I've decided!

My decision: American Ethnic Studies for my 2nd minor. I'm looking forward to it, and I figured out that I only need 9 more hours to complete it! So I'll be graduating, on time, next May (2012) with a Bachelor of Science in Sociology, a Minor in Business, and a Minor in American Ethnic Studies. Not too shabby. God is good.

So I have a small dilemma..

Here is the scenario: I have only 10 hours of required course work left between my major and minor after this semester is over. In order to graduate on time, I need to complete 30 hours of coursework during my senior year. The problem: I need to fill 20 hours of dead space with something useful. Here are my two options that I've narrowed it down to, for now.

A. Declare an American Ethnic Studies minor. It's a 15 hour minor, and goes well with my major (Sociology) and could be a good extension of what I've studied in Sociology regarding race and ethnic relations. This is my more broad option.

B. Declare a Community Planning minor. This is also a 15 hour minor, and would also help prepare me for a career in urban development/planning, which I am interested in. Like the previous minor I mentioned, a lot of sociological principles are involved with city management regarding income, ethnicity, and social interaciton. But, this is less broad and more focused on one career.

What do you guys think? I would love some suggestions on this, and hopefully I can get some input from the handful of people who read this.

2010

So it's been a couple weeks since 2010 ended.. and I must say, it was not my favorite year. There were some great things that happened, and those were some wonderful times and wonderful memories for me, but it was also one of the toughest years of my life. The main lesson I learned: While people may fail me, my Lord and Savior never will. God definitely gave me a year of learning and trial, and through it all I am grateful for how He has matured me. It just shows how faithful He really is to His people, and I have only grown because of the love He has shown me through trial and the pains it can bring. I have no doubt that no matter what happens, 2011 will be a year where I will continue to grow in the One who loves me more than I could ever comprehend.

BREAK

It's finally here, and as of now, I am still sitting in Manhattan waiting to go home. I have to work tomorrow morning, and then I'm headed back to spend time with people I miss quite a bit. I'm looking forward to it, a lot. It's been interesting seeing all the students pour out of Manhattan within a matter of hours. Me and Kevin are the only one's left at our house for the evening. Today we went and saw the new Harry Potter, which ended up being a great experience as we ran into some other fine gentlemen we knew there, like Paul Hughes, Brian Moore and Brad Wompler. And now I think we'll probably go to Hunam for a top notch Chinese dinner.

So even though most people have gone home already, the past day has been pretty alright. I can't wait to get home though. I haven't been back in far too long, and it's time. Time to rest, hang with friends, hookah, disc golf, and actually relax. Thank you God for supplying me with much needed breaks from stress, and with wonderful friends who make it all the more fun.

Enron

I'm writing an essay on Enron as a bureaucracy right now for one of my Sociology classes. I got bored of writing it for now, so I decided I might as well share some of my thoughts on it for anyone who may be interested.

To me, the Enron scandal was one of the greatest examples of greed that we have seen in the last ten years. The executives involved in the scandal were completely overtaken by the concept of profit and possessions. They literally did anything to ensure that "profit" was made, even if it involved illegally manipulating financial statements. As long as they could manipulate their statements and fool their investors, they were in good shape. Their end was inevitable, however. There was no possible way that Enron could have survived because of their lack of real cash, which they didn't have a lot of, of course. Eventually, it all had to come crashing down. The executives knew it was coming, so they sold their stock and got out. Six months after this, Enron is defunct, and thousands of employees and stockholders were left with nothing. The selfishness of a few crooks left thousands in the dust, wandering in the midst of the corporate world they once knew. Pretty incredible if you ask me. Selfishness in it's ideal form.

He has blessed me

Fall is finally here, and the trees are starting to turn in the Little Apple. The semester has been off to a good start for me; I couldn't ask for a greater group of roomates, my classes are going well, and the Lord is truly moving in the community surrounding me. The Lord has blessed me.

I don't take near enough time to count my blessings. Even when life gets hard and circumstances are out of my reach, the Lord still has his blessings upon me. He provides what I need. He loves me for who I am. He calls me a beautiful creation made in His image. I am blessed. He supplies me with energy, community and love. He blesses me with teaching, trial and struggle; all so I may more fully rely on Him. His word; a blessing to me in knowledge of His power.

As I sit on my front porch, there is a peace all around. Even in the mid-afternoon of a busy day in Manhattan, peace still finds its way in. The sun is shining, the breeze is gentle, and the murmur of the city sustains the atmosphere. Solitude. The Lord has blessed me.

Summer 2010: Investing in others; Loving others

Well... summer is here. I feel the semester ended on a good note, and I'm still waiting on my final grades to see how I did, but I'm confident it will turn out well. I'm just ready to see how God is going to work this summer, both in my 2nd year of summer staff and just in the upcoming summer months in general. Summer is one of my favorite times of year honestly, not only because its a good time to recharge from the stresses of the school year but also as a great time of growth. I feel that summer allows one the freedom to try new things; the freedom to take risks and the freedom to discipline ourselves and disciple others around us. For me, this summer is going to be about the brothers, sisters and students I'll be hanging out with this summer on staff at Colonial. It will be amazing to see God work in great ways, as He always does on summer staff. I'm just anxious and ready to see where the Lord will take us as a staff and youth group this summer. Community is one aspect of summer that always seems to strengthen no matter where you're involved. It gives us time to invest in others. Investing in others. This is one aspect of my life that I'm always looking to build on. As I've stated before, people are my passion. It's my passion to see someone come to know Christ through the strong friendships and relationships one encounters within the body of Christ. I've seen it happen to so many people, and I promise you, building friendships and relationships centered on Christ is life changing to the parties involved. I know this seems obvious as I'm typing this out, but I just want to stress the importance of just loving someone for who they are as a creation of Christ. We are all created in His image, and we cannot forget that. Often I do, and most of the time it happens when I'm too quick to judge someone. Who are we to judge someone who is created in the beautiful image of God? We have to do our best to love others as Christ loves them, even when we think it's impossible or incredibly difficult to do. God calls us to this type of love, and when we put this to action, He is glorified and satisfied. May we all learn to glorify God more through our actions of love towards his creation.

Spring

I couldn't be more relieved that the prime spring is finally here, and it appears the last of this cold and rainy weather is behind us. The past few days have been filled with all sorts of wonderful things for me, such as disc golf and hookah to name a couple. It's the best when you get to experience God's creation in it's most prime form of 73 degrees and sunny, in my opinion. Getting to disc golf yesterday with my friend Grant across the beautiful rolling hills of Manhattan was incredibly surreal in itself. It really does make you appreciate the beauty in the little things that God has put into nature. One of my favorite things is being able to enjoy His creation with my brothers and sisters in Christ, whether that is through getting a bunch of people together for a game of ultimate, or by just grabbing a blanket and relaxing out in his creation wherever that may be. I feel like through nature, we can really experience God's peace and beauty in a captivating way. My heart always seems to ponder and grow closer to the Lord by just observing all he has given us even in our sinful world. All of the little things in nature seem to form together to make something truly beautiful, and I believe that God has created us to look deeper into his creation, not only in nature, but into our own lives as well as others. Life really is a beautiful creation, as sinful as our world may be.

Has it really been over a year?

Well, I guess I haven't used this in longer than I thought.

I guess you could say a lot has happened to me in the past year, and God has definitely been teaching me something, as He always seems to be.

The thing that has been on my heart specifically this morning is how much I hate losing people I care about. This pains my heart more than anything else. People are my passion, my friends are my passion. One of the things God has called me to specifically is ministering to people through building stronger relationships with them. I feel led to love others as Christ has loved me, and am stricken when I see relationships or friendships fail. The pain involved with losing a friend or someone you deeply care about is the most painful thing for my heart, and it has happened to me before. It can be hard and painful to try and repair things with those individuals in our lives, it can put out great heartache in knowing that you may never be able to repair things with that person to where it is completely normal like it was before. For some people, the pain will always remain even long after the end of the friendship or relationship. As painful as it is, we just have to trust in the Lord's guidance and love and trust he will lead us to greater things either with or without that person in our lives. Either way, losing someone we care about can be incredibly hard to understand and hard for our hearts to comprehend. The thing I have found that works the best, obviously, is keeping my heart in the Lord and trusting completely in Him. No matter what, He understands our pain, and will deliver us from it and into better things that are glorifying to Him. My prayer is that wherever God is leading you, that you would follow wholeheartedly, and if he removes someone you are close with from your life, trust in Him that He will guide you always, and that He has your best interests at heart. He loves you, and He will be glorified in you.

Declared mah major

So the title says, I did declare my major today. Sociology. I'm really excited in all honesty, I kind of have an idea of what I want to do with it, but I'm leaving my options open. Right now its sticking with Sociology and doing either a Community Development or Urban Planning masters. Yet I could also see myself maybe even teaching it in a high school where they offer it. I don't know how good of a teacher I would be.. but it's something I've given a little thought to. Either way, I'm excited to see where the Lord will take me with this. Whatever job I end up with, I just want to be a part of putting God's plan to work, and bringing His glory to wherever I end up.

God is good. So good.

Living

I'm not the most intellectual person in the world, but I thought I should at least attempt to share what I believe "living" is, and why I struggle with not being able to live the way I want to.

When I see Christianity today, I see a struggling body with many self-righteous followers. I have no doubt that the people around me who love Christ do so indeed, but I see many of those people not living as fully as they could for Him, myself included. It's my desire to see people who love Jesus do more than just go to church on Sunday and get their dose of Him for the week. I want to see people truly put to work what Jesus has taught us. Yet, this is a struggle for many of us.

I struggle with dying to myself. I know a lot of people do, and most people on Earth when asked wouldn't think of themselves as selfish. I do. I think that as humans, many if not all of us are selfish in different ways. I'm selfish with my money, and buying things for myself. I'm getting better about it, and am trying only to buy something when I need to. I get scared sometimes when I think of the future, not knowing what it holds. That's why I have faith, and faith is the reason I should be living completely for God. 

I'm tired of hearing people say how much they love God, and the next day they go out and buy themselves a brand new Corvette. I know that's probably exaggerating, but I hope you get the picture. Imagine how it would be if we only bought what we needed. Sure, we could buy some things for entertainment, because as followers of God, we need to be happy on Earth so that we may do even more good for Him, but we shouldn't over do it. The money we spend on luxuries could go to so many better places. As consumers in American society, we are socialized into thinking that spending money on ourselves is a good thing. On top of this, we are also socialized to believe in the pursuit of the American dream. Even my mother, a State Senator, would fully support me if I said to her, "Mom, I'm going to pursue the American dream." This shows that our generation of believers can be so much more than generations before us; and actually do the work of Christ instead of pursuing this so called American dream. The American dream is not the answer for how to live our lives. Following Jesus, and putting to work His word. That is the answer.

Major Decisions

Well, I'm once again pondering the idea of what I'm going to do for my major. As it is right now, it is between Sociology or a 5 year masters in Regional and Community planning. Both sound really good to me; Sociology would be great because it would give me a good prerequisite for a masters in Community Development. Regional and Community planning would also be good because I would graduate with a masters degree. I see myself really going into Community Development, so I'm leaning towards Sociology at the moment, but I'm not completely positive on what the best major for me would be. I just thought I'd throw that out there and hopefully get some feedback from you guys.

Robbie got a blog?

Hello Sirs and Ladies,

This is my first attempt at a blog, we'll see where it all goes... hopefully this will be something where we can all share with each other the joys and struggles of life, and how we can better apply our lives under Christ so that all of the glory goes to His kingdom.

Much Love,

Robbie