Sometimes I hate that all my friends & family can follow every cyber move I make. That's a lot of pressure right there.

I don't believe that what I believe is what makes me who I am. Not alone. I mean - I run into people every single day that proclaim to love Christ and people but they are incredibly rude or uncaring. Am I supposed to completely warp my initial judgement of their behavior simply because I learn that they're a "Christian"? Please. That's fickle. I get that all it takes for God to grant us forgiveness is a belief in Him or faith, if you will. So obviously, to God, in this way, what I believe makes me who I am. But does that mean that what I do or say doesn't mold me into who I am? Absolutely not! What I do and what I say matters. So I can't just go around proclaiming, "It's okay, everything's alright, cause I believe in Jesus, guys." I can't just let what I proclaim to believe define how the world percieves me. I think it's silly for someone, or a song, to proclaim that what a person simply believes is all that makes that person who they are. Take Third Day's "Creed" for instance...

Righteousness, Emergent-style

So, I'm reading my Twitter updates this morning with my normal cup o' Joe, and I stumble across this book critique of John Piper's old book "The Future of Justification". The article was tweeted by @emergentvillage, a church on the forefront of the sort of new Emergent Church fad. Since they are probably the biggest Christian proponents of unity through the Gospel, I thought it was ironic that @emergentvillage was tweeting a criticism of reformed theology, of which Piper is a supporter. I considered myself a hedonist for a little while when I was in college. Now, Emergents are known for their radical inclusivity, which on one hand is great; God loves us all, He adores His Creation, and desires that we all would repent and draw nearer to Him through faith in Him. But this article in and of itself is a little too critical to be "wholly" Emergent. The premise of criticising another Christian's theology, or in their faulty conclusions, isn't very inclusive. Nor is it very radical (since everyone and their moms are doing it nowadays).

But I thought the article was interesting, and had some good points on the righteousness of God.

Piper argues in this chapter against Wright’s definition of the righteousness of God as ‘God’s covenant faithfulness or impartiality in court’ that this does not get at the heart of what God’s righteousness is: it merely highlights a couple of things that God’s righteousness does (Piper, The Future of Justification, 164). God’s righteousness is really much deeper than either of these things. It is fundamentally his commitment to do what is right; it ‘consists most deeply in God’s unwavering allegiance to himself’; it is ‘his unswerving commitment to uphold the worth of his glory’ – and he demands the same ‘righteousness’ from us, that we ‘unwaveringly love and uphold the glory of God’.

I guess the rift between the Emergent and Reformed fellow won't be resolved for a while.

Going to the beach tomorrow!

Yay! I'm going to the beach tomorrow morning while Joy's at work. I have to work in the evening but it's gonna be SO much more glorious after some hours soaking up the sun. I'm gonna miss the sand and waves way too much when I'm in Minnesota.

Yesterday at the aquarium I closed Guest Services for the first time. Of course, it also happened to be the busiest, most packed, crazy day the aquarium has had ALL summer. I think we had something like 9,500 people that entire day, and almost a thousand people in the place at one point. Um.

I was doing alright beforehand, trying to prep myself. Cause I mean, this is kinda a big deal. Guest services is the center of the aquarium mecca, you have to know this and that, where to go and what to do whenever there's a problem... and then my boss walks up to me all solemn and is kind enough to remind me of my bad rap with cash drawers, even though since they put me back on drawers a couple weeks ago, I've either been perfect on my drawer or short/over just a few cents. But she's the one who put me on the schedule to close guest services by myself... just last week! For serious? That totally ruined whatever calm I'd created and I felt like everyone was waiting for me to make mistakes left and right. Because there's A LOT more to do at guest services than outside selling tickets. She let me know she had little faith in me to do well on my first day. After the past couple weeks of working on being perfect on my drawer, she had to pull me aside and let that loose. Not the best way to start work.

Anyway... I learned a lot, most of it the hard way, no breaks, eight hours straight of grumpy people, sassy guests, flustered kids. But I made it through and all is ok. I get to close it again on Saturday which usually aren't as busy, so this time I'll be more prepared. Still, it had to be the most overwhelming day of my life. I've never juggled so much responsibility, but oddly, it was refreshing at the end of the day. To know I'd accomplished something pretty big, for me at least, was a good feeling.

Have I mentioned it's been two months since I talked to God? I am ridiculously distant - that's an understatement. The good news is that there's no guilt anymore. I feel like a weight's been lifted, like some horrible, eternal responsibility has left me. It feels like - freedom? How ironic is that? When the central message of the Bible is freedom in Christ? I'm finding happiness and joy in the little things. I'm learning more in these few summer months than I learned in four years at a closeted, private university. Peace, understanding, being myself around people rather than putting up a front, like most of the past four, delicate years in college.

That's gotta be a step in the right direction.

And I've never been more ready to get into a volunteer position that works towards eradicating social injustice. I want to help the poor. I want to really experience the Gospel in a real, living way, instead of experiencing stale Christians and wayward religious tradition. All of this and I still want to find some way back to God. But... I can't. There's just too much to swallow and I physically can't do it right now.

Yikes. But I am learning about myself, and I'm sure God will reveal Himself in time.

On my days off, my diet consists of lots of twittering, locally grown peaches & Folgers breakfast blend. All were particularly delish today.

Can we choose who we forgive?

Jesus says to his followers to forgive. That's it. Forgive. There's no small print there, no secondary clauses that might have us pause... no adverb to support his command besides, perhaps, "freely".

So what makes us think we can choose who we forgive? My family is notorious for holding grudges. Except for maybe my dad, who lets everything roll off like water off a duck's back. But everyone else holds grudges like you wouldn't believe. "I just can't forgive her for doing that to me. I still feel betrayed." I've heard this a lot from my sis since moving in with her this summer. She is starting to loathe her job and especially her relationship with her coworkers. She's let some potentially hurtful situations rule her perspective and of course, she feels like the victim in every case. I've asked her why her coworkers seem to be "out to get her" as she puts it, and always her response is an "I dunno. I don't understand why!" And of course she is %100 certain that all her rude coworkers are hurtful to her on purpose. She's still holding grudges for happenings from months ago...

She won't forget the things that turned her against them and neither will she forgive them, unless they come to her and apologize or do something else utterly redemptive. The point is that they don't deserve forgiveness. They don't do anything that would merit your forgiveness. It's freely letting go of your right to judge them. It doesn't make sense, right? But the world would definitely be a better place with it.

I think free forgiveness - no catches, no glitches, no ultimatums - should be upheld even outside of Jesus' remarks. And I know I'm not the first person to remark on this issue of forgiveness but this is at least the dozenth rant I've heard from my sis about her job and this needed to get out somehow...