Commuting Stories from Hell :: Part One

I was driving to work last Monday; the first time I had driven to work from our new place. People had been telling us that the road we lived on was the best to drive west to work. There are only a few roads that go the entire 10 miles without dead-ending at a highway. So I'm all psyched. I've got my sunglasses and my morning diet coke and the radio loud and I am so happy that I only have to drive 11 miles to work instead of the 40 miles I was driving before. No longer would it take me an hour and a half each way. I'm thinking, 20 minutes, max.

One hour and 5 minutes later I walk into work. My hair has frizzed out of the ponytail. My coke is long gone, the can thrown to the floorboards.

All along the road the 'people' had said was so great, traffic was stopped. There were four schools in sessions relegating 15mph speed limits and then the road suddenly goes from four to two lanes.

And as I drove by an intersection just a few short blocks from my home I noticed that the road was wet. I thought it odd to have only rained in such a small area. But then the news portion of my radio station came on and made the announcement:

"A police check-point has just been lifted off the corner of blank and blank. There are still several police cars in the area and they are still hosing the blood off the sidewalk due to the homicide this morning. Man A was found dead outside the local check cashing store and another, still alive, was found inside. This incident has caused a large back up for this mornings commuters."

Where the hell do we live?

Who knew?

Apparently not me.

Did you know that if you open a can of half-frozen diet coke it will explode all over the place causing you to mop up carbonated beverage from your floor and your arms and your feet?

Rizpah

Grant and I have been on vacation a lot this summer. It has been nice.

We visited with both of our families and spent some time at camp where we both had the opportunity to relax and re-coop from our daily madness in miami.

Now we are back and taking it one day at a time. At camp we re-discovered what it means to take things slow. And we got back into the swing of lots of prayer. When life gets crazy and frustrating it is easier to just go to sleep at night and sleep until the last second in the morning than to stay up or get up early and pray alone and together.

My brain reminded me that it is very typically human to want to hang out with someone we admire and love. Which means that I need to be spending more time in conversation with Jesus.

I discovered an amazing story in the Bible as I was preparing for camp. And surprisingly it is the story that seemed to most move the students (rising 6th graders).

The story of Rizpah is found in 2Samuel. David is king and he decideds to make ammends with this town called Gibeon. A long time before now, Saul and his family had broken a truce and murdered several men in Gibeon. Gibeon's been pissed for years and God is pissed because of what Saul did. So God keeps the fields dry until David asks why and God let's David know that the Gibeons deserve compensation for Saul's actions. David is like, 'Crap. This sucks.' But he knows what he has to do so he chooses 7 men from Saul's bloodline to hand over to the Gibeons. 2 of these men are sons of Rizpah and the other 5 are her nephews. Rizpah was Saul's concubine so her sons were considered lesser regarding familial inheritance. The Gibeons kill the men and display their bodies out on a hill where everyone can see them. Rizpah is devasted but she knows that she cannot remove the bodies and because of her status she cannot go straight to the king so she gets some black cloth and spreads it out near the bodies and she stays there. She stays through the harvest until the next rainy season began. She fights off the animals that come night and day to pick at the corpses. Finally David finds out what she's been doing and he agrees to properly bury the bodies. And once the bodies are buried, God blesses the land.

I give myself a week before I would have been sick and tired of the hot sun and the birds picking at me and the wild animals stalking me before I would have gone back to my home.

It is only with the amazing patience of God that a person could sacrifice so much and stay only in each day without worrying about the future, but only about what needs to be done now.

God, grant me the patience to pursue your will each day with the perserverance of Rizpah. Amen.

religion or science?

While procrastinating the taking of my online midterm this morning I searched around some blogs and came across an interesting post. The question was, Would you rather live in a world without science or religion. You can read the comments here:

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=10909589&postID=112137788076959236

What do you think?

moving sucks

crap.

we need a place to live. it seems like every lead we get goes flat very fast. actually it seems like that because it is true.

our lease is up aug. 19 (pushed back from july 31) and our current has already been rented to new leasers. so we are screwed. i have called 100s of places to no avail. the ares we want to live in are too expensive and other areas well, just aren't options.

please God show us where you want us to be. you knew before we were born where we would be living come august 20, 2005. help us find that place.

Over a month

It's been over a month since I last posted.

Sometimes I am just not sure how to express my internal dialogue.

There has been a battle raging in my belly.

I am having issues with scripture and the church and tradition and how do I know that I am right and that the only way to God is through Jesus. This is scary for me. It is just so complicated.

I was in a class several weeks where we were discussing religion and in trying to explain my beliefs, my professor thought I was agnostic. I said no, but I couldn't make myself say in front of the whole class that Jesus is the only way to heaven and that if you don't believe in Him you are going to hell. The arrogance of that comment overwhelmed me as I looked at the faces of these people, my peers, who believe just as strongly in something else. They would have scoffed and labeled my a holy-roller and that would have been the end.

What could I have said? What should I have said?

I hear other's intrepretations of scripture and my perversion alarm rings and I puff out my chest and claim that 'No, that is not correct. I know what that verse really means'. I don't want to feel like this. Arrogance is not evidence of God's love.

I want to find confidence without pomposity.

What is my problem? Why can't I just get it and go on with life?

*NEW* Ministry

What is it about the word 'new' that just pisses me off?

It implies that the 'old' wasn't good enough.

It implies that we needed something better.

My church is tossing around the idea of creating a service on Wednesday nights. It would consist of eucharist and fellowship time. Probably with guitars and drums instead of organ adn possibly more involving teaching time but I hesitate at calling it our "New Wednesday Night Service." (not that anyone has purposed that yet) I think we should just call it "Wednesday Night Worship." Let what is attract people instead of it's cool name.

On another note, I think I'm having a break-down today.

Grant and I just spent 3 wonderful days together doing nothing. We hung out at home and rented movies and I cooked for the first time in months. It was blissful. But today I am freaking out.

I had a migraine last night that lasted into this morning and I couldn't get out of the house so I slept. Which means that I slept right through a mid-term for one of my summer classes. I am such an idiot. I wasn't even thinking about it this morning but now I feel like an ass. My professor is deciding if she's going to let me make it up. If she doesn't, my highest grade will be a C.. that is IF I get 100's on everything else.

Summer class is killing me.

I'm taking 3 classes and trying to work which includes getting a lock-in together in two weeks, running VBS (which is a whole other story), end of the year graduations for all the kids, finally posting my summer schedule which keeps getting knocked around.... oh, and we are trying to move.

Our lease is up at the end of July but we just realized that we are going to be gone at that time so we have to move closer to the beginning of July. Which means I have to find a place- not so easy down here- and find some movers (because after the last time I promised that I would never make Grant move us again).

I feel like I just want to quit something. School or work are pretty much my only two options. But I can't quit in the middle of the semester and work is good and I love it.

I don't know.

I think I just needed to rant.

alt.?

i've been looking at this site www.alternativeworship.org and i'm feeling frustrated. the language just is not finished yet.

it is not inviting to everyone. words like 'new' and 'fun' and 'are you tired of church?' are annoying because they stand for pushing something away.

i really think we need to be careful and watch how our 'emerging' language is affecting the younger generations. because if we don't we will raise a generation of community lovers who only love their community.

i like what this place had to say, www.oatmealbible.org :

"Our worship is eclectic, user-friendly, casual, fun, and sometimes a little loud. We like to try new things and experiment a bit. When we fail, we fail spectacularly. We are not traditional, contemporary, modern, or post-modern, just kind of mixed up. We love Generations X, Y, Z, and all the rest of the alphabet, too."

what are you?

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 81% Postmodernist 75% Modernist 69% Romanticist 44% Fundamentalist 31% Existentialist 31% Idealist 31% Materialist 6% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

Netflix

I wish there was system for books- make a list online and send them back and then get new ones.

NetBooks

There are so many things I would like to read but I just can't afford them all.

Language

I am learning a new language.

I have had several professors over the last two semesters that have helped open my eyes to just how capitalist and individualistic I am.

Just the fact that I can not imagine a language without the word 'opportunity' screams how entrenched I am.

More on this later.

OHMYGOODNESS

So someone chose today to get the landscapers in. They are buzzsawing freaking trees right outside my window.

Could anything be more annoying?

TenThousandandfirst Maniac

The music director where I work just told me that my voice reminds him of Natalie Merchant when I sing.

I think I can live off that for a few months.

My voice has changed so much over the years. I love to sing and it's really fun when someone notices.

music

i've really been into music recently.

grant gave me an ipod for my birthday in january and i love it. i just got itunes on my work computer last week and i have already bought over 20 songs. i'm exploring and i love it.

been thinking a lot recently about music worship. the moment i decided to follow jesus was during a song that showed me how God is my father. i needed that at that second and music has been a huge part of my growing and knowing Christ.

i think it's because music is such an intimate thing. i've had the fantastic experience of hanging out with the amazing derek washington the last couple of days. he shared some of his music with the parish yesterday in thanks for supporting his family while they were missionaries in nepal. i sat in on his practice yesterday afternoon and he was playing some worship songs that i learned years ago and the words came back to me instantly and while i was singing i felt closer to God than i have in a long time. it was relaxing and intimate. i let my guard down for the first time in months.

a lot of worship songs talk about I and Me. so what? i have two identities in Christ- one that is personal and one that is a part of my community. i think sometimes we get so sidetracked by being frustrated with the past (specifically the total individualization of religion) that we only concentrate on the community forms and forget that both are important. everyone needs personal forms of worship that help guide their faith in order to be a part of another group.

all i'm saying is that for me, music worship is deep and intense; something that i can't get anywhere else. and i'm okay with that.

if ever

so, if someone ever decides to give me a spanish baby girl i would name her Ana Lucia.

if God ever gave me the decision to make everyone the same or not, sometimes i think i would. is it bad that differentness gets on my nerves occassionally?

static

my mind is in a weird state of staticiness today. i have been at work since about 9:30 but i really can't say anything i've actually accomplished. on monday night i had a paper due and a final exam. then on tuesday morning i had 3 papers due. i didn't sleep for four days. and even though i did get some good sleep last night i am still not functioning properly.

it also doesn't help that my office (well my corner in eric's office) is all packed up just waiting for my new office furniture to get here. what should i be doing? oh, about a million things, but who's counting.

i haven't seen eric sitting down to work today either. we are both just wandering around the campus, back and forth between offices thinking about what kind of pictures to hang in the bathroom and how to arrange our new offices.

we are pretty sure that we are both the same meyers-briggs. interesting. that's probably why we both drive everyone else crazy. when people look at our office in disgust he just tells them that to us it's organized.

i hate feeling anxious all the time. i would say that i feel anxious about 40% of the time. and i can't figure out why. i can't make it go away. mylanta is my best friend.

i think it would really help if we didn't live so far away from the rest of our lives.

and i want to have a baby.

will i ever graduate?

Radio

There's a 'christian' radio station here in Miami that has this slogan, "Because you care what your kids are listening to"

Wow.

Are you kidding me?

As if parents who are not christians don't care?

As if all 'secular' music is satanic?

Oh my.

I hate those stupid distinctions. I listen to all the stations with music I like- christian, pop, hard core rock, 80's, classical- whatever.

I wish someone would just create a national radio station that just plays music that is good and pleasing to God. It doesn't have to be 'praise' music. It doesn't even have to say Jesus. Just good stuff.

Thought for the day:
So called 'secular' stations have the grace to play songs from christian bands. But you will never hear a 'secular' song played on a 'christian' station... well unless they are bashing it.

Warning!: Boob Post

I found that if I squish my boobs into a smaller sports bra that moves them more to the middle of my body I look skinnier.

I think I might invest in a few more.

Why is it that I have lost 10 pounds but not an ounce has come off my boobs?

As soon as I'm done having kids they are gone. I can't wait.

BOLO

Be On the Look Out

Mr. Ice Blue Rasberry Lemonade Kool-Aid Man has left my grocer's shelves.

If you find him please email me immediately so we may set up the exchange.

Reward: 6 Dozen Eggs

I miss him.

Find him.

Thesis

I am going to write a thesis for the honors college over the next few months.

any ideas? perhaps something you have always wanted to research but don't have time?

please post.

thank you.

thank you very much.