Books read during our first year of marriage:

1. That book I read on our honeymoon that I can't remember the name of...about that house, by the British author.
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
3. Night by Elie Wiesel
4. Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck
5. Emma by Jane Austen
6. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
7. The Highflyer by Susan Howatch
8. The Heartbreaker by Susan Howatch
9. The Wonderworker by Susan Howatch                            

Confessions of the Anxious

I wish I liked myself more.
That would be nice.
And beneficial.
Maybe then I wouldn't have bumps all over my face.
And hip bones plunging out of my body.
Maybe then I could wake up breathing calmly.
And put my feet on the floor without fearing the touch of the carpet.
That would be nice.

How the fuck do we accept the things we cannot change?!
How do we sit here, powerless,
And keep hoping that all shall be well?
Sometimes I just don't know,
And I'm tired of hoping here prostrate on the floor.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
Have mercy on me a sinner.
I'm tired.
I want clear skin more than I want You.
I want the life back in my eyes more than I want Your approval.

Father, forgive me,
For I know what I do.

A morning reflection modified from Thomas Merton; it was a windy morning in Seattle.


"I who sit here and pray and think and live-- 
I am nothing and do not need to know what is going on.
I need only to hope in Christ
and hear [the howling wind that now begins to shake the trees 
and sends its holy sound to me through the window panes]."

Fall's Frailty

It's Fall again;
The earth's season suits my life's.
Things are dying, falling apart.
There's a 'hunkering-down' occurring,
But not without hope of eventual re-emergence.
 There's a 'going inside myself';
A searching of my own depths-
An acceptance of what is there
And of what I want to be there.
 God is trying to grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change...
 Like the yellow Maple leaves
 Fluttering outside my window,
Who fall without their choosing.

 We fear our own beautiful frailty.

Propoganda of Satan (reap what you sow)

this makes me so angry and sad.

look at lesson 11 small group application:

http://www.childrendesiringgod.org/documents/samples/rggd_journal_sample.pdf

The KCB

How do you get through the day when the Kingdom of Corporate Business pays your salary?
...When this kingdom appears to be trampling the Kingdom of God?
'The Man' has set itself up in my chair, as king of 40+ hours of my week.
Oops, I don't mean 'my' week.
This is God's week.

See.
I'm starting to think things are MINE.

The weight is so heavy.
I keep forgetting the world is not black and white.

New Good Music of 2011

Paper Route -- especially their song "second chances"
Azure Ray
Bon Iver
Arcade Fire
Rosie Thomas
Motopony
Allen Stone
Beach House
Gregory Alan Isakov
The song "Laughing with" by Regina Spektor
The song "Lights" by Rihanna and Kanye West

Albums of the last year (last July - July '11):
--"Age of Ads", Sufjan Stevens
--"The Suburbs", Arcade Fire
--"King of Diamonds", Motopony
--The National
--"The Valley", Eisley
--"Recovery", Eminem
--"Neon Bible", Arcade Fire; particularly the song, "My Body is a Cage"

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's

"Frequently as Christians, we want to jump in with answers to questions without really thinking about the assumptions in people’s minds concerning the issue at hand. In Matthew 22, Jesus is asked whether it is right to pay taxes to Caesar or not. Jesus knows that the question is a trap.

Israel was under occupation by the Romans, who were regarded by the Jews as the evil oppressors. To pay taxes, and certainly to collect them, was seen to be strengthening the hand of the enemy. Was not Israel God’s chosen people? Was this not their land? Surely to help the Romans was to go against God himself? In the minds of the listeners, if Jesus is going to be on God’s side, he is expected to say no. If he says no, it will get back to the authorities, and he will be arrested - which is what the questioners want. If he says yes then he will loose the respect of the people. As far as the questioners are concerned, it is a win / win situation."
[http://www.bethinking.org/what-is-apologetics/intermediate/the-biblical-mandate-for-apologetics.htm]
---

So was Jesus actually telling them to pay their taxes?
Is the interpretation really that obvious?

Given the context, it seems just as likely (if not more likely), that if this weren't a trap, and there were no consequences to how he answered, he would have said 'No' to paying taxes. He says, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." And doesn't Jesus, more often than not, always say that EVERYTHING is God's? So would not all money be God's money as well?

--> Look into the possibility that "High Priest" was written on the back of the coin; the blasphemy of this.

...Shane Claiborne on this at http://www.redletterchristians.org/give-to-uncle-sam-what-is-uncle-sams-tax-season-war-resistance/

Thank You for not hurting me

...

Thanks for not hurting me.
Thanks for not hurting me.
Thanks for not hurting me.
Thanks for not hurting me.

You are gentle with me.
you are gentle with me.
You are gentle with me.
You are gentle with me.

Thank you for holding me,
And saying I could be.
Thank you for saying, baby,
Thank you for holding me.

Thank you for having me.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for having me
Thank you thank you for having me.

Thank you for breaking my heart
Thank you for tearing me apart
Now I'm a strong smart heart
Thank you for breaking my heart.

~Sinead O'Connor

...Wow. All of a sudden when she started singing, "Thank you for not hurting me," I felt I could weep. It went right to the core of my heart. Thank you, Jesus, Thank you, God, Thank you you Jesus, for not hurting me.

Thank you for not yelling and cussing at me.
Thank you for not cheating on me.
Thank you for not lying to me.
Thank you for not blaming me.
Thank you for not manipulating me.
Thank you for not sexually abusing me.
Thank you for not verbally abusing me.
Thank you for not degrading me.
Thank you for not demeaning me.
Thank you for not hitting me.
Thank you for not slapping me.
Thank you for loving me.
Thank you for loving me.
Thank you for loving me.
Thank you for not hurting me.
Thank you for not hurting me.
Thank you for not hurting me.
Thank you for not hurting me.

A heart-warming and encouraging sentence from my co-worker to me:

"You help me remember to take care of myself."

.
.
.

Gracias, Jesus. Que sea verdad.

American Patriotism = Christianity

Today I opened my e-mail inbox to find the article, "Who Are Americans?
What Christians contribute to the search for a national identity," by Chuck Colson and Catherine Larson. I had to respond. This article epitomizes the deception that American patriotism = Christianity. Please see my brief response below, after the article:

"Who Are Americans?
What Christians contribute to the search for a national identity"

Nations around the world are suffering from identity crises. Perhaps it began two decades ago, when the last European holdouts were dragged in and the European Union was finally established, a move described by one journalist as "the triumph of the Eurocrats over the peoples of Europe." More recently, The New York Times reported on France's efforts to articulate its national identity. Soon thereafter, controversy erupted when Switzerland banned the construction of Muslim minarets. The Times and Forbes have reported on identity crises facing South Korea and China, as immigration makes largely homogenous nations increasingly diverse.

All these reports raise the question, "Who are we?"—which is also the title of scholar Samuel P. Huntington's final and most prophetic book. "The more general causes of these … questionings," wrote Huntington, "include the emergence of a global economy, tremendous improvements in communications and transportation, rising levels of migration, [and] the global expansion of democracy …."

There's also an identity crisis bubbling just under the surface in the United States.

Huntington documents several challenges to a cohesive sense of American identity. First, while early settlers and immigrants were never ethnically homogenous, they largely traded in the same Anglo-Protestant cultural currency. But as 21st-century demographic trends increasingly draw people from other quadrants of the world, shared cultural assumptions erode.

Exacerbating the problem is a rise in dual citizenship and more subnational identities, which have created divided loyalties. Meanwhile, in the business community, an increasingly globalized economy has caused leaders to adopt a more transnational identity, what some call "Davos man." And aside from a temporary resurgence of patriotism after September 11, Huntington documents how academic elites have led the way in devaluing patriotism and American history.

We rightly pride ourselves on our multiethnic, multiracial society. But as our society grows ever more diverse, how will we understand our national identity?

Huntington poses four possible solutions. The first is a creedal community whose identity exists only in a social contract embodied in the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents. This has historically provided cohesion. The next option is a bifurcated America, one that is bilingual and bicultural like Canada or Belgium. The third option is an exclusivist or imperial notion of America. And the last alternative, the one Huntington clearly favored, is a reinvigorated core culture and religion coupled with the earlier solution of a reinvigorated creedal community.

Can a Christian worldview inform us as we wrestle with our national identity?

Any kind of racially or ethnically intolerant society would be incompatible with Christian principles.

Further, we know that the core values of our creeds, which in particular promote the dignity of all people, resonate with Scripture and are worth preserving. American patriotism does not rest on jingoistic nationalism but on a universal creed that says, "All men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

Liberty is one of those unalienable rights. And this core value, also emphasized in Scripture, teaches us that we cannot force beliefs on others. Our founders understood, however, that freedom of religion is not synonymous with expunging religion from public life, a problem that I and others addressed last fall in the Manhattan Declaration. So if Huntington is in fact right that the U.S. needs a reinvigorated religious commitment, it won't come from a nation-mandated religion but rather from a reinvigorated populace.
believe, then, that for national identity to be salient in the midst of our changing society, we need to promote a recommitment to our creeds, a respect for American history, and a proper role of patriotism, rooted in love of neighbor. Our founders' Judeo-Christian heritage helped produce a culture in which moral responsibility, transcendent ethical principles, and the dignity of all people could flourish—a culture in which our creedal values made sense. This is why our role as leaven within society is so important, and why we must continue to bring a biblical influence to the public square, reinvigorating society.

As we do so, we must guard against the easy tendency to embrace xenophobic notions or fall into the equally perilous trap of promoting subcultural identities over national identity. People will not live with, let alone die for, a nation that has abandoned its religious moorings and adopted a creed that suggests we simply live together in cosmopolitan bliss. Millions of us, however, have been willing to live and die for beliefs rooted in our deepest convictions about God and man—convictions that were expressed so well in the stirring words of our national creed, the Declaration of Independence.

Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/june/19.49.html

Anne-Marie's Response #1:
Was not Jesus absolutely clear about our allegiance being to the Kingdom of God and not to any earthly kingdom (in our case, the United States of America)? He was no proponent of His followers having or preserving a "national identity" or of patriotism to any empire, nation, or kingdom other than his Father's. He said his Kingdom was not of this world even though it was and is "now at hand," within this world. Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not. Jesus is Lord, America is not.
That to say, I do not understand why we as Christ’s followers should be interested in maintaining or "reinvigorating" our American, national identity. The author(s) warn of the “perilous trap of promoting subcultural identities over national identity.” Is not this, in fact, EXACTLY what Jesus taught us to do? Jesus charged us to live into our subcultural identity as Children of God, Disciples of Christ—Kingdom People who “promote”/share the Gospel of love and self-sacrifice, not the Gospel of America or any other worldly institution. I encourage readers to open the 4 Gospels again, read them beginning to end, and listen to what Christ says about our allegiance to his Kingdom.

Anne-Marie's Response #2 to God's Lion Posted: June 26, 2010 5:12 PM
God's Lion-- Isn't it God's love, compassion, and forgiveness that has the power to change humans' behavior much more so than the fear of God or the fear of punishment? This has been my experience--my heart and actions have changed way more because of God's love and forgiveness than from God's wrath; from His mercy, not shame. AND where are you getting your Biblical support from to "smash" the heathens as the way to illicit change? Wasn't Jesus always caught dining with them, healing them, forgiving them? Most of the time, it was pious, self-righteous Pharisees or Religious people (possibly like yourself?) whom he was condemning and calling judgment on. It is time we take the plank out of our own eye FIRST.

you are so brave (Just Keep Telling Yourself That)

"So you're functioning?
So, you are functioning."

I feel ashamed;
She says I'm brave:
"Oh. So you do things. You see people. Oh."
How does this happen?

I get myself up and showered.
I put on my make-up, feed myself oatmeal, take my pills at 11 a.m., feed Pishy, read my daily Melody Beattie reading, and am out the door almost on time to meet Serena at 12:15. I feed myself lunch, order coffee, sit at a cafe with my friend chatting and calm. I interview for 3 hours straight with 6 different people, 1/2 an hour each. I come across as confident but not overbearing or gregarious.
How does this happen?

I get myself to Broadway Grill at 5 p.m., order a rum and coke and some sweet potato fries.
I comfort the woman sitting next to me who has been cheated on by her lover and is drinking away her sorrows--subconsciously begging the alcohol to give her the strength to walk away and not look back. I tell her she deserves to be treated so well. I go walk through some stores, touch some soft fabrics, day dream about what i'd do if i had money...and what i wouldn't do...what i shouldn't do (says who?).

Then, I drive myself home, tell my family it went well but I have no energy to talk about it. I feed Pishy. I eat dinner and talk to my family. I take a nap before Lost and then watch Lost with my family.

From the time I walked in the house until now, I have been on a downward spiral of feeling more and more...what is the word....there really is not one to describe this process or these feelings.
I start feeling more and more....down. Drained. Lacklust. Disinterested. Unexcited (is that a word?). And, something like hopeless but not quite. I feel paralyzed, overwhelmed, like i'm suffocating.
How does this happen?

So I say to myself, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me."
My face gets really hot. My throat hurts. I feel like I can't move. All I can do is sit on this couch and watch V. Oh, that's not all I can do.
I reflect.

I reflect on every single thought, word, action, silence, physical symptom, reaction, feeling I have and have had. I reflect right now on why i'm writing this and why I'm saying this.
I don't just BE.

oh Anne-Marie,

Be.

Love

I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don't jump up and shout, "Yes, this is what I want! Let's do it!"
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiralling down into the ache within the ache.
And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, everyday.

Don't tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning
yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
And see who I am in the stories I am living.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don't tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly OK with the way things are right now in this moment,
and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall,
to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear,
healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us
risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out
loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance, the places
where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the
stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout
that soul's desires have too high a price,
let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world
the stories and the songs you want our children's children to remember, and I
will show you how I struggle
not to change the world, but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging. Dance with
me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words, holding neither
against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest
intentions has died away on the wind, dance with me in the infinite pause
before the next great inhale of the breath that is breathing us all into
being, not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don't say, "Yes!"
Just take my hand and dance with me.

~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Esperanza

It's odd not having written for 3 weeks...
It's only been 3 weeks?
...Feels like months since Dec. 1.

Holy shit.

Today the hope of the resurrection of the dead
started to click.

The hope started to permeate within me.
Finally.
It moved from my head down to my heart.
I felt warmer.
I felt the endorphins pumping into me,
as my mood shifted from depressed
To excitement about being alive--about
Seeing Aunt Judy again.

So fucking weird, cuz i'm so fucking pissed off.

Yet, after we buried her in the ground
And drove away,
I was thinking about all I've been reading in Surprised by Hope.
...And how much MORE there is to come.
How our life here is just the beginning.
Yet, now we have to go through it without her...
It still fucking sucks so much.

Yet, i'm starting to feel it.

Yo puedo sentirla; esperanza.

Math major at heart

Yes.

I am reminded what a math nerd I am.

I typed the word 'equation' when i meant 'occasion':

"On more than one EQUATION I have been told..."

CLASSIC.

cancer at christmas

I HATE cancer.

It's been a year since Andy's mom died, and I still cry about it. I still miss her. I still sometimes can't believe she's gone. I still want to hug Andy and tell him how sorry I am and put my hand on his back during service when we pray for those who've died. It still hurts so much.

My aunt is dying from cancer right now. She has 3 young teenage kids. We are all like brothers and sisters. It's Thanksgiving and we all forgot the life-long tradition of going around the table and saying what we're thankful for. ....why?

My adopted grandpa's wife (Dr. Lemcio's wife, Diane) just got diagnosed with lymphoma cancer.

So I started to feel angry at God tonight--
then I felt like He said, "And you think I like it?"
He said it with attitude...'in your face'-like.

He HATES cancer too.

Voy a estar una nina…
una nina de mi Padre.
Soy la nina…El es el Padre.
Estaré una nina y dormiré en paz.
Voy a tomarle la mano
y caminar con El .

Happy to be Alive

"Now I'm sunny with a high of 75 since You took my heavy heart and made it light. And it's funny how you find you enjoy your life when you're happy to be alive."

~For the last 5 years, most of the time I have sang this simple, not-deep-at-all chorus by Relient K praying that someday I could sing it truthfully; that someday I could breathe in deeply and sing with a full, warm heart that I was happy to be alive.

...and today I did.

Today I did.

I was sweeping up coffee grounds behind the bar where I work at Muse Coffee. This song came on. I was singing along as usual, with the normal feeling of dread that comes over me when I hear this song because it harshly reminds me that I don't feel the way I'm saying I feel as I sing along.

But today I did.

Today I am happy to be alive. I am so happy to be alive. I am so happy that I am happy to be alive.

Because this is so NEW for me.

And it's not just today...it's been a couple months now where I have woken up wanting to be alive...grateful to be alive. I wake up every morning fearing this will end--that i'll wake up depressed with a dark heaviness again...like I'm used to.

But I don't.

I knelt down on that coffee ground covered floor with broom and dustpan in hand and reflected on times in the recent past where I had wanted to end my life--where I was in such despair and hopelessness...and how good God has been to me throughout.

I thanked God over and over again in multiple languages-

Thank you, God. Thank you thank you thank you.
Gracias, padre. Gracias gracias gracias.
Спасибо Богу. Спасибо cпасибо cпасибо.

You have taken my heavy heart and made it light.
You have given me the gift of enjoying my life.

And I am happy to be alive.

Pouring Hope

When you're blindsided and deceived
And chained to the floor
When it's difficult to see
The writing on the wall

Keep on believing God is
Soaring above a world that's
Running out of love
Pouring hope out over us

When it's hard for you to breathe
Keep a clear mind
When it's hard for you to be
Just to be yourself sometimes

Keep on believing God is
Soaring above a world that's
Running out of love
Pouring hope out over us

~Mindy Smith

This is an awful ad.