Generally speaking...

"If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all."  When I first heard that when I was younger, I probably thought, "Man, that probably cuts out like half of my conversation!"  Being, cynical, critical, and an overall skeptic seems to be a popular route these days.  We hear all kinds of messages where there is focused more on bashing the opposition that promoting the ideas they believe in.  Not only that but there seems to be less and less middle ground.  Take politics for example, for a person's vote to matter for all practical purposes they have to choose one end of spectrum or the other in a sense.  Tim Keller, a highly respected author and minister in NYC found research that showed that America is getting more religious and less religious at the same time.  What? Yes, the Christian population is growing and so is the population of groups that subscribe to alternative value system (atheist, etc.)  I feel like one of the problems that arises when this happens in any context is one party will freely use a single example from the other side and apply that person's thoughts, actions, whatever, to the whole group.

When that happens, how fair is that?  Say there's a guy I know with the last name, let's say Miller. I see him out at a restaurant and he's had a few drinks, cusses out his waitress, smacks his kid as he leaves because he is crying, and then peels off in his car to go home.  What if, from now on, anytime I meet a guy with the same last name I assume he's a belligerent alcoholic who abuses his kid? Ridiculous right?  The same thing can  happen (of course on a smaller scale) all of the time.  An easy example would be Christianity.  Many people see a person to be a hypocrite who claims to be Christian and assume that all Christians are hypocrites. There are some issues here, one is the assumption that people who are Christian ever claim to be perfect. 

On a side note I would like to say that taking the Lord's name in vain goes beyond dropping the GD bomb.  There are plenty of people who have never had that word in their vocabulary but will wear the label of Christian without ever having a relationship with God or even understanding what it means to have one.  A politician for example could claim the Christian tag just to get a better voter turnout for his campaign.

All of that to say, just as an encouragement, to take a look at people as individuals to find out what they are about instead of throwing them under the bus from the get go if they don't match right up initially with every tag or label you would place on yourself.

A word to the wise

It has been awhile since my last post, there are a couple of reasons why, one of which actually inspired this blog.  As much as technology, social networking, and the very blog you are reading can help people connect, there is a point where it can be detrimental.  From my experience I've wanted to improve communication with those most important to me in this life but it is easier said than done.  Between texting, email, Facebook, Twitter, and any other form of non-verbal media we leave too much out there for interpretation.  Communication 101 in college teaches us all this but the fact of the matter is we are a generation who'll be less comfortable with face to face or verbal communication than the one that preceded us because it seems easier.

The crazy part is this, when looking at it from a broader view, avoiding more personal communication is only temporarily easy.  Think of all the the misunderstandings that could have been avoided or the time spent texting back and forth when a call would have been much more efficient?  Don't get me wrong, I believe all of the above mentioned tools can be beneficial but the key here, like anything else, is gaining wisdom as to how to use these things.

That brings me to the next concept I'm trying to believe more deeply and that is the difference between knowledge and wisdom.  Gaining more knowledge is not hard to do, how many have we said to ourselves, "Yep, you learn something new everyday!"  That's cool, but what is really awesome is when the things we learn can change the way we make our decisions.  A baseball player can learn what they should do in tons of scenarios, but if they resort to their former habits have they REALLY learned them? Wisdom is awesome, what little I have comes in handy, my prayer is that God would bless me with more as a move along.

An encouragement, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." - James 1:5

Also check out Proverbs, short and sweet blurbs that will rock your world...

P.S. - One of the greatest songs you may have never heard of...