I concluded the last day of the Bible study of the book of James by Beth Moore this morning. It's usually bittersweet. I love the structured and guided approach to studying and immersing myself in scripture. I'm also wondering where God will lead me next into His glorious and soul-satisfying scripture.

She used two quotes worth sharing in her final day:

"...this brusque but bracing book 'finds us,' drives us from the balcony to the road, and hounds us out of intelletualism, mysticism, and dogmatism into a real, living, existential world where, with a hand on our throats, we are hurled into the moment of decision. Why is this? The answer must be the closeness of Jesus..." (James B. Adamson)

"Who is this tremendous personality who speaks to the whole Church with a voice that expects no challenge or dispute? Who appeals to no authority but that of God, knows no superior but the Lord Himself, quotes examples only from the great ones of the Old Dispensation, instructs, chides, encourages, denounces with a depth, an energy, a fire, second to none in the whole range of sacred literature?" (John Parry)

In my concluding thoughts, I wrote in my book that "I want to diligently, patiently and persistently point people to Jesus and His truth - like James. I want to make them so uncomfortable with status quo religion that they embrace a relationship of trusting action with Lord Jesus."

That's our James.

Adelyn and I saw the Borrowers movie this afternoon. Color me unimpressed. I didn't like the anime look to the movie, and the characters all repeatedly said, "Hmmmmm..." as part of their dialogue. I don't get that.

On top of that, we didn't pace our popcorn eating. I was so disappointed to discover that popcorn refills at Regal are only free if you get the large popcorn. That stinks, because I could make a house payment with the amount of money a large popcorn costs there.

Summary: The Borrowers: Don't go see it in the theater; rent it. Popcorn. Buy stock instead of popcorn.

You're welcome.

I'm pretty picky about Twitter. I routinely block folks who follow me. Yep. I know that Twitter is intended to generate huge followings to stoke people's egos (and I would certainly love to have more followers), BUT I use Twitter to cultivate community.

The people I follow - even if it's for a short time or season - I genuinely read their tweets. Ok, so maybe I skim a lot too. The point is, however, if someone follows me, and I see that they are following over 1000 people, I know that they can't possibly be reading my tweets on a regular basis - if at all. 

So I block them. I don't want to tweet into the darkness. I like to pretend that the people who follow me on Twitter are getting to know me. I don't expect them to favorite my tweets or to make a magnet of a pithy tweet of mine and put it on their fridge. But I want to imagine that my following is one that when I tweet, people are reading. 

And if you're a business or ministry that follows me? Typically blocked. There are exceptions that are complete judgement calls on my part.

I feel like Twitter is just a masterful excuse for plagiarism in some ways, and when I actually have an insight that is noteworthy, I just don't want to throw it out for others to "steal." I am somewhat cynical enough to think that some of the folks who are following 1000s are just trolling around for good material on Twitter. I don't want to give them an easy to skim it from me and then put it on a little wooden plaque to be sold in a craft barn for $18 or pinned digitally on Pinterest without attribution. Yep, I think about stuff like that. I'm weird.

Some might say that I'm using Twitter the wrong way. To which I say, "I don't care." I generally keep my list of folks that I'm following at around the 200 mark. It's the most that I can comfortably keep up with. I don't really use the Twitter list feature, before you point out that option.

Nuff said.

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The city lights are of Christiansburg from the overpass at exit 118B.

After reading the first two chapters, I can't say enough... bad about it. It's an overwritten, slow-paced, snoozer. I NEVER give up on books. I always have this compulsion to finish what I start. But this one is getting sold back on Amazon. I think the last book I was so vehemently frustrated by was "Wicked" by Maguire. I gave up on it after getting halfway into it.

Them thar are brain cells and time you can't recover. You're probably feeling the same way about this post right now.