Steve Schulz for President!

Ok, no I don't really mean that. Well... actually, Steve would be a better Secretary Of State... I think I want Buster Posey for president actually. Anyway... I hung out with a really awesome guy I met 2 years ago on an airplane. [Cue the porn music...] No no no! It wasn't like that! Sheesh!

Anyway, I want to give recognition to my recently-reconnected-with friend Steve. The simple truth is that the world needs more people like him. The millennial generation gets such a bad rap; if one watches media coverage then it would seem that the world of folks born in the late 1980s is defined by Facebook, Jersey Shore, and Kim Kardashian's allegedly callipygian badonkadonk. Not so for this young man. Steve comes from a long line of religious conservatives but (bless his parents) he was raised to love his neighbor. He understands Islam, his passion calls him to stand up for my civil rights -- God bless my heterosexual allies! -- and he actually gives a damn about places like Syria.

How long will all of you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. (Psalm 82:2-4 NIV)

I must say that I have really been struggling over the last year or so regarding my fear that the world may have reached its tipping point -- the point from which we cannot recover, the point where the only way "forward" is through a total global collapse. As a Christian, I do not fear such a thing on a spiritual level: in fact, if it is going to happen at all then I want it to be a total collapse so that we can just get on with the Second Coming already! But, it's this weird viscous in-between shit that drives me bonkers. Not knowing how I am going to find part-time work with enough pay to get by and not be homeless by the end of this year; not knowing how my parents are going to weather the current shit-storm they are processing regarding my dad's health and living arrangements; not having any clarity on how I am supposed to answer God's call without ending up living in my car (hello God... I'm not preaching a prosperity-theology here... but... dude, seriously, could ya throw me a frickin' bone re: how I am supposed to survive?)

But when talking with Steve, I see a path forward. I see hope for the future. I see someone who actually gives a shit. Praise God for the people of Steve's generation who have his passion for justice.

Your older sister was Samaria, who lived to the north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you with her daughters, was Sodom. You not only followed their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they. As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done. (Ezekiel 16:46-51 NIV)