Musings

I've been writing lately again. Not the scribbling I do here; I mean really writing. I haven't done it in years...

I used to write pages and pages in my storybook every day--I would carry that thing around with me everywhere, I was never seen without it. When I was younger, some of the things I wrote were not very nice... Let's just say I was definitely too young to be writing about them, but I had an even worse outlook on life than I do now (imagine that! --This was all B.C. of course.). Then, I got serious about God, and grew disgusted with myself as I realized what I was writing. And I made Him a promise: I told Him that I would never write again unless it was something He gave me. And so I haven't written in two years.

You have no idea how much that hurt--it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I felt like a sculptor that had only finished half of a statue, then didn't complete it. I had five or six major stories on my drawing board at the time--and I was more than half way done with many of them. But they all went into my filing cabinet of stories, and I haven't thought about them since. (Well, not too much...)

Until now.

God has been giving me, in little glimpses, pictures. And the pictures are telling me how I can still finish my stories--but with different endings, that glorify Him.

One of my stories that I started about five years ago when I was learning to play guitar is about a kid who can play, but is stuck in a group home, and is roomies with a kid who has Down's Syndrome. Originally, the main point of the story was the guitar; that was before I got a baby brother with Down's. Now, I'm getting all sorts of ideas...

Another story was about a Deaf girl and her hearing mother who do not understand each other. The hearing girl becomes friends with a hearing girl who has a Deaf mother. I've met more Deaf people now, and I understand the culture better--I wouldn't have been able to finish the story adequately if I'd have finished writing it seven years ago when I started.

And poems have been coming too. On Christmas night, I told Jesus that I wanted to give Him something, but I didn't know what. Then I realized that I wanted to write Him a poem--but I told Him that I couldn't do it without Him giving it to me (Funny how that works, isn't it?). It normally takes at least fifteen minutes for me to write a poem, and then I fix and finagle with it some more. I was done in five minutes, and I haven't touched it since.

God is good, even when it seems like He's trying to take something beloved away from us; maybe He's just holding it back until the right time...

And maybe I'll post some poems here, if I get the chance.

Merry Christmas, DARN IT!!!

There. I said it.

Slap a lawsuit on me.

Go ahead: I dare you to.

I don't care

"I don't care what you say about me, just so long as you say it good an' loud and spell my name right."

~P.T. Barnum

People Probably won't Peruse this Post of Preposterous Ponderings

My friend and fellow blogger Elisabeth tagged me in a game...I must blog about ten things that start with the letter "P". Well, here goes...

Pickerel; Apparently they're some sort of fish <>< --it jumped into my mind, because I've been teaching Walden to my students, and Thoreau is constantly talking about pickerel--don't believe me? Go read the section entitled "The Lake"--though I recommend that you're good an' bored and have a long afternoon of nothingness stretching out before you if you want to attempt it.

Pluto; The nineth pla-- ...no, wait. It's not. Which is quite inconvenient, because all my life the acronym has been "My very educated mother just served us nine pickles." But now some scientist with nothing to do decided to make trouble for second-graders across the continent, and now it can't be nine pickles, and it can't even be pickles, because there aren't nine of them anymore, and there's no "P" for Pluto!!!! [*pant, pant*] Why did they have to pick on poor little Pluto anyways? Because of its size? Granted, it's so small that sometimes we couldn't figure out which one was the moon and which one was the planet, but, hey! if we went around with the philosophy that anything that is small is unimportant, we'd be in a heap of trouble; Case in point: can you imagine if we decided that--say--dimes were unimportant, just because of their relative smallness to the other coin forms of legal tender? What the heck would we have to lose between car seat cracks--what would keep the old french fries company? What would we put into gumball machines? And, most importantly, what would we play poker with? (Quarters? No way--I'm not that good at poker...). Or Rhode Island--what if we decided it wasn't a state just because it's the smallest? Who would take away all the garbage of the poor people of R.I. if the federal government refused to do so because it was no longer part of the union? Who would repair traffic signals? MILLIONS MIGHT DIE FROM THE STENCH OF UNCOLLECTED GARBAGE AND ACCIDENTS CAUSE BY BROKEN STOPLIGHTS--it would be a CATASTROPHE!!! So; I hope I've made myself clear--it wasn't fair to plutoize an entire planet... (And yes, that is a legitimate word.)

P-Wood;

This is my dear friend Peter Elwood ("P-Wood")--yeah, he's a little weird, but I have to say that my life would probably be a string of one monotonous event after another if it wasn't for him and his randomness (uh, yeah, on that note, don't ask about the purse...); For example, the other day I was in the mall with a bunch of friends--mostly guys--including Peter. We went into Claire's (yeah, guys in a girls' boutique is kinda weird, but we were bored). When we went to check out, the girl at the cash register just looked at Peter and started laughing. Not a polite laugh that you might be able to cover up as a cough--I mean a full, belly, double-over-uncontrollably kind of laugh. None of us knew why--we all just kind of looked at each other, Peter was like, "Uh, did I miss something...?" Pretty soon we were all laughing--except Peter was kind of venturing uncertain chuckles. I told the lady not to worry, because things like that usually happen to people when Peter walks into a room... We still don't know why she was laughing--even though as I was walking out of the store she told me to tell Peter that she wasn't making fun of him or anything--she was just laughing at him... (Whatever that means!) Sure. "It's okay," I tossed behind my shoulder. "You weren't making fun of him, but I was!"

Pictures; I love taking them, I hate being in them. 'Nuff said.

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis: The longest word in the English dictionary. What is it? Well, to be specific, it's Black Lung Disease... Now couldn't they just say "Black Lung Disease"? (...Well, the answer is obvious--No! because then I wouldn't have anything to blog about. It's not like I have much now...)

Philemon; Good book. Read it some time when you have ten minutes--seriously, that's all the time it takes. A very convicting mini-message about forgiveness.

Pursuit of Happyness; Ok, I cheated a little on this one, it is The Pursuit of Happyness. But if you were to look it up in an index somewhere, it would probably be listed as "Pursuit of Happyness, The", so I think I'm safe. One of my favorite movies of all time with one of my favorite actors of all time (and it's because Will Smith is an amazing actor that he's one of my favorite--let's not get any ideas about me thinking he's "hot" or any such nonsense. Some of the "ugliest" people in Hollywood are my favorite actors--because of their ability, obviously, not because of their looks; just wanted to straighten that out.) Anyways, I just revisited it last night. I love movies where the acting is not distracting because it's phenomenal. That is also the movie that got be obsessed with the Rubik's cube two years ago. Who'd'a thunk that the title of one of my favorite movies would be misspelled? Go figure.

"Puh-puh-puh...GOLFCART!"; This is how my little three-year-old sister "sounds out" words (she hears her big five-year-old sister learning how to read, and wants to join in the action.) So she'll pick a random sound, and say it before a word that in no way, shape, or form begins that word. "Luh, luh, luh...TREEHOUSE!" she proclaims triumphantly as she swings up the rungs of the ladder into our mullberry tree. "Zuh, zuh, zuh...ZBANK!", "Puh, puh, puh....PNEUMONIA!" ...Well, not really. :-P But it's impossible to convince her that the sound she says before the word has to be the first sound of the word. Guh, guh, guh...WHATEVER!

Pre-paid Tracfone; What I got my father for Christmas--he really needs one. A phone for ten bucks? How cool is that?! I had to get one with really big numbers so he can see them, and the biggest buttons I could find so that his round somewhat arthritic (yeah, I think he punched too many brick walls in his B.C. days...) fingers can actually press the correct buttons... ;0)

Pearls of Lutra; This is the saddest book in the Redwall series--I almost cried when I read it, and anyone who knows me knows that I don't cry. I don't understand why he made the ending so sad... You know Brian Jacques is a good writer if he can get me to cry about talking otters, hares, and moles, of all things.

Well, that about does it for me--that wasn't as easy as it sounded! Thank you, Lizzy for tagging me--I really got a kick out of it, even if no one else did... ;-P

Our good ol' pal Handel

My Christmas is complete. Two nights ago was the dress rehersal for Handel's Messiah; Mr. Davis turned his signature cartwheel between Part I and Part II, and we bounced our way through the enitre piece in an hour and change.

Last night, we sang it; I've always thought that the feelings felt while singing "Worth is the Lamb" must be somehow akin to the feelings being experienced by those in Heaven who constantly sing "Holy, holy holy...".

Mr. Davis almost started crying during "Surely He Hath Bourne Our Griefs"--it was all I could do to not break down as well.

Today we sang at the Cadets' Chapel at West Point--as a concert, it was terrible (the soloists were...oh, don't get me started; all I have to say is that, if you're ever considering going into classical music, please learn how to control your vibrato so that it's not able to be mistaken for sixteenth notes... :-/). This is all of course in my humble opinion. However, as an experience, it was wonderful. Though we couldn't see the conductor (didn't really matter--he really wasn't very helpful as a conductor anyways), and though the tenors rushed us through some spots (okay, a lot of spots), and though the organist was generally half a beat behind everyone, we had a barrel of laughs. After we ended the night at a diner, who could ask for anything more? ;0)

I can't wait 'till next year--364 more days!!!!

Amazing quotes

Last night I revisited one of my favorite movies, Amazing Grace. There were just so many good quotes, I have to put some of them here...

John Newton: Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I'm a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.

Thomas Clarkson [To the baby in his arms]: "Strange treasures in this fair world appear, strange all, and new to me." That is a poem by Thomas Traherne, and I have absolutely no idea what it's about. But, when I was small I was made to learn it by heart so I don't see why you shouldn't suffer too.

Pitt: ...We're too young to realize certain things are impossible--which is why we do them anyways.

Richard the butler: He's an optimist. Bloody incurable.

(And my favorite:)

Wilberforce: It's God. I have 10,000 engagements of state today but I would prefer to spend the day out here getting a wet arse, studying dandelions and marveling at... bloody spider's webs...
Richard the butler: You found God, sir?
Wilberforce: I think He found me... Do you have any idea how inconvenient that is?! ...In my heart I want spider's webs.

Where I Belong...

Yesterday was probably the highlight of my week, possibly my month.

Why, you ask?

Because yesterday a Deaf man came into Dunkin' Donuts; I could tell right away he was Deaf--he wasn't speaking, just mouthing words. My manager had no idea what he was saying. I came over and said, "Hi! Do you know sign language? Would you like a donut?" I think his eyes almost popped out of his head!!! 8-) After he recovered himself, I was successfully able to understand the six different donuts he wanted, and which separate bags he wanted them in. I told him I wanted to be an interpreter, and he said, "Great! I'll watch for you."

I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day. I haven't signed in about...oh, ten months; I can't believe I remembered so much! I really hope he'll come in again. I cannot explain the ecstacy of signing with a Deaf person--while I'm doing it, the whole time something in the back of my mind is always whispering, "This is where you belong...This is where you belong..."

Christmas is coming...

Christmas is coming. How do I know that? Because yesterday I found myself in the car at five-something a.m. driving in the freezing cold down 80-East towards long lines without any hope of coffee, but with the expectant promise of 15-50% off!!! No, I was NOT one of those people who trampled that poor man in the Wal Mart in Long Island.

Who am I to complain? I got a 10.3 mp Kodak digital camera for eighty bucks (the 5 mp Canon one I bought a little while back was $120, so I think I made a steal), and...

A NEW GUITAR!

It's a gorgeous Fender Dreadnought--and I'm in love! The action's easy as butter.

It was $150 all together, with a two-year immediate-replacement no-questions-asked warrantee. Originally $150, it was down to $130 because of the sale, and the warrantee was twenty bucks. Come to think of it it was stupid of me to buy the warantee--this thing's not going to get a SCRATCH in the next two years, let alone get damaged beyond repair--the Rolling Stones I am not. But whatever--none of that matters, for I have found my new soul mate.

I'm selling Horatio. Cruel of me, I know, but I need money for a hard shell to keep...well, I haven't decided on his name yet, but to keep whoever-he-is safe.

Oh, yes, Christmas is also coming because we've taken...[*Beethoven's Fifth*] the dreaded Christmas Picture!

We literally had to take about forty pictures, between the dog jumping up and running away, people not looking at the camera, the baby crying and the little ones moving and making blurs...but we finally got a halfway decent one.

The final product:

Being Unfashionable

I just read this awesome Spurgeon quote on Josh Harris's blog, about being "unfashionable":

"The great guide of the world is fashion and it's god is respectability--two phantoms at which brave men laugh! How many of you look around on society to know what to do? You watch the general current and then float upon it! You study the popular breeze and shift your sails to suit it. True men do not so! You ask, "Is it fashionable? If it is fashionable, it must be done." Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing more than the common consent of fools."

How true this is.

If the shoe fits

Last night I was out partying hard until one in the morning...

No. Actually, I was out at a fellowship/Bible study until one in the morning. Whatever. At any rate I was determined to sleep in 'till at least ten today.

However, at nine thirty this morning, I was rudely awakened by a pounding on my door.
"Murrppgphuuggggg..." I moaned--which the pounder took to mean "Come in", I suppose, because the pounding stopped and my mother stuck her tousled head in the door.

"There's a prince downstairs with a size seven glass slipper asking for Chelsey. I suggest you pull yourself together..."

Grumph.

I threw a pillow at her. Which wasn't smart, because I had to get out of bed to get it so I could go back to sleep, and by then it was all over: I was awake.

I hate non-fairy tale endings... :-P

This darn mortal coil

I'm so angry right now, I could burst.

I cannot wait, cannot wait for the day that Jesus Christ, the God of Peace, crushes Satan's head underneath His feet. Cannot wait until that snivelling creature gets his face ground into the clay that he so polluted over all the years he was given liberty to roam to and fro on the earth. When he gets his dues for twisting and confusing and muddling the minds of weak and strong-willed humans alike.

I'm on the warpath tonight, and you can bet that the devil is going to get a double-dose counter-attack of prayer from myself!

I've just finished talking with a very confused young man about his beliefs; my friend's father said it the best, "He has no beliefs--only opinions." Satan has this boy twisted around his crooked little finger, and the kid doesn't even know it. He doesn't know what he believes, he changed what he said he believed just about heaven at least twice in the 30-minute conversation we had. Satan's best weapon is confusion. Just get them to believe anything--even if it's nothing--other than the truth. And that's really all that this kid believes--nothing.

He claimed to base all of his beliefs on "logic"--yet when shown logic, he shied away from admitting anything definitive in his belief system! For example:

Me: You say you believe that Jesus isn't God, right?
Him: Right.
Me: But you do believe some of the stuff he said was true, right?
Him: Right.
Me: Jesus said He was God. I'm assuming you don't believe that, right?
Him: Right.
Me: So--logically--you're calling Jesus a liar.
Him: Well...uh...well, no...

Um, excuse me?

After all was said and done, I told this young man, "Look, no matter what you decide to believe, just make sure that in the end, you know why you believe what you believe."
"Oh," he responded reassuringly, "I question everything."
"Yes, but the important part," I told him, "is to once you've questioned everything, to come to conclusions."
"Yeah," he admitted, "I kinda have a problem with that..."

Ay, there's the rub.

Satan is a lot of words, most of them four-letter rather un-nice ones that I won't soil my blog with here. But above all, he's a deceiver, and the father of lies.

And I cannot wait until the day that he is bound and thrown into the lake of fire forever.

That's mostly the problem with being alive, and living with this darn mortal coil. My complaint at the moment, unlike Hamlet's, however, is that while I am alive I cannot have the satisfaction of physically seeing retribution doled out to the evil one.

For right now, I must try to remember that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds. My mother used to tell me that, "Satan trembles when he sees the smallest Christian on his knees." I've always cherished that thought.

When I pray, it's like I'm grinding my heel in his face. :-D

Adventures in the Life of a Dunkin' Donuts Peon

I've discoverd that there's not much in life that's more humiliating than sitting on your butt under a table in a coffee joint and scraping other people's hardened gum off the underneath with a plastic spork.

...And this is what they pay me for???

Truth be told, we'd never thought about the gum before, but an inspector came in yesterday, and I think he had a conniption about it. The manager was on the verge of tears when he left--but heck, the rest of us wanted to jump for joy, so long as he was gone.

He had a conniption about a lot of things, actually--that the donuts in the trays were stacked five across instead of six, that we pre-ground the coffee, and other extremely important things like that. And, yes, this is what they pay this man for.

So now we're counting donuts, and don't even think about pre-grinding those beans! Even if there's a long line of impatient customers, they have to sit there and wait for that coffee to grind...

This is so not worth $7.50 an hour...

...But bills don't pay themselves.

The Question of the Turtle

So. My question of the month: What is the most awkward situation you've been in in recent history?

Keep it PG, people... :-P

[I'm making the awkward turtle symbol right now...]

I FOUND US!!!

I'm so excited! I found a video of our homeschool chorale singing Witness at Lincoln Center!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5nEsTgz9Ug

This is one of my favorite songs we sang all year... Man do I miss those people, and singing. Why did highschool have to end?

Here's another one of us doing Exultate Justi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0yvPgH90BA

It's so cool what you find when you youtube "NJHSA"!

I really miss hard-core singing. I'm in a choir now (well, two, actually--I'd forgotten about my Handel's Messiah choir), but we're doing three pieces: the Braham's Requiem, Vivaldi's Gloria, and a Hammerschmidt piece. We meet once a week for an hour and a half. Yahoo. What can you hope to accomplish in an hour and a half?! I'm used to knowing about forty pieces of music (and having thirty of them memorized), and meeting for three and a half hours every week. My breath control is terrible now, and, horror of horrors, I think I'm losing my lower range!!!! I think I'm becoming...the dreaded second soprano!!! NO! NO! Say it' ain't so!!!

I guess my days of priding myself on being able to hit a bass C are over. :0( *Sigh.*

Religion, Politics, & the Great Pumpkin

I was pondering today...why do people get so uptight when they talk about politics? Really--we are opinionated about other things--whether the greenhouse effect is real, freewill vs. predestination, even PCs vs. Macs...but why do people become so angry when someone doesn't agree with their politics? Even one of my best friends and myself, though we have only slightly different political philosophies, come away from political conversations a tad annoyed at each other.

I asked my father about this, and I liked his response. He said, "It's because it's a subject that complete idiots can have their say in, and no one can call them an idiot because it's all a matter of opinion."

True that. And I'm not saying everyone who disagrees with my political ideas is an idiot--just some people... ;0)

I've discovered something that has become my maxim, especially among people with opinions that differ strongly from mine; in the words of the ever-wise Peanuts character Linus van Pelt, "Never discuss politics, religion, or the Great Pumpkin!"

Wise words indeed...

My favorite day of the year

I woke up at 8:30 this morning.

"Oh Snap!" I sat bolt upright. "I only have to be at church in fifteen minutes!" Why didn't mom wake me up?!

I bailed out of the top bunk, and my feet hit the floor, hard.



Oh.

Daylight savings.

I had even read Josh Harris's post on it last night, last thing before I went to bed... I sheepishly climbed back into bed, changed my clock, and pulled the covers over my head.

Another hour.

Beautiful.

Do Not Meddle In The Affairs Of Wizards...For They Are Quick To Anger

I am a wizard.

Back off, people.

(...................okay, maybe I'm wound a little tight tonight...)

C'est moi!

You know those dorky but cool get-to-know-your-friends emails? Well...

Q. What are three things that have changed about you in the last six months?
A. I'm a lot skinnier, my hair is a lot shorter, and blonder. I'm no taller, unfortunately... :-P


Q. What is something God has been revealing to you lately?
A. That if I seek FIRST His Kingdom, ALL these things (and I mean ALL) will be added to me.

Q. What is something you've always wondered?
A. How it feels to like someone and have them like you back. Oh, AND how to make perfect guacamole--I can never get it right!

Q. What is your goal for today?
A. To survive work.

Q. What is something you are greatly anticipating?
A. Worship night at church on Friday--no Halloween for me! And the releases of the third Batman Movie, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and the Farenheit 451 movie--they'd BETTER do it justice, or they will be hearing from me personally!

Q. What is the most boring book you've read in recent history (your recent history)?
A. Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot. Can't stand him, he thought he was all that. (The only things I like by him are The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, and The Hollow Men--I actually adore those poems, they were the only ones where he wasn't full of himself...)


Well, what else can I say? ...C'est moi! ;0)

I'll go as Frosty...

What did I tell you? It's snowing.

In October.

Snow on Halloween?

Weird.

Wet. And soon to be cold.

Alice, myself, Kenny and Sean went to Six Flags on Saturday. It was drizzling, so there were NO lines. But, by the end of the day, after the skies opened up and rained down bucketsful, we were SOAKED (notice the rain on the Dunkin' Donuts window behind us...). As you can see, we were quite upset about the whole matter (well, maybe not Kenny...), but after we wrung out our sweatshirts, we were okay... :0)

My shoes are still wet, three days later and after being blasted with the hair dryer and spending hours in the dryer....

So now they're predicting snow in NJ.

I can't wait; Bring it on, I have a blanket, hot chocolate, and a stack of good books [and weeks of lesson plans that need to be written up].

Oh, and I just found out I can't go to college in January, because my mother can't figure out how to fill out my FAFSA online. Yahoo.

Looks like I'll be making more hot chocolate and getting more books out during those winter months............................

My life right now

I now am *officially* the owner of my own car! I proved it yesterday by putting my In-N-Out Burger bumper sticker on the back and hanging my graduation tassle from the rear-view mirror. Ahhh, the sweetness of it all...

But I miss my best friend like nothing else. Sara love, if I had enough money for gas, I'd drive down to Liberty just to see you RIGHT NOW...

John McCain...?

So I don't generally get involved in political discussion, because, well, to put it bluntly, I, a.) Am very opinionated (which tends to piss people off), and, b.) Have a big mouth (which tends to piss people off). So whenever I get into politics with someone, I generally wind up pissing them off or getting PO'd. But if there is one think I can't stand, it's when people don't research, are uninformed, and vote for a candidate just because he's in their party. And don't even get me started about that whole "lesser-of-two-evils" thing...three words: It's Not Biblical. (Told you I was opinionated; my sincerest apologies. I'm sure I've offended someone, as usual.)

Alas. I have fallen prey to that which I hate...

I had decided way back when that, this being the first presidential election I'm old enough to vote in, I'd make my decision wisely. Of course Obama and Hillary were straight out--that's a given. For me, the deciding factor is always a candidate's stand on abortion. So, at the beginning, it was easy--I was Huckabee all the way!!! But...then, Mike dropped out... So I thought I'd do a write-in... Then I just thought I'd sit out the whole election all together (I thought about how I'd have to explain to my kids some day that the first election I'd voted in was 2012, not 08--wait, forget about my theoretical kids, it's a pain in the everywhere explaining to people NOW why I don't want to vote.) So, up until fifteen minutes ago, I wasn't rooting for anyone. (The way I see it, God is on the throne if Obama gets in (though I'd prefer if that didn't happen), and God's on the throne if McCain gets in (though I'd prefer if that didn't happen either...).) Even choosing Palin as a running-mate didn't sway me, though I must admit I do like her politics.

So. I'd always assumed McCain was pro-abortion, because...well, everyone had said he was pro-abortion... (*blush*). Well, it turns out, in checking everything (this is where that 15 minutes ago comes in), his track record is...well...clean. He's voted for the partial-birth-abortion ban every time, and is against government funding for abortions.

Good so far. However, I took a closer look... McCain says he's okay with abortion in cases of rape and incest, but, get this...does not require a rape test. I thought about that for fifteen seconds...and, he might as well be pro-abortion. Case in point: A girl walks into a Planned Parenthood (even from when I was five and I first heard of Planned Parenthood, it always struck me as so stupid that they called it that, but told you that your baby wasn't a human, but a "blob of tissue". Hmmm...), says, "I was raped, I need an abortion!" You actually think they're going to go, "Okay, sweetie, but let's examine you and see if it really was rape, and if not, well, sorry, you're on your own!" Uh, lemme think...no. They're going to say, "Don't worry, it's gonna be alright, step right this way."

Oh. And McCain says he will overturn Roe v. Wade...eventually. He's just scared that if he does it right away, all the poor little teenagers out there who got pregnant yesterday will go to back-alley coathanger abortionists, who will botch them up and kill them all! (Chelsey's paraphrase.) Yeah, what he doesn't realize is that, where there's a will, there's a way, and all those abortionists who found themselves out of a job because RvW got overturned aren't going to sit on their butts while Jane Doe goes to a backalley abortionist--they will become the backalley abortionists! (Oh, and for those of you who haven't figured it out, they were the backalley abortionists--they all just put on white coats and gloves and became legit when RvW was passed.)

So John McCain says it has to happen gradually... Which means not at all. Please, the man only has four years. It takes that long for a bill about stop signs to get passed.

Does John McCain have my vote? No. I still don't know who I'm going to punch on that November day. He might have had it for five minutes...but that was five minutes ago, before I really thought about it.

Did I hypocritically fall prey to what I always speak out against, not checking the facts? Yes. But even after I've considered all the true facts, I still don't feel comfortable voting for McCain.

(P.S. If you've actually read this far, I'm impressed; I thought you'd have stopped reading my political rigmarole four or five paragraphs ago--I would have...) :-P

(addendum)

I must add to the list of books that changed my life Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (how could I forget that one?!), and Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place. I would be remiss if I did not...

Billy Joel was right, unfortunately...

Shades of grey are all that I know
The more I find out, the less that I know
Black and white is how it should be
But shades of grey are the colors I see...

Shades of grey are all that I find
When I look to the enemy's lines
Black and white was so easy for me
But shades of grey are all that I see...

Shades of grey wherever I go
The more I find out, the less that I know
There ain't no rainbows shinin' on me
Shades of grey are the colors I see...

~Billy Joel, Shades of Grey

FIREPROOF!!!

At the last moment last night, I decided to go see Fireproof. I don't generally see movies in the theatre, so it was kind of a freak whim thing that I went. I must admit that I wasn't happy to find that the price at the Commons had gone up a dollar--it hurt my pride a bit to pay ten-fifty for a two hour movie (one reason that I don't go to movies), but after I walked out of the theatre, I was convinced that every penny was well-spent.

I was impressed with Facing The Giants, but Fireproof was amAzing. I was so pleased to see the theatre packed--the show sold out! It's #4 on the movie charts, I understand. It's so great that a movie with a 500k budget made 6 mil. in a few weeks!

There were so many great things about the movie, especially its bravery in not shying away from touchy subjects, like addictions to pornography, "emotional" affairs, and, most importantly, the full Gospel--which by the way, was presented unashamedly, and, in...well, full!

Ok, so the acting was a bit stiff at times, and it wasn't helped much by the sometimes-corny script, but on the whole, Fireproof is an impressive achievement from a secular or Christian standpoint. All I know is that, the second it hits shelves, I'm buying it.

Go see it. That is a command.

On the two loves of my life (music and books)

So I missed the veep debates last night...because I was out singing Vivaldi. I've decided that he (Vivaldi) doesn't much like contraltos... But whatever. I still love him anyways. I'd much rather sing than watch TV...

Right now, I'm reading a book about revolution (the Spiritual kind, of course!) in Asia--they were giving it out free at my church last week, and anyone who knows me knows that I will NEVER turn down a free book! So I took it, and it's been amazing, especially after just reading The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun... that book literally changed my life.

Hmmm... Which brings me to a thought... There are only a few books out there that I've read that I can honestly say changed my life--I encourage anyone reading this to pick up one of these books, and dig in: I promise it'll be a painless experience, and, hey...it might even... change your life... ;0)

Here they are (in the order that I read them):
The Bible
She Said Yes; The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall~Misty Bernall
I Kissed Dating Goodbye~Josh Harris
In His Steps~Charles Sheldon
My Utmost for His Highest~Oswald Chambers
No Compromise~Melody Green
The Heavenly Man~Brother Yun
Do Hard Things~Alex & Brett Harris

I'm sure there will be more to come... So consider this list "to be continued".

On Brokenness...

I thought it appropriate to write my first real post on brokenness, as it's something I've been thinking about lately.

Now, when I say "brokenness", I do not mean the hopeless, yawning, devastating kind that leaves you with a sucking void in the pit of your stomach, alone and without a reason to look forward to dawn--I have seen many people experience the devastating effects of this, and I can tell you with all the authority I can muster that this kind is NOT from God.
I believe there are two kinds of brokenness--one that God hates, and one that God requires. God hates the kind I've just described--the brokenness brought about by the fall. But God cannot use us unless we have the other kind of brokenness, produced by the Holy Spirit at work in your and my life--the kind that brings with it a humble, usable, submissive attitude.

When a horse is young it has to be "broken" in order for it to become ridable. Basically, it has to be tamed, to get used to a bit in its mouth and a saddle on its back. How true it is that when God "breaks" us, He's only getting us used to obeying Him! Many times, I come out of a situation broken because I didn't obey sooner--and all the more ready to submit earlier next time. My friend Hannah could tell you how long it takes for a horse to be broken--but with humans, it takes our whole life, and then some. (Forgive me if you're one of those people who has completely submitted yourself to God every moment of your life--my email address is redheadblacksheep@gmail.com --please email me your secret!)

If God doesn't wear our wills down in that gentle way of His, we remain stubborn, self-centered brats used to getting our way, pursuing our own desires instead of His--and that is the very definition of someone who is unusable for His Kingdom.

I was recently watching an interview on TV, and heard a quote by Eugene O'Neill that struck me: "Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is the glue." We are born broken in the hopeless, devastating way. But as my friend Christian says, God does not intend for us to remain broken in that way. He didn't create things to be broken; when we look at a smashed vase, our instinct is to fix it--we know it's not naturally supposed to be that way, because God has programmed into our DNA that things aren't meant to be broken. Yet, there's a paradox, because we live in a fallen, broken world.

The resolution of the paradox can be found only in Christ, who came to fix our shattered lives, to lovingly piece the shards of our hearts back together again. He takes us into His gentle, loving hands, and makes us whole again, bringing us into unity with His will. It is when we start reverting back to our original brokenness that we were born with (the kind that Satan loves to use, the kind that whispers in our ears, "You're nothing, and you'll never be anything, so why should it matter? Go paint the town, live it up--He doesn't need you, and you don't need Him...") that God must take us and break us His way again.

I could write pages on this, but I'm not going to bore you; Instead, I'll end with this: I've heard that in the times of Christ, if a shepherd had a lamb that kept wandering off, the shepherd would break the lamb's leg. As the lamb was healing, the shepherd would carry it around on his shoulders everywhere he went--he would eat, sleep, and live with it. After the lamb's leg healed, though it had the ability to, it would never again leave the side of the shepherd, because it had grown so used to just being with him.
Now, if the shepherd had been impatient with the lamb, he could have just tied it to a stake close by or tossed it into a pen where it couldn't wander off, and left it there. I'm sure living 24/7 with a smelly little sheep around your neck is no easy task--but if the shepherd cares enough for the lamb to actually take the time and inconvenience to live with it while its leg mends, he is a good shepherd indeed.

Oh that we might be like that little lamb, following the Shepherd, Who cares enough for us to break us and mend us once more...

"Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be; Let Thy Goodness, like a fetter, bind my wand'ring heart to Thee; Prone to wander, Lord I fear it, prone to leave the God I love; here's my heart, O! Take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above!"

Hello, world

So. This is my new blog.

Pretty spiffy.