Category Archives: Super Saturday

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Super Saturday: When Bad Things Happen to Good People

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This was originally published on December 2, 2011. It’s funny how my life seems so much more connected now. It’s like I was writing this blog post to myself and people who loved me for the future.

In fifth grade, my class held a contest to see who could read the most books. I had the credentials to win this contest. In the third grade, I had set the record for most books read over the year. It was somewhere in the sixties. And some of those books had been long. The Hobbit was on that list. Every summer, I participated in the library’s reading contest. It took me a week or two to get to the t-shirt reward for 1,000 pages read. I was not a reader to be messed with. It’s what I did.

That’s why it hurt so much when I lost the fifth grade contest.

See, there’s another lie that the world tells us. It’s that if you put in the work, if you do the right thing, and if you are a good person, then good tings happen. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people. 

I was listening to a podcast from Shane Hipps. He was talking about all of these righteous people that don’t get to experience the fruits of their righteousness. One of the stories was about Dirk Willems, a sixteenth century Dutch Baptist. Dirk Willems was being chased by a magistrate who wanted to execute him, and Dirk went across a thinly iced river. Dirk made it across, but the magistrate wasn’t so lucky. Dirk, feeling compelled to turn the other cheek, went back and saved the magistrate. The magistrate then captured him and executed him. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people.

Dirk Willems saving a magistrate and condemning himself

We are trained to believe that we should do good things because they lead to good rewards, but sometimes they don’t. We should do good things because they are good. I may not have won my fifth grade reading contest, but I did read a bunch of books for it, and that was good because it was good.

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Super Saturday: An Incomplete List of Things I Don’t Understand

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This post was originally published on January 29, 2012. Having to trust my parents as my ears, eyes, and voice has made me understand the process of growing up.

1. The process of growing up. How do I know when I am thinking like an adult? Is the fact that I am asking that question disqualify me from adulthood?

2. The chorus of “Racks.” This is not entirely relevant but it still bothers me.

3. Athens attractive. Only in Athens, as far as I know, do women find barefoot, unbathed men with long unkempt hair and beards universally attractive. This is not to rail against those men. I love them very much. It’s just that Ryan Gosling, Usher, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas, Justin Timberlake, and George Clooney are men I can admit to be attractive. I have no problem doing it. I can’t say the same for Athens attractive.

4. Why people “like to flirt.” That’s like liking to put your keys into the ignition or liking to use a fork to pick up your food or liking to put lids on cups. These are necessary things, but they aren’t the fun part. The fun part about human interaction is not the flirting. It’s intimacy. Intimacy is also scary, I know, I know. But seriously…

5. Who invented chain e-mails? Who was the first person to be like “I’m going to make my friends forward this useless message to their friends by threatening death by maniacal clown?

6. House parties. I can’t hear you when you are talking. All the girls are going to be gone by midnight with the tall, unbathed, bearded guys. And everything is going to be sticky in the morning.

7. People who use texting as if they were writing long, instantaneously-received letters to each other. If my thought to you can’t fit into 160 characters, I usually feel like I’m being annoying.

8. All human relationships. Why anyone would willingly yoke themselves to me is beyond my comprehension.

9. Analytic philosophy.

10. Rape jokes. Is the idea that if you tell enough of them, they magically become funny?

11. Engagement pictures. What do they do? I mean, they are fun, but wouldn’t it be more fun to dress up and go do cute things together  and pose without a camera? Think about all the funny looks!

12. Coffee. I drink it sometimes, but aren’t coffee-drinkers a more “sophisticated” form of the kid we used to make fun of in sixth grade for drinking a Mountain Dew every morning?

13. Pinterest. It’s like a mysterious universe filled with wedding dresses.

14. How people get invited to weddings. I am now in my 20s. I should be being invited to weddings of friends. That way I can show off my dance moves and woo women by telling them my theories on why liking to flirt is silly.