You know what really grinds my gears?

So I've decided to rant. I've been really frustrated about this topic for a long time and now I have a small, very very small, pedestal from which to rant. I told you that not every topic on my blog would be about my faith. A majority? Yes, because it's a huge aspect in my life. However, this one was just waiting to burst. OK, enough with the preamble to this declaration of insanity and here goes. For all you who hate sports, this is about sports, however, don't give up just yet.

So this whole OSU debacle has come about and made me wonder what what is going on. I've thought about this and about college sports and professional sports and all that. Here, what I think, is the issue. WE ARE. Every sports fan who pays ridiculous amounts of money for games and memorabilia. Some may say "supply and demand." You are exactly right, and that is the issue. If we did have sports as such a high priority and idolize these athletes would all this be such an issue? It says something when our country is in the midst of a recession and pro athletes want more money. When so many people don't have jobs yet we still pack the seats for Saturday and Sunday football. I'm no less to blame then anyone else because this summer I'm be sporting my Tigers apparel and next fall my U of M gear and Wings paraphernalia. ( I wonder if I can use another word for sports stuff?) When it comes down to it, we value sports A LOT and students in college are going to be focused on there sports over their academics in to many cases because of what we did. It's not just OSU (and no I'm not writing this because I'm a Michigan fan). It was Michigan at one point in basketball, and look at Newton and Bush. If you wanna make money off of your college career, WAIT FOUR YEARS. I guess greed may have a little to do with it too (still think that's our society too). College should not be about what you can make off of what you did on the field, that's why these rules are in place. You should be there to GET AN EDUCATION. That's what college is for, right? Maybe I missed the point my five years (I liked it so much I extended my stay). Needless to say I think that it's all kinda silly either way. The fact that people are so angry about this whole situation speaks to what I've just said. Think about this as I end this horribly controversial blog. How many of you read my blogs before and liked them or did like them or whatever and didn't comment? Until this point, how many of you were about to comment just now? What does that say? (Please still feel free to comment as always)

Ok I will end it hear. I love you readers regardless if you agree or disagree with this blog. I know that you may now think that I am a total fool for even thinking that this blog, this one particularly or the whole blasted thing, was a good idea. Either way, I hope that this doesn't split my small, limited readership. I know that this may make some of you very angry and I hope that you can take a deep breath and come back and see me for my next blog. But know that this is just one lonely mans opinion. In the grand scheme of things, it won't win my friends or save any souls. I hope you understand I just want you to think about this whole situation from a perspective that you, perhaps, didn't see. In the end, I still think love is important. Beyond the football, the baseball, the basketball, and (for the limited few) the hockey. Many of us enjoy sports to much for this to probably change any time soon. Even now as I finish this up I wonder why I even bothered to write something about this when it has no value on our eternal salvation. Will this help me to influence any of your lives? Paul didn't believe in some of the Jewish customs, yet he did them so he could relate. So, again, take a deep breath and PLEASE come back for a blog when I talk about things that I think TRULY matter, or perhaps I'll rant on something meaningless again. Either way I'll try to make it somewhat entertaining.

WITH LOVE,
                 Optimistic Prime (I think I shall start signing my blogs like this. Yes or no?)

LOVE THIS!!!

I've posted this a lot but it helps to remind me how to love, enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WybvhRu9KU

What is Love... Part 2...1/2 or something.

So I was thinking about this whole love thing today and just started thinking about God's love for me. It made me think about the unconditionality (yes I use my own made up words from time to time) of it. I think that it may have been implied but I think I want to say it. Our love of other people should be similar to that of God's for us. No we can't do it perfect, because we aren't perfect. However, I think it's important to see the humanity in people. A few weeks ago, ok months ago, we talked about forgiveness in church. One of the important things we talked about was seeing the humanity of those who have hurt us. At that point we can begin to forgive. There is a lot more context to that that is important, however, I think seeing the humanity in people can also help us love people. It can help us to love them beyond the flaws we see. Love them regardless of the mistakes we think they make. As I sit here on my lunch break and work and just looking at some of the people I work with that I can find hard to love. It's important for me to a) see their humanity and realize they are no more or less of a human than me and b) to love them despite what I don't like and despite what they may do. Why? Because that's how God loved me. Not because what I can do for Him or what I can bring to His table, but because He's crazy about me and thinks the world of me because I am me. Exactly as I am. It's a strange concept to think about love people for no reason and I don't think it's cultural at all. We are born looking for people to give us something to make us like them. Anyhow, this entry is starting to ramble and my break is almost up. Time to go love some people. Next time you get angry and frustrated with someone, stop and see their humanity. To those of you who read this, I love you guys.

What is love... Part 2

Well I wanted to update my blog much sooner. However, for the past almost week I've been gone and just recently go back into town. For those of you who are interested, it was a great weekish. So my last blog I left is somewhat of a cliff hanger. So I will attempt to answer what I believe it is to love. Or at least the small understanding that I have from what God has taught me.

I grew up, as I said, in a Mennonite church. While there was a lot of good in my church, there was also some legalism (not isolated to Mennonite churches by any means, just my experience). There was a lot of making sure you do the right things and follow all the right "rules" especially on Sunday. That leads to a whole other topic on a 24/7 Christian life, however, back to my topic that I will actually finish...maybe. All these rules just seemed to lead to judgement. I look at people and what they were or weren't doing. It was almost normal to sit around with friends and just talk about people. "Did you hear what ______ did?" All these things that were just tearing people down, and ultimately, destroying the church. It wasn't until I started to learn what love was that I realized that this was just selfish and wrong. So what did I learn? I learned that I need to see the good in people. I need to see past the things I think. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell me that I should judge my brothers and sisters. It does say I should love. I also realized that Matthew 7:3 was very relevant to my life. I was spending so much time look at others that I missed myself. Often the things that bothered me in others were things I saw in myself. However, what I truly needed to do was learn to love myself and then love others. Love was not seeing what people did wrong, but loving them and caring about them despite it. Once I began to learn that, it was amazing how my attitude towards people changed. I no longer was angry or bitter at them, but I was longing for them to feel loved. It was no longer about what they did or didn't do, but what I could do so that they know I love them. I do not claim that I do this perfect, or even well, but God is working on me still, and forever will be. But learning to see people through God's eyes and not through mine is one of the biggest steps in my faith I think I've ever made. There is so much that can be done and such an impact if we simply loved. Imagine if all those who said they were Christians loved in the way Christ did. What kind of impact would that have? A good place to start is by looking at yourself and to be an example of Christ's love to the world.

On a lighter note, I've graduated college, finally. It only took me five years... Any ideas what to do with my life now?

What is love? Baby don't hurt me....

So love. What a huge powerful, meaningful word that can do so much. Yet, it is tossed around every day like it's simply nothing. "Man, I love that car." "I love cheeseburgers. Their taste dances on my tongue." You get the idea, and probably also understand I enjoy a good cheeseburger. However, is it all the same? John Mark McMillan talks about this in a commentary to a song he wrong called How He Loves and how there are different kinds of love. Has that word become so overused that it has lost it's real meaning? Do we as people know how to love one another?

In 1 John 3:18 it says, "Dear children, let's not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. (New Living Translation)" I look around at our country, at our world, and wonder if we as humans are truly capable of loving our fellow humans.

Over the past few years, God has been working on my heart and mind about this idea of love. A verse that comes to mind is Mark 12:31. The basic idea is love others as you love yourself. Well that was easy for me. More for the fact that I was a self-loather than the fact I could easily love people. When you don't love yourself, it's easy not to love the rest of the people. So maybe the key to this was to love myself first.

For that we have to delve into the question of loving me. Why couldn't I love me? I think one of the biggest reasons for why it is so hard for me to love myself is because of where I find my value (As a side note, I do not have this all figured out by any means. This is simply where God has brought me so far). For far too long I have looked to other people to find out who I am. I look around at the people in my life, the society I live in, the groups I "run" with to find out who I should be and what is acceptable. I focused so much energy on trying to decipher the right things to do that I completely lost who I was. While there were times I liked myself, when you are trying to please everyone, you eventually become so burned out and weighed down you kind of start to hate yourself. Hence, I became a self-loather.

All this to say, God has shown me that there is no way I can ever be happy with myself until I find a definite and constant source to find my identity. Simply put, Him. I've slowly been moving my identity from the people around me to God. When I look to God, I am a man, who is loved. Not because I did something or deserve it, but because God loves me. With that, there is never someone I have to please, because He is pleased with me for who I truly am. Only after I finally learned to start at least liking myself because I am God's creation, can I start seeing others as they truly are. Beautiful creations of God, regardless of anything. Only after I began to love myself could I even fathom loving someone else.

So looking back over my post... I never answered what I started with. Do we still know how to love? Well maybe I will save that for next time because this has gone on far too long.

An Introduction

Ok so here goes whatever this is. I'm a twenty something year old post college student with a lot of ideas... and no where to put them. So here they are. Wrapped up in this neat little thing called a blog. I think the inspiration goes to my brother and sister who have started blogging as well. If they can do it, so can I. Perhaps not as well, but there will be posts.

So what is this blog going to be all about? I'm not sure where it's going to go. Because I recently graduated with a degree in education, I'm sure it will involve some of my teaching. I've also been dabbling in poetry, so it may contain some of that. I have also been looking into my faith and what I believe about Christ. I can promise you it will contain that. My life has be an interesting roller coaster of events to make me who I am, so this will also contain some personal lessons I've learned. Before I continue to aimless explain what you are going to read perhaps you should know some more about me.

From a young age, I grew up in a conservative family, conservative community, conservative life. I was conservative. To the point that I went to a conservative mennonite school through eighth grade. For High School I went to a public school, which was somewhat life changing. However, it was still a conservative community. For college I went to a state college that is, well easily put, completely not conservative. And that is where my life has been for the last 5 years (yeah 4 year degree, I know). My perspective may not be as unique as I'd like to think it may be, but I like the perspective on life that I have. (While we are on the topic about how I think, I think I'm hilarious so be warned. I promise there will be lame jokes and stupid puns, but back to the topic at hand.) I am a self proclaimed optimist. If you've ever seen the play Spamalot or seen the movie The Holy Grail, you may know the song Always Look On the Bright Side of Life... that pretty much explains it. I may be optimistic to the point of my own demise, but it's me and I like it.

Well enough about me and this blog. I'm sure to have a lot of spare time this summer so I'm sure that I will be back before long. I promise the next post to be something of substance. But, as the title of this post said, it was simply an introduction to what this is. Hope you enjoy. If you don't... well then don't read it.