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Archive - July, 2011

the twenty first formica friday

July 29, 2011 in formica friday with 1 Comment

It’s that time again, another Formica Friday, a treasure trove of hodgepodge, random tidbits, and a bit of this and that. In particular, it is the place where I can celebrate the best posts I read this past week and want to share with you. What exactly is Formica Friday, you ask? Check out the tongue-in-cheek, I got away with this?, definition from the first post.

An announcement:

The time has come! On Sunday I board a plane to head to the UK for just under three weeks. While I’m gone, I will get the joy of sharing several beautiful guest posts with you. I’m quite excited. I may post tomorrow, but not sure yet. Regardless, blessings to you all and see you again come 23 August.

A quote:

I love; therefore, I am vulnerable.

– Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

A list:
  • crashing on couches, driving in the wee hours, staying up too late, and feeling the freedom in my bones to run
  • conversations with my Father
  • an antique milk carrier and jugs
  • getting to hug Andie Redwine
  • a National Endowment for the Humanities grant
  • the lens my Mother sees the world though, in which everything is garbed in hope and expected to be redeemed
  • Max and Lauren are getting married and their story is amazing. God paints better love stories. You can support them by making a donation on their wedding page or buying their amazing art.
Posts, websites, trinkets, and the Internet week in review revue (after the jump): Continue Reading…

my body is headed to austin, my heart is headed to bolivia

July 28, 2011 in reflections with 4 Comments

Today marks day two of my twenty five days of travel. In just about an hour, I will get in my car and drive up to Austin, Tx to see for a second time the sensational movie Paradise Recovered. Paradise is the story of a young woman who is cast out from her cult and must journey to find a stable faith and life in a world she has never known. The film is stunning and if you want my full explanation why, you can check out the review I wrote for team Paradise last January.

But while I make my merry way up to Austin to see this wonderful film and then to hug the neck of Andie Redwine, who wrote this masterpiece and whom I have never before met outside of the electronic world, a few of my good friends and a few bloggers I read regularly are headed off to Bolivia with World Vision. Continue Reading…

the thing about porn

July 26, 2011 in sex, relationships, and women with 21 Comments

My life is in upheaval, in a good way. Tomorrow I head up to Granbury to help my grandmother move and will return to Conroe on the same day. Thursday I’m off to Austin to see Andie Redwine and catch my second screening of the sensational Paradise Recovered. Friday, I’ll be in Waco catching up with some amazing people and staying overnight until Saturday morning, when I will return home and pack my entire room for Baylor, because on Sunday I leave for the UK and don’t return until 18 August, the day after which I will drive to Baylor before classes start the following Monday. I have yet to pack, I’ve spent too much money on clothes, I don’t know where anything is, and the prospect of trying to situate wonderful guests post in a timely order for while I’m gone is about as daunting as writing something myself at this point. So I promised fiction today. It’s not happening. I intended to treat this week as normal. It’s not happening. So here’s the week: today’s post, Wednesday will not happen, Thursday may or may not happen, Friday will be the week in review and my farewell for now. All good? Right, then let’s talk about porn for a second …

I sent Lauren Lankford, editor of the sensational Good Women Project, my first of two planned guest posts yesterday. I won’t throw out too many of the details, but I will tell you that part of what it has to deal with is pornography and I want to tease out some of it here.

In planning that post for the past week and a half and scraping at the bottom of my soul to figure out what I wanted to say, I spent some time talking to a handful of women pretty frankly about pornography. I wanted to hear from them firsthand  what they understood porn to be, what they thought of when it came to men who viewed it, and what their reactions were  to the idea of it.

And I realized something I hadn’t quite understood before. Women don’t understand porn any more than the average guy does. Continue Reading…

the twentieth formica friday

July 23, 2011 in formica friday with 2 Comments

It’s that time again, another Formica Friday, a treasure trove of hodgepodge, random tidbits, and a bit of this and that. In particular, it is the place where I can celebrate the best posts I read this past week and want to share with you. What exactly is Formica Friday, you ask? Check out the tongue-in-cheek, I got away with this?, definition from the first post. Since I was away this week without WiFi and am just getting back to normal, this is coming to you late on a Saturday. Ah, well. I try.

A quote:

… In fact, nearly as often as I am filled with joy at the glory of a laugh, a mountain, a good meal, an act of love, or an ocean, I am overwhelmed by the decay of things.

To quote the film Where the Wild Things Are: “Did you know the sun is dying?”

It’s not just entropy, it’s innate brokenness …

– Antonia Terrazas, from her upcoming guest post here

A list:
  • Norway; o God, make haste to help us, o Lord, make haste to save us
  • I have been invited to Pinterest; I have ceased to be a productive member of society
  • Scrounging at the bottom of my soul to work up a good post for the Good Women Project
  • Sonic runs
  • So much laughter, so much yelling, so much preteen camp
  • Golf carts, singing, and rants
  • “A shopping cart’s a female version of a golf cart, of a golf cart!” and other songs rewritten by Jillian, Alyssa, and I while riding around on a golf cart in the middle of the night, acting like we were cool
Posts, websites, trinkets, and the Internet week in review revue: Continue Reading…

reflections from preteen camp, part five

July 22, 2011 in reflections with 2 Comments

Tomorrow I will return, early evening, from spending the week doing all the film work for the TEBA Preteen Camp. Thus will end the game of no WiFi, just iPhone. This last entry I’m even just thumbing out here without syncing notes. I may have gone a bit crazy …

—

There was a plan tonight.

We would worship under the canopy of stars, sing quietly, one guitar, a group of voices.

The plan changed.

We were moved inside, under fluorescent lights, on tile floor, six guitars, a cacophony of voices knowing and unknowing songs.

I heard a melody poor like wine from an unexpected source. I laughed with people I didn’t know. I saw the delicate maturing of faith as voices transitioned between stanzas. Someone always played a bit too fast, there were too many voices to find a proper harmony.

But all this chaos was harmony. Somehow it always came back to its roots, its incepting purpose.

There was a plan tonight. The plan changed.

His ways are not our ways.

Oh, what mercy.

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