Because Of Me

This is something my friend Seth wrote and published on Facebook. I read through it again today and feel like all of you (okay, more like both of you) deserve to read it:

Because of me.
I want what I cannot have.
I wake when I want to sleep.
I shut up when I want to scream
and inwardly hold my contempt at bay.
I run when I wish to fight.
I cuss when I should pray.
I smile though inside I frown,
and bare my pearly whites like ivory horses parading in duplicity.

In all of my self-induced living, the major cities lose no sleep, nor lose business profit.
The rich live on in luxury. The poor still erode on rusting streets.
And nothing changes in my frustration over trivial selfish pursuits.

I have no real effect on mankind. This is because I am cynical.
And I do not give things away. This is because I am selfish.
And I am wrong, 99.9 percent of the day. This is because I am sinful.
And I quietly judge. I keep secrets from friends. This is because I am insecure.
And I hardly ever love. This is because of me.
But I am loved, still. This is not because of me.

A man is not victorious until he has defeated himself.

- Seth Conover.

PS: I am feeling artistically inclined this afternoon so I might do some actual posting tonight, rather than just mooching off of my talented and insightful friends.

Post-Concert Ramblings…

I wrote this yesterday morning on Facebook. I’m posting it here now. Does anyone know if there’s a simpler way of syndicating Facebook notes and WordPress blogs?

So it’s currently 6:08 AM and I’ve been up for the last forty-five minutes. Last night we went to the Rock and Worship Tour concert at the US Cell Center in CR and now we’re staying at Kristen’s parents’ house in Mount Vernon. And I can’t sleep–I think I’m catching a cold slash my lips are burning. And not burning with the desire to share the Word of God or to sing some incredibly artsy creative song, no, I have two canker sores (sp?) on the inside of my mouth and they feel extra awesome [sarcasm] in the wee hours of the morning.

At any rate, I stole one of Kristen’s guitars and snuck away to their computer room for a little late night acousticness (I’m in denial that it is, in fact early morning. Side note: I’m looking out the window and it’s getting light outside… eew). I kind of feel bad about using their computer without asking. :S

Anyways, the concert was amazing… I tend to go into Christian events with thick skepticism, because I know a lot of people put on Christian events because it’s “what good Christians do” or because “kids who are involved in Christian activities don’t sin” etc.; however, I was comforted by the brief ‘tween-acts blurbs by the lead singers of Tenth Ave North, Mercy Me, and Sanctus Real. I don’t worship well if I don’t believe that those who are leading worship have their hearts in a good place. I don’t want to feel like I’m being conned into some manufactured emotion. If my faith is fake, I’ll happily be an honest Atheist rather than a lying Christian.

The first thing the T.A.N. guy said was how he was still working through the complications of growing up in a “Christian” community and attending a “Christian” school (by the way, I use quotes around that word, because it means a lot of different things to different people and the way I’m using it isn’t really how I think it should be used), and he touched on how we “Christians” approach our relationships with people and with God with a lot more arrogance and false-humility than we should… He said the hardest three words for Christians to say are “I don’t know”, which was said in jest but bears a lot of truth. Anyways, the overall theme of the evening was that we’re all broken people desperately in need of a God who loves us. None of us are better than anyone else. Basically, as Bethany and Derek and I phrase it, we’re all epic failures and the only way we succeed is because Jesus loves us enough to succeed for us. And that to me, far more than trendy “Christian” music and Alt-Christian clothes and even being in the presence of “Christian” music superstars, was cool.

So with that I sit here with a lot of thoughts swirling around in my tiny human brain… First of all, I wish that more Christians really believed that we [read "all humanity"] are all the same in terms of worthiness of Grace (in that we are all equally unworthy of His Grace).

Secondly, I wish people who don’t know Jesus wouldn’t associate Him with us Christians. I’ll elaborate on that one a little: Christians can be prideful and arrogant and falsely-humble and hurtful and a variety of other negatively-inclined adjectives that are in no way characteristics of Jesus nor are representative of his feelings towards humanity in general. We’ve taken His name in vain and dragged it through the mud with us and the result is that the people who are aware of their need for a savior won’t know that that person is Jesus because we’ve made Jesus look like the Devil.

Finally, and this is one that I (as an insecure person) struggle with the most; I wish that we who call ourselves followers of Christ would truly meet people where they’re at rather than lead them to believe that they need to be “good enough” to earn our and/or God’s Love. Especially God’s Love. I think we non-verbally tell people that they need to fit in and look the part before we will accept them. They need to cover up their tattoos, change the way they dress, and stop associating with their non Christian friends unless they are getting [read "pressuring"] them to come to Church.

Just so we’re all clear on this, I believe this next statement so strongly that if this isn’t true, I’m converting to Atheism straight up: God’s love for us is not affected by our performance, and if it were, we’d all be effed. There is no reason for God to Love us–we can’t earn it, it’s freely given. We can’t trick God into Loving us, he already does–we just need to accept it. God’s people aren’t shiny and plastic; God chose a people who are real and broken and scandalous and perfect only in our inability to earn His love. He knows this about each of us and this fact is deeply rooted in His passionate, reckless, scandalous, foolish, intoxicated Love for each of us.

Anyways, it’s 6:53 now and the sun is coming up and that’s an event I haven’t witnessed in roughly a decade so I don’t want to ruin such a good track record. I’m going back to bed. Good night. Or good morning. Whatever.

So it’s currently 6:08 AM and I’ve been up for the last forty-five minutes. Last night we went to the Rock and Worship Tour concert at the US Cell Center in CR [Cedar Rapids] and now we’re staying at Kristen’s parents’ house in Mount Vernon. And I can’t sleep–I think I’m catching a cold slash my lips are burning. And not burning with the desire to share the Word of God or to sing some incredibly artsy creative song, no, I have two canker sores (sp?) on the inside of my mouth and they feel extra awesome [sarcasm] in the wee hours of the morning.

At any rate, I stole one of Kristen’s guitars and snuck away to their computer room for a little late night acousticness (I’m in denial that it is, in fact early morning. Side note: I’m looking out the window and it’s getting light outside… eew). I kind of feel bad about using their computer without asking. :S

Anyways, the concert was amazing… I tend to go into Christian events with thick skepticism, because I know a lot of people put on Christian events because it’s “what good Christians do” or because “kids who are involved in Christian activities don’t sin” etc.; however, I was comforted by the brief ‘tween-acts blurbs by the lead singers of Tenth Ave North, Mercy Me, and Sanctus Real. I don’t worship well if I don’t believe that those who are leading worship have their hearts in a good place. I don’t want to feel like I’m being conned into some manufactured emotion. If my faith is fake, I’ll happily be an honest Atheist rather than a lying Christian.

The first thing the T.A.N. guy said was how he was still working through the complications of growing up in a “Christian” community and attending a “Christian” school (by the way, I use quotes around that word, because it means a lot of different things to different people and the way I’m using it isn’t really how I think it should be used), and he touched on how we “Christians” approach our relationships with people and with God with a lot more arrogance and false-humility than we should… He said the hardest three words for Christians to say are “I don’t know”, which was said in jest but bears a lot of truth. Anyways, the overall theme of the evening was that we’re all broken people desperately in need of a God who loves us. None of us are better than anyone else. Basically, as Bethany and Derek and I phrase it, we’re all epic failures and the only way we succeed is because Jesus loves us enough to succeed for us. And that to me, far more than trendy “Christian” music and Alt-Christian clothes and even being in the presence of “Christian” music superstars, was cool.

So with that I sit here with a lot of thoughts swirling around in my tiny human brain… First of all, I wish that more Christians really believed that we [read "all humanity"] are all the same in terms of worthiness of Grace (in that we are all equally unworthy of His Grace).

Secondly, I wish people who don’t know Jesus wouldn’t associate Him with us Christians. I’ll elaborate on that one a little: Christians can be prideful and arrogant and falsely-humble and hurtful and a variety of other negatively-inclined adjectives that are in no way characteristics of Jesus nor are representative of his feelings towards humanity in general. We’ve taken His name in vain and dragged it through the mud with us and the result is that the people who are aware of their need for a savior won’t know that that person is Jesus because we’ve made Jesus look like the Devil.

Finally, and this is one that I (as an insecure person) struggle with the most; I wish that we who call ourselves followers of Christ would truly meet people where they’re at rather than lead them to believe that they need to be “good enough” to earn our and/or God’s Love. Especially God’s Love. I think we non-verbally tell people that they need to fit in and look the part before we will accept them. They need to cover up their tattoos, change the way they dress, and stop associating with their non Christian friends unless they are getting [read "pressuring"] them to come to Church.

Just so we’re all clear on this, I believe this next statement so strongly that if this isn’t true, I’m converting to Atheism straight up: God’s love for us is not affected by our performance, and if it were, we’d all be effed. There is no reason for God to Love us–we can’t earn it, it’s freely given. We can’t trick God into Loving us, he already does–we just need to accept it. God’s people aren’t shiny and plastic; God chose a people who are real and broken and scandalous and perfect only in our inability to earn His love. He knows this about each of us and this fact is deeply rooted in His passionate, reckless, scandalous, foolish, intoxicated Love for each of us.

Anyways, it’s 6:53 now and the sun is coming up and that’s an event I haven’t witnessed in roughly a decade so I don’t want to ruin such a good track record. I’m going back to bed. Good night. Or good morning. Whatever.

Bandwagon

 

Come on, everyone is doing it!

Flock Web Browser

So I am a pretty big fan of FireFox and pretty much any browser that isn’t Internet Explorer. Firefox offers a host of add-ons that allow you to customize your browsing experience, but it would seem that the folks from Flock have outdone them.

Flock seems to be the culmination of everything useful for social networking. The browser offers a host of tools including a blog editor (on which I’m typing this now), a Youtube utility, Facebook and other social networking integration, as well as a useful feed-reader. All of which is displayed in an organized, uncluttered fashion. Moreover, it all seems to be really simple.

I’ve had it for roughly twenty-four hours so I haven’t had much time to research it, but it seems to be relatively compliant and I haven’t had too much trouble with it. So far I recommend it and this could be the browser that replaces FireFox on my computer. Stay tuned for updates as I tinker.

Flock Home

Blogged with the Flock Browser