What I Want in a Man

Old Spice, you can bet your ass if I had a man to buy soap for, I'd buy yours. This is one beautiful piece of advertising.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Sometimes you need a new haircut.

And sometimes you need to change the way your blog looks.

It might look weird & mis-matchy around here for awhile. Umm...sorry...?

Haiti, 6 months later

Monday will mark six months since the earthquake in Haiti.

Do you want to see hope on the faces of children?

This is my favorite-- the mischief in those eyes!

Photo by David Uttley

This photo blog will give you a bit of an idea of what it's like there now. There should be updates from him all week. I'll be linking from Twitter (@HopeNoelleSays).

God Bless Afghanistan

When I was a kid, the subtext of Independence Day was that Christians love America, just like they love Jesus. I grew up in a Southern Baptist school that was also one of the largest churches in my city. Every July 4th weekend the entire Sunday service would be dedicated to patriotic songs and over sized American flags. Similarly, earlier today I was shown a video that was a photo montage of troops related to my coworkers; God Bless America was its soundtrack.

While it's great if God blesses America, and I pray for the troops and fully support their dedication to our freedom, I have to wonder how it is that we so easily and directly equate Christianity with American patriotism.

June 2010 was the deadliest month yet for foreign troops in Afghanistan. War is dragging, raging, sustaining, and to be honest, I think we should pray for God to bless other countries, like Afghanistan, and all the people within her borders-- whether they are American troops or Taliban insurgents.

Look at these photos, and see. See the children, the boy being questioned about a dead body. See the girls with schoolbooks & the boys with skateboards. See that our American citizenship does not make us any more deserving of freedom than those without it. See that there are other people in the world who need to know freedom. See the faces God loves. See that freedom is less about politics and territory lines, and more about the Spirit of God.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3:17

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.