I'm a Mac, and I've got a dirty secret.

Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times posed the following scenario:

An ugly paradox of the 21st century is that some of our elegant symbols of modernity — smartphones, laptops and digital cameras — are built from minerals that seem to be fueling mass slaughter and rape in Congo. With throngs waiting in lines in the last few days to buy the latest iPhone, I’m thinking: What if we could harness that desperation for new technologies to the desperate need to curb the killing in central Africa?


Let's be aware. I'll be the first to admit, I love my BlackBerries-- both of them. They allow me to stay connected with my life and my work, and often they make that connection more fun. Smartphones make my life easier, but they don't make my life. And I don't think any piece of technology that I have is worth ending life of someone else, even if it's just a small piece of much larger puzzle.

There is so much more going on in our world than the bubbles we hide ourselves in. Pop your bubble-- there's a lot going on out here.

______________________________

*You can find Kristof's full column here.

Manifest the Glory

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others. “

Nelson Mandela

I heart Twilight

In a way that (I believe) is completely out of character for me, I love love loooooove Twilight. My fourteen year old sister introduced me to the books last summer and I read all four during my week-long beach vacation.

In case you hadn't noticed, I also love love loooooove Jesus. (Significantly more than I love Twilight, by the way.)

So when one of my favorite bloggers, Jon Acuff over at Stuff Christians Like, writes about having faith like Robert Pattinson, I'm in.

And I think you should be too.

Read it.

Rain.

I can hear the rain pounding on the leaves a mile or two away, but it isn't here yet.

I can see the clouds, the confusion of precipitation bundled together, pushing on the verge of release, rolling, spilling towards my mountaintop.

It is like a dull roar, and a whisper all the same.

The drops of wet plop on the trees just over the ridge, for moments, and then recede, as though the clouds have realized we don't need them here. And so I hear the pounding roll away, but staying steady, beating the earth with its food, its drink. The leaves sway in gratitude and I hear the thunder roll its acknowledgment.

Too Much

Do you ever feel like sometimes your memory is too much?

I don’t know what triggered it. I was sitting out on my glorious porch, reading while the sun set gracefully over the mountains. My neighbor was watching a movie, Notting Hill, and I recognized the dialogue wafting through the open window. The last scene came up, the song “She” playing loudly when suddenly it hit me.

I got caught up in remembering one of the most glorious feelings that is mixed with so many emotions, I cannot tell which parts were real once, and which parts I made up in the recollection.

For all I can come up with, that movie has nothing to do with anything in my past.

This is the problem. I remember some moments so vividly and with such full-on clarity that, in the second of recall, I forget that the emotions spring from so many breaths ago, it's as though they should only come up as whispers, as shadows, rather than as expectations. Other moments I can scarcely bring into my periphery, even those that quite possibly changed everything.

How do our brains choose? How do our minds separate, categorize? Why will some things become reality, and others remain, long-distant memories?

You are not the only one who feels like the only one

I live in a town where I do not belong.

Sitting here, in this coffee shop where the windows are open wide and the man on the side porch is smoking weed, I do not belong. Sitting here, where the long-haired men in their tie-dyed t-shirts talk about climbing mountains and the women discuss their eco-clothing, sans bras, I do not belong.

Of course there are others here. Yes, the hipsters behind the coffee bar, in their plaid button downs and designer glasses-- a calculated carefree. He looks like Buddy Holly, but without the smile.

In my seersucker pants and monogrammed sterling bracelet, I do not belong.

But to tell you the truth? I love it here. I love to watch the people, to hear the conversations and the perspectives that do not match my own. I love the dogs sitting in the shade of the tree, a rough rope acting as a leash. I love that air conditioning is as unnecessary as makeup, and the way old ladies in over-bright outfits mingle with dirty-headed college students.

I don't belong necessarily, but I don't think they do either. I wonder at the beauty and divergence of humanity. We look at each other, stolen curiosities veiled as sweeping glances about the room. We judge, and perhaps we think we are all so very different; you in your dreadlocks, me in my carefully angled bob.

You're not the only one who feels the loneliness. You're not the only one who feels out of place. Don't we all feel that way? No, certainly not all the time. And no, certainly not in a way we speak aloud. We feel that way in the dark corners, in the blankets of night, in the quiet of our personal spaces.

Sometimes I feel like the only one, but it isn't true.

We share our humanity, and we are not alone.