Filed under: Written by Ryan
Hello, my name is Ryan and this is the beginning of The Blog. I hope it will be a good blog. It has the novelty of being written by two people. Two old friends who grew up a block away from each other, who attended the same schools, had the same teachers and yet whose ideologies couldn’t be more different. Nick is truly the Yin to my Yang, the Christian to my Agnostic, the Peanut Butter to my Jelly.
If you’re looking for the safe, solitary, mental masturbation of a solo blogger I suggest you take your business elsewhere. Here we peddle the unnatural, sloppy, social intercourse that only 2 bloggers at once can have. Never before have the boundaries of blogging been pushed so far. Never before have metaphors been stretched so thin.
You should know that I haven’t read what Nick has written just as he won’t read what I do until we post. This may change down the road, but for now I think we’ll do follow up posts if we want to address each others directly.
For this first blog, Nick suggested that we begin by introducing ourselves, laying out who we are, what we believe and why.
Without further ado, I am 24 years old and grew up the youngest of 3 children to a middle class suburban family. There is a large age gap between my self and my siblings so I also have the traits of an only child. I have a fantastic loner complex.
Growing up I didn’t have any interest in politics or world events. Everything was perfect and safe from my neighborhood abode and the turmoil of the world seemed very far way, indeed. I credit my girlfriend in high school with showing me the importance of having an opinion, being informed and standing up for what you believe.
I consider myself to be a moral person and a Humanist. I try to do right where right without any hope of reward or fear of punishment. While my beliefs have been more refined over the years I can’t think of any one event that solidified it all for me. At my most basic, I have always been this way and felt the way I do about the world.
About a year ago, my mother told me a story about going to a parent/teacher conference \when I was in Kindergarten. Play time back then consisted of diving into a box of animal toys. Everyone wanted to be The Lion. Each day, fights would ensue over who got to be him. My teacher told my mother that I was the mediator, trying to make sure everyone got along. I even came up with a system for who got The Lion on which day. I remember this system. I also remember one conniving little diaper rash who always lied about what day was his. But I honestly don’t remember creating this system. Still, I can’t think of a better story to tell you about who I am.
Well, I if you’re not hooked by now, I can only assure you that the best is yet to come and platitudes are comforting. To all of you blog enthusiasts out there; don’t be shy with comments, criticisms or suggestions. If there is anything you’d like to see discussed on here, by all means let us know. There are over 277,000 other blogs on wordpress. Something might not get said.
Again, this is our blog. Welcome to it.
Filed under: Writen by Nick
Welcome to our new blog, I just wanted to start out by telling you a little about myself:
I grew up in a Christian home going to church on a semi-consistent basis, the thing I remember the most about my younger years in church was falling asleep. I believed in God but it didn’t really interest me that much, I couldn’t see him so I never thought too much about him.
Then one day my mom brought home a movie, it was one of those old cheesy religious movies made on zero budget, called “A Thief in the Night”. I must have been around nine or ten because looking back at the movie it was terrible, but at the time I was terrified. The fear of not going to heaven became real to me for the first time. I began to cry, full out tears. I was so terrified about never seeing my family again after I died. My mom brought me into the other room and sat down with me, I told her every thing I was thinking, all my fears. She began to explain that I don’t need to be afraid, there is a way that I could know for sure that I will go to heaven. She began to tell me about how God knew we would never be good enough to get ourselves into heaven so he sent his son to die for our sins, in our place. It was a gift; all I had to do was accept it.
I know what you are probably thinking, “Nick, you were at most ten years old, how could you fully understand that?” and honestly I probably didn’t. But I never forgot that night and that conversation, and now it has fully reshaped my life. It has shaped the way I think, the way I act, and the way I live.
As I got into high school I started getting more serious about my relationship with God, but I also started realizing how intolerant people are of Christianity. If you say you are a Christian, people will start calling you a bible-thumper or other names. The teachers would even join in on the intolerance, hiding behind the lie of separation of church and state. In Biology they would tell you Christianity was a “pseudo-science”, but evolution was gospel. It was this, though, that made my faith stronger.
It was also in high school that I met Evan Smith, a great man who took me under his wing and showed me how to truly live for Christ. I was in a weekly Bible study with him and several other students; we would get together and talk about God and whatever else was on our minds. Evan encouraged me to do more in ministry; I never thought I could do that. He had me start to lead lessons and various things like that, I loved it, but I still doubted myself. Since that time I have grown a lot, spiritually. My wife and I are now the outreach team leaders at our church, and I am training for Eldership at my church. I still doubt myself sometimes.
This has been a brief history of my spiritual walk. My political walk is significantly easier to explain. I am a Christian, and because a lot of those beliefs coincide with conservative beliefs, I am a conservative.
