love is the movement

so this is a speech i made for speech class..and if you think it looks long,this is my revised, cut-back version because i was going longer than 6 minutes..so some ideas aren't as complete as i'd like, but i dont feel attempting to remember those thoughts.this is a pretty big challenge, and one of the main reasons i picked this topic wasn't to challenge other people, but to challenge myself. I'd like to think i love people for who they are, but looking back..i'm terrible at it. like, not just bad, but terrible. i'm horrible at just chilling with people and making them feel important or talking with them- in most cases. with some people, like my close friends, i'm fine, but if i'm the least bit uncomfortable with someone else, i just shut down. psh..just got done writing this and realized i had neglected a convo with someone i should have been talking to and helping out..can anyone say self-absorbed? so i probably need to heed my own words here more than you do. but i'll post it anyways..

What is Love? this age-old question has been asked by man since humanity's beginnings regarding that thing that keeps our world from slipping into a chaotic and destructive "every man for himself" state of mind. From the greatest philosophers to the least intelligent child, all have wondered what exactly is this thing we call love. First of all, though, to clear something up, the love I'm going to be talking about is a little different than what we usually think of when we hear the word "Love". This is not that warm and fuzzy feeling you get inside when that special someone comes running across a field of lilies with their hair blowing in the wind and angels singing in the background. While there are similarities between the two, I'll be focusing on the non-romantic form of love. we'll look at God's love for us, and how our lives should reflect that love, and I hope that I can challenge you all, and give myself a much-needed challenge , to be a more loving person and bring hope to a hurting world.
We've all heard it said before that "God is Love". After looking the Bible, this makes quite a bit of sense. the second most used word in the Bible, only behind variations of God and Lord, is love. Not "rules". not "punishment". but "love". if that doesn't convince you, this might. The all-powerful, all-knowing God decided to craft a world. His creation was made beautiful and pleasing to a perfect God, pretty high expectations. he started from scratch and built up an empire, only to see it be torn down and poisoned by sin. An all-powerful and just God could do whatever he wanted to with his now defunct masterpeice, and it would make sense for him to destroy it and start again. However, for some reason, he's stuck with us for thousands of years and given us a chance. He's been disobeyed, cheated and crossed more times than we can even think about comprehending. And yet, for some reason, instead of blowing us all to oblivion in an eternity of hell well-deserved, he completely goes against everything that would seem rational and just and sends himself down to earth as his son and does not just die for us, but burns for us. And even after all this, when we still refuse to turn back to him and instead continue further down the spiral, for some reason he just will not let us go. and that reason is love. there is no possible way that we could still exist without a God loving enough to do that, making it impossible to dismiss the fact that God is love. There is no greater love than the love that has been shown to us by our loving and faithful Savior.
so What does this mean for us Christians, striving to live to please God? Many people view Christianity as a group of people trying to follow an endless list of rules that they can't keep anyways. However, people seem to forget how simple Christianity is. Muslims have 5 rules they have to follow. We have two. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself". these two sentences are the fulfilling of the law. Like i said before, a call to love is repeated over and over again in the Bible, leaving it pretty obvious what God expects of us. If we truly model our love after the love shown by our Father in Heaven, we will in the process be loving him with all our hearts and doing only the best for our neighbors here on earth.
So really, how can we put this love into concrete terms? What do we have to do to truly love God and our neighbor? 1 Corinthians 13 (commonly known as the love chapter) states "love is patient, love is kind. it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres". That does not put a solid and set definition on love, but it does give us a good clue as to what it does. It is like the wind: you cannot see it itself, you only see the effect of it on the things around it because of what it's doing. Love, then, is more than just an emotion; it is a verb, requiring action. Although it may be based on a feeling, it is not true love unless there is outward effort reflecting that love.
we say we love each other, but do we really in the active sense of the word? are we really looking out for the good of everyone we meet and really trying to love our neighbor as ourselves, no matter who they might be? we have an obligation. in a world where millions are broken by depression and despair without seeking treatment or help from other people and countless others are hurting deeply but hide it, we carry a hope inside of us that those around us need to witness, whether they’re deeply depressed or just having a not-so-great day. Actions speak thousands of times louder than words, so therefore, we need to not only tell the world they are loved; we need to show it to them. say hi to the kid walking next to you in the hallway. Give a smile to the person working the register at the store. hang out with people who might need a friend. Listen to people, talk with people, just be with
them when they need it. Show the world they have worth, they have a purpose. Show them that they matter, and that someone lovingly created them and still loves them far more than they could ever possibly imagine. Show them a different, brighter side of life than what they’ve experienced. Show them that they’re not alone and that weren’t meant to be. Show
them that someone cares. Show them hope. Show them love.

i drive like an elderly woman

I have now decided i hate driving in the winter. Sure, I disliked it a lot before, but now i just hate it. Saturday i got stuck on joels driveway. Not a big deal so much, other than being cold and having to push ryan out too. on the way home, though, i was a mile from his house slowing down for a stop sign and did a nice one-eighty across the road. Thankfully, i was lucky (blessed) enough to not be in the vicinity of other vehicles and narrowly missed the snowfilled ditch. and after the nice words i said, i'm surprised God didn't teach me a lesson by sending into the ditch later. I didn't really think the roads were that icy, but i slid a couple times after that and ended up driving 35 the whole way home hunched over the steering wheel with white knuckles. overreacting? probably. but i just felt extremely uncomfortable the rest of the way home. two years ago i slid across the center line and drove into a ditch and drove out with less drama than that. i don't know what made me freak, but i guess, now that i remember, it didn't help that i kept thinking i had a flat or something because i slid so easily and my steering was crappy. i slid again on sunday night, strengthening my suspicions, but its been fine since, so i think it was just snowy/icy. yar. i drive like a grandma

you're so vain

when i thought about senior pictures, i had these grand visions. i hate to say being as i'm a male, and quite manly at that, but i guess its true. mostly just for one picture. i'd be at the end of our driveway with the white post fence going down it with a fresh and undisturbed 2 inches of snow on the ground covering everything and a light snow falling. wearing all black with my guitar. turns out, that didnt quite work as planned but it sure was a swell idea. although another one occured to me, with me standing directly in front of the bright sunset on top of the celebrity with my guitar(again), standing up there like i owned the world. epic to say the least. all of this has kind of made me think. we make such a huge deal about senior pics and some people spend hundreds of dollars on them (we went cheap and had my mom take them and print them at walmart..yay diy), but do they really matter that much? i think i'd rather have all the good times with my friends stored away up top than a beautiful studio rendition of them sitting in a box up in my attic. yeah, its great to have pictures of us in the prime of our lives so in 20 years our not-so-prime selves can look at them and realize how old we really are, and its pretty cool to have a buncha pictures of yourself where you only pick the good ones and can throw out the bad ones (like censoring your ugly moments). but i think it might get blown up a little too much. and it might blow up something else, and not in the destructive eruption sense of the word. Getting picture-perfect shots of yourself can kinda inflate the ego a little bit and put a little too much worth in appearance. I'm guessing this isn't the same for everyone, but i know for me, this is a little bit of an issue. i think everyone, whether consciously or subconsciously, regardless of what they say, does care to a certain extent about what they look like. they say you can't judge a book by its cover, but i'll guarantee a book with a neatly rhyming title and dr. suess characters backlit by bright colors on the front cover isn't an psychological murder thriller. without looking at us, people make assumptions and guesses about who we are and what we're like by how we look. i'd like to say i don't care a whole lot, but in reality, i know thats not the case. i gotta make sure the hair's sticking up just right, the clothes look right for the day, and all that junk. its sad, when i think about it. it makes me kind of glad we went the route we did. not only did it save a wad of cash, it probably saved me from getting a little too self-obsessed and full of myself..or something

i originally had this post done, but it didnt post and only saved like a third of it, deleting some stuff that was better than this day-old, reheated leftovers.. so if this didn't live up to expectations you can blame whoever invited dial-up instead of just skipping to dsl or something. . ya'll have a good..night, evening, morning, day, whatever applies while you're reading this..

i wish i didn't get distracted so easi- i wonder whats on tv?

forgive the dumb title. i just had to do it. anyways, i'm a little perturbed. at the beginning of break i had all these grand ideas about what i was going to do with my free time. i knew i would have to work, but i ended working less than i thought i'd have to, so i had even more free time. and what do i have to show for it? not much. i was gunna read a couple books, write some more stuff, figure out all the crazy chords for jazz band, practice for a scholarship, write some songs, cure cancer..maybe i made my goals a little too lofty, but this is the last day of break, and i've read one book and kinda wrote a song. just the music. which i mostly already had, i just arranged it and put it into song form.thats about it. and this isn't the first time something like this has happened. i always think of awesome things i'm gunna do with my time and i almost always get distracted and end up doing things like..oh, say, writing a blog? it hasn't helped that we got a wii for christmas. don't get me wrong, its a good time and very entertaining, but its also a little too much of a draw when i could be using my time to do something rewarding and/or worthwhile. maybe a little self-control could resolve this problem, but wii bowling with 91 pins is just too darn fun! even now, instead of going and doing something about this, i've chosen to sit here and complain about it to you while sort-of unconsciously waiting for the wii to be unoccupado. that right there sounds like the american way to me. guess i'm just as guilty as anybody. welp hope all your christmas breaks(yes, all two of the people who'll read this) brought great success, not sure if i can say the same for mine, but it was a nice change of pace while it lasted. happy new year..we'll see how long it stays that way..

why christmas is in winter

so way back when people decided they should celebrate christmas. so they chose december 25 to override a pagan holiday. pretty good idea if you ask me. except now christmas is the one getting taken over by another "pagan" holiday: the day of "wudyagetme?" and the preceding month of preparation called mass-consumerism. yeah its great to give people gifts, but when its all we think about..no bueno! i could be a little wrong, but i'm pretty sure i remember this right..fun fact for the day: People spend 250 billion dollars on christmas. the amount of money it would take for every single person on earth to have clean water to drink: 10 billion dollars. yeah that floored me too.
but anyways..turns out its probably a good thing christmas is in winter, and not just cuz of the snow. christmas could be ok without snow, people in more fortunate areas of the world do it all the time( its called "nice weather in december"..if thats completely foreign to you, you've obviously been trapped in the midwest every year for christmas). just picture a winter without christmas. ok, maybe i'm not thinking so much about christmas, more about christmas break. the weather starts sucking..or if your from iowa, continues to suck..you're sick of school, blah blah blah..if winter wasn't interrupted by two-ish weeks off school, the drop out rate might double..or triple..winter's already long enough between january and whenever it decides to end. good thing christmas break slips in there and slaps it across the face and gives us all a respite for a little bit.
i'm really not sure if this blog is worth anything..but oh well.
stick around for a highlight reel of 2008!..soon..hopefully