Sometimes I wish I could see into people.

I have been just walking around the city of Sevilla for a couple of days now, most of the time with no particular aim or place in mind... just walking. I see so many people. There are a lot of them. It is not like China where you touch everyone that passes you, but everywhere you go, on every corner, down every street there are people, lots of 'em.

Some of them look straight into my eyes, sometimes they yell out stuff, and I pretend to be offended and annoyed- sometimes. Sometimes they look at me, then at the ground, then back at me. Sometimes they stare directly at the ground.

I sat down to get coffee at this cute little place on the corner of a busy intersection where I planned on reading for a little bit. BUT when I opened my bag I realized I lost my book. BUGGARD. I was very naught-happy. so, I decided to look around at what was happening... the other people who were by themselves, the cute couple with the kid inside, the father and two sons, the drivers honking, the people saying goodbye as they are forced to cut their farewells short by traffic...

I started to wonder about each of these people. Each one of these people has an entire life going on... I mean really. It is kind of strange to rap my mind around that, you know? Like they have a mother, and a father... a sibiling they fight with all the time. They have that one person, maybe the one that got away, that can make them laugh or feel special more than anyone else in the world. They have a tragedy about them that has helped mold them into the person they are- for better or for worse. Each person has this going on... There are so many of them.

Maybe everyone knows about this, and I am just late to realize it. I think it is amazing... its deep, you know? Once again, just random thoughts of mine that have no resolution...

Peace.

Someone called me out- they called me on my bad.
Surprisingly I was not even close to pissed.

This person said a lot of things, I am still pretty thrown-a-loop on most of them, but basically I was just called back to the word. "Just read... everyday." I read that night, and maybe once or twice since then. For whatever reason, I decided to multi-task and read my Bible while on Myspace today. Ha ha, no it is not even close to the best idea, but it is something.

Anywho, while reading in Galatians, chapter one, verse eight, I read the phrase "eternally condemned". At first I read eternally as externally... not the same thing. So then I tried to interpret, or lets face it- justify, this term. Then I continued to verse nine:

          "As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!"

Yeah, so basically, that is God's way of showing me that I have been way to easy on myself and my brothers and sisters. I only read two chapters because that is all my wondering mind can take at the moment. However, as I started the third, God revealed something else to me: I need a stern talking to.

Maybe it is a Summer time mentality, or the fact that I am now labeled as an 'Emergent' instead of a 'Southern Baptist', whatever the reason, things have just been whatever whenever. I need someone wiser to tell me that I am wrong and that I screwed up. This sounds pretty harsh... but if I think that I can get away with something I will generally try.

I am actually trying to be vague here. I just wanted to highlight that God is still working, and that His Word is still living.

I love yall more than you could know
Peace.

There is a reason. There must be.

"Be strong and take heart."

Tonight at Ecclesia a intern spoke... which I thought was pretty funny because we had discussed earlier who was going to speak and who we liked better and why... haha. Way to remove a distraction God. Anyways, this cool dude touched on a lot of things. One thing inparticular stood out though, but to be perfectly honest, I zoned out and did not pay attention to the first part of this topic enough to remember it. For that I am sorry because I am sure that it would add to the meaning and credibility of my view of it. He was talking about how a place in the New Testament describes that we, as in mankind, are works of God...

So when we think of the word 'works' in English, we think of the works as in coming from the verb meaning to do or to make. So when we read that we are a work of God, we understand that God made us. That is great and all, but I think most would agree that that statement alone leaves many gaps in the explanation of why God would make anyone.

What cool intern guy said next was very interesting: He said the Greek word that 'works' was translated from is the same root word the poem comes from. We are like art created by God. This makes more sense to me than the incredibly vague statement commonly used to define our exisistence- "We are here to bring God glory". Yeah, we are totally here to bring God glory... heck yes, I do not disagree with that statement at all, yet that does not make it any less vague and out of reach.

The analogy that we are art explains a lot. No, I do not think that we are large paintings hung in a huge empty room with people standing, analyzing, and slightly tipping their heads to one side and saying, "Humm... I like it it." Yet, I do think that we are out pourings of the deepest internal feelings of God. If you ask me, 'people' is a strange medium to use... but it all makes more sense now...

Why do people create art? I do not know... I suppose it is different for everyone, but I think most would argee that it is to expose some part of themselves, to take something that is on the inside and put it on the outside. I am no expert, but I think artists see what they have done and appreciate it. Not in the empty musem way where they compelment the usage of color, but in a way that they feel and are attached to what they have made; they can see and touch something that was previously intangible. Whether good or bad it moves them in the deepest sense... to them, it is beautiful; it is breath taking.

We are God's poems; we are God's works.

Perfection is accepted to be impossible.
That means that mistakes are not only acceptable; they are expected.

So one thing after another begins to slide...
The guilt piles up, and I feel overwhelmed, then someone says it is ok to mess up.

No. I do not think it is.

I do not think it is ok to just accept imperfection. We are all going to screw up- we will all royally screw up. However, accepting our flaws fosters the thought that sin is ok. Maybe it is just because I am weak that others opinions dictate how I subconciously view the mess ups in my life... or maybe I am just honest. I am a failure, I am a screw up, and weak to top it all off. Luckily I have someone to save me. That is it.

P.S. Sin is not ok