lifespace

I was playing with the always-amusing 'Next Blog' button at the top of the page, and came across LifeSpace: "The Practice of Life with God"
From the site:

We believe this life should be an existence in which knowledge of God and trust in God are reflected in the expansive experience of living. There is nothing small or limiting in our God. Life with Him should be a huge gulp of fresh air. Like an ever-expanding sphere, life is a space for unending, unbounded delight in the infinite glory of our Creator.
...
The central question for expansive life is “What do I love?” A suffocating, inward gaze must shift to an outward view of God’s glorious perfections. As our gaze rests upon God, we are moved to worship and love the person of God for His own sake. We shun the profane in favor of the truly beautiful. Enabled by the Spirit to see God more clearly, we experience ever-increasing delight in the glorious God.

'Who do I love?' Who do I give my time and energy to? Where is it that my heart resides? These are hard questions, and I don't like the answers my heart gives me, if I'm honest. I want to love God better.
My church has a worship service, Sojourn, that is 'experiential' in that the audience will have a discussion time with a moderator on the topic of the day, or we wil be invited to draw or write our meditations during a quiet time of the service, and communion, art, and prayer stations in the room are opened during the whole service for anyone to go back and worship in the way that suits them best. I have really appreciated the service, it has opened my eyes to other ways to worship and really freed me- given me 'permission'- to be creative and worship God with all of me, not just singing or listening to a sermon.
We're doing a series on the Psalms, and during the last Sojourn service I was at, we had a time to write or draw and meditate on a Psalm. I opened to Psalm 39, and paraphrased it as it spoke to me:

"I will live righteously, do what is good
Speak the right words and all that"
When I sit and say nothing, do nothing,
My heart hurts.
I must cry out.
And so I speak

"God, I need you. I need your guidance, I need your plan. I need you in my life in a real way. I know my life will fly by, and you know every nanosecond of it.
Be with me.
Let me not labor in vain."

Where can I look? Where can I hope?
I must trust you.
Hear me, and never let me go.

Winter (or almost)

"Lines written by a bear of very little brain:
On Thursday when it starts to freeze
And hoar-frost twinkles on the trees
How very readily one sees
That these are whose---but whose are these"

That came from my favorite calendar ever- a Winnie the Pooh calendar with quotes and pictures for the original book. I though it was fitting, seeing as Findlay just had their first snow of the year last night. When I was hearing about the weather for today (and really, for the next few months) I was not excited. I love the cold much better than the humidity of Texas and I enjoy snow, but for some reason I wasn't ready for it this year.

That was all until I work up this morning, saw the dusting of snow and walked into work. Yes, it was cold and the wind was biting, but later in the day, it was sunny and beautiful. I realized I was really ready for winter (or wintery weather) to be here.

One nice thing to note: I will enjoy the first part of winter more than the past two- this time I only have to be out in the cold to and from my car at work, not back and forth multiple times a day for classes. "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!"

'Not much' Thursday

"Not much" as in "What's up?" "Not much" - I literally entered the dungeon at 8am this morning and left at 4:50 this afternoon- I didn't even leave for lunch (I had half a Subway sandwich left over in a fridge on the floor.) Needless to say, I was very tired of looking at a computer screen by the time I left. A prince came and rescued me and cooked dinner with me tonight :-D

"Not much" as in, "Not much to say" - I feel like the time has flown since last Thursday. This week has flown by, so it feels like not much happened, or, if it did, it's all a blur. I had my first 'real-job' interview. I got a group take home test done. I went to a three-year-old's birthday party. I went to coffee with my dad. I went to Ivanhoes twice, with various people.
This is all that happened, but not in this order.

Interesting link to point out - A journal article I'll be presenting about on Tuesday about the impact of the internet on Saudi Arabian society. Haven't read it in detail yet, but a skim of it looks like it brings up interesting ideas.

Speaking earlier of being tired of looking at a computer screen... I have no idea why I'm on a computer blogging now. It's bedtime.
It's Thursday, therefore I blog.

Sigh. Goodnight.

***Afterwards-note: I was sleepy last night and posted this on the wrong blog. Because I DID post it Thursday (albeit in the wrong place) I'm dating it here as if it was posted last night. This is probably a big blogger no-no, but, alas.

Thursday excitement

Lots of stuff going on today. It's turned out to be a pretty good Thursday.

• I've been working with a professor to get a Women in Computing group started on campus, and today a big step was made. I had lunch with the professor, 2 other female students, and 5 female staff people involved in computers in some fashion. Everyone had good ideas and stories of how they ended up where they are today. We hope to have another brainstorming meeting in a couple weeks, involving more women computer students, and perhaps a study break before the end of the semester. Hooray.


• I've got 2 tests tomorrow, in Human-Computer Interaction and Contemporary Christian Belief. Yay for studying...


• I've got 3 hours of work to put into my software engineering project, which will be good now that I'm very motivated on this project and it's starting to pick up momentum.


• Donald Miller, the author of one of my favorite books, Blue Like Jazz, is going to have a question-and-answer session tonight at a coffeeshop in Marion. I REALLY want to go, but the above couple points, unfortunately, take precedence. We'll see how the day goes.


• Tomorrow begins a fun weekend, with a three-year-old's birthday party on Saturday and our last pre-marriage class.

And I leave you with excerpts from Blue Like Jazz:

The magical proposition of the gospel, once free from the clasps of fairy tale, was very adult to me, very gritty like something from Hemingway or Steinbeck, like something with copious amounts of sex and blood. Christian spirituality was not a children’s story. It wasn’t cute or neat. It was mystical and odd and clean, and it was reaching into dirty. There was wonder in it and enchantment.

The greatest trick of the devil...is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man’s mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God.”


I felt so far from my upbringing, from my narrow former self, the me who was taught the Republicans give a crap about the cause of Christ. I felt a long way from the pre-me, the pawn-Christian who was a Republican because my family was Republican, not because I had prayed and asked God to enlighten me about issues concerning the entire world, not just America.... I didn’t think that Jesus agreed with a lot of the policies of the Republican Party, or for that matter, the Democratic party. Jesus was a religious figure, not a political figure.

Everybody wants to be fancy and new. Nobody wants to be themselves. I mean, maybe people want to be themselves, but they want to be different, with different clothes or shorter hair or less fat. If there was a guy who just liked being himself and didn’t want to be anybody else, that guy would be the most different guy in the world and everybody would want to be him.”

Facebook me!

I am still here!! I spend all day on the computer and never really feel like blogging. And there isn't anything interesting to talk about. Well, that was until I joined Facebook. I know Joanna will not be able to say how wonderful Facebook is (because she won't get join, but we still love her =P), so I will do it.

Why is Facebook so wonderful, you ask? Well, I'm not going to deny that it is addicting and a great time killer, but it is excellent for connecting to friends you have lost contact with. For me, I love that! First off, I am a very relational person and love hearing and seeing what people are doing in their lives. Second, I lived in Texas for 7 years and moved 4 years ago to Ohio. Some friends I lost contact with as my life went on up north. With the help of Facebook, I have been able to make contact with some of my friends again and see what they are up to. Friends from church, friends from school- everyone (who is smart enough to get on Facebook =D).

To all my Facebook friends, I am glad to be in contact with you. To all of my friends not on Facebook, join in on the fun (Joanna...). To all on Facebook that are not my friends...I don't know, have fun!