I like to stay busy. I think having a full calendar and crossing things off on my TDL gives me a sense of self-worth. I also don't like being home often, and I've noticed that if I go home straight after school I WILL take a nap and I WILL screw up my sleep schedule. Sometimes though my pesky little habit (and the invasive motivation bug) get the best of me, and I find myself swamped with things to do, places to go, people to see.
Tuesday was one of three days all year thus far that I've been able to go home straight after school - no meetings to attend, no errands to run, no kids to watch. I was pretty excited (yes, I took a nap - yes, I screwed up my sleep schedule for the rest of the week). Wednesday, around lunch time I realized that I would have an entire 3 hours all to myself before youth group to do homework and do chores. I was pumped. Yes, I was overjoyed with the thought of being able to go home and work. Lately my crazy schedule has had me in different places every day to do work while waiting for different activities to start - the church, the media center, people's houses, etc. It was nice to sit down at MY desk with nobody distracting me and have Oprah buzzing in the background as I did my math.
So here I am, on this Friday evening. My father called to ask if I was going to be in town this weekend, or if I was even coming home tonight (hey dad - I haven't had a sleepover all year, just an fyi. I've been here.) I got home about an hour or two ago from watching 18 or 20 kids all day. I just talked on the phone for 40 minutes discussing plans to go to Chicago. I just made plans to babysit early tomorrow morning. I'm staring at a pile of homework that is undone and a room that looks like it was hit by a tornado. My closet is half naked, the rest of it lies on the floor in distress. I'm debating on whether or not I want to go to the game, and acquiring the motivation to get up and get moving if I do. I made my once-monthly phone call to La Diabla, which ended in tears and her hanging up on me. I lacked the motivation to eat dinner, let alone make it. The dog smells like a dog, in a bad kind of way. My bible has found a newly permanent home in the seats of my car - I couldn't tell you the last time I cracked that baby open. My booty sits in a chair after not having worked out in two weeks.
And I'm gasping for air.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
City on a hill
I'm taking American History this year. I think we need more holidays to keep teachers in line - we get to the pilgrims and Indians in time for Thanksgiving, the Civil War for Lincoln's birthday, then skip right ahead to the 1960's for MLK Day and the Civil Right's Movement... I've never studied the Vietnam War, the farthest we've gotten with World War 2 is the Holocaust... But right now, we're still with the pilgrims (Thanksgiving hasn't happened yet...) and colonial America.
We're reading various documents from the time period to assess for their value and limitations (don't ask), and one of them is called A Model of Christian Charity by John Winthrop, who would settle the Massacusetts Bay Colony.
You can stop reading here if you really really don't care about history...
Winthrop was a Protestant Minister from Weymouth, England. He and about 108 other Protestants were crossing the Atlantic in 1630 on the Andorra when he penned this sermon that he would present on the ship and when they landed in the colony. I think it's one of the most famous sermons in history - it's the only one I've ever read in a school setting. This sermon stood the test of time; we're still reading it nearly 400 years later (okay, maybe the pilgrims didn't blog about it). It expressed the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of those early colonists who were risking everything - their lives, money, families - to settle in this New World and practice their faith without an oppressive government overseeing them. There was still an oppressive government - they were just blocked by a 3 month trip via ocean.
Winthrop expresses a deep faith and a desire to create a colony that would be a city on a hill (I immediately thought of TobyMac... are you singing along too?). He wanted this to be a perfect community, a beacon to the world. I can imagine that these early settlers were full of hope, full of adventure, and excitement. In this strange New World, I wonder if they thought of it as a "do over" - a chance to try life again, and maybe do it right this time. Oh sure, there would still be sin in the world and whatnot. But how often do you get the chance to create a town? An environment that is still full of bushland, that has no laws, no settlement - it's just you, your neighbor, and the omnipotent God that created it all. I wonder if they envisioned a New Jerusalem when they sailed across those stormy seas. Their greatest desire was to shine God's light. How different would the world look if that was the most intimate wish of all of us?
If / when you read the sermon, you'll see that they truly wanted to follow all of the laws that God has given us. They quote scripture, saying that they won't harm the natives, or enemies, but they would feed them and care for them. They promise to care for each other and to be a great, peaceful community that the whole world would look to, and by doing so, the love of Jesus Christ would be spread to all.
40 years later, greed takes ahold of the colonists. It happens. When your town is only one to twohundred small, and you're the only one with a specific trade, you can jack up your prices as much as you want. The government was the voting church members (basically, your elders and deacons), and they would create a law that would allow them to punish merchants and tradesmen who took advantage of their neighbors. Their reasoning - you are here to love and to serve the Lord your God, not to make a profit. That struck a chord with me. The people had agreed on this new law that would require you - by law - to live humbly, not in excess.
I wonder if I have the faith that it would take to climb aboard a caravel and sail for 3 months. To build my own house in the wilderness. To leave the city and country I had lived in and head off to this strange new land that nobody really understood (without a cell phone). I wonder if I have the discipline enough to charge my goods for only as much as I need to get by. What great faith those pilgrims had.
It makes me wonder how our nation got from a City on a Hill to what it is today. Only 40 years into it (40 years is considered a generation, btw), and we were already screwing up - but we fixed it. Other community members came along, took care of us, pointed out our errors, and set us on another path. Somewhere along the lines though, we stopped doing that. The community fell apart. Instead of living 3 feet away from your neighbor, we started getting bigger houses, bigger crops, and soon we were living 3 miles from our nearest neighbor. We stopped caring as much - we all wanted to do our own thing. It takes a lot of effort to refine a person. Sanctification is a lifelong, grueling process. Sometimes, it's just easier to look away than to clean the wound and put on a band-aid.
Today in English, we did an activity where we had different values (faith / religion, family, close friends, good healthy, beauty, wealth, etc) and we ranked them from most important to least important. There were various signs around the room with the different values on them. When the teacher called out a number, we would go to the corresponding value that we had put down, and then open up in discussion about why we picked what.
I saw some real life in people that had never come out before. I saw the class clown come out and say that one of his best friends had died in her sleep during the summmer and another girl say that her father had died during her freshman year. I can't imagine the pain that they went through, and how I went alongside these students for three years without knowing. I heard kids open up about their ideas on God, some of them breaking my heart. It was a reminder that I am still in a mission field, whether I realize it or not. I may not come to school on a boat, but I still need to be a beacon to the world.
It kind of felt like I was back in my youth group. That made me wonder why I felt that way. I guess it's because these were people trying to be real with each other and let their guard down; to just take off the mask for a few minutes. There were several awkward moments for a lot of us, especially the first few people to speak. None of us were really sure how we would all be perceived. As I was walking to lunch after that class, I realized that the reason I feel so comfortable around the kids from youth is because we're open. You go to a totally new step in your relationship when you're honest and real and people get to see the whole person. It shows trust, love, and caring about one another. The very thing Winthrop settled his colony on. It makes... a community. The very thing God created the earth based on. It's interesting how everything keeps coming back to this idea... community.
We're reading various documents from the time period to assess for their value and limitations (don't ask), and one of them is called A Model of Christian Charity by John Winthrop, who would settle the Massacusetts Bay Colony.
You can stop reading here if you really really don't care about history...
Winthrop was a Protestant Minister from Weymouth, England. He and about 108 other Protestants were crossing the Atlantic in 1630 on the Andorra when he penned this sermon that he would present on the ship and when they landed in the colony. I think it's one of the most famous sermons in history - it's the only one I've ever read in a school setting. This sermon stood the test of time; we're still reading it nearly 400 years later (okay, maybe the pilgrims didn't blog about it). It expressed the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of those early colonists who were risking everything - their lives, money, families - to settle in this New World and practice their faith without an oppressive government overseeing them. There was still an oppressive government - they were just blocked by a 3 month trip via ocean.
Winthrop expresses a deep faith and a desire to create a colony that would be a city on a hill (I immediately thought of TobyMac... are you singing along too?). He wanted this to be a perfect community, a beacon to the world. I can imagine that these early settlers were full of hope, full of adventure, and excitement. In this strange New World, I wonder if they thought of it as a "do over" - a chance to try life again, and maybe do it right this time. Oh sure, there would still be sin in the world and whatnot. But how often do you get the chance to create a town? An environment that is still full of bushland, that has no laws, no settlement - it's just you, your neighbor, and the omnipotent God that created it all. I wonder if they envisioned a New Jerusalem when they sailed across those stormy seas. Their greatest desire was to shine God's light. How different would the world look if that was the most intimate wish of all of us?
If / when you read the sermon, you'll see that they truly wanted to follow all of the laws that God has given us. They quote scripture, saying that they won't harm the natives, or enemies, but they would feed them and care for them. They promise to care for each other and to be a great, peaceful community that the whole world would look to, and by doing so, the love of Jesus Christ would be spread to all.
40 years later, greed takes ahold of the colonists. It happens. When your town is only one to twohundred small, and you're the only one with a specific trade, you can jack up your prices as much as you want. The government was the voting church members (basically, your elders and deacons), and they would create a law that would allow them to punish merchants and tradesmen who took advantage of their neighbors. Their reasoning - you are here to love and to serve the Lord your God, not to make a profit. That struck a chord with me. The people had agreed on this new law that would require you - by law - to live humbly, not in excess.
I wonder if I have the faith that it would take to climb aboard a caravel and sail for 3 months. To build my own house in the wilderness. To leave the city and country I had lived in and head off to this strange new land that nobody really understood (without a cell phone). I wonder if I have the discipline enough to charge my goods for only as much as I need to get by. What great faith those pilgrims had.
It makes me wonder how our nation got from a City on a Hill to what it is today. Only 40 years into it (40 years is considered a generation, btw), and we were already screwing up - but we fixed it. Other community members came along, took care of us, pointed out our errors, and set us on another path. Somewhere along the lines though, we stopped doing that. The community fell apart. Instead of living 3 feet away from your neighbor, we started getting bigger houses, bigger crops, and soon we were living 3 miles from our nearest neighbor. We stopped caring as much - we all wanted to do our own thing. It takes a lot of effort to refine a person. Sanctification is a lifelong, grueling process. Sometimes, it's just easier to look away than to clean the wound and put on a band-aid.
Today in English, we did an activity where we had different values (faith / religion, family, close friends, good healthy, beauty, wealth, etc) and we ranked them from most important to least important. There were various signs around the room with the different values on them. When the teacher called out a number, we would go to the corresponding value that we had put down, and then open up in discussion about why we picked what.
I saw some real life in people that had never come out before. I saw the class clown come out and say that one of his best friends had died in her sleep during the summmer and another girl say that her father had died during her freshman year. I can't imagine the pain that they went through, and how I went alongside these students for three years without knowing. I heard kids open up about their ideas on God, some of them breaking my heart. It was a reminder that I am still in a mission field, whether I realize it or not. I may not come to school on a boat, but I still need to be a beacon to the world.
It kind of felt like I was back in my youth group. That made me wonder why I felt that way. I guess it's because these were people trying to be real with each other and let their guard down; to just take off the mask for a few minutes. There were several awkward moments for a lot of us, especially the first few people to speak. None of us were really sure how we would all be perceived. As I was walking to lunch after that class, I realized that the reason I feel so comfortable around the kids from youth is because we're open. You go to a totally new step in your relationship when you're honest and real and people get to see the whole person. It shows trust, love, and caring about one another. The very thing Winthrop settled his colony on. It makes... a community. The very thing God created the earth based on. It's interesting how everything keeps coming back to this idea... community.
Monday, September 7, 2009
I don't want you to do this.
The past few weeks have proven to wreck emotional havoc on me. For some reason, I thought all the drama would end with the divorce. It didn't. It's still going on full swing. Dani 32169 is continuing into another season with raving reviews. I'm trying to distract myself. I'm trying to get out of the house as much as possible, and dive into my school work when I have to be here.
I don't want to move in with the father's girlfriend. Not even a little bit. I'm kicking and screaming the whole way there. As selfish as it sounds, I don't want to live in a house with 4 nonbelievers. I don't want to put up a fight 4 against 1. I don't want to constantly live in my mission field. I want to have a chance to go home... to refuel... to study instead of be tested. I know God probably wants to use me there, but I don't want to go... my heart breaks at the thought of this change - of a new house, another woman, a new "sister". I'm trying to stay positive... but I so badly don't want to do this again.
I can leave. I have the opportunity to. But the question that eats at me is "are you seriously going to give up the opportunity to reach an 8 year old girl who has never heard before, without even giving it a try?" So I guess I'm going there, at least for a little bit. I'll stay there for a couple of months and try to tough it out. I think of Paul and of his bravery, his determination, and his unyielding faith, and am given a shard of hope.
I got a chance to spend the day with the two people who have been with me through this entire crazy thing, who have never given up on me. One of them said something like "I'm proud of you, though. This is good that you can see that it's wrong and you understand why it's wrong. You don't want it to happen because it hurts you, and neither does God - and it hurts him a whole lot more. But he's saying 'I don't want you to do this because it's going to hurt you, but I'm not going to stop you, even though it hurts me.'"
So until I get a new plan for living arrangements, I'll be taking a deep breath and spending as much time away from the house as possible.
I don't want to move in with the father's girlfriend. Not even a little bit. I'm kicking and screaming the whole way there. As selfish as it sounds, I don't want to live in a house with 4 nonbelievers. I don't want to put up a fight 4 against 1. I don't want to constantly live in my mission field. I want to have a chance to go home... to refuel... to study instead of be tested. I know God probably wants to use me there, but I don't want to go... my heart breaks at the thought of this change - of a new house, another woman, a new "sister". I'm trying to stay positive... but I so badly don't want to do this again.
I can leave. I have the opportunity to. But the question that eats at me is "are you seriously going to give up the opportunity to reach an 8 year old girl who has never heard before, without even giving it a try?" So I guess I'm going there, at least for a little bit. I'll stay there for a couple of months and try to tough it out. I think of Paul and of his bravery, his determination, and his unyielding faith, and am given a shard of hope.
I got a chance to spend the day with the two people who have been with me through this entire crazy thing, who have never given up on me. One of them said something like "I'm proud of you, though. This is good that you can see that it's wrong and you understand why it's wrong. You don't want it to happen because it hurts you, and neither does God - and it hurts him a whole lot more. But he's saying 'I don't want you to do this because it's going to hurt you, but I'm not going to stop you, even though it hurts me.'"
So until I get a new plan for living arrangements, I'll be taking a deep breath and spending as much time away from the house as possible.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The lights are on... is anybody home?
I think there's something a lot of us do, whether is conscious or subconscious, and that's to try to figure out what others believe, as far as religion goes. I tend to do that at the beginning of the school year with new teachers. Within the first week or two, I tend to have a generally good idea with some, others my perception changes throughout the year, and some I guess I'll never know.
I just came home from my English teacher's house after an evening of babysitting. She, her husband, and I sat on the couch and talked about the public education taboo - religion. I've learned that her family is very religious, and that seems to be a comfort to me. There's something about school that makes me think that religion cannot be anywhere near it - probably the way I've been conditioned. Now that doesn't mean I don't try to incorperate it.
I went to a God First Always meeting today with a friend during lunch. It was the first time I had ever heard a group prayer on a school campus. To me, it was very strange. Sure, I've prayed during school (often... I got REAL close to God in chemistry...), but I think there's something in a lot of Christian students that makes us turn off our lights before we even step in the door. There's a fear in us that makes us unsure of how to approach people who we don't understand their beliefs, like a class full of students. Maybe that's why there's some sort of nature in us that makes us evaluate people before we really dive into religious discussions, or sometimes even comments. We have a constant fear of offending people, of being confronted and not knowing how to respond.
We're not too bad at being religious before 7am and after 3pm Monday through Friday. A lot of us read our bibles before bed a few days a week. We're pretty good about praying during the day. Our devotionals are half done. We have an unblemished church attendence record. We hang out with each other and support each other. But Charles Francis Potter did a good job of fulfilling his goal of making sure we are all forced to spend most of our waking hours in a humanistic environment.
I try to share God as much as I can during school, and home, or wherever I am, whether it's passively or directly. For me at least, it's almost easier to do this when I'm in my "youth group" setting in town. It's a total security blanket to have those kids and leaders around me, supporting me. They're trying to accomplish the same goals I am, and we're teaching each other every day how to run this race. So when I'm taken out of that setting, by either being placed at home or at school, it becomes ten times harder. It's kinda like actually taking the test. You've studied. You've gone to review sessions. The teacher's held your hand through the lecture and some of the assignments. But when the training wheels are taken off and it's all you, you finally start to realize just how hard the material is - especically if you haven't had mnuch practice. Except this time it's not the difference between an A and a B, it's life and death.
Maybe part of the problem is that because we all share this same awkwardness; we never truly figure out who our brothers and sisters are. Our lights may be on, but there's a big lamp shade covering them. I wonder how our campuses would look today if all the Christians knew about each other. I wonder how we would step up to create an army of God.
So my goal for tomorrow is to make a whole-hearted comment about God to somebody who I'm not so sure about their faith, or who I know isn't a believer.
I just came home from my English teacher's house after an evening of babysitting. She, her husband, and I sat on the couch and talked about the public education taboo - religion. I've learned that her family is very religious, and that seems to be a comfort to me. There's something about school that makes me think that religion cannot be anywhere near it - probably the way I've been conditioned. Now that doesn't mean I don't try to incorperate it.
I went to a God First Always meeting today with a friend during lunch. It was the first time I had ever heard a group prayer on a school campus. To me, it was very strange. Sure, I've prayed during school (often... I got REAL close to God in chemistry...), but I think there's something in a lot of Christian students that makes us turn off our lights before we even step in the door. There's a fear in us that makes us unsure of how to approach people who we don't understand their beliefs, like a class full of students. Maybe that's why there's some sort of nature in us that makes us evaluate people before we really dive into religious discussions, or sometimes even comments. We have a constant fear of offending people, of being confronted and not knowing how to respond.
We're not too bad at being religious before 7am and after 3pm Monday through Friday. A lot of us read our bibles before bed a few days a week. We're pretty good about praying during the day. Our devotionals are half done. We have an unblemished church attendence record. We hang out with each other and support each other. But Charles Francis Potter did a good job of fulfilling his goal of making sure we are all forced to spend most of our waking hours in a humanistic environment.
I try to share God as much as I can during school, and home, or wherever I am, whether it's passively or directly. For me at least, it's almost easier to do this when I'm in my "youth group" setting in town. It's a total security blanket to have those kids and leaders around me, supporting me. They're trying to accomplish the same goals I am, and we're teaching each other every day how to run this race. So when I'm taken out of that setting, by either being placed at home or at school, it becomes ten times harder. It's kinda like actually taking the test. You've studied. You've gone to review sessions. The teacher's held your hand through the lecture and some of the assignments. But when the training wheels are taken off and it's all you, you finally start to realize just how hard the material is - especically if you haven't had mnuch practice. Except this time it's not the difference between an A and a B, it's life and death.
Maybe part of the problem is that because we all share this same awkwardness; we never truly figure out who our brothers and sisters are. Our lights may be on, but there's a big lamp shade covering them. I wonder how our campuses would look today if all the Christians knew about each other. I wonder how we would step up to create an army of God.
So my goal for tomorrow is to make a whole-hearted comment about God to somebody who I'm not so sure about their faith, or who I know isn't a believer.
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