Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Creative venting!
Did you ever get really, really frustrated and have no idea what to do with it? Did you ever consider venting through your gift? I mean the Bible tells us not to sin in our anger and perhaps through our gifts we can turn that frustration into something positive. Case in point. If I hear one more political commercial I think I am going to explode. But there's two weeks to go and exploding can only be bad so I had to come up with something different.
Enter the Weird World of Weiss! The Weird World of Weiss is where I vent through my cartooning supplies. My hope is that it glorifies God and makes people think through this time.
Go to www.radicallyreal.com/amok/wwwap1.html to see for yourself.
How do you use your gifts to vent?
Crash Helmets
Monday morning, I was once again reminded how we as Christians are judged by a different standard than everyone around us. This incident reminded me of two stories, one fairly recent and the other from a long time ago. Both merge together to a common point so please stick with me.
I wasn't always a preacher, nor was I always a Christian. In my late teens and early twenties, I use to hang out on the corner of fourth and main in Bernville, PA at a place called the Cracker Shop. It was a place where a bunch of us kids would hang out, drink beer and work on our hot rods (okay I didn't have a hot rod, but they left me hang out there anyway.)
I remember her very well, she was blonde wore a plain dress and this white doily thing on her head. It's not for that reason I remember her though. Many girls used to go through Bernville PA wearing plain dresses with white doily things on their heads. No I remember for what and how she drove. She drove the sweetest Diamond flake blue 1972 Plymouth Barracuda (I can almost hear Tim Allen grunting). It was jacked up, had Trick Wheels and some of the widest tires I had ever seen. You knew she was coming a block away because this thing roared. She would pull up to the stop sign at the corner of fourth and main, see if anyone was looking and do the most vicious burnouts across the street. Even the most hardened of motorhead had to be impressed. One day after her little performance, one of my friends quipped, "that white doily thing on her head must be a crash helmet." It stuck.
A few years later, I met a nice Brethren girl, came to Christ, fell in love and got married. Somewhere in that process, she explained to me that it was neither a white doily thing nor a crash helmet but rather a prayer covering, a tradition I respect and admire, but somewhere, in the deep recesses of my mind, it will always be a crash helmet.
The other story is not nearly as amusing. My wife now works for a public school and spends a great deal of her time trying to be a good witness and sharing the love of Jesus with her coworkers in word and deed. One day a woman came barging into the office. She also wore the plain dress and the crash helmet, er um, prayer covering. She was homeschooling her children and needed to see someone about her children's education. She had no appointment and the person she needed to see was out of the office. Rather than be understanding and wait or schedule an appointment to come back she proceeded to launch into a tyrade and demand people help her that had no idea what she needed. By the time she left, the comments coming out of the staff made it clear, at least to my wife, that most of her witness had been negated by this woman's unfortunate behavior.
What do these two stories have in common. Very simple. If you're going to wear the uniform, you better be in the game. If you are going to wear clothes that tell everyone you're a Christian whether it's a plain dress or suit or a Christian T shirt, you can't have a bad day, you can't have a bad attitude, that stuff is your cross to bear, when you wear His name, you are His representative.
Just something to think about.
Dave Weiss
(0) comments
Monday morning, I was once again reminded how we as Christians are judged by a different standard than everyone around us. This incident reminded me of two stories, one fairly recent and the other from a long time ago. Both merge together to a common point so please stick with me.
I wasn't always a preacher, nor was I always a Christian. In my late teens and early twenties, I use to hang out on the corner of fourth and main in Bernville, PA at a place called the Cracker Shop. It was a place where a bunch of us kids would hang out, drink beer and work on our hot rods (okay I didn't have a hot rod, but they left me hang out there anyway.)
I remember her very well, she was blonde wore a plain dress and this white doily thing on her head. It's not for that reason I remember her though. Many girls used to go through Bernville PA wearing plain dresses with white doily things on their heads. No I remember for what and how she drove. She drove the sweetest Diamond flake blue 1972 Plymouth Barracuda (I can almost hear Tim Allen grunting). It was jacked up, had Trick Wheels and some of the widest tires I had ever seen. You knew she was coming a block away because this thing roared. She would pull up to the stop sign at the corner of fourth and main, see if anyone was looking and do the most vicious burnouts across the street. Even the most hardened of motorhead had to be impressed. One day after her little performance, one of my friends quipped, "that white doily thing on her head must be a crash helmet." It stuck.
A few years later, I met a nice Brethren girl, came to Christ, fell in love and got married. Somewhere in that process, she explained to me that it was neither a white doily thing nor a crash helmet but rather a prayer covering, a tradition I respect and admire, but somewhere, in the deep recesses of my mind, it will always be a crash helmet.
The other story is not nearly as amusing. My wife now works for a public school and spends a great deal of her time trying to be a good witness and sharing the love of Jesus with her coworkers in word and deed. One day a woman came barging into the office. She also wore the plain dress and the crash helmet, er um, prayer covering. She was homeschooling her children and needed to see someone about her children's education. She had no appointment and the person she needed to see was out of the office. Rather than be understanding and wait or schedule an appointment to come back she proceeded to launch into a tyrade and demand people help her that had no idea what she needed. By the time she left, the comments coming out of the staff made it clear, at least to my wife, that most of her witness had been negated by this woman's unfortunate behavior.
What do these two stories have in common. Very simple. If you're going to wear the uniform, you better be in the game. If you are going to wear clothes that tell everyone you're a Christian whether it's a plain dress or suit or a Christian T shirt, you can't have a bad day, you can't have a bad attitude, that stuff is your cross to bear, when you wear His name, you are His representative.
Just something to think about.
Dave Weiss
