Crocs shoes... don't own them. Don't like them. Irritate me with their weird look. Plus people who I've met while they were wearing them... "Ooo look at me, I'm different because my shoes are like clogs but plastic or foam or whatever they're made out of." Haha that's my rant today. Like them, or not like them? Comment.
Anyways, off to Phillip Island for Donny Young Adults Retreat. Shall post about it when I come back.
Scrolling through Mr. Learning Exercise #8, I came upon this:
"When Bono of U2 said, 'I still haven't found what I'm looking for', many evangelicals despaired, thinking that he had lost his way spiritually, but he was quite clear: 'You broke the bonds, you loosed the chains, you carried the cross and my shame. You know I believe it... but I still haven't found what I'm looking for.' This is not a statement of confusion, or spiritual ambivalence: quite the reverse, it is a positive recognition of the frailty of human experience and human comprehension. We all know only in part, we experience only in part, and in a postmodern world it is crucial that we are honest about this limitation."
What does it mean? Well the article talks about today's postmodern society, in which spiritual conversations aren't that hard to come by, and are engaged much more openly than previous generations. It suggests that everyone today has their own journey spiritually, and it's not a matter of one straight path and you at a certain point on it, but a series of encounters and experiences that appear through one's life. Christians believe that God will have been evidently present and at work, and this may be even if the person does not acknowledge a God in their life.
I like this, it's something I put into most of my seminars for Vetamorphus, into my talks at school chapel, into my 'sermon' I did this year. We've all got our own journey, built upon our maturity, understanding, belief, experiences, etc. As a Christian, I've never believed in 'saving' people, or forcing them to believe for fear of being stabbed by devils with tridents... only in sharing and going that journey with them. Yes I believe, but I, too, still haven't what I'm looking for.
Well Friday was a fun night. Last week I had training at the Oaktree Foundation to be a Youth Ambassador for the MPH concert. It was pretty good. There were lots of people my age there, most excited about making a difference in the world, which is cool. But there were also too many stats and figures thrown around, like "40% of women in 294 countries have goats who are sick." That might be a made up fact, but some people there were throwing out rubbish like that, and trying to show how smart they are. I don't know lots of stats, I can't tell lots of stories about poor children in Africa or women who didn't know that it was ok to say no to sex, all I know is that I want to make a difference - and that anyone can.
Anyways, my mate Matt and I were partners, and Kel (girlfriend) and Lauren (friend/sister) were also there, partnering up. Our job was to explain to the crowd what MakePovertyHistory was trying to do, to elaborate on the 8 Millenium Goals, ask for support through petitions, and - to me, most importantly - to show them that it doesn't take power, money or age to make a difference. The concert was the idea of Dan Adams, who is only 19 this year. A few weeks ago, the Stand Up campaign was the idea of three uni students that occured over coffee. That's the sort of stuff that encourages me - that people my age can do things that hit people hard.
The concert was awesome. Our passes let us down into the front seated area. We saw... Bono, The Edge, Pearl Jam, Lior, Amiel, Evermore, Eskimo Joe, Hilltop Hoods, Sarah Blasko, Jet, Paul Kelly, John Butler Trio, and there were even indigenous artists. We also heard speeches from... Tim Costello, Hugh Evans (founder/leader of Oaktree - only 24), Irene Banda (human rights activist in Zambia), Trisha Broadbridge and Dan Adams. Oh, and John So. All in all, probably the best gig I'll ever see. DVD out about December 8th.
I took this picture of the opening act - 'UJam' - Bono, The Edge, Pearl Jam. I'll put a link to my other ones later.
At church tonight, they talked about David and Goliath, and how David - a young person who was not very important to anyone - was ready to engage Goliath - the problem so big that an army of adults did not want to face it. Then the goliaths of today's world were discussed, such as poverty, and how each of us, as ordinary people, should be ready to engage and stand up to these problems.
The problem for me is, how many times have I heard people tell others to engage? How many times have I, myself, told people to engage? The best you get back is people telling you that you're inspiring and that you did a really good speech. But that's not why you speak - just for compliments. You speak because you want to make a difference, because you want to see people realising the power they have to make a change. Maybe I'm expecting too much. Maybe I'm too idealistic. But then again, any change is slow and it may be working in a way I just can't see. It's not that most people are bad, selfish or lazy - it's just that they find it hard to grasp that they can do something, and then how to do what they can do. It took me 18 years to realise that.
