would anyone like to give a cat a home? sophie is a little over two years old, and is very well-behaved and gentle. she likes to cuddle, but is also independent. she is grey and small to medium. she also gets along with other animals. (she and blaze are best friends.) just e-mail me if you want her!

hmm. i have had better days. actually, i have had better weeks. nothing really horrible. my life is actually very happy and healthy, but i am so freakin' tired of having to pay money for my car! $800 last week, and after an accident last friday night, hundreds more. aargh. but at least my anxiety level is lower this week. i have a great family and community. and i am in love. also, i recommend auto foreign in cincinnati if you need work done on a volkswagen. dave and chris there are very nice and helpful and understand what it's like to be poor.

according to this quiz, dennis kucinich is the man i should vote for based on my opinions about political and social issues. oddly enough, howard dean turned out to be my #4 match, preceded by al sharpton in second place and john kerry at #3. president bush does make an appearance at #6.

father greg boyle talks with terry gross about things that stir me up - faith, empowerment, urban issues, loving your neighbor... "nothing stops a bullet like a job." father greg was instrumental in founding homeboy industries in east los angeles, which looks like it does some pretty cool stuff. this is the work of reconciliation, friends.

last night at the landing place, the conversation turned to what it takes to really love each other and develop a sense of family and community as the Body. i think i'm still pretty shy around these people - i don't wanna be the new girl just spouting out thoughts before people have a chance to know me... but here are a few thoughts i did have, expressed late: there was a emphasis on the necessity of really sharing time with others to build a family/community. one example given was that of 64 king, a house where a lot of people feel comfortable just being with others. at any given time, you may find ten people there who don't actually live in the house. how did it get to be that free? a couple of ideas were given. in truth, i think that one big reason for this kind of time spent together is the fact that the community has a lot of single and childless members - people in a life stage that is conducive to a lot of freedom and late nights. the feeling i get at 64 king is very similar to that of the soup house, which was one of the best places i learned to build a chosen family. again, the soup house was full of people with little outside family obligations... i love it, and a love a life that has that kind of freedom. but i also feel cautious - we can talk all we want to about how important it is to spend evenings together throughout the week, but are we building space for families and children in that? are we being intentional about including people of different life stages? the families i know (the bells, the kays, the rains, etc.) are very open and desiring community. but how often are we really thoughtful of needs like a toddler who has a bedtime when planning time spent together? how can we be more creative in addressing these things? just wondering...

if you love to read and write, take a few minutes (or hours) to explore words without borders. it's an "online international literature magazine," and i can't wait to have time to dig into it...

ok. so i just read the news, and now i know that dean is out of the race. i still like him, though.

by the way, i added a few new people to the sidebar. i also thought that i nicely divided the links into little subgroups so that they are easier to look at, but i guess that didn't work. oh well. have fun meeting my friends! the potluck is over. we discussed a news story in which the reporters stopped people and asked them to identify the faces of the current democratic presidential candidates. everyone was shocked that very few people could do it. but i realized that, because i get most of my news from public radio, i really don't know what most of the candidates look like, even though i know who i like and what they stand for. my dad has a theory that time magazine is going to expose a huge john kerry scandal, and then howard dean will take the nomination. my boss' husband has a theory that hilary clinton is going to stand up at the democratic convention and announce her intention to run, blowing the other candidates out of the water in the process. i love theories!

this has been a crazy, crazy morning. my car is in the shop. my boss picked me up and brought me to work so that i don't miss a potluck with the executive director. does anyone know how much it should cost to fix an egr valve on a passat? i am tempted to be very anxious today because i don't have enough money to fix this darn car. but i'm feeling the peace seep back in, slowly but surely. i must work now. and then go to a potluck!

it's been a few days, and there is so much to say. the three-day weekend in columbus was intense and lovely, and served to solidify my relationship with daniel even more. i've decided to move to columbus, effective april 1. yikes! there's a lot to do between now and then, but it seems to be the natural progression in daniel's and my life together. columbus also seems to be where we are actually already building a joint life and community. funny - even before i met daniel, i told my parents, "i don't think i'll leave cincinnati anytime soon, but if i do, it will be for columbus." the thing is, there has never been anything about columbus to attract me, but it seems that God was starting to turn my heart towards that city - i thought it might just be because the bells moved there, but it seems there is more in columbus for me! my day has been turned upside-down. i had a full day of home visits scheduled, but then my car decided it needed to be seen by the mechanic. so i dropped it off around lunch time, took two buses to get home, and now i'm going to be catching up on paperwork at home. riding the bus always puts my daily life into a bit of perspective... ok. i have work to do. read mike burkett's new blog!

i'm thinking warm thoughts about my community today. last night the house church discussion got really good at the end. thanks to doug speaking up, we admitted that more focus in our thoughts would be good and healthy, as we tend to ask lots of big questions and not dig into them too much. so, for next week, we're all going to be chewing on a question that came up last night regarding the actions of God pre-jesus and post-jesus. in my own mind, there almost seems to be two sides of God - the "old testament God" and the "new testament God." i know that God doesn't change, so how do we go from the entire nations being swallowed up by the earth to the grace of the cross? after the "official chuch gathering," a few of us ran to joseph-beth in search of the book "the mystery of marriage," which is the very best book written about marriage, according to doug, shaina, sarah, and aaron. since joseph-beth closed shortly after we all got there, we ended up going to the pub next door to continue the conversations that had started. what rich conversations! i now know how God gave steve a very direct sign that He is real (he had steve and amy mac run over a bible in the middle of the street - crazy cool story!), and i know what becky and shaina think about all kinds of girl things. i have a great church! i find myself trying to absorb every minute with them, as we all move in different directions. tonight i am going to spend time with my other church at the landing place. how did i get so incredibly blessed?? i simply don't understand why, wherever i end up, i've been surrounded by amazing people who love me, and who are easy to love. i get to see my dad and mom on monday. hooplah! they get to meet daniel. double hooplah! have i mentioned that i love my parents? we're a pretty independent family - i don't talk to them every day, and we only see each other a few times a year. but they are a part of that blessedness i mentioned above. i always knew i was loved by my parents, and i never had to live in fear in my own household. i'm learning how rare that is. my parents taught me to love God, and they taught me to love reading and thoughts and ideas. they may always think i'm a bit of a flighty idealist, but i do know that they will always welcome me into their house. back to work again!

it's tuesday, fast becoming one of my favorite days. today started a bit cloudy, but has gotten continually sweeter. i'm on this constant path of yearning to know what it means to live "in the Spirit," in every moment - learning to see the world and everything and one in it with his eyes. i feel like i tasted some of that solid, real spirit-food today. i re-read my journal from india last night, and was struck by the fact that i've come full circle in many ways recently - back to that place of deep spiritual hunger and of clarifying my calling and passions in life. it seems like there was a gap after i returned to the u.s., but the gap is being erased and replaced with the same desires to really know God and to reflect God. now i'm on the brink of some other pretty significant transition in my life, and it only makes sense to pick up the story in the same journal... i visited reality tuesday today. all of their coffee is fair-trade, which made me happy because it served to break some of my stereotypes about cheesy christian coffeehouses. i must work now.

monday morning. what to say? a number of people have dropped out of the blog race lately. i've been tempted, but along with joshua, i think i'm in it for the long haul. now the challenge is to refine my voice and say things that are worth having you set aside time to read. ironically, as i've been feeling inspired to write more and more deeply recently, my power cord tip has gotten stuck inside my ibook, making it unuseable for a few days until i can get it fixed. i didn't really realize how much i used my computer until it was unavailable to me. at the same time, i didn't realize how easy it would be to live without it until it was unavailable to me... daniel spent the weekend in cincinnati. i made some headway in our apparent lifelong chess tournament, but he's still the reigning champion. i must work now.

good morning! jeni smith has a new blog. she's smart and funny and honest. think along the lines of anne lamott. she's also married to chris. i love the smiths! (as in chris and jeni smith. but i also very much enjoy the band the smiths.) do you ever feel like your brain is just too full to blog? i've been thinking about confession lately, and the necessity of it. i have kept a lot of secrets in my life, especially during my prodigal time, and they are toxic. but it's so liberating to just shout it all out. (it's also pretty darn humbling.) i want to develop the habit of confession... derek and amy have been thinking about confession, too, and it's good stuff about how our confession makes room for God to draw near to us... my thoughts just don't feel like they're flowing well today. i am going to work now.

good morning, dear ones! welcome to my scattered morning thoughts... i'm really gaining an appreciation for my neighbors who have kept their sidewalks shoveled on a regular basis. it makes it a lot easier to walk blaze when i'm walking past the houses that don't have a three-inch solid sheet of ice in front of them. thanks, neighbors! and i'm sorry that i don't shovel my walk. (actually, i don't have to because betsy the wonder-landlady does it for us.) i have lots of energy today. for the first time in months, i actually didn't want to stay in bed when my alarm went off at 7am. hooplah! house church last night was energizing. the meeting itself was interesting, but my favorite part was the conversations afterward. thanks, steve and aaron for asking me good questions! also, i just want to write out loud that i'm really happy that even when discussions can get tense on tuesday nights, it's still clear that people are talking out of love for each other. wnku is playing zak morgan's version of "peace train" right now. zak is the only person i've ever known in real life who has a grammy nomination (for best children's album this year). so if you watch the grammys on sunday, look out for the cincinnati boy! i seem to be using an excess of exclamation points today. i must go now.

kenny oster finally has a blog!

amy chapman wrote some good things about oneness yesterday. at least i think it was amy - sometimes it's hard to tell if what is written comes from her or derek, her husband. either way, it's good, true stuff. amy used to be known as amy mcdonald. we shared a room for almost two years in the community experiment called mustard seed. she sent me an e-mail today that reminded me of when we read david sedaris to each other while driving to the jersey shore for her 30th birthday. i love that girl!

coffee, the new miracle drink.

i just saw on eric's blog a little post about a house church that has committed to having dinner together every night, because it just made sense. wow. that is what i call sharing your lives on a daily basis.

my apologies for the recent silence. there has been a lot to think about, and i haven't quite been able to find the blogging words or time for everything. i'm back, though! happy february! this is black history month, which led to a morning commute of thoughts about the age-old question "why are almost all of the people in my church white?" aargh! this frustrates me!! anyone have the answer? it just doesn't make sense to me that if we're attempting to live out the present kingdom of God that we're mostly a version of the same color at our gatherings. on a happier note, the brighton center, my place of employment, is providing a pretty cool month of workshops. this week there is a screening of "the two jaspers," a documentary about the murder of james byrd, jr., in jasper, texas. we're also having a workshop on the AIDS crisis in africa, a training on racism, and a "taste of africa" festival, focusing on the country of nigeria. i love my job! and it's a good thing, because if it weren't for my job, i think i very well might have just stayed in columbus this weekend and not have returned to cincinnati. patience is not one of my strongest virtue, especially when the man i love and my chosen family are all living together under one roof without me. so, to remind myself of why i am here, this is my official list of reasons to be in cincinnati: 1. the community here is rooted and strong, and they have loved me even when i've shut them out of my life. 2. my house church is cool, and i'm being very supported in learning to develop and use my gifts. 3. cincinnati doesn't feel like one big suburb, and has great architecture. 4. my apartment is soooo cheap. 5. my roommate is patient with me. 6. cincinnati is gritty and has work to be done. 7. my job challenges me, uses my strengths, and i work with the best people ever. ok. i must work now.