I used to spend my summers walking my pig, cleaning pig pens, showing my pig at the Orange County fair, and napping in pig pens. Summer will never be that cool again.
Not that anyone reads these (hell, I rarely read these) but I'm currently home alone in a very large house with a very disgruntled cat inside, and a very cute dog outside, who, I'm quite certain would destroy the inside of this house if I let her in. She just has these eyes that look at me accusingly whenever I duck inside out of the heat. (I though June was supposed to be gloomy?) It's amusing to type out my impossible-y awesome summer plans as today was my last evening tutoring for the regular school year, and Monday marks the beginning of my life as a SAT/ Critical Reading teacher. Is there anything worse than forcing your children to go to school 4 days a week in the summer? Well, yes, there are children starving in every city of the world, literacy has gone down overall, Bush won't close the borders or end the war, teen suicide and pregnancy have remained stable for the last few years, the aftereffects of *my* hurricane are still devastating, droughts are occuring, the cures for cancer and AIDS respectively are far off and any treatment is far too expensive, genocide, racism, pedophilia, drug wars and murder fill the news.... okay--I concede the point that there are many things far worse than sending one's child to school in the summer, but still.
My Schedule:
Week 1: Teach 16 hrs, Tutor 1-10 hrs, Young Life Campaigners starts!
Week 2: Cabo San Lucas with Erin, read Harry Potter
Week 3: Teach & Tutor, watch Harry Potter, Campaigners
Week 4: Teach & Tutor, Baby Audrey baptised, see Mimi? Campaigners
Week 5: Woodleaf w/ some of my favorite people on the planet!
Week 6: Teach & Tutor, Dale-Bob comes, Campaigners, Kristin & Greg come home from Japan
Week 7: Teach & Tutor, go to CO to see Elisabeth, Mat & little Val @ the Lodge, Campaigners
Week 8: Teach & Tutor, last week of summer for my girls, Campaigners
Week 9: Classes begin @ Pepperdine
Week 10: Begin Student teaching
In other news, there are many people I recognize that I should call or email or hang out with, and I want you to know that I've recently discovered how amazing hiking with Zoe is around twilight, so I have, for all intents and purposes, put any form of social life on hold until it's too hot to hike to the top of my meadow and watch the sun go down. Those of you that I actually call or *gasp* visit, should feel very loved indeed.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Stagnating?
Some days I long for a really good argument about eschatology or the finer points of sanctification. Every so often I contemplate pulling my dusty N.T. Wright commentaries off the shelf or looking something up in Augustine. At church I take copious notes, reveling in newfound understanding concerning the fruit of the spirit and ponder the implications of the nature of God as seen in Exodus. I plan to write about the brilliant epiphanies I experience while walking my dog through the fog or on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Instead of the theological pursuits and arguments I love so much---getting to the hows and whys of our beliefs about God---I have spent the last year seeking to live out the simple love of a God I still don’t understand. When faced with arguments as holey as swiss cheese, I smile and bring the conversation back to the gracious gift of God. When faced with an opportunity to give grand advice to kids who would do well to learn from my mistakes, I hug them and pray for wisdom instead.
I don’t really know when it happened, but at some point in the past year I learned how to shut up and keep my hand down. I used to love coming up with a random historical or linguistic tidbit in class to make myself seem smart in class. Now, my conversations center around Kim Possible, Avatar, Harry Potter and Zach Efron (“he’s so dreamy”) and I’m okay with that. My kids think I’m brilliant when I use three-syllable words, they get confused that I keep showing up, keep loving them and keep them around despite my “grown-up stuff.”
Strangely, I don’t feel like I’m stagnating---me who feared stagnation more than anything else! Instead I feel like, well, like a tree planted by still waters---not stagnant waters, but waters so abundant that I know that even a drought won’t drain them. Although I’ve been reading classic literature all year, the last time I opened a theology book for the intent of serious study was the week before graduation. I feel like I’m living the knowledge I learned in school—and even though returning to a life of study sounds good, I feel so….useful
Instead of the theological pursuits and arguments I love so much---getting to the hows and whys of our beliefs about God---I have spent the last year seeking to live out the simple love of a God I still don’t understand. When faced with arguments as holey as swiss cheese, I smile and bring the conversation back to the gracious gift of God. When faced with an opportunity to give grand advice to kids who would do well to learn from my mistakes, I hug them and pray for wisdom instead.
I don’t really know when it happened, but at some point in the past year I learned how to shut up and keep my hand down. I used to love coming up with a random historical or linguistic tidbit in class to make myself seem smart in class. Now, my conversations center around Kim Possible, Avatar, Harry Potter and Zach Efron (“he’s so dreamy”) and I’m okay with that. My kids think I’m brilliant when I use three-syllable words, they get confused that I keep showing up, keep loving them and keep them around despite my “grown-up stuff.”
Strangely, I don’t feel like I’m stagnating---me who feared stagnation more than anything else! Instead I feel like, well, like a tree planted by still waters---not stagnant waters, but waters so abundant that I know that even a drought won’t drain them. Although I’ve been reading classic literature all year, the last time I opened a theology book for the intent of serious study was the week before graduation. I feel like I’m living the knowledge I learned in school—and even though returning to a life of study sounds good, I feel so….useful
Monday, June 4, 2007
Sanding
I spent the afternoon sanding down the front-pieces of my dresser drawers. This ought to have been an easy job, but it wasn't. You see, when I was 14, I decided it would be SO COOL to sponge-paint my bedroom three different colors of blue. And well, a plain white dresser just seemed so sad with all that glorious color, so I painted the dresser drawers as well. Six years later, I was in college and a family friend offered to repaint the drawers back to a respectable white. Unfortunately, because of my poor teen painting skills, and his realization that simply painting the drawers wouldn't cut it, I am currently the owner of 6 blue front-pieces that look like they've been whitewashed. For the last two years, they've leaned against the wall in the back of my closet, and I've been content to live without a pretty dresser.
But, at some point in the last few months, I've brought them out of the closet and laid them on my bedroom floor, convinced that if they annoyed me enough, I would be forced to take action. As I have no responsibilities until 6:00 tonight, my jet-lag excuse is wearing thin, and I was disappointed with today's television line-up, I gathered my supplies and began to sand down the paint.
It really is shocking how much effort it takes to being something back to its original state, and I couldn't help but make a comparison between the paint that was peeling off and my own life. (And, as this is supposedly a blog about theology, I suppose a bit of that wouldn't hurt)
As a freshman in high school, many things seemed like grand ideas. My first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first chance to decorate my room to my heart's content... (All of which terrified my parents) It's been 8 years and I'm still cleaning up the messes. I realized today that, where my heart is concerned, I’ve just been adding whitewash over the original bitterness. I would typically describe myself as only having bouts of bitterness, but I find that instead I've just become excellent at lying to myself, adding another coat of whitewash and moving on.
The paint peeled off, revealing the original white beneath, and I realized that I've been avoiding the sanding process in my own life, claiming my relationships as the one thing I don't need to get around to yet. I thought if forgiveness is like the sanding process.... is it really something I'm willing to do? Remove all traces of the good times and the bad and just, well, forget?
One of the few chapel messages I can recall from my Christian University experience was about forgiveness--claiming that we don't necessarily "forgive and forget," because the pain will be there and we have to learn from our mistakes. At this point, I think I'm going to embrace the sanding method--one in which my Savior sands me down and removes all the whitewashed coats of "I'm okay with it now" and even the underlying layer of bitterness. I'm at a point where I want to forget their mistakes and my own--I want to hear their names and have absolutely no reaction--I want to be free of the bitterness.
Now, that's not to say that I want to go back to the way things were before anything happened. I like who I am, I like that I'm growing into a godly woman. My dresser will never look like it's right out of the factory again; I wouldn't want it to. It has a fun aged feel (that's so trendy these days) and the hours working on it weren't wasted. My drawers weren't able to fix themselves--at no point in the last 8 years were they capable of shaking off the (ugly) paint I applied. I serve a God who is even now peeling off my lies and bitterness and getting to the heart of the matter. I know that one day I will be made new--the equivalent of me going and getting a brand new dresser. Until that day, I pray that small renovations continue to occur; sanding me down into the person Jesus sees me as.
But, at some point in the last few months, I've brought them out of the closet and laid them on my bedroom floor, convinced that if they annoyed me enough, I would be forced to take action. As I have no responsibilities until 6:00 tonight, my jet-lag excuse is wearing thin, and I was disappointed with today's television line-up, I gathered my supplies and began to sand down the paint.
It really is shocking how much effort it takes to being something back to its original state, and I couldn't help but make a comparison between the paint that was peeling off and my own life. (And, as this is supposedly a blog about theology, I suppose a bit of that wouldn't hurt)
As a freshman in high school, many things seemed like grand ideas. My first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first chance to decorate my room to my heart's content... (All of which terrified my parents) It's been 8 years and I'm still cleaning up the messes. I realized today that, where my heart is concerned, I’ve just been adding whitewash over the original bitterness. I would typically describe myself as only having bouts of bitterness, but I find that instead I've just become excellent at lying to myself, adding another coat of whitewash and moving on.
The paint peeled off, revealing the original white beneath, and I realized that I've been avoiding the sanding process in my own life, claiming my relationships as the one thing I don't need to get around to yet. I thought if forgiveness is like the sanding process.... is it really something I'm willing to do? Remove all traces of the good times and the bad and just, well, forget?
One of the few chapel messages I can recall from my Christian University experience was about forgiveness--claiming that we don't necessarily "forgive and forget," because the pain will be there and we have to learn from our mistakes. At this point, I think I'm going to embrace the sanding method--one in which my Savior sands me down and removes all the whitewashed coats of "I'm okay with it now" and even the underlying layer of bitterness. I'm at a point where I want to forget their mistakes and my own--I want to hear their names and have absolutely no reaction--I want to be free of the bitterness.
Now, that's not to say that I want to go back to the way things were before anything happened. I like who I am, I like that I'm growing into a godly woman. My dresser will never look like it's right out of the factory again; I wouldn't want it to. It has a fun aged feel (that's so trendy these days) and the hours working on it weren't wasted. My drawers weren't able to fix themselves--at no point in the last 8 years were they capable of shaking off the (ugly) paint I applied. I serve a God who is even now peeling off my lies and bitterness and getting to the heart of the matter. I know that one day I will be made new--the equivalent of me going and getting a brand new dresser. Until that day, I pray that small renovations continue to occur; sanding me down into the person Jesus sees me as.
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