top se7en albums of oh-se7en

*it should be noted that while these are the top of oh-se7en that doesn't mean that they were necessarily released in oh-se7en, just that i discovered them in oh-se7en

|se7en|

genre: rock

formed: greenville, il

top songs: sundays best, boston, bullets

|six|

genre: euro indie rock

formed: stockholm, sweden

top songs: paris 2004, young folks, objects of my affection

|five|

genre: indie folk

formed: portland, or

top songs: hardwood pews, finch on saturday, in our blood

|four|

genre: soundtrack, light rock

formed: ireland and czech republic

top songs: lies, falling slowly, when your mind's made up

|three|

genre: alternative

formed: seattle, wa

top songs: detlef schrempf, is there a ghost, no one's gonna love you

|two|

genre: alternative

formed: long island, ny

top songs: buttoned down, this is the end, i'd be lying

|one|

genre: alternative

formed: vancouver, bc

top songs: myriad harbor, challengers, go places

honorable mentions:

until june - until june

alligator - the national

begin to hope - regina spektor

two thoughts on christmas

the last two days i've read the christmas story from matthew and luke.  there were two things that struck me particularly.

[one]

i was really trying to get a good feel for the anticipation of the Christ.  i tried to imagine myself as a pre-Christ Jew.  God has been silent for 400 years.  i know that the Christ is supposed to be coming.  i've been trying to live in obedience to the Law.  i imagined that the excitement and anticipation in Israel must have been palpable.  

but then i then i thought about today.  i thought about how we still are expecting the second arrival of Christ.  i thought about how we have been waiting 2000! years.  i thought about how i have the holy spirit and yet i still don't always feel like God has spoken to me in a long time.  i thought of how i don't anticipate the second coming of Christ that much at all on a regular basis.

i realized that maybe the excitement wasn't there.

i realized that there were many religious people who were just going on with their normal lives as God was sending His Word to become flesh.

no wonder Jesus was born in a manger with only a couple of shepherds and gentiles as his visitors.

but, then there is simeon.

this is what the scriptures say about him:

"[he] was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.  And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ."

this is a man who was longing for the Kingdom.  he was daily anticipating the arrival of the Christ.  and when He came he was ready!

oh, how i pray that we would be like simeon...daily anticipating the second coming of Christ.

[two]

as protestants, we have done a great disservice to mary.  in an effort to correct the near deification of mary by the roman catholics, i think we have overlooked her significance.

this is what was said about mary:

_an angel calls her "favored one" and then says, "you have found favor with God!"

_elizabeth says, "blessed are you among women"

mary herself has a brilliant poem called the magnificat:

"my soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked on the

humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

And his mercy is for those who fear him

from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;

he has brought down the mighty from their thrones

and exalted those of humble estate;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent empty away.

He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

as he spoke to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his offspring forever."

for me, the most significant piece is that out of all the women in the world God chose mary.  she was the one in whom God found favor.  she is the one considered worthy to bear the Christ child and rear him.

mary, mother of Jesus.

mother

of

Jesus

let those words sink in.

mary was the mother of the one we call savior.

she doesn't need to be worshipped, but we shouldn't negate her significance simply because others choose to do so.

as we celebrate jesus today, let us not overlook the sweet fact that God has chosen us, even in our humble estate, to play our part in the story of redemptive history and that one woman was found favored enough to carry Christ in her womb.

se7en top se7ens in two thousand se7en

starting tomorrow i will list my top sevens in '07.

here is the schedule:

25_music

26_books

27_movies

28_places

29_verses

30_pictures

31_moments

stay tuned...

what do chuck norris and i have in common?

i'll give you three hints:

one_i don't have any uzis

two_i don't have a gigantic american flag

three_believe it or not, i don't own a sleeveless denim shirt

the answer:

we are both officially endorsing mike huckabee for president.

this has been one of the most difficult races for me to get behind a candidate.  i haven't been very impressed with anyone and having become a bit more liberal over the last couple of years i've thrown out my default republican status.  i've pretty much stayed morally conservative, but i have become much more fiscally liberal.  i knew finding someone who met those requirements would be a difficult task.

three or four months ago i took a poll on usatoday.com in which i answered multiple question in reference to key issues and then rated the importance of each issue.  upon completion of the poll it told you which candidate you were most like.  here were my results:

i was rather surprised, because a. i thought i'd be closer to some democratic candidates and b. i didn't really know much about huckabee.  at the time i kept him in the back of my mind, but wasn't really hearing much about him.

well, for those who pay attention to the primary races, you know that huckabee is gaining major steam.  because of that, there was a huge article in last week's newsweek.  i picked it up on a whim to read on my flight back to czech.  needless to say i was extremely impressed.

_seminary graduate

_baptist preacher for 19 years

_fiscally liberal (republicans are calling him a "closet liberal")

_lover of justice (as governor he attacked the judicial system for disproportionate sentencing of black males for drug crimes compared to white males convicted of the same crime)

_great leader (loved in traditionally-democratic arakansas)

_focused on education

most pundits are saying that even if he wins the republican primary there is NO WAY he can win the general election.  that leads me to a classic political debate: do you vote for who you think is the best candidate or do you vote for who you think has the best chance of winning for your party.  as a registered independent, this is a moot point for me, but you can look to my alan keyes vote in 2000 as proof of voting for who i think is the best candidate!

we're entering into one of the most exciting times in american politics.  not only is the primary and eventual general election process exciting (i sound like a dork, but did you know that i have my b.s. in political science?), but i have a feeling that this is going to go down as one of the more important elections of our time.  our country is at a crucial juncture and who we elect could have a huge impact on our future.

so, there it is.  huckabee for president.  it has a nice ring to it.  

[IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE READ]

i feel it imperative that you don't regard this as my plea for you to vote for huckabee.  as a political scientist (i paid a lot of money to asu to be able to say that), i believe in the political process wholeheartedly and love the election season.  this was more of an attempt to show you, faithful reader, what my process was for choosing a candidate.

America vs. Czech, part two

i'm now back in czech.

its cold.

snow lines the streets.

in honor of both my native land and my new home, i will list my second installment of "america vs. czech"...in this edition i will focus on what habits i will have to unlearn and things to get used to again...

_ no more driving and talking on my cell phone

_ no more drinking a beer and then driving (czech has a no tolerance policy...no .08 limit, .0001 is a DUI

_ when i hear english in the background i can be surprised again

_ no more wearing my shoes inside of houses

_ back to normal sized everything...meals, cars, coffee*

_ back to communion w. real wine! (i just realized the moral dilemma i have when driving to church...is it illegal to drive home after having had communion?)

_ people will stop at crosswalks for me again...in czech, you are required to stop at a crosswalk for pedestrians, not so in america, so there were multiple times in which my life hung by a thread after assuming czech laws while crossing the street in america

_ back to food with cumin...this has to be the worst spice ever invented and czechs use it in everything! even if it is not intended to be in things it still ends up in it.  there are two regular occurrences here that are quite disappointing. 

one: "hidden cumin".  this occurs most often in one of my favorite lunch treats.  it is a roll with sauce, ham, and melted cheese. mmmm, tasty! but, sometimes the baker does the unthinkable: hiding cumin under the melted cheese.  imagine my shock as i take that first bite into tasty goodness and then, 

what? 

what is that terrible taste destroying my tastebuds? 

oh, no, it can't be.  

it is.

[right fist thrust high in the air]

blast you, cumin, blast you!

two: "unintentional cumin".  since cumin is found on many different savoury baked goods, it can be found everywhere in a bakery.  the problem with this is that the little cumin seed hates staying attached to its home.  you see, cumin is a tyrant.  cumin loves to come in (pun, unintentional) and destroy.  it is a home wrecker.   it is a thief of goodness, robbing from delicious.  so, cumin will often detach itself from its home and find its way into pastries! this is the "unintentional cumin".  imagine my surprise when biting into a tasty blueberry danish and again, that nefarious (yeah, i used a thesaurus for that one) spice has made its way into my mouth.  oh, the despair.  oh, wretched cumin, how i hate you!

*side note_i put on [at least] 10 pounds while in america.  i think it was due to many factors not normally experienced in czech:

1. eating out at every meal

2. in czech it is customary to eat all the food on your plate, which normally isn't an issue, but that compulsion never left when i was in america, so while eating enormous meals i just kept eating and eating and eating...

3. [at least] one starbucks a day...often more

i was homeless last night...

for 30 minutes.

my friend shane is a youth pastor in conway, arkansas.  this summer when he was out in czech we talked about me coming to conway to hang out with his youth group and speak.  since i had dreads and a huge goatee, he thought it would be great to do the classic "poor man in front of the church" lesson.

even though i shaved my head and had a partially grown beard, we still went for it.

_________________________

i'll be honest, it was completely different than what i expected.

people stopped.

two men talked to me.

one asked me what i needed.

i was given over $23.

there seemed to be genuine care from multiple students.

sure there were cars that drove by and students/parents who ignored me.

kids stared.

eyes were averted.

but, when talking to the students (junior highers), they expressed their emotions towards me

_compassion

_fear

_sorrow

_pain

_confusion

i was also shocked at what was stirring in me.

i felt completely undignified.  i felt like garbage.

worthless.

hopeless.  

sorrow.

loneliness.

____________________

God has been working on my heart a lot over the past four months regarding the poor and marginalized.

it all started with a book.  irresistible revolution messed me up.  i'm not going to say that i agree with everything that shane wrote, but as i read the book i felt like my heart and beliefs were being thrown in a blender and set on puree.  

one of the things that shane said that really messed me up was (and i paraphrase), "often times we try to make the bible make sense, we contextualize, but maybe when Christ said, 'sell all you have and give it to the poor' that is what he meant."

as i read the scriptures (both old and new covenant) and as i try to understand this Jesus that i am following, i can't help but to see His (and God the Father's) heart for the poor and marginalized.

what i wrestle with is how does that fit into my call?

i know that God has called me to the czech.  i have never felt closer to God and His desire for me than i do now.  but how do i apply what God is teaching me with what i'm learning?

_________________

Jesus spent a ton of his time with the poor and marginalized.  those seemed to be the ones who were softest to the gospel...the samaritan woman, the bleeding woman, the cripple lowered down through the roof, the lame sitting by the pool...all of them outcasts.

all of them receptive.

Jesus also spent a lot of time with the rich and the religious, but what was their response?

the rich man walked away.

the religious put him on trial.

it seems that the marginalized are the ones who are receptive...

__________________

the english camps we do are a little costy for czechs.  

typically the educated are the ones who attend english camp.

so, if the poor and the marginalized are the ones who tend to be the most receptive, but our camps tend to attract the richer and more educated and they seem to be the least receptive and i feel called to what i'm doing...

see my dilemma?

___________________

a few months ago i wrote about this house that i wanted to buy.

it is huge.

right on the town square.

super expensive.

while i don't have a solution to my current dilemma, i do think that it has to start with me personally.  i'm not going to leave czech and move in with the poor.  i'm probably not even going to change the way we do english camps.  but i have found myself talking to and trying to meet the needs of the marginalized more.  i've also been thinking more about buying an apartment in one of the poorer areas of our town and living there.  i've also thought about trying to start a small youth group in that area.

____________________

i don't know what all this means.  i fight the idea of moving to a poorer area.  i come up with lots of excuses why i shouldn't talk to the homeless guy.

but after "living it" for 30 minutes, i feel like i understand a bit more.  two dudes did it for five months.  i'm reading their journey right now.

regardless of what i do, i have to do.

i can't let compassion sit idly in my chest.

my heart stirs cause it wants to get out.

it wants to touch someone.

i have to let it.

no No Shave November

unfortunately, there was only one response to the call for "no shave november" and it was from Steve who sent me an article about this guy.



thanks steve. we all lose to this guy.

i will continue with my no shave november.

pics to follow.

No Shave November Begins

No Shave November: a community art project*

thelongbrake has done some great community art projects over the last couple years. i have thoroughly enjoyed participating and having my eyes tickled by all the images from around the us and the world.

i have now ventured out to do my own.

with a twist.

josh's usually have some great spiritual truth about them. mine won't. well, i guess it does in that God is truth and it is true that men can grow facial hair.

_____________________

the rules

_take a picture of yourself on nov 1 freshly shaven
_email picture to me (nhughes@josiahventure.com)
_don't shave during november
_take a picture dec 1
_email picture to me

additional rules for the ambitious

_choose facial hair type from the pic above
_attempt to immitate
_email pic to me

please feel free to link this, invite friends, or whatever to make this the greatest facial hair display the world (or at least the internet) has ever seen.

adventures in mexico

there were three very unique experiences that i had on my recent trip to mexico with somanorth here in arizona.

1_while driving through the arizona desert on our way down to mexico we saw ufos. now i'm not saying that they were alien ufos, but they were most definately unidentified flying objects...lights in the sky. i'm not an expert on military aircraft and i really don't know jack about aeronautics, but my friend Christian, the driver of our crew, has a degree in aeronautical engineering and he'd never seen anything like it before. there were two separate types of ufo.

the first was a bright light that would pulse as it fell to earth with each subsequent flare appearing more downward and more to the left. now, it could easily have been something just falling, but the odd thing is that at the end of each of these we saw (there were four or five total) it would arch upwards and then not appear again apparently never falling completely to the ground.

the second were four lights that were in the sky the entire time the other things were falling, but remained completely still during the entire show. in fact, we thought they were lights atop towers on a mountain, but suddenly, these once stationary lights begun to decend upon the earth. Christian exclaimed that they could not be helicopters, because helicopters couldn't decend so quickly. he was at a loss for what they could be.

2_i almost got shot in the head by an ak-47 on thursday night.

my primary role in riding shotgun was to get us to our final destination. my tools: map and a mag light. after entering mexico (around midnight) our senses were hightened to the federali (the mexican police). Christian had worried for hours (literaly) about what a mexican jail would be like, could we run from the federali, would we bail him out if he were arrested, and countless other annoying questions. the federali are notorious for their corruption and senseless arrests. we were even told to have $40 ready in case we got pulled over.

sure enough, as we pulling into puerto penasco (our final destination) the federali pulled up next to us. the mexican driving glaced over at me. i glanced back. he did a double take and slowed his car down. as we pulled away from him, he slid into our lane. Christian begins to get worried...we all do in fact. then, sure enough, the lights come on. we had been driving the speed limit and didn't appear to be doing anything illegal, so we were confounded. after pulling into a dirt lot on the side of the road, the driver came up to the driver side and in spanish (via Jenni's translation) asked us to turn the dome light on. we did. he then asked us to raise our hands, so he could see them. we did. all the while he is looking at me, not Christian. then, upon seeing the mag light on my lap, says, "Oh, lampa." smiles, says "bye" and walks away.

as the beat of our hearts begin to slow everything became clear. when the federali pulled along side of us, i had been holding the mag light in my right hand. apparently, he saw the shine of metal and thought it was a gun! the girls also spoke up at that time and asked if we saw the other guy standing outside of my window. because i'd been focusing on the guy at Christian's window, i didn't. the girls then relayed that he was holding an ak-47! i was one flash of the mag light away from being capped in the dome

3_the bed i slept in was the top bunk of a bunkbed. it was rather comfortable and nice. the odd thing was that it was extremely high. in fact, i could barely sit up straight while up there. the other interesting aspect was that there was a fan that hung over the legs-half of the bed. while not close to my head, it could be if i wasn't paying attention.

on the final night i came into our room at 3 am after watching a movie in another room. the lights were off in the entire condo, so it was pitch black. the white noise of the fan filled the room as i climbed up in bed. forgetting about the fan, i leaned forward in an effort to slide my body into bed.

THWAP, THWAP, THWAP

as far as i can tell i took three fan blades to the head. two to the forehead and one to the bridge of the nose. i was inches from losing an eye. feeling marginal amounts of blood and only feeling slightly dazed, I laid down and wondered as i fell asleep whether i had a concussion. knowing the dangers of sleeping after a concussion, i fell asleep wondering if i would wake up the next morning.

i did.


_____________________________________

here are pictures from other, less exciting times while in mexico:

America vs. Czech

I've been in the States for one week.

Here are the most significant things I've noticed/discovered being back:

_right turns on red are great...if you don't do it people will honk
_laundry is much quicker with a dryer!
_sports are much more fun to watch on TV rather than tracking the scores on the internet
_do not, i repeat, do not remove anything from the scales when going through the self checkout at the grocery store
_do not, i repeat, do not use the self check out by yourself if you've never done it before...thanks Jenni and Christian!
_fruits and vegitables are huge, perfect, and shiny here...i never noticed the difference when i moved to czech...i think its because i never bought fruit and vegitables before i moved there
_i will come back to czech 10-15 pounds heavier
_bowling is much easier for me in America...good lanes and pins without strings led to two games over 200...in czech i never crack 100
_driving an automatic transmission is odd...what should I do with my left foot?

When I am in czech I eat two types of food...czech or italian. Here is what I've eaten since I've been here:

_Cajun
_Chinese
_Mexican
_American
_Seafood
_Pizza
_Italian
_Breakfast Restaurant...nothing like it in Cesky Tesin
_BBQ

I'm sure this is just the beginning of what I'll notice while I'm here...

RIP: Dreads

Yep, its true, the dreads are gone. After nine months of very little showering and caring way too much about how my hair looked, I decided to send them to the afterlife.

Upon closer inspection, I found zero...that's right, zero, bugs in any of them. I did find a ton of sand and a pencil that I thought I lost in February, but no bugs.

Here is a pictoral tribute to some of the more interesting dreads:

The Seahorse Dread:



The Marriage Dread (where two become one):



The Baby Dread (the smallest of this dysfunctional dread family):



The Perfect Dread (this was the closest one to good):



The ? Dread (seriously, is that dread wearing a tutu? I have no idea what happened to this one):


That was the first time scissors touched my head in over two years. In all honesty, my head is cold. But showers are nicer. You win some, you lose some.

days 7 and 8/9: three sunrises, two surfers and five kings

day seven we got up early and watched the sunrise...three times! due to poor timing on our part, the first was as we drove to the beach. fortunately for us, the beach we went to had a huge cliff between it and the sun, so we got to watch the sun rise a second time. finally, since our campsite was located in a huge revine, by the time we got back to our camp the sun was rising there too! oh, lucky us.





we also went to the beach again and jozka and i surfed...



days eightandnine blend together really.

we left sw portugal at 530 am to drive to barcelona. we made it to barcelona at 8 pm, ate dinner and walked around the city.

barcelona has a lot of street artists



then left at midnight to make the 16 hour drive home.

needless to say, when we ate burger king at 3 in the afternoon on day nine we were a little kookoo...



we wore those crowns for the next five hours...literally.

days 5 & 6: tents, naked gymnastics, and psalm 19

this is the difference between morning four and morning five:





we were super excited when we got to the beach:



the beach also had quite a few naked people on it. now, i'm not just saying topless women (a standard at european beaches), i'm talking full on. there weren't a lot and fortunately they were on the other side of the beach, but at one time while jozka and i were surfing i saw a couple of guys doing round-off back handsprings and handstands! i'm including a picture of jozka and i instead to spare you. no one should have to see that:



this is the view i had from where i sat:



we went to a lighthouse last night to watch the sunset on the atlantic. it was the first time i'd seen the sun set on the atlantic...it actually doesn't set. the earth rotates giving it the appearance that it does set. so it was the first time i saw the earth rotate so that the sun appeared to go behind the atlantic:





bye bye sun:

days 3 & 4: lisbon, a banana, and ninjas

day three found us reaching our goal of making it to portugal:



lisbon was beautiful and em's parents hooked us up with a night at the (five star) Sheraton in Lisbon! We were going to fit all five of us in a room, but our consciences caught up with us and we decided not to break the rules (three to a room) and we bought another room...that, coupled with Em's speeding ticket, put us way over budget...

not to be discouraged, we set out for lisbon only to be distracted by rain and a banana:



after helping the banana cross the street we wandered the streets of lisbon and practiced our ninja techniques in case of attack:



more on days four and five tomorrow...

Days 1 & 2: Thunderstorms and Speeding Tickets

Kilometers driven: 2360
To go: 629
Cities: Barcelona (kinda) and Madrid

We camped outside of Barcelona.
It stormed.
We didn't get wet.
Thank you, good tents.
I realized that the level of enjoyment of a thunderstorm is directly related to what your sleeping situation is within the thunderstorm and how tired you are.
Tent and tiredness=low level of enjoyment.



This was the only part of France we liked.
It was too expensive.
Too far to drive through to get to Spain.
And we lost 90 Euros to the Frenchy (as Em likes to call them) Police...she was driving to fast. They didn't like it.







once we got to Spain we ate our faces off.
perviously we had only eaten bread and water.
not really, but close.



Our awesome host, Dawn, competes with Emily for the affections of Juan the Bronze man.
Dawn is a missionary in Madrid.
She is sold out for the Lord.
She invited us into her home without knowing us.
We even ate her food.
Used her shower.
I stole lots of electricity charging my
phone
ipod
computer
camera battery
palm pilot



Madrid has cool grafiti.

I'm going to drink Starbucks now...then its off to Lisbon.