Song: Beautiful, Phil Whickham
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRDjYhscxDU&feature=related

Music: River City Rhythm drumline
http://www.rcrperc.org/

Sport: Roller Derby (MN Rollergirls, Northstar Rollergirls)
http://www.mnrollergirls.com/
http://www.northstarrollergirls.com/index.html

Food: Jimmy Johns, #6 no tomatoes
http://www.jimmyjohns.com

Strange-ity: Smoothies with Spinach-adds protein, makes it green

Relevant Magazine Article:
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/film/features/18460-the-surprising-depth-of-whip-it

Picks of the week:

Song: Same Old Story, Flatfoot 56
www.myspace.com/flatfoot56

Food: Black bean burgers + cheddar cheese, avacado, salsa
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/black-bean-burgers-recipe.htm

Youtube Video: For the Birds, Pixar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omk6TAxJYOg

Article on Relevant Magazine: The Hope of Rocket Summer
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/music/features/20713-the-hope-of-the-rocket-summer

My friend Shannon, who's going to be a nun, sent me this link the other day with the message, "I can see us doing this together."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrfSSZ1A4mg&feature=response_watch

And the tag under the video is Random Acts of Kindness.

Elk River is doing some awesome things in the mindset of this mission:
1000 Acts of Random Kindness

This is an article from wcco.com
http://wcco.com/local/elk.river.kindness.2.1463354.html

In some cases, it takes tragedy to shake a community's sense of neighborly caring. That was Elk River's case back on Sept. 20, 2008 when a catastrophic apartment fire caused hundreds of residents, mainly seniors, to lose both their belongings and homes.

However, the tragic fire was also a chance for local high school students to show a sense of responsibility and civic pride. Dozens of them dropped what they were doing to lend firefighters and displaced residents a hand. It was a real life lesson in civic involvement and the power of caring for others.

Now, that lesson is being spread city wide in a campaign that challenges all residents to pitch in and help out. Evidence of that sense of caring can be seen every day inside the Guardian Angel's senior residential high rise. A dining center there offers inexpensive meals to around 26,000 senior citizens each year. But it couldn't come close to fulfilling that need if it weren't for the dozens of volunteers who help serve the meals and bus and clean the dishes.

That's exactly the spirit of volunteerism and kindness that a citywide campaign hopes to encourage. On a cold and snowy start to February, the city kicked off a heart-warming idea. Stephanie Klinzing is Elk River's mayor and one of the campaign's creators.

"It's not that I don't think this is a kind city, I know we are," said Klinzing. "We just need to show the world that we're a kind city and I know we are going to be able to do that."

They are planning to encourage Elk River residents to perform 1,000 random acts of kindness over the next 28 days -- anything from shoveling a neighbor's sidewalk to helping carry a person's groceries to their car. It's not the actual act that's important, but rather the idea of helping another person in need of a smile.

As the city's combined goodness grows, an oversized thermometer-like gauge in a downtown park will keep score. As each 100 random acts of kindness are recorded, the gauge will reflect the accumulated count. Many expect to hit 1000 well before the month's end.

The whole idea got its start from a recent fire at an apartment building. Dozens of high school students, including the foot ball team, rushed across the street to help out.

Klinzing said when the news media came to cover the apartment fire, stories focused not so much on the loss as they did the community heroics. She was moved by the message the actions of neighbors, firefighters and high school students sent to those unfamiliar with her community.

Now Klinzing hopes the campaign prompts a "climate change" in caring and spreads to everyday situations.

"We get so accustomed to just driving by because we're so inwardly focused and this will get our focus outward," explained LaDonna Ahrens.

Ahrens believes that by asking residents to record any observed or initiated acts of kindness it will cause them to ask themselves how they can be a better citizen.

To help keep track of people's actions, postcards have been printed up and are available at drop boxes around town. The campaign has assigned a phone line to record stories of kindness. That number is 763-412-4616.

Drop boxes are located at the Elk River Star News, city hall, local businesses and area churches.

Life Lessons from Sesame Street
Week 1: Count Your Blessings

I'm way excited about this new Spark series, so I think that I'll try to update ya'll on highlights from Wednesday night Spark.

We talked about how much easier it is to complain than it is to count our blessings. I joked about how my dad used to say to me, when I'd complain of a bad hair day or something, "at least you've got hair to complain about" or "at least you've got two hands and two feet" and blah blah blah. But there's truth to that, at least we do have a good and lovely life.

We talked about scriptures that tell us to rejoice in the day the Lord has made, and that his love endures forever and we are to be glad and rejoice in that. We talked about Romans 8:28 and how all things work together for good for those that love the Lord...so why should we ever have a bad day?

That said, we each created a Cactus of Awesomeness, on which we wrote awesome things in our lives. Then we talked about the prickleys- and that sometimes, we let the fear of awesome things going bad cause prickleys, or negative people and things cause prickleys, and stuff gets in the way of our awesome stuff being the first thing we talk about/encounter/lean on. We get caught in the prickleys first.

So, what do we do? We've got negative people, or our negative selves, getting in the way of simply rejoicing because of who God is. Stuff- prickleys- get in the way.

We need to get these prickleys out of the way- tell people to "stop putting prickleys in my Cactus of Awesomeness!" If we embrace a positive attitude and count our blessings, we can be the change, the prickley-less person, who doesn't let anything get between them and God.

Wishing you all a most fantastic, joy-filled, merry little Christmas!