Rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag some friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what books my friends choose (as well as pick up suggestions for my reading list). To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your 15 picks, and tag people in the note – upper right hand side).

i am putting these in order, according to how much they’ve impacted my life, by category.  hopefully i haven’t left any out!

theology:
1.  The Bible (because it was written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit and is applicable for everything)
2.  The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning (perhaps the best book i’ve ever read on God’s grace, and perhaps the best book i’ve ever read.  and i still have 100 pages left.)
3.  The Shack by William Paul Young (i love the raw, yet tender, portrayal of one man’s struggle with God and how Young captures the character of the Trinity)
4.  Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (classic logical exposition of the Christian faith)
5.  Justification by N.T. Wright (i’m about 2/3 through this one but it’ll stay high on the list for now.  wright exposes justification as a courtroom term and contextualizes this concept dealt with in paul’s letters.  a subtle and delicate argument but crucial for unraveling some of the faults of the reformation that have infiltrated Christianity today, such as the imputed righteousness John Piper defends.  stresses the importance of God’s grace reconciling the whole world, as well as the importance of Israel to the church.  calls out what a lot of us unknowingly accept and believe and outlines the implications)
6.  Dogmatics in Outline by Karl Barth  (classic systematic theology read; explains different tenets of the Christian faith)
7.  Is the Bible Intolerant by Amie Orr-Ewing (answers all those questions you have about the God of the Old Testament vs. God of the New Testament, War in the Bible, the historicity of scripture, etc)
8.  What’s So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey (another amazing look at God’s grace and how it’s not always what we expect it to be)
9.  Healing by Smith Wigglesworth  (never underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit)
10.  The Invisible War by Chip Ingram (tools for recognizing satan’s attacks and fighting the forces of evil)
11.  The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning (Manning recounts incredible stories and theology of God’s love and passionate pursuit of us)
12.  How to Develop a Powerful Prayer Life by Gregory Frizzell (opens your eyes to the structure and content of your prayer life and suggests ways to make your prayer life more impacting)

classics
13.  A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle  (my first favorite book, my first glimpse into theology and fiction)
14.  Lord of the Flies by William Golding (i frequently find myself referencing the social psychology presented in this work)
15.  Hamlet by Shakespeare (madness!  is hamlet an idiot or brilliant?)

contemporary fiction
16.  Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling  (my all time favorite series.  a new classic, if you ask me.  i have them all in hardback for my children to read one day).  i know that makes 16 but i can’t leave out harry.

remember that episode of friends where monica and chandler arrange to secretly get away for the weekend because no one knows they’re dating (well, except joey) and they want some time to themselves?  remember how monica wants to keep switching hotel rooms because she finds something wrong with every one they go to (lipstick on the glasses, funky carpet, etc)?  then chandler flips on tv and gets hooked on a car chase as some guy has fled across the country with cops and helicopters hightailing him.  i always sided with monica because she wanted to spend time with chandler and here he was getting addicted to something stupid on tv.

that was until i saw my first car chase on tv yesterday.  (well, i saw oj in the bronco way back when but i was really too young to remember much about it).  apparently some guy in dallas got it in his mind to leave the gas station without paying, and drove off.  that turned into him getting followed by cops, dodging spike strips, avoiding getting tipped by the cop car as he turned corners, and maneuvering around cars and trucks on the interstate south of dallas.  my favorite part was how this criminal consistently used his blinker to change lanes.  as he racked up jail time in the two hour pursuit, i got hooked into seeing how things would pan out.  a few minutes went by.  i checked my farmville to ‘be productive.’  i waited a little longer, glued to the f-150 and thinking how ford was getting a great ad campaign for their gas mileage out of this guy.  i got changed to go work out.  still chasing.  SIX TIMES the guy narrowly missed the cops trying to tip him, which would cause him to spin out.  oh, and did i mention his rear left tire was running on the rims?  it was crazy.  about an hour in, my conscience that was trying to tell me to go workout kicked in.  i’ll see the rest at the gym, i told myself.  they have tv’s there.  then things got interesting.  a police truck somehow got in front of the guy.  the guy tried to pass him on both sides but every time he moved, the police truck in front countered.  he was pinned in from behind by 9 more cop cars.  then, in one last attempt to spin him out, the cop car behind him swerved at the corner of the f-150 and the deviant truck spun out into the median, which turned out not only to be a big, grassy ditch, but one with a huge mud puddle in the bottom.  i’m pretty sure i began to cheer.  as the truck sank into the texas mud, the crimnal was approached from many angles with pointed ammo and angry cops.  he went peacefully and the chase ended just as quickly as it had begun.

Monica: We’re supposed to, uh, be spending a romantic weekend together. What is the matter with you?
Chandler: I just want to watch a little television. What is the big deal? Jeez, relax mom.
Monica: What did you say?
Chandler: I said, “Jeez, relax Monnn.”

so i ran across an interesting book the other day at barnes and noble (aka “the barn” “b&n” or whatever fun name you call it).  i love barnes and noble.  the book is called “the new atheism” by victor stenger.  i picked it up because dad tells me you should always know the enemy.  (to be clear, atheists aren’t the enemy, but those pushing atheism are, to people of faith who want to share their faith).  so i flipped through and read a few paragraphs.

one of the main points purported in the book is that people of faith (any faith) are often well-respected and even given special recognition or standing in society.  think of the pope or dalai lama, or just the average muslim or christian offering prayers.  people tend to revere people of faith.  stenger says that society is ridiculous for doing this because people of faith believe in something they can’ t see, and because they can’t see it, it is not verifiable (scientifically, of course), and their thinking (or believing, rather) is illogical. “After all,” he writes, “faith is belief in the absence of supportive evidence and even in light of contrary evidence” (45).  (tell me, mr. stenger, where is the contrary evidence for atheism?  i digress..)  he goes on to say that such people should NOT be revered in society in any way, and even further exclaims that in some cases (who decides which?) they should be condemned.

stenger quotes christopher hitchens, “if one must have faith in order to believe something, or believe in something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished” (46).  sigh.  such subjectivity for an objectivity-obsessed philosophy!  we can’t measure love or anguish, so these things must have no value.  come ON guys, at least play by your own rules.  hitchens must not even value the very chair he sat on while writing that or else overlooked his own faith in the chair’s ability to hold him.

setting aside hitchens, i want to focus on this sad concept of condemning the faithful.  to get this right, the 1% of americans who are athiests want to box in the majority of americans who have faith and tell them they cannot be the least respected and in some cases, even tolerated.  not only is THAT illogical, it just goes to show that the new rise of atheism stems from intolerance and hatred.

my experience with these kinds of books (think “God delusion” by richard dawkins) is that they are replete with emotional (and mostly illogical) rants, anger, and hate.  doesn’t sound like a great way to live, or even a good cause to take up.  makes me wonder if they’re mad at God or religion or believers.  who knows.  but it’s a sad way to exist, if you ask me.

chuck and i are in a fight.  i came out of my apartment today to discover that he had relocated his entire web to the frame of my door.  i literally walked under him (mind you he is like 4-inches across) and his masterpiece of a web and turned around, locked the door, and as i looked back on the way down the hall realized his hovering presence.  he must’ve suspected my blogpost about him yesterday.  so he did all he could to get back–write all over his web and post it all over my door in spider-ish.  chuck the writing spider is plotting on me.  he could have so easily fallen onto my head or gotten me entangled in his web when i passed through the doorframe, unsuspecting.  i was disgusted and in such disbelief that i actually had more to add to the chuck saga other than the post i wrote yesterday, which was intended to be a one-time thing.  but no, chuck saw to that.  so i scoured the bushes outside for a stick and eventually found one and took revenge.  no, i didn’t kill chuck.  that would be mean.  (besides, writing spiders aren’t poisonous or harmful.  they’re actually kind of pretty).  i just knocked his fancy little web down and all his writing he’d been working on all day.  it was the equivalent of the blue screen of death for the spider’s world today.  click click, deleted.

so for the past few weeks i’ve had a katydid that’s been camping out over my doorway outside my apartment.  we have a good relationship.  i let the katydid chill out and look pretty and green, and she leaves me alone and doesn’t go flapping her massive buggy wings in my hair or anything.  over the last few days, however, we’ve had a new companion move into the hallway.  a writing spider.  i don’t know if most people have seen them, but we had them when i lived in mobile and one would sit outside my window writing all day.  it’s called a writing spider because it weaves a zigzag pattern into its web.  quite fascinating and, in a way, elegant.  it’s not brown and fuzzy like a nasty woods spider; it’s more spindly and elongated (yet still huge).  i kind of take its presence as a good luck charm (not that i believe in luck because i don’t), but it’s friendly as long as it remains outside.  i think i’ll name him chuck.  i wonder how he’ll fancy katy.

hello readership (all 2 of you)

you probably thought that i had forgotten all about my blog, but for a variety of reasons i’ve just had to take a break from it for awhile.  i think now, however, i may try to kick it back into gear.  congratulations–i knew you’d be elated.

a few things i’ll share with you that i’ve learned recently

1.  fried oreos are actually drops of heaven sent to earth so that we can fix our thoughts on God while in the “already-not yet”.  consider it modern-day manna, if you will

2. rain can be a good thing.  we’ve had about 12 days of rain here in atlanta (with 7 more to come) and while the effects of bad drainage and roads etc are wreaking havoc in places, it is soothing to me and represents the washing and cleansing of the earth.  not to mention helping us get out of the drought we’ve been in.  sometimes God’s timing is not our timing, but we did pray for rain a long while back, and, well, here it is.  batten down the hatches

3. the Lord is so good.  trust him, count on him, go all in, and he’ll show up.  just wait and see.  i love the Bible study i’m doing and how it says that faith increases faith.  Jesus said, “according to your faith, it will be done to you.”  i think oftentimes we miss out (and the church misses out) because we lack faith.  not just faith in God but faithfulness to God.  absolute and total surrender, over and over again.  it’s a process, and that’s ok.  the point is to keep going.  believe and keep on believing!

that’s all for now.

hola readership!

i realize it’s been awhile.  who knew january would be so busy?  we had a lock in at the church, we started studying esther in my high school girls’ small group, phoebe got an infection in her chin and got treated with kitty amoxicillin, and i had an amazing birthday with some of the best friends ever.

one of my favorite highlights of the last few weeks was a concert i went to with chris.  i love concerts but don’t get to them too often these days.  atlanta isn’t on the trail for a lot of my favorites, but i do my best to catch them when they’re here.

so imagine this:  you have two favorite bands/artists.  for whatever reason, the lead singer of one decides to join with the lead guitarist of the other to create a temporary band/side project!  i told my mom it’d be like elvis meets jackson brown or for my dad the beach boys meets randy travis.  or for chris, shane and shane meets more shane.   for me, this unbelievable treat to the ears came in the form of Jon Foreman of Switchfoot + Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek.  two incredibly talented musicans and lyricsts on ONE stage.  mind you, we had to go to little five points and have beyond sketchy experiences with parking attendants to make this happen, but it was one of the best concerts i’ve been to in awhile.  we also stayed out super late and had the great company of one of our students and his brother to share the experience with.  it’s always fun to share the love of music with others.

so, if you’re at all remotely interested, check out “Fiction Family,” the side project of Jon Foreman and Sean Watkins.  it’s quirky for sure, but what else can you expect when you combine mellow California rock with harmonic bluegrass?   check it out.

and happy valentine’s day!

http://www.popeater.com/music/article/michael-jackson-in-need-of-new-lungs/284342

Apparently singer Michael Jackson needs some healing, health-wise.  I don’t know how reliable this source is, but the article is worth checking out.  I really feel sorry for him–he looks miserable and his health issues must be troubling.  I guess I had always held out for another album one day (as I was a big Dangerous fan back in the day), but it looks like his singing days are over, as he can barely even speak as a result of a genetic disease.

Dad sent me this and I thought it was fun.  Test your caroling knowledge!http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/offbeat/carolquiz,0,4294580.triviaquiz

ok, so i don’t know much about “blogging” per se, but i’ve decided to give it a go as a way of putting my random thoughts into some sort of meaningful structure. 

the title of my blog comes from an adaptation of a line from the hymn “come thou fount,” in which the author cries out for the Lord to seal his wandering heart:  prone to wander, Lord i feel it / prone to leave the God i love / here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it / seal it for Thy courts above.  while i am, of course, prone to wander from the Lord in my sinful waywardness, i know that my belief in Christ makes me pure and holy, that i am secure in my salvation.  my hope is in Him all day long. 

as i rest in the comfort i find in Jesus, i find that i am prone to  a new kind of wonderment:  wondering about Him and His creation and the world around me.  and so, i am “prone to wonder.”  these words that i jot down are glimpses and glimmers of things that catch my eye, my attention, or my heart.  some will be serious; some will be silly.  some will be meaningful; some will be meaningless.  mostly i expect to just enjoy having a space to ramble and ponder. 

before i conclude, i issue a few fair warnings.. 1) i process things externally, so if i’m writing it out, it may not mean i’m solid on it, just processing (i.e., not yet come to a conclusion).  2) i tend to have strong opinions but will aim to be respectful and Christlike in any and all discussion, expecting the same of my readers.  3) i love to write.  but i have felt my creativity stifled since high school for the sake of well-thought-out theses and presentations, so if i get abstract or poetic, please bare with me.  it’s my creative side peeking through for the first time in a long time.  4) i like writing in all lower-case.  i’m sorry if this bothers you but it’s a signature thing of mine i suppose.

thanks for reading, and see you in the blogosophere!