What is this feeling?

Do you ever get that way? Have a feeling and not really know how to define it. Today I feel that way. It's a weird week being right after Easter. Last week was so busy on so many levels and this week is quite, well, chill. So today there is this feeling lingering in the back of y stomach, heart, brain.

I'm not anxious really, which is a feeling I have more than I like. But it's not a "happy" feeling. I don't know I might label it as homesickness. I've been in Temple now I guess pushing 9 months and have gone home frequently (once a month at least) but it's always felt like those trips have been rushed or not long enough. I don't have a lot of vacation that I can take and I would like to possibly be able to take an actual vacation to somewhere, (but we'll see on that) so it's always been a weekend trip except for T-giving and Christmas which I got a few more days.... but major run on sentence....

I've got friends here. Don't get me wrong, there are people that I like and have hung out with and do stuff but my best friends, one I have known since I was born and only really reconnected with a little over a year ago and my best best friend of many many years are in Gainesville. So there is that level of people really knowing me that I am missing...

Oh and there is my parents. I love them, I lived with them for the 8 months before I moved to Temple and we had a pretty good thing going. They really are some good peoples. I am pretty sure that the last time I was home I talked non-stop about anything and everything for about 30 minutes as soon as I walked in the door. I mean from the sublime to the ridiculous.

So I guess I just want to talk. Maybe that's why I'm blogging (twice in one week MIRACLE!) I need to speak about something other than church stuff or children. There are so many thoughts that run through my head that have nothing to do with work related things, and once the work day is over I'm home alone.

Maybe this is normal first year out of school into the real workforce on your own kind of feelings, but it's odd to me. I did 20 years of school, well 23 counting pre-k and kindergarten I guess, and I a just about to turn 28, so being a student has been one of my greater identities for most of my life. So if that is it I am sure parts of it will pass but in this moment at this place it is weird all of the sudden to be lacking some of that social outlet, or the crazy variety of things that occur in the life of a student. Things are routine. It's a double edged sword.

I am trying to find my identity I guess. but I might just have to save that topic for another post later as I have had sooooooooooo many thoughts about all of that. So feelings.... what to do, what to do? I'm not looking for loving affirmations of our friendship, I just needed to vent tonight about where my head is at. I guess I feel somewhat better, and maybe I need to do just write more often.  So possibly expect more writing later.... but don't start a countdown or anything....

Easter Sermon Image

Ohh and if you're curious, here's the image I chose. 

I like it, I'm not sure I love it.

Identity Theft

So as I sit here writing I am still at my desk after a long week and day of preparation and recovery from multiple events this week. Tonight is no different as will be tomorrow night, and Sunday morning, busy, busy, busy. But that's the life you live when you are in ministry and it is holy week.

So I write now because I had a thought and I have had lot's of thoughts about lot's of different blog ideas of the past weeks but this one struck me and I knew if I didn't write now I wouldn't write it. So I am looking for the sermon image for the contemporary service on Sunday morning (for those of you who might for whatever reason not know Sunday is Easter). Pastor Tom is preaching on Matthew 28:1-10 when Mary and Mary go to the garden and find the tomb is empty and Jesus' body is gone. My goal in these sermon graphics is to get something that illustrates the point of his sermon with out being uberly cheesy and this week unfortunately is a toughie.

So I begin at the beginning looking for a graphic of an empty tomb and don't get me wrong there are LOTS of them to choose from but none of them look real. I mean don't get me wrong most of the images that I am looking at are photographs taken of real places or structures that have been built but there is always something off to me or something that looks like it has been greatly photoshopped to make it more "glowy" (that's a theological term, right?). So I move on.

Image search after imager search, and I keep slightly changing the parameters, angel in the garden brings up, you guessed it tiny baby concrete cherubs that are meant to keep the squirrels and armadillos and rattlesnakes company amongst your flowers, so ehhhhh (that was a buzzer sound if you didn't catch on.)

So finally after several tries I put in "Mary Magdalene tomb" now this pulls up a good deal of rather promising looking images. A lot of them are paintings or other works of art that depict a man in a flowy (another great theological term eh?) white robe, and a woman on bended knee it's all kind of flowers and puppy dogs kind of images, you know what I mean really idealized.

But I begin to think at every image I look at, this man looks surprisingly like Jesus. Yes, I do know what Jesus looks like, what I haven't told all of you is an ancient seminary secret we got to see a real photo of Jesus!!! Ok just kidding but each of these images depicts this man in the white clothes as that traditional image of Jesus long brown hair, beard, just really obviously supposed to be Jesus. I think every church has a copy of this picture somewhere.

So I'm thinking didn't Mary Magdalene not know she was talking to Jesus? I mean clearly this man is Jesus, duh. So I just did a little research to check out my Bible memory, in the Matthew version of the empty tomb (which is what I am trying to represent) an angel tells Mary that Jesus is not there and they fled from the tomb quickly. I seem to want to think that I was always taught this was Jesus they just didn't recognize Him, but I think it is just my blending together of the gospel accounts. In Mark we get pretty much the same story as we get in Matthew but in Luke we get the angel and we get them not recognizing Jesus at first.

For me, in these pictures at least, it was really easy to spot that that man, was Jesus. I don't know about you but I pretty much can recognize all of my friends by they're looks, but I don't know none of them have ever died and come back to life before. All of this to say how did his disciples and closest followers not recognize Him at first? It's difficult for me to believe although those disciples were pretty dense, Jesus kept saying he was the Son of God but they had trouble grasping that one too.

So I wonder, do we/would we/ could we recognize the face of Jesus if he appeared in front of us today? Would I turn away in disbelief if the Son of God approached me? I am now in the ranks of His faithful followers dedicating my life and my purpose to teaching others about Him and His teaching of God's love for us, and this weekend especially remembering his gift to us of death and resurrection, but are my eyes open enough to see Him living in this world? I pray that my eyes might be open wide enough that I would not be blinded by fear, unbelief, or hurriedness that I don't see what is right in front of my face.

I hope that this weekend as you remember the Last Supper, the crucfixion and finally the resurrection you have a chance to fellowship with God, mourn the loss of Jesus, and celebrate the gift of love we were given on Easter morning!

Driving Lessons

I think my dad started teaching us how to drive really early on. We spent, what seemed like as a child, a lot of time in the car since we lived at times up to 3 hours away from our grandparents. But I can remember dad asking questions or making up games for us to play in the car that I have often thought about now while driving myself.

I learned at an early age (probably by ten or twelve) what the dark spots in the middle of the road are just because my father asked. I think the question was something along the lines of "Do you know what those dark spots in the road mean?" I'm not sure if I had something smart aleck to say back to him (that skill must have developed with age) but of course I didn't know. He said the mean that there is a dip in the road. Every time a car goes over it the car jostles a little bit and some oil drops from the bottom of the car leaving dark patch on the road. So I am sure I sat staring out the windshield looking for a dark spot to see if the man was right. And he was. To this day I see a dark spot ( the bigger the dark spot the bigger the dip mind you) and I know that there is something coming up.

Dad also would have us guess the time we would arrive at our destination. We knew the approxiamtes pretty well after many drives and we would venture 3:53, or 3:57, or 3:56. And whoever got the closest got bragging rights, for about 2 minutes, but Dad always won. My brother and I came to realize, maybe by gentle reminders by our mother, that dad had control of the speed of the car and thus ultimate control over the time of arrival.

In 11 years I have driven THOUSDANDS of miles. In my own vehicles from North Texas to Appalchia and North Carolina serveral times. Back and forth to SMU for almost three years, navigating the back roads of Cooke County to see the scenery, and now around Temple, and venturing back up to visit Gainesville. Sometimes I still look for the dark spots in the road to see when there will be a dip, mostly it's just habit now to see them, and I still try to calculate my arrival time as closely as possible but probably not proving as accurate as my father ever was or will be.

Ehh I guess I still learn stuff from the Ol' Man but now I am much better at the smarty aleck remark ;).

Brain Childs

So it has come to the point in my work that a few of my brain children are ready to be released into the wild and see how they fair. First is the adult small group spring brochure that I have been working to get right and make enticing for a few weeks now. Sign ups for these classes start in a little over a week so no more delaying it has to work the way it is... but it still makes me nervous. The adult education committee has put together about 14 really great classes for this spring but you really never know how they will fair until people start to sign up. There are several that are near and dear to my heart specifically, and I am most anxious about.

First is a Bible study for mom's. I can't lead it. I won't be here because of classes on Wednesdays so really I have very little control over it after his point. I picked out the book, I got advice and called on a teacher, and then it's gone from my grasps. I hope it goes well.

Second is an all day Parenting with Love and Logic training event that I coordinated the leaders for. I really hope that we have an adequate amount of people sign up so that this can happen. I know that lots of people are interested in learning but doesn't mean that they don't already have something going on on that date or any other number of issues.

Third, the most anxiety producing one is a parents Bible study that I am trying to start brand new. It has been expressed to me that people want this but when I put out the feelers I didn't get a great deal of response... yet. I haven't set a firm day or time hoping that people will sign up and give me an idea of what will work for them. This one is going to be the most work.

The other brain child that I have to kick out of the nest is my children's Sunday school lessons for the next 7 weeks. I have been working on them as well for several weeks and I hadn't done something like this before. Luckily I was given a giant binder with the curriculum in it but I have had to pick and choose, and basically put a puzzle together in places and completely create anew in others. Now that the writing is done it is down to making it happen... getting all the supplies together... etc.

But in working on this rotation model curriculum for the children I began to think about adult style rotation curriculum. Clearly not everyone would be for it... but I think it could work. Different learning styles don't go away just because you reach adult hood. In this model would they actually rotate every week or would I just create different Sunday school classes with different styles of teaching? You just go to the one that suits you best. But wouldn't that possibly split couples who learn differently? Pigeon hole like minded people? Become weary after many weeks doing the same type science projects about God every week? I don't know. What I do think I know is that Sunday school in its current model doesn't really work for my generation. Most of my peers don't go to Church. It's not relevant to them. People like me have to begin to think of different ways to make this sacred space appealing to young adults or else it might die. I love the church and want it to grow.

Hopefully my two infant brain children will grow in these walls and not leave when they reach adulthood.

Family Tree

I spent some time at my parents house tonight. This is not such an unusual thing since I live across town and work two blocks from where they live. I did get free food, yummy, and just basically some quality time with the 'rents.

This past Wednesday while at a meeting at Church my cousin (2nd cousin I guess, shes my mom's first cousin) who was also in the meeting starting showing me pictures of our family when my mom was a little girl, one of which included my grandfathers mother. I had to ask my cousin Susan what her and my moms grandmothers name was because I could not recall it. I knew it was either Leela or Cleola, as it was always a running joke that a good name for a child would be Leela Cleola, but I didn't know which name belonged to which of my grandparents parents. Her name was Cleola Jewel. I think she went by Cleo.

This question to my cousin and the need to tell my mom about seeing these pictures of her with some cousins and this grandmother of hers I knew little about drew me to ask Mom many unanswered questions about that side of my family. Dad's side has always been relatively easier to know, largely because we have a hand written family tree that traces much of the lineage of his two parents back several centuries. But Mom's family was not as easy to know.

My Mom's dad passed away a little over a year before I was born (for years I actually thought he passed away on his way to see me being born as the phrase was used just before you were born...) so I never got to meet him (much like all of my Cousins except for Ray and my brother who were the only ones born at the time of his passing) and or hear stories about his family or whatnot. My mom's mom never has really seen the point I guess in discussing family matters such as these, I guess I have never really asked either. So tonight I asked mom about her grandparents and her parents siblings and tried to get some of these facts into my head.

For instance, my great grandmothers on my moms side as mentioned earlier were Cleola Jewel and Leela May (might be Mae not sure) And great grandfathers were Franklin Strueble (who had an identical twin brother William Rueble) and Hulen Clyde (who was actually born Clyde Hulen but apparently thought the other way was better and changed it). On my Dad's side my great grandmothers were Cassie and Mary or Tweesy as she was called. I still am not sure that I could straight tell you my great grandfathers names on Dad's side though. Clearly I was named after my great grandmother Cassie, my Grandmother Carmen's mother.

All of this family tree stuff has always interested me greatly I guess mostly because it helps me find out who I am from know where I came from. Also I am a sucker for old classic names and stories and such and getting some of this from my parents and previously my grandmother Carmen and hopefully before its too late from my grandma Bobbie, just gets me at the core. The history of my family is something that is long and complicated and I am 100 percent positive I will not be able to get everything that I yearn to know about or need to pass on but I am going to try to get as much history and spirit of the blend of people that have made me me and will someday be passed onto my children.

Speaking of which I need to see if my dad can tell me the story of how his parents meet the way his mother would tell it so I can learn it better. At the end of a long busy day that has been spotted with school, friends, my God Son Jackson, and my family, I am thankful for ... everything.

One Week In...

So I am one week into my third year of seminary.... woah. Two years ago when I started seminary (and one school ago) I am not sure I would have imagined myself where I am now. I have made lots of decisions over that time to lead me to where I am now but I think its all ended up well. I also would have imagined I would be graduating in 8ish months ... but I'm not.

I guess with moving schools mid-way through and essentially changing majors I can expect that but it still just seems sooo far away! I will be done (I think) with the academic grueling part come May but still not DONE! Alas there is more light at the end of the tunnel these days that can sometimes be hard to see but its not... within... reach... yet.

Sooo ya... school. Here we go again. I should be allowed to be called Dr. when I'm done due to the years I will have put in but no. Moo.