marcus johnson, you rule!

Nerd Alert:
I am thrilled for my classes this semester.

Here's why,
"Admittedly, it is difficult to schematize temporally the boundless riches of God's saving grace exercised from eternity passed to eternity future."

I mean, if that's not a hysterical statement I don't know what is.

Well, except for this:
when asked to share an interesting fact about oneself to large class of counseling and pastoral students, I shared:
"I wasn't potty trained until I was three and half."

professor of class called "Ministry to Women in Pain" replies: 

"Woah. Maybe you need some counseling. Sounds like you've got some things to work through..."

Welcome school year 2012. You win.

2012

Thinking, praying, pondering (procrastinating) how this blog will change with the new year- a happy new one to you, by the way.

It just seems useless to have an online journal where I'm trying to be funny and transparent, but not so funny as to be cruel. And then to be not too transparent so that you're not yanking at your proverbial tie thinking, "gosh, it suddenly got uncomfortably stuffy in here..."

So, since I'm not traveling (see June-August 2010) and I'm not going to try to emotionally blarther with a thin veil of humor (see all other posts) I need to do something else with the blog.

If I want all parts of me to count for eternity (a big concept, we can discuss that later if you want) then my blog should be a part of that too.

I'll keep you posted.

still no journal

John Calvin once said:

"God is pleased to hide all future events from us, in order that we should resist them as doubtful, and not cease to oppose them with ready remedies, until they are either overcome or pass beyond all care... God's providence does not always meet us in its naked form, but God in a sense clothes it with the means employed."

Amen.

Dear Diary

Note To Self:

Must buy a journal. Have been fighting increasingly frequent urges to start blogging my feelings all over the place, and at this point, am quite sure that no one wants to read that.

It's a real drag when my journal runs out because I am a snob about my journals. I only like those bound in leather. With gridline paper.
But I didn't budget $20 for therapy from

Dr. Moleksine this month--->

I blame it on my love affair with Monseigneur Caffein.

Love is such a costly habit. 

my dad!

I'm not unlike my dad. Sometimes we cry at commercials together. I prefer to drink my coffee with cream, no sugar. While he's slightly more introverted and introspective, I take a little bit more after my mom- I can make conversation with a wall; I try not to make a habit out of it. People start to look at you funny.

But he's kind and thoughtful, hardworking, intelligent, handy around the house, and has a knack for saying the right thing when I call him sobbing hysterically. I can't boast in sharing any of these aforementioned qualities- I'm still in process. He's Jewish. So I am too.

And it's this weird idea that I've been tossing around for a while. Not tossing around. That makes my identity sound like a bouncy ball. Mulling over. It started when I was in first grade. We were lining up for music class and I began to talk about Hanukkah. Who was it? Emmy? Paul? That asked me, "You mean you get 8 nights of presents! NO FAIR!"

I was pretty proud of myself in that moment. Darn right I get 8 nights of presents and Christmas! Did not realize at the time that I wasn't getting extra presents. They were just spread out over a longer period of time.

Then I was thirteen and I hated my life because I was stuck listening to a tape of Isaiah 60 in Hebrew for my Bat Mitzvah. Woe is I. I let everybody know too how miserable I was. I looked at my parents, "YOU DID THIS TO ME! WHY DO I HAVE TO BE JEWISH?"Then I stopped crying when I opened up the bracelet from Tiffany's after all was said and done. Pain is beauty.

But then, always with the up and down and back and forth. Sometimes being Jewish was a nice cop-out answer when someone asked if I was religious and I wasn't excited to tell them that I was a Christian. Sometimes I was just a Christian so that I could avoid the raised eyebrows and the perplexed looks and the question: "So wait. You're like, Catholic or something?"And to some, I was neither. My high school principle, for example who looked me squarely in the face and announced in my AP World History class, "Oh no honey. You're not Jewish. You can't be Jewish if you're a Christian."

Tell that to my dad. Actually, I did tell that to my dad. He didn't like it anymore than I did.

So what does it mean? What does it mean to be Jewish? Is it a culture? Ethnicity? Nationality? Religion?

All of the above?

Like I said, I'm in process. I'm still trying to figure it out.
But one thing I am sure of. The longer I've walked with the Lord, the more heavily I have felt burdened by my Jewishness. Not in a bad way. I haven't ever wanted to get rid of it. More in the sense of, "what does this look like for me?"

This is a rather inconclusive post. I am really trying to work through this and figure it out. I am about to start a research paper that asks if being Anti-Zionist is synonymous to being Anti-Semitic. Is it? Maybe?  If we deny the Jewish people the right to have a Jewish state, an ethnic state essentially, then it would be anti-semitic. And I don't think it's fair to say that being Jewish is simply a religion. Because then we couldn't call the Holocaust a genocide, and what else could we call it?

A million things. Horrific, to start. But definitely genocide.

So I'm learning. I'm learning from my Dad who taught me many things well. And I'm learning from my heavenly Father. I bear His image too.

feast your eyes!

I have a certain conviction that my blog is boring, so I wanted to add some pictures to spice it up.

So this is my family
<---- See them? How cute they are!

Mom and Dad married for 35 years in April.
Brother and his lovely girlfriend.
My best friend and sister, Sarah.
Oh and me in the middle in this fab little dress I bought from H&M that is itching to come out again.
Probably with tights and boots seeing how it's October already.

BAH. October? September! Where the heck did you go?

It was certainly here because the first wave of people I love turned 22 this month. Birthdays on the 16, 18, 20, and 22. I am hoping that the next friend I make is born on the 24. Or the 14. I would like to eat cake every other day in September for the rest of my life, regardless if you're here with me to celebrate (or I with you. How about whoever lives in a cooler place...). Here's to you, I'll say on the even days of the month of September. And I'll raise my cake (or cupcake) wish you well and then eat.

I don't have anything of consequence to say this post around. But I think there's only so much proverbial wisdom you can handle coming from a nearly 22 year old who still sleeps with a blankie.

Secret's out.

the great "e" word

"Is that edifying?" Mom would ask us. We'd freeze in our spots on the couch, eyes darting from television screen to each other. No one wanted to move. We'd just pretend that we hadn't heard her and keep on in our merry way.

"Rachel?" Now things were personal. She was calling me out by name. I couldn't pretend that I hadn't heard her. I'd watch Sarah and David breathe a sigh of relief as they settled back into the couch. Mom had just made me the family whipping boy.

"Well, it's not that bad!" Pitiful attempt to try to dance around the inevitable answer that no, it wasn't exactly edifying, but durn well if we liked it! Rookie mistake really, because then mom would reply with, "tell me what's edifying about this television program!" And really, what can be said about the Simpsons. Or Seinfeld. Other than--- nothing, really. Homer and Jerry were crass. And both had bad hair.

So we'd turn it off, and mom, placated, would go back to whatever she was doing before her sixth sense of children-acting-in-folly would alert her.

Even though we rolled our eyes until we gave ourselves headaches, and even though Sarah and David would pinch me for not doing a good enough job defending why we were watching that television program, and even though sometimes I was convinced that you were trying to sabotage my life-- well, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you for introducing me to the word edifying and teaching me to choose wisely.
Thanks too for loving me even when I didn't choose wisely and ended up watching Maury when I had strep throat and then didn't sleep for 8 months after that for fear of a serial killer coming to snatch me in the night.

I love you Mom.
Happy Mother's Day (Five Months Later)