I have been reading up on the evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson for the last couple of weeks and it has been really extremely fascinating to me! I definitely think her story could be a major motion picture as there is so much to learn...I cannot really blog her life but let me touch on issues that surrounded her.

Personal Tragedy - Lost the love of her life Robert Semple after being married only two years which I think radically altered her life and left a lonliness that was never overcome.

Healing/Calling - Aimee was suffering from depression and sickness and the Lord called her to preach so she took the road with her kids and left the suzie-q-homemaker life and took her 2nd husband I am going you can follow if you like.

Racial Issues - Aimee early on preached to integrated crowds however she also courted the support of the KKK and she gave aid to illegal aliens during the Depression in CA which went against popular opinion.

Gender Issues - How many women much less men had a mega-church in the 20s.

Scandal - At the height of her ministry Aimee disappeared for 32 days and was thought to be dead when she reappeared and claimed a couple kidnapped her and held her hostage during that time...However the story does not really add up and a man she worked with at her radio station also went missing during that time so there is no conclusive proof but it is believed she was having an affair with a married man.

Body Image - After the scandal Aimee dropped thirty pounds and started wearing the latest fashions and makeup. See before and after photos above.

I really think she creates such a storyline for the shift and modern Christianity will mass media and megachurches...Check it out.

http://www.amazon.com/Semple-McPherson-Resurrection-Christian-America/dp/0674025318/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215734264&sr=8-2

1. What was I doing ten years ago?Playing sports and loving every minute dating a boy my class labeled "Doogie Howser" it was because of the curly hair and not the brilliance. Liking school and life in general.

2. 5 things on my "to do" list:
1. Don't make to do lists
2. Don't make to do lists
3. Don't make to do lists
4. Don't make to do lists
5. Don't make to do lists

3. Snacks I enjoy: Banana Chips Yogurt String Cheese Anything sweet

4. Five things I'd do if I were a billionaire:
1. Give it all to the government (not)
2. Take my family on a world tour.
3. Buy a llama
4. Give money to South Africa township of Jericho
5. Buy frozen sperm from Leonardo Da Vinci and impregnate myself so my spawn can write the sequel to the Da Vinci Code because we all know that is the best thing ever (Sarcasm).

5. My 5 bad habits:
1. Pick my nose (If you were honest with yourself you do it too)
2. Laziness
3. Passive Agressive
4. Dont express my emotions when they need to be.
5. Abide by the 5 second rule. Food needs a little earth flavor

6. Places I've lived: Verona, PA Penn Hills, PA Plum, PA Wheaton, IL Oakmont, PA

7. Five jobs I've had:
1. Whitaker House
2. Whitaker House
3. Whitaker House
4. Whitaker House
5. Then I branched out and worked at Whitaker House

Tag if you want.

Something about the form of this leaf mesmerizes me. It is like a wave that always creasts and never crashes...A bird with wings outstreached by never quite leaving the ground.

It is that moment when you are driving and stopped at a light and all of a sudden a building or a bird on a wire becames something so stunning that you are almost locked in a staring coma. I love the work "transfixed" It originates as "to pierce through" I think of the word transition where there is change but transfixed to be is a profound change that takes place in stillness and observing. When you see something common and somehow it piercing through it you are not the same. The downside to these moment is the light turns green and you move on singing a song and forgetting...

Intricacy is that which is given from the beginning, the birthright, an in intricacy is the hardiness of complexity that ensures againsts the failure of all life. This is our heritage, the piebald landscape of time. We walk around, we see a shred of the infinate possible combinations of an infinate variety of forms. Anything can happen. -Annie Dillard A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

This is a piece of phenominal driftwood on the coast of Portland, OR. Even in something entitled debris there is a beauty that is haunting. I recommend this book by Annie Dillard to anyone that longs to see the world and awe in the intricacys of all that is around us and a Creator that somehow links all these billions and trillions of elements together to live.

Caption under picture two

"Partially Under Cover"

Post Card:

"I used to like you but I don't now. Don't hurry I might come back soon.

Yours Truly, Alice

Gone but not forgotten"

This is dated 1909

I found these postcards at an antique store and I could not pass up this one from 1909. Closure is a funny thing and I don't really think Alice got any. The first one is an Amish wax museum which is priceless.

Verona Hates Those Catching up on Current Events

Last weekend my sister and I walked to Verona and this is what we came across...It was priceless. I mean I want to pretend I am a man just so I can get my haircut by this barber. I do not know who he hates so much, but hopefully he won't have a trap door and be singing about his unjust imprisonment with razors gleaming.

I had to post this because it was halarious.

Thoughts on Consumption

CONSUME

1. to destroy or expend by use; use up.
2. to eat or drink up; devour.
3. to destroy, as by decomposition or burning: Fire consumed the forest.
4. to spend (money, time, etc.) wastefully.
5. to absorb; engross: consumed with curiosity.
6. to undergo destruction; waste away.
7. to use or use up consumer goods.

So I have been thinking that the work Consume is pretty intense. God is a consuming fire and our sin can consume us. The main way I think of consume is in the food sense. You rip open a plastic wrapper in minutes you consume whatever processed food is inside. Consume is all about taking and using without giving anything back except maybe waste. If life is only about consuming is it worth living because honestly if I think about only exsisting to consume it makes me want to cry. So much of what is good in life and worth energy is the things that are not about our needs and fit the economic label of consumerist society. Aren't you glad that we do not consume communion but we partake it. Partake at least connotates that there is an act of sharing and participating. God can definately consume us in that we are at His totally and absolute mercy. There is no way we can consume God because ultimately it is not about swallowing something whole and then forgetting about it. It is about partaking.


CONSUMER

1. One that consumes, especially one that acquires goods or services for direct use or ownership rather than for resale or use in production and manufacturing.
2. A heterotrophic organism that ingests other organisms or organic matter in a food chain.

As far as I am concerned right now I feel defination 1 & 2 are one in the same. I want to be more then a consumer and learn how create not destroy, provide sustinance and not just eat, to save and not just spend, to emit and not just absorb, to give and not just get.

List of things I want to do in Life

1. NOT create any lists of what I want to do in life.


Ahhh, somehow I feel incredibly fulfilled.

Everyone wants to analyze why our culture has deteriorated so dramatically from say 50 years ago. Um, all I have to explain is "Barbie Fairytopia."

I miss Mr. Rogers so much I wish I could ride a trolly to the neighborhood of make-believe with King Friday and start a war against Barbie....but remember Lady Elaine I would do away with her because she scared me.

Lola & Ariel - I am tagging you to write a story, memory, how-to or whatever using the following words

Snout
Acoustic
Persistance
Aqua
itch
Flitter
cerebral
entwine

The blog below is a story I was tagged to do from Carly using the following words...

birthday green scar fireplace calligraphy magic float fur fresh picture

I am going to tag two other people soon.

On my 17th birthday, I received a box with an Asian green and gold, stitched pattern. I opened the fragile box and contained inside was a quill and two vials of jet black ink from an uncle who had recently been to China. He told me he found it in a remote village he was visiting. He entered a shop filled with both oddities, antiques and tools. The owner of the store was a short, stocky man with a large scar on his right check. His wife was stitching a scarf next to the fireplace which was small and not very warm. The instant my uncle entered the shop, he knew the owner was not going to let him leave without purchasing something. As he searched the store this small box caught his eye. The owner told him Buddhist monks spent their whole lives mastering the art of creating a text in perfect balance and beauty.

He said to me as I looked at this set, “If monks spend their life mastering the art of scripting words down how much more do we need to master the act of what words to put down.”

Sometimes I feel calligraphy transforms the words themselves into some new language of magic almost as if the look of the words themselves have more meaning then the actual words themselves. Every stroke seems to float on the page with such elegance that you could add a long, French cigarette and a fur coat on it and call it “Mademoiselle.” When using the fresh, black ink with such careful, studied strokes the writer becomes a painter and the story a picture.

It is a shame calligraphy is a lost art. We type keys of perfectly crafted letters but idea of not only putting thoughts down but the idea that art and words are synonymous is something to ponder or perhaps pen in calligraphy.

YES this is a long one

Before Blogs were the in thing I had my own creed's blog (written in word) over time here are some entries.

8/2- Today driving to work I noticed the shadows the trees were making on the road. They made me imagine that in those complex, unique shape were hidden somewhere the meaning of summer and life abundant. Like any shadow you need light to even see the shadow, so also we need revelation into any truth.

8/18- SO….God creates Man
God creates Woman
God creates Spider
Spider scares Woman
Woman gets Man
Man kills Spider
Thus marriage is enabled.

9/22- Right now is that transitory time before autumn waltzes in with all its glory. You can almost feel the tension of the leaves wanting to burst out of their skin. They groan for change, as we do.

10/07- So I am trying to commit myself to be a noticer of details especially to produce awe in me regarding the small things in life. The other day I was driving to work and steam was lifting off of things. I passed this quaint old Presbyterian church with its steeple and all its neatness. The remarkable thing was that steam was lifting off of its roof and the image brought tears to my eyes. Thinking it looked like the Spirit of the Lord was radiating off of it. Isn’t that what Church buildings should be the things that the steam of the Holy Spirit radiates off of. People can just look and see the mystery and power.

11/03- The horizon was a violet tightrope with darkness losing its balance about to fall.

11/18- Do you ever feel like the fog?
A gray oblivion
No one looks at
They look through.

It invokes no reaction
Other then a hindrance
To your clouded destination.

05/18- I got the hiccups today while eating toast. Was I the only person in the world at that time that had the hiccups eating toast or where there thousands or one other person connected only by toast and hiccups???

6/2 Monopolating (the next new word). manipulating and monopolizing.

9/7- I had this conversation with a friend that seemed to have awkward stretches after every thought was completed it was much like a rocking chair that had a large splinter on the end. You would smoothly glide back and forth until you hit that splinter which was inevitable and then you stopped rather abruptly only to find you would do it again in a short moment.

9/21- At the beginning of fall, golden yellows rise out of the ground like a coronation ceremony.

10/27- The sky was a patchwork quilt today with seams of blue.

2/22- Today it was either the lighting or the earth was sighing because all of a sudden all of the leafless trees glowed with a deep red color I had never seen. The view brought on a strange feeling like everydayness became a moment of triumphant discovery. I look away and the color is gone. I know my wondering. The world is fleeting one moment I feel as though I am living 1000 years in a second, but I look away and then moments blur into years.

8/1- What if we did not sweat out of the pores of our skin but instead stored it all up in our heal then when the body was ready it would just leak out the back of the foot and if you were wearing sandals and walking it would not even touch you. Dispelling the liquid like someone emptying the chamber pot on the street from a second story window in the Middle Ages.

9/11- Oh, Syncopation of salty sadness
Where is my wellspring window of witness?
Taunting the twilight of temporary travail.

10/10- Lionel Lumpkin Lovless – probably the best worst name ever.
Bill Bumpus / Kermit Guy runners up.

10/19 – This morning I felt the world (including me) wished to escape. The leaves were wandering to find a place. The clouds were on the move looking for a spot to shade and settle but their restlessness would not be stopped. Even the birds seemed aimless in their flight. Maybe I project my internal to the external.

5/11/07 - Salty, sulfur on the swoons of silver sadness.

8/31/07 One ravenous weed
Choking the life out of green
Flowers gasp for air

12/07/07 Free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man and freedom is a mystery that cannot be reduced to a simple definition.-Flannery O’Conner

Is there anything else to say?

High Pitched Lovers

So I randomnly ran across this album called Emotionalism by The Avett Brothers it is pretty good. Its classification is country however, I , choose to call it upbeat folk because I cannot condone Country music. There is a song called Paranoia in B-Flat Major and at the end of the song they start singing La-da-de-da in the most outragious high-pitched voices. I love it and it really made me think of how love really is it is a voice straining to go higher.

We try to rise above our selfishness and acheive some soaring high above what we are cabable and if we are honestly we end up sounding strained more often then etherial. I wish you could hear this song because it really captures the ridiculousness of love in a lot of ways...Just to continue to clarify I really like the Avett Brothers who are committed to redeeming Emotionalism, but I do not like country music. I like Banjo and folk but no twang.

Excellent check the band out at www.theavettbrothers.com

First Time Blogger

So it all begins...okay there are probably a billion blogs so I decided to add to madness of expression.

My first post is possible book ideas that would be halarious:

Bonnets of Blood - A Vampire Roams Amidst the Amish (Get your wagons hitched for this triller)

Sister Sexy and the Convent of Cupidity - Romance for Nuns (obiviously I have got nothing beyond the title)

Sings
The Vulture ^ - This is actually a legit idea. I want to write a depressive, tragic pessimissive tale and then have written in comments as if an optimistic was editing the book so basically take a tragic story and add halarious comments to try unsuccessfully to lighten the mood.

Pinnochio's Plastic (or Wooden) Surgery - Okay I am out of ideas for now.

That is all I have got right now but I mostly likely will return to absurdity shortly.