never been here before

My mind unprepared yet my heart prepared, I feel a crushing blow. I sit facing my friend - shocked but not shocked. Somehow I knew but didn't know the unhappiness was so deep inside. I was reflecting into the people and places who didn't deserve mistreatment. Sadness affects more than just me. My stunned mind ran in circles wondering where it all went wrong. I closed my eyes hoping a picture would come to explain it all away, a way for the problem to be solved. A year? Could it be that bad? "Yes" the Holy Spirit whispered to me. I was suddenly aware of all I'd done. Not in a way that made sense to me, for I still have no explanation. None of it was intended the way it was took. So in the midst of a life I've tried to create order and peace in, I must now make everyone else happy too? Does that seem fair? I asked myself. As my friend continued to talk my disbelief grew, but my acquiescence did not go ignored. What she was saying was true, from their perspec...

Blech. What is it about this topic that every song written about it makes me want to plug my ears? This is the thrid time in three pastors I've had to deal with this topic in worship. And all the songs out there are terrible. Yuck. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place, but I feel as though I keep up with all the newest stuff and doing this job for the last 5 years has made me very familiar with the older stuff. Still... nothing. Is it the songwriters' inability to understanding the HS properly? Is it that most have a hard time understanding the HS's role so everyone is afaid to even try to write a song about it? Or is it that all songs written about it musically seem cheesy? It's so frustrating. I'm just whining. It comes quite naturally to me.

I've been pondering a little about why I write here. Never too great at the handwritten journal, I was skeptical when I decided to start on online journal. That was three years ago (on zorpia.com) and true to form, I didn't keep up with it. I wrote enough, I guess, but I just wasn't consistent. Blogger.com made the process exponentially easier, so yea for them. As I peruse other blogs, most seem to have a theme and purpose. The writers have a specific reason for writing in the first place. Is it weird that I don’t have that? I’ve looked back at my history as a writer and there is no identity. I’ve not taken writing seriously. Sometimes I enjoy it, most of the time I loathe it. Often times I only wrote because there was massive amounts of junk inside me I had to get out. I don’t write for any other reason that to sort that junk out. It doesn’t do any good inside me, so I feel as though spewing it all over is better than it taking space up in my heart and mind. Now, I’ve turn...

Interesting. Huh.

If you’ve read this blog for a while you know I’m a worship leader. In a "happy with the status quo" "family-reunion" type-of church that I grew up in, love, am not afraid to be disillusioned with, and a church that is trying to work it’s way out of a hole we’ve dug. Believe me, I’ve thought about leaving my church. Anyone who is passionately devoted to Christ and works/volunteers in a church most likely has. I’ve thought about leaving lots and lots of times. Why don’t I? Why should I? I can fill notebooks and notebooks with reasons for both. About a year ago it felt like do or die time. I was trying to push something forward and to me, it was D-day. Either we go forward or I leave. I never threatened anyone with that, but the thoughts were in my head. I would never issue an ultimatum like that. It’s just not in me. When a tiny glimmer of hope appeared - that we as a church could go forward with the blessing of church leadership (minus a pastor) I stayed and I foug...

I'm obsessed with lists. 100 Most Shocking Moments in TV, Top 10 Videos of All Time, 100 Best Movie Quotes... I love them. I love sitting uselessly to click off my own personal choices and yelling "HA!" when mine makes the list. I love being right. The latest list? AFI's 100 years, 100 cheers . Cute, yes, but now they are just searching for shows to fill the summer time slots. With my house guest at some company dinner she was required to attend, I could watch without guilt of being considered a geek and yell at the TV all I want. So here's the list I have no trouble admitting I haven't seen all the movies on this list (Seriously, who's seen Breaking Away ?) and not even all that are in the top ten. There are now several more movies I want to see, but that's normal for me. But here's what really chaps my hide: There is NO WAY The Color Purple should only be number 51. Forest Gump, The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz were all higher on the list....

Yeah, so the electricity in my house almost killed me last night. My good friend Suzie is staying with me for the next several days. She got in last night and after we'd talked for a while, I decided to be a good hostess and make lemon-poppy seed muffins for us to enjoy for breakfast this morning. And you know when you're dumping the batter into the muffin cups and the batter can splash a little and not end up in the cup? Well, I tried to wipe most of it up but apparently didn't succeed because after 10 minutes in the oven, you could smell a little burning. It wasn't anything serious, just a smell. No smoke anywhere in the house, but then I heard this very loud beep. One I am unfamiliar with and hadn't heard since I moved in here. But it doesn’t take long for me to realize it was the smoke alarm. It only beeped once, and as there was no smoke in the house, I thought maybe it was the battery warning me it was getting low. No big deal, right? I am a self sufficient wo...

The article I linked to below is of the kind I'm seeing a lot of in the last year or so. Maybe they've been out there longer, I just never noitced. I don't know. Here's is something I feel compelled to point out: “I don’t have a problem with Christianity or with Jesus. Those are good things. But people who act uncaring and intolerant? That’s what I can’t stand. People who talk about love and then act with hate.” I attended a church in college that when the pastor spoke about God's love, he didn't see it as being all roses and chocolates (that's the girl version of love I've just inserted, not his, btw.) Love isn't just about being nice, he would say, sometimes being nice is showing truth. Sometimes God's love is tough. Sometimes his truth makes us feel unloved or condemned, but it's never that way. God's love is there when we see our sin, it's spilled all over the floor, and he and only he is able to mop it up. The tough part about...

If you thought Christians would listen I had to share it now. It's too good. More thoughts on it later.

I went to see a production of Macbeth a while back. (A line of which this blogger takes her blog name - this isn't a reflection that I 'm obessed with the play. I do think it's a masterpiece of literature, but the quote is much more about where I was at in my life when I started this thing than about the play) It was in this really great old building that used to be a church. They converted it into a community theatre back in the 80s, put amazing stadium seating in and it made the whole place feel a little like the beautiful Orpheum Theater in Omaha (but on a much smaller scale). What was so interesting to me was that they set the play in post-apocalyptic times. Whenever is comes up in conversation I get this strange look from people who cannot believe someone would dare to do Shakespeare in anything other than Elizabethan times. Which is crazy... the themes in his work are timeless so why bind them to a particaular time in history just because that's when they claimed...

I've got this friend who grew up in South Carolina. She's hilarious. Probably one of the funniest people I've ever known; my sides ache when she tells her stories, they are so funny. Maybe it's the accent, maybe it's her laugh, I don't know, but I enjoy it nevertheless. Her landlord (which used to also be my landlord before I moved out in February) raised the rent $110 and only gave us 27 days notice. I had already planned to move out for other reasons; I also had a strong feeling he would raise the rent because I knew what my old landlord was asking for the building. I began looking for new places in January and just in time for the rent increase he planned for March. I was no longer under a lease, so it was not a problem when I moved out, but my friend still was. The landlord agreed to her moving out a month early because May is an easier month to rent out. College kids are usually moving after classes are over and he had another apartment open at the same ti...

Pamie: Pop Culture Princess It's absolutely hilarious. I can't stop reading.

I used to be a Jaycee. That’s right. I was a card-carrying member of the Jr. Chamber of Commerce. I joined when I first moved here, thinking it would be a nice way to meet some like-minded people, learn more about the community, and hey, it looks good on a resume, so what the heck. I had the opportunity to meet and work with lots of different kinds of people – through the Kid’s CARE ID program, the park and rec Easter Egg Hunt, the local camp that work exclusively with handicapped kids to rehabilitate, etc, etc. I help run athletic competitions for kids – Super Shooters, Pitch, Hit and Run – I helped paint parking spaces lines – you name it, I probably did it. One of the fascinating events we did was when we told the local hockey arena we would sell programs for them. It was a fundraiser for us, so we could continue to send local kids off to state competitions – so we committed to have 4-5 people sell programs at every hockey game for the season. We had to wear dorky school bus yellow ...