My sister’s dilemma
by V.E. on October 15th, 2008
In the past week or so, I’ve talked to my sister about helping the homeless. She attends a large Christian university in Southern California and recently listened to another student interviewed during chapel, during which he (the other student; we’ll just call him Brian for the sake of simplicity) had been praying about what he should do with his life. He told the audience that he believed God was calling him to quit school and start a homeless shelter, and my sister was extremely impressed.
She’s the kind of person who, when you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, says something like, “Well, I’ve been thinking about that, actually… I was thinking about…” and what follows is a different answer every time. She’s amazing and has a great heart and can’t decide what she wants to do because she wants to do everything. She wants to be a movie director, an art teacher, a hotel chain entrepreneur, write a bestselling (graphic) novel, start a family band, become a scuba-diving instructor, learn to ride a motorcycle, build houses for people in under-served areas, and I could go on. And those are the things I know about; who knows what I don’t know about. And, in her spare time, she wants to marry and have kids.
But recently, she’s been struggling with direction in her life (or, put more accurately, what she feels is lack of direction in her life). When she heard Brian talking about starting a homeless shelter, she mulled over it for a while before calling me with a dilemma.
See, she has a crush on this guy. She was worried about helping him because she likes him rather than helping him because it’s the right thing to do. If her intentions were less-than-pure, did it mean she shouldn’t help homeless people? I told her, “No, of course not. Helping is helping. If you get to hang out with Brian, that’s just a perk. But you’re doing a good thing no matter what.”
The way the world works is that intentions don’t matter as much if the action is a good one (ie: volunteering at a homeless shelter). If my sister was planning on killing someone, intentions would matter a LOT more. Pre-meditated murder carries a much harsher punishment than involuntary manslaughter, after all, and it’s because of the pre-meditation. If your original intention was to kill someone, that’s worse than if you killed someone by accident. The person is still dead, so the action is the same, but after guilt is confirmed, the intention is what matters.
But that’s an extreme example, and it doesn’t work the same way when the action is a good one. Thankfully, my sister isn’t contemplating murder, so we can get back to her problem. She wants to have “a Calling” like Brian seems to have, and she’s worried (as I understand it) that if she helps him, she’ll miss out on something she’s “meant” to do and that the help she gives will be tainted with… something less than 100% effort… or something. Her dilemma seemed to put my issues—sorority stuff, mostly—into stark perspective. I felt totally shallow for being so… not helpful… to those around me.
I was worrying about my time in college (blah blah blah) and she was worrying about whether helping homeless people was the right thing to do. [facepalm] I told her, “Even if you decide you don’t like this guy, the people you helped while you were hanging around him will still have been helped. And you never know, you may find your passion in the process.”
She said, “Oh. I never thought about it that way.”
—
The Great Space Race
by V.E. on October 14th, 2008
filed under entertainment, favorite, fyi
For your viewing pleasure, I present…
THE GREAT SPACE RACE
(to start from the beginning, click here)
… illustrated by a good friend of mine, wolfman dave. I’m not getting anything for this post; in fact, D. doesn’t even know I’m pushing for his comic on here at all (at least not before reading this post himself).
It looks pretty sweet so far, so head on over there and see what you think.
Can you really go wrong with babes in space? Really?
The Controversial Survey
by V.E. on October 10th, 2008
filed under quizzes/surveys
Stolen from Esther.
[01] Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as The Controversial Survey? Yes.
[02] Would you do meth if it was legal? Unlikely.
[03] Abortion: for or against it? Well, I’m not for it, per se, but I am for the woman’s right to decide for herself.
[04] Do you think the world would fail with a female president? No, not any more than we have with a male president.
[05] Do you believe in the death penalty? Do you mean, “do you believe the death penalty should continue to be instituted?” If that’s the question, then: no, I don’t.
[06] Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already? I don’t care one way or the other.
[07] Are you for or against premarital sex? Eh. Sex isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.
[08] Do you believe in God? Yes.
[09] Do you think same sex marriage should be legalized? Yes. If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t have one.
[10] Do you think it’s wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA? No, that’s what we did way back when. Why should the “rules” change now?
[11] A twelve year old girl has a baby, should she keep it? Um, probably not. Should she give birth to it? I guess, if she wants to… but should she keep it? No.
[12] Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen? Nah. I don’t care. Just don’t drink around me.
[13] Should the war in Iraq be called off? Yes.
[14] Assisted suicide is illegal: do you agree? Well, depends on the jurisdiction… Should it be illegal? No, but it’s tricky.
[15] Do you believe in spanking your children? No, absolutely not.
[16] Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars? Yes.
[17] Who do you think would make a better president? McCain or Obama? Obama.
[18] Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers? They probably will judge me, but I’m not afraid of it. I’m pretty sure that most of the people who read this thing already know how I feel about most of these questions.
Neat
by V.E. on October 8th, 2008
The Living Room Candidate: presidential campaign commercials since 1952
What’s a first cousin, twice removed? an article about cousins and how you know if you’re in the clear… so to speak
Miss Navajo
by V.E. on October 5th, 2008
filed under recap/review, writing
I watched Miss Navajo and wrote a review. Please read and comment!
Don’t vote
by V.E. on October 4th, 2008
or click here
