Thoughts of Jeff

Free will.

2008-06-27T12:08:00.002-04:00

How do we work around or within the depravity of the world we live in without getting sucked in to it? I don’t think we can blame it on society. I think pretty much all societies at work in the world today (and probably throughout history) have contained both good and bad people and tendencies. America is no different from cold war Russia or Elizabethan England or early Israel. Evil isn’t just reserved for Al Qaeda or the “Muslim” nations, nor do I think good and beauty is just reserved for missionaries or the “Christian” nations. Good or bad can’t be blamed on society. It’s more a matter of mankind. We’re really all the same at heart. Some of us just spend more time acting out our goodness, and some spend more time acting out our darkness. Society comes into play in the choice between the two. In an “everybody’s doing it” culture, it can be really difficult to go against the flow even when you know it’s the right thing to do. Much easier to get carried along by the tide than swim upriver.

Sometimes I swim really well, but inevitably I get tired or lazy at some point and don’t necessarily choose to go with the tide, but I just float – and get carried in the wrong direction. It’s easy to blame my backward progress on the current, but really my lack of effort is the true culprit.

Success?

2008-02-11T16:37:00.000-05:00

Who defines it? Are we allowed to define our own? Or is it defined for us? And what is the connection (if any) between success and happiness? Does success have anything to do with meaning? Purpose?

All good questions that I don’t have answers to. Maybe if I did I could “become” successful selling those answers to other people. I put the word “become” in quotes because I don’t know if you can “become” successful. Is it something you just are? Or is it something you work towards? And related to that – can you lose your “successfulness”? Or just the trappings of success?

Culture.

2008-01-22T11:03:00.001-05:00

Here in America we seem to think that culture means being educated, but what we really mean is being a snob. If you’re a wine snob, a sushi snob, a clothing snob, an art snob – whatever your particular brand of snobbishness, you must be cultured. But having culture isn’t going to the opera or being a gold-level member at an art museum. It’s understanding the world, having a clue as to what else is out there. It’s being able to see and appreciate all the good and beautiful things that make up mankind and our world. To truly have culture you have to relate to more than the socio-economic position you find yourself in. Culture is bigger than your city, state, country, race. In fact, if you can’t, haven’t, or aren’t willing to look outside of your race, you have no concept of culture.

We like to kid ourselves that we’ve got it all figured out here in the good ol’ US of A. We’re obviously right, how else could we be so successful and powerful? Why can’t everybody else just do it our way so we can all get along?

What an immature and closed minded worldview that is. Unfortunately for us, it’s one that is shared by many, maybe even most, of our leading politicians.

How can we be so egotistical to think that we’re always right?

Or are we really just too insecure to admit that we don’t know everything?

Why isn’t it ok to not have all the answers?

Why are we more eager to resort to violence than truly listen to someone else’s point of view?

I think one of the best things Americans can do for their country is leave it. Make the investment to see the world. Do it on your own, not some cheesy guided tour. Talk to people. You will be changed. Then come back and use your new-found enlightenment, your culture, to make a difference here.

"Deep Thoughts"

2008-01-22T11:01:00.000-05:00

“If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.” - Jack Handy

Common.

2008-01-14T17:53:00.001-05:00

Definition - Shared; joint; belonging equally to; united.

The basis of the word community.

Community is who we are, how we’re supposed to be. It’s not about overcoming our differences; it’s about realizing that at our cores, we are all the same. Common. Not in the sense of average or less than superb, but as defined above – shared, united, belonging equally.

I chose the picture for this post purposefully. This man would be (is) certainly labeled common by society. I would call him common too. But for very different reasons. He is common with me. His name is Modesto, I worked with him last summer. He lives in a house with neighbors close by, he works hard, loves his family and does his best with what he has. Me too. I love how dirty his hands are. I wish mine were that dirty right now.

He may live in Mexico, myself in middle-America, and we may barely be able to communicate since we speak different languages, but Modesto and I are common.

I’m tired of people trying to segregate humanity. Our differences aren’t what are important. Our commonness is.

Leaving.

2008-01-07T15:09:00.000-05:00

I’m beginning to understand that change- even change for the good – involves sacrifice. Something has to be given up, left behind, in order for something else to be able to take its place. I think it’s that sacrifice that makes change so hard. I can be pretty territorial. I like to protect what’s mine, especially when I like what’s mine. I don’t want God or anybody else trying to take it away from me.

I usually learn the hard way.

Life isn’t about stuff. But I’m not even just talking about physical stuff here. Relationships, people, jobs, pride, our sense of self – all things that may have to be sacrificed in the name of change.

Change can demand a high price, and we pay it or become stagnant. There is no in-between.

Change.

2008-01-02T17:17:00.000-05:00

It’s cold today. 12 degrees with a wind chill of -1. A couple days ago I was out on my bike enjoying the 50 degree temps…

Life is a state of constant transformation. If you think hard enough, it’s hard to find anything that actually isn’t in a state of continual change. Everything is in a state of growth or decay. It seems some things never change, but the reality is they just change so slowly you don’t notice.

So how do you make sense out of a life with no apparent constants? I guess routines – we humans are creatures of habit. We like things to stay the same, even though they never do. But we do our best to hold on to them or control them because change doesn’t come easily.

The thing is, change is like exercise for our brain. It’s healthy, it’s normal, it’s how God made this world.

Resisting it leads to complacency. Embracing it leads to contentment.

Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes things are good and I want them to stay like they are. Sometimes things aren’t that good, but staying that way still seems easier than the effort it takes to alter them.

It’s Jan. 2nd and not only is a new year dawning, I think a new season of my life is dawning. It’s time to change. I feel it coming and I’m doing my best to be ready for it. It’s kind of like getting to the top of the first big hill on a roller coaster. You’re pretty sure you’re in for a fun ride, but your stomach is still knotted in fear as you look at the twists and drops in the track ahead.

Puzzle Pieces.

2007-12-17T11:16:00.001-05:00

Vocation (noun) - An inclination, as if in response to a summons, to undertake a certain kind of work, especially a religious career; a calling

What exactly is a calling? How do you hear it? And what if it changes?

Sometimes it seems I’m going along and things are working just fine, but sooner or later I begin to get this sense around the periphery of my life that things aren’t all as they should be. Things just aren’t clicking. I’m taking all the steps that make sense, I’m working hard, putting in my time, paying my dues, but I’m not seeing results.

What changed? Me? Or the things surrounding me?

Can a person have more than one vocation? In their life? At the same time? Is it possible to not have one at all?

More questions. My fear is that I won’t figure out the answers until it’s over. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but that’s not easy for me to accept. I like to understand things – to dissect them and find out how they work. With most things I can do that – I take something apart, look at its pieces and how they go together, and begin to understand not only how it works, but the thought process of whoever built it in the first place.

Life doesn’t work that way. The more I take it apart and cut into it, the deeper I get – the more things I find that I don’t understand. So I keep cutting and cutting, hoping to find something that connects to something else, and pretty soon I just have a big mess on the floor that I don’t know how to put back together.

Maybe that’s an argument for believing in God. When I take apart something made by a human, I can begin to grasp the intellect of the person that put it together. But life? Even my own – no way. It’s way to complicated for me to understand.

Stooping.

2007-12-14T11:06:00.000-05:00

Today I'm thinking about family, careers, and Christmas, and how they're all very intertwined. As Christmas is approaching I'm realizing how difficult we can make this time of year on ourselves. Christmas has always been one of my favorite times because I'm very much a person who loves spending good quality time with those closest to me. However, Christmas (or our commercialized, Americanized version of it) seems to cast a glaring light on the differences between the haves and have-nots like no other occasion.

Why does Christmas make us miss what we don't have so acutely? It doesn't seem to matter what we do have (which is probably a lot if you're wealthy enough to have an internet connection), we still long for more. Whether you're single and want to be married, or married and want a baby, or you don't have enough to buy your kids everything they want for Christmas, or your job stinks and it's hard to socialize at "Holiday" parties with the people who make your life miserable - those are situations we were probably in before and will still be in come January, but the pangs seem to hit closer to the heart in December.

And what about our ideas of charity? Is giving toys to poor people at Christmas a good thing? Or are we just perpetrating the commercialization of the birth of Christ? Are we just accentuating the chasm between those with and those without? And is not having a lot of money really a bad thing?

And Christmas seems to make us nostalgic. Was the past really better than the present? Will the future be any better than the past?

I have more questions than answers.

As I get older, I keep coming up with more and more questions, but the answers don't seem to come at an equal pace. So it seems I actually understand less and less. Man, when I was five I had it all figured out. Actually, when I was 18 I had most of it figured out. Even at 24 I was still in pretty good shape. Now, two years past 30 I'm feeling the weight of all those unanswered questions.

Maybe that's why old people stoop over...

In the beginning...

2007-12-14T10:44:00.001-05:00

So, having a blog seems to be the thing to do. All the cool kids have one, right? It's been a long time since I composed my thoughts in any kind of systematic fashion, but I've been thinking a lot lately, so maybe it's time...