I'm in a World Civilizations class this semester, covering about 1500 until now-ish. I was not excited to actually have to take the class, but since I'm just taking it online, it's interesting. I read a chapter, take a test, and post my answers to the discussion questions every week. It takes less than 3 hours. Anyways...this week my chapter is about the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution. I already know quit a bit abut it thanks to AIMS World History and Ms. Calvano, but it's kind of weird now. I can't think of a better adjective. But these guys that I learned about in school, Voltaire and Locke and others, hated Christians and Christianity. They believed and trusted solely in science and things that were 'rational' and could be proven. They also, interestingly, thought that the existence of God could be 'empirically deduced by the contemplation of nature.' They didn't believe in divine revelation, but deists believed that there was a God who created the world and that we have life after death, to be rewarded or punished based on our deeds while on earth. In some ways it's odd that these men have affected a lot of how we understand the world, the freedoms we have now in the United States, but they were very opposed to the church as a whole. Or Freud, who was horribly sexist and crazy, but I still have to study and learn things that he taught. I don't like Freud.
In some ways, I can see why though. The church in the Middle Ages wasn't really known for their toleration or compassion. England couldn't decided whether it hated the Protestants or Catholics and alternately killed both, Spain had the Inquisition, and torture was pretty well accepted for 'heretics.' The Catholic church accepting indulgences and the persecution and silencing of former scientists (i.e. Copernicus and Galileo) probably didn't help matters either. It's like the beginning of the idea that science and religion can't agree; they're almost always seen as opposing and enemies, like the ideas taught by the church are so ridiculous and unable to measure. In some ways, yeah, they are. The fact that God became a human being, that one God is also 3 people, that forever exists or that heaven and hell are real places...it's more than I can understand and more than science can explain. There's more to life than matter and energy, more than can fit into the bow of things that are scientifically explainable. My theology professor last year attended a state college and he was talking about his biology class. The professor as talking about the human body and the heart and the fact that scientists don't know what makes the heart start beating...it just does. It's like science acknowledges that there are things unexplainable through scientific processes, but pretends there aren't.
I could go on about science and religion, but my point was just that so much of our cultural understanding and the importance of science came from these men who would think that I'm ignorant and an idiot and intolerant and...a religious fanatic. I love learning, so I just thought it was intriguing, especially studying this at a Christian university.
Vaya con Dios.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
You're alone and you're scared, but the banquet's all prepared
My life is not my own.
That's what I've been learning this past weekend especially. I went home and realized how much I missed Arizona weather. It seems crazy, because I've spent the past 21 years complaining about the heat, and wanting to go out of Arizona for college and maybe wanting to leave for after college, but I was glad to be home and appreciated the consistency in weather. As much as I don't always like the heat, it's nice to know that when I wake up it will be really hot and in the afternoon it will be really hot and at 11 pm it will be really hot. California weather is so temperamental and up and down and cloudy in the morning, but sweltering by 10:30, when I get off of work. Ugh.
But...back to learning. Through Stuff Christians Like and Troy talking at church this past weekend, I'm learning (or trying to) that my life and what I do with it isn't about my comfort zone, my preferences, and what I think I'd be best at. I'm not saying that God doesn't use the skills and passions He's given me in using me as a part of His plan, but my primary concern is and should be His plan, what He's doing, and were He's leading. The limited place where I'm comfortable is not the top of His list I don't think, because He can gift me to do anything or use me and work through me when and where I'm not gifted.
Another reason I'm really glad I went home this past weekend, besides having fun and hanging out with people, is hearing Troy's message at church Sunday morning and a brief one at youth worship night Sunday night. They were both awesome. He talked about being contagious as Christians rather than complacent and compromising. He talked along similar lines on Sunday night and what kept running through my head is that my life is not mine to dictate and control. It's not up to me to decide.
As a result of this idea and Troy's message this weekend, I signed up for a couple different ministries at Biola, at least to learn more. I did not sign up for the ministries involved in working with kids, even though that is always my first inclination. Working with kids is, to me, easiest. I'm comfortable teaching Sunday School to K-1st graders and working with preschoolers far more than being a camp counselor for junior high and high school students. For a long time, I've thought that God's plan for me is to work with kids as a career and as a service to Him. But especially in the past couple of years, working with Horizons students and praying with high school girls where I know that those were not my words coming out...maybe my love of kids and my ease and comfort in teaching and working with them doesn't equal God's plan for my future. Maybe God wants to stretch me more.
So at the ministry fair, I avoided the booths for child-related ministries and specifically signed up at 2 booths way outside my comfort zone, Women's Care in the social justice ministry and Brown Bag, which is ministry and friendship with the homeless. Both of these terrify me. I went to an info meeting for Women's Care tonight and they were talking with working with a home for women, 17 and over, teaching life skills classes and hosting book studies and writing letters to women in prison and I was like...um...I don't know how to do that. I am not quipped; maybe this isn't for me. Staying and listening though, I wanted to do it. Working with kids is easy and comfortable, but life isn't supposed to be easy and comfortable. I want to grow and learn and step outside the small arena that I feel totally comfortable in.
God's prepared the way before me; He's already present and working in whatever situation I find myself in, whether it's a castle with talking clocks or teaching life skills and discussing books with victims of sex trafficking. God is awesome.
I don't think Troy reads this, but if you do...thanks.
Vaya con Dios.
That's what I've been learning this past weekend especially. I went home and realized how much I missed Arizona weather. It seems crazy, because I've spent the past 21 years complaining about the heat, and wanting to go out of Arizona for college and maybe wanting to leave for after college, but I was glad to be home and appreciated the consistency in weather. As much as I don't always like the heat, it's nice to know that when I wake up it will be really hot and in the afternoon it will be really hot and at 11 pm it will be really hot. California weather is so temperamental and up and down and cloudy in the morning, but sweltering by 10:30, when I get off of work. Ugh.
But...back to learning. Through Stuff Christians Like and Troy talking at church this past weekend, I'm learning (or trying to) that my life and what I do with it isn't about my comfort zone, my preferences, and what I think I'd be best at. I'm not saying that God doesn't use the skills and passions He's given me in using me as a part of His plan, but my primary concern is and should be His plan, what He's doing, and were He's leading. The limited place where I'm comfortable is not the top of His list I don't think, because He can gift me to do anything or use me and work through me when and where I'm not gifted.
Another reason I'm really glad I went home this past weekend, besides having fun and hanging out with people, is hearing Troy's message at church Sunday morning and a brief one at youth worship night Sunday night. They were both awesome. He talked about being contagious as Christians rather than complacent and compromising. He talked along similar lines on Sunday night and what kept running through my head is that my life is not mine to dictate and control. It's not up to me to decide.
As a result of this idea and Troy's message this weekend, I signed up for a couple different ministries at Biola, at least to learn more. I did not sign up for the ministries involved in working with kids, even though that is always my first inclination. Working with kids is, to me, easiest. I'm comfortable teaching Sunday School to K-1st graders and working with preschoolers far more than being a camp counselor for junior high and high school students. For a long time, I've thought that God's plan for me is to work with kids as a career and as a service to Him. But especially in the past couple of years, working with Horizons students and praying with high school girls where I know that those were not my words coming out...maybe my love of kids and my ease and comfort in teaching and working with them doesn't equal God's plan for my future. Maybe God wants to stretch me more.
So at the ministry fair, I avoided the booths for child-related ministries and specifically signed up at 2 booths way outside my comfort zone, Women's Care in the social justice ministry and Brown Bag, which is ministry and friendship with the homeless. Both of these terrify me. I went to an info meeting for Women's Care tonight and they were talking with working with a home for women, 17 and over, teaching life skills classes and hosting book studies and writing letters to women in prison and I was like...um...I don't know how to do that. I am not quipped; maybe this isn't for me. Staying and listening though, I wanted to do it. Working with kids is easy and comfortable, but life isn't supposed to be easy and comfortable. I want to grow and learn and step outside the small arena that I feel totally comfortable in.
God's prepared the way before me; He's already present and working in whatever situation I find myself in, whether it's a castle with talking clocks or teaching life skills and discussing books with victims of sex trafficking. God is awesome.
I don't think Troy reads this, but if you do...thanks.
Vaya con Dios.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights and cups of coffee
I think blogging is like some sort of addiction. Once I start, I keep thinking of amazingly brilliant things to tell everyone. Or maybe I just like the feeling on my thoughts being in a computer and not all crammed in my head. I read in a book last week that journaling for a few minutes before you go to bed will help you sleep better. I have no doubt that it will, but I always just want to go to sleep so my thoughts are all stuck in my brain.
I just finished reading a Jodi Picoult book. She likes to write books about controversial things. They usually flash back and forth so you don't even really know what's going until a ways into it and she uses a lot of different people's points of view so it's even more confusing. There's also usually a court case of some sort and s dramatic revelation at the eleventh hour. I like her books; they're entertaining and easy to read. They're usually a good escape from having to think too much. But I did not like the one I just finished. I was really depressed after it. It was a story about a guy who was accused of raping a student at the school he used to teach at. After 8 months in jail, he moved somewhere new, started dating a girl, and then a girl in the new town accuses him of rape. Addie, the girl he starts dating, had been raped at the end of high school by 3 guys, 2 of whom still live in her small town. The accused rapist/teacher, Jack, stood by in college when his friends from the soccer team regularly gang raped girls. Since he was often the top scorer, he got to go first and just pretended the rest didn't happen. Then, very dramatically (to completely ruin the ending), after Jack wins the case, the author reveals that Gillian, the accuser, is regularly sexually abused by her dad, who also by the way was the leader of the group that raped Addie back in high school, along with the police chief. After I finished the last page, I wanted to cry.
I've joked before that authors have higher expectations or opinions of people that movie producers. Books are way more likely to end unhappily and the endings get changed when they're made into movies, like in Dear John and My Sister's Keeper. But sometimes, I just like happy endings. It's probably part of the reason I like Harry Potter so much. I always knew the ending was going to be basically happy, that Voldemort would die and all would be well. The books and authors I've been finding and reading more lately do not seem to like happy endings very much. I know that life isn't made up of happy endings and I don't like cheesiness, but I read to have a break from normal life. I think it's silly that a lot of Christian authors don't seem to think that Christians can live past the pioneer era, but I like those books. There's twists and conflict, but you know it's all going to be okay. You know it's not going to just end after a court trial with a father making out with his daughter.
I've been thinking about racism more too, because I'm in a Peoples of Ethnic America class, so we've been talking and reading about it. Sometimes I think that I like to pretend that racism doesn't really exist. That it's exaggerated and people are just lazy and...whatever else. We were talking about 'white privilege' in class today, about the idea or reality that white people have an advantage over people of other races, that merely by being white we don't suffer as much and aren't discriminated against. The author of the essay was female so she also talked about male privilege, that generally guys are privileged and have an advantage, just because they're male. They don't have to worry about the same sexism-related issues or wonder if the reason that someone talks like you're an idiot or doesn't acknowledge your contribution to a Bible discussion is because you're female. My opinions on women and our role must be selfishly rooted and emotionally driven. Why is t that even I am more impressed by a male writer who's more egalitarian than I am by a woman?
Life is too complicated. I wish I was at Hogwarts.
Vaya con Dios.
I just finished reading a Jodi Picoult book. She likes to write books about controversial things. They usually flash back and forth so you don't even really know what's going until a ways into it and she uses a lot of different people's points of view so it's even more confusing. There's also usually a court case of some sort and s dramatic revelation at the eleventh hour. I like her books; they're entertaining and easy to read. They're usually a good escape from having to think too much. But I did not like the one I just finished. I was really depressed after it. It was a story about a guy who was accused of raping a student at the school he used to teach at. After 8 months in jail, he moved somewhere new, started dating a girl, and then a girl in the new town accuses him of rape. Addie, the girl he starts dating, had been raped at the end of high school by 3 guys, 2 of whom still live in her small town. The accused rapist/teacher, Jack, stood by in college when his friends from the soccer team regularly gang raped girls. Since he was often the top scorer, he got to go first and just pretended the rest didn't happen. Then, very dramatically (to completely ruin the ending), after Jack wins the case, the author reveals that Gillian, the accuser, is regularly sexually abused by her dad, who also by the way was the leader of the group that raped Addie back in high school, along with the police chief. After I finished the last page, I wanted to cry.
I've joked before that authors have higher expectations or opinions of people that movie producers. Books are way more likely to end unhappily and the endings get changed when they're made into movies, like in Dear John and My Sister's Keeper. But sometimes, I just like happy endings. It's probably part of the reason I like Harry Potter so much. I always knew the ending was going to be basically happy, that Voldemort would die and all would be well. The books and authors I've been finding and reading more lately do not seem to like happy endings very much. I know that life isn't made up of happy endings and I don't like cheesiness, but I read to have a break from normal life. I think it's silly that a lot of Christian authors don't seem to think that Christians can live past the pioneer era, but I like those books. There's twists and conflict, but you know it's all going to be okay. You know it's not going to just end after a court trial with a father making out with his daughter.
I've been thinking about racism more too, because I'm in a Peoples of Ethnic America class, so we've been talking and reading about it. Sometimes I think that I like to pretend that racism doesn't really exist. That it's exaggerated and people are just lazy and...whatever else. We were talking about 'white privilege' in class today, about the idea or reality that white people have an advantage over people of other races, that merely by being white we don't suffer as much and aren't discriminated against. The author of the essay was female so she also talked about male privilege, that generally guys are privileged and have an advantage, just because they're male. They don't have to worry about the same sexism-related issues or wonder if the reason that someone talks like you're an idiot or doesn't acknowledge your contribution to a Bible discussion is because you're female. My opinions on women and our role must be selfishly rooted and emotionally driven. Why is t that even I am more impressed by a male writer who's more egalitarian than I am by a woman?
Life is too complicated. I wish I was at Hogwarts.
Vaya con Dios.
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