Infamous

i had my interview last night at St Andrew's United Methodist for the Director of Youth Ministry position. It went really well, but they have 2 other candidates to look at. They have 20 or so in their 6-12th grade group, much like my Baptist group a few years ago. They're apparently really smart and involved and would be a great challenge. We'll see.
Our grafitti wall i did the Hebrew for is featured in a local art magazine available all over town, and the online excerpt can be found here: http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=13446

The hurtful 4 words

i once read that the three most beautiful words in the english language are "I love you." However, the four most hurtful words in the english language are "I love you but..." i'v mulled this over for years, and most recently i've been trying even harder to say nothing even close to this. Too many people i am closest to in my life use if not these words, this mindset. My father is not the only one at all, but i know he doesn't read this. Besides, anything he has a tendency to do is likely something i need to work on myself. He has a great propensity for cutting down others, others' opinions, views, likes, dislikes, etc, and become incredulous when anyone asks that his own likes, opinions, etc not be thrust upon them. Most of us can deal with others disliking our favorite dessert (more for us), but when someone whom we love or admire hates what is dear to us, it chips a small part of us away. i refuse to tell anyone that they can't have a dream. Personally, i need to work on not being my father, and today that means i will humbly have to let people love what they love. No, it's not big of me, but it is decent. Why are things like that so hard? i miss having weekly goals like tying my shoe.

Yay b-day

i got a great surprise on my b-day last year at midnight, and this year i was pleasantly surprised with a birthday dinner out. Jen drove me around with a blindfold for awhile and stumbled me into the restaraunt. i got in and realized that Marc, Christina, Elizabeth Howell and Smith, Noell, Lindsey, Jessi, and Chuck were there. Not everyone was back in town and some people were working, but it was a huge turn out and a total surprise. Apparently though, there are pictures of me stumbling through the parking lot blindfolded. Thanks J-Bu

On the Road Again

Well, i finally hit the road again tomorrow at 8am with Elizabeth to head back home to Richmond. Very ready. Had my fill of indoor family closeness 3 days ago, and now i've had enough triptophan to incapacitate a kindergarden class. While it was good to see a few familiar faces and receive several nice meals and birthday cards, i believe my parents are slowly going around the bend. i'd like to pretend it's early alzheimers or dimensia, because if it's not, they're just damn nuts and a pain in the rear. i think my mother means well, but it's too stressful to be around. i've gotta find more laid back people to enjoy holidays with. At least NY trips included my easy-going aunts and uncles and cousins, with the cost of 16 hours in a 6 passenger vehicle with my parents and barry mantilow/rush limbaugh/judy garland. My sister gave me the Leggo story book version of the Ten Commandments!!! And i also got a great DVD of Norah Jones live at the House of Blues, and a couple great t-shirts. i got some sleep, but built up some stress, so i'm glad to be headed back to a mostly empty dorm to do research and sleep some more. i don't see me being a professor of Old Testament any day soon. Happy Thanksgiving.

Old Dog

You can't teach an old dog... anyways, got in my yearly phone call to Phillip to wish him a happy birthday first. i'm sitting here with my cat sound asleep in my lap. Since i've been home, she's slept with me every night. i'm apparently the warmest body in the house. i also sleep on the floor, so i'm easy to get to. i got off work tomorrow, so i don't have to work on my day. i'm prolly gonna tag along with little sis tomorrow for Christmas shopping and maybe go see the Bond movie tomorrow night. Jen called from Houston at 1am just now to wish me an official happy birthday since it's now the 22nd in Texas. This just in: Cats twitch in their sleep...

What break?

i really don't like to just complain on here, but i feel i am not really getting a Thanksgiving break, more like a day. i'm in Concord for a week, but working almost every day, and working on my Exegesis paper in my "free time." i'm even scheduled to work on my birthday, for which again, i have no plans except probably a few birthday cards with my parents and maybe a pie or cake with them too. They, by the way, are driving me bonkers. i don't like the person i am around my parents. They bring out my old middle/high school tendencies to fight and bicker and snip and brood. i miss my Union peeps. There's almost no one i know in town at all. Well, cheers.

Decent solution

i've decided the only way to fix seminary and the government is to take all the morally corrupt politicians and put them in church pews and take all the seminary students who believe in government more than the church and put them in congress

and the middle of the road libertarian faithful dance around happily, scoffing at the vast evangelical moral majority right wing conspiracy and the left wing left field government worshipping bunny hugging hippies

Teenagers said i was cool

Yeah, so 2 things can put me on top of the world: 1- my lil sis wanting to hang out; 2- teenagers thinking/saying i'm cool. i got to hang out with some of the coolest high schoolers ever this weekend, my YoCo kids. Last retreat i got to hang out with them. This retreat, we got to bond. i did alot of A/V work for the retreat, but i got to play and eat and joke and dance and campfire and swim and talk and laugh and mostly cut up with these rock stars. Quality time was had. i got back my first exegesis paper when i got back from the retreat and i'm glad i waited till then to get it. It wasn't great, but not terrible, pretty average, but any question that brings to why i am here is answered beyond any shadow of a doubt when i have a good, mediocre, even a bad weekend with youth. They affirm my call. i love these kids very very much. They are insane and they make tons of mistakes, many of the same ones i made, but they are God's children, and they're my kids and there's nothing i'd rather do. i think my professor, Carson, says it well, "i believe in the promise of who you are." On a side note, it's been 16 hours since my second cup of coffee this morning, and i'm still going strong. Yikes.

Celebrating the temporary

So in Charlie Brown's pastoral care class, we covered "celebrating the temporary" for about 2 minutes, but that's all i remember this week. It really stuck. Lately, and i mean over the last 3 years, i've discovered more and more that most of the people i know are very very temporary. i've always been aware of the situations i've been in as being temporary, the places, the jobs, the locales, the dynamics, but i've always believed in having the sort of friends that are able not only to just pick up right where we left off, but actively try to do that "picking up" without heoric effort. It's easy when you get thinking that way to be bitter about people that let you down or disappoint you, but this week the people that came to my mind where the tremendously loyal, while few, people in my life that truly inspire me and carry me through. Knowing most of them don't have a chance to read this, i can brag on them. Jason Short is nothing short of my best friend on earth and continues to amaze me by what it means to be a loyal, life-long friend. Ben Gibson does the same. Both drive me to be better than i am. Matthew Brown has stuck by me no matter what, and we've done some stupid stupid things. My sister is totally my hero, and my other lil sis. Melissa, Sallie, Jen Kling, Jessica Anderson, Ashley Newt, and several others. Maybe not many of them, but they are damn fine people. And while life is a string of temporary, they don't really fit that. i love that about them. And to the rest of the people i have known and will know, my door will always be open, even if i'm not banging down everyone else's.
i wish it would stop raining

Gettin' it done

Got alot of paper pushin' done this weekend. All of my forms and references for YAV are sent out. Now it's the waiting game. Who knows where i'll be next year. (taking bets, get in early)
We did score some Zorba's this weekend, and some sleep-in time, the first in oh so long. I made breakfast for dinner too.
We got over to Peggy's (Peggy is who also looks for little green men when she's not studying Hebrew here) church, the MCC. Still can't remember what that stands for. Part of it means Metropolitan, and part is Community. It was a pretty good service all and all. The pastor guy, who talked exactly like Bob Dunham in Chapel Hill, and had pretty cool dangly earings, preached on the lesbians. You know, Ruth and Naomi. Eh. i thought it was quite a stretch. It goes into my last blog of having a responsibility if you're in a position of authority or power to tell people what that could read as being there, and what is personal preference. Oh well, i can't seem to convince anyone but Tom of the deep need for this. Ohblahdee, ohbladye.

There's a 30% chance of actual scholarship in the forcast...

Thoughts from Theology class the other day...

Take these statements:
"And these two accounts in Genesis are definitely by two different authors."
"It will rain tomorrow"

Then consider the following:
A) Principles of science (laws of pressure, temperature, evaporation, etc)
B) Litterary principles (tendencies, styles, penmanship, word choice, etc)

Which of those two focus on constants, unchanging, predictable and repeatable? Which is more certain? (tell me you made it through 7th grade science and said A)

Now consider this...
If the results of measurable constants like pressure and temperature lead to eratic outcomes... like, i dunno, weather? How much more unpredictable are theories of penmanship and editing and how much less likely to be correct are those conclusions?

Maybe there were different authors and editors of Genesis. Maybe the two chapters our professor reffered to casually were indeed by different sources. i do not doubt this is possible, but when well informed and knowledgable scholars talk about theories on a regular basis as scientific and verifiable fact, there's a problem (hope you're listening NIB).

Besides... maybe it will rain tomorrow, but do you always trust the weatherman?