Thursday Thirteen ~ food and other stuff

1.  Donna (sitting at the right) and some of my other friends attended the "Bagels and Schmears" workshop on June 6th.

2.  Crown Center regularly has workshops in our culinary kitchen, which shares space with our library.

3.  Here's a look at some of the finished bagels the attendees got to sample.

4.  Speaking of food ... Celery May Help Bring Your High Blood Pressure Down.  This article also mentions the DASH diet.

5.  Donna says this is the best article she's read in years:  I Don't Know How to Explain to You That You Should Care About Other People.  I agree with Donna.  Here's a taste of the article:

"Personally, I’m happy to pay an extra 4.3 percent for my fast food burger if it means the person making it for me can afford to feed their own family.  If you aren’t willing to fork over an extra 17 cents for a Big Mac, you’re a fundamentally different person than I am.

"I’m perfectly content to pay taxes that go toward public schools, even though I’m childless and intend to stay that way, because all children deserve a quality, free education.  If this seems unfair or unreasonable to you, we are never going to see eye to eye."

6.  When I first started blogging in 2007, I joined the Something About Me Reading Challenge.

7.  Each of us chose five books that say "something about me."  Then we read and reviewed books chosen by the other bloggers.

8.  Here are the five books I chose to tell something about me:

* Evensong ~ by Gail Godwin, 1999, fiction
* On Tap ~ by J. Frances Alexander, fiction
* Booked to Die ~ by John Dunning, 1992, mystery
* Go Out in Joy! ~ by Nina Hermann Donnelley, 1977, memoir
* The Dance of the Dissident Daughter ~ by Sue Monk Kidd, 1996, memoir

9.  I listed these five books on this blog, too, when I posted that I'd joined my first ever reading challenge:  Something about me.

10.  I discovered a list of 50 Underrated American Towns, which I looked through because the first photo showed a bridge that reminds me of the Walnut Street Bridge in Chattanooga, my hometown.  Click the link, and see that this is a bridge in New Jersey over the Delaware River.  I love the flowers.

11.  It's been over ten years since I met John Dominic Crossan, and I heard him speak again the following year.  I recommend his books on theology, if you are interested.

12.  Take a look at The Enoch Factor: The Sacred Art of Knowing God by Steve McSwain, 2010.  This quote is from page 30:

I am sometimes asked, "If there are many ways to God, how do you understand Jesus' instruction to 'Go and make disciples' (Matt 28:19-20)?"  When Jesus said, "Go and train everyone . . . in this way of life" (Matt 28:19), he meant, as it is correctly paraphrased here in The Message, that we are to teach people his way of life, his way of thinking and living.  Jesus did not say, as most Christians have mistakenly thought, "Go and train everyone to believe in me," or worse, "Go and train others to believe as you believe."  Jesus said to spread around his "way of life."  The world around you will never change until the world within you does.  That's the message Christians know as the good news.

13.  Seems like there was something else I wanted to add.  Hmm, I lost my train of thought.  I think it has something to do with old age.

The only rule for Thursday Thirteen is to write about 13 things.  The New Thursday 13 is hosted by Country Dew and Colleen.  If you want to read lists by other people or play along yourself, here's the linky for this week.