Twice in One Day!

See what happens when I have Internet at home?!? This may not be the best thing for my study habits. Anyway, Luke was listening to NPR this morning on his way to see a friend, and heard a piece about how blogging is becoming a source of information during the war. You can listen to it here.

Nomination

I have a nomination for patron saint of Internet - Bruce Schometzer! He has once again resurrected the wireless network in the apartment buildings, so thats at least two miracles. And he seems to have taken a vow of poverty, as this has all been volunteer work. Although it may make life difficult for Jane - trying to be a priest is hard enough without being married to a saint!

Okay, just a quick celebration... I'm off to do Tae-Bo!

Food Glorious Food

Food is an amazing thing! It can foster good conversations, it can change your mood, it brings folks together in a unique way. It is a good thing. This is a good thing for me to remember when I am cranky - because I am usually cranky because I'm hungry. Thanks, Tripp, for reminding me of this...

Anyway, the quarter is in full swing, which means I am behind in all of my classes. Seriously, I don't know how that happens. A fun website for you all though from "History of Christian Life & Thought II" - www.bedesworld.co.uk - its like a little theme park for the Venerable Bede, courtesy of today's class presentation. All the classes are shaping up well for the term, and our profs are as different as the four seasons. (I would say 'night & day' but there are four of them, so seasons works better.) As the musical person I am, I'm excited that Trevor will be starting class each day with music. Its how I think of life anyway. So now - anyone have a song for "I'm going to buy my books"?

Sunny Days

I love spring weather. I'm not a big fan of all four seasons... I would be happy with just spring, summer and maybe fall. But I think I could live without fall too. I'm just a happier person when the sun is out, and its warm enough to go outside. So, today is a very good day.
The Seabury spring quarter starts tomorrow. I think we call this one the "Easter quarter", but since we're hardly into Lent so far it seems a bit of a stretch this year. Anyway, my fellow juniors & I will be taking our classes from a whole new set of profs, and I have a feeling that this blog will soon include Ethics postings. Stay tuned.
I haven't been thinking about much lately, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'm trying to get my mind back into gear after a week off though. So while I was doing laundry the other day (yup, really enjoying that good spring weather.) I was listening to my new Great Big Sea cd. They're an awesome band from Newfoundland - they do sort of a celtic/sea chanty/pop-ish mix of stuff. Check out their website for some soundclips. The reason I bought this particular album was for a song called "How Did We Get from Saying 'I Love You' to 'I'll See You 'Round Someday". Its a beautiful piece, and it got me thinking about relationship maintenance and relationships in general. Why is it that friendships are formed quickly with some, and never really deepen at all with other people? How do relationships grow, and why do they die? Sometimes the answer is obvious... distance can really do some damage, as can time. Why is it that I can only talk to my best friend once every couple weeks, and we never have to start over, but if I don't see some people for a week, I feel like we've hardly met?
Argh, random babbling. Sorry, bad habit of mine. I really do think that understaning inter-personal relationships is important for what we're doing here at Seabury, and for this whole idea of community. I suppose that is going on the premise that communities are structures of relationships - but that is a premise I think I support.

Sunrise

First, for any of you who are wondering why I'm writing at sunrise, don't worry. I'm not. I have gotten myself away from the TV though, and watching the pictures of dawn over Baghdad. Bombing has begun in parts of Iraq, and I am at a loss for words. Frank has posted some good lyrics, Jeff has posted some good prayers, and Jane has posted a good diversion, when needed. It has been an odd evening. Luke & I made dinner and sat down for my secret guilty indulgence - watching Dawson's Creek. Then we chatted with Jeff for a bit, and turned on the TV, and there were the photos. I have always loved the optimistic symbolism of sunrise, even if I haven't gotten up to watch one in years. New life, Easter & Resurrection, a chance to start over with a new day. All I can pray for tonight is that soon, the sunrise will mean the same thing to the people of Iraq, and the young people we send to fight our wars for us.

O day of peace that dimly shines
through all our hopes and prayers and dreams,
guide us to justice, truth, and love,
delivered from our selfish schemes.
May the swords of hate fall from our hands,
our hearts from envy find release,
till by God's grace our warring world
shall see Christ's promised reign of peace.

Then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb,
nor shall the fierce devour the small;
as beasts and cattle calmly graze,
a little child shall lead them all.
Then enemies shall learn to love,
all creatures find their true accord;
the hope of peace shall be fulfilled,
for all the earth shall know the Lord.
-Carl P. Daw, Jr. (Hymn 597, Hymnal 1982)

I am back, after an absence due to end of term crush and perfect weather. Who needs California when Chicago is 65 degrees and sunny? Now that I need to be working on my last paper for the term though, I’m back to familiar methods of procrastination. Which I’ve been doing all weekend. Luke & I spent a lot of good time with Jeff this week, since Catherine was out of town- good food, good music, good talk. Tripp joined us Saturday for breakfast, more good food, good music and good talk. You know that whole thing about friends don’t talk politics or religion? Yeah… that’s pretty much all we did. And loved it. Then Luke and I got some good quality time together, walking around downtown Evanston. We talked about what we would change our first names to if we were going to change them. Now, I'm sort of thinking about going by "Addie" - my middle name is Adelaide. Ah, the joys of a lazy day. Spring Break is a good life.
Friday night, Luke & I rented Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. We didn’t get through the whole movie, (I’m incredibly sensitive to movie violence, and it got to be a bit much) but there was a quote from Nicholas Cage’s character that I loved:
What is there to sing about? There is singing when babies are baptized, when you celebrate a marriage. Men sing as they work. Soldiers sing as they march into battle. And there is singing when people die. I have always found something in life to sing about and for that, I will not apologize.
Neither will I.

Lenten Disciplines

This may not come as a shock given the title of this blog, but my favorite, best, most reliably effective way to pray is through song. I love to sing, anything from plainsong chant at Evensong to praise music. So yesterday was a gift of grace for me. I woke up feeling awful... congested, sore throat, and the mounting pressure of papers. At Dean's Mass (Tuesday Eucharist here at Seabury), we sang two of my favorite hymns from Lift Every Voice and Sing II... "Lead Me, Guide Me" and "Higher Ground". I love them both, and seeing them on the ordo gave me enough energy to really wake up and pay attention to Eucharist. I definitely left that service feeling renewed. As the afternoon wore on, I made time to play my guitar and sing some of the praise music I know from youth work. This is actually my Lenten discipline: play my guitar everyday. It is really reviving my prayer life, which revives all of me. So today, I am thankful for the energy and grace I find in music - enough energy and grace to get me through writing a paper, even when Tripp and Jeff are distracting me til all hours of the morning!

Comfort in Papers

Here at Seabury, we are in the final week of our term, which means lots of work to do. I am a classic procrastinator - I write papers the night before they are due. I seem to be incapable of writing them any sooner - I just can't concentrate on them until I'm up to the wire. I've really always had this problem. Anyway, the latest procrastination project was a paper on Psalm 139. I have never spent much time with the Psalms for some reason. I like to think that its because I am a singer, and can't stand having songs be put onto a page without music. But thats thinking a bit too highly of my motives, I'm afraid. This psalm is now my favorite though. It balances images of God as all-knowing and all-present for the psalmist, and then has the psalmist asking for the destruction of enemies. It is quite jarring to read really. As I read some commentaries and such, I decided to approach the psalm as a kind of prayer tool. If God knows our every thought and inner being as this psalm says - then it is no longer shocking for us to express our deepest, often most violent feelings to God. God already knows everything we can put forth - I saw this as a call to honesty in prayer. Perhaps it was a bit self-serving, but hey, the paper is done, and I now have a favorite psalm.
And, once all these other papers are done, I will be figuring out the comments thing. Promise. Now, enough procrastinating for tonight!

Community Sports

Last night, Luke & I headed over to the Garret Faculty/Student basketball game. Apparently, this is an annual event for the school, and they invited Seaburians to participate this year. I went along, since I haven't seen Luke play basketball since high school - and it was a blast!! The student had a "Spirit Team", there was popcorn and drinks, they had an announcer with a sound system. I started chatting with some people, and a wonderful Garrett student named Sarah invited me to share their blanket with her and her two kids. The students beat the faculty 83-81 - which was sad for us, since all the Seabury folk played for the faculty team. It was really just a time for the school to get together and have fun - the sense of community was nearly tangible. A nice reinforcement that having fun together is essential for community building and bonding - "continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship" -getting together just for fun really does fall into this category. I used to do teambuilding games and initiatives at my diocesan camp. One thing I learned in training was to start out with games that were just fun, running-around kinds of games - throwing yarn balls at each other and laughing about it is good for the soul! And, its a great way to justify procrastination... so I'm back to work.

BTW- I'm working on fixing up the page, but it may take a bit. Thanks Tripp, Jeff, Jane, and Laura for your help so far!

He did it!

We received very good news today: Luke (my husband) was accepted into the Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago School of Social Adminsitration. The program will be a policy degree, but through a social work school. Since he made the decision to head towards academia, there has been a wonderful sense of direction and excitement in his life. On a vaguely related note, AKMA had some thoughts on academia and community. I have always been interested in academia myself. Perhaps I'll come back to school someday and get an advanced degree and teach. Someday.

Hooked on Blogging

Hey y'all... I'm hooked. Tripp said I should have called this "lowchurch.blogspot.com" but I didn't want to be known that way. (insert hysterical laughing here.) At least not in my first blog entry...
I had also thought about "retrospect" (which was taken)- its in the Indigo Girls song "Watershed". The line is "And theres always retrospect when you're looking back, to light a clearer path. Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good laugh." I went to see them in Milwaukee with Si, Heather and her friend Gary, and Amy Ray forgot the line. She laughed and said she knew it had something to do with retrospect. They got through it, but said "every five days or so, I look back on my life and I have a good laugh" Thats about how I feel here in seminary.
My other option was confuzzled, but that simply got outvoted in my little poll of blogging friends. So here I am. The look will develop over time and with a little help from my friends, but welcome!