Weekend whirl

Frodo: "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened."   

Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." 

A few happenings of the weekend (which is not over yet, but it likely to get more boring in the near future)...

 Exhibit A (Friday): For whatever reason, I cannot convince my computer to put this photo right-side-up, which is just as well.  This is my solution to cutting onions without weeping my eyes out: ski goggles!  You might think this is ultra-nerdy.  (It is.)  But then you should go to my brother's house and watch him wear an actual gas mask while changing the cat litter.  I guess it runs in the family.  (Maybe I shouldn't say that, because I'm sure you'd never catch my sister doing something this ridiculous!)

Saturday involved sleeping in until 6:40!  And then I sat on the sofa for a couple of hours and read and was quiet.  Then Jared got up and made apple muffins for breakfast!  Yum.

Went to church.  Hightlights involved the congregational prayer in Russian, translated phrase by phrase into English, and two boys playing the harp.  Boys!  That's right.  Everyone these days thinks that harp is only for blond and beautiful angel girls (like my sister  ;-) , but it used to be considered improper for women to play the harp, because: 1) It was too big and heavy for women to carry around, and 2) You have to put it between your knees to play it properly.

We went for a "mini-hike" (turned out to be 10 miles in 3.67 hours - we're talking high-speed hiking).  My lungs nearly gave out, because I do not have the endurance of Jared.  But I'm really proud of us.  And it was a beautiful hike in the rain forrest with the accompanying rivers, streams, plants, waterfalls, and lakes.

And made it to my brother's house by 7:05 for the watching of The Fellowship of the Ring and the eating of lentil burgers and other good things.  It was the extended-play version and went really, really, really late past my bedtime.  But it was worth it.  (See the quote at the top of the page - very thought-provoking.)

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And for your listening enjoyment, here are the choirs singing at church at the school where Jared taught for a year in Huntsville:

I'm always right.

I've been reading a book called Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament.  Here's a bit of the text from the January 13th page:

There was once a day when there was no shame because there was no sin to be ashamed of. "The man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame" (Genesis 2:25).

But then came sin, and in came the shame.  "She took some of the fruit and ate it.  Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.  At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness.  So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves" (Genesis 3:6-7).

Adam and Eve tried to perpetrate a literal cover-up.  They shame of what they had done and who they had become was overwhelming....

...But sin is not a problem we can simply cover up by our own efforts.... 

...The clothing of Christ is available to all who come to him for it.  But many are blind to their own nakedness and suppress their sense of shame....

I was thinking about how I always like to be right.  It's hard for me to acknowledge being wrong, even when I clearly am.  I remember when I was pretty little, like maybe eight or so, I told my mom I wish I were a grown-up because then I would be right all the time just like her.  And she said to me that grown-ups are wrong a lot.  Well, that shook my sense of the world for about one minute.  If you know my mom, you will know she is very knowledgeable in a huge range of topics, has a larger working vocabulary than anyone else you know, and has a very commanding presence; it is nearly impossible for a kid to believe she could ever be wrong.  So to abate the cognitive dissonance I decided she was just feeding me a line about grown-ups making mistakes.  Put it in the pile with the stories about the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny.  Or maybe she was just referring to "bad guys" - those ubiquitous characters of childhood who are so clearly delineated from the "good guys" (aka. "us".)

That came back to me this morning when I had to assign my small charges to time out from each other and instruct them on clearing their places after breakfast and make sure they waited at the end of the driveway for me before crossing the street.  In one sense, I am always "right" to them, even when they hate it.  How can I find humility and honesty for my own self and then convey it?  Little boys are always right and their brothers are always the ones who have wronged and attacked them, even though they did absolutely nothing to deserve it. As the observer I know better, but how am I any different?  Attitudes are catching, and I hope they can actually catch me doing something wrong so I'll have a chance to own up and apologize.  It would not only be a healthy example, but it would be good for my own pride.

 

 

Moves

I miss our condo in Birmingham.  We selected it, because it was peaceful and quiet, perched on a quiet circle with views of a park full of trees out the back windows.  Big windows on all sides.  And we put some effort into painting it in colors we liked.  I knew Jared and I would both want a quiet retreat from a hectic work life.  We thought we would be there for a long time, and maybe add to our family there.  It’s ironic that every time we move, I get busy settling in, unpacking, finding my way around a new place, getting used to the neighbors, figuring out where to do my errands and where to go on our daily walks.  And every time, I’m wondering how soon we’ll get to move again, because “this place” isn’t really home.  I totally had buyers remorse after we got settled in to our Birmingham home last August - it was our first time to purchase.  I suddenly thought maybe I’d rather live in an older neighborhood and closer in to town where I taught.  But as soon as we found out we were moving to Washington in April, I realized how “at-home” I had begun to feel in our condo.  I knew a lot of our neighbors and enjoyed visiting with them.  I liked our cozy wood floors (well, they were vinyl, but they were quite realistic) and our sunny, bright yellow bedroom.  I loved the trees and the quietness of our street and our neighborhood.  I went for many wonderful walks and runs there and had a lot of nice conversations with God while being horribly sick last fall - that actually ended up being a really special time, having no idea what was wrong with me, while starting new jobs, trying to do a few things around the house (cooking!) and doing a lot of chauffeuring of Jared and our exchange student since we were down to one car.  I learned to knit, listened to music, and prayed for others a lot.  Don’t get me wrong - I’m not sorry we moved to Washington.  There were excellent reasons to leave Birmingham, and we hadn’t planned on staying more than a decade anyway.  But transitions are hard.  This one has been different in that we didn’t move here for a job, but moved here because of family and climate and opportunities.  The other moves I’ve had with Jared were either because of his schooling or work, and he hit the ground running like crazy each time.  He’s around a lot right now, and there’s the more nebulous effort of trying to become gainfully employed and use the time wisely.  Maybe by the time we are really settled into this apartment, we’ll be ready to buy a place and move again....  (Unlikely if we are not VERY employed.)

Room of Doom, Earthquake, Architecture, Hiking, Rant, Krishna

...When we moved to Huntsville, my parents and my grandmother drove out from Texas and brought us my great-grandparents' dining room set - table, six chairs, cabinet, and hutch.  And repainted them all. We weren't used to have so much furniture, having moved from a two-room apartment, so we didn't even know what to use it all for.  So the hutch became the repository for things when people were coming - don't know where it goes?  Just toss it into the hutch.  It came to be referred to as The Hutch of Doom.  Don't know where the tennis balls are?  (No, we don't play tennis - there are other uses for tennis balls.)  Don't know where that bank statement is?  Look in the Hutch of Doom.  In fact, when we moved from Huntsville to Birmingham, there was a box of miscellanious things from that hutch, which I labeled Hutch of Doom, much to the confusion of the moving guys!  Well, now we seem to have developed a Room of Doom (i.e. the second bedroom in our new apartment).  You see, we have a lot of stuff, more stuff than fits in a two-bedroom apartment.  Plus I never quite finished unpacking from the move.  Plus, every time someone comes, we just toss the unknown stuff into The Room.  Friday, I got up the nerve to start in on it.  I set the timer for an hour, turned on some loud music that Jared doesn't like, and got to work.  It is far from finished, but you can now walk into the room without having to climb.  An improvement, at least!...

...Lying in bed Friday night, trying to go to sleep, and the bed is shaking.  An earthquake??? No.  That's what happens when all fifteen pounds of Nutmeg find their way into the box spring and start stomping around.  The two girl kitties discovered this trick when they were about three pounds each.  So get out of bed, take the bed apart, chase the cat out, and put a box under the opening.  Reassemble the bed.  Go to sleep.   Sheesh!...

...Some huge percentage of the churches in our denomination were built in the 1960's for a variety of reasons.  Did I mention that the architecture of the 1960's can be rather dark and depressing?  Functional, sure.  We may have found a church home.  There are many lovely things about the church so far.  It always takes me a while to get over the architecture....

...I think we might be the luckiest people on the planet, since we've gotten to hike at Mt. Rainier the last three weekends....

...I was reading in Acts where Simon wanted to pay to get the gifts of the Spirit, and he was told he was completely in the wrong - God is not for sale.  Made me think about the times (which have been too many) that I've heard people asking the church to return our tithes and offerings with some wonderful true story where the main character was going through hard times and didn't have enough money to put food on the table, but gave their tithe anyway, and then God gave them a financial blessing.  That's great, and I'm glad God chooses to act that way at times.  But I thought tithes and offerings were to Thank the Lord for what he has Already given us.  It's like sending a thank you note to someone who gave you a birthday present.  You don't write the note in the hopes that they'll send you a half-birthday present, too!  God is not a vending machine.  Tithes and offerings are a sign of gratitude, not a plea-bargain for a blessing.  *rant over* ...

...Met an enthusiastic, white-haired Anglo neighbor of ours today with the telltale yellow paint on his nose of a Hare Krishna.  He was delighted to tell us that, although he didn't want to brag, he was *thus-and-such-technical term* and therefore higher than the Pope, and he was also twice-born, and had his own death certificate.  After a bit more banter he asked if we'd heard of Krishnas, and I did mention that my uncle is one.  Some day when I'm not in a hurry, I'll mention my uncle's Krishna name and see if this fellow knows him.  I could be wrong, but I think my uncle is probably higher up in the rankings than this fellow, and thus perhaps twice as high as the Pope.  Who knows?...

Back-blog #13: Hunting Hitler and Easter

Hunting Hitler and Easter

Monday, April 9, 2012 

It is an incongruous title, but it caught your attention, didn’t it?  Yesterday was Easter.  In the afternoon I was watching a documentary from the History Channel called Hunting Hitler.  It was about the many attempts on Hitler’s life and why they failed.  In many cases, Hitler’s survival was sheer luck.  Hitler thought it was Providence or Fate.  I do not happen to believe in luck or coincidence.  But I believe there is a Sovereign God.  A Sovereign God who must have been extraordinarily and unbelievably angry about Hitler’s actions and attitudes.  Why was this shockingly evil man protected in assassination attempt after assassination attempt when his victims were crying out to God for mercy and falling by the millions?

I can’t claim to know the mind of God.  As God so famously said, recorded in Isaiah’s book in the 55th chapter: 

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, 

nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

But I do have a bit of a theory.

An English historian interviewed in the film (sorry, I don’t remember his name) made the point that there were many potential negatives to bumping off Hitler.  Potential huge negatives.  Such as making a martyr/hero of him for others to venerate or emulate.  Such as having someone else step in to take over his place who was a better military strategist and possibly even more sadistic.  These were real concerns of the English secret operations folks who were considering ways to kill Hitler.  Toward the end of the war, the Allies generally agreed that it was better to leave the person of Hitler alone, because he was his own worst enemy; the war could be won faster by letting Hitler continue to ruin his own people, his own country, and his own army than by trying to get rid of him.

Maybe (and I can only say maybe) God knew that if Hitler were successfully assassinated, things might have been far worse than they were for the millions of people affected in Europe, because someone more talented would take over the dark machine of the Third Reich.  Or maybe God knew that if Hitler had been assassinated before he had finished all of his evil and destruction, Nazism, militarism, discrimination, myth-making, and genocide might have been perpetuated in the hearts and minds of the German people and their sympathizers.  Maybe it was important for onlookers to see the real ends of Hitler’s twisted philosophies in order for them to be eradicated.  

Hitler aside (thank God he’s long gone!), we have another enemy called satan, or the devil.  Biblically speaking, he was the inventor of sin, rebellion, crime, hatred, death, and any othernasty idea you can think of.  We’ve gotten used to seeing his work around and in us - so used to it that we think of it as “normal.”  But it’s not.  All of us have and will fall prey to his schemes - murder, accidents, illnesses, the wearing out of our bodies... evil philosophies, words that wound, slaveries, addictions, selfishness, hunger, loneliness, fear... Not to mention our unwitting participation in his express aim to push away God, in more ways that we can imagine.  We are in the middle of a war zone.  But this isn’t a war against people. The old hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” talks about it, and it’s not a Crusade against the infidels.  It’s a war against sin, against hatred, against falsehood, against evil, against dark spirits, against lies, against selfishness.  It’s a war between the philosophies of God, Who soloved the world that He gave His only Son while we were yet sinners, and the philosophies of one who has chosen hatred at all costs.

This war: wouldn’t it be so easy for God to bring it to an end by assassinating satan?  For some reason He hasn’t.

Perhaps (again, only perhaps) God knows that we don’t yet have the hatred of sin, of rebellion, of doing things “my way,” of death and sickness and accidents, of selfishness, of lies, of vain philosophies, that we need to turn fully to Him.  Maybe we need to see satan’s philosophies taken to their final and logical conclusions before we are really ready to understand the difference between good and evil.  Perhaps God realizes that He must waitfor satan to self-destruct and take as many down with him as possible, and that is the only insurance against the perpetuation of evil.  Untold numbers of people that God loves dearly are going to be hurt along the way.  But maybe it would be even worse if God stepped in and stopped the madness before it reached the fullness of iniquity.

And here’s where Easter comes in.  The apostle Paul says in the 15th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthian church, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”  Paul was  saying that the tide in this War has already been turned.  Jesus died.  And then got back up again - proof that satan could not keep Him (or anyone else He chooses) down forever.  That was the decisive moment in the battle.  That Sunday morning resurrection was D-Day in the Greatest War ever waged.  Now we’re just waiting for satan to prove the complete wretchedness of his ways and to go down in flames.  Of his own making.

Angry Words

During the end of a time-out this morning, I was chatting with my two young charges about the rule of keeping their hands and feet to themselves.  Even when they're mad.

But I told them they are allowed to use mad words: "I hate it when you...!  I want you to stop!  You're making me angry!  I'm mad at you!"  And I told them they're even allowed to make up angry words and say them in an angry voice: "Blech!  Blarg!  Urga-blurga-blarg!  Spik spik splok!  Snurf!"  (Try it - it's fun!)  This caused all three of us to dissolve into a fit of giggles.  :-)

So later on, I could see one little person reaching over to smack the other, and I said, "Wait, use angry words but keep your hands to yourself!"  And he started spouting angry nonsense: "Bleep bleep bleep! Bug bog blug!"  And then all three of us again dissolved into giggles - problem diffused.

I hope this solution lasts for at least several days!

Some of my Favorites

I've been listening to some of my favorite worship music this morning, and maybe you'd like to enjoy it too!

This one is Days of Elijah, a song I learned at the church I was part of in Cleveland for four and a half years.  Sometimes it's easy to think that God was really active in Bible times and he is distant now, but this song is a great reminder that God is active right now, and we are called to be involved in his work.

*

This one is the ancient hymn Be Thou My Vision.  I've sung it in church since I was very little.  The words are so worshipful, and I tend in general to like the pre-1800 hymns better than the 1800-1950 hymns.  I do like some of the modern ones.

*

This is a piece by Josquin des Prez (born c. 1450, died 1521) called Sit nomen Domini, and I'm sorry all that is available on YouTube is a student performance with the beginning and end cut off.  I bought a CD of Josquin's music last fall and it kept me company when I was going through a major health issue.  The Latin words mean, Blessed be the Name of the Lord."

*

This is a contemporary hymn setting by English composer John Rutter called For the Beauty of the Earth.  I learned it in the children's choir at my childhood church, and it has stuck with me.

Back-blog #12: Missionary Munitions

MISSIONARY MUNITIONS

Sunday, September 11, 2011 

by Oswald Chambers

If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet.

JOHN 13:14

Ministering as Opportunity Surrounds Us.  This does not mean selecting our surroundings, it means being very selectly God's in any haphazard surrounding which He engineers for us.  The characteristics we manifest in our immediate surroundings are indications of what we will be like in other surroundings.

The things that Jesus did were of the most menial and commonplace order, and this is an indication that it takes all God's power in me to do the most commonplace things in His way.  Can I use a towel as He did?  Towels and dishes and sandals, all the ordinary sordid things of our lives, reveal more quickly than anything what we are made of.  It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the meanest duty as it ought to be done.

"I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you."  Watch the kind of people God brings around you, and you will be humiliated to find that this is His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him.  Now, He says, exhibit to that one exactly what I have shown to you.

"Oh," you say, "I will do all that when I get out into the foreign field."  To talk in this way is like trying to produce the munitions of ward in the trenches - you will be killed while you are doing it.

We have to go the "second mile" with God.  Some of us get played out in the first ten yards, because God compels us to go where we cannot see the way, and we say - "I will wait till I get nearer the big crisis."  If we do no do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis.

Cooking Lessons

Jared’s family of origin and my family of origin approach cooking rather differently.  Let’s start with my family.  Actually, let’s just start with me and make vague generalizations from it.  That would be charitable, right?  Ha.  

My family for the most part cooks meals as a goal-oriented process.  We think we will be hungry at such-and-such a time, so we begin cooking an hour before.  Not because we like cooking!  But to fill a need.  And we get hungry and need to eat right now.  So we have a snack while we’re cooking.  Or a sudden quasi-meal.  Because we are in low blood sugar and we’re going to pass out and be cranky if we don’t fill the tank immediately.

Jared’s family, or maybe I should say at least Jared and his parents, seem to operate rather differently.  They tend to get a little elaborate in their normal cooking, and they are not very snacky.  They stock huge amounts of raw ingredients and then go searching about for what they want to make.  They don’t plan meals ahead of time usually, just start cooking different things until there is a large spread.  More than once in our own apartment I have *finally* gotten nearly done with making dinner, for which I am famished, and am *dramatically* about to pass out from lack of nourishment when Jared comes in the kitchen and decides to start making just one or two more things for the meal.  “It won’t take long.”  (Like, say only 30 more minutes, which feels like an eternity to *fill-my-need-instantly me*...)

So in practice, I have adapted in a large part from the cooking of my childhood (done mostly by my mother, not by me, mind you!) of necessity and convenience, to the cooking of the Ballance family of from-scratch anti-fast food.  This has some certain advantages.  For example, fresh corn tortillas hot off the press are about 983% better than any store bought tortillas, no matter how carefully you follow the heating directions on the package and cover them with butter.  And homemade bread is so addictive compared to the relatively healthful, but packaged bread of my childhood.  

But all this takes time.  My first forays into cooking for the most part happened in college when I shared an apartment.  I was not good at it.  And I remember giving myself food poisoning once.  (I did a random bit of cooking when I was a kid and inspiration struck, but it is unfortunate that I was not more involved in said activity on a regular basis.  Jared and his siblings were all involved with cooking and baking throughout their childhoods and they all seem to have a fondness for it as adults, too.)  Through the use of recipes I have become a much better cook.  The year we lived in Huntsville, I did almost all of our cooking.  And I did a large percentage in Birmingham.  Jared probably did most of it in Rochester, and so far in Kent, he’s doing most of it again.  This is in large measure because he is home a lot so far (one benefit of being unemployed!)  

Actually, I don’t dislike cooking.  It’s more that 1) I don’t think of it until I really hungry and need to eat NOW and 2) I hate cleaning all the dishes (although I have done a lot of it in my life.)  The only catch is that I LOVE eating.  Good thing I married a man who loves to cook!!!!

Weekends in Washington

We've had six weekends since we arrived in Washington.

#1: Quick trip down to Oregon for Aunt and Uncle's birthday party

#2: 17+ mile hike at Mt. Rainier with our houseguest

#3: Visited a church near us and went to the beach with my brother

#4: Quick trip down to Oregon to visit Aunt and Uncle in town from Canada

#5: In Alabama for a friend's wedding

#6: Visited a different church and went for a short hike at Rainier

Verdict: Lots of nice visits with people.  Lots of beautiful outdoor adventures.  Very little church.  In fact, I've probably never missed church so many weekends at once in my whole life except maybe my freshman year of college (which involved lots of sleeping in).  In Birmingham it was easy to find a church - first one we visited we stayed at.  In Huntsville it was easy to find a church - we visited two and chose the smaller one.  In Rochester it was easy to find a church - we liked the second one we visited.  Cleveland, well that was another story, but I lived there a long time and was a regular attendee at several churches over time.  Washington seems like it's taking forever...

Jack Sprat

Jack Sprat could eat no fat.
His wife could eat no lean.
And so between them both, you see,
They licked the platter clean.

That's the version according to Mother Goose's Melody in 1765.

Here's the version Jared and I came up with this morning:

 

Black Bean could eat no crunchies.  

His sisters could eat no meat.  

And so between the three of them,

they licked their bowls and feet.

It's wholly accurate but probably has no chance of jumpstarting our writing careers.

.

To Alabama and Back

I arrived at the Birmingham airport 15 minutes before the start of the wedding rehearsal, but Birmingham being the small town it is, there is very little traffic, even at 5:00 pm on Friday.  Wedding events took up the rest of Friday and most of Saturday as well.  My friend, the bride, was radiant and calm.  The groom was beside himself with the joy of the day. The clothes and the church were beautiful. The pews were full. The music was perfect (what else can you expect at the wedding of a professional violinist?). And the service was also beautiful and reverent. And the whole day was punctuated by eating - how can you argue with that?

Also during the trip I spent time with the friends whose home I stayed in, I spent an evening with some other very dear friends, I hung out with the bride’s family, I taught two of my former violin students, and I had a lovely evening with our neighbor and our former exchange student.  I also picked up a nasty cold, which had me feeling awful for a good chunk of Monday (landing in airplanes with head congestion anyone?) and Tuesday (required sleeping whenever I wasn’t being paid to do something else).   However, it was great to see so many friends, and it was also so strange to be back so soon after I left - just about five weeks.    I drove by our empty condo - home? - but not.  

Monday I had a long layover at the Houston airport, and my parents drove over from Austin to see me.   We had lunch at the airport and chatted and looked at pictures.  I don’t know when I’ll be seeing them next exactly, so it was nice to squeeze in a little visit!  

When I arrived back home on Monday evening, I was so exhausted from sleep deprivation and traveling and time changes that I went to bed around 7:00 pm and woke up shortly before the alarm went off at 5:30 for my first day of work.  Having just slept so many hours, I felt rather human during nanny time, but then I was back in bed and grumpy for a good lot of the rest of the day.  

Today I’m most definitely feeling much better, although still not amazing.  However I got it together long enough to approximate a recipe for sweet and sour ginger noodle soup for lunch.  It turned out pretty well even if I didn’t have all the ingredients.  I subbed water chestnuts for mushrooms, light sesame oil for dark, water for veggie broth, spaghetti for rice noodles, apple cider vinegar for rice vinegar, salt for shoyu, left out the tofu and snow peas, and added garlic, but at least I did have the ginger and red pepper flakes the recipe called for!