7 Billion

The world has officially reached a population of 7 billion people.
How many hungry people have I fed? How many naked people have I clothed? How many prisoners have I visited? How many sick people have I cared for?

I think it's rather selfish of me to want Jesus to come tomorrow. There are billions who need to know about Him.
At the same time, Jesus needs to come now. There are many people which will be lost if He doesn't come now, because I am too scared and ashamed to go out there.

Random Memory with a Moral...

It was getting close to Christmas-time and I must have been in fourth grade, if not younger. My family has never had a huge extravagant Christmas, and I am glad I never did (just so much easier on the wallet there...). But this once my mom decided to have us pick out our gifts. So she packed us up into the van and took us to the nearest clothing store. Now, before I go on, I'd like to say that my parents are really smart--actually, that's an understatement--and my mom had something up her sleeve. She told us that at the school where she works there were little children--one in each of mine and my sibling's classes--who were really poor and they were not having Christmas that year, so each of us would pick a gift for them. Immediately, a person I knew was poor and had siblings in my sibling's classes came to mind. However, I didn't really like this kid because he made fun of me, so I immediately found the ugliest shirt I could find, gave it to my mom, and didn't think much of it afterwards. Now it all worked out that the boy and I wore the same size clothes, and somehow my mom got me and my siblings to get clothes of our own size. Lo and behold, Christmas Eve came, and to the Hispanic culture we opened our presents at midnight. I got the usual sweaters from my grandparents, a cool something from my "rich" uncle (I saw him that way in those days....), and clothes from my parents. But what struck me was my mom's box. Inside, there was that ugly shirt I picked out.

Playing Captain Hindsight over here, I realize that that is true humility. We can only be Jesus followers when we give to others that which we would give ourselves, if not better. This is true Christianity.

Too early!

Although today was extremely tiring and I really felt like going to bed by seven, my brain just wouldn't shut up. It was the perfect time for an impromptu solo jam session...except, it wasn't, because my roommate did go to bed at seven. Maybe next time...

Go Rangers!!

That is all.

Actually, no. The reason I don't root all that much for North Texas teams is that they always choke. The Mavericks finally came through, and now the Rangers look like they're heading the same direction. Hopefully, this will all stay this way.

Now, the reason I hate the Cowboys is totally different. And personal. And I dislike them very much.

Not Just an Idealist (or, From the Pen of Rudyard Kipling)

courtesy of one of my favorite authors, Rudyard Kipling IF If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream---and not make dreams your master; If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same:. If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss: If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much: If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

When it is Sunday and I Cannot Wait for the Weekend...

This week is going to prove rather busy. A couple projects are due, and the date for my brainchild's premiere quickly gets larger. I know I have it rather easy, so I am not going to worry about this too much, instead, I am going to enjoy myself as much as I can.

*Project One: Think of a story for Outlook.
Normally, that would mean me procrastinating and Bad Sentencing the 350 words. However, I want to take this on by the horns. I really want to finally try out the You Need the Melon approach to Outreach. I think I might even have some fun with that.

*Project Two: Persuasive Speech
I'm doing it on why people should join the drama in the spring. This might be a little tricky...but I get to interview actors and all, so could prove a funny experience.

*Project Three: 30 Architecture Pictures
Talk about time consuming! OR....Talk about a mind clearer! Could help take my mind off of things.

*Project Four: Top Christian
This is what makes me most scared. I really just want to know how Union receives this...hopefully good! I really want to send a message to Unionites. The mission for the show is to present a way to be a christian through service, example, and lifestyle. Hopefully there's an audience...

*Project Five: Screenplay
The play I've been writing for next semester suddenly got turned into a 90 minute TV performance. Exciting!!

Everything should be fun, but still. It will be one of those "fun while it lasted, but I need a break" moments.

What I Learned about Happiness, Hardships, and Humanity from broken Women in the Congo and a Vietnam Veteran

"But some, who like one old man whose name was called, had no problem sharing the joy of the moment by performing a little impromptu dance for my camera, making this crowd of people laugh with abandon. Everything had been taken from them--but their humanity."
                                                                                                       --Kevin Sites, In the Hot Zone
I realize that there is really no reason to be sad sometimes. In the last chapter I read, Kevin goes to the Democratic Republic of the Congo attached to a low-key humanitarian aid organization. He encounters boys not old enough to drive legally in the US who have been recruited by the various militias with confusing acronym names. These little boys have stories of how they have killed several people--not because they want to, but because they're being shot at. One of the boys talks about how he is haunted in his dreams by a man he killed for food.

I don't think I'll ever say "I'm starving!" when I mean "I'm a little hungry" again.

Mr. Sites then heads off to a women's shelter. As an aside, I've volunteered going door to door asking for donations for the local shelter and received good responses from people who have been there. For the women in the Congo, their shelter is the banana plant groves. There they hide from raping rebel soldiers, because if they were all in one place it would be horrible. Some of them have gone through several rapes and widowing experiences, yet Kevin Sites always describes how calm they talk about their experiences. He talks about their singing, their laughter, their dancing.

I don't think I'll ever complain about Mondays again.

Later in the day, I sat down with a professor who is a Vietnam veteran. He told me about several people who went through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD. He tells me how he once sang old songs with his guitar at a veterans convention, and how those suffering from PTSD were able to open up. He told me, "I knew God had sent me to do this, and now I do it in prisons and I always get the same effect."

I don't think I'll ever complain about how hard something is if I PTSD is not a common consequence of that action.

A World of Conflict

I really hope that one day I can show the world what the real world is like by my photo-essays. I really hope that one day I can show the real world who Jesus is wherever I work. Now, however, I have to content myself with Kevin Sites' experiences in his book I'm reading, In the Hot Zone.
I was also made aware of his documentary, which accompanies this book, called A World of Conflict. As soon as I remembered, I went on YouTube and searched for it. Sure enough, there it is! So...I will begin to watch this now, at least a chapter a day (but not limited to that....). If I fall asleep in class, you now know why.

Strangers

SO relevant. No description needed, really.

A little homesick...

I was skimming through my high school pics, and I see a really skinny me smiling around with people who I thought I would be friends with forever. But man, I have only kept in touch with a handful of them, and sometimes even Keene seems like it is a town I don't fully remember, it has changed so much.
Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days when "shut up" was a bad word.
When, after a fight, everything would go back to normal by the next day at the latest.
When popping a weelie ("did you see it?! I went like two feet on one wheel!") was the ultimate test of manliness.
Sometimes I wish I could go back to the times when the hardest decision I had to make was whether to get a cheeseburger or chicken nuggets at McDonald's.

Needless to say, _______________________.

Sometimes people are so ridiculous. I love this.

In the Hot Zone

After cereal, the next (material) thing I love most are books. However, I am very picky in my book selections, bypassing any that look that won't give me much brain food. My favorite non-Christian book of all time is The Grapes of Wrath--it's probably the book I have most enjoyed out of all the books I have read more than three times.

I am currently reading Ellen G. White's Patriarchs and Prophets, Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution, and Kevin Sites' In the Hot Zone.
It is Kevin Sites who has captured my full attention right now. As a journalism major and an international rescue and relief minor who aspires to be a photojournalist/essayist in the manner of Gordon Parks, this book speaks directly to me. The book is a narrative of a year in Kevin's life as a solo journalist (SoJo) who goes to all the hot zones in the planet. (Hot zones are war and disaster areas.) Reaching out to my humanist and idealist mind and to my adventurous body, he tells the story of capturing controversial clips of a certain Marine's behavior in Iraq and also being in the Indian Ocean for the 2004 Tsunami a few months after, where he not only reported but helped bring relief to others as well.
Every time I pick up this book I can't put it down. I will try to put updates on how this book is going as I advance.

You NEED the Melon

Taken from one of my favorite books ever, Running with the Buffaloes. Somehow inspires me to reach out to others for no reason other than to see them smile.

University of Colorado
Wednesday, August 26, 1998
Spanish Class
9:10 am

Ronald Roybal excuses himself to his Spanish Literature professor as he arrives with two huéspedes, or guests, in tow, ten minutes late. The class appears to engage Roybal, a spanish major, and only Roybal. No other student answers the professor's queries. Actually, most appear only semi-conscious. Despite his tardiness, in the professor's eyes Roybal is batting a thousand.
After class, Roybal and his buddy Pedro set off across campus on a beautiful 70-degree morning. "I think it's time," says Roybal. He pulls a knife and a beautiful ripe cantaloupe out of his knapsack. He proceeds to offer melon to any and all strangers passing by whom, in his estimation, "need the melon." "Oh, you see her," he says, pointing to an attractive,petite blond, "she needs the melon. That guy, he needs the melon." Rejected once, Roybal will always ask, "Are you sure?"
Some will reconsider and take the melon. Others will try to rationalize it, but to no avail. There is no explanation for Roybal's actions other than his desire to see people smile. No doubt, it is odd. "But one time," he says, voice rising in excitement, "me and Pedro were on Pearl Street and this one guy came around like three times, and his eyes widened, and he was so excited 'cause we kept giving him the melon. It was awesome!"
Today maybe every third person takes the melon, a less successful rate than his trip down to Pearl Street. Roybal appears unconcerned and is grinning from ear to ear. "We had honeydew then," he says. Of course.

Blogless Blogging

Up until now, I have engaged in what I like to call "blogless blogging." Blogless Blogging consists of blogging...except without a blog. So instead of posting my thoughts on the internet I have kept them to myself in a hidden and super secret file in my computer (one marked "blogless" under the "Do Not Open" folder in "My Documents"). I think it was just laziness at another thing to keep up online. Now, I mustered up some of the last energy left in my mid-term-study-fried brain and made this blog. Let's see how long it lasts...