a few little thoughts

one, I love doing campus ministry in Spain. somehow it makes me come alive just being on campus, but even more so actually talking to students about things that matter, or being in their midst when this happens.

this week we're repeating an outreach we did last year called, "What do you see?" (although it sounds way better and catchier in Spanish.) basically we've advertised for a few weeks on campus with fotos and the phrase, "What do you see?" and we've also just put plain black or white flyers with the same phrase. this week we've had tables up on campus with 50 fotos that they can choose from to answer questions about life, the world, hope, brokenness, God,... they answer with pictures, which actually makes them more honest and more willing to answer deep, personal questions. they then have the option of telling us in words why, but either way it gets them thinking. and to me it seems obvious that a picture is worth a thousand words. somehow a picture sticks with you longer. so, i'm excited. it's been to hear students talking with their friends about deep things and it's been fun to see them come back and bring friends just to find out what they would have chosen and why. i've been in some of the conversations, but the majority i've just been a fly on the wall.

today in the midst of another long day, basically 6-7 hours standing up and interacting with people, i was looking around and remembering how much I love just being on campus. recently we've been organizing activities and getting things going, so while i've been with students, i haven't actually spent as much time on campus. it's been nice the past few days. it reminded me again why i love what i do.

it's very much a side note, but it's also been curious, or interesting, to see the huge change in fashion this year. the past few years there were quite a lot of dreads and hippies on campus and then just normal euro trends. this year we've taken a huge swing back to the 80s. big hair is in. the hippies are much more hard core in their dress, with dog collar bracelets and such. tons of heavy metal or hard core band shirts, tons of black, but all black. lots of bleached hair. lots of leggings and leather pants. lots of aviator glasses. i've been people watching and told tyler (a friend on the campus team) that i can picture people stepping out of back to the future, fame, flashdance, dirty dancing, family ties, etc., it's definitely euro-80s, with a bit more style than the US counterparts, but it's still 80s all the way.

i have some good reflecting i was going to blog, but i need to run out the door. so i'll have to do that another day.

happy times...

last night we had our first of the semester english night. (we have them about once a month.) unfortunately it coincided with the champion's league soccer match between real madrid and milán, so many of our regulars weren't here. (and double-ly unfortunately, madrid lost.) but we still had a nice little group and had a great time. it was also fun because a few study abroad students dropped by to lend us a hand, which was much appreciated.

and after we opened some lambrusco to celebrate bekah's recent engagement. it was fun hanging out for a bit and i felt loved. a peruvian friend of ours was over and she said that she wants to possibly move to canada after finishing here degree to get a master's in law somewhere else. it was late and i was tired, so i told her she needed to move to missouri, not canada, and of course proceeded to spout the greatnesses of missouri (which unbeknownst to many, who are very mistaken about our fine green state, are quite great). i mean the pure number of rivers to go canoeing on, the BEAUTIFUL green hills, good places to hike and explore, i could go on. granted we don't have a huge mountain range, but missouri is far from flat. granted we have no beaches, but we do have lakes and rivers and caves...

so, i'm in the room with dave who's from delaware, bekah from cali/colorado, chery who's from colorado, and zadith from peru. they start to tease me, which i think if done properly is one of the best ways to show love. somehow we then started to talk about bears and their abundance in canada (with a bit of exaggeration), the movie "grizzly bear," and other reasons why zadith would be much better not in canada (definitely very tongue in cheek). so, i don't fully remember the context (i mean this was somewhere around midnight on a wed night.) we begin to talk about rivers and such and i very matter-of-fact-ly state where the missouri river begins and ends (clearly in colorado) and that i thought i remembered learning that it flowed backward or something like that. they only half believe me and start to talk about how convincingly i can talk about just about anything i really have no idea about and how this is exactly the same way i try to twist the rules on games at times. (i think this was around the time that i said, "no, i'm pretty sure i am right. but i guess i really have no idea. (which i guess is a common phrase of mine.)" dave and bekah both then said, "yeah, we already knew that." so i then wanted to prove the validity of what i had just said so went to find the atlas someone randomly gave me for my birthday this past year. sure enough the missouri river starts right where i said (not too hard, since it's in st. louis, where i'm from) and goes west up between iowa and nebraska, turns west across nebraska, and then, oh.... somehow they continued to talk and all i said was, oh.... and then told them what i had been right about and then the BUT... :-) the missouri river actually ends in south dakota or around there, not in colorado (but close, right?).

anyway, i share all this to say, they then talked about the many dawn-isms that exist and i relished in the fact that it's true that they know me well and that they appreciate the little things that make me me (and definitely are things very opposite from both dave & bekah).

i guess it's just nice to feel known and loved. :-)

"Thou God of all grace,
Thou hast given me a Saviour,
produce in me a faith to live by him,
to make him all my desire,
all my hope,
all my glory.

May I enter him as my refuge,
build on him as my foundation,
walk in him as my way,
follow him as my guide,
conform to him as my example,
receive his instructions as my prophet,
rely on his intercession as my high priest,
obey him as my king.

May I never be ashamed o f him or his words,
but joyfully bear his reproach,
never displease him by unholy or imprudent conduct,
never count it a glory if I take it patiently
when buffeted for a fault,
never make the multitude my model,
never delay when thy Word invites me to advance.

May thy dear Son preserve me from this present evil world,
so that its smiles never allure,
nor its frowns terrify,
nor its vices defile,
nor its errors delude me.

May I feel that I am a stranger and a pilgrim on earth,
declaring plainly that I seek a country,
my title to it becoming daily more clear,
my meetness for it more perfect,
my foretastes of it more abundant;
and whatsoever I do may it be done in the Saviour's name."

from The Valley of Vision

tunes

I've been wanting some new music to add to my itunes and pulled out some stuff i listened to at my brother's. I've been loving the Dark Was the Night compilation as well as some of the artists featured on it such as Grizzly Bear, Beirut, Sufjan Stevens, Tune-Yards and some others of whom I'm forgetting the names.

twins, part 2

Ironically after that last post Teo woke up crying and this time wasn't soothed by laying him back on his tummy, finding his chupete/binkie, and patting his back. He was screaming, so I picked him up and took him in the other room to rock him a bit. I laid him down and Tomás soon after starts to scream and then the both start in together. Teo was awake, but only whimpering and Tomás was full out crying. And of course then both pacifiers fall on the ground (in the dark, mind you). So I turn on the hall light to get some softer light into the room, find the pacifiers, start to sing to them and alternate back and forth until both are sleeping soundly. whoo... I go back into the living room and getting some work done, some letters written. And this happens two or three more times, although the last time it almost seemed that Teo's crying was merely supportive or empathetic crying for Tomás. Poor little sick babies. They are super congested and almost wheezing when they breathe. They are coughing and yuck, their head is filled with congestion and mucous. I'm sure the feel horrible and I hate when I have a cold and can't breathe and thus can't sleep. Poor little guys. All in all they are super sweet little guys and even in crying and such are really easy kiddos. So, just after the last crying duo, the babies are sound asleep and I start back to the project I was working on, 1am, and the parents get home. They had a nice time out and I am just praying they get some sleep tonight (unlike last night). I then had my 45 minute drive home and then the search for a parking spot, but it was nice (other than being a little tired). Sweet dreams little mellizos.

twins

I´m presently babysitting. And while I love to do so, I´m realizing that two sick five month old twins can be a little bit of a handful. They are sleeping but every now and then one of them will cry and I´m supposed to then go running as fast as I can to soothe him, find his binkie and reposition him so he´ll go back to sleep and not wake up the other one. This is a little more complicated when it´s dark and they are already not sleeping too well because of all the congestion.

Now, after having written this, I´m not quite sure why I´m posting this other than I think it´s crazy that I go running as soon as one of them cries. I remember some other friends of mine who have twins (who are now about 6 or 7 yrs old) and I think I remember that they were of the philosophy that it was better to let kids cry a bit so that they learn to soothe themselves back to sleep. Somehow I´m liking that philosophy right about now. As for now, just thankful that both haven´t yet woken up at the same time.

Films...

Wow! While this week has been packed, I managed to find some time this evening to watch a couple of the movies in the running for our Film Discussion Night this fall. A friend of mine from high school suggested both "The Diving Bell and Butterfly" (a french film originally entitled Le scaphandre et le papillon) and "The Orphanage" (a Spanish film originally entitled El Orfanato) are both amazing films and definitely both film night worth, both in terms of quality of the film and in terms of being something good for discussion. Wow! I just watched the latter of the two and was very pleasantly surprised. I don't tend to love Spanish films nor do I love thrillers, but this was both and should definitely get some awards (maybe it has, I'm just not too up on that stuff). So here are two movies to put on your list when you have time and want a good film.

the prodigal God

I'm about halfway through this book and am loving it, so thought I'd pass on the suggestion. As usual it's a bit cheaper on Amazon.

What I love is that Tim Keller talks about the heart of the Gospel and of Christianity. He talks about the fact that the Gospel is just as much for people who are super-religious and have it all together, as for those who are a mess and know it. The latter group tend to get their need or God and the former tend to see themselves as self-sufficient, but are equally in desperate need of God. He talks about both being forms of making ourselves our own "savior," our own "god," and thus are rebelling from God, whether we seem to have it all together or not, whether we are "good" people or not. Anyway, the long short, good book! Really good book!

Oh, and as for the title, Keller points out two things: (1) "prodigal" actually means "recklessly extravagant; having spent everything", not wayward, and (2) the parable of the prodigal son, as it is often called (from Luke 18), is actually about TWO sons and is more about the Father's extravagant love than just the wayward son. I like it - God is definitely EXTRAVAGANT in loving us with what seems like pure recklessness.

my brief US trip...

So... let's see...I arrived back from 2 weeks in the States which was VERY brief.

First, a brief synopsis of the trip... Yolanda, a friend and I caught a plane in Madrid and headed to Brussels, Belgium. It occurred to me as we boarded the plane that this made NO sense; we were backtracking, but anyway. We arrived to Brussels and ran (at times literally) through the airport to our next gate, only very briefly glancing over our shoulders the yummy selections of chocolate. We literally ran to the gate only to have them ask us the million and one questions that are asked if you are headed to the US - about if anyone has given you anything, where your bags have been, etc., Yolanda struggled through this, with some translation on my part, since it was all in English and the people in Belgium don't tend to speak Spanish. She tried to get them to speak in Spanish, but no.

We board the plane only to quickly find that we are the minority. We are on Jet Airways and about 90% of the plane is Indian, as is the airline and the commercials. They speak English and Hindi, the food was Indian (yum), and we had a huge selection of Hollywood or Bollywood movies and a couple foreign films (one french, one arabic, and one chinese). Fun! A brief jaunt to another culture. The airline was great! Tons of leg room, they let you watch movies, play games, or listen to music from the time you boarded to the time you left the plane, and I didn't even feel the take off or landing (REALLY!). It took a smooth ride to a whole new level. Yolanda wasn't a huge fan of the food since it was quite spicy, but it was some of the best airline food I've ever had.

We arrived in New York City, took the train and then metro to Manhattan to the Meat Packing District, where my vegetarian sister was staying on work - at the Standard. We dropped off our stuff there, walked around a bit (along the river, through a cool market close by,...), and waited until my sister got off work. Yolanda kept saying, "It looks just like the movies!" "Everything is BIG!" (the streets, the cars, the houses,...) She was flipando. We found Sesame Street cupcakes, a store full of cookies, went into a European market and an Italian market, saw some cool art,... Then we headed back to the hotel to wait for my sister, who it was GREAT to see. Then off to dinner. We ate at this place called Olive & something. It was a fusion of European food, which was good (particularly after the Indian airplane) - something more normal for Yolanda's palate.

Backing up a bit... on the metro we met this guy who spent most of the trip there with us showing us pictures from his iPhone and my translating back and forth. He had somehow found a deal to pay something crazy like 500-800 dollars for 3 months of as much travel as he liked ANYWHERE in the world. So he had been to basically every continent and to lots of fun places in the past couple months. He had begun this after having traveled across the US in motorbike, or dirt-bike or something, from coast to coast, and then taken a van from California down to El Salvador, which he was only halfway there when he took off on this worldwide tour. He had a million and one stories to tell and we spent about an hour on the metro, so we were all ears. I'm guessing he just got out of college, or is in some type of transition, but was a little too tired to ask too many questions.

So, returning to above, after we got done with dinner (which we ordered WAY too much food at), we headed to catch the Megabus to Philly. We got there with plenty of time, boarded the bus in the last row so we could recline ALL the way - seriously it was flat, and went to sleep. The conductors were full of energy so they explained all the fun features of the bus - including wifi - and we were off. At some point some guy asked if I minded if they turned the sound for the movie on overhead. I did, but said no (realizing I'd probably sleep anyway), and went to sleep. Except for a few loud parts in the movie, I woke up as we arrived to Philly to the first stop. We stopped, I tried to pull up my seat for those passing by, but was too out of it to do so in a timely manner. We continued to the second stop, I woke up Yolanda, we got off the bus, we grabbed our luggage, and I hear, "Dawn!" I turn around and by God's grace my brother had gotten off work and realized, that while we would have made it to his place, I would hugely appreciate him showing up to help us. He took Yolanda's stuff since she was completely out of it by this time (probably close to 40 hours awake) and delirious and dealing with hearing a language she's still learning. It was SOOO great to see him. We took the trolley and then the metro and then walked to his place. It was raining a bit, but felt good.

We crashed and then woke up WIDE AWAKE bright and early. My brother and us headed to the historical part of town and we all saw the liberty bell, met up with my friend Cherith, and then to Independence Hall. My brother took off for work and we headed out for Philly Cheesesteaks, which Cherith continued to say were disgusting, but when in Rome do as the Romans. They were super yummy!

From there we went in search of coffee for me, tradition in Spain after lunch, and when you're jetlagged it becomes a necessity. We ended up walking all the way across Philly - stopping in a cool market, Chinatown, then heading to some cool statues (the famous LOVE statue, statues of board games and such), past some fountains, and the street with all the flags on it, down to the Philadelphia Art Museum (and Rocky statue), down to the Boathouses, and over to Fishtown (where Cherith and her husband live; and my brother does to). We saw the progress they're making on refurbing their house (right before leaving for Spain for a few years) and Cherith drove us to West Philly where a dear friend of mine lives. We had dinner with Carrie and fam, yummy vegan chili. And then about 8 or 9pm we became pumpkins and went back home to my brother's place. Of course I stayed up late both nights with my brother and his girlfriend to make the most of our little time together. One of the two nights we had delicious mojitos, which when made well is up there on my list of drinks.

We slept and got up bright and early for Drew to take us to the airport. On to St. Louis....

So we arrive to St. Louis late morning and are met by my mom who is full of tears and happy to see me. Sweet mom. We head out to the St. Louis Bread Company for lunch and then I convince her to take us home instead of us starting a tour of St. Louis. I am beat from all the running around, so we say hi to my dad (who has his office at home) and take off or Old Town St. Charles and to get some groceries. We came home and I worked, making calls & prepping for the week and for Sunday. That was Friday. I think we might have eaten in with some DELICIOUS, homemade cherry pie!

St. Louis is kind of a blur. Lots of meeting with people, speaking at churches, trying to be a good tour guide for yolanda, trying to spend quality time with my mom, sad because it was short and there are only 24h in a day and my dad had to leave monday morning for NH for work.

Saturday we went to the St. Louis Botanical Garden (aka Shaw Gardens), had some yummy Vietnamese food, and I think came home early so I could make some phone calls and prep for Sunday.

Sunday was church and sharing a bit there and lunch with people and then speaking at youth group (which unfortunately we were hugely jetlagged for; it was still fun I was just a bit delirious). A VERY full day.

Monday we saw my friend Catha, spoke at 5 spanish classes at a Christian high school a friend of mine is a spanish teacher at, and then came home.

The rest of the week was seeing some friends (some dear dear friends), seeing some ministry partners (many of whom are friends too), speaking as a few small groups that meet in homes (some smaller than others), hanging out with my mom, seeing St. Louis & St. Peters, some shopping, more sightseeing and meeting with people,...

The next weekend was similar to the last and then Tuesday morning we did the reverse. We flew to Philly, were met by my sweet friend Cherith who picked us up and took us to a Mediterranean restaurant and then to an incredibly delicious gelato place and then to catch our bus to NYC. We caught the bus, although this time our bus driver didn't speak English so we had some communication complications. I checked my e-mail and enjoyed the ride (sleeping some and just relaxing the rest). A guy on the bus said we might be 30-60 min late due to rush hour, so I sent a message to my friends who were there to meet us. We ended up at a different stop, in part to the communication problems, so walked several blocks and eventually found my friends who were in a bar waiting for us. It was SOOO SOOO good to see them - one a friend who came to visit last year and another a dear friend who just recently moved to NYC. We headed back to the apt we were going to stay at and then out for dinner. We ended up at an odd Spanish/Morroccan/Latin restaurant. I was not hungry at all, so just got something to drink and we caught up while I translated. I guess from the travel I was really tired again, so we went back early, talked through the next day and went online on this crazy high tech setup my friend has in his place. Karen went home and we went to sleep.

The next day Yolanda and I got up early and had the most delicious cappichino at City Girl Café, got a tad bit turned around, and headed to Battery Park to see Lady Liberty, then through Wall Street, past Ground Zero, walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, almost had some crazy good NY Italian food, but instead went to Central Park, to the John Lennon memorial, took a million and one pictures, and grabbed gyros on the street. While we were waiting for our food we met 10+ spaniards doing the same. We met up with Karen in Washington Square Park, got a quick tour of NYC and the oldest unchanged street in NYC, got a cappichino at one of the oldest places in Greenwich Village, tried to see Soho and the Village but got turned around a few times, so just took a lot of pictures and saw a few random things. We then met up with my friend Jonathan for dinner at a Mexican place and then to a chic coctail place. Again we went to bed tired.

The next morning we made sure our stuff was packed and that we knew how to get there okay, met up with Karen for brunch after seeing her digs in Harlem and getting a brief tour of the area, and then did the whirlwind tour - Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Fifth Avenue, NBA Store (for t-shirts for a friend of yolanda), coffee, Empire States Building (which unfortunately we didn't have time to go up in - yolanda was really sad), and then off to the airport in train and then another train. We boarded the plane and did the reverse, arriving home to Madrid a day later (Friday AM).

That is the brief outline of the trip. I have some observations and thoughts I was going to blog, but another day.

Four days later I had to jump on another plan to Barcelona for some meetings, which was FULL not to mention with jetlag on this side of the pond. Time in Barcelona I also want to blog about, as it was fun as always to stay and work with friends there.

la aventura de ser una single

"I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord - death can't and life can't, the angels can't and the demons can't, our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell, whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation." Romans 8:38-39

Yesterday I met with a pastor from a suburb of Madrid to talk about the youth group at his church and how I could lend them a hand and also to just catch up a bit after the summer. We talked about that and then he asked (as it seems has come up quite frequently in conversations with married couples) if I was single by choice or why.

I guess the positive side is that there is not a screamingly obvious reason why I haven't found the right guy. And, as is also been true quite frequently as of late (I think several times this past week), he asked if I was closed to the idea of people helping. I said no but that I also was both content where I am and desirous of being married and having kids (if it's God's will and in His timing to the right guy, of course). He then said that I had a hard road - that I had chosen the hard road, with its benefits of course, but not without its troubles. I appreciated his sympathizing and even affirming my chosen road to live as a missionary in a foreign land. But he also was right - choosing to follow Jesus doesn't mean the road will necessarily be easy, in fact often that isn't the case. But I wouldn't change roads, even if that is the case. The benefits of following Christ FAR out way the cost, both in this life and in the next. And while I do desire to marry, the Lord is fully sufficient. He does without fail provide, protect, encourage, sustain,...

a brief update

I am hoping to write some thoughts about my recent trip to the US and seeing it through my Spanish friends' eyes a bit since she came with me. I arrived back on Friday morning, am still fighting with jet lag (at least in the mornings), have watched four movies in the past 24 hours to prep for our film nights this fall, am trying to cram one and a million things into the next 24 hours, and leave tomorrow afternoon for two days of meetings in Barcelona.

On a side note: here are some fun books I've read recently or am hoping to read soon - Know it All by A.J. Jacobs who worked for Esquire, The Elegance of the Hedgehog (I've probably mentioned it before), and Reading Lolita in Tetuan. Oh and some good nonfiction books that I highly recommend are The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan, Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (or anything by Lewis for that matter), The Promises of Grace by Bryan Chappell (or Praying Backwards - also great), and The Prodigal God by Tim Keller (or anything by Keller).

As for movies...I have a list, so I'll finish watching them and then give you the reviews or send you to my ministry website.

the countdown

Inevitably before a big trip, there comes a point where it feels like there are a million and one things to do, time is ticking away, and I'm on a downhill slope with the momentum that comes from running downhill. All is well, I just feel the pressure of time running out. 9 times out of ten, or maybe 9.9 times out of ten, that which is left undone is fine that way but it doesn't change the sensation of it all - hoping I'm not forgetting anything too vital nor to tell anyone who needs to know that I'll be gone. This is only heightened by an overseas trip because my cell phone won't work and the lapse of time and frequency of checking all forms of communication is just a bit slower.

On my list are:

Paying rent & clearing bills with my roommates (including my former roommate who just moved to another city)
Updating ministry updates, websites, etc.,
Tying up loose ends having to do with the new semester that begins as soon as I get back (including applying for permission to do our fall outreach on campus and following up with the guy who may give us a place for our movie discussion night)
Seeing everyone I can who just got back into town from vacation (since Sept is the in-between month, between summer and fall)
Hmm... that's the first of the list...which I actually need to get to.

The other "countdown" per say underway is that into the fall semester. This is a fun, exciting, I can't wait kind of countdown, however. It's the kind of countdown before you take off on a sprint running as hard as you can for 200 meters, but with all the energy in the world. It's a good feeling, not at all overwhelming. And I guess the other one, if I don't worry about anything getting unknowingly dropped by the wayside, is also somewhat injuvenating. So, off I go to finish the lists...

thoughts on a sabbath rest

I've been reading "The Rest of God" by Mark Buchanan, which has been good, really refreshing, and it seems to fall in step with various things God is teaching me. This morning and then now as I read a quote on a friend's blog ("We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember." - Judith Shulevitz, Bring Back the Sabbath) , this book and many other little puzzle pieces come together a bit more. So, here below are some of quotes I've appreciated from Mark Buchanan's book on sabbath resting. I'm about halfway through the book and could put many more quotes here, but this will suffice for now.

“Sanctifying some time adds richness to all time, just as an hour with the one you love brings light and levity to the hours that follow. To spend time with the object of your desire is to emerge, not sullen and peevish, but elated and refreshed. you come away filled, not depleted.

The Greeks understood. Embedded in their language, expressed in two distinct words for ‘time,’ is an intuition about the possibility of sanctified time. Time, they knew, has two faces, two natures. It exists in two separate realms,...One is sacred time, the other profane.

The first word is chronos... It is the time of clock and calendar, time as a gauntlet, time as a forced march. The word derives from one of the gods in the Greek pantheon. Chronos was a nasty minor deity, a glutton and a cannibal who gorged himself on his own children. He was always consuming, never consummated. Goya depicted him in his work ‘Chronos Devouring His Children.’ In the painting, Chronos is gaunt and ravenous, wild-eyed with hunger. He crams a naked, bloody-stumped figure into his gaping mouth. peter Paul Rubens depicted Chronos even more alarmingly: a father viciously biting into his son’s chest and tearing the flesh away, the boy arching backward in shock and pain.

Chronos is the presiding deity of the driven.

The second Greek word is kairos. This is time as gift, as opportunity, as season. It is time pregnant with purpose. In kairos time you ask, not ‘What time is it?’ but ‘What is this time FOR?’ Kairos is the servant of holy purpose. ‘There is a time for everything,’ Ecclesiastes says, ‘and a season for every activity under heaven.’

‘A time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot, ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,...
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace, (3:1-2, 5-8)...” (p. 36-37, The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan)



“The Chinese join two characters to form a single pictograph for busyness: heart and killing. That is stunningly incisive. The heart of the place the busy life exacts its steepest toll...

One measure for whether or not you’re rested enough... is to ask yourself this: How much do I care about the things I care about? When we lose concern for people,...when we cease to laugh...or weep; when we hear news of trouble among our neighbors and our first thought is that we hope it isn’t going to involve us-- when we stop caring about the things we care about-- that’s a signal we’re too busy. We have let ourselves be consumed by the things that feed the ego but starve the soul.

Busyness kills the heart... Busyness makes us stop caring about the things we care about. And not only that. Busyness also robs us of knowing God the way we might... other facets of God we discover only through stillness. ‘Be still,’ the psalm instructs,’and know that I am God’ (Ps. 46:10)” (p.45, 48, 49, The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan)

I just read this on a friend of a friend's blog and thought it was worth repeating. It's actually from Rob Bell's book Sex God, which is a great book, by the way.

"You don’t need a man by your side to validate you as a woman. You already are loved and valued. You’re good enough exactly as you are. Do you believe this? Because it’s true. You have limitless worth and value. If you embrace this truth, it will affect every area of your life, especially your relationship with men.

You are worth dying for.

Your worth does not come from your body, your mind, your work, what you produce, what you put out, how much money you make. Your worth does not come from whether or not you have a man. Your worth does not come from whether or not men notice you. You have inestimable worth that comes from your Creator.

You will continue to be tempted in a thousand different ways not to believe this. This temptation will be to go searching for your worth and validity from places other than your Creator.

Especially from men.

But you don’t have to give yourself away to earn a man’s love. You’re better than that. You’re already loved.

When you give too much of yourself away too quickly, when you show too much skin, you’re not being true to yourself. When you dress to show us everything, then in some sense we have all shared in it, or at least been exposed to it. There is a mystery to you, infinite depth and endless complexity.

As the woman says in Song of Songs, “My own vineyard is mine to give.” In the ancient Near East, a vineyard was a euphemism for sexuality. She is saying that she doesn’t give herself to just anyone. She is fully in control of herself, and she is not cheap, and she is not easy.

Your strength is a beautiful thing. And when you live in it, when you carry yourself with the honor and dignity that are yours, it forces the men around you to relate to you on more than just a flesh level.

You are worth dying for.

When you live in your true identity, when you find your worth and value in your Creator, when you live “in Christ,” in who you really are, you force men to rethink what it means to be a man." -Sex God by Rob Bell

singleness

Hmm... okay, i somehow can't seem to fall asleep quite yet. As I lay awake I started to think about and pray for various friends at the beginning of new relationships, desperately desiring to be married and to find the right one, having babies or desiring babies, having kids and desiring time, getting married, or just about to be married, or recently married,... and I thought, thanks God for having me single right now. I love the opportunities I have to be involved in people's lives, young people in particular, that I wouldn't have in quite as much abundance nor with quite the same flexibility. You know, while I do desire to get married and have kids, I'm pretty happy (at least right now) about the stage of life I'm in and all that it provides. Not to be too cheery, but every stage has it's pros and cons and I just think that today and this week I've see to a larger degree some of the pros of being single, at least for now. :-)

friends

Okay, so yes it's true that I need to get some sleep, considering that I need to be up in about 7 hours, but I just read some friends' blogs and wrote a couple e-mails and have some quick thoughts on my mind.

So, today I met with so dear friends who I haven't seen all summer and I also talked to a far away friend via facebook. Both blessed me tremendously, one because he listened (albeit via messages) and the other two because they cared. Interestingly all three are men, but men for whom I am extremely grateful.

Two of the guys shared about their lives and summers and upcoming things. One of them wants to get married and likes a girl, whom he's pursuing. The other also recently started "to get to know" a girl recently to see where things go. And I suppose because they are in love, or at least in the clouds of liking someone, they've decided to make my love life their business, which makes me feel loved and cared for (obviously in a platonic way).

Awww, I love good friends! And honestly I love having good guy friends, ones that you know where things stand, who love you and have your back, but also you know are just friends. One thing I've missed living here in Madrid are good guy friends. And up until now it seemed like often there was ambiguity or that awkward tension of both sides intentions. So this is nice, freeing. (Not to say by any means that I wouldn't like a guy that were more than friends, if he were the right guy that is.) (And while this only mentions three of these guys there are some others too here who have become good friends.)

That's it. I'm now babbling and making no sense, so off to sleep. Oh, and thanks far away friend and fun here friends!

Music is a wonderful thing. I love how it can transport you to somewhere else, how it can somehow move you in a way much deeper than mere words.

So, I just have to say that while it is definitely a girly movie, You've Got Mail is definitely up there in the movie world. And I love the music. I'm listening to it right now and it makes me feel reminiscent. About what, I'm not quite sure. But it does make me happy. It makes me think of daisies and witty monologues about pencils and butterflies on metros and you've just got to love about a million things about that movie. Hmm....

Well, I don't actually have much to say, but I do think the guy who did the music, George somebody, is a genius, as is the playwright. Oh, I just finished the music. :-) I guess on to other things.

the cat sitter

It is strange, but it seems that over the past week I've become a bit of a cat sitter. Last weekend a friend (Julie) who was taking care of another friend's cat (the Tanzies) asked me if I could take care of the cat (Calabaza) until Bekah (another friend) got home to take over. Bekah got home and was exhausted so I offered to continue the cat duty.

That was pretty uneventful. I fed the kitty, cleaned the litter box, played with the kitty a little, borrowed some books (which were gems), found some very old and moldy coffee that the nice people who stayed at their house while they were gone had left behind (most likely because it didn't cross their mind that in two weeks no one else would likely be making coffee and clean it out).

So, Bekah left yesterday to go visit a friend for a week. Her cat Bailey somehow got a virus of some sort and she took him to the vet yesterday only to find out that he was really sick. So we took him again today for a checkup and to get some blood tested. Fortunately my friend Beth and her little boy (a year old) Lucas went with us.

We arrived at Bekah and Bailey's house, which was a bit warm despite the two fans going. We tried to coax Bailey out from under the couch, but then had to lift the couch and pull him out all while trying to hang on to a one year old who wanted to stick his hand in the fan, pull over anything heavy, or basically head toward anything that yelled danger. In a one bedroom, little tiny apartment that is not baby-proof finding danger is quite easy. So we coax Bailey out, Beth (my friend) inspects the litter box and smells the clump there to make sure she knows what it is. Yuck. We try to get him to eat or drink something, but to no avail. We took off.

Of course the first thing Bailey did was pee in the carrying case which we had to carry about 10 blocks (not really that far). We got there and the vet recognized Bailey from yesterday, but seemed to think his name was Baby instead of Bailey. I tried to correct him, but it seemed unimportant and a fairly lost cause. Fortunately the vet was nice and explained everything he did and fortunately Beth was taking care of Bailey while I entertained Lucas.

First the vet said that Bailey was fairly dehydrated and that it looked bad. He showed us his yellow skin and teeth to verify that he was sick and dehydrated. Then it was time to take blood. So he put this horrible homemade looking tourniquet on (which as I said before, it was a good thing that he was nice and explaining things because it looked odd). It was a rubber band synched tight with a clamp of sorts. Since Bailey didn't seem to care, I relaxed a bit. Then he had to shave the hair off the arm to search for the vein. (I'm thinking in the States that the vet tends to do this without you standing there. But it has been a long time since I was last in a vet's office.) He filled two vials with blood and then gave Bailey a saline drip, a shot of antibiotics, something else, and B vitamins. Bailey didn't seem to notice.

He then gave me instructions and some special cat food (which he said he probably wouldn't eat) and told me to try to give him food every two hours. Fortunately I live right around the corner and since Bailey isn't actually eating and I do have other things to be doing, I did it a little less frequently.

Tonight as I went back over after giving Bekah an update on her kitty, he actually came out (unlike the rest of the day where I had to drag him out from under the couch only to put food in his face and water too, none of which he would touch. I rubbed him awhile and tried to leave about five times, but couldn't seem to do it since he looked so pathetically lethargic and would meow when I tried to leave. If I weren't actually allergic to him, I might have spent the night, which I'm hoping my roommate might actually do when she returns tomorrow.

So that is the saga of the kitties. Hopefully Bailey will get better soon and my stint as a cat sitter will soon be over. I do actually like cats, but much prefer the cats we had growing up, cats that are healthy, and cats that don't make my throat hurt. And I would much rather take care of a sick person than a sick animal.

the rest of God

“Sanctifying some time adds richness to all time, just as an hour with the one you love brings light and levity to the hours that follow. To spend time with the object of your desire is to emerge, not sullen and peevish, but elated and refreshed. you come away filled, not depleted.

The Greeks understood. Embedded in their language, expressed in two distinct words for ‘time,’ is an intuition about the possibility of sanctified time. Time, they knew, has two faces, two natures. It exists in two separate realms,...One is sacred time, the other profane.

The first word is chronos... It is the time of clock and calendar, time as a gauntlet, time as a forced march. The word derives from one of the gods in the Greek pantheon. Chronos was a nasty minor deity, a glutton and a cannibal who gorged himself on his own children. He was always consuming, never consummated. Goya depicted him in his work ‘Chronos Devouring His Children.’ In the painting, Chronos is gaunt and ravenous, wild-eyed with hunger. He crams a naked, bloody-stumped figure into his gaping mouth. peter Paul Rubens depicted Chronos even more alarmingly: a father viciously biting into his son’s chest and tearing the flesh away, the boy arching backward in shock and pain.

Chronos is the presiding deity of the driven.

The second Greek word is kairos. This is time as gift, as opportunity, as season. It is time pregnant with purpose. In kairos time you ask, not ‘What time is it?’ but ‘What is this time FOR?’ Kairos is the servant of holy purpose. ‘There is a time for everything,’ Ecclesiastes says, ‘and a season for every activity under heaven.’ 

‘A time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot, ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,...
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace, (3:1-2, 5-8)...” (p. 36-37)



“The Chinese join two characters to form a single pictograph for busyness: heart and killing. That is stunningly incisive. The heart of the place the busy life exacts its steepest toll...

One measure for whether or not you’re rested enough... is to ask yourself this: How much do I care about the things I care about? When we lose concern for people,...when we cease to laugh...or weep; when we hear news of trouble among our neighbors and our first thought is that we hope it isn’t going to involve us-- when we stop caring about the things we care about-- that’s a signal we’re too busy. We have let ourselves be consumed by the things that feed the ego but starve the soul.

Busyness kills the heart... Busyness makes us stop caring about the things we care about. And not only that. Busyness also robs us of knowing God the way we might... other facets of God we discover only through stillness. ‘Be still,’ the psalm instructs,’and know that I am God’ (Ps. 46:10)” (p.45, 48, 49)

Excerpts taken from "The Rest of God" by Mark Buchanan

"The key to the joyful Christian life is having a clear understanding of who God really is.

It's not about me. I cannot fix myself...Only God can. Even my ability to have faith and believe God for great things is nothing more than a mere symptom of my view of God... What we believe to be true about God's character affects every aspect of our lives. God, and God alone is the issue." Forward to Discover God Bible Study Nº1

"He does not derive His power from any other source; all power has always been His and will continue to be His for eternity. Any power that we have comes ultimately from God." Bill Bright, Discover God

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of GOd was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light." Genesis 1.1-3