The Onion strikes again!

My recent favorite from the Onion. Enjoy.

sacrifice

I was inspired a couple weeks ago by a post one of the speakers on my DTS, Phil, put up. The jist of his post is that sacrifice is hard, but we should try it.

I'm so driven by things in this world. Dorm food can be SO good (I know - weird that I think that) and my flesh can't resist it. I realized this about myself and decided to take Phil up on his challenge to sacrifice one thing every Thursday and see how that changes (or doesn't change, heaven forbid) my mindset.

I wrote material about fasting during my first year on summer camp staff with Redeemer Lutheran Church. When sifting through what people had to say about fasting, I learned so much. Fasting helps us see the raw version of ourselves. Who are we when we don't have food, money, status, the novelties in life to cover us up? What is the rawness of myself, just me? It kind of blows me away.

I think it also helps you realize what you actually need. When we live privileged lives, our gauge on what is necessary and what isn't becomes skewed. I volunteered at Kid's Night Out on Friday. I experienced a BIG temper tantrum by any and every kid who didn't get, or had to share, a balloon. Oh. My. Goodness. It was a hard thing to stomach in light of seeing disciplined, easy-to-please kids in Uganda. But the Friday tantrums made me realize that we do the same thing everyday. Maybe I don't wail on the floor, kicking and screaming, when I don't get something I want. But I do get grumpy when I don't get something I feel I'm entitled to, something I think I need when I actually don't. Poor American ...

I want to learn the nature of sacrifice, to be refined by it. I want realness and authenticity in relationships unhindered by novel and material things. I want sacrifice to become a daily thing that helps me go back to the heart of what kind of person I am. I think here is where God will refine my character the most.

Perspective

Well, the holidays are approaching and I saw a video at church on Sunday that puts them into perspective. This video brought me so much joy.

The Advent Conspiracy

Home?

My best friend, Sarah, came to visit me this weekend. It was wonderful.

It was also weird. She's part of my home. But I've also made a sort of home here in Madison. The home that Sarah is is different from the Madison home. So it was almost a strange clashing of worlds in my head.

And then there was DTS. Furby Street became my home. I missed it more than home home when I was on outreach in Uganda. And each person that was on DTS with me embodies Winnipeg home.

I feel I have all these places and people that make me feel home. And they're scattered. I have one in Brisbane, Australia. They're all over Canada. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio.

And it's so surreal and unnatural when two of your separate homes are together. Like Sarah in Madison. It's fun to have a friend from home in your home away from home, but it makes you miss the home they came from all the more. And you feel out of place - which I am NOT blaming Sarah for, nor am I saying it's a bad thing. I guess what I'm trying to say is simply that the different contexts of my life are separated in my head. When they come together, it's strange.

Yes, I'm confused too. : )

Thanks for letting me process.

Man, I have not posted in a while. It has been crazy!!

And it's funny because this post is taking me two seconds, to share this hilarious tattoo...

Can't wait to actually hear Jesus laugh at one of my jokes. Bahaha.

Contemporary American Society

I'm taking a class right now called Contemporary American Society. Yes, ok, what does that mean? The way I like to sum it up is a discussion about the ideals and dreams that American was built on and how we're doing so far.

What I'm learning is that we are straying, and that our country doesn't seem that great to me anymore. Harsh, I know. But after hearing about consumerism, health care, weak unions, exploitation of other countries, homelessness, and our selfishness as a nation? It's hard to think any other way.

As part of this class, we're required to memorize Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. I haven't memorized yet, but I'm excited to. To me, he brings up the idea that we are nation whose ideals are worth fighting for - and I think fighting for them is required, because they're not easy. Lincoln still believed in the States and I'm wanting to, also. It's good to be reminded of what he said:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I wonder what good ol' Abe would do if he saw us now...