I live with a bunch of big girls.

For some reason, the guys in my hall decided to have a big fat slumber party. So they took their mattresses out of their rooms, lined the hall with them, and now they’re all sleeping there together. Awww.

I still think it’s a fire hazard.

Remember what I was saying about how men don’t know how express their feelings for one another adequately?…

Y’ever have a song stuck in your head? My way of getting it out of my head is to beat it with a blunt instrument. Not literally; I just have my CD player, MP3 player, or computer play the song over and over and over until it’s finally out of my system. Sometimes it takes a day.

Sometimes five.

Sometimes roommates go mad first.

Stupid Internet Survey: What political party should I be in?

What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In?

You scored as Green.

Green	83%
Republican	75%
Anarchism	75%
Democrat	67%
Communism	33%
Socialist	33%
Nazi	0%
Fascism	0%

What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In?
created with QuizFarm.com.

I took another one of those stupid polls. This one's on what political party you might best fit. It was very poorly written, because it turned out that I should be a member of the Green party. That's right—the party where its best-known members are a has-been consumer journalist and a guy who wants to legalize weed and sell it in clubs. Knowing what I do about it's platform, about the only things I agree with the Greens on are grassroots organization and environmentalism (though not to the degree of most Greens I have met; I still eat meat).

So I went back and looked at the questions. Man, they'll let any idiot write a quiz, won't they? In essence, it's all superficial junk, and in order to determine whether you're a Fascist, the quiz asks you, "Do you agree with the teachings of Benito Mussolini?" Okay, who other than a history nut (or an Italian civics teacher) is going to know what any of those teachings are? In general, the thing was horribly written, and slanted a little too much against Republicans. (Plus, when I altered one answer and punched it in again, I came out Fascist. How do you go from Green to Fascist with one answer? For that matter, how do you get an equal score for Republican and Anarchist?)

Oh well; the stupid thing is supposed to be all in fun anyway.

Printer problems.

Epson printers aren’t necessarily of the devil, but I suspect their cartridges are. I was in the middle of my Curriculum portfolio when the cartridge decided it was out of ink. It wasn’t out of ink; there were no lines or streaks in the printout. It simply decided it was out of ink. And it wouldn’t print anything else. I’d send a file to the printer, and the printer wouldn’t function because the cartridge insisted it was out of ink.

I even tried that trick where you pull it out, stick it back in, and trick the printer into thinking the cartridge was full… no dice. The cartridges have bloody microchips now. You can’t fool the printer anymore. If I had one of those ink syringes, and refilled the cartridge, it would still insist it was empty. Dangit!

It was a free printer; it came with my iMac. It’s now a little more obvious to me why it was free.

This, in the midst of a giant paper. I asked for an extra week to do it, then I stupidly put off finishing it a little longer. So, over the past four days, I have been pounding away at it; and if it weren’t for a nice little four-hour nap this morning I would be completely buggered. Have you ever been so sleep-deprived that you typed six paragraphs of utter garbage into your computer, thinking all the while, “Wow, I’m on a roll!”… then you woke up the rest of the way and realized you had to redo a half hour’s work? Fortunately, I now know enough to squeeze in a sleep break when my brain starts to do that.

But it’s finally done.

So, to celebrate, I am going to sleep a lot… right after this.

Amusing Comic Strip: Coffee by internet.

Garfield, by Jim Davis. 9/7/2000.

Spring, allergies, and pheromones.

Ah Spring… when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of over-the-counter antihistamines.

I really don’t like spring, because I’m allergic to it. My allergies are less obvious in Santa Cruz, but they’re still around, probably exacerbated by the black mold problem in Swanson. (It’s hiding under the 60 coats of paint in each room that make it impossible to put thumbtacks into the walls.)

Worse yet, the pheromones are flying, and I am again seeing a phenomenon I call Senior Dating Desperation. This is where people who are on the verge of graduation think to themselves, Good Lord, I’m about to leave this college and I don’t have a spouse yet. So they ramp up the social activity to more and more bizarre levels, in the desperate hope that love might yet kick them in the teeth before they’re gone. Some might confuse it with perfectly ordinary “senioritis,” but I’ve seen enough pitiful flirting to realize there’s more to certain cases of spring-induced senioritis. I wonder how many people have chosen to enter Bethany’s post-graduate programs for that one last shot?…

I should also remind the women that men are dense. Seriously. If there’s one thing women don’t understand about men, it’s that. (Again, there are always exceptions; I’m speaking generally.) When women want us to do something, and they don’t explicitly explain it (and even sometimes if they do explicitly explain it) we won’t realize they want us to do it. We don’t take hints. We don’t read body language. We’re dense. So if women want anything out of men, they have to learn to be blatantly obvious.

If a woman wants to go on a date with me (this is a for instance; I’m not asking) she has to say so. Otherwise I will simply assume she is only being friendly, and perhaps a little grabby. It will not occur to me to think otherwise, simply because I did not come to Bethany College to date people.

Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on your point of view—women recognize when other women are flirting, and sometimes they will point this out to me. But I have a sure-fire method of driving the flirts away: I talk about how I don’t have a car. When I do this, I can actually see their thought-processes: He doesn’t have a car? What kind of loser doesn’t have a car? Well, I can’t date him; he can’t take me anywhere. If he’s too cheap to buy a car, he won’t buy me stuff. And so on. And they move on. And life is good.

I really, really dislike spring.

The “How Kent flooded the Spot” story.

Current students, of course, don’t remember anything about this except for vague rumors about someone who set off a fire alarm once.

It is annoying when the internet works faster at Starbucks than it does in my dorm room. But wireless rocks.

PS—any Bethany people want to buy a wireless card? Works with PCs and newer Macs. Only $60.

I live in Burnett South (I still don’t know why we had to change it from Victory Hall) and next year the men will be moving to the Spot. Which is interesting; I used to live in the Spot back in the ’90s. Our RA was asking us about which rooms we might like to have. I briefly flirted with the idea of requesting my old room (which, oddly enough, was once also my sister Kerry’s old room), then decided it wasn’t important. That was then. This is now. Gotta live in the now.

But speaking of then, I think I’ll tell you the story of how I flooded the Spot in 1996.

It was my second year; I had returned early because I was on the Senate and I had to participate in New Student Orientation. My roommate had not yet arrived. No one was there except the guys who had lived on campus all summer, the RA (Don, my former roommate), and the assistant RA (Steve, who would later live in mid-year to hook up with someone he met in Romania during his summer mission trip). All told, about five of us.

So I was busy stealing furniture out of one of the vacant rooms (I wanted to make sure my roommate had a good desk) when Ben, our last year’s RA and recent graduate, poked his head in the door. “What are you up to?” he asked, and we got to talking.

He had this miniature football—the kind that whistles when you throw it—and we started tossing the thing down the hallway. Since he was on his way out, the passes were getting longer and longer…

𝘏𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘭 𝘙𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢.

Kent’s Recommended Watch:
Terry George:
Hotel Rwanda

Finally got to watch Hotel Rwanda last night; an excellent movie about a disgusting situation. As I was watching one of the mini-documentaries that came with the DVD, I was thinking, “Why don’t I remember seeing this on the news in 1994?” You know what was on the news every bloody night in 1994? O.J. Simpson. Not Rwanda. The fact that nobody reported on—or cared about—the genocide that was going on in that country makes me sick.

But it’s not surprising. Nobody reported on—or cared about—the Holocaust either. American and British troops didn’t even know it was going on until they discovered the camps. Our commanders knew, and said nothing. Our homelands even turned Jewish refugees away.

We have all these Holocaust memorials scattered throughout the world, movies like Schindler’s List, and videotapes of survivor stories. We teach these things to our kids in their history classes so that “you can make sure nothing like this ever happens again.” And then it happens again. In Rwanda. Currently in the Sudan. What’s the freakin’ point? Why show kids the films of trenches full of emaciated corpses? They’ve seen more horrific stuff in video games. It doesn’t faze them. It won’t unless it’s live. When you put a video screen between people and reality, it disconnects the two. Why don’t people realize this?

About the Sudan—Congress even passed a resolution denouncing the genocide in that country. Yet where are our troops? Afghanistan and Iraq. Granted, those countries needed liberating; but so do other countries whose leaders are smart enough to not attack the United States (or the president’s dad) first. But I guess the war on terror only applies to terrorists who annoy us personally.

I still recommend the movie. Watch it. But the apathy of this country might greatly annoy you.

Bloody pledge drives.

Mike likes to listen to Air 1, which calls itself “the positive alternative,” which means top-15 CCM tunes that have more-than-usual distortion on their electric guitars.

Lately they’ve been doing the same stupid thing public television does every three months—they’re starting a pledge drive. Yes indeedy; they don’t air commercials, so they need their listening audience to send them money if they like what they hear. Of course, my attitude is the same that I have when PBS has pledge drives: Stop begging me for money and sell airtime!

Same with Xanga and their “premium” service. Every time I type in an entry, there’s a box on the page that says, “Just sign up for Xanga Premium, and the ad is gone!” Hey, I like free Xanga. I can put up with an ad. (And for those of you who have noticed, I’ve been replacing Xanga’s ads with my fake ads on my page for the past month.)

I have a suspicion that this begging for pledges method is actually getting these organizations more money than they make it seem. After all, notice how comfortably all the TV preachers are doing…

Amusing comic strip: I want one of those boxes!

Garfield, by Jim Davis, 2/6/1998.

Get it out of your system some 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 way.

Boxing has lately become a fad on campus. I’ve said it before: I wish the men on this campus could express their emotions in a healthy, constructive way instead of the juvenile smack-’em-if-you-like-’em manner.

This evening we had a “town hall” meeting; I don’t know why we call them that because they never resemble an actual town hall. It’s always just Dennis, our Resident Director, making announcements; and we get credit for attending a chapel service. In order to keep things interesting, there were a few boxing matches beforehand.

Things would have been a lot more interesting if someone had been seriously injured. With Dennis there, the boxing became officially sanctioned by the college, and was therefore actionable. The subsequent lawsuit would have closed the school. (Obviously, Bethany College doesn’t teach law.)

Things would also have been interesting had I called the Scotts Valley Police about the fight, as I had joked during dinner. Now that would have been hilarious… watching them break down the doors and drag the sobbing fighters out of there in cuffs. And then there’s the fine to the school for violating fire codes… Well… maybe not.

But there’s got to be a better way for guys on this campus to show affection for one another. Something that still allows them to be butch and secure enough in their masculinity. Something that won’t result in brain injuries.

Think of the punches as little kisses.

Smack, smack, smack.

The blogging me is not the actual me.

I occasionally have to remind people that the version of me they see on my blog is not the actual me. This is the grouchy, pissed-off, annoyed me. I rant, get that out of my system, then go back to being the actual me. The actual me is much nicer.

Some people actually express surprise at that. Lunch today:

SHE. “You’re a lot nicer than I thought you’d be.”

ME. “How’d you think I’d be?”

SHE. “I don’t know… more annoyed at things.”

ME. “Why? Because I’ve been eating café food and it put me in a bad mood?”

SHE. “See, like that.”

ME. “Like how?”

“Like on [your blog],” she finally said.

And so I had to explain to her my purpose for ranting. I think she understands; but I suspect she was a bit disappointed. I don’t know; maybe she was hoping that when she met me in person I could give her hotlinks to ridiculous surveys and zany websites.

Amusing comic strip: Slept all morning.

Garfield, by Jim Davis, 4/18/2005.

My current events.

I got my summer school packet today, and since the class I need to take is in late May, I guess I’m not really gonna be done with school until June.

My fieldwork stuff is also going to take until high school gets out in June anyway, so actually this was good news… I don’t have to be at Bethany all summer. Just an extra month. I’ll be finished in time for my brother’s wedding.

Add three papers, a portfolio, and a final due next week… all of which are totally doable.

God is good.

Postmodernism and ministry.

Kent’s Recommended Read:
Tony Jones:
Postmodern Youth Ministry
 
If you’ve confused modernism with Christianity, of course you’re in a tizzy about how to reach my modernism-rejecting generation.

I must recommend a rather useful book I’ve been reading lately: Postmodern Youth Ministry by Tony Jones.

Some years ago I read How Now Shall We Live? by Nancy Pearcy and Chuck Colson (his name comes first on the books, but that’s to sell the book) which was supposed to be an update of Francis Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live? but instead was a screed against postmodernism. The postmodern philosophy scares the crap out of them for one simple reason: If enough people believe in it, they figure the days of mass conversions may soon be over.

To me, that’s good news. So much of evangelism and discipleship consists of cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all methods instead of the individual, personal relationship that God wants to have with each of us—and wants us, as disciplers, to have with disciples. Most of the people I debate with on Xanga suffer, to various degrees, from the idea that all Christians must have the exact same understanding of God in order to be saved. Obviously they’ve never read the Prophets; they stick to the New Testament, which was written by nine people but they only read three of them and explain away any Gospel contradictions with logical gymnastics. They totally disregard the fact that God wanted scripture written from multiple viewpoints. God wants diversity. Why else would he have made everyone so different?

Someone else’s Rant.

Kent’s Recommended Read:
Ronald J. Sider:
The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience

Here’s a rant that isn’t mine, but I thoroughly endorse it—an excerpt from The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience by Ronald J. Sider. Basically, Christians aren’t living any differently than everyone else; and what good is our witness if that’s the case?

An excerpt from the excerpt? Why certainly.

Graham Cyster, a Christian whom I know from South Africa, recently told me a painful story about a personal experience two decades ago when he was struggling against apartheid as a young South African evangelical. One night, he was smuggled into an underground Communist cell of young people fighting apartheid. “Tell us about the gospel of Jesus Christ,” they asked, half hoping for an alternative to the violent communist strategy they were embracing.

Graham gave a clear, powerful presentation of the gospel, showing how personal faith in Christ wonderfully transforms persons and creates one new body of believers where there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, rich nor poor, black nor white. The youth were fascinated. One seventeen-year-old exclaimed, “That is wonderful! Show me where I can see that happening.” Graham’s face fell as he sadly responded that he could not think of anywhere South African Christians were truly living out the message of the gospel. “Then the whole thing is a piece of sh--,” the youth angrily retorted. Within a month he left the country to join the armed struggle against apartheid—and eventually giving his life for his beliefs.

The young man was right. If Christians do not live what they preach, the whole thing is a farce. “American Christianity has largely failed since the middle of the twentieth century,” Barna concludes, “because Jesus’ modern-day disciples do not act like Jesus.” This scandalous behavior mocks Christ, undermines evangelism, and destroys Christian credibility.

Can’t give blood.

Bethany College is having a blood drive next week. It’s kind of a bummer for me, because I can’t give blood.

The first time I gave blood, way back in 1994, the blood bank rejected it. It seems my liver was producing some kind of contaminant protein that does nothing to me (I made sure of that) and most people; but it still meant they couldn’t use it. Well, once your blood been rejected once, it’s been rejected forever. For all I know, my liver isn’t producing that chemical anymore; but the blood banks don’t want to take the risk.

I’m now on some national “do not take these people’s blood” list that the blood banks share. Seriously—I’ve seen it. Apparently there are some psychos that want to pollute the blood supply, and it’s against the law to give blood if you know you’re HIV-positive. So I’m on the list, along with everyone who has certain viruses and other contaminants, and they don’t really have a system to take people off it. (Or at least they didn’t when I looked into it in 1998.)

At least I can support the American Red Cross financially. As we all should. You know they’re still helping out with tsunami relief. But if you can, give blood.

…And someone explain to me why they measure blood units in pints? Aren’t scientists supposed to be using the metric system? (They’re probably taking 500 cc’s and just calling it a pint.)

Stupid Internet Survey: What’s my Christian tradition?

Christian Traditions Selector (beta)

Pentecostal/Charismatic/Assemblies of God	100%
Anglican/Episcopal/Church of England	98%
Methodist/Wesleyan/Nazarene	98%
Presbyterian/Reformed	94%
Baptist (Reformed/Particular/Calvinistic)	92%
Congregational/United Church of Christ	92%
Lutheran	90%
Eastern Orthodox	82%
Baptist (non-Calvinistic)/Plymouth Brethren/Fundamentalist	72%
Church of Christ/Campbellite	57%
Seventh-Day Adventist	56%
Roman Catholic	48%
Anabaptist (Mennonite/Quaker etc.)	44%

Christian Traditions Selector
created with SelectSmart.

Like I needed a quiz to tell me.

Sometimes we forget it’s about grace.

Y’know, there are so many people interested in fighting heresy that they seem to forget something—

John, answering Jesus’s statement about least and greatest, said, “Teacher, we saw someone throwing out gods in your name. We were trying to stop him because he wasn’t following you with us.” Jesus said, “Don’t stop him! …Anyone who isn’t opposing us is on our side.” [Mk 9.38-40 KWL]

It takes some severe chutzpah—or a great deal of immaturity (bear in mind that John was in his early teens at that time)—to tell a person who can perform exorcisms in Jesus’s name, “Stop doing that. You need to belong to our church first.”

And yet… and yet…

I have heard so much anti-Catholic crap since the Pope died that it sickens me. All this from a bunch of idiot Protestants who think they’ve got Christianity all figured out. They think, because the Pope didn’t follow Jesus the way they do, he’s doomed to hell. Never mind being saved by grace; they think God’s grace doesn’t apply because the Pope didn’t worship “right,” or he prayed to Mary, or he wasn’t baptized by immersion… In other words, salvation by works, which means they’re not really Protestants. And since Catholics believe in salvation by grace too, the Catholics are actually better Protestants than they are.

Don’t these people realize they’re going to have to answer to God if they get in the way of any of his ministers? …But the problem is that they’re so convinced that they’re his only ministers that they couldn’t see the works of God in anyone else. And such was the case of the Pharisees, which is why Jesus had to warn them against blaspheming the Holy Spirit. That’s the direction they were taking; and that’s the direction we all take when our pride in our doctrines blinds us. Κύριε ἐλέησον εμάς.

If only we would stop fighting each other and just follow Jesus, we might actually stand a chance of completing the tasks he set for us.

Why I gotta learn lesson plans.

Fieldwork means I watch someone teach a class. Or several classes.

It’s not easy because I already know this stuff. (I’d better, if I’m going to eventually teach it.) It’s also interesting because, of the teachers I’ve watched, not one of them have followed the strict step-by-step lesson plan formats I get in Curriculum. In my years of both teaching and being taught, I have only met one teacher who follows these formats. This is because she likes structure; so they work for her. But everyone else seems to find the formats too restricting and have pretty much chucked them after they finished college.

Of course, I don’t need to ask Dr. Vaughn why she still teaches these things. I can already determine these answers:

1. These are methods that have been demonstrated to work.
2. One should always base one’s teaching methods on something that works, rather than what one grew up with.
3. The state wants to know that we learned them.
4. Our lessons for our state assessments must be structured this way.
5. Who knows; I might actually use them.

Dr. Vaughn might have other answers; but for now these are the answers that work for me.

Learning to deal in fieldwork.

My previous experience in teaching has unfortunately been in Christian schools, which means I had to teach either sheltered Christian kids, or unsheltered pagan kids whose parents wanted the school to “fix” their kids for them. Too much of the discipline at Christian schools, unfortunately, falls back on legalism. I tried to avoid being a legalistic teacher—sometimes to the annoyance of my administrators—but beating the kids over the heads with the scriptures reminded me too much of my own childhood, and I didn’t want to repeat that mistake.

Unfortunately, I realize I still have a little bit of that legalism in me. It’s all the more obvious in a public school—and because of the separation of church and state, you absolutely cannot fall back on Christian legalism. It’s simply inappropriate to hold non-Christian kids to Christian standards. So I’ve been watching the ways in which my “master teacher” (that’s the title they give him) deals with them.

Fr’instance, one of the kids was reading The Satanic Bible in class. Not that he’s particularly interested in becoming a Satanist; he’s curious. Heck, I’m curious about what that book says. Knowing what I do about the teachings of pop-culture Satanism, I’m sure it’s just the “do whatever you want so long as it hurts no one else” philosophy, padded to fill 200 pages. But as a Christian theologian, I know better than to fall for such a philosophy. What, on the other hand, about a high-schooler who would find this philosophy greatly appealing? …Especially if he wants to rebel for the sake of rebellion. What better way to horrify the parents than to join the church of Satan?

The way my master teacher dealt with it was brilliant: “You know,” he says, “I know a few Satanists, and I’ve noticed that every one of them is an a--hole.”

The boy had to admit that yes, this was his experience with Satanists also. Then he put the book away, and that was that.

I just found the whole thing brilliant. I wouldn’t have used that term to describe Satanists, but it perfectly describes the few that I’ve met. They’re the most self-centered, unpleasant people I’ve ever met. (And I reached this conclusion before I discovered they were Satanists.) Of course, it’s because of the philosophy—and most Satanists have apparently dropped the “so long as it hurts no one else” part of it. The only people who would want to join such a religion would be those who want an excuse to be self-centered and unpleasant; thus its appeal to high school students. But deep down, few want to have traits that alienate others.

…Well, maybe traits that alienate annoying people. But that’s about it.

Campus Days approaches.

Not playing music. Mike is asleep.

So… Campus Days have descended upon us. If you didn’t think Bethany College was enough like a high school, fill it with visiting high schoolers and see if the resemblance isn’t frightening.

I was hugely amused recently by someone who was talking, over dinner, about how mature he feels now that he’s at college, away from the parents, and experiencing “real life.” Bear in mind that he seldom leaves the campus—and only for social occasions. He doesn’t have a car, he’s never paid rent in his life, the state is paying his tuition, and he’s never filed a tax return—in fact, he was freaking out a little because he’s not sure how to do one and was actually talking about going to H.R. Block so they can help him with the 1040EZ form. Apparently the short form is more “real life” than he can handle.

Yes, it is a little odd that I’m annoyed by immature behavior and yet I’m called to youth ministry. But y’see, I expect immature behavior in kids; so I’m not surprised when high schoolers, say, try to leave a classroom through the window. That’s simply normal adolescent behavior. I expect more from these “adults” that populate our campus… even though a lot of them, just last year, were likewise climbing out the windows. (They’re still doing it, too.)

TBN a fraud? Well, we knew that already…

Insanely busy week. I was finally given a class to observe for my fieldwork, so for eight hours a day I’m at San Lorenzo Valley High School, and juggling all my other stuff with that.

Good thing I’ve given up sleep!

The below article is fake, but it made me laugh too dang hard.

EXCLUSIVE REPORT:
Trinity Broadcasting Network Run by Atheists
Officials say goal was to make Christians look stupid

SANTA ANA, CA—For everyone who has ever tuned into the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN)—broadcast on satellite and cable systems across the country—and thought, "This can’t be serious," it turns out you were right.

Local and federal law enforcement officials have uncovered an elaborate scheme engineered by an atheist group and aimed at embarrassing the Christian religion; a scheme that has been going on for nearly 30 years.

Among other startling discoveries, officials have learned that TBN—which has claimed from the beginning to exist for the purpose of furthering God’s kingdom—was actually founded by Broadcasters Against God (BAG)—a loosely organized faction of Hollywood atheists—in 1973 and has been operated by the group ever since.

“We’ve been on this case for years,” said special federal investigator Scott Hines. “I mean, come on. Have you ever watched this channel?”

A 250-page report released this week reveals that TBN’s ridiculous-looking sets featuring enormous purple thrones lined with ornate gold patterns and hosts with huge hairdos and caked-on makeup were used purposely to give bleary-eyed channel surfers a distorted view of Christianity.

“The biggest surprise to me is that we were able to get away with it for so long,” BAG President Wayne Mailer said in a signed confession included in the report. “I mean, seriously, Christians were actually giving money to keep this channel on the air! It was unbelievable.”

In fact, TBN was primarily supported by viewer contributions over the years, although officials are now taking a good, hard look at the motives behind a series of large gifts from media mogul Ted Turner.

“I pity the fools who gave money to this network,” born again entertainer Mr. T said upon learning of the scam. He’s just one of many Christians who unwittingly participated in the deception by making numerous appearances on TBN.

“This is totally whack,” echoed Christian music artist Carman, another TBN regular. “Anyone who would carry on something like this for so long needs a check up from the neck up. What the dilly?”

It’s unclear what charges will be levied against BAG since there are no laws against disingenuous programming. But one thing is almost certain—officials have no intention of walking away from years of investigating without handing down a conviction.

“Just putting together this kind of painful television for two decades deserves pretty serious punishment,” Hines said. “Believe me, we’re gonna make something stick.”

You gotta love The Holy Observer.

Shouldn’t rant if I didn’t do anything.

So I was all set to sit down at my computer and rant in my blog about someone else’s bad behavior… and then I realized I should’ve done something about it.

At the time, my first instinctive reaction was to not embarrass the other person by making a scene; to be “diplomatic,” as we usually put it; to smooth things over. I let it go; let it bug me; and figured I’d get it out of my system by ranting about it later. What kind of passive wimpy crap is that?

Sometimes people need to be rebuked. Publicly. Immediately. Not because they need to be humiliated—though that is a side effect, and often it’s the effect that the rebukers are going for. It’s because someone needs to stand up and tell them that this is not okay. True, this can have another side effect—getting someone to angrily defend their bad behavior—but other people’s rage, real or imagined, is not an excuse for doing nothing.

If more people just spoke up against bad behavior the instant it took place, we might see a lot more reform. We’re so afraid on creating uncomfortable situations, of stepping on people’s toes… Jesus never had this problem. If he needed to cuss someone out, particularly Pharisees and disciples, he bloody well did it. But what did I do about it?… Nothing.

So, instead of ranting about what I was gonna rant about, I’m not. There’s no point in my complaining about things when I haven’t attempted to contribute to their solution.

Our contradictory minds.

I was talking to L yesterday about how people hold several contradictory beliefs at once. Fr’instance, I was teaching a class in which a student expressed the belief that people have to be good in order to get to heaven. I quizzed her—she does believe that God saves people by his grace, and that it has nothing to do with works. At the same time, she also believes that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell.

Admittedly, this contradiction exists in scripture too. Contrary to the logicians in the church, theology is not so cut-and-dried. Both statements are true: by grace we’re saved, and the wicked will be thrown into gehenna. The theologian’s typical solution to the problem is to either create a more complex system of double predestination, or to explain away one extreme in favor of the other; but the hard truth is that our relationships with God cannot be reduced to formulas.

This morning’s discussion was on euthanasia, Terri Schiavo, the Pope, the “death with dignity” law in Oregon… The usual cheerful discussion to brighten one’s day. Really, it call comes down to the value one places on life. If life is inherently valuable, we would do all we can to preserve it. If its value is dependent on whether or not we’re functional—brain-dead, vegetative, incapacitated, suffering, prenatal and convenient to the family plan, likely to take other lives, expensive to care for—then we can put a value on it, and terminate it if the value is too low.

Many Christians say they’re in favor of life… but again, it’s not consistent because many Christians hold contradictory beliefs. Life is sacred; yet most believe in a life for a life. The same people that protest against abortion also vote for their states to enact the death penalty. Catholics appear to be more consistent—in being against both birth control and the death penalty—yet the birth rate in Italy, one of the most Catholic of countries, indicates that the teachings of the church aren’t consistent with the practices of the people.

I believe the death penalty should be expanded to include rapists and child molesters. I don’t believe life is sacred so much as I believe the innocent, weak, and defenseless should be protected. But, inconsistently, I do believe that life is sacred and that the death penalty is enacted way too often.

Hey, what can I tell you; life is messy.