Happy New Year

HappyNew Year, all! :-)

tomorrow, tomorrow...

we will get on an airplane very very early. ah, tomorrow. tomorrow we will travel for 14 hours, assuming that everything is on time, and including layovers. but tomorrow we will get to the land of the cold, except that it doesn't look like it's going to be all that cold. tomorrow we get to christmas cookies, my family, my mom's cat that doesn't like anyone except mom, and Christmas Eve, which just kind of happened while I wasn't paying attention.

happy christmas to all. hopefully some of you are ready for it. :-)

it is finished

the semester is finished at last.

i have never not been able to restrain myself from laughing while preaching. until today. it was just a quick giggle. hehehe. i was cracking myself up the whole time i was getting ready for it too, so i should have known i wasn't going to be able to do it with a straight face. ha!

now that school is done, hopefully successfully done, i get to focus on church stuff. girls movie retreat coming right up!!

but first, a nap. and some chocolate. not in that order. ;-)

airplanes

i have tickets for them. yay!

Jason and I are going to visit my parents for Christmas. I'm excited. I wasn't planning on going home this year, but now obviously I am going to. We will fly away from Atlanta on Christmas Eve and come back on Wednesday morning after Christmas. We are even going to go all the way to Yakima, which involves a very small plane that Amy would be very afraid of. Here's a picture. Good thing it's just the two of us super brave small-plane types. oh wait, not really super brave. well, whatever. we'll live. In other news, it will be cold there and Jason's never experienced anything of northern winter. I told him to break out the real coat. On the other hand, it's looking pretty much like here at the moment--40-50 degrees and raining. Hopefully by Christmas there will be enough snow for a snowman or a snowball fight or a snowangel or something snowy at least. :-)

now I have many things to do before the end of school so I must go. goodbye.

again with the monday

and it's monday again, and i'm super busy again. this is the last week of school. five days of class, then five days of "reading/exam week" which translates into, for me: 4 days of regular class schedule, 3 days of exam week, 8 assignments (including one sermon) due, and 10 days to do it all in. woohoo.

i'm going to go now. and, you know, do something.

so i lied

well, it appears you do get to read it. because it went away on my screen but still appeared on my blog. lucky you. :-)

it left

i typed a post about it being monday and how much there is to do and how i don't want to do it because i've just had five days off. and i want to just relax and have it over but it isn't over yet. but then the post went away. so you don't get to read it. sorry. silly computers.

monday

back to school it is. After five days off, I'm not wanting to come back. blah to the homework. I have stuff to read, a sermon to write without writing it down, more stuff to read.....oy and oy. oh, and oy.

the library is cold, the outside is kind of chilly too, and i hate making copies. in case anyone wondered. so i'm probably going to read in the library. because that's an energizing place, obviously. again with the oy.

two weeks. two weeks plus some papers to write and it will all be over. then i can relax. maybe. wait...no...

ok, so a semester, a january, and a few weeks, and a summer, and then i can relax.

maybe i need some starbucks. maybe i should suck it up, copy the stuff, and go to starbucks. or at least outside. or to my car. i bet i can read in my car and i bet it isn't cold. because it's in the sun. on the other hand, it might smell like christmas tree because i put the greenery for the chapel in the car yesterday. i also took it out yesterday, but christmas tree isn't a smell that just goes away, you know?

i'm done procrastinating now. you should be too.

not ready yet

My mom has cancer. And I'm not ready to talk about it yet so please don't call and ask how I'm doing. I'm ok. scared, of course, but ok. If by ok you mean occasionally crying for no apparent reason but generally operating as a normal human being. anyway. pray for my fam, and for my dad's cooking skills, and my mom's boredom factor lying on the couch, and my brother and I being far away, and none of us being able to do anything about it. there you go.

Happy thanksgiving...eat too much and have some mashed potatoes for me. I can never eat as many of them as I want to because my tummy gets full. :-) And don't forget the green bean casserole! mine is in the freezer because I forgot to take it to church on Sunday. Hopefully I don't forget to take it on Thursday....

wish list

I have updated my wishlist, for those of you who look at that.

Items 1-7 are what I really want this Christmas.
My brother claimed item 1. :-)

happy shopping season......or, better yet: happy advent! (almost)

moved

I have moved. Because so many of you are asking where, I'll tell you.

I have moved approximately 3 miles from where I was living this summer.
I have moved approximately 15 miles (25 minutes) from school.
I have moved approximately 2-ish miles from church.
I have moved approximately 10 miles from the hospital I hope to be working in during January and the summer.

I still live in Atlanta.
In fact, now I technically live in Atlanta.
I still live in DeKalb county, which is quite a feat in this weird county-line state.
I live in an apartment complex with gates. The gate phone rings my cell phone. How cool is that?
I live in a diverse community with African- Asian- Hispanic- and other- Americans. And probably some not Americans.
I live in a complex with children who play in the parking lots, grass, and playgrounds.
I live in an apartment complex with a gym and two pools.
I live in an apartment complex with 26 buildings--one for each letter of the alphabet. My letter is N.
My cat lives in the apartment with me. She is not allowed on the balcony.

Have I answered any questions?

Happy Sunday....

i love buffy

all i want for christmas is....

Buffy Season 1
2
3
4
5
6
7

They're all out on DVD as of this past tuesday.
my bro called season 1.
that leaves 6 seasons for the rest of you. Just saying. ;-)

Another Sunday is upon us. Another day of youth group. another day of no school, closely followed by the "oh crap, i didn't do nearly enough homework this weekend, where does all the time go, how is it possibly monday, can I have another four saturdays please?" feeling. Luckily three of my classes were cancelled for Tuesday, the one Wednesday class was cancelled, and thursday/friday are holidays, leaving me with monday and tuesday morning chapel, monday afternoon class, and tuesday morning class. maybe on monday between chapel and class i'll do laundry at school. and maybe i'll finally get around to vacuuming my room and grabbing my desk chair. who knows? maybe i'll even get productive and do homework or blog or something. or maybe i'll go to the bookstore and buy the "What would Buffy do?" book (a real book, I swear...). Then read it, of course. one never knows, does one?

well, i am going to leave the gym/cyber cafe now. happy sunday to all. :-)

Sunday

well, it's Sunday. I made my list for the week's homework and whatnot, and realized that everything I need to do should be done by Wednesday afternoon, because the rest of the week doesn't have any homework, really. A weird feeling.

I just had to order extra wristbands for the youth group. crazy!

i have to go do homework now. and come up with a youth group plan. oy.

clean carpets

today the people from Stanley Steemer came to clean the Washburn's carpet. It is now beautiful. No more cat fumes to irritate the other cats. but the carpet is still damp. LOL. Tomorrow: the bathroom and kitchen. No, I'm not hiring someone to do that for me, much as I would like to. ;-)

The Washburn's condo (previously "home") looks so barren with all my stuff gone. i'd forgotten what it was like before I moved all that stuff in there! No more boxes of books in the dining room, no more files in the office, no more litterbox and food by the ancient and small tv (which was more than i have, and hardly ever used...), no more bins of things behind the recliner in the living room. just lots of space. very lovely.

and now: home. the new one. yay!

i suck sometimes

ok, so i'm brilliant of course, but that leads me into busy-ness, which makes me suck at blogging regularly. i'm going to try to be better, but no promises. perhaps if i try just a few sentences a day...
so here's the few for today:
I'm moved into the apartment.
It's starting to be cold outside, especially in my car first thing in the morning.
I have too many classes.
I need to get my new contacts.
it's time to go to class.

yay!!

I passed all four of my ordination exams. woohoo! no retakes for me. :-)

Reformata, Semper Reformanda

Reformata, Semper Reformanda
Exodus 19-20, Luke 19
CNCP
October 31 2004

*Exodus 19.1-20.21* “Reformata…”
Can you imagine what life would be like if we didn’t have any rules? I wish that I could say, “Well, human nature is actually nice and logical and we would probably all just get along fabulously.” Unfortunately, that isn’t the case and hasn’t been since Eden—when there were only two people who had to get along anyway. No, it’s likely that if there were actually NO rules—not even the ones we think are common sense, natural law, so obvious and ingrained that we can’t imagine the possibility of living without them—then things in human community would not go very well.
Instead, it seems that life has a lot of rules. Rules about how fast you can drive, rules about what you can and can’t wear to work or school, rules about buildings and safety and animals and business. In church we have rules about who can stand up here and preach, who can stand behind this table and celebrate sacraments, who can be ordained, and more rules for how we make decisions and do things. In Exodus we find the beginning of a code of rules. Before this we had basics: don’t eat of the tree, circumcise your male babies, etc. Now we have a full blown set of rules, and these ten are the foundation for life in community.
They seem so obvious, but it’s possible that several thousand years ago, when the Hebrews first heard these rules, they weren’t common sense. Sure, to us they feel super obvious, natural, the normal state of being. Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t cheat on your spouse. But maybe they weren’t so normal back then. Especially that very first one: no other gods. That’s a new development for these people! It’s much better to hedge your bets, have several gods and keep them all happy so you don’t have to worry about whether it will rain this season or not. But Yahweh says that is unacceptable, and insists that the people acknowledge only ONE God. After that radical change in thinking, who knows what the people must have thought about all these other rules. But in any case, these ten rules that may have been strange at one time became the foundation of their life together—and continue to be the foundation of law in many places.
As Christians in the Reformed Protestant tradition, we acknowledge several layers of foundation for our life together. This first set of rules, the Law, the Torah, is one of them. But, as you may have noticed, before we get to the actual “Ten Commandments” we have a whole chapter of rules about how to get ready for God to speak. Moses goes up and down the mountain several times—which, let me tell you, is no easy task! The people wash their clothes, take care to be especially clean and pure, husbands and wives sleep on separate mats, the people gather behind the ropes at the bottom of the mountain, and Moses goes up to speak to God, totally alone. But just in case, God sends Moses BACK DOWN the mountain to make sure the people aren’t trying to sneak over the fence like kids at Six Flags who are bored with standing in line and crawl under the fence to play in the dirt and rocks on the other side. I would not have been happy with this at all—I was in so much pain just going up and down once that I can hardly imagine doing it two or three times. And after all that, the people are so afraid that they just tell Moses to talk to God for them—they’ll happily just wait down here.
All this rule-making about speaking with God led the medieval Roman Catholic Church into some pretty serious corruption. The people couldn’t talk to God—only the priests could. The people couldn’t even have both bread and wine for communion, because they might come too close to the mountain. And, of course, with all the rules to follow and the difficulty of confessing everything, getting forgiveness was pretty difficult. Since the church needed money to maintain its political power, they decided to sell forgiveness to people. Imagine: the minister only pronounces the assurance of forgiveness after you’ve put enough money in the offering plate. How much is enough? The minister gets to decide. Maybe this week it’s $5 per person. On pledge maybe $150. On Christmas and Easter we’ll be looking for $10 from Bob, $100 from Sue, and $76 from Mike—in direct proportion to how many Sundays other than Christmas and Easter we’ve seen them in church.
This is the kind of corruption Martin Luther was worried about. He would very conscientiously confess every sin he could think of, but was constantly plagued by the thought that he had missed something. He would leave confession, and then run back in a panic. Finally his confessor told him that if he was going to confess for hours, he should at least go out and do something worth confessing! Then, while reading the letter to the Romans one day, Luther realized that there was nothing he could do to earn forgiveness, but that God’s grace had made him righteous because of Christ. This epiphany was profound. He became so upset with the sale of forgiveness (called indulgences) that he wrote up 95 theses, which were designed to be discussion points, things he wanted the church to talk about. On October 31, 1517, he nailed them to the church door in Wittenberg. He didn’t want to start a new church. He didn’t even necessarily want big changes in worship. He just wanted to talk about forgiveness and grace and the idea that we could sell God’s grace to the highest bidder.
This new idea that God’s grace was free was radical to the medieval Church——much as some of the Ten Commandments must have seemed radical to the Hebrews, newly escaped from Egypt. This once-radical idea is now another part of our foundation. The Law is part of the foundation of our life as a community. The free grace of God is part of the foundation of our life as a community. It seems the two might contradict, but they didn’t for the apostle Paul, so they didn’t for Luther. The Law tells us how we are to live with God and with one another. The fact that God’s grace is a gift, something we can’t earn but is given to us anyway, tells us that we can’t sell forgiveness, and we can’t decide who gets grace and who doesn’t. God decides, and God freely gives grace to everyone. As Reformed Protestant Christians, these two radical foundations are part of normal existence, they seem obvious and “common sense.” The rules that form our foundation no longer seem radical—which is one way we can tell that we are “Reformata”—the past tense which means “Reformed.”











*Luke 19.1-10* “…Semper Reformanda”
Has anyone ever invited themselves over to your house? I will admit to having done it myself, actually. As a student, I sometimes suggest to people that it might be great if we could have dinner sometime—at their house. Or I might say “hey, wanna watch a movie tonight? Since I don’t have a TV, how about your place, 8 o’clock?” But I have never, ever just walked up to someone and said “come here, I’m having dinner at your house tonight.” How incredibly rude!
And, of course, the person we see doing this very rude thing is Jesus, breaking the societal rules and making new ones all over the place. For all his claiming to fulfill the law rather than abolish it, he sure does break a lot of rules. Who invites themselves over for dinner? Then again, who stands around outside the tax collector’s house and gossips loud enough that the subject of the gossip can hear them from inside?
Can you picture it? Zacchaeus, who’s probably about as tall as I am, rushes down from the tree and guides Jesus, the rabbi, the healer, the Messiah, out of the bustling crowd and into his living room. Suddenly he hears some less-than-discreet voices outside. He turns red, then turns to Jesus and declares that not only will he fulfill restitution laws but he’ll actually pay from his own pocket to anyone who has been the victim of his tax-collector overcharging practices. Because, you see, tax collectors were Jews who worked for the Romans. They didn’t get paid, so they would charge more than the Romans wanted and take the difference as their salary. For Zacchaeus to offer to give back four times any excessive charges is essentially to offer his entire income and then some.
And then rule-breaker Jesus says things like “this man too is a Son of Abraham” and suddenly all the people outside feel that maybe they were the ones breaking the rules. Jesus has come to say “you have heard that it was said… but I say to you…” Is this rule-breaking, or rule-reshaping according to the way things were meant to be?
The Reformed church has said that we are “Reformed and always being reformed by the Word of God.” Maybe this is what it means to be reformed by the Word—not just by Scripture but by the Word with a capital W: Jesus. He’s just sauntering through and invites himself to dinner at the house of a sinner who he proclaims has been saved by the free grace of God. Jesus has just turned the foundations of community life in Judaism upside down. This community has been reformed by the Word of God in a very startling way!
Sometimes we experience the same kind of startling reformation. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th century was startling and upsetting. Martin Luther and John Calvin turned Europe’s church system upside down. They also recognized that if they claimed to set a once-and-for-all system, then they would be falling into the same traps the medieval Catholic church had stumbled on. Instead they insisted that we are to be always open to continuing reformation.
This kind of reformation may take many forms. For example, many protestant churches now allow women to be pastors—something that was unheard of for hundreds of years. The Presbyterian church in many countries is uniting with, or at least in agreement with, several other denominations to share worship, ministers, buildings, or other resources. Many churches are experimenting with their worship styles, with new music, or with liturgical resources from other countries. In some places it may be in prayer style, or in new lifestyle or mission commitments. The reformation of the church is to be ongoing, according to both Luther and Calvin.
We all have a part to play in the ongoing reformation of the church. Because of the printing press and the protestant reformation, we can all read the Bible. We can pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We can gather in community to discern where we are being called and what the Word says to our context. We can ask the hard questions, pray together, and so be involved in the reformation.
In addition to the reformation of the church, we can follow in Calvin’s footsteps and participate in the reformation of our society and our government. As we approach the national election day, we all have a part to play in our nation. Calvin said that all Christians have a responsibility to be involved in government and civic life. Voting our conscience, being active and vocal for the things that are important to us, praying for our leaders—all these are ways we can be involved in the ongoing reformation of our national community.
But, for all the things we can do to be involved in the reformation, we must remember that it’s not WE who are doing a new thing, but God who does the new thing. We don’t bring in the kingdom, God brings the kingdom. Reformanda is the passive form of the verb—we are always being reformed by the word of God, not by our own ideas. When we are acted upon by the Word of God, however, we do take action. We do have something to do, a part to play, a responsibility to respond when we are called.
So we build on the foundations laid for us by God’s people of ages past. We don’t simply repeat everything they have always done: someone has said that the seven last words of the church will either be “we’ve always done it that way before,” or “we’ve never done it that way before.” But neither do we throw it all away and start from scratch. The rules and concepts that form our community, that shape our life together, come to us from Scripture and from the tradition. Then we discern the movement of the Holy Spirit and form and shape our life in this place and time according to the Word. Sometimes we may need to try a new thing. Sometimes we may need some startling discussion questions to lead us in a re-shaping of the way things are meant to be. Sometimes Jesus needs to invite himself over for dinner at the sinner’s house so we can see the way things are supposed to be. Because he comes to seek out and save the lost, we pray that we might be found and that we might hear once again that God’s free gift of grace has come to this house. That openness, that prayer, that expectant hope that God is always doing a new thing, is the sign of the Reformed church: Semper Reformanda, “Always being re-formed.”

this is actually old...

but still hilarious. Found this from novmeber 2003. Cant't believe how amused I STILL am by it. enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* uses of ice besides beverages, where it shouldn't be anyway *
Well, there are the obvious:
*ice packs
*freezing ice cream (in a homemade-ice-cream-maker)
*keeping in ice chests, lunch boxes, etc, to keep things cold while you get ready to use them.
*putting in plants, to water them slowly for a while rather than drowning them with a hose
*putting down your friend's shirts when they are hot. or when they are cold.
*melting, then filtering, for drinking water
*freezing your credit cards so you won't use them (theoretically)
*chilling wine (in one of those buckets designed to do this...not just in a pitcher you fill with ice then stick the wine bottle in. I mean, that does work, but it's much less efficient and much less easy than the wine bucket.)
*rubbing on your lips after you've played a wind instrument for too long. Popsicles are better, but ice works in a pinch. However, see below on nasty unfiltered water ice. bleah.
*put ice in front of a small fan to cool the air that is blowing through your room.
*put in pet's water bowl in the summer to keep water cool. Pets don't care about filtered water.
*cleaning gum off of fabric. or hair. peanut butter also often works for this.
*cleaning candle wax off just about anything. I haven't tried this on hair but it would probably work. However, if you have candle wax in your hair you need to rethink your habit of standing underneath dripping candles.
*getting paper wet. if you wanted to do this very slowly, you could...just put an ice cube on some paper. soon it will be wet.
*breaking things. ie: computers, printers, toasters, books, windows, etc. you can either throw ice cubes, thus shattering whatever it is you wish to break, or put the ice cube in it and wait for it to melt, thus disabling whatever you are breaking. I don't recommend this necessarily, I'm just saying you could.
*melting. i don't know why you would want to do this--you obviously already have water. and i already said this about 8 lines up.
*holding. i mean, if you were really hot, just holding an ice cube might help cool you down.
*put them in your bath. a cold bath is probably good for your skin somehow. maybe. but this means you can't have a hot bath, because the ice will melt. really this thought is only ideal if you are the person in one of those urban legends...who's had a kidney removed and wakes up in a bathtub full of ice. you know the ones. they aren't true.
*testing the strength of paper towels. how many ice cubes can your paper towel hold? I bet Bounty or Brawny or one of those B-brands can hold a lot. at least their commercials claim they can.
*preserving bugs. your ice maker probably does this for you already. look carefully when you get ice out of it, otherwise you might drink a fruit fly. eew.

tired

i am so tired. so so tired. i would gladly give up chapel and/or class for starbucks if i could. i want a nap.

long day head.

things i need

1. toilet paper for my house. not for the outside, you know, but for the inside. in the bathroom. which i guess is really "toilet paper for my bathrooms" except that that sounded kind of nasty. now i said it....oh well....
2. treats for my cat. that's how I keep her inside when i have to go out the door. i bribe her with treats.
3. an oil change (well, in the next week or so...). you know, every 3,000 miles or so. i will hit 3,000 in the next 7 days for sure. but where to get this done? and when? see #7.
4. an apartment. for living in. because soon i can't live where i currently live. but the apartment can't be too expensive because i'm kind of poor. but also not sketchy or tiny, please.
5. furniture for said apartment. preferably without actually buying any of said furniture. anyone have an extra bed, extra dresser, extra chairs, extra table, extra sofa, extra...well, anything furniture-like?
6. new black everyday-shoes. soon. and fashionably but not expensive. i like shoes that make grown-up sounds when i walk. but i also like shoes that don't, so when i'm late (or just walking around on hard floors (ie hallways) while classes are in session) i don't disturb the whole world with my grown-up-ness.
7. two more weekends per week. preferably without sundays. this should be obvious.

one might wonder what all these things have in common. I shall tell you, in case it really isn't obvious. I need them soon. I need them not to cost too much. particularly regarding 4 and 6, my options are running out if i don't get them. I suppose i could say that about number 1 too. Without these things, I'll be homeless, barefoot, and will really have to pee. none of this is good, particularly when one is trying to study for 5 classes with heavy reading loads, work as a youth director, and do work study hours, and have something of a life (you know, see my boyfriend, eat, talk to friends and family, etc).

just thought i'd let you know. :-)