Weekly Discussion (June 28th)

Note: Every Thursday I will put up a post that includes a weekly music review, possibly a movie review if I seen a movie that week, and anything else I feel is interesting to check out or to look forward to. Enjoy!

News: Still in New Mexico working for my Dad where yesterday I helped build calf-hutches with this guy named Dave. Dave is about 60 but looks 80. He has a tube stuck in his neck because he smoked too much that he got throat cancer and can’t breath without the tube. It reminds me of that old anti-smoking ad with the woman who had to smoke by putting the cigarette in a hole that was cut in her throat. The sad part he is really embarrased about the tube and tries to hide it with a scarf. Problem is, I can’t help but look at it no matter how hard I try. Even when it is covered with a scarf the guy still has a tube jetting from his throat that he can’t breath out of. Oh, by the way, he still spits chew. The guy is a walking example of why people shouldn’t smoke.

Music Review: No doubt the top album thus far of 2007 is The National’s Boxer. Check it Out Here. When I first heard of The National it was the song Mr. November from their album Alligator. Tom used to play the song often and it soon became a personal favorite of mine. But when I went to download other songs from Alligator I wan’t particularly impressed. In fact, lead singer Matt Berninger’s baritone voice annoyed me. Yet on Boxer Berninger and the rest of National are right on. The lyrics are poetic especially on “Mistaken for Strangers”, and the opening “Fake Empires”, which might be the best song I’ve heard in a long time, is an ambitious effort . Sufjan Stevens even makes an appearance on the album doing the piano work on the sad yet beautiful “Ada”. Check this album out -it does not dissapoint. Grade: A

Interesting Links:
-An interesting article from Relevant.com that you might enjoy if you are like me and looking for a job or working a job you don’t particularly call your “dream job”. Check it Out.

My New Faith (Post from old Blog)

Note: This is a blog posting from my old site at blogger. I really liked this post and feel that is sums up my current belief system and how I have matured in my faith during the past year since I wrote this post. Therefore, I am putting it on my new site to give you a glimpse into what I will be writing about here on my new Midwestern Skies and West Coast Dreams Blog.

After I returned home from my Bible study this morning I felt compelled to write and post a blog about what I consider the new-aged (not emergent) twenty-something Christian is. First off, let me explain the nature of the journey in my own faith.

I have always been a Christian even before I knew what a Christian is. I was part of an infant baptism and did not decide to become a believer in Christ since I had no idea who Christ was but my parents did and therefore a baptized Christian I would become. During my youth (ages 1 to 12) I was raised in a strict Christian Reformed Church where I always had to wear a tie because ties were holy and jeans and t-shirts weren’t. I find this amusing know because Jesus had no idea what a tie was during his ministry and wore sandals when he gave his sermons. By no means though did I come from a “holy roller” family. Sure, I went to youth group and Cadets (Boy Scouts with a Christian influence), but I never truly felt the faith. When I got to high school I started hating to go to church. I despised it. I felt like I was walking into a room filled with hypocrisy where everyone spoke of being good Christians and “spreading the word” but then went out to get high, have teenage sex, and act like everyone else in the culture. Faith, religion, spirit, God… ha.

Most of my friends growing up were Christians. We all grew up going to a religious day care and had been going to church since birth but we never talked about what it was to be a Christian. Trust me, I was far from perfect in high school and for most of my college career. But, this is exactly what a modern Christian is and something I want to address:

The modern twenty-something Christian is most likely one who was either brought upp in the church but never quite understood what it meant to follow in Christ’s footsteps or was saved later in life through evangelicalism. For the Christians like myself who were raised in the church but lacked faith, we went to youth group and church on Sunday’s because it’s what our parents did, and we went to Bible Study because our parents made us… and we got to go to In-n-Out every so often to get free cheeseburgers. When we got to college we joined in on the abuse of alcohol or smoked some pot because it was “cool” and what we were supposed to do. “Enjoy your college years, go crazy,” was the mantra we lived by. Some of us even got into relationships we never should have been in that involved sex. After all, this is what our culture was telling us to do, our non-Christian friends were telling us was OK, and what we believed we were supposed to be doing during our post-adolescent years. Some of us, like myself, lost track of what was important. We lost the faith.

Circumstances in my own life brought me back to God. Actually looking back on it, I believe this was his plan all-together. I was lost, sick of turning to alcohol as a means of coping with pain and returned to something I knew about about but never received -faith.

The twenty-something Christian listens to Sufjan Stevens and Wilco together, reads Kerouac alongside C.S. Lewis, loves and treasures the environment and humanity, will go out and drink and hang out with friends who might not necessarily be Christians but don’t have a problem talking to them about what the gospel is. We disagree with the actions of homosexuals but don’t hate them. We don’t blindly follow our Christian fundamentalist leaders such as President Bush and we watch shows that aren’t defined by some as “morally sound”. We make mistakes and sin but we return to God and faith for redemption. We also think or religion and church with a critical eye and can look at things objectively. So, what binds us together? Faith, hope, passion for humanity and a desire to bring the truth forward.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog -midwest skies and west coast dreams. You may be wondering what this blog is about, and of course, why another blog? This blog is about my life, musings about what is occuring in the new media industry, sports, religion, technology anything else that interests me. The blog is primarily for my friends and family, but if you would like to take a stroll around and comment on my comments, feel free. Thanks and enjoy.