Some love.

I have good friends. Like, really good friends. And for the first time in a decade, some of the best of them are female. It’s cool. Don’t worry, boys, you’re the loves of my life and you know it. You’d be amazed at this version of me, though. Tonight, I talked about shoes and babies and wedding dress shopping and not only survived, but loved it. And by no means am I insinuating that these women are anything less than brilliant minds and kind souls. But you guys are brilliant minds and kind souls, too, and we talk about beer and video games and hot sauce tech decks more often than not. And that is why I love you! You’re so good! Why has this turned defensive? Hahaha.

The point is that I write a lot here about my boys at home. My beautiful, hilarious boys. But I never give as much credit to the sensational women that I call my best friends here. (As though you haven’t figured yourselves out by now, Kelsey, Amanda, and Abby [get a blog! :)], you are incredible individuals.)

They are a future professor, a future pastor (bishop?), whatever Abby wants to grow up to be, game-changers, world-shakers, life-lovers, and great, great people. They are women who follow their own dreams, make their own rules, guide their own lives, and have a fantastic time doing so. They are women who understand the importance of their education, their autonomy, and their futures. All the while managing to love and value another person unconditionally.

Of course you know by now that I love your significant others, too! You have amazing men and woman (haha) in your lives, and that shows me how great you really are. You pick good people to be around, and I take much joy from being among you.

This school year has been a crazy ride. A week ago, like many of our classmates, I wasn’t sure I’d be back here next fall. But thinking about spending another year with you  – what a gift. And I know that in a year we’ll all be off to other places, and only some of us will return. But the three (six?) of you will be a part of me forever.

What a great day to be alive.

Think of it like a movie.

My friend Torey sent this to me on Facebook and I laughed out loud. I so often refer to Christianity as Judaism 2.0 and to Islam as Christianity 2.0 [maybe I should say Judaism 3.0?] so this works perfectly with my theory! No offense is meant to anyone in any of this, it is mostly just a little inside joke for those who understand the intricacies of these traditions, and yet can laugh about trivializing their finer points.

"No, Muslims don't believe that Jesus was the messiah. Think of it like a movie. The Torah is the first one, and the New Testament is the sequel. Then the Qur'an comes out, and it's like the last one never happened. There's still Jesus, but he's not the main character anymore, and the messiah hasn't shown up yet. Jews like the first movie but ignored the sequels, Christians think you need to watch the first two but that the third movie doesn't count, Muslims think the third one was the best, and Mormons liked the second one so much they started writing fan-fiction that doesn't fit with ANY of the series canon."

I googled it and can't find an original source to which to attribute it, but I do not claim it as my own. Anyway, hope it made you laugh. :)

Conflict/Resolution

May 1, 2011 will forever be known as the day the Navy SEALS killed Osama bin Laden. It will also forever be known as one of the most complicated days in my brain.

For the first 15 minutes of awkward CNN anchors stumbling over NOT saying what President Obama was going to tell us, I was afraid that we were going to war somewhere new. I knew nowhere had been attacked, because CNN and MSNBC would have known about that. So then it switched to awkward guessing about Libya, and then hilarious references to aliens...though, admittedly, most of the alien chatter was on Twitter.

Then, suddenly, someone at the New York Times tweeted that Osama bin Laden had been confirmed dead at the hands of US operatives earlier today.

Twitter went batshit insane. People were making jokes about "Mission Accomplished", bashing W, congratulating Obama, etc. And I'll admit, I participated in all three. This was quite a day for this country.

For about 30 minutes, it was all jokes. There are some clever people in this world. I was having trouble knowing what to feel. Was this a big deal? Like, in the grand scheme of things, worth calling my mother and talking about? I couldn't tell. Does it change a lot that he's dead? Won't his operatives just keep on keepin' on? I was still unclear.

But then, around the 45-minute mark, Wolf Blitzer panned to a shot of hundreds of people crowding around the White House, singing the National Anthem. I don't know what it means, but I cried, then. I'm not much for outspoken patriotism, because I think it is very quickly nationalism and then often warmongering. I'm aware that's a big leap.

It took an hour from the NYT leak to when the President finally took the screen. In that amount of time, every possible emotion had been expressed about the situation.

And, yeah, my facebook status congratulated the CIA for winning the 2012 election for Barack Obama. On his watch, a major goal of this war can be checked off this list. On his watch, the number one most wanted man in the world is dead.

Two friends of mine called me out directly -- one on Twitter and the other on Facebook -- for treating this event incorrectly. Many others showed their support for my thoughts on the matter. I'm stuck on their criticism, though.

It is never my goal to celebrate the death of someone, no matter how evil. But it's hard to not feel some sense of positive vibes being released back into the universe, now that this man will not be directly responsible for the deaths of any more people.

But what does this mean, for the world? New York Times columnist Nick Kristof, whom I love and respect, just called bin Laden's death a "triumph," which will lead to "new possibilities in Afghanistan." Read his piece, here.

Can we call it a triumph? Does being a seminarian mean I have to ask the question of whether Jesus would call it a triumph? I'm not trying to ask that question. I'm just trying to reconcile whether this is a great day or terrible day.

I want it to be a great day. Really badly I want it to be a great day. I want to be proud to be an American, today. I want to be proud of my fantastically eloquent President who stood up and declared that this would be a step forward in the fight against hatred in this world. And that this has never been a war on Islam -- just like W said it wasn't a war on Islam -- and that peace will prevail.

I know that killing people is wrong. I don't like that we kill people to show people that killing people is wrong. But what do you do when you are standing feet from a man responsible for the deaths of thousands? Do you want him to have even the slightest chance of killing even one more person? If you are that Navy SEAL, do you pull that trigger? Of course you do.

But what do I do? What do I say, here, now? I am not a Navy SEAL. I am not the President of the United States. I will never have to make that decision, but I will have to vote for people who will, and I will have to respond when they do.

I thought I was going to end up knowing how I felt about this. I still can't tell if this is the conflict or the resolution.

Peace be with you.