A Week Sabbatical

Well I am sad to say that I won't be posting on my blog this week, but for good reason! My friend Kaitlyn is coming to visit the amazing city of Chicago so I must show her the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of my new home! But don't worry, I will return shortly with some great stories and adventures. Also be looking forward to blog posts about love, risks, and living in God's will.

So for this week, please comment on this post if there is a topic, current event, issue, or random subject that you would like me to blog about!! And if you haven't already, add yourself to my followers list!

Until later,

Mackensey

A Little Music for the Weekend

Every weekend I am going to give you a little taste of the music that I love listening to. Sometimes it might be a popular band or singer and sometimes an up and coming artist. So I just want to share some of my favorites with you!

This weekend I have chosen a group that has just become popular on the radio with their single Breakeven, but that is not the only amazing song that they have on their album. So please enjoy The Script and their song The Man Who Can't Be Moved on their self-titled album: The Script.



Let me know what you think!

There's something about a baseball game...

Ok so it doesn't have to be a baseball game, but there is something magical about attending a sporting event. Not because of the ridiculously over-priced food, large crowds of people (unless you are attending a Florida Marlins or Kansas City Royals game), or the obnoxious fans that are rooting for the opposing team, although all of those add to the magic of a sporting event. No, what I am talking about is when you are one of those obnoxious opposing team fans. I mean you don't even have to be so obnoxious to stand up and cheer, jeer, and mock the home team when your team is winning, but just wearing your team's jersey with pride in a stadium packed with haters or having a prideful hop in your step when your team wins is obnoxious enough.

At this point you might be asking, Mackensey, get to the point, how is being an obnoxious fan ever magical? Well, I have not gotten to the magical part yet. So, let's say you are an Angel fan and you walk into Wrigley Field proudly wearing your red Angel jersey. Now the Cubs and the Angels aren't major rivals, there really is no bad blood between them, just a regular day at the ball park, but the magic still remains. The magic that I am talking about is a simple smile, eye contact, or high five from a person who is also proud enough to strut his or her Angels' jersey in Wrigley.

It is so strange and interesting to me that when you are a minority fan, rooting against the home team, other minority fans flock to you. There is some unspoken brotherhood between fans of the same team, especially if you put them in a stadium where they are few and far between. Yes, when you are in the majority at your home field there is still a sense of camaraderie and there might be a high five here and there, but the magic in the act fades because it is taken for granted.

When you are a fan in the minority, it doesn't matter where you are from, how much money you make, the color of your skin, or what your political opinions are, because, if you are wearing that jersey proudly, you are the good guy to other obnoxious fans. If only this kind of loyalty could be seen outside the ballpark, no matter what team you root for, but after the game we all shed our jerseys and with it put back on our prejudices. Everyone becomes white, black, Hispanic, poor, rich, Catholic, Muslim, unemployed, instead of who we are: people. So if you haven't already, put on your team's jersey and experience the magic.

Father's Day

Since yesterday was Father's Day, it got me thinking about how lucky I am to have a present, caring, and incredible father in my life. Between the events and activities yesterday, I started wondering what it must be like for children or even adults who grew up without a Dad or even a positive male role model. What is their Father's Day like? Is it a day of hurt and pain, grief and sadness or is it like any other day?

The amount of children growing up in fatherless homes is astounding and increasing dramatically. Oftentimes the mother is emphasized as the most important person in a child's life, but the father plays a crucial and irreplaceable role. My father has shown me what it means to be determined, confident and a leader. He has taken care of me when I was sick, read books to me when I was little, explained the ins and outs of sports and politics, and has always been there to give me a better perspective.

This, I'll call it, "father-problem" we have in our society today probably also affects how children see and relate to their Heavenly Father. If God is suppose to be their Father, yet they don't know their fathers or their fathers are not good guys, then how are they suppose to know and love this God? Yet truthfully, God is the perfect Father and can heal the wounds created by the brokenness of all earthly fathers. God can show an even more perfect love than the love that should be experienced from your father on Earth. I hope Father's Day was no longer a day of pain and regret but a day for celebrating the healing and love experienced from the Heavenly Father.

Even children raised with a father should remember that the only father that can give you perfect love, eternal approval, and complete healing is God the Father, but if you do have a wonderful father who has mirrored God's love for you in your life, I hope you gave him a big bear hug yesterday! Happy Father's Day!

Education for Peace

Before reading this blog post, you need to know a little bit more about me. In my second year at Georgetown I stumbled across a class on Justice and Peace Studies (JUPS) and have since then committed myself in some ways to this new-found passion of mine. I have learned about everything from disarmament to genocide to nonviolent communication and I am here to say that I am better for it. Unfortunately, because of a lack of funding, Georgetown does not offer a major in Justice and Peace Studies, only a minor or a certificate. Therefore, for now, I am only enjoying the few classes I have taken and will not graduate with any official degree in this field.

Although I do not usually like to ascribe labels to anything or anyone, I will make an exception here in order to give you a better idea of what my opinions are about war, peace, violence, and change. I am a supporter of non violent resistance. Think Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., the Solidarity movement in Poland, Otpor's ousting of then Serbian president Milosevic, etc. My opinion is that in order to create change, violence of any sort should be the last option. I do concede that in many cases where human right violations are being committed, violent means are needed in order to quickly end any such violations or danger, but such cases are few and rare. Nonviolent resistance, while it does usually take a longer amount of time, is more effective and less destructive than violent reactions to a problem.


Now that you have a small background on my views on this topic, I want to revisit a subject that my JUPS class visited multiple times. ROTC and the absence of a peace education equivalent. On this topic, I actually disagree with many of my JUPS colleagues, because I believe that, although ROTC is essentially training students for war, there are many benefits to this type of program, including learning discipline, determination, respect, etc.

But, if there is a program training students to be fighters and soldiers, shouldn't there also be a program teaching these same students how to make and sustain peace? Correct me if I am wrong, because I haven't done tons of research on the topic, but currently there is little to no peace-keeping training provided for ROTC students. In my opinion, this does not make sense, because many times one of the United States' purposes for going to war is to eventually settle the problem and have some sort of peace. Even if this is not a main goal, maintaining a balance between educating a student for war and educating a student for peace seems to be an intrinsically good idea. Maybe if peace education was better integrated into the ROTC curriculum, the military would lose some of its soldiers, but the remaining soldiers would also have been taught about different perspectives toward violence and war.

While I know this idea seems idealistic, I am okay with that, because change has to start somewhere. I am nowhere close to an expert on military affairs or even the life of a soldier so if you are, I apologize for any unintended misrepresentations and would love to discuss this more with you. I greatly respect and support the men and women in the armed forces, even if I do not always agree with their job description.



Until next time, I leave you with that little discussion and this quote from the great Martin Luther King Jr.:

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.~ MLK Jr. 1964

Peace.
MC

A New Outlook

The past two weeks I have decided to change the purpose of this blog a little. Don't worry you will still get little anecdotes and updates on my life, but I will also be writing about stuff that moves me, thoughts that I have had, and practicing my writing skills more consistently. Hoping to figure out what I want to pursue in the future, I will be filling this virtual journal with my passions. So get ready to see what goes on in my mind, God help you with that.

I am going to start this with a little light listening. Really only my parents know this, but recently I have been obsessed with the band Train. You know the kind of obsession where you put a certain song, artist, or album on repeat and just play it all day long. Well that defines my obsessions with Train, but especially their latest album, Save Me San Francisco. This is my plug: if you haven't listened to this album yet, you are missing out. Go buy, listen, steal (I don't know how you spend your free time), download this album immediately. Here is a little sneak preview for you to entice you even more:

Train - If It's Love: "Save Me, San Francisco"

So tell me what you think!

Thanks for checkin' in and add yourself to this blog's followers list if you want to.

Mackensey