We are all victims, generators, and products of perspective. We bring a host of preconceived notions and assumed truths to all of life, including into our relationships with others — ideas about ourselves, people, and the world that affect the way we view and treat each other. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just an unavoidable thing. We can’t function in reality without some type of a priori, it’s impossible to do. But whether our assumption is positive or negative, good or bad, we’re all stuck in skin and confined to conjecture, doing the best we can to try to understand each other, hopefully well enough to feel connected to someone somewhere and/or “just get by.”

Maybe it’s not as dramatic as all that (maybe), but we certainly all find ourselves feeling misunderstood quite often. It’s here that a recent meme picks up, the one that swept social media and inundated your Facebook and Twitter timelines in the past couple of weeks, the one with the black background and one square picture per “what” to elucidate the assumptions of others (and, briefly, yourself)…

What my friends think I do…

What my mom thinks I do…

What I think I do…

What society thinks I do…

What I really do…

Everyone seemed to find themselves in this meme. It evolved quickly and relentlessly. Most versions were specifically concerned with vocation, one of the main ways adults define themselves. There are now jpegs lamenting the (evidently) ill-understood lives of photographers, seminary students, professional artists, librarians, musicians, and countless other fields. Generally they all seem to say: “My friends think I party, my parents think I play, society thinks I’m weird, I think I’m cool, but I really just sit at a desk behind a computer all day.”

But, the “what I really do” meme (like most of our assumptions of misunderstanding) got a little whiny. Do your friends or parents really not understand you? Do they, perhaps, understand you a little better than you’d like? Is their criticism or commentary something you avoid by tacking together gimmicky joke posts in MS Paint instead of taking it, at the very least, into consideration? Does society, honestly, have at least some point in its assumptions and preconceptions of you, something you should at least give ear to and analyze for yourself? This is the problem of living in a world of conjecture — we fall victim to our own conjectures as well — perhaps our assumptions that we are not understood by others are not entirely true. Each of us is a friend, a family member, and a member of society — we are each in the jpeg, not just chuckling at it.

But feelings of misunderstanding, though they should be analyzed, are often legitimate. The biblical promise that we will “know even as we are fully known” has always resounded deeply with me, and this meme points to the fact that it resounds deeply in all of us. We feel misunderstood, we deeply desire to be “known,” and we desperately want to “know.” This is one of the problems of the Fall — this disconnect with others and the world — and only something that the coming Kingdom of the all-knowing God can fix .

Christ and Pop Culture

Here is an excerpt–one where Carter happens to quote our very own Alan Noble:

To clarify, the term boycott here refers to the act of refusing to use, buy, or deal with a business as an expression of protest or as a means of economic coercion. The concern, for Christians, should be with the coercion part. Simply refusing to participate in an economic transaction with an individual or company is not a boycott. Our choosing not to spend money on lottery tickets is a values-based economic decision, but it is not a form of coercion. As Alan Noble recently said, “Whether it is through votes or dollars, coercing someone to accept our position is nihilistic: it suggests that real change—change of heart and mind—is impossible, or unlikely, and so the safest bet is to make it profitable to adopt our beliefs.”

Forcing someone to adopt our beliefs—whether by violence or economic threat—is a questionable use of our economic power. “Nonviolent resistance,” Tinder writes in his book Political Thinking, “is a way of using power and is thoroughly political.” Tinder’s claim brings to mind the claim of the brilliant Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz: “War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.” Nonviolent resistance may sometimes be a legitimate political act. But by mixing in the coercive tactic of boycotts we may be turning away from righteousness toward an unjust form of economic warfare.

If you haven’t done so already, be sure to check out Alan’s feature, Two Can Play at That: What Komen can Teach us about Boycotts.

Christ and Pop Culture

Are You Addicted

You may think that if you are holding down your job, your excess drinking is not something for you to worry about. As it turns out, you may be a person who has a career that is demanding and successful, yet you can still lose track of your alcohol consumption and be unable to stop after one drink. You might find that friends and family fade away, hoping that you will reconsider your drinking as the alcohol becomes more important to you.

Signs

You might find yourself frequenting bars after work or going at different times in the day. As you begin to lose touch with friends and family, you might decide to sit at home alone and drink for an extended period. It can be easy to lose count of how many drinks you have had at the bar or at home, which is another reason you may want to seek treatment.

Why You Drink

Drinking may give you feelings of courage or peace at the beginning of an evening. You may think you need it to steady your nerves before a night out. This can lead to either not going to the event if you drink too much or you might become drunk and pass out from drinking at the event, unable to remember what happened when you awaken.

The Toll

Mood swings and depression may take hold of your life as your alcohol intake grows, prompting you to seek treatment. You may become upset with others for reasons you do not fully understand. You also may feel guilt if you are unable to control your drinking or become depressed over how you have treated others or yourself.

Increased Need

Cravings for a drink may begin to take hold, or you can experience withdrawal when you go for a period without drinking. To ward off these instances, you might start to obsess about always having enough of a liquor supply at home and note when others drink from it. You also may wonder about why your drinking partner does not drink as much as you do and decide you need to seek help.

Friends and Family

Many friends and members of your family may choose to stay away from you as your drinking advances. There may be uncertainty of how safe it is to be around you or whether you will drive while intoxicated, putting yourself and others at risk. All of these issues may eventually lead to an intervention by your loved ones to prompt you to seek outside help. Get to a residential treatment center.

Christian Rap/Hip Hop news, events, and lyrics ft. Lecrae, Trip Lee, Tedashii, Flame and more!

Christian Hardcore Records

Impressionable Youth

People love to follow celebrity gossip through tabloids, television and internet blogs. Unfortunately, some of the information contained in these outlets aren’t true. Famous people can have their problems blown way out of proportion many different ways. Kids see how they are living their lives and want to imitate. If they see Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears out at night partying with drugs and alcohol they will do they exact same thing. Ultimately, parents must keep watch over their children so they do not fall into these destructive patterns.

Celebrity Treatment Centers

When celebrities hit rock bottom and go to drug addiction treatment people become even more obsessed with their lives. They seem so interesting compared to most peoples mundane lives. There are even reality television shows on air that deal with this very subject. People want to see celebrities confront their issues in front of a camera so they can gossip about them even more. This is a recent phenomenon that is very unhealthy for our country.

Misunderstandings

Unlike normal people who need to seek rehabilitation, celebrities are able to afford luxury treatment facilities. People get the impression, from seeing these places on television, that rehab is a glamorous experience. The reality could not be further from the truth. In fact, rehab is one of the toughest things a person can ever go through. Society needs to wake up to the fact that a drug addiction is not the latest fashion accessory.

Paparazzi

The mainstream media, namely the paparazzi, need to stop broadcasting such frivolous stories about celebrities and their alleged drug use. It fosters a captivation that serves no purpose other than making drug use seem normal. It is bewildering for a young person to see their favorite celebrity using drugs while maintaining a successful career that is endorsed and promoted by the media. It makes it seem like there is nothing wrong with what they are doing.

Help From Family

People who have regular nine to five jobs live very different lifestyles from the celebrities out in Hollywood. They do not have the money in most cases to cultivate and maintain a serious drug habit. If they do, they surely will not have the money for expensive, resort like treatment centers they see on television. It is imperative for people to realize what they see on television and read in tabloids does not accurately reflect real life. If an individual fails to realize this it will make them think it is okay to have a hard partying lifestyle.

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Album Details ::

Album :: Heart

Artist :: Audrey Assad

Release Date :: February 14, 2012

Genre :: Adult Contemporary

Label :: Sparrow Records

Hometown :: New Jersey, USA

Audrey Assad – Heart 2012 american female vocalist biography and history
Biography ::

Audrey Assad was born in Secaucus, New Jersey to a Virginian mother and a Syrian father on July 1, 1983, and was raised in a religious Protestant household. She started to play the piano at 2 and spent her youth moving around New Jersey before settling in Scotch Plains from ages 7 to 18. She attended public school until middle school, where her experience there caused her to ask her mother to homeschool her, which she did. Assad spent her adolescence being homeschooled, working at her father’s businesses, and attending church events.

When Assad was 18 her family moved to Florida and she spent the next six years there. At 19 she briefly attended college and supported herself with odd jobs while beginning her musical career, writing and composing songs for the first time. Assad spent the next five years playing at various venues performing original songs and covers. Venues ranged from restaurants, weddings and coffee shops to leading and organizing worship concerts at church. Around 2003 Assad recorded a 4-song demo with Drew Middleton, a member of the CCM band Tenth Avenue North at the time, whom Assad toured with occasionally……….

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Tracklisting ::

01. Blessed Are The Ones
02. Even The Winter
03. The Way You Move
04. Sparrow
05. Breaking You
06. O My Soul
07. Won Me Over
08. No Turning Back
09. Lament
10. Wherever You Go
11. Slow
12. New Song

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Website | Lyrics

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