I'm seeing the light at the end of this tunnel... the tunnel being this semester... and the light being Dec. 9 when I am done... and, oh friends, there are many good things coming after it is over... many, many most excellent and exciting things... so stay tuned, because I will be updating this thing with some amazingness! But right now, I'm in the midst of a paper that is mind-numbing... in content and length... so I decided to post a couple of fun pictures that I love... with some jumbled thoughts that have rattled through my head of late.

This was a delightful day... notice Shiloh's arms here... obviously, the grass was really tall, so she was lifting them in the air to keep them from becoming itchy or just grass-yucky in general. I have never thought of doing that...

but even on the short grass... the arms stay up. She is always ready, that girl. Next time I go for a hike, I'm definitely letting her pick out my outfit.

To make you rejoice:

"It's so true. The gospel compels us to love." -Benjamin Bricker-

This means... the cross is where we meet for reconciliation, it is our model for how to die in serving... and it is the very force which propels both actions.... wild stuff.

Something I needed to hear:

"A suggestion: If you have an African American audience with whom you’re using this analogy and you have 30 minutes to win their support, spend the first 20 minutes showing your familiarity with the brutality of suffering and affirming the humanity of the sufferer before you employ the suffering and the sufferer in your cause. Otherwise, I’m guessing most of your audience is saying, 'How dare you?!'" -Thabiti Anyabwile-

I'm so thankful for this thought... it was timely, and humbling... and so needed.

Something I come back to frequently:

"And I, who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflection of the angelic sadness. . . What did I say to him? Did I speak to him of the other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world? Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a cornerstone for mine? And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost?. . . We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to Him. That is what I should have said to the Jewish child. But all I could do was embrace him and weep."

-Francois Mauriac- (Foreward to Night by Elie Wiesel)

Thabiti is saying that before you use the suffering of others to make a statement, know the people and the story of that suffering. Francois seems to give an example of what that kind of sorrow and empathy looks like... while humbly acknowledging that, at his best, he can't possibly fathom the value of the humanity or the depth of the suffering... only God is able to know and perceive so justly. Both are necessary postures...