Uphill idealist

Image found at the blog Social Probiotic . When playing the game of hide and seek, it is important to be good at quietly hiding once you've hidden and switching up the places you hide, so that whoever is it won't know where to look for you on the next turn. If each time it's your turn to hide and you go to the same place, like say the hamper in your Mom and Dad's room with all the clothes piled on top of you, chances are your siblings are always going to find you first; no matter how many dirty clothes you hide under. Sometimes the church can think it has the corner on the market of faith. There are times when church-goes become so comfortable within the walls of the church, that they find it hard to comprehend finding any remains of faith outside the walls. From behind the church was, it can be difficult to see where God is at work in the world. If we the church and its members want to get a better glimpse of what God is up to, then maybe we should follow Jesus example...

Image found at How stuff works. As I sit on the living room floor, the Christmas music plays on the radio as I look to the already collected gifts sitting all around me. I begin the process of wrapping up each one carefully. I'd gather the gifts for each person, wrap them in shiny paper and then stack them one atop the other and finally tie them with curling ribbon that I'd take my scissors to and make piles of shimmering ribbon curls at the peak of the gift pyramid. With all that wrapping around the gifts, it usually was impossible to guess what was inside. It was only when the wrapping would be torn open, that the true identity of the gift would be made known. The process of shopping, organizing, and wrapping the gifts was always fun. Waiting for Christmas morning to give and have the gifts get opened was always difficult. I always want to give my gifts as soon as I wrap them, but somehow I manage to contain my excitement and wait until Christmas morning. In 1 Corinthians 12,...

When I was a kid, I recall my Mom saying to me at moments I was not behaving so gracefully - "Pretty is as pretty does." I used to pour over Seventeen and Young Miss Magazines to see the latest fashions, make-up tips, and trends. I'd read those magazines from cover to cover and back again. Everything inside of those pages seems controlled, fun, beautiful and well... the ideal. At that time I remember being frustrated by my big bone structure, because no matter how thin I'd wish and try to be, but with my German/Welsh/Irish/Native American heritage -I would never be the magazine ideal. Over the years, I've become much better about loving myself the way I am. It was not an easy or simple process, considering the pressure most women feel to become the ideal picture of western beauty, but it's better than it used to me. Sometimes I think as we get a little older, its a little easier to feel comfortable in the skin that you're in. However, it may not be the sa...

This last weekend I had the privilege of helping with a local community beautification and clean up projec t in Jamestown, NY. The group cleaned up debris and painted under a train bridge and then got to work on the start of a mural 12 feet high by 20 feet wide that will be fixed to a central area of the downtown. The mural is the first of what we hope to be many community art projects to help build home-town pride and to help dissuade the graffiti tagging that has been occurring at increasing rate recently. When the dump truck pulled away from the underpass on Saturday, it was filled to the brim with dirt, garbage and debris that had built up over time. This underpass is located close to our city's high school and many students pass through it each day. This morning, I wonder what their reaction was as they walked through a cleaner, freshly painted path in contrast to what it had looked like prior to the hard work of the volunteers on Saturday? Sometimes you have to see some dirt ...