The Great One posted this and I couldn't find a better way to waste time "at work" than here...

1. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. Go to Random quotations: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. Go to flickr's "explore the last seven days" at http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
Put it all together, that's your debut album.

My result:



Jordan Park's new album, entitled "out of middle age"


Hahaha...I love it!

I just hope for some clarification to know what it is that I have more passion for - I'm just not sure. I've been trying to do better at living and discovering more of God's Revealed Will, and I've been struck with a growing passion to want to know Him more and spend time with Him more - and really consult him more on things that I was trying to go it alone with before.

So now I am trying to be really good at being patient with this and not expecting an answer to just drop from the heavens just because I'm getting closer to Him. I keep hearing "give it time" in my heart - I keep thinking about how it's like when you offer an apology when you realize you've been living in a way that is very hurtful or difficult to someone you love - and they may accept your apology, but to really believe - it takes time, to fully witness a change (I know this is an extreme example, but like someone saying they are sorry for being an alcoholic to a spouse).

I know God isn't limited to the capacity of a human being in forgiveness and love and He is so much more powerful than what we may work at on our own but maybe - even though He knows - He wants us to come to a point of total reliance on Him for everything, and that is a part of our breaking - and that takes time as well. So I can change things I'm doing for the good or the bad - but my breaking to be more like him, to be a slave to Him, a bondslave or a prisoner for - being not my own and bought at a price - takes time. And that can easily tie back to God's will being something that he continually unveils to us as we follow hard after him. It's with a continual following, a continual growing passion - that growth happens, that unveiling happens, that more is revealed to us...not like God is the Wizard of Oz and we are trying to get behind a mask but that he gives us (as cliche as it sounds) just enough light for the step we are on.

I think it's easy to be frightened when you can't see the next step - when it feels like there may be a great leap of faith on the horizon and there may be a great fall from *where-you-think-you-are/where-you-want-to-be* to be grounded in the truth of dreams coming true that you may not have even known existed - to be *where-you-are-supposed-to-be*. It's easy to be frightened, but it's brave to trust Love - it's a crazy foolishness, even. It may seem borderline insane to trust in what is good, in the hope of possibilities, when so often we (and our subconscious expectations) are let down by all that surrounds us. I'm not talking about the charismatic-Tammy Faye Baker-theatrical type of showmanship trust - I'm talking about the quiet trust that a life can be staked on (and has been).

Okay, hopping off yet another soap box for me now :)

a piece of my heart is just breaking right now for a dear friend.

i know i'm not suzy sunshine, with rays shooting out of...places...

i just pray i don't say the wildly inappropriate things that i usually do when i am trying to make people that i love laugh when times and circumstances and life just stinks.

don't get me wrong - i love to make people, especially people that allow me in to their inner circle - laugh.

there's just a time and a place for that - and when things are really sad, i usually verbally wander away from whatever may be appropriate.

dear God just be with her right now, be with her family. if it hurts this much for me, i can't begin to fathom how much it hurts for her, for them.

i keep hearing this verse over and over this past week...

Phil. 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

and i keep thinking about mass media & society as a sophomore...
- about how this verse was used to justify ways of sensorship
- about how this verse was taken out of context
- about how this verse was/is drummed in to the minds of a youth culture who grows more numb while at the same time more aware of the world about them by the minute

so is it really about sensorship and making sure no nakedness or bad words or bad choices are consumed in media and relational intake?

or is it really about having a more positive outlook on life and relationships, not dwelling on the negative - focusing on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy about each other and about circumstances that we find ourselves in? because more often than not, it is so easy to dwell on what bugs us, what irks us, what is wrong and what we - what i - would like to change. it is so easy to say what we (i) wish would be different - what we (i) would rather do or be or or not. it's not as easy (for me) to dwell on the good of what i can't see as good rightnow.

is this also another lesson in patience?

oh to have life, and live, and work in very small spaces. maybe even cubicles. is that what evolution means?

for so long i felt like i didn't have anything meaningful to say. now i feel like i am overflowing and forgetting it all as the moments pass. i know i should keep a journal or something with me - but writing deep thoughts while driving doesn't seem like the best answer.

i've been hearing more clearly this week things that God has kept reminding me through this whole "growing up" process - at least the past few years of it.

specifically, i realize now that though i may say again and again that it is God's timing that will bring things about, bring changes that i may be impatient for - and that He *does* have a purpose in having me where i am now...

i have not believed it.

so, i either need to stop saying it (not preferable) -OR- start realizing and truly believing it.

however, i can't will myself to believe something.

i do have a little tiny speck of faith left in all this - one that holds me close to God and helps me hear him whisper undying Love in to my soul.

i am impatient, utterly flawed, but nearing brokeness, and i couldn't be more at peace. i've always worried. anyone who knows me knows that i have a penchant for analyzing the what-if's more often than not, of focusing on what may instead of what is now right in front of me.

it seems like the only way i got out of myself so i could be, live, "in the moment" was to act.

but i can't keep trying to put on a show to live life now. i keep finding ways i am more comfortable in my own skin, just being me.

thank God for that.

The cycle is broken! All it took was me going to bed at 7:30 p.m. last night. the nearly 12 hours of sleep did me good, regardless of what sleep studies may say. No caffiene at all today...just turkey wraps and pickles and lots of water!

I keep smiling a lot :) It's good.