Addendum to the New Years Resolutions...

If I may, I think I'll make another New Year's Resolution, if it's not too late to ;) It's to actually make Sunday a day of rest... so that means doing my homework before then. Unfortunately I'll be scheduled to work on Sundays, but that's no so bad, I can still go to church in the evenings (or LOFT! handy) and it makes a big difference if I don't have homework to do. Instead, I would love to plug away at my pleasure reading list (also found at the bottom of this webpage). Right now I'm finishing up Dakota by Kathleen Norris, and I need to finish Seven Storey Mountain by T.Merton. These people are my literary mentors, and I don't spend enough time with them as it is :)


I'm thoroughly enjoying this Sunday, and it is truly a day of rest. I got to hear my brother Zach preach, which was pretty cool, and then we (Mom, Jessey, Z&J&J and I) went to the restaurant 'Real Food' (Alger/Eastern--highly recommended!) and had a very good breakfast there. Julia was being adorable, too. She's 6 months next week! Wow! She's wonderful. (And I'm a very proud auntie!)

If you haven't heard, I've got a tenative placement for my Jubilee Fellows internship. They'd like to send me to Bellflower, California! It's in the LA area. I had told Kary that I would love to be in a big city, and that I would also love to be in Southern California or Colorado since I have family in those states. (Let's just say my siblings have good taste in location!) I'd be working at Rosewood CRC (Bellflower is another one of those Dutch pockets in SoCal!) but it seems like a pretty diverse congregation. My mentor would be the Family ministries director, which is cool since I'd really like to work with whole families, not just kids (I want to be more than a Youth Pastor)... so I hope it works out! :D (Plus one of my good friends will also be in the LA area, so I'd have a buddy to go be a tourist with. Fun!) I can't believe it's just a few months away now. :)

Well, I've already mentioned that I have some reading to catch up on, and my dear friend Mary is coming over later today so I'm going to take some time to myself. Hope you all have a lovely weekend! I'm definitely going to be making the most of today and tomorrow before classes start up on Tuesday!

Bets

[Edit: Later....]

Another reason I should read more is that I write more. And I write more thoughtful things, too. I don't know why, really, but I'm particularly drawn to spiritual memoirs. I suppose it connects for me the life that is lived with the spiritual life and shows how interconnected they really are. In reading Dakota I find that her truth is often my truth; and it's said that all truth is God's truth. One thing I just read stuck me as very true and clarified something for me that I didn't even realize needed it. She says, on pages 131-132,

Conversion means starting with who we are, not who we wish we were. It means knowing where we come from.... Conversion doesn't offer a form of knowledge that can be bought and sold, quantified, or neatly packaged. It is best learned slowly in the community

Truth is new light shed on old situations. For me, this quote from K.Norris highlights for me both what I longed for in confession and the reasons why I was disappointed. It was my conversion experience if I've ever had one; and if that was conversion, it lacked the redemptive community response I had hoped for. Then again, K.N. is still right: conversions are never neatly packaged.

One revelation after another: Reading brings revelations and those revelations keep me reading. It's an ongoing cycle between my literary mentors (Christian and non-, as I discovered with Salman Rushdie a couple of years ago) and the promptings of the Spirit. It's deeply spiritual for me, and if I may consider it a spiritual discipline (and I would) I think this kind of reading is what CS Lewis is talking about when he says

For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion that the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand. [On Theology and Devotion]

Love. Peace. Joy. {Such beautiful words with profound meaning! I wish them for you.}
Bets