Beans

Tonight, my roommate made burritos. She grabbed a can of refried beans out of the cupboard, some salad mixin's out of the the fridge, and a can of olives out of...somewhere.
The olives were ginormous. She offered me one, but I was incredibly full of my own burritos.
Then, as she started making her last burrito, she noticed her beans smelled a little iffy.
"These smell kind of weird," she said. Her nose wrinkled and her eyebrows drew down close together, huddling.
"They should be ok. They haven't been opened, right?" I asked her.
"No," she said.
Then I thought of something...
"Are those vegetarian?"
My roommate looked at me, then back at the can of beans, turning it around to see the label.
"No..."
(gasp)
(giggles)
"I'm a porker!" she said, mouth open in horror. "I'm a lard lover!"

Five Minutes

How many things can one do in five minutes?

You can...
Get up.
Eat.
Grab clothes.
Jump in the shower (leave your clothes on the floor, preferrably).
Get out.
Brush your teeth while dressing.

Leave for class.

Apparently Beau Snyder can do these things. Krissy says it's multitasking.

I, on the other hand, would be stuck on step #1.

The Buzz

It's more of a resurrection, really. Today Union College came back to life.

I came back to school early, only to find the campus dead. There were no signs of life anywhere. The Dick Building? Its windows were dark, blinds drawn. Engel Hall? Locked, with a sign on the door informing me it would be closed until January 8, 2007.

And that's today.

So the campus came alive with students, faculty, and staff. And lo and behold, new neighbors!

That's right. Carrie and I now have bottom-dwellers living underneath us. No more jumping jack parties or tap dancing on the kitchen floor, but hopefully a lower heat bill. Woot!

We might start up a "Reflections" type meeting for the apartment complex...I don't know my neighbors all that well so we'll see how it goes. Just a once-a-week meeting, some time to relax, to reflect, to study the Bible or share God-things with each other.

Whatever happens, I am excited. It's good to be back, starting new classes, and knowing that this is the last semester!

Rock on.

God and Money

Free and Clear: a book I'd like to finish reading.

I started reading this book while I was doing laundry at Mitch's, looking for something to pass the time. Back in the day, when laundry had to be scrubbed by hand, people didn't have this thing called boredom. My boredom didn't last long, though, because I found the book.

(Even if I had never found the book, there are always so many things to do. Breathe. Stare at the wall. Mow the lawn. Shovel snow. Sing a song. Do a dance. Make faces in the mirror and scare your socks off.)

This book contains the most amazing thought: Money is a big deal to God. Not because He's a miser or a penny-pincher. He owns it all and yet He lets us choose what we do with it. (While requiring tithe--1/10--He encourages every money decision to be brought before Him since He's the owner. Hmmm. What about that division between "secular" and "sacred"?) Anyways, since He has the corner on the money market, He's shared with us His money secrets.

Get this: there are over 2,000 verses in the Bible that talk about money. I wish I had the exact number, but that figure alone boggles my mind. It's just such a relief to know that God understands. He knows how important money is, and He's got it covered.

Main point: Debt-free living--freedom by truth. Thank you, Jesus.

Alive

How much that one word means.

More than breathing.
More than brain waves.
More than wiggling a toe.
More than feeling raindrops on your forehead.

I was thinking today about being alive.

See, God wakes me up each morning with the blessing of breath. He gives me a new day, a whiteboard squeegeed free of yesterday's problems, and prepares a meal for two in the breakfast nook.

I have this choice: eat, fellowship, knit my heart with His throughout the day, and be wholly alive.

Or, I can rush by. My day after that? Brain dead. It's choosing to die, except that for some reason, God has me hooked up to the respirator. Maybe it's because there's still hope. Maybe it's just some coma that I'll wake up from. Maybe my analogy is falling apart.

But the point is, being truly alive means living abundantly.
I've seen how meaningless life is without Him. I see the effects of soul death every day.

God does, too, and all the while He reaches out to point us to Himself.

"Look!" He says. "You'll find it in Me!"

"Find what?" I ask, tired of looking and afraid of another dead end. "Who's going to be able to see me, and love me, and make me alive?"

"I Am."

Disappearance

It's Saturday night. My Big Fat Greek Union is probably full swing in the gym. The VonTrapp family singers are performing in Omaha. Numerous movies are being watched. And I am doing laundry.

I haven't figured out why.

On the way to Wilderness Park this afternoon, I asked myself what has changed. Where am I? Or, where has my sophomore self gone?

I used to come up with things to do with other people. Now, I end up driving to the library alone, walking by myself at the park, or (horrors) doing laundry on a Saturday night.

I like solitude. But when did I lose the desire to be part of a group? I miss it. I want it back. But I don't want it back without first realizing what's happened.

Tap Dancer

Vanessa stood on my kitchen floor, a little embarrassed at all the attention. The rest of us cheered convincingly.

“Come on, show us!”

“Yeah, you can do it!”

Grinning, Vanessa agreed. Her feet began to move across the floor, and even muffled by her socks, I heard the rhythm of a true tap dancer, soul-dancing, uninhibited and free.

Grapefruit

I love grapefruit.

I like citrus, and I like pink. Grapefruit are perfect.

The best way to eat a grapefruit is to cut it in half and scoop out the fruit with a spoon. My roommate has grapefruit spoons, spoons with sharp metal teeth on the end made for scooping.

This is beginning to sound redundant, but--like a thirsty man without water--I can't stop thinking about grapefruit.

The problem is simple: I ate my last grapefruit on Monday. And I'm hungry. And SuperSaver is too far away when class is in ten minutes.

Shaped

"Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand."
Isaiah 64:8

How is God shaping you?

Autumn

At home, the sumac bushes burn with color. I take a walk in the field behind our house over school break, trying to capture fall with a camera. But my lens can't hold autumn.

The acrid smoke, the cold, the crunch of leaves under my feet, the foggy puffs of my breath: my lens fails.

I love fall. I like to watch Nature stretch as God tucks her in for the night, lowering His voice to the whisper of winter. I see her bare and break and freeze, and I hear her rustling as she settles under the covers, trusting.

Frankly, I'm a little envious of autumn. It's a struggle for me to trust so simply. It is hard to die each day in want of rebirth. I don't like baring my soul.

But I want to be broken more than anything. And I see the leaves, falling.

It's time.

Creator

How do you see God as Creator?