Check out the new Link

Ann D's Peruvian Adventures
the newest link on my sidebar
will get you to the blog of my pal Ann (otherwise known as 'The Draz' to some) who is passionately doing what she can to make Peru a better place. Right now that means spearheading her own charity called Puentes. How does a small town girl from Wisconsin become a lobbyist for social reform/change? Go ahead and ask her folks...
I'd like to think her days of adventure began back when we created our list of the Top 50 things the two of us would do when we took over the world...written on a Sunday afternoon while we were working at Linda's Bakery...
I'm not sure I'll get there, but Ann may be well on her way to World Domination these days... :)

KR Recommends: ethical chocolate, beach scenery, good music

Yes friends, today you get the motherload of recommendations from moi. First off, we have Endangered species chocolate:
http://www.chocolatebar.com/news.htm
What's so great about this chocolate?
Well besides the DELICIOUS taste (I have only tried one variety so far, but I'm planning on tasting a lot more as soon as I can get myself to a Whole Foods store!), this chocolate is made from cocoa grown/bought ethically! As many of you may not know (indeed I only found out a few weeks back myself--thanks Elisabeth L!), a good chunk of the world's cocoa is harvested from farms that use child and/or forced labor. Crazy, isn't it?! Because of the nature of buying cocoa from different farms internationally, it's almost impossible to tell if what you're eating has come from a forced-labor farm unless it specifically says it hasn't. So, until that has changed, I've decided to remove regular chocolate from my diet. Can I be honest? It's been hell!
Thus, hooray for this company which sells chocolate I don't have to feel bad about consuming! PLUS it benefits endangered species (as its name implies), has recently contributed funds to get a missionary to Africa (medical missions), and is based in the great Midwest--the state of Indiana.
Next up, Dockweiler Beach near LAX. I've gone running there for over a year now. Today was one of those days, and the beauty of the place (yes I am serious you people who snub your noses unless it's Santa Monica or Venice Beach!) can be striking. On foggy days, not as much, but today was a sunny day. There's one stretch where the side of the bike path is lined with rocks. As I ran past it today I looked out at the beige sand, the sea-green waves, and the endless variations of grey and brownish stones and thought...WOW! I tried to freeze the picture in my memory. To me, it was undeniably lovely. And the seagulls are always a friendly/welcome touch too.
Lastly...good music! Last week I bought the latest release from Scottish Lads, Travis. Their album is called The Boy With No Name and now pumps my total count of Travis cds up to SIX! (Ok, so one's an interview cd, but still)
Now, some music grabs you at first listen and keeps you rocking. I won't suggest this cd fits into that category. BUT, it is such that after a run through (or two), it begins to warm up to you and infiltrate your world. By your 7th or 8th listen, you can't imagine not recognizing the greatness of these tunes. And singing along with Fran H. is always a joy...
I came to appreciate these guys more fully after seeing them headline at The Quest in Minneapolis back in September of 2000. They are an AWESOME live act! And after you see them fully of energy, you hear even the calmest of their songs in a new light. Welcome back, Boys...God bless ya!
And what's this news that I hear from VH1.com? The Verve is reuniting? For real?!!! Crowded House deciding to get back together has clearly influenced a number of good acts to follow. ;) I look forward to the new album. Urban Hymns is a treasure (and Richard Ashcroft's solo stuff is darn good too!), so I have valid hopes for what will follow (albeit 10 years later)...

Biting off as much as I can chew...

So after waffling about it for quite awhile, today is the day I told my pal Audrey I would volunteer for the VBS (Vacation Bible School) our church is putting on in less than a month.
The theme of the week is going to be 'Avalanche Ranch', and this is one critter I'm sure to see popping up all over the place...

I have never done a VBS before...unless you count the one or two I went to when I was a wee tyke.
It's also been a goodly amount of time since I taught Sunday School or anything...
I get excited about Youth ministry...but teens are my preferred age bracket.
It's not that I think I can't connect with the younger crowd, it's just starting to be a little more out of my comfort zone. A child here or there is one thing, but like 7 all at once is a completely different animal.
Hmmm...
In appreciation of irony, I have to share this tidbit too. While my summer looks to having me work with the elementary crowd, my dear friend Cheryl (up in Minnesota) is spending her summer working at a camp and stretching herself by working with older youth (aka teenagers). She's much more the elementary-friendly leader. Maybe this VBS thing will give me a better view of her world...

We'll see how it goes, I guess.
In other related news, I'm concerned I'm beginning to tarnish the efficient image I work so hard to uphold. ;) One of the ministries I serve on at Kairos is called Soulfood. Essentially, it's taking the cd copy of the week's message, editing it (taking out pauses and getting it into proper computer form), and then putting it up on a backstage version of the website. Someone else makes the message accessible.
I took over this ministry around October to help out...and went along at a good clip for quite a while...then in April I experienced massive technical difficulties that made my job impossible to complete. So...the good news is that the problems were figured out recently and it works again. The bad news is that I've got quite a backlog to work with now, people all over world are getting impatient, and I don't have a whole lot of time to devote to this stuff.

Bottom line = Friends, if you feel like praying for me...by all means!

One of the best baby pics ever!

Hahaha!
Ok, so I had a few minutes to check out some of my friends blogs that I don't get around to much these days...
I saw this pic of Baby Z on my friend Sara's blog.
When I visited Minnesota in May, I got to meet Little Z, and noticed that at present she has an uncanny resemblance to the Michelin Man. As Sara points out in her post, this pic is an excellent example! Ha! :)
Oh, and P.S. ...I edited a few links on my sidebar of defunct sites. My post from a few minutes back supplied the motivation to finally clean that up a bit.
Have a lovely weekend All!

Post #200: Delicious!

Yes Blog Readers--whoever you may be--we've reached another significant milestone--my 200th post on this thing. Wahoo!
I know it's not the best kept blog in the world...I realize a few of my links have become duds, and the majority of my old posts still don't have the catchy theme labels that came with the new version of blogger--but still, I am glad Blue Zionite is alive and kicking! If nothing else, I enjoy writing. So yay!

And what have I got planned for Post #200?
Well, let's talk about food.
I might not be the absolute horrible-est cook in the world, but I'm much closer to that end of the spectrum than the 'Good Cook' side. I admit it/I own it/ it's part of who I am. So sue me...
When I took my little 10 month adventure to New Zealand a few years back and signed on as the "Assistant to the Caterer" at the college I was staying at, I had high hopes this part of my life might change. Instead, I just realized more and more how little I enjoy the venture of preparing food, and my already sizable distaste for handling garlic and onions grew by leaps and bounds.
Perhaps part of this character defect can be traced to the fact that my mom never really allowed me to help prepare meals. Unless, that is, we were having pudding for dessert. She would let me mix pudding and milk together. That's really something, isn't it? I guess I also helped her with baking a bit...probably because that's the genre of food she's least keen on preparing. Thanks to dear old Mom, cleaning became more of my thing...and yes, I do (oddly enough) enjoy doing it.

Anyway, water under the bridge, blahblahblah, the bottom line is, I know when I make my own meals I mostly look forward to eating mediocre, but healthy stuff. This is fine with me. It makes grocery shopping a lot easier!

But a couple of days ago, I made myself a salad that was really rather impressive. And yes, I'm still quite pleased with myself about this. It was nothing fancy, but incredibly delicious...my basic salad is comprised of spinach, shredded cheese, a few croutons, and Red Wine Vinagrette dressing. But this salad had an added ingredient...the biggest, reddest, loveliest strawberries I have ever seen--courtesy of shopping at Trader Joe's!
I know it's a simple thing, but I truly enjoyed every bite of that thing! And I think I might make another one for dinner tonight...

Uncompromising Moments of Joy

[random pic found on Google]

It's a great feeling when you have a smile that comes from your heart.
When it's not an action you decide to partake in, but one you are helpless to supress.
I remember when I was a kid, when it was my birthday and the cake would be rolled in, and people would start singing the Happy Birthday song, I'd get a smile like that. I always fought real hard against it (don't ask me why! I think I was half crazy...maybe I still am), but it was there nonetheless.
Akin to this is the feeling of being paralyzed by laughter. I remember playing with my cousins and uncle when I was 8 or 9 (or 10?), and we were playing this kickball game or something. My uncle had me laughing so hard I just simply couldn't run. I knew it was the most important thing in the game for me to do, but I could only stand there and laugh.
Years later I get that feeling every now and then when I'm in on a very good joke with a group of people.
These are moments that make life LIFE, I think.

My friend Audrey spoke @ Kairos a few weeks back when I was out of town. I got to read her outline though, and I was struck by a quote she mentioned which was essentially, "Let Hope have you."

I had an uncompromising moment of joy today out of the blue. As I was pondering this, I thought I could see some correlation to moments like this and the enigmatic idea of Hope. I might not be able to concretely disect how the ideas are related, but I think it's a truth.

Uh...that's all, I guess!

KR Recommends: mewithoutYou

I saw these guys @ The El Rey last night.
Wow!
Intense and intensely good!
I only wished that I had come across them sooner...the first listen I gave the band was Sunday night.
There are some people who like to listen to music with a catchy hook or a fun chorus.
There are others who feel a bit more inspired by a figurative punch in the guts.
I recommend this band to those of us in the second group.
Not that they aren't catchy and fun, but their songs can hit you like a ton of bricks, so you best be prepared.
I've now secured my own copy of their cd Brother Sun, Sister Moon which was released last September. Maybe after a few more listens I'll be able to rant along in my car...
These guys are great musicians (as far as I can tell, at least), and lead singer/talker/shouter Aaron Weiss has lyrics that speak frankly about his faith and his life.
Two thumbs up, friends...do yourself a favor and check them out!
And massive kudos to Josh M, who introduced mewithoutYou into my world. :)

What is Reality?

Last night @ Kairos, Greg used the following quote in his message:

"Our existence may cease to be a song; it may cease even to be a beautiful lament… but our existence is still a story." –G.K. Chesterton

I don't know who this Chesterton guy is, but I very much appreciate his sentiment.

In my Canvas Group, we are currently attempting to read through Dallas Willard's book, The Divine Conspiracy. We've pretty much just started it, and a couple weeks ago we discussed the intro to the book and part of Chapter One. I don't have my copy with me at the moment, so this isn't verbatim, but at one point Willard says something like...

"The Law is something you have to obey whether you want to or not...Dogma is something you have to believe whether you want to or not..." He then goes on to suggest that Jesus was much more 'subversive'. In other words--or what I take that to mean, anyway--is that Jesus offers the truth, but it's up to us to choose to believe it.

Call it the age-old struggle of Faith, I guess.

During our discussion, my little group humored me as I launched on a monologue about The Neverending Story and how one of the themes it presents is a crisis of faith. [So you can call me a perpetual Child of the 80's, but I swear that movie is one of the best ever made...and the symbolism within it is so rich and plentiful, that I could probably create a whole Bible study out of it!] One of the two main protagonists (yes, I think the movie has two!) is a boy named Bastion. As the movie progresses you see the tension between practical reality and fantastical reality. Ultimately Bastion has to choose which he will believe in.

And in a lot of ways, I think so do we Christians. I don't know that I'm feeling eloquent enough to present my full view on this at the moment, but it does bring me around to my point...

[Yes, I do have a point in here somewhere...]

You can take a series of five factual events and make a story out of them. However, depending on who is telling the story (aka who the author is), you could end up with extremely different interpretations of how these events are linked. Point of View in the storytelling also offers variations. More often than not, if there is a narrator, that person knows significantly more about the overall story than any of the characters in the actual plot.

Going back to that original quote, if we look at our lives as stories...I find the most tension is in being limited by my point of view and yet needing to remember who the real storyteller is. When I remind myself that the Lord is the author bringing meaning to all the threads in my plot, I can relax and imagine how He would tell my story...which is very different (and much more better) than how I would tell it myself.

Yes!!!

Tickets just secured for seeing Crowded House here in LA at the end of August! FANTASTIC! Nevermind the frustrating half hour I wasted trying to order on my laptop...blech.

AND I don't feel too guilty about spending the $$ as I was blessed with getting a bonus in my paycheck yesterday. Funny thing...$ can be satisfying for a brief moment, but essentially, I think job retention is all about feeling valued and good at what you do. What does that say about my current job? Well...I'll plead the 5th at the moment...

Anyway, I meant to update my blog more this week, but time got away from me, and the wifi signal here is low which makes it not worth laboring over my laptop today. Next week I'll have a word or two for you all. :)