Thursday, October 30, 2008

a spoonful of sugar

my ennui of late has lifted a bit. perspective arrived in appropriate doses. lunch with a good friend helped (especially when she treated). hearing the insecurities of another friend who has spent the last 8 years working at the same company exactly mirror my own (as i curse my paltry-feeling resume). and then another friend who shall remain nameless told me about once discovering that she left the "l" out of "public" AFTER sending out her resume. thanks for being in solidarity with me.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

differently abled

a while back, i went to the "how berkeley can you be" festival. basically, it's like most street fairs - freshly popped kettle corn, handmade crafts and such. apparently the being as berkeley as you can involves gluing strange objects to your car, say, poker chips, markers, or dinosaur figurines.

bands played all afternoon, and we lolled in the grass while eating overpriced food. my friends and i noticed this girl tumbling and dancing exuberantly to the music. cartwheels, somersaults, handstands, other little acrobatic moves that i can't name. about half an hour later, she was still twirling with the same energy, and we were impressed. then we realized that she had one leg. we couldn't tell how high the prosthetic went, if it was up to her knee or what. you could tell from the way she danced that this was a non-issue for her. when i was the same age as her i think i managed pretty good somersalts and that was about it with my two good legs.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

wtf

Christians feud over Church of Holy Sepulcher
this, among a myriad of other things, makes christians look ridiculous. one of those, "i like the church, if it weren't for all those stupid people in it" kind of moments.

mood ring is black

last week i tried giving the unresponsive job market the silent treatment. "that'll show them!" i thought to myself. surprisingly, that did not provoke anyone to give me a job, or at the very least, an interview. sigh.

in brighter news, my brain is not atrophying i have much time to read and an excellent balcony to read on. "real" summer in the bay area is indian summer - september and october. pity to tourists who think a good summer vacation trip is to come here in june.

last week, i was fortunate enough to see n.t. wright and bart ehrman debate the nature of suffering & God ( this link is to their online debate on beliefnet - some of what they write is what they covered live). unfortunately i missed the free booze and hors d'Ĺ“uvres accompanying the hefty admission. it was well worth it though. ehrman kind of reminds me of psalm writers in the old testament - they look around at the state of the world and demand, cry out, to know why it is happening. wright reminds us of the long-term plan of god to bring total reconciliation and healing to the world. of course they could both talk until they are blue in the face and be no closer to an answer. but it is good to consider suffering, to care about what is happening in the world, to push our assumptions in our faith and see where it cracks and figure out how to respond to that. i find myself sympathetic to ehrman's position, but cannot bring myself to become an agnostic - i would be intrigued to read his book. i was talking about the debate to someone, and they responded "oh, well it's because ehrman went to princeton seminary, that's how he lost his faith" ... this statement irritated me, in the same way as when another person stated to me that "she didn't believe in global warming." i'm not really getting the jump in logic there.

it was interesting to go from this debate between calm collected academics to the conference "global slavery and the plague of poverty" at my church. speakers came from india, southeast asia, bolivia and uganda. through a written account, elizabeth shared how she had been forced into the sex trade, spent a year in a brothel and how the international justice mission helped her. she just graduated from college, the first in her family to do so. in the face of incredible abuse and suffering her faith remained intact she prayed each day, wrote this psalm on her wall:
1 The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When evil men advance against me
to devour my flesh,
when my enemies and my foes attack me,
they will stumble and fall.
3 Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
even then will I be confident.

i found myself silent in the face of ehrman's questions in the same way i was silent after her testimony. in the great tension, in the great awfulness and evil present in the world, we cry out, and we find that He is there. in more ways than we can ask or imagine. in other ways that we ask or imagine.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

calling all techies

anyone out there in the internets want to tell my why my sidebar of links is now displayed way at the bottom of the page? it's been like that for a while. i was hoping that the problem would resolve itself as spontaneously as it began. what the heck.

Monday, October 20, 2008

bad theology

acutal text conversation with a student:

me: hey did you see the trailer for the movie? (ed note: referring to the film call and response, about global slavery)
student: yes i did. scary shit.
m: you said shit.
s: i'm sorry.
m: whatever. see you in hell.
s: yeah, i'll see you there.
m: at least it'll be warm.
s: yeah, we'll have nice tans.
m: and possibly smores!
s:and we'll know satan.
m: yeah that guy knows everyone cool.

utter nonsense! it still makes me laugh.

Friday, October 10, 2008

noted

to a cat, a laundry basket with some folded clean shirts in it doesn't look like a laundry basket with folded clean shirts.

it looks a lot like a litter box.

thus, my shirts need to be washed of cat urine.

lesson learned.

omg

ok. so just for fun i join the "bacon" group on flickr.com

i forget about joining until tonight, when in my unemployed boredom i click on the link.

and see this...

this here is are chocolate chip cookie, with bacon bits in the dough, maple glaze, and then more bacon topping. i should hope that is real bacon and not bacon bits. i mean, come on, now.

i am repulsed and tempted at the same time. anyone else?