... about Jesus' Digestive System.
"He was continent, enduring all things. Jesus digested divinity; he ate and drank in a special way, without excreting his solids. He had such a great capacity for continence, that the nourishment within him was not corrupted, for he did not experience corruption."
6.21.2006
6.20.2006
Beauty
I learned a lot about beauty yesterday. Then I experienced it. I went to Bloomington with a friend yesterday evening and rode home surrounded by breathtaking beauty. With the windows rolled down, the bluesy sounds of Stevie Ray Vaughn playing, and very little conversation, the inside of the car set the stage to glory in the beauty on the outside. The sky was full tonight. To my right layed out the Big and Little Dippers with Draco winding between them; above me countless constellations I can't begin to name; and to the south and west clouds were gathering, preparing to bring showers of blessing. Still a distance off, however, all they brought for the time being was a light show, displaying the beautiful curvature of the cumulus clouds the lightning bolts hid behind. Add in the dark country highway lined with trees and the warm night air breathing into our car, and you've got yourself a full display of God's artwork.
As I soaked in my surroundings, I remembered what I had read earlier that day in Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. Here are some highlights from the section:
As I soaked in my surroundings, I remembered what I had read earlier that day in Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. Here are some highlights from the section:
Beauty is essential to God. No - that's not putting it strong enough. Beauty is the essence of God. The first way we know this is through nature, the world God has given us. Scripture says that the created world is filled with the glory of God (Isa. 6:3). In what way? Primarily through its beauty. ...Beauty is given to us with such generosity and abundance it is almost scandalous.So not only were my surroundings glorifying God, but I myself as a woman glorify God in the same way. Definitely something to think about more in the future. Most def, most def. =)
... Nature is not primarily functional. It is primarily beautiful. Which is to say, beauty is in and of itself a great and glorious good, something we need in large and daily doses (for our God has seen fit to arrange for this). Nature at the height of its glory shouts, Beauty is Essential! revealing that Beauty is the essence of God. The whole world is full of his glory.
... The reason a woman wants a beauty to unveil, the reason she asks, Do you delight in me? is simply that God does as well. God is captivating beauty. As David prays, "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek... that I may... gaze upon the beauty of the Lord" (Ps 27:4). Can there be any doubt that God wants to be worshipped? That He wants to be seen, and for us to be captivated by what we see?
But in order to make the matter perfectly clear, God has given us Eve. The crowning touch of creation. Beauty is the essence of a woman. ... God gave Eve a beautiful form and a beautiful spirit. She expresses beauty in both. Better, she expresses beauty simply in who she is. Like God, it is her essence.
... Beauty reminds us of an Eden we have never known, but somehow know our hearts were created for. Beauty speakes of heaven to come, when all shall be beautiful... Beauty says, There is a glory calling to you... All these things are true for any experience of Beauty. But they are especially true when we experience the beauty of a woman - her eyes, her form, her voice, her heart, her spirit, her life. She speaks all of this far more profoundly than anything else in all creation, because she is incarnate; she is personal. It flows to us from an immortal being. She is beauty through and through. "For where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?" (Shakespeare).
6.19.2006
Summertime
I pretty much love summer. Well, it won't turn summer officially for another 2 days, but you know what I mean. I have a completely blank week ahead of me. Until yesterday I had nothing planned Monday through Saturday. And with some friends being gone on the Science Club trip or college orientations this week, it's giving me an oportunity to hang out with other people that I don't see as much. Today I had breakfast with a good friend that I've known most of my life and haven't seen hardly at all this summer. Wednesday I'm having lunch with my mom, my grandparents, and 2 pairs of great aunts and uncles. I'm very curious because one pair said they got a new vehicle, but wouldn't tell my grandma what it is. All he said was "What do you do if you can't sing?" Obviously my curiosity is piqued. I think I'm working at the library for an hour this week (shh, don't tell the government) and just made a lunch date with an old teacher of mine. This is going to be a great week!
So before I left college I had a conversation with a friend who told me that having lots of close friends and hanging out with lots of people one-on-one for hours is dangerous because all those people will start assuming things. They'll assume that we're best friends and that I have a deeper friendship with them than with other people, when really I have a deep, close relationship with a lot of people. It's stayed on my mind and I keep wondering if I'm doing harm, yet I still can't help but feel that I'm not. Most of these people grew up with me. They know my tendencies. They know my idiosyncrasies. Most know from previous experiences that I fill up a lot of my time with one-on-one time with a lot of people. Many feel like they have to schedule weeks ahead to hang out with me (which is no longer true, and was only quasi true before because I didn't have a lot of free time to start out with. Regardless, I'm not proud that people felt/feel that way). Getting together with a person for a meal and staying for a couple of hours is one of my most favorite things to do in the world. To spend a little more one-on-one time with someone to understand how they tick and what they're like and what we have in common and what we don't. I just love that. And I'm sorry if that misleads someone into thinking that I only do that with a small number of people who I'm very very close to. I do feel often like I don't give many people the time they really deserve and I don't like that feeling. But I'm still probably not going to change my ways.
I once heard somewhere that it goes like this: Everyone's given $1000. You can divide it evenly among all your friends. Isn't it much better for your friends if you have less of them so each of them can receive more? I guess I'm being selfish to spread myself so thin over so many people.
Ya know, usually I don't even care. I love my friends, most of them seem to love me (whether they show it through kindness or abusiveness lol), and all is well. Just every once in awhile I'm reminded of this conversation with a friend who, when I told him I often ate (like I was with him) a long meal with a friend where we would chat for hours about anything, immediately said that was a bad idea. Well, maybe it is. But in the words of Rizzo from Grease, "There are worse things I could do." To again quote Waking Life (as I did in a previous post): "... Life was raging all around me and every moment was magical. I loved all the people, dealing with all the contradictory impulses - that's what I loved the most, connecting with the people. Looking back, that's all that really mattered." That's what I'm talking about.
So before I left college I had a conversation with a friend who told me that having lots of close friends and hanging out with lots of people one-on-one for hours is dangerous because all those people will start assuming things. They'll assume that we're best friends and that I have a deeper friendship with them than with other people, when really I have a deep, close relationship with a lot of people. It's stayed on my mind and I keep wondering if I'm doing harm, yet I still can't help but feel that I'm not. Most of these people grew up with me. They know my tendencies. They know my idiosyncrasies. Most know from previous experiences that I fill up a lot of my time with one-on-one time with a lot of people. Many feel like they have to schedule weeks ahead to hang out with me (which is no longer true, and was only quasi true before because I didn't have a lot of free time to start out with. Regardless, I'm not proud that people felt/feel that way). Getting together with a person for a meal and staying for a couple of hours is one of my most favorite things to do in the world. To spend a little more one-on-one time with someone to understand how they tick and what they're like and what we have in common and what we don't. I just love that. And I'm sorry if that misleads someone into thinking that I only do that with a small number of people who I'm very very close to. I do feel often like I don't give many people the time they really deserve and I don't like that feeling. But I'm still probably not going to change my ways.
I once heard somewhere that it goes like this: Everyone's given $1000. You can divide it evenly among all your friends. Isn't it much better for your friends if you have less of them so each of them can receive more? I guess I'm being selfish to spread myself so thin over so many people.
Ya know, usually I don't even care. I love my friends, most of them seem to love me (whether they show it through kindness or abusiveness lol), and all is well. Just every once in awhile I'm reminded of this conversation with a friend who, when I told him I often ate (like I was with him) a long meal with a friend where we would chat for hours about anything, immediately said that was a bad idea. Well, maybe it is. But in the words of Rizzo from Grease, "There are worse things I could do." To again quote Waking Life (as I did in a previous post): "... Life was raging all around me and every moment was magical. I loved all the people, dealing with all the contradictory impulses - that's what I loved the most, connecting with the people. Looking back, that's all that really mattered." That's what I'm talking about.
6.12.2006
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you...
Happy birthday dear Bloooooooogggggggg..... Happy birthday to you!
Only 4 days late.
6.11.2006
What to do, what to do
Do you ever have a time when you just have nothing to talk about? And then you have a time when you have so many things that you'd like to talk about but don't know where to start? I just experienced a week at jr hi camp, my first counseling experience, where I saw and felt countless spiritual battles faced. Also while there I shared in many interesting and hilarious mishaps with my co-counselors, the jr highers, and the leaders of the camp. On top of that I just finished a phenomenal book (Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell) in which I found much insight and ideas that I'm still considering and falling in love with. I'm also almost done with another book on the other end of the literary spectrum (Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss) where I'm finding the rules of certain tricky punctuation marks and support for a grammatical stickler such as I. How do I choose which is most important to write about during my presently free half hour before evening church? Maybe for now I'll stick with the lighter subjects that take less time.
So camp social highlights... Well, first off a highlight in and of itself is spending a week with Andy Nance, Matt Upshaw, and Amanda Roach. Andy, as the night watchman, got a golf cart. Whoo boy, who had that idea, I don't know. Dang was it sweet though. Just give him a call real quick and he'd drive us from our dorm to the chapel, out to the softball field, around when we're bored... It was awesome. Well, except when we would almost die as he almost threw us off when the vehicle was overpopulated.
At least he didn't wreck it into a building. *cough*
Um... oh. Tuesday night we placed this elaborate game with stations, macaroni, fungal-infected fish, beasts with hair/face paint, and latrines. As one of three manning the latrine station where teams had to dig holes to earn the uncooked macaroni (which was the monetary substance for the evening), things got a little boring after awhile. However, we had Donovan Jones to entertain us. Things are always better when Donovan Jones is around. We made him eat a worm. While they were digging, they found a worm, and we told them we'd give them extra macaroni if one of them would eat one. Okay, so we were quasi kidding... But then he stuck it in his mouth. And willingly chewed it up. And swallowed and showed his empty mouth to us. Doesn't get much better than that. We told them they were done digging, we handed them a handful of macaroni, and told them to be on their way. We got one more kid after that to eat a worm, but it wasn't as big as the first one. And he's no Donovan Jones. He was the poster child for the rest of the week of "and make sure Donovan doesn't eat it, okay?" =D
Irishe, the co-in-charge-person, is insane. We all gained much respect for her after seeing the games that she put together. She's psychotic. It's beautiful. The very worst game we had to play (luckily the counselors were out until the end) was a toilet relay (I forget what it was called exactly). Outside the teams lined up and standing about 15 feet away was a bucket full of mountain dew... miniature baby ruths... and corn. And in true jr hi swid camp fashion, the goal was to eat/drink as much of it as you could. Only the kids didn't know what it was. They just saw it. And puked. Well, only a few of them actually puked. I had to tell all my kids one by one as they ran up what it was and that it wasn't gross and they should just dive in. Only one did. But I saw him kinda choke and spit some back up in the bucket. Extreme backwash. At the end Irishe said any counselor who would chug the rest would win. I wouldn't do it. Call me a party pooper (ha), but I wasn't about to chug that after seeing that kid spit some back into the bucket. I don't care if it earns us points. The prize each day was staying up late an extra hour. Not really much of a prize for the counselors.
Irishe gets intertaining when she hasn't slept. Enough said. =)
Matt Upshaw needs to go to Olivet Nazarene University. It's just meant to be.
Some random quotes for you:
"Talk about poop. Anything is funny when you talk about poop."
"Not many people get to be happy about introducing their boyfriend to their husband!"
"God will bless your face off."
"We'll see you at the pole!"
"We'll kill you like Stephen and Samantha!"
A not so happy highlight... One of my kids went to the hospital. By ambulance. And for some reason there was a firetruck with the ambulance. Anyway, he stopped breathing for a whole minute. Doctors decided he had an extreme anxiety attack. He was fine though. He came back and wrote on a shirt "I'M OKAY NOW" so people would stop asking him. Funny kid. That evening he came back and we played a game out in the dark that had partners. His partner found me halfway through the game and said, "I can't find Kyle!" Talk about anxiety attack. We ran around asking other counselors to look and finally we found him just hangin out with some people by chapel. I warned him to not EVER run off alone. Again. Ever. Talk about being a parent.
Back to happy highlights... That evening's game was called Where's Waldo. Kids ran around looking for laminated waldos for points... Also, there was a Live Waldo, played by Matt, then Andy. Talk about cute. They got huge blue pants, a large red and white striped shirt, glasses, and a white ball cap. And they ran. The kids had to get a hankerchief out of their back pocket for a bunch of points. They about died. Jr higher kids are vicious!
The last day was the messy day. We ended up being covered in tomatoes, fruit juice, lemon juice, sugar, flour, lotion, refried beans, eggs, water, then topped it all off with shaving cream. Yuck. Then we got hosed off with biting ice cold water before we went back into the dorms so we wouldn't peel off paint. Then I spent the next hour after I got ready cleaning and mopping the bathroom. Oh boy. =)
So camp social highlights... Well, first off a highlight in and of itself is spending a week with Andy Nance, Matt Upshaw, and Amanda Roach. Andy, as the night watchman, got a golf cart. Whoo boy, who had that idea, I don't know. Dang was it sweet though. Just give him a call real quick and he'd drive us from our dorm to the chapel, out to the softball field, around when we're bored... It was awesome. Well, except when we would almost die as he almost threw us off when the vehicle was overpopulated.
At least he didn't wreck it into a building. *cough*
Um... oh. Tuesday night we placed this elaborate game with stations, macaroni, fungal-infected fish, beasts with hair/face paint, and latrines. As one of three manning the latrine station where teams had to dig holes to earn the uncooked macaroni (which was the monetary substance for the evening), things got a little boring after awhile. However, we had Donovan Jones to entertain us. Things are always better when Donovan Jones is around. We made him eat a worm. While they were digging, they found a worm, and we told them we'd give them extra macaroni if one of them would eat one. Okay, so we were quasi kidding... But then he stuck it in his mouth. And willingly chewed it up. And swallowed and showed his empty mouth to us. Doesn't get much better than that. We told them they were done digging, we handed them a handful of macaroni, and told them to be on their way. We got one more kid after that to eat a worm, but it wasn't as big as the first one. And he's no Donovan Jones. He was the poster child for the rest of the week of "and make sure Donovan doesn't eat it, okay?" =D
Irishe, the co-in-charge-person, is insane. We all gained much respect for her after seeing the games that she put together. She's psychotic. It's beautiful. The very worst game we had to play (luckily the counselors were out until the end) was a toilet relay (I forget what it was called exactly). Outside the teams lined up and standing about 15 feet away was a bucket full of mountain dew... miniature baby ruths... and corn. And in true jr hi swid camp fashion, the goal was to eat/drink as much of it as you could. Only the kids didn't know what it was. They just saw it. And puked. Well, only a few of them actually puked. I had to tell all my kids one by one as they ran up what it was and that it wasn't gross and they should just dive in. Only one did. But I saw him kinda choke and spit some back up in the bucket. Extreme backwash. At the end Irishe said any counselor who would chug the rest would win. I wouldn't do it. Call me a party pooper (ha), but I wasn't about to chug that after seeing that kid spit some back into the bucket. I don't care if it earns us points. The prize each day was staying up late an extra hour. Not really much of a prize for the counselors.
Irishe gets intertaining when she hasn't slept. Enough said. =)
Matt Upshaw needs to go to Olivet Nazarene University. It's just meant to be.
Some random quotes for you:
"Talk about poop. Anything is funny when you talk about poop."
"Not many people get to be happy about introducing their boyfriend to their husband!"
"God will bless your face off."
"We'll see you at the pole!"
"We'll kill you like Stephen and Samantha!"
A not so happy highlight... One of my kids went to the hospital. By ambulance. And for some reason there was a firetruck with the ambulance. Anyway, he stopped breathing for a whole minute. Doctors decided he had an extreme anxiety attack. He was fine though. He came back and wrote on a shirt "I'M OKAY NOW" so people would stop asking him. Funny kid. That evening he came back and we played a game out in the dark that had partners. His partner found me halfway through the game and said, "I can't find Kyle!" Talk about anxiety attack. We ran around asking other counselors to look and finally we found him just hangin out with some people by chapel. I warned him to not EVER run off alone. Again. Ever. Talk about being a parent.
Back to happy highlights... That evening's game was called Where's Waldo. Kids ran around looking for laminated waldos for points... Also, there was a Live Waldo, played by Matt, then Andy. Talk about cute. They got huge blue pants, a large red and white striped shirt, glasses, and a white ball cap. And they ran. The kids had to get a hankerchief out of their back pocket for a bunch of points. They about died. Jr higher kids are vicious!
The last day was the messy day. We ended up being covered in tomatoes, fruit juice, lemon juice, sugar, flour, lotion, refried beans, eggs, water, then topped it all off with shaving cream. Yuck. Then we got hosed off with biting ice cold water before we went back into the dorms so we wouldn't peel off paint. Then I spent the next hour after I got ready cleaning and mopping the bathroom. Oh boy. =)
Hoo-ha Camp Camby! That's what I'm talkin about.
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