eew

I have debated a long time (well, three weeks) about whether to write about this topic or not. I know many of you who read this are church people or people who are really concerned about my safety and welfare and whatnot, and also that you want to know what it really is like to live here. SO: with all those things in mind, I'm going to go ahead because this is a part of life as a Western woman here. PLEASE keep in mind that I live in a culture where violence is rare and violence against women (other than domestic violence inside the house) is non-existent.

Men here have seen too many of Hollywood's worst movies. They've seen Baywatch. They've seen all those sketchy media things we like to export around the world regardless of their cultural appropriateness. And they haven't seen many women who aren't covered, and even fewer white women, and even fewer blonde-and-curly haired white women. Culturally, women are to cover their shoulders, not show midriff, not wear skirts that fall at the knee or above. Many tourists, however, can be seen in short shorts and tank tops, or in sheer shirts with no bra, or other horrendously inappropriate clothing. When men here see them (who are awfully dressed and are here for a few days), and then see us (who are appropriately dressed and who live here), they think we must all be just like the women in the movies and tv shows they've seen, or else we must be part of the sexual tourism industry. What that means to them is a) we're all "loose" and b)we like to be treated the way they've seen western women treated onscreen. They are, of course, wrong on both counts, but no one seems to have bothered to set all several million of them straight. So there are many men (not all, and this certainly doesn't happen ever day) who think that it is okay to say inappropriate things to women, to shout obsenities, or even to grab their bodies. In addition to the constant staring, I have had men on the street tell me they love me, tell me that they want to love me, tell me I've broken their hearts, tell me that want to f*** me, tell me they want to lick me, grab my behind, rub their forearms on my chest while talking to me (that happened in the Egyptian museum, actually), or rub themselves (you know what I mean) on my leg on a crowded metro train. It is not a pleasant experience. Sometimes I think it is simply funny and pathetic--that the best they can do for themselves is get half a second of gratification from touching a white woman on the street. Sometimes I think it's disgusting and all I want to do is take a shower. Naturally, the word "no" comes out quickly, as do the dirty looks and the moving away. Sometimes that is not enough. I have learned the Arabic word for "shame" as well as the phrase "would you do that to your sister?" Luckily, this is a culture so based on honor and shame that any man who gets called out on doing something like that is likely to run off, humiliated. If their sister were to get treated that way (and they were to find out about it), they would be likely to go out and beat up the guy...and then keep an even closer watch and tighter control over their sister's movements outside the house.

So anyway, this is a real problem here. Remember: it will never go beyond this. I am not afraid to walk in the streets (though I don't go places by myself, really, or at least not very much) because they may yell or grab, but they won't assault me. There's no possibility of rape or injury, other than to my psyche--which is pretty strong. Normally I laugh it off, because it's so pathetic. As if any of those men would even have the remotest chance with someone cute (and taken) like me! Anyway...yeah. Should you come to visit, be aware of this and PLEASE dress appropriately--for the sake of those of us that live here. That's all I have to say about that for today.

done

arabic is finished, finally. the "exam" today was bearable. tomorrow il-hafla! (party) Tonight several of us celebrated the end of Arabic class by going out to Chilis for dinner. Yes, you read right: Chilis, on the Nile (literally--on an anchored cruise ship on the Nile, Zamalek side). Mmm...green lettuce, mozzarella sticks, milkshake, and amazing dessert. Most of our group got a hamburger-and-fries fix. Good times.

Coming soon: a post about our trip to Coptic Cairo and a sidebar called 'adventures in arabic' which will showcase some of our arabic-language missteps.

FYI: Tonight (Sept. 29) the time here in Egypt changes away from Daylight Savings. So in half an hour we are all going to set our clocks back an hour. Which means:
mom--you are now nine hours behind here;
atlanta mom--you are now 6 hours behind here...
until y'all do your time change dance over there.
so if anyone wants to call, please take that into account. thanks.

I start reading stories on Monday morning! I got my school schedule today, and it looks pretty good. no early mornings for me! My first class is at 10 on Monday and Tuesday, and at 10:40 on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I do four storytimes on Monday and two all the other days for a total of 12 40-minute periods, with 20 6-year-old-girls in each period. AAA!! In the afternoons on T/Th I'll be helping with the English-Enrichment-Activity period in three classes each day (30 minutes each class of 40 girls). Apparently part of my job is to come up with some of these activities, too. hmmm....

anyway, i need to go to bed. all that food made me tired. goodnight...

Adventures in the Wilderness

This weekend we took quite the trip: to the Sinai, with our Arabic school (Dar Camboni). Dar Camboni is a Roman Catholic school that teaches Arabic--both classical and Egyptian Colloquial--as well as a variety of other courses in things like "Interreligious Dialogue" and "Islamic Studies". In addition to our colloquial class and the very large classical class, there was a group from the local Catholic parish (to which the school is attached) called St. Joseph's. So we were two large tour buses, headed out of Cairo. Each bus was completely full--47 seats, 47 people. We drove about two hours before reaching the Suez canal, which we went under. I didn't even know there was a tunnel there, but there is. About an hour later we stopped at a hotel/beach for the afternoon. We swam in the Red Sea (the Gulf of Suezpart), hung out on the beach, people-watched, and some of us (girls) got ogled and asked for photos and conversations. It was clearly an Egyptian vacation spot, because we were the only westerners there. It is also quite possibly the place (or very like the place) where Moses and the Hebrews crossed into the wilderness. It's a pretty long way across there--we could only barely make out the cliffs on the other side of hte gulf. It's amazing to think that even happened (or sort of happened) and that we have been to the place! it was a pretty fun afternoon, but long. We were at the beach for nearly 7 hours! "Hot" and "exhausting" are the two words besides "fun" and "gorgeous" that I would use. I like the beach, but not for seven hours at a time. Anyway, at 7pm we got back on the bus and headed for St. Catherine's. We stopped for dinner and everyone at our table got spaghetti (the cheapest thing on the menu) which did NOT make our server happy! It was good, but several of us had some issues with it later (stomach cramps and such). At that moment, though, it was very tasty!!

We arrived at St. Catherine's at 11pm, after two checkpoints--one that included passport checks--and we hung out in the little cafe area for a while. Jen and I had a definite restroom experience there at the monastery! We paid one pound each (about 20 cents US) to go in the restroom. Inside we found three stalls, each equipped with a lovely tiled hole in the ground. As we were both wearing pants (not skirts--who hikes up Mt. Sinai in the middle of the night in a skirt?) we had some difficulty with this. Luckily, I've experienced this before (anyone ever been to the bathroom at the Damascus airport? gross.) so when Jen called to me "uh, Teri, how do I do this?" I was able to call back "brace yourself using your arms and the walls. and pray." It was...ummm...gross. Luckily, neither of us peed on ourselves, so we survived. The scary part is that we paid to use this bathroom. anyway...

we began the hike around 1am. Several of our group members took off at high speed, while Jen, Jason, and I (accompanied by one of our Arabic instructors, Ashraf) took a more leisurely pace. Last year our group took camels up the first 2/3 of the mountain, when it's a sandy trail, so I had no idea what a hard hike it would be in the first part. We definitely had to rest several times. While it might be trail, it's sand and rock and goes at a pretty steep incline some of the time. The trail is about 6 kilometers long. It's a good workout, I can tell you that! Part way up I REALLY needed to use the restroom again (dang extra water bottle at the bottom! I was so dehydrated after the busride and beachy afternoon that I succumbed and bought a water bottle and drank it all before we climbed). I was contemplating going behind a rock somehow (I know I complained about the hole, but whatever) since we were pretty alone on the trail, when magically one of the bedouin cafe's had a toilet sign. I was so excited to see an outhouse about 100 feet down a little path behind the cafe, and simultaneously scared out of my mind that there might be a hole out there that I'd have to squat on. Luckily, Jen went with me and held a flashlight and sang a little song while I was inside. Also luckily, there was a compost toilet so I could cover it with tissue and sit down. Whew! It was dark out there, though! wow. after that I felt much better and hiked in the dark more cheerfully. I know a lot of this has been about bathrooms, so I'm done with that now (FYI). Anyway, we were hiking in the middle of the night and Jason (our resident astronomy expert) kept telling us what was in the sky. It was a convenient excuse to stop and rest frequently, because the sky is so clear and so dark and so beautiful that not to stop and enjoy it seemed like a crime. Absolutely gorgeous--we could see the seven sisters, every star in Orion, several of the astrological constellations, and thousands of other stars. We saw Jupiter too, very near the horizon when we began climbing. The higher we got, the more constellations we could see, too. The moon was pretty bright, though, so there were some that weren't very visible. Anyway, we kept on trucking (well, walking), occasionally being accosted by camels and their bedouins asking "camel, camel? very good camel. 4 more kilometers..." etc etc etc. Many times we were tempted but we resisted. However, we often turned around to look at something and found a camel literally inches away from our faces! The camels are sturdy pack animals, very sure footed and whatnot, but they do NOT avoid people. They walk wherever they're used to walking, and if you're in that spot than you're going to find a camel in your face, or a camel rider's foot brushing you, or something. So funny. Camels are simultaneously beautiful and awkward looking. They have cute faces with big eyes and long eyelashes, but they have spindly legs and a gait that looks like they're going to break something with every step.

After the camel trail ends there are 750 steps to the top of the mountain. Ashraf (who rode a camel halfway up the trail because of "leg cramps") kept saying that we should just go now, no more resting, etc etc etc. We just laughed at him. Jason still has a cough from his cold of two weeks ago, and I was fast nearing the end of my second bottle of water (I only took two up with me). We rested several times. As we got to the top, I waited for Jason to recover from a coughing fit and we took hands and took the last step together. It was about 4 am when we reached the summit. We took the "best spot" at the edge of the top, near the chapel, rented a blanket, snuggled up (Jen, me, and Jason, anyway), and attempted to sleep against a rock. It was so cold, and so uncomfortable, that not much sleeping happened. At 6 we were awakened by Ashraf's phone alarm and we sat up and watched the first light creep over the horizon. It was beautiful. So orange and blue. Jason was the first to see the sliver of sun come up, and after that everyone was taking pictures like crazy. I looked around and discovered that there were hundreds of people standing behind and around us, watching the sunrise. I could hear people singing on another part of the mountain top. We had no idea where the rest of our group was, but they were obviously (according to Ashraf) in an inferior location despite their early arrival. I took quite a few pictures, as you can see in my photo album, but I opted to watch the sunrise this time because last year I'd taken so many photos that I missed the watching. It was gorgeous and SO FAST! It takes only a few minutes for the whole sun to appear over the horizon. As light crept into the southeastern sinai, we could see in vivid relief all the mountains around us, and it was completely gorgeous. Incredible, really. It was worth the hard work to get up there, the scary bathrooms, the stairs in the dark, the sleeping on a rock in the cold, to see that.

Once the sun is up, people immediately head down the mountain. We stayed a few extra minutes, taking pictures, looking around, seeing how Mt. Sinai casts a pyramid-shaped shadow on the neighboring mountain, getting some pictures of ourselves up there, etc. Then we started the trek down, with the 900 other people who'd come up. It was crazy and slow going, with so many people on the stairs. When we finally came to the bottom of the 750 stairs, there were lots of bedouins around trying to get people to ride camels down, or offering their guide services for those who wanted to take the Stairs of Repentance, or selling things. One bedouin offered to take Jen down on a camel for 60 pounds, which she refused and asked for 40. He stood around and finally offered 50, and she asked me if I wanted to go too. My response was, of course, "not for fifty!" I had been thinking of riding a camel down because last year's camel experience was so much fun. There was no way I was taking those stairs again, so the options were walking or riding down the camel trail. The guy continued to stand around even after we'd refused, and finally he came down to 40, at which point Jen and I took him up on his offer. Jason, Jennifer, and Ashraf walked down and Jen and I got hoisted onto camels. My bedouin put me on a camel, gave him a pat on the rear, and left. My camel and I were, once again, leaderless, and he went peacefully on down the trail without any help. So now both my camel riding experiences were sans guide, and I've survived. I threw my leg over the front and hooked my foot on his neck, I made all the right noises (clicking and slurping) whenever he stopped, and down we went! I was even able to take some photos from the camel because I didn't need to hold on. The only thing about coming down that was different from going up (aside from it being light and all that) was that down is much rougher. You bounce more in the saddle coming down, because they have to take steps down rather than up so it's just not as smooth. I definitely have some bruised thighs and lower back from the saddle. Having said that, riding a camel is SO FUN that it was completely worth the 40 pounds and the minor bruising. As I had no guide to ask, I named my camel myself--his name was Hawaby. He was a very good camel--"camela kwayes awy". Near the end of our trip--maybe 300 or so meters from the camel corral--the guide for the two british women behind me (on two camels linked together) came up to me and handed me the lead for their camels and walked off! So here I was, guideless, and now in charge of two more camels besides my own! I may be a minorly experienced camel rider, but not this experienced! The front camel of those two stopped and my left arm went behind me as my camel went on and I clung to the lead for their camels. I clicked and slurped and finally her reticent camel came on--partially, I think, because my camel wasn't about to stop! He could see the food and water ahead and was going straight there, not stopping GO or collecting 200 dollars! Anyway, we got to the camel corral safely and some other bedouin came up to help us down. My camel went straight for the trough, only to be rebuked by a slap on the neck and told to sit down first. He sat down and I got off, at which point the front british woman (who'd been commenting for quite some time that I seemed to know what I was doing..."she's even taking photos" etc) said "she can even get down by herself!" It was so funny, as I watched her try to finangle herself out of the camel saddle. Anyway, the bedouin who'd handed me the ropes was saying that my camel just wanted baksheesh (water, I thought, but whatever). I asked him if the camel did or he did, and he just smiled. I gave him a pound. I hope he gets some good bread or something. Anyway, it was a good time.

By the time we got down, Jen and I needed another trip to the hole-in-the-ground bathroom. On our way there, we passed Sister Enrica (the nun who runs our school and who organized this trip) as she was about to enter the monastery. When we came out of the restroom we passed her again on her way back to her room! Granted, there was a line in the bathroom, but still! She was quick. We went into the monastery and found HUGE crowds there, which explains her quick exit. we glimpsed moses' well, did a walk through of the church (avoiding the glare of one of the brothers whose job was obviously to keep people from touching or photographing any of the hundreds of really old icons in the sanctuary), visited the burning bush, took some photos, and got out. We were exhausted, and tired of people, and hungry and thirsty and ready to go. The monastery was packed with people, which made me sad. Also, the icon gallery costs 25 pounds, so we decided not to go in because we were too tired to enjoy it for 25 pounds. So out we went...we waited a little while, had some snacks...my trail mix (pretzel sticks, dried apricots, golden raisins, almonds, and chocolate chips) was really good both on the mountain and at the bottom...then walked back out to the bus and were on our way. I was so exhausted that when I tried to look at my pictures on my camera I couldn't keep my eyes open. I was so glad I'd brought my travel pillow (mm...Fom...)! I slept almost the whole way back. Uncomfortable though I was, crammed in my little bus seat, I leaned against the window and barely even woke up when we had to show our passports at a checkpoint. We stopped for a long while somewhere, and I woke up then because it was hot with the sun coming in my window. There are conflicting reports about that stop--whether it was a flat tire on the other bus or a checkpoint inspection. In any case, it was half an hour with the a/c off. Later we made another stop for food, and boy was I glad that I brought so much food with me! The menu at this little cafeteria showed a price of 9.95 for some of the sandwiches, but when you asked for one at that price they refused and charged 20 pounds! A can of Sprite, a bottle of water, a small ice cream bar...these things all cost 10 pounds! It was ridiculous. I refused to buy anything when they were so obviously overcharging. In Cairo you can get a 1-liter bottle of water for a pound. You can get a liter of seven-up for 2.50. you can get a cup of the best ice cream you've ever eaten for 1.50. tameyya sandwiches are 60 piasters at the place down the street from us. It was insane, the prices these people were asking from the people on the tour bus. What made it worse was that a large percentage of the people on the buses paid it and ate there! I got back on the bus and ate my pb&j, my pear, my remaining cereal, some trail mix, a box of mango juice, and some water--all in air conditioned comfort (unlike the cafeteria) and all for less than a coke would have cost me inside. Crazy.

I tried to stay awake for the last part of the journey, but I just couldn't. I missed the tunnel under the Suez canal on the way back, and I woke up somewhere around Heliopolis. I watched our bus pass by Ramses College (where we live) and head back to Dar Camboni (on Zamalek, an island in the Nile). When we finally got there, we got in taxis and headed home. Once home--at about 8pm--a few of us ran out for food (mmmm...tameyya and fuul sandwiches!) and ice cream (two sandwiches and a scoop of ice cream for 3.70 LE), ate, showered for a long time (to get off the beach/ocean/sweat/dirt/mountain/bus/sleeping ickiness), and went to bed. I went to bed at 10, the earliest I've gone to sleep since arriving here, and I got up this morning at 10 when the sun coming in my window was finally unbearable. I studied not even a little bit this whole three-day-weekend, so tomorrow morning after our breakfast meeting I'll be studying like crazy! I know I'm either the best or second-best student in my class and our main teacher assigned me some homework: to write (in arabic, obviously) a narrative about our journey to Mt. Sinai. I need to do that tomorrow morning. I only hope I know enough words to do it without having to constantly look things up. :-0 send me happy thoughts and good brainwaves...I need them!

This post is so incredibly long that I'm stopping now. I hope you got a glimpse of our trip into the Sinai wilderness....goodnight!

buffy character personality quiz

interesting....

Dawn Summers 54% amorality, 63% passion, 63% spirituality, 72% selflessness

Dawn is a person driven by her love for her friends and her desire to make a difference. Perhaps you are, too. You're willing to do whatever is necessary to do what is right for those you care about, and sometimes this can get you in a little bit of trouble. Most of all, however, you have a heart of gold. Congratulations! THE 4-VARIABLE BUFFY PERSONALITY TEST

busy week

it has been an insanely busy week. It was our first week with five days in a row of Arabic class. That was not very fun. It got progressively hotter all week long, until friday was easily 100 degrees with humidity--ugh. It was literally oppressively hot. All we wanted to do was sleep. The power has been going out a lot lately too--today it was out for two hours. Overnight it often goes out and I wake up in the morning to an un-air-conditioned room.
This week I have:
had a birthday party for one of our fellow YAVs;
Had dinner with a PCUSA mission coworker;
had a group dinner with some ELCA and RCA missionaries, the St. Andrews pastor, and some other people;
met with the head-honcho principal and the primary school principal at Ramses College for Girls;
attended the RCG graduation ceremony;
had 5 days of Arabic class;
studied Arabic approximately 10 hours outside of class;
eaten pizza hut twice and kraft mac-n-cheese once;
been to the suuk twice;
walked to the protestant seminary;
found our local "department store";
went to church on friday;
visited a western-style grocery store (not the two chains we've been to before) and bought balsamic vinegar to make salad dressing;
watched 9 episodes of buffy the vampire slayer, and converted at least two people to buffy;
watched a movie (how to lose a guy in 10 days);
slept a little;
checked my email more than I ever did at home.

It's been a busy week.
This coming week we have a busy week as well: I'll be at a workshop for RCG english teachers monday morning, CEOSS (Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services) on Tuesday morning, Egyptian museum one morning, plus Arabic class four afternoons for four hours each day. Friday we take our trip to Sinai! We leave Friday morning (with our Arabic school), go to a Red Sea beach for the middle of the day (like 7 hours or something), then continue on to St. Catherine's, arriving about two hours before we begin the climb at 1am. We'll reach the top for sunrise, have mass (our arabic school is a roman catholic, vatican-sponsored, run-by-a-nun place), come down, visit the monastery and the burning bush, then get back on our bus and come home on Saturday by dinner. fun! We aren't sure yet whether there will be some arabic-only rule for speaking on the trip--we hope not!

We visited Maadi this week--our Friday dinner with a group of people was down there. Maadi is the suburb (to the south) that is almost entirely populated by westerners, especially american expats. Maadi is like a different world--it was quiet, had little traffic, lots of trees and other foliage, people had domestic animals and SUVs, there were grocery stores that sell mostly imported food...there were no people out in the streets, no horns honking, less pollution...it was crazy. I think I prefer living where we do--in the heart of things, where Arabic is necessary and the people live like Egyptians because they are Egyptians. Maadi was like being in Oak Park, IL or Decatur, GA. Not like we were in another country at all. very strange.

I think that's all for now because I have much studying to do. happy sunday, all!

adventures in uploading

It took several tries on our severely-slower-than-usual internet connection, but I have posted new photos, including the attempts to take pics of the pyramids from a moving bus, pics of last night's visit to al-azhar park, photos of some of the other YAVs, and a few pictures of the neighborhood. Enjoy!

In other news: 5 of our group have just left for the opera Aida, which should be good. I've elected to stay in tonight because I'm tired and I've seen the opera before. It's great and I love it, but I need a night off!! The past two days we've been in all-day training for teaching English as a foreign language. That means that our weekend has been reduced to Sunday only--which is a work day here in Egypt! We'll go to church in the morning (which is strange, actually--most people go to church on Friday, the first day of the weekend, and what we did last week), and in the late afternoon is our group reflection/etc time. So I'll have to try to get some Arabic studying in between all that!

You can tell that Cairo is used to foreigners: when we have been out to nicer restaurants (like last night at the Lakeside Cafe in al-Azhar park, and last week at ferfelas) they have menu items marked "vegetarian" and the waiters will often make last-minute changes for you. Last night we used a set menu--people in our group of 20-ish chose from mixed grill (various meats) or veal. When I said I was vegetarian, not only did they come up with a pasta dish that was great, but they asked me precisely how spicy I wanted it. When they brought appetizers, I asked if what they put in front of me was vegetarian, and the waiter immediately looked horrified, said no, and took it away. A minute or so later they brought me one that was all cheese, no meat. (Vegan would probably be harder!) Anyway, it was so nice. Being vegetarian here is not hard at all--especially if you mostly cook for yourself. Fruits and vegetables are abundant, they are local, fresh and beautiful in season, and you can easily wash and cook them. Also, bread is very cheap, the local pita-type bread, called aysh baladi, is government subsidized and costs between 5 and 25 piastres per "loaf" (pita), which is less than 5 cents even at its most expensive. The meat you can buy from a western-style supermarket is "probably" safe, but the meat at the suuk or from street shops and vendors sits out, there are flies everywhere, it's hot and sunny and polluted, and there's no way you could pay me enough to eat meat from one of those places. I would rather die, since eating it would probably give me some horrendous disease that would cause immense pain and a prolonged dying process. ugh.

Anyway, that's enough for today. I need to study a little, and relax more.

oy

teacher training, arabic class, meetings, dinners, studying, cooking, shopping, oy!

adventures in suuk shopping

This morning we went to the big suuk in Abbaseya, a fruit/vegetable/everything open-air market that runs several blocks long, about a 10 minute walk away from where we live. On the way we passed either a polling place or some kind of political gathering--a bunch of people talking excitedly, and with Mubarak posters and postcards everywhere. We got stared at and talked to a lot, but I don't know enough Arabic yet to know if it was good or bad.

At the suuk we saw all kinds of things and all kinds of people--tomatoes, potatoes, greens, grains, pasta, zucchini, cucumber, mango, pears, apples, grapes, onions, eggplant, etc etc etc, plus kitchen utensils, pans, colanders, bowls, etc, plus hair bands backpacks and housewares--it was crazy and fun and wonderful. Prices are quite low--I got a kilo of potatoes (three very large potatoes, with which I'm making potato salad this weekend), a kilo of onions, a quarter kilo of grapes and a kilo of apples (split with Sarah), all for about...mmm...less than 10 pounds (3 of which sarah paid me for apples). That's less than 2 USdollars. Amazing! Other group members got green beans, zucchini, bell peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes. We made a stir fry and served it over rice with fresh tomatoes on top. It was SO GOOD. Garlic powder, salt and pepper, basil, emeril essence and soy sauce can do amazing things. Tomorrow night we girls (all four of us, assuming Jen feels better) are going straight from Arabic class to a new huge western-style supermarket while the boys take the van home and maybe, god willing, make dinner! Excellent.

I spent most of the afternoon studying, so no pictures loaded today. Maybe tomorrow. Also tomorrow, hopefully: Adventures in Arabic...once I've studied enough to be able to tell you something intelligently!

This is random, but fab: tonight I watched Buffy (1.1 and 1.2) with Sarah, a Buffy virgin. I'm evangelizing for Buffy, since evanglizing for JC is illegal. :-) She's converted, I think!! yay!

adventures in photo ops

Today we took a trip to Fayoum, a city about an hour and a half south of here. We went to celebrate the laying of a cornerstone of a new Synod of the Nile School--a secondary "language" school. It will be built behind the "American Mission School for Girls." While there, we were treated like celebrities--incessantly had our picture taken by the "official" photographer, constantly followed and videotaped by the TV man, introduced and asked to stand during the speeches by the mayor/clergy/principal/president of schools/etc. It was crazy. We also "toured" Fayoum a bit--we visited the famous water wheels (only a few left now, none in the city functional, just decorative and historical). Several in our group got their first taste of being a westerner in a middle eastern country--we were besieged by street vendors trying to sell us baskets, toy camels made of reed, etc. they just kept coming and asking and asking and asking--even when you say "la" they simply lower the price, hoping that you are just bargaining with them. Two of our group members bought baskets--bargained to GREAT prices of about 50 piastres apiece (down from 15 pounds as the merchants first offer!).

On our bus trip to Fayoum I got my first glimpse of the Pyramids. I knew how big they were and everything, but the road goes so near that you can actually FEEL how big they are!! These things are huge. And let me just tell you about trying to take a picture of them from a moving bus on a crowded and lumpy street. We had the windows open, so I was standing at my seat, my camera cord wrapped around my arm, with my camera out the window, trying to get a photo of a pyramid between trees, cars and trucks, the plateau, etc. It was insane. I probably took about 15 pictures before I got one that actually had a pyramid in it. Perhaps tomorrow I will load all of those pictures, just so you can see the process I went through trying to take a picture of a pyramid. It was hilarious and frustrating all at the same time. Every time I thought I had it, we sped up, slowed down, got passed by a truck, or my camera reacted too slowly (no flash (daytime and all that)=slower shutter speed). OY!!

In other news, Arabic class is okay for now. Crazy fast, and with one teacher so mean he borders on evil, and with a book that makes me crazy because the script is so small that it's impossible to read the vowel signs, but okay. I am good with languages, so I've been having a relatively easy time. Also, I've studied Hebrew (obviously) which is a sister tongue to Arabic. Some of our group are really struggling, so they need some supportive thoughts and encouraging prayers.

Tomorrow is the big day--Election Day in Egypt! We have no arabic class, government offices are closed, and no one knows what the Muslim Brotherhood is going to do, so we've been warned by nearly everyone to stay inside tomorrow. Carole says, however, we can go out, just not to downtown. Our neighborhood is harmless, and we need to eat, so we're going to the fruit and vegetable market tomorrow morning. I'll be very interested to see what happens with this, and even more interested in what happens after the election--particularly with the US pressure to have "democracy" here. We will see!!

I think this is enough for now. Not pretty and not well written, but a few snapshots of life in Cairo today. Visual snapshots coming soon...

adventures in kusheri...long term

Kusheri is an egyptian dish made with macaroni, vermicelli, spaghetti (sometimes), fried onions, tomato sauce, lentils, the occasional chickpea, and "spices". It is one of the best foods I have ever eaten. It costs 1 Egyptian pound for a dinner-sized portion. With the current exchange rate of approximately 5.8 pounds to the US dollar, I could eat Kusheri every evening for dinner and spend about $5.50 per month. That is roughly the same price as one venti caramel mocha frappucino from Starbucks, including Chicago taxes and a small tip for your local barista. One coffee, or 30 nights of dinner. It's insane.
However, the average young person working a government job (ie tourist police or some such thing) makes about 40-50 Egyptian pounds per month. So for him it would be 3/4 of his monthly salary, just spent on dinner. Teachers normally start out making 200 egyptian pounds per month, which would make a daily kusheri meal about 1/7 of the salary. No wonder bread is subsidized by the government and costs 5 piastres per "loaf" of aysh baladi--the brown pita bread. 5 piastres is roughly half of 1 cent. things here are very cheap...but then you realize that people get paid so little that even very cheap things are too expensive. it's crazy. To compare: the 50 LE per month salary for the tourist police, the 200 LE per month for the teacher, and 1300 LE a month for the PCUSA mission volunteer. Granted, the idea is that we'll save money to travel in the country (so we can get to know more about where we live and the people in the country) but still. It's a little insane. I was thinking I could save half my stipend every month for travel. Now it seems maybe more than that would be appropriate, if I really want to understand what people's lives are like here, to really be a part of the community. Hmm...

Well, I think that's enough musing for tonight. My kusheri-filled belly and I are going to fill up water bottles at the filter and head for bed. My air conditioner stopped working last night, so if it gets hot i'm coming to sleep in the very ac-ed computer room. If I can't sleep, you may hear from me again. lol!

tomorrow: grocery shopping in our neighborhood! woohoo!

adventures in internet quizzes

Your IQ Is 120

Your Logical Intelligence is Exceptional Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Exceptional Your General Knowledge is Above Average

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

well, that was fun.

Adventures in Sufism

Last night we went to the citadel (fortified by Saladin to fend off the Crusaders, but never actually needed because they were fended off in Palestine). It's huge and amazing and well preserved. It is also where the Sufi Dancers (Whirling Dervishes) "perform" their prayers three nights a week, for an audience. It was AMAZING. The music was awesome, the dancers were great, and the whirling dervishes could whirl forever. The first one (who came on about 40 minutes into the evening) whirled solo (with some surrounding dancers/drummers) for 30 minutes without even thinking about stopping in spite of coughing. After he was done there was a musical interlude, then three dervishes came out and whirled together for about half an hour. It was very cool.
Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam, kind of like the mystics of medieval Catholicism. The Whirling Dervishes are, I think, a sect within Sufism and they use whirling as a way to work themselves into a trance and thus a deeper meditation, which brings them closer to God. It felt kind of weird to watch this as a performance, and then to applaud at the end, but it was amazing and beautiful, so I did. And I did so with only a small amount of shame at being a witness to something like this. Here are some pics, and there are more in my yahoo photos (link on the left sidebar).




~~~~~~

In other news, I hope you are all thinking about ways to help Katrina victims. It is such a huge disaster that it's all over the news here too, and I've been reading the NY Times coverage. I am appalled at the way the situation has been handled, and especially with the news (news to me, anyway) that funding for the levee system to be finished was pulled in order to fund the war in Iraq. UGH!

Also in other news, I heard that a few hours ago Chief Justice Rehnquist died. This makes me sad on so many levels, from his family's grieving to the pain he was in and the lengths he went to to try to heal, to the fact that there are now two vacancies on the Supreme Court and an imbecile president in charge of filling them. I hope this goes better than I think it will.

Now I am hungry, and Jason just walked in with a sandwich that made me extremely jealous. I'm going to eat now. And to try to stay clean. ha!

adventures in boxed beverages

This week we have done a lot! We've been to the grocery (a western supermarket, sadly, because our local grocer is on vacation until monday), ridden the Metro (the mass transit train system, partly above and partly below ground), visited Care With Love (an organization that cares for children with cancer, that trains home health care workers, and a variety of other things...one of the volunteers (Jay) is going to be working there this year) to attend a graduation ceremony for the home health training program, taken a felucca (boat) ride on the Nile, had several fabulous meals, and started Arabic class.

For this post, I first want to share with you how grocery stores work. They look just like ours, except almost all the product packaging is in Arabic. Duh. Luckily, the back side is often in English or French, so I'm doing okay with that so far. Beverages here (juice, milk, etc) mostly come in hermetically sealed boxes. I purchased a box of mango juice and a box of milk. When I went to open them in the morning so I could have breakfast, here's what happened:





I pulled the plastic tab. The milk one broke and I had to cut a hole in the top with a knife. The mango juice plastic opening came completely off, leaving me with just the hole in the box, which I am now covering with the plastic tab when it's in the fridge. Great. It was a fantastic introduction to the ingenuity and flexibility needed to live in another country!

mango juice

Mango Juice might be my new favorite beverage. Since Dr. Pepper isn't distributing in Egypt yet, I'm having to drink other things. Milk comes in a box and doesn't need to be refrigerated, which creeps me out, so juice it is! I had a box of mango juice installed in my fridge when I arrived, and this afternoon we stopped as a group at a juice stand down the road where they literally blend up mango with a little water and serve it up to you in a real glass, right there on the road! Without the water, it definitely would have been a soft solid mass in the cup. It was FANTASTIC. The girl who talked to us about Egypt last week was right--you've never tasted a mango until you've come here. So good.

We have visited some of our neighborhood (Ghamra) and we've found our way to the place to print photos and the suuk where they sell fruits and vegetables, all perfectly fresh and in season, literally trucked in early in the morning from the delta region and sold during the day. crazy!

The pollution here is visible, which is a little disturbing, and at the moment it's quite warm. It's probably about 90+ degrees, but the humidity is reasonable so it's quite manageable to be outside. Our flats all have air conditioning, so being in my apartment is pretty cool, literally and figuratively!

I have a bit of a head cold, which is frustrating, but hopefully it will clear up soon and I won't be begging for cough drops or kleenex anymore!!

Let's see...is there anything else to say? Today we visited with the General Secretary of the Synod of the Nile Schools, who also is (or was?) the President of the Protestant Churches in Egypt, and something else too. He had a lot of titles. He had interesting things to say about politics and Islam and Christianity, so that was intriguing. Basically, Christians want Mubarak to stay because he doesn't oppress Christians. The other candidates would all, supposedly, make Egypt an Islamic state, including Shari'a law, which would make it exremely difficult to be a Christian here. Here's hoping that doesn't happen! While I'm not sure that Mubarak is the best choice, at least with him we'll be allowed to stay! The elections are September 7, just a week away. Good times!

While visiting with Mr. school-president man (whose name completely escapes me at this moment) we also had a chance to experience some Middle Eastern hospitality. All 9 of us were invited to take a seat in his office, and were offered a variety of beverages. We all opted for lemonade, which was pretty good. He also answered lots of questions we had, which was great. We were probably there for about 45 minutes with him!

Well, many of you have heard already, but Dawson Hall here offers some extremely nice accomodations, especially when you consider where some of our fellow YAVs are living in other countries (with host families, in the desert, etc). Each flat has a bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom. My living room is essentially the size of a living room and dining room. It's furnished with a couch, chair, coffee table, small kitchen table (in the "dining room") and two chairs, bed, dresser, closet, bathroom drawers (the plastic kind that I love--a three-drawer unit), and kitchen utensils and dishes. I am glad that I brought my measuring cups and spoons, though. Our stoves are butagas, which means we turn on the tank, then light a match, then turn on the burner and light it. This morning I thought I might burn my hair so I freaked and turned it off on accident the first time, but I succeeded on my second try and managed to boil the kettle for some tea. Thank goodness! I'm so glad I packed peppermint tea because it's just what my nose and throat (not to mention my taste buds) needed this morning.

I think that's about enough for now. Tonight we are headed out for dinner at a restaurant on or near the Nile, which is very exciting. (Last night we were welcomed with pizza and ice cream, which was fantastic after 15 hours of travelling!!) Tomorrow afternoon we begin language lessons! Send us some happy thoughts and prayers, because Arabic is quite challenging and supposedly our teachers are very demanding. :-)

I have posted pictures of Dawson Hall on my photo site, the link to which is to the left there. Enjoy!

chicago

i love chicago. too bad orientation means that i can't really hang out here. anyway, orientation is kind of long but i'm sure it's important. plus there are lots of fun people. good times. i haven't touched my egypt bags, so i must have packed well. thank goodness! if i had to open those, i think it would be very bad. anyway, we have sporadic internet access. i'll try to post again before we actually fly out. we leave monday at 11:30, and we fly away at 3:45pm. yay!

ttfn....

bye, atlanta!

we are off. two hours after our planned departure, but we are packed and ready to go. so we're off on the long drive. no posting until we get into internet land again, approximately 2555.16 miles from here. happy new week!
peace

Getting Your Feet Wet

Getting Your Feet Wet
Matthew 14.22-33
CNCP
August 7 2005

Have you ever had one of those experiences where something is so uncanny, so perfect, so appropriate that you just know that there’s something or someone behind it? That’s the experience I’ve had with this text this week. This text is the perfect story for this, my last Sunday here with you before leaving for a year as a missionary in Egypt. I know we’ve all heard this story a million times before and we’re always being told that it’s about taking risks to follow Jesus, or making a leap of faith, or stepping out of our comfort zone. But I have something just a little bit different in mind this week.

Some of you may remember that about four months ago Jason and I took a trip to Louisville, Kentucky, to participate in a long weekend retreat for potential Young Adult Volunteers. During this weekend about 50 young adults between the ages of 19 and 30 came together to study, pray, and explore whether a year of mission work was for them, and if so where they were called to go. There were people who’d just graduated from college or who were about to, people who were planning to go to seminary when they came back, people who were looking for a change, people who were interested in doing something good while they figure out what to do with their lives, and all kinds of other motives and interests and backgrounds and gifts. There were site directors of a dozen countries and US sites—from Hollywood to India to Kenya to Thailand to Guatemala and everywhere in between. It was really a chance for us to just get our feet wet in the program—to meet people, find out information, and be in community for a short while with other people we might be living with later in the year. All weekend we talked, we listened, we met and chatted and ate and prayed. We worshipped twice a day, and the text we used for each of those 6 services was this very text—the story of Peter walking on the water. We heard this story 6 times, we heard it preached on 6 times, we heard what felt like every aspect of the story—from the part where Jesus takes some time out to pray and rest even though there’s a ton of work to do, to the part where Jesus walks on the water, to the part where Peter walks on the water, to the part where Peter sinks and Jesus apparently rebukes him, to the part where all the disciples worship Jesus because they finally figure it out just at the last minute. I feel like I have heard every sermon on this text that I might ever preach, and all in one weekend. When we weren’t in worship, we were often talking about this story and what we were thinking or feeling about it. The entire discernment weekend was saturated with this story of Jesus, Peter, and the other disciples and their modes of travel. So when it appeared in the lectionary for the Sunday I was scheduled to preach my last sermon before heading off to actually be a young adult volunteer, I found the coincidence too much to bear. Except, of course, I don’t believe in coincidence, so it must be providence. Clearly there is a reason that I’m supposed to bring this story to you all this morning.

Can you imagine the scene that Matthew describes? Jesus sends the disciples on ahead in the boat, and since they’d tried earlier to get Jesus to send the crowd away, they were probably delighted to get away from the crowd and have some peace and quiet. No one asked Jesus how he was planning on catching up with them, no one argued, no one even batted an eye. Now, the Sea of Galilee is not very wide—at its widest point it is 8 miles across. From the place where the feeding of the 5,000 happened up to Genessaret, the location for the next story, is basically due north, probably about 5 or 6 miles. You can see across from one side to the other. It must have been really windy, because by the time Jesus decides to join them, he can see that they’re out in the middle of the lake even after several hours. Remember, this is a boat half full of fishermen—they know how to move a boat, even in a storm. And these fishermen were straining at the oars, according to Mark’s version of this story. So when Jesus comes along, leisurely strolling by, apparently on the surface of the water, imagine what that must have looked like. The disciples have been up all night bailing water out, trying to keep the waves from swamping the boat, rowing against a strong wind, and making no progress. They’ve just had news that John the Baptist was beheaded—bad news for their own little group. And now, in the dark of the very early morning, they see this figure coming toward them, clothes billowing out behind him, face pale in the faint moonlight, hair whipping about. Between stress, fatigue, anxiety, and the impossibility of the situation, of course they were afraid! They scream, probably with the scream of a teenager in terror, and Jesus says “do not be afraid.”

Have you ever noticed that whenever the phrase “do not be afraid” comes up in the Bible, it’s always at the moment when people have every right to be completely terrified? Hagar thinks her son is going to die in the desert heat and she begins to hear voices. Moses sees a bush that’s burning up but isn’t burning up. The people of Israel come up against an army ten times their size. Jeremiah takes daily threats to his life, even from the king. Mary meets a so-called-angel that mysteriously appears in her kitchen. The disciples see a vision of Elijah and Moses with Jesus on a mountain and everyone is glowing. The members of the early church see their brothers and sisters stoned and burned to death for proclaiming Jesus as Lord. These are all pretty good reasons to be afraid, and yet every time God says “do not be afraid.” What? I spend plenty of my time being afraid for much less than this. And now I’m headed out to a place where everyone keeps telling me to be careful, often implying that I should be afraid of the people, of the situation, of some unknown thing. And that’s really what we’re afraid of, isn’t it? We’re afraid of the unknown. We as a congregation are afraid—because we don’t know what’s going to happen next, where we’ll be in a year or five years, whether new people will come or everyone here will get a new burst of energy or whether young families will move in to the new townhomes across the street. We as a nation are afraid because there are people in the world who aren’t like us. The people in those Bible stories were afraid of the unknown—what would happen when that army marched on the Israelites, whether Jeremiah would be killed or not, what this angel might require or what seeing God face-to-face might do to a person. Now, intellectually we all know that what we really fear is the unknown, and we know that the unknown thing usually turns out not to be very frightening at all—sometimes it’s even pleasant or rewarding!—but we are still afraid to move toward it, to get our feet wet in that unknown and risk getting in over our heads. So perhaps, in this light, “do not be afraid” makes some sense after all. Perhaps that is Jesus’ way of telling the disciples in the boat that he is not the unknown, but is someone they know and love and trust. Perhaps the phrase “do not be afraid” is almost a form of identification, a way for God to say “hey, it’s me! Not a stranger, but a friend.”

Once the disciples have heard this declaration, this identification, of their friend and Lord, Peter asks what seems like a silly question to me. He says “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Now, if it was a ghost, wouldn’t the ghost also say, “come” just as Jesus does? Granted, the ghost would assume that Peter would sink, but why not? It doesn’t seem like a very good test. However, you may remember the phrase from First John: “test the spirits to see whether they are of God.” Maybe Peter was confirming that it was his friend and, somehow, also displaying his trust that what Jesus commands is possible. In any case, Jesus orders Peter out of the boat, and the exhausted and frightened Peter obeys. Somehow he defies all logic, gravity, laws of physics, and everything else and manages to step out onto a non-solid surface that is heaving and spraying and swirling all around him. Maybe it was magic, maybe it’s a metaphor for stepping from comfort into chaos, maybe it somehow really happened, but in any case, the story tells us that Peter began to walk toward Jesus—and THEN he noticed the wind? Uh, no, he knew about the wind, he’d been in a boat, straining to make headway, desperately trying to keep the boat afloat against the waves. He hadn’t been comfortable in the boat to begin with—he had been anxious, bone-tired, soaked to the skin, and most likely decidedly uncomfortable. He knew what was outside the boat. He knew he might get even wetter, that it might not work…but he also knew that if Jesus called him out of the boat then it must be worth it. And he chose to get out of the boat and try his luck at walking on the water because that’s where Jesus was. He was more comfortable being close to Jesus than being on a solid surface. He was willing to get his feet wet in order to be close to the Lord he knew. And yes, he became afraid, and he began to sink—he may have even been in over his head—but with God all things are possible and Jesus held him up. Remember from Psalm 139—at the edge of the sea, in the depths of Sheol or the heights of heaven, even there your right hand shall hold me fast. Or the psalm for today, Psalm 23—even in the depths of fear, sinking into the middle of the very symbol of chaos, Peter was comforted by the Shepherd. Oh yes, Peter knew what he was getting into, and he was afraid of what might happen, but his friend and Lord came through for him, just as he always had and always will. Jesus is Lord even of the elements and of the laws of nature, as we see so often in the gospels, and he was not about to let Peter fall. Jesus walked Peter back to the boat, to the stunned disciples who by now had probably forgotten to bail or row because they were busy staring open mouthed at Peter, and the wind stopped when they were all together again, and the disciples worshipped him—because what else could they do? There is no other response than awe and praise when something so completely bizarre happens, much as there is no other response than following when you are called.

In that moment, the moment where Peter stepped out of the boat, I think he got a little glimpse of what it must be like to be in the Kingdom of God. To be more comfortable being close to Jesus than being on solid ground, to do something strangely impossible, to so closely obey the command of the Lord, to forget the worldly rules and follow a new set of kingdom rules. I must admit that I’m not quite in the same place Peter was. When I was in a boat on the Sea of Galilee in the broad daylight when the wind and water were calm, we joked about who would prove their faith by stepping out—and neither I nor anyone else was willing to do so. And I will definitely be careful when I’m in Egypt—I don’t plan on going places alone at night, going anywhere with random people I just met at a coffee shop, or doing anything silly. Because it seems to us that what Peter did was really kind of silly, kind of bizarre, kind of rash and thoughtless. But in a way I think that’s kind of what we do at church, especially on days like today. We come together to proclaim something impossible has happened and is happening—that God became human, that a human being died and was resurrected, that being in community matters, that water, bread, and wine mean something beyond what they look like, feel like, or taste like. Every time we come to this table we act kind of silly, claiming that eating specific foods together in a specific place in a specific way brings us closer together, creates and re-creates the Body of Christ, feeds us with God’s own body and blood—that it is life-giving in both physical and spiritual ways. It doesn’t make sense, it isn’t always comfortable, and it makes us the subject of ridicule sometimes. And yet we do it; week after week millions of people around the world enact the same ritual we will enact here today, they eat bread and drink wine, they say the same words and they believe that in doing so we are all made brothers and sisters—even with people we don’t know or like, even with people we are afraid of, even with the one we call Lord. This immensely silly and seemingly impossible thing that we do, though, is like getting our feet wet in the Kingdom. We believe that we come closer to Jesus in this ritual, in this symbol, in this act of communion. And so we leave the solid ground that is strangely uncomfortable and we enter into something different, something swirling and mysterious, something holy. And we find that there is comfort there, even amidst the challenge, even in that place of uncertainty that is the place where Jesus often is.

Today I invite you to listen for Jesus calling your name, and to step out of the boat, which is not a comfortable place, not the place where we are at home, and step into the holy place where Jesus is and you can truly be at home. Go ahead and be silly! Get your feet wet here at the table, and keep them wet out in the world that God calls us to live in and to serve. Amen.

penguins

March of the Penguins made me cry. more than once.

last one!

i am serving my last on call shift at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite. Thank goodness.

I will be having many lasts coming up. Strangely, this seems to be a theme throughout the years of my blog. In the beginning it was the last days of college or the last days of Chicago. Recently it's been the last days of seminary. Now we're in the last days of Atlanta and nearly into the last days of the US (for a year, anyway). Good times.

SO: tonight is my last duty shift. tomorrow is my last haircut here. Sunday is my last Sunday at CNC and probably my last preaching gig in a while. Next Thursday is my last day of CPE. Next Friday is my last day in my apartment. Next Saturday is my last day in Atlanta. Are you keeping up with all that? Just wondering. I'm not sure I am. I have so much to do. And it's impossible to do it here at the hospital. I am trying to work on the bulletin and my sermon, but we'll see. anyway...

happy wednesday!

because Calvin is not attractive...

I've decided (with some mildly bitter prompting from patrick) to update my blog. here's what's going on in my life, and possibly some commentary on world events (if i have time before lunch).

1. i've continued the packing. it's moving along. slowly.
2. i've bought egypt-appropriate clothes. and sorted my other clothes into taking, storing, and donating.
3. i've interrupted my reading of the required books to re-read Blue Like Jazz.
4. i've spent all the money i have, and then some.
5. the "president" made a recess appointment of john bolton, which wasn't very smart. duh.
6. the king of saudi arabia died and the new king is young, reform-minded, supposedly, and i think he's western educated but i can't remember. i'm having some trouble keeping the royal families of saudi arabia and jordan distinct in my mind.
7. i'm preaching this sunday, on Peter walking on the water. (Matthew 14.22-33)
8. i got my shots for egypt yesterday. they were (still are) very painful and also very expensive. good thing i get reimbursed for those.
9. my mom is still sick.
10. my cousin max weighs over seven pounds now--he's about the size of a real baby!
11. i'm trying to figure out if we really can drive 38 hours and 32 minutes in three days without falling asleep and getting ourselves (and others) killed.
12. i haven't made the bulletin for this sunday yet. it's communion sunday, too. the only thing i know (beyond the text, obviously) is that we're going to sing "The King of Love My Shepherd Is" (Psalm 23 to ST. COLUMBA, i think it's number 181 or 151 or something like that in the hymnal, but i'm not looking at a hymnal right now so i'm not sure).
13. i am very very very hungry right now. hopefully lunch will be very soon.
14. that's all for today. hopefully this post has pushed john calvin's not so attractive face down the page enough to make certain people happy. :-)

fun theologian quiz

true to my presbyterian form...

You scored as John Calvin. Much of what is now called Calvinism had more to do with his followers than Calvin himself, and so you may or may not be committed to TULIP, though God's sovereignty is all important. John Calvin 93% J?Moltmann 73% Friedrich Schleiermacher 67% Paul Tillich 53% Anselm 53% Karl Barth 47% Martin Luther 47% Charles Finney 40% Jonathan Edwards 20% Augustine 20% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

hahahahahahaha!!!! and oy.

this 911 call is why more people should be vegetarian. how many actual crimes were put on hold at the 911 call center because this woman wanted dead cow?

funny!

I found a post about this on a random website. it's hilarious--test it out!

The dialectizer.

also, check out the new link to the left for StoryCorp. NPR plays some of these stories and they have made me cry so often--sweet, sad, funny, fantastic, etc. you can listen to stories on the website. great.

cool

so you know how up there in the right hand corner of the page there's a button that says "next blog"? I recommend that you push it and read some of the other blogs that are around. Some very thoughtful, some hilarious, some not-yet-really-started, but all fun to look at. spend some time on the internet, people!!!

finally!

PyroManiac appears to be a blog written by an evangelical who thinks. I'm so glad to find that such a thing exists! He is insightful in his commenting on Christianity in our culture, and has WONDERFUL things to say about harry potter from the evangelical perspective. thank goodness for people like this that make me think the world might be worth it after all.

Harry Potter VI

finished...and...

WHAT?????????

My friend Noell thinks there's a plan where evil man (not you-know-who) is now uniquely positioned to be of help. i agree but am not convinced that he isn't evil. so there.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED??? ugh. When is the next book due out?

packing II

I have started.
i need more boxes.
target, here I come, looking for the plastic bins that will keep the mold and bugs away and protect my books from floods!

packing

well, i haven't really started yet. BUT: my packing list arrived today, so I guess it's time to get a move on. I need to pack up my apartment before I can pack for Egypt, after all! So--tonight it is. the Books begin to go in the boxes tonight. the packing list says there are "hundreds" of books in Dawson Hall, the place I'll be living. I only hope that's true. :-)

i'm so ronery...

this past two weeks i've been pretty lonely. jason's been away getting his stuff on ebay or going to florida for the shuttle launch that wasn't, i haven't had much of a social life because the hospital's been so tiring, and none of my friends have been available by phone. granted, i have things to do (write fundraising letters, pack apartment, prepare for sunday (I'm preaching), etc etc etc) but it's hard for an axtrovert like me to spend every evening at home alone. thankfully, my evenings alone will soon be (temporarily, at least) ended, as jason is supposed to return tonight from florida and maybe we will hang out. that would be nice.

i can't wait to be around someone again. someone not from/in the hospital.

yay.

chapstick and new job

Labello is the best kind of chapstick. it's so light and smooth, it makes your lips so happy....yeah. unfortunately, you can't just go out to the store and buy it--at least not most stores. should you want to try this out for yourself, try lipmedic. they ship anywhere. it's great. i just stocked up for egypt.

In other news, i received the information about the jobs I'll have in Egypt. Are you ready for this?

At the Ramses College for Girls in Cairo, I will be the:
1. English Chaplain
2. Lower Primary (K-3) storytelling and english enrichment activities
3. library person

These jobs are very me. Hopefully "chaplain" at a girls school and chaplain at a hospital are NOT the same job!! I guess we'll find out when I arrive, won't we?

Pretty soon I'll be starting my fundraising campaign (since I still have $6500 to go). It is highly likely that I'll post my fundraising plea here--probably more than once! If you would like to help me out, or if you know someone or have family members that might be able to help even a little, please please please send me an email!!!

so..that's the news for now. good times!

weekend

what did i do this weekend, you might be wondering. What do people who dislike blind patriotism to a country doing bad things, people who can't stand patriotism in the church under ANY circumstances, do on Independence Day Weekend?

Friday: Jason's last day of work cookout and pool party! Becca, Patrick, and Laura came over. There was pool, grill out, and cake and ice cream! yum.

Saturday: On Call. Wrote CPE assignment for this week. Took the beeper home. Read three books. Slept. (no calls. it was beautiful)

Sunday: Church--it wasn't patriotic. I even survived My Country 'Tis of Thee, though I do have a question about the grammar. "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing." Isn't "tis of thee" and "of thee" redundant? Does that sentence actually make sense? I'm not sure. Anyway, post-church was lunch with Becca and Laura (mmm..Camille's and their tomato soup!), then Buffy watching. I probably watched four or five episodes of Buffy. It was great.

Monday: sleep in. do laundry. watch buffy (just one ep). clean kitchen. go to Becca and Patrick's house (Jason met us there too). Grill out. Play cards. Play with the newly legal "fireworks" which are really just the fountain kind. Plan to go for Stone mountain fireworks, get rained out. watch Capitol Fourth and the Boston Pops fireworks and concerts. I'm all over the celebration of our independence and the things this country is supposed to stand for. It's just that I'm not sure we live up to that right now. I hope one day we can once again recognize that revolution (and true independence) comes from within--it can't be forced in from the outside. All in all, however, fireworks are cool.

Now it's time to go for an exciting movie night. with pizza. i love pizza. mmmmm.......

oy

it's raining. again. and i only found out because someone came in. it's so weird working in a totally enclosed building with no windows in our office. it's like i leave the world then come back later. very strange.
who goes on vacation when their child goes in the hospital? weirdos.

anyway...it's raining. ugh.

hmm.

sometimes working in the hospital makes me sad. especially when bad things happen to small children and the bad things weren't accidents.

In happier news, my mom's spinal tap was clean. no cancer in the spinal fluid/brain lining. Also the bacteria tests were all clear. The bad news is that she's still sick, like pukey. but i guess not from cancer, so that's good. and she's not pukey in my bed anymore. or her bed, actually, because she's in the hsopital where they can take care of her and give her IV fluids and stuff so she's not dehydrated any more. Which is better.

Still working on the stuff-placement issue. I'll get back to you on that.

stuff

that's what I have, stuff. And it's what i need to put somewhere, but where is unknown to me right now. Putting stuff places is expensive. just saying.

I'm at the hospital, on call, and hopefully (everyone hope really hard!) nothing will happen and I'll have a completely boring day. Especially since I really want to go to Borders, I need to drop my computer at Best Buy, and I left my lunch at home. I need to be able to leave the hospital today.
I have to do worship this morning and I have decided not to write ANYTHING for my 5-8 minute sermon. Nothing. I've just read the text, made up a sermon in my head, and am praying that if I feel a ramble coming on then God will fix it up into something useful. That will work, right? I hope so. the only problem is that I don't know how to get from one place to the end. You see, I got distracted by something else (I don't remember what) and lost my train of thought at one point, so I know the way it goes up to a point, and I know the end, but I don't know the transition. Hmm....hopefully it will come to me in the next hour or so.

In the meantime, see y'all later.

done and begun

school is done, i'm graduated and even have my diploma--yay!
vacation was fantastic--alligators, great blue herons, turtles, kayaking with dolphins and brown pelicans, biking to the beach, visiting savannah and charleston, hanging out with the fam...

now i've started at the children's hospital. so far so good. tonight is my first on-call shift. woohoo.

i'm already tired.

be good...

lasts

I am about to turn in my last paper.
I've been at my last chapel, cleaned up my last communion (in the chapel, anyway!), handed out my last bulletin, etc.
I'm about to go to my last small group. There's food.
I'm going to eat in the Refectory one last time--it's Cheese Quesadillas today!
I've been to my last class--yesterday.

all in all, woohoo! a little bit of sad, but not a lot, at least not yet.

4 days until grandparents arrive.
5 days until parents arrive.
6 days until Noell arrives.
6.75 days until pastor arrives.
7.5 days until graduation.
8 days to vacation!


I've got to go get rid of this paper. ta!

countdown continues

1.5 days to get the work done
1.75 papers/projects to finish
2 hours of class
2 chapels
1 communion shopping trip

3 days to youth sunday

9 days 13 hours 20 minutes to graduation

the countdown feels like it's going faster

so I'm into the first of the last four days of class, last five days of work due...
here's the whole countdown:

4.5 days to get the work done
3.5 days of class
2 papers to write
1 paper to turn in (already written)
1 class to teach, using a clip from Buffy of course!

8 days until grandparents arrive
9 days until parents arrive
12 days to graduation
13 days to vacation!

3 months and 3 weeks until orientation in Chicago
4 months until arrival in Cairo...

13 days!

4 days of class and a total of 13 days until graduation! Woohoo! two weeks from now I'll be on my way to Hilton Head for a much deserved vacation.

After that, what? You might be asking. Well...

The verdict is in.
Jason and I are going to Egypt to be YAVs for a year! woohoo!
Arabic, here I come!
:-)

countdown

three weeks, four days, and 17 hours until the beginning of graduation. 3.4.18 until i've graduated. exciting! trying to get all the work done between now and then: not exciting.

going to Louisville this weekend to figure out the YAV thing. exciting! working on the Pastoral Care project while I'm gone so I can turn it in on Wednesday morning after we get back Tuesday night: not exciting.

prepared to teach in Rodger's class today. got bumped because others took too long, so now it's not until two weeks from now. woohoo! i guess. except it means i have to refresh when it gets closer. anyway: tonight's project: Paul journals. yippee skippee.

ta

I'm back

so after a really awful attempt at getting home, I bought a walk-up ticket on United, flew through Chicago (and left Chicago REALLY LATE) and got home Sunday morning aroun 2. great times. I slept through church but made it to youth group and session. The keepsake boxes the kids painted are gorgeous. Maybe I'll post a picture tomorrow. :-)
Back to school now...yippee skippee...

home, and homework

i've done more homework here than about, oh, ever. maybe it's the whole not-going-to-class thing. if only i could choose: either the work or the class time, but not both. i could handle that. it's the doing both thing that's problematic.
also problematic: according to the unhelpful delta woman earlier today, the flights going back to atlanta are looking 'not so good.' whatever that means. anyway....yeah. i may or may not be back when i want/need to be. we'll see! luckily, i'm borrowing some books from the 'rents so i won't be bored at the airport if i do end up sitting there all day long. yippee.
i love mashed potatoes.

home

i have come to visit my fam for spring break. after a horrendous ATL airport experience this morning, with lines so long and a tag for extra security screening that I missed my first flight, I managed to make it. on the next flight, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. i even got a window seat with no one sitting next to me on the aisle, so i had two whole seats to myself. yay! i'll be back to atlanta before sunday afternoon, hopefully. barring more security checks that cause me to miss planes. grr. anyway, it's chilly here. my bro is out playing tennis right now. grandma is making dinner. mom's face is steroid-puffy. dad is pretty much silently watching tv, as usual. mashed potatoes and green bean casserole are in my future. AND the bed has two futon mattresses and a foam pad on it now, making it actually comfy. hurray!
happy spring.

sunburn 1

my shoulder...ow. 

sunburn 2

here's one of my burned arms. ow! Even my hand is burned, which you can't really see because I cut it off when I took the picture without looking at the screen... 

my sunburn attitude

this is how I feel about my sunburn. well, how i felt when it was new, anyway. 

why?

why is blogger oppressing me? why?

sun

I am trying to post pictures of my sunburn. but i'm being oppressed. maybe one day soon you will see. maybe.
six weeks, one day, and 13 hours until the start of graduation.

spring break

it's close. reallyclose. I'm going home on sunday--yay! i'll be sad to not see jason for a week, but i suspect we'll both live through it. ;-)
The seminary prom is approaching. woohoo! I'll be sure to post pics afterward, if I remember my camera.
graduation is now 6 weeks, 2 days, and 14 hours away.
I think I might add a graduation countdown to my blog. or maybe just mention it in EVERY post. :-)
now that easter is over my life may return to normal, as in overworked student/pastor normal, not regular person normal, but still. hopefully it will be better.
I got a really bad sunburn today while having class outside. Perhaps I'll take pictures of that and upload them. I recently turned into a techno-dork with one of those USB storage things that goes on your keychain--mine's called a "jump drive". it's very cool. It stores as much as 173 floppy disks. however, the computers at church don't recognize it because they're too old. grr.
i'm going home to eat dinner now.
goodnight.

Taco Bell

Everyone go to Taco Bell!!! They have reached an agreement with the tomato pickers and the boycott is over. How great would it be if there was an increase in sales today, proving that the boycott HAD been keeping people away?

Yay bean burritos!!

books

I read a lot of them.
Sometimes they are for class.
Sometimes they are for fun.
The last fun book I read was very very good, though also very strange. I recommend it highly. As do about a zillion other people, apparently.
It's good.
Read it. It's worth the time and the thinking. :-)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

hair

it has been cut. By a lot. You can see for yourself, kind of, though it's hard to take a picture of one's hair. Just saying. Anyway, about 8 inches of hair left me on Friday afternoon. It's a little weird feeling but is also GREAT!!

Jason and me on our one-year anniversary (of dating, people!). 

how long my hair is today, after it was cut on Friday. It's about 8-9 inches shorter. 

Here's how long my hair was in August. (me, with Noell, on the Chicago River) 

rain

it rained SO much yesterday. AND I left my sunroof open when I went inside because, of course, it was sunny out when I went in. When I came out it was pouring rain, thundering and lightninging, and my car was very wet. I got a very wet behind from sitting in my driver's seat. It rained so hard I could barely see. Then it hailed so hard that I thought it would break windows in my car, or maybe my blasted sunroof that leaks anyway, thus making me NOT get any drier while I was in the car with the heat on in an attempt to dry the passenger seat before Jason got in it. Luckily, my car is not damaged. it was just scary. My windshield wipers could not even come close to moving fast enough to get the water off.
when we came back from dinner (long after the rain incident...it was no longer raining, in fact I could see the moon and the occasional star in spite of the light pollution) i stopped inside the gate to put my window up and to put my gatecard away (and, ok, to try to stop someone from sneaking in, but I always stop there to put my window up) and the person trying to sneak in behind me got cut off/hit by the gate arm. then he got angry and when he finally did sneak in he drove around and gave me a dirty look. it wasn't very nice. if he lives there he should have a card. since he was originally in line for the call box, i assume he does not live there. there's reason it's a gated community and a reason the arm comes down between each car. just saying.

today it is nice outside. however, i am going to go watch buffy (for church!). yay!

Weekends

I like them. However, there's so much homework to do that sometimes they don't even feel like weekends. Where's the fun in that? I can't wait until the end of school, when I have to get a real job--oh wait, yes I can. I just wish I could be done with school but not have a real job for a little while. I would give anything to be bored for a week. Just a week. That's all I'm asking for. Not like "desperate housewives" bored, but you know...

hungry

i am hungry. very.

school

i got up early this morning and came to school through a "dense fog warning" or some such thing. fifteen minutes after class was supposed to start we got word that the professor is sick and there's no class today. sad. i wish i had slept in.

in other news, things are moving along nicely toward graduation, Jason and I finished our YAV applications and mailed them today, and i think i finally have my schedule under control.

however, speaking of schedule, i'm going to do some work now so i don't have to do it later. then maybe we can watch our norwegian movie tonight instead of me doing homework. yay!

another semester, another homework assignment...

yeah. homework. it's great. right.

on the plus side, i'm going home earlier than I thought today due to the moving of a meeting. woohoo.

I am already tired, and it's only the second week of class. However, the classes don't look too bad right now, at least. Ask me in a month.

Sent in my YAV application--just the supplemental part to do now. Who wants to be my "personal reference"? Anyone, anyone? I'll be taking applications for the role of "personal reference" beginning now. Applications and Auditions close on Saturday February 12th, in order for there to be plenty of time for you to do it and get it in on time. :-)

Happy Monday! Lots of fun ahead with the homework and the church, and if I get lucky there might even be Buffy in my future. yay!

tomorrow, tomorrow...

School starts tomorrow. Last semester! I am a mere 15 weeks from graduation, people. 15 weeks! AAAA!!!! What am I going to do with myself? besides, you know, all the stuff I still have to do in order to fulfill the requirements of my presbytery. hmm..

On the upside, my afternoon class was cancelled for tomorrow (prof out of town) so I won't be going from on-call to class, i'll be going from on-call to home. yay! Hopefully the power will be back on, because otherwise my newly purchased milk, for which I had to risk my life and use my four-wheel-drive yesterday, will be no good, and I will be sad.

and that's life. four wheel drive, hospitals, no class, and 250 pages of the private life book to go before Thursday. yippee!

so i lied

i went to publix instead of kroger. sorry. :-) there were a lot of people with children there--it's like the family publix or something. people were staring at me because I didn't have a four year old holding my hand. seriously. weird.

leaving at last

after almost 36 hours, i'm going home. after I go to Borders. and kroger. but in any case, i'm leaving the hospital now. thankfully. yay! and I'm excited about the weekend--and I hope you are all similarly excited about the weekend. Happy Saturday and Sunday! woohoo!!! two whole hospital-free days, coming right up!!!

ah!

it's hard to believe that I have to find a job sometime this year. craziness, actually. Who does God think he/she is, sending me here to atlanta, then into a small church, then into a hospital, and expecting me to somehow figure out where I'm supposed to go and what i'm supposed to do with my life, or at least the next little bit of it, without more concreteness? hello? a few years of school, five exams (four of which are graded half by people who are bitter about having gone through the same process and the other half are at least mostly clueless with a checklist, and the fifth graded by a computer) and some internships don't qualify a person to lead a church by themselves, do they? or even not by themselves, you know? it's a big job. I don't want it after all. just kidding. i've just been working on my CSC (Candidate Seeking Call) form and looking at other people's forms, and at some church forms, and websites, and desperately trying to find a way to do a Lilly residency, even though I know that none of them are funded any longer...trying to prolong the inevitable, I suppose. The dreaded call process. Give me a break--process? or noose? just wondering, temporarily. And, of course, I'm at the hospital, have been at the hospital for 13 hours, have another 19 or so to go, and i really want to be at home in my bed. but noooo....and i had to visit families who lost babies today. and a family about to lose the dad at age 62 to leukemia. i had to see the babies, touch them. i even baptized one. i know i'm not technically allowed to do that, but whatever. polity only goes so far when people's faith and emotional health are on the line, and they needed to have that baby baptized. so we did. communion of saints, priesthood of all believers, etc etc etc etc. luckily i got to follow that with a visit to a healthy baby and its adopting family. what a day. and there's more to come. oh boy. alone with nothing but my thoughts and a pager that tells me when someone's about to die so I can head off their family's run into the room. and To the Lighthouse which so far, in the first 25 pages, is not as easy to follow as one would normally hope for a book one is reading while on call. I need to get a life, but I can't because this hospital thing makes me too tired. and now I'm whiny so i'm going away to sit on the couch instead. prayers always solicited and welcome. thanks.

I love Dr. Pepper

but I hate their website. It doesn't really work the way it's supposed to, sadly. In other news, the hospital is relatively quiet right now. Please, God, let it stay that way. Please Please Please Please Please.

saturday

my day is not going as i planned. silly thing like other people doing laundry, causing me delays in the dryer department. oy. why don't places have more dryers than washers? it takes longer to dry clothes than wash them. twice as long, actually. so you really need 4 dryers and 2 washers. then people could go in a nice smooth process. but no.....i am being oppressed, probably by a man because they didn't used to be ones who did laundry in the era when this place was built, and it's not cool. just saying.

hospitals

are very busy places. hence the lack of blogging recently. I apologize, and I also ask for your prayers for some energy for the rest of the month! I'm ready for a vacation and it's only been two weeks. Two more weeks to go, and then school starts (overlaps with this month of hospital land, actually) so there's no break for me just going going going going going..............and i'm tired. so there.

good news, though: today's mom's last radiation day. woohoo!

i hope you are all being good while I'm stuck in the hospital. I don't want to see any of you in my emergency room while I'm on call!

Who?

Who?
Isaiah 42.1-9, Mathew 3.13-17
CNCP
January 9 2005

It’s been just four weeks since we heard John proclaiming in the wilderness that we all ought to repent and prepare the way of the Lord. Four weeks since we saw John getting ready for Jesus’ birth, right? Except for the part where Jesus and John are the same age. So now, two weeks after we celebrated the birth of Jesus, which was just four weeks after the annunciation, here we are standing in the muddy Jordan River. What was that about undue haste? On the other hand, kids just grow up so fast these days. Jesus went from birth to age 30 in just two weeks, which is pretty impressive even in our hurry-and-grow-up culture.

In any case, let’s just say it’s been four weeks. For four of our weeks, he’s been shouting about repentance and something about snakes and fire, he’s been yelling at sinners—maybe he’s losing his voice after all that shouting—and he’s dunking people in the water. He’s probably not into the Presbyterian sprinkling because it doesn’t go well with shouting. And all this time, he’s been telling people about the One who is to come, and how amazing that One will be, and that he can hardly wait. Who will it be?

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan. He stood in the line, waited his turn, made his way down the muddy bank to the murky stream they called a river, and waited to be dunked in the bacteria-laden water: the river that stopped running for the Israelites to cross into the promised land; the water that ran in the same place where Naaman the Syrian was healed; the water that feeds the Dead Sea and its spa-quality mud. When Jesus finally got to the front of the line, John looked up in order to shout out Jesus’ sins and order him to his knees in the water, but as he opened his mouth he found his words failed. Who is this man, the man who stopped John’s tongue? And suddenly John knew—in his mind and his heart; his gut feeling, his whole body were telling him that this man was the One, the One who is to come.

And so began the protests. I’m sure that we have only an abbreviated version of their conversation, standing there in the greenish brown water.
“Who do you think you are? I need to be baptized by you, what are you coming to me for?”
“Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”
“Huh? In Aramaic, please? I can’t baptize you!”
“Why not?”
“Because you have to baptize me! I’ve been telling all these people that you were coming. Let me tell them that you’re here.”
“no, wait, I want you to baptize me.”
“I can’t baptize you! You’re the One who is to come!”
“You know you’re going to ask me later if I’m really the One.”
“No I’m not. I can plainly see and feel that you’re the One.”
“Can you dunk me in the water now?”
“Do I have to? It seems so wrong, so…sacrilegious.”
“Just do it already. My toes are getting all pruny.”
“All right then. Hold your breath.”

And John, who was probably NOT using the Trinitarian formula, dunked Jesus in the water and said some words about forgiveness. Or maybe he said words we’ve all heard before, words like “I have called you by name, you are mine,” or “child of the covenant.”
And when Jesus came up out of the water, he stood for a moment in the traditional Jewish pose for prayer, face lifted up toward the sky, and he opened his eyes and saw…the heavens parting before his very eyes, like the curtains on a stage, like the clouds in the sky in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and he saw…a bird? he saw it coming very close…and I always imagine a sweet little bird, about the size of a canary, floating gently down to him and perhaps flitting about a bit…but Matthew says that the bird alighted on him—maybe it landed on his head, this dove. Doves are substantially larger than canaries, too. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t like a bird landing on me. Maybe Jesus fought it off, or flapped at it a little, or maybe he just shook his head. I wonder if anyone else saw it and thought that maybe they shouldn’t get baptized today after all. Maybe John was even thinking, “whoa? what’s going on here? maybe I won’t tell everyone he’s the One, just in case he turns out to be crazy.”

And as Jesus was fending off the glorified pigeon, he heard it. The Voice of God. Matthew just gave us the abbreviated version of this too—it probably said something more along the lines of Isaiah 42: “here is my servant, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him, and he will not complain, but will do all kinds of good things like bring justice and heal the sick and bring light to those who sit in darkness. I have called him in righteousness and now he will be my covenant to the people, opening blind eyes and releasing prisoners, spreading my good news. Look at this new thing I’m doing, and I’m even telling you in advance to be sure you don’t miss it.” Now, it’s not clear that anyone else heard it, which is probably why Matthew just wrote “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Hopefully Jesus wandered off in a bit of a daze after all that. Probably he was wondering what it meant to be the Son of God. What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to act? What was he supposed to tell his mother?—oh, nevermind, she wouldn’t be surprised. All the Voice told him was to bring justice, be a covenant, release prisoners, heal the sick, bring good news…couldn’t it have been a little more clear? A little more concrete? A five-step plan of action? A glossary of difficult terms? Who was he exactly? What was he supposed to do? What did it mean to be the Beloved?

I wonder if someone asked Jesus, “Who are you?” if he would have answered as the youth have learned from the Belonging to God catechism, “I am a child of God.” And then, if he were asked the follow-up question, “what does it mean to be a child of God?” if he would have answered, “that I belong to God who loves me” or if he would have given a complicated seminary-speak answer like he tried to give John about fulfilling righteousness. What does it mean to belong to God? It means to be the beloved, to be taken by the hand and kept by God, and also to have a responsibility to help people to see, to bring light, to establish justice. Too bad neither Isaiah nor God ever said it would be easy. Jesus has to go out into the wilderness—though we won’t hear about that for another four weeks. In Christopher Moore’s imaginative novel Lamb he goes to Turkey, Tibet, and India to learn how to be the Messiah from magicians, Buddhist monks, and Hindu yoga masters. But after all that traveling, fictional though it may be, the answer to the question “Who?” was the same. Too bad it wasn’t an easy answer, it didn’t come with glib definitions or a neat package. It came, and still comes, in muddy water, glorified pigeons, mysterious voices, and strange words. It comes with a little bit of a daze and some confusion, with mystery and awe, with a bit of a mess, really. And because “who?” is never far separated from “what do I do?” it comes with an assignment to be God’s servant in the world.

We all ask the question about who we really are, or who others are. We hear the question all the time: “Who are you?” The heavens open to give us the answer. “You are a child of God, sealed by the Spirit in your baptism, and you belong to Jesus Christ forever.” May you go forth to be God’s faithful servant. Amen.

one week down, three to go.

this time, that is. three more weeks of hospital fun. You know, the usual. "hi, my name's Teri, I'm the chaplain. How are you doing today?" One woman told me that she wasn't going to like anything I had to say. One woman wouldn't talk at all (which may or may not be related to one of these two things: (1) her husband was in the room; (2) she had just discovered that she lost her baby.). It was a good week for pastoral care. Thankfully orientation is over. ugh.

In other news, my apartment is very clean.

and my cat is crazy.

that's all.