Transformations

"If the world isn't what we want it to be, then what are we trying to conserve?"
- Martin Burt
(Executive Director, Fundacion Paraguaya)

Today I made the huge mistake of flipping down a channel from CNN to Fox where Glenn Beck was talking about some ridiculous thing (as usual) and charging his audience to beware because if they use the words social justice or economic justice "Your Churches are being used by Progressives as a tool in the fundamental transformation of America!" While this sounds like the paranoid rantings of a lunatic to me, it actually made me think...

What's wrong with transformation anyway?

I saw a statistic today that 74% of US citizens polled are dissatisfied with the direction our country is taking. As far as I can tell, that means Republicans and Democrats and just about everyone in between are pretty fed up with things these days. I think change is just what we need. So whatever your political views, I think most of us would agree, transformation is just about the best thing that could happen to our country and to the world.

Let's make it happen!

Woman of faith

If you have ever heard of the NieNie Dialogues blog then you probably already know the amazing story of Stephanie Nielson and her survival and recovery after a near-fatal plane crash. But whether you have heard her story before or not, this video is beautiful! She is an inspiring woman and an incredible example of faith, endurance and love.

TIP THE BUCKET!

Check out The Tipping Bucket!! This project is amazing and every dollar you can donate helps to make it possible. Watch this short video about the GREENHOUSE SCHOOL the Tipping Bucket it raising money to fund!



I was in Bolivia this past summer and I had the opportunity to visit some projects that had been done by the organization CHOICE Humanitarian. One of those projects was a greenhouse school like the one that The Tipping Bucket is raising money to build. Please go to the Tipping Bucket site and donate $1 today! (Or more if you can!) You can help children have a warm and learning conducive environment for school! This is a great opportunity for anyone to make a difference in the world!

Take it.

Here's a picture of my friends and me in the greenhouse school with the kids and their professor.


These are some of the plants that are growing in the Greenhouse classroom. The kids help take care of them.

My friend Doug and I with the CHOICE Humanitarian staff in Bolivia!

Visiting a woman and her daughter using water from a CHOICE Humanitarian water project--one of many they have constructed in the Altiplano. It makes so much difference in these people's lives!

So here's the deal--CHOICE Humanitarian does great work. I've seen it with my own eyes! And Tipping Bucket is helping this them get the funding to make these projects possible. YOU WANT TO BE A PART OF THIS! So, one more time, here's the website: tippingbucket.org. Donate whatever you can--$1 makes a difference!

Thank YOU!

This really means a lot to me and to a lot of amazing people in Bolivia who are hoping to give their children a brighter future!

the best books

A thought for today-the importance of reading good literature. Yes. I'm an English major. What can I say?

"It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else's shoes and understand the other's different and contradictory sides and refrain from becoming too ruthless. Outside the sphere of literature only one aspect of individuals is revealed."
-Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

"I choose to write about my experience not because it is mine, but because it seems to me a door through which others might pass. . . I want to speak directly out of my own life into the lives of others"
- Scott Russell Sanders, "The Singular First Person"

As the summer is fast approaching, I am starting to get excited to have a bit more time for personal reading. If anyone has suggestions for me, PLEASE tell! I'm always excited to hear what other people are reading!

A few suggestions from me to you:
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
Solar Storms by Linda Hogan
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Hunting for Hope by Scott Russell Sanders
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones
Paradise by Toni Morrison
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

The Kite Runner (and) A Thousand Splendid Suns byKhaled Hosseini

“seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom”
Doctrine and Covenants 88:118

lovely . . . dreams

Today was BEAUTIFUL


The sun was shining
The birds were chirping
The flowers were blossoming on the trees
and filling the air with the sweet sent
of SPRING.

It was glorious.

It was also FINALS.

Sometimes I'm not a fan of irony.

photos fromweheartit

Addict-able

There is a reason I don't watch TV. . .


It has to do with the fact that I don't want to be obsessed...
and it is oh so easy to get caught up. At least for me.


Last night we watched "Glee" in my apartment. And I liked it. And the music was quite good. But then...

Today I found myself wondering what was going to happen to Rachel, and if she would figure out that this evil James kid was a lying jerk, and if she would date this other boy Finn (I think that's his name).

I was actually worried about a fictional character on TV.

I am not okay with this. I love to be enveloped by stories--that is one of the joys of reading good literature. But TV is different-

it pulls you in and then. . .
you are a slave to its time schedule
and you buy the seasons
and watch them over and over
and then your brain turns to mush!

I've seen it happen to too many people to fall for that trap!

ok. ok. that may be a slight exaggeration, but I still don't want to get sucked into the world of TV series. I escaped it after two seasons of "The Office" and I will escape "Glee" too. The truth is, I just don't have the time. There are just too many other things I want to do!

The advantages of an onion

A delicious addition to spaghetti sauce
or quesadillas, fajitas and stir fry.
An essential for soups and stews.
Quite useful for feigning emotion
or bringing an entire room to tears
or perhaps blinding an enemy--you never know when that might come in handy.

For some reason I had the sudden urge to buy an onion today. They just seem so practical and delicious! Seriously!

It has been years since I have really cared much for onions, but there was a phase in my life when I ate them all the time. I loved to put onion on sandwiches and in salads. I habitually cooked onions and ate them with almost any meal--I especially loved onions cooked with zucchini (my very favorite veggie!). But then onions lost their appeal. Suddenly they seemed too strong; too potent and harsh. My delicate palate could only handle them in small doses hidden amongst other foods. Then I came to college and started buying food for myself, but dear old onion never made it into the cart. And slowly, he was forgotten.

But that is about to change. On my next trip to the store the onion will have a place of honor in the front of the cart. I have great plans for this pungent friend--oh the miraculous meals that I will make! I am so very glad to have my eyes opened once again to the advantages of this oft misunderstood root.

In honor of this joyous occasion I shall share with you a poem I read a few years that speaks of this dear vegetable in much more elegant words I can summon. . .

"Onions"
by William Matthews

How easily happiness begins by
dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter
slithers and swirls across the flow
of the sauté pan, especially if its
errant path crosses a tiny stick
of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions.

This could mean soup or risotto
or chutney (from the Sanskrit
chatni, to lick). Slowly the onions
go limp and then nacreous
and then what cookbooks call clear,
though if they were eyes you could see

clearly the cataracts in them.
It's true it can make you weep
to peel them, to unfurl and to tease
from the taut ball first the brittle,
caramel-colored and decrepit
papery outside layer, the least

recent and reticent onion
wrapped around its growing body,
for there's nothing to an onion
but skin, and it's true you can go on
weeping as you go on in, through
the moist middle skins, the sweetest

and thickest, and you can go on
in to the core, to the bud-like,
acrid, fibrous skins densely
clustered there, stalky and in-
complete, and these are the most
pungent, like the nuggets of nightmare

and rage and murmury animal
comfort that infant humans secrete.
This is the best domestic perfume.
You sit down to eat with a rumor
of onions still on your twice-washed
hands and lift to your mouth a hint

of a story about loam and usual
endurance. It's there when you clean up
and rinse the wine glasses and make
a joke, and you leave the minutest
whiff of it on the light switch,
later, when you climb the stairs.



"Onions" by William Matthews cited from The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry Second Edition edited by J.D. McClatchy (2003). Vintage Books: New York. Pages 491-492.