I Made It Up, But I Don’t Know What It Means

So, I’m not sure if this accurately fulfills the criteria of standing in solidarity, but I think so. I submit myself to the jury.

I mentor 5 students at Calvin College and I teach Sunday school at my church.

At Sunday school I am teaching my students about the Bible. We’re all reading it together. I’m the teacher and having read the Bible several times already, I probably don’t need to do it again (for the purposes of the class at least), but I am reading it with them, and writing in my journal, as I’ve asked them to do.

As for my Calvin Students, I have been encouraging them to pray for their dorm (they are responsible for the spiritual life of their dorm – they plan Dorm Worship and Bible studies, etc.). Over Christmas I have been praying alongside them, and emailing them each Monday to see how their prayers have been going. I’ve missed a few days, but on the whole I would say I have been with them in this.
For one of my students I even made this handy stamp chart for keeping track (and I made one for myself too).

A Regular Quilter

I’ve been making a quilt for quite some time. I have found the process pretty trying to be honest. I’m not very precise and quilting requires precision. Also, I began the process only because I liked the idea of hand quilting. I have finally arrived. I haven’t actually worked on my quilt, but I have learned how. Here is some evidence.

No Big Deal

I didn’t go for a movie alone, which would have been the ultimate challenge for me, I think, but I did consider it and would have done it had I had the time. I did all of my Christmas shopping alone this year in downtown Edmonton. I also got a haircut and an eye exam, neither of which had been previously scheduled. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was 6ish hours alone wandering downtown.

I could also count all the time that I have spent in the 6 airports that I have been in over the past week and a half: Edmonton, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Detroit, Phoenix and LA. I had meals and beer alone in both LA and Phoenix, but that’s a pretty standard travel activity for me.

No One Talks About The Elephant

I read once that family secrets break families. They hinder any attempts at intimacy, and the system breaks down, so to speak. Over the last few years I’ve wondered if my secret was part of my family’s break up. Maybe, but the secret was bigger than just me.

I’m not going to give any details, but most of you can likely guess the topic. I talked to my mom a few days before Christmas and told her something I’ve been holding on to for most of my life. We had one of the most intimate, revealing, difficult, and surprisingly good conversations we have ever had. I don’t know what it will mean from here on out, but I don’t have any secrets from my mother any more.

Not What You Expected, Is It?

“Make Something From Scratch” would seem to denote a cake, or a craft, but i submit to you my final exam for IDIS 770: CRC History and Polity, made from scratch. Now please allow me to defend myself:

This particular class was kind of like a mash up of two separate classes: history and polity. The history portion finished about a third of the way through the semester and we began the polity portion. Since it began I finished approximately 0% of the related readings and went to less than 50% of the classes, meaning that I knew almost nothing about the subject. I had completed one earlier quiz that I had studied for and aced, but only with the help of my fellow EPMCers (that’s my program) and by the time the final came around I had completely forgotten that there was a quiz at all. I had to check the syllabus to be sure.

The exam was a take home test, and it took one of my class mates an hour and a half to complete. Not so for me. I took 9 hours. The test was four questions, including one about the administration of church discipline, one about children at the communion table, another about the role of the church order, and another where I was asked to evaluate a decision made by synod concerning whether or not former elders could be delegates. I knew nothing. Averaging slightly more than two hours per question I did readings, looked over notes, read information on the website and read the church order (the subject of the class) for the first time all semester. All in all, I’d say it was a very educational experience. I started with nothing (or scratch, you might say), but by the end, I wouldn’t be surprised if I aced that baby.

Glossary

Church Polity: This is the basically the formal ways in which the church runs. The document itself is called the Church Order.

Church Order: Most denominations have some sort of polity to govern how services are organized, how the church is governed, how someone can become a pastor or elder, etc. The class is a very technical type of class because the polity is very technical. For example, the CRC church order includes that if you are not an ordained minister you cannot raise your hands above your waist when giving the benediction. That makes it sound incredibly inane and tedious (it is a little tedious), but it is actually really important, and it is a document that is formed by the whole church. If I thought there was something wrong with the church order, I could write it up and submit it, and if others thought I was right, it could get voted on at Synod and potentially change the document. The point is to keep some sort of order in the church, and to protect churches and the denomination from too much power in a few people’s hands, and to make sure that people are actually teaching the gospel, instead of some other crap, which often happens in churches. Someone in my class (on one of the rare days that I was there) described it like this: “It’s not that the denomination is saying that we can’t change, but it is asking us to change together.”

Synod: This is the highest governing body in the CRC. It is made up of elected elders and pastors from all of the classes (classis is a regional governing body of the same type). The pastors and elders that go every year change, so it can never be one group of power hungry people. It is a representation of the churches.

Delegate: An elder or pastor (I can’t remember if deacon’s can go? I should look it up in the church order) is sent to Synod as a delegate.

Dinner and Dismal Round of Sheep’s Head.

I have a wonderful dinner table. For those of you who don’t know (anyone?) I had my friend Curtis, in Vancouver, make me a table before I left. I love it. It might be my favorite thing. It is 6×3, with an additional 18 inch leaf that fits in the center, and it’s made of recycled oak. I love it. I have a wonderful table, but no table accessories: chairs, napkins, dishes, cutlery, placemats, etc. But then, that is the beauty of friends. Tony brought 4 place mats and wine and flat bread, Adam brought chairs and the two missing placemats, Sarah and Erin brought bread and fruit salad, and the other Adam brought music, vodka and orange juice… I used my roommates dishes and hot pads, and made an enormous pot of curry (delicious curry).

The curry was hella good. I got the recipe from Simply in Season, but substituted brussel sprouts for cabbage, and instead of straight up cauliflower I used a Romanesco, which I recently got from Trillium Haven (the home of my soon to be crop share). I saw my first romanesco just a couple weeks ago, so here’s a picture. They’re amazing.

I did not take this picture.

The evening was lovely and fun. I was proud of my curry, and it has only been in the last year that begun to feel comfortable enough as a cook that I don’t get the shakes whenever I feed people, so that’s a victory… but to be honest, I was kind of out of sorts from the very beginning. I’m not sure why, just one of those days, you know? Anyways, as a result I didn’t take it very well when I lost nearly $10 in the subsequent card game. I may or may not have actually cried at one point. It was only a tear or so, but needless to say, it was not my finest moment.

It starts today

I am coining a term, i think.  I am going to be a soft vegetarian.

Soft Vegetarian |sôft věj’ĭ-târ’ē-ən|
A person who will only eat meat if served to them, or if it can be purchased under ethical circumstances.

Not that much about my life is actually going to change. When I go out to dinner, I will not order meat. When Tony and I order pizza, I will ask for half a pizza sans meat. I don’t buy very much meat to begin with because it’s expensive, but now if I do buy it, I will be the extra-expensive (or, shall we say, accurately priced) meat brought to us by small farmers who do not totally abuse their animals and the environment, and make us all sick in the process. yeah!
I started my adventure today by declining some of Tony’s chicken nuggets! They smelled really good.

lucky for me: there is a food bank at school. We get free food. Often it’s a little, well, you know, but about a week ago someone filled one of the freezers with venison. You know what that means! Hunted meat = ethical… as far as I can see. That deer had the most deer-like life imaginable. Unfortunately, it was shot, but not for no reason. Anyways, I digress. My point is, I will eat venison during this period of my life.

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing this for well over three months, but I haven’t done it because I really like meat (lame, i know). But, I figure this is a good opportunity to experiment with it instead of deciding that I’m going to quit meat cold turkey (fitting?) forever.

So that’s that. For the next month-plus, I am a psuedo veg. A soft vegetarian.

I’m adding something to this:
I just figured out what to do with the Left Behind Series and the Bible Code (read: every terrible book that I still own because I don’t feel good about throwing it away or letting anyone else read it). I’m going to tear out the pages and wrap my christmas presents in them! Oh, what satisfaction that will bring.

I’ve had this dilemma because I haven’t wanted to purchase wrapping paper, but I am fearful that my family would be upset about it – no joke, we’re serious about aesthetics. But I figure: the written word and some red ribbon? that’s pretty, right?

Do this one a little more tactfully than I did….

Well, I thought it, and I said it, several times. I happened to be in the middle of a horrendous fight with my boyfriend when I decided that I shouldn’t do the usual, “well, yeah, you’re right…” and instead, in the name of the the list, and in the name of honesty, I should let it all fly. It flew, and then it hit the proverbial fan again, and again, and again.

The fight went downhill, but I’m not totally sure that that was a bad thing. What I said was ugly, and it resulted in a lot more ugliness, but it was honest, and it brought my ugliness into the light. It showed me that what I was thinking was absolutely sinful and wrong, but if I hadn’t said it, it would have lingered. It would have stuck around in my mind as if it were something that were probably wrong, but potentially true, and it would have continued to eat away at our relationship. I don’t think that the answer is to just let loose and say whatever we’re thinking all the time, but there are times that the lies that we believe need to be brought out into the open so that others can show us exactly what they are.

Jen