Guess how many trick-or-treaters I got? 0. Not a single one. I guess living upstairs really is a deterrent. I'm kind of scared to go to work tomorrow though. Middle school students + bucket loads of candy + sleep deprivation + excitement + drama ('cause there's always drama) = way too much drama for me! It could be worse though. I could be the school nurse!
Speaking of drama, I really think the kids' issues are somewhat contagious to the staff. There seems to be a lot more gossip, rumors and drama than at other schools I have worked. It's kind of annoying (especially when the rumors are about me!).
I just went outside, and it smells like fall. Yum! Now if only we could get below 85 degrees during the day!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Gee...you shouldn't have (no really...you shouldn't have)
So today I'm talking with the assistant-assistant principal, and she says, "I have a friend I'd like you to marry." Um...okay. Just, no pressure, right? She apparently already had this conversation with him, and he agreed to marry...well, to go out anyway.
I hate being fixed up with anyone. I'm sure he's a great guy, but yeah...no.
I hate being fixed up with anyone. I'm sure he's a great guy, but yeah...no.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Just tell me to shut up
You know, the thing about trying to do the right thing is that sometimes, no matter what you do, you just feel like crap. Sometimes I would just like my life to be even a little bit easier. For like, two seconds. Is that too much to ask?
I'm in a whine-y mood. Sorry. But not really because I don't think many people read this blog. Of course, for all I know, millions of people could be reading it and mocking me...and you know what? I don't care.
I'm in a whine-y mood. Sorry. But not really because I don't think many people read this blog. Of course, for all I know, millions of people could be reading it and mocking me...and you know what? I don't care.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Media report
First and foremost, Henry gave me Prison Break Season 1 DVDs as an early b-day present!! {does a little happy dance} Michael and Sara will live on in my living room forever. {sigh}
Okay, other stuff....
*Broadcast TV-- You know, I haven't been that into broadcast tv this fall. I watched 2 episodes of House but missed last week. I missed the first two episodes of Supernatural but watched last week. I taped the three episodes of Season 3 of Prison Break and-- I can't believe I'm saying this-- I think they should have ended with Season 2. I watched one episode of Private Practice-- it was okay. Predictable. I did, however, catch a few minutes of Pushing Daisies and was pleasantly surprised by the dry humor and understated narration. I may try it again.
*DVD: Freedom Writers-- This movie is based on the true story of a teacher and her students in So. Cal. It's good, inspiring...but falls short of great. I haven't read the book yet, but it would be interesting to compare the two.
*DVD: The Zodiac-- Although this is billed as a thriller, it's really not an edge-of-your-seat type of movie. It's more like a logical puzzle. (However, the murders are semi-graphic.) Parts were very interesting, but I think it should have been shorter. The resolution is not particularly satisfying, but again, this is based on a true story. Both Freedom Writers and Zodiac depict true stories of individuals who were consumed by their work...and lost their families as a result. Sometimes I wonder whether it was worth it.
*DVD: Prison Break Season 2-- Completely awesome! Go watch this.
There are a couple of books I want to write about, but I'm too tired to do that now.
Okay, other stuff....
*Broadcast TV-- You know, I haven't been that into broadcast tv this fall. I watched 2 episodes of House but missed last week. I missed the first two episodes of Supernatural but watched last week. I taped the three episodes of Season 3 of Prison Break and-- I can't believe I'm saying this-- I think they should have ended with Season 2. I watched one episode of Private Practice-- it was okay. Predictable. I did, however, catch a few minutes of Pushing Daisies and was pleasantly surprised by the dry humor and understated narration. I may try it again.
*DVD: Freedom Writers-- This movie is based on the true story of a teacher and her students in So. Cal. It's good, inspiring...but falls short of great. I haven't read the book yet, but it would be interesting to compare the two.
*DVD: The Zodiac-- Although this is billed as a thriller, it's really not an edge-of-your-seat type of movie. It's more like a logical puzzle. (However, the murders are semi-graphic.) Parts were very interesting, but I think it should have been shorter. The resolution is not particularly satisfying, but again, this is based on a true story. Both Freedom Writers and Zodiac depict true stories of individuals who were consumed by their work...and lost their families as a result. Sometimes I wonder whether it was worth it.
*DVD: Prison Break Season 2-- Completely awesome! Go watch this.
There are a couple of books I want to write about, but I'm too tired to do that now.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Stuff for Lifegroup, Part II
Quotes regarding sexuality from C.S. Lewis:
*But I have other reasons for thinking so [that our impulses are the problem rather than Christianity's view of sexuality]. The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function. Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act - that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?
*Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour. Now this association is a lie. Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth - the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is 'normal' and 'healthy', and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal. Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense. Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness. For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary; so the claim made by every desire, when it is strong, to be healthy and reasonable, counts for nothing. Every sane and civilised man must have some set of principles by which he chooses to reject some of his desires and to permit others.
*If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.
*But I have other reasons for thinking so [that our impulses are the problem rather than Christianity's view of sexuality]. The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function. Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act - that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?
*Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour. Now this association is a lie. Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth - the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is 'normal' and 'healthy', and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal. Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense. Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness. For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary; so the claim made by every desire, when it is strong, to be healthy and reasonable, counts for nothing. Every sane and civilised man must have some set of principles by which he chooses to reject some of his desires and to permit others.
*If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Stuff for Lifegroup--- quotes on sex, etc.
I'm mostly posting this stuff for the people who were at Lifegroup this week (as it relates to our discussion...that veered away from our book and ended up being a very lively discussion of sex), but everyone else is welcome to read also. Most of this is by....{say it with me}...Frederick Buechner.
*Most of the old restraints are gone or going. Such purely practical restraints as fear of pregnancy and venereal disease have been all but eliminated by the ingenuity of modern science. Pornography is available to anybody who has the money to buy it at the newsstand. As much as you can generalize about such matters, in the realm of sexual behavior the word seems to be increasingly, "Anything goes," or among the more responsible, "Anything goes as long as nobody gets hurt," the trouble with which is how can anybody know in advance, in any complex human relationship, sexual or otherwise, who is going to get hurt psychologically, emotionally, spiritually? Or the word is, "Anything goes as long as you love each other," the trouble with which is that love here is like to mean a highly romanticized, sentimental sort of enterprise that comes and goes like the pink haze it is.
What makes this situation tragic, I believe, is not so much that by one set of standards or another it is morally wrong, but that in terms of the way human life is, it just does not work very well. Our society is filled with people for whom the sexual relationship is one where body meets body but where person fails to meet person; where the immediate need for sexual gratification is satisfied but where the deeper need for companionship and understanding is left untouched. The result is that the relationship leads not to fulfillment but to a half-conscious sense of incompleteness, of inner loneliness, which is so much the sickness of our time. The desire to know another's nakedness is really the desire to know the other fully as a person. It is the desire to know and to be known, not just sexually but as a total human being. It is the desire for a relationship where each gives not just of his body but of his self, body and spirit both, for the other's gladness. -Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life
*Contrary to Mrs. Grundy, sex is not sin. Contrary to Hugh Hefner, it's not salvation either. Like nitroglycerin, it can be used to blow up bridges or heal hearts.
At its roots, the hunger for food is the hunger for survival. At its roots the hunger to know a person sexually is the hunger to know and be known by that person humanly. Food without nourishment doesn't fill the bill for long, and neither does sex without humanness....
In practice Jesus was notoriously soft on sexual misbehavior. Some of his best friends were hustlers. He saved the woman taken in adultery from stoning. He didn't tell the woman at the well that she ought to marry the man she was living with. Possibly he found their fresh-faced sensualities closer to loving God and humanity than the thin-lipped pieties of the Pharisees. Certainly he shared the Old Testament view that the body in all its manifestations was basically good because a good God made it.
But he also had some hard words to say about lust, and told the adulterous woman to go and sin no more. When the force of a person's sexuality is centrifugal, pushing further and further away as psyches the very ones being embraced as somas, this sexuality is of the Devil. When it is centripetal, it is of God. -Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words
*To say that morally, spiritually, humanly, homosexuality is always bad seems as absurd as to say that in the same terms heterosexuality is always good, or the other way around. It is not the object of our sexuality that determines its value but the inner nature of our sexuality. If (a) it is as raw as the coupling of animals, at its worst it demeans us and at its best still leaves our deepest hunger for each other unsatisfied. If (b) it involves some measure of kindness, understanding, affection as well as desire, it can become an expression of human love in its fullness and can thus help to complete us as humans. Whatever our sexual preference happens to be, both of these possibilities are always there. It's not whom you go to bed with or what you do when you get there that matters so much. It's what besides sex you are asking to receive, and what besides sex you are offering to give. Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized
*{This is specifically about abortion, but it kind of dovetails on some of the things we were discussing in group and afterwards.} ...There is perhaps no better illustration of the truth that in an imperfect world there are no perfect solutions. All we can do, as Luther said, is sin bravely, which is to say, (a) know that neither to have the child nor not to have the child is without the possibility of tragic consequences for everybody, yet (b) be brave in knowing also that not even that can put us beyond the forgiving love of God. -Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words
I found the passage I mentioned about how spiritual bodies are different from earthly bodies (and why, contrary to some individuals' deep hope, there may not be sex in heaven, or at least not in the same way...but like I said, if you prefer to cling to that belief, go for it):
*I Cor. 15:35-38 Some skeptic is sure to ask, "Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this 'resurrection body' look like?" If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a "dead" seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don't look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.
*Most of the old restraints are gone or going. Such purely practical restraints as fear of pregnancy and venereal disease have been all but eliminated by the ingenuity of modern science. Pornography is available to anybody who has the money to buy it at the newsstand. As much as you can generalize about such matters, in the realm of sexual behavior the word seems to be increasingly, "Anything goes," or among the more responsible, "Anything goes as long as nobody gets hurt," the trouble with which is how can anybody know in advance, in any complex human relationship, sexual or otherwise, who is going to get hurt psychologically, emotionally, spiritually? Or the word is, "Anything goes as long as you love each other," the trouble with which is that love here is like to mean a highly romanticized, sentimental sort of enterprise that comes and goes like the pink haze it is.
What makes this situation tragic, I believe, is not so much that by one set of standards or another it is morally wrong, but that in terms of the way human life is, it just does not work very well. Our society is filled with people for whom the sexual relationship is one where body meets body but where person fails to meet person; where the immediate need for sexual gratification is satisfied but where the deeper need for companionship and understanding is left untouched. The result is that the relationship leads not to fulfillment but to a half-conscious sense of incompleteness, of inner loneliness, which is so much the sickness of our time. The desire to know another's nakedness is really the desire to know the other fully as a person. It is the desire to know and to be known, not just sexually but as a total human being. It is the desire for a relationship where each gives not just of his body but of his self, body and spirit both, for the other's gladness. -Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life
*Contrary to Mrs. Grundy, sex is not sin. Contrary to Hugh Hefner, it's not salvation either. Like nitroglycerin, it can be used to blow up bridges or heal hearts.
At its roots, the hunger for food is the hunger for survival. At its roots the hunger to know a person sexually is the hunger to know and be known by that person humanly. Food without nourishment doesn't fill the bill for long, and neither does sex without humanness....
In practice Jesus was notoriously soft on sexual misbehavior. Some of his best friends were hustlers. He saved the woman taken in adultery from stoning. He didn't tell the woman at the well that she ought to marry the man she was living with. Possibly he found their fresh-faced sensualities closer to loving God and humanity than the thin-lipped pieties of the Pharisees. Certainly he shared the Old Testament view that the body in all its manifestations was basically good because a good God made it.
But he also had some hard words to say about lust, and told the adulterous woman to go and sin no more. When the force of a person's sexuality is centrifugal, pushing further and further away as psyches the very ones being embraced as somas, this sexuality is of the Devil. When it is centripetal, it is of God. -Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words
*To say that morally, spiritually, humanly, homosexuality is always bad seems as absurd as to say that in the same terms heterosexuality is always good, or the other way around. It is not the object of our sexuality that determines its value but the inner nature of our sexuality. If (a) it is as raw as the coupling of animals, at its worst it demeans us and at its best still leaves our deepest hunger for each other unsatisfied. If (b) it involves some measure of kindness, understanding, affection as well as desire, it can become an expression of human love in its fullness and can thus help to complete us as humans. Whatever our sexual preference happens to be, both of these possibilities are always there. It's not whom you go to bed with or what you do when you get there that matters so much. It's what besides sex you are asking to receive, and what besides sex you are offering to give. Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized
*{This is specifically about abortion, but it kind of dovetails on some of the things we were discussing in group and afterwards.} ...There is perhaps no better illustration of the truth that in an imperfect world there are no perfect solutions. All we can do, as Luther said, is sin bravely, which is to say, (a) know that neither to have the child nor not to have the child is without the possibility of tragic consequences for everybody, yet (b) be brave in knowing also that not even that can put us beyond the forgiving love of God. -Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words
I found the passage I mentioned about how spiritual bodies are different from earthly bodies (and why, contrary to some individuals' deep hope, there may not be sex in heaven, or at least not in the same way...but like I said, if you prefer to cling to that belief, go for it):
*I Cor. 15:35-38 Some skeptic is sure to ask, "Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this 'resurrection body' look like?" If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a "dead" seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don't look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.
39-41You will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning. Just as there are different kinds of seeds, there are different kinds of bodies—humans, animals, birds, fish—each unprecedented in its form. You get a hint at the diversity of resurrection glory by looking at the diversity of bodies not only on earth but in the skies—sun, moon, stars—all these varieties of beauty and brightness. And we're only looking at pre-resurrection "seeds"—who can imagine what the resurrection "plants" will be like!
42-44This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we're raised, we're raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that's planted is no beauty, but when it's raised, it's glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality! (The Message)
Monday, October 8, 2007
If I put this here, maybe I'll remember
Frederick Buechner:
"Mind your own business" means butt out of other people's lives because in the long run they must live their lives for themselves, but it also means pay mind to your own life, your own health and wholeness, both for you own sake, but ultimately for the sake of those you love too. Take care of yourself so you can take care of them. A bleeding heart is no help to anybody if it bleeds to death.
"Mind your own business" means butt out of other people's lives because in the long run they must live their lives for themselves, but it also means pay mind to your own life, your own health and wholeness, both for you own sake, but ultimately for the sake of those you love too. Take care of yourself so you can take care of them. A bleeding heart is no help to anybody if it bleeds to death.
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