"AAAH, i'm melting!"

*best read while listening to Aqua's "Barbie Girl"*

"I'm a barbie girl, in the barbie world..."

marvel at our plastic world!

hardly do we interact with real earth anymore. our cities and streets, our stores and our homes are all laying on our concrete world, "above" the lowly, dirty earth.

even our yards are plastic. sure, there's trees and grass and flowers and we have to do the occasional weeding, but everything is just so well manicured that it cant be called natural. we dont even let nature takes its course with our yards. we pay for these tiny little seeds all over our yard, water them, give them plastic to drink (lawn-juice) then dont even let them grow. every other week or so someone is payed to *VROOM-snip-snip.*

the leaves and branches that fall onto our lawns are gathered up and we pay someone to take them away, only to turn around and pay someone else to give us dead and chopped up leaves and branches called "mulch." what a funny world we live in.

our water's plastic. i dont just mean our bottled water, but our re-processed city water, too.

all of our food is plastic. most everything we eat comes in little cardboard and plastic packages, for our "convenience." what isnt plastic on the outside is plastic on the inside (well, even most plastic-packaged stuff is synthetic "food"). our vegetables, our fruits, our dairy and our meat are all genetically and chemically altered and assembly line delivered. that's pretty gross.

that's not even mentioning (until now, that is) our packaged plastic food for the person perpetually on the fast-paced plan (fast food)!

our bodies are plastic. *robot voice* i must take a shower every day! germs are bad! must smell good. nothing natural! new clothes and new clothes (even if they're bought to look old)! oh, is that hair dye? no, i'm doing something new and edgy and am going with my natural color! but of course, i must still put on my face, because the one i have isnt good enough, colorful enough, glittery enough, old enough (you pre-teens, you!) or young enough (*streeeeeeetch, staple, snip* i'm beautiful!).

this is what gets me, more than anything. even our mental states are "plastic"! feeling down? oh, that's bad, it's your right to be "happy"! take a plastic pill. can't sleep? take this plastic pill and never sleep naturally again! feeling sleepy? take this plastic drink!

of course that leads perfectly into a plastic spirituality. to be saved, pray a prayer. to be ok in life, go to church once a week. to be happy, read your Bible daily. whew, and that's too hard for most people. not feeling happy? pray for more! more what, you may ask? it doesnt really matter, does it, as long as it's more, right? God doesnt want us to have to suffer! Christ took all of our sufferings! so now i'll go about my day-to-day, worldly business and try to attain as much as i can in this life, be nice as often as i think about it (but not if i dont feel like it) and wait to be vanished out of here, away from the struggles of not being happy (which is all of our rights as Christians, but even more as free Americans. dang, i really try to hold back my sarcasm, i... it just... whatever).

[as a side note, praying recited prayers while contemplating on and drawing closer to Jesus through them is way too fake, plastic and ritualistic for any real Christian to even consider. to shame! hmm, now that i think about it, every religion in every culture since the beginning of time (both God's religion Judaism and Satan's religions All the Others) have all been "ritualistic." i wonder if there's any correlation to the mind-body-spirit connection, God's wisdom, Satan's mockery and ritual in religion? Nah, can't be. Jesus threw out ALL tradition and ritual when he threw out man-made traditions (i am curious, though, what godly Traditions were kept intact when all the others were thrown out with that statement? Any Protestants care to answer?).]

our happiness, that which we so earnestly strive after, is, of course, plastic. buy this to feel "happy." get that job and feel "good." not feeling good enough, yet? run away from life to a sports team, a new experience, alcohol, drugs, parties and sex! that'll do it! here's a good idea, be so utterly wrapped up in the plastic lives of celebrities and do what they do! be scandalous! spend frivolously, dont care about other people! hey, the 12" plastic dolls do it, why cant we standard 4 inch ones? oh, and care more about the celebrities lives and relationships then you do your own. that's the key to being plastic!

you can be my friend if you fit within these plastic parameters (the ones i fit in, of course). we will never talk about anything real, we'll just have plastic conversations about our plastic exteriors and use a magnifying glass to melt other plastic peoples' exteriors that dont match up to ours. whew, it's not easy being plastic. there's a lot of insignificant things to worry about!

"...Life in plastic, it's fantastic!"

YES!

despite all my cynicism.... PEOPLE CARE!!! i dont know if you've ever seen the Invisible Children movie. wow. it's hardcore. it's about children who are orphaned and/or forced to runaway so that they wont be KIDNAPPED and FORCED to kill for one warlord or another in Uganda, Africa. man, it gets to me just remembering it. anyway, at the encouragement of a friend (thanks, Rhiannon) i went to invisiblechildren.com and there's a video showing 20-something people--it doesnt even have clips from the movie--going out for a tour for awareness.

seeing people actually RALLYING for JUSTICE really freakin excites me. i got all teary-eyed passionate just watching these "young adults" (what a bullshit term that's used to keep those of us in our prime down) jump around (the music sure helped incite emotion, too). thank God for people.

anyway, check out this specific video i'm talking about and others at http://www.invisiblechildren.com/theMovie/media/index.php?mediaID=1003816137

pearl

Grace is the participation of the very Presence of God

Mother Angelica

right now i am given the grace (and thereby, the faith and strength) to love and honor God and to just be His friend-- to be with Him. thank You for that, Lord

(in case you dont notice, i fixed the quote to be verbatim)

i hear another rap coming on....

this endless search is taking its toll
another drop of poison to kill my soul
this search is raging outta control
try another hollow thing to fill this hole

the real me is lying dead inside
hidden very well by this zombie's pride
why cant that be thing that's died?
cant hear me over the deadman's chide

i just gotta turn back to the Source
see my Savior comin' on His White Horse
live by His Strength He'll endorse
make that deadman ruin his drawers!

so when i feel the need to run
just remember that i'm God's son
He loves me 'til the Day is done
by His Life my victory's won!

all i can do

i'll never know myself enough and i can never know my heart. God does. do what i need to do, as i feel led, as i know is right, and give it to God. "i dont know my heart, but whatever it is, i give this to You, so regardless of my ulterior motives and intentions, You are still glorified."

social justice, go!

if we just sit around a table, drinking our sophisticated coffee, discussing the world's complex social issues, while being extra sophisticated (because we're college students and all [a junior college still counts, right?]), then we're effecting a change and making a difference in the world, right? ...Right?

isolation

i went all day today without a single human interaction. oh sure, i saw and talked with people, but i was always the funny, sarcastic, flirty guy or i was the drink order/maker guy or i was the salesman or i was the employee and i only talked to the boss, the customer, the friendly customer, the "girls i work with." see, no human to human interaction. just one facade or "mode" briefly engaging another out of desire or circumstance. wow, a whole day and i didnt see anyone and no one saw me. hell, i didnt even see me.

and that's exactly what is required of us these days. nothing. i can turn on employee mode, do what needs to get done, drive to the atm, get my "hard earned" money, go to the mcdonald's drive thru, order to a voice, exchange money with a money changer, get my food from food giver, go "home" and be entertained by tv personalities.

often times we make it easier on ourselves as well by putting a mode on someone, no matter how real they're trying to be. we only have to interact with our projection of someone and save ourselves the trouble of caring about them and their situation and life.

so forget about being considerate or loving. if i'm not me and i dont see anyone for who they are then what's to care about? "i wont put back the magazine i was looking it, someone else will," "oh, my mom will clean my room for me," "why clear my plate, someone gets paid to," "i'm a paying customer, so my drink has to be ready NOW, even though i'm going to be hanging out in the store for another hour and half," "why doesnt that bum just get a job-- he's getting no hand-outs from me!" nothing's required of us!

the 2 worst, i think, are when children get abused (even just ignoring them is abuse-- knowing you're loved is necessary for development and life!) and stripping the dignity from women and turning them into prostitutes. and you dont have to have sex with them to do that. Jesus said that looking lustfully at a woman is as having committed adultery with her. so basically, you just raped her.

the human condition. and we're all to blame.

repentance-- confession, contrition and penance. i'll be the first to admit that i treat people like shit. i hate it. but it's so easy! if you are in my life to any degree, i've used and abused you. i want to be sorry, but to be sorry means to make up for it and to do better. so not only is abusing easy, but being real is hard.

i guess the question is, what's the trade off? what do we get out of being real and sincere and considerate (especially when it takes so much effort, like telling a friend something they arent going to want to hear or serving someone who really just deserves a crack in the mouth)?

we get to be ourselves. or at least, that's what i'm told. if i give in to all my selfish, shallow desires, i'm an animal-- nothing more. if i feed the other dog, as it were, i'm letting Christ live through me. maybe the real Real Me doesnt get a chance until we shed this mortal coil. "whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

so where does that leave me? i want to want to but i dont want to. the ol' "suck it up, princess" adage seems fitting at this point. i guess that's when we know it's true love for Christ-- to love people when we know how much it can suck.

why does it have to be the little things that matter? if i could just do grand acts of kindness i'd be good to go.

boy, is a fake life easy, but i kinda hate it. i only say kinda b/c it sure is easier.

hmm.