so maybe...

The "sinner's prayer" doesn't save people. Wait. Hold on a minute.

Maybe we save people by acting in love, God's love, towards them. The disciples never led anyone in a special prayer. People came to be saved by living as a christian, by claiming that Jesus is Lord. (Kinda like the Bible says...) Maybe little acts we do towards people draws them nearer to God than any prayer.

Ok, so it says that God has forgiven everyone, yes? That the only "unforgivable sin" anyone can commit is to reject Jesus. So, instead of focusing on all of the "bad things" we've done in order to know God, why aren't we showing people Love? And in showing them Love, the way to live in Love. The way to know Love (aka God).

I met a homeless man today while I was doing laundry. He talked to me for a little while outside of a coffee place downtown (next to the coin-op). The people at the table next to us were casting sidelong glances, ready to spring into action. After he left they asked me if I was alright. Because I listened to a lonely homeless man for 10 minutes. They made me feel like I'd commited some unspeakable act.

Cold shoulders and sneers must get old pretty quick. There are a lot of men like that who come by the coffee shop where I work. Sometimes they're given food, usually they just ask for a glass of water. I don't know this man's past. He has one, though. We all do, don't we? Maybe we should give the same amount of respect to everyone. Can you love someone without respecting them? Without acknowledging the fact that we're all human, we all have history, and it's not all pretty. We're in different places in life, but what does that have to do with our worth as people?

Just some thoughts from the day. Blessings.

friday!

Watched Evan Almighty last night. It was incredibly cheesy and the acting wasn't so hot, but it surprises me when hollywood doesn't make fun of God. They made some really good comments. Like, Do you think when you ask for patience God just gives you some, or does He place you in situations tha require a great deal of patience? etc.

Watched Across the Universe for the second time tonight. Still amazing.

No, I do not spend my life watching movies. I've also taken up tennis (again) since the weather is still nice.

I also may go to a parade tomorrow. An NAU parade at that. It would be the first NAU event I've attended since orientation. If you count that as an "event".

Time for sleep. Blessings.

this week...

Tonight I was vulnerable. And I decided, I don't like being vulnerable. It's a little uncomfortable actually.

But good.

Yesterday at work a couple of the guys were up front and we got to talking about politics which led into religion. One of them is a christian, pretty conservative, etc. The other is an 'I-don't-care-what-you-think-as-long-as-you-don't-mess-with-others', anarchist, yet middle of the road (businessman-conservative, moral-liberal). I don't think I classify as anything at this point. One of the managers likes to call me a communist. I think because I'm studying social work and I read books about Eleanor Roosevelt. It actually is pretty far from the truth. Truthfully, the government scares me half to death, and I'd really rather it didn't gain more power. But, I think our country should take care of its own. As to how those two go together? Beats me. Actually I think the states should have more individual power. Not a lot, but I think if something needs to be done, it should more often be done on a small scale.

Our office is pretty diverse in that respect. There are a couple of flamin liberals (I think I've been placed in that category since they don't know what else to do with me), a few middle of the roaders, and a couple of staunch (and fiery) conservatives. A nonreligious Jew, a christian jew, a fiery mexican christian, a catholic, a few nonreligious, a lesbian, and me. They usually avoid political conversations like the plague for the safety of all involved. lol. But every couple of weeks one of those chain emails will appear on the white board making fun of a political party. Usually democrats, since they're outnumbered.

it is interesting to say the least.

It's black tie week at the coffee shop. Yup, shirt and tie. Or dress. I found a dress at the thrift store for the occasion. Coffee making can get messy. We're also having a chili cook-off at the office on friday. Yee-haw. Yippie kai-ay. All that stuff. Only I think the music selection shall be confined to some hip hop. The boss is in charge of music. There will most likely be tequila, which means whoever's left that afternoon will be in a great mood. I like it when they're in good moods.

We will be holding the first sock wrestling tournament this weekend. The guys have their poker nights, we get sock wrestling. Should be good.

Need sleep. Blessings.

Community

We started work on a community garden today. We got permission to turn a lot in back of the coffee shop into one. Today we cleared junk and weeds. There were a lot of weeds. And junk. We found disco balls. And skis. And like 7 desks. It was great.

It's so refreshing to actually DO something that we always talk about doing.

Afterwards we had story time (Hans Christian Anderson) and drank coffee and ate strawberry cheesecake.

I feel like I got some rest last weekend, in Oklahoma. We went to a Regatta race on the river which was fun and made me wish I were cool and in shape and could row a boat like them. But I'm not and I can't. It was still fun.

I feel like God is constantly surrounding me with extremely hurting people. I love them to death, but sometimes I get so tired. Which makes me feel selfish. I'm still not very good at giving that burden to God. It sounds funny, doesn't it, to need to give other people's pain to God... Sometimes I wonder if I should be a social worker, but I think it'd be worse to live and purposely not get involved in people when they're going through hard things, not to do anything to help. I guess I could help without being a sw lol..

I wonder if all the world is like this, if there aren't people who are just happy. Some people seem to be that way, but that is probably because it takes a while before you can see that far into a person's life.

It's so important and yet so hard to remember that people act the way they do because of their past. I think we'd all be a lot more understanding if we knew what was going on inside each other. I think I would.

We all assume so much. It's easier that way, I think. I like doing things sometimes to throw people off. Kinda fun.

I should get some sleep. Blessings.

the fountainhead

Back at work... not one person has come in yet this morning :(. WInter's always slower.

I just finished the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It was one of the best books I've read in a while. Wrong, but good, well written and interesting. It's not every book that can hold your attention throughout its entirety, and almost never through 700 pages. Ayn Rand grew up in the Soviet Union (adding her to my list of favorite russian authors) and once she escaped from that she came up with a new philosophy she called Objectivism which she somewhat discovered through writing. I should say, she portrayed her ideas in her writing which helped her in her formulation process.

The Fountainhead was written to portray the ideal man and the contrast between collectivism and egotism. There are no mediums for Ayn Rand. Her "ideal man", Howard Roark, is an egotist. It's not that he doesn't care about other people, it is simply that he does not think of them. Ms. Rand wanted to make his character as real and alive as possible so she went into great details and descriptions about him, however I didn't get a sense of his being "alive" until he showed a hint of compassion. Until then he seemed more robotic than anything.

It was a very interesting book, and philosophy. She needed to make room for love and compassion though.

I have a question. How far do you think Jesus meant for us to take the whole "turn the other cheek" thing? My roommate and I had an intense conversation with someone about it on our trip. I think I've always put a limit on it. Did Jesus though? It's a kinda scary thing to think about. It would mean changing a lot about the way I think.

People came in, gotta go....

plan.

I'm stalling working on my resume... I've never had to make one before.

So, I have a BRILLIANT fall back plan. Ready? If I don't get the job, I think I'll become a flight attendant. I know someone who did it for a few years, and it's been at the back of my mind for a couple years. Firstly, free travel. Secondly, they make bank so I'd only have to do it for a couple years and then I could pay for the rest of my schooling. Thirdly, the training is free and short. That, is my plan.

Ok, I really need to work on this.

books

The rules:
Bold what you have read, italicize books you’ve started but couldn’t finish, and strike through books you hated. Add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your TBR list.

I can't do all that so I'm typing beside them...

Jonathan Strange & M. Norrell
Anna Karenina*
Crime and Punishment - Read
Catch-22 TBR
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion* Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote - couldn't finish
Moby Dick - read
Ulysses TBR
Madame Bovary TBR
The Odyssey - read
Pride and Prejudice *
Jane Eyre *
A Tale of Two Cities - read
The Brothers Karamazov*
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace*
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma*
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner TBR
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations - couldn't finish
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged TBR
Reading Lolita in Tehran - read
Memoirs of a Geisha - read
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales TBR
The Historian
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead - am reading
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch - read
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo*
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King*
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984 TBR
Angels & Demons
The Inferno TBR
The Satanic Verses
Sense and sensibility*
The Picture of Dorian Gray*
Mansfield Park*
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest TBR
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist - read
Gulliver’s Travels
Les misérables - didn't like this one
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The Prince TBR
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter - read
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita TBR
Persuasion*
Northanger Abbey*
The Catcher in the Rye TBR
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - didn't like this one
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down TBR
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In Cold Blood
White teeth
Treasure Island - read
David Copperfield*
The Three Musketeers*

Telluride/Ouray

Well, for once I am actually posting the pictures I promised..

Emily and I had today off (I'm not sure why we still have a Columbus day, but it's nice to have a day off), so we decided to go on a trip. After much deliberation, and fruitless searches for cheap hotels in a number of locations (within 8 hours driving distance) we found a room in Cortez Colorado. It held many attractions or us. One, the cheap hotel. Two, it is within an hour of Durango and Telluride. Three, it is only 4.5-ish hours away.

So, we get to the hotel without trouble or lostness. It's a pink motel crammed in beside a restaurant called Nero's (who would name a retaurant after Nero???) The room was rather large (good) and rather stained (bad). By stained, I mean the carpet looked like a church carpet after a few years, the walls had who knows what on them, and the sheets may not have been what you would call white. It also smelled like a mix between stale smoke, hotel room (they all have a smell), and alcohol. So, we drove to the nearby SuperWalmart (where the local teens were hanging out playing hide and go seek because, as we soon discovered, there is nothing else to do in Cortez) where we purchased some candles and hand sanitizer.

We spent about 20 minutes driving around town trying to find the rest of the town. Not ahving any luck, we pull into the Sonic and ask the voice at the sign, Is there anything to do in theis city? The voice obviously sensing the urgency of this question replies, Hold on a minute I'll be right there. Out comes a middle aged man covered in tattoos and piercings. He gets up to the car and the tattoos are all of disney and peanuts characters. He tells us, Yes this really is all of the city and there is no more.

I like meeting people.

After a night without much sleep I wake up in the morning to see cockroaches scattering on the walls. We leave.

The drive to Telluride was gorgeous, the leaves were beautiful.



(Yes, we match, and No, not on purpose)

So we get to Telluride and end up riding on the gondola with a pastor carrying a guitar who leads a service on the mountain every sunday after his church meets. His name is Tree. The service was amazing. There were about 10 or so of us sitting there looking out over Telluride and these huge mountains singing songs to God about His love and His creation. Pastor Tree gave a short message on a verse in Isaiah and told us about the "Good Shepherd" paintings you'll see around. He said that when a lamb wanders from the herd the shepherd has to follow it for hours until it is so worn out it literally falls down. We all know that image of Jesus walking with a lamb across his shoulders, but what I didn't know was that a lamb won't stay on the Shepherd's shoulders if all of its legs are working. the shpeherd actually has to break the lamb's front leg in order to carry it back to the flock. The pastor said that if you look, in the paintings the lamb's leg is actually broken. Then the shepherd talks to the lamb the whole way back and the lamb never forgets the shpeherd's voice after that. Also, the front leg that the shpeherd breaks heals faster than any of the other legs.

Something to think about huh?

Here's a pic of the church, a few of the ladies were from Austen, TX; a couple of them were from Telluride, and the older man is also from Telluride. He actually climbs the mountain every week with his dogs and never misses a Sunday. I made friends with Peanut, the golden retriever in the back. He kept me warm :).


We spent the afternoon in Telluride and Emily managed to end up on the front page of the paper the morning as the 'quote of the day'. We stopped at a gas station just outside of the town this morning and she came out of the station with the paper and her picture at the top of the front page. Too funny. We also found a few things in the Free box. A box of stuff you can take for free. I found a shirt and a large, foam Woody the Cowboy hat for James (told him I'd get him something for covering my shift)

We stayed the night with Julie's parents who own an RV park by Ouray, and spent this morning there. We had a deep discussion about absolutes and submission. I decided to become a nun. Submitting is a scary thing, and a hard thing. I realized I need to re-evaluate and study what the Bible says about all of that, and what it would look like in a marriage. So.. I think there's good work for nuns in India... No, but seriously, I've got questions, and I don't think I like this concept very much.. no one said following God was easy.

We managed to find a little outlet store that sells goods from around the world AND the man was selling everything for dirt cheap because it's the end of the season. Quite exciting.

And now, I need a shower. badly.
Blessings.

ouray

I'M GOING TO OURAY!!!!!!!!!!!

i'm so excited.

pictures to come.