Taste and See [for Yourselves]

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
Hebrews 5:12-13

You know what I hate? I hate that this world demands evidence of every claim made by anyone, but that few actually go out to seek that evidence on their own. In our culture of instant self-gratification the "give it to me now" attitude often gets in the way of truth. This is frequently displayed in our culture, but I see it most often when I am sharing my faith with others.

It's no secret, on my blog or anywhere, that I am a Christian. This is never really a problem with anyone until I show my faith isn't only emotional, causing me to act on compassion and "do good", but also intellectual. Actually, people seem to most often have a problem with the intellectual part of Christianity.

Last week, for example, I found an image posted by an atheist friend on Facebook that depicted a timeline of how the Bible was made. The cartoon was not terribly inaccurate, many of the dates for different steps in the translation and compilation of the Bible were correct, but the motive and many of the "facts" were just completely wrong. I left a comment pointing out a specific part that wasn't right and said that the person who created it had obvious knowledge of events but was not educated in them.

Here's the deal: when I point out to people that things they believe about Christianity and the Bible are wrong and try to clarify meaning, they just don't believe me. For years I thought that they didn't believe me because I was uneducated and they thought perhaps they knew more about my faith than I did. However, I'm now seeing that even though I go to a Christian school and study the Bible, theology, and the history of Christianity, people still call BS when I try to clarify to them what true Christians believe. Now, instead of saying that I just don't know enough about what I believe, people will tell me, "that's just what they want you to think."

The past few years, this past year in particular, I have had the wonderful opportunity to learn under people who have traveled to Jerusalem and other parts of Israel to walk where Jesus walked and see the culture and the land first-hand. I have met men who have learned from the world's top theologians, and I have heard the testimony of a professor who worked hard, even lost a job, to bring the Dead Sea Scrolls to the public. The truth is out there, evidence is out there. Go look and see for yourselves!

Because the evidence is not hidden and the history is no secret, I do not apologize for my unfaltering faith. I will continue to unashamedly speak what I know, not because I merely believe what someone told me, but because I have done research. And I will continue to absorb as a sponge everything I need to know, from a historical and literary perspective, but also from one of faith in Him who makes the blind see and makes all things new.

Vulnerable Me

 About a week ago we discussed vulnerability in one of my writing classes. The class started with some uncomfortable shifting in seats and possibly some eye-rolls. However, it turned out well, and we had a good discussion. Maybe it's just the dynamic of a classroom setting, but most students left agreeing with the professor's main point: we must learn to be vulnerable.

While writing my short story for that same class last weekend, I was struggling with the ending. I will point out to you here that to talk about this I must make myself vulnerable. So, I was writing my short story, trying to figure out where I went with the ending because my professor didn't find the first draft believable. In the first draft, my main character finds out she is pregnant after a rare and accidental one-night stand, and decides, since she is pretty fresh out of college, to get an abortion. I just couldn't let her go through with it and had to find a way out, so I had her call the baby daddy at the prodding of her roommate to ask for some help with the decision. He, of course, is far from okay with the thought of abortion and offers to raise the child if she will only carry to term, which ultimately causes the main character to change her mind and not get an abortion.

Don't worry, I now see where the story went wrong. I think I did at first, too. But I was having a hard time really being open to taking a risk in this story. I decided that a risk had to be taken, and while I was re-working the end of the story, the end became a story of it's own, and it is now the beginning of the piece. Yup, I chucked out the whole first draft, and basically, started over. All because I was willing (finally) to become vulnerable. In allowing myself to potentially be hurt by taking a risk, I actually wrote a much better story... which would be tooting my own horn if I didn't know from the writing process that it really is a better story.

Our culture tends to think of vulnerability as synonymous with weakness. It makes sense, considering the dictionary definition: capable or susceptible to being hurt or wounded; open to moral attack, criticism, temptation (definition from dictionary.com).

Vulnerability is the main topic of Brene Brown's Ted Talks, which can be found on the Ted Talks website or on YouTube. Brene Brown studies shame for a living, and found that while dealing with shame one must become vulnerable. She is pretty inspiring and I would recommend taking the time to check out some of her speeches.

Now, we have established the definition of vulnerability, but does that make it synonymous to weakness? Yes and no, I think. If you've ever looked in a thesaurus you are aware that looking up the definitions of words is also important; not every word listed as a synonym actually has the meaning you may be looking for. So, where vulnerability is synonymous to weakness, it is not necessarily weakness.

In order to be vulnerable, you need to be willing to make yourself susceptible to weakness - to being hurt. These days we work really hard to close ourselves off and be strong so that we can't be hurt by anyone; we won't allow anyone to hurt us. But in order to be real, and according to Brene Brown in order to be truly happy and free, we need to learn to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

Vulnerability is honesty. Openness. In being vulnerable we do open ourselves up to be hurt, but we also learn to trust that way, too. Meaningful relationships can't be built through a wall. To develop a truly strong relationship with anybody - a friend, a potential dating relationship, a therapist, even - we must be vulnerable.

In opening up we learn the freedom of trusting people, and find little pieces of ourselves on the way.

First Lesson

Well, I have to say, I have not worried about choosing the wrong job. Being a substitute teaching assistant is challenging, especially when nobody really knows where you're supposed to be at any given time, the classes and students you're working with aren't there for the whole or part of a day, and you're being stretched between four different classes. Yesterday I forgot to bring my paper schedule to work and I think I did alright without it, except for I forgot to go check on one of my students later in the day. It didn't seem to matter, though, because at the time I was supposed to be with him it turned out another TA was with him anyway. I am in no way complaining, I have it fairly easy. Heck, at least I'm just a TA substitute, and not an actual teaching substitute. Then again, I am the one who always did (and still does) say she would never teach. We'll see where God takes me.

So far this week, I have learned a lot, just from the little kiddies in the school. The school's emphasis is on accepting diversity, and they happen to have one of the best anti-bullying campaigns I have seen so far in my life. Better than the schools back home, I tell ya. It really makes a difference when the rules are strictly enforced and not just suggested by motivational speakers during a yearly assembly, and when the good students who make one small bad decision aren't the ones the teachers make an example of (which happened a lot in my high school, and is still happening today, last I heard).

In my first three days of subbing, I have seen students in sixth grade and younger help mentally and physically handicapped students be understood by their peers and teachers, I have seen them assist these students in tasks, and give them their undivided attention to play and converse as well. I have seen boys high-five girls whose speech is hard to understand and who live in wheelchairs. I have seen sweet little blond girls invite the girls wearing head-coverings and dresses that cover their ankles to stand with them in line, complimenting them without anyone saying anything about the way they are dressed. I have seen kindergarteners have compassion on the boy who lashes out when he doesn't understand, and forgive him instantly if he's hurt them once he calms down. If children can do this, why can't we? Why can't we, as adults, as the role-models of these very children who we are bringing up to be accepting, compassionate, and forgiving, be those things in our own lives, and not just tell our youth to be that way?

It's time for us to stop trying to bring forth change by changing the views of the next generation, and work on these changes in our own. Not instead of guiding the next generation, but alongside them. It's time for us to learn what we've been teaching.

With that thought, I will leave you. Blog #12, done.

Divine Providence

Whoever says there is not a sovereign God is wrong. And I can tell you, He has a sense of humor. I have a job. As a substitute teaching assistant. The girl who has always told everyone she doesn't want to be a teacher now has a job doing what? Working in the classroom, with teachers. And already I have a full-time position in an elementary school that's practically in my back yard for my first two weeks of work. How wonderful.

 That's me, wearing my i.d. badge =)

On that note, happy birthday to my hunny! What could be a better birthday present than your spouse getting freaking job? Well, a vacation, maybe. But without gainful employment vacation would not be wise. This calls for celebration! The birthday boy loves pie, and loves Baker's Square, and the pie selection at Baker's Square, and they just happen to offer free pies with the purchase of a meal there on Wednesdays. And what is today? Wednesday! So where better to go than Baker's Square restaurant for FREE pie on my pie-loving husband's birthday?

A few months ago my father-in-law, the doc, gave us a gift card to Olive Garden, which is my favorite restaurant. So where will we be eating tonight to celebrate my new job? You guessed it. And I am going to order the same thing I always order when we go there, the Parmesan chicken, because it's sooooooo good. Now, my rule for myself is normally to order something different every time I go out somewhere, but I don't care that I've only tried one other entree besides that one and haven't ordered anything else there since. I will order it for the rest of my life as long as they serve it; it's my favorite meal, period.

I'll just say it now, with all this food I plan to consume today, I'm going to feel fat tomorrow. Roll me out of the restaurant tonight, don't expect me to eat at all tomorrow, and don't make me move for any reason. Just let me glory in the deliciousness of today without any worry or care. The time for regret is later. I choose not to look too far ahead. Definitely not past tonight's dinner.
Note: we are so full from tasty food and delicious pie, that we decided to move our Olive Garden dinner-date to lunchtime tomorrow. Another motivating factor was the thawed chicken in the fridge that needs to be cooked and eaten. Planning oops.

Now let me share a pondering with you. Like all these plans today, I had a lot of plans this last weekend. And after all of it was winding down, I realized something: we look so forward to doing things that excite us like having visitors, going to our favorite places, new places, seeing the people we love, and tasty meals... and they always end far too soon. As I was thinking of this I realized that every single thing we look forward to in life comes to an end, and it's just over. There's an unavoidable feeling of sadness at that point. I pondered this and it dawned on me that there is one thing in life some of us get to look forward to that will not let us down in the end. That one thing is the promise to believer's of Christ of going to be with our Creator someday. And that isn't going to end. The excitement and anticipation we feel now isn't going to climax when we make it there and then come to an end, but we get to enjoy it forever after our time here on earth. Isn't that wonderful? I think it's pretty remarkable. So whenever you're feeling a sense of loss at a good time having to end, just remember that there is something to look forward to beyond that, something so much better, that will never end. I'm pretty excited.

Blog #9, done! Toodles.