Great White Sharks Are Huge! This is a fantastic video!

Planet Earth rocks my world.

To Do

▪ email Randy
▪ communicate with the phobester about coming up on the 9th of May to use the duper to make 70 copies of the Mother's Day video to hand out to moms on Mother's Day
▪ put this to do list on the web so as to share my life with my loyal blog readers
▪ Give a shout out to pastor Jelani who I met at the amazing Cajun dinner his dad's church put on for us WorldView-ians!
▪ vacuum lounge
▪ I did the laundry! yes!
▪ email Aron about the fact that there are no changes to the baseball schedule.
▪ look at Timber's schedule and see if we want to work any of those games.

Satan attacks transitions.

What do you think of that? Do you think that's true? It's a thought that's been rolling around in my head recently, but I have absolutely no biblical backup for it. But it seems true to me. Plus I read an article recently about "the joint" (in architecture), and how holy it is. Which, something holy would be something Satan would attack. I need to read the article again (or, actually all the way through).

I Am Encouraged

I am encouraged by the number of hawks there are still in the world. I've just seen a lot of them recently, and been kind of surprised by that and very pleased. I think from all the nature videos I watched when I was little, I thought that all the good things were gone. But they're not! And that's cool.*

I am also comforted by the fact that sunlight is blue. And, on a similar note: that sunlight takes eight minutes to reach the earth. For some reason I find that fact very comforting as I stand with the sun on my face. It took eight, whole, leisurely minutes to get here, I think. I think the light is sauntering.

*And I even got to see a hawk up close the other day at Mt. Tabor park. It was sitting on a light pole, and I climbed up the fence as much as I dared to get close to it. It was actually pretty scary to be that close to a bird like that. But it was wonderful.

Reachin' Down (Grateful Tuesdays #24)

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for my wonderful trip to the dentist's today. Thank you for my Dad and for Sigor Ros and that my Dad wants to listen and is willing to listen to music that I choose. That he's curious to know what I like and why I like it. Thank you for the joy of being known and having a good Father. Even though, of course, being known by a human is incomplete (a human can't know me fully), and my father can't be fully what my Heavenly Father is (he can't be with me always, support, encourage, affirm always). But you, Father, have blessed me with a father who goes as far as he can go to fill that picture. My father hasn't left my picture of my Heavenly Father wanting. Thank you so much for that, God. I know that this is not typical, and I know that it's not by his effort only, so I sit here, silent and in gratitude.

I'm happy that my dentist was so happy with my teeth. Golly, he and his assistant were nice. Thank you also for the little bird with the red on his head that I could see outside the window at the office. I'm also glad the T.V. was off eventually.

Whefw! Television and noise and my dad listening to the radio and seeing each other and not seeing each other and why!

God! You are amazing! The complexity of Human existence is mind-blowing! It's beautiful! It's terrifying and heartbreaking and lonely and sad and wonderful.

Thank you for my shoes. I like the look of them, and they are hugging my feet. Thank you for my life-changing hoodie and, more to the meaning, for the loving uncle, aunt and cousins they came from.

Thank you for flavor. I can taste coffee and chocolate, and I can taste them even now, and I know that there is a God. A you.

There is a "you". (Now that I think about it.) There is a person to whom we can make our whole lives a "hey you!" Someone to whom we can direct that. There is someone who I can point my life at, who will notice me.

WHO. CREATED. ME. TO BE NOTICED! And I know, God, that as my other friends hear me pray this, they are not quite tracking with what I'm saying. Save me from the distorted version of being noticed. May I live for you.

You are lovely, God. And you love me, and I'm so grateful for you.

Love,

His banner...

My Creator loves me.

My God loves me.

My Lord and Master loves me.

YAHWEH, the Great I Am That I Am, loves me, deeply.

My Lover, the One who knows me deeper than anyone else, loves me.

My Father loves me.

I am loved.

Has anyone seen my copy of G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy?

I've misplaced my copy of Orthodoxy, and I can't seem to find it anywhere. The last time I saw it for sure was this Summer at camp. I think.

Anyway, let me know if you run across it. I'd really like to be able to browse through it again.

This my favorite trailer yet...

I am so grateful to God for His forgiveness and love.

Trailer II

I forgot to show this to you guys. My friend Jeremy made it just a few days ago.

Let me know what you think! (For the record, my favorite parts are the two "spinning" shots toward the end. You'll see what I mean.)



Stay tuned for a trailer for season two...

Zion (Grateful Tuesdays # 23)

Dear God,

Thank you for meeting me yesterday. I expressed my discouragement to you very clearly writing to you yesterday. Thank you for the beautiful passage of Scripture I read yesterday and for the host of thousands upon thousands of angel we have come to. For the joy of being at the foot of Mt. Zion.

Thank you for sending those little ones to hug me yesterday. Thank you that Callie baked me cookies. And for the delicious soup I got to eat because the other soup ran out.

Thank you for the great time of writing I got to have yesterday while monitoring babies. Thank you that I get to make these Kid’s Club videos and that I get to do what I love.

Thank you so much for my beautiful, encouraging, fun conversation with the Queen, yesterday. Thank you for the joy of getting to experience her.

Thank you so much for college group yesterday, God! God, I’ve never experience a college group like that before, there was so much singing and laughter and joy. It was very much a gift from you.

Thank you for my friends Josh and Erin and their willingness to stay behind last night and help with filming.

God, yesterday was such a mountaintop experience; as I come down from the mountain, Father, it’s my prayer that I would thank you, not only when things are obviously well, but also when there are a few more doubts in my mind and when things are a bit more muddled and confusing and discouraging. Please keep a song of your love on my lips throughout.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

The Ultimate Sci Fi/ Fantasy Movie Trailer

For the record, my favorite part of this trailer is the "two daughters of Eve" part. But the whole thing is very funny and well put-together.

Installment Thirty...

“When it comes to wanting what’s real
There’s no such thing as greed.”

-Over the Rhine, "I Don't Wanna Waste Your Time"

Meditation.

"We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf."

(From the sixth chapter of Hebrews.)

Dear All,

Please pray for me as I am writing.


Thank you.

Over Berlin (Grateful Tuesdays #22)

Dear Heavenly Father,

I’m so grateful that I’m human, God! Even with all its messiness, being human is such an honor and such a joy. Your word says that angels marvel at the kinds of things that I get to experience every day.

I get to experience your grace, God. That’s probably the thing the passage I have in mind is referring to the most. Your grace is marvelous, God. But I know I don’t take it in enough. I don’t really see it, see it for what it is.

I do want to marvel at your grace, God. At what you’ve done and who you are.

Thank you for the ability to feel. I’m sick right now, God, and I don’t really like being sick more than any other human being, but I’m grateful. I’m grateful to be able to feel and because if I’m sick I know I’m alive.

Alive. What a word, God. Now, that’s a word I’d like to comprehend fully. (It makes me think of U2, as do most things, I guess.)

I like the song “All Because Of You”, because it’s a song about a man joyful (and joyful is an understatement) to be alive, and he credits all of it to you. I like to see that. It feels right.

Cause you’ve done so much, God! You’ve filled this world with color and explosions of life and light! You made love and human emotion. Air and dirt and the molecules and sub-molecules (if there are such things) and atoms that go into them! You’ve filled man’s heart with song! And given us things to taste and tongues to taste them with.

You are not a stingy, brown and grey God. You delight in a life fully lived. You’ve caused me to dare to think that I won’t spend eternity hitting my head against a wall over all my mistakes but will instead rejoice in what you were able to do through me. You even encourage me to believe that one day I’ll be further along the road you have me on, the road of looking like you, than I am now. That you’ll stay faithful to me. You love me more than I’ll ever know.

Thank you for being faithful to me, God. Thank you for your faithfulness on the trip I just took to Tennessee and how you provided lots of time for me and my friend to be with each other. Thank you for what a wonderful time I had with that whole, wonderful family. And also for the other people I got to see while I was there.

God, you’re so faithful. Some things I’ve had a wrong attitude about, you’re completely turned me around on. Of course, I still need to count on you for the rest.

Thank you for your forgiveness. Over my worrying and manipulating and whatever else I do when I let my vision slip and take my eyes off of you, my loving Creator.

You love me. You love me; you love me. I long to live in your love, to live the full, sun-shining radiance of your love. Because God, I’ve been starving out in the spiritual gutter. I need your love; I fully confess that. I am completely empty without you. Even more so that I was before, I think. Because now I have totally died to my old self and have been raised in you. My identity is now found totally in you; that doesn’t leave much room for a “me” without “you”. Not that I’d even want that anyway. I want you, God. Nothing else will do. Please visit me with your self; make your home in me, I pray.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

Thinking Out Loud

Scattered Thoughts On Insecurities

Do you think the image of Christ is reflected in someone who has insecurities? Or, to phrase it a little more accurately, do you think Christ is reflected in someone's insecurities? Do those insecurities mar or make clearer the image of Christ in that believer?

Where do insecurities come from? What fosters their growth and helps them to take root in a person? in me?



Why do you think God has taken care to surround me with people who happen to be very secure in who they are?



What effect do insecurities have on a person and that person's friends?



Well, I think for me, having an insecurity in an area – say, how loved and affirmed you feel as a person – affects how I interact with people. If I'm looking to my friends to affirm who I am, I'll get upset or jealous when they do something without me. I'll feel like their desire to be with each other is a statement against me, rather than the perfectly innocent thing it is.



This then hurts me, my friends and our relationship. If I have to be included in everything my friends do... well that just gets ridiculous. And my friends are never going to be perfect at making me feel good about myself, at making me feel accepted and wanted all the time.



Yet, this is how I want to feel! I want to feel like everybody loves me. The one thing I want most is love and approval.



The funny thing is, according to how I understand my spirituality, this is how I am supposed to feel. I am supposed to look for love, approval, companionship, acceptance, a sense of belonging – all these things, outside myself. Something, someone was/is supposed to be pouring all this information into me. To be wrapping their arms around me.



I remember the Summer of '06 (my second year of counseling at Trout Creek Bible Camp) being absolutely tortured, just torn apart, by this other counselor who never did a thing to me, said nothing but anything nice to me. He just was very, very comfortable with his identity. Nothing could make him feel less than what he believed himself to be. It was absolutely infuriating.



No matter what his campers told him or how disrespectful they were to him, or what people said or teased him about (if anyone actually did tease him – I think I'm making that up), he would just let it roll off his back, laugh and jump over tables and things, since that's the kind of thing he was wont to do.



Thankfully, we are good friends now (by the grace of God). Mostly because, my next Summer back at camp, I had a different job and was a little more secure in who I was, myself. Thank God that he keeps on working on us, on me.

"Merry Christmas" from the Dorks of America!

This was for the children's Sunday school class the Sunday before Christmas. If I had been thinking, I would have put it up sooner.

Merry Christmas! Happy 2008!

The colorful version...

By George MacDonald

Thank you, Ben!