Breakfast at Tiffany's

Favorites of 2009

2010-01-04T11:04:00.007-05:00

Originally I was going to do a whole series of favorites from 2009...but I'm a slacker. So I'll just make a list of random favorites and call it a day. Because I love lists and could make a list for just about anything in the world.

Favorite Movies in No Particular Order:
Up, Where the Wild Things Are, (500) Days of Summer, Taken, The Brothers Bloom, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Movies I Wish I Had Seen in 2009 But Will Wait Until They're on DVD:
Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline, The Princess and the Frog, Invictus, The Blind Side, District 9, Moon, Whip It, Adventureland, Sherlock Holmes, The Informant!

Best Guilty Pleasure Movie:
New Moon

Favorite Album bought this year:
Laura Gibson, Beasts of Seasons

Other Great Albums from this Year:
Andrew Bird, Noble Beast; K'naan, Troubador; The Decemberists, Hazards of Love; Lisa Hannigan, Sea Sew; Noah and the Whale, The First Days of Spring; Patrick Watson, Wooden Arms; Sam Amidon, All is Well; Horse Feathers, House With No Home; Regina Spektor, Far; Department of Eagles, In Ear Park

Favorite Single:
Stillness is the Move, The Dirty Projectors

Favorite Road Trip:
Visiting Carla and Donny in Georgia
Runner up is visiting Virginia early this year to see college friends--so much laughter.

Favorite (and only) Vacation:
Hawaii with Meredith to visit Josh, Val and Kristen

Favorite new Friend:
Maddie (Daniel and Amanda's dog--she's scared of everyone except about seven people in the world and I'm one of them)

Favorite Fiction Book:
The Kite Runner, by Khalid, Housseini (didn't come out this year, but the best I read this year)

Favorite Non-fiction Book:
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, by Donald Miller

Favorite New Show:
Glee

Favorite Old Show:
Lost (Cannot wait until February 2)

Favorite New Addiction:
Twitter (tiffany_dorrin)

Favorite Daily Web Read:
The Pioneer Woman--She brings out the country girl in me. It's also refreshing to read a website that is full of optimism, humor and really great recipes.

Favorite Blogs Because I Can't Pick Just One:
(Limited to those I began reading this year)
A Cup of Jo
For Me, For You
MandR
Bryan Allain
Color Me Katie

My Brain is Going Soft

2009-12-19T20:47:00.002-05:00

I don't know if it's because I haven't had a full time job in more than seven months, but I think I'm losing brain cells at a faster rate than is normal for someone my age. Or maybe it's because I recently read The Twilight Saga twice in less than two weeks (don't judge).

Either way, here is the evidence that my brain is going soft:

Exhibit A
A few months ago I started working part time at a retail store selling Christian and Christian-themed products. A few weeks into the job I got dressed for work and sat down at my computer--I'm sure to read something very important. Like trivia about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Rabbit trail: The boy who played Charlie is now a veterinarian and lives in Texas). Under the desk I had my pair of black flats for work, and the blue and white patterned shoes I wore to church that morning. When it was time to leave, I slipped on my shoes and went to work. A few hours later I got home, took off the shoes and for the first time all day, actually looked at my shoes.

One was black and the other was blue and white patterned. Yeah.

What's particularly ridiculous about this is that the shoes don't even fit the same. The black pair is loose and slides on and off easily, like fake leather often does. The blue and white pair are a smidge too small and made of canvas. And did I mention that one is black and the other blue and white?

Exhibit B
I just played Text Twist online and couldn't think of half the words for the game. This is a small thing, but in college I rocked that game out like it was my job.

Exhibit C
Tonight I decided I wanted to watch a movie that would warm the cockles of my heart. I pop open my DVD player and take out the disc that's already in there. But I don't own the DVD that's in the player--Netflix does. Which is fine, except that I supposedly already sent back this particular DVD to Netflix. But no, I did not. I sent back my DVD to Netflix. Netflix is now the proud owner of an extra Psych disc.

I called Netflix and the nice young man I spoke to said there's nothing they can really do, but he credited my account $10. So here's my question: Who out there has a DVD burner I can use to make a new disc for the first four episodes of Psych, season 3?

I think I'll start taking Gingko Biloba and doing crossword puzzles.

Dear Hiring Personnel: New Life Goal

2009-10-13T14:52:00.005-04:00

I hope that at the end of this phase in my life, I come away with a lot of new-found wisdom. People will ask me a question and I'll pause for a second, look away at a distant point only I can see, and then quietly and deliberately say something sage. They'll be in awe and wonder how someone can go from being a girl laughing at Wayne's World, to a woman laughing at Wayne's World and saying such wise things.

I have, however, already learned a very valuable lesson from the last five months. I have since found a new life goal. I have a dream--something to work toward and strive for. It is thus:

After I find a new job, I hope and dream that I will never, ever, ever have to write another cover letter in my life. Ever.

I don't particularly agree with a lot of things about how the business world is run (Don't get me started on the fact that I can't wear Chacos at 99% of the jobs out there), but how people are hired is the worst of it all. Basically, the cover letter is pointless and yet still required. Here's how my mind works when faced with the prospect of writing yet another cover letter:

Sigh. Another cover letter. Okay, so I'm supposed to make myself sound good and sell my abilities. I'm a writer, so you'd think this was easy, except I'm not a business writer. Summing up the whole of my skill and abilities in three strict paragraphs is stifling. And I can't even use sarcasm. But I need to catch their eye with this letter. How do I do that? Every person is different--some hiring personnel might like someone who throws off the chains of a normal cover letter format, while others may insist on strictly adhering to the three paragraph layout. AND YOU NEVER KNOW WHICH TYPE YOU'RE DEALING WITH.

Also, what's with companies posting a job listing but not telling you who they are? Or who you're addressing? If I were applying to a design firm, that would certainly be different than if I were applying to work with real estate agents. But I often don't know. All I know is that they need an assistant.

WHY ALL THE SECRECY? Do they think it's cute? Coy? Maybe it makes them seem mysterious, like I'm applying to be the assistant for a CIA spy, thus making me want to apply even more. Because who wouldn't want to be the assistant for a spy who wears dark suits every day and can kill people 37 different ways?

But no, I apply for these jobs and spend 20 minutes trying to sell myself in three paragraphs, only to get an email saying one of the following:

A) Thanks for applying, but this position is filled.
B) Thanks for applying. Please fill out this questionnaire, so we can send you information on how you can earn $5,000 a month from home!
C) Nothing. Ever. They never send an email and I'm left with the feeling of rejection that isn't even acknowledged with a "We got your application."

And so, after months of pointless job applications and writing more cover letters than I care to think about, I have a new dream. A dream of throwing off the confines of cover letters. First, though, I'll go apply for more jobs, sell myself in three paragraphs, and sell my dignity and creativity to The Man so I can get a steady paycheck to pay my bills.

But at least I have a goal, right?

30 Second Ramblings: Sale Items

2009-09-19T11:55:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago I started a series called 30 Second Rants, for those rants that are shorter and don't take a full-fledged blog entry to explain. Now I'm going to start a 30 Second Ramblings series for those thoughts that are too long for Twitter, but too short for a full blog entry.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a sale item must tell her friend about the deal she procured. This is especially true with clothes. As soon as she receives a compliment about the clothing item or accessory, she feels the need to let her friend know what a great deal she got.

“I love that shirt! I've been looking for a turquoise shirt but everything is either ugly or too expensive!” says friend.

“Thanks! You'll never guess how much I paid for it. It was originally $49.95 at Banana Republic. Guess how much I paid? $9.95!” replies wearer.

You see, men hunt for animals they can brag about (“I was out for three hours and didn't see one deer. The next day I saw three in less than 20 minutes, including the ten-point buck I shot. I'm gonna put him in the den beside the buck I got last year.”) and women hunt for deals. The thrill of the hunt for that perfect pair of shoes to match the blue top you got on sale at Anthropologie.

By the way, the other day I got a ridiculously cute top at Anthropologie for $19.95, originally $98! Booyah!

A Ph.D in Marriage Analysis

2009-09-02T16:59:00.002-04:00

I should find a university that will let me develop my own special doctorate program. When I finish the work, I'll have a Ph.D in “Marriage Analysis.” I'd be an expert in watching my married and dating friends and learning about how different couples interact with each other, other couples and single people. What will make this program unique is that all of the doctoral candidates will be single. Singles watching couples. Bye-golly it's brilliant!

One of the largest parts of my study would focus on friendships. I'd study how couples make new friends and how they interact with old friends. My fear, though, is that the conclusions to this study would make a lot of couples angry or offended.

I read an article on Relevantmagazine.com the other day about singles and the Christian community. The bottom line is that single people (meaning not married or dating anyone) are often left out of the loop of friendship with couples or families. I don't mean being acquainted with each other and you all exchange “How are you?” or chit chat about the weather. I mean true and lasting friendship. The kind where hearts are laid on the line, advice is exchanged, and struggles are shouldered together.

The common behavior/reaction is that as soon as people pair off, they suddenly feel the need to only spend time with other couples. I can understand this to a certain extent―another couple gives each half someone to talk to. The man has someone to talk to, the woman has someone to talk to. The result is that the wife only hangs out with her female friends when her husband is having a guy's night. Rarely do the three of them hang out together.

This is not always the case, of course, but the rare exception is usually with someone who was friends with one or both halves of the pair before the coupling. So the girl's childhood best friend makes the cut. The guy's college roommate is okay to hang out with. But the new neighbor who is single will never become more than a casual acquaintance. Or if they do become a good friend, it will only be with half the couple, not both people.

I'm not saying a man should become best friends with the girl next door while his wife goes to make friends at the local truck stop. The bottom line is that single people benefit from spending time with couples or families and couples benefit from single people. The most obvious benefit is that it creates diversity. Diversity of experience, viewpoints, opinions and so on. Single people can learn a great deal about personal sacrifice from a married person, while a married person can learn a great deal about the importance of not relying on a person (like a spouse) to completely define who you are. (In other words―don't close yourself off from the world so that your spouse is your only friend.)

The bottom line is that I believe my study would conclude that the segregation between couples and single people is unhealthy for both sides. And yet it is more common than not for couples to disappear from the lives of their single friends. The fault lies with both parties, but that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that if we are to be people of depth, that depth should be carved from the experiences of many people, and not just those who are like us or who are in the same stage of life as us.

30 Second Rants: Inane Opinions

2009-08-25T16:50:00.004-04:00

I'm what some would call opinionated. Okay. Fine. I'm incredibly opinionated and have one for just about everything. I know this is unusual, so I don't mind that most people don't have an opinion about every little thing. Or if they have an opinion, they don't necessarily feel the need to share it with everyone.

Here's my rant, though: People who only have opinions about the most pointless and trivial things. Like Facebook, Twitter or whether Seinfeld is a good TV show. I have an account with Twitter and enjoy reading the updates of others immensely. What burns my biscuits is when people who never give a second thought* to genocide in Darfur or health care reform have an opinion about how pointless Twitter is. Maybe Twitter isn't stopping wars or ending world hunger, but what's the harm? If you're going to use your time and brain power to argue about something, why not leave Twitter alone and stand up for something that matters?

*I don't mean they just think genocide is bad or that everyone should have health care, I mean they've actually read about it or have an informed opinion about what should be done to solve these, or any, crises.

In West Philadelphia Born and Raised

2009-08-20T15:01:00.007-04:00

My paternal grandparents used to live in New Jersey, close enough to Philadelphia that you could see the city's skyline. I don't remember much about visiting them, but I remember a few things. This includes the pretzels, that root beer was available at every restaurant (unlike in the South, although it's becoming more common) and Friendly's restaurant.

One time we spent the week with them and did the touristy things around Philly. Again, I don't remember a whole lot, other than the buildings were tall and the Liberty Bell was small.

Philadelphia, like many large cities, often has a bad rap. I've heard it called Filthydelphia, among other things. But where they're lacking in some areas, Philly makes up for it in murals.

Graffiti is found in cities large and small. During the last several years, artists such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey have taken it mainstream and for many it has become a legitimate form of art.

So Philadelphia went about their problem with graffiti differently than most other large cities. In 1984 they established the Mural Arts Program. Rather than try painting over all the graffiti in the city, they embraced the idea of the city being full of blank canvases. Each year they work with communities all over the city and bring together artists that would have normally just created illegal art. Instead, they "provide opportunities for artists with a variety of skills to work together to create murals."

They now have more than 2,800 murals all over the city. And now we come to the reason I began this post.

One of their newest projects is named "A Love Letter for You." Throughout August, artists will paint rooftops and walls along Market Street from 63rd to 45th. The murals will be seen best from the elevated train.

Each of the murals will be words of love: "words of romance, your thoughts of relationships and your ideas of what love truly is. Comforting or troubling, passionate or past tense, even if it's 'hate to love' or 'love to hate'."

Sometimes I look around at what sort of art is being produced or becoming popular, and I wonder how long it will be before all art becomes easy-to-swallow nuggets of sugar-coated drivel. Then I dig a little deeper and look past what's on TV or the radio and realize that real art is still being made. Whether it's from the musician who will never make it to the radio or the photographer who will only ever be seen by their friends. I find art that took thought and comes from an imagination unhindered by what the world will like. Art that is beautiful even if I don't understand what the artist is saying.

For more information about the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia, go here. And for info on the love letter project, stop by this blog.

The Dynamics of a Two-Pet Household

2009-08-15T10:41:00.008-04:00

Sometimes, I look at Cleo (the cat) and feel a little sorry for her. Maddie (the dog) gets most of the attention, while Cleo gets yelled at for pawing at the back door or receives looks of scorn for the cat litter strewn about. Then Cleo tries to walk on my face in the middle of the night, and I wonder if cats are God's way of keeping humans humble, while contemplating how much a steak for Maddie would cost.

Photo credits, counter clockwise from top left: dooce, MarthaK, For Me, For You and Soulemama

It's All About the Small Things

2009-08-11T15:53:00.002-04:00

The following are things that bring small bursts of satisfaction in life, thus making the world better:

1. Finishing a book. Oh sweet mercy. I just love reading and getting to the point where you've read more of the book than you've not read, and then you've read three quarters. And then you can see the end in sight. And I love when I get to the last page and I have to use a sheet of paper to cover up the rest of the text on the page, so I don't accidentally see the last sentence before I get to it. And then, and then, I read the final sentence, close the book one last time, and it's finished.

2. Wearing new shoes. Don't you just feel more confident in a new pair of shoes? You walk taller and even the shirt you're wearing, the one you've owned for five years, feels newer and brighter. It's like on the first day of school, when you're loaded down with a new backpack, notebooks and pencils, and the all-important new outfit. But the outfit would not be complete without the new pair of shoes. Shoes that are so white they hurt your eyes to look directly at them. Or ballet flats that are still a little stiff, but totally worth the blisters.

3. Getting to your destination faster than Mapquest or Google said you would. This one is certainly silly, but don't you feel like you've accomplished something when it takes less time than Google said it would? It's like you've stuck it to The Man in some small way. Ha! You said 90 minutes and it took me 80! Take that computer-generated directions!

4. Super friendly employees. This is another random one, but I just love going to a restaurant or grocery store and the wait staff or cashier is friendly and talkative and seems to enjoy their job. It's just rare to meet people like that and it makes me wish I were super wealthy so I could give them an enormous tip.

5. Remembering a musician you'd forgotten. There's just so much good music out there (and no, the radio is not playing most of it―so turn it off and start scouring the internet. Start with All Songs Considered on NPR.), so I occasionally completely forget about a musician or group until I randomly see something about them. For example, I completely forgot how much I enjoy Elbow's music until I saw they opened for Coldplay a week or so ago. Or I'll put iTunes on shuffle and suddenly be taken back to college and my love for one of the Bens (Ben Harper, Ben Lee and Ben Kweller). Love it.

6. Great weddings photos. I love weddings and everything about them, but especially the photos. My friends own their own photography business and every once in a while I'll go to their site to see what's new. A couple weeks ago my friends got married and their photographers did an absolutely amazing job. I was blown away by their photos. I just love seeing two people completely in love and their friends and family that have come to celebrate with them. With so much unhappiness and restlessness in the world, it's always nice to take a break and look at unbridled love.

7. Unexpected phone calls from friends. I'm kind of forgetful sometimes about how many great friends I have. This usually happens when I've spent too much time by myself and haven't had enough person-to-person interaction. So whenever I'm feeling this way, it's always a pleasant reminder to receive a phone call from a friend who just wants to see how I'm doing. I should be better about calling people just to talk, but I'm as awkward on the phone as a cat at a AKC dog show.

What about you? What are some of your bits of happiness?

30 Second Rants: Not Accepting Gifts or Favors

2009-08-07T15:05:00.002-04:00

A new series I'll be featuring is 30 Second Rants. These will be for those opinions that can be explained in a shorter blog entry. You see, I have a lot of opinions, and I'm sure you want to read about all of them.

I know America was built by a can-do attitude, full of independence and all that jazz, but I believe many of us have taken this too far. Why is it that every time someone wants to pick up the dinner bill or just do someone a favor, so many people try to refuse? Is it so wrong just to say "thanks!" and let them do something nice? Exactly when did we let our pride become so bloated that we couldn't accept a simple gesture of friendship?

All I'm saying is that the next time someone wants to buy me a coffee or pay for my dinner or give me a puppy, I'll be happy to say "Thank you! That's so nice of you!" and then return the favor next time.

Thoughts from the Road

2009-08-03T10:14:00.005-04:00

I drove home from a wedding in Richmond on Saturday night (Congrats Paul and Becca!) and thought I'd share with you some rambling thoughts and ideas I had.

*If I were to open a gas station, I'd do it in either Virginia or South Carolina, really close to the North Carolina border. Then, just a few miles before you get to the gas station I'd have a billboard that said something to the effect of "Fill up your tank before you reach NC and its ridiculously high gas tax!" I'd be filthy rich!

*If I were pulled over for speeding, I wonder if I could convince the officer that I thought the sign for I-85 was another speed limit sign. And when they think I'm lying, I'll become upset because that's what my father always told me and I can't believe he lied to me!

*Twizzlers are the most perfect late-night driving food. They magically keep me awake.

*The governing body of North Carolina that decides on speed limits should be given a swift hit in the head. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make the speed limit on a major highway 55mph must surely be on crack.

*The trick to determining if the gas station at the next exit is sketchy is to compare it to the restaurants also found on the exit. If it's a lone Burger King or Hardee's, keep driving. If it's a Cracker Barrel or especially a Chick-fil-A, you're golden. However, if it's a Sheetz gas station, then you don't even have to worry about the restaurants.

*By the way, I feel like I'm at an amusement park whenever I go to a Sheetz. There so big! And red! And you can order food right at the gas pump!

*I can't believe I ate that entire bag of Twizzlers.

*The best highways are those that have the huge medians with trees. Then you only have to watch for cops on your side of the highway, rather than both sides. Score!

*Best road trip musicians/songs ever: Nick Drake, Razor (Foo Fighters), The Winner Is (Devotchka), Rosie Thomas, Nickel Creek...who am I missing?

*I listen to a lot of female musicians whose name begins with K. KT Tunstall, Kate Earl, Katie Herzig, Kendall Payne...

Alright, I'm done. Enough random ramblings.

Music that Moves

2009-07-29T14:22:00.006-04:00

I have an excess of emotion and feeling. I like to call this passion, but sometimes it comes out as anger. Especially when it involves an opinion.

This excess of emotion (let's just call it passion) is often most prevalent in three areas: music, books/stories and movies. I cry when I read certain short stories and I even cried like a baby during the final chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I had a long piece of toilet tissue I used as a Kleenex and it was pulp by the time I finished the epilogue.

Movies are similar to books because they both tell stories. But added to movies are the beautiful visuals. Like the breathtaking shots in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It's a slow movie without a lot of "on the edge of your seat with excitement," but the movie is so well-made it makes my skin crawl. But the thing that makes me breathless at the same time as excited--the thing that makes me cry and remember times of happiness or sorrow--is music. Few things evoke as much emotion in me as music.

I've been called a music snob because I steer clear of the radio as often as possible (Don't even get me started on modern country music). I just don't think the radio is a good place to find real talent (most of the time). I went to a wine tasting a couple weeks ago and my friend was telling me that at a previous wine tasting he was taught that you should taste three sips of wine because each sip tastes different. Each time you notice something new about the wine and notice different flavors. Good music is the same way. During the first listen you're just becoming familiar with the general music. Then each time after you're noticing something different--the poetry of the lyrics (if there are any), the background instruments that enhance the major instruments, or the way your mood changes during the song.

I was actually inspired to write this blog while listening to the soundtrack to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Such a great movie that is enhanced by great music. But perhaps my absolute favorite theme song of all time is the Forrest Gump Suite. Just hearing those first few notes reminds me of the great movie and the whole atmosphere of the film and its main character. The rise and fall of the music--the way it builds to a climax and then comes back down for quiet moments.

Just as soundtrack music reminds me of the way a movie makes me feel, albums or musicians I listen to repeatedly during a season of my life will inevitably take me back to the time later. Sometimes these pairings make sense, while other times it just happens to be whatever CD I'm listening to while reading a book. Listening to 100 Portraits will forever remind me of driving in the mountains to pick up river tubers at summer camp. Radiohead's OK Computer will take me back to the time I worked at a sing company because that's the first time I ever heard that album. And I'm sure that a few years from now, any time I hear Fleet Foxes, I'll be reminded of this past spring.

Here are some of my favorites that remind me of different times of my life.

- Enter the Worship Circle: Any summer at TVR Christian Camp
- Dive by Steven Curtis Chapman: Summer 2000 (Go Deep!)
- Mmmbop by Hanson: The summer before 8th grade when Amanda and I would spend whole days in the pool (don't hate on Hanson!)
- Joanna Newsom: Late summer and fall of 2007 while I was living in Cary, NC
- John Denver: When I was on my Lori Wick fiction phase in high school
- Smalltown Poets and OC Supertones: Riding in the car with Amanda and her mom in high school. Especially when we would go pick up Holly (Amanda's sister) from school.

What I'm listening to now, that will surely some day remind me of this past year:

- The Weepies: Hideaway
- The Joy Formidable: A Balloon Called Moaning
- Anathallo: Floating World
- Department of Eagles: In Ear Park
- She & Him: Volume 1
- The Welcome Wagon: Welcome to the Welcome Wagon

I'm sure the above list would be longer if I hadn't placed a moratorium on buying music right now. I miss buying music...So what moves you? What music reminds you of a time in your life--happy or sad?

The Next Stage of Life

2009-07-22T10:47:00.005-04:00

The Short Version:

I lost my job in May and have been looking for a new one ever since. For the last several months, my roommate Melody and I have been planning on moving into a house with another friend (Amanda E.) when all our leases are up. After playing musical chairs with different roommates, the final addition was Lindsey.

On Monday, Melody found out that we did not get the house the four of us had applied for. I was in Georgia visiting a friend when I found this out and as soon as I read the text message, I felt like God was saying this was my time to bow out. The bottom line is that this whole process has been incredibly stressful. Each house has required all of us apply and have background and credit checks. This means that I, without a job, also had to apply. As if life weren't stressful enough, there was the chance we wouldn't get a house because I was laid off. Wonderful.

So I called Melody and bailed out on them. I felt like a jerk, but I just don't think it would be wise to move into a house and stress even more about money. Instead, I'll move in with friends and save money.

My wonderful friends, Daniel and Amanda, have a house in Greensboro and they offered to let me live there for a while. A couple of opportunities are available in Greensboro, so I'm praying one of them will work out. And so, on Saturday, July 25 I'll be moving to Greensboro.

In Which I Quote GK Chesteron [AKA: The long version]:

When I was in high school, Amanda and I would often drive up to the summer camp where we'd worked. Our least favorite part of the drive was through Greensboro. I'm pretty sure they had been working on I-40 through Greensboro for 47 years. The traffic was horrible and always added 20 minutes to the drive. That's a lot of precious camp time to spend on the road.

With that in mind, Greensboro was among the few places in this world I did not want to live. Sanford, NC is also on this list. I apologize to any Sanfordians out there, but it's the armpit of North Carolina

So when Daniel and Amanda moved to Greensboro three years ago and began trying to convince me to move there, I laughed and moved on. I had a good job, good church and good friends. No need to stir the pot or take a chance with moving. Then I lost my job, couldn't find a new one and became concerned about what I should do. Literally, I started applying for jobs the same afternoon I lost mine. I've applied for everything and anything in NC and all over the country. Anything with a job description I understood, I applied for. But no dice.

One of my all-time favorite quotes is from GK Chesterton:

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered."

With that in mind, I will now be considering this surprise move as an adventure. I'll meet new people, in a new city and hopefully have a new job. I'll also get the chance to live with my best friend and her husband. Their generosity blows my mind, especially considering that this is a new house and life is stressful enough without an extra roommate.

The grand and fabulous news is that Greensboro is 80 minutes closer to the mountains and 80 minutes closer to my dear friends in Georgia. Heck to the yes. The sad part is that I'll be leaving other wonderful friends in Raleigh. The last two years have been a roller coaster and I've come to the end with great friends.

I'll keep everyone updated about what's going on in my life. You'll know about my next great adventure.

Hogwarts, Jane Austen and Handing Out Flowers in the Valley

2009-07-16T02:22:00.004-04:00

Inside my brain is a part of my imagination that sometimes wishes I were born with magical powers and could attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is the same part of my brain that wishes I were in a Meg Ryan movie from the 90s or a heroine in a Jane Austen novel.

Most of the time, however, I beat that part of my imagination into submission and force it to only come out on special occasions. Like Wednesday afternoons. Or while I'm drinking a Diet Dr. Pepper.

But honestly, I do have to try not to focus on fantasy and fictional happiness very often. Imagination is a wonderful thing, but left to its own devices, it can end up being a way to escape from reality and turn into a crutch that turns into a wheelchair that turns into a bed where you never get up and do anything real.

It's especially easy to fall into an imagined world when you're in one of life's valleys. Until recently, whenever I imagined the ups and downs of life, I pictured it to be like a roller coaster. You have fast ups, followed by fast downs. But as soon as you hit bottom, you go right back up. I'm realizing that life is not like that. Ups and downs are much more gradual and the downs often last longer than expected. Life is made mainly of plateaus. Plateaus in the good parts of life and the bad parts.

I've been in the down part of life for several weeks now. Now, I realize that my down is nothing compared to the majority of the world. I've had it pretty easy. It's easy for me to fuss at myself and wonder why I'm whining--but then I remember that pain and suffering is relative. But then I also remember that the valleys are where soil is the most fertile (I heard that in a movie somewhere I think. Cliche but true.).

So this is where the imagination comes in handy. Yes, life has its down parts. But I like to imagine that I'm driving a 1968 red convertible Mustang through the valley. I'm blaring happy music as I drive. And the passenger seat is full of flowers of all types and in every color.

As I drive by others in the valley, I hand them a flower and we listen to the music together and talk about what brought us to the valley. When we part ways, we feel a little better just having someone to talk to. And who wouldn't feel better after receiving their very own flower?

So I guess that the imagination can be helpful. But like all things, in moderation. Always in moderation.

Oy Vey

2009-07-14T14:34:00.002-04:00

You'd think (You'd think...) that with all the time I have had on my hands lately, I would be blogging up a storm. But I've discovered that I am not one of those writers who works best during hard times. I like happiness. I'm inspired by happy and carefree things. So this economy is stifling me.

With that thought in mind, I've decided to spread the happiness with links to uplifting and fun things:

Check out these mysterious letters.

Quite possibly the best Craigslist ad ever.

"Crayola Doesn't Make a Color for Your Eyes."

The official White House photo stream on Flickr.

Speaking of the White House, this is one of the best photos ever.

Rice paddy crop art. So weird. So fun.

Also a little weird, but so good: Dirty Projectors-Stillness is the Move.

The Miller High Life Innovations. Hilarious.

Flickr set: Getting Dressed Each Day is Hard.

God Help the Girl (Good music--can't wait to see what else they do).

Simple Pleasures

2009-06-16T22:58:00.005-04:00

When I worked at a summer camp in high school and college, the only place nearby to go shopping was the Wal-Mart. One Saturday I was standing in line behind an old married couple. They had gray hair, were stooped over with age and never said a word to each other while in line. The husband was giving their merchandise to the cashier while the wife stood a few feet back, holding a single red rose in her hands.

The entire time she was in line, she kept smelling the rose and then looking at it with the most content smile on her face I have ever seen. Her look was full of memories. Memories of all the roses she had been given in the past. From the first rose her husband gave her at a school dance, to the roses she received when their first child was born, and the single rose he buys her on occasion "just because." Those memories and the simple pleasure of the single stem in her hand made her face glow as though she had been given a dozen roses with a diamond ring in the center of one. But it was just a single rose.

Her husband took the rose from her so they could pay for it, but then gave it right back. I don't know whether she picked it up herself or not, but the pure joy in her face makes me think that her husband picked it out just for her. My imagination (and not-so-hidden romantic side) likes to think that she was holding just one of the hundreds of roses he had given her over the years. And no matter how many more she'd be given, she would always show that much pleasure in a single rose given to her by her beloved.

I love flowers more than just about anything in the world. I hope that someday I meet a man who will buy me flowers for special occasions and "just because." But even more, I hope that no matter how many flowers I'm given, I never lose that look of pleasure like the woman in the Wal-Mart checkout lane.

The Drunk Dial's Cousin

2009-06-15T18:29:00.005-04:00

I submit that the close (very close) cousin of the "Drunk Dial" is the "Over-Emotional Facebook/Twitter Update."

Drunk Dial: You've had too much alcohol and your judgment is impaired. During said time, you call someone and leave a ridiculous or embarrassing voicemail. This (I hear) is especially bad if it's someone you are not on the best terms with.

Over-Emotional Facebook/Twitter Update: It's late and you're tired. Or maybe you're having a bad day and someone yelled at you at work. Or maybe you're just emotional all the time. But this excess of emotion spills over into your online updates. Example: "I guess I just don't have any real friends. None of them ever call or ask me how I'm doing and I'm pretty sure someone (who shall remain nameless but you know who you are) stole the last box of macaroni and cheese, even though she knew I wanted it. Maybe I'll just stop calling them like they've apparently stopped calling me."

So the next time you're thinking: "Just you wait, people-who-made-me-mad! The next time Facebook asks me 'What's on your mind?' I'm going to answer them--honestly! And boy will you all feel the burn and wrath of my carefully chosen passive aggressive post! You'll feel so guilty for not being nice to me and walking on eggshells around me that you'll immediately want to buy me a puppy!" Please, just take a few minutes to stop and ask yourself if it's beneficial or healthy or constructive to continue on the path over Over-Emotional Facebook/Twitter Updating.

Together, we can eliminate the embarrassment of out-of-left-field accussations and conclusion-jumping.

An Open Letter to the Creators of LOST

2009-05-14T00:09:00.005-04:00

Dear Creators of LOST,

Why do you hate me? Seriously, what did I do to you? Did you think I didn't have enough mystery in my life? Do I look like Nancy Drew, in search of mystery around every corner?No, I do not. I have brown hair and drive faster than Miss Drew. I also don't like wandering into dark spaces with nothing but a flashlight and a sense that something is amiss.

But I digress.

Here's the thing: I don't really like the sensation of my brain melting and flowing out of my ears. It's just not pleasant. You'd think it would be a warm, tingly sensation. Nope. Instead it's just painful. And yet for the last five seasons you've become increasingly antagonistic and insisted on making things more and more difficult for your viewers. It's like you enjoy torturing us with your wild twists and turns and dead bodies piling up. Or maybe you enjoyed dissecting animals in school—poking and prodding the brains of innocent animals. And so now you do that with television viewers. You poke and prod our brains with an ever-increasing maelstrom of ridiculousness.

And can we please talk about the decision-making skills of your characters? Don't these people know how to make a decision and stick with it? Whatever happened to commitment? Sure, trying to get back to where you began sounds like a good idea, but why not just let the chips fall where they may? And oh my goodness—just pick a partner, people! What is with these men and falling for the manipulative woman who lies and steals children and has beautiful hair even when she's in the jungle and hasn't showered in three months? And I'm not just talking about romantic partners. What about picking sides in this war between the Oceanic survivors, the Others, the Hostiles, the Dharma people, the Ajira people, Jacob, the other Oceanic survivors that disappeared a while ago...did I miss anyone?

But seriously—someday my children and their friends will look at me with pity and wonder what happened to me. They'll call me a Lostie and wonder why I greet everyone by saying “Namaste” or why I refused to celebrate their birthdays when they turned four, eight, 15, 16, 23 and 42. It will be your fault that my children will be named Kate, Jack, Sawyer, Hurley and Juliet. But that's okay. I don't take it personally. It's my destiny, right?

Namaste,
Tiffany

P.S. Please don't let Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Sun, Jin or Miles die. And it would be awesome if Sayid, Juliet, Charlie, Claire and Libby weren't really dead and they've just been on the other side of the island enjoying mai tais and a nice selection of island delicacies. Just a thought.

Lying Ads

2009-05-06T15:58:00.005-04:00

You know when you visit a website and they feature ads based on other websites you've visited? For example, if you visit a lot of websites about perfect pickle recipes, you'll see a lot of ads about pickles or Mt. Olive or great episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. They use their interwebbiness power to figure out who they think you are and what you need, and then based ads on that. So what is MSNBC trying to tell me by putting up these ads?

You know what MSNBC? There's only so much a girl can do! Quit holding the whole "not married" or "not a mom" or "doesn't have perfect teeth" thing over my head. Also, why is the internet so obsessed with yellow teeth and Rachel Ray's amazing diet? It's like the new cranberry*--get your teeth whitened or you'll be doomed to a life of sorrow and gnashing of [yellow] teeth.

*Whoever markets cranberries is a genius--they're in 95 percent of the fruit juices I see.

Living Somewhere Between Logic and Cynicism

2009-04-28T14:33:00.002-04:00

I was once standing in a prayer circle and the guy I was holding hands with said he could feel the cynicism from holding my hand coursing through him. He was being somewhat facetious, but I’m fully aware that I have been labeled cynical by others. I’ve also been called pragmatic, logical and pessimistic. I don’t mind pragmatic or logical, but these things still bring to mind a couple questions:

Where is the balance between logic and cynicism? Is it possible to be a hopeful cynic?

My natural inclination is to be a hopeless and over-emotional romantic. I get my feelings hurt and my self-esteem gets a daily kick in the face. I want to meet my own Mr. Darcy (or Miles) someday and I wouldn’t mind if it all happened like one of my favorite romantic comedies. I’d like a cottage in the mountains with a garden, a nice breeze through open windows, and a bike to ride into town. But experience has taught me that this is highly unlikely.

Somewhat jokingly, I have said that my mantra is to have low expectations for everything. If they’re met, then I'm not disappointed. And if they’re surpassed, then I'm pleasantly surprised. Is that cynical or logical? Pessimistic or realistic? I hope all my expectations are surpassed, but I’m fully aware they probably won’t be.

I know that true joy comes from the Lord and He will fulfill my needs. But what I’m talking about is not necessarily joy. I think it’s completely possible to be joyful in the here and now, while being logical about tomorrow. And I guess that’s what I’m trying to find the balance of: Being joyful now, while striving to steer away from cynicism about the future. Learning to actually be joyful right now, and not let cynicism about the future taint the present.

I absolutely believe that God has my best interests in mind and He will give me everything I need in this life to be joyful and do His work. But I believe we often get this confused with thinking God will give us everything we think we need, and thinking we need it because we really, really want it. And most of the time, these things aren’t bad things to want or feel like we need. I’m not talking about 72” flatscreen TVs or a new MacBook. I’m talking about marriage or children or a job you don’t hate. As someone in her mid-20s, I’m surrounded by people getting married and having children. So the common phrase I hear is that it will happen someday for me (and my other single friends). Says who? Show me where it says I am guaranteed a husband and children. It’s common to see women much older than I who are still waiting for a family (why this is true could be a whole other blog entry, but I’ll abstain).

And I’m not just talking about marriage, but smaller everyday things. When someone suggests something like going on a road trip, I’m fully aware it will never happen. People (including myself) rarely follow through with their ideas, no matter now enthusiastic they are in the beginning. So when someone comes up with a brilliant and fun idea, or they promise to do something, I file it away and never bank on it happening. I certainly hope it will happen, but aware that it probably never will.

So am I just being logical and realistic, or am I a cynic? Is this attitude perfectly fine and I just need to stop dwelling on it and let life happen? Or should I let my natural inclination run wild and start buying wedding magazines, move to the mountains and apply for a loan to buy a bookstore? Even as I type that sentence, I can’t help but feel I’d be setting myself up for disappointment.

In the end, I cannot know what the future holds for me. I can only strive to do God’s will for my life and learn to be the person He wants me to be. But does anyone out there have any thoughts to add? Do you think it’s possible to be too logical and miss out on the joys of life? Is cynicism a sin, or just a safe attitude to keep disappointment at bay?

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
~Psalm 16:11

Days With My Father: Beautiful and Heartbreaking

2009-04-08T14:57:00.004-04:00

It's been quite a while since I posted anything. I have something in the works, but I wanted to go ahead and share this website.

Days With My Father

Phillip Toledano's mother died in 2006 and just hours after the funeral, his father had forgotten that she'd died. It was then that Phillip realized his father had no short-term memory. Eventually Toledano began telling his father that his mother was in Paris and this would satisfy his father.
On this site Phillip chronicles his time with his father, along with beautiful photographs.

The Other Five Love Languages

2009-02-14T13:44:00.000-05:00

It's Valentine's Day and that means people everywhere are expressing their love with roses, candy and the exchange of conversation hearts that say "Fax Me." To commemorate the most fun of all the made up holidays, I'll be discussing the other five love languages.

In the book The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman explains the most common love languages and how they are expressed. The love languages are words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service and receiving gifts. But my friends and I have talked and decided that these five don't fully encompass the ways in which people can feel loved. Thus, I have developed a list of the other love languages:

1. Facebook Interaction: Do you write on their wall often enough? Do you tag them in notes? Have you sent them a piece of flair lately? If you're not communicating with them often enough through Facebook, then you're not loving them. And never, ever, ever forget to write back on their wall after they write on your wall. I can't believe you'd even think of doing that.

2. Picking on them: This is pretty much the opposite of words of affirmation--words of insult with a laugh. Don't you feel warm and fuzzy inside already? Have you made fun of the way your friend snorts when they laugh? Last week, when they told you that their favorite television show as a kid was Dallas, did you make fun of them and ask them who shot J.R.? Not teasing them is basically ignoring them and their idiosyncrasies. Don't you love your friend enough to make fun of their abnormally large toes?

3. Lack of physical touch: I have a few friends who do not like to be touched. At all. Most people think the side hug is a pansy's way out of a real hug, but people with this love language think even the side hug is too much. With friends like this, the best way to show the love is to keep the hugs to yourself. And remember: there's a reason couches have cushions. Your space is on your cushion. Don't cross the cushion.

4. Proper movie and television etiquette: This one is important on Valentine's Day. Couples across the land will be spending the day watching sugary-sweet movies or (if she can talk him into it) marathons of bridal shows on cable. So don't even think about talking during these movies or bemoaning the stupidity of women who wait by the phone for a guy who is clearly a jerk. Don't ever voice your predictions for how the movie will end or point out the faults of the dashing and handsome leading man. And it's also a good idea for the ladies to return the favor and abstain from voicing your opinion of Brad Pitt.

5. The gift of silence: I don't really need to hear how you were once in the exact same situation, except not really because it was a llama that ate your money and not a boss that ran over your puppy. Really, your friend just wants you to listen without comment. An occasional "Oh my!" or "No way!" or "What a lily-livered jerk face!" is permissible and even desired. But most of the time they aren't looking for advice--they just want you to listen to their plight.

That's the list I came up with. What would you add to the list of love languages?

The Funniest Letter of Complaint Ever

2009-01-28T11:00:00.002-05:00

A passenger on Virgin airlines was not very happy with his meal, so he wrote what has to be the funniest complaint letter ever. Go here for the full text. Here's a sampling of what's in the letter:

"I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

"Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this: [see image 3]."

Maybe if we all took that much time with letters of complaint, companies would make a few changes. Apparently Richard Bronson personally called the passenger to apologize. I think I might write a letter of complaint to Anderson Cooper...

And They Will Know Us By Our Suffering

2009-01-27T16:28:00.002-05:00

I was in Richmond this weekend visiting some friends from college who moved there to start an inner-city ministry. Part of their ministry is actually living in the inner city and becoming involved in the lives of those they meet. To do this, they go to a community church that was started by two other churches in the area. I don’t know all the details of the church or its people, but as I walked into the service on Sunday afternoon, I saw a picture of what the Church should look like: Not just one color and not just one economic demographic and not just one age.

The message was given by a camp director and something he said really stuck with me. I’m paraphrasing, but he said “The world will not change when they see Christians prosper. The world will change when they see Christians rejoicing through suffering.”

Most Christians agree that the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ is a bunch of malarkey. But how often do we buy into our own version of the prosperity Gospel? We feel entitled to the American dream of a nice home, two kids and a steady job. It’s our right to be able to eat every meal and to be healthy and live until we're 99. And when any of those things are tested, we begin to wonder “Why me?” We’ve bought into the American mantra that living the easy life is the right of every person, rather than remembering that we were told we would suffer—it comes with the territory of being in this world but not of this world. Paul even tells us to suffer for the Gospel (Romans 8:17 and 2 Timothy 1:8) and in 1 Corinthians we are told to bless and endure suffering (4:12-13) even when we are hungry and clothed in rags.

Does this mean we can’t be sad or upset when we suffer? Of course not! Read the Psalms and you’ll find it’s full of the cries of people who are suffering. The problem lies in expecting to never suffer and then being upset and affronted when we do.

As I chewed on what the speaker said, I was reminded of the incident a few years ago when a man entered an Amish school in Pennsylvania and murdered several children and then shot himself. A few girls who didn’t die suffered injuries that will affect them the rest of their lives. Most people would take this chance to become angry and the world would say they are justified. Instead, that Amish community used the funds that people donated to help the family of the man who did this horrible thing. They offered forgiveness and reached out to others, and that’s what the country remembered.

Shouldn’t that also be the testimony of Christians? Even though we suffer, we rejoice. Even when we live in a world going through an economic crisis, we praise God for His blessings. And then, the world will know us by our joy in Christ and our joy in suffering.

Polaroids are Saved! (For real this time!)

2009-01-21T13:09:00.003-05:00

I stumbled upon this article on another blog. Some excerpts:

"If all goes to plan, the Polaroid factory in Enschede, Amsterdam, will soon be making film again thanks to its new owner, an eccentric Austrian artist and businessman named Florian Kaps."

"'The project is more than a business plan; it's a fight against the idea that everything has to die when it doesn't create turnover,' said Mr Kaps."

I love it! I love that Kaps realizes not everything is about money--especially art. Just because it's not the newest technology doesn't mean it's irrelevant or useless. Just look at the resurgence of vinyl records.

Jon Favreau: Making Twenty-somethings Everywhere Look Like Slackers

2009-01-20T21:44:00.004-05:00

I love words. I love how you can write a sentence, then re-write it over and over again, until you've found the perfect combination of words to convey your meaning most accurately. I'll probably come back to the previous sentence later and re-write it before I publish this. I love doing that. But most people seem to have given up on speaking with eloquence and choose instead to speak quickly. They look for the fastest way to get their point across, even when there's a better way--a more vivid way.

My love of the written word extends to an appreciation for a good speech. A speech that not only explains a point, but does so in manner that goes above and beyond the normal spoken word. I always thought that political speeches had to be dry and delivered as though the speaker was reading a recipe. I thought speeches like those of President Bartlet were only found in the writing of Aaron Sorkin. But as I listened to President Barack Obama's inauguration speech, I was reminded of my love of words and reminded that inspirational political speeches are not just a Hollywood creation or a thing of the past. Whether you're a fan of Obama or not, you have to admit he has a way with words. His "soaring oratory" could inspire Dr. House to volunteer at an orphanage. I can't wait to hear his speeches during the next four (possibly eight) years.* I realize President Obama is not the first president to deliver a speech with panache, but he's the first that my generation remembers with clarity.

But here's where I begin to feel like a slacker, even though I make an effort to choose my words well. The speechwriter (and Obama's head speechwriter throughout the campaign and on to the White House) is Jon Favreau. And Favreau is 27 years old. According to this article in The Guardian, Favreau began his career as a speechwriter for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign after graduating from College of the Holy Cross as valedvictorian.

I have two years to become a speechwriter or at least a published author. If I can't be a drool-worthy speechwriter, at least I can aim to be a twentysomething author of outstanding novels. I should probably start right now.

*This is not a snarky way of making fun of President Bush's lack of remarkable oratory skills. I'm just looking forward to seeing Obama put his above-average public speaking skills to use.

Print it Like a Polaroid Picture

2009-01-08T13:59:00.004-05:00

Good news for all the Polaroid picture lovers out there: The Polaroid camera is back, in digital.

"It produces 2-by-3 inch photos by selectively heating spots on specially treated paper. It has nothing to do with the old chemical Polaroid process, but the prints convey some of the same Pop Art charm: They're grainy and the colors are slightly off, with faces tending toward a deathly blue-green."

When Polaroid announced they are stopping production of the Polaroid instant film cameras, people began hoarding they're film and buying it up whenever and wherever they could. And the hipsters rejoiced! (at the announcement of the new camera).

Question to Ponder During the New Year

2009-01-07T10:57:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago I did an email interview with a missionary in Uganda. She's been there for just under a year and living with three other missionaries. Some of her insights, along with the general atmosphere of the world and culture today, brought to mind a series of questions I've been pondering. Let's just dive right in:

If you stripped away all your hobbies, interests, favorites (including television shows, books, movies, flavor of coffee, etc), tastes (in clothing, decorating, music, type of vehicle...)--what would be left? How would you define yourself and how would others define you?

How would people describe me if they couldn't include that I'm a fan of the Green Bay Packers, I drink lots of Diet Dr. Pepper and I enjoy reading and writing? What if all the opinions and preferences from the last 25 years were stripped away and I was simply left with who God made me?

Would I be happy with what was left? Perhaps I would be left with nothing, because who I am is based on the very things I've stripped away. Or perhaps I'd find the real me--the one created by God for His glory and I've let the world and its distractions taint the real me.

In the interview with the missionary, she said something that really struck a chord with me. Before leaving for Uganda, she had in mind what she would be doing in Uganda, but when she got there she discovered that it wasn't about what she "brought to the table." She went to Uganda expecting to reach others through art and teaching art. When she got there, she discovered that they didn't need or have time for art. We're raised to believe we all must bring something to the table--to have something to contribute to make the world better. Or just something to help make our mark on the world.

But is that what we really need? Don't we just end up defining ourselves by our hobbies and preferences, rather than as a child of God? A creation of God, made in His image? And when all is said and done, isn't that what really matters?

If I Were President...

2008-12-22T14:31:00.002-05:00

- I'd make it a law that everyone must have at least two hobbies. One can have expensive paraphernalia but at least one must be inexpensive. Then it would be no problem finding gifts for everyone.
- I'd make all schools year-round (sorry Meredith). It just makes sense to me.
- Just like every child must take math and science, I'd make it a law that every child take art and music.
- People would have to take a simple intelligence test before they are allowed to drive. Such questions as what follows would be on the test:
- When is it logical to turn on your headlights?
a. When it is dark outside
b. When it is foggy outside
c. When it is raining, drizzling, snowing, sleeting, hailing or any other time precipitation is falling from the sky, therefore obstructing the sun and making it harder for other drivers to see your vehicle
d. At dusk and dawn
e. All of the above
- When should you begin slowing down to make a turn?
a. When you're in the turn lane
b. When your 200 yards from the turn and there's 4,000 cars behind you trying to go home after a long day at work
c. Whenever you feel like it
- For every “guy movie” a female watches without complaint, the guy must watch a “chick flick” without complaint.
- The number of baseball and basketball games in a single season would be cut by 50 percent. Is it really necessary to play 162 baseball games to find out which team is the best? Do we need to see the Utah Jazz play 82 times, only to be reminded 82 times how ridiculous that team name is? And don't even get me started on the OKC Thunder logo or the number of games in the playoffs.
- Schools would be funded so well that the military would be sending out soldiers to sell candy and doughnuts (this is, of course, said somewhat sarcastically. I'd prefer both the army and schools be well funded. Not just one or the other).
- Overcharging the public for uncreative music in which the “musician” or “singer” had absolutely no input in the process other than lip syncing into a microphone would be a crime with a penalty that includes being forced to listen to the Bee Gees nonstop for three months.

What law would you add to the books?

Advice on How to Blog

2008-12-19T09:23:00.002-05:00

From Slate magazine:

How to Blog
by Farhad Manjoo

So apparently if I want to be a famous blogger, I should post more than just once every three weeks...

Where Have all the Acorns Gone?

2008-12-12T11:40:00.003-05:00

From CNN:
Scientists baffled by mysterious acorn shortage

[Excerpts]

In far-flung pockets of northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states, scientists have found no acorns whatsoever.

"I had read about the collapse of the bee colonies, and it made me wonder, is something else going on here? Could this be affecting other systems?"

I bet I know where the acorns went:

Britney Spears World Tour

2008-12-03T13:02:00.002-05:00

Britney Spears has announced her first world tour in five years. For the low price of $350 (general admission), you can go see her gyrate and crow her songs or whatever it is she does. Or you could do one of the following:

-Sponsor an impoverished child with AIDS or HIV for 10 months.
-Save the lives of 350 Africans. One dollar (combined with other donations) builds a well and provides enough water for one African for the rest of their life.
-Buy three and a half acres of a rainforest.
-Buy enough fair trade coffee to last you a month (give or take) and help coffee growers earn fair pricing for their trade.
-Send 18 care packages to soldiers during the holidays.
-Give 11 families that have been through a natural disaster, food and clean water for two weeks.
-Buy 70 LifeStraws. LifeStraw is a point-of-use water purifier that lasts up to one year and removes 99% of waterborne bacteria and viruses.

Those are just a few of the ways you can spend $350. There are numerous other places where you can make one-time donations of any amount. I understand that all of the $350 doesn't go to Britney Spears, and there are a lot of people to pay on a concert tour (everyone from her hairdresser to the guy making sure the lights work). But $350? Diarrhea alone is responsible for the deaths of 1.8 million people each year, 90% of whom are children under 5, and 88% of diarrhea is caused by unclean water and inadequate sanitation (World Health Organization via Blood:Water Mission). I think maybe enabling these people to have clean water, or ensuring we don't destroy the earth or ensuring that we don't promote sweatshops is a better way to spend our money. Just a thought.

Things To Do

2008-11-29T21:54:00.002-05:00

I like blogs that have a sole purpose or theme, so I decided to start my own. In addition to this blog, I just started "This Life's 'To Do' List." I'll be posting things I think we all (including myself) should do before we die. The first entry was 'Complete a painting you would hang in your own home.'

Check out the new blog here.

The Pure Lack of Creativity Makes My Brain Hurt

2008-11-13T19:41:00.005-05:00

Are you kidding me? Because the High School Musical movies aren't squeaky clean enough? I just--I just can't even put into words how ridiculous this is. Are Christians really that incapable of coming up with one original idea? Are we destined to constantly look to the created for inspiration rather than the Creator? Are we determined to live in a complete bubble so we never have to venture into the secular world? We'll just keep making "Christian" substitutes for everything so our bubble never bursts. Oy. Vey.

The Secrets of Dating Revealed!

2008-11-04T16:36:00.003-05:00

I live in The Land of Singles. That means I’m not married. Some people in The Land of Singles are dating or even engaged, but until you wear that band of gold on your finger, you are a citizen of The Land of Singles (TLS). In TLS there are many, many theories on dating. Should you date? Or court? Or practice friendship? When can you have the DTR talk (Define the Relationship)? How can you tell if someone is interested and not just friendly?

Many hours have been spent trying to pin down the correct way to go about finding a travel buddy to The Land of Marriage, but no clear map has been made. Until now.

I was perusing the November 2008 edition of Real Simple when I stumbled upon a treasure map of epic proportions. With just one full-page ad, all our questions have been answered. And we have New York Life to thank for it.

Below you’ll find a simple map that will bring you out of The Land of Singles and into The Land of Marriage. In a few simple steps, you’ll have that band on your finger and a date for your office holiday party.[Click to make the image larger]

As you can see, it’s really quite simple and begins with an ice cream cone. This cone can be substituted for something else your partner of choice likes—you know, in case she’s lactose intolerant. Maybe a bag of her favorite snack food, like Pizzeria Pretzel Combos. Or her favorite drink from Caribou Coffee.

The good news is that this map is easily customizable. If the girl you have in mind prefers daisies, then go for it—give her daisies instead of roses. Or if she doesn’t like heart-shaped pendants, go for a nice pair of earrings. The key is that each step shows more commitment (oh no! The ‘c’ word!) than the one before. It’s a grander gesture that signals to her that you want to be more than just the purveyor of delicious frozen dairy treats. You want to be the recipient of her life insurance (okay—something more romantic—the recipient of her heart for all time. Awwwww).

Armed with this map, I believe even the guy most inept or insecure about talking to girls will be able to find his travel buddy. All it takes is a gesture that proves his intentions. And maybe it doesn’t work on the first try (or second or third), but when the right buddy comes along, she’ll walk alongside him and follow the treasure map at just the right time.

The Chopstick Issue

2008-10-13T13:44:00.000-04:00

I could write about a lot of things that are meaningful and pressing. Perhaps I could examine the state of the US economy or the upcoming election. But I won’t. Instead I’ll discuss something that has weighed on my mind as of late and must be said before the vein in my head explodes.*

I live in the United States of America. One of the perks of living in this country is that you can find any kind of restaurant you want: Italian, German, Irish, Chinese—take your pick. Among my favorites are Chinese and Japanese restaurants. Yet every time I’m in one I am confronted with the same question:

Why are they using chopsticks?

By “they” I mean the other patrons. Why are half of them using chopsticks when forks are readily available? Do they not realize they are in the US? Do they think the forks are there for decoration? Or do they think everyone else is impressed with their skill? Because we’re not.

Listen, if you’re trying to get the full “Asian” experience, then you’re going to have to eat somewhere else. Because I hate to break it to you, but that General Tso’s chicken you’re eating at the Happy Panda is not real Chinese food.

I’d like to take a poll to find out what chopstick users have in common with other chopstick users. I’m willing to bet that a lot of them only use Macs**, have a love/hate relationship with Starbucks and subscribe to (but don’t read) The New Yorker. They might also drive Volkswagons.

Then again, maybe there are two types of chopstick users—the yuppies (the Mac users) and the posers. The posers are hoping you’ll comment about their chopstick use so they have an excuse to tell you about their trip to China (or Chinatown).

Maybe I’ll start talking in an Italian accent whenever I go to an Italian restaurant or insist on drinking my chosen beverage from a steinkrug if I go to a German restaurant. That wouldn’t be ridiculous at all.

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*I don’t actually have a vein like that. I had a seventh grade English teacher who did, though.
**If I had an extra $1,000 lying around, I’d go buy a MacBook right now. I want one like the desert misses the rain. So using only a Mac isn’t a bad thing—but only using chopsticks in an Asian-American restaurant is.

Joe Sorren: Painting in Progress

2008-09-30T19:45:00.002-04:00

Sometime during college my friend introduced me to Joe Sorren. I've been fascinated by Sorren's art ever since and check his website infrequently to see his new work (and drool over it, wishing I had the talent and patience to paint like him). This evening I stopped by his blog and found that he has a 'Painting in Progress' series for his painting 'The Overture.'

I've never had the privilege of seeing one of Sorren's pieces in person, but even from the online photos you can tell that each of his paintings is incredibly detailed and multi-layered. This series proves that theory and gives a glimpse into Sorren's process. Absolutely fascinating.

Painting in Progress

Our Naked Neighbor

2008-09-29T20:18:00.004-04:00

The roomie and I are walking toward our cul de sac after a leisurely stroll around the neighborhood. The sun is setting and the temperature is just right. We met a few new dogs (and their owners) during our walk and we've been discussing the perfect size for a dog.

While we were out we saw our apartment manager, who lives in the same cul de sac with her husband and three sons. As we draw closer to our home we notice her three-year-old son running out of their house. No one is running behind him or after him.

"Whaaaat?" I ask.

"Is he?" she asks.

"Oh my stars..."

"Oh my goodness..."

He's naked. Butt naked. And running down the street.

He gets closer and announces his intentions.

"I'm looking for my mom and brother..."

He keeps running and we suggest that he wait for her, but he'll have none of it. So we watch him as he runs past us to his mom, about 30 yards behind us, in all his naked glory.

Children are a blessing from God.

The end.

Conference Time

2008-09-16T22:35:00.002-04:00

I'm headed to Oklahoma City for MinistryCom--a conference for people who work in church communications. The last time I went to a conference was my junior year in college when I attended one in New York City for journalism students. I'm sure the sites in OKC will be just as glamorous as those in NYC.

I'll be keeping my eye out for blog entry ideas. Not just at the conference, of course (although getting that many ministry workers in one place has to be a breeding ground for such things), but also at the airport and out and about Oklahoma City.

I'm not going to lie, though. At first we (my coworkers and I) weren't sure we wanted to attend. But then we saw that Jon Acuff, writer of Stuff Christians Like, is one of the keynote speakers and we signed up immediately. I already have several requests to bring back Skittles.

Stay tuned!

You Never Really Grow Up

2008-09-13T19:12:00.002-04:00

I remember as a kid feeling frustrated because no one takes you seriously―you're just a kid, after all. And when you're nine or ten years old, you dream of the day when you're an adult. You can do big, important, grownup things. Like stay up past your bedtime. Heck, you didn't even have to have a bedtime―you can stay up as late as you want.

As a child I dreamed of being respected and taken seriously when I made proclamations or observations about the world or life or the frequency of bathing that is really necessary. But among the many things they don't tell you about adulthood, one of the most disappointing is that this never happens. Once you become an “adult” (whenever that is, exactly), people do not start respecting you or treating you as an equal.

You see, we never really grow up and we never really leave high school.

I remember going to school and being baffled at the behavior and lack of respect I saw in other students. They disrespected teachers or professors by talking or sleeping class. They disrespected pastors by reading a book during sermons. Or they disrespect each other by talking about or making fun of each other.

The only difference between adults and kids or teens is that adults are much more sly about it. They use their age or professional title as an excuse to trample over a person. Or perhaps they assume that someone else couldn't possibly make a wise decision without their input.

I guess the simplest way of explaining it is that people view you through glasses that are shaded by the amount of pride or arrogance they have. The more pride, the darker the glasses. Eventually it becomes so dark that all they can see is their own reflection in the glasses. When they can't see you for the person worthy of respect that you are, they only see their own desires.

When you have training or a degree or natural ability in something, and you try to explain an aspect of this subject to someone with dark glasses―it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that despite your low place on the totem pole of life, you actually know some things and have skills they don't. All they see is what they want to see. I guess a lot of people only need an opinion about something to consider themselves an expert.

Perhaps I was expecting too much of people when I thought they'd respect each other. Perhaps I was expecting too much of people when I thought they'd love and treat others as they want to be loved and treated.

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On a completely different note, I was browsing CNN last night and thought for a second that I had gone back in time:

Building Character Through Ridiculous Chores

2008-09-10T15:15:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if kids still have chores these days. I’m sure some kids do, but if television shows are any indication (and television shows always present life just as it is…), then the vast majority of children have never done a chore in their life.

My brother and I used to have this chart on the refrigerator that would let us know what chores we had to do, and if we did them all we’d get an allowance. I’m pretty sure I was never paid my allowance and my parents still owe me, with interest, approximately $20,354.54. Or they could just buy me a MacBook Pro and we’d call it even. A white one with the Adobe CreativeSuite.

The chart was a pre-made one with normal chores (make the bed, do the dishes, feed the pet, etc.). But my parents had other chores they added to this. Among these chores was perhaps the most ridiculous task ever devised by a parent in the whole world forever and ever, amen.

Our house had (still has, in fact) a magnolia tree. Naturally, the branches on a magnolia tree begin about one foot above the ground. Since this tree was near a path and a door we used regularly, the prior owners had cut all the branches about seven or eight feet up the trunk. Said tree was in a natural area (meaning it was surrounded by pine straw and azalea bushes…no grass).

Apparently my parents were of the school that torturous chores build character. You know what else builds character? Bending over until your back feels like it’s going to fall off and all that will be left of you is a head and legs. Not a pretty picture.

With these beliefs in mind, my parents made it a chore that my brother and I would pick up the fallen magnolia leaves from the natural area. I’m sorry, what did you just say? Yes, I said that they made us pick up leaves—from a tree—in the natural area. What else goes in a natural area besides leaves?

After we picked up the leaves, we had to move all the pine straw so they were at perfectly straight 90 degree angles with the porch. I kid.

So we divided the area in half and I promise you my “half” was actually my “two-thirds.” But then, I was the younger sibling, so I was always the victim. I’m pretty sure my lower back is sore to this day because of this “chore.”

My First Bouquet of Roses

2008-08-22T16:12:00.002-04:00

In order to serve you, my readers, more efficiently, I have written two versions of today's post. The first is the real story, full of all the details. The second is the abridged version for those who don't have three minutes to spend reading about the first bouquet of roses I've ever received.

Real Version:
Last weekend, I and several of my friends from college got together at the beach. One of the guys has a beach house [side note: It has a 65" flatscreen TV. I want one. I saw Michael Phelps larger than life. This is a good thing.], so we got together and reminisced about the days of yore. We talked about our favorite college memory and about the time Dan's knee popped out of joint or when we had a VIP room at the Super Bowl party. Then we waxed less than poeticly about what we're doing now. Although we've all seen each other several times since we graduated, so we weren't all that clueless about our lives.

On Saturday I was tragically out of Diet Dr. Pepper and knew that I'd need the sweet nectar that the doctor has so graciously bestowed upon the world. So I went to the grocery store to stock up on a supply for the weekend (with a couple other things to munch on while basking in the cloudiness of the day).

I paid for my haul and grabbed my bags. As the bagger was handing me my bags he also reached for a bouquet of roses that I hadn't noticed was lying on the counter. And he handed them to me. "What are these for?" I asked. "They're for you," he said. "Oh!" was the only response I came up with.

So I took home my roses and put them in a red Solo cup.

Short version:
They were getting rid of the old roses at the Food Lion and the 80-year-old bagger gave them to me.

Conclusion:
Using the intuition that our senior friends often have (part of the wisdom they glean during their years), I believe he saw in my face how much I love flowers. The end.

Music, Olympics, Georgia and More

2008-08-14T19:50:00.003-04:00

Summer just isn't summer without good music. Some of my favorites from this summer have been the Fleet Foxes (like a mix between Iron and Wine and music from Appalachia), Ben Sollee (similar to Amos Lee, but with a cello--always a plus), Franz Ferdinand, and the old standbys of Sufjan Stevens, Feist and the soundtrack from Once.

As summer is winding down, though, I wish I had found NPR's online series, Road Trip: Songs to Drive By sooner. Each set has a theme, including Weeping at the Wheel: Crushingly Sad Songs, Songs for Stops Along the Way and Songs for When the City Lights Fade. I've only just begun listening to them, but NPR is always a great place to learn about new artists (or artists who aren't new, but new to me).

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Slate.com has a series named The Explainer. In the past they've answered questions about why moonshine is illegal, why gas prices fall slower than they rise and to commemorate the Olympics they answered a few questions about the games, including why swimmers always take a shower after a competition. It's an interesting read, and anything about the Olympics is a good read. Go Phelps!

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Although I don't completely understand why the heck Russia decided to invade Georgia, I have learned one thing: George W. is still our president. It seems like it's been such a long time since I've heard anything about him (other than his dismal approval ratings), I thought maybe he had just decided to take the rest of his term off and spend it on his ranch.

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Nobody wants to live in Detroit, even if the houses cost $1.

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Finally--for your viewing pleasure, here are some wicked amazing photos from the Olympics opening ceremony. I must admit--the ceremony was stunning. Even if the fireworks were fake and the little girl was lip-synching. I'd expect nothing less from China.

The Page 69 Experiment

2008-08-08T17:59:00.004-04:00

I saw on a blog at The Guardian that in John Sutherland's book, How to Read a Novel: A User's Guide, the author says that you can tell whether you'll enjoy a book or not by reading page 69. So I took five books off my shelf--three I've read and two I haven't--to see if this is true of these books. Of course, it's not full proof. But it's fun. Here goes:

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
Page 69 of the Wordsworth Classics version I own puts us in the scene where Jane visits her one and only friend, Helen, in the sick room. This particular section helps set the scene that this is not a sunshine and lollipops type of book. Would this page alone make me want to read the book? I'd probably give it a try, not expecting to like it as much as I would. Although page 69 is good (as all the pages of Jane Eyre are), it certainly doesn't give justice to this classic.

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
Phew. Yes, this page would make me want to read this book. I don't even remember who the characters on this page are, but the dialogue is intriguing and mentions the murder of the Clutter family. It does a great job of showing the grief that the town went through after the tragedy.

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
I figured most people have read this (and if you haven't, go read it now). In the version I own, we find Jem and Scout discussing whether or not they should write a letter to the person leaving gifts in the know of the tree down the street from their house. It's not an especially intriguing passage, but it does a good job of showing the relationship between Jem and Scout. Like Jane Eyre, this page would encourage me to read the book, but it's doesn't show just how good the book is going to be.

I have not read these:

The Hours, by Michael Cunningham
Page 69 is the first page of a chapter, so half of it is blank. It's quite interesting because it's about Virginia Woolf as she is writing a book. One sentence in particular makes me want to finish this book: One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen
This is a pretty good passage. It's written in first person and the character is resisting someone who is trying to give him a pill. Apparently he's been injured, so I'm interested to see what happened. However, it doesn't seem like a page-turner, but quite possibly a good book nonetheless.

Well, that was fun. I'll have to try it sometime when I'm at a bookstore and just need a book to read. It's probably more useful than reading the back of book, since most of the space is taken up by one sentence reviews and the author bio.

The Girl in the Window

2008-08-07T14:57:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid my brother used to upset me by telling me I was adopted. I’m not sure why this made me cry, but it did. The only retort I could come up with was something to the effect of “Yeah, well, so are you!” Brilliant. But adoption has always lingered in the back of my mind. I love stories and movies or books about children who had no families, but were plucked from the orphanage or foster care system to live with a new family. I love the idea that children who thought no one wanted them are taken in by people who love them unconditionally. Children without love are suddenly surrounded by it.

Today I found a link on a blog to one of the most heartbreaking stories I’ve ever read. The story is from the St. Petersburg Times and tells the story of Danielle Crockett, a feral child. When I hear the words “feral child” I usually imagine a boy who is raised by wolves or the cartoon character Tarzan—but I never imagine a seven-year-old girl who lives in a city, in a house surrounded by neighbors and with three adults in the same house.

The story is told in three parts, beginning with the discovery of Danielle in a house crawling with roaches and with walls stained yellow by cigarette smoke. Police officers find the girl in a room wearing nothing but an overflowing diaper, lying on a torn mattress in a room filled with diapers. The mother yells at the officer, not understanding why Danielle is being taken away. The second part of the story explains how Danielle is adopted by the Lierow family. After living in a group home for more than a year, she is adopted by a family who has a nine-year-old boy—a family who felt complete, save for their desire to adopt a daughter. The third part of the story is an interview with Danielle’s biological mother. She attempts to explain how she could possibly allow such horrible things to happen to her own daughter. She seems clueless to the magnitude of her selfishness. How can a mother neglect her child to the point that the girl is unable to talk? Feed herself? Make eye contact? Walk in a straight line?

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As I read this story, I was overwhelmed with thoughts and questions. I was reminded of the man in Austria who had kept his daughter in a dungeon for 20 years and fathered children with her—all while his wife and other children lived on the other side of the soundproof walls.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don’t know who said that originally, but we usually picture people like Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin when it’s said. But what about people who have absolute power over just one small area of the world? Like their home or their office or the life of their child? It’s unthinkable to me that such a person exists that they would give birth to a beautiful little girl and then neglects her to the point that she is unable to function. It’s unthinkable to me that someone like the man in Austria can deceive family and friends for 20 years and seem perfectly normal—until the devil within is revealed. But each of these persons exerted absolute power over their victim. They had the choice to love and nurture or neglect and torture. They chose the latter.

Sufjan Stevens has a song on his Illinois album about the serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr. Gacy would lure and kidnap teenage boys and do unspeakable things to them before killing them and burying them under his house. The song gives some minor details about the story and the melody is haunting (I admit—I often skip over the song when I’m riding in the car alone at night). What is more haunting is the line Stevens repeats in the chorus: And in my best behavior, I am really just like him. Look beneath the floorboards, for the secrets I have hid.

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Each one of us has the capacity to do evil things. We’re all sinful and fallen and selfish. We have the capacity to exert absolute power over someone else or something else and we do this as an attempt to fulfill our selfish desires. And at the same time, each one of us is an orphan or a child in the foster care system—waiting to be saved. A few months ago Steven Curtis Chapman’s adopted daughter was accidentally hit and killed by an SUV being driven by their son. He’s being interviewed on Larry King Live tonight and they just published an article he wrote about his daughter’s adoption. One paragraph in particular reminded me of the story of Danielle and the way her story had affected me:

“…what I had not yet grasped was that adoption is a physical picture of what Jesus has done for me. I did nothing to deserve God's love; in fact, I was living as an orphan, without hope. Yet God chose to pursue a relationship with me, and through the death of his son Jesus, I was adopted into God's family.”

Each one of us is an orphan and at the same time, each one of us is capable of the evil we turn our eyes from when it comes on the local news. Reading the story of Danielle Crockett not only deepened my desire to adopt the lost children in the world—children who just need a home and a family—but reminded me of the fallen world we live in and the world we’ve created.

Go, read the story of The Girl in the Window.

A New Perspective

2008-08-03T16:56:00.003-04:00

I haven't been a "grownup" for very long. But please don't take that as an excuse to stop reading, because what does someone in their mid-twenties know about life? I admit, not a lot. But I'll tell you one thing I've been learning during the last six or so years since I left home.

Parents are people too!

Okay, I've known that all along. My mom turned 52 yesterday and every time my parents celebrate some sort of milestone (birthday or anniversary), it gets me thinking about how my perception of them has changed and how they've changed. It's been interesting to look at them from "the outside in." They never went out while my brother and I were kids and they never made random weekend trips to the beach. They didn't go on cruises or go out for ice cream or go to plays.

It's been sweet to see how they're able to do things together now and have fun with just the two of them (although I must admit that I become jealous whenever they go on some fabulous vacation that we never got to do as a family...but that's okay). It's nice to see my dad take my mom to see plays, even though The Music Man is the one and only musical he'll ever voluntarily watch. Or for my mom to call and say they're going on a treasure hunt and then find out it's because they just left the theater after watching National Treasure 2.

Although my parents (just like everyone else) are far from perfect, seeing their relationship offers a view of what I hope to have in 30 or so years with my own spouse. I don't have a spouse or a prospective spouse on the horizon, so it's a blessing to witness my parents and hope that I have the chance to experience this same sort of joy in the future.

I'm Currently Drooling Over These Things

2008-08-01T13:21:00.002-04:00

~This floor

~This graphic tee

~The realization that the website design at church is almost complete and my life will soon be much, much easier and the site will be much, much better looking.

~Daydreaming about a quiet vacation at this lake house.

~Or maybe taking a vacation to this house.

~Riding motorcycles (I'll leave the driving to someone else, thank you). I've only done it once, but for-the-love-of-pete it was fun.

~"Laughing, loving and crying are the secrets angels share when we admit we're only human."

~People who leave comments.

Happy Friday! Someday soon I'll write a real blog entry with substance.

Soap!

2008-07-30T11:02:00.003-04:00

I was looking for an image to use for my "Wednesdays are for Opinions" graphic and found this:

Ummm...wow.

It's soap in the shape of hands.

Am I the only one who would be more than a little weirded out if I used the bathroom at a friend's house and this was the hand soap (no pun intended) beside the sink?

...I think I just saw one of them move...

A Few Links to Good Stories

2008-07-24T14:18:00.002-04:00

My office mate was reading part of this story to me this morning: Iraq Banned from Beijing Olympics. They had only seven athletes participating in the first place. The IOC explains their decision by saying they were already on an interim ban because after the Iraqi government replaced the country's Olympic committee with its own appointees.

This whole Olympic year has been very perplexing to me. Why, oh why did they even let China host the Olympics? It's okay to hold the games in a country that is notorious for mistreating its own citizens and bullying anyone else they can, but we can't allow seven innocent athletes participate? Why are those athletes being punished because their government (if you can call what Iraq has a government in a country that is falling apart in a region of the world that is falling apart) made a mistake?
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Somebody should give this judge an award and then ask him to make the same ruling for some celebrities. He made a nine-year-old girl (who was part of a custody battle) a ward of the state so they would have the authority to change her name. What was so bad about her name, you ask? Well, her cruel parents named her none other than: Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. Alrighty then.
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Watching the Couples Go By: This is the sweetest article ever written by an economist and one of the sweetest articles period. It's just a simple look at why people get married and how two ordinary people work well together. Good stuff.

Five Fabulous Things

2008-07-15T13:45:00.004-04:00

I almost missed my first Positive Post Tuesday! And since it's late and I need to do stuff before going to bed, I'm going to cheat and write a list of things that have made me positive and optimistic about life:

1. Roommates who come home after being away for five-ish days: I seriously have the best roommate ever. She's hilarious and puts up with my obsessive compulsive need to clean things. I'm pretty sure that if I woke up at 3 a.m. and needed a Diet Dr. Pepper or I'd die, she would find a 24-hour store and buy me 76 bottles of that sweet, sweet nectar of the heavens. And then she'd hook up an IV straight into my mouth for fast relief. She also likes dogs as much as I do and frequently quotes Madea.

2. Friends who come back from vacation: I understand that people need to go on vacation, but it's especially sweet when they come home so they can continue sending me facebook messages about life and love and Dave Ramsey. I have the greatest friends in the world and if I wrote a full entry about the friend in question, you would all send me emails, trying to find out who she is so you could steal her and make her your best friend. Well too bad, Internet stalkers. She's mine and she's fabulous.

3. Earth friendly dishwasher detergent: I feel less guilty about never washing dishes by hand because they now offer earth-friendly cleaners. See? My laziness and hatred of dishwashing hands is saving the environment.

4. New offices: We just moved offices at work and the arrangement of the new office makes it possible for me to see who comes in and out of our office. I can also see everyone who walks by the office. So not only will this be great for distractions, but now people won't be able to ignore me when they come in to talk to my office mate. More chances to use my dry wit and gift of sarcasm? Check.

5. Finally finishing a project that was started months ago, but should have take a month to do: We've been working on designing and coding an e-blast for one of the ministries at work. Let's just say our schedule and the web designer's schedule (who is an outside designer) did not mesh well. But I received the correct coding and design yesterday. And I'm not lying when I say that I thought about going out for a margarita and using my own salty tears of joy as the garnish (is margarita salt a garnish?).

Welcome to Positive Post Tuesday, where I will be optimistic and say nice things. It will be like the feng shui of my blog and help balance out my rants and raves. Fun for you!

Christianity Lite

2008-07-14T23:23:00.001-04:00

I think scientists must be wasting their time trying to develop needless things, when they should really be working on a way to replace all the sugar and fat with perfectly safe substitutes. This way, I can eat whatever I want, without having to worry about things like "obesity" or "heart problems" or "sedentary living." I mean, really, what are these people doing with their time besides using multi-syllabic words and looking at stuff in microscopes?

If these scientists really wanted to do me a favor, they'd team up with theologians and pastors and develop a pill I could take that would endow me with all the biblical and theological knowledge I'd ever need. Then I would know everything about the Bible (contents, history, etc.) without having to worry about things like "reading my Bible" or "studying" or "making an effort." I mean, really, who wants to do that?

I finished reading The Irresistable Revolution by Shane Claiborne last week. It's been a long time since a book has given me so many things to think about. Near the beginning of chapter eight he tells about a member of a youth group he used to lead who was caught with acid at school only a few weeks after "giving his life to Christ." When Claiborne asked him why he did it, the young man said it was because he was bored. Claiborne goes on to write "I am convinced that if we lose kids to the culture of drugs and materialism, of violence and war, it's because we don't dare them, not beacuse we don't entertain them. It's because we make the gospel too easy, not because we make it too difficult. Kids want to do something heroic with their lives, which is why they play video games and join the army. But what are they to do with a church that teaches them to tiptoe through life so they can arrive safely at death?"

I'm convicted every time I compare the knowledge I have of my own faith and the knowledge that followers of prominent religions are expected to have. Or when I read something by Christopher Hitchens or another well-known atheist and they cite the fact that most of the Christians they talk to know less about their religion than they (the atheist) knows. I've heard pastors explain how young Jews would memorize the first five books of the Bible and if they were deemed worthy, they'd go on to memorize their entire Bible to become a rabbi.

Christians have gotten caught in this web where they believe they must make their faith easy in order for others to want it. We have to make being a Christian hip or trendy or simple in order for people to "try it." We don't want them to know how easy it is to be discouraged when we feel like God is far away. We don't want them to know that the Bible is hard to understand most of the time and there are parts we'll never understand. We give them the soft, cotton candy version of Christianity to get them started and once they've accepted Christ, we peace out and wish them the best. Another name in the Book of Life and another notch on our belt.

This is not to say we should paint a horrible picture of our faith and scare them away. Goodness, no. Because even at our worst times, Christianity is better than any alternative. Even when we feel alone, we aren't. We have the author and perfector of life with us at all times. But it's not easy and He never said it would be. But it's good--oh is it good.

I guess all of this is to say that I need to get over my complacency and laziness. I wasn't lying when I wrote that I wish I could take a pill and know everything about the Bible and Christianity. But even though it's a long and complicated book, nothing but good comes from reading God's Word. And to borrow a cliche, nothing worth having is ever easy.

I Like Plans and Organization

2008-07-13T20:58:00.005-04:00

I've enjoyed writing this blog because it's nice to have a place to express my thoughts and opinions and tell the occasional story. The problem, though, is that I often run out of ideas of what to write. So I've decided to come up with a plan. Each day, Monday through Friday, I'll have a theme for what I'm writing about. And the best blogs have an overall purpose or focus, rather than just random ramblings. So hopefully this will give Breakfast at Tiffany's more focus.

Spiritual Monday:
There's no better way to start the week than with a "spiritual" post. Mondays will be when I write about what God has been teaching me or a particular theological subject I've been thinking about.

Positive Post Tuesday:
I got the idea for this from this guy. His posts are about specific people and are used to encourage and lift up that person. My post will just be positive in general. It might be about someone or something or a glowing review of a good movie I just watched.

Opinions are for Wednesdays:
I have a lot of opinions and sometimes I like to share these with the Internet. To spare those who don't enjoy the rantings of an over-opinionated twenty-something, I'll try to reserve my opinions for Wednesdays.

Newsreel Thursday:
I also like to read the news. This has become less of a habit because the news is getting increasingly depressing. But I still read it a fair amount, so Thursdays will be when I talk about what's in the news and perhaps what I think of it all. This might also be where I share with you news of the weird or just plain interesting.

Things I Love Friday:
I really like links (except the kind that pop up one of those annoying screens when you pass over it to give you a preview of what the link goes to). Since it's the end of the work week and I like making lists, I'll use Fridays to show you the things I've seen or done or read or thought about or listened to that make me smile.

Now, I won't stick to this religiously if I have a great story to tell or a thought to ponder and I can't wait for the appropriate day. Or if the post doesn't fit in one of the categories. Heck, maybe I'll even post two things in one day--I know, I'm a wild and crazy gal. But from now on, whenever I'm thinking "Gee, it's been a while since I've posted. Whatever will I post?" I'll know that I have a schedule. So come on back for more later and we'll see how this works out.

The Lost Art of Encouragement

2008-06-26T16:56:00.003-04:00

Mark Twain once said he could live for two months on a good compliment. I can still remember two of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received—where I was, who said what and the fact that it made me want to enhance the qualities they had complimented.

Encouraging words like those come few and far between. What’s sad is that simple or small compliments and words that build another person up and spur them on to good things seem just as rare as a well thought-out compliment.

I was reading Stuff Christians Like the other morning and something in the Judgment Olympics entry really stood out to me. Number six on the list of ways people judge each other explained the common act of only pointing out the one thing that was done incorrectly, while dismissing the 99 things that were done right.

It’s been my experience that hearing a heartfelt thank you or a meaningful compliment for one of the 99 things done right, certainly makes it easier to get over that one mistake. Mary Poppins wasn’t joking when she said a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. A word of encouragement helps the criticism go down. It reminds you that you aren’t a total screw-up.

Why do we do this? I believe part of the problem is that we let trite politeness double as our edification. We believe that because we say “Bless you” when someone sneezes or tack on an unneeded “Thank you” at the end of an email, we’ve done our job. We’ve been polite to that person, so we can check that off our list of virtues.

I also believe we place too much emphasis on complimenting a person’s outward appearance (“Your hair looks great!” “You look like you’ve lost weight!”) and we forget that edifying who a person is, is much more important. I’m not going to lie and say I don’t like being told I’m pretty (I also remember the first time someone told me I was beautiful and they meant it, just like I remember the “less vain” compliments in the first paragraph). Telling someone that you appreciate their hard work or their gift of singing or their servant’s heart is too much work and too close to real emotion. But we are called to edify each other! Edifying is part of showing love to those around us and loving one another is second only to loving God. And part of loving God is following His commands. It goes hand in hand.

This entry hits close to home because I need to work on encouraging others and looking for the positive in others. And I sometimes would like to know I’m doing okay or I’m not a total screw-up too. So my friend and I have made a pact to look for the positive and be more encouraging. No more stale politeness or glossing over the greatness in others.

Fun With Flickr

2008-06-09T20:56:00.004-04:00

Here's a fun meme to do with flickr photos:
1. Name: Tiffany
2. Favorite food: Club sandwich
3. High school you attended: Clayton High
4. Favorite color: Sage
5. Celebrity crush: Anderson Cooper
6. Favorite drink: Sweet tea
7. Dream vacation: The British Isles
8. Favorite dessert: Ice cream
9. What I want to be when I grow up: A mom
10. What do you love most in life: Jesus Christ
11. One word to describe you: Passionate
12. Flickr name: randomdtd

Here's how you play:
Open three windows. One with the list of questions, another open to Flickr and ready to do an image search, and a third to Big Huge Labs' Mosaic Maker (create a mosaic with four columns and three rows). Answer the first question, put your answer in the search field on Flickr and choose one of the images from the first page to represent your answer. Click on the photo then copy and paste the url into the first spot on the Mosaic Maker. Do that for all 12 questions, then click create and post the results to your blog. Sweet, eh?

Once again, if you can't see the photo at the top of the page or the links are messing up the text, go directly to my blog: breakfasttiffany.blogspot.com. Photo credits for the mosaic can be seen by clicking on the photo.

What Does Patience Look Like?

2008-06-07T16:17:00.006-04:00

Note: If you're reading this from an RSS feeder or on Facebook, and the links are messing up the text, I suggest you read it directly from my blog: breakfasttiffany.blogspot.com.

When I was in the fifth grade I wanted to be a singer, actress and owner of a dog farm. My dog farm would be huge and would welcome any dogs that needed a home. They'd run around like cattle on a "normal" farm. Take a moment to imagine dogboys rounding up the dogs like cowboys round up cattle. My life aspirations have changed and now I just want one dog and I've resigned myself to the fact that I don't have the voice to be a singer (but I still have my Oscar acceptance speech ready just in case). I'm happy with where I am professionally and hope to one day write books, once I have the discipline to churn one out. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions about my future.

Which brings me to my point. A phrase has been making the rounds for a while now and it describes what many people my age are going through: the quarter-life crisis. We want to know what career to pursue, if and who we're going to marry (and when) and the general path we should take in our life. We're still getting used to being an adult and we want to know what comes next. Should I go back to school? Move to a different part of the country? Pursue a relationship with that person across the room who just happens to be fabulous?

Waiting for the answers to these questions (or questions that arise at any time of life) is about as much fun as counting the number of openings in a screen window. That is--it's not fun and it's tedious and makes you want to scream obscenities. And so we're told to be patient. We read over and over in Scripture to be patient and we repeat over and over that "patience is a virtue." So here's my question:

What the heck does patience look like?

Does it mean I have to be cool, calm and collected and just take whatever is thrown my way? Does it mean I'm not allowed to be upset or sad that nothing is happening? Should I just wait patiently for something to hit me in the head? What do I do while I'm waiting patiently for the Lord? Can I be proactive in my pursuit, or am I supposed to go about my regular business?

Patience can be seen throughout the Bible. It's no coincidence that saying someone has the "patience of Job" is a common phrase. So I did a topical search of patience and lo and behold the verses flowed forth. I read each of them and let me tell you--the people writing these verses often had a lot more to be upset about than me. I don't think I'll ever have to worry about being pursued by mortal enemies like in many of the Psalms (unless that dream I once had where I was the nanny in The Sound of Music and my husband hired someone to kill me comes true...but I digress).

The more I thought about patience and what it means and the more I read passages about patience, I began to notice something. Patience isn't a singular item we must cultivate. It doesn't stand alone, as though separate from other virtues. The overarching goal of our life in Christ is to glorify and worship God. When learning to do this, patience is one of the many results. When we're learning one virtue, we're actually learning others as well. When working on kindness, we're learning to be patient with everyone. When learning faithfulness, we're also learning self-control. These things go hand-in-hand and stand together.

Take a look at Galatians 5:22-23. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." Did you notice how is says the "fruit" of the Spirit rather than the "fruits"? Or the fruit "is" instead of "are"?

I was looking up sermons about patience on my church's website and found one that talks a great deal about the need for endurance in our walk with Christ. Life isn't going to be easy, but God never hides His intentions or fails on His promises. In fact, I believe we can take great hope in knowing that our spiritual and personal success depends much more on God's promises than it does our own persistence. Meaning, if we're doing our part by seeking and following God, our job is just to remember and believe/trust His promises--and wait on Him.

There we go with the patience and waiting again. Back to my question: what does patience look like? I believe in the passages that explore patience by showing distress and doubt, we can find hope and guidance in the fact that these verses are included in God's Word. If it were wrong to be sad or upset, the entire book of Lamentations would not be included in the Bible. The fine line, though, is to remember God's goodness and continue to seek righteousness despite our problems.

In the end, I think patience means having full confidence in God's timing and waiting on His will to be fulfilled, rather than jumping ahead of the game or going directly against His will. We may have times of anguish and we may be hurting during the long wait, but while we're waiting we're also learning other lessons about God and cultivating other virtues. Even in the middle of Lamentations, the author writes "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great if Your faithfulness...The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord" (Lam. 3:21-23, 25-26).

To conclude: I don't believe there is anything wrong with asking questions or wondering about God's timing or even becoming emotional about a lack of change or movement. Our God is not an unemotional God who demands no emotion from us. Our God only demands continued trust in His timing and to follow the principles He has laid out for us in His Word.

Seek righteousness in all areas of life, even in our waiting.

Psalm 86:1-13

It's possible I may have blacked out for a moment

2008-06-04T22:27:00.003-04:00

I'd say I'm a pretty even-keeled person for approximately 20% of the time. I'd say that's a pretty good amount of a life to be spent even-keeled and without excess amounts of dramatic flailing of the body. So the story I'm about to tell you takes place during the other 80% of the time, but it's completely true and not exaggerated at all.

Setting: In front of the townhouse
Time: 10 p.m.
Players: Tiffany and Meredith
Extras: Big spider, 432 small spiders, 1 toad

Meredith and I are leisurely walking to the door of the townhouse, talking about Very Important Things and about events that may or may not have transpired that evening. As I reach into my purse, a spider catches my eye. This would normally be a small matter--just kill it. But this spider happens to be the size of a Buick Le Sabre and happens to be chillin' on our doorstep.

We prepare ourselves. Meredith deftly scoots the spider away from the door and I sweep in with my cute red shoe, like an eagle going after its prey.

Did I mention that this spider has a ghetto booty that makes Jennifer Lopez look like a skinny white girl? I didn't? Well, this spider's butt was bootylicious.

So I go in for the kill when all of a sudden the bootylicious spider bursts into 4,087 tiny spiders going everywhere. That ghetto booty was, in fact, a large spider sac. Ew. I then notice that the spiders are crawling all over a toad. The toad is frightened--I can see it in his eyes. He runs for cover among the bushes while Meredith and I begin frantically squashing spiders like a ninja warriors squash trespassers.

Our Mission: Make sure those devil-spiders don't crawl under the door.

We're stomping frantically while hoping the spiders don't crawl up our legs. Our legs are moving and flailing about as though independent from our bodies. We are like lords of the River Dance and the crickets are providing our soundtrack. But it looks as though the 10,235 spiders are too much for us. So Meredith makes haste to her Honda to retrieve a mug so we can pour water over these tiny, tiny fiends.

It's over. We have conquered the 24,987 spiders.

Final score:
Tiffany and Meredith-1
Nature-0

Perspective and Lost

2008-05-29T23:09:00.005-04:00

After watching the season finale of Lost, I thought the following video from Rhett and Link might be a good thing to watch:

Not that I need Perspective, because God bestowed upon us DVR.

Music You Should Listen To

2008-05-23T09:10:00.005-04:00

I'm not very good at picking favorites. I have too many and I like them for different reasons. Don't even ask me to pick whether I like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (from 1971) or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (from 2005). I can't even pick a favorite between those two.

But when it comes to worship music, I can indeed pick a favorite. Music that makes me want to sing all day, even when my voice becomes hoarse. Music that makes me want to dance and swing my arms around and just revel in the beauty that is God. Love it. What is this music I speak so highly of? Why, it's Enter the Worship Circle.

Here's the thing: I like raw, under-produced music. And that's what this is. They literally sit in a circle and record amazing music taken straight from the Bible or taken straight from their reaction to the Bible and God's love. It's not a group of people who act and sound like they're hyped up speed and the entire time, you can only think of the word "hokey" as you listen to it. It's just real--like you're sitting in a living room with these people and singing. Every time I listen to these CDs I feel a renewed eagerness to learn the guitar and djembe.

They just came out with the Fourth Circle CD and it's a bit different than the other three and in this case, that's not a bad thing. It has a fiddle, mandolin and another weird instrument in track four that I don't recognize. It has songs like the other three CDs but also works in some blues and gospel sounds.

They're also doing a series title Chair and a Microphone. It's literally a musician and one instrument being recorded--and that's it. So simple. It's also amazing to see how short songs become when you don't add a lot of extra instrumentation. But that's just a side note.

That's my commercial for today. I wanted to spread the love and let all three of my readers know about this amazing music. Go check it out.

Finding Joy in These Days

2008-05-06T19:17:00.004-04:00

The whole world seems to be in a bad mood. And I can't really blame them. As excited as I am to see January 20, 2009 come, this election season seems to be dragging on endlessly as everyone waits to see which Democrat will finally win the nomination and as we try to figure out if McCain will just be another Bush. Add that to a falling economy, rising gas prices and rising food prices and it's the perfect recipe for a bad mood.

And that's just in the U.S. The rising cost of food is crippling other countries and a cyclone in Myanmar just killed 22,000+ people. The war in Iraq keeps dragging on and the situations in Zimbabwe and Sudan don't seem to be improving. What a world.

Joy has always been a concept that I had a hard time with. I remember in high school, my church's pastor (not the same church I attend now) was dealing with a rebellious daughter. His other daughter had always been involved with the youth group at our church (she's a few years older) and acted as a sort of mentor to the girls. And amidst these sad circumstances she was always smiling and full of joy. My friend and I asked her how she always seemed happy and her answer was quite simple: She chose joy. So simple to say but excruciatingly hard to do. I've heard it said that happiness is based on circumstances and joy is based on attitude. This is when I wish God loved lists as much as I do. Then he could have given me a five-step process to being joyful:

1. Eat chocolate
2. Pray the exact prayer found in 2 Hesitations 3:14
3. Take two ibuprofen
4. Drink a margarita
5. Pray the prayer again and voila! Joy!

But our God is not a God of lists or five-step processes or 40 days to a new you. He's a God that wants us to pray and delight in Him. I just started reading Desiring God last night for the first time (I know, I know--it's a classic. But I'm slow on the non-fiction reading). I had heard the concept of Christian hedonism before and I had heard John Piper being quoted as saying "God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him." But in these trying times (both in my own life and in the world around me), it rang more true than ever before.

A few weeks ago I was reading a blog and the author had a link to some of her music she'd recorded. The first song she linked to was "Weight of Joy." I put this song on repeat, downloaded it and then played in on repeat for two weeks. It's such a simple song but has such a profound message. It basically says that sometime during life she (I) was juggling and struggling with everything, and she dropped God's joy in order to "make room" for other things. "Relieved of its weight I trudged forever on, but the absence of joy had transferred to a burden on my heart." She continues on until she ends her journey on her face. God finds her "hollow and alone" and He gets down on His knees and hands her joy.

He gets down on His holy knees and handed her joy.

I'm not saying I'm depressed and on the verge of a breakdown. I'm nowhere near that. But reading the news and hearing about the struggles in the lives of others and in my own life--it can be burdensome and it's easy to drop God's joy. So many questions about the future and what this means or what that means or trying to ignore loneliness or trying to learn about a God who can seem so distant--it can all be overwhelming. But through it all, He's right there, whispering softly in my ear "My child you dropped this back there" and He hands me joy.

Psalm 37:4-6
Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Thoughts on the Laughing Jesus Exhibit

2008-04-24T11:24:00.009-04:00

A new exhibit featuring portraits of Jesus is making the rounds and getting press in a few blogs I read. The reason this particular exhibit is getting attention is because the portraits are of a laughing Jesus. In each portrait, Christ is smiling or laughing or just looking anything but disgruntled. The website for the exhibit explains that the idea came from two Australian Christians who traveled around the world and “they found many pictures of Jesus showed him as a miserable, negative individual whilst their own reading of the Gospel suggested he was no such thing.” And so the Laughing Jesus project was born.

Around 60 portraits were painted by artists all over the world who live in poverty-stricken countries. I like the idea, but as I was looking over the portraits (each one is available for download, by the way), many questions and thoughts came to mind. It’s interesting to see how different cultures portray Christ. I think a lot of postmodern Christians like to make snarky remarks about the fact that Jesus was not a white man, with the underlying belief that only arrogant and ignorant white people would ever presume to portray Jesus to look like them. Yet, I look at these portraits and find that many of the artists painted Jesus to look like someone from their own village or town or demographic. One artist actually did paint himself, which is taking it too far (in my opinion), but the point still stands. We like to picture Christ as we are. We take the qualities we like about Jesus and focus on those. The author of one of the blogs that linked to the exhibit pointed out that everyone loves Jesus. He’s a great guy and everyone can find something to identify them with Him. Of course, that obviously doesn’t mean they follow His teachings. And just because someone likes Jesus, doesn’t mean they understand Him. But I digress.

This also reminded me of something I was thinking about a couple weeks ago. For book club we read a ridiculously awful book, The Shack by William P. Young. Not only is it full of dangerous and shaky theology, but the writing was elementary. Although the book as a whole was not very good, one aspect struck me with its truth. In The Shack, the main character (Mack) “meets” God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in a shack and spends the weekend with them. Mack quickly realizes that he is much more comfortable around Jesus than he is around God. And to Mack, the Holy Spirit is the oddball or just a mostly unknown entity—almost like the third wheel that no one fully understands. But this rings true for me. If I’m honest, I’ve always pictured Christ as my friend and God as the stricter father of my friend. These portraits reminded me of this incorrect notion I have. I can picture Jesus laughing and fishing with friends and lovingly caring for friends who are mourning. But it’s easy to see God as the disciplinarian. The bad cop in the good cop/bad cop scenario. Which is crap. They are the one and same. All three are separate but one. Our God is a God of love, even when we don’t understand Him. A hateful or unloving God would not have sent His son.

Although it is good to be reminded of Christ’s love and good humor, I think we should also remember that He is the same man who drove out the moneychangers and those who were buying and selling in the temple. Yes, He is a loving Savior and God, but He is also righteous. Just liking His personality and agreeing with His “love one another” teaching means nothing unless you put your faith in Him.

Now, after all this rambling, go check out the exhibit’s site and the actual portraits and tell me what you think. Some things to ponder:
-Many Americans would see some of the depictions as silly or too feminine. What does that say about our culture or the culture of the artist?
-Despite the flaws of some of the paintings or historical inaccuracies, do they glorify God? Let’s assume the best and say these are believers who are using their God-given talents and showing Christ to the best of their ability, so would these please God?
-What would your painting look like? How do you picture God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit? A white man with a trimmed beard? A lion named Aslan? A corporate executive sitting behind his desk, dictating the affairs of the world?

On Why I Dislike Wal-Mart

2008-04-03T14:17:00.004-04:00

I have several reasons why I dislike Wal-Mart. Here are a few:

1. It's too jam-packed full of merchandise. It's in the middle of aisles and covers ever inch possible of the ridiculously large stores.
2. The employees often (I'm sure not always) have no clue where merchandise is located (perhaps because there is so much merchandise).
3. The customers in Wal-Mart seem bent on being completely rude. They know they're in your way, in the middle of the aisle and that you need to get by. But they don't move. This isn't Wal-Mart's fault, it's just annoying.
4. They shut down smaller stores and become a monopoly.
5. Find more reasons at Wal-Mart Watch.

Those are just a few of the things I don't like. Add the following news to that list:

Wal-Mart Prevails in Case to Recover Health Costs
Deborah Shank stocked the shelves in a Wal-Mart until she was in a car accident with a tractor trailer that left her with brain damage and unable to walk. Her family sued the tractor trailer company and won $700,000. After paying all their legal fees, they had roughly $410,000 left over to pay for her medical expenses to take care of her for the rest of her life.

That's when Wal-Mart came in and decided to sue Shank and recover the $470,000 that her health insurance paid for medical expenses after the accident.

This is totally legal. It's call subrogation.

Okay, so it's legal. Big deal. Wal-Mart is the largest non-government employer in the U.S. I think, I think, they can live without that $470,000 that helped pay for a woman's medical expenses after a horrible traffic accident that left her without the ability to walk.

The good news is that after bloggers across the world, news shows and more berated Wal-Mart for their unfeeling and greedy lawsuit, they finally backed off. They won the case and all the appeals (although the Supreme Court declined to see the case), so they could have gotten away with it. But given the fact that Wal-Mart already has more than their fair share of PR problems, they decided to grow a friggin' conscience and not take the money. Or at least do what anyone with half a semester of Public Relations 101 could have told them would be the smart thing to do.

On March Madness

2008-03-26T09:31:00.009-04:00

The NCAA has rules about showing clips or highlights from games until all the games from that day are finished. Or something like that. So a local news station in North Carolina improvised...using dolls and action figures. This is why I love living in North Carolina. Watch some highlights of the Duke and Belmont game:

On Knowing When You're Ready for Children

2008-03-25T16:18:00.002-04:00

Setting: The living room, watching TV; a State Farm insurance ad is on
Characters: Roommates Meredith and Tiffany

The State Farm commercial shows different people at different stages of their life, some young, some old and some in between. One shot shows a father in his son's nursery.

Meredith: Aww...look at that dad with his son. Precious little...

Pause.

Tiffany: What do you think it says that I noticed the rug and the lamp, but not the baby?

Meredith: I don't know. What do you think it says that I noticed the man but not the baby.

Tiffany: We're not ready to have children.

End Scene

On Atheism

2008-03-19T14:42:00.003-04:00

I won't even try to delve into the topic of atheism. At least not now. But I just read this great article on evangelical atheists and how their beliefs and views mirror the same religious views they rail against. It's interesting because, from what I can tell, the author is not a Christian and is quite possibly an atheist as well.

Some highlights:

"Zealous atheism renews some of the worst features of Christianity and Islam. Just as much as these religions, it is a project of universal conversion. Evangelical atheists never doubt that human life can be transformed if everyone accepts their view of things, and they are certain that one way of living - their own, suitably embellished - is right for everybody."

"The problem with the secular narrative is not that it assumes progress is inevitable... It is the belief that the sort of advance that has been achieved in science can be reproduced in ethics and politics. In fact, while scientific knowledge increases cumulatively, nothing of the kind happens in society. Slavery was abolished in much of the world during the 19th century, but it returned on a vast scale in nazism and communism, and still exists today...Knowledge grows, but human beings remain much the same."

Read the full article here: "The atheist delusion" By John N. Gray

On Tibet

2008-03-14T14:52:00.003-04:00

Several years ago I watched Seven Years in Tibet and my interest in the welfare of Tibet was piqued. I did some research and the more I read, the more infuriated I became with the Chinese government and the world's lack of intervention.

This week on the 49th anniversary of China's overtaking Tibet, many monks and nuns have taken part in protests against the Chinese government. You can see some of the news stories below:

Tibet in Turmoil as Riots Grip Capital
Tibet: A Tinderbox of Tensions
Tibet poses dilemma for Beijing

The whole situation is disconcerting and ridiculous, but the fact that this was done almost 50 years ago and China is allowed to continually treat Tibetans (and their own citizens and other regions they control) with such contempt and put little to no value on human life.

And then there is the lack of attention that the world gives to this crisis (although more attention is being paid to this story. I can't help but think it's because of the Olympics this summer.). Whenever I try to think of a way to explain how the U.S. (and other countries) treat China, all I can think of is Dr. House. As in, the television show.

For those who haven't seen the show, Dr. House (more commonly called House) is a brilliant doctor who can figure out what is wrong with his patients even though their ailment is completely bizarre. They'll take most of the show trying to figure out what is wrong with the patient and doing all these tests, then the patient almost dies but just before they kick the bucket, House has an epiphany and figures out that there's a toothpick in the kid's intestine and that's why he's dying.

Sounds simple enough, right? Except House is a jerk. A very, very big jerk. Notice my prowess with the adjectives to describe just how much of a jerk he is: very, very big. He's mean to everyone, especially the patients. He's addicted to painkillers and did I mention he's mean? But since he's brilliant, everybody puts up with him. Sort of like China. Except instead of being brilliant, China has cheap labor and lots of people to perform this cheap labor. So we let them get away with murdering their own citizens and being very, very big jerks.

I understand there is a lot more to this issue, but the fact remains that they treat their own citizens, and the citizens of the countries they take over, brutally. They oppress people and we let them get away with it because we like to buy cheap electronics and Elmo dolls. And there are dozens of other countries with horrible governments and with riots and thousands who die from violence. Tibet is merely the tip of a massive iceberg. But we do business with China. Our companies move their manufacturing to China. And we turn a blind eye to the atrocities that go on in this country.

My hope is that all of this unrest will wake the world up. Perhaps the summer Olympics will open up doors for change as others speak out against China.

Free Tibet
International Campaign for Tibet

On the World's Most Perfect Marriage Proposal

2008-03-11T16:50:00.008-04:00

With footnotes:

1: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (from the book)
2: Persuasion by Jane Austen (from the book)
3: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (from the movie)
4: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (from the movie)
5: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (from the book)
6: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (from the book, but this version of the movie is amazing)

I don't think any normal female expects a proposal like this. But it was fun to put together some of the best lines from some of literatures greatest books (or the movies made from them).

Also, I'm not sure why the photo is yellow. It's supposed to be blue.

Any favorite movie quotes (romantic or not-so-romantic)? I also like the speech that Harry makes to Sally at the end of When Harry Met Sally.

On Saying Goodbye to a Legend

2008-03-04T21:28:00.003-05:00

Packers' Favre to retire after 17 seasons

Well, it had to happen eventually. I just thought it would be after next season. I'm not even going to try to hide the fact that when I "jokingly" told my boss I needed to go home after I read the news that I was only half kidding. Or maybe 30% kidding. Okay...20% kidding.

But this is a sad day. Sportscenter spent the 6 p.m. hour going over his career highlights and lowlights, why everybody loves him and whether he made the right decision. They debated whether Aaron Rodgers was ready to take over as the starting QB and whether Favre will change his mind when spring training time rolls around.

Yes, there are more important things happening in the world. McCain just won the GOP presidential nomination. But allow me to channel my sadness for other life events (personal and public) into the seemingly insignificant retirement of a football legend.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put on my Favre jersey and my Green Bay pajama pants and cry myself to sleep.

Favre From Heaven: Why Journalists Deify the Green Bay Quarterback

On Saving Britney

2008-03-03T22:24:00.003-05:00

I just finished reading an article about Britney Spears from Rolling Stone: The Tragedy of Britney Spears. I found it by way of the Burnside Writers Collective blog. At the beginning of the year I made a list of 50 things I wanted to do this year. Not so much resolutions, just things to do. Some are 'serious' while others are silly. One of the things on the list was to read less celebrity gossip. I'll admit I have a weakness for that sort of thing. After reading about a 21-year-old British man who has had seven kids by seven different women, or after reading about another bombing in the Middle East, it's a nice reprieve to read about the escapades of the rich and famous.

But Britney is in a whole different category. She's the biggest moneymaker for tabloid magazines and gossip sites. She has around 20 paparazzi who follow here wherever she goes and will do just about anything to get a picture of her. It's sick. Not just that they are following her and taking advantage of her, but that everyone around her seems to be doing this and she seems on the brink of a complete meltdown. It seems like it's only a matter of time until the Associated Press will be using the obituary they've been preparing (this is actually a common practice for older celebrities--older being the key word). I don't know if our culture's obsession with Spears (and other celebrities) is a sign that we like to watch their downfall so we can feel superior (I may not be rich, but at least I'm not like her...). Or is it just the byproduct of our naive, selfish culture that would rather worry about whether Britney is in rehab than if children in Africa have clean water?

It's all just very sad. It's like the person in high school who you could tell had such great potential, but they wasted it in pursuit of popularity and the temporary and often-fleeting approval of their peers. I don't know what's wrong with Britney--if it's mental instability or if she just needs to be taken out of the spotlight--but the bottom line is that it's sad. And I can't help but believe that the way our society has treated her is one of the many things that we'll be held accountable for. The fact that we crave stories about her public breakdown is just a small indication of much greater problems in our society.

On 'One book that...'

2008-02-27T13:51:00.002-05:00

I got this from the Burnside Writer's Collective blog and decided to put it on my own. Feel free to leave your own list in the comments or on your own blog.

One book that changed my life: The Christian answer would be the Bible...but we're excluding Christianese answers from this. So I'd say Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Why, you ask? Because it inspires me to do what I want to do more than anything--write great children's literature.

One book that I've read more than once: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier It's haunting and wonderful and intriguing and has the greatest first sentence and the perfect last sentence.

One book that I'd want a desert island: Les Miserables. It's like four books in one! I'd need a highlighter, though, so I could highlight all the great lines.

One book that made me laugh: Dogs Don't Tell Jokes by Louis Sachar (He's my second favorite children's author, second only to Roald Dahl).

One book that made me cry: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I won't say why in case you haven't read the books (go read them NOW). But I cried like a baby for the last three chapters. But I must also mention that I cried when I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. It's an amazing book and I only wish I were half the writer that Foer is.

One book that scared the he** out of me: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Word of caution--don't read this late at night, especially if you live alone or in the middle of nowhere. And especially since you can't tell yourself 'it's just a book.' But it's a great character study.

One book I wish had been written: Jane Austen's memoirs

One book I wish had never been written: Any Jane Austen 'sequels.' Can't people come up with their own characters?

Two books I'm currently reading: The Shack by William P Young for book club and Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell.

One book you've been meaning to read: There's a lot of them...but just one would be anything other than the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis. I'm not so good at reading non-fiction.

Your turn. Any good books you'd recommend? Make your own list!

On Bringing up Baby

2008-02-22T13:26:00.003-05:00

Illustrations on how to take care of your baby.

I only wish the rest of the site were in English. And I'm not so sure that playing chess with your baby is a bad idea--the baby looks pretty intense and ready to take on his dad.

On Not Hating Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T11:14:00.002-05:00

The United States can be divided into two types of people: Those who celebrate Valentine’s Day with gusto and those who don’t (The latter group might still celebrate, but not with gusto--usually just out of obligation). This is one of those instances where a person can actually move from one group to the other. The switching happens most often to women and it usually depends on whether they’re single or not. Let’s face it—the majority of single ladies only hate Valentine’s Day because they don’t have a significant other to spend the day with. They’re all about the holiday when they’re with someone.

I, however, am okay with V-Day. I think it’s nice to spend a day focusing on romance and love. Sure, we should do this every day, but how often do we actually do that? I have heard my fair share of people complaining about the commercialization of Valentine’s Day and claiming it’s just a holiday made up by greeting card companies and florists. First of all, why are you angry at them? That’s their job! They’re supposed to sell greeting cards and find ways to get people to buy more cards and flowers. If people buy into the belief that Valentine’s Day is the only day of the year to be romantic, don’t blame The Man. They sell cards and flowers year round that people are allowed to buy.

Here’s my main point: I like Valentine’s Day and hope to someday have someone to celebrate it with. Because here’s the thing, the couples I know who treat every day like Valentine’s Day and don’t save romance for one day a year also celebrate Valentine’s Day. The people who complain about Valentine’s Day and say it’s a cop-out and you shouldn’t have to be told when to be romantic—they aren’t all that romantic the other 364 days of the year. They’re only romantic on anniversaries or birthdays or when they feel guilty about something.

So I say embrace the holiday and take advantage of all the flowers and chocolate that are on sale. And if you think every day should be Valentine’s Day, then treat them as such.

On Another Ridiculous Website Ad

2008-02-07T09:08:00.000-05:00

I saw the advertisements below on the Newsweek website while reading an article about Super Tuesday (you like how I threw in that political reference--now you know I'm smart...heh).

I'm not really sure what to laugh at first. The guy on the Huckabee campaign who thought "Hey, let's put a tiny ad on Newsweek's site! That will give us at least one, maybe two new votes!"

Or maybe the poor soul who accidentally clicks on the link below it and inadvertently finds out when they'll die--but only after promising to buy 24 magazine subscriptions and to put their name on a mailing list for every 'cheap prescription' website in America.

Or maybe, just maybe, I should feel sorry for the person who named their website superdeluxe.com. Oh the imagination reels with the possibilities.

On Beating the Boys. Soundly.

2008-02-06T10:58:00.000-05:00

Scene: A game of Cranium

Setting: The Strayer’s living room on Super Bowl Sunday.

Cast:
The Boys (Daniel and Sean)
The Girls (Amanda, Bekki and Tiffany)

Act I, Scene 1:
The card explains that Tiffany must act out a movie without making any sounds or using any props. Her teammates, Amanda and Bekki, must guess the movie’s title before the hourglass timer runs out.

Tiffany looks at the card and has no idea how to act out the movie without words. She throws her hand to her forehead, showing the drama and exasperation of the movie’s main character.

Amanda: Gone With the Wind!!!!

Tiffany: [Staring blankly at Amanda] Yeah. That’s it. How’d you do that?

End scene.

Time elapse: 3 seconds.

How did she get it after only a hand to the forehead? Because we’ve known each other since the seventh grade and our minds meld together when we play games.

What are friends for if not to help you soundly beat the Boys Team at Cranium. With the help of a lawyer, counselor/mind reader and editor, we made women all across this great nation proud. It was a day that will be remembered for years and talked about with our children and our children’s children (also called grandchildren).

Our next mission: Beat The Boys at Trivial Pursuit.

On Legislating Morality

2008-01-25T11:35:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, January 22 was the 35^th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision that overturned most laws in the United States prohibiting abortion. More than three decades later, abortion is arguably the most divisive issue inside and outside of politics. It has become an issue championed by people on both sides of the fence and this single topic has the ability to raise a person’s ire faster than almost any other issue.

Before I go on, I should let you know I am pro-life. This stance does not just mean I am against abortion, but I’m in favor of helping those who need help in all stages of life. This includes the homeless, the subjected and the elderly. This blog entry is not going to be a long argument in which I try to convince everyone that abortion takes the life of an unborn child. You either believe that life begins at conception or you don’t. You either believe that what is being formed in a woman is a human with a soul and a future, or you don’t. It’s been my experience that all the logic and studies and medical proof in the world will not be enough to prove a person’s existence. Therefore, the point of this post will not be about whether abortion is right or wrong, but I will ask the following question(s) and attempt to discuss and answer it:

Should Christians (or any pro-life advocate) pursue legislation that will outlaw abortion? Does it benefit anyone, or are there other things they should be focusing on and other ways they should attempt to lower the abortion rate?

Over the last few decades, many Christian leaders have taken it upon themselves to become involved in politics and attempt to push their agenda on politicians. Jerry Falwell has been attributed to beginning this movement and has thus been blamed for the over-saturation of religion in politics. The heart of my issue with such tactics is not that I don’t agree with some (not all) of the views of political religious leaders, but I question whether or not it’s their duty to legislate their Christianity at all.

Show me the verse in the Bible that says we are called to save the world through legislation.

Show me the passage where Jesus explains that not only will He make them holy, but you can also pass laws to make people moral and holy.

It’s just not possible. The very foundation of our Christian belief is that we are fallen human beings who are absolutely unable to be moral by our own strength. We are unable to achieve perfection (or anything close to it) without the saving grace of Christ.

And yet we attempt to make unbelievers moral through legislation. We attempt to make this world clean and sinless by passing laws that unbelievers do not agree with.

How can we expect non-Christians to act like Christians?

This argument/question does not just apply to abortion, but to many of the Morality Legislation issues that “Right-wing Evangelical Christians” try to pass.

So here’s the bottom line: Christians are living in a fallen world that does not agree with their views on things and is unable to comprehend why we believe what we believe. The scales are covering their eyes and the veil has not been lifted. No matter how many laws are passed, they will not understand or agree. We were not called to storm Capitol Hill or our local government. We were not called to write angry letters to our senator or manipulate candidates and tell them we will pull all our support from them unless they do exactly as we think Jesus would do.

Christians are called to love and to reach out to the hurting and needy. We are called to embrace the least of us as well as those with the most. This includes the teenager with an unexpected pregnancy and the twenty-something who is pregnant but afraid the baby will interrupt her career-driven life. This includes the woman who had an abortion and feels the emptiness and guilt that often comes after the procedure.

What I’m trying to say is that rather than spend our time trying to outlaw something that women will still seek out if it were illegal, shouldn’t we be counseling those who want one and those who have already had one? Shouldn’t we be working directly with these women, educating them not only on the physical, mental and emotional dangers of abortion, but also on its alternatives? Shouldn't we be focusing our time and energy and efforts on the person rather than the piece of legislation?

After writing all of this, I also don't think we should completely give up on making abortion illegal. However, I believe we need to spend a lot less time fighting politicians and a lot more time embracing those who believe they need an abortion. Rather than spending 90% of our efforts on outlawing it and only 10% on preventing the need for it, shouldn’t we be spending 90% of our efforts on the women and preventing abortions and counseling women, and 10% on legislation? Maybe not quite that much of a change, but at least change direction so that Christians are known more for caring and loving for the hurt, rather than legislating their views.

Like I said at the beginning of this post—these are just my thoughts and ponderings on the subject and I don’t have a clear yes or no opinion on this. But I definitely believe that Christian political machines should stop trying to find their savior on Capitol Hill (and stop trying to moralize the country) and begin showing their Savior to the people who need their help.

On UFOs and Rednecks

2008-01-22T09:32:00.000-05:00

Welcome back! Yes, I still update this blog. Every once in a while when I have something to say. I'm currently tossing around the idea of writing about the education system in America and how craptastic it is, or about art and its importance. But for today I'll write briefly about UFOs.

A story on NPR details a report that dozens of people in a small Texas town have seen a UFO. Around 40 residents reported seeing the flying object, although many were reluctant to say anything until others came forward. Here's where the fun begins: the sheriff said the object was "bigger than a Wal-Mart."

I have a new joke for Jeff Foxworthy: You might be a redneck if you use Wal-Mart as your measuring device.

"The house was the size of the women's department at Wal-Mart!"

"That cat was so large, you could have fit him in the biggest fish tank down at the local Wal-Mart."

"I saw a truck the other day that was so big, it couldn't have fit through the front doors of Wal-Mart!"

Another interesting tidbit about the whole thing is that the incident is "eerily similar" to one that happened a year ago at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Hmmm...

Stay tuned for more developments. Or for more pointless blog posts about news stories I read.

Also--it snowed this weekend here in the Piedmont of North Carolina. My roommate and I were driving to church on Sunday morning, admiring the pristine white of the snow and its light dusting on the world. We pass by something on the road and pause in our conversation because we both noticed something.

Even the roadkill looks a little prettier when it has a light topping of snow.

That's all folks! I'll be here all week!

On my favorite things from 2007

2007-12-31T13:16:00.000-05:00

I don't have the money or time to listen to all the music I want, read all the books I desire or see all the movies that come out...so I couldn't pick a top ten list of any of those things. Or they at least wouldn't all be from 2007. So I'll just make a list of all my favorite things from this, the year of our Lord two thousand seven. Many of these things aren't actually from 2007, but this is just when I happen to get around to them.

In no particular order:

1. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible: So flipping good. Go to www.beonlineb.com to see an interactive video their song Neon Bible. It's kind of freaky, in a classic horror movie sort of way, but I couldn't take my eyes off it and watched it at least four times this weekend.

2. Rosie Thomas, These Friends of Mine: I love her voice and how innocent it sounds. She's friends with Sufjan Stevens, so that automatically makes her worth listening to. I could listen to Paper Doll on repeat for hours.

3. Over the Rhine, The Trumpet Child: How the heck have I gone this long and never heard of or listened to these people? Her voice! His songs! So good. Whenever I listen to The Trumpet Child, I feel like I'm sitting in a smoky bar with low lights and a good drink.

4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: The perfect end to an amazing series. I laughed, I cried like a baby, and I didn't want it to end.

5. Radiohead, In Rainbows: Even if the music sucked (which it didn't), the fact that you could pay what you want was brilliant. Not only did they pull the greatest marketing ploy ever (gotta love it when a musician sticks it to the out-of-touch recording industry and actually succeeds), but the album was worth every pound you paid (or didn't pay). Most people seem to be choosing Weird Fishes/Arpeggio as their favorite, but Nude has to be my favorite. That base line gives me goosebumps.

6. Etsy.com: This site is for anyone who loves one-of-a-kind and handmade artwork, crafts, clothes, and accessories. It's kind of like eBay for artists, except you don't bid on things. Anyone can open up their own Etsy shop and sell their wares. Most of the items are more expensive than what you'd buy at Target or even Urban Outfitters (depending on what you're buying), but you get items you aren't likely to see at your friend's house. And you're supporting artists because the money goes straight to them. Bonus!

7. Sex God by Rob Bell: I've only read it through once and I want to read it again to get the big picture. Bell has a way of taking something complex and profound and making it completely accessible to anyone. This book not only makes an excellent case for abstinence and its beauty, but it uses the traditions found in the Old Testament to show God's love for each of us. There is so much more to this book, but I'm trying to be succinct. Just go read it.

8. Bishop Allen, The Broken String: This group is so much stinking fun, I can hardly stand it. They don't make any profound statements with their music or even do anything groundbreaking, but it's mindless fun. I've heard they're great live because they seem to just be excited to be playing their music.

9. Waitress: I feel like the majority of good movies this year were depressing, but Waitress left a smile on my face. I'm a big Keri Russell fan and she's great in this film. It will also inspire you to go home and bake a pie or two or fourteen.

10. Anne of Green Gables: This movie was actually made in 1985, but I didn't see it for the first time until this summer. It's absolutely adorable and will make you want to move to a small town, buy an old farmhouse, and adopt a red-headed girl (and then bake pies like Keri Russell in Waitress, heh heh).

11. Casino Royale: This is the only Bond movie I've ever seen and I loved it. Part of me never wants to watch another Bond movie so I can maintain the image of Bond from this film in my mind. The womanizing picture of Bond doesn't appeal to me. Shocking, I know.

12. Friday Night Lights: I was late to the game (no pun intended) with this show (as I was for Lost, Arrested Development and The Office), but every single one of you need to watch this show. Put it on your Netflix cue right now and be prepared to fall in love with this show, its characters and its well-written gloriousness.

13. Jane Eyre: BBC made this marvelous four-hour version of one of my favorite books and then Masterpiece Theater aired it. This is one of the few 'chick' novels that I believe many guys would also enjoy and the BBC did an excellent job on this version. The scene right after Jane saves Rochester's life is reason enough to watch this series over and over again.

14. Waterdeep, Heart Attack Time Machine: I'm a sucker for acoustic music and anything Waterdeep or Enter the Worship Circle puts out. This album did not disappoint. They have a way of telling simple stories in a profound way, all while making you love the music they've put with the story.

15. Lost: I watched the first season on DVD in two days (it was exam week...what else was I going to do?). Season three had its ups and downs, but the season finale blew me away. The one resounding reason I want the writer's strike to end is so I can see the entire fourth season of Lost uninterrupted.

Honorable mentions: Joanna Newsom, Spoon (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga), Band Marino (The Sea and the Beast), Till we Have Faces by CS Lewis, Pushing Daisies, Chuck, Feist (The Reminder)

Things I abhored this year: The Squid and the Whale, Man of the Year (has Robin Williams just given up making good movies?), The Break-Up, American Idol (there. I said it. I can't stand that show)

That's all for now. Here's to the new year and what lies ahead.

On Glow-in-the-Dark Cats

2007-12-14T16:35:00.000-05:00

This might be the most disturbing thing I've seen in a long time:

Cloned cats that glow

Apparently, since scientists in Korea have cured all other diseases, ended poverty and gotten rid of all the potholes in South Korea, they've decided to clone cats and make them glow in the dark.

Okay, I admit, they apparently do have some sort of medical and scientific reason for doing this. But seriously--follow the link and you will be witness to some scary-looking kittens. As if the glowing eyes that cats have naturally isn't scary enough, now their whole face glows.

On Putting a Stop to the Madness (of the Trix Rabbit)

2007-12-12T15:41:00.000-05:00

I submit that the following should be discontinued and forgotten and never used again:

1. Using the "Got Milk?" ad campaign for things other than the "Got Milk?" campaign. For example, churches are no longer allowed to name a sermon series (or any of their other events) "Got God?" We must put a stop to the overuse of this "Got ____?" epidemic. It's old. Really, really old.

2. Using the Mastercard "Priceless" ad campaign for things other than the "Priceless" campaign. People, people, people. It's only cute when Mastercard does this. Even then, it can get old. We get it. Some things are priceless. Some things are not. Most of the things that are priceless are abstract lessons or memories or events that we'll take pictures of and then make elaborate scrapbook pages about. We know and we weep with pleasure that the world has finally realized that the important things are priceless and can't be bought. Now let's all go to the mall and buy some more stuff using our Mastercard.

3. Carrot Top. Yes, he's a person, so we can't really get rid of him. But he's really annoying and should be forgotten and never brought up again.

4. Papyrus font. I'll admit it: I used to like this font. It's textured! And slightly different from your average sans serif font! But then it started showing up everywhere. Churches embraced it with a fervor not seen since those disgusting communion wafers were invented! Wedding planners loved it and thought it evoked a sense of romanticism! And thus was born the era of Papyrus font. We must throw off the chains of this light but oh-so-gripping font. It is not good for signage (too thin to see from far away) and the world is full of fonts that evoke romanticism and have texture coming out their wazoo. Yes, their wazoo! So let's stop using Papyrus and let it rest in peace, knowing that it had its 15 minutes of fame in the early years of this grand century of ours.

5. Ripping off Macintosh's use of 'lowercase syllable + uppercase syllable = trendy product' formula. Anything made by Macintosh starts with a lowercase 'i'--iPod, iMac, iBook, etc. And since any and all Mac-related products are automatically trendy, marketing executives and
Corporate America embraced this formula like it was pure gold dipped in platinum and sprinkled with diamond dust. They held tight to the belief that people will assume that anything using this formula is not to be lived without. I must have it. I must.

6. Not letting the Trix rabbit have Trix. Call me crazy, but I found it highly distressing as a youngster that they wouldn't let the poor rabbit have some Trix. Why are Trix only for kids? Do they have some sort of chemical or vitamin or mineral that is poisonous to rabbits and will cause their floppy ears and bushy tail to fall off? Is the rabbit really a metaphor for adults, and they're saying that Trix are only for those who are young and don't care about the sugar content in cereals? Are they saying that, as an adult, we shouldn't want Trix or we shouldn't eat it even if we want it? What are they trying to tell us? Either way, I don't think it's very nice to discriminate against a poor rabbit who just wants some cereal. Aren't there laws against that?

That's all for now. Feel free to add your own entries to the list. Together, maybe we can put a stop to the needless overuse of these marketing ploys.

On Wasting Money

2007-12-07T14:03:00.001-05:00

At the First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale's $1.3 million Christmas Pageant is more Broadway extravaganza than local production.

Could they really not think of a better way to spend $1.3 million? Is Fort Lauderdale some sort of Utopian society, with no needy people? I'm sure if that's true, there are other communities close to them that could use the $1.3 million to help out some people. Do they really think fireworks and flying angels will bring people to God better than a 'normal' Christmas program? If I remember correctly, it's not impressive displays of pyrotechnics (or any human endeavor) that brings people to Christ, but the Holy Spirit.

I'm just saying. Surely they could have thought of a better way to spend $1.3 MILLION.

On Knowing the Whole Story

2007-12-06T09:58:00.000-05:00

Nobody likes knowing half the story, except perhaps so they might be able to continue living in denial. But when the whole story helps make the experience fuller and richer, it's safe to say we all like to know the full story. A current example that comes to mind are the Harry Potter books and movies. I am an avid fan of the Harry Potter franchise. If I told you the extent of my fanhood, you'd probably decide I'm insane and stop reading, because who wants to read the blog of a crazy person?

Anyway, my friend (a fellow Harry fan) and I have discussed on numerous occasions the many faults of the HP movies, particularly the third movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Overall, we love the movies, but we of course would rather the movies be five hours long and included every detail of the books. We are aware of our full-fledged crazy. If you had never read the books and went to see the movie, you'd be missing plot points and details that would further enrich your Harry Potter experience. The two most blatant examples are the marauder's map and the form of Harry's Patronus (a stag). For those who haven't read the books or seen the movies, first I must ask where the heck you've been in the last ten years. Second, I'll explain what each of these things are.

The Marauder's Map is a map of Hogwarts that shows where every single person or animal is located in the school. Tiny dots with labels move all over the map, enabling the user to see if anyone is coming to ruin their fun or mischief. The makers of this map were Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Later in the book we find out that these four people were actually Harry's father and three friends. Each of them could turn into animals (Moony was a werewolf and didn't turn on purpose, the others did so on purpose) and so these nicknames corresponded with their animals. Harry's father transformed into a stag, so his name was Prongs. This brings us to the Patronus.

A Patronus is created using a spell and protects the witch or wizard. Each wizard's Patronus takes the shape of an animal that is either meaningful to them or has qualities similar to them. So what shape does Harry's Patronus take? A stag. Like his father's animal form. You're probably wondering why I just explained all of that. In the movie, each of these facts is completely disregarded. Viewers never learn that Harry's father and friends made the map or that his father's animal form was a stag. This bothered me because I felt like these two facts would have given the story and the characters more depth. We could have learned more about the character of Harry's father and more about Harry's feelings toward his father. We could have learned some history of Harry's family. Instead, we got a ten minute scene with the knight bus, a completely irrelevant part of the story. I'm still bitter.

Now let's bring it all in. I'm assuming we all agree that knowing all the facts of a story helps to make a story better and more meaningful. Granted, in many instances it's impossible to know the full story and fit all the facts in. Whenever someone complains about the media being one-sided or not telling all the facts, I remind them that if we told every single fact, news stories would each last an hour or take half a day to read. The media has to pick and choose which facts they believe are most important. Does that result in lopsided storytelling? Sometimes, yes. But if you have a problem with it, read more than one story on the same subject. Read CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. But I digress.

Most people avoid reading the Old Testament. It's long and wordy and there are a lot of rules. It's hard to pronounce the names. And don't even try to get them to read about the history of those times (using outside sources). But I believe we're missing so much of God's character and His plan when we only read the New Testament. We only know the major details of half the story! We all hear about how angry God seemed in the Old Testament, yet we avoid reading it for ourselves. The Israelites didn't exactly make it easy on themselves. I've always enjoyed reading and learning about history, believing that it will help us understand the actions and culture of the people at the time. I think if we knew more about the culture and way of life for the characters in the Old Testament and the world at the time, we would gain a better and richer understanding of the stories and of God.

I guess all I'm saying is that we've gotten used to reading the highlights and just getting the gist of stories and of history. If our belief system (Christianity) is more than just a set of rules to live by, but it's a lifestyle that permeates every facet of our being, then shouldn't we know more about it? Shouldn't we know where we came from so we know where we're going? So we can fully understanding where we're going and why we're going there?

On the angry gods: A video from CNN

2007-12-03T19:46:00.000-05:00

CNN did a short segment on Rob Bell and his rising popularity and spoke particularly about his book Sex God. The segment, of course, couldn't fully explain Rob's views on everything or even fully explain some of what he said in the segment, but it's a pretty good video. He's blatant about the importance of abstinence, but makes it sound like something amazing, rather than something churches have come up with to keep people under their thumb. It's obvious even from this short video that Rob is different from pastor superstar Joel Osteen because Rob actually has opinions that are contrary to the culture as a whole and he isn't afraid to express those views. In a similar piece I saw on CNN about Osteen, he wouldn't answer questions about his views on homosexuality or abortion.

Anyway, the video is here.

On the angry gods: Part 3

2007-12-01T15:51:00.000-05:00

God is a God of freedom and love. He freed the Israelites and Abraham's descendents from having to make sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice--never knowing where they stood with God. Then He sent His son as the final sacrifice, the pure and perfect lamb.

I'll be honest--this is when my memory of exactly what Rob Bell said gets fuzzy. It's been more than a week since I saw him. But I'll quote this to you:

"Repentance of sin is just waking up to what God has already done."

This makes me think of the quote from CS Lewis: "Prayer doesn't change God, it changes us."

God is finished in the sense that He knows exactly what is going to happen. He has already forgiven us and made His plans. He knew us before we were born and knew exactly who'd we become and what decisions we'd make. He knows the desires of our hearts and what sins we'll commit. And He loves us. Something Rob has said in interviews and during his message was that God loves us all--those who embrace His message and ask for forgiveness, as well as those who do not and reject Him. He's gotten flak for this and many Christians believe that God only loves those who have accepted Christ as their savior. My first instinct is to side with Rob and say that God loves all humans, inside or outside of communion with Him. I don't have a lot to back this up with, other than the fact that He created us and I don't imagine He flips a switch between love and hate whenever we convert to Christianity.

The last half of Rob's message expounded on God's love for us. He is not a God who sits in heaven, waiting for us to make a mistake and zap us. He loves us and desires for us to love Him and love others and have a real relationship with us. Rob told stories of people he knows and how their lives have been changed by Christ. People who were abused physically, mentally and emotionally. People who lived in poverty and were touched by another Christian. We only have the ability to love like this because our faith has given us this ability (my own thought--not Rob's).

One important story he told was a personal story of how he used to work constantly and was miserable. He was talking with a friend and this friend kept telling Rob that he didn't have to live like this. He didn't have to work to get ahead. He didn't have to climb the ladder of success or have this big-time career. Rob tried to defend himself, but his friend kept saying over and over 'you don't have to live like this.' Eventually it dawned on Rob--he didn't have to live like this. Our fallen selves have made gods out of our careers, money, the approval of others, success and anything else we sacrifice everything for. We scoff and wonder how in the world people could ever believe in Zeus or Aphrodite or any of those gods, yet we do the same thing. We work for these invisible 'forces' that say we have to get ahead, we have to make money, we have to do, do, do. We can't stop. We've done more than make idols out of these things, we've made them our gods and we worship them and the false sense of security and happiness they bring.

Final thoughts: I remember in high school learning about the different types of ways to approach research for writing papers. You could read a story/poem/book and research it by focusing on different aspects of the story and its creation. My favorite way of researching things was by looking at the author's personal history and the current events/culture of the world when the author wrote it. What we write is directly related to our world and what's going on at the moment. One of the most blatant examples is the poetry that came out of World War I. For years beforehand, poetry about war made the whole thing seem romantic and pure, but the poetry written by soldiers in WWI revealed just how horrible war is. Their poetry was directly influenced by their world and their biography. All of this is to say that I appreciate how Rob looks at history to see how it shaped the stories in the Bible. I read one blog where the writer said Rob believes that the story of the Good Samaritan is supposed to be about the prejudice of the audience Christ was preaching to. Interesting.

During one of the stories Rob told, he retold a story that Brennan Manning has used about a woman who claimed to be hearing God's audible voice and had been having conversations with Him. A priest, who was upset about her claim, talked to her and said that the next time she 'talked' to God, she should ask Him what sins the priest last confessed. After her next conversation with God, the priest came and asked her what God had said. She said He simply stated "I don't remember." I understand the sentiment of this story and the belief that God forgets our sin once it is confessed, but I don't know if I agree that God forgets our sin. He's omniscient, isn't He? I believe part of being omniscient is knowing the past, present and future, including sin. And doesn't a God as powerful as the true God have the ability to really and truly forgive without forgetting? And doesn't it make Him all the more amazing that He knows our past mistakes but still loves us?

I've always struggled with taking the intellectual concept that God loves me and making it real and feeling like God not only loves me out of obligation, but because He wants to love me. It's not just a "I'll take care of you and make sure you have food to eat" love, but a deep and emotional love, a love that wants me to be content and happy in Him. He knows the desires of my heart and has a plan for me. He's more like Aslan and less like the distant God we often have in our minds. He is my heavenly father, not my earthly father and does not have the flaws of my earthly father or any other human I know. Hearing Rob speak about this love and lack of anger toward me was refreshing and eye-opening. It's hard to take the things I know about God in my head, and make them real to me in my heart.

These three entries on what Rob Bell spoke about don't do him justice. He's an amazing orator with the ability to take profound truths and stories and messages and make them completely accessible, without dumbing them down. I know a lot of people have issues with some of his teachings and views, but I've never heard him say anything that is harmful to the absolute truth that we must come to faith in Christ alone and that it is by grace alone this happens. He doesn't advocate the crap that is 'prosperity gospel' and actually rails against it. He lives and breathes God's command to love your neighbor and spread His Word. He loves people and wants to see them come to faith in Christ. I certainly can't fault him for that.

On the angry gods: Part 2

2007-11-27T16:44:00.000-05:00

There was a longer break in between the last post and this post. Sorry. That's what happens when you have a four day weekend and a pile of work. Moving on to the next section.

When we last left Abraham, God had just asked him to sacrifice his son--the one he had been waiting years to have. But then God stopped Abraham just in time and provided a ram for the sacrifice. Rob pointed out that most people interpret this passage as a test for Abraham. God was testing Abraham's willingness to follow God and obey God. It's as though God was testing to make sure Abraham was worthy of being the father of His nation. Rob presents the idea that this view of the story is wrong. God was showing just the opposite of what many people would first think about this. God was showing Abraham (and the future generations who would hear this story or read this story) that He is not like the other gods--He doesn't ask us to do barbaric things like sacrifice our own children (or any human for that matter). What an amazing and freeing concept! To go from angry, distant gods who were never happy for long--to a God who spoke to you and desired a relationship. This is a God who provides (the ram).

This interpretation makes more sense when you keep in mind what the world was like when this story first occurred and when it was being told and re-told years later. I think Christians often forget that the Bible was taking place in the middle of the same history we learn about in school. This story was taking place during the time when people believed all those crazy gods actually existed. So try to imagine what others thought of Abraham and his story and compare it to what they most likely believed. Our interpretation of the story is tainted by our world and what we live in now--a time when we aren't expected to sacrifice our own family or possessions or careers because we live in a 'me first' world. How dare God ask Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son? But if we lived in a world where our gods demanded we sacrifice constantly for them and it was the common occurrence, then what would it be like to hear about a God who didn't demand constant and unreasonable sacrifice and always provided for the sacrifice we did make?

As anyone who has attempted to read the Old Testament has found, God gave the Jews a lot of laws. A lot of them. But even these laws were different because you knew exactly where you stood with God. You knew how much sacrifice to make and when to make them. If you followed these laws, you and God were on good terms. If you didn't follow them, well...just read what happened to the Israelites. Fun stuff.

Rob also pointed out that there were five sacrifices required of the Israelites and they each had a different purpose. I couldn't write as fast as he spoke, so I looked them up. In the first chapters of Leviticus we learn about the five types of sacrifices:

1. The Burnt Offering: The only sacrifice where the whole animal is burnt. The animal must be male and without defect. This sacrifice showed their devotion to God.
2. The Grain Offering: An unbloody sacrifice of grain, flour or cakes. Part was burnt and part was eaten by the priests.
3. The Fellowship Offering: A male or female herd animal was sacrificed. Part was burnt and part was eaten by the priests. This sacrifice showed fellowship or peace with God.
4. The Sin Offering: A bull, goat, sheep, dove or flour could be offered. This sacrifice was made on special occasions such as the Day of Atonement. Part of the animals were burnt and part eaten by the priests. The Sin Offering signified a restoring of the covenant relationship with God.
5. The Guilt Offering: A ram was sacrificed. Part was burnt and part eaten by priests. This sacrifice was offered for specific sins.

Sounds pretty involved, right? And that doesn't even go into all the detail. But remember that this way of life offered them something they never had before: A clear and consistent standard to live by so they knew exactly where they stood with God. No guessing games. And any parenting book will tell you that people crave discipline and structure and rules. They want to know what they have to do to earn the love and devotion of others, including God. They want a three-step process or 40 days to solve a problem. We love rules and regulations. We love to do things by ourselves (especially Americans love independence and not having to work in groups).

But then God did something even more radical and amazing and freeing: He moved on to phase 2 and sent His son, Jesus.

On the angry gods: Part 1

2007-11-21T22:37:00.000-05:00

I started writing a post yesterday but just haven't been feeling it. Then tonight I went to hear Rob Bell speak as part of his tour, The gods Aren't Angry. I made the last-minute decision to go earlier this week after reading a couple of interviews and reviews of Rob Bell. I've seen a few of his Nooma videos and I'm always amazed at his ability to explain things in such simple and profound ways. I could have listened to him speak for another five hours tonight, but then my brain would have overloaded and I'd have passed out and missed Thanksgiving.

If you are able to attend of one his 'lectures,' I'd highly recommend it. Go buy tickets. Now. But since many of you (all four of you who read this blog) probably won't be in any of the cities left on the tour, and because I like to explain and regurgitate things I've heard or read, I'm going to give you the gist of what he said. And I'll probably add some of my own thoughts. I'll probably break it up into two or three sections because I highly doubt many people would have the patience to read a blog post that is the approximate size of the Constitution of the United States.

So sit back, relax, grab a drink, put on some good music...and let's go over what I just heard tonight. It's good stuff:

Rob (I'm going to drop the last name for the sake of saving four keystrokes) began by telling the story of how man-made religions were born: Thousands of years ago, people began noticing how all things were connected. The plant grew based on the sun and rain and since the people depended on this plant for survival, they began to give importance to sun and rain. Then they noticed how almost everything in their life is connected to some force or pattern. So they began giving these 'forces' names and identities. These identities had human characteristics--anger, selfishness, pettiness.

So man and woman tried to appease these moody gods and goddesses. If the crop was good, they'd give them part of the harvest to thank them. If the crop was even better the next year, they'd give them even more of the harvest. But if the harvest was bad, they'd have to give even more to make the gods happy. It was all about giving and giving and giving some more. You never knew if you were doing the right thing or making the right sacrifice because these gods were distant and never made contact with humans. So you just kept making sacrifices and giving to these distant gods, hoping you were doing the right thing.

An important note: The Bible never took place outside of history. The stories of the Old Testament were present and happening during all of this.

Then comes Abraham. Suddenly, one of the gods--the true God--steps down and talks directly to a human. God tells Abraham to leave his father's house--the house where good ol' Abe had learned about the other gods and goddesses--and follow Him. So Abraham does. Then things get really interesting. Keep in mind that Abraham is living during a time where people sacrifice anything and everything, including their first-born child, to appease the distant gods.

God has promised Abraham that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. When he finally has a son, God does the unfathomable and asks Abraham to sacrifice his son. Any reasonable, 21st century parent would have said no or fought God or attempted to refuse Him. But Abraham didn't. Why? Because this was not an unreasonable request in that day and age. All the false gods of the time, the gods Abraham's father taught him about, asked for the same sort of sacrifice. If not specifically for their child, then for constant sacrifices of other kinds. But as Abraham is raising the knife to sacrifice Isaac, God stops him. He says you don't have to sacrifice your child for me.

Further proof that this 'new' God is not like the other gods. Our God talks to us. Our God longs to have communion and a relationship with us. Our God is not angry.

On Life Insurance Ads

2007-11-16T13:58:00.000-05:00

I was reading an article online and as I scrolled down I ran into one of those ads that sits right in the middle of an article. This particular ad was for life insurance and struck me as somewhat humorous. The picture that was used looked as though it was taken straight from a very special Lifetime movie, starring someone whose name sounds vaguely familiar...is that the girl from Family Ties? No, I think it's the girl from The Torkelsons...

Coming soon to Lifetime: The Stepmom: The story of how one little boy took back what was his from a woman you know is evil because she wore red lipstick to the funeral. With a very special appearance from the girl in Mystic Pizza (No, not Julia Roberts. No, not the one who gets married...the other one.)

When little Timmy's father remarried just a few short months after the tragic death of Timmy's mother, rumors flew about the mysterious woman with the bright red lipstick. When Timmy's father died only four months later and left everything to his new wife, little Timmy decided to take matters into his own hands and get to the bottom of his stepmother's sordid affairs. The community rallied around this little boy with a mop of dark brown hair, and helped put the pieces of his shattered life back together. Premiering December 2, with an encore presentation December 3, 5, 6, 7, 15, 21 and a special Christmas Day presentation with limited commercial interruptions.

On Feeding Others

2007-11-13T10:46:00.001-05:00

My office mate just showed me another way to kill time at work (in three-minute increments only!). I can take a break from work, all while feeding others and improving my vocabulary.

Go to www.freerice.com and all you have to do is choose which definition of the given word is correct. With every correct guess, 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations. Not only will you improve your vocabulary, but you'll be helping others. Guessing from the different corporate logos that appear on the bottom of the page, this thing has a lot of big-name sponsors.

And if you're like 99% of all people and wish you could get rid of the excess junk mail you receive, there is a way to help. You know the National Do-Not-Call List? Yeah, there's a Do-Not-Mail List that is maintained by the very people who make the junk mail. Their reasoning is that it will save them money to only send junk mail to people who actually want it. So go here and sign up!

On Dating Trends

2007-11-08T09:13:00.000-05:00

I just read an article from Slate.com (holy schnikies I love that site) about some research the author did on dating preferences. No one will be surprised to learn that men prize beauty highest and are turned off by women who they perceive to be smarter or more ambitious than themselves. Women, of course, prize intellect and ambition much higher than beauty. Also, women are much more discriminant about race than men. Men will date any race (as long as she's pretty), but white women most often prefer white men. Black women prefer black men, and so on.

"When women were the ones choosing, the more intelligence and ambition the men had, the better. So, yes, the stereotypes appear to be true: We males are a gender of fragile egos in search of a pretty face and are threatened by brains or success that exceeds our own. Women, on the other hand, care more about how men think and perform, and they don't mind being outdone on those scores."

So what does all of this mean for me, personally? I'll have to continue searching for a man whose face doesn't blanch, palms get sweaty and he mentally moves me from the "datable" list to the "friends only" list whenever he meets a woman who shows even the slightest amount of intellect or thirst for knowledge. Does that sound arrogant? Perhaps, but I don't score high on the beauty scale, so it all evens out. I mean, it usually evens out in the movies and they couldn't make movies about stuff that's not realistic, right? Right?

On Siamese Twins?

2007-11-01T14:20:00.000-04:00

Maybe I shouldn't laugh at this, but let me say I'm not laughing at the twins, I'm laughing at the fact that Mt. Airy lists this under their top ten reasons to visit their town.

See here.

The Siamese Twins (aren't they supposed to be called conjoined twins?) are number nine in their top ten reasons to visit Mt. Airy (the town that Mayberry of The Andy Griffith Show was modeled after). They came in above cycling. When I saw that they had made the list, I'll admit I laughed out loud. I'm still giggling to myself as I type this.

My question is: what is special about these particular conjoined twins? Why is there a deal made about these guys? Maybe it's because they both got married and together had 21 kids. TWENTY-ONE kids! Let's pause for a moment to think about that...

Okay, stop thinking about it because it might gross you out to think about how that's possible.

God bless America and its quirky small towns. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go add a trip to the grave site of the Siamese twins to my trip itinerary.

On Football Scores

2007-10-31T14:17:00.000-04:00

You have to wonder if at some point, the losing team just wanted to quit. Go back to their locker room, lay down and take a nap. And at some point, shouldn't the winning team decide to stop humiliating them and take a knee?

Kansas team scores 72 in first quarter; wins 86-0

On Showing Anger

2007-10-31T09:04:00.001-04:00

The vast majority of Christians would say that anger is an emotion to be avoided and when it makes its way out of the recesses of your mind, it should be squelched or confessed. There are dozens of verses that contain the word 'anger' (go to www.biblegateway.com and type in 'anger.' Not only will you see how many verses there are, but you'll also see why some people avoid the Old Testament. God was not very happy in a lot of those books...but after you see that, go look at Psalm 145:8).

Most of the verses contain warnings about anger and its dangers (Proverbs 15:1, 22:24, 29:8, 30:33, Ecclesiastes 7:9 and more). So we've established through these verses and more verses like them that unchecked and unrighteous anger is wrong and should be avoided. But what if this anger is replaced by something just as damaging and just as frustrating to those who are its object?

I'm talking about passive aggressive behavior. The term 'passive aggressive' was first used during World War II by the military. In the beginning it was seen as a mental disorder that afflicted soldiers who wouldn't follow orders or avoided their duties. Most of the time when I hear people using it, (and in the way I'm using it here) it means that someone is not direct about their emotions (most commonly anger) and uses roundabout ways to express it. They bottle it up inside and use other ways to show their ire.

When did this become the norm for Christians? For people in general? When was honest confrontation replaced by avoidance? We are called to honesty and yet we are rarely honest about what is bothering us or what has made us upset. So instead, we bottle it up for months and make mental lists of all the ways we've been insulted or victimized or annoyed and we lie in wait. We wait for the perfect moment to unleash that pent-up frustration. Most often, this anger comes out in a burst, but sometimes it's in a manipulative, non-confrontational manner. Because Christians also hate confrontation. It's as though we've been brainwashed to believe that any sort of confrontation is wrong and we should never have these feelings so we should never let anyone know we have them. And yet we do have these emotions and instead of truly forgetting or forgiving, we just use them later.

My thoughts feel jumbled and I'm having a hard time explaining what I mean. The bottom line is that we all become angry and bottling it up without taking care of it or being indirect about it is just as wrong and just as harmful as letting it out. There is also such a thing as righteous anger. We are allowed to be angry when the anger isn't about pride (to put it very simply). Expressing anger by making snide remarks or sending passive aggressive emails or talking about your anger to someone else (but not to the person who made you angry) is wrong and is a cop-out. It's the easy way out for people who don't have the guts or the common decency or the integrity to be honest with someone. It can destroy a person and it can destroy a relationship.

It's high time we got over our pride and our self-righteous indignation and fessed up to our emotions.

On Global Warming

2007-10-24T09:40:00.000-04:00

As the wildfires in California rage and the drought in the Southeast remains, the media is taking this opportunity to roll out their global warming specials and their experts and anything else related to the environment. I have no idea whether global warming is real or if the earth is just going through another cycle of heating up before it cools back down. I've heard both sides of the story (although not the whole story, I'm sure) and they both make sense. Although there has been movement by some conservatives, the majority still believe global warming is a myth. Why should we inconvenience ourselves and stop driving SUVs? Those big businesses who make so much pollution are in my pocket, so why should I stop them? This is my question: Even if global warming is a myth, something propagated by liberals to distract you while they hand out free condoms in high schools and raise your taxes, why are you so adamantly against helping or cleaning the environment? What is so bad about being responsible about the environment and looking for new, cleaner fuel? Who, exactly, will lose by taking care of the earth?

Many Christians (a group I count myself a part of) have gotten on the global warming bandwagon, but even more still say it's a myth. So for those who rail against Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio and CNN and all the other democrats and liberals and left-wing treehuggers, I must again ask: why? As God's greatest creation, as the 'rulers' of this earth, aren't we supposed to take care of it? God created the earth and told Adam to name the animals. God made Adam the caretaker of Eden and, by extension, the whole earth. Some people may say this means we can do whatever we want--humans come first, then the animals and trees.

But haven't we already proven that not taking care of the flora and fauna is not good for anyone? Mercury levels are too high in the ocean, species of animals are becoming endangered or extinct, the square footage of the earth taken up by shopping malls will soon be more than the square footage taken up by trees (okay--that's an exaggeration, but you get my point). And yet we carry on, letting man-made monstrosities take the place of God's own creation. We'd rather see manufacturing plants and malls and houses that are too big for one family take the place of trees and animals and clean air. And don't even get me started on SUVs (How many people actually use them as sport utility vehicles?).

Whether or not global warming is a real threat is, to me, irrelevant. You don't clean your house just when mold spores become a threat to the health of your family--you clean your house so it never has the chance of becoming a threat. So before global warming (or any sort of environmental disaster) becomes a threat (or more of a threat), why don't we take care of the earth?

On the Craziness of the World

2007-10-18T11:56:00.000-04:00

Oh my.

A middle school in Portland, Maine is now giving students birth control pills. No, not a high school. A middle school. Sixth-eighth graders.

Let's pause a moment to let that sink in.

Really, people? And their reasoning is that some students may not feel comfortable going to their parents to talk about it? Do you think maybe they feel uncomfortable about it because they're 11? And instead of talking about sex, they should be talking about Zach Efron and how dreamy he was in High School Musical? Listen, I know children mature faster now and most middle schoolers probably know more about sex than I do, but I don't think that's even the issue.

The issue to me seems to be that schools and the government are once again letting parents off the hook. I don't care if it's uncomfortable for parents to talk to their kids about the birds and the bees. I don't care if it makes them blush and if their kids roll their eyes--it's their job. The moment you decided to have children or the moment the pregnancy test said positive and you decided to rear a child, you did more than say yes to having someone else live in your house. The moment you had children, you decided to take on the responsibilities of parenting. That means taking care of their primary needs (food, clothing, shelter) as well as teaching them about the world and about people and about themselves. If you are too scared or embarrassed to do this, don't have children. Parenting does not give you license to pick and choose which issues you want to deal with--if you want to raise a child, then you deal with all the issues, even sex and birth control.

I also have issues with the people who voted against it because it's against their religion and against God. First of all, the real issue is more than sex and birth control, as stated in my rant above. Second, it doesn't matter if it's against religion because the government is separate from religion or any belief system. It's not the job of the government to uphold religious beliefs. In fact, it's their job to do the very opposite. It's their job to stay out of religion. Stop trying to find your savior on Capitol Hill (or your town hall, or state legislature or any other form of man-made government). Yes, giving 11-year-olds is not exactly in line with most religions or with Christianity, but since when are we supposed to expect non-Christians to act and believe the same things as Christians?

Christians (myself included) believe that all people are fallen and imperfect and can only be made whole by Christ. Let me repeat that: Only be made whole by Christ. Not by the government and its laws. So please stop trying to use earthly and man-made laws to make people act like Christians. It doesn't work.

On Generation Y

2007-10-17T11:17:00.000-04:00

An article in Newsweek delves back into the issue of 'twixters,' something that was brought up around my senior year in college. They never actually use the word twixter, but the concept is the same: twentysomethings are taking forever to 'settle down' and are using their twenties as a time to find their life passions (often living with their parents and/or flitting from job to job).

It's obvious to just about everyone that my generation is unlike previous generations in many ways. We don't get married during or right after college. We don't find a job and stick with it for the next 50 years. If we don't like our boss, rather than go home and sit in front of the TV and zone everything out in an attempt to forget about our craptastic job, we quit. Why suffer with an ingratiating boss when we're still young and can get out of it?

But then there's responsibility. And narcissism and selfishness. Why should our parents foot the bill when we are able to take care of ourselves? At what point do we say 'enough is enough' and stop relying on mom and dad to finance the search for our 'life calling.' At what point do our parents say 'enough is enough' and stop footing the bill? (According to the article, the stopping point for many parents is age 30).

Another feature of a twixter or the Generation Y is that we often care less about money and more about having a fulfilling life. In other words, we'll work for less pay if we love what we're doing. I wonder if that's true or just one of those things people say when they're answering a poll, but don't really believe. I have no proof to back up my skepticism other than the obvious love for high-priced gadgets, cars and hipster clothing I see so many twentysomethings wear. Maybe their parents are also footing that bill.

Experts (and the article's author) say much of the blame rests on the shoulders of the parents. Apparently, parents have instilled in their children the belief that they can do anything they want, no matter the cost or skill involved. This paired with the fact that we've never had to work for anything or earn anything (or at least not to the extent of prior generations) is a deadly mix (I wonder how much of an impact a lack of having to do chores when growing up has an effect--it seems like kids no longer have to do chores). So these young and naive kids go out into the world expecting to get what they want without working for it. Eventually they'll stumble upon the perfect job that lets them do something they love during work, pays them enough money, and still allows them to have a fulfilling life outside of work.

This is all totally possible, I believe. You can have that perfect job, a family, passions outside of work and a fulfilling life. But it may not happen by the time you're 25. You may have to work for it and even put in more than 40 hours a week. You may have to have a job that just pays the bills and then work on fulfilling your dreams during your own time. It's time for my generation to get over its narcissism and stop letting their parents foot the bill.

But I'm reminded that even if I had the perfect job (owned a bookstore and wrote children's novels), in the perfect town (a smallish mountain town), with the perfect house (an old cottage), and even had a dog to go with it all--I still wouldn't be fulfilled. Things and places and even people will never fulfill me. I will never be satisfied with what the world has to offer because the world is fallible and imperfect just like me. I still have a void that can only be filled by Him--by my Lord and Savior. It may seem silly or maybe naive, but I look at the world around me and see different. I look at Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or even less ridiculous celebrities and see that they're looking for the world to fill their void. I look at people I come in contact with all the time--not celebrities--and see them searching for meaning in their life. Yet, nothing seems to be working. How can we expect an imperfect world to fulfill us? It will always let us down. We'll always let others down. Yet Christ has never let me down. Even when I don't understand right away, He's never broken His word or promises.

Now that's something to write home about. You know...once I move out of my parent's basement and find the perfect job.

On Links and Stories

2007-10-16T13:59:00.000-04:00

I'm addicted to blogs (personal blogs and just random or 'artsy' blogs) and reading the news. So here are a few things you and everyone you know should read or at least peruse:

Fridgewatcher
What people put on the front of their fridge is a good indication of what they find important or what type of personality they have. On this website, people from all over the world show you what's inside their fridge. You might think it's weird, but it's also pretty flippin' interesting.

American Lawbreaking
This is an article on laws in the U.S. that are on the books but never enforced. It's actually a series of articles, so it's pretty long. Slate (the online magazine where the article is located) has a lot of really great and thought-provoking articles. This article gives you a lot to think about, including the use of prescription drugs. Okay, I admit it. I'm a nerd.

Design*Sponge
This website/blog is for all the creators/imaginators/artists out there. I love it, I love it, I love it. The sight's creator/author finds amazing artists and designers and tells you where to get their goods. It's just been redesigned with some new features. Go there and have ridiculous amounts of fun drooling at the beautiful and well-designed wares.

Burnside Writers Collective
Here is another online magazine started by Donald Miller (of Blue Like Jazz fame) and his friends. Each Monday they have new articles on everything from sports to social justice. The articles are usually well-written and thought-provoking and leave you wishing they published more than just on Mondays. They have an editors blog that is updated on a daily-ish basis as well.

Still Searching
This is Brett McCracken's blog. Who is Brett McCracken, you ask? He's a grad student in L.A. who writes movie reviews for several publications, including Relevant Magazine. His blog showcases his writing prowess and very often has thought-provoking material. I'm a fan. I'd also like to know what he thought of the movie The Squid and the Whale.

Paste Magazine
I love music and I love magazines. So a great magazine dedicated to music? Perfect. This magazine furthers its awesome quotient by not being self-important and acting like they have a stick up their butt, unlike the completely overrated Rolling Stone. There! I said it! Rolling Stone (and Entertainment Weekly and just about every other mainstream media publication) is overrated and so full of themselves, that they've become blinded to quality entertainment/music/film. Paste, however, is breathing fresh, pure, mountain-like air into the industry of music news and reviews. Thank goodness.

McSweeney's
I don't think I even completely understand the point or layout or whatever of this site, which is part of the appeal. But entries like this make me come back wanting more.

One of these days I'll get back to talking about my opinions on current events/world affairs/everything else or maybe I'll even have an interesting story to tell.

On Football

2007-10-08T21:15:00.000-04:00

I love the changing seasons, especially the change from winter to spring and from summer to fall. New smells fill the air, the sky is vivid blue and nostalgia becomes the order of the day.

Fall seems to bring about the most feelings of nostalgia for me. Although the leaves and flowers are dying, my life seems to have a feeling of renewal. Perhaps it's because for so much of my life, the beginning of fall signaled the beginning of a new school year. A chance to go back to school and see how people have changed and let them see how I've changed. A new opportunity to define myself.

Fall is also the beginning of football season. Ahhh, football, how I love thee. I could wax poetic about football all day. Although I hail from North Carolina, I'm a Green Bay Packers fan. I remember the first Super Bowl I ever watched for the game rather than the commercials. The Packers were playing and I remember watching the fans and thinking that they just seemed like fun. They had cheese on their head! They seemed like they were a friendly bunch and were enjoying the game in a childish and pure fashion. It's as though they couldn't believe they had the fortune to be able to watch grown men run up and around a field chasing after a ball. So when I was 16 and decided to learn about football, it only made sense to pull for the Packers. I also like the fact that the team is owned by the people of Green Bay, and not one person alone. It truly is a family affair for Green Bay and Wisconsin. The waiting list for season tickets is more than 30 years long. Tickets are left to family members in wills and a child's name is added to the waiting list when they're born. You want to see dedication? That's dedication.

I've tried to get into basketball and baseball, but they just don't thrill me like football. I've only seen a couple of high school football games in person, but I can watch a game on TV for hours. Yet, baseball and basketball are only fun at the game. I appreciate them, especially the history of baseball and the mystique of America's pastime, but they're just too mundane--the same thing over and over.

But football. No game is ever the same. What play are they going to use? Who will the QB throw to? Everyone gets their chance at glory and every player is absolutely essential. You aren't focusing on just one player trying to hit the ball, or watching players run up and down the court. No, a basketball court cannot contain football. They need 100 yards of pure, green grass (or turf). They need pads and helmets because they aren't satisfied just to stand in front of the other team. No, they need to tackle. They need to pummel. They need to run and block and throw their entire body in the way of the ball. Glorious, glorious football.

The Packers are 4 and 1. The Patriots, Cowboys and Colts are 5 and 0. Am I the only one who's tired of seeing the Patriots win? But it's all good. Because in football, you never know how the game will end (Michigan and Appalachian State--case in point). I'm sure I could make some profound illustration about life and football. But for now, I'll just leave it where it is. Sometimes things are just meant to be enjoyed. And football is one of those things.

I Heart Jim (and Jack and House and Kenneth...)

2007-10-06T10:20:00.000-04:00

Let's make this post a happy one since the last post was a little--how shall I say it--grumpy?

I'm a TV junky. I try to justify myself by saying I only watch TV shows I really enjoy, but I like a lot of TV shows, so I think I'd be considered a TV junky. I'm okay with it for the most part, but mainly because I have DVR (Oh sweet digital video recorder--how did I live without you all those years?), so if a show is coming on while something else is happening (i.e. something involving real, live people), I can just hit a few buttons and voila--I am no longer bound to the television. Oh sweet freedom.

But I just love stories. I love learning about other people's lives (also why I love blogs), so I love reading about them in books or watching them on TV or in movies. I love making up my own stories about people I see on the street or in stores. I just love stories!

This TV season seems to have a fair amount of good new shows, but then an even larger amount of bad shows. Case in point: Cavemen. Here's my question about this show: Other than how they look, how are these cavemen different from us? They live in the city, they drink skim lattes or whatever they're called and they hold real jobs. The speak English, they wear trendy clothes--so how are they supposed to be different? What is the point of this show?

But then there's the return of favorites as well (LOST is only five-ish months away! Oh how I miss you, Jack.). So here's the breakdown of shows with which I fill my evenings (or whenever I get around to watching them):

-The Office: Huh-larious. How many of us can totally relate and think of people who are exactly like these characters?
-30 Rock: Tina Fey is my role model for life.
-LOST: Coming back in February! So much to wait for!
-Ugly Betty: This show is also hilarious and bright and cheery and full of harmless drama. So good.
-House, M.D.: Oh that crazy grumpy, drug addict. He's so mean but brilliant.

Some new shows I'm going to try:
-Aliens in America: the first episode was cute
-Pushing Daisies: I haven't watched the first episode yet (I might do it while I eat my Apple Jacks (yay for sugary kid's cereal)). But the show looks amazing--the color! the concept! Kristen Chenowith!

You might (maybe? a little?) be thinking, 'Oh, that's not too bad...you don't even have something for every night.' Which is true. But did I mention that if I'm considered a TV junky, then the only way to describe how I feel about movies is to call me a Certifiable, Unrelenting Movie Addict? Thank goodness for Netflix.

Crappy days and how not to be a crappy writer

2007-10-03T17:36:00.000-04:00

I am finding that there are definite degrees of crappy days. Some crappy days can be cured by a piece of dark chocolate. Some need more fixing and require a long, hard laugh with a good friend. Others require a good drink such as an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper--add alcohol when necessary.

Today was the type of crappy day in which I really wished I had a gargantuan pumpkin to throw off a tall building. I'd throw it off and watch it splatter on the pavement and take great delight in its destruction. Should I be worried that this is one of the first things that came to mind when I wanted to work off my anger?

However, almost all crappy days can be helped with good music. So here is a list of songs that help me endure a crappy, craptastic day:

1. Oh Happy Day (from Sister Act 2)
Seriously, how can you not be happy as you sing along and cheer for them as they go from a bad choir to an amazing gospel sensation (!!).
2. Young Folks (Peter, Bjorn and John)
Ummm...there's whistling. 'Nuff said.
3. The West Wing theme song
I can't listen to this song without feeling like I can change the world, while walking fast through strategically lighted hallways and being witty at the same time.
4. Hallelujah (the Jeff Buckley version and ONLY the Jeff Buckley version)
This isn't really a happy song, but it's an amazing song. So amazing, in fact, that you can't help but be happy that such a song exists.
5. The Luckiest (Ben Folds)
When such sappy love exists, you have to be a little happy, at least.
6. Fidelity (Regina Spektor)
If I had a voice like Regina, I'd never stop singing.
7. Anything by Nickel Creek or Alison Krauss
Bluegrass has the ability to make me happy, no matter the subject of the song. The banjo! The fiddle! The mandolin! The guitar picking! All happy things. Add the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack to that list as well.

There are more songs that make me happy, but that's all for now. Let's move on to the list of things that annoy me (the editor part of me) and will instantly make you a better writer if you never, ever do them again.

1. Just Because You Capitalize It Doesn't Mean It's A Proper Noun. Seriously, stop with the excessive capitalizing.
2. Beginning a story, formal paper, announcement or just about anything else with a question is not creative or unique--it's lazy. Lazy, lazy, lazy. And stupid to boot.
3. When differentiating between a.m. and p.m., there is a reason there are periods in between the letters. They are acronyms and each letter stands for a different word. Take one extra second and type the flipping periods.
4. When beginning a new sentence, there only needs to be one space between the period and the new word. Your middle school typing teacher was wrong. Only one space, forever and ever amen.

That's all for now. Enough complaining. I'll leave you with a happy image: I saw a beagle puppy sticking its head out the car window today. Anyone who would like to give me a corgi puppy is free to do so.

Find out what it means to me

2007-09-28T15:10:00.000-04:00

My generation and the generations before and after have issues with respect. I'm sure every generation has them, but I guess ours seems different because we have these issues with everyone--not just our parents or teachers. How often do we hear people say that kids these days don't respect their elders or their grandparents or don't say yes ma'am or no sir...pretty darn often.

Here's my question(s): What are we basing this respect on? Who gets respect and who doesn't? What exactly is the difference between respect and having no sense of humor or personality? It's my humble opinion that all people, regardless of age, position, gender or anything else, deserve the same amount of respect. Granted, this does not mean you treat everyone exactly the same. For example, I would never greet my grandfather in the same way I greet my friends. This isn't because I respect one more than the other. It's because my relationship with my grandfather is drastically different than my relationship with my friend. My friends know me and my sense of humor, whereas my grandfather would think I'd gone insane if I treated him like my close friends. In other words--they're different people with different personalities and therefore react different to situations and people.

I'd say I give people the proper amount of respect...most of the time. Unless they are half-witted bosses who leave their employees to clean up their messes. ::Disclaimer-this is not my current boss. Thank goodness:: This is my own personal fault and rebellious nature and (as my mother has put it over the years) attitude problem. But for the most part, I treat everyone with respect. I don't treat them the same, as I explained above, but I treat them with respect. So here's my problem: why are we expected to give some people more respect than others? When I'm told to show an extra measure of respect to someone, I often think that the word respect is being used incorrectly. It's as though they're using respect when they should be saying "be overly serious" or "be a suck-up" or "be a sycophant." None of this has anything to do with respect--it has to do with ego. Boost their ego and maybe that person will condescend to your level and give you what you want. Treat them like royalty so you'll make them and make yourself look better.

So I have a hard time showing an "extra level" of respect simply because they're older than me or they're a man or they have a master's degree. I'd rather show them the same amount of respect every other person deserves and not suck up to them. I'll do my job and let them do their job. I'll be friendly to them and keep my mouth shut when the situation calls for it. I'll feel them out to find out if they have a sense of humor or not. But I will not be overly serious or grovel for their approval just for the sake of being seen in a false light of respect.

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. James 2:8-9

Putting it off no more

2007-09-25T09:43:00.000-04:00

I'm all moved into the new place. We still need a couch, but you'd be amazed by the difference not having a couch makes in the amount of time spent watching television. I think this also has to do with the fact that there's another person in the house to talk to, rather than being alone and filling the quiet with television. I still like having something in the background to fill the silence in the morning, and nothing fills that silence quite like Josh Lyman, Sam Seaborn and President Bartlett. Yes, I'm referencing the greatest show ever: The West Wing.

I feel like such an adult now. I have rent to pay, a car payment and all other manner of bills. When I was a kid, this was not what I imagined would bring about the feeling that I'm an adult. Shouldn't it be something more fun? Like the choice to skip work and fly to California at a moment's notice? So this message is for kids: Don't desire growing up too fast. Take advantage of the freedom and lack of responsibility you have. And as long as I'm talking to you--kids, don't play with Bratz dolls. They're ridiculous.

I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I have the tendency to put things off and blame it on my circumstances. I blame my lack of motivation on my circumstances or on my surroundings. For example, I tell myself that I'll be more disciplined and spend more time painting or sewing once I have the perfect equipment or I'm feeling more motivated. Yet, I have supplies and ideas, but I still don't do it. So I've told myself that once I had a 'real' house and had more room, I'd take advantage of it and really invest time into my creative pursuits. I'd sew more, paint more and begin writing a children's book. Yet I say this every time I move or get a new job or anything like that. So what am I waiting for? I'm obviously just making excuses to be lazy. But no more! No more excuses. If my dream is to write books and own a bookstore and see my name in print at Barnes and Noble, then I should stop procrastinating and waiting for the perfect circumstance or the perfect idea or the perfect anything. I should just do it! So I will and the three people who might read this blog are my witnesses. I should stop daydreaming and just do it.

Thoughts on relevance and a cute picture

2007-09-20T14:35:00.000-04:00

Read this article first.

How true, how true are the words of this article. Even Christians have the desire to be thought of as cool or hip. We ache for the world to look at Christianity and see that it's not just a bunch of fundamentalists who are opposed to women cutting their hair or opposed to listening to good ol' rock 'n roll. Too often, though, we lose the depth of Christianity and it becomes this cotton candy, surface "religion" that is more worried about looking good than being good or in making a difference in our own life and in those around us. When this is the case, is 'cool Christianity' any better than Joel Osteen's 'prosperity Christianity'?

I think we should also point out the fact that just because a Christian doesn't shop at Urban Outfitters or listen to Sufjan Stevens or know who Bansky is--it doesn't mean they aren't a Christian making a difference for the Kingdom. It's foolish for us to think that the way we look has anything to do with whether a person comes to know Christ. It has nothing to do with what we can do or say--it's about what Christ is doing in their heart and life. Yes, we still need to strive for excellence and for love and righteousness. But even if we're the 'perfect little Christian,' if God isn't with us, then it's meaningless.

There seems to be a big push by a lot of Christians (including myself) to show that Christianity is still relevant 2,000 years after its beginning. For many, this means having a well-designed website or letterhead or listening to/playing "good" music that is original and new. But what about people who just don't like the things that are considered aesthetically pleasing or up-to-date? Are they any less Christian or being used by God any less? If they love the Lord (with all their heart, soul and mind) and they love their neighbors as themselves, who are we to judge their "bad taste"? Yes, it would be wonderful if every church stopped using papyrus font and hired professional designers and updated their websites to get rid of their flash intros (who actually looks at those?). But God never said he would only use those people who have good taste, so why should we? There is a market out there for everybody. There are churches for the postmodern artist who wears nothing but black and red. There are churches for women who haven't changed their hair since the 80s. And there are churches for people who think papyrus font is the greatest font since Times New Roman. God loves us all, good taste or not.

And for those who are concerned with the world thinking that churches haven't changed since the 1850s--is that what we really want to be known for? Do we really want to be known for having great websites and cool youth t-shirts and great music? Or do we want to be known for giving everything of ourselves to others and for helping out the widows and orphans and showing God's love by our actions? Should we change the perception that we don't care or love others (or that we all agree with Pat Robertson) before we worry so much about changing how we look?

Now after you've thought all of this over, go here and see the cutest picture ever.