it’s not about you

QUIT POSTING SONG LYRICS IN YOUR BLOGS! YES, THAT’S RIGHT, I’M TALKING TO YOU. NOW, STOP IT!!!

That is the most annoying thing ever since the invention of the internet. What, you didn’t have anything better to do than post a whole bunch of song lyrics? Nothing slightly more creative? You have to scroll down the whole freakin’ page for days just to get to the bottom of your STUPID SONG LYRIC YOU’VE POSTED. Nobody wants to read it. Just send them to iTunes and tell them to download it. Put a link up to a site where they can go read it. But don’t make the rest of us sit there and suffer through this atrocity any longer. Especially those of you who write your own music. Yeah, you know who you are. Quit stealing from other people!

OH. MY. GOD.

That for our next kid, we should have a tally up on our website with how many poopy diapers each of us changes. We’d have “Joshua,” “Kristen,” and “team effort.” I wonder how many poopy diapers we’d log.

disclaimer: this post in no way indicates we are pregnant or about to have another child. yet.

I don’t know what to say. All I can think is, please, whatever you do, do not judge the rest of those who call themselves Christians based on what you see here.

Thank you Anita for the link. I think.

“You mess with a friend of Flinkman, you mess with Flinkman.”

“We should so put David Anders under house arrest.”

“You can say, ‘my loyalties are flexible’ with an English accent, any time you want, honey.”

Okay, Bethany stayed for a little while after Alias tonight, and we decided that we should all go camping! We picked a weekend — March 18-20. Joshua says we could go to Turner Falls, but I think we are still open to suggestions. This way it still won’t be too hot to go, and it won’t be over Easter weekend, which is important to us Rudds, so let us know if you want to go and we will make more concrete plans. We just need a head count so we know how much of what to bring (i.e., food, gear, tents etc.)

I’m so excited!

Okay, I know this may seem stupid, but i thought this article was very sad. Where have all the good toys gone? I hope when Judah gets older, there will still be creative, innovative companies making good toys.

Funny, the things you didn’t know you cared about until you became a parent.

I’m tired of being the bastard child of the Church.

Judah LOVES Dora the Explorer! Every week Dora and her monkey go on an ADVENTURE! This week Dora has lost her TEDDY bear! They have to go to the LOST CITY! First they have to consult the MAP! And they will have to get stuff out of Dora’s BACKPACK! Later they have to catch some ESTRELLAS!

ESTRELLAS! ESTRELLAS! Can you find the ESTRELLAS!?! CATCH THEM! CATCH THEM! CATCH THEM! Everything you say on Dora must be repeated until it has lost all MEANING!

MEANING! MEANING! MEANING! Can you say MEANING?

EVERYTHING on Dora is so EXCITING! Every sentence she uses is an EXCLAMATION! When Dora grows up, she’s going to have permanent CARDIAC DAMAGE from being so EXCITED all the TIME! Oh, NO!!

Do you hear that SOUND!?! That’s ME, puking my GUTS out! That other sound!?! It’s the poor DOG, whining from all the HIGH-PITCHED squealing on the TV!

¡Vamonos!

I gave up swearing for Lent this year. I was hoping to post this sooner, but, well, you know. I’m doing much better this second week than I was the first. I’ve decided I want to get a T-shirt made that says, “I gave up swearing for Lent. Don’t tempt me.”

What I want to know now is, is flicking someone off considered swearing? What do YOU think?

I found out yesterday that a friend of mine is struggling through what s/he believes about Jesus. This person, who is deeply involved in spirituality, theology, church, and a social gospel, is someone who shared of lot of my same values as far as faith matters are concerned. It was disheartening to find out that this person no longer shares those values and is questioning everything s/he has been taught all through life. I don’t expect people to accept what they have been taught all their lives, but I thought this kind of doubt in one’s faith usually comes about a decade earlier in life. I guess I’m wrong.

I’m usually fine with people leaving Christianity because of peripheral issues in their lives (i.e., bad examples of Christians or of churches, or having never really understood the point in the first place, etc.), because I usually find those things to not be central issues, and hope that they will get past them and come back to finding their identity in Jesus. Perhaps maybe that’s not where they ever had their identity in the first place, and I would love to see them do something about that. But I get thrown for a loop when people, who I thought really “got it,” “it” being what the Christian life is really about, decide to turn from it.

Questions, doubts and fears start welling up within me, and yesterday, I found myself in tears. Most of our friends in Dallas don’t share the same faith as we have, and one thing that has been hard for me for a long time is that desire to be understood on a sub-surface level by those to do. To not have to explain what I mean when I talk about my faith, or wade through the differentiating vocabularies used, to not have to feel like I must defend what I believe against what others do or don’t. To feel the freedom in relationships where there is enough trust to be vulnerable enough about what I believe and have it be “gotten.”

Then, while finishing up my reading for my weekly Bible study, I read this, and was comforted:

“I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from Heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, he is to be accursed! For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:6-10