future challenge to myself

What if...

What if we--as humans and as believers in a King ever so much greater than ourselves--what if we held as self-evident that (our) children have more to teach us about God than we could ever teach them?

What would happen if we approached children this way? And parenting? And life?

hi, my name is courtney, and i'm an introvert

"Oh, for years I denied it. After all, I have good social skills. I am not morose or misanthropic. Usually. I am far from shy. I love long conversations that explore intimate thoughts or passionate interests. But at last I have self-identified and come out to my friends and colleagues. In doing so, I have found myself liberated from any number of damaging misconceptions and stereotypes. Now I am here to tell you what you need to know in order to respond sensitively and supportively to your own introverted family members, friends, and colleagues. Remember, someone you know, respect, and interact with every day is an introvert, and you are probably driving this person nuts. It pays to learn the warning signs."

--Jonathan Rauch
in "Caring For Your Introvert"

Read the full article here. However, caveat emptor: If you're an extrovert, you might not appreciate the tongue-in-cheekiness. ;o)

Thanks to Aaron for pointing this one out.

another episode in stream-of-c

Dear Blog,

I had the feeling I've been neglecting you, so I decided to come post something on you. Kind of like writing on a Post-It Note and sticking it to someone's back without their knowledge. But then I checked, and I saw that I actually posted a few things recently. So I guess the neglecting was all in my imagination. Do carry on with whatever blogginess you were engaged in before I so rudely interrupted.

Sincerely,
C.

In other news, apparently I've had fund-raising on the brain of late. Last week, I participated in the Wishing Well Walk. Amy and I walked 2.5 miles, carrying 2 gallons of dirty water apiece, helping raise awareness of the well shortage in Africa. Lest you be overly impressed with our feat, there were many, many people who carried more water than we did. They rocked the Walk, so to speak.
Then, this evening, I drove up to Edmond to attend Heartbeat for Hope's fundraiser at Adora. It was fun, I bought two cute shirts (15% of the proceeds from Adora's sales tonight will go toward Heartbeat for Hope), and I got to hear a really good band named Countdown for Reno, if I recall correctly.

So, yay for helping people. ;o)

Furthermore, I'd just like to state for the record that it's not my fault my cat has a flabby tummy. We throw away about half the food we give her because she won't eat. And we're already giving her half the recommended amount. So I don't know why her tummy sags, unless it's from getting spayed and no longer having taut tummy muscles. But she has a lot of fur--how'm I s'posed to figure out what happened to her six-pack?!

Also, I think there has got to be a more efficient way of picking jurors for trials. A friend of mine got called in for jury duty and is looking at Day 3 of sitting in a courtroom, waiting to get called in for an interview. They might pick him for the jury, or they might not. Nobody knows. So far, two days of sitting, maybe reading, maybe texting, but mostly just sitting. Why can't they just give people appointments so that not all 160 potential jurors have to come in at the same time and sit? Somehow, I doubt it's stimulating the economy very much to have all these people missing work.

In addition, whoever made the decision to cancel "Firefly" is an annoying person.

Not only that, but I've finally started getting my pomegranate obsession out into the open. Oh yes. There has been a quiet pomegranate obsession of late. A quiet, mental, internalized pomegranate obsession. I don't know why. I only know that I've finally drawn a picture of one, and I like it, and I'm going to add pomegranates to the painting that's been in-progress since January. Themes of Hades and Persephone have been drifting in and out of my awareness. It's all very ethereal and amusing. Now that I've started drawing/painting pomegranates, though, it's about to get concrete and amusing. Bam.

And I wrote two poems during the past week. One for slightly-public consumption (meaning I've shared it with a few people), and one not (meaning nobody gets to see it--yet).

Finally, lest I forget--no, no, no, not Gethsemane, whaddaya think this is, a hymn? ;o) --I've also been working on Deren's Story. And I've decided that Deren's Story is definitely for the boys. Except Deren keeps insisting on having all these romantic thoughts about the girl. I know that romantic thoughts and "for the boys" aren't mutually exclusive--but the oy-vey-potential is there, and I've got my work cut out for me in not turning my poor hero into a feminine shadow of his former self. ;oD Just kidding. Deren and I are not that bad off, I'm just acknowledging some potential here. Maybe blogging about it will help my subconscious mind stay where it's supposed to be. Namely on Heinlein-esque perkiness. And that's all I'm gonna say 'bout that, 'cause that's just how I roll.

;oD

Please forgive the crudity of this blopgost. I didn't have the mental energy to write it to scale.

one of those moments where i use my blog as scratch paper

Note to self: I want to read "When Darkness Loves Us" by Elizabeth Engstrom.

09/12 Addendum: And also "Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow" by Nathan Bransford, who is my favorite literary agent I don't have.

rednecks and philosophy

"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark alley, looking for a black cat that isn't there.
"A theologian is a blind man in a dark alley, looking for a black cat that isn't there, but he thinks he has found it."

--Author Unknown

...

"A redneck is a blind man in a dark alley, looking for a black cat that isn't there, but he thinks he has found it, and he's gonna shoot it with a deer rifle."

--Alan Robertson


AMEN Retreat 2002
Chiemsee, Germany

german swings my verge

For many reasons.

One of the main ones being compound words. Which, really, one may make up arbitrarily, contrary to the opinions of traditional grammar purists.

I'm talking about compound words like this:

Aktenkofferverschlussknopfwerkzeugkastenträgermantelkragenhersetellerlieferantenfahrzeugfarbenaussucherin.

= female chooser of color of deliverer's vehicle for producer of collar of coat belonging to carrier of toolbox for briefcase lock button tools.

CRAMAZING.

I heart languages. I really do.