O-HI-O

I grew up in a massive suburban sprawl. Pretty cut green yards around house after house after house.



Huge neighborhoods and enough strip malls to make even a non-hippy, non-whole foods shopper go crazy. I just came from my cool Denver lifestyle back to this suburbia land where I spent 18 years and now am about to head off to the the second poorest country in the western hemisphere. So I started thinking about how many things are already determined in your life by the circumstances that you are born into. (The Calvinistic vs Armenian ways of looking at this statement in general would differ, but that's a conversation for another day.)

Anyways, the main idea that I was pondering today as I was driving was how birth circumstance affects a person's world view and their picture of God. Everywhere I go people have such a naturally different mindset in each place - and for each person it is completely normal, natural, and is likely the mindset that they believe everyone else should have. To many of the poor in Nicaragua God is a liberator, one to set the oppressed free. But growing up in suburbia a person might never think of God like that. One part of me just wants to dive into theology and do word studies and lexical analysis and figure out exactly who scripture says God is so that I can tell all of the wrong people. And while I was at it I would probably figure out exactly how to live the right life and set all the wrong people straight on that too.

But instead I think I am going to try and embrace differences, learn from people who grew up differently than me, and figure out what they have to teach me.

right click picture to listen in a new window!

Music is one of the best expressions of different points of view. Today I learned from a good ole boy who grew up in farm country middle of nowhere Ohio. The simple thesis statement in the song People are Crazy by Billy Currington actually resonates with me quite well. I don't think I am anything like this guy - but we would probably kick it if we ever met, and this song is catchy!