2,000 years ago, a young carpenter from a po-dunk town of Israel rose to the ranks of the known and stirred up the established religions of the day by claiming to be God and throwing out ideals like many of the ancient prophets did – Justice, hope, and peace (amongst other universal ideas).  Jesus is risen!

700 years ago, A guy by the name of William Wallace (if you believe the movie) cried out for the ideals of freedom for every individual against an established feudalistic order of the day that was hell bent on keeping the land owners, land owners, and the peasants, peasants.

100 years ago, two men were born, one in the north and one in the south, who believed that things were not right, but they could be.  So these men fought for equality, hope, and the American dream, both rising to national prominence, and both were shot for these ideals they were propogating.  Martin Luther King, Jr. died at a hotel on March 29, 1968 and Ronald Reagan survived an assasination attempt on March 30, 1981 (coincidentally hours before my sister, Brooke, was born).  Reagan went on to finish out 8 more years as the president of the United States.

I use these examples, not to call our new president (as of this January) any type of savior or freedom fighter or even a uniter – He’s not a savior and hasn’t been around long enough to fight for freedom or unite anyone.  But I want to continue to propagate a different message that I believe every politician, pastor, and leader should hold on to beyond this election week.

When given the choice between cynicism and hope – we will ultimately choose hope.

When given the choice between hate and love – we will ultimately choose love.

When given the choice between injustice and justice – we will ultimately choose justice.

When things aren’t going well, the temptation is to start playing the cynic and attack the opposition, but the irony is that time and after time after time the person or people who accentuate their ideals ultimately win, over those who attack the opposition.  Could it be that God created the world this way?

I know there are a lot of arguments (even good ones) against this thought process.  But the examples for ideals far outweigh the examples of playing the cynic.  Just look at the opposites of the aforementioned examples.  They are famous too:  The Pharisees, King “Longshanks”, George Wallace, and Walter Mondale.

My case is now rested.

Part1, part 2, or part 3

Hey, guess what I’m doing right now. Come on, guess, just this once…

I’m creating content, the number 4 way that is changing the world and my world right in front of our eyes.  The freedom and ability of all of us to do what we can do when we like to do it at a low cost (if any).  So I blog because I like to write.  WordPress or blogspot or typepad give us the “freedom” and the platform to blog and to start a conversation about life or religion or politics or any number of topics that we may associate ourselves with.  Facebook and Myspace give us the freedom to start a web site about ourselves that can interact with other web sites that talk about our friends.  And with google, I can have the weather, a map, all the blogs I read, my to-do list, my news, my calendar, my podcasts from Fellowship Church, and any free itunes downloads I can have access too all on the same page.  And it’s all “created by me.”  (Everything but the codes)

And this is just the social aspects of it.  New academics can join the Wikipedia community and write (or rewrite) essays for the encyclopedia version of things that we want to know about like William Wallace and The War of 1812.  New reporters can make a name for themselves without having to interview inside of any newspaper establishment.  Computer programmers who want to go beyond the scope of their jobs can do so on their own time solving problems in “open source” software communities.  Bible teachers can now wax eloquent with their own studies in places like You Version.  Retired?  Thats a thing of the past if you want to keep going.  I read a story recently about a retired scientist who had retired from a company and then got involved with solving “open source” problems offered on the web by the scientific community.  He solved problems to the tune of $25,000 a pop.

And this is in our hands.  We now have more tools to do what we love and to create content.  Sure we might have to still stay up late and write or solve or search or draw, but the point is this – we can create content and be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and do it with things we love to do.  Now the only question is…

What do you love to do?

Special thanks to those of you who have helped “create” this discussion on where our world is going.