deepbrew

Went up to Harrisonburg this evening for supper at Aunt Esther’s house and enjoyed some delicious pork chops and rice, then went to JMU to hear world famous black poet Nikki Giovanni perform her poetry, accompanied by a huge black gospel choir.  It was amazing!  Her poetry is so sharp, energetic, and understandable.  She is very much the same way.  Watching and hearing (feeling) the choir was soul-moving.  I’m tellin ya, those people know how to get into it!  Gives me inspiration for my songleading at church. HA!  Then I went over to Barnes and Noble and had the best time wandering around and drooling over the books, and walked out with Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible (any of you read it?) and the neatest little hardback Tale of Two Cities.  I was so pleased, and the Sumatra brew from starbucks made it all very good indeed.  Life is rich.

Had a great afternoon at Dinah Beachy and Doug Mast’s wedding! Got to see lots of folks I wasn’t expecting to see– Andy and Rachel’s whole family, including Keith and Lisa all the way from FB (Yeah Lisa, I know you were really tight with Dinah). I was awfully surprised to see Jeremy there, all the way from GA! Got to meet Eli’s GF, see Michael Yoder from VA beach, and Michael Hostetler, who lives very close, actually came over just to see me. Very awesome!!

Here’s Jeremy getting his word in with Dinah.

But this morning it’s nearly 50! The weather this winter is really weird. I don’t think I like it. Very weird being so warm. Wish we would have more of the above.

I read somewhere once that people with dynamic, extroverted personalities are much more sought after and considered to be more effective in business and life in general. I don’t remember all the details of the article but I do remember thinking that it was very unfair and wished I could be dynamic and popular.

Anyway, all this to say that certain types of personality seem to be at a real disadvantage in life. Phlegmatic people are a good example. Phlegs, just because they are naturally more conscientious about conserving their energy, are looked down on as less desirable to society then those who run around madly from one thing to another. Why? Simply because other people don’t find them useful. Phlegs like me are under incredible pressure to PERFORM, to DO ACTUAL WORK, to EXPEND HUGE AMOUNTS OF ENERGY for unimportant things.  I PROTEST!!  This is an injustice which society has insisted on retaining far too long.  I demand fair treatment for people of all personalities!

It’s true! I really enjoy going to my church every Sunday. Perharps it may seem odd that I mention it, but to me it isn’t, because so much of my growing up years I detested church. It bored me to death. Why do I like it now?
I love the singing. Even though we do almost no praise & worship style singing, which I love, I totally enjoy singing hymns out of the venerable church hymnal. I can really get into it.

I love our Sunday School class. Our youth boys class can really get into, at times. Other times the discussion really lacks. But mostly its great. Our teacher Ivan does admirably well.

We get some really great sermons in our church fairly regularly. However, I am terribly absent-minded, and can so easily slip out into some other world. I catch myself and slap my patty, but before I know it I am off somewhere again. Terrible habit.

And then, of course, we stay and chat w/ folks for a long time after every service. This is one feature of mennonite life which I really really like. We do like each other and like to keep up with each other. Even then, it still feels like a barely know some people in church, cause our church is just too big. I wish we wouldn’t have made it so huge. Someday I hope to be in a cute little church, but for now I’m stuck in my Huge one. But I like it anyway. People grow and change there. People experience powerful relationships there. People meet God there.

How do you like my new theme?  Pretty blue, huh?

Bloglines.com is this really neat site where you can conglomerate ALL the blogs you read in one convenient location. All you do is go to bloglines.com. and complete the easy sign up process. Next you add the feed of the blog you want to keep up with, like this:

As you can see it’s very easy to add a feed–you just type in the name of the blog, for example, if you think Hans Mast is cool, you would just type “www.hansmast.com” in the top box and click “subscribe,” and VOILA, you now have hansmast’s top quality fodder delivered to your bloglines site whenver he updates. You can even add Xanga users. Really Cool.

Wow, blogger.com has been incredibly slow and awful lately. I apologize to all of you faithful readers who have been in the depths of despair over the low-availability of my blog. I am nearly ready to move it over to Wordpress. Big changes coming soon.

Be A Kid Again

1. Do a cartwheel.
2. Sing into your hairbrush.
3. Walk barefoot in wet grass.
4. Play a song you like really loud, over and over.
5. Dot all your “i”s with smiley faces.
6. Read the funnies. Throw the rest of the paper away.
7. Dunk your cookies.
8. Play a game where you make up the rules as you go along.
9. Step carefully over sidewalk cracks.
10. Change into some play clothes.
11. Try to get someone to trade you a better sandwich.
12. Eat ice cream for breakfast.
13. Kiss a frog, just in case.
14. Blow the wrapper off a straw.
15. Have someone read you a story.
16. Find some pretty stones and save them.
17. Wear your favorite shirt with you favorite pants even if they don t match.
18. Take a running jump over a big puddle.
19. Get someone to buy you something you really don t need.
20. Hide your vegetables under your napkin.
21. Stay up past your bedtime.
22. Eat dessert first.
23. Fuss a little, then take a nap.
24. Wear red gym shoes.
25. Put way too much sugar on your cereal.
26. Make cool screeching noises every time you turn a corner.
27. Giggle a lot for no reason.
28. Give yourself a gold star for everything you do today.