Free Ice Cream

it must be spring, the free ice cream is starting to roll out!  so, as a public service announcement, i am telling you to run, not walk, to your nearest ben & jerry's on april 29th....load up the kiddos, your friends and neighbors!  it's free, people!

New Book

my ever-other-sunday small group is starting a new book, and i am pretty excited about it.  while i have always considered myself an evangelical christian, i have often felt like the "party line" of evangelicals does not fit me.  in the politics realm anyway.  i identify with the evangelical movement in its desire to hold to the primacy of the scriptures, and its unwillingness to discount the hard passages just because they are hard or unpopular, and the idea that the good news of the gospel is being forgiven by and having a relationship with Jesus.  however, the political parcel that usually goes along with that (big business, death penalty, downplaying of social justice, environment, education) has always been hard for me to swallow.  

this book promises to address that idea, that there is a subset of devout christians out there who do not fall in line with the religious right, who believe deeply in the fundamentals of christianity, but don't necessarily think that God would vote for only one political party.  and, as well, that many of the sweeping social reforms that have occurred in this nation have had as their driving force a time of religious revival--women's sufferage, abolition of slavery, etc.

at least, it seems like it from the dust jacket.  :)  haven't read much yet. 

anyway, here it is--The Great Awakening:  Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, by Jim Wallis

image courtesy of good ol' amazon.com.  

anyone out there read it yet?  or relate to what i'm talking about?

edited to add an old-fashioned title and link, since the picture is apparently not showing up!

Sooo Handsome

ok, so i know it's been a while....

thanks to W and because we want to do our duty as good americans, we have used our soon-to-arrive tax stimulus package to finally upgrade our computer.  which means, posting will theoretically be easier.  and, in celebration i offer you:

Daniel's New Glasses!

these are circa january or so, but i couldn't get the old computer to do the pictures.  his eyes had been crossing pretty dramatically before we got them, but it seems to have corrected that.  we go in at the end of the month to see if he needs a new prescription (we've already changed it once).  meanwhile, i happen to think he is totally cute!