and you don't stop.

This is why I will never give up on Justin Timberlake.

twenty nine

Happy Birthday Gina!
love you hannah rauschenberg

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother pv.18:24

forever on the dance floor...

Many Weddings means much DANCING!! Here are a few highlights.

you get what you pay for...

In this case, you get WAY more. Since it is Fall, every girl and sometimes guy too, wants to have a candle burning in their house that makes things like ** apple pie, raking leaves, pumpkin squares, corn maze, hot cider ** run through their mind. Well, surprisingly, Wal-Mart has just the thing for YOU! (for those of you that aren't surprised, bravo) Go to the candle section and get yourself a Mulled Cider candle. A big jar candle is 5.00, half size 3.00, and they even have mini ones for just a dollar. This candle smells the BEST and it also burns really nice too. I haven't once seen this candle leave a bunch of its wax behind. Bring in the season right guys, go treat yourself!!

Black Squirrel.

REALLY! They exist. I was walking in Andersonville on Sunday toward Clark St. and I could not believe my eyes. I had never even heard of such a thing before in my life. Sure, I have seen brown and I have seen gray, but I never knew squirrels could be black. Did you... Or was I the only one who has been in the dark this long?

So, I decided to research this because I really couldn't believe what I saw. But, apparently out of the squirrel population of the United States only one in ten thousand is black. You can read more if you like here... (http://scienceray.com/biology/zoology/meet-the-black-squirrel/).

Keep Your Eyes Peeled!!

just in case you haven't heard yet.

Who doesn't love him anyway?

listen to sufjan's new album free all week.

i miss this.

when one door closes another door opens; BUT we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones that open for us. ~Alexander Graham Bell

Yesterday I made a spur of the moment decision. Spontaneity always brightens life. Lately, I have been feeling like something was missing. Do you ever get that feeling, where generally things are ok, but something just seems a little off? That was me yesterday.

I wasn't exactly sure why I was feeling like I was feeling. I woke up, and it was a typical Saturday morning; ate breakfast, read for awhile, ran a few miles, watched college football... but I just felt restless... Something was missing!

This is where that spur of the moment decision comes in... I drove to the city. I was able to enjoy some much needed conversation with the wonderful friend I shared a room with for a whole year. I was able to enjoy watching an incredibly talented friend do what he does best. I was able to enjoy the richness of community and fellowship at a church I dearly miss. I was able to enjoy encouragement and laughter with a spiritual mentor I truly admire. I was able to enjoy randomly catching up with an old coworker. I was able to enjoy a delicious brunch surrounded by closest friends.

And on the way home, one sentence was rehearsing itself over and over again in my mind... I MISS THIS. I don't miss the noise, concrete, nightlife, shops, taxis, restaurants, cta, or the moving scenery. I miss the people. I miss those who the Lord allowed to enrich my soul.

Longing and loneliness can sometimes cloud the peace and assurance I have about where God has me these days, yet I know I am right where I need to be. I continue to be grateful that Chicago is only 40minutes away.

grundy county corn festival.

The town that I grew up in hosts an annual "Corn Festival" during the last week of September. I went to hang out with my brother and sister-in-law tonight, and while they were in line for a corn dog, I was watching THIS...

Favorite Season.

Autumn is the best of all the seasons.

apples
pumpkins
windows open
crisp air
hay rides
bonfires
red, yellow, orange, brown
cider
pies in the oven
colorful corn
jack-o-lanterns
mixed gourds of all shapes and colors
scent on cinnamon
hoodies
corn stalks on porches
halloween costume ideas
candy corn
caramel apples (with nuts)
acorns
leaves falling into piles
apple crisp
boots
soup and chili
cardigans
scarves on a cool night
steam rising from your coffee
thanksgiving

Kids.

This past weekend I went to the last wedding of the summer in Ohio. I love weddings for many reasons, but somehow the dancing always comes out on top. Being able to celebrate the love that Elizabeth and Paul have for each other and for the Lord with close friends was so much fun... especially on the dance floor. Being to eight weddings this summer, I have seen and participated in my share of dancing at the receptions. My favorite part is not the bouquet toss, not the "daddy daughter dance", not the last dance of the night... NO... It is the dance moves that are pulled out by those 10 and under. I LOVE watching kids dance! This last wedding topped it all! During the first dance of the night I noticed out of the corner of my eye, four little girls between the ages of 4 and 5 dancing their hearts out underneath the trees. Immediately I joined them. At first they didn't know what to make of me, but I was thankful that they accepted me into their group. I had more fun with them that night than with anyone else. If you were there, don't be offended... it's just the truth!

So this afternoon, I see on my cellphone that I have a voice mail from the Jackie Levi, mother of the bride. This is what she said...

"Hi Laura, this is Mrs. Levi, I have a message for you. Um, the little girls you were dancing with at the wedding, the one little girl named Brooke, she wanted to know your name and who you were. She said that when she gets married she wants to have her wedding at the same place as Elizabeth's and she wants to invite you. So she asked me to find out who you were. I thought that was the cutest thing. So I thought you'd get a kick out of that. If you want to call me back that's great, if not, be touched. Little kids have a way of blessing us...."

That sealed the deal. I could not have had a better time dancing my heart out with four little girls under the trees in Ohio! My favorite moves happened to this song... My exact words were, "Oh my gosh, you guys are KIDS! Let's dance!" I wish I had video, but all I have is the picture in my mind :)

The Church

Micah is so talented and really knows how to put words together to say something beautiful.

Micah Bournes :: Spoken Word on Church from Antioch Church on Vimeo.

What A Way To End The Summer...

The most beautiful picture of love...
and
quite possibly the best dancing of the summer!

LOVE.

Friday is the anticipated wedding of the summer. This summer I have been to seven weddings thus far, standing in 5 of the seven.

Elizabeth Levi + Paul Davis makes 8.

Can't wait to celebrate with these two and DANCE the night away!

love this.

A Beautiful Experience...

I have been reading and re-reading and reading again GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy. This is something I read today that warmed my soul.

Conversion... the beautiful illumination of GRACE...

"Christianity was accused, at one and the same time, of being too optimistic about the universe and of being too pessimistic about the world. The coincidence made me suddenly still.
And then followed an experience impossible to describe. It was as if I had been blundering about since my birth with two huge and unmanageable machines, of different shapes and without apparent connection -- the world and the Christian tradition. I had found this hole in the world: the fact that one must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly. I found this projecting feature of Christian theology, like a sort of hard spike, the dogmatic insistence that God was personal, and had made a world separate from Himself. The spike of dogma fitted exactly into the hole in the world -- it had evidently been meant to go there -- and then the strange thing began to happen. When once these two parts of the two machines had come together, one after another, all the other parts fitted and fell in with an eerie exactitude. I could hear bolt after bolt over all the machinery falling into its place with a kind of click of relief. Having got one part right, all the other parts were repeating that rectitude, as clock after dock strikes noon. Instinct after instinct was answered by doctrine after doctrine. Or, to vary the metaphor, I was like on who had advanced into a hostile country to take on high fortress. And when that fort had fallen the whole country surrendered and turned solid behind me. The whole land was lit up, as it were, back to the first fields of my childhood. All those blind fancies of boyhood which in the fourth chapter I have tried in vain to trace on the darkness, became suddenly transparent and sane. I was right when I felt that roses were red by some sort of choice: it was the divine choice. I was right when I felt that I would almost rather say that grass was the wrong colour: it might verily have been any other. My sense that happiness hung on the crazy thread of a condition did mean something when all was said: it meant the whole doctrine of the Fall. Even those dim and shapeless monsters of notions which I have not been able to describe, much less defend, stepped quietly into their places like colossal caryatides of the creed. The fancy that the cosmos was not vast and void, but small and cosy, had a fulfilled significance now, for anything that is a work of art must be small in the sight of the artist; to God the stars might be only small and dear, like diamonds. And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, the the goods from Crusoe's ship -- even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.
But the important matter was this, that it entirely reversed the reason for optimism. And that instant the reversal was made it felt like the abrupt ease when a bon is put back in the socket. I had often called myself an optimist, to avoid the too evident blaphemy of pessimism. But all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better that all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquienscence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgetten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home."

Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton, pp 56-59

What an excellent description of the way the Holy Spirit meets us where we are at and illuminates our soul, guiding us to Saving Faith in Christ!!

The Picture Of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only known novel that Oscar Wilde wrote. I really wish we knew about another one, because after reading this book, I WANT MORE!! I don't want to give too much away by talking about it, but I will say this... If Alfred Hitchcock was not influenced by this book, I wonder where he was getting his inspiration. It is like a Hitchcock film on steroids. So many plot twists and turns... lots of character development, at least of Dorian himself. Can you tell I loved it?
Here are just a few quotes that stuck out to me:

"I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself."

Have you ever met someone who has had that sort of effect on you? I have yet to do so... but the way he worded that description of feeling is wonderful!! The book is filled with language like this.


"We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible."

I liked this simply because I don't believe it is true. If it was true, what a sad life someone would lead. Yet at the same time, I see some truth in it. If you have a great time with someone or somewhere, you wish you could relive the experience over and over again... there is great joy and sadness in this statement.


"'what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose'-how does the quotation run?-'his own soul'?"

The kicker of the book... we search after things to gratify our desires in this world and in the end we feel nothing more than empty... sometimes more empty than when we began. This book reflects a lot of the thoughts of Solomon in Ecclesiastes. The hidden life is the scariest life to lead. What is done in secret no man can see, but God sees it all. How foolish we are to think we can hide from Him!!


"It had brought melancholy across his passions. Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it."

I hope I never get to the point in my life where sin has taken such a tole on me that I would want to snuff the very thing that gives me life. Pure selfishness, but made me really reflect on myself.


Go out to your local thrift store and pick up this book if you haven't read it yet, or you don't own it. I see it at the thrift store all the time. If not there, check it out from the library and if you love it buy it!! It is well worth the read!

Interesting... very interesting...

Did the Ancient Israelites Drink Beer?

interesting article from the latest issue of BAR magazine.

http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=05&ArticleID=04&Page=0&UserID=0&

Speech.

Great Speech Mr. President!

Playlist.

About a year ago now I decided to put together a playlist once a month. One song for each day of the month. This way I could mix up what I was listening to each month and listen to music that sometimes gets overlooked in my itunes library. I also make up a name for it. This month: Do you remember, 21st of September?

1. The Moon Is A Magnet - Jon Foreman

2. Your Name - Phil Wickham

3. Intuition - Feist

4. Amber - 311

5. My Doorbell - The White Stripes

6. Like We Were - The Spares

7. Breakin' Up - Rilo Kiley

8. Stations - Denison Witmer

9. Wholehearted - Madcon

10. The 59th Street Bridge Song - Simon & Garfunkel

11. Jesus Lover of My Soul - Indelible Grace Music ft. MP Jones

12. Wouldn't It Be Nice - The Beach Boys

13. Pink Moon - Nick Drake

14. Kiss On My List - Hall & Oates

15. I Will - The Beatles

16. Three Little Birds - Bob Marley

17. Impossible Germany - Wilco

18. Heirloom - Sufjan Stevens

19. In The Garden - Watermark

20. Ants Marching - Dave Matthews Band

21. The Wind - Cat Stevens

22. 7th September 2003 - The Elected

23. Time to Move On - Tom Petty

24. Little By Little - Oasis

25. Send Me On My Way - Rusted Root

26. Crazy Love - Van Morrison

27. This House - Sara Groves

28. Shout Unto God - Hillsong

29. Club Can't Handle Me - Flo Rida

30. September - Earth, Wind, & Fire

discover something new to you.

I love me a good Bob Dylan song. Seriously, he writes the best when it comes to love.

i recently found out about miss nanci griffith. i hope you enjoy her as much as i have.

TRADITION...

Happy Labor Day!!

Encouragement.

The WORTH of every conviction consists precisely in the STEADFASTNESS with which it is held. ~ Jane Adams

One of my favorite things about the family of God is that it is eternal. I catch a small glimpse of that on this earth when I learn from those past, and as I live my life, I pray that I am encouraging those future to live a life WORTHY of the Gospel to which we have been called.

When I place all of my trust, hope, and faith in Jesus, even in small moments of weakness, that is when I understand what Paul meant by The SPIRIT helps us in our Weakness. It is the love of Christ that controls me now because I have concluded that one has died for all, and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was RAISED!

To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the HOPE of GLORY. Colossians 1:27

Last Night...

What gives, what helps

The Intuition?

I'll know, I'll know

Oh, I won't have to be shown

The way home.

And it's not about a boy...

Although, although...

They can lead you

Break and defeat you.

A destination known

Only by the one

Whose fate is overgrown.

Piecemeal can break your home

In half.

A love is not complete

With only heat.

And they can tease you.

Break or complete you.

And in came a HEAT WAVE

A merciful save

And YOU chose, you chose

Poetry over prose.

A map is more unreal

Than where you've been

Or how you FEEL.

And it's IMPOSSIBLE to tell

How important someone WAS

And what you MIGHT have missed out on...

And how HE might have changed it all...

And how YOU might have changed it all for HIM...

And how YOU might have CHANGED it all...

And how HE might have changed it all for YOU...

And did I, did I....

Miss out on YOU?