Stand up. Speak out.

Taking classes from a secular college with some extremely secularly-minded teachers has led me to some interesting conversations, at many times frustrated me to distraction, and more often spurred me to say and write my opinion and beliefs in my assignments. It's led me to find creative ways to find out how to make them a necessary part my of speech or paper and the fact that my teacher must read it is always fun. I don't mean it in a bad way and I don't do it without purpose. But after sitting day after day in class being stuffed with not information, but crappy opinion, my piston occasionally busts.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Our lives begin to end on the day that we become silent about things that matter.” I believe that this is true. But I also know how very easy it is to be smothered by secularism. To think that your voice doesn't matter. It really is so easy to go to class, take a few notes, and like a machine, produce information and papers made up of your teacher's opinions or the social norm. But in this, you will become a puppet, void of life.

As Christians we are commanded to live out our faith. I'm not saying the solution is always speaking aloud. Sometimes it's an action - a demonstration or prayer. It certainly is not always something in our comfort zone. But if we refuse to stand up for what we believe, for truth, for justice....as Mr King stated...our lives begin to end.

I have this English teacher who is obsessed with feminism. Give her any story and she will point out the most obsolete sentence as an indication that the male in the story is a raving or creeping misogynist. It gets old. I would like to say, "No matter how much you stomp on that overflowing garbage - no more will fit, lady." I have challenged a lot of her opinions in class especially when they seem to drift entirely off the story's course. We rarely come to an agreement.

My speech teacher, who would actually be a perfect definition for my English teacher of a misogynist, grates on me in an entirely different manner. But Monday's class was something different - I was actually incensed with anger.

My speech teacher was sorting out different kinds of speech outlines we can use and told two stories which I found absolutely false. The first story was about bible-boy and non-bible-boy and his summing point was that the bible says ALL killing is wrong. He was basing his claim off of the 10 Commandments and God commanding us not to murder - God ordered his chosen people to "kill" numerous times throughout scripture. The speech teacher also has a hard time with absolutes, like, one concept being right and one concept being wrong. He usually finds a way for them both to be right. Stupid. Then Mr Speech Teacher went into a story about Doctor Kevorkian and pitying the fact that he was imprisoned merely for helping terminal patients to die a noble death. Now, this is completely inaccurate information. Doctor Kevorkian is a creep who was dubbed "Dr. Death" because he didn't "help" terminally ill patients but people who were very much alive. In need of psychological help? Most assuredly. About to die? Certainly not from natural causes.

So as I sat in the front of class watching these words spill out from Mr Speech Teacher's mouth I felt a feeling of such absolute anger sweep over me. I told myself, I am not hearing what I think I am hearing. I turned around, which is rather awkward to stare at everyone else in the room for no apparent reason, to see what effect this information was doing to them. No one raised a hand. No one said anything. I was flabbergasted. I felt I had to say something to refute. I found myself speechless...and feeling very hot and red all over. Class was instantly dismissed. I felt like a description from a book.

For the next two hours, every time I thought about that class, I flushed again. I knew I had to say something.

Today I had my moment. I went to class and frantically tried to think and pray about how to really approach this. God placed the opportunity right in my hand. My teacher actually mentioned the bible-boy/non-bible-boy story and so I raised my hand..."actually," I said a bit shyly, "the bible isn't actually..." and I simply pointed out the error. Mr Teacher brushed it off that it wasn't material to his point. Oh well. At least the earth didn't open up and swallow me for saying so. Then he brought up the other story - Again, I raised and said, "Um, well, I have something to say about this one too." Mr Teacher sighed and allowed me to go on. I pointed out a brief fact about Doctor Kevorkian - the class chuckled - we had a short disagreement and Mr Teacher ended with, "well I supposed we could check the facts later." Like facts don't matter or something. Weird.

Stand up for what you believe. Sometimes it may not feel like you're making a difference but you never know whose heart or mind you might impress. Do I always speak up when I should? Definitely not. But each time you do so, it will become easier. Speaking in public terrifies me. I build it up in my head. With my imagination, you'd think we have persecution and executions occurring for speaking up. We don't. You can do it.

What Gets Me

I am sick of seeing softly pink-hued garbage bags, coffee mugs, stickers, shirts, flags, hats, backpacks, gloves, scarves, picture frames and pencils. I know who makes them, and I know they promote a lie. My problem is Susan G. Komen and her foundation built on exploitation. I do not lack compassion or concern for breast cancer patients. My complaint is not with them. My complaint is with Susan G. Komen and many doctors and industries obtaining money and making it look like they really care enough to help people. They have a huge audience because...breast cancer is the leading cancer in women, and also because breast cancer is the leading cancer in women. What I mean by that is, yes, it has a audience just because of the sheer number of breast cancer patients but also simply BECAUSE it is women suffering. It seems to be one of those untouchable topics, especially for men, and is a campaign endorsed by the feminists.

Susan G Komen's slogan is, Race for the Cure. Really? I guess maybe that's true. She is trying to find a cure...A cure that gets around the enormous link abortion and contraceptives have to breast cancer. Have you ever wondered why in the world suddenly everyone knows someone who has had breast cancer? Why did this epidemic emerge from seemingly no where? Well...believe it or not it has risen with the increase in abortion and the use of contraceptives especially before the first child.

I refuse to give to an organization which promotes killing the innocent. Between 2003 – 2008 Susan G. Komen gave over $3 million to Planned Parenthood, the leading provider of abortion in the United States. Does it really make any sense to give money to an organization who will in turn give it to another that not only ends the life of millions of babies, but in doing so is raising the risk of the very thing we are trying to prevent? SGK is all about preventatives and being aware...why don't they prevent abortion? Why don't they tell women about the effects abortion will have and how much higher their risks of breast cancer will be as result?

The truth is, they have an agenda. They really want to provide a way for people to live exactly as they wish without consequence. But this utopia cannot be formed. It breaks all that God has set in order for us. Since the beginning of time sin has been punished. Lucifer sinned and fell from heaven. Eve was deceived as well as Adam and the gate to the beautiful garden was forever fastened. The consequences of sin are for our betterment – and in the end, it is for God's plan and design for us and His glory. God created us the way we are for a reason and when we act against that design we destroy ourselves.

Countless companies are helping sponsor SGK - so before you give your money to them, please consider whose till it will really end up in.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=134729

http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/

http://www.bdfund.org/breastcancer.asp

http://ww5.komen.org/ResearchGrants/CommunitybasedGrants.html

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.

Life is a beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realise it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is costly, care for it.
Life is wealth, keep it.
Life is love, enjoy it.
Life is mystery, know it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it!

-Mother Teresa

From the Peanut Gallery

Talitha (4): I'm fat

Esther (7): No you're not!

T (offended): Yes I am!

E: You're as skinny as a bell

T: I'm fat!

E: Not-ah. Your bones ache out

Mom: Jut out!

Drat That Tomato.

Drat that tomato. You know, the one I joked about in the beginning…only it was supposed to happen to you, not me. Remember earlier when the wedding party was just arriving and we were traying up the salads with those adorable cherry tomatoes that like to roll their chubby selves all around? Yes, I was being my typical contained self and warning you that if one went rolling you were not to dash after the tomato but keep at the real job of passing out salads. You snapped back that you were well aware on the how to’s of waitressing…I laughed. You laughed.

The head table went great…everything to the right person, no spilling someone’s glass like at the last one. Whew. Being a natural klutz and loving waitressing do not always blend well, especially when it is necessary. Serving 250 people demands a lot…most especially making sure you don’t fall into robot mode but keep a person air of interacting and smiling at all those happy people as you remember a zillion requests and comments.

So there was Lydia, trying her darnedest to do just that. She was stacking salad plates together and having them handed to her from all directions and half of them had those chubby red tomatoes still on them because certain people prefer to watch them roll around their plate, I guess. Why else would you not eat your tomato? For your information, plates don’t happen to stack very neatly when chubby red tomatoes are rolling around on them…so I shifted and squeezed them a bit to ease the perilous situation…squeezed them a little too hard considering they had leftover dressing on them (I love leftovers, especially leftover tomatoes) and fifteen slippery plates shot into the air showering me with Ranch, French and Thousand Island, paralyzing two lovely young girls in white background dresses, and sending me to my knees with a red face…very much like those chubby red tomatoes…wishing I could roll right out of there.

Shaken by this traumatic turn of events I made it disappear as fast as possible receiving several worried cold glasses from the wearers of the lovely white background dresses. Life went on. Carefully I came back to the traumatized table and began clearing their plates, they gave more uneasy glances. I had another stack by the time I was finished and was so uptight the entire stack dared to slip away…the mother of the wearers of those white background dresses, shielded her face and as I hurried away she gasped, “Oh that girl nearly did it again!”. That girl…shot into the back room with water pitchers and in her nervous state of trying to make the world all right drenched her shoes and pant legs while dropping a pitcher. She scowled…cringed…and carried on. Carried on with excellent service, snappy retorts, and a smile of service which forgot all errors.

That Lewis and his profundities...

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one... Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

C.S. Lewis

I sure hope God has a sense of humor. I mean, it's pretty obvious he has a sense of humor - Look at the platypus - clearly a hodgepodge. And the pig with its curly little tail ridiculously out of proportion to its body...and look at man. But if we are laughable it is more because of brains than our bodies.

We, the creation - creation not creator - always trying to haggle deals with God. Convincing ourselves God doesn't see all things and know all things. We are like the thief who is sure he'll get away with his stealing though for umpteen years -thieves are repeatedly caught - but unlike the thief there is no chance we will get off scot-free.

Why do we choose to pretend we can set the rules or that we are least equals with God? Creator - Creation, King - Servant, Master - Pupil...is it because we feel uncomfortable? We should feel a little unnerved! We ought to remember Nebuchadnezzar and his time spent in the fields. I think too often we want to make God our buddy-friend. God is not our buddy and we are not equal to him. This does not mean God is distant and angry, rather, if we maintain a biblical perspective then repeatedly we see God as a father: loving, protecting, guiding, and correcting his wayward children. Whatever example we look at in the bible whether it be Abraham, Moses, David, Paul or any of the disciples, they were who they were because they reverenced God, and because they humbled themselves before Him. And though in the New Testament Christ laid down new commandments never is this concept swayed.

On bended knee we bow before Christ the King, our Maker and Redeemer.

On bended knee we plead of him Mercy and Forgiveness.

That we may rise, Forgiven, Humbled, and Freed.

Passing Through.

Clouds are capable of giving one a pretty odd sensation. I am quite sure that the individual who decided Angels sat on them did not live near elevation, fog, and had never flown.

In addition, the person who came up with that notion was hopelessly off his rocker, for the idea is inanely absurd. Where on earth (literally) did the assumption that angels are silly, charming, and stupid come from anyway? I'm pretty sure I'd be terrified of an Angel making himself known to me.

Clouds. Utterly obscure, constantly changing - more than a woman, fickle though she be.

When above them: elation, peace, wonder. The sun burns brightly on the white sea as it fleets mindless yonder. In this world of in between, this land of space with the only visible things being sun and depth of cloud, I think of Ransom being carried to Venus in Perelandra. But I lack my coffin of transportation, my mission from Oyarsa, and Professor Weston to defeat. This abyss holds an odd sense of security.

Sinking through them, surrounded, wondering what is East and West, momentarily holding oxygen flow until the claustrophobic atmosphere evaporates and reveals the interesting palate of objects and colors. The magic whispers my name but it is only in teasing mockery for it is gone, gone, gone. It is ungraspable.

The biosphere comes into focus, blotches become roof tops, seas of fluctuating green - lusty trees, and those shiny moving specks merely modes of transportation.

I liked the passing silvery ocean.

I was drawn to the obscure in between -

But the current view, yes, is where I belong, for the time being.

Musing.

Johann Bach once said something like, "music is simply hitting the right note at the right time." This is basic and true - but the act isn't or we would all be musicians. Life is like music. It can be beautiful, intricate, peaceful, resonate and bounding. It requires hitting the right note at the right time. Music demands patience of her pupils. It is arduous and difficult and she always wants your very best. So God demands our best. It is not simple, but as we look at the composers and martyrs from ages past we desire it and know it is worth it.

Practice makes perfect. In frustration we may bang the keys and their unwillingness to cope with taut fingers and strained mind. We must learn to not strive for perfection but excellence. Carry on through clashing chords and screeching strings and listen for the beat and rhythm of life.

Even great composers did not always find composing simple...the masses of notes spread hither and thither look like childish ugly ink patterns…until they are arranged by their creator. We all blunder in life but we must not let these imperfections stop us from being the scattered notes composing the harmony and melody of Christ’s kingdom

Truth is Simple. In an exquisite fashion.

"Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired." -Mother Theresa

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art...It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that gives value to survival." -Jack Lewis

"It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness." -Leo Tolstoy

"A great point is gained when we have learned not to struggle against the circumstances God has appointed for us." -H.L. Sidney Lear

On Culture:

"Also contributing mightily to the growing acceptance of Euthanasia is a form of pervasive cultural decay that I call ' "terminal nonjudgmentalism" ' (TNJ). Our society has become so steeped in relativism, so unable to distinguish right from wrong, that is increasingly fails to react to or criticize truly reprehensible concepts or conduct. When destructive ideas and practices are not condemned, it is effectively a form of praise. That which is not seen as wrong must be right. As the winds of the death culture blow with increasing velocity, the vitality of the equality-of-life ethic withers."

Wesley J Smith, Forced Exit.

Sight. Hearing. Touch. Smell. Taste.

I believe that covers the traditional five senses.

I was thinking today just how incredible each one is. How often I forget the wonder of even one. And how happy and grateful I am that Chance and the phenomenal Big Bang worked together to collaborate them. >>>>>>>Okay. That sounds absolutely ridiculous. God is an amazing creator.

In particular, I am so thankful for the sense of Smell. I think my nose is becoming more refined in it's ability to smell. I use it so much more of late! I have fallen into a dreadful habit of grudging the fact that I can't eat so many things. Actually that's not even it. Even stuff I can eat that shouldn't technically bother me, does.

I decided I'm going to revel more in the beauty of smell. Because really, although when we eat we use the sense of Touch (texture) and also Taste and Sight, these become almost nothing if there is no Smell. I suppose this is why I don't mind at all cooking things I can't eat. Smell spikes the imagination to grand heights ingraining itself in the memory. Which is why some people associate certain smells with poignant memories and places.

Begin Breathing in the world around you.

Life would be so bland without smell. Not only would the pleasure of eating be diminished but literally everything else with it. When I think smell, I think: Walks, Spring, Fall, Haying, Tae Kwon Do, Plants, Rivers, Books, Gardens, Grandma's house, Clothes, Paper, Ironing, Old Buildings, Food...it goes on and on.

Breathe yes, but inhale the savory, the twitchy, and the pungent with it.

Wallow in this beauty of Life.

Quirky.

I don't know about you, but I have always been taught that I ought to respect old people. And although some old people make themselves a bit dis-likable there aren't usually very many reasons to disrespect them.

In general I have a keen desire to get to know the elderly and do my best to be courteous and conversational with them. I will also admit that sometimes my expectations of people are too great but in general I adjust to the fact that, they are indeed human, alright-ly. But it still knocked me a little breathless yesterday when I was chatting with Ruth & Jerry.

They are an elderly couple that comes every single day to Fry'n Pan for coffee. They are always discussing politics and seem to be most often on the conservative end of things. Don't ask me how but somehow she mentioned the death of her first husband which triggered my question of, "So, how long have you and Jerry been married?"

For which she began to explain that they weren't. I imagine some of my shock must have showed on my face. Of which I am not ashamed. It was an honest response. Jerry was sitting reading the paper with a rueful brow right across from her. Behind me I had a feeling all ears were stretched in my direction. The ears being all my co-workers and Tammy, an assistant manger.

Ruth turned determined upon me and demanded, "What? What is your little brain thinking?"

"It's thinking it doesn't quite agree with you." I replied trying to pull myself together and feeling like the people behind me might explode. Ruth raised her brows at me and Jerry sank even deeper into his paper. "That isn't how God intended us to be. I think it's wrong."

Ruth settled herself and began explaining that in general she would agree with me and saw my point of view. Jerry had proposed to her and they would have gotten married but they found out that taxes would change and it would be expensive. If she had been in child-bearing years...there would have been no question about marriage. She would never do that to her child and didn't like the idea of a child out of wedlock. But how it stood it was definitely easier...

It was about at this point that Tammy shouted, "Lydia!" and I quickly excused myself. I had food up to take out but I knew she did it for a deeper reason as well. She was a nervous wreck about getting into an argument with a customer. And probably strongly disagreed that I should discuss anything of that kind in a work-environment.

Tammy said something to me about, "yes, Ruth could be that way and not to bother about it."

"I don't mind, really, Tammy. We weren't fighting..and neither of us minded that we disagreed. It's okay."

I went over to her again to insure that she was alright. Explaining that she had in fact asked me and she replied that she appreciated my honest answer but her situation was just different.

::sigh:: I'm so sad that she doesn't see it as that big of deal. Especially when the reason was monetary.

It was so crushing having an old couple do this. Of all people, they have the most experience and you expect so much more. It is deplorable what state our present generation is in...but really...this is what we have for an example?

There are so many instances in the bible where the elders teach the young. What happened? Do we see this today? Did they give up? It felt so odd telling people at least 3 times my age how they ought to behave.

I pray not. We need to bring back respect and with it the biblical concept of teaching and learning.