Newtonion faith?

I believe in Newton’s laws of motion. One an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by a force, the second being the force of an object in motion is related to the mass and the acceleration of the object, and finally for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In a way our lives are objects and we are in motion. Moving around and hitting each other emotionally spiritually and physically. Everyone we come in contact with because imprinted with a small part of ourselves. Kind of like when you take silly putty and squash it on the newspaper. It is incredible how one small event can trigger a land slide of emotion and change in the individuals that were affected by it.

Be warned this is going to be a bit cheesy but still I think this is relevant to a lot of peoples experience. We all live according to Newtons 3 laws of motion. Our lives in their selves are full of motion, full of change, full of Force, we often don’t see how we impact and effect even the people in our own family. Here is what I propose. Human life progresses along Newtons 3 laws of motion.

I know profound right (sarcasm). Like I said bear with me. Ok so here we go. We will start from the back though to make this interesting. For every action there is an equal and reaction. We as a community of humans live in such close community and proximity that we cannot help but to effect the people around us. We talk to somebody every day, read and article, or post something on Facebook almost every day. It’s incredible how much social interaction that we need to survive. Where would you be without your MacBook iPhone with 5g speeds and the ability to socially connect with all of your friends in a matter of seconds? Honestly these days we would be lost without some sort of technology in our days. Trust me I know. I tried and lasted about the ten minutes it took me to take a shower. We take action that causes reactions on people we cannot even fathom. Like you reading this blog makes me happy and that makes me not complain at my roommate as much which makes him happy. So thank you. But back to the matter at hand. We are so connected that our words are actions that dramatically change how someone goes about their day or even their entire life. With one word like yes or no futures of entire families are changed. Once we realized this the rest gets easier. If we were to look outward to how we are affecting the people around us how much more of a happier place would the world be? Hunger could be gone, crime, heartbreak, and sin would be eradicated. It sucks that looking outward isn’t human nature doesn’t it?

This leads me to law number two. The force of an object is directly proportional to the mass and the acceleration of the object. Let’s say that for this analogy that mass and acceleration are much the same as ego and culture. We are often progressed by culture to be moving forward to increase our speeds. Do more things more often, party more, talk more and most importantly listen less. We spend all our time thinking about what we could say in a situation rather than spending our time thinking about what the other is saying. This can be attributed to the ego of some people. The bigger the ego the harder it is to stop the actions the progression that someone is trying to make. That ego of I have to be the one to help them, only my words can save this individual from doom often causes more pain than it helps. When you get to that point are you thinking that they would benefit from hearing this or will you benefit from saying it? Do you even listen to what they have to say? The answer is when I get in these moods no I don’t listen to whom I am trying to help. Why do we do have to act that way is often something that I ask myself. Can’t my driving force be Love and selflessness rather than my own pleasure and the dictated will of the culture? I am a force that is in motion with and increasing mass and a increasing acceleration. I just hit others and keep going about my same track of motion sometimes without any regard to the word around me. I ask you honestly if you were to look inward would you see a truly loving and selfless heart. I cannot say that I can.

There has to be a solution right? How are we to fix our selfish centers? That leads me to the first of Newton’s laws. An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by and outside force. We as a community get so bent on doing everything our way in our time line for our own purpose that we fail to see the pain we can cause people. Fail to see how our words will destroy a bridge to other groups or communities in general. We let our interpretations of the word get us on the wrong path to us into to hatred and the Dark Side (Get it? Because I was talking about Forces. See what I did there?). Where all we can see is what “I”: can do not necessarily what we are supposed to do. I am not saying this of everybody or even that it is happening now but just to keep it in mind. I feel that we can often get caught up in these self-righteous thoughts that keep us going on our same trajectory and motion. We need our outside force for change. We need God to come into our lives and change us. Provide us with an opportunity to better ourselves and really learn where our path should be taking us. Like a ball rolling off the table he is the only one powerful enough to push us back on course. God is the only one who has the clairvoyance enough to see how our actions will truly benefit his kingdom.

 So my main point is if today you are feeling closed off and stuck in your ways like a ball rolling on a frictionless surface pray and open yourself up to change because I know that I will be doing the same for myself. I cannot be the director of my life. That is a job for one that truly knows where he needs me to be. And I believe that if you are open to it Jesus will meet us where we are at and send us back on track. I am just glad that I know a God who will not make me figure it out on my own. Lastly imagine what the body of Christ can do when we all fill our part and walk with the same intention of love and salvation.

            With Hope for all of us,

            Cyrus Schaaf

Community with a Lack of Communication.

In the American social structure we are largely separated from groups and forced to do things on our own. It has been drilled into our heads though movies and grades that we are for all intensive purposes on our own. Movies where the main lines are “There can be only one” or cop shows where the main character says “I don’t do partners.” I am not saying that only these types of shows exist but they are the less cheesy ones and with super cool characters that take on the world. I like to think of the example Die Hard. Bruce Willas wants help but he doesn’t need it and whenever the police on the ground step in they do something stupid and almost get every hostage killed. Another example is when we are graded in school. We may do group projects but some teachers say that depending on the amount of work you do you will be graded appropriately. Classes in College are no better at propagating community. We are in competition with everyone else to beat the average and pray for everyone else to do poorly on the test to lower the curve. The fact of the matter is that we have been conditioned to thing that we don’t need anybody to help us in any aspect of our lives. America the Land of the Lone Wolf and the home of the do it yourself attitude.

            In reality we need people, we need community. A lot of times I feel that animals get this concept a lot better than we do. The honey bee colony knows that if you don’t do your job the whole group dies and most primates live in groups where they build tools and gather food for the females. Why is this so easy for all these species? We are humans, built for communications built for living together in cooperation and community. But we don’t do that, as humans we have evolved to using language and complex studies of others to communicate with them but a lot of people don’t even know their own neighbor. Our society dictates that we are individuals, and that we maintain that individuality no matter what or you are no longer considered a man. How many times do College age students end up in huge debt or crippling depression and don’t seek help? How does that turn out of them? Usually it ends up in an attempt to commit suicide. How messed up are we that the ones who are struggling, being attacked by culture, have to resort to an attempt on their life to get attention, to ask for help?

            We as a culture have gone wrong somewhere. The idea of living together working towards a common goal is not only beneficial it is necessary. In Genesis 2 it says “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him.” Even before our fall before we think about committing sin we are in desperate need for this sense of community, and family. That is why so many church groups created small community groups. We were not designed to live alone like the wolf. In Ecclesiastes 4:10 Solomon says “If one falls down, his friends can help him up. But pity the man who falls and no one is there to help him up.” Basically my point is that if we join groups that are selfless and care for one another we will be stronger for it, we will have a platform to stand on and people to help lift our burdens, our debts, or our sins. Let us be like the penguins and help each other. Take burdens for one and other, and give our burdens to the group. Let us find groups in which we choose to trust with our whole lives, not just parts of it. And let us share with our friends and be truly selfless followers of Christ. And remember “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” Ecclesiastes 4:12

 Faith is not done alone,

Cyrus Schaaf

My Secret Identity Is?

How many days of the week do I sit in my room reading comics thinking if only I could have spider powers or was really rich to be able to dress up like a bat and run around a city stopping crime. Wouldn’t that be the life? You get too hide behind a mask and are whoever you want to be. You can swing to roof tops and punch muggers but all in the end you cannot tell anybody who you are. That is what makes it bitter sweet. The secret identity, who you really are in situations you try to hide behind a mask of personality is what really kills relationships with  those you care about and really hinder that personal relationship with God.

            I have not really thought about identity and how it shapes your actions all that much until about a week ago. I figured out that my identity is not quite as I wanted it to be. I see myself as a gamer, science major, a son, and a thinker, who is a Christian. But see I figure that isn’t good enough. In a letter that the apostle Paul rights to the city of Corinth he says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Basically this is saying that once you accept Christ into your life you are no longer who you were before. In high school I was rude, shallow, cynical, and just had a lot of excess anger from nowhere in particular. But I came to college and decided that following Christ isn’t just something you do as a child in Sunday school. I started to change after that, Get more patient and in all reality more intelligent. Being able to look at situations in different ways and trying to reason though the whole of the bible. I sought identity in being a wise and thoughtful person but not so much in Christ. It led to shallow faith and some large periods of basically crippling doubt. Don’t get me wrong I think doubt is what keeps us sharp as Christians but not the kind that I experienced. I stopped writing and lost all desire to learn more about who Christ was and who god wanted me to be.

            Identity shapes how we see ourselves and my identity needed a drastic change. I needed to not be a gamer, science major, or thinker who is a Christian, but a Christian who is all those things to.  I am not saying that we are to give up all we are to follow Christ, but we are called to open ourselves up to his plan and make our hearts available to change and our lives open to what he wants us to do. No matter where you are when it comes to faith I encourage you to take a look at how you identify yourself and see if that’s who you really need to be or even want to be because behind my Christian mask I was just going through the motions treating it like a class about how to live life rather than a lifestyle in of its self. We are not meant to hide behind masks and close our true selves off from the world like Batman but we are meant to live together with Christ and other people in full and deep relationships.

Following blindly is never asked for by God,

Cyrus Schaaf

2 Corinthians 5:17