what the heck are we thinking?

so far the war in iraq has cost us 145.2 billion dollars.
124 billion dollars would give free health insurance to all the uninsured families in america.
116 billion dollars would give everyone in america free gasoline on monday, wednesday and fridays.
115 billion dollars would give every college student in america free tuition as well as room and board.
68 billion dollars would convert every registered car to run on ethanol.
30 billion dollars would give every child in the world basic education.
21 billion dollars would give universal access to sanitary water for everyone on earth.
7 billion dollars would end hunger in america alone.

will someone please explain to me why we are so worried about killing people that we spend this kind of money on it? america has a pretty damn stupid git-r-done mentality right now. i dont know this just really makes me sad, i hope it makes you sad also.
LOVE|NICK

what i am doing.

i maybe write too much about what others should be doing, if you have talked to me at all in the past few days you have probably heard me rambling about shane claiborne. what i like about him is he simply talks about what he does, not anything about other people. so i will now simply talk about whats going on in my life. nothing really. i am doin the school thing, and that is going pretty well. other than that, i am sucking. basically. i am struggling with things like patience with others alot. it is really hard for me right now to deal with arrogant people. there is one kid in my class who will remain nameless, but he is a senior, and lets everyone know it. he is "obviously" more educated than us, and he makes us aware of this through his not so subtle under the breath utterings that put people in their place after they have asked the teacher a legitimate question. you know the kind of people im talking about, they feel like everyone needs and wants to know that they know the answer. i am not loving him at all right now.
today in my history of christianity class, our prof was speaking about muslim people, and he mentioned a point in history when they were being severely persecuted. a baseball player from the back of the room hideously scoffed, "oh thats too bad"
it was by the grace of God alone, that i did not flip out on the kid and start screaming in the middle of class. i didnt even give him a dirty look. part of me thinks i shouldve said something, but part of me knows it would not have been out of a love for him, that i would be correcting him.
i have no idea why i write some of this stuff out here for whoever reads this to see. mostly because i dont want people to think i am perfect and always have deeply spiritual thoughts or whatever. most of the time i suck at life, and am negative. and get pissed at people. sorry if i led you to believe otherwise. sorry this is so dark.
did you know that every bottle of fiji water requires as much oil as there is water in the bottle, to produce it, and 2-3 times as much water as is actually in the bottle?
LOVE|NICK

Jesus wrecked my life.

i read an article in relevant magazine the other day written by a guy name shane claiborne. it was actually 2 different exerps from his book "the irresistable revolution", which is really good by the way. (so far). he talks about how we hear all of these "success" stories involving people who were once druglords, murders, and cussers who find Christ, and immediately their life is better, and they become clean cut, get some nice looking shirts, and go speak at church camps. there is nothing wrong with this at all. i think it is awesome that people that appear to be so lost can find Jesus like that. but i think those of us that grow up hearing these stories, those of us who have it all together, and have been christians since we burst from the womb, hear these stories and think, "man so we are supposed to get our crap together when we recieve Christ". i dont think this is necesarrily true, shane says that once he started taking his faith seriously, Jesus wrecked his life. and i think that should be true in all of our lives. if your natural reaction to every single situation is to respond in love, than dont worry about what i am writing, because you are obviously beyond this. but if you respond to situations out of anger, then Jesus will turn your life upside down. if you care about homeless people, then Jesus will turn your life upside down. He doesn't care if we simply care about them, he calls us to know them. what shane is saying is, once you start REALLY looking at how Jesus lived his life, and REALLY start trying to emulate that, then your comfortable life will be turned to shambles. i am very comfortable right now, not in the sense that i have nice things, but in the sense that it is freaking cold out (14 deg.) right now, and i am sitting here in my warm house about to eat a heart shaped pizza that my mom makes every valentines season. instead of going out and feeding pizza to homeless people. i say this to you pointing out that i am the worst of offenders, and asking you to join me in my quest for living the loving life we are supposed to.

LOVE|NICK