Peace On Earth

I already posted this on Facebook, but it's worth a repeat. Best rendering and devotional of Longfellow's poem I've ever heard.

Lazy Sunday

It's been a cold and wet day so I've stayed inside, besides church, snuggled in warm, soft stuff reading Eclipse and appreciating art on Flickr.

Today's sermon was really good. Kirk Youngblood was down this weekend from Colorado to visit Brother Archie over Thanksgiving and preached just to give Scottie a break. I can't imagine having to prepare a strong, Scriptural message at least once a week. Kirk preached on the miracle feeding of 5,000. It's recorded in all 4 gospels but he spoke out of Luke http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults.php?passage1=Luke+9&version=9">9:10-17 He emphasized that God will put before you tasks and ministries too big to do on your own. When that happens we should not be overwhelmed, afraid, and feel like failures but cast ourselves on His might and trust Him to do His work through us. God is not surprised or strained at any situation that arises. He already knows what He is going to do and is already bringing it to past. I think this has particular application to me in my job hunt.

I went and saw New Moon last week. I actually liked it a lot better than the book. Jacob is much more heart wrenching in the movie than he was in the book. And the soundtrack is going on my wish list.

Flickr is just way too much fun!

Dad called today. He sounded tired which is scary when it's the beginning of his day. I miss him so much but I at least have plenty of sleep and the rest of my family. He's tired and by himself. :(

99 Red Balloons

I've had this song stuck in my head this afternoon. It's such a surreal song.

Speaking of surreal moments--I had one Thursday. I've been job coaching a gal named Lizzie who's volunteering at the boutique store inside Hope Pregnancy Center. We're looking for someone to job coach her permanently, but right now I'm the only staff who has all the training classes she requires. Anyway, the two of us were putting out some baby boy clothes and there was a pair of dark blue cotton shorts with a grey stripe running down each leg. What was surreal was that Isaac and Caleb used to wear that exact style of shorts. I'm sure it was not the same pair. I seem to remember that they wore them into oblivion, but that just made holding an identical pair, that looked like new, even more surreal.

Tomorrow is the "Government Serves the People" Cookout hosted by the Rogers County Republicans. I really hope we make some money off of this!

I am getting over a summer cold and feeling better each day. Praise God!

Thompson's satire of the economy

This is so true it's barely funny.

Music

One of the joys of now having high speed internet is I can find and download pretty much any song by any band I want to off of youtube. Most of the time I just use it for background music and don't even watch it, so I apologize if any of these have disturbing or nude visuals. Here are some new favorites.

Supermassive Black Hole by Muse: weirdest music video ever, but good song.

Starlight by Muse: a lot like some songs by Brave St. Saturn actually.

Tremble for My Beloved by Collective Soul: can anyone tell I found a list of songs that will be on the Twilight soundtrack?

Viva La Viva by Coldplay: no idea what it's about, beautiful song.

Irene by Toby Mac: this is actually a good music video.

So Long My Friend by DC Talk.

Sail Away by Enya: this one has a music video that looks like it was designed by Monet.

Hungarian Dance by Brahms performed by Joshua Bell.

You are Loved by Josh Groban.

On a more sober note, I let Veteran's Day past without saying anything. Other people have said things much more eloquently than I could ever hope to about what Veteran's Day means and what Veterans have done for us, so I won't go there. I think about and miss U. Freddy and Jaron a lot, but obviously I did a lot more yesterday. Please keep praying for their families. Also it reminded me to pray for Donovon's dad and Jason Joslin, folks from my church who are currently away with the military. I've never been away from home in any way similar to what they're doing, but I do know that you need prayer support even more when you're away from home. Pray also for their families. I know for me personally that I felt like we were just hovering on the edge of unraveling every single day Dad was gone.

"I hate losing time!"

as Ethan said as he was recovering from dental drugs. Right now I'm at school. I just finished the writing assignment for Campaigns class and I need to be working on my survey stuff, but I overestimated how much time the campaign writing assignment would take so I left the surveys at home. I do have plenty to do (extra credit writing assignment for Social Systems and Problems, two case studies for internship), but they're not as a high priority as the survey project.

I'm listening on youtube to various songs that will be on the Twilight soundtrack. Tremble for My Beloved is awesome as is the Linkin Park song (as they always are), and right now I'm trying not to fall asleep to the lullaby. I guess that means Burwell did a good job of writing it. It's not as full of longing and as sad as I had thought, but oh well.

I'm living for a week from today. The survey project, the Campaigns test, the election, and the practice GRE will all be over with! The good news is that the Policy test and two campaign writing assignments have all been finished. But in a week, I'll have just a little space to breathe, clean my desk, and think about something other than school: just briefly.

Scattered thoughts

My mind has been going a million different places for the past twenty-four hours. I missed taking my metformin, kelp, and B vitamins for a couple of days (combination of forgetfulness, running out, skipping meals, etc..) and now that I'm back on them I think my mind is enjoying revving its engine. I didn't go to bed till 3 this morning and even then I wasn't tired. I was surfing the web, writing long political emails, running over music for church, and other random things.

I've been using youtube a lot recently just as a music player. I'm really picky in my music video taste, but as long as it has the music playing I can just minimize it and work on something else. Of course, you can't do anything like playlists, but until I get some more music on my computer, this will have to do.

We talked about Marx's theories of alienation arising from the industrilization and bureacratization of society today in public policy. We've also talked about the concepts of bureaucracy and alienation a lot in social systems and problems, but more in context of C. Wright Mill's theories. So, anyway, it's been going through my mind a lot. As I was driving home today DC Talk's song Jesus Freak came on the radio. That song really got me thinking about the alienation in a Christian context. Alienation means the feeling of being an alien, of not belonging, of being separate from your society. One line stood out particularly from Jesus Freaks today. "People call me strange--does that make me a stranger?" Truly, we are alienated from the world. We don't belong. We dont' fit. We are strangers. They don't understand us so they label us freaks at best, kill us at worst. In Matthew 10 Jesus says that the servant is not above the master. They did it to Jesus, what do you think they're going to do to us? (Anna's paraphrase)

And then my mind started wandering a little further to the social perceptions of Christians that describe themselves as Jesus Freaks and more general perceptions of the song. I think people that are not Christians think we're just being rebellious or weird, or trying to find a way to express our fears and dissatisfaction with society (If I was a gambling woman, I would bet a sizable amount that that is exactly the explanation Dr. Newcomb would offer) Maybe they jump to Mill's concept of alienation. Christians obviously think very differently. Within the Christian community I think it's come to be a symbol of our alienation and persecution. Persecution may not terribly obvious in the song (except for the verse about John the Baptist), but when you watch the music video of the band singing in a jail with projections of churches burning and consider the books that have arisen from the song, the song has obviously become a symbol of (Kingdom principle here) the ideal of persecution.

OK, I have a mid term in social systems and problems tomorrow, so I'd better get studying. This stuff all relates (kinda), but it probably won't be one of the essay questions Dr. Newcomb wrote.

Saturday night

and the moon is bright... I love country songs about Saturday nights.

I really hope we have a Butler staff meeting this Tuesday. I need some more work to do. September has just flown by and I guess I'm feeling the usual October campaign panic (3 days early). Speaking of which, I need to email those fire district phone numbers to Melissa...

Cool takedown and tap-out here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=267i7rKeECA

I have a picture slideshow called Interesting Photos of the Day on my igoogle page that hasn't changed in the past month. I miss it.

I'm listening to Casting Crowns' album The Altar and The Door right now (a birthday gift from Chera!) I really like their track Prayer for a Friend. I'm bad about worrying about my friends more than I pray for them. I do pray for my friends each time I worry about them, but that doesn't stop me from worrying about them. Like right now, I'm freaking out about Jesse getting a motorcycle more than I'm praying for it to irrevocably and suddenly break when he's not riding it. I'm also bad about not telling people I'm praying for them. I guess I'm afraid of coming across as if I'm bragging. However, I know how encouraging it is to know that someone's praying for me, so I really shouldn't deny that to my friends. So, Jesse, Beth, Kate, Dale, BJ, Chera, Anna...I'm praying for you!

Why is it that some chores are absolutley abhorrent and others aren't? I don't mind making my bed or hanging my clothes, but I hate cleaning my desk. I like brushing my teeth but I don't like flossing (don't worry, I make myself do it.) I don't mind writing down transactions in my checkbook but I hate balancing my checkbook (which I actually need to do tonight.)

Ok, i'm going to email Melissa, balance my checkbook, and practice violin. Hopefully I'll have time to work on the bag some with Samuel before I go to work at midnight.

Ask a ninja

So, instead of accomplishing anything while on the computer I watched a bunch of Ask a Ninja on youtube and talked to Amy Sova about them. I love the new poetry one.