I. I saw the movie Woodlawn. Sometimes I think about racism. I wonder why some people see others as so different from themselves based off of the amount of melanin in their skin. It’s not like we are different beings. We are all human. We are all made in the image of God. When I think about the fact that we are all made in God’s image, I do not think that means that we all look like God. I think that it means that we all have free will, the ability to make decisions consciously. We can create things, and we know right from wrong inherently according to natural law. Again, if we could set aside our differences and respect one another the world would be a better place.
II. Life is so short because the moment we are born we begin to slowly die.
III. One time I ran over a possum and I went back to check on it. It was playing dead, but eventually it got up and limped into the woods. This made me think about the common response of a human when facing a trial. When adversity strikes, we tend to fall down. A part of us may even die, but in the end, we have to get back up and keep moving forward, even if it is painful.
IV. When we read Moliere’s The Misanthrope, I saw that Celimene wanted the attention of too many men. This made me think that it is better to have the attention of one man and to keep it forever than to have the attention of many men and keep it only for a time.
V. Sometimes I think about “people pleasers,” and think about how disappointing it can be to live that way. They give and give and receive nothing in return because in the end most people do not reciprocate the same generosity. Therefore, I have found it better to live life caring and pouring only what those who are close to you think about you. It is okay to help others and be kind (as we ought to do), but to trust them with our feelings, secrets, and heart is not a good idea.
VI. I think about all the useless and discouraging thoughts that we think in a day. I wonder if we could take all of them and think useful and positive thoughts instead how much more we could accomplish because a person is only as good as they allow themselves to be, and it all starts with their thoughts.
VII. Losing and failing are two different things. Losing is getting beat by a superior opponent and learning from your mistakes, leaving room for improvement. Failing is when one loses and does not learn from their mistakes, with no room for improvement.
VIII. Sometimes I look at trees in the winter, lifeless and without leaves. Then I look at trees in the autumn and see how full of life and blossoming they are. It makes me think about the “seasons” of life. The winter represents the seasons of life that are challenging. These seasons can often leave us feeling empty like the trees with no leaves, but then autumn comes. Spring comes after the winter and represents the fulfilling and happy season of life . This season can make us feel like the tree that has all of its leaves and is booming with color. Lastly, this makes me think how life has highs and lows, but that the lows always have to come before the highs like the winter has to come before the autumn.
IX. I saw a homeless man the other day begging for money at an intersection. I wondered what happened in his life. Was it his fault? Was it not? Then I started to think about how we are beggars for God’s mercy. Without His mercy we would perish.
X. I work in the prison ministrywith Frank Lee Work Release Center. It is a low-level security, non-federal prison that has men who have committed relatively small crimes for the most part. Therefore, this thought applies only to men who are in places like Frank Lee. I see the men that are locked up, and I see how normal most of them are. Then I go into society and see the stigma associated with prisoners, and I think how most of these prisoners are just like us. Then I think about the prison in a spiritual sense. Many people in society would wonder why I would want to work in a prison system, but I think that those men are just like us. They made a mistake, and weren’t we all slaves to our own sin at one point? Christ set us free and sees us as a new creation. I think that the same should be extended to these men. They should be given a second chance. I do not necessarily mean giving them their freedom back, but I mean that they should be given a second chance spiritually. Therefore, we should not seem them clothed in shame and shackles as so many do, but we should see them as normal people who need Jesus just as much as we do. Therefore, we should treat them with the same decency and respect as anyone else because the fastest way to push someone away from the light is to be cold and mean.
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