Life and wedding planning are coming along well. Apparently I will be Mrs. Fox in 61 days - that is a little daunting but exciting.
We have been trying to find a place to live. We found one we both like but we have a few places left to check out before we commit officially. Life feels weird, transitions are like that I suppose.
I haven't been reading as much as I would like, but here are my recent completions
Feb 17 - Crazy Love by Francis Chan
It was a phenomenal book. I would recommend it unflinchingly because he addresses issues where we are not living as the church ought, but he does it from a place of love. Loving the church and the reader - not just pointing to specks.
Feb 26- Ish by Peter Reynolds
It doesn't really count toward my goal of reading 3 books a month since it is a kids book (in the way curious gorge is not in the way that Narnia is) but it is also wonderful. It is basically about a boy giving himself the freedom to create. I want to own this someday - and read it often.
Mar 10 - Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
My first reaction is merely to sigh. Jane Austen somehow manages to run the entirety of my emotions through a ringer - even though there is never a moment where you can doubt the ultimate happiness of her main characters. The circumstances are not suspenseful, no one's life is ever in any real jeopardy and yet there were moments were I could not read more than a page or two without having to stop in utter consternation and overflowing emotion (of course I found myself at those pages while in the company of my fiancee and his 18 year old brother and they were not sympathetic to my plight) . Personally I think Jane Austen is brilliant beyond reason. You don't have to agree with me, but I love her.
Keeping up with my photoblog has been going pretty well (largely because I discovered the joy of scheduled posts, which are perfect for people who don't necessarily get online daily) - I am rediscovering how much beauty the world holds and that is lovely. I am even entering a piece from the beginning of the year in a juried show in Anderson - so we shall see how that goes.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Two goals
I have made it my goal to update my photoblog daily (and the others at least monthly - but I have said that before). It is my way of pretending I am using my degree.
I have also made it my goal to read at least three books a month since graduation. I haven't precisely succeeded so far but I have read
Dec 16 - Porn Nation by Michael Leahy
An interesting read where one man discusses how he progressed from porn to sexual addiction and the havoc that played on his life.
Dec 24 - An Acceptable Time by Madeline L'Engle
It was a good bit of fiction. L'Engle has interesting ways of playing with time and seems to have an awkward relationship with the idea of the noble savage because on the one hand she refutes it, then tries to create the one exception to it with the People of the Wind. A general trend I have seen in her fiction is that she seems torn between ideas that don't seem (at least to me) to fully play out together, but they are still great stories.
Jan 5 - The Four Loves by CS Lewis
Of course I loved it. As the title suggests it is a look at the different ways we love, where those loves come from and how they affect us. It raised good questions and answered unspoken anxieties. I like Lewis so it is no surprise that I liked it.
Jan 22 - Confessions of the Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
I LOVED IT SO MUCH! Oh malanta, I personally think he is a genius in the way he crafts a shockingly convincing and realistic back story to one of the most well known and re-fitted fairy tales. It was phenomenal, set in Holland among painters during tulip mania. I really can't stop geeking out about it, I plan to re-read it soon. Although maybe I should just watch the movie '-P
Feb 4 - The Voice of Matthew by Laura Winner
Winner translates/paraphrases the gospel of Matthew (the gospel written for Jews) from her perspective as a Messianic Jew as part of the voice project (which recognizes that the bible is filled with books written by different people and is trying to translate the books in a way that allows that individuality to remain). It was good to just sit and let the story of Jesus soak in with new language and thinking about nuances I hadn't previously.
Feb 8 - His Needs, Her Needs by Willard Harely Jr.
This is the book Chris and I were given for premarital counseling. I gulped it down in part because I didn't like it at all in the beginning. I am still not sure that I like it, but I think it will be a good place to begin discussions and it surely brings up some of the awkward and/or unpleasant things that Chris and I might not have gotten around to talking about on our own (which is kind of the point of premarital counseling).
Right now I am reading "Batman and Philosophy" and Francis Chan's "Crazy Love" and I am loving them both ....
I have also made it my goal to read at least three books a month since graduation. I haven't precisely succeeded so far but I have read
Dec 16 - Porn Nation by Michael Leahy
An interesting read where one man discusses how he progressed from porn to sexual addiction and the havoc that played on his life.
Dec 24 - An Acceptable Time by Madeline L'Engle
It was a good bit of fiction. L'Engle has interesting ways of playing with time and seems to have an awkward relationship with the idea of the noble savage because on the one hand she refutes it, then tries to create the one exception to it with the People of the Wind. A general trend I have seen in her fiction is that she seems torn between ideas that don't seem (at least to me) to fully play out together, but they are still great stories.
Jan 5 - The Four Loves by CS Lewis
Of course I loved it. As the title suggests it is a look at the different ways we love, where those loves come from and how they affect us. It raised good questions and answered unspoken anxieties. I like Lewis so it is no surprise that I liked it.
Jan 22 - Confessions of the Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
I LOVED IT SO MUCH! Oh malanta, I personally think he is a genius in the way he crafts a shockingly convincing and realistic back story to one of the most well known and re-fitted fairy tales. It was phenomenal, set in Holland among painters during tulip mania. I really can't stop geeking out about it, I plan to re-read it soon. Although maybe I should just watch the movie '-P
Feb 4 - The Voice of Matthew by Laura Winner
Winner translates/paraphrases the gospel of Matthew (the gospel written for Jews) from her perspective as a Messianic Jew as part of the voice project (which recognizes that the bible is filled with books written by different people and is trying to translate the books in a way that allows that individuality to remain). It was good to just sit and let the story of Jesus soak in with new language and thinking about nuances I hadn't previously.
Feb 8 - His Needs, Her Needs by Willard Harely Jr.
This is the book Chris and I were given for premarital counseling. I gulped it down in part because I didn't like it at all in the beginning. I am still not sure that I like it, but I think it will be a good place to begin discussions and it surely brings up some of the awkward and/or unpleasant things that Chris and I might not have gotten around to talking about on our own (which is kind of the point of premarital counseling).
Right now I am reading "Batman and Philosophy" and Francis Chan's "Crazy Love" and I am loving them both ....
Friday, January 23, 2009
Commands - not suggestions
I think we like to soften Jesus. We like to take his commands and make them optional, turn his "when you" statements to "if you"
But Jesus doesn't say if you pray, if you fast, if you give to the needy. Those things aren't optional, he just clarifies how to do them well. (see Matthew 6)
But Jesus doesn't say if you pray, if you fast, if you give to the needy. Those things aren't optional, he just clarifies how to do them well. (see Matthew 6)
Saturday, January 10, 2009
juststopandthink.com
"Right now you and I are standing on a giant ball that's spinning at a thousand miles an hour. Am I the only one who thinks this is weird? The fact that we're flying around this ball of fire that is about a million times our size. We're flying around this thing at 67,000 miles an hour, and we go, eh its just another day." Francis Chan
Monday, January 5, 2009
A New Year ...
It is a new year. Newer still because I have graduated with my bachlors in art - perhaps an unimpressive degree but it marks a transition in life none the less.
The holidays where good in spite of all of the working and running around. It was good to take a go at compromising on Christmas traditions with Chris, it was very good to have different people in and out of my house all of the time. And even though I kind of resented it sometimes, it was good to be working.
In this transitional time I want to read more and listen more. To take walks for the sake of walking. To be ok with being alone and to actually return phone calls. I want to pursue photography without being bound up by my fears and to trust God with this whole weird engagement thing.
Call them resolutions if you want (although I won't) but I do want to be intentional with my time, especially in a phase of life where it would be very easy to just get by and have nothing to show for these years when the mythical future morphs into the annoyingly unavoidable present.
The holidays where good in spite of all of the working and running around. It was good to take a go at compromising on Christmas traditions with Chris, it was very good to have different people in and out of my house all of the time. And even though I kind of resented it sometimes, it was good to be working.
In this transitional time I want to read more and listen more. To take walks for the sake of walking. To be ok with being alone and to actually return phone calls. I want to pursue photography without being bound up by my fears and to trust God with this whole weird engagement thing.
Call them resolutions if you want (although I won't) but I do want to be intentional with my time, especially in a phase of life where it would be very easy to just get by and have nothing to show for these years when the mythical future morphs into the annoyingly unavoidable present.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
90 to the third with
90 to the third with easy access. 9 to the third with access. 1 to third without any access. This is why it is good to go.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Some thoughts on Mark 5:25-34
“[the woman] had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse” –Mark 5:26 esv
This year our cell groups in Cru are going through the book of Mark and last week we were in Mark 5 (it has been slow and interrupted progress) and as we were talk verse 26 stood out so much.
This is in the introduction to the account of a woman who had “a discharge of blood for twelve years” – in other words she spent 12 years being ritually impure and suffering all of the unpleasant jank of having ones menstrual cycle in a world before sanitary napkins. This is an account that has always evoked a pretty vivid response from me, perhaps because this woman is one of the healings that I can most relate to. Lets be honest I wouldn’t begin to know what it is like to be paralyzed, or blind, or leprous, or possessed by a demon that caused me to throw myself into fire … I have an overactive imagination so I can definitely conjure up what any of those conditions would be like but this is a woman whose condition I have brushed up against in the tiniest way (although I think a good case could be made that I don’t have any more ability to practically empathize with her – it at least feels that I do and for better or worse feelings are a big part of my perceptions)
Verse 26 had never really struck a deep cord before, I had always just considered it to be a way of clarifying that this was no small ailment that any healer could address. While that may be true, I also think this woman is a picture of how we try to deal with jank in our lives. We try to fix it ourselves – or at least I know I do.
I wonder how much extra hurt and hardship we bring upon ourselves because we go to people to fix our problems instead of just taking them to the one who can and desires to heal us and make us whole. Unlike this woman we don’t have to wait for Jesus to walk through our town.
Jesus has completed his walking ministry and now he makes himself touchable to all. It isn’t that God will zap away all of our physical ailments – that just isn’t biblical (turn back to Mark 4:35-37 and observe that it was by obedience to Jesus that the disciples found themselves in the middle of a “great windstorm”) but I think that God desperately desires to heal our hearts, to make us whole, to make us clean and holy.
The other thing I think this interchange teaches us is that, I don’t think God is content to let us be healed in the shadows. Jesus made a point to stop and have the woman come forward, which must have been so hard for her.
First of all she was a woman, whose very condition rendered her “unclean”, if she had a husband he would not have been legally able to touch her in any way for the past 12 years. Yet in spite of being a woman, and being unclean, she reaches out to touch a famous, male teacher without any sort of consent.
Second she had to publicly admit something that would have been so shameful – even now in a much more open society it is awkward and even scandalous to talk about menstruation in mixed company (which might be why a surprisingly high number of people I talked to never realized what sort of bleeding had gone on unabated the 12 years). Add to that the label of unclean and a society that blamed any hardship in your life as punishment from God against your sin and honestly I would have had a lot of trouble saying.
Yet Christ would not have called her out to shame or terrify her, in fact he sends her away with a commendation – so maybe this is an indication of how we should respond to the ways we have experienced the healing only God can give.
It is so awesome how God can reveal new lessons no matter how many times I have seen the same material – I keep realizing that what I understood before were like trees walking while people were actually in front of me …
This year our cell groups in Cru are going through the book of Mark and last week we were in Mark 5 (it has been slow and interrupted progress) and as we were talk verse 26 stood out so much.
This is in the introduction to the account of a woman who had “a discharge of blood for twelve years” – in other words she spent 12 years being ritually impure and suffering all of the unpleasant jank of having ones menstrual cycle in a world before sanitary napkins. This is an account that has always evoked a pretty vivid response from me, perhaps because this woman is one of the healings that I can most relate to. Lets be honest I wouldn’t begin to know what it is like to be paralyzed, or blind, or leprous, or possessed by a demon that caused me to throw myself into fire … I have an overactive imagination so I can definitely conjure up what any of those conditions would be like but this is a woman whose condition I have brushed up against in the tiniest way (although I think a good case could be made that I don’t have any more ability to practically empathize with her – it at least feels that I do and for better or worse feelings are a big part of my perceptions)
Verse 26 had never really struck a deep cord before, I had always just considered it to be a way of clarifying that this was no small ailment that any healer could address. While that may be true, I also think this woman is a picture of how we try to deal with jank in our lives. We try to fix it ourselves – or at least I know I do.
I wonder how much extra hurt and hardship we bring upon ourselves because we go to people to fix our problems instead of just taking them to the one who can and desires to heal us and make us whole. Unlike this woman we don’t have to wait for Jesus to walk through our town.
Jesus has completed his walking ministry and now he makes himself touchable to all. It isn’t that God will zap away all of our physical ailments – that just isn’t biblical (turn back to Mark 4:35-37 and observe that it was by obedience to Jesus that the disciples found themselves in the middle of a “great windstorm”) but I think that God desperately desires to heal our hearts, to make us whole, to make us clean and holy.
The other thing I think this interchange teaches us is that, I don’t think God is content to let us be healed in the shadows. Jesus made a point to stop and have the woman come forward, which must have been so hard for her.
First of all she was a woman, whose very condition rendered her “unclean”, if she had a husband he would not have been legally able to touch her in any way for the past 12 years. Yet in spite of being a woman, and being unclean, she reaches out to touch a famous, male teacher without any sort of consent.
Second she had to publicly admit something that would have been so shameful – even now in a much more open society it is awkward and even scandalous to talk about menstruation in mixed company (which might be why a surprisingly high number of people I talked to never realized what sort of bleeding had gone on unabated the 12 years). Add to that the label of unclean and a society that blamed any hardship in your life as punishment from God against your sin and honestly I would have had a lot of trouble saying.
Yet Christ would not have called her out to shame or terrify her, in fact he sends her away with a commendation – so maybe this is an indication of how we should respond to the ways we have experienced the healing only God can give.
It is so awesome how God can reveal new lessons no matter how many times I have seen the same material – I keep realizing that what I understood before were like trees walking while people were actually in front of me …
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