(Photo originally by D’Arcy Norman)
More companies are using Earth day as a marketing opportunity
My suggestion for earth day? Don’t buy crap.
Don’t buy nifty little bags from Delight
Don’t buy Earthday Greeting Cards
Don;t buy earth dinner cards.
To be honest? Don’t buy anything you don’t need. Use recyclable materials. Use your ceramic cup. Eat at home. Use silverware and a napkin.
Comparing the two church congregations this past weekend had me thinking about what I like in a church , what I’d like to find in a church and what I dislike in a church.
What I like in a church
Community and accountability. I like smaller church groups. Small clusters within churches that gather, or small congregations themselves. I think spiritual growth should involve accountability, and i think making a connection with a smaller group of people helps that. This is one of the things that I like about Broadview. Its nice to look around at service and realize that you know 75% of the people there. I think it allows for more closeness, and it does provide more accountability then you get in a larger church.
If the church community is large, then I think that structure needs to be put into place to encourage small group interaction. Some of that you will get from being able to run actiities, but i think you need to move beyond that.
What I’d like to find in a church
I like churches that think outside the box. I’d like to be involved in a church that doesnt classify church as only what happens on sundays. i like the emerging church movements ability to bring church to a different environments, to the home, to the pub, to the coffeehouse. i like that church can be a worship service, walking a labyrinth, a book discussion or a chat online. At one time there was even a service run through irc.
Additionally, I’d like a church that doesn’t feel threatened by my attendance at other churches. I am a Christian. I am a member at a church and consider them my home church, but that doesnt mean that I wont attend service at other churches. That doesnt mean I don’t have things to learn from how other congregations embrace worship.
What I dislike in a church
Stagnation. i dislike congregations that take a take it or leave it attitude towards their parishoners. As times change and the society changes Churches will need to be more flexible, more adustable to keep up. They will have to work to address the issues their parishoners are facing.
Feeling voiceless, nameless, unnoticed. While I enjoyed the anonyomity this weekend, i would hope that that is not the standard mode of operation for this congregation. Visitors shouldbe noticed and welcomed. Congregation so big that you dont reconize everyone? Then you have to build in some other structure for people to recongize and welcome outsiders.
Not being able to identify with the congregation.
This is a personal, petty bias. At times at my home church I have felt out of place based on my age. It’s my issue to own though, and resolution comes from either addressing the issue or finding a congregation i can identify better with.
Bottom line, my relationship with god is deeply personal conversation. How and where we connect is deeply spiritual, but is not tied to only one location, one church.
(part two of infinity you ask? Well this conversation is just the beginning )
My communications class required that I critique a public performance before class on Wednesday I was going to try to go to Food Folly Follies at MOHI on Thursday, but I instead decided to go home and play with my eee machine. So it left me with limited time between the Tupperware party on Saturday, and having to complete my psychology work on Tuesday. An option we’d been given , though not preferred was to attend a church service. To remove some of the bias I chose to attend a service at University UCC instead of going up to Broadview, my home church.
The difference was amazing. First off Broadview is much much smaller. Judging by those I could see, I would estimate that there were at least five or six times more people. There was also a greater diversity in the group. Many more children, teenagers and youth. Broadview’s got a greying population, and while there has been some new members, the average age is still likely 15 years older then I am. Additionally, reading over the bulletin I realized that there are many more events going on there on a regular basis. With a larger group its easier to hold events and sustain them. The University UCC reminded me a lot of my home church back in Downers Grove. The size, the population, the feel overall. When the youth got up and did a promotion for the church’s week long vacation retreat, it reminded me much of my misspent youth . Another time another place and that would have been me giving that announcement. It gave me an idea of what a newcomer to my church in Downers Grover might have experienced.
For this assignment, I preferred the anonymity I received . I came in, sat in the back , watched, participated and left once the service was over. That would have never happened at Broadview. The congregation is small enough that a visitor would be singled out for welcome, and given gentle pressure to join everyone downstairs for social hour. That slight pressure is one of the things that has had me avoiding church. I enjoy going and very much still identify as a member of the UCC church, but I do not look forward to the initial questions of “Where have you been” To be honest, thats the kind of community responsibility that I believe a church should have, it’s just not easy when its turned on you. (I’m going to think on this some more and will share with you what i think a church should be and shouldn’t be, in a couple of days)
Churches are complex places. I chose a UCC church because I knew basically what to expect, even if I didnt know the players. Even so there were slight differences in what was done, places where people sang that I wasnt ready, places where folks stood that i wasn’t sure if we were to stand or not, that sort of thing. At the end , folks stayed seated after the benediction, enjoying the piano solo. I wasn’t sure whether it was kosher to leave or not.
Considering I was familiar with UCC services, I wondered for a minute what a true newcomer would have thought.
I think I should resume my church surveying and try a couple of services at other churches. There is still that German UCC church in Capitol Hill, The Vineyard in the University District, and I still would like to at least attend a service at Mars Hill. I’ll probably attend another COTA service or two, as well.
I quit my job today. You see i’m going to UW Bothell in the fall, and have decided to take the summer off to finish up my last credits and to spend my time with family. I told my boss today, and gave notice of about 1 month.
Things change quickly.
This is not the post I wanted to post today. I have another one in the can ready for you, but I got derailed last night by incredulous shock. Remember the post about kids not eating fruits and vegetables? I’d mentioned that two authors had “revolutionized” feeding their children by making up bland vegetable purees and adding them to normal recipes to boost the nutritional content. Examples were adding spinach to brownies, cauliflower to chicken nuggets and so on.
Well apparently one of the chefs has a second book out. The Sneaky Chef : How to Cheat on Your Man in the Kitchen Hiding Healthy Foods in Hearty Meals any Guy Will Love.
I’m agog at this. I swear this is worse then A Man A Can and A Plan.
At least in Man/Can/Plan its straightforward in regards to what you are getting. This act of sneaking around and adding things to someone else’s food “for their own good” is degrading to the person you are cooking for, and to assume that the woman is in the kitchen “cooking for her man” smacks of sexism as well.
This whole concept is just immature and I hope that folks “fooling” their families learn to educate them instead and work with them on their food issues.
I take a lot of pictures. Professionally. No I’m not a photographer, I make photo IDs for Big Seattle University. We have an assortment of students who come in, some shy, some excited, some vain and some not so vain. There is a subset of students, usually women who are above average weight, who seem to be disappointed with their appearance. They squirm in front of the camera, shifting left and right, trying , hoping , begging for a picture that makes them feel better. Looking at them makes me sad. You see, they are all fabulous. Looking at each one of them I am able to identify something in them that is beautiful. Sometimes its their hair, their smile, their eyes.
I take a moment to compliment them as they wait for the photo to print, usually I get brushed off.
“My lips are too big”
“My hair is crazy”
“My double chin was showing”
“My eyes are too far apart”
“I hate how I look”
The last one is the most common.
I want to take these girls aside and give them a self esteem shot. I’m not saying that they have to be ecstatic about how they look, but instead of instantly degrading how they look, they should take ownership and acknowledge a compliment, and say “Thank you”.
Most of us don’t meet the “standard of beauty” upheld by the media. Even if I met the weight requirements, there would be something else wrong with me. I don’t pluck enough, not enough make up, not enough goo in my hair, My breasts would be saggy, I wear glasses, my teeth are bad, there would be something else that would make me not perfect.
I’m still beautiful. My beauty is not entrenched in meeting a standard. It is in being who I am. It is being a fat redhead with hazel eyes and sometimes crazy hair. It is in being 5’2 and wearing glasses and having a progressively changing fashion sense.
I just want to say “Girl you are beautiful. Start living life. Don’t shirk from photos, be it an id for school, or a special occasion. Don’t look back on the photo album and find yourself missing because you thought your nose was too big. Be fabulous,Feel fabulous. Flaunt what you’ve got, and don’t apologize!”
Things that piss me off.
“Blogs” that are merely advertisements. I’ve read 101 Cookbooks for years, and have both of Heidi’s cookbooks. When she announced a new site I added that to my list of blogs to read as well. Mightyfoods went through a period of inactivity. Then they came back recently and have been much more active. I never realized how much of an advertisement site it was before. Perhaps it was because the focus initially was on fantastic ingredients and less on crap you can buy. But the “buy this ” ‘great gift idea that ” gets old after a while But cest la vie right? There site they can do what they want. Including not approving posts comments they disagree with . I’ve made 2-3 comments lately about different posts and nary a one have been posted. ( The most recent being a suggestion that a better way to spend earth day would be not to buy things that use natural resources and have to be shipped to me using fossil fuels. ) Not approving / responding to posts that don’t praise the products just reinforces to me that its just an advertisement blog.
People who don’t take responsibility
Seriously, your son is 25 wants to stay up all night in the living room watching tv, and you’re worried about what kind of bed to get him? I stand by the suggestion that maybe your son needs to grow up and get his own damn bed.
Allergies
I’ve been sneezing up a storm, and if I take meds i’ll be a sleepy Jo.
Things that make me happy
Squirrel Man
I was reading this article yesterday about Squirrel Man. He’s in a local Seattle neighborhood and has built a treehouse up underneath I-5 after being pushed out of a few squatting locations. Folks in the sound off were pretty upset that he was being evicted, particularly because he’s not bugging anyone. This mornings paper shares that he has been given a reprieve, and an RV to live in. In the end, I don’t know how its going to turn out. They have to find a permanent place for it to park so it doesn’t get towed and I wonder if the neighbors will become resentful if Dave doesnt upkeep the RV like they’d like, after all they worked to source it for him. It makes me happy to see people step out and do something to help each other out.
David Hasselhoff Videos
Photos by Sue Cline and Crazebabe21
Where I want to go
The delightfull Miss Sunnie is off on vacation this week. It’s a one week vacation to Mexico via New Orleans on a Cruise ship. How cool is that?
First off, she gets to go to New Orleans, one of those places high on my to visit list. It was supposed to be the site of my honeymoon when I first got married but life got in the way. I’m a fan of historical tourism, and New Orleans is steeped in history. And I’m embarrassed to admit, I at one point was a huge Anne Rice fan.
Secondly, I’ve begun to come around on the idea of a cruise. I like the idea of being able to lounge around, relax read my books, work on my craft projects and eat delectable morsels. This may sound like vacationing in a buffet, because to be honest, it’s not about the activities. Not that the activities she is doing sound bad perse, after all who could disagree with a full day cooking class in Cozumel. On the other hand the idea of just having nothing to do but relax sounds divine.
I’ve looked into cruises lately as well as other vacations. What leaps out to me is either a cruise to nowhere, where you board, go out to see for a night then come home, or an Alaskan cruise. A cruise to nowhere would give me the chance to sample what a cruise is like without a huge commitment, and would allow me a small getaway.
Alaskan cruises appeal to me based on the scenery and the difference in climate. I’m not much of a fun in the sun kind of girl, preferring bookstores to beaches and catching a sunburn at the drop of a hat. It’s also very convenient that these ships leave from Seattle typically. I’ve always just been afraid that I’ll feel out of place with typical cruise takers. After all I dont fit in well with the soccer mom or octogenarian set.
Vacations now
That said, I have a few vacations in the hopper right now. At the end of April I’d planned to return to Chicago with Aron, but instead of visiting the old home front I decided to take him to Victoria. So far we can still travel without a passport, and we’ve never been there. I have a fabulous Bed and Breakfast picked out . (Claw foot tub yum!) We’re planning on going to the Royal British Columbia Museum , we’re talking about going to the Hatley Castle and hoping to do High Tea.
We’re also returning to Eugene to visit the Black Sheep Gathering. Aron’s got an event with some friends down there, and I’ll take the chance to do the BSG and visit the Saturday Market
I loved it last year and look forward to going again
I’m also planning on a solo trip, something similar to my trip to Port Townsend a few years ago. A chance to write and knit and talk to myself. For this trip it has to be accessible solo, no car no ride needed. Since the Seattle to Port Townsend Foot Ferry was temporary then, and has not yet been reestablished , Port Townsend is not an option. I’d head up to the San Juans particularly Orcas, but the cost is daunting. Public transit on the island isnt as nice as i might like and my destination isnt on the normal taxi route. Instead I think I’m going the head up to Bellingham at some point this summer. I’ll find a nice bed and breakfast, plan for time at my favorite yarn shop, and spend lots of time just recharging.
Last but not least, Washington has just gotten an Indoor Water park/Lodge It might be fun to take the girls for a weekend.
I figure life is pretty good when you get to plan vacations.
