1.) Ludacris...Southern Hospitality (Where did that come from?)
2.) Mustard....Lou Can't Reed (Tee hee, what a play on words!)
3.) Queen......We Are The Champions
4.) Mustard....Roly Poly
5.) Adam Sandler...I'll grow old with you.
6.) Pedro the Lion...Rejoice
7.) Tiffany.......I Think We're Alone Now (oh my...I AM an 80's freak, I was in 4th grade when I used to listen to this...
8.) Canyon....Mansion on the Mountain
9.) Jennifer Knapp...A Little More
10.)Creed.....What's This Life For
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Getting into graduate school...
Is easy compared to getting through it. So, you may have noticed a lot fewer posts these days. That would be because classes have started, and when you add internship, TA hours, and oh, having a life...blogging gets a little lower on the list. So, I thought the way I could keep this up is to post some of my essays as I write them. They probably will be a little too long for blog entries, a little too boring, and a little too intellectual for what most people want in their free time.
But, it's the best I can do. I have this awesome spirituality class that really challenges me. This is my first essay, written on the question, "Why do Christians need to continually hear the Gospel?" It refers to our readings for the week:
Rom 5:1-11
Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline p. 1-11
R.F. Lovelace's Dynamics of a spiritual life: an evangelical theology of renewal
Here it is:
There are many reasons why Christians need to continually hear the Gospel. First and foremost, as the Church, we continually live as if we have yet to hear, or fail to believe, the Gospel. Rarely does the daily life of an individual Christian reflect that “…we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Rom 5:11b). More so, our faith communities, expressed through the institutional church, continually reflect a poverty of understanding and practice, when it comes to the Gospel. As alleged by Lovelace, our collective inability as a body to understand justification has led to three “aberrations” of the Gospel, “cheap grace, legalism, and moralism.”
Using Foster’s metaphor of faith as a narrow ridge with a sheer drop-off on either side reiterates why Christians must continually hear the Gospel. Without constant redirection, Christ followers easily stray away from spiritual discipline into a damaging abyss, and fail to produce any viable fruit, as well as miss out on the process of sanctification in Christ. I find the words of Derek Webb, a musician whose works have touched my heart to be particularly moving:
I know well the need to continually hear the Gospel in my own life. Having grown up in the Church, and coming to faith at an early age, one might assume that I had a “head start” of sorts in cultivating the spiritual disciplines in my life. Actually, this is not the case. I was raised in a faith community where Foster’s concept of externalism was glorified. Lovelace’s concept of cheap grace, or justification without sanctification, was dispensed every Sunday, and on occasion, a good dose of legalism was administered to ensure my continued contribution to the Church.
After leaving for college, I struggled for years with why my willpower was not strong enough to overcome my propensity toward sin. I turned away from the Church and then from my relationship with God. I manifested some very carnal sins, and the doctrine of sin that I had learned in the Church left me with such a thwarted concept of God that I felt paralyzed with fear at the thought of returning to a relationship with Him. I had truly come to believe, as stated by Derek Webb on his album House Show:
This agrees with Lovelace’s assertion that, “A church with a weak understanding of sin will thus be a church in which the flesh is alive and spiritual vitality is dampened.”
When I did return to church, I had to hear the Gospel. In fact, much of the past two years of my life has been focusing on truly believing the Gospel. Undoing all of the hurt caused by an incomplete view of the Gospel is a daily endeavor for me. From my conversations with a group of twentysomethings from similar Evangelical faith backgrounds, I have learned that they carry similar scars from this incomplete understanding of what it means that “But for God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). I have a truly difficult time seeing God accepting me as the father does his prodigal son. Allowing the Holy Spirit to work daily in my life is difficult and rather new for me, but necessary.
In a more practical sense, it is necessary for Christians to continually hear the Gospel to balance the concerns of individual and institutional sin. At this stage in my walk with Christ, I feel caught between the dead conformity and angry resistance that Lovelace touches on. The Spiritless orthodoxy of my past faith is moving into a more socially aware existence that I continually fear with become a Spiritless expression of social activism. Cultivation of both sides of faith can occur by allowing ourselves to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Lovelace believes that a “mutual movement toward sanctification in these two sectors” would “result in an immense release of spiritual power within Western Christianity.” For this to occur, each side of this divide must hear the Gospel continuously to be corrected by the Spirit.
As I talk to more Christians in my generation, who feel caught between these two faith approaches, who are honestly seeking the voice of the Holy Spirit, it excites me to think that a time such as this may come to pass. I know that I experience the whispering of the Spirit about a theonomous understanding of the flesh, and others with whom I share my faith, experience this as well. But it takes continuous hearing of the Gospel for me to discern the intricacies of what sanctification looks like in my own life.
Finally, Christians must continually hear the Gospel because the process of sanctification makes it a new message every time it is heard. As we grow in faith and maturity, different areas of sin become problematic, different areas of our faith are ripe for exploration and correction, and different messages are to be had from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, a continual hearing of the Gospel is necessary as each Christian embarks on the journey of sanctification toward glorification, so that we may have a more correct understanding of the true nature of God in all three Persons.
But, it's the best I can do. I have this awesome spirituality class that really challenges me. This is my first essay, written on the question, "Why do Christians need to continually hear the Gospel?" It refers to our readings for the week:
Rom 5:1-11
Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline p. 1-11
R.F. Lovelace's Dynamics of a spiritual life: an evangelical theology of renewal
Here it is:
There are many reasons why Christians need to continually hear the Gospel. First and foremost, as the Church, we continually live as if we have yet to hear, or fail to believe, the Gospel. Rarely does the daily life of an individual Christian reflect that “…we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Rom 5:11b). More so, our faith communities, expressed through the institutional church, continually reflect a poverty of understanding and practice, when it comes to the Gospel. As alleged by Lovelace, our collective inability as a body to understand justification has led to three “aberrations” of the Gospel, “cheap grace, legalism, and moralism.”
Using Foster’s metaphor of faith as a narrow ridge with a sheer drop-off on either side reiterates why Christians must continually hear the Gospel. Without constant redirection, Christ followers easily stray away from spiritual discipline into a damaging abyss, and fail to produce any viable fruit, as well as miss out on the process of sanctification in Christ. I find the words of Derek Webb, a musician whose works have touched my heart to be particularly moving:
We mistake, as a Christian Culture, the Gospel for the thing that we only preach to nonbelievers in hopes they would come down the aisles of our churches and place their faith in Jesus. Now, it certainly IS that. But much more than that, the Gospel must have, necessarily has, a primary place in the life of believers. We must hear it everyday…If we stop hearing that everyday, then we are never ever going to grow, and our communities never change, and our hearts never be sanctified. Flattery at its very best will encourage nothing more than behavior modification.
I know well the need to continually hear the Gospel in my own life. Having grown up in the Church, and coming to faith at an early age, one might assume that I had a “head start” of sorts in cultivating the spiritual disciplines in my life. Actually, this is not the case. I was raised in a faith community where Foster’s concept of externalism was glorified. Lovelace’s concept of cheap grace, or justification without sanctification, was dispensed every Sunday, and on occasion, a good dose of legalism was administered to ensure my continued contribution to the Church.
After leaving for college, I struggled for years with why my willpower was not strong enough to overcome my propensity toward sin. I turned away from the Church and then from my relationship with God. I manifested some very carnal sins, and the doctrine of sin that I had learned in the Church left me with such a thwarted concept of God that I felt paralyzed with fear at the thought of returning to a relationship with Him. I had truly come to believe, as stated by Derek Webb on his album House Show:
We often believe, if we’re really honest with ourselves, that the Christian life is about how well we can learn to hide our sin. Honestly, I think a lot of us, and I do this all the time, we think that we’ll be able to measure the growth of our spirituality by how little we are sinning. Or how much we can convince everyone, ourselves included, about how little we are sinning.
This agrees with Lovelace’s assertion that, “A church with a weak understanding of sin will thus be a church in which the flesh is alive and spiritual vitality is dampened.”
When I did return to church, I had to hear the Gospel. In fact, much of the past two years of my life has been focusing on truly believing the Gospel. Undoing all of the hurt caused by an incomplete view of the Gospel is a daily endeavor for me. From my conversations with a group of twentysomethings from similar Evangelical faith backgrounds, I have learned that they carry similar scars from this incomplete understanding of what it means that “But for God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). I have a truly difficult time seeing God accepting me as the father does his prodigal son. Allowing the Holy Spirit to work daily in my life is difficult and rather new for me, but necessary.
In a more practical sense, it is necessary for Christians to continually hear the Gospel to balance the concerns of individual and institutional sin. At this stage in my walk with Christ, I feel caught between the dead conformity and angry resistance that Lovelace touches on. The Spiritless orthodoxy of my past faith is moving into a more socially aware existence that I continually fear with become a Spiritless expression of social activism. Cultivation of both sides of faith can occur by allowing ourselves to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Lovelace believes that a “mutual movement toward sanctification in these two sectors” would “result in an immense release of spiritual power within Western Christianity.” For this to occur, each side of this divide must hear the Gospel continuously to be corrected by the Spirit.
As I talk to more Christians in my generation, who feel caught between these two faith approaches, who are honestly seeking the voice of the Holy Spirit, it excites me to think that a time such as this may come to pass. I know that I experience the whispering of the Spirit about a theonomous understanding of the flesh, and others with whom I share my faith, experience this as well. But it takes continuous hearing of the Gospel for me to discern the intricacies of what sanctification looks like in my own life.
Finally, Christians must continually hear the Gospel because the process of sanctification makes it a new message every time it is heard. As we grow in faith and maturity, different areas of sin become problematic, different areas of our faith are ripe for exploration and correction, and different messages are to be had from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, a continual hearing of the Gospel is necessary as each Christian embarks on the journey of sanctification toward glorification, so that we may have a more correct understanding of the true nature of God in all three Persons.
Monday, August 29, 2005
What's good for the goose is good for the gander...
So, Mr. GoingApe and I got bicycles. See, that's a long story. Someone stole my bike, but then I found it and took it back. But they broke a lot of stuff on it. So my thought was, "I'll take my graduation money and buy myself a bicycle. Then I'll fix up my old one for Mr.GoingApe." Yeah, so, I bought myself this 
bike. And that was all good. And I started to work on my old bike, but the chain guard was broken, and the mean person who stole it before had broken the gear shift and Elmer's glued it back on. Yeah, so I gave up on that and just took the rest of my graduation money and bought old Mr. GoingApe his own 
bike, because what fun is it to ride alone?
And Saturday we rode for two hours and my buttocks hurt really badly. And so did his. But that's not the real story. The real story happened today, in the huge park just down from our house. (Hey, there are some perks to being in the suburubs.) So, cool teenage boy passes me, looking very confident in his bike riding ability. Zooming past without the typical "On your left!" warning. He is doing somersalts on the seat, driving with his toes, and all sorts of fancy things that I no longer do on bicycles. Or when I'm standing still, for that matter.
Cool teenage boy also passes Mr.GoingApe, flies around a curve, and directly into....duh duh duh! A GOOSE! Feathers go flying, the gaggle of geese honk, boy falls down, goose (or maybe it was a gander) flees the scene of said accident, and I wait until we're two curves away to laugh.
But I laughed hard. I'm laughing now. Maybe I'm mean, but comedy that good only comes along once in a rare while.
bike. And that was all good. And I started to work on my old bike, but the chain guard was broken, and the mean person who stole it before had broken the gear shift and Elmer's glued it back on. Yeah, so I gave up on that and just took the rest of my graduation money and bought old Mr. GoingApe his own 
bike, because what fun is it to ride alone?And Saturday we rode for two hours and my buttocks hurt really badly. And so did his. But that's not the real story. The real story happened today, in the huge park just down from our house. (Hey, there are some perks to being in the suburubs.) So, cool teenage boy passes me, looking very confident in his bike riding ability. Zooming past without the typical "On your left!" warning. He is doing somersalts on the seat, driving with his toes, and all sorts of fancy things that I no longer do on bicycles. Or when I'm standing still, for that matter.
Cool teenage boy also passes Mr.GoingApe, flies around a curve, and directly into....duh duh duh! A GOOSE! Feathers go flying, the gaggle of geese honk, boy falls down, goose (or maybe it was a gander) flees the scene of said accident, and I wait until we're two curves away to laugh.
But I laughed hard. I'm laughing now. Maybe I'm mean, but comedy that good only comes along once in a rare while.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Yes, As A matter of Fact, I am a bibliophile.
Meg over here tagged me to bare my soul about books. I will no longer be able to conceal the fact that I am a total nerd/dweeb/dork.
1. Number of books you have owned: Considering we're over 600 right this very moment by my estimate, I'd say that in my life I've probably owned nearly 1500-2000 books. It's hard to tell anymore what's mine and what's his. But if you consider the fact that I bought at least two books every week from scholastic and the like when I was in elementary school, and I saved up my money and bought a new book nearly every day in the summers, then I know I've owned that many. I've sold back gads of college textbooks, given entire collections of fiction away to younger relatives, sold my soul (or it felt like it) in yard sales, and stocked the shelves of McKay's when I was poor. What can I say? I love these things, a little too much.
2. Last book I bought: Unfortunately, school books are what I bought. Some aren't too bad.
The boring ones are:
Community Psychology by Dalton
Decoding the Ethics Code by Fisher
Ethical Conflicts in Psychology by Bersoff
More exciting, but still for class:
Embracing the Love of God by Smith
Feasting at the Banquet by Wilhoit
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
Return of the Prodigal Son by Nouwen
The Way of a Pilgrim by Bacovcin
Last book I bought for fun: The Last Family in England (Paperback)by Matt Haig at Heathrow Airport. What can I say? We use the library a lot.
3. Last book I completed: Borderlines by Caroline Kraus. The memoir of a woman who became caught up in a destructive relationship with Jane, who has borderline personality disorder. It also provides a disturbing look into a category of so called lesbian relationships that have much more to do with enmeshment than they do sex, or even sexual orientation. Recently completed books also include the entire Harry Potter Series, and The Moves Make the Man by Bruce Brooks.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me: Although I've outgrown many of them, all of the books I am going to list were extremely meaningful to me at the time. They may have even changed my life.
1. 10 Commandments Of Dating by Ben Young
2. The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships
by Michael Nichols
3. Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow by Judith Viorst
4. Sham Pearls for Real Swine by Franky Schaeffer
5. Travelling Mercies by Anne Lamott
6. A Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
7. Created in God's Image by Anthony Hoekema
8. The Heart of Psychotherapy : The Most Honest, Revealing, Fascinating Account of What Goes On In Therapy by George Weinberg
9. I could go on forever and ever! A final, but important one, Despair and the Return of Hope by Peter Shabad
4b. What are you currently reading?
Dating Can be Murder by Jennifer Apodaca
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Enjoying God by S.J. Hill
5. Which 5 bloggers are you passing this onto?
1. Kevin @ waspjerky.blogspot.com
2. Zalm @ fromthesalmon.com
3. Liz @ Obitar aka Marshmallowy Goodness
4. Mystie @ Feminism Loves You
5. Insane Preschool Mom @ Her Site
1. Number of books you have owned: Considering we're over 600 right this very moment by my estimate, I'd say that in my life I've probably owned nearly 1500-2000 books. It's hard to tell anymore what's mine and what's his. But if you consider the fact that I bought at least two books every week from scholastic and the like when I was in elementary school, and I saved up my money and bought a new book nearly every day in the summers, then I know I've owned that many. I've sold back gads of college textbooks, given entire collections of fiction away to younger relatives, sold my soul (or it felt like it) in yard sales, and stocked the shelves of McKay's when I was poor. What can I say? I love these things, a little too much.
2. Last book I bought: Unfortunately, school books are what I bought. Some aren't too bad.
The boring ones are:
Community Psychology by Dalton
Decoding the Ethics Code by Fisher
Ethical Conflicts in Psychology by Bersoff
More exciting, but still for class:
Embracing the Love of God by Smith
Feasting at the Banquet by Wilhoit
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
Return of the Prodigal Son by Nouwen
The Way of a Pilgrim by Bacovcin
Last book I bought for fun: The Last Family in England (Paperback)by Matt Haig at Heathrow Airport. What can I say? We use the library a lot.
3. Last book I completed: Borderlines by Caroline Kraus. The memoir of a woman who became caught up in a destructive relationship with Jane, who has borderline personality disorder. It also provides a disturbing look into a category of so called lesbian relationships that have much more to do with enmeshment than they do sex, or even sexual orientation. Recently completed books also include the entire Harry Potter Series, and The Moves Make the Man by Bruce Brooks.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me: Although I've outgrown many of them, all of the books I am going to list were extremely meaningful to me at the time. They may have even changed my life.
1. 10 Commandments Of Dating by Ben Young
2. The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships
by Michael Nichols
3. Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow by Judith Viorst
4. Sham Pearls for Real Swine by Franky Schaeffer
5. Travelling Mercies by Anne Lamott
6. A Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
7. Created in God's Image by Anthony Hoekema
8. The Heart of Psychotherapy : The Most Honest, Revealing, Fascinating Account of What Goes On In Therapy by George Weinberg
9. I could go on forever and ever! A final, but important one, Despair and the Return of Hope by Peter Shabad
4b. What are you currently reading?
Dating Can be Murder by Jennifer Apodaca
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Enjoying God by S.J. Hill
5. Which 5 bloggers are you passing this onto?
1. Kevin @ waspjerky.blogspot.com
2. Zalm @ fromthesalmon.com
3. Liz @ Obitar aka Marshmallowy Goodness
4. Mystie @ Feminism Loves You
5. Insane Preschool Mom @ Her Site
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
I want to throw a shoe
I just wrote out a LONG reply to Meg over at Bridget Jones Goes to Seminary and the computer ate it. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
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