Today felt different. I’ll take it as a good thing, so that it’ll keep me on this path.

I’m sitting in my pj’s watching the Spongebob Squarepants Movie. I love this show. It’s one of the few cartoons I still watch, and it reminds me that somewhere inside me, there is still innocence. Underneath the stress about school and resentment for my father and jaded view of people (especially the ones with penises), there is still a little girl who believes that there is good in the world.

She believes that true love, perfect love, is possible. She thinks that she can be anything she wants to be, that people can be trusted, and all other sorts of crazy things that someone who’s lived in this society for almost 20 years wouldn’t dare believe.

Sometimes I can block out all the negativity and go to my childlike state, where I am happy, trusting, and I believe that the world is my oyster. And if I can stay there for longer than 5 minutes…I am myself.

Dear ones,

It has come to my attention that some of you like to worship me as it relates to the fact of my incarnation during the month of December.  Please stop. I never told you it was okay.

Feel free to focus on that important point in our story of redemption other times of the year, just not around the end of the year.

Even though it was an amazing,  miraculous act of love.  Even though it represents what I gave up for you.  Even though it is so wonderfully complex and important.  Don’t worship me pertaining to that for a few weeks in December, okay?

When others are talking about it, emphasizing it, and getting excited about Me, please restrain yourself.  Practice some self-control and wait until spring.

Even if joy, wonder, and amazement well up inside of you, don’t give in.  Just continue on like normal, as if nothing happened.

This might require turning off the radio at certain times and avoiding certan hymns in your books and certain people who won’t obey this command.  Whatever happens, resist the temptation.

I hope you understand,

your Lord and Savior

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I was wondering if that argument made anymore sense if put explicitly in Jesus’ words.

Nope, it doesn’t.

…that I don’t have swine flu.

…watching my kids play with people who played with me when I was their age.

…my blogging friends.

…that the security/TSA officer used the back of his hands when frisking my “sensitive areas” at the Newark Airport.

…seeing church family who knew my parents.

…going to my Uncle Tom’s cabin in Bowling Green to see half my family for Thanksgiving day.

…getting to visit with high school friends and see their new baby.

…a Sunday when I can be fed instead of feeding.  Plus sit with my wife and family the entire time.

…my church home in New Jersey.

…to worship with the congregation that supported me while in Italy and at Harding.

…celebrating 9 years of marriage with my great wife yesterday.

…that I will be able to be at Tulsa this spring, thanks to my church.

…in-laws who used their skymiles to gift us plane tickets to see my family.

…good food.

…my sister and her family.

…Father, Son, and Spirit.

…the Cross.

Working from home today and after getting a few k’s in the legs last week thought OK, this week can keep it going. Bloody hell. Monday was a planning day in the city all day. Tuesday I managed three hours. Wednesday had various commitments which meant needed to get the train into the city. Today, thought OK will go to Kinglake, haven’t done that ride for ages and I need some climbing. Day opened with lots of rain. That’s OK, started working at home. Unfortunately I got stuck right into redesigning and rebuilding 9 years of my videoblog site. The sort of thing I can do for hours. Before I knew it it was lunch time. Still time, but perhaps will just do Eltham loop instead since I do have to pick up the 3 year old from daycare. Lunch, I’ll just go back and do a bit more… That become nearly 90 minutes, then I thought, fuck it, have to get out and ride. Oh, sky seems a bit dark. Quick check of the radar and big dirty thunderstorm on its way (currently smashing and bashing around my ears). Tomorrow I have the child all day, I can probably get a leave pass for one day on the weekend. So my week has become, at best, two rides. This is not good.

Looking through the window of a women’s clothing store in Washington D.C. with buildings across the street reflecting off the window.

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“They say time heals everything. But I’m still waiting.”

I realized that today is one of many days that reminds me of the past six years. SIX. How do you make that up? Simple answer: you can’t. So leave your bags behind and keep on moving.

Only God can do something about it. Now I’m going to leave it all up to Him, for once. Let’s see what happens.

I am so glad that I can turn my iPhone sideways to type this… I was concerned for a moment but all is well now. I am so excited to be graduating this summer! I don’t know what I am going to do after that. Move to Portland with Kaitlyn? I dunno if she will be ready to actually make a decision and get a house and physically drive down there. Go on an international internship to Ecuador for 6 months? I will miss Zach, Kaitlyn, and my Lucie dog SO badly, but career wise that is probably the smartest. But it also costs money which is a very common downside of very exciting things.

What do I actually want to do for a job? Honestly if I had it my way I would just be a nanny for the rest of my life but that is not very professional and would probably be a point of contention with my family for so many years that the idea becomes laughable when thought about too seriously. Decisions decisions. Being an adult and the immenent lack of fun and exhuberance in everyday life is a bitter dissapointment to me. Hopefully this is just due to being in my last few quarters at school that doesn’t really care and not because God means for my life to be like this. What am I saying??!! God doesn’t mean for life to be like this and I should be encouraged by this! God doesn’t mean for college or even my “younger” years to be the most meaningful of my life and I should be excited for what he has in store for me and be ready to take action and see opportunities come when He presents them. All this I know but how I feel at the moment is on edge and bored as well as bordering on the edge of dissatisfaction. Which is not what God means for me. I need to pray more and mope less and take comfort in the fact that life is just beginning and I am waiting for the next stage. Come on next Stage! I am so excited for you!

I’ve been bitching to myself for so fucking long about writing. I keep thinking, “You want to be a writer but your not doing a fucking thing about it,” But I always keep thinking, “What on earth could I fucking do that would get me known, people to like my writings, and to just be a successful writer.” I’m just stressing out, I need an actual enjoyable thing to write about instead of just every little thing about my life…For real. Haha. But besides that I’ve always just kinda wrote short pieces and poems that don’t really have a point except that they are pretty..Thats about it…

But I need to stop and I needed to write it all out so that I can start to write more again..I think. I’m gonna try at least.

A few months ago, Jeremiah and I drove to Half Price books to purchase a very special book for our family. He’d been talking about getting a “Blessing Book” for a long time. So for $4.99, he picked out a brown and orange vintage floral journal.

We decided that we needed to start recording God’s faithfulness and his answers to our prayers over the years and that the Blessing Book would be the official landing place to write out those things simply because…

It’s easy to forget God’s work in the every day details of our lives.

Since then, we’ve recorded a lot of answers to prayers and twice now, we’ve gone through it so we can Remember.

Remembering God’s faithfulness and provision in the past has given me an overwhelming joy, thankfulness, and gratitude. It gives me great hope to face the uncertainties in the future.

There are all kinds of ways to reflect and remember. I stumbled upon Megan’s blog the other day and she’s created a Thankfulness Banner. I absolutely love this idea- especially as it really helps your kids tangibly see God’s goodness in their life.

One Thanksgiving when I was home from college, I printed out each of my family members’ names in big, bold writing on separate pieces of paper. All of us wrote a brief note saying how thankful we were for that person. It was a bonding time for our family and provided a ton of affirmation.

Well, I can’t wait when John can understand what our Blessing Book is all about so that he can share in what God has done and is doing in our family.

How do you remember God’s faithfulness and blessings during this time of year?

I feel a little more emotional about this one because it involves people forbidding worship.  I can understand concerns about how to worship but can’t relate to issues of when.

I do understand that there are degrees, while some are against singing “Happy Birthday, Jesus” with a full-scale pageant, others would be okay with simply preaching on the incarnation in December.

Barry Baggott, in his article, “‘Tis the Season” gives these reasons not to celebrate Christmas:

We are not told to do so

Do we need to be told to worship Jesus?  I understand he is dealing with specifics.  We were not told to emphasize the birth/incarnation on December 25th or on any particular day.  But why does that exclude doing what we are expected/commanded to do whenever we do it.  Just because some are doing it annually, why must we refrain at that particular moment?

Couldn’t the “expediency” argument enter in here?

We have no Apostolic Example

(see above)  We have examples for worshipping Jesus.  Where does the Bible teach that it is right sometimes and wrong sometimes?

This section which includes the Reformation leaders reaction to Catholicism many holy days.

We are following human tradition

The root of this concept bothers me:  “We shouldn’t do something because the denominations do it.”  We talk big about having the Bible as our only guide, yet so much of our teaching/practice seems to be based on not being like the denominations, or reactionary as some of you commenters have pointed out.  Baggott refers to “the world” but means denominations, I assume.

Here is a general truism that we have to learn:

Something is not wrong just because the Baptists do it.

I have a hard time understanding and accepting this reasoning, can some one help me out?

“Another argument one hears is simply: ‘the birth of Christ is in the Bible, so that means celebrating Christmas is biblical.’  That same line of reasoning would allow one to say that “the Bible tells about the virgin Mary, so that means it is biblical to pray to her.’

There is no example of praying to Mary.  There are numerous examples of worshipping Baby Jesus.

So, I am among those who feel that Matthew 2:10-11 and Luke 2 are example enough to make a big deal about the incarnation, whether that is in December or any other time of the year.  I don’t understand why it is wrong on any given day. It’s the refraining that I can’t comprehend.

Then, Brother Baggott deals with Romans chapter 14.

His first point suggests that while the context talks about Jewish holy days (agreed) there can be no application to future Christian holy days (why not?).  off topic–More irony here is that wine comes up again as a matter of opinion in chapter 14.

His second point is that Romans 14 deals with personal/private matters and not assemblies/congregational matters.    He concedes that an individual Christian can observe such a holiday as Christmas and Easter but it becomes wrong when a church does it because it will be forced on others.

Okay, but….what about congregational autonomy?  There are some congregations in which no one has a problem with it.

We have an area-wide singing each December that is not intended to be a Holiday/Christmas program, but a time for fellowship and worship.  We do usually sing a few nativity hymns, as well as hymns dealing with every part of Jesus’ life.  Some don’t come.  Some accuse us or assume it is a “traditional” Christmas program.   They miss out.  That’s okay.  No one is forced to come.

We received a phone call the first December we lived here from a small, conservative group of brethren who are near us.  I had unknowingly sent them a flier/invite to our singing fellowship.  Unfortunately, my wife picked up the phone that day and received a tirade about our “Christmas program.”

I will never understand Christians being mad about other Christians worshipping Jesus at the “wrong time”.

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Questions I would like answered:

When–what months–is it okay to “celebrate” the birth of Jesus?

By celebrate, I simply mean sing the hymns, study the texts, meditate on implications, be in awe at what God and Jesus have done.

Would it be okay to focus on the birth every July?

Is it okay to do it regularly, just not on the same day or month every year so that people won’t think we have made it a holiday?

If you are against focusing on the birth of Jesus the same time of each year, do you participate in Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Thanksgiving themed services annually?

I intend no sarcasm or mean-spiritedness in these questions.  I realize the questions and my blogging habits might confuse, but I sincerely would like to hear more than a couple of passages such as Galatians 4:10-11 to condemn this practice.

I was reading this blog post by a guy named Dustin Curtis today and it really made me realize how screwed up my sleep schedule is.

By the way, as beautiful as that blog post it, it is still a blog. Not a magazine. Though some have been apt to call it a blogazine. I don’t really care what label is used for it. It’s just awesome.

Anywho, it’s interesting to think that some people function on non-24-hour sleep schedules. I never bothered counting my waking hours, but I think it’s safe to say that I don’t function on what would be considered a “normal” schedule. I sleep when I have time to sleep. If I have a week like I had this week, with late nights, early mornings, and lots of work in-between, I won’t have a lot of time for naps. But after all that, I had some free time after a big meal today and after I rode my bike home, I just crashed… for 5 hours.

Is this healthy? Perhaps not. I’m sure I’d probably be a lot happier and healthier if I kept to strict sleep schedule. My first class of the day pretty much dictates when I get up, and for the past 3 semesters, my first class has been at 11 a.m.

But next semester, my first class of the day is going to be at 9:30 a.m., so I’m going to have to get used to waking up that early. I’m confident I’ll be able to do it, but I’m not as confident that I won’t have those days where I just crash at odd hours.

When I worked at Spice Route in Canada, my sleep schedule was completely wack. I’d work Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights till about 3 a.m. and got home between 4 and 5 in the morning. That was just the restaurant night life. Unfortunately, I lived with somewhat unsympathetic people when it came to sleeping in. Past noon was BAD, no matter how much sleep you got or what you were doing the night before (like my JOB!).

Who sleeps and rises with the sun anymore? Sometimes I wish I could do that, but I can’t. There’s no way I’m going to consistently sleep early. No. Way.

I slept from 3 to 9 this afternoon. I’m probably going to sleep again soon. And I plan on getting up at 7:30 in the morning to watch the soccer game.

Gotta love being young.

~D

P.S. I know I haven’t done a Crappy Movie of the Week in a while, but rest assured, I have a special one in mind for next week.

Griffiths’ lecture can be accessed here:  http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/events_online/james_2009.html 

His lecture is profound. To be frank, frighteningly so, at least for me.

I am deeply hesitant to criticize Griffiths, so I won’t. I am reading his Intellectual Appetite, and I am being impressed by it and spiritually aided to no small degree.

As I said, I won’t criticize, but I will note how starkly Griffiths’ position is put: as I understand him, Griffiths’ see what we normally call self-consciousness as a result of the fall. On this point, Kierkegaard (among many others) agrees with him. Here is the deep difference; Griffiths thinks self-consciousness, or the “inner theatre,” composed of “layered and possesive qualia” (his language), is to be abolished, and that this is the point of the liturgy: it attenuates experience in this sense, culminating in the elimination of experience.

This is the exact opposite of the early Romantic and Idealist position. Griffiths’ lecture reminded me of a fact I have long been contemplating, but was given renewed reason to do so when Lewis Ayres repeated it as a piece of advice. That is, the one ought to adopt a theological master. Gilson discusses this in his Aquinas Lecture on the
History of Philosophy and Philosophical Education. The master one adopts will have an enormous influence on one; I, at this point, intend on adopting Kierkegaard as my initial professional focus of scholarly attention, and this makes me nervous – indeed, adopting any modern master makes me nervous (I think S.K. is safer, though, than someone like Barth). As a result, I have resolved to try to adopt, at least informally, a pre-modern master (this was Ayres’ advice), which will be Augustine, I think, and to continue reading and studying them indefinitely. The stakes are quite high on this matter, at least they are for me.

Taylor is profoundly Hegelian, for example. Finishing A Secular Age  deepened a sense that I have, which is that Taylor is a bit too Hegelian, a bit too positive, about modernity, and this leads to tensions in his thought. Indeed, my paper for Gorski will likely be an exploration and critique of autonomy as a way of darkening Taylor’s picture of modernity/the ethics of authenticity. Griffiths is profoundly pre-modern in his sensibility, at least that is the sense I get. People like him inhabit a different world, and to the extent they do so consistently they produce work and live lives that provide the strongest possible challenge to our confidence in our moderns ways of living and being.

Autumn is a time for mists and mellow fruitfulness as Louise’s beautiful picture of some of our local woods shows. Now that we are in the grip of grim November weather remembrance and reflection come into play too, so appropriately, we’ve included a piece in Cardinal’s November newsletter about reflective learning.

I’ve been indulging myself lately and reading some historical who-dunnits by C.J. Sansom. As well recommending the “shardlake
” series as good, honest relaxation, I have found these stories very thought-provoking. Reflecting (there’s that word again!) on how differently people behave and how behaviour has changed over time, I am not surprised that we adopt certain characteristics to varying degrees. Take openness for instance.

We understand that openness encourages others to get to know us more easily, helping to build trust quickly. We also know that being too open, to the point of naivety, can be damaging or even dangerous. So, it’s a balancing act, and in today’s UK society, I see the scales as being fairly evenly balanced. Contrast with Shardlake’s time, during the reign of “good” King Henry V111th, where an honest and openly expressed opinion about religious belief or the King himself, could cost your liberty and your life if overheard in the wrong quarters.

So, imagine if you will, being a descendant of someone who was put to death for holding out against the decreed religious view. How might that affect your thinking, persuading you to be careful about with whom and where you shared your innermost thoughts, beliefs and feelings? Consider how you might influence your descendents, especially if these oppressive conditions prevail? If others are affected similarly, either directly or by observation, before long you have generations of people who habitually keep things to themselves!

Being open with strangers and those we don’t know too well, may feel like a risky business. We may not understand why this is, until we peel back the generations of thinking and habitual reasoning. I’d like to ask you how against the grain does it feel to bare all and have a blog, to appear on FaceBook or LikedIn or Twitter when all your formative years, you were taught to “keep it under your hat”…?

We hope you are keeping well, making progress and celebrating your achievements!

We get three copies of the GA each month thanks to the White Rock Fund, a parachurch organization of Christ in Dallas.  I am not GA hater.  I sometimes read some articles.  I sometimes agree. I sometimes lose interest just by looking at the table of contents.  I feel that it can be repetitive, as if their rotation of topics is too limited for me.

But I wanted to share some thoughts of the most recent issue this week for discussion, debate, dialogue.  All hopefully done in a kind spirit. I will put away my satire for awhile.

First up, three quotes I wanted to tie together from three different contributors.

“I have reviewed every book, lecture, article and letter that I could locate within my possession on how to discern authority in the Bible.  If there is further study on the subject that might shed additional light, please share it with me.“  p. 21 Alvin Jennings.

Brother, I don’t doubt your efforts, sincerity or your humility.  But you would agree that Truth is not based on those three things.  I actually agree with most of your article.  What I disagree with is the mentality that all it takes is more info to clear up everything.  Many brethren just as studied and sincere have reached different conclusions.  The answer is how do we handle this.

I will write more about the issue theme of Authority later but let me sum up my concern:  the issue isn’t a belief in the Word of God as our only authority.  Teaching on Biblical Authority will not solve the problems/division among churches of Christ.  That is simplistic and actually insulting.

It implies that those who disagree with me on any given topic are either ignorant or in rebellion to God’s authority–a false dichotomy.  Another option is they reached different conclusions in prayerful study. Yes, there is absolute Truth.  Yes it’s possible that someone is wrong (although it could be that both options are acceptable to God on some issues).

Brother Jennings continues to list numerous (conservative, IMO) church of Christ preachers who agree with him.  That is great when preaching to the choir, but doesn’t help us arrive at Truth.  Appealing to authority is a logical fallacy.  Anyone with any opinion can appeal to a list of respected men to back them up.

——————————————————–

Quote #2:  “In a brotherhood besieged in some quarters by those ever anxious to draw tighter lines of fellowship, this lesson is eminently valuable.  Indeed, one is tempted to ask whether some of the radicals of our number, who quote copiously from the pioneers when it suits their fancy, would even associate with these great men where they alive today!” p. 33, Brandon Renfroe

A 7-fold amen for Brother Renfroe’s statement.  It almost sounds as if he has been reading John Mark Hicks and Bobby Valentine’s great book on Lipscomb and Harding, or even Todd Deaver’s works.  Although, it is highly unlikely any of those brothers would be published in the GA.

The article deals with the fact that McGarvey and Lipscomb  had some different views but were in total agreement on the inspiration and authority of Scripture.  This is still true today of many on different sides of the issues.  Amen.  This article gets the point, although I doubt it will be taken to its logical conclusion.

———————————————————-

Quote #3: “Early Reformation leaders such as John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, William Farel and John Knox recognized the non-biblical origin of the various ecclesiastical festive days and observed only Sunday.” p. 38, Barry Baggot

More name dropping in an article against celebrating Christmas and Easter, which I will come back to later.

We all appeal to someone or something.  I just wish that we all (myself included) would appeal to arguments instead of persons.  It doesn’t help.  How many billion Hindus are there?  The Catholic church must be the one true church because they have the most adherents.

———————————–

I worry that even though this issue is emphasizing a very important topic, but not to the ends which they hope:  to convince brethren of their conclusions on various Biblical topics.  In other words, they are missing the point.

While some of the people who they perceive as wrong/liberal/etc have rejected Biblical authority, many have not.  Many feel just as strongly that the Bible is the sole basis for authority but have a different view of how to read the Bible.  Or even some with the same imperfect hermeneutic have reached different conclusions.

 I’ve been away from myself and from here for a while. 

Honestly I don’t know what I’m doing either in real life or the online world. I’ve been ignoring the absence of every good thing I’ve had and started embracing the life I should be participating in. I am thankful that I have things to do – like school, and just my family in general, to attend to. I wasn’t planning on writing tonight because nothing eventful enough has happened. The same old days with the same old words. (The only different thing that has happened is that I got a haircut! I like it!) The reason I decided to write is because I wanted to note something for the appreciation and reflection of others and myself. What I am going to say is sad, but I don’t want anyone to interpret it the sad way. I want it to be something that helps you live your life better day by day, appreciating the people who take part in it, and especially yourself, because we should all be thankful to alive. If we’re alive, at least there’s hope to have something better…

Well, this is why I’m speaking about this. My dad had a very close friend, one whom he had been friends with since he was probably my age. Maybe younger. My dad is in his late forties. That friendship, I’m sure, was strong. There’s a certainty in that which I haven’t heard from him, but that I know from the span of years and the anger in my dad when he found out he died last night. My dad found out this afternoon, but his friend was actually dead yesterday. He had become a family friend, one whom I met, my siblings, and my  mom. He had been battling cancer for the longest, and I heard from my parents, mostly from my mom who went to see him at the hospital, that he was in excruciating pain. After a while it became a matter of months. The doctors said there were 3 months left. Then 2. Then no one really knew for sure…we started asking about him, and everyone said he was still there. But no longer living, just laying. His heart was beating, but that was about it. Until last night, when he finally couldn’t anymore. 
I didn’t know the man well, but I knew a few things. From the few times that I had the chance to talk with him, he was a lively man. A happy one. It’s not to sound cliche, I am not honoring something that wasn’t there. It’s true. He joked around with my mom, he was a big talker. Sometimes he came over to visit and even if he had to leave, he’d stand at the door talking for another hour, pretending to leave but never doing so, because he was such a social butterfly. I knew his wife. She was so sweet. She was a little quieter, but friendly and welcoming nonetheless. She never made you feel left out. It horrified me to hear that he finally died; because I knew it hurt my dad a lot, and because of his family. He had kids, a girl a little older than me, and I think one or two boys younger than me. And his wife, of course. No matter how many warnings you get of a life that is going to be lost, if you love that life, no warning is enough. No warning shields you from the pain that comes at the moment that the person shares their last breath.

I thought about all this today. And I thought, wow, I could be much more passionate about the things I do. That man had every tumor and cancer and problem you could have. But he still had more energy than me to laugh and to see the bright side. He would have traded to be me any day. And that’s very sad. Because I used to think I wanted to die and be out of this world to end my sadness. I won’t lie, I am still a sad person sometimes. But I can’t say I want to die anymore. The pain I see all around me is something I would never put upon my family purposely. It’s not fair. 

Certainly, this isn’t to guilt trip anyone. No. Even I know that I will keep going with my life because so many people die every single day, although I wish that wasn’t real. I know this won’t change much. I am kind of sad now but in a while, when it has been months or a year, this will be a very faded memory and I know I will keep whining about the same things and crying over the same disappointments. I know it. But to appreciate what we’ve got is a good thing. And I hope to everything that is worth hoping to, that I never forget what a life is worth. What my life is worth, and how well I can start to live it.

Am I the only one who has serious doubts about my future?

I’m not talking about the typical “What am I going to do with my life?” or even “Boo hoo, how can I get a job in this economy?”, but more of the… “Is there going to BE an economy, a country, a planet in the future?”

I realize how ridiculous this sounds, and trust me, I find it just as ridiculous. If I really believed this wholeheartedly, I wouldn’t be able to function day to day or plan anything for my future. But this idea will not leave my head. Especially when I plan for my future, these future crises keep popping up in my mind and make it difficult to think.

Some things that scare me:

1. Global Warming: This probably started bothering me after the first time I saw An Inconvenient Truth. There was just something about the pictures of Manhattan being completely flooded that just made my brain go “Hey, WHAT?” And after years of reading articles about it and seeing very little done to combat it, my fears have not been quelled. It just seems like a ticking time bomb that governments, and people in general, just seem perfectly content with sweeping under the rug.

2. Pollution: This is sort of tied in with the above fear. I don’t even want to think about the amount of harmful chemicals I’ve been exposed to in my life, and I shudder to think about the legacy I’m going to leave for my children. How is there going to be enough fresh water for the future? The way we all live our lives is not sustainable. Most industries are not sustainable. Is the planet even sustainable? *head explodes*

3. Nuclear Weapons: The fact that these weapons even exist threatens the life of everyone on this planet. And the catch-22 is that no country is willing to give up their weapons because it would mean they would be at a severe disadvantage with their security if they didn’t have nuclear weapons and another country did. And God forbid a religious extremist gets a hold of that kind of technology and the means to transport it. In fact, today I saw this headline on the Huffington Post about how open our ports are to nuclear bombs. Wow, that’s reassuring.

4. Overpopulation: See sustainability. (Also see population growth statistics).

5. War/Famine/Disease: I group these all together because none of them directly affect my life (though that could be debated). These are all serious problems with our planet that are causing an unimaginable level of death and destruction. Genocide, AIDS, starvation and just wide scale death in general makes my stomach churn. Especially preventable death. And what’s worse, if I think about this and overpopulation at the same time, a part of me almost thinks it makes sense. Which is awful! Rather than more people dying to cut back on the population of mankind, I’d much rather just see LESS BABIES BEING BORN! Wrap it up, humans.

——-

There’s probably more, but honestly, it’s making me kind of depressed just thinking about all of these things that bother me.

I’m gonna go sleep now.

~D