For some reason, right before I fall asleep, ridiculous questions come into my head. Ones that are certainly insignificant on a cosmic scale, but nevertheless, are interesting to think about. Things such as whether or not the creator of the pogo stick originally intended it as a means of transportation, what's God's favorite food, or what was Jesus' blood type? (I actually got into a debate with a guy on my hall with this one. I claimed that He must have been type O because His blood is for all, while he held the position that it must be type AB because He accepts everybody.) One that's been going through my head recently is exactly what type of humor does God have? After thinking and observing some different aspects from my own life for a little while, I think that if anything, God is a practical joker. He must be. Here are some examples that I think help prove my point.
1. Drinking water makes hot peppers even hotter - this is a classic example. Just what you think will relieve you of the torment that is occurring inside your own mouth due to the foolish dare from a friend actually makes it ten times worse. I can picture God laughing as one's eyes begin to water and their face turns as red as the pepper they just ate.
2. Spiders have a tendency to build their webs right around face level - after all, arachnophobia is one of the top ten most common phobias. Of course they're going to build them at face level. You know how your friends all point and laugh as you're running around screaming hysterically? That's what I picture God doing every time this happens to me.
3. Guys get acne right around the same time that they have to begin shaving - have you ever shaved off a pimple?
4. Arguably one of the healthiest foods on the planet is a type of pond sludge - positively correlated with why it is so hard for people to lose weight. The nastier something tastes, the healthier it is.
5. Your stomach doesn't make funny noises until the room gets quiet - at which point you begin to pray that God will have mercy and just make it stop.
6. Birds don't have to poop until you're all dressed up and/or you're running late - I think that you'll agree with me on this one. Everyone has their own bird poop story, they just do their best to keep it under wraps. Just be thankful it was a little chickadee instead of a goose or something. I imagine it was even worse when pterodactyls roamed the sky, which makes me a little more sympathetic towards Adam and Eve. Speaking of which, I bet that the fruit that they ate that completely ruined their lives didn't even taste good. It was one of those "HA! Gotcha!" moments.
7.Circumcision - Why? I bet Abraham was asking the same question.
8. Rain and extremely powerful wind seem to be intertwined with one another - rendering umbrellas completely useless
9. Nothing wraps around your leg until the water gets murky - yeah, see that seaweed around your leg that caused you to scream like a little girl in front of all your friends? God put that there.
10. Babies are nocturnal - the complete opposite of the rest of the population.
11. You can't get God back - He knows everything. You know the feeling. That guy you know that gets you every time, while every plan of yours to get them back seems to fail miserably. It's the sign of a seasoned practical jokester, and further adds to the "Gotcha!" sensation.
As you can see, all of the evidence points to God being a practical joker. It just makes sense. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go. I've been sitting outside as I've been typing this and just now realized that I've been sitting in an ant nest the entire time. This is unfair.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Two Nights on the AT
Earlier this week I got off of the Appalachian Trail. I've had an interest in the trail for about three years now. A friend and I hiked around 105 miles of it as soon as we graduated from high school. Now every time that I drive by it, I'm reminded of what it was like to be out there and how much I miss it. I have hopes, which may never be realized (kind of like my owning a motorcycle one), of someday through hiking the entire thing. As a result, I take every opportunity that I can to get back out there again.
Getting back on the trail seemed like a fitting way to finish off another year of college. No more papers, exams, or early morning classes for a while. Just whatever you are able to carry with you into the woods. My roommate and I decided that we were going to take a 30 mile, 2 night trip.Not that bad of a hike, but tough enough to make you feel as if you did something. The hiking the first night went fine. We started a little late (7pm), but the weather was perfect, and the coolness of the night kept us from having to take a lot of breaks. As we rolled into camp around 10:30p, I quickly remembered one of the three things that I absolutely detest about backpacking, sleeping. (The other two are brushing my teeth and using a privy. For some reason, you can never get the taste of dried pineapple out of your mouth. As for the privy part, do I really need to go into detail?)
Things were fine the entire night. It wasn't until morning that we began to have problems. From 6-7 in the morning, person after person kept on walking literally inches away from our tent. Normally you might be able to sleep through somebody walking right past you, but not in the woods. Leaves crunch, you're naturally more alert, and there's only a thin sheet of canvas separating you from what your imagination perceives to be the hill billy version of Freddy. I couldn't imagine why someone would decide to walk so close to our tent. After all, were the woods not big enough for all of us? Everything finally made sense when we got up. Due to it being extremely dark when we finally made it to camp, we could not see where we were setting up the tent. It turned out that we were right on the path to the privy. That sounds that we kept on hearing were the sounds of a dozen bitter hikers, stumbling to shuffle their way around our tent just so that they could use the bathroom.
Things did not get much better the next night. After about a 15 mile day, we finally made it to our shelter around 3:30pm. We set up our tent (well away from the privy this time), talked with some hikers ("Oh, so y'all were the guys."), and decided to eat dinner at 5pm. Dinner was amazing. Various forms of chicken were served as well as, beef stew, tuna soup, and to top it all off, fried spam for dessert (yum). After eating we put the trash by one of the sides of the tent, our first mistake, and went back up to talk with the other hikers. One thing that you must understand about the woods is that you must hang up your food and trash. If you don't you will have an army of bears, skunks, opossum, deer, and various other woodland creatures right at your front door begging to get in (tent door, that is). (One night when I was with my friend from high school, he left a granola bar in his bag. We were up the entire night listening to a hundred different rodents hop around and shake that stupid wrapper all night.)
Anyway, as we were getting ready for bed, we put all of our food and what we thought was all of our trash into a bag and hung it on something called a bear pole. Everything except, of course, the very fragrant remains of our dinner. Not long afterwards we went to sleep. Everything was fine until about 10:30p. It was then that I woke to find the side of the tent parallel to me stretching inwards about a foot like something was pushing it. After pushing the tent three more times, whatever it was finally found what it was after, the pile of yummy delicious goodness that's known as leftover fried spam and tuna soup residue. Unfortunately, that pile of assorted meat parts was right beside my head. Whatever it was that had previously been causing the entire side of the tent to bulge inwards was now poking me in the head.
The first couple of times were kind of scary (ya think?). I quickly got up and hit the tent only to hear something go tromping through the woods and then return 45 seconds later. This routine of me getting bumped, swatting the tent, listening to something go running off into the woods and then return, continued for about 2 hours. Then I fell asleep. It's not that the poking me in the head stopped, but I was so tired that I think I fell asleep between swats. Then around 5am I woke to the sound of an army of vicious little mice chewing. I wasn't getting poked anymore, but the sound of a thousand little rodent mouths gnawing away at garbage right beside my head quickly got annoying, and so I finally did what I should have done all along, flipped my sleeping bag around so that my feet could deal with whatever beast was outside instead.
When we woke up we discussed what could have possibly been the source of my sleeplessness. Bears, deer, skunks, and even Sasquatch were discussed (though when I mentioned Sasquatch my roommate was quick to reply that he thought they weren't allowed off the reservation). In the end, I think that I've come to the conclusion that it was just a really big raccoon.
The next day was amazing. A seven mile hike to the top of two mountains, two stream crossings, and getting lost in horse country made for an awesome hike, but I've learned my lesson. From now on, if I'm going to forget to hang up the trash, I'm secretly making someone else sleep beside it.
Getting back on the trail seemed like a fitting way to finish off another year of college. No more papers, exams, or early morning classes for a while. Just whatever you are able to carry with you into the woods. My roommate and I decided that we were going to take a 30 mile, 2 night trip.Not that bad of a hike, but tough enough to make you feel as if you did something. The hiking the first night went fine. We started a little late (7pm), but the weather was perfect, and the coolness of the night kept us from having to take a lot of breaks. As we rolled into camp around 10:30p, I quickly remembered one of the three things that I absolutely detest about backpacking, sleeping. (The other two are brushing my teeth and using a privy. For some reason, you can never get the taste of dried pineapple out of your mouth. As for the privy part, do I really need to go into detail?)
Things were fine the entire night. It wasn't until morning that we began to have problems. From 6-7 in the morning, person after person kept on walking literally inches away from our tent. Normally you might be able to sleep through somebody walking right past you, but not in the woods. Leaves crunch, you're naturally more alert, and there's only a thin sheet of canvas separating you from what your imagination perceives to be the hill billy version of Freddy. I couldn't imagine why someone would decide to walk so close to our tent. After all, were the woods not big enough for all of us? Everything finally made sense when we got up. Due to it being extremely dark when we finally made it to camp, we could not see where we were setting up the tent. It turned out that we were right on the path to the privy. That sounds that we kept on hearing were the sounds of a dozen bitter hikers, stumbling to shuffle their way around our tent just so that they could use the bathroom.
Things did not get much better the next night. After about a 15 mile day, we finally made it to our shelter around 3:30pm. We set up our tent (well away from the privy this time), talked with some hikers ("Oh, so y'all were the guys."), and decided to eat dinner at 5pm. Dinner was amazing. Various forms of chicken were served as well as, beef stew, tuna soup, and to top it all off, fried spam for dessert (yum). After eating we put the trash by one of the sides of the tent, our first mistake, and went back up to talk with the other hikers. One thing that you must understand about the woods is that you must hang up your food and trash. If you don't you will have an army of bears, skunks, opossum, deer, and various other woodland creatures right at your front door begging to get in (tent door, that is). (One night when I was with my friend from high school, he left a granola bar in his bag. We were up the entire night listening to a hundred different rodents hop around and shake that stupid wrapper all night.)
Anyway, as we were getting ready for bed, we put all of our food and what we thought was all of our trash into a bag and hung it on something called a bear pole. Everything except, of course, the very fragrant remains of our dinner. Not long afterwards we went to sleep. Everything was fine until about 10:30p. It was then that I woke to find the side of the tent parallel to me stretching inwards about a foot like something was pushing it. After pushing the tent three more times, whatever it was finally found what it was after, the pile of yummy delicious goodness that's known as leftover fried spam and tuna soup residue. Unfortunately, that pile of assorted meat parts was right beside my head. Whatever it was that had previously been causing the entire side of the tent to bulge inwards was now poking me in the head.
The first couple of times were kind of scary (ya think?). I quickly got up and hit the tent only to hear something go tromping through the woods and then return 45 seconds later. This routine of me getting bumped, swatting the tent, listening to something go running off into the woods and then return, continued for about 2 hours. Then I fell asleep. It's not that the poking me in the head stopped, but I was so tired that I think I fell asleep between swats. Then around 5am I woke to the sound of an army of vicious little mice chewing. I wasn't getting poked anymore, but the sound of a thousand little rodent mouths gnawing away at garbage right beside my head quickly got annoying, and so I finally did what I should have done all along, flipped my sleeping bag around so that my feet could deal with whatever beast was outside instead.
 |
| The source of my frustration |
The next day was amazing. A seven mile hike to the top of two mountains, two stream crossings, and getting lost in horse country made for an awesome hike, but I've learned my lesson. From now on, if I'm going to forget to hang up the trash, I'm secretly making someone else sleep beside it.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Until September
The last night of juvee was almost two weeks ago now. It feels kind of weird to actually be going to church on Wednesday instead. It was a good last night too. We took the guys in to play basketball and at the end got to talk for a little while. There wasn't much of a Bible study that night. I pretty much just thanked the guards for letting us to be able to come, and told the guys that it had been awesome getting to know them and that if they were still there by the end of the summer that I would see them then. The sad thing is that I probably will see most of them again in there too. According to the statistics, the re-incarceration rate is around 75%. I don't want to see them again in there. I want them to be able to when they get out be able to stay out. I want to run into them at Wal-Mart, work, or a restaurant or something (though if I saw them at church I'd probably be happiest). I also realize that the way that they are going to be able to stay out is through Christ, and one of my goals is to help them to realize that as well. Phillipians 4:13 says that we can do everything through Him, and yet, John 15:5 says that without Him we can't do anything. They won't be able to beat the statistics without Christ.
It truly gives one a sense of urgency to know that your time with someone is extremely short, and that you may be the only person that they'll ever meet that shares a very urgent message with them. The guys were interested in that message too. They had questions about everything, and they wanted to know more. And even though I may never see them again, I have a hope and pray that someone else will come along that will help them to find the answers.
It truly gives one a sense of urgency to know that your time with someone is extremely short, and that you may be the only person that they'll ever meet that shares a very urgent message with them. The guys were interested in that message too. They had questions about everything, and they wanted to know more. And even though I may never see them again, I have a hope and pray that someone else will come along that will help them to find the answers.
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