Christmas

For some reason, it doesn't feel like Christmas.

This doesn't make sense. All the ingredients are here:
I am sitting on the couch and have no homework I should be doing. From where I am sitting I can see a Christmas tree, stockings, and a Dept 56 village all set up. There are fresh baked cookies in the kitchen and about a foot of snow outside. The majority of my friends' facebook statuses carry Christmas greetings and my family (and family to be) are all on the floor playing a game.

So what's missing?
I want to say it has something to do with me needing to take time to remember what the holiday is about, to sit and read the Christmas story again. But honestly, I think it has more to do with Santa than Jesus.

I hate to admit it, but I think the feeling I don't have that I so long associated with Christmas has to do with the loss of excitement about presents. I mean, I'm getting presents, I like presents, but I don't have that child-like, can't sleep, Santa's coming feeling anymore. There's no magic in the air. Maybe this is good. Maybe this means I'm maturing, that I'm more focused on what Christmas is about, about Jesus' birth, than I am on getting stuff. I like that idea.

But in any case, it does not feel like Christmas eve. Or at least how I'm used to Christmas eve feeling.

Thanksgiving

A Few Things I am Thankful For

• Being silly with family
• Having nothing I have to do
• Friends, amazing amazing friends
• Naps

Can you tell I'm a little tired from all the food I've eaten, since I've only come up with four things? Silly.
Well, I'm going to go and... do nothing, which is wonderful that I'm able to do that. I love being able to be lazy. <3

Love life

And the Greatest of These is Love

I've been consistently frustrated lately by what I view as the failure of Christians to act like Christians.

Let me first disclaimer this a bit and admit that I fully recognize I've got a bit of "Ignoring the Plank in my Own Eye" syndrome. Definitely. Completely. The more frustrated I get with others, the more I'm trying to look at myself (degrees of success vary) and determine if I'm really doing as well as I think I am. Generally I'm not. It's ironic, the more frustrated I get with the lack of love I see from Christians, the more critical I get, and thus the less loving.
So yes, this isn't a point-the-finger-why-can't-you-be-more-like-me writing. I know I have many many shortcomings. But still. I'm going to express my frustration.

Jesus tells us very clearly what the most important commandments are.
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
and
'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

In case you're wondering if they're really the most important, Jesus follows up his answer with:
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

These two. Love God, Love others. Really simple. Really hard.
Well, we make it hard. I guess. Because honestly, I think we Christians fail consistently at loving. We let pride, scheduling, and our own priorities get in the way. We are self-centered and as a result, we miss out on being what we're supposed to be.

Its no wonder the much of the world has a low opinion of Christians. Yes, I know a lot of it has to do with the fact that many of our moral believes go against the ideas of society, but still, I don't think we present love first. Yes, we need to hold on to our believes, yes, I think abortion is wrong, no, I do not support gay marriage. But first we need to love.
I feel like many Christians base what the "right" action is by what society is telling them Christians believe, rather than going to the Bible to see what God has to say. Maybe its just me, but this seems like a really horrible idea.

I have a lot of thoughts. I'm trying to organize them. I've been ranting a lot lately.

I guess my point is this: we are called to live lives of love. This means sacrificing watching movies to listen to people who are having a hard time, this means acting to help the poor, even if that just means sorting through your clothes and donating them. It means giving twenty minutes of sleep to God before you go to bed each night, spending time study his word. It just means acting, moving, doing. Trying to restore his kingdom.

"Luv is a verb" as dcTalk says. Do it.

Our 44th President.

I'm a little fired up at the moment.
History was made last night. America elected its first black president.

Being a white girl who calls Maine home, I don't think I can claim to grasp the significance of that. In fact, I know I can't grasp the significance of that. But I'm shocked by people who don't even try.

Do you realize the civil rights movement was only fifty years ago? Segregated schools, organizing voter registration for African Americans, the march on Washington...
While legally African Americans may have had the right to vote for nearly 100 years, there were so many obstacles put in there way in order to try and prevent them from taking advantage of that right. Martin Luther King Jr. led a march in 1965 to protest a lack of voting rights, including literacy tests and poll taxes. At that point in time, it was still just unsafe for African Americans to attempt to vote. That's only 43 years ago!

So when I hear people voice that they don't understand, that Obama's just another man, I know that they don't understand. There are people voting today who that once wasn't an option for. And on the other side of that, the people who were oppressing them are still alive. Racism is still alive and to deny that is ignorance.
So please, please, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, please recognize the significance of what we have just witnessed, and celebrate a country moving forward.

There's a Fat Kid on the Other Side of my Seesaw.

I'm supposed to be studying for an exam I have at 1:15 right now. Its going to be challenging, I think. I'm not as prepared as I should be.

But the problem is, we've started with advising, and signing up for next semester's classes. So I'm done with this semester. I don't mean to be, I just am. I've moved in to my future. Which is both exciting and terrifying. I have brilliant possibilities in front of me, I'm in love with opportunity. But there are so many obstacles as well.
Its all about finding the balance.
The balance between doing caring about grades and stressing about grades.
The balance between supporting friends and carrying friends
The balance between having a future that provides for your physical needs and one that provides for your spiritual and emotional needs.

And if you can find that balance, you're golden.

I know, I know, I know. I don't post consistently at all.
I'm sorry. I really am. It annoys me too. But life gets busy sometimes, you know?

Anyway, here's a quote I found that I love:

We ought to think about getting tangled up. The streamlined life is not worth living. Community and friendship are things to get tangled up in. They aren't easy or efficient. But they give meaning to our lives.
-Greg Veltman
"Making friends for life"
2006

Movin' to the Country...

Gonna eat a lot of peaches...

after 20 years, i finally ate a peach. fresh-picked :-)

Mountain Climbing

Breeze and I had been planning for a few weeks to go camping over the summer, just because it was something to do. And as I sat in the mail room during the last few weeks of school, bored, a random idea popped into my head. And without really thinking about it, I texted Breeze
"Do you want to climb Katahdin this summer?"
And within minutes I received a "It's done."

And that was it. That was the thought process, or lack thereof. Never mind that neither of us has ever done anything close to climbing a mountain, that we're not particularly athletic and that one of my mantras I live by at is "exercise is for pansies." By the time we realized that Katahdin was a real mountain, a challenging mountain, we'd already told people and it was too late to back down.

So, we made our reservations, bought out hiking boots (you should have seen the look on the salesgirls face during this exchange: "Hi. We're going to climb a mountain." "Okay, when." "In a week..." "Oookay... what mountain." "*pause* Katahdin..."), and drove 3 and a half hours to the secluded Baxter State Park in the lovely town on R10 T1 or something ridiculous like that.

We arrived at Baxter, set up our tent and were downright giddy. We were going to climb a mountain! It wouldn't be as bad as they said, after all, we were taking the shortest trail up! The first night we tried to hike out to Katahdin Stream Falls, but the rain sent us back to our tent and we both realized too late that wearing our only sweatshirts in the rain on the first night was a stupid idea.

We spent the rest of the evening in the tent, reading Lost on a Mountain in Maine together (which led to some fun Donn Fendler jokes the next day, especially about how great it would b if we found his lost dungarees) and trying to ignore the fact that the weather did not look good for the following day. We set an alarm for seven am the next morning, hoping to get an early start so we could take our time climbing the mountain.

Of course, when we awoke the next morning, all we heard outside the tent was rain. Gross, and not safe. So we rolled over, and went to sleep until 10:30ish. Now the rain seemed to have ceased, leaving the air only a little misty. We decided we couldn't leave without at least attempting to defeat Katahdin, so on went our boots, and off we went.

The beginning of the trail was absolutely beautiful. We'd chosen the Abol Trail on someone else's recommendation and we were sure we could do it. Breeze mentioned something about her shoes being a little uncomfortable pretty early on, but I didn't think much of it until later. As we continued in, the trail started getting steeper and instead of being on a nice path, we started walking over bigger and bigger rocks. While a little annoying, this still wasn't very difficult. Soon however, the dirt was gone completely and we were just on rocks and scree. We were constantly slipping and everything was still wet. Soon the rocks turned into boulders and we were climbing up the Abol Slide, the same route Thoreau took when he climbed Katahdin. Here, the path became very challenging. Fog kept rolling in (which honestly, after reading about Donn Fendler in Lost on Mountain, scared the crap out of me) and it was sometimes hard to see where the next paint spot marking the trail was. I had to use muscles I didn't even know I had to pull myself on to rocks. If these had been rigid rocks, this wouldn't have been such a problem, but they were smooth and slippery and the trail was incredibly steep. The fog was thick enough that would couldn't see the top or the bottom of the mountain. We knew we couldn't climb back down the slide without risking slipping and hurting ourselves so our only option was to keep pressing forward. At times Breeze had to give me a leg up to get me on top of the boulders, they were so big and other times other boulders would be overhanging the ones we were pulling ourselves on to, causing us to almost hit our heads. By this point, I think Breeze and I basically just kept repeating "Are you kidding me?" every time we looked at the next boulder.

After about four hours though, we made it to the plateau (or as I kept calling it, the tableau). We were suddenly standing on practically flat ground. We were sore and I knew we shouldn't push on to the peak, because it would take us longer than our set turn around time and the last thing I wanted to do was get stuck on the mountain at night. Although, I suppose that was the second to last thing I wanted to do because we did push on so I guess the last thing I wanted to do was not make it to the top.

Anyway, onward we pushed, past Thoreau Spring, towards Baxter Peak. Around here we ran into a man who'd been coming to Katahdin for 20 years and had never been able to climb the Abol trail because the weather was never good enough. He was going to do it today, he said, but he knew better. Too bad we didn't. We asked what the easiest trail to climb down was and he said the Hunt Trail, but that it would leave us about two miles away from our campsite. Fine. We didn't care, we'd rather walk an extra two miles (more than that actually, the Hunt Trail is about longer than the Abol Trail.) than climb back down the slippery boulders.

We were less than a mile a way when Breeze told me she couldn't keep going. Her shoes were murdering her feet, every step killed. I looked at her and found myself asking if she minded if I could go on alone. The peak was only about another ten minutes away, the terrain was easy and if it wasn't foggy she could have seen me. Plus there were plenty of people around in case something happened. Breeze was fine with sitting and waiting, so as she slid off her shoes to re-bandage her feet, I pushed onward. I kept reminding myself how much I wanted to do this, and tried not to think about the fact that after I reached Baxter Peak, I had to climb five miles back down. Finally, I could see the peak in the distance and got kind of giddy. I reached the peak with a man from the army right on my heels. He took my picture for me and I headed back down. Breeze had come closer to where she could actually see the peak but now we were both faced with descending the mountain.

We booked it man. I mean, seriously. We were so tired, we just wanted off. Soon we found ourselves behind two men with their children. As we climbed down the boulders, I mentioned that we'd climbed up Abol and now had a two mile walk back to our campsite. Not a problem, they said. They could give us a ride back to our tent. Perfect, I immediately accepted the offer. We passed them and soon found ourselves scurrying along a ridge with probably about ten to fifteen feet on each side and then a drop in to the fog. The white trail markers seemed to lead off the edge of a cliff and it wasn't until you reached one that you could see the next one, prompting more groans of "Are you kidding me? Seriously." Still, it was so much easier compared to the Abol Trail. Soon we reached the treeline and were racing the sun trying not to be caught in the woods at night. The trail seemed endless. Finally we reached Katahdin Stream Falls where we'd tried to get to the day before. Only about a mile more. We were practically running, more like falling forward and continuously catching ourselves. We were exhausted and just wanted to sleep. After what seemed like forever, we finally reached the end of the trail. We sat and waited for the people we'd run into and it was so nice to sit in their car.

We learned that the two men were climbing the highest peaks in each state. They'd done twenty so far, all the ones out west, besides McKinley. And Katahdin, we were told, had been a challenge, a definite surprise. And they took the easy trail, was all I could think.

They dropped us off at our tent and we laid down and pretty much refused to move until the next morning, when I was more sore than I'd been in my entire life. My legs were bruised from pulling myself on the rocks and crawling around on boulders. But hey, we did it. We climbed Katahdin. And you know, I would do it again. Not the Abol Slide though, I don't think I ever want to do that again... at least I don't think so...



Photos of our adventures should be able to be seen here:
My Katahdin Photos
If that doesn't work, please comment and let me know.

Katahdin

Okay, so it's been a little over a week since Breeze and I made our hike to the top of Katahdin and I'm finally getting to blog about it.
First of all, for those of you who aren't familiar with Katahdin, here are few excerpts from books and websites, etc, mostly focused on the trails we did:

The white-blazed Appalacian Trail (Hunt Spur) up Katahdin is arguably the most difficult climb on the entire A.T. Allow for a full 8-10 hours for a round trip hike of Katahdin. Following the A.T. up Katahdin requires rock scrambling and the use of hands in some places, and be a frightening climb for those with even a mild fear of heights.

From the south at Abol Campground, the Abol Trail is another popular route to the mountain’s summit. It is the shortest route involving 3.8 miles to the peak but is considered by some to be more difficult. It is a very steep trail once above treeline but also affords many fine views to the south and west. This trail also utilizes a prominent rockslide for most of the way. Henry David Thoreau used this route on his famous ascent of the mountain in the 1850’s. Caution should be exercised when ascending or descending this slide due to the loose rock and gravel underfoot.Soon thereafter the trail heads straight up a VERY STEEP rockslide, which takes you all the way up to the summit plateau and the intersection with the Hunt Trail (A.T.) by Thoreau Spring (about 4600 ft elevation).


Mt. Katahdin, Maine's highest mountain peak, carries an 8 out of 10 difficulty rating for hikers and climbers.

Concededly it is without peer east of the Rocky Mountains!




So there's your introduction to our madness. I'll give you the full story of how it went tomorrow. Oh the joy of days off... :-)

A quote from Amanda's whiteboard:

Love is giving someone the power to destroy you...but trusting them not to.

Best/Worst Idea Ever

PackRat

So I'm cleaning the room, which means its a mess (you know how it is) and I just went through two drawers full of junk that I saved. I mean old notebooks, playbills, poems and other random stuff. Here are some excerpts from what I've found:

Certificate of Achievement : Kate Brunell Survived the Amazing Corn Maze

"Dear Tooth Fairy, Are you Ruthie Toothie? Where do learn orgami? ... Please give me two dollars."

An essay on "Why I Want to Teach"

"On Friday, March 18, 2005 at 10:17 Kate Brunell said, "I love Math Team.
Signatures
Andrew Hutchins
Rebekah Glunt"

Dara Rosen: I have to go to the orthodontist to see if I need braces.
Mr. Zarrello: Are you telling the tooth?

"Cait and Kate like to eat food
Though it's bad for them, it's good
I'm going to be like Nick now and
Not rhyme this line because I don't want to"

Hi! My name is Begonia!

I don't know about you
But as for me I'm through
With not acting like me
So today I thought maybe
We'll act a little crazy
We'll sing a little loud
We'll dance a little too much
And then we'll take a bow

I was almost done filling out one of those long email surveys but then I realized, while they're kind of fun to do, they're not fun to read. So tomorrow, I shall make a real entry. I promise (ish).

Quotes

"Men are like a fine wine. They start out like grapes. It's our job to stomp on them until they mature into something you would have dinner with"

"Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional." ~Chili Davis

"Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs." ~ Anon

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." ~ Maya Angelou

"Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away." ~ Barbara De Angelis

"It is never too late to become what you might have been." ~ George Eliot

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~ Howard Thurman

"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end." ~ Author Unknown

The Name Game

So I feel like some people get confused by what to call me, so here is my attempt to map out my names and who they should be used by:

Kathryn- gym teachers and close friends from Boothbay (specifically Caitlin, Breeze, Aaron), anyone at L'Arche Irenicon, Josh Jenkins, Rowan Walker and professors on the first day of class

Kate- most friends from Boothbay, friends from NJ, my family on a normal day, my co-workers at Palabra, Jamie Wyeth (not that he'd remember, but that's who he signed my books to)

Katie- my parents or sister (mostly my mother) when they're talking to me like they think I'm four

Ryn- all my friends at Gordon unless otherwise specified, professors after the first day of class, Devin Mellor

RynTin(Tin)- Lisa Abramowski, my roommate, other Gordon people who think they're clever

Rynnie- my roommate and other Gordon people who are feeling cutesy

Kath- my first grade teacher only.

RynnieRynRyn-Ashley Harrington

Kathleen- no. never.

I need new shoes.

Where the Heart is.

This is where my heart is. Or at least, one of the place I keep my heart.
This is Reach. You've heard me mention, I know you have. This is the drama ministry I co-lead.

First off, for those of you who don't know what exactly Reach does, we're an outreach ministry. We make skits dealing with issues that teens are currently struggling with. Our topics range from self esteem, peer pressure, alcohol, and physical relationships to pornography, cutting and depression. We off course also throw in a few light-hearted skits in our shows to keep our audiences from feeling completely devastated at the end of shows...

And I love the skits, I love the performances, I love the outreach. This is where my heart is, my heart is in reaching out to teens, saying hey, I know you're struggling with this, I've struggled too. Its okay. That is my passion.

But I have to admit, the best part of Reach is definitely the members.
Four of the five people I consider my best friends on campus are in Reach. And everyone whose in Reach that I don't give that label to still are people I trust with my struggles. These people are genuine, caring and unique. We're all broken but we're all striving to be better, working to serve God, seeking His will. The people in Reach are open with each other in a way I never expected. At the beginning of the year, we went on a retreat where we told life stories and it all came out: our successes, our failures, our pain and burdens...

When it came time to sign up for classes, my adviser couldn't understand why I didn't want to study abroad. But to me it made perfect sense... I couldn't bear to leave campus for a semester because that would mean missing Reach. And that would mean giving up a piece of my heart.

Wow, that sounds so cheesy. If only you could understand what these people have done for me, how this ministry has allowed me to grow. If only you could know. But the only way you could ever even come close to doing that is if you joined next year... so why don't you?

In my Head.

I keep getting song lyrics in my head. Lyrics to a song I haven't heard in probably a good four years at minimum, a song I'm not crazy about, and a song I don't even know all that well.
In any case, I feel like there's a reason this song keeps surfacing so I thought I'd share it with you:

This is no time for fear
This is a time for faith and determination
Don't lose the vision here
Carried away by emotion
Hold on to all that you hide in your heart
There is one thing that has always been true
It holds the world together

God is in control
We believe that His children will not be forsaken
God is in control
We will choose to remember and never be shaken
There is no power above or beside Him, we know
God is in control, oh God is in control

History marches on
There is a bottom line drawn across the ages
Culture can make its plan
Oh, but the line never changes
No matter how the deception may fly
There is one thing that has always been true
It will be true forever

He has never let you down
Why start to worry now?
He is still the Lord of all we see
And He is still the loving Father
Watching over you and me

watching over you...watching over me..
watching over every things..
watching over you..watching over me..
every little sparrow..every little things...
(Twila Paris- God is in Control)

You Can't NOT Go Back

Oh Wales... its so hard to sum up the week in a silly blog entry. First off, I'll just tell you what on earth I was doing there.
My group spent the days in either primary or comp (about 7th grade and up) schools. At the primary schools, we led assemblies. Now, Wales doesn't have separation of church and state so we had the very interesting experience of doing a Holy Week skit in front of small children. Since my group didn't have any guys in it, I got the interesting experience of playing Jesus and being crucified multiple times a day. Our assembly also included a testimony by one of the girls in the group, and some songs such as Deep and Wide. After our assembly, we'd get to go into classroom and answer any questions the kids might have about Christianity or America or anything.
When we went in to the comp schools, we took over the RE (religious education) classes. We talked to them about betrayal and forgiveness. This was interesting because we'd break in to small groups and really get to talk to them about what they believed. It was amazing how many of them just hadn't made any sort of decision whatsoever about what they believe in. The small groups were definitely my favorite part of going in to the schools. We met some really cool people and were constantly challenged to answer the tough questions.
At nights, we'd go to different youth groups to run them. We tried to be an encouragement for the few kids who actually were Christians in Wales, and just as importantly, encourage the adults who are tirelessly trying to reach these kids who hurting so much. I met some really sweet kids on these nights and also some very rude and hurting kids... some nights just ended in heartache.

These kids were my anchor. I knew a lot of them from last year, so it was really nice to be able to build on those relationships. Up top is Josh, Rea, Niall, and Lewis, who are all regular attendants of the church youth group and on the bottom is me with Ceinwen, whose the pastor's daughter. I can't tell you how much I care about these kids, how great I think they are, and how much I hope to see them next year.

Wales the Sequel

I was so concerned that my trip to Wales this year could not possibly live up to last year.

God really likes proving me wrong.
(more to follow)

Return to Wales

I leave Gordon at 5:15am tomorrow to return to Wales for the second year in a row for a missions trip. I'm excited and nervous. We'll return Saturday the 22nd. Please pray for the teams.

Not Napping

I'm lying in my bed right now most definitely not sleeping. I feel guilty because I told Amy I would take a nap but as exhausted as I am, it just wasn't happening.

Today was fairly awful. I was up until midnight studying for an exam and then decided to get some sleep so I could at least function properly. I got in bed around 12:15. I fell asleep after 3am. I'm not really sure why I couldn't sleep but I woke up around 6 to continue studying for my 8am exam.

Functioning on 3 hours of sleep is interesting. Its not something I do very often. All day long I kept swinging between being in a fine mood because I was too exhausted to care to being a complete mess.

Its like ants on pavement.
I mean, have you ever been standing in a driveway or somewhere, and you notice an ant crawling? And you stop and you stare at it and then you notice another ant. And the longer you stare, the more you notice, and they were there all along but all of a sudden you can't ignore them, they're all you're focusing on, they're everywhere.
That's what happens to my thought process when I'm exhausted. At first, everything is fine. Then I think of one tiny aspect of my life that's not great. Then I stare at my life a little bit longer and I notice something else wrong. And then something else. Before you know it, I'm barely functioning because apparently, I have an awful life and just hadn't noticed before.

Except I don't. That's the exhaustion talking. After all, they're just ants.
This entry is basic level one insanity, easily cured by sleep. Sleep will be attempted in 3..2...1...

In Mourning

Tornado "Tory" the Cat
March 23, 1994- February 25, 2008


I loved my overweight cranky diabetic baby...

Girls will be girls

It all started with my inability to control myself when I see a cute dress. I try, really I do. Sometimes I'll throw out the Delia*s catalog as soon as I get it... this time however, I was not so lucky. You see, it was red. It was red and gorgeous and cheap. So I buckled and I bought it and it arrived and fit wonderfully. And then I said:

Crap. I've nothing to wear this to.

So I made a reason. Valentine's Day was on its way, and I by no means expected a date, but I had a cute dress, dangit, so I was going out. Of course, I also had no money, so I was going out somewhere cheap!
So I sent out an email to 4 fabulous vixens declaring February 14th not Valentine's Day, but We're Hot, So You Can Suck It Day. Lovely, hm?

And what do girls want? Ice cream. So off we went, five gorgeous ladies, to Friendly's, blasting Shania Twain, Disney music, Britney Spears and Bon Jovi all the way. And when we arrived back to campus? A fabulous viewing of Emma.
So it started with a dress and ended with an absolutely amazing evening. No regrets, ladies. None at all.

Poem.

I know that you read this
Because you tell me you do
So why don't you leave
A comment or two?



(or if you've never told me, you can still comment.)

Self Centered

I never fill out "about me" sections anymore. Not really anyhow. I usually just put a short quote or something. But I'm feeling a little self centered right now so here's one of those cheesy lists people tend to put filled with things they like:

Nail painting every Sunday
Late night walks in the rain
Staying up late and sleeping in
Audrey Hepburn and James Dean
Lightening storms
Standing at the waters edge
Mocha Lattes and Townsend Ave
Reading books aimed at fifth graders
Listening to music that is outdated and obscure
Dressing like a pirate
Looking at photos and saving memories
Photoshoots
Summer dresses
Slim Jims and Granola Bars
REACH Drama Ministry
Late nights in Barrington
Drew Hall
Playgrounds
Boothbay weekends with Gordon friends

My LIFE

For those of you wondering where I am when, this is usually pretty accurate:



There seems to be a possibility that you need a google account to access it, I'm still figuring it out.

Tattwo

So there it is.
The second of the tattoos.
The story behind this one?
"by our love"- many of my Gordon friends and other Christians that I know are familiar with the song "They will know we are Christians by our love." For as long as I can remember (or, ever since I was young, or some other cliche phrase indicating a long period of time) my father has used this song as a reminder of the hypocrisy of so many Christians and the need to not be like them.

That sounds kind of fancy. Basically its this: whenever there is a story on the news of a group of "Christians" presenting themselves as heartless jerks (example: the group who went around protesting at soldiers funerals, claiming the war was God's punishment for the US condoning homosexuality), he will just quietly start singing "they will know we are Christians by our love..."

So that's what I was raised with. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly queen of patience or understanding. So the tattoo is a reminder to myself that the core of Christianity is love. Yes, I believe there are a lot of other moral beliefs we need to uphold, but first are foremost is the need for love. So I had my father write out the words and I got them tattooed on my wrist where they would be a constant reminder to myself.

My mother is still hoping its just Sharpie.