::: paul called it :::

Last week, while I was a nap widow, I found myself avoiding life by plowing through StumbleUpon sites. Sometimes the things I find while I'm stumbling amuse me. Occasionally they inspire me. But last week, while I was avoiding life, the things I stumbled upon depressed me.

I guess my first mistake was pausing on a page that boasted 99 things that you absolutely must see on the internet. Well, I thought, if I have the internet, and these are things I should have seen unless I'm a loser or old or something, I suppose I'd better use my time wisely and investigate every single one of them.

The very first link I clicked on was a video of a news person very unexpectedly falling and injuring herself badly. The sounds she made involuntarily upon impact with the ground made me gasp aloud. "My goodness!" I thought. "She must have hurt herself terribly!" My immediate reaction was to wonder what injuries she sustained.

But when I did a search for this woman to find out what had happened, all I found was the image of this video repeated over and over and over again, and each time I clicked to see if I could find further information, the comments I saw instead were heartless and atrocious. Insulting comments about her physical appearance, derogatory comments regarding her gender, mocking laughter about her audible reaction, profanity, vulgarity. Rarely, if ever, was there a comment about the woman's pain or wellbeing.

I found myself empathizing. Truly empathizing. I could see myself easily being that woman, and then, in a flash, I was her. I was hated for my mock cleverness, my excessively wobbly bits, and for being stupid enough to gasp when hurt, cry out when panicked. I actually felt hated by all of those people who left such terribly insenstive comments.

In an effort to cauterize myself from the discomfort I was feeling, I foolishly turned back to the top 99 things one absolutely must see on the internet. With a very few exceptions, one link after another led me to a moment of another human being's downfall, often literal, and the subsequent derogatory comments made by those who gleefully ridiculed the victim.

Only a handful of the 99 internet must-sees were uplifting. The majority of the 99 centered around some type of profanity or vulgarity. Only a couple of the 99 featured any kind of actual talent. This bothered me.

But I think what bothered me more was the ubiquitousness of nasty, prejudice, heartless comments. Are there really that many mean and insensitive people in the world?

I don't know why I'm surprised. After all, someone wiser than I once said:

"Don't be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God."

Still, to see it in action breaks my heart.

Today, I will try to counteract the profane, the contemptuous, the crude and coarse with as much warmth and kindness and goodness as God will trust me with and as my human heart will put forth.

Will you?

::: play that funky music :::

It was my kind of night, this one. It was the kind of night where you wish sleep were optional, and you wish daylight would just be an extension of nighttime and not a wake-up call from the world of responsibilities. It was the kind of night you have when you've been snowed in, but you had time to prepare, or when there's a big thunderstorm and the lights go out, but your husband can somehow still magically play the electric guitar. I guess you could say it was a voluntary snow-in, without the snow.

It was just the four of us, Bo and Sweetheart and The Baby and me. I'd taken Monet to spend the night at a friend's and had told Sweetheart how to make cheesy potatoes, asking her to give it a shot while I was gone. Daddy would be home to help, I told her, but it was pretty simple, and I assured her she could do it on her own.

When I returned, the house smelled like cheesy potatoes, and the girls were busy giggling and running and jumping excitedly. Sweetheart had made the cheesy potatoes with barely any help; she'd done everything but chop the onions, which Pop had done for her.

Bo showed Sweetheart and The Baby a video he'd been given recently of the first public performance of a worship song he wrote, and then a video of songwriter/pianist Ken Medema creating an improvised song into which he wove Bo's worship chorus. The girls were awed. So was I.

We sat together at the dinner table, Sweetheart's potatoes, my homemade dill pickles, hot ham and cheese paninis that The Baby and I made together, and joined hands. Together we sang Bo's chorus, the girls proudly declaring each word:

"Breathe out, breathe in and be filled.
Breathe out, breathe in and be filled.
Breathe out, breathe in and be filled with the Spirit of God."

And the singing just kept on all through the night. Earlier in the week, I had shown The Baby this video of The Cactus Cuties performing the National Anthem, and she was riveted. She sings constantly already, but this spurred her on even more.

So at the dinner table, she treated us to her own rendition of Amazing Grace. Five times. And then again after dinner as Bo played along on Monet's electric guitar and The Baby stood on the arm of the loveseat, arms spread wide, head thrown back, eyes closed and eyebrows raised, belting it out. SANGin' it, I tell you.

And still the singing didn't stop. Bo started playing riffs from Men at Work, and then it progressed to other 80's songs, and I just couldn't help it. I had to pull out the iPod Touch and look up lyrics, singing along to "You're the Biggest Part of Me" and "The Breakup Song" and "I Won't Hold You Back Now." Bo even talked me into singing "Brass in Pocket" by The Pretenders because he's pretty convinced that I sound like Chrissie Hynde when I sing. Why couldn't he think I sound like Karin Bergquist? She has an Ohio song, too, you know.

We even got into some of the one-hit-wonders, like Sheriff's "When I'm with You" and The Call's "I Still Believe" and Eric Carmen's "Change of Heart." And we couldn't let the night go by without singing "She Blinded Me with Science."

And then, after midnight rolled around, it was time for bed for the girls. Bo and I surfed over to Hulu and watched Jim and Pam's wedding, which had to be one of The Best Office episodes ever. I've watched that YouTube video of the incredibly fun wedding processional over and over, and I've cried every time I've watched the bride dance down the aisle. Kudos to The Office writers for working this into the show.

And now Bo is snoring, and I'm sitting here filled up and joyful. And tired.

Hey. Go dance and sing a little bit. It's good for you.

Dear Friend

Here's a YouTube video of seventeen-year-old Bard sharing a song at Easter Sunrise Service. Enjoy!