Blue Like Jazz.

Two summer I got a book on tape. The book was called, Blue Like Jazz. I had heard my parents talk about the book and the author, Donald Miller, but I had never read the book. The summer job I had required me to drive about forty-five minutes each way and the and a book on tape was a great way to pass the time. After I had finished the book I was talking to my dad about it. One of the things that came up as we talked was the fact that this book would make a great movie.

Not quite two years later the movie, Blue Like Jazz is about to be released. Stoked would be an understatement regarding how I feel

Here is a link to the trailer. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1x3je4A99g

My sister hacked my blog. The funny thing? I'm sitting right in front of her. She thinks I should blog more often. What do you think?

School and Quotes.

So, last Monday my sisters and I started school. I was not quite ready to start, but as we ease into the year I have found that it's not as bad as I thought. One of my assignments for the year is to start to keep a quotes journal. If you have any quotes that you wouldn't mind sharing that would be great. They don't have to about anything in particular. Life, love, sports, and things that make me laugh, those are some of the categories that I have, but I can add more. My email is, josephb123 at gmail dot com.

As for soccer, which started right before school: my team is looking a lot better. Not as good as we would like but there is a marked improvement among the players.

A couple of quotes that I think pertain to my team this year are:

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Samuel Johnson.

And,

Hard work and togetherness. They go hand in hand. You need hard work because it's such a tough atmosphere..... to win week in and week out. You need togetherness because you don't always win.

Tony Dungy.

Soccer and Girls.

If you know me, you know I love soccer. Well, soccer season is finally here. This year the whole team has a new look: We added girls to our team. At first I thought it was a bad idea, and while it still isn't the way I would like it I have found that it isn't bad as it could be. We could be playing with girls that aren't any good.

The whole idea of having girls on the team has created some major controversy among the guys. Some of them don't want to play because of the girls. But as far as I'm concerned soccer is soccer even if we have to play with girls on the team. We may not get better as quick as if we were on an all guys team, but we are still playing soccer. We won't get any better by just sitting at home. So the bottom line is that we as a team need to be more flexible, I mean we still get play soccer.

You never know what you got till it's gone.

Earlier this year my sister Katie decided that she wanted to send her summer in the Middle East with some friends. In the days and weeks leading up to her departure I honestly didn't feel like I would miss her that much. But as time went by I realized that I missed her a lot. In Toby Mac's song, Gone, there is a line that says," You never know what you got till it's gone." I'd heard that said many times but had never thought about it twice. Having Katie gone all summer really put that in perspective. I never thought of Katie as a really close friend, she was just my sister. But since she's been gone I discovered that she was and still is one of my best friends. She gets home in six days and I'm very excited. In Katie's blog (http://livelovelaugh77.blogspot.com/ ) she talks about all the new friends she is making and hanging out with, while I'm really happy for her it kinda makes me jealous, that other people get to see her and hang with her while sit here and miss her. I can't wait to spend the last days of summer with her.

While we were in Deerborn we talked a lot about Islam. One thing that was brought up was that Muslims often just go through the motions. It started me thinking about Christians, do we just go through the motions? While I think most Christians would be quick to say that they don't, I think if we are willing to really think about it we might find that we to are guilty of doing that. We also talked about how Muslims have a lot of rituals that they perform, like kneeling every time they pray. We as Christians do thing like that as well. When a pastor says, God is good, everybody responds, All the time. As Christians we tend to criticize these things when we see them in other people but tend to ignore them when we see them in ourselves. We can't be ambassadors for Christ if we are really just fakes.

Back again.

I just got back from Deerborn Michigan. I was in Deerborn with a youth group from 180. We spent the whole week in a highly muslim neighborhood. While we were there we visited a mosque. The Imam explained some of the thing they believe. As he explained these things to us, it struck me. All these relationships we are making with these people won't last forever. Unless we show them the love of Jesus. Everything the Imam said he said as though it were true fact, it broke my heart to think that my new friends may never see the real truth. That God send his only son so they could live with him forever.