The End of Religion

Bruxy Cavey's The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus got my attention. It was refreshing and made me better equipped to identify things that are "religious" and how they can have a negative impact on my relationship with God.

The structure and style of his book catered very much to my personality in the way he built a case for his thesis. I will admit that reading other books a long the same genre, likely made me more open to his thoughts, but if "church" and "religion" are words that make you cringe in your attempt to be spiritual, you may find Cavey's book to be refreshing.

Camping alone

Last night a memory came to mind. I had forgotten the event ever happened and at the time it took place I was annoyed and disappointed. It never occurred to me that I would look back 15 years ago and smile at the moment today.

I had hiked about a mile through the woods and fields and set up camp for the night. Some friends of mine were suppose to be hiking from another direction to meet me at the site. It was starting to get late and my friends had not arrived. I was never worried that anything had happened to them. I had assumed they got distracted, or had a run in with their parents which was not uncommon. There I sat by the campfire with my tent snacking under a full moon.

I was starting to get bored when I saw someone walking toward me through the field. It was in the opposite direction from where my friends should have been coming. We were were on private property so I couldn't imagine who it might have been.

As he got closer, I discovered it was my brother. He had nothing better to do that night, so he joined us...me...camping. By the time he arrived, it was all I could do to stay awake. He started talking, and I kept nodding off to sleep, occasionally responding with a "yeah...um-hm" making him think I was listening. I woke up about 3:00 and he said, do you want to stay here the rest of the night, or should we just head home.

By then I was cold and uncomfortable and figured the night was a bust, so I said, "yeah, let's go." We headed home under the light of the moon, talking about what it might have been like to be a runaway slave on the property we walking on.

It's not a great story, but a good memory. It reminds me that an annoying situation today may be looked upon very differently in years to come.

Age Discrimination

Depending on who's asking and when, telling people how old you are can be good or bad. There's been several scenarios in my life where I was proud to tell people my age because it was considered a young age and I felt like I had accomplished a lot of good. On the other hand, I've done childish things as an adult and had people ask "how old are you again?"

I suppose in many cases, age is a good indicator of where someone is in life. It could indicate maturity level, experience, stability, dedication, and more. For the most part, you can make assumptions on what your getting when you create expectations for people based on their age and most of the time you'll probably be right.

However, the times when you are wrong, you'll create a hurdle that is difficult for both you and the other person to jump. Resetting expectations isn't impossible, but it's difficult.

If the age of someone concerns you, then I would venture to say that based on your personal experiences, you're more concerned with failure than success.

Then again, what do I know? I'm in my early thirties.