cuz you give, cuz you give

A final reminder - this blog will probably be shut down in a few days - BUT if you haven't, and i know you haven't b/c your links are still old b/c i get hits from this blog all the time from google reader still

ohmadlibs dot wordpress dot com

that is

ohmadlibs.wordpress.com

OR

here

i'm ready, are you ready?

I'm a fan of subtly.

Seriously, don't forget I've moved and update your blogrolls as needed. :) just change it from blogspot to wordpress - it's really that easy. Change your subscription here.

And... of course... feel free to say hey!

you gotta move ...

ok, it's official. seriously, it's really official. time to switch the feeds and links. if you want to keep following me, you'll have to do so over at the new site. I couldn't handle the aesthetics of this blog any longer, and my minimal self-education in how to use HTML was not getting me far enough on blogger to my liking. functionally, I just like wordpress more.

ALSO, dear friends. if you do link me, please only include my first name, at most. if you want to know why, you'll have to learn more here.

the names the same, the host will change - it should be an easy swap in google reader, bloglines, etc.

the world's going down

I'm reading about the evangelical church right now, and how it, in essence, supported and encouraged a further schism between the invisible and visible church (catholic v. reformed issue #892380198). Combine that with the very fleshly struggle I've been having lately about what God is or is not calling me to do, has me thinking a lot.

I am so averse to recreating the wheel - I'd rather go into the axle and do some major repairs, break the wheel down, and restructuring it than just throwing it aside for a new wheel. It has history, it's ridden miles, and gone in places I could only dream I could ever travel.

But yet, I'm also not a fan of riding on a flat wheel that needs put to rest.

And so I sit, internally waging this war over the church and my place: am I supposed to just idly sit by and watch how the church responds when the person puts herself and says, "hiiii, remember me?" Or, am I supposed to fight back. When is it my turn to learn the answers?

i suppose i don't know how

Quite possibly one of my most favorite lines ever uttered in a class happened today.

"Smack that like you're mama"

Any takers on what class and in what context?

you eat my words, and spit them out

Irony? According to Merriam-Webster's website, it's the: "(1): incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2): an event or result marked by such incongruity"

Well, can we discuss my newest frustration? I love gmail, gchat, and the functionality of almost all of google programs: google reader, maps, calendar. But blogger? Yeah, it's driving me bonkers. There is so much I want to do, and can't. And every time I look at a blog that I like, it's hosted on wordpress. I just don't know enough about xml, html, css, etc to play with these layouts, to search (of course, on google) for new layouts for blogger.

Sigh... I think I might need to just bite the bullet and switch. it. might. just. happen.

Edit: oh wow, I can import this blog over there? even more of a reason... sigh

::::::::before i speak:::::::::.:::::kyle riabko:::::

it cuts you... it cuts you down

I've been doing some reading on a blog that I really appreciate. I never really comment, thought. Below is the only comment I've ever left. Sometimes I see people's comments on the blog and I find myself first almost irate, then sad. I think Anne's got some great thoughts, and she's certainly representing a large portion of the evangelical voice, certainly to some degree venturing further into conversation, etc.

But, I guess my once conservative mind has been released a bit in the past few years. My NT professor the other day mentioned to me that she's glad about the future of the evangelical church, if people like some in a class are actually the supposed leaders rising up. I'm not quite sure if I am one of those people, per se, but I hope that I can continue to be a voice of something - reason, truth, love, wit. (Ok, so maybe not the last! :) )

The comment I left here is in response to this blog and this one. I'm gonna be honest, it took me about 2 hours to make it through all the comment (and I started writing another blog for another day because of some of the comments. My mind is running circles - too bad its not for my final on Monday. Grace, Jesus?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - -- - -
I just caught up (thank you grad school for keeping me so far behind on the blogsphere) on the two blogs on breasts, and I have to say my heart is utterly broken at the moment. I've having fits of emotions. There are parts of me that want to scream, cry, write, pray, talk, and pontificate. I totally hear the argument that, in essence, loving our brothers means to be modest. Yup, gotcha. And I hear the argument that women judge and compare and must stop. Amen. I used to think something was utterly wrong with me bc I compared.

But, here's where I get lost...

1) people getting angry and attacking on Part 1 that the negative thoughts are being expressed. Does this issue change your view on salvation? I hope not. If so, wow, I'm sorry. Honestly, I am. It doesn't mine, at least. It's a grey area, for sure, in my book. So if someone is offering an alternative experience, especially when they are in the minority, it's awesome to converse, not blame or talk down to.

2) I don't understand why Christians are so compelled to to talk about issues that are not the actual issues, but rather the symptoms of issues. We talk about how men struggle with their visual minds because of how women dress. I get that. We talk about how women are catty about how the other woman looks. Yup. But we don't talk about how by labeling breasts any of the aforementioned names, or by comparing breasts, butts or legs, we are in fact still modeling the very objectification of women (and men, for that matter) that the rest of society does.

If we're supposed to be fighting the world, does modesty actually cut it? It seems like a band-aid that other cultures have tried for years, and yet I'm pretty sure it's still just objectifying bodies of women, no matter how un-appealing or unattractive to some it might be.

Our issue, as a culture, and certainly as a Christian subculture is that I don't see us really addressing the issues, we're just addressing the symptoms of our issues. And that is not transforming anything.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts. Maybe I've gone coo-coo out in LA in the smog since I got to seminary. Sorry for seeminly hi-jacking this blog with my comment! (And thanks for the freedom to do so!) ;)

I didn't know I would feel this way

Confession time.

I think I'm becoming emailcentric. Hmm, what is this neologism, you might ask? Um, I think I don't trust people who don't have gmail.

Yeah, I think I have a problem.

Help? Anyone else feel this way? Or the reverse? Are their googlephobics out there?

:::portland:::....:::....justin mcroberts....:::

you're so much stronger than you know

In the past few weeks, I've heard a lot of reference to the seminary process at Fuller. I repeatedly have heard people discussing the terms deconstruction and construction, and notably find myself more and more frustrated every time I hear the phrase. I've been trying to figure out why. Why do I get annoyed when someone is so afraid of or annoyed by the very notion of deconstruction? What's the danger in it? What's the value in it? Why are Christians so afraid of it?

Now I would certainly not say that I am anything close to the authority on the issue, nor do I know every specific intention of a seminary education some days, but because this topic has come up so many times, I think I might have a few thoughts to share:

1) Christians are afraid to go into valleys - I think we have a vertical fear - can any psychologist tell the word for the opposite of the fear of heights? I'm amazed so many choose to go to the Grand Canyon on their travels to Pasadena!

2) Christians are cocky. Yup, I said it. I think we're cocky. And self-righteous. And the list goes on...

I have this difficulty where I read about these other people who want to walk away from the word Christian because I so direly want to follow. I want to abandon the epistemological challenge; I want to run for labeling that I so righteously fear. Yet what value is there in my walking away from the very truth of who I am. Do I really think that Jesus came to start a whole new faith? No. Was I born into the Jewish tradition? No. What choice have I?

I do not think that Jesus wants me and a group of rebel-rousing, Christ-believing, hope-seeking women and men to start our own, more comfortable version of Christ-following religion. If Christ came to reform, and called out Pharisees, Sadduccees and the like, why in the world do I think it is appropriate to create my own version of church or Christianity? We're all gonna do it wrong in some fashion, no?

We struggle in the midst of knowing truth in how to conscientiously share this truth without recreating the us/them infrastructure - I equate it to a baseball game's vendor? God Jesus? $5. $5 here. And then of course, we gotta stick our tongue out too. And yet, when a professor in a classroom tells us that maybe the text we call holy is - gasp - flawed by redactors (read: editors), but is still containing ultimate truth, some people around run and get angry at the deconstruction of their so-called faith.

I mean, I can't blame the hurt and pain of the deconstruction. I face it when I struggle with various issues walking around campus; when I see peers struggle with homosexuality, image issues, or addictions. Maybe because my deconstruction of faith came at a much earlier age. When you're 13 and your sibling is suddenly absent from his bedroom and you have no answers as to why death, cancer or loss is okay in life, and yet you're supposed to go worship at church this God who takes and supposedly gives with unending love, your framework for faith radically shifts. It's been deconstructed to the core. I could have walked away - I did. I was done with it. And yet when I turned around, the Constructor was waiting with arms wide open.

I have seen where the valleys and the peaks have taken me - I end up in the same place. I end up back in those very arms of a God who is omniscient and who laughably (and heartily) teaches me when I choose to re-create the wheel. So the last few weeks have been a bit of both: construction and deconstruction. And I don't want that process to end. I guess I just want more control... sigh... silly, silly me.

Thus the new blog title, the new set-up, and some subtle changes to me... who knows where this is going... but I see a ride for a life-time continuing. This - I like this me. God's radically up to something. And I think I'm more ready than I've ever before been.

:.:::::bullhorn theory:::::..::..:::justin mcroberts:::..:

you don't have to...

Dear God -

I'm not quite sure why things have been so chaotic and yet edifying in the last few weeks, and I certainly do appreciate the growth, and duly note that I should be careful regarding my interceded requests. But, seriously, I think I'm "okay" with some downtime until the end of June, at least. The adage that God will only give you what you can handle is a little bit annoying right now.

Sincerely,
Stressed in 'Sadena

.....you don't have to believe me......::....eric hutchinson....