death to life and beyond

chapter 35 of the book of Isaiah talks about God making things new. isaiah paints a beautiful picture of the New Jerusalem (or God’s coming Kingdom) will be like. the New Jerusalem is an overwhelming picture of God’s grace. verse one of chapter 25 calls the world a “desert wasteland blossoming”. i especially enjoyed the passage that said, “Then the lame shall leap like deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing”. i love this passage because it shows how extreme God’s mercy is. not only will the lame walk, they will leap like deer! not only will the dumb talk, they will sing! it reminds me of John 10:10, “…but I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly”. God does not just give us life, He gives us life to the full. God’s kingdom is going to be so far beyond just good.
when i read this it makes me want to remember to be joyful, because of the Lord’s mercies. it is so easy to forget that God is good when we see such devastation in the world caused by sin. everywhere you look there is war and selfishness, a desert wasteland, if you will. it is encouraging to remember that God is in the process of doing His redeeming work. He will make the wasteland blossom. He has brought life to me, and in turn it is my job to reflect God’s love and mercy on others. i want to respond. God is redeeming His creation, and i want to be a part of it. here is a song by sufjan stevens that makes me think about God’s greatness and how He lets us take part in this redemptive work. i'll put some lyrics below too:


if i am alive this time next year
will i have arrived in time to share?
mine is about as good this far
i'm still applied to what You are
and i am joining all my thoughts to You
and i'm preparing every part for You

i heard from the trees a great parade
and i heard from the hills a band was made
will i be invited to the sound?
will i be a part of what You've made?
and i am throwing all my thoughts away
and i'm destroying every bet i've made
and i am joining all my thoughts to You
and i'm preparing every part for You

some of the ideas in this song are taken from Isaiah 55, also awesome.
love you all : )

pretty

i think tattoos are beautiful. i wanted to show you guys some options i'm thinking about.

the Lamb of God symbol looks like this:

















"The next day [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" -John 1:29 it represents Jesus!

the fish trinity symbol looks like this:














this not only is a symbol of the Trinity, but also the greek work "ichthus" is a sort of acronym for the phrase "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior".

i suppose i decided i really like symbols with animals incorporated and of course, i want it to have personal meaning. as far as body location i have no idea, but don't worry, there will be no tramp stamp.

thoughts?

family gathering

i am so glad that there are people that love Jesus and each other. today i went to tom and barbara’s house. about 20 people showed up with a white elephant gift in one hand and a dish to share in the other. i got to have some great conversations with interesting people about topics such as: pizza places, knitting, astro-physics, and making soap. we all talked together, ate food together, read the Word together, laughed together, and prayed together. it was beautiful. i am not familiar with most of the people who were there, but i didn’t feel like a stranger. i felt like part of a family. how amazing it is to be part of the body of Christ.

at said gathering, there were some of the coolest white elephant gifts i have ever seen. i just happened to get a book that is a collection of works by sigmund freud…in german! my mom got a little bank from ukraine; it was a little fat man…with a hammer and sickle on his belly! other gifts included, an iron towel rack, teddy bear salt and pepper shakers, and (my personal favorite) a neon lighted guitar wall clock.

Say some prayers for my dad, he’s really sick and frustrated about it because he can’t do much.

on christmas

well, i'm safely in lancaster county, despite the fact that a plane apparently crashed on the turnpike shortly before i got there. http://www.wgal.com/news/18309442/detail.html?rss=lan&psp=news thanks for making sure i wasn't hit by a plane rob. i suppose that's why God let me sleep in past my alarm this morning.

getting on to this christmas buisness. i decided this year to make all of my gifts. i am resurrecting the crafty person within me and putting thought and effort into my gifts. we spend so much time caught up in the trap of consumerism and forget that Jesus gave Himself...not crappy gifts like tickle me elmo or the unicorn princess "my horn can pierce the sky" (see the morrocan christmas episode of the office). ambridge christian center is also kind of going along with this theme. here is an amazing video they showed last sunday:



so true.

so close i can taste it

as my last official act of rebellion and procrastination i will blog rather than finish my independent study. i really do have a problem. this independent study crapness is the last thing to cross off of an extensive to do list that i feel has existed since the beginning of time. i can’t wait for that sense of peace i’ll feel when it’s all done.

but first, let me reflect on this past semester. in some ways it has been the best semester ever, and in some ways it has been the worst, but i thank God for every experience He’s given me, because i know it’s all a part of His awesome plan. let’s look back at some of the highlights:

i got my first apartment, and i live with an amazing girl named jessica!

said bye to jake as he left for wildhorse canyon : (

had fun with friends at homecoming

football game with jessica

did ground-breaking research with amazing friends

got to see ambridge christian center start having sunday services at ambridge high school!





my roommate got engaged : )












went on a boat cruise in pittsburgh with friends

i learned that gender is not dichotomous.

spent a ridiculous amount of money on food

did some learnin'

taught rob and krista about gender differences in facebook profiles

woke up at an ungodly hour...in the name of science

went to a halloween party


wow.
what a semester.

love your enemies? really?

Christ’s coming was not at all like d-day. d-day was when a huge army went to “defeat” the evil regime headed up by adolf hitler. as much as we love to see that day as a time when evil was conquered. the truth is that God calls us to defeat evil in an entirely different way.

if you are a christian i can infer that your model for living is the life of Jesus Christ. a tough task, and it is a much tougher task than we often think about it as being. we seem to be like, “ok, being nice to people is hard, not lying is hard, not gossiping is hard”. yes, all of those things are hard, but there is so much more to loving people than those kinds of commandments. if christians are modeling Jesus, they should go so far beyond that because Jesus loved in a radical way.

back to the idea of d-day. how would Jesus have handled the situation? how we did? probably not. how did Jesus conquer evil when He was on earth? well, ultimately He died on the cross to defeat evil for good, but lets think about His everyday life. His teachings were pretty clear, “You have heard that it was said, ‘And eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on the right cheek turn the other to him also…”(Matthew 5:38). Ecclesiastes tells us that there is, “A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace”. i think that what He says in the sermon on the mount is Jesus’ way of saying that there was a time for war, but now is not that time. it’s kind of hard to get around these teachings, yet, we insist that there is more to the story; i think that's our sinful nature. the fact is, Jesus didn’t say “turn the other cheek except when (fill in lame excuse for violence here)”.

in the book of Isaiah, isaiah prophesies about the coming Suffering Servant (Jesus) by saying, “…He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth” (Isaiah 53:9). this prophecy is true. Jesus was not a hurter, He was a healer. even to those who were defending good, Jesus insisted on loving rather than acts of violence to solve the problem. the prime example is in Matthew 26 when a huge group of people with swords and clubs came to arrest Jesus. one of Jesus’ friends who was with Him decided to defend Jesus by pulling out his sword and cutting off the ear of the high priest. Jesus doesn’t like this at all. he says, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?”. good point Jesus. why wouldn’t we just trust God in this situation? why can’t we let go of all of our earthly thoughts that tell us that we need to take care of a situation our own way instead of the way God told us to? what is interesting about this passage is that after Jesus says this the disciples and everyone else who was with Jesus peaced out (Matthew 26:56). seriously, they ran away from Jesus, who was God! obviously the thought of not being able to defend yourself is scary. the thing is...it’s what God calls us to do. flat out. our command from Jesus is to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. as hard as that is to live out, i think i’m gonna give it a try.

Jesus was ridiculously counter-cultural, especially when it came to loving people. don’t get me wrong, we need courageous people to go to places like iraq, but not with guns. christians should go to those places with the intention of loving the enemy like Jesus commanded. i think it takes a lot more courage to go armed with love than with guns. we need to trust in God’s method to take care of things, not our own. our job is to obey His commandments. so love your enemy.

in fact, beyond just not shooting people, let's ACTIVELY love people. let's find CREATIVE ways that we can GO OUT OF OUR WAY to love people. i mean, that's how Jesus did it after all. He went way out of His way to love us.

little things with great love

i think its interesting that us christians feel that we need to go away somewhere to preach the gospel when we can live out our lives like Christ in everyday life wherever we are. now of course i am not condemning to go overseas to share the love of Christ, i think that’s awesome, but if you can’t afford to go on a missions trip why not do something in your own neighborhood to share Jesus with others. better yet, save your money that would be spent on travel and do something in the community you live in. social justice advocate catherine doherty once said,

“The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don't just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child.... There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God”.

do what you can where you are. carry out a small act of justice in your hometown, speak out for the oppressed and ignored in your neighborhood. love your neighbor, literally. but here a problem arises. you see, us humans never really seem to want to do what is right. philip k. dick, that author that wrote about the nature of reality, made a statement related to this in his article,

“The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.”

lets change the world in the name of Christ by doing little things with great love.

my head hurts

so i read this article about the nature of reality and all that. it was written in 1978 by this science fiction writer. it’s actually not as lame as it might sound. in fact, you should read it. here you go: http://downlode.org/Etext/how_to_build.html. insert a shout-out to adam here for telling me to read it. and now for some excerpts and thoughts, hopefully they are sort of coherent:

“Do not believe — and I am dead serious when I say this — do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new.”

this does seem Biblical. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says,“…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new”. the universe is moving in such a way that it is going towards the kingdom of God. it doesn't necessarily move from old to new on its own, God uses His people as His tools to do this redeeming work. we are called as christians to engage the world around us and find the redeeming qualities of creation and culture. as followers of Jesus, this should be our goal! but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we as His followers must be truly changed by Him in order to be able to bring change to the world. After all, “a glass can only spill what it contains”.

the author of the article also talked about how the world around us affects how we understand what is real,
“Because the bombardment of pseudo- realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans — as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides…Fake realities will create fake humans.”
this makes me think about how a relationship with Christ helps us to understand what life is really about. John 10:10 says, “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full.” God wants us to get close to Him...the actual source of Truth. that is how we can have full life, complete with meaning.

don’t be confused now, we can know about God, but not know God Himself. there is a difference. the relationship is key. in Matthew 7 Jesus tells a crowd of people, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven…Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘Depart from Me, I never knew you…’”. Jesus wants us to talk to Him and to know who He is.

i believe that more we learn about the character of Jesus the more we can realize that God didn’t come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people alive (credit goes to pastor mike from today’s sermon at ambridge christian center). he wants us to have life to the full through the means of a relationship with Him. so how can we know about the nature of reality? we can have life to the full which means a relationship with Jesus and doing His work. life doesn’t get any more real than that.

i am really only touching on this subject. read the link for lots of interesting thoughts.

and still we struggle

i know that these song lyrics keep coming up, but lets face it: i'm not that great of a blogger. the truth is that some people are more gifted at expressing the deepest of all human thoughts and emotions in an artistic and creative manner. here is another song from mewithoutYou. this is my favorite song ever. to emphasize what the song means to me i put some explanatory notes in parenthesis. i can relate a lot to this song and it is a great picture of God's grace and deliverance.

tie me up! untie me! by mewithoutYou

i was looking at the leaves
climbing to the tops of the trees
but You were nowhere to be found.
(here the speaker looks for God, but can't seem to find Him)

just beneath all the green You were buried like a little seed.
among the roots and underground.
(...but he wasn't looking in the right places)

i was licking at the leaves,
but i was in short sleeves and You,
You were like some sickness that i caught.
(when he found God, He took him over like sickness)

my sweetheart moved away
swept off like garbage in the alleyway
(the things of the world were no longer important)

and i need more grace than i thought,
because brother i'm far away from everything good.
(he realizes his nature and how far he is from the holiness of God)

she's like a hot cloth on a fevered head,
and like a needle she leads me,
oh i follow like thread,
(the world calls him back away from God, and it is so easy to follow it's voice)

tie me up! untie me!
all this wishing i was dead
its getting old, its getting old
it goes on,
but its old.
(he is torn between his old thoughts, like those of suicide, and his new life with God)

i was swimming through the waves
for what must have been days,
but could find no relief.
(we return to the speakers quest for God, he cannot find happiness in the world)

and when i started sinking down
i thought for certain i would drown
until i saw You in the ocean underneath.
(God rescues him from "drowning"--related to thoughts of suicide expressed throughout this song)


all the bright colored fish tell
of a treasure in a dull shell,
"such subtlety so easily missed!"
(again, God is in an unexpected place, and he is reminded of God's beauty)

You, my hidden pearl of pure and perfect Love,
and i'm the living example of 100%
the OPPOSITE of this!
(he realizes how far he is from the holiness of God)

she's like a hot cloth on a fevered head
and like a needle she leads me,
oh i follow like thread.
but You untied me!
didn't You untie me Lord?
and now i haven't even though about killing myself
in almost five months.
(but God rescues him from the trap of the world and his own detrimental thoughts)

i am reminded again of a jars of clay song that i put in a previous post, "i have no fear of drowning, it's the breathing that's taking all this work". it is so easy to die and not think about anything. the challenging, yet more rewarding thing, is to live life with God despite the difficulties the world presents.

"she" is the world, what we can't seem to let go. God "untied" us from the things of this world that hold us back. He conquered death and everything that goes with it. We've been set free. Praise God!

my life right now in two songs

work by jars of clay

just in case
i will leave my things packed
so i can run away.
i cannot trust these voices.

i don't have a line of prospects
that can give some kind of peace.
there is nothing left to cling to
that can bring me sweet release.

i have no fear of drowning,
it's the breathing that's taking all this work.

do you know what i mean when i say, "i don't want to be alone"?
what i mean when i say, "i don't want to be alone"?

empty spaces
with shadows hit by streetlights
warning signs and weight
of tired conversations

in the absence of a shoulder
in the abscess of a thief
on the brink of this destruction
on the eve of bittersweet

now all the demons look like prophets
and i'm living out
every word they speak
every word they speak

do you know what i mean when i say, "i don't want to be alone"?

I have no fear of drowning
Its the breathing that's taking all this work


c-minor by mewithoutYou

our house wrapped in disrepair,
a small mouse peeked out from a hole beneath the stairs
nearby to where my dad sat in his favorite chair,
thinking about the government and muttering a prayer
so i scattered some oats in hopes she'd stay
then sat still to stop from scaring her away -
but she hurried on her little way
and scurried around my mind
ever since,
every day.

Open wide my door, My Lord, my Lord.
to whatever makes me love You more.

i'm water, you're the drywood
equal parts misguided and misunderstood
but all the neighborhood
watched a fire burn from where they stood
as the smoke said,
"we're not half as bad as God is good"
still there's a whisper in my ear,
the voice of loneliness and fear, so i say:
"devil, disappear!
i'm still (ehh...technically...) a virgin
after 27 years -
which never bothered me before,
what's maybe 50 more?

Open wide my door,
My Lord, my Lord.
Open wide my door,
to whatever makes me love you more.

she came back for the oat,
but she brought along a "friend"
(this never ends)
the harder the rain,
the lower the flowers in the garden bend
(this never ends)
i'd rather never talk again
than to continue to pretend
(this never ends)

IT NEVER ENDS!
IT NEVER ENDS!

i am an old maid

Well, I must say being at Geneva, I have kind of been made to feel like I am an old maid already because it is my senior year of college and I am not in a serious relationship that is on the brink of marriage. And apparently, according to an article I had to read for my Psychology of Gender class, "...men make positive gains after marrying, while all types of singles...experience accumulating declines over time"(VanLeeuwen). Great. The longer I am single it seems, the more likely I will be to experience an array of unpleasant side-effects caused by lonliness (ex//depression, lack of purpose, etc.). On top of this, it is my own personal suspicion that this effect would be worse for women because of thier tendency to be more social (whether that is because of biology or it has been socially constructed). All of the sudden I find myself on the lookout for any guy willing to give me a shot so that I can save myself from this imminent doom.

Despite this imminent doom, I was able to glean a bit of comfort from the author of the article I read (VanLeeuwen is the author. She is a really great psychologist I've been learning a lot from, don't neccessarily agree with everything, but I am learning a lot). In this piece she states, "Marriage is neither an essential nor a superior state for the realization of Christian maturity and service"(VanLeeuwen). That sure is a relief. After all, a single life is actually more encouraged in the Bible over marriage. See 1 Corinthians 7. So why is there so much pressure to enter into this institution amongst Christians? Although I see the value in marriage, I cannot help thinking that marriage is not the only kind of Biblical institution that can create the kind of benefits that marriage creates. I think that even more than marriage, God created us for community.

I can really see how people might become depressed if they remain single. It has been difficult for me, as of late, to see my friends all being married off. In the past it has been easy to be single, because there is always a friend available to be with. As more and more of my friends get married, thier priorities will be different, which is okay, but it might leave me with a feeling of lonliness as my number of available friends decreases. I believe that God created Christians to live in a community, married or unmarried. Single Christians should not feel the burden of loneliness if they are surrounded by a healthy Church community. It simply should not happen.

my life in 5 minutes

ok everyone calm down...i'm blogging.

what's going on? well i have about five minutes until my isaiah class so i will give you a synopsis of what's going on in my life by listing a couple of key phrases:

Bluebeard
BFCAT
School of Social Work
Jessica Johnson
Butter on my Sheets
New Criticism
Monopoly
No Matching Earrings
Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking
Resume
I Can't Do Math
George Weigel
Stop Singing in the Car
Awkward
Recycling
New Monastacism
Bonfire
Strength To Endure
Structuralism
FYF
Alice Eagly
Ground Beef
Philippians 4
Called the Cops
No Country for Old Men
No Stress, No Stress, No Stress
Good Hair Day
Let Me Check My Schedule
New Pens
Scary Stalker with a Horse
Mix C.D.'s
Transgender Babies
Laundry Needs Done
Ra Ra Riot
Pray Myself to Sleep

That's about it. That meant nothing to most of you.

hocus pocus! make me focus!

now how in the world am i ever going to get this paper done (due tommorow by the way) when all i want to do is listen to the new mewithoutYou song over and over?!?!

for your listening pleasure
i present to you
mewithoutYou's (yet to be released) new song
God, God, God




lovely.

i am not God

so i've been getting in some good learnin' in the past few months...quite unusual for the typical summer "break". but, i'll be honest, i love learning so it's a good fit for me. between my summer ethics class and various newsong fellowship church classes, not to mention all the experiential learning i get from working with people all day at dutch wonderland. needless to say i've been learning tons, and i'm both excited and a bit nervous to put all my learning into action.

one thing especially i'd like to share with all the bloggers out there is something i learned the other day in my S.O.D. (school of discipleship) class taught by the amazing dan armstrong...he really was a great teacher. anyway, we talked about the ways we try to be like God. Namely that we try to control things, we feel that it is our place to judge, and that we think we deserve praise. i know that i am guilty of all of those things, but i never really thought of it like i was actually trying to be like God by committing those sins. i really learned a lot more than i'm actually going to write down about this subject, i know you all like it when i keep things concise.

i have really found that the closer i get to God, the more i have a personal relationship with Him and understand more about who He is, the more i realize how much of a sinner i am...how far i really am from being like Jesus. it doesn't mean i won't keep trying, but i think it's good to keep in perspective. if you're anything like me sometimes i get in self-righteous mode, and i can't see my sin, then i just have to go take another look at God and be like, "oh, i'm actually not even close to being righteous". praise the Lord, He saved me!

here is a feist song just for fun.
honestly this song just gets better and better as it progresses
in my opinion

rockbridge alum springs

i just got back from the beautiful rockbridge alum springs younglife camp! it was a blast and i got to spend a week with a cabin full of amazing high school girls! we all had a blast and got to learn some things about Jesus.

here are some pictures:
this is when we pretended to be crossing guards



this is me and rosemary...an adult guest at camp...love her.



the leaders in the leader lounge



me conversing with a banana on stage...my 15 minutes of fame.



too much fun. can't wait til next year!

lay your burdens down

lyrics to "The Weight" by The Band:

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead;
I just need some place where I can lay my head.
Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?
He just grinned and shook my hand, and "no!", was all he said.

Take a load off Annie, take a load for free;
Take a load off Annie, and (and) (and) you can put the load right on Me.

I picked up my bag, I went lookin' for a place to hide;
When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin' side by side.
I said, "Hey, Carmen, come on, let's go downtown".
She said, "I gotta go, but m'friend can stick around".

Go down, Miss.Moses, theres nothin' you can say
Its just ol' Luke, and Luke's waitin' on the judgement day.
Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?
He said, "Do me a favor, son, woncha stay an keep Anna Lee company"?

Crazy Chester followed me, and he caught me in the fog.
He said, I will fix your rack, if you'll take Jack, my dog.
I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man".
He said, "Thats okay, boy, won't you feed him when you can"?

Catch a cannon ball now, take me down the line.
My bag is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time.
To get back to Miss.Annie, you know shes the only one.
Who sent me here with her regards for everyone.

Here is a super vid of The Band:


Here is a fun cover of this song by Aaron and Mike Weiss from mewithoutYou:

adulthood and ethics

today i have my first apartment...officially. a new stage in life. this apartment is not campus housing...nor is it with my parents. adulthood here i come!

on another note entirely, yesterday i started my class in ethics at hacc. my first secular college class. interesting to say the least. we're going to touch on most hot topics. ethics is certainly an intriguing class to take if you are like me. every class i have ever taken in college has forced me to integrate my christian worldview. we talked about relativism yesterday. in this class, almost no one will end up sharing my view that there IS ultimate truth of which God is the source. relativism says that what is right depends on your own experiences...what is right is different for everyone. but my professor did point out the problems of relativism. one of those problems being this: can you ever really declare the statement "all things are relative"? it's contradictory! interesting indeed. mentally stimulating to say the least.

drink, drank, didn't get drunk

well, two weddings in the next two weeks. one will probably involve square dancing. ick. but happy couples and parties, i love those! and i get to catch up with all the old friends : ) congrats to liz and donny and steph and jared. it's gonna be off the heezy. the dress will be uncomfortable, but as the great aretha franklin once said, "i will survive".

i'm sipping on a jones soda and thinking about how charity is graduating today and i am freakin' old. i'm going to weddings and high school graduations that aren't mine.

the 21st birthday was a success for anyone who cares. the facebook pics make it look like a drank a lot more than i acutally did. gummi bear martini, alabama slammer, corona, some shot called a "blow job" (i really did not even want to drink anything with that name, but it wasn't bad once i disassociated the name with the beverage), and sex on the beach (now this was my fav, and yet another questionable name for a drink). i didn't drink all of them! no drunkeness here, i just kind of sipped on everyone elses mostly. just to try things. i will not get drunk, people, seriously, stop saying that.

i told my high school friend chelsea the other day why i choose not to get drunk. after which she said, "wow, you really think about stuff a lot before you do it." i think it's funny that we are not inclined to think about our actions. we just kinda decide to do what feels good at the time. just a tip: this does not usually go well. i'm just trying to do what i think will help others to see Jesus' influence in my life. and i don't think Jesus would get drunk, that's just my personal opinion. i have scriptural backup if you want it. off the soapbox.

new fav song of the moment: love astronaut by murder mystery

i've been searching for you.

have you been searching for me?

i've been running around

but now i'm down on my knees.

i go looking abroad

i've been sailing the seas.

i go looking for love

but is it looking for me?

i'm the captain of a ship

or an astronaut in space.

traveling around the world,

searching for a pretty face.

i've been looking on high,

checkin' below the lows,

but the only thing i found

is myself still alone.

a haircut, a check, and some lyrics that move my soul

a couple of things to share:

1. the new mars volta album, the bedlam in goliath is rocking my world.
"never heard a man speak like this man before,
never heard a man speak like this man before,
all the days of my life, every since i've been born,
never heard a man speak like this man before."
props to adam for reminding me that this band exists.

2. i have a trendy new haircut. i don't have a camera though, so you can't see it.

3. tommorow is my first day of work, as well as my birthday...party on.

4. i like this new church i'm going to. they really love Jesus and love people. newsong fellowship is a rare jewel among a wasteland of churches these days.

5. i got a big refund from our lovely government today....although, if ron paul was president, we wouldn't have to pay income tax at all. i really love that man.

6. i learned to play the sweet riff from mewithoutYou's "tie me up! untie me!". it's my favorite thing in life right now. "i was swimming through the waves for what must have been days! but could find no relief. then i started sinking down, i thought for certain i would drown, until i saw you in the ocean, underneath. all the bright colored fish tell of a treasure in a dull shell. such subtlety so easily missed. You, my hidden pearl of pure and perfect love and i'm the living example, of 100% the opposite of this!"

7. is numbering things stupid?

coffee and other potential beverages

well. i'm already missing my friends. make me cry a river.

i just talked to krista, so i have all my knitting girls on the brain. be sure to check out their blogs to view their fabulous knitting creations.

also i got to have some coffee with my ashley friend today! here is a pic of her beautiful face that i stole from her facebook...creepy, i know, whatev. i am so happy she's going to grad school in millersville this summer! woohoo.

in other news...i'm officially on the schedule to work at dutch wonderland. when's my first day you ask...well, it's none other than may 28th, a.k.a. my 21st birthday. i don't mind though, you do what ya gotta do to get the dough. i've heard of a gummi bear martini, this i gotta try...lemme know if anyone has any first alcoholic drink suggestions.

lastly, i have to tell you all that report cards came out. 3 B+'s. are you serious. someone give me an A! please! i'm at my wits end. but i got an A in counseling, so i have good career prospects.

well...til some other time.

and so summer begins

well. here is the beginning of what could be a blog that becomes a great collection of my thoughts or something that will be neglected by me starting tomorrow. i figure since my friends are starting to disperse across oceans and continents and state lines, i could make an attempt to keep anyone who cares up to date. plus i've heard that blogs can be rather cathartic. in case anyone is wondering the title to my blog (here it goes...) is not at all even remotely creative. the reason i used it is mostly because i'm listening to jimmy eat world's new album "chase this light" specifically the song entitled "here it goes". i thought it could apply here. the name of said blog is subject to change at any moment. you've received fair warning, i hope you aren't already too attached.

i'm starting off the summer unpacking a ridiculous amount of things. my first summer resolution is this: get rid of all superfluous crap. and i have a lot of superfluous crap. i really must eliminate it. the stuff consists of mostly books and clothes. the books i need to get rid of mostly because of i've decided it is stupid to hold onto books that i have already read. sell 'em or give 'em away. its my new mantra. like it? it's not that catchy. my clothes are a beast that hides behind the door of my closet and my books are a beast that is enveloping my room. i'm done with this crap infringing on my life. anyway, with the help of my new ebay account and the salvation army down the street, the dragons should be slain in no time. woohoo!

sorry, it's my first blog. have some mercy.