Thoughts for a Great Wednesday

The dark cloud over, or in, my head that was haunting me last week is gone, hooray!  Safely back on the other side of the doldrums, I can see clearly again and am more overwhelmed today by all the blessings surrounding me - blessings that I can usually see and appreciate - like the joyful noise of a chirping bird in the morning (seriously, this brings me such happiness on days that my mind isn't clouded), the appreciation of the beauty of a spring world awakening, a bright sun shining in the sky.  I often take for granted the many blessings that surround me - I don't see them.  But thankfully my eyes and ears have been opened.

So on to some thoughts for Wednesday....

1 - First, you have to watch this video.  It makes me so nervous just watching it - it's crazy...

2 -Second, no Lost this week, so y'all are spared my random musings....I know, I know, don't be so disappointed.  It's all good - it'll be back next week.  Then you will have to put up with my mourning after the show ends in about 4 weeks.  Tears spring to my eyes just thinking about it...

3 - I wonder what people used to do when they didn't have a way to get in touch with each other except through letters.  Explanation for that thought - Yesterday, I tried to get in touch with my brother.  I sent him two texts, a phone call, and even Facebooked him throughout the whole day, but heard nothing, at which point I started to get paranoid and immediately my head went to wondering if he's alive...has he been attacked? Did something happen to him in his apartment? Would his roommates check up on him?  Turns out he was fine - I got a Facebook message back from him, but I only got it the next morning when I turned my computer on (because I'm not like one of those cool kids who has a Facebook on their phone).  But how did people not go crazy when their brothers or sisters or kids or parents went off and were pioneers?  Did they just assume they would never see them again?  What is a brother or father was press-ganged into service in the British royal navy?  How did families survive in such uncertainty?  It definitely is a modern luxury that I take for granted, this instant accessibility of all my loved ones.

4 - There are some great and thoughtful articles permeating the interweb.  A few that I stumbled upon worth sharing...two thoughts from Donald Miller, one on confidence and faith and the other on successes and failures. 

This article is from the New York Times about the field of psychiatry and how many current psychiatrists are more quick to prescribe medication before actually listening to the problems of their clients - they only listen far and deep enough to diagnose a set of symptoms and then prescribe a set of drugs that will chemically alter the make up of their clients' brains, mixing and matching and medicating more if the symptoms don't resolve.  Hearing this admission from a doctor, a psychiatrist himself, really upsets me.  I don't have a problem with taking medications when they are truly needed to help a person.  But when it has been shown that a person listening to the patient can have the same effect as a pill, I ALWAYS want to have the option presented to me that is an alternative to drugs.  Anyway, it is an interesting article from an industry insider and well worth the time taken to read it.

Another interesting article that came out today on the evil of Powerpoint and its influence on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  I'll let Seth Godin take it from here.


And that is all for now because I realized that I ran out of time. Happy Wednesday!!

Book Review: Committed

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Elizabeth Gilbert's follow up from her beloved "Eat, Pray, Love" is a great romp through the institution of marriage. A mixture of opinion, facts, interviews, observations, historical interpretation, and memoir, "Committed" is probably not what most people expect from the woman who penned EPL. Weaving together both a personal narrative of her and her fiance's travels and ordeals with the US Immigration Service and reflections on what it means to be married, Gilbert offers an interesting look at the biggest commitment that two people can make to one another.

I enjoyed this book. I thought it was funny at times, poignant at others, and all around interesting. It has been some time since I last read "Eat, Pray, Love", so I didn't find myself disappointed with the tone, or subject matter, or the style of how the book was written - all that meaning to say, I wasn't trying to compare this book to EPL. And I'm glad that I didn't, because I think this book should be appreciated on its own feet. If EPL didn't exist, I think this book would be received as the interesting read it in fact is. It gave me lots to think about and reflect upon, and it was really interesting to read in light of all the other material that I have recently been reading about women, marriage, careers, and life.

I don't agree with everything that Gilbert says or presents as fact in the book - and I'm sorry, the history nerd in me would like a works cited page and footnotes for all the research and works cited throughout the book. The Acknowledgments section just didn't cut it for me. But then again, I am a big nerd.

But I do believe that anyone that is contemplating marriage or thinks about being married or would like to be married or is married, should take an afternoon or two and read this book. The last chapter was probably my favorite, since it was really in that chapter that I heard Gilbert's "voice" really come alive again, the way that it was in Eat, Pray, Love. All in all, a great read.

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Thoughts for a Rotten Wednesday

First of all, I probably shouldn't be posting any kind of blog post about my thoughts this week because I generally try to stay away from blogging, or Facebooking, or any kind social media communication, or really any kind of communication at all, when I am in a rotten, depressed kind of mood because people generally take it the wrong way.  And I also don't believe in expounding ALL of my thoughts and feelings in Web 2.0 form.  So suffice to say, though I am having a rotten day, augmented by rotten, dreary, rainy weather, I will not dwell on the rotten state of my being for the rest of this post, and instead focus on the few things and thoughts that have crossed my path this week that I find worth spreading the word about.

1 - The concept of hope has been something that I feel has been coming across my path for the past couple of months.  To be honest, I've never really understood what hope is about - much like I never really understood what the concept of a heart was until I was enlightened through some of John Eldredge's texts.  For someone who can have a hard time in dealing with the abstract at times, something as nebulous as "hope" has always sounded like an empty sort of optimism - like it is a tireless attempt to always be positive and always an attempt to find the silver lining in whatever circumstance you find yourself in.  But I'm learning that hope is much, much more deeper than just a half-hearted attempt to see the bright side of things.  Through various readings I've run across, this concept of hope is slowly revealing itself to me.  One reading that I want to pass along is from a dear friend, Emily Thompson.  Her latest blog post poses some great questions and thoughts about hope.

2 - I've just recently started reading Donald Miller's blog and I have to say that I'm really enjoying it so far.  He had a really interesting post today about whether not our personality influences our theology.  Check it out and leave him a comment!

3 - Lost Thoughts:  First, I think you should check out Jeff Jensen's "Countdown" post on EW.com.  It is one of his better posts and thoughts about what is going on in said Lost world.  Second, I think the Willy Wonka poem that they are using in the promos offers a clue as to what is coming in the next few weeks.  Here is the verse in total:

There’s no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going…
Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of hell a-glowing?
Is the grisly reaper mowing?
Yes, the danger must be growing…
And they’re certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing!

Isn't that great?? I think it pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about these final episodes - I have no way of knowing where we are going with this thing.  I'm just along for the ride at this point.  I have heard that some people will die before the show's end and here's my prediction for the next major death - Kate.  I don't think Ms. Austen is going to make it off the island, which sort of resolves the Kate-Sawyer-Jack love triangle, by removing the main element of the triangle.

I also don't think that Desmond is dead - I don't think Sayid shot him.  I don't think that FLocke appeared as Christian Shepherd to Jack - in fact, I don't think FLocke is any of the "ghosts" that have appeared on the show.  And I think that the real John Locke's soul is still within his body that the Man In Black is apparently inhabiting and maybe there is a war going on within his soul, a la, Stephenie Meyer's "The Host". 

4 - I hate answering the telephone.  Especially on a rotten day in which it seems to ring incessantly. (Whoops! Sorry, my rotten mood snuck in there - my apologies.)

5 - This past weekend I got to take a group of high school girls to DC.  I really had no agenda for the day, other than to go visit the National Gallery of Art, which I'm sure they were all dying to go to :).  But something that I've always heard, but honestly have rarely done, is that as part of "contact work" with high school kids, invite them along with you to something that you were planning on doing - even if it's a mundane errand like laundry.  Well I decided that I wanted to go into DC, and so invited them along, and wonders of wonders they all wanted to go!

Then the fun part started...

As we were Metro-ing into the city (and sitting in crowded trains waiting on track delays), the girls came up with a game among themselves in which if they didn't answer a question correctly, they had to ask a stranger to do something with them - like, ask 5 strangers for a high-five.  This quickly evolved throughout the course of the day from just a dare to assigning each of us with a task.  I just let the girls run with it - they were being much more creative than myself and were having a great time coming up with these tasks.  They assigned me to get a stranger to do the "Bend and Snap" with them, a la Legally Blonde.  I wasn't sure that we were actually ever going to do our assigned tasks - the girls were talking and talking about it the whole day.  But then, as we were walking on the National Mall, one of my girls took it upon herself to make her's happen, and promptly got a photo of a piggyback ride on a stranger's back.

The gauntlet was laid.  I knew that we now had to make this happen and everyone had to get in on the fun.  Please note - it is not in my personality to ask random strangers to do random things and take a picture of it.  But really the Holy Spirit must have taken over because there was an infusion of confidence and boldness that took over and helped the girls to accomplish their tasks.  It was an unexpected opportunity to lead them in something outrageous - something that only usually happens at Young Life camp.  It was so fun, really cool, and helped build a memory for these girls that we will always have.  It may not "look" like anything about Jesus was talked about, but believe me when I say, He was there.  That's probably the coolest thing about being a Young Life leader - you get to see Jesus show up in the most unlikely places and at the most unlikely times.

5 - More MuteMath love...they released a beautiful new song called "The Fight".  Check it out.




And that friends is all I have for this week.  Sorry for the rotten mood diatribe - this Thoughts for a Wednesday caught me in a funk. And so I'm taking Scarlett O'Hara's words to heart today..."After all...tomorrow is another day!" 

Good Moon Tonight

World, I am so excited and happy to spread this news...Some of my dear, dear, dear friends, Katie and Tommy Webster, have entered the world of blogging and I couldn't be more happy!!  I am personally so excited because I have encouraging/nagging them to enter the world of blogging because I believe that two such extremely wonderful and talented people should be out there spreading their ideas in the big wide world of the interweb.  They give so much of themselves to their communities and churches and are such beautiful lights in the world, that I am just so excited that other people will get to discover what I already know about them :).

Their little daughter Olive is a literal living miracle (and star of her own Hallmark card).  Tommy is a wonderfully gifted musician - which are such shallow words to describe his immense gift in music - as well as in possession of one of the most loving spirits that I know.  And Kat is not only one of the funniest people I know, but also an intentional and beautiful woman, who loves Christ and people unconditionally.  All three have such amazing gifts and, again, I can't wait to read their stories, antecedents, and ideas on life, love, and Christ.  Check them out at Good Moon Tonight!

Quick Note...

I like to update my blog list from time to time to reflect what I'm particularly interested in reading and who I find to be interesting enough to read to share their link.  But in an effort to condense, since I find A LOT of people who are interesting enough to read, I've decided that I'm going to move all fashion blog links to my blog list on my own fashion blog, Small Time Style.  So if you have a hankering for some great fashion and design ideas, hop on over and click away!