Technorati-esque

Today I learned about Technorati. It is a great way to find blogs about any topic of interest. I punched in Rockharbor just for kicks and found TONS of people who think Rockharbor is Sodom and Gomorrah. It was great. Apparently, the Look team is not aware that using Urban Outfitters sheets as part of the backdrop on the stage is tantamount to smoking crack cocaine in church. Do you think I should tell someone? Post your vote in the comments box.

Or post your vote in "The Box" at Rockharbor! And then go home and freely re-name all the rooms of your house with different hip names such as: "The Shower Box, "The Garage of Love" "Studio Bedroom" (this one is exceptionally true in Orange County!). Because this is NOT A SIN.

Don't blond, white chicks from the OC with ultra-hip hair also need a place to worship? Or should all churches be defined by purple-robed old men?

Election

In the same vein as my post on the Emergent Conversation, I have been reading, thinking and pondering more about this idea of the emerging church. In my travels today, I found this Christianity today article and the most wonderful quote below:

[With his circle diagrams, McLaren is popularizing the work of the late British missionary Lesslie Newbigin, who returned from a lifetime in India to spend his last years reflecting on the need for a new theology of mission. "According to Newbigin, the greatest heresy in monotheism is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of election," McLaren says. "Election is not about who gets to go to heaven; election is about who God chooses to be part of his crisis-response team to bring healing to the world."]

See the whole article here:
The Emergent Mystique in Christianity Today

Why Slate is Great

Slate asks some of the most important questions of our time, beginning with...

What's Wrong with Cat Ladies?

I Got Moxie

You may have doubted, but doubt no more...

I Got Moxie!

The Worst Ad Song Ever

If you need a laugh, this made me laugh until I cried and then the person in the cubicle next to me just had to ask what I was laughing about.

What's the Worst Ad Song Ever?

The Emergent Conversation

I first learned about the Emergent Conversation through a book I read over Thanksgiving of 2002 that changed my life. The book, A New Kind of Christian, by Brian McLaren gave a metaphor for my Christian church experience. In it, an evangelical pastor and his daughter's high school science teacher have a series of dialogues about what it means to be a Christian in a post-modern world. In another blog, on another day, I will explain all that the book illuminated for me about ecclesiology and the like. For now I will just say that it changed my life. Since Thanksgiving 2002, I have been receiving email updates and reading about the Emergent Conversation online at www.emergentvillage.com and thinking about the ideas presented by those involved with the conversation. I think one of the most interesting things about my whole experience with it is that I have sat on the sidelines, and most of you know that that is not my way. TANGENT: I discovered long ago that as women and girls we are largely shaped by the words our mothers use to describe us to their women friends when they are on the phone with those women friends in the other room of the house and don't realize we can hear them. When my mother is speaking to my aunts and to other "church ladies" on the telephone she refers to me as a "joiner." And this is largely true. I am not known to sit at home, ever. I like clubs, teams, parties, outings and all kinds of synchronized activities such as ice skating, swimming and color guard. She even once suggested I join the Navy, as I am so adaptable to regimentation. :END TANGENT. So the fact that I have sat on the sidelines with Emergent may have more to do with personal reservations than that I don't want to be involved somehow. I think my reservations fall into the following categories: 1) I either cannot get away from work or the conventions have been too far away to attend. 2) I don't really see it as all that revolutional of a movement when it was founded and is now governed by a group of older white men (can you say, "elder board"?) 3) I don't see it as truly inclusive of diverse ethnicity or gender or socioeconomic status. I think that exhausts my list, but in the spirit of the post-modern, post-conservative, post-evangelical movement of Emergent, I may revise, expand or rework my entire thought process and hence, this list at anytime. As for Emergent on a theological level, I think it is a good idea and the heart is in the right place, but I think I (and we, the evangelical church) need to be careful not to deconstruct everything about our faith.

And I am a pretty open-minded person (I don't think yoga is from the devil or that South Coast Plaza is besieged by evil spirits) but I will never walk a medeival labryinth as a method of worshiping God. It just ain't my thing.

Simplicity

The blog conundrum is like the computers conundrum. Ideally, with the advent of the personal computer and the cubicle-based computer in the workplace, we were supposed to be able to create, edit, manipulate and transmit documents electronically, eventually culminating in a paperless society of ultimate simplicity. Instead, we now have multiple electronic AND paper copies of everything. Similarly, if I am responding to your comments on my blog entries in the comments section of your blog, I will forthwith copy and paste this comment on your blog into a blog entry on my blog, which others will then comment on. Not really acheiving the quest for simplicity, eh?

(This also explains the mountains of paper I dispose of everyday in a lovely blue recycle bin under my desk.)

Thursday

Thursday is a great day. On morning radio shows they say if you can just get past Wednesday, you'll slide into the weekend. But I think Thursday is truly the best day of the week. On Thursday I don't have to pack a lunch for the next day or find corporate clothes to wear (Yay for casual Fridays!) and I usually get paid, like I will tomorrow. On Thursday you aren't in the promised land yet, but you can smell it and taste it. On Thursday the smoke of freedom is rising and you can see the emerald city a ways off. You know that Friday you will get there, but it's like the early morning when things haven't quite revved up for business yet. As someone who lives for the anticipation of blessings, I like to get excited about the reward before I get it. I like Thursday because I find enjoyment in the anticipation of Friday and the weekend.

After Many Requests

After very many requests, I have finally acquiesced and here is my new rockstar haircut!

The Dawn Will End the Night

After work yesterday, I went to my favorite place in the world. It's a Secret Garden. Seriously, it is this actual walled-in garden with beautiful little windy paths through the bushes and an old fountain and birds and it's lovely in a magical kind of way. You almost think the birds will start talking to you or little gnomes will wander out from under a tree stump. So I sat on this little bench under a trellis of hanging vines that were shading me and I finished the book. And it ended up being quite hopeful and lovely, almost more so because she goes so deep into the reality and rawness of pain for so much of the book. The breaking of the dawn of hope in the book is so much more exquisite because of the wreckage and damage we have been wading through to get there. I wonder if this will be true of my life here on earth. Will I get to that exquisite, fresh place? Or will I have to wait until heaven?

One of the sweetest parts of the book was the afterword and the acknowledgements, which is unusual. But right there in the thank yous, was a note "to Andrew: thanks for Psalm 88." Wow. The signs there are just too much to handle. I never knew that anyone else knew about that Psalm. Once I told a girl that it was my favorite Psalm and she went home and read it and the next time I saw her she looked at me like I belonged in a psych ward. She still brings it up to this day. Read it if you get a chance. When I begin to doubt that Jesus ever really felt the pain I have felt, when I think of the Passion movie (which I hated) and how his pain looks simpler, less complicated and easier than my pain, I read that and I remember that He felt all of my pain because He lives in me. His pain prior to the cross maybe was less complicated, but He felt mine when He was with me in it. He knows the violation and even still to this day He knows the residue it has left on me.

And the ending of the book made me think of the last line of this song by Van Morrison...

Feel the angel of the present
In the mighty crystal fire
Lift me up consume my darkness
Let me travel even higher

I'm a dweller on the threshold
As I cross the burning ground
Let me go down to the water
Watch the great illusion drown

I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more

I'm gonna turn and face the music
The music of the spheres
Lift me up consume my darkness
When the midnight disappears

I will walk out of the darkness
And I'll walk into the light
And I'll sing the song of ages
That the dawn will end the night

Stumbling

I'm currenty reading Stumbling Toward Faith by Renee Altson. I read the first half last night and then couldn't get to sleep. I kept hearing clicking noises like someone was coming in to get me. I know it was just my ceiling fan and my paranoia, but it was still terrifying. Also I am home alone this week. Only after perusing the site today did I see the disclaimer: please note that this (excerpt) could be triggering to others who have been abused. Well, thanks for the warning. Even if you haven't been abused this book is disturbing and yet beautiful in its intensity. Anyway, I will only read it at lunch today and then I'll be fine by the time bedtime rolls around. The whole episode made me realize that even though I knew I was safe, the danger is not "out there", it comes from inside me. There will always be the residue of these wounds on my soul, and there will always be little physical reminders of how I am scarred. My birthday this year was another instance of this...I can rationalize and cling to God's wisdom that everything will be fine and embrace His freedom from despair, but there will always be this anxious residue on my soul. Because in a way others may never know, I know that the world will never be completely safe for me.

A $2000 Armani Suit

Quote of the Day:

It is wonderful when you have a man in a $2000.00 Armani suit lecturing the lower classes about the true meaning of Christ's teachings.

This was a post responding to an article about Jeb Bush (Gov. of Florida) promoting a Christian-based program for schools. See the article here.

Arby's

You knew it was coming, didn't you? An entire post devoted to that wonderful place that I can't get enough of...Arby's. And you're probably thinking I went there today, because I could go there everyday, but I didn't. I thought about going there for lunch, but instead I went downstairs to the cafe for a sandwich. Because I have had the kind of week where I probably want to do as little as possible to invite more complications. The reason I thought of Arby's today is because I work in a large office building, but for some reason we still get residential junk mail with our postal mail. And Arby's coupons come in the mail, which is a total bonus for me and Jill, because we love Arby's. Nothing is as yummy as Arby's when you just need something simple and yet tasty. I'm a girl who can definitely appreciate a filet mignon, I had my first one on my birthday and it rocked, but Arby's is just a special place. So there it is, I am taking up internet space to honor a fast-food chain. Yup, I'm officially off my rocker...