Book Discussion: Love Wins

I read an article online today titled "Pastor loses job after doubting hell's existence."  This pastor had put a link on Facebook supporting a book written by Rob Bell called Love Wins.  There's a youtube promotion of the book that is really controversial, where the author describes a Christian art show featuring a quote from Gandhi.  Someone had attached a note to the piece saying: "Reality check: He's in hell."

The article goes on: "In the book, Bell criticizes the belief that a select number of Christians will spend eternity in the bliss of heaven while everyone else is tormented forever in hell.
"This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear," he writes in the book."

Obviously, the traditional Christian idea of hell isn't quite the same as mine as a Mormon, but I still think these are really interesting questions that Rob Bell is exploring.  He's looking at everything he's been taught and openly questioning some things that don't seem to make sense, and trying to reason out what he believes to be true.  I'm not putting this discussion on here as a way to justify my own beliefs, I just really admire this man for trying to find the truth even when it exposes him to so much criticism and scorn from his peers.

Here is the youtube video of the book promotion.

Well, it's official

I weigh less now than I have in the last 5 years.  Since I was 21.  Yay!

I hope you don't mind this celebratory post.  On December 15th I decided to start a long-term weight loss goal, and I'm committed to going until at least June 2011.  (What was I thinking starting 10 days before Christmas?!)  So I'm almost halfway through now, and I've lost about 16 pounds, putting me - in this last week - lower on the scale than I've seen since 2006.  You can see my weight tracking in the chart on the right.

The hardest part about this was committing to doing this at all, and doing it long-term.  I dithered over the course of six months because honestly I didn't really feel that bad about my weight.  I know good people for whom body weight is a very emotional struggle, I've read stories about the agony people have felt as they desired so strongly to change their body size, and I can understand.  For me, it really wasn't an emotional issue which is why I think it took me so long to decide to do a diet.  I finally did decide to do it because I realized that it's not too late for me to look and feel pretty.  I hope that doesn't sound really superficial.  But while I haven't felt bad about my body, I haven't really felt pretty, either.  So it would be nice to feel that way for a little while before babies and age and whatever else change things again.

So what am I doing?  Just eating 1500 calories a day.  That's pretty much it.  Some days it's more and some days it's less.  And every once in awhile I sit on the couch downstairs and finish off all of the chocolates in the house while watching a sumptuous literary adaptation.  Did I mention this was a long-term goal?  The biggest change has just been learning to resist things, or to take things in moderation.  Stopping after one portion (not always successful), have smaller portions in general.  I have tried to eat better, too, having more fruits and vegetables, and I've also added in a bit of exercise, but the main thing is I'm just not eating as much.  I still have a cheeseburger every once in awhile, but it's only  every once in awhile, and I go easy on the rest of my food for that day.  I don't have enough self-discipline to be really fastidious about all of this, and I'm not really into feeling miserable about my life because I don't get to have any pie.  I still have pie, I just have a tiny bit.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to lately.  It's been slow going, but I'm always quite happy if the numbers on the scale aren't going down, at least they're not going back up.  Just maintaining these low weights is a nice thing, too!

For all you art history buffs

You guys remember that I majored in Art History, right?
Yeah, sometimes I forget, too.
Just kidding.

I miss it, I miss working with and studying art.  One of the few connections I still keep up with the art history world is a really excellent art history blog, Alberti's Window, written by a friend of mine who is teaching the subject up in Washington.  I'm subscribed to a few art history blogs but I like hers the best, she always has something interesting to say and is really thinking about the work she comes across and current issues and discoveries in art.

Well, you can imagine my delight to find out that my senior thesis was mentioned in yesterday's post on her blog!  It makes me feel so special!  I'm going to take it as evidence that my art history soul is not dead.  Thanks, M, for the mention, and keep up the great blogging.