If you buy Hershey’s or ever have, please take the time to read this and decide for yourself if you should continue to do so.

It’s sad, and bittersweet, but it looks like until they can change their practices I am off on a quest for a chocolate peanut butter concoction that can rival that dang egg. PLEASE, let me know if you have any suggestions.

I feel that somehow all of these are strangely connected. Based in a society that thrives on pointing out flaws and living on broken systems and never wanting to realize something better. In reality it seems that our plight for individual happiness has made us more upset, judgmental, and unhappy than ever. Our fringe groups bash other systems for having no control over their totalitarian terrorist government regimes then accuse Obama of being Hitler? Do they even know or realize that in these other countries the government bodies are actually the ones doing the raping and pillaging? And I’m not just talking money.

In light of all this it seems highly critical and narcissistic for so many people (Americans really) to be focusing on their own likes/dislikes, i.e. judgments, as the only approach to something. Showing no room for compromise or deliberation points to a God complex of being all knowing, which I can’t say I know of any one person who is even close.

Not only does individual effort have to be made to stop the judgments from coming from our own mouths, but a cry of prayer to our Father for intercession and a global softening of hearts towards others who may be different from ourselves. Sound like a big enough task? It is. But just asking God to change our hearts and looking at everything through the lens of our Father God is a massive start.

The deprivation of our world is only made more apparent by our autocratic need to look out for only ourselves or those like us.

As I look around I see a lot of stuff. My books are my prize possessions, but clothing, lotions, earrings, they are all lying around in superflous amounts. I need to share! Just a reminder to pull all of your stuff together and give it to someone who needs it! Sometimes staying in your own little bubble prohibits this, and honestly pregnancy makes that all the more easy. But, this week has taught me to look past myself and see the bigger things (i.e. not always me!). Okay not ever me. So, give it away. This is going to be one of my little projects over the next two weeks. I usually give to Partners Against Domestic Violence or Salvation Army, but I might just post it or give it to some lovely ladies that give me a shout out. Whoever you give it to, don’t hoard, let a little air in your house! Anyone have any fave organizations to give to?

I don’t begin to think this is an easy issue. I also know that the political and historical climates in many countries that are impoverished are limited not only by the lack of technology but by the very governments that control them. It’s just interesting to think that research has shown sociologists that the very technologies that causes countries like the U.S. and Japan to thrive are the reason that others are floundering. Just a reminder to always think outside the box, remember all the people Jesus died for on the cross, not just the ones in your line of vision, and live the life that Christ gave you in way that is free from slavery to anything.

Just my thoughts, sometimes they don’t even flow together too nicely, but I hope and pray Jesus was a part of them. I think He was.

I pray that my child will see the beauty in something like this. Beauty in togetherness, equality in make and spirit, and most significantly mercy for all.

Taken at a hopeful “New Day” rally

There was one that read, “Please do not take my parents at Christmas.” How far will the raids go in separating not only families, but taking away humanity? I am not promoting a society where no one gives retribution for their actions, but delve a little deeper into the immigration issue and you will learn that most of the grossly unfair treatment lies on the side of the immigrant. I am sure you would agree if ever you should be put in their place. Thank God we have a Savior who operates differently than this government.

Moreso, if you are a music lover check out what Storyville is doing with CoffeeHouse Live.

Awesome opportunities to give and be a part of something are all around us. We just have to find them.

I teach. It has not been who I am but what I do. Because who I am has been a friend, someone who realized her own naiveté, someone who has been taught.

This semester two students in different families have been separated from loved ones by deportation. In one case I know that a young man was held at a deportation facility for weeks, barely eating and working full days manual labor being paid $4 a day. He is now an adult but was brought here by a family member several years ago. Several family members, including his baby girl, remain here in Georgia.

I just can’t believe this is the right way to solve the immigration issues. The truth is that in 1996 Georgians wanted the large influx of immigration. It provided cheaper labor before, during, and after the Olympic games and the economy benefitted from the population increase. Several years later and the economy is in a downturn, people begin singing a different tune. So I ask you to consider the humanity. I ask you to consider our (the U.S.’s) part in the situation, and consider what you might do to help.
Click here to read more about the situation from a faith perspective and info on what you can do to help.

The Forgotten Tour sponsored by Making Him Famous and Pecuilar Place. Check it out.

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.
- – Dom Helder Camara, former Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Brazil

Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is now considered the world’s worst dictator. From most accounts he has completely turned his back on the practices going on in his country. Frequent rapings and pillaging of women have left some too scared to talk to anyone. Once the government is spoken out against, it is almost certain someone will come looking for them. This has happened in the Congo. I am sure it has happened around the world where people know the world won’t come running. It seems there is so much red tape all around. Would it be this way if those atrocities were being performed right in the good ol’ US of A. I would like to think not. But even more than that I know not. And I wonder why that is. Why did our founders put certain faith and understanding in human life that others around the world have not? And why is it our job to stick our noses into terrorism that only affects us if we really believe this to be true. I would like to think of ourselves as leaders, but I am forced into thinking of our country as more of posers.  We strike the pose that we believe in the value of human life, yet only this week was Omar al-Bashir brought up on any charges concerning the situation that has happened and is happening in Sudan. How long has it gone on? Years and years, and only now is the world beginning to acknowledge it in any way that can bring justice. This must change.

I think women must stand together and speak out against these atrocities. I think that women must decide our own fates, where we may, and they must be wrapped up and soaked in helping others. This is a belief I have that is all at once entangled in my faith and not, because I know who we are meant to be and what we are worth in Jesus, but I also know the worth of a human life. And although the two might be mutually exclusive I understand the world’s religious system that makes it not so and hard to say. So that chance has to be given and we have to be grabbing our opportunities by the horns as they say. Mine is only beginning. I don’t know quite who I am or where I am going to be but it’s not a scary place that I have been imagining. It is a place of hope and freedom and the giving of mercy that Christ so readily gave to me.

I know this is a jumbled mess of emotions, but I feel that we have to get the word out. If you don’t know about Zimbabwe, the Congo, or Sudan, please do some reading, and share with others. Then maybe together we can figure out a way to help and continue speaking out, although we are far away.