stumbling toward divinity

world malaria day

Today is World Malaria Day.  Follow this link to find some inexpensive ways that you can help reduce the risks of this disease!!

yes we can

"In the unlikely story that is America, there's never been anything false about hope."

I love this man.

Heaven on earth in danger!

I was talking online with blog pal RuthRE today, and she reminded me of the fires that are near Holden Village.  She was planning on going out there (for her first visit!) in October, but they've evacuated the Village and are not welcoming new visitors until further notice.  They've left a small group of people up at the Village to make sure things are ok, and to keep things running up there.

My prayers go out to all of those displaced, those evacuated and those still up in the Village.  Holden Village has become one of my favorite places, and I pray that things go smoothly and that the Village and the people there remain safe.  Your prayers would be greatly appreciated, too!

For more information about Holden Village and the fire, check out this link. 

so many things

There are a lot of things racing through my head right now, and I'm not sure that any of them warrant a post of their own.  So what you're going to get is a mishmash of what is going through my head right now.

Fourth meal - This is the new, or not very old, campaign for Taco Bell.  They advertise that Taco Bell is the place to stop for your 'fourth meal,' which is the meal between dinner and breakfast.  At first, I thought it was kinda funny.  It reminded me of the Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings with all of their different meals, like second breakfast and 'elevensies.'  But then, it hit me.  Let's take a group of people (that would be U.S. Citizens) who already tip the scales as an overweight country, moving rapidly towards an obese country, and encourage them to eat fatty, unhealthy foods during the time of the night when their bodies are the least active and less likely to burn off the tons of calories and fats rolled up in crispy chalupa tortillas that they're cramming down their throats.  Yeah...  sounds like a great idea to me.

Seminary youth - I was walking across campus this evening to help a new student move in after she arrived at a not very convenient hour, as far as receiving maximum move assistance from the community.  I was stopped by a couple of the seminary kids, who love to give me a hard time, when out of the tree jumps one of the boys whose family has just returned from their year of internship.  Now, I know you aren't supposed to pick favorites... blah blah blah... but you have to admit there are always one or a few who stick out, who you really get a kick out of (yeah, I dangled that preposition... what of it?).  This just happened to be one of those kids for me.  It completely made my night to see him, and he was quick to offer a hug.  Just kind of made me realize how I'm going to really miss the youth of this community, and I'm going to miss being the advocate for them that I have been these past years. 

Reality TV - Why is it SO addictive?  (This wasn't really running through my head all day.  I just added it now, after watching an episode of Real World/Road Rules Challenge on MTV).

My brush with death - This might be an entry that warrants its own post, but it doesn't get it.  It will just have to cope.  So, I was sitting in my room, checking my e-mail, watching something on TV (probably reality television) and basically minding my own business.  Now, I have two dorm fridges in my room that are known for making weird noises.  Some of you may remember from my internship year, that I had a refrigerator that continually decided to malfunction and whizz on my kitchen floor several times.  This resulted in me having to walk down into the furnace room (remember?  the one that I thought had someone living in it, who would repeatedly hit and kick the furnace and water heater to make strange noises) and not only did I have to go into the furnace room, but I had to crawl into the CRAWL SPACE in this furnace room (remember? the crawl space that made me fear a facial attack by a raccoon as I climbed in to shut off the water).  So, anyway, these fridges and their noise-making always makes me think that they're malfunctioning.  Well, as I was sitting in my room, I hear this "tic, tic, tic" noise coming from my right.  I glance over, hear the fridge about three feet to my right humming, and figure that it is just one of the fridge's random noises.  No reason to be concerned.  I continue web-surfing when I hear it again.  "Tic, tic, tic."  Mainly as a reflex I turn to look at my fridge.  Only it wasn't my fridge.  It was the bat crawling across my a pile of papers.  Yeah, that's right, a bat.  As in the furry, winged kind.  Not the wooden, sports equipment kind.  So, basically I jumped out of my skin and let loose with this yell/shriek/whimper noise and freeze in place as this bat crawls to the top of the pile of papers and looks around.  I grabbed the closest thing I could find, which happened to be a sweatshirt, and tossed it on the bat.  It began chirping, as if to say, "What the heck is going on here?" and I jumped over the bat (it was blocking my only exit) and rushed out into the hallway.  Of course, the minute I made it out into the hall, I realized that was a dumb idea.  Because at least if I was in the room then I knew where the bat was.  Now that I was outside, the bat could decide to fly just about anywhere in my room.  So I warily walked back into the room, expecting to see the bat come rocketing at my face (do you see a theme hear, involving a fear of animals attacking my face?) and was just in time to see the bat crawl to the top of my sweatshirt and look around.  Grabbing another shirt, I threw it on top of the sweatshirt, stooped down, bunched the shirts up, picked them up and rushed outside.  I practically threw the shirts onto the ground outside, and the bat just kind of laid in the grass.  My neighbor happened to be outside, and not as freaked out by bats as I am, so she stooped down to check it out.  Come to find out it had an injured wing (which is probably why it wasn't flying around my room in the first place) and so it just laid there, in the bright sun, and curled into a mangled, little ball.  She scooped the poor thing up and went and deposited it into a shady spot under some trees.  Now, when I'm in my room, everytime I hear a noise I think it's a bat creeping out of some nook or cranny in my room.  So, at least I'm not freaking out about the fridges malfunctioning, right?

Saturday - I move on Saturday.  I'm starting to get a wee bit freaked out by the whole thing.

equality ride

Well, I'm going to share something that will let everyone know my point of view on a certain issue, and expose my bleeding heart liberalism.  But, I just wanted to spread the news.

In an amazing feat of procrastination, I was spending some time on my MySpace page, when I ran across the site for the Equality Ride.  Here is the overview from their webpage:

At military and religious colleges around the nation, bans on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender enrollment force students into closets of fear and self-hate. These bans devalue the life of GLBT people and they slam the door on academic freedom. The Equality Ride empowers young adults to challenge these college bans.

Scheduled to take place in the spring of 2006, the Equality Ride will take 25–30 young adults on a seven-week bus tour to confront numerous religious and/or military colleges that ban the enrollment of GLBT students. At each stop along the journey the members of the Equality Ride will present a powerful case for GLBT equality.

Homosexuality is a hot issue these days.  There are few issues that get people riled up as much and as quickly as this one.  Especially in our churches, we are wrestling with what Scripture has to say about homosexuality, and how that Scripture speaks to our lives today.

Regardless of your stance, whether you think homosexuality is wrong or not, I think we can all agree that people who are homosexual are still people.  That means they have the same rights as all the rest of us.  To say that they cannot go to a college because of their "sinful lifestyle," and then excluding only this one particular group of people is outrageous.  Obviously, they have sin-free student bodies, then.  Maybe they should share their secret with the rest of us...

Anyway, if you're interested in learning more, go check out their webpage at equalityride.com.