Moments

It's a wonderful thing when certain truths that come to you in your prayer time are affirmed by someone else.

"God looks at all of us as his beloved sons and daughters, and as any good father, He is filled with pleasure when we respond to his love."

"'We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.' (St. Pope John Paul II)"

--from a snippet from the Catholic parish on campus

Poetry

"USED (twice used) and
a certain blue book
hold promise for the next day when 
the new old self taps
her foot carefully
into the joyous echos 
of discovery."

I wrote this eight(?!) years ago.  It was originally part of poem that hadn't taken off like I'd hoped, but I really liked this stanza, and I guess it does sort of stand on its own.  Anyway.  Every so often, the part of this poem resurfaces in my brain.  This morning was one of those days.  And I thought, you know, I think it's time this poem sees the light of the internet beyond my f-listed livejournal. :)

Thanksgiving

In the midst of all the random "I'm thankful for..." posts that have been smattered all over my facebook newsfeed this month, one person shared a quote about how being grateful was useless unless it was expressed.

Somehow, I find "giving thanks" weird.  I feel grateful and awed, surely.  But somehow, stating it cheapens it, to me, at least.  Because I feel it.  But maybe I need to take the time to write it out.  To stop, and consider.  To be grateful when it is hard to *feel* grateful, particularly around the holidays, when travel sucks, and family hackles rise.

1. I'm grateful for heat.  And no shortage of blankets with which to aid the furnace in keeping me warm when I choose to keep the thermostat turned a little low to keep my my bill manageable.  So I'm grateful to have the choice of heat.  Of knowing that when I come home, after my brief stint in the chill air, I can turn a knob and be warmer 20 minutes later.  Of knowing that even when I turn the thermostat way down when I leave the house, having a house kept at 45 degrees is immeasurably better than a house as cold as it is outside, considerably colder.

2. I'm grateful for the ability to travel.  More specifically, the ability to travel on my own terms, and not have to rely on public transit.  A place to travel to, also.  I could be in another country, on another continent, or on the other side of the country for Thanksgiving.  But, I am within a 5 hour drive from my family, that makes the possibility of traveling for the holiday a possibility.  Oh, and the weather forecasting that let's me plan my travel so I don't drive straight into a snowstorm. ;)

3.  I'm grateful for my work, and I'm grateful for the doors that are opening for my next steps--What's next? Back to West Michigan?  A new place in Illinois? I'm grateful to have found this work and this path.

4. I'm grateful for the friends I have who know the real me.  I am grateful to the people in my life who have helped me see the real me and have helped me to love her.

5. I'm grateful for a 13 year journey with Jesus.  All of those seasons.  All of those moments.  And the pleasure of knowing that I have many more seasons and moments with him to experience.  And knowing that all of those seasons and moments are invited by him. <3 p="">

On the Challenge of Dying a Slow Death to Self

Dying on a cross is a slow death.  It is not a bullet to the temple.

Sin, the Pastor, and the Body

So many pastors in the news over the years being caught in sexual sin.

I'm not saying that pastors are anything other than human.  What I am saying is that there is so much that goes into sinful behavior on this kind of scale that something has to be wrong, not with the pastor, but with how the church relates to the pastor.

What are our hiring practices?  What do they entail?  What kind of support is the pastor getting?  I don't care if the pastor is married or single, a pastor needs pastoral care, too.  A pastor needs friends too.  Where are we, as a Body, failing our pastors in such a way that leads to this many instances of this scope of sin?

The cauldron of my soul after this morning's message

Life. Death. Bodies.

It's all in Scripture, all closely related.  cf. Romans 6:3. Ephesians 2:1-6. 2 Corinthians 4:10-11. 1 Corinthians 6:15-17.

Life. Death. Bodies. Choices. Sides.  Life? or the Adversary?

"Edginess" and the Power of the Spirit

I was talking to a good friend of mine a few weeks ago about mourning our loss of "edginess" in various ways as we grow older and become mommies (in her case) and educational leaders (in my case).  In addition to our spiritual lives, we also share a gothic/punky/alternative sense of fashion, which has mellowed in the past few years for a variety of reasons.

I was thinking about shock value in our culture the other day.  I was thinking about the younger Christian generation's desire to be different than the older Christian's generation, wherein we want to prove that we can be cool too, by not saying that we can't have a beer with our dinner or that we can't ever ever swear.  I was thinking about my defensive hold on the gothic part of my history, my wardrobe, my personality.

And then the Holy Spirit knocked me upside the head.

Our power in this world is not in our "edginess" or our shock value.  Jesus asks us to be meek instead of loud.  In asking us to be meek, he asks us to trust in the power of His Spirit to accomplish the work he has planned.  (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:7)

Five Quick Takes

I haven't posted in a while not because I have not had things to write about, but have had, in fact, too much to write about.

And so, because I need a mental break, and to begin to get things processed, here are five quick blurbs.

A. I wish I had used a different textbook in my undergraduate organic chemistry class.  I have been borrowing a professor's organic book with which to review for the American Chemical Society's standardized organic chemistry test, which I am supposed to pass at a certain level for my graduate coursework.  I don't know if it is more accessible to me because I simply have learned more chemistry over the years, including advanced organic chemistry mechanisms and have taught introductory organic chemistry for 2+ years, or because of the way it is written.  I am inclined to believe the latter.  I have revisited my old organic textbook to check things, and I do understand more of it.  But I feel this textbook (Solomon and Fryhle's 7th ed., for the record) is written in a more intuitive fashion, where ideas are not arranged so much by category (which they are to some extent), but more by relevance.  It seems to me that the ideas are presented in an arrangement where one idea leads progressively into the other, such that the topic is expanded and advanced.

B. I feel like I'm entering a new season of growth in my faith, where faith is less about answers and knowledge and completeness, but more about truly living with Jesus...not just in the Events, but in the waiting, also. You live with people and you read books in silence together and you have breakfast together with eye crusties and evil eyes if you are too perky too early. You say things in anger and you make mistakes, and you talk it out. You stay up far too late in your pjs laughing and chatting. Living with Jesus has to be like that. That rhythm and flow of life together that doesn't depend on having showered and brushed your teeth and having lines rehearsed.

C. It is such a beautiful thing to see the outcome of so many years of uncertainty and struggle.  Jesus was birthing something new 4 years ago when his movement in my heart prompted me to leave the PhD program.  At the time, I had absolutely no clue where he was leading.  None.  But I continued to explore and follow, with many emotions and seasons, in finding jobs, and housing, and going to Russia, and trying my hand at student ministry as at least a part of my career.  And now, I'm here...entering my final year in a master's program, doing chemical education research, going to chem ed conferences, and loving as much of it as I can.  It all seems to fit.  In a beautiful, God-crafted way.  The conference at Grand Valley two weeks ago was such an affirmation of that.

D. New things.  New aspects of old relationships. New season of work and faith. :)

E. Lastly, this article in Time about 50 Shades of Grey is amazing.  It's hilariously written, but it's also a good read, because I also wanted to know what on earth was so amazing about this book, but not wanting to read it to find out, knowing the general premise of the story.  And so, here I find a hilariously written account of what seems to be the non-supernatural pornographic version of Twilight.  In case that is not enough for you to read it, here's a snippet:  "I think I might be the only man who read this book. I did it sneakily, hiding the cover, especially when I was on an airplane, which actually is a good place to read this book because you have access to a barf bag."  Your welcome. :)

Touch and Affection

I think this article is amazing on so many levels:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/our-starved-for-touch-culture/

"The friendzone is treated as a wasteland not just because we treat sex as an idol, but because friendship and non-sexual affection is written off as irrelevant. Casual dating has been replaced by casual sex; platonic touch has been eclipsed by erotic signalling."

"[I]t’s worth asking if there is something we can do to make non-sexual affection more common generally. At the personal level, that might just mean offering friends hugs more often, and at a societal level, telling and repeating better stories about friendship."

It says so much about our culture's obsession with romantic relationships at the expense of friendships, it says so much about our culture's homophobia, it says so much about caring for the lost and confused.  

Bits

Ten days until Easter.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.  I'm really enjoying this season of Lent, and I kind of don't want it to end.  Is that weird?

I'm hoping that this is only the start of whatever season God wants to draw me into with him, and that when I finally check my facebook messages in ten days, it won't matter.  I'm hoping that this season of Lent has changed something, so that I will be less inclined to become consumed with facebook, changed my awareness of myself.

In other news, I'm actually considering adopting a cat.  I have wanted a furry friend for several years, but have never felt willing to commit to that.  I think I'm starting to become willing to do that.  :)  It will likely mean moving (*dies a little a lot inside*), but I think having a pet and having appliances that I trust and having water that doesn't smell like rotten eggs will be worth the move.

And now, to prep my final practicum lecture. :)

Fasting

Fasting should open up hands and energies for new things.  For old things forgotten.  I found it very interesting in my reading of Isaiah 58 this morning that God defines fasting in verses 6 and 7 by things done, not things not done.  There are verbs here: loose, undo, let free, share, break, bring.  I spent a little time considering what one would have to surrender or lose or give up to do the things indicated in this kind of fast.  Two examples: "To undo the straps of the yoke," you practically need to remove your hands from your own work and move them to the straps of the yoke.  "To let the oppressed go free" cues a sense of refraining from anger, in the sense that to let those that you hold prisoner, you must be willing to forgive their trespasses (real or imagined).

Now, I don't feel that I am anywhere close to this kind of fasting God lays out here.  But it was something to consider.  A seed of this carries into my reflections about my experience so far of giving up Facebook for Lent, in terms of freedom and replacing behaviors.  Personally, I don't participate in the "giving something up for Lent" thing unless there has been something on my heart or mind prior to the season.  It's not something I choose because the calendar says so.  For example, I gave up music for Lent in high school one year.  ALL music.  I worked at an ice rink, so when I had to skate guard (ie, skate around during public skates to make sure no one hurts themselves and you aren't being stupid about other people's safety), I wore ear plugs.  Odd, but understandable.  But this also applied to music at church.  Whaaat? You may think.  What's so wrong with church music?  Nothing.  But I was finding that I was relying too much on worship music to create my relationship with God.  I needed to learn other ways to connect with God.  In the beginning, I just retreated to the back of the room during teen church on Sundays and youth group on Wednesdays and not participate in the musical portion, maybe try reflecting on just the words.  Not working.  So I would leave the room and try praying.  (My pastor came out to check on me once, haha.)  Easter showed up that year, and I remember being so excited to sing Alleluia with the whole congregation.  I sang loudly, at the top of my lungs.  It was so beautiful to hear such joy in music after such silence.  And to be able to fully participate in corporate worship again.  To add to that, the following weekend, I headed off to Costa Rica on a mission trip with my youth group, where we only sung in Spanish.  So beautiful to be able to worship even when I didn't know the language!

Nobody suggested I give up music.  Likewise, nobody has suggested I give up Facebook.  It seems to be a popular thing to do, but it's something I try to do on a monthly basis anyway.  Every handful of weeks, I have a no technology day.  The phone goes off.  The laptop gets shut down.  It forces me to be present to the day.  I notice a shift in how I approach the day, where my mind goes.  It's a good thing to do.  I have felt too consumed with Facebook in recent weeks, so I've decided to give it up for Lent.
1. I spend far too much time on it.  I break from work to check it because I need a mental break for a little bit, and I end up spending 15+ minutes on it, when 5 minutes or less is what I needed.  And it rarely serves that purpose anyway, because:
2. It makes my brain noisy.  There's just TOO MUCH coming at me through Facebook.  Words.  Statements. Humor that isn't necessarily appropriate or good.  Articles that say lots of things without COMMUNICATING.
3. I honestly end up in the jealousy trap.  I am happy with my life, truly, until my newsfeed fills with engagement and baby announcements and gorgeous wedding pictures.  Then I consider my life less than.  When it is not.

It's been about a week since I logged off.  The first day or two was challenging, just because I kept running into old habits: reaching for my phone first thing in the morning, wanting to disengage from work after only working for 10 minutes because I'm overwhelmed, wanting to take a picture to share something.  It's calmed down a little now, but there are still inclinations and desires to check it.  I know I need to find something to do for my mental work break...if it were warmer, I'd be inclined for it to be stepping outside for a little bit.  In the meantime, I'm considering coloring.  Yes, coloring, as in a coloring book.  My best friend's mom gave me a Harry Potter coloring book for my birthday, with crayons labeled with chemicals that have those colors. ^.^

But I'm also now at a point where I am starting to see the freedom in this fast.  I'm hopeful for what God can do with this in my personal devotional life; the ways he'll shape my heart in the midst of this.  Focusing my heart on him instead of church politics.  I'm also looking forward to writing more.  Taking time to fully flesh out my ideas, rather than biting out 140 words.  I also hope it helps me take personal risks.  It's easier to try to make social plans with Facebook because it's less direct, more non-committal.  I could invite everyone and no one at the same time when I'm bored on a Friday night with a vague status update.  Or, I could suggest it on someone's wall, for their consideration whenever they choose.  Instead, I'll be forced to take the risk to actually contact someone to ask them if they would be interested in coffee or something.

:)  I had other ideas, in the vein of considering the options and freedom logging off Facebook offers.  But they've left my brain.  In the end, I'm hopeful for this season.  I look forward to the work God will do these next five weeks.

Reflections on True Worship

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4 (ESV)

What is meant by worshiping "in the Spirit and in truth"? Truth is not capitalized. It is not prefaced by the article "the." I'm used to understanding this verse in terms of worshiping as the Spirit leads grounded, rooted, established, growing out of the Truth of Who God is. But is that what this passage is saying? I mean, it makes sense. But it seems a little too removed from the situation at hand, too academic. The story of the woman at the well encountering Jesus is powerful and intimate. Jesus opens by displaying his own needs--he is tired, and he is thirsty. Against all cultural bounds, he asks the woman there for a drink. Which quickly turns into a discussion about spirituality, Jewish history, and eternal thirst. Jesus sees straight into her heart, sees her need and desire. Immediately following these verses, Jesus discloses to her that he himself is the long-awaited and desired Messiah. This story is full of heart-communication. (Yes, I just made that up. But it fits.) "Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know..." It is true that there is a mind-knowing, communicated in French using the verb <savoir>, and a heart-knowing, communicated with the verb <<connaitre>>. I don't know Greek, so I can't tell you what the verb is in this verse. (If anyone would like to enlighten me, I'd love to hear it!) I feel like the context, including the interaction that is happening, the desire being answered with these statements, God's desire for worshipers who worship "in the Spirit and in truth", lends itself to more the heart-knowing usage of the word know here. In which case, an exhortation to worship in the Spirit and in truth given to mean Spirit-led and Truth-grounded, while accurate, feels a little..stilted, academic, heady to me. I could be wrong here. I really could. I'm just thinking about this, and I'd love feedback here. What if, what if, "in truth" means "in sincerity"? What if this is an exhortation to be led by the Spirit (who communicates Truth) and to be honest and sincere in worship? Without pretenses or pretexts?

Closet Racist?

InterVarsity is committed to multi-ethnicity.  And that's great.  
But it scares the daylights out of me.

Not because I'm scared of other cultures.  Culture is fascinating!  It really is.  What I'm scared of is not knowing how to talk about it.  I'm scared of asking questions poorly.  I'm scared of offending someone.

I'm guilty of the "What language do you speak in__?" question.  I asked it, hesitantly, cautiously with a disclaimer ("This a going to be a really stupid question, but..") to a Bosnian student of mine.  Because I honestly had no idea.  I didn't even know there was such a language as Bosnian (I was thinking Arabic?).  I'm guilty of wanting to ask the "Where are you from, really?" question, because I don't know how to ask about their heritage.  I guess that's a much more loaded, offensive question than it had occurred to me.

We did an exercise at IVLI (many summers ago) where we broke off into groups based on our ethnicity, and discussed a worksheet about our family, the foods we eat, what we do when someone encounters hardship, things like that.  And then we came back together.  We shared our answers to some of the questions with the rest of the group.  We were asked about our strengths and our weaknesses.  And what I noticed (that I remember, at least) was that my ethnic group (white) was very hesitant about culture.  Several of us, including myself, prefaced a discussion of our strengths with "I don't know if this is a strength or not, but..."  I remember the worksheet being difficult for me to fill out, because I didn't feel like I had traditions.  Or culture.  Or anything exciting to offer about my heritage.  Because more than anything, I feel like my story is not "American" or "white," but "divorced suburban middle class."  If ethnicity and culture are passed down in your family...a broken family means incomplete transference.  My best friend is from rural America.  Her family has it's dirty laundry, too, believe me.  But she has *stories.* She has history.  She has *family.*  They have family recipes, and her grandmother taught her to quilt and knit.  She has a book-A BOOK-of her family, including maps of how the parcels of land has been passed through the family.  I know where my parents were born.  I have no idea how a girl from the Bronx met a man from DC and decided to move to a Maryland suburb.  I'm old enough now to want to know these things, but because their marriage dissolved while I was relatively young (11), I hardly have an opportunity to ask.  What I know about my family's history would fill one sheet of notebook paper, while she has a book.  I envy my friend's family.  But I am blessed that they have taken me in as one their own.  Her grandmother quilted me a blanket for Christmas when we were in college, and were still newly best friends.  This year, having graduated college four years ago and our friendship sustained across 300 miles for as long, her grandmother knitted me an afghan as an apartment warming gift.  Somehow, tucked into the twirls and knots of yarn is a declaration of acceptance and belonging.  

I digress...Culture-crossing.  I love listening to people's stories.  I'm curious about what people think and feel, and their choices in response to those things.  I'm fascinated by different rituals and perceptions of things.  I'm curious about South Asia and Russia, and their stories and histories.  But I don't know how to be.  I don't know how to ask questions.  Making friends is not easy for me.  I feel like I am generally an awkward person.  Crossing cultures? So much room for Stupid Rachel to glow with radioactivity!! I fear offending the other person, and hurting them.  

And maybe in this, too, is a sense of having nothing to offer back in return.  They could tell me about the ceremony of turning 13 and all the preparation and planning and drama...and I could tell them, what?  That my transition into womanhood entailed a really really awkward conversation with my dad in the car on the way to a doctor's appointment in which I told him that I had gotten my first period?  The celebratory response to which was an invitation to dinner with the family, that had nothing to do with anything?  My culture pales (ha, pun not intended) to others.  Or maybe I just don't understand it.  Maybe I need the richness of other cultures to spur me to consider and see the richness of my own.

Girl Power vs. Boy Power

I appreciate this video for its unique perspective on the gender equality discussion.  It makes me think, not for the first time, that if I ever were to have kids (please note the if), that I would want the privilege of raising a daughter and a son.  I feel like siblings of different genders are a wonderful opportunity to show the other what pure compassion and love and trust and play look like across gender lines, without the complication of "cooties" or dating or relationships or sex.  But this video prompted this thought because it challenged not what we are teaching our daughters about gender roles and leadership, but what we are teaching our sons about what what we are teaching our daughters.  In all our efforts to empower our daughters, what have we done to teach our sons about how they are a part of that?  Part of that effort, part of that realm.  Are we setting up a healthy realm that isn't bound by gender roles--or have we, inadvertently, set up a power struggle?

Choice

Oh, what a journey this thing called faith is...

Twelve years.  Twelve years, perhaps more like thirteen, and today I still was challenged with the question of accepting Jesus' offer of sufficiency.  Of accepting his righteousness, goodness, and truth as encompassing, strong, and big enough for what I need.  And while perhaps the invitations weren't so clear twelve years ago in that manner of words, they certainly were four years ago, two years ago, even.  Given in perfect clarity, to which I said Yes, with perfect expectation that I knew what I was saying yes to.  And several more smaller invitations less clear or pointed, but nonetheless there, to choose to hear and accept Jesus's words of truth, spoken in small moments; accepted in murmured ascents, and whispered Amens.

And find in my soul an agony, an anxiety over how I could possibly still not have "actually" answered that most basic question.  An anxiety over which the cause of the anxiety is the answer.  That probably makes no sense...The anxiety is over my failure to acknowledge his sufficiency.  The cure is the negation of that concern by accepting his sufficiency as enough to cover that failure.

Because his goodness has been transposed onto me.  Because his sufficiency has been transposed onto me.  I am enough because he is enough.

At the start of this new season, I am concerned, at points even depressed, over things like finding a community with whom I can laugh, over finding a friend with whom I can discuss this thing that is faith, over getting this vocation thing right.  My challenge now is to wait expectantly.  To trust God's process instead of determining to have it perfected now, or of despairing that it hasn't been.  To say Yes, I trust you to support me in this season of change.

Which somehow spurs me to consider this IV volunteer app again.  The staffworker here sent me an application over the summer, that I had delayed responding to, because I wasn't sure the opportunities here or the realities of my life as a grad student yet (and truthfully, I was scared of IV after things with my old area director).  I was hoping for a far clearer direction once I got here.  Right now, that "clear direction" might be an invitation to just use my gifts in a place that could use them, regardless of it being "the right thing."  I may not have anything to offer a Greek chapter as an independent.  I may not have the time to offer to create and lead bible studies.  But I do have the heart to sit next to a girl on a couch on a Tuesday night, and talk.  And at its heart, my call is that.  My call is not to have answers or plans, but to be present to the lives of students.  And truthfully, I need to do something.  Perhaps my sense of stagnancy is a result of not participating in that.  Ingrowing things, you know.  And so maybe this is the cure: to step out and engage in my calling regardless of it fitting perfectly.

Because it's a process, and God's in charge.

The question I've been pondering of late

Who is this God that he would offer us a chance to love him?

For your perspective

Below is my personal statement I wrote for my graduate school applications, as written for Loyola (because I like the way I integrated Loyola into the paragraph better than how it did for other schools).  I'm proud of it.  I feel like it is a strong piece of creative writing in which I was able to put my soul into it, but is also purposeful and informative.  I'm putting it here because I feel it's a good summary of where I have been and where I am going. :)

J.K. Rowling wisely writes in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, “It is our choices…that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”  In the three years since I graduated from Hope College, I have made choices that have drawn me well outside my comfort zone.  My desire to always live true to myself led me to choose to leave graduate school two years ago, to volunteer with college students, to teach in Russia, and to teach at a local university.  While making each of these choices was difficult, I am grateful because it is precisely the challenge and diversity of these choices that have led me to this place where I can confidently choose to pursue a career in chemical education.

My first summer of doing research with Dr. Jason Gillmore as an undergraduate epitomized everything I loved about science: discovery.  I worked towards the synthesis of two substituted perimidinespirohexadieneone photochromes in order to clarify the direction of their ring opening in the presence of UV light.  As the synthesis proved unattainable, the group has since tried other methods to elucidate this.  From there, I investigated the cathodoluminescence of minerals [information withheld for internet publishing].  We determined that it was possible to distinguish classes of feldspars with this method, further indicating its potential for use as a forensic tool.  I continued to pursue research in graduate school at Michigan State University, where I worked with Dr. Jim McCusker to elucidate the mechanisms of photo-dynamics in chromium complexes towards designing better dye-sensitized solar cells. 

Each of these experiences excited the scientist in me, and most had valuable and meaningful real world applications, but I noticed that none seemed to engage me uniquely.  I also had begun to realize that I have leadership gifts.  I am the leader that is willing to challenge the status quo and is willing to take the time to encourage and equip the people under my care.  I took joy in applying those leadership skills as a teaching assistant: I moved desks in my recitation section to encourage discussion, and I took pleasure in my labs in looking after the stragglers to make sure they didn’t get lost in the mix.  I began to question if laboratory research was truly how I wanted to be spending my time, when I was discovering a passion and a gift for working with people.

I chose to leave graduate school to support myself as a laboratory technician at a small local industry while I explored avenues to use my leadership skills.  I volunteered with a student ministry organization where I mentored students individually and in small groups, and trained them to use their unique gifts in leadership.  I also spent a month and a half at a youth camp in Russia teaching conversational English.  Each of these came with their own challenges—from event organization to teamwork to resource scarcity to cultural differences.  Both experiences gave me joy in walking alongside young people—hearing their thoughts about life, watching them grow into their potential as I encouraged them and taught them, even when they couldn’t necessarily receive it.  But the challenges of teaching in a foreign country brought me life, while the challenges of running a student movement drained me.

With these experiences in hand, I came to teach at Grand Valley State University.  I have found a unique joy in this job.  Every semester brings a new challenge.  The first semester was making it through a presentation; this semester was drawing hard lines with compassion.  In rising to these challenges, I see students who were apathetic towards chemistry engage with difficult concepts that they initially thought were beyond them.  Teachers who give students the tools they need to succeed and the encouragement to believe that they can succeed are gifts, and I believe that I have the skills, gifts, and experiences to be one those teachers. I want to continue to challenge, encourage, and equip students by teaching at a community college, where I can focus on teaching, and impact a corner of the higher education world that often gets left behind.

Challenges are part of every career, and I’ve experienced them in working in a lab, in student ministry, and in teaching.  The difference is that the challenges I’m facing as a teacher enable me to grow in ways that I want to grow.  My students challenge me to have patience, to think critically, and to think creatively.  I am looking at programs like yours so that I can learn how to do that better.  Coursework at Loyola would ground me firmly in my knowledge of chemistry, while participating in chemical education research, such as with Dr. Patrick Daubenmire, offers a valued opportunity to gain understanding of the teaching and learning of science.  Cooperative learning experiences were scattered throughout my education at Hope, and studying them from the other side would help me pass on the critical thinking skills and self-understanding I gained from some of those experiences to my own students.  My choice to become a chemistry educator brings together my scientific ability and my passion for the lives of young people in a way that engages and utilizes my creativity.  I look forward to bringing the fullness of who I am to the field of chemical education, and I am eager to make Loyola a part of that journey.

Life Update

So, here’s my life over the past several months:

Well, I finished the most obnoxiously busy semester in May, with three acceptances to three grad schools, and a satisfaction that a struggling student passed lab!  I got accepted to Loyola University-Chicago, Central Michigan University, and Michigan Technological University.  I was SO EXCITED!!! that I got into Loyola.  But, they offered me no financial assistance.  And I would have to learn how to live in Chicago.  Oh dear.  I was thrilled when Tech finally accepted me—5 days before the national reply deadline.  I was not able to visit due to weather conditions and work schedules, which meant that I had to make my decision between a place that I had seen 2 hours north of home in West Michigan, or a place that I had not seen 10 hours even further north than that.  So while Central Michigan had originally been my last choice (with Tech and Loyola tied for first), it became the place I chose.  I felt weak in choosing Central, because it seems so much less prestigious than Loyola.  But I felt it was the right choice—for me.  For me, the stress of trying to work and teach and research and pass classes AND live and drive in Chicago was not worth it to me, and going to school 12 hours away from home in the Upper Peninsula would be extremely isolating.  Central, though less exciting, had much more positives all around.  I would only be two hours away from West Michigan, half an hour away from my best friend’s family, in a small rural city, in a department where 50% of the chemistry faculty was female, in a building with windows!, and a place where I could feel confident in my choices in my education, and in life.  I felt I could take hold of my grad school education at Central, in a way that I might not have felt able to at Loyola.

And I am pleased to say that five weeks after moving here (four since my grad school education officially started), I still believe this is the right choice for me.  A week or two ago, I was doing homework in the school library (the amazing library!) at 10 o’clock at night.  I looked up from my work out the gorgeous windows, and I had this great sense of peace.  I felt that I was in the right place, doing the right things, at the right school, in the right city, in the right season.  I feel that I am one of the group of grad students in my department—something that was vastly lacking at Michigan State four years ago.  The building feels conducive to people spending portions of their lives there—there are chairs in the hallways, there are plants and tables in nooks, there are windows.  It’s not just a sequence of offices.  It’s a space.  And there are no four-story parking garages!  My apartment (though still not completely unpacked) feels just far enough removed from school to create a division between work and home but close enough to be engaged and connected—and within a “Oh-crap-I-overslept-class-is-in-30-minutes!” freak-out safe zone. Ha.  Big enough to be enough space, but small enough to not feel empty.

I am secure here, even though I’m facing some challenges that can be very stressful at any given time.  My stipend is ridiculously small, so I’m making choices like whether or not to have home internet, whether to pursue the governmental aid for food that I qualify for, and whether I can actually afford the dues to the Graduate Student Union that would help to change the very problems we are struggling with (ie, low income, no health insurance, etc). 

I have found a church with a brave pastor, whose wife is so kind and welcoming and engaging….but the young adult population is very limited.  I have been going to this church since I’ve been here and it would be about time for me to see if there are other churches for me to check out, but the pastor has just started a sermon series on The Elephants in the Room.  This four part series began today with science and religion, and will continue with issues of life (abortion and euthanasia), broken homes and families, and homosexuality.  In this series, he hopes to challenge his church to engage with these issues seriously, in a way that we can be the church we are called to be in the midst of these contentious issues.  These are all wonderful things that I want to engage with, and want to hear what the pastor has to say, and, if I plugged in a little further, I would hope that I could discuss with other people in the congregation.  But…I don’t know if I want to plug in, here, yet.  I want to give the churches I visit a real chance…but I’m afraid of wasting time, or of leaving a reasonable place to go in order to check out a different place and return to find they had given up on me.

And it’s not a nice, neat, pretty thing to update on, but my boyfriend and I broke up in June.  I am content where I am relationally.  I am content being single.  One day, I hope to be married.  But here, in this time, I am content.  There are days (like last Sunday) that I’m not, and I wrestle with God, knowing that he hasn’t promised me a husband.  But he has promised me healing and himself and his church.  I just pray that the church wakes up to that.  That the church is part of the blessings God has given us.  That in the church, God can speak to us, touch us, and love us in ways that he can’t in our personal quiet times.  And feeling like the church doesn’t always get that can make it hard.  It can make it hard to not be cynical, to be hopeful in finding a place to belong.

Starting a life over requires taking risks.  It requires taking risks to get to know people and try new things.  And it’s very tiring.  But I know this is where I am supposed to be in this time.  So these are the things that I most desire your prayers for:

-Praise for leading me here.  For all the changes of heart and life events that God has used to lead me here, to this place, in this season.

-Prayers for finding a community to pray with, to cry with, and to laugh with.

-Prayers for finding avenues to serve.

-Praise for leading me to a church with a brilliant pastor and amazing wife, but prayers for wisdom and discernment in knowing if this church is a good fit for me.

-Prayers for growing in understanding my role in the Kingdom as a faculty member.

Thanks for reading!

Some Perspective...

"The gospel is almost always profoundly critical both of our dominant cultures, but also of our best efforts at overcoming or reforming those cultures. A vision of human flourishing that simply celebrates every felt desire as good is deeply problematic from the perspective of the gospel. We are fallen creatures, and Christian discipleship in every area of life is always a practice of ascesis; of disciplining and re-ordering our wayward desires in progressively more holy directions." --Steve Holmes, here


*Note: I haven't read the whole article (I've gotten to "VB: What about the classic go-to texts that Christians often use in debates on sexuality?") , and I'm not necessarily agreeing with everything else in the article that I have (or have not) read. But I think the quote above holds some well-written and much needed perspective. It sums up the intersecting nettles that are "repressive/freedom/Christianity/goodness/right-ness/open- vs closed-mindedness." Okay, maybe it doesn't address the freedom part as much as I'd like it to. But I think it holds valuable perspective nonetheless.

P.S. Yes, I know, I need to write some more of my own stuff, and update things...Alas, I have already wasted at least half an hour of my time in the library that I meant to be doing literature research...

Living in the Tension

I have a large amount of updating to do, but I wanted to, needed to write about this before the shock wears off.

I have discovered--yet another--superbly interesting book at the library tonight (this would be book 3 in 2 days...I've checked the other two out and will probably check this one out too).  It is called "Alone Together" by Sherry Turkle.  I've only read a few pages of the introduction and the first chapter, but already, I am deeply chilled by what she has to say.  She proposes in the introduction, and uses as her subtitle, "We expect more from technology and less from each other." (pg xii)  She comments on watching her daughter grow up from age 6 to 19 with various technologies (social networking, texting, but also robots including Furbies and more advanced robotics), and the questions and comments she raises about the robots' lives and their use in place of animals at museums lead her to comment on how we understand the value and purpose of life, ie, 'why should we/other living thing do x when a robot could do it?'  She references a book by David Levy called "Love and Sex with Robots."  And here I find the most chilling comments: "Levy argues that robots will teach us to be better friends and lovers because we will be able to practice on them...[R]obots are..."other," but, in many ways, better.  No cheating.  No heartbreak."

My heart breaks because I know that statement is fundamentally wrong.  My heart breaks because I know that statement is fundamentally wrong, but I also find a resonance with the enticement of no relational hardships.

I think the sheer number of articles, blogs, and books about our interactions with and potential addictions to technology are warning enough that something is happening, something devious, dangerous.  What's chilling is what Turkle has to say in less than 10 pages of a 300+page book.  What's chilling is that I see similar things, and have, though with much less eloquence and knowledge, written my own paper for a college English class about how we keep people at our fingertips--and no closer.  What's chilling is that I notice a difference when I turn off my smartphone for a day.  How I approach the day, what I think about throughout the day, and how I choose to handle problems when they come.

Those differences I notice of myself are enough for me to remember that having days free from technology are wise, but her comments in these ten pages are sending messages deep into my being that not only are they wise, but vastly important.  I need to cut my cord with technology regularly so that I remember that hardships are part and parcel of life and of relationships.  As uncertain as these are, learning to live into that tension is crucial for the development of vibrant life (both internal and external) and relationships.  The vibrancy of life comes from taking risks to discover, the vibrancy of relationships comes from giving of yourself, of your heart to another, in full knowledge that they can choose to use and abuse them...and, hopefully, finding that they choose otherwise.