I invited a friend of mine and my family, Dr. Michael Newheart (formerly Willett) to come to the church on Sunday to give a guest lecture during Sunday school, and he did an outstanding job. Coming from the viewpoint of a New Testament professor, a member of the Religious Society of Friends, and former Baptist he presented a unique perspective on Christian pacifism. His presentation was thought-provoking and those present actively engaged in constructive discussion afterward.

The question that continued to arise in the discussion (and a question that I’m sure is regularly directed to pacifists) raised the notion of realism vs. idealism: realistically, would you (a pacifist) withhold from violent self-defense even if your family was at risk? Should violent conflict be avoided even when dealing with events analogous to the rise of Hitler, the implementation of the Holocaust, the attack on Pearl Harbor, or the terrorism witnessed on September 11, 2001? Et cetera. In other words: are there any circumstances in which violence is permissible for a pacifist, and if not, how could a nation, community, or individual living in a hostile context function reasonably?

Good questions, no doubt. And Dr. Newheart grounded them effectively–providing answers with references to the perpetuating spiral of violence, along with the Christian responsibility (as outlined by the Sermon on the Mount) to absolute humility, self-sacrifice, and peace.

As I reflected on the discussion, I realized that I agreed wholly with his interpretation of scripture: one cannot reconcile violence with the teachings of Christ, namely in the Sermon of the Mount. From my view, this is a settled matter—Christ was a sold out advocate of peace and nonviolence, even in the face of hostile aggression, and if one wants to fully emulate Jesus today he or she can never consider violence as an option in addressing conflict of any sort.

Thus the question in my mind is not “Does Christ insert pacifism into the Christian ethic?” but rather “Is the Christian ethic as outlined by Christ an idealistic and unrealistic standard?”

The truth is, I would love to be a pacifist—I think any morally grounded person would want to join me. But I left the lecture deeply saddened by the thought that perhaps it is simply our human nature that prevents the ideals of pacifism—world peace, equality, cooperation, justice—from moving out of the ideal world into the real world.

Yes, there’s nothing I’d love more than for us all to be pacifists, and perhaps I am one at heart, but the world around me keeps me from turning such conviction into complete practice.

Nonetheless, I am wholly convinced that the values held by Dr. Newheart and the Religious Society of Friends are essential for a more just and peaceful world. Christians on the whole need to follow the lead of Quakers in speaking out against any act of violence that is not absolutely warranted and used as only a last resort; in placing the environment at the forefront of our attention, insuring that peace is not only advocated throughout society, but throughout creation as a whole; in taking our witness and energies outside the sphere of religious agendas and into the realm of social struggles and injustice.

I was truly enriched by the testimony of Dr. Newheart and I hope that people like him will continue to influence the American Christian practice.

Here is a guest viewpoint piece that is exceedingly relevant in the political world. Dorrien is a professor at Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan and this piece is taken from The Christian Century.

Health Care Fix: The role of a public option
by Gary Dorrien
The Christian Century Foundation, 2009

LONGTIME advocates of single-payer insurance like me are thrilled, anxious and deflated simultaneously by the state of the debate on health-care reform. The debate that we wanted has finally come, and it is coming with a legislative rush, but the plan that we wanted is being excluded from consideration. Should we hold out for the real thing, or get behind the best politically possible thing?

I am for doing both: Standing up for single-payer without holding out for it exclusively; supporting a public option without denying its limitations; and hoping that a good public plan will lead eventually to real national health insurance.

Single-payer basically means Medicare for everyone, without the copays and deductibles of the current Medicare system. It is not socialized medicine, as in England or Spain, where doctors and hospitals work for the government. It does not violate the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment, which bars the government from taking private property for public use without appropriate compensation, since it does not nationalize any private firms. The single-payer plan is a system of socialized health insurance similar to that of Canada, Australia and most European nations. Essentially it is an extension and improvement of the Medicare system, in which government pays for care that is managed and delivered in the private sector.

We don’t need private health insurance companies. We certainly don’t need a system that wastes $450 billion per year in redundant administrative costs and leaves 45 million Americans without health coverage. We could do without a system that excludes people with preexisting medical conditions and limited economic resources. We don’t need a system that cherry picks profitable clients and dumps the unprofitably ill in HMOs featuring lousy care and little choice. Businesses and other employers would do much better not having to provide health coverage for their employees, who often end up underinsured. We could do better than a system that ties people fearfully to jobs they want to leave but can’t afford to lose because they might lose their health coverage.

Health care is a fundamental human right that should be available to all people regardless of their economic resources. A society that takes seriously this elementary principle of social justice does not relegate the poor and underemployed to second-class care or status. The only Western democratic society that doesn’t even try to live up to this principle is the United States. When wealthy and middle-class people have to rely on the same health system as the poor, as they do throughout Europe, they use their political power to make sure it’s a decent system.

But single-payer deliverance is not on the agenda for President Obama and this Congress. The insurance companies are too powerful and politically aggressive to be retired in one legislative stroke. The House bill that calls for replacing for-profit insurance companies has only 79 cosponsors, and the Senate bill has only one–Bernie Sanders.

Obama rightly urges that significant health-care reform has to happen this year if it is to happen on his watch. In May he told a town hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, that if one were starting from scratch, a single-payer system might be the best option. However, he observed, “the only problem is that we’re not starting from scratch.” The system that we have comprises 14 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Reinventing something that big and politically connected has no chance of happening this year.

The best we can hope for this year is a public Medicare-like option that competes with private plans. This reform would save only 15 percent of the $350 billion insurance overhead costs that converting to single-payer would achieve. Most versions currently being touted would not get everyone covered, though Obama suggested recently that he might be open to changing his position on requiring all Americans to have health coverage. In any case, even the better proposals along this line, like the one that Senator Ted Kennedy has championed for years, would not get us close to equality in health care. But a strong reform bill would offer an important alternative to private health insurance that might pave the way to real national health insurance.

The insurance companies are gearing up to prevent a public plan because they don’t want to compete with one. The American Medical Association doesn’t want one either–which preserves its bad-smelling record in this area. The AMA was against Medicare, it has opposed every previous proposal for universal coverage, and today it is against providing a public option even for people lacking the economic means or opportunity to buy health insurance.

Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is almost right in contending that the crucial either/or of the battle over health care is whether reform delivers a public option. But Krugman’s point needs to be put more precisely. The acid test is not whether reform delivers a public plan, but whether it delivers a good one. A good public plan would be open to all individuals and employers that want to join. It would allow members to choose their own doctors. It would eliminate high deductibles. It would allow members to negotiate reimbursement rates and drug prices. The government would run it. And it would be backed up by tough cost controls and a requirement that all Americans have health coverage.

A bad public plan, however, would be worse than getting nothing. A plan that isn’t open to everyone or that prevents choice or negotiation would be a plan designed to fail. It would take the pressure off private companies to do something about the uninsured and underinsured without solving the problem. It would be like Medicaid–poorly funded and managed because its beneficiaries lack political power. The failure of a designed-for-failure plan would kill the cause of real national health insurance for another 16 years. Some insurance industry leaders, having figured this out, are ready to indulge a bad plan. The political task for health-care reformers is to create and push through a public plan worth having.

In this phase of the debate, political and industry opposition to health-care reform is mostly warning that a public option means socialized medicine. A fair amount of time has to be spent repeating over and over that single-payer is not socialized medicine, and a public option among private competitors is even farther from it. But we are approaching the point where opponents of health-care reform will start to stress the opposite concern. Their concern is not that a government program won’t work. The real worry, for all who want to keep the present system, is that a government program will work too well.

Overwhelming majorities in blue and red states alike would love to dump their policies containing high deductibles and health exclusions. A public plan could be a magnet for health-care workers that got into this business to serve human needs, not to be cogs in a profit machine. If that happens, opponents will have been right about one important point. Mere reform could lead to the real thing, a single-payer system where substantial savings and equality are achievable. Medicare’s average overhead cost is 3 percent, and provincial single-payer plans in Canada average 1 percent. HMOs range between 15 and 25 percent. If we create a public plan that people want to join, we may well go the rest of the way too.

The other day I spent the afternoon with a friend who led me through part of Arlington Cemetery. My friend is a widow who lost her husband, a veteran, ten years ago and she has since dedicated time to making weekly cemetery visits to comfort visitors enduring fresh pain and grief from losing a loved one in the current wars overseas.

The fallen men and women of the ongoing conflicts sent to Arlington to be entombed are buried in Section 60, which is where my friend spends almost all her time as a special comforter, minister, and friend.

I won’t write long about the experience itself, simply because my words cannot give any justice to such a place and atmosphere.

I had been to cemeteries before—even Arlington Cemetery. I had been to funerals—my dad has preached hundreds in my lifetime. I am not a particularly emotional person, although I have been outraged with both the handling of the current wars overseas and the mentality that makes war anything but an absolutely last resort.

But I had never been to Section 60. I had never seen with my own eyes the faces stricken with the sudden vacancy of fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers.  I had never seen a person weeping while embracing a shimmering white tombstone.

I followed my friend in silence as she pointed out the individual fallen with whom she has a personal connections through their families. She told stories and for a brief moment brought them to life again.

After walking for awhile she turned to me and asked if I’d like to have a private moment of reflection. I was taken by surprise, but replied with a hesitant yes. She walked ahead, leaving me alone.

I didn’t know what to do.

I turned to the nearest grave, knelt down, and read the two dates in the inscription: 1986-2005, it said.

My God, I thought, a full year younger than me.

In the moment to follow I didn’t pray. I didn’t reflect. I didn’t recite anything. I couldn’t keep the thought from pounding through my head: “A whole year younger than me.” It throbbed in my head over and over.

Truly, how great is such a loss? Can we even know? Decades of so many lives—so much potential, so much promise. And for each fallen man and woman there will forever remain a great emptiness reminding us what might have been created and accomplished in the thrust of that life. But now it’s only a shadow—only speculation constructed upon cherished memories that seem to fade each day.

I believe I left Arlington changed in some way.

Remember this when you think about the wars—remember the result that is only seen in the lives of those surviving the losses—because a casualty of battle is infinitely more than the statistic we make it. And before we take up the battle flag and chant the fight song of patriotism, let’s remember those faint shadows of lost promise and ask ourselves whether the gain is worth the cost.

Today I’m starting to overcome some sickness that’s been lingering in my sinuses and throat the past several days. It’s a liberating feeling to finally get over the fatigue and frustration that comes with being ill—especially being away from home.

Last year I had a friend who I worked with in the ministry organization at school. During the week-to-week functions of the ministry leadership team, there was one point when my friend made a poor choice—and he was confronted and faced the consequences of his action. Unfortunately, I was given the responsibility of confronting him.

And after the ordeal had passed our friendship became tense. Some might even say we stopped being friends. The awful tension set in over us like an illness.

Time went by and we learned to ignore the awkwardness–the secret, built-up frustration—and just went on with our regular routine as if there was nothing wrong. But there was.

As I look back on the experience, we were clearly at a crossroads: we had endured an unfortunate situation and we both had a right to be angry at the other. The easy, more common path was to simply let the nagging grudge fester within us, yielding to our egos and smugness, and be satisfied with a continued unwillingness to back down from our pride. On the other hand, the path less traveled is to be vulnerable—to apologize, to seek forgiveness, to eradicate the infection of pride and be friends again.

I must say that we both hesitated at this crossroad—it has been a slow time coming. But this summer, because of his initiative, we have walked the road of reconciliation and the renewing of our friendship has been a process of spiritual healing. It’s not to say that we agree on everything—including our past circumstances—or that we’ll never have anymore problems, but we do agree that to write off a friendship to the whims of the ego is simply selfish.

It feels good to have a friend back.

Perhaps the predicament we faced at that crossroad—the choice between pride or selflessness—is fundamental to our responsibility as Christians and citizens of the world. Christ’s call is a call to recognize, engage, and nurture the community around us; hence the adversary to the Christian life consists at its base of self-centeredness, pride, and apathy.

While the choice of self-centeredness only sickens ones spirit, the choice to serve a cause greater than self revitalizes the spirit and brings new life.

As I sit here writing, I am inhaling deep breaths of air into my lungs—I have a much greater appreciation for these breaths now that the frustrating experience of illness is still fresh in my memory. It feels good to breathe easy again. It feels good to have energy. It feels good to be healed.

I run most evenings here in Washington. I haven’t exercised with much regularity since high school, so anytime I’ve gone for a run, played pickup basketball, or roughed it in tackle football over the last couple years I’ve felt it—running around isn’t quite as easy as it used to be.

But nonetheless, I’ve been running his summer. And I’ve noticed that after this extended period of college-inactivity it takes longer to stretch before the run and longer to lose the soreness after the run. It never used to make me tired, but now it does. Of course, I’m absolutely sure that I will receive no sympathy as a twenty year old, but I don’t care: I can’t help thinking about the days when I played baseball, football, basketball, and track all at the same time. It was easier then.

Last night I ran over to the National Cathedral, which should say something about the motivation I require to exercise—the sunset view of the Cathedral against a background of pink and blue sky is breathtaking (especially when running). I had devoured a big dinner several hours earlier and so the run was a little on the inside. Plus, I hadn’t slept much the night before so my muscles felt tight and achy. I endured the discomfort for a couple miles, reached the Cathedral, admired the scenery, and started the second leg of the journey home.

But somewhere along the way—I wasn’t far from the house—I just felt better. My muscles finally loosened and dinner had stopped sloshing around in my stomach (thank God). I breathed easier and quickened my pace.

About that time I turned the final corner toward my destination—the last straightaway, several blocks long. At that moment, the song ringing from my iPod through my ears hit the chorus at full volume:

Someday girl, I don’t know when, we’re gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun,
But till then, tramps like us, baby we were born to run.

And a funny thing happened: I looked up at the sky, closed my eyes, and for that moment was 14 years old, holding a football, dashing around the right end, out-sprinting the safety to the sideline, and moving my legs as fast as they could go all the way to the end zone. I’m serious, I did.

As a college student I’m excited about the possibilities that the future holds—the things I will do, places I will go, and people I will meet. I really am.

But as long as I live I will never forget nor disregard the satisfaction of running so freely, so effortlessly, so naturally as a fourteen year old kid. And for a moment last night, to totally disregard my age, to ignore the onlookers, to forget a couple years of exerciselessness, and to just run was almost as freeing as I remember.

As life goes on I hope I’m never too scared to throw off the reigns.

The following Monday article is taken from the Associated Baptist Press in its coverage of the triennial meeting of the Episcopal Church last week. The discussion references some significant theological questions, especially  for Protestant evangelicals. I am sure that there will be Christians from both sides of the argument reading this, and I’d be interested to hear your thoughts about the implications of labeling a notion so fundamental to evengelical Christianity as “heresy.”  

Episcopal presiding bishop terms individualistic salvation as “heresy”
by Bob Allen

 ANAHEIM, Calif. (ABP) — The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church called the evangelical notion that individuals can be right with God a “great Western heresy” that is behind many problems facing the church and the wider society.

 Describing a United States church in crisis, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told delegates to the group’s triennial meeting July 8 in Anaheim, Calif., that the overarching connection to problems facing Episcopalians has to do with “the great Western heresy — that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”

 ”It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus,” Jefferts Schori, the first woman to be elected as a primate in the worldwide Anglican Communion three years ago, said. “That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being.” 

 Jefferts Schori said countering individualistic faith was one reason the theme chosen for the meeting was “Ubuntu,” an African word that describes humaneness, caring, sharing and being in harmony with all of creation.

 ”Ubuntu doesn’t have any ‘I’s in it,” she said. “The ‘I’ only emerges as we connect — and that is really what the word means: I am because we are, and I can only become a whole person in relationship with others. There is no ‘I’ without ‘you,’ and in our context, you and I are known only as we reflect the image of the One who created us.”

 Jefferts Schori said “heretical and individualistic understanding” contributes to problems like neglect for the environment and the current worldwide economic recession.

 ”The sins of a few have wreaked havoc with the lives of many, as greed and dishonesty have destroyed livelihoods, educational possibilities, care for the aged, and multiple forms of creativity,” she said. “And that’s just the aftermath of Ponzi schemes for which a handful will go to jail.”

 She said in order to be faithful, “we need to be continually rediscovering that my needs are not the only significant ones.”

 ”Ubuntu implies that selfishness and self-centeredness cannot long survive,” she said. “We are our siblings’ knowers and their keepers, and we cannot be known without them.”

 ”We have no meaning, no true existence in isolation,” she said. “We shall indeed die as we forget or ignore that reality.”

About 200 Episcopal bishops and 850 clergy and lay deputies were expected to convene for the 10-day meeting. Business items are set to include debates over human sexuality, politics and poverty.

I’ve been slow to write this week because I’m pulling double duty at the office, filling in for the administrative assistant, Jean, while she is away on vacation. Jean is phenomenal at what she does—she is the world’s most prepared worker and can coordinate more details than are contained in the average human genome. So naturally, there’s a good possibility that while I’m stepping in for her two things could happen: (1) I will get fired (2) the church operation will come to a screeching halt.

The past several weeks I’ve been in contact with a number of seminary professors, one of which comes to teach adult Church School each Sunday morning. My job is simply to coordinate their visits and lectures.

I spent the week advertising the lecture for this Sunday’s guest professor, who has a senior position at a seminary nearby and has studied around the world. By the end of the week I had gotten the word out in the bulletin, newsletter, website, and Facebook. Moreover, I contacted the professor one last time to confirm all details. Job well done, I thought.

But alas on Friday morning I receive a subtle reply: “I’m sorry, there must be an misunderstanding. Based on our previous correspondence I took the speaking engagement to be cancelled. Have a nice day.”

I frantically looked back at our “previous correspondence.” A couple weeks before I had asked the scholar to switch Sunday mornings with another professor (at the request of the latter), and he replied with a polite “no thanks.” Although I thought I was clear that he did NOT have to switch—that he would be welcome to teach on whichever Sunday he chose—apparently I was not.

He read the email differently, cancelled, and made other plans.

I am constantly struck by the importance of perspective, of interpretation. We interpret every one of our encounters, conversations, and readings, and these interpretations are sculpted by our own stories and experiences. Our backgrounds, upbringings, roles, interests, families, and goals have a profound impact on how we absorb and understand the world around us.

The essential step toward empathy—toward the Golden Rule—is to recognize that all people do not come from the same starting line. So many love to argue that all people can be characterized in the same way and that the needs and desires of one peoples are identical for all peoples. There is a natural tendency for us to look in the mirror and assume that everyone should look the same. There’s perhaps a more natural tendency to look in the mirror and assume that everyone actually is the same.

But who are we kidding? Undoubtedly we all have similar physical and emotional needs; but to suggest that we all start from the same Point A and need/want to progress to the same Point B in the same way is only a hindrance to the unity and cooperation needed to navigate a society of growth, peace, and understanding.

As frustrating as our plurality of perspectives can be (trust me, I read our “previous correspondence” about 6 times), I hope we take heed to song that rings “we’re one, but we’re not the same.” Particularly as Christians: instead of spending time in our pews embracing ourselves, may we have the courage to embrace the differences of others, empathize with those from diverse walks, and learn from foreign experiences.

Strangely, many of our faiths seem opposed to the idea. I would suggest that our faith depends on it.

“We would rather be ruined than changed; we would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die”    –W.H. Auden

“The path of least resistance is the path of the loser”    –H. G. Wells

The other day I visited Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, with a friend. It’s one of my favorite places in the Washington area, mostly because of its beautiful scenery of rich green trees, rolling hills, and the blue waters of the Potomac.

On the way home, just north of Mount Vernon we stopped at the historic town of Alexandria, which sits directly on the waterfront across the river from Washington. I was mesmerized by the sailboats.

As we stood on a dock gazing at the beautiful boats and gentle water, my friend asked me an intriguing question: “If money, time, and prior commitments could be disregarded, what would your adventure be?”

As I stared at the tall masts and white sails I answered without thinking: “I would take a big sailboat and sail to the Mediterranean and visit Greece, Italy, Sicily, and any other countries I could reach.” I stood there daydreaming.

What intrigued me that evening was the image of simply leaving the shore behind and sailing away. It’s right there: take what and who you need, get in the boat, float down the Potomac, find the Chesapeake, and the destinations are limitless. It’s crazy, I know.

Perhaps its absurdity is why it’s so intriguing. In “real life” when do we ever truly let go of all inhibitions, all rationale, all expectations and allow ourselves to sail into the free waters? If we did, what would we find? What do we fear?

As I graduate college next summer, I will encounter one of the rare crossroads in life when I will make a few critical choices that will set my trajectory for years to comes—choices to head for faraway land or remain close to home country; to find the unseen or focus on the familiar; to stay close to the shores or venture out to meet the waves and see the stars.

The saddest sight is a person, especially one later in life, who isn’t content on their shore and can’t seem to find a sailboat—or at least can’t find the nerve to start rowing. As naïve as it sounds, I like to believe that no matter the challenges life brings, no matter the social expectations, no matter what people think, no matter the status quo, no matter your age—if you keep searching through your frustrations and discontent there will always be a sailboat waiting for you on the shore. Maybe we all have one—it’s just sitting there, waiting for us to defy expectations, change the game, throw a curve ball, break tradition, and find unknown fulfillment.

It seems ridiculous, I know. And it is.

But what’s more ridiculous is a person with one shot at life settling for discontentment, normalcy, and dreamlessness when there is so much to experience in life.

Trust me, I saw the boats floating peacefully by the Potomac shore—they’re waiting for us.

Now that I’ve returned to Washington from the youth service trip and finished a busy holiday weekend, I am settled back into my regular routine. The summer is flying, and I hope everyone is having a great one! The following is actually the guest post for this Monday, taken from the satirical Christian news website www.larknews.com. This news article, like others from the site, is clearly fictional and intended to get laughs. However, subtle warnings to many Protestant church-goers also surface throughout the humorous stories, which are worth pondering. Have a look and leave your thoughts.

____________________________________________________

Kidney donor cries foul when recipient ditches Christianity
from www.LarkNews.com

TUPELO — Aleta Smith, who donated her kidney to a 20-year-old college student last year, wants it back now that the student has changed religions.

Smith, a self-described “on-fire Christian,” gave her kidney to Hannah Felks, a Lutheran and regular Christian camp counselor, last year after seeing Felks on the local news.

“She was going to die unless she got a kidney,” Smith says, sitting on the porch at her home. “They portrayed her as this nice Christian girl who works with kids. I saw it as a great opportunity to help a sister in the Lord.”

The surgery grabbed headlines and Smith was lauded for her selflessness. But shortly after the surgery, Felks embarked on a “spiritual journey” to try out other religions, and settled on a blend of Pagan and Hindu beliefs.

“I wanted to get away from the belief system I was raised in and find the truth for myself,” she says. She took a semester off to travel the world visiting spiritualists on three continents.

Smith was aghast when she heard of the conversion, and she quickly wrote a letter asking Felks to re-convert to Christianity or return the organ, saying it was donated under false pretenses.

“I feel helpless,” she says. “Part of my body, my DNA, is stuck inside a person who’s going to hell.”

Smith suffers nightmares of her former organ filtering “strange Asian teas, pig blood and witch doctor brews in Africa,” she says. She wonders if the Lord really wanted her to donate the kidney, or if she acted on a “triple-espresso high” she had that morning. She is also concerned that when her body is resurrected, it might be incomplete.

Felks frets that Smith is an “Indian giver,” and says religious affiliation was never an issue.

“The kidney’s working fine,” Felks said by phone from Thailand. “I feel bad for Aleta. She did something wonderful for me, but that doesn’t mean she gets to control my life.”

In the meantime, Smith has alerted several dozen prayer chains, and her women’s Bible study group is praying 12 hours a day for the re-conversion of Felks — and Smith’s former kidney.

“I’m all for spiritual curiosity,” she says, “but you’ve got to settle these things beforehand. My kidney belongs to Christ. It will never be Pagan.”

I have spent this week chaperoning adolescents at a church camp. Considering how recently I was in their shoes, you would think that such a job would be easy and fun for a college guy. You would think. Actually, I have determined that I would make a terrible youth pastor or volunteer—I say that not in pity for myself, but rather in pity for the kids.

I am still at the stage I my life where I am running away from some of my still-fresh adolescent qualities and experiences. I currently see myself in a transition mode as a twenty year-old: from the teen years to the young adult years. And if I am honest with myself, I’ve been welcoming that change for a long time. I’m still irked as I look back on my high school habits, points of view, mannerisms, social interactions, and opinions. Although I know that many of these irksome parts of High School Sam still linger and, moreover, I will say the same thing about College Sam five years from now,  I still find myself in a constant state of escape as I try to move forward into adulthood.

So to be immersed back into high-schoolness for seven days was no easy task. But as the week concludes along with personal reflection on my own high school days, I would like to write a brief letter that I wish I had read five years ago as a freshman in high school.

Dear High School Sam,

Here is some advice, although you probably won’t listen to it since you’re 15 years-old. However, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Here are some suggestions as you wade through the next four years of Life.

Here are two remarkably important decisions that you will make probably without realizing it. First, decide whether you’re going to live the next four years building your identity around the expectations of others, or whether you’ll spend these years searching for your identity in the depths of your heart, talents, passions, and dreams. Choose the latter.

Second, decide ever so carefully the people you will surround yourself with—your closest friends from school, church, teams, or organizations. These people will have the greatest outside impact on who you become in the coming years. Choose wisely.

A couple other tidbits:

• If you’re always following rules, then you’re doing something wrong.
• Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
• The single most dangerous fear to be overcome is the fear to make mistakes. Live freely.
• Adults are more impressed by kids that admit that they have much to learn than by the kids who pretend to be know-it-alls.
• Most of the time you should listen to advice and criticism from adults, especially those you respect most. But every once in awhile you have to say to hell with them—if for no other reason, to learn the hard way.
• Yes we know, most of the stuff you learn in high school you don’t actually need, you can stop saying it for the millionth time. That’s not the point. The point is to make your mind fully functioning, because right now it’s not.
• Never ever disregard the power of imagination.
• It’s almost always a mistake to get romantically involved with anyone in high school. However, it’s a mistake you should make. Just learn from it and try not to mess up too bad.
• Be constantly aware of your place in the world—your ability to destroy along with your ability to build. May you live to make the world a better place, and beware of those temptations to humiliate, disregard, or tear down others.
• And one last thing: try to give Mom a break every once in awhile—it might lengthen your life expectancy.

Love,

College Sam