my 100th post is quite a doozy.

02.28.09
Not my usual Saturday…

My employers (parents of the kid I privately tutor) asked if I could baby/house-sit for the weekend. So I’m sitting in an easily multi-million dollar house in Newport. Kobe Bryant lives just across the street. Because they’re a lovely family (the parents are so sweet and the kids are awesome), I jumped on the opportunity (and I suppose the extra moola ain’t so bad either). I’m not gonna lie…I’m enjoying playing house for a day. Doing some laundry, serving meals, helping with homework and cleaning up after these kids. Definitely not my typical Saturday schedule.

So now here I am…attempting to write an essay in a huge house with the younger boy running around with his friends and the older one aimlessly playing with their x-box…or ipod…or iphone…or macbook…or one of their many many toys. I start to think…it’s a beautiful day outside and this kid's eyes are fixated on a TV screen, wasting their brains and time idly playing video games?! But who am I to talk when my beloved laptop and useless web-browsing often keeps me from playing outside too?

Man, then there are so many times where I think…these kids really don’t know how blessed they are. They have it all. They get whatever they want without debate. They’re allowed to eat whatever, do whatever, watch whatever, say whatever. Even with all the luxuries handed to them, they still find a way to complain. I try to knock some sense into them when I can, telling them there’s no reason why they should complain…but they just don’t get it.

I try to rationalize…maybe it’s because they’re so young that they don’t acknowledge their blessings…

But then I think how silly of me to think that these kids are so ungrateful when there’s so many of us "young people" who may be the exact same way. Okay, so we may not live in these extravagant mansions on the coast or ride around in our parents’ land rovers or attend the fanciest private schools…but we do have the luxury to throw money around on the snazziest trends, flashiest shoes or new gizmos & gadgets. We can eat out, go out, stay out…probably without thinking, man, I really should save up my money…or my parents’ money, which is often the case. But how often do we actually thank our parents for giving us the things we do not deserve? How often do we thank God for giving us all these things we do not deserve?

We can drive around, play around, fool around at our own leisure. We joke and claim that we, as mere college students, are suffering from this economic crisis and we complain because gas and movie ticket prices went up a couple bucks? We do not have the right to complain either…when there’s actually people losing their jobs and their homes, being hit with the real burdens of this "crisis".

So then, I try to rationalize…maybe it’s because we’re so young that we don’t acknowledge our blessings…perhaps.

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So I put the younger boys to sleep. Michael’s friend, William, was staying over and woke up in the middle of the night. He felt like he was going to have an asthma attack and forgot his inhaler. He began to freak out, expressing his fear that his parents would be really angry if he called home. He also started explaining that asthma was unpredictable…that he could die… that asthma is where you suffocate to death…how he wants to get rid of asthma. He ended up calling home and his tired mom didn’t seem so happy that he was calling so late at night. I tried to calm him down, saying that he would be fine.

As we waited for William’s dad to pick him up, he and Michael began an interesting conversation about life and death…

WILLIAM: I hate asthma. I could like die in my sleep.
MICHAEL: I don’t want to die. I want to live my whole life.
ME: Well, you will live your whole life.
MICHAEL: No, I mean like I wanna live forever, like I don’t wanna get shot or something.
WILLIAM: He’s saying that he wants to live a long time and not some miraculous fall or getting shot.
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Somehow the conversation took an unexpected turn...

WILLIAM: Well you’re not gonna die…unless rapture comes.

ME: What? You know about rapture?!

WILLIAM: Yeah.

MICHAEL: What’s that? Is it scary?

WILLIAM: It’s basically where God decides it’s the end of the world when the good people go to heaven and the bad people get left behind. Someone calculated it to be in 2066…but it could happen in like 3 seconds!...whenever God wants.

MICHAEL: How can he do that? So you’re saying in 3 seconds, I could just die?

WILLIAM: Yeah, it’s like…say, a giant flood comes and there’s a fire, that means it’s the rapture.

ME: Where did you learn that?

WILLIAM: In church. They talk about it all the time.
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I forgot the rest of the details of the conversation, but I was blown away by it. To think that these kids are 9 years old are discussing relatively mature topics. It showed me that we cannot underestimate how much young ones understand and that age should not dictate when we begin to teach people about our faith. Although William’s knowledge was pretty surface level (and I am really no expert either), it was very surprising to hear this dialog. This was also a slap-in-the-face-moment because my lack of knowledge regarding this topic made me feel incompetent and hesitant to share the gospel, which should never be the case---ever. I can only hope that the next opportunity I have to spread the Word that I take it with full force and fervent wisdom.

And that was that.

---- told you it'd be a doozy. ciao.