Snow, Sleet, Jalapenos, and...My Dad

I saw snow today. It was the ittiest bit, but it was snow! I saw it falling while I was at the Crowe's having school with Rodge and Bron...the rain began to look abnormal and then, suddenly, I realized that it was flying instead of falling, or, in the words of Buzz, "Falling WITH STYLE!" So it was. I gaped a little and grinchishly proceeded to keep the elating observation to myself...anything close to the word "SNOW" would've annihilated all chances of order, peace, and productivity for the rest of the morning =) The blizzard only lasted a few minutes anyway, at most, so I didn't feel that bad about it. Later on, Dad and I enjoyed some sleet while driving around town (the precip. wasn't sticking and therefore wasn't threatening). He took me to get a gigantic yummy hamburger at Butcher Shop. We both put pico de gallo on our burgers and both regretted it later. The jalapenos in that stuff were Texas sized! After sniffling through a few bites I dug all the green chunks out and then enjoyed the rest of it. Thoroughly. Dad and I rode around together and he did menial errands while I got a little (very little!) reading done and we chatted. My Dad has such an eye for detail and I learn so much just riding around with him. We came home and I curled up by the fire away from the Cold, Dank, and Dreary and did some schoolwork.

Unexpected Diamonds

Its been a long day. Rather, it's been a long day. I'm careless about my its's and it's time for me to shape up and be grammatical, I guess, since I'm trying to teach two kids English. The difference between It's and Its is hard to explain and catch onto. I know the difference, of course, but it's not so well drilled in that I use the right one subconsciously. Usually in emails and...well, a lot of times when I write...I just put "its."

But about today...I don't like to succumb to the Monday Blues, and I wouldn't say I've succumb completely, but I had a hard time dragging myself out of bed, to go teach, to have a chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream sundae with our neighbor, to write a geography report and make supper (which included a new dish-- Indian bread called naan.) That was basically the day, and I'm just "plumb tuckered out." But a lot more than that was going on spiritually I guess. Honestly, I rather dread getting up tomorrow, and it shouldn't be like this.

The one beautiful thing...(well not the only thing) I saw today, that God gave me, was a sight while I was on a short walk this morning. It was so bitingly cold this morning, and I was really clipping along just trying to stay warm, but I had to stop and take a good look at the field near our house because it's just so gorgeous this time of year...tiny tints of adventurous green poking up in that ugly dead field, and the sun shining on the frost. So I looked down, and right by the road there was a patch of tiny green plants (like violets with no flowers) and they were all crusted with frost crystals...the crystals were shining in the sunlight and when I came in close to them I could see that they were incedibly, exquisitely designed ice flakes, like diamonds...beautiful! Who cares about diamond jewelry! That was precious. It's good to see something like that, to savor it, to open the door in the back of my wilting mind and heart and let that beauty peep in again and give me that warm hope-ish feeling...God is so sweet to me.

Better than jail

It seems like a long time since I've posted.

Ooo! I can enter! Paragraphs! That makes me happy. That's why I haven't been posting...I've been subconciously dreading the malfunctioning enter key. No, not really. I just haven't had time. I've been frying my brain all day and I'm kind of worn out, but it's ok. Could be worse. A few minutes ago I was inspecting Ethan's legos and noticed an odd creation. It looked like it could have been a building, but didn't have any particular rooms, and it was topped with all sorts of "extras" namely, different colored arches...it was an architectural anomaly, definitely. "That's the jail," he told me "My guy lives there." Oh. As I said, it could be worse.

Here are two "experimentalish" poems I thought of this morning. I had several different thoughts and couldn't seem to get them to mesh properly. But anyway...

1
I cried inside, unheard and hidden
About hopes almost hopeless
Words still unsaid and
Thoughts that are barely
Thoughts at all, rising rarely
To the surface of my soul
I tried inside to say words about
Wishes and what I’ve wondered about You--
What You would do
About my asking.
Whatever I said– I don’t know what I said
Or remember all the essence of my cry–
But I looked up and saw Love listening
Just waiting to inquire


2
I cried inside about Love misplaced
Like a blanket kicked off the bed
In a cold and fretful night
Groping I searched and blindly found
A corner of cloth and clung to it.

Jesus I’ve been cold all night
Please come tuck me in again.


bye for now.

Quid est veritas?

Ok, so back to logic. I'm almost through my three and a half pages of notes :) Another topic that interested me was McInerny's discussion on truth. He said that "The whole purpose of reasoning, of logic, is to arrive at the truth of things." Ok. He also mentioned two ways of understanding truth. One way is the "Correspondence Theory of Truth" (a person's statement fits with facts we already know to be true) and another way is the "Coherence Theory of Truth." (a person's statement is true if it fits with already established theories.) As the author alluded to, I don't think that the Coherence Theory is reliable, because theories, by nature, are not 100% certain truth. They are just thought to be true. Ask J. L. Wile. (Ok, so I can't help it! I'm a homeschooler!) I can tell I'm just digging myself a grave. Anyway, I think that if people go with the Coherence theory it would be too easy for them to make up "their own truth." If I were to only accept statements as true that fit with the Theory of Evolution, I wouldn't really be finding the truth. Another thing that McInerny had to say toward the end of the chapter that really got my wheels turning, was this: "Establishing the truth in any particular situation is a matter of determining whether what one believes to be true, or suspects might be true, has a basis in fact." Basically, he's saying that all truth is grounded in fact. Well, is it? I believe God is real and loving, but how can I say that's true if I don't see Him, can't verify Him as fact? How do you prove God? From my own experience I know He's spoken to me in my heart, and I've seen changes in people because of Him, but how can I prove that He's real? How can I communicate my idea (a very complex idea) of God to you? For that matter, how does He, if He is so real, communicate the idea of Himself to us if He is invisible and seldom shows up as tangible fact? All I know is that the Bible says He is Faithful and True (Rev. 19:11) and that His Word is true. "The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord stands forever." (Is. 40:8) His words have changed my life, and His invisible Presence has been my comfort. I am compelled to love Him, compelled to go after Him, compelled to cling to Him, even when I can't see Him at all. Nothing will keep me from believing Him. I'm thankful for logic and I love to see matters laid out clearly, but there is one thing that must be taken on faith even when we can't see all the facts. Hebrews 11:6 is the bottom line: "Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him." No one can prove God to you except He Himself; you have to believe that what He says is true. And yeah, it's worth it.

Logical Writing (or not)

Dear readers, please bear with me while I sort out some things. By things, I mean schoolwork, which makes up a good portion of the things I have to sort out these days. As if reading about communism\Marxism all the time and having multiple dreams about it isn't enough, I'm now beset by a little book called Being Logical, which, obviously enough, is about logic. We're reading this in english class. When I heard that we were studying logic, my curiosity was aroused. I mean, I've heard of people studying logic, but it's always seemed that logic is one of those things you're born with. You either use it or you don't use it. Some people have more than others. As I began reading the book, though, I found it quite interesting and thought provoking. I can tell a book is making me think when I start fishing for a pencil and paper and feel the compulsive urge to take notes. Now, since I've also finished the reading for the week, I also feel the compulsive urge to rehash the things I've read, write them in my own words, and share them witih whoever will dive in with me. Oh, and please also bear with the fact that this computer isn't letting me "enter" today, so I can't divide everything up into nice, restful paragraphs. I'll probably be paraphrasing the author of Being Logical (Mr. McInerny) and typing out my own ideas too. Logic has a whole lot to do with ideas, reality, and truth. In the part of D.Q. McInerny's book that I've read, he talks about communication, especially writing. I love reading about ideas. I've always, for an unexplainable reason, accidentally capitalized the word "idea" whenever I write it. I like ideas that much. An idea is a picture in our mind. A Simple Idea is a picture that's linked to an actual thing, (like a tree, for instance) and a Complex Idea is a picture that's linked to a series of things (like the idea of going on a vacation is linked to actual things like the beach, a minivan, the mountains, time off, your family, etc.) A whole mess of actual things play into a Complex Idea and have to work together. In order to communicate our ideas to people, we have to use words. The goal of communication is to get other people to picture in their minds the same thing we picture in ours. We want to understand each other. If the idea I'm trying to communicate is just "tree," then I can say "tree," and you would probably get the picture. Usually, being an *ahem* sophisticated highschooler, I like to communicate more complex ideas like, maybe, (forget the family vacation thing) "my Christian friends in India." I want you to understand the love and servantheartedness of the friends I made in India this summer, but this is something you have never seen. In order to communicate this idea to you, I have to link it to ideas already familiar to you (cooking meals, smiles, washing clothes, foot washing, poverty, the Bible, preaching God's word, language barrier.) If there is an idea you are unfamiliar with (say footwashing, for instance-- where a person washes someone elses feet as a symbol of serving and honoring them) then I would need to start with explaining that idea to get to explaining the Big Idea. Explaining ideas clearly is the responsibility of the writer. Not only should I explain my idea(s) clearly out of consideration for you, the reader, but I should also explain them clearly if I want you to understand (or even read) what I'm saying. Poor you. Sadly, I don't have a very clear idea of the idea you have in your mind of my ideas...so you'll have to be the judge of whether this is clear writing or not :) So, the process of explaining an idea could be this: 1. Identify the idea you are trying to get across 2. Dtermine who your audience is and what they already know or are familiar with about your idea 3. Identify the Simple ideas your main idea is based on 4. Start explaining the idea(s) from the point where the audience's knowledge stops 5. Explain your idea until the audience sees same picture (as best they can) that you see. It's something like an artist painting a picture. They sketch a little, then paint, a stroke here, a swipe there-- but you don't see the whole picture until the painting is done. Ok, well, I'm tired of not being able to make paragraphs, so I guess I'll finish on another post. Bye.

Life is Fun

Ok, so I know that the purpose of life is not just to have fun...but you gotta admit it, sometimes it's seriously just fun. After living with the flu and a certain amount of depression\oppression for at least a week, living just feels fun right now. The weekend was full and lovely- shopping with my brother, experiencing my first car breakdown (it wasn't lovely, but at least interesting...), getting to go to church again, spending time with friends new and old, becoming president...(I'll get to that later.)

As for the car... the van belt broke for the fifth time while I was driving in the rain at rush hour. I lost power steering and promptly parked on the side of the road on the median. (The wrong side, as I soon found out.) Drivers ed just doesn't help in those situations. Brothers and Dads and cell phones do, though! Connor told me to turn on the hazard lights (I like to think I would have thought of that myself) and then I called Dad on his cell (which I never carry around with me, but we just happened to take. We were only a few miles from the house, so Dad came right away to get us in the pouring rain (I love him!) First, though, I had to get to the right side of the road. Never having experienced this before, I was really paranoid that I wouldn't be able to steer the van over two lanes of traffic to the other side (we were on the highway). I just breathed a prayer for a traffic gap and God answered...there was a perfect letup in the flow of headlights and I got safely across (with Connor's coaching, of course. Sometimes I wonder if its really me doing the driving.) All ended well- I arrived home freezing cold and suddenly famished. (Excitement has a way of doing that to me.) We ended up just cramming in the truck and going to China King anyway. Yum.

Being at church after missing a week was really refreshing. Praise and worship time with "the assembly of the righteous" is a precious thing to me, and I'm excited about the 21 days of prayer starting up at church. Remembering last year, and the time of refreshing that came, I am all the more eager. After going through a tough time spiritually for a little while, I suddenly am feeling revived and ready in some way...ready to fall in love with God and forget the guilt and troubles. Psalm 25 from the service on Sunday was sweet...

"To You, Oh Lord, I lift up my soul..."
"Make known Your ways, Oh Lord; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your paths and teach me..."
"Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose..."

I'm always starving to be shown the way, to be taught... and He says He will teach me. I can't always see his face when I gaze up into it longingly, but I'm assured that I will. Psalm 11:7 says:

"The upright will see His face."

I just believe that. I am so safe with God. You are so safe with God. I'm looking forward to the prayer times because I'm less religious this year. I get so sick of trying to be religious, when what I really want is heart-to-heart. It's great to begin to be free of prayers prayed out of duty or what's expected, but to speak to God from my heart.

As for my presidency...we played Scum a while last night and shockingly I was at the top a good part of the night. And you know what? It wasn't even that wonderful. Its more fun to move to different positions...you have some hope of moving up. It's just as I feared! You get to the top and there's no hope! Aaaaaaa! Ok, so I admit, it was fun. I like winning. I like to be right. But there's also the fear of assassination and all that, and I'm really too emotional for presidency. Plus, people start getting sick of you :) Well, I woke up this morning and I was just me again. What a nice feeling.

Oh. You know what I'm thankful for? I'm thankful that our house didn't float away. We were beginning to feel a bit water-logged down here. The water has drained away after all the rain (and its been really pretty, by the way). I love the ice drops on the bare trees...such a lovely sight. Teeka, I'd better go now.

Debriefing My Trip to Darfur

I think I'll do another post, because, being in blogger infancy, it's such a novel thing to do.

Last night I had a wierd dream. In it, I was going on a ski trip, which suddenly turned into a missions trip to Darfur. We were running for our lives. (Don't ask who "we" were, because I don't know.) Apparently "we" were being chased by Communists. (In Darfur? It's that history book of mine!) We escaped to my house, bringing people from Darfur with us. Unfortunately, we were still being tracked, so we had to have worship services secretly in order to stay under cover. In the dream, I was thinking "It's all well and good to be in danger across the world, but I want to be safe when I come home!" That's very true. I feel pretty daring sometimes about jaunting off to other countries to share the gospel, but when all is said and done I want to know there's somewhere safe to come "home" to. I guess it's a matter of learning to be at home with God.

Another thought I had this morning occurred during devotions at breakfast time when we were working on memorizing Romans 8. Lately I've found myself struggling to "get to God." I've been frustrated to tears over it, but during devotions I got a picture in my mind of what I was doing.

I can see myself at the front door, which stands wide open. On the other side of the doorway is a gift, wrapped up in a box. For me. Between me and the gift, however, is a gate in the doorway, kind of like one of those ones they put up so that little kids don't climb up the stairs. I'm trying so hard to get the present~ trying to climb over the gate, squeeze around it, or pick the lock. No matter how hard I try, I can't get to the gift. Then there's God on the other side. He's the one who is giving me the gift anyway (or trying to) and He wants to hand it to me, but no. I absolutely insist on getting through the gate on my own.

Yes, the gift is forgiveness, or maybe more simply, peace. The verse we memorized this morning was, "What the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did." Only God could do it. Later I took a walk up our long driveway and talked to Him, and remembered John 10:9 "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." Maybe I should play by God's rules. That would be easier anyway. I miss Him!

Today, being Friday, was housecleaning day. With my waiting blog in mind, I set to work scrubbing down the bathroom with new focus! Whenever I scrub the bathtub, I always think of one of the Hank the Cowdog books where Slim's girlfriend, Viola, discovers some kind of huge mess on the ranch and says to some kid who's with her (maybe Loper's son or nephew? It's been a long time since I had the privelege of reading it) says "Well, this is going t' take some elbow grease!"

Anyway, Ethan really really really really really needs an entertainment committee right now, and it looks like I've just been nominated. (After Connor read him a page or two of his biology textbook, Ethan decided I was a better candidate.) We'll go make cookies :) Mmmm!

The Deep Dark Secret of a One-day English Teacher (maybe)

I'm going to confess something that may be shocking and hard to take for any grammarian readers. But I figured I had better be out with it. I may be a Possible-English-Teacher- Wannabe, but I will never be a true grammarian. As ruthless about this particular issue as I've been with my poor brother during the past three semesters of teaching him english, deep in my heart of hearts I like sentence fragments!! And since this is not a school assignment, but my very own personal space, I think I'll just indulge. There will probably be a lot of other grammatical fudging too; please just overlook it as experimental. Whew. Now that I've got that off my chest, I doubt if I'll really make use of any sentence fragments, but if the urge comes on me, well, I'll be prepared.

A little more...

Maybe I should explain my title a little bit better. I'm not nearsighted. I was simply referring to the fact that I'm human and my view of life is limited (I can't see anything except what's going on right in front of my face, and it's hard to believe past that as well.) That's the nearsighted I can't help. What I can help, but don't really want to, is the kind of nearsightedness I've been enjoying lately. It's the experience of seeing beauty in small things and noticing God's fingerprints on them...small things in life like wispy clouds or water droplets. Or mops or big words.

Mops, Bourgeoisie, and Psalms

Well, I'm finally doing it. I'm starting a blog. I've been waiting for this day for a long time, and it's very exciting, but suddenly I'm nervous, because, well...I don't know what to write. Rather, I don't know what to write first. It seems as though it should be something exciting and brilliant. Nothing comes to mind.

What does come to mind is an observation or two I made today.

1. Some mops look like sticks with dried out spaghetti on the end of them.

2. The word "Bourgeoisie" is really an amazing work of alphabetical art. It means "middle class." I found that out today in history while reading about Marxism. You hear a lot about the bourgeoisie when you're reading about Marxism, because Marxists hate the guts of the bourgeois. Therefore they hate the bourgeoisie. And, although I can't claim to be well-versed in the ways of Communists, I think it's reasonable to assume that it's not fun to be on their bad side. Poor bourgeoisie. Even though I really think that it's an amazing word, it, like starting a blog, makes me nervous, because I can't pronounce it. I've tried, but since I can't be sure it's right, I doubt that I'll be using it in public anytime soon.

While I'm getting my thinking brains warmed up, Mattie has something to post. It's Psalm 117:2, pretty appropriate to how I feel about having a brand new blog :)

"For His lovingkindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord is everlasting. Praise the Lord!"

Other duties now call. Adios and Adieu and all that.