Well, I did it. I bought a truck, well my wife and I did...and by bought, we mean we traded my 1996 Honda Accord that had 165,000+ miles in and are going to be making payments on this vehicle. Regardless, we have "bought" it in that sense and are loving it so far. Here is a picture of it.
A friend of mine just recently left me a message saying that he loved my new blog and that it felt like we were sitting in my room changing the world again.
The truth: we never changed the world.
We talked a lot about the world, but we never changed it. Does that stop us? No. We see need for change in our world and we desire so badly for it to happen. The change is not just needed in religious areas (though there is great change possible there), but also in the political realm and the scientific realm and the music realm and the food realm and the publishing realm and the entertainment realm and the realm of people's desire and the lack of reading realm and the healthcare realm and the worldwide poverty realm and the familial relationships realm and the holiday realm and so many other realms.
The truth is that we lived a completely screwed up world, but this does not stop us. We do not allow ourselves to get depressed and pessimistic about the situation of our world. Rather, we imagine. That's right, we imagine. You may be asking how imagining can do anything to change the world. And you'd be right to ask. But I'd also have to say that if you are asking that question you have not imagined often enough or hard enough or deep enough. We imagine, just like John Lennon. We imagine a world that is better than the one we currently live in and we imagine what it would take to see that world come to fruition and then we work with every ounce of our being and our soul to be that change to this world. We help raise awareness for issues like the genocide in Darfur and the utter poverty in our own country and the amazing omnipresence of hypocrisy within the religion that we claim as our own (Christianity).
I echo John Lennon when he said, "You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one." I have been told countless times in my life: "Thomas, one person can't change the world." I reply that yes, one person can. How many times have we seen it. Jesus pretty drastically changed the world (and I don't say this in a super-spiritual-look-at-me-the-good-Christian way, but in an honest way that any student of history, especially religious history, as I am, must admit) and Ghandi wasn't too shabby either. Should we mention the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Tim Berners-Lee (step over Al Gore, he actually did create the Internet) or Mikhail Gorbachev or Frances Crick, James Watson and Rosalind Franklin (the three who discovered DNA). And just so you know that I recognize the other side of the coin. Let's talk about what Adlof Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini and Osama bin Laden. I hope you get my point. We have the ability to do so much more than we tell ourselves that we can.
I am trying to change the world by changing myself and being the change that I want to see. You can do the same.
P.S. If you are looking for maybe an organization or two to get involved with there are two that I would suggest you start with, as they are doing what I'm talking about in the area of poverty and equality. They are making things happen and truly changing lives. The two organizations are Compassion and Kiva.
Say hello to Francisco. Francisco lives in Brazil with his father and mother.
For those of you who care, I have just finished work on a paper for my Advanced Greek Exegesis Seminar on My Philosophy of Teaching Greek. I have published the paper to Google Docs.
The paper can be found here.
There has been a ton of conversation about the upcoming movie "The Golden Compass" and about the trilogy that it is based on His Dark Materials. As I have not read the books or seen the movie I have largely been an outsider in the discussion. Thus, I have been led to what many others have said. In that, I have come across two places that handled the movie/books in ways I have not seen done yet. One is an article about it and the other is an e-mail interview with the author himself done by Peter Chattaway. Chattaway contributes often to a magazine that some of you may be familiar with, Christianity Today. They are very interesting reads. I do intend to read the books soon so I can finally be allowed to have a voice in this conversation.
The first article can be found here.
The interview can be found here.
My wife and I were watching Business Nation on CNBC tonight and heard about a company called Kiva. The whole premise of this company is to connect entrepreneurs in third-world countries with people just like me and you who loan them small sums of money. This is the excerpt from Kiva's website:
"Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the
developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a
business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic
independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can
receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are
repaid, you get your loan money back."
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