Half a Mustard Seed?

After discussing a disappointing situation with a friend yesterday, the friend told me she was going to pray for a miracle in said situation.

My thoughts as I mulled over the conversation later went something like this:

"I appreciate her faith, but I'm not going to waste my faith on that. I'm saving up for a miracle for Paige."

Fortunately, the Holy Spirit stepped in at that point and reminded me that He isn't limited to one miracle at a time. He doesn't wear Himself out working on one situation and find Himself too taxed to take care of one more.

And, no, faith isn't a currency I can hoard until I have enough to purchase a miracle from my own private Max the Miracle Man.

Enough of trying to screw my faith to the sticking place. I don't get it, so I'm just going to plain believe God can do what He wants and that He wants what is good. That takes enough effort as it is. Maybe that's all He's looking for, anyway?

Because I Love and Adore Claire (and part of me really does want to do this, too.)

Claire tagged me. Now, I have not blogged in months. However, since Claire is one of my absolutely favoritest people, I will sort of play the game by listing seven random things about myself. (A nice painless way of blogging for a backslidden blogger, no?) I'm just too lazy to think of seven more people.

1. I used to regularly read the encyclopedia for fun.

2. I would love to be a librarian. Most people who hear that exclaim, "Oh, you look like one!" I still am not sure how to react to that.

3. I want to walk across England someday.

4. I miss Jerry Trupiano.

5. I once pulled a muscle in my face while trying to spit into the sink.

6. Oh dear. I guess I won't feel bad for Mariano Rivera anymore this year.

7. I have never mowed a lawn in all my nineteen years.


Voila. A post.

This Is Scary

What book or movie is it in which some piano virtuoso comes back to a piano after years away and is afraid to play again? I have this vivid picture in my head of him (or her, I can only picture the hands) opening and closing his hands as the pianist musters up courage to touch the keys.

That's how I feel. (Because I used to be a blogger virtuoso, of course!)

I haven't posted in a really long time.

I know you poor souls are all going to look at this because it is going to come up as a new post on Aaron's blog list.

I feel powerful.

Why is it that I feel compelled to tell you how I feel?

......

How many of you can instantly recall what you are wearing without looking to see? I frequently have a hard time remembering. "Oh, you like my skirt? Just a minute while I look to see which one it is." Perhaps this is a warning sign of Alzheimers?

Thanks

I really appreciate all of you who have prayed for me during the last month or so. This year at Bible School seems to be off to quite an auspicious start and already has blown first year out of the water.

My fellow upperclassmen (woohoo!) are incredible.

Our focus on the Gospel in class has fed me richly.

God is teaching me to rest.

I can even be on meals by myself with confidence!

God is good.

I just hope that He helps me to successfully "convert" my eighty-year-old-grandfather-who-has-just-been-diagnosed-with-cancer-and-has-one-month-
to-live (played by Uncle Neil) tomorrow. Hooray for personal evangelism!

End of Summer

Many times this summer I have signed into blogger and almost begun a post entitled, "Bria Comes Through in the Clutch!" This post would, of course, be about my experiences learning to drive stick shift this summer. ("Do you mind if I hide under the seat?") However, I couldn't quite bring myself to use such a terrible pun. And maybe the memories are still a bit painful...

How odd...I wonder how many times I've typed my name out in a sentence, as above. I've typed it out at the beginning of papers and at the end of emails, but I am pretty sure I've not typed it into a sentence myself. I felt strange when I typed it.

* (Report of learning incident that doesn't really fit into this post.)
Do you know what the word "amok," or "amuck," as it can be spelled, means? I had always thought it had something to do with running aground or with things generally going wrong. Last night, as Elizabeth was reading the Iliad aloud to me, while I arranged pennies in order of date, she read a sentence containing the word that made it very clear that it did not mean what I thought it meant. We looked it up and got these definitions:

(among members of certain Southeast Asian cultures) a psychic disturbance characterized by depression followed by a manic urge to murder.

3. run or go amuck,
a. to rush about in a murderous frenzy: The maniac ran amuck in the crowd, shooting at random.
b. to rush about wildly; lose self-control: When the nightclub caught fire the patrons ran amuck, blocking the exits.

Live and learn.
*

I'm off tomorrow morning to Fairwood to work. Will I be blogging from there? Probably not, but anything's possible. Perhaps I will write a nice retrospective post about the clutch-burning days of summer...

My courage for another year is quite good, but I wouldn't mind if any of you guys thought to pray for me.

Happy blogging!

Last Words

"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."
~Oscar Wilde

I heard this quote for the first time while listening to NPR with Claire a few weeks ago. We pronounced it blogworthy.

Thus this post.

I was considering letting this be my last post before I head back to Fairwood, but now that I'm faced with the looming prospect of summer work I'm becoming more and more attached to this poor neglected blog.

Such is life.

Perhaps I will yet post again.

Overachieving, anyone?

I have been organizing all my papers, attempting to balance my account (it takes me awhile), organizing my "library", packing to go back to Fairwood, reading Don Quixote, berating myself for not practicing my violin, wasting time on blogs, reading In This House of Brede for the second time (It's scary how much Catholicism appeals to me), beginning a study of Latin, preparing to brush up on my French, thinking about studying Aristotle's Rhetoric, not participating in color week, doing laundry, and thinking that perhaps Lord Peter Wimsey would be just the husband for me.

And I'm happy because I don't feel obligated to finish most of the above "tasks." The illusion of business is enough to make me happy.

"Be still and know that I am God."

Okay.

Overheard in the S------d Household

At the dinner table:

Mother to Offspring X: Offspring Y will probably be president someday, he's so used to ridicule.
Offspring X: Mom, I'm not nearly as bad as Nancy Pelosi!
Offspring Y: Don't worry, I'll make you the Secretary of Defense.
Offspring X: Didn't JFK make his brother something?
Offspring Z, irrelevantly: Yeah, but he died, too!

Chivalry is not dead.

A wizened old man with wrinkled tattooes, lots of stubble, and a veteran's cap opened a door for me at the post office today before effortlessly got around me to open the next one for me. I'd like to see some young ATI guy do better. "They don't make'em like they used to."

Something I've Been Pondering

What if you and I see the color we both call "blue" differently?

Say I see it as the color you call green.

We would never know, because we would both consistently call it the same name and identify it with the same objects.

My brain hurts.

"Old Buddha"

is a song title from Mum's cd, "The Best of the Imperials," given to her by her sister in memory of their good ol' Campus Crusade days at UConn. This song amuses me so much with its unabashed unPCness that I am going to break my self-imposed rule of never blogging about song lyrics to share this one with you.

Well, old Buddha was a man
And I'm sure that he did well,
But I pray for his disciples
Lest they end up in hell,
And I'm sure that old Mohammed
Was sure he knew the way,
But it won't be Hari Krishna
We stand before on judgment day.

Chorus:
But it won't be old Buddha
That's sitting on the throne,
And it won't be old Mohammed
That's calling me home,
And it won't be Hari Krishna
That plays that trumpet tune,
And we're going to see the Son,
Not Reverend Moon!

Well, I don't hate anybody,
So please don't take me wrong,
But there really is a message
In this simple song,
See, there's only one way--Jesus,
If eternal life is your goal,
And meditation of the mind, it won't save your soul.

chorus

Well, you can call yourself a Baptist
And not be born again,
A Presbyterian or a Methodist
And still die in your sin,
You can even be Charismatic,
Shout and dance and jump a pew,
But if you hate your brother,
You won't be of the chosen few!

New Chorus:
'Cause it won't be a Baptist
That's sitting on the throne,
A Presbyterian or a Methodist
That's calling me home,
And it won't be a Charismatic
That plays that trumpet tune,
So let's all just live for Jesus,
'Cause He's coming back real soon!


That Reverend Moon bit gets me every time...

Peak

Know what? God is wicked good to me. Even when I refuse to talk to Him. Even when I don't believe He knows what He's doing. Even when I'm all grumpy and whiny and depressed.

Today I'm not grumpy and whiny and depressed, and I am amazed at how much He does for me. You'd think He loves me or something!

Look at all my blessings:

~Visits with friends at the FamCon.
~True blue friends with whom to visit
~Hours in the car by myself
~Beautiful weather
~Ice cream with friends
~KATHERINE!
~Flowers and herbs and things
~Lots of work hours
~Ice cream and flowers and music in Portsmouth with my ENTIRE family!
~Lindsay
~Peace
~Joy
~The discovery that slightly cooler than boiling water makes green tea so much better
~The remembering that God wants me personally, something I often lose sight of.
~Ecclesiastes--somehow it's ministering to me this year

The clouds are breaking, and, what do you know, God has been good all along. Weird.

I love Him.

In Praise of Camellia sinensis

Tea! thou soft, sober, sage and venerable liquid;-
thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing,
heart-opening, wink-tippling cordial, to whose
glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate.

Unfortunately, these lines are not original to myself, but they do express my sentiments quite well.

Where would I be without tea? Dead, probably. My hot pot in my room at Fairwood saved my sanity multiple times. The powers of a steaming cuppa on a frazzled girl are not to be underestimated. By said cuppa hands are warmed, sinuses are cleared, thirst is quenched, cells are antioxidized, mind is sharpened, soul is soothed.

"Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea?-how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea." ~Sydney Smith (1771-1845)

Seriously, a cup of tea really does bring a lot of comfort to me. And no, caffeine isn't the reason. Herbal tisanes make me happy, too.

You, gentle reader, should also like tea. Here's why:

~Tea tastes good. Really. Especially when quality tea leaves are brewed correctly. Most varieties don't even need sugar. (George Orwell and I are united in this opinion.) I usually prefer slightly bitter or earthy tasting teas, but fruity teas, coffeeish teas, and sweet teas exist in abundance for every taste.

~Tea is beautiful. Check out some pictures of tea leaves.

~Tea is good for you. Research has shown some varieties of tea to be rich in antioxidants and lots of good stuff.

~Tea has much less caffeine than coffee, and that caffeine is much milder than coffee's. Herbals of course don't contain any caffeine.

~Tea is soothing. Steadies the nerves and warms the body and soul.

~Tea exudes romance (in the adventurous sense of the word). The very names in themselves are lessons in geography and culture:...sencha, genmai cha, gyokuro, darjeeling, assam, ceylon, jasmine, oolong. They call forth visions of clipper ships sailing to the Far East, of "plantations of ripening tea/ All from tuppence," of the British Empire at its height, and of exotic lands and peoples.

~All real teas come from the same species. The distinctly different flavors of black, oolong, white, green teas and their many varieties are results of differences in processing and location grown.

~C.S. Lewis liked tea. "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."

~Tea goes well with books. It just does.

Convinced yet? If not, try some white tea with blueberries. (Make sure it isn't just blueberry flavors.) If you still don't like it, consider the following statement: "If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty." Turn from the folly of your ways while there is still time!

"My smelling salts!"

This morning, for the first time ever, I blacked out.

Even before I climbed out of bed it was a rough morning. I had repeated a dream all night and early morning long. This dream consisted mainlyof a sudden remembrance that I was on dinner at Fairwood and had forgotten all about it. I would start to frantically plan one and then would realize that it was too late to talk to Mary about it. Punctuating this nightmare at regular intervals was an embarrassing incident. I would be drinking a glass of water while I worried about dinner and talked to various students. Every few sips I would somehow miss my mouth with the cup and dump water over myself, and TJ would be walking through the kitchen and would laugh at me. (Unfortunately, as some of you may know, that this has some basis in real life. Distraction is fatal to me while I am drinking...I either have a near death experience or become very damp if my mind is elsewhere. Oh, and TJ does usually seem to notice and does usually let me know that he has noticed, but usually I am amused myself and not at all bothered. In this dream, however, I was quite distressed by his teasing.)

So it was from a not so pleasant sleep that my alarm awoke me. I decided I was too tired to get up and dozed on, ignoring the music. However, after many guilty glances at the clock, I decided I should get up after all. I had no reason to be as tired as I felt, because I had had plenty of sleep.

I dragged myself out of bed and started into my five minute stretch/exercise wake-up routine. Barely had I been moving for three minutes, when I began to feel quite hot. Instead of waking up as I exercised, I was becoming more and more tired. While I was doing some tricep presses at my bed I began to feel quite dizzy, in fact. I pulled myself up onto the bed and noticed that I was having an extraordinarily bad head rush. As everything got darker and darker I decided to sit on the floor and put my head down. (As I slid off the bed I recalled Brandon had told us that this was no longer the recommended procedure for preventing fainting, but I couldn't remember anything else, so I was happy to put my head on my knees and close my eyes.)

I wish I could remember what my dreams had been when I came back to a minute or so later. All I could recall was a vague voice talking lots. I think they had something to do with whatever NPR voice was coming over my radio. I did know for certain that I felt wicked sick, really, really hot, and that my ears were ringing loudly.

After a minute or so on my bed and a few minutes on the couch under my parents' observation, I felt fine, but a bit sleepy. Got to sleep for a couple more hours, and had a normal day after that. Weird, wot?

Maybe I have a weird disease that is going to randomly knock me dead.

Hehe...I keep remembering fainting scenes from books and movies...

"I'm an uncle!" Remember the guy in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers who
faints dead away?

"Wilbur, I forbid you to faint!"-Charlotte the spider

The girl that Anne Shirley was teaching who fainted when the firecrackers
where in the stove.

I seem to be in pretty good company.

She announces in a very small voice that she has returned.

To get you up to speed in my life:

My first year at FBI is done! 'Twas good, God blessed it, but I'm glad for a vacation. The last semester was very difficult, and I thought I would die of stress the last week, but I didn't. Three cheers for the Holy Spirit!

"The most practical thing about a man is still his view of the universe."
G.K.Chesterton is my new hero.

I might do kickboxing this summer. Aunt Beth would be proud of me.

Do I really want to start blogging again? we'll see.

Confession

I have a new addiction to add to my list! (I accumulate these addictions semi-regularly. I am currently addicted to reading blogs and trimming split ends. I have in the past been addicted to Scrabble, minesweeper, and nyet.) This new and exciting addiction is to sudoku. No, it's not anime or anything of the sort. It's a crossword puzzle of sorts, only with numbers, very easy to learn, and very hard to get away from...Try it, one puzzle only takes ten minutes or so...

*Angry Eyes*

@#$%^&*()_2345^&*(

Mr. Johny Damon signs with the New York for $52 million? I guess everyone has his price.

He wasn't so hot anyway.

Why would we want him?

sour grapes.

the children's teeth are set on edge.

Professor Bhaer vs. Laurie

(Before I officially begin this post, let me see that it is good to be home, surprise, surprise...)

Louisa May Alcott's book Little Women has popped up in my reading and viewing pretty much ever since I can remember. GranBeth confiscated a copy of it once while she was babysitting me, because she said it was "too old for me." (I was four and had pulled it out from its position of propping up one corner of Cara's playpen. Of course I couldn't read the whole thing, but I could pick out words and such.) To my relief, Mum restored the book to me, and I read at least a portion of it every year for years afterwards, actually only reading straight through it when I was twelve or so. I remember watching the old movie once, and the new one several times when it came out....

Anyway, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy made deep impressions on me. The male characters, however, never interested me much. Laurie was all right when he was little, dumb when he was older. Prof. Bhaer was way too old for me to consider him a person much.

Then last week at Fairwood, Shannon and I pulled out the library's copy to read aloud. (We'd just finished Oedipus Rex and were in sore need of something warm and cheery.) Shannon said something about liking the ending, and I promptly agreed with her. Prof. Bhaer was right for Jo. He was older, yes, but he was a good kind gruff scholarly sort, and not too old to be romantic by any means. How could anyone think differently? How could anyone not love that chapter, "Under the Umbrella"? To our surprise, Nate H., who was passing through at the moment, thought quite differently. He thought that their marriage was a terrible ending, that Jo threw herself away on an old geezer. (!)

The discussion then turned to Laurie. I hold him in a sort of friendly contempt. He was a good kid, but basically wasted a whole lot of his life being stupid. Shannon liked him, "He's just like all boys"....hmm. Nate fortunately was right on this one and said to look for better things than poor Laurie!

Today, Cara brought up the subject. She asserts that Jo was ridiculous to not marry "Teddy," and that the only reason he turned bad was that Jo rejected him. Mum also had way more sympathy for him than I. (We had a veritable fight at the dinner table over this.) I maintain that Jo was too good for him and never even loved him in the first place, and that even if she had, they would not have been a very happy couple. Laurie didn't mature as fast as she did, or he stopped, or something. The Bhaer was a man, someone she could look up to (yes, dangling prep.). Plus, Christian Bale plays Laurie, and who would want to marry him?

What say you? I don't believe it had ever occurred to me that anyone would actually see the story any other way, so I'm interested to hear what others think. (And I'm honored if you actually read my blog after all this time!)

A Vacation Post

This evening Aaron took me to the NH Philharmonic's Christmas concert at the Palace Theater in Manchester as a birthday present. 'Twas great fun to sing with some good old fashioned carols, watch Gov. Lynch conduct (His conducting was comparable to his governing, but more amusing to watch.), and catch up with my old violin teacher and friends from orchestra. (It took my teacher a minute to recognize me with my glasses on. he gave me a few blank looks before it connected, to my vast amusement.)

Aaron and I were in the very tiered seats in the balcony, the ones with very little leg room, even for me. During the intermission, while the man sitting in front of me was gone, I got up and moved around before sitting down again, somehow managing to drape a whole bunch of my full skirt over his seat. I didn't notice this until it was too late. The man returned and promptly sat on my wayward clothing.

The problem of how to extricate my skirt kept Aaron and me amused for some time. We decided that I could a)yank it out really fast and just sort of look off in a different direction in case our neighbor turned around to see what I was doing, b)pull it out inch by inch and hope he wouldn't feel it, c)"accidentally" throw my program on the floor in front of him and hope he'd be kind enough to bend over and pick it up for me, leaving my skirt unoccupied, or d) just tap him on the shoulder and explain the whole thing.

I opted for b. Once the music started I started pulling. Inch by inch it slid out. The poor man twitched once or twice and shifted position, causing me worry that he would turn around causing some awkwardness, but he never did, and eventually I retrieved my hem and enjoyed the rest of the concert.

Boy, the whole thing made me miss my violin lessons so bad. Did you know that violin playing builds the triceps? I played for an hour and a half in the cold earlier today (another story for another day) and got so sore, almost as sore as I was when i started playing. Guess that means some poor room at Fairwood will soon be subjected to the scritchings of my practice.

Hallelujah! God is good.

Surprise

Well....

I'm currently sitting in Diane's apartment, trying to get used to the idea of blogging again. I definitely broke the addiction in the last couple of months, but I've no doubt it could easily get its hooks into me, so I've got to be careful.

Bible School is Good. God is meeting me in new ways, and I'm glad I'm here. The class is coming together nicely, the girls have bonded pretty well, so life is good.

Wow...it's been a long time since I last heard the soundtrack of Man from Snowy River...Diane, Katie, and some of the girls are currently watching it. Brings back memories.

A few things I've learned here:

~Most recently, it's not a good plan to push over dead birch trees in the dark. Amy and I did the other night, and we learned the meaning of "widowmaker." After she came to and I realized that she wasn't dead, we had a good laugh, but I still think I won't be doing that again. Shannon and I went back a day or so later to find the tree and found a twenty foot piece, a ten foot piece, a fifteen foot piece, and several five foot pieces of that "little" dead tree. Made me awfully glad that God looks out for us dumb teenagers.

~Small snakes can be hid in many different places.

~I can't spit worth beans. (I learned this while trying to moisten the soles of my shoes while playing volleyball.)

~Swimming in Dublin Lake in November is fun.

~It's a good idea to check mysterious socks on one's floor for dead mice if you have friends whose initials are BFJ.

~When sparring with said BFJ it's a good idea to keep one's hands up, or she will whack one's head good and hard.

~On a more serious note, it's amazing what God will do when you decide to believe Him.

~I'm out of practice for blogging, but it's good to get my feet wet again. Hooray for all you faithful bloggers.