How do the Amish morn?

I have to admit that I haven't cried about the news in a long time. In days when boys and girls are dying- multiples at a time- every day, news about Iraq are read more like stats from a football game. But yesterday on my way home, I cried hearing about the shooting in Pennsylvania. So many things about this story bring tears to my eyes. I morn for the families of the students, for the community, for the teacher. I morn for the fact that people can walk into a school and kill innocent children. Right after he dropped off his own. Execution style. How could anyone think that these children deserved to be executed. A one room schoolhouse. Siblings together. Brothers leave, sisters stay.

I cried for these families. I also cried for the fear of the state of the world. For all the children sitting in classrooms around the country scared of every stranger that enters the building. For the teachers who didn't know they were being called to such a dangerous occupation. For the fear of my unborn children sitting in classrooms yet to come.

But how do the Amish morn? A report on NPR stated that though they reject many modern advances such as television and radio, the Amish receive help from the mental health community. There were psychologists onhand yesterday as the community gathered together. They were concerned about their own families. They wanted to know what to say to their children.

They also wanted to know what they could do for the victim's family.

They wanted to take his wife and children food.

They wanted to take the wife of the man, who was not Amish, who had just killed their children food.

They had already forgiven him and wanted to know how they could help them.

How do the Amish morn? They hug their children. They cry.

And then they forgive.

Winning Woman

I have a couple announcements, so listen closely. 1) I shot a gun, 2) I won an award shooting a gun. Yes, Yes, I am the reigning Women's champion of the SNA Skeet Shooting tournament. A couple of weeks ago we went to Atlanta to the Southern Nurseymen Association (SNA), and while we were there Adam was registered for the tournament, and someone had dropped out, so I decided to tag along. Keep in mind that this was THE FIRST time IN MY LIFE I had ever shot a gun. And I took home the plaque. Thank you to all those who have supported me through this time. To my parents, my friends, and most of all, I dedicate this win to the heavenly Father (imagine me raising the plastic to the sky). This is for the underdog.

Update post

Since some of you only read the blog and never actually talk to me, call me, or e-mail me, I was reminded that perhaps I will just update you on life. WARNING: This is going to be a boring post if you see me everyday, or even once a week.

OK, well, still don't have a job- looking hard, but nothing substantive has really surfaced. It's a pretty frustrating process for oh so many reasons, one of which is that there is a loan check due for the Masters degree that I earned, which I can't afford to pay, because no one will hire me, despite having multiple degrees. Do you see irony here.

Adam and I traveled for the past three weeks- We went to TN- him traveling for work, and me just watching, and then I went to Arkansas, where my sister and all her children were there. It was so amazing to be with all of them. I long for the time when my whole family can be together at one time. You would think that someone would have to get married for coordination like that. By George, just maybe it will happen. Then last week we were in Atlanta. Lots of fun things happened of which here is my top ten: (number one is reserved for a blog that has to be accompanied by video, but stay tuned)

10. Not thinking about or talking about where I'm going to work
9. Not thinking about or talking about Wedding things
8. They have the most comfortable beds at Marriott. I finally slept through the night
7. Getting to meet all the people who work in Adam's company
6. Great Veal, on Adam's company
5. Meeting a man named Charlie- who wore a bowtie, and prayed for me and Adam right after talking with us
4. Good wine, again, on the company
3. Going to the Georgia Aquarium. Truly amazing. Again, pictures to follow
2. Seeing Katie, and knowing that she is safely home from Israel, and Katie and Adam meeting

because I'm cute

I woke up this morning next to the cutest guy ever.

I'm at home in Little Rock. I came to visit my parents, and my sister and her children are here- Noah (10), William (6) and Cecilia (1/2). Last night William slept with me, and Noah slept with Adam. The night before, Noah had slept with me, and Will had slept with Adam. Adam came the room this morning as William and I were waking up, and he said- you guys switched places last night. I said, "Yeah, they're all just fighting to sleep with me. Isn't that right Will?" Will replied, looking up from the pillow and counting the reasons on his fingers, "Yeah, because she's pretty, and she's cute, and love you."

Sound like good reasons to want to sleep with someone.

Countdown until I will wake up next to Adam: 84 days.

I knew it was coming

It's an interesting time in my life. I am getting married at the end of October, and that is good. But as all know, it doesn't solve everything.

This is my last week working with Impact, working with the program SpeakFirst.

This isn't like leaving most jobs, where I will miss the co-workers. My heart breaks knowing that I am not the one that will see them everyday at practice. Not the one that will hear about who they have a crush on, or the fight they saw at school. I will not be with them as they prepare to take the ACT and stress about which colleges to apply to. (however, there is a little relief that I will be able to spend a little time with Adam before 8 weeknights). So I'm sad.

It's also hard because I haven't found a job yet. I have looked, and "other things" have come up, but the truth is, I just haven't found anything that I'm just really excited about, that has worked out. It's times like these that just make you reconsider all those things like, "what do I think I deserve" or "am I really just being prideful in not considering other things" I praise God that he really does meet all my needs. It's just hard in the not-knowing times.

It's interesting because all my siblings are having work woes right now. My dad jokes that "he's done his work as a father" because all his kids have made it to retirement. And yet somehow he and my mom are still working. He thinks jokes like that are funny. It's just interesting that we are all, regardless of our paths in life- and we all three have taken very different paths in life- and our varying educations, scrambling for a job that we will enjoy and look forward to going to every day.

God, by your grace and mercy, I pray for the two new SpeakFirst coordinators. May they love, teach, and nurture the students. Grant them patience. May you bless Rebecca, Grant, Kevin, Heather, Adam and I with hard work that we fulfills us, and brings you blessing and glory. Give us all kingdom vision as we search out our new place in life.

it's time to kill the birds

After I read the book The Red Tent, there was a period when I wanted a part of the old law to come back. I like the idea of being able to take "that time of month" off- to sit in a special tent with the other women and relax, rather than sucking it up and going on with life.

Sometimes in my mind I still live under the deuteronomic principals of life: "do well and blessings will come, stray and you will be cursed". No matter how much I try to sear the truth of grace and mercy in my heart, the law comes back.

But recently I have been really glad that we are not still living under the old law. This past week I would have been pronounced ceremonially unclean, for sure. Somehow, while mowing the lawn, I got a horrible rash- either from the grass or from poison ivy, covering most of my upper right arm. It started Saturday, and by Monday I just wanted to either cut off the arm, or drug myself up enough to sleep and not think about it.

I definitely would have been living outside the camp.

However, yesterday, in keeping with the law, would have been the seventh day, when the priest would have come back to re-examine me. I would proudly say....I am healed. I'm pretty sure that Aaron wasn't giving out steroids back then, but thank goodness Dr. Real is.

So now, you can bring forth the pigeon, kill it, sprinkle my house with it's blood and set it's pair free into the field. I will follow custom and shave my head, take a bath, come back inside the gate, but sleep outside the tent until next week. Next week I will bring a couple of lambs with some flour and oil, and we will slaughter the lamb, and put a little blood on my ear and foot, and then....finally...

I would sleep in my own bed again. Clean.

Tonight, however, instead of sleeping outside, looking for my lamb, I'm inside a cool house, being licked by a dog. Truly we have been set free from the law.

new blog

I hope this isn't too much of a shock to anyone, but I'm engaged. So there it is. I hate for this to be my mode of communication, but it is what it is. SO now, read on.

I... (uh hem). . . we.... have a new blog. No, not the royal we- though I do speak in the royal "we" sometimes... only when appropriate...which is a lot- but we as in Adam and I. Not much there, but thought those who dig Adam.... and think I'm alright, might want to check it out. We will be posting there about our "relationship" so that people who visit here don't have to fear running for the nearest trash can :) (or rubbish bin if you are English)

THE NEWBYS TO BE.

I know it's cheesy, but a lot of couples get them on places like Theknot.com- which is a wedding website...and if I may step up on a soapbox for a minute, I just want to declare that my wedding is neither the culmination nor the declaration of my life. I have had a life for a while. This is not the day my life begins, nor the day I become a woman. Life will continue after this. We will then change the name of the blog. So I wanted a blog that we could have, even after we have declared our undying love, kissed in public, and drank a little wine with our friends and family.

bling bling

I hate money.

There is a burning in my heart...maybe it's in my stomach...or my lungs...or my brain....that starts to hurt when I think about money.

Nothing has ever made me cry as much as money.

Nothing has ever stressed me out as much as money.

Nothing has threatened to damage, hurt or destroy every realtionship that I have at some point....like money.

and yet.

We need money to have a house.

We need money to eat.

We need money to talk on the phone to our loved ones.

What a paradox. How then, do I live in this paradox? Needing something that so often seeks to destroy me and seperate me from the ones that I love.

Making me dependant on the myself.

Making me depend on my money.

Seperating me from the God I love.

Living vs. Watching

"life is a B-movie, it's stupid and it's strange, it's a directionless story, and the dialogue is lame, but in the he-said, she-said, sometimes there's some poetry if you turn your back and let it happen naturally."
-Ani DiFranco

Due to recent events I have come to realize that I need to read books and watch movies to leave reality. I DO NOT need to think that books and movies ARE reality.

There has been some poetry in my life lately, but sometimes I want the movie version.

I pray for fresh eyes. Eyes to see, Ears to hear and a mind to see afresh the reality I live in- without irrational expectations of those around me. With grace and thankfulness for what I am given.

who are you going to vote for? (and Bible Bars)

Due to the depressing choices we have for governor, there's a new choice in town...

If you are not offended easily, then come find out how the Bible Bar Extravaganza went at Community Group last night.

"That's right. This delicious snack contains 7 essential vitamins and minerals taken directly from the scriptures:

Deuteronomy 8:8: "a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey."

It was Bible-icious, a night of feasting on the word.

Hitting and Running

I talked to one of the students that I worked with this afternoon. She is "on punishment". Being someone who is fairly familiar with this concept, I talked to her a little about it.

"Let me tell you the story Ms. Kara...."she begins, and then weaves an amazing, eventful tale about how THE VERY FIRST NIGHT she was allowed to drive (she has JUST turned 16) she hit a parked car at the movie theater, but didn't think that it was that bad, so she drove away.

Then, driving home, it was dark and raining, and she HIT ANOTHER CAR from behind. She couldn't drive away from this one. Her dad showed up and told the police to take her to jail. He was so mad at her. They didn't.

Then, that night, the police showed up at her door, asking about the "hit and run" informing her (apparently this is the first time she found out about this) that she could be sent to jail for what she did. Some kids from school were at the movie theater, saw the whole thing, and told the police. She is one of the only black people at her school, so how did they describe her? The black sophomore who ran for student council VP. And she was surprised she got caught!

Greg talked about community on Sunday, and I can't stop thinking about it. I have lived alone off and on for almost 4 years now (since I graduated from college). It's hard to live with people sometimes when you are used to being selfish with everything around you. In true community there is a sense at which you have to die.

In the movie Crash, the beginning quote is so profound.

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

Sometimes I think that I'm more like my student, though. I crash into people, and still think that I can walk away. Or Hit and Run.

Everything that's wrong

If you want to know a few of the reasons that people aren't coming to "church" (however, according to AVB- "you can't go to church, 'cause the church is YOU") then watch this. Warning- there are a few "dirty" words, so if you live in a Christian vaccum and never hear words like this, you might not want to watch it.

It's about 8 minutes, but it could take you days to really unpack it all.

It's pretty much one of the most facinating things I've seen in a while and I can't stop thinking about it.

Skin

I'm blogging at work- don't tell anyone. Sometimes the quiet of the office is deafening, but right now it's kinda nice. Because I can blog. And no one knows. Except all of you who are reading.

A friend recently talked a little about meeting up with some friends from High School. In the post he asked,

"Why do wounds from high school stick so long?"

This past Sunday Adam and I talked to the middle and high school at our little church community. It was mother's day, so there were not as many teens there, so we had a combined class. It was going to be a class about "THE FUTURE" and whatever that entails- you know making choices, etc. But somewhere in the middle of it I started talking about something that happened to me in 9th grade. Thinking back on it, it really is so silly, but I really do think that it was a wound that has stuck to me and has affected me and planted in me a fear of rejection that has been fertilized by other events only to grow.

I really do think that it's amazing though, how two insecure 9th grade girls deciding that I wasn't cool enough because didn't wear the right jeans has affected me so deeply.

I know it's a weird connection, but I think about the movie Independence Day a lot. When the aliens come, they are virtually indestructible. But towards the end we realize that they are so sensitive once you get past their armor. There is a line in there, as well, about how all human have to protect them is skin. This frail easily cut, burned, severed lining covers all our internal organs, and everything that is holding us together.

Inside we really are so fragile. I wonder if we treat people with the respect, love, and gentleness that is needed to respect their skin.

Did you know......

That if you google yourself, not only does your bolg come up, but so does all the comments that you made on OPG (other people's blogs). Maybe I should be more careful about what I say in cyberland if I want to get a job. Or maybe I should stop yelling at my boss. Either way, it's a tricky game. I like what Bonita said about networking.

When your private life isn't private

I live in an apartment. This apartment is about the size of your living room. This apartment used to be a house, but now, by putting locks on my door and a few new walls, and a kitchen, it is a freestanding apartment. The house, even before it was an apartment was old. Now my apartment is really old. Like before we all were born, old. If you have ever lived in an old house, you know that if you are in the back of the house, on the bottom floor, you can hear people whispering in the front of the house on the second floor. Kind of like an IMAX. Except they don't show movies in my apartment. But I can hear my neighbors. I sing along to their music, laugh with their jokes, and quote movies as they are watching them. I know when they leave for work each morning, and usually this is the noise that tells me it's about time to wake up. This is not that bad sometimes, unless 1. I'm trying to sleep, and it's 2 in the morning, 2. they are trying to have "private time". 3. I want to sleep and it's 12 in the afternoon. Also, they smoke, and I swear, I can't make this up, but the smoke comes through the walls along with the sound waves.

And the opposite is true.

I'm sure they get annoyed when I listen to NPR on Saturday or Sunday morning. I'm sure there are times when maybe they want to sleep, and I am watching a riveting movie, and of course, I never really have any "private time."

Which is interesting to me. The idea of privacy.

I really like the people that I rent from. The woman that owns the house lives on the bottom floor, and her daughter, who really takes care of everything lives in the other apartment on the bottom floor. They are very very kind. They brought me soup when I was sick, and they keep an eye out on my comings and goings. But one day I got a little annoyed at something that the daughter said to me, and I came up to my apartment and said something about it to a friend that was there with me, when I realized that my windows were open...which means that people on the porch hear everything I say. I speak in a normal voice, and it's like I'm sitting on the porch with them.

So when is my life private? When I know that people can hear everything that I'm saying, is there any place that becomes sacred to utter words spoken only into the silence? When there is no silence.

I think this is also interesting in light of the fact that I have an obsessive tendency to become engrossed in reality television. These are people that have CHOSEN to give up all privacy for the sake of what? The chance of money? Fame? A good time?

Have I chosen, in some way, to give up my solitude? What does that even mean? Does the concept of true community exclude the idea of true privacy?

No answers, just some thoughts from someone that was woken up, once again, to the sound of heavy boots descending the stairs this morning.

like a train wreck.....

in a much less insightful post, you know how sometimes you see things on TV, and think- this is so offensive, and yet you continue to watch? In a similar vain, I have been hooked on this blog/zeen. I have to warn you, if you are faint of stomach, or get offended easily (Like if you don't like Brian T Murphy) then don't, I repeat DO NOT keep reading, and do not go to the link.

So this guy basically eats crap. He's testing the limits to see how much the human stomach can endure. And really it's so fascinating what he eats, and how he describes it. He has the dry-est sense of humor that really has me laughing out loud. So check it out if you want to see what fermented corn, beggin strips (yes, that's right, the tasty dog treat) or breastmilk taste like.

LOVE

I have been thinking about LOVE a lot lately, and not just because I'm supposed to be in it. This weekend was pretty intense for a lot of reasons, reasons that I'm not really going to get into here in cyberland, but on Sat night I read 1 Cor 13 , and really wondered if according to that standard, I can ever really accomplish love. What's even more is that Jesus comes along and raises the bar even higher saying that I not only need to adhere to these standards with these people that I like- that I enjoy spending time with, hug on, and laugh with, but he brings me into this discussion and tells me that I'm supposed to love-the same word as 1 cor 13- my enemies. It does not boast. It does not delight in wrong, it does not envy. Always hopes. Always trusts. Can I ever love?

To lighten this a little, I have included some long overdue pictures of some people that I love in my half hearted, failing way. I haven't been able to post these because Adam has had them on his computer. These are from when he and I went home to see Cecilia Grace, my beautiful new niece (which Adam is holding in one of the pics), the other is of me, my sister and brother, and the last is of me and one of my nephews, Noah, the oldest.

I really do pray that somehow in spite of all our hurt, anger bitterness baggage, somehow the light and love of Christ shines through the brokenness to redeem our failed attempts to love.

Jesus

This is what Jesus looks like, in case any of you are wondering. (that is me standing in front of him- don't get confused).















There is a Nichole Nordeman song that says something like, "and I know you could leave writing on the wall that's just for me, or send wisdom in a vision, like in Solomon's Sweet dreams, but tonight I don't need a fiery pillar in the sky. Just want to know you're gonna hold me when I start to cry. Oh great God, be small enough to hear me."

I sometimes vacillate between these two ideas- the bigness and the "smallness" or God- that Smallness being not weakness, but an intimacy that is only gained from God choosing to lower himself to my level. Like a giant basketball player talking to a two year old, I imagine him crouching down to show me something. But lately I have been wondering if it's really possible for him to be small enough to hear me these days. I wonder if, like that statue, he's too big to even look at. Certainly too big to wrap my arms around and hold me in his arms.

Oh the Places you will go

One of the things that I do here with Impact, is go on vision screenings in random Alabama towns. This is always an adventure for a wide variety of reasons...

Yesterday I saw a poster that had a plastic strawberry, Carrot, and and tomato adhered with clear mailing tape. In big bold letters (so the kids can read it better) the mind-stimulating piece of educational information said:

"THESE ARE THINGS THAT GROWS"

Maybe it's better that they can't read.

Do you feel like this guy? I haven't lately, but seeing him still makes me laugh. Thanks T. Scott.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIA

So it's officially been a year! I was sitting here in the office and Adam says, "Can you believe that it's been a year since the pope died?" And it's sad, but one of the first things i thought about was, "Wow, that means my blog is over a year old."

Congratuations Sophia. Sorry I have been neglecting you lately. Someday i will return to you and my faithful readers.

I've been thinking a lot about posting. I really do miss it. Someone told me the other day that the online community misses me, and I felt very validated. It seesm like posts come and go from this crazy head of mine, and I haven't really been journaling very much lately, so I guess thoughts have just been fleeing without being captured.

This isn't really the post I had been thinking about, but since reading this article, I can't get it out of my mind. There aren't really words to talk about the feelings that I have had. Trust me, I have tried desperately, clinging to all the English words I know, searching through my vocabulary to think of the word for this feeling that I have been having about this article. Maybe I will just try to explain.

I picked up a Birmignham Weekly the other day as I was leaving the gym- it's a free publication that I'm trying to support by reading, ever since they supported us by talking about SpeakFirst- and on the cover it said, "The Jesus Mirage". Me, being someone who dosen't really think that Jesus is a mirage, was very intregued by what this was about.

The man has been on a spiritual journey. He is a journalist, and as a writer he has declaired to the public- I am searching out this God thing to see what I think. It is something that most people do not do- go about this serch so methodically and publically. So he visited several pentecostal churches and had varied experiences. He finally looked up a few on the internet and decided to visit a famous one in Flordia. During the service he bacame very put out by what was being said, and in the midst of the thousands of mega-church attenders, he did the unthinkable....he walked out. This is how it continues,

"I listened to the rest of the sermon in my car — it was carried live, on the town’s one radio station — and by the time the message ended and the preacher invited everyone to line up for prayer and healing I was sitting in the motel parking lot drinking a chocolate milkshake and trying hard to tamp down the completely un-spiritual anger that kept rising in my throat as if someone had literally slapped me in the face.

In subsequent weeks I would try, twice more, dropping in on random congregations to see if the Florida experience had been an anomaly. While neither sermon was quite as bile-laden as that one, the same general message came through.

Though the words “Jesus” and “Christ” were everywhere in their signage and their publicity, I discovered that once I showed up in person I had been the sucker in a bait-and-switch routine. The Sermon on the Mount was nowhere to be found, in this dark new dispensation. No mention, whatever, of the unconditional love Jesus showed to criminals and harlots and outcasts of all kinds. No mention of the difficulties of rich men reaching heaven. Not a word.

The entire New Testament, in fact, had become a virtual non-starter in the pulpit. The quoted verses came almost exclusively from the Old, and usually dealt with God judging or smiting someone. If Jesus was in the services at all, he was merely a mirage. Window dressing, for a wholly other enterprise.

I was moved to write an op-ed piece for a local daily paper, wondering out loud why the teachings of Jesus seemed to have disappeared from most churches: chief of all, his adjurations that we should love even our enemies as God loved us, and share our worldly goods with the poor. The burst of e-mails I received in response showed me the error of my ways. Several even had identical wording: “Jesus was not a Socialist,” they said.

My reasoning faculties told me that this transformation had not taken place overnight, through some dark conspiracy, but it certainly seemed that way. I half-heartedly asked and e-mailed around for recommendations of charismatic churches that steered entirely clear of the madness of current politics, but the responses were not encouraging.

When I gradually arose from the mental swamp of moping over what undeniably felt like a personal betrayal and an insult to my human conscience, it was clear to me that my spiritual search required a very sharp turn from the path I had been on. I could even find direct justification for it in the New Testament, a verse in Matthew that I remembered from childhood: “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.”

Whatever the next leg of the journey, I knew I would be taking it solo."

This is where the emotion stepped in. I was so.... so... hurt? Discouraged? desponant? that this was what he experienced. That he felt he had to go it alone, because he could not find the true gospel message, and even when he questioned it, he was racked across the coals.

And we wonder why people are not coming into our churches

And we wonder why people do not want to be associted with our message.

Do we really need to wonder?

FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE

Blame it on the MAN

Sorry I've been a loser lately. That's what happens when illegal things get taken away from you, and THE MAN puts you in a system so you can't afford to buy internet legally. Blame it on the Man.

I actually went to Panera on Monday: blog arranged in my mind, pictures on Adam's computer, ready to create a fantastic blog, however I sat down turned on the computer...and nothing happened. No screen action at all. So I think that I should just stop touching all things electric right now.

Last night I went to community group. It's an interesting bunch, and we usually end up drinking a little bit of wine and saying a few things that make people's faces blush. Brian said last night, "I'm not even really sure why people keep coming back." I told him it was like a soap opera- you know you probably shouldn't watch, but you have to see what happens next.

But the reality of it is that there are some really amazing people in that group, and occasionally it comes out. I have heard comments about Brian T, and his random posts, but I want to share with you something that has really resonated with me recently that he wrote about a church service he was at recently.

"he was talking about idols, and he kept going on and on about behavior modification - how these little things in our lives can be idols and they can distract us. He used countless examples like spending time with friends rather than having a personal devotion, like going out with your buddies rather than praying with your wife, like valuing your job or social status too much and that's why you don't evangelize. Apparently, his issues are much easier to deal with than my issues. lucky guy. my problem isn't with choosing friends over a devotion time, my problem is that I don't want to have a devotion time, and I really don't even know what that means. My problem isn't that I don't pray with my wife, my problem is that I don't believe in prayer. my problem isn't that I don't evangelize to my co-workers, my problem is that the term evangelism has so much negative baggage associated with it that the very mention of the word makes me want to run as far from the idea as possible. and the thing about my co-workers is, they each have beliefs that are really beautiful.

this guy was implying that our focus is probably pretty much good, we just need to tweak it. That's bullshit. my focus is on myself, not anything else. and anyone who thinks that their focus is not on themselves is either dead, because their name was mother theresa, or they are a liar.

I am so sick of behavior modification lessons at church. If that's what christianity is, I'm out. I don't want anything to do with it. Since when did christianity stop being about Jesus?"

Since I haven't posted in a while, and might not for a while again, let this resonate and maybe I'll be back. Thanks for that Brian. That's why I keep coming back.

For those of you who do not join us on Sun Morning at DF, I wanted to share one of the most profound things I have heard in a while.... something that has haunted me in the rare times I let myself be silent.

"Jesus didn't die so that we wouldn't have to die. Jesus didn't suffer so that we wouldn't have to suffer. Jesus died to teach us how to die. Jesus suffered to teach us how to suffer."

Teach me how to die.

Teach me how to suffer.

Thanks Greg for helping me ask the right questions.

Country Girl

You may think that I'm an Uptown girl, living in my uptown world, but just to prove that you are ohhh so very wrong, here I am DRIVING A TRACTOR. E-mail me for video. :) (or e-mail me and tell me how to post it, and I'll post it). All Photo rights are held by Mr. Adam Newby. And I am going to write it here so you all know, it's official- he's my boyfriend.

Who knew

Who knew I had so many fans? I am sure that I am losing them by the second, too, because I have what another blogger compassionately called "a dead blog". Sorry. The guy I was stealing wireless from stopped paying his bill. Stupid jerk. So I don't have internet at home now. I was in and out of town this weekend, and then monday I was off, so I didn't check my e-mail for 5 days. AMAZING. So anyway. I'm not sure how to remedy this situation, but I just wanted you all out there in blooger-land to know that just because my blog may be dead...

I am not.

More to come. Later. When I can find someone else to steal from.