Thursday, March 18, 2010

Screams to the universe part 2

Ok if you managed to survive reading my last post you know I believe that most people maybe all people scream to the universe.

Now most of those people don't scream out loud. Mostly it's some action or behavior that screams out "LOVE ME!!!" And some people scream out more loudly than others.

If ya didn't read it now you know.

Now some people set out on a quest to grow past this narcissistic selfish attitude. And some of them even succeed. Unfortunately in my experience the vast majority of people who start out on this quest do not.

Now I haven't done any official polling or anything, but I do run into a lot of people in my life. And many of those people have set out on that quest or at least proclaim to the world that they are actively on that journey.

Maybe I am wrong but it appears to me that most of those people are screaming out to the universe the following:

"GOD I LOVE YOU....... except when it gets in the way of what I want."

If am right then I am greatly saddened. If I am right then this reeks incredibly of hypocrisy and makes me sick.

To me it's much worse than the the first group of screamers because they are at least genuine and honest. And the vast majority of them have no idea what they are screaming to the universe or that they are even screaming at all. At times this is very heartbreaking.

Until there is some great change in the way humanity in general thinks I don't know how much hope I can hold out there.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Screams to the universe

Ok this is essentially going to be a repost of another post of mine somewhere else I just feel that going and copying and pasting it here would be lazy.

Plus who knows I might have some new insights. And I think I just might knock out two birds with one stone.

One nifty things about evolution is that certain traits over generations can become more and more pronounced. This is usually a good thing but not always. And sometimes you can also see why those traits stuck around. Pretty cool stuff.

Anyway to matter at hand.

Working in youth ministry you get to work with lots of kids. And if you are any good you probably observe them.

When I first got started I noticed some of them were attention mongers. Now back in the day I did a lot to curtail and discourage this behavior. Unfortunately in this day and age the problem has become so rampant that the minute you try to plug a leak another three or four pop up.

I'm not complaining because no amount of complaining I am personally capable of doing will fix this problem. But I would like to make my observations known to the world in hope that if enough people complain this will no longer be a problem in few generations.

Now why is there so much attention mongering? In a nutshell it's screaming to the universe.

Now I wonder if perhaps we all scream to the universe. But some people scream out to the universe more loudly than others. And those people are growing in number.

Now what are the people screaming and maybe more importantly what are they screaming.

They are screaming out to the universe love me. And why well obviously because they are not feeling loved enough. The place they are first supposed to receive this love is at home from parents, family members, extended family, and the community. But unfortunately some parents these days are barely adults. And unfortunately maturity sometimes does not grow as fast as the human body.

Now if it was just screaming I would be ok. What has me concerned is the way this screaming manifests itself.

Now let's pick on some people. I know one young man who has so much potential and lots of talent. And he uses his skills for attention and instead of living up to his potential he abandons them for self gratification and is a general pain in the butt. Not entirely a bad thing except that it hinders or quite frankly is disruptive to the growth of those around him. Now keep in mind this is just a mild case.

But this has the potential to manifest its in much more drastic and potentially harmful way. For example I suspect (I haven't looked at any studies or done any research but I am willing to be serious money) that this might be part of the reason children are becoming sexually active at a much younger age and more sexually active. Sure sex is rumored to be fun. But I suspect that there many young ladies out there who mistake young boys using them as toys for their own fun as love.

Now sadly these are relatively tame examples.

So I'm gonna wrap this up because it is becoming rather lengthy. I have other related stuff to say but it is actually enough for another separate but related post.

So some parting points.

Sex is not love. Love is putting up with someone despite their flaws perhaps for the rest of their lives.

Mind the screaming and see what you can do to help alleviate it.

And finally parents love your kids. People love your family. And try to be kind and good to one another.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

How I got started..... Again.

Ok so here's how I got suckered back into youth ministry.

I was working a job that I pretty much hated. So I decided to take a vacation day and to alleviate the guilt of abandoning work for a day I went to an event.

So go figure I ran into the new youth minister (a friend from the days of yore) and a bunch of kids on the way.

And quite frankly I had no intention of getting back into ministry. I doubt many people understand the time commitment necessary to be totally rocking in ministry.

I just wanted to take a day and decompress so I could get back to the grind a little less downtrodden.

Now inevitably when you put a bunch of kids and adults together and whatever has brought them together has some relation to religion or something along those lines there will be questions.

Now this was rather interesting to observe.

I hate to say it but some of the questions were stupid. And yes I know people say there is no such things as a stupid question. But they are wrong has anyone taken the time to examine the previous statement. But that is another post.

And I felt that the answers were less than adequate as well.

Eventually I became exasperated and had to weigh in. I felt that some of the questions and the questioners would have been shut down with proper answers. And I felt that some of the questions would result in less than optimum future actions.

Now unfortunately some of these children come from less than perfect backgrounds. And here comes someone who seems known and liked that also happens to appear to know what they are talking about.

So what happened? They jumped on the situation. And due to the fact that I had been away from ministry from a while, I mistook the enthusiasm of some as a genuine desire to grow as young catholics instead of a ginormous scream for attention.

Finally towards the end of the day one young man asked me if I would be involving myself in ministry again. And I flat out told him no. Then he pointed out to me that there are not enough male role models in youth ministry. And I conceded the point with a non answer hoping that would handle him. And finally at the end of the day. This rather persistent young man told me he would be seeing me Sunday.

Now in my arrogance I assumed that maybe God was using this child to prompt me to return to ministry because I might happen to have gifts which could benefit others and were being wasted in my current situations.

I have learned some things since this day. Many children don't want role models they want someone to tell them that the things they are doing are not bad. And that there is a lack of role models in ministry of both sexes period.

This would be the beginning of an eye opening journey.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Greetings

Greetings,

I'm not exactly sure why I'm doing this. A lot of people would be much happier if I just shut my mouth and looked the other way. In the past this has resulted in a good deal of aggravation for me as well as getting kicked in the shins a lot figuratively speaking. And being who I am I don't feel things have escalated enough for me to do any kicking back. But if things should ever get to that point again clear the area it won't be pretty. Maybe someone will be able to use something here to help themselves or someone else. And perhaps someone will reach out and help me be a better person.