Meandering thoughts

Today's culinary experiment: Chicken salad (chicken, celery, dried cranberries, walnuts, mayo)
Inspiration: Tea parties
Assessment: Experiment generally successful. The sandwich made from the chicken salad could have been improved by adding lettuce and tomato. In the future I may have to try adding cilantro, as well. Complimented well by passion fruit apple carrot juice.

Today's culinary adventure: Wensleydale cheese with cherries
Inspiration: Wallace & Gromit in A Close Shave
Assessment: I would consider wensleydale to be a mild-medium cheese, strong enough to make its flavor known but not overpowering. The store carried wensleydale with cherries or with cranberries. The cherries add a mild sweet flavor; cranberries would add a sweet zing. So far I have not had enough to know whether this will be a repeated adventure, but I did enjoy it quite well with bread & balsamic vinegar this morning. Perhaps I should stick to the British theme and try it with tea.

I went to bed last night half hoping to wake up feeling sick this morning because I really did not want to go to class today. But, alas, when I awoke this morning I felt little worse than tired. To my great delight the professor e-mailed us to let us know that class was cancelled. I was then able to go to the post office and finish the grocery shopping that I needed to do (which, incidentally, I finished early enough that I still could have run the errands even if I had to go to class) and come home to experiment with a late lunch. Spring break is in two weeks and it cannot come quickly enough for me. I completely forgot that I had a prospectus for a paper due yesterday for one of my classes and thought that being sick sounded better than spending three hours in a class today. Perhaps I just need a few nights of really good sleep instead of a week off from school.

I had a reminder this morning from an unlikely source of how much performance anxiety I have. I tend to only associate it with singing solos and the like but really have it in more areas of my life. I have noticed myself hoping that somebody thinks I am doing well at whatever I am doing. How much am I relying on the good opinion of other people? Far too much, I think, although I am so often strangely ignorant of how much I really do care. What bothers me more, though, is how little I consider what God thinks of my "performance." I thrive on verbal affirmation and the greatest feeling in the world (and beyond!) for me must be to hear Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Master." I need to be much more careful to take regular account of how well I am doing and how faithfully I am serving. That's the performance I should care about, not the performance before men.

Middle class WASP

If there is one lesson I have learned in graduate school, one issue that I have really started to ponder, one thing from the liberal, secular setting in which I find myself almost daily that has major implications on my process of sanctification, it is this: I am a middle class WASP snob. Trends in modern scholarship have some value, and I think that "whiteness" studies is one of the ones I find interesting and educational, and educational on a very personal level. For the first time in my life I realize just how privileged I was growing up and am now. Some of the privilege comes from what I have: education (which I was quite frankly expected to have by my social circle or "class"), a decent and not old car, the financial means to shop more or less when and where I please. Some privilege is from what I do not have: appearance (race or ethnicity) that immediately conjures negative stereotypes in many an imagination, mental "challenges", physical "challenges". I grew up with a lack of poverty. I grew up with a value for education. I developed a level of expectations for those around me to meet, a set of criteria by which I judge the value of people. I looked down on those who did not have a bachelor's degree. I looked down on those who did not have jobs that paid well enough to adopt the external trappings of the middle class. I look at myself and realize just how much of a snob that makes me. I am proud and I judge on eternally insignificant matters. I can appreciate my privilege and count my blessings, especially the blessing of being raised in a Christian home, sheltered from many of the horrible, wordly things that bombard too many children in America today. But I need to recognize that this privilege is not of my own making. I was born into this. Not all are destined for higher education, and that is not, contrary to what my brain keeps trying to tell me, a reflection on their intelligence or any other indicator of worthiness. It is when I finally realize that this is how I am inclined to think, and I take full blame for my own snobbery, that I understand how very irregularly I consider others better than myself. I don't. I consider myself better than others. This is pride. Pride is sinful and abhorrent to a holy God. I have been called to humility, and perhaps recognizing these manifestations of my pride is an important step in my spiritual growth. I fail here; by all-sufficient grace may the power of God be perfected in my weakness as He makes me more like Him.

No longer completely unemployed

As of Thursday I have a part time job! I am now a Language Resource Specialist for the Languages Across the Curriculum program at school. Now that's a pretty fancy title, but do not be fooled! I have a pretty cool job, I have to admit, but the title is a bit glorified. Normally a student hired as an LRS is fluent (native speaker, most often) in a language other than English and leads a study group that focuses on using that language in connection to course content. For example, for a Spanish group, the students are learning Spanish (or may actually be fluent themselves) and taking a course in, say, biology, the LRS will bring in resources or guide discussion that will introduce terms and cover aspects of biology in Spanish. I, however, am a special case. Before you go wondering which language I know well enough to do this, I'll tell you. It's English. I will be working with ESL students in a history class on US Immigration and Ethnicity. The students in my group are not particularly familiar with US history, so part of my task will be to fill in the gaps of their knowledge. Part of my job is to get all of the students involved in discussion and provide activities that will allow me to assess their language proficiency in reading, writing, speaking and listening and how that develops over the course of the semester. I don't know exactly how this will all work out, but I should have about 5-7 hours of work per week, with about an hour of that in the classroom. The ESL study group is a new invention this semester and I will be the first to lead/teach it. I am a guinea pig for education and I am looking forward to it! My greatest challege might be to learn how to properly pronounce my students' names, however, as they are almost all Turkish. Yikes! I am very excited about the prospect of being in the classroom and trust that this will prove to be a very useful experience for me.

In other news, my friend and I have decided that socialization is a good thing and that we might do it more often. I had the opportunity on Wednesday night to entertain a few friends from church with a nice meal and it was very enjoyable. I think we both have in mind a miniature crusade to get to know people at church and expand our social circle beyond where it is. As things stand, hers is slightly larger than mine, but I believe it should grow. "Getting to know you, getting to know all about you! Getting to like you, getting to hope you like me......"

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is rapidly becoming more and more commercial. It has also become a day when men had better show their love in some tangible (commercially purchased if at all possible) way, right there with her birthday and their anniversary. Most guys can get away with a card and good quality chocolates and/or flowers along with dinner. If they really want to score points they can buy her fine jewelry. Single men ought to count their blessings. I choose to count my own, and this becomes a wonderful day for me.

Flowers - God made them individually for us to enjoy, and He doesn't only give them on Valentine's Day
Chocolate - God made the cocoa beans, and enough that it can be processed and sold all year round.
Dinner - God provides food every day
Jewelry - God made those precious stones that are given by men in love (or in trouble), but He also gives us what we need for adornment of our character
Love - This is what the day is all about, right? More than any card, flowers, candy, dining experience, jewelry or anything else that a man (or woman) might give the one that he (or she) loves, God gave us His Son. God's Son then gave His life. The deep red blood that flowed from Christ's head, hands, feet and side said, "Be Mine." Today I will celebrate love. Happy Valentine's Day!

Belief-O-Matic

I saw this quiz on my sister's blog and thought I'd take it. What is it? The Belief-O-Matic -- A personality quiz about your religious and spiritual beliefs!

Your Results:
The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa. Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (100%)
2. Orthodox Quaker (99%)
3. Eastern Orthodox (91%)
4. Roman Catholic (91%)
5. Seventh Day Adventist (90%)
6. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (77%)
7. Islam (66%)
8. Orthodox Judaism (66%)
9. Bahá'í Faith (56%)
10. Liberal Quakers (56%)
11. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (56%)
12. Reform Judaism (49%)
13. Sikhism (45%)
14. Hinduism (43%)
15. Unitarian Universalism (43%)
16. Jehovah's Witness (42%)
17. Jainism (34%)
18. Nontheist (28%)
19. Mahayana Buddhism (25%)
20. Theravada Buddhism (25%)
21. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (24%)
22. Neo-Pagan (23%)
23. New Age (22%)
24. Taoism (21%)
25. Secular Humanism (20%)
26. Scientology (20%)
27. New Thought (19%)
Take this quiz

Oh, good, I don't agree with Tom Cruise after all. Actually, the way some of the questions and answers were posed, I wasn't quite sure whether I was really representing what I believe or not, but my tentative and non-committal answers at least put me in the right camp! Perhaps the others on the list might be re-ordered if I bothered to make some of my beliefs high priority on the quiz.

Superficiality

Occasionally I ponder aging and why we seem to fear it so much. Do we fear the physical deterioration? The mental deterioration? (That scares me!) Do we fear it because it brings us closer to the end of our expected life-span? This morning I think it is in part because our culture is so superficial. Youth and beauty are admired and valued. The elderly are no longer valued for their years of experience and wisdom. They are pushed to the side and called senile. External beauty fades with age and we are constantly bombarded with advertisements for products that will help us stay looking younger longer. Appearance has superceded wisdom (which, I think, is why people tend to listen to celebrities spouting their completely nonsensical political views). Is that not the very essense of narrow-minded superficiality?

Another installment of quotes

There are days, like today, for example, that I go looking for quotes to post. I do not typically go mining through entire works of literature to find the gems I post, however. I cheat. I have books (one of "spiritual" quotations and one with various writings about Jesus) and some quotes that I have gleaned over time from things that I read in the past and recorded in various places. Today I went looking in The Eternal Vision: The Ultimate Collection of Spiritual Quotations, compiled by William Sykes. I referred to this book as one with "spiritual" quotations because I have discovered some that really ruffle my feathers (like the entire section entitled "Other Faiths" because most quotes there follow the same general line as this: "The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls, are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the diverse liveries they wear have made them strangers." ~ William Penn), but it does contain some that I like, even some with which I agree.

"'Tis the same with human beings as with books. All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think for ever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who condense in a sentence the secrets of life; who blurt our an aphorism that forms a character or illustrates an existence. A great thing is a great book; but greater than all is the talk of a great man." ~ Benjamin Disraeli

"Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action." ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

"Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals and when you are in company; the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to Him. You need not cry very loud; He is nearer to us than we are aware of." ~ Brother Lawrence

"Our salvation, thank God! depends much more on His love of us that of our love of Him." ~ Father Andrew SDC

"God creates out of nothing, wonderful, you say: yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners." ~ Søren Kierkegaard

"Jesus found him. The man did not find Jesus; Jesus found him. That is the deepest truth of Christian faith; Jesus found me. Our fellowship with Him is rooted in His compassion." ~ William Temple

"'Our kingdom go' is the necessary and unavoidable corollary of "Thy Kingdom come'. For the more there is of self, the less there is of God. The divine fullness of life can be gained only by those who have deliberately lost the partial, separative life of craving and self-interest, of egocentric thinking, feeling, wishing, and acting." ~ Aldous Huxley

"Fortunate people manage to gather two or three friends on their journey through life. Others speak loosely of having hosts of friends, but what they mean is that they have a lot of pleasant acquaintances." ~ Robert Standish