Run, Katie, Run!

Spent some time in Rick's apartment with my sister in law, Christine. Fun things tend to go down when the three of us get together.

So we're Christians, right? We believe in Christ, and now we know our next job: to spread the word. Spread the word of Christ to all the nonbelievers.
And that's hard.
But it also doesn't work.

I only say this because it is the title of my blog entry. But let me explain how I came to this opinion.

Today after school I was talking to a very good friend of mine who happened to be carrying around a book about Wicca. A christian guy at my school that I know asked her if she was Wiccan. She said no. He asked her if she believed in Heaven and Hell. She said that she believed in Heaven, not so much Hell. He asked her that if she died tomorrow, where would she go, heaven or hell. She said she didn't know.

And here's the thing. She was appalled by his behaviour! I think she saw it as a personal attack on her. I have another good friend that was trying to tell her that she had to pray a special prayer to get into heaven. I think she misunderstood this as well. She thought that we were trying to force weird beliefs on her.

I didn't know what to say. I could've used this as an opportunity to try to witness to her, or see where she stands with the whole religion thing, but after hearing her tell about those two experiences with christians that I know, I had no idea how to approach it.

Now I have questions for you, reader. And by that I mean Patrick. I'm not trying to make a point or looking for a specific answer. I just don't know.

-What's more important about witnessing: that you are preaching the word of God to them whether they accept it or not, or that you are listening to them and trying to make sense out of their beliefs, even if it means not saying everything that you want to drive your own point home?

-Did you think that that was a really long confusing question?

-How would you, readers, talk to my friend in this situation (assuming that all my readers are chistian)?

-Is there a point when you decide to stop driving your point and just decide to let it go?


In my opinion, witnessing is the hardest part of Christianity. The hardest part is when you're so emotionally attached to one of you're friends and they can't understand the very most important part of your life.

Wow. I still can't believe that yesturday I ate all that fudge.

Yeah.

Um Ya Ya is the title of the Saint Olaf fight song. I've always wanted to hear my oldest brother sing this.
I went on a wacky confirmation trip with my church one time to Saint Olaf. This inevitably led to my brother singing the Um Ya Ya song. Unfortunately i wasn't paying attention at the time. Later i wanted him to sing it again, but he wouldn't.
Here's the point: I lot of times in life we're looking for something, something specific. That something specific is often times God. That thing is around us constantly, and even reaching out to us...but we're just not paying attention.
And then we ask the age-old question: "Where were you when i needed you? Where ARE you, God?"
Fortunately, God is much more patient than my brother. He will always sing the Um Ya Ya song. Just make sure that this time, you pay attention.

So I've been making a lot of paper cranes lately (I've got to reach one thousand somehow), and as i sat on my crane-littered floor Saturday, making them time after time again, i realized that there were so many paper cranes, all of them were different, and not one of them was perfect. I thought it was a metaphor for life.
My thoughts: "Maybe this is how God feels."
But then, while contemplating whether or not that last statement was blasphemy, I realized that People are not like paper cranes.
The beauty of a crane comes from the details and the crazy perfect perfection of it.
In people, it's the crazy little quirks that make us awesome. Every buddy is different! Every buddy is perfect (not taking into account the whole thing with human imperfection. ugh...that's a whole other story. and with this little bit in parentheses i have contradicted my whole blog and only succeeded in confusing you).
Learn from this.