Munich! Munich! How thou bustling streets impress me...

Tuesday- Today we got an earlier start and grabbed a pastry on the way out of Ulm. We headed down the autobahn to Munich and arrived around 11:30. We rushed through the Altstadt and barely made it in time to see the Glockenspiel (a huge 2 story clock depicting a German duel and dance) at the Markenplatz. The city center was bustling, full of every demographic. I really like Munich because it is a nice mix of old and new. There are contemporary building nestled between cathedrals that are 500 years old. Although the contrast is stark it adds unique character to the city. We went to the city market and wow….it was cool. There were tons of stalls selling vegetables and fruits, hundreds of varieties that I had never heard of, and lots of meat and cheese stalls too. We then headed north to the Hofbrauhaus, the most famous beer hall in Germany where we sat back and soaked in the Ompah band while sipping on a Pilsner. Then we walked across the city to the neue pinokatech, an art museum that houses some of the most notable European artist of the last millennium. IT WAS CLOSED. Queue the rain( literally ). Extremely disappointed, we hailed a cab and returned to the car. I am now back in Ulm, and I think I may go explore the old city some tonight. I have found that Germans lifestyles are very similar to Americans but they seem to have one thing right that we don’t…they know what’s really important in life and they take time to enjoy it. I hope that if I bring anything back, it is that mindset. Well, goodnight….sleep tightJ

* Sorry about some spelling errors, I’m not sure exactly how to spell some of the place name

A very good start

Hallo! (That’s german for “Hello”)

So I am writing this blog as much for my benefit as any because I won’t be able to remember all the fine details in 5 years and maybe this account of my adventures will keep the memories fresh, (so look at this as being my pensieve just minus the magic and other cool stuff.)

Friday/Saturday- The flight here was flawless, no delays or layovers and the distance wasn’t even that bad. We flew from PTI to Washington then to Frankfurt. From Frankfurt we left United and boarded Lufthansa to fly south to Munich. I must say that Germany first impressed me in its airport bathroom where I discovered that they have solved the age old problem and have invented the perfect urinal. No backsplash or anything….absolutely beautiful. After meeting up with Meems, Peeps discovered that his luggage was MIA. We leave, slightly flustered, but still excited. Thanks to peeps we grabbed the keys to a shweet BMW Xi “Wagen” and headed west to our first stop, Ulm. Ulm will be our hub for the next few days as we venture into the German Countryside. Centrally located, Ulm has some merit of its own; Home of Albert Einstein and the World’s tallest steeple. Once we arrive we eat dinner on the Danube and hit the sack. With one hour of sleep after the past 40 I am wiped out.

Sunday – Let me just say that if you ever travel to Germany make sure you have all that you need on Saturday because come Sunday the country goes on lockdown ( how the Sabbath should be treated everywhere.) Excluding the masses exciting the churches I saw very few people today. We explored the Ulm Cathedral, full of towering columns and stained glass dating back 7 centuries, and then got in the car and drove west. We stopped in Tubingen, a small medieval town nestled between two rivers and guarded by the magnificent castle perched on the crags above. The town was divided by a large hill (where the castle sat) and was connected by a cool tunnel. The Altstadt (old town) was full of stucco and half-timber buildings that dated back several centuries. It is crazy to think that almost everything I touch here is older than anything in the United States. The castle was open for touring (exploration) and it even was holding archery classes. From Tubingen we headed towards the black forest. Taking the BF Crest Trail (a lot like the Blue ridge parkway) we meandered through dense hemlock Groves and across the Hornburg, one of Germany’s tallest peaks. Once on the other side we reached Mumilesse (a small mountain lake rumored to house water spirits). Descending from the mountain tops we spotted a “wasserfall” and…. I had to stop hahah. At the end of the BF crest trail we entered Baden-Baden, a spa town built in the late 1800’s and still a prominent hangout for the region’s snots. With no interest in a couple of hot springs we crossed the Rhine into France. It was crazy, there was no border patrol what so ever. We just slid right in…and back out. Paris was another 500km, and I didn’t really think of anything else worth seeing on a tight schedule…Back to Ulm for the night.

Monday- Today we got a little earlier start but it was quickly forfeited by our lengthy breakfast (over here they almost sanctify meal times, they are a time of extended socializing, hearty meals and great beer). Once we were back in the car we headed north on the Autobahn. We were flying! (so I thought, until I saw cars passing us at blistering speeds….150mph+) When we reached Rothenburg I thought I must be dreaming. It was that fairy tale town, you know like the Shire meets Tuscany? The Altstadt is completely untouched by time, the streets are lined with half-timber houses equipped with geranium filled window boxes. The Town is surrounded by a Rampart/Wall and river. Although it is like a relic among ruins it is completely inhabited. We visited the Cathedral where the reliquary of the Holy Blood resides and some of St. James’ remains if I’m not mistaken. The cathedral in itself is gorgeous with its ornate stained glass and vaulted ceiling. We also shopped at the Christmas market which was cool… Meems could’ve spent eternity in it. After eating a snowball (signature Rothenburg treat) we headed south down the romantic road past rolling fields and hamlets to Harburg. Once there we visited the Harburg Castle that loomed over the town and I even got the chance to throw up my ENO for a little afternoon rest. As the sunset we returned to Ulm, ate supper at The Einstein Restaurant and now I’m sitting here at 2 am writing this.

I hope y’all are all doing well and I will see you soon!

"I'm so humble"

       One of the virtues that is easily overlooked is humility and it is overlooked by definition. When considering humility in our daily lives we need to look at our motivations; are they selfless or are they designed with us in mind? Do I attend Church or volunteer at Crisis Control Ministries because I love Jesus and want to serve or is it because I want to say "Look at me, look at how great of a Christian I am!"
       There is a critical fault in our thought process that is groomed and perfected throughout our lives. This idea of self recogniton reaches it's culmination during your senior year of high school when colleges and scholarship organizations ask you to list all of your achievements. Now I am not saying that you shouldn't be proud of the good things you do but don't let that pride be what makes you perform the action. Let the pride come as a result, as a product of the satisfacton you get from helping others.
       If we boast our humility then we are not humble at all, we are the inverse of humble. How do we expect anyone to want to join the Church if from the outside we look like a group of pious, hypocritical nags? I dont think I would want to enter any sanctuary filled with vultures like that. I am not just attacking the church, I am attacking myself. I think every once in a while we all need a sobering moment where we realize how insignificant we really are. We have to be brought down out of the clouds, low enough that we can see the land spread out below us, the big picture. We are as important as the whole we create and as insignificant as the singular we try to be. This post is my brick, bringing me to reality. What's your brick? Are you holding it? Or ignoring it? Are you convincing yourself that you're recognition is as important as the work you did to recieve it? Let go of the weght, actually, throw it out of the basket and watch as your hot air ballon falls below the cloudline. I promise the view is much better below the clouds than in them.

A few not so final words....

So after reading Lefty and Mallory's blogs I couldn't resist throwing in my two cents. I feel like we're giving a toast at a wedding or something but who knows.... they say the third time is the charm and this is the third post about you leaving so......
I'd like to start off by saying I am so glad you two are leaving.

Take a second to read that last sentence again, yeah, you read it right. I am so glad you two are leaving because wherever you are headed there is another person like me who needs two amazing people like you. I could be selfish and bitter but why would I want to constrain the possibilites of two of the most faithful and inspiring people I have ever met.
That other person somewhere that is self righteous in what he does, he needs you to clarify what life is really about. That guy who comes to church because it's the right thing to do, he needs you to fuel his spark into a flaming passion. That boy who is fighting with his bestfriend and feels like he's just lost the world, he needs you Kim and the comforting conversation you so willingly give. That youth who is looking for a place to fit in needs you Tom to show him that he needs to create his own niche and discard conformity.
I can honestly say that if I hadn't become a part of MCUMC youth I wouldnt be the guy I am today. If I hadn't met you two and realized how radical your faith is, I would have then never have wanted the same. I wouldn't be going to Clemson, I wouldn't think about backpacking 24/7, I wouldn't have a strong desire to continually serve, I wouldnt know what it means to have blind love. There is a part of me that has been shaped by you two, and it's one of the things I am most proud of.

I pray that wherever you go you will be blessed in the most amazing ways. I realize you are standing on the map and in every direction things look fuzzy, and that can be scary. Think about it this way, the most amazing feats in history occured from chaos. To build something great and new you have to start from scratch. The Creation, the flood, the twelve tribes of Isreal, the resurrection, they are all some of the most chaotic moments but look what God made out of them. Take the leap, and laugh as you jump, becasuse life is gloriously unexpected.

I hope this chapter in your life has been memorable and I can't wait to see where the story continues.

                               May the odds be ever in your favor.
        
                                              -C. Swizzy

The only moment we have

Ninety percent of our media focuses on the atrocities of the past or projected events that have yet to come. How high was the gas four years ago, how high will it be in 6 months? What we did wrong in the Vietnam war, the possibility of a cold war with Korea. What more is the past than a written history, unalterable and gone? What more is the future than unwritten possibilities, flighty and unconstrained? How can we affect the future or the past, how can we possibly remove ourselves form the one moment, at which we are currently living, and alter something that is not ephemeral? The past and present are concepts, nothing more. Time is only present in the present, all else is speculative.
     I say we abandon our concern for everything but the present. I realize that this would be an extremely difficult task but wouldn't the reward be amazing? This abandonment, I believe, is the way that we can adopt a Christ-like life. If we had no prejudices from the past, no bitterness towards history, how kind would we be? Hate and anger are deep rooted emotions, If we remove ourselves from the past couldn't we remove these emotions? If we had no fear of financial decline, if CNN didn't predict the housing market to drop, if the thought of college loans didn't loom over our heads how many more dollars would we give to the homeless? How many more minutes would we spend with our family rather than on our fiscal responsibilites? How much more of our life would we spend outwardly living rather than inwardly dying? Satan wants us to be concerned with our own well being, he wants us to remeber past wrongs. He wants us to be wrapped up so much in our past failures and future pitfalls that we miss the moment we are in. Each moment we miss accumulates into hours, days and years. Before we know it we have missed our lives becuase we have been too busy looking behind and ahead.
    It will be a tough transition but one that will be worth it. I am living in the moment, I want to experience life and the world around me. I don't want the extra luggage of worrying about what isnt even here. I don't want to miss out on the plan that God has for me. I'm living in the only moment I am guaranteed, now.

R.I.P Societal Norms

   This weekend I went to Acquire the Fire, a massive youth rally held in the Gboro coliseum. Let me start off by saying that it wasn't one of those feel good services that tells you that you are doing a great job and everything is just fine. No, it was full of passion, truth and fervent joy about our Lord; about how we can better serve him, become better christians and create a better world. It was an amazing experience and I'm glad I had the opportunity to be a part of it. Today I want to talk about killing, and some of the things we need to kill.
1. Normality
2. Cool

The weekend's theme was "I'm not normal" and as christians that should be our motto. God calls us to be the light and yet statistically in this day and age we are no different than those who are not christians. How can we be a light against the darkness if someone can not see the difference between dark and light...are we really a light at all?  I want to restate something that I mentioned a long time ago, we can't get aloof because we think we ARE the light. We are just fragments of glass reflecting the true light, Christ. Once we have identified that we are not the christians we are meant to be we need to investigate and find the root of the problem. NORMAL. That's our problem. The christians of the first century were stoned, flogged, and verbally abused for following christ. They were passionate, faithful and full of joy.... doesn't sound like us, does it? The difference....alot of things, the key factor? They didn't care about being normal, and normal runs our life. Problem # 1 solved : Kill Normal.
Problem # 2 is a sub-section of problem # 1 but in a way it is much harder to kill than normality because COOL is the reason we want to be normal. Cool it the epitome of normal, it's the bees knees, it's acceptance...it is human nature to desire it, and we have to fight it. Cool is everywhere, it is in skinny jeans, a pack of cigarettes, a new pair of nikes and a 2012 mustang. We can remove these desires, these false idols, without too much damage to our life. We just have to live a little more simply and live counterculture but the hardest part about killing cool is that the "church" has become cool. So how do we kill cool without killing the church? A simple mindset change is all that is required. Keep in mind that this change will be simple but definitely not easy. We must remove the social aspect from church, filter out the feeling of superiority and view church as a place to serve God and carry out his works. We need to go to church because we want to serve the Lord, not because it is cool. If you lived in a country where Christianity came with a death sentence would you still sneak out and go to church? Would you still read your Bible? Would you still give your life to Christ? Does God have your heart or have you given it to the world, to pleasing others, to cool?
Cool lives in my life, he is at my side when I'm looking at that new shirt or saying what I need to fit in. As of today I'm killing cool. I'm going old school, so old you may call it ancient. I'm going 1st century. I am killing cool and I'm not looking back. I'm going counter culture in the name of Christ.

Boiling Point

I've come to accept that the world isn't fair. There has to be a winner for there to be a loser, a first for there to be a last. But in what parallel universe does coming in first justify getting valued last. After working hard for the past 4 years in high school, placing in the top twenty and maintaing a 4.8 weighted gpa I recieve less accolades than another student with lower credentials due to their race and or income level. I support making the playing field equal for all aspiring students and sadly our country has deep rooted prejudices that have caused c ertain requirements to be placed on opportunities to ensure that aid is given fairly. The issue arrises when the balance is over-righted and it becomes just as unfair as it was in previous eras but in the opposite direction. Our mindset has become SO politically correct that universities and buisnesses overlook the total quality of their applicants in order to maintain ethnically and socailly balanced statistics.
   We are a nation founded on capitalism and a free market which is slowly dying, (ironically it has a positive correlation with our economy) and the question must be raised, Why did we change? A capitalist society allows for a natural filtration system to occur, placing like qualities together, promoting strong and healthy buisnesses and phasing out the weak. Would you ever see a MBA or NFL team turn down a star athelete because he would "disrupt their ethnic ratio". No, you wouldnt and if you did you would call them a pansy team with no hope of success.
I am not advocating for a complete abandonment of needbased scholarships and aid but I am asking that universities and businesses take a look at how far we've come and possibly reign in their policies, allowing us to regain a balanced medium. I am asking that they view me as a student based on my achievements,my failures and my character instead of my skin color and how much money my parents make.