- guilt free shopping, which includes buying gifts (because how can you feel guilty for spending money on someone else?) and using gift cards from thoughtful friends.
- making breakfast, and having the time to sit down and eat it. Today's special: whole wheat honey and cherry pancakes; I'm still full and its 2:30 in the afternoon!
- throwing things away. Don't worry mom, no important papers, and no keepsakes. Just junk. : )
- new music
- and old music
- and listening to music while doing things I don't particularly like, such as laundry, or cleaning the bathroom.
- making to-do lists
- and laughing at myself when I realize I've just made one week's worth of projects for a single day off
Monday, September 03, 2007
I like...
Monday, August 20, 2007
a few thoughts
I am probably writing this mostly to myself, since anyone who checks this blog on even the most erratic basis has been consistently disappointed, but I just need to write today.
I had a conversation the other day with a friend, and it has left a nagging question in my mind that I really can't answer. Or perhaps the question was already there, and it's just uncomfortably close to the surface now. As we talked about the ways our lives have changed since we last talked, we stumbled into one of our recurring, yet always unanswered, questions: what does it really look like to be a Christian? How does it make us different, and would the people I come into contact with on a daily basis be surprised to hear me profess my faith?
A beautiful, though I think only partial, answer has been formulating in my mind since then. I feel that part of being a Christian has to be the value we assign to each other. To know that every person is a reflection of the character of our Creator completely shifts the way I view someone. If this is true, I have no right to marginalize, or to constrain people to a rigid role my mind has assigned to them, or to value someone more or less according to what I think they can offer me. I know that this answer ignores a few key points of salvation and grace, but right now this thought won't leave me, and I feel like there must be a reason for that.
I've struggled so much lately with my job - I am around someone who constantly and unashamedly makes fun of anyone who is different than himself. Last Friday, this involved a female Episcopalian minister who came into our office, who he proceeded to compare to (or perhaps just decided she actually was) a lesbian (even though she was married), a muslim (?!), a tree-hugger, and a women's right activist. All of this before he had even met her! Disgusting enough on its own, but even more so when you know that this same person is a professing Christian, goes to church, teaches Sunday School to children, and makes sure we all pray together before we start our work day. Words often escape me on days like that.
I don't know what the whole answer is, but surely it must be informed by this? I always cringe when people pick a Christian who doesn't exemplify their idea of God and say "If that's what being a Christian is, I don't want anything to do with it!" I wish I could direct their attention to someone else, in part because the person they are pointing out usually is a poor example, but also because it seems like a weak excuse to pick out the person who just proves your point. But right now, I can see how hard it is to look past something like that. I'm not giving up, but I am certainly questioning how faith and grace can truly exist in what seems like such a hateful heart. And even more, I am wondering what it is that I am blind to.
I had a conversation the other day with a friend, and it has left a nagging question in my mind that I really can't answer. Or perhaps the question was already there, and it's just uncomfortably close to the surface now. As we talked about the ways our lives have changed since we last talked, we stumbled into one of our recurring, yet always unanswered, questions: what does it really look like to be a Christian? How does it make us different, and would the people I come into contact with on a daily basis be surprised to hear me profess my faith?
A beautiful, though I think only partial, answer has been formulating in my mind since then. I feel that part of being a Christian has to be the value we assign to each other. To know that every person is a reflection of the character of our Creator completely shifts the way I view someone. If this is true, I have no right to marginalize, or to constrain people to a rigid role my mind has assigned to them, or to value someone more or less according to what I think they can offer me. I know that this answer ignores a few key points of salvation and grace, but right now this thought won't leave me, and I feel like there must be a reason for that.
I've struggled so much lately with my job - I am around someone who constantly and unashamedly makes fun of anyone who is different than himself. Last Friday, this involved a female Episcopalian minister who came into our office, who he proceeded to compare to (or perhaps just decided she actually was) a lesbian (even though she was married), a muslim (?!), a tree-hugger, and a women's right activist. All of this before he had even met her! Disgusting enough on its own, but even more so when you know that this same person is a professing Christian, goes to church, teaches Sunday School to children, and makes sure we all pray together before we start our work day. Words often escape me on days like that.
I don't know what the whole answer is, but surely it must be informed by this? I always cringe when people pick a Christian who doesn't exemplify their idea of God and say "If that's what being a Christian is, I don't want anything to do with it!" I wish I could direct their attention to someone else, in part because the person they are pointing out usually is a poor example, but also because it seems like a weak excuse to pick out the person who just proves your point. But right now, I can see how hard it is to look past something like that. I'm not giving up, but I am certainly questioning how faith and grace can truly exist in what seems like such a hateful heart. And even more, I am wondering what it is that I am blind to.
Friday, May 04, 2007
A different world
I'm home in Michigan this weekend visiting family. I've only been here for 17 hours, but already I've forgotten all my usual stresses.
Normal Friday: rise at 5:30, drive almost an hour to get to work, rush to see our patients on schedule, most likely fit an extra patient or two in at the end of the day, and fight the traffic to get home.
Today: slept in until 10, sat down for a leisurely cup of coffee (3 actually), visited with my extended family over a meal I didn't lift a finger to prepare, went to hear my little brother play in his band for the state festivals, and went to a talent show (in which he won 3rd place!) I also managed to fit in a rousing game of Mario Kart with Andy; not surprisingly, he won.
I could get used to not working.
Normal Friday: rise at 5:30, drive almost an hour to get to work, rush to see our patients on schedule, most likely fit an extra patient or two in at the end of the day, and fight the traffic to get home.
Today: slept in until 10, sat down for a leisurely cup of coffee (3 actually), visited with my extended family over a meal I didn't lift a finger to prepare, went to hear my little brother play in his band for the state festivals, and went to a talent show (in which he won 3rd place!) I also managed to fit in a rousing game of Mario Kart with Andy; not surprisingly, he won.
I could get used to not working.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
I have a recurring daydream which surfaces periodically, usually provoked by a story or picture depicting the lure of a world somehow different than my own. What would it be like, I wonder, to live somewhere new, where no one knows me, where nothing has been given the chance to grow boring and mundane?
The other day I was listening to NPR and they were interviewing random people who live on Route 50, an interstate stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic. As each new interviewee answered questions and revealed their perspective, my mind began to wonder what my life would be like if I lived in Eureka, Nevada or Leawood, Kansas? What job would I have? Who would I know? Who would people think I was? It always seems so much more adventurous and quixotic than my own predictable life.
I always feel guilty when I think like this, because I'm actually quite happy and feel confident that I couldn't, and wouldn't, leave the world I know, no matter how tempting the mysterious unknown.
Concurrently, I am reminded of the blessed ties that bind; my loving husband, friends I cannot imagine losing, and a family I already miss.
The romance of the unknown pales in comparison to my treasured witnesses, the ones who are there to see and listen to the mundane details of my life, to verify that I experience, grow, change, exist.
The other day I was listening to NPR and they were interviewing random people who live on Route 50, an interstate stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic. As each new interviewee answered questions and revealed their perspective, my mind began to wonder what my life would be like if I lived in Eureka, Nevada or Leawood, Kansas? What job would I have? Who would I know? Who would people think I was? It always seems so much more adventurous and quixotic than my own predictable life.
I always feel guilty when I think like this, because I'm actually quite happy and feel confident that I couldn't, and wouldn't, leave the world I know, no matter how tempting the mysterious unknown.
Concurrently, I am reminded of the blessed ties that bind; my loving husband, friends I cannot imagine losing, and a family I already miss.
The romance of the unknown pales in comparison to my treasured witnesses, the ones who are there to see and listen to the mundane details of my life, to verify that I experience, grow, change, exist.
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