Just for Fun

Slow Blog Week

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

I’m doing a lot of moving around the city and country this week, not to mention I have a really good friend from Richmond visiting all this week (and longer perhaps), so I’m not going to be as frequent with the blog this week (if at all). Sorry I’m a little late in getting this out. But, good things are in store in the weeks ahead: I want to get back to my Bible Study blogs, I have an article I’m working on for By Whose Authority?, and I have some posts in the works for this site that are a little more substantive than I’ve been posting recently. Also, I’ll be moving some of the Creation/Evolution discussion from Reform & Revive over to this site.  So, check back next week and I’ll be back in full swing.

Hopefully.  Bur in the meantime . . .

My Fav Monday #1: What will it be?

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Well, it’s Monday, so it’s time for My Fav Monday, my new weekly post where I plug or review one of my favorite things. I’ve been thinking all week what would be the first thing I would talk about to kick this whole thing off. I had some ideas early yesterday: a podcast, TV show, or musician, perhaps?

me & wawaAnd then I got some lunch. And I saw it. And it was then I knew what I was going to write about.

Wawa Eggnog.

It only comes out for a few months out of the year, but when it does, I go kind of crazy. Seriously, it’s one of the best drinks I’ve ever had and every year it’s as good as the year before. No joke. It’s so thick and creamy and not too “noggy”. It comes in two varieties: Original and Pumpkin Spice. The latter is good to at least try once in your life, but really, Original is where it’s at.

Every year my brother and I have a bonding moment over our mutual love for this fine delicacy. We almost grow physically ill while we’re home with our parents from ingesting so much dairy. And it’s worth every bit of it. So drop by your Wawa today and pick up some of it to try. Or, if you are in Philadelphia and have never had it before, I’d be glad to buy you your first one.

Future posts in this weekly series will be more substantive, don’t worry. Next week I’ll probably plug a podcast. Which one? We’ll see.  Maybe I’ll hide a hint somewhere in this post.

A Few of My Favorite Things (intro to My Fav Mondays)

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

First off – yes, I know it’s Tuesday.

With that out of the way: now that the epic Beauty series is done, what on earth am I going to do with my blogging time? Well, I want to bring in some structure. If you look to the sidebar on the right, and scroll down a little bit (not yet!) you will see a section containing my favorite “Reads”, “Listens”, and “Watches”. I really want to start promoting those things. So, I hereby introduce:

My Fav Mondays

Every Monday, I will take another podcast, website, TV Show, Musical artist, or book and write about it. I’ve been wanting to support and plug these things for a while now, and this blog is a perfect platform on which to do that. It’s something that may be actually helpful to you, the reader, and these are topics I am naturally passionate about. It’s a win-win. So, starting next Monday, I will begin what I hope becomes a popular ritual for us all. What will I review first? Who knows? Heck, I don’t even know. Until then . . .

You may now view the sidebar.

i made it on Derek Webb’s homepage!

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

webb shot

Well, that was exciting.  I noticed a huge jump in visits to my site and saw that I was getting traffic from Derek’s main page.  So, I jumped over there and saw that he has a blog feed going.  It linked to the article I wrote last week on his thoughts on art in a recent interview.  No doubt the feed just crawls the web for keywords and puts up links to any ol’ page that finds his name in the title.  I doubt he has actually read any of my stuff.  So far I only know of one “celebrity” that’s commented here.

But still, I thought it was cool.  My little 15 minutes . . .

btw- “Beauty” part 9?  On the way in a few minutes.

uh…about that article I talked about yesterday…

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Some may have read my post yesterday about my upcoming article on GoingToSeminary.com.  Well, I also mentioned that the site was changing servers all day yesterday, and in the process they lost a few articles . . . including mine.

They’re still down with posting it, I just need to send it to them, which I am about to do right now (here’s a lesson for all you bloggers out there: always do your writing in some other program and save a copy on your hard drive).  But, this being the case, I have no idea when it will actually go up.  Hopefully in the next couple of days.

But not today.  I’ll let you all know when it does.  And . . . I am currently working on the next Beauty post to put up in the next hour or so.  See you then!

–paul

Controversy, Controversy, Controversy at GoingToSeminary.com

/ Paul Burkhart / 8 Comments

old lady

Update: The two posts mentioned in this article are now up. “Letting Seminary Doctrinally Change You” and “Seminaries & the Nature of Truth“.

Yep, it’s a double-post sort of day.  (let’s just say I’m making up for Labor Day.)  But this is a personal one.  I’m asking for some prayer.

At publication time for this post, the site GoingToSeminary.com is currently changing servers, so it’s down.  It was just bought by the somewhat Lutheran and fully online Rockbridge Seminary, sold by my good friend (and former campus minister) Ryan Burns of Design Simple.

As some of you know, I am a Contributor for the site, and my articles have tended to be pretty weighty.  I don’t know why.  It hasn’t been purposeful.  I suppose when I think of seminary it tugs at my urgent pastoral heart more than the light, fun, twentysomething heart; and this has been evident in the posts.  From what I can tell, my last article “Realizing Seminary’s Not For You” has received more comments than any other single article that I can find on the site, and those comments were fiery.  I got blasted from every side (and defended by many – thank you all, by the way).  A couple of people even compared me to an unfaithful Israelite who saw the giants in the Promised Land and got scared.  Another, in light of my severe disappointment in Westminster Theological Seminary as an institution, said that apparently I don’t know good doctrine when I see it.  In short, it caused some controversy.  I really try not to seek such controversy, and I never thought that post would spurn such heated discussion.

But –

Tomorrow’s another story.  Tomorrow my new article is going live on the site and I’m fairly sure this one will ruffle some feathers.  In fact, I’m shocked Rockbridge went ahead and decided to post it.  Kudos to them.  It will be very easy for this article to be misunderstood on both sides: those that think I go too far, and those that think I don’t go as far as I am in fact trying to go.

The article is a discussion of how to let seminary doctrinally change you.  To do this, I very consciously employ postmodern thought into my own thinking and advocate others do so as well.  It’s very touchy and I am not wholly confident that I phrased myself as articulately as a more experienced writer may have been able to.  I guess we’ll see over the next couple of days.

But, I’m actually not as concerned with this article as I am with the follow-up article I am about half-way through writing.  In the first article I lay out the responsibilities for the seminarian in this respect; in this second one, I talk about the responsibilities of the healthy seminary institution.  And in doing so I am directly taking Westminster to task for how they have abandoned the principles I lay out in this first article.  I’m sort of doubting Rockbridge would run it on the site, but who knows?  Westminster’s a competing institution and Rockbridge is marketing themselves as a seminary for the 21st century, so we’ll see.

All that to say, look for my article tomorrow at GoingToSeminary.com, and please pray for me if you could.  I’m still young and arrogant, and I need the spiritual support.  I’ll also link to the article tomorrow.  Until then . . .

Facebook Friends, sorry for the inconvenience

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

screen-captureMost of my friends on Facebook probably think I just write a lot of Facebook notes.  This isn’t actually the case.  As many know, I have a personal blog, “the long way home“, that I write everything on.  Facebook has a great little feature where it will import the RSS feed from this blog into Facebook as a note.  So, long story short, I write a post on the blog, it shows up in Facebook as a note.  I never actually touch the Notes feature.  But there’s a problem with this.

When the feature first came out, there was a prominent “View Original Post” button attached to the facebook note.  Clicking this would take you to the blog itself.  Alas, as time has gone by, this button has grown smaller and more obscure (you can find it now on the very bottom of this Note next to the “Like” and “Comment” links.  This has caused fewer and fewer people to go to the actual site, because they can just stay on Facebook and read.  This causes many problems on my end.  So, after today, I will no longer be importing my blog posts to Facebook.  Read on if you care to know why.

First, formatting.  I format all my posts based on how they look on the blog, not on Facebook.  This means that embedded images, videos, and audio either get all jacked up, appear merely as links, or don’t show up at all.

Second, there are many resources and links that I provide on the blog in the sidebar and in the various pages.  Of course, these do not import to Facebook, meaning that there’s a whole dimension of engaging with the content that’s lost to the casual Facebook reader.

Third, it’s tough maintaining two separate audiences.  I get far more people leaving comments on the Facebook version of posts, and these comments only stay within our little particular corner of the Facebook community.  Having these same discussions on the blog let the rest of the world engage and broaden the conversation.  Also, there have been several occasions where blog visitors have left similar comments as people did on Facebook, so I’ve had practically the same conversation running in two separate places at once.

Lastly, and most importantly, tracking who reads what on the site.  This is not about needing the praise that comes with knowing people have read something of yours.  Anyone that has a site knows that knowing where the traffic comes from and what it’s reading is so important to knowing in what direction you should take the site.  I really have no idea how many people actually read what I write and this is frustrating.  I may go for weeks or years putting a lot of thought and energy into a particular series of writings, not knowing that nobody is actually reading them.  That’s a lot of wasted time that could be spent writing about things that will actually help people.  Also, I have a couple of sites I write for, and it would be great to know how much traffic each one gets so I can post appropriate writings in the appropriate places.  With more people visiting and linking to my actual site instead of just Facebook notes, this will also increase my exposure on search engines thereby driving more people to the site and to possible helpful resources.

Those are all the reasons I have decided to stop importing my posts to Facebook (after this post).  I will still put up a note each time I write, but it will only have a brief summary of the content and a link to the blog.

We’ll see how this goes.  If the number of people actually reading things on the site doesn’t jump up significantly, or if people make a big stink over it on Facebook, I may put it back, but in the meantime, I just want to see how this goes.  Links to the posts will still appear via the Facebook App “Networked Blogs” as well.

Sorry, if this isn’t as convenient.  Feel free to leave me your input.

For those wondering how my job is going . . .

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unemployment. . . well, it’s not.

In May, I wrote about my journey in looking for a job.A month and half later(ish) I wrote of having found a job.My start date was July 1st.

But July 1st was the appointed day for another reason: it was the official first day of a new fiscal year for many companies, churches, and governments (federal, state, and local), therefore, of course, it was the day that new 2009 budgets went into effect all across the country.

Well, at least, when those budgets were supposed to go into effect.

The State of Pennsylvania is embroiled in an ever-increasingly heated battle over its State Budget that was supposed to be done and go in effect July 1st.The company I got my job with gets most of its money from the State Health Department, so this poses a problem for them, seeing as the State Health Department has no 2009 money allocated to them by an effective budget to give to my company any money to hire me – so they’re under a hiring freeze.Did that all make sense?

So, in short, I’ve been waiting for over a month for Pennsylvania to pass its own budget, after which I can start my job.Assuming of course that my usual luck doesn’t come into play and my job decides to drop me for some reason.I don’t know.Pray this doesn’t happen.It seems the budget problem is this: there’s a huge gap in the budget between income and expenses.So they either need to get more money or make more cuts.The Governor has suggested a very small increase to the income tax to cover this, but Republicans have cried foul.Democrats have said they’re not “wedded” to the idea of a tax increase and are open to any ideas, but Republicans have been both unable to suggest any new ideas and unwilling to make any cuts in their various localities, insisting further cuts happen at the State level.So, tax increases are being forbidden, no new ideas being brought forth, no new cuts being suggested, and no one willing to budge.Therefore, I have a job, but don’t – all at the same time.

It’s an excellent object lesson in the angst and tension in the Biblical idea of things “already being accomplished, but not yet fully realized”. By the way, last Friday was the last day State employees were actually getting paid.now they’re getting I.O.U.’s. Ugh.

I am trying to find odd jobs to hold me over, but may be looking for a more stable job here shortly, and eventually if I need to, I may look somewhere else entirely for a “real” job (any ideas or possible work is more than appreciated).I hope I don’t have to move on, for as I have said, this job is my dream position, but if I need to, I need to.

God certainly deals with us strangely, confusingly, and mercifully. So much opportunity in this time of “unemployment” to draw near to my God and serve are currently being wasted day to day due to my inherent lack of discipline. He really desires more of me in this time, and I fear I haven’t taken advantage of these moments to learn my neediness and His presence.Pray I learn these lessons well in the “already but not yet”.

And pray that Pennsylvania passes a flippin’ budget already (and that I still have a job waiting for me when they do)!

NYT’s David Pogue Takes on Cell Industry

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Pogue_hiUPDATE: more cell phone company d-baggage.  Apparently with the advent of the potentially-amazing-but-not-quite-yet Google Voice, most major cell providers have banned the various Google Voice apps that allow it to integrate into your phone’s operating system.  Ugh…

I really hope everyone out there knows who David Pogue is by now (his personal site can be found here). He is the main New York Times Tech Columnist, and he is great. His main job at the NYT is to make technology make sense to the everyday consumer, and he is really good at it. He’s so knowledgeable and yet is so funny and comes across as such an Everyman, you have a hard time believing he’s not your next door neighbor or at least your new best friend.

I follow him on Twitter and it is definitely one of my favorite feeds. He recently finished writing a book over Twitter where every night he would have some sort of game that his followers would play along with and the best responses ended up in the book. It was great. He has a very loyal Twitter fan base. He regularly crashes websites by posting links to interesting videos or articles, just to have most of his 700,000+ followers go to these sites all at once and crashing the servers.

Anyway, Pogue has recently drawn some attention for a recent article he wrote about his “Everyman” frustrations with the cell phone industry. After a brief defense of the industry over phone exclusivity contracts (ala AT&T and the iPhone) where he explains why this is an unreasonable frustration to have with them, he outlines six legitimate frustrations to have with the cell industry. The gripes are as follows (but I still really encourage you to actually read the article. He’s a great writer.):

  1. Unreasonable text-messaging fees
  2. Double-billing (where you get billed for sending and receiving a call)
  3. Unfair Phone Subsidies Practices (you spend the first half of your contract paying off your phone, but still keep paying the same price even after your phone’s paid off)
  4. Crazy International Phone Call Rates
  5. Way Too-Long Voicemail Instructions Just To Waste Your Minutes
  6. Miscellaneous (dead spots, data caps, customer service, etc.)

(You’ll see why I wrote that outline out here soon) That was last Wednesday, July 22nd. Apparently that article put into words the frustrations of many, many Americans, awakening a small public relations disaster for cell phone companies. I know I felt really good after reading it.

So how did the industry respond? Did they rush together to serve the interests of their customers? Did they begin more research to see if in fact a huge percentage of their clients felt similarly? No. Instead, two days later, on July 24th, Lowell C. McAdam, CEO of Verizon, sent an open letter to the publisher of the New York Times (I have no idea why he didn’t just send it to Pogue) accusing the New York Times of publishing “myths” and “highly misleading charges at wireless companies”. He then goes on to carefully rebut these “myths” and “charges” leveled against his industry by Pogue’s article. Now, I would love everyone to look back up and reacquaint yourselves with Pogue’s outline of complaints.

Done? Good. Now here are McAdam’s counterpoints to Pogue, presented in Myth/Fact fashion:

  • Myth 1: American’s pay less than Europeans; Truth: they pay an average of ten cents per minute less (as long as you don’t factor in international calls, text messages, data rates, and overage charges).
  • Myth 2: The cell phone industry isn’t competitive; Fact: Al Gore at some point said they were very competitive (seriously, that’s what the letter says)
  • Myth 3: Bad customer service; Fact: 84% of customers are satisfied (really? I’m “satisfied” with a lot of things, but I’d much rather be “pleased”. We kind of have to be satisfied with what we got anyway)
  • Myth 4: Wireless companies don’t look out for the rural guy; Fact: Verizon looks out for them.

Wow. Eat it, Pogue. McAdam really took you to task. How did Pogue respond to such an “onslaught” (are you catching the sarcasm yet)? With this tweet and this brief article. Personally, I think it’s pretty bad when someone attacks you, you attack back, and that person proceeds to promote your attack as amusement for his supporters. Shortly afterward, Pogue continued to tweeting about other things, but several hours later decided he was going to start a campaign to get rid of the long voicemail instructions, so he asked his followers for potential “war-cry” slogans.

I really hope this causes some real discourse and perhaps even change in how cell companies treat their customers, but I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, though, I’ll enjoy playing along with Pogue as he milks this exchange for all of the entertainment it’s worth. Good for him.

So, read his stuff, buy his book, follow his Twitter, watch his song and lecture below from December on 2009 cell phone trends, and enjoy the ride.

Speak your mind: What is Beauty? (A Survey)

/ Paul Burkhart / 16 Comments

Sargent - Madame Errazuriz-small

For those that might run across this post in the future, the message mentioned in this post was written, given, and walked through part-by-part on this blog.  You can see all these posts by clicking here.

So . . . I’m giving a talk in a few weeks on the topic of Beauty.  The first section of the talk will be a discussion attempting to answer the question “What is Beauty?”  To aid me in this I’d like to extend this question to the world at large.  So, I’m asking all of you out there: what do you think beauty is?

Feel free to take your time or just give me the first thing that pops into your head, or even give me more than one idea if you want. This is totally open.  Leave a comment.  Email me.  Facebook me.  Whatever you want.

Or, leave a joke if you want – but only if it’s a good one.  Here’s the dictionary definition for “Beauty” to get you started thinking:

the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).

So, that’s what Dictionary.com thinks.  What do you think Beauty is?

(art: “Madame Errazuriz” by John Singer Sargent)

“For your life – Flee!” by Sean Brendan Stewart – Reform & Revive | a Plugfest

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

sorry, no y-axis this time

sorry, no y-axis this time

[Thank you to spectacular photographer and friend David Schrott for inspiring this post]

Okay, due to a few recent articles I’ve written, the number of people visiting my blog has increased by over 4000% in the past week.  It’s pretty nuts.  That’s why everything has seemed to be about Derek Webb and his new album, Stockholm Syndrome.  So, I just wanted to take this chance to put in a few plugs for some of my other projects.

I have web magazine called Reform & Revive.  It looks at the intersection between faith and culture, politics, art, the church, and just life in general.  These Derek Webb posts would perhaps have been more appropriate on that site, but the readership here jumped up so fast (I’m actually on the first page of most Google searches having to do with the album).

Anyway, friend, brother, and fellow impassioned writer, Sean Brendan Stewart, just put up a special article that seems to have a similar message as the new Webb album.  It’s some commentary from him, then a very brief manuscript of some audio from a Carter Conlon message.  After that, feel free to look at our more regular full articles from our Contributors.

Lastly, I have my own personal site, Prodigal Paul, that acts as a hub for organizing other blogs, Bible studies, sermons, and such that I have produced over the years.

That is all.

It is done: Derek Webb’s “Stockholm Syndrome” album release + new free song

/ Paul Burkhart / 10 Comments

Untitled

[WARNING: there’s a “bad” word mentioned a few times in this post]

[Also, for those reading this on Facebook, click here to read this on my actual blog, so you can watch the videos, stream the music, and download the audio more easily.]

Well, it’s done.  After all the drama, Derek Webb’s new album “Stockholm Syndrome” is set for release this Tuesday.  Apparently, if you pre-order the album off his website on Tuesday, you will be able to get a free download of the entire album immediately.

But –

this revelation did not come before another song – the song of the album perhaps – was released.  Anyone who has been following this situation knows that Derek has been releasing “stems” (or pieces of the song) for a while.  This is the song with the cursing that started this whole thing.  It is a song that has been titled “What Matters More” and it has to do with the Church’s treatment of homosexuals.  So without further ado, here are all the songs that have been released off of Derek Webb’s newest album “Stockholm Syndrome”.  Enjoy and be sure to download them all on Tuesday.

Thanks again to Shane for the update.  The name above each streaming song is a link to the actual file for you to download.  Right-click or whatever you do to download these things.

“What Matters More?”

“Freddie, Please”

“Heaven”

“The Spirit vs. the Kick-Drum”

It sounds like the new song is what inspired (or vice versa) Webb’s recent purchase of the domain GiveAShit.org, which he plans on using as a fundraising site.  The site’s had no content on it for a while, but just now as I saw that it has a black screen on it, apparently holding the spot for new content coming soon (Tuesday, perhaps?).  We’ll see.

Lastly, I heard from musical artist and friend Joel Rakes (so if it’s not true, blame him – or the people he follows on Twitter) that there was also a documentary done about this whole thing, so keep an eye out for that.  And check out Joel’s stuff while you’re at it.

Here are other sites concerning Webb and the album. Please visit these as well to support the artist and his craft.

For those that don’t even know about Derek Webb and his music, here are a few of my favorite songs by him. Yeah, he’s pretty stinking good. [Once again, if you’re on facebook, these videos may not show up, so click here to watch them]

“Wedding Dress” off of “She Must and Shall Go Free”
Vodpod videos no longer available.

“Medication” off of “I See things Upside Down”
Vodpod videos no longer available.

“My Enemies Are Men Like Me” off of “Mockingbird”
Vodpod videos no longer available.

A Twitter Gospel: the contest

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Scott Thomas, director of Acts29 Church Planing Network, held a contest on the Acts29 Twitter account for the best statement of the Gospel in 140 characters or less.  The winner gets a free copy of Mark Driscoll’s new book “Religion Saves”.

If you go to this site, you can find all 95 entries.  Mine is number 54 on the list:

a holy God w/ holy demands you don’t meet has both fulfilled these demands & taken the wrath due you. repent & believe he’s done it

My other favorite was this one (number 37):

we suck, Jesus doesn’t & never did, was slaughtered, defeated death & desires to exchange your crap for His perfection

They are asking that you vote for your top 3 favorite tweets by commenting on the bottom of the blog with the entries, messaging Scott on his facebook, or by going to the Acts29 Twitter page and “tweeting the numbers in order of preference followed by hashtag #gospeltweet. For instance: ‘@acts29 101, 98, 107 #gospeltweet'”

So go vote, and if you like mine, remember it’s number 37.

You can follow the votes  so far here.

Have some fun with it.

Regina Spektor’s upcoming album “Far”

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

First off, I really want to do more cultural critique on this blog.  I feel like I have had my head in the ether for far too long.  Now, I don’t want to talk any less about theology and Christianity, I just want to talk a whole lot more about television, music, movies, politics, technology and the like.  Secondly, I was in the process of ignoring this desire of mine and was almost done putting the finishing touches on an upcoming three(?) part series on philosophy and theology, when @NPRnews popped on my twitter feed with a link to where they are currently streaming the new Regina Spektor album (due out June 23rd).

Let’s just say the philsophy series got put on hold for a day or two.

This album is spectacular.

I’ve never listened to Regina Spektor.  I regret that now.  This album (according to NPR) was produced by four different people in four different places at four different times.  For those circumstances to produce this record is astonishing.  Admittedly, I was really enjoying just the music, vocals, and melodies.  Until I heard the song below.  I really had no idea how wonderful of a lyricist she is.  Good gracious.  And no, I don’t just like the song because it talks about God (in fact, she’s a practicing Jew, apparently).  The lyrics are so thoughtful and smart, the music is so beautiful, and the melodies are those of a very experienced artist.

There are so many beautiful nuances in this record.  I will spend the next week or so plumbing their depths.  Current favorites tracks are: The Calculation, Blue Lips, Laughing With, Human of the Year, Dance Anthem of the 80’s, Genius Next Door, Man of a Thousand Faces.

So, listen to the album, put it on repeat, pre-order it, watch this video (below), and read/love the lyrics.

The Big News II (I’m not leaving Philly, it seems)

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

I, Paul Burkhart, now have a real job.

Like, a real real one.

Yesterday, I was accepted for a position at a program called Project Transition as a “Psychiatric Rehabilitation Counselor” (assuming that my background checks clear, of course. Until then, I can’t actually say I’m “hired” per se, I’m still a “candidate”). In short, this is my dream job. I will have a case load of about 5 individuals recovering from various mental disorders who I will pour into their lives trying to help them reintegrate into society. I will teach classes to everyone in the program on various parts of living life healthily. I will be doing assessments and creating treatment plans for my case load. The people I will work with seem amazing. Benefits kick in after only a month. It’s really good pay (at least for an entry level job). I will even have my own office space (and desk!).

The philosophy of the organization is right in line with mine: that people are not defined by their disease. They are fundamentally healthy individuals struggling with a disorder, rather than the view that would treat them as primarily disordered individuals struggling for health. It was so exciting sitting there as they told me everything about the organization. That reminds me, the interview itself was strange too. It was one of those weird circumstances that seems to surreal and – for lack of a better word – supernatural. In the entire interview I didn’t say more than a couple of sentences. They didn’t really ask me many questions. It was more like “hey, this is who we are. Wanna join us?”. It was so strange. I have the weakest resume one could imagine. I have waiting tables at Applebee’s and tutoring elementary school students on there and that’s it. Hardly the resume to get someone a professional counseling job. But nevertheless, I walked in, and the founder of the organization had made one of his monthly visits to this particular site just to interview me. When I got there, everyone already knew my name and who I was. When the founder had to leave the interview early and leave me with the site coordinators, he had the secretary send down paperwork to hire me, even before the interview was actually over! (Running the risk of sounding overly charismatic or Osteen-ish) I felt like I was walking in “supernatural favor”. Or something like that.

So what does all this mean? Well firstly, even though I loved and adored my time in Richmond the past few weeks and really wanted to move back there, it seems that God has intended for me to have longer-term plans for Philly. This job really is something I’m going to want to stay at for awhile. The people I will be around, the experiences I’ll get, and the real-word education I’ll receive (all while still taking WTS counseling classes) will be invaluable to me. So I’m here to stay, it seems. This would probably have been a problem a couple months ago, but recently Philadelphia has opened up to me (specifically South Philly) and I have met so many people I really want to live life deeply with for a while longer before moving on (not to mention my biggest bromances are here and here. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you, you, and you).

So here’s to God for blessing me far more than I could ever imagine. I pray this drives me further to Him and doesn’t make me feel like I don’t need him now. Because I do. I’ve definitely been seeing that greatly the past few weeks, and this has been the first little ray of light to burst out from the haze I’ve been in.

Philly, here I stay.