In light of these gospel truths, the depth of God's love is staggering! The truth that many of us have lost and desperately need to find is that Christianity isn't essentially a program to help moral people be better. No, it's a relationship based on the premise that we aren't good now and will never be good enough in this life. We need someone to be good in our place, to suffer what we deserve to suffer, and to live the righteous life we should have lived. Our Redeemer has taken our sinful identity so that we might receive his righteous one! Can you see how it has to be Christ alone who defines everything we were, are, or ever will be?
Elyse Fitzpatrick, Because He Loves Me, Pg. 58
Poverty is where we experience our own and other people's weaknesses, limitations, and need for support. To be poor is to be without success, without fame, and without power. But there God chooses to show us God's love.
Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey, August 15th
8.15.2009
8.11.2009
Earlier this summer someone asked me if anyone in my future profession inspired me and served as a role model. I'm afraid I didn't have an answer.
Now, after 2 1/2 months at TPC, there are several individuals who I look up to, who I want to emulate, who inspire me.
Jody is beautiful. In her fifties, her blond hair styled in a cute crop cut, chic sundresses, and trendy glasses, she is lovely. Yet I do not believe she would be so attractive if not for the warmth, the sincerity, and the wisdom she emanates. Last week she was kind enough to let me sit on her black leather couch amidst a multiplicity of teal pillows and talk with her about what it is to be a therapist. Her answers were measured, full of pauses, thoughtful, and profound. So many of the questions I asked stemmed from my own struggles and my own doubts about being a therapist, but she answered each one with a clarity and decisiveness that, I believe, comes from a wise heart. Each time she replied, I felt a fear quelled, a struggle suddenly click into realization, a surge of inspiration and challenge. The one thing she said that will stick with me:
Me: As I've observed different therapists (on videos) I noticed that some try to remain emotionally nonreactive. Is that something you try to do, as well?
Jody: No. A therapist must be real, must be genuine with their clients. Sincerity makes people feel cared for; people sense authenticity, people respond to people who are engaged.
Peggy is gorgeous. And she smells good: musky yet innocent. Every time she walks by I almost ask her what perfume she wears. Forty-ish, tall, willowy, with long, curly brown hair, she's hard not to admire. Peggy and I met for coffee last week (she also agreed to let me interview her), and I'm afraid I didn't get many questions answered; we ended up chatting for most of the short hour we had together. I can see why she is a therapist -- she has a way of making one open up. Yet she also shared of her own experiences, her own struggles. She placed herself on the same level as me, a quality I believe is integral to being a therapist. And she touched places in me that I don't think have been touched before. As I drove away from the coffee shop I felt like crying. Not tears of sadness or tears of anger. Cleansing tears. I felt cared for and understood in a way I rarely have before. When I interact with people, I want them to feel the same way: special, loved, understood. For that is a special feeling. And a rare one.
There's enough French in my blood for me to agree with the European attitude that the very young can be charming and delightful and pretty but only a mature woman can be beautiful; and only a mature man can be strong enough to be truly tender.
Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet, Pg. 113
Now, after 2 1/2 months at TPC, there are several individuals who I look up to, who I want to emulate, who inspire me.
Jody is beautiful. In her fifties, her blond hair styled in a cute crop cut, chic sundresses, and trendy glasses, she is lovely. Yet I do not believe she would be so attractive if not for the warmth, the sincerity, and the wisdom she emanates. Last week she was kind enough to let me sit on her black leather couch amidst a multiplicity of teal pillows and talk with her about what it is to be a therapist. Her answers were measured, full of pauses, thoughtful, and profound. So many of the questions I asked stemmed from my own struggles and my own doubts about being a therapist, but she answered each one with a clarity and decisiveness that, I believe, comes from a wise heart. Each time she replied, I felt a fear quelled, a struggle suddenly click into realization, a surge of inspiration and challenge. The one thing she said that will stick with me:
Me: As I've observed different therapists (on videos) I noticed that some try to remain emotionally nonreactive. Is that something you try to do, as well?
Jody: No. A therapist must be real, must be genuine with their clients. Sincerity makes people feel cared for; people sense authenticity, people respond to people who are engaged.
Peggy is gorgeous. And she smells good: musky yet innocent. Every time she walks by I almost ask her what perfume she wears. Forty-ish, tall, willowy, with long, curly brown hair, she's hard not to admire. Peggy and I met for coffee last week (she also agreed to let me interview her), and I'm afraid I didn't get many questions answered; we ended up chatting for most of the short hour we had together. I can see why she is a therapist -- she has a way of making one open up. Yet she also shared of her own experiences, her own struggles. She placed herself on the same level as me, a quality I believe is integral to being a therapist. And she touched places in me that I don't think have been touched before. As I drove away from the coffee shop I felt like crying. Not tears of sadness or tears of anger. Cleansing tears. I felt cared for and understood in a way I rarely have before. When I interact with people, I want them to feel the same way: special, loved, understood. For that is a special feeling. And a rare one.
There's enough French in my blood for me to agree with the European attitude that the very young can be charming and delightful and pretty but only a mature woman can be beautiful; and only a mature man can be strong enough to be truly tender.
Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet, Pg. 113
8.10.2009
planning my circle of quiet
The books traveling back to school with me...
1. Letters to A Young Poet
2. A Room of One's Own
3. The Awakening
4. Wuthering Heights
5. I Am the Clay
6. The Power and the Glory
7. My Name is Asher Lev
8. Stories (by Katherine Mansfield)
9. Orthodoxy
10. God In the Dock (Essays by C.S. Lewis)
11. The Color of Water
12. Paris to the Moon
13. Miriam's Kitchen
14. Father Brown
15. Finally Feminist
16. Writing Tools
17. Anne of Green Gables
Whether or not all -- or any -- of these will be read during what is set up to be a hectic and trying junior year, we shall see. But I'm hopeful.
I have noticed a recurring pattern: each year I head back to school with every intention of holding to my ideals of self-reflection, reading literature, weekly times of solitude, and maintaining an interest in those things that spur me on towards the sort of person I hope I am becoming. Yet every year it seems I let my ideals slide -- due to fatigue, peer pressure, and busyness. This year, I hope, will be different.
Awareness and intentionality are the stepping stones to success, hence I hope this year will evidence a change. I am aware of how I struggle, where I fail, and I have planned in times to read, times to be alone, times to self-reflect and evaluate.
Every so often I need OUT; something will throw me into total disproportion, and I have to get away from everybody--away from all these people I love most in the word--in order to regain a sense of proportion.... My special place is a small brook in a green glade, a circle of quiet from which there is no visible sign of human beings. There's a natural stone bridge over the brook, and I sit there, dangling my legs and looking through the foliage at the sky reflected in the water, and things slowly come back into perspective.... If I sit for a while, then my impatience, crossness, frustration, are indeed annihilated, and my sense of humor returns.
Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet, pg. 4
1. Letters to A Young Poet
2. A Room of One's Own
3. The Awakening
4. Wuthering Heights
5. I Am the Clay
6. The Power and the Glory
7. My Name is Asher Lev
8. Stories (by Katherine Mansfield)
9. Orthodoxy
10. God In the Dock (Essays by C.S. Lewis)
11. The Color of Water
12. Paris to the Moon
13. Miriam's Kitchen
14. Father Brown
15. Finally Feminist
16. Writing Tools
17. Anne of Green Gables
Whether or not all -- or any -- of these will be read during what is set up to be a hectic and trying junior year, we shall see. But I'm hopeful.
I have noticed a recurring pattern: each year I head back to school with every intention of holding to my ideals of self-reflection, reading literature, weekly times of solitude, and maintaining an interest in those things that spur me on towards the sort of person I hope I am becoming. Yet every year it seems I let my ideals slide -- due to fatigue, peer pressure, and busyness. This year, I hope, will be different.
Awareness and intentionality are the stepping stones to success, hence I hope this year will evidence a change. I am aware of how I struggle, where I fail, and I have planned in times to read, times to be alone, times to self-reflect and evaluate.
Every so often I need OUT; something will throw me into total disproportion, and I have to get away from everybody--away from all these people I love most in the word--in order to regain a sense of proportion.... My special place is a small brook in a green glade, a circle of quiet from which there is no visible sign of human beings. There's a natural stone bridge over the brook, and I sit there, dangling my legs and looking through the foliage at the sky reflected in the water, and things slowly come back into perspective.... If I sit for a while, then my impatience, crossness, frustration, are indeed annihilated, and my sense of humor returns.
Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet, pg. 4
8.03.2009
In the past few weeks I have learned...
...drinking from a teacup makes me feel elegant.
...someday, I would like to have children.
...ice cream and tea do not relieve a sore throat.
...being sick makes me grumpy. (Need to work on that).
...candles make life seem tranquil.
...I feel stressed when I think of all that needs to be done before I go back to school on the 22nd.
...iPod docking systems that cost $40 might be too good to be true.
...teaching is more enjoyable than I imagined, especially when the students are 5 and 6 years old.
...I like NPR. I like it a lot. Where else can you learn about the history of lightening?
...being Service Trips Director this year has me excited!
...watching Apollo 13 inspires me and makes me cry.
...I can actually run for extended periods of time! At least, I'm getting there.
...even during the summer I often fail at getting in bed before 1 o'clock.
...drinking from a teacup makes me feel elegant.
...someday, I would like to have children.
...ice cream and tea do not relieve a sore throat.
...being sick makes me grumpy. (Need to work on that).
...candles make life seem tranquil.
...I feel stressed when I think of all that needs to be done before I go back to school on the 22nd.
...iPod docking systems that cost $40 might be too good to be true.
...teaching is more enjoyable than I imagined, especially when the students are 5 and 6 years old.
...I like NPR. I like it a lot. Where else can you learn about the history of lightening?
...being Service Trips Director this year has me excited!
...watching Apollo 13 inspires me and makes me cry.
...I can actually run for extended periods of time! At least, I'm getting there.
...even during the summer I often fail at getting in bed before 1 o'clock.
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