Told you.

I was in Millpond Park the other day waiting for my friend Devon to get out of work. It really is a nice place. It has one of those big wooden play structures for kids, two rivers that converge, lots of field space to run around in, and plenty of children to watch. I parked my car, got out, stood by the river a while, then crossed a bridge to a little peninsula created when the rivers come together. On this little outcrop, there were lots of little paths and I followed one, trying to stay as far away from people as I could.

Eventually, I hit a chainlink fence, where I decided to pee. It feels good to pee outside.

Anyway, I kept following a path around to where the rivers meet. I threw some sticks in the river and watched the ripples carefully. It's always bothered me that people say that even the smallest rock makes a ripple that eventually becomes a wave. Little make rocks make little ripples that eventually flatten out and make an almost imperceptible impact on the shore.

As I was heading back to my car, I for some reason noticed a small tree that had been cut down. It was very small, perhaps a half inch in diameter and it stuck straight out of the ground a foot or so off the path. The top was very flat and evenly cut except for one detail: there were leaves shooting up from just beneath the cut. They were small leaves, and the chance for them surviving is very small, I'm sure, but it did make me think.

It seemed to me to be proof of a loving God. I know it's a bit naive, perhaps, but I was touched by the fact that life was growing out of something I would have thought was dead. Kinda like us.
Really, we are quite dead, us humans. No one would expect us, under the Fall, to bear any kind of fruit. Miraculously, though, we do. God, in his grace, intervenes to make us not totally deranged and evil.

When I say this, the first thing most people (and by "people," I mean Christians) think of is Christ, which is good. Jesus, ultimately, is the definition of grace; a pure and perfect human who deserved heaven but took our Hell, a deity stripped of his power and humiliated by the ones he loved. But I do not speak of this.

I speak of the fruit that even non-Christians bear. Those who do not follow Christ are still quite capable of doing great good (sometimes, even more than "Christians"). **I'd stick in an example here, but I can't think of a good one of the top of my head. Feel free to leave some good ones...**
He does not let the Fall run rampant through human lives. We could be constantly self-seeking, constantly perverse, and constantly looking for ways to hurt others, but instead, the common grace that God gives us stops us from doing these things. He saves us from what could be our fate under the Fall. What a great and graceful God that we follow, that he would extend his grace even to those who do not call him Lord.

P.S. Clarification: I do not mean to say that non-believers are not in need of the grace offered them through the cross (What I've said could be interpreted that way, I suppose.). I only want to point out that God saves them from the total evil of the Fall despite their denial of redemption. And really, it is this common grace that becomes the damnation of many non-believers. So many are stopped from coming to Jesus because they are a "good person," but they don't realize that God has intervened to keep them that way. It's almost like a deposit: God first extends his common grace to us so that we may trust him in his extension of Redemptive Grace. Unfortunately, many of us humans take that common grace as proof that we do not need redemption. In many ways, this grace is as seemingly foolish of an act as God giving us free will or allowing Satan into the garden...

Later.

Deep post to come later. I'm tired now.

Dear Diary,

So I started work today. I was originally scheduled to work 6 - close in concession (my least favorite in the theater), but when I got there, my boss told me that instead, I'd be doing my also least favorite job in the theater: Crown Club.

For those who don't know (which I'm assuming is most), I work at a Regal Entertainment Group theater. We have this thing called the Regal Crown Club, where you get points for spending money at Regal theaters. It's quite free, you just have to sign up and then bring your card with you to the theater. Very easy.

Unfortunately, some employees have to "sell" these (not so very easy). That means randomly assaulting theater patrons and coercing them into signing their name and taking a card. So for 4 1/2 hours, I randomly solicited customers until they relented and took a small plastic card from me.

Personally, this whole pushing-Crown-Club-cards thing kind of goes against my whole "do unto others" policy. I hate it when you go to the mall and the cell phones guys enter 20 questions with you and you just want to walk away or punch them in the face but they keep talking and you don't want to switch plans and quite frankly it's a bit unreasonable for them to expect you to and...

Anyway, I don't like doing it, but it's my job, so I do it to the best of my ability. The best I've ever done (and this was when the program was new, so nobody had them) was 40 something. Since then, the record's been set at 109. She "had faith" that I could get 150. I told her she was crazy. I got somewhere around 60 today. Beat my best, but nowhere near the legendary 109 in one shift... The employee must've given out free money with each card...

So the moral of the story is that work wasn't too bad, we had a lot of local competition for audiences, and I broke my record for pushing pieces of plastic on unwitting customers. I guess that would be a good day.

Oh yeah, and I went running this morning. Ick.

Goodnight.

Nana & Gramps

I would like to make it known that I love my grandparents. Their names are Luther and Rosalie Kicklighter and they live in St. Cloud, FL (except when they are travelling). We call them Gramps and Nana. They are wise. And loving. And generous. And they are here for the next couple weeks. And I am spending lots of time with them.

Yay grandparents!


(I don't really feel like sharing stories now. But I may later.)

Creativity

So I've been working on an entry for a week and a half now and it's still not done. I keep thinking, "Kemp, you need to update your blog." To which I answer myself, "But Kemp, you should finish your sub-creation rant before posting anything else." And I say, "Well, you're probably right." Then I promptly go and not work on said rant. But today, I say, "No more, self! You will update that blog! Stop procrastinating!" So here I am.

My creativity class ended today. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the class is over. I have no more homework, no more journaling, no more reading creative books. On the other hand, I now have to process everything I learned and internalize it.

Yesterday, Perini had us begin to make plans as to how we would begin to implement all that we've learned in the past two weeks. It was actually one of the harder things I had to do in the course. I all of a sudden got really panicked. How could I even begin to change my life? There's too much to do: too many books to read, too much work to be done, and too many habits to change. Even as I worked on our final project, I found myself slipping into my old ways of thinking. How can I hold onto creative thinking over the summer? Combine all this with what I intended to do anyway, and how in the world am I supposed to rest?

When I start thinking this way, I forget one of the things about being a creative person: it's a lifestyle. It is not work. It's fun and exciting and stimulating and challenging. I have the habit of transforming anything I enjoy into a responsibility (including creativity, my relationship with God, video games, reading, leadership positions, theatre, academics...), but that's not a healthy, playful, or creative way to live. In fact, it's quite dangerous.

One of the things that I should probably write on notecards and stick everywhere is "You are a creative person." I forget too easily that many of the things that this class encourages I have done in the past. Before college, I learned anything I could and tried to apply it to game design (systems thinking and synthesis of separate ideas... two concepts we learned). I've done this stuff in the past, I can do it again.

I think I'll leave this on a positive note before I get more whiny. Sorry about writing a novel every time I update this thing... That's my bad.... Perhaps I just think a little too deeply.

Yeah. Right.

I think I agree

Processing time over

A few weeks ago, Heidi, Melissa, and Christian were sitting in my room after Wayne's World and I asked them what they learned this year. As is the case in every conversation like this, the question was eventually directed at me and I didn't really have an answer. I said a few things, but now that I've had more time to think (and I actually remembered to think about it...), I'd thought I'd share some things that I've learned this year.

1) One of the things that I've learned (more recently) is that I need to take time to feed myself. The lesson of the starving baker is one that I need to remind myself of constantly. Part of feeding myself is having a consistent Bible time where I sincerely spend time with God. It is also taking time to have meaningful discussions with my friends.

2) I think I could have been a better Sherpa. Part of me wants to blame Kelly (my CUF) for not challenging me like some of the other CUFs challenged their Sherpas. I know that the responsibility was on me alone, but it brings me another lesson: Challenging people is important. I need to challenge myself and havce someone keep me (brutally) accountable so that I can continue to grow. It wouldn't hurt to surround myself with people that challenge me to be better, but I know that to have a friend, I need to be a friend. Therefore, I must challenge those closest to me to get better in order for them to challenge me.

3) Also recently: do it anyway. I have a renewed energy to be a leader thanks to Don Perini's speech at the Leadership Journey Celebration. He told a story about his daughter learning how to swim. She hated the water. She screamed and was terrified and did what little kids do, but she did it anyway. She still got in the water even though it terrified her. Leaders do what needs to be done. Whether it is an act of obedience to God or because they're scared, or, as is often the case for me, they just feel awkward, do it anyway.

In our own Christian walks, I think this applies, too. God asks us to obey him. When we don't feel like it, do it anway. When we're scared, do it anyway. When we've lost faith in him, do it anyway. When we've screwed up enough times that we think everything we do will not be blessed or something, do it anyway.

Anyway, I could keep sermonizing, but I'm done for now. I thought I'd share. See ya.