Feed on
Posts
Comments

Due to finishing a project by the end of the month, I found myself reading most of the epistles on Monday. When reading the letters in quick succession (and one rather long sitting) the repetitive bits stand out (perhaps, they actually stand on their hands and wave their feet in the air) … here are my thoughts.

The blended sobriety, seriousness, and practicality of the apostles’ words startle. Paul says in Ephesians that the days are evil; the other apostles take up this cry. The end is near. Your neighbor starves. It is hard for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Be holy for I am holy.

Although the message of boundless grace received from the sacrifice of Christ overwhelms every stroke of New Covenant language; nevertheless, the apostles are very serious. Sin crouches at our door, and the world will know us by our love. This is not something to be taken lightly. I will give an account for every word, for every touch, for every cent, for every act.

Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their hands so as to have something to share with the needy.
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers– serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received– whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies…

Lament and mourn and weep.
For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Well?

As a part of a project this summer, I read the apocrypha several weeks ago.

Tobit and Judith are amazing stories.  Where else do you get to read about a Virtuous Woman dressing up as prostitute to enter the enemy’s camp and cut off the ruler’s head?  I am tempted to be very jealous of my sister’s name.

The Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach read like most of the wisdom literature in the Bible, although, due to some very patriarchal bits, I’m particularly grateful I don’t have to recognize these as authoritative (take that as you will, gentle reader).

There are various small additions to books (predominantly Daniel, Esther, and Ezra), like the story of Susanna or Bel and the Dragon.  These are delightful.  The story of Daniel killing a dragon is probably the only way the book could be improved.  The Old Testament saints are just that awesome.

The various Maccabees (there are four, depending on whose apocrypha you happen to be reading) are long.  They relate some of the history of the Jews during the rise of the Greek empire– including many gruesome persecution stories.  They are more boring than the Chronicles, etc.  But, I am biased by my struggles to stay interested in any straight history text.

I recommend the read, most definitely.

Rebecca

Fútbol

After an ulcer-inducing game against Turkey (3-2, with three goals scored in the last five minutes), Germany is going to the finals!!

You just never know how events will play out…

When I started my job, my mom suggested I set a “savings” goal, so that if “something happened”, I’d have a financial buffer.

Last month, I reached my goal and informed my parents.

My father saw this as a perfect opportunity to tell me that the camera I’ve been coveting was on sale (Canon 40D).

I, who have very little fortitude, decided to purchase it.

I had it sent to my work and it arrived today. As soon as I opened it, every guy in the Department was in my cubicle, and green.

And that’s when I realized that even though I’d purchased the camera for my own delight and use, it came with something I couldn’t have purchased but just as nice — prestige. It’s a rather heady feeling. I think maybe I understand now why small balding men buy Dodge Vipers in their late 40’s.

As a side note: Thank you, Daddy, for bringing my new toy to my attention. I will treasure it for many, many years.

                  Caitlin

Have I mentioned how much I love Google? When I was on Google Maps, it suggested I check out NASA’s new website: http://earthasart.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.htm

NASA has used its telescope to take pictures of the earth and they’re better than most abstract art I’ve seen… And best of all, they allow you to download poster-sized versions of the pictures you like. Take these to your nearest Kinkos and your local framers, and you’ll have some of the World’s best art hanging on your walls for less than a couple hundred dollars in less than a week.

i am going to bed. i will have hideous nightmares involving huge monsters in academic robes carrying long bloody butcher knives labelled Excerpt, Selection, Passage and Abridged.

The above excerpt is from Helene Hanff’s collection of correspondence, 84 Charing Cross Road, between her and Frank Doel, a bookseller in London in the 1950s. Please stop whatever you are doing and find this book. It’s hilarious.

R

Dreaming of Food

I’m a vivid dreamer, and a couple times recently, I’ve dreamt up delicious dishes that I’ve been eager (and as yet, unable) to try in the conscious realm.

The first was a homemade apple sauce with pears, seasoned with a spice, starting with the letter C. After smelling cumin, curry, and cardamom, I think I’ll go with cardamom, and may try a tiny batch with a dash of curry to see if anything comes of it.

The second dream was last night: I was sitting on a terrace overlooking Florence and the Tuscan valley with a couple friends, and the chef himself came out to introduce his new appetizer: small, white, long-stemmed portabello mushrooms, toasted until the tops were crispy, and sprinkled with seasame seeds. One was supposed to grab the fungi by the stem, dip it in hummus sprinkled with paprika, and enjoy. Also on the plate were long baby broccoli stems that had been blanched and could be dipped in the hummus as well. In the dream, they tasted fabulous. In real life, I have a couple questions: Are there small white portabello mushrooms? Can mushrooms be toasted? …I’m determined to find out!

              cSc

I was talking the other day with a lady at work. She is a Baby Boomer and we were talking about our different views of the computer and Internet. I am a Digital Native; I was playing with KidPix as soon as I could draw and I learned to type quickly and accurately by maintaining six Instant Messaging conversations simultaneously before I was 13. She, on the other hand, is a Digital Immigrant. She had to take a class on computers in her thirties and she learned to type on a typewriter (side note: certain friends of mine have recently developed a taste for typewriters as an artsy novelty item, the same way they collect vinyl records).

I mentioned in passing that I suspect growing up on the Internet has redefined my generation’s ideas of appropriate boundaries. Two things in particular come to mind: space and knowledge.

The whole world fits inside a 15″ flip-open box of plastic sitting placidly on my desk. In a matter of seconds, I can converse with anyone anywhere in the world. Through Google Maps I can also see most people’s backyard; sometimes I can even see a live action shot of the street I want to visit next weekend. Distances which used to take days or even months to traverse are bypassed in milliseconds. You may say that it’s not really bypassed because my body is still located in Los Angeles, but if my lack of body doesn’t limit my ability to communicate, see the world, or change it, then what am I really missing? I live in a Global Community. I have very different ideas about who I am as a citizen, what my responsibilities are to my nation, and who is my neighbor than previous generations. I can see and feel the devastation of an earthquake in China as immediately as one in San Francisco. I have, in many respects, done away with the limits of my physicality.

Secondly, the internet has transformed our ideas about the boundaries of knowledge. I have the collective knowledge of at least 4 billion people at my fingertips — the only thing which limits me is my curiousity, imagination, and the ability to manipulate a Google search engine. There is almost nothing I can’t know. I don’t need a cookbook: I can have 309,000 chocolate chip cookie recipes available in 0.9 seconds. I don’t need a dictionary: I have Dictionary.com. I don’t need an encyclopedia: I have Wikipedia. In fact, Wikipedia is doing on a micro scale what the internet does as a whole — it’s compiling ‘popular’ knowledge, the knowledge of the People. Add this to the basic American sentiment of democracy , and I am pretty convinced that I have a right to know everything. The idea of censorship is distasteful and a cause for suspicion. And one step behind that assumption is the belief that nothing is sacred.

So what are the implications? What happens when you have 75 million people who have no notion of physical or intellectual boundaries? Not sure, but I would guess the ideas of boundaries, period, would seem artificial. And if they are being crafted, we want to know why and by whom. The well-publicized failure of authority figures in every walk of life — Bill Clinton was President during our adolescence, Enron the focus of the news as we were entering the work force, less than half of us grew up with both our biological parents living under the same roof, and even our priests were denounced as pedophiles – has given us good reason to question the right of elders to tell us what is appropriate.

In the garden, Satan asked, “Did God really say…?” He questioned the hearer, not the speaker. Today, I can hear him asking, “Does God have a right to say…?”

        cSc

Orwell on Dickens

George Orwell both articulates exactly why Dickens has always frustrated me, and why I can’t seem to get away from him.  If you have read, or plan to read much of Dicken’s writing in your lifetime, I highly recommend the fifty page essay, even if only for the use of the phrase “smelly little orthodoxies” in the last paragraph.

Why is it that Tolstoy’s grasp seems to be so much larger than Dicken’s– why is it that he seems to be able to tell you so much more about yourself?  It is not that he is more gifted, or even, in the last analysis, more intelligent.  It is because he is writing about people who are growing.  His characters are struggling to make their souls, whereas Dicken’s are already finished and perfect.  In my own mind Dicken’s people are present far more often and far more vividly than Tolstoy’s, but always in a single unchangeable attitude, like pictures or pieces of furnature. 

R

I’m so far gone

Soccer, and more specifically, the EuroCup 2008, is quickly and fiercely wooing me.  It’s hard to resist ninety minute games, constant motion (that, more often than not, reseambles dancing, not a field spot), precision, national competition and Very Attractive Men.

I watched the Croatia/Turkey game with the Shephersons this afternoon.  We had our own Turkish cheering squad (except for Luke, who stoutly maintained that he was only rooting for the “green team,” which solely consisted of the Croatian goalie).  We had a brief European geography lesson, and I attempted to explain rules as we went along.  They were mesmerized by the concept that people could play a game for SO LONG without scoring.  They weren’t mesmerized by the game.  Although, I’ll admit that it was rather slow, until the extra-time, of course.

I even have my first football crush, the captain of the German national team.

*sigh*  What has happened to me?

Rebecca

Older Posts »