Wednesday, February 23, 2005

NEW ALIAS

I failed at this site...but I switched over to xanga for awhile because I find it easier to post the music i'm playing and i secretly, sort of, like the compartmentalized box that has everything at my fingertips--i guess i'm just computer/html dumb. Well, i'll try it out...may be back here shortly.

Sorry for the lack of posts...

Friday, February 11, 2005

A good seat and some Perkins

I just had the priviledge to sit down at a small breakfast with John Perkins. He is a man, who's passions have been rooted in justice and reconciliation. Last night he addressed the topic of "When the foundation is being destroyed what can the righteous do?" So many good things were said in such a short amount of time.

Perkins stated that we have become an individualistic institution...even the mere fact of driving 30 minutes or miles to go to our churches. Values are related through individuals in society and we have lost sense of those values and relationships. One of the most important problems is the community and those families in the communities--are families not suppost to help families out, but we have become so diconnected. Even looking at the churches within the communities, Perkins stated, "How can the church go forward in this homogeneous state?" At breakfast this morning he stated that we need to have a common goal a common problem to work together. I am relating this to four church within downtown "ghetto" Beaver Falls, an oppressed community that has and is suffering, that are gettting together and talking about reconciliation. Perkins made it known to us that we will find stuff we do not like about each other when we work together, but we must find a common problem within the community to work thoughly. In other words, there will always be differences.

Taken all of this into account, I question. If i want to do family and marriage counseling, why not do community and family development? That seems to be more where I am headed. I see the importance of family and yet a huge stress or benifactor of the family is the community in which they live. A felt need and a solid one, which i think would be challenging to work on.

Any thoughts would be great.

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Are We Running in Fear?

So this blog drives me crazy, don't know how to post pictures and i'm horrible at typing just the link. Any help would be appreciated.

Anyways...

So I sat up in bed last night for a long time just thinking. Thought about what fear is? Fear of things, not so much a "nightmare" fear. What is it that causes people, like myself, to run from many things in life. I am being very vague here I know. I heard a sermon once, where the pastor talked about how we are afraid of God's love. We are afraid to be accepted and in that fear we run from love. Total acceptance and real love, i believe, means the ugly parts of us too.

Thanks to one of my classes, i had the privlege of reading a book by Parker Palmer (the title has completely slipped my mind...granted that was read about two years ago). Within the few pages Palmer talks about the shadows that we cast. The depths below, that we need to crawl in, to work through the muck. Go in the depths in order to come out again and understand what we project on others. To be aware and yet be responsible for the new knowlege (and maybe i'm wrong on that description of the book). Yet i loved the book because it introduced me to a lot. Every since, I wrote a horrible paper on the book, because i didn't understand it at the time, I have been determined to re-write my paper and ask the question, "what shadows do i cast?" My determination has been somewhat dwindiling, yet the actions of discovery is still alive.

Why is it, that everything pulls me away from what is most important...prayer and silence. The One who loves me the most is the one i avoid the greatest sometimes. Yet when there is that time, it is the most valuable time ever spent. Why do we run from the Father who loves us the most? Fear of actually being loved when we honestly do not deserve it. Interesting.

Not a complete thought yet, but I just felt like posting....