The gospel according to fandom

If you’ve read any of my past posts, you know that I’m a fan of a lot of things. I’m a huge nerd and when I love something, I love it. I watched all eight Harry Potter movies in a day and a half. I watch entire seasons of TV shows in a day and I’ve watched the entirety of the Doctor Who continuation three times. I own every season of The Office, Friends, and Community. I have a Pinterest account and 80% of the things I pin are about something that I seriously nerd out about (the other 20% is recipes for desserts with a lot of chocolate). And that nerdiness has begun to seep into my relationships. I’ve convinced many a person to watch Community and I recently got one of my friends to enter into the Doctor Who fandom (ok, so she’s just going to watch it, but nine times out of ten that results in fandom). Some may say I’m suffering from a nerd addiction, but I’m loving every minute of it.

But here’s the thing, I wish it were as easy to convince someone of the gospel as it is to convince them to watch a television show or read a book series. Maybe it is, but I just don’t put as much effort into it, which is an awful thought. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve recommended a TV show, movie, band, or book to someone. It happens at least once on most days. It comes so naturally to me, and I’m sure many others, to share the things they love with the people they love. So why is it so hard to tell someone about Jesus? I mean, He’s so much better than any story I could recommend to someone, but I find myself telling people about Him less and less. The gospel is something that I love immensely, so why am I so hesitant to share it with the people I love?

As we go on, we remember

List 10 things you would hope to be remembered for

1. Exemplary faith in Jesus Christ
2. Happiness
3. Humor
4. Being the person God made me to be
5. Love for others
6. Seeing Jesus in me
7. Optimism (I’ve clearly run out of ideas and I’m now repeating)
8. Knowledge of pop culture (to be honest I really don’t care about this one)
9. Love of eating and baking all things chocolate
10. How incredibly awesome and obviously modest I am

And that’s it for 30 things! Thanks for following on this strange journey of awkward introspection 🙂

Comfortable Silence

What do you think people misunderstand most about you?

I’m awkward and I like people and talking to people, but I’m comfortable with silence. If I’m quiet around you, I’m comfortable. Unless I’m making a face at your or giving actual signs that I’m upset, I’m usually not upset when I’m quiet. I enjoy just sitting in a room or in the car with someone I like. Sometimes, it is actually an awkward silence, but both parties are usually incredibly aware of that fact. Most of the time, it’s comfortable silence. Don’t ruin it. Especially with chewing.

La Langue D’Amour

What is your love language?

I don’t know what this means.

I looked it up on the internet and still don’t really understand it, but I took The 5 Love Languages test and it said my love language is quality time. Apparently I like the people I love to spend time with me and pay attention to me. I do not speak the language of physical touch. I got an incredibly low score in that area.

For those of you who don’t know, I will educate you on the very little I know about the 5 love languages. They are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. And that is the extent of my knowledge on the subject.

Brainiac

What is your favorite part of your body and why?

Wow. Weird question. I’m going to say my brain. Not necessarily only in my body; I’m fascinated by the human brain. Its abilities are outstanding. I am nowhere close to knowing really how the human brain works; it takes years to become a neurologist and be an expert on that, and even then there are still mysteries. Such a small object has so much power. The brain controls everything about our bodies. And when you think about everything mankind has done, that has all been controlled by our brains. That’s insanity! There are countless novels, shows, stories, and movies that have come from the creativity of the human brain, and there are even more inventions, from the wheel to the iPhone 5 that have been thought of by our minds. The ability for our brains to understand how our brains work makes my head hurt to think about. So meta.

No funeral protests here

What popular notion do you think the world has most wrong?

All Christians hate people who aren’t like them and just want to shove their religion down everyone’s throats. Sure, there are a select few who have a misguided grasp on evangelism, but not all Christians are like that. We are called to love because Jesus first loved us. Jesus came to save all of humanity from sin while we were still sinners. No need to judge someone because they sin differently than us. We may not necessarily be good at it, but we try our hardest to love others the way God loves us.

That is a picture of some Christians at a gay pride rally apologizing for how they used to be and how many Christians treat them. We should all strive for this kind of love.

Silence is Golden

If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be and what would you eat?

This is a tough one. I think I’d pick Charlie Chaplin. He was a comedic genius, and he was just an all around cool dude. Except for the moustache. That was a pretty weird moustache. During my first few weeks of college, my dorm room got 12 TV channels: NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, TBS, and 7 public access channels. One of those channels played old movies all the time. I’d be lying if I said I passed over the silent films when I was channel surfing. They were fun to watch! In the realm of Charlie-Chapman-is-an-all-around-cool-dude, I read once that when he was dying, a pastor came into his room to prepare him for death, and when the pastor said, “May the Lord have mercy on your soul,” to which he replied, “Why not? It belongs to him.” What a cool dude. For real.

As for what we’d eat, I have absolutely no idea. Nothing special comes to mind. That’s a really boring answer to follow that.

Adams Family Values

Describe your family dynamic in your childhood and your family dynamic now

There are nine years between me and my oldest brother. He was already in high school when I was in first grade. Half of my family was mature enough to watch PG-13 movies while I was afraid of the Teletubbies (which, frankly I still am; that baby-face sun is creepy). I really only fought with my brother closest in age to me because we lived in the same world. Meanwhile, my two oldest brothers would fight over stuff like girls or sports – you know, high school boy stuff. We were still close and we were still the ideal 1950s suburban family. I went to everyone’s sports competitions and they watched Disney movies with me and came to my dance recitals. We weren’t necessarily close, just there for each other.

Now that, relatively speaking, we’re all adults and pretty much live in the same world, we get along great. We make fun of each other because that’s just the Adams way. I’m probably closest to my youngest brother now. Isn’t that just the way it goes? The one you fight with most growing up is the one you’re closest to when the growing is done.