You can’t help someone get up a hill…

You can’t help someone get up a hill…

Calvin and Hobbes

The key to happiness is…

The key to happiness is…

Where Are the People?

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Interesting data:

The Barna Group, an evangelical market research organization, has been issuing a steady stream of books and white papers documenting the erosion of support for evangelicalism, especially among young people. Contributions from worshippers 55 and older now account for almost two-thirds of evangelical churches’ income in the United States. A mere three percent of non-Christian Americans under 30 have a positive impression of evangelical Christianity, according to David Kinnaman, the Barna Group’s president. That’s down from 25 percent of baby boomers at a similar age. At present rates of attrition, two-thirds of evangelicals in their 20s will abandon church before they turn 30. “It’s the melting of the icebergs,” Kinnaman told me. Young people’s most common complaint, he said, is that churches are too focused on sexual issues and preoccupied with their own institutional development — in other words, he explained, “Christianity no longer looks like Jesus.

Go to the source: The American Scholar: Where Are the People? – Jim Hinch.

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h/t to David Kanigan and Philip Lima

Meryl Streep on ‘imposter syndrome’…

meryl

Before she had even broken into the world of film, Meryl was an accomplished actor on Broadway and in other theatrical productions. Seventeen had the good sense to highlight her work in a brief feature in 1977. Streep had just landed her first movie role in the film Julia, at 28. Of her first day on set, she humbly said, “I thought I’d perpetrated some sort of great hoax, that they would find out I was a charlatan. I was so nervous the first day on the set that I broke out in hives!”

Go to the source: Funny Celebrity Interviews – Jennifer Lawrence Video.

What Others Think of Me is Not My Business… Anymore!

Warning — NSFW language. Anna Jorgensen writes:

The other night I went to a music event with some new friends and after a few drinks we got to philosophizing about how we (people) consciously and unconsciously filter ourselves in consideration of others. Swaying near the men’s bathroom and close-talking above the noise we’re oblivious of by now, a couple of staggering and swaggering men pass us (we’re two, I dare say, attractive redheads) on their way to the loo.

Redhead Barbie (not me): “I used to always worry about what everyone was thinking of me. It drove me insane!”

I reply, “People have their own reality, their own perception. No matter how much you might try ‘explaining’ yourself to some people, they’re not going to get it. They’ve got their own movies going on in their minds.”

She gets it. “Yes! It used to bug me that they were misinterpreting me. I wanted to try to convince them or show them.”

I love this stuff. “You can’t. If it doesn’t fit into their box, if they’re not ready, willing and able, it’s a waste of time. You just get frustrated. Like, everyone in town has this perception of me as this successful professional, which I am—was—but I’m also a truck driver’s daughter with a potty mouth and filthy mind. That shit doesn’t go over so well in business.”

She retorts, “People who know you, really know you, love you and appreciate who you truly are, swears and silliness and all.”

Go to the source: What Others Think of Me is Not My Business… Anymore! ~ Anna Jorgensen {Adult} | elephant journal.

Christmas starts for me…

…when I play this song for the first time of the the year. Still haven’t felt like playing it yet…

Calvin and Hobbes

Sent from Evernote

Not Feeling So Jolly This Holiday Season? You’re Not Alone

Dr. Leslie Carr writes:

One of the problems that I have with this season, to be blunt, is the pressure that it puts on many people to pretend like they woke up with holly between their ears. Sometimes life is hard, for all of us – but for those of us who happen to be suffering during the month of December, there seems to be a manic pressure to pretend like it’s not happening.

Meanwhile, to suffer while the world bellows “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” usually only makes a person feel worse (more alienated, and more discordant with one’s surroundings), so there’s a one-two punch: The festiveness of the holidays makes us feel ironically sadder than we already do, and now we’re feeling pressured to pretend like it’s not happening. It’s all so unfortunate and unnecessary.

Go to the source for more: Not Feeling So Jolly This Holiday Season? You’re Not Alone.

Begin Loving Yourself Again

Simple Reminders

via Begin Loving Yourself Again.

Citizens of Northeast Wisconsin and the surrounding area be warned!

Caleb has his temps…

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Your daily life is your temple and your religion…

Your daily life is your temple and your religion…

Sometimes…

Sometimes…

This Little Girl’s Sign Language Version of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” is Great

You don’t have to know anything about sign language to be blown away by the sheer force of personality coming through in Shaylee’s performance. But with a little knowledge of how ASL works, you can also be amazed by the complexity of her linguistic and storytelling skills. Here are nine great moments from Shaylee’s video.

Go to the source for the 9 Reasons This Little Girl’s Sign Language Version of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” is Great | Mental Floss.

Stressing And Complaining

Live Life Quotes, Love Life Quotes, Live Life Happy

via Stressing And Complaining.

We should every night call ourselves to an account…

“We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.” via Seneca.

It’s Your Life

Live Life Quotes, Love Life Quotes, Live Life Happy

via It’s Your Life.

Once again, we come to the holiday season…

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Misguided men…

Perhaps I heard this quote once and was influenced by it then but I have frequently said our technology far outruns our ethics. Perhaps King said it better…

Snowden: NSA Surveillance Is about Power, Not ‘Safety’

Six months ago, I stepped out from the shadows of the United States Government’s National Security Agency to stand in front of a journalist’s camera. I shared with the world evidence proving some governments are building a world-wide surveillance system to secretly track how we live, who we talk to, and what we say. I went in front of that camera with open eyes, knowing that the decision would cost me family and my home, and would risk my life. I was motivated by a belief that the citizens of the world deserve to understand the system in which they live.

Go to the source: Snowden: NSA Surveillance Is about Power, Not ‘Safety’.

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