Stevenski.com

A couple nights ago, I was listening to a talk by Shane Hipps of Mars Hill out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The message was one of inclusion to a degree that I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it spoken. The message is to the Mars Hill community, but I feel it should be applied to every Christian community.

Shane speaks:

• There are people here today who believe that what you believe matters more than anything else. And they believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. And they believe that Jesus when he died and was raised again did so to forgive your sins and if you put your faith in him, when you die, you’ll go to heaven. And if you are that kind of person you belong here as you are.
• And there are people here today who actually don’t know if they believe in God. And they look at Jesus and go, “Maybe a good moral teacher,” And they look at the Bible and they look at Jonah being swallowed by a fish and they go, “That’s funny. There’s no way that’s real. That’s absured and illogical and irrational.” And what they like is systematically try to change the world, one clipboard and calculator at a time. If that is you- you belong here as you are.
• And there are people here today who are pacifists and vegans by choice for moral reasons, they’re open and affirming of gays. They drive hybrid cars, they live in intentional community. They believe in truth, but not absolute truth. They believe in more like a story and a narritive. And they also would really rather work with a Muslim to irradicate AIDS then spend any amount of time debating how you get into heaven. If that’s you- you belong here as you are.

Shane’s next sentance:

Do you realize how unique that is?

Unfortunately, Shane, yes- I do. Shane goes on to list more and more people punctuating their descriptions with “If that’s you- you belong here as you are.” He goes on to say how this isn’t the idea of their particular church, it’s God’s idea.

Last night, with my parents I started in on a tirade about how the churches in Muskingum county are frequently exclusivist. The Our Way or the Highway To Hell approach to things, is what I’m meaning. Something that I said in my rant about this is, “When does someone get their membership card? When is somsone entitled to what God has to offer humanity?” This was rhetorical, because the answer is- right now. For everyone.

The modern American church is not moving foreward with the rest of the culture around it. The church is not progressive enough as a whole. All church communities that act as the self-righteous majordomo of God do all Christians a disservice. Thank you Mars Hill and all other churches who practice the love of Jesus who they preach they follow.

The past few years of winters have been rough for me. Constantly tired, feeling down, and feeling very unmotivated. I had actually blamed it on having miserable Christmases, watching my sisters with their husbands and kids and I wasn’t even on the way to getting married. Now this year, very close to getting married, and the same sort of feeling.

Last year I has suspected that I might have Seasonal Affective Disorder, so this year I revisted that idea as a posibility. So, I went to the Mayo Clinic’s website too look up symptoms and I felt that I had all but the most severe of them. I did some reading about whether this is something to go to the doctor about or not. Somethings can be dangerous to self-diagnose, and some other things are really a waste of time and money to go to the doctor for a diagnosis. If I’ve got a cold, she’s just going to tell me to rest and get plenty of fluids until it passes. This might be the same kind of thing. In my research it turns out that the primary treatment for winter SAD are these special lights that put out full spectrum light that have a UV shield so you don’t get skin cancer in exchange for the SAD.

I ponied up the $200+ for the Philips EnergyLight and waited for it to ship from Amazon.

Interestingly, the acronym “SAD” is a bit of a misnomer for me personally, because I don’t feel sad, just generally depressed.

In the mean time, I talked to a few people about it. A co-worker said that “everyone has that” “that’s just life”. I agree. Having been well read in the Paleo Diet and well educated in the purported benefits of Vibram Five Fingers- I know that humans are a subtropical species and have no business living in a temperate climate. But we do, ergo- problems will come up.

The light arrived and it’s pretty big. If I were to have a carrying case for it, it’d need a duffle bag. It looks nice though. I fired it up and it puts out a great amount of light. For a few mornings now, I’ve been getting some stuff done while facing that light and the time of day that I really feel run out of energy was much later. So- so far, so good.

I’ll wrap this post up with the anecdote where I decided it was time to spend that $200+ on the lamp. After work one night I was really hungry (as past the “I’m done for the day at life,” moment) and knew I didn’t have any food at home. But I drove home and parked because I didn’t feel like getting food. Then, I spent quite a bit of time sitting in my car cheerleading myself to go get food or otherwise I’d be complaining about it to myself all night. Then I drive to a grocery store and can’t bring myself to leave the car to go inside and find food. After a failed attempt to boost myself up enough to go inside, I compromise and find a nearby fast food restaurant. The whole ordeal felt exhausting and took about two hours. If you’re reading that story and thinking, “Well, jeeze, that’s stupid, just go get food, it’s easy,” You’re 100% correct. It should be and that was the sign I needed to do something different.

My back hurts. It’s the worst of it. My arms are good, legs- good, head could be a bit better. But everything in between doesn’t seem so hot. Fitful sleep, forgot that there was a cat in the house and startled me in the morning sometime before the sun came up. Now I’m trying to gear up to leave and I have to talk to myself, narrate and instruct, to remind myself to focus on leaving and not on pain.

via Minimal

Previously Patagonia’s NYTime’s Black Friday ad.