No More JuJuBees Please

Since Halloween is just around the corner and more than a few of you will be passing out goodies to children dressed as Miley Cyrus and the Transformers, I wanted to share a few of my least favorite Halloween treats. I do not mean to offend so much as I mean to inform. If you want to be the most well loved person in your neighborhood, you do not pass out things like my first item, “Good & Plenty.” While you may love the taste of black licorice wrapped in soluble plastic, the average child does not. Next up is toothbrushes, often passed out by the dentists in the neighborhood. Dentists do great work, but why not take off one out of 365 nights in a year? Dentists will come in quite handy if a child attempts to digest the next “treat” called “JuJuBees.” It’s possible that this candy was invented so that people with reluctant children could rip out their children’s teeth without pliers or strings tied to door knobs.
I don’t think I went a single year by without me receiving the next two objects in my collection of holiday delights. The first is “Double Bubble.” If you’ve ever looked at a piece of chalk and wondered what it would be like if someone made bubble gum flavored like that piece of chalk and coated with the same white residue, you might be interested in trying “Double Bubble.” You can purchase a piece or two using dirty pennies, something else I’ve found among much more useful Halloween handouts. A good reason to use hand sanitizer, dirty pennies should be melted down and used to construct a husband for the statue of liberty (or at least a large copper dog).
It’s odd that we occasionally have high expectations for free gifts. I will probably revisit this subject when I think about all the Christmas gifts I was openly unhappy with as a child. There is even an expression for this common response: “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” God has given us and continues to offer us many blessings. In the “Parable of the Talents” in Matthew 25, three men are trusted with varying amounts of resources. The last man, given the least, squanders what he is given and produces nothing from it. Enjoy what God has given to you and make the most of it!

Why Do We Blush?

Because it’s my birthday this week, I was tempted to give you a summary of the last 30 years of my life. However, I am going to spare you that boredom and instead reference another great article from the world wide web, courtesy of Cracked.com. The article I read this morning discusses a few things our bodies do every day that science has yet to explain. The first of these, which I have often pondered, is yawning. Long believed to be the method by which our bodies compensate for low levels of oxygen in our blood, yawning doesn’t seem to have a purpose. Yawning, in fact, tends to decrease our oxygen intake. It also seems to be oddly contagious, even among animals.
You may also find yourself wondering why we dream. Several books, web sites, etc. discuss the idea of dream interpretation. Freud called dreams the “road to the unconscious.” No hard evidence exists that dreams are manifestations of our unconscious fears and desires. There is evidence that dreams can be influenced by noises, scents, and even the Earth’s geomagnetic activity.
A final conundrum among our bodies’ daily activities is the “most peculiar” human expression known as blushing. Some believe that blushing is an at of submission while other see it as a method of revealing one’s passive aggression. When one is embarrassed, it is believed that their anger is expressed involuntarily through blushing. Knowing God is one of the most sure fire ways to avoid shame. Shame is mentioned several times in scripture. Blushing is even mentioned a few times in Jeremiah. One of my favorite shame passages is 2 Tim. 1:8-11. Timothy is told to suffer for the gospel because of the grace given to us by Christ. Not everything about life has been revealed to humanity. However, we have seen the Savior and his power. We have also been told that his grace is sufficient. The life of a Christian means avoiding the shame of sin and testifying to others regarding the grace of God.

God Surveillance

For this week’s article, I am referencing another article from Cracked.com. The content of this web site, while not always acceptable for younger audiences, is chock full of interesting tidbits of information. The entry on Cracked.com that I read today lists a few techniques by which average citizens are secretly monitored. This information might fuel existing paranoia or develop new delusions, so read this at your own risk. The first technique listed is TV cameras with audio recording installed in passenger buses. In 2001, way before “9/11”, Chicago spent more than $3 million to have this equipment installed in over 300 city buses.
The next technique is bit more unsettling than bus cameras. Anyone can download software from the internet that allows one to take a cellular phone and tap it. This software even allows one to turn on a phone’s microphone while not in use. One study estimates that 3% of cell phones in the U.S. are already tapped. Yikes!
I found this next technique to be rather interesting. Supposedly, several laser jet computer printers can imbed every sheet of paper that passes through them with a microscopic code that identifies the specific printer that the paper came from. While it is unsettling that such technology exists, one can see how useful it can be when trying to put a stop to criminal activity. Psalm 139 tells us that God knows everything about us. We can’t fully understand our creator or hide from him. God’s knows what is best for us. Though what is currently happening in our lives may be frightening, God knows what we need and if we put him first in our lives, we will have that which we need. If God is first in your life, you won’t have to worry about any level of monitoring.

Futuresketch

This week my article is going geek (as if there weren’t geeky references already). According to Gizmodo, the “gadget blog”, “Photosketch is an internet-based program” that can take a rough sketch and turn it in to a beautiful montage. Until I watched the video online at Gizmodo.com I was very skeptical of this computer program. According to the authors of Photosketch, the software can take any rough sketch with each shape labeled (i.e. crude drawing of bear with the text “bear” next to it) and find images that correspond to each drawn element. The program then judges which images best match the shapes and seamlessly merges them in to a single image. Photosketch’s “blending algorithm” (I hope I didn’t lose you there) analyzes the images that it finds, traces the images, and matches the scene by adding shadows and lighting. So, you can have that photo of you and Batman fighting a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the center of a volcano that you’ve always wanted!
I wanted to mention this program not only because I am a Photoshop nut and it’s revolutionary, but because reading about it instantly made me think about the dissonance that sometimes exists between the plans we have for our lives and the plans that God has. We really have little idea of what our futures will look like. One can speculate on what type of person that he or she will marry, what job that he or she will have, or where he or she will live but only God knows for sure. We only know that, according to Jeremiah 29:11, God has “plans to prosper” us. Those who live in Christ have hope and can live knowing that God will not harm them. It’s acceptable to draw a rough sketch for your life and to make the choices that lead in certain directions but ultimately, it is left up to God to fill in the details. The process involves faith and dedication, but God can create a future more beautiful than we can possibly imagine.

We Are Pots Made From Clay

I love art formed in a variety of disciplines. Whenever I am traveling, I make a point to stop by as many museums and art galleries as I possibly can. What usually catches my eye more than art placed in a museum is art found in urban settings or contrived in innovative mediums. I am always looking for the next “I wish I’d thought of that” expression of creativity. For instance, when I was playing with my Lego blocks, I’d never envisioned creating life-sized replicas of real world objects or detailed murals from them. Google Nathan Sawaya and be amazed by his constructions. A few weeks ago, I was looking at a Lego advertising campaign that used huge posters on the sides of buildings to make the buildings look they were made of giant Lego blocks.
When doodling with my Etch-a-Sketch, I never thought of making photorealistic portraits of my friends and famous celebrities. Greg and George Vlosich do amazing things with an Etch-a-Sketch. Today, I found a painter who’s medium is unwashed cars. Scott Wade, the artist, is truly gifted with drawing elaborate, shaded works on the windows of filthy automobiles.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I often feel like I have worked myself in to a corner. I get the feeling that I have nothing more to offer the world. I sometimes regret the choices I’ve made to the point that I believe I’ve ruined my life. I tend to look at the relatively young age of 30 (which I am less than a month away from) as the end of the road for me. Passages in Isaiah 29 and 64 refer to us as the clay and God as the potter. The clay isn’t allowed to claim that the potter doesn’t understand it and can’t make anything from it. We are the works of the hands of God. God has given us unlimited potential and plans for us to proper as we use this potential to its fullest.

Getting Out of the Crawl Space

My wife and I are quite grateful for our home. It is easy to take care of and doesn’t require any major renovations. We have plenty of space and use it to entertain guests as often as we can. This is not a complaint (as it isn’t something I personally have to deal with), but my house presents a unique challenge to those installing services such as cable, internet, and home security. My house lacks a basement and its walls are almost entirely brick. Almost every installation technician entering my house experiences some level of frustration. When the first cable guy came to install service at my house, he turned completely white upon first glance at the crawl space beneath the house. A mold inspector had no problems spending time in the crawl space and claimed it to be clean and moisture free. The man installing DirecTV in my home today had a different perspective. While not fearful or completely aggravated, he did say that numerous creepy creatures inhabited the crawl space. Apparently, a nest of beetles attacked him. I apologized profusely feeling awful that this confrontation took place.
A fear of the dark is not always disconnected from reality. A number of dangerous critters become active in and inhabit darkness. Various crimes and other misdeeds take place in the dark. A few verses in Job 24 talk about the rebels and adulterers who “make friends with the terrors of darkness”. In Isaiah 29:15-16, the prophet condemns those who “hide their plans from the Lord”. Those who wish who do wrong attempt to hide their bad choices from those who would condemn or judge them. But, there is no hiding from God. Daniel 2:22 states that God “knows what lies in darkness” and that “light dwells with him”. Rom 13:12 tells us to “put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light”. We don’t have to live in a crawl space with beetles and spiders. We can walk in the light of God, living prosperously without the guilt and shame of sin.

The Source of All Joy

I don’t know if it’s just me that notices this, but there seems to be a general lack of joy among the world’s population. Most of this can be linked to the current state of the economy. (I’m sure you’ve never heard that theory before!) Could it be possible that we don’t experience happiness because we are looking for it in all the wrong places? I will get back to this question in just a few sentences. Until then, I would like to share a few tips for living happier that you may or may not have thought about before.
The first tip is one that I always dread, but have never regretted. One way to live happier is to get more exercise! (I can hear the sighs and groaning as I type this) What you might not about exercise is that it “lowers the body’s levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress.” (HowStuffWorks.com) Exercising also produces endorphins, a mood boosting chemical.
One must also learn to accept emotions, whether positive or negative. If you really pay attention to your feelings, you may find that your anger or sadness is related to something as simple as temperature or hunger. You should also learn to accept the feelings of others. It’s acceptable for other people to feel unhappy at times. Trying to understand the source of someone else’s discomfort (and possibly helping them with their problems) can make you happier.
As a final tip, did you know that having pets can make you healthier? The responsibility of having a pet can be tough but it can give one a sense of purpose, companionship, exercise (there it is again!), and general stress relief. As great as these bits of advice may be, true happiness is found in knowing God. Numerous scriptures support this fact, but Jer. 9:23-24 contrasts strength, wisdom, and riches to the understanding of God. Feel free to boast about knowing God, the source of all joy.