lists some common electronic devices that God can use to His advantage, showing you that He is always there. Now, I think it is important that people know God is there for them, and that He loves them (okay, important is a slight understatement, it is something He reflects on for numerous books in the Bible.) I also understand the concept of His using any and everything to His ultimate purposes. But, I think the way this song presents Him only captures half of the picture. It shows Him chasing after us, while we indulge in things that are very secular.

The Old Testament prophets, Psalms, and much of the New Testament often depict the Church and Christ as two entities: the Bride and the Bridegroom. It should be unargued that being with Christ is a relationship. If only the bride (or groom) shows interest in marriage, chasing after the groom (or bride) with no results, there can be no relationship. It takes both sides, actively loving, and manifesting this love, for there to be a relationship present. And not ignoring the fact that any relationship can hit "dry-spots," this song ignores the fact that we are also supposed to seek God in return for His reaching out to us. (Hebrews 11:6)

I want to make sure it is understood that I fully believe that God manifests Himself to us in everyday life; but in things like cell phones, iPods, computers, TV etc. I think it is a lot rarer. I think this way because I have watched things like facebook and phones, and at most, what I've seen are things that distract from God. We are very logical creatures, and if we seek to justify something we do, that our conscience tells us is wrong, (like spending too much time on facebook or searching things on the internet that are probably best left alone) we can easily find means to justify it. On top of that, the devil is VERY clever, (I simply cannot emphasize this enough) and if manipulating certain posts from your friends, or letting you research something about God for half a moment will keep you online and away from peace, and quiet time, taken aside for prayer and Bible, he is more that willing to accomodate. If you want to see God really at work, put down the electronics, step outside and take a deep breath. Notice the birds, the mountains (if you have them) or any other created thing. Take a moment to reflect on the way He has truly blessed you in life. THAT is where God manifests Himself daily, not so much in the secular things of the world.

Now, I have a tendency to look too into things. So I may be missing the entire point of this song, but from what I can see of it, it lacks depth. It depicts a world where God loves you so much that He will accommodate everything you take part in in the secular world, which certainly is not impossible. But in a world that is being overrun by technology, and ultimately distractions, I don't find it realistic. I think this song can also be dangerous, in an extreme way, that causes people to think: "Oh it's fine for me to go on facebook instead of reading my Bible, because God is in all things." I don't think this mindset is contributed only by this song, but I think it can contribute encouragement.

All-in-all, I don't think this is a bad song at all. It's fun to listen to, and it does represent a part of God. But it represents the part of God that most people, minus those who feel genuinely all alone in the world or atheists, choose to believe. Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, "Christians" who believe that pre-marital sex and/or homosexuality is perfectly acceptable (even celebrated,) and on and on, believe in these aspects of God.

I don't know. I guess this song just lacks depth. It doesn't really delve into deep truths, or much of God's character. At best, I would say this is a party song, like something you'd hear at a dance by Katy Perry, or anyone else who is momentarily popular.

It's something to dance to.

Something to be learned?

Before reading any further, if you have not seen this video, please watch it. If you choose not to watch it because it is 5 minutes and 30 seconds of your life you may never get back, you should best not read ahead or at all for that matter. If you have already seen it,  I give you fullest permission not to waste another 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Or if you like reading articles that make little to no sense because you don't know what they are pertaining to, feel free also to read through; and I hope that you find this as one of the better nonsensical pieces you have encountered. Finally, if you are choosing to pretend to read this article, while you are really skimming through hoping to gain some points here and there so you can leave a comment  feel free as well. (Hey, it's better to have people pretending to be interested in what you write than having no one at all;))

If you are reading my blog, you are probably thinking, "Wow, that's not biblical..." because most of you who read it agree with me. But if you are not, (welcome to the site by the way) and you disagree with me, and therefore cannot be closely associated with me (:P) you may be thinking, "Way to go Pastor J.! Tell them sinners to start acting the way God calls us to." After all, Jesus got what could be called "snippy" with the Pharisees on several occasions. Goodness, he even acted out in righteous anger calling the salesmen inside the temple thieves. Peter and Paul and many others are also seen actively rebuking people.

I would have to disagree in several areas,
1) Jesus is God, i.e. He kinda knows everything, including how to make every individual receptive to what He says.

2) He was very humble, and stated facts like "I am God." Not saying, "I am important, you all should be paying attention to me." He also rebuked this behavior passionately.

3) When He rebuked the Pharisees and such, He rebuked them as a group, not as individuals. And only in one case that I can recall (and I admit fully that I could easily be wrong, and ask that references would be provided for other such cases) did he rebuke an individual, Matt. 16:23, which was not directed at Peter to irk him, but as a means of literally rebuking Satan.

4) Mt 18:15-17 "Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear [thee, then] take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell [it] unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." Which pretty explicitly tells us what we are supposed to do, not what Jesus in His infinite wisdom, or Paul and the other apostles with their face-to-face conversations with God, did.

And finally 5) When he took his swig of water and said, "That felt good." It reminded me of this scenario:

Which....did not make for a good impression on my part. But that probably just proved my bias.


So what can we say we've learned from this? Perhaps that as a pastor, one should do as Jesus tells us to do and not what you think He was doing. Perhaps that we should pray for our pastors as the Bible also commands us, so that the immense stress of their job, and the constant power Satan puts into causing these personifications of Christianity to stumble.

But one thing we all have hopefully learned, as a few of the wise youtube commentators speculated: All hail King of the Video Room!

The Short Person Chronicles

First off, my apologies for taking so long for another installment in my constantly entertaining and true experiences. Tales that are so terrifying, and unbelievable, that to anyone above 5'5" they must appear science-fiction. But believe me, all these tales are true, and my purpose in writing them is that you may grow to appreciate what we go through, in our constant struggle against chairs too high for our feet to reach the floor, and cupboards to high for our arms to reach.


Today, I want to talk about doing chores...from a five-foot-three viewpoint.

I'm must say, I am immensely blessed to have the wonderful chore of laundry. Sure it piles up quickly if you stop doing it, and sure there are some pretty nasty articles of clothing one has to touch in order to put it into the washing machine. True the cycle never seems to end but hey: at least it's not washing dishes.

My favorite part about laundry is folding. Taking an hour and a half to match every single sock, making sure not a single trait is skipped out on. We certainly don't want a slightly longer hem with a semi-shorter one of seemingly identical socks. And forbid that we mix a navy-blue sock with a black one. It's like a little detective game. "You thought you could trick me didn't you seemingly similar sock packages of 20 that no longer come with any more than one matching pair of socks."
Ah yes, I feel like a true Sherlock Holmes when doing laundry.

But there is one aspect of doing laundry, not exclusive to it, but for my case is prominently found in doing laundry, that is all but loathsome to me.

(<--Yup, I'm an artist too, and that speck there next to the drawn cupboard was not a mistake...it was actually an artfully placed, rogue fly, and if you don't understand the depth and significance of its presence, you must be in altitudes where the air is thinner)


That's right...the terrifying, and ominous too-high cupboard. Either tall people are completely thoughtless when it comes to cupboards twice the height of us Shirefolk, or whether they find it funny to see us struggle, this is a horrifying idea. Placed so intricately, that your fingertips can barely open it, but not in your wildest dreams could you grab anything out, or as in my case, put something in.

Though, unlike any other resourceful person, I wouldn't think of grabbing a chair to put things away. Why is this? Perhaps it is my constant desire to overcome the daily evils inflicted by those taller than me. Maybe it is the ever present hope to one day meet a cupboard that is actually placed within reach. It could be that I wish to see the big folk suffer the consequences of putting something out of reach. But most likely, it is because I am too lazy.

Either way, those towels have to get in there. And what better way to get them up there than to throw the towels up there and slam the cupboard doors shut before they all come tumbling on top of me.

I now only wish I would learn not to be the first one to grab a hand-towel. Then I could really laugh at all them unsuspecting tall people.

Until next time,
5'3"

Men

As the students began filing in from recess, Miss Sophia began writing a word onto the board.

 P-E-N-M-A-N-S-H-I-P

"Penmanship, this is a very important skill that you all need to...Uh, yes  Cales."

Miss California Aphron had shot her hand up very quickly. She was the only kindergartener who refused to play with the other kids on account of their childishness.

"Yes. Miss Sophia, I find the word you've chosen highly offensive. Penmanship excludes women, the correct term would be handwriting."

Without blinking, Miss Sophia responded, "Your are absolutely right Cales, and right after class I will tell you why I did not use it."

***

After class, California went straight up to Miss Sophia, and stared directly at her until all the other children had exited the classroom. 

Miss Sophia set down the papers she had been grading and said, "Now, you were concerned that by using the word 'penmanship' I might be offending people. And you are absolutely right in that we should be careful how we speak, because it might offend people. One wrong word can easily upset someone in an unnecessary and avoidable way. 

"But you see, I did not use your suggested term 'handwriting' because I did not also want to offend those without hands. It would be all too painful for them to be constantly reminded that they cannot write well, if at all. And this would be far more painful, I find, to be constantly reminded of a handicap, than a reminder of being a female."

"Yes, but Miss Sophia," California said, "we have no students here with handicaps. You must also keep in mind who your audience is."

Miss Sophia laughed, "Of course you're right. But children are very prone to repeat the things they hear. And if they went about. repeating such terminology around others, they are far more likely to bring about a painful reminder to some unsuspecting victim.

"Now it is possible for me to have used simply the term 'writing,' as that would have avoided offending many people, but then that could cause much confusion. In a world that is constantly advancing technologically, one could easily mistake 'writing' to mean, 'texting,' or 'typing up an e-mail.' So the term 'writing' didn't exactly fit either."

California looked down at her tennis shoes and sighed. "Ma'am, I can see what you are saying, and one cannot go very far before taking these offenses into account can become awkward. But you have become very sloppy in the way you speak. Perhaps becoming upset over this  specific word was the wrong time for me to try and prove my point, but there have been many other times I planned to say something and refrained from speaking, much to my later regret. For instance, the other day you used the word 'police man,' when you could have instead said 'Police officer.' Words like 'manage', 'mania', and 'manners', all of these words mean positive things, and exclude women as a part of it. You really must learn to take these things into account, being a worker of the state in a public school."

"Ahh yes, but you are forgetting words like 'maniac', 'demanding', and 'mandibles'. The first refers to a person of unsavory nature, the second referring to a character trait that no one wishes to be identified with, and the last ones are an unsightly growth on some animals. We are more likely the ones subjecting men to these harms, and yet we do not see them complaining. And do not forget as well, that in changing 'man' to 'woman' you still must incorporate the word 'man.'"

"But we must see fit that women, er, females get the respect they deserve. It is not so much what the word means that is the problem, it is the fact that females are excluded from it. Whether or not people will see it, women are discriminated against!" California said, raising her voice. "Have we ever had a woman president? Of course not! Despite the fact that they've given us the right to vote, and dress according to our wills, they still discriminate according to sexes!"

"Is that really the reason women are not being voted into presidency? African Americans were once considered lower than women, and yet we see today--"

"An African American man."

"--Does the fact that no woman has become president necessarily follow that it is because they are discriminated against? I'm sure with plenty of people like you in the world that is not the problem. Perhaps we have either 1) had unequipped women, excuse me, females," Miss Sophia said with a wink, "running for office, 2) they are, in comparison to other male candidates, a worse choice, 3) they are not Republican or Democratic, and are not being voted on by the majority of our country because the parties containing the most voters is not the one they identify with. 

"And are we to find a solution to this problem, if it is indeed a problem, through changing our many vocabulary words containing the term 'man'? I am certain when someone's house is burning down, no one's concern is whether or not they call firemen by their proper, unsexist names. Their only concern is likely to put the fire out.

"You see, people will always be offended, there are people in the world whose purposes are to search for why the world hates them. These people are called 'victims' (they should be happy to see that this word does not exclude any gender.)"

 California was upset, very clearly. She was obviously being picked on for her age, she was unequipped to debate someone more than several times her age. People pick on her, and it's because they don't like conflict. They want to remain shut up in their senseless little worlds without reason.

As she silently left, Miss Sophia's husband, Cosmo, entered the room. He noticed California and remained standing, holding the door open with a smile. California inwardly groaned, Typical, she thought, treating me as if I am unequipped to open a door. She stormed out, shaking her head, and with one last glance back, she saw Miss Sophia laughing as Cosmo shrugged his shoulders.

Phantastes by George Macdonald

      Have you ever picked up a book, read a couple of pages or chapters, then within that short amount of time been able to predict the entire plot and/or ending? I have. It sometimes feels like I've read many books before that I have in fact not. Sometimes it's nice to have a change of things, to pick something up to read, or watch something on TV for you "rent-the-movie-for-the-book-report" folks out there, and have everything that happens be entirely unpredictable. And right when you think, "HA! Nice try _________________ I have you now!" They throw something so unbelievably unpredictable you giggle

with excitement. That was EXACTLY (more or less) how I felt when I read George Macdonalds Phantastes.

       Truth be told I never had a single moment where I even tried to predict what would happen next. Anyone who has read Phantastes will know exactly why.

     Please excuse my overuse of examples, but here is one more: Have you ever had a dream? But not just any dream, one that stirred your emotions every which way and back again, and so much happened, but the moment you gained consciousness, despite extreme efforts to return to that place, you could not remember any bit of it, or if you did, it was only like a small handful of pictures. I have. That is as close to describing Phantastes as possibly I will ever get. 

     The story is considered a "Coming of Age" story for the main character named Anodos, but I really found very little of that when I read it. It was like literaturical (<--real made up word meaning: having to do with literature) symphony. The main character journeys from one dream like scenario to another, none of them seeming to really overlap. One thing that DOES remain consistent is his desire for his "white" or "stone" lady. This portion of the tale forms a kind of Pygmalion like story, he sung her into life, but try as he might, he cannot attain her. Just like in the dreams that you wake up from but cannot remember, there are certain parts that just struck you as so beautiful, you tried to find them again. You might even recall succeeding, but once you found it, something about it changed significantly, and you can never recall it being the same as it once was. 

     This story goes through several different levels of "dreams" which I shall list here:

Rational, meaning that quite a bit of it made sense and even seemed possible when you awake, such as a conversation with someone.

Trapped, meaning you suddenly find yourself in a place that you can't quite explain very well how you came from a place that was safe and even almost happy, to this place that is dark and desolate.

Consistent, which I have previously explained regarding the White Lady

 Picturesque, meaning it was just the site of beautiful things

Nightmare, the portion that has you running, though you don't know what from, you hide in the shadows only to discover that that is exactly where it is, or where the atmosphere is dark, cold, windy, and there is a seemingly never-ending pit right close to you, and against all your efforts, you fall in.

There are many, MANY more aspects to this book that I am just not literaturically (gonna use that in daily sentences from now on) capable of describing. 

Despite the fact that C.S. Lewis is significantly more renowned, MacDonald can possibly be attributed much of C.S. Lewis's inspiration for fantasy writing.

 This book is a fantastic read! I can not describe it to you well enough, but I suggest you pick up a copy (I believe there is a free edition available on Google books) as soon as you can. It is one of the most interesting reads I have ever encountered!

Video of the Appointed time

One thing I LOVE about old TV shows is that they are unedited. It so much more real and fun to watch for bloopers and how the actors fix their mistakes. Let's see if you can catch the blooper. Enter in the comments if you saw it. I'll give you a hint, it's after 2:45.