In Honor of When I First Learned To Drive a Transit Bus Ten Years Ago

I still remember the first time I drove for the Marion Area Transit; in fact, it was just ten years ago, November 24. Driving a passenger bus required a clean driving record and that I upgrade my license to a class C commercial driver's license. Because of this I had to take test that showed my understanding of maneuverability, driving safety and transporting passengers. The first bus that I drove could handle about twelve people, but now I drive one that can transport twice that number. There have been many challenges in driving such as learning the names of the streets, avoiding accidents, and learning to provide good customer service while driving. Yet the rewards have been many; I have made friends, cooed over babies and had lots of fun. When I recall how frightened I was when first approached about driving a transit bus, I’m still glad I made the change. Replace the subject line and body with your first blog post and hit send! Include pictures, an mp3, or anything else you want to share. It

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My First Third Day Concert

My recent purchase on e-bay was this poster which dates back to my first Third Day concert. The show took place in Dayton, Ohio on March 17, 2001. The concert also featured Kendal Payne and Lincoln Brewster. I was hooked! My Sunday school class got together to go to the show. I remember that we did not plan well and got there just as the show was getting ready to start and the place was packed! Because of that we ended up sitting in the balcony, which didn’t allow us to see well. Didn’t really manner that we had to move around to even be able to see the stage, the music was amazing. They played one of my favorite songs, “Your Love Oh Lord” which I still listen for when I go to a concert. I had only been a Christian for a very short time and things such as this strengthened my daily walk. This was my second Christian concert the first had been just months before when we got to see Newsboys with Sonicflood and Bean Bag. I am so glad to say that these may have been the first two of many shows that I have been fortunate enough to attend over the years. The first concert my husband and saw together was Third Day when we traveled to see them at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, on Thursday November 18, 2004. He is just as hooked now as I am. On November 8, we will be going to see Third Day once again in what will be my seventeenth show in Cincinnati, Ohio. Replace the subject line and body with your first blog post and hit send! Include pictures, an mp3, or anything else you want to share. It

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Fireproof

Greg and I went to see this movie this evening and I most recommend it to everyone. The theater was packed full of people who applauded at the end of the move. It was nice to see a movie that dealt with the world from a Christian prospective with humor and honesty. My only problem with the movie was that at times I felt that it was a little heavy handed on the preaching. At times the acting is a bit on the stiff side but at the end of the movie you are cheering for the couple. Greg and I left holding hands having enjoyed the movie and of course the music. There are two songs from our favorite band Third Day featured in the movie.

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Summer Reading Club

These are the books that I have completed for the Summer Book Club:

When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale

Stiff By Mary Roach

Time Travel In Einstein's Universe By J. Richard Gott

The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne

Sex God By Rob Bell

Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil

Phantasted George MacDonald

Blue Shoe by Annie Lamott

The Shack by William P. Young

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

When We Were Romans Matthew Kneale

When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale.

This is the story of 9 year old Lawrence, his sister Jemima and their mother Hannah. The story is told from the perspective Lawrence, which at times gives the story an odd twist. At that age his is totally unaware of anything outside of the view of life other then the truth that his holds as his mother. His sister is difficult and self involved but it is his relationship with his mother that guides his life. When Hannah becomes convinced that her ex-husband and father of the children is stalking them. She decides that they should travel to Rome to get away from him. So they leave London behind to begin their adventure. Once they are in Rome they survive off the good will for friends that his Mother had known in her younger year. It is during a visit with an old friend in Rome that we the reader are first lead to question her story. Lawrence’s only concern is of toy soldiers, tin tins and the safety of his hamster. Then his mothers fears start to shape his world, there is sightings of his father’s yellow car and poisoned food. Soon the fears of Hannah become those of Lawrence as he struggles to make his mother happy even when they travel back to Scotland to end the problem with his father. Till in the end when he faces his own struggles with his mothers mental illness. In the end the ability of the young to heal allows Larry to return to the childhood that going to Rome stole from him. It is difficult for a while but in the end he is once again the child that he was meant to be. There are times that the story drags on a bit as it works to maintain the voice of Lawrence in the story. There are also many misspellings in the novel which may just be a reflection of the age of the protagonist. The story does make you aware of the influence of the parent on the child good and bad.

Stiff By Mary Roach

Stiff

The Curious Lives Of Cadavers

Mary Roach

There have been points in the reading of this book that I thought about putting it down and never picking it up again. Not because it is a bad book but the subject manner at times is just too much. Stiff is a very well written book, one that handles its subject manner with compassion. I chose to read this book because my husband and I were talking about what was to be done when we no longer needed these bodies and what our final arrangement should be. Surgery has a way of making you think that way when one of you already has some very serious health issues.

Donated cadavers allow surgeons to “practice” before they use a procedure on a live patient. Not many medical students are given the chance to work on donated cadavers. Instead they are taught technique by watching and then at some point given the chance to operate under the supervision of an experienced surgeon. Donating your body for research is a fairly new concept. In the 1700 and 1800’s the threat of dissection was used in some areas as a deterrent, if you stole a pig you were hung but if you killed a man you were hung and then dissected. In Paris the unclaimed poor could be used for dissection. And in some cases it was known that family members were taken for dissection before being brought to the churchyard for burial. This lack of donations leads to early surgeons turning to grave robbers for the cadavers that they needed for research. There was money to be made by robbing graves.

There are many areas of research in which cadavers are and can be used to make life better for those left behind. One of those is in the study of human decay which helps the police to better understand crime scenes. Cadavers are also used in tests to see what the human tolerance limits are in vehicle collisions. This is the best way to see how the body reacts to injury. This type of study also takes place in the study of victims in airplane crashes. The types of injury tell what happened at the moment of the crash. Often in ways that the black box in the airplane may not be able to show. The use of cadavers takes place to help researchers understand how bullets and bombs work. How to protect someone from more serious injury because of the battles fought in war. There is also the donation of organs that are used to help the living. This may be the ultimate choice because it is done while the organs still work but the brain no longer functions.

The use of cadavers also is used in the research for alternatives to burial and cremations which are being studied around the world. One of these is known as a mortuary tissue digester which in a few hours would dissolve the tissues of a corpse and reduce it to 2 or 3% of its body weight. This only leaves behind a pile of decollagenated bones that can be crumbled. Everything else has been turned into a sterile brown liquid but some may have trouble with the issue that the main ingredient in the procedure is lye. There is also the process of Freeze-drying by using liquid nitrogen but the body would need to broken down into small pieces and would take about a year. There is also the idea of composting human beings as an option for third world countries such as Haiti, parts of rural China. Where burial is often expensive and bodies are often cremated in mass. Most of these ideas have been passed over for differing reasons. Most often the cause is that people cannot deal with the loss of someone in these unusual ways.

How has this book affected me? Tried talking with hubby about some of this but the discussion was too much for him. At times this book was an informative read but very difficult, only for the strong at heart or the oddly curious. I think that I am now going to go read a nice novel, something light and easy on the brain.

Time Travel In Einstein's Universe By J. Richard Gott

Time Travel In Einstein’s Universe
The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time

J. Richard Gott

One day going through the book store I came across this interesting book. The title caught my eye because I have always wondered about time travel. I must admit it was more from the philosophical then the scientific. This book delves into the ideas of physics by use of pop culture with discussions of Star Trek, and the movies Back To The Future and of course H.G. Wells The Time Machine. At times this book was a delight to read as well as difficult for the non scientific person such as myself. The talk of cosmic strings, curved space time and worm holes along with Einstein, special relativity and curved space has lost me on more then one occasion

There are discussions of the possibilities of time travel to the future. An example that he uses is one of Einstein theories, in which you would get on a space ship. Go to a star about 500 light years away and then return traveling both ways at 99.95% of the speed of light. Upon return earth will be 1,000 years older but you will only be 10 years old. Such speed has been shown to be possible with the use of particle accelerators. We can be fairly certain that time travel from the near future still is just a theory because of the fact as Steven Hawking has noted we are not being run over by tourist from the future. They would only be able to travel back to the point where the machine had been invented

Several theories are presented as to the probability of time travel to the past through the use of Cosmic String Loops and Black Holes. There is also the chance that you might be able to take advantage of a Wormhole. Warpdrive, which is the altering of space to travel among stars at speeds faster then the speed of light as seen on Star Trek. This theory has been shown to work by Miguel Alcubierre by the use of general relativity.

At this point all that has been presented in the book is for the most part is nothing more then theory. As they work to push physics to the extreme never taking for granted that the imposable may not be possible.

The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne

The Irresistible Revolution
Living as an ordinary radical

Shane Claiborne
http://www.thesimpleway.org/

The author confronts our ideas of what it is to be Christian from a very radical point of view. He lives among the poor in Philadelphia, PA in an organization called The Simple Way. Though his experiences here in this community and those that took place during his education studying theology. For a summer he worked with Mother Theresa in India with the lepers’ and the poor. He also studied at Willow Creek church for a short time which exposed him to the modern church. These life experiences lead him to the understanding of what he feels Jesus would do in our world. He explains this best with the statement asking us “when we stopped living Christianity and started to study it.”

Shane Claiborne often draws comparisons between those who give money but never really give time and connect what the problems of the poor. There are references to the idea that grace is cheap because we don’t want to pay the price. We admire Jesus and his followers for what he did but we are not willing to make the same sacrifice. The distant act of charity because those who have given helps those who need to receive but there is no interaction between the two. There is that distance between the rich and the poor. Early Christians believed that charity was merely the returning what we have stolen. And if there was not enough food for everyone they would fast until there was enough. If one child starves while one Christian has enough food then they are guilty of murder. We need to love others as ourselves. He express’s the belief that we need a theology rooted in abundance rather then the one of prosperity or poverty that we have today. One where we have just what we need and nothing more, having too much may cause us to disown God.

Some of the ideas that are presented in the book argue against the church of today. Shane Claiborne also pushes the idea of the politics in faith. And they are not always the ideal that so many of us may view as Christian. In fact his thought is that we as Christian should challenge the human authority that rules our world today with its wars and social upheavals. You may not agree with everything that he has to say but you must see the love of Jesus in his actions. There is also that fact that he feels that the mega churches are not what God wants Instead we should be looking to smaller and smaller churches. Jesus came as a small child, faith of a mustard seed,as God takes over the earth one small act of love at a time. Most important of all we must pray about everything!

Whether you chose to agree with everything or anything that Shane Claiborne says in his book, what he says makes you think about how we are as Christians in the world today.
Is his view of what Jesus would want true, I don’t know. I do feel that we need to question ourselves in the manner of what would Jesus do?

Sex God By Rob Bell

Sex God
Exploring The Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality
Rob Bell

I must admit that I was a little concerned about reading this book. Having survived the preacher’s sermon about SEX the most notable was titled the elephant in the bedroom. It was the Sunday that I would have skipped if I’d only known. The sermon was very good and very well handled without being too heavy handed but still. It was those same feelings that keep from picking up this book at first but what a mistake that would have been. I enjoyed this book so much that I have it in two formats, audio and e-book. After listening to in my car I had to have a copy of it that I could reference to in the written format. For those that enjoy audio this is a great way to enjoy the book because it is read by the author and pastor Rob Bell. So at times you feel as though you are listening to sermon on Sunday morning. Not the kind that would make you uncomfortable or awkward.

When we talk about sex we must in turn talk about where we come from and who created us which of course leads us to God. Also we need to reflect on how we treat others because this reflects our view of the creator. As we dehumanize others we are doing the same to ourselves. There is also the need to be aware that God often gives us not what we want but what we need. It may be something as simple lipstick, but it will be something that we need. Even more reason that we must learn to become what God has intended us to be and he will help us to do that.

This is a book that challenges the perspective of the world. While it enlightens us to how God views us and our sexuality.

Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil by John Berendt

A Savannah Story
John Berendt
This last year for Christmas we made our first trip to Savannah, Georgia. While there we did the usual tourist thing and took a guided tour of the town which is very rich in history. There were many references to the book “Midnight In The Garden Of Good and Evil” A Savannah Story by John Berendt while there for our visit. I must admit that the story is an interesting one full of many different characters. When reading this book you must remember that this book is based on people and events which are real only some of the names have been changed. I also must caution about some of the adult content in the book.
There are many interesting characters that populate the world of Savannah as presented in this novel. Jim Williams is one of the main characters, who is an antiques dealer and the restorer of old houses. He has a passion for Faberge and Nazi memorabilia There are hints to his life style that lead to his going on trial for murder. I will leave it stand at that because the trial is an interesting part of the story. His friend and neighbor Joe Odam, piano player, who is always one step ahead of the law. He writes bad checks, opens his home to tourists even if it is not his house and lives with a menagerie of characters.
There is also the inventor, Luther Driggers, who is rumored to have a bottle of poison five hundred times more deadly then arsenic which if added to the cities water supply would kill everyone. Luther's other hobby included anesthetized ordinary house flies and glued lengths of thread to their backs. He has been known to walk through downtown Savannah holing a dozen or more threads in his hand walking flies. There is also Chablis the drag queen who is dating a guy who likes women. Add Minerva with her purple glasses, who practices voodoo, wandering the graveyards and putts curses on people. There is a wide variety of characters and personalities in this well written novel. It is a surprising human drama which adds to the intrigue that is Savannah.

Summer Reading List

I'm not sure if I will be able to get all of these read but I will have fun trying. After going through my book shelves and of course buying a couple. My reading list for this summer is as follows:
The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claibourne
living as an ordinary radical
Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil by John Berendt
Time Travel In Einstein's Universe by J. Richard Gott
The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time
The Tipping Point How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcom Gladwell
Phantastes A Faerie Romance by George MacDonald
Sex God by Rob Bell
Stiff The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers By Mary Roach
The list may change but it will get me started. I think all I'm going to doing this summer is reading....I love it!

Phantasted George MacDonald

Phantastes
George MacDonald

This book was a delight to read. It is easy to see the influence that George MacDonald has had on other writers. In fact the volume that I read had a forward written by C.S. Lewis in which he sings the praises of this author. His influences on modern writers of fantasy are greatly in his debt. George MacDonald first chosen profession was that of minister but later in life he focused on writing and lecturing to the end of his life. The story is one of the adventures of Anodos on the event of his 21st birthday is given the key to his fathers secretary which leads to his first contact with a fairy and the beginning of his journey.
This brings him in contact with many adventures such as the tree spirits and a visit to place of the fairy queen. It is an amazing journey but I must admit at times it is a difficult read. It is written in a style that fits the time period that is a little different at times to read now. It is well worth the effort if you stick with it because it is an amazing story that is being told.

Blue Shoe by Annie Lamott

Blue Shoe

By Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott has written one of my favorite books but I must admit it isn’t this particular one. Because of her novel Traveling Mercies I wanted to read Blue Shoe. I have had this novel for a while so I thought why not. The story has its interesting moments as Mattie struggles with life: ex-husband, parental infidelity, children, her mothers declining mental state and romance. I must admit at times I was surprised by some of the things that she wrote while proclaiming her character as Christian. I should have taken into account the fact that she is writing about real living breathing people not an idolized individuals. The characters are full of human flaws as she fights with the kids, sleeps with her ex-husband and falls in love with her married best friend. The story is full of the hope that being a Christian gives us no matter how imperfect we are. Being a Christian is the one point that she never loses sight on within her difficulties.

The Shack by William P. Young

The Shack
William P. Young
I related to this book on so many levels because for a large portion of my life I was very angry with God. Even to the point that I stopped believing in him or in this case her. I wish this book would have been written many years ago. It would have helped me to heal more quickly. Believing and trusting allows Mack to take a journey that provides healing for himself and his family. It is through that journey that we are able to gain a better understanding of God in the difficult moments of life. Some have problems conceptualizing God as a women but I like this because I we need to recognize that we are not able to limit God. I felt encouraged by much of what takes place in the story. So much of it spoke to me on a personal spiritual level. In several areas it also reminded me of how different God is from what we humans have tried to make “him.” There are also several biblical lessons that take place through out that add to a better understanding of God. I have already loaned out a copy of this book to a friend and there are others in my work place who wants to read this book.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Randy Paush is dying of pancreatic cancer but that is not his primary concern. It is the three small children that he will leave behind. They will be too young to remember much about their father. His mission is to leave some part of himself behind. Randy is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and for him lecturing is a way of life. Within this format he tells his children all about the life that he had hoped to share with them. He also shares childhood dreams and how he achieved many of them. He has shared so much with us but the lecture is not for us it’s for his children. You can watch this lecture and some others at:

Randy Pausch, the professor at Carnegie Mellon University who inspired countless students in the classroom and others worldwide through his highly acclaimed last lecture, has died of complications from pancreatic cancer. He died on July 25, 2008 he was 47.

There is also a speech that he made to graduates :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcYv5x6gZTA&feature=user

Summer Reading Book Club

I am so new to this! Have no idea what I am doing but that should make it fun!! My first book will be The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow. I also want to talk about the book that I just finished minutes ago The Shack by William P. Young. I'm not going to go any further because I don't want to loose anything before I try to blow everything up...as I said earlier I am so lost. I think this is going to be fun and I love to talk about things I have read so lets go for it.