I wanted to show you the YouTube video below as something that might renew your faith in humanity despite those who seem to be fighting to destroy every aspect of humanity in our lives. Jeff Louis, 22, is a man who has struggled to stay clean after an addiction history and is working as a delivery driver for Gionino’s Pizza in Ohio. That is a rough road to walk, but something happened on a recent delivery that I wanted to share with you.
Louis delivered a large number of pizzas to Life Point Church but was asked outside to bring just one of the pizzas to the minister on the stage inside of the church. Congregation members then proceeded to give him tip after tip . . . $700 worth. It was a Jean Valjean moment. They had decided to reach out to a complete stranger on this holiday to try to improve his life. This is his reaction.
I know that this posting doesn’t offer any analysis of constitutional issues or insights into some emerging crisis or atrocity. However, there is something incredibly profound and encouraging in such accounts of people simply reaching out to a stranger to make a difference in their lives.
Good luck Jeff and thank you to the congregation of Life Point Church.
By the way, the town is appropriately named Mentor, Ohio.
Butkick, We have a similar history and philosophy. Nice comment.
Nick, Thanks, I appreciate your comment.
Dog
That’s Chartres, not Chartes. The amazing thing about Chartres Cathedral is that it was rebuilt after a fire in under 40 years which was fast for those times when a cathedral might take a couple hundred years to be built or rebuilt, narthex, by apse, by transept, by nave, etc. The reason the damaged parts were rebuilt so fast along with most of the cathedral in one homogenous expression of Gothic style architecture was the momentary direct connection of the people with their faith when they found their most treasured object, the tunic of the Virgin Mary, in the rubble, or something like that.
If one looks closer and takes the time something more important can be seen. The sculptural cycle that can be found at the entrances and other choice parts of the exterior start at one transept entrance and go around the cathedral to the other. They were created over hundreds of years and illustrate the evolution of the faith from the mystical, other worldly statues of kings and biblical characters with oversize heads and floating feet to more realistic renditions of characters carved hundreds of years later when humanism began to intertwine with religious mysticism. Take it for what you will, however, the evolution of Christianity can be seen in its architecture where, in place of reading the stories as most people couldn’t read, the stories were taught through art and architecture. Cathedrals strove to become more open, with more illumination, and more triumphant in their expression. Art evolved to include the human in the equation by representing the human form in the expression. Regardless of all the extreme iterations of Christianity, some of which rival the worst Islamic iterations, Christianity is evolving to be what it was intended to be, a celebration of life.
Take a look at Islam through its present day iterations: don’t do this, don’t do that, women are second, chop of a body part, walk around in a tent, kill this guy for looking at that girl and kill the girl as well for good measure, and on and on. If ever there was a more thuggish iteration of humanity it is Islam when taken in a strict sense. The only Muslims who contribute to society are those who can take it personally and intellectually as a pondering of the universe. If you need a god or gods to tell you what to do then you are nothing more than a recruit.
its funny, I used to have the God debate.
When I was 16
One life, believe what you want, leave me out of it.
Catholic school thru HS (Chicago), hated going to church, havent really gone in 30 years. But looking back, damn glad I did go thru that. Good people.
but some people INSIST on proving themselves right.
Whatever gets you through your life, its all right…………….
If any of you can go to Chartes Cathedral you will see in the structure, windows, sculpture, the story of Christianity. It is a great place. I would say that the Pizza Driver would appreciate a trip to visit such a place. He has probably already been converted. That is not my reason for sending him to Chartes. No, the reason is that any citizen should see such things some time in life.
If he had delivered those pizzas to Bill Gate’s house I’m sure he would have gotten over $700.00 worth of Vaccinations.