let’s just cut to the chase, friends: jesus is coming to get ya.

well, some of ya.

but not all of ya.

as most of you know, thanks to our friends at family radio, we have ample prep time for jesus’ return on may 21, 2011. that, of course, is tomorrow. it’s coming pretty quickly.

i’m reminded regularly that blogging truly is a completely vulnerable, public diary. my thoughts—for better or for worse—flow forth in relatively unadulterated streams. sometimes it’s brilliant…and far more often, it’s pretty, well, not so brilliant.

recently i was thinking about the fact that whatever i write on the internet will be forever present. yes, forever. it will never. go. away.

my kids will read it.

and my grandkids will probably read it.

and, in the end, i’m ok with that. (i think?)

UPDATE :: i assumed this story would get a lot of response, but even i was surprised at the overwhelming reaction (it is now my most read post of 2011). i appreciate the reposts, retweets and other things that start with ‘re-‘… i wanted to offer an update and unfortunately, the update is much less heartwarming than the original story.

as of yesterday afternoon—ironically just hours after posting the story—my friends were kicked out of the house. i’m still not too sure of all the details, but it seems the woman had nothing to do with it. it was out of her control. my understanding is that she is the manager/caretaker of the house (and has lived there for quite some time) and a family member is the actual owner. once the owner found out, he kicked them out.

so, they’re back on the streets.

given the immense response, i thought i’d put it out there to see if anyone knew of any alternative housing situations for my friends. they need to stay in the downtown area if possible because they don’t have a vehicle. it’s just the 2 of them, so it wouldn’t need to be much.

if you have anything or know of anything, please contact me and i can offer some more information. you can leave a comment or email me at ryan [at] beingryanbyrd [dot] com. thanks in advance!

every now and then, it’s a good practice to point the finger at myself and my fellow christians. the truth is that we often believe we’ve monopolized, well, the truth. but to quote rob bell, truth is everywhere, under every nook and cranny. and i think he’s onto something.

yesterday, i decided to try a little something different here on the blog and posed a scenario, asking for your response. here was the scenario:

A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Bill, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So Bill got desperate and broke into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife.

Should Bill have broken into the store to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

i was pleased to get a handful of responses, both in the comments and a couple via email.

i’m gonna try out something a little different here on the ol’ blog. BUT, i need your help.

this will be a 2-part post, consisting of this entry and an explanatory post tomorrow. i don’t want to give away too many details other than to say that the following scenario is not something i’ve created. this has been around since the late 70s/early 80s (maybe prior to that??) and has been used, primarily, in connection with cognitive development psychology.

it’s early 2011. so why wouldn’t we be talking about the 2012 presidential election?

yes, it’s that time again (although maybe it shouldn’t be since, you know, it’s early 2011…) to jump back into the frenetic bid for the presidency. quite frankly, i’m not sure why anyone would want to jump into said frenetic bid based on the beating that president obama has taken from teabaggers, right wingers in general and even fickle democrats over the course of his first term. but alas, we’ve got a broad range of possible presidential contenders including sarah palin, mike huckabee, a dude named mitt and even donald trump. no, you’re not being punk’d by that list…

naturally, president obama will be seeking re-election and yesterday, he formally declared his candidacy.