Megillah

oh, Beth Moore. This week has marked the beginning of the sister chiclet's journey through Esther. It could not be a more fitting time for me to journey back to this blog. I'm struggling with some things. And it is not a new desire of mine to want to have things figured out before I come to this forum with my thoughts. Figured out? Right. Like King Xerxes and his most wise nobles (Esther 1:16)? Like Todd and Angie Smith? Like Paul? Like Zora Neale Hurston? Friends, I'm not going to have "it" figured out any time soon. Neither did these people, nor should they have been expected to.

 There is a whole Megillah of life to live and learn from. At no point will the good, the bad, the hardship, the joy, the tragedy, the love, and the sadness end this side of death. It's a lofty realization. Sometimes one that makes me want to know the answer even more. What would happen if in my quest to have some answers to write here, I more fervently sought to learn his promises. He doesn't always give answers. Sometimes, as was the case in Esther, He steps back. God is not once mentioned in the book of Esther. In these times all we have are the promises He has made. They are relevant. His promises apply. I do my best every day to reconcile them with the information I am gaining about this troubled world. And the more I try the more I realize, yet again, that I will not get it all figured out. I talk a lot about how frustrating this realization is for me. I want it to be humbling. As I study economics and society and racism and sexism and death and culture and ask questions about these subjects and the system they occur in and are fostered by, I am challenged. I'm told to write papers and have answers, so I come up with them as best I can (or as best as the teacher wants to hear). I am becoming better studied, better read with the seeming goal of becoming a better me. But as I study the world and find out more about its problems I notice that the last thing people need is someone to say they're better. The last thing people need is a self-serving someone. Yet college is like the ultimate example of self-service. Sure there are new ways and opportunities to reach out, but the investment is in yourself. And I've got to say, I struggle with investing in something so imperfect and un-figured out as me. 

God's thoughts? That's what I'm trying to discern right now. Because He offers the example of Esther (in Hebrew, the Megillah, "the Scroll, par excellence"). Beth Moore writes, "there on the sacred pages of Esther God overtook a human hand and scripted a young woman's story into His own." She also says that scripture cannot come without effect to the receptive soul. I am so ready to receive! I desire nothing more than to be effected by the pages of Esther in a way that would inspire me to let Him script my own. 

Life feels so ordinary right now. Nothing real interesting to fill people in on, or really take note of myself. Esther is THE book to speak to this mindset. It follows the story of a young woman and a nation where God works not through miraculous intervention, but through ordinary events. I'm ordinary. I feel the mundane and the trivial with the best of them. But I am promised the providence of God. A God who chooses to reveal himself best in a book that doesn't even mention Him. There's humility. 

44

I'm watching democracy work. 

Not as closely as Holly and Travis, but viewing it nonetheless. 

Yesterday we went into DC altogether. It was fun, but the hype a little overwhelming. Seeing all of the merchandise, the glitter, the bu

ttons, the glam, the flags with Obama's face painted on, shirts for the Black House. Craziness. I am happy to see a new president-- God knows George W. Bush needs a break. Still, the hysteria, the superstardom, the elevation of man put me at an unease. 

Today it is gone. Because I see a unity between the presidents. I see, as John Kennedy once asked America would, not a victory of party but of democracy. This is not a celebration of the democratic party, but of an entire democratic nation. Democracy depends on change. Change is its unique characteristic. Change is America's sustenance. The change Obama has promised may not be my cup of tea. His opinion may differ in many ways from my own. His politics may not benefit my class or forward my goals. But the fact that our political process allows for the peaceful transference of power from one commander in chief to another as they sit just feet from each other is worth 4 (or 8) years of whatever personal cost. 

I have to stop and say for the record, well really for Holly, that Sascha Obama is wearing red and pink. Hol, you could have pulled it off. 

Here he is. Barack H. Obama. 

 

Rick Warren has turned the Obamas over into His love and care.

Aretha is fidna get down on some my country tis of thee. With a fabulous bow hat, I might add.

This music by John Williams is amazing. 

America now has a 44th President.

... and God bless the United States of America. 

What a country and what a crowd, in the words of this commentator. 

Praise song for struggle. Praise song for the day. 

love beyond marital, filial, national. 

Benediction.

He's got the whole world in his hands. 

Receive your servant Barack Obama. 

When brown can stick around. When yellow can stay mellow. When the red man can get ahead man. 

... just some excerpts. 

Come on Sea Chanters! ... they don't have anything on my musical flag, which has a great finale. 

Tea Time

I just finished a post on my academic blog. As I requested, I am being made to really think about some issues. Good things to think about. Deep things to think about. Sometimes dark things to think about. This author lady is an extreme feminist. I am just not. And that's okay. But it's not a case of I'm right and she's wrong. Understanding that and trying to understand where she is coming from is exhausting. So exhausting, in fact, that I had to lock my door, put in headphones and concentrate on coming up with a review of her work. Well, the first 42 pages of her work-- the other 260 pages are for another day. It is important to me to really decide where I stand, so that I can appreciate another angle and be okay with that it isn't mine. For tonight, I'm there. 

I was tempted to put the book away, shut that blog and watch the Office. But I felt a real tug to this blog. Not because being here and posting will get me my "Jesus points" of the day. Because being here requires that for all of the tough issues I am wrestling for academia, I wrestle with and focus on something spiritual. Not religious or pious, but personal. Something Christ-like. An aspect that I've been sorely missing in the past few days. I'm preparing myself to do Beth Moore's Esther study-- an undertaking that will take a good amount of time. It will be another task, another aspect of my schedule. But I am becoming more and more convicted that for all the effort I am putting into knowing more about this world, I should pay a little more attention (a lot more attention) to knowing its Creator. Does that sound cliche? I hope not, because I want more than anything to be sincere about it. Maybe if more people (including me) were, it wouldn't sound so cliche. And a true knowledge of God would be more evident to those around us. I've been a lousy example of this in this first week back, even after the sermon at Bay Area Community Church last Sunday warned of "inoperable faith." The kind that isn't able to love a neighbor, save a marriage, trust finances, carry grief. Grief like that of this woman. Bonnie's husband died on January 5, leaving her with a 23 month old and a baby on the way. I cannot imagine it. But I want to know the God who is carrying Bonnie through. Because knowing Him is the closest I will ever come to being "prepared" for that type of thing. 

I want an operable faith. A faith that produces works, like James talks about. And I want my works to reflect a faith like that of Paul or Abraham. That in everything I do, boasting would no be my final reward. Whatever I may have to boast about on this earth, whatever knowledge I gain is quickly and vastly belittled before God. 

It takes a little tea time to be set straight. It takes a lot more time to set out and do. According to Bay Area Community Church pastor Greg St. Cyr, setting out and begin operable requires three things:

1. reclaim: ask questions, be discipled

2. risk: set a mission, disciple

3. release: give up time and resources

Oh, if I would learn to just hand it over!

Squeaky

My closet is clean. 

Not just clean. Organized. A little crammed (well, a lot crammed), but functional. This new order probably comes at the expense of my dear roommates first hour of sleep tonight, since I took up the charge to do something about my closet at approximately 12:15 a.m. and our floors are becoming increasingly loud when we step. Seriously, though, I couldn't let it sit like that any longer. Nothing had a place, and finding something as simple as a coat (Noelle searched for one to no avail at around 11:45, which sparked the whole "I will not rest until something is done about this" kick) became a task just not worth the time. Not worth the energy or concentration or effort. 

Problem is that there are some good clothes in there. Gifts. Donations. Memories. Good articles of clothing. But in my laziness I pass up the opportunity that others have provided by giving me these nice things. I settle for blue jeans and the same coat because I can't seem to find the time to rearrange. It feels so good to have that done now! But as I took hangers from here and hung something up there, the shift of my weight made the wood boards underneath my feet squeak. I couldn't move without noise happening under me. There was not a way to go about this subtly. The noise was necessary for rearranging. 

My thoughts are a lot like my closet pre-cleaning tonight. I've just let them get jumbled and crammed and everywhere. Nothing is wrong. Just sporadic and momentary. My thoughts are focused on myself and how I'm going to fare with my classes and when I'm going to do lunch and when I'm going to go the gym and how I feel about race (African American Lit. class) and if I can remember the french word for "to become" (devenir) and what the 60's mean to me (Sophomore American Studies Seminar). This is a time where I have to make an effort to arrange my thoughts. I have to organize my education. And I have to think about where new knowledge and ideas fit in with the old. And when I'm not careful, what I believed before is pushed to the back of my mind and I abandon it all, altogether. 

Working it out requires noise. It takes work. It takes some shifting around. That's why I have this blog. It's why I'll write papers on varying subjects this semester. It's why I have friends, who, bless their hearts, patiently listen as I think out loud. But the act of cleansing my thoughts should somehow be expressed. If I'm not shifting around and organizing my ideas, it may be quieter but it's messier. And I run the risk of passing up a very valuable education, and more importantly some rewarding, productive time with God, for the convenience of carrying on with my day. I want to hear some squeaking going on up there in my head; have some clarity.  But right now I just feel lazy and unmotivated. And jumbled. And disorganized. 

I know how rewarding it will feel to reconcile all of the information that is being introduced to me in classes, or ideas presented to me by friends, or mission opportunities, or internship possibilities, with each other. I don't consider my religion to be another category of thoughts. God, I don't group you with the cardigans in my closet. You're how I perceive every other ounce of information that comes in. And I'm in a place that often makes me feel like this is wrong. That I should be unbiased, with no filter for ideas as they come in. This is just not possible. And as long as something is going to be skewing my perception of the world, I am so game to let it be you. Help me here, to organize it all. To objectively look at what I am being shown, especially academically, and find places for it all. That I would be able to access it all. That I would engage it all, rather than pass this education, and learning more about you, up.

Open the closet door and delegate the classification of my thoughts, as the ground squeaks beneath me. As I put my ideas out there. Help me work it out. Make the sound of my imperfection keep me alert as I engage in this world you've made me a part of. 

Back in Business

I'm back at my desk in Fredvegas, it's nearly 1 a.m., I'm not really that tired as per the one hour nap I enjoyed at the Modly's. I've unpacked, watched the Golden Globes, had a sister date, greeted old friends in the hallways-- done everything but actually get settled. It has yet to sink in that work starts tomorrow. Real work. School work. Interacting with teachers work. Homework. Making myself presentable. Set an alarm work. Loose leaf paper work. Work. 

It's not that I'm all that nervous. It's just that I'm ready for the first few days, the ones where they tell you all that you're going to have to do before the 1st of May, the overwhelming ones, to be done. The idea of a new semester of work hasn't really set in yet. It's not that I don't want it to-- I'm very excited for this spring. I just would like to skip shock mode. 

And rather than complain about that or everything I'm going to have to do before May 1st, I just ask You, God, to sustain me. Hear my cares and my apprehensions, see my nerves where they may rear their ugly heads and carry me. I don't want to have an attitude of wishing my days away. I want to feel them and embrace them and love on people and be uplifting and be uplifted and I can't do it on my own strength. As I take up my work, I take up my cross and tell you I just don't have the power to balance it all. I can't just comfort myself when I see my assignments and feel surrounded. That's all you. And we're back in business.

Jet planes: A Love/Hate Relationship

Okay, well I have no problems with planes. Especially not Southwest planes- amazing airline! But what planes imply? That I have a love/hate relationship with.

I love that I will get to run errands with my Rooms around Naptown.

I hate that I'm leaving my mom to clean up Christmas by herself.

I love that I will get to throw a party for my beloved Big D.

I hate that I will not get to see Jared and Cindy off.

I love that I will get to play power Uno.

I hate that I will not get to play the Wii. (call me materialistic, but that thing is so much fun. and Wii fit?! A miracle it isn't jumping into my suitcase...)

I love that I will get to watch The Office/Grey's with my fellow fans.

I hate that I will not get to watch 24 with my fellow fans.

I love that I will get to hear Noelle stumble across the room or bump into everything possible and hear her yell "ow!"

I hate that I will not get to hear my mother get off of the couch and fart with every step towards the kitchen. 

I love that I will get to be in the company of Ashley as I type on my computer and catch up with her.

I hate that I will not get to hear Dad play "Conasta!" as I type on my computer and we sit relatively quietly because we've talked about most everything there has been to talk about. 

I love that I will get to laugh until it hurts at some rant of Dina's... oh wait. 

I hate that Dina will not be at UMW when I get back.

I love that I will get to hear "arooroorooroo."

I hate that I will not get to hear "ya booooooy."

I love that Noelle has such a receptive, hospitable family that will take me in at the drop of a hat.

I hate that I'm leaving my own. 

I'll miss puppy breath and Bella's soft ears.

I'll miss Dominoes and MarioKartWii with the bunch.

I'll miss SNAB.

I'll miss rolling over in my bed at 11.

I'll miss snuggling with my mom.

I'll miss Sunday lunch.

I'll miss dirty dishes and a kitchen to clean.

I'll miss parents obsessively playing Dr. Mario.

I'll miss babysitting. 

I'll miss Rock Creek.

I look forward to 5-Alive.

I look forward to Bio (say WHAT?!?) honest. 

I look forward to a schedule.

I look forward to Fairview.

I look forward to Girl's Night.

I look forward to tea.

I look forward to a sister date.

I look forward to cuddling in my twin bed. 

I look forward to notes on the medicine cabinet.

I love that I can't even know what to look forward to. Because no matter how much I dislike leaving what I love, He always finds a way to surprise and delight me on the other end. I always thought that quote "don't be sad it's over, be glad it happened" was a little cheesy. Call me corny (though I would ask you to cut me some slack after you take note of the time), but it's how I feel tonight. Because it really is a good piece of wisdom. I've reconciled the "hate" aspect of departing to the "love" aspect of arriving, so bring it on, jet plane.