Month / June 2012

by AwakeningSardis

Avengers, Kicking Butt and Fairy Stories

I went and saw the Avengers last night with my sister in law. It was a last minute decision and I didn’t put much thought to it, nor had seen the trailers so I had no expectations. I also know SOME comics but not all the characters so I couldn’t quite remember who would be an Avenger. 

It was brilliant. 

I love super hero movies. I love action movies. I love movies where people defy crazy odds to beat the bad guys. 

I would love to be a girl who could massively kick someone’s butt like Scarlett Jo can in the Avengers. I however am 5’2” and small and dance and sing and am scarred of being hit and probably can’t do that much damage to anyone ever. Though one of my salsa friends has taught me a bit of aikido and I did manage to jack him a couple of times and hurt him on accident. Never teach a girl a martial art who is competitive and slightly clumsy and start moving faster and faster. I mayyy not be able to stop my counter moves before following through! lol.  

I love JRR Tolkien and I read an essay he wrote called On Faery Stories. In it he ends up linking fairy tales with real life and how we were created in our innermost desires with the most fantastic and real fairy story of all.. the good news of Jesus. Tolkien thinks fairy stories are not only nice but necessary. They are showing our hearts what they are made for. I think so too. The heros, the princesses that fight alongside the heros, the reality of evil, the reality of the fight, the battle and that good triumphs… all things that make my heart go thump because I am reminded…

Faery Stories 
“It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or              more complete kind, that however wild

its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears
it, when the “turn” comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or
indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a
peculiar quality.”


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by AwakeningSardis

#8c Our rights… a secondary rant from the NYTIMES…

“Worst of all, they are sent off into this world with the whole baby-boomer theology ringing in their ears. If you sample some of the commencement addresses being broadcast on C-Span these days, you see that many graduates are told to: Follow your passion, chart your own course, march to the beat of your own drummer, follow your dreams and find yourself. This is the litany of expressive individualism, which is still the dominant note in American culture.”


It’s Not about You – NYTimes.com

by AwakeningSardis

Musical Meyhem to one of my Best Friend’s Weddings..

Road trips are awesome for hours of unhindered music fun. 

I am singing in one of my best friends weddings this weekend (I now have tacky songs from My Best Friend’s Wedding rolling through my head.. something about “putting on my makeup and saying a little prayer for you” – am I the only one that doesn’t like that movie?!) so that meant at least some of my road trip was spent practicing the wedding songs. But that can only go on for so long. Driving from Ohio to the East Coast of Virginia.. especially when you smack into DC at 4pm (ouch!) makes for a long trip and many more artists to cover. Here are some I perused through on my trip:



Justin Timberlake
Maroon 5
Jason Mraz
Kings of Leon
Snow Patrol
OneRepublic
Mute Math
Counting Crows
Avril 
U2
Mumford and Sons
Death Cab for Cutie
Jack JOhnson
Radiohead
Perry Farrell 
Ron Renaissance
Robin Thicke
Lauryn Hill
Missy Elliot
Black Street and Dr Dre
Usher
Stevie Wonder
Ne-Yo
James Brown
Corinne Bailey Rae
Alicia Keys
Fats Domino
T-Pain
Kelis
Wycliffe Jean
Beyonce
Destiny’s Child 
a random soppy bachata mix album
all 4 Jon Foreman seasonal EPs (the wedding song is on one of them) 
all 3 La Excelencia albums

Below are the two songs Rachel is having me sing with a guy I will meet tomorrow.. 




Enough 




Never did end up finding a date to the wedding. It ended up being too complex so looks like I will be making new friends this weekend! 

by AwakeningSardis

Language issues with the Walmart guy

I have a chromatic tuner I haven’t been able to use since I was gifted it because I can’t seem to find a battery to go in it. 

So I went to the Walmart. You can find everything at the Walmart. 

Bee-lined for the electronics. Asked a man in a Walmart shirt if he could help me find a battery for my tuner. 

He looked at me like I had spoken Dutch to him. 

“What did you say???!”

Me, quickly realizing my mistake.

“Do you have a baddery for this?”

Walmart guy: Oh! I thought you said something totally different. 

Me, keeping it to myself that I did say something totally different and we’ll pretend it didn’t come out that way. I pronounced it bat-try

by AwakeningSardis

Walking in thunderstorms




When I was a kid I would jump on my bike and head out for a long bike ride the second the air smelled like rain so I could enjoy the thrill and excitement of being soaked to the bone and the thunder and lightning and the droplets splashing down on your face- before my parents could do something sensible and stop me from leaving the house!

It’s kinda like running a red light when it’s yellow and you hit the acceleration… “Committed!” 

I am trying to fit in as much walking as possible in suburbia Ohio which is not easy considering everything everywhere is so far apart and I don’t have the time to spare to get to the places I need most of the time. But I can walk from my brothers to my parents easily and set off on the mile walk just as the thunder clouds were looming. Turned down a ride home three times. Halfway through the walk the thunder and lightening started and by the time I was at the three quarters zone, I was also getting very wet. It was great. 

Refreshing. I love breathing in a thunderstorm and feeling the rain on my skin. Top likes in life. 🙂 
by AwakeningSardis

The Curse of Motivational Speaking.. a borrowed borrowed post…

I borrowed a borrowed post!  I don’t think either of these pastors will mind me passing on a good word.


Is this the kinda message you are looking to hear?


“the message being heard is, “God has put the potential in you and all you need to do is believe in yourself to unlock that potential. Have a grand vision and live out that vision. You must be a man or woman of destiny and the sky will be the limit for you. Don’t let your past failures get in your way of success. Look beyond them, as Jesus looked beyond the cross and thus overcame it. You are the head and not the tail. ”




Then keep reading.. or scroll straight to the bottom and read the original from the beginning on the “click here”. I pass on this blog not to rant a little (though I do often) but from a love for you and a desire to see people grounded in truth and reality that is freeing. The above quote is not freeing and I know a lot of us are looking to things like that to try and find life. 



Pure Church by Thabiti Anyabwile


Posted: 17 Jun 2012 06:27 AM PDT
A great post from Conrad Mbewe on the problem of motivational speaking as a “gospel” message and a way of life.  Here’s his opening:
Last Sunday, a young man came to see me after our church service. He is the kind of guy who shows up at church once in a while and then disappears for a season. My guess is that he goes around churches sampling sermons and looking for answers. On this visit, he asked that I help him to overcome a failure in his life, and it was a failure to progress. He said that his greatest problem is that he does not believe in himself. Could I help him believe in himself so that he could become successful?
I asked him whether he was a Christian. His answer was, “Do I really need to be a Christian in order to be successful? Are you telling me that all those successful people out there are Christians? Aren’t there general principles that I can apply to my life—whether I am a Christian or not—that can catapult me to success?” I challenged him to answer that question himself. After all, I was sure he had done enough rounds among motivational speakers to have the answer.
“That is the problem,” he said, “I have been told that such principles exist and I have tried them. They seem to work for a while and then I am back to my old self again. I want you to help me find that formula that will help me go forward and never slide back to the place where I do not believe in myself.” To cut the long story short, I finally persuaded him of the need for reconciliation with God before anyone can break free from the frustrating rut that God locks unreconciled sinners in.
Read the entire post here.
The Curse of Motivational Speaking avatar

is a post from: Pure Church by Thabiti Anyabwile





Read the whole post here

by AwakeningSardis

The Porn Path

This is not light. It is not easy. But I think all of us should watch it. It’s provocative. Honest. Real. 

It’s long. So watch it in fragments or grab a kettle and a cuppa.

What is your connection to porn? How much has it affected you? Consumed you? Consumed those you love? Do you really know what you are getting into? Or what has held you for years… decades? Is it harmless? As a woman has your self worth and identity been shed down the gutter because of porn? What do you fear? Will it affect your marriage? Is it ruining your marriage? Do you struggle with intimacy with real people because you are so addicted to images? Does one little click hurt? 

Try it…

Click here: The Porn Path