In a world full of nasty...

This, I believe, is my 4th blog site. I started with xanga way back when. Then I tried myspace, but it got too silly. I tried to convert to blogspot for a while, but it wasn’t very interesting. Then my friend, Joe, introduced me to wordpress. I wasn’t convinced, however, until my other friend, Christopher, showed up with some wordpress action.

Now I want to become a wordpress-er (ie: one who “presses” words).

I’d like to start by making a simple observation - often times people love to take advantage of an opportunity to be nasty. Or at least I’ve heard.

My wife works at Kohl’s (at least until tomorrow). Everyday I hear tales of horrible customers, terrible managers, and spiteful co-workers. She often gets chewed out because some dummy is upset because she won’t honor a coupon that expired in 1983.

I am a minister. Which, sad to say, means that I hear a lot of bad stuff about people by means of the prayer chain that goes around the staff (prayer is good, prayer is powerful - so we pray for all this stuff). I also am the first to hear about the kids getting in trouble at school, break-ups, fights and snottyness.

But sometimes, when the nasty of the world is particularly potent, I love to hear a good story.

There’s a kid in the youth group that I am minister of. He is a solid guy. He’s constantly wrestling with God over big decisions, always looks for the outcast to befriend, always wants to help serve in any way, and loved to be one of the first people to give a hug. I am really fond of this kid. He told me that he wants to work at camp this summer. He wants to take a week off of his job and spend it washing dishes at camp for all the little kids. He wants to do this so he can get money to go towards the cost of CIY (a summer conference for youth groups). The kicker is this - he’s not going to CIY this summer. He’s going on a mission trip out of the country somewhere. This students wants to spend a week of his last summer before college working at a camp so he can help pay for someone else’s CIY cost. He’s not going to spendthe week with his friends, or sleeping, or going to New York, or making money for himself - he’s going to pay for someone else’s CIY. Anonymously. Did I say that? He doesn’t want the person to know it was him. He doesn’t even want to know who the person is going to be that gets the money.

I spend a lot of time wondering if the students I teach “get it.” I preach about love, servanthood, and Christlikeness, and sometimes, when the world seems to be up to no good, I wonder if anyone really gets it. But every now and then, I found out that someone does, and it is on those occasions that warm me back up and make me ready to go out for just one more inning. In a world full of nasty, I love to hear stories of people who get it.