What if....

... we measured success this way.

I have had many people make comments about the amount of money, or lack thereof, that i will am making this year (not counting the comments that my own mind constantly makes). But what if I measured my success like the people of Buhtan. I recently read this in Sojurner's:

"Gross national happiness
Richard Ingham
SojoMail 8-25-2005

In 1972, the king of Bhutan declared that his Himalayan country (which is the size of Switzerland) would henceforth measure progress with gross national happiness instead of gross national product. It is still the only country in the world to do so.

This is an entirely appropriate decision for a country that treats happiness, not economic gain, as the goal of development. In inventing their government, Bhutan's leaders asked themselves how to maintain balance between materialism and spiritualism while seeking the clear benefits of science and technology; the possible loss of tranquility and happiness with the advance of uncontrolled modernism was an abiding concern.

This concern for balance is illustrated by a story told by former Prime Minister Jigmi Y. Thinley. In the late 1980s, a prominent farmer planted high-yield rice with the encouragement of the government. He had a bumper harvest with surplus grain. The government thought it had a success story to motivate the rest of the farmers. Instead, the farmer refused to grow any rice the next year because the bumper harvest had left him enough to live on for another year, during which he could live leisurely and spiritually."

What's my goal of development? I really like it. Maybe I should move to Buhtan.

looking for community

So I'm going to visit a new small group tonight. Mexican theme. I made salsa. It's too salty, but it'll have to do, because on my VISTA budget, you can't afford to make things twice. I've blogged about this before, but trying to find community sucks a lot of the time. But I guess it's worth it for those moments of great.

I had some of those- the great moments- this weekend. I was in Auburn on Friday, so I decided to spend the night with the Commanders and stay until Sat. So many amazing times of community. Lunch with Julie, and hearing hard things that I needed to hear. Meeting with Ellen and being reminded of the bond that we have. Time with Phil and David and remembering who I was as the token girl in the band of brothers. Running 11 miles Sat morning with Shailiah in a time when I really thought that I was going to have to quit running, because I couldn't do it anymore (but realizing that I just missed her company). Laughing with Jenn and Amy and remembering what it's like to be a mentor to 15 year old girls who respect you, even if they know that you don't have it all together. Talking to Teresa, and realizing that single guys at 45 are just as stupid and boring as those at 25. Meeting with Adam and walking though the arboretum. Just feeling loved, accepted for who I am, with no sense of having to be anything that I'm not.

So I'm going to this small group. I am already fearing the questions. The "getting to know you". The small talk chit-chat surface meaningless games that we all play with each other. But at least I'm going, right?

'ole.

It's a GIRL!!

That's right! For all of you who know me well, you know what a big deal this is! My sister called last night to inform me that they are having a GIRL! After being quite an acomplished aunt to amazing boys... I cannot tell you how much I have been waiting for this. Reasons it is going to rock:
1. Buying girlie things, like Mary Janes, purses, and princess dresses
2. Laughing about how stupid boys are
3. Girls are cuter
4. There is a bond between girls that boys don't understand..
..and the fifth and final reason (final for this blog) that it rocks the house....
5. THE PRESSURE IS OFF ME TO HAVE THE FIRST GIRL!

Holy Father, bless the little woman-to-be inside of Becca. May she be strong and healthy and bring blessing and glory to your name, and blessing to our family. Calm the fears of Becca and Grant. May the joy outweigh the fear.

Don't listen to me

today, I think that you should all listen to Stephanie...

http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=BacioItalia&tab=weblogs&uid=332057212

Speaking of cussing....

So somehow I am getting spam-comments. I am not tech-savvy enough to understand how this works...and surely not tech-savvy enough to make it stop. Please, if anyone out there does, let me know before I go crazy.

I guess you don't all know....

....so this is what I do all day.

http://www.impactalabama.org/speak.html

Killer

I'm a killer. I walk down the street and I kill insects. I do. I'm sorry. You know how people say things like, "She wouldn't hurt a fly". I have. I have not only hurt them, but killed them. My most recent kill was four plants. A sweet guy sent them congratulating me on my new apartment....my new job...defending my thesis...and I think also manging to not have a mental breakdown in the process, though the card left this out. For some reason I imagine that Hallmark really can't market "Congratulations on your sanity".

So He sent houseplants. Very thoughtful, stable, they are going to last, going to be my constant companions, I thought. I thought that until I killed them, that is.

Another friend, Adam, condemned them to death at 12:09pm Wednesday. The cause of death? Root Rot. What the heck does that mean? It means that I was overzealous in my watering. Like a mother who has a swollen infant, I just wanted to give them more and more to ensure their survival, and instead I manged to push them over the precipce to death. I thought that if I stopped watering them, I could bring them back to life... but it turns out that this only pushed them further over the edge.

I wonder if I am like this with culture sometimes.

I want to understand the people around me. I want to be able to converse with the people that I work with. I want to be able to sing along with the songs as we are riding in the car. But soon, I get so saturated, that it drips out of me. Everything drips out of me, and I can no longer even take in the nutrients that I need.

I love cussing. I just want to say that. I stopped for a while, but since moving to Birmingham, and being around the people I'm around, I have been doing it a lot more. I have justified it until I really think that it's ok most of the time. I love the taste of the words in my mouth. I love the giggles and the shock value that it brings. I love the impact that it makes when statments are peppered with a stronger vanacular.

BUt is this just a sign of more root rot?

I really do love people. I want to be able to sit with them. To soak them in. I want to somehow find the balance of not living locked away, unaware of the culture that is taking place before me, but still valuing the and truly being able to ABSORB genuine experience.

Father, may I learn to walk the balance of being in the world but not of the world. Of being with people, but not manipulating, or seeking to control them or the situation. May I learn to have eyes to see hurt and grant me hands that are tools of healing.

Everything I need to know about relationships I learned from my brother...

Kevin: "So I just got back from the lake with this really awesome girl. She totally rocks."

Kara: "Man, that's so awesome! I'm so happy for you!"

Kevin: "Yeah, but I don't think that I like her."

Kara: "Did you make out with her?"

Kevin: "Well... yeah."

Kara: "Kevin! You can't do that. You can't make out with people that you don't like- that makes them think that you like them."

Kevin: "I can't help it. Listen, Someone told me once, 'do what you're good at."

How can I respond to that?

What is the gospel?

Sometimes I feel like I've been out of the word so much I don't really have the authority to speak about it, but I've been thinking a lot about certain things lately and I want to be honest about those thoughts.... to all you random people who read my blog- whoever you are (how interesting that I'm willing to be so honest to a group of potential unknowns, eh?)

I went to church on Sunday, another Sunday, another church. Since moving I haven't really found a place that I want to associate with. Sunday I actually was really digging some of it, and then the pastor started in on Joshua and then he stopped mid-sentence and said that he felt he needed to speak about something else. He said that he felt that there were people that had been going there for their whole life and yet they didn't know the gospel. He said that one of the problems in many churches today is that we spend too much time talking about the Pauline letters and what others say about Jesus, rather than looking at Jesus. So now I'm really getting pumped, and wondering what this guy is going to say about Jesus.

So he starts in 1 Cor, then goes to Gen and talks about the fall, then spends most of his time in Cor and Romans. He talked about how "at our core we suck" and we cannot ever "do enough" to deserve Jesus. I agree. He talked about sin, redemption, and grace. I agree.

BUT.

I was really just kinda disappointed.

I felt like he just did what he said was wrong with Churches. He sat there and talked about the Gospel through Gen, the letters to the Corinthian churches (written by paul) and the letter written to the Romans (written by Paul).

He said that the gospel was sin, redpemption and grace.... which I believe is a part of it, but I have been thinking a lot about Jesus.

What would Jesus say the Gospel message is?

If I asked him, what would he say? I thought that someone kinda did. And this is what he said, "love God, Love others as much as you love yourself".

You may not ever achieve it, but as much as you are able, continue to bring the kingdom of God to this earth. A kingdom of Justice.

And then, other times he talks about who these neighbors are. They are not the people that look just like us, or have the same amount of money as us. And yet our churches are these cities of people who all look alike, patting themselves on the back for their own greatness. How is that Just? How is that the kingdom?

At the end, the one reference to the actual written gospels was about the man selling everything that he has for the field with the treasure in it. So I prayed that I would sell everything that I have for the gospel. That I really would, but that God would show me what the Gospel really is. The truth. What that means. I want to sell out to it, but I wonder if so many of us have gotten it wrong.

I had a good talk last night with a friend. A friend who does not "go to church" but is a Christian. He is doing more good for the kingdom than most of the bodies warming the church pews. Yet he refuses to enter and commune with these "bodies of Christ" because he doesn't think that they represent the gospel.

So what is the gospel?

If you ever want to be freaked out about having a family

...go to Target.. supertarget, at that... on a Sunday afternoon. I think that today was actually undeclaired family day. I swear I saw more mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, kids, babies... than at a carnival. An since they were all shopping for more stuff.. as we all were... the mothers were usually annoyed, and the fathers were cognitively absent. So the kid is screaming, and another is hitting his sister, and the mom is trying to figure out which shower curtain to buy, and the dad is looking around wondering when it's all going to be over.

And then people acutally have the nerve to ask me things like, "Why are you scared of commitment, Kara?" HELLO- is this what commitment brings? Screaming kids and a husband who can't wait for it all to be over? I'm sorry if that freaks me out a little. I love the part in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where he asks, "have we become the dining dead?" and in his mind he can predict everything that she is going to say. I wonder when life becomes like that- predicable.

Lately I've been longing for stability, but I think that I'm scared of the predicability that inevitably comes with stability. I don't want to become the dining dead.

America: the Christian Nation?

I posted the picture of Amy and I, planning to post a blog along with it, but the thoughts are still swirling and in draft form, so more on that later

Lately I have been thinking about something else. I am working for a pretty amazing guy, Stephen Black. He doesn't believe in charity, but does believe in social justice. He graduated from Yale, but came back to Alabama because he really believes that things here can change. That even though the school system is crap, there are teenagers that deserve a chance. Even though there are children that can't read because their eyesight sucks, he can raise money to test their vision on his own. Most of all, he believes that even though there are some that are born with more and some with less, all deserve equal chances.

We live in a country of extremes. When I first came back from China it was almost overwhelming. Everywhere I looked there was excess: money, food, cars, clothes, more, more, more. And yet in the midst of the wealth, there is poverty. How can we live in a country where people literally have billions of dollars, and some eat out of garbage cans? The icing on the cake is that we are a "Christian Nation". We go on holy missions to make sure that people in other lands have "freedom" and lable it a moral imperitave, and yet somehow a starving child, a child who cannot afford to go to college, an old woman that cuts her pills three times to make them 'last longer' is not a moral imperative.

There is a really powerful article that speaks to this "Chrisitan Paradox". In the article the author takes several tenets of basic Christianity, and asks, "How's America doing?" and then answers it.

My question to you is, how do you think America is doing?

Instead of God Bless America, should it really be God Forgive America?