Mind What Your Mother Says...

Mom thinks it is high time I updated this blog. Other friends have hinted at this over the past couple of months, too. Sorry folks! Not that you sit anxiously chomping at the bit awaiting my little blog posts. Geez! You know I save the good stuff for face to face or voice to voice anyway! I should let you all know that the scene outside my windows is finally looking different. Trees are budding and/or in bloom. The grass is really, really green. I'm sneezing and blowing my nose from the pollen. It is dark out now otherwise I'd take a photo and post it. New Jersey is beautiful in the springtime. It just takes a long time for Spring to come. We are in the last week of classes and trees or only now blooming. This is a bit behind schedule if you ask me. I've tried to keep track of when the trees begin to bloom since moving away from the Evergreen state to New Jersey and I expect it by the first of April. Not this year though!

Meanwhile, I'm sitting on the couch with my feet up, trying to look relaxed while I scrunch my head and burn brain calories translating a German translation of a Greek text into English. Did ya catch that? It's for a final paper and a doozy of a one at that. I'm happy working on it, though and that is always a good thing, right!?

Happy Spring Semester!!!!

I took a little blogging break as I enjoyed my "one week of freedom" in the academic year that is Princeton Theological Seminary's! Hah! And even that had reading to prep for classes for spring semester! Oh, well! I enjoyed myself--lots of movies, cleaning and organizing the apartment and hanging with good friends. Not going to complain. And then, I rolled out of bed today, after hitting snooze once or twice (ouch--back to a normal sleep schedule) to discover a beautiful view from my windows. I love looking out to the back of our building rather than to the front, where the street and parking lot are! It was just a dusting, and so classes were on normal schedule (God's got a wicked sense of humor as I know for a fact some people were on their knees begging/praying for a big snow and cancellation of classes today). The dusting was just fine with me as I was excited for my classes (the two I had today were FABULOUS!). It was so beautiful, too! I'd still love one big snow dump, but as winter can stick around until the first of April in grand 'ole New Jersey, there is still hope!

Hostess of the Mostess?

So, my friend Nicole stayed with me for a few days a week back because her apartment was loaned out to friends and she ended up needing to come back earlier than expected. We had a grand 'ole time. Only problem was that the poor girl is addicted to Diet Coke (she drinks it for breakfast!). She found my beverage offerings to be somewhat limited in that 1.) I have no soda in the apartment, 2) that left me with milk, water, OJ and tons of tea to offer her, and 3.) Nicole thinks tea tastes like grass and will have nothing to do with it. Thus, she kept having to go down to the lobby and buy Diet Coke from the vending machine. Well, once Nicole left and went back to her own apartment I wised up and purchased a 6 pack of mini Diet Coke (they were just too cute to pass up and I'd always wanted to buy the minis) to have around for hosting purposes. My friend, Anna Kate, pictured above, is also pretty connected to her Diet Coke so I figured my purchase was a good investment. And so it was with great pleasure the other night that I was able to offer her a Diet Coke to drink when she came over to my place. Well the plan was that this little six pack would last me a while as I generally never drink coke myself. Herein is the problem. I've been in "finals mode" going on three weeks now and my eating hasn't been the greatest, especially this last week. Pizza, Chinese food take-out, homemade paninis and tuna melts, you get the point. My little pack of mini Diet Cokes came to mind each time I sat down to one of these nutritious dinners. Lo and behold, I am now out of Diet Cokes! Oops! So much for my grand plan. I'm either a) going to have to buy more in order to continue to be a good host and risk the fact that I might also drink them myself or b.) quit buying them so that I don't keep drinking them and risk being a bad host. What's a girl to do? Any thoughts???

When I was a child...

and still in diapers, "wipes" were a way of life. Now that I am an adult, I've been reintroduced to them. The ones pictured above are for adults. Watch out, now. I see you laughing. Don't mock until you give 'em a try. It just might revolutionize your life. It did mine!

"It's hard work, but it feels good!" ~A.K.E.

My place of work the past two weeks has varied only slightly. When I'm writing, though, I usually spread out at the kitchen table because it is bigger than my desk in my room. As you can see, I can be kind of messy. The good news is that I have two papers done and only one to go. The scary thing, though, is that the last one is due Saturday morning. I'm in high-gear! It's not a joke! "It's hard work, but it feels good!" Thus saith, A.K.E.! :-)

Neighbors

I looked outside my window the other day to see these guys in the backyard eating lunch at about the same time as me. Naturally, I dropped my food, grabbed my camera and clicked a few shots before they left. Oh course, the whole time I was thinking, "Great! Some new pix for my blog!" So much for being in the moment, right? Ha! But really, you can't plan this stuff! You're just glad when it happens! We have been having such a warm winter, I think my "neighbors" were happy to go out for lunch! :)

I made a little clucking noise to get him to look up! Smart, eh?

He decided to go somewhere else for dessert!

Random Ramblings...

Okay, I know you are probaby saying to yourself, "Isn't that what she's always up to on this blog of hers?" but give me a moment.
1. Filling out the form correctly the first time around saves you a lot of time and hassle.
2. I've been linked on Heavy Duty Power and am feeling pretty special right now.
3. One paper down, two to go--one of which I will commence writing tomorrow at 8am. YES!!!
4. I love going grocery shopping.
5. Sometimes rambling to a friend while you are supposed to be studying is really helpful.
6. It all gets done in the end so don't stress.
7. Adding cut up orange slices to a spinah salad with a nice homemade vinegarette dressing is remarkably refreshing.
8. Why was today a no mail day? :(
9. Thank goodness for protective cases for iPods--never leave home without one!
10. A mere 30 minutes of snow flurries is way too tempting and mean!

Okay! I'm done! Back to the grind!

Remember the Sabbath Day...

There was a time, when I used to feel guilty, back in undergrad days, when I didn't make the best use of the weekend, getting every last jot and tittle of my unrealistic plan for studying accomplished. Then somewhere along the way, still in undergrad, I was introduced to the concept of keeping the Sabbath. Some concept, huh? Not exactly new! :-) But still new to me. I remembered my parents loving their Sunday naps and hating when they made me have quiet time in my room so they could rest in peace, but I never connected it to Sabbath-keeping. After all, Dad was working hard on Sunday morning as a pastor. I just figured they were tired and that was all there was to it. Well, the exhaustion that comes with being an overachiever, new to college life and freedom to stay up LATE, hang with friends at all hours, etc, finally caught up to me not long into SPU life. Thus, when Marva Dawn came and spoke to us about the idea of keeping the Sabbath and SPU got on board with talk of Sabbath culture or something (we were all about culture talk at SPU), I was all ears. I read her book on it, and loved the concept so much I was inspired to enact it in my own life--much to my little mind and body's surprise and delight. It's a good thing!!

All of this to say that today, when my 40-minute power nap before working on my Aquinas paper turned into 3 hours of heavy sleeping, I relished in it rather than say FREAKING OUT THAT I'M BEHIND IN MY PAPER WRITING SCHEDULE! Seriously, I'm now fully recharged and my mind is as clear as a bell. I'll have many productive hours to write tonight and that is all that matters. Thanks, God, for making the Sabbath for us and not us for the Sabbath!

PS: A word to the wise, sleeping with two fleece blankets over you does not seem to help one stick to a 40-minute nap schedule. I was so incredibly warm and toasty (but not TOO warm and toasty) that my body felt on kind of a movement lock-down. I couldn't possibly have gotten up any earlier if I had tried. Wild horses would have had to drag those blankets from me! Or somethin'! ;-)

Still Dancing...

"Yes, Virginia, it's true. Shannon still does interpretive dance." Some of you are privy to the fact of my legendary history of interpretive dance, especially while enrolled at Seattle Pacific University. I entertained the masses. Well, not exactly, but almost. A few of you saw me dance once or twice during my first two years of PTS. I must confess, I hadn't danced recently. But going home for Christmas brought it out in full force. Of course, the seeds of my dancing go all the way back to my childhood when I would "entertain" my lucky babysitter by dancing around to my records in our living room. I remember feeling at that tender age that some day I would be doing this on a bigger scale. What can I say, guess I'm a visionary!

These pictures are from Christmas Eve night. We've just finished opening our gifts and you can see my brother in the background. In photo op #1 he's delighted by my interpretation of "Breath of Heaven." By the second photo, he's gone back to fiddling with my new iHome (yippee!) and is ignoring me completely. That's okay. I was inspired. Believe it or not, I was thinking through my theses for the three final papers I'm now working on back in P-town. Now that's something to dance about! ;-)

Retraction

Forget going home for Christmas.* My brother just informed me that my parents have finally caved in in their old age and purchased a fa...this is so hard to say...a fak....I think I'm going to be sick....a fake...there!...A FAKE CHRISTMAS TREE!! What?????? Excuse me??? Are you for real?? I feel completely taken for the fool. My mother announces to me a few weeks back that I am really going to love the tree this year. "It's so big," she said. "And very pretty. Our prettiest one yet." Being the trusting child that I am I take her at her word and never stop to think maybe, just maybe, she's referring to a big "beautiful" FAKE TREE!!!!!! Good grief! Look, if I'd wanted to sit in front of a fake tree, I would have just stayed in P-town with my little 14-inch fake tree from Michaels and drunk myself to death with my over abundance of Christmas tea while listening to Clay Aiken singing "Mary did you know?" and Amy Grant singing "Breath of Heaven." Seriously! What were they thinking? They live in God's country--the beautiful Pacific Northwest. WA is the freakin' Evergreen state!! I mean, how hard could it be to procure a real live Douglass Fir or whatever??? Christmas tree farms in our little corner of the world are about as ubiquitious as Starbucks are in Seattle or any other big city in the world for that matter.

My brother warned me not to make too big a deal out of it and to do all of my mourning before going home as he thinks that my parents are dreading my response. Maybe they should have been forthcoming with me in the first place! As it is, they've set me up to give them grief. They were surprised when Samuel made as big of a deal of it as he did when he arrived home from southern Cali. Here's what he had to say to that: "i live in southern california. where pine trees are a myth that exist only on hallmark cards and in plastic form on hollywood movie lots." Poor boy! Give him some real green!

Well, Mom and Dad, if you are reading this blog, you know the secret is out! I'll do my best to mourn from a distance so that I can keep an open mind when I finally do get home. I ended my last post of longing with a nice little Advent reflection. Can I make such a leap this time?? If I take a stab at it it will only be cheesier than the previous one. Here goes: Perhaps I should consider this fake Christmas tree as but a tiny sign of the still-to-be-100% redeemed world (ie: it's part of the "not yet") for which Christ was born into the world. If so, I can never be fully satisfied and say, "It is well." No, no! I must brave on, praying and working for the day when all Christmas trees will be real. So there!

*This statement is meant for effect only and should not be read literally!

O Christmas Tree

My mom tells me the Christmas tree this year is the best one ever, all big and full and beautifully decorated. It didn't help that I woke up on Monday morning wishing I was home already, cup of tea in hand, sitting in front of the lighted tree, making up for lost time. Sigh. Not that this last week in P-town isn't filled with fun holiday cheer. Monday night was the Young Adult Christmas Open House for my church. Last night I had dinner with the family whose kids I babysit on Wednesdays. Tonight is the seminary Christmas concert followed by time hanging out with friends. Tomorrow night I'm going over to a friend's place for yummy treats. And then it's Friday. TGIF. Oh wait, Friday night is looking a bit bleak. Everyone will pretty much have already left. I guess I'll be cleaning, doing laundry, watching a movie...longing to be in front of the family tree with the fam. Sigh. As it is, I won't officially be home (as in pulling up to the driveway) until after midnight on Saturday night (a.k.a., on Christmas Eve). I've never gotten home for Christmas so late before. I don't know if I like it. We open our gifts as a family on Christmas Eve night so I'll be wrapping all my gifts earlier in the day. I'm usually the first one to put gifts under the tree. Not this year. If only it didn't cost an arm and a leg to change a flight. Okay, enough of my complaining. At least I'll be home for Christmas. Maybe I should take advantage of my longing and consider the even more important time of waiting and longing for the in-breaking of God into our world that is signified by Advent season. After all, we know that all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. God did assume human flesh unto God's self and enter our broken world and frail humanity. And God will come again to finish what God began. When I look at it in this light, what is a few more days away from home longing to be in front of the Christmas tree???

Begin

Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of light at the window,
begin to the roar of summoning traffic
all along the Pembroke Road.
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in the dark
determination and exaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
and arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and the future
old friends passing though with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces,
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.
--Brendan Kennelly

Would you have been able to answer this?

This morning in the 6th grade Sunday school class, we had a little party since it was our last class before the New Year. By way of review of what we've been learning all fall and for a little fun competitive game, I made a Jeopardy game for the kids to play. Every week, we open class with a reading from the Old Testament that features in the New Testament somehow. Every week we mix up the opening reading a little bit, trying to keep the kids engaged and involved. Liz, one of the other teachers, the past two weeks, has printed out the passage on strips of paper and invited a group of kids to come to the front of the class and do a reading of the day's Scripture passage. This has gone over really well with the kids. They all clamor on top of each other for the coveted seven reading parts. Then, those chosen kids, read aloud their part with all of the dramatic flare their little 6th grade personalities can muster (which is quite a lot!!). I was curious how much of the passage they were actually taking in though so, since we had had the same passage for three weeks in a row, I decided to figure the passage in to the final Jeopardy answer. Here's what they were up against:
"In Isaiah 61:1-2, this is one of the many things God's anointed one was sent to do."

Much to my delight, all three teams got this right. They had been listening all along!

As we head into this final week of Advent leading up to Christmas, take time, if you can, to read Isaiah 61:1-2 and rejoice in the good news that this is who Jesus Christ was, is and will be for all people. Amen!

Merry, mery, merry, merry Christmas!

Oh the secrets that were told! Last year, my friend, Millason, helped Aramark cater the annual faculty Christmas party at the house of the President of Princeton Theological Seminary. She worked the coat check and had the funniest stories about seeing the "before" and "after" professors--i.e., seeing them before and after booze! As you can see from the picture, I was quite intent on taking it all in. I was so entertained by her stories that I decided right then and there--back in December 0f 2005--that come next December I was going to work the faculty Christmas party come hell or high water! :-)

Yep! Just got home! It was highly entertaining... Let's just say, the professors like to get loosened up by a little vino. I myself got to bring home two bottles, along with a nice little tip for working the coats so efficiently. Yeah, baby! It was truly a merry time!

And you thought there was nothing good on day-time televsion!

Ha! Check this out! I beg to differ! This is Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y!!!! I'm still smiling and have been listening to my Les Miserables soundtrack ever since....at the end of the day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhXsJjVdj1E

Thursdays are T-days

T for Thomas
Thomas as in "of Aquinas"
Read: Scholastic medieval theologian who wrote way too much and literally put the "systematic" in Systematic Theology.
Are you hooked?

I sure wasn't at the beginning of the semester and even now I'm quick to say that Thomas Aquinas is NOT the reason I went into Systematic Theology. However, now that I know an inkling about Thomist studies, I find SOME of it interesting--most particularly, the various schools of thought that try to understand his Trinitarian Theology, it's place in his work and its influence on the rest of theology to come after him. This coming week up until Christmas I will be working hard to try to improve, augment and adapt the position paper I presented in seminar on his doctrine of the persons of God so that at the end of the day, I will have a final paper to turn in come January 12th.

Conversations in my Thomas seminar can be quite stimulating. We've had one particular debate about Thomas' method and starting point going on all semester. Every week, the same debate gets slightly tweeked to better fit into that week's readings. Last Thursday the idea in question was this:
1.) Whether it is on the basis of faith that Thomas knows that natural reason can provide us with a knowledge of the common essence of the Triune God.

Now, it seems clear enough from what Thomas himself says that this is indeed what Thomas believes himself to be doing. The question some in the class are after, though, is whether this is legitimate. Can natural reason provide us with a picture of God that is in line with God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ, witnessed to in Scripture? Or will such a starting point create a metaphysical picture of who God is and what God can and cannot do that will inevitably "box God in" and ultimately not be the God revealed in Jesus Christ? This is what is up for debate.

I could go on, but I just realized that this is probably boring you and/or confusing you and you are wondering why you ever took the time to stop by my blog and take a peek. Well, consider this my exercise this month in putting the theology back into "Tea and Theology." Now, go drink some tea and forget about it! ;-)

Coming back to Princeton in September

The experience Jen and I had of flying to Newark and then taking the train to Princeton was a memorable one indeed. I'll spare you the gory details, but a picture's worth a 1000 words!!!

Ahhh, relaxing among just a few of my many boxes before I begin the mad process of setting up digs... Who knows why I'm in a skirt! A girl's gotta look cute though, right?!

Jen, why do you look so interested? Oh, what? You got up at the crack of dawn to drive into NYC with Shannon and then sit in line for 6 hours in Central Park for free tickets to Mother Courage starring Meryl Streep! Now I get it! Memories.....



This is our happy, post-waiting in line, "we got tickets to see Meryl" happy face. If I look a little pale with disheveled hair it is because one of my bags was still missing at the airport with all of my toiletries. Don't worry, though. I had on deodorant that day! ;-)

Now that I'm trying to catch the blog up on my life these past few months, here's what I did for my B-day this October

I LOVE the Indigo Girls, in case you didn't know. It was a blast going with my good friends, Amy and Cari to se them in concert in Philly. Their new album out this fall, Despite Our Differences, is their best one yet, in my opinion. Get it today! Oh yeah, and my t-shirt is from one of their new songs, Pendulum Swingers, which is "totally awesome." Some of their biggest fans created motions to the chorus that are just too silly but so fun. I'll gladly perform them for you in person when I see you next if your little heart so desires!!

My ever-so humble new digs

It will be a work in the process the next four years. How I'd love to be able to register! Ha! This little place that I now call home is a mixture of cheap, free and hand-me-down furniture, old dorm room decorations, sugar and spice and everything nice like tea and theology books. Yes that's what Shannon's "quaint" apartment is made of! Tee-hee!

Who I hang with on Wednesday afternoons this year

Cuties Sam and Emma Bezilla brighten my Wednesday afternoons. I need me some fun kid time each week to keep sane and grounded. These kids are top quality--extremely smart and creative they always keep me smiling and laughing! Here, here!