StumbleUpon Sunday (6)

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StumbleUpon is a giant collection of the best pages on the Internet.

StumbleUpon is a great way to lose hours of your life.  Luckily, I braved the Internet vortex so you don’t have to.  This week I found these especially interesting websites:

  1. Questionnaires for Writing Character Profiles
    Included are questionnaires for adults and for children characters to help you fully realize your creation, with questions like, “What does your character think is his or her worst quality?” and the equally important, “What do other people think your character’s worst quality is?”
  2. 19 Random Facts You’ve Probably Never Heard Before
    “Twelve people have walked on the moon.”
  3. The Winston Churchill Guide to Public Speaking
    This is a really cool look at the craft and care taken to create some of history’s most memorable speeches.
  4. Life Inspirations
    A bunch of inspiring quotes.  Two of my favorites are, “The naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie,” and “Let’s make better mistakes tomorrow.”
  5. The 22 Rules to Perfect Storytelling According to Pixar
    These are really excellent.  “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great.  Coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.”
  6. 30 of the Most Powerful Photographs Ever Taken
    I don’t know how a person can get through these photos without crying–they show the heights and depths of humanity with honesty, beauty, and horror.
  7. Awesome Elderly Street Artists Destroy Age Stereotypes in Portugal
    Old men and women get involved in graffiti in order to create beauty and bond with younger generations!  How cute!
  8. 45 Life Lessons, Written by a 90-Year-Old
    “Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.”
  9. What Not to Feed Your Pet [Infographic]
    Handy!
  10. Love and Money: Discussing Finances with Your Romantic Partner
    Great advice for having a hard but necessary conversation with your significant other.

A Theology of Homosexuality*: Sitting on the Fence

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[I wrote this article two years ago on a different blog.  In light of SCOTUS’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage throughout the United States, I thought it was worth sharing again.]

In today’s cultural climate, it’s nearly impossible to create a theology of sex without mentioning homosexuality (or bisexuality or transexuality).  The church has a long history of staying silent on topics it does not understand or topics which it finds unseemly, and that silence is detrimental to our witness.  However, I desperately don’t want to talk about this.  I am deeply non-confrontational, and this topic is one that will almost certainly make someone angry with me.

 A Safe Conversation

With my insecurities in mind, I’ve decided to lay myself bare.  I’m going to share my heart and my mind.  I’ll explain my motivations and my doubts.  I’ll ask you to accept my ignorance and my indecisions.  I hope that by being so honest, you will understand me even if you do not agree with me.  My hope is that honest and compassionate conversations can occur in which people on all sides of the gay/Christian dialogue can speak and be heard.  This is my contribution.  Continue reading →

The Story of a Friendship: Tricia, Ketan, and Anju

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When I started working as a nanny three years ago, Anju was six and Ketan was nine.  Now Anju is her older brother’s age, and Ketan is nearly a teenager.  I got to be a part of their lives while they were at their most creative and affectionate, and now that I’ve finished working for them, I miss them.  A lot.

Anju: Do you know what makes me sad? Matteo doesn’t tease me.
Me: That makes you sad?
Anju: Yes! One of the signs of liking someone is teasing. He never teases me, and I tease him all the time!
Me: Hahaha.
Anju: And I don’t know what to do. Last year he was in my class, so I was used to him. But now whenever I see him I just run away like a weirdo.
Me: Yeah, I’ve done that.

We listened to a lot of pop music in the car.  One summer we listened to Imagine Dragon’s album over and over and over again until we knew the lyrics to every song and could sing them at the top of our lungs.  I set a precedent of absurd dancing, and I took so much joy in glancing at the rearview mirror to see Anju and Ketan flailing and fist-pumping to the beat.  Continue reading →

So Happy I Could Die – Moments of Divine Beauty

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I’m fangirling really hard over Christopher West’s Fill These Hearts, a book that combines theology and pop culture to discuss the universal longings of everyone’s heart for ecstasy, truth, beauty, and Love.  It is explaining so much of myself, things I thought were silly but are maybe profound.

One of the things he talks about is how our world is a twisted version of what is meant to be.  Death appears where there was only meant to be life, ugliness and pain where there was meant to be only beauty and pleasure.  But despite the presence of these evil things, we still get to enjoy life, beauty, and pleasure.  And it is in these gifts that we get a taste of what eternity with God will be like.

I don’t know about you, but there have been many times in my life when I’ve felt so happy I could just die.  Most of the time, I’ve stopped myself.  Of course I’m not really ready to die.  I’m just really happy.  But there are two times when I caught myself, then realized yes, I really would be okay if this were the moment I were ushered into eternity.  Here they are:  Continue reading →

Happy 4th Birthday, Rory!

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Growing up, I was a little obsessed with cats.  Every birthday cake was cat shaped, and there were at least two Halloweens when I painted whiskers on my face.  We had three cats (at separate times) before I was ten, though none of them were especially friendly.  Some family friends, however, had a cat named Locket that followed us around, allowed us to sling her around our necks, and generally put up with annoying children like a champ.  I wanted a Locket real bad.

When I was ten, my parents got a dog, and for twelve wonderful years I was a dog person.  Misty was cuddly, affectionate, and adorable.  But when she had two strokes, we put her to sleep, and my parents went on an already-planned vacation.  Alone in the house, grieving for one pet, I found myself desperate for another.  Continue reading →

Looking Forward to Greece

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One of my DTS friends recently decided that she and her husband are moving to England instead of staying in Texas.  I freaked out, screaming, “Oh my gosh, that’s amazing!  You’re going to live in England!  That is such a cool opportunity!  I’m so jealous!”

She stared at me for a moment.  “Tricia.  You’re moving to Greece.”

I gasped.  “You’re right!  I’m so cool!”

I was flabbergasted.  I guess I’ve been so involved in the planning, and worrying about the fundraising (donate here!), and thinking very practically that I forgot:  I’m moving to Greece.  I’m going to live in Athens for a whole year!  This is literally a bucket list experience (which I would prove with a picture of my bucket list notebook, but it is already packed for my move to Peoria), and I don’t think I’m appreciating it enough.

Luckily, I have friends like Michal, who share my love of traveling (read about our Puerto Rico vacation or our New Orleans weekend) and ask me, “What in Greece are you most excited about?”  Well, here’s my top five.  Continue reading →

Learning to Bow by Bruce Feiler

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I think I’ve made it clear in previous travel related posts that Japan is at the top of my Wanderlust list.  Reading about Feiler’s year as a junior high English teacher in Tochigi ought to have boosted my interest, but…it didn’t.  Feiler does a great job describing and analyzing the cultural distinctions of the Japanese, especially where education is concerned.  But his account lacks a certain spark.  Although he calls people friends and briefly describes his date-scene failures, there isn’t a lot of life in his recollection.

Perhaps he is imitating the Japanese custom of avoiding offending others.  There are times when his frustrations at constantly being othered as an American appear, but he doesn’t dig into those feelings.  The more I think about this, the more it seems he is honoring his Japanese friends.  But since so much of his book asserted his American identity, I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see more of his fire, independence, and emotion.

Learning to Bow is great as an introduction to Japanese culture.  But as a memoir, I wasn’t satisfied with the level of self-disclosure.  I suppose that makes me extremely American!  Hmm.  Continue reading →

StumbleUpon Sunday (5)

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StumbleUpon is a giant collection of the best pages on the Internet.

StumbleUpon is a great way to lose hours of your life.  Luckily, I braved the Internet vortex so you don’t have to.  This week I found these especially interesting websites:

  1. Clever Illustrations Reveal the Two Kinds of People There Are in the World
    Well, I’m definitely the neat freak.
  2. 30 Places You’d Rather be Sitting Right Now
    A great way to feel worse about your desk/couch/location.
  3. Powerful Illustrations Show Women How to Fight Gender PrejudicesFor example:  “Rebecca had depression, and only after many months she was able to wear clothes that revealed the scars left on her body.  Rebecca, these marks are a reminder of how brave you have had to be!  Psychological pain is also human, and suffering it does not make you any less of a person.”
  4. Pudding the Fox is Too Friendly to Go Free
    I know he says he doesn’t support keeping foxes as pets, but with a name like Pudding?  Give me one!
  5. When Their Trailer is Transformed Into a House, Everyone is Left Completely Amazed
    This amazing camper has all the clever hacks that has made me love tiny houses.
  6. This Artist Doesn’t Just Drink Coffee, She Also Makes Incredible Portraits With It!
    Yoda!  Mario!  Daenerys!
  7. This Sentence Has Five Words
    Incredible writing advice given in an incredible format.
  8. The 30 Best Films of the Decade
    I’ve seen only 10!
  9. 30 Shower Thoughts You’ve Never Had Before
    “The saying ‘Money can’t buy you happiness’ should be changed to ‘Money can’t prevent sadness.'”
  10. The Hero’s Journey Outline
    Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, with multiple lists and charts!  This will be very interesting to a very specific set of people.

I Still Have a Hole in my Heart

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When I grew up in church, there was a lot of talk about Jesus filling “the hole in your heart.”  The implication was that before becoming a Christian, you were empty inside, and after, you became full.  This is an incredibly dangerous theology, because it is absolutely not true.

In middle school, I went through a period of pretty significant depression.  I would pray for God to kill me, because thankfully I was too scared to do so myself.  A lot of my pain came from the fact that I carried an enormous amount of guilt.  I was a Christian, so why wasn’t I perfect?  If God had filled me up inside, why did I still want so much?  Why did I long for a perfect life, perfect relationships, and perfect experiences?  If Jesus was the answer to everything, why did I still feel so empty?

I wrestled with these questions alone, because I worried I was the only person thinking such things.  My doubts seemed to fly in the face of the salvation narrative I had been taught, so naturally, I thought perhaps I was not saved at all.  The combination of adolescence, evangelical guilt, and suffering alone put me in a very bad place for a couple years.  And honestly, I didn’t heal so much as I ignored my doubts in favor of legalism and distraction.  Continue reading →

Favorite Final Fantasy Songs

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A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post about my love for movie soundtracks.  In the comments, Joseph Richardson mentioned video game soundtracks, and I realized I had missed an entire genre of awesomeness.  Although other games have wonderful soundtracks (and I will want your comments to inform me of specifics!), for me, it’s always about Final Fantasy.  (And some Kingdom Hearts, because FF characters are included in the gameplay.)  Click on the links to listen to the songs on YouTube.

1.  “Main Theme” – Final Fantasy VII

For me, video games begin and end with Final Fantasy VII.  So does my taste in video game music.  The slightly ominous beginning builds to an epic melody that will, for me, forever be synonymous with exploration and adventure.  Check out an orchestral performance of the song here.  Continue reading →