These fish were a part of my Thanksgiving weekend painting marathon. The drawing technique that I used that weekend was one that I had not used since Middle School. The idea is to draw your object without lifting your pen. These fish were my favorite …
I’m participating in the Post a Week 2011 Photo Challenge. Here’s how it works
Each week, the challenge provides a theme for creative inspiration. We take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog.
This week’s theme is waiting. We are in the season of Advent, which is a time of hopeful waiting.
I heard this meditation read yesterday, and I found it quite beautiful it describes hopeful waiting.
“Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope — not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of self-righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (our people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of ‘Everything is gonna be all right,’ but a very different, sometimes very lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it might be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle — and we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.”
– Victoria Stafford (quoted by Parker Palmer, read by Krista Tippet on the American Public Media program “On Being”
A slightly different sort of waiting.
Richard and I waited for months for the opening of the newest Muppets movie. We both grew up watching the Muppets, and nothing makes me laugh quite as much as them. We were able to see it at Midnight the morning it opened. We each received a poster at the door. In an odd way, this poster is sort of Advent-like too.
Like the Muppets, God is closer than we think. In situations where peace seems impossible, peace is about to break through. In situations where hope is lost, hope is about to break through. He’s closer than you think.
Without a doubt, my favorite Christmas Album of All Time. In this week of Advent, where we reflect on “peace” let this album calm your spirit. Sarah McLachlan Wintersong Even if you only listen to the video above, you will walk away more peaceful than …
Mark 1 John the Baptizer The good news of Jesus Christ—the Message!—begins here, following to the letter the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Watch closely: I’m sending my preacher ahead of you; He’ll make the road smooth for you. Thunder in the desert! Prepare for …
The Washington Post just published an article that the Kentucky church that banned Interracial couples has reversed its decision.
A friend and member of my church, Curtiss DeYoung, is interviewed in the article he is a professor of reconciliation at Bethel University, and has done a lot of scholarship around the issues of race in the church.
*Note* This series comes from an integrative theology paper that I wrote on the intersection of the doctrine of sin and identity development in young adolescent girls. I started this series so long ago, but I realized that there was more to this series that …
I posted this article from the Huffington Post on my facebook wall the other day. A church in Kentucky has voted to say that everyone is welcome to come to their church, but interracial couples cannot become members. One thing that jumped out at me …
Today is World AIDS Day.
My experience with HIV and AIDS is mostly through TV. Watching The Real World: San Francisco, and seeing Pedro’s life made a big difference in my understanding of the disease. So did Philadelphia.
More recently I picked up the graphic novel Pedro & Me – Judd Winick up and wes reminded of how powerful watching Pedro’s life on MTV was in my High School days.
But I was an adult, well out of college before I personally knew someone who was open about their HIV infection. I had picked a friend up from his house, he was sitting in the front seat of my car, we were heading to church, when he told me. I think that I was cool when I heard it, but when I got home that night I sent multiple text messages to my best friend to help me process the fact that I now had a personal connection to the HIV virus. This wasn’t a disease that was limited to the East and West Coast of the United States, or characters on TV shows, or desperately poor people in Africa, this was a disease that was impacting my life, he was my friend and he was sitting in my car.
HIV is still a problem in Minnesota
The following are some key statistics and talking points on HIV in Minnesota.
- In 2010, 331 new cases of HIV were reported in Minnesota.
- The Minnesota AIDS Project, the leading source for HIV information and services in Minnesota, believes that these data underscore its view that HIV prevention and education is at a critical point if we are to stop the increase in new cases.
- A new case of HIV disease is reported in Minnesota nearly every day.
- To date, 9,493 cases of HIV disease have been reported in Minnesota since 1982.
- As of December 31, 2010, 6,814 people are known to be living with the HIV virus in Minnesota.
- In the past year, 86% of new HIV cases were reported in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
- 22% of new HIV cases of adult and adolescent in Minnesota are among African Americans, who represent just over three percent of the state’s population.
- Since 2001, there has been a steady increase in new cases occurring within the population of young gay and bisexual men (under the age of 24). In 2010, they represented 20% of newly reported cases.
So today, I’m making a donation to the Minnesota AIDS project. And I’m going to check out the ONEcampaign “Beginning of the End of AIDS” on youtube when I get home tonight.
This was the most helpful description of Advent I’ve ever found. The last few seconds are an ad for an online Advent calendar Busted Halo. I was skeptical of Busted Halo’s Calendar at first. Each day there is a video clip or a quote from …