Black Friday

Dear God,
Do you cringe when we bust down doors the day after Thanksgiving to ravage American retail at bargain prices? Does this nullify our previous days praise for all that is good in the world? Or is this all a chaotic way of saving a few more dollars to put towards your glory? Does it please you that people have given their lives to get their loved ones an Xbox 360?

With Holiday hype at an all-time high - it appears Best Buy is branching out to accommodate other religions as they roll out their black friday ad. Their "Happy Eid al-Adha" bubble blatantly panders to the Muslim faith while they push "Angels & Demons" Blu-Ray release across the spread. How do you feel about this?

Possibly flying under the radar to purchase a Nintendo Wii,

Kyle in Illinois, Age 24

Watching You

Dear God,
How often would you say you are ACTUALLY watching? The whole time? 90% of the time? Do you transcend time? Do you watch me go to the bathroom? Do you watch other planets? Were you watching the dinosaurs? Are you watching everyone get H1N1?

Watching back,

Kyle in Illinois, Age 24

This post featured a guest observation from Mark in Illinois.

The Painter of Light

Dear God,
Do you appreciate the painter of light? Are the walls of your paradise lined with the sensational scenes of Mr. Thomas Kinkade? Is something this beautiful bringing glory to your kingdom, or does the mass replication of such beauty deteriorating its quality? What is your stance on art? Is it all vanity?

Does this style perpetuate the sensational aesthetics common in Caucasian Lutheran congregations common rooms? Does it please you when people labor hours over wooden crates to transport their Kinkade collections from estate to estate?

Praying for a Kinkade mustache,

Kyle in Illinois, Age 24

@TheLord

Dear God,
Was Twitter a gift? Do you appreciate that humans are trying to communicate via pointed 140 character messages? Or is this degrading the wonderful gift of communication you've blessed us with? Is it flattering that we can develop these technologies so fast? Will you accept prayers in the format of Tweets? Are you tweeps with Satan or did you block him?

Would you consider shortening the commandments in order to Tweet better? @commandment8: Is re-tweeting a violation of your premise?

Struggling to find personal value in this condensed social media, please send help and meaning or banish it with fire.

For now, closing the door to the Twitter and keeping the fan on,

Kyle in Illinois, Age 24

Kanyahweh

Dear God,
Do you believe in Kanye West? Did you think Taylor Swift's video was actually better than Beyonce's? The people of your planet are very critical of his manners.

Were the celebrities of biblical times this interesting, or has mankind upped the ante and really taken fame to an all new extreme low? If so - why are celebrities of today so irrational? Will the Lake of Fire be lit by tabloids and celebrity magazines?

Didn't watch the VMA's,

Kyle in Illinois, Age 24

cnn.com

Dear God,
Why is "Jon & Kate returns to TV" a more popular headline than "Iraqi kids get free wheelchairs?" Does this web module reflect that collectively as a society we find it more relevant that a celebrity birthing couple's television show is more important than disabled kids in Iraq getting proper care? Please don't hold this against us.

Completely unaware of this show until it was more popular than disabled Iraqi children,

Kyle in Illinois, Age 24

Signs of the Recession 1

Dear God,
Are we really in a recession? Do tough times call for brighter colors and cheaper cell phone plans? If so–can we always be in recession? Where has all the money gone? Is the earth's population growing faster than our presses can churn out dollar bills? Do you use Cricket wireless? Do the disciples? Angels? Does omnipotence void out wireless communication?

Do you have a plan for this?

Sexting,
Kyle in Illinois, Age 23

Guns

Dear God,
What is with the guns? Are we out of control with these things? While it's possible that we 'needed' to evolve our meat-hunting tactics, guns have gotten out of control. Do you carry a glock in Heaven? Does it matter? Does it not matter? Is paintball in heaven real war? Does violence exist at all up there?

Do you support sport shooting? Those really nerdy guys who claim to only shoot for the pure sport of blowing up a few clay targets and honing in their marksmanship–are they fooling us? Do they have ulterior motives by always carrying these guns in their car wherever they go?

Where do you draw the line on fighting to preserve personal freedoms?

Hoping you turn all bullets to chocolate,
Kyle in Illinois, Age 23

More Wholesome Than You Are

Dear God,
Do you buy organic produce? Did you create organic creatures? Did you create the pesticides to spray on non-organic produce? This system of purity is far too complicated. Yet the terminology is now bleeding over into christian spin-off marketing tactics. Was this your idea to nudge these people to hop on the 'organic-advertising-titlewave?'

While it feels acceptable that inspirational/relevant authors profit from their according works, riding a flash in the pan marketing scheme centered around the word 'organic' may be a bit low.

There's something nice about visualizing a Church body as a growing plant, but can we just leave it at that? The organic vs. non-organic merry-go-round can take place outside holy walls.

Lastly, was the Garden of Eden 'organic' in its purest of states? Was it tainted with pesticides by mankind? Is the term organic around now and stronger than ever just to taunt us and remind us of humankind's eternal mistakes?

Free range pesticide spraying,
Kyle in Illinois, Age 23

Segway

Dear God,
What is your moral stance on Segway personal transportation? Is this a blessing some of us are very apprehensive to embrace or a temptress in disguise?

While this technology may enable the less-physically-inclined to tour the holy land, it does raise question about your layout of our universe. When you gave human beings each a body did you factor in the rate at which we would harmoniously evolve capitalism and technology? Now looks what's happened. The satisfaction of a 10 minute walk is soon to be a thing of the past. Will you sound the trumpets then? Pull the plug?

What if we gave 10% of all Segway personal transportation device purchases to the church? Could that make up for a few early years of beta testing human laziness?

Perhaps we've not quite seen your vision for these divinely engineered robot unicycles just yet. Are you working in wonderful new ways to synchronize our development of technology and capitalistic intentions? These gyroscopic-2-wheeled-golden idols do share similar proportion to the size of a pulpit ... will street evangelism be blessed with an all new wave of hip & cool tactics? Can't wait for the version with touch-screen LCD New Testament, available AWD, and mobile communion kit available.

Thoroughly perplexed,

Kyle in Illinois, Age 23

Ice Jesus

Dear God,
Is there something we're missing here? What is the spiritual connection with your son and ice hockey? Where's the obsession? It can't be solely from the English translation of scripture and the metaphor of the 'save,' can it? Is Jesus the goalie of the Universe? Are you the coach? Are we all fans with heavy bets riding on the game?

Or is it just because sports are all the rage these days? Sports fans idolize their favorite players ... but God-fearing sports players project their idols into their favorite sports AS players? This is all very confusing for us. Again-why ice hockey?

Holding my hat,

Kyle in Illinois, Age 23

Chia Obama

Dear God,
What is your stance on Chia Pets? Proper use of human resources? Also, is it possible for you to tone it down on the political capitalism? Come on. Obama Chia Pet? Is this really something anybody should be free to own? I know late night television needs content to fill ad space but this can't be the best use of Chia technology. Can't we do a Chia resurrection? A Chia Garden of Eden?

Not watering Chia Obama anytime soon,

Kyle in Illinois, Age 23