I'm about to move in real life! Back to YWAM, but this time in Scotland. I don't know that anyone reads this ever anymore, but just in case-- and just in case you want to read about life in Scotland-- you can follow my adventures over at marygoestoscotland.wordpress.com
Come on over!
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Thursday, March 21, 2013
McCorkles: The Next Generation
Ah, life. It goes on.
So, I feel I should get the obligatory "it's been a while since I posted" out of the way... sometimes I think I just put too much pressure on myself to have something deep and meaningful to say. And I don't always have anything profound, so I keep my shallowness to myself. Well, no more! At least, not today. Today, I will just go ahead and write about whatever I feel like writing about.
The only thing I really want to write about is this awesome thing that happened last weekend. I was hanging out with my brother and sister-in-law and my 2.5-year-old niece, Lily. And my brother, John, was playing a video on his phone that had clips from Reading Rainbow. I'll just put it up here so that you can see what it was. Oh, internet! You are amazing at times like this!
So, we were watching this video, and Lily goes, "Staw Twek? Is that Geordi?" Yes, it's true. She recognized LeVar Burton as Geordi LaForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I immediately started laughing, and my sister-in-law, Nicole, just rolled her eyes. John seemed quite proud.
I just wanted everyone to know how nerdy my family is. And that's okay, because nerds rule the world!
So, I feel I should get the obligatory "it's been a while since I posted" out of the way... sometimes I think I just put too much pressure on myself to have something deep and meaningful to say. And I don't always have anything profound, so I keep my shallowness to myself. Well, no more! At least, not today. Today, I will just go ahead and write about whatever I feel like writing about.
The only thing I really want to write about is this awesome thing that happened last weekend. I was hanging out with my brother and sister-in-law and my 2.5-year-old niece, Lily. And my brother, John, was playing a video on his phone that had clips from Reading Rainbow. I'll just put it up here so that you can see what it was. Oh, internet! You are amazing at times like this!
So, we were watching this video, and Lily goes, "Staw Twek? Is that Geordi?" Yes, it's true. She recognized LeVar Burton as Geordi LaForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I immediately started laughing, and my sister-in-law, Nicole, just rolled her eyes. John seemed quite proud.
I just wanted everyone to know how nerdy my family is. And that's okay, because nerds rule the world!
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Still Here
The two things I should probably comment on today: 1. We had the smallest amount of daylight hours today out of the whole year. That means it is going to be getting steadily lighter from now until June! Woohoo! 2. The world did not end, as predicted by some interpreters of the Mayan calendar (an interpretation that was both hotly disputed and widely talked about). I guess I should not say that definitively yet-- we still have a few hours to go before the day is officially over for the whole world. But I would have expected at least the internet to be out by now if it was all going to end.
Those are my things to be joyful about today!
Those are my things to be joyful about today!
Friday, December 21, 2012
Wondering...
Only 5 (or 4, depending on how you look at it) days until Christmas! Today my mom and I went and got a Christmas tree. It is a bit later than we would normally get one, but we were feeling lazy about such things until today. Today, of course, was pouring down rain, and cold. We stopped at a lot where Mom had spotted a tree she liked on the outer edges, and waded through mud puddles to get to it. Once there, the tree lot man (who was dressed entirely in orange rain gear) tried to give us a tour of the lot, until we finally stopped at a tree and decided we wanted it and refused to be toured around any more. The man did not seem to understand our reluctance to wander in the rain looking at trees, but he finally let us take the tree and go. And now we have a tree! Yay!
I was perusing the internet today reading about joy, and something that stuck out to me about a blog post I read (and now I can't find it to link to it) was the concept of wonder. I think that as a society, we are generally fairly cynical. On my ride home tonight I was listening to NPR and there was a discussion about whether science is replacing philosophy. The move of some well-known scientists to discount religion and philosophy as unquantifiable and unprovable is something that is definitely influencing the world as we know it. I got out of the car before the discussion was finished, but this particular discussion was leaning toward philosophy being important and having a place in society. Which I happen to agree with. I think that some things just need to be beyond quantification. I love the fact that we still can't predict if it will actually snow for sure or not!
There is a degree of the unexplainable about Christmas. I already talked about miracles a bit, but I think that part of our joy is holding on to the truth that there are things going on that we don't have to understand every aspect of. We can just trust that we are a part of the big, beautiful picture. I love the picture that Madeleine L'Engle (yes, again) paints when she asks:
"Was there a moment, known only to God when all the stars held their breath, when the galaxies paused in their dance for a fraction of a second, and the Word, who had called it all into being, went with his love into the womb of a young girl, and the universe started to breathe again, and the ancient harmonies resumed their song, and the angels clapped their hands for joy?"
I wonder.
I was perusing the internet today reading about joy, and something that stuck out to me about a blog post I read (and now I can't find it to link to it) was the concept of wonder. I think that as a society, we are generally fairly cynical. On my ride home tonight I was listening to NPR and there was a discussion about whether science is replacing philosophy. The move of some well-known scientists to discount religion and philosophy as unquantifiable and unprovable is something that is definitely influencing the world as we know it. I got out of the car before the discussion was finished, but this particular discussion was leaning toward philosophy being important and having a place in society. Which I happen to agree with. I think that some things just need to be beyond quantification. I love the fact that we still can't predict if it will actually snow for sure or not!
There is a degree of the unexplainable about Christmas. I already talked about miracles a bit, but I think that part of our joy is holding on to the truth that there are things going on that we don't have to understand every aspect of. We can just trust that we are a part of the big, beautiful picture. I love the picture that Madeleine L'Engle (yes, again) paints when she asks:
"Was there a moment, known only to God when all the stars held their breath, when the galaxies paused in their dance for a fraction of a second, and the Word, who had called it all into being, went with his love into the womb of a young girl, and the universe started to breathe again, and the ancient harmonies resumed their song, and the angels clapped their hands for joy?"
I wonder.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Hot Showers and God's Gifts
Well, it turns out that I was led astray as far as snow goes. Boo! No snow whatsoever for me. The older lady I was staying with and I were both disappointed. But it did kind of bring home for me the fact that there IS joy in the anticipation of things-- even if they don't happen when we expect. How weird is that?
I am kind of a weirdo when it comes to waiting for things. Sometimes I am terribly impatient. Sometimes I am really good at waiting. Sometimes I am a bit fanatical about it. Once, when I was leading a team for two months in Bangladesh, we stayed our last couple of weeks in a guest house that had hot water showers. Such a luxury! We had been showering in cold water up until that point, and there was not even a chance that we were getting the grime from the polluted air off of ourselves to a satisfactory level in the cold water. Some of my hair actually turned orange from the pollution while I was there. And my hair is brown-- not blonde at all-- so that was quite the feat.
Anyway, when we finally stayed at this place with hot showers, I refused to take one for days. I was kind of mad that we had the option of hot water, because I felt like I wanted to tough it out for as long as possible and really earn hot water. My team would come out of the shower with exclamations of joy and washcloths black from the weeks of built-up silt scrubbed from their skin, but I held out.
One day it kind of hit me that I was being ridiculous. I realized that there were no amount of cold showers that would cause me to suddenly "deserve" a hot shower. A hot shower, in my situation, was total unmerited favor.
I think that's where I go astray when it comes to waiting for things sometimes. I wait and wait and try to earn whatever it is I think I'm going to get, when in reality, that thing is a gift that I don't have to-- and can't-- earn, and I could have it whenever I wanted it.
When I finally took a hot shower, it was amazing. Those weeks of cold water showers had definitely made me appreciate what I had been missing. But as I watched the water running down the drain in pollution-black rivulets, I knew that this shower was no better or worse than it would have been if I'd had it a few days earlier or later. It was good, that was sure, and I had missed out for a little while on something good, because of my own skewed perception.
So... is it a stretch to relate this story to Advent? In this season of waiting and then of gifts, I hope for myself that I know how to separate the two. The waiting is important-- it helps us to appreciate the gift more when it comes. But the whole point is to be ready when the gift is there, so let us not miss that gift! And when the gift of God is right in front of us, begging us to open our arms to it, let us accept wholeheartedly. We will never deserve it. But that's kind of the point.
I am kind of a weirdo when it comes to waiting for things. Sometimes I am terribly impatient. Sometimes I am really good at waiting. Sometimes I am a bit fanatical about it. Once, when I was leading a team for two months in Bangladesh, we stayed our last couple of weeks in a guest house that had hot water showers. Such a luxury! We had been showering in cold water up until that point, and there was not even a chance that we were getting the grime from the polluted air off of ourselves to a satisfactory level in the cold water. Some of my hair actually turned orange from the pollution while I was there. And my hair is brown-- not blonde at all-- so that was quite the feat.
Anyway, when we finally stayed at this place with hot showers, I refused to take one for days. I was kind of mad that we had the option of hot water, because I felt like I wanted to tough it out for as long as possible and really earn hot water. My team would come out of the shower with exclamations of joy and washcloths black from the weeks of built-up silt scrubbed from their skin, but I held out.
One day it kind of hit me that I was being ridiculous. I realized that there were no amount of cold showers that would cause me to suddenly "deserve" a hot shower. A hot shower, in my situation, was total unmerited favor.
I think that's where I go astray when it comes to waiting for things sometimes. I wait and wait and try to earn whatever it is I think I'm going to get, when in reality, that thing is a gift that I don't have to-- and can't-- earn, and I could have it whenever I wanted it.
When I finally took a hot shower, it was amazing. Those weeks of cold water showers had definitely made me appreciate what I had been missing. But as I watched the water running down the drain in pollution-black rivulets, I knew that this shower was no better or worse than it would have been if I'd had it a few days earlier or later. It was good, that was sure, and I had missed out for a little while on something good, because of my own skewed perception.
So... is it a stretch to relate this story to Advent? In this season of waiting and then of gifts, I hope for myself that I know how to separate the two. The waiting is important-- it helps us to appreciate the gift more when it comes. But the whole point is to be ready when the gift is there, so let us not miss that gift! And when the gift of God is right in front of us, begging us to open our arms to it, let us accept wholeheartedly. We will never deserve it. But that's kind of the point.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Joyful moments
Apparently, it snowed on some people in the Portland area last night. Not on those of us in the Sellwood banana belt, though. It might snow again tonight, and I am working, so I'm hoping to see some amazing snow early in the morning! I love snow. I know that my opinion is not the majority (among adults... I think that most school-going children are with me!), but I can't help it!
So there you go: my bit of joy for you. Other joyful moments today included watching A Charlie Brown Christmas with an 88-year-old and hearing her laugh her way through it, spending time with people and helping out at Forward Edge International, hanging out with my roommate for a while, and eating my new favorite snack: Newman's Own Organic Honey Wheat Mini Pretzels. They are so good! And also they are mini, which is one of my favorite features when it comes to food.
Those are joy-in-the-moment things. I am anticipating some things as well, so those get to count, I think. I'm looking forward to spending time with family. I'm appreciating the peace and hope that are finally taking root a little more in media coverage today. I am grateful for the assurance that God is with me and will never leave me. I have moments of panic, sometimes, where I start to worry about money and the future and life in general. And somehow, in those moments, I am able to take a deep breath ("I am a little seed...") and remember that I have always been taken care of, and that it's not going to change now.
So... random-ish thoughts today. I hope you had some joyful moments (in the present or anticipated) as well!
So there you go: my bit of joy for you. Other joyful moments today included watching A Charlie Brown Christmas with an 88-year-old and hearing her laugh her way through it, spending time with people and helping out at Forward Edge International, hanging out with my roommate for a while, and eating my new favorite snack: Newman's Own Organic Honey Wheat Mini Pretzels. They are so good! And also they are mini, which is one of my favorite features when it comes to food.
Those are joy-in-the-moment things. I am anticipating some things as well, so those get to count, I think. I'm looking forward to spending time with family. I'm appreciating the peace and hope that are finally taking root a little more in media coverage today. I am grateful for the assurance that God is with me and will never leave me. I have moments of panic, sometimes, where I start to worry about money and the future and life in general. And somehow, in those moments, I am able to take a deep breath ("I am a little seed...") and remember that I have always been taken care of, and that it's not going to change now.
So... random-ish thoughts today. I hope you had some joyful moments (in the present or anticipated) as well!
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Joy
This week we lit the "Joy" candle on the Advent wreath. Each week we have a different family or individual light the candle of the week and share something, and this week the lady who opened up the sharing had a good point: what a week to be thinking about joy.
Today, the first funeral services took place for the children who were gunned down at Sandy Hook school. This week will be full of them. It's sad. Which seems like the opposite of joy. Merriam-Webster's dictionary says (the lady from church read this, too, just so you know it's not an original thought) that joy is: "the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires."
I don't feel like being joyful, and the prospect of writing about it bothers me a little because I know that there is great sorrow among people in my nation tonight. And yet, the apostle Paul was pretty adamant that Christians should rejoice always. Always? And this was a guy who saw and experienced some pretty awful stuff.
So... I think that at my first glance, Merriam-Webster's definition of joy was perhaps lacking a little bit as far as what my understanding of joy from scripture is. My own experience with joy is that it runs more deeply than a quick, reactive emotion when something goes my way. And this, conveniently enough, brings us back to the idea of Advent. Romans 12:12 says to be "joyful in hope." I read an article earlier tonight where the author underlined the part of the dictionary definition that says "the prospect of possessing what one desires." So, the anticipation of things being as they should be brings us hope and joy. I think that for me, peace comes from knowing that God is with me right now. Joy comes from the hope that eventually, all things will be made new and right.
That's what I'm hanging onto right now. As we realize more and more how very real the darkness is in this world, we can have a measure of joy because it will not always be so. Advent is a reminder that in the moments where it seems impossible to find joy in the present, we know that there is a time coming when promises will be fulfilled.
I do pray for those directly affected by the tragedies we experienced this week. I pray that they will have time and space to mourn and to know that their losses are significant to all of us. I pray that when it is time, they will find hope and peace again, and that they will know what it is to have joy restored to them. And I pray for the rest of us, struggling to make sense of it all and to know how to react, that we will find a way to remain in the love of God, who is now, and will continue to be, with us.
"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy will be complete. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you." John 15:9-12
Today, the first funeral services took place for the children who were gunned down at Sandy Hook school. This week will be full of them. It's sad. Which seems like the opposite of joy. Merriam-Webster's dictionary says (the lady from church read this, too, just so you know it's not an original thought) that joy is: "the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires."
I don't feel like being joyful, and the prospect of writing about it bothers me a little because I know that there is great sorrow among people in my nation tonight. And yet, the apostle Paul was pretty adamant that Christians should rejoice always. Always? And this was a guy who saw and experienced some pretty awful stuff.
So... I think that at my first glance, Merriam-Webster's definition of joy was perhaps lacking a little bit as far as what my understanding of joy from scripture is. My own experience with joy is that it runs more deeply than a quick, reactive emotion when something goes my way. And this, conveniently enough, brings us back to the idea of Advent. Romans 12:12 says to be "joyful in hope." I read an article earlier tonight where the author underlined the part of the dictionary definition that says "the prospect of possessing what one desires." So, the anticipation of things being as they should be brings us hope and joy. I think that for me, peace comes from knowing that God is with me right now. Joy comes from the hope that eventually, all things will be made new and right.
That's what I'm hanging onto right now. As we realize more and more how very real the darkness is in this world, we can have a measure of joy because it will not always be so. Advent is a reminder that in the moments where it seems impossible to find joy in the present, we know that there is a time coming when promises will be fulfilled.
I do pray for those directly affected by the tragedies we experienced this week. I pray that they will have time and space to mourn and to know that their losses are significant to all of us. I pray that when it is time, they will find hope and peace again, and that they will know what it is to have joy restored to them. And I pray for the rest of us, struggling to make sense of it all and to know how to react, that we will find a way to remain in the love of God, who is now, and will continue to be, with us.
"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy will be complete. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you." John 15:9-12
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