A little theology, perhaps.

Here's something I'm trying to sort through right now:
During the time to of the Protestant Reformation in the 1520's the Church and Martin Luther and his gang stumbled upon a moral dilemma. Luther proposed that we are saved solely by grace. Justification is by faith alone. And if I remember last years theology class he also said that faith is an open hand. This ran counter to the Roman Church's extensive system of indulgences and works based faith. When the works factor was pulled out of the equation people's identities as Christians collapsed. This (as Stephen Ozment proposes) was due to the Medieval construction of the individual. You are what you do, or I guess you were what you did at that time (not too different from now). How could you be in relation with Christ without doing anything? Surely you could light a candle or give some money or even just say please and thank you. If Luther was going to say people were justified by faith alone and works didn't matter (and this created problems for Zwingli and Calvin, not just the Roman church) then how did he expect people to develop a sense of identity?

This pairs with my interview with the head pastor of our Church about his sabbatical. He said he came to the point when no one needed him and he had to figure out how to find identity in Christ. I'm fascinated with this, at the same time I've got a late paper to write, I just got off work, I'm leading a ministry come Sunday. I'm needed right now which makes it hard to see how I would react if I wasn't needed. No one's giving me the "justification by faith alone" speech so it's hard to develop my faith around that. But was Luther even right? He seemed to go to the extreme to combat the abuses of the Church and those who came after him were quick to get works back in the picture (Melanchton). Were they wrong to do so? Are we quick to say that yes, you are justified by faith alone and not works, but a true faith will result in works, because we truly believe those works guarantee or save us? Calvin said our assurance of personal salvation was good works, so he kept that tension that keeps us working and moving to hold on to certainty. Luther sort of left us hanging.

I'm not likely to go off to the mountains alone for months anytime soon, so what should I do to figure this stuff out? It feels hypothetical rather than practical.

This Last Day of February

I've been up late (relatively) and up early the past few days working away on lattes or homework. As the past weeks of this semester have gone, I get to Wednesday and am ready to sit and watch Oprah and Malcom in the Middle for the rest of the day. Adding to that, it's been cold and rainy throwing me into my full whine mood by saying, "I don't want to be cold anymore!" In the mundane things of work, sleep, seasons I've been throwing out some interesting conclusions. Take the cold thing, after complaining again to Jon, I suggested forming my own liberation theology focusing on oppression of the weather and my freedom from that. What do you think, Travis?

I've also been feeling pretty beat up lately. Every shift I work I end up slicing my hand or gouging it with some form of sharp metal. Espresso machines can be so cruel. I've also developed a sore and slightly swollen big toe on my right foot and have spent a bit of time the past few days nursing these wounds back to health. When I was little I would show off bruises and cuts to my Dad, which were often met with approval. I'm not sure if they were evidence of hard work, life or just my clumsy nature and pale skin, but injuries became in part, trophies to carry around. As I was focusing on anything but the lecture in class on Monday, I thought there may be a link between this sort of pride or approval of injuries and the opportunity to nurture that follows. Mind you, this came to me while in a class on Romans and while listening to a professor I have a hard time agreeing with or tolerating, so it may make no sense. But it seems that when we are injured or sick part of it is an opportunity to care and nurture ourselves. Or it could be just to simply care and nuture as the action as something we're meant to be doing as humans and these injuries of everyday life are actually beneficial.

Oh, Productivity.

In my mind I imagined this week, Missions Conference at Multnomah, would be full of me studying diligently and getting way ahead in my school work. To my complete surprise this barely happened. I did do a bit of preliminary research for my upcoming term paper "Continuity and Discontinuity between Calvin and Calvinism" (I'll keep you posted) and learned that John Calvin, the French reformer, and I were born on the same day about 474years apart. I didn't imagine I'd have such a strong connection to this term paper so early on. Our neighbor Jordan, upon hearing this, informed me I was predestined to become a Calvinist. We'll see.

I did get some other things accomplished. Our 4th Annual Pancake Day party was a complete success. Sadly I didn't make any English pancakes. Postively, I learned how to make crepes and ended up making some damn good ones, too. I'm looking forward to making more soon. Yum. Yum. Let me know if you want to come over and we can make some together.

Pancake Day!!!

Four years ago, my fellow office workers in London kept talking about their favorite toppings for pancakes. Most like sugar and lemon. I had stumbled into the magical holiday called "Pancake Day." Now in America, on the same day, people often celebrate Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday and get drunk off their asses before entering the holy period of Lent. The English (and I've recently found the Irish as well) eat pancakes. Makes sense. It was while studying in London that I first celebrated Pancake Day and it was actually the first time in years that I liked pancakes. Now we are in our fourth year. If you are in Portland, Jon and I will be having a party starting around 7:30pm in good ole Apt. B1. If you are closer to Des Moines, call up Bo and ask her how to get to her Pancake Happy Hour. If you are in L.A. I think Becca is throwing some sort of party. If you are nowhere near either of those I suggest you throw your own party. It's a great tradition to uphold. Enjoy! Oh, and the above flyer was made by my husband. It's a little risque, but a lot of awesome.

readymade

i had a doctor's appointment and subsequently learned how to fold a fitted sheet. am i excited? you bet. i've wanted to know ever since readymade magazine wrote a review on sufjan and mentioned he offered an article idea of how to fold a fitted sheet. now i know and i'm not telling.

Preemptive Strike

A couple years ago I was pitching a magazine idea with a group of students to one of America's largest publishing houses. It was for twentysomethings who wanted to know what the heck they were doing on their own. We were their well designed advice column. I remember the art director of some real magazine looking at us with excitement and pitching his own idea of the cover. "I can just see it. There's a woman and half the image is her in casual clothing the other half in business attire. Across the page it will say, 'You can have it all!'" I think a quiet groan echoed throughout our staff. That was exactly what we didn't want. Looking into the very near future of holding degrees and the foreboding responsibility to hold down a job, we began to think about minimalizing our schedules. We were reassessing our view of success. The interesting part was that at the time I was working nearly full time in ministry, acting as editor in chief of a budding magazine, finishing my last year of college, dating a boy who lived at least three states away, living with three amazing and loyal friends, who I liked to talk with. . . On it went and although I loved all the different parts of my life I felt more than overextended. The image I would often meditate on while running off to this meeting or the next was of me running off to one meeting or the next and subsequently lopping off limbs to lighten the load. There was more than I could handle.

I hope I've learned from that and I think I have. Coming into marriage and a new city and new church and new school, I didn't want to default in saying "I"m so busy" with no hope of ever slowing down. But the tendency is still there. Children's ministry would be a great complement to the journalism team, to babysitting to help a friend, to working just four more hours a week for that promotion, to just taking ten credits, to being married, making friends. You could construct a similar list. The difference was the preemptive strike that lopped off one activity and stopped a potential second. I look forward to being open, in my schedule in my life, for others. We want our home to be a sanctuary for people. If everyone else is running at breakneck speed I'd like to be a contact where they can slow down, think, dream. Why does my mind somehow associate the image of doing it all to Mary Tyler Moore?

I was interviewing the pastor of my church for the aforementioned journalism team. He has been on sabbatical for three months and is preparing to return. I asked him, among other things, if he got bored (he did) and then if he got lonely. He replied that it came to a point when the phone stopped ringing and the email never showed up. He knew his staff was doing fine because they raised more than $100,000 for an Advent offering. He had to reevaluate what gave him worth, because at that moment he wasn't entirely pastor or father or husband. He wasn't needed in the larger scheme of things. Where would that leave me? And in my heart I hear the echo from my morning class,"In Christ. In Christ. In Christ." And Rick emphasized not the global mission of the church but the urgency for every person to know the Gospel and that God loves them. The tendency to move faster and do more was quelled by the need to simply know God's love and our union with Christ. How interesting.

Californian Geography

Happy Groundhog's Day to one and all. This time last year, Jon and I were very newlyweds and I was surprised when he insisted we watch Groundhog's Day the movie to commemorate the holiday. I thought he was faking excitement until we were at Blockbuster. The event was tied to a joke from Jon's childhood (as things often are) about one of the mentally disabled guys his family took care of named Larry Yap. When Larry saw the movie in the theater and it got to the point when Bill Murray was waking up again to the same Sonny and Cher song he exclaimed, "Not a-gin. I hate this movie!" The joke I now attach to our Groundhog's Day memory is the mini-geography quizbowl I initiated after the movie had ended. Knowing Jon's foundational California education, I turned to him and asked "What state is Philadephia in?" He sat there thinking until a sly smile spread across his face. The look in his eye told me he figured out the answer to my trick question. "Wait a minute," he said, "Philadelphia is a state!" This was his Aha! moment. I busted out laughing partly for his honesty and partly because he thought I was asking a trick question. Happy Groundhog's Day, everyone.