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Swivels the SticklerInside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened. ~Jennifer Yane June 05 xangaJune 02 using my indoor voice I read about 'nature deficit disorder' at Tammi's blog. "Yeah, yeah," says my brain, "they have some good points, but it isn't comfortable outside. There are bugs. And wind. Precipitation. Grizzly bears. Sunburn. Did I mention bugs?" The indoors has lovely climate control options, and all the comforts of home. ha ha ha! sorry. Bugs attempt to share the indoors with us, but we have a bevy of methods to thwart their incursions. I've just never been an outdoorsy person, even though my parents I must confess that I am the poster girl for comfort-craving suburbanites everywhere. When I get close to the earth I so profess to love, it seems, well... dirty. - Carolyn Arends, Wrestling With Angels I do connect with the seaside. And my brain is somehow deeply happier when my eyes can see changes in elevation, which is an odd condition for a born-n-bred prairie girl. A stroll through the forest is lovely. But I'm never sad to go back inside when the walk is over. locomotion How is it that an inchworm's journey is endlessly entertaining and humorous to watch, while a spider skittering across any surface is just plain creepy? quote of the dayMy idea of God is not a Divine Idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? - C.S. Lewis *iconoclast: one who destroys religious images or who attacks settled beliefs June 01 quote of the dayThe thing is, Mack usually makes uncomfortable sense in a world where most folks would rather just hear what they are used to hearing, which is often not much of anything. Those who know him generally like him well enough, providing he keeps his thoughts to himself. And when he does talk, it isn't that they stop liking him - rather, they are not quite so satisfied with themselves. - William Young, The Shack random A canning jar is a really good size & shape to use with a hand-blender. Plus it is glass, so it cleans up easily - doesn't stain and can get stuck into the dishwasher. (our hand blender came with a plastic container but it is usually too small) May 31 "exercise" is a bad word I don't like to exercise. Never have. If I hadn't inherited my dad's miracle-metabolism, I'd be over 200 pounds. I recognize this and am grateful every day. Still, weight isn't the only issue. Health requires actual movement, not just reduced eating. Exercise for an hour a day? Should, could, but don't. Not likely to start. May 30 timewarped day When you're abducted by aliens, you lose time. What happens to cause you to gain time? Yesterday was an odd day, which I actually experienced as more of a day and a half. I got home from work at noon. I wasn't expecting L home for supper so I hadn't planned to cook anything but by the time I was thinking It must be way past supper it was actually only 3:30. Later, when my brain and body were telling me it was past bedtime, it was really only 7:45. It wasn't that I was sleepy - it just felt late, and it felt as though that much time had passed. Too bad I couldn't be extra-productive with all that gained time. I did get a draft of a new Kinetic website 95% completed. May 28 10 minute game I enjoyed Cursor 10  Chronotron is also a cooperate-with-yourself game, but I haven't taken the time to go through all its levels yet.  May 24 Wrestling With Angels, part 2: ...but THEN what?Apparently I'm not the only one alarmed by the concept of eternity:
My thoughts usually spiral this way: we'll be with Him forever - yay! But then what? Then we'll be with Him forever, that's good. But then what??
I know that I'm not ready to understand it yet. But just ask my parents - I've always been really impatient!
May 23 ordinary day I've been riding the bus more than usual lately. Today's trip downtown was irritatingly jerky and the calling out of the stops was indecipherable. The ride home, however, was graced with a friendly driver who was good at his job, as well as a clear system for calling the stops.  I'd been reading The Captured: A True Story of Abduction by Indians on the Texas Frontier and took it with me on the bus. From the placement of my bookmark, I had about a fifth of the book left. Unfortunately the reality was that I had only about a dozen pages of story left; the remainder was endnotes and sources. I'm not such a happy bus-rider without a book. May 20 stupid mind
I'm tired today. Sometimes I wonder how much better life would be with a 'male' brain that can put things in boxes. My lazy river was way too pushy last night. May 15 interviewWhat size shoe do you wear? 7.5 T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Cingular/AT&T, or Sprint/Nextel? MTS Would you rather be hot or cold? hot Favorite Place to Eat? Wasabi Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape, or other? Firefox! Favorite fruit? Rainier cherries (pineapple comes in 2nd) Are you a cat or a dog person? both are good, but if forced to choose: dog Do you eat cold cereal at night? no (very rarely) What is your favorite TV show? Lost Kill the spider or let it out? death to the spider! (preferably by someone other than me) Do you shower every single day? yes What would you do if Michael Jackson asked you out? try not to laugh in his face; leave quickly! Do you read Harry Potter books? no If you could have one super human power what would you choose? teleportation Have you had a beer in the last week? no What do you do on fridays? take Todd to youth Do you like bananas? no How tall are you? 5'4" what's your theme song? Testing 1 -2 - 3 Wrestling With Angels The hardest thing about reading Wresting With Angels by Carolyn Arends was taking it slow enough! She wrote about her personal experiences, and they really resonated with me. The book is about having faith even when you don't have all the answers - or many answers at all. After writing about Jacob's struggle with the unknown wrestler on the banks of the Jabbok river, Carolyn went on to write: ...when a creature encounters the Creator of the Universe, the divine embrace is likely to feel more like a deathgrip than anything else. As much as I long for more direct encounters with Yahweh Elohim, I should be careful what I wish for. Jacob was fortunate to walk away with only a limp. If God seems sometimes maddeningly hidden, it may well be for my own safety. (God) wants me to wrestle with Him, to fight for Him, to grapple with the Mystery... So much of my struggle has been about the struggle itself, feeling that faith should be easier, that encountering God should be a walk in the garden, not ten rounds in the ring. I've always known I was supposed to be a God believer, a God follower, a God lover, even a God proclaimer. But I did not know I could be - should be - a God wrestler. I feel as though I've wrestled with God a few times. Glad to discover that I'm not alone in that. And I need to remember that He is sometimes not visible to me for my own safety! Wrestling with God is scary. Often I avoid Him because I don't want to wrestle. I'm too tired. I'm afraid of getting hurt. But I do keep returning to the scuffle. Because I'm stubborn? Because I can't leave well enough alone? Because I think that maybe today I'll understand another sliver of the mystery and it might change me, revive me? revival On Sunday, the music team did Robin Mark's Revival as offertory. As I flipped through the powerpoint slides (there was a request for the lyrics to be onscreen), the phrase "Revive us" smacked me in the face. I suddenly made the connection with the CPR class. We do CPR on someone until they can get a dose of electricity from a defibrillator to reestablish their heart's natural rhythm. But they need that shock to be truly revived. CPR alone isn't enough. I feel as though my efforts at following Christ are just giving myself CPR. I need revival.  May 13 whine of the day Why does Minneapolis's OctoPLExy have to be the same weekend as Winnipeg's Jazz Festival?  |
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