Stars

Last night, I had the beautiful privilege of seeing the night sky lit with stars. I always find it awe-inspiring to see the dark canvas painted with these bright spots. Stars are so intriguing: they are millions of light years away, yet still visible in a world that is only 6,000-10,000 years old. They appear as tiny specks of light, but in reality, they are massive rotating spheres of gas. In Genesis, it mentions that the stars are intended to give light to the earth and separate the light from the darkness. While man has been able to understand much about stars and their purpose, there is still vast detail that is undiscovered.

I think God created the stars with their beauty and practicality in order to demonstrate who He is. Their complexity of design points toward a Mind more creative than humanly imaginable. His depth of knowledge and wisdom surpasses man's understanding. His desire to separate the light from the darkness shows His passion for us to know Him. So much of the world is like the darkness of the light sky: bland, empty, seeming to serve no purpose. But God reveals Himself in ways that are beautiful, guiding, and well organized, just like the stars.

God was preparing the universe before man was even created provide a planet for man. He carefully planned the alignment of the stars out of His love for us. As if that were not enough, He created the stars to appear beautiful to us. Why would he honor us, a rebellious creation, with the glory of the stars? It all points to His love. Because of their beauty, design, and purpose, the stars are a constant reminder of God's love.

London Day 3

          Today started off well, with a wonderful English breakfast containing sausages links, ham, sunny-side up eggs, strawberry yogurt, and the best breakfast tea I have ever drank before. Shortly after this delicious start, we went to our orientation meeting where my group performed our presentation. I was quite nervous going into the presentation, but shortly before it, my nerves subsided. I think that our presentation gave an accurate and succinct description of London and Westminster Abbey.

            Directly after our meeting, we went to the back side of Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. On the way there as we were walking by St. James’s Park, we happened to see the Queen being escorted in a fancy car. It was really exciting to see a current monarch up close and personal. To be honest, I was not incredibly impressed to see the Changing of the Guard. We were on the side of the street that they chose not to enter and the construction for the diamond jubilee was blocking most of our view of the presentation.

            On the way back to our hotel, our group walked through St. James’s Park. It was incredible to see the beautiful green fields in the park as well as the ducks, squirrels, swans, and trees. This park is an oasis of sorts inside a large metropolitan area filled with enormous and historical buildings.

            After a brief break for lunch, we went to our first business stop at Bloomberg. What an incredible company! They are highly successful at delivering quick and precise information and well as production the Bloomberg terminal to help financial analysts. The high emphases on employee value and transparency in the workplace made this company stand out as one that is managed well.

            During the evening, I went with a group to do a little night sight-seeing. We rode the underground to the Waterloo station where we got out in order to see the London Eye. We then proceeded to walk across the London Bridge to the Houses of Parliament (Westminster Palace) and the London Clock Tower (Big Ben). Both of these were incredible to see at night with the light shining on the classic Gothic architecture. My group decided to eat at a pub right outside Big Ben where we ordered delicious fish and chips. This was good time to get a little more intimate with some of the people on the study abroad and see where they stand spiritually, socially, and morally.

Study Abroad: London Day 1 & 2!

           We landed in London! Today, we toured Oxford directly after landing at London Heathrow. It was a beautiful town, with architecture dating back to the 15^th century, and some even dating back to the 1200s. The first place we went was the Eagle and Child pub, where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used to meet as friends. It was awesome to see a place where two of my favorite authors would meet over ale to discuss their literary pieces, the meaning of life, and what God was doing in their lives.

            Next, we went on a walking tour of Oxford University. Oxford is a collaboration of 38 colleges which act as independent universities. Unlike colleges within universities in the United States, these colleges have a broad variety of subjects that they teach. Along this tour, we saw the college that J.R.R. Tolkien attended (as well as a bust of him), the college where much of the Harry Potter series was filmed, and the house of Dr. Hailey, namesake of “Hailey’s Comet.” These colleges are beautiful, each with a luscious green courtyard, immaculate cathedral and exquisite library. Our tour guide was a cute old British man named Bill, who had a defined but understandable accent and was quick to answer questions. Tonight, we took the Underground for the first time to Leicester Square. This square is a hub for tourists, containing restaurants, theatres, casinos, and pubs. I went to a place called Garfunkle’s for dinner with Ryan, Jimmy, Sydney, Kelly, and Allison. While it was not exactly authentic British food, I had a delicious meal of sausage and mash, three links of sausage with a brown glazed sauce severed with mashed potatoes and covered in onion rings.  

          I will try to post as much as possible, but wifi isn't great so we'll see how much I can do!

Brazil

The land of never ending resources continues to grow at an incredible rate, despite class disparities greater than in any of the other BRIC countries. Brazil began as a Portuguese colony that supplied the mother country with much needed natural resources. The colony was ruled by capitanas, governors in charge of tending the land, but Portugal retained ownership of the land. Because the capitanas had no incentive to care for the land they were governing, they took little caution when removing natural resources to make quick, high-dollar profits. This get-rich-quick mindset continues to reside in Brazil.

Brazil is home to an abundance of natural resources, including oil, natural gas, sugar, cattle, and many more. Historically, it has been primarily and agriculture based economy. The rich in Brazil would purge the land of its natural resources and sell them until they became depleted or the domestic and international markets became saturated. Because of Brazil’s abundance of resources, the rich were able to continue this pattern for several decades. The military dictatorship continued this pattern whenever they took control of Brazil. But after elected presidents enacted plans for diversification of resources and income, the industry sector gained a higher percentage of their GDP than agriculture. Now, Brazil has the best off-shore oil drilling technology in the world, a positive feature of their natural resources.

Of all the BRIC countries, Brazil has the largest gap between the rich and poor classes. One Brazilian professor coined the term “Belindia” to describe the class separation in Brazil. This term means that the richest people in the country live like the rich in Belgium while the poorest Brazilians live like the poor in India. This is an accurate depiction of the class situation in Brazil. According to a Brazilian student in my class, the people in Brazil do not seek to change the class differences due to the short-term mindset of Brazilians. The poor would rather spend all their money on a float displayed in Carnival, the largest party in the world, for ninety minutes than obtain a well-paying job. Carnival demonstrates another issue standing in the way of success for Brazil: it has a short-term thought culture. People are concerned with the here and now and how they can achieve greatness today, but do not properly plan for long-term growth.

As far as government intervention in the economy goes, Brazil began with a protectionist mindset to develop their businesses. As the country developed and their businesses grew, Brazil opened their borders to foreign direct investment (FDI) and joint ventures (JV) with Brazilian companies. By bringing in FDI and JVs, Brazil increased competition, efficiency, and effectiveness at producing better products and developing better technology. There has been a recent resurgence of import substitution to further develop Brazilian businesses. If they choose to pursue this, they will decrease the competitiveness that has driven them to success.

In summary, Brazil’s economic growth is dependent on its ability to diversify its investments, properly use its natural resources, and survive in the long-run. If Brazil is able to overcome these daunting tasks and continue to use FDI, they have to potential to be a contender with China and the U.S.

BRICs

I am currently taking a course at Texas A&M University on the growth, development, and sustainability of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). These countries are the fastest growing countries in the world, and in my class, we discover why these countries have been so successful at economic growth. After we finish discussing each country, I will make a post containing a summary of my limited knowledge on the economic development of that country. I hope you enjoy this mini-series and can learn something useful from this blog.

Humility

It is difficult to recognize the need for humility. If you work hard and accomplish tasks or goals, the natural response is to take credit for what has been done. After creating a painting, it is easy to think "Look at that beautiful painting! I'm very proud of what I have accomplished," but the humble response would be to recognize and credit God for everything I accomplish. God is the ultimate source of everything good (James 1:17). We need to keep that in mind.

Pride often blocks our minds from realizing our need for humility. It's a paradox, but here is the best way I can explain it: We always need to be humble. The way of the world (or the natural way, for those who are not saved) is to take pride in what they accomplish and thrive on the results of what they do. Whenever we allow ourselves to think that anything we do is a result of our own work and not a result of God, we are being proud and not being humble (they are diametrically opposed). Although we have a great opportunity to display humility because of what God has accomplished through us, we cannot see that because our pride is keeping us from seeing that opportunity.

It seems to me that the typical way the Lord uses to remove pride from blinding us to our need for humility is to send a failure or crisis (whether mild, moderate, or extreme) in our life. By failing, we either see that we cannot accomplish what we wanted to do (or anything, for that matter) on our own, or we become more deeply entrenched in our pride and try to accomplish more on our own (which is impossible). By experiencing a crisis, we either see that God is in control and we are not, blame God for what has happened (because we perceive that He does not have our best interest in mind), feel sorry for ourselves because with think we have been treated unjustly (a more hidden kind of pride, in my opinion), or we consider ourselves the unfortunate victims of an unexpected incident (which does not take into effect that God has a plan and purpose for our lives).

I don't write this post to preach to the world about how proud they are and how much they need to change; I write it because pride and arrogance are some of my biggest weaknesses and I want to share what God has taught me. The best way I can perceive to keep pride from my life and keep humility in is to constantly remind myself that I can do nothing on my own and that God should be praised and credited for everything He has done...a simple lesson that is difficult to apply. I hope and pray that you may learn the lesson He has in store for you concerning humility.

TJ and Monticello

When I was in Charlottesville, Virginia, I had the privilege of seeing Monticello, the famous home of Thomas Jefferson that is displayed on the back of the nickel. It was a beautiful home (as you can see below), filled with artifacts from the Lewis and Clark expedition, creative inventions of Jefferson, paintings and sculptures from all over the world, and thousands of books. He was fascinated with everything Roman, and Monticello reflected that with incredibly intricately designed molding, among many other aspects of his home. He was also intrigued with extended social gatherings in his house (which he experienced while in France), as shown by the open dinner room on the North side of the first floor which hosted several dinner parties. I could go on and on about Monticello (and could spend several days admiring Jefferson's handiwork), and it is intriguing how much Jefferson's interests and character are reflected in his home.

To Thomas Jefferson, reason and education were boundless. His whole life was centered around learning more and living rationally. One of his famous quotes was "I cannot live without my books," written in a letter to John Adams. Several rooms in his home were dedicated to his studies and designed for optimal reading conditions. Jefferson was educated in Greek, Latin, and Law, and self educated in Italian, French, and Architecture (in order to work on his home himself). He was a brilliant man, but somehow he missed out on the purpose and meaning of his life.

He spent so much time building and rebuilding Monticello (rebuilt five times) in order to have a beautiful home for his family, his writing, his thinking, and his enjoyment. This is a very rational thing to do for someone with the goals he had (discovering as much as he could though "boundless" reason and demonstrating the beauty of human reason), but now (to me) Monticello stands as a monument to Jefferson's arrogance in mankind. Is it beautiful and exquisite? Yes. Is it brilliantly designed for what Jefferson wanted? Certainly. Does it have artifacts and features from things that Jefferson loved? Indeed. And did I thoroughly enjoy visiting Monticello? Absolutely. But all the time and effort Jefferson spent constructing his home to be a beacon for human reason was wasted because he missed out in having Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Now Jefferson is dead and he is missing out on living eternally in heaven with God.

Our lives are temporary, and what we make or the legacy we leave is fleeting. A life in Jesus is eternally rewarding. The choice is yours: will you build a "Monticello" in this world, or will you build a mansion in heaven?