These little winding words

Anyone care to write a novel for me so that I can win the Paul Zindel First Novel Award?

No takers?

Well, as you can see, I'm surfing the FastWeb scholarship site for possible augmentations of funds (yup, I just made up a new word - how Shakespearean of me!). Some of them, however, just don't quite match with me as a student. Like the one place that wanted me to write an essay arguing in favor of "voluntary means of population control" - whoa! a bit Huxlean for me.

On a much brighter note, the Lord really helped me with my Problem Speech. I got up there and things just came out in their own way, but I was overjoyed after getting through with it.

Well, off to the chopping block. There is something childishly wonderful about literature classes. Whereas I must collect interviews for journalism or conguage verbs for spanish, in both of my literature classes I may spend basking in Thomas More, or Hamlet, or Samuel Beckett. (Ok, no one is ever going to actually bask in Beckett, but he had some interesting things to say!).

¡Ciao!
(rhyms with "now")

Monday monday

Well, after all of those very helpful comments on how I should run my future, one is tempted to giving up posting in order to guffa at one's poor friends, but this cannot be.

But, as it is, I can't post for long. I'd like to tell you that this is because I'm so frightfully studious that I can't spare 20 minutes away from the books. Wishful thinking, dear - it's actually because there's a big beautiful cantaloup in the fridge with my name on it. Melon heaven, here I come!

Big fat huge speech today in SPCH121. This thing has to be 8-10 minutes long and accompanied by a very sophisticated PowerPoint. It doesn't sound that long but me wee little brain pretty much have it all memorized so I covet your prayers on that head. :o)

What else? Oh yes, our Presbytery meeting is comming up, that's the meeting of all the pastors for our slice of the US - The Great Lakes/Gulf Presbytery, and this time - our church is hosting it! Pretty exciting that we'll have a few dozen RP pastors decending upon our congregation, he magnificent ladies of our church are well up to the challenge of feeding and housing them, I believe.

Latter tatter!

So very much to do

And a week's so little time!

Spring break? Spring cleaning! In more ways than one.

One quick prayer request. My last day of school two faculty members individually urged me to decide once and for all if I'm going to be a Humanities major or an English major. The advantage of the former is that the Humanities department will probably accept almost any Glasgow classes that I come back with as transfer credit (that is, if I come back to IUK at all after a year abroad... I don't have it all figured out!). But if I'm really drawn to English Literature and Linguistics as my life's study (and I kindof am right now) then it might help me in the long run to specialize in that direction now. Humanities is all of the fine arts and if I go to graduate school as a literature student (you should have seen how my eyes popped when my advisor said that, see! another think to think about!) then it would be helpful if I had my undergrad degree in English.

Make sense?? ::pant, pant::

Uh... Not really to me either.


Which is why it's a prayer request.

I'm done with Midterms

Now what am I going to do with myself over spring break?

Ye olde hattes of rede

Well, it’s officially Shakespeare week on planet IUK. Today I had the inestimable pleasure of putting on a silly red hat and guiding an English actor 12 steps down the hall to a classroom. On the hat subject, the trademark of all the students who signed up as Shakespeare Ambassadors are these red Renaissance hats which look unsettlingly like pastries. As out of place as I must have looked in Walgreens yesterday (people would stare and then begin hiding from my pastry of doom) when four of us are on campus together and sailing down the wind like a very flock of giddy tarts I believe the very sight of us must be moving and sublime.

And as you’ll note, I’ve been so stuffed with the Bards endless iambic pentameter that I managed to squeeze 116 words into three stuffed sentences.

Methinks I will hie me down to bed where dreams of scarlet bonnets can sing me to my rest…

The spice of life.

This is me.



Right now.









And thats my eye.







Your candid Cabbage for the day.

Oh dear, we post at last

Many appologies to Granny, I lifted most of this post from a letter to her, but hey Granny I got it to you first!

Actually I’ve been so lazy that I’ve been trying to write y’all something for a few days now. So you’re getting an uncouth conglomeration composed over a span of 26 hours. Cheezió!

Feb 16, 10:52 p.m.

I had a great time at the Lafayette RPC last Sunday night. I had been wanting to go to a Fireside Chat and Jims and I just went to the evening service and made a night of it. Very comforting times. We had a challenging word from Pastor Olivetti and then a short chat time with Pastor Long on names and changing names (good thinking material). And then we had a testimony from the president of the seminary that was remarkable. Here was the chap that you thought’d be the ultimate have-your-life-together-all-along-dude and yet he struggled for many years against a heaviness of spirit.

And yes, the news on Mom’s blog is true. The University of Glasgow accepted me for a year of study abroad.

Whew.

But now I have miles to go before I sleep (figuratively, that is, I’m gonna hit the hay pretty soon!). Even with all of the bountiful financial aid that God has given me through IU I think that this operation will take some scholarships to keep it afloat so it is my sole duty to hunt these tricksy pray out and stun them with a well aimed essay.

Valentine’s day wasn’t terribly magical but the weather was thankfully very balmy and we did get out of Lit 297 half an hour early. Qué romántico, ¿no?

~~~

Feb 17 8:56 a.m.

Back to the U of Glasgow :o) Mom's the one who stops me from time to time and says, "Now Canny, you have to stop and think about how cool this is - you are going to go to college overseas (DV - Deo Volente, God willing)! In Scotland! At the University of Glasgow!!" Yes she's right, it's pretty cool. This is an old one too - I think that it's 29 on the list of oldest universities on the planet, 4 on the list of oldest UK colleges, and 2 on the list of oldest Scottish universities (only St. Andrews is older).

Here's a link of a few pictures of the campus. Pretty, ain't it?
http://www.gla.ac.uk:443/pictures/

We're very glad to have Josh back. He only got a bit of sleep last night because his body is still on Johannesburg time and it was early morning there. He showed us his souvenirs: a soccer jersey and some flip flops that were a size to big (we likened them to miniature observation decks). Wonderful to have him back in the house.

Not much going on today, Dad's over at the church building, participating in a men's work day, and Amy and I are going to go to a stamping party this afternoon. I believe our main activity will be fixing up cards with rubber stamps and ink pads, just a nice way to spend a few hours with some girls. Mom's hanging around Josh :o) and making a Latin test. Ben's been sleeping and now is probably eating breakfast (“Oh to be young again and have ten toes!”).

~~~

6:30

The party was nice, I can always make further steps in the social front. The really awesome thing was driving back with Amy when the iffy day had finally panned out into a very gentle evening. Golden sun on mown fields foreshadowed a beautiful spring to come, and oh, the green & chi tee latte at Joe Muggs was most wonderful. The joys of being neo hippy. :P

Then, wonder of wonders, we came home to piping hot pizza, and now I very full and my breath is rather garlicy (ew, we wanted to know?! say the readers). Weekends are good.

Post Scriptum
A free burger to anyone who can guess without the aid of internet where that very obscure quote is from, a couple of paragraphs up. Seriously.

Anyone except James, that is.

::chuckle::

Al Einstine, your alter ego is a Relaxed driver

For you, life is to be enjoyed, not fussed over. Sure, you know things can't always be the way you want them to be, which is why you sometimes get frazzled in the rush and push of daily life. But you know when that happens, you need only hop in your car, turn up your favorite CD, hit the one-lane street out to your favorite beach, or the major road into the city.

That's right, when the going gets tough on the road of life, you pull over and take a breather. Well, figuratively speaking, anyway. You're a Zen master of the road. You're the type to exchange smiles instead of sneers with fellow motorists, and let cars hop in front of you at an intersection instead of succumbing to road rage like those less enlightened. That's because you're more interested in gazing at the setting sun through a rearview mirror, watching dust-blue dusk fall on the city through your windshield, or wondering at the constellations shimmering in the wide-open skies above.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ah, tickle tests.

Matters of music and marching meter

After the wild success of my Hrothgar post I was tempted to just put out a series entitled Unferth, Higlac, Offa, and (my personal favorite) Wiglaf. Unfortunately, the great outcries against such treasured household names gave me pause, wary lest my neck should be cloven with an ancient enchanted sword. And so I’ve reverted to the droll habit of reporting on real life.

Last semester’s cool busyness has been replaced by the insane downward crash of full time schoolhood, and daughterhood, and part time musicianhood and workhood (not to mention sister- and friendhood, which are different demands entirely!). I am happy to report that I *love* all of my classes (Lit, Lit, Speech, Spanish, Newspaper) save one – never was a public speaker – and so even though I spend all day stringing sentences together their various natures keep up a wonderful diversity

Speaking of wonderful. The Jones household partook in yet another high school orchestra concert today, featuring Mr. Ben and Miss Amy. Actually attending a youth concert is a new experience for me I guess I was the one who started playing in string orchestras 8+ years ago, but this time, due to the demands of all the other hoods I sat out! Mr. Christiansen, the conductor, is a very good song-pickerouter. This year the youth played a Hayden peace, Bizet’s Carment (the string version, not the tragical, extravagant opera!), and mmmm Beethoven’s Prometheus overture. It’s very hard to top the Egmont overture, which we played last semester but this one’s pretty good.

Go to concerts thou burdened bookworm of blogger baloney! Thou wilt find that thy weary wit will be well watered with worthy waves!

Oop, that’s the inner Hrothgar coming out again, better wrap up the post before my marching meter makes some mongrel meditate munching my mead-hall!




Ok, just to set eeeeeveryone straight on my views of mead, I can assure you that it was mearly a culture reference. Anyone who ever catches me drinking sick rotted honey that would knock a thane over can have my next lunch!

Hrothgar

All praise be to God, Josh made it safely to South Africa for his four week stay at an archeological dig. Of course you can continue to pray for his safety way out in the mountains, but it’s a great comfort to know that he survived Chicago, London, and Johannesburg! You can also pray that the Lord would use this trip to confirm His will in Josh’s life, as a career in archeology or paleontology are possibilities in Josh’s future. And it’s nice to think, the God that brought him 9800 miles (one way!) can also direct his career steps.

On a Phoenix note, see the fine posts of Ginny, and Laura for some pictures of our trip to AZ.

And ::sigh:: I got on the computer armed, as my loverly mom put it, with all my good intentions for a full post. ‘Fraid you guys got bumped out by emails to Dr. McLean and searches for Mr. Mosley. Gotta get that time in for the profs!

Better luck next time, swabbies!

oh, and it's a commonly known fact among privileged Literature students: if you can't think of a blog title, insert a character from Beowulf and your audience will be satisfactorily corn-fused.

::whew::

CYA Winter conference.






Yea.

Oh, and I owe you for that thing with that guy in that place…

Yes, I’ve been watching movies again. This particular quote expresses the haze that I’ve felt about school assignments since coming back to school. These professor people, I know that they wanted me to do something at some point and turn it in on some day, but who can remember such things over quirky sleep patterns?

And, unfortunately, my patterns don’t have such a bright future this weekend. Mañana* Josh and I have the privilege of attending the Covenanter Young Adult Winter Conference, the RP college student event of the year. It is a four day, three night conference where a guest speaker delivers a series of talks throughout the weekend and students also attend workshops on Saturday given by various RP pastors. As far as learning and fellowship, this is a wonderful time - we laugh and talk, ‘til the wee smahs (sp?). But as you can imagine, this is rather detrimental to any form of rest except at odd hours of the afternoon.

But what else? Oh yes, the Phoenix trip was a blast. I actually got homesick for it even while in the airport! The saints of First RPC of Phoenix were amazing, I’m sure that the rest of the team would agree with me when I say that they totally make Phoenix a home to us because they gave us their homes. The family that Ginny, Emily, Ed, and I stayed with, the Borgs, was simply fantastic. Mrs. Borg was our mom-away-from-mom. She made us hot breakfasts, got us packed us lunch sacks with smiley faces on them, even got us post cards and stamps while running errands.

As fun as our many adventures were, for me the preeminent part of the trip was the time that we spent talking together. Time with my teammates, just hearing what they think on the big issues, listening to their stories from around the globe, laughing at their jests and retorts. Time with the church leadership, asking Pastor Maginn and Mr. Reyburn our questions, it was all priceless.

Did I learn anything about evangelism? I don’t think it’s a cop out to say that only time will tell. Out in a strange state with folk that I’ll never see again, I could speak to anyone. Here the familiarity of a very small college is only too intimidating to my pride. If I open my mouth about Christ to that chap or this gal, chances are I’ll pass them again on Tuesday and wonder what they think of me. We warned one another time and again out there that it would be hard to continue opening our mouths as the Lord gives opportunity. Now I’m already tempted to “ease” myself back into society, to get going to school for a few weeks before I jump out with any actual words to anybody. Go away, silly old self. A piece of wisdom really stuck when someone turned to me and said, “It’s our foolish pride that says that we can live Christian lives, present the gospel, and still have everyone like us. Christ Jesus was the most perfect [the most truly loving] man on earth and people hated him – went out of their way to get rid of Him.”

Yup, I had lots of stuff to think of out there! Be praying that the students (all 70, or 80 of us!) will have quite, open hearts to hear the word of the Lord. Oh and pray for the students who will work in the kitchen, the gallant ladies of the church, and all of the speakers – all we have to do is listen, these people have to prepare the food!






*tomorrow, oh thou questioning soul

The week begins again

Again, don't have much time (if you were to choose between breakfast and a bigger post what would you do?). Pastor Maginn of First RP Church of Phoenix preached a fine sermon and really encouraged all of us to go ahead and work on our New Years resolutions, but to make a commitment to read God's law in the 10 Commandments and realize that that is our resolution to obey him. Something good to think about.

There was a happy conclusion to the Ginny/Becky story. It turned out that I was misinformed Friday evening, and shortly after that post we were able to meet with them at Pancho's for a lummy feast. We're all just thankful that they can be here.

The cool, luscious, fresh-off-the-tree grapefruit are calling me, blessings to you in your new week!

Wooot!

Yup ladies and gentlemen, I did not perish in Northwestern Airlines but I am writing from sunny Arizona on the RP missions trip! What a blast!

I really don't have much time (the excellent Mexican food at Pancho's awaits us), but we've been doing great. Well, all of the girls who got to paint are fine, somehow still not overpowered by fumes in Pastor Maginn's office. I'm not sure that I can say as much for the guys who spent a day and a half wresting Bubba the Stump from the earth (we kindly named him for them). They ended up sawing him down and burying his remaining tentacles under the clay.

Oh, and if you get to this post soon enough, please pray for Ginny and Becky who have withstood a fiasco on the part of Delta. Lord willing, and that's what we have to keep reminding ourselves that they're back in Georgia because of His will, they will be joining us late this evening, a whopping 24 hours later than they were supposed to!!! Yup, very trying but we'll be all the more joyful when they can join us at last.

Gotta Jet! Do keep the rest of us in your prayers as well, we've had evangelism hot on the brain since getting here and our training program begins on Saturday so pray that we will have hearts to hear and learn.

Taggeth was I

Ok, so I was trying to think of an original opener and it don't always pan. I at least have the privilege of being the first to continue Jordan's detestable tag just to get the thing over with!!

Five weird habits:

1. Eat Sun Chips only when I'm talking on the telephone, and then in frightful amounts.

2. Walk along a curb with one of my feet on the curb and one street below giving a hyper-giraffe sort of effect.

3. Drive slowly when I'm in an absolute time crunch and run around the house when I have nothing much to do.

4. Suck my teeth. You know, like what Samwise did.

5. Drink 3 - 4 cups of herb tea a day (of the same cranberry apple flavor).

Grr, could you tell that I was running out of idears before I started?!

And for my six victims I elect Ginny, James, Christopher, Mom, Jamey, and Nirmala (goodness, exhausted my list of blogger friends eh?)

Those unfortunates who have received this nomination must now post five quirky (no pun intended) habits of their own and chose six of their own pray. They must warn aforementioned pray in a comment on their blog and send them back to their own post for directions.

A free woman

Free to sleep past seven.

Free to make breakfast (though I did quite a bit of that during the school year too!).

Free to read John Warburton.

Free to run all of the laundry in the house.

Free to go shopping at 10 p.m. with my mom.

Free to read the bible study chapter more thuroughly.

Free to pack, it's a very good thing too.

Free to have a clean freak mind.

Free to lose it occationaly too.

Free to blog (whoda thought!).

Yes, and free to wipe out my links tab with another template change.


Wanna know what I've been doing these past three days?

Livin' the freedom.

Thank you, Lord!!

I'm alive

But cold.


See you after Monday when my finals are over.

gasp

I only have six more hours to be... however old I am.



What am I going to do?!?!?!?!









Oh yeah, write papers.




:P

Actually it must needs be said that I have a very coolio cool Thanksgiving break, I got to make two pumpkin pies and two slabs of cake (both of which have taken rather longer to eat than Jim's magnificent cheesecake!). We had a hoot all day Thursday with a few family friends and the loads of food that we gals cooked. Didn't play or watch any football, but got to share the couch with Benny for our family movie which about the same thing ;D.

And on the weekend (Friday through Sunday) I had a tremendous time with Ginny and Becky cruising Indy for a get-the-gals-together and also celebrate-with-Cabbage time. See Miss Ginny's post for a bit more illumination (note that the bruises were not my fault!). What she didn't say was that she unknowingly gave me my new rage for the season: mint hot chocolate. If you're ever at Starbucks and feeling non-coffee and/or stingy (I know, that only happens to me once a year too) get a peppermint hot chocolate and absolutely die like I did. Oh the joy!

Sermon notes Oct 30, 2005

Another set of sermon notes, this time out for all to see instead of a link. Again, please see the disclaimer(s) posted on Nov 6 and send a letter to the editor for typeo's (typoes? typos?). And have a joyful Thanksgiving!!!!

Today the scripture readings were from Ps 8:1-9, and Matthew 21:1-17 about Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Mr. York noted that the amount of time that the gospels give to the last week of Jesus’s life disproportionate, spending anywhere from 20% to almost 50% in the four books on this one week. This great attention is also accompanied by many quotations from the Psalms and Prophets [during this time Jesus is fulfilling many of those prophesies!]. We ought to preface our approach to this chapter in Matthew with the knowledge that it is here that Christ is rising to his great battle (and great victory). Many people think that the Lord’s greatest battle is still to be fought, when he comes with His angels at the end of the age. As God’s children we must realize that Christ fought for and earned our salvation 2000 years ago, this was His marvelous work (Matt 21:15).

We first saw the great contrast between the Jew’s expectations and Christ’s actual entrance. We sang Ps. 118 this morning, the one that they quote in v. 9, and this song was part of the Great Halel (sp?!) which all Jews sang around the Passover. They thought about the words of this Psalm: “The right hand of the Lord does valiantly The right hand of the Lord is exalted,” and their minds were captivated by civil salvation. Here at last was their Messiah, one who could expel diseases and silence storms, coming to overthrow their conquerors forever. What they didn’t notice, however, was the manner of his coming, “gentle and mounted on a donkey” (v. 5 and Is 62:11). It wasn’t with the civil rulers that He had come to do battle, rather their own Pharisees and scribes were the ones confronting him just a few verses down. The Jews forgot what the Passover was about - a lamb shedding his blood to save the firstborn in Egypt.

Misguided as the Jews were, when the King came to Jerusalem he was met with shouts of praise. The Jews had a hope that was only earthy, only temporary, but they were unrestrained in their praises and expectations. What manner of praise and devotion should be on our lips, who know the true implications of the gospel? To our great loss, we are often dead when we read the word, dead when we pray, dead when we offer praise. [The Jews were not ashamed to shout to the heavens] and we, knowing that He has given us eternal salvation ought to do no less.

Finally, we saw that Christ came zealous for righteousness, in His cleaning of the temple, therefore we should repent before Him. Historically (II Sam 5:6-8), there was a saying, “The blind or the lame shall not come into the house” [I’m assuming this includes the Lord’s house]. The outcasts in Christ’s day were prevented from worshiping by the money changers. Then, not only does Christ allow them in and heal the physically blind and lame, but He turns on the true outcasts of His Kingdom, the Pharisees and Scribes. “Have you never read [the Psalms]?” he asks them. The Lord identifies who is truly blind and lame, those who cannot embrace His humility and never had their eyes opened to the word of God.

There is an application here in how we think of people within the Lord’s house. We of the church are often inwardly displeased by people who come in blinded and maimed by the world. But we ourselves wander in our obedience, and presume to work a self-righteousness when God knows that we have none, and yet we see these “messy” people and demand that they clean up their act. What we overlook is that God requires repentant hearts, opened eyes, and straight paths from us as well.

This chapter also warns us about our fruitfulness. Christ was in earnest about producing the fruit of repentance, as seen in Matt 21:18-22 where the Lord curses a barren fig tree. He is gentle and forgiving He also looks for rich fruits of righteousness as we walk with Him. I personally thought of a verse in Matt 5 that we are looking at: “Therefore let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

~~~

DV

That means Deo Volente, God willing, and is the big arc over everything that’s coming up for me.

Are you ready? The big news at last??

So, God willing, I’m gonna be part of a short term Reformed Presbyterian Missions trip to Phoenix AR in December. Whew!

This post has been a month and a half in the making by now, but I found out about this opportunity provided by RPMissions, applied, got accepted to the team, yeppers, I even bought my flight ticket last night. It is a very exciting thing for me, (geez I haven’t even been up in the air before!) but let me give you the quick and dirty from the RPMissions web site.

Phoenix, Arizona (December 27, 2005 - January 9, 2006)
RP Missions has a great need for young people to labor this winter for two weeks in Phoenix, Arizona. This small congregation is hoping to benefit from the work of the team to make new contacts in its community and to implement more outreach efforts around the greater Phoenix area. Mission team members can expect to do some door-to-door work, possibly help organize and carryout a backyard Bible school or vacation Bible school. Team members will also seek to encourage the members of this congregation by joining with them in worship and midweek Bible studies. Individuals who have abilities to communicate in Spanish would be a great asset to this team. One day of this trip will be spent touring the Sedona Valley and the Grand Canyon. Participants will fly to the Phoenix International Airport.

Ages: 16-32
Size of team: 6-10 participants

I first thought about a missions trip when musing on how much free time I have now (comparatively) and how quickly I know that that’ll change even in the next semester. If I wanted to seriously pursue one soon (even this winter, thought I) early October would be high time to research, perhaps even too late. The next day I when mentioned the thought to mom she immediately threw in a lot of encouragement. We even excitedly talked about the possibility of ministering in a Spanish speaking country (since I’ve been taking Spanish) even though we were pretty sure that there were no RP churches in South or Central America. Well, I got online the next day and, boom, the first entry on the list was the one posted above – Phoenix, Arizona. It was the only trip I saw for this winter, and there I may use some of my Spanish. Cool Beans!!

I believe that the next day was a Sabbath, and during our fellowship lunch we had two young missionaries-to-be give a brief testimony. If I recall correctly, Brandon and Megan were taking mission trips to Australia together even before they were married (stuff that Joleen, their six-month-old daughter, wouldn’t remember and therefore didn’t comment on). Now God has called them to relocate to Australia long term, and what struck me was how He used a smaller venture to guide them, teach them things about themselves and Himself. Of course I realize that many short term missionaries don’t have this strong connection between the field and their future homes. I don’t have the foggiest idear of where I’ll be in five years either! But planning and planting in smaller ways is exciting. Wondering what God will do with even a small seed is exciting. Watching as He still leads me for His name’s sake is downright thrilling.