It's Been Two Years
Two years ago I married that intelligent, handsome man to the right, and I make no apologies for it! 🙂
In fact, I’d marry him all over again, just so I could wear the dress. 😉
Two years ago I married that intelligent, handsome man to the right, and I make no apologies for it! 🙂
In fact, I’d marry him all over again, just so I could wear the dress. 😉
This is one of the many reasons why Neil Gaiman absolutely rocks!
I know that David Tennant’s Hamlet isn’t till July. And lots of people are going to be doing Dr Who in Hamlet jokes, so this is just me getting it out of the way early, to avoid the rush…
“To be, or not to be, that is the question. Weeelll…. More of A question really. Not THE question. Because, well, I mean, there are billions and billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, weeelll, you’re looking at numbers that are positively astronomical and… for that matter the other question is what you lot are doing on this planet in the first place, and er, did anyone try just pushing this little red button?”
I can hear David Tennant as The Doctor saying this in my head at this moment! And David is going to be Hamlet? Okay, that I am going to have to see. Anyone think he’ll be as broody as Kenneth Branagh was?
If you’ve never read Neil, I suggest you make a trip to the library. He’s a wonderful sci-fi, urban fantasy, modern fairy tale, with a little horror thown in for good measure writer. The man knows how to tell a good story, and you can see from above he knows his way around words. My favorite book is Neverwhere: A Novel and my second favorite is Stardust. I cannot wait until The Graveyard Book comes out. His blog is a very good thing for all writers. Writing is always hard work even for those who are published multiple times and famous. They still have to put their butts in a chair and do the work, whether they feel like it or not, or feel inspired or not.
Now I need to hit the button on my Doctor Who Tardis 4 Port USB Hub, so the light will flash, and it makes the Tardis sound. My Wonderful Geek of a Husband got it for me as part of my anniversary gift. *que Dr. Who theme*
The image is from ThinkGeek.com.
Edit to update: Jessica, a student at Olivet Nazarene University corrected a mistake I had made. The professor was not dismissed:
I’m a current ONU student and I randomly came about your site. To my knowledge, the ONU prof was not dismissed…(unless this is a very new development). He is unable to teach the general education biology class (which is a loss for students because he is well-qualified to teach it) or teach his book. It’s a shame.
Jessica, thank you for letting me know he had not been dismissed, but that his teaching as been curtailed.
I should should have also posted a link to the book: Random Designer: Created from Chaos to Connect with the Creator by Richard G. Colling. It’s an excellent book. I didn’t agree with everything (but then I rarely do), but he makes an excellent case for God using evolution to create the world. I should really do a book review on it. Yes, I know those are famous last words. But I really do need to start putting up book reviews because I am reading some really good books right now.
End of edited update
I have decided to resign my ordination credentials and leave the Church of the Nazarene. I have not agreed with many of the decisions of our General Church in the last few years, and I have been thinking of leaving for the last two and a half years. I’ve decided due to theological and doctrinal differences (along with the GC decisions), that it is time to leave. There is a lot I want to write that I feel like I can’t due to the changes in my own theology. As a friend told me: “May be your new wine can no longer fit into the wineskin of your denomination. It’s time to move on, so that you can continue to grow and do what God has called you to do.” I think he is right.
It has also hit me that I really don’t need to be ordained to do what God has called me to do: write and speak. In fact, I will have more freedom for both without having to worry about credentials, what I need to do to keep them, and what I can and can’t write that people will compain about, saying “is she really a Nazarene?” and think I should be removed from ministry. This is not all paranoia on my part. A professor at Olivet Nazarene University was recently dismissed due to his views on creation and evolution. It was almost a repeat of what happened to one of my favorite college pastors at Southern Nazarene University in the 90s.
I felt a great peace when I had made the decision, and it has been confirmed through three different sources that this was the right decision to make. I will still be writing, and you will see some differences in the things I post, what I talk about, and how I talk about it.
Shawna
Singing Owl wants to know about traveling and destinations:
1) Favorite Destination — someplace you’ve visited once or often and would gladly go again
Rome, London, and Paris
2) Unfavorite Destination — someplace you wish you had never been (and why)
Camping in a tent. My idea of roughing it is hot and cold running water, electricity, and a bed.
3) Fantasy Destination — someplace to visit if cost and/or time did not matter
I’d love to do a tour of Ireland–the whole island.
4) Fictional Destination — someplace from a book or movie or other art or media form you would love to visit, although it exists only in imagination
Middle Earth! My one exception to the running water and electricity rule. Okay, okay, may be Narnia too.
5) Funny Destination — the funniest place name you’ve ever visited or want to visit
Honestly, I can’t think of a funny one. I’m sure there are funny ones, but none is popping in the brain right now.
The picture is Tracy and I in front of the fountain at the Pantheon in Rome.
I was sitting in the swinging chair enjoying the spring Phoenix day. It wasn’t too hot, and the breeze was refreshing. And I was feeling guilty. Why? Because I wasn’t doing anything. I wasn’t working. I wasn’t being productive. I was on vacation and feeling guilty for being on vacation. How American is that? It took me a whole day, but I finally did it: I stopped feeling guilty about taking a break and resting. I found out what true rest, true letting go feels like. Or may be I remembered how to let go and rest.
Genesis tells us that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and then rested on the Sabbath. Keeping the Sabbath and not working one day a week is one of The Ten Commandments. It is also the commandment that’s most often broken by Chrsitians and non-Christians alike. We can wax eloquently all we want to about not taking God’s name in vain or not committing murder, but bring up keeping the Sabbath, and the room gets very, very quiet. Why do some branches of American Christianity insist that God created the earth in six literal days, but then fall silent when it comes to taking what God did on the seventh day literally?
And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation (Genesis 2:2-3).
Why is it so hard for us to stop and rest?
On of the reasons is that we have believed the lie that we are what we do. We believe the myth that what we do is who we are. So we work. We perform. We jump through hoops. One of the reason for keeping the Sabbath is to remind us who we really are: children of God. The Sabbath also reminds us that everything we have comes from God. God provides for all our needs. The Sabbath is for remembering: remembering who we are and remembering who God is. God rested on the seventh day, and God commanded us to do the same. If it is okay for God to rest, then it is okay for us to rest as well.
In fact, it is imperative to rest. We need a day where we let go of the worry and stress and our work, and we trust God to take care of us.
The last three Sundays I have rested. In fact, I’ve even been taking naps. I rested, and I did not feel one iota of guit.
What about you? Do you take time off? How do you rest?
Related post
An Update Merry-Go-Round
I am finally catching up my blogroll and updated pages on my website. Both the Sermon and Writing Clips pages have been updated with the writing I have done in the last five months.
Here are some wonderful sites that I have come across that I would like everyone to know about. First is Jan Richardson’s site, The Painted Prayerbook. Jan is an artist and a theologian. She chooses one ov the lectionary passages for the week, illustrates it with her art, and always has a thought provoking meditation to go with it.
Feminist Theology in an Age of Fear and Hope is a site written by several women who priests in The Episcopal Church and the Independent Catholic Church. The look at one of the passages of the lectionary from a feminist and gender equal perspective.
Conversations at the Edge with Helen Mildenhall is wonderful community of different faith, agnostics, and atheists talking about the role of spirituality in our lives.
Pam Hogeweide’s How God Messed Up My Religion are Pam’s thoughts and writings on how religion and church aren’t always what they seem to be and may be isn’t what God had in mind. Her subtitle is “Essays of discovery and disillusionment from the junk drawer of Faith.” I love it.
Pastor Scott of Pastor Scott’s Thought is the pastor of Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene. He is also one of my former college profs. His thoughts are always worth reading.
Square One is Victoria Marenelli’s site. Victoria reports on several different things in reading, music, and culture through her feminist eyes.
So what are you reading? What sites have caught your eye lately?
Photo courtesy of stock.xchng.
The breast cyst was removed today. Surgery went very well, and I am at home. I feel pretty good, and the pain isn’t bad. Thank you for your prayers.
Shawna
It was a night I will remember for a long time, probably until I die. Tracy and I were on vacation visiting friends in Gilbert, AZ (a suburb of Phoenix). It was a gorgeous desert evening. The temperature was just right: not too hot and not too cold. As we began dinner we enjoyed the crimson-drenched clouds at sunset. As dinner continued we watched the bright full moon slowly come out from hiding behind the clouds. The food was incredible. We were at a Burmese restaurant in Scottsdale called Little Rangoon. It is owned by a husband and wife team: she cooks, and he mans the front. The food was served family style. We had lots of little bites from lots of different dishes: duck spring rolls, fermented tea leaf salad, samosas, lamb, duck, mushroom trio stir fry, giant coconut fried prawns, coconut chicken curry, garlic noodles, and lots of rice. Dessert were these wonderfully light semolina cakes that were perfect. Then the owner gave us these wonderful banana fritters on the house. There were eight of us, and the conversation flowed and undulated on all sides of the table. We ate, we talked, we laughed, we shared. At the beginning of the meal, six of the seven had been strangers to me. By the end they friends and family. Nothing brings people together and brings out community like a good meal.
I was reminded of this again this afternoon. A former colleague and I discovered recently (thanks to LinkedIn) that we both live in Chicago. We met this afternoon for lunch. It had to have been three years since we talked to each other, and we spent a delightful lunch catching up. We ate, and we talked. An old friendship was reborn.
They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people (Acts 2:46).
I think the early church knew what they were doing by making eating together a vital component of their life together. Of course this was nothing new to them. Eating together was a vital component of Jewish and Middle Eastern life (still is). The people who ate with you, ate with your family, became part of your family. While they were a guest, you did anything to defend and protect them from threat. At this time “devout Jewish families following temple worship would share meals together as symbolic of their social and spiritual solidarity” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 10, p. 73). Eating together to build and maintain community was nothing new.
I like the emphasis on eating together that is coming out of the missional and emerging movements. It used to be if it wasn’t tacked onto a formal church service, then it wasn’t “spiritual.” It was somehow not sacred or holy if it didn’t happen after the Sunday morning or evening service. I think that’s wrong. I think eating together is a sacred and spiritual experience in and of itself. Something happens when a group of people eat together. Defenses come down, chatter turns into conversation, and people start to open up, share, and just be themselves. Strangers become friends. Enemies can sit together, pass the plate, and may be listen to each other for the first time.
Related Posts:
Tables of Love
Singing Owl says: Yesterday I had two separate conversations in which people were musing about how much change is occurring. The WW II generation, of which my mom is a part, went from horse and buggy to automobiles, saw the lessening, or even the end of many diseases, went from widespread use of kerosene lamps and outhouses (in the country, and most folks were rural)) to a totally electrified and plumbed society. The fastest means of communication was a telegraph. The second conversation–gulp–was about MY generation and how much change occurred in the last half of the 20th century. The person said his 13 year old had not seen a vinyl record album until a few days before, couldn’t remember a time without cell phones, and on and on.
As for the questions!
1. What modern convenience/invention could you absolutely, positively not live
without?
A laptop computer. I do not wish to write muliple drafts on a typewriter, and I love the freedom a laptop gives me. Yes, I do remember typewriters, and I have written papers on them. Long live laptops!
2. What modern convenience/invention do you wish had never seen the light of day?
Why?
Honestly, I can’t think of one.
3. Do you own a music-playing device older than a CD player? More than one? If
so, do you use it (them)?
No, we don’t. I gave away my cassette players before we got married because we didn’t have room. We now have a clock/radio/CD player and 2 MP3 players.
4. Do you find the rapid change in our world exciting, scary, a mix…or something
else?
A mix. I like a lot of the changes but I don’t think we developing ethics along with the technological advances we’re making. That scares me.
5. What did our forebears have that we have lost and you’d like to regain? Bonus
points if you have a suggestion of how to begin that process.
Community. You used to know all your neighbors. So I guess I need to start getting out and meeting my neighbors.
We are back from vacation, and getting back to the normal schedule. At least I am. Tracy is in D.C. for a check-up. He should be coming home tomorrow. Then he can get back to his normal schedule next week. Church services will resume this Sunday.
An update on the bump under my right armpit. It is a cyst–a large one which has grown around some tissue. It is also benign. I will be having outpatient surgery on May 1 to have it removed.
I had a lot of time to think about rest, and I’m reading Marva Dawn’s The Sense of the Call: A Sabbath Way of Life for Those Who Serve God, the Church, and the World. I told Tracy that it was nice to rest and not feel guilty about it. I always feel guilty for taking a couple of days off. I feel guilty about far too much, and I need to stop. I will be blogging more about rest, Sabbath, and guilt. What about you? Are you able to take a day or two off just to rest, renew, and revitalize? Do you feel guilty about not doing something–anything?