Saturday, May 30, 2009

Aww yeh, some mutha bleepin' lessons dawg


Soo its summertime. 

Summer is the time when everyone lets loose a little bit, busts out the ol' grille, soaks up some sun, and enjoys the weather.

Summer is also known for the summer job pull. 1,000's of young individuals look for jobs to make a little scrilla to take their honey out with. When this system is clickin' everyone is happy as a fat kid in a hershey's factory.

that is, when everything is clicking.

The global economy caught a swift kick to the lower extremities about 6 months ago and it is still down for the count. Unemployment has reached an all time high, the stock market is as finicky as Billy Joel at a bar, and entire industries are being slaughtered to try and make international ends meet.

So! Now that the stage has been set, lets take a look at my predicament. My Mom urged me to search out an internship at a church (since that is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life). I cautiously agreed, seeing as how I was interested in makin' some G's this summer. Internships aren't the most glamorously paying of jobs, mind you. Eventually I found an internship at the church my parents attend in Alabama. Its a good little church with great worship and good membership, and it is really close to my house. I was pumped.

Time continued to drain out of the school year and I was looking forward to figuring out more about my internship. I e-mailed questions and called the ministers: no answer. "Hmm," I thought to myself, "Maybe it is just a really busy time!" Try again: no response. Again: Nuthin. It had been a couple weeks since I had heard from the church, and I was starting to get a little worried about my plans of "changing the world one internship at a time". 

When I finally got a call (finals week) the minister's said that they were deciding to go in another direction instead of an internship. They said that I could volunteer at the church all that I wanted to! What they were really trying to say was that they were dropping the bottom out of my summer plans in the 11th hour like a bunch of champions of inspiration. 

And now we're here. I'm currently sitting on my bed not really doing much of anything, which is what I have been doing for the past week. Jobs are scarce and jobs that pay well are even scarcer. I've gone to many different places looking for work, but the response has almost consistently been, "We're not hiring, but we'd certainly take your application!" Yea, I'm sure you would. In this market they probably are using the 1,000's of applications that are coming in to heat their workspaces. 

No job. No fat bank. Not much of anything is going on.

It is interesting though, that God still works in these times. 

First, I was bluntly taught that church leadership often has no idea what the (insert any crass word) its doing. For all the pomp and circumstance of a sunday morning service, the 166 other hours in a week seem to be filled up with a lot of "Ums", "Uhhs", and "???s". The church- on the micro and macro levels- is still growing and maturing. Just because you become a "senior minister" doesn't mean that you have it all together or that you have all the answers. Sometimes (and probably not often enough) things in the church get a little raw. It would be easy for me to be pissed out of my mind about how irresponsible the leaders of the church were! 

The alternative to going primeval on their hineys is to forgive and grow. The minister at the Mercy House talked about showing "Maximum Forgiveness" to all that we come in contact with. What a simple statement, yet how profound! If we don't forgive, then we aren't Christians. Why wouldn't I want to see the church learn from its mistakes and be better for it? That would be because I truly didn't have the love of Christ living inside of me. You can't see people for who they are, but rather for who they can be. 

God has also taught me to enjoy peace. I was scurrying about so much this past semester with all of my responsibilities that I didn't get much time to stop. When I go back to Taylor, school and Student Body President stuff are going to consume me. Possibly God wanted me to stop and smell the roses a little bit? 

This summer I'm going to be stretched in ways that I don't see coming. God, the guy who made me, knows what is best for me. Am I willing to follow his plan and see where that takes me?

We'll see.


PS- I'm writing this with my laptop in my lap and my computer battery is HOT. Is it reasonable to wonder if the heat is cooking myself to being sterile? AM I GOING TO BE ABLE TO HAVE KIDS IF I KEEP BLOGGING IN THIS POSITION!? 

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Summer 2009: Act One

WOW. That is all i can say for the past 5 months of my life. I've traveled to Africa, become the Student Body President for Taylor University, finished my 2nd year as a PA in my dorm, and Bethany and I have started seriously discussing what the rest of our lives look like together. Needless to say, life has been FULL. 

And now i'm in Alabama for the summer. I had an internship lined up with a local church, but that fell through, so i'm now on the prowl for jobs and sources of income. I don't really have any significant plans, any big goals, or any huge aspirations. 

All i want to do is be here in the present as much as possible. The end of this past school year about killed me, and i would love a summer to recover from that. I'll be updating this quite a bit to inform everyone that cares about what is happening, what I'm thinking, and what is changing in my life. 

So!

Summer 2009, you and I are going to have a good relationship, i can tell. 

-JB