Just spent the day working on this...

http://foxchapelepisocaplyouth.blogspot.com/

So now my question is...

Not sure if it was tiredness or hormones or actual real thoughts (blurry line there) but as I wrote about the “importance of not reading the NT into the OT, and letting the original ache and hope of the Psalm work itself out in our hearts,” I found myself very skeptical that it mattered at all.

All these papers, all these lofty assertions: about correct hermeneutics, about choosing theologically potent songs and prayers for worship, about ecumenism, about women speaking in church, about marriage, about dispensationalism….

What difference does it make?

Each season has a different focus, a different question that seems to rise in my life. And this is the question now. What do all those lovely conclusions mean in the reality of a person’s life?

The people at my church are slowly beginning to open up, to reveal hurts, insecurities, pride, fear, questions… my students (the jr.s and sr.s) do not know where the Bible came from. They do not know who Esther or Ruth is. They do not care about eschatology or symbolism or layers of meaning or any of it.

I mean, they seem kindof interested, open, but it’s totally new, all of it. And totally stale at the same time.

I feel this surge of – shock, enlightenment, despair… on the one hand, I suddenly feel the urgency of all that I learned: who will tell these kids that Christianity is a scandal and a delight and a burden and a mystery? Who will tell them of the hope to which they are called?

But on the other hand, I feel so wobbly in my own conviction. How sure am I that these things are true, that they matter, that they make sense enough to be able to explain them to middle schoolers. If it doesn’t make sense on that level, is it…true?

Scattered, withered, birthdayed

This week has been hungrily eaten up by the "easter video"... a long unbroken series of days and nights with beer and coffee flowing, people coming and going all day, all night, and me, on my laptop flitting in and out attempting to cheer them on and simultaneously remain sane.

I nearly burst into tears today when I realized samm would be leaving the day after tomorrow for a week to Chicago. I feel like we haven't spoken in days, except about survival:

-hand me a kleenex!
-here, take keats (the cat.)
-oh shoot, someone get the beers out of the freezer.
-how's that paper going, kathryn?
-someone make coffee again.
-this project is awful!
-no it's not!
-ahhhhhhhhhhhh *(U(R*(@$%IU*$(#)


Etc.

Art. What a struggle to press through the blurry moments of insanity. Especially when it isn't my art, specifically. I think I'll take a little credit anyhow for making all that coffee and giving everyone lots of flinstone vitamins. It has to help.


I should go to sleep. Tomorrow, well, today now, is my birthday, so I feel pressure to stop being so stressed and have some fun. We are meeting a guy from TX who is an "artist pastor" which is fun and i'll spend the rest of the day finishing a paper.

Here is my (current) thesis:

Ps. 110 offers a stark reminder of the message of the breaking in of the kingdom. In a time when “holy war” reminds readers of planes crashing into the World Trade Center, this Psalm serves as a potent reminder that Christ’s Priestly role ushering in peace and His Kingly role executing judgment are integrally connected.

Now i just have to prove that...

Big Day in My World

So as Greek has been an utter disaster lately, I have begun to consider - besides academia - what else might I have to offer the world. So music, really, is the other thing that i basically left in a box since high school in pursuit of theology. A good choice but now, I find myself back at a similar looking crossroads: and I may go a different route than I did the last go around. I remember being at an artist retreat near Nashville the summer before Moody. I was around Matthew Perryman Jones and roomed with Katy Bower... all these wonderful people doing music professionally. And I was headed to Bible college.

Now I am floundering a bit - I can't see myself actually doing music for a profession, but I feel (suddenly, strongly) that I have to try, have to record and write and try to put all this theology into expressions of my heart... I feel like a little girl and wish I had a bigger better plan for my life right now.

But here is my first recorded (by myself) song. dedicated to Christine. The first half is about how i used to have so much to say about God. Then I realized what kindof things he did, allowed, took away. The second half of the song is what I have to say in response: absolutely nothing.




:)