I just find it so strange to be born into this age. Everything is permissible. Whether or not it's profitable, I think the best human thing to do is just let everybody do their thing. I understand the whole theory that you can't have total freedom, that's total chaos. But restrained freedom can be practiced. A basic human need- Isn't it to do what you want with whom you want, if it doesn't hurt anybody?

Anyway, I just finished 'Blue like Jazz' by Donald Miller with some insistence from my twin. It is a best-seller.

An excerpt which totally hit my heart:

"The real issue in the Christian community was that it (love) was conditional. You were loved, but if you had questions, questions about whether the Bible was true or whether America was a good country or whether last week's sermon was good, you were not so loved. You were loved in word, but there was, without question, a social commodity that was being withheld from you until you shaped up. By toeing the party line you earned social dollars; by being yourself you did not. If you wanted to be valued, you became a clone. These are broad generalizations, and they are unfair, but this is what I was thinking at the time. Bear with me, and I will tell you what I learned. ...

The problem with Christian community was that we had ethics, we had rules and laws and principles to judge each other against. There was love in Christian community, but it was conditional love. Sure, we called it unconditional, but it wasn't. There were bad people in the world and good people in the world. We were raised to believe this... Christianity was always right; we were always looking down on everybody else. And I hated this. I hated it with a passion. Everything in my soul told me it was wrong. It felt, to me, as wrong as sin. ...

The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money. ...If somebody is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us, and perhaps, we feel they are priceless. I could see it so clearly, I could feel it in the pages of my life. This was the thing that had smelled so rotten all these years. I used love like money. The church used love like money. With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones that did."

Thank God for honesty.

I just finished a book that I've been carrying around but didn't know would be so compelling.

Just to be the good diligent girl and write my book review:

UGLY by Constance Briscoe is the true account of the abusive and horrific childhood of one of the first black women to sit as a judge in the UK.

For 3/4 of the book you read with no clue about who or how intelligent this woman actually is. All you have is the simple viewpoint of a child who wants nothing more than to survive the days and keep out of the way of her erratic, ruthless mother. The language is casual, conversational, and not bombastic, so unless told you don't have the impression that she is a judge. The book doesn't have a picture of the author, and all you have is an image of a small black girl bowing her head on her knees with arms folded in despair. I guess it's appropriate because that's who she started out as- a nobody.

It's not easy to digest chapters of violence and abuse, dished out so coolly, but there is her voice of nonchalant innocence and strength that is just so misplaced in such distressing circumstances. She meets every act of malevolence with the steel-like resolution and overcomes it just like that.

It's an inducing read because you just want to know how she survives it all- or even if she does.

And of course, she lives to tell the story.

When I reached the end of the book my first inclination was to find out how she actually looks like. All along, the mental picture in my mind was an ugly, skinny girl with lots of scars.

So imagine my surprise:



In the sequel to the book she visits a plastic surgeon, so maybe she's had some work done. But still. She does look beautiful.