Last Weekend

This past Friday was my dad's 64th birthday - quite cool. His girlfriend, Elsie, emailed me a couple weeks ago asking if I could come home for the weekend for the party, and we decided to make it a surprise! I was very excited, I love surprises! And then my car broke down two Thursdays ago. I was on the way to Autozone to buy new windshield wipers when suddenly my car began to overheat. Fortunately I made it to Autozone, where I stressfully asked them if they could take a look at it and tell my why it was doing that (overheating car=REALLY BAD!!). The guy looked at it, scratched his head, and called his boss, who proceeded to pour a bucket of cold water over my engine block and tell me that they had no idea why it was overheating, but they'd cooled it down enough that I would probably be able to get back to school ok. I was pretty stressed at this point. They had just ruled out all the easy solutions, and therefore all the cheap ones, so all I knew was that there was something seriously wrong with with my car, that it was probably going to be expensive to fix, and that I may or may not be able to make it home for my dad's birthday. I definitely very stressed, but hadn't even approached full freak-out mode like I usually do when I have car trouble. So anyway, I made it all the way to the Shell station about 2 miles from my school when my car got way too hot and just shut down. I managed to pull it into the parking lot of the gas station, where I walked in and rather absurdly explained to the man at the register that my car had overheated and asked him if he had a bucket I could use to pour some water over my engine. He gave me a coffee pot. I couldn't help but start laughing; the whole thing was just too absurd. So I walked back and forth from the bathroom through the parking lot, pouring about ten coffee pots full of cold water over my steaming engine block until I finally got it cooled down enough to make it back to school. I took it to the mechanic last Monday, where they discovered I had a worn out hose and replaced it for $97. I got my car back on Thursday without even freaking out once. I'm quite happy at how I've grown when it comes to my car : ).

Best of all, I still got to have an awesome weekend! I love road trips, and I drove home Friday afternoon and got to spend some real quality time with my dear Onelia for the first time since May, which is way too long. We went to the Loganville High School football game, which would have been quite boring if we hadn't gone to see my sister at work instructing her colorguard, which was quite impressive. I couldn't do it; my tolerance for stupid teenage crap has dwindled over the last few years. But she was really good. And then, Saturday! My dad's birthday party! Julie and I drove over to his house, and Elsie left the front door open for us so we could sneak and wait on the living room couch for Dad to come down the hallway and see us. It was so much fun! He'll never say it, but I know it meant a lot to him that I drove down for his birthday. My dad and I are actually starting to have a real relationship now; after dinner we spent the hours talking and listening to his stories about life. It was great, and well worth the drive and all the homework I did Sunday night. I thank God for granting me some healing in my relationship with my dad, and I'm looking forward to more in the future.

"See, Me and God Have a Deal"

I have heard these words far too often, people justifying doing whatever they want and basically ignoring God while claiming to have faith in Him. It makes me sad to hear people say things like this, because it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of who God is and what He wants from us. To say you and God have a deal is to act under the assumption that He wants someTHING from you, that He wanted you to do something particular, like go to church or read your Bible every day, and you talked with Him and worked out a deal that allowed you to do something else, like skip church and just be nice to people instead, that would still satisfy His requirement of you and allow you to remain in good standing with Him and go to Heaven.

That is messed up, and it makes me very, very sad to hear, because it is dropping God once again into that box of legalistic scorekeeper, who doesn't really care about your heart and just wants you to do something for Him to satisfy Him. This is tragic, and I'm so tired of hearing this view of God and other manifestations of it. This is so wrong, and so opposite of our beautiful, free, wild, loving God! I feel like once people know God for how free and loving He really is, no one can possibly not want Him! I want the lies to stop! It breaks my heart to see how so many people don't understand that what God really wants is not for them to do something for Him, He just wants them, exactly as they are. I want the lies to stop.

Perfect Timing

After I wrote the blog below, I turned to my homework. I was reading the biography of Dorothy Day (she's awesome; look her up) for my Lifestyles of Nonviolence class and the second page I read, about two minutes after having wrote that last post contained this quote of her, speaking of the young students that came to volunteer with her ministry:

"Many left the work because they could see no use in this gesture of feeding the poor, and because of their own shame." The biographer continues, "The shame to which she refers is an angry shame that such misery continues to exist."

That is exactly what I have been feeling: shame. I am ashamed that millions of people die for lack of the things that I take for granted. I am ashamed that I trow away food I don't want to eat when people are starving to death, and I am ashamed that I live in a culture of such disgusting affluence when people are suffering and dying for lack of even the minimal requirements for survival. But most of all I am ashamed that I am doing nothing about it.