My Short Flirtation with Long Hair

Sorry folks, summer school actually gave me something to do, so I'm going to have to recycle something old I've written. I work-shopped this piece in Creative Writing, and received some good comments on it. I made several revisions based on those comments but have lost my revised copy. This piece breaks from the norm in that it doesn't have a scripture back-up or Bible based message, but it does have me being very stupid. Really, what more could you want?

However, if any of my astute and good looking readers can suggest a way to tie a scripture into this I'll rewrite it and give them my thanks (and maybe some cookies.)

My Short Flirtation with Long Hair

It started around the end of my freshman year. I was minding my own business, watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica, when a very strange idea hit me alongside the head.

This wasn’t that new Battlestar Galactica either, this was that one made in the seventies, the one with robot dogs, leather jackets, and space casinos. I found it all very humorous and awesome at the same time.

As I watched the characters Apollo and Starbuck run around on screen, two manly men with long, seventies hairstyles, it occurred to me that I could have long hair and yet still be cool. So, I resolved to grow what I referred to from that point on as “Starbuck hair.”

You see, I had had the same haircut since I was three years old. Prior to that age, I had never had a haircut. I had long curly little girl hair. This was all fine and dandy until I started to receive free cookies at the bakery because I was “such a cute little girl.” My father decided that I had to stop receiving free cookies and be a man. So, my mother attempted to cut my hair, until she had to stop halfway through and start crying because I was growing up too fast. My father then finished the job creating the short style that I kept for sixteen years.

But now, that was all going to change. I would grow Starbuck hair, and be as manly and cool as he was, except without the smoking and sleeping around parts.

This saved me ten dollars, because I no longer needed to get a haircut that semester. I let it grow, and grow it did, until halfway through the summer I discovered I had a curly mop on the back of my head. It looked like I was being hugged by a wookie. I didn’t want curly hair; I wanted long, straight hair. But, nature worked against me.

This was not what I wanted at all, so only one choice remained. I must get a haircut. Therefore, I fled to my mother and asked for a haircut. She didn’t cry this time. I think she was relieved.

I admit haven’t been entirely honest. I wanted a new hairstyle not just for the sake of having a new hairstyle. I was influenced by the fact that a girl I was dating at the time had told me that she liked guys with long hair. This was a sentiment I had seen expressed by other members of the fairer sex, and I therefore concluded that longer hair was the sole deciding factor in what the average Adventist American girl was seeking in men. This is an exaggeration, but only partially.

I look back on it now and realize how stupid it all was. I allowed my hairstyle to be dictated by peer pressure, and while this is a seemingly harmless thing to change, my motivation to do so was wrong. In high school and adolescence, many people face tremendous social pressures to change things about themselves. While this isn’t necessarily always a bad thing, our motives need to be examined. If we are changing something about ourselves just to please someone else, we are changing for the wrong reasons.

Adolescence is a time of change for everyone, but don’t change just to please a crowd, because the crowd can never decide exactly what it wants. Change because you think it will make you a better person.

I like my hair better short, and that is how it is going to stay.

I Am Shorter Than A Redwood Tree

Two weeks ago I visited a sequoia grove near where my parents have recently moved. If you are not nature person, sequoia redwood trees are essentially the largest living organisms known to man. The largest is this stupid mushroom thing that lives underground and nobody ever sees, so I consider the sequoia the true largest living thing. Do not debate me on this. You will lose.

Anyway, the giant redwood is native only to a small region of the Sierra Nevadas in California. When reports of these trees first made it to the east, they were considered a load of bovine excrement. You see, these trees are not only big, they are not only huge, they are big huge!

Most are only around 200 feet tall, but their height is not their impressive feature, it is their girth. The trees I saw were all about 25 feet in diameter. If you flunked geometry like I almost did, 25 feet in diameter is pretty big. Based on my inaccurate measurements, I’m about 2 feet in diameter. I’m also only 6.15 feet tall. Blue whales are only about 100 feet long and nowhere near 25 feet in diameter. So we conclude that the tree is a lot bigger than me and several times the size of the most giantest whale.

So the trees are big. Woohoo!

They weren’t always that way, though. They started out as seeds the size of the period at the end of this sentence. All it took was about 2500 years of sunlight and water and dirt to turn that seed into the giants that you see in the pictures I posted. That means that these trees sprouted around the same time King Nebuchadnezzar ruled the world, and the cones they sprouted from fell out of trees that Noah probably planted. Think about that while you try to sleep tonight.

When you’ve been around that long, you’ve seen an awful lot. As you can observe in the pictures, the majority of these living fossils have severe fire scarring. Over the span of millennia, they have survived numerous forest fires. The secret is in their bark, which is spongy and a very efficient fire retardant. Fire after fire, the trees survived undaunted.

Then about one hundred years ago some guys named Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir found them and decided to make them part of a national park. Through the efforts of man, all forest fires were quenched long before reaching the redwoods.

Then something happened. Several decades ago, forest rangers began to notice that there were no young redwood trees. The old ones were fine, but the new ones simply could not take root. The culprit? Severe lack of forest fire.

In order for the seeds to break out of the cones, they must catch fire and be partially burnt. Then, while the trees are growing, fire must come through and remove other plants which may be competing. Saplings of other trees, ferns, weeds, et cetera all burn away in a forest fire. The redwood trees scar, but they survive and eventually flourish.

It is a little like that with us. The question of why a good God allows us to suffer is one that is difficult to answer. Why do bad things happen to good people? We will inevitably face things that try our faith in the very existence of God. At times it seems like we suffer for no purpose. The effects of sin are felt all throughout the world, and times will not always be good. Forest fires eventually raze away our dreams, and scars eventually form in lives. But like the redwood tree, use the fire to your advantage. Take away things which compete for your salvation, and grow stronger in your faith knowing that your suffering will eventually end.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28 NKJV

You'll Believe A Man Can Fly

Occasionally, I feel like writing more serious works. People tell me that my writings don't have to be filled with attempts at humor in order to be inspirational. This is one such serious writing. Well, at least as serious as a devotional based on Superman can be.

You'll Believe A Man Can Fly

A lesson in: Altruism

You know the story. Even if you hate comic books and popular culture, you know who Superman is. The last son of a dying world, an infant child is hurtled through the cosmos. His rocket crashes in a Kansas wheat field, where he is discovered by Jonathan and Martha Kent, two mid-western farmers. They adopt him as their son, and he is from that point known as “Clark Kent.” He is raised with protestant American values. Eventually, he grows up to become “Superman”, arguably the most famous of all superheroes.

It’s a story that has received many retellings, but one thing tends to remain the same in all of them: Superman’s unselfish devotion to helping the people of Earth.

Superman stands out among the “heroes” of American popular culture because of his high moral standards and devotion to helping others. He has no reason to go out to fight evil and pull cats out if trees. The threats he encounters seldom endanger Clark Kent, but he always runs to the nearest phone booth to emerge as Superman, ready to defend the weak and fight for what’s right. Ultimately, Superman lays his life down to save a city full of people he doesn’t even know.

This brings me to the question of the week: What makes a man “super?” Is it his strength? Certainly not, many comic-book villains exist which equal or surpass Superman’s brute force. I say a true “Superman” is someone who cares more about others than about himself, and actively works to help where he can.

Superman has a great many talents and abilities. He can fly, he is essentially invulnerable, he possesses x-ray vision, and he is more powerful than a locomotive and faster than a speeding bullet.

What would you do if you had all that? Would you don a cape and start looking for falling aircraft to catch or bank robberies to thwart? Or would you take your x-ray vision to Vegas and become a millionaire? Perhaps take your super-speed to the football field and achieve world renowned fame?

It all comes down to altruism. Altruism is defined as “behavior by an animal that may be to its disadvantage but that benefit others of its kind.” Essentially, altruism is putting the needs of others before your own.

It’s what the New York City firemen did on 9/11. It’s what Medal of Honor winners show to make them worthy of the award. It’s what missionaries do when they leave the comforts of civilization to enter hostile territory, to try and save those who hate them.

The most outstanding act of altruism in all of history is none other than Christ’s sacrifice. While Superman exists only in fiction, I believe that Christ exists in reality, and he has set an incredible example.

You and I aren’t from Krypton. We can’t fly or punch through steel. Regardless, we do have talents. They can be used to either glorify ourselves or to glorify Christ through helping others where we can. It doesn't require much creativity or effort to find a place where we can be used by Christ. We could use our time constructing a vast material empire that would rival that of Superman’s foe Lex Luthor, or we could spend it benefiting mankind.

The choice ultimately rests with you. Would you rather own a mansion built on sand or a one-room shack built on a rock?

He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? Luke 9:23-25

Perchance To Dream

I promise to stop using the Beverly Hillbillies in my devotionals. The next post won't have them at all. Really.

I made the totally awesome artwork below in MS Paint. I don't know why it isn't hanging in the Louvre.

Perchance To Dream
A lesson in: Guilt

Dreams can be strange things. Some people say that you can tell a lot about a person by what they dream about. My dad says he dreams about flea markets and thrift stores and jet fighter planes. My mother seems to dream exclusively about floods and animals, usually at the same time. My brother dreams about detectives.

My dreams, however, could probably qualify me for a spot in the loony bin. I will never forget the dream I had where I met the Beverly Hillbillies, and the Pope, at the same time. My dad, brother, and I were at my grandmother’s house, and we were talking about farming. Suddenly, the Clampett family arrived. Uncle Jed, Granny, Elly May, and Jethro knocked on the door and we let them in. My dad talked with Jed, my grandmother talked with Granny (duh), my brother talked with Jethro, and I talked with Elly May (you saw that coming).

Just then, Jethro pulled out a bag containing none other but the Pope’s clothing. We all agreed that this was the cat’s meow! My brother put the Pope suit on and started walking around in it. Just then, the actual Pope appeared and apparently wanted his clothing back. I guess we refused because he started breathing fire at us. Popes can do that, you know. My brother hit him with a stick and he calmed down. Then we all went for a swim in my Grandmother’s swimming pool.

Isn’t that just absurd? I mean, my grandmother doesn’t even have a swimming pool. I suppose this is what I get for reading The Great Controversy as an evening devotional.

Dreams are largely laughable meaningless things, at least mine are. I seldom learn anything from them. No, nightmares are where the life lessons lie.

My nightmares don’t consist of monsters or falling or fire breathing popes or dentists or Al Gore or anything like that, probably because those things don’t frighten me. I very seldom have nightmares at all, but when I have them, they usually involve me being a jerk.

I’ll dream that I’m flippant to someone and ruin a relationship, or commit some horrible crime and try to live with the guilt.

The other day I dreamed that I was selected as a convocation speaker for my college. I had the opportunity to address all of my peers on a topic of my choosing. Now, while awake I am confident up front and love speaking to large groups of people. But in the nightmare, I didn’t prepare adequately (or at all, I distinctly remember using the internet instead of working on my speech.) When it came time to hold the convocation, I made an idiot out of myself.

As I walked off the stage in shame, I awoke. Sort of. I lay bed in a state of semi-consciousness, and even though the nightmare was over, I still felt like the dream had been reality. I felt very stupid for what I had done. I had let my peers and myself down, all because I didn’t manage my time.

Then, in an instant the fact that this event had occurred only in my mind hit me. I was fully awake and relieved to learn the only mistake I had made was eating the leftover pizza last night. I had been proven innocent, all guilt was gone.

When we sin, we should feel guilt afterwards. It’s a very important step in the process of asking for grace and forgiveness. How can we sincerely repent our sins if we are not ashamed to have committed them?

However, taken past that guilt can become unhealthy. Once we are forgiven, once we have repented of our sins, we no longer need to feel guilty. As far as God is concerned, because Christ’s blood covers that sin, it never happened. It’s like the mistake made in a dream.

We may still have to live with the consequences of our actions, but we no longer need to mentally beat ourselves up over past mistakes. Micah 7:19 says that God casts our sins into the deepest part of the ocean. There is no need to go deep-sea diving in order to reexamine them.

"He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. " Micah 7:19

"I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you." Isaiah 44:22