Monday, December 17, 2007

A Non-Christmas Story about a Real-life event (with a little imagination)

This past weekend I was visiting my Grandparents. My grandparents have a lot of hiking trails, and I went down by the train trestles. It certainly was an adventure, although someone of the events are still a little fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure I got most of the story accurate.

First of let me explain that I was all alone, completely and utterly alone. Further more I didn't exactly tell my parents precisely where I was going. So there I was all alone, no one would've known if I were to fall and break my neck, but that's just where the adventure begins.

Most adventures, all the good ones anyway, start with the unexpected. Lucy discovering Narnia, I bet she didn't guess that happening. Frodo with the ring. Even bible stories, Noah and Moses just to name a few, all start with a bizarre turn of events, as did mine. I was just walking along looking at the beauty around me, admiring God's handiwork and thanking him for it, when I started on one of the train trestles. These train trestles are almost like a bridge, over a raging river, (okay, so it's a creek, but it's still raging) when suddenly the trestle began to shake and crumble. I ran as fast as I could with the wood disappearing beneath me. I barely made it as I jumped to other side. I looked behind and the was an empty chasm between me and the other side. I couldn't go back the only thing now, was to go forward.

I walked along the trail, quiet happily, partly because I was alive, the other part was because I was having a great adventure. (maybe also because I had just eaten bacon) Then I was forced the stop in my tracks. There right in path a was a huge, bushy tree laying on it's side. So bushy, in fact, I could not see past it. With no other option than to move past this obstacle,
(remember the trestle fell apart) I began to climb over it.

As I climbed I felt it move, and then I saw it change shape. It was no longer a tree, but a morphis disguised as a tree, waiting for a meal. (Don't you hate it when that happens?) The creature looked like giant cat about six feet high (imagine a tiger on steroids). The color was hard to determine because it would always would change to match it's surroundings, which is what a morphis does, and why I couldn't identify it for what it truly was.

So there I was on the back of a very deadly creature, about ready to get eaten. When I remembered that I had a pocketknife in my pocket, not much but it was something. I went to reach for it, but the morphis tried to shake me off, so I held on. The morphis soon jumped and started to climb up a nearby tree. There's common thing known as gravity, that was working against me as the morphis was climbing up, and I was slipping down. Finally, it flipped back, knocking me down to ground on my back. The morphis with it's cat-like agility landed on it's feet.

I quickly stood up to face my enemy and got my pocket knife out and ready. It roared in face, which also stunk to high heaven, then it leapt for me. I yelled back (not as loud or as threatening but as least I had minty breath when I did it) and charged to meet my opponent. As the morphis was coming toward me in the air paws outstretched to claw me in half, I ducked and rolled underneath it at the last second. The morphis landed and I rolled on to my feet and quickly jumped onto the creature's back. There I stabbed the morphis as hard as I could and the blade went in as far as it could. The morphis, then fell dead and defeated.

To tell you truth I kinda felt a little bad after killing the creature, but it was either me or him and I was glad it was him. So I pulled out and wiped off my blade, (another thing I learned in adventures is to never forget to clean your sword) then I continued on my way.

I went along there were some other trees in my path, none pretending to be man-eating creatures, so it was rather easy getting through those. Until I came to the biggest tree, now log I've ever seen in my life. The other "tree" I told you about was bushy, this was gargantuan. The trunk was thick and the entire tree was big, and there was another only slightly smaller laying beside it. The most impressive thing about these fallen trees were not the trees themselves but how the tree fell. The trunk of the tree didn't split, like in most cases. The whole tree fell which cased the roots to lift up and a mound of dirt as well. It was about ten feet high. I looked behind the mess of roots and dirt and found a dip in earth, where roots used to be as well as the trees. As I gazed as the awesome sight, I heard a crashing sound behind the unearthed roots and out from the mound came a troll.

He certainly wasn't one of those cute little trolls with fuzzy Mohawk heads, in fact, he was hideous, and of course, he came out to attack me. I flipped open my knife, even though I was fairly confident I wouldn't need it. Trolls are a lot stupider and slower then a morhpis is. He came bumbling out to finish me off. I just backed up until head was right in front of the fallen trees, then I ran straight for him. I hit him hard in the shoulders which knocked him off balance and made him trip and fall over the first log, for once gravity was in my favor. I held the knife to his throat and spoke harshly, "Was it you who knocked down this tree?"

The Troll's chin started to quiver as he sobbed, "Yeah, I'm s-sorry. I d-didn't mean t-to. P-Please don't hurt me."

"Okay, if you tip these trees back into place I would hurt you, deal?" I said not quiet as harsh as I had started.

The troll sniffed, "O-Okay." So I let the troll get up and he placed the trees back, roots and all. He also had lots of fun too, jumping on the dirt to pack into place. He would stop stamping the ground until I had jumped a few times too, and I'll admit, I was kind of fun. However, I knew I had to go so I said to good-bye to new troll friend, promising to visit next time.

For a while it seemed like the trail would never end, but after a lot of bends and hills and downhills it came to and end. Since I had a rather rough hike my pants were, very very very VERY dirty, but I didn't really care. I walked back to my grandparents place. After a while my parents came in, "How was your walk?" my Mom asked. "Good" was my only reply.


P.S. Although most of these events were only based on slight truth one important detail was 100% fact and that is: My pants really were horrendously dirty.




Wednesday, December 12, 2007

'Tis the Season to be Selfish

Presents. Getting not Giving. Going to the store trampling people in order to get that perfect gift. Constantly thinking about "What I want for Christmas" Yep, it's all about ME during Christmas.
See, it's not just consumerism that's wrong with the Holidays. It's the selfishness. We spend so much time thinking about what we want. "Okay," You might thinking, "that's true, but what about thinking about gifts for others." Which brings a good point, yes, you're being selfless, thinking about someone else, but how many times have you had this running through you're mind while shopping for someone, "I need to give them the perfect gift."
Granted not EVERYTHING about shopping for someone else is selfish, but how many times do we worry about our gifts wondering if they'll make us look better or worse. A lot of time we give gifts to impress people. Or sometimes, we forget, spending our time on what we need to do.
And what about the whole "give to the less fortunate?" Sometimes we are thinking, "Does this make me look better and like a good, caring person?" And what about the rest of the year? Do we even give those "less fortunate" a second thought? It's almost as if we say, "Alright, I gave you money for Christmas now you're not my problem anymore." The bible never talks about giving during Christmas, it's SUPPOSED to be ALL year long.
Which brings us to the question: Why do we even celebrate Christmas? If all we do is fake it, why bother. Did they just make up this holiday so we can one more day of presents? It's time to change "Selfish" to "Selfless" and change "Holiday season" to "all year."
We think we make sacrifices during the holidays, think about why we even celebrate Christmas, because someone made the ULTIMATE sacrifice. First by giving his only son, then dying. Not just some painless "die in your sleep" kinda thing, it was painful. A Crucifixion. Not very people would be willingly to do that for someone who didn't even deserve it. Selflessness.
In order to give all year long, you have be selfless for one thing. And you have to know what giving is. It's not tithing every pay check, it's more than just money. You can also give time and talents. Not just the ol' "help the old lady cross the street" but when someone needs help, to help them, even if out of your way and you'd rather not. Give them your time. Let them know you care. Talents are things you do well. Use your gifts to help others, and as a bonus you'll honor God. A song by Reliant K puts it this way:
I'll give, give until there's nothing else
Give my all until it all runs out
Give Give and I'll have no regrets
I'll give until there's nothing left
I'll give
One of the keys to Selflessness is Humility,not to be confused with humiliation. In the Book "Walking with Frodo" (yes, I have a LOTR devotional) it describes humiliation as "someone else putting you down" and Humility as "you putting yourself down." Humility's root word is Humus which means "dirt" can't get much lower than that, unless you go to the core of the earth. (which I don't think is possible)
Giving requires trust in God. Sometimes you'll wonder "If I do this I'm not sure I'll be able to do......" But you have to trust in God, because if you give him your time by doing something for someone else, he'll reward you. There are countless verses to back this up. Just flip open to Proverbs.
So in the Christmas rush remember to never lose sight of the one who was selfless enough to give all of us that perfect gift, the best gift you've EVER received or ever WILL receive.


P.S. Why does self have the word "elf" in it? Could it be that we all have a little elf within our self?

Monday, December 3, 2007

What people REALLy want for the twelve days of Christmas

Don't, please don't believe all this none sense about people giving their "true loves" birds in pear trees, guys hopping around or drumming, swans, doves, and girls milking cows, just to name a few. Honestly, if anyone gave me any of those things I'd give them a slap in the face and say, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" Really, what kind of person does that? Only two kinds of people type 1) people who live in whatever century that thought it was cool and romantic to give their love interest a bunch of random items. Type 2) Those who are definitely NOT thinking clearly by all means. I hope you neither 'cause that means you're either dead (which wouldn't be fun) or lost to the world. In case your wondering, "What am I going to get my true love now?" Well, that's why I am here to help I have rewritten the twelve days of Christmas:

On the First day of Christmas my True love gave to me:
A Lamborghini parked in the garage

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Two exciting books

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Three Pirate movies

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Four movie posters (or pretty pictures depending on what your into-Don't sing this in the song)

On the Fifth day of Christmas my true gave to me:
Five bags of Chocolate

On the Sixth day of Christmas my True love gave to me:
Six scented candles

On the Seventh day of Christmas my True love gave to me:
Seven packs of Post-its

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Eight black ink pens

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Nine cookie cutters

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Ten comic books (mostly Calvin and Hobbs 'cause they're the best)

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Eleven Thank-you notes

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
A Dozen Krispy Kreme's


......Now that we have that settled only one question remains: WHAT ARE THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS!?!?!?!?!!