On my Soapbox - Forgiveness

So I was asked to give the 'sermon' for morning devotions last Thursday (1 week ago). We have a morning 'devotion' monday through friday at 7am. Fairly short, less than 20 minutes. Usually it's just a couple songs, a short "sermon" or talking point that someone gives, and announcements for the day.

The subject I chose for the devotion was on forgiveness. Props go to Mr. Mike Saia for giving me my initial teaching on this. I didn't do it justice in 4 minutes, but hey, the basics are easy enough.

But anyways, let me get on my soapbox and get all "into yo' face." I gave my devotion on Forgiveness because I think understanding forgiveness is huge. Especially for areas where violent behavior and tribal warfare is occuring. With the way some Kenyan's treat eachother, no one forgiving anyone, generationally not forgiving others, it's easy to see how tribal violence could escalate from a stupid election. The key point I gave was that is is equally important to ask for forgiveness as it is to accept forgiveness. If one doesn't ask for forgiveness, you can't be forgiven. And you can't forgive someone without them asking you for forgiveness and repenting.

Some people disagree with that conclusion, that you can't forgive someone unless they ask. But whether you agree or not, I am not saying that it is okay to be bitter and hold it against someone. But to be like the Lord as quoted in Psalms, "ready to forgive". God doesn't hold things against me, He isn't bitter about what I do, I have consequences for my actions, but by asking for forgiveness, mercy is available.

Psalms 86:5
For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You.

Forgiveness is huge I can't express how big it is. I believe unforgiveness is one of the root causes of the violence in Kenya, one of the root causes of tribalism, racism, and many other 'isms' and such bigoty that seperates man from man, woman from child. When you don't forgive, and aren't willing to forgive, you do no harm to that person who wronged you. That is another key point. Worth repeating.

When you don't forgive, and aren't willing to forgive, you do no harm to that person who wronged you. People often don't understand this. They think, "they hurt me, I'm not going to forgive them". Makes me laugh. They hurt you, so what do you go and do? Continue to hurt yourself? Idiot. What does it matter to the person who wronged you? If they repent, then they're in the clear, it helps them significantly if you accept their forgiveness and repentance, but if you don't, they've done their part. They can go about their life. They've repented and are now back on track with life and improving it therein. Yet you're stuck with this unforgiveness which creates all kinds of unpleasantness in you. You hold on to unforgiveness and you'll be a bitter old rocking chair man, or a bitter old hag. Don't be.

Maybe not even a hag or old bitter man, maybe instead you transfer your bitterness towards one man to your son, and he applies that to that man's tribe/race/color/fingernail size/whatever. It's common enough to hear about something that so and so did to your father's father's aunt's cousin. So you want to kill their entire tribe.

Seriously, following Christ's example of forgiveness will cure you of your hate. And for those Christians out there who practice such bigotry, shame on you. Re-read the Bible.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
-Matthew 6:14-15

Kombucha, Correct Spelling

Oh, in regards to my last post, I got the spelling right now.

Kombucha

Check out the wikipedia article on it if your interested. A natural carbonation process makes this sugar tea. For those of you who like that kind of thing. (I'm looking at you Dan and Christi!)

Wikipedia article

Oh, and as for those of you that asked about what Mustafa did with the urine, he just put a little in his cup and told the other 2 african boys in the house that I pee'd in his cup. I had to clear that up the next day. And it was his bathroom cup, no one else ever drinks from it. I hope he cleaned it well, I sure didn't clean it for him. Hopefully he learned something.

Compuka Urine

I gotta get this down before I forget any details. Tonight I had another little fiasco with the youngest African boy.

While I was talking about some things on Wolfgangs IBook Apple Laptop thingy with Stephanie (one of the German gals), the youngest boy in that house, Mustafa, came by and was drinking some compukat (spelling? I dunno. It's a fruit juice that is carbonated by a mushroom. crazy germans!). In the midst of all this, he put his cup down ontop of the laptop, on the keyboard. Now, any one who's ever been around a computer knows this is a no no. So my immediate, natural reaction was to quickly remove the cup with a "aaaaaaye! Don't put that on the computer! Not near a computer". Mustafa, not one to take any sort of reprimand in any kind of pleasant way puts the cup down next to the computer. Not on it this time, but next to it. Seeing where this is going (spilled carbonated, sugary liquid on or near the computer) and not needing that, I grab the cup and down it in a quick gulp.

This did not make Mustafa happy.

I should clarify before hand, normally Mustafa and I are great friends (he's age 10ish). But any sort of reprimand really goats these African's. So, having gone through Mustafa's "you did something to me so you should fix it even though your actions where clearly in response to something I did that I shouldn't have done" he proceeded to complain heavily and wanted me to get him more compukat. He gives me the cup, I put it down on the table (not where the laptop is, but the dining room table). He gets it, complains somemore and gives it to me again. We go through this who knows how many times. Unfortunatly, his patience at 'being wronged' surpasses my 'I can only handle so much'. Last time we had our little complaint-fest I had to leave before I exploded. and actually I just went and did some pull ups. Highest number of pull ups I've ever done. Pretty proud of that, though it took an hour of built up adrenaline and angst to do it. anyways, sidetrack. This time around both Stephanie and myself are rolling eyes and explaining over and over again why I drank his compukat, and that if he want's more, there is some right there on the dining room table. But to no avail, as Mustafa doesn't listen and continues to complain and wants me to get him compuka since I drank it. Being the big-egoed, hard hearted, disciplinarian I am, that's not gonna happen. At one point, Stephanie says "fine!" and is about to get up and get Mustafa some compukat. I say, somewhat forcibly, "Nine!" (German 'no') and she doesn't get up. I apologize later for that to her, as my agitation was directed at Mustafa not her (whoops!). But I was heavily angered at this point. Incessant complaining over nothing gets to me. In fact, I'm getting all antsy about it now. Seriously, never come me whining about nothing.

Anywhoo, I end up closing the laptop and picking Mustafa up (thankfully he's light) and going over to the couch where we continue 'dialogue' for a while longer. Luckily I have decently fast reflexes when my angst is up and adrenaline is pumping so most times he goes to pinch, punch or slap me I can grab his arm and prevent it. Not that it hurts (he doesn't do it that hard, more of a authority thing) but that I won't allow him to do that to me for obvious reasons. Anyways, eventually I say if he wants his compuka back, he can get it back in a couple hours after my body is done with it. Not to be outdone Mustafa calls my bluff and wants it back in the same cup. Me and my big mouth.

Being a man of my word to someone like Mustafa is more important attempting to not do dumb things. Thus, a couple hours later I go to the restroom and relieve myself. I call him into the bathroom, ask him which bathroom cup is his and tell him to enjoy his processed compuka, and to please flush the toilet when he's done. Then I make my exit, hoping that he will flush the toilet and be done. Not quite what happened, but the rest isn't to eventful.

I'm not a parent, but I do my best with the weird issues these kids have. Maybe not the best solution, but it seems works out in the end. All the boys still like me. Either way, next time I hope I remember that they call bluffs. I gotta watch what I say as it better be something I can do if pressed. I don't need to show off my urine again.

The Year of Living Biblically

Last Sunday I finished a rather amazing book. It's called 'The Year of Living Biblically'. WAIT! before you go all "oh my, he's going religious on us in this blog". Hold on to your socks. The book is by a agnostic Jew (who's "Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant) who's daytime job is to write for the magazine Esquire, who decides to follow every rule in the Bible for one whole year.

And let me tell you, the books great. They author, A.J. Jacobs at times seems kinda neurotic (A.J., if you read this, I apologize, but you do kinda give that off occasionally, it's the OCD mixed with the beard i think) but the insight he got through his year was pretty amazing. His previous book was "The Know-It-All" which was titled that way because it was a book about him reading the entire encyclopedia. Not the dictionary. That's small beans. But the encyclopedia. You know, those 5 foot thick book sets you can buy for a million bucks? (note to self: Get the Know-It-All for Uncle Rog as he loves encyclopedias. tacky? maybe, but I digress) He read the encyclopedia from A-Z or rather, and I quote "a-ak (East Asian music) to Zywiec (a town in southern Poland known for its beer)" end quote. On a side note, neither of those two words were in my spell check. Shame on you spell check updating nerds! Shame! wait, who actually does update spell checks? no offense to you, but that's gotta be a sucky job.

So in summary, this guy spent 1 whole year, attempting to follow every single command in the bible. From not wearing cloths with mixed fibers Leviticus 19:19, to 'Be fruitful and multiply" Genesis 1:28 (his wife got pregnant with twin baby boys over the course of the year), to stoning adulterers Leviticus 20:27. Well, he got to pebble someone, which was his loophole as he noted that the Bible didn't specify on the size of stones (later he comments that historically, stoning was to let them jump off a cliff, like in the movie the Three Musketeers, how that relates to the stoning of Stephen and Paul, I dunno. He didn't say) He didn't actually stone, he pebbled. but this part is awesome, so I'm just gonna type an excerpt

"A few days ago, I gathered a handful of small white pebbles from Central Park, which I stuffed in my back pants pocket. Now all I needed were some victims. I decided to start with Sabbath breakers. That's easy enough to find in this workaholic city. I noticed that potbellied guy at the Avis down our block had worked on both Saturday and Sunday. So no matter what, he's a Sabbath breaker.

Here's the thing, though: Even with pebbles, it is surprisingly hard to stone people.

My plan had been to walk non-chalantly bast the Sabbath violator and chuck pebbles at the small of his back. But after a couple failed passes, I realized it was a bad idea. A chucked pebble, no matter how small, does not go unnoticed.

My revised plan: I would pretend to be clumsy and drop the pebble on his shoe.
So I did.
And in this way I stoned. But it was probably the most polite stoning in history--I said, "I'm sorry," and then leaned down to pick up the pebble. And he leaned down at the same time, and we almost butted heads, and then he apologized, then I apologized again.

Highly unsatisfying."

Later in that same page he gets to the park and talks to an elderly man who says he, the author, was 'dressed queer.' The author explains his year quest and the old gent mentions that he is an adulterer fairly often:

"Tonight, tomorrow, yesterday, two weeks from now. You gonna stone me?"

"If I could, yes, that'd be great."

"I'll punch you in the face. I'll send you to the cemetery."

He is serious. This isn't a cutesy grumpy old man. This is an angry old man. This is a man with seven decades of hostility behind him.
I fish out my pebbles from my back pocket.

"I wouldn't stone you with big stones," I say. "Just these little guys."

I open my palm to show him the pebbles. He lunges at me, grabbing one out of my hand, then flinging it at my face. It whizzes by my cheek.
I am stunned for a second. I hadn't expected this grizzled old man to make the first move. But now there is nothing stoping me from retaliating. An eye for an eye.
I take one of the remaining pebbles and whip it at his chest. It bounces off.

"I'll punch you right in the kisser," he says.

"Well, you really shouldn't commit adultery," I say.

We stare at eachother. My pulse has doubled.

Anyways, the entire books is awesome like this. The main thing that worried me before I read it was that it would be funny in a disrespecting way. I can take pot shots directed at me that are disrespectful, but don't mess with the Bible. Easy way to get under my skin. Most people make fun of the Bible from a stance of ignorance, and is completely obnoxious. It's like taking some random quote from me and calling me racist. You don't know me, and anyone who does knows I'm not racist. Your an ignorant fool, go away and leave me be. The author at least had the opinion that even if it was all a farce, it is a book or verbal tale, that has had the most influence over all the people in the entire world over the entire span of human history, and that title alone demands respect. And the author is not disrespectful to the Bible at all. He might make fun of groups of people occasionally, but not the Bible itself. The Bible is treated with the respect it deserves. And when he does make fun of things the Bible says (easy enough to do), it does it from a knowledgeable viewpoint, in context. Not the ignorance that is so common today from both sides (Christians and non), and that I am very grateful for. I think the "praise" for the book by Mary Roach, bestselling author, says it best.

"A.J. Jacobs has written about the Bible in a manner that is brilliantly funny but unerringly respectful, learned but goofy, deeply personal yet highly relevant. I am covetous and wish him smited."

So true. Thank you A.J. for writing a very funny and insightful read. And thank you Numar for getting it for me. I could hardly put it down once I started it.

Goose Assassination

So the other day I got to see a pretty sweet Goose Assassination. Can't really say too much here, else I might be next..... but check out the pictures eh? and just in case, dont' be eating while you look. It's for your own safety, and that of your keyboard incase you have a weak stomach. :-)