The Laughingstock

As the many adventures I have taken outside my front door (as to which door that is, I am quite uncertain at this point, but that’s of no consequence really) have proven, once again, I have learned a great deal about life, myself, and about what God may be trying to teach me.

Friday night was definitely an adventurous one: My mother and I drove together from Pleasant Hill, California, to Bend, Oregon. this drive was meant to only take 9 hours; it took almost 12. About an hour and a half from reaching our destination, the road began to grow windy, and thick fog hindered our ability to see where we were going. Well we ended up on Highway 58, going West to Eugene, without realizing it! We saw many strange things, the first of which was a strange bridge, which we crossed over. “Well that’s odd,” I thought to myself. “A bridge, I wonder what it is doing there.” But I shrugged my shoulders, and we pressed on. A half an hour went by and we saw strange, unrecognizable signs, and all sorts of things. It didn’t take long after that, before I noticed a highway sign, which said “58.” I knew then that we were in trouble. Well, we quickly turned around after that, and spent an hour driving back the way we had come. To top that off, we nearly missed the exit for getting back onto the right freeway! Well, the trip seemed uneventful after that, until I discovered that I had an urgent need to see a rest stop and soon! We were half an hour away from home… or so we thought. We stop at a truck shop in La Pine, and I decided that I would drive, since my mother was clearly tired. Well, we had parked in a tight parking spot, and getting out proved difficult. “Oh, just drive forward into the field in front of us,” my mother suggested. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” I said hesitantly. ‘Just do it,” said my mother. So I obliged and pulled forward. CLUNK! The car had bottomed out under the cement and the tires were stuck under dirt. By now it was 2 AM and the both of us were extremely tired. The patience I had been keeping for quite some time finally wore out. We tried in vain to scoop the dirt out and pull the car forward, but after 15 minutes of this, we finally decided that we needed help. We walk back in to the truck stop shamefacedly, and ask the lady at the counter for help. She gets her bus boy guy, whose name was Steve to come and get his truck and chain and pull us out. Well he did so, and we were ever grateful. “Can I pray for anything for you?” my mother asked him. “Oh no ma’am,” said Steve. “I’m all right.” But I decided that I would pray for him anyway. So after that entire seemingly disastrous night, I just had to laugh. In situations like that, it seems that that is all you can do.

But my learning did not end there; oh no, the entire rest of the weekend I had to learn self-control and trust. A part of me that I didn’t want anyone to see was suddenly revealed; or maybe they had seen it all along and I either didn’t realize it, or acted like I didn’t know. But I have learned just how very weak I actually am. It is hard to admit such things about myself, for it is a very humbling thing. But it almost seems that the more humble you become, the more God is able to use you, and that is an encouraging thought. How easily pride and self-righteousness slips in, until it consumes us! Every day is a mountain we must climb; we cannot think that we will ever be rid of our weaknesses, or that we will never have a lesson to learn, for this life ultimately is a lesson, and a test, and what are we to do with this life we have been given? The past few days I have let myself fall into a feeling of hopelessness and purposelessness (wow, thats a lot of “esses”). I have raised expectations of people, that I myself am not meeting, or am unable to meet (without God’s help at least). Jealousy and Resentment were gnawing at me; I hated it, I wanted to get away from them, but they were still there, taunting me, telling me to keep giving in. I was pushed to a point where I finally had to fall on my knees and cry to God, saying “Lord, take these away from me!” There is something powerful about being on your knees. It says that you are completely and willingly submitting to someone, and shows that you are weak and in need. And it is God who gives us strength and enables us to conquer, even our toughest of burdens. What joy there is in knowing that!

In any case, I seem to be rambling, and I highly doubt that any body reading this will actually read every word, but to those that are reading this, I would like to say this bit of thanks:

“Thank you for being the true genuine friends that you are. I know I may not say it enough, or may not even show it, but you are valued very heavily by me. I am blessed to have you in my life. It is not easy being genuine. You often have to chip away at the dirt and grime to really see the beauty that is to be found underneath. It takes a true friend to be able to dig through and find it. I would call each of you a rare gemstone. I pray that we all seek to grow closer to the Lord and walk with him daily, as we grow closer as friends, and with some of us (the Lord willing), something more.

This was totally random, so I figured I’d post it.

Your first claim was that “cheese is salad.” Would you not argue, “cheese is cheese?” So if cheese is cheese, how can it be salad while it is cheese? Something cannot be what it is if it is something else (ie: light cannot be dark if it is in fact light). Something also cannot be something else while it is still itself.
To further this point, can A=C if it is A? No. A=A. Now A plus B can equal C, but each one individually does not equal C. So if cheese (or eggs, as with your statement earlier this evening) were salad, it would cease to be what it originally was.

So what can we define salad as? Mainly, it is a cold dish that consists of various mixtures; a combination if you will of many different fresh items such as fruit, vegetables, and/or meat, and it usually is seasoned with dressings such as mayonnaise, yogurt, ranch, et cetera. A salad is NOT one item in and of itself. Your pile of cheese was a mixture of cheese, but they were all of the same essence, the same thing just multiplied many times over. Though at times the term “salad” has become vague, it does in fact have specific rules, which it adheres to, as I have just stated in the second sentence.

A completely different example to further my point: Is the church an individually based thing? Am I, for example the church by myself? No, the church is a collection of many believers. You might say in response, “ah ha! But we are all the same thing because we all are human, therefore your example fails.” This is true, however, we are all different in that we serve in different roles of the church. Example: what if everyone wanted to be the pastor? That would not work. If every person in the “church,” were the pastor, how could it be called the “church?”

Back to the cheese scenario: Cheese can and often is a part of what makes a salad, but it is not in itself a salad. It in itself is not sufficient enough to constitute what makes a salad.
A pile of lettuce is just lettuce. It is a collection of lettuce, but it is still just lettuce. Lettuce no more equals salad than cheese does.

A salad with out its different components would not be a salad; it wouldn’t exist at all. Just as the church without its people ceases to be a church, and therefore does not exist.
If we followed your argument it’d be no more ridiculous to state that lucky charms with milk equals salad. Why couldn’t it be salad? After all, it IS a collection of things (edible things). But why stop there? What if salad didn’t necessarily have to be edible? Then the argument would continue to go in a circle and never end.

I admit this may seem like a trifling argument (especially since we have so many other things to do), but so are many other arguments in this world; many of which seem to have no answer.

Warmest regards,

Corinne McFee
http://whywebelieve.wordpress.com

P.S.: How does food affect the soul? How can things that are physical affect things that are not?

P.S.S. Do you believe there will be actual food in heaven? If so, do you believe it will be very similar to the food we eat on earth? And what would the overall purpose of eating food in heaven be? Surely not to keep us alive, for we will no longer be tied to our frail mortal bodies once we are in heaven.