Quite possibly one of the most disturbing news clips I've seen in a while...
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
a tiny glimpse of heaven
Excerpted from the book "Faith and the City" by Jennifer Ruisch.
After years of afterlife hypotheses, I finally consulted the Bible for its description of heaven. According to Revelation 21, heaven is not an ethereal idea; it is a literal city. It's a city that is 1,400 miles wide and 1,400 miles long. The city walls are 1,400 miles high and 200 feet thick, made from twelve precious stones including jasper, saphire, emerald, and amethyst. There are twelve gates into the city, three on each side of the four walls. Each gate is made of a single pearl. The main street of the city is made from pure gold that looks like transparent glass.
Revelation 22 talks about a flowing, crystal-clear river running through the main street of the city and the tree of life, yielding an abundance of fruit. It says that the city doesn't need the sun or moon to shine because the glory of God gives it light. Apparently, God had to hang the sun to give light to the earth because He could not be there Himself. But in heaven, the light of God radiates magnificently through the jeweled walls. There is no evil, sadness, or confusion within the city; there is only goodness, happiness, and peace.
Plato believed that whenever we see something beautiful, good, or right on earth and feel that deep inner sense of appreciation and awe, it is because we are "remembering the Forms." We might be recalling the Form of Beauty, Truth, Goodness, or Virtue. Forms are the true reality that exists somewhere beyond the shadow of reality we experience here on earth, and we will always feel a pang of emotion whenever we see the Forms captured in our world.
Maybe fairytale-like surroundings that evoke our awe-filled silences are limited to just that ... fairy tales. Perhaps there is no wonder beyond. Or maybe every sunset and rainbow is trying to remind us that there is something more. Perhaps when we "ooh and ahh" over someone's new diamond ring, we do so because we've literally just experienced a tiny glimpse of heaven.
After years of afterlife hypotheses, I finally consulted the Bible for its description of heaven. According to Revelation 21, heaven is not an ethereal idea; it is a literal city. It's a city that is 1,400 miles wide and 1,400 miles long. The city walls are 1,400 miles high and 200 feet thick, made from twelve precious stones including jasper, saphire, emerald, and amethyst. There are twelve gates into the city, three on each side of the four walls. Each gate is made of a single pearl. The main street of the city is made from pure gold that looks like transparent glass.
Revelation 22 talks about a flowing, crystal-clear river running through the main street of the city and the tree of life, yielding an abundance of fruit. It says that the city doesn't need the sun or moon to shine because the glory of God gives it light. Apparently, God had to hang the sun to give light to the earth because He could not be there Himself. But in heaven, the light of God radiates magnificently through the jeweled walls. There is no evil, sadness, or confusion within the city; there is only goodness, happiness, and peace.
Plato believed that whenever we see something beautiful, good, or right on earth and feel that deep inner sense of appreciation and awe, it is because we are "remembering the Forms." We might be recalling the Form of Beauty, Truth, Goodness, or Virtue. Forms are the true reality that exists somewhere beyond the shadow of reality we experience here on earth, and we will always feel a pang of emotion whenever we see the Forms captured in our world.
Maybe fairytale-like surroundings that evoke our awe-filled silences are limited to just that ... fairy tales. Perhaps there is no wonder beyond. Or maybe every sunset and rainbow is trying to remind us that there is something more. Perhaps when we "ooh and ahh" over someone's new diamond ring, we do so because we've literally just experienced a tiny glimpse of heaven.
Monday, August 21, 2006
OK Go
If you haven't heard of this fun, quirky Brittish band, you are missing out. Fun, upbeat music, and fantastically original and creative videos - here are two of the more goofy ones... watch, laugh, get inspired to wear white boots and polyester...
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
productivity - who knew?
It might be that the beginning of a new school year often feels like New Years' to me... it might be that I have to be more consistent with my schedule... it might be some freak act of nature... I'm not sure, but today quite possibly might have been my most productive day for a long time. I woke up, read a little, worked out (wow - those words haven't come out of my mouth for a long time! but, looking at my wedding dress hanging in our spare room gives me a bit of a push), took my ring in to get resized, had a productive staff meeting where my calendar started filling up, said good-bye to Becca over the phone (she's somewhere over the Pacific ocean right now), sewed up some of Betsy's clothes that needed fixin', designed a monogram for our wedding invitations, cleaned and rearranged my room, catalogued my personal library (as of right now I have 104 books in my collection, but I only did the books in my room, so there's more to add to that list), and hung out with Nick for a bit. Emma is now conked out on my bed, but I'm still up typing away... really surprised at that.
I did notice today, however, how fun it is to go through my friends' profiles on myspace and see how many circles of friends I can find - you know, so and so is a friend of matt, and so is fred, but so and so isn't a friend of fred... but fred is a friend of sally who is a friend of so and so... weird... does so and so not like fred? have they never met? why am i even thinking about this stuff? and why am i wasting my time on myspace? go to bed!
I did notice today, however, how fun it is to go through my friends' profiles on myspace and see how many circles of friends I can find - you know, so and so is a friend of matt, and so is fred, but so and so isn't a friend of fred... but fred is a friend of sally who is a friend of so and so... weird... does so and so not like fred? have they never met? why am i even thinking about this stuff? and why am i wasting my time on myspace? go to bed!
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
narcolepsy... finally
Well, this last artist book stumped me pretty good. I tried the easy way out and contacted the owner of the book to see if she did indeed want us to create a page about narcolepsy hoping that she would say no... but indeed she does want it to be about narcolepsy (it turns out she was diagnosed with narcolepsy and wanted all of us to have to learn about it and gain some understanding about the disease). Hmmm... tough one. So, I thought about it, researched narcolepsy, and came up with this:
I kinda like this one... what do you think?
I kinda like this one... what do you think?
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