Bored?

I'm not bored. But if you are, I have the ideal solution for you (or even if you're not, I have a great thing for you to do)!

Kylie, Joss, and I are putting on the first ever annual Ignition Challenge, starting today and continuing through the month of June!

The Ignition Challenge, which can be found online at www.ignitionchallenge.wordpress.com , is loosely affiliated with Kids of Faith Online Magazine and is put on and written by the contributors. Our goal for Ignition is to challenge and encourage believers to take their relationships with God deeper this summer.

It's really exciting - with devotionals, stories, humor, and in-depth looks at four aspects of our walk with God posted every day from now till July 1st! We're hoping to reach as many people as possible in the month of June, so consider checking us out! We'd love for you to come visit.

For more information on the challenge, check out our vision statement here. See you there!

In love and on fire,

Catey, Co-Editor of Ignition

Around... Sort of

Pretty much the title sums it up. I'm around.... sort of. Since I haven't been posting much, I'll give you my life in a nutshell, which can, roughly, be summed up in my life this past week.

Last Friday: I was commandeered into service by a lady who is half my height but twice my gumption. I spent an hour guarding a door for our homeschool graduation.
(Me: Seth! Let me in!
Seth: NO! Go away.
Me, fifteen minutes later: SETH! They're attacking me with pencils!
Seth: NO! You are obsessed! Go away!
Seth's mom: CATEY! Let people in there before they kill you with pencils!)

Saturday: Duo practice. With a guy who hates this kind of speech. Both of our first times. Ever.
(Me: We need to keep the line!
Shane: NO! We need to cut the line!
Me: I'm the interper!
Shane: I'm in charge!)

Sunday: Dad leaves. World ends.
(Me, while frantically trying to figure out how in the world I'm going to get the speech to work without the line Shane cut: Sam! SSSSSHHHH!
Sam: WAAAAH!!!!!!!
Me, while still frantically trying to figure out how in the world I'm going to get the speech to work without the line Shane cut: WAAAAH!)

Monday: We are plunged into madness and chaos of the most devious nature.
(Me: Okay, so Mrs. B will pick us up and take us to Chapter, and there Carli will do her interp, Joss will do her interp, and I'll do my interp with Shane, despite the fact that I have no clue how to live without the line he cut, and then Mom will pick us up, take us to Costco while Joss does VBS practice, then we'll pick up the dog from the vet, go home and have dinner. Anything I forgot?
Mom: Yeah. Sam's running a fever and hasn't stopped crying all day.)

Tuesday: Sam will not stop crying. Oh yeah. And laundry. Lots and lots of laundry.
(Me, while still trying to figure out how to get the speech to work without the line that Shane cut, since we mysteriously didn't get to do it the day before, and foldng a mile-high pile of laundry: When does Daddy get home? Soon?)

Wednesday: Sam is not sick. So why is he such a mess?
(Sam: WAAAAAH!
Me, while still folding the mile-high pile of laundry and trying to figure out how to get the speech to work without the line that Shane cut: WAAAH! Tell me Daddy's getting home soon!

Thursday: Performed speech - in the middle of nowhere while still trying to figure out how to give this speech without the line that Shane cut.
(Me, after driving to this tiny church in the middle of nowhere: Yeah, I'm here to work on a speech.
Kaitlin: Aren't you competing next year?
Me: Yes. But I'm working on one with Shane. It's a duo.
Kaitlin: You are lying to me.
Me: No... seriously
Kaitlin: You have done the impossible.
Me, under my breath: Not quite. Figuring out how to give this speech without the line Shane cut is doing the impossible...)

Today: DADDY'S HOME!!!! And putting the line that Shane cut BACK into my speech!
(Me: I'm right! You may be in charge, but I'm right! And that line is SO going back in the speech!)

Yes, so, essentially, that's been my life. Sound interesting? It was. In retrospect.

And, in addition to all that, I'm up on:

Kids of Faith Online Magazine: the summer issue is up! We have some fabulous stuff in this one, including but not limited to: a brand new contributor (Alyssa!), a review of Do Hard Things (the review was recommended by the Harris brothers, who are the authors of the book!) and (if I do say so myself) the very best installment of Beneath a Dark Sky yet.

Real Teen Faith: my Squire CWG mentor's site. Read my devo about summer training, if you like.

Echoes in ink,
C.

The Smell of Thought

I wanted to hope for a gift
Something set free from a cage with wings
And desperately, I hoped to gain
Something that would free me too

But I could not be freed
Until I could learn to give
And though I hated the inscrutable wind
I tried to scream my whispered warning

To it as I longed for pale sunsets
And words that would give me
Some sort of wish
That would give me hope

But hope is a quality quickly fleeting
And though I loathed the smell
Of thought, I thought
And thought of things

That no mortal should ever think of
No mere man should ever write of
But I did, because the cage demanded
Escape, and escape was of the outside world

And the outside world held disgust
And I wanted to understand that disgust
And find a way to make it beautiful
For it was not wrong to write

About wrong, because for wrong to be
Right must be, for hate to be,
Love must triumph. And I made
It triumph in every thought

And though I loathed the smell of
Blood, I thought of blood and water
And how the sky would pour forth stars
And damage the unsuspecting earth below

And I wondered how long it would be
Before another thinker would enter and
Think the dark and troubled thoughts I thought
But none would come for they feared

That light would never be back.
Except for one, and that was of
Another time, another year, moment
And dimension, and I longed

For another thought, a thought of joy
And a thought that would remove this
Elephant from my chest and
Let my heart beat freely again

It did not come and I drowned.
Darkness is not unlike water and water
Makes one drown when it is all around
And suddenly, light and darkness

Made their solemn dance around me
Like a wedding march, marrying themselves together
I screamed.
Because I was drowned and I

Could not see or breathe…
But it was not the end.
Light and dark are two means
To kill and to birth

And to embrace the light from
The side of the dark
As a great illumination watches
Is to find a joy that cannot be found

To fight an enemy that cannot be killed
To find a way that does not exist
To eat from the hand that made you
To know a God who cannot be known.

I keep writing poetry. Once again, I'm trying to improve my contest entry, and this one isn't even the right form, so I decided to post it. Poetry is a raw art and is a language of thought, best understood when overheard, I've decided.This one was just expression of something I can't understand. But I'm trying. Echoes in ink, C.

I Believe in You

I believe in you.

No doubt you've heard those words as often as I have. People find this belief very important. They assume it will accomplish something.

Often, it is paired with a similar set of words:

Believe in yourself.

Once again, people find this significant and expect it to make a difference.

I've always found both sets of words somewhat annoying. The believe in yourself mantra is overrated. I could believe in myself all I want that I will become a famous scientist and cure HIV, but all the believing in the world can't accomplish that.

By the same token, I could believe that some acquaintances that I'll leave unnamed could become opera singers. But all the believing I can do won't make that happen.

I found both phrases not only annoying but also vain. As if my belief could make such a truly marked difference. It's not my belief that matters. Like I said, I can believe, and believe, but that doesn't mean anything.

Ideas without action are dead ideas. Ideas should inspire people to do something about the way the world is now. They should make them think of society in a different way, and force them to leave it better than they found it.

We see this in the early church. The disciples took the ideas of Christ and carried them out in life. They combined the idealism of the doctrines they believed with the pragmatic end of spreading and living them in their everyday lives. We see that those who believe in Christ will be doers, not simply hearers of his word, (James 1:22) but we also see how good works without the faith behind them are also dead (Galatians 3:11)

I suppose that's where my issue with both quotes arose from. Believing is of the world of ideas, but, we've seen that ideas cannot be independent of the action they inspire (if they can, they're not worth being thought up) Action is required in belief, belief in yourself or your belief in others.

Looking at those quotes in this light, I recently came by the realization that they are not without their value. Viewed through the lens of God's word, both can actually be quiet beneficial.

The Believe in Yourself one is simply a call to have faith in what can't be seen. It's a call to take a risk and step outside of what's familiar and comfortable. If you go out of your safe little haven with the idea that you will absolutely, beyond the shadow of a doubt, fail, you probably will. But if you are willing to believe there might be hope, that you could potentially make a difference, better things are yet to come. God doesn't really care how amazing you are. You are. He is. You are His workmanship. That makes you good enough. Be an optimist. Be realistic, but still believe that God can do mighty things through you.

The I Believe in You quote is my favorite. It encompasses my spiritual gift (showing mercy - which essentially means liking people even if I don't actually like them) perfectly. It's important to view people through the light of eternity. People don't usually believe me when I say it, but I don't see people as they are, but rather, as they could be, and in a very rosy light, too. People aren't just who they are now. They're not their limitations. People are souls traveling toward destinations, souls who are so much beyond what they truly are. I like the way C.S. Lewis puts it:

"It is a serious thing," says Lewis, "to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal."

That radicalized my thinking about people. I am never talking to just a mere mortal. The most annoying, most ditzy, most conniving, most hurtful, most divisive, most unintelligent slobs I know could be the people I see as an angel of light. And my cutting words or vicious glances will be recounted one day.

That's why believing in someone is so significant. It makes all the difference in someone's life to know that someone had the faith to know there were better things for them out there.

It's impacted me. And my faith in others has made an impact, both on them and me.

Here's my challenge for you: View yourself and others in the light of eternity. You'll see change.