this semester has been so difficult, for a lot of reasons. but this weekend i slept until 1 pm on saturday and read a book by Donald Miller and did some homework and went to the Blue Nile; i talked with friends and gave out belated Christmas gifts; i walked in the rain, i sat in Common Grounds, i watched Good Will Hunting on my computer and got teary eyed.
i met some friends of a friend tonight in Common Grounds and was introduced to a book - and i remember something about a refusal to unwrap the mysteries of life. i'm good with that. a sense of wonder is a beautiful thing.
The wonder is...that there is beauty at all, grace gratuitous, pennies found...
Grace gratuitous. I love the idea of abundance. Of extravagance, of things extraordinary. I love thinking: Earth's crammed with heaven/And every common bush afire with God. I love thinking: This, then, is the extravagant landscape of the world, given, given with pizzazz, given in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. I love a life lived fully.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
"The storms are raging on a rolling sea/Down the highway of regret"
It feels like spring here and i've been musing on the feeling of regret. what would it be life to live a life in a way that you would have no regrets? and - what can i do to help myself to live *deep awake*? i want to be present in all these moments that are running past me so fast. and. i want to have a ... a good way of being in the world. a way of being that is healing.
------
From Christian Early's syllabus:
A note on Mindfulness:
I am noticing that students are not giving themselves enough time to read and to think. Part of it is the busyness of everyday life. Philosophy is a slow discipline. 10 pages take 1 hour to read and sometimes 2 hours. What you get out of the reading depends on what you put in. It is ok to let your mind wander -- wanderings can be wonderful -- but you do have to take the time to follow along on the path of the author. It is well worth it. You’ll see.
------
here are the books i have read since i've been at EMU (including some books used as textbooks and exluding the textbooky textbooks:
The Chosen - Chaim Potok
No god but God - Reza Aslan
*Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder
Strengths Based Leadership - Tom Rath and Barry Conchie
The Land - Walter Brueggeman
Animal Vegetable Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
Jayber Crow - Wendell Berry
Genome - Matt Ridley
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Annie Dillard
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
On That Day Everyone Ate - ???
Jesus for President - Shane Claiborne
Nature out of Place - Jason & Roy Van Driesche
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Rosie - Anne Lamott
The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery
*Jesus among other Gods - Ravi Zacharias
Democracy Matters - Cornel West
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years - Donald Miller
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
*Blood Brothers - Elias Chacour
Pluralism - William Connelly
*Beyond Gated Politics - Raymond Coles
The Elegence of the Hedgehog - ???
*Reading Now
Currently on my list:
Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich
The Shack - William P. Young
The Book of Images - Rainer Maria Rilke
Textbooks that I read enough of to qualify as a book:
Theology as if Jesus Mattered - Ted Grimsrud
Introduction to Christian Theology - Bradley Hanson
Invitation to Anthropology, 3rd Ed. - Eric Lassiter
Understanding Arabs - Margaret Nydell
Sabbath Economics - Ched Myers
Books I read a little bit of:
The Bhagavad-Gita
Buddhism: little pocket book
------
From Christian Early's syllabus:
A note on Mindfulness:
I am noticing that students are not giving themselves enough time to read and to think. Part of it is the busyness of everyday life. Philosophy is a slow discipline. 10 pages take 1 hour to read and sometimes 2 hours. What you get out of the reading depends on what you put in. It is ok to let your mind wander -- wanderings can be wonderful -- but you do have to take the time to follow along on the path of the author. It is well worth it. You’ll see.
------
here are the books i have read since i've been at EMU (including some books used as textbooks and exluding the textbooky textbooks:
The Chosen - Chaim Potok
No god but God - Reza Aslan
*Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder
Strengths Based Leadership - Tom Rath and Barry Conchie
The Land - Walter Brueggeman
Animal Vegetable Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
Jayber Crow - Wendell Berry
Genome - Matt Ridley
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Annie Dillard
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
On That Day Everyone Ate - ???
Jesus for President - Shane Claiborne
Nature out of Place - Jason & Roy Van Driesche
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Rosie - Anne Lamott
The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery
*Jesus among other Gods - Ravi Zacharias
Democracy Matters - Cornel West
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years - Donald Miller
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
*Blood Brothers - Elias Chacour
Pluralism - William Connelly
*Beyond Gated Politics - Raymond Coles
The Elegence of the Hedgehog - ???
*Reading Now
Currently on my list:
Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich
The Shack - William P. Young
The Book of Images - Rainer Maria Rilke
Textbooks that I read enough of to qualify as a book:
Theology as if Jesus Mattered - Ted Grimsrud
Introduction to Christian Theology - Bradley Hanson
Invitation to Anthropology, 3rd Ed. - Eric Lassiter
Understanding Arabs - Margaret Nydell
Sabbath Economics - Ched Myers
Books I read a little bit of:
The Bhagavad-Gita
Buddhism: little pocket book
Thursday, January 14, 2010
information overload...hard drive will combust in 5,4,3,2,1!
wow.
i am beginning to think that i am sort of overcompensating for my feelings of boredom from last semester. !!! lets take a look at my schedule, shall we?
GenChem II:
lots of cool stuff coming up - enthalpy, entropy, Gibbs free energy, Redox reactions, self-directed labs involving plants and copper ions... my lab is at a normal time which is SWEET, and my professor is super cool too. His name is Matt Siderhurst and he is the brother of Camp Hebron's camp pastor from last year. He is interested in invasive species and has done research in Hawaii on invasive ants. And he is the one with the dreds.
Elementary Arabic:
so fun! and so hard! my professor, Louis Yako, is really great. He is Iraqi and speaks Aramaic, Turkmen, Kurdish, Arabic, and English. He is in love with language, having majored in English Lit and Linguistics in college. He went to college in Europe and got his masters in the US at Lehigh (I think) on a Fulbright Scholarship. Arabic is fun to write but it is hard to speak. I have a DVD that came with my textbook and right now I am trying to learn the short vowels - and it is quite difficult.
Statistics for the Natural Sciences:
I will be SO grateful when we get to actually do some interesting math. right now i am just learning the "language" of statistics. for example, did you know that there is a difference between an "upper class limit" and an "upper class boundary?" No? yeah, neither did I.
Speech: I am sensing impending doom, gloom, terror, and overall unhappiness ahead. My feeling about this class can be summed up in the following story: I got lost, ended up in the wrong class, and walked into the right class 10 minutes late. and I don't have any friends in it. :(
Cultural Anthropology: makes me happier. today we were supposed to define "Menno culture" in class. that provided some laughs. i don't think i can really define yet what this class will be like. i'll talk more about it later.
Intro to Theology: SO GOOD. The professor, Ted Grimsrud, opens class with prayer. It just makes me so happy. It is A LOT OF READING. I can't even explain...every class we are supposed to turn in a reading response for what we read. Packets, articles, 5 or 6 textbooks... AHHHHHH. I think my head might explode. But it is still good.
and, as if this all wasn't enough, I emailed Professor Christian Early to ask if I could sit in on his class Politics: Conceptions of the Common Good. He is the professor who is teaching Ways of Knowing, which I was going to take before the Administration moved Arabic to 4th period...long story. Meg is taking Conceptions of Common Good and told me it is amazing, so I decided to see if I could just sit in on the class for no credit, just to learn. and he said yes, so tomorrow I will be in my first real Philosophy class!!! Philosophy without being graded. Epic.
I literally am not going to have time to eat lunch on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I guess I can eat after Stats finishes at 2:30 and before my work study at 3. Crazy, right? But I feel this hunger for thinking and knowledge and theology and new words and that hunger runs deeper than hunger for lunch. so its all good.
i'm going to be a bit of a crazy woman this semester. probably won't be blogging as much. or sleeping as much, come to think of it. :)
...so, as alif baa (my arabic workbook) says, Yalla bina! Let's go!
i am beginning to think that i am sort of overcompensating for my feelings of boredom from last semester. !!! lets take a look at my schedule, shall we?
GenChem II:
lots of cool stuff coming up - enthalpy, entropy, Gibbs free energy, Redox reactions, self-directed labs involving plants and copper ions... my lab is at a normal time which is SWEET, and my professor is super cool too. His name is Matt Siderhurst and he is the brother of Camp Hebron's camp pastor from last year. He is interested in invasive species and has done research in Hawaii on invasive ants. And he is the one with the dreds.
Elementary Arabic:
so fun! and so hard! my professor, Louis Yako, is really great. He is Iraqi and speaks Aramaic, Turkmen, Kurdish, Arabic, and English. He is in love with language, having majored in English Lit and Linguistics in college. He went to college in Europe and got his masters in the US at Lehigh (I think) on a Fulbright Scholarship. Arabic is fun to write but it is hard to speak. I have a DVD that came with my textbook and right now I am trying to learn the short vowels - and it is quite difficult.
Statistics for the Natural Sciences:
I will be SO grateful when we get to actually do some interesting math. right now i am just learning the "language" of statistics. for example, did you know that there is a difference between an "upper class limit" and an "upper class boundary?" No? yeah, neither did I.
Speech: I am sensing impending doom, gloom, terror, and overall unhappiness ahead. My feeling about this class can be summed up in the following story: I got lost, ended up in the wrong class, and walked into the right class 10 minutes late. and I don't have any friends in it. :(
Cultural Anthropology: makes me happier. today we were supposed to define "Menno culture" in class. that provided some laughs. i don't think i can really define yet what this class will be like. i'll talk more about it later.
Intro to Theology: SO GOOD. The professor, Ted Grimsrud, opens class with prayer. It just makes me so happy. It is A LOT OF READING. I can't even explain...every class we are supposed to turn in a reading response for what we read. Packets, articles, 5 or 6 textbooks... AHHHHHH. I think my head might explode. But it is still good.
and, as if this all wasn't enough, I emailed Professor Christian Early to ask if I could sit in on his class Politics: Conceptions of the Common Good. He is the professor who is teaching Ways of Knowing, which I was going to take before the Administration moved Arabic to 4th period...long story. Meg is taking Conceptions of Common Good and told me it is amazing, so I decided to see if I could just sit in on the class for no credit, just to learn. and he said yes, so tomorrow I will be in my first real Philosophy class!!! Philosophy without being graded. Epic.
I literally am not going to have time to eat lunch on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I guess I can eat after Stats finishes at 2:30 and before my work study at 3. Crazy, right? But I feel this hunger for thinking and knowledge and theology and new words and that hunger runs deeper than hunger for lunch. so its all good.
i'm going to be a bit of a crazy woman this semester. probably won't be blogging as much. or sleeping as much, come to think of it. :)
...so, as alif baa (my arabic workbook) says, Yalla bina! Let's go!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Quick update for readers at home
For all of you who are supporting me in various ways - prayer, emails, texts, money - this is just to let you know i got straight A's last semseter. This new semester is starting bright and early tomorrow with Gen Chem II at 8:00 AM. :) I will let you know how things are going when stuff begins to happen. Love you all.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
christmas eve
it is tradition on Christmas for both sides of my family to read Luke 2, beginning with the phrase "in those days caesar augustus" and ending with the shepherds praising God. i decided when i was back at EMU to read from the beginning of Luke through the traditional Christmas story to see what I was missing. and ... i stumbled across [surprise!] Luke 1 and "Mary's Song" otherwise known as the Magnificat.
Mary's Song (Luke 1:46-55)
46And Mary said:
"My soul glorifies the Lord
47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
50His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers."
The more of the New Testament that I actually read [not just act as though i had read it, but really read for myself], the more I begin to believe in the idea of God's kingdom present now. A present, tangible, physical, joyful, abundant kingdom life. By this I mean - I believe that God desires justice now for the poor. I believe that kingdom living is good news for the poor; the poor in spirit, the poor in physical wealth. I believe that the Christmas story should start in Luke 1. I believe that Jesus came to reconcile man to God and that this restored relationship is more than just going to heaven when I die. It involves me fearing the name of the Lord and Him showing mercy across generations. It involves God scattering the proud and sending those who are rich away from his table. It involves this crazy sort of leveling of humanity, that those who are humble are lifted up and those who are hungry are given food - and the rulers are cast down from their thrones.
The more of the New Testament that I actually read, the more I fear the Lord. The more I fear the power of the gospel. The more I understand how Christianity can be seen as dangerous. It is ... it's a crazy powerful book that can make a girl realize she wants to be poor and weak and humble.
Wendell Berry writes, "Take all you have and be poor." I think of all the pretty words I use to describe the miracle of Christ coming down to earth; incarnation, relationship, virgin birth. This particular Christmas eve, at this moment of my life, those words are too big. This Christmas I am thinking of the birth of the Messiah in a different, smaller, simpler way. I am thinking of God taking all that He had and entering the poverty of humanity. And I am praying that somehow, despite the incredible weakness of my heart, I will be able to follow my Savior and take all I have and be poor.
Mary's Song (Luke 1:46-55)
46And Mary said:
"My soul glorifies the Lord
47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
50His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers."
The more of the New Testament that I actually read [not just act as though i had read it, but really read for myself], the more I begin to believe in the idea of God's kingdom present now. A present, tangible, physical, joyful, abundant kingdom life. By this I mean - I believe that God desires justice now for the poor. I believe that kingdom living is good news for the poor; the poor in spirit, the poor in physical wealth. I believe that the Christmas story should start in Luke 1. I believe that Jesus came to reconcile man to God and that this restored relationship is more than just going to heaven when I die. It involves me fearing the name of the Lord and Him showing mercy across generations. It involves God scattering the proud and sending those who are rich away from his table. It involves this crazy sort of leveling of humanity, that those who are humble are lifted up and those who are hungry are given food - and the rulers are cast down from their thrones.
The more of the New Testament that I actually read, the more I fear the Lord. The more I fear the power of the gospel. The more I understand how Christianity can be seen as dangerous. It is ... it's a crazy powerful book that can make a girl realize she wants to be poor and weak and humble.
Wendell Berry writes, "Take all you have and be poor." I think of all the pretty words I use to describe the miracle of Christ coming down to earth; incarnation, relationship, virgin birth. This particular Christmas eve, at this moment of my life, those words are too big. This Christmas I am thinking of the birth of the Messiah in a different, smaller, simpler way. I am thinking of God taking all that He had and entering the poverty of humanity. And I am praying that somehow, despite the incredible weakness of my heart, I will be able to follow my Savior and take all I have and be poor.
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