Top 10 movies of the year is BACK!

You all didn't get this feature last year, but we are switching over to a more lighthearted topic now, my top 10 movies of the year, with a special appearance of my husband's favorites!

10. Oculus
For once, an original horror movie!  This featured a brother-sister pair who tried to reconcile childhood trauma perpetrated by a piece of antique furniture.  Sounds silly, but it had me looking around me when I left the movie...in broad daylight.

9. Interstellar
It wasn't perfect, and it took a little long to end (for my taste), but it was suspenseful and heartwarming, with flawed but endearing characters you could relate to.  Worth seeing, probably on the big screen.

8. Sharknado
HEAR ME OUT!!  We saw the RiffTrax version, and it made it EVEN FUNNIER.  There is no better movie to mercilessly make fun of.

7. Guardians of the Galaxy
Quick confession: I didn't really like The Avengers that much.  I went into GOTG thinking it would be similar to that, but I was WRONG!  It was cheesy and hilarious with characters that you couldn't help but falling in love with, including a giant tree that doesn't speak plain English and a tough-talking raccoon-thingy, all set to 80s music.  What's not to love?

6. 22 Jump Street
If you saw 21 Jump Street, hopefully you agree with me that it was a pleasant surprise in terms of "dumb" comedies.  Most of the funny parts were not in the trailer.  The same can be said of 22 Jump Street, which is just plain fun, and self-aware enough to make merciless fun of itself at the end.

5. Gone Girl
I picked up the book in the airport so I could read it on our flight to Hawaii.  It was hard to put down--even in Hawaii!  The movie didn't quite live up to the book, but when does that ever happen?  The book was detailed and layered and it would have been impossible to include everything in the movie.  However, the movie was well done and managed to capture the essential details and then some and had great pacing and casting.  It is a hauntingly disturbing tale, kind of the antithesis of The Gift of the Magi.

4. The Judge
I hadn't seen much about this before seeing it, and didn't expect to like it as much as I did.  Robert Downey Jr.'s soulful brown eyes help him perfectly portray both the ambitious charisma and vulnerability necessary for the role of a hot-shot attorney who comes home for the first time since childhood to see his estranged father after the death of his beloved mother.

3. The Edge of Tomorrow
Tom Cruise must repeat the same day again and again, under the guidance of Emily Blunt, until he gets it right.

2. Nightcrawler
Jake Gyllenhall has always been a great actor, but I think this movie is proof that he just keeps getting better and better--his tics and facial expressions say it all, he barely needs a script in this movie about a sociopathic news filmer who will go to any length to capture the story.

1. Dallas Buyer's Club
Matthew McConoughey's character finds out he has AIDS in the early 90s, and finds a way to obtain the best possible treatment for it, making unlikely friends in the process.

Honorable Mention: The Giver, partly because it was a favorite book from my childhood, and partly because I thought the film adaptation was spot on.

Bonus: Zach's Top 10

10. The Purge 2: Anarchy
9. Tusk
8. 22 Jump Street
7. Gone Girl
6. Judge
5. Dallas Buyer's Club
4. A Walk Among The Tombstones
3. Birdman
2. Guardians of the Galaxy
1. The Edge of Tomorrow

The blessedness of sorrow at Christmas

I got married in September 2013, and it was a dream come true for me.  On the outside, I might look like a career woman (and I am, indeed, deeply invested in the work I do.  I love it and it is a part of me!) but in actuality, that was really how I kept myself busy doing something I had full control over, while deep down I always knew that I wanted that life partner, that soul mate.  I found him a few months before my 25^th birthday, and the whole thing unfolded at a fairly slow pace, but I did get what I had always wanted.  And it’s amazing.

Prior to that, I did keep my life happy and busy with school, work, and lots of amazing friends.  In retrospect, I am very grateful that I spent the first half of my 20s single (for the most part).  It lent itself to some adventures, and to be honest, some extremely memorable shenanigans.

However, that season of my life was not without its difficulties.  I often lacked confidence and felt unwanted.  Valentine’s day could fly by and I’d be fine, but for some reason Christmas felt particularly difficult.  To this day, I maintain that Christmas is the most difficult time of the year to be single as a young adult, even when surrounded by amazing family and/or friends.

Throughout my early 20s, my brothers and I would attend Midnight Mass together (my parents bowing out of the tradition once our church switched to actual midnight midnight mass, as opposed to 10pm midnight mass).  Every year at midnight mass, it seemed I would encounter something profound.  My feelings of worthlessness, unwantedness, and loneliness made room for the Christ Child.  It’s something so difficult to explain, but I usually felt profoundly sad, and at once so close to God that it made me feel warm, protected, comforted.  It did not diminish the sadness, but it added something to my life.

I feel that more that other years, 2014 has been a year of great loss for so many.  The last few weeks, my heart has especially felt for two women in their 20s whose husbands have passed away.  Each faces a unique struggle that seems almost unbearable, and yet both have in ways demonstrated a faith in God and a closeness with Him that is unshakeable.  One of them is an especially good friend of mine, and gave someone else the words "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted" Psalm 34:19.  I can only imagine that she is living those words daily, and that she knows them better than I ever could.

Christmas is a time of year that can feel magical and wonderful, but it can also sometimes highlight what (or really, WHO) we do not have.  If you have experienced great loss, or are waiting around for something you desperately want for your life, I do not believe that feeling sorrowful is a sign of weakness.  I pray that in your sorrow, you can encounter the Christ Child, and feel His presence; that instead of taking your trials from you, He walks beside you through them, and shows you his mercy in a plentiful way.

Whether or not your Christmas is merry, I pray that it is blessed, that it is sacred, and that your joy runs deep.

A conversation that needs to be had, sparked by an event that's too sad to think about

My first full-time job following college graduation was as a Child Welfare caseworker:  I worked with the families of children in foster care, giving them direction and help as to how to reunite as a family.  I have seen my fair share of the effects of child abuse and neglect.  I often say, and mean, that for the most part I loved working with the parents AND children.  The majority of the parents made sacrifices and changes and worked hard to demonstrate their love for their children and ultimately win them back.  There were also some cases where I had difficulty identifying with or caring about a parent in any way, shape, or form.  Sometimes it’s hard to find empathy for someone who hurt their child.

This past week in Newport, Oregon, a woman threw her 6 year old little boy off of a bridge.  He did not survive.  

This is very hard to stomach.  The little boy had autism and pretty severely so.  I can only imagine that as the person who cared for him and loved him the most hoisted him over the railing, he must have been so scared and confused.  My heart drops to think about it.  Rest in peace, little London.

I have been trying to work out what I am thinking about his mom.  She had a son with severe autism and a husband who could no longer support the family due to multiple sclerosis.  Anyone would feel a great deal of stress, but that on its own is no excuse for killing a child.  However, from what I have read, it sounds like she has a history of mental illness which has involved hospitalization.  I’m not sure whether her illness played a significant factor in all of this, but what I have learned about mental illness is how badly stress can exacerbate symptoms.

I have talked to a few people who say they don’t buy mental illness as playing a role in this horrible event.  And I don’t know that it necessarily did, but I just find it interesting.  I think when we see that something excruciatingly horrible has happened, we don’t want to let the perpetrator off the hook.  When we see something like the horrific killing of an innocent child, something in us needs to be angry.  Something like this seems senseless, and to make sense of it we need someone to be angry at, someone to blame.  It’s human nature.

I don’t know about Jillian McCabe, or her particular diagnosis or illness or history or any of that, no more that what is being reported in the news.  And the media will spin the story any way they want to get readers and listeners and viewers, making it even more difficult to know what actually happened.  (Though I do tend to think the fact that she immediately called 9-1-1 makes it difficult to imagine that what happened was 100% pure sinister evil--though stranger things have happened.)  What I do know is that mental illness is real, that it can be gravely disabling, and that it can take over a person’s life more than most people realize.

This past week I saw the movie Fury in theaters with my husband.  After I see a movie, one thing I like to do is go onto IMDB and look up the trivia about the movie.  One thing I found out about Fury is that during filming, Shia LaBeouf intentionally pulled out a tooth and injured his face for the sake of making the movie, and had an intense and dramatic religious conversion.  For a few years, I have dismissed him as a drinking and driving child actor weirdo, but the things he did during the movie strike me as manic symptoms.  I did a quick internet search to see whether anything had been written about him having a mental illness, but there was really nothing concrete.

I also think about Amanda Bynes, and her very public complete meltdown that she seems to have not recovered from.  Media outlets seem to love making fun of her, despite the fact that she has spent months at a time hospitalized for a mental illness.

Let me make a few points clear before I go any further:  1) The vast majority of people with mental illness are NOT dangerous, and are in fact more likely to be victimized than to victimize. 2) A child having a disorder that makes them difficult to care for, whether it is a mental illness or anything else, does not justify harming the child in any way, in any instance.

However.

Sometimes a person’s mental illness causes them to be dangerous to themselves or others.  The best way to prevent anyone being harmed is to get the sufferer of mental illness adequate support in a timely manner.  The sooner the symptoms can be stopped or managed, the better.  As evidenced by two celebrities (one of whom I am, admittedly, merely suspecting of mental illness), there remains a significant stigma around mental illness.  Imagine going through a scary and stressful time, then imagine being afraid of negative consequences associated with asking for help.  Is this how we want things to go?

Here are some things the average person can do to reduce stigma around mental illness:

1. Interrupt!  Interrupt discourse that says that mental illness isn’t real, or that it is a matter of pulling oneself together.  Interrupt discourse that calls people “crazy” in a derogatory way.
2. Do some research: find out what it means to have certain illnesses.  I knew someone once who thought bipolar disorder meant that sometimes the sufferer has a “normal” mood, and sometimes they are depressed, and that with focus, a person can overcome this on their own.  This is not true.  Bipolar disorder involves periods of mania, which can even include psychotic symptoms!
3. This one is hard for some people: Recognize that for many reasons, many people with severe and persistent mental illnesses abuse drugs.  This is a population of people more vulnerable to drug abuse and addiction.  Judging them or blaming them is not helpful, but what is helpful is having empathy and looking at the reasons for this, and for solutions to providing adequate support on a large scale.
4. Each person has his or her own unique experiences.  It is unreasonable to expect one person with schizophrenia to function on a certain level just because you know someone else with schizophrenia who functions on that level.  Mental illness has different degrees of severity, and the kind of support someone has, as well as inborn strengths, make a difference.

Once again, I don’t know London’s mother’s individual situation, I just wanted to start a conversation about mental illness and stigma.  

Please join me in praying for sweet little London’s soul, and for his family.

Too sensitive?

My first case in my first full-time job out of undergrad consisted of a family where the mother was traumatized by the father's abuse of her and the kids, and as a result, had difficulty pulling her life together, while the father did what we asked and got the kids back, but I never felt 100% about it.  I'll never forget that family, and it's a little haunting to think about.

When I started working at the State Hospital, my unit was all female, and all of my patients had some sort of trauma history, many at the hands of men.

Throw in some hurtful instances of sexual harassment in the workplace early in my career, and despite the fact that I have no shortage of wonderful, loving, empowering men in my life, sexism/the objectification of women is like a punch in the gut to me, and I have been accused of lacking a sense of humor or being too sensitive.

I disagree.

Women always have to look out for our safety in ways men do not.  We can be accused of causing our own victimization by doing the wrong thing: wearing the wrong thing, walking the wrong way, being in the wrong place in the wrong time when we "should have known better..."  Even in my current job, which I love, I have been in situations where I have watched my voice and that of my female colleagues be silenced because of our gender, or a smart and insightful respected colleague be referred to as "that little nurse" in a dismissive way.  Gender discrimination is pervasive and it is harmful.

I read and post on a Beaver sports message board (who's surprised?) and I am one of very few women.  Being a rarity in that population, I do admit to enjoying unusual respect at times, so I am not complaining about that group as a whole.  However, on occasion, as one might expect, it turns into the boys club, and someone posted a youtube video today:

I wanted to "have a sense of humor" and laugh about it, but it made me really upset.  Like, "I-was-trying-to-study-for-my-licensing-exam-but-kept-getting-distracted-by-how-angry-yet-self-critical-I-was-feeling" upset.

So here is why I think this type of "humor" is harmful:
1. This guy is maybe a 4, but claiming that a woman has to be an 8 to be wife material, regardless of any other qualities. (I'm assuming that beauty is relative, meaning that about 20% of women are pretty enough for him to marry.)
2. Presumably, by crazy, irrationally mean behavior is included, and he is basically saying that this kind of thing can be overcome by being physically beautiful enough, which is stupid and self destructive for him.
3. If, by crazy, he means mentally ill, that this is like octuple the inappropriate.  People who suffer from mental illness have enough plaguing them, without it being inferred by some hegemonic a-hole that they can only make up for it by being physically attractive.  (I work with several women who, in addition to trying to work toward getting out of a very restrictive psychiatric hospital, also feel awful enough about themselves that they are trying as hard as they can not to eat at all.  It's heartbreaking.)
4. EVEN THOUGH I am an educated, confident, married woman with a husband who tells me every day that he loves me, I felt noticeably worse about my physical appearance and overall self after watching this video.
5. It simplifies half of the population into two basic characteristics.  Women can apparently be rated on their physical appearance and level of "crazy" (whatever the heck that means) but qualities like kindness, intelligence, industriousness, and spirituality (among MANY others) apparently don't play a role in all of this.

I could keep going, as there are so many facets to the offensiveness of this video, but I will let you all come up with your own ideas.

Bottom line: sexism is hurtful.  Please think about the effect you are having on others if you feel the need to laugh about it to increase your own self-worth.

The Hallmark of a Christian is Joy: A Tale of Two Modern-Day Saints

In the summer of 2002, when I was 18, I took a trip with some of my friends to Toronto, Canada to participate in World Youth Day.  A lot of amazing memories happened on that trip, but for some reason, one phrase that I copied down in my journal during a keynote speech sticks in my mind more than others: "The hallmark of a Christian is joy."  Over the years, this has meant different things to me.  As a hyperactive (if naive) 18 year old, it meant being perpetually excited to be a Christian/Catholic.  But joy is not excitement or happiness.  So how can a Christian show her identity while mourning, or while being an underslept mother of 3 young children, or when getting justifiably super angry after being treated unfairly at work or elsewhere?

As I grew, I grew to see joy as something distinct from happiness, but had trouble pinning down what it was exactly.  Maybe it was like you could have all sorts of other emotions, but joy isn't an emotion, it's a choosing of priorities that lead to a more lasting kind of satisfaction or happiness.  I don't think this is wrong, I've just continued to expand on it.

With two examples in front of me lately, I have continued to refine my definition and understanding of joy, and the two examples I have been given are teaching me that joy is also the opposite of bitterness.

With apologies to both of my readers ;) I am likely to continue writing about my grandma for a bit.  As the weeks go by since her unexpected passing, I feel like I am both learning more about her and coming to new epiphanies about her.

One thing that I have long known about her is that her life was not easy.  She lost her mother in 1935, months before her 7th birthday.  Her sweet and loving father, tasked with raising 3 kids as a widower, remarried not too long later to a woman who could be harsh and judgmental.  I heard Grandma's best attempts to admire this woman, but from what I understand, she never truly felt loved by her.  It seems as though my step-great-grandmother was disdainful of Grandma having several children early in her marriage, and harshly criticized her at a time when Grandma and Grandpa were struggling to make ends meet for their family, instead of offering help. Grandma suffered the loss of her beloved father when she was in her late 20s, and the loss of her eldest son when he was 24, while needing to also provide love and comfort to a grieving family.  Finally 8 years ago, the love of her life since she was 15 passed away in their home after several months of illness.

Fr. Philip Waibel gave her eulogy, and I found out that he had spent quite a bit of time getting to know her.  He emphasized that she had plenty of opportunities to become bitter about life, and who could blame her?  Many things about her life were unfair.  She had more than her fair share of loss and of being treated in an unloving manner.  Instead, though, she chose joy and gratitude.  That is not to say that her suffering was not real, or that it was not valid.  The experiences I described caused her great pain, which she carried with her throughout her life.  Just a few years ago, a cousin and I went to go have lunch with her, and she teared up when talking about the loss of her mother many decades earlier.  At the same time, Grandma had a bigger picture in mind; I believe she viewed her sorrow as a uniting, a solidarity with the cross, and used those experiences to bring her closer to God rather than the opposite.

Grandma told Fr. Philip that she loved it that her kids would call her frequently and tell her what was going on with them; she was the "hub" of the family, and the role allowed her to "know who to pray for."  Though I always knew of her devotion to her faith, it wasn't until her funeral that I found out just how prayerful she was.  She truly viewed prayer as her number one defense for protecting her family, and we were all better off for it.  Her choosing of joy and gratitude was a grace in her life, and in the lives of all of us.  (There are around 60 of us.)

Similarly, I have been spending some time lately with a good friend who has suffered a terrible and tragic life-altering loss only about 6 months ago.  She, too, has ample reason to chose the path of bitterness, or even the path of total withdrawal from life.  No doubt that most, if not all days, are a struggle in ways for her to face, but in a completely inspiring, uplifting, and honestly, challenging way, she manages to choose a different way.  Every time I see her, I am greeted with a sunny smile, giggling, and lots of fun.  She has been spending a lot of time caring for others, praying for her friends and family, and even helping an interested friend learn more about the Catholic way of life.  Through her tragic sorrow, she has chosen the path of joy, the path of life, and it has challenged me to think about what role my own faith plays in my every day life; that Sunday is a refueling for the rest of my week, not the only place that my religion is practiced.

Therefore, joy is not happiness.  Joy can bring happiness, but joy is also a choice, a way of life, gratitude in situations where it seems impossible to be grateful.  It is expecting God to provide strength in situations where it would be impossible to rise up on our own.  It is a modern-day miracle of survival in front of my eyes, modeled to me by these two modern-day saints.

You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?  In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus you will know them by their fruits. -Matthew 7:16-20

Hattie Cecilia Groeger Vandecoevering

I was going to write a more political view on something, but life interferes with the best of our plans.  And that's ok.  It's life.

I have been recovering from a bad bug for over a week, so on Wednesday I curled into bed a little early, trying to get some rest and heal.  About 10:30, I was woken up by my husband scrambling to answer our ringing phone.  He rattled off the number on the caller ID and I sleepily informed him that it was my mom's cell phone, then sat straight up.  Mom is a nurse who works early in the morning and normally goes to bed very early.  This couldn't be good.  I went crazy for a minute or two trying to decipher my husband's "uh huh...ok...yeah" before he finally handed me the phone.

"I have some bad news..." she started out.  My Grandma, my dad's mom, had passed away suddenly in her home.  She hadn't been ill, she had even spent some pleasant time with some family members earlier in the day. I stammered through the phone call, completely stunned, and then before I even realized it, burst into tears as soon as the phone call was over.  Zach, of course, was wonderful (even though he was shocked and sad too) and sat with me and helped me make some sense of it.  Then, each of my brothers called and we talked about it.

The hardest thing is not having any advance warning.  When my Grandpa died, it was a downward progression for a few months and I got to have one last real goodbye, and honestly, that helped.  It is hard that I never got one last chance to tell her how much I love her (hint: a lot) or thank her for everything she's done for me.  The good parts are that I got to have her around and involved in my life for 30 years, she got to see me get married and there are some beautiful pictures of her from that day, and the big things: she lost her beloved mother when she was a little girl and was quite attached to her father, who sounded like a very sweet and hardworking man.  Then, of course, there is the son she lost when he was only 24, and last but not least, these last 8 years since my Grandpa has been gone, it has consistently been difficult to see her on her own.  They were the loves of each others' lives, and they had been together since my Grandma was 15.  The comfort I feel in knowing that she is not only reunited with all those people she loves, but that she is in the presence of God in paradise forever, and she will be waiting for me when I get there.  That last part sounds so trite and cliche, and I just can't think of better words for it, but I couldn't not believe it if I tried.  I just feel it.

My dad wrote the following post on Facebook.  When it came up, I read it and cried for 30 minutes straight.

Mom died last night in the evening in her kitchen. She was I am sure humming to the music playing on her radio playing. My sister in law had talked to her at about 5:20 and she was about to eat her dinner and then crack some hazelnuts John had given her. Somewhere between there and 9:00 God reached down from heaven and took this angel to himself. She had recently said how much she wanted to see her mother again, as she died when Mom was seven. So as quietly as she lived her life here on earth she quietly went to to hold her dear mother and father. Only then to turn to Dad and Ken and greet them as only she could with her soft embrace. We are blessed to have had her with us. She didn't champion a cause, start a company, or write a book. She was a daughter, wife , mother, grandmother and friend to many.

In a world where people are told to stand out, she stood back. A world where women are told to be a leader, she was a giver. A world where a faithful woman is ridiculed , she showed her faith in God by example. Hattie Groeger Vandecoevering may be gone from this earth, but her life is legend, her love living on in many.

He captures it perfectly.  I want to be more like Grandma, and over the next little while will come up with a concept that represents her and maybe get another tattoo.  (The tribute tattoo I got for my Grandpa truly does help me keep him close and reminds me of the virtue that it's meant to represent.)  She cared for others in extraordinary ways, and you had to really talk to her to know about it.  She did the right thing because it was the right thing, not because she needed to be recognized.  I pray to be more like that.

The final thought that I want to share is that all your texts, calls, and Facebook messages have meant more than you know.  I have not had many reasons to grieve in my life, and I had forgotten how powerfully comforting a simple "I am sorry for my loss, you are in my thoughts/prayers" can be.  I know when I say that to others, it often feels inadequate, but even though no words can bring back a loved one, they can fill someone's life with love.  Thank you, everyone, for filling my life with love in the last day or so!  I'm so blessed in so many ways.

Grandma danced with me at our wedding in September <3 

Just Like Ed

Two losses in my life have not been people that I loved then departed, they have been losses that occurred before I had the chance to love.  My dad's oldest brother passed away before my dad got to high school, and my mom's dad passed away when my mom was in college.  These people would have otherwise been a part of my inner circle, but it was not to be and I know them only through few and far between anecdotes.

In the case of my maternal grandfather, it is very strange to me to think that I get fully one quarter of my DNA from him; he is not someone I know, not someone whose idiosyncrasies I could identify on my own, not someone I have stories about. And yet, he is part of me.

In a small collision of worlds, an uncle through marriage on my dad's side of the family knew my Grandpa Ed, worked for him for a time.  What's interesting is that this uncle says that he looked a great deal like my youngest brother, Danny.  I've heard this before, my grandmother even once commented that Danny had a cowlick in his hair that was just like my grandfather's.  But what my uncle says is that not only does Danny have similar physical characteristics, but he carries himself the same way and has the same mannerisms, facial expressions, gestures.  These are not things that my mom shares, so it seems like an extremely slim possibility that these are learned behaviors.  In this case, Danny (or certain things about him) is evidence of the presence of my grandfather.

In my younger days, I mostly had friends who were a lot like me in terms of many things, such as life goals, values, etc.  When I went to OSU, for the first time, I had a large group of friends where we were all different from each other in several key ways.  I guess you could say I was the "religious" friend, being the only one that regularly practices a particular mainstream religion.  Growing up I had heard several defenses for not having many, if any, not-Christian friends (mainly from a particular magazine I read at the time) unless I was trying to evangelize them, but I was uncomfortable with being "friends" with someone just for the sake of making them a project.  Besides, I love these people a whole lot.  They all know where I stand with regards to religion, they know they can ask me questions, and I hope and pray that the good I do can somehow, sometimes be connected to my beliefs but this is by no means the sole purpose of my friendship with them.

If I believe wholeheartedly in my religion, then based on what Catholicism teaches, God should be absolutely the #1 priority in my life.  This is what I believe, and I struggle mightily to live my life that way.  (I fail a lot and continue to try and do better--it is a lifelong process, as expected.)  I, then, have heard the argument that I should only be giving my time to people who can bring me closer to this goal, and on rare occasions I have been challenged that if I am not actively evangelizing my friends who are not Christians, then I have no business being friends with them.

However, just like many of my grandfather's traits have shown up in my brother without my brother knowing my grandfather, I believe that God's divine nature is revealed through His creation, whether they know Him or not.  Perhaps selfishly, but I am honestly not part of my friend groups based on what I bring to those groups, although it is my hope that I bring something to my friends; I am friends with my friends because of the fulfillment, enjoyment, and companionship they bring to ME, based simply on the amazing and wonderful beings they are.  They reveal to me something important about God's nature.

Last night, I took Zach to a concert as a belated birthday gift.  They are a favorite band of Zach's and I only had ever heard one of their songs.  Far from being a Christian-themed band, I came away from the concert feeling uplifted, almost as if the concert had been a spiritual experience, and perhaps it was.  The musicians were so talented that I was blown away, even though some things about the venue were physically uncomfortable.  I believe that music is joyous and beautiful and that God is presence in its making and performing, even if His name is not explicitly on it.  The same could be said about nature, about art, pets!

Yet, in my belief system, humanity was the crowning jewel of creation, and we are God's most treasured and beloved creatures; His characteristics are built into us, and we must recognize that in one another.