Donate to my campaign here: http://mycharitywater.org/Elirose2012

Learn about the book here: http://cleanwaterforelirose.com (There’s also a cute video you’ll want to see)

I’m not just asking you to give money though, I’m also planning on giving away 1000 copies of Clean Water for Elirose. That means if you donate any amount to my campaign, I’ll send you a copy for your family or to give to a loved one. Or, if you’d rather, I’ll donate copies of the books to classrooms in my community. $5000 is a big goal and I need your help. If you’d be willing to share my book and fundraising with your friends, family, school, or community, please let me know. Or, if you’d be willing to do a matching donation to help with my fundraiser let me know.

Every little bit counts, so click here to donate to my campaign.

Thank you for your support!

Ariah

P.S. Even if you can’t give anything, enjoy this free gift, a printable Elirose coloring book

P.P.S.

What’s really cool about charity: water is that 100% of the money we raise will directly fund water project costs in the field, and they’ll prove every single dollar. When the project we help fund is complete, they’ll send us a digital completion report with GPS coordinates and photos of the community we helped. Here’s an example. Read this story from charity: water to learn how clean water changes lives.

• A book-a-day giveaway! Follow us, retweet us, blog about Elirose and you could win a copy of the book Free. Details here.
• Pay What You Can pricing. I want everyone to get a book that wants one so you can order them for whatever you can afford, starting at $3 and Free Shipping
• Change the World 12-pack. Buy 12 books for $20 and use them as your tool to change the world, sell them (and donate the proceeds), donate them, gift them.

Click the image for proof of Princesses archetype

Here’s my idea, and I need your feedback. It’s hard to find a little girl that doesn’t think affectionately of the disney princesses and want to be one. The main problem with that, is that princesses don’t really do anything except look pretty and fall in love.

So, my idea is to create a coloring book with disney princess look-a-likes actually doing stuff. Research shows that as kids are exposed to media characters, they have a hard time breaking those characters out of the storyline they’ve seen (Bob only builds, Princesses don’t). A coloring book with those actual characters doing other things will be proof that those characters do other things (at least that’s my hope).

Now I just need to decide what they do. Here are some ideas, let me know which ones you like the most or if you have other suggestions for activities or which Princesses should do what. (I’ll probably only do 10)

Jasmine leading a protest

Belle as an architect doing math on a chalkboard for an addition to the castle

Ariel in mermaid form with hammer building a dock

Tiana rock climbing

Snow White coaching a football team

Cinderella bench pressing

Pocahontas as President

A Prince cooking and cleaning

Mulan doing surgery 

The obvious goal is to break gender roles and provide examples to young girls who are already enthralled with these princesses as role models, to see them modeling the vast possibilities of careers and pursuits that we want our young girls to know they can pursue.

Thoughts?

P.S. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted on here, but I know you still love me :)

1. It’ll be more affordable for classroom teachers and other groups to purchase at cost.
2. More dollars can go toward funding clean water wells and less to printing books.

To reach my goal I’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign, an all-or-nothing fundraising effort to raise $3500 to do a large print run. If I reach my goal I’ll be able to order 2500+ copies at around $1 each and will be able to distribute a lot of those as rewards to those who have backed the project. All the funds raised through Kickstarter will go toward printing books, but every penny of profit afterwards will go to funding clean water wells.
And here’s the cool thing about giving to this project: Every $1 you give allows 100% of book sales to go toward clean water projects. By giving $1 your covering the cost of printing a book. So one someone orders a copy for $15, all of their money can go to funding clean water projects. It’s like multiplying your gift 1500% or more! And at the same time, this educational and awareness-raising story will end up in the hands of a young kid who just might become a world changer themselves.
Even if you’ve bought a copy of the book, please consider going over to the Kickstarter page and making a small contribution. Every little bit helps and if you do it today you’ll help build momentum to carry the project through to the goal. Additionally, I would LOVE it if you’d share the link with your friends and family, post it on Facebook, your blog, twitter, everywhere. If you haven’t clicked over already let me also say there are some very adorable kids in the featured video you just have to see.

I figured my facebook page might not be the best space for that conversation, but decided I might as well bringing it up here on the blog. I’ll keep my comments in the post brief, but hope we can continue the conversation view the comment thread that follows. Here is my very quick stance and a few lingering questions.

I do not spank and do not believe it is an effective or healthy discipline method. That being said, I have amazing friends who I respect deeply as parents who choose to spank and their kids are well behaved and all-together healthy individuals, and I don’t think any less of them for their chosen parenting methods. Here are just a few questions I have with the idea of spanking.

• It is almost always said, when someone approves of spanking that, “if not done in anger” spanking is a good positive thing. And I guess I’d just ask how a parent who spanks manages to do that? I give my kids timeouts in anger, I can’t imagine regularly choosing to spank my kid and not frequently struggling to not do it in anger. I guess I wouldn’t want to risk crossing that line. How do you manage to never spank “in anger”?
• Most people who I know who spank point to a biblical backing for it, mainly the verse referring to “the rod”. An accurate interpretation of that seems to imply not spanking with your hand or a wooden spoon, but an actual rod. That seems like something far more intense then “spanking.” If that’s your basis for it, do you also approve of using a rod or switch or paddle or something of that sort to enact discipline? And how do you choose to draw the line between what is appropriate and what isn’t?

Okay, discuss.

Now, if you think I’m about to bring you some brilliant solution to this conundrum above, I hate to burst your bubble, I don’t have a great answer. It only sparked my interest again recently as a situation like the one above happened recently on Facebook and made me realize that I have the opportunity to engage in some of this dialog over a longer period of time that I hope would be effective in opening my mind as well as others.

Why is this sort of dialog so rare in the church? We are so willing to get together on a weekly basis for hours long Bible studies, often repeating lessons we’ve heard before several times over. Why isn’t thoughtful factual discussion of the societal landscape and our misperceptions more often a part of our dialog? As just one example, how we perceive the poor vastly affects how we tend to engage them. Though Jesus put no qualifiers on what kind of “Least of these” we should help, we have a tendency to. A discussion of Why are the Poor Poor? Is definitely in order and it will bring up all the tough subjects like race and oppression, critical looks at capitalism and perceived democracy. Is there a way for Christians to come together from opposite ends of the political spectrum and have constructive dialogs on these topics? I’d like to be a part of that conversation if it’s possible.

Many of the kids went home with a copy of my book. With all the profit from book sales going to clean water projects, the event raised over $600 for clean water wells. It also, hopefully, instilled a knowledgeable and giving spirit in many of the youth that will have an impact on them and their families.

I might have a few more opportunities to speak to groups about the topic and the book, but what I’d like to focus on now is giving churches and other groups the opportunity to use the book as a fundraising tool for missions work related to well building. Hopefully, I’ll have some exciting stories to report back in a few months.

Clean Water for Elirose website

1. Valentines was the last candy infused event in the Holiday season. You made it through the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Years-New Years Resolution Fail-Super Bowl-Valentines eating extravaganza with or without gaining a few pounds. Now is your chance to set some healthy eating goals (like avoiding too much chocolate) and get in the habit before that pesky Easter Bunny tries to show up.
2. You’ve actually, maybe, possibly, had enough chocolate to actually personally want to take a break from it for a little while.
3. If you did receive a bunch of chocolate for Valentine’s or any other previous holiday you still have piled away, then you’ve got the perfect stash to ration from in the coming months.
4. You do NOT need chocolate for your survival. It is a delicious treat that is a complete luxury, unnecessary in all circumstances (no matter how the media typecasts you as someone who can’t live without it).
5. Unless you buy your chocolate bar or drink or muffin from a certified fair-trade brand (none of the major brands are yet) it is likely the cocoa harvested for your treat was harvested by a child slave.

I’ve written a bit on the topic and this offer still stands. Think about it and consider making a decision to take a break from chocolate.

People killin’, people dyin’
Children hurt and you hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preach
And would you turn the other cheek

Father, Father, Father help us
Send us some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’
Where is the love

And mixed in the lyrics are critiques of war, the media, gangs and selfishness.  I guess I just felt like sharing this cause I wanted to dream for a minute what it might have looked like if for a moment we stopped our overeating, rampant consumerism and mindless viewership and actually asked the question “Where is the Love?” And then we all stepped out our doors and actually answered the question through our actions.

Does your wife work outside of the home? It’s your duty to help clean and cook, tend to the children and manage the needs of the household along side her.

Does your wife stay at home with the kids? It’s your duty to help clean and cook, tend to the children and manage the needs of the household along side her.

Times are a changing, but there are still plenty of guys that need to hear the message, and I fear, especially in the church. “Husbands, Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.” And that is no small task. Regardless of your theological views of men and women, if you believe the verse above is applicable today and you commit to trying to follow it and demand that other men do as well, the world would be a much better place. The rest of the verse says “and gave himself up for her.” How do we begin to carry that out?

It means truly listening to your wifes hopes and dreams, be they for family or career or otherwise, and supporting and encouraging her to pursue those things.

It means relinquishing societal expectations of household cooking and cleaning (that everything is the wife’s responsibility), and sitting down and learning from her what areas you can help with. Even if that means learning to cook more or how to do laundry.

It means being clear that being paid or not is not the standard of worth we use to measure the value of how one spends their time. That the ‘unpaid’ work of caring for the kids or cleaning the house is just as valuable as bringing home a paycheck.

It means men compromising on their career aspirations, not just women, so that a healthy balance between work and home and family can be struck.

It means changing diapers, doing laundry, waking up for midnight feedings, and making sure your wife has as much kid-free time as she needs.

It means explicitly countering the negative body image messages women are faced with every day, by turning off the tv or movie, telling your wife she is beautiful.

It means all of this and so much more. And if you need further examples, read the gospels and watch as Jesus tirelessly serves, loves, and does not judge. Christ gave everything in his love for the church. Men, you should give everything, in your love for your wife.

What if we spent Sunday morning participating in service projects all over the city? Actually putting into practice the teachings we are inundated with every Sunday. What if the sermon was only 10 minutes long and the rest of the time we spent building cross-ethnic, cross-generational relationships? Churches could more quickly be the true deep communities we claim to be. What if we actually spent time figuring out the needs of our church and selling our possessions to meet those community needs?

I’m not suggesting we kill the sacred cows, I recognize singing and sermons both seem to have their place in the church and aren’t going anywhere. I think I’d just like to see us spend the primary time Christians gather together, Sunday morning, become more interactive and more encompassing of all the aspects of Christianity including service, and sharing and fellowship.

MLK Day seems to be one of the few National holiday’s I find myself appreciating. In our country, in modern times, I think Dr. King is one of the few examples of what the church should look like in this day and age. His words, many actual sermons, are so inspiring and moving, they have had a lasting impact on my life. I’ve been to MLK events in most of the cities we’ve lived, and there is something so encouraging about standing amongst others recognizing both the strides we’ve made (and the impact committed people of faith can have) and acknowledging the road ahead.
Enough of my words though, I want to strongly encourage you to take in and read and listen to the words of Dr. King. If you’ve never heard the I Have A Dream speech in it’s entirity, I suggest you listen to it. But, whether you have or not, what you really should do is read and listen to his other speeches and sermons. I’ll put some links to audio, videos and text below.

This is a inspiring audio/visual piece about MLK that I think is worth a watch. Just ignore the first part about Bush, the stuff about Dr. King is really motivating:

Audio

-I Have a Dream (mp3) (Real Player)

-I’ve Been To The Mountain Top

-Pride by U2 (Real Player) (Not Dr. King, but about him)

-Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence

-Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

-Sermon at Temple Israel of Hollywood

-Methodist Student Leadership Conference Address

-Robert F. Kennedy Speech On The Assassination Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Real Player)

-NPR audio about Dr. King (link)

Links

-Letter from Birmingham Jail (A Must read for any Christian)

-The King Center (link)

-MLK Memorial (link)

-Already Forgotten (an old blog post)

Videos

I have a Dream – 17 minutes

I’ve Been To The Mountain Top – 2 minutes

How Long, Not Long – 2 minutes

Quotes

Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.

I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.

As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked — and rightly so — what about Vietnam?

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

There is little hope for us until we become toughminded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and downright ignorance.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.

Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice; say that I was a drum major for peace; I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that’s all I want to say.

Like any man, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now.

You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, “Are you Martin Luther King?”
And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that’s punctured, you drown in your own blood — that’s the end of you.
It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I’ve forgotten what those telegrams said. I’d received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I’ve forgotten what the letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I’ll never forget it. It said simply, “Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the Whites Plains High School.” She said, “While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I’m simply writing you to say that I’m so happy that you didn’t sneeze.”
And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn’t sneeze.

In this new role, I’ve tried to be intentional about thinking hard about what community really looks like in a church setting, particularly a large, Sunday-service focused church like the one I currently attend. One thing that came up out of a discussion group on the topic a few months ago, is that I see community as much more organic then programmatic or hierarchical. What does that look like in practice? I’m not totally sure yet, but to me, it means less top-down, ‘official’ group and event creation and an attempt to empower members to form community opportunities around their interest and passions. Figuring out what that actually looks like is the hard part.

Here’s where I need your help though, I need some thoughts, some ideas. Share some of your brilliance. If you were in charge of building community at a semi-large church, what would you do?

This was my small beef with Dave Ramsey, back when we lived in Nashville (and the subject of the most commented on post on this blog). I really liked his emphasis on doing whatever it takes to get out of debt, but the end result was to “live like no one else,” and his giant mansion in a wealthy suburb is a testimony to exactly what he means by that line. Ramsey is no different then any other financial advice I’ve seen though, Christian or not.

Here’s my question: If you were to put aside all of our american, societal, pre-conceived and biased views of finances, wealth, what we need, how much is enough, and if you were to really look at the Bible, read some of the things Jesus said, the way the church lived. Would we really be doing “stewardship” just like everyone else? I don’t think we would.

I’ll leave you with some Bible stories to contemplate:

• Jesus specifically says “Woe to you who are rich” and by any global standard, everyone reading this right now, is rich.
• Jesus says “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
• Paul writes: “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
• Jesus tells the rich young ruler to sell all he has and give it to the poor.
• Zacchaeus gives away nearly all his wealth and then Jesus says, “Today Salvation has come to this house.”
• Jesus tells the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, in which Abraham says to the rich man in torment, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.’
• Jesus tells the parable of the man who stores up his riches in barns whose life is taken. And then Jesus says, “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
• Jesus says, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.”

I’m aware there are stories in the Bible of families lovingly sacrificing for one another, but there are also plenty of examples and commands of caring for those we are not related to, indeed even our enemies. The reason I think dispelling this myth (if indeed it is) is so important to the topic of stewardship is that I think it is commonly used as a justification for a life of stewardship that is directed primarily at our immediate family.

If we believe in “family first” as a command then we feel justified in spending time, energy and money making sure our kids go to the best schools, live in the “safest” neighborhoods, and have a significant college fund saved up. But what about the other kids? What of our neighbors, whom we are supposed to love as ourselves?

I am not suggesting we neglect the needs of our children to serve others, but rather seeing our neighbor (locally and globally) and their needs with the same heartfelt conviction and commitment that we do our families needs.

I should saw right off the bat that this hasn’t been the source of depression or anything, I’m loving life and all that I’m doing. I just couldn’t find a way to join the church club so I’ve got involved elsewhere. But this post has a bright spot. I think I’m beginning to find a place in the body again. I’m not sure quite what that will look like in the end, but I’ve found it refreshing to be included .

Being part of the conversation is the reason for me coming out of this blogging hiatus. In April, I’d made the shift to focusing Trying To Follow to be just about faith topics and suddenly I felt like I had nothing to say. This blog has always been a place to process my thoughts, but it was mostly an extension of conversations I was having in real life. Lacking those lately on topics of faith and Christianity, I had little thoughts to process in blog form for a while.

All this is just to say two things: 1) I’m getting involved in our church a bit more and I’m enjoying it. 2) I’ve got thoughts to share on this blog again. So stay tuned for more. I’ll probably still keep it to once a week, so look out for next week.

Last week I mentioned Clean Water for Elirose, a children’s book I wrote. Well, for the next 48 hours I’d like to giveaway copies of the book to anyone who makes a donation to the Elirose Charity Water project. Anyone who makes a donation over $5 will get a copy of the book in the mail. It cost me about $5 each to send the book, so please be generous in your donation to the water project. The goal is to raise $5000 from Clean Water for Elirose book sales, which is enough to build one clean water well to provide clean water for 50 families or 250 people.

And there you have it. The point of the Book Giveaway is two-fold. First, it’s an incentive for you to give to a worthy cause. Second, it’s an opportunity to put Clean Water for Elirose into the hands of kids, parents and teachers to help discuss the topic and expose kids to both the injustices in the world and tangible ways that they can help.

Donate to Charity:Water and email me your address before 9am October 8th

My kids are 4 and 3 now and, as concrete thinkers, reading books with them is one of the most tangible ways to expand their world, next to actually experiencing things in real life. My journey to find children’s picture books that discussed topics like poverty and homelessness, clean drinking water and lack of education, was fruitful, but sparse. It was a genre with books few and far between. And so, I set out to write my own.

Read the book Online

Clean Water for Elirose is a children’s picture book about what kids drink and how four young kids make a difference in fifth child’s life, Elirose. My goal with writing the book is two-fold.

1. To provide parents with a meaningful way to discuss a global social issue with their young children.
2. To use the book as a tool itself for fundraising for clean drinking water.

My hope is that it reaches those goals, if even on a small scale. If your interested in ordering a copy you can do that here. Anyone is free to buy a “teachers copy” for $5, which is the same book, but doesn’t cover the total costs ($3.65 per copy of the book, ~$2.10 for shipping plus envelope). Or, you can order a $15 copy and about $10 if your purchase will go directly to supporting a clean water well project (currently with Charity:Water).

I’d love your help getting the word out if your willing. Review the book on your blog, ask your local parenting mag or paper to write a review, purchase a copy for your library, tell your friends or use it as a fundraiser for your next missions trip. Oh, and let me know what you think with a comment below.