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I am totally stoked. We have all new coffee-dispensing machines installed around campus with real name brands on the coffee. Don’t ask me what name brands, because, well, I’ve forgotten. Perhaps I’ll take a photo and do a full review. But no matter what it is, it’s better than our old coffee machine. Why? Because it has to be.

Our old coffee machine had these.. these… coffee fluid pouches. They come frozen, have mysterious coloring and density, and if you stand them upside down inside a machine and squeeze it out to mix with scalding hot water, then a coffee-ish substance appears below. Yes, it tastes like it sounds. I have to hide the taste with hot chocolate mix, 3 packs of sugar, and some creamer. I like my coffee hot and blond.

The old coffee wasn’t brewed into our cups, it was plopped. That’s about 97 kinds of evil.

So, surely our pleas for coffee worth drinking have been answered and they are providing sweet heavenly java to appease our caffeine-addiction. I will taste it and let you know soon.

I often hear the following thought expressed: “I can’t think that, because that is negative. I have to keep happy thoughts”

Who says?

Well, obviously, the Bible says… “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Phil. 4.8)

But I gain something just a little different from that besides simply “keeping happy thoughts”. If you take it a step further, what I gain is the knowledge that our thought processes can be directed and change, thus changing our moods and outlook. I also gain that we should attempt to always “esteem others higher than we esteem ourselves” and keep Christ-like attitudes.

But I’ve sensed in some people a fear of negativity, and by that fear, neglecting real facts and not being able to process realistic emotions, outlooks, or relationships.

I think that perhaps one of the strongest skills a person can gain as a balanced Christian person is the ability to accurately filter and process the incoming facts of life and process them in a way that allows them to maintain the clearest outlook on life, thereby moderating the moods and attitudes portrayed.

Continued after the jump…

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