sad for the unknown

today i went to the memorial service for officer lee newbill who was killed in the shooting last weekend. the grief in the room was palpable and swept over all of us in slow and steady waves.
i experienced three things:
1) pride in being an american. it has been a long time (if ever) that i have felt this. i am grateful we live in a place that takes time to honor the fallen and to show appreciation for their sacrifice. i was honored and humbled in that moment to be a part of something bigger--and to be proud of my citizenship.
2) embarrassment for being a christian. the chaplain who gave the benediction did a severe disservice to officer newbill and to christianity. he turned the memorial of a great man into a chance to evangelize. it was disturbing and disgusting.
3) awe for the human heart. i was moved to tears time and time again through this memorial for a man i didn't even know. it is a strange sensation to grieve for someone you will not know. but the anecdotes and humor made me wish i had the opportunity. despite very dark circumstances, the ability of the human heart to love someone it has not known is amazing.

theological worldview quiz

i found out about this quiz that rates where you fall on a theological worldview scale. i was tied between "emergent/postmodernism" and "evangelical holiness/wesleyan". who knew that the methodist/wesleyan tradition of spu would influence me so greatly! oh how i miss my alma mater. anyhow, here is what it said:

You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.

Emergent/Postmodern		68%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan		68%
Roman Catholic		64%
Classical Liberal		61%
Neo orthodox		61%
Modern Liberal		46%
Charismatic/Pentecostal		36%
Reformed Evangelical		21%
Fundamentalist		11%

i am pretty grossed out that i scored so high on the fundamentalist scale. coming in second you see is roman catholic--wohoo!
everyone take the quiz and let me know your results...

processing the numbness

this morning at 2:30am i received a work call that there was a sniper inside or on top of the local presbyterian church in moscow shooting at the police station. waking from REM sleep to that is very confusing so my reaction was not panic. i thanked my co-worker for letting me know and told her we would stay in the house with the lights off as she directed.
when i woke up at 9:00 i called brandon (who is in montana) to let him know about the strange call and to pass on the info to his classmates. within ten minutes he called me back with the details as it was all over cnn.
fortunately for me kemi and mia were here visiting or i would have been very much alone and very much panicked. it is just too strange for me to even process that three people were killed in our little town.
we made the decision so stay inside for the night, but had we gone out for drinks and walked home we would have been literally in the line of fire. i am devastated for what went on, but also unnerved that all it would have taken is one of us to insist on going out.
now i am just feeling strange and surreal and numb. i wish brandon were home. i wonder how things will be at work tomorrow. i am afraid, not in the sense that i fear it will happen again, but afraid about the way our world is.

amazing days and happy photos

yesterday was an amazing day: i got a distinguished service award from my colleagues in the department (coming from those who selected me it is a high honor!), i was asked to be a model for a local kayaking company, i got a (small) raise at work, and i got to talk with my mom and best friends! what more could i ask for?

although yesterday was great, i feel our post is sorely lacking in the image department. i have no images of the events from yesterday, so here are some things that make me happy that have been going on lately:

this photo is of big sister nia and baby gabrielle. so cute! if only i could be near the barr-jeffryes all the days of my life. i miss them so terribly.



so these are the lovely tulips that bloomed to celebrate kemi and taryns' birth! such beauty for such beautiful girls. it was a wonderful weekend of flowers, mojitos, and girl time--oh, so needed after a five hour drive through wheat fields.

dead computer equals no posts

i must admit that starting a blog of our lives was a bad idea when i knew our "temporary" computer was going away soon--hence the lack of posts lately. our real computer is big d dead and the work computer of brandon's that we had had to go away.
we spent some time researching the computer we want (imac 17") last night and are convinced that is what we want to buy. but we are tired of buying things now and paying for them later. we really need to shake this attitude that debt is okay! so we are dilligently and patiently saving. okay, so the patient part comes and goes.
for now we are just trying to find some times to be together with this being finals week for brandon (and one exam for me with my online class) and closing weekend for me at work. but brandon leaves sunday for dillon, montana for three weeks so we are trying to enjoy the sunshine while we can.