Music To Bleed To

It's been a weird day.  I woke up this morning talking to God about nothing in particular.  Then I sat on my glasses and broke them in half.  But I just felt so darn joyful that I couldn't help myself.  Worked out, put in my contacts and went to donate blood.

I was the second person to donate and I just greeted everyone and asked how they were doing and they said that I must have had a good morning and that I was very cheerful and that it was obviously real.  I told them that the people who take my blood are always so nice and always put me in a good mood.  They changed the music from dark and depressing to LMFAO and "Moves Like Jagger" and asked us if this was good music to bleed to.  Ha!

Do you ever just feel so joyful that you have to share it?

“It is His joy that remains in us that makes our joy full.” - A. B. Simpson

Church Fatigue

The worst kind of fatigue.  I had the first thought of leaving the church that I love today.  I'm tired and I get irritated when I see a message in my e-mail inbox from someone at church.  This is bad.  It'll be good to get to vacation.  Does anyone else ever experience church fatigue?  Is there anything you've done about it?

Holy Cow!

Do you ever go on a binge?  Like you eat chocolate cake for like all three meals a day for a week?

I have 20 books.  20 books that I've purchased in the last month!  Some of them are for book club, some I got for my birthday, some I'm purchasing with my freelance money (I freelance for MTV News) and some...

I need to stop, especially since it's Lent!  Anyone else have any addictions? 

A Franciscan Blessing

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may wish for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

God Has A Wonderful Sense Of Humor

Last year, I was watching Jesus Christ Superstar and I had to stop.  Jesus seemed so angry and so severe.  I had a hard time with it.  I had a teacher who told me that there would be no laughter in Heaven because laughter was always at someone else's expense. 

Then I read this book called Between Heaven and Mirth and it's about the jokes that Jesus said, jokes that we would NEVER get (you know, being so removed from 1st Century Palestine and all) and how there are so many books about Jesus and laughter.  And I remember talking to a friend and I told him about Jesus jokes and he literally looked like he'd dropped a load of bricks and said, "That's a relief."

We've become accustomed to a serious faith and faith should be serious.  But I keep running across the thought that some of the most faithful people were the most joyful people!  There is a story that a man walked into a Trappist monastery where Thomas Merton (a very famous monk in the 20th century) was and couldn't guess who he was.  In fact, Thomas Merton was the person who the man thought was LEAST likely to be Thomas Merton because he was laughing and seemed so JOYFUL.

I have been praying for a little boy and I did not know his name.  And so I left it to God to know.  Then, Baby Be Blessed had his name up for their Yay Free Friday giveaway.  I didn't want to join the contest, so I went to post on the comments section, but it had been disabled.  So I posted on the link, I said that I didn't want to enter the contest, but I felt moved because I had been praying for this little boy without ever knowing his name. 

I get an e-mail today from Tina who runs Baby Be Blessed and who knows me somewhat well through e-mail and she said that she smiled when she read the comment that said that I wasn't entering the contest and then, when she saw it was from ME, she was beaming from ear to ear.

No one can ever tell me that God doesn't have a sense of humor.  From things like this to the platypus, I know He's just laughing up a storm up there.