Tuesday, August 19, 2008

"Hard Day?" what is that, a slogan?

Walking down the terminal- Southwest Airlines adds on the walls made me think. The theme sentence between four posters was "hard day?".

Poster 1: A business man fixing a printer with ink exploded on his face and looking frustrated
Poster 2: Zoomed in on a broken business high heel shoe
Poster 3: A dog eating a Black Berry computer phone
Poster 4: A woman in a suit being splashed by a taxi driving through a mud puddle
I don't know what the point of these adds is, but they reveal a lot about American culture and priorities. Why doesn't it say "hard day?" and show a hungry five year old boy sitting by a projects basketball court? Why doesn't it show a young girl fallen into prosititution who jus found out that she is pregnant or has an STD? Why doesn't it show the homeless man who had his ID stolen and now cannot possibly get a job? Or the one tha showed up at free breakfast under the bridge on Sunday morning to find that they had run out of tacos? Or the woman that got her only outfit wet in the rain and there is not public building that will let her come in from the cold because she is too dirty? What about cancer and suicide and hunger and the storms and fires that take out whole neighborhoods and carbombs and oil spills? What about the soul that never finds God and the Christian too afraid to tell them? Why in the world is a broken high heel or a cracked computer grounds for a "hard day?"?
We have it so easy. Maybe humans are just prone to negativity and seek opportunities for complaint; and if there are no real problems in our lives then we have to find something to be upset about or else we can't poossibly be living fully, right? Or maybe we just don't expect to live fully. Well it is true that it is impossible to live fully if you look to anything on earth to satisfy you- including "real problems" like food and health. Only God can satisfy our needs and longings. If you aren't happy and are wondering why, don't blame shallow worldly things. Get to know the living God who will make your joy full. John 15:11.
And please hold me accountable- If ever you hear me ranting or upset about something dumb, call me out.

My friend Jazztronaut from camp wrote this to me in a letter, "It seems to me that it is really through our faith in God that we are able to serve others and put their needs abouve our own. If this train of thought is true, the people who serve well are to be commended for their faithful trust in God, because they innately or intentionally rely on Him to provide their own needs after taking care of the needs of others. Matthew 6:33."

A camper said about her week at camp (and I wrote this down in my journal because I learned from her), "I learned that sometimes God won't give you what you want so that you will realize that is is not what you need."
My clever quote concerning men and women in relationships.

""Boys are more obvious; girls are more mysterious.
Girls are more intuitive; boys are more oblivious."

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Camp zoomed by fast. Geeze.

Camp ended. I got to be a counselor the last week! That was pretty much amazing. I had gotten pretty comfortable in my kitchen role and prayed that God would present a way to stretch me a little more the last week and He did. The director grabbed me about an hour and a half before the campers arrived and said, "Stretch, one of the counselors had a crisis at home and left....so....you're a counselor this week." Ah! Oh I loved it! My girls were wonderful and I miss them. I was certainly thrown once again out of my comfort zone and I learned more about relating to teenagers. I think just the fact that I have been overwhelmed and ucomfy and uncertain so many times while having to be responsible in such a short period of time before the big school boom is good. I was coasting through college. not that classes weren't challenging anymore, i just knew what to expect, how hard i had to work, and well, I knew what I was doing and have been in my comfort zone for two years now. Even performing dancing in from of a few thousand people had become no big deal. So being thrown into two situations where I was being depended on be others and having to make lots of crazy decisions on the fly and think fast and do things that I didn't know how to do was, if nothing else, good for preparing me for the suprises and overwhelmtion that I expect from teaching. Yippy. Thanks God. And I think my leadership abilities have been pruned and formed in a good way. I have learned so much about myself, my strengths, my weaknesses, how much I need God, and how to rely on Him. Camp, of course, was more to me than that, but I am not going to type about it right now. thanks.