A thought.

Words are symbols which communicate meaning. They are not the meaning themselves but merely our medium through which we express meaning. However, when God "speaks" he perfectly conveys the full meaning, not the symbols, But man's only way to express that meaning is through the medium of words, which cannot themselves perfectly express the meaning they represent. Just as no symbol is a true representation of the real thing but merely a pointer to it. This is WHY the Spirit MUST aide us in our reading of scripture to understand scripture in its fullness. This is why scripture can be translated without being done violence, and why we can actually gain from reading other translations and other languages.

So, I wrote that paragraph a few days ago, it was the fruit of a couple weeks of thinking, each sentence is the end product or a starting point of many other thoughts, so maybe it doesn't make sense when I condense it so much... but, maybe at least, it will give you a little something to think about.
And if you don't want to think about that, then you can always just think about how amazing and great and wonderful our Lord is and thank him that his has revealed himself to us in many ways, including through the words of scripture! He didn't have to. But he did. Thank the Lord!

They wowed 'em!

Jimmy 'n Justin did an INCREDIBLE job entertaining a crowd of nearly 2,500 people for over 2 hours last night. I am just so proud of them, once again, I just had to share it with you all. Some Capernwray classics were definetly pulled out and reworked to fit the Wheaton crowd, such as "I hate mornings" (which, great though it was, can never again match the incredible connection we all made with it in that beautiful castle where the 3 tone bell drug our butts out of bed at 7:30 every morning). They had a different plot between every act, all of them amazing. I'm still beaming.

Ok, I promise, I will write about myself soon. It's just... they're WAY more interesting and cool than I am, so I am living vicariously through them. My friend Kristen and I did have a lovely day playing in the leaves and swinging at the play-ground (two of our very favorite pass times) the other day though.

And I saw an incredibly great band on Thursday that all of you indie listeners most definetly need to check out. They're called Anathollo. They're a 7 piece band and they will rock your socks off. Go to www.anathollo.com listen to the song Dokkoise House (With Face Covered) and you will know what I mean. Seriously. DO IT. They also played with a band called Page France who are kinda indie style with emo lyrics, I think Janice would like 'em a lot. ;-) (No actually I do Jan, you should check 'em out).

Ok SERIOUSLY, I have to do homework now! I have had WAAAY to much fun this week. I don't know what I was thinking!

The unstoppable Duo: Jimmy and Justin do it again.

Well since these two NEVER update their stinkin' blogs it is up to me to tell you all that Mr. Jimmy Haring, and Mr. Justin Nanfelt sucessufully RAN the Chicago-Flipping-Marathon this past Sunday. I'm so proud of them. I think Justin finished in about 3h 58min, maybe a little less, and I know Jimmy made it in a little before him. In Jimmy's words "It was fun, we joked around a lot." Whatever. Those guys are nuts. They're so popular around here, as I'm sure you call can imagine. I just bask in their glory and enjoy being cool by association.
You can pray for them this week becuase they have been chosen to MC the Wheaton College talent show - probably the biggest event the students put on all year, and it's this Friday. So they'll be pretty busy putting that all together.

This is from when they preformed at a coffee house a couple months ago. They did a new rendition of the Stable Boys song, adapted to Wheaton. And they sang several songs off of the Capernwray Unplugged cd that Jimmy wrote and Justin helped out with. Made me a little teary.

Well that's all for now. I just thought you all might like a little update on these to incredible lads. Cherrio!
(I don't know why I turned British just there at the end... but I just figured I'd roll with it...)

Sunday reflections.

It's Sunday, 11:45am. I have already been to church and had lunch. I think I love this church I'm attending a little more each week. There is such a feeling of wonder and awe retained in Anglican liturgy, well actually, I should rephrase, the wonder and awe are a gift of the Spirit but are beautifully expressed through the litururgy. I grow to appreciate each part of it more the more I participate in it. I love confessing our sins together, I love the desiples creed, I love passing the peace, though it was pretty awkward at first, I'm even growing to love the "Halelujia" chorus that we sing as the gospel passage is brought forward to read.

I began to pray a few months ago that the Lord would teach me to love the Church deeply. That prayer was sparked by a conversation I had with my dear friend J. I have found the Lord answering that prayer in mutliple ways. One way has been the gift of loving the Church body that I am a part of at any given time. Another is in a growing sense of urgency for the unification and colaboration of the global church. It is vitally important that we do not see the Churches in the Southern or Eastern hemispheres simply as a "mission field," though missions work is beautiful and good. But we must also see the perspective and wisdom they can share with us, even as we go out to teach and share with them.
We can only view the world, and therefore scripture, through the lenses of our own cultural context. Thus, we can only interpret in light of our cultural values and preconceptions. But as a united Church, not only geographically but historically as well, in all our diversity of thought, tradition, and worldview, we fill up the fullness of the gospel, even as Christ in his incomprehensible depth and complexity filled it up in his single person. Christ who is above and and in all compells us to love each other that we may share in his gifts together. Not only his gifts to the people in our time and place, but the gifts he has given to people of past times and other places. All of this is ours in Christ. It can only be claimed in unity.
This excites me. If you ask me for a detailed description of what I mean I might not be able to answer you. If you ask me to express how I practically wish the church to live out this unity I might not know quite what to say. I know it involves discourse, humility, and streaching of our comfort zones but it is ultimately the Lord's perogative to draw us together. But I know that this is the Lord's heart and I praise him that he is impresing on me a heart that longs to embrace it as well.
The Lord answers prayers. If you want to love ask for love, ask for it in specific situations, ask for it in broad situations, and praise the Lord when he answers!
Praise to you Lord Christ.

Jung Typology Test

I am an INFJ. Which means: Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging - in my case, slightly introverted, strongly intuitive, moderately feeling, and strongly Judging (as in right from wrong) according to the Jung Typology Test.
You know how you all were doing those little personality quizes a while back? (because they're fun and they generally pet the ego) well this is a real one, created by Karl Jung father of Analytical Psycology (who just happens to also have been an INFJ, thank you very much, along with Ghandi and Emily Bronte). If you want to take it go to www.humanmetrics.com click on "Jung Typology Test" then "Take Test" and finally "Do it!" (I'm filling this out for my RA application so I just repeated to you the detailed instructions they gave to me).
RA applications are kind of scary, I have to do a lot of self evaluation...
So anyway, I found this pretty self revealing and interesting and I'd be interested to hear what you find out about yourself, or at least what it says about you, if you should choose to take it.

In other news, we went to my friend Andrea's house out in the country and "hiked" on some sweet nature trails for Monday of fall break (aka "yesterday"). It was great fun.

Today:

I kid you not.

Fotografias de mis amigas!

These are 3 of my nearest and dearest. Kirsten, Charis, and Karis (in that order). This was at Kirsten's 20th birthday party. Karis is my roommate, and Kirsten lives down the hall. This is taken at Charis's house during Kirsten's 20th birthday party.

And this is at Andrea's 20th birthday party, she's the one in black in the middle. These are a whole lot of girls from my building. Yeah Big Willie! (We try to make our building sound cool by changing the name like that... it doesn't work... we're still "the nunnery).

You know you're a college student when... You wear your school parephenalia and cheer really loud at the homecoming football game. Which was awesome by the way. Came back from 13-0 at the half to win it 31-19. That's right. Go Thunder! These are a couple other good friends, Kristen and Stephanie, and behind them are Danny and Isaiah - a couple very quality guys who I have the pleasure of knowing.

It's hard to embarrass me... But sometimes I REALLY embarrass myself.

In other news: I really REALLY don't want to write any more, or really do any other homework of any kind. OK? Ok.

Did you know?

I'm sorry I've been remiss in my blogging duties mom and dad and anyone else who might care, I just don't have anything interesting enough to post publicly. Ok, how about some did you knows, just in case you missed em in the longer posts I've done in the past:

- Did you know that I'm on an intramural ultimate frisbee team? I love it. We're not great but it's really really fun.

- Did you know that I had a job taking care of a quadriplegic woman, but I quit, and my last night was last night. I think we'll still be friends though. It's neat to have gotten to know someone like that off campus.

- Did you know that the Israelites heard the 10 commandments directly from the voice of God BEFORE Moses went up on the mountain for 40 days and they made the golden calf. It's true, contrary to certain film portrayal's representations.

- Did you know that I go to an Anglican church? It's called Church of the Resurrection. I think the idea of it freaks my mom out a little. We do liturgy and all of that, most of which I like because we get to act together as the body of Christ, and parts of which I don't particularly like, probably because I don't understand them. But that's really not why I go there. I go there because the light of Jesus shines out of the pastor's face and he is also a marvelous teacher. Because when they have people standing around the sides to pray for you during communion so many people go to receive prayer that you have to wait in line. Because I see the body of Christ living and loving each other at that church. I don't go there because it's hip and trendy. Scouts honor.

Ok, these seem to be getting progressively longer so I'll bring it to a close now. So anyway, now you know.
Peace!