Meet our blogger Nate

My Name is Nate. I'm a number of things to many people; a student to those in the Michigan State University community, a friend, an intern to the league of Michigan bicyclists, the president for Lutheran Student Movement USA, a lifeguard and swim instructor to the patrons at the Y where I work, a church member, a liturgical deacon, a hime bike mechanic . . . I'm just going to stop right there and get on to the real stuff. The thing I want to be most importantly is an example to the philosophies and teachings of Jesus Christ to everyone to spread God's love. If that means serving in an office, fixing someone's bike to save and expensive trip to a bike shop, or actively serving in my church.

About midway through my college career I did a big old u-turn in the road life, I changed my major from music ed to sociology to learn and understand more about a broken world that I feel called to try and help fix. Life has never been the same since. Since then, I've really gravitated towards the notion of liberation theology, believing that Jesus, if he would come back today, would really speak for the poor and oppressed. However, I really don't think that it is a popular theme in our society. I think the late, great Woody Guthrie said it best in his song Jesus Christ, "he said to the rich, gives your goods to the poor, so they laid Jesus Christ in his Grave."

In my life I've really tried to live out that philosophy, and one of the greatest ways I've found is to make sacrifices in my life to live in solidarity with people who aren't as well off as I am. I've not done it all at once, but made many steps along the way. It started with deciding to eat lower on the food chain for the season of lent about 4 years ago. Now where I am at now, I am still a vegetarian, I don't a car but ride bikes everywhere, I make most of my food from scratch, and I'm finding many ways to stretch myself by living more on less. The most surprising thing to me has not been missing the conveniences I once had, but really learning to love the simplicity in my life now because with a simpler life, comes simple problems.