Why we demonize our opponents.

There’s something so beautiful about humanity when an oppressed group rises up and refuses to be abused and belittled any longer. The minority takes a stand, demands national attention and speaks louder than the majority who was, until now, ignorant to their cause.

There lies an inherent problem with activism, though. The will to succeed… “by any means necessary.” These means include demonizing and slandering one’s opposition to reach a goal that a group has. And that’s what concerns me.

During the civil rights movement, two prominent black leaders emerged: Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X. Dr. King preached peace and love and talked of white and black people being together in unity. His message wasn’t one of finger pointing, he simply wanted everybody to be judged on their heart and not their color. Malcolm X was less consistent. He, at times, talked of never having met a sincere white person in his life and white people supporting the black movement as “weakening black coffee with white cream.” Now I’m not saying he hadn’t faced years and years of belittlement and that he wasn’t coming from a valid standpoint, but Dr. King had faced the same kind of adversity and still had love in his heart for those that had oppressed him. He chose to pity their ignorance rather than condemn them for it.

We are at a point where people no longer want the news, they simply want to hear about how great their side is and how lousy the other side is. Liberals can go to Huffington Post and conservatives can go to Fox News. You can be told how the Republicans are going to turn the earth into a crater or you can hear about how Democrats are going to make the U.S. a socialist country. There is one reason why these news sources do this: It works.

My question is this: Was there ever a point that we simply wanted to know the truth? Or do we just want to be told that we’re right?

Even though I personally wouldn’t have voted for the guy, I read something recently about John Kerry from the 2004 election. When his campaign manager pressed him to do smash ads, he refused. Kerry didn’t air ads that attacked Bush. I found this to be extremely respectable and showed the heart of what kind of man he was… Even if I disagreed with his politics. Many experts speculate that this may have been what lost the election for him, ultimately. I would most certainly agree (well, that and the ill-advised “I’m John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty”).

Unfortunately, this happens a lot in activism as well. People who claim to want equality really just want to see what it’d be like for their group to be on top. Many Feminist groups attack men, a lot of gay groups attack religious people, a number of black groups attack white people.* Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of white religious men have done some truly horrible things in just the past hundred years alone, everybody has… The majority just gets more attention because with more people come more problems.

So whereas in the ’60s it was appropriate for a man to belittle a woman, it is now appropriate for a woman to belittle a man. Don’t believe me? Imagine a celebrity woman going on a talk show and saying: “All men are pigs.” It’d be laughed off and nobody would think anything of it. If a male celebrity went on a talk show and said: “All women are sluts,” the news would have a field day and that guy would be making a public apology within 24 hours.

I’m not trying to say that a man should be able to say that about a woman. Both of those statements should be equally deplorable. Or on the other hand, both should be perfectly acceptable. But at no time should one ever be considered more or less than the other.

So instead of demonizing our opposition, let’s try and understand where the other side is coming from and that just because a group is in the majority doesn’t mean that every person in that majority is as bad as the ones that give the majority a bad name.

The most important thing to remember is that no matter what side of the issue you stand on, there’s always somebody more intelligent that disagrees with you.

-CSL

*I don’t mean to say that all of these groups focus on singling out these people, many are like Dr. King and simply want true equality, but I am addressing those that don’t.

Brevity blog Part I – Love or hate.

INTRO: Tonight I heard a great sermon at my church on how we talk. It covered everything from coarse language to simply talking too much without having anything to actually say. I happen to do this a lot. I still find it important to convey myself because 1. I’m a writer 2. It can be a good part of who I am. So this new li’l series I’m doing is called Brevity blog. It’s me trying to convey things I feel in a hundred or fewer words. So here goes:

BREVITY BLOG I: LOVE OR HATE
A challenge (for me and you):
Look at yourself in black and white. Separate everything you’re doing into either love or hatred. Are you doing and saying things that are detrimental to yourself and others? I know I am. Mark those under HATRED. If you’re not bringing love, you’re bringing hate. Focus on the things that bring love: Kindness, charity, sticking up for just principles. This might be a bit maddening, but I think it could be an interesting way to observe your spirituality.

That’s it. I’d love to babble on about this, but as I stated… Unneeded.

Proverbs 10: 12, 19

Being a Christian means never being comfortable again.

There are a lot of aspects to a Christian life that people like to advertise to non-believers. Happiness, fulfillment and even comfort are some of the ones that come to mind. Anybody’s who read the New Testament will tell you that happiness isn’t really the focus of Christ’s message and complete fulfillment won’t happen in this life (and why would it? We’d probably find a way to take it for granted in the humanly state we are in) and as for comfort… If you thought any of Christ’s followers in the New Testament were comfortable people, you may need to reread it.

Christ’s message was one of truth and truth is love and love is God. With the right perception, one can be happy in this truth, have a sensation of fulfillment in this truth and take comfort in this truth. This doesn’t mean bad things aren’t going to happen and that we are going to be perfect beings, it simply paints a strong perspective that, when applied directly to your life, is hard to ignore, even in times of strife.

Particularly, I think something that is a calling as a Christian is to step out of our comfort zones– constantly. Jesus calls us to feed the hungry and reach out to the poor, He calls us to visit our brothers and sisters in prison, He tells us to let open our houses to strangers, He at one point tells a rich man to sell all his possessions and follow Him.

All of these things involve initial discomfort. I don’t know about you, but if a complete stranger was sleeping in the room next to me in my house, I don’t know how well of sleep I’d be getting. If I was a rich man and some hippie in sandals came and told me to sell all my stuff, I might feel quite uncomfortable at even considering that.

A driving force in my life lately has been to love. As simple as that, I want to focus my life on loving as much as possible and spreading God’s love to others. This involves lots of discomfort. Even leaving my friends to walk over to people I don’t know at church to say hi makes me feel freaked out and worried I might make a fool out of myself. I have, actually, a few times when I’ve introduced myself to somebody I’ve already met… (Like the pastor’s daughter this past Sunday… YIKES!)

Talking to new people at church is a very small aspect of stepping out of one’s comfort zone, but when we follow some of the more unnerving callings of the Bible, we see that one step out of our comfort zone is another step closer to comfort in Christ.

Is love all you need?

The song is a classic; it’s timeless, catchy and memorable. One of the Beatles’ most popular songs conveyed a simple, yet powerful message: “Love is all you need.” The moving melody and clever lyrics inspire people to this day, generating feelings of hope and comfort. The question is posed, however… Is love really all you need? Most people that I’ve spoken to almost immediately say “no,” accompanying that “no” with a list of things such as shelter, food and intellect. While some of these things are necessities to survive physically, do any of them make life worth living if devoid of love?

The dictionary has fourteen definitions of love as a noun and another six as a verb. The first definition is “a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.” While that seems to be the basic understanding of what love is, many people have their own idea of love and others find it to be something that can’t be defined by any one person. Another definition is actually the tennis term, stating it as “a score of zero; nothing.” Now, people with a more cynical disposition on love may find this to be the most accurate definition of the word even out of the tennis context.
As I stated, there are fourteen definitions for love in the dictionary. But there are at least six billion different definitions of the word because everyone has their own definition. In fact, most people have multiple definitions for love which is why phrases like “I love him, but I don’t like him” and “I would never want to be with this person, but I still love them” pop up. From what I’ve gathered when I’ve heard those phrases, what people really mean when they say either is “I don’t particularly care for this person, but because I am related or connected to them in some way, I am morally obligated to feign a form of affinity towards them” or “Although this person has committed too many negative acts for me to remain with them intimately, I still care for them because they have had a significant impact on my life.” When rearranged to their true meanings, neither of us those really describe love.
Somebody might ask, then, what is my definition of love? Well, the concept is a confusing one to me as well, but one that I feel is perfectly defined in the Bible, which is the dictionary for the soul. It is in a chapter of Corinthians that is dedicated almost exclusively to love and defining just what it is, once and for all.
1 Corinthians 13:3-8. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing. 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. Love never fails.

A truly incredible stretch of scripture and is many a Christian’s favorite area of the Bible. It is, however, in its powerful message, quite lofty. Many people may think while reading that scripture: “Well, sure, THAT kind of love is all I need, but that’s completely unattainable and unrealistic.” While it’s true that if you are expecting to find this love perfectly exacted in another person, you are bound to be disappointed.

God, however, is that love. He is all you need. And when you choose to follow, if earnest in your pursuit of His truth, He begins to educate you on that love. So, then, you will be able to love more closely to the universal and unconditional way that God does. We may want that kind of love for ourselves in another human as well, but as stated, love is not self-seeking. It is not foremost something to get, but something to give.

When you strive to give love unconditionally, you surround yourself with love. When you follow the words written in 1 Corinthians, you will have everything you need. However, people can think that because when people are in love or love each other and things go wrong, that the problem lies within love. The problem is not with love, it’s with people. Love never fails, but people can fail to love.

Accepting God’s love is all one needs, and when humans treat each other lovingly, it is simply a further extension of God’s love and thus an addition to the ultimate need. So, advertently or not, The Beatles were right — All you need is love. (Dum Dum DuhDuhDum)

-CSL

Bleak Friday: A short story

Bleak Friday
By Colin S. Liddle

Two fifty inch plasma HD TVs.
Zenith surround sound system.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Assassin’s Creed 2

This is not a Christmas list. This is a list of items that I will be getting killer deals on at Target at 5:00 am on Friday, November 27. My cousin made me watch a really lame movie once; it was called There Will Be Blood, but I liked something a character said in it: “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed.” Now, I know that he goes crazy and beats the preacher kid’s head in with a bowling pin at the end of the movie, but these words ring true to me. And I can live with other people succeeding, just so long as it doesn’t affect my success. I will get every last one of these items and I will get them all for killer deals.

But not for another twelve hours. Ugh.

I’ve come up from playing WoW to join my family for Thanksgiving dinner. I’m not a gaming nerd, actually, I played football in high school and lettered as a right tackle. I have a really hot girlfriend; my parents said it was only family that could come over for dinner, though. Shame, really, I wanted my cousion to really see how much hotter my girl is than his. Facebook just doesn’t do her justice. Oh well, he should know it anyway, his girlfriend’s a cow.

Sitting at the table while everybody feigns an answer of what they’re thankful for is quite a chore. God. Family. America. How about somebody says something different for once? We all know nobody really means that when they say it. My cousin says he’s thankful for all three things and then mentions his girlfriend. I think that Family, God and America would be pretty upset to hear their name thrown in with the hideous girl that he dates. The funny thing is that my friend Casey thinks she’s hot. But he’s never really been able to get girls, so his taste is pretty desperate at this point. He only had one girlfriend all three years of high school. She wasn’t too hot either, I don’t know why he dated her so long.

The thankful parade reaches me and I stand up to give an actual honest answer to what I’m thankful for:

Two fifty inch plasma HD TVs.
Zenith surround sound system.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Assassin’s Creed 2

All for killer deals.

“I guess that means you’re going to Target at 5 in the morning?” My aunt says, bemused.

I nod my head slyly and sit down. My mother glares at me. I’m thankful for her and everything, but I figured whatever is on my mind most at that time is probably what I’m really thankful for. Even when people are asked about it, they don’t actually think about what they’re thankful for, they only think about what response they can give to avoid looking like a jerk.

Dinner gets over and my cousin and I play the first Modern Warfare game for a while to pass the time. The rest of the family is in the other room watching some stupid Pixar movie. Shrek or something. My cousin is horrible at the game; I only face a real challenge when I play online. It’s a good thing I’m getting the new game in the morning; I’ve completely mastered all of the levels.

I finish owning my cousin in the desert stage and we decide to watch a movie before going to sleep. We pop in Transformers 2. I don’t even think the movie’s that cool, but Megan Fox runs around a lot in it, so I can’t complain. My girlfriend gets mad when I tell her she would look better with her hair dyed like Megan Fox. I don’t really know why it pisses her off; if you can change yourself to look better, do it. I look better with bleached tips, so I bleach them.

My alarm goes off. 4:05 AM. I wake my cousin up and he moans. I tell him to hurry up or I’m leaving him. He reminds me that he’s the one driving, so I just tell him to hurry up. We get ready pretty quickly. I check my wallet to make sure all my cards are present and we head out the door.

I arrive at Target and there are already something like forty people queued up out front. These losers. Did they have Thanksgiving dinner in line or something? Oh well, I’m still pretty big from football and the people in front of me are mostly overweight moms and pencil-necked Pokemon nerds. It will be pretty easy to overpower them.

We wait a little bit longer and my cousin starts talking about some book he’s reading. I like books, but mostly memoir books. Well, mostly memoir books by Peyton Manning. He babbles on, but I stop listening once I see a figure with a red vest walk to the doors and begin unlocking them. The crowd begins to rouse and I get my game face on.

Two fifty inch plasma HD TVs.
Zenith surround sound system.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Assassin’s Creed 2

All for killer deals.

That’s my focus. Nothing else. The doors open and everybody begins to rush inside. I successfully push through about fifteen people to make it inside the store before them and my hunt begins. Top priority – The plasma TVs, $300 each. Insane deals. Absolute musts. I put my running skills to the test and pass up a few string bean kids and a short plump woman that looks like George Costanza.

I reach the electronic section with the plasma screens. There’s already a guy who has the first two in his shopping cart and is reaching for another one. There are four left. I’m still OK. I tap my foot impatiently as he reaches for the next one. He’s slowly budging it off the shelf and my hand starts shaking. I don’t have time for this. I need to get moving. I ask him if he needs any help, but he says he’s fine. There are more people that are accumulating in the store and my chances of getting the rest of my items are going down. The TVs are my top priority, but I need to get out of here with one hundred percent of what I came in for. He slowly inches the TV screen off the shelf. I offer my services one more time and he responds in an annoyed manner that he’s got it. That’s it. I reach into his shopping cart and take out the two TVs that he has in there and speed off. I hear him yell something as I run toward the gaming section, but I just tell him to get the other TVs because I’m in a hurry.

My cousin meets up with me and I tell him to watch over the TVs while I get the games. He agrees and I rush over to the aisle with Call of Duty 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2. Suddenly, my speed skills are rendered moot, as I run into a crowd of about fifty people all rushing toward the games. I find myself caught in the middle of the siege of people and unable to move my legs as much. This doesn’t faze me, I played right tackle in high school; I know how to get through people. I lock my fists together and begin shoving people out my way. Several others are doing this as well, but not to the degree that I am. Nobody’s going to get those two games over me. I’ve prepared way too long for this. As I mow down people in front of me, I reach a point where I have stopped feeling the ground beneath me. There is a squishiness beneath my shoes and I then realize it’s a person’s face on the ground. I can’t stop now. People are still pushing. The games are only thirty dollars each. That’s half off. I’d stop and help that person if it were any other circumstance, but I promised myself that I’d get every last item on my list.

Finally I reach the glass pane display with the shining light on my two games for everybody to see. There are several copies left and the salesperson hands me both of them upon request. My mission is almost complete. I turn to head to the sound system aisle, but I’m trapped with all the other people still trying to get their games. I begin to squeeze out, but nobody is budging. Can’t these idiots see that I need to get out of here? I’m trying to be nice on the way out but everybody keeps pushing against me. I’m right up against the glass and I can’t move because of the current of people opposing me.

I stand there getting more and more aggravated at the fact that I can’t move; I even try some of my right tackle maneuvers, but the number of everyone has grown too large. I try to call up my cousin to see if he can go get the sound system, but he doesn’t answer his phone. Where the hell is he? I can’t believe I brought him, I should have brought Casey. Suddenly this short, fat high schooler with a bowl cut starts pushing against me and literally sends me back a few steps. My lower back hits one of the display controllers for a Wii sticking out from the glass pane. Ok. I’m done. I grab the stupid kid by his head and swing him around and bash his head against the glass. It cracks (the glass, not his head… At least I think so) and he drops to the floor. I see an opening. A light at the end of the tunnel. I power towards it before people can close it up again. I leap out of the crowd of people and I’m free.

With the two games tucked under my armpit, which is getting slippery from all the sweat, I high tail it over to the sound section. I turn around a corner of iPod docs and there it is — A single Zenith DA3520 Home Theater System remains, and it sits solely with the 120 dollar price tag, waiting for me. I advance towards it, but then my peripherals pick up another figure. I look to my left. It’s Casey. I then see that he’s also eyeing the same box of electronic goodness that I am. Casey’s my best friend and he’s a damn good Black Friday shopper, but he will not be the victor this morning. I promised myself I’d get every item on my list, come hell or high water. I don’t know if this situation would be classified under either, but best friend or not, he’s not getting MY Zenith home theater system.
“Hey man,” he says to me, pleasantly.
“Hey Casey,” I say. “You can come over to my house whenever you want to check out the system, once I set it up.”
“Oh, I don’t think so!”
With that we both make a mad dash towards the box. He’s faster than me, but I’m bigger, he reaches the Zenith box right before me but I pounce on him and we both go sliding across the floor of Target with our hands on the system. In an effort to gain leverage, I heave my elbow back at Casey and land a blow square on his nose. He lets go of the sound system and goes into the fetal position to clutchhis nose which has started trickling blood. Well, the blood coming from his nose is more than a trickle, but he’ll be fine. I climb to my feet in a dazed manner and compose myself. I reach down in my pocket to grab my phone and hear Casey rolling around on the ground yelling obscenities at me. Geez, Casey. He may have the mouth of a seller, but he could never take hard hits in football practice.
I call my cousin and again there’s no answer. Dammit, where the hell is he? I need to get in line before they get too long. Whatever, I’m sure he’s already in line. My cousin may not be the coolest of kids, but he’s pretty sharp in these situations. I hustle over to get in the check out line and finally stop to take a breath. My body hasn’t had this much adrenaline pumping through it since the forth quarter of the state championship game. I need to start working out again, this is a rush.
As the line gets closer to the clerk, I reach for my wallet and find, to my horror, nothing but an empty pocket with a large tear in it. Fuck. I holler out loud with fury and several people stare at me with a collective contorted expression on their faces. I turn to head back to the gaming area because I figure that’s where my pocket was torn. Dammit. I should be walking to my cousin’s car by now. I head back towards the gaming department and I see paramedics walking in and taking some random guy out in a stretcher. Geez, these Black Friday things are crazy. All of a sudden I see my cousin. And he doesn’t have the TVs with him! What is his g**damn problem? I start walking over to strangle him when I notice the two men in black uniforms with him. In an instant, all three of them look up at me and my cousin points me out. From out behind them steps the guy I stole the TVs from. Are you kidding me? He really got upset about that? I can’t believe this is going on.
I figure the TVs are a loss. Shit. I’ll still get them somehow; those two TVs are probably going to be put away, but they’ll restock them later today. I’ll come back with a hat and scarf on or something so they won’t recognize me. The two security guards and my cousin and the douche bag I won the TVs over are about twenty feet from the exit of the store and walking toward me. Wallet or not, I’m going to get these items back to my house. I lift my foot up defiantly to the two candy ass security guards and book it towards the doors to make my escape.
They realize I’m doing this as I speed to the doors and turn to go after me, but there’s no way they’re going to beat me. I’ll be at the door of my cousin’s car before they get outside the store. I am five feet from the door; this is it, I’m almost free, fresh air and great gaming awaits me at home. As I stick my hand out to push open the door, a push cart with my two HDTVs for 300 dollars each (killer deal) slides out recklessly in front of me. For a split second I feel like I’ve been blessed and I’ll be able to push these bad boys out to my car as well.
Two fifty inch plasma HD TVs.
Zenith surround sound system.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Assassin’s Creed 2

Awesome.
But before I can stop, I collide with both of them as they domino over and I fly forehead first into the glass doors of Target. I go through the door and land on the other side on my stomach as shards of glass bounce around me. I look up with my head spinning to see the security guards approaching me.
*******
I’m out the door right after Thanksgiving dinner and on my way to Wal Mart. The list has been running through my head ever since I saw the deals listed in the newspaper. This time I’m bringing Casey with me and not my stupid cousin who rats me out when they think he’s the one who stole the TVs from the guy. I figure with Casey, it’s best to join forces, and he forgave me pretty quickly for breaking his nose; he knows how competitive I am. Plus I had already done it once in practice and he his nose is pretty Owen Wilson to begin with. The TVs didn’t turn out to be such a big deal, the kid whose head I cracked against the glass was hurt pretty badly, but I only had to go to jail for three months with a plea and obeyance. The five hundred hours of community service kind of sucks, though, but whatever, I’m used to physical labor.
I’m doing things much smarter this year, I’m going to be first in line and rely on my speed more than my force. There aren’t any laws against speeding.
A forty eight inch Plasma HDTV.
Grand Theft Auto V
Halo 4
Pioneer subwoofers

Oh yeah. Killer deals.

2 Corinthians 10: 3 – Anti-War?

There have been about eight hundred billion posts by now by Christians like myself who don’t necessarily understand why Christianity has become predominantly conservative. There are several issues that many people feel safe siding with the right on as a Christian (gay marriage and abortion), but it seems a bit silly to me that there are so many Christians that seem to be pro-war and anti-hippy. Now I know that hippies can be extremely annoying and smelly, but let us not forgot the first hippy – Jesus Christ. A dude wearing a robe with long hair and a beard wandering around prophesying about loving your neighbor and your enemy and everybody else. It’s such a wonder that every red lettered sentence in the bible doesn’t end with: “, man.”

He was also something of a liberal back then and the pharisees were the conservatives. Here comes some guy who threatens to change everything and begins gathering a lot of followers that support him. This, of course, pisses the pharisees off and they spend all their time slandering him (sound like Fox News to you at all?) OK, that last comparison was a little spurious and the same could be said about the liberal media with conservatives, but I was rolling with something, OK?

I was reading the Bible the other day and I came across quite possibly one of my chapters ever (which I had never read before). 2 Corinthians 10. It’s full of awesome verses, definitely check it out, but this one popped out the most to me: Verse 3-4 “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.”

There it is as clear as day. An anti-war message in the middle of the Bible. Even the Bible is too liberal for some of these conservative pharisees.

It just really makes one wonder… More later.

-CSL

The role of God in my life the past few weeks.

Colin says:

Whenever I have a significant problem or grievance of sorts in my life, it always feels like the worst problem I’ve ever had. And even when it doesn’t feel that way, thinking of how things have been worse doesn’t make me feel any better. I generally think it’s the same with most people. The phrase “time heals all wounds” is certainly accurate, but the problem with having a wound being slowly mended by time is that– It feels about fifty times longer than it really is and sometimes we need a little reassurance along the way.

Considering that God knows everybody personally and knows all their personal problems, He’s the one who knows whose problems are the worst and whose are the most miniscule. The things that I’ve been struggling with recently don’t involve making a house payment (attaining financial stability, sure, but I’m not in trouble), finding where my next meal comes from, worrying about a warm place to sleep or even legal troubles. My struggles are more of the emotional sort and while all problems deal with emotions, I think it’s pretty safe to say that my problems are pretty miniscule compared to the ones I just listed.

The greatest thing about God is that I’m a spoiled brat in that I’m worried about emotional problems when there are teenagers in Haiti that have no comprehension of the question: “What do you do for fun?” There are a billion people out there whose life is exclusively about survival, no worries of career choice, spousal choice or even an ability to fathom what the world “leisure” might entail. By all means God should be smacking across the back of the head and saying: “Are you kidding me with this? You’re an asshole for even contemplating these things as problems while billions of my people are dying in the dirt!”

He doesn’t do that, though. He takes my problems just as seriously as anybody else’s and realizes that the mind is where the problems lie. God understands my mind better than anybody else and better than I do. I’ve been praying a lot to Him the past month or so and He has been answering and reassuring me that He’s there, even when I feel like I’m talking to nobody.

About three weeks ago, I had a very depressing day. Dealing with certain things was attacking my emotions all while at work (which sucks considering I’m answering phone calls for irked customers deprived of their merchandise purchased on eBay), I was looking forward to seeing the movie “Where the Wild Things Are” that night, thinking: “Yes, today sucks, but it will be fine tonight because I’m going to see WtWTA with two of my best friends. That will make me feel better. Spike Jonze, awesome effects, what could go wrong?” Well, the film itself was one of the most depressing movies I’ve ever seen. I went home that night, climbing into bed in my lonely apartment, feeling cold, hopeless and empty.

The next morning wasn’t any different. I woke up in the exact same mood that I went to sleep in, only now I had eight hours of work to look forward to on a Saturday afternoon. Driving to work, with the sky still a dark blue, daylight savings time having not happened yet, I began praying to God. As I prayed, however, I felt like I was just talking to myself, I felt like there was nobody up there listening to me and it was all bunch of bull shit, but somewhere inside of me, I didn’t feel that– Because I just began crying out to God, not asking for a sign, but just asking Him to help me. As Anne Lamott says, she only has two kinds of prayers: “Help me, help me, help me” and “thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Thirty seconds past. At best. I looked to my left and saw the mountains. Dark, yet clearly visible silhouettes of them against the shadowy blue of the sky. I was right at a point on the freeway where the long row of mountains took a dip, and right as the mountains began to dip, there was a cloud that began right as the mountains began descending and ended right where the mountains concluded their ascent. It was like a bridge– And above the cloudy bridge, there sat a single star, that, as I drove, was crossing over the cloud. The whole scene looked like this:

Now, whenever somebody tries to interpret a dream to me, I find myself rolling my eyes and just thinking: What a bunch of crap. Call me cynical, but think trying to relate dreams to every little aspect of your life is a bit extreme. The thing is, though, that image that I saw, an allegorical portrait of nature that God had painted for me, gave me so much to interpret and so much to analyze, yet it was very simple and it shut me up. The moment that I saw that, I felt peaceful and warm and within another thirty seconds, the image was gone, but the star kept moving over the mountains, having completed its course over the cloudy bridge. I felt like I was at a dip in my life and instead of letting me fall to the bottom with a quick descent, God stepped in, as He does, and guided me over what could be a very harrowing mess without Him.

The single star also felt very significant to me. Up until just now, I always remembered a scene in Ben Hur where Jesus appeared and everybody was looking at him and to each individual it looked like He was looking at just them. I YouTubed the scene really quickly and found that it wasn’t in the movie (Jesus does show up, though), but I still remember that depiction of Him. It makes perfect sense to me, though. Jesus and God look at us each individually as if we are the only thing that matters to Him, He does this for all of His sons and daughters. I only saw one star in the sky that morning. I am God’s only star in the sky. Just like you are. And everybody else is. He knows all of us as if we are the only person He knows. That’s omnipotence for you. It was another comforting sign that God gave to me to give me truth and comfort. The moment I got to work I jotted that image in a John Nash-like frenzy. It will forever be significant to me and was an amazing answer from God in a moment of weakness and despair for me.

God does say no to us at times because if He gave us direct answers and solace every time we turned to Him, we wouldn’t progress, we’d just become lethargic and ask Him to do everything for us. There’s a reason he gave us able-bodies and able-brains. However, I think there are times in our lives when He knows that we need to something to hang onto. And I feel like that time is now for me. I am a non-denominational Christian in Salt Lake City, sometimes it can be a little lonely and God is helping me keep strong through times of weariness.

I prayed to God also, having felt detached from people about a week ago, and it was followed up with an amazing and enlightening conversation with my friend, Shane. I prayed to God to have my Bible that I had lost returned to me, and two weeks later, my friend Forrest turned up with it.

There were two topics I was interested in hearing be discussed in a church-setting as a sermon. The controversial and more disconcerting areas of the Bible and Satan, himself, the adversary. I felt like I needed to hear pastors address these matters because a lot of non-denom Christian churches seem to avoid these topics as they are not as pleasing to the ear as other biblical topics such as grace. Well, I have two services I go to, one on Sunday evenings called The Mount and another on Tuesday evenings called UteNited. On Sunday, the topic was Psalm 137, a psalm that ends with the Jews wishing for their enemies’ children to be smashed against rocks. If you’d like to hear it, it was a sermon given by Chad Whitehead and is very eloquent and meaningful – Here. Then, two nights later, the topic of the night was Satan… The moment it was revealed that that would be the topic of discussion, I literally looked up and said: “Are you kidding me?” It felt a little too convenient to be considered coincidental.

I don’t mean for this to be a listing off of prayers answered or to try to convince anybody of Christianity’s validity, I just felt like I should put these all down for me to remember and for anybody who may appreciate them. I have not proofread this thing and it may read as erratically as it was written. If I have any advice for you, it’s this — Pray to God. Even when you just feel like you’re having a conversation with yourself, He is listening and He will help you be strong. Always have full confidence that whatever God does for you will be the right thing.

-CSL

So I just saw The Invention of Lying…

I am a huge fan of Ricky Gervais. His wit and talent are so wonderful and I’m glad that he’s starting to grow in the United States. Last year he came out with a wonderful comedy gem called Ghost Town that made about forty dollars at the box office. Now, he’s packed a movie with famous faces and gave it another go with a somewhat original concept, but one that seemed to be something he would revel in.

The movie’s pretty darn funny, but it gets awfully heavy-handed when it decides to tackle the topic of not only religion, but any kind of belief whatsoever. Now, frankly, I have no problems with well thought out arguments against Christianity, supernatural belief and other challenging things of that nature, but what I do dislike, however, is when it’s incredibly blatant and in-your-face not leaving any kind of room for interpretation. Ricky Gervais could have just stared at the screen for ninety minutes and said: “You’re stupid for believing in God!” in his charming, sardonic accent.

I feel like the movie came off as Veggie Tales for atheists. The problem is that the movie is marketed as a fun, upbeat romantic comedy with a big twist on the whole affair. At least with Veggie Tales, you know what you’re getting the moment you pop the DVD in– Corn, tomatoes and celery reenacting biblical stories… Yeah…. Now, I don’t know if they have a Veggie Tales documenting the story of Jesus’ atonement, but if I ever see a shoddily animated cartoon of a potato Roman soldier nailing a cucumber with a beard to a cross making a comical “BWACK” noise, I’m going to flip.

The thing is, be it Christian or Atheist, I’m always against having such a glaring agenda in a film. There’s nothing wrong with political, religious or social commentary, whether it’s cynical or optimistic, it’s a bit shameless (and easy) to rely on mocking people’s beliefs for so many laughs. There are several scenes that were actually quite funny, such as when a man has an exchange with Gervais’ character about the “Man in the sky.”

Man: “Is the man in the sky the reason I was saved when I was on that boat that cap-sized?”
Mark: “Yeah!”
Man: “But… is the man in the sky the reason the boat was cap-sized?”
Mark: “…Yeah.”

That has a good, challenging comedic commentary and it still keeps things lively. But, as if the film itself weren’t obvious enough in its agenda, Gervais literally admits: “There is no man in the sky” at one point. The funny thing is, I felt like I had non-belief shoved down my throat in this movie more than I did when I watched Bill Maher’s film “Religulous” in which the literal point of the movie is to mock, belittle and challenge spiritual belief. The thing is, Bill Maher criticizes even atheists because he says there’s nothing more pompous (and Maher knows pompousness) than somebody saying: “I know for sure” one way or the other.

I agree with Maher on this. Now, I feel that I do know that God is the creator of the universe, but I don’t get my kicks by trying to convince somebody that my way of thinking is right by assuring them that I KNOW that God exists.

So, as a message from a strong admirer of Ricky Gervais: Please, Mr. Gervais, you’re known for your subtle, smart comedy, do not let this change because of any kind of other agenda you may have. You’ve never seemed an oppressive man, but even if you do have an agenda, keep it a little more subtle, a little more open for interpretation and little more respectful.

-CSL

Follow me on Twitter (Sorry for that phrase)

Whenever I hear the phrase “Follow me on Twitter,” I respond with a roll of my eyes and a slow shaking of the head. Twitter confounds me with its popularity. I want to start a website where you can only put a number to say how you are feeling at one time… It’ll be wildly popular!

Anyway, 150 characters just seems very silly to me, I already have a Facebook and I can do other things on it besides that. However… I caved… Me, the last person that anybody (including myself) expected to start a Twitter account… And now… Ahem… You may follow me on Twitter at Twitter.com/sosayscolin (Some meanie took colinsays)

Anyway… Join me and all the other conformists on Twitter! Whooo!

-COLIN

The Christian’s acceptance of lust. (Examiner)

Examiner.com – Religion & Spirituality – The Christian’s acceptance of lust.

The young Christian girl sat on the floor of her boyfriend’s room as he surfed the web for information on school as another friend of hers recounted his recent trip to Las Vegas. When he commenced sharing the fun weekend he had, she piped up about one of her favorite experiences in sin city, which poses, ironically, as an appropriate reference for her anecdote. “Yeah, I love Vegas, I remember once at the mall I saw the hottest guy I have ever seen! He was modeling for some store and as I walked by him, I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at him with my mouth agape. As soon as I realized what I was doing, I sped off embarrassed, but he was just so hot I couldn’t help it!” Her boyfriend, apparently unfazed by this, continued browsing web sites indicating he was accustom to this kind of behavior from his girlfriend.

How many times have you been exposed to a similar situation involving somebody who was married or in an intimate relationship? How many times have you heard a married woman exclaim: “Oh my gosh, Ryan Reynold taking his shirt off was worth the price of admission alone!” or a married man spout: “I about creamed my pants when Megan Fox was bent over the front of the motorcycle!”

This behavior has become widely accepted by many Christians who have subscribed to the idea that it’s not such a big deal to ramble on about a hot girl or guy that isn’t their significant other. We seem to have forgotten a strong message from Jesus in Matthew 5:28: “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Now, Jesus singles out us guys in this passage because we aren’t exactly the fairer of the two sexes, however, it should be apparent that the perpetrators are not limited to either gender.

My pastor several weeks ago, commented on the fact that Jesus was an extremist and that we humans want Him to come down from His high horse to a more practical, easier level. The world of Christianity has done this and we are all guilty of trying to attribute Jesus’ teachings to our feeble, worldly values. The acceptance of: “Well, I can see what’s on the menu as long as I eat at home” has denigrated the Bible and has allowed pseudo-spiritual complacence in committing mindful adultery.

Where many people have gone wrong is not recognizing this seemingly minor misdeed for what it is. A man or a woman will always catch themselves looking at somebody that isn’t their spouse and acknowledging them to be attractive, there is no avoiding that in life, but the problem lies within when somebody lets dwell on that acknowledgment; entertains the thought of that attractive stranger and lets their mind focus on that potential person’s good looks, alluring figure or charm.

Perhaps a strong reason for the continuous iniquity of this manner is the fact that many people do not recognize it as sin. Many husbands and wives have accepted that it is OK for their respective spouse to lust after people other than themselves as long as they are a movie star or celebrity of sorts. This is just as bad. It opens the door for lustful thoughts in the same way a man checking out his neighbor’s wife does. The fact of the matter is that once a person does this and continues to do this, it defames his or her love for their spouse and it defames his or her relationship with God. It leads to masturbation with thoughts of one’s fantasy celebrities or even thoughts of somebody else while making love to one’s spouse. It then leads to adultery, the act of physically cheating on one’s spouse. Everything starts out as a thought, and a thought can be just as damaging as an action. Jesus knew this when He spoke about it in Matthew and we, as His followers, should pay much stronger attention to this verse and apply it more directly in our lives.

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God…” Thessalonians 4:3-5