Embrace Me

Molly had her final choir concert of the year yesterday. It was a lot of fun to watch, as usual. She sang with a small group, Jazz II, and did an introduction. I took pictures, but I'm still looking for the adaptor to my digital camera. Doogie was working behind the scenes as the official school videographer. He's also been asked to videotape graduation this weekend. He's been trying for the past year to figure out just what he wants to go to school for. As a junior, it's time, but it's been hard. Until he took videograpy class. He's made several videos in different formats. The one I have here won the award at Oconto Falls High School for Best Film. He's seriously considering going to college for cinematography. I'm so glad that he's found something he really loves to do and is good at. I'm pretty proud of him. The video is inspired in part by personal experience. He has failed his own driver's test twice. Can you feel his frustration?

Embrace Me by Lisa Samson is another jewel in Samson's crown. Valentine stars as the Lizard Woman in a travelling freak show along with her friend, Lella, the Human Cocoon. While it's not a great life, it's one that she has come to terms with until returning to winter in a small North Carolina town. There she encounters Augustine, a tattooed and dread locked monk, who shakes up her ordered existence with his talk of God and faith. Samson's books are not for those readers who want to be comfortable and comforted in their reading. Her books with self-mutilating pastors and chain-smoking characters make me squirm in my seat like a good sermon. She delves into topics and places few Christian books dare to go, and God bless her for it. Her books are not to be read lightly and tossed aside. They weigh on my soul and heart and never leave me untouched. Augustine quotes Mother Theresa: You only love Christ as much as the person you love the least. Did that make you squirm in your seat? That's what Embrace Me will do to you, make you re-evaluate the strength of your faith and love for God. Samson writes like no one else in the business; each sentence is carefully crafted and weighted. Read this book and be transformed within.

Last weekend was hospitality weekend at our church. Each family was asked to spend time with another family they didn't know very well. Molly's friend Beth's family (the young woman who first invited us to the church) invited us over yesterday for lunch, and then we attended the concert together before heading back to their house for dessert. It was a wonderful day. Mia fell in love with their 13-year-old twin girls, even falling asleep on one's lap during the concert, and Jesse and I got to know the parents far better. I'm hoping that we can reciprocate this summer.