Sucked in!!!

I've been sucked in, friends.  I know there is no bottom to this pit.  I know that I will get more stress than answers.  I know that I could spend bazillions of dollars, but I've taken the first step down that dark road.  I bought 2 parenting books today. 

At least it was at the used bookstore.  What did I get?  I got What to Expect the Toddler Years and The Girlfriend's Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood.
I'm not going to start reading them yet, mostly because I have other things to read.  And why stress myself out so early?  Once I know more about when/if (more like "when") we'll be adopting, I'll look into them a bit more. 

Who am I kidding?  You and me both know that I'll be up late, thinking about everything, and I'll start looking through the Girlfriend one. 

In other reading news, I believe I am done with C.S. Lewis for a while.  I had to stop in the middle of That Hideous Strength because I just didn't care one whit and couldn't handle reading one more page.  What I'll likely read is one of the trashier books I bought today when I got the parenting books.

And you know what else?  This whole teaching/working/ministry thing is a little unfair.  I'm supposed to be on break from school & able to read whatever I want, but I feel like I have homework & need to read things for my teaching series coming up.  And I already have it planned!  But noooooooo, I want it to be good and helpful and..and robust.  Gah.  I should just return these highly overdue books to the library at school & then I won't be able to stress myself about it. 

Apartment ads

Today I've done a little bit of what I'm calling "homework," which is fleshing out my project so that I can actually teach it in a couple weeks.  So I'm skimming through real sex by Lauren Winner & making my 1st powerpoint.  I got my grade back on the project, and I got an A-, which is good.  I didn't know if I had enough detail in it.  My professor gave me a few notes, and I've integrated some of them into the outline already. 

Other than that, Seth & I looked at ads for apartments and houses and drove around a bit.  We talked to people at 2 different complexes, neither of which will work for us.  We looked again at the apartment our landlord has, and we still don't think it will work.  We did write to one person who had a very nice-looking ad on craigslist, so we'll see if we hear from them. 

It's hard for me not to get frustrated & just want to quit life & take a long nap to avoid everything.  I know we've just started looking, and I can't expect everything to fall into place already. 

It's mustard seed time!

I know, I missed 2 days.

I know.  Friends, you have no idea...well, some of you have some idea.  Anyway, big stuff is going on in my family and I just have been too stressed, distracted, and nervous that I haven't been able to concentrate.

I have my sexuality project due tomorrow and I've barely been able to work on it with much thought.  Thankfully, I have most of it done, with a few spaces where it says things like, "And then I'll be talking about THIS REALLY GREAT THING FROM THAT AUTHOR" or "And then I'll go through THE BIBLE VERSES THAT ARE RELEVANT TO THIS POINT."  So, you know, I just have to flesh it out a bit.  And I only checked out, oh, 10 books or so from the library.  I will be skimming, I say.  But I really do plan on teaching this series, so I need to actually do the work.

On top of the family stuff, I've been really flustered by the college students this week, so, on Tuesday, I freaked out & ordered 4 books on college ministry from Amazon.  They came today, and I went up to church to show them to one of my co-leaders &  we're splitting them up to read, for now.  One of them, Ask Me Anything, I started reading for my project, and I'm really loving it.  It's one of those ones that I want to either be able to download right into my brain or hand out to every student and sit them down & make them read it immediately, quizzing them for comprehension.  So, um, it's useful.

I hope to get my project done & turned in on time, though I've let my professors know that I may be a couple days late.  Pray for me, Seth, & my family, will you?  Thanks.

I'm back! You can un-knot your panties now.

Oh, friends, I am so tired.  I'm sure that I've learned this lesson before, but I need to stop running myself into the ground.  I am not one who enjoys having something planned every day, yet I do it to myself all the time. 

You did not hear from me for the past week or so because I was in Yosemite for 4 days with my lovely young adults group from church and my lovely goddaughter #1.  It was magnificent and lovely, but also the tail end of a month solid of activities.  So, I came home from Yosemite with a flu/cold that I am currently working through. 

So today I worked on last week's homework which didn't get turned in on time, and read about rape, pornography, and eroticism.  Not a heartening group of topics, I say, but it all still urges me forward in my quest for transparency in the church regarding sexual subjects. 

My brain is too tired to think more, so instead of doing more homework, I shall read for fun.  Huzzah!  I'm reading The Necromancer, which may be the last book in a YA/kids series I'm reading.  I kind of hope it isn't, but also wouldn't mind if things were wrapped up here.  You know what I mean:  the cliffhanger can be sooooo annoying in a book.

Fallen

  The topic for my sexuality class this week is sexual abuse, and if that's not a pick me up, I don't know what is.  (Please, oh please, get the sarcasm there.)
I only had to read one chapter today, and it mostly talked about the effects of abuse and the characteristics of the perpetrators. 
We're going to have to watch a video about abusers, and I saw that one of our essays this week needs to be talking about our response when we hear about abuse. 

I usually immediately pray and say to God, "Forgive us."  It's a prayer I use from time to time when I'm struck by our corruption and what we will stoop to do to one another and/or all that God has given us.  It's my response to the oil spill.  Forgive us.  When people are cruel and unthinking and rash.  Forgive us. 

In those moments, I don't know if I want Jesus to come back soon or not yet.  Sure, it would be a relief to be done with all this mess, but there are too many people who aren't ready.  I want everyone to have a chance to know him.  So many people have been shown a really crappy image of Christianity and have never actually been shown or told Good News.  Forgive us.

Midterm

I did my midterm today, and I was pleased by the questions I got.  We were given three cases and were supposed to tell how we would react or counsel the people involved.  Here were mine:

#1 was about a woman who recently read books about egalitarianism and accuses her husband of male oppression while he tells her she should be cooking and taking care of the kids like the Bible says. 
In a nutshell, I said I'd get them to both calm down and explain their positions rationally, and what they thought the other person was saying.  Without ever making it seem like the husband is being corrected, talked down to, or chided, I would guide them through the Bible to see what it has to say on their issue.  I think I'd start with Proverbs 31 and the picture of domestic life drawn there: woman works, makes her own money, has her own reputation and freedom, and her reputation and happiness bless her husband and his reputation. 
Then I'd look at the creation account and make sure they see that there is no hierarchy involved other than God over Adam and Eve and their dominion over creation.  From there, household codes in Colossians and Ephesians, if necessary, and a talk on mutual submission.  Get them on the same team.  I wrote for about 20 minutes on it, so I'm just recapping here.

#2 was perfect for me, because I was supposed to be talking with a young couple who live together and want to become members of the church.  They claim that they're already married in God's eyes.  It's perfect because this was me & Seth, but we were planning on getting married all along and never would have expected a church to let us become members. 
In this case, I was both good cop and bad cop, in that I identify with their situation and I understand where they're coming from, but they also can't pretend to not expect that what they're doing is frowned upon.  I'm sure that my professors expected me to use all the doom and gloom statistics about cohabitation that we learned, but being that they weren't/aren't true for me and Seth, they don't hold a lot of sway in my mind.  But I did say that I'd bring them up and point out that not everyone can be "the lucky ones." 

#3 was also good because it dealt with pastoral sexual harassment.  The situation was that I had been in an internship for 10 months with a pastor bugging me, and what would I do now that I'm almost done?  The first thing I said was that I'm surprised that I put up with it for 10 months!  I basically said I would tell him to knock that s@*% out, and I'd go to the elder board and then the denomination, if I had to.  I expressed the importance of protecting people, their souls, the church, etc etc. 

Hopefully, they'll like my answers and I'll get good feedback on my decisions.  As the time when I will actually be having more of these conversations draws nearer, I crave guidance. 

Yesterday blew by

First, a housekeeping bit:  almost always, my posts say one day, but they really count for the day before.  I just keep writing after midnight.  So, the blog claims that I posted 2 posts yesterday, but those were really Monday's.  Yesterday, I completely forgot and really didn't have time to write.  I got home from class around 11:30 and didn't even look at my computer.

Of course, I didn't really need to catch up on much because I had been online all through class.  Ah, the internet.  Don't worry, I'm still paying attention in class, it's just nice to be able to let my mind wander for a minute.  I mostly did stuff online when my professor was repeating himself or on a tangent.

Today I've been reading over my notes, handouts, and powerpoint presentations from human sexuality since I have to do my midterm this week.  I'm thinking that I'll do it tomorrow.  We have all the questions that will be on it, but I just don't have it in me to write out all the answers ahead of time and then simply regurgitate them onto the test.  We have 8 case studies to respond to and the site will randomly give us 3 of those.  I'm not completely slacking, because I have been thinking about the cases a lot, and they only serve to illustrate my frustration with this class so far.  We have to say how we would react as a pastor to these certain situations, and I feel like I don't know much more about that than I did 5 weeks ago, and that was what I was hoping would happen in this class.  Oh, well.

I'll let you know which questions I get and if I was able to come up with something intelligent and loving.  That's what my default will be:  reacting in love and mercy, without throwing out all biblical guidelines. 

Didn't blog yesterday, but slept AT NIGHT

thank you, nyquil. 
I didn't remember about blogging yesterday until I was safely tucked into bed at 11pm, and I decided to stay there, rather than get up & turn the computer back on to blog.  Sorry, blogging goal.

I had a good day yesterday, and I mostly read for school.  I continued to work on Authentic Human Sexuality, which continued to be really interesting and good.  It is really one of the best, most realistic Christian books on sex I've read.  Of course, it's written by a family therapist and a sociologist (my professors for this class), so you would hope it would be honest and realistic.  The section I read was still a basic introduction/overview, so I'll be interested to see how specific issues are dealt with moving forward.

I also started on Beyond Sex Roles, which is a nice complement to the class on women in ministry that I took.  At first, I didn't think it would have anything really new to add to what I learned there, but it's nice because it appears that he's starting from the creation accounts and may analyze every relevant passage in the Bible about men & women.  So far, I just read about Genesis, and I was both reminded of things I learned in my class and shown a new way of seeing some things.  It's pretty exciting.

I wasn't sure that this class was going to be what I wanted it to be, but it's going to great.  I think it's going to be very good for real-life issues in ministry, and just in life.  As I've gotten to know a little about some of my classmates (through our message board), I see that we all have vastly different ministry experience, but we all have similar questions on issues in sexuality that we're bringing to the discussion and we know that the church needs to address these issues more clearly and, well, at all. 

Surprise!! It's the first day of school!

I thought I had another week until the summer quarter began, but I was wrong.  I realized I was wrong when I received an e-mail reminding me that payments were due today.  Uh...crap.
No worries on the money, though.  I do a payment system, so I don't need to pay until July. 
On the other hand, I wasn't prepared to start reading for class and figuring out all my online stuff.  This class is all done online, with the lectures (videos, thank goodness) and handouts, message boards, exams, etc all done on a website.  So, I had to go through a boring orientation-type thing, which mostly told me things I could have figured out on my own, but there were a few good points. 

So, I feel a little stressed today, but I think I'm mostly over it.  I was partially feeling scrambled, because it was, "Crap! How am I going to start reading for the C.S. Lewis class? How am I going to finish The UltraMind Solution before it's due in 3 days?  How am I going to spend time on ancestry.com before I have to pay again? AGH!"

Then I calmed myself. I poked around on the message boards and "met" the other people in my class, introduced myself, and then I went for a run.  I will remember that making time to work out always pays off.  After the run and a trip to get fruit & veggies, I am home & calm.  I've started reading for this class, and I'm already digging on it.  I also remind myself that everything doesn't have to be done TODAY.  If I keep with my 3 hours of homework per day regimen, I will be totally fine.  And I also get to read for fun when I budget well like that. 

My class is on issues of gender and sexuality that occur in ministry, and it seems like it's going to be great and right up my alley.  We'll be talking about things that I'm passionate about and that are relevant to my church experience, such as dealing with pastoral indiscretion. 

In the book by the professors, Authentic Human Sexuality, I'm only about 20 pages in (to the wrong edition, grrrr. and there is a difference), but I'm already impressed.  One of the first things they talk about is hermaphroditism and gender assignment at birth, and the need for a space for gender-neutral persons.  Wow.  Not what I expected, even though I go to a liberal school.  I guess I still expected the Christian writers to, I don't know, talk about people cursed by God that we need to pray for. 

Don't worry, I didn't order the wrong edition of the book (I hope).  It's just not here yet, so I'm reading the previews on Amazon & Google books. 

Hasta mañana.