a 10 for success!

it's been 10 days since i posted. on top of working several late nights last week, i started my internship doing PR. i spend (again) 10 hours per week writing and doing the layout for newsletters, making brochures and flyers, etc. it's good way to develop the basic writing and design skills...not exactly what i'm looking to do... but then again maybe it is. who knows. ...i also met with Calvin's Director of Media Relations and he's talking about hooking me up to write some articles covering science stories. i'm afraid that if i go into journalism people are going to keep asking me to write these stories since i have a physics degree. i plan to use my background as an 'in' but then i'll do an extra semseter of grad work and develop an expertise on a different beat topic, such as global issues or religion and spirituality. ...i'm not good at expressing myself, and i'm so afraid that i won't learn how fast enough to be the kick-ass journalimst i'm dreaming of being. i've been thinking about success and how i want it so much, because i want to influence the world for the better...but i wonder if there are warped motivations that are going into this desire. like i need it to keep my pride in tact. or i lived on the east coast with some of the most successful people in the nation (wall street brokers, pastors of the largest churches in manhattan, editors for major publishing houses, reporters for CNN, and the like) and so this success is what i see as 'normal.' of course it comes at the cost of postponing a family, settling down and marriage (however, as far as i can tell i don't want kids, i have a pretty serious case of wanderlust and i'm really not sure i'd be ready to start the hard work of marriage, at least that's what i think). but such would be life in manhattan. anyway, so success. no one thinks someone with a physics degree should be working at a restaurant, but here i am. i should be moving to manhattan and bringing about world peace and inventing time travel and writing the timeless novel, right? is this the success i'm striving for? i mean maybe i want success because i want to be noticed, because i need affirmation that i am worth paying attention to, because i feel like my contributions aren't enough unless theyr'e widely-noticed and well-received. or maybe i'm just dreaming big. is it so wrong to want to be influential? in addition to the realm of influence that everyone possesses in their daily interactions with friends, family, co-workers and strangers, the person of influence builds a platform from which to address the systematic problems of the world. is this so wrong? i mean, i could just be a server/bartender for the rest of my life. ugh.

by the way i now have 10 piano students. the kids aren't particulalry bullheaded and they're all smart, but i'm completely drained after teaching, mostly i think because i dislike it so much. sometimes though it's not so bad...especially with students i've had long enough to get used to.

more to come, as always.

photoshoot

i always take pix of my strawberry airfreshener because i just can't get over how the light shines through it and makes it glow. some may call this strange. i call it dangerous. i really should be paying more attention to where i'm going. ...so turn up your house dance mix and enjoy the show!

strawberry in streetclothes. 

sporty strawberry showcases her swirling skills 

modeling the radiant shine of the latest finishing spray designed for redheads 

close-up 

exit scene 

earmuffs

a friend once said that there are only 3 livable days in the state of michigan. not long ago i was seeing spots from the force of heat and humidity, but today i've been dashing to my closet and back to add a new piece of clothing every hour or so. and i'm still cold. maybe i should resurrect my earmuffs out of the basement. actually, i don't have earmuffs. but if i did...

after a series of engagements this morning, i returned home for the afternoon. my whiteboard is pretty much filled with things to do that have gotten put off because of weddings and funerals and trips home before the funeral. earlier this summer i spent a lot of time walking and praying, but i haven't been out on a walk in weeks! i actually think the last time i really prayed was tuesday, august 9th when i sent out four resumes/cover letters for various communiations internships. i'm doing this whole 'become a journalist in 90 days or less' thing, and an internship would be a tremendous help in this process. i mean physicists just don't become journalists overnight. anyway, i got two of the internships (one in Marketing and PR for a non-profit and one under the Director of Communications...lots of article writing and layout and such...got practice for what i'm going into). now i must be well on my way down the road of the american dream (ha).

anyway, i have to go teach piano lessons...until later...

on Hamburger Helper and Christian doctrine

Velvet Elvis (2005, Rob Bell) has a great take on Christian doctrine, doctrine being the task of putting the concept and character of God into language, the task of describing God. Bell says, "[Doctrine] is something people have struggled with since the beginning: how to talk about God when God is bigger than our words, our brains, our worldviews, and our imaginations" (23). ...the following is an intermingling of ideas on Christian doctrine from this book and from my own thinking...

God tells Moses His name is 'I AM.' "The name's origins come from the verb meaning "to be," so some read it as 'I will be who I will be.' Others suggest it should be read like this: 'I always have been, I am, and I always will be,' Perhaps this is God's way of saying, 'If your goal is to figure me out and totally understand me, it's not going to happen. Even my name is more than you can comprehend' " (24 Bell).

...and so if God is more than we can comprehend, the first question we must ask is whether God is describable in the first place. Moses describes the Israelistes' encounter with God at Mt. Sinai, saying that they 'heard the sound of words but saw no form' (Deut. 4.12, also 15). "In Moses' day, the way you honored and respected whatever gods you followed was by making carvings or sculptures of them and then bowing down to what you had made. These were gods you could get your mind around. Moses is confronting people with an entirely new concept of what the true God is like. He is claiming that no statue or carving could ever capture this God, becuase this God has no shape or form.

"This was a revolutionary idea in the history of religion" (23).

"The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up. And if we made him up, we are in control. And so in passage after passage, we find God reminding people that he is beyond and bigger and more" (25).

And so God is indescribable. So why pursue doctrine in the first place?

Again, it is because God is indescribable that God is God in the first place. "This truth about God is why study and discussion and doctrines are so necessary. They help us put words to realities beyond words. They give us insight and understanding into the experience of God we're having. Which is why the [doctrines] only work when they serve the greater cause: us finding our lives in God" (25).

And so describing God is possible when we're aware of God's indescribability, when we're describing not for the sake of explaining God but for the sake of articulating our own experience of God. Doctrine is for our sake, not for God's sake.

"Take, for example, take the doctrine... called the Trinity. This doctrine is central to historic, orthodox Christian faith. While there is only one God, God is somehow present everywhere. People began to call this presence, this power of God, his 'Spirit.' So there is God, and then there is God's Spirit. And then Jesus comes among us and has this oneness with God that has people saying things like God has visited us in the flesh. So God is one, but God has also revealed himself to us as Spirit and then as Jesus. One and yet three. This three-in-oneness understanding of God emerged in the several hundred years after Jesus' resurrection. People began to call this concept the Trinity. The word trinity is not found anywhere in the Bible. Jesus didn't use the word, and the writers of the rest of the Bible didn't use the word. But over time this belief, this understanding, this doctrine, has become central to how followers of Jesus have understood who God is. It is a spring, and people jumped for thousands of years without it. It was added later. We can take it out and examine it. Discuss it, probe it, question it. It flexes, and it stretches. In fact, its stretch and flex are what make it so effective. It is firmly attached to the frame and the mat, yet it has room to move. And it has brought a fuller, deeper, richer understanding to the mysterious being who is God" (22).

"[For some, faith is] a wall of bricks. Each of the core doctrines ...is like an individual brick that stacks on top of the others. If you pull one out, the whole wall starts to crumble. It appears quite strong and rigid, but if you begin to rethink or discuss even one brick, the whole thing is in danger.

"What if ...the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the follwers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that wre hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? What if as you study the origin of the word virgin, you discover that the word virgin in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word virgin could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first centruy being 'born of a virgin' also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? What if that spring was seriously questioned? ...Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? ...Does the whole thing fall apart?

"I affirm the historic Christian faith, which includes the virgin birth and the Trinity and the inspiration of the Bible and much more. I'm a part of it, and I want to pass it on to th enext generation. I believe that God created everything and that Jesus is Lord and that God has plans to restore everything.

"But if the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring, then it wasn't strong in the first place, was it?

This is because a brick is fixed in size. It can't flex or change size, because if it does, then it can't fit into the wall. What happens then is that the wall becomes the sum total of the beliefs, and God becomes as big as the wall. but God is begger than any wall. God is begger than any religion. God is begger than any worldview. God is bigger that the Christian faith" (26-27).

Afterall, this God is the 'I AM.'

Personally, I like to think of doctrine as Hamburger Helper, but never as the hamburger itself.

'march of the penguins' (2005)

tonight i saw 'march of the penguins,' absolutely amazing. apparently penguins don't mind if cinematographers are camping out around the perimeter of their huddle and approaching the huddle to get up close and personal. the close-ups are incredible. there's also an underwater scene that was shot with a submarine cinematographer. unbelievable. this film is well-made, through and through.

narration
In the original French version of 'March of the Penguins' (2005), each of the main penguins is personified with voice-over narration. It was decided that this style would not do well in the States, so instead of the cartoon-ish voice-over style, we got a National-Geographic-style narration by Morgan Freeman.

themes
this is a pilgrimage story. ...but don't worry, it's not overly dramatized like some National Geographic documentaries. this one is well-toned and offers some thematic comments but mostly focuses on documenting the life cycle of the emperor penguin. keep in mind that one of the main crew members is a biologist, and he pretty much sticks to observing and analyzing.

the story
In the ice deserts of Antarctica, deep in the most inhospitable terrain on Earth, a truly remarkable journey takes place as it has done for millennia. Emperor penguins by the thousands abandon the deep blue security of their ocean home and clamber onto the frozen ice to begin their long journey into a region so bleak, so extreme, it supports no other wildlife at this time of year. In single file, the penguins march blinded by blizzards, buffeted by gale force winds. Guided by instinct, by the otherworldly radiance of the Southern Cross, they head unerringly for their traditional breeding ground where--after a ritual courtship of intricate dances and delicate maneuvering, accompanied by a cacophony of ecstatic song--they will pair off into monogamous couples and mate. The females remain long enough only to lay a single egg. Once this is accomplished, exhausted by weeks without nourishment, they begin their return journey across the ice-field to the fish-filled seas. The male emperors are left behind to guard and hatch the precious eggs, which they cradle at all times on top of their feet. After two long months during which the males eat nothing, the eggs begin to hatch. Once they have emerged into their ghostly white new world, the chicks can not survive for long on their fathers' limited food reserves. If their mothers are late returning from the ocean with food, the newly-hatched young will die. Once the families are reunited, the roles reverse, the mothers remaining with their new young while their mates head, exhausted and starved, for the sea, and food. While the adults fish, the chicks face the ever-present threat of attack by prowling giant petrels. As the weather grows warmer and the ice floes finally begin to crack and melt, the adults will repeat their arduous journey countless times, marching many hundreds of miles over some of the most treacherous territory on Earth, until the chicks are ready to take their first faltering dive into the deep blue waters of the Antarctic.

how they communicate
Each penguin records with great precision the "vocal signature" of his or her partner, and will be able to recognize this signature among thousands.

the shoot
One year and 120 hours of images. A whole winter-over cycle, the cycle of the emperor. Alone in Antarctica. ...A crew member says, "It took me a year to recover. Re-entry is a long process."

the executive crew
JÉRÔME MAISON, a sailor with a good deal of marine biology experience, who specialized in the high seas (Southern seas and Antarctica), and LAURENT CHALET, director of photography with years of both documentary and narrative feature experience, got on famously from the start.

grandma

my dad called to let me know that my that my grandma died earlier this morning. i think he's relieved to have it over with. i am too. ...that's all for now...

more on penguins

p.s. i should note that it is out of water that penguins can jump 6 feet...much like a dolphin. crazy. ...also, you should definitely try playing this game called Penguin Jump. click on the link and then go to the Penguin Jump page. the game will pop up and then you need to click the light pink icon in the bottom right-ish of the page. okay. now the game will begin and you'll need to use your mouse to click and hold on the penguin (for at least a few seconds) until you want to make him jump. then let go. there are various objects flying through the air which you're supposed to capture, but be warned that some give you points and some damage your score. i'll leave it up to you to determine which of sweaters, snowmen, penguins frozen in iceblocks, campfires and fish are good and which are bad! it's not what you would think!
http://www.milkandcookies.com/links/4004/details/

see the road

soon i will be leaving with my brother to head to the detroit area to be with family before my grandmother dies, which will be in the next few days. she's been in hospice since tuesday night and we're pretty much just waiting this out. ...i don't know what to expect for today. my dad left home when he was sixteen, so my relationship with his side of the family has been on and off again. so i guess i'm saying that i don't really know them that well. my cousin jamie has changed a lot, everyone says. good changed, they say. she's living with her boyfriend's family because her family is so messed up...sort of like my dad did, lvling with my mom's family because his family was so screwed up. my grandfather isn't going to be taking things well. he's the most distrusting and mean-spirited person i know. and he chews with his mouth open, to add to his list of virtues. i wonder what he'll do once she's gone.... mostly, i don't know what to expect from my dad. probably because i don't really think he knows how to feel about the situation. obviously he doesn't have the best relationship with his parents, so in some sense i think he'll be absolutely relieved to not have to deal with his mom anymore. she just kept hurting him, again and again, withholding conversation with him or telling him she'd come visit us grandkids and then not showing or telling rumors about my dad. what kind of mother does those things? and how did my dad turn out so darn solid? ...we'll see what story unfolds...

on a lighter and more ridiculous note, have i ever mentioned Rocky the miniature pit bull who lives downstairs? rocky holds the personality of a two-year-old. most days, his evil deeds are manageable. but some days i think he must be possessed or something. FOR EXAMPLE, in the normal course of a day, his misdeeds might include the following:

1. yipping at ev-er-y sin-gle passerby (with yippage occuring approximately every 34 mintues, i've done the math)

2. yipping at ungodly hours of morning (i've also done my homework on this one. 'yipping hour' begins on average at 7.57am. you wonder why i can be out of sorts and cranky in the mornign? ...yeah...)

3. and picking fights with teemu the chocolate lab (also lives downstairs). fights typically involve lots of yipping.

right, so we've concluded so far that rocky's main vice is yipping. which doesn't prove that he's possessed. at least not yet. but there's more. ...last night, as i was returning home from my lil' birthday party and was pulling into my driveway, rocky was out for his evening potty break when...insanity overcame this little menace and he made a beeline for the underbelly of my car!!! i had to slam on my breaks in order to not run him over. seriously, either this dog is just really stupid and or truly possessed by something very dark and evil.

random fact: penguins can jump 6 feet high.

it's time to leave now. see the road. see lots of road.

birthdays are full of good things

good thing numero uno: today i discovered that, with the wind blowing just right, my earrings drone a low whistle in my ears.

numbero dos: i went to the library and checked out a documentary film on art nouveau and also a book on the same topic. can't wait to dig in. oh, i also got a wong kar wai film called 'in the mood for love.' speaking of things i can't wait to dig into, wong kar wai's recently released '2046' is definitely on this list. his work is so candycoated. asian mtv. indulgant, i know. but the colors of packed metropolitan scenes shot at a slowed speeds creates a surreal effect i can't resist.

numero 3: we had birthday cupcakes, birthday milkshakes (turtle sunday, if you must know) and birthday champagne. mmmm. ...all while watching 'say anything' with john (and joan, of course) cusak. quotable:

Lloyd Dobler: I'm gonna take Diane Court out again.

Corey Flood: Well, that's unlikely.

Lloyd Dobler: Is the movies a good second date? You know, as a date?

Corey Flood: Well, you never had a first date.

Lloyd Dobler: Yes we did. I sat across from her at a mall. We ate together. We ate. That's eating. Sharing an important physical event.

Corey Flood: That's not even a scam.

Lloyd Dobler: What's a scam?

Corey Flood: Going out as friends.

D.C.: No, it's not. Scam is lusting.

finally (number cuatro): thanks to all my friends and family who celebrated with me. ...cheers...

i have fond memories of when my grandmother would take us into her pantry at the end of our visits and spoil us with 'candy bags,' brown paper bags filled with all sorts of goodies we picked from the pantry. ...not all my memories are fond, however. i also remember her as immature and selfish. i remember asking her to let me keep a rock i found in her rock garden, and she responded, 'i suppose i'll give it to you, even though i don't really want to'; even as a young child i realized that this just isn't a tone grandmothers are supposed to use with their grandchildren. ...my father left home when he was sixteen because she was controlling. the hardest part of this all is watching him go through it ...because she's dying, i found out today, and he doesn't know whether to be sad or relieved. ...my grandmother is a collector. she's collected everything from christmas items (which decorate her living room year-round) to sunflowers to green bottles and beads displayed in her kitchen window. i took this photo on mother's day when i last visited her.

drunk on charity?

in a time when Christian missions has largely meant giving money to 'the poor people,' quick fixes of charity have made us feel good while probably causing more damage than help to the lives of 'the poor people,' as we've likely only reinforced the systems of poverty by postponing the development of sustainable lives with our quick fixes. ...in a time when Christians are getting drunk on charity while the homeless man rots on the street out front of the bar, we need a better understanding of what exactly Development, Relief and Justice are. the CRWRC (Christian Reformed World Relief Committeee) offers some helpful thoughts on these topics:

Transformational Development
In poor communities around the world and in North America, CRWRC works with local churches and organizations to bring about change. Our goal is complete community transformation to build up the Kingdom of God on earth. The thinking is this:

• A handout might help a family eat today. This is good.
• A job might help the family eat tomorrow. This is better.
• Owning a small business might help that family have a steady stream of income and growing assets. This is better still.
• Yet, living in a community where…

People gather to shape their future together
People work together on programs that will benefit their quality of life
Everyone’s gifts and talents are welcomed and put to use
Leaders are identified, developed, and affirmed
On-going learning leads to awareness, understanding, and improved lives
Justice prevails and laws protect
Civic life is active
Mercy is generous and flowing
Christians are asked to provide input based on biblical values will ensure that people and their neighbors have a lifetime of fruitful living. This is best of all.

...to read more, please go to the development story archives. Or read The Buzzzzz About Bees on the beekeeping industry in Kenya.

Providing Relief. Restoring Hope.
It’s remarkable. Hope somehow manages to exist even in the smallest, poorest villages of world. So when disaster threatens to wash food, life and hope away, CRWRC aims to be on the scene.

CRWRC Disaster Response Services and CRWRC International Relief respond quickly to suffering unleashed by both man-made and natural disasters. Paid and volunteer staff work together with local agencies to distribute food, medicine, blankets and temporary shelter, offering a practical testimony of the hope found in Jesus Christ.

Learn more about CRWRC relief work In North America and Around the World. One story to check out for sure is Relief finally becoming reality in Darfur on the building of latrines in Sudan.

Justice
CRWRC has learned that to really help people overcome poverty, we need to go beyond teaching and training to examine the structural issues that may be keeping people poor. Whether it is civil unrest, lack of knowledge about one's government, lack of land ownership, gender inequality, child labor, or international debt, many factors are at work to limit the potential of people around the world.

CRWRC is working with our partners to advocate for the oppressed and right some of these wrongs. Together, we also provide training in civil rights, human rights, peace-building, and Biblical justice.

Visit the CRC's Office of Social Justice and Hunger Action online. To read stories about CRWRC's justice programs, visit our story archives. A good one to start with is Shining Light on the Shadows .

commence birthday celebration

for my birthday, i wanted to go to breakfast
first thing in the morning. since morning is
technically defined as the time of day which
begins at sunrise, we began the birthday festivities
by watching the sunrise at the lake followed by
a hot chai tea and chocolate-almond bearclaw
pastry breakfast. mmm, i love pastries. ...oh, and
my birthday isn't actually until next week, but
there's no harm in starting early!


6.43am. enough said.

cynicism and gratitude

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

~W. S. Merwin

check-in

all sorts of things have happened in the past few weeks. today was the last of a ten-day marathon of wedding-related activities and get-togethers with the out-of-towners here for the wedding festivities...it has been a long times since i've felt so dog-tired. i gave a lot of energy. wedding energy. car in the shop energy. seeing ex-boyfriend energy. laughing hard with old friends as if nothing had changed energy. wishing some quirks had changed with old friends but realizing they haven't energy. ...among lots of other types of energy. so i'm tired and am looking forward to a good night's rest. it's good to rest when you're dog-tired.

today, this last of a ten-day wedding marathon, i dropped the last out-of-towner at the airport early in the morning. from there i went home to lansing-ish to clelebrate the birthday of my now seventeen-year-old sister. or so i thought. what i didn't find out until i was home was that in fact my family had already celebrated my sister's birthday, so the birthday celebration was in fact intended for me (as my birthday is two weeks after my sister's). good thing i was wearing my sundress for the party :o) ...anyway, for some reason my mom and i were rummaging around the basement and discovered her wedding dress. i had thought she'd sold it or lost it or something, but in fact it was in a box in our basement. and there was clearly no option but to try it on, and it was a perfect fit. ...i don't have any particular person in mind to marry and i'm not so sure i'd pick a late-70s model, long-sleeved, turtle- and lace-necked with beading dress for my own, but it was pretty on...

[i'm quickly fading...i must go to bed now...more to come...]