BOR_Chapter 10: Favorites

Write about your favorites from different periods of your life. Here you should focus on movies, food, dress styles, etc. Recall every thing you've loved dearly over the past 17 years. 
-------------
I have a lot of favorites in my life, and I am incredibly blessed to have them. For the past 17 years, I've learned to appreciate the little things, although recently, I've taken many things for granted and I'm especially surprised whenever I find myself taking any of my favorite things for granted.

My favorite music would be "Christian," and good music. That might seem strange, and even a little too "spiritual-ly," but I truly believe that what I listen to affects my mood and attitude, and I would at least have my mind filled with thoughts devoted to Christ that glorify and bless the Creator's name. About the "good music" part: I appreciate all genres of music when they avoid offensive language and topics [FSAE: or at least are tactful and wise about them] and those musicians who make music with timeless, catchy, well-versed, non-repetitive, rhythmic, and deep messages. That's a lot to ask from any songwriter, and I don't expect anybody to be able to create such masterpieces, but those are some of the criteria I use when mentally choosing whether I like a song or not, Christian or secular. When it comes to "Christian" songs, however, I usually choose certain songs, like "Desde Mi Interior," "Awesome God," "El Shaddai," and more, rather than certain bands or groups, because they all seem to copy each other and make covers of each others' songs, which all have different qualities and sound similar.

I love Korean Barbecue (Galbi, basically short beef ribs cut sideways), which I cook frequently on the grill. I'm also a sucker for medium rare steaks. Since Cross Country races frequently in the fall, I've grown to love pasta and Italian food all the more, especially Olive Garden's food. Because of my mixed heritage, I've learned to love both American food and traditional Korean food, although my family will attest otherwise--I hate the Korean staple kimchi and other vegan-friendly Korean side dishes.

I love seeing people do the right thing, even if that person seldom is me. That thought probably doesn't belong here, but I think it does.

My favorite movies would be ones that I could take my parents, my little brother, and my friends (guys and girls alike) to see and not be embarrassed at how any of them would understand them. I feel a sense of responsibility for my younger brother's conscience, which seems pretty malleable to the whims of popular American culture, and because that's not at all a good thing, I side with my mother on her no-tolerance policy for going to the theatres to see R-rated films, even if that means I myself am bound by conscience to follow her over-arching rule. I am not at all selfless in this action; I want to have good times with my friends corroding our minds like the next guy. However, I know in my soul that abstinence from that kind of impressionable exposure will only benefit me in my walk, striving to become more like Christ.

My favorite books right now are Ted Dekker's Circle series, Bryan Davis' books, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), The Testament (by John Grisham), and The Hunger Games. [FSAE- Hah! That was before it was mainstream!]

Jesus is better than being "sorrowful unto death"

In my Liberal Philosophy class... cough... (I mean "Social Ecology 63: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism") we watched a movie called "Stealing a Nation." This film is a John Pilger documentary of the depopulation-ing of the peoples of a little island in the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean called Diego Garcia. These islanders were forced off Diego Garcia in the years 1968-1973. The reason? It was declared that the islands were unsafe for habitation on account of the archipelago being subject to natural disasters and the effects of global warming. This doesn't stand to reason because (and I stand alongside my professor on this case wholeheartedly) immediately in these years the U.S. (scumbag of the world, according to liberal social ecologists) was granted permission from the British government to build a large naval base, which was used in many of the Middle Eastern/Asian wars as a launch site for bombing raids and missiles and stuff. It's pretty obvious the reason the Chagossians were banished wasn't anything to do with safety, as Navymen live on the base to this day. The islanders were shipped to the adjacent island, Mauritius, where they live lives of poverty and inadequacy.

Anyways.

Long story short, the islanders were sad. So sad they were that John Pilger documented several of them saying they knew friends and children who died of nothing other than "sadness."

Huh.

This sounds familiar.

Ah! So it is. Jesus said something of the sort.---

My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch (Mark 14:34, KJV). 

Jesus knew this exact pain just as the Chagossians did-- the pain of unjust exile from one's homeland! He bore our sins and our death and schisms from God's holiness, but it was on our behalf and not His. It's one thing to be banished like Jacob or Moses, who usurped and killed their fellow men; it is another thing altogether to be banished like Hagar and Ishmael in consequence of the sins of another. But praise be to God! Jesus isn't just coincidentally banished as our Scapegoat, but He does it willingly; no, He was predestined to die like a lamb led to the slaughter, outside of the camp, on whose head all the sins of the people were laid, whose blood makes atonement once and for all.

As a side note: Jesus prays. He prays here in the garden in His passion and He prays elsewhere. He prays even now. This is answer enough to my doubting heart's struggle with the sovereignty of God and the role of prayer and people in the plan of God. In the eternal words of my friend Joel, "Prayer is like talking to your girlfriend. It's not much of a relationship if you don't ever talk to her."