Busy busy summer

My apologies for being a horrible blogger and not posting in about a month. But I have some decent excuses, if you'd care to bear with me. :-)

First, my buddies Chris and Patrick came down the weekend before finals week. lol. That was fun.



Then a good friend of mine named Kyle and I with fear and trepidation decided to move our friendship 'to the next level' and now I have a boyfriend :-)


That Friday I flew to California with a friend's baby and stayed there for a few days to help out with the kiddo while the mom and dad drove out with all their worldly possessions.



I was supposed to be there to help, but they decided to play tour guides a little :-)


My good friends Stephanie and Andrew got married :-)



I drove to Tennessee with my dear friend Allison to get some stuff for mom (sorry, didn't take any pictures of that)

Kyle and his parents drove up for Memorial Day and we bummed around with my room mate and took pictures


I worked like a fiend interspersed between all this (yay paycheck yet minimum sleep/rest)


Kyle drove up and got me and I was able to get a tour of small-town Kentucky and meet his best friend that he grew up with and said friend's girlfriend.



Then this last Friday we had the wedding rehearsal for Chad and Olya's wedding, and it was quite the international affair, let me tell you. The bride was originally from Ukraine, and her parents who spoke NO English were there :-) The maid of honor was Ukrainian, another bridesmaid was Cameroonian, another was from Georgia and then there was me - your all-around USA-ian. ;-)

(In this picture, there is an American, a Romanian, Cameroonian, and a Korean)

Then on Saturday we had the actual wedding, and we were doing wedding stuff from 10 am to about 7 or 8 pm. *whew* Needless to say I was EXHAUSTED by the end of the day.


And then finally, today Kyle and his parents had a funeral to attend in Lousville, so I went with them. I ended up distracting Jonah, the grandson of the deceased, in the playroom off to the side of the viewing room, for half-to-most of the time we were there. The rambunctious four year old was tired of being in the same room, so after Kyle said hi to the kid I let him and his parents to the greeting and consoling and scurried off to a side room to play with four-year-old toys and chalkboards. :-)

Anyway. Thats why I haven't been posting. I've plenty to post ABOUT, just no time to do it. lol. So. I am going to go to bed before heading to work AGAIN tomorrow. :-) I hope you enjoyed the visual depiction of my summer so far.

Cool poem

Stumbled across this poem in my reading for Youth and Family Ministry. Hope you enjoy!

An Ode to Marriage
"You know, it could happen to us,"
you said to me,
sitting in your favorite chair as we sipped coffee,
digesting the news of the latest couples splitting up.
"No matter how great we think we have it,
if all those people can break up
it could happen to us.
We're humans like them.
It is possible."
I didn't answer for a while.
We were both incredulous at the news.
Men and women of maturity
decades-long marriages
so many have exploded, one after another.
Almost every week, another set of names.
Not him! Not her!
They're too sensible, too solid.
"You're right," I finally admit.
We've never joked about divorce,
never brought it up as an option.
We declared total commitment to each other
and must reaffirm that always.
But maybe realizing it could happen to us
helps us make sure it won't.
How terrible to think of an argument
someday when one of us feels
the need for the ultimate weapon,
"Well, obviously there's no sense staying together.
We're just hurting each other,
just keeping each other trapped."
Those are words mouthed in kitchens
and bedrooms of "mature" Christian homes.
REmember how our love began?
Years ago, I offered you my arm
that September night we first went out.
You reached for it
as we leaped a puddle together.
Then you walked just close enough
to show you liked it.
I glimpsed your face under the streetlight,
excitement splashing gently on it....
No commitment - just beginnings.
My arm pulled you that January eve
right beside me in that car.
Midnight. Time to leave.
"Good night" wasn't quite enough,
and our lips touched gently
in a kiss as light as an angel cake.
"I like you," it said,
but nothing more.
November air had rough-scrubbed our faces.
As we wrestled playfully
in your parent's farmhouse.
That moment I knew
and breathed into your hair,
"I LOVE YOU."
The words exploded around us.
They meant far more than "you're nice."
They meant commitment.
Your words came back to me
in firm, sure sounds:
"I love you too."
And our kiss of celebration
was the beginning of a new creation.
Yes, I chose you.
Out of all the lovely girls I knew.
I chose you.
How marvelous are the women of planet Earth,
hair flaring in the wind
rich browns and golds,
a thousand delicious shapes
girls who laugh saucily
girls who read Browning
girls who play sitars
girls who fix carburetors.
Of all those fascinating possibilities,
I chose you.
Decisively. Permanently.
Is that self-entrapment?
Wasw a commitment made in youth
to bind me a lifetime?
Ah, but it was as strong as birth,
a fresh creation,
soon to be a new flesh,
you and I as one.
We chose each other.
We created something new under the sun.
You to shape me
and I you,
like a Luther Burbank original.
We, our own new creation,
to produce fruit wholly unique,
UNIQUE IN THE UNIVERSE!
Then the wdding,
flying rice and honeymoon
days and nights together.
Two persons
as unalike as birch and cypress
had chosen each other.
The heavens laughed
and the sands of the earth
lay ready for the tender feet
of our newborn self.
Does time change all that?
Were we naive? Now, after we have
loved, argued, laughed, given birth,
what does it mean
when I hold you and say,
"I love you"?
Without the young-love ecstasy,
is it required rote
or reaffirmation of our new creation?
"I love you."
My temples don't pulse as I say it.
My body does not ache for coupling,
not as it did.
Yet the words carry more fact
than ever they did in courtship.
They embrace a million moments shared...
Standing together
atop Cadillac Mountain
and aching to absorb the blue-white-green beauty...
or angrily expounding to each other in the kitchen
about our particular stupidities,
then sharing a kiss ten hours later...
bonding moments, holding us together.
How easily those bonds could be tyrannical.
"You always forget..." "You never think..."
And bitter moments bite into their flesh
with blinding ropes that tie them to the
time and place instead of to each other.
Yet bonds can be a
thousand multicolored strands
of sorrow, joy, embarrasment,
of anger, laughter shared
as we watch God maturing us,
as we gently tell each other
of our joys, our fears,
even of our fantasies.
Rope is rope.
Experiences are much the same:
crabby days,
laughing days,
boring days.
We'll go through them "in love,"
by commitment to each other,
sharing, forgiving,
not blaming, not hurting.
Yet when we do hurt,
we ask forgiveness,
so the ropes will bind us together.
For if they don't
they'll wrap around our throats,
so that each struggle will tighten the noose,
and we'll have to reach for the knife to cut the bonds.
"I love you."
It sounds trite -
but not if it's remembering
the thousands of strands
of loving each other when we don't feel lovely,
of holding each other,
of winking across a room,
of eating peanut butter sandwiches beside the surf.
And of getting up in the morning
thousands of times, together,
and remembering what we created,
the day we first said "I love you,"
Something permanent
and growing
and alive.
~ Harold Myra, 1979~

Happy.... er... Resurrepascalster..?

"So Happy East- Resurrection Sunday! I mean, well, Pascal.. I mean... well, what is today, anyway? Happy Jesus Day! Are you doing an Easter Egg hunt? Wait..."
I tell you, Church on Sunday was confusing. What on earth do we call it? I mean its been Easter for the last 1500 years, yet suddenly we've all been hit with the revelation that it isn't really EASTER; that's a pagan holiday. No, it is Resurrection Sunday! But wait... are we going to include our roots and Jewish Bretheren? Well then it's Pascal. Wait, wait... Pascal doesn't recognize Jesus. So it's Resurrepascalster... whew is THAT a mouthful.

Hey, just to throw this out there. How about we consider something that seems totally arbitrary and yet at the same time might be related (and I know I'm gonna step on some toes here, so brace yourself. Maybe grab a chocolate Easter - I mean Resurrepascalster Bunny to chew on to defuse the stress)

a) " Construction of meaning. Postmodernists don’t care about talks about whether truth is out there, they are not like the X-files. They are opposite, they don’t CARE if the Truth is out there. What they say is that when they construct meaning, they construct meaning through language. Language is how we make ourselves out to be what we are. Language only makes something true for the person using that particular language. So for example, ‘Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life,’ is only true for Christians because that is the language we choose to use about Christ. ‘That rose is beautiful’ is beautiful to us because that’s what we choose to call it but it may be ‘ugly’ to someone else."

a) Wait, you say. What on earth do your class notes have to do with this whole Easter.... Resurrepascalster controversy?

The whole deal with Postmodernism is 'what does this term do for you." There's no centralized term for anything, there's no truth out there that is solidified that we can all reference. If it irritates you or doesn't work for you, just redefine it. Now as Christians, we would NEVER do something like that... right?

Well, I'm not sure thats true anymore. We're so focused in our special little branches of 'redefining' stuff. We've got the 'carnal Christian' with the John Piper-ites, the 'Resurrection Sunday' with the intellectuals, or 'Redeemed Pascal' or whatever with the hard-core intellectuals. Dude, whatever happened to just saying 'Easter'? Yeah okay its based off of a pagan holiday. Most of our songs are based off of songs or tunes or styles that originated in a pagan way. Hate to break it to you, but if you look at the Tabernacle waaaaay back in the Old Testament, the styles of their worship followed the trends of their days as well. Those Cherubim guarding the Ark of the Lord on the Lid are fashioned in a style common on most religious artifacts from Canaan.

Yeah, we need to be distinct from the pagan world around us. We also need to be centralized. Its been Easter for at least 1500 years if not longer. Redefining all the terms right now out of reaction to something isn't helpful, it's causing confusion. I mean, whats next, a secret handshake to get in through the Church doors?

Okay I'm exaggerating a little bit and probably sounding like I'm over-reacting. Yes we need to 'take back' the Christian holidays for the Lord. But we aren't going to do that if we don't start with what is in our hearts. Leave the Easter Bunny alone for a minute while you examine your own heart: when was the last time you told an unbeliever what the Easter Story IS? Stop trying to fight for appearances to suit your preferences! Trust me, if you actually DO what the New Testament says, you won't have time to worry if they call it Easter or Pascal or Jimmy John's Cheap Sandwich Day (I made that up, btw. I don't know if JJ's had cheap sandwiches yesterday). If you are honestly doing what Christ Commanded, you will be tired, hungry, and frustrated as you pray through trying to make His message more understandable to a lost and dying world.

Traditions are good. I love traditions, really I do. But not when they become distracting. Not when changing them to suit our latest fad in theology or inter-church-and-doctrine-controversy. And yes people, we do have 'fads' in our doctrine and theology. Its okay, just accept it. But what is the POINT of them? Are you growing in maturity in Christ? Is your love for Him overflowing so that it is visible? Are people inspired when they see you to read the Bible and find out what it is that you have? Are you making people jealous that they don't have the Holy Spirit in their life like you do?

I'm not saying that I'm doing it perfectly or, 'Quick! Reject what THEY are saying and come over here and do what I am saying!'

All I'm saying is, 'What is your point? Because so far its just causing confusion and knocking off the center that has united us on this particular Sunday every year for the past one and a half millennium. There's been thousands of Christians before you who have the Holy Spirit and are thoughtful people. Why do you think you are so special to have figured it out where they couldn't?"

Harsh, yes. Brutal? Probably. Needed? Well, I don't believe in going along with what someone says just because they threw a bunch of syllables together that sounded pretty and are confident about how they sound. I've been around intellectuals too long.

Now if you excuse me, I need to go grab something out of my EASTER BASKET before I go prepare for my apologetics class paper. And yes, this paper is being utilized to share the gospel with Muslims on Thursday. The point of us being Christian academics and theologians is to better prepare us to engage a fallen world and irritating lost people. Are you engaging lost people? Or are you snarling about the inconvenience when they shock you with their depravity?

N Not really the Happy Easter post I was planning on, but I didn't know before this weekend that I wasn't allowed to post a Happy Easter post, I was supposed to write a Happy.... Resurrepascalster post.

~Princess Ouch~