A Fitting End (Or Beginning) May 22, 2008

We note the major transitions in our lives at different times than the people living parallel to us or the society we live in. I can now say with a great sense of confidence and humility that I have reached the half point of my undergraduate university career. Being a student at Queen’s was always about getting a piece of paper with my name and the letters B and A somewhere on it. However, being an individual living away from home for the first time became something more important.

Everybody told us that when we graduated from high school all of the friendships we had developed would lose their importance. They were right. Some of my best friends from high school and I have gone months without communicating, and even years since we last saw each other. On the other hand, the friends we make when we first move away from home are those that will be present for years to come. I finished my second year of studies a few months ago, but it was only until this last week that I really felt like I had reached the half way point.

Over the weekend I went to see a wedding between two friends of mine in North Bay, Ontario. I became fully aware that the people I will remember most are those whom I have met at the Church I joined in Kingston two years ago. Perhaps this is a common feature of small-town Americans, but I often have trouble telling when people are being sincere or when they simply are going through the motions of a friendship. Perhaps that is why I feel so humbled by the beauty of Christ’s Church. At the core of every Christian’s soul is the belief that even as man spirals into self destruction, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. While such a belief may come across as escapist, and indeed many Christians use it as a justification to destroy the environment or disregard the liberties and rights of others, it unites us beyond ethnic, racial, or political boundries.

I’m taking a year off from school starting this September. I’ve applied to do work with an oversees Christian missionary organization known as SIM (serving in mission). My Church here in Honeyville NY supports a couple in Uruguay whom, Lord willing, I will be joining. The ministry that they do combines humanitarian work with evangelism, thus fulfilling Christ’s call for us to preach the good news and serve our fellow man.

Until that time and starting on Tuesday, I will be working as the challenge course instructor for the Adirondack Mennonite Camping Association. I hope to use this blog as a way to stay in touch and report on my adventures over the course of the next year. For those of you who live in Kingston, I look forward to seeing you again a year from now.

Take care and God bless!

-optionaltoaster

Thieves!: Experiencing A Break-In And Learning A Valuable Lesson In Forgiveness March 4, 2008

A few weeks ago my apartment here in Kingston was broken into. My three house mates and I were away for the week (the only time we get off aside from Christmas) and we returned to find several hundred dollars worth of cash and electrical hardware stolen. One guy lost his laptop, another his ipod (although the thief forgot the charger) and digital camera, and I lost money which I was counting on to get me through to the end of the year (Hey Mom and Dad! I LOVE YOU GUY$!). Apparently the guy came in through one of the windows that was left unlocked and then proceeded to take our stuff:

Coming from a small town where nobody locks their doors or windows, I was stunned by this insensitive thievery of that which I considered to be rightfully mine and the possessions of my house mates, none of whom had done anything to warrant this crime. I have been unable to conceive what could have been on the person’s mind as he walked from room to room taking what he wanted. What was even more distressing was the breach of privacy we had been subjected to. There was somebody in our house and our rooms without our permission. The drawer where I had hid my money was still open, the contents visibly moved around. All of the doors to our rooms were left open and debris from the door that was smashed in lay on the hallway floor:

I was just waiting for Jack Nicholson to stick his head through an axed hole in the door and say “Here’s Johnny!”.

You can’t tell from the photo, but there is a big crack on the molding next to the door where it was kicked. Even the one guy with the sense to lock his bedroom door fell victim to the covetousness of a thief.

He left his flashlight here (not a smart cookie) which we promptly turned over to police. We were told that the odds of them catching the guy were small, which is understandable but underscores the failure of law enforcement to act as a deterrent when resources are stretched thin, like they are in Kingston. Getting past the initial shock didn’t take too long and I’ll get by alright without the money. If something is to be learned from this whole fandango it is not that there are people in the world who are willing to take what is not theirs, or that we should be more careful to provide for out own security (both of which are perfectly valid lessons) but that the true test of a Christian is how one responds to situations where we are confronted with injustice. By all practical standards I have every right, nay, an obligation, to prosecute this guy to full extent of the law. However, Christ preached a doctrine of “turning the other cheek”, that is if a man strikes you, turn so that he might strike the other side of your face (Matthew 5:38-42). One of the first emotions I felt when I realized I had lost money was rage-not a very Christian emotion. I imagined myself hitting the guy on the head and then duck taping him to a chair, if only I had been home when he had broken in. Although realistically, if somebody broke into my house it probably would have played out more like this:

That’s me hiding under my covers with the only weapon at my disposal.

Back to the issue of forgiveness. I have been questioning my own morality by asking myself whether or not I would let the guy keep the money. I tried to answer this by saying that it is irrelevant since he will not be caught. Nonetheless, I am not excused if in my own heart I would not forgive him and show mercy just as God showed to mankind. Had the break-in been done by an unemployed father trying to feed his family, mercy would not be difficult to give. However, if it was a teenager with nothing better to do or who was too lazy to get a job, forgiveness without justice feels totally unnatural. Living up to the Biblical standard in this case, and all situations, requires a suppression of human morality and a surrender of the benefit of the doubt to God.

One of the parables that Jesus told was of an unmerciful servant who was forgiven of a large debt he owed his master but refused to forgive a small debt that was owed to him by one of his own servants (Matthew 18:21-35). The grace that the master showed was meant to be an example for his own servant. Likewise Christ’s sacrifice should set an example to all people and teach us a valuable lesson in forgiveness.

-optional toaster

PS: 226 hits in less than one week=awesome .

Stuff That Old People Teach Us March 1, 2008

As young people we should never be ignorant to the lessons that we can learn from our elders. One of the lessons I was taught to live by as I grew up was to lead the kind of life that would give our grandparents confidence in our generation. While I know I’ve failed in more ways then I’ve succeeded, I hope that I’ve been giving the proper respect where it’s owed.

Over the summer I went to a 5th of July celebration in Carthage, NY with some friends from the my workplace. After a nighttime fireworks show, we went for a walk down one of the scenic streets. A few minutes later we approached a park bench where a well-dressed older gentleman was sitting. He asked if we enjoyed the firework show. We told him that we had and then proceeded to ask him why Carthage celebrates Independence Day on July 5th. Apparently it is to make sure that everybody who might be away is back in town to celebrate. It’s also nice to attract some people from the surrounding area, which we were a testament to since none of us are actually from Carthage. The man asked us to give him a bag of circles to which we responded that doing so is impossible (a circle is an idea, not an object). We asked him what he did for a living and he made us guess. Eventually we found out that he had studied at Villanova University and from that, correctly established that he was the priest at the local Catholic Church. What followed was a philosophical discussion about faith, love, and politics from the perspectives of a half dozen college students working at a Mennonite summer camp and a wise religious scholar whose life had been devoted to the service of God and his parish.

Last month my maternal grandfather passed away at the ripe age of 90. We knew it was coming for a while so we weren’t shocked. Since then my family has been going over his personal effects and as a result, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for what Tim Brokaw called “the greatest generation”. My grandfather grew up in Nova Scotia and attended Dalhousie University before receiving the Rhode Scholarship to study at Oxford. However, the year was 1939 and the war in Europe had just begun. Like many young men at the time, he put his education on hold to enlist in the RCAF. He was soon transferred to the Royal Air Force, flying on board a piston-engine PBY Catalina as a navigator in the African Theater. For those few terrifying years, Great Britain “the island fortress” stood alone as the last bastion against Nazi aggression. The efforts of him and thousands of other British and Commonwealth airmen meant that the fascists could never sleep easy or achieve their goal of total European conquest. Sir Winston Churchill stated in 1940 in reference to the RAF that, “never has so much been owed by so many to so few”.

We recently discovered some of his personal effects from both the war and his civilian life. For my birthday, my parents gave me a folder they had dug up which contained every article that my grandfather had cut out and filed from the New Yorker on President Lyndon Johnson from their Annals of Politics series. This is the Holy Grail for an American political history junkie. They also found numerous photos of my grandfather and the other men from his air crew.

I was usually shy to talk to my grandfather about his life. He clearly preferred to know more about what I was doing. I wish that I didn’t have regrets now, but if I said that I was satisfied with everything I allowed him to teach me, I would be lying. Still, the fact that he remained an enigma to me even up to his passing suggests something wonderful about his character. From the pieces of his life that I’ve recovered and am only now putting together, I have come to the conclusion that he was a man of humility, kindness, and frugality despite leading a very successful life in the business sector and his own home. My mother often recalls a story from her childhood when she and her parents were in the American South. At one point, they walked into a restaurant in order to enjoy a dinner together. Upon seeing a sign with the words “WHITE ONLY”, my grandfather politely stood up and walked out with his wife and daughter in tow. Such an act of protest says something about a man’s heart and should serve as an example to all people who desire to stand up against injustice.

On a more humorous note, I recently saw an episode of Mad TV with a character by the name of Mrs. Leona Campbell, played by the brilliant Stephnie [sic] Weir. Mrs. Campbell, clearly a woman outside her natural environment, points out the absurdity of young people through her unintentionally ironic questions and suggestions.

Mrs. Campbell asks the types of questions that we ought to ask ourselves. Do I really need an ipod? Do I really want to have another drink? Do I really need to check facebook every fifteen minutes or text message somebody that I will be talking to after class anyways? (The answers are all “no”). Let’s try to pick up where our grandparents left off. That way we’ll give our descendants something good and wholesome to write about.

-optionaltoaster