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from Steph at sugerbuzz
I discovered this today, scribbled on a scrap of paper in with many other notes of a similar kind:
I’ve learned that strength and dignity are not lost through displays of weakness.
A silly example is when I confess to a friend that I cannot open a jar of jelly. I feel… laughably weak doing so, especially when this friend takes the jar and in one motion, twists off the lid. But to use this as a metaphor (ah, metaphors), in a very simple way, this is how the Body of Christ should look. I am strong in some areas, but I am also weak in others. If I readily display my strengths, but hide all of my weaknesses, two undesirable things happen. First of all, assuming everyone else is also hiding their weaknesses, my strengths become completely irrelevant. As far as I can tell, there isn’t anyone who needs what I have to offer. No one is weak, so what does it matter how strong I am? And the second problem is that we have all sorts of weaknesses, frayed threads, weak links, crumbling walls (whatever other image you’d like) and none of these areas are being addressed. No one is saying, “hey, I’ve got a leak in the dam over here, can anyone help me patch it up?” and so it continues leaking and eroding, growing weaker, spilling over, spilling out, and eventually breaking, sometimes in catastrophic ways. But when we confess our faults to one another (a trusted one another), when we admit our weaknesses, we find people who are strong in those very areas.
“Yea, I can’t open a jar of jelly, but I can whip up a mean grilled pb & j sandwich.”
And my friend says, “I can certainly open a jar of jelly *twist*, but grilled pb & j? I have no idea how to make that, but I sure am hungry.”
And there we are, filling each others needs, complimenting each others’ strengths and weaknesses and building each other up. When that is how we seek to live, our lives become inextricably intertwined, balancing each other out and becoming greater than we were just as ourselves.
Hopefully my metaphor can carry the point I am trying to make, despite being (as I’ve already admitted), a rather silly example 
And just for the record, grilled pb & j is for real. And mighty tasty, especially if you’ve got a sweet tooth. If you can help me get this darn jar open, I could be persuaded to make one for you
A friend asked if I was satisfied with my iPod touch. He is thinking of purchasing one. I told him that, yes, I most certainly was. And here are some of the reasons why:
- Calendar: My iPod touch calendar happily syncs with the calendar on my MacBook, requiring no set-up. Any alerts that I ask it to make on my iPod will carry over to the computer. For example, a couple of weeks ago, it was a friend’s birthday. I had already entered it into my iPod calendar. I didn’t check that calendar in the morning, but when I turned on my computer, iCal popped a reminder on my screen so that I could remember to wish this friend a happy birthday.
- Photos: I love that you can transfer photos to the iPod. I have a folder on my computer with pictures specifically for the touch. You can use them as wallpaper for when you turn on your touch, you can scroll through them easily, and you can assign them to contacts. The images display quite well on the screen and rotate depending on the orientation you hold your touch.
- Contacts: It has a very intuitive input interface. It pops up a keyboard, one that changes slightly depending on what you are entering. In the Safari browser, for example, when you are typing in a web address, there is a “.com” key that isn’t there for other instances. It is easy to enter contact information, and Contacts are also something you can sync with your computer. I have become (un)fortunately dependent on my iPod touch in a very short period mostly because of this. I have been to my University town many times this summer and have found myself in need of a phone number almost every time, a phone number that, conveniently enough, was stored on my iPod.
- Notes: As a writer this application is great. It, again, has the very user-friendly keyboard and it is very easy to punch in quick reminders, transient thoughts, shopping lists, to do lists, directions, etc.
- Maps: I haven’t been terribly impressed with the Maps application, mostly because the one convenient feature of it (“where are you?”) never seems to work. Theoretically, when you are connected to the internet, you can hit that button and it will find your location, making it really easy to hit the “Directions” button and get directions from your current location to your destination, wherever that may be. As we have established, it never seems to work for me. Also, I’ve found the screen too small to easily read the map. [Later edit: Just recently I was out walking with a friend when she suddenly stopped. "Wait, are we going in the right direction?" she asked and started rifling through her purse. "I don't have my map here," she said. "Ooh, wait!" I exclaimed and grabbed for my iPod. I didn't try the "where am I?" function, but I did search for an open wireless network, and finding one, I clicked to the Waterloo area in the maps application, found the major street we were beside and confirmed that we were, in fact, going in the wrong direction. We turned around, got back on track and were saved from many minutes of indecision by something so convenient as a handheld, WiFi capable device. ]
- Clock: Nerd that I am, I’ve been using this religiously as my alarm clock. I like it. It is easy to set several alarms for different days and different times. You can create a seemingly endless amount of alarms for whatever purposes you may have.
- Music: This is an iPod, after all. I should probably talk about my experience with its music playing capabilities. As expected, Apple has created a very aesthetically pleasing viewing experience for the music. When held normally, you can scroll through your choice of song, album, artist, genre, etc., the same categories as in iTunes. When you turn it sideways, you can scroll through albums in the iTunes Cover Flow view. When you tap an album cover, it flips over and lists the songs on the back. You can then tap one to start it playing.
Basically, I thoroughly enjoy the iPod touch, and I have found many more uses for it beyond just listening to music. It’s become my personal organizer . And all of this is before the purchase of the App Store. I haven’t even tried any of those additions yet. They will, no doubt, increase the iPod’s ability to entertain with games and further methods of distraction.
A rather snippy post from a few months ago, when I was working in an elementary school. I do not know the man in this story. I only saw him the once. I was only in that classroom once.
I am grateful for those things in my life that remind me of what I have to be grateful for.
For example, I am grateful for the man who entered my (“my”) class this afternoon who reminded me how blessed I am that my male friends are all gentlemen.
This afternoon, while visiting one of his children in the classroom that I was monitoring, this sans wedding-ringed man, though seeming to play with the children, was actually attempting to flirt with me over their heads. Alas, it comes down to the problem of his assuming that my friendly, ‘welcome to the classroom’ smile actually meant, ‘I am so attracted to you right now’. And so, though not terribly grateful for his misinterpretation and the resulting attention that he paid me, it reminded me that I am so blessed for the gentlemen friends I do have, the ones who treat me with respect.
I don’t really have anything imaginative to write.
The movers are here, currently going through our house, looking at what goes and what stays. Even though I haven’t been really blogging, I have been Twittering something awful. So, for better updates on what’s going on in my life, check it out.
I had an amazing weekend, though. That is something worth blogging about. Hmm, well, perhaps not worth blogging. It’s like Steph said here. It was an exceptional weekend, not for any big event, but just a lot of small bits of lovely, all put together in a couple of days.
Went dancing Friday night in my University town. It definitely ended far earlier than a lot of us were ready for, but I suppose considering it’s summer it makes sense. There were a lot of enjoyable dances, especially one where my partner ended with several quick spins and a sudden dip I wasn’t expecting (one that cause me to squeal a little bit, much to my own chagrin). But despite that , on my way home the next day, I gave him a ride into Toronto. It was a good day. I was too focused on the road, but he managed to keep conversation going. Looking back, I think I may have been too tired to divide my attention. We’ll go with that theory . And then we went for lunch on the Danforth, an experience, which, believe it or not, I have never had before, despite living an easy drive from Toronto for the past nine or so years.
The “too tired” theory is further supported by the fact that I took a deep nap that afternoon after arriving home, to the point where I literally did not hear my family going in and out of the house, and calling for each other throughout the course of the afternoon. (Sorry, family, especially Josh…)
Then yesterday, I met with a good friend of mine. Our plan was to spend some time together before the move, but I also needed to do some shopping. “I love shopping,” she told me, and so the plan was set. We spent the afternoon shopping and chatting. And Saturday’s and yesterday’s evenings were spent at two different churches, saying goodbye to friends and people I would consider family from there, people who will be greatly missed.
Anyway, the movers are now laying down moving pads over banisters and carpets. More updates to follow, especially on Twitter .
(from coming soon)
(names have been changed )
“Have you guys seen Joseph anywhere?”
So began an evening of suspense and fear. We were up at our friend John’s cottage. Ben, Joseph, Sara, Mark and I were the group that had planned to stay for the weekend. By the time John asked the above question, it had probably been a good half hour since anyone had seen Joseph. The property was large, but not expansive, and there was only a border of trees separating it from the neighbouring cottages. Night had just fallen and we were huddled around a bonfire beside the lake. John had a large flashlight with him, and Sara and I were chatting in Muskoka chairs, wrapped in fleecy sweaters and blankets.
“I hope he’s okay,” Sara whispered to me. She was the last person to have seen him. It was right after supper. She and I had volunteered to wash the dishes. She had stepped outside to collect some miscellaneous plates or her bathing suit—something in the direction of the little cabin towards the road that the boys were staying in. With a shriek, she had come flying back into the kitchen.
“I saw Joseph walking to the cabin,” she said breathlessly. “When I turned around to come back inside the cottage, I heard him scream, and when I looked back, I couldn’t see him anywhere!”
I couldn’t help but smile. The boys had been trying to scare us since the night before. Mark had perfected the art of sneaking up behind us in the dark, while John or Joseph would look past us, a vaguely horrified look on their faces. When we would turn to see what they were staring at, Mark would suddenly jump towards us, usually producing shrieks, followed by an exasperated, “Guys! Cut it out!”
“It’s okay, Sara,” I said. “The guys are just trying to scare us. They’ve been doing this since last night.”
She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Okay, you’re right. It’s fine. He’s going to make fun of me so bad for screaming.”
We laughed, finished the dishes and went outside to start the bonfire.
But now the group was getting uneasy. Joseph had been gone for awhile. Sara, John and I had swept up and down the property, from the road to the lake, and Ben and Mark had gone to look in the cabin. John couldn’t stay seated. He took his flashlight and kept walking back and forth along the edge of the property, sweeping his beam across the darker parts of the treeline.
“He looks really worried,” Sara whispered. “What if it wasn’t a trick?”
And the what-ifs began to play out. What if something had happened to Joseph? What if there was someone else on the property. Or, more realistically, what if he had hurt himself somewhere?
I stood to go walk with John as he paced back and forth across the treeline. Sara joined us.
“You doing okay?” I asked. “You seem worried.”
“Yea,” John said, distractedly. “It’s just… been awhile since we’ve seen him. I hope he’s okay.” His flashlight beam continued sweeping the trees.
“Stop!” Sara cried suddenly. John stopped the flashlight and slowly shone the light where Sara was pointing. It highlighted in the trees, strewn across a log and nestled among the leaves, a motionless figure.
“Oh my gosh…”
At that moment, Ben and Mark hurried from inside the cottage.
“Over here!” John yelled.
We hurried over to the figure. It was Joseph.
“Guys, hurry!” John said. “I think he’s hurt!”
Sure enough, he wasn’t moving. His eyes were half-open, a glazed over look in them. He moaned softly.
And suddenly all the dots connected. Maybe he was trying to scare us, at first. But then, while he was trying to hide, he must have fallen and hurt himself. What if that was the scream Sara had heard? And if he screamed loud enough to send Sara running back in fear, then, he must really be hurt. My first instinct was, Flee. The rest of the boys were there; they could handle it. They had no need for us to be there. They would handle it. Flee, flee!
Whether Sara’s thoughts were going in the same direction as mine or not, we both ran back to the cottage, breathless, startling the adults.
“What is it?” John’s mom asked. “What’s wrong?”
Still unable to accept that something must be – most certainly was – wrong, I echoed my words from earlier that evening. “It’s okay. The boys are just pulling a prank on us.”
“They must be,” Sara said, when John’s mom returned to the other adults. “It has to be a prank.”
Reassured by each others’ words, we opened the cottage door and stepped back out into the night, in time to see the boys carrying Joseph from the trees to the cottage.
Our words while we were inside the cottage now seemed hollow and untrue. Is this actually happening? He must really be hurt…
Then suddenly, unceremoniously, John dropped Joseph’s legs. And the other boys followed suit. And Joseph was on his feet, clearly not suffering any kind of injury.
Disbelief overwhelmed.
“Are you— ? Did you— ? This was a joke?” were our incredibly incoherent, and rather uncomprehending cries.
“Jerks!” But I couldn’t help the smile that crossed my face. One, Joseph was fine, meaning all was right in the world again, and two… all frustration aside… it was a pretty good prank…
“You knew about this all along?” I demanded of John, as he gave an apologetic, but amused hug (yes, hugs can be apologetic. And amused. It is a very difficult thing to ask of them, and they often struggle to accomplish it, but this was one of those times of success).
“Yea,” John said. “That’s why I was walking by the trees. It took Joseph so long to get to that spot! Man, I was waiting for ages!”
“And you guys, too?”
Mark and Ben nodded, laughing.
Exasperation, made light by relief, was all that Sara and I could feel.
“You just wait,” I said, after expressions of disbelief, floods of apologies for the fright, and all the details of the prank were traded. “One of these days, we’re going to get you back so bad!”
To this day, that debt remains outstanding, but that, ladies and gentlemen, is the infamous prank that caused me, years later, to momentarily doubt the testimony of an injured child.
And boys, one of these days, Sara and I just might get back in contact with each other and then? Watch out!
Because I have a lot of friends who are married or who soon will be, an answer to the question why.
I follow a lot of blogs. All of them amuse, interest and, in most cases , educate me. They make me think and on many occasions, I have wanted to share what I’ve read, but it doesn’t always happen. Either I forget, or I have something else in mind I want to blog about. I also don’t want the total number of posts I write about other blogs to exceed the number of original posts I have .
This blog isn’t one that I follow all that closely, but I subscribed to it, mostly because of the way Hayden Tompkins, the author, uses language. So while I don’t follow this blog closely, there are some posts that just reach out and grab me. Like the one I linked to above.
Obviously, I don’t necessarily agree with or subscribe to all of what is written in the article, but I think that some wonderful points are made. It is certainly worth reading and considering what the application for your own life might be (single or married, because, after all, the call to love is a universal one, not just reserved for those doe-eyed, soon-to-be-married or already-there types).
Tell me what you think! Or drop a line over at Persistent Illusion. Actually, no, no “or”. It has to be “and”. If you leave a comment there, then you should be thinking, “And I’ll leave one at Faith, Hope and Love as well, because I know how much Tara wants to read what I have to say.”
A friend and I were having a debate a couple of weekends ago. It is only now that I feel I can articulate more clearly the point I was trying to make, and since the debate occurred in the presence of most of our friends, I feel no qualms about raising it again in this public forum (However, if he would rather I not, then read quickly, folks, for the post will be down as soon as he says the word).
The debate was about engagement rings. Two couples in our group of friends are engaged to be married, both at the end of the summer, so naturally, the topic of engagement and marriage have been coming up more frequently. I was speaking with another girl about the topic of rings and discussing our preferences (both of us are single, but again, the topic almost can’t help but come up ), and in the course of the conversation, another friend spoke up.
“Well, what if the guy doesn’t have a ring?” he asked.
I turned to my female friend, T–, and teased, “He’d better get one soon!” T– and I both laughed, but my male friend pushed a little bit.
“So are you saying you wouldn’t get engaged to a guy, just because he doesn’t have a ring?
I began defending myself, saying that the ring was a symbol of his commitment, and in a sense an “investment” in the relationship, and shows that he is serious and willing and able to back it up financially.
“So that’s what’s important?” my friend asked, teasing. “The money?”
By that point, I was so concerned with defending myself that I lost track of my line of reasoning. But now, a couple of weeks later, here it is.
When a guy asks a girl to marry him, he isn’t just asking her to spend the rest of her life with him (a huge ask to begin with), he is asking for her heart. The thing is, a woman’s heart is a very valuable and powerful part of who she is. The heart is the centre of the being, and it is from the heart that speech, life, love, etc. spring out of. It is also incredibly powerful. It often takes a woman a long time to fall in love with someone (I am generalizing, and I also don’t mean crush-y, lovey-dovey feelings. I mean actual love, the love that sacrifices self for the sake of the other), but when she does, it is complete and exclusive to that man alone. And a woman’s love is a powerful driving force behind their man. If the woman believes he can do something, the man will be unstoppable. (Do clothe this romanticism in reality in order for it to ring completely true). And that is often all the man needs in order to make it through a tough day, or survive trials: the knowledge that his woman is somewhere waiting for him, trusting him, believing in him.
When a man is asking for a woman to marry him, he is asking for her undivided love, undivided belief, undivided trust. He is asking her to walk with him for the rest of his life, to be joyful with him, to cry with him, to worship with him, to work alongside him, to treasure him, to honour him, to respect him, to love him, to be patient with him (when he is struggling), to forgive him (when he fails), to build him up (to his face and to others, whether he can or cannot hear her)… and much more.
He is asking her to do all of this and to open her heart to him and make it over to him alone, and he, in turn, is promising to protect her heart and return all of what he is asking for in his request. I think, considering the commitment he is asking of her, and considering the promise and commitment he is making for her, all of it, for the rest of both of their lives, I think it only makes sense that this commitment is marked with a symbol, which is, in our society, an engagement ring.
Feel free to continue the debate.
I could write about being done. But I don’t really want to. I could write about the harried packing and goodbyes of yesterday morning. But I don’t really want to. I could write about how strange it is trying to bring myself to understand that I am never moving back to that place and never living with those people again. But I’d really rather not.
What I would like to write about is the chaos my room in my parents’ house is in. Every year, I pack up the things from that room that I believe I’ll need to take with me to school. Throughout the school year, I add to what I’ve taken each time I visit home. By the end of the year, yes, I have an awful lot more than what I began with, but I did bring it all from the same bedroom. Upon arriving home, I realize that there is absolutely no space in my room to house all of the things that I am attempting to force it to hold. I do not understand how this works. I empty a bookshelf to take with me, but on returning home, there is not nearly enough room for all the books I have. Do I really purchase that many books while away? Do textbooks really take up that much room? Do I really forget how packed all of the storage spaces in my room are every time I come home?
One thing I will say about goodbyes is this: all of the friends I have made in these past four years have made an impact on me. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without their love and care, their jokes and silliness, their earnest attention, their unexpected passions, their desire to pursue a deeper faith. I have been encouraged and inspired and incredibly blessed. As I was driving home, that is all I could think about my time in that place. I have been so blessed. I never would have imagined the friendships I have made. They have–you have–all exceeded my expectations and my greatest hopes for the kinds of people I would meet there. I will miss everyone very much. But I am glad for the opportunities we have had to touch each other’s lives and for the grace to see God working in those connections. No matter how small, one life touching another cannot help but make a difference. Love and blessings. Numbers 6:24-26.
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