still thinking...and then some

I promised KB that I would give her something to look forward to in the morning which, let's be honest, is a pretty bold calling in the first place. However, I'm going to do my best to live up to this lofty ideal--like I usually do.

So, I'm sitting here at work today with not enough to do to put off yet another month without posting at all! :) I'm also trying to decide whether or not to take some tylenol for what I believe to be a mild dehydration/over-caffeination headache or to continue my routine of drinking a bit-peeing a bit for the whole afternoon. Lucky you. I pretty much didn't think anyone was reading anymore but in case you are, here ya go.

A) is for Amy. Thank you, Amy, for still reading this on the rare occasion that I post. And since you called my bluff, I'm going to do my best to remember the article(s) and tell you my response. I am resisting the urge to just copy and paste my comments that I made on CT's site. But a lot of those were in response to fellow responders to the articles anyway, so not much help.
So...I felt that the main article started out well because I think it's true that perhaps the church does not do a great job of preparing people for marriage. And I suppose he might even be correct that because of the whole "no ding ding without the wedding ring" thing, perhaps churches should be more prepared to need to discuss marriage with younger aged people. (The above was a quote from one of my favorite theological movies, Robin Hood: Men in Tights). I also am a firm believer that people should get married at the point at which the Father tells them to do so and not earlier (or later). So, in that sense, I'm a supporter of "early marriage". However, I disagree with the validity of getting married because it's hard to stay chaste and think that in far too many instances, many folks in the fellowship put too much stock in sex as a motivator. I'm not saying we need to be gnostic and pretend it doesn't exist or that it doesn't matter what you do with your body. I'm just saying that perhaps it's-in a lot of ways-not supposed to be as big a factor in our decision-making as we tend to perceive it to be. Though, one of my friends mentioned that they liked the author's take because they found it to be more earthy...that he just sorta said, ya know, if you love somebody and you know they're the one, marry 'em. And I found that interesting. And if in that instance, those people are 20, then yes, c'mon ch....urch, help them understand how to do it well. But I feel like that for people who are 40 also. So, those were some of my main thoughts about it.
I did not appreciate 2 of the articles that appeared along with this one in the CT magazine that came out. One mentioned that parents need to be prepared to help their children who want to get married young with their financial burdens (paying for school, etc). This seemed kinda out of touch with reality (at least my family's reality) and to lack an understanding of building responsibility in your children, young or adult. The other was an article about the older days when females who were physiologically mature were married and began to reproduce much earlier than women today. His concern is that he sees many women who are terribly saddened by being unable to bear children or who bore children with health problems, etc because of their older age. That is a good pastoral concern, I just think that in answering it, he might have made the problem worse. I mostly think this because he stated that those who follow the Son's primary role is to raise a family. I think that's a) incorrect--some people are called to celibacy, some to marriage without children and some to marriage with and are called to minister no matter which of these is the case and b) very hurtful to folks who want to bear children and can't and tells women that they are "deficient" or in some way, less of a woman if they can't bear children and this is not the case. One woman wrote an article and her concern was for openness to any of the options that the Father might call you to...like celibacy being valid, etc. And also giving a warning to not overly emphasize marriage amongst youngsters because there might be some not called to be married at all and also because it causes a pastoral situation in that those who do not get married feel, once again, like there is something wrong with them because they're not getting married young.
Okay, so, sorry, I feel like I went on and on. But those are the thoughts I remember having and what I remember about the articles I read. So, Amy, what are your thoughts? :) And anyone else can feel free to share theirs as well. Anyway, I found it all very interesting and good to think about theologically and also in a sense as to how we can be helping people do marriage well.

B) I'm trying to think of what else to write now. I always want to include something funny but I can't think of anything...might be because of the high pitched whining of the reel-to-reel recorder near my desk. This isn't really funny but it is kinda light-ish. It's about movies. We rented The Spirit (Frank Miller) and Twilight. I had told Greg earlier that night that I was possible up for watching a romantic movie and/or one that I didn't have to think about. But, see, I only am in a romantic movie-watching mood about 4 times a year, if that. So, he had to jump on his chance. And so the "jumping" wound up with us watching Twilight and us not thinking that it was as bad as we had thought maybe it would be. That's not to say it's getting an Oscar, but it wasn't bad. And, it made me curious about the books, which I had already considered reading but had not yet picked up. I really do have a soft spot for vampires, though. I was most intrigued by Edward's family and their stories so I'm really hoping there's something in the book that goes into them more. I'll let you know whenever I get around to reading the series. As we all know, like with the unfortunate 6th film in the Harry Potter series, the books are usually much better and I'm starting to think that when I can, I will see the movie first. An unfortunate circumstance where I can not reverse what is done is in the case of the Sherlock Holmes movie due to doom theaters this Winter. Don't get me started on that :) Oh, the Spirit was fun, too. We were REALLY glad that it was not really like Sin City...it was like a parody of it. And so was rather enjoyable. No good moral or anything but a really fun action flick...though we are still not sure why the Octopus was called "the Octopus" minus one vague reference to 8 arms at the end.
Anyway, there ya go.

C) I am listening to Pandora right now and there's some Jack Johnson song on and one of the phrases I just caught was "She's one tough enchilada filled up with nada". Awesome.

D) We're not up to much new which is why I haven't said much lately. We just said good-bye to our friend, MJ, who just left to go back to Korea. We will miss him very much, but I guess we all know what that's like, eh? We're hoping that maybe MJ and KB can go travel around together since they both like it so much and love taking pics so much. And because sometimes it's lonely being in another country where the majority of folks don't get Americans. :)

E) We will get pictures up of 2009 adventures soon...our laptop just died which means we have to both get the photos off the hard drive (provided it's not fried) and then we also need to get an external hard drive to hold the photos...and we thought we got one from ebay but long story short, I think we were conned. Bummer. So, in any case, pictures pending.

F) I'm also forgot I should continue to be CG...so I just went up and CGified what I could find, sorry if I missed anything. But changes are you can't get here except by proxy anyway ;)

G) I hope you feel sufficiently like it was worth waking up this morning, katherine. But I'm pooped so I'm signing off now.

H) The End.

Winter Highlights

A few things have kept my soul alive in the cold, bitter Chicago Winter this year...here's some highlights:

Exhibit A) HOCKEY!!!!

Greg and I celebrated actual Valentine's in a traditional manner with a possibly PMS-related depression (me, not Greg :) ), no flowers, dog-sitting (exhibit B), me sending him chocolates which arrived at work, he buying Qdoba for us and watching Lost, then to bed since he had to open the store the next morning. Romantic, eh?

So, to actually celebrate we bought tickets to a Blackhawks vs. Avalanche (woo-hoo) game for that weekend. It was a really great game even though my Aves couldn't pull it together. But, we got to part of a record breaking amount of people to attend a hockey game at the United Center...hooray for us and the 21, 763 other people! It really was awesome. What a great Valentine's present to us :)

Exhibit C) Getting away from Chicago
3 trips thus far this Winter: Baltimore, San Antonio, North Carolina.

Baltimore Holiday (exhibit D)- 4 days, get in get out, kinda tiring, kinda hard occasionally, but good overall. had fun visiting with G's grandparents whom I'd never hung out with much before.

San Antonio Holiday (exhibit E)- sea world, scene it! 2nd edition, family!, warm weather, wedding dress shopping, no fights, bliss pretty much



North Carolina (exhibit F & pic at top)- ocean, short sleeves, sun, a tan, and Tim's mom has a hot tub :)






Exhibit F) Ethan
Every other day I get more pics of him and that gets me through.


Exhibit G) Pretty Snow
Took these the other night when it dropped 6-8 inches on us.



Exhibit H) Friday Ladies' Lunches
Getting together with the other Rez women who work for the College. Like today how we discussed Rez's stance on feminism or lack thereof and about what really matters to the kingdom message. Keeps my mind sharp and on the importance.

Exhibit I) Greg
Our dates, talks, we've recently taken up playing Magic the Gathering (yes, yes, we are dorks), mini golf cuz we can't go outside, playing with invitation ideas for our wedding, having friends over, moving him out of his old house in the middle of Winter, making a list of things I'm thankful for even when I'm not very happy with him at the moment, laughing, singing, hoping.


Exhibit J) Knowing that in 6 months and 8 days, I'll be on my honeymoon in beautiful Vancouver!

2 rings!

I love how it bugged you so much to know what it meant. Sorry I missed ya earlier. You'd think with how bored I am at work a lot of the time that I would fill it with things like writing blogs. As soon as I sit down to write my mind wanders and I have no idea any longer what glorious things are worthy of my blog.

Anyway, 2 rings! simply means that Greg has narrowed down his ring hunt to a mere 2 rings and is now deciding between them. I suppose he might've already and I'm just in the dark, but yes, only 1 ring left to find them, rule them and in the darkness bind them, you get the picture. And by a ring, I mean engagement ring :)

That is all. Well, that really wasn't so difficult, I'm really not sure why it took so long to get out.

Now, ahem, excuse me, I am hunting for reception sites. I'll send you some links soon. Love you much, I hope you are now able to have a relaxed uneventful day since you now know the origin of the 2 rings!

Shoot, and I can't believe I didn't mention this: Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! or I guess observed since your there and I'm here.

noah

So, I remember that I said that thing about noah the other day and the only thing I have to say is that my general conclusion was that often Father does things for Father and for us, too but often incomprehensible to the human mind....so he makes this rainbow as covenant between the earth and he, but mostly to remind himself. How odd is that? Could it be that he is slightly more evasive than we usually think? And by evasive I mean he's less monophonic than we would like, I think. Mind you these are just the musings of a bear of very little brain so disregard what you discern to be faulty thinking. I think it's really cool that this is the case and it does not challenge my power to believe at all but it does seem odd nor am I discounting the views of the saints who I know had to say something about him for the belief to continue...

Anywho, I just thought that was interesting and we also had a discussion about whether or not the curse on the land was lifted, as it appears to have been since father seems to be almost most upset that he largely destroyed his creation. These are neither here nor there really, but just fun thinks to think :)

So, anywho, trying to think of other things to say. While this seems like it is Mink's news to tell and she should, I'm not sure how much you guys talk or not and posting a blog is so much faster than a snail mail letter...she's dating the estimable Ben Petty now! As of a couple days ago and after several years of his trying and after quite a bit of debacle, they finally concluded that it would go that way. Phew, this is such a relief to friends of hers such as myself who have thought and thought about this and wished something would go well in her life. So, thankfulness all around.

Greg's birthday party was a smash hit and it was very fun even though we arrived at Dave and Buster's almost 2 hours late (freakin' Chicago traffic!!!!!). But it was quite the time and some of his friends from other states came and that was a huge surprise and a well-received one at that. I still have about 24 jumbo muffins in my house, a pain when I can't have any cuz I gave them up for Lent. Gotta get rid of those things, can I send you cupcakes? :) We had a decorate your own cupcake bar at Jenn's house after we all left Dave and Buster's. His real b-day was the 28th as you could see but we just went to Olive Garden and then went and watched LOST with Carrie cuz I spent so much time on the surprise party, I didn't have much to do on the real day! Oops. I'm also working on this little journal thing where everybody wrote a little something and he can keep it and see it for years to come....that didn't get done by his b-day either, though :( Oh well, vigil is my life now. Going in about 20 minutes to go load up the trailer with vigil stuff (when will we get a building of our own!?)....

Hope Beijing is fun, Life of a Pilgrim. Write comments if you like cuz I don't think anyone else really even looks at this though they could post too if they wanted (I like that about Blogspot, anyone can post even if they don't have one).

It's palm sunday this week (i hope that's cg; they're too normal words, right?), should be a good partylicious change, yeah for feast days! Thinkin' of ya, have fun travellin'....
Peace out!