Spring Break Was...

My official Spring Break, is now over. What did I do? I went skiing!!! With Matthew.



Check out that lovely view. That is from almost the top of Sugar Mountain in NC. The slopes at this place were great! ...lots of them ...they were very long ...they had lots of snow (and a lot of it was real!) ...and it was March, so it wasn't that crowded.

So our plan was to document the entire trip this time. Like take pictures as we leave, and where we eat, and of us skiing, and leaving and everything.

Well, we ended up not doing all of that. So here some of the pictures we DO have.




The slope that Matthew is at the bottom of, is a double black diamond. It looks much steeper in person. People were coming down it so cauciously...it was scary!

I also made a video while skiing, but the camera was angled toward the sky instead of the slope...so i didn't turn out like I wanted, and I didn't want to rick breaking the camera anymore.

But regardless of our lack of documenting...it was lots of, much needed, fun.

Truth

From Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

03/3/06
The Side of Truth
Jill Carattini

It was for me a dawning thought packed within the confines of a recurring chorus. "And the truth's not contingent on me." I still remember the notion catching my attention and then hanging there in my mind like a portrait I was having a hard time getting my eyes around. At the time, it was an utterly startling and freeing image; namely, God did not need me to uphold the pillars and pieces of Christianity to make it a true and valid thing to believe in. It is an incredibly simple lesson with which to be struck, perhaps exposing a self-centered worldview as much as my misunderstanding of the old, old story. And yet, it was an awakening not only to the Christian story as I discovered that day, but also to the very nature of truth itself. Truth is truth whether we choose to stand beside it or not.

Perhaps as a reaction to the intense rationalism of the modern era, postmodern thought tends to emphasize the idea that all is not as it might seem. But the preference is now anti-rationalism or anti-realism. We want to create our own reality, a mosaic of truths that will suit our own needs. Intrinsic to this approach is the concept of practicality. If it is in anyway useful to our lives then it is viewed as a "valid" truth. I once heard someone note this in a statement she went as far as to call her life's motto. She said, "If you can't use what you know to be true then it isn't worth knowing." Such is the current mood; one where truth itself can be deemed unworthy of knowing. Writes C.S. Lewis, "Man is becoming as narrowly 'practical' as the irrational animals."

Yet the posture of preference and practicality, though widely present among us, is hardly a new approach to the quest for truth. As Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate he told him, "I came into this world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me" (John 18:37-38). Before Pilate had even uttered his sardonic reply"What is truth?"Jesus's words in that profoundly charged conversation cut to the crumbling foundation on which men have stood from antiquity to postmodernism: the search for truth is all too often not about truth at all.

As an acquaintance one time commented, "I refuse to let anyone tell me what my truth is." But does such a statement even make sense? Truth corresponds to reality, not preference or opinion. If the quest for truth is about personal appetite, contingent only on the individual holding the belief, anything and everything could be deemed true. Such an approach taken in realms of science or history would be thoroughly mocked in its ridiculousness. We know better than this.

The same Gospel that relays the conversation of Jesus and Pilate on the subject of truth begins with the powerful thought of God at the beginning of all things. Whatever truth is it is something far beyond me, corresponding with reality, coherently giving shape to my life. In the Christian story, there is a beginning, a middle, and an end, none of which is contingent on us. Christ has come to testify to this reality and lead us to truth itself. He is Lord whether we choose to stand beside him or not.

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Best Diet Plan Ever!

Ok, so I've figured it out. The secret that all women have been waiting for... A diet that works. Here's the plan, in 4 easy steps:

#1 - buy or receive as a gift, an iPod (any size and memory capacity will work)

#2 - actually use it to keep you occupied while running, or walking.

#3 - obtain allergies to all things capable of blooming, thus losing sense of smell (by-way-of runny and clogged nasal passages) and therefore ability to taste.

#4 - Eat most healthy, and probably most disgusting, food you can find. Why? Because you can't taste anything! Your desire to eat - while remaining - will become less essential and more mundane.

So there it is... Work out more, eat less and if not less, much healthier, you'll never know the difference. (if you see results checks can be made to "Susan Kommeth")

No seriously, Spring is my least favorite season. It always has been...and for one reason. Pollen. Of all kinds... I don't discriminate. It's all equal.
I mean, look at the stuff. It just looks evil. I bet it had no friends in school.

For the last week I have not been able to smell or taste anything. It's been terrible!
And the eating gross healthy food because you can't taste it part (the 4th step of my diet plan), is SO true. My parents have been eating all this weird food cause my mom is on this crazy diet (she should try mine!) and I had some this weekend. But yah know...I can't tell you it was bad...and I can't tell you it was good either...cause I couldn't taste it. Not a bit. (the one time I was thankful I couldn't taste!)

So...tonight, after running (step #2) with my iPod, I came in and tried to think of what to have for dinner. It was pointless. I didn't want to eat anything, because that would be so wasteful since I can't actually taste it... So I ended up eating tortilla chips (since they only have salt on them) and drinking a Cherry Coke (because they are filling) ... even though it about killed me to drink a Cherry Coke and not taste it...but that was the only carbonated drink we had. I probably should have just made some rice instead. But it's all about the same anyway.

But don't worry. Pollen won't get the best of me. Oh no! I have weapons to fight back...Alavert, Nyquil... Hopefully summer will hurry up and get here... That will be fun. I should have a anti UV-ray entry by then.

"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Genesis 8:22
...I think that includes pollen...

Honest Abe

Why can't our country remain focused on it's original foundational principles? Lincoln even saw it slipping...

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness." [March 30, 1863]

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Hebrews 12:14

LOST

Last night there was a new episode of LOST. So Maria, Rocky, and I decided to make a LOST-inspired meal

This is our Exotic Spinach and Wild Berry Salad.

It was yummy!

This is our Island Style Jerked Boar Meat!
Even yummier!

Here are the Other's Asparagus.

Delicious!

Our dessert was Wild Banana Pudding. But I forgot to take a picture of it! Sorry!

...awaiting the next episode of LOST...