#CharlestonStrong

Stained glass and mournful cries

Clapping and stomping, songs begin to rise

The below of the organ fills the room—

Beauty grows from sorrow and doom.

Still the body when the breath is gone

When the soul has left its Earthly home,

Sleep, be still, peace comes in the coming days

While we live on, stand strong, hold on to faith.

From the Busy Bee

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted anything! Life has been busy and I've been working on a billion things. I spent most of this year trying to figure out what I really wanted to concentrate my blog on... If you haven't noticed (which I doubt is possible), I'm kinda all over the place. I have lots of interests and poetry spans all genres. After thinking about it and getting feedback, I found that there are two main topics on my blog that I love to post about and you (my readers) seem to love reading about.  When I thought about it, I decided had much to say about both topics, maybe too much for one blog so I decided to create new homes for them. (This is quite a large part of the business that has kept me from posting.) I'll still be posting my randomness and my poetry here, but I want to introduce (and promote of course) my less random and more streamlined ventures.

So what are the topics and where are the new homes?

Cultured Expressions — Cultural Appreciation

Cultured Expressions was born of the first topic: cultural issues. On this blog, I've dedicated a many posts to Black History Month, and I've mentioned how much I'd like to see all minority history shared and welcomed. As I wrote the final Black History Month post in February, I knew I wanted to expand that idea. To have a place where there was both people sharing their culture/history and people learning. I wanted to promote minority books.  I wanted to see everyone in one place, working together. And then came Cultured Expressions. I don't intend to be the only contributor. I hope you find the idea as interesting as I do and I hope you'll volunteer to add your own experiences to the blog too. Check it out here, read some of the current posts (the selection isn't large now, but I plan to grow with time) and then check out the get involved page to find out how to add your own words to the site! Also, like the site on Facebook and/or follow the site on Twitter and G+.

The History of Christianity — Christian Theology

I did a series on the Sabbath a while back, and then I started a series on the prophecies in Daniel (I promise to finish that too btw), I also did a post on religions in general and denominations... Meanwhile I began re-reading the Bible. While I'm sure I've read the whole book, I'm not sure I ever read it consecutively and some chapters/books I spent less time thinking about than others. When I decided to re-read it, I also decided keep a journal of thoughts, feelings, analysis, research, etc. pertaining to the chapters I read. I wanted to share my journal with a few people, but they're quite far away... And I thought *lightbulb* I'm just going to put it online! So, The History of Christianity has (or will have) posts about each chapter in the Bible, posts about denominations, origins of traditions, etc. —it's a work in progress, but it may be helpful and/or interesting to some of you so I'm sharing that as well. You can check it out here.

Doing the Most

I've been stretched thin,
Trying to do it all--
Determined not to quit,
Determined not to fall
And stretch my wings
Just a little further, higher
Keep pushing until I get there—
Until I'm the strongest flier