...about posting, so here goes!

eh, nevermind, don't feel like posting after all. sorry, derek!

One more news tidbit for you: http://www.boundlessline.org/2007/06/encouraging_emb.html (I'm not going to try to be eloquent. Instead, I'll leave it up to Boundless. Here's a hint, though: promising new stem cell research developments that don't involve using cells from babies who have been killed.)

I was a Communication Studies major at UNC-CH (translation: got to take lots of fun classes that had little to no real-world application ... ahh, I miss academia!), and I was at one time planning to go into audiology or speech pathology. (That means I did take some useful science classes and I can tell you random facts about your hearing and speech!) That ceased to be my life plan a few years back. Nonetheless, I have held onto all of my old notes, notecards, textbooks, and graduate school catalogs, moving them from UNC to my first house in Texas to my second house in Texas to our home here in North Carolina. It turns out that this is quite fortuitous for one of my old Refinery girls, Emily,. who just finished her freshman year at UNC-CH. She is majoring in Linguistics and taking all the speech and hearing classes that I took. Today we're meeting up for lunch at NCSU (she's taking a class there this summer), and I'm passing off this welath of material from my days in those courses. And I'm, pondering these questions: Why do I feel sad giving this stuff away if I'm never going to use it anyway? Why is only a part of me joyful that I can help Emily? Why am I sentimental about my anatomy textbooks? 

Random thoughts from Shannon today

Little Jocelyn has a little cold. Her sniffles are cute and sad at the same time. It's times like this that remind me to trust Him since He is the great physician. I may be a mom, but that doesn't give me the control I wish I had, even though Erin thinks motherhood gives me superpowers. ("Shannon can fix Hannah's hair ... she's a mom!" and so on...)

So here's my beef with Gilmore Girls ... if it's such a small town, then how do they possibly have an endless supply of take-out and delivery restaurants? I lived in a small town. For the entire two years, rumors abounded that Pizza Hut was going to start delivering, but they never did and they still haven't now, another two years later. Additionally, during the first episode, when some sketchy guys are hitting on Rory and Lorelai in Luke's restaurant, Lorelai tells them that Rory is 16. Then, later that season, they celebrate Rory's 16th birthday. Sixteen again?

Jocelyn has started using her feet a whole lot. She likes to grab the toys hanging from the bar of her bouncy seat with her toes. Kicking is endless fun for her. Sometimes I find her in the crib in the morning, joyfully contented by kicking at the air. Perhaps I have a budding soccer player? Only if she has more coordination than her mother ...

At my house in Florida, we had neighbors who always left their Christmas lights up year-round. In the dorms, I had several friends who kept lights in their rooms, though they only plugged them in when the resident advisors weren't around, since they were fire hazards. at my apartment in Chapel Hill, we had neighbors who had white lights up all year. In Rio Grande City, I had several neighbors who left lights up through all the seasons, which in Texas were summer, summer, spring, and summer. So it's April, almost May, and I'm missing Christmas lights!

I'm incredibly disappointed with what I fear our options will be for the next presidential election. The guys I really like all have virtually no chance of winning the Republican nomination, given the current poll numbers, So I think I'm going to have to settle for someone who is just better than the Democratic nominee.     

So I was cleaning out some old emails from my account, and I found these engineering jokes that Lee sent me when I lived in Texas. (Yes, I had some really old emails!)

By the way, you may have noticed that I'm a font junkie. I know switching fonts constantly is frowned upon by some, so if it bothers you, sorry!

Understanding Engineers - Take One

Two engineering students crossing the campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want." The first engineer nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Understanding Engineers - Take Two

To the optimist, the glass is half full.

To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.

To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers - Take Three

A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him."

"Hi George! Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind fire-fighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Four

An engineer was crossing a road one-day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want." Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."

So I'm praying about whether or not I want to audition for the praise team at church. I really loved being a part of the praise team at my church in Texas, but that was a much lower-key type of thing since it's a small church. Here are my concerns.

1) Sometimes I had a problem getting caught up in "performing" and not really worshipping in Texas. I don't want that to happen, and if I can't handle being a member of praise team without that happening, then I shouldn't do it.

2) It's a significant time commitment. I would have to be at practice on the Tuesday nights before weekends in which I sang, and those run from 6:30-9 or 9:30. The church offers childcare for those, or Lee could take care of Jocelyn then. On Sundays when I sing I'll be at church all morning. (Angie once mentioned something to me about having to get there at 6:30 am.) Some Sundays I'll have to sing at the Delta Lake Center for the 9:30 service. Is this feasible with a little one? Furthermore, is it feasible or reasonable while I'm breastfeeding a little one? Should I wait until after I'm finished breastfeeding? All questions to which I don't have answers other than  right now.

3) I'll miss Sunday school a lot -- both on weekends in which I sing at all three services and weekends in which I sing at the Delta Lake service. I might be able to be there for part of Sunday school, but not all. I'm already feeling a little cut off since we don't do a lot of the social stuff and since I don't do the girls' Bible study because of Refinery. (Another debate in my mind currently is whether I'll rejoin the Sunday school Bible study once Refinery ends or if I'll join the girls from my Monday night study for a summer study or if I'll take a break from group Bible studies and do something on my own.)

4) I'm a big chicken, and I'm nervous about trying out. I don't mind singing in front of people (if I did, I wouldn't be considering this at all!), but I don't like singing in front of people with the chance of rejection. I do trust that God is in control, but in my own sinful nature I'm scared and prideful (and, you see, I can mantain that pride if I don't get rejected). I didn't say this reason wasn't a little ugly!

Given those concerns, I still really want to do it. I love music, and I love leading others in worship. But I want to make sure that this is really where God wants me to be investing my time and energy and not just where I want to be. Any advice? (And when I ask for advice, I'm basically saying, "Jenelle, what do you think?" since I don't expect anyone else to read this. But, if you're reading this and you aren't Jenelle, feel free to offer your two cents as well!)

I had grand plans of my opening post being witty and clever, but it seems that I used all of that when I told Jenelle a joke earlier today ... stay posted for more wit in the future!

This week Newsweek published a "God debate" between Sam Harris and Rick Warren. Before I launch into my thoughts concerning that discourse, first let me introduce the players. Harris is an athiest who wrote The End of Faith. Here's an excerpt that pretty much sums it up:

Imagine that we could revive a well-educated Christian of the fourteenth century. The man would prove to be a total ignoramus, except on matters of faith. His beliefs about geography, astronomy, and medicine would embarrass even a child, but he would know more or less everything there is to know about God. Though he would be considered a fool to think that the earth is flat, or that trepanning constitutes a wise medical intervention, his religious ideas would still be beyond reproach. There are two explanations for this: either we perfected our religious understanding of the world a millennium ago—while our knowledge on all other fronts was still hopelessly inchoate—or religion, being the mere maintenance of dogma, is one area of discourse that does not admit of progress. We will see that there is much to recommend the latter view.

Now the only consolation for this book is that he equally attacks all religions, not just Christianity. He basically equates any form of religion with terrorism. His book managed to be a best seller in the United States, which I consider to be a major indictment of the state of our culture. Scores of Christians responded by writing to him, and he responded in turn, this time directly attacking Christianity with his second book Letter to a Christian Nation. Warren, on the other hand, is the founding pastor at Saddleback Church and the author of several books, most notably The Purpose-Driven Life.

I was impressed with the debate published in Newsweek. I was a little apprehensive about what I'd find in the article, because I don't think it's our place as Christians to debate God. Present His truth, yes, but God is so much bigger than I am that He doesn't need my help to defend Him. But Warren did an impressive job of presenting His truth and poking holes in Harris's thinking without becoming defensive. So much so, in fact, that by the end, Harris admitted, "I don't want to pretend to be certain about anything I'm not certain about." He was talking about not wanting to pretend to be certain that God exists, but it could very easily be interpreted that he can't be certain that God doesn't exist either. By the end, he's sounding much more like an agnostic than an athiest.

Before I close with Warren's final words, I want to pause for a moment to acknowledge that it's Easter Eve. Tomorrow my husband and I will celebrate Easter, our daughter's first one. It saddens me that individuals like Harris choose to deny the One who died to take the penalty for his sins and rose from the dead to offer him the gift of eternal life. I am not worthy of that gift, but I rejoice that Christ has made me worthy through His sacrifice. Happy Easter to all of you!

You can read the complete debate here. And, now, Warren's final words...

I believe in both faith and reason. The more we learn about God, the more we understand how magnificent this universe is. There is no contradiction to it. When I look at history, I would disagree with Sam: Christianity has done far more good than bad. Altruism comes out of knowing there is more than this life, that there is a sovereign God, that I am not God. We're both betting. He's betting his life that he's right. I'm betting my life that Jesus was not a liar. When we die, if he's right, I've lost nothing. If I'm right, he's lost everything. I'm not willing to make that gamble.