JesusChristmyrock's Xanga

Friday, November 13, 2009

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:23:12 GMT

Yesterday, I was watching the “making of” video for “Hello Hurricane,” which is amazing, by the way (I highly recommend it to you) and he [Jon Foreman] said something and for some reason unbeknownst to me (my mind doesn’t seem to think very linearly), I went on a mental tangent about words that I like.
It’s weird, even though I’m a bio major and all the stuff I do revolves mostly around facts and numbers and concrete information, I’m still in love with words and how they can mean anything to anyone, so I started thinking about five words that mean a lot to me. If you’d care to look, here they are:
1) Remedy
I love the implications of it. It seems, at first glance, to be the same as “fix” or “repair,” but it is not. For me, remedy implies brokenness and desolation that is innate. It’s Something greater looking down at something that has completely fallen apart and not only deciding to make it right again, but to make it better and to heal it. It means that you can still see the wounds and the scars that once seemed to plague the ones who were broken, but you can now see the beauty and the hope that took what once seemed hopeless and destroyed and made it new.
2) But
A lot of pastors and Christian leaders seem to point out that two of the most wonderful words in the Bible are: “but God…” and I tend to agree with them. “But” in the Bible means hope. Usually, “but” fits into a “Biblical formula (there isn’t such thing, but for the sake of illustration, here it is) in a manner similar to this: “Here is terrible, devastating, earth shattering, soul destroying news about who you are, who you were, and who you will be, BUT here is amazing, life giving, hope restoring Truth about who you have been made to be and who you can become through God.”
3) Rescue
It could be because I was a rather nerdy child who was in love with superheroes (I think that’s pretty evident), but the word “rescue” hits me in a different way from words like “save” and “help.” I know they mean almost the same thing or even exactly the same thing, but “rescue” just seems to ring in my heart in a way that makes me feel a little bit lighter and a little more joyful. For me, rescue puts in mind an image of someone who is alone and fearful and facing some kind of threat of death. Something is sucking the life out of this person and making them realize that all of their attempts and all the things they tried to do up until that point have added up to nothing useful in terms of that moment. It happens all the time in comic books, like in Superman when Lois Lane is being hung from the top of buildings by villains, what does she do? She’s a smart and resourceful reporter, one of the first female characters to be made with her own mind and with ambition and aggressiveness, but what does she do when she’s cornered and alone? She cries for help. And it comes. And that’s what I love about the word rescue. That’s what it means for me. I was alone and helpless against myself, but I cried for help, for Someone to rescue me, and He came.
4) Wait
I used to hate this word, but lately, I’ve come to love it. I felt like I was always waiting, always having to hang back and do something else until what I REALLY wanted happened. Yesterday, I was reading Isaiah 26 and these verses struck me:
Isaiah 26: 7-9
“The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous.In the path of your judgments,O Lord, we wait for you;your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth,the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.”
See how the Psalmist is relating to God? He’s praising God for who He is and saying how much He wants to know Him better, and then it sounds sort of random halfway through the verse, He says we wait for You, Lord, and then connects it to how his soul desires to know God. Which sounds weird at first until you relate it to life. I know for me, the times I’ve known God the most intimately, the times when I’ve cried out to Him with the most desperation, are not the times when everything is all right and I’m seeing His blessings, but the times when everything is falling apart and I’m having to struggle to see His goodness. Waiting for things to happen and waiting for God to show me why things are happening or even just waiting to see what I learn from the mess I’m in shapes me and shapes my faith so that I see who God is in a deeper and clearer way.
5) Broken
This word perfectly describes who I used to be and who I am without God. It implies that He is what fixes me and that He is what makes me whole and complete. I also think it adequately depicts the desolation and “lost-ness” of my existence before Christ. =)
^___^

*edit*
I don't know if anyone else looks into this as much as I do, but when I listen to "Christian" music, I take into heavy consideration what the musician I'm listening to believes in and whether or not his or her lifestyle lines up with Christianity (if they are claiming to be Christian). I was a bit ambivalent about Switchfoot before. It used to bother me that they would say they didn't want to be labeled as "Christian" music because "Christianity" is a belief system and it needs to be lived out; it's not a type of music. I thought it was kind of a cop out and I didn't like that it felt as if they were using this as an excuse to be mainstream and sell their music outside of the Christian market. But then I read this. And I really like it:

Interviewer:In Jeffery Sheler's book Believers: A Journey into Evangelical America, he travels to Creation Fest and watches you perform. He describes you as feeling constrained to be ambiguous. Why do you think he would get that impression?

Jon Foreman: I feel like people want us to be flying their flag. People will use our words to prove them right. We are not trying to fly the flag of Christendom, and we never have attempted to lift that flag. At the end of my life, I would love to have somebody say, "He was a humble Christian." I think that would be the biggest compliment.
I've seen very few people get up on stage in rock and roll who yell and stamp their feet for the name of Christ and do it in a way that I feel like is the gospel. So when people come to us with books and microphones and cameras and they want us to cheer the cheer and chant the chant, it's something that I don't feel comfortable doing. In all honesty, I don't feel like that's the gospel. And to do so is to betray the very thing that means the most to me.
If people are going to misconstrue that as being an unbeliever, then I have to be comfortable with that outcome, because I can't be responsible for other people's opinions. Again, you can't live your life for a million people. The whole audience of One is a really liberating concept.

Interviewer: So how do you see the gospel?

Jon Foreman: I see the gospel as the antithesis of what happens on stage. We have it all wrong in a lot of respects where we interview the people who are up on stage when I truly believe that what happens off stage is more important. How we treat each other behind closed doors matters a whole more as far as infinity's concerned than whether you hit the right note on stage and you had the strobe just perfect and your guitar was in tune.
We are continually striving for excellence, and I feel like music in and of itself is a worthy endeavor. That's something we will continue to do with every piece of us. But the way we treat our families is infinitely more important. Life is too short to always be the center of your world.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:54:48 GMT

Fantastic Mr. Fox! Who wants to come??? Wes Anderson + Roald Dahl = love ^__^ When I was a little kid, I used to LOVE his books. The ones that I read that I can remember are The Twits, The Witches, The BFG, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Matilda, and James and the Giant Peach, plus my parents bought me this treasury of Roald Dahl books that had some of his short stories like The Minpins, The Giraffe, the Pelly, and Me, and Esio Trot. I re-read some of them the other day to psyche myself up for the movie and it was weird, I got that feeling again that I got when I was little...I'm so excited for this movie =) I'm so excited that I will watch it alone if no one comes with me because I was watching the making of and it looked really neat, like they tried really hard to kind of get inside Roald Dahl's mind and make it like how they think he would want. They even made the set modeled after his house. It's literally a replica of his house because Wes Anderson went to England to take pictures of his house and rooms and furniture, and they made little scale things of it. ahhh yay pointless entry.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:14:47 GMT

Does anyone want to move with me to this? Tumblr. com
I made one a while ago, but I didn't really fix it up until today and this is my url: http://superheroesarereal.tumblr.com
I love xanga, but....tumblr is a million times better. It's also easier to use. AND if you're an artsy type of person ( I personally don't happen to be, but a few of you are...), it lets you post photos, mp3s, and videos directly onto the thing. You don't have to, but if you would like to join me...I think that's where I'm going to be from now on ^___^ (although, I'll still probably read your posts if you stay here because I like keeping up with all two of you who update haha =)

This is exactly how I feel.

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:12:14 GMT

Sometimes, I feel like my own words are inadequate and I need someone else to speak for me. I was listening to this song yesterday and it was amazing because I realized the words were my prayer, or rather, they became my prayers, and I desperately wanted God to hear them (and I know He did).
I'm Not Alright- Sanctus Real

If weakness is a wound that no one wants to speak of
Then "cool" is just how far we have to fall
I am not immune, I only want to be loved
But I feel safe behind the firewall

Can I lose my need to impress?
If you want the truth I need to confess

I'm not alright, I'm broken inside
And all I go through, it leads me to You

Burn away the pride
Bring me to my weakness
Until everything I hide behind is gone
And when I'm open wide with nothing left to cling to
Only You are there to lead me on.

'Cause honestly, I'm not that strong.

I'm not alright, I'm broken inside
Broken inside
And all I go through, it leads me to You
Leads me to You
Closer to You

And I will move,
and I will move,
and I will move,
Closer to You (x3)

I'm not alright I'm broken inside
Broken inside
I'm broken inside, Broken inside
And all I go through leads me to You
Leads me to You

I'm not alright, I'm not alright
I'm not alright

... that's why I need You.

i love fall. and pumpkins. mmm

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:50:12 GMT

I really want to turn this into a part time food blog. Attempt one!
Sugar Free Pumpkin Bread:
Ingredients:
210 g flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt ( I think I'm going to lessen to this to 1/4)
1 cup+ 2 tablespoons splenda (this should probably be increased to 4 extra tbsp splenda)
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup FRESH pumpkin puree (not canned)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 room temperature eggs, beaten
1/4 cup cooled spicy tea (i used pumpkin ginger, but i think cinnamon or chai would work as well)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
1 tbsp splenda brown sugar ( i think actually this should be increased to 2 tbsp)

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees farenheit.
2) Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, use a whisk to mix together the oil, eggs, tea, sugars and puree.
3) While whisking GENTLY (not furiously), add the dry ingredients to the wet in sections (I used fourths, but I think thirds would be okay too). Space out your additions so that after each addition, the flour is incorporated. Don't mix past incorporation (that just means that as soon as you don't see flour, STOP mixing).
4) Pour mixture into an oiled or buttered pan and bake for 35-40 minutes.
*notes:
the pumpkin that i used was a halloween pumpkin, which apparently isn't good for baking because it doesn't have a strong taste; i looked around and most people said to use a sugar pumpkin and some even suggested squash, so i will try that next time. Also, I have to mess around with the sugar portion and baking times a bit, but I think the way that I altered it above would fix it. The sugar content I think depends really more on you because some people like their bread really sweet and some just like a hint of sweetness. I also think it should be baked nearer to 35 because mine was just a smidge dry. Like if I did it at 38 minutes it would be fine. That's it, I think. Wheeee somebody tell me if they try this. I actually adapted it from here: http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000842pumpkin_bread.php, so if you want to do it with normal sugar, use that one.

I Toss Them to My Elephant

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:32:41 GMT

" When the summer sun is blazing,
I pick daisy after daisy,
I toss them to my elephant-
it makes him slightly crazy.

I gather up chrysanthemums
when fall is in the air,
I toss them to my elephant-
it makes him stand and stare.

I harvest bright poinsettias
in winter, when it's chilly,
I toss them to my elephant-
it makes him sort of silly.

I pluck bouquets of tulips
when they blossom in the spring,
I toss them to my elephant...
it always makes him sing!"

I love Jack Prelutsky. I was going through "The New Kid on the Block" for tomorrow because Friday is my tutoring day and I was super compelled to read that poem. It was my favorite when I was a little kid and I've never been able to read it without smiling. =) I hope it made you smile too >__<

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:04:38 GMT

I love this: "Resurrect the Saint Within the Wretch" (RK) Please do =)

Aiming for consistency ^__^

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:57:39 GMT

That title really has nothing to do with this post except that I want to consistently update this thing. There's just something about writing in a journal that soothes me to the core (and yes, I do have a separate journal that no one reads but God and me >__<). I changed the layout! I found it in the themes section and I liked it because I liked the name of it (Cloud barfing rainbow) and I thought it was an accurate reflection of myself (super happy, and a little strange). Anyway, I feel like a lot has changed since the last time I wrote in here and I feel I owe it to all one and a half of you who read this ( I don't think there's really half a person who reads this, but I thought I'd be creative with the guesstimate).
I'm also going to work on making paragraphs =p. Anyway, I'm getting baptized this Sunday, during the first service. It's really neat; this is one of the first times I've had this intense feeling that God is pulling me toward a certain action or decision. I'll clarify a bit, starting with what Baptism is and who gets it. Baptism occurs after someone has been saved and it's really just representative of what's been done in the person's life. The person being immersed in the water is symbolic of him or her dying with Christ (this means getting rid of all the stuff that separated you from Him, your old nature; it's you crucifying your old self to the Cross along with Jesus) and the person being raised from the water is symbolic of him or her being made alive with Christ (when Christ was raised from the dead, so were you- now you have a new life). I've been a Christian for about 4 years now and I was baptized before then, but it wasn't because I had an understanding of what Christ had done for me or because I wanted to please God and bring glory back to Him; it was because I wanted people to think I was spiritual and I thought it was something I had to do if I was "really" a Christian.
When I became a member of CLC, Braden, one of the pastors, told me I might want to consider getting baptized since I wasn't a Christian the first time I was baptized. I kind of brushed it off, not because I'm against baptism, but because I was terrified of going in front of the entire church and giving my testimony. Every time someone got baptized though, (and that was relatively frequent), I was extremely affected and felt strongly that God wanted me to share what He had done in my life. It wasn't until my friends, Sunny and Wen Yi, got baptized that my parents brought up the subject of baptism. I told them that they'd told me before that I didn't need to do it since I'd been baptized once. They then proceeded to tell me that they were wrong and that I should consider it. My dad told me that baptism is a sacred and precious gift given to us by God and so I started thinking about it a bit. I prayed, sort of half-heartedly, that God would reveal His will to me, even though I knew that His will was for me to get baptized. Then, two days later, Shannon and I were talking about God and she asked me about baptism. I was blown away! This isn't in any way a question someone who's talking about God normally asks. Usually people ask about God's character or His existence. I've never had anyone ask me about baptism. Then, on the Friday of that same week, my friend Moses randomly started talking to my pastor about baptism and who should be baptized. It was then that it became so clear to me that God was quietly and gently pushing me to declare His works in my life. I e-mailed my pastor and started praying more intensely and seeking counsel from close Christian friends and my parents. That led me to turn in my application about two weeks ago. I started wondering about what would happen since I hadn't heard anything, and today, I was actually going to call the church and ask what had happened. Before that, though, I met with my friend that I'd just met last week. Guess what she asked me about? BAPTISM! She told me about what it meant to her and how it had just really revealed God's work in her life. She then asked me what I thought about baptism and I told her, but as I was speaking, I realized I didn't sound that enthusiastic about it and was probably still more concerned about what other people would think than I was about what God had done. After we finished meeting, I checked my phone when I got to class and saw that I'd missed a call from the church. I checked the messages, and guess who it was? It was Kari, asking if I would be okay with getting baptized this Sunday.
God's just really been working through this experience to help me see how He listens and how actively He is working in my life. One thing I was really thinking through before was that Jesus had endured the Cross for me while I was still a sinner, while I was still the reason He was hanging on the Cross. Looking at it from that perspective, I realized how selfish it was for me not to get baptized. I'm going in front of people who've been redeemed by Him, in front of people that love me and, more importantly, love Him, and I'm telling them what an awesome Savior I have! I'm not at all saying that I'm no longer nervous or that I condemned myself into getting baptized; I'm saying that I preached the Gospel to myself and got a bigger view of who God was, and allowed myself to be motivated by who He is. It was awesome!! =)
I really feel that I'm growing a lot in my faith, even just this year, especially in reaching out to different people and seeing where I've not been that faithful to listen or to encourage or even correct where necessary. I'm so scared to tell people when they're doing something wrong that I just sometimes let them continue in it, even though I know that it might in the end hurt them, which ultimately isn't loving. I should love people enough to not care what they think about me. Have you noticed that? When you're constantly thinking about what other people are thinking about you, it's almost impossible to love them or care about them specifically, but when you think about them and how you can serve them or listen to them or just be there for them, you find yourself loving them more. =)
Anyway, I have to sleep and I think this is sufficiently long enough to make up for my lack of posting =) I <3 and >3 all of you =)

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 02:39:40 GMT

The first two days of school have been pretty nice so far. I have friends in pretty much all my classes (except anatomy lab), which is nice. And George Cunningham and Elizabeth Weiner are each in one of my classes, which is nice too. It's weird that I get excited to be in class with people from high school when I was in class with them for four years already. I think I just like that sort of familiarity of past classmate-situations. Or something like that. Carpooling is nice this year too because I'm doing it with close friends instead of with people I don't really know that well and have to get to know (although Caiti, Chad, and Nick were AWESOME). I love riding up with Terri though ^___^ It's nice being with someone who's known me that long and I'd say that her and Shannon probably know me the best since I've known them the longest and they can read me pretty easily. Oh, and I started volunteering at the food co-op, which is the vegetarian-vegan student run grocery/kitchen thing in the Stamp student union. I only did it once in freshman year and never did it again for some reason even though I was always buying food there. I decided to do it this year because it's something I always wanted to do and I only have two semesters left after this one, so I thought it would be a good idea to just try everything I really want to do before I have to leave. The people are really cool and I figure it's a good way to get six months of kitchen experience in case I ever do want to go to the CIA (not kidding). I made a plan. If I'm still single by the time I'm thirty, I'm going to enroll in the CIA (either the greystone california campus or the hyde park new york campus). I seriously think I have it figured out. I should graduate pt school by the time I'm 25, which would give me 5 years to save up money. I'll set aside 1000 each month and by the end, I'll have 60,000. It costs 34,000 to enroll in the CIA, currently, so 60,000 should be a good enough cushion (so I won't have to take out loans). You can work while you're enrolled, so I would just have to get licensed in whatever state I'm going to practice in, which means I'd probably have to decide when I'm 29 so I can start re-studying for the boards. I probably put way too much thought into this, but I was reading "The Making of a Chef" by Michael Ruhlman and there were a couple of people that he met at the CIA who had no prior training. And I could always take some cooking classes in my spare time while I'm being a PT. I don't know.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:07:22 GMT

This is a weird stage to be in. I feel so sure that I want to do physical therapy, but at the same time, I keep finding myself researching (in depth) a bunch of other careers such as:
a) architect: why= I watched two guys, a girl, and a pizza place, and it looked neat and doable; why not= i can't draw and i'm not that good at geometry
b) chef: why= foodnetwork and "The Making of a Chef" by Michael Ruhlman; why not= 34,000 to go to the Culinary Institute of America, lack of experience in the food industry, don't want to have wasted two years as a science major
d) editor, essayist, or writer for a comedy show: why= love of writing and reading; conan o'brien and demetri martin= two guys headed in very directions at prestigious schools who realized they loved writing and comedy; why not= not funny, difficult to get a stable or lucrative job in writing
e) criminal behavioral analyst for the behavioral analysis unit of the f.b.i.: why= involves psychology, problem solving, and seems interesting on criminal minds; why not= i can't pass the fbi's vision requirements and i don't have the emotional stamina to stomach what they see
I love shadowing and I love what I know I'll be able to do once I graduate pt school, and I've prayed for so long about my future. I counseled others and even went to scripture, so I know that, at least for now, this is where God wants me.I just feel really unsure of everything though. I'll keep praying.
yesterday I prayed and God answered it in a way I didn't expect. Hebrews 11: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. I know that despite this confusion, I can rest in the unseen God. not blindly. not hypnotically or as if in a trance. but with conviction.