Boundaries of Information

In order to know what was going in other people’s lives you used to have to write them, call them or see them in person. Or hear about them from mutual friends. Information or the details of a person and their lives could only be gleaned through intentional activity. This also cuts off a lot of people. Everyone only has a limited number of hours in the week, and have to choose (or not choose) who to keep up with.

Now because of social media you can keep up with as many people as you want with no effort and no contact. You can read Tweets and status updates about friends from all over without ever having to actually contact them. You can absorb information about others without actually knowing them.

I find that this trains people to build more shallow relationships, as well as losing focus on how we do need to spend more time with some people than others. There are some people that do need more of our time and attention. We also must keep in mind that knowing things about others is not the same as relating with them. So my challenge to you, is call five people you know you normally wouldn’t this week, and say hi.

Internal World

On Wednesdays I am going to be going over ones internal world. How we think and respond internally to outside stimulus. Granted, of all the days that I will take a break it will be this one. My focus should be outwards on others first. When I think to much about how, “I feel” “I learn” “I think” “I grow” it turns me inward. When we are supposed to be turning out towards others and up towards God.

Granted, there is a time when it is appropriate to ask ourselves about our behavior and the internal world that may be causing that. However, the motivation for why we change should be because of others. I look to see why I get mad at little things through out the day because I do not want my anger affecting others negatively.

The other side of this is that if we think to much, it will never top. We can constantly ask ourselves what our motivation is. We can constantly question if we have good or bad motivations to act certain ways. But eventually that is pointless. What matters is how well we treat others. Look at your actions and that will tell you who you are.

Furthermore as a Christian I know that God is the only one that truly knows my heart and it is before Him that I will stand in judgement for every choice I have made. He is also the one that is working in me to change my heart to be more like his. So my internal struggle need not fret and worry, but seek his cleansing changing power.

Politics for Tuesday: Healthcare Debacle

Political Tuesday

Healthcare. It used to be a swear word to conservative Republicans, and the defendable pride and joy of liberal democrats. Now no matter what side you are on it is an embarrassing mess. (Which I wish more politicians would vocalize. The Republicans should not be cheering the failure of the bill as much as they are, they should also be lamenting that our government would do anything this poorly. It’s embarrassing, even if you just mentioned the website).

But the larger problem at hand at the moment is, to what extent do we hold our politicians responsible for doing a poor job, lying, or being ignorant. I am going to use Mr. President as an example, not in order to bash him by any means; in fact I hope to have an opinion that is understanding and kind so as to be an example to both political parties. I want to use him as an example because he has been in the media enough that most people know what has been going on (In fact I feel free to write this because both the liberal and conservative media have been upset at the handling of the healthcare law), and he is a singular example that everyone will know and can then hold congressman, senators, and local politicians to the same standard.

Mr. President, as shown on both conservative and liberal media, have been pointing out inconsistencies in what was promised, and what has actually been delivered. There are three possible reasons for inconsistencies in what was said and what happens.

The first is that the politician lied. This is the easiest to jump to and proclaim when it is someone of the opposing party, however, if we want politicians to have integrity, we must also have the integrity to patiently give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them better than we think they are treating us.

The second is that they were ignorant. Being ignorant is difficult to deal with as it is part of their job to be in the know. They are being paid to be professionals and know what is going on. Just like generals in the military must know what is going on in combat, if they don’t people die. If politicians do not know what is going on, then people suffer. However, they are only human so at times they cannot know everything. Furthermore, they could have bad advisors. To a great extent they are responsible for having good enough judge of character to pick good advisors.

Thirdly is that something changed from when they made the promise. Most of the time when this happens I don’t give them much grace because they shouldn’t not have made a promise about a decision that they could not enforce themselves. Blaming other political leaders, the system, the voters, etc. is not an excuse. They know full well the obstacles in their way.

So, Mr. President is either a liar, ignorant, or a foolish promise maker. Personally I believe he is the latter of the two. He should have read the bill and had the right advisors to know the vague areas that could be applied in various ways. He also should not have made a promise on how it would be enacted when that is not in his jurisdiction.

How do we respond? We need to hold all of our elected officials to a higher standard. If they are ignorant or incapable we should call them on it. But we must also not be too harsh. We must leave room for dreamers and visionaries. Martin Luther King’s dream was not realized in his life time. But we should not fault him for pursuing something big. We must be able to recognize ignorance and abuse of a position and the attempt to dream big dreams and pursue them.

From Pain to Hope

I am going to start doing different topics on different days of the week, much like radio programs. On Mondays, I am going to be telling my story as I am moving from one who focused on growth, to pain, and now hope. I emphasized these three things not only in my own life but in how I interacted with others.

I had been having a long stretch of no motivation, wondering why anything was worth while, and general existentialism. After much prayer, some time in the sun, conversations with friend, and watching the following Ted talk, I realized something rather important. For the past four years I had been focusing on pain. I would ask others questions about how they were, and find bits and pieces of a story, hone in on the pain and start digging. I got rather good at it.

Unfortunately, that was in stark contrast to the hope and motivation I had been sharing years previously. When I was in and taught martial arts, my primary goal was to share the hope of a better life. Constant improvement and moving forward. I was the example for others to follow.

Then after the divorce of a close mentor I began to seek and look for pain in others, as I ran away from my own. When I realized this was causing problems, mostly in emotional connections with women, I was left with nothing, no hope, and no pain even though as said by Three Days Grace said, “I would rather feel pain than nothing at all”

Then I watched this video, (don’t read the transcript, watch the whole thing)

This changed my whole outlook. While watching, my mind was running and racing through past ways of thinking, how he came to think this way, how it compares to my own thought and interests. What drew me to Benjamin Zander the most was that he was using what he loved, music, to put a light in peoples eyes. Before I had used martial arts. The creativity of how he strung together stories, music, and life lessons of moving forward inspire me. So I have made a commitment, to work to inspire hope and love creatively. Through whatever one is interested in, we can learn to combine our interests with helping people, we can truly be engaged in this life and the people we love.

The Facebook Connection

At one point, when I used Facebook I sent several dozen messages to friends at the end of a college semester encouraging them to stay strong. I also used it to keep in contact with friends that were far away. It worked like an email and I was able to encourage others while keeping up with them. However it has taken a turn. I find that most of the time when I send messages, there is either no response or a delayed one.

I don’t believe it is because anyone is ignoring me, or that they don’t like me. I find it to be because of the distraction of our current generation and the ADD. If the message is too long, or the response requires too much thought and time it takes second place to whatever else is going on. Then the business of life and the internet take over, and the relationships that are seeking real life interaction take second place to the thrill of online connection.

The thing about online conversations and connections is that the inhibitions of the brain do not kick in. People in general will release more information because when you don’t see another person, you are not as worried about someone else thinking poorly of you etc. This is more prominent in chat conversations where it is quick and less thinking is involved. Even reading wall posts help people feel more connected with others when we read information. Furthermore the culture of the new and instant takes over, long messages are not nearly as important as the quick new details of other people.

Also, people develop a habit of going to Facebook when they want to connect or fill a gap of loneliness. I was going into that habit to. So I got rid of mine. I have only had it active for about three days in the past two to three weeks, and I am thrilled. Whenever I want to connect with someone, or feel lonely, I call a friend. I arrange a real in person hang out and go do something. I am less distracted about wondering what is going on in people’s lives who I don’t see often and focus on the people I have a direct influence on.

I am not saying Facebook is bad. I know many people who redeem it with encouragement and joy. However, I find that most people would be greatly benefited from having a Facebook fast. Don’t waste time on the internet, and invest it on others.

This also means that I am trying to build this blog without Facebook, so please, tell your friends. Also, if you are redeeming Facebook, and you like anything that I have to say, recommend me. It helps.

Thor the Dark World

Thor the Dark World was a fun adventure movie, and that was about it. There are plenty of unexplained key plot points to pick at, but it is not really worth it. There are so many that it ruins the entire movie. What I find more unfortunate than the unexplained coincidental plot points, was the change in characters character. Thor’s father turns from the wise overseer who understood how to change a persons heart (it is hinted at in the first one that he knew sending Thor to earth would change him) to one that is harsh, un-compassionate to Thor’s feelings for the human girl, and quick to fight. At the ending of the previous movie he told Thor that there was more than one way to earth, now he tells Thor to live where he is at and forget her.

Heimdall (The gatekeeper of Asgard) loses his mystery and unlike in the first one where he would not even disobey the evil Loki, was quick to turn treasonous to Odin.

Thor lost much of the emotional depth from the first movie.

In fact, the only characters that really kept their identities were Loki and Jane Foster. However, Jane Foster and her friend Darcy both are problematic in that they present women as one demential and fulfill general female stereotypes. Which I will talk about in later postings.

As far as worldviews go, Thor presents the most right thing the one that involves a personal duty to fix problems over any organized authority. The good guys are the good guys and the bad guys are the bad guys, but the good guys get to ignore authority and injure innocent people so long as the intentions are good, even when putting the planet at risk. In short, there is nothing blatantly wrong with the example given by Thor, except that it does not deal with the moral issues within it at all. They are ignored for the preservation of good as good and bad as bad. This ignoring of the moral questions is its problem.

30 Days of Thankfulness

30 Days of Thankfulness
Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and it is time for everyone to sit around the table, eat food, enjoy company, and completely forget any meaning for the holiday. Actually a lot of people are good at remembering on that day to be thankful. But we should not end there. What if we were thankful for the whole month of November? What if every single day we practiced appreciating every single blessing we had? We would be happier people, and would have a happier thanksgiving, just watch this Ted Talk.

My challenge to you is to practice a thirty day thankfulness challenge. Except I will make two changes; do still write down positive experiences, but also write them in words of thankfulness. Be detailed. Don’t say you are just thankful for a person, write out why you are thankful for that person, what do you appreciate? Do you have a good memory with that person? Write it out. Second, tell someone, everyday what you are thankful for. Start a movement of thankfulness in your life and share it with others. Share this blog, and post down at the bottom your experiences.
Bonus if you tell them what you are thankful in the face of adversity.
Extra bonus if you tell complete strangers what you are thankful for. 

Christians and Politics

One of my primary concerns with politics for the Christian is how they engage with the conversation of politics. As Christians we balance a delicate world. We must both be able to articulate the truth of Scripture, which is firm and offensive to many, but also act out grace and compassion. We must speak loudly and firmly for absolutes that we believe in, but also understand that we live in a country that allows everyone to live by their own beliefs.

We must balance living by and upholding biblical values for rules and policies, but also standing back at arms length so that we do not legislate our beliefs. We do this by focusing on the Church.

Our primary focus when it comes to culture and politics is to live out a proper life as Christians and be so present in the public sphere that we are changing culture through our very actions, and bringing others to Christ by our life example. This means that we must speak kindly to all beliefs that uphold the value of human life.

Our difficult part is when we have a belief against or for a biblical truth, but that we should not legislate because it would be enacting a religious belief as law. The hardest part of it is discerning what is and isn’t okay to legislate. Therefore, we must walk and speak carefully, understanding that we could be wrong. But the primary focus for us as Christians is making sure we are living rightly first and foremost before we try to change others.

Borderlands and GenXers

Borderlands and the Broken Generation

Borderlands is the number one selling first person shooter published by 2k games. It is set apart by its cartoon graphics and the world record for most types of guns in a game, over 17750000. It also offers one of the most disappointing endings to any first person shooter ever. However, this is representative of the normal life of generation Xer.

Generation X age range from teens to those in their thirties. This generation is characterized by self-indulgent narcissism, high expectations, laziness, poorer living standards than the previous generation and broken dreams. The average 20-30 year old expects to be making 75,000 a year right out of college. The actual average income of all adults included is 52,000. They hope and expect for more, even though they believe that the world is getting worse and worse. We have been trained by Hollywood and mass media to expect a standard of living that is just not reasonable. Then when we get into the real world, our hopes are dashed as we try and fight the rats for our food in tiny disheveled apts. Or live at home till we are in our thirties.

Borderlands is about a group of treasure seekers that are looking for a mysterious vault that supposedly contains untold riches and power. You spend hours of gameplay on countless quests, doing favors, killing villains, earning new guns, and gaining pieces of the vault key. When you finally get to the final boss, which takes all of five minutes to kill, you are rewarded with weapons. Weapons that are pitiful in comparison to the ones you already have.

However, this sets up the stage for the second borderlands. There is rumor that there is a second mysterious vault still hidden on the planet of Pandora. A new set of adventurers go forth to find this vault, while interacting with the characters from the previous game. After dozens of hours of gameplay, saving lives, fighting back against Handsome Jack who wants to kill all vault hunters, and saving the world of Pandora, you are able to open this second vault; the vault finally comes with the reward of more crappy weaponry.

The game developers are pointing out that the end result of all of the efforts of pursuing our dreams and fighting for riches results is disappointment. There is no great prize at the end. There is merely the fun of the journey there. So you might as well go back through and play the game all over again, which is an important part of the game. Don’t worry about lame endings, just keep killing the psychos, and riding the meat bicycles.

Anger and Politics

With the new health care plan[1] coming into effect this coming month many are going to be in full political indignation. The angry speeches, 21 hour long ‘filibusters’ (Ted Cruz), rallies, and heated family discussions are revving up for the start of Fall. Much of this anger comes from the conservative Christian Republicans and Libertarians.

Unfortunately anger and indignation is the last response that Christians should have to a universal health care system, or any political decision that is not legislating evil. Though many may claim that universal health care is evil, I challenge those that think so to show me from Scripture.

The response of anger to political policy is problematic on two levels. First, as followers of Christ, Christians do not have their hope in this world. This world is broken and so are the people in leadership, whether biblically minded or not. No one will fashion a perfect system. All governments are fallen and no government will work perfectly with imperfect people. Therefore to much indignation, especially indignation that is usually not fully thought through, shows to much hope in this world. Usually the reason for anger is because those that are angry believe that laws or legislation are messing up the U.S.A. Why be angry over the breaking of a broken system?

Second, and I say this carefully, those that look carefully will hopefully see that there are people who have more education, lived longer and had more experience than us and believe differently. As those seeking after truth we should humbly admit that we can’t know everything and that some differing positions may very well be right, and not ours. Humility does not give rise to anger.

Also, being angry over what other people think is a good way to help people is not a good witness to the gospel of Christ.

However, I do think there is a place for anger, but it is not when we are face to face with others. We may show indignation in writing, or show irritation in speeches, but this emotion must always be tempered with humility and civility. The goal is to win people to your side, not say your point as loudly as possible.

We should be angry over what God is angry about. We see this example in Scriptures. God is angry when the Israelites did not help the poor, the widows and the orphans. He was angry when they tested his goodness. He is angry when governments punish good and praise bad. But actual bad, not just the bad that is contrary to our opinion.

If we do not learn to speak softly, then this fall will be a double entendre.

[1] (I refuse to call it Obama Care as that would imply he wrote it or had significant input. I cannot believe he had significant input on a 2000 page document that was written the night before).