bread&tea

The body of Christ is an exciting thing to be a small part of. I think that the unity that comes from the true church is a good contributor to that excitement. Excitement with the visibility of unity in a group of people, even despite frequent discouraging factors. What causes disjointed, non-harmonized groups? Lots of things. Off the top of my head, color, accent, humors, personalities, gender, race, personal attributes and weaknesses, and cultural differences. I'm sure there are more, but these already present a tough obstacle to overcome. Yet believers in Christ band together, and can work with surprising efficiency and unity, while other groups simply disintegrate. How? And Why? Because Christ is the focus. If every action, thought, and movement is Christ centered, then unity cannot help but be there. When every group members goal is Jesus as number one, it's not so hard to trust one another without any previous knowledge of who they are. When strangers come together with ...

I've been wanting to watch this movie since I heard about it coming out, and Thursday night I finally got to watch it with my family. I'm happy to say I don't regret watching it. First off, let me say that since this blog is not a movie review spot, this, and any future movie reviews will be automatic recommendations of mine for watching. Of course, your own discernment upon these recommendations is assumed, and the point of any reviews is to show what I like and don't like about the film, as well as to convince you to watch it. This is my first movie review, so I'm pretty excited about writing it, as well as dreading the realization that sometime down the line I'll end up coming back, and lamenting about how poorly it is written. Ah well, for better or worse, here we go. Marley & Me is predominately about marriage, as far as I can tell. The movie goes to places like the choice of a stay-at-home mom versus a career mom, the pressures of being a one-woman man...

As a general heads-up, I have the privilege to be a counselor for Bethany Camp this month of June. This is a summer camp only at the time, focused on Exira, Iowa area. Because of this and two other trips, I'm not going to be home for the vast majority of June. So I probably won't get many posts in this month. I hope to get at least one post a week though, when I come home between camp age groups. Here are some riddles for you to solve in the meantime, just for fun. They vary in difficulty, and I put them somewhat in what I think is increasing difficulty the farther down they are. Answers are in the comments, if you really get supremely stumped. I challenge you to solve them all without looking at the answers though! Have fun :-) 1 - Where will you find roads without cars, forests without trees and cities without houses? 2 - I have no voice and yet I speak to you, I tell of all things in the world that people do. I have leaves, but I am not a tree, I have pages, but I am n...

As much as I now appreciate sunrises, sunsets still hold more sway with me. Most importantly, it's a lot easier to be awake to see them. Building on that, it's also a lot easier to think during them :-) To get right out with it, sunsets are just another way I witness God's glory; as is so in many other situations. The fact is, I cannot get over how beautiful, intricate, and gorgeous sunsets are so often. And maybe it's cliche, but the fact is I cannot get over how beautiful, intricate, and gorgeous the God who paints the sunset is. Here's something to try the next time you watch a sunset. Look for a few moments and then look away. Try to picture the sunset in your mind. Now here's the best part, look back at the sunset! It's so much better than what my mind can remember, that it's like being amazed all over again. While that is fun in an earthy sense, I find that I look away from the sunset all to often, for an earthy reason. I like to think that God le...

I'm not the type of person that gets up early enough to see the sunrise. Because of that, I've seen very few sunrises in my life, and none of them seemed to amazing. This only dampened future efforts to observe the sunrise. However, a few nights ago I was camping outside and having a hard time sleeping. When I looked up, the sky was a gorgeous red. Due to grogginess, it took awhile to process what this meant. My thoughts went something like this. "Bluh....wait, wha? Why is the sky red? It's five-thirty....it can't be the sunse...whoa! That's the sunrise!" Since I couldn't sleep anyway, I decided to watch the show in full screen mode, by a tree. It wasn't to cold, but there was a chill wind. My solution? Turn my construction-worker orange and black mummy style sleeping bag upside down, and wrap that around myself like a coat. Worked like a charm. Still, I was hoping no one would go by on the gravel road and mistake me for a giant orange mutant cater...

So to continue, previously I said that a lot of homeschooling strengths are also its weaknesses. There is a lot of freedom in how to use the time in homeschooling, and this is really what makes or breaks the system. See, you either (a) are able to use that time efficiently, or (b) everything falls flat. Choosing good curriculum for courses is a part of being able to use the time well, but it is vital to not go overboard with all the options available. It's a jungle out there and the student needs a simple machete, not a chainsaw. Maybe that didn't make any sense, so let me try again. The basics are math, language, science, history, and a few others. These are the framework of the education tower, but by choosing too constricting of a course, or by being overly controlling, that tower quickly turns into a pillar, full of coursework. A pillar is a whole lot less fun to climb. And when it's not fun, you might still do it, but you probably won't like it. If you don't l...

Tis' Graduation time! I, fortunately and unfortunately, have one more year yet. While I was thinking of my friends graduating this year, I came around to musing on the differences between public and homeschool educations. Many people, upon finding that I'm homeschooled, ask how it works, and what the advantages and disadvantages are, and so on. I therefore decided to have a go at explaining some of this subject. If you are interested in some of how homeschooling works, stay tuned! While I don't know all the ins and outs of the two, here are some things to think about, if you want. Homeschooling certainly has some big strengths going for it's benefit, but interestingly enough, a lot of homeschooling strengths can turn around and become the biggest cripplers as well. Foremost, the time available. Both education systems have all day. But public education, because of the many students, works with a fairly rigid, linear learning path. There's nothing wrong with that real...