Ladies and Gentlemen, there is an epidemic spreading throughout the Church. It targets and attacks single men and women, regardless of race, age, or spiritual gifts. Many a strong soldier has been felled by this contagion, and it could be headed towards you right now. Watch out, I say, WATCH OUT for the enemy known as missionary relationships! Continue reading
Happy New Year! The upcoming days will, for all of us I’m sure, be filled with stereotypical goal-setting, resolution-making, and self-evaluation. There’s nothing wrong with it, as long as you don’t over-post on social media (especially if you’re determined to spend more time in the gym…no more #gymflow posts, leave those in 2013). This is my resolution. Like millions of other Americans, I’m returning to my blog. If you do a quick scroll down, you’ll see my last post was a whole two years ago – in 2011! I had a strong urge to start a whole new blog and leave this one drop lower and lower in Google search pages. It’s pretty embarrassing, my long absence. I mean, It’s not like I’ve been locked up or anything.
I doubt there is anything my family looks forward to more than our trips to Chicago. Every year at Thanksgiving, give or take a few instances, you can find the McMillian Clan eagerly wandering the streets of Michigan, Grand, State, 87th, 96th, Stoney Island, Cottage Grove – basically all over Chicago. This year was no different. We hit all the favorite spots (Harold’s, Captain Curt’s Shazaam, Garrett’s) and scouted out some new ones. My sister Rachel and I had been eyeing this restaurant, Eggsperience, for a while and decided to give it a try. There’s such an elegant art to breakfasting, and we felt Eggsperience would really up our respective levels of class. So, on Black Friday, while manic masses stormed the gates of excessive consumerism, we were out at a late breakfast with our father.
Healing! Letters to my future spouse! Native American orphanages! They’re all relaxing here, in this installment of Good Things🙂
My twenty-one day fast ended this past Sunday! It seems a little disrespectful to be excited about that – after all a fast is for spiritual growth – but I was more than ready to get back to “normal.” The irony is, my last week of fasting wasn’t nearly as restrictive as my first two weeks.
I know you’ve been missing them, but they’re back now! I present to you: Good Things
My all time favorite movie is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Hands down. I grew up watching Jane Powell fall-in-love-at-first-sight with Howard Keel over, and over…and over. You cannot persuade me away from its magnificence. CinemaScope! Technicolor! Barn raisings! Avalanches! Dance sequences involving lumberjacks and axes! This film has it all!
When I was younger, most of the romantic nuances between Millie and Adam (Powell and Keel) were lost on me. I always liked a line Adam delivered though, as Millie was trying to civilize his six brothers, “What do I need manners for? I already got me a wife!” It was funny to me, as a child; and now I love it because of the semi-domesticity the two share in that moment: his obtuse male comment and her wife-ish rolling eyes. I’m telling you: this movie is gold!
Michael Jackson died over two years ago. I’m not ashamed to say, I cried when I heard of his death. I’m also not ashamed to say that I sobbed and sniffled while watching his funeral. I might be ashamed to say that I burst into noisy tears when “Human Nature” came on my car radio a few months later. The point is that MJ’s death affected me, along with millions of other fans; and, there was a general feeling that Conrad Murray was responsible for his early demise.
I tend to stay out of public opinion debates, but in the case of Dr. Murray I had – as a family friend said – “all this gusto come out” of me. “Throw that man under the jail!” I might have said that once, twice…forty-nine times. What can I say? I love hard.
Let Me Be Crystal Clear 