I have long been a fan of Sufjan Stevens. From his early, raw and exposed works to his richly layered work of late, it’s all amazing. He is definitely a talent.

But he has really outdone himself.

Sufjan Stevens wrote and performed a symphony titled The BQE, inspired by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which was just released. The BQE is nothing short of a masterpiece, moving seamlessly from movement to movement, even from orchestral to electronic. My mind was instantly blown.

This video is but a foretaste of the audial treats that behold you. Do yourself a favor and by the album, which comes packed with a companion video. Your ears, and your heart, won’t be disappointed.

What’s new?

1. Haircut. I went to the lovely Mrs. Sarah Barton last weekend and told her to chop it. If you’re needing someone who she herself is super cute and does good hair, call Miss Sarah! FINALLY, my hair doesn’t feel like broom bristles brushing my cheek in the middle of the night! She chopped quite a bit off…no more early 90’s Homeschool hair! Now Emily can’t ask me where my denim jumper is!

2. The Devestatingly Handsome Christopher and I will be making a pilgrimage in a couple weeks to Chicago to see our dear friends, Josh and Becca Bishop! Word on the street, my doctor friend Dr. LisaLou Hardy and her doctor fiancee Dr. Craig Portell will be in attendance as well! Chicago in the fall…ahhh…so wonderful.

3. Chris is still super awesome and way cute.

4. Christmas is less than 2 months away!!! HIP HIP HOORAY!!!!!!!

5. My sweet, sweet Gavin-Love is growing by leaps and bounds each day! Read about his incredible journey here.  If you don’t know, my delicious 5 year old nephew was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder a couple years ago and before it was even out of the doctor’s mouth, my amazing sister and her husband were like, “okay, great. We’ll be fixing this, thankyouverymuch”. Through many tears and much perserverance, they stumbled upon a unique, probably somewhat controversial approach to drawing Gavie out of his fog.  Okay people, show me your critisims.  And then I will show you a boy who is NOT THE SAME BOY he was a MONTH ago. I will show you a boy who is being imaginiative, asking questions, forming opinions, looking at the you in the eyes. 

Ooh! Here he is NOW:

Look at how handsome he is. *Sigh* I have the immense pleasure of every Sunday afternoon from 3:00 – 5:00 of working with him one-on-one in the Focus Room.  Again, go to Em’s blog and read all about their endeavors.

6. This fall has been so beautiful! I don’t know if 2 years ago, I was too consumed with wedding stuff to notice and LAST fall maybe it wasn’t all that pretty, but THIS fall, I’m like, “WHAT THE HECK, leaves!?!?!” GORGEOUS! It almost takes your breath away!

7. This past weekend, Cornerstone opened their new auditorium! It is so amazing and it doesn’t feel overwhelming or ostentatious or too much. It’s just right…because it’s filled to the brim with not only people who need to hear the Word, but it’s filled with the Holy Spirit. You can just tell. Did you know that a few weeks ago, a woman drove past Cornerstone on the interstate, felt compelled to come in, and confessed that she had no idea WHY she was there and that she was a stripper and just felt like she HAD to come in. Hmmm…OR a girl who came to the Sunday morning service, broke down in tears and confessed to a pastor that she was going to kill herself the next day but now has had a change of heart? Or the girl who rushed in to the Cornerstone offices yesterday sobbing uncontrollably and spent an HOUR with Pastor Tom and gave her life and her hurt to the Lord? Pretty amazing. And it has nothing to do with the building. It’s the Lord working in that place big time.  Check out Chris’ and my church home: http://www.cornerstone-church.com/  (oh, and for the opening weekend services, I got to do a little song and dance number with a couple others set to songs from Fiddler on the Roof, nbd).

8. Oh, and I really, really enjoy my friend JESS STARMER EAGLES. She is SUPER cute and crafty and she has ADORABLE clothes and she lives in California and her husband is really awesome and she’s super cute and she is so awesome and I love her.

It’s hard to believe that two years ago today I was getting ready to marry the most amazing woman I had ever met. How do you put into words how much you love a person, or all you’ve experienced together in life? You can’t do it justice. But from the first bite of the donut, I knew our marriage was going to be great.

From the beginning of our marriage, God has been so good. Obviously, He was good before, but if you were at our wedding you could see it. The entire week up to our wedding was rainy and cold. Then Friday it warmed up and the winds came, and Saturday was beautiful and dry. A perfect October wedding.

And we can see the hand of God in our marriage today. There has been joy and suffering, laughter and tears, but through it all we can hear God tell us that He loves us and He wants us to see our full potential as one. Daily, I am reminded how selfish I am, and how lovely Katie is. I can only hope and pray to love her like I should.

Truth be told, she’s easy to love! Who isn’t enthralled by her jokes, wit and personality. Or captivated by her beauty (especially that new haircut, ooh la la!). I am blessed beyond anything I could have imagined. I am truly grateful that God gave me the woman of my dreams, and the love that He gave us has continued to grow and grow. I can honestly say I love Katie more today than ever.

So we look forward to year three, I have a feeling it’s going to be an adventure. Whatever happens I pray that I would put Katie before myself, and God before both of us.

(not really us)*

…And there we were, just the two of us, eating by the light of the latern.

Guess what the Saldanha’s did this weekend??!? We went CAMPING!! After Christopher’s selfless gift of Wicked tickets for me, my mom, and my sissy, I really wanted to make sure I gave him a gift for our anniversary that would make HIM feel very very loved.

We headed to the Ledges on Saturday afternoon, not really sure where we were going to spend our evening. I had been ATTEMPTING to reserve a rustic cabin for us (since temps were going to be in the mid 30’s overnight), but since Nancy from Camp Hantesa never got back to me**,  we knew we were going to have to sleep outside. No big deal. Our friends Kelli & Marcus shared with us their camping bounty and we had plenty of blankets, mummy bags and a nice huge tent.  Armed with a lantern (see above), cooler, and other fun stuff from E & J, we headed towards the campsites. And stumbled upon…

Electric campsites.

People had their RV’s in campsites, all decked out like they had been there for awhile and weren’t planning on leaving. Seriously, plastic flamingos decorated someone’s “front” “yard”. One even had a SATELLITE DISH set up! Does anyone else see the irony in living in an RV and making sure you have access to HGTV?  Slightly discouraged, but moving onwards and upwards, we traversed over to the NON-Electric campsites.  Now we’re bordering on really discouraged, because our dream of a quiet, peaceful, PRIVATE campsite was dwindling due to the fact that the tents in the N.E.C.S, were 10 feet from one another. And it was PACKED! Thankfully, Chris read somewhere that the Ledges offer 12 “Hike-In” sites, which we soon found. You had to walk quite a ways to get to them, but they were isolated, quiet and truly in the middle of the woods. Phew!! We unloaded our stuff and Chris set up the tent while I GATHERED STICKS FOR OUR FIRE. (I’ll give you a moment to re-read that sentence)

We were able to get some hiking in in the Lower Ledges. BEUTIFUL! It was so lovely to be on those trails…such amazing fall colors…the smells of fires and leaves…ahhh…we took some “senior pictures” that I will post later. Because c’mon! How can you refuse to Arm Shelf when you have such naturally beautiful backdrops??                                                                                         

 We made our way back to camp and Chris started the fire. Since the wood was kind of damp, it wasn’t a blazing inferno that he had hoped for. Still good enough to keep Ol Chilly Pants warm and enough to make some S’Mores!!  We brought some Jax-issued freezed dried mac and cheese that you just pour boiling water in and voila! mealtime. It was…well, I had graham crackers and a banana for the rest of my dinner.

A couple times, raccoons wandered over NEAR us, but Chris chased them away with his whacking stick.

Bedtime came around 8:30 or so. We snuggled up in our Mummy bags, and by the light of my head lamp, I read Chris the first part of “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, starring Mr. Sherlock Holmes. It was KINDA eery reading about the low whistle heard in the distance right before Hildebrand was murdered!!! eeep!!!!

This is a long post since I don’t know how to make paragraph indentations. 

I wasn’t able to fall asleep because I was so chilly, and I will admit, there were a COUPLE tears shed around 11 since I hadn’t slept yet, and my toes were ice cubes and I had to go to the bathroom (squatting outside, by the way). But after Chris helped me go potty (“no, you’re not peeing on your pants…keep going”) we got “warm” and “cozy” again, and were able to finally fall asleep.

Until a raccoon scratched at our tent.

He ran away, but my heart was pounding so fast! Was that a low whistle I hear in the distance? Hildebrand!??!?!?!

We woke early the next morning to a beautiful sunrise…still cold though. We made hot cocoa and packed up our gear.

Had it maybe been 20 degrees warmer and the wood was dry, our camping excursion was delightful. I will definitely go again. I’m glad I’m married to a BoyScout…a member of Order of the Arrow, thankyouverymuch.

Love you Bubbs. Thanks for keeping me safe!!

*I generally do not like posts that don’t include pictures, but since we can’t find our cord to get said pictures off the camera, you’ll have to settle for a picture of two children, whom we can only presume are named Jack and Madison.

** I hope you’re reading this, Nancy from Camp Hantesa! SURE, you have dry wood, but we…we…had…we had EACH OTHER! So there!

Life with God is messy. This isn’t something you hear a lot from evangelists, because it doesn’t really make you want to accept God and draw near to Him. If my life is already messy, why do I need God to mess it up more?

We all want to hear that God will make our life perfect, God will give us that job we really love, God will make us financially stable, God will give us more wishes if we ask for more wishes. But God isn’t a genie or Santa, waiting to bend His will to our whims. He’s God, who created us, and it’s us who need to bend to His will.

In our bible study, we’re spending time in the Psalms. Twice in the New Testament, the apostle Paul says to use the Psalms to teach and encourage each other. It’s interesting that Paul doesn’t say to teach Deuteronomy or even his own letters. In the Hebrew tradition, the Psalms were sung at festivals and celebrations, and around the dinner table, to deepen understanding and communion with God.

But if you read Psalms, you quickly realize that the writers aren’t saying that God gave them a new hut, or increased their drachmas, or multiplied their camels. The writers are struggling to reconcile the pain and suffering they experience with the God of promise they know. When was the last time an evangelist used Psalm 22 to share Jesus with someone?

“I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within me.”

Doesn’t sound very appealing.

So if God doesn’t make everything magically better, why believe? This seems to be a lot of people’s argument against God. But is it better in suffering to not believe? Whether or not the situation gets better isn’t God’s promise. God offers perspective and hope. The perspective we gain is that this suffering transforms us, and is but a breath compared to the eternity of Heaven. I would rather suffer a lifetime and spend eternity with God than have a cozy life and an eternity of darkness. The hope we have is creation was not meant to be like this, so God does offer the chance for a miracle. Whether or not the miracle comes, should we praise God any less? I don’t think so.

The Psalms shows us that we need a major overhaul of our expectations. God probably won’t cancel the debt on your credit card, or He might not cure your cancer, but should He be any less glorified? He gave us life to begin with, each breath a blessing from above. Let’s realize how majestic God really is, and how infinitely separated we are from Him, and be thankful He would even consider us to be worthy of redemption. Maybe that will put life in perspective.

Amnesty International, Desmond Tutu, Doctors Without Borders, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, and . . . Barack Obama?

Today, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Barack Obama for “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

So now you get the award for efforts? I’m sorry, I mean extraordinary efforts?

Don’t get me wrong, I think Obama has potential. I may or may not have voted for him. But I think this is all a little ridiculous and presumptuous. I tend to agree with The Guardian, who said “The reality is that the prize appears to have been awarded to Barack Obama for what he is not. For not being George W Bush.” It’s also interesting to point out that nominations for the prize closed 11 days into Obama’s presidency.

I think what I have been learning the most out of life the last few months is that we have a big problem with expectations. Our anger or tension with God tends to be because of unmet or unrealistic expectations. Our anger or tension with family and friends tends to be because of unmet or unrealistic expectations.

Do we (or, rather, advocates of President Obama) have unrealistic expectations? I am afraid that we’re setting the man up for failure. The expectation is he will solve the healthcare crisis, which is complicated. The expectation (now backed by his prize) is he will calm international relations, which is way more complicated than healthcare. He rode into office on the promise of change, but change is hard and change is slow.

Have we put too much hope into one man? At the very least, I think we put too much hope in the wrong man. We need you, Jesus.

There are so many awesome things about this video. Presenting: the amazing Darren King of MuteMath. And yes, Katie, we know you had dinner with him. Blah, blah, blah . . .

A lot of people say the first year of marriage is the hardest. To be honest, Katie and I didn’t experience that. Sure, there was an adjustment period, getting used to each others day-to-day routines, but before long it felt like we had always been married.

The second year has been even better than the first! There were a few rough spots, and some circumstances that were out of our control, but we handled it all and stayed on course.

But now, two weeks before we enter our third year of marriage, I have a confession to make. I have been a crappy husband.

I don’t know what it was about this weekend, but there was a heightened tension in our marriage. What I do know is that I have been selfish, on edge, passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and just plain crap.

Katie, my love, I am so sorry.

I’ve had a cold for what seems like weeks. But that’s not an excuse. Work has been challenging. But that’s not an excuse. There are a thousand things that I could blame, but I only have myself and my selfishness. The past three days I have chosen to serve myself rather than my wife, and now I see the horrible effect it has.

Honestly, I don’t know how a majority of the world does it. Were it not for God showing me my selfishness and giving me hope and grace to correct it, I would still be pouting in the corner. And then our marriage would be hard.

Kathryn, you are my love and joy. I can’t wait to get into year three!