In honor of Thanksgiving...

I am posting my favorite commercial of all time. Ladies and gentlemen, Geico presents the ultra-insane Little Richard:

ahaha. Love it! Yay for wonderful holidays and decorating the Christmas tree. 

Song Obsession of the Week

Not gonna lie, I love Seal!

Seal, "A Change is Gonna Come."

Thankful

It's Thanksgiving, and this year I feel like I'm more aware of what I have to be thankful for than ever before. It can almost be overwhelming, and I start to feel guilty when I think about it a lot, but tonight I'm just trying to accept the grace and truly be thankful for it all. I wish that I were explicitly thankful more often. This year I've been thinking about giving thanks and how that requires more of us than just a wistful glance upwards or a quick prayer. It's about using what we've been given to be present with others, to help, and to act in ways that are reflective of our gratitude for all that has been given to us. 

But, of course, it's always good to "count your blessings" and name them off :) Here are just a few of mine:

• Family. Parents, parents-in-law, an awesomely fun and inspiring brother, all of the cousins, grandparents, etc. who make my life better and more full.
• A husband who likes to cook, pick out Christmas decorations, and sing with me...even if it means Barry Manilow and a strange excitement at the sight of Christmas trains. 
• A husband who is not afraid or worried about putting off studying for a day or two to do all of the above.
• Friends who I can be silly with one minute and have deep, thought-provoking, and even messy conversations with the next.
• Christmas music, cookies, movies, and good memories.
• Fusion (I guess this counts as friends, too). I don't really know what Scott and I would do with our amazing little community of friends...especially those in House Church, who listen about our crazy lives every week and walk with us every step of the way.
• A car that runs, a cute and cozy house with a heater that works, and money to buy meals every day. I forget how monumental those "small" things are.
• Kids (no, we're not having any). They're precious, in all stages, in all forms, and from all walks of life.
• Wednesday night Project Runway/Top Chef/various reality show nights!
• Food. All of it. This is bad for the waistline, but I am seriously thankful for food. Especially dessert.
• Friends. Period.
• The newly-discovered group video conference option on iChat!!
• People who read my blog, even if it's only 5.
• Christmas break...two weeks!

Happy Thanksgiving...let's take a break from all the eating and holiday madness to really give thanks.

Song Obsession of the Week

Love this! Thanks Hannah, my wonderful friend and partner in new music finding!

The Weepies, "World Spins Madly On."

Omg

Thank you, Nava, I can always count on you to make me laugh hysterically! This is too funny. I'm going to draw a picture of a goat and send it to my bank...think they'll take it instead of money? Gotta love it!

Food for Thought...

We've been talking about community and what truly living in community, as Christ called us to do, actually means. I LOVED this quote, and I think it speaks to what our response should be in a world where it's all too easy to get overwhelmed with the injustice and problems we see.

"Community is a place where people can live truly as human beings, where they can be healed and strengthened in their deepest emotions, where they can walk towards unity and inner freedom. As fears and prejudices diminish, and trust in God and others grows, the community can radiate and witness to a style and quality of life which will bring solution to the troubles of our world. The response to war is to live like brothers and sisters. The response to injustice is to share. The response to despair is limitless trust and hope. The response to prejudice and hatred is forgiveness. To work for community is to work for humanity. To work for peace in community, through acceptance of others as they are, and through constant forgiveness, is to work for peace in the world and for true political solutions; it is to work for the Kingdom of God. It is to work to enable everyone to live and taste the secret joys of the human person united to the eternal.” - Jean Vanier, Community and Growth

Thoughts?

Song Obsession of the Week

This isn't a new obsession, but this version is awesome...she's amazing live!

Sara Bareilles, "Gravity," 

So Very Proud

I can honestly say that I witnessed history on Tuesday night. I won't forget sitting with our House Church, and later just with Hannah and Scott, when we heard the announcement that Barack had done it. He overcame, and not because he was a token, but because he was the best. I was stunned to silence when he made his calmly profound speech to the American people, announcing that America has turned a really ugly page in its history. The remnants of discrimination and overt racism are still present in so many areas of our society, but this was a step. A step that literally shows the world that it's possible to overcome the ugliness and the barriers that people put in front of you, that it's possible to come so far from nothing, that African Americans now have the role model and the representative they deserve to have.

I'm still processing what this really means for our country, and the excitement and heaviness of this incredible event have almost been cheapened by those very remnants of discrimination and selfishness, comments that have come out of the mouths of Christians who claim to care for the forgotten but speak in hypocritical and calloused words. But we can't let that weigh down the high we should be feeling, because what happened on Tuesday was not small, especially not to the group of people who helped build this country but who have been largely forgotten at so many times.

I cried a few times on Tuesday night, but I couldn't stop tearing up at this image of Jesse Jackson, who walked with Martin Luther King, Jr., standing in silence as the announcement was made and as Barack spoke, weeping and biting his fingernails, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with the enormity of this night:

God Bless America.

Overwhelmed

The past month and a half has been absolutely crazy. Midterms, weddings, trips out of town, family events, birthdays, football games, and not to mention that little thing called graduate school, has me busy every minute of every day. 

However, I must admit that the sardine-packed schedule is not the only reason I haven't posted a real entry in about a month. There have been several times when I've sat down to write - mainly wanting to write about my practicum and the heavy things I come home with every day - but just haven't had the energy, or the desire to put these things into words. I think part of it is because putting it in words requires processing, and it requires me to sit here and not only talk about it, but really internalize it and think about it over and again. The reality is, when we're faced with problems that seem so incredibly large, it's much easier to "pretend" to process it and then resume our busy lives, rather than really let it take its full potential effect on our hearts.

Let me clarify - I LOVE my practicum. Love it. Love it so much that I think this might be the path I want to focus my career upon. But it's rough. So many of these children have to walk through life with none of the guidance or protection that children should have. No child of 11 should have to choose between buying a backpack or a shirt, joining a gang or getting beat to a pulp daily, or between playing outside or getting shot. They should not be able to speak matter-of-factly about the drug dealer who lives next door, their pregnancy scare, or the step-dad who abused them for years as a little girl. They should not have to think drunk parents, low expectations, dead siblings, or an education system that sets them up to fail are normal. They should not be walking through life undervalued, unwanted, or forgotten. But they are. 

It's so easy to forget that they are kids. It's too easy for society to label them "delinquents" or "hoodlums." But they're not, they're children. If I didn't have parents cheering me on every day, friends and family to tell me I could go to the moon if I wanted, or teachers who saw something and helped cultivate it, I wouldn't have succeeded. So why can we expect them to do the same? To just "get over" the obstacles that no child should even know exist? We can't. 

It's hard not to let these things get the best of us, to let ourselves think that there's no hope. These problems are big, and it's hard to think about them everyday, and I honestly don't know how people do it who don't have the promise of God's hope in mind every day when they go to work. But instead of pretending it doesn't affect us, we have to let it in, and we have to let it change us. And all we can do is pray, and all we can do is act, chipping away at the sadness and poking little holes in the darkness to let some light through for these kids. If enough of us do, maybe we can help, and maybe they can be kids again.

Song Obsession of the Week

Phil Wickham - "Mystery"