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HannahLeighCoyne
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Name: Hannah
Country: United States
State: District of Columbia
Metro: Washington D.C.
Birthday: 5/5/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: Languages, singing, reading, movies, adventures in the wilds of South America and the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth alike
Message: message me
Member Since:
11/17/2003
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| YES, IT'S FRIIIIIIDAY. Thanks be to God I got through this week. Anyhoo, some more amazing and this-week-fresh quotes. about language. and GOD... mmmmm two of my favorite things :)
The first is from my priest John Graham at Grace Church:
Dear friends;
Our recent trip to see West Coast friends and family got me to thinking about the ways human beings communicate. Some talk incessantly – because they’re insecure, or because they’re always thinking and their thoughts demand to be conveyed. Others seem remote, but their silences disguises a reflective and attentive nature. Just when we thought some subject was closed, they might have something unexpectedly illuminating to say about it.
God communicates incessantly, like many of us– the whole of the universe, after all, is a divine word, or words. God’s thoughts demand to be conveyed. Perhaps it’s too much to say that the sovereign Lord of all the worlds feels our insecurity about making interpersonal connections – but it’s surely not too much to say that God’s heart, like ours, yearns to connect.
God also sometimes seems remote. But the divine silences indicate deep and broad reflection, broken by events or messages that show God was listening very carefully indeed.
We are made in God’s image. Our styles of communicating reflect different aspects of that divine self-communication which lies at the heart of all things.
(Doesn't he write well? And have amazing insight?)
****
and check out this bad boy, from my Spanish ling class:
"The 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group... We see and hear and otherwise expereince very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation."
-Sapir, of the Sapir-Whorf theory :)
'We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native langauges. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds- and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds."
-Whorf, of the Sapir-Whorf theory.
(note: I really like the "kaleidoscopic flux of impressions" that Mr. Whorf references here)
****
ALSO, I learned in my Spanish mysticism class that they have done studies with nuns who were told to like go pray really deeply while they look at the electrode activity in their brains. and GUESS WHAT. the nuns who said they had a mystical experience and heard the voice of God... THEIR AUDITORY CORTEX WAS LIT UP WHILE THIS OCCURRED!!! HEARING THE VOICE OF GOD! IN SO MANY WAYS!
WORLDS ARE LITERALLY COLLIDING!!!!!! | | |
| It's time for some of my favorite quotes and verses and a prayer... :)
my newest favorite, and one I'm actually going to try to put into practice much more...
"Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry because I never undertake more work than I can go through with calmness of spirit."
-John Wesley
"Love is costly. It always involves some kind of self-denial. It often demands suffering. But Christian Hedonism insists that the gain outweighs the pain. It affirms that there are rare and wonderful species of joy that flourish only in the rainy atmosphere of suffering. 'The soul would have no rainbow if the eye had no tears.' "
-John Piper (two Johns!)
"God prizes that quality in the human spirit that will not give up. God wants greatness of soul- people who will endure, wrestle, persevere, refuse to quit, and cling to his goodness even when there is much they can't see clearly."
-John Ortberg (THIS WAS NOT INTENTIONAL! ANOTHER JOHN! LOL!)
N.B. Israel means 'he who wrestles with God'. I learned this from Hugh Brown.
"Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life- gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Jesus said, "Believe also in Me" (John 14:1 JOHN WHAT A BEAST!) not "Believe certain things about Me. " Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in- but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to him."
-Oswald Chambers
"The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."
-2 Chronicles 16:9
"Be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.' So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"
-Hebrews 13:5-6
"Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord."
-Lamentations 2:19
Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changlessness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. | | |
| HUGO VALDEBENITO MUST PERISH!!!! HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO POST A FREAKING GRADE!???? UGH!!!!!!  hehe | | |
| HANUKKAH WORDS
Dictionary.com is a wealth of information. Here are some things I just learned about Hanukkah related words.
-Hanukkah is Hebrew and means "consecration" or "dedication"
-Dreidel is a Yiddish word coming from the German drehen, which means "to turn"
-the four Hebrew letters on the sides of the dreidel (nun, gimel, he, and sh'in) stand for the sentence Nes Gadol Haya Sham, or "a great miracle happened there!"
-Latke is Yiddish and comes from the Russian "l'tka", which means "pastry"
-Menorah just means "candlestick/candelabrum" in Hebrew. easy. and one of the holders anchors the shama, which is the "worker candle" (lol) used to help light the others. This comes from the Hebrew for "attendant".
Cool! I love words. My maternal grandma (Grandma Smith) really liked etimology. It pleases me that we have this connection even though she died when I was 8. She was in MENSA too, which is pretty darn impressive. a smart lady. One thing I am grateful for is that before she died we decided to be penpals, so I have a number of letters and clippings and stuff from her (and some of my word searches that I made for her and she sent back, completed. hehe). At her funeral some of her friends told me that she used to bring my letters to bridge games and stuff and read them to everyone (lol!). Apparently I used "guess what!?" a lot in my letters. :) | | |
| Thanks Tracy :)
This book is very honest and interesting- it explores some of the "terms" of the faith and the author relates them to personal stories in her life that helped her understand what the terms mean. she grew up in the church and then was gone for many years but could not resist the draw to come back. and part of her coming back to the church involved her wrestling with the "vocabulary of faith". You know when you feel like a book is written for you sometimes? This book seems to be a good fit for me because I too, often try to ponder the meanings of terms, ever since a young age I think. like I remember being 8 or something (why is this always my default age when I try to think of something from my youth!? lol!) and asking my mom during church what something in the Nicene Creed or the Lord's Prayer meant. Here is an excerpt from the intro:
"At the outset of this religious journey I had very little to sustain me- even the word 'Christ' was inaccessible to me. It seemed like a code word that Christians used when they couldn't think of anything else to say. I had no idea what people meant when they spoke with seeming ease of 'the love of Christ,' or when they signed letters, 'Yours in Christ.' When I first ventured back to Sunday worship in my small town, the services felt like word bombardment, an hour-long barrage of heavyweight theological terminology. Often, I was so exhausted afterwards that I would need a three-hour nap. And I would wake depressed, convinced that this world called 'Christian' was closed to me."
Since she's a poet and writer and attuned to words, it's no wonder that this was an obstacle of sorts to her... I just think it's cool how God can break through to us within our personal passions, no?
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