Martha Speaks

an interview meme

2006-05-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

Here's how this works: if you would like to be interviewed, leave me a comment that says, "Interview me!" I'll come up with five questions for you. You must answer them truthfully, and you must post the answers on your blog or MySpace, with an invitation to others to let you interview them. My questions come from my good friend Tracy.

1) what is your favorite thing about yourself?

I think it’s the fact that I am always in search of more truth--truer truth, if that makes any sense. Sometimes this causes me more pain than it feels like it’s worth. My biggest spiritual lows are during the times when I start to question what I believe, and I begin to sift out the lies I tell myself to stay comfortable, or the cultural biases that have been handed down to me by different teachers. But somewhere deep inside, I believe that this is God’s refining process, and the more I let myself go through it, the more like Him I will be in the end. I know lots of people who never struggle with their faith and who don’t seem to care that they don’t, and on many days, I wish I could be like them because God doesn’t hurt them as much. But honestly, I’m glad that God has made me this way because I believe it is one of the few really good and useful parts of me.

2) so i hear you've lived and traveled a lot in your life (*grin*)... what places are among your favorites? and why?

I guess compared to some, I have traveled quite a bit. I have been in 35 states and nine countries. These are my favorites, in the order they occur to me.

Camp Vermilion in Cook, MN--I love Verm because of how much I grew while I was there. I learned to like the outdoors and love kids (both of which I kind of hated before going to work there...seriously, how did I get hired?). I treasure every moment I get to spend there now that they are so few and far between. I love the way camp feels easy-going and urgent at the same time. When you spend a whole summer at camp, you do without things like regular showers, a comfortable bed, air conditioning, high speed Internet, and thirty restaurants within a two-mile drive of your house and you start to really appreciate a good conversation, the swing that overlooks the lake, watching dragonflies eat up the mosquitoes, having a young kid ask you about God, raiding the kitchen for leftovers in the middle of the night, or the basic pleasure of real activity followed by real rest. We have so little time to make a difference to our campers, to wake them up to what life with God can be like, that all that is unnecessary begins to fall away and all that is valuable rises to the surface.

St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN—I tried to pick just one location at Olaf, but I couldn’t. I love too many of them. Ytterboe Lounge, where we would have our campus-wide Thursday Night Bible Study; Mellby Chapel, where some of us met every day during Chapel time to pray for our school and for each other; the Cage, where I was introduced to the deliciousness of grape jelly on a grilled ham and cheese sandwich (thanks, Matt!); the Pause, where the Selah service happened every Sunday night; Mellby lawn, where we spread out our blankets and studied or played Frisbee; the choir room, where I sang in Manitou and the St. Olaf Choir for four years; my friends’ Ytterboe pods and my own pods, the sites of many games, movies, and community life experiences; the CAN office, where I would go to eat a quiet lunch in the middle of a crazy day; the old Caf, where Scott Soden smashed a plate of spaghetti sauce into my chest while I was wearing a white shirt; Mellby 101, where we watched The Matrix pretty much every week for an entire semester; Skoglund Center, where we had Christmas Fest; Boe Chapel, where we held weekly worship services and where the Ole Choir home concerts were…and lots more.

The Spindlers’ cabin, somewhere in Wisconsin—During Easter Break of my sophomore year of college, a group of friends and I went to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. It was exactly like every other Midwestern family’s summer cabin: small, cozy, fitted with a few modern comforts like electricity and indoor plumbing, and on a lake. But on this particular weekend, as Forrest Gump said, God showed up. We took off our watches and hid all the clocks as soon as we got there, and we spent a day hanging out, cooking our own food (which, being young college students, was still kind of new and exciting to us), building fires, going on walks, and enjoying being away from school. On Good Friday night, we celebrated Communion—without a pastor! Another first—listened to “Thief” by Third Day, and then began silence. We were silent all day on Saturday, except for the laughing that happened when we tried to put a puzzle together on the kitchen table without speaking. I went on a walk with my friend Liz, and we held hands. I sat next to each of my friends at some point during the day and prayed for them. Sunday morning, one person got out their clock to set an alarm so we could be awake in time for the sunrise. We got up in silence, walked down to the lake, and broke our silence together with singing as the sun rose over the water and we remembered that Jesus is alive. It was the best Easter ever. The next year we tried to do it again, and God showed us that he is not at our beck and call, to give us spiritual highs as a reward for jumping through his hoops. But I will always remember how close to him and how clean I felt that weekend, and I hope I can feel that way again someday.

Nordsjællands Efterskole, Sjælland, Denmark—This was our first boarding school in DK. One night early in the week we stayed there, some of the students invited Tracy and me to a Christian gathering kind of like a chapel service. One of the teachers, I think, gave a small talk, and then there was music. It was here that we were introduced to the yellow Fællessang book and my favorite Danish praise song, “Herren velsigne dig og bevare dig” (the Lord bless you and keep you). I really miss hearing a large group of Danish kids singing praises to God in their own language.

My parents’ house at Christmas time—This one is probably my favoritest of favorites. Christmas time in the Tripoli family starts sometime after Halloween, when the first Christmas music starts getting played in our house. We really get cranking the day after Thanksgiving, however, when we decorate the house. Some years, we’ve even put up our tree this early. We have a smallish, cozy house, and we absolutely festoon it with Christmas goodness. But nothing tacky. We have no singing Christmas trees (“Hi, I’m Douglas Fir!”) or anything like that. We do have garlands wrapped in strings of lights and golden leaves which we hang above each window and on the staircase. We put electric candles in each window and make sure that they are turned on at even the slightest hint of darkness outside. We have multiple Nativity sets in porcelain, wood, and pewter. We have a collection of angels and a collection of Santa Clauses. We have some small straw figures of women and donkeys, some tiny little Christmasy gnomes that are older than me, we have a village of collectible houses that get their own table covered in batting for the snow, we have a bunch of random small figures that used to go on the ledge in the kitchen, but now my parents have an adventurous cat that likes to steal them, so we might have to find a new place for them next year, and we have our stockings, handmade by Mom. We listen to choirs singing carols and crooners old and young. No pop stars need apply to get in our Christmas music rotation—the poppiest thing we have is Michael Bublé or Mannheim Steamroller. Our tree gets tinsel or ropes of beads in alternating years. We have a half a dozen large boxes of ornaments—about a quarter of them get on the tree every year, and it’s usually the same quarter, but we can’t bring ourselves to get rid of any ornaments, ever. My favorites are the blown-out eggs with the sequins glued on them. We bake a million cookies—sugar cookies with sprinkles, ricotta cheese cookies with frosting, and the king of Christmas cookies, chocolate thumbprints—and drink gallons of hot chocolate, eggnog, and apple cider. We put on our knitted slippers, cover ourselves in blankets, and watch our Christmas movies. A Christmas Carol, Scrooge, Scrooged, Mickey’s Christmas Carol, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life, Holiday Inn, White Christmas, The Christmas Toy, A Christmas Story, A Charlie Brown Christmas. There’s a word in Danish, hygge, that has no real direct translation in English. It means fellowship and coziness, and usually food is required. I’m pretty sure that you could put a picture of my house at Christmas time in the Danish dictionary next to the word hygge and nobody would object. And if they did, so what.

3) what computer programs do you use the most in a normal work day? which ones do you hate? which ones do you love?

Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Quark and Adobe Photoshop CS are the main ones. No contest, I hate Word the most. No matter how many times I turn off the auto-formatting features, they always seem to turn themselves back on and create a nuisance. I think I would have to say that I prefer Quark to Photoshop, if only because I still don’t really understand all the things Photoshop can do. It takes me twice as long to get something done in Photoshop because I spend so much time trying to find the right drop-down menu or the right commands to do the stuff I want to do. I don’t have many graphic design responsibilities, which works out well because I don’t have many skills in that area (you know…skills), so Quark is just about my speed.

4) when you daydream... where do you go?

Off the road into a ditch.

Honestly, I am a big fan of superheroes—Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, the X-Men, etc. I’ve never really gotten in comics, although I’ve known some guys who were REALLY into them (hi, Brandon, are you reading this?). I love a good superhero movie, though, and so when I really need an escape from reality, I like to imagine myself in those stories. Not as one of the heroes, but as the girl on the inside, the one person who knows all the secrets, the one who is waiting at home when the super guy is done saving the world for the day. I’m usually not even a romantic interest, just the one person who knows the real man behind the disguise.

5) name one or two defining moments/time periods in your life.. and explain a bit of detail on these events/times and how you changed through/because of it.

The first one that comes to mind is the night I decided to follow Jesus, and since it’s a long story, it’s the only one I’ll tell. When I got to college, I got off to a slow start making friends. I assumed I’d fit right in with the music kids, like I did in high school, but the music students at Olaf were kind of snobby, and I felt self-conscious around them. In my corridor were mostly girls who wanted to drink a lot and hook up with guys—something I wasn’t really interested in. My roommate and I didn’t really hit it off, either. I had a boyfriend back at home who was still pretty new to me as a boyfriend (not the smartest life decision, to start dating someone just before moving a half a country away, but the heart wants what it wants, you know?), so I spent most of my social time e-mailing or calling him instead of getting out and making friends. One night in early November, my roommate went out to the library while I was in the bathroom, and she accidentally locked me out of our room. I had nothing to do, so I wandered down to the lounge to see if there was anything going on there. I heard some guitar music coming from the lounge area, and I thought, “Great! People sitting around making music. Sounds like fun.” When I peeked around the corner to investigate, I saw a small group of people, only one of whom I recognized. It was Liz, my next door neighbor, who I had talked to only a couple of times.

“Hi, Katie! Do you want to come to our Bible study?”

I had been a church kid all my life, but I had pretty much given up on God around fifth grade, when I got caught in a denominational tug-of-war between my family’s UCC church and my Catholic school. I spent most of high school serving on various church committees, singing in the choir, and seething inside at the hypocrisy of it all. I wasn’t so excited about the “Bible” part, but I needed something to do, and I figured I could blend in and speak the language okay, so I said, “Sure.”

Right away, I knew there was something weird about these people. They spoke about Jesus as if he were a real person that they could go and have coffee with, and they were completely sure that being a Christian was the only way to get to heaven. I made it my mission to show them how silly and narrow-minded they were being, so I continued to go to the Bible study week after week and attack their beliefs with every intellectual and philosophical weapon in my college freshman’s arsenal. To my amazement, they listened with patience, disagreed with intelligence, and never budged from their position. They also really seemed to like having me in their group, for some reason. I started hanging out with them on weekends, watching movies, singing songs, laughing a lot. They never brought up spiritual stuff outside the small group unless I did first, and I never, ever felt judged, even though I was frustrated that they were so impervious to my brilliant arguments.

Once, Liz invited me to go to “Thursday Night Bible Study,” a campus-wide Bible study that was taught by Gary Gilbertson, a local pastor from Northfield. I don’t remember what he taught about that night or what made me want to go and talk to him afterwards. I made Liz introduce us because I was too shy to do it myself, and after shaking his hand, I just said, “Why Jesus?” His crinkly eyes lit up, and he settled into a comfortable perch on the edge of a couch.

“Do you believe that there is a God?”

I heard myself say, “Yes.” Really? I do? Well, I guess I do. I mean, even after I gave up on religion, I found myself praying to God that he would exist. Which is probably the dumbest prayer anyone can pray. So, let’s start with “yes” and see where this goes.

“Do you believe he is perfect?”

“Yes.” Huh? Okay, well, I can live with this. Maybe I’m just one of those cool pan-spiritual people who can believe in a God of some kind without having to subscribe to all the limiting Jesus mumbo jumbo.

“Do you believe that you are perfect?”

“No.” Duh.

“What do you think you ought to do about that?”

“…” I had nothing. It hadn’t really occurred to me that I should do something about that. God’s perfect, I’m not, so what? Does God care that I’m not perfect? Shouldn’t God be the one to do something about that, if he cares so much? Gary explained to me that he does care and that he did do something, and that’s “why Jesus.” Jesus died to take away our imperfections. His power works in us when we believe in him.

I don’t remember much else of that conversation, although I think it went on for awhile. As I walked back to my dorm, after another conversation with my small group leader, I was turning Gary’s words over in my mind. It made sense. It seemed like it could be true. If it was true, I should get on board, right? I mean, it would be stupid to try and fight City Hall. So why was I so reluctant? That’s when the light dawned inside me. For maybe the first time in my life, I could clearly see and understand myself.

What was freaking me out wasn’t whether or not Jesus was the only Savior, or what the current state of my eternal soul was. What I was most afraid of was losing myself. Somehow, I had become convinced that if I decided to “get saved” or become “born again,” I would instantly gain three hundred pounds, drop fifty IQ points, develop a drawl, and find myself deposited in a doublewide surrounded by hound dogs and pregnant teenagers. I didn’t want to become a person I wouldn’t like. But I wanted to know the truth and to ally myself with it. How could I be sure that doing one wouldn’t lead to the other?

That’s when God spoke to me. At least, I’m pretty sure it was God. I’d never had an idea like this before in my entire life, so it had to come from somewhere. This was the thought that came into my head: You can’t be sure. There are no guarantees. If you did have to become the kind of person you find distasteful, would it be worth it? As this thought came and went, I stopped smack in the middle of the road, in the crosswalk between the student center and the dorms. And I prayed a very strange “sinner’s prayer.”

“Jesus, I don’t believe in you. But if you are what my friends say you are, then I want to follow you. I want to know what is true, and I’ve heard that it’s you. So, from this moment on, I’m just going to live as if I believed in you. I hope that if you are real, you’ll let me know that I’m on the right track, somehow.”

I stayed in the crosswalk for a couple of moments, keeping my eyes open for any angel choirs or lightning bolts, but nothing happened, so I walked back to my dorm, my head spinning. What had I just done? Who had I just made a deal with? I headed toward my room and found myself knocking on Liz’s door instead.

“Liz, I think I just became a Christian.”

If you know Liz, you won’t be surprised to know that her reaction was loud. She jumped up from her chair, shrieking and hugging me, and then dragged me down to the lounge with some of our Bible study members (most of whom she had woken up) to pray for me. I felt incredibly conspicuous and uncomfortable. I didn’t have the heart to tell Liz that I didn’t really believe in Jesus; this was just something I was maybe trying out for a while. For the next couple of weeks, Liz introduced me to every single Christian she knew as “my friend Katie who just got saved,” which made me cringle a little every time I heard it. Saved? Saved from what? I hadn’t really gotten that far yet. All I knew was that ever since that Thursday night, I had been unable to sleep, secretly convinced that I had just done something that would get me in major trouble. I shared this with Nate, one of my Bible study leaders, and he grinned as he said, “Yeah, that’s just Satan. He’s pissed because he lost you.” Um, who in the what now? Satan? This was getting ridiculous. I’m not worth having a spiritual battle over, but even if I was, I wasn’t interested in heaven and hell, particularly. I just wanted to have a solid place to rest my mind when the world stopped making sense. Which it suddenly had. I started to think that maybe I’d made a mistake, after all.

One morning, I woke up and thought, “Maybe I should read the Bible now.” So I started reading it. As I read, it occurred to me that I believed everything in this book was true. This is particularly interesting in retrospect, because I don’t think that the inerrancy or inspiredness of the Bible EVER came up in the weeks of discussion I’d had with my friends. This sudden change of mind had come from some completely other source. I didn’t think much about it, and I went on about my day.

It might have been that night, or a few nights later, that the Christian Activities Network at school had their annual Jesus Fest. They had guest preachers and musicians come in to lead some worship, give some talks, and facilitate some prayer. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was basically a tent revival meeting in a dorm lounge. I remember feeling lost, like I had joined a class in the middle of the semester and couldn’t catch up. I didn’t know any of the songs, I wasn’t familiar with the theological terms that were being used, and it took me twice as long as anyone else to find the Bible verses the pastor was quoting. At the end of the first night, the last song at worship was “Jesus Loves Me.” Finally, a song I knew. As we sang, something happened. I can’t really explain it in a satisfactory way. I don’t think I was really looking for this to happen, which is why I think it was a true experience. Suddenly, without warning or preface, I knew that Jesus loved me. If you’ve never gone from disbelief to belief in something, with no proof or evidence, in less time than it takes to read this sentence, you might not think that it’s possible. One minute I wasn’t thinking about it, the next minute, I believed. A real live conversion. Hallelujah.

I couldn’t stand up, I was so overwhelmed. I sat down on the floor and cried for awhile. Some people came and prayed for me. When I was done crying, I got up and left. The music was still lingering in the background. I don’t remember much of what happened after that. I don’t think I “went home, praising God.” It took me a very long time before I was comfortable articulating my faith in front of anybody. I still wrestle with doubts today, and I’ve learned that a lot of what I thought was truth is not; it just came attached to the truth, like barnacles on the hull of a ship. There are days when I am terrified that Jesus might not really love me after all. On those days, I remember the first leap of faith I ever made, and I say, “Jesus, I’m still going to try to live as if I believed in you. If you’re real, help me believe it.” And sometimes he acts, and sometimes he waits a really long time before he acts. This is the most difficult, confusing, frustrating, painful relationship I’ve ever been in. But, it’s true. And it’s worth it.

Happy Easter!

2006-04-16T12:24:00.000-07:00

Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
Who did once upon the cross, Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!

Hymns of praise then let us sing, Alleluia!
Unto Christ, our heavenly king, Alleluia!
Who endured the cross and grave, Alleluia!
Sinners to redeem and save. Alleluia!

But the pains which he endured, Alleluia!
Our salvation have procured; Alleluia!
Now above the sky he’s king, Alleluia!
Where the angels ever sing. Alleluia!

Sing we to our God above, Alleluia!
Praise eternal as his love; Alleluia!
Praise him, all you heavenly host, Alleluia!
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Alleluia!

This blog entry has been rated S for spoilers, swearing, and stupid Christians

2006-04-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

I went with four friends (two couples, oh what fun) this weekend to Munster, Indiana to see Hillsong United play at some church. We left late Saturday with Dain packed into the trunk of his own Subaru Outback to spend the night in Chicago with Sunitha Mortha, a lovely Indian lady who was the International Team Director when I was on team. We had a long drive, so before we left, I picked up a copy of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I'd heard a lot about it, and I wanted to see for myself what all the hoopla was about. I finished it just as we pulled into Sunitha's parking lot. My first impressions were that it was a lot like the new Star Wars movies: an engrossing story, delivered by a man with almost no storytelling ability.

We had a great meal (chicken curry, mmmmm), and then my teammate Tracy came down from Milwaukee with her boyfriend, Ryan. We were supposed to go dancing at this cool club called Funky Buddha. Well, it turned out that Funky Buddha had a dress code, so I didn't get to go dancing. I was sad I didn't get to spend more time with Tracy, but not so sad that I missed out on the dancing, since I was kind of tired. We woke up the next morning, got bagels, and ate them in the park while we watched old men walk their dogs and some Mafia types chat next to their cars. We left for the church and arrived just in time for their 12:30 service.

Family Christian Center. It's a huge place--the sanctuary/auditorium seats about 2000. The gospel choir and accompanying band were doing a great job, people were waving palm branches, Jesus came in on a donkey while we sang "Hosanna"...it was fun. Then came the message, which on Palm Sunday was a cool thing they called the Living Last Supper. It was a live recreation of Da Vinci's painting, with church members added. As each person was added to the frieze, the pastor narrated something about their lives. I really liked that they had church members in there, too. A great way to show that God is the same now as he was then. When it was almost done, they brought in a Mary Magdalene and put her in the Last Supper, in the spot next to Jesus. The pastor then spoke for quite some time about The Da Vinci Code, and how it's all lies. The thing is, it is TOTALLY lies. The premise of the book is that there is a secret society which has in its possession documents that "prove" that Jesus did not rise from the grave, that he was not divine, that he was married to Mary Magdalene, and that he has a bloodline living somewhere in France. This society is dedicated to infiltrating Western culture with subliminal messages of goddess worship, so that when the time is right, they can reveal their documents to the world and get Christianity "back on track." TOTAL heresy, and now I think I should probably not go and see the movie (which is sad for me, because I love Tom Hanks and Ron Howard, and I think it will be an entertaining movie). And it's definitely presented in a way that makes you think the author knows exactly what he is talking about. Pretty insidious stuff.

The way the pastor chose to address it, however, was lame. He tried to make the case that Da Vinci was actually a devout Christian who painted John the Beloved at Jesus' side, not Mary, and therefore...we can sleep at night? I don't know. Da Vinci's belief or unbelief is not the proof of our faith. So right off the bat, I was unimpressed with the pastor. Plus, he was one of those creepy 700 Club type of guys that just made me feel kind of icky.

I was also unimpressed with the way they ran the concert. They were supposed to open the doors to the public at 5 and start the concert at 6, but what happened was they had almost all the seats pre-registered for (which we didn't know), so we almost didn't get to go in, and when we did, it was almost 7:30. Not cool. But United did a great job--they're a fun band. I wish I had known more of the songs, especially since whoever was running the PowerPoint was doing a spectacularly incompetent job. The FCC pastor also took some time out of the middle of the concert to take a love offering for the band (and talk some more about The Da Vinci Code), and the youth pastor from Hillsong preached, which was cool.

The thing that made me absolutely furious happened between the time we got inside and the time the music started. The FCC youth pastor (I think) was running some games and stuff on stage to pass the time, and he did this game with two couples where one person could see the screen and try to get their partner to guess the name that was on the screen. The first couple had mostly people I'd heard of, and they did fine. Then the second couple went, and their first name was the FCC pastor's. Now, I knew who he was because I had been to church that morning, but obviously, these two had just rolled in for the concert, because the guy looking at the screen had no idea. The next few names, same thing. I'm pretty sure they were all either church staff or "famous" preachers, but I didn't recognize any of the names. At one point, the youth pastor looks at the guy and says, "Dude, are you even saved?"

Dear FCC Youth Pastor,
Fuck you.
Always, Katie

It still makes me mad to think about it. The idea that if you're not chest-deep in Christian subculture that you probably aren't saved is one that makes me want to puke. Partly because I remember when I kind of felt that way...well, I remember thinking that people who weren't a part of some Christian group at college could still be Christians, but they probably weren't very strong in their faith. Same principle.

That was the moment I realized how much I love Word of Peace. Even though it is sometimes maddeningly Lutheran, and even though there are occasions where I would like to fling something at the congregation to see if they are awake, I would take Rick, Ron, Michael, and Dain every day of the week and twice on Sundays over these two ass-clowns at FCC. I'm glad God is doing great things in that congregation, and I'm even glad that the pastor is speaking out so boldly against The Da Vinci Code, because it is heresy and it should be countered with the truth. But I'm also very glad that I do not have to go to that church, and I really, really hope that guy on the stage is a strong Christian who will not be shaken by the insensitivity of a smug little ass-hat like that youth pastor.

So, I've decided to take WOP member classes at the end of the month and become a real, live member of Word of Peace. It's kind of ironic that after all this time, a non-denominational church convinced me to become a Lutheran. Pass me a beer.

What kind of smart are you?

2006-04-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

"Intellectually" Intelligent

You're 'Intellectually Intelligent.' That pretty much means that you're good with theoretical ideas and concepts - but this comes to you naturally. More or less, you're a natural brainiac. Good for you.

20% theoretical intelligence
40% natural intelligence

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

love languages

2006-03-28T06:39:00.000-08:00

The Five Love Languages

My primary love languages are probably
Quality Time and Words of Affirmation.

Complete set of results

Quality Time:		9
Words of Affirmation:		9
Physical Touch:		8
Receiving Gifts:		3
Acts of Service:		1

Information

Unhappiness in relationships, according to Dr. Gary Chapman, is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. Sometimes we don't understand our partner's requirements, or even our own. We all have a "love tank" that needs to be filled in order for us to express love to others, but there are different means by which our tank can be filled, and there are different ways that we can express love to others.

Take the quiz

Misbehaving

2006-03-22T08:38:00.000-08:00

Another first for me. It's Wednesday morning, and I have nothing pressing to do, so I'm blogging from work. Bad me. I mean, I have a couple of sizable projects with no actual deadline, but I don't feel like doing them because they are tedious and require reading lots of teamer writing. Which is usually not very high quality.

Liz was out visiting this week. I had a great time hanging out with her and Heather over the weekend; last night, we met up again to have dinner with Paul and Libby, more college friends, plus our friend Pat and his new girlfriend Elisa. We had wonderful leek-and-potato soup, homemade bread, salad, and Ben & Jerry's--the most complete meal I've had in a long time that I didn't order from a menu. Then we sat in the living room and played Bible TriBond (Elisa and I answered the fewest questions correctly and we still won!), and I tried not to freak out about the possible gunshot we had heard during dinner. I think, all things being equal, I acquitted myself admirably and managed to laugh and have quite a good time in spite of being afraid for myself inside and my car outside. Paul and Libby seemed to take it in stride and enjoy the fact that they live in an exciting neighborhood.

A St. Patrick's Day Resolution

2006-03-17T15:57:00.000-08:00

What? You've never made a St. Patrick's Day resolution? Well, I'm making one, and fulfilling it right now! It's to write in my blog again! Hip hip--HUZZAH!

My friend Liz is visiting the Cities this week. I really wish she would move here, but I guess she's got a job she really likes in Maine. And as my job is increasingly on the bubble, and I stare into the gaping maw of the job market in the Cities, I know that a good job isn't something you can just throw away lightly.

I'm listening to an Ole band (or, a band with Oles in it) called Spymob. They're pretty cool.

My next baby step back to the Internet will be to finally get a MySpace page. Look out, 2004. Here I come.

don't you know that i love my music

2005-09-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

This is something I ganked from Tracy's website. Here's my question--if "iTunes" is the first word in the sentence, should it be capitalized?

Know my iTunes library, know me.

number of songs: 2363

first song by title: 'til the day i die (third day; wire)
last song by title: zona mona (bela fleck and the flecktones; live at the quick)

first song by artist name: braided hair (1 giant leap; technically, the album is also called 1 giant leap, but I listed the album as i-teams 2005-2006)
last song by artist name: the lonely shepherd (zamfir; kill bill vol. 1)

first song by album name: love me do (the beatles; 1)
last song by album name: starship trooper (yes; yessongs disc two)

top 10 most played
1. blagoslovi, dushe moya
2. priidite, poklonimsya
3. blazhen muzh
4. bogoroditsye devo, raduisya
5. voskreseniye Khristovo videvshe
6. square one (coldplay; x & y)
7. svete tikhyi
8. khvalite imya Gospodne
9. velichit dusha moya Gospoda
10. slava v vyshnikh bogu
(Except for the Coldplay song, all the songs are from the Rachmaninoff Vespers, sung by the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers--sometimes I like to let the album play on repeat while I sleep.)

top 10 most recent
1. better together (jack johnson; in between dreams)
2. we built this city (starship; hits)
3. grounded (the o.c. supertones; chase the sun)
4. the ladies in my town all know my name (strong bad; strong bad sings and other type hits)
5. i've seen all good people (yes; yessongs disc two)
6. shen khar venakhi (cantus; let your voice be heard)
7. smoke (ben folds five; whatever and ever amen)
8. ding dong! merrily on high (american boychoir; trumpets sound voices ring)
9. intro (caedmon's call; share the well)
10. she came in through the bathroom window (the beatles; abbey road)

search for "sex"; how many results? 2--two versions of the sussex carol!
search for "death"; how many results? 2
search for "love"; how many results? 73
search for "peace"; how many results? 3
search for "rain"; how many results? 15
search for "sun"; how many results? 28

encouragement

2005-09-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

Went to Upper Room for church tonight...I hadn't been in a while, and they're at the beginning of a new sermon series/church vision thing that sounded cool, so I went with a couple of friends. The sermon was about "towel-bearing servanthood," which, although I feel like I heard that phrase enough times tonight to last me the rest of my life, was a cool message. The full extent of love is servanthood (check out John 13 where Jesus washes the disciples' feet). At the end of church, around 8:30 p.m., the pastor said, "There are two semis parked in the lot. They will be here until ten o'clock. Tomorrow they will leave to drive straight down to the Gulf Coast. I want to see if we can fill those two semis with bottled water, non-perishable food, and toiletries by ten o'clock tonight."

So my friends got directions and we headed to Target. We filled up a shopping cart with toiletry items--what do you get for people who have nothing? Do you spend your money on cheap bulk stuff to stretch your dollar further, or do you splurge a little bit, knowing that washing her hair with some really good shampoo might be just the thing to make a woman feel like a human being again? We tried to shop smartly, and I made a silent promise that I would never again say, "I have no money" when I really just mean that I don't feel like spending what I have.

What was even cooler, though, was spotting all the other people from church. Not like they were hard to spot. We walked past several dozen well-dressed, attractive young blond people with carts full of bottled water, tampons, and tomato soup, and we just nodded at each other: I know why you're here. It was way fun. Twenty minutes before Target closed, Upper Room goers had descended en masse and were shopping like crazy. The managers were frantically paging all their associates to the front and were opening more lanes left and right. Mary felt moved to give all of us a round of applause. Graham and I were appropriately embarrassed.

When we got back to the church, it was about 9:00 p.m. The one semi I looked in was full all the way to the back (and it was a looooong truck) and about halfway up to the top. It felt good to do our part and know that at least a few more people will have clean clothes and clean bodies, hopefully soon. But more than that, it felt good to know that we were fulfilling the command of Jesus to care for our neighbors.

Happy Patriot Day, everybody.

TWoP vs. YE

2005-09-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

All this Katrina stuff is…wow. Why didn’t people leave when they were told? Why wasn’t the evacuation easier for low-income families to take part in? Why was the Army Corps of Engineers denied funding for building concrete levees in New Orleans? Why did it take four days of screaming before the federal government was ready to step in?

One thing that has been encouraging to see is all the help coming from ordinary, non-professional-responder people, whether in terms of manpower or in terms of money. I’m a frequent lurker at the boards of Television Without Pity (visit them at www.televisionwithoutpity.com; I’m not so good with the HTML), and so far this Internet community of people who like television and like talking about it with each other has raised over $20,000 for hurricane relief. These people represent a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds (many posters do not live in the U.S.), faiths, political views, social agendas, and tastes. They like to argue and snark and dish and swoon and obsess and analyze. Although individually the posters are intelligent, passionate, concerned citizens, as a group they probably would not describe themselves as committed to anything in particular as a group, except of course to the merciless dissection and derision of bad entertainment. $20,000 so far, and their fundraising ends on Monday.

Now, I work for a Christian missionary organization. Youth Encounter has just finished celebrating the fact that in 40 years of ministry, we have initiated 7,500,000 “transformational encounters” where Jesus Christ is spoken—mostly into the lives of young people. Which basically means we just added up all the people who have ever been to a team concert, church service or Event—the transformational part is kind of up to God. But Jesus Christ has been spoken of, again and again and again for over 40 years on six continents. (No prizes for guessing which one we haven’t been to yet.) We are committed to the revitalization of the Church from within, by equipping youth to be spiritual leaders here and now. It’s something I absolutely love being a part of. I’ve had opportunities I never even dreamed of when I was in high school, or even in college after I became a personal Christian. And I’ve seen and participated in some wonderful ministry.

We have currently raised, as a group, zero dollars for hurricane relief. When the tsunami hit in South Asia, I believe we raised, as a group, zero dollars for humanitarian aid. As an entire staff, we have prayed for Katrina victims zero times. I’m sure that as individuals, we have supported lots of different organizations in vital ways and will continue to do so. As a group, TWoP is doing the work of compassion, the work of Christians, the work of Christ, better than we are right now.

I know that none of the people in power at Youth Encounter read this blog, but I wish they did. I wish they could see what the facts look like when they are on paper (or, you know, on screen). I know that we are struggling financially ourselves at the moment, but God asks us to give until it hurts. And if Youth Encounter has to close its doors because we gave away so much money to people in need that we couldn’t keep ourselves in business anymore, so be it. I’d be proud to be jobless if that were the case.

it's been a while

2005-08-25T22:38:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted in, like, three and a half months. I guess I haven't thought about anything since June.

www.one.org

"ain't no rock star gonna cry in my place..."--shane claiborne

sitting down

2005-06-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

What if I am ignoring the presence of God in my life because I'm afraid He'll ask me to sacrifice myself?

That's been my thought of the day for the last few weeks. In other news, I saw "Cinderella Man" this week. Good stuff. I'm reading The Stand again, too. My roommate and her boyfriend and I are watching the mini-series, and I couldn't help myself. After the dismal failure of The Dark Tower, The Stand has reclaimed its place as my favorite Stephen King book of all time. IT is pretty good, too. I just love the characters in The Stand, and I love the Christianity of it all, especially since SK is not a Christian himself. Mother Abigail behaves like a real woman who has walked with God for a hundred years, and Randall Flagg is a perfect American devil, born of the same culture that created the plague in the first place. It's just so good. I think I'm going to go and read some more of it right now!

Except that first I'm going to say this--of all the "good" characters in The Stand, the one I like the least is Fran because of how possessive she is of Stu when he has to follow the will of God and go to Vegas. I think that Fran is also the character who is the most similar to me because I do the same thing with my own life.

How can you make your stand when you're sitting down?

part trois, part deux

2005-05-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, so like I said, Episode III was great. Extremely satisfying on many accounts. Even with all the meh dialogue (at least there was nothing quite as cringeworthy as there was in Episode II), the actors all did a hell of a job. Except maybe for, and I can't believe I'm saying this, Samuel L. Jackson. Normally he's so kick-ass, but I did not feel that this was particularly a great performance for him. Ian McDiarmid, Hayden Christianson, Ewan MacGregor, and Frank Oz/a million animators, however, were in top form, and I had a grand old time. Some of my friends even cried.

What I liked the best was that while Episodes I and II made me like IV, V and VI even more by contrast (because they were just so lame compared to the greatness of the originals), Episode III made me like IV, V and VI more because it brought new depth to all of those characters and situations that carried over from the prequels. My heart aches for Yoda and Obi-Wan, who now have serious survivor guilt, and I admire them so much more as mentors for Luke because I now know all that they went through only to lose. And Darth Vader now seems trapped in his life-support suit, rather than using it to increase his menace. And the Emperor? Totally evil. Way more evil than in Return of the Jedi.

part trois

2005-05-19T03:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, real quick before I go to bed. Saw Episode III tonight, and it totally rocked my face off. More later!

i don't know

2005-05-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

Those are the words I've been praying the most lately. "I don't know." Sometimes in confusion, sometimes as a challenge to God, sometimes as a plea. It's been a long time since I've been sure of anything--sure of the goodness of God, sure of His affection for me, sure of the actual state of my soul. Sin seems to be all-pervasive in my life; and do I say that God lives in me and is producing fruit in me and sees me through the lens of Christ, and that all of the times I murder my friends in my heart or indulge in gluttony or lust or deliberately blind and deafen myself to the pain of others are illusions? Ghosts from my former sinner's life that refuse to believe they are ghosts? The fleeting and ineffectual work of Satan on my flesh?

Because I gotta tell you, that feels like a load of shit.

I am more aware of my sin than of the Spirit. I'm growing more and more afraid that God has abandoned me, and that all of the warm, fluffy American theology that paints God as a passionate, love-sick husband and father who is more disappointed in sin than angry at it is the real lie that gets in the way of knowing God. How can I take every thought captive for Christ and put on the full armor of God and all that, and yet not try to fight sin under my own power? Which is the way to live? What is true about God? Only Jesus has the words of eternal life, but where can I go to know Jesus more?

I DON'T KNOW. I don't know with such intensity that I've been holding back the screams for months. If anybody out there knows, please tell me.

a beginning and an end

2005-05-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

My roommate is now going to be working in the same small office as me. I'm really happy for her, since it's a great job and she'll do a great job with it. I'm a little apprehensive about the jealousy factor. Basically, she's got a better job than mine, and she gets to be a part of all the stuff I really want to be a part of but can't because it's not my department. So this will be a test of my graciousness, I think.

Star Wars opens in a week! Yeah! I'm psyched, but it's also bittersweet. Lord of the Rings is done; The Matrix is done; Star Wars will be done soon. I wonder what movies my friends and I will be able to get excited about in the future. Not that getting excited about movies is exactly what fuels our lives...but it is kind of important. We're the postmodern generation, obsessed with story and with transcendent experiences. Anticipating great movies and going to their midnight openings feeds both.

Currently listening to: Redemption Songs by Jars of Clay.

whoa daddy

2005-05-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

My teammate is having a baby in December! Well, not him so much as his wife. But yay!!

all about the lunch table

2005-05-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine at work just bought a new iPod, and this is a random tangent that came out of our e-mail conversation about it last week.

"You know, I think this is a very interesting time to be purchasing technology. For a while, in the earlier days of computers, there was this idea that if you couldn’t understand and manipulate the technology, you didn’t deserve to use it. If you owned a personal computer but didn’t know how to do things like program code and run things from DOS, you were kind of looked down on. Why would you spend all that money for a thing you’re too stupid to use? You deserve to crash and burn, and you will get no help from the people with the knowledge. Very elitist.

Nowadays, however, there’s this other idea that cool technology should be available for everyone to use, even people who are too stupid to understand it. So now they have Geek Squads and help desks, and instructions are written with no higher than a fourth-grade vocabulary, and so much stuff is sold based on its ability to let you “plug in and go.” It’s not that more people have a greater understanding of how computers work…it’s that their absolute resistance to learn and absolute insistence on getting to play anyway has changed the way the industry functions.

What I think is REALLY interesting is how old junior high stereotypes seem to be at play here. The nerds have been trampled on and cast out and looked down on their entire lives. Then they come up with something that the cool kids want to use. “Hey, hey…what is that?” “It’s nothing. Just a computer.” “Well, I want one.” “Um, I don’t think you would like it very much.” “Do you want another wedgie?” “Okay, okay, fine. Have a computer.” But then what happens, see, is that all the nerds gather around and watch the cool kid struggle, and they all get to laugh at him because for once, they have power over him. If he wants to know what to do with this thing he just bought from them, he has to get their help to use it. Very demeaning for the cool kid, and it totally could have stayed that way, as this big power issue. But then one day, the nerds see one of their own eating lunch at the cool kids’ table. “Hey, how did Bill get invited over there?” So they ask, “Bill…how come the cool kids like you now?” “Because I made computers easier to use and taught them how to use them, and now they think I’m cool.” And the nerds realize that they would much rather be accepted by the cool kids than have the opportunity to ridicule them, so now they’re all falling over each other backwards to make technology cooler and faster and hipper and easier to use. So that the cool kids will ask the nerds to sit at their lunch table."

Currently listening to: Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits

everywhere i look

2005-05-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

Our landlord, so my roommate tells me, came around today to check our apartment for...dun dun dunnnnnnnnn...roaches. Apparently, someone in the building saw one or something, so he's going around everywhere to find out the deal and see where to fumigate. So now I'm at red alert, and every slightest blob on the floor (even the ones that have been there since we moved in) catches my eye and makes my heart beat a little faster. I am one of the biggest insect-haters and -fearers I know, and the thought of my cute little apartment being invaded by the most indestructible insects of all time has me flirting with the idea of quitting my job and moving back home to live with my parents.

Did I mention that I hate summer?

not much to say

2005-04-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

It's true. I have not much to say. My roommate and I decorated our apartment this weekend. There's framed pictures on the walls and cool fabrics on the furniture. We've got a space set aside to display our drums (hand, not kit), and Darth Vader is now wearing a spring-like camping hat. It's amazing how little it takes to completely remove someone's dignity.

So, the apartment looks nice. As we kept saying, "It looks like we live here." And since it seems like we'll be living here for at least another year and a half, it doesn't seem quite so lame that it took us so long to get it set up like home. You know, percentage-wise. I remember before I went on team, I tried so hard to imagine what it would be like to live with six strangers and be in a different new home every night, but I just couldn't picture it. Now I'm trying to imagine what it's going to be like to live with the same one person in the same five room apartment for two years, and I just can't picture it. I wonder if that means I shouldn't plan on getting married anytime soon.

I watched "Hotel Rwanda" last night. Holy cats, that is an intense movie. I find myself so much more invested in true stories, and this was a horrible, tremendous one. It got me reflecting...has white European culture offered ANYTHING good to the world, ever? It screwed up Christianity, intercultural relationships, and entire economies. Seriously, anything good? I suppose some of the literature is pretty awesome. Shakespeare, Dickens, etc. And probably some of the scientific and technological advances of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries don't suck. I mean, they cured polio. People know more about nutrition, so they're living longer. And global transit and mass communications are mostly benefits, I think. So, okay, maybe the West isn't entirely evil. But I sure wasn't proud of it when watching that movie.

It's eleven o'clock, and I'm going to bed. Does it make me a big loser if I'm excited about the fact that I get to have a full night's sleep?

ye olde ye

2005-04-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

My teammate is here! Tracy is spending a few days at our apartment, and our Cross Fire friend Rachel is hanging out, too. It's pretty incredible how Youth Encounter has gradually invaded my life. I heard about it for the first time in college when a Captive Free team came to FCA one night, and man, were they crappy musicians. Not a great first impression for somebody in the prime of her musical snobbery. Then I actually met a couple of people who went on team, and they told me lots of horror stories about how much they fought with their teammates. So I had a rather low opinion of the team experience for quite some time.

Then I actually went on team. And then I went to Training for this year's set of teams. And now I work at Youth Encounter, I'm helping prepare for the coming year's Training, and I'm hoping to go back on the team to Denmark in a year or two. Not only that, but all of the people I hang out with now (except for Extreme Lifers, but I don't really spend much quality time with them) are Youth Encounter employees and alumni. My work and my fun and my spiritual life is so closely tied to Youth Encounter that I can't imagine what on earth I'd be doing now if I hadn't gone on team.

Actually, I can imagine. I'd be doing what many of my college friends and acquaintances are doing now--hanging out with college people and remembering "the good old days" of, you know, three years ago. The interesting thing is that when YE people get together, they spend a lot of time talking about "the good (or not so good) old days" of team, which was even more recent. So why does one seem a little pathetic and the other one makes me feel like I'm part of a wonderful, exciting community? Probably because it's the one that I'm actually doing. After my next major life change, I'll probably look down on the stuff that interests me now. Oh, growing up.

passion

2005-04-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

I saw a Passion Play tonight at a local Lutheran mini-mega-church. It was two and a half hours long and had a cast of a few hundred people, paid professional soloists, young dancers, flying angels, several live camels, horses, donkeys, chickens, geese and rabbits, and Jesus. I mean, you know. Not JESUS, but the Lutheran version...tall, Caucasian, with great cheekbones, impeccably white clothing, and a beautiful singing voice. He smiled gently when people were healed, he spoke forcefully enough to make me jump in my seat and raise Lazarus from the dead at the same time, and he delivered most of his lines with his arms outstretched...as if he were practicing for, say, a time when he might have to have his arms outstretched for the duration of a few musical numbers. Most of the songs were thoroughly unengaging, the recorded soundtrack featured very few real instruments, and the narrative pace of the story (starting with a brief retelling of the Virgin Birth and following Jesus' miracle and teaching ministries up through the end and new beginning of his life) was alternately too fast and much, much too slow.

The last scene was a slow, stately power anthem sung by the woman who played Mary, the mother of Jesus. She had a nice popera kind of voice--nice, if you like that kind of voice. The entire cast processed to the stage dressed in white robes, angels came down out of the ceiling and waved their arms around as they glided back and forth on their tracks, and the choir was in full voice. Then, the walls of the set opened to show heaven behind. More people dressed in white surrounded what my friend said looked like a throne. I couldn't see it that well, and I thought it was too bad that Jesus was set so far back that only people with the good seats could see him. But then he came down out of the ceiling in front of the open walls, shining and smiling...and the audience went nuts. The song had just reached its climatic final chord progression, but I am convinced that what got those staid, stoic, painfully appropriate Lutherans on their feet and cheering aloud before the song was even finished was a glimpse of what might actually be awaiting them.

Of course we knew that wasn't Jesus up there. I am personally grateful, because that Jesus was extremely produced and packaged, rather than passionate and wild and engaging and demanding of attention and worthy of praise. But I was incredibly overcome--we were all overcome by the thought that someday, this is really going to be us, we're really going to get to stand in front of Jesus and look him in the eye and cheer and cry and just be so full of joy we think we might explode. That's worth nineteen bucks and two and a half hours on a Friday night anytime.

the first one

2005-04-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

I'm a Martha. That's not my name; it's just who I am. I work and I worry. I like to do things for God rather than with God. Thinking about Him is a full-time hobby. Sitting and being with Him makes me antsy. If given a choice between practicing the presence of God or preaching an impromptu sermon because the pastor's got appendicitis, I pick the second one every time. On the off-chance that I pick the first, it's probably because I'm worried that picking the second means that the condition of my soul is questionable.

Jesus loved Martha. It says so in the Bible, just before He raised her brother back to life. Even though He wanted her to do a little less dish-washing for the glory of God and do a little more experiencing the glory of God. Martha also had faith--more than most of the people Jesus met, if the number of confessions of Jesus' divinity transcribed in the Bible are representative of the number of people who had the capacity to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Martha had the capacity, she believed, and what's more, she threw it in Jesus' face when He broke her heart by not showing up for three days and letting her brother die. She dared Him to be the Son of God. I wonder how many people who pray for boldness think of her.

I wish I had more Mary moments. I wish I could worry less and meditate more. When I say, "Christianity is a relationship, not a religion," I wish I could also confidently say that I am speaking out of experience and not out of being trained well in Contemporary Christianese by my evangelical mentors in college. But I know Jesus loves Marthas. That's enough for me until the day when that's enough for me.