Scintillations

San Luis and God

2007-08-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

I say my mood is reverent because I want to love more than just the gifts God gives me in this world, this life -- but hey -- it's His world and things are pretty sweet right now. When the pain comes, let it come. I'm just not used to being this at peace, so forgive me if I sniff at it like a timid, suspicious stray dog.Here's what happened yesterday when Missy, Sequoia, Mikah and I took a trip. (These are parts of an entry from my journal that I wrote before falling comatose into bed last night):

(in town) We ate lunch at the sandwich shop by the creek. I had a salmon salad. Sequoia had blister drama. We walked to Rite Aid and to the toy store. I saw tiny dinosaurs (we used to call them 'beasties' when I was growning up) and model horses. Breyers! Woah...a total blast from the past. they were beautiful. I was entertained by tiny plastic fish and frogs on lilypads...

(on the beach) Micah loved to stand in the ocean and just look; Sequoia 'OCD' about shells, as Missy said. She has so many questions -- smart. I told them what I know about sand dollars and barnacles -- not enough. We walked to the rocks and rested and turned around. Micah sat in my lap. Again,there was that gorgeous, mellow early-evening light and the gulls and dancing waves and diving pelicans. We walked back and watched an athletic chocolate lab plough through waves in search of a floating ball on a rope...

(farmer's market) We smelled BBQ smoke everywhere. We heard acoustic drum and guitar and voice and a blues band which was louder and drew a crowd. I tasted strawberries and mole/pork tamales. I saw figs and dried fruit and nuts. I touched unripe peaches and soft, hot pretzels. I glimpsed healthy college students and different skin colors, and PFLAG displays, Libertarian booth ('End the War on Poverty!') and heard an evangelist in a wheelchair, talking about how Hell is real. The man next to him silently held up a sign about the need for repentance. As always, I felt judged. There seems to be a touch of cruelty to this approach -- on a summer night when everyone is digging into the ripe world, busy with their lives -- yet there is an inevitable, truthful quality to it as well.I couldn't decide what to eat. Finally, in spite of the threat of too much sugary dissatisfaction, I had a crepe with Nutella, banana, strawberries and whipped crea. Yeah. There was a stream, a surge, of people everywhere -- many strollers and yellow, young lab guide dogs in training...

(driving home) I slept a bit and Missy drove and sang along to a CD in her beautiful, strong voice. She pulled over with about an hour to go and I stumbled into Carl's Junior to pee. The moon was orange and low in the sky and as big as a gas station sign on the horizon. A harvest moon? I've never seen it so big. Now I will sleep, dreaming of the possibility of becoming more educated and qualified as a teacher, and receiving the gift of getting to love deeply, day after day, year after year, even when I want to give up. Thank you, Jesus, for this day!

Thanks for reading, y'all,J

wassup from the East Coast

2006-12-26T09:34:00.000-08:00

Hey y'all...I don't know if anybody's reading, but here are some quick notes from Watertown, MA.

I prayed for you guys on the 24th that the worship would be blessed. I miss you! I have had an amazing time with the family; it seems like as the years go by, I treasure every moment more and more. I am caught up in the beauty of our relationships -- not that they are perfect, but that they are held together somehow, and honored during this time, especially. My nephew is tops -- running around like crazy and SUPER independent. I just want to squeeze him all the time. He's brilliant; what can I say?

I type this from the Watertown Free Library, which is a short walk from Dad's and has been renovated. It's pretty slick. There's a cafe, dogonnit. That's cool.

I hope everyone is doing well and I will see you soon soon!
love from Jules

The Bleeding Stopped!

2006-12-03T21:11:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it's late and I really should go to bed. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. I don't feel prepared. And yet I want to share this. Here it is. I wrote it this morning before we left Hartland Christian Camp.

Honesty. Compassion. Confession. Other-centered. Take up your cross and follow. Lose your life in Jesus.

If I look at my heart, I see the time of honest confesson has passed. It should not. Lord, are you calling me to confess to others my selfishness and desire for control, my desire for comfort above all else? I can't be perfect. I can't be finished. Yet I don't want to agonize over my problems if I secretly don't desire to be more like you.

I confess: I AM HAPY THE WAY I AM. And yet I now this isn't right.

There is the beginningof a tug of discomfort. How does one live with the discomfort and surrender to Jesus, yet still not feel oppressed? How do I take his yoke and treat it as the light yoke it is?

It seems you are always calling me into action, not just to survive. I skate along, thinking I am doing so valiantly by just surviving. But you whisper that I could be freer still. Your whisper is one of love, but often it mixes with, or gets distorted by, the whisper of condemnation that tells me I must act in order to be worthy.

But I already am worthy in your eyes, Jesus. And my worthiness creates the need for action, for change. It creates the need to fight against the old self-complacency, self-centeredness and fear, so that others may receive this gift I have received.

Recently, I've imagined being the woman who bled steadily for twelve years, touched a fiber of Jesus' cloak and was healed. I actually wept with relief, putting myself in her shoes. What a joy it must have been! What freedom! Early one morning, I uttered the words I think she might have said: "The bleeding stopped! After soaking the ground wherever I went, my body is fixed! Halleluiah! Praise the name of Jesus. And who is this man who did this for me? There is no question -- I want to follow him wherever I go. I adore him!"

I know I am that woman. We all are, because we have all been healed that much -- or we could be. And once that healing repairs us, it begins to multiply. It is a lifelong struggle, to keep letting his healing touch change us, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.

So I know I must keep fighting -- not to prove my worth in Your eyes, but do do my part to become who I already am in Your eyes. Only in doing this will your love bring the harvest. Only in doing this will I be gloriously, deliriously free.

being a teacher

2006-08-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

life is crazy
Well, I have made it almost two weeks as a full-time high school teacher. I half fear that my students are reading this. If they are, I am happy to say I don't think I have a lot to hide. I love them. They sometimes frustrate me. I worry about what they need from me and what my responsibility is toward them. I worry I am not doing a good enough job. I love learning in order to help them learn. And I know this is just the beginning....I hope this feeling of intrigue lasts and grows into a mature love beyond the honeymoon.
I guess the biggest relief in all this is that I don't feel like a jerk. I feel like me. I believe partly this is maturity on my part, yeah. The last time I had a full-time job was a few years ago. But I would hope Jesus gets ALL the credit, ultimately. He has made me feel okay about myself, truly okay. He has made me feel like there's someone out there who will always be there, to whom I can always return, with whom I can share everything.
My credit card was stolen from Kinko's yesterday, where I have been spending OODLES of time. Eeesh. And I've been too absent-minded and tired to keep track of things like credit cards and driver's licenses. Slightly alarming. I canceled it and told them the purchases that weren't mine: $100 at Fasttrip, some car wash expenditure, $100 or so at Home Depot, $16 at McDonald's. Interesting. I actually prayed for the people who stole it -- that God would give them what they need -- much of that being a realization of His love so they would obey Him and not hurt their fellow brothers and sisters!
That's all for now. Life is good, but I miss my friends. I am listening to some beautiful reggae right now. "The music makes my blood boil.Oh, Lord, my blood is hot. My blood is on fire..." Wow! I don't want to talk on the phone 'cause I got to go to bed, but if you're reading this and you know me, I love ya.
Peace,
Jules

interesting time last night

2006-07-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all.

Well, yesterday was such a peaceful day...much needed reading, studying, thinking about being a teacher. I went home and took a nap and then the delightful Amy Johnson called at took me to In and Out.

I love days like this!

But it wouldn't be noteworthy without a little adventure. Here's what happened: my cellphone was on because I had agreed to be a point person in case Dee went into labor. When it rang with Brian's number, I smiled knowingly and answered, thinking she was in labor.

Actually, Brian was calling because Daryl, the guy who came to church on Sunday and for whom we prayed, had called Brian. He was wondering why noboby had called about taking him grocery shopping yet. After all, Renee and I had mentioned this possibility to him. And I had it in my mind that it would happen.

Just hadn't worked out the details. I decided to let it take care of itself. And I'll admit I would have been happy to have it work itself out by nothing happening. Not too proud of that.

I gotta say, I'm thankful that Daryl held us to our word. He trusted us. He figured we'd come through.

So, we did. They got their groceries. And to me, it was a good way to spend a few hours of free time as the sun went down and the temperature became imperceptibly, yet mercifully, a little cooler.

Is this the "messy life" Doug's talking about? If so, I'm in. It is no fun without other people, and it needs community to thrive. I guess the moral of the story is -- if it has to have one -- don't be afraid to inconvenience people and ask them for help. Don't be afraid to expect a lot of people. And if you can't shoulder the burden of people's expectations of you, then pass it on to someone who can at that moment. In this case, I was available. But as you all know, there are many times when I'm not and I need others who are stronger than I am right then.

Maybe this is one way God provides for His children and helps us honor His Kingdom each day. It's a cycle of giving, with someone always able to give and another desparate to receive. I pray that we can all be open to experiencing this, because there is a freedom in it! This freedom makes me feel truly alive.

Back from the East Coast

2006-07-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all...

I'm back to Bakersfield, from the East Coast.
It is so good to be back...kind of.

No, seriously. I was talking with my Mom yesterday and she said I had a gift to be able to appreciate life wherever I am. I do feel this is a blessing, and not always with me. I also feel this is a gift GOD has given because I strive (and fail often) to be content in Him and cherish what He cares about -- which is so much more eternal and compassionate and complete than any geographical place could ever be. God is always the same and is everywhere, so why stress about where you are?

That being said, I can tell you that the East Coast was simply, achingly beautiful. Dewey fields in Vermont, clean air that smells like dirt and grass, soft, humid air, blue mountains in late afternoon sun, birds calling morning and evening.

And then there are the people. What follows is a bit of an overview, as much so I will remember as anything else. I hope this is vaguely interesting to someone else, if not, in the words of many high school students I've heard,
"Sorry, my bad..."

I interacted with, among others:
*three teachers I met on the plane on the way over
* a delightful young woman named Melissa who I met on the plane on the way back. At age 20 and having been on a plane only once before to Florida, she was setting out from her home of Milwawkee to Australia to study abroad.
* a thoughtful and smart guy named Graham is a rafting guide in the summer and snowboarder in the winter who wants to return to school to make his mom proud...

Plus, my beautiful family:
*My brother and his wife, Sonya, who are a great team as spouses and parents and have some land in Hardwick that we stumbled around on one afternoon (there aren't trails yet).
*I am still completely in love with their son Spencer. He is smiling and giggling. His nicknames are Peanut and Eggie. Eggie because when he's sad, he goes, "Egg-eee!" He's eight months old and squeezable.
*My Mom and Dad, aunts and uncles, plus all sorts of fascinating cousins who are becoming such amazing adults with stories to share. My cousin Susanna recently got back from Ghana and shared about her visit to a slave prison -- gruesome and very sobering. My cousins Caitlyn and Josh, aget 14 and 17 respectively, really struck a chord with me as a future high school English teacher. It was fun to reconnect with them.
*I also had a great time discussing writing and practicing yoga with Aunt Sarah and her husband Jim (the parents of the aforementioned teens) and reading and discussing a book of short stories my uncle David wrote, about therapists and their patients.
For Fourth of July, we read The Declaration of Independence and said what we were thankful for. We all took turns cooking for each other -- there was much of every good food imaginable.
I also got to hike a lot, including a trip to a chilly yet invigorating waterfall with deep, swimmable pools and a bike ride in a summer downpour with Josh! My MS behaved until the very last day, when I bonked on a hike with Ben and Sonya and Spencer. Ben valiantly crashed through the woods for about two miles back to the house to get the car, and Sonya valiantly made "everything" enchiladas for dinner and I presided over everything while sitting on my rear! Learning the art of doing this still...

There's much more to tell, but that's what comes to mind first. Hope it's not too long -- but share, I must. Makin' use of this crazy new blog stuff.

Maybe I'll soon figure out how to include photos...watch out!
love from Julia

Back from New England

2006-07-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I put a My Space post about my trip. I wanted to paste it to this but I can't get into My Space right now. This is a little preview and also serves as a reminder to myself to get this on here!
Hope you are doing well. It was great to see people last night just when I got in town for Elise's birthday! Happy B-day Elise!

--Julia

Jill Briscoe calms the nerves and stirs the spirit

2006-06-24T20:08:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone...
well, it's Saturday night, the calm after the storm.

It's been quite a hectic week.

Last night and today, I attended a Jill Briscoe conference at Riverlakes entitled "Return to be Encouraged." It was indeed mucho encouraging. I think one of the wonderful aspects of meetings like that is how they nudge you toward confronting in your heart of hearts how much (or little) EVERY part of your life is submitted to God...this has got me thinking.

I'm including some quotes from Jill below. For those who don't know, here's a quick rundown. she's from Liverpool, England, got saved in a hospital bed when she was 18, is in her 70s (I think) and is on fire for youth ministry, has ministered to women seeking Christ in an attic in a communist country, (among other things), goes all over the world doing Bible studies with women and has a wonderful, gentle British accent.

Now, the quotes/paraphrases:

(Reading Luke Chapter 5)
*"God knows where the fish are...He'll take you there if you're willing."
*We all have just the right boat for God to use.
*Spiritual gifts don't age.
*Our primary call in life is to have a relationship with God. "You're not called to be successful; you're called to be faithful."

Ministry must be: Incarnational: "God was an embryo" in Mary's womb...

relational: "People matter more than schedules..."

devotional: While making this point, she told a story of a church her husband visited in an Albanian village that was started by three nine-year-old girls and pastored by a 12-year-old boy. TRIP OUT. The point being He uses whoever answers the call.

transformational: The more you are transformed, the more they (those with whom you share Christ) will be transformed.

sacrificial: "You can only take people as far as you've gone yourself. You can't take people ahead of yourself." She also told a story of a guy who was worshipping Satan in his basement, turned on Billy Graham on the TV, got saved, and now pastors a church.

This made me (Julia) think: we make things so complicated when we evangelize, don't we?

"When you can't pray, say to God, I'm a prayer. Read me."

"As the pain comes, go with it and the baby of faith will be born."

radical: They won't come to you. Go to them. "We expect the fish to swim into church and look for the bait. I see ourselves nurturing ourselves to death in America."

"If Jesus was a member of your church, where would he be Monday through Sunday?
Where are the unreached people groups? (single moms, divorced, hairdressers)

and generational: Psalm 71: 18-19

Hope that is encouraging to you too!
Much love,
Jules

2006-06-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

Riding the bus to God
BY JULIA KENNEDY, Special to The Californian Friday, Jun 16 2006 6:05 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Jun 16 2006 6:09 PM
The white school bus rumbles through quiet south Bakersfield neighborhoods each Sunday morning.
It doesn't take summer vacation, even when the kids do.
Its total passenger load is about 50 young people -- a far cry from the thousands of children collected by fleets of church buses in similar, big-city ministries.
But the white school bus keeps going.
It travels the short distance to Harvest Free Will Baptist Church on McKee Road for a few hours of wholesome talk, Bible study, games, snacks and hugs. Afterward, it takes the kids back home.
To young men like 18-year-old Robert Bough, that bus means friendship. For girls like Beverly Venegas, 13, it has brought forth a puzzling yet solid relationship with her creator. To boys like Braxton Fitts, who is 11, it represents something his mother makes him do.
However, Braxton says it's not a bad way to spend a morning -- especially when he gets to play games with other kids.
Harvest Pastor Kurt Lindgren, who joined the church staff six years ago, wasn't sure how long Harvest's bus ministry has been happening. The bus captain, Jesse Rodriguez, has driven the bus for 13 years -- so the answer is, at least that long.
During that time, Rodriguez has seen plenty of new faces step on board. The hardest part of his ministry, he said, isn't getting up early or dealing with feisty children who are hungry for food and love.
It's seeing the kids lose interest.
"You're just like family with them and you're kidding around a lot ... you wish they'd make better choices," he said.
Lindgren said about 80 to 90 percent of the children stop coming as they get older, sometimes moving on to less spiritually fulfilling activities.
But while it can be hard to keep track of the kids, there are two things that keep the staff going. The first is a call to ministry. The second is hope.
"We pray and hope that someday, down the road, we've made some sort of impact," Lindgren said.
Sometimes, a bus rider will resurface to affirm that hope. Danyell McKee, 23, sat in Harvest's nursery on Sunday, cradling her 5-month-old daughter, Alidia. When she was 13, McKee remembers riding a bus to First Free Will Baptist Church on East California.
"At first, I was embarrassed to ride the bus," McKee recalled. "You don't want your friends to know you're going to church." She would duck out of sight as the bus pulled through her neighborhood.
"In a month or two, I started crouching not so far down," she said.
What made it fun? They sang songs. The adults were always happy to see the children. And it actually looked like someone cared.
"The church was my family," said McKee, who now attends Harvest. Having lost her mother at 13, McKee rode the bus for years and ended up being a bus captain in North Carolina while attending college. Sonya Fox, who drove the bus when McKee was a teen, later adopted McKee.
Rodriguez observes a few other church buses driving around at this time of morning. However, First Free Will Baptist is the only other one Lindgren knows of that is aimed specifically at children.
Lindgren said he used to hear more about other bus ministries in Bakersfield as he visited homes, but that they seem to have dissipated.
"It's a lot of work," he noted.
Churches must carry sufficient insurance for their bus programs, keep buses up to inspection codes and earn enough trust from parents -- something increasingly difficult in today's society.
Harvest establishes initial relationships with families by going door to door and handing out flyers each Saturday in neighborhoods that appear to have a lot of children.
The potential to win prizes keeps the kids motivated to attend those first few sessions.
On a recent Sunday, they got raffle tickets toward winning a Super Soaker water gun if they came to church, brought a Bible or brought a new friend.
Although the bus ministry focuses on children, there is no age limit for riding the bus, Lindgren said. There is no minimum age either, although kids must be potty trained.
"I'm going to wait for my little niece to get potty trained and then bring her," said Beverly, who has been riding the bus for a few years.
Ti-yante Patterson, 9, also had something to bring to church. He clutched four quarters in his hand.
"It's God's money," Ti-yante said. "I'm going to give it to him."
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What A Freakin' Lie!

2006-06-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all...
Just recovering from a crazy week. I love back in the day when I used to worry that following Christ would be boring...WHAT A FREAKIN' LIE!

Anyhow, the most excitement for this week was finishing up the Horizons missions training that is part of Global Teams. The more I get to know people affiliated with GT and the more I become familiar with the philosophy and Spirit behind the way they do missions, the happier I am to be involved. The thing I like is that GT is not an "organization," as leader Kevin Higgins said. It's a "movement." He asked us to stop him if in correspondence he referred to GT as an organization.

The reason I love this is because I think it speaks to something new, confusing, magical yet unifying that God is doing among His people: raising up MOVEMENTS rather than MONUMENTS (I'm borrowing terminology from a GT lesson here). Just like 24-7 Prayer is a movement and not a foundation, company, organization, etc., just as DCF is so often a movement that is not (although we would like to be) attached to a church building, just as we are searching for how to express ourselves in this culture, so GT can't be defined by any ONE group of leaders or even set of ideas.

BUT...it is obedient to the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus and the Holy Spirit and God's call to bring the Good News to the Nations! That's about it! We need simplicity in our postmodern, confusing age. We need to remember God is bigger than our culture, our way of doing things, our expectations and assumptions. And it's wonderful to always strive to get out of the way and let Him move!

More on Horizons later and all my new friends from there...that's it for now.
Y'all are in my prayers...God has especially laid on my heart Matt and Chrissy, Jill and Ryan and Dee this week.

love ya,
Jules

Here's an article I wrote...

2006-06-11T22:04:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all.
This was published in the Californian on Saturday. I had fun writing it. Please pray for this guy. I'm still working on learning how to publish photos. Please be patient. Thanks!

Also, another piece of mine comes out next Saturday, on a bus ministry around town! It's fun to write this stuff to know what people are doing.

Okay, here it is:
Walking with the cross

BY JULIA KENNEDY, Special to The Californian Friday, Jun 9 2006 7:55 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Jun 9 2006 8:16 PM

As commuters fume in traffic or whiz through neighborhoods they'd never want to visit, Tom Alexander walks the streets of Bakersfield, five days a week, three hours a day, towing a large wooden cross.
If you've passed by him in your car or seen him tread by your house, he's prayed for you.
Alexander faces oncoming traffic as he hauls the 5-by-10-foot cross along sidewalks, smiling and waving at drivers while he prays out loud. He is always ready for a conversation and a "God bless you."
The No. 1 question people ask him, naturally, is why?
His answer is threefold: To honor Jesus for his salvation, to share with as many as possible that "the cross of Jesus Christ is God's plus sign" and to pray for Bakersfield, "asking God to pour out his spirit of revival on the entire city."
Some of his prayers have been answered -- most recently, for Rockin' Rodeo to close after a May 7 shooting death at the nightclub.
Crosswalk 2006, as Alexander has dubbed it, is the realization of a dream from more than 30 years ago. He began on March 1, intending to continue until April 30.
God had other plans, Alexander said. He now hopes to keep walking until the end of August -- or longer. Although the cross weighs 56 pounds and he is 58 years old, the former surfer and weightlifter says a little Ibuprofen is all he needs to keep going after each day's eight-mile trek.
Alexander's regular circuit includes all sectors of the city where he can safely trundle the cross and obey traffic laws. He's been to the northwest, the southwest, east, Rosedale and Cottonwood.
Many different people -- from white Bakersfield College students in a Jeep, to a group of African-American men outside a store in southeast Bakersfield -- hail him with cries of "Hey, brother!" Fridays, he walks downtown and prays for city government, police and courts.
While he walks, Alexander greets people and hands out tracts explaining his journey. Occasionally, he will set the cross upright and give a mini-testimony.
The Crosswalk is typical of Alexander's style of street evangelism.
His longtime friend Kerry Bulls, a substance abuse counselor and former correctional officer whom Alexander met after he turned to Jesus in prison, was thrilled -- but not surprised -- when he heard about Crosswalk 2006.
"I knew it was going to be a successful thing as a witness for Christ," Bulls said, "because Tom has quite selflessly done this type of ministry right out in the street, where people live."
Alexander founded Teen Scene/Soul Wars Inc., a nonprofit youth program that provides children and young adults with alternatives to gangs and drugs.
His testimony to people facing hard times comes from his own experience: He had been serving a five-years-to-life sentence at Tehachapi State Prison for armed robbery when he gave his life to Jesus. He often shares his past with others to illustrate that if Jesus can change him, Jesus can change them, too.
Donations from individuals, churches (including his own congregation at First Assembly of God), and Christian foundations support Alexander financially in his full-time ministry efforts for Crosswalk and Teen Scene. His wife, Jeanette, works as a teacher's aide.
Long before the Crosswalk, he regularly strolled through neighborhoods and prayed.
He intends to pray over every school in Bakersfield by the end of summer, and has already interceded for many -- including East Bakersfield High School on the day of the rally against the proposed immigration bill.
With security and school administration officials standing warily by, Alexander prayed for God to bless and protect all the students and adults at the school.
Soon afterward, a group of approaching student marchers invited him to walk with them. He declined, not wanting to confuse any political cause with his own.
With so many Christians in Bakersfield, one might expect a positive reaction to Alexander's efforts.
Indeed, the honks, smiles and waves overwhelm the "one and a half" obscene gestures directed toward him. The "half" was a man who started to flip him off but added more fingers in response to Alexander's friendly wave.
Less welcoming territory would be fine, too, however.
"I would feel just as comfortable walking in Saudi Arabia as I would in Haggin Oaks," Alexander said.
Many times, he gets more than a smile and a wave. In East Bakersfield -- which he said is one of the friendliest, most interactive portions of town -- people come out of their homes to talk.
Along Ashe Road, one woman made an illegal U-turn and pulled up near the sidewalk. She got out of her truck and, in tears, asked Alexander to pray for her broken marriage.
On a recent Friday, a gaunt woman in a sweater and jeans first asked for money, then asked if she could touch the cross and pray.
"Jesus sent you to tell me that it's all right," she told Alexander.
Crosswalk is as much to rouse Christians to ask God for revival as it is to witness to nonbelievers, Alexander said. Eventually, he would like to see others walk with him, or take shifts carrying the cross and praying.
"I'm trying to get people to start praying for the city," he said, "because we're facing some problems."

I'm new at this

2006-06-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

Hey lovely people, from DCF and maybe beyond???

I haven't really done a lot of blog stuff. This is my first blog.

The haps are: it's a beautiful summer night in Bakersfield, I am sitting at home regrouping from a crazy week. Waiting for a pastor to call me so I can interview him for a story I'm writing about a children's ministry here in town.

The sunsets over the past few nights have been rocking my world...mostly for the sounds: faraway ice cream truck music, birds, swaying leaves in the breeze, a lock turning in a key, cars whooshing by on New Stine.

At times like these, I feel like that guy in "American Beauty," who said he wants to cry because there is so much beauty in the world. Times like these make me want to worship the Lord! I'm glad I know who made all this crazy beauty and I know when I feel like this and can't express it, God knows exactly what I mean!