Analysis of "Nobody Deserves to be Perfect"

A friend of mine shared a photo on Facebook with some text that caught my attention. Normally, I don't think too hard on these kind of motivational pictures; sometimes I think the sayings are cute, but ultimately they are merely platitudes with little context that could be applied to nearly any circumstance. However, this particular phrase got under my skin. I was going to simply comment on the picture, but (as usual) my thoughts well exceeded a reasonable Facebook comment (or post, for that matter). The phrase, which was taken from a larger text, is reproduced here:

"Nobody is perfect, and nobody deserves to be perfect. ..." 

 — Nytiesha Monta*

"Nobody deserves to be perfect." It's a bit flipped around—normally you are deserving of something when you are perfect, but this phrase is implying you have to deserve even the chance to be perfect. You could say you have to be meta-perfect to deserve to be perfect.

What does it mean to be smart?

While at Chick-fil-a with my church's youth group, one of the middle schoolers and I had a lengthy conversation about all sorts of things. Well... perhaps conversation isn't quite the best word. It was more of a constant rolling through the beginnings of a conversation. I normally dislike people who flit and flutter between topics like a bee through a flower garden, but tonight my friend's tendency to willfully abandon every attempt at anything more than a few short sentences for each topic captivated my attention. Besides, I didn't have much else to do, and I wasn't about to go home for the night.

Do you believe airplanes fly?

Do you believe airplanes fly? Of course you do; you see them every day in the sky. You go to your hangar with your plane and your friends, and everybody is happy. What kind of person could deny such a self-evident fact as airplanes flying?

Leaving your hangar where all of your friends are, you venture out into the world to let other people know what joyous times you and your friends are having with planes. You have flown your plane around the world, seen many beautiful things with your plane, and with it done many great things for your community and the world.

You know the aircraft manual inside and out. You have studied it forwards and backwards, trying to get the most out of your beautiful flying machine. At the slightest sign of trouble on your flights, you head straight to the manual: it has the answer for everything that could go wrong. The manual also details how a pilot is to properly treat his guests—on and off the plane. This particular section is a favorite studying topic for you and your pilot friends.

Some of your pilot friends tell you of people outside the hangar who have never flown on an airplane, don't think they would be much fun at all, and doubt planes could fly at all. What's more, some even have the audacity to insist planes don't exist! Not believing your friend, and wanting to show him up, you venture out into the world—surely something as awesome as riding an airplane is something everyone would do!

To each person you meet, you tell of your plane, how everybody can ride for free—they only need ask! It's so much fun, it will be great! When asked about details, you refer to the manual; it specifies why people should fly and how they can fly—both very easy to do.

You go all over town—the market, the university, the city hall—trying to find people who don't believe in planes. You find not only are there some people just as your friend described, you find, to your horror, most people haven't flown. That they don't want to. And, they don't think planes can fly. Several were quite hostile, questioning your intellect, wondering if you were mentally ill! They constantly berated you for appealing to an "old book" full of nonsense—that book is the manual! It can't be wrong!

The one or two who actually engaged you in a somewhat-serious manner came up with questions and statements that—quite frankly—went over your head, and sounded like ridiculous objections to boot. Yes, your plane is perfectly awesome; you can't fathom how others' misfortunes affect your plane's awesomeness.

Who doesn't believe in a plane? You have seen one! You have flown in one! You have your very own plane!

You go back to your hangar, to your plane, to where you won't be made fun of, where you will be accepted. Your pilot friends shake their heads with you as you tell of your adventures outside the hangar, neither of you asking the real question: why don't they believe in planes? Or, if you do, you don't follow through and try to really understand the answer.

Sports Discussions

In general, I dislike sports. (Yes, I am going somewhere with this.)

Faulty GPS Directions

You may or may not know this about me. It's something I've struggled with for years now. It is something many of my friends and peers seem to take for granted. They talk about it all the time. When they do talk about it, I lose focus, start drifting and pondering about the meaning of the whole thing and my handicap at doing it.

CS 1801 Journal 1—First Weeks

I wrote this for class, and realized this would make a great post summarizing my first weeks at Tech.

John Njoroge on Morality at Georgia Tech

I was happy to find out Ratio Christi was hosting a Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) speaker on campus on the first day of classes. I have known of Dr. Zacharias for a while now, and have watched many of his lectures on YouTube. He is a great apologist and I've learned a great deal from him. While Dr. Zacharias himself wasn't going to be on campus, I was excited to have the chance to learn something new in apologetics. The RZIM speaker John Njoroge was speaking on the topic of morality, of which I don't have in-depth knowledge on, though I have the basics.

Youth Michigan Mission Trip 2013

The Michigan Mission Trip was an eleven-day trip to Detroit and Menominee, Michigan, with an emphasis on Menominee. Our main focus was to increase awareness about Abundant Life Church in Menominee by holding a block party and Kids' Camps throughout the area. We also did service projects at Victory Fellowship in Detroit and in Menominee.

I kept the daily blog updated for Eastside's (my church) website. You can read the blog over at ebcfamily.org/michigan2013. Since that was for the group, I wasn't able to give my viewpoint as much as I would have on a more personal site, or give my opinions of the trip—that means RI gets another post!

Why did I go on this trip?

I initially came on this trip to solve one problem I knew I had with ministry: talking to people about Christ. I simply didn't know how that process started. I had questions like:

• How do I start this type of conversation?
• How do I keep the conversation on track?
• How do I keep the person I'm talking to interested in what I have to say?

Recognizing I couldn't really take a class or ask someone to explain these concepts, I started looking for a way to gain this experience. I knew plenty of head knowledge, and could give lectures on many different topics about the Bible and its related topics, but I was uncomfortable starting such conversations.

I suppose my reason was to learn how to talk to people, but I returned with the realization that I already knew how to do that. Conversations about the Bible is something many, many people are interested in—or at least will hear you out on—and already have questions about. My expertise in creation can be useful in talking to Christians in particular. They have already have questions about how science relates to the Bible, so we easily get into a good conversation about what I study all the time. And, science and the Bible are already really interesting topics, so I don't have to work to keep them interested.

Highlights of the Trip

Victory Network

Being the one and only person who could fix Victory Fellowship's computer network issues was awesome. Upon arrival, Darrell (mission leader) asked Pastor Gaddy if he needed anything computer related fixed and I was put on securing the network. It was nice to be inside working on what I have done dozens of times at home and not outside mowing grass or painting the fellowship hall.

It turned out the church had this haphazard conglomerate of wireless routers and wireless extenders, all on different BSSIDs and no encryption. With something like four routers, and two extenders, with 20+ computers, they needed a better system and security.

I was asked to lead a meeting to talk about exactly what the state of Victory's network was in. It was cool to have Darrell, Dale (elder at Eastside), and the pastor of Victory Fellowship listening to what I had to say and taking my recommendations. I'm not sure, but I don't think 23-year-olds get that kind of authority very often.

I made their network more robust and more secure, but I just hope they don't forget about computer security again. I made the analogy that before I came they had all of their computers setting outside that anybody could come up and interact with. After my changes, there's now a fence around the computers and a gate. It's now up to them to keep the gate closed. I should have mentioned things like making sure people can't dig under or climb over, but I think I made my point.

Blogging for Eastside

Being put in charge of posting a daily blog post on the church website and having quite a bit of latitude as to what I could do with it was another great experience. I was writing the each day's events to an audience of a few hundred people. I had to inform the parents back home what we were doing, but also ensure they didn't get the wrong impression about the events since the wrong wording of an event can be disastrous.

Interviewing the students was quite interesting. I asked each student very similar questions, but, while there were similar themes, no viewpoint was the same. Sure, I know that each person has their own experiences, however, to see it first-hand was really neat.

Father in the park

Our first day of holding Kids' Camp (rebranding of VBS) my group had a father and three kids. I'm on the story team, so I sat away from the main group going over my notes of what I was covering that day: creation week through the flood. Shane, the father, came over to register the kids and we got to talking about the Bible. He mentioned how much he loved the story of Job and I saw the opening—I had no idea if it was going to work, and didn't know his stance on creation. I stated Job described a dinosaur and Shane couldn't believe it. He recovered from his shock and thought for a moment, realizing I must be talking about the behemoth. We looked up the exact passage (Job 40), read it, and we talked about the implications: dinosaurs lived with humans, and not 65 million years ago. The conversation led to Genesis, Noah's Flood, the Trinity, and many other topics. I couldn't believe I was talking about creation with a stranger, not knowing if I would ever meet him again.

My group came over and informed me it was time for the Bible story, so I sat down with them in the grass. I suddenly realized I had left my notes over at the table, but I didn't think it would look good if I left to get them. Resolving to tell my favorite part of the Bible with the best impression possible, I proceeded to cover Creation Week, Adam and Eve, and Noah without notes or other aids. I'm not sure who learned more, the three kids we had, their father, or my teammates gathered around me. Questions abounded from my teammates, asking about dates, dimensions, and other details of Noah's ark. It was clear they had never heard the story with so many details.

Talking with the leaders

As we traveled back from our stop in Chicago to sightsee after ten days on mission, I got to talk for hours with two of the leaders. We covered topics most people consider taboo, talking about each topic for at least an hour. They shared what they struggle with, how they deal with it, and how hard it is to keep from giving in to the temptation. They go to incredible lengths to keep temptation as far away as possible—I told them I didn't understand why they did such things and thought they were weird. Their zeal to keep themselves as pure as possible impressed me and has left me wondering how I can imitate their zeal. I'm going to be processing the wisdom they shared with me for quite a while.

Talking about creation with the guys

One of the guys in our van stated he didn't believe dinosaurs existed and was very distrusting of scientists. That got an hour-long conversation started about dinosaurs living alongside humans, old-earth creationism versus young earth creationism, radiometric dating, why God created stars, and aliens. It was awesome to see ten middle and high school boys asking these kind of questions and listening thoughtfully about my answers. Most of the guys believed in a young Earth, probably from their parents, but one was very clear he believed in an old Earth, and asked specific questions relating to timescales. I made him think seriously about what he has been taught. I hope he continues to think about these issues.

Summary

It was hard work, it was long hours, and it was a strain at times, but I will do it again. I learned many things, I left an impression on several, and I bonded with students and leaders that I would not have otherwise.

Project Unison

I was preparing my new resume page and wanted to link to one of my school projects I had done, but realized I had not published the summary of the project. This post rectifies the situation.