It Wasn't a Bracket Buster but Rather a Heart Buster

Last night was a tough night for me emotionally. Sports. We all love them in some aspect or another. So what is it about sports that invoke such emotions from us?

Last night I was angry that Syracuse lost in the sweet 16. If you don’t know anything about college basketball, Syracuse could have won the championship this year. We had star talent, a hall of fame coach, and an amazing season. But we lost 3 games before the big game. And I’m sad to say that I was angry because of that loss. It doesn’t make sense to me why I was so emotionally tied to a team that I don’t give anything to and that doesn’t give anything to me but entertainment.  I didn’t help this team win any of their games. I didn’t pay to cheer them on outside of my television. I didn’t coach or teach any of them for any period of time. Hell, these players don’t even know or care that I exist but yet I lied in bed thinking, I can’t believe they lost, why did we play so bad, why did I just use the word we in that last question? As if I’m part of their team. What an awful game.

I watch and I cheer and yell but I can just as easily turn around and cheer for the other team without blinking an eye. Now I’m not talking about being a band wagon fan but I’m talking about realizing how vain it is to root so emotionally for a team that it ruins your night or causes relationships that you have in your life to be strained.

So if someone can turn around and start cheering for a team that they cheered against the night before, it only reasons that what your cheering for doesn’t really matter and isn’t really life. It’s all fake. It’s all a game. It doesn’t matter. And it’s not real life.

Sports are what they are: entertainment and I don’t want to take the emotions out of a big win or a big loss. Just like I don’t want to take the emotions out of movies that change peoples’ lives, even though they are not real and all parts are played by actors. But if you take a step back for a second and look at yourself, how you appear to others when you get so infuriated that you make people around think you have no self control then there’s a problem.

So last night I realized as I lay in bed that I can’t control who wins or who loses. I can’t control how much practice someone puts into a game. I can’t control or help how good the teams are that we’re playing. One thing I do have control over is how many times I write Hentri, my sponsor child. I can control how many times I tell my parents I love them. I can control how often I decide to do go out of my way to love people. I can control how many times I decide to lust, or get angry, or hate. So in the words of Roger Trimble “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” So I’m going to start caring more about the things in my life that I can control and stop caring about the things in life that I can’t trust. I can always trust God because he is trustworthy. And he never fails unlike Syracuse basketball…which save 2003 always fails. Love. War.


Things to think about
-giving money to someone that needs it more than you
-quitting your job and just going
-unlimited demand with limited supply equals long waiting lines


Things to read
-Maddox

I Wonder if Jesus Would of Drunk Tea on the Cross…oh Wait he was Dying

What is it about buying hot tea that makes you feel somewhat refined, or even eclectic? Why is it that being eclectic is a good thing? I think everyone is pretty normal and in their normalcy, tend to do things that are normal. The amount of men that play call of duty amazes me. The amount of women that care about what’s going on in the life of Snookie from the Jersey Shore is equally amazing to me. Are these the things that man and woman have been whittled down to after 6000 years of existence. To be fair I think that more men watch Jersey Shore than women play Call of Duty, but that doesn’t matter.

I sit in a coffee shop watching my very hot “Herbal Revive Tea by Twining of London” cool down. If you drink tea are you more interesting? If you go to coffee shops are you better than the person that goes to the gym to lift weights? It’s probably not a question of objective bettership but rather subjective bettership.

My friend Meghan told me that I seem distant today while we sat and spied on someone for a project that was due in one of her classes. I am distant today and I’m not sure why. Maybe society or the self-serving nature of human beings wears me out. This thing Christianity pushes me towards is loving people. This loving people specifically is pretty easy but very hard in a vague sense. I find myself hating a lot of people. This isn’t because I’m odd or have a sense about me that’s much different from the average human being (not that being different from average is bad, but probably rather a good thing) but rather I think on a deeper level of thinking than my average peer.

Let me try to explain my position in as clear a way as I possibly can. I think that people care about things. I think that the things people care about are very natural and even good. Dying mothers and fathers, friends being hurt by lovers, having to pay the town a fine just so they can get money to exist, are all things that people care about. Going to hear live bands and singing and dancing your heart out are all things that ring deep within us. The things that I’m talking about that don’t matter are dying mothers and fathers, friends being hurt by lovers and having to pay the town a fine just so they can exist…and of course dancing to live bands with loud music.

What I mean by this is that there are things that happen in life that we can’t separate ourselves from but Jesus is asking us to separate ourselves from. This is a dying to yourself. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” Who are you serving? God…or man…or your flesh? “But Jesus said, ‘Follow me and allow the dead to bury the dead.’” Love. War.

Things to think about:

When reading scripture make sure to put it in context.
What’s a business idea that you’ve had and would like to start?

LMFAO is as Cool as a Bunch of 13 Year Old Girls

Does every white person wish they rapped? I guess the better question is: who that exists doesn’t want to rap? And with the success of Eminem and Asher Roth I guess a lot more white people are getting into it. There are some things that I’d like to draw some attention to that seem so stupid to me and I wish you’d come alongside me and think the same thing. There’s an extreme hypocrisy in the lyrics that you hear and the actions of those rappers that give the lyrics. I know I’m not saying anything new and you already know this so the question is why accept it?

My friend Leslie and I were chatting and she told me that she doesn’t mind that Jay-Z calls his girl a bitch. When I asked her if she would want me to call her a bitch she said she wouldn’t mind. And then I asked her if she had a boyfriend who introduced her to people as his bitch if she would be okay with that and she said no. “Hi I’m John and this is my bitch.” The question is then, why does Beyonce stand for this type of behavior. Is it that I don’t understand the culture? Hardly, I understand hip-hop culture as much as I understand college culture, which is a lot. And yet there is this seemingly uncharacteristic shrug of the shoulders when I ask girls in particular why they are okay with this type of behavior. They dance sexy on the floor to songs that have lyrics like this:

“The ladies love us
when we pour shots
they need an excuse
to suck our cocks”

Is there something wrong with this? Like ladies are so sex hungry that all they want to do is suck cock. Not to mention how childish this group’s name is: LMFAO. I mean 12 and 13 year-old girls made acronyms popular in texting. This group is a joke and this song is not only degrading but just a bad song. I like dancing and this song sucks cock…Berry Gordy should be ashamed.

Calling a girl or woman a bitch is derogatory and wrong. You shouldn’t do it. Women have value and you devalue them when you refer to them as bitches. People have names for a reason and if you’re not interested in calling a girl by her name, I pray you never find a wife until you become a man. Try to put yourself in the shoes of a father and ask yourself if you want a boy treating your daughter the way you are treating women you see in the club and around town.

Things to think about:
-“In February 2010, LMFAO member Sky Blu was reportedly involved in an airplane altercation with politician Mitt Romney during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. The rapper claimed that, despite earlier press coverage suggesting otherwise, Romney attacked first, putting a "vulcan grip" on him. The claims were mentioned in a TMZ video (which shows Sky Blu being escorted off the aircraft by authorities). Sky Blu was not arrested, however.” Source Wikipedia

Things to watch:

Watch all 8 segments: Liberia is hurting