ESTEBAN!!!

I have been blogging on this thing for awhile now I guess, and I realized how little I talked about anything substantial. I am completely okay with spending a great deal of time musing about the random stuff that goes on in my life, but maybe tonight I'll do something a little different.

So I like really like Jesus, in case you didn't know that. I have considered myself a Christian for about two and a half, almost three years now. During this time I have grown and changed dramatically. A lot of the more dramatic change happened when I went to the hippie haven known as Evergreen. I guess Evergreen changes everyone because that book (50 colleges that change lives) said it does. I mean, I never read the book, but I'm sure it has legitimate points.

Well anyways, a lot of my values and beliefs have changed also. Some things that I have consistently believed for a long time I still hold true, like that we all should strive for gender equality, you shouldn't eat animals, sexuality is more complex than gay and straight and should be celebrated, not discouraged, punk rock music is going to change the world, money is the route to all evil and the government is corrupt and should not be trusted. When I first started investigating what it meant to be a Christian I was very skeptical of the entire religion and assumed my beliefs could never align with Christians beliefs. The unfortunate truth is I would go to church and I was right, to me it seemed that Christians hated women, gay people, brown people, poor people, and people who didn't subscribe to their beliefs. For some reason I continued to seek out the reason people seemed so into this concept of God. When I was a junior in high school I ended up at a place called the Net, it was a youth group hosted by the Edmonds Lynnwood Parish. I could write pages about how this place impacted me and how my faith journey begun in this community (and one day I do plan on writing all this down, but today is not that day). But if we all want to fast forward to present time, I am a Christian and I still have most of my same values, but many are refined and more legitimate.

It is hard dealing with labels because most everything has some sort of stigma attached. I think sometimes people will hear a certain word and stop listening to any sort of explanation. They make up their mind based off these societal stigmas. So now with that said, I most closely identify as an Anarchist. It all boils down to living the cliche, "Be the change you want to see." I don't like democracy or republics. I don't like capitalism, socialism, or communism. I think any government with a monetary system, or any means to measure wealth, will be inherently corrupt. I feel it is my responsibility as a Christian to care about the poor and not support systems that are racist, sexist, or homophobic. Jesus calls us to love each other as He loves us. How can I love my neighbors and not actively care about them?

Surprisingly their is a pretty big anarchist Christian movement. As a Christian, I obviously think of anarchy differently than someone who hates the concept of religion and a monotheistic God. I think that only God and God alone can rule over us. Everyone else will be corrupt and will systematically oppress anyone they need to get power. Another big difference between myself and many other Anarchists is that I don't think global anarchy will work (or maybe all anarchists think this, I don't know). I guess I feel called to put up with the system, but attempt to remove myself as far from it as possible. I am obviously not changing the government anytime soon, but why wait to change myself? Instead starting some violent uprising (I don't like nor support the idea of using violence to fight violence) I will revolt against the government with by revolting against my culture. I obviously haven't figured out what this will look like, and I am obviously not doing a good job of living these ideals either. I guess in the future I would like to be working for a non profit, socially aware company. Or I would just like to be doing film freelance. I would also like to develop a way to live without paying (much) rent. Other things also, like buying locally grown food and not having lots of things.

I didn't write this necessarily to start some debate or be ridiculed for what I believe. I just wanted to put that out their. For a couple reasons. I want to actually be living this way more than I have in the past. Also, I want to be living more consciously for God. There are times in my life where I feel really close with God, and there are other times where I feel a great deal of distance. I am currently feeling very distant from God, and I want to reconcile this by trying to reduce the sin in my life and just be a better person. I want to be the change I want to see. A couple ways I have started this, is I am trying to be more healthy. I am eating less unhealthy food (or trying) and working out. I am also trying to be a nicer person to people. This proves difficult in my job a lot. Updates, when I have something more impressive to share.

Now I kind of feeling like I am rambling. It is like 3:30 in the morning. I started writing this at like 1:30. Nathan called me and we talked for like an hour and half. It was very nice. I feel like Nathan is one of the few people I can talk to on the phone for a ridiculous amount of time and talk about absolutely nothing. We must have spent at least 40 minutes discussing my plans to start an opium drug ring on campus and my plans to move to Anacortes, WA and be in a Mexican gang.

Damn you ESTEBAN!!!

Anyways! I am going to go to bed.