The Modesty Writers Guild

It is not physical solitude that actually separates one from others; not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation. It is not the desert island nor the stony wilderness that cuts you from the people you love. It is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger. When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. How often in a large city, shaking hands with my friends, I have felt the wilderness stretching between us. Both of us were wandering in arid wastes, having lost the springs that nourished us - or having found them dry. Only when one is connected to one's own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.

the human heart is the most confusing vessel in the human makeup. who knows where it leads or why it leads, or at what speed it can be led. why is it when everything seems so right it has the capibility to be so very wrong. if life had a roadmap it would be so easy, but yet so boring. if we knew the future what is there for risk, for adventure, in fear, in love, in destiny and fate. but at points i would trade it all in so that i could never hurt anyone again. so that i didn't question, i just knew.

The World in Perspective: If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be: 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both North and South America 8 Africans 52 would be female 48 would be male 70 would be non-white 30 would be white 70 would be non-Christian 30 would be Christian 89 would be heterosexual 11 would be homosexual 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth; all 6 would be from the United States. 80 would live in substandard housing 70 would be unable to read 50 would suffer from malnutrition 1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education 1 would own a computer When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need fro acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent. The following is also something to ponder...

if you havent seen hotel ruwanda please go buy it. it will convict your lives forever. it took the lives of millions of people in 1994 and still the violence has not ceased. it is happening again in dafar, help make other people aware of the problem, than get involved. write your local senetors and congressman/congresswomen and tell them that america needs to step in and prevent the deaths of innocent people. please please please get involved! below is one way to help. -stephen christian National day of action on Darfur Since the Darfur genocide began in 2003, up to 400,000 people have lost their lives. More than 2.5 million people have been displaced, their livelihoods and villages destroyed by government forces and their proxy militias, and thousands of women and girls have been raped. The religious community in the United States has the power to help end the genocide and quell the humanitarian crisis that has come in its wake. Now is the time to make our voices heard. Sojourners, in

I don't think I have done a book review since middle school, and i am not claiming that this is one, a jejune attempt at best. i have currently been reading a book by donald miller called "blue like jazz." ’ i cant tell you how many times i thought this guy had stolen my life story to paste into his own book. every other page was filled with amazement, as i felt i was the only one who had been through/thought about what he has. blatantlytly honest, mr. miller tells what people really think instead of what people really say. someone once said "‘the true test of a mans character is what he does when no one is watching," ’ well don miller wrote word for word what one thinks when no one is listening. anyone have any other books they recommend?