Refractions and Reflections

Seems like I haven't had much to say for a while, but all of a sudden the last day or two I've felt like posting several times. And not bad/stressful stuff, either! Yay!! :) So...my last post. Yes, I know it may have been a little volatile. But I'm leaving it, because it's where I'm at. And the initial purpose of this blog was to be a place to discuss my theological thoughts, because I had MANY. All the time. I'm changing a lot. Discovering truth is a large part of who I am, and the lifetime JOURNEY to discovering that truth is something I treasure, even though at times I find it difficult being in an "in-between," less-certain place. So, I noticed I lost a follower. That's okay (though it just goes to prove the point of my last post). It's hard to face difficult questions or very opposing views to what we believe - it causes a very uncomfortable condition called cognitive dissonance. I've been there. It IS very uncomfortable, and that...

Through a friend's social media post this week I came into contact with this article on how atheists find meaning and purpose in life. This was actually always one of the questions I could never wrap my mind around when I thought Christian evangelism was the highest purpose/call one could pursue. And I didn't see how everyone else couldn't come to the same conclusion and seek that higher meaning which, in my opinion, was to love, serve, and recruit more lovers and servers for Jesus. (Side note: I highly recommend giving this article a read if you are a Christian.) But you know what isn't fair (besides pretty much most things)...? The hipster-culture, materialistic jump-up-and-down-in-the-smoke-and-lights, first-world Christians of today who think the rest of the world to be arrogant rejecters of Christ, and poor Christians to be lacking in faith and not living in the full potential of the "abundant life" available to them, and poor "unreached" pe...

It has been quite a while since I've posted! I wanted to stop in here and chat you up with something kind-of light, so I thought I'd join this link-up for the first time when two of the blogs in my feed reader featured the same title today! So... WHAT I'M INTO: JULY 2015 EDITION Music All things 70s. I, as the last person on the planet, bought two new albums via iTunes yesterday: Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Fleetwood Mac's Rumours . A friend and I went and saw Elton at the end of March, and I read a biography of him after that, and this is far-and-wide purported to be his best album ever. To think, six months ago I barely had any clue who the rocker was. I knew some of his songs, but had no idea he was the artist behind them. Even the Lion King , people!! My favorite songs on this album are "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (of course), and also "Sweet Painted Lady" and "Roy Rogers" (not necessarily in that or...

Ahh! My life is just completely stupidness right now. I don't think I'm going to do the challenge after all. Thank you for the support, though! And who knows, maybe I'll pop in from time to time and do something with it anyway....

Today I ran across a challenge that started YESTERDAY and runs through July 14th. It's called the 100 Day Project . Another blogger I follow is doing it with poetry. Last week my friend and I went to Las Vegas and, while we were there, saw Elton John in concert. Totally worth the ticket price!! It was definitely the best concert I've been to, and I've seen a few great acts, like the Avett Brothers, and Bob Dylan! Anyway...I'm now reading an Elton John biography and am just so completely inspired by his and his songwriting collaborator's (Bernie Taupin) creativity, I think I am going to do the challenge with poetry, too. It's a continual interest in my life. Do I think I will be the next (female) Elton John? Hahahahahahahahahahahaha no. But it's fun. And maybe I'll end up with a song from this! That would be cool, and something I've always wanted to do (not with a passion, but with an interest). So...on to #100DaysOfPomeletry! (I wanted a uni...

Having been deeply involved for most of my life in a religious tradition most people would probably classify as "hyperspiritual," I have made it a point these last few years to try to examine spiritual phenomena through as objective and reasonable a lens as possible. Now engaged in studying History, I found one of this week's lessons particularly interesting. It was an excerpt from Laurie Winn Carlson's book A Fever in Salem , in which she hypothesizes that the physical complaints prevalent during the Salem Witch Trials were plausibly caused by an epidemic of encephalitis lethargica. She goes so far as to list side-by-side the symptoms from the trial documents with those of a 1930s encephalitis epidemic. Allowing for discrepancies in terminology, it seems the manifestations of the symptoms would have looked the same. Here is a duplication of Carlson's list: 1692 SALEM                   ...

A couple of my Facebook friends shared this article yesterday, wherein Matt Moore describes how for years he plead with God to make him straight. Though I do not affirm his moral conclusions on the matter, I think it is a thoughtful post, and in fact quite gracious (from a Conservative viewpoint) to those who may be in the Church and experiencing same-sex attraction - it doesn't discount it or degrade them for their plight. Moore concluded, however, that his prayers to God were based not on a desire to be "right" with God, but on a desire to "fit in" or be found acceptable to other Christians. He cites the Romans 1:18-26 anti-homosexuality clobber text and states, "Homosexual desire – and all other sinful desire — exists in the hearts of people because worship of God doesn't. ...So why didn't God answer my prayer to rid me of my homosexual desires? Because homosexual desires were not my main problem. They were a problem, for sure. But the root of...