i believe in miracles

I don't really distinguish between miracles and science. To me, science (especially medical science) is miraculous. The more i learn about science, the more i appreciate God's sense of design, His plans and attention to detail, His desire for us to connect to one another.

Take body donations, for example. We can donate so many different body parts after we die: organs, skin, even corneas. While alive, we can donate blood, platelets, plasma, bone marrow, stem cells, and even kidneys. Think about it: we all get two kidneys at birth, but we really only need one to survive. We get a spare, so that we can give one away if someone needs a new kidney.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because nearly seven years ago, a group called Be The Match visited my campus. I was a college sophomore at the time, and had given blood a handful of times before. My blood giving was sometimes interrupted by my tattoos, but i gave whenever i could. But this was something entirely new.

Be The Match was asking people to join the national donor registry. They collect DNA samples to simplify the search process when someone needs bone marrow. You fill out a form, swab your cheek, and they email you a few times a year to keep you in the loop about what the organization is up to. I signed up immediately. I heard from them about a possible donation once, but mostly they left me alone.

Until about a week before my birthday.

A 39 year old man with leukemia was a match for my DNA. They can't and didn't tell me anything else about him. I told them i was still interested in donating, and we started the process. So far, i've signed a consent form and reviewed my medical history over the phone. I'm scheduled for a physical at the beginning of January, and will begin injections of filgrastim to increase the stem cells in my blood. The only real side effect to this is flu-like aches. After five days of injections, i'll be hooked up to two needles. One will draw stem cell-y blood and pass it into a machine which will filter out the stem cells, and the other will put the blood back. I've been told to expect slight soreness and extreme exhaustion for a day or two following this procedure.

After that, it's all over. Within a week, i'll be back to normal. I may or may not be asked to donate again.

I don't ever plan to have kids. I like kids a lot, especially up to the age of about four, but i don't have any desire or need to have them myself. Like when you see someone wearing a cute outfit that looks great on them but isn't at all your style: i'm happy for you that you have a baby and that you are happy with your life choices, but i'm all set over here, thanks.

But this feels a little like what i imagine it feels like to find out you are going to have a baby. To realize that your body has this amazing potential to create and sustain life; to understand that your body is going to give life to another person; to know that you will give up some measure of comfort and control, will experience pain, will give up time for doctor's visits and injections and long phone calls about your medical history; and to know that at the end of all of it, someone will receive life because of your sacrifice, is almost unbearably awesome. I am nervous about the pain. I am nervous about the stress. I am nervous about the time commitment. I am beyond thrilled to be able to do this.

I can't stop telling people about it. I realize that it's a little inelegant to do so, that it's like bragging about how charitable i am, but i can't help it. I am so in awe of the science involved (i'm getting five injections to MAKE MORE STEM CELLS! and then i'm GIVING STEM CELLS TO A PERSON SO THEY CAN LIVE!), and so thrilled to discover the power and potential of my own body. I am so glad to be able to help someone who needs it. I want so badly for more people to donate whatever body parts they can, whenever they are asked to do so, because why wouldn't you?! Who doesn't want to witness a miracle? Who doesn't want to BE a miracle?

It's a birthday miracle for me, and a Christmas miracle for this man and his family. It's science and research and medicine and technology. It's prayer and a willingness to sacrifice and serve. It's biology and chemistry. It's communication and contact. It's cotton swabs and needles.

We are all stardust. We are all stem cells.

That's NOT What She Said

I have this fantasy where i'm one of those smoky, sultry babes that has a witty double entendre to reply to every remark, no matter how mundane or inconsequential. In my fantasy, a routine remark on the weather can turn into a steamy make-out session in seconds, because my words are so saucy and seductive that i create an atmosphere of constant eroticism and irresistible sensuality.

In reality, the responses that usually occur to me are less "sexy and witty" and more "awkward and slightly horrifying". Fortunately for me, i manage to keep the vast majority of these remarks in my head. Fortunately for you, i have compiled them here. 

Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?

John: "I'm updating my webpages."
Me: "I'm updating my vagina."
What? No. That's not sexy. That's not even a thing.

John: "I just like to manhandle you sometimes."
Me: "I like to handle your man. Your little man. Your penis."
Stop. Just stop talking. If you have to explain it this much even to yourself, it's not sexy.

Um. Hi.

I'm student teaching now, which is amazing and terrible and draining and energizing and hilarious and tragic and painful and enlightening and tedious and so very, very exciting. I'm at the school from 7:45-2:30 every day. I help run a home room, and i teach two classes: a ninth grade and a twelfth grade. The two groups could hardly be more different, and i love them and want to strangle them almost daily. And i LOVE getting to talk about books all day. Although i'm kind of sick of Romeo and Juliet by now.

My job is still amazing. We had our first round of reviews recently, and mine was good. In fact, i got a raise. I have wonderful friends, i get to do fun and interesting things, and there's always something to snack on. It's basically perfect, except that i don't get to talk about books as much as i'd like.

Family stuff is rough, as always. It's hard to be away from them, but it's hard to be with them for very long. There's a healthy helping of the usual drama, as well as more real stuff: heart conditions and cancer and so forth.

I'm writing here and there. I'm insanely busy: lesson planning, grading, meetings, teaching, working, sleeping, and eating take up an unbelievable amount of time. More than once, i've had to sacrifice things like sleeping, eating, church, time with friends, sleeping, eating, hydrating, laundry, sleeping, and eating in order to juggle my responsibilities. I keep my eyes on the finish line in May, and i keep reminding myself that i have a whole summer to relax before i can start teaching, assuming i get a job right away (which is by no means a foregone conclusion).

Anyway. The best time i have to write is when i'm at school, but blogger is blocked, so i spend that time lesson planning and hand-writing poems and watching Mariah Gale's Ophelia, particularly the madness scenes. She is magnetic.

So i haven't been here in a while. All of my daily routines have completely disappeared; i'm rebuilding my life from the ground up. I'm searching for new rhythms that allow me to survive, to breathe, to get things done, to be happy. I haven't found room for this yet.

I don't know that i will. I'm beginning to wonder if i've outgrown this, if i've come to a place in my life where i'm living so fully that i no longer need so much space to dream. Or maybe i'm stretched so thin that i simply don't have a place to put this anymore, and once things calm down a little, it will come back.

I know there are things here i've left incomplete. I'm strangely okay with that. I know there are stories i still need to tell. I can tell them elsewhere. I know there are stories i've told here and nowhere else. That's how life goes.

This will never go away entirely, but it's less central to me now. We'll see where it goes.

20fucking14

There were moments when i thought this year would never come. 2013 was one of the hardest years of my life, and i'm comparing it to 2007/2008, when my parents were getting divorced, and 2011, when my brother got blown up.

My friend Bryan died. My amazing boyfriend, the love of my life, one of the best people i've ever known, started pulling away from me. I left my job in the hopes of finding a new one and finally (finally!) finishing my degree. A fight with my best friend of six years left a rift that slowly widened. We don't talk anymore. My boyfriend and i broke up, leaving both of us torn and battered and very, very sad. Both of my grandfathers died. I've had financial struggles like never before. The Boston marathon was bombed. 30 Rock ended.

There was good stuff, too. Bryan was very sick, and i'm glad he's finally at peace. A dear friend of mine was married. My cousin had a beautiful baby boy right before Christmas. I have two amazing new roommates. I have an incredible job filled with incredible people that i actually want to spend time with outside of work. I reconnected with old friends. I lost about 40 pounds. I passed all my MTELs and got a student teaching placement for the spring.

So overall, i'm okay. I am exactly okay. No better, no worse. I'm starting 2014 with the conviction that things can only get better from here.

Toddlers of the Bible: Peter, Jonah, and Sampson

Toddlers

You know those preschooler puzzle toys where there's a plastic box with shaped holes cut in it? And you have all these plastic shapes to fit into the holes? Have you ever watched a kid playing with one of those? Their tiny toddler muscles strain to force the circle block into the flower hole, or their little brains struggle to figure out the right way to turn the star in order to line up all its points. I love watching kids that age play. They are thinking and working so hard, and learning so much, and yet when they return to the same toy the next day, they've forgotten half of what they achieved the day before. I can't help but laugh as they get frustrated and try to beat the pieces into place, or get bored and wander away to another toy. But the best moment is when they finally get everything in the right place and grin, proud of their accomplishment.

I think that's how God is with us sometimes, watching and laughing and letting us figure it out. No matter how hard we shove, the square block is not going to fit into the round hole. And the triangle won't fit in the triangle hole unless you have it turned at the right angle. Sometimes He gets frustrated, thinking to Himself, "We just did this. How can she still not figure out the right work/personal life balance? Why is he still trying to get that promotion instead of going back to grad school? Why won't she just break up with him already? How has he not figured out that he needs to attend church regularly?" And sometimes He gently reaches out and helps us turn the block around, or subtly taps a finger on the right hole for the shape in our hands. And sometimes, when we are getting frustrated or bored or overwhelmed with this confusing shape game, sometimes He is the one who hands us the light-up fire truck, or the singing dinosaur, or the plastic groceries, because sometimes we need a break from trying to fit all those shapes together.

Jonah

God gave Jonah a specific task: go to Nineveh and tell them to repent of their wickedness. Jonah refused, and proceeded to run as far away from Nineveh as he knew how to get. Then God sent a storm, and Jonah offered to die in order to save the lives of everyone else on the boat, and then he was swallowed by a fish. Then he prayed, and God rescued him, and then he went to Nineveh and preached half of God's message, and then the people figured out the other half anyway. And then Jonah got mad at God for doing the thing that He said He would do.

God is God. You can't run far enough in any direction to escape His will. You can even half-ass the things He asks you to do, but guess what? God is more powerful than you. If you think He can't make shit happen in spite of your rebellion, you're forgetting the whole toddler thing above. It doesn't matter how hard that two-year-old tries to shove that star-shaped block into the trapezoid-shaped hole. It's not going in.

Sampson

There's this to say about Jonah: he listened to God enough to know what God wanted him to do, even if he then did the exact opposite. And he did eventually do part of what God asked him for.

You can't really say as much about Sampson.

Sampson was supposed to follow a specific set of vows, and was supposed to rescue his people from the Philistines. He broke every single one of his vows in very quick succession, and although he killed lots of Philistines, he only ever did so to correct wrongs that they had committed against him. He wasn't a champion for his people, only for his own ego.

His story ends with all the Philistine leaders dying by Sampson's hands. But don't get too excited: first he broke his final vow, and then they tortured and humiliated him, and then he asked God to allow him to get revenge, and then he killed himself along with all of them.

So, God's will was done. Yay?

Peter

Oh, Peter. He tried so hard to be a good disciple, but he kept getting sidetracked with his own ideas. Protip: God's ideas are pretty much always better than yours. (Occasionally He decides to kill everyone, and Moses has to talk Him out of it, but by and large you can just assume that He knows what He's doing.)

After all the time spent with Jesus, Peter still didn't really get this. When Jesus tells Peter that Peter will deny Him three times before dawn, Peter argues back. Then Jesus told them all (for like the eight millionth time) that He was going to be betrayed and die, and then He gets arrested, and then Peter cuts off a guy's ear. (I like to think that a better translation of Jesus' words at that point is, "Dude. Seriously? We just talked about this. This is happening. Chill.") You'll never guess what happens next. Peter denies Jesus three times just before dawn.

But he tried. He tried so hard. And let's not forget that it was Peter upon whom Jesus built His church, and Peter who preached the Pentecost sermon. He could barely take a step without tripping over one foot and shoving the other one in his mouth, but when he did take a step, it was with seven-league boots. His incompetence, pride, and general stupidity were no match for the Holy Spirit moving within him.

Me

It took me a long time to be reconciled to my parents' divorce. Actually, let me rephrase that: it's taking me a long time to be reconciled to my parents' divorce. First, i had to be reconciled to the fact that they were never supposed to be together, that they should never have gotten married. Then i wondered what that implied for me: should i never have been born? Was i God's afterthought?

Here's what Sampson and Jonah and Peter have taught me: God's will is going to happen, whether or not we participate, even if we rebel, even if we make mistakes. God always intended for me to be here. He may not have intended for me to arrive under these exact circumstances. but He wasn't about to let my parents' mistake get in the way of what He wanted, and what He wanted was me.

I can't help but think of the background characters in these stories. I think of the Ninevites that Jonah was supposed to redeem. They were hell-bound and didn't even know it, and Jonah did everything he could to keep them headed in that direction. I think of the Israelites who Sampson was supposed to be rescuing from their oppressors. He ignored his people to chase tail, and forgot about anyone who didn't stroke either his ego or his penis. And i think of the other eleven Apostles, of the multitude of Jesus' other followers, of the new Christian converts trying to spread the good news and build churches and figure out this whole religion thing (can we eat bacon? do we have to be circumcised? is it okay to gossip?), and relying on Peter to guide them through all of these heavy questions, not to mention the persecutions and martyrs.

We never get to find out what they were thinking and feeling about all of this nonsense, but i think i have some idea of what it's like to be caught up in the wake of someone else's mess. It sucks to feel like you're a secondary character in someone else's story, like you're just there for set dressing or for a plot twist. But none of us are secondary characters. In each of these stories, all those background people are the whole point.

God sent Jonah to Nineveh for the sake of the Ninevites. God raised up Sampson as a judge for the sake of the Israelites. Jesus called Peter for the sake of the new Christians. All of these people are our secondary characters, our sidekicks, our plot twists. God wants great things for us, and sometimes He uses other people to work His will in our lives.

For those of us who are Peter, take heart: your ability to fuck up does not outweigh God's ability to get shit done.

For those of us who are Jonah or Sampson, take heed: your attempts to rebel will not succeed, and may destroy you.

For those of us simply caught in another's destructive wake, take comfort: God does not hold anyone else's mistakes against you. His will for you is going to happen, no matter what bad decisions are made by the people who are supposed to be rescuing you.

The circle block is only ever going to fit into the circle hole.

by way of contrast

i've been obsessed with bees lately

industrious and organized

productive and precise

and dying

honey sealed in wax hexagons

honey sealed in glass jars

unspoiled, eternal

never sours, never molds

only crystalizes

if you'd been sealed in wax,

could i have kept you? 

Misquoting Jesus, Chapter 2: The Copyists of the Early Christian Writings

"One of the problems with ancient Greek texts (which would include all the earliest Christian writings, including those of the New Testament) is that when they were copied, no marks of punctuation were used, no distinction made between lowercase and uppercase letters, and, even more bizarre to modern readers, no spaces used to separate words." (pg. 48)

Think of the complexity of some of the New Testament, like Paul's letters (I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.). Even with modern rules of grammar imposed, this passage is pretty ridiculous. When those rules are done away with, it's easier to misread what is on the page. And even if your eyes and brain play no tricks, even if every letter is read in its correct place, comprehension and translation errors can still happen. Ehrman provides an example of what can happen with the following word: "godisnowhere", which can be read as "God is now here" or "god is nowhere".

"Far and away the most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple -- slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another. Scribes could be incompetent: it is important to recall that most of the copyists in the early centuries were not trained to do this kind of work but were simply the literate members of their congregations who were (more or less) able and willing." (pg. 55)

Mistakes happen, but once they do, it can be hard to figure out where they are and how to correct them. And now, centuries later, how can we ever expect to know for certain which manuscript is the most correct version? 

"What survives today, then, is not the original copy of the letter, nor one of the first copies that Paul himself had made, nor any of the copies that were produced in any of the towns of Galatia to which the letter was sent, nor any of the copies of those copies. The first reasonably complete copy we have of Galatians (this manuscript is fragmentary; i.e., it has a number of missing parts) is a papyrus called P46 (since it was the 46th New Testament papyrus to be catalogued), which dates to about 200 C.E. That's approximately 150 years after Paul wrote the letter. It had been in circulation, being copied sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly, for fifteen decades before any copy was made that has survived down to the present day." (pg. 60)

"Original" scripts for the Bible are essentially nonexistent, and even the earliest ones that we have are so far from the original that there is no way to determine how accurate the copies are.

it's weird how i'm a complex human person

A friend of mine just posted a long, rambly quote on Facebook about not pursuing any romantic relationships until she finds full satisfaction in God. You see a lot of similar quotes when you and/or many of your friends are young evangelical Christians. Hell, i've even said similar things, and back in high school i broke up with one guy and rejected another because i felt like romantic considerations were distracting me from God.

You also see a lot of almost empowering secular quotes about not pursuing a man until you've found full satisfaction in yourself. You know, graduate from college, get a good career going, pay off some debts, buy some fabulous shoes, pick up a hobby. No one else can love you until you love yourself, after all, and men will like you better if they have to chase you and compete for you with your job and friends and dog or whatever, because of their cavemen genes. Or something. I stopped reading Cosmo a few years ago because of shit like that.

I realized over the past year that a lot of the things i have always taken for granted are not guaranteed. I also realized that i had never really thought about whether or not i personally wanted these things; i just knew that they were good things for some people and assumed they would come to me. Things like marriage and kids, for example. I had always more or less assumed that i would be married by the time i was 25. And then i was dating this amazing man, and we were so in love, and things were going well, and i thought i would marry him some day.

Over the summer, John and i talked about exactly that. We'd talked about marriage before, about how we had some things to work out in our individual lives before we could start making those kinds of plans, and how if/when we did get engaged, it wouldn't be till we were both done with grad school. But during this conversation, John told me he wasn't sure he ever wanted to marry anyone. And then as i thought about it more, i realized that John's grad school schedule meant that, assuming we did get engaged, i couldn't possibly expect to have a ring on my finger until i was 26 or 27. I thought about my options for a few minutes. Do i wait it out with John and see if he wants to get married some day? Do i stay with him even if we never get married? If we do, will i be able to marry him while i'm still young enough to have kids? Do i break up with him and start looking for someone who's a little closer to being ready to settle down? If so, can i get over him, find someone new, and wrangle him to the altar before i hit my quarter century? Where did i get this magic 25, anyway? Wait, do i even want kids?

And then i realized that i simply did not give a single fuck.

Getting married is no longer a goal of mine. If it happens, great, if not, oh well. I do want to do my best to love well those who come into my path. I do want to know that i never abandoned a promising relationship before doing everything i could to make it work. But if i'm on my deathbed, looking at my cats and my post-graduate degrees and my written works (published and unpublished), reflecting on years of hard and satisfying work, surrounded by nieces and nephews and friends, i'm pretty sure i won't be saying, "Damn. If only i had gotten married."

I pursue a relationship with God because i love Him, and because everything in my life seems better when things are good with Him. I pursue other things in my life (school, work, shoes) because i like them and they make me happy. I don't pursue them so i can cross things off of my pre-wedding check-list.

And here's the crux of the whole thing: My relationship with God is pretty solid right now. It could be better, but we'll never get to a point where there's no more room for improvement, because that's not how relationships work. And my personal life is heading in a good direction, and i'm working hard to keep it on that track: working nights and weekends so i can (FINALLY!) finish grad school, getting a new roommate, painting my apartment, and even trying to do a little writing here and there.

Yet two months ago, John and i broke up. I'm not dating anyone else right now, and i'm not looking for anyone else. Mostly because i'm still getting over him, and a little bit because i'm hoping we might still have a future. But big picture? I'm not dating anyone right now because i'm not dating anyone right now. It's not because God is trying to teach me a lesson or because He hasn't brought the right person to me yet. It's not because my many impressive accomplishments intimidate men, or because they see my cat pictures and knitting needles and decide i'm too much of a loser to activate their (bullshit) caveman genetic drive to pursue me. I'm not dating anyone right now because i'm not dating anyone right now.

Life is bigger than bumper stickers or Facebook statuses. It is far more beautiful and complex than Cosmo articles or the imaginary goals we think we're supposed to have. It doesn't mesh all that well with timelines and schedules. And it looks very, very different to each and every person who has it.

If you feel like you need to work out some shit with God before you date anyone, great. Go do that. If you feel like you need to get your career on track before you date anyone, great. Go do that. Me, i'm working hard and having adventures. Sometimes i'm alone, sometimes i'm with friends, and for two years i had a steady partner. Maybe one day i will again. But in the meantime, i'm not trying to get my life lined up so i'll be ready for love when it finds me. I'm trying to get my life lined up because that makes it easier for me to have adventures.

Life is the thing. Don't have a great life so that some guy will want to be a part of it. Have a great life so that YOU can have a great life.

Believe it or not, i *do* have a filter.

1. This is why i try really hard to avoid news sites. I stick to blogs and webcomics and other sites that are, at least, up front about their intention to entertain. I'd rather run the risk of missing a legitimate news item than be suckered in by salacious gossip masquerading as something important. And honestly? If there's real news i'll see it on Twitter.

2. ". . . assholes are exclusively people who have to be told how others might be feeling and who think they get special dispensation to do anything. If you're not questioning your behavior, that means everyone else is."

3. THIS IS SO COOL. I don't want to say too much about how cool it is, because a) that would be a blog post all by itself and b) that would involve me getting way more personal about my genitals than i feel comfortable doing right now, but yeah. Everyone read this, especially if you have lady parts/like people who have lady parts.

Also, of COURSE it was French researchers who did three years' worth of unfunded research on the clitoris. I've never been prouder of my heritage.

4. "By this point in your life, I hope I've taught you the importance of honesty, and so I’m going to be honest with you. I've done just about everything imaginable in my adult career and if you dig deep enough you will find things you might think are pretty awful. I can honestly say that I approached adult filmmaking as a job, and, like any job I've ever had, I felt it important to do my best. Sometimes doing my job well meant doing pretty gross things. Hopefully you never see that stuff."

5. Oh, man. Every day.

Source.

have a little faith in me

I had every intention of getting back to a regular posting schedule. Really. I did. Last Tuesday, i had a post half-written in my head. But then Wednesday morning at 5:01 AM, my sister called me to tell me that our grandfather had died. Wednesday night i had to work, and Thursday morning i flew down to Maryland. Poppop was cremated, so there was no rush on the service. I spent the next few days looking at old family photos, digging through relics (family Bible from 1870, holla!), and eating crazy amounts of junk food. Monday i flew back home, spent some time unpacking and detoxing, and went to Bible study. Tuesday was napping and a class. And ordering delivery. I've been too depressed to cook lately.

Anyway. I'm trying. It's been an unbelievably shitty year, but it's almost over now. I have never been so excited for the new year, not even in 1999.

still laptopless, but it's 2013, so that shouldn't stop me from writing a blog or, like, coordinating a missile strike from my phone or whatever.

I'm trying to get back into my life, bit by bit. Bear with me, okay?

1. You might be a Pharisee if . . . 

2. This made me literally laugh out loud.

3. This, on the other hand, made me want to stand on a table and cheer. But i didn't, because i was alone in my house, so that would have been weird. Actually, on reflection, i guess that would have made it less weird. Whatever. Just read it.

4. i used to think i had arrived somewhere,
until i realized there is no shore of arriving.

5. And if you're wondering how i've been the past few weeks, read this.

more sketchy things i have done

I went to a slightly grimy Massachusetts sports bar with some friends. The bouncer was checking IDs at the door, and was giving us a hard time. I don't know if he was just in a bad mood or if he was genuinely suspicious of us, but he looked at my Maryland ID, and then glared at me, and then took his time deliberating. The next time that he peered at me in dim light of the streetlamp, i stared him down. He apologized and handed me my ID, and let us in without another word.

One time, i placed an order from Athena's Home Novelties for some body chocolate FOR A FRIEND. And when my order arrived, it was accompanied by a whole box of things that someone else had ordered and that had mistakenly been shipped to me. There was tingly lube, massage oil, a "Good Head" lollipop, a starter bondage kit, two bullet vibrators, and other assorted goodies. It took me a few days to decide whether or not it was worthwhile to let the company know of the mistake.

updates

So. Posting has been light.

August 30th was my last day at my old job. It was odd and bittersweet. It was kind of like graduation day all over again; after four years of undergrad (plus two years as a student worker in that office), and two years of grad school simultaneous with two years of full-time employment in the same office, it's weird to no longer be affiliated with that school. It's weird to visit campus for my student worker seminar or for a Bible study and to have absolutely no obligation to watch my language or dress appropriately or say good things about the school or anything. I mean, i'm still respectful, and i still care about my alma mater, i just don't officially have to.

The 31st was my final MTEL. If i pass, and if i get that passing score before October 1st, i can start student teaching in the fall. If either of those things doesn't happen, i have to wait till spring. But either way, i'm no longer working a 9-5 office job, and it feels amazing.

I took last week as a vacation. It was desperately needed. I can't remember the last time i took more than one day off for myself. Most of my vacation and personal time in the last two years has been spent in hospitals or at funerals. I had a whole week at home to sleep, cook, play with my cat, deep clean some problem areas in the house, organize my bedroom and library, watch Cheers, and read on my roof. On Tuesday, i got a call about the job i had been waiting for and really really really wanted, which really helped me relax and enjoy my vacation.

On Thursday, i spent most of the day cooking with a friend. We made buffalo chicken spring rolls and Irish car bomb cake, and we watched the pilot of Warehouse 13 and talked about comic books, and then i snuggled with my boyfriend.

On Friday morning, John and i got some coffee and took it to the beach. We sat for a while, chatting and sipping coffee and enjoying the weather. Then we had a very serious discussion, one we'd been putting off for a while, and had even started to have a few weeks earlier. Then we broke up.

We went back to his apartment and i packed my things, drove to a wine shop, took two bottles home, and spent the rest of the day in bed. On Saturday, i only got out of bed to get more water, go to the bathroom, feed my cat, and get my Chinese food from the delivery guy.

On Sunday, i had to lead worship at church. It was absolutely hellish. Less said the better. I then went home, changed, and went to a wedding.

On Monday, i got back to life. I cooked, i cleaned the kitchen, i went to Bible study, i talked to Benji about the breakup.

Today was orientation for my new job, as well as my student teaching seminar. It was a long day, but i feel energized and excited about my future. I learned a lot, and i'm so excited to be busy again after a whole week of vacation. I'm especially excited about a job where i can work with food, and be active and engaged, instead of sitting in front of a computer for seven hours a day.

But i'm sad. I want to tell John about my day. I want to tell him about all of my crazy new co-workers (one of them is an archaeologist! One of them is a religious freak and thinks i am too!), and talk about my new work schedule and figure out how and when we will find time to snuggle, and confess my concerns and uncertainties about what lies ahead. I want to hear about his day, too. And i want to snuggle and kiss and be together. And i can't.

There are so many other things i'd like to say about my new job, and my new schedule, and what i've been cooking and reading, and how my computer broke, and how my heart broke, and everything else. But this post is already long, and i don't think i have it in me to say much more about some of this stuff.

I'll try to set up a new schedule soon. I'll keep everyone posted as i can.

ASSpartame

You know what i hate? Artificial sweeteners. Hate hate hate them. I hate them. Hate. I would one thousand percent rather have something completely unsweetened than have to choke down aspartame. I've tried Splenda, Stevia, Sweet and Low, all of them. I've tried them at home, stirred into tea or coffee. I've tried store-bought sugar-free desserts. I've tried diet sodas. I am currently drinking a flavored seltzer water sweetened with aspartame, and the taste is indescribably horrible.

Why isn't it possible to find something unsweetened? Why are the only choices sugar or puke? I hate it.

That is all.

Ugh. Tuesday.

1. This story has been really important to me in the last few years. I don't think i really have a grasp on it yet, but i keep running into it again and again.

"'Let’s not forget that Jesus told that woman to go and sin no more,' Christians like to say when they're afraid this grace thing might get out of hand. 

Lord have mercy.  

Of all the people in that story, we’ve gone and decided we’re the most like Jesus."

2. This was on Time's list of the 25 best blogs. It's all about linguistics and etymology. I love it.

"Botuliform, dear reader, means sausage-shaped, and if you can't drop it into conversation in the next twenty-four hours then you're not having the right kind of conversations."

3. Here's a fun post about how Shakespeare was talentless.

4. I can't wait to have a classroom to hang Oatmeal posters in.

5. This is how i feel every Tuesday.

6. Okay, i know that everyone and their Aunt Sally linked to this last week, but just in case you are also coming late to the party, allow me to catch you up: ballet dancers in random situations.

Misquoting Jesus, Introduction and Chapter One: The Beginnings of Christian Scripture

Posting has been light lately. I'm in my penultimate week of work, i don't have a new job yet, and if my MTEL scores don't come in soon i won't be able to student teach until January, meaning i will have to start paying student loans now. So my anxiety has been a little overwhelming.

BUT, i started a new book this week: Misquoting Jesus, by Bart D. Ehrman. This is not a reflective spiritual journey, but a scholarly analysis of the Bible and how it happened. I've taken two classes on this subject already, not to mention reading tons of articles and blog posts and listening to sermons and my dad, so i know a fair deal about the Bible's history. But i'm only one chapter in and i've already placed a dozen sticky notes, so i'm excited about all the learning to come!

Introduction

"The Bible did have a revered place in our home, especially for my mom, who would occasionally read from the Bible and make sure that we understood its stories and ethical teachings (less so its "doctrines"). Up until my high school years, I suppose I saw the Bible as a mysterious book of some importance for religion; but it certainly was not something to be learned and mastered. It had a feel of antiquity to it and was inextricably bound up somehow with God and church and worship. Still, I saw no reason to read it on my own or study it." (pg 2)

I was actually very serious about my Bible reading until college, at which point i was like, "I've read this thing in its entirety at least half a dozen times, not to mention all the bits and pieces from devotionals, Bible stories, Bible studies, sermons, youth group, and so on. Do i really need to read the descriptions of the temple measurements AGAIN?!" Which is, in part, the reason for this whole blogging and exploration thing: trying to keep myself accountable so that i will have to be intentional about my spiritual health.

"There was an obvious problem, however, with the claim that the Bible was verbally inspired -- down to its very words. As we learned . . . we don't actually have the original writings of the New Testament. What we have are copies of these writings . . . Moreover, none of these copies is completely accurate, since the scribes who produced them inadvertently and/or intentionally changed them in places . . . Surely we have to know what those words [of Scripture] were if we want to know how [God] had communicated to us . . . having some other words . . . didn't help us much if we wanted to know His words." (pg 4-5)

I posted something about this a while back, how if God wanted us to take the Bible literally, He probably would have designed language in such a way that translation errors were impossible. Instead, if i write something this very second and hand it immediately to someone who is perfectly bilingual in English and Spanish, there is still room for translation error. Because other languages are not simply codes. You can't just substitute an English word for a Spanish word and have it work perfectly every time. There are nuances and connotations and grammatical structures that complicate things. Even a perfect translation isn't perfect, and the translations of the Bible are based on imperfect copies of languages that no one speaks anymore.

"I kept reverting to my basic question: how does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God if in fact we don't have the words that God inerrantly inspired, but only the words copied by the scribes -- sometimes correctly but sometimes (many times!) incorrectly? What good is it to say that the autographs (i.e., the originals) were inspired? We don't have the originals!" (pg. 7, bolding mine)

"Moreover, the vast majority of Christians for the entire history of the Church have not had access to the originals, making their inspiration something of a moot point." (pg. 10)

". . . I came to realize that it would have been no more difficult for God to preserve the words of scripture than it would have been for him to inspire them in the first place. If he wanted his people to have his words, surely he would have given them to them (and possibly even given them the words in a language they could understand, rather than Greek and Hebrew)." (pg. 11)

Yes. This.

The Disciples actually met and talked with Jesus, but we don't know if they all read one another's Gospels (were they all even literate?), especially the Big Four, and most of them were probably martyred long before some books were even written. So is talking to Jesus more or less important than reading Acts or 2 Timothy or Revelations? Less important? Okay, great. I'm going to go pray now. You can take your King James and go home.

"Among other things, this meant that Mark did not say the same thing that Luke said because he didn't mean the same thing as Luke. John is different from Matthew -- not the same. Paul is different from Acts. And James is different from Paul. Each author is a human author and needs to be read for what he (assuming they were all men) has to say, not assuming that what he says is the same, or conformable to, or consistent with what every other author has to say. The Bible, at the end of the day, is a very human book." (pg. 12)

I once witnessed an argument where one guy was talking about two books in the New Testament whose authors disagreed, and another guy was like, "No, but really they were saying the same thing, because they were all inspired by the Holy Spirit." And the first guy was like, "WTF. These are different words. Can you read?" It's okay to disagree, as long as we keep talking through it and loving Jesus.

"What if the book you take as giving you God's words instead contains human words? What if the Bible doesn't give a foolproof answer to the questions of the modern age -- abortion, women's rights, gay rights, religious supremacy, Western-style democracy, and the like? What if we have to figure out how to live and what to believe on our own, without setting up the Bible as a false idol -- or an oracle that gives us a direct line of communication with the Almighty?" (pg. 14)

Chapter One: The Beginnings of Christian Scripture

"Four such gospels became most widely used -- those of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the New Testament -- but many others were written. We still have some of the others: for example, Gospels allegedly written by Jesus' disciple Philip, his brother Judas Thomas, and his female companion Mary Magdalene. Other Gospels, including some of the very earliest, have been lost." (pg. 24)

"Some Christian authors produced prophetic accounts of what would happen at the cataclysmic end of the world as we know it. There were Jewish precedents for this kind of "apocalyptic" literature, for example, in the book of Daniel in the Jewish Bible, or the book of I Enoch in the Jewish Apocrypha. Of the Christian apocalypses, one eventually came to be included in the New Testament: the Apocalypse of John. Others, including the Apocalypse of Peter and The Shepherd of Hermas, were also popular reading in a number of Christian communities in the early centuries of the church." (pg. 25)

So, since the apocalypse hasn't happened yet, how do we know that John's is better than Peter's or the Shepherd's? Did they describe it the same, but John's was better written? Because that didn't prevent us from keeping four Gospel accounts. And none of it prevented Left Behind from happening, so. Maybe there is no God.

There's a long passage on page 35 that i won't quote in full here about a bishop named Irenaeus who argued that we needed exactly four Gospels, no more and no less, because there are four corners of the earth, and four winds, so it's only logical to have four Gospels as the four pillars of the church. And that's how Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John got into the canon. True story.

On page 36, we learn that the 27 books of the New Testament were not listed as the books of the New Testament until 367 C. E. Almost 300 years after they had been written. Even the people writing them didn't consider them to be on par with the actual Bible (they were mostly Jews, so we're talking about the Torah here). They were mostly just writing letters to clarify things they'd said before.

There's also an interesting point in the last two sections of the chapter about literacy in the ancient world. If the actual real words of the Bible were so important, why didn't God make sure everyone in the world was literate? And if illiteracy was so widespread (it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that people started taking literacy for granted for all social classes, and even now illiteracy is a real problem in the global community), why didn't God figure out some other way to speak to us? Like, through prayer and personal revelation and community? Oh, wait . . .

Searching for God Knows What, 11-end

There is a passage on pages 187-189 that is almost worth the whole price of the book, all on its own. Miller was a guest speaker on a radio program, and the host asked him about "the homosexuals who were trying to take over the country." Miller asked the host for the name of this ambitious homosexual group. The host couldn't name any actual groups, but remained convinced that such an uprising was imminent. Miller's response is absolutely lovely:
". . . As a Christian, I believe Jesus wants to reach out to people who are lost, and, yes, immoral -- immoral just like you and I are immoral; and declaring war against them and stirring up your listeners to the point of anger and giving them the feeling that their country, their families, and their lifestyles are being threatened is only hurting what Jesus is trying to do. This isn't rocket science. If you declare war on somebody, you have to either handcuff them or kill them. That's the only way to win. But if you want them to be forgiven by Christ, if you want them to live eternally in heaven with Jesus, then you have to love them." (emphasis mine) Miller later reflects that, while we are in a spiritual battle, the battle is not sinners vs. saved. After all, we are all sinners. The battle is Good vs. Evil, and people lost in sin are hostages. "This battle we are in is a battle against the principalities of darkness, not against people who are different from us. In war you shoot the enemy, not the hostage." (pg. 190)

Obviously, Miller is implying that homosexuality is sinful, but he is at least advocating that we treat homosexual people as people, that we reach out to them in love, that we talk to them about love, and that we stop trying to start a war. Personally, i'm not convinced that it is a sin to be gay, but i understand why a person reading the Bible would come away with that interpretation, and if they have honestly wrestled with the issue (including lots of prayer and talking to people who actually are gay, bonus points if they are gay Christians) and still feel that it's a sin, fine. Just treat them as human beings who need love, rather than The Enemy who must be exterminated and repressed.

Overall, i like this book. It certainly has its issues, both of content and style, but for the most part it neither outrages nor inspires me. There are some books that you read once and they change you forever, but because they have moved you, you can never really love them again. You need to read them when you are at a certain place in your life, and once you have moved past that place, they can offer you nothing. Some books (the Bible, much of C. S. Lewis, Harry Potter, etc.) change and grow with you, and you can keep falling in love with them from new angles as you re-read them. For some people, "Searching for God Knows What" is one of the second type, one that they can read again and again every few years. For me, having read it twice now, i know i will never read it again. It was important to me once, and will therefore always be important in some way, but i think we've outgrown each other.

I'm not a theologian, but i do like almond butter.

I love peanut butter. I mean, i have a soul, so obviously i love peanut butter. I went through a chunky phase in elementary/middle school, but somewhere around 7th or 8th grade, i switched to creamy and never looked back. Bizarrely, i don't like peanuts. Meaning i no longer enjoy chunky peanut butter at all, or Snickers bars, or a number of other peanutty treats. But peanut butter? Bring it on.

Lately, i've been making my own almond butter. This is weird for several reasons.

First of all, my tiny food processor isn't capable of turning almonds into the perfectly creamy butter that you find in a jar of Jif. It's pretty smooth and spreadable, but it's also sort of grainy. Not exactly like chunky peanut butter, more like grainy mustard. Now, i like almonds, so it's not really an issue per se, but it's definitely less delicious than i'd like it to be, which is why i haven't made peanut butter yet.

Second, i had never in my life tried almond butter until i made it. So it's not like i was buying up huge jars of the stuff and needed to save money. I honestly don't even remember why i decided to make it. I feel like i may have seen a recipe on one of the cooking blogs i read and thought, "I can do that!", but who even knows. Actually, the more i think about it the more certain i am that i just decided to make it. Welcome to my kitchen.

Third, i am now having so much fun making it that i'm trying to find more ways to eat it so i have an excuse to make more. I have eaten more almond butter in the past month than i have peanut butter in the past year. It's full of protein and light on sugar, salt, and preservatives, but it's also kind of fatty, especially since i add a tiny bit of coconut oil to help smooth it out (this also makes it infinitely more delicious). So i'm not sure if this new obsession is a good idea.

Fourth, despite the half jar of coconut honey almond butter and the full jar of cider spiced walnut/sunflower seed/pecan/almond butter currently in my fridge, i keep thinking of new combinations to try. Chocolate coconut walnut! Cinnamon pecan! Pumpkin spiced almond! I've even thought about savory ones, like coconut curry or roasted garlic with tahini. MAKE ALL THE FLAVORS! It's all i can do to rein in my enthusiasm. It helps that i recently got a roku player, so now i can watch Netflix IN MY BED. Suddenly, the idea of standing upright in the kitchen and watching Netflix on my laptop seems terrible. What is this, 2007? Next you're going to tell me i have to Google things on my laptop or tablet instead of my phone. No. If God wanted me to stand up and do things, or watch internet shows on a computer, He would not have invented roku. Which He clearly did, because it is very good. But my almond butter is very good, too. Like, spiritual gift-good. So i'm conflicted.

Who knew snack food could trigger a spiritual crisis? I'm going to have to meditate on this for a while. Excuse me while i eat home made chocolate ice cream and binge-watch The Office. Religiously.

"Me want FOOOOOOOOOOOOOD."

1. Articles like this are one reason i'm proud to identify as French. And as i once Tweeted, i never feel more French than when i snack.

"They found that of the four populations surveyed (the U.S., France, Flemish Belgium and Japan). Americans associated food with health the most and pleasure the least. Asked what comes to mind upon hearing the phrase "chocolate cake", Americans were more apt to say "guilt", while the French said "celebration"; "heavy cream" elicited "unhealthy" from Americans, "whipped" from the French. The researchers found that Americans worry more about food and derive less pleasure from eating than people in any other nation they surveyed.

"Compared with the French, we're much more likely to choose foods for reasons of health, and yet the French, more apt to chose on the basis of pleasure, are the healthier (and thinner) people."

2. Speaking of food, this is shameful.


3. Hey, look! More food guilt!

The funny thing about this piece (and food guilt in general) is that one of my old roommates is a nutritionist. And she used to advocate low calorie things, like cheesecake made with low-fat Neufchatel cheese and sugar-free sweeteners, or using skim milk and SmartBalance to make alfredo sauce. And we argued about it once. I said i'd rather make the full-fat version of something and then only eat a little, and she said that she'd rather make a low-fat version and eat more.

This is stupid.

Basically, you're saying that you'd rather eat a fuckton of something mediocre than a normal amount of something delicious. It's alfredo sauce! It's butter and cream and cheese! Just eat a small serving of pasta and a large serving of veggies! And don't eat it every night! Eat one serving of chicken fettuccine alfredo tonight, and tomorrow night eat grilled salmon with steamed broccoli. Eat one giant slice of cheesecake now and don't eat any later. Enjoy your food!

"I grew up a Christian, with a pastor for a dad to boot, but my mom is Jewish. And I don't know how well you might know the Jewish stereotypes, but we are a people that have a notorious love for eating and for worrying. So, you know, the little gatherings of my mom and her best friends (Jews, too, by the way) involved bagels, and cream cheese, and lox, or Danish pastries and coffee, or Chinese food, or whatever, but it's like, here are all these women, different sizes, different shapes -- and they're enjoying their food, but at the same time, they're worrying. They're like, punishing themselves for eating. Like, "this is great, but I shouldn't be eating it, I'm fat" or "I'll take JUST A SLIVER of that cheesecake" or eating two different kinds of cake while insisting on Sweet N Low and skim milk for their coffee -- not because they like it that way, but because they're "cutting calories."

4. I can't even pick one quote from this. Just read it. So lovely.

5. Reading this was akin to a holy experience. I wanted to say "amen" when i was done (and at several points along the way).

"Strong does not necessarily mean six pack abs. It doesn't mean defined triceps, a body-fat percentage in the single digits, or butt you can bounce quarters off of (is that really a thing?). Strong is the process. It’s the journey from self-consciousness to self-awareness. Strong is thinking about what you want out of life, and realizing that your body is the vessel that has to physically carry you there. It is figuring out how exercise and nutrition fit into the puzzle of wellness that keeps you healthy and happy and sane.

Sometimes wellness means skipping a workout to drink wine with people you care about, or to finish a book that you can’t bear to put down, or to invest a few hours in your career. Sometimes it means yoga and tennis because you’re craving the pursuit of sweat-drenched mindfulness but you also want to hit a ball as hard as you can and grunt in an unladylike manner. Strong is pushing yourself to try scary new things, like hiking to Machu Picchu or your first ever jazz square. In the attempt, you will find new depths of humility (I suck at jazz squares) and new pride in knowing that you have accomplished more than you thought you could.

*****

If you go digging, you will find insurgent movements celebrating the refrain, “Real Women Have Curves” and flaunting chubby tummies and thunder thighs. If, like me, you are the possessor of a tummy that isn't flat and thighs that are not lean, these sentiments may momentarily thrill you. Your people are speaking up! And they are beautiful, which means that you are beautiful too!

But this is a shortsighted solution to a longstanding problem. The endgame here is not to place a different shape, be it a curvy “real woman” or a taut-bodied fitspo model, on the top of the pyramid and declare a new world order. The endgame is to knock down the pyramid.

You are beautiful, but it’s not because your silhouette has suddenly been declared desirable. That edict can change in an instant, my friends, and someone always loses. Wellness does not have to be a zero sum game, so let’s not throw each other under the bus of passing fads. Take care of what you've got. Be well. Be strong."

Searching for God Knows What, chapters 6-10

Miller spends much of chapter 5 talking about the Fall and lifeboat theory. Basically, he proposes that a relationship with God is necessary to give human beings a sense of worth, and that ever since the Fall, we've all been scrambling like crazy to prove our value. Because we no longer have that perfect connection, that innate sense of self-worth and of being loved, we feel the need to somehow demonstrate that we are worth loving, worth the air we breathe and the space we occupy. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to prove that we are worth more than someone else.

This is where nearly all human culture comes from. We explore new technologies so we can be smarter than someone else. We buy cosmetics so we can be prettier than someone else. Every year, teams of athletes compete fiercely to find out who is the best, and whole cities stand or fall on the outcome of the (Superbowl, world cup, semifinals, take your pick). And then the next year, everyone gets traded and shuffled around to new teams, and they do it all over again. What's the point?

"Here is how it feels: From the first day of school the conversation is the same as it would be if hundreds of students were told to stand in line ranging from best to worst, coolest to most uncool, each presenting their case for value, each presenting an offense to the cases of others, alliances being formed as caricatures of reality television (or vice versa)." (pg. 97)

He talks about the old "lifeboat" thought exercise, where there are a bunch of people in a lifeboat but they don't have enough supplies for everyone to survive until they reach shore/are rescued. There's an 87 year old man who was a Boy Scout and Marine, there's a nursing mother and her baby, there's a Black female lawyer, there's a rabbi, there's a kid in a wheelchair, etc. And then you debate about who should die for everyone else. No one ever hesitates in ranking people, no one ever says that all are equal and no one should sacrifice him or herself involuntarily. We assume that our value can be quantified.

"If there are ten people in the lifeboat, and three of them are Jews, adhering to the philosophy that Jews are inferior is enticing. If Jews or Americans or Democrats or whoever are inferior, then I am automatically ahead of 30 percent of the population in the lifeboat. Racism and socioeconomic prejudice would be the very first thing [sic] to start happening in a culture absent God. Not simply because people are "bad" but because a certain system of internal mechanisms would immediately ensue." (pg. 117)

There's an interesting anecdote on pages 157-159. I won't repeat it here because it's long, but read it.