Levitical Thoughts

It’s funny when your mind starts all of a sudden making connections in the Word. Last night somewhere between poli sci studies and the pillow I found myself reading Leviticus 6 and the words wouldn’t stay on the page. As a way of helping me remember it, I thought I’d write it down the random musings for you, and we can see whether it holds up to the light of day.

First there was verse 5 talking about making restitutions for stolen things: “he shall make restitution for it in full and add to it one-fifth more. He shall give it to the one to whom it belongs on the day he presents his guilt offering.” It just struck me that there is a timeliness to our dealings with God and man. Even if the stealer had the restitution ready, both people had to wait until he brought his sacrifice for worship. How often I need to be reminded that everything has its season.

Then when it is talking about bread for the priests in v 18, it makes a surprising statement: “Whoever touches them will become consecrated.” Wow, I’m used to thinking that common people who touched the holy things contaminated whatever they handled, but this time it works the other way! My mind went to David and the holy bread, and also to Christ thousands of years later who knew what was really going on there. The wonderful ways of God.

And then v. 23 “So every grain offering of the priest shall be burned entirely. It shall not be eaten.” And I thought of the Lord Jesus Christ who was consumed on our behalf and how I’m to be an offering wholly committed like him (Rom 12:1).

Lastly it just struck me how the whole burn offering system took faith. You had to bring something before God and watch it all burn away. You had to trust that the Lord would count it for something that would make you clean, “an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the LORD.”

A New Approach

The skinny:

First half of semester – done

Spring break – lovely

me – alive

life – good

The fat:

Tonight I picked up a volume of Charles Spurgeon expecting get a useful read, and instead had my brain stretched out again. Gotta watch that with Spurgeon. Smart fellow.

The passage he expounded was from Paul (II Cor 1:11-12), and just when you thought it was another sermon on prayer, Spurgeon caught the apostle approaching God in a special and deliberate way, using what he calls the Rule of Three: “He [Paul] argues from the past to the present and from the present to things yet to come.”

How simple and yet how encouraging! If I used this approach in my own prayers to God wouldn’t it make them more confidant and hopeful? If my faith is too low to ask for tonight’s forgiveness, need I look any further than this morning’s mercies? Too many times I forget the word that commands “Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord” (Lam 2:19). I let my prayers get bogged down. Tonight, with the encouragement from Spurgeon, I want to call to mide past deliverances, with the hope, even confidence, that the Lord will rescue me now and in the future.

“Whatever our circumstances are, however perplexing our pathway may be, and however dark our horizon, if we argue by the rule of He has, He does, He will, our comfort can never be destroyed. Courage, then, you who are afflicted. If you had a changeable God to deal with, your souls might be full of bitterness; but because He is unchanging, every repeated manifestation of His grace should make it easier for you to rest in Him. Every renew experience of His faithfulness should confirm your confidence in His grace. May the most blessed Spirit teach you to grow in holy confidence in our ever faithful Lord.”

Amen to that.

Friends!!

I have them!!

And they comment even when I’ve disappeared!!!

and when I have

big

astronomy

tests

.

A quote

“Happy pearl divers go overboard for work”

-Unknown

She posteth soon!

but not today

ha

WC!

For soccer people this means the world cup.

In China it stands for Wing Chun, a Kung fu system.

In Scotland we know it indicates the water closet (you Americans do the math).

In science it might stand for water column, a unit of preasure to the area of a column of water on Earth.

And we won’t even go into Warcraft, or White Castle, World Championship, or Wisconsin Central Railroad (you know you were thinking about it)

But if you’re Reformed Presbyterian

And a college student

In Indiana (or Ohio, or Pennsylvania, or Kansas, or wherever)

This

Means

WINTER CONFERENCE!!!!!

Oh yes!! To all who did not know that this was going to occur, you must pardon my absence on blogger to spend time with 129 fellow fuzzies (can you believe it?! One hundred and twenty nine people! A record! A hoard!!! A mob!!!!) at the delectabe Shangrila valley nestled in the midst of a Indiana… uh, paradise of uh corn. Yup corn.

For those of you who did know of this happening and happen to have happily registered

you shouldn’t be reading this post – go and PACK!!!!!

There.

Goodbye.

Friday view

A new day. A blank page. How can God be glorified today? (if only I asked this every morning!)

My Christmas break now contains three days left in which to… live. Now is not the time to pine over what I didn’t get accomplished, but to give thanks for the break that I did have, a very peaceful one in the past few days. I’ve got to spend a lot of time with my family, shopping with mom, sitting and talking with dad, running Amy to work, reflecting and praying at the end of the day with Ben. This is the good stuff, I keep telling myself, and I think that’ll still be true during the school year.

Something else that has come as a blessing has been time to read. This past year for the first time, I’ve been working on reading the Bible in a year and now I’m getting pretty close to the end. During the holidays I’ve been able to devote a lot of time to catching up so that I can finish in time. Reading all of Romans in just a couple of days – whew! that’s a kick! I’ve had time to make headway in other books as well, and started Wuthering Heights (insert the evil gurgle of a happy literature student) which I’ll be studying in a Lit class. I’ve needed to read that book for years, and now I can both read it for pleasure and get some school work out of the way – yippee!

And finally this break has been a time of spiritual…. hmm, challenge, as Christmas break has proved to be for me recently. But today I’m not going to waste time listening to the devil, perhaps I’ll never know how much work he’s already impeded with temptation, and self focus, and doubt! I guess it’s just that the holidays are times that my true {selfish} self comes out more clearly, and this gives me trouble. On the one hand this is discouraging (let’s be honest), but on the other it’s a special opportunity for the Lord to deal with these things, to clean up the mess. Could He still work in my heart in the last three days? Yes, even until the fourth watch of the night (Mark 6, where Christ walks on water).

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. … take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Eph 6:10, 13-17

Head surfacing after… stuff

I’m sure that moving and the holidays and setting up a house could have a better name than stuff. But from a blog’s point of view (poor little blog) everything that keeps the blogger away is just non-blogging stuff. So tonight, stuff be gone!

Having said that, hope that my friend Karen doesn’t mind if I steal from my letter to her to post. :P

We’re settling in to Kokomo just fine. One of the greatest uncertainties about coming back was a job for dad, and after a prayerful wait of a couple of weeks, the Lord very mercifully gave Dad his old job at the Rescue Mission back, so we’re rejoicing over that!! As for the rent house that we found while in Scotland – we really like it! We’ve been moved in for a week now (just in time to get some crazy Christmasations up and swoop on some gifts from Target!). We have been busy setting things up in kitchen and bedrooms and yard, even raking up the winter leaves has been fun (it let me meet the neighbors’ rottweiler across the fence, whew!).

Does it feel as if we never left? Hmm, I guess that one gets a traditional yes and no. Yes the crackers in Kroger are just where we let them (and there was great rejoicing), and Mom and Dad, who drove in Scotland, have marvelously switched right back into driving on the right over here. I’m actually the one who keeps trying to get into the wrong side of the car, I think I got more set in my ways than I realized! Other things I think will just take a little more time, I’ll have to weed out the word ‘trousers’ in favor of ‘pants,’ which makes me feel like I’m saying ‘underwear’ now!

Anywho, the Lord has brought so many numerous things together that we couldn’t have, every day wakes with more blessings, we feel that the Lord has brought us in His own time to the place He wants us to be, and we want it too.

Merry

Christmas


a day late.





Life is good.




Kokomo is good.




Eggnog is good.





And God is good.










Ain't it so?!

Precious

All the precious things in my life today couldn’t possibly fit in this post, but I'll let you in on a few. I went to school today and the sun was shining. Sunlight is precious because only God can make it.

Yesterday I spent a wonderful wonderful day with mom. She has been wanting to come to uni with me one day, so we sallied out to hunt down Macintosh architecture, and Willow Tea Room tea. A precious time with us two girls.

[Plot Spoiler: I do in fact have very important news for those of you who haven’t heard, so prepare yourselves. But truth be told, I haven’t time to explain it in detail, do also go to Amy’s blog to get another wee spin.]

Things that are numbered are precious, and so are my days at Glasgow, in Coatbridge, and in Scotland. That’s right, we Jonses, we all of us five, are coming back to the states soon. in December. before Christmas. (Again, see Amy) surprise or no, we are headed back, and my days remaining here are quickly going.

While walking up the hill at uni this morning, I realized that today is precious as well – my last day to be a teenager. Mañana por la mañana (tomorrow in the morning), I will have been here two decades (and at long last I’ll have a use for all my fingers and toes to tell my age!).

But on better reflection, it’s clear that today was precious for a lot more than that – sunshine, tea, fingers and toes being all very well. Today I got on the subway and got to open the infallible word of God, today He preserved me in heath and brought me through his beautiful creation on the train, today I went to His psalms and they ministered to my soul. What could be more precious than living with Him for today?

What shall I render to the LORD
For all His benefits toward me?
I shall lift up the cup of salvation
And call upon the name of the LORD.
I shall pay my vows to the LORD,
Oh may it be in the presence of all His people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD
Is the death of His godly ones.
O LORD, surely I am Your servant,
I am Your servant, the son of Your handmaid,
You have loosed my bonds.

Psalm 116:12-16

Snappy snaps of the distant past

Well, sortof. I wish to share with you the photo saga of a day in the life of Cabbage (subtitled A Slug of UG). A couple of Thursdays ago I thought I’d bring Ben’s camera along to school and see what kind of pictures come out. Fuzzy ones, let me tell you. This is just a sliver of my travels too and fro, hopefully the captions will tell you everything you need to know. And just to add some spice to your pepper, I’ve organized the photos to a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the gentlemen whom I’ve been studying in Scottish Lit this semester (oh pardon, I mean one of the gentlepeople – lets be politically correct in our saga). I would recommend reading through just the titles first, to get the poetry.

So enjoy…

if you dare.

The Wind Blew Shrill And Smart

by Robert Louis Stevenson

The wind blew shrill and smart,

A wind of bacon usually greets
me at 8:30 breakfast, thanks mom.

And the wind awoke my heart

my absoulte favorite view each morning
from the station, special even in the grayness

Again to go a-sailing o'er the sea.

the bus sailing along, my first form of transportation

To hear the cordage moan

These days on the bus route it's
traffic lights that make us moan,
I haven't noticed any cordage anywhere...

And the straining timbers groan,

Now this picture was deliberatly fuzzy. Whenever the
bus is late I have to run to the train station, so here I'm

definitely straining my timbers.

And to see the flying pennon lie a-lee.

Coatdyke Train Station with the
08:59 pulling in

O sailor of the fleet,

This dude isn't feeling very fleet!
I felt sorry for him nodding off like he did, but
not sorry enough to keep from taking his picture. :P

It is time to stir the feet!

My train ride ends in Partick Station, Glasgow
where I head down 2 stories...

It's time to man the dingy and to row!

to the subway

It's lay your hand in mine

this is it, folks - Glasgow West End in a nutshell
coffee, chatting, smoaking, and Greggs

And it's empty down the wine,

no, that isn't a glass in my hand
What I really need before Scottish Literature class
is a big Mountain Dew.
Hey, at least I'm here.

And it's drain a health to death before we go!

This is Hugh
he wrote poems
He watches over us every Friday
and his head's on fire.
Fear the Hugh. Fear.

To death, my lads, we sail;

I rather like my wee pack lunches
but I do agree that there's somethng morbid
in the peals of a halved banana
Oh well, sail away, sail away, sail away...

And it's death that blows the gale

I'll never forget the professor who told me
"Go behind the Adams Smith building,
You'll recognize it because it looks like the Gaza Strip!"
::snort: There's always construction around U of G
and diverting our attention to posters doesn't really help.

And death that holds the tiller as we ride.

as we ride... downtown?
A view of south campus

For he's the king of all

Jack doesn't like pictures, so here he is.
He might be considered the king of our theatre
'cause he's usually brilliant ...
if he weren't so sleepy. Poor Jack.

In the tempest and the squall,

No, no squall in the Partick station again,
just a Cabbage rolling off the escalator

And the ruler of the Ocean wild and wide!

A last view of the uni from the train

Well, that's the last of the poem, but here are a few more pictures from the day.

Some shots from the steps of the Department of Scottish Lit





And one picture boldly taken during lit class. Apparently the paintings around the wall are ment to inspire us to greatness at 10 am in the morning.
If you call Hugh MacDiarmid's flaming head an inspiration you must be hard core Scot Lit!

Merry Thanksgiv' to all

and to all a good night

Ecological impact of beavers Castor fiber and Castor canadensis and their ability to modify ecosystems.

this was one of the recommended articles that a database brought up when I typed in 'scotland' 'landscape' and 'literature'


i love research

I think that I shall never see

a poem as lovely as a tree







Aspen on Cedar Mountain, Utah

the word

Thus says the LORD, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD,"

Jeremiah 9:23-24a.

I love my sister

she gives me cranberries

Your MOM posts!

More than you do, apparently. You wonder if it’s because she doesn’t have to read the worlds longest Highland romance portraying an insipid hero (enter Waverly), but then you realist that its your mom – she does everything.

Anywho. Apart from the glories of Walter Scott I’ve been exploring other literary wonders as well. On Monday I fell off the face of the earth to prepare for a James Hogg presentation that I perhaps should have started sooner. On Thursday I had to give a 10 minute presentation with two other students (we were unofficially called “the Hogg people” which fortunately didn’t reflect on our intelligence) and after talking with one of them and hearing of her uber-preparedness I was kindof nervous.

Anywho, after several midnights of coffee and Horlicks (don’t snort until you have tried this powder of destiny yourself – sleep helping, woo badger!) the final copy was printed exactly .29 minutes before I had to walk out the door. Needless to say that hurry didn’t help my jitters and my notes written on the train weren’t really legible at all. But I felt a little better when we all sat down and presenters and audience alike coughed the same choke-snort-cough thing. These weren’t the guys to tear into me. The long and short of it was that the Lord was really gracious helping me write and present, and our tutor was well impressed (as an Irish gal said it).

And now we’re in the throws of theatre class as well, and I’ve been to two of my five required plays for this semester. This was something that I wasn’t really counting on when I signed up for the class (perhaps I envisioned the class analyzing popsicle sticks, who knows). It’s not so bad going to see plays that someone else picked out, it’s spending 6 pounds and 3 hours on them that gets me huffy at times.

Our first play was Mary Stuart a big whoppin 3 hour thing with 19 century dialogue, but it was good! Fascinating take on British history and all that. I can’t say that I enjoyed the second play as much – too many wigs and interpretive dance there.

Someday I’ll put up some pictures of Oxford y Londres just as king James did (or is that prince Jim??) but for tonight I leave you with a bit from an old Oxford resident

"'Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:
But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
His voice has a timid and tremulous sound."

"I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie:
The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,
While the Old had the dish as its share of the treat.
When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,
Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:
While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,
And concluded the banquet by [eating the owl.]

The Voice of the Lobster,
Lewis Carol

ur such a bad influence on me

‘Cause I really could be typing out notes about how The Memoirs and Private Confessions of a Justified Sinner (written, no less, by a man named James Hogg!) is in fact a superb physiological novel displaying the mixed mediums of folklore and the supernatural.

Du duh?

Yup, but what I’m actually do with my time is show you a bit of the homework that I’ve already completed. I was told by James and Mr. Evan had to complete an assignment for Spanish class about his dream date. Well today I’m gonna turn in an assignment about “Mi Ex,” and so y’all all will have to tell me what you think of him.

Mi Ex
por Candace Jones
Antes salía con Ghengis Kahn. Porque el ha vivido una infancia nómada, nunca le gusta quedar en la casa de mis padres. Siempre montaba a mi jardín en un caballo negro, daba una patada a la puerta, y gruñía a mi hermanito. Pero hablaba cortés a mi padre porque lo consideraba un aliado importante.
El me llevaba a cenar y hacer algo (siempre prefería polo o squash a golf!). Cuando íbamos al cine, generalmente estaba inquieto y cada cinco minutos se levantaba a traer las palomitas de maíz.
De vez en cuando me pedía que yo cocine algo especial, y Kahn siempre quería carne fresco, queso de cabra, y café viejo (este consideraba una delicadeza).
Me caía a el porque era generoso, muy leal, y un protector excelente. Una noche yo estaba en pie en la acera mientras Kahn compraba un haggis en una carnicería. Un atracador corrió a mí y me apuntó con una pistola. De repente, Kahn volvió a la calle, lo golpeó el atracador con su bolso (que normalmente tenía dos o tres barras de oro), y me trajo a un café.
Un día pedí Kahn, “¿De dónde eres?” Pero solamente él sonrió y dijo, “Una gitana se le cayo una jaca negra del cielo, pero cuando tocó la arena de Mongolia, se desplomó y se hizo un niño, y el niño era me.”

Found any grammer errors yet? Well too late! It goes in the drop box (or pidgin holes as they are more colourfully called here) in 5 minutes. In case the name peeked your interest I’ll include the translation…

My Ex

I used to go out with Ghengis Kahn. Since he had lived a nomadic childhood, he never liked to stay long in my parents house. He always rode up on a black horse, kicked the door, and growled at my brother. But he spoke courteously to my father since he considered him a valuable ally.
He would take me to eat and do something, and he always preferred bumper cars to golf. When we went to the cinema he was generally restless and got up every five minutes to get popcorn.
Every now and then I asked him if he wanted me to cook him something special and he always asked for fresh meat, goat cheese and old coffee (he thought it was a delicacy).
I liked him because he was generous, very loyal, and an excellent protector. One time I was standing on a street corner while he bought some haggis in a meat market. A mugger ran up and pointed his gun at me and asked me for my bag. In an instant, Kahn flew out to the street, knocked the mugger on the head with his change purse (which generally carried two or three bars of gold), and carried me off to a coffee shop.
I would ask Kahn where he came from and he would smile and say that a gypsy had dropped a little horse out of the sky but when it landed in the sand of Mongolia it tangled itself up and became a boy, and that little boy was him.


Yup, never a dull moment up here. Anywho, we’ll be trucking off on our weekend to London tomorrow, so woopiedootles! I still have to pack when I get home! Later!

Let greenness be

Hi-Ya!

Yup, in the reading room again. I got out of a Spanish lecture and I made a quick dive to check my email, hoping that the minions of fellow UofGers (what do you call us all anyway?!) had left one computer free for me.

Haha, in luck today.

But, with a little leftover time before I tube, train, and car ride my way home, I thought I’d entertain you with a picture post of the estimable building wherein I sit.

Ye McMillan Reading room



The sun actually was shining for much of today (all praise be to God!), so the photo is accurate. But I must point out that if you actually walk from the Maths Building (maths, maths – these British!) you will not see the reading room from this angle. You are much more apt to discover the grim reality of Scottish weathering –


greenness. Yes, greenness from the rust, greenness of peeling paint, greenness from the green light streaming through the green trees.

Que sera sera. And in Scotland it will be green!

Cop out

I had thought it all out and come to my conclusion - no more of this one post a month nonsense. No more mucking about (as our good pastor would say) on the fringe of blog existence. Out, out brief candle of a blog! I'm finished! Through! Washed up! This post was to be my last huzzah, my final blow, my big goodbye...

::snort:: So much for that.

Rather than soliloquize about departed bloggers sailing away on honeyed seas (well, you never know!), I’d rather do something more prosaic – tell you what’s up with me on a Wednesday.

So really quick

Church! Ah, things have been going jollyo at Airdrie RP Church. The big things, by God’s grace, have been in place from the start – our souls are being fed from the word, our lives enriched by warm and lively fellowship. But now specific ministries are starting to surface that makes one feel a part of the body as well. Dad now works there in his wee office every week day. We girls have been rotated into the nursery watch (they call it crèche over here, a confusingly Europeanish word that rhymes with mesh). I’ve had the opportunity to come along on the housebound visitation a couple of times – a wonderful program where we visit members of the church who are no longer able to leave their homes or nursing homes. Just things like this to be doing in the Lord's kingdom.

Class! A paragraph typed yesterday:
Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, today marks the first day of good to honest class in U of G. I got a magnificent send off breakfast taco (for those of you who might stay at home during a year or so of college, know that having full Mom support in both breakfast and supper is great – basically you don’t have to do them!!!) Today’s little secret is that my one Tuesday lecture isn’t really on until next week, so I don’t actually have to do anything while on campus. Oh well, I’ll just start class tomorrow :P

Yup, it was true. My class line-up for now is:

M, W, F 10 am - Scottish Literature 3A
M,T,Th,F 2 pm – Spanish 2
M, W 4 pm – Theatre Studies 1

During this first week, this is subject to change (ha!) and seminars are a whole other story for another post, but suffice it to say that despite the small number of courses I'm going to have a pretty full plate this semester!

Work! Looking for it. Not liking applying for it. Am wondering whether it’ll work with classes and travel and church/family/friend commitments. 'Nuf said.

Kids! In church, all of the Bible studies and children’s clubs have gotten started for the year, and Amy and I found ourselves drafted into the 6/20 club (name taken from Deut 6:20 I think, hmm). This is a games and ministry night for kids in the community (most of them unchurched) of about 8-15 years old. Amy and I got put into the games department so we have the privilege of shouting at the top of our voices for about 20 minutes at the beginning of the evening! But it’s surprisingly fun work, and it’s genuinely exiting to be doing this for the kingdom of God.

Weird Italian dudes staring into computers and anxiously pressing their fingers to their mouths! Yes indeedy. There’s one beside me and one behind me. Only in Glasgow, people. This post was a cop out swan song, so we've escaped for today, until tomorrow, and to-morrow, and tomorro creaps in again.