Summer Woes and "Growin' up is not so tough, 'cept when I've had enough" (extra points if you know that this is from)

It seems like the endless cycle of me looking for a job and getting rejected continues to perpetuate itself. I'm fully determined to work or find something to do with my time this year but doors are closing all over the place. I've officially become sick of the whole "only candidates who are selected for interview will be contacted" it leaves all the poor saps like me sitting around waiting for something to happen haha. Being an adult kind of sucks, responsibilities and peer pressure to be more "adult-like" seems a little too rampant in this day and age. When your friends' idea of fun is to "go get coffee" that's when you know that you've aged beyond your fun-loving years and the coffee isn't a happy experience as it is a necessity to maintain what sanity you have left. Life slows way down during summer, especially in a university city like London. I recently went downtown (where all the clubs are) to have some dessert and realized how empty it was, it was a Saturday night and the streets weren't full of drunkies and stumbling girls in impossibly short looking skirts for such a cold night. Granted this was at 11PM and the real party times hadn't begun but it was a pretty sobering sight, not that I missed it but it was just sobering nonetheless.

I was recently reminded of a conversation I had with a good friend of mine during the waning days of the school year. It was about being a leader beyond reproach and was related to a recent event. If you know what the event is and what the situation is, keep it to yourself. I'm not here to rant about anything but rather just type out what goes on in my mind and hope that it makes sense. Anyway, I was thinking about what it meant to be "beyond reproach" and I arrived at the conclusion that although people think it's possible, I really don't believe so. To be beyond reproach means to be above blame, above fault. In Christian circles, it means that you live your life so according to the Word that people are willing to take your example in things, but this is a gross overestimation of the extent of the term "beyond reproach". Is it really possible to live so according to the Word or be so inspired by the Word that people around you can say that you are above blame and your words and actions are God-centered? Granted, the Spirit empowers and equips in all ways to do the work of God but can a simple human being really live beyond reproach? After the talk with my friend, I started thinking about the leaders who are "beyond reproach" according to the general Christian circles and made the realization that no one really was. All people can be faulted and all people can be wrong, what made these people so good?

After this, I extended this to my closer Christian circle and began to think about another recent event in mind. My participation in this event had apparently caused quite a stir with some people and led to numerous confrontations with people. It actually shocked me that this event had caused so much controversy and how many times a specific word came up, "rebuke". I'm not a stranger to rebuke, I live my life according to God and His laws along with my personal link through the Spirit to the heart of God. Before undertaking any action I pray and think about whether or not the glory of God would be upheld in this action. This specific event was okay by me, okay by God and okay in general given a few boundaries. Yet why was it that my brothers and sisters saw it okay to rebuke me so many times in the span of a week? I found myself thinking the disturbing thought of "even though we're held to a higher standard than the people of the world, why is it that the so called body of Christ so divisive in its nature?" the simple fact is that although we strive to be like the church in Acts with the unity of believers, it is not really culturally or organizationally plausible. Sure, the heart is there and many people feel that the heart is all that we need but is it? The church was borne out of a link to Jesus himself, it was like a brushfire, an upstart to a worldwide movement, it was borne out of a people who would throw away their earthly possessions for the good of the body. It's sad to think about how close we want to be with that and we still struggle with getting along with one another. This may be why people tend to fall away during the university years, not only because of the immense temptation but in a phase of life where people are searching for acceptance and an identity find themselves pushed and "bullied" (as some friends of mine have so succinctly put) by an unforgiving group of believers.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not blaming anyone nor am I passing any judgment, but through a careful thought experiment and talking with people, this is the other side of the story. We so often hear of the great successes of the church and rarely hear of the monumental failures or the lack of responsibility on the part of brothers and sisters simply caring for one another. Here's hoping that with the Spirit's equipping that we may be given more wisdom in caring for one another. Granted love is the tie that binds our hearts and holds the body together, but wisdom to see when "rebuking in love" is called for, helps too. In my experience, despite the church's best efforts it finds that in the case of a "stray believer" (unbelievably, a term a friend of mine used) the weapon of rebuke is so often invoked without much thought as to the alternatives.

I'll close that portion of this post. I hope that I haven't offended anyone by my extremely short and closed-scoped treatise of this issue, it's just something that has been nagging at me for quite a while.

Anyway, getting back to more fun reading, I recently watched the movie "Kick Butt" (see how I did that?) and it was pretty awesome, although seeing a 12 year old girl swear that much did make me sad (but at the same time so very impressed...especially with the fact that she knew how to handle a butterfly knife) it was a mindless, fun ride and I encourage people to go out and check the movie out. On a side note, I watched Iron Man 2 and found it to be pretty lacking in comparison to the first...and who the heck created the electric-rope-man? That's all I gotta say...