ohhh the opitate of the masses...

Hello dears.  I miss you.  I hope you’re doing well wherever you are, whatever you’re doing.  I always would love to write to you and read your writing, but am unable to on a regular basis for one reason or another.  Today, being that I am literally stuck in my house due to April’s behavior; I have some time on my hands. 

Life has been going well.  Lately I’ve been struck randomly with moments of intense grace, and I haven’t been moving…which is weird for me.  Usually I am moving in some direction, looking for some affirmation, some sign and Grace meets me with fire and light overwhelming me with emotion…this time I was standing still, and Grace walked right up and looked me in the face.  I had not been actively searching for anything really.  Just breathing pretty much…  So about 2 weeks ago, I was watching House and calmness came over me that I’m where I’m supposed to be doing what I’m supposed to be doing becoming who I’m supposed to become.  I gave up the last twigs of knowing what’s best for me that I was clutching and surrendered to the idea that my life is to be spent helping sick, vulnerable people.  That’s all.  I want to learn this body.  I want to know the answers.  I want people to trust me.  I want to hold hands with the dying and help heal the busted.  A deep peace flooded my heart, and I’ve been breathing deep since…reading my text books….  

I don’t know the details.  Maybe I won’t have a family of my own or an HGTV house.  Maybe I won’t spend as much time with my friends.  Maybe I will never play the bagpipes on Austin City Limits.  I’m not worried.  The only thing I’m worried about is my heart hardening towards God—to the point of not knowing why I’m standing where I’m standing or with who I’m standing.  I’m afraid to find myself asking “what’s the point?” and having no clue, having no hope. 

too much time with just smoke in my nose

Television is not my friend* but today on this glorious snow day I walked into the living room to see that Family Feud was on with superstar impersonators as the contestants.  There was Bono and Angelina Jolie and Whoopi Goldberg…I decided today that the creepiest thing on earth is when people dedicate their lives towards being someone else…that my skin crawls to think that these people get a rush out of being mistaken for someone else.  I know, they get paid probably for what they do and MAYBE some of them just naturally look like stars, but the ones that get surgeries to look like the star, spend their lives acting like the star, study to know everything possible about the star…  And wait a minute; I should take the word star out of this.  They are people pretending to be other people.  Some I’m guessing have lost who they really are in the process. 

I too am an impersonator, in a more covert way.  Sooo I guess you could say I’m a creep as well.  A creepstAr, get it??**  Hahaaaa. 

 I just am not Danae as often as I’d like to be lately.  I’m quick to speak and right and practical and rational lately almost all the time.  The Danae I’d like to know is a lover and dreamer and patient and helpful and heartfelt.  I don’t know exactly how this happens…but something tells me it has to do with the rush I get from logic and managing my time and hustle and bustle and comfort with my surroundings and my eventual no-load mutual fund and 401K.  “Making BANK” if you will***.  I just need help and I need the Grace of God.  All the time.

It’s way easier for me to live out of my soul—my mind, will, emotions…than it is to live out of my spirit—my character, the deep me, who I am when I’m alone.  This hollowness crowds in on me often and I tell myself it’s stress or someone else’s fault and I try to fix it or move on.  More often than not I eat with the world, I drink with the world, and I breathe the breath of the world…as Sam Beam sings “And there is smoke in my clothes/Too much time with just smoke in my nose”…   Instead I should be digesting God’s word, drinking of His Spirit, breathing His Rhema.  I’m losing myself in this day by day business.  I want to come apart in front of God morning by morning.  I want the real Danae.

NOTES:

*although I do watch the office and LOST religiously

**I am becoming my dad a little more everyday

***I think that’s such a clever statement, congrats to whoever first coined it.  HAHAHAAAAAA. (again see **)

The Language of God

What’s going awwnnnn.  Breaks been good.  I’ve been sick for awhile, ate a lot of cookies, one of my best friends wedded…   I’m pretending that it’s neat that school’s starting tomorrow...

I’ll just jump into this.

Right off the bat, I’m doing this to have for later rather than to be pretentious, as I often feel typing to the internet.  So I can come back and say “ohhh I remember what that book was about”.  I don’t want to push anyone into a corner. 

I finished reading The Language of God by Dr. Francis Collins and thought it was pretty decent.  It wasn’t a page turner in my opinion, but probably would be to people excited about the subject.  I mostly was just seeing what he had to say because of his expertise.  Basically the man has worked on the human genome project for a zillion years and is a former agnostic turned atheist turned Christian and writes to defend evolution and faith in God from a humble, yet convincing standpoint.  Ultimately Collins presents the idea for a BioLogos perspective, avoiding Darwinian Evolution, Intelligent Design, or Creationist labels—mostly because of their flaws and also peoples misinformation (evolution=scary?) , uncomfortable feelings on the subject (aka science VS. God, oh no), and ignorance (I suppose) that comes with each of these labels.

I’d suggest reading the book if you are interested in detailed information on each stance, but I’ll just quickly explain the BioLogos thing.  BioLogos is science and faith in harmony. It is a theistic evolutionary stance, saying 6 main things:  1.  “the universe started 14 billion years ago, 2.  the properties of the universe appear to have been tuned precisely for life, 3.  while the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over long periods of time, 4.  once evolution go under way, no special supernatural intervention was required, 5.  humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes, 6.  but humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature.  This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history.” (Collins, 200).

It’s not too difficult for me to believe God and science—mostly because I believe that God is in no way threatened by advances in science.  He is God.  In fact, I believe he is glorified by them. So if science says that the earth is billions of years old, I say ok science.  And if science says our DNA is very close to a chimpanzee’s, I say ok science.  And if science says evolution is a theory (theory does not mean e.g. “my theory is she was killed in the library with the candlestick”), I say ok science.  At the same time, if God says, I formed you in my image, I say ok God.  You are loved, ok God.  I have a plan, ok God. 

The bottom line is, whether the big-bang happened or not, science doesn’t have the tools to answer what initiated it.  No surprise there.  That’s where faith comes, in something or nothing.  (kind of a big reason I don’t buy the whole agnostic thing, that’s just putting big questions off til they’re convenient to answer I’d say…but hey, shoot, it’s a free country.)

I kind of laugh to myself when I hear people say faith in God is intellectual suicide. I find those that say that quite endearing actually because usually to your face they are quite sweet.  Although they don’t really engage in any meaningful conversation with you, they do smile and awkwardly laugh a lot in your presence which is sweet in my opinion.  I guess they’re trying to protect us?  I just don’t think that God as writer of truth is threatened by truth, know what I mean?  Whether it’s our DNA being mapped out or dating dinosaur fossils…

Again, science does not answer the basic question of---- why? 

The disagreement comes in with Genesis’ story of Creation and science not jiving.  Mostly it’s because people take the Bible as being a lesson book in science, when I don’t really believe it’s intended to be.  Believing that all of creation was literally formed in 7 days is hard to say, considering first off our measurement of a day being the sun wasn’t created until day three….and the Bible says as well “a day is like a thousand years” to God and other things that point us more towards allegorical rather than literal meanings in some sections.  Even the wonderful Saint Augustine warmed against taking everything in the bible as being literal data...

For me, it’s not worth the fight or the animosity to bring this up around people, especially Christians.  I know some will say “well Danae, I believe the BIBLE!” Well, I do too.  And I also believe in being a God-pleaser, not a person-pleaser so I guess I don’t care if people don’t believe the Bible anyway…sheesh.  The other night I was flipping through the radio in my car and came across this song by Geoff Moore and the Distance, which goes:

Darwin first did the imminent service of arousing attention to the
probability of all change in organic, as well as in the inorganic world,
being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.
For all life is a continuum. All living things despite their awesome diversity
are related to each other. And evolution is the term we give to that
process, by which the structure of plants and animals changes with the
passage of time thus accounting for the continnuum.

I was staring through the blackboard trying to keep from sleeping,
doing my very best to hear the subject they were teaching.
When to my surprise, I couldn't my believe my ears,
this is what you looked like back a million years.
Your uncle was a monkey, he was swinging through the trees,
he lived on green bannanas, and his arms swung to his knees.
He spoke with such conviction, it really made me think,
Maybe my teacher, He's the missing link!
He said...

I believe in evolution,
ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.
It's the only possible solution,
Big Bang fiction, that we factualize.

Therefore Crow Magnum Man!

It takes a lot of faith to say we're accidents of nature,
but I believe we are the work of a loving Creator.
Now you can wait a million years and hope that nature does it's part,
but it only takes a moment, for God to change a heart.
That's why...

I believe in evolution,
changing of the heart, renewing of the mind.
It's the only true solution,
God is always working, changing lives (changing lives),
It's evolution redefined.

Kind of funny, but shows the “at odds” some want to have forever with science. 

For me, I love and trust God the Alpha and Omega.  And I believe Jesus is the Christ.    

Currently Listening Let It Die By Feist see related

Mama

There was no school today for the kiddies in Neg-town.  First snow storm and it was a decent one.  Right now the trees are heavy with white and making sweet canopies to investigate, Superior is gray and terrifying matching the sky, and the wind is blustery creeping down my back when I go outside.  I live in Narnia and I love it…although I did get stuck in my NEIGHBOR’s driveway this morning (I don’t know how). 

Twice today, in the morning and the evening when I got home, I saw the same neighbor kids playing in the snow, building forts, throwing snowballs—enjoying their snow day… I miss those days!!  When your cheeks were so red and your boots fell off in the snow and you’d hurry to take off your mitten so you could shove your boot back on and then your nose was snotty all over...  When I was a kid, my dad made us a luge from the back of our yard down to the front (our house was on a hill).  He’d help us make snow tunnels, and forts, and made a rink at our cousin’s house for us all once…  My mom made us hot chocolate, helped us get our boots back on, and always had our things warm and dry.  Thossseee were the days…

Speaking of parents…I want to be one!  I think…(83% sure…)

I saw this family in church while visiting Chicago this past Sunday that I just loved.  It was boy, mom, dad, boy in front of us, and the whole time the parents were just loving on the kids on either side of them.  Rubbing their backs and holding them close and just singing over them as we sang our songs.  They seemed so much like the real deal; I kept trying to sneak a peak of them faking…trying to pick up the “duh, we’re putting on a good front cause we’re at church” vibes.  But I didn’t.  I really believe these parents were genuinely reaching out loving on their kids.  I want to have little humans to love on and rub their backs and smile at and encourage and warm up!  How wonderful!  I know that kids are crazy at times fo sho, but I just can’t get over how much peace I felt from that family’s “vibe” again, or whatever you want to call it.  I’m pretty positive I want that. 

On the other hand, some parents are jerks.

….And jerk parents are one of the main reasons why my prayers have shifted—not so much anymore God do you love me?  But, God is rescue really coming?  That’s a whole other subject for another snowy day…

10.10.07

Dearest friends,
I’m just sitting here at work with nothing to do and would like to write you a little love letter.  SWAK on your face.   I had a weird dream about having pink eye last night and am so thankful I do not have pink eye today so this time spent writing is in celebration.  What is new with me?  Well I suppose not much…same oleee, just rocking the school thing.  Kind of.  Not grade wise, but cool wise.  Cool as in being a major slacker…especially with med-micro.  It doesn’t help when one of the top professors in your program says “just a D+…you just need a D+”  I’m excited to be a nurse a little more everyday though, that’s good.  What is new with you?

This Five-Two stuff is coming together quite nicely.  I am thankful to God that people have different gifts and when these people get together, amazing things happen.  It’s actually like a BODY working TOGETHER--It’s been a blessing to be apart of something God has intended to be a reality for all believers.  We have a wide array of service opportunities available October 21^st-27^th at almost every time of day across the Marquette area and we’re excited to see different people from different churches get together to bring glory to God, unified.  Unity surrounding what Christ has done for us is key.   We are also excited to love our neighbors from all walks of life!  We want to help bring “this kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”