Life Happens

 "We're at the end of the universe and you're standing there blogging!"
- Doctor Who

I recently took this two-week break from social networks.  I logged out of my Facebook, I didn't pay attention to Twitter (unless you count the text messages I would get from Anderson Cooper), I didn't post a blog, and I just generally tried only to check my e-mail and do editorial work, then get offline.

It was wonderful.

Let me explain why it was wonderful.

Being away from things like Facebook and Twitter made me realize that life doesn't happen on the internet.  Life doesn't happen while you're half-heartedly Facebook chatting a friend you haven't actually seen in three months.  Life doesn't happen while you're listening to someone to see if they say something funny you can Tweet about. 

Life happens when you get out and actually live it.

I've been thinking about this concept of living life a lot lately.  I know it sounds really weird and kind of morbid, but sometimes I think we forget to live our lives.  We're like these zombies walking around, too busy staring at our social network applications on our phones to really pay attention to the people around us that are begging for our attention and love.

I was in my Benevolence lab a few days ago and we all got talking about this idea of Benevolence and social justice and how we need to join this fight.

As I was walking back to class, I had this thought of why are we so concerned about strikes and getting the Bad Guys and making them pay and fighting in wars?  This isn't love.  This is Religious Christianity at its worst.

And then I realized the simplest thing in the entire world, and yet it seemed to change everything for me. 

I love Jesus. And Jesus loves the world.  After all, He came to save it.  So I should love the world.
It was like I made this diagram in my head.  And everything seemed so simple and right.

If we were to focus on loving people the way Jesus loved them, then the other things would just fall into place.  If we loved people the way Jesus loved them, then we wouldn't want to go to war and kill each other because we would love each other.  If we loved people the way Jesus loved them, then we wouldn't have rapes or murders or drug deals gone sour or children being abused because we would all just be loving each other.

I know it sounds so simple and maybe a little silly, but I'm going to let this affect me like crazy.  I'm not going to worry about spending five hours a day feeding the homeless because I have to get service hours in.  I'm not going to worry about updating my Facebook status so that people will think I'm really cool.  I'm not going to worry about handing out tracks to people as they walk by.
I'm just going to love people as I go about my life loving Jesus.

The rest I figure will fall into place.