At First Glance

Last night I moved into my new apartment. I had been preparing for the move for a while, but to actually do it was exciting and scary and wild all at once. My family and I walked down to the beach at sunset, and we were greeted with one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen; in the moments I spent wondering at the immensity of that sight and the relatively miniscule nature of my own issues, my fears and worries were melted away. God, it turns out, is good.

I haven't had the time to think much, but I have made a number of observations in the short time I've been here.

My apartment is fantastic, couldn't have asked for a better location.
From time to time, the building smells like fresh-baked bread from Jimmy John's; I enjoy this.
If I look out the window, I can see the beach and Lake Michigan.
If I walk outside my building, there are six restaurants, a winery and tons of shops within a block.
This morning, the city parade went right by my window.
During the summer in St. Joseph, it seems that there are only three kinds of people: old, in bikinis, in boardshorts.

More to come.

And so on...

Motives and Outcomes

I spent a little bit of time this morning thinking about the things I have written about in the past, and in the process I began to notice something. Over and over again, the things I have gotten passionate about enough to write about have had a similar theme: the overwhelming importance of outcomes and the (relative) irrelevance of motives.

What I mean by that is this: it seems that in many situations in life and in this world, we give credit or support based solely off of the motives of people involved. If someone has good intentions, often that is enough for us to write them in as good and worth supporting, irregardless of the outcome of their endeavor or pursuit.

A Change of Scenery

The last few weeks have seemed like a perpetual writer's block for me. Whenever I have tried to sit down at home and write, something always has seemed to come up. I decided this morning that I wanted to do some writing this afternoon, and for the sake of avoiding the distractions which always seem to follow me at home I decided to try a little change of scenery. So here I sit in the library in my hometown, typing away while everybody around me appears engrossed in one book or another.

Oddly enough, this new location has me thinking all about changing scenery. This morning I was (finally) able to lock down an apartment to live in when I move up to Michigan in a few weeks. While I am undoubtedly excited to get that monkey off my back, it also makes more real the fact that the place I have grown up the last many years will no longer be my home.

The End of a Journey

Today perhaps the greatest journey I have traveled thus far in life comes to an end. For the last four years, I have studied and learned and grown and changed, always moving with today in mind, with this end on the horizon. Strangely enough, I never really expected that today would come. Yes, I knew it was a relative certainty. But I also never thought that these four years would go by so quickly. In four years I have formed lasting friendships, traveled the world, developed as both a leader and a learner and grown immensely as a person. If today I met the person who walked into this place in 2007, I wonder if I would even recognize myself.

Spending this time at Our Lady's University has been wonderful, an experience that I will treasure for the rest of my time on this earth. Being able to find a place that becomes home so quickly yet so truly is something I doubt I will ever experience again.

Yet while this path is coming to an end today, another path begins. I am not entirely sure where it leads, but the surprise is half the fun anyway. I don't expect that the next journey I go on will come near to what this one has been, but perhaps it doesn't need to match this one. Regardless, I know now like I did four years ago that there is but one way for me approach this new journey before me:

Afoot and lighthearted, I take to the open road.

And so on...

Some Thoughts

Sometimes I worry that I take life too seriously. Other times I get concerned that I don't take each moment seriously enough. If I take life too seriously I fear that I'll miss out on the lighter side of things, the times when I can be myself and not worry about who is watching. On the other hand, if I don't take life seriously enough I run the risk of missing out on opportunities and possibilities; if I spend my time focused on fun rather than moving forward, I might never make it out of my seat.

It is incredibly important that I find the balance between taking moments seriously or not. A time for everything, as they say.

And so on...

Thank You, Pat Robertson...

...for once again validating everything I ever said about you.



How can Christians be taken seriously by the world if the people who claim to speak for us are allowed to spout hateful, ignorant rhetoric over and over again? There are so many problems in this world, so many problems that we have the power to effect and change. And in case you were wondering, gays and lesbians aren't the problem. Liberals aren't the problem. People on welfare aren't the problem. Unfortunately, if you ask Pat Robertson and those who think like him, you will be told that gays and liberals and so on are the problem. I just can't figure out how that fits in with the message of love Jesus spent his time on Earth preaching and teaching. The sooner the Christian community can shed Mr. Robertson as an influential voice, the better.

And so on...

TOMS: A Discussion on Bad Aid

We are a culture fixated on the newest thing. Whether it is the iPad, hybrid cars or some other fad, we grab hold of it in an effort to be "cool" or some other adjective. Perhaps the biggest fad of the last few years has been a five year old footwear company: TOMS shoes. On April 5, TOMS and their supporters came together for the event "One Day Without Shoes", asking people to go barefoot for a day to raise awareness concerning "those people who don't have a choice."

TOMS was founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie with the intention of donating one pair of shoes to the poor for every shoe purchased from his company. Since the company was founded, more than 1,000,000 shoes have been donated to children in the United States, Argentina, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Guatemala, Haiti, and South Africa.

TOMS has gained great notoriety and popularity for its socially conscious business model, allowing people to donate to the poor through their own personal consumption. However, as good as the idea sounds, there is one major problem: TOMS is the definition of bad aid. Bad aid refers to any donations, charity or other form of aid which at best do not help its subject in the way it is aimed or at worst are harmful to the recipients. There are a number of reasons why TOMS and similar in-kind donations (non-cash donations - goods and services - which can be given a cash value) are bad aid, and I want to go through them one by one to explain why each is significant. My hope is that by the end of this piece you will reconsider your assumptions concerning aid and how best to help those in need, and maybe look at TOMS with new eyes.