(xaris and shalom)

I was a freshman in college the first time I remember playing the game. I don't think I had played it again till the summer between my sophomore and junior years, and then I was facilitating it. "Game" isn't exactly the right term for it, either, although that's how we phrased it. It has different names -- cross the river, cross the line, cross the log (okay, so the last was in a rather rustic setting). It's a great evangelism tool, and I keep thinking about it this semester. However, it really wouldn't work in every setting. I've only seen it used with people college- and middle/highschool-aged, and only in contexts where there is a chance for real community to grow in safety. There's an invisible line, river, log, whatever... Cross the line if -- If your favorite color is red. Blue. Green. If you like wearing jeans. If you like waffle cones. If your family has a dog. If you have younger siblings. If you have older siblings. If you fight

It is well with my soul. When helicopters fly over the river, and I hope that they find something, because I want to know, and I hope that they don't, because I can't think of any way for that to be good. It is well with my soul. When I think of how I'm not seeing who I should be seeing. The sidewalk seems emptier. The stacks at the library are missing a person. Shifts in the dining hall aren't covered. A mailbox is unchecked. It is well with my soul. When I look back at the papers I graded last semester, wondering if I missed something. We all wonder, questioning, all the what-ifs. When I realize that I remember the shoes they think he's wearing, yeah, because I could see them on the periphery of my vision when I sat in front of him in class. It is well with my soul. When my fingers run a name through google, all anxious irritation, and I'm hoping for new news, hoping that no news is good news, and my brain is all tangled and I don't know what I want.

Dagorhir has helped me to mature. I'm serious. First of all, it's given me more context than I would have had otherwise for the whole concept of spiritual warfare and triumphing and all those other semi-archaic notions that are tangled up in real, face to face fighting. Granted, we go out and hit each other with foam and pvc pipe and fiberglass held together with ductape and dap, but it's taught me a lot more than I knew before. I've learned about working with people on your team: how to communicate, how to delegate, how to obey, how to strategize, and how to relax and just jump in without much of a plan. I've learned about trusting people, about reading people, about getting to know them. It's pretty difficult to hide your character on the battlefield, because you get beaten and you get hot and cold and irritated and bashed in the head and sometimes no one asks how you are. It tends to bring out the worst in people. And it also brings out the best, when p

Today's thoughts are about Hebrews 10:5-10. I want to laugh with relief about these verses. Maybe I get really excited about them partly just because I keep listening to Max McLean reading Hebrews, and his voice gets excited on them. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’” When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:5-10 ESV) But I think th

So here is my idea as I'm embarked on this new year, the overarching idea of what I want to be studying in the Bible and in other resources: What is being a woman supposed to look like? And, okay, not just generally, but for me specifically, and for me specifically now . How do I glorify God in being a woman? I'm reading through 1 Corinthians, not so much because it's related (though it may be) as because I realized that I haven't read through those books in a while and there is a lot in them. Yeah. Right now it's all rather disconnected, but that's the general plan -- along, hopefully, with continued intentional familiarization -- okay, memory -- of Hebrews. And maybe some other resources that I find. In the words of Buddy, "I've got some ideas." I'm such an honors-student-type-A person, looking at this and thinking, Man, that just doesn't seem intense enough . Might be that I'd actually learn in my Daniel class... and my Evan

Jars of Clay is my favorite band. So I was excited when Stephen Altrogge posted on The Blazing Center ( link here ) that Amazon had their latest album The Shelter as a $5 download this month. I love Jars of Clay because their music style seems to change, within comfortable boundaries, from album to album. Which means that my brain doesn't get really, really tired of hearing them after a while. I love Jars of Clay because they tell the truth. I wasted a rescue Abandoned the mission I failed by my own hands And watched it all go wrong You said you could save me That I couldn't save myself You said that you loved me No matter what I've done When the light is gone And life is just a dare we take Still the fight goes on To give my heart away And it's out of my hands It was from the start In light of what you've done for me In light of what you've done for me You lifted my head Set me apart In light of what you've done for me This is what you've done for