On (not) stealing music

There are countless ways we justify it: The artist doesn't get much from CD sales anyway, all of the money goes to the record companies and production costs. They make their money from live shows and other merchandise, not CD sales (do you even buy the other merchandise or go to shows? For all of the artists you like?). It's like when your friend copied their tape for you or like making a mix tape (who ever said that was legal?)

It's not about laws for me and it's not about where the money goes. It's about doing what's right. Over the last year I've started to feel strong convictions over a few things*, one of the being my music collection, most of which was acquired by less than ethical means. So I deleted it. To be honest, I kept a few things that are OOP (out of print) or that I didn't see available for purchase online from a US seller.

I've purged my music collection a few times before, like when I stopped listening to any music that was not influenced by Christ. This time was much more drastic; I went from 737 albums (yes, albums) to 138. Actually 138 includes a few that I've purchased since the purge. My collection previously wouldn't fit on my old 60GB iPod, it is now only 7.37GB. Wait, that's weird, I had 737 albums and now my music takes up 7.37GB.

Deleting most of my music has really helped me realize what music I really enjoy the most, what I miss the most. I made a list of what I had and what I really wanted to buy but now I don't even think I want all of that, I just don't miss some of it like I thought I would.

Here's what I'm lovin' these days and links to an album by them:
JJ Heller, I just bought her newest album Deeper
Mason Jennings
The Civil Wars
The Innocence Mission
Denison Witmer
Page France
Sleeping at Last
Carlos Whittaker
Brown Feather Sparrow

I'm really missing Ray LaMontagne too, but I haven't bought any yet.

It's hard, but Pandora helps.

(*) "a few things" also includes eating pork and shellfish, what I wear, and a third thing that I'll write about once I've figured it out.

Maker's Diet: Week 1

This is a recap of my first week on The Maker's Diet. It is written day-by-day usually during, or at the end of the given day.

Day 1
My first day on the Maker's diet Will thought it would be a good time to start a growth spurt. We also haven't shopped for the diet yet so my meals were interesting.

For breakfast I had two fried eggs, no complaints there. For lunch, I thought I could eat a can of tuna but noticed that even though it says "in water" there is vegetable broth and other stuff in there. No go. I could eat salmon, but it was frozen. So I had some spinach, carrots, and half an avocado. I fed Will 8 or 9 times. I was exhausted and hungry. We had salmon and broccoli for supper.

Day 2
I think having no sugar hit me hard today. I've had hot flashes all day. I had a fried egg and half an avocado for breakfast. I almost passed out while changing a diaper (not because of the diaper) and decided to drink a glass of orange juice (no sugar added, but still not okay on the diet.)
Shawn went grocery shopping so supper was good, sirloin steak and asparagus. Yogurt and strawberries for dessert. Goat's milk yogurt is pretty much like regular yogurt, actually I think it tastes better.

Day 3
Really craving some powdered sugar donuts and chocolate chip cookies. Whenever I can put this baby down I'm going to have a goat cheese and mushroom omelet. I used to only eat omelets filled with cheddar and covered in powdered sugar. Yes, seriously.

Day 4
Today I felt terrible, I don't know if it was the diet or just the progression of my illness. I felt weak, tired, and nauseated, and on top of that Will refused to stay asleep when I laid him down. I felt so bad that husband came home early from work. I took a nap and when I woke up it felt like I hadn't slept at all even though it had been over 3 hours!
Husband had to leave so his parents came over to help me. Felt like I was going to puke on the baby before they got there. When they did, I took a walk outside and was confronted by a serpent lying in wait (seriously, I almost stepped on a snake). Ate some spinach and drank a small glass of orange juice (which tasted so sweet it was disgusting) and soon felt a lot better, like a billion percent.
Husband suggested formula so I could take my medicine; I've overcome too many breastfeeding challenges to give up now, before the 40 days is even over. Plus I like nursing, I need nursing.

Day 5
I feel a lot better today, except for a headache in the evening; I didn't even drink any orange juice. Went to farmer's markets with Becky while Shawn hung out with sleeping baby in the car. Got some local honey since I'm out. Will did so good and even fell asleep in the car seat right when he needed to all day.
Lunch was difficult since we were in town, ended up getting a chicken caesar salad from Publix and only eating the romaine and chicken, even finding water that was just water, and was not chlorinated, was a problem.
For supper I cooked a French style London broil (one of the recipes from the book), green beans, and eggplant. Tip: don't saute eggplant in extra virgin coconut oil, good flavor but the first few pieces I put in absorbed all the oil. Supper was tasty but all through the day I was just thinking about how I miss normal food. I saw pizza on TV, baked goods at the farmer's market, I really wanted a donut and some pasta! We've been eating berries and goat's milk yogurt for dessert but tonight I decided to make a smoothie using my immersion blender. Bear with me, this is going to make me sound really crunchy, so I made a smoothie with frozen berries, goat's milk yogurt, raw almond butter, honey, and flax oil. It was pretty decent, maybe a little less almond butter next time.

Day 6
Man, I wanted regular food today. I kept think about how much I miss just being able to eat whatever and not really think about it and I thought about how long I'll have to eat this way and how hard it is. Hulu really needs to get rid of that Reese's peanut butter cup commercial, it's killing me.
Deer meat hamburger patties are pretty good though.

Day 7
Well, we've made it a week. I keep thinking how in another week I can eat a sweet potato! Yam patties! I don't think I've ever looked so forward to these things. I think I've developed a distain for celery. I was also unable to eat chicken today. I'm wondering when I'm going to start really feeling/seeing some results from this diet.
Bad news, I think this diet is upsetting Will, possibly making him sick. Now I researched whether it was okay or not to do this diet while breastfeeding before I started, I'm a big researcher, and I couldn't find any reason not to. However, he's had less frequent bowel movements and the ones he has had have a very foul odor (not normal for exclusively breastfed babies). It could be that something new in my diet or something I'm now eating more of is bothering his digestive system; I am eating a lot of almond butter and berries. I did some more digging though and found out from a breastfeeding website that when you start any diet that causes you to detox (which the first phase does), those toxins can be released into your breastmilk. I knew toxins could be released through bodily fluids such as urine and sweat, I had no idea they came out in milk. So I've decided to end the first phase now and skip ahead to the 3rd phase, which is still very strict, but includes more of my regular foods, like potatoes.
Oh, and I've lost 3 or 4 pounds in the last week. Not that I'm doing this to lose weight.

I'm doing it for this little farmer man.

Maker's Diet (not the drink)

As a lot of you know, I have Crohn's disease. Well, I was on a medication that worked really well for me, but I had to stop taking it in January so it wouldn't be in Will's system when he was born. I haven't resumed taking it because it is unknown how it may affect him through breastmilk.

That would be okay, except that I've started having some pretty bad symptoms. I do not want to give up nursing and I don't want to take a chance on Will's health by taking the medication (or any other for that matter). I mean look at the great views I get while nursing.


So I've decided to try so I decided to try The Maker's Diet. Some of you have probably heard of this before, maybe you've even read the book. In short, the diet follows the guidelines set out in the Bible, you could compare it to a Jewish person's diet: no pork (and you know how I love pork), no shellfish, and a dozen other limitations that will make eating out pretty impossible.

My main difficulty with this will be that I love food! I love meat from pigs! Bacon! I also love sweets, no ice cream!
I'm willing to sacrifice these things so I can continue to give my baby the best food possible.
The Maker's Diet
is a 40 day plan and I'm only on day 2 and it's been rough, more on that when I do a weekly recap.

(Please note this post was written last Wednesday, the 1st.)

Superstition as religion: who do you worship?

A few weeks ago I tweeted this:



Now, I'd like to further explain this.

I don't know how superstitious you are or your grandmother is, and I don't know how prevalent superstitious beliefs are among Christians, so this may be a post only for my family and a few others.

I never considered my family to be very superstitious growing up, but after years of funny looks, and "what are you talking about?"s I guess I had picked up more superstitions that a good number of my peers (though I'm definitely not the only one).


Photo by california cowgirl1 on Flickr

So what if I knew by a curious, young age which direction a black cat had to cross your path for it to be bad luck, with which hand and over which shoulder to throw salt when you spilt it, and the meanings of the different directions to hang a horseshoe over your door? Not to mention my collection of lucky rabbits' feet, and the fact that I would never, ever walk under a ladder. It was never a big deal, at least not to me.

Then again, it's what I grew up with, so it was normal. The fact that my great-grandmother had to enter the house from the same door she exited made perfect sense to me. (I really don't think this is related to my unwillingness to get out of bed on the opposite side from which I entered, though it is similar. Getting out on the other side just feels wrong, like when you turn halfway around one way you have to turn back around the other way. It feels wrong. Oh, that's just me?).

However, there is one superstition that has always been treated as a big deal, one that's always been taken very seriously. One that caused my mom to freak out on more than one occasion when my dad or sister almost broke it. This is the superstition that really got me thinking.

This is the holiday laundry superstition.

The basics are that you cannot launder on certain holidays, Easter, Christmas, New Years? Thanksgiving? Eh, might as well be on the safe side. As I stated earlier, I was very curious about these things, so I asked my mom, "what would it mean if you did do laundry? What would happen?" Not wanting to burden me with such a big scary responsibility at a young age, she would not tell me the consequence, just to not do it. Eventually, she did tell me, and if you don't want to know, this is your last chance to quit reading.

She told me that if you do laundry on one of those days, someone in your immediate family will die. I've also heard it put like this: If you do laundry on this day, you'll be doing laundry for a corpse by the end of the year. I believe this is said when applying the superstition to New Year's Day, but what is New Year's Day?

New Year's Day is what got me thinking about this the most. I couldn't do laundry on that day, but the next I could, even though it was the Sabbath. I thought to myself how if I were living under the laws of the Sabbath, this would probably be forbidden, they would have done such tasks the day before, the day on which I told myself I couldn't because of a superstition.

Why are we giving so much reverence to this man-made celebration? By giving a man-made superstition such control, we are honoring it with the type of importance that the Jewish people were commanded to give to the Sabbath. And it's not just about New Year's, this also goes for all the other holidays this superstition is observed on and all the other superstitions that may be observed on any given day. We are putting man-made observances before God-made observances. How is this different from making idols to worship?

To break it down: By observing superstitious rules we made up ourselves, we are treating them in a way that gives them honor, but what are we honoring? God intended his people to observe His Holy day and give Him honor. Yet, we tend give more importance to these superstitions than we do to God's ordained Holy day. It is almost like we have replaced the Sabbath with idols. God told His people certain things they were to do and not do on the Sabbath as well as during other important times like the Passover and different feasts. We decided to make up our own rituals (superstitions) that have nothing to do with God. Superstitious practices could even be related to the specific practices of different types of sacrifices, but I mainly want to relate it to commands we are still supposed to be observing today. Like the 4th commandment.

Yes, since I am a Christian and not Jewish, I know we are no longer under the law, but under grace and while strict observance of the Sabbath was given exceptions by Jesus Himself (we are supposed to put peoples' needs above rules, spiritual work.), we are not to disregard any of the commandments, the principals still apply. See also, this page on keeping the Sabbath.


Photo by two stout monks on Flickr

After thinking about this for sometime, I see that we observe superstitions in a much more serious manner than we observe the Sabbath. Think about it, do you observe the Sabbath at all? Whether the Sabbath to you is Saturday or Sunday, or from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, how is that day any different from its weekend partner?

If there is no difference, or if the only difference is that you attend a church service, I would hope that you would take some time to pray and think over this, I know that I have.

I feel that the way we observe the Sabbath today needs to change, it's the how I'm still not sure about. If you have any suggestions or special ways in which you observe the Sabbath as a Christian today, please share them by commenting on this post.

The Politeness of Prayer

I've noticed a trend in the way we present our prayer requests to the general public. This is different than making a prayer request to friends you know are Christians—we assume that they are always taking requests. For some reason though, when a lot of people make prayer requests publicly (namely through social media like Twitter and Facebook) they're afraid of offending someone.


Photo from Flickr member c0t0s0d0

The prayer requests I'm talking about start off by saying, "If you pray..." I noticed this preface to prayer requests happening more and more often and it really started to get under my skin. Or maybe it was getting under my spirit.

So what if you ask people to pray for your need and someone who doesn't pray reads it? Are you afraid they're going to be offended and lash out at you? This must be the Christian way to act when non-believers might hear you because no one every lashed out at Jesus. Oh, wait...

John 10:19-21This kind of talk caused another split in the Jewish ranks. A lot of them were saying, "He's crazy, a maniac—out of his head completely. Why bother listening to him?" But others weren't so sure: "These aren't the words of a crazy man. Can a 'maniac' open blind eyes?"

22-24They were celebrating Hanukkah just then in Jerusalem. It was winter. Jesus was strolling in the Temple across Solomon's Porch. The Jews, circling him, said, "How long are you going to keep us guessing? If you're the Messiah, tell us straight out."

25-30Jesus answered, "I told you, but you don't believe. Everything I have done has been authorized by my Father, actions that speak louder than words. You don't believe because you're not my sheep. My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and the Father are one heart and mind."

31-32Again the Jews picked up rocks to throw at him. Jesus said, "I have made a present to you from the Father of a great many good actions. For which of these acts do you stone me?"

33The Jews said, "We're not stoning you for anything good you did, but for what you said—this blasphemy of calling yourself God."

What is the likelihood of someone being greatly offended anyway? If they don't pray, they're just not going to pray. There's a chance though that someone who used to pray might read your request and start praying again, or even someone who has never prayed might feel sympathy for your need and decide to give it a try. But no, we wouldn't want to take the chance that we might offend someone, Jesus never offended anyone. Oh, wait...

Mathew 15:1-2 After that, Pharisees and religion scholars came to Jesus all the way from Jerusalem, criticizing, "Why do your disciples play fast and loose with the rules?"

3-9But Jesus put it right back on them. "Why do you use your rules to play fast and loose with God's commands? God clearly says, 'Respect your father and mother,' and, 'Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.' But you weasel around that by saying, 'Whoever wants to, can say to father and mother, What I owed to you I've given to God.' That can hardly be called respecting a parent. You cancel God's command by your rules. Frauds! Isaiah's prophecy of you hit the bull's-eye:

These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
but their heart isn't in it.
They act like they're worshiping me,
but they don't mean it.
They just use me as a cover
for teaching whatever suits their fancy."

10-11He then called the crowd together and said, "Listen, and take this to heart. It's not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up."

12Later his disciples came and told him, "Did you know how upset the Pharisees were when they heard what you said?"

13-14Jesus shrugged it off. "Every tree that wasn't planted by my Father in heaven will be pulled up by its roots. Forget them. They are blind men leading blind men. When a blind man leads a blind man, they both end up in the ditch."

As thoughts of this go through my mind another issue of prayer brings itself to my attention. When you're eating with a group, some of whom may not pray, do you still pray before your meal? If so, how do you do it? Is it just a silent prayer that no one will notice? Do you ask, "do you mind if I pray?" and then pray openly? Shawn and I have been in that last group before, saying, "We're going to pray, if that's alright," or something along those lines. However, now that I'm really thinking about this, is that how it should be? Is that what Jesus would do? I think it would be much more likely that Jesus would think, "I'm going to pray and I don't care what you have to say about it."

Shouldn't we be that bold with our prayers?

I remember going through school (excluding middle school, when I went to a Christian school and we prayed together before lunch) and at lunch praying silently to myself, most of the time not even closing my eyes or doing anything else that would give away the fact that I was praying. While this exact scenario will not carry over to my children, since I will be homeschooling them, I still want them to be able to pray with boldness in front of their friends, never feeling ashamed or a need to hide the fact that they believe in prayer. Now you may be thinking, "but prayer is not allowed in schools." You're right, and Jesus never broke the rules. Oh, wait...

Matthew 12:1-2 One Sabbath, Jesus was strolling with his disciples through a field of ripe grain. Hungry, the disciples were pulling off the heads of grain and munching on them. Some Pharisees reported them to Jesus: "Your disciples are breaking the Sabbath rules!"

3-5Jesus said, "Really? Didn't you ever read what David and his companions did when they were hungry, how they entered the sanctuary and ate fresh bread off the altar, bread that no one but priests were allowed to eat? And didn't you ever read in God's Law that priests carrying out their Temple duties break Sabbath rules all the time and it's not held against them?

6-8"There is far more at stake here than religion. If you had any idea what this Scripture meant—'I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual'—you wouldn't be nitpicking like this. The Son of Man is no lackey to the Sabbath; he's in charge."

9-10When Jesus left the field, he entered their meeting place. There was a man there with a crippled hand. They said to Jesus, "Is it legal to heal on the Sabbath?" They were baiting him.

11-14He replied, "Is there a person here who, finding one of your lambs fallen into a ravine, wouldn't, even though it was a Sabbath, pull it out? Surely kindness to people is as legal as kindness to animals!" Then he said to the man, "Hold out your hand." He held it out and it was healed. The Pharisees walked out furious, sputtering about how they were going to ruin Jesus.

The next time you go to make a prayer request or to pray with someone say to yourself: "Am I ashamed of my beliefs, or do I want to be bold like Jesus?"

Fear or Justified Avoidance?

Last time I mentioned that I'm currently reading The Confident Woman by Joyce Meyer, while I am enjoying this book I've reached a part that has caused me a bit of confusion. I'm thinking that maybe this confusion is just a personal thing for me and someone can give me some insight.

Meyer writes about doing things on purpose, not waiting till she "feels like" doing them. She writes about not being afraid or doing things afraid, so as to not let fear rule you. That I get. But she also says things about how she, at times, will decline speaking invitations or other such things because she doesn't have peace about it.

My problem is this: how do you know the difference between something being a fear and it just not setting right with your spirit?

I considered prayer as the answer, and maybe it is. For prayer to be the answer though, a person would have to be completely open to hear God and be able to tell the difference between what God is saying to them and what their own feelings about the situation are, something that is incredibly hard to do if fear is involved.

Simplify: Don't Try to Fill Too Many Roles

Today it seems like most people fit into one of two categories, they are either overwhelmed with how much they have to do or they are lazy. Sometimes people are lazy because they have too much to do and know they'll never get it all done, so they don't even try.

The problem of having too much to do starts with giving ourselves to much to do; we try to take on too many roles. We try to be every member of a team ourselves instead of letting others join our team. This doesn't even have to mean things that work like a team, sometimes we just try to be it all. For example, if you're a web designer, worship leader, photographer, Sunday school teacher, janitor, and office manager, do you really think you're doing the best that can be done in all of those roles? Are you able to give all of them the attention they deserve or wouldn't it be better if others were able to take on those roles so that every role was being filled to the best of each person's ability? We're not meant to be great at everything, that's one reason we need others.

I'm currently reading The Confident Woman by Joyce Meyer and in it she talks about how we are not supposed to fill every role, we are not meant to be good at everything. We will feel much better about ourselves if we focus on the things we do have talent in and grow in those things instead of trying to create talent for ourselves where we don't have it. Moreover, when we try to fill every role, taking on tasks that we're not so good at, we're depriving the person who is talented in that area from doing what they're supposed to be doing.

So, if we stop trying to wear everyone's hat, we'll feel much better about ourselves and can give ourselves the change to excel in the things we are talented in. We will be less stressed and we won't feel so bogged down by having too much to do.

Other ways to simplify your life:

Create reasonable goals for the day

Don't make a to-do list. To-do lists can make your tasks seem like chores (well, sometimes they are) but looking at a crowded to-do list can make you feel depressed and then you won't get anything accomplished well.

Cut out some of your activities: Don't try to read 5 books at once. Let someone else take on some of those roles. If you've been trying to be a good cook for years and you're still terrible, it's time to move on, there is something you're great at. This may seems a little too simple, but for me cutting out activities meant reducing the number of RSS feeds I subscribe to. Having too many made it like a chore to go through them all, but when I only keep the subscriptions I really enjoy, I can get through them and actually enjoy them, and afterwords I have time left for other things.

Romans 12:3I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

4-6In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.

6-8If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

That's all for now.

In the church not of the church

I love God. I like church, at least half the things about it, that is. I like learning about God and understanding things in a different way. It can be helpful, uplifting, and make me face issues I need to deal with. I guess what I'm really saying is that I like the preaching and teaching part of church.

I don't like the politics of church. I don't like most of the fellowship (read: people getting together to gossip and be overly dramatic about everything while being highly critical of those outside their circle). I don't like the judgment and stereotyping: how the inside is high and mighty, their wrongs are okay (sure when they realize they're wrong they can ask and be forgiven, but so can anyone who is sincere) while everything outside is basically evil. Yes, the "outside" stereotypes the inside as well, but is the inside doing anything to break that trend and mold? From my perspective, ("on the fringes" maybe) the inside strengthens that negative stereotype in 85% of their interactions with the "outside."

This is only part of it, but I believe that too often the people of the church forget that they're in the world, there's other people out there and they matter to God just as much as you do. They matter even more, remember the parable of the lost sheep?

Luke 15:4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?5And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

But instead of creating community with others, people of the church create an insiders clique.
Jesus made friends with sinners, people who were not part of the church circle.

Mark 2:13And he went forth again by the sea side; and all the multitude resorted unto him, and he taught them. 14And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him. 15And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him.

For me, while I'm "in the church," I'm also in the world, which isn't all bad, after all it's the world that God created for me to be in for a time and I have a purpose here. I am not of the world, but I'm also not of the church, I'm trying my best to be of God.

For now, I think watching church on TV may be my best choice.

Fortunate Accidents

I took a wrong turn today on my way back home (after signing a lease in Tally!). I knew the road I was on would still take me where I needed to go so I didn't turn around and I was glad. Traveling down this road was so serene and beautiful; it was through one of those few hilly areas of Florida that make you forget you're in Florida as the road goes up and down and all you can see is trees. It was also at that perfect time of day where the winter sun is in just the right place to give everything an amber glow. On one part of the road where there's a small bridge over a creek there was a group of people off to the side of the bridge around a bonfire that appeared to be roasting marshmallows; very peaceful.

Many people would be annoyed that they took a wrong turn and let it ruin their whole day through their attitude. Months ago I may have been the same way, but it's so much easier to not let things like that be a big deal. This turned out to be a good thing. I was being annoyed by a car on the interstate who kept going faster, slower, faster, slower (cruise control is there for a reason, use it!) which is how I ended up distracted and took an exit that looked similar to mine, but was one too early. Because I didn't let taking a wrong turn upset me it ended up being a fortunate accident. Not only did I get away from a bad driver, I also go to see another beautiful part of God's creation.

Linkage

In lieu of a regular post, seeing as my life is quite hectic right now, I thought I would post a few links to things I have been meaning to post about, some old, some newish.

Caring for Your Introvert: Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am for the most part what one would call introverted. This is a good piece to read if you know any introverts and still an interesting read if you are one yourself. I don't like the title of it though, I don't think we need to be "cared for;" it would be better titled "Understanding Your Introvert," or "How to Act (and Not to Act) Around Introverts."

What Would Jesus Buy?: Trailer for a Morgan Spurlock (of "Supersize Me") film on consumerism. I have not yet seen it, but looks very um...interesting. Check it out.

Super Mario Galaxy in Amsterdam: This site is not in English, but it's the pictures that are great. It's the celebration of the release of Super Mario Galaxy in Amsterdam. The first pic is awesome.

Bake a Book: Gizmodo post about book technology (yes BOOK technology) with thermo-reactive ink. Basically, the pages are blank until you bake the book in the oven, then words show up.

50 Years of Lego: So I missed posting about the birthday of the Lego brick, but here's the timeline (also Gizmodo).

Polaroid to Nix Polaroids. What?: Yep, no more instant photos (aka Polaroids!) from Polaroid. Next thing we know Aunt Jemima will quit making syrup, rain will stop being wet, and we'll here that the John Montagu (look him up if you must) never ate sandwiches.

Defend Your Coffee Habbit: I must have at least 2 cups of coffee every afternoon, if I do not you do not want to be around me. I've used each of these defenses at least once.

Bradley Hathaway Interview: A wonderful interview with Bradley Hathaway from HM Magazine. The best parts are what he says about love, both God's love and romantic love. If you don't know who Bradley Hathaway is, educate yourself, you won't be disappointed.

And I'll end with a quote:

“American movies have been using satire for years to take the edge off sex and violence. Occasionally, perhaps sex and violence should be treated with the seriousness they deserve.” - Roger Ebert

Goals

Here's what I've come up with for my goals for 2008 so far:

Create more goals

Think without distractions. Don't let things hold back creativeness.

Write more (often). This ties in heavily with "Think." I need to do more creative writing outside of school work.

Get over photographer's fear. So many times I want to take a picture of something but I don't because I'm thinking about how people will think I'm weird for taking a picture of something seemingly mundane; I should just let them be jealous of my awesome picture.

Listen to more music, really hear it, not just the words, each note, each instrument. Feel the depth and beauty of it.

Read the Bible, or finish reading the Bible, or re-read the parts I've already read. For a while I was reading the Bible every day, but I'd say that was about 2 years ago; I'll be honest, I don't think I opened my (non-internet) Bible at all in 2007 and I don't feel good about that.

Take a photo every day. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece.

Increase reading speed. I've always been a pretty fast reader, compared to say other in my class in school, but I don't read as fast as I'd like to. Now, I don't want to speed read or anything, I think that's silly, but if I ever want to be a book editor I need to be able to read a bit faster, without losing any comprehension.

I guess that's it for goals. Now if I were to make a resolution, and I usually don't, it would be the same as a couple years ago: a never-ending quest to find beauty in everything, aka find God's love in everything.

I'm Back

Half fun, half stressful, and now I'm sick. I think I'll blame the sickness on someone who will remain unnamed thinking it was a good idea to set the air on 70 causing me to freeze in my sleep; strange since that same someone was sharing the bed next to the a/c with me.

Saw some old friends, met some new ones, had a good time with God.

Best part of coming home: my own coffee, my own bed, oh and taking my contacts out! I forgot to bring my contact case or my glasses so I had to sleep with them in for 2 nights.

The Christmas Post

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and at least took some time to remember why we really celebrate it.
Sure, you constantly hear people say "Jesus is the reason for the season," and see plenty of church signs with the same statement, but is that really at the forefront of our minds this time of year. I admit I haven't spent as much time focused on Christ or in the celebration of His birth as I should. It's so easy to get caught up in earthly celebrations of gifts, food, and even that of family. Not that there's anything wrong with celebrating family (or food, or how blessed we are to be able to give and receive gifts), but let us not forget what it's all about. Celebrate and have joy in our Savior!



Tomorrow I will be leaving for Ocala to go to Holiday Youth Convention. I made a sort-of last minute decision to go; I'm getting to old for it and I figured if I didn't go this year, I would definitely feel too old to go next year—not that there won't be other older than I there, there definitely will be.
I'm bringing my laptop along in hopes that there will be free wireless in the hotel, but with the expectation that I won't have much time to use it anyway.

Webspace and Me: A History

The move to Wordpress is a major landmark in my experience of creating my presence on the internet; it is the first time in my 9 years of having my own site that I have paid for hosting. To mark the occasion I wanted to create a timeline to show the progression of the sites I've created, plus I've never cataloged this so I though it would be interesting for me if not for anyone else.

I want to say it began in 1998 when we first got the internet at home. We had aol and you could make your own website, I don't really remember it.

From that I moved on to the free hosting site tripod.com. I never made a personal site there, instead I made a site to list the complete discographies of every band that I liked, with tracklistings. In the early 2000s I made the first ever (and as far as I know, still the only) fan site for Blake Hazard. You can get a very broken glimpse of it via the Way Back Machine archive take a look. Oh and then there was a site I made to educate people on the different ways "indie" music can be defined. I was quite the indie snob.

At the same time I started having a blog, I used livejournal, and xanga, and livejournal again, and again.

Which reminds me of something I've missed from livejournal and can do now...

Praise God!

The doctors let Luke wake up today! His aunt Diana ("Mama D" to Luke), says he knew who they were and remembered the accident (to him it's like it happened yesterday). I don't think he can really talk yet though because he has a tracheotomy. It's such good news that they're not going to keep him so heavily sedated anymore, and it means he's healing enough to be awake! We're planning to go see him Sunday or Monday.

Good news about my mom's cousin who had the heart attack too. They took him off of the ventilator today and he's breathing on his own.

Praise God!

Bad Things Come In.....Fours?

1. My cousin, Luke gets in very serious car accident.
2. Our pastor falls down an 8-foot embankment.
3. My great-aunt has a stroke.
4. My mom's cousin has a heart attack.


It's everything all at once and just so overwhelming. Times like this you can't help but wonder why; I need to read The Problem of Pain again. I know we need to just have faith an know that God is in control, but at the same time I feel so helpless.

The most serious is still Luke. Bro. Crabtree is still recovering, but God has healed his major injuries. My great-aunt is doing fine, they caught it in enough time and they think that it is related to her medicine. I don't know much about my mom's cousin Peanut's (yes, Peanut) heart attack, we just found out today.

Luke has been heavily sedated, basically in a medically induced coma, for just over 3 weeks now. Can you imagine losing weeks of your life? His wounds are serious, but the doctor says he's young and it is definitely something he can recover from he just has a rocky road to get there. He'll be in Shand's for at least another couple weeks. We've been going to see him at least once a week, I wish there was some way to comfort him and that there was something we could do to help him.

Until last week the way they had him sedated, they said he might could still hear us or know that we were there, even though he wouldn't remember later that was still comforting. And there were also reducing ever-so-often, to check if he was responsive, which he was and that's very good to know. But the type of sedation they're using now, they say he's completely unaware. He has an infection called VRE and Pneumonia, but they were anticipating both, so it's nothing unusual for his situation. His wounds are healing so that's good. They talked about moving him into a regular room this week. We just have to keep praying! The church in Gainesville that belongs to the same organization as the one my (more immediate) family goes to has been very nice also. The youth pastor went to visit Luke and prayed for him, and they also sent a nice care package to the part of the family that is staying there. Who knows maybe it will spark an positive interest in our church for the other side of his family.

Jesus be with him, give him strength, comfort, and healing!

In the News

I'm sure most people have heard about Michael Glatze, a gay-rights leader, coming out as straight recently. But maybe you haven't read his story on WorldNetDaily, he talks about working for magazines aimed at young gay Americans, the 16 years of his life he spent as a gay man, and how forming a relationship with God showed him the truth.
On speaking out on the gay-rights movement he says:

If I could take back some of the things I said, I would. Now I know that homosexuality is lust and pornography wrapped into one. I'll never let anybody try to convince me otherwise, no matter how slick their tongues or how sad their story. I have seen it. I know the truth.

Full article here, it's worth the read, really.

In lighter news, a dozen 7-Elevens across the nation have been converted to Kwik-E-Marts to promote The Simpsons Movie. dhepnar has some nice pictures from the one in Canada on Flickr, I especially like the "Thank you for loitering..." sign. A list of the altered stores can be found here. I really want to go to one, but the closest is 6 hours away. They are supposed to have special snack foods and Squishees (which I'm sure is just a regular ol' Slurpee in a different cup, unfortunately) at all 7-Eleven locations though. Actually, I don't even know where the nearest 7-Eleven is, I can't even find one near me on the locator on the site.

Edit: If you go here, this flickr user has collected links to photo sets from all the different Kwik-E-Marts. And there is also a Kwik-E-Mart group on Flickr (though it only has 24 members).

Elizabeth

There are many things I could post about, but some things make everything else seem insignificant. Yesterday I went to the funeral of a 3 year old girl; that's not something that easily leaves the front of your thoughts.

Children's songs should never have to be played at a funeral.

Elizabeth, a little girl my church, died Thursday after drowning in the pool at her home. I don't believe there was a dry eye in the church during the funeral. They played children's songs and showed a Powerpoint presentation to celebrate her life. Bro. Crabtree also read words from her parents, grandparents, and older sister (I think she's about 8).

One part that stood out to me the best was Bro. Crabtree told how Elizabeth liked to sing and that the last song she had shared with her grandparents, on the night before her accident, was "Big House". If you don't know, this is a song about heaven, here's the chorus:

Come and go with me to my father's house.
Come and go with me to my father's house.
It's a big, big house with lots and lots of room.
A big, big table with lots and lots of food.
A big, big yard where we can play football.
A big, big house, it's my father's house.

I see that song as a great comforting gift that God gave them.