Child-like Simplicity

“Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them.Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’” (Matthew 19:13-15)

When I was a child I grew up different from most, I was raised in a third world country. I rode my bike everywhere, and went fishing in the rice patties, I explored the forest, built forts, played with fireworks, chased chickens, and went to primary in a 30 kid school house. I quite enjoyed my life in innocents, I was happy.

I grew up around corruption, riots, and frequent inflation. According to the world my country was in dire trouble and in need of much reform, but if you asked 8 year old Justin the country was perfect. And if you ask present day Justin, it was not the country that was perfect but the mindset of my younger self.

As I grew older I began to enjoy electronics, movies, Playstation, Gameboy, cassettes, then CDs, and finally iPods. As I spent more and more of my time with these I found less and less enjoyment in the simplicity of life. Instead of swimming in the watering hole I would play videogames. My parents would tell me and my younger brother to go outside! Have some fun! And we would sit in the grass and grumble about how boring the outdoors were, and how there was nothing to do. The fun had been sucked out of the outdoors. Some may argue that I was getting older and my interested had shifted, I believe that my interests had been numbed.

There is such a joy to be found in the simplicity of life, when we clutter our lives with useless things we lose sight of what is truly important. So many things in this world are temporary. Money, Houses, food, clothing, life. There are only two things that will truly carry on into eternity, the love of God and the love of others.

Francis Chan a praised author of Crazy Love wrote that his grandmother went to a play with his family and he asked her if she was enjoying herself and she said, “not really, I don’t really want to be sitting in this theater when Christ comes back.” Grandma Chan is expecting Jesus to come at any moment. I don’t want to be sitting in front of this computer when Jesus comes.

Jesus didn’t want his disciples to hinder the little children from coming to him, for the kingdom belongs to those with child-like faith, those who are unhindered by the distractions of this world. Love for Christ like a small child loves his parents.

Modern Day Thoreau

Henry Thoreau was an American writer, naturalist, and philosopher among other things. He was a big advocate of simple living and his most famous work of literature came from when he retreated to Walden Pond to "escape" society.
This whole thought process started when I was chatting with Justin the other day via Facebook and he said he had gotten rid of his computer for the time being and I called him a "Modern day Thoreau". However it the conversation got me thinking and realizing just how often we really mix up want and necessity in life. And just how of a hold much society (media, culture, family, and education) on swaying this misconception. It is not a fine line. We very clearly do not need our computers, phones, or microwaves, but we sometimes have our faces too close to the screen to see the picture clearly. We are a mircowave generation, we want everything here and now, we want it easy, and fast.
I am not saying at all that we should rid our lives of everything digital, but I must say it is an interesting subject to think about with many wonderful tangents. An something that Justin said in our previous conversation has been stuck in my head... he said: "I must say life has been a lot less boring..."
All this to say that after reading up about Thoreau abit, he has much more of my respect and I find him a lot more interesting then I remember him to be in English class. And I definitely think that it has been refreshing to remind myself just what is a nescessity in life and what is simply there for enjoyment and easyness sake.

You inspire me Justin.
Thoughts?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau <---an article I read about Thoreau to avoid plagerism.. =)

No video =/

Ok, so I tried to upload a video for you... but it was an epic fail.

You better enjoy my stupid video.
Peace out bruuu. ( Bro with an Aussie Accent)

Stubborn writers strike from J.

Oh, so you are alive after all! Austria, Australia they are basically the same! Well I won't write until you write something.

As a side note...

First of all, Justin you make it sound like I am dead.
And secondly I am in Australia.

The Sharp Pencil (Part 2)

So as I was saying, or writing, is that writing is important. But writing is not nearly as important as writing well, but who is the judge? Well everyone is me, you, kids, adults, grandpa. How? I believe that writing is good when it impacts someone. Now there is lots of writing out there that is good, yet spurs on evil thoughts, or false beliefs. So we as Christians have a duty to write not only good writing but GOOD writing, writing that pleases God. I used to believe that it was pretty cool to curse in my writing to emphasize what I am saying, or make it "stronger". But people listen (or read) when the language is cleaned up.
But even if your writing is awful, you are STILL contributing to the world of literature, so if you are terriblizing the world with your stupid blog then STOP, you are tainting literature.
Think about it this way: picture all of writing as a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. We must keep feeding the lake. (That was from Jean Rhys, I didn't put it into quotation marks because people never read quotes, but since it wasn't in quotes you have already read it.)
Rhys says that we must keep feeding the lake of literature, I agree, but don't you dare throw toxic waste in the lake!
What I am mostly trying to say is that I am just so happy that the internet was made (besides the porn) so that I can be a contributor to the lake, so that I can have my OWN tiny little stream.

On a side note, Hannah Patterson has been in Austria for the past couple of weeks and has been unable to write. Too bad!
Side note No. 2 Halloween is coming up and I am so excited, I am going to be a shooting star, with a GUN, get it?! A "shooting" star!

-Justin (not a walrus)