While reading this post, it will help you understand my tone if when you see "stuff like this" you imagine I'm using a very sarcastic tone and doing the "finger-quotes" thing.
I'm a pretty non-violent person. In fact, a lot of people would probably even consider me a "wuss". I'm not completely sure that they are all wrong. If you really want to see the inner beast that normally lays comatose in some dark corner of my mind be released into the glaring sunlight, there a few things that will definitely awake him from his slumbering. You can call them "pet peeves", "annoyances", or even "things that will make Geron hit you". I have plenty, but today I'll mention two.
#1 the thing that annoys me most is gross mouth noises. Let me clarify: Gum chewing, loud food chewing, slurping, lip smacking, gum popping, etc. Last night in bible study a sweet and wonderful woman sitting next to me was thoroughly enjoying her chewing gum. The longer she chewed, the louder it got. My mind began racing as the sound got louder and I thought to myself, "Can't anyone else hear this?" Finally after about 30 minutes I turned to her and said, "If you don't stop smacking that gum I'm going to lose it!" She laughed and spit it out. This was a smart move on her part because the links in the chain holding the inner beast back were starting to weaken and give.
#2 People that go on and on about the great value of a "Christian Education", and if you don't have the "privilege" to go to a private school or university your pretty much worthless. I have heard all of the arguments. There's the "My university is great because all the teachers are Christians" argument, and the old "we don't want all those mean old atheist professors trying to brainwash our youngins", as if all the staff at Christians schools were "Christian" and all the staff at secular school were "pagan" . My favorite argument is the "I know it that it's four times as expensive, but excessive debt teaches young people a great life lesson". I went to a "Christian" school as a child and saw behavior that didn't match up with what they supposedly believed. I think it may have "scarred" me a little.
By the way, special thanks go out to the army of teachers that went through the school library with magic markers and drew "appropriate" clothing on all of the natives in the National Geographic magazines. It really helped my young and fragile mind.
No, I'm not kidding. It really happened.
4 comments:
Christian and secular schools both have benefits and downfalls. For instance, at C.U. I knew I could talk openly about Christ and not be made fun of or shot down. We even prayed at the beginning of my English class Freshman year--what a change from a public high school!! But the same pressures are there as well--perhaps the temptation to drink was stronger because it was shunned so deeply. We wanted to pretend that school was like church camp, and that just wasn't so. At EKU, we had the priviledge of learning different world beliefs, causing us to question our own faith and to test to only prove that Jesus is more real than ever. And it was good to know that some professors were Christians and would let you come and talk with them about how your faith fits in to your education. Yet, you also had to view nudity in the dorms, sometimes outside the dorms, endure long lectures from professors who really believed the foolishness they were teaching and who weren't open minded to other belief systems than their own. All in all I'm glad for the public school system and wouldn't trade that experience for anything. How else can we practice the great commission if we don't have anyone to go to? (Perhaps I should start my own blog...) Sorry for all the rambling but at least you get me thinking.
Let me guess...tomorrow's blog will be entitled
"My wife is a big mouth who rambles"
ooh! oooh! is it our turn to start naming some of the things that tick you off?!?! that'll be fun!
kidding. keep the beast at bay.
i bet students at "Christian" schools don't chew their gum loudly.
They're not aloud to chew gum
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