Let's Get Loud

Sometimes I feel like we need to speak up.
By "we", I mean Christians. And I know what some of you are probably thinking, "no you don't, you speak up enough, don't you remember Terry Jones and the Koran burning? I'd say that's speaking up enough." Those of you on the other side, however, might say "yeah you speak up enough, haven't you heard about Rob Bell and universalism and Love Wins?" And then I'd have to point out that yes, I do remember those two, and yes, I do know that they've spoken up quite loudly, but then I'd have to thank you for bringing them up because, ironically, that's my point. "Huh?" Yeah, that's my point: the only people who seem to be speaking up are the fire-breathing Christians who think hard-hitting evangelism is the only way to go (tell 'em they're going to Hell and maybe we can hate Jesus into them), or the ones who've decided to give up on Jesus completely and announce to the world that it's okay, we're all gonna go to Heaven and Jesus just died a gruesome death on the cross because He was a masochist and had grown tired of the luxurious life of being at the right hand of God. But those are just the extremes, they don't even represent the majority of Christians.
The majority of Christians probably find themselves somewhere in the middle: they will accept that those who reject Jesus as the path to salvation will go to Hell, but they will also vehemently declare that the only way that they will ever come close to accepting that is if we love them.

They will say that yes, people who are never saved and continue to live in sin will go to Hell; they will say that people are tempted and it's no one's fault what temptation they have to struggle with: some people struggle with lust, some with anger, some with homosexual thoughts, some with greed or with envy. And each of those struggles, if given into, turn into a disgusting and corrupting lifestyle that tears communities, families, and individuals apart. But the person who struggles with lust, it's not his or her fault that he or she struggles with that: it's a combination of their genetics and their environment and the situations of life that put them in a position to struggle with that. If they give in to those temptations and live a life of free love and rampant sex, that is their fault. What we as Christians need to do is get this message out: sin is wrong, and sin will take you by the hand and walk you straight into Hell if you give into it and refuse to let Jesus save you from it. But the desire to sin? That's natural and universal. We need to teach people how to deal with temptation and love them through it, no matter what. We need to speak up and shout louder than all those extremists and let the world know that we are neither haters, nor free lovers, but lovers who practice tough love.

Home Sweet Home

The wind whined sharply all night long as it twisted and turned through the apartment buildings of Via Tibullo. The branches of Ivy Delighted playfully smacked against my window, tossed as they were by the wind. The frail light started to peek through the slats of my shutters around 7 a.m. I'd been awake for at least two hours, fighting jet lag and longing to get back to sleep. Finally, I opened my eyes and looked about. I took in the peach-colored walls of the only place in the world I can say with finality is "my bedroom". I glanced down from my bunk bed and observed the keyboard that has been in my possession since I first started playing piano in fifth grade; the small desk made of fake wood that has housed my pre-adolescence secrets and supported hours and hours of homework during middle school; the whiteboard on my wall that hasn't been cleaned in over year, that has black and red marker etched into it permanently. I listened to the sound of the wind and the branches slapping my window and knew, like I haven't allowed myself to know for many years now, that I was home. I closed my eyes again and drifted back to sleep with pictures of jumping sheep floating through my mind next to the comforting awareness of being in a room that is full of the little bits and pieces of my childhood, a room that symbolizes my childhood.
     
I went on a walk a few hours later. The Bora was still blowing and it was good to get all wrapped up in my winter coat and head out into the windy world of Trieste, Italy. As I walked down the Viale, past the ugly fountain and then again up Via Coroneo, I knew that I was where I was supposed to be. I was in the place that, more than any other place in the world, represents my childhood. I was walking down streets that I grew up on, and it was good. It's been a good year, a strange year. I started the year in Italy, spent the next five months finishing up High School in Germany, spent the summer in Columbia, South Carolina, and then went to begin my first semester of college in tiny Wilmore, Kentucky. It seems fitting, however, that I am ending this year neither in Germany, nor Columbia, nor Wilmore, but right where it began: Trieste. It seems a confirmation of what I have slowly started to believe over the past several months: no matter where life takes me, no matter what adventures I embark on or exotic places I visit, home will always have a special place in my heart, and I will always, eventually, return. It reminds me of that one line from A Knight's Tale, the one that we laughed at the last time we saw it for being cheesy and kind of ridiculous. It was the answer to William's question of "how will I find my way back home?" and it was simply "follow your feet." I know that my feet will always bring me back home, and that is the light in my winter.