Random fun...Courtney, me and Meredith
Tangie Peters....my BFF
Week Two SLA group

My SLA boys. They are amazing!

Here is our staff at closing celebration week 2

More Pictures from Fuge

This was at a program we put on for a disabilities camp...my guys were dressed out of control.
Me and Chris....he is wearing a lot of spandex....the downs kids loved it.
This is Campbell. He is out of control and yes that is a gorilla suit
Mega Relay. We were SLA aka: Student Lockup Association

Week 1

My first group of students...they're AMAZING!
Me and my girl Kenzie
Me and Courtney
We were working at a food bank and we found this...."BEEF with juices" I mean really...people are hungry, but I'm not sure they're that hungry
I mean is this not the funniest picture you've ever seen?

My AMAZING staff!!!!

to breathe or not to breathe

So, I was riding on a plane today back to Nashville. I was sitting beside this middle-aged lady with spikey hair. I noticed at one point that her breath was less than desireable. So I started doing that thing where you breath into your own hands (you know you've done it) in a vain attempt to smell your own breath and a thought occured to me...I am trying to breath it back in, but you can't do that because somehow smell is not the same thing as breath or air. All of this is confusing and beside the point...the point is the process of breathing...what a strange thing. You breath in one substance and within 1 second of you breathing it back out again it is something totally different. How is that possible? One second its Oxygen, the next its Carbon Dioxide....useless to you, priceless to trees...which leads me to my next train of thoughts. How in the heck do trees breath in and out. I mean I can see myself in 8th grade science just eating this stuff up without a second thought...."Oh so trees breath in what we breath out, that makes sense." NO...it doesn't make sense at all, in fact its rather bizzarre. All of this because a ladies stank breath. I didn't occupy my mind that long, I soon started to read a book, but I thought it was a worthy blog subject. Any thoughts?

The freedom of gratitude

"All of life is a gift, and we grow to be like Jesus as we embrace this gift. Now, growth in character occurs to the degree that we accept being forgiven as a greater gift than life itself. In light of this gift of forgiveness and life, what am I to be? I am to be free. The fruit of grattitude is freedom from death and its countless cousins- fear, shame, estrangement, etc. And what grows from freedom? A playful, curious connectedness to the unveiling of new grace in pleasure and in sorrow. TO those who have eyes of gratitude, all senses are freed to take in and participate in the smallest and most obscure as well as the most panormaic displays of beauty. Gratitude also frees the heart to suffer fury against that which mars beauty. Gratitude brings an imminent passion to all endeavors of life." Dan Allender Leading With A Limp

There isn't a virtue as overlooked as gratitude. What is Christ trying to teach us with his story of forgivness towards a man's large debt, if it isn't the idea of gratitude and how it should affect how we live? I never realized how ungrateful I was for the things I have been given until I lost my chance to express my gratitude through love and forgiveness towards someone, a chance I will never get again. In my failure to live out the gospel I am forced to embrace the gospel. A Jimmy Eat World song say, "Our time is borrowed and spent too freely. Every minute we have needs to be made up, but how?" We "have" nothing. We own nothing and yet act as if we deserve everything with no gratitude for anything. In the light of your gratitude for the working of the gospel in your life, lavish love and forgiveness on those around you, pour it out without hinderance or thought because you may not get another chance and you can't take to heaven what was made to spend.

Nashvegas Fuge

I am in Nashville, for yet another summer working with M-fuge. I love camp. There is something about it that sits well with me, that fills in my blanks. Its 30 people with hearts for students coming together from all over the country in one place for 2 and 1/2 months. Its exhaustion, friendship, crazy, fun, emotional, trying, sad, beautiful, life-changing, stretching, great! It is, in some ways, something I was born to do. I have a great team of people and we are looking foward to getting our first "batch" of chillens' on Saturday. Its going to be great!

Could I talk to you? Are you listening?
Would you let me ask the questions that burn inside me?
I am reaching out, I am holding on.
Feel like one of Your affections, but not quite like I belong.

I am numb today, everything's a blur,
I've seen too much to deny, too little to be sure,
Like a prodigal, like a distant son, I can see You from a distance,
But I'm too ashamed to come

Will You see me through this valley?
Will You hold my outstretched hands?
As the world caves in around me,
Will You help me understand?
Help me understand, help me understand.

I am scared to fall,
Scared to carry on,
Am I losing to the cynic after running for so long?
There's a child in me, lost in mystery.
But its buried underneath the earth, longing to be free.

Will You hold my outstretched hands?
As the world caves in around me,
Will You help me understand?
Help me understand, help me understand.

Lightning

I rode home tonight in a lightning storm. There is something otherworldy and almost spiritual about lighting. I am fascinated by its complexity and yet captured by its simplicity. It is power and beauty, fear and strength, unforgiving and unstoppable.
It is the ultimate picture of light piercing the darkness. It is part of the storm that seems unpredictable. Who knows where the next one will strike and when?
For some reason I find it calming to watch. I don't know why such a dangerous force can be both deadly and peaceful. I had to remind myself to keep my eyes on the road and not on the free fireworks show lighting up the low country sky.
There is something in lightning that hints at the face of God. Lightning is not of this world.

Social Injustice: Part 2

Ethnic Cleansing- the expulsion of an undersirable population from a given territory as a result of RELIGIOUS or ethnic discrimination, political, strategic or idealogical considerations or a combination of these.

I have an easier working definition for this term....In simple terms its HATE, nothing more, nothing less; unwaranted, unadulterated hate, the absolute opposite of Christianity of the message of Jesus. It is hate just for the sake of hate, hate just because of exisiting, where as Christianity says love....LOVE just because a person is a person.

There are many examples of this all throughout history. You know the big ones, so we won't dive too deeply into that. The first one I will delve into was inspired by a book I bought in Seattle and read in about a day. It makes me wonder how many of us really know the depth of the nobility of the war we are in right now and if we knew...if we really knew, would we still hate the President and his decision to fight the Taliban?

Welcome to Seattle

This is my new definition of talent- playing guitar and harmonica, while hulla-hooping and dancing back and forth with wooden shells tied to your shoelaces as instruments of percusion

The infamous outdoor market....RIDICULOUS

The infamous Pike Place Fish Co....where they yell loudly and throw fish with gumption and spirit....Its like "Welcome to Moe's" on steroids!

These friends, these women, are one of God's precious gifts to me. I spent the last few days in Hilton Head with them. I am only sad that all of you don't know them they way I have had the blessing of knowing them!

Social Injustice: Part 1

AIDS- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

AIDS is the greatest humanitarian crisis of our day. It has already orphaned 15 million children

Every week, AIDS claims as many lives as American fatalities in the Vietnam War. Since it was discovered, AIDS has killed nearly 30 million people--equal to the combined populations of Arizona and Texas, and nearrly 10 times the number of earthquake fatalities in the last century.

Food Shortages are a big problem. By 2020, AIDS will have claimed the lives of at least one-fifth of southern Africa's agriculture workers.

Sub-Saharan Africa has 64% of the world's HIV cases--more than any other area of the world. But skyrocketing infection rates in Russia, China, and India threaten similar or worse epidemics in these regions in the near future. THERE IS NO VACCINE against HIV/AIDS

6,000 children are orphaned by AIDS every day. IF all of these children held hands, they would stretch five and a half times across the United States. By 2011, this virtual chain will reach around the world......That is in 5 years.

While African countries have suffered the most AIDS deaths to date, the virus that causes AIDS is currently spreading fastest in Russia--where the infection rate grew 257% in just 3 years.

So what can we do...go to World Vision and check it out...

"Whatever you did for one of the least of these...you did for me."
Matthew 25:40

Social Injustice-A mini series of sorts

It has come to my attention, a sort of awakening of spirit, that I am surrounded by what could be deemed, "Social Injustice" and I am oblivious to it. Christ was an agent of social change, a voice for the poor, downtrodden and opressed and I, rather, am an agent of just being social. What are we doing....as believers in Christ what are we doing while people all over the world are having thier lives ripped apart? Are we serving on committees? Drinking $4.00 coffees and discussing theology? Attending our "worship" services with the Holy Spirit leading us with technologically moving bells and whistles....or is the Holy Spirit leading us to offer our bodies, our lives to the world as spiritual acts of worship?
I am one of them, naive, no clue that the world is in need of more than a Christian, but a Christ follower. This a journey, if you will, not only for the reader, but for myself; a research project to expel our naivity and apathy and hopefully, spark an urgency for this dieing world.
Join me.

Social injustice
Social injustice is a concept relating to the perceived unfairness or injustice of a society in its divisions of rewards and burdens. The concept is distinct from those of justice in law, which may or may not be considered moral in practice. Opposition to social injustice is increasingly a platform of emerging political parties.




"The one thing we can all agree [on]... is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums ... God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives... God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them."
Bono

One day...

Something tells me that this is going to make sense
Something tells me it’s going to take patience
Something tells me that this will all work out in the end

You know, I am, or at least I have become, such a thinker. I have a feeling the inside of my head looks much like the inside of Grand Central Station during rush hour. I have tons of thoughts, ideas and questions that I mull over constantly encircling them and pondering them and getting really, no where. Surrounding this caticomb of intellectual activity (if you can call it this) is a presence of peace. I know, I don't know how I know, that everything will eventually come full circle. All will be well, balanced, very good, as it was always intended to be.

Goodbye

As the day's sun is setting

To evening's song
Life passing by
As I'm holding on

Trying to capture
what was made to be free
And finding its already
Let go of me

I guess this is just
the way that it goes
My head's catching up
With what my heart already knows.

When we stay in one place
A part of us dies
And the point of living
Is to be fully alive

Goodbye Clemson and Thank you for 5 great years!

so funny...

I was in my kitchen today when a commercial came on adversting some type of women's medication. The commercial was listing off the qualities you must have in order to fit the profile for this medicane. In the middle of the list of qualities was, "Must have a Uterus." NO LIE. My roommates and I laughed hysterically. It was in this long string of things like "must have low blood pressure, no alcohol, must be female, must have a uterus..."
SO FUNNY!

paradox

“The world is neither so full of evil that we cant enjoy it nor so full of goodness that we can abandon ourselves to it. When we see something beautiful there is always the qualifying thought that it has been tarnished. When we see something ugly, there is always the qualifying thought that there is something of the Creator hidden there.”
-Steve Turner

...so much truth in the raw simplicity of this statement...maybe the tarnishing is both the fallen world and the cracked, tainted lenses through which we view it...we can neither recognize beauty nor escape evil.

And you must remember love
is like a dollar in your hand
You can't take to your grave
What was made to spend...

Mystery

"This is MYSTERY: to experience something we cannot manipulate and abandoning ourselves to One we cannot control. Embracing mystery demands that we refuse to stand over our history, examining it and judging it with aloof, sterile detachment. Mystery takes it in like a child's first step onto the vasat expanse of the white sands of the beach. Surrendering to the smells, the cool spray form the incoming tide, the warm sun, and the grainy coolness shifting under his feet, he simply enters into the ocean's world. The young heart has no way to know what it is he is dealing with; he simply has to dive in and feel it for himself."
-Winn Collier, Restless Faith

you are my greatest friend

you are my deepest need
you are my loudest cry
you are my everything

you are my only hope

you are my forgiveness
you are my every breath
you are my comfort here
you are my everything

you are my only hope

the maker of the earth
the giver of my life
the healer of my heart
forgiver of my soul
you are my only hope

-Robbie Seay Band

Happy Easter

I found out some things about Easter this weekend. Easter has nothing to do with eggs or little fluffy bunnies or a load of candy bound to gift us endless cavities. Its not even really all that much about family, at least not the family tree type family we normally spend time with on this occasion. It was this weekend when I didn't see my "family" and I didn't go "home" and I didn't sit on the lap of a rabbit in the mall or dye eggs or even eat candy that Easter was still powerful and real and meaningful. It is about Christ setting off a string of events that set into motion a new and revolutionary way of thinking and living, where family transcends the simple flesh and blood of dna and a group of unrelated humans can come together for a day and share a meal together and form a family even if they have only just met. It is when another "family" that is related unreservedly invites you in to spend a few hours and then a few more and then a meal and then the night if you wish and another meal the next day and you play with their dogs and swing on their porch and get the sense that you are a part of their family if only by "Someone Elses" FLESH and BLOOD. Christ did a curious thing in his death and resurrection. He started a war and he started a bloodline, his bloodline. It is when believers come together as a family, loving uncondtionally and putting aside differences, that we deal out our blows in this waging war and become a beacon of light to the world around us.

Adversity

"Adversity is like a strong wind. Not just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be."
-Memoirs of a Geisha

Applications smaplications

I hate applications, maybe more than ab workouts, maybe more than people who come into Einsteins at 2:55 (we close at 3:00) and want a panini of the worst kind and a mocha, maybe even more than pickles do I hate applications. Not really because I hate the application itself, but simply because of the difficulty of the process. Let me explain what I mean. Each school does it totally different. One wants you to print it out and fill it out by hand and mail it in. One has it online (welcome to the 20th century). Some have part online and part by hand. They all want your testimony, or rather "personal statement" but each wants it written in a different way. I've written my calling to ministry about 10 different ways in the last few weeks and I can't even tell you really what my calling is.....to love? people maybe, isn't that we're all called to. And my poor references, I think they now hate me and instead of writing positive things are writing hate mail to the schools about me. And they can't use the same letters, oh no, each school wants it done differently. Geez...I hope that the next stage of life is more exciting than the process of preparing for it.

Happy Palm Sunday

Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far too small
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all

O the wonderful cross, O the wonderful cross
Bids me come and die and find that I may truly live
O the wonderful cross, O the wonderful cross
All who gather here by grace draw near and bless Your name

Back at square one

So, after months of slamming doors and indecision, I am back to where I started working yet another summer with my favorite camp, M-fuge. On Monday afternoon I turned down a job in Colorado, uncommitting to the only thing that I had comitted to, only to receive a call the very next morning out of the blue from Lifeway offering me an opportunity to work camp another summer. Now, I'm no idiot, I know an open door when I see one and after I got over my initial disbelief and shock at the ride God has taken me on, I readily accepted the position. I will be the Student Leadership Apprentice Director working my second summer in a row at M-fuge Belmont University. It feels good to have something solid and concrete. I thought I had made a mistake somewhere along the line, that I had messed up and made a bad decision and that I was just going to have to pick something I didn't want to do. But I now know that the Lord has me just where he wants me, good thing to...the plank was getting shorter each day.
http://www.lifeway.com/fuge/mission/

What the crap

I just have to sit back and laugh at my life right now. Do you ever have those times where you just think you get it figured out and then wammy....God swoops down like a tazmanian devil (did I just call God a devil? On a scale of 1-hellbound how bad is that?) and spins you till your dizzy and facing another direction. It is one of those things where you're like, "Okay, what the crap...what are you doing? I know you're doing something...I just don't quite understand the what's, why's, where's and when's about it. I just don't quite understand you." Hello A.J. My name is God and in case you hadn't heard my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts. And in case you hadn't heard again, thats a good thing...a really really good thing.

Power, beauty and other things of that nature

Amos Lee sings a song called Soul Sucker (which I think is an interesting title) and in it he says, "Nothing is more powerful than beauty in a wicked world." I was listening to that today and then i came across this verse in Corinthians...
"For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power." 1 Corinthians 4:20
Now if the Kingdom of God is a matter of power and there is truth in what Amos Lee says (that nothing is more powerful than beauty) then there must be a strong correlation between the two....that the Kingdom of God is deeply connected to beauty or that in fact the two may be one in the same.
What of beauty though when Isaiah prophesies about the Kingdom of God coming to earth and he says, "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him..." I am left believing that the Kingdom operates under a totally different definition of beauty than I do, than the world does. The power of the Kingdom of God is wrapped up in the ideas that Jesus lived and died for..ideas like loving ones neighbor as oneself, forgiving one's enemies, freedom to the captives, turning the other cheek, hope to the oppressed, equality for all people, eternal reward, giving to receive, dieing for the sake of living and so on and so on...truly beautiful concepts and practices.
In Acts 1 the disciples are asking Jesus when he is going to restore the Kingdom and he says that it isn't for them to know, but that they will "receive power when the Holy Spirit come on them" to be his kingdom to the ends of the earth. I can't think of anything more beautiful than the Kingdom of God and I can't think of anything greater than Jesus giving us full "power" to live out that beauty, true beauty, to this wicked world.

Larger than life

"Never doubt that a group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed its the only thing that ever has."
-Margaret Mead
I wonder at the truth in this statement. Is it possible to "change" the world? Is that all it takes... .to be "thoughful" and "committed"? That sounds too easy. Then I watch a film like "Invisible Children" or "Erin Brokovich" or read stories about people like Martin Luther King, Coach Harold Jones (of Radio), Salome Thomas-El and Mother Theresa as proof that what Margaret Mead said is true. These acts may not have changed the world, but they changed and are changing the world of someone or someones.
I wonder if my life will have this same impact, if the Lord will awaken my heart to a "Radio" or a group of children in some city overseas, or a prostitute about to be stoned by her peers. And I wonder if I will be aware enough to think about something or someone other than myself, to be"thoughtful" about it. And I wonder if I will take it a step further and press foward and turn "thoughts" and "words" into actions...into commitment. It is one thing to talk about an issue, for anyone can do this (and most people do), but it is an entirely different story to act on something, to sacrifice for something, to give your life to something, to actually live up to your potential as a follower of Jesus.

"This is why it is impossible for a Christian to have a secular job. If you follow Jesus and you are doing what you do in his name, then it is no longer secular work; its sacred. You are there; God is there. The difference is our awareness. The goal isn't to bring everyone's work into the church; the goal is for the church to be these unique kinds of people who are transforming the places they live and work and play because they understand the whole earth is filled with the glory of God."
-Rob Bell in "Velvet Elvis"

"Fortunately" for me...

So, I'm gonna be honest....I had a crappy night. I mean one of those really just upset and frustrated and trying to hold it all in nights. I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant, silently staring into space and entertaining my sad thoughts over and over again until I really wasn't thinking at all anymore...just staring. And suddenly the fortune cookie portion of the meal arrived. I apathetically cracked it open to see my "lucky numbers" and "chinese for dummies" word and instead I got this message...
"You have so much to be thankful for."
No lie....I've seen it all now. Jesus used Buddha to speak truth into my heart at exactly the right time and place. I mean really...I guess truth can be found anywhere, even in a fortune cookie.

A Quarter for your thoughts

I've been thinking through so many things since Chicago, but the one thing I can't get past is a little thing called poverty...what to say about homelessness? I left Chi-town with this one burning question, what do you do? For instance, I will give a few examples. Sleeve and I ventured out of the hotel one night with 2 huge boxes of left over burritos. We walk right out the door and immediately this man named Jimmy comes up to us asking us for a quarter. The dialog went something like this...
Jimmy-Hey you got a quarter
A.J.- No but we have lots of burritos
J- shoot I don't want no burrito
aj- well what are you gonna do with a quarter that you can't do with a burrito?
J- (mumbling unmentionable words under his breath)
We walked away and a few minutes later Jimmy is back up with is....
J-hey you got a quarter
A.J.- no but I still got a big box of burritos and they're kind of heavy so it would be awesome if you'd take some

Now I was just blown away.....if I was walking back from Chipotle with a big burrito in my hand for dinner I bet I could find a dozen people who would want it...not this guy...he wanted a quarter. So, I ask myself and Sleeve what is so wrong with giving jimmy his quarter and then we see exhibit B.
We watch this guy from accross the street debating whether or not he is homeless (yes we were judging from the outside). As we debate on walking over this other guy walks up and hands him so money. The man then bolts off down the street like I have never seen anyone run. Now I could be wrong, but I would guess he already had that money spent in his mind before he got it. Thats why you don't give them money....its a quick fix...its no help to them.
So, our question was...what do you do? How do you fix a problem that seems inevitable? How do a bunch of upperclass white kids go into a city with food and tell the inner city ghetto about how "our God" will bless them?
I have thought through some things and have much more than this, but what do you think?

Chicago Pictures

Jenni Koz, me, and some crazy faces at Giordanno's
A.J. and Focker
The beautiful nightime city sky
Group Awesome...formally known as Group 12
The City Skyline from Navy Pier
Laurel, Brittany and Me (The morning after "Wakie Wakie"..looks like I should have gone back to sleep
The Beach?...in the city? Welcome to Lake Michigan
Wrigley Field
Um....who knows

Spring Break.....is it really a break?

I leave in approximately 6 hours for two states that I have never been to. First stop...Chicago, Ill. Second Stop...Denver, Colorado. I have high expectations for both of these trips. One allows me to live in the present, encouraging those who are currently experiencing their college careers and the other is a step towards my future, life after college. Who knows where I will be in 2 months from now. In all of this, many hard lessons, I am learning that life must move on. You die a little more every second you stand still. I don't want to be like that. I want to be working towards something, even if its something I can't see. I read something the other day and is struck me as a rather important idea. In his book "Don't Waste your Life" John Piper says, "“The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but those who have been mastered by one great thing.” I have spent so much time trying to be good at so many things so that maybe they can be used. I hope that I will learn to be mastered by one thing, for my life to be poured out for one thing, one important, life changing thing.

What a "weak"

I have so much to say that I don't have anything to say at all.
Even if could find the words that I wanted to use I think I would find myself too tired to use them.
Its been a week, one of those that you need to analyze, mull over if you will, take time to reflect upon or either cast aside and enter into the solace of the next week, the next journey, the next stage of life.

A tear is not a tear which hasn't fallen
And love is not a love which has not died
And Giving, giving is nothing until its alive

But its hard to give when you get no peace
You're falling to pieces
And you're just waiting for some sweet release

Viewer Discretion is Advised...

Introducing a fun, family, night time activity. Good times had by all...Juggling lessons. You can use balls, oranges, flames...I don't know...knives for instance.
Here is Sleeve displaying his sweet knife juggling skills. He is in a whole different league than me.















I started off with the "soft stuff" because yes, I was just that terrible. My roommate's oranges took quite the beating.

"Raisin Hell"

I witnessed a moment of innocent hilarity this morning while I was spending some time with a mother of two.. Her two year old son was there. He was eating raisins and watching Veggie Tales. He suddenly ran over to the table where we sat and began pointing to his nose. He seemed slightly uncomfortable and began sneezing and snotting everywhere. I casually mentioned that he might have stuck a raisin up his nose, you know me and my motherly instincts....or maybe it came from my own mispent childhood. She kind of panicked and tilted his head back not finding anything. He kept pointing and sneezing and so she tried to blow his nose, still not seeing anything. Then all of the sudden he blew and out popped this small shriveled up piece of fruit. That was the end of the raisins for him, she gave him a banana and he went back to watching Larry Boy. Its much harder to stick a banana up one's nose. It was quite an amazing sight. I had never actually seen a kid do that. Everyone should see a kid do that some day, it is a really funny sight.

Slayne Master P's Wedding

The beauty of life is enhanced by the people you build your world around...I really have a beautiful life!

Beauty for Ashes

I had one of those moments today. You know those moments that are so picture perfect that you would give your right arm (or left depending on which arm you value most) to have your camera. I was sitting by the water at Issaquena trails after a good bike ride with a friend and I saw one of the neatest contrast photgraphs. Sitting on a pile of black fire pit ashes was a bright yellow butterfly. It had just lighted there, like it would on a blooming flower in spring. As I sat there and watched this take place, two verses of scripture came to mind.
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17
I see and here this verse related to the life of a butterfly all the time, with a butterfly being a new creation and all I guess it makes sense. But the verse that was really at the forefront of my mind was from Isaiah 61.
Isaiah is speaking about the Lord's calling on his life and he says,
"He has sent me to provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."
This is a life with Jesus. We trade all that we have, for all that is better. We give up an old way of life, for a better way of life. Its not always easy to see. In fact, many times its not visible at all. Today was a visual image for me of beauty meeting ashes, a reassurance that there is a stark contrast between the things I want for my life and the beauty of the things the Lord has for me; a reassurance that sacrificing the things I want will be worth it, some day.

YAY for skipping winter!!!!

Here's to the weather today people. What a gorgeous day. I was saddened because I spent the majority of this gorgeous day making bagels and drooling pressed up against the great glass Einsteins window that allows me to vicariously live through all of those people who were frolicking around on Lever Beach enjoying this gift of sunlight (minus those in the bikinis).
And this is, I have recently discovered, one of the most relaxing things to me. I absolutely love to go for a nice long run, usually around perimeter, and then finish it off by lying in the grass on Bowman. Stretched out, body relaxed, still sweating, eyes closed or open, just relaxing. It is awesome. I did this today and I didn't want to get up. I think you should try it, and by you I mean anyone who reads this.

OMG

I like puppies
People like puppies
People like me
I think people would like me to have a puppy

Always a bridesmaid...never a bride...

Today was a momentous day. You may think that it was just the ordinary rainy Saturday, nothing special, nothing to write home about (or blog about). But I'm about to tell you why it was something extraordinary. Tonight one of the greatest people in the entire history of people (you know, from the Garden until now) got engaged. Jennifer Hughes McElveen is getting married. That's right, the day finally came and what a great day it is. I cannot think of anyone more deserving of happily ever after than her. She is one of the great people in the world, one of the great people in my life, who I am truly blessed to have spent the last 4 years of my life growing with. When something like this happens to someone like her, the people around her cannot help but to rejoice.

"In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."
John 1:4-5

"Sin, he reflected, is not what it is usually thought to be; it is not to steal and tell lies. Sin is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious of the wounds he has left behind."
- Silence, Shusaku Endo

don't it feel like sunshine after all
the world we love forever, gone
we're only just as happy
as everyone else seems to be

RAID

Here is a little secret about me...I hate ants. HATE THEM! I am anti ant! If I got my pick, if God sat us around one day and said, "A.J. I might have 'made' a few mistakes. I am giving you the opportunity to choose one said mistake and destroy, kill, eradicate it from the whole of earth. I would choose the ant. Why, you may ask, such animosity towards the ant? To which I would answer, 'Must you ask?'" You may be now thinking, why today is she hating all over ants, to which I would paint you a scene from my morning. I awoke to my alarm clock you know the usual routine. I grabbed my laptop (which I just got back from the Apple ICU after a bad runin with some juice) and opened to find an army of ants pouring out of the inside like something out of a psycho Wes Craven film. That is why the animosity. They also ate my Valentines sucker and it happend to be the only Valentine I received.

Career Builder

Okay, so its time to play a little interactive game. I need your help. I need a career and I need one fast. It is you, the reader's chance to have a vital role in the life of A.J. Jordan and help her choose a career. So, I need you to answer the question, "What should A.J. do with her life.?" Now I realize (and only because I am this person) that some of you will be tempted to be funny and that is okay. I could use some comic relief. But if you provide a funny answer also think of a serious one. You can comment anonomously like some of you do. You know if you're one of those who read this but you don't want me to know that you read and therefore you never comment, I'm going to need you to suck it up and comment, this is important people...life and death...the difference between a life given over to Einstein Bagel Brothers and something important. So, you have your task if you choose to accept it. Your reward will be in heaven (God is delighted that you are helping out his child of indecision!)

What's in a man?

In Poland the population of Jews started out in the hundreds of thousands. After World War II less than 4 thousand remain. I watched Schindler's List last night and had a nightmare about being in a modern day war like that one and being on the disdained minortiy side. I awoke relieved that it was only a dream and then realized that it had only been a dream for me....it had really happened and not all that long ago.
You know I've been to Europe, or rather just got back and I don't want to say that I've been there or I've seen it because I know that what Europe is now is nothing like what Europe was then, but the remants or World War II are still very very visible. How could the largest massacre of human beings, the largest display of hate in history not have effects that linger only 50 years later? When in Budapest we spent 4 hours in this place called the Terror Museum, the former headquarters/torture house for the AVO and the Arrowcross armies. I just can't believe that something like that actually happened. The population of Jews that were killled is just over 6 million. 6 MILLION PEOPLE killed because of their heritage, both a race and a faith. In the movie Goeth (the terrible director of the Poland prison camps) says, "They fear us because we have power." Schindler replies, "Power, true power, is having every justifiable reason to take a life and not doing it, instead pardoning them." There really is no way to end this entry. I knowthat man is essentially evil, but the reality of this defines evil in a whole new light. And Oscar Schindler, because of him there are 6000 Jewish descandants of the people he saved. That is 2000 more than all the Poles left after the war.