TAKE A RISK…Life is a VAPOR.

"Death is the ultimate statistic…1 out of 1 will die."
George Bernard Shaw

"Choice: that was the thing."

   "He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day.  Choice: that was the thing."  ~Sherman Alexie

from "The Toughest Indian in the World" by Sherman Alexie

My Part

My part is to run toward Him! My part is to open my heart to Him. My part is to surrender all to Him... But He will never disappoint! In the end I stand in wide open spaces... "SAVED and surprised to be loved"!!!#lovesogreatitssuprising #surrender #JesusIs - 2 Sam. 22
~Lysen Storaasli

The S's of Leadership

"The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly." - Jim Rohn

Love isn't perfect.

Choices

"We don't pick who we fall in love with, and it never happens like it should." - No Strings Attached

Let's not make this a "what does God want from me" kind of decision. God's most likely looking back at you asking the same question. What's in your heart, what would most light you up, what would make you most satisfied and fulfilled at the end of the day? - Don Miller

Knowing People

http://www.bradhambrick.com/racial-prejudice-gender-stereotypes-personality-types-and-love-languages/

RACIAL PREJUDICE, GENDER STEREOTYPES, PERSONALITY TYPES, AND LOVE LANGUAGES

by BRAD on JULY 10, 2013 in COUNSELING REFLECTION with 1 COMMENT

These four things would seemingly come to two sets of pairs: (1) racial prejudice and gender stereotypes, then (2) personality types and love languages. Whatever dangers may exist with the misuse of personality types and love languages does not compare to the damage that has been done by racial prejudice and gender stereotypes.

However, I believe the cultural awareness that continues to grow about prejudice and stereotypes can help us see more clearly a common misuse of materials like personality tests and love languages (which, for the record, I am not saying are bad). In this post, I want to try to draw three parallels that I believe are instructive.

1.Each of these is a way of trying to make complex things simple.

From the earliest parts of our education we are taught to make complex things simple by reducing them to categories. This is helpful teaching a child to clean their room (trucks in one drawer; blocks in another). It is also helpful in scientific efforts like dividing the different family, genus, and species of different living things in a biology class.

In relationships and with people, this is often more detrimental than helpful. We use many simple labels for complex things that skew our ability to have meaningful conversations: White, Black, Asian, Latino, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Northerner, Southerner, Hippie, Extrovert, Introvert, Type A, Depressive, Addict, Bipolar, etc…; which leads to the next point.

2.Each of these miss the person for the category… especially when over relied upon

We think we know someone because of the category they fit in; we confuse knowing something about them for really knowing them. I am a white, Southern, pastor, counselor, rural-born male who now lives in the suburbs of a major city. Do you know me? I hope, culturally, we are getting past the point where the answer would be yes.

But what if I told you I am a Type A, introvert, compulsively structured, detail-oriented, phlegmatic, who prefers quality time to receiving gifts and physical touch to acts of service, and highly values achievement so I am more given to anxiety than depression. Do you know me now?

We are more prone to say yes. But I have told you nothing (at least in this blog) of my wife, two boys, upbringing, hobbies, sense of humor, life dreams, shaping life events, health, religious beliefs, or many other things that would come with being “friends.” The things I have told you would probably not be the things that would determine whether we could be good friends. Yet we live in a day when a test that measures these traits would be believed to tell us whether we’re compatible.

3.  The greater our confidence in any of these, the greater their danger

The more weight we give to things like personality tests and love languages (I choose those two simply because they’re most prominent), the less we hold ourselves responsible to ask good questions, listen to answers, value our differences, and build relationships around mutual sacrifice. Instead we insist people “accept us for who we are” and that they “meet our needs.”

Personally, I believe we can learn a great deal from personality tests and that we should learn how people close to us most naturally receive love. You can know a good deal about me from the things listed in the first two paragraphs of point two.

My concern is that these become short-cuts to getting to know and continuing to learn about people. When that happens, these useful tools become a form of relational laziness that will harm our relationships. It is not the harm of segregation or the suppression of women.

But it is the harm of marriages ending in divorce, children growing up without parents, and strained friendships because we thought a stereotype, personality trait, or love language could tell us and produce what only comes from getting to know a person and investing in a relationship. May we take the same time to get to know someone as a person who happens to have the traits of a particular temperament as we should getting to know a person who happens to come from a particular ethnic background.

“I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God, than in church thinking about the mountains.”
— John Muir

5 Signs You're on the Hero's Journey

http://www.rebellesociety.com/2013/08/15/5-signs-youre-on-the-heros-journey/

5 Signs You're on the Hero's Journey

Alison Nappi, August 15, 2013

“The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It’s usually a cycle, a coming and a returning.” ~ Joseph Campbell

You won’t feel ready for it when it comes. No one does.

Castor doesn’t train heroes anymore. No, your call will come when you are folding the laundry, punching the time clock, sitting at your desk with stacks of paper in neat and organized piles. One day, when you are writing checks, the wind will blow through you, and you will wonder where that chill came from as you notice your windows are so safely shut, and the room is a comfortable seventy-five degrees. This is your warning.
For those among us who are prone to leaping off bridges just to feel the thrill of falling, your call may not feel like a call at all.
You might meet a tall dark stranger who extends to you a harmless invitation and find yourself suddenly hurdling through space- gleefully- while cosmic dragons hurl fire that whizzes past your ear, singeing your hair and giant spiders weave nets all around. Be careful out there.
Your call to adventure may come as a shriek in the stillness of the night while you lie awake ruminating about the rising waters, the secrets you keep, the way your lover turns away from you after sex. Or it might come as haunting and melodious pipe music you can only almost hear, being played by a nymph in the wild places of your dreamscape.
Your call might be a regal horn blown by the breath of a great angel through a million tree branches scraping against your window. Finally, if you’re truly destined for greatness, your call may not arrive until the skies catch fire, and set ablaze all the small comforts you’ve so meticulously collected, turning the house you were raised in to ash.
No matter how your call comes, it is the trumpet of your destiny. You will say that you have more important things to do: you are raising children, punching the clock, planning a vacation to escape from an oppressive life.
You will protest to the messenger. You will say he has confused you with someone else, that you’ve not a heroic bone in your whole body, that your Honda, your atrium, your sensible beige walls are who you really are- what you see is what you get- and you simply cannot accept his invitation right now. You’re too young. You’re too old. You’re not financially ready. You’re not emotionally ready. You’re blind. You’re deaf.

“But the makers of legend have seldom rested content to regard the world’s great heroes as mere human beings who broke past the horizons that limited their fellows and returned such boons as any man with equal faith and courage might have found…. The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” ~Joseph Campbell

It’s already too late. When you are called, no refusal, no denial, no sputtering rejection can stop it from beginning, so don’t go back to sleep.

1. The calling itself is your qualification.

 “The real work of our lives is to become aware. And awakened. To answer the call.” ~Oprah Winfrey

You don’t feel qualified? Good. Neither does anyone else. In the ass-backward and meaningless world created by our collective insanity, you must qualify. You must qualify to be permitted to work, to be housed, to have status as a human being. If you are bat-shit crazy and poor, you are diagnosed with a thought-crime from the big book of The Healthy State’s Conformity Manual (fake book title- you know the one).
If you’re crazy- and you find a way to monetize it- you’re eccentric and brilliant, a sharp and creative mind (relative to the growth and return on your bank account, that is).
How strange, to give so much power away in a world that measures the value of a human life with numbers in a vast virtual databank. What is your life worth? Do the numbers add up?
Are you qualified to receive the right to live with dignity and purpose? Do you qualify for healthcare? A safe home in which to raise your child? Food? This is a system that we collectively- and literally- just made up. It is insane. It is meaningless. Only our agreement allows it to exist at all.
Underneath all your concessions, your hold-outs, your hold-ins, your thrashing, your frozenness lies something original, unique and profoundly real, truly alive, bursting with creative ecstasy.
If you have done everything right-or even if you haven’t- and you don’t know why it feels hollow, how you’ve become so tame, so stiff and gray and boring, like the color has been squeezed out of you,  then your call has come right on time. Pick up. The phone. Fate knows you’re home. Don’t make her blow a tornado through your living room to get your attention.

2. Your life begins taking on magical or supernatural qualities.

“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell others.” ~Mary Oliver

Once you have been called it is not so far-fetched that you would begin to experience unusual phenomena. After all, you do not yet know what you are called to- what you will become could not be explained to you because it is not in your frame of reference.
Can you imagine a color that does not exist?
Even as you take your very first step, you are blind. It seems unfair to be asked to walk a path that you cannot see, but in exchange for your lack of sight, you shall be awarded vision. You will see with the eyes in your hands as you feel your way forward. You will peer into worlds that lay upon the dust under your physical feet; you will see the greater focus of existence and you will learn to let go your attachment to appearances.
With any luck at all, it will start small: a glimmer out of the corner of your eye, a strange encounter with an old woman who says the oddest thing you’d ever heard, the sense that you are not alone in an empty room. You will wish to brush these off as tricks of your clever mind, but failure to heed the secret knowledge of your gut will only result in more powerful demonstrations designed to dash the illusions under which you live to pieces.
If you think the chill rolling down your spine in the silence is eerie, just dare to ignore it.
If you insist on physical demonstration it will come, but great risks you take with this demand, whose form you cannot control. Do you really think you are ready to kneel before an apparition as solid in your perception as your own flesh? Do you really believe that you could withstand the light of your own being without being shattered to your humanity? Would you become a prophet or an empty shell housed in the nearest nuthouse?
You cannot answer these questions. You are too fragmented as yet to know what you are. We all are. If you do not think you are shattered, then you do not yet know even the most basic thing about your human condition. When finally you see yourself break, which may not become evident to you without great loss, only then have you begun to see what has happened to you in your sleep. This is the first hint to the true purpose of your journey.

3. You begin to lose your grip.

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another, unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present.” ~Anais Nin

So tightly clenched have been your fists around what is left of your old life- of the pre-called self- that your fingertips have turned white, the joints in your knuckles ache, the ragged edges of your nails draw blood in half-moon shapes from the meaty bases of your palms.
Your old reality is now called into question. What was solid and true begins to warp and fade. The bedrock on which you built yourself is turning to dust beneath your feet, the walls on which you have hung photos of your dearest memories turn to ash before your eyes.
At every threshold you lose something: your shoe, your watch, your favorite negligée. Yesterday you needed these things; today the Universe teaches you that you don’t. You’re in a perpetual state of grief and wonder. In every mirror you will see yet another of your many faces.  The days of being two-faced have ended as you discover, slowly, that you are everything that has ever been.
What a great and terrible responsibility that falls upon the awakening human. Ever more weary as you tread, you cannot return for you have lost your way in the vastness of yourself now.
Time, you find, moves in every direction. The alarm clock still rings, you still drink coffee, your body still sits in traffic, but your spirit is stretched across eternity. Everything looks the same, and yet, not at all.
Your skin becomes increasingly uncomfortable as you try to contain all that you are. You find you cannot stuff anymore in, and so now you must begin to sort through the storage of your eternal self and cast out what no longer seems valuable, what no longer seems true, what no longer seems real.
You no longer look with your eyes, but with your inner sight. You see all the world, all its devious systems, the way it lulls, the way it oppresses, the way it is designed against all truth. You have fallen for so many deceits. You can no longer trust anything you once knew.  You begin to realize that this quest will claim your life, and one blink later…

4. The Abyss has taken hold.

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” ~Joseph Campbell

Lost and empty, there is no longer a road, only darkness all around. It breathes, it hisses and all lights go out. You no longer exist, and yet you are in pain. All but catatonic, you lie there in your sweat, your tears, in the blood spilling from your broken and hopeless heart.
You believe in nothing, in no one. You are sure your end is upon you; you wish for it to come swiftly and terribly.  You can do nothing but wait for your heart to stop beating, and out of this long dark night, a distant, golden glimmer, and harp music calls you through the boundaries of worlds.
Finally, you’ve broken. Finally, all your defenses have been defeated. Finally, you have no choice but to see that all you have clung to is meaningless, that it could not save you. Finally, you have surrendered to the void.

“When there’s no sign of hope in the desert, so much hope still lives inside despair. Heart, don’t kill that hope…” ~Rumi

You die.
You dream.
So many sights from a life now over: streamers and cupcakes, past due notices and pink slips, campfires and moonlight. Here, in the nothing you face your fears, no longer formless they rise as phantoms in the dark.
War weary, fightless, you watch them hang you and light you on fire, drag you through the dust by a rope around your neck on horseback, throw you from bridges, chop your head off on dusty cobblestone streets. You hear yourself screaming, through the long hallways of time. You hear yourself wailing from a cavern on the ocean floor. Your spirit has carried this pain since the first time you took form. You are sharing the womb with thousands of selves, frozen in the traumas of ages in human time.
You begin to realize what you have done. You begin to realize that your cleverness is not so clever after all. You start to see that your mis-creations never die, not even when you do. You see that you have forgotten, but your creations never did; they cannot. They are bound to you and you are bound by the laws you made for them.
You are ready now, to accept your undoing. You are ready to become a stem cell again. Formless. Helpless. You might become anything: a liver, a heart, a uterine lining. A star, a queen, a priestess. You’ve lost your will. You await instruction from the vast dark womb of the Mother.

5. You are ready to accept your transformation.

“The deep parts of my life pour onward, as if the river shores were opening out. I feel closer to what language can’t reach. With my senses, as with birds, I climb into the windy heaven… in the ponds broken off from the sky. . .” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The cacophony of all worlds falls silent as you cross the bridge, the only direction you can now go. Behind you there is no life. It’s funny how you glide now, swimming through the etheric soup, no longer hindered by your clumsy body, loaded down with heavy, dented armor, or bags of worthless trinkets from a world that no longer exists for you.
It is dark in the womb, but it is peaceful. You have made it to the temple. You lost everything along the way, even your identity, which no longer hinges on what you do for money, what you do for specific individuals, what kind of car you drive.
You are utterly empty and without will,  you have come to realize that you cannot know what to be next and have finally let yourself go into the arms of the Great Mother, whose embrace is a soft golden cocoon where your emaciated self can finish safely disintegrating.
The caterpillar cannot imagine what it is to be a butterfly. The sperm cannot imagine what it is to be a human. And ever so slowly, you are being rebuilt. You are being made new.
You are going to be birthed one day, into a world you cannot yet fathom, into a life you did not know was possible. Where you have come from will seem like a dream, and your slate will be wiped clean by the hand of She who created you.
Though the home you now live in seems to get increasingly cramped and tight as you grow, you also have been given new ears and eyes, new limbs, a fresh and open heart, innocence. You can sense the excitement as you float, you can feel that a new dawn is now close.
You can hear their voices now, the voices of those who you are coming to save, to heal, to love into newness. You can hear them speak of you as the royalty whose arrival they eagerly await.
It takes some effort- the labor- it is uncomfortable and your new muscles, new lungs, new eyes work hard to adjust you as you squeeze through the same bridge you crossed as a tiny speck of pure potential all those long months ago, so you can emerge atoned, and blazing with soul.

“Everything changes when you start to emit your own frequency rather than absorbing the frequencies around you, when you start imprinting your intent on the universe rather than receiving an imprint from existence.” ~Barbara Marciniak

You are no longer a slave, but a true and compassionate servant. You have no needs, only desires that burst into being by the power of the divine will you now are.
Your body, your brain, your singing heart exist only to embody God, as you, in a world that once seemed so scary, so dark, so dangerous. The dark armies are now like ant colonies.
They climb over your your big toe on their way to feed on the crumbs left behind by picnicking families, but they cannot see you, let alone harm you. Now, the dark cities where you were chased by monsters are the playground of creativity, mercy, joy, peace and happiness. Miracles are ordinary occurrences, and you give them away freely to everyone you meet. Your breath raises crystal cities, and your heart beat is the rhythm of the music that holds the universe together.

You are home again.
Then, the phone rings.
Pick it up.

Beauty

"things are beautiful if you love them" - jean anouilh

Don't Hesitate

"If you are ever inclined to pray for a missionary, do it at once, where ever you are. Perhaps he may be in great peril at that moment." -Amy Carmichael, 1867-1951, India

i don't think this guy is an ENFP...

The Rainbow Connection

The blog below from by Matt Riley reminds me of Kermit the Frog.  There is a lover & dreamer in me.  Sometimes things happen, but do you stop chasing dreams just because of whatever these things are?  I don't know if I can.  I don't think I would.  I don't believe anyone should.
   Maybe i'm a fool. A hopeless wanderer.  Whatever.  But I think Kermit's right: one day i'll find my rainbow connection.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSFLZ-MzIhM
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This is for the dreamers like me (God help us).

I've been thinking for quite some time on my dreams and I've come to some really reassuring conclusions. I think that every person in the world has a purpose which is tied interminably with your dreams. Your God-given talents and passions are meant to identify your role in life. Everyone has a dream and it seems to me that these dreams are the best indicator of what God put each of us on this earth for.

(Which, as an aside, may not necessarily coincide with your career - the vast gulf between purpose and job is too often overlooked in results-driven Western society).

My role in life is to make music, and for the longest time I thought that purpose looked like some kind of indie-rock star/singer-songwriter. When my most sincere and sweat-soaked efforts failed to yield any progress on that front, I moved back to Texas and went into music ministry, all the while struggling with the lingering doubt that I was settling for something less than the original dream God gave me. The ghost of failure walked in my shadow and whispered the constant accusation that I had let die the dreams I was given stewardship over.

I'm just now beginning to realize how selfish my dream was - and it was MY dream. The God-sized dream originally placed in my heart - to make music - was, is beautiful and pure. But I interpreted that dream through my twisted, human filter of want for acclaim, validation, approval, and love from others. Ultimately, the dream I chose was not God's - it was mine and it was selfish.

While that's a hard realization to make, it's ultimately liberating because I can now see that my dream, absent of self, is coming true. This is what I was meant to do - really, and truly. This isn't a lesser reality or a life diminished by failure. This is the fullness of God's plan in God's time. Hallelujah, that's a relief.

I encourage everyone to examine themselves and their dreams. Maybe your dream isn't coming true because it's full of self? Maybe the interpretation which guides your actions is tainted by motives which are self-centered and not God-centered? I don't know. I debated sharing this because the tension between the life we want and the life we have is often so strong it hurts. But I have a feeling that someone out there can benefit from taking a moment to prayerfully ask themselves "is this what God wants for my life or is this what I want? Does the maker of my soul's dream have a purer expression of it? Do I have the courage to surrender, to live in the greater reality beyond what I think I want and in the center of what my heart truly longs for?"

~Matt Riley

Requiem for Romance

http://io9.com/a-breakup-beautifully-animated-as-a-bittersweet-kung-fu-1162604102

Molded & fashioned

http://daves-words-of-wisdom.blogspot.co.uk/

value

http://daves-words-of-wisdom.blogspot.co.uk/

tears

http://daves-words-of-wisdom.blogspot.co.uk/

Secrets to a Fulfilling Life

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/11/how-this-harvard-psycholo_n_3727229.html

The 75-Year Study That Found The Secrets To A Fulfilling Life

The Huffington Post  |  By Carolyn Gregoire Posted: 08/11/2013 8:52 am EDT  |  Updated: 08/17/2013 6:14 pm EDT
What if there was a study dedicated to unearthing the secrets to a happy and purposeful life? It would have to be conducted over the course of many decades, following the lives of real people from childhood until old age, in order to see how they changed and what they learned. And it would probably be too ambitious for anyone to actually undertake.
Only, a group of Harvard researchers did undertake it, producing a comprehensive, flesh-and-blood picture of some of life’s fundamental questions: how we grow and change, what we value as time goes on, and what is likely to make us happy and fulfilled.
The study, known as the Harvard Grant Study, has some limitations -- it didn’t include women, for starters. Still, it provides an unrivaled glimpse into a subset of humanity, following 268 male Harvard undergraduates from the classes of 1938-1940 (now well into their 90s) for 75 years, collecting data on various aspects of their lives at regular intervals. And the conclusions are universal.
We spoke to George Vaillant, the Harvard psychiatrist who directed the study from 1972 to 2004 and wrote a book about it, in order to revisit the study’s findings. Below, five lessons from the Grant Study to apply to your own pursuit of a happier and more meaningful life.
Love Is Really All That Matters
It may seem obvious, but that doesn’t make it any less true: Love is key to a happy and fulfilling life. As Vaillant puts it, there are two pillars of happiness. "One is love," he writes. "The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away."
Vaillant has said that the study's most important finding is that the only thing that matters in life is relationships. A man could have a successful career, money and good physical health, but without supportive, loving relationships, he wouldn't be happy ("Happiness is only the cart; love is the horse.").
It’s About More than Money and Power
The Grant Study's findings echoed those of other studies -- that acquiring more money and power doesn't correlate to greater happiness. That’s not to say money or traditional career success don’t matter. But they’re small parts of a much larger picture -- and while they may loom large for us in the moment, they diminish in importance when viewed in the context of a full life.
“We found that contentment in the late 70s was not even suggestively associated with parental social class or even the man’s own income," says Vaillant. "In terms of achievement, the only thing that matters is that you be content at your work.”
Regardless of How We Begin Life, We Can All Become Happier
A man named Godfrey Minot Camille went into the Grant study with fairly bleak prospects for life satisfaction: He had the lowest rating for future stability of all the subjects and he had previously attempted suicide. But at the end of his life, he was one of the happiest. Why? As Vaillant explains, “He spent his life searching for love.”
Connection Is Crucial
"Joy is connection,” Vaillant says. "The more areas in your life you can make connection, the better."
The study found strong relationships to be far and away the strongest predictor of life satisfaction. And in terms of career satisfaction, too, feeling connected to one's work was far more important than making money or achieving traditional success.
"The conclusion of the study, not in a medical but in a psychological sense, is that connection is the whole shooting match," says Vaillant.
As life goes on, connections become even more important. The Grant Study provides strong support for the growing body of research that has linked social ties with longevity, lower stress levels and improved overall well-being.
Challenges –- and the Perspective They Give You -- Can Make You Happier
The journey from immaturity to maturity, says Vaillant, is a sort of movement from narcissism to connection, and a big part of this shift has to do with the way we deal with challenges.
Coping mechanisms -- “the capacity to make gold out of shit,” as Vaillant puts it -- have a significant effect on social support and overall well-being. The secret is replacing narcissism, a single-minded focus on one's own emotional oscillations and perceived problems, with mature coping defenses, Vaillant explains, citing Mother Teresa and Beethoven as examples.
“Mother Teresa had a perfectly terrible childhood, and her inner spiritual life was very painful," says Vaillant. "But she had a highly successful life by caring about other people.
Creative expression is another way to productively deal with challenges and achieve meaning and well-being.
"The secret of Beethoven being able to cope with misery through his art was when he wrote 'Ode to Joy,'" says Vaillant. "Beethoven was able to make connection with his music."

ow

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/23-things-every-woman-should-stop-doing_n_3908151.html
STOP!  #10. Wearing heels every day. Look at this terrifying infographic and then tell me why it’s a good idea to force your poor feet into stilettos on a daily basis. We love a gorgeous pair of pumps, but embracing comfort (most of the time) will not only make your commute a whole lot more pleasant, but your feet a whole lot happier for years to come. Plus, flat shoes can be super stylish.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/high-heels-infographic_n_3512091.html

All or Nothing

Is the world changed?

I wrote this two years ago in memory & honor.  Have things changed?  On the verge of war with Syria... hate raging its fires everywhere...  and God is still God: a beacon of love & light in the darkness.  He doesn't stop the tragedies because he wants us to choose.  If the whole world and everyone in it chose love, and was faithful in all the responsibilities of love, wouldn't the world be truly changed?

http://haitisand.blogspot.com/2010/09/9-years-later-is-world-changed.html

Saturday, September 11, 2010

9 years later is the world changed?

Once again my aching body wakes up at the crack of dawn to the sound of dogs barking and roosters crowing. The city around me lies in rubble, rains wash mud under & into tents and makeshift huts for hundreds of thousands of people. 

9 years ago hate crashed into twin towers and since then wars have started in response, bombs blown up on trains, subways, in hotels, and even been attempted via sneaker soles. Hate existed long before Sept. 11 and will last until the end. 

But in the beginning God created everything and lit it up and saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:4) 

Light shines through the darkness and can never be extinguished. (John 1:5) 

God loved the world and sent his only son Jesus to sacrifice for and save it. Jesus NEVER condemned anything. (John 3:17) 

So I woke up early this morning yet again, remembering the date and wondering if anything has changed. Then I recalled all the love my friends and family and millions of others have demonstrated to sacrifice, give to, serve and love the homeless & hungry and needy in Los Angeles, New York & everywhere else, protect the victims of abuse in Thailand & more, and help after tsunami & earthquake or other disaster, and I know this: 

Some things like hate will never change. But real faith, hope & love shall change what matters: our own hearts and sometimes those of others'. (1 Corinthians 13) 

Love and keep loving with everything you've got (Deuteronomy 6:5), 

David

Life's little (or big) transitions

"Anytime you're in a period in your life where there's transition,'' he said, "don't fight it. Don't resist. Buy into the system." ~Anquan Boldin, new receiver for the SF 49ers who posted 13 catches for 208 yards & one touchdown in his first game with a new team after (pretty much single-handedly) winning the Super Bowl last year with the Baltimore Ravens, who didn't want to/couldn't (???) afford him.

This guy has THRIVED on transition, whereas many people hate it or don't do well.  If you're not a football person, just know that these are outstanding numbers for the first time you play with a new team:

13 catches, 208 yards, one touchdown in 2013 w/the 49ers

20 catches for 287 yards in his first three games in Baltimore (2010)

10 balls for 217 yards as a Cardinal in the 2003 opener (as a rookie) 
 

Basically, he seems to be taking the curveballs (or tricky moments) of life and hitting home runs (being very successful) because he's adapting.  He's changing.  He's learning.  He doesn't seem to think he knows it all, and he seems to know that it could be worse - or that he could make it worse by not buying into the system.

Yes I know I've now used football, baseball, and laymen's terms, so I hope that all made sense.  

To summarize: change happens - do the best you can to adapt and make the best of it.  

And finally, this gem: Don't hold a grudge. "'I'm not bitter at all," Boldin said. "This is a business. We all understand it.  My last teams' decision was a little surprising, but you can't let that stuff bother you."

<excerpts taken from http://mmqb.si.com/2013/09/09/anquan-boldin-peter-king-monday-morning-quarterback-2/>

Explore. Dream. Discover.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~ Mark Twain

One Foot

"Every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss."

~ Coelho

Round-Trip

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” -Terry Prachett


via Sachi Seaburn

Sex Ed from *the very worst missionary*

http://www.theveryworstmissionary.com/2013/06/sex-pt-2-why-wait.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+JamieTheVeryWorstMissionary+%2528Jamie+the+Very+Worst+Missionary%2529#.UcDM8PYF7nY.facebook

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Sex, part 2: Why Wait?

I pretty much hate having teenage boys. 

I hate the looks they give. I hate the smells they make. I hate the skeezy little 'stache that creeps up, slow and sparse, on their upper lip. But most of all, I hate the autonomy they have.

I hate that my baby boys have grown beyond arms reach and can now wander freely in this little corner of the world. I hate that they get to choose what they're going to do and say, and that I don't get to hover over them, correcting them and coddling them and giving them the WTF-are-you-thinking-?!-eyebrow every so often to keep them in line. Hate it.

Ugh! They're independent. They are young men, responsible for their own actions. That is so scary it makes me want to barf. 

And, perhaps it's because I got knocked up at 17, but, of all the choices my kids are faced with and all the opportunities in front of them, I feel especially preoccupied with their choices regarding sex. Naturally, they love this. I mean, what teenager doesn't want their Mom constantly reminding them that it's gross and creepy to engage in sexual activity in public parks, behind strip malls, or in the recessed corner of the movie theatre?! What high schooler would hate it if their Mom sang, "Please do not have sex todaaaaay!" every time they walked out the door?! Surely not mine. 

...Yeah. The eye rolling gets pretty intense around here...

But I want my kids to be armed with the truth (and maybe with condoms, but mostly with the truth), and the truth is that they should wait to have sex.

There are obvious reasons why:

1. You could accidentally create another human being (like I did, oops).  

2. You could cause yourself or someone else emotional harm by sharing intimate behavior in an irresponsibly casual way.  

3. Most compelling, you could contract a horrible, painful, itchy, burning, smelly STD, and your penis could fall right off.

But I believe there's another really good reason to put sex on hold. 

It's that when you wait to have sex, you are creating an important connection between the very powerful urges to do things that feel really good and the ability to control those urges. Otherwise known as self-control. This practice of self-denial and delayed gratification makes you a healthier, more poised, and better moderated person (who definitely still has a penis, phew!). Ultimately, self- control is a character trait ~or *ahem*, fruit of the spirit, for the Christian folk~ that will help you be a better long-term partner in your 'til-death-do-we-part relationship. 

Listen. I don't want to kill anyone's romantic ideas about marriage, I really don't - but it's not like you get married and then you're unfailingly super stoked to have sex with the same person three times a week for the rest of your God given life. I mean, married sex can be amazing - the longer I've been married, the better it gets (19 years, Suckas!!). But it really shouldn't shock anyone to hear that married, monogamous people still have sexual thoughts, desires, and impulses which do not include their spouses. Porn happens. Crushes happen. (Seriously, everybody has crushes. Even Christianbodies have crushes.) The problem is that, in a culture that demands instant gratification and consumes sex like a drug, a quick brush with porn or a simple crush on a coworker can quickly spiral into something devastating. 

To top it off, we've done a really bad job of teaching about sex in the Church. Our approach has been to shame girls for having it, and shame boys for wanting it. And when the smart kids ask, "Why wait?", we shrug our shoulders like a hillbilly and say, "Because the Bible says." Then we give the girls a purity ring and we give the boys nothing and we cross our fingers and hope they'll cross their legs. So dumb.

We've made virginity the goal, when it is purity that we should be aiming for; They're not the same thing. Sexual purity is a life long spiritual practice that doesn't begin or end with a single sex act, just as it doesn't begin or end on a wedding night. So when we are asked, "Why wait?", we should have an answer that empowers and prepares people to choose wisely for a lifetime. We should be teaching people something they can carry with them beyond their first roll in the hay. 

Why wait? Um. Because you need to learn some freaking self-control. That's why.

No kidding, the person who is a slave to their sexual desires will have a difficult row to hoe. ←Heh. See what I did there? ;) But the man or woman who has a sense of mastery over their own sexual appetite will be far less likely to fall into the easy traps of addiction and infidelity that plague marriages today. I don't mean to imply that postponing sex guarantees fidelity – it certainly doesn't. And I don't think this is a fail safe for a long and happy marriage, but I think delaying sex is a pretty solid beginning.

So I tell my kids, much to their horrified chagrin;

"I know it's hard to be near the person you're aching to touch and kiss and do... um... other... likenaked things with. I know! I get it. We all get it. But the person you're with right now? That person isnot the last person you will have those feelings toward, and you need to know what it feels like to not act on those feelings, because a day will come when you will have to exercise self-control for the sake of the relationship you've given your life to - and, trust me, you will want to know how to do that. Do not relinquish that power without a fight. So, really, consider the wait. There's value in waiting. (But if you don't wait? Condom. Please. Because babies. And emotional wounds. And your penis will rot off...)

Waiting is an act of maturity and discipline that can help refine your humanity, and that of your mate. And while I still don't think sex before marriage is the biggest deal of all the deals ever, I do think waiting is a good start toward a long and healthy life with the person you've chosen to love. Plus, statistically, married people have WAY more sex than single people. So exercise self-control while you're waiting to get married, then use that well honed skill to help you stay married and – BOOM – buckets of sex for a lifetime! ...That's bad math, but still.

So, Why wait? 

Wait because self-control is a virtue necessary to living a life of purity, and waiting is just good practice. 

That's it. That's all.

....        ....        ....

Here's a link to part 1, if you missed it: Sex. 

The Condition of Being Human

“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”
~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Men are Stupid

http://jezebel.com/5952287/maxipad-company-replies-to-mans-facebook-rant-with-awe+inspiring-sarcasm

Maxipad Company Replies to Man's Facebook Rant With Awe-Inspiring Sarcasm

Last week, a guy named Richard Neill posted a long, funny comment on UK maxipad makerBodyform's Facebook page about how the company had lied to him through their advertising campaigns over the years, leading him to believe that periods involved a lot of blue liquid, extreme sports, and fun music. It received nearly 85,000 likes. Instead of ignoring it, Bodyform responded with the video above, featuring CEO Caroline Williams (played by an actress) apologizing to Richard personally, explaining that the company needed to lie to protect men from "the blood coursing from our uteri like a crimson landslide." And then she drinks blue liquid and farts. Amazing.

You Affect Me

"It is here in the depths of our affectivity, so spontaneous, strong, and shadowy at times, that God moves us and deals with us most intimately." ~George Aschenbrenner

I have been affected, and the effect leaves me forever greater.

-------------
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/affect-versus-effect.aspx

Affect Versus Effect

by Mignon Fogarty 

This is an expanded show based on the original episode covering when to use affect with an a and when to use effect with an e.

I get asked whether to use affect or effect all the time and it is by far the most requested grammar topic, so I have a few mnemonics and a cartoon to help you remember.

 

What Is the Difference Between Affectand Effect?

Before we get to the memory trick though, I want to explain the difference between the two words.

It's actually pretty straightforward. The majority of the time you use affect with an a as a verb and effect with an e as a noun.

 When Should You Use Affect?

Affect with an a means "to influence," as in, "The arrows affected Aardvark," or "The rain affected Amy's hairdo." Affect can also mean, roughly, "to act in a way that you don't feel," as in, "She affected an air of superiority."

When Should You Use Effect?

Effect with an e has a lot of subtle meanings as a noun, but to me the meaning "a result" seems to be at the core of all the definitions. For example, you can say, "The effect was eye-popping," or "The sound effects were amazing," or "The rain had no effect on Amy's hairdo."

Common Uses of Affect and Effect

Most of the time affectwith an a is a verb andeffect with an e is a noun.

So most of the time affect with ana is a verb and effect with an e is a noun. There are rare instances where the roles are switched, and I'll get to those later, but for now let's focus on the common meanings. This is "Quick and Dirty" grammar, and my impression from your questions is that most people have trouble rememberingthe basic rules of when to use these words, so if you stick with those, you'll be right 95% of the time.

So, most of the time, affect with an a is a verb and effect with an e is a noun; and now we can get to the mnemonics. First, the mnemonic involves a very easy noun to help you remember: aardvark. Yes, if you can remember aardvark -- a very easy noun -- you'll always remember that affect with an a is a verb and effect with ane is a noun. Why? Because the first letters of "a very easy noun" are the same first letters as "affect verb effect noun!" That's a very easy noun. Affect (with ana) verb effect (with an e) noun.

"But why Aardvark?" you ask. Because there's also an example to help you remember. It's "The arrows affected Aardvark. The effect was eye-popping." It should be easy to remember that affect with an a goes with the a-words, arrowand aardvark, and that effect with an e goes with the e-word, eye-popping. If you can visualize the sentences, "The arrows affected the aardvark. The effect was eye-popping," it's pretty easy to see that affect with an a is a verb and effectwith an e is a noun.

The illustration of the example is from my new book. It's Aardvark being affected by arrows, and I think looking at it will help you remember the example sentences; and it's cute. You can print it out and hang it by your desk.

So a very easy noun will help you remember that affect with an a is a verb andeffect with an e is a noun, and the example will help you see how to use both words in a sentence.

Rare Uses of Affect and Effect

So what about those rare meanings that don't follow the rules I just gave you? Well, affect can be used as a noun when you're talking about psychology--it means the mood that someone appears to have. For example, "She displayed a happy affect." Psychologists find it useful because they know that you can never really understand what someone else is feeling. You can only know how theyappear to be feeling.

And, effect can be used as a verb that essentially means "to bring about," or "to accomplish." For example, you could say, "Aardvark hoped to effect change within the burrow."

Administrative

If you have a question for the show, send an e-mail message tofeedback@quickanddirtytips.com or post it to me on Facebook or Twitter.

That's all. Thanks for listening.

Thanks to Randall Munroe from XKCD.com who drew the stickman cartoon.