Be Together Not the Same

So Apple recently announced pricing for their new iWatch and though I think their price point is rather high compared to some watches already on the market, it will undoubtedly do well. I personally don't like the iWatch, and think the design isn't as good as it should be coming from Apple. Some critics think it is too late for them to find a good foot hold, or that the styling is dated and it seems people aren't expecting very much from it.

Being one who got on the smarthwatch bandwagon almost 3 years ago now, with the first Sony Smartwatch followed by the first Galaxy Gear, and then later with the Gear Live, I love the idea of the smartwatches. First of all, I like wearing watches, and have always looked for cool watches that didn't break the bank. Now being able to access my phone with just a quick look at my wrist is convenient and cool still. I get people ask me about it a lot. I think they will become something and not just a fad. 

Some of the new watches, like the Samsung Galaxy Gear S can even be your phone if you really wanted to. Though this doesn't make me excited as I more want to be able to access messages, notifications, and the like more than I want to talk to people I am fine with where the watches are now. I don't even like talking to people on the phone in general.

My Gear Live watch is perfect for me, has lots of cool watch faces, can check the weather, emails, how far I have walked, my heart rate, it is a great tool to have at easy access, even when I am at work and can't look at my phone. I think the Android Wear OS is fantastic and with each new update it becomes even more useful. 

The Apple iWatch doesn't seem to break too much ground with what it does or maybe it does and I just don't see it yet. Or maybe it will even find a nice niche with other iPhone people. The watches that are out and coming out, and new phones flying around the market, one can't get away from the Apple/Android war. There will always be fan boys and girls of each being paragons of their brands. But they got me thinking about the two brands.

Apple makes some great products. I prefer my Google based stuff and love my Samsung devices, but I will acknowledge that Apple does have some cool stuff out there. But it was Google's current ads that made me think about them in relation to The Church. This is the church as a whole, every denomination that makes up Christianity. "Be Together. Not the Same."

Some adds they show people of all walks of life, people who are on different ends of the social spectrum, but all getting along with each other. They have a common ground. Be together. Not the same. In my opinion, Apple is a company who tells you what you want in a phone, they have basically one option to fit all walks of life, rich, poor, good, bad, one phone to rule them all. Android, being a OS and not a phone manufacturer, feels like it is more designed that each person, where ever they come from, can find a phone that fits them, find the options they want, styles they want, but still keeping everyone together under one roof. In a way, I feel Android has a bit more freedom to think your own thoughts.

For the most part, you can split Christianity up into two groups, Catholic and Protestant. I am not a Catholic Christian. I come from a Methodist background, and as such, am firmly rooted in my Protestant-ness. Here is how I see the two of them. The Catholic Church is like Apple. It is a one size fits all, regardless of where you come from. They tell you what you should believe, think, say, and you get your salvation. I really hope this doesn't sound like I have a bad view of the Catholic Church, because I do not. I have a great deal of respect for them. The protestants seem to me to be more like an Android based phone. You get your salvation still but you can find different people out there that maybe have a similar theological belief as you. You can find a place where you belong and fit you. Be together. Not the Same.

Each, at its very core are really the same thing; iPhone or Android based phone both are phones at their base. They both make phone calls, both receive texts, browse the internet, or whatever else you might like them to do. Same with the Church, whether you are Catholic or Protestant, at our base, we have Jesus Christ and the salvation that comes with him as our Redeemer. 

The two parts of Christianity have many similarities and differences, but no matter who you are in the world, you can be the poorest or the richest or right in the middle, Jesus has a place for you. In Jesus we are together, but we don't have to worship the same, we don't have to think the same thing on the details. All we need, the thing that if you don't have, then it isn't Christianity, is Christ. He is every bit like our phone. He makes calls, sends us messages, gives notifications. Yet if I feel small group is important to keep you as close to God as you can be, or you think you need to be submersed in baptism, it doesn't matter as long as we both have Jesus Christ as our redeemer and our salvation. You can call the Holy Spirit a spirit or a ghost, who cares? We have Jesus.

We are together, but not the same.

When Good Griefing Goes Wrong

When I wrote this, the temperature was rising slowly, spring finally creeping its way in. The day was bright with a beautiful blue sky, something we don't often have in Northeast Ohio. Jackets were coming off, and people were in a good mood. Winter and it's darkness almost over, replaced with Spring, new life, warmth and light. Today was a wonderful day, even being a Monday. The day turned to night, and I was done with work. It was now time to play some Minecraft.

I love to come home and mine in Minecraft. The method I mine with has me counting blocks between each torch. The counting, repetition and quietness for thirty minutes each night relaxes me and calms my mind so I fall right asleep. Tonight was not one of those nights.

Tonight I was playing with my friend. I look forward to every chance we get to play so I eagerly went to my computer and waited for her to get on. She showed me what she was working on all day and then we just kinda fooled around talking about plans, playing with things, and then we went to work on the big house she started on. We are working the interior of the house when I was playing with creative mode and put a few animals in her house. She grrr'd at me and since I find it kinda funny and cute, I put more down. Griefing friends can be fun.

I was laughing and so was she, then she disappeared as I was cleaning up the large amount of squid I had put all over the floor of her house. I flew back to my house when she made a comment about seeing something, when I got there there were chickens everywhere. I mean everywhere. Kitchen, bedroom, storage room, prison, barely could walk there were so many of them.

So, as any good and loving friend would do, I flew back to her now empty house, and spawned a ton of villagers. If you haven't played Minecraft, you don't know how rather annoying villagers are and the hurh sound they make. One annoying sound times about 100 villagers, makes for some fun griefing moments. I told her she should come see what I did, and she burst into laughing. That many villagers is just too funny not to laugh at.

I decided to clean up the chickens and stuff and was looking online to see if you can use the /kill command to clean out just the chickens. Sure it would make me lose my farm and cooker, but it was a small price to pay for having to kill a thousand chickens. I was reading and they said if I put some brackets and a name or some such, I could kill only one type of mob. So I tried.

Dead. The chickens were dead. meat and feathers everywhere. But so was all of my gear. I died too. Not only me, but so did my friend, my dogs, my cats, horses, pigs, rabbits. All of my friends dogs and cats also died. Fred Killer died too, but no one really cared about his death since he killed our beloved Fred months ago. Not only all the animals died, my map died, anything that is considered an 'entity' died. I felt like the worst person in the world.  So for the next hour, I ran around making new maps, spawning new dogs. (Yes I was in creative mode because I was not planning on building anything. I use it to fly around and fix all the blocks the really stupid Endermen take. I really hate Endermen.)

Finally everything seemed OK, animals were back, new map hung, Things were looking good again. I still felt like a mass murderer and felt bad that I started with the squid to begin with. The moral of the story is, don't grief your friends. Might seem fun at first, and even after many times of doing it, but sooner or later you are going to kill everyone and everything. However, I am going to let her grief herself, time to find a place to hid a dispenser filled with spawn eggs. Shhh, don't tell her.