A List! Because Goodness Abounds!

you know, if i'm good at anything, i'm good at dwelling in anxiety. i can spend all day in a cloud of worry, and i can spend all night dreaming about the same stuff (in fact, i had a couple of dreams about staffing last night - it was ridiculous).

but for all my worry and fear, for all my doubts and uncertainty, there are many wonderful things in my life. and rainy tuesdays are good days to list the things in life that are simply awesome. so here are a few:

- spicy and delicious homemade ginger syrup, used to make equally spicy and delicious ginger lime cocktails, to be shared with awesome friends.

- mario kart marathons. and if you think this is going to be the only nerdy thing on this list, think again. you clearly don't know me. 

- good beer by way of a reasonably priced victory variety pack. hop devil, golden monkey, victory pils, and victory lager - yum. 

- God's providence with staffing, as more and more people (especially dudes) submit applications for a summer of ministry.

- job stuff is...well it's not all gloom and doom. there are good options on the table. if i could just surrender my anxiety, things would really be looking up!

- a brand new, totally soft, really warm micro fleece with the ligonier logo emblazoned on the front. for cheap! i love it.

- enjoying the extended editions of the lord of the rings via netflix, while simultaneously re-reading the books (i told you there was more nerdiness to come!).

- time spent with lots of friends - neighbors & visitors alike, who are encouraging, funny, and just all-around wonderful.

- conversations with amy, who patiently listens and faithfully prays for me, even while abroad in germany with her own worries.

- little people (dylan and james, duh) who shout and run to say hi every time i see them. it consistently makes my day.

- netflix. i just...i love netflix. that's all. 

- bread pudding, wii fun, and good tv for tonight!

- simple photoshop tutorials that make my point and shoot camera look like a dslr of awesomeness.

before:

after...see??

- green returns to the trees! spring & the promise of summer! warm days! thunderstorms! delight!

- the promise of vacation, mere weeks away

so things are good. great, even. today is a quieter day in the office, but things in life are happening the way they should - which is to say, as God has set them out to be. my prayers for patience, trust, and courage are answered at the right times. and there are plenty of blessings to temper my anxiety - i just need to take the time to see them.

No Coward Soul is Mine

i went home this weekend to see the mercersburg area community chorus perform their spring concert. one of the things i miss most since moving from home is being able to sing with the chorus, so seeing the performance was bittersweet.

sitting in the chapel, hearing an orchestra and gorgeous choral music - i understand it's not for everyone. but it made me long to be up there making the music with everyone. i imagine athletes must feel this way when they watch someone else play their sport: it's fun to watch, but you'd rather be in the game.

the concert featured two major works: the first, haydn's famous oratorio the creation, and a newly commissioned piece by ola gjeilo entitled no coward soul is mine, whose lyrics are drawn from the poem of the same name by emily bronte. gjeilo composed the piece for the community chorus this year, to honor their 35th anniversary. i got to hear it performed for the first time -- and it was beautiful. its first performance has been uploaded to youtube - here it is:

the lyrics (or the poem, i suppose) felt especially poignant to me while i'm in a season of waiting, wondering, doubting, and more waiting. so here it is:

"no coward soul is mine" 

no coward soul is mine,

no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:

i see heaven's glories shine,

and faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

o God within my breast

almighty, ever-present Deity!

life -- that in me has rest,

as i -- undying Life -- have power in thee!

vain are the thousand creeds

that move men's hearts: unutterably vain;

worthless as withered weeds,

or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

to waken doubt in one

holding so fast by thine infinity;

so surely anchored on

the steadfast rock of immortality.

with wide-embracing love

thy spirit animates eternal years,

pervades and broods above,

changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

though earth and man were gone,

and suns and universes ceased to be,

and Thou were left alone,

every existence would exist in Thee.

there is not room for Death,

nor atom that his might could render void:

thou -- THOU are Being and Breath,

and what THOU are may never be destroyed.

- emily bronte

Rain and Gloom, Or How I (re)Discovered God's Faithfulness in February

the last two months have been a challenge. i packed up my cozy room in mcconnellsburg. i said tearful goodbyes to my church family and, you know, my regular one. i said goodbye to one tiny town and hello to another tiny town.

i moved to camp.

and if you know me, you know i love camp. it felt so strange to be away from it this summer. away from the games, the routine, the songs and skits and staff. so the opportunity to be back - and not just back, but back starting in january - sounded fantastic. it sounded like where i was supposed to be.

but when the time to leave rolled around, it felt less like that. i realized how much home felt like, well, home. leaving felt absurd and scary. but at that point, it's not like there was much of a choice left to make; it was time to go.

and now i'm here. the work is good work. i have community, and a job that matters. i live in a cozy house:

and i live with friends and neighbors who are caring, loving, and gracious. even with all that, the transition has been rough around the edges at times. i leapt headfirst into a time consuming and pretty intense job. and even with the familiarity of camp and the surrounding area, there's a level of feeling out of place that comes and goes.

in other words, it's not home yet.

today i gave a family with three sons a tour of the property and answered their questions about camp. and while i was telling them about everything we do, i remembered how much this place can feel like home. i remembered how precious my summers have been here, and i remembered how much i love being here.

so this afternoon, i decided to go for a walk. the weather here is downright gross today. it's rainy, gloomy, muddy and wet. yesterday would've been a much better day to trek about, with the sun out and the bright blue sky, but today felt right. it's not too cold, and the rain isn't too heavy. and the more i looked, the more beautiful the day became.

i don't mean to sound too melodramatic here. it's not like i've been slogging through some emotional turmoil and i finally had some breakthrough today. "i've been so sad, but now i see that the sad is beautiful!" ha, not this time. i'm actually quite happy, but the confusion and transition felt a little messy.

today it was nice to be out in the mess and enjoy it. it's not that photogenic, it's not the ideal day to show off our property, or to take a lot of photos for my blog to impress you with the beauty of my surroundings. but it's where i am right now, and today i remembered that the lord put me here with great intentionality. he put me here, because here is where i'm supposed to be. he put me here in the middle of winter, when there are no kids, when it snows all the time, when it's cold and icy.

he put me here to accomplish his purposes for me, no matter how vague or distant they might feel to me right now. and he calls me to enjoy it, not just in the summer. not just on the bright and beautiful days, but always.

Chorus, Christmas, & the Coming Lord

This is the weekend of the community chorus concerts, which means I've been singing and singing and singing. This afternoon is the last one, which is kind of bittersweet. I'm looking forward to a little respite for my voice, but I do love singing with the chorus.

The chorus does a spring concert and a winter concert, though the "winter concert" would be better described as a Christmas concert. All of our selections are about Christmas in one way or another. This year we're singing selections from Rachmaninoff's Vespers and Bach's Christmas Oratorio, and a bunch of other stuff including an arrangement of Star in the East with a hammered dulcimer player (it's awesome). But my favorite piece is one by Daniel Gawthrop, called O Come Emmanuel, which the chorus actually commissioned 10 years ago. The music is gorgeous, meaningful to sing, and the text is a poem by Madeleine L'Engle, taken from a collection of her poems called The Ordering of Love: the New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle (Thanks, Google books!). This poem is the second of her "Three Songs of Mary."

2. O Oriens 

O come, O come Emmanuel 

within this fragile vessel here to dwell.

O child conceived by heaven's power

give me thy strength: it is the hour.

O come thou wisdom from on high;

like any babe, at life you cry;

for me, like any mother, birth 

was hard, O light of earth.

O come, O come thou Lord of might,

whose birth came hastily at night,

born in a stable, in blood and pain

is this the king who comes to reign?

O come, thou Rod of Jesse's stem,

the stars will be thy diadem.

How can the infinite finite be?

Why choose, child, to be born of me?

O come, thou key of David, come

open the door to my heart home.

I cannot love the as a king -

so fragile and so small a thing.

O come thou Day-spring from on high:

I saw the signs that marked the sky,

I heard the beat of angels' wings,

I saw the shepherds and the kings, 

O come, Desire of nations,

be simply a human child to me.

Let me not weep that you are born.

The night is gone. Now gleams the morn!

Rejoice, rejoice, Emanuel.

God's Son, God's Self, with us to dwell.

The Great Debate

Well, it happened: the health care reform bill just passed, for good or for ill. I don't have a ton of time to write down my reactions to this historic moment (because it is historic, regardless of its outcome) since I'm about to go to bed, but I'll share a few thoughts.

I am not well informed enough on the crazy intricacies of our current system of health insurance, nor the health care reform bill, for me to be comfortable preaching my solutions to our woes. I'm often struck by others who share my lack of knowledge, yet seem to have answers aplenty. And where they may not have answers, they certainly have a reason for why their opponent's solutions will absolutely not work. What disheartens me the most is that often these ideas are rarely fruits of research and reason; they are usually the sound bites from one of the countless talking heads on 24 hour news channels. You want to believe this health care bill is a communist decree from Comrade Obama (or perhaps some of those "social justice" churches)? Turn on Glenn Beck. He'll give you all the "facts" you need. Do you want reassurance that finally we Democrats are cleaning up this horrible mess that GWB and all those dirty, nasty Republicans left behind? I'm sure MSNBC can help you out there.

See, my point is this: we are so far beyond being well-informed that it's almost unbelievable. We are not informed, we are simply opinionated. And as long as I can find someone who will support my opinion, then I am right.

But I guess I'm not talking about health care anymore, am I?

I guess what gets me so frustrated is that in the wake of this bill's passing, I've heard some of the most diametrically opposed reactions. I have friends convinced that this bill stands as the harbinger of our nation's doom. Others see it as a symbol of its salvation. Neither are correct. But that's what we're taught, isn't it? In politics there is either the savior or the antichrist.

And while we're speaking of saviors, let's talk about that aspect of all this hoopla, shall we? I've seen more of my Christian friends disparaging and crying out about this than I have for almost any other issue.

How is it that we allow ourselves to be more united, more vocal, more outraged about the health care bill than are about the literally countless other massive injustices facing our world today? I believe it takes some examination to see why this bill has become the centerpiece of our indignation. And does it deserve this kind of fervency?  Are there, perhaps, other issues that deserve your thought, prayer, money, or Facebook status?

I'm not saying national politics shouldn't be on the radars of believers. Injustice abounds, and the Gospel calls us to confront it (...Glenn). I am saying that we should be more thoughtful in our conclusions, and more prayerful in deciding what we make the center of our thought lives. When opinions come from a talking heads, and "just wrath" is reserved only for partisan politics, it is difficult to come to any conclusion...let alone one rooted in the Gospel.

Advent

With all the craziness of the end of college, I haven't spent enough time really digging in to the advent season. Once in a while these little moments of wonder flare up in me, and I think to myself: "I should really be spending more time on all this stuff!" but then I rarely follow through. And the more time I actually do spend thinking about the incarnation of God as man, the crazier and crazier it seems. How magnificent, how ludicrous, how utterly unfathomable that the Lord of All, the Alpha & Omega, the great I AM would squeeze himself into this little, tiny, squishy baby. For me.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord, Emmanuel.

11 Weeks Later...

Well, I'm home. What a summer.

It was difficult. I'm exhausted.

I forgot about the physical work that is the CIT job. I forgot how exhausting it is to clean 350 dishes after every meal, or to scrub every sink, toilet and shower, or to sweep...everything. By week 11 I didn't want to touch another dish or broom again. My feet and back and hands ached by the end of each day. But through all of that exhaustion and pain, the Lord gave me deep satisfaction. There's something amazing about watching all of that work get done in a little amount of time. Watching hundreds of bowls and plates go from being disgusting to completely clean in a mere hour is almost miraculous. Doing these jobs was a reminder that God created us to be people who work. And yes, there were days (especially by the end) where it got harder and harder to take joy in work, but I loved being able to come home and think about all of the things I'd done that day.

And for all of the physical exhaustion, there was the emotional and spiritual exhaustion that comes from living in tight community for a long period of time. Ministering to the girls and trying to meet their needs as a mentor and friend took all that I had. I learned quickly that "all that I had" wasn't very much, so the Lord had to step in for the rest. Living in community also means that, eventually, you're going to see and experience your own brokenness and the brokenness of the people around you. I learned so much about intentional community this summer; how do we address our brokenness with each other? How can I meet your needs, and how can you meet mine? What a blessing to be able to ask those questions of people who know me and love me. And what a blessing to know that we are able to know and love each other because we are known and loved by the Father first.

I'm still reflecting a lot about this summer. I loved my job so much. I loved working with Geraud, I loved living with Lauren, I loved being with my CITs, and more than all of those things, I'm seeing (and loving) how the Lord is transforming me in real and concrete ways.

I learned more this summer than I could'v hoped for, and more than I've been able to fully process. Last night, Whitney spent the night at my house and we just debriefed the summer for a few hours. It was a blessing to verbally process the things that are happening...I'm excited to keep doing that.

Camp happened. It happened in a big, big way...I'm glad it happened, I'm glad I got to be a part of its happening, and I'm glad - in some ways - that it's no longer happening. It's time for the next stuff to happen.

But for right now I'm sleepy and ready to do nothing for a while. I've made plans and committments to friends with whom I'm going to be intentional, and I'm ready to spend some time with my family. I might go to Pittsburgh this week for a Pirates game, and Washington over the weekend for a Steelers/Redskins preseason game. I might go to the Thayers after that and spend some time with my second family :)

It's good to be home, even if it's a tough transition to be away from so many people whom I love...but the Lord is faithful and I'm where I need to be.

Aaaaaand, I'm OFF!

I leave for camp today! Which means I may or may not write in this blog...but that's okay. Because the summer is going to be wonderful!

If you think of it, it'd be awesome to have prayer for the campers and staff as we work to do some serious ministry this summer. Please be praying for effective training, safe travels, and open hearts that we would hear God's word and be struck by it anew. And pray for safe activities - from rafting to paintball to GOLDRUSH! The Lord prepared some incredible things for this summer, and I'm SO excited to see what those are going to be!

Memorials

Well, I'm in the home stretch before it's time for camp...I head out on Friday, which means I need to spend this week organizing and packing up my stuff for the summer. It's hard to believe it's already time for this; I feel like last summer just ended! But on the other hand, I'm getting almost giddy with excitement...Friday can't come soon enough!

So today is Memorial Day. Yesterday in church we had a supply pastor filling the pulpit because our pastor is continuing education in Georgia or something. And yesterday had two possible directions it could've gone in: Ascension Day or Memorial Day. We went the Memorial Day route.

Ugh.

I'll clarify the "ugh." I put a lot of stock in Memorial Day. I have a lot of important people to remember today. I'll go visit a grave, I'll take flowers, I'll remember my loved ones. I know that, traditionally, this day is meant to honor veterans and their sacrifice for our country - I'm fine with that too. It's important to remember the cost of war (though I think it's quite telling of our culture that we find it so easy to forget that cost - casualties from both sides, that is). Here's where Memorial Day get's mucky for me: when it becomes GOD BLESS AMERICA (AND NO WHERE ELSE) Day.

The pastor who preached yesterday didn't really hammer that point home, for which I'm grateful. However, he spent little to no time discussing scripture and a whole lot of time talking about remembering the cost of freedom. You want to talk about that? Fine! But don't do it from the pulpit. God's heart breaks for our lost ones as much as it breaks for the soldiers on the other side of the line. We're not a country executing vigilante justice, or the swift hand of our angry God. We're a nation of broken people, who ask for God's blessing because of our brokenness. Not because of our awesomeness. So when we spend our Sundays contemplating how our nation is out there "puttin' a boot in the ass" of terror, I think we're focusing on the wrong thing.

We should ask God to bless America because we, like all people, need God's blessing. Not because we're the only country in this world who's finally got it right. Because...well, we haven't.


ANYWAY. I'm probably preaching to the choir on that one, but whatever. Now I'm going to go enjoy my Memorial Day! I have loved ones to remember, and loved ones to be with. I hope you can do the same :)

A Disciple's Renewal

O My Savior, help me.
I am so slow to learn, so prone to forget, so weak to climb;

I am in the foothills when I should be in the heights;
I am pained by my graceless heart,
my prayerless days,
my poverty of love,
my sloth in the heavenly race,
my sullied conscience,
my wasted hours,
my unspent opportunities.

I am blind while light shines around me:
take the scales from my eyes,
grind to dust the evil heart of unbelief.

Make it my cheifest joy to study thee,
meditate on thee,
gaze on thee,
sit like Mary at thy feet,
lean like John on thy breast,
appeal like Peter to thy love,
count like Paul all things dung.

Give me increase and progress in grace so that there may be;
more decision in my character,
more vigor in my purposes,
more elevation in my life,
more fervor in my devotion,
more constancy in my zeal.

As I have a position in the world,
keep me from making the world my position;

May I never seek in the creature what can be found only in the creator;

Let not faith cease from seeking thee until it vanishes into sight.

Ride forth in me, thou king of kings and lord of lords,
that I may live victoriously,and in victory attain my end.

That's a prayer that I've read about a million times, and every time it never ceases to strike at the heart of what I should be seeking. I like liturgy and other written prayers because, more often than not, someone else can articulate what I'm feeling better than I can.

CCO and Chorus Concerts

What a beautiful Sunday! It was so nice at home - sunny, warm, breezy...just a perfect spring morning and afternoon.

I went home after my day sitting in on CCO training on Friday. My interview went well and the day was pretty fun. I didn't know that Tiffany Okel would be there, so it was pleasant surprise to know someone else who was there as a perspective staff member! It would've been a little awkward, otherwise. Though there are a lot of Ligonier people who are involved with the CCO, so I actually saw quite a few familiar faces.

The whole CCO thing is pretty crazy to me right now. I'm excited, apprehensive, nervous, and curious all at once. There are lots of thoughts swirling around in my head about all of this, but what I keep coming back to is the fact that the Lord will put me where He wants me. I'm not sure where that calling is right now - as an art teacher or as an employee of the CCO, or as something else all together - but I know I'll end up there in time.

I had some really good conversations with my parents over the weekend about the CCO stuff. They're pretty supportive of me in this, which is important to me. It's good to know that they're backing me up, even though it might seem like I'm doing something a little crazy.

Anyway, the weekend at home was great! I went to a community chorus concert last night in my high school's chapel. I googled it to find this ridiculously beautiful picture that I did not take (it's just as beautiful inside, believe me):



The Mercersburg Area Community Chorus is directed by my great uncle, and is made up of around 100 area musicians who do Christmas and springtime concerts. Not only is my uncle the director, but my dad, grandma, and other uncle all sing in it, while my aunt plays the bassoon. And there are about 5 or 6 other people from my church or high school that are involved as well. So beyond my familial obligation to attend, it's beautiful music! Incredible, really. Last night they performed Ralph Vaughn Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem and the orchestra was just breathtaking. Do I sound like a nerd? I am one. Sorry for waxing rhapsodic about this, but it's pretty cool to see my family do something so awesome.

Today was great too: church, lunch with the family, a little baking, and then a nice drive back to school. The weather is supposed to become chilly and rainy overnight, but the weekend was so beautiful that I don't really mind :)

Monday, Monday

I am not feeling this Monday. It's rainy, I'm tired, and the realization that I didn't get any work done this weekend is crashing down right about...now. I mean, it will all be okay, but there's a lot to do today and tomorrow. And over the weekend. And for the next 3 weeks. Oh dear...

The good news is that I have AT MOST 24 days left to my semester. Love it!

In a different vein, I've been reading The Imitation of Christ since I finished up one of my other books this weekend. It's great because the text is divided up into small sections, so I read one or two a day and think about it. Last night I read this:

"If men used as much care in uprooting vices and implanting virtues as they do in discussing problems, there would not be so much evil and scandal in the world, or such laxity in religious organizations. On the day of judgment, surely, we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken but how well we have lived."
- Thomas à Kempis

I think there's a lot of wisdom there, especially since I'm the kind of person who prides myself in being knowledgeable. And not just because it's good to learn (obviously I believe that, as a future teacher) , but because I like to feel like I know a lot. I need to get some perspective on how my knowledge is being used or should be used.

And one more quote:

"I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it"
- Thomas à Kempis

Amen.

Ash Wednesday

During my senior year of high school, a friend and I decided to fast on Ash Wednesday. To me it seemed like no big deal. We'll just be hungry and tomorrow we'll have breakfast and that will be the end of it. Everything went according to plan - we didn't meet for breakfast that day, we attended the school's chapel service and got the ashy smudge on our foreheads, we didn't eat. Well, sort of. At around 4 o'clock, my friend went through quite an ordeal. She'd begun to feel lightheaded and woozy, and decided that she'd better eat a few Triscuts. After doing so, she was wracked with guilt - so much so that she called her mom in tears, confessing that she'd broken her fast.

Now, we all had a good laugh about it the next day over breakfast (which is what we were officially doing: breaking our fast). It seemed much less grave after we'd eaten our waffles. Why was she so torn up over a few Triscuts?

The further I get from that incident, the more I realize that my friend was delving deeper into the discipline of fasting than I was. I secretly patted myself on the back for outlasting her that day. "Look at me," I thought, "I can handle this fast. Not a big deal at all." But while I may have physically fasted, I certainly did not spiritually fast.

So what is fasting? Why do we do it? And does God really care about clandestine Triscuts in the afternoon?

Christian fasting, particularly Lenten fasting, is rooted in Christ's fasting in the wilderness after his baptism. Those 40 days and 40 nights are refleclected in our 40-day (not including Sundays) period of Lent, where Christians often "give up" something in rememberance of Jesus' sacrifice. I've found that often, at least for me, my choices of what to "give up" for Lent revolve around my own self-betterment. What vices should I abandon for 40 days? And is my willpower strong enough? Often it is my will, not the Lord's will. And furthermore, when I am tempted by those vices, I look once again to my own ability to resist them.

While considering these things, I turned to the book Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner. Winner, a former Orthodox Jew-turned-Christian, writes about Jewish spiritual disciplines and their redemption and place in Christianity. Winner shares a story similar to that of my high school friend. Once, while in college, she ate a salami sandwich during the Fast of Esther, one of the required Orthodox Jewish fasts. Later, she asked a rabbi about whether or not God cared about this sandwich. His response:

"When you are fasting," he said, "and you feel hungry, you are to remember that you are really hungry for God."

And that, I realized, is what I missed during that first Ash Wednesday fast in high school. I was hungry, and I let my willpower carry me through. My friend was hungry, ate, and realized that she allowed her body to rule over what her spirit told her. She recognized her hunger for God, where I just recognized my awesomeness. Mudhouse Sabbath again:

"Rabbi M's words make it clear that, like the liturgy, the fast accomplishes a repositioning. When I am sated, it is easy to feel independent. When I am hungry, it is possible to remember where my dependence lies."

Today, I'm fasting again. I'm trying to look at it not as a battle of my will vs. my stomach. I'm trying to see it as my hunger for God, made corporal.

Persecution, the Church...and Watercolor

It's Sunday! And I went to a different church this morning (I do that a lot - mostly because I'm not here much on the weekends, so I don't really have a "church home" here)

Sadly, the service I attended today set my teeth on edge. I'm not sure if I my response is entirely justified or Biblical; sometimes my personal values and beliefs cloud what is true. But sometimes I think my response is grounded in truth...and I think today that was the case.

Now, I'm SURE this church is rooted in the Bible. They are brothers and sisters in faith. They seek after the Lord. They want to love Him and serve Him; I acknowledge that wholeheartedly. But today's sermon frustrated me in many ways. The preacher spoke on the passage in John where Christ warns his disciples of persecution due to their faith (the end of chapter 15 and the first few verses of 16). The crux of the sermon was that we, as American Christians, are persecuted by those who hate the faith - particularly those in our government. There was lots of talk about things like pro-life pastors being arrested for protesting, laws being passed that "attacked the faith" and so forth. The pastor suggested that we should all be memorizing scripture not because it is important to have the Word in our hearts, but because one day (possibly soon!) being a Christian may be illegal in our nation.

What.

To suggest that the greatest dangers facing the American Church today come at the hands of our government is foolishness, to me. That kind of religious-right agenda puts a bad taste in my mouth, and in the mouths of many. Sure, there is merit to discussing issues like abortion - but there is much more than just that.

The American Church (oh what a varied body she is!) cannot wallow in its "persecution." We cannot point fingers at atheists, or pro-choice people, or our government. The dangers facing our church are much deeper and much closer to home than that. The dangers in our church come from within - from apathy, complacency, from being satisfied with the status quo. They come from our culture of consumption, entitlement and me-first-me-only thinking. They come from alienating others with a message of hate, or - on the other side - from being passive and postmodern in our approach to the gospel.

There is so much work to be done. Work that goes beyond mailing postcards of fetuses to senators. Work that involves loving others, not shouting at them. And even if I don't share the views of this church (I'm one of those Demi-crats, you know), I am as much a part of the problem. I know that I fail to meet the demands of the gospel. I am broken, too.

That being said...the rest of my Sunday has been enjoyable! And really, even If i don't agree with that church on that, it gave me something to think about. And that's a good thing. After church I had lunch with my roommate and some of her friends, and I just finished a watercolor!



See, there it is! I was really nervous about watercolor before I started this semester. I'm an oil painter usually, and the method is very, VERY different. But I'm starting to get the hang of it, which makes it much more enjoyable, that's for sure.

So now I'm just going to enjoy the rest of my Sabbath. I might make some granny squares, or do a crossword, or call a friend. It's a nice, snowy day to enjoy.