Eleven Lies I was made to Believe Growing Up

1. Don't think to much/I can think to much. I was raised with two groups of people in my life, the people who taught me to question everything, and the people who to be to do this and believe that with out question. The older that I get the more I find that the people encourage you to learn become fewer and fewer and the people who just want you to listen and accept become more and more.
2. The first year of marriage is the hardest of your life. So many people told me this that in the first four months of being married I was thinking that one day I would come home and my wife would be pointing a shotgun in my face. Year on of marriage wasn't easy but it also wasn't characteristically difficult either.
   
3. If I made that face to much my face would freeze like that. Yeah, I believed this one for a long time.
4. Money, Drugs, Sex can't bring happiness. Imagine my surprise when I got into college and found out that there are many people who find their happiness in these things.
5. I be/do whatever I wanted to be/do. In all truth from my birth I have had many restrictions placed on my life by socioeconomic, sex, race, age. That is not to say that I can't aspire to be anything I want to be, but at some point dreams give way to reality and that is the point at which I have to learn to be satisfied with where I am at in my life.
6. That Life is a journey, not an adventure.
7. Only Baptists have a valid interpretation of the Bible. Growing up I never had a comprehensive overview of what other denominations believed but my own. Now that have studied/study other denominations and theologies I find that the interpretations that I was taught where in some areas dead one, in others way off, and in other areas just incomplete.
8. I have to change and wash a tee shirt after every individual use. (JACK'S MANNEQUIN: I'm Ready).
9. If you aren't a Christian you don't have anything good to say. I knew the names of great philosophers, Gandhi, Buddha, Muhammad, Marx but I grew up hesitant and even fearful to read a word that was written. Now that I have read them I find that more often then not they just reinforce beliefs that I already have and help me to develop new beliefs about mankind.
10. Jesus was born on December 25th. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
11. My Worth is based on my Wealth. It isn't really a surprise that in a consumer driven society like America this is a common one for many people to deal with. The lie is that you are only worth anything if you buy new things, even if you don't need them. This starts the cycle of work so you can afford the things that you don't need, then work so much that you don't have the time to enjoy the things that you work so hard to get.

Rejoice with those who rejoice

Romans 12:15 "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." Some of the more iconic words spoken in the bible, right up there with John 3:16 and "Jesus wept". I have heard those words used in many sermons in my life to encourage people to get down, no matter how good there life is going, and mourn with people who have lost.

In the last few days I have come to see that first part of the verse in a new light, or maybe a better way to put it is a refreshed light. Five simple words, Rejoice with those who rejoice, that can be very hard, and at time impossible, for us to put into practice. What does it mean to live everyday, not just, mourning with those who mourn but also rejoicing with them as well?

I think that on the big stuff we have it down, birthdays, anniversaries, newly born babies, but on the little stuff I think that we have fallen short of where we should be. Psalm 116:12 says "What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me?" if we only look at the big stuff in our lives and say that is what the Lord has given me then we are missing half the picture.

An example of this happened to me today. I had to get my emissions test done for my car today, now my car is a 1992 Saturn two door SC with 180,000 miles on it, now let me tell you what I have to do to start the car. Because the alternator on the car is dieing on the car it is sort of a crap shot if it will actually start when I put the key in, so when I do need to drive it I take it out of gear, turn the radio off, turn the fan off, then I proceed to turn the key on and off as rapidly as I can in the hopes that eventually the engine will turn over. Also if you didn't know one of the top rules at the emissions place is that a car has to enter under it's own power. All of this I knew but my definition of entering and their definition of entering are two different things, so as I pulled into the building and was asked to turn of the car my heart stopped. As the man was walking around the car, checking under the hood, and making sure that the gas cap didn't leak all I was thinking was "God please let the car start. Please, oh please, oh please." And as I went to start the car it fired right up on the first try.

Now I am not saying that this was a miracle, I wouldn't diminish the word miracle like that, But I would say it was one of many everyday things that we don't rejoice enough over. Bad news will travel from state to state, even jumping oceans sometimes but it is hard to hear about good news within your own group of friends, and that is a shame. It is something that I am endeavoring to get better at and I hope that others will join me in doing the same.

It's been awhile

I know that I have neglected this blog for awhile but believe it or not I haven't really had that much to say. But lately there have been a few thing floating around in my head that I wanted to get out. So I have at least two posts in me (maybe more) and hopefully I will get them out in the next couple of days.

What is really real (to borrow a phase from Universe Next Door)

I was at a BBQ the other day with some people from Ruth's work, it was a good time but the conversation turned to religion for a brief moment. A comment was made that most of the people there seemed to agree with. The statement went something like this: "I believe that all religions are correct, you can't say that only one is right. There is no way that you can know that, the universe is to big!". The statement wasn't new to me, it has been around awhile and has gained in popularity over the two decades or so. But the way that this statement was worded made me stop and think about it (in reality I didn't really give it a second thought there but later that night when I was laying in bed), the specific part that made me stop and think was "there is no way that you can know that".

Is that statement really true, if religion is true then is it possible to know if one is right? Is it even reasonable to think that there is only one true religion? In order to answer those questions I really had to examine what religion was at its core, beyond denominations, politics, etc and really get at what is the base of religion. The answer that I came up with for that is that religion is the combination of two things. First is Faith, meaning what you think is ultimate reality, whether that is that there is a God or gods, an essence, or nothing at all. All of these at some point ask you to take a step of faith in order to believe them and your faith is one of the main parts that help to define religion. But the steps that you take by faith or informed by the second part of religion, your Beliefs. By beliefs I mean the culmination of your life experiences (up to whatever part of life you are in) and your world view, which both actually help to define each other through out your life.Both of those two parts, Faith and Belief, are really just about the universe and the way that it works. Faith is about who or what is in control of the universe and belief is about how everything else works or should work.

Now that religion is clear what we do know about the universe is that it works within curtain rules and boundaries, Physics, Mathematics, the other Natural Sciences. The way that the world works within these, somewhat specific, modes. Since we only live and operate within one universe and the universe operates in specific ways it would follow that only one religion would be right, the one that would most closely resemble the way in which the universe really works. Therefor the statement of "...you can't say that only one is right. There is no way that you can know that, the universe is to big" is untrue because if religion is true then it would necessarily follow that there would only be one true religion.

P.S. I am listening to Slacker right now and they are playing "Sleep" from Copeland but it sounds like a remix or something...it is amazing.

Slacker (Finaly a website after my own heart)

Free streaming music, that is what Slacker does and they do it well. Slacker is in its simplest form a internet radio site, but offering much more then your average internet radio station. First unlike most internet music stations, that are an after thought of their physical radio station counterparts, or other media streaming services (e.g. Rhapsody) slacker is devoted to bringing you uninterrupted music for free. They say that you can expect about two ads per hour but I have been listening to it for the past hour and I have yet to hear a single ad, but there is a pay version for those who don't ever want to hear an ad. Second unlike other streaming music services that make you pay if you want to take the service with you slacker enables you to take the service with you where ever you might go with their portable radio players that can hold 15, 25, and 40 stations with prices of $200, $250, and $300 respectively. Slacker is a great service that is worth a little time and attention.

My play list while writing this:
"Hey Hey"-October Fall
"Crushcrushcrush"-Paramore
"I Woke Up In A Car"-Something Corporate
"Ocean Avenue"-Yellowcard
"There's A Case For This"-Cute Is What We Aim For
"I Write Sins Not Tragedies"-Panic At The Disco
"Thanks For The Mmrs"-Fall Out Boy
"Tonight Lites"- A Cursive Memory
"Hate (I Really Don't Like You)"-Plain White T's
"Hero/Heroine"-Boys Like Girls
"Flashlight"-Punchline
"Sweetness"-Jimmy Eat World
"Light Up The Sky"-Yellowcard