Downtown

Today consisted of going to orientation meetings in the morning after breakfast(which I skipped) and then lunch. After I came up to my dorm and relaxed momentarily. I got to go downtown today. WOW. Downtown we went to two museums and a couple of parks. Absolutely incredible. Here are my thoughts.

As you walk downtown you can't help but notice the beauty. It truly is an incredible place. How is that such a busy place can be so serene? Chicago really is full of some epic art. It's everywhere. The buildings. The parks. The people...

Homeless and Beggars, the typical thought is, I'm not gonna give them money because they're gonna go buy drugs, or, they deserve this. Where's the compassion? I honestly hate seeing it, I feel so helpless, I want to help...but I don't know how. I saw a man, holding his son by the hand he said to me, "please help us get something to eat." For all of you who have seen "Pursuit of Happyness" you know that bad stuff happens to good people. Who am I to judge and say that it's his fault he's in the predicament facing him? This needs to be changed. How is it that one of the wealthiest Government's in the world. An international superpower can let this be like this? How can so many go without homes? How can so many go without food? It hurts the heart. Bad things happen to good people.

Bad things happen to good people. I know this is a true statement. Is the opposite true as well? Good things happen to bad people? How is it that life is so ridiculous. I loathe seeing when bad stuff happens to people who don't deserve it at all. The people who deserve nothing but blessings. The ones who deserve nothing but happiness because they are the epitome of good. Then there's the people who care about nobody but themselves. Those people that are self-righteous and narcissistic. Why is it that it seems that they are the ones who tend to get all the breaks? "Life's not fair." If I had a dollar for every time I heard that line, I'd be ridiculously rich. That would be quite a lucrative privilege...What can we do about this? Gandhi taught, "you must become the change you want to see in the world." I take this a step farther. We must become the change we want to see. I must become the change I want to see. It all starts with me. It is my responsibility to "get the ball rolling."

I went to a a yellow room today. It was, no lie, nothing but yellow, it brought out the blemishes in your skin and saturated your sight with yellow. It was almost as if your eyes had been impregnated with a special yellow lens. It can be compared to editing a photo and turning all colors down except for yellow. WOW, I absolutely loved going in there. It made me think of judgment. It made everything that was unimportant go dull and in the background, my shoes, my clothing, my jewelry, all that faded into the background. All that was left was..ME. Heavenly Father won't judge us by our status in our earthly life. He won't judge us by how much money we made. He won't judge us by the car we drove. He won't judge us by the clothing we wore. He will judge us righteously because he is perfect. He will judge us according to what we've done. He will justly judge us by out attitude. He will judge us by the service we've rendered. He will judge us by our actions.