i need to make one.

color.

the irresistible revolution: part IV

quotes from the irresistible revolution, chapter four.

you can read part l, part ll, and part III here, here, and here.

“according to mother teresa, it is among the wealthy that we

can find the most terrible poverty of all- loneliness.” (93)

-

“the Gospels were not just for mother Teresa and st. francis,

and that the sermon on the mount is as meaningful today as it was two thousand years ago.” (98)

-

“we do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named nicodemus.

but if you tell me i have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God,

i can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor,

because Jesus said that to one guy too..but I guess that’s why God invented highlighters,

so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest.” (rich mullins, 98-99)

-

“sometimes i was incredibly frustrated and angry, wondering how

these extremes could exist in the same world, let alone in the same church” (99-100)

-

“Jesus never says to the poor, ‘come find the church.’

but he says to those of us in the church, ‘go into the world and find

the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned.’ Jesus in disguises.” (tony campolo, 102)

-

“with the most sincere hearts, we do not want to see anyone

walk away from Jesus because of the discomfort of his cross,

so we clip the claws on the Lion a little, we clean up a

bit the bloody Passion we are called to follow.” (104)

-

“their rebirth will cost them everything they have” (104)

-

“we can end up merely cheapening the very thing we want folks to

experience. this is the “cheap grace” that…dietrich bonhoeffer called

“the most deadly enemy of the church” (105)

-

“funny that one of the first stories of the early church in acts is the bizarre

tale of a couple named ananias and sapphira, who withhold a portion

of their possessions from the common offering and then lie about.

peter confronts them in a way that seems quite rude (not very seeker sensitive),

and then on top of it God strikes them dead (not very tolerant or inclusive).

perhaps we should be thankful that God isn’t into that anymore,

otherwise we’d have much smaller congregations.” (105-106)

-

“everyone can be a christian but no one knows what a christian is anymore” (106)

-

“true, the cross is not always seeker sensitive. it is not comfortable.

but it is the cornerstone of our faith” (106-107)

-

“the more I read the Bible, the more i felt my comfortable life interrupted.” (107)

-

“what we do is not nearly as important as who we are” (108)

-

“what would a twenty-year-old Jesus have said if they asked him,

“what are you going to do when you grow up?” i don’t know, maybe

something like, “i’m going to turn the world upside-down. i;m going

to hang out with prostitutes and tax collectors until people kill me.” (108)

-

“somehow I had missed the fact that singles was a beautiful means of

discipleship and that church history is filled with folks who

followed God as singles- Jesus for one…” (111)

-

i had come to see God as lover and provider and to desire a life of singleness and poverty”(111)

-

“God created us in his I age, and we decided to truth the favor” (bernard shaw, 112)

-

“we create a western conception of the mediterranean peasant revolutionary

who lived two thousand years ago, whom we can relate to and who

cares about what we care about (eats at mcdonald’s and vote republican).” (112)

-

“’shane, we need you to play Jesus, because you are white and

from america.’ ouch! God forgive us.” (113)

“i asked participants who claimed to be ‘strong followers of Jesus’

whether Jesus spent time with the poor. nearly 80% said yes.

later in the survey, i sneaked in another question. i asked this same group

of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor,

and less than 2% said they did.” (113)

-

“we can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did…

we can adore his cross without taking up ours. i had come to see that

the great tragedy in the church is not that rich christians do not care

about the poor but that rich christians do not know the poor.” (113)

-

“i truly believe that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning.

and when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end. (114)

soooo adorable.

jars.

live fully.

“people who have only good experiences aren’t very interesting.

they may be content, and happy after a fashion, but they aren’t very

deep. it may seem a misfortune now, and it makes things difficult,

but well—it’s easy to feel all the happy, simple stuff.

not that happiness is necessarily simple.

but I don’t think you’re going to have a life like that,

and I think you’ll be the better for it.

the difficult thing is to not be overwhelmed by the bad patches.

you must not let them defeat you.

you must see them as a gift—a cruel gift, but a gift nonetheless.”

-peter cameron

i saw this on another blog-that i'm currently obsessed with-

and wanted to share it. there are many verses that state this same

thing in a different way...

romans 5:3-5 not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

james 5:11 as you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. you have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

james 1:2-4 consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

so whether you wish to be interesting, deep, better, a receiver of all gifts,

one who perseveres, has good character and knows true hope,

counted as blessed, purely joyful, or mature and complete, not lacking

anything, then i'm afraid you must suffer, struggle, and experience

misfortune. and in the end, this is what will make you a person

who knows what it is to live and live fully.

shelves.

water.

i was going to summarize this post by sophia bush on her own blog

and put it into mine, but instead i decided to just paste what she said in here. :)

She says it well, so why spend time trying to change it? here you go...

December 6, 2010

Water Bobble

It's no secret to any of you who pay attention to what I'm up to that I am incredibly passionate about the environment. Sometimes my 'green tweets' are overwhelming, I know. But I cannot suppress my passion for the earth. And neither should you. We live here! And we've got to take care of this place. After all, it's a pretty amazing planet.

And this big blue ball we all live on is a whopping 70% water. Maybe that's the reason that most people don't realize we are in a water crisis. But the climate is changing, and so is the availability of clean water. In many countries clean water is not available at all. Thus you can imagine why I am bummed that more people don't consider the source of their water, or even realize that it is precious.

A lot of us satisfy our desire for 'clean' water by going out and buying bottled water by the caseload. But here's the funny thing. Bottled water is less regulated than municipal or city water. I know that tap water can often taste funny, but usually that's just minerals or leftovers from the purifying process - And bottled water is expensive! On average, in America alone, $17 billion is spent per year on the stuff! And for what? To have water you can carry around with you? I am a fan of staying hydrated, but is it worth that kind of dough? I think not.

The expense aside, bottled water is also costly to the environment. It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil per year just to make all of the plastic bottles that hold the overpriced water that isn't as clean as the water that comes out of your tap. And sadly, most of those bottles are never recycled. EACH plastic bottle thrown away takes anywhere from 450 – 1,000 YEARS to decompose!!! And we throw away millions per year in the US alone. So clearly that is not working out for us.

But this amazing little device is working. The Water Bobble. The makers say it better than I can. "We set out to satisfy our desire for fresh, clean, portable water while minimizing the considerable costs bottled water imposes on our environment and ourselves. We decided to reinvent the water bottle. We needed our bottle to be recyclable and resilient. We needed to hold costs down. We refused to sacrifice style in favor of function. In essence, we wanted it all." And they got it.

These bottles are manufactured here in the USA, they are certified BPA-free, Phthalate- and PVC-free, and made from recycled PET. They are also recyclable should you ever tire of them. They come in a 13oz, 18.5oz, and a 34oz size. The adorable little filters, which come in a variety of colors and last two months each, are carbon based. They remove organic contaminants and they also exceed the NSF International Standard (sounds fancy doesn't it?) for reducing chlorine taste and odor. BAM. No more funny tasting tap water! And, since the filter is built into the sport top, anywhere you go, anytime, you can fill up your bobble, and it filters your water as you drink it. No extra step necessary. You don't need to fill up a big filtration jug at home. You don't need to worry about finding 'clean' water to go in your reusable bottle. You make your own.

You can peruse their site for more info.

http://www.waterbobble.com/

And if you want to know how lucky we are to have clean water, check out Charity:Water. This is one of my favorite groups, working tirelessly to bring a basic human need to those who need it most. Did you know that "almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean drinking water. Unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all disease and kill more people than all forms of violence, including war?"

Check out the site to learn more.

http://www.charitywater.org/

end of the semester sentiments

the irresistible revolution: part lll

quotes from the irresistible revolution, chapter three.

you can read part l and part ll here and here.

"from my desk at college, it looked like some time back
we had stopped living christianity and just started studying it." (71)
-
"we pretend to be unable to understand [the Bible] because we know
very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act
accordingly. take any words in the New Testament and forget everything
except pledging yourself to act accordingly. my God, you will say, if i
do that my whole life will be ruined." (soren kierkgaard, 71)
-
"i went looking for a christian. i looked around hoping to find
someone else who might be asking, what if Jesus meant the stuff
he said? and i kept coming across dead people...
it was hard to miss that these dead people might have lived a little
longer had it not been for reading this little Book." (72)
-
"we are called not to be successful, but faithful"
(mother teresa, 78)
-
"what we are doing may seem insignificant, but it is more
important that we do it." (78)
-
"we can do no greaty things, just samll things with great love,
it is not how much you do, but how much love you put
into doing it" (mother teresa, 78)
-
"i also heard many a volunteer scolded for not putting enough
gravy on the rice, since the plate was being served to Jesus himself." (78)
-
"as you walk into [the morgue in the home for the dying in calcutta],
a sign on the wall read,s "i'm on my way to heaven" and when
you turn around to walk out, another sign says "thanks
for helping me get there". i could truly say, "where, oh death,
is your victory? where, oh death, is your sting?" (1 cor. 15:5) (79)
-
" was finally seeing a church that was storming the gates
of hell itself to save people from its horrors" (79)
-
"the true atheist is the one who denies God's image in the
'least of these' (dorthry day, 79)
-
"we are the flesh and blood of Jesus alive in the world
through the Holy Spirit-God's hands, feet, ears." (79)
-
"namaste means "i honor the Holy One who lives in you" (80)
-
"one of the lepers explained to me that oftentimes
lepers don't even know the words thank you because they
have never needed to say them." (81)
-
"what would the world look like if we truly believed,
as the apostle paul figured out, that we no longer live, by only
Jesus lives in us (gal. 2:20)? (84)
-
"Jesus healed the sick, but they eventually caught some other
disease. He fed the thousands, and the nest day they were hungry
again. but we remember his love. it wasn't that Jesus healed a leper
but that he touched a leper, because no one touched lepers.
and the incredible thing about that love is that it now lives inside of us." (85)
-
"beyond the miracles, what has lasting significance is love" (86)
-
"i remember praying the leper colony each morning with the brothers,
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
and perhaps for the first, time those were no longer empty words
that i hoped would come true someday. they became
words we are not only to expect to come true but also to enact." (87)
-
"a new community marked by interdependence and sacrificial love" (87)
-
after mother teresa died, i was in an interview with some reporter
who asked me if mother teresa's sprit will live on. i said, "to
be honest, mother teresa died a long time ago, when she gave her
life to Jesus. the joy and omcpassion and love that the world
finds so magnetic are only Jesus, and that is eternal." (88-89)
-
"i knew we could not end poverty until we took a careful
look at wealth." (89)
-
"i was returning to a land of lepers, a land of people who had
forgotten how to feel, to laugh, to cry, a land haunted by numbness." (89)

It's Friday but Sunday's Comin'

this video does a good job of reminding us what good friday is all about.

easter is my favorite holiday because it is less commercialized

than other holidays and has a truly significant meaning.

christmas is significant too, but without the meaning of easter, my life would be

completely different (without christmas, my life would be completely different, too,

but christmas has become about celebrating materialism and that repulses me).

anyways, this video gives me chills every time i watch it

because its all about truth.

it may be uncomfortable, but it is true.

this is your life.

the irresistible revolution: part ll

more quotes from the irresistible revolution by shane claiborne...
(chapter 2)
(you can read part l here which has quotes from the
foreward, author's note, introduction, and chapter 1)

"they reminded us that we all need each other and assured
us that if we all shared with one another, there
would be enough for everyone." (57)
-
"maybe they were angels, though they didn't look like the
pictures in sunday school" (61)
-
"the body of Christ was alive, no longer trapped in stained-glass
windows or books of systematic theology. the body of Christ
was literal, living, hungry, thirsty, bleeding." (62)
-
"the church became something we are- an organism,
not an organization. (62)"
-
"and yet amid all the spiritual movement, we kept bumping into
this other thing people still called church, and i wasn't sure what to
make of it. it seemed so far from the Scriptures, so far from the poor,
so far from Jesus." (63)
-
"at that moment we decided to stop complaining about the church
we saw, and we set our hearts on becoming the church we dreamed of." (64)
-
"we knew we could end poverty." (64)
-
"he wants to ask why God allows all of this poverty and
war and suffering to exist in the world. and his friend says, "well,
why don't you ask?" the fellow shakes his head and says he is scared.
when his friend asked why, he mutters "i'm scared God will ask
me the same question." (64-65)
-
"we do indeed have a God of resurrection, a God who can
create beauty from the messes we make of the world." (67)

hold onto her

change

the irresistible revolution: part l

if you go to eastern, i'm sure you've heard of shane claiborne.
he is one of the founders of the simple way and
he wrote a book called the irresistible revolution.
i started reading the book before, after reading an article
in relevant magazine about shane, but never finished it.
today i read about half of it for a class and next
week i'll finish it up. i thought i'd share with a
sampling of quotes from it that i underlined while reading.
i'm kind of a hyper-underliner, so i'm probably going to do this in parts. :)
but i've found that this book is a culmination of what i've
been learning about all semester and is written in a similar
style to that of donald miller's blue like jazz, which i love (and
it's going to be a movie soon!! that's a whole other topic though...)

"..his notions of fidelity to the gospel seem to directly counter
the political loyalties that many conservatives on the religious
right have made into an almost doctrinal litmus test of faith."
-
"shane's disaffection from america's cultural and patriotic
Christianity came not form going "secular" or "liberal"
but by plunging deeper into what the earliest christians called "the way"-
the way of Jesus, the way of the kingdom, and the way of the cross"
-
"our battle was against a private piety that limited religion to
only personal matters, then compromised faith in a tragic capitulation
to the economic, political, and military powers that be."

pages 11-15 (foreward), Jim Wallis
-----
"being a christian is about choosing Jesus and deciding to do something
incredibly daring with your life" (18)
-
"so i am a radical in the truest sense of the word:
an ordinary radical who wants to get at the root of what
has made such a mess of our world." (20)
-
"another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
on a quiet day, i can hear her breathing" (arundhati roy). the whisper
cries out for God to save the church from us christians and
breathe new life into the aging body." (23)
-
"the truth is that much stands in the way of God's will for our world,
beasts like what dr. martin luther king jr. called the giant triplets
of evil: racism, militarism, and materialism" (26)
-
"folks separate the spiritual from the political or social, as if the
political and social issues were of no spiritual significance, and as if God had
no better vision to offer this world." (28)
-
"most good things have been said far too many times and
just need to be lived" (32)
-
"but then you start thinking there must be most to christianity,
more than just laying your life and sins at the foot of the cross" (38)
-
"i had gorged myself on all the products of the christian
industrial complex but was spiritually starving to death. i was
marked by an overconsumptive but malnourished spirituality, suffocated
by christianity but thirsty for God." (39)
-
"i met people who lived like they believed in heaven and hell, who
cried and worshiped like they were actually encountering God." (44)
-
"perhaps the devil is just as likely to wear a three-piece suit
as to have horns and a pitchfork. and perhaps the angels look more
like the bums in the alley than like feathered white babies." (50)
-
"we saw a homeless man lay a pack of cigarettes in the offering plate
because it was all he had." (50)
-
"i met a blind street musician who was viciously abused by some
young guys...one of us said, "there are a lot of bad folks in the world,
aren't there?" and she said, "oh, but there are a lot of good ones too.
and the bad ones make you, the good ones, seem even sweeter." (50-51)"
-
"mother teresa used to say, "in the poor we meet Jesus
in his most distressing disguises." (51)

happy

hope is fading

Hope is Fading – Orphan Sunday from Allan Rosenow on Vimeo.

red owl

the facts part 5

the top .01% of our population earns an income of, on average,
$27, 342, 212.

the bottom 90% of our population earns an income of, on average,
$31, 244.

members of congress earn an income of, on average,
$912, 000.
they have a 50% chance of being a millionaire.

the wealth of america is obviously not split equally among everyone.
but is it fair that the top 20% (1/5) of the population owns
85% of the wealth, while 60% (4/5) owns only 15%?

bye bye bye played on UKULELE

the facts part 4

men and women aren't treated equally

we've all heard that the more education you get, the more
you will be paid in the future.
did you also know that if you are a man, you will
automatically make more as well?

if you graduate high school...
and are a man you can earn on average 30,000
if you're a women, you'll earn 18,000

if you go to some college...
and are a man you can earn on average 33,000
if you're a women, you'll earn 20,000
(still lower than what a male high school grad earns)

if you get your bachelors...
and are a man you can earn on average 57, 000
if you're a women, you'll earn 32, 000
(still lower than a male with some college)

if you get a doctorate degree...
and are a man you can earn on average 97,000
if you're a women, you'll earn 61,000

some of this is because women are encouraged
to work in more "feminine" careers such as
teaching, child care, nursing, or being a receptionist or dental assistant
which are jobs that typically pay less than "masculine" jobs
such as doctors, dentists, lawyers and business positions,
but studies have shown that even when men and women have
the same jobs, men still make more.
for example female nurses only make 88% of what male nurses earn.
and, not only do we have to work harder outside the home to
make an equal amount, but we also tend to work more inside the home.
in home where both the husband and wife work the household
tasks were split up in the following way...

shopping: 87% females, 18% male
cooking: 81% females, 15% male
paying the bills: 63% females, 35% males
repairs: 14% females, 91% males

females do 61% of the work and males do 39%

and if that's not enough to convince you that were treated
unequally...the average social security monthly payment in 2009
to men was $1,235 while the average to women was $948.
even in old age when were not working, we make less!
this is partly because you receive more from ss if you
have a more stable work history.
over a 30 yr span men typically work 29 years while
women work only 18 years. this is because women
often take time off to raise children or leave their jobs
(this is important, but it's devalued by society because
you don't receive a salary for it)
to move when their husbands get jobs in other locations.
girls and boys are socialized differently from birth.
boys wear blue and girls wear pink.
girls play with dolls and play kitchens and
boys play with trucks and footballs.
this isn't all bad, after all we are different and should embrace that,
but one gender shouldn't be more valued than the other.
also, when men are shown to be strong and tough,
women become vulnerable.
prostitution, sex trafficking, rape, domestic violence.
these are situations where our "weakness" harms us.
men aren't to blame, society is.

slurpp

all of these adorable mugs are either vintage or
homemade from etsy. i want them all.
they're so cute, that i want to start a mug collection.

ahhhh!

such a sleepy owl!

his and hers mugs. so cute :)

i love birds!

inspirational and portable. the best combination.

another sleepy owl.

the facts part 3

african american men make up 6.5% of the american population
they also make up 40.2% of the incarcerated population

sending men to jail doesn't solve the fundamental problems.
if it did, then prisoners who are released wouldn't be so likely to return.
we usedpunishment instead of dealing with root of the problem.
there are direct correlations between literacy and
drop out rates and going to jail.
poor, uneducated, black men are the most likely targets to go to jail.
incarceration takes fathers out of homes and workers
out of the community. it deteriorates families and communities.

watch

“in the face of the largest prison buildup in the history of civilization, with two million citizens in prison, and one in every three black men under judicial constraint, we start to wonder what good the thirteenth amendment is if slavery is illegal unless a person is convicted of a crime.” (152, the irresistible revolution by shane claiborne)