Okay, let me first start off by saying that NO, AT THIS TIME I AM NOT A FATHER OR A FATHER-TO-BE. Second, this list reflects things that may not apply to me, but that I wish did and/or that I think are important. Third, some of these are quotes from famous people; they are marked by the quotations =D. So here it goes:
Never lie if it is within your power.
Show courtesy to everyone, ESPECIALLY the ones you hate
Don't be afraid to try anything once. But don't be afraid to say NO.
If you don't say it, or do it, who will?
Look people in the eye. The eye is the window to the soul.
Don't be satisfied with how things are. Always look to make things better.
Lead, never follow. If leading means being the example, be the example.
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
"What is a man who does not make the world a better place."
"If everything you want to do can be accomplished during your lifetime, you're not thinking big enough."
Think sideways. Christ did.
Don't try to be Christ. Try to show Christ to others.
God can do great things. But only if his hands are willing.
There is no can't, or fail. There is only submission.
Debate often. Be willing to learn.
Be humble in victory, and gracious in defeat.
Don't underestimate the poor, but even more, don't overestimate the rich.
Never accept a job offer that promotes leisure and excess. You are only expediting the fall of man.
Life should not be measured by how much you have, but by how much you DO.
Physical health is essential. Physical beauty is worthless.
In all you do, remember that you are you for a reason. God has a plan for you that will bring glory to him and peace to the nations. People have a plan for you that will bring wealth to them and poverty to the nations.
What do you guys think? What would you add or take away from here?
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Family, Faith, and Connections
The definition of a family in modern psychological circles is any group of people which calls itself a family. What a broad definition, right? But as broad and vague as it sounds, I like it, especially right now. I'll come back to this in a second.
Have you ever had that feeling that you KNOW you're in the right place, doing the right thing? Right now I'm sitting in the Lodge up here at Pondo, with almost every other staff member sitting near me, and I'm getting that feeling. The people here are absolutely amazing. Never before in my life have I seen one group of people with more passion for Christ and so much connection to each other as these guys and girls have displayed. Seriously my first afternoon here a week ago I felt like I had known everyone here my whole life. I had connected with a couple people through Facebook, but we hadn't really talked all that much. After one night, I could tell we were all a family. And we've been calling each other family every once in a while for the past week. So by definition, we are a family. See, I told you I'd come back to it in a second.
The more I think about it, the more I can't believe how well we've all come together in only a week or two, depending on the person. It's kind of incredible what God can do, and bringing all of us here to work together is nothing short of a miracle in my book. I haven't worked here before, but I know everytime I walk into a room that the people in it are going to do great things in the hearts of junior high and high schoolers, and that this summer can only get better. There is nothing that can stop us from growing together as a family. Like every family, there are some minor problems, but hopefully they won't affect our ability to have an amazing time here together and do some great work for the Lord.
So here I am, sitting here, a fairly broad smile on my face as I look around the room seeing everyone else smiling and having fun, John Mayer blasting through the sound system, and I hope, no not hope, that word isn't strong enough. I don't think I can express how much I want for this summer to bring me closer to God, closer to my campers, and closer to my colleagues, or how much I want those connections to last. Because for me connections are the very fabric of human existence and the human experience, and connections that aren't good for the soul aren't worth having.
Have you ever had that feeling that you KNOW you're in the right place, doing the right thing? Right now I'm sitting in the Lodge up here at Pondo, with almost every other staff member sitting near me, and I'm getting that feeling. The people here are absolutely amazing. Never before in my life have I seen one group of people with more passion for Christ and so much connection to each other as these guys and girls have displayed. Seriously my first afternoon here a week ago I felt like I had known everyone here my whole life. I had connected with a couple people through Facebook, but we hadn't really talked all that much. After one night, I could tell we were all a family. And we've been calling each other family every once in a while for the past week. So by definition, we are a family. See, I told you I'd come back to it in a second.
The more I think about it, the more I can't believe how well we've all come together in only a week or two, depending on the person. It's kind of incredible what God can do, and bringing all of us here to work together is nothing short of a miracle in my book. I haven't worked here before, but I know everytime I walk into a room that the people in it are going to do great things in the hearts of junior high and high schoolers, and that this summer can only get better. There is nothing that can stop us from growing together as a family. Like every family, there are some minor problems, but hopefully they won't affect our ability to have an amazing time here together and do some great work for the Lord.
So here I am, sitting here, a fairly broad smile on my face as I look around the room seeing everyone else smiling and having fun, John Mayer blasting through the sound system, and I hope, no not hope, that word isn't strong enough. I don't think I can express how much I want for this summer to bring me closer to God, closer to my campers, and closer to my colleagues, or how much I want those connections to last. Because for me connections are the very fabric of human existence and the human experience, and connections that aren't good for the soul aren't worth having.
Monday, June 8, 2009
You Know...
I just realized that most of my posts here have been poems. I'm totally fine with that, because I love writing, and poems are quick, easy ways to put down a thought or thoughts for the college student on the go. But now that I am on summer break, the "busy college student" excuse doesn't really work.
Right now I am three weeks into my summer, and I am in my first week as a counselor at Ponderosa Pines Christian Camp. I'll be here for like eight weeks, seven of which will be spent living in a cabin with about ten junior high/ high schoolers. Fun, right? I think so. It's hard to imagine how I'm going to make it through seven weeks of teenage angst, working pretty much 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, and not do anything stupid or screw up the life of some small child. But for some reason I have this really strong feeling that I can do it.
I've never devoted so much of my time and energy to one goal like I'll have to this summer in order to effectively do my job and make a difference in someone's life, but I think a passage a friend of mine shared yesterday was very helpful. It was 2 Samuel 24:18-24. It tells the story of King David building an altar to the Lord, which required the use of a threshing floor belonging to another man. When the other man offered to give David everything he'd need for free, David refused, saying, "I will not sacrifice to the Lord that which cost me nothing." In that light I've realized that to make it through the next two months I'm gonna have to make sacrifices that I normally wouldn't make.
I think I'm ready to do something I've never done before. Any free time I do have will be spent alone if at all possible. I have a sketch journal, my Bible, my computer obviously, and more free space for my thoughts and feelings to flow than I'll probably know what to do with. I've already decided to draw one sketch a day, coupled with a one-page journal entry about what's going on. Hopefully by the end of the summer I'll have enough written and drawn enough to actually use for something. But I don't know, we'll see.
Right now I am three weeks into my summer, and I am in my first week as a counselor at Ponderosa Pines Christian Camp. I'll be here for like eight weeks, seven of which will be spent living in a cabin with about ten junior high/ high schoolers. Fun, right? I think so. It's hard to imagine how I'm going to make it through seven weeks of teenage angst, working pretty much 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, and not do anything stupid or screw up the life of some small child. But for some reason I have this really strong feeling that I can do it.
I've never devoted so much of my time and energy to one goal like I'll have to this summer in order to effectively do my job and make a difference in someone's life, but I think a passage a friend of mine shared yesterday was very helpful. It was 2 Samuel 24:18-24. It tells the story of King David building an altar to the Lord, which required the use of a threshing floor belonging to another man. When the other man offered to give David everything he'd need for free, David refused, saying, "I will not sacrifice to the Lord that which cost me nothing." In that light I've realized that to make it through the next two months I'm gonna have to make sacrifices that I normally wouldn't make.
I think I'm ready to do something I've never done before. Any free time I do have will be spent alone if at all possible. I have a sketch journal, my Bible, my computer obviously, and more free space for my thoughts and feelings to flow than I'll probably know what to do with. I've already decided to draw one sketch a day, coupled with a one-page journal entry about what's going on. Hopefully by the end of the summer I'll have enough written and drawn enough to actually use for something. But I don't know, we'll see.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Ugh...
No, I'm not overly depressed. And no, in this instance I am not overly tired either. I am, however, very sore. My feet are sore, my back is sore, my knees are sore, my head is sore. It feels like every muscle in my body has been put through an exercise routine that would shame the Navy SEALS.
You see, today I went on a bike ride to the pier at Ocean Beach with a friend of mine so we could go fishing. It was a beautiful day, and we were really excited to get off of campus for a little while and relax. But it was a terrible day for fishing. There was absolutely nothing to catch off a pier that is suspended over a natural reef, a place where fish should be in the thousands; "multitudinous," you could say.
As we left I felt like I had wasted another afternoon trying in vain to catch anything at all, let alone something we could bring back and eat. But I knew the ride back would be fun, because it always is, and I had finally realized there was an easier way to get back to Point Loma than what I was used to. So looking forward to an easy ride and a swift return home so we could get some food, we set off at a relatively fast pace. Fast that is, until the wind started blowing towards us. I had never expected it to hinder us, but half way through the ride back I felt like I had ridden four times the usual distance, all uphill. The second half was then, for lack of a better word, torture, and even now, four hours later, I am still very much aware of how strenuous it was. But we made it back safely, and that was good enough for me.
So why am I telling this story? Well, as we were eating in the cafeteria, a thought came to me. It said, "I wonder if there is some kind of parable to be found in this situation?" Yes there is, actually, and it's fairly obvious if you are thinking right. That story, I have concluded, is a good parable about life. Let me explain.
There are many facts of life that people recognize, but the one most undeniable fact of life is that no matter who you are, you will face hardships of some kind. For some those hardships are physical: they are poor or suffer from a chronic illness or some other difficult situation. For others, the hardships are emotional: they feel oppressed or rejected by the world.
But everyone will feel spiritual hardship at one point or another. Even people completely non-religious will admit that they have, at some point in their lives, felt a spiritual emptiness or confusion. Or maybe they won't admit to that, but they have still felt it. When someone loses a family member, or gets an "insufficient funds" response from the ATM for the fifth time, or feels like nothing is going right in their life, they feel like they've fallen into this eternal darkness from which there is not escape.
Everyone has a goal they try to reach. For me the goal was to get back to my dorm. For a single mom trying to feed three children and a dog, her goal is to get food on the table on a daily basis. But obtaining our goals is never as easy as it sounds. God places obstacles in our paths, very much intended to hinder our progress, not because He thinks it's funny or because He's just mean-spirited. God gives us hardships to test our faith in Him.
Too many people don't get that. They think that God is ignoring them by allowing bad things to happen, but that is just not the case. God knows that we can can overcome the struggles and the disappointments, and that we'll be stronger for it. While I was riding all I could think about was why that ride was so hard and why it couldn't be just a little easier for me to get back. But I made it through to the end goal, and I know tomorrow I'll be stronger because that ride was so difficult.
So I guess to conclude my ramblings, no matter what happens in your life, whether it is your best moment or your very worst, know that if you can just push through and trust that God knows what He is doing, you will achieve more than you ever thought possible, and though you might be sore and tired from the struggle, you will be stronger for it. And that is the best goal we can hope to obtain.
You see, today I went on a bike ride to the pier at Ocean Beach with a friend of mine so we could go fishing. It was a beautiful day, and we were really excited to get off of campus for a little while and relax. But it was a terrible day for fishing. There was absolutely nothing to catch off a pier that is suspended over a natural reef, a place where fish should be in the thousands; "multitudinous," you could say.
As we left I felt like I had wasted another afternoon trying in vain to catch anything at all, let alone something we could bring back and eat. But I knew the ride back would be fun, because it always is, and I had finally realized there was an easier way to get back to Point Loma than what I was used to. So looking forward to an easy ride and a swift return home so we could get some food, we set off at a relatively fast pace. Fast that is, until the wind started blowing towards us. I had never expected it to hinder us, but half way through the ride back I felt like I had ridden four times the usual distance, all uphill. The second half was then, for lack of a better word, torture, and even now, four hours later, I am still very much aware of how strenuous it was. But we made it back safely, and that was good enough for me.
So why am I telling this story? Well, as we were eating in the cafeteria, a thought came to me. It said, "I wonder if there is some kind of parable to be found in this situation?" Yes there is, actually, and it's fairly obvious if you are thinking right. That story, I have concluded, is a good parable about life. Let me explain.
There are many facts of life that people recognize, but the one most undeniable fact of life is that no matter who you are, you will face hardships of some kind. For some those hardships are physical: they are poor or suffer from a chronic illness or some other difficult situation. For others, the hardships are emotional: they feel oppressed or rejected by the world.
But everyone will feel spiritual hardship at one point or another. Even people completely non-religious will admit that they have, at some point in their lives, felt a spiritual emptiness or confusion. Or maybe they won't admit to that, but they have still felt it. When someone loses a family member, or gets an "insufficient funds" response from the ATM for the fifth time, or feels like nothing is going right in their life, they feel like they've fallen into this eternal darkness from which there is not escape.
Everyone has a goal they try to reach. For me the goal was to get back to my dorm. For a single mom trying to feed three children and a dog, her goal is to get food on the table on a daily basis. But obtaining our goals is never as easy as it sounds. God places obstacles in our paths, very much intended to hinder our progress, not because He thinks it's funny or because He's just mean-spirited. God gives us hardships to test our faith in Him.
Too many people don't get that. They think that God is ignoring them by allowing bad things to happen, but that is just not the case. God knows that we can can overcome the struggles and the disappointments, and that we'll be stronger for it. While I was riding all I could think about was why that ride was so hard and why it couldn't be just a little easier for me to get back. But I made it through to the end goal, and I know tomorrow I'll be stronger because that ride was so difficult.
So I guess to conclude my ramblings, no matter what happens in your life, whether it is your best moment or your very worst, know that if you can just push through and trust that God knows what He is doing, you will achieve more than you ever thought possible, and though you might be sore and tired from the struggle, you will be stronger for it. And that is the best goal we can hope to obtain.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Oops...
"Oops." It's one of society's favorite sayings. It's a very commonly-used word, like Coca-cola or hello (both of which are considered the most commonly-used words in the English language or otherwise). I myself use that word alot, especially for times like right now.
My oops isn't as bad as some peoples' oopses. Mine has to do with blogging. I do actually enjoy blogging. I like putting my thoughts out there for people to see and/or argue with me over. So when I decided a little while ago to pick up the blog I had started last spring only to discover that I forgot the login information pretty entirely, the only word I could use to describe it was, "oops."
So I've started this one, "The Life and Times of a Black Bear," instead. As I said in my old blog, was I called "My Thoughts, My Voice," I'm never going to commit to a consistent and routine system of blog entries. But I will say that if I do have a random thought I can talk about at length, I'll post it.
I'm really not sure who is going to read this, and I don't know why. But the point of this blog is more so I can refer back to my life when I need to. So follow my life as I write about it, or don't, it's up to you.
Peace,
Blackbear
My oops isn't as bad as some peoples' oopses. Mine has to do with blogging. I do actually enjoy blogging. I like putting my thoughts out there for people to see and/or argue with me over. So when I decided a little while ago to pick up the blog I had started last spring only to discover that I forgot the login information pretty entirely, the only word I could use to describe it was, "oops."
So I've started this one, "The Life and Times of a Black Bear," instead. As I said in my old blog, was I called "My Thoughts, My Voice," I'm never going to commit to a consistent and routine system of blog entries. But I will say that if I do have a random thought I can talk about at length, I'll post it.
I'm really not sure who is going to read this, and I don't know why. But the point of this blog is more so I can refer back to my life when I need to. So follow my life as I write about it, or don't, it's up to you.
Peace,
Blackbear
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