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Every Week on Wednesday Nights in Dale Hall 103.
Grad Student Discussion Group
Small Group Bible Studies:
Time and Place TBA-
Women’s Body Image Study
annalmcdowell @googlemail.com
(for women)
Tues 7am - Jesus Study Bible,
Megan T and Natalie -
8th Floor Lounge Walker East (for women)
Tues 4:30-5:30 Freshmen Bible Study,
meet top floor lounge of Macasland,
led by Doug, dserven@ruf.org (coed!)
Tues 7pm @UFC 1229 W. Lindsey,
Samson Society,
Krammy, krammy@ou.edu (for men)
Tues 7pm, Adair Apts, 500 Stinson St. #12,
1 John, Kelsey, Leslie and Becky, kelsmads@gmail.com (for women)
Monday or Tuesday, Place TBA,
RUF/ FIJI
led by Josh Voth jdvoth@ou.edu (for men)
Wednesday Afternoon- Topic and Place TBA led by Daniel Rusco and Kyle Williams (for men)
Thurs 7pm 333 E. Brooks, St. Apt 223, Ecclesiastes, Jasper Abbot, jasper.abbott@gmail.com (for men)
Thurs 7:30pm 316 Falcon Ct #1, The Lies We Believe, Mary Rachel Fenrick and Katherine Greer, maryrachel.fenrick@gmail.com (for women)
Thurs 7:15-8:15 314 College, Amber McKinney, Z Group (fellowship and hangout with spiritual and bible parts), for women
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"
A marriage is only as good as a couple’s ability to fight. A husband and wife who fail to fight are not alive or honest.
"
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The Intimate Marriage, p 57
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tacky christmas campus ministers
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Every Weds at 9pm on campus starting January 27th.
Our topic this semester:
Big Questions About God, Life and Faith - Postcards from the Edge
Does God Care? Whom Does God Save? What is Love? We'll be asking and trying to answer honest questions like these at RUF Large Group this semester. We'll be tackling those questions and more from a perhaps unlikely source - The Minor Prophets. This often untravelled group of Old Testament books will provide an ancient yet profoundly relevant source of wisdom, guidance and also surprising grace.
Come join us for a great semester of studying the Bible and living out a community of grace in the midst of our campus.
Follow along with thousands of other listeners by clicking on and listening to the
iTunes Podcast
or the
OURUF Podcast on Podbean.
OURUF Blogs
What Doug Is Reading
(Ergo, What You Should Click and Buy)
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, L See -  A melancholy book about 1840s China featuring footbinding (8)
Buffalo for the Broken Heart, D O'Brien -  A rancher switches to buffalo (6)
Outliers, M Gladwell -  Success = fortuitous circumstances and lots of work. (9)
Lonesome Dove
I love this novel. (10)
The Extra Mile, P Reed -  A boring but short running book (3)
The 19th Wife, D Ebershoff -  Polygamy is bad. (5)
Crazy for God, F Schaeffer -  Frank Schaeffer is not happy with his parents. This book scares me. (7)
The Blind Side, M Lewis -  One of the best sports books I've read - about football, recruiting, economics and a love for the game. (10)
Blink, M Gladwell - 
The power of a thin-slicing microdecision for good and ill. (9)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, J Diaz -  A creative Pulitzer winner. Dominican, insightful, dramatic, funny and sad. (8)
The Appeal, J Grisham - 
Another Grisham courtroom thriller about pegging the bad guys (7)
One Fearful Yellow Eye, J Macdonald -  MacDonald is the best with pace and description (7)
Pale Gray for Guilt, J MacDonald -  This Travis McGee novel was economically complicated (5)
Moneyball, M Lewis - 
If you love baseball, you MUST read this book. Wonderful and inspiring for the small market guys. (10)
50/50, D Karnezas - 
Karnezas ran 50 marathons in 50 straight days in all 50 states! (8)
The Dawkins Letters, D Robertson -  The author challenges atheist myths by responding to Richard Dawkins' book. Helpful, short and easy to read. (8)
Lone Survivor, M Luttrell -  A Navy Seal gets out of Afghanistan. (4)
Concise Theology, JI Packer -  A nice little theology book (7)
Samson and the Pirate Monks, N Larkin -  True brotherhood and honesty. (10)
My Beautiful Idol, P Gall -  A novel about idolatry. Sometimes good. Sometimes boring. (7)
5 books on the Book of John.
The Call of the Wild, J London -  Eh. (5)
Darkness at Noon, A Koestler -  From Steven R. A novel about how Stalinist Russia stinks. (6)
The Broken Window, J Deaver -  A great thriller with twits and turns. (8)
Holding Hands, Holding Hearts, R Phillips -  One of the better dating books out there. (7)
Boundaries in Dating, H Cloud -  Filled with pretty good advice. (7)
Just Do Something: How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc. Subtitle says it all. (8)
October 1964, D Halbertsam -  I love it when the Cards win the WS. (10)
True Spirituality, F Schaeffer -  True Spirituality is inward and goes outward. (7)
Summer of '49, D Halberstam -  Yankees win which is bad but the story and writing is so good (8)
Rise to Rebellion, J Shaara -  Nothing better than to be reading this historical novel about the American Revolutionary War in Boston (10)
The Glorious Cause, J Shaara -  Part Two in such an amazing, well-told story. (10)
Devil in the Details, J Traig -  Traig's girlhood OCD is hilarious, sad and very interesting. (9)
The Prodigal God, T Keller -  Read it to the family this time. (10)
Born On A Blue Day, D Temmet -  Autistic savant memorizes 22,500 digits of pi. His boyfriend/partner helps out. (5)
Born to Run, C McDougal -  This is one of THE BEST books I have read in a long time. (10)
Swimming to Antarctica, L Cox -  Girl swims English channel in record time when she's 14. Later swims the Bering Strait and a mile to Antarctica. Crazy. (8)
The Intimate Mystery, D Allender -  The best book I've read on marriage (10).
Sex and the Soul, D Frietas -  Sexuality and Spirituality on college campuses (8)
Sleep, C Schenk -  A decent read about weird sleep stuff (5)
Born to Run, C McDougallWow. This was my favorite book of the year. Informative and riveting. (10)
What Doug Was Reading in 2007
 TwentySomeone, the book Doug co-authored, came out in December of 2003. Click Here to order.
 NEW RUF T-shirts are in! Click Here or contact Doug for more information.
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 Officially, you could say that RUF is a Christian student organization at the University of Oklahoma. But that doesn't say too much. We're a community of OU students who seek to: know Jesus Christ, know Him better through understanding and committing to the Bible, praise Him in all we say and do, share that love...
more >>
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Patty Griffin Rocks My House
2/1//2010
Forty years go by with someone laying in your bed
Forty years of things you say you wish you'd never said
How hard would it have been to say some kinder words instead
I wonder as I stare up at the sky turning red - Long Ride Home 1000 Kisses
These lyrics haunt me. I think of my wife and our marriage and what in the world I will be thinking of after that ride in a long black limousine - what will it be like to return home that evening with no one there? What will I be thinking about the time we had together?
Patty Griffin has this effect on me. She sings to my soul. She sings the saddest songs I have ever heard, ones that connect with my loneliness and yet somehow offer a profound sense of hope and redemption. I'm not sure how she does it.
I grew up without really very good music (sorry, mom and pop). My dad had an awesome record collection, but those seemed like long ago days. We listened to a steady diet of pretty tame classical music like Vivaldi, and then Christian contemporary music - mostly Amy Grant and Sandi Patti. In fact, these were some of the first concerts I ever attended, with an occasional radical Oak Ridge Boys and then Steven Curtis Chapman. ( I refuse to link any of these, though I'd say all have grown and are better than they use to be (because of suffering)). I'd say that was rather sheltered. Hey, my parents did their best, and they did well, I think, even if I am scarred from The Music Machine.
I can remember hearing Huey Lewis and the News, Madonna, Paul Simon's Graceland album and some guy named Bob Dillon (so I thought). The Moody Blues and REO Speedwagon were pretty progressive to me.
All that to say, I had to come out of some things. I moved on from there to Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael W Smith, John Michael Talbot (what's the deal with the three names?). I sprinkled in The Choir, and a few other *gasp* secular bands now and then. Ah, those were the days. I would never, ever go back.
Enough of my sad musical history. I remember it was at RUF Summer Conference maybe in 2002 or 2003 when I first heard Patty. She was blaring through the loudspeakers before and after our large group meeting of preaching and singing. "Who is that?" I asked. She was distinctive. She was saying something, I just didn't know what. I just got joined to a very cool, folky, sad party and I was so thankful, so thankful.
I bought all of her albums, and since then I've been hooked. Patty is folk. She's Nashville. She's Austin. But she's also soul and gospel (her latest album is called Downtown Church ). She sings about the longing of mankind to reach something they just can't quite make it to. When Katie Tracy and Megan Barnes sing Patty songs, I am so thrilled.
In Trapeze, she sings of a 17 year old girl who becomes a trapeze artist after her divorce. Her heart aches so much, so visits the lady of the snakes who gave her a potion. She drank it in and then her heart never ached again. Sometimes I want that potion really, really badly.
In Sweet Loraine, she sings of a girl who finally makes it out of her awful household where her mother even threw rocks at her (isn't that a strange thing for a mother to do?). It's her wedding day, but Lorraine's best day is filled with unspeakable sorrow:Her daddy called her a slut and a whore | On the night before her wedding day | The very next morning at the church | Her daddy gave Lorraine away | Lorraine, sweet Lorraine
As a pastor, I have this song on my heart often as I preach. I know that many of our best moments are also filled with unspoken horror. I simply cannot bring myself to reference this song - I weep every time I hear it.
I could go on and on. Patty moves my soul. She is one of the artists I would choose if I could only choose a selct few (Sufjan Stevens, Johnny Cash, and David Wilcox, U2 and Kevin Twit's Indelible Grace albums are in this company)
As Patty sings in Downtown Church
:
And as far as I can tell, most everything means nothing
Except some things that mean everything
I don't know what that means, but I love to have Patty sing it to me. And I hope to learn someday.
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