Not to just say but we must do!

I read this in an article today. The article was written by a friend named Shane Claiborne. He talked about how he was confronted with a situation were he and another boy were being assaulted by a group of eight boys. The account went like this, it started with them being verbally abused by this mob and here is the actions they took,

"It's always hard on the spot like that to know exactly what Jesus would do. I told Cassim, "Let's go say hi." He looked at me skeptically. We turned back and walked towards them (knowing full well that if we had run we may have made it to the post office). "Hey, I'm Shane. And this is my friend Cassim. We live around the corner," I said with my hand out. They weren't really sure what to do with that. A couple of them shook my hand and introduced themselves. Others snickered. One or two refused the handshake. We said, "Nice to meet you guys," and headed on our walk.

With the wind taken out of their sail a bit, they regrouped, and then continued to build momentum towards a violent brawl. They ran after us, throwing some rocks and bottles, and I noticed two of them now carried a couple of broomsticks from the trash. We picked up the pace a bit, and then I looked at Cassim and said, "No, don't run." We turned back, and before we knew it, one of them clocked Cassim on the side of the head with a stick. I said firmly, "Why would you do that? We haven't done anything to hurt you." They laughed. Then they started hitting me with the broomstick until it broke over my back. At this point I decided to bust out a can of holy anger. I looked them in the eyes and said as forcefully as I could, "You are created in the image of God ... every single one of you. And you were made for something better than this. and I are followers of Jesus and we do not fight, but we will love you no matter what you do to us." That wasn't exactly what they expected or hoped for. They looked at each other, startled a bit ... for the first time, they were completely quiet. And then they scurried off in every direction."


I look at this and it makes me think "what if we put into action what we know God wants us to do?" This is something I know would make huge differences in all of us as well as those around us. So maybe we need to look at doing what we know. I know if you are like me, when you read what shane did you think, man that is a fairy tale ending and that would not happen to me if that is what I did. Which then begs this question that hit me as I sat there and thought this, "are we not then saying God can't do it for me?" Are we not then ultimately questioning what God can do for us? WOW! Not a nice way to look at that thought huh?
So then the only answer I can come up with right now is to just do what I know God wants me to do and leave what happens up to who ultimately has the control anyway.





GOD!!!



I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. But they asked, and rightly so, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.

- Martin Luther King Jr., in " A Time to Break the Silence," delivered April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church, New York City.

Idol is back baby!

So, after all the hype and wait it is finally here. As I sat there and watched the show I started to get this creeping feeling that the show was not living up to what I expected (does anything ever do). I watched and continued to see bad contestant after bad contestant and got the feeling that the show was far more interested in displaying these bad characters, Now don't get me wrong I enjoy the bad characters , but I just got the feeling while watching that they were trying to milk it a little. I mean I enjoyed the opera singing Apollo Creed and the girl who said she was the biggest fan but could not sing anything in tune, then for her to get upset when the judges proceeded to tell her this, she was surprised and upset. Following it up with "I have a degree in singing". WOW! But to me they were just not as good (what I really mean is BAD) as I was expecting. I mean this is the show that birthed William Hung.
As I sat there and started to think that this would be just a drawn out version of bad singers and wanting to see more of the good ones, they did it! They should promos for tonight. Now I am sitting here thinking, "bring on the freaks!" I mean really, did you see who they were showing was actually going to get up there and sing. Can't wait.
The real disturbing thing to me is how disillusioned these people are. I mean you would think they had loved ones who would be truthful to them and just say in love "YOU SUCK AT SINGING". But NOOOOOOO.... they walk out of the doors after rejection and ridicule and their loved ones are there with them. Patting them on the back saying "don't worry you will make it some day we know you can sing." AHHHHHH news flash they just came out of a room with a couple of people who actually know about singing (and yes this excludes Paula, who I must say looks like she got a pump hose stuck on her lips the whole time idol has been off and they took it off just before she came on TV ) and they say that they suck. At-least they showed them some love.
So what life lesson can we learn from american idol?






Who cares! It is just really entertaining to see.

Big Bang!

Scientists in Switzerland are assembling the worlds largest machine-a super collider which they say will be capable of recreating the conditions of the "Big Bang". The researchers are hoping to create and observe what they have dubbed "The God particle," a theoretical particle that factors heavily into the Big Bang theory. To do this, the scientists will collide more then 800 million protons a second to try to understand what conditions were like at the birth of the universe.
What is amazing to me is the size of this machine!

The collider is contained in a 27 km (roughly 16.7 miles) circumference tunnel located underground at a depth ranging from 50 to 150 meters ( 164-492 feet). The tunnel was formerly used to house the LEP, an electron-positron collider. The 3 meter diameter, concrete-lined tunnel actually crosses the border between Switzerland and France at four points, although the majority of its length is inside France. The collider itself is located underground, with many surface buildings holding ancillary equipment such as compressors, ventilation equipment, control electronics and refrigeration plants.

The other thing that amazes me even more is the cost of this machine. The estimated final price tag is expected to be about US$ 8 billion, of which approximately US$ 0.5 billion is being provided by the United States as an "official observer". WOW!

You think we could find something better to do with this money. I mean come on, 8 billion so I could say "see I told ya so." So Scientists can say the big bang theory is true? So my question to you and myself is, "does this make a difference to us and our faith?" Will this (if proven could have happened) really hurt or strengthen what we believe? If in the end it does not make a difference they why do it? It is something that would not hurt what I believe no matter what. You see for me when science proves something that happened in the bible as fact and they give all this explanation as to why it just strengthens what I believe. Ok, so it may be something that can be explained but all they are doing is proving with science that what the bible tells us is true! So what does this mean to you? Think about it, what if they reproduce the "Big Bang"?

The last thing that disturbs me a lot is that calculations show there is about a 30 percent chance that this experiment WON'T cause the universe to implode!!!!!! YEAH great let's go ahead with this! Let's spend 8 billion and role the dice! "I CALL SEVENS"

Back at it!

Wow!

A new year has begun, and what have we said to ourselves that we need to do this year different then we did last year? You know what I am talking about, Those new year resolutions and I am not talking about the "I must lose weight" type of resolutions or the " I will stop smoking this year" ones (HMMMMM I guess I should stop smoking :). No! we make those resolutions every year. Now whether we keep them or not is a different story.

What I am sitting here thinking, are those resolutions that we know we need to make and yet we have such a hard time making them. Which leads into a whole different topic of if we know we need to do these things in our lives why do we need a new year to role around for us to first off start to think about making the change and then why do we need the new year to actually go about making that change? The thing is we all fall into this. Do we just say well that is the way society has made us and leave it at that? Then to which I have to ask, do we always have to let what society thinks dictate what we do? HMMMM....... I guess maybe we do not have a choice, or do we?

Well as I sit here and think about all this I can't help but wonder what is it that I need to examine in my life and make a change in? I think as my wife and I have talked about it in the months leading up to the holidays, are we really doing what we should be doing. What I mean by this is that I came to the conclusion that we as a family need to start doing "what we are suppose to be doing rather then what we think we should be doing." I think there is a big difference between the two. I say it starts off first with relationship. With my spiritual life and family life first. Am I doing all that I should in those two areas first before I look into doing other things first? The honest answer to that is probably "NO", now I need to re-examine this and see what I need to do different. I would like to think this through and then maybe if the answer is given to me then I will keep you informed.

I would love to get comments from others (the three that read this) on this and what you think. Like starting a little message board deal. If you do not want to post directly to this and would rather do it in private, please send me an email and I would be more then happy to raise the topic while keeping your name out of it.(my name has no problem being looked at funny)

My email addresses are

christhefather@gamil.com

chrispinder1@mac.com

Three People

It is official I now have three people reading the blog. I got an email today stating that there was one more to the cult MMM.... sorry I meant fold.
I feel as though I need to start making up shirts and what not. I do not know if I will be able to keep up with all this influx of people. I do not have anything else right now. But I thought it was such a big moment in our little blogging family that you all had to know. ("you all" like it is all that many) HAHAHAHa!
I have recovered from the lack of sleep on new years. Yes, i did stay up pretty much the whole night. I went down around 6:30am and rose to give the kids trouble at 6:45 am. But all in all i think it was a great time.

Till next time!!!!!!!!