Monday, February 20, 2006

my mind the meat grinder

this week's sermon in "big church" was overcoming impure thoughts.

i always love it when cal talks about this stuff... i've never gone to a church that confronts things so truthfully and upfront.

most pastors and churches will beat around the bush when it comes to sex. not northwoods. i actually heard the word "porn" more times in this sermon than i think i have all year (of course... it IS only feb)

but one thing cal said sticks out. it went something like "what you put in your mind controls your thoughts and controls you."

so basically, what i'm putting in, i'm producing out.

this was a good point, but i didn't realize how much i needed to hear it at the time.

b/c after the sermon on sat. night, i watched when harry met sally and we fast forwarded through the diner part. you know... the DINER part...

i've never done that before. censored a movie. i was almost disappointed that i would be missing out on a part of a movie. i hate that. i'm kind of OC about that, in fact. i think i'd poo my pants in a movie theater before getting up to go to the bathroom. but we fast forwarded through sally's faking it.

then i remembered something charlie said once when we went to a movie... he told me he diverts his eyes from the screen when there's a graphic sex scene. for months now i've thought that was a little more than strange. he's married, a pastor, a father, and a little older and wiser than me. and HE edits things from the movies he watches? really? are you kidding?

then, i went to see underworld evolution with jeff mcallister sunday afternoon. [this is a sequel to a vampire movie] and in the first one, there was no sex scene. in the second one, though... there were a couple.

and here's what i did... i looked at the floor.
during the sex scenes, i looked at the floor.
and you know what i realized? i didn't miss anything.

those two movies i watched this weekend weren't lacking b/c i didn't see some boobage. in fact, it's totally weird to me, but i liked those movies more by seeing less of them.

Friday, February 17, 2006

a not so deep thought

if butts could talk, when they burped, would it still be considered a fart?

fireface

ok, but the skaters with fire coming out of their heads are cool.

i wish my helmet did that...

why do europeans love techno?

i'm watching the olympic opening ceremonies (yeah, i'm a few days behind), and i can't help but wonder...

wonder why their national anthem was followed up with a crappy techno song.

i end on this movielife quote...

"HECK NO TO TECHNO"

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

i don't deserve it

just when you think you're at the bottom, and it doesn't feel like you'll be in a good spot again for a while, you get what you don't deserve.

it's been mediocre at best lately. life in general. but tonight, tonight being valentine's day, totally changed my outlook on a "silly holiday."

i can't say i was having a bad day... just not a good one. and when i thought it was all over, and i would just go home and do the usual TV watching/phone conversing until i went to bed... i had a surprise visit.

a surprise visit was just what i needed when i didn't even know what it was that i needed.

and now i'm going to eat some valentine cookies from my surprise visit.

yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!

Friday, February 10, 2006

so much JF, so little time...

i might be a nerd for getting a purpose driven life devotional every day (something the 40-50 year olds at church would enjoy), but john fischer just does a pretty good job.

he's no rob bell, but he's got some good material...

like today's

let me just highlight a few lines that really stood out to me...

"I will worship God today because it is good and right to do so."
[sets the tone for the whole thing]

"Everything else I do is extemporaneous."

"To worship God is the root of my being. To not worship is to miss the fundamental reason for my existence."

"feeling little and insignificant in His sight. That's part of worship too, because we are. That's why it is so amazing that He is mindful of us. That He even notices us. (Psalm 8)"
[that one blew me away]

"And because He loves us so much, and knows how far away we can stray from our stated purpose, and how much damage we can do to ourselves and others in the process, He has commanded us to worship Him. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Luke 10:27). That's not because He is arrogant, but because He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our fulfillment is in Him."

"there is no ultimate satisfaction until God is in His rightful place in our lives."

"Think of it as God commanding us to do what we were meant to do. God is commanding us to do the one thing that will make us deeply satisfied and forever fulfilled. That's a twist, because we're so used to laws being overbearing, backbreaking spoilers of our fun. This is a law that commands us to do what will be our delight for now and for eternity. "

ok, so i might as well just have copied and pasted the whole thing into this blog... big whoop, you wanna fight about it???

Friday, February 03, 2006

afterthought...

this just came to me like a bad taste in your mouth after you drink a diet soda...

it harkens all the way back to a couple posts ago...

life sucks and then you die
enjoy it while it lasts
enjoy it more when it ends

I LOVE ROB BELL

did you know you can download rob bell's sermons on the mars hill website???

i judged a book by it's cover (or an mp3 file from it's title), and downloaded an mp3 called "sexy on the inside"

mr. bell starts off his sermon, "tonight, i'm going to talk about sex, and next week is money, and then the week after that, it will be something relevant."

HA! so witty and sharp.

but then he turns it around and pulls this huge concept out of the sky and narrows it down to a paragraph (sometimes down to a sentence or phrase).

he ends up saying that sex has been redefined. when you hear "sex," you hear "intercourse."

and that's not accurate.

sex, as defined by rob bell, is being connected. it's community, not just a physical interaction.

and then, to go one step further, he says that others complain of society being over-sexed. he would argue, we're all under-sexed. we're all cut off from each other. there are so many things that we're distracted with that we're not in a community. we're separated and doing anything but having healthy, sexy relationships.

his tagline "sexy on the inside" actually came from his 4 year old son.

his son looked at his mom one day and asked, "mommy... what does sexy mean?"

his mother replied, "sexy is when you feel good in your own skin."

it's not just lingerie and doin' it. it's so much broader than that, yet defined so much more clearly.

life sucks and then you die

that's the tagline to a conversation i had.

and for the most part, it's true. but there's another side of it that's false.

to me, my life doesn't suck. but to me, compared to what i'm aiming for after i die, it sucks.

my bff, ximena valdes, brought up a good point. life is good. and i can't remember how exactly she said it, but it really made me rethink this point. and i admit life doesn't suck.

because we're here for a reason, life can't suck. it can't be that bad.

[sidenote: i just don't feel like typing more, but i could spend a lot more time on this topic. just talk to me in person if this interests you...]

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

update: Millie


just so everyone who's been keeping track knows...

millie's poo is solid again.

thanks for your concern.

your sin or mine?

everybody knows this verse

and i truly love that verse. it makes a sinner out of all of us. it brings all of humanity together under one umbrella and lets us know that we're flawed people and need God's grace.

it also lets some people use that in an argument to gain a small, "empty win."

(ever heard someone say, "yeah, well, you screw up, too!" it's along those lines...)

but here's the kicker for me lately...

since, according to this verse, sin is sin whether it's murder or lying, so every sin is equal, then why are some struggles harder than others?

wouldn't it stand to reason that since each sin is equal in weight as the next, that each struggle would be as easy to overcome as the next?

but that's not the way it works. and i don't have a definitive answer for this, but i think it's something like this...

yeah, we're all sinners. but that's all we've got in common as the human race. each one of us is different in a million different ways, and can be attacked in a million different ways. so what may be a struggle for one person, might be a strong point in another.

that's just one reason i've come up with. i'd like to hear more reasons certain struggles are harder than others...