Forlorn Realities - Weddings and Friends

Yesterday, I attended one of my close friend's wedding.  Now this wedding was different for me, this one had a bit of a shock that came along with it, even before the actual event itself.  This shock was not at all a bad one, but simply a moment of reflection and a realization of reality.  My friend who was getting married was my small group leader back when I was in Junior High at Hanover Missionary Church Youth Group (HMC Youth for short).  I had grown up with this man as a bit of a mentor throughout my life in different relationships with women, times at school, and a challenging voice in my development  musically in a band.  We had different opportunities as he would drive me home from band practice to have deep conversations and be able to, at times, simply joke around.  I really valued those times, sometimes it was the one thing that I looked froward to on Thursday nights.

Now I have just shared with you my past feelings and thoughts of this person and you may be wondering, "Well, then what is the problem?  What is the reality check?"  For me, I think what was hitting me was that after that time, we didn't have a lot of communication between us since I had gone to school and he had work back at home, yet he still invited me to his wedding.  Here I was going to one of my mentor's wedding and was able to see the blessing from God that we had prayed about different times in his car after band practice.  I got to see and be a part of this special blessing in his life.  I got to see a major transition happen in his life and have promised to be there for him through this major transition.  It was really touching that he was willing to allow me to be a part of that change in his life.  Me, one of his small group boys!

During the reception, I was able to hangout and party with one of my small group boys from back in the day when I was a Junior High Youth Worker at HMC.  Here he was working as the videographer at the wedding and was a close friend of the groom as well.  As I was there having fun with my little bro from small group, it came as a reality shock to me.  I have a similar connection with this young man as I have with the groom.  My small group boy could talk to me about anything and we would try and catch up as much as we could.  We were interested in each other's lives and were willing to be there for each other.  In eight months, we would be in a similar situation as I was in with the groom at the wedding.

It is amazing to realize that we can impact people in so many ways that we may not realize the full impact until we have experienced it ourselves.  All of us have impacted people in such a way that we have people who look up to us, but yet we may just think they are hanging out with us because we are the leaders.  There are some that are following you and will follow you in their hearts because you have done something for them or have impacted them in a way you didn't realize.  Your actions, your words, your leadership, is all an example for others to be guided by.  We are all leaders in action.  We are all grand speakers in someone's life.  We are all a huge impact to someone.

You are an impact in someone's life.

Cartoons and the Man

So, I am sitting in my theology class and I was confronted with a perspective in mind. That men are becoming lazy in their pursuit of manliness in the means of focusing on video games for 6-7 hours in the day. Now, I am not saying that this is incorrect. I would actually tend to agree with this perspective in a certain regard. Men today are getting a bit more lazy to take on the world and find the adventure in their lives. But may I ask the question? Can men truly be adventurous if they have never seen what it is?

For me, being the nerd that I am, I love comics. As of late I have been focusing on the anime series Bleach. I personally get a bit excited when things in the series get to heated battles amongst great opponents with the main character. Personally, I am a huge fan of the character Ichigo, who is the main character in the series. The reason why I find Ichigo so amazing is because, in some ways, he gives an awesome illustration of what being a man is about.

Throughout the series, Ichigo goes into battle against evil forces not for himself, but for his friends that are in need. He is willing to drop everything to protect or rescue his friends that are in trouble. This is the virtue of loyalty, that a man is willing to stick with his friends through any circumstances. Ichigo also has an identity that is developed in the series known as a "Soul Reaper". This identity is about fighting evil spirits to protect our world. Being a man is in trenched with the knowing one's self identity and to have a battle to fight for. In the series, Ichigo has a mentor figure that is the spirit of his sword and through this spirit, he is taught how to fight and how to gain strength for fighting. To me, this shows that manliness is about mentorship with other men who know more than I do as well as to receive my identity and trust from God as my teacher. One final thing that I find is substantial about Ichigo is his need to stand for what is honourable. He does this while he fights. He fights for the oppressed, he fights for the weak, and he fights for justice. These are some of the traits that I have found very profound in Bleach through Ichigo's manliness.

Clearly, to me, this particular animation speaks volumes in what manliness is and helps other young men to know what manliness is, in an extreme example. These examples of manliness are not found in this animation series alone, but in many others on t.v. In my perspective, everyman has, in some way, seen an example of manliness in the media through this medium. What I feel is part of the problem is that men are not taking these principles that are noble which they see and apply them in their lives. We as men, sometimes just shrug these cartoons simply as fantasy and that there is nothing to be taken from it since they are too extreme and unrealistic. Yes, I would agree that most of the things are unrealistic in the animations. However, I would say that men need to be looking for the battles in their lives that they feel passionate to fight for. That men need to seek the honour that is missing in our messed up world and fight for it. Men need to find a person to be mentored by, to build a strong sense of who they are. Men need to be risky and adventurous in their life style and to invite a partner on the dangerous journey of life.

So, can men truly be adventurous if they have never seen what it is? I would say no since men need to see manliness in action. Yet, I would say they have seen it all along, they simply need to take initiative and take the lead from these examples to apply it into their lives.

Men, be daring, be risky, be adventurous, be honourable, be loyal, be warriors, be lovers, and be men that seek your identity in God. Then you will truly be on the adventure that you were made for.

Why does it seem that the rain always comes when it is not needed and the sun never comes out when we want it?

Heaven and the Shower??

As part of our lives, we all (in general) take showers, but there is something that particularly come to mind for me as I was taking mine yesterday. After cleaning myself and having washed my hair and turned off the faucet, I came to a question. Is heaven like a long shower that we stay in? I ask you to please try and follow me as I try to explain myself. See, when we are outside of the shower, we get dirty, sweaty and start to smell (hence the reason for having a shower). We might also use the shower to relax a bit more and be able to take time for ourselves to breathe from the stresses of life around us. Yet, once we hop in that shower, we start to clean off our dirt body and start to relax from the strain of life. We start feeling a lot more like ourselves. We are also exposed as who we are in the shower with nothing to hide and are at peace with that in a warm, greenhouse like environment.

However, there is a problem, as I figured out once I was done my shower. We need to get back out of the shower and get dirty or stressed out by the world again. We need to get out of our warm climate where we are fully exposed and relax to face a world that is cold and where we often at times hide who we really are. We feel self conscious and dirty by some of the things we have done for ourselves in our life or things we have done just to survive.

Despite the harshness of the world, we need to take time to get cleansed from the stuff going on in our life. This is where I see the heaven scenario coming out in this perspective/analogy. Time to take these stressors and dirty that we have piled up and give them to Jesus to clean us and make us look and feel new. Throughout our life we have small shower times, in these times we are fully exposed to Jesus of who we are and then He does something when we surrender to Him. We are cleaned by Christ's righteousness, blood, and resurrection in which He takes away the sins in our lives and helps us in time of trouble. It is noted in Revelations 22 that heaven is a place where sin will no longer be around and where we will be perfectly clean from everything that has happened. Which leads me to my question...

Is heaven going to be like a shower that we stay in for the rest of our eternal lives?

I would think so....