Obama 08

I'm Canadian, so I guess in some ways I don't have a right or reason to have an opinion on the recent election. I read two blogs pretty regularly, though, one by Jen Lancaster, who is an unashamed Republican from Chicago, and one by Heather Armstrong, an open Democrat from Utah. Recently they both posted what I considered to be quite fair and honest responses to the election. I was impressed, to say the least, that neither took the opportunity to tear apart the other team's politics, but spoke from the heart... read on if you're interested.

Jennsylvania (R)

Dooce (D) - last two paragraphs

"The Girl in the Window"

I found this article through dooce. I'm still in shock that a mother could do this.

***Warning*** This article will make you cry.

It makes me want to do everything I can to make sure that every child is loved. In the whole world.

People ask me all the time what I want to do when I graduate, and that's it, really - I want to love children the way Christ loves them, and teach them to love others in the same way. That's my career goal, in a nutshell.

Another quote:

"Christianity can be built around isolating ourselves from evildoers and sinners, creating a community of religious piety and moral purity. That's the Christianity I grew up with. Christianity can also be built around joining with the broken sinners and evildoers of our world crying out to God, groaning for grace. That's the Christianity I have fallen in love with."
- The Irresistible Revolution

As I didn't really grow up in the Church, the first statement is more "That was my understanding of Christianity, growing up," for me. And this paragraph, and a conversation I had earlier tonight about my dislike for the word 'religion,' make me wonder - how do we get people to see the difference? It's one thing for me, on the inside, so to speak, and (hopefully) at least working toward the second definition, to understand the difference. But for people who don't seek to follow God at all, and only see Christianity from the outside... how do we help them to see the difference?

The Irresistible Revolution

"Simplicity is meaningful only inasmuch as it is grounded in love, authentic relationships, and interdependence. Redistribution then springs naturally out of our rebirth, from a vision of family that is larger than biology or nationalism. As we consider what it means to be "born again," as the evangelical jargon goes, we must ask what it means to be born again into a family in which our brothers and sisters are starving to death. Then we begin to see why rebirth and redistribution are inextricably bound up in one another, as a growing number of evangelicals have come to proclaim. It also becomes scandalous for the church to spend money on windows and buildings when some family members don't even have water. Welcome to the dysfunctional family of Yahweh."
The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

Think what you will about Shane Claiborne, his theology, or his books - but this paragraph really struck me today. I don't know exactly how it will apply to my life but I have a feeling I won't be able to go on living the same way with this concept swimming around in my brain...

Thoughts?

My introduction to South Park was... interesting.

So I'm talking to a really good friend of mine tonight and he keeps saying the most incredibly stupid things ever and I keep thinking YOU ARE SO FRUSTRATING but you know what? We end up having a really great talk and he admits he's being ridiculous. And then turns around and says some really great stuff to me when I start baring my ridiculous-ness too. So I guess we're all a little ridiculous sometimes, and it's probably okay. Just as long as we have people we can show that to without them running away screaming in abject terror.

I went to Halifax this weekend for the rally formerly known as May Rally/the rally formerly known as Hillside Rally which was a rally that happened in May at Hillside but was called neither of those things. If someone can explain to me the logic behind that, I will give them the couch I'm sitting on - except you'll have to give it back before the people who own it come back from Georgia. So, maybe I won't give it to you, unless you're really looking for a loaner couch until early- to mid-August. Anyway, the rally was decent. I had a lot of fun representing the school and got to see a lot of really fun people.

I stayed with Ryan and Sarah Wiedmaier, aka Mr. and Mrs. Freakish Oaf, who are expecting a Mini Oaf sometime in the fall. I stayed on the pull-out couch which had the incredible feature of a distinct slant, not toward the foot which would make feel like I was going to slide out of bed, but toward the head which made me feel like at any minute the couch might EAT ME. It honestly made bedtime about 10000x more exciting, never knowing if I may wake up entangled in the springs of this couch and need to be freed by the jaws of life. This may also have had something to do with the blood slowly flowing to my head. Now I want my actual bed on a slant too - flat beds are dull. Obv.

The whole concept of the weekend in Halifax was really almost too much for me to handle. I got an email from the Admissions Director at the college asking me if I would go. Let me expand - asking me if, were she to rent me a car, pay for my food, and PAY ME to go home for the weekend... would I go. I thought it must be a seriously delayed April Fool's Day joke but then I remembered that no one on this campus has a sense of humor that developed so I of course told her I would do it. She then asked me if I was sure and I immediately marched over to her office, shook her and said ARE YOU CRAZY, OF COURSE I'LL LET YOU PAY ME TO GO HOME FOR A WEEKEND AND YOU CAN EVEN PAY ME TO READ MAGAZINES AND WATCH MOVIES TOO, ANY TIME YOU WANT. So needless to say, I now have a fabulous job doing freelance ANYTHING for the college.

If only that last part were true.

I really did get a cute little rental car, a school credit card for gas and meals, and a nice little tax-free payment, all to go home and visit with friends for a weekend, and talk to teens about God's call on their lives. I could get used to this.