What the heck am I doing here? So this week I had to interview 2 people, a professional in the field that I am interested in and a student who is majoring in a field that I am interested in. Now how am I supposed to do this if I no longer have any idea what I want to major in? I ended up interviewing my Infectious Diseases prof. who is amazing and I love her class and one of my friends who is a nursing major (even though I am almost positive that I am not going to be a nursing student). I basically obliterated any thought of being a nursing major, primarily because I do not want to be a nurse, I would want to be a Physicians Assistant and that requires a special 2-3 year program in addition to a BA degree. So now that I know that I do not want to be a nurse, what do I do for the next 4 years of school? I would love to be a photography major but I cannot afford it. I would lose my scholarship because it is a “high demand” major so they are trying to limit the number of students in the program, I would have to buy a new computer (a mac none the less) and I would be a year behind already. I could be a fish and wildlife major but I don’t know that I want to count fish for the rest of my life…
Journey Church October 9, 2007
One of the things that I was most excited for about going away to school was getting to go out on my own and find a new church community to get involved with. And I found the church that I will probably call my home for the next four-years at least with very little difficulty. It is called Journey church and we meet in a Christian school that is a few minutes away from campus. They just recently celebrated their 2nd birthday and already they have an amazing staff. For the last few weeks the Pastor has been doing a series called “The Games People Play” where he takes ordinary board games and applies them to our everyday lives, sounds funny and maybe a little too simple and silly for church but it has been amazing! The first week was the game of Sorry, with the main idea of “Look on people like Jesus looked (and still looks) on people and you’ll seldom need to say “Sorry.” Focusing on looking AT people instead of through them.
One of the stories that Brian focused on was in Mark 10:1-22 telling of the rich man. Jesus told this man what he needed to do inorder to get into heaven and even though Jesus Knew that the man would refuse the Bible says that, “Jesus felt genuine love for this man as he looked At him…” Even though Jesus already knew that the man would refuse to accept what He was saying Jesus still loved him. So often when we try to tell someone about the forgiveness of God and they reject it we write them off and begin to resent them. Even though they have rejected what we have to say now there is still that seed that you just planted, maybe preparing that person for the next time they hear about Jesus.
Another amazing group that I have gotten to get involved with is Campus Crusades. They have this program that you can go through to learn how to share the gospel to students on campus in a nonthreatening way, called “Just walk across the room.” Everyday Cru kids go out on campus “sharing” they find someone who is sitting or walking to class alone and ask if they would take a survey. If the person says yes, which they most often do, then they ask the questions and just talk to them about Jesus or even just about whatever. Even if the person doesnt want to answer the questions or even answer them “the way we want them to” the Cru kids still continue to walk and talk with them, effectively planting the seed for the next Christian who they encounter to nurture and grow.
I think that these two stories show that sharing and looking At the person not just seeing or hearing them is important and even rejection can play a role in salvation. We need to look at people,see their intests and situtaion, instead of seeing through them and judging them.
“Ah everyone, at depth, is beautiful. Remembering this can soften your judgement.”
On the beach at night- Walt Whitman October 9, 2007
On the beach, at night,
Stands a child, with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter;
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades.
From the beach, the child, holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower, victorious, soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.
Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears;
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky–shall devour the stars only in
apparition:
Jupiter shall emerge–be patient–watch again another night–the
Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal–all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall
shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again–they
endure;
The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive moons, shall
again shine.
Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?
Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,
Longer than sun, or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.
I loved you with a fire blue now it’s turnin red October 9, 2007
♥ 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love,I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails….
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
God will be our guide and we will get there when we get there…
Wide Eyed October 9, 2007
Ok so I have actually had this song for a long time in my library of music but I have never actually listened to the lyrics (See below)…The song is “Wide Eyed” by Nicole Nordeman and I think that they have an amazing lesson for Christians today. A few weeks ago there was a group on campus here at MSU with signs that said these crazy things aobut Christianity, people were running around waving these signs yelling at people and telling them to convert to Christianity otherwise they are going to hell…Anyone who is a Christian knows that not every Christian is like this but to those who do not believe what we do, see these crazy insane unforgiving people, who are so far left of center that nothing they could possibly say means anything or could have any importance what-so-ever, when in all reality what we as Christians have to share has the upmost importance and is the most amazing Truth that any person will ever hear. BUT as Christians, as this song states, our first reaction when we see people like this we judge them and reject what they have to say. We laugh at them and shake our heads and then tell all our friends about these crazy people that we saw today, when what we should do is see through our first impression and see that they are lost and need to be shown how loving and forgiving God can be, so they can spread That message instead of the one that perpetuates the myth that Christians are these unaccepting fanatics who serve a cruel and unknowable God. This can go for almost any religion. Since 2001 the Muslim populations reputation has gone from bad to worse. Why? Because a small group of, fanatical, followers of their religion decided to take over a plane and fly it into a building. The media has expanded these actions to involve the enitre Muslim populaiton, portraying that this type of terrorism is supported by the religion and isn’t just the ideas of a small minority of followers. It has always been this way, people focus on all of the bad parts of the Religion and what those who claim to follow the religion do, and the aspects of the Faith and the good things that they have brought to our world get over looked and minimized.
Matthew 7:3-5
3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
”Having lives in Hollywood for about a year,
I was forced to come face to face
with many diverse people everyday.
I was surprised and embarrassed by how sheltered
my life had been until then…
Surrounding myself mostly with people who were like-minded,
and consequently, safe to know.
I really had to come to terms with my quickness to judge,
to laugh, to dismiss anyone who threatened my sense of normalcy.
And it made me wonder -
how would I have reacted to Jesus
if I’d met Him in Los Angeles?”
Wide Eyed-Nicole Nordeman
When I met him on a sidewalk
He was preaching to a mailbox
Down on 16th Avenue
And he told me he was Jesus
Sent from Jupiter to free us
With a bottle of tequila and one shoe
He raged about repentance
He finished every sentence
With a promise that the end was close at hand
I didn’t even try to understand
He left me wide eyed in disbelief and disillusion
I was tongue tied, drawn by my conclusions
So I turned and walked away
And laughed at what he had to say
Then casually dismissed him as a fraud
I forgot he was created in the image of my God
When I met her in a bookstore
She was browsing on the first floor
Through a yoga magazine
And she told me in her past life
She was some plantation slave’s wife
She had to figure out what that might mean
She believes the healing powers of her crystals
Can bring balance and new purpose to her life
Sounds nice
She left me wide eyed in disbelief and disillusion
I was tongue tied, drawn by my conclusions
So I turned and walked away
And laughed at what she had to say
Then casually dismissed her as a fraud
I forgot she was created in the image of my God
Not so long ago, a man from Galilee
Fed thousands with His bread and His theology
And the truth He spoke
Quickly became the joke
Of educated, self-inflated Pharisees like me
And they were wide eyed in disbelief and disillusion
They were tongue tied, drawn by their conclusions
Would I have turned and walked away
And laughed at what He had to say
And casually dismissed Him as a fraud
Unaware that I was staring at the image of my God
