Happy New Year!! This post is a day late because yesterday I was busying sitting in airports for 100 hours. After a super chill day of traveling I made it back to the DR! To a laundry room that looked like an episode of animal hoarders. Such is life.
Articles/blog posts:
- When Baby Jesus Gets Dropped on His Head and Other Reasons I Love the Christmas Story at Five Kids Is A Lot Of Kids – “I’m over the sanitized version of the Christ story, I suppose. And it’s not because I don’t love the pristine and beautiful bits. I ADORE those. The love of a mother for her child. The angels singing en masse by the light of a brilliant star. The gold and frankincense and myrrh. Those are all intrinsically part of it. It’s just that I want to know the other parts, too – the messy parts and the funny parts and the devastating parts.” The beautiful real-ness of the Christmas story.
- London Artist Ron Mueck Creates Hyper Realistic People Sculptures at ViralNova – People can do crazy awesome things.
- Gender Inequality in Film at New York Film Academy – An interesting look at films.
- How Hollywood De-fanged Potter’s Radical Politics at MuggleNet – Read the books.
- The Socially Acceptable Sin at Relevant – “What was the sin in the Garden of Eden if not a desire for excess? Adam and Eve were given beautiful sights and beautiful tastes in the absence of shame, but what made the garden a paradise was not any of this. It was a paradise because God walked in the cool of the day with them.”
Movies/TV:
- Pit Bulls and Parolees Marathon on TV – I love this show! I hope that one day I can adopt a pit bull from Tia and her gang. Not only has Tia and her family dedicated their lives to pit bulls (and other animals) but also to giving people second chances. It’s just heart warming television.
- The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in Theaters – Yay movie theaters! Yay Ben Stiller! Whose attractiveness is somehow increasing with his age.
- House Hunters (International) on TV – So much House Hunters!
- Big Bang Theory Season 6 on DVD – Six years ago my mom got me the first season of Big Bang on DVD, knowing I would just love the show. I watched the entire season in like a week and the continue to re-watch it over and over until I got the second season for Christmas the following year. It’s a tradition six years running and it’s the best. I also take back anything I’d said about the show going down hill. It’s still funny!
Music:
- Everything But What You Need by Speak Low If You Speak Love at Band Camp – Support this guy!
(YouTube) Videos:
- “After All This Time… Always” – A Harry Potter Themed Engagement Proposal by NightOwls Media at Vimeo – So cute!
General good finds:
- “It’s really cool you want to be passionately in love with Jesus as much as you can, but please don’t beat yourself up about this. Be prepared for the seasons when you’ll barely hang on to God with an intellectual thread, and other seasons where you’ll be so head-over-heels for Jesus that you’re getting tattoos of him on your ribcage. Be ready to be honest in your dry valleys, and be ready to rejoice on the mountaintop. Enjoy both seasons, because both help you grow and both have significance in our lives. The winter and fall teach you to grow deep roots into God even when you don’t feel Him, and the summer and spring are those powerful weeks of blooming fruits and plentiful harvest that will have you laughing and weeping at the same time. Soon you’ll also see: loving Jesus is not even really up to you, because he’s the one who woos, who draws, who beckons, who calls. Loving Him is the easy part; God loving you cost His Son. The more you know that it’s less about you, the more free you will be to love God all the more.” – JS Park
- “You will not find church in Facebook updates or witty tweets or biting essays or debates. Church is something else. Church is what happens when folks meet face to face and sing together. Church happens when folks who think differently from each other have no computer to hide behind and are forced to shake hands. Church happens when folks stand shoulder to shoulder and ask God for help. Church is people sweating and serving together. Church is community. Church is not ISSUES and it’s not beliefs and it’s nothing that needs to be defended – for God’s sake. Church is a group of folks working their stuff out together, gently. There is no shortcut to church. It’s slow, and it’s real life, and you have to show up for it.” – Glennon Doyle Melton
- Humans of New York – This awesome photographer guy takes pictures of people in New York City and sometimes has an interesting chat with them too.
Suzanne M Seidel 