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WhatTheHeckAmIDoing
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Name: John
Country: United States
State: Alabama
Metro: Birmingham
Birthday: 5/20/1986
Gender: Male
Interests: Travel, literature, philosophy, pacifism, exploring, sleeping, meeting people, and hiding from people.
Expertise: Truth, lies, hypocrisy, being late, insomnia, and forgetting what it is I am supposed to be doing.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message me
AIM:  Grad1198
Member Since:
12/15/2004
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| and I've only myself to blame. I hate the pageant of fashion and wealth that it has become in the west. I hate business as usual. Church, or at least the way it's been done for the past 800 or so years, has become antiquated and is in desperate need of a remodeling. If things don't change then the church in the west will only become more irrelevant than it is now which is very hard to imagine. Oh the times, they are a-changin'.
I do like my church though. Overlook Presbyterian is missional and kind. My church advocates the poor, works for social justice, and never expects me to wear a tie. | | |
| "To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again."
I have got to get the hell out of here. I like Mobile but I am very ready to do something else. I've been out of town for the past two weekends and both times it has really been a drag to come back. I feel like I've met everyone there is to meet here. There was a time when I was dying to get back down here but now that I'm here I really miss Birmingham.
I'll never be satisfied. | | |
| "A man needs something he can hold on to; a nine pound hammer or a woman like you. Either one of those things will do."
I'm supposed to be writing a paper right now but I need to clear my mind first.
I frequently go back and read my posts and one thing I've come to realize is that I only want to write when I'm frustrated. There are a few with happy tones but they're shit. Not to say that anything I've ever written has ever been particularly good but the happy posts seem less real and always tend to be of lesser substance. I suppose I'm just a really frustrated person. I know it, actually. I'm frustrated socially, academically, spiritually, and intellectually. I would include sexually but I think if you're a 20-something and you're not in a committed relationship then it's a given.
I'm frustrated with my lack of faith. I often find myself questioning my spirituality but doesn't everyone? No? Ok, well don't count the Joel Osteen crowd and surely everyone else does. I don't mind the questioning. I think that's healthy and good and wholesome. I do mind that I find myself doubting scripture from Genesis 1:1 onward through the epic-like Revelation to St. John. I love science and I trust it. How do you reconcile the differences in Genesis and modern scientific thought. I know Kurt Wise would deliver an intellectual ass kicking to me right now but, God help me, I'm having a crisis of faith.
Every night before I go to bed I pray: God, this is a fucking stupid messed up world. There is a lot I don't understand. Much of what I don't currently understand I will never be able to understand. I've got You though and you speak to me daily in some way or another. I am going to continue on my meandering search for truth and goodness but in the mean time I'm going to leave this shit with you and try to believe that someday you'll make me understand. Sorry for my faithlessness. Amen.
If I were to canonize that prayer it would be called "The Prayer of St. Huh of the Hopelessly Clueless."
I'm very frustrated acadmically. This is because my quest for knowledge has been severly hindered by my quest for a degree and future employment. Is there a University that sincerely aims to produce thinkers and innovaters? I feel like I spend too much time filling a resume and much too little time fulfilling a thirst for knowledge and eventually wisdom. I suppose my proffesors have a better idea of what true knowledge means and I'll assume that this path leads through meaningless PE classes and Ceramics(which I've actually found I am very fond of).
I'm frustrated with the absurdity in which the state of Alabama is governed. The University of Alabama can afford to pay a coach 4 Million a year but we can't afford to take care of the poorest in our state. Where the hell are our priorities? Have Robert Witt(UA's president) and Bob Riley(our joke of a governor) been to the Black Belt? Have they been to cities like Gee's Bend, Kushla, or Bayou La Batre? Why is it ok for our flagship university's football coach(whom only went 7-6 this season) to make untold millions when schools in Pickens county have to share books between kids? Is it ok for our Governor to sit in his pristine manson when people in Wilcox and Greene county can't afford electricity or running water? It's certainly not ok for me to sit piously in my warm house and criticize them via my expensive and chic laptop over a blazingly fast highspeed internet. I guess it's much easier to blame the ruling class. I guess as an upper-middle class white male I am the ruling class. The great and at the same time devestating thing about America is that you can't entirely point the finger at the king when you are essentially the king maker.
I really need to write this paper. | | |
| "All we're saying is give peace a chance."
I think I'm going to organize an anti-war or rather pro-peace rally at my neoconservative southern baptist college. I don't think this would draw a large crowd and certainly not many supporters. It's probably a waste of time. I don't really understand how so many "christians" can be so damn supportive of war. It's not just this war but war in general. There are a lot of rules in the Bible and I don't think we're really expected to be able to keep them so instead it seems that modern evangelicals make up rules that you CAN keep. Don't drink, don't smoke, don't go to bars, don't curse, and whatever you do don't dance. What is the purpose of trading a perfect law that you can't keep for one you can keep but it won't do you any good?
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| "Feed My Sheep"
Driving back to Mobile after a long Christmas break I passd a car with a bumper sticker reading "If you're not angry then you haven't been paying attention." I supposed this to have a political meaning because it was right under an "Impeach Bush" sticker. I have yet to decide whether or not I am for impeaching Bush though I've really not been too fond of his administration(to put it politely). As for the afforementioned sticker: I completely agree. If you're not angered by the vitriolic filth spewed by popular candidates in the way of slander, the plight of impoverished people across the world, the manipulation of facts to further a political agenda by the media, the spread of AIDS like wildfire across the African continent, the genocide of people in Sudan and northern Uganda, or the vast division of people in the US because of assumed though meaningless political titles then you're either a.) an idiot b.) an asshole c.) not paying attention or d.) all of the above.
I like pacifism. I consider myself to be a pacifist. With the genocide in northern Africa though I'm beginning to wonder how deeply held my pacifistic beliefs are. I did at one point support the intervention of first world militaries to stop the atrocities. I can't say now that I support that. However I think adequate international could do the trick to preventing further troubles without resorting to violence. Maybe not. If I die and find out I'm wrong then I guess I'll only say I erred on the side of peace. I'm ok with that.
I'm slowing being won over by the message of hope Barack Obama. I still support Ron Paul but if things continue like they are and Obama gets the nomination and Ron Paul doesn't then that's who I'll be voting for. | | |
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