Obviously I have issues with both approaches. I don’t like extremes that dichotomize the body and soul or the sacred and the secular. I don’t like faith systems that prioritize one part of faith over another (evangelism over service, doctrine over practice… or the reverse). If my faith informs how I am to live my life and I am called to love others those things don’t matter. If feeding the hungry by making sure they have access to food is part of loving them, does it matter if it can be labeled as modern humanism or not? And no matter how fantastic evangelism is, can people really say that it’s okay to let people starve?

I think too often the ideology wars stand in the way of seeing what is actually happening to real people. Fighting for human rights isn’t about politics or philosophies ultimately. We can use such things as shields to protect us from reality. Could anyone honestly stand before someone starving because of oppression and injustice and tell them “screw you, you are too worthless for me to change my _______ (politics, theology, opinion, routine) to bother to help. I’m not responsible for you, and in fact you don’t deserve help anyway, so just deal with it.”

But of course we say such things every day.

So I think Christians coming together to say they support human rights is a significant step in the right direction. To leave behind our excuses and our theology shields and not be afraid to visibly care is a needed step in our world today.

Contributers to this Synchroblog (so far) include -

• Sonja Andrews on Human Wrongs
• Adam Gonnerman on Guantanamo Bay in the eyes of God
• Julie Clawson on Human rights and Christian comfort
• Steve Hayes on Human rights and Christian faith
• Sally Coleman on “If”
• Alan Knox on My Charade is the event of the Season.
• Mike Bursell on Human rights (and Christian responsibilities)
• Janice Fowler on “Voice Overs Needed” (or “Wake up - Speak Up”)
• Cobus van Wyngaard on Christianization and Humanization and our task in Zimbabwe
• Bryan Riley on Bloggers unite for human rights.

I’m usually very wary about Christian books that deal with sex for two basic reasons. Generally they so super-spiritualize sex that it becomes nearly indistinguishable from say a prayer meeting or worship service. Secondly I find that I usually completely disagree with the typical Christian conceptions about sex. And this is where I get in trouble. Where I cross the lines of taboo topics for decent Christian conversation and confirm people’s worst fears about me/young people/the emerging church. Where I either make people uncomfortable or just piss them off. So I usually play by the rules, avoid the topic, and let everyone assume I think like a “typical evangelical woman” (whatever that is) on the subject.

Well it’s kinda hard to keep my mouth shut when I’m sent a book to review that I have serious disagreements with on this topic. So at the risk of stirring up another hornet’s nest here, I have to say that I have issues with Michael Leahy’s new book Porn Nation (and honestly I continue to find it amusing that these anti-porn sites/books have porn related titles. I know it’s meant to bring porn users to them, but it also brings up all sorts of real porn when one searches for them on Google or Amazon.) The book is Leahy’s story about how his sex addiction destroyed his life. Of course it also has sections on how our culture is oversexed and some really generic ideas for spiritual healing. In all it was a very short book that I found didn’t end up saying much at all and what it did say was based on false assumptions and dichotomies.

I don’t deny that a sex addiction is harmful or that it has destroyed families. As with any addiction the potential exists to cause harm to those one loves the most. I appreciate the author’s vulnerability in telling his story and admitting how his addiction hurt others. I also don’t deny that porn can exploit and often has connections to sex trafficking, forced prostitution, rape, and slavery. Or that there are illegal and deviant forms of it. Sex can be used to hurt, control, and demean. Such injustices are always wrong wherever they occur. But as I read the book I had the distinct feeling the author was throwing the baby out with the bathwater so to speak. His personal pain caused him to swing to the opposite extreme of viewing all sexuality as bad and to blame the sexuality in our culture for his struggles with selfishness and addiction. While I question his naïve historical view of sex (assuming that we are the first generation to ever be sexual), as well as tendency to lump all cultural expressions of sexuality under the porn label, it is his negative view of sexuality that I had the most problem with.

Early in the book as he describes his first experience with sexuality (an accidental orgasm and the thrill of seeing a topless picture of a women), the author assumes a tone of disgust and regret. From the awkward and incomprehensible “sex ed” class taught by a priest to his own sexual experimentation, the assumption is that being a sexual being is a bad thing. This is his message after working through his sexual addictions, but it is also the message I have heard my whole life from the church. Even before the recent trends within evangelical Christianity to describe the sole purpose of sex as being procreation (basically for anti-homosexual reasons), sex wasn’t something to be celebrated. In typical modern dualistic fashion, our bodies are disparaged and sexuality is seen as the basest expression of that despised flesh. Sure some books like Intended for Pleasure hinted at that aspect of sex, but only as long as there wasn’t too much pleasure involved and sex was described as really being about spirituality. Basically the vicissitudes of Platonism haunted the bedrooms and made an easy scapegoat of sexuality.

This view of sex defined the way children were raised and youth were taught. Children were taught in the most Skinneristic of fashions to be utterly ashamed of and disgusted by their bodies through the quick reproves of parents whenever they attempted to touch their genitalia. Youth pastors held the sacred honor of scaring teens away from sex by whatever means necessary. A mixed bag of fear tactics, heavy guilt, and extreme suppression usually made up their arsenal. It generally worked too (at least for appearances sake, those who “sinned” through dressing too sexily or by getting pregnant were not so subtly asked to leave). Anyone one who expresses curiosity about sex openly was silenced and generally ridiculed. But of course everyone knew that most of the guys and a good handful of the girls were exploring their sexuality on their own trying to ignore the conditioned guilt they felt at being a sexual being.

Sexual memoirs like Leahy’s just portray the continuation of this rejection of the body. At one point in the book he describes the sad situation of girls who feel like they have to “put out” for guys or dress really sexy in order to be affirmed as a person. I agree, that is bad and is part of the continued evils girls face as we emerge from patriarchy. Girls should be taught to respect their bodies and themselves. This respect includes understanding who they are as sexual beings and the best way to discover healthy sexuality. Leahy though decides to merely lament the fact that girls these days are not innocent (once again historical naivety – were they ever!?), and proceeds to blame Brittney Spears, MySpace, and rap music for the downfall of the young. Apparently denying and ignoring sex (along with figuring out how to shelter “children” from it) is preferred over teaching healthy ways to interact with it.

Of course in Christianity where sex is to be saved for marriage whole other issues arise because of a lack of healthy ways to understand sex. Girls, taught to be ashamed of sex from birth, are generally told that although they will most likely not enjoy sex they had better give it to their husbands or else it is their fault if he strays. Years of suppression and guilt are to be overcome in a night. They need to please men enough to keep them from sin (affairs, porn, fantasy…), but of course stay within healthy spiritual boundaries. Anything that indulges in the sheer physicality of sex or that encourages sexual exploration and fulfillment is taboo. Only tasteful lacy lingerie on occasion is permitted, the lights should always be off, no games or stories or toys, no sex vacations, no experimenting with positions, no movies or fantasy play, no masturbation, and, most assuredly, no talking about any of this stuff ever. Couple who do cross those lines face lingering guilt and wonder if they are doing something wrong by enjoying sex with their spouse. Women become angry and ashamed if the husband tries to be intimate in those ways. They blame his deviant sex addiction and shut their sexuality down even further.

And the resources given to help are books like Porn Nation that continue to spread the “sex is evil” lie and tack on a few pages at the end about how after years of struggle they found healing and are now happily married. Sorry, but I find that lacking. I firmly believe that God created sex and that we are meant to enjoy it. Yes, I think that should happen with a committed relationship - that relational connection and intimacy being part of what it takes to be fully enjoyed imho. So I won’t deny that I am a sexual person. Nor will I play the game of attempting to hide that away by being made to feel guilty for dressing a certain way (that “way” varying depending on who is doing the judging) or just because I am a woman. I will not run from expressions of sexuality in culture or think they hold the power to destroy people (addictions and selfishness are problems, sexuality is not). I will not see the physical body as something only to be shamed by, or see developing my relationship with my husband sexually as anything I should ever feel guilty about. Yes, sex can be used to harm and destroy, but there are ways to develop a healthy sexuality that strengthens and respects people that doesn’t require the extremes of disparaging the body or suppressing sexuality.

Mother’s Day Proclamation - 1870
by Julia Ward Howe

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

And this video (ht: Josh) I think makes a fantastic point about how we raise our kids determining the world they will create. What things do we tell them are important and significant in this world? Do we encourage them towards peace, justice, and equality? Or do we give such things lip service while really conveying to them that money and power are the really important things in life?

Happy Mother’s Day

1. People of other religions are jerks too. Why should Christians apologize if others are not expected to as well. She wondered why “Christians [are] the only ones groveling around and begging forgiveness for the disrespectful behavior of only some of the members of their religion?”
2. Christians really haven’t done all that much that is bad. Or at least all the good we have done outweighs the bad.
3. People shouldn’t have to apologize for stuff they were not personally involved in. She wrote, “if YOU have not partaken in toxic Christianity, then I am not sure you need to apologize for something you didn’t do. It is not YOUR fault that others calling themselves Christians have acted like jerks.” For her, “an apology implies some personal culpability.” As an example she wrote, “As a white person, it is not my fault that black people were treated unfairly a century ago. I would take that further even and say that as a white person growing up in the SOUTH, it is not my personal fault. I do not owe black people an apology. (actually, the government is still trying to weasel it out of me via affirmative action: I said I am sorry with the fact that my law school admission doesn’t count as much as if I was certain minorities, whether I wanted to or not).”

Of course others on the thread attempted to engage with her often to no avail, but her perspective haunted me. While she didn’t cross into MD territory and say that we need to be jerks for Jesus, the utter lack of ability to expression compassion for the other surprised me. Her first objection, revealed more of a sense of entitlement than love. Sure I can admit that other religions have done evil as well, but I will not refuse responsibility for my own religion until I feel like other people have taken responsibility for theirs. If I always waited for others to seek forgiveness before I forgave, would I really be extending forgiveness or just gloating in their groveling? I though similarly about her second objection. I don’t think evil is graded on a sliding scale. No amount of good negates the need to take responsibility and apologize for wrong actions. The call for an apology (or the act thereof) is not intended to silence or ignore good done. I’m not a fan of “yes, but” apologies (from my toddler or from adults). Trying to evade responsibility and escape needed amends by attempting to paint oneself in a better light cheapens the apology. There is a time and place for lauding accomplishments, just not as a means of avoiding an apology.

But it is the third excuse that really bothered me. Even if it is true that someone is entirely innocent of wrongdoing, the group they have chosen to associate with is not - and that is how those who have been hurt by that group (or just outsiders in general) will view that individual. Either that individual can act arrogantly and deny responsibility or they can accept what full membership in that group entails - both the good and the bad. Christianity’s main themes are those of mercy and forgiveness. We are willing to accept the “unfairness” or original sin, but are too prideful to accept the unfair baggage our religion carries. It just doesn’t make sense, especially not to the outside world curious about who we are.

That said, I find it hard to believe that any individual Christian can ever truthfully claim to not have partaken in wrongdoing or toxic Christianity. (just like no white person can ever truthfully claim to not have participated in racial injustice in some form or another). Beyond the fact that just the act of denying responsibility for Christianity’s evils appears as self-centered toxic Christianity to many, most Christians today are living the benefits of Christendom - benefits that came at the expense of others. American Christians are living with the wealth and resources of “Christian” operations like Manifest Destiny and attempts to “Christianize and civilize” other nations (mostly as an excuse to rape their land of it’s resources). The denominations and doctrines we bicker about exist because they were the ones willing to slaughter and torture dissenting viewpoints. Ministries and churches are built (and get rich) on messages of hatred - give money to help Israel kill those Palestinians, or to make sure our students don’t know gay people exist, or to support the IRA, or even fund corrupt dictators and conflict diamond schemes in Africa. It’s hard to be an American Christian and not be connected to some group involved in such things. So even if you have never Bible-bashed, manipulated someone to say a prayer, or burned someone at the stake most Christians are receiving the benefits of toxic Christianity. There is no out of sight out of mind excuse than can work. The connection to wrongdoing is there and if we have compassion at all for those we have hurt, we will take responsibility to apologize if not make amends.

In a way this is about getting over “me-centered” Christianity. One’s faith isn’t just an individual thing, disconnected from history or the rest of the world. We are part of a community of believers and (like it or not) we need to be willing to fully be a part of that community. Recognizing the faults present there is a necessary first step to helping make things better and to understanding why others view us the way they do. Sure it can be uncomfortable when someone lays the blame of say the Crusades or hurtful statements by Dobson, Robertson, or Driscoll fully on you. But it seems more in line with the way of Christ to admit such things are wrong and apologize for them instead of getting angry and attempting to defend yourself or them. Of course, I haven’t always done a good job at this, but it is a habit I am attempting to develop. I’ve discovered that choosing to identify with a community can be a struggle, but it also is vital to growing a deeper and more holistic faith that focuses on loving God and others and not just myself.

I was struck at how tied to such a religion we Americans tend to be. This is a religion that dovetails with our lives as they already are. It shores up our economic systems, promotes civic duty and pride, and never attempts to challenge the status quo. It meets basic spiritual needs, helps create healthy social networks, and helps promote moral systems. Such a religion is safe, fit for public consumption, FDA Approved so to speak.

So it is no wonder that religious movements that challenge the civic system are derided or labeled heretical. Instead of appropriately keeping the system running, these religious movements counter-culturally offer revolutionary challenges. They don’t support life as it already is, but offer alternatives that question the basic assumptions and values of such ways. Their leaders ask hard questions and make uncomfortable statements. These religions are less about something the public consumes and more about leading lives of transformative justice, love, and mercy. You know the sort of stuff the Bible refers to as “true religion.”

These aren’t religions that form the backbone of a nation. Anything that retains the right to question the nations will never get it’s stamp of approval. A religion that actually affects the lives of its followers in radical ways is not “a religion fit for public consumption.” It never will be. So why do I still see more churches caring about being fit for public consumption than about following true religion? How have we been so deceived into idolatry?

We are being encouraged instead to seek out local events or to put them on ourselves as alternatives to the Gathering. On one hard this is a great idea. Finding others in one’s area to meet with and provide encouragement to through things like cohorts is a wonderful thing. And having put on a few local emerging conferences, I know the value of those events as well. Those are times for like-minded people bound by geography to find each other. I’ve had fun at these events and have been blessed by the people I encounter there. Sometimes these things develop into ongoing community, sometimes they don’t. As we’ve discovered with the Chicago cohort, we have an email list of over 300 contacts, but rarely see more than a dozen at any given gathering. Often people show up once or twice, attend the big events with the big name speakers, ask to be part of the network, affirm that they aren’t crazy for asking these questions, and then never plug into community. It meets a need, often a very vital need in their faith journey, but lacks a certain something for those of us committed to the emergent community for the long haul.

While I have met some wonderful people though the local events, cohorts, and conferences, I still find that most of my emerging interactions occur online. My community is scattered across the states (and the world). There are members of this community who I have only met at the big trans-regional events like the Gathering. So while I still love the idea of and will continue to help organize regional events (yes I am think of a Texas Emerging Women gathering soon), I’m going to miss the opportunity to connect with the larger emergent family. And while the idea of a National EV Conference is appealing, I doubt it will be as open-source, fun, and inexpensive as the Gathering. I doubt we will see whole families there or have the chance to cook meals together. So I’m going to miss the family reunion/pilgrimage that was the Gathering. And I’m curious how it’s absence will affect the nature of the conversation - will it truly spark more grass-roots conversations or will everything just default towards more and more structure? In other words, how can the spirit of the Gathering be maintained without the Gathering itself actually existing?

Tags: Emergent, Emerging Church, Glorietta Gathering

But I also equally dislike overly generic self-help books. These books present ideas that sound great - of course I want to “be a better friend” or “love my child unconditionally” - but they are lacking in specific advice for how exactly to do that. I’m sick of books that latch onto one phrase and repeat it incessantly without ever fleshing it out. I find this a lot in devotional books. They can be all about drawing closer to God, but I think they assume that if they just convince me that I need to draw closer to God (by endless repetition of that phrase) then it will magically happen. Did they ever stop to think that I would never have picked up the book if I wasn’t already looking for ways I could make that happen? That’s why I don’t “do” devotional books, I find them generally pointless. I’m Goldilocks searching for the just right balance motivational concepts and practical advice and so far it’s been hard to find.

So as I was reflecting on some of the disappointing books in this genre recently, I began to think about how this relates to some of my issues with the Bible. Often the way the Bible was presented to me fell into one of these extremes. Either it was taught in sweeping generalities (if you just believe/trust/pray everything will work out). Or it was interpreted with the addition of long lists of how exactly one should live (here are the words you can never say, the movies you can never watch, the ideas you can never question in order to be a good Christian or a Christian at all). I got sick of these interpretations. The Bible felt trivialized, it was just another bad self-help book that didn’t deliver. It felt wrong to read a single verse about the early church praying in Acts and then be told just to pray more (or be given the formula for prayer). It didn’t work for me.

It took years before I realized why this self-help spiritualization of scripture bothered me. As with most self-help books it didn’t come across as genuine or authentic. I wanted something that made sense within the context of real life, not just a mantra I could chant. So it helped once I started reading whole passages at a time from the Bible and paying attention to the historical context of the whole thing. Verses no longer mere devotional ideas, but part of a bigger picture. The church in Acts didn’t just pray, they prayed for specific things and “therefore” certain things occured in their communities. It was all authentic and meaningful within certain contexts and in relation to individual lives. To me that’s much more meaningful than slogans or lists of rules. Ideas, plus guidelines, plus examples make sense to me. That’s the type of “just right” advice I can follow and learn from. But maybe that’s just me.

My Beautiful Idol falls into the genre of spiritual memoir and is being compared to the styles of Anne Lamott and Don Miller. I love Lamott and refuse to read Miller, so my response to those comparisons is “kinda.” What I can say is that this is a very different sort of memoir - it goes places one really doesn’t expect in these sorts of books. Namely Peter has no qualms about being brutally honest and blunt as he recounts the period of spiritual searching and awakening he went through during the 1990’s. He is not afraid to tear down the cliches and idols of the Christian culture nor to just outright question the conventional wisdom one finds in the church. This is a culture I am familiar with and so I resonated with much of what he was describing. I was also amused to recognize so many of the artifacts of the 90’s “contemporary Christian subculture” in his descriptions - from the bad music and “bible studies” to the ubiquitous presence of Mountain Dew.

I had two main issues with the book though. The first is entirely personal and situational, but I have come to the conclusion that books or movies that include scenes of mothers or babies dying in childbirth should come with a warning label. This is like the third time I’ve been blindsided by such a book this pregnancy, and while I am not usually an overly emotional person, those sorts of things really really get to hormonal pregnant women. So a little warning would have been nice. (and no this isn’t a huge part of the book, just one event in a spiritual journey…)

My other issue is more spiritual/theological. The book endeavors to expose the idols we create of our own spirituality and ability to serve God. It explores how we can trust too much or take too much pride in our good works. Often we elevate such things above the realities they entail and spiritualized them into pithy nothingness. I loved the way Peter revealed those ideas through his story, but I was left with too much bitter pessimism. Because so much in Christianity is fake and idolized, he seemed to go too far in rejecting the value of any pursuit of good works. There was very little balance or acceptance of the paradoxes of Christian life. The sarcasm, wit, and gritty reality sometimes overpowered any whisper of hearing where God actually was working. I know the memoir just represents a period of his life, and I’m not looking for a sugary happy ending or anything, just more of a “where do we go from here” wrap-up.

My issues aside, My Beautiful Idol is a good read. Engaging and challenging if one is willing to be pushed outside the box of typical Christian spiritual assumptions.

Tags: Peter Gall, My Beautiful Idol, christianity

Even still as they reflected on the trip, their reasons made sense. They said, “coming to Haiti, being a missionary — it wasn’t about doing something good in a poor country or helping paint a room even bringing medical supplies to a village in the middle of nowhere. It was about a promise. It was about an obligation. It was about the realization that you have the capacity to give, which means you have the duty to give.” The men felt good about (as it was described) fitting into the “traditional Baptist framework of Haiti, [where] it’s understood that those who are blessed to turn those good fortunes into blessings for others. You receive a blessing in order to give them away.” (I don’t think they’ve heard that that is a traditional biblical framework…)

This sounded very similar to the Christian groups I’ve heard report on their experiences. But then the article continued to go on about all the hardships the guys suffered - getting their parents to let them go someplace so dangerous, sleeping in stuffy cabins, having to walk in unlit areas at night, and having the local children get in their way while they tried to help improve their school. But most saw that it was worthwhile to give up a week of vacation so their presence could be “a gift to the Haitians.” But even with all the talk about having a duty to give and be a blessing, there was this incident reported -

In our American hometowns, we’re used to streetlights and headlights and constant illumination, but the streets of Pignon, Haiti, where only a few lights shine on a few street corners, most of the village sits in darkness. Dirt roads, winding and confusing in the daylight, became pockmarked mine fields. Low cinder-block walls become tripwires. To make matters worse, we had been told that things at night were not nearly as friendly for Americans as they were during the day. Nothing we encountered helped the general sense of unease that had settled on the group since a breathless messenger five minutes prior had told us we were needed urgently. “Will,” he said, out of breath and speaking to the trip’s leader, “the doctors need you at the hospital. Now.”

This was a problem. Either someone from our group had done something colossally stupid, something that couldn’t wait to be remedied in the morning, or the hospital’s owner had returned early from his trip and needed our help. After carefully making our way through trash and dirt-filled streets — praying that the village’s sole generator didn’t switch off, leaving us in total darkness — we stepped through the hospital’s iron gate, the one that warned us to leave our guns at the door, and looked for friendly faces. We were alone; no one spoke English. The only others around were poor Haitians, looking for healing the way the faithful congregate at a church in times of distress. The scene was looking even more grim until we found a friendly face: The doctor who sent for us.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “A woman on the operating table needs a blood transfusion. She is very sick.”

We didn’t know what to say, so we looked at him blankly.

“We need one of you to donate blood.”

This wasn’t what we expected. These 11 men, undergraduates from the University of Arkansas, had signed up for a mission trip to build things and make friends, not to serve as donors for a woman in danger of bleeding out from an emergency hysterectomy. The next three minutes were a flurry of discussion. “What’s your blood type?” they asked each other. “What if we’re not a match?” “Is anyone O-positive?” “Is it even safe to give blood?”

Very few things prepare anyone for decisions like these. One week before Christmas, when friends and loved ones 1,600 miles away were making plans to go out on a Saturday night and were finalizing holiday travel plans, we were wondering who was going to save the life of a poor Haitian woman. It soon became apparent that no one was going to volunteer.

Will Smith, our man in charge, made the final decision. We weren’t going to serve as donors. Making difficult decisions is part of being a leader, part of showing the right path. Without warning, Smith faced a choice he didn’t want to face and, using his best judgment, decided he couldn’t put any of his men at risk.

“Thank you for considering helping us,” the doctor said when Smith told him of the group’s decision. “I will do my best to save this woman.” Our walk to the hospital was through the fading twilight, which did little to calm any fears, but the black night sky that greeted us on the walk home was as dark as our thoughts. Haiti needed our help in more ways than we could give.

The article never tells what happened to the woman, although it does later call the hospital the “Mayo clinic of Haiti.” To be honest I don’t know what I would have done in that situation. But I was shocked at how different their response to the trip and this situation were from the typical Christian response. Maybe it is our “guilt complex,” but the sense of obligation Christians have to care for others no matter the cost didn’t factor into this story. I have no problem with what these guys are doing - serving others and moving out of one’s comfort zone are always good things. But I found the whole thing curious and a bit depressing. How much can we really help and love others when we aren’t willing to really be with them and learn from them? A few days ago I blogged about how compassion is part of what Christ called us to. So this example of what service without Christ’s call to love looks like grabbed my attention. Honestly, I don’t want to disparage these efforts, I’m just pondering what it does take to move people to true compassion.

1.YOUR ROCK STAR NAME (first pet, current car):
Frosty Aztec

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME (fave ice cream flavor, favorite type of shoe):
Pistachio Birkenstock

3. YOUR NATIVE AMERICAN NAME (favorite color, favorite animal):
Green Puppy

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, city where you were born):
Michelle Dallas

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME (the first three letters of your last name, first two of your first name):
Cla-Ju

6. SUPERHERO NAME (2nd favorite color, favorite drink):
Brown Tea (um, that boring…)

7. NASCAR NAME (the first names of your grandfathers):
Stormy Donald

8. STRIPPER NAME ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy):
Pleasures Divine

9. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME (your fifth grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter):
Simmons Sacramento

10. SPY NAME (your favorite season/holiday, flower):
Summer Hyacinth

11. CARTOON NAME (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now):
Strawberry Jeans

12. HIPPIE NAME (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree):
Granola Magnolia (fitting)