$5 Foot Longs

I usually never comment in sabbath school on much. I am always thinking of a lot of things to discuss and say but they just don't make the leap from my brain to my mouth. This is one of the things I was thinking of yesterday.

My thoughts are about the Christian idea of service to our fellow humans. I will start with a little quote first:

"He (Jesus) did not use love like money, paying some and withholding from others in an effort to control them. He spoke the truth, He wasn’t offended when people didn’t agree, and He gave them their own will to do as they wish. But what’s more, He loved them regardless. He loved them whether they followed Him or tried to kill them. He even loved them while they were killing Him." Donald Miller

For myself I think it is important that I dismiss the thought that there is a divide between me and you. We are all God's children, all equal. In my interactions with you it is important that I take away the thoughts that I am so different, take down the walls. Man, woman, rich, cartoon watcher, poor, ugly, unpopular, Christian, homosexual, college educated, Asian, vegetarian, mac and cheese eater, fat, tall... We are all equal to God but we have so many categories that we file each other into. As a Christian I can sometimes think my job is to change you from the bad to good side, I am Jared from Subway with my $5 foot longs and if you want to lose that weight you're gonna need to convert from that fatty McDonalds Big Mac. But I have never liked that.

I want to go through life being a Christian of course, but really I want to be a friend. I am a person and I want to know you, a person. I don't want to start my relationship with you with an agenda. And if you never "eat any $5 foot longs" it doesn't matter in even the slightest way because I can still value our relationship as fellow humans and maybe we could be friends and I could borrow a cup of sugar from you and I could help move in your new stove and we could hang out and that would be great and I could love you just as much with or without you loving Jesus.

In the end I am sharing my love. That love I learned from Jesus. And it is Jesus that can work with the love of friendship.

The Cucurbitaceae family

Just reminiscing about the soon coming of my favorite season and my old friends the Cucurbitaceae family in this blog.

I have known the Cucurbitaceae family most of my life. I think my fondest and earliest memories of the family have been in the fall when they would always come and stay with us. They really liked spending their time outside all spring and summer, kind of like camping I guess, so we never saw them until fall. They always had a beautiful glow to their skin, I guess from all their time laying out in the sun? Mom, sister and I would go pick them out, I mean up in October and they would stay the month, sometimes all the way into November. Usually our first night together we would watch some holiday appropriate cartoons and have supper. Next we would look through the newspaper which would be covering our kitchen table. We would all sit around and talk while using the newspaper to draw out plans for some face painting. The Cucurbitaceae's always seemed to be a little down when they first came, no smiles on their faces and really no personality to speak of at all so this always made them happy, well maybe not always happy but we would most definitely get some expression on or out of them. Next, with the face painting done...um well I won't speak of what happened next as it was always a horrifying experience for our guests. I will say that we came out with some delicious seeds to bake in the oven. Our guests didn't spend much, if any time in the house after that. They would tend to just sit on our front porch like a couple old guys. Jack and Jack we will call them would live out the rest of their lives together watching traffic go by as their skin slowly wrinkled, sharing the stories of their lives set to candle light at night and hoping the teenagers would just leave them be.

Nebraska again...again

Over two years after graduating and I am back in Nebraska, Lincoln to be exact. Yes yes I WAS back in Omaha last summer you say, but that was different muchacha because this is my Nebraska home! Omaha, ehhhh (shrugs). And I gotta say, I am loving it so far. Way less depressing than the way life dragged on before. Do I wish I would have found something more substantial for work like an off road rally race car driver or 007's replacement? Yes those probably would have been nice but I did get an all wheel drive Subaru Outback with a manual transmission and I traveled to Taiwan and the Philippines without having to worry about a 7' 2" henchman with a mouth full of metal trying to bite my ass at each turn which I can only imagine made Mr. Bond James Bond a bit stressed. So Subaru and safe travel, not bad! I guess the unsuccessful search has been a weird blessing? I will be going back for a second degree at Union College tuition free, this time around I will take Computer Information Systems and get to really call myself a true geek, awesome!

Good to be back to blogging actual words and not just music (although I do love that).