poopy

my trip to seattle started out poopy. literally. i had a serious case of the "hershey squirts". i woke up at 6:30 sunday morning, my stomach rolling over and over. i was to catch a flight at 6:45 that evening to seattle. a five-hour flight. ugh.

i debated cancelling and spending the week at home, but eventually decided to just drug up with immodium, advil, and pepto bismol. problem solved. i was clogged for about two days after that.

so tomorrow is day 3 of my seattle adventure. i'm here for training. i'm learning a lot about the culture of my company, about how to resolve conflict, about teamwork, and tonight i learned about cooking. i spent 3 hours at a cooking school creating dishes such as sweet beignets, gnocchi, and beef and mushroom papillotes.

yesterday i drank a caramel macchiato from the world's first starbucks, stood underneath the space needle, and saw mount rainier from a far distance. not to mention i saw jacob moody, a friend from college i hadn't seen in almost 3 years.

i'm spent. so i'm going to hop in my king-size bed with the oh-so-plush pillows and bid adieu.

here i list a few quotes that have motivated, inspired, and encouraged me over the past couple weeks...

"'Almost' carries no weight, especially in matters of the heart." -charles dickens

"Small hinges swing big doors." -anonymous

"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it." -ralph waldo emerson
a comment on this last one. it's my favorite quote of all time (that i've read). i read this quote in my 11th grade english class as it was placed under the chapter heading of my textbook. it hit me like a bolt of lightning. for the first time in my life i realized every new moment holds the same potential as the last. whether that potential is realized is largely determined by how i choose to spend my time. live intentionally.

spiritual streaking

throughout my christian life, i've always been told, "don't be a spiritual streaker." by this my instructor meant, don't divulge my most intimate struggles, desires, etc to anyone and everyone who will listen.

i think i've done pretty well so far. but lately i've had some experiences with people that make me question that seemingly wise ultimatum.

every time i go downtown for homeless ministry i meet guys who tell me about huge struggles they're having. not necessarily because i ask them, just because they are broken guys. they tell me about issues that, were i struggling with them, i don't think i'd have the guts to tell anyone.

these are the types of people i believe will fill the kingdom. the ones who know they struggle, and are so broken, they'll be honest with anyone and everyone. conventional wisdom aside, they don't own a mask. they don't own much of anything. but they know they need help, they just don't know where to get it.

one thing i know for sure...they are authentic people.

ok, so there's two extremes here:

hiding everything, not being authentic with anyone. vs. telling everyone everything about you. it's an intricate balance. hiding everything destroys community, and prevents you from experiencing the grace God has for you. but if the community isn't ready to handle it, streaking can send you packing. what's more, there's another dimension involving what's permissible to share with the opposite sex! finding the right middle ground is key, and i think it requires living intentionally.

all things considered, it's no wonder i sometimes find myself tipping the balance.

favorites

i've been a lot of places. costa rica, australia, south africa, taiwan, turkey, italy, greece, switzerland, france, cuba, alaska...not to mention lots of other places in the U.S. but my favorite place on the entire globe is the outer banks of north carolina. specifically ocracoke island.

it is quaint, secluded, natural, and pristine. i'd have a hard time choosing beach over mountains most of the time, unless you throw ocracoke in the mix. see, i love hiking, camping, campfires, smores, stars...and while ocracoke doesn't have much in the way of hiking, it does have the other outdoorsy things. You can camp in the dunes, have campfires on the beach, and gaze at the milky way all at the same time. then, in the morning, climb out of your sleeping bag and head down to the ocracoke coffee shop for some lox and bagels, with a side of yogurt, fresh berries, and granola.

yeah, you know what i'm talking about. ;)

here's my friend julia getting her fill at ocracoke.

an observation

why is it, when we see others going through pain, we can say wholeheartedly "I am praying for you..." which is in itself a statement expressing some amount of faith in the sovereignty and love of God, yet when we experience pain ourselves, lean to doubt God all around? some people even go so far as to say, "there is no God." (when, in reality, they are just angry at Him and don't know how to express it)

i haven't experienced a wealth of suffering to bring forth wisdom from, but from an outside-looking-in perspective, an observation...

the temptation in pain is to become selfish. gasp.

what i mean is, for some reason, my faith isn't shaken until it's the ground under me that appears to be giving way. as long as it's the ground under you, i can praise God all day long. yeah, that's called selfishness.

this reality makes the story of job that much more remarkable. figure this one out...after job's cattle are slaughtered, his servants murdered, and his children killed in a horrific natural disaster, he is able to make what i believe is the most astounding statement of faith in the Good Book.

"Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;" (job 13:15)

i sit astounded.

gossip-squashers unite!

i used to worry what people thought about me. i mean, i still do sometimes, but not nearly as much as i used to. i remember riding beside my mom in the car. i was about 10. i was telling her about some situation i was in and how worried i was about what some other person thought about me (in hindsight, it was probably a girl, but i don't really remember). her response was simply this, "robby, we wouldn't worry about what people thought about us if we knew how little they did." my mom was always good at keeping me grounded. she's taught me that life is usually a matter of perspective. change your perspective, and everything that seemed such a big deal usually disappears in minuteness.

gossip has hurt a friend of mine. fortunately, i was not the cause of the pain, i was simply an ear to listen. here's the situation...and don't worry, i'm going to stay as general as i need to, so that i'm not gossiping...

person "A" told person "B" that he (person "A") probably would not do "something." person "B" interpreted this to mean "A" definitely would not do "something." two months later, person "A" did "something". cue gossip. "B" found out about it when person "C" and "D" were talking about it at the lunch table. then "B" called "A" a hypocrite in front of several other persons ("E", "F", and "G"...i'm "G"). it's okay if you need to draw a diagram.

person "A" divulged how hurt he was to me, and now i'm blogging about how bad gossip is. get it?

now, i'm of the opinion that i cannot control what people say about me. i've worried about it a lot in my past, but today i'm comforted by the fact that as bad as the gossip may get about me, i'm certainly a lot worse than that. call me a whore...i'd agree. isn't that the point of the gospel, that even though every inclination of my heart is evil all the time, Christ has redeemed me? yes, it is.

but, a lot of people do not have this perspective, and the reality of gossip is, it tears community apart limb from limb. the closer and tighter the community, the worse gossip hurts.

i think there's a serious misconception about the nature of gossip. i used to think gossip was equivalent to slander. that is, falsely putting people down. nope. gossip covers a lot more ground than that.

webster says gossip is....
"a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others", "rumor or report of an intimate nature", "a chatty talk"

in other words, unnecessary talk about others is gossip.

nip it. nip it good.

i encourage you to be proactive about stopping gossip when you hear it. me and some friends were playing the cardgame Nertz one night when two guys started bashing another guy who wasn't there. another person said, "guys, let's talk about something else. i don't like talking about ____ when he's not here to defend himself." the guy who started the talk squirmed in his seat. it was the awkwardness of knowing he was in the wrong and someone had just called him out, mixed with the pride of not wanting to admit it.

you don't have to be so frank about it. simply change the subject. it's easy to do. join the movement of gossip-squashers across the world.