Pictures of our Sushi Rolls

 We were very proud of our first attempts at making sushi rolls… even to the point of posing with them.   

Luke 10:38-42

“As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a village where a woman named Martha welcomed them into her home. Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. But Martha was worrying over the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, ‘Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.’ But the Lord said to her, ‘My dear Martha, you are so upset over all these details! There is really only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it–and I won’t take it away from her.’”

Don’t be shy about partaking in what appears to be a lazy way to live out your walk with Christ (sitting at his feet, dwelling in his presence, being swept away by him). Jesus himself said that it was the only thing worth being concerned about. The only thing! Well it may be one thing, but the results (the fruit) are infinite. I think we have a tendency to want to stay busy all the time because it looks good to other people, it keeps the Martha’s off our backs, and we’re afraid that if we just sit and listen to Jesus we wont accomplish anything. Thing is though, if you’re busy without dwelling what is the aim of your busyness? And dwelling doesn’t necessarily mean inactivity. The point of dwelling like Mary is to learn from Jesus so that you know the right way to live, and do and be.

Spicy Pork and Chilli-Pepper Goulash

We tried this recipe by Jamie Oliver and thought it might possibly be the best thing we have ever made with our four hands. We left out the chillis, and found that our preference excludes the sour cream mixture, but you decide for yourself. THIS IS PERFECT FOR A DINNER AFTER A SNOWY AFTERNOON AT HOME, since it takes about 4 hours at 375 to cook (this is due to the altitude, I know the recipe says 3 hours at 350 on FoodNetwork.com)

Anyway, here is the recipe

Women in Church Leadership

If you are interested in the subject of women in church leadership, you should check out an article by Jenny Baker at YouthSpecialties.com (the article). In it, she talks about how with the fall what God meant for partnership resulted in separation, alienation and ulitmately competition between men and women. But Christ came to reconcile our lives with God’s will and plan, not prolong the curse.

“Gaebelin Hull, in her book Equal to Serve calls patriarchy the ‘true record of a false idea.’ Its inclusion in the Bible doesn’t mean that God ordains it. The Bible uses many illustrations of one people dominating another, Egyptians oppressing the Hebrews, Haaman seeking to eradicate the Jews, but no one would suggest that we should emulate these examples. We need to recognize the oppression of women in the cultures of the Old and New Testaments…”

Baker talks about the new opportunities available to women with the spread of western missionary work around the world in the early nineteenth century (as if the only leadership women can have in relation to men is with those with dark skin in a jungle somewhere… Even the Southern Baptist Convention, notorious for it’s disdain for women in church leadership, raise an annual mission fund called the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering–Lottie Moon was a woman missionary! What do they think she did on the mission field except lead?). “Florence Nightingale went to nurse the wounded in the Crimean War. ‘I would have given the church my head, my heart, my hand. She would not have them. She told me to go back to do crochet in my mother’s drawing room; or marry and look well at the head of my husband’s table. ‘You may go to Sunday school if you like it,’ she said, but gave me no training even for that. She gave me neither work to do for her, nor education for it.’”

This is a very touchie subject, but I wouldn’t bring it up just to be touchie. I feel very passionately about the need for change here, and not because of culture, but because of scpripture. I’m not trying to be anti-biblical, and that shouldn’t be assumed just because traditionally people making a big deal about this may have valued culture more than God’s word. Yes, I recognize that there are two specifically damaging passages for the position that women can hold leadership positions in church (1 Tim. 2:11-15 and 1 Corinth. 14:34-35), but I think they are only damaging when taken outside of the context of the rest of scripture. And one of the most basic rules for studying the bible is to use scripture to interpret scripture. And I do not believe that by doing that, these passages can be taken in such a cut-and-dry fashion to mean that women can never lead and that their role is always to be behind the scenes.

You may disagree, which is fine… but at least look into the issue, if you never really have (start with Baker’s article, which is pretty straight forward, read some more heady stuff, but then also spend some time in prayer).

Barack Obama’s Speech on Faith and Politics

In June of 2006 Barack Obama spoke at a church for Sojourners’ Call to Renewal conference. It gave voice to some of my concerns about the way we lump Christian political issues into the all too narrow categories of abortion and gay-marriage. He speaks candidly about his conversion and affirms the value of faith in politics and the need for more inclusion of people of faith in political movement. A book that goes along with Obama’s message about the exclusion of people of faith in politics is Stephen L. Carter’s “A Culture of Disbelief.” Carter’s book centers around the trivialization of faith in American politics by a misreading of the “separation of church and state” clause. But Obama goes even further and shows the other side of the coin as well. He doesn’t just see the need for a-religious Washington to open up to people of faith, he also sees the need for a broader view of what Christian politics really is, to include Christians with political concerns other than what is traditionally considered Christian politics (for instance: creationism and school prayer). Anyway, you should just listen to it, even if you are skeptical. Here’s the clip.

Le.gal.ism. ['legu-lizem]

noun

If you believe in God’s grace, and know everything about it but have never found yourself in need of it, are you really a Christ follower/Christian/disciple/church?

Dis.ci.ple [di'sipel]

noun

someone who likes what they see in the life of another so much that they begin to share in that persons life by learning from them and being lit up by their dreams.

verb

sharing in someones life by showing them where you have been and what you have seen, inspiring them in this way rather than with where you haven’t been and what you haven’t seen.

When I was a kid…

… my sisters and I would climb up our A.S.E. Club tree (pronounced the same as ace, it stands for April, Stephanie and Emily, mine and my sisters names) and we would just belt out this song by Four Non-Blondes:

25 years of my life and still

I’m trying to get up that great big hill of hope

For a destination

I realized quickly when I knew I should

That the world was made up of this

Brotherhood of man

For whatever that means

So I cry somethimes when I’m lying in bed

To get it all out what’s in my head

Then I start feeling a little peculiar

So I wake in the morning and I step

Outside I take deep breath

I get real high

Then I scream from the top of my lungs

What’s goin’ on

And I say hey what’s goin’ on

And I say hey…I said hey what’s goin’ on

And I try, oh my God do I try

I try all the time

In this institution

And I pray, oh my God do I pray

I pray every single day

For a revolution

So I cry sometimes when I’m lying in my bed

To get it all out what’s in my head

Then I start feeling a little peculiar

So I wake in the morning and I step outside

I take a deep breath then I get real high

Then I scream from the top of my lungs

What’s goin’ on

And I say hey…And I say hey what’s goin’ on

And I say hey…I said hey what’s goin’ on

25 years of my life and still

I’m trying to get up that great big hill of hope

For a destination

 

I’m not sure if back then we had any idea what this song what really about, except some sort of angst about the way the world is, but if you know any one of us and the way we turned out as adults these lyrics should make you smile. They make me smile, and it’s one of my favorite memories. And now that I understand a little better what it’s all about (disappointed idealism, brokeness still attatched to hope, being a woman, being disenfranchised) I identify with this song even more. It’s humiliating, a little bit, to wait for change or to ask for it, and to be told by all the voiced and heard that everything is fine without me having a voice and being heard. The disenfranchised are forced to scream like emotional children,”What’s going on?” instead of being legitimate and valued voices, contributing to a more complete and full human story. If we would choose to give voice to those who don’t benefit from the status quo we could possibly avoid some of the dangerous and damaging revolutions (that only end up excluding other voices, our own voices). 

One Year

3 things I’ve learned from being married for a year:

Brian
-How selfish I used to be, and how selfish I still can be
-How to love someone through anything, good or bad
-How to share my life with someone else, working, living, everything

Emily
-Love grows through unexpected things
-It’s always worth it, he’s always worth it
-And sometimes I can be a real jerk: I need to stop that

The Darkness

The darkness makes both good things appear to be evil and evil things appear to be good, because the darkness conceals the truth about everything.

Evil things that could be killing us, hindering honest relationships with our friends and family, and shaming us from the presence of God become secret stashes of pleasure and personal gratification in the dark. But darkness condemns everything (not just what is evil). What is perfectly innocent and permissible is treated as immoral when we conceal it in the darkness because it isn’t “spiritual.”

The darkness brings slavery in both the form of legalism and sin (read Galatians 5). In the dark we mutilate ourselves by protecting what is hurting us, but we also hide, in shame, the beautiful things that make us human (human in a good way, human as in alive, human as in what God smiled upon when he made us).

The good news about Jesus is that he shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish him (John 1:5).

If we would walk into the light, where he is, our sin would no longer enslave us by pretending friendship. If we were in his light, our humanity would no longer shame us by pretending to be unspiritual at the hands of legalism.

I’m in way over my head, trying to say anything clear about this subject, but I think it’s important because I’ve seen too many miserable people trying to be free but never leaving the darkness, or trying to be religious and never leaving the darkness, and it’s just sad.

The chapter called Angels and Animals in Rob Bells book, Sex God deals with this issue in a somewhat different way. It’s worth reading.