Because I spend forty hours a week doing what janitors do, I've had a lot of time to ponder. Lots of things, really. I've thought about music, news, health care, going to the dentist, my future, climbing, and theology. So because I haven't written in many moons, I figured I'd hit the major topics in my line of thought.
This may seem a bit disjointed, but so is my thought process. As an extrovert, I tend to think out loud, and my thought process emulates that. It's really hard for me to carry a single line of thought until I'm finished with it. This is why the topics discussed are so vastly different from one another. I'm getting better at doing all this in my head, but until I learn to think before I speak, this is how it goes.
1.) Hello Hurricane. The newest Switchfoot album. Now, most of you know how much I love Switchfoot. Knowing this, these guys could put out an 80's pop album and I would buy it, listen to it, and learn to love it. This one is taking a bit more work.
Lyrically, the album is BRILLIANT. After about the third time through the whole album, I recognized a much more "Christian" vibe to the whole thing. A major theme of the album is repentance, coming to the realization that we are completely and utterly destined for a life of destruction, sadness, and separation from God if left to our own ways. A desire to worship Jesus with everything that we have, change our way of life and live a life of holiness and joy is reflected in many of the tracks, and I gotta say, lyrically it's some of the best work they've done, as far as I'm concerned.
Unfortunately, the music isn't as cohesive. Drew coaxes some fantastic sounds from his guitar, and Tim continues to blow me away with his tone and bass riffs that are so central to Switchfoot's sound. But really, the songs, aside from lyrical content, seem so different from one another that they don't really flow.
That said, there are maybe three stand-out tracks on the album that exemplify everything that Switchfoot does best. I would actually venture to say that "Sing It Out" is one of their best songs.
It's taking me a long time to get used to it, but I definitely like it more every time I see him. That's really all I'm gonna say about that one.
2.) Doctrine. I have listened to a fair amount of sermons while sweeping the steps of the Fairhaven Administration building. I enjoy learning within in that context, and it's nice to do something while I feel like I'm doing nothing, seeing as someone will tramp their muddy feet up the stairs without a second thought as soon as I'm done.
But here's the thing about Doctrine: it's distracting. At least to me. Great big terms that explain why I'm not good enough to choose God, and he has chosen me. Wordy explanations about the authority of Scripture. Predestination, penal substitutionary atonement, justification, sanctification. And it's all true. It's all valuable under a certain light. At least as far as I understand it, it is.
But such inner dialogue that occurs when I hear words like "elect" is almost instantaneous: "You don't love Jesus. You're not elect. You just looked at that girl, that means you're lusting and God's children don't do that. See. BAM. Not elect. No hope. I just proved it to you." The result is INWARD focus, rather than UPWARD and OUTWARD focus. So I focus on fighting the lies I'm being told while trying so hard to be spiritual and know what all these concepts and big words are rather than KNOW JESUS. And I would rather know Jesus than have a dictionary full of doctrinal terms that lead me to religion and a spiritual check list of all the stuff I know.
3.)Last one. Gender inclusive housing and bathrooms may be making their way onto Western's campus. I'm not really that surprised, honestly, because I knew it would happen sooner or later. And I'm not flipping out, blowing the whistle or anything like that. I just think it's interesting.
Gender inclusive housing i'll leave out of this for now, because I feel I need to be able to accurately articulate what I think about it. Bathrooms, however, I can address now.
The intention of gender inclusive bathrooms is to help individuals who identify as a gender that is different that their sex. By having one bathroom that everyone uses, aforementioned individuals just walk in rather than feeling uncomfortable choosing between their gender or biological sex that appears on every bathroom door. There are lots of arguments as to why we should adopt such a system, one of which (that I, for the record, thought about for probably a half hour) is that it increases standards of cleanliness. I still haven't figured it out: when we're done cleaning them, men and women's bathrooms are equally clean. ANYWAY. The main issue (not addressed on the little blurb that was handed out in promotion of such a policy) that I find with gender inclusive bathrooms is one of simple safety.
I'm not a huge dude. In fact, I'm not even really strong. So I can do pull ups on my finger tips-big deal. I don't really worry about using public restrooms, even at night. If girls were in there and it was deemed socially appropriate for them to be, I wouldn't feel weird peeing next to them.
SO switch perspectives, and I can tell you that if I was a woman, there is no way that I would want to use a public restroom on the fifth floor of the library, where no one ever goes at 10:45 PM if I knew that a guy with Brandon Adent's build could possibly walk in and find me there, regardless of his intentions.
I guess it comes down to my wondering if we really have so much faith in humanity that we would take away all restrictions on who could use which bathroom and when.
See how disjointed that was? I'm actually getting drowsy and pretty tired, so I wouldn't be surprised if none of it made sense.
