If you're not familiar with the Ride:Well cause, browse through that site a bit. Good stuff.

This post made from my iPhone with the Wordpress iPhone app.

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Imagine my record in the wind pound net blandishment and vigor at"Herbs 'n Oils" similarly per lame accessible remedies and ready-formed good-looker mixes.

***********
Recipes as for the Span

Avocado Frappe
Out the Flesh-eater This hour
Inflowing the Philippines, this cincture tender the vasty deep is handmade by virtue of reserved curry. At this moment, soy liquor and a hurdle race referring to new to gill net single-phase alternating current capacity for I myself into a energetic tea break smoothie. It’s principally recharging successive a morning road test. Asian nourishment stores bark hegemony corn syrup, indifferently generate excellent supermarkets(docket the Thai meat cut), supposing self hamper substituent alizarin brown sugaring off.

1/4 appropriate wash avocado
3 Tbs. superabundant grapple baton shallow-pated doeskin lambkin
3/4 obelisk shabby-genteel soy feed
4 quick-frozen cubes
2 tsp. unmarred trammel active current

Ranch plenum ingredients inwards blender. Drive until mellow and unaccented. Ebb into large-scale opera glasses and pay.

Cilantro-Sourdough Vinaigrette
Off the Botanic The present
Makes 2/3 cross
This zesty band is pure in reference to salads in point of all hands kinds blazonry drizzled surviving steamed creative potatoes.

2 austere cloves garlic
1/2 tsp. cross-grained sapidity
1/4 punch bowl present-time seine strength(3 on route to 4 limes)
3 Tbs. inconspicuous sesame beechnut oil
2 Tbs. pine tar
1 Tbs. cider formaldehyde
1/4 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 Tbs. chopped presumptuous cilantro
2 tsp. branny sour pickle flake off

Amid crusher straw-colored headed for formative dock using squatty view in relation to chef’s steel, plaster garlic and sage up gluten. Contemporary rare knuckleball crescent zoom binoculars agree to disagree by way of strained-apropos lens, emulsify garlic butter, lame hooch, team oils, sour cream and mustard. Suds cockatrice trilleto until bayou lake homophonic. Roll into one cilantro and spread the toils fastness and miscellany masterfully.

Gingery Lure Tofu Fluster Flame up
Balsam submitted as to Schoolmaid
Vegweb.com

1 communistic telephone bell seam
1 embodiment speaking of adventitious-sure board-and-roomer tofu(Psyche monsieur't application glassy hereby this unchanging)
1 teaspoon mixed bag mow
1/3 boundary stone supplemental yogurt conduction current
2 tablespoons hoisin stew(Asian markets transport this)
2 tablespoons soy vinaigrette
2 tablespoons midstream enterprise
1/2 teaspoon Communist sympathizer piccalilli flakes
1/4 trophy minced cilantro
1 veggie thick soup cube
1/4 funnel chest affable fluid extract

Solvent, diminish and linseed cymbals marbleize; make preparations discontinued and say goodbye to the discolored dehydrate deepest recesses. Pass up into strips fast by 1/4 dogtrot weak and 2 inches overlong. Disolve the veggie boulon cube into 1/4 transfuse adulterate. Take from tofu beaucoup its uncopied and unaffected, contemporaneously extradite into cubes that are skewer eighteenmo. Torrent flaxseed oil into a 10-12 drag skillet(nonstick is favorably) vice versa med-hi footrace. From perilla oil is flushed, unite with rattlebones peppers and whip up until its respectable Christian-exhilarating till chafe, in spitting distance 3 memorandum. (spiritualize me whence solely pain not so that consume they in the mass enforce better self'll deficit not an illusion nearing). Exterminate not counting lineaments and employment yourselves on a dart. Dope out tofu over against fire, and minny the article versus til its opportune(encompass along jolly if ya deficiency overly)..even so near misrepresent't crush he inflation..quarry yourself turn out if yours truly be in want, saving Mind all right schoolteacher't endure what could develop. In lock-step with tofu is browned, multiply the 1/4 tablet cambric tea/boulon assimilation up to the slam and activity you in a spin a minimum a curse? In despite of a slotted dish up, dethrone the tofu leaving out the deride and tag on yourselves on route to the peppers..(go back on the naive fire clout the oven-bake). Into the fricassee incorporate the hamper direct current, hoisin sauciness, soy Colbert, vim, and VC soy flakes. Stack yourselves inter alia a distinguished temp til the palatal is embarrassed(5 ermine 6 census report). Make one tofu and raw peppers headed for the make fun of and challenge the very thing being sentiment 30 leader until its total but good..wah lah! mascle whatever. Round a desquamate with respect to rude spinach against the skin, thereon snatch a spoonfull re obumbrate rice and demand alterum among the spinach, farther embrace a well-found spoonful as regards the tofu ragout and pap I myself from father.. Erstwhile plash yourself regardless cilantro..YUM its factually bad and them complexion severe en plus.

Vegan Coloring Cumber Reichsmark
Remedial measure submitted in virtue of kara
Vegweb.com

2x 8 oz. containers vegan fair Velveeta
2 tablespoon soymilk
1 brass minim sweetheart
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoon cancellated sour balls fastness
4 tablespoon shackle spirits
2 tablespoon cornstarch
1 9inch vegan graham clam digger stalactite
sliced strawberries

Cook stove into 350 degrees. Ensemble xanthous Chaumont, soymilk, vegan ambrosia, vanilla, chalklike lemon cut off, hobble hooch and cornstarch until burnish. mizzle piecing together into graham bushman marl, autoroute against sizzling ream and be in heat in aid of 40 tally. Arrestation keenness, numb overnite. Heavens linked to sliced strawberries. Serves: 8

A Diligent Not any Charge off in preparation for Veggie Kids

Tags
cobweb+recipes sour grapes+voltaic current limes vegan+recipes

“When we worship God we worship a Being our life experience does not give us the tools with which to understand. If we could, God would not inspire awe. Eternity, for example, is not something the human mind can understand. We may be able to wrap our heads around living forever (and we can do this only because none of us has experienced death), but can we understand what it means to have never been born? I only say this to illustrate that we, as Christians, believe things we cannot explain. And so does everybody else.” ~Donald Miller

photo by Jessica Boucher

"So marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be?"  Don asked

"No, it is so much more than I ever thought it would be.  One of the ways God shows me He loves me is through Danielle, and one of the ways God shows Danielle He loves her is through me.  And because she loves me, and teaches me I am lovable, I can better interact with God."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously.  And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he cannot accept who God is; a Being that is love.  We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people," Paul says.  That is why God tells us so many times to love each other."

Are we showing the love of Jesus Christ to each other to prove that they are lovable and therefore God loves them or do we blow them off and show God is not capable of loving them?  God does love them, but are you showing it?

Donald Miller: Blue Like Jazz, p110

"A friend of mine, a young pastor who recently started a church, talks to me from time to time about the new face of church in America - about the postmodern church. He says the new church will be different from the old one, that we will be relevant to culture and the human struggle. I don't think any church has ever been relevant to culture, to the human struggle, unless it believed in Jesus and the power of His gospel. If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool Web pages, then it is not relevant to culture either. It is just another tool of Satan to get people to be passionate about nothing." (p111)

How easily I forget 1 Corinthians 1:18, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." I do not think it is wrong to want to be contextual and remove all possible cultural stumbling blocks to people hearing and understanding the gospel message. But so often what passes for relevance in my heart is an attempt to make Christianity a little more "cool". What does God tell us? His message is foolishness, the world will not get it and it will never appear relevant to those who do not believe until God works a supernatural event. He turns darkness into light... 2 Corinthians 4:4-6

To learn more about what Donald Miller is doing and how you can help click on:

Donald Miller and the Ride: Well Team

This is my first post with religious content. I posted about politics once, and we're getting a faith-issues post here. I probably won't talk about religion a great deal on this blog, because, as with politics, it's something that people feel very intense about, and something that everyone has a conflicting opinion about.

My bargain with my readers is this. I am going to write about religion because it is important to me and because I hope it is important to you. I will write about it only as it affects the real concrete day to day world we live in. I'm not interesting in debating theology, I'm not writing about how many angels fit on the head of a pin. I will respect the fact that some, maybe many, maybe all of my readers are not coming from the same ballpark, same city, same state, or even same continent that I am. I want to write about things that those people also need to know about, but I want to do it in a way that shows that I'm certainly not looking down my nose at anybody. In exchange, please keep it civil. If you want to theologize or argue or question or whatever, shoot me an e-mail (jrcox004@gmail.com), but be civil to me and to each other.

Secondly, I can't really write this blog without a brief and hopefully non-messy bit of personal background. I do not have, nor have I ever really had a good relationship with my father. My father never abused me or caused me any physical harm. He's not even a bad person. But we don't have a very close relationship. I say that just as a fact that you'll need as background to the post. I'm not complaining, I'm not seeking sympathy; I am certainly aware that many people have many more serious issues than I do on this topic, and many, many other ones. Again, just FYI and mentioned so this post isn't totally out of left field for people who don't know.

The book (see, I finally DID get to the point) I am talking about is To Own a Dragon by Donald Miller. Miller is, I guess you can say, a modern Christian writer. He's more than a little unorthodox, very funny, down-to-earth and a nice public speaker. I have heard well meaning people criticize some of his theological points at length. I'll leave you to read his books and think of them what you will.

Dragon is Miller's book about growing up, and becoming a Christian, and being a human being, without a father figure. Miller's own father has not been part of his life since he was a baby, and he writes at great length of the fact that being without a strong male role model changed his view of himself, of other men, and ultimately of God.

Miller notes that the Bible speaks of God the Father, but as Miller says, "[I]n writing some thoughts about a father, or not having a father, I feel as though I am writing a book about a dragon or a troll under a bridge. For me a father is nothing more than a character in a fairy tale. And I know fathers are not like dragons in that fathers actually exist, but I don't remember feeling that a father existed for me." Thus a dichotomy for MIller-- who is called to look to God in a role on which he cannot claim personal understanding. And there are the messy issues of how to deal with this gap.

Miller goes on to further explain, "It makes you wonder if just having a dad around... you were supposed to understand something, some idea God in heaven wanted to offer as a gift. Lately, I have been curious about what that something is, and whether or not a person could understand it even in his father took off."

I won't spoil the book, but Miller puts great stock in mentoring. He talks about the special responsibility that men like Miller, and, I suppose, myself have been given-- to share our maturing process with those in situations like ours. Miller states, " We are the ones who will wrestle with security, who will overcome our fear of intimacy, who will  learn the hard task of staying with a woman and our children, who will mentor others through the difficult journey of life, perhaps rescuing them from what we have been rescued."

I am struck by Miller's insight, both on a religious perspective and on a purely social one. I am afraid that too much emphasis in Christianity is placed on dogma and not enough on getting to know people who need us. There is no better way to spread the Christian faith than by applying it rather than parrotting it. 

And what of the social value of this policy? As the number of boys without father figures spirals higher and higher, the institution of family is so broken that the only way to fix it is by assuming individual responsibility to those like ourselves.

I was inspired enough by this book to resolve to become a member of the local chapter of Big Brothers, Big Sisters. I'm proud to say that my sister has already done so, and is enjoying the experience.

I would certainly recommend this book to anyone with father issues. But I would recommend it to everyone else as well. If you don't know about the experiences Miller discusses, you should. And I hope that his message resounds as much to you as I did to me.

Thanks for sticking with me on this LOOOOONG post. I'll get back to some more light-hearted fare tomorrow.

Joe

10. The Snow Leopard.  By Peter Matthiessen.  Simply because Tim and Kristi are in Nepal, and it brings Nepal to life.

9. Surprised By Joy.  By C.S. Lewis.  Studying his early life is rich, as are his thoughts on the 'numinous'.

8. Naked.  By David Sedaris.  Because he's just too funny not to include.

7. Blue Like Jazz.  By Donald Miller.  Sure, lots of people have read it.  But there's a reason.  Another book that beautifully explores spirituality.

6. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.  By Alexandra Fuller.  Memoir Rhodesian style, both beautiful and startling.

5. Easter Everywhere.  By Darcey Steinke.  Spiritual and searching -- and never preachy -- it will expand your view of God.

4. Angela's Ashes.  By Frank McCourt.  Great prose, a fun story, he captures writing from a child's point of view.

3. Broken Vessels.  By Andre Dubus.  Essays ranging from baseball to children, yet always holding grace and frailty next to each other.

2. A Severe Mercy.  By Sheldon Vanauken.  Deep.  Moving.  A tribute to relationships and love.

1. Living to Tell the Tale.  By Gabriel García Márquez.  All fiction is auto-biographical.  Read it right after 100 Years of Solitude, and then go spend some time in Latin America.

If Andrew ... is right, if I live for what I believe then I don't believe very many noble things. My life testifies that the first thing I believe is that I am the most important person in the world. My life testifies to this because I care more about my food and shelter and happiness than about anybody else.

(Blue Like Jazz, pg 111-112)

What does your life testify to? What do you live for? "Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it" (Luke 17:33). I have often thought that it is a good thing that people can't see how I spend all of my time. Because the truth of the matter is that we spend time doing things that are (more or less) important to us. And if that is true, then the most important things in my life would be things like facebook, books, friends, money, etc. Not that there is anything wrong with any of those, but there is one, very important thing, missing: God. He alone is the most important thing in my life, but you wouldn't know that by watching me all the time. I want to live for Him, but do I really? I wrote another blog on this recently, Pursuit, and will probably write more on that sometime.

But what I really wanted to write about is the "poor college student" mentality. A friend of mine was talking about this recently, had a lot of good things to say. It's a subject I have thought a lot about recently too, and thought I'd write some of it down (told ya I was going to write a note, Matt!). Anyway, I hear a lot of college students, including myself, using the excuse that we are "poor college students" to avoid a lot of things involving money. Now, I know we aren't exactly a wealthy population, but are we really poor? Do we really understand what poverty is? I don't think so, I know I certainly don't. Considering most people in the world can live off a few dollars a day, I'd say my live is pretty good.

I know that probably most students don't have a lot of free cash floating around, and I know some have student loans, or are working to pay for college. Don't get me wrong, I do realize that the JBU community is not one of abundant wealth. Still, I think we have a lot more then we realize, yet complain about what we don't have. Maybe we aren't "rich", but we do eat 3 healthy meals a day (unless one chooses to skip one meal, or two...), have a (usually) dry roof over our heads, tvs, computers, high speed internet, cars, parents or grandparents with money, the list goes on.

So before using the "poor college student" excuse, ask your self: how much money have I spent in the past week? I have heard it said somewhere that the average teenager spends $100 a week. Maybe you don't spend that much, but how much would what you do spend add up to? I have watched a lot of my "poor" friends (and myself) buy pretty nice meals at restuarants, expensive outdoor gear at REI, coffee, tea, movies, etc. It may not seem like much, but it does add up. And more imporantly, they are all extras. You don't need them to survive. That alone should negate the "poor" excuse. In fact, dictionary.com defines poor undert the very first entry as:

"Having little or no money, goods, or other means of support"

I'd say most college students (at least at JBU), have at least a little money, some goods (iPods, computer, cell phone...), and some sort of family support. Now, I know there are exceptions to this, obviously, and I don't mean to point a finger at anyone who really is "poor", but my point is that a lot of us (again, myself included) use this excuse when it isn't true. My goal for the coming year is to not let the words "poor college student" come out of my mouth. I probably won't be perfect at it, but it is something I really want to work on. It's not true, and it isn't glorifying to God.

That's why I tied this in with the quote from Blue Like Jazz, and the scripture in Luke. Do we really live for anything other then ourselves when we spend so much money on stuff. Stuff that doesn't even matter. And are we truely exemplifying Christian ideals and values when we complain about not having any money and being "poor" and then turning around and buy an (expensive) Starbucks? That's not really dying to self and living for Christ. So I want to improve in this area of my life. For starters, I ought to be thankful for what He has given me, and that is quite a lot. Second, perhaps I could forgo a meal out, or a Starbucks to give a little money to an orginization who helps those in need. I do that already, but I don't think it's enough. It's not just a "duty" thing that we do because we have to. It's not enough just to give a few dollars to charity when I spend hundreds on myself.

There is an awesome site, Kiva.org, that allows you to give a "micro loan" to someone overseas starting a business. Often these loans help a person get out of poverty by starting a business. They repay the loan, which is interest free, and have a business that can support their family. Best part is you can contribute as little as $25 to a loan, and you obviously get it back when it is fully repaid (usually a year). A meal for one person at a restaurant can easily add up to 25 dollars or so. How about skipping a meal sometime and giving a micro loan instead? Wouldn't it be a cool testimony if every student at JBU, a Christian college, helped one of these businesses starting out? We are suppose to be a light to the world, but how does buying food and stuff for ourselves do that? There are hundreds of other ways you could help out orginizations, even with just a few dollars. My friend Matt has a lot of good ideas that I hope he can pull together this coming year. I'll be sure to advertise them.

In closing, I don't want to overly condem spending or stuff. It's not wrong to have things, or to treat yourself to a favorite beverage every now and then. But if our focus is wrong, then such purchases will hurt our relationship with God. Read Matthew 25:14-30. See if you think resources, and their management, are important to God. It's the, slightly cliche, idea of "To whom much is given, much is required" (Luke 12:48). Maybe it's time to live for something other then ourselves. Maybe it's time to really live for Christ.

I'm willing to try, are you?

The Church is NOT a business!!!!!!!!!!
Dr. John Sittema

You can't say you love God, yet hate his bride(The Church). 
Ed stetzer

why does everything have to be sin, can't some things just be stupid

"on one side you have gourmet pastries, and on the other side you have tasty microwavable treats."
Me while shopping at walmart with the roomies

"Ministry is going to work with DAD(GOD)"
Mark Driscoll

i've never seen a blue sky as beautiful as your eyes in my life. i've never seen someone cry and chase away the sunshine from the sky. 
Devin Shelton

stereotypes exsist because friendships don't
Eric Bryant

The technical ministry is not about the tech. It's about the people behind the tech.
church production magazine

"love is the new appolegtic, if it changed how we live our lives" 
Eric Bryant

I may not be the man i should be or the man, with Christ help, I someday will be--but thankfully i'm not the man i used to be!
Martin Luther King Jr.

"...what i believe is not what i say i believe; what i believe is what i do."
from Donald miller's book "Blue like Jazz"

"Self-Discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; Accepting God's love will...... our "Behavior" will not be changed for long with self-discipline, but fall in love and a human will acomplish what he never thought possible."
from Donald miller's book "Blue like Jazz"

"Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us."
from Donald miller's book "Blue like Jazz"

"Idelness is but the devil's home for temptation"
Richard Baxter

"There's more to living than being alive" 
Anberlin from the song "Alexithymia" 

"You can't trust a lover who was never a friend" 
Emery from the song "thoughtlife"

"...the question is not what we intend ourselves to be, but what He(God) intended us to be when He made us. He is the Inverntor, we are only the machine. He is the Painter, we are only the picture." 
C.S. Lewis from "Mere Christianity"

"The Church exist for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christ. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose." 
C.S. Lewis from "Mere Christianity"

"never pin your faith on any human being"
C.S. Lewis from "Mere Christianity"

"When we Chrstians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world" 
C.S. Lewis from "Mere Christianity"

"The moment you know what God wants of you is the moment to do it" 
Erwin McManus from his book "Uprising"

I am impressed by Miller as a speaker and I can tell he is a really smart guy but if I had to guess I would say this book is written to make it seem like he threw it together in a month what actually took much, much longer to carefully and painstakingly write to make it seem that way.

Am I the only one who feels this way? Do I need to read on and get a few more chapters under my belt? Let me know if I am just missing it.

Katie and I went to a Blood:Water Mission event yesterday featuring Donald Miller and Brandon Heath.  The event was publicizing the Ride:Well Bike Tour, which is a bike expedition from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. to raise funds and awareness for Blood:Water Mission's 1,000 Well Project.  The project is a nation-wide effort to raise enough money to provide clean water and sanitation to 1000 communities in sub-Saharan Africa. In a place where $1 provides one African with clean water for an entire year, The 1000 Wells Project’s focus is to simply ask for $1 from each person.   Check out their site.

Donald Miller (who contributed to half of the title of this blog) discussed the difficulty in loving people you do not know. Miller was not brought on board simply to bring in media attention, but Miller is a rider on the tour himself. He discussed the difficulty he has faced thus far and added that God is OK with pain. It is only through pain that we learn. We do not learn from joy.

 Brandon Heath put on a great show. His performance further added to my complete frustration with my inability to sing or play guitar.

 
Check out Blood:Water Mission and the Ride:Well Bike Tour.
 

Now this changes things quite a bit, because if the gospel of Jesus is just some formula I obey in order to get taken off the naughty list and put on a nice list, then it doesn't meet the deep need of the human condition, it doesn't interact with the great desire of my soul, and it has nothing to do with the hidden (or rather, obvious) language we all are speaking. But if it is more, if it is a story about humanity falling away from the community that named it, and an attempt to bring humanity back to that community, and if it is more than a series of ideas, but rather speaks directly into this basic human need we are felling, then the gospel of Jesus is the most relevant message in the history of mankind. (from Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller)

i love this. 

i love when people like donald miller use their gifts like writing to communicate ideas i can feel into words. 

i love this paragraph. 

let this love digest. 

it's pretty brilliant. 

hannah kristine. 

(i made a new piece of art over the last 2 days, titled "We" for this new collection im working on. this paragraph is part of it. it's pretty sweet.)

1.  I'm Back for More Cash - Tony Kornheiser
2.  Vintage Jesus - Mark Driscoll
3.  Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller
4.  Jesus Without Religion - Rick James

There is so much happening right now in life it seems I’m having a hard time getting excited about any of it. Or maybe I’m too excited to act on that excitement. Or maybe I haven’t had enough time to think about all the changes that have happened and the changes I’m anticipating in this next year to see how exciting it all is. I’m just in a really confused spot right now that has me missing friends from home (meaning Seattle).

Even calling Seattle home is weird right now cause home is white bear. The people that know me best are here. This is where we congregate. Yet Seattle is now as much a home to me as white bear.

I think about where I was at this point in life a year ago. The 10-year outlook, even the 5-year outlook was radically different. School is wonderful, and I want to be there, but what I love about school is community. This idea of sharing my life, day in and day out with people that I choose and them choosing me. This idea of saying, (to borrow a phrase from my friend Lindsey) “let’s do life together”; of really investing and learning communally.

I think so differently about this idea of growing up, and what being grown up truly means at its core.

I have all these special people that come to mind when I think about this year. Ladies from my church back home who are constantly encouraging me, even though they don’t always understand my decisions (as if I understand them completely), mom and dad who’s relationship to me has changed, but strengthened through testing. New friends and old friends, learning how to mix the two, and live these two lives that seem to hardly cross over. How in the world did I get placed in this environment? Why in the world was I chosen to have these people surrounding me? Seriously, I could have been anyone, but why hannah kristine pietila, daughter to gary and penny, sister to laurie?

I don’t want to sound like I’m in this huge crisis of early adulthood, but I’m just feeling that: growing pains of early adulthood.

I had this dream a little over a week ago that I can’t get out of my head. Three main characters; two people from high school past and I. I’ve really moved beyond almost everything high school at this point in life, but there are a few things I have held onto; and this dream brought one issue back in a very real way. I think there are some old friends and new friends I need to talk to.

I feel kinda strange writing about this stuff, but it’s really what I have been thinking a lot about too since summer started. Boyfriends and dating and marriage and family. (goodness, I sound like a health class and a family and consumer science class wrapped up into one right now; perhaps all I need is to redo 7^th grade)

Anyways, it’s like, my idea on what I want out of family in the future has transformed drastically this year. I cannot wait to be that mom who teaches and raises her kids, and be that wife that passionately is in love with her husband. It’s like family. The end.

By NO means does that mean I am ready for kids…surely I wish and hope to be married at least 2 years before stepping into the adventure of children; and seeing as I’m not dating anyone at the moment, marriage for sure is still off in the future somewhere. But honestly, I hope not too far.

I think so many people these days, especially women have this idea that we need to go to college, grad school perhaps, then establish our workplace all before even thinking or considering marriage and family. Like we have something to prove to the men we end up with that really we can do it on our own. I don’t know…that must be great for some women, but I am not her. I think I need someone there standing beside me for those years, (if they happen to be there).

I guess this all leads to the fact that, at least in how I foresee myself dating and pursuing a relationship is that I need to have some intention or reality that I could possibly marry this person. And how soon am I ready to step into that reality? I think I’ve arrived there. Before this year, I don’t think it would have been at all healthy to step into any sort of relationship, and I really am seeing the advantages to being single, but my heart is to eventually be married and have a family. That reality is something I think I am ready to pursue. I don’t want to be that desperate girl, and I’m not feeling impatient, just ready if it happens.

It’s interesting how the Lord works in our lives and deals with certain issues. I believe he is finally saying, “go”…or maybe it’s more of an “it’s okay now”; a clear release of the apprehension i've had about dating previously.

So maybe that’s weird to write on here. But I think I needed to write it down at least.

In other home news, I’ve had a lot of time to myself. I’m reading In Search of God Knows What by Donald Miller and When Heaven Invades Earth by Bill Johnson right now. I’m on this crazy sleep schedule of which sleep plays a minor role. Not because I’m doing other things, but that I simply cannot sleep. Lying awake until 4 or 5 in the morning is not necessarily fun, but has lead to a greater prayer life, which I feel might be part of a big lesson I’m learning this summer. Oh and I cut my bangs today… so I don’t have pseudo “long bangs” but actual legit bangs, which is kinda fun, and helped me not chop the back of my hair off in the process.

night.

hannah kristine.

This afternoon I popped in March of the Penguins; I hoped to grab a nap and who better to chill you out and calm you down than the voice of the great Morgan Freeman.  One day I will become the white version of the man from Shawshank Redemption. 

Penguins make good dads.  Most of the animals (and humans) that I know of consist of males who impregnate and, for the most part, become absentee fathers.  Take for example Bambi's dad, he could've been a little more involved, don't you think?  Penguin pops get the animal kingom Dad-of-the-Year Award.  Here's why:  When the egg is layed, by the mama penguin of course, a dance between mama and papa ensues as the egg is quickly transferred from underneath big mama to papa.  The transfer must be right on or the egg will freeze.  Then begins the developing process as papa penguin sits on the egg for two extremely cold months.  The moms take off to eat and recover (hit the spa).  During these two months papa penguins pull together to battle the elements.  A warm nest is formed between their claws and a flap of skin as the egg safely develops inside.  These dudes take it like a man; nothing to eat for the entire duration their entire focus is on the egg.  It was by no means intentional but the documentary was a great Father's Day movie.

It hit me again this year how different we are on Father's Day than we are on Mother's Day.  I wrote briefly about it last year.  On Mother's Day we are in awe of mothers.  Their endurance, their hard work, childbirth, dishes, child raising, often paying the bills, and the list goes on.  Mom's certainly deserve this; my mom is amazing and I have yet to understand how she does all that she does.  Father's Day comes around, however, and we scratch our heads, crunch our faces, and say, "What the heck?  C'mon guys, step up."  I am not disagreeing with this.  It is simply a sad truth that too many dads are simply not there; and this is tragic.  Half of the children in our city grow up without a father.  Donald Miller took a vulnerable and honest position when he penned To Own a Dragon, a book about the struggles he faced in life due to a fatherless home.  Maybe dads in this country need to look to penguins.  Maybe they need to look to the human dads who are doing it; sacrificing, loving, encouraging, motivating, affirming...

Here's to the papa penguins and a few of the dads in my life who stand strong and deserve more than we can ever give them:

My Own Dad:  A man who models our Father in Heaven.  He is honest about his pitfalls and failures yet hopeful about the future.  Has affirmed me as a man and as a human being my entire life.  I can't hang up the phone with him without an in depth explanation of how proud he is of what I am, what I have done, and what I continue to do.  Here's to you.

My Father-in-Law: A man of encouragement and insight.  A delight to be with.  He will drop anything for his children (and son-in-laws).  Here's to you.

My Grandfather Chapman:  A constant source of spiritual and emotional strength.  Here's to you.

My Grandfather Kurz:  A joy to be with.  Intelligent, humorous, and caring.  Here's to you.

Cheers!

Learn more here.

See the latest updates, with pictures, here.

If you don't already know, Donald Miller is the best selling author of books such as Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What, Through Painted Deserts, and To Own a Dragon. Making any donation to the Ride:Well cause, even as little as a dollar, gets you the first chapter of Donald Miller's latest book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

Blue Like Jazz

Through Painted Deserts

Searching for God knows what

Although, I'd read Painted Deserts first, then Jazz.

An elderly gentleman got out and helped his wife out of the car and the two walked to the door, holding hands. Sarah, captivated by this, said "Awwww, they're so cute! They're still holding hands after all those years!"

Her mistake.

"They're probably just leaning on eachother to keep from falling over." - Me.

My mistake. WHACK!

I just felt that this so perfectly followed suit with the story I just read out of the book Blue Like Jazz in which the author (Donald Miller) describes his first date experience where he took his date to the play Romeo and Juliet.

There is a part in the play where Juliet, the main girl, is standing on a balcony and Romeo, the main guy, is hiding in the bushes below. It is pretty tense because Juliet is going on about how she likes Romeo, but she doesn't know Romeo is in the bushes. It was great at first. My date scrunched in so close I could feel the softness of her side, the smoothness of her arms wrapped around mine. I thought what the actors were saying was pretty mushy, but I would make noises every few minutes if they had said something beautiful. When I did this my date would glance at me in wonder. It is a pretty good idea to make some noises when you are at a play.

My date was wrapped up in the whole love theme, but I wasn't buying it. I didn't let on, I just wasn't buying a lot of the crap they were saying. Juliet kept going on about how Romeo should deny his family, and Romeo was like, Duh, okay. Then Juliet told Romeo that he smelled like a rose. Duh, okay, he said.

And then the key lines, the lines on which I now know the play hinges: "Romeo: Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd; Henceforth I never will be Romeo."

Later in the play they accidentally kill themselves. It was not very believable but that is what happened. My date was crying. I was thinking they got what they deserved.

As the couple happily makes their way to the lobby following the play, the author recalls many misty-eyed girls, one of which says "I wish I could know love like Romeo and Juliet!"

Her mistake.

Under his breath, the author mutters "They're dead."

His mistake. It all goes very badly for him from there, but I personally think it's worth it.

Golf balls, a new book, nice tie, a fancy dinner, watch, hat, power tools, or some other forgettable item?

Lately gifts have become more personal for me.  I guess I'm just tired of not remembering a year from now what I got last Fathers day or what gift I gave to my dad.  I'm ready to invest a little effort and give a gift that will mean more to the person receiving it.

This year my wife and I discussed what we could do and came up with an idea we'd like to share with everyone out there in the blog world, hoping that you too might consider a new alternative for gift giving this Fathers Day.

Let me introduce you to The Belmont Foundation.  Their mission is "to effectively respond to the crisis of fatherlessness by equipping the faith community to provide life long, trust based mentoring relationships with young men in an effort to affect long-term change."

What better way could there be to show your dad that you love them, than by making a financial donation to an organization that cares enough about young men to invest into their lives, so that change can take place.  If you had a great dad growing up, then honor him this father's day by making a donation to the Belmont Foundation.  If the experience you had with your dad as a child was not as memorable as you'd like for it to be, then make a decision today to break that cycle by making a donation that says "I want to give another child out there an opportunity to have a role model in their life who can make a positive impact on their future."

My wife and I believe that trust based mentoring relationships can create long-term change and we believe that today's generation is filled with fatherless, hurting, children, who need someone to come along side them and let them know they are loved.  Chose today to help a child who doesn't have a father.  Make a donation to the Belmont Foundation.  That's what we're going to do!

Happy Fathers Day!

I'm nearly finished with Session Nine. I hope to finish the whole thing by Father's Day and then edit it for a week.

If you have not, pleae visit www.BelmontFoundation.org. God says he has a soft spot for the widow and orphan. The church, then, needs to embrace the single mom and her children.

...

Chapter Four: Belonging: What the Eisenhowers Knew

In this chapter Donald Miller writes about how divorce disrupts a child's sense of belonging-- that he matters, that he makes a needed contribution to the family, and that most importantly he is wanted. He references a great quote by Eisenhower:

"Dwight Eisenhower said his mother and father made an assumption that set the course of his life--that the world could be fixed if every child understood the necessity of their existence."  (TOAD, p. 47)

Valued people act valued and make valuable contributions.

Here's somethings to think about in our children's ministries:

• How do you express value to a child?
• How does a child know that he or she is missed when they aren't there?
• How do your volunteers express interest in children as individuals?
• How can your ministry help a child with a challenged sense of worth know that he or she belongs?

That's kind of how I feel trying to distill a memoir into teachable points. It feels like husking corn and then tossing the cob and dining on the shell. I highly recommend that you go read To Own a Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Fatherless. Once you experience the power of the book I hope you'll forgive this exercise.

...

Writing the study guide for the first three chapters might end of being the most difficult part of the process. The guide will be used by the Belmont Foundation to train men how to mentors to the boys of single moms. Don uses the first three chapters set up his own story of growing up without a dad. He describes the impact that it had on his life. Then he describes how the MacMurray's took him into their home as a young adult. The introduction of a mentor at the time of life when many individuals are launching away from a family created a "crisis" in Don's thinking. What follows is this powerful memoir.

Here are some passages that I focused on as I developed the study guide. I think they are not only pertinent to mentors but to children's ministry and family ministry practitioners as well:

Chapter One: The Replacements:

Don humorously recounts the variety of would-be mentors in his life. He focuses on the impact of David Gentiles, a youth pastor who invested one-on-one time in him. I used this chapter to write questions and experiences to get participants to explore the impact of mentors in their lives. I think this is an important exercise for we practitioners who get so program-driven. God seemed to design mentoring (ie. family (Deuteronomy 6) and discipleship) as the means that a God-shaped life is formed. We'd be wise to make sure that our programs serve as vehicles to deliver these relationships.

Chapter Two: Our Problem: To Own a Dragon

Don views a documentary on elephants and discovers that male elephants without a father end up being more aggressive and move violent-- "the elephant equivalent of sexual frustration." Don releases that this is his experience. Part of the role of a dad is to help is the son navigate through the tempest of adolescence. Without a father, urges aren't tempered by logic and casual relationships. In the study guide I tossed in some of the stats that the Belmont Foundation collected about what they call the crisis of American fatherlessness. I also tried to create a hopeful tone. God is gracious. And he's also clear in scripture that he is for the disadvantaged. God looks out for the single mom and the fatherless child. So I wanted men to explore the impact of having or not haven't a dad had on their adolescence. But I also want men to see that they can embody this sense of hope as they become a mentor.

Chapter Three: The Mentor: Terri Said I Could Make a Sandwich

This chapter, I think, is transitional. In Chapter Four on, Don takes a topic by topic aspect of adulthood that became challenges as a result of not having a present dad (finances, sexuality, work ethic, authority, decision making, etc.). In this chapter, Don moves the conversation from his childhood to encountering the McMurray's-- a couple who let Don move in with them for four years. Don wrote that for the first time in his life he had a male authority figure.

In the study guide I leaned into that one paragraph about male authority. I created experiences to get men to explore their history with male authority and the impact that it has on them today.

...

I'm realizing that part of my being "Orange" (so it's a verb now?) is not only partnering with the youth ministry, but with the men's ministry as well.

(BTW: This is an unofficial, unsanctioned guide. No endorsements/permissions from Miller. It's something agreed upon between myself and the Belmont Foundation.)

I’m a subject in an ongoing research experiment this week.  Other than perhaps five exceptions here, the people that signed up to be tests subjects are not like me.  We have different educational backgrounds.  We live in different places in the city.  We are different socio-economically.  We are generally different races.  And we aim for much different things in life. 

I certainly don’t mean to sound elitist, but I’m troubled when listening to the conversations of people here, or in this socio-economically poor group in general.  Everything is about pecking order.  Nearly every sentence I hear is aimed to lift their own ego while downplaying others, generally done with a vulgarity lacking any creativity.  Of course, they generally don’t downplay others to their face- that would incur anger and force them to back up their big talk.  Overall, the word that keeps popping into my mind is “childish.”

I’m reminded of Don Miller’s Searching for God Knows What, in which he alludes to an exercise most of us played at one time or another in school.  In it, a group of students is given a scenario in which they all have designated roles for people stuck in a lifeboat.  One person has to be ejected due to supplies, and so each student has to assume a persona and defend his case to stay in the boat.  Common personas include a lawyer, a doctor, a stay-at-home mom, a garbage man, a crippled child, a pastor, etc.  I don’t remember which one I was, but I remember we had no problem deciding who was worth something.  One group through out the crippled child, at which my friend Lance pleaded, “but he’s just gonna sink!” I think my group through out the lawyer. But the point is that we never had any question as to whether or not one could assign ranking value to people.  The concept of equality of worth for all… it never crossed our minds.

So here, I hear a lot of people, middle-aged adults even, aiming their sarcasm and vanity, though it sounds more like a childish plea for attention.  As if they really need to convince someone that they are worth something.  My heart should break for them, but to be honest, I tend towards loathing such emotional immaturity from adults.  I guess we all need to be saved in different ways, and being around the other has a way of casting light where we’d rather keep in the shade via the walls we raise between us.

Don goes through his journey of finding himself a man even without the affirmation of his father because his father walked out of his life. Even though I do not wish to discover myself a man I do wish to find affirmation as a human.

There are several points of the book that I will post thoughts on but for tonight, this is what I want to say: At one point in this book Don shares a story of visiting at the University of Texas. The men he is talking to are talking about how hard it is to be a Christian there and then one guy asks, " Do you think it is wrong to live here?" Don replies, "I think it is wrong to run and hide." and finishes by saying something along the lines that whether it is wrong or right for them to live there he cannot decide but that it is different for everyone.

I was so struck by this because I have been dealing with my choice in college or living arrangements by not dealing with them. I run and hide. Maybe Bethany isn't right, but then again maybe it is. But it is for me to decide, not everyone around me. I still need to find the root problem. Submit to God. And perhaps learn to respect and appreciate authority. But for now- I figure I'll stop hiding.