First Monday, New Decade

Well now, with a pretentious title like that, how can this post go anywhere?

Actually, I'm just thinking again this morning about newness, and wondering what this year and decade are going to hold.

I woke from dreams this morning that made me smile.  And dreams that stirred prayer.  And dreams that surprised me in what they contained - people and places I wouldn't have expected.

This is the week that I'll find out if I've been accepted into the nursing program for January entry.  The week that I'll either come off of the waiting list, or I won't.  I'll be in school either way, it's just that taking classes as a nursing student would be my preferred outcome.

I'm mentally planning my week as I sit here, too.

Tonight my parents and I are trying a new "cult following" burger chain from the states that has made it's way to Canada.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm skyping with one of my best friends.  Tomorrow night I'm meeting another dear friend for dinner and a chance to chat and catch up.

Wednesday night I know that I'm cooking dinner at mom and dad's, and Thursday night house church starts back up.

This afternoon I have errands to do.  A stop at the library, probably a trip to walmart.  I need boring things like deodorant, and a neck pillow.  (The neck pillow that has been my soreness savior that I purchased for $2 at a local dollar store wasn't all that sturdy it turns out.  I've repaired it twice already, and now I'm ready to just buy something with quality that I won't have to stitch shut every couple of weeks.)

I read this post at Donald Miller's blog this morning, and remembered reading the story of the Scott Street Parade in his book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years."  I choked up a little watching the video in the post, when I spotted the smiling and waving parade queen and remembered the story in the book about how they choose a special woman from the street each year to be appreciated as the parade queen.  Reading the post made me think again about how story was my "one word" for last year, and how it's become an overarching theme to my dreaming and hoping and planning.  It reminded me, too, that I want to give "A Million Miles" another read through sometime in the coming month.

This post at Stuff Christians Like made me laugh this morning too.  Yes, I'm one of those people who is doing the read through the Bible in a year thing this year.  I particularly enjoyed tip # 6: "Start mentally preparing for Leviticus.That book will break you. I promise. Unless you have some very specific questions about mold. It’s a beautiful book, but 87% of all read through the Bible plans jump the sea cow right here. (That will make sense once you get to Leviticus.)"  I've bailed on at least a couple of read through the Bible plans because I got stuck in Leviticus.  So, I'm taking his advice and mentally preparing myself now.  (And grinning at the very idea of that!)

So, on the agenda this week (other than the aforementioned things):

• hang out with dad and do errands with him, stuff he needs to do to get ready for his next trip leading a team to Ghana (he leaves in less than a week)
• create a plan for cleaning and purging stuff at home, and follow through
• catch up on a number of blog posts I've been meaning to write about books I read (many of the books I read when I was doing all that bus reading, before starting my contract job)
• and speaking of bus reading, get one or two sessions of that in (Like I said, I want to make another trip through "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years", and I've got a few other books on the agenda)
• Listen to the audio book I spent months waiting for at the library
• tackle a few little nagging administrative tasks (like product registrations, and some changes to my cell phone plan)

Not perhaps the most glowingly auspicious way to start a new decade, but for me, the stuff of day to day life, the accomplishing of the little things is what lets me tell a better story with my days.  Having a list and tackling it.  Planning the fun moments too.  These are important in my life.

So, those are my plans, what's on your agenda for starting out this decade?

Scandal Proof Your Church

Jonathan Acuff from Stuff Christians Like wrote this article on scandal proofing a church for the CNN belief blog.  Definitely worth reading.  And I'm not just saying that because he talks about pastor's kids and I am one!

A Really Good Response

I've been living in a hole, and avoiding news lately, so I haven't heard yet about whatever the latest church scandal that spurred this post at Stuff Christians Like, but I really appreciated the perspective it offered.

I had a conversation just the other day about how frustrated I get by Christians who can only see the bad in the church (or in the sphere of church that happens to exist outside their particular theological worldview.)  It almost physically pains me to hear that (though I've certainly been guilty of that and a certain cynicism as well.  In any case, I really appreciated the gracious challenge to the tendency to gossip about another high profile church scandal that Jon Acuff presented, and I wanted to make sure to link to it here so that you all could see it too!

Sex?

Okay, so it's a risky topic.  Especially for a Christian.  Maybe even more so for a single, unmarried, Christian female.

But I thought that Jonathan Acuff handled it masterfully here, and hit on some important topics.

Especially topic #1 - Sometimes we teach guilt and not abstinence.  I think it's absolutely true that the message that is communicated in the church to single people is that sex is evil.  I've been talking about this a lot lately, and I was really pleased to see this discussed on a prominent blog like "Stuff Christians Like".

Really Good Stuff

It seemed like there was a plethora of good stuff out there in the blogging world today, as I made my morning rounds.

Stuff I liked included:

Seth Godin's post on consumer debt.  Amen and amen.  I did some calculating on the weekend, and, given my soon to be carless state, and assuming (a big assumption right now) that there aren't some sudden changes to my living arrangements, I will be out of debt (except for my student loans) within a year.  That, even despite how crappy the situation is that is bringing it about, brought a huge smile to my face.

The post at Homestead Revival on the family budget.  Let me just be clear - I have no intention whatsoever of raising chickens or goats to save money.  (These would actually likely cost me money, since I rarely eat eggs and I don't drink milk.)  I probably wouldn't use a lot of her listed tips.  But, I like the idea of living more naturally and saving money while doing so.

The "Equal Weight" post at Gitzen Girl.  I've only been reading Sara's blog for a little while, but I've come to appreciate her words, and I look forward to the moment when my blog reader lets me know that there's a new post up and ready to be enjoyed.  And not just because I'm absolutely in love (given my daily 5 lists and ongoing goals for the year) with her tagline of "Choose Joy."  I particularly liked this post today because of the message it spoke to.  Yes, take risks, but consider them, too.  I feel like that's a concept I've been weighing this last week as I've navigated the loss of a car that is coming within the next few days.  What are the things that are positive in this?  And am I letting myself properly grieve the losses too?

Today's "Serious Wednesday" post at Stuff Christians Like.  Because I'm definitely guilty of resisting rest.  I talked about that yesterday while reflecting on my friend's reminder to be gentle with myself.  And because I'm in the process of figuring out a way to really set aside a much needed day or two to just rest sometime this month.

Stuff to Check Out

I'll be here later with some more random thoughts on the day, but for the moment, here are a couple articles I found interesting...

This article about some knife attacks in China caught my attention.  Not just because of the violence against children, but because of the immense percentage of the adult Chinese population that is believed to suffer from undiagnosed and untreated mental illnesses.  17%.  That's huge.  It was interesting to me, too, that this is in large part attributed to the Cultural Revolution which frowned on psychiatry, and has created a subsequent social stigma, and huge lack of mental health professionals.

I laughed really hard at a post on "Stuff Christians Like" today.  The "You're Rich Globally" post.  Which is so totally true, but seriously, it was funny to see the satire in the post.

Be Sick, Be Loved

I mentioned last week that I'd finished listening to the audio book "Stuff Christians Like" by Jonathan Acuff, and that I'd loved it.

I came across this video of him speaking at his blog this morning and let it play while I was working on some mindless tasks at my desk.  Definitely worth the time for the laughter and the message.

Be Sick, Be Loved from Foundry LA on Vimeo.