Search results matching tags 'life' and 'religion'

Children

Anonymous — Fri, 20 May 2011 23:00:00 GMT

This is going to be a serious post, so if you're looking for a laugh just click "education" over there on the right.

I will be 33 this summer and I have no children. Sometimes this makes me very, very sad.

When I was younger my mom told me a story. When my mom found out her mother was 29 when she had her first child, my mom said to herself, "There is no way I am going to be 29 when I have my first child." And she was right- she was 30 when she had me.

The moral of the story is never to tell God how he should direct your life. Still, when my mother told me this story I thought to myself, "Well, I'm different. I am definitely not going to be 30 when I have my first child." And again... I was right.

I refuse to tell my future children that story. And I sit and cringe when I hear my students planning out their lives. "I'll get married around 25 and start having kids at 27..." Yeah, I thought so, too. Life is rarely what you plan, kids.

My life is definitely not what I planned. I never thought I would be single, with no children, living in an apartment at 32. But I also never thought I would be a teacher who absolutely loves her job. I never thought I would have been a missionary to Slovakia of all places. I never thought I would get to travel throughout Europe and have so many international friends. I never thought God would bring me closer to him not by obeying rules or attending church but by relying on him in times of extreme pain, illness, and heartache. But he has. God has been faithful and has brought me through my life thus far.

So with that, I will trust that God has a plan for me. I will remember this every time another friend gets pregnant or has a child. God has a plan for me.

Unprocrastination day

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 17:24:00 GMT

Today is my unprocrastination day. It is the day where I will attempt to accomplish all those things I have procrastinated doing over the EIGHT other days of spring break. Blogging was not in the day, but I refuse to call blogging procrastinating. My lunch is cooking, so this is multi-tasking. :)

The idea of unprocrastination day came from the April issue of Real Simple, my most favorite magazine in the entire universe. The bf got me a subscription for Christmas because he loves me and listens to me... when I complain about not getting the magazine from my secret santa at work when I SPECIFICALLY wrote it on the sheet and underlined it. Twice. But I digress.

Anyway, I have scheduled my entire day. And while the list of tasks I have seems daunting (at least to me), when looking it over I realized all these tasks mean I am immensely blessed.

Going to church means I live in a country where I am free to worship the god I choose.

Washing dishes means I have food to eat.

Having an electric diswasher wash them for me is just ridiculous.

Washing multiple loads of laundry means I have plenty of clothes to wear.

Researching for my graduate paper means I have an education.

Grading papers and writing lesson plans means I have a job.

Paying rent and putting in a service request means I have a place to live and people to help me keep up my home.

Taking out the disgusting, smelly cat litter means I have two animals who I love and sometimes love me back.

It also means I have the money to take care of two animals.

Painting a portrait of a dog means that people think I am talented enough... to pay me to paint their dog.

Preparing a print of one of my latest works means someone wants to own my art.

My to-do list means I'm blessed.

Resolution 2011: Do Less

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:15:00 GMT

I've been gone a while but now I am back. Hello again.

The sermon today (like many days) particularly hit home. Our pastor challenged us to do less. The three specific challenges were 1) Worry less, 2) Stop trying to please God, and 3) Do less. Number two may sound confusing, but when we break it down... God sees Christ when he looks at us. He doesn't love us more when we do good deeds, just like he doesn't love us less when we sin. Our good works do not get us into Heaven, and our sins do not send us to ***.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (New International Version)
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Or...

Ephesians 2:8-9 (The Message)
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

The reason the "do less" sermon impacts me is because I am not comfortable being still. I become anxious when I am not busy. I think I fill my life with activity to keep my mind "busy" and not worry. A therapist once reminded me that we are human beings, not human "doings."

All this "busyness" is not healthy. It has brought me worry and pain. I have neglected family and friends because of it. I am spread so thin that I cannot do anything to the best of my ability. I often think of the art I could create if I committed to painting full-time. I have made the comment that I would be a better teacher if I wasn't in graduate school... to become a better teacher! It doesn't make sense.

2 Thessalonians 3:11 (New American Standard Bible)
For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.

So this year, instead of tacking on more, I am doing less.

Less worry
Less judgment
Less procrastination
Less alcohol
Less commitments (this is going to be tough)
Less TV
Less iPhone games
Less Facebook
Less high-sugar food
Less high-fat, high-cholesterol food
Less cussing
Less negativity
Less gossip
Less "busybody."

On balance

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 11:08:00 GMT

Theology alert--feel free to jump in....
This was inspired by Father Sean and Brother John and the Reverend Scott.

Balance.

We need balance in our lives. Overwhelmed? Seek balance.

An innocuous philosophy--who could possibly be against balance?

A madman in the back wildy waves hand--and (again) I get sent out of the classroom.

***

The light is failing. Local carbon dioxide levels will rise until late May now, when resurrected plants start reconstructing the molecules back into something we can use again next winter. CO₂ and H₂O, carefully bonded back together into strawberries in June, peaches in July, corn in August, wheat in the September...little left now but the kale and the Brussels sprouts.

Breathe on your hand--you can feel the moisture, the breeze of molecules brushing your hand.

If God can be found, She will be found in the chloroplast, Her heart made of rubisco, the enzyme that puts us together, the most common protein in our known universe. She carefully holds a tiny molecule of carbon dioxide, three atoms of nothing, and glues them to life.

Heart of God?

She takes her life, her energy from the sun. Three times a second, another molecule of CO2 pressed together to a molecule of life, over and over and over again.

Rubisco is everywhere, in every green leaf, and as the leaves of summer fade into fall's glory, She leaves us. We start to drown in our own CO2, waiting for Her return, as She has, as She will. (That's called faith.)

***

You cannot balance a lifetime. You can dance, jump for joy, cringe in fear, curl up, scream, love or hate. There is no balance for love, for fear.

A well lived life is not one where you've balanced your fears with your joys, your love with your hate.

A "well lived" life makes no sense. You cannot "lived"--you can only live, now, this moment. Either the amygdala or the cortex rules a moment. We pretend we can string together moments, we hold on to memories, to words, to pictures, to myths of eternity, and we miss the obvious.

The here and now.

And we wonder why it's hard to teach children in a classroom....

***

A couple of soldier flies erupted from our class terrarium last week. Unexpected. Large critters crawled out of the thin litter layering the glass bottom. The yellow bar splashed on their legs with their waspish wings and fluttering antennae screamed danger. My cortex knows they're harmless, my amygdala makes my fingers stutter when I pick one up.

The last few days a half dozen more came from the same dirt.

When I opened the top to feed my sowbugs yesterday, two flew out and headed for the window. They only live a day or two as adults, and they had been trapped for hours in the terrarium. They flew fiercely, full of desire, and crashed right into the glass.

Instinct, true. Fixed action patterns with proximate and ultimate causes. Memorize this, children, pay $87, and earn your AP Biology credit.

We never speak of desire in other creatures. Of wants. Of needs.

The soldier fly carcasses will sit on the sill until my students return on Monday. I will ask them how they got there. Then I will ask why.

We all need what rubisco gets us--we all feel desire. It's why we burn our energy even though we know December's coming.

***

וייצר יהוה אלהים את האדם עפר מן האדמה ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים ויהי האדם לנפש חיה׃

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living soul.

We think we're sophisticated and learned and (the worst conceit of the three) immortal. We gorge on the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and forget that we are closer to the soldier flies than we are to rubisco.

I do not know who wrote the Hebew Bible, and I do not know which of the 47 men chosen by King James translated Genesis 2:7, but there's been a huge misinterpretation of "soul" in the last few hundred years.

The soul, at least according to the Words allegedly governing the actions of the dangerously powerful here in the States, is not separate from the dirt. Our "stuff," the polymers of proteins, our layers of lipids, our DNA, our essence, is our soul.

We are mortal and finite. We are living souls, dependent on rubisco, dependent on unimaginable events in the heart of the sun, hydrogen to fusion, mass to light.

You want your children ready for the world of humans, raise them under artifical light. Keep them planted in front of monitors. Feed them impossibly perfect fruit. Keep them shod. Pump them full of music made by machines. Surround them with images of the "perfect" human, and demand they become one.

Don't talk to me about balance.

We are training our children to avoid the window pane, to stay safe, to gaze at the world outside, to create stronger panes. We don't want to see them hurt. We cannot imagine their last agonal breaths.

Me? I want my children to crash into the glass, and if they're bloodied lying on the sill, to get up and crash into it again. Again and again and again.

3 billion years of desire got us to here; a few hundred years of playing God has reduced us chasing photons on screens, practicing religion disconnected from the wiser elders who wrote texts we refuse to read, to believing we are in control.

I may be unhinged, but I am not as unbalanced as anyone who believes in balance.

The sun that sustains me has been dropping lower into the sky day by day, the plants that feed me have lost their leaves, the bees I adore have gone. I am a man of science, I have a good idea why this is so.

I am also a man of faith--faith that the sunlight will return, and that rubisco will return with it come spring.

Photos are mine and Leslie's.
The rubisco model is from Wikipedia, and is in the public domain.

Sparrows

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:04:00 GMT

So I have this fun little anxiety disorder. Actually, it's not fun at all. And at times it is not little, either. This week is one of those times.

Earlier tonight I was talking with my boyfriend and explaining that there are actually many Bible verses about anxiety. I was explaining that God knows every hair on our heads and that he cares for the birds and the flowers, so of course he will care for us. I couldn't remember the exact verses verbatim, but I told him about how I shouldn't worry about anything - what I am going to wear or what I am going to eat the next day. I told him God takes care of the sparrows.

Then he said maybe God sent me the sparrows to eat.

Your father knows what you need before you ask him. So do not worry, saying 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today's trouble is enough for today. (Matthew 6:8b, 31-34)

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Luke 12:6-7)

Terrified

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:50:00 GMT

Get ready for a very honest post.

I said something out loud a few days ago that stopped me in my tracks. I have always known it, but I have never said it out loud.

Sometimes I don't do what I want to do because I am terrified of what my Christian friends' reaction will be.

While to some this may sound wise, to others (or most) it sounds superficial. We live in a world that tells us not to care what others think, to be true to "yourself,"and to do what makes you happy. But as Christians we are taught to seek Christian counsel, be true to God, and do what makes God happy. Sometimes as a Christian doing what makes God happy doesn't make you happy at all... but you know it's right.

Then there are the gray areas; the areas where you aren't sure of God's will, or when your friends disagree with your interpretation. This is when I get terrified because, in all honesty, I think some of my friends are "better" than me... or "better Christians" than me.

Yep, I said it. Let's stop this down.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A "BETTER" PERSON OR A "BETTER CHRISTIAN!" We are all sinners, and God loves us all the same no matter what. So to compare myself to others is just ridiculous. Yet I do it all the time.

With that said, I love and respect my friends very much. And I value my Christian friends' advice. They are called to hold me accountable - to remind me of God's Word - or if necessary, to tell me when they think I am making a mistake. This is what crushes me, because I never want to disappoint them. I want to make everyone happy all the time...

I think you can see where this is going. I am focusing on people instead of the Lord!

At the end of my life it's only going to be me and God. The same rule applies for every decision I make... my choices are between me and God and no. one. else. Like Sara Groves sings, "When I stand before the Lord I'll be standing alone. This journey is my own. Still, I want man's advice, and I need man's approval. But this journey is my own."

Christians, listen to your friends. But listen to your heart as well. Jesus is in there. :)

Bloomfield's sidewalk astronomers catch a galaxy

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:33:00 GMT

I advise the Bloomfield High School Astronomy Club--we are sidewalk warriors, fighting the glare of streetlights, security beacons, and gaudy church steeples. A few times each night flashing emergency lights roar past us a few feet away.

We live under 3 runway lengths from Newark Liberty International Airport. (To be fair, runway 4L/22R is about two miles long.) One of our games is called "catch the plane"--students attempt to get the plane in the telescope's field of view, not as easy as it sounds when you're just a few miles from the airport.

I get a handful of kids every clear Tuesday night, chasing Jupiter and the few stars we can see naked eye. Even with the light pollution, though, a peek through an 8" scope changes their view of their universe.

We finally caught the Andromeda Galaxy a few days ago, using an 8" telescope on a manual mount. We have a computerized mount somewhere, but I keep pretending I don't know how to use it. The budding astronomers are getting to know the sky the old-fashioned way, which is to say, they are getting to know the sky.

***

I've been covering cell energetics the past few weeks. How does life get its energy, its "stuff"? I have a time-line in the classroom, a meter for ever billion years.

(OK, the time-line stops at 4.5 billion years ago, just short of Earth's birthday, but I've swept along the imaginary portion of the time-line so many times I'd bet you'd get a dozen kids to testify times that we have a time-line that goes back 14 billion years or so. I really need to get another roll of paper.)

I start at the beginning. I call it our creation story, and it is a story. It has a name--Big Bang model. I'm careful not to call it a theory.

How do we know, Dr. D?

Well, we know this much. The visible galaxies around us keep going farther and farther away. Where will they be next week?

Farther.... (It's amazing to hear kids roll their eyes with their voices)

Where were they last week?

Well, doh, closer

Last year?
A thousand years ago?
A billion years ago?

And they get it, at least they get the impetus for the model. It's our creation story.

I speak carefully, but the words are the right ones--it is a creation story. It's a model. It's a good one, but by acknowledging that we cannot know as a fact (apparently the gold standard in sophomore debate) the origins of our universe keeps their own creation myths safe.

For most of my students, Genesis is the myth they believe in, but most of them could tell you as much about Genesis as they could the Big Bang model. I've taught both, but never in the same place. They're both useful stories. They're both human stories.

Neither explains why an apple tastes so good.

***

The Andromeda galaxy is the only object beyond our galaxy we can see naked eye.

First time I saw it without glass was a week before Hallowe'en, many years ago, right after we took our two youngsters on a haunted hay ride in the Jersey skylands. It hung out there even beyond the stars, a puff of fine mist hovering beyond my known universe.

You will not see Andromeda without a scope in Bloomfield.

When we did find it, we saw an oval smudge. I worried that the kids may feel let down, and started to pontificate about how long it took the light to go from that smudge to our eyes.

I should have stayed quiet--they thought it was cool. They kept going back to look at it.

Besides, turns out I couldn't remember exactly how far the galaxy is--I thought it was a bit over 3 million light years away, but the experts changed their minds and calculated it to be "only" 2.5 million light years away.

And that's the point.

My grandfather was in his late 20's before Edwin Hubble convinced other astronomers that these blobs of stars lay outside our own galaxy. That wasn't so long ago.

And it's hubris to think any of us can know the difference between 2.5 and 3.2 million light years.

***

Cosmology rests on light. Cosmologists study light in its various forms, but unlike biologists, have no need for their noses, for their skin. Cosmologists work with the intangible.

Our modern creation story has been written by a very few men with very big brains who trust their eyes more than their tongues. It is thus written.

The Big Bang model, like Genesis, is ultimately incomprehensible. It's important that my kids know this, at least about the cosmological models. I leave Genesis to their parents.

Once science becomes known "as a fact", once it becomes frozen in mythology, it becomes useless.

Even worse, it becomes boring.

This Kingdom's Comin'

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:06:00 GMT

Recently I was in relationship with an amazing man... but we had to end it. We had to self-impose a separation solely because of our different religious beliefs.

Anger filled my heart. Doubt flooded my soul. Yet somehow I've found the strength to stop - to bless instead of curse. And now I am opening up my heart... I'm finding a way to trust.

When anger fills your heart
When in your pain and hurt
You find the strength to stop
You bless instead of curse

When doubting floods your soul
Though all things feel unjust
You open up your heart
You find a way to trust

That's a little stone that's a little mortar
That's a little seed that's a little water
In the hearts of the sons and the daughters
This Kingdom's comin'

When fear engulfs your mind
Says you protect your own
You still extend your hand
You open up your home

When sorrow fills your life
When in your grief and pain
You choose again to rise
You choose to bless the Name

That's a little stone that's a little mortar
That's a little seed that's a little water
In the hearts of the sons and the daughters
This Kingdom's comin'

In the mundane tasks of living
In your pouring out and giving
In your waking up and trying
In your layin' down and dying

That's a little stone that's a little mortar
That's a little seed that's a little water
In the hearts of the sons and the daughters
This Kingdom's comin'!

Proof (to me) that God Exists

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Hi.

I need to say "hello" because I haven't seen most of you in a month, literally. Sure, I have posted a couple of times, but ask my best friends when they last heard from me and you'll probably get, "2008," or, "Carolyn who?" Or better yet, "She's dead to me."

Sorry, kids.

Here's what happened. I took a freelance graphic design job that was supposed to be completed over the holiday break; a nice little filler for those two weeks when I wouldn't be subbing. At first the schedule looked promising... and then I was sick in bed for a week.

And then subbing began again.

And then I started dating a man... who lives 200 miles away.

And then I added those 9 little graduate hours.

All this, and I still had the graphic design job, requiring me to come into an office (NO!), work at a desk (NO!!), and attend meetings (NO!!!). The job that was to be done by January 19 was completed yesterday at 4pm, just in time to make the last FedEx truck to Florida. How's that for pushing a deadline? Yeah, I'm ridiculous.

The thing is, I really didn't procrastinate THAT badly. And surprisingly enough, finding new love, subbing occasionally, and studying Vigée-LeBrun didn't have much of an impact on my ability to get the work done. VASTLY underestimating the scope of the job and the hours needed to complete the task impacted getting it done... so much that I didn't go to bed 2 out of the last 5 nights.

But it's done. And this is where God comes in. (Not like He was missing before.)

Because of my VAST underestimation of the job requirements, my initial quote was VASTLY insufficient for the amount/quality of work I provided. Still, you can't exactly go in and demand to be paid much more than your quote. Your quote is your quote, and it's pretty firm. At least it should be to maintain a reputation as a designer whose fees are fair.

Now let's skip back to the aforementioned graduate hours. Classes started on January 20. It's two weeks later and I still have not been contacted about financial aid. I have called, and the response is that they are still processing my request. I only have until tomorrow to decide whether I take a leap of faith and continue my classes, or if I drop 6 hours because because I only have the money for 3.

For the first time in my life, my parents can't help. They don't have the money; I don't have the money.

Well, yesterday at 3:50pm - 10 mins before deadline when I am still pleading with the Xacto for a few of more trims - my client stops me, hands me a post-it, and says this:

"When you are finished I am going to need an invoice for this amount. Make sure you put this exact amount in, because I have already turned in the PO and the numbers need to match."

I looked down and almost had a seizure. A good one, if there is such a thing.

There, on that post-it, was a number $1400 more than what I requested- enough to cover all but $240.50 of my tuition. With this money (plus the $650.00 emergency loan I have already been awarded) my graduate school is paid in full! There, on that post-it, was God. :)

I understand. Some people won't see it. But this is so much more than "someone up there looking out for me." This is God, my Lord and Savior, taking care of me; providing. I love Him, and I am forever grateful.

Back to school... back to school...

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:09:00 GMT

As of now I am enrolled in 9 graduate hours at Texas Woman's University in pursuit of my Masters in Art Education. I use the term "as of now" because TWU has yet to process my financial aid application (classes started 4 days ago), and if I don't get aid, well, I don't get to continue. It's that simple.

Still, I'm trying not to think of that and am trucking along... subbing, freelance designing, and studying. Where does sleep fit into that equation? Well, new boyfriend > sleep. So, it doesn't.

Here is my first assignment in Art 5333: Individual Differences. ([sic]/grammar alert. I almost had a seizure reading this.)

"Now let us look at your first assignment: your 300 word assignment needs to be introspective, about yourself, your differences. For instance, when driving I do not follow maps well, I am very visual so I use points of reference, a yellow house with red shutters on the corner is where I turn left, the field with the barn that needs paint is where I go straight. Another difference about me, it is easier for me to write my thoughts and concerns, when I am upset or angry, in order to communicate my ideas and thoughts effectively rather than speak. Your assignment is more about you being introspective about your differences, than your ideas or thoughts about special education. The focus is you and the wonderfully, created, special person you are."

Here's my go. It sounds more like a blog post than anything "introspective." Oops.

We’re all different. And since we’re all different, doesn’t that mean we all have something in common?

One of my first classroom memories invokes some anxiety about being different. I’m not sure what my first grade teacher was trying to reinforce – colors, maybe – but I remember she was calling us one by one to announce our hair and eye colors. Before my turn I heard, “Brown hair, brown eyes,” then, “Blonde hair, blue eyes.” When I said, “Blonde Hair, brown eyes,” my teacher corrected me.

“You mean blue, Carolyn.”
“No. I have brown eyes.”
“Oh, usually blonde girls have blue eyes.”
Really?

A year ago I once again mentioned my brown eye color only to be corrected by my boyfriend at the time. I have hazel eyes, and it disturbs me that I didn’t even notice they changed.

Like Jesus, I tell stories. Unlike Jesus' stories, they don’t always have a point.

I do believe, like Robin explained in her instructions, that I am a “wonderfully-created, special person.” I learned this at an early age in my paternal grandfather’s Primitive Baptist Blue Mound, Texas church. Growing up in a church doesn’t make me any different than the millions of other Christians around the world, but I doubt many had an experience like mine. Blue Mound Baptist had under 30 members, and we met in a small, one-room building. We called each other “Brother” and “Sister” and chose the hymns to sing each Sunday by yelling out their page numbers. There was no organ or piano, so I learned to read music by singing a cappella aside Brother and Sister Nelson.

Still, even with that experience, I have always been a member of the Lutheran church. My dad even became Lutheran. Traitor?

I’m “different” in other ways. My front tooth is fake. I’m ridiculously outgoing, yet suffer from an anxiety disorder. I can fit a six inch pickle in my mouth sideways. But when it comes down to it, I am more interested in finding out what I have in common with my fellow man than how we are different. There’s enough to separate us in this world without going to look for it, don’t you think?

So, what do you think?