Some ramblings...

I have been exploring the idea of relationships in CPE this past week. This is what I have come to understand about relationships. The relationships we create, whether they are boyfriend/girlfriend, parent/child, or a friendship, pose greatest threat to our inner most self while at the same time pose the greatest benefit and need for our overall self. Where would we be if it was not for the relationships that we have formed and sometimes broken up? Our relationships, and lack there of, define us as people. Our relationship to God and Jesus define us as Christians; our relationship to our employers define us as workers in a particular trade: pastors, electricians, doctors, nurses, ect. It is these relationships that help create our identity as individuals in this world. I hope to explore this a bit more in later blog entries.

In response to my blog entry from the other day about the struggle I am having over life and death issues and I want to continue my thought. It is amazing to me that we can question our faith so easily when countless men and women have been and still are willing to give their lives for what they believed in. My future roommate, Robbie, commented a few weeks ago on his own blog that he feels that nobody is willing to stand up for what is right anymore. We allow governments and individuals to oppress people based on the race, age, and gender. Martin Luther said, "You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say." Simillary, Martin Luther King Jr. also can be quoted by having said, "Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere" How can we sit by and let our morals that define us as humankind, whether they are religious based or secular based, be compromised? Why do we so easily conform when our values, norms, and beliefs are compromised? Why do so easily not believe and trust in the values of our faith when one event, whether major or minor, happens to us?

Christians are amazing creatures. We are all taught the Easter story at a young age (or sometimes at a older age). It is something that many of us know by heart. But yet, every year, Christians around the world read the passion story; we hear how Jesus is handed over to the Jewish and Roman authorities, how he is tortured, how he is hung on the cross. We hear the last seven words that Jesus said before his death and then we hear how he was raised from the dead. We need this yearly reminder because without it, our faith would lost and we would forget the great love that Christ had for us. Every year we sing, "Christ is Risen, Alleluia" to remind us that Christ is raised from the dead. Sometimes we must remind ourselves of the promises Jesus gave us. For me, I need to be reminded daily and every time I walk into a patient's room of the Gospel and the promises proclaimed in the Gospel just as Christians, myself included, need to be reminded every year that Christ is Risen and has broken the bonds of death.