sonrisa

redeemed perspective

2008-05-08T14:13:00.000-07:00

Christ has redeemed my life and I'm finally starting to realize that that actually changes my life. It's not just the vague (because of my small understanding) "my soul is redeemed" but my everyday life is redeemed. This day, this hour. The time with this student or this friend. This practice session. This free time. Christ has bought it with his blood, bought it from sin and fruitlessness, redeemed it to purpose and holy beauty. He has redeemed every part that makes up the whole. If you need purpose, if you need hope, if you need a reason to rejoice in what God has given you to do, think about that for a while.

vastness

2008-03-10T15:23:00.001-07:00

I love the word "vast." It seems so endless, inexhaustible, unconquerable, strong, incomprehensible even when you're right next to it. Like standing next to the sea on a stormy day, looking out and seeing no end in any direction. That's amazing. It's fearful. It's calming. It's thrilling.

In choir yesterday we sang a song with the word "vast" in it. Scott called attention to it because of the pronunciation, and said something about it being a word we never use. Then it kept coming up in like three other songs, and somebody said something about "it must be a 'vast' day". But it caught my attention. I've listed a few of the lyrics, and I love the perspective the word brings to the character of God

"How vast His grace"

"O, the deep, deep love of Jesus/vast, unmeasured, boundless, free...."

"....'tis an ocean vast of blessing"

"How deep the Father's love for us/how vast beyond all measure...."

My possible favorite we did not sing yesterday, but the concept in these lines has always amazed me. It's from "Creation Hymn" I think by Craig Courtney--

High mountains rising to the sky
Bow down before their Author's eye;
Sea depths now echoing the land's refrain,
their vast expanse too small to hold His name....

He is Lord.

ritual

2007-12-30T11:27:00.000-08:00

Morning and evening. Today and tomorrow and the day after, for the next week and the next month, year upon year and century upon century, a lamb shall be sacrificed morning and evening. It shall be for a burnt offering before Me forever.

Why? Why should two lambs a day, fourteen a week, over 700 in a year, be spent on this altar? Why should the daily spilling of innocent blood be carried down through the centuries? What is the meaning? And what, when the meaning clearly has been lost and the God who proclaimed the sacrifice is now decrying its misuse, should be done?

What happens when a people loses sight of the purpose of its ritual? When the depth and the richness and the symbolism has been forgotten, and the marvel has been replaced by only motions? Is the ritual a loss? Should it be ended when its sanctity is gone, when it has become a shadow, indeed a blasphemy? Should it be replaced, or cast away altogether, rather than remain as a farce?

Or does the ritual have significance simply in its continuance? Morning and evening. Morning and evening, a lamb killed. Morning and evening, a sacrifice made. Today, and tomorrow, next week and next month, year after year and century after century until the command is eternally fulfilled, until the everlasting sacrifice has been delivered up forever. Holy to the Lord, regardless of the spiritual state of its offerers?

What is the sanctity of a ritual?

atmospheres

2007-02-13T14:53:00.000-08:00

That actually isn't the one I liked, I just thought is was a cool title. I found Lontano more interesting. A different way of thinking, of listening than I'm used to....no tonality, no melody, just sound. Range, color, effect, the palette explored. My ears were awakened. Yet, the most beautiful notes were the unisons, and what caught my ear the most were the four notes of melody and the almost-chord progression that resolved back into sound.

untitled

2007-01-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

I actually got some pretty nice Christmas gifts this year. Not that that's highly unusual--although I was rather amazed at the amounts of expensive chocolate my students gave me (my family enjoyed it!)--but it was one of those years when I could tell people weren't just getting gifts to check me off their list, they were actually thinking of me.

I got one gift about four years ago that was like that. It wasn't at Christmas. It was early March, just after the guy 'd been thinking about for months asked if I would date him. I was in my dorm room when one of the upperclassmen, brought it in. It was from Mike, and it was a single blue rose in a blue vase. I don't know how he got it blue, but he knew I liked it and so he surprised me with it. Not a big thing, but it expressed that he was thinking of me and that I was special. We only dated a few months (still friends) but I still have the rose. It was a gift that stood out.

I received another one of those this year. Last winter was a hard one for me. I was dealing with some weird things, emotionally and spiritually, and the dark of the winter months affected me like I never realized it could. Though most of those battles are well past their turning point now, lack of light still brings back that shadow of internal darkness.
When I moved to Illinois, Katie and I looked at a bunch of apartments and chose a model together, but as far as picking our speciic building, we just had to circle a number on the complex map. And there was only one of our model left, so we didn't have much choice! However: our apartment does not have white walls like the rest of them. i'm not really sure what color they are but it's kind of a neutral with a shade of tan and a touch of yellow. Not enough color to overwhelm the room, but enough that even when outside is dark, inside always looks bright and warm. And, i am not entirely sure how this happens, but my room and the living room get full light almost from sunrise to sundown.
A little thing, okay, and maybe I'm the only one that can understand why it's a big deal. But my house is light! And I am convinced that God gave me that because He loves me.

Alexander, worship, and kazoos

2007-01-02T15:51:00.000-08:00

My exciting discoveries over Christmas break are as follows:

1. Alexander technique, and in general the concept that our bodies are designed to wrok well! Except that, in general, most of us--myself included--don't think too hard about how to actually use them. As a result, we have back pains, neck pains, sloppy posture, tight violin shoulders (yes, everything relates back to violin). It's all because we don't realize how to capitalize on the design God put in us so that we can function efficiently AND comfortably. this may sound like everything your parents told you when they tried to teach you good posture but seriously, I am so excited to be learning about this stuff and here's why: in the book I am reading on Alexander technique, I'm learning about my bones and my muscles. where thye exist, what they do. It's called "body mapping." Half our problems comes from having an imprecise or incorrect body map--we have an unclear idea of how our bodies are designed, so we're trying to do things with muscles that aren't there, or we're working too hard because there are joints and support systems that ARE there but we don't realize it. If that doesn't make sense ask me, or do some research but it is well worth looking into! (I have been trying for years to figure out how my singing voice is actually supposed to work and this stuff is finally making sense of it!) Also quite related to Pilates principles, I think. But here's the quote that I completely love, which Barbara Conable (the author of this book, How to Learn Alexander Technique) calls the "Creation Imperative":

(actually she calls it "rthe Creation Imperative or the Evolution Imperative, take you choice"....I took mine)

"The structure of the whole body can be explained by the necessity to arrive at a violinist."

Think twice about that if you have to. I love it!

2. I am going to shorten this one because the last one is long and because I'll probably come back to it someday, and because words can't quite communicate the life of it anyway. But, I have to say:

God is incredible
He is worthy of all worship
Worshiping Him is not boring, it is beautiful and it truly is a believer's highest pursuit
Can you really imagine, once there was nothingness and it became earth and everything in it.
God was before it. He never started, He just was, always. He came up with all that is.
and He has placed in us His image--so there is that in us which can recognize, understand, and love Him.

i love it when truth comes to life

3. Kazoos are very cool and you can use them to teach singing voice. When I told me roommate that it confirmed in her mind that I am an eccentric music nerd. Hey well, I won't argue :)

good afternoon

2006-09-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

It's a wednesday afternoon and I am sitting at my desk in my newly rearranged office (the last arrangement definitely did not allow space for three beginning violinists plus me)--I should be finishing an arrangement for my string ensemble's rehearsal tomorrow, but I don't think it will take me too long, except for about one measure that's really not cooperating. I am in the middle of my fourth week of full-time teaching, and my second week teaching beginners. Can I just say, I love my beginners! I really did not think I was going to like them but I do, and that's good because I have something like 35 of them. And none of their violins stay in tune yet. This makes our beginning orchestra sound like chaos, but I think (thankfully!) the new instruments are slowly beginning to stabilize!....

So here I am, a full time christian school violin teacher. I wish I could sketch in a nutshell what it is like. Just to sketch today would be quite a picture--the 8th grader running up to me in the morning beaming because she'd practiced overtime and enjoyed it; the 2nd grader who never focuses but this week learned a whole song on his own for the reward of a single skittle; the beginners who couldn't stop talking; the little 3rd grade comments on how I rearranged my room and did my hair; the 6th grader who forgot his lesson again but is brainstorming now for ways to remember; hugs and waves from my little kids as I walk through the halls; laughing at the sounds emanating from the office of the trumpet teacher next door; making similarly frightening sounds as my new cello teacher tries to reteach my technique; tuning instruments and fixing instruments; scolding students, praising them, laughing with them, finding new ways to solve their problems; sharing inside jokes and homemade food with my coworkers; setting up and taking down rooms; doing research during one free slot, phone calls during the next, and elementary crafty stuff the next. If you actually read all that I'm amazed; there's plenty more. Every day is different, every student and every coworker is different. I love my job. God is good.

success!

2006-07-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

Hah! I finally learned how to put in links. I had to change my template to do it though, hence the new look. What do you think? It's a little pink for me, but I like it as much as any of them. Maybe sometime when I feel like messing with it, I'll figure out how to change the color scheme too. I'm going for multicolored, and none of this laid-back sage and gold and navy stuff. Yeah, someday when I'm bored.

it's true!

2006-07-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

Can I just share this, because I’m excited about it—God’s fixing me!

I’m sure He’s been doing it for longer than I’ve been noticing it, but it still almost amazes me. For a long time there, I really couldn’t see it, wondered if He’d really do it. But He is. There’s still plenty of junk to be gotten out, plenty more of Him to be discovered. But He really and truly is opening the eyes of my understanding, renewing my mind into His mind, teaching me to know and love Him, becoming actually sweeter every day. This is for real. He really actually does this work. For some people that might seem like “duh”—of course, God sanctifies all Christians. And I know that is absolutely true. But for so long I couldn’t find it. I felt stuck, surfacey. Honestly, sometimes I still do feel that way—but more truly, I can see: He does real stuff. He’s not just in the pages of Scripture, but He’s living God at work.

And praise Him, He’s fixing me.

perhaps a contrast

2006-07-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I go back and read over some of the stuff I wrote in high school. I have one essay that’s saved in my files as “Kate’s philosophy of life.” My thinking probably seemed simplistic and naïve to anyone who read the actual title, “Life is Good.” In it was a line something like this: “Life is weird, but God is good, so life is good.” And that was that.

It’s been a few years since high school and I’m a little less naïve. The rose-colored glasses have begun to lose their tint. I’ve been forced (or graced) to see outside the little bubble that is my world the way I think it should look, the way I sometimes thought it did look. It doesn’t. I won’t pretend that I’ve seen the worst of it. But I’ve seen enough to be disillusioned. All the beauty is scarred beauty. All the love is twisted love. There is despair and disillusionment. There is turmoil of soul. There is overturning of justice. There is vanity and chasing after wind. There is shallowness and hypocrisy. There is the discovery of one’s own repulsiveness of soul.

Some of it I have only seen through the eyes of others. Some of it has become my own burden. You pessimists “Life is junk” and you cynics “Life is a façade”—you were right.

Almost. You forgot the one thing that changes everything.

God is still good.

And while the goodness of God is no excuse for my rose-colored glasses, neither is it a crutch. It is a truth whose beauty not only overwhelms all the ugliness of life but transforms it. Truth that not only has an answer for every trial but a purpose for it. Truth that transforms the corruptible into the incorruptible, the evil into righteousness, condemnation into salvation. The darkness is a reality but the goodness is a greater reality.

Neither the idealist or the cynic can deal honestly and fully with the corruption of this world. The idealist can only overlook or at best, put on a band-aid. The cynic wills to look, but distances himself by mockery. Neither the idealist nor the cynic has real hope.
But the goodness of God can look evil in the face without flinching, can put on compassion without self-protectiveness, because it overcomes. Surely and certainly, it overcomes.

I wrote about that in high school too. I wrote it theoretically then. I hadn’t experienced the darkness enough to really know. Now I write to say: It is true. All that corruption really is overflowing outside of me, inside of me. The rose-colored glasses can’t fix it. Neither can the mockery. But God is good. His goodness faced the fear and darkness inside me head-on, and overcame it by His compassion, bringing mercy and salvation through the cross. And, armed with His goodness I can turn my face to the darkness around me and fearlessly open my heart with compassion, for the goodness of God is not powerless, for He lives and His goodness is the surpassing reality that holds all the answers, all the purposes, even if they are not all revealed.

And so, I will phrase it a little differently, but I’ll say it again. Life is junk. Life is a façade. It is ugly, it is empty—almost. I think I was right in high school. God is good. Therefore, life is good.

Let us worship the goodness of God.

good morning

2006-06-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

I like people who say good morning no matter what time of day it is. Something about it just sounds positive.

Probably no one will answer this b/c it is summer and I haven't seen too many updates recently (mine are rather limited by the fact that our home computer's dial up on the same line as our phone...)--but if someone could tell me how to do links; I can't seem to find how.....

So here's my exciting discovery of the month so far. I can choose to live according to truth rather than my feelings! That is one of those things that everybody always said and I never believed enough to try it, I guess, until God allowed me to come face to face with some areas where I was trusting my feelings instead of Him and lsing every time. I'm not really sure how He ended up bringing me around to truth but guess what, He's doing it! and as a result He's winning battles in me that I doubted could ever be won. Praise Him who does abundantly beyond what we ask or think; He is incredible, holy, and worthy of worship!

One other random tidbit that I find extremely relevant. At the Woodfield Mall in Hoffman Estates, IL, there is a Godiva chocolate store that gives out free samples. Just thought you might like to know. They're really good.

june

2006-06-05T10:03:00.000-07:00

So, I have completely and totally finished everything to do with student teaching and college in general and I am home for the summer. This makes me happy. I was hoping to get off second shift, but I'm looking forward to seeing how God's reorganizing my summer to work with the time He's given me. Already some things are good: I have a couple other friends on night shifts so we can do things during the day; I have several daytime ministry opportunities; I have time to practice and spend time with my little brothers; and because my days are fairly open I may be able to pick up some other part-time work. So the social life will just have to wait for the weekends. Oh well, I can deal. Should be a good summer--God is good!

understatement

2006-05-30T15:29:00.001-07:00

It was in high school that I read Joseph Conrad's short story "The Lagoon," but it is still burned into my mind as a masterpiece by virtue of one sentence. I don't remember all the details, but the story is set on a still, sultry jungle night. The way Conrad paints it, you can hear the heartbeat of the dark waters, feel the thickness of the air as the narrative unfolds.

I'm not going to set the whole story up. Go read it. Conrad does it better. But at one point the storyteller interrupts his tale to say to the white man,

"Tuan, I loved my brother."

With that statement, all the man's heartbreak and desolation roll out into the hot, oppressive space of the jungle night. But Conrad doesn't say that. If he had, he would have ruined the story. Had he attempted to describe the man's feelings, his anguish, his despair, they would have been cheapened. So he left them unsaid. He instead allowed the man to tell his story, line after line floating out into the night, emotionless but for those five words, which say so much because they suppress so much.

Again--go read the story yourself, and hopefully I didn't spoil it for you. That's just an illustration, but I began to notice the principle when I started writing, and I have seen it throughout literature, music, even conversation: Often things are best expressed not when they're described in detail, but when they're barely hinted at. The most significant detail is the least pompous. The most profound is left to be unsaid.

Understatement. Try it sometime.

my first random post

2006-05-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

yay for playing outside with kindergarteners!

enough

2006-05-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

I have enough.

That is a simple statement, it is one that is extremely joyful when I realize it's actually true. I realized that again tonight and felt like annoucing it to the world and so decided it would be a good time to start a blog. However, in the process of figuring out how to start said blog, all the eloquence of what I wanted to say left so you'll have to leave the eloquence and take the facts as they come.

Fact 1: I am daily loaded with benefits. My God is the God of good. He is enough to absolutely fill eternity with His goodness and we will never have the slightet thought of getting bored with Him. That is pretty incredible but basically outside of my thought capacity, so He has abounded toward me in tangible evidences of His goodness. I am not going to start listing them. You can take a look around you and if you have any sense of thankfulness at all you will recognize that is true. It is especially cool b/c He is the Creator and I am just the creature and really, He didn't even have to make me let alone give me anything but He did. All He knows I need. Enough.

Fact 2: My faith has found a resting place. I offended God and yet God chose to pay for my redemption. I do not have to do anything or connive any state of mind and I have no capacity to anyway, but He took care of it all for me. All I have to do is accept the redemption He offers. The more I see who I am as compared to who He is, the more I am in awe at His forgiveness, at His mercy. How can it be? but it is, and I can trust it, and release from the anguish of trying to be enough for God. He has chosen to be enough for me.

Fact 3: The Lord is my sanctifier. In Deuteronomy, God through Moses talks to Israel getting ready to enter the promised land and tells them not to fear. They are not strong enough. They can't conquer the land. But He is and He shows His power and wipes out city after city, provides food, water, everything they need. He has power to complete His promise. His power is over more than armies and giants and forces of nature. He is stronger than sin. He conquered it at the cross and in doing so He broke its power over me. As I grow in the holiness of God I learn to hate sin more and more but I do not need to fear it. I do not need to live in paranoia of the sin nature that still lies within me. I do need to fight it but not in my own strength; in the strength of the God Who has accomplished my victory already, Who has given me all I need for life and godliness. Sometimes I feel lost in the sinfulness I still see inside me but: I shall not fear the battle, for He is by my side. I cannot ultimately be defeated. His grace is sufficient. How can I fear? He is enough.

He is enough. More than enough. Do you believe it? Then rejoice with me!