october 31, 1517.

it was interesting to read the 95 theses today. because luther didn't want to split from the catholic Church, he just wanted to reform it. so it's clear he still thought the pope was cool. and purgatory. but i ignored that and was encouraged by the Truth.

i enjoyed celebrating reformation day today. it makes me want to study more reformation literature.

by Scripture alone, by faith alone, by grace alone, through Christ alone, glory to God alone!

luther threw down.

from the 95 theses:

37. Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has part in all the blessings of Christ and the Church; and this is granted him by God, even without letters of pardon.

42. Christians are to be taught that the pope does not intend the buying of pardons to be compared in any way to works of mercy.

43. Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better work than buying pardons;

44. Because love grows by works of love, and man becomes better; but by pardons man does not grow better, only more free from penalty.

45. Christians are to be taught that he who sees a man in need, and passes him by, and gives [his money] for pardons, purchases not the indulgences of the pope, but the indignation of God.

54. Injury is done the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal or a longer time is spent on pardons than on this Word.

55. It must be the intention of the pope that if pardons, which are a very small thing, are celebrated with one bell, with single processions and ceremonies, then the Gospel, which is the very greatest thing, should be preached with a hundred bells, a hundred processions, a hundred ceremonies.

79. To say that the cross, emblazoned with the papal arms, which is set up [by the preachers of indulgences], is of equal worth with the Cross of Christ, is blasphemy.

86. Again: — “Why does not the pope, whose wealth is to-day greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of poor believers?”

92. Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, “Peace, peace,” and there is no peace!

93. Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, “Cross, cross,” and there is no cross!

94. Christians are to be exhorted that they be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hell;

95. And thus be confident of entering into heaven rather through many tribulations, than through the assurance of peace.

and "a mighty fortress is our God," a hymn he wrote:

1. A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing;
our helper he amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
doth seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great,
and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.

2. Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right man on our side,
the man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabaoth, his name,
from age to age the same,
and he must win the battle.

3. And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo, his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.

4. That word above all earthly powers,
no thanks to them, abideth;
the Spirit and the gifts are ours,
thru him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
this mortal life also;
the body they may kill;
God's truth abideth still;
his kingdom is forever.

i feel dirty.

i have always been one of those people who will only read one book at a time. it bothers me to read more than one. my mind is invested in whatever i'm reading, so it's hard to invest in more than one.

somehow, i have found myself reading four books at once.

four.

here is how this slippery slope unfolded:

i started reading frankenstein. cool. my one book.

then my neighborhood group started reading a book together, so that's two. but i felt ok about it because i only read a chapter a week, and i'm doing it with other people. it's called "how people change" and it is interesting.

then...

i don't know how or why...

but i started reading a book called "lincoln and douglas: the debates that changed america." i read from every genre, but this is my first history book. i feel like i'm cheating on frankenstein. frankenstein is good, but like all classic literature...i kind of hate it, but i'm sure i will love it when i read the last few pages. i got bored with it, and started reading about lincoln. i have a pile of unread books and it was in the pile. just sitting there.

book four...

i went over to a house. these people have my dream book collection. so many different genres. quality books in each of them. i picked one up and said "were you telling me about this book? someone was." and next thing i know, it was being lent to me.

the irresistible revolution by shane clairborne.

i want to immediately rebel against anything rob bell validates, but it's good. i'm not that far into it, but i understand the thought process so far.

anyway.

i'm a literature whore. i don't know how this happened.

and if you need more material with which to mock my nerd qualities:

today i am attending a reformation day party. there will be a powerpoint presentation about church history, and then a viewing of the movie "luther." and at some point today i'm going to read the 95 theses. for fun. and because it's the anniversary of when he posted them.

happy reformation day!

buzz.

today at work we trick-or-treated across the street at a fire/police station. it was as cute as it sounds. 100 or so kids crossing the street in their costumes, getting candy from friendly firemen, and taking pictures with fire trucks.

the costumes included:

ladybugs
lions
bees
monkeys
princesses
fairies
cheerleaders
a candy corn witch
cats
pumpkins
elmo
dinosaurs
turtle
batman
superman

so cute. kind of cliche, but definitely cute.

best moment of the day:

after the fire station visit, we crossed through the parking lot of an office building to get to a nursing home. while passing through the lot, there were 3 adult pirates. taking a smoke break. while 100 children passed.

that happened.

other cuteness:

i saw a kid in another class taking a nap in his superman costume. cape and all. the man of steel all tuckered out.

batman was in my class last year. he was walking in front of me in the costume parade, and kept looking back over his shoulder to wave at me.

but no one

no one

no one

is as cute or cool as this little girl. my niece is a flower this year.

i have a martin. it smells good.

only something fabulous would make me post twice in a day.

this is going to be hard to articulate.

i used to play guitar. used to. i spent many evenings trying to learn the songs of one christian artist that wrote songs so beautiful i didn't always understand them. and then she left. she disappeared from the scene. just...gone. no one knows why. she just stopped making music, and no one would talk about it.

it made me really, really sad. i'd check the internet every now and then to see if she was doing anything. but i never could find anything.

but apparently...

she's back. almost. releasing new music in 2010.

jennifer knapp!

i'm kind of scared. i don't listen to christian music anymore. some of it, yes. i like songs about Jesus. but most of it makes me cringe. (separate topic people, separate topic...)

but in my mind she's always been one of the good ones. i'm afraid she won't be anymore. you know, like brett favre. he should have retired as a packer like...10 years ago. i don't want her to be brett favre. i'm also afraid that maybe that she never was any good. i listened to some bad music in my youth. i don't want her to become one of the bad ones who just throw Jesus' name into a song and don't care that the music sounds like crap.

because she's my jennifer knapp.

like i said, hard to articulate. i think i've said it before but music, for me, is not just about...the music. it's connected to my emotions, and periods of time in my life.

and where was she? i have always figured it was some sad story. not an external tragedy, but an internal one.

due to her exodus/hiatus/whatever you want to call it...i couldn't find any of my favorite songs on youtube. but i found this one. i haven't listened to it in years, but i started singing along without even thinking about it. brains are neat.

i don't have a point.

similarities between small children and drunk people:
- the stumbling
- the running into things
- the falling down a lot
- the incoherent mumbling

similarities between small children and animals:
- the pooping at will
- the playing with the poop
- the eating off the floor
- the shredding of anything shreddable
- the lapping up of anything liquid, whether it comes from a toilet or a puddle
- the biting and fighting to survive

used to be commander in chief of my pimp ship flyin' high

i have a random song in my head.

it's after 10pm and i'm breaking my own rule of "no blogging after 10pm." will i regret this tomorrow?

thoughts before going to bed:

i am almost out of toilet paper, and i forgot to buy more at the store yesterday. i've had to ration it this evening. i am hoping nothing goes wrong tonight, if you know what i mean.

there's a very good chance i'll regret this post tomorrow.

also:

i've been reading more c.s. lewis quotes online tonight. for fun. i don't feel weird about saying i have a crush on a dead man anymore. maybe because it's after 10, maybe not.

he just has this way of attacking an issue from every conceivable angle. i can't finish one of his books and wonder "well what about ___" because...he already went there. he's not even my favorite because he writes about Jesus. i do love Jesus. i just like his style of writing, and his use of reason. i love that i have to read some of his sentences 10 times to grasp the meaning.

anyway. tomorrow awaits. and as c.s. lewis says:

"Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done..."

i've been sucked into watching random people cover songs on youtube. i don't know the song these people are covering, but they do a good job, yes?

i do.

if c.s. lewis was alive and giving lectures...i think he would make me swoon like no rock star ever has.

is that weird to say?

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.

There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them.

Thirty was so strange for me. I've really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.

With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere.

you tell those spiders.

i told my boss that i finally read harry potter. and she told me that her favorite character...

is professor snape.

professor snape.

oh. my. gosh.

that should tell you everything you need to know about my boss.

and for those of you who don't know anything about harry potter, that's like saruman being your favorite character in lord of the rings. and for those of you who don't know anything about lord of the rings (who are you and how are we friends?), that's like jaws being your favorite...shark.

loving professor snape is like wanting a pet shark.

oh speaking of pets, i accidentally killed our new pet fish at work. we only had it 4 days. my boss didn't give us any fish food, and i never got around to asking the other teachers for any. i think she was kind of annoyed. i just assumed since the last one lived 2 months without any food, i had some time.

meh.

i've been watching the harry potter movies. and lucius malfoy reminds me of elrond. but with blonde hair.

it's not cool.




"elrond! why are you acting like that? you're supposed to give harry the light of earendil for 'when all other lights go out', not a horcrux! wait..."

and while we're on the subject, when i read the books...i pictured dumbledore as gandalf. so the movie dumbledore seems like an imposter.

i think i just alienated 95% of my blog audience with this post.

today's recommended picks from youtube.

favorite comment:

"why do you think he is screaming?"

i wondered about that too.



well played, kitty. well played.



i may have listened to "this is why i'm hot" every day for a month, a year or so ago. why youtube remembered this today, i know not.

more conversations with 2 year olds.

today for snack we had chips and ranch dip. weird.

boy: it's hot!
me: no, it's not.
boy: hot.
me: it's quite cool. (internal dialogue: "i sound like gandalf!!")
boy: it's hot!
me: it really isn't.
boy: *leans in to investigate further, almost gets dip on his nose, looks back at me*
me: just eat your chips.
boy: it's hot.
me: ....

i had to wake up one little boy after nap time...

boy: (in a distressed tone) blocks, put blocks on shelf!
me: wow. thats your first thought? right now, you're totally my favorite. i'm not supposed to tell you that, but you are.

girl: whats this?
me: a car!
girl: what's this?
me: still a car.

and my new co-teacher made me laugh for real, for the first time ever. unintentionally. it wasn't polite or forced.

her: so, where do we go for a fire drill?
me: right outside the door, on the playground.
her: ok. and...where do we go if there's actually a fire?

because yeah, they kind of force us into a cage. right next to the burning building. the flames would surely consume us.

why?

today, youtube recommended i view this:



thanks, youtube.

i like them lucid.

last night i dreamed that i went to hear the nashville symphony, something i've never done but really want to do, and they played this song:



they were dancing too. it was awesome.

it reminded me of last Christmas.

last year i bought my brother-in-law a CD. a christian rapper named lecrae. i'd never heard him, and didn't listen before i bought it. i don't know anything about the christian music scene anymore. i had just heard from a reliable source that he's one of the few christian hip hop artists that is actually good. (not that i have anything against 45 year old white guys being the face of christian hip hop...no wait, i do have a problem with that.) but my brother-in-law is a youth minister, so i figured...even if he hates it personally, he could probably get some use out of it at church. setting that youthy vibe at youth group, you know.

ANYWAY.

he opened it, and we listened to it later.

i'm not a good judge of that kind of music. i like it, i just can't evaluate it well.

BUT.

i remember thinking that if he'd replace all the synth music with an actual string section...it would be so good. i could hear it in my mind. man. a rapper with a string section! someone needs to do this.

and i feel that my dream only confirms that.

can you hear it?

i feel 11.

i finished the harry potter series.

oh

my

gosh.

that's all i can say.

and i just watched the first movie!

i have the same thought i had about the first book.

it's so cute! seriously. so cute. and harry potter is PERFECT. i just want to pinch his cute little wizard cheeks. he's not a dramatic kid actor. he just kind of saves the world, and looks around like "me? you think i'm awesome? really? aw, shucks."

unrelated:

sometimes, a girl just needs a reminder.

this isn't even the worst of me.

there are certain situations when i am just not good at faking.

when people tell jokes that aren't funny, it is so hard for me to laugh. so hard. i do it, to be polite. but it's hard. i hate polite laughter. ugh. (like when i worked in retail, and a purchase would total at $19.96, and a customer would say "well that was a good year!!" and i'd have to laugh at that...OH MY GOSH. that's not even a little bit funny.)

after two and a half months of working with substitutes and floaters, i finally have a new co-teacher.

i am having a hard time interacting with her. it is hard to laugh politely 40 hours a week. but i did a little calculating and realized that since our shifts are different and we take breaks at different times...it's really only 30 hours!

the main problem is that she also enjoys getting people in trouble. she told me some stories from her last job (and i tried to smile and nod) about how she got people in trouble, and just yesterday she basically accused another teacher at my school of abusing a child. she looks for ways to tell on people. it gives her pleasure. she actually wanted that teacher to be fired. someone she has known for less than a week.

i do not respect that.

she is hard to be around.

i feel like i have to be perfect, so she doesn't complain about me.

it's hard. it's exhausting. today i didn't really talk to her. i'd just kind of grunt in her general direction to acknowledge i heard her.

which is so rude.

how lame am i being right now?? i'm so gross. this is the real me.

when i realized my own sin in this today, i had to ask myself, again...


do i believe what i say i believe?

do i believe that i am a sinner? someone who is not perfect either, and surely annoys other people. (i can't imagine how, i just know from a purely rational standpoint that it must be true.)

do i believe that Christ calls me to love people who are not lovable? not just to nod politely or avoid offending, but to love them.

that is hard.

it is HARD.

but my whole life, that's what i've been saying i believe. i've just never been around someone like this for 30 hours a week. so now i get a chance to actually do it.

yay?

yes. yay. being like Christ is a yay. because i feel gross right now, and His way is better. far better.

conversations with two year olds.

me: what is that a picture of?
girl: balloon! triangle!
me: i'm fairly certain it can't be both.

girl: *playing with toy people*
me: who is this person?
girl: mommy.
me: what about this one?
girl: daddy.
me: of course. but who is this?
girl: neighbor.

me: *playing with some toy food*
boy: i need that.
me: you...need this? what do you mean you need this? what urgent situation can only be remedied with this fake asparagus?
boy: i...need that.
me: you've convinced me. take it.

me: what color is your shirt?
girl: WHITE!!!
me: pink, actually. but i'm glad you're excited about it.

me: what are you playing with?
boy: drum!
me: oh, that's great! make some music!
boy: bang! bang! bang!
me: if you're using an actual drum, you don't really need to say..
boy: BANG! BANG! BANG!
me: ok.

the good parts

i just got back from oklahoma, where my grandparents live. it was party time. my grandpa turns 90 this month.

i was pleased to discover that i am allergic to oklahoma. i was blowing my nose the whole time i was there, until the minute i stepped on the plane to come back.

my grandma lavished us with gifts. she got my dad a bottle of honey, and gave me a pair of booties.

my uncle died unexpectedly in december, but i learned two new things about him. he met my aunt in a mcdonald's. and since he was the epitome of a used car salesman, and an actual used car salesman, i was not at all surprised to learn he hit on someone at a mcdonald's. and for their first anniversary, he bought his bride a duck gun.

i took a picture of one of my dad's childhood creations. it has been sitting on a shelf since he made it around the age of 11. he made a house of toothpicks. if you're picturing something lame, you shouldn't be.



the "party" was just dinner at a restaurant, but it was still fun. my aunt got him a certificate for a free massage. his response: "so that's...really going to happen?" and my dad got him a book about the air and space smithsonian, and a dvd that gives a tour of it. my grandpa was in the air force. but i love that the exact same present could be given to an 8 year old boy, and he'd be just as thrilled.

as soon as we got back to their house, my grandpa disappeared to his work room and watched a dvd of his birthday party. my grandpa looooves making dvds. i'm hoping he does the same thing he did for my grandma's 90th party. he sent me a dvd of the party... and then a few months later, sent it to me again.

do you love my family yet? do you wish they were your family?

some distant cousin i don't know gave my grandma a box of pictures of the family. old pictures. faded pictures. yellow, black, and white pictures. they're amazing. taken by what i assume was the first kind of camera that people ever owned personally. my grandma actually said she has one of the original cameras in her attic. it's a box camera. anyway, i was mesmerized by these pictures. when i imagine people living early in the 20th century, i imagine them being bored or something. with nothing to do. which is ridiculous, i know. but i have no real concept of that part of history. but these pictures captured beautiful moments in time. people building houses. people having fun. girls climbing in trees in their dresses. (because they couldn't wear pants!) siblings having fights. children learning how to walk. grandmothers smiling about...who knows what. people living.

i like learning about my own history.

i stole two pictures. they had duplicates in the box! and my grandma gave me one wallet-sized picture of my dad in elementary school.




of course i tried to take pictures of some of the best pictures, and of course the quality is poor. very poor.







my dad said a few words at the party. he quoted some verse in philippians about considering other people better than yourself, and said he put a picture of his parents in his Bible next to that verse. because they have always lived life that way. they are really cool people. i didn't appreciate them when i was younger. and because of how they've spent their life caring for others, they now have people caring for them. they've gotten kind of feeble lately. they're 91 and 90, you know. but i've found out in the past couple of years that they have amazing neighbors. their neighbors mow their lawn for them, and buy groceries for them. this is kind of morbid to say, but i hope they cling to life until august 21st. that's their 70th wedding anniversary. and i really want to celebrate that.



and, in closing:

i slept in the living room on their sofa bed. i am fairly certain i woke up in the middle of the night and saw my grandma sitting in the chair next to the couch, watching me and my sister sleep. i got up at 4am, so it was before then. the middle of the night. i don't think i was sufficiently disturbed by this at the time. but i think it really happened, because not long after i heard her frying bacon in the kitchen. before 4am! and when i did finally wake up for good, it was gone.

who knows what else would happened if i had been there longer than a day.

i'm doing just fine, thanks.

when i was in the "break room" (corner of the hallway with a microwave) today, another girl was in there on her phone.

the following conversation took place.

her: no, i haven't. NO. i haven't. hey allison!
me: yes?
her: have you ever heard of the ham festival?
me:...no.
her: the country ham festival
me: no.
her: she hasn't heard of it either

a few minutes later...

her: allison!
me: yes.
her: have you ever heard of "mule day"?
me: no.
her: poor thing. she's never even heard of mule day.

where am i?