from Ann's blog:

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well, let's see.
1) Bold the books you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Star the books you're reading/have read some of.
5) Copy, paste, & repeat.

I'm following what Ann did and only doing 1 and 4: (29 books I've read!)
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien*
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (haven't read all of them)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit- JRR Tolkien *
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis.
34 Emma - Jane Austen (seen the movie)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy*
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (seen the movie)
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Instructions:
1 - Go to Wikipedia's random entry page
The title you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotationspage.com's random quotes page. The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr's "explore the last seven days" Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.


Introducing: Casual Look in their debut album:
Serious When People Laugh

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME:(first pet, current car): Minnie Grand Am

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite type of shoe): Chocolate Sandal

3. YOUR NATIVE AMERICAN NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal): Blue Jaguar

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born in): Jane Columbus

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 of your first name): Cooal

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (The 2nd favorite color, favorite drink): Green Whiskey

7. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers): Alex Walter

8. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy): Flirtatious Twix

10. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter): Perez Provo

11. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower): Spring Lily

12. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now): Grape Jeans

13. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree):  Pancake Elm

From the BBC World News: Special zones to control the activities of commercial sex workers are being set up in Uganda's capital ahead of the Commonwealth leaders' meeting.

Kampala's mayor told a Ugandan paper it was being done to avoid embarrassing dignitaries attending the international conference which starts next weekend.

Prostitution is illegal in Uganda, but sex workers operate freely in Kampala, especially in the city centre.

Prostitutes have confirmed they have been asked to move to suburb areas.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) is being held from 18 November to 25 November in Kampala.

Dignitaries will include the head of The Commonwealth, UK Queen Elizabeth II, and her son Prince Charles.

English lessons

Commenting on Mayor Ntege Sebaggala's plan, Local Authorities Minister Kahinda Otafiire said the relocation will be temporary.

"Much as they are doing their business illegally, the government will provide them with other operational areas during Chogm," he told Uganda's Monitor newspaper.

A prostitute in the Katwe area of the city confirmed that she and her co-workers have been told to leave the city centre streets.

"It [Chogm] has disorganised us so much because... we are being told to go other places and to bars. And some of us don't like bars, so that's the only problem we have there," she told the BBC.

The BBC's Sarah Grainger in Kampala says commercial sex workers, who usually pick up business outside the Speke Hotel and in the roads around the Crested Crane building in the centre of the city, are being asked to move to other areas like the lively suburbs of Kabalagala and Ntinda.

According to residents in central Kampala, the number of sex workers usually seen along the main city streets has drastically reduced this week.

Kampala's population is expected to swell temporarily as 53 heads of state and around 5,000 delegates descend on the city for the summit.

Prostitutes in the city say they been preparing for an influx of foreign clients.

One told the BBC they had been taking English lessons and have put up their prices for a full night from around $60 to $100.

Dear Alexis/ SimplyAnother

I _____ you. You have a nice _____. You make me ____. You should _______. Someday I will _____. You + me = ______.

We should __________. If I saw you now I'd _______. I would build a _______ just for you. If I could sing you any song it would be _________. If I could I'd give you ___________.

We could __________ under the stars.

Love,
_______________

(P.S. ______________.)

REPOST THIS "DEAR (YOUR NAME)" AND SEE WHAT ANSWERS YOU GET!

this is how i feel all the time lately!  its great...  :-)

Calling You- Blue October

Theres something that i cant quite explain
i'm so in love with you
you'll never take that away

and if i said a hundred times before
expect a thousand more
you never take that away

well expect me to be
calling you to see
if you're ok when i'm not around
asking if you love me
i love the way you make it sound
calling you to see
do i try too hard to make you smile
to make a smile

well i will keep calling you to see
if you're sleepin are you dreamin and
if you're dreamin are you dreamin of me
i cant believe
you actually picked...me

i thought that the world had lost its sway
(its so hard sometimes)
then i fell in love with you
(then came you)
and you took that away
(its not so difficult, the world is not so difficult)
you take away the old
show me the new
and i feel like i can fly
when i stand next to you
so what if I'm on this phone
a hundred miles from home
i take the words you gave
and send them back to you

i only want to see
if you're ok when i'm not around
asking if you love me
i love the way you make it sound
calling you to see
do i try too hard to make you smile
to make a smile

i will keep calling you to see
if you're sleepin are you dreamin and
if you're dreamin are you dreamin of me
i cant believe
you actually picked...me

well i will keep calling you to see
if you're sleepin are you dreamin and
if you're dreamin are you dreamin of me
i cant believe
you actually picked...me

i will keep calling you to see
if you're sleepin are you dreamin and
if you're dreamin are you dreamin of me
i cant believe
you actually picked...me

so work is busy. very busy.
Today is Sunday.. and I'm in Austin.
Thursday- Houston
Friday- San Antonio
Saturday night- Austin
Monday night- Waco
Tuesday & Wednesday- Dallas
Thursday- Fort Worth?
Friday- Austin
Tuesday night- Waco for Thanksgiving
Saturday- back to Austin to work at FCS on Turkey Day weekend. yikes.

All done DRIVING...  Don't you wish you got to do this for a job?

Follow up to God the Father and Jesus Christ:

What are your views of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s work in the world?

            I picture the Holy Spirit working in a lot of different ways- a lot of metaphors, some from childhood, but most from my experience seeing God work, in my life and in the lives of others.  Often I feel like the Spirit is a constant river, always flowing, and its up to us as Christians to jump in and find where God is moving.

             I believe the Spirit is the Counselor form of God, convicting sinners (each of us) and empowering them to accept the message of Christ as Truth.  The Spirit moves within the lives of believers to bring new understandings of God’s purpose for the world, and to guide them in sharing the Gospel and in worshipping the Creator.

sometimes i catch glimpses of all of these different men that i know, and i want to cry with how beautiful they are.  in different ways, you see the love that pours out.  and I am thankful that these men are in the world- because they are good and lovely and humble.  and the love of Christ is in their eyes.

I'm applying to the CBF and have to write my life history.  I'm not sure I'll share it all here, but I wondered if there was any interest from anyone in reading it?  If you want to know more about me that is.  I'm writing the childhood part and yes, it is personal but... but I realize it defines a lot of who I am.  So I thought, I could potentially post it or a version of it here.

But if no one really wants to read that, then I probably won't.  Except for one part, which I definitely will and you can't stop me!  ;-D

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Split Over Global Warming Widens Among Evangelicals

Texas Christians Cite Conflicting Scripture; Staying ‘On Mission’

By ANDREW HIGGINS
September 28, 2007; Page A1

WACO, Texas — Suzii Paynter, director of the public policy arm of Texas’s biggest group of Baptist churches, traveled to central Texas early this year to talk to a local preacher about a pressing “moral, biblical and theological” issue. She wanted to discuss coal.

Christians have a biblical mandate to be “good stewards of God’s creation,” Ms. Paynter says she told the Rev. Frank Brown, pastor of the Bellmead First Baptist Church here in the county where President Bush has his ranch. So, Texas Baptists should demand that controversial plans to build a slew of coal-fired power plants be put on hold.

Mr. Brown was not impressed. God, the pastor said, is “sovereign over his creation” and no amount of coal-burning will alter by a “millisecond” his divine plan for the world. Fighting environmental damage is “like chasing rabbits,” he recalls telling her. It just distracts from core Christian duties to spread the faith and protect the unborn.

Ms. Paynter and Mr. Brown, devout Baptists both, stand at opposite ends of a debate over the environment that has been roiling America’s potent but often fractious community of evangelicals. Christians have been arguing about coal in Texas, oil drilling in Alaska and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. The most charged issue of all is climate change, a focus of world attention this week with conferences at the United Nations and in Washington, D.C. America’s Christians are divided on basic questions: How serious is it, what causes it, and what should mankind do about it?

All sides cite the Bible. Ms. Paynter points to a New Testament passage that says the good shepherd does not exploit his sheep and to a psalm that declares “the earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness.” Mr. Brown quotes an Old Testament verse promising that “while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.”

Behind the theological disputation, however, is a struggle grounded in the here and now. Who speaks for American evangelicals, and on what issues? Evangelicals in the U.S. share a cluster of core principles: belief in the authority of the Bible, a determination to spread the faith and a commitment to salvation through Jesus. But defining the group beyond that is difficult. They also have a long history of quarrels over their agenda and tension over leadership, particularly since the rise in the 1970s of the formidable political force known as the “religious right.”

The dispute over the environment has gained urgency in the run-up to next year’s presidential election. Liberal Christians have long championed green issues. Some of their more conservative brethren, particularly in Washington, then joined them in that cause. Now, as anxiety over the environment seeps into the evangelical heartland of the South, pastors and ordinary believers are also wrestling with what was long scorned as a left-wing fetish. A look at how the struggle is playing out in Texas shows the different forces at work — and suggests its outcome is unlikely to be resolved soon.

“Global warming is a proxy battle,” says the Rev. Jim Ball, a graduate of Baylor University, a Baptist college in Waco, and now head of the Evangelical Environmental Network, a group set up in 1994. The combatants are “those moving forward on a broader agenda, and those who want to keep evangelicals focused on just three things — abortion, judges and gay marriage.”

The split is also a struggle between generations, says the Rev. Benjamin Cole, a 31-year-old Baptist preacher from Texas. A blogger on Southern Baptist affairs, Mr. Cole says some younger evangelicals are tiring of lock-step loyalty to the Republican Party. “We wake up each morning and see an elephant on the pillow next to us,” he says.

But many veteran leaders of the religious right regard the green movement as a dangerous distraction. Shortly before his death in May, Virginia Baptist preacher the Rev. Jerry Falwell denounced the clamor over global warming as “Satan’s attempt to redirect the church’s primary focus.”

Evangelical Christians have been the Republican Party’s most-loyal constituency in recent years. In 2004, 78% of white evangelicals voted for George W. Bush, according to exit polls. Democrats are working hard to dent this alliance. Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a churchgoing Roman Catholic, frequently refers to scripture to support her calls for action against global warming.

“They’ve really got traction going when it comes to planting trees and reducing greenhouse gases,” says Paul Weyrich, an early pioneer of Republican outreach to conservative Christians who heads the Free Congress Foundation, a Washington think tank.

An episode this spring brought national attention to the brewing dispute. Mr. Weyrich joined two dozen other conservative Christian leaders in warning that global warming “is dividing and demoralizing” evangelicals. In a letter to the National Association of Evangelicals, they denounced the umbrella group’s Washington-based vice president for governmental affairs, Richard Cizik, an outspoken champion of action against global warming. They demanded that he shut up or resign.

The NAE’s board backed Mr. Cizik, who has continued to speak out. Combating climate change, says Mr. Cizik, is no longer just for “latte-sipping, endive-eating elitists from Harvard” but a core issue for all Christians.

How many evangelicals share this view is hard to assess. Each side has its own poll results. A summer survey commissioned by the Evangelical Climate Initiative, group of prominent Christians alarmed by rising temperatures, found that 70% think climate change will pose a “serious threat” to future generations and 64% want immediate action to curb it. The unpublished survey, due to be released next month, was carried out by Ellison Research, a private company. A separate poll carried out around the same time by Barna Group, a conservative Christian research outfit, used a narrower definition of evangelicals and found that only 33% consider global warming a “major problem.”

Splits among Baptists in the South are particularly pronounced. Former Vice President Al Gore, a churchgoing Baptist from Tennessee, has become the nation’s best-known campaigner against global warming. But the Southern Baptist Convention, which claims more than 16 million members, stands with skeptics. “We don’t believe in global warming,” said a veteran preacher at the convention’s annual meeting this June in San Antonio, Texas. The meeting passed a resolution that dismissed as “very dangerous” proposals to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions and asserted that scientists disagree on the cause of rising temperatures.

Earlier this year, an international panel of hundreds of scientists concluded that human activity is “very likely” the main driver of global warming.

David Gushee, a Southern Baptist professor of Christian ethics, denounced the San Antonio resolution as akin to the organization’s previous refusal to combat racism. Mr. Gushee, who helped draft a Southern Baptist Convention apology for past racism in 1995, says, “I don’t want to be writing another resolution of regret in 50 years time” about the environment.

American evangelicals are a vast community with sometimes widely divergent views. They are generally thought to number upwards of 100 million people but estimates vary widely depending on how they are defined. In the 19th century, evangelicals split on the issue of slavery. The civil-rights movement in the 1960s caused further splintering, as did a host of theological and personal squabbles. The 1960s also saw wrangling over the environment.

In speeches at Wheaton College in 1968, Francis Schaeffer, a hugely influential evangelical intellectual who died in 1984, criticized fellow Christians for neglecting “God’s creation.” Though a conservative, he hailed “hippies” for their attacks on “the poverty of modern man’s concept of nature.” His remarks were collected in a 1970 book, “Pollution and the Death of Man.”

But Mr. Schaeffer’s call to arms over the environment was soon drowned out by another cause he championed: the war on abortion. He became a fiery leader of pro-life Christians following the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing the procedure.

“Suddenly, abortion was a litmus test for everything,” recalls Mr. Schaeffer’s son, Frank, who followed in his father’s footsteps but has now broken with conservative evangelicals. Frank Schaeffer, who has just written a memoir called “Crazy for God,” says the late Mr. Falwell and others “deformed and distorted” his father’s legacy. He is rooting for those who want to widen the evangelical agenda to include action on global warming.

Francis Schaeffer’s role as both a pioneer of the pro-life movement and an early environmentalist underscores the varied strands of the conservative evangelical movement. Those strands are on full display in Texas.

One fan of the late Mr. Schaeffer is the Rev. Jack Graham, chief pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, a stadiumlike house of worship in Plano, Texas, that seats 7,000 faithful. Mr. Graham, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is a big supporter of President Bush, but says he is happy to challenge stereotypes about evangelicals. “We don’t believe the Earth is flat,” he says.

Yet his skepticism about science runs deep. Prestonwood’s bookshop stocks a host of books seeking to debunk the theory of evolution, and its parking lot is packed each Sunday with gas-guzzling sports-utility vehicles. “I have a lot more people asking, ‘How can I get through the week?’ than about the future of the planet,” says Mr. Graham. Christians, he says, have to be careful not to “worship creation instead of the Creator.”

Nonetheless, he says, they must not abuse nature, either. Mr. Graham is agnostic on the main cause of global warming but thinks science is “tilting towards human activity as contributing to the state of the world.”

Prestonwood last year began a drive to save energy and, in December, was named America’s “best green church” at a Dallas conference of church builders, suppliers and managers. It recently installed a computerized system to control its outdoor sprinklers and cut down on wasteful watering of its 140-acre grounds. The church has throttled back on air conditioning, started switching to environmentally friendly fluorescent light bulbs and taken lights out of many vending machines. A full-time “energy manager” prowls the premises after hours, leaving admonishing notes for staff who neglect to turn off lights and computers.

One big motive for all this is money. Prestonwood, which has its own school, TV station, five basketball courts and eight sports fields, has cut its utility bills by $1.1 million since summer last year, when it hired Dallas-based Energy Education Inc. to advise it on how to save energy. But, says Mr. Graham, another reason is the Bible. “Biblical Christianity,” he says, quoting Francis Schaeffer, “has a real answer to the ecological crisis.”

Other Texas Christians are also trying to conserve energy, including Ms. Paynter, who heads the Christian Life Commission, the public-policy branch of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, a group that Mr. Graham views as insufficiently conservative. Ms. Paynter’s Baptist church in Austin, pastored by her husband, teaches “creation care” at summer Bible camp, gets a portion of its power from a renewable-energy grid and has set up recycling bins.

But unlike Mr. Graham, Ms. Paynter is in no doubt about man’s role in global warming and considers air quality and other environmental issues as matters of urgent concern. She says her interest was sparked when, at an event for children, she noticed that about 10 of 35 kids present had asthma inhalers.

In poorer, more rural parts of Texas, however, green issues still struggle for a hearing from believers infused with “end times” theology, the conviction that the world will inevitably come to a cataclysmic end and that nothing can or should be done to delay this.

After his discussion with Mrs. Paynter, Mr. Brown, the Baptist preacher in Bellmead near Waco, wrote a lengthy blog entry denouncing environmentalism as a red herring. “Our concern is not to spend hours and hours on how to keep the globe from warming; that is the enemy of hope,” he wrote. “Our command is that…we storm the gates of Hell and keep the enemy on the run by the grace of GOD!”

When Ms. Paynter urged Baptists to join the coal power-station debate, she got angry phone calls and messages from outraged preachers and ordinary Baptists. “I do hope our tithes and offerings are not supporting this type of activity,” read one email. “Let’s stay on mission and keep proclaiming the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

But other Baptists cheered. Mary Darden, a deacon of a big Baptist church next to Waco’s Baylor University, organized a group called “Keep Waco Green.” Though a firm Democrat, she rallied both liberals and conservatives in opposition to plans by TXU Corp. and another utility to create what environmentalists called a “ring of fire” around Waco with plans to build four coal-fired power plants in the region.

The Waco region’s Baptist association helped out by informing members about a public meeting to protest the plants.

In March, opponents of the plants declared victory after investors announced a buyout of TXU and promised to scale back on their expansion plans. Ms. Darden organized a celebratory dinner and dance. The “Coal Plant Victory Bash” was attended by secular environmentalists, a conservative state legislator and Christians of all political stripes. Among them was John Wessler, a conservative Christian and a “Keep Waco Green” activist. “God created a balance and we were about to go way out of balance in Waco,” he says.

Mr. Wessler, a health-care adviser, says he got involved out of fear that the plants might spew toxins such as mercury and hurt the health of his family. His daughter has asthma. Now he says he’s paying more attention to global warming, too, and thinks it “logical” that man is to blame. He’s thought about buying a Toyota Prius hybrid car to replace an old Mercedes. But, he says, “I’m not there yet.”

You are an Inventor

Your imagination, self-reliance, openness to new things, and appreciation for utility combine to make you an INVENTOR.

You have the confidence to make your visions into reality, and you are willing to consider many alternatives to get that done.

The full spectrum of possibilities in the world intrigues you—you're not limited by pre-conceived notions of how things should be.

Problem-solving is a specialty of yours, owing to your persistence, curiosity, and understanding of how things work.

Your vision allows you to identify what's missing from a given situation, and your creativity allows you to fill in the gaps.

Your awareness of how things function gives you the ability to come up with new uses for common objects.

It is more interesting for you to pursue excitement than it is to get caught up in a routine.

Although understanding details is not difficult for you, you specialize in seeing the bigger picture and don't get caught up in specifics.

You tend to more proactive than reactive—you don't just wait for things to come to you.

You're not afraid to let your emotions guide you, and you're generally considerate of others' feelings as well.

You prefer to have time to plan for things, feeling better with a schedule than with keeping plans up in the air until the last minute.

You have a strong sense of style and value your personal presentation - friends may even seek your style advice from time to time.

Generally, you believe that you control your life, and that external forces only play a limited role in determining what happens to you.

If you want to be different:

Try applying your creativity to more artistic arenas, and letting your imagination take less practical forms.

how you relate to others

You are Benevolent

You are a great person to interact with—understanding, giving, and trusting—in a word, BENEVOLENT

You don't mind being in social situations, as you feel comfortable enough with people to be yourself.

Your caring nature goes beyond a basic concern: you take the time to understand the nuances of people's situations before passing any sort of judgment.

You're a good listener, and even better at offering advice.

You're concerned with others at both an individual and societal level—you sympathize with the plights of troubled groups, and you can care about people you've never met.

Considering many different perspectives is something at which you excel, and you appreciate that quality in others.

Other people's feelings are important to you, and you're good at mediating disputes.

Because of your understanding and patience, you tend to bring out the best in people.

If you want to be different:

You spend a lot of time taking care of others, but don't forget to take care of yourself!

Sometimes you can get overcommitted, and when you sacrifice spending time with those close to you, it can make them feel unimportant.

Its been a LONG TIME since I've done this!
If you comment, even if it appears you don't want me to, the following will happen:

1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll challenge you to try something.
3. I'll pick a colour that I associate with you.
4. I'll tell you something I like about you.
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory about you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something I've always wanted to ask you (to which you must respond).
8. You must post this on your journal.

I'm back in Austin.  Pretty exciting.  I got to visit with FOUR friends today once I got home.  FOUR!  Awesome!!!!

Also, excited about going to church tomorrow, but nervous.  I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to be able to stay through all of church and lunch, but have my doubts as to how thats going to go.  but, its worth trying.

Last night was FANTASTIC.  I loved getting to meet new people- especially ones I had communicated with via email but hadn't met in person.  I have to say, I think the dinner was structured really well (of course I planned it), and if nothing else (though I think more was going on), but if nothing else-- Our generation has leaders. and they were talking.  Seriously, and passionately, about God and church and change and action.  And I begin, again, to have faith in my generation.  Faith in Jesus moving in the world.  and I believe that being Baptist can be something special... and I think some other people out there might just start to have the same idea...

1. Go to Career Cruising.
2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top ten results.

1. Social Worker

2.Addictions Counselor

3.Clergy

4.Foreign Service Officer

5.Association Manager

6.Humanitarian Aid Worker

7.Recreation Therapist

8.Psychologist

9.Sport Psychology Consultant

10.Gerontologist

I find this list EXTREMELY interesting!!!

i'm having surgery thursday.  i'll be in the hospital for up to 4 days. in Waco, where fewer people will be around to visit me.

then i'm not supposed to drive for awhile.

i'm a little scared.  not sure why.  but there it is.

i hope someone comes to visit me.- i feel like i'll be here forever.

I suppose, when it comes to politics, I am fairly 'liberal'.  Of course there are a lot of connotations that go along with that word that may or may not be justified, and may or may not apply to me.

I admit- I am not, nor have I ever been a fan of the Bush administration.  I never, ever wanted our country to go to Iraq.  I think we should do everything possible to get out of this war.

I am a big fan of Garry B. Trudeau and his comic strip Doonesbury.  Which is admittedly political.  And I don't care- it gives me something to think about, a way to process current events and maybe even chuckle a bit at some of them.  But he has also done a terrific job of bringing to light some of the issues that our troops face, on an emotional level.  He never makes fun of the troops themselves, but shows the tragic comedy they function in.  Everything from PTSD and issues getting counseling, to lack of communication between the soldiers and their families, to the difficulty getting anyone to understand and listen to what they have gone through, to the lack of media reporting.  Aside from the comics, however, he has provided a forum for troops and military families to post about their experiences on his website, called the Sandbox.

It is here that men and women in uniform blog about their lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, and at home.  Many of them also have personal blogs that you can read.  The one I have been reading recently which is so beautiful is here.  This young man is a soldier and a poet.

These blogs are not "political" in that they do not bash one side or another, or really, most of the time, complain.  But they are highly political in that they shed light on the conditions within which the soldiers must do their job.  and in what they face upon their return.

I am confessing here that I have not paid enough attention.  I have not known the faces of those in fighting the war which I disagree with.  But as human beings with souls and hearts and emotions, I should have.  The Sandbox and these milblogs give us a way to see and know the faces.  It should make the war more real to us, the tragedies of the shoddy systems in place for veterans not just a political stance. 

What I see when I read these blogs are men and women who are struggling to make those of us in the states aware of the conditions in which they live.  Here at home, we mostly live our lives as if nothing is happening.  I know that many of us have an opinion one way or another, but what are we actively doing to change things?  Are we?  I don't know- I'm sure some are.  But not a majority, I think, or I believe things would be changing. 

I'm thinking of how most people I know, myself included, worry more about where to go out tomorrow night based on drink specials and what band might be playing, about whether these clothes make me look less fat, about who likes whom and what strategy might be needed to get together with what other person... But then I read these blogs written by people in my generation, who worry about having to gerry-rig American, European, and Middle-eastern parts together on an armored vehicle so they can make a trip down the road to recover parts from a blown up vehicle.  Who worry about their buddies and friends being blown up.  Who start to lose their soul because they've seen one too many deaths, been shot at one too many times.

And I wonder- when (if) they make it back here, how do they go back to worrying about tomorrow night's festivities, and fashion, and hooking-up?

Right now, I don't have some great big answer, or really, much of an opinion about what should be done.  I just felt like- if you read these stories, and these blogs, maybe you'll feel the way I do.  Or maybe not.  But maybe we can start taking action to change something that is destroying a significant part of our generation.

A little stream of consciousness, perhaps- but still, an honest expression of my views about Jesus:

Jesus is God’s way of telling us He loves us.  Jesus is our example that God would partner with us on this journey, in lowest fashion, to bring us a wider revelation of exactly to what lengths that love will reach.

Jesus is incarnate God, loving us, washing our feet, healing our sores, crying with us, aching with us, teaching us how to talk to God as Abba, Daddy, how to submit to the will of an all-knowing, all-loving father who wants nothing more than to draw us back close in to Him.

Jesus is our way of learning how to view the world, the one who teaches us to take risks- and shows us what those risks are: challenging unjust systems, becoming equal or less than those you are serving.  Teaching us that peace is active and love means living life in a completely unpopular way.

Jesus is who I strive to follow, imitate, and completely fall short of.  I try to remind myself that it is Jesus I am giving a ride to or a meal to when I do so with the homeless.  Or when I drive right pass or refuse to make eye contact with those same people.  Jesus is those to whom I give, or take away, dignity or love.

Jesus and I , we talk about grace.  My total lack of it, and the mercy with which he bestows it, time and time again.  Jesus is my risen savior, who loves even me, when I’m in my darkest, lowest place; who loves me in the pit, and the mire when I am my greatest challenge.  Jesus consistently, wonderfully, reaches down, pulls me out and up, lifts my face to the sun.  He takes on the pain, and the hurt, and the doubt, over and over and over again.  And in its place he comforts and leaves joy, and peace, and renewed life.

This isn't ALL of them. This is God. Next, Jesus. Then, the Holy Spirit. And still, not all my thoughts. But some of them, certainly.

I think of God as all-encompassing, all-consuming love. Love so pure and so total that to be in the presence will burn you up because no sin or thing tainted with it can withstand the presence of such love. It isn’t a judgment, necessarily, or God casting us away from Him—it is simply that we wouldn’t survive it. Perhaps, if we are truly blessed, we might have the experience of Moses meeting with God in the tent, and come away from it shining with a blinding light.

I think God’s purpose for the world is to draw it back to Him. Back to the love, in love. And Jesus is the way He is doing that. The purpose for the world is Restoration—and so as Christians I believe we are to work for that. For a Kingdom of Heaven on earth. A whole land, pollution free, with air that doesn’t leave a taste in your mouth, soil that produces rich, nutritious foods, and water that doesn’t make you and your children (and their children) sick. A whole people, equal, loving and desiring justice. But the kind of justice that means humbling yourself before your enemy and allowing the big love that is God to take over that enemy and make him a brother.

God’s purpose for the world is Jubilee, is Isaiah 58, living together again in spiritual, emotional, and physical wholeness.