Sharing a Blog article

I'm not much into reposting other people's blog articles but this one i think hits a bit close to home. http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationship/features/28856-beauty-vs-sexuality I think the gold nugget here is the following:

To put it another way, we shame men by insisting they're fundamentally weak, constantly vulnerable to being overwhelmed by sexual impulses. We shame women for not being better stewards of that supposed weakness. That shame doesn't just lead to unhealthy sexual relationships (including between husbands and wives); it leaves too many men feeling like potential predators and too many women feeling as if they're vain, shallow temptresses.

  I personally struggle with this idea and also know others on the male and female side and its something to consider. This isnt a license for men to gawk or woman to dress like a tempress, but an opportunity for those to engage in an open and honest dialogue. just my two cents.

Would you come and discourse?

In the world of politics, religion, mac vs pc, etc. it seems to me that society is pretty hit or miss on its "open-mindedness." Its funny because we get all riled up when another individual disagrees that your world view isnt the "right" one or that your phone has better apps than the other. To preface this, i disregard the idea of relativity since if someone can be wrong but there is no absolute truth when if there is a wrong answer there is always a right answer. A person may state then it depends on perspective. I believe we all agree murder is wrong, and not murdering is right - therefor its not a matter of perspective. Its a matter of courtesy, respect, and ministry. So what does this have to do with discourse? Everything! Are you willing to come and discourse with people? Honestly respect, listen, and let others speak into your life while you speak into theirs? A bigger question: Are you willing to even think? In the analogy or perspective of a Christian being "attacked" by an individual who disagrees, are you willing to discourse and think - realizing that this "attack" is a facade/wall and begin ministering to another? Likewise would the "attacker" take the time to listen and potentially think, and begin to see that maybe just maybe - this other person is trying to "minister" as best as they can and they legitimately care about you? That they are actually walking about what they believe and not being hypocritical? I use that example because it rarely happens but also because it can be at the times the most hurtful for both sides and thus becomes an even rarer experience because people dont discourse with each other or even broach the concept. I think one of the larger portions of something like this is that we as a group of people are genuinely open to ideas, thoughts, questions, etc. but we are afraid of scenarios of people being super upset and angry. Honestly, its not that bad. I've asked people on ski lifts what they think happens when they die, and it was a wonderful experience and I loved speaking with the random people I was able to. I've asked a elderly local man, and he seemed upset but that was because he was tired of "religious" people coming to his house all the time trying to convert him. I'd be upset too if I had random people who didt legitimately care about me stopping by my house all of the time. Its a terrible bother (I say this with 30% facetiousness). We then talked for 35 minutes about his home, woodworking, and traveling. He may have seemed upset, but he was willing to discourse with me. I would also submit that if you are tired of people knocking on your door, ask them what their story is. What was their childhood like? What brought them to your city? What was their favorite subject in high school? Sadly stuff like this may scare them away because some people just are not ready to have "personal" conversations. If you think this post is "so true! people need to chill out!" then you might be the most guilty of shutting others down. If you think this post is retarded then set that aside and begin to discourse with me in the comments section. If you feel trapped by two options, discourse or no discourse - dont be :)  - There are more than just two options.  

Dice Sweet Potato Appetizer or hashbrown alternative Recipe

So this is something I like to make a lot because its simple and its potato so its pretty cheap. This can be done with normal potatoes but I definitely prefer the taste of sweet potato.   Ingredients: 1 Diced sweet potato Olive Oil salt pepper basil cinnamon/sugar (the reason I dont give amounts is because not all potatoes are equal) Process: Preheat oven 400F Dice your potato into smallish cubes and then mix with some oil in a fairly large bowl so that all sides are covered but not smothered in oil. In a separate bowl mix together salt, pepper basil, cinnamon sugar. For measurement I would say 1 part salt, 1 part pepper, 1 part basil, 4 parts cinnamon-sugar. mix enough to cover but not smother your potatoes and slow mix it into the bowl with the potatoes. Once you have done that, put the cubed potato pieces on a cookie tray and bake for 5-20minutes, depending on the size of your cubes.   when done, taste awesomeness :)  

Simple Cubed beef for rice/mashed potato Recipe

Alright so This should/could be seved with rice and or mashed potatoes but I will not go into how to make either of this   Ingredients 2lb cubed beef 6 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 2cup milk 1 cup of oil 1 tablespood of pepper 1/2 tablespooon of salt 3 tablespoons of basil 1 tablespoon of itailian seasoning 5 cloves of garlic   Process: mix it all together, cook in skillet over low to medium heat till done. I say till done because some people like their meat differently. My biggest thing is DO NOT cook on high less you burn your sauce or over cook the meat so that it doesnt keep flavor. Marinading this together for an hour is also an option.

The forward thinking church?

what is it to have a forward thinking vision for your church? I observed an old style baptist church this last sunday. It was awesome, totally brought of back to my roots. One thing i observed was a ton of really creative retro fitting that looked really pretty clean and a normal paritioner would not notice. So I gauged the building at being 20+ years old. I found out it was over 50-years old.This made of awe at how well the upkeep was. I them asked how full it gets... They pretty much for the last 10 years have done 2 services and always about 3/4 full. On the surface this looks really good. I think its great in a lot of ways. There is one concern i have, what now? I also recently visited a local church that the body has been around for 20+ years and recently completed a new facility. it was a $7-million building. The max capacity was set to be about 500 people and before a split with the youth pastor, their congregation was at 400. Its now at about 200 people. What I'm curious for is why at 400 people in regular attendance would you consider making a building capacity at 500? I understand the idea of multiple services but that has its own set of problems and divisions among the young and old. In a time where the younger generation needs wisdom and guidance from the more spiritually mature congregation, it seems difficult to split those into two different service segments. I am not a pastor, architect or anything else besides a Communication graduate and web coordinator, so please take what I say with a grain of salt. I have been apart of ministries for the last 15 years and worked on the technical end for a vast majority of that. That being said, what happened to believing in long term miracles of revival and drastic increases of church attendance? I know every movement of God has been bathed in prayer more massively then we could have ever imagined but even past that we need to actually BELIEVE in that. Why do I stress that? Well I think we become caloused over the years to unanswered prayers when God really was answering but we just missed what He was really going for.  But the fact of the matter is, God wants to see His children return to Him, correct? If so then why are we not praying and expecting to God to act? If we are really saying we expect God to move, then why are we making buildings that cannot support the ministry that we believe and pray for? Its an entire paradigm shift to believe that way as well. And maybe you are just wanting to support the ministry you currently have and thats awesome, some buildings really are only made for a small group, so hey why not allow some chinese or russian or hispanic churches to meet in there too? Lets build each others ministries with the resources we currently have. Just a few thoughts. Post thoughts in the comments, I would love to continue this conversation because I really believe its important on more levels then we can imagine.

Why we need to re-think urban living and development

so, inherently this is something that comes to my mind pretty often. The main proponents and inspiration of this are Barb Chamberlain and James H Kunstler. As a result of Kunstler, Wal-Mart is also in this. Barb Chamberlain is a pretty involved individual in Spokane, WA. and is dedicated to making places bicycle friendly, technologically green, and to borrow from Kunstler- to create a place "worth caring about." Amidst this a big push of Barb's efforts are related to advocating biking (although I advocate longboarding), is to design, re-design, and build a city that is pedestrian and biking friendly. This would inherently have intense ripple effects and would impact every part of society. Everyone should follow her twitter account because she is really that cool. @barbchamberlain and her website is http://www.biketoworkbarb.blogspot.com/ . This could reduce obesity in the region, promote healthier environments (on the ground and air), and build a stronger sense of community. I don't believe the last one is as explicit as the others however, I believe as we strive to put people closer together, we are going to either have amazing communities that have positive impact or we will have more crime. I believe and would hope for thriving communities that could inherently build stronger interpersonal relationships with one another and by golly kids could actually play outside. Above these things though, I think we have to take it one step further into a different perspective and a step into the realization of what this really looks like. Now the above things hinge on two aspects – how far away we live from our job and how well we design our cities. These are not and cannot exist outside of each other and because of that, for any of this to work would be contingent on one thing. People willing to set aside their selfish images, beliefs and take one for the team. For an example, with Kunstler in mind, if say a designer who works in the heart of downtown Spokane says to himself, "I want a home that kind of has a suburb feel that has four bed rooms and two bathrooms, designed super modern," then he would potentially live 20-30 minutes away from the heart of downtown right? Now in perspective we deal with traffic, but this house location could be 20-30 miles away to reach a suburb or relatively country yet modern location to find and raise a family. However, for the example of Spokane, to get from river park square to the south east corner of the valley is about 12miles, 22+minute drive (without traffic). Now I'm not in the most awesome shape and due to my adverse relationship to bikes (I had a bad experience as a child), I would drive my 32mpg car. So every two days I would spend roughly $10 on gas. Please stay with me on this. That's close to $25 a week in gas just driving to work, a huge mortgage payment every month, headaches, and more construction in further areas because you might have 2+ kids who will want homes in 20 years. All of that just because you "wanted" or "needed" that house. You "believed" that you had to attain an "image" and it was all about "you." Sounds pretty selfish eh? Now you might say you have no other option, the city doesn't provide that kind of housing. This is true. That's where the other hinge has to come into play and Kunstler's ideas come in. We must design better urban sprawls because well, it doesn't fit the current need and over-population doesn't help either. This is where Wal-Mart parking lots could stay parking lots but, have structures that provide housing, or schools in an innovative format that is aesthetically pleasing. I may sound idealistic but how come we don't move closer to our jobs? Why don't we revamp River park mall as a giant condo community with stores on the bottom, condos on the top floor and use that whole middle space for a school? Oh you don't want to live that close to work? But what if you could walk 3minutes and have lunch with your son or daughter? Walk 5minutes and be home? Your first thought is, "But Adam, I want *insert desired noun or adjective*." That's nice, but when are you going to take one for the team? Take one for your family, city, and nation? When are you going to be willing to build a place "worth caring about?"

Anonymous, I appreciate you but careful yo

Anonymous just released its #opIran press releases and this weekend plans on setting up to occupy wall-street and camp there for a while. All the while I dont believe in all the methods and integrity they stand with, I agree in most of their campaigns. However with the recent crackdown by foreign authorities and our own government via the FBI, I wonder what the future holds. One thing as I look at the circumstances is that Anonymous needs to be leery of two things. The first I believe is that even though anonymous is supposedly a collective, which in some cases is true, however there is definitely a sub group of leaders and the second is that they are spreading everything pretty thin. Now I dont know know exactly these people do for a living, however the sub-group of leaders may need some time to relax and re-coup and retain their vision for what is going on. The worst thing that could happen is burn out and fatigue. Past that is going broke and being unable to actually do their own conceived work due to poor financial decisions. I know these people range from 16-60 years of age however I cannot help but wonder what their day occupation is. The second point I think is more serious due to the increase in activity not only of #operations but citizens arrested for participating. The more diversified and strangely un-united the efforts are, the less effective they will become in their efforts to make change. E.g. if you have a collective of 500 working on #opIran, but most of those want to work on different #ops, then their going to be down to maybe 200 people on #opIran and when you have 75 raids and 16 people arrested it can make #opIran a bit more difficult to make a difference and easier to trace with the lowered amount of people. The fix to this is to go back to the core #operationpayback and focus on 5 targets max as a much larger collective than to diversify into some many off branches. This would also hopefully reduce in-fighting as well but also retain the integrity of what #anonymous really is. In my mind, Anonymous is a societal watch dog for the American constitution and a force that does good amongst the nations, once they break past that, then I cant believe in their vision. Some Food for thought.