Between a Stove and a Cold Place

Hello everyone!

I hope you’re impressed by my clever title and the fact that I once again braved the bike ride to the library. I didn’t update last week because I went snow skiing!

It was super fun and a gorgeous day; two of the girls didn’t even wear their jackets. And God really provided, since I found out the night before that I wouldn’t be able to rent ski pants, but then one of the guys at L’Abri randomly decided that he wasn’t going and had pants that fit me. It was amazing.

Then this week we went to Walden Pond, which was really beautiful. This is a picture of me reading On Walden Pond on Walden Pond. Get it?

We hiked around/on the pond (it’s all frozen) and generally had a good time. Afterward we went to Concord and I ate a cupcake.

Other than that I’ve mostly chilled around the house. We had a Valentine’s Day party where we at chili made with beer and chocolate (the two staples of Valentine’s Day) and watched music videos to cheesy 90s love songs. Another night we had brinner (breakfast for dinner) and all wore our pajamas to dinner, which was awesome. We also watched both Ghostbusters movies, which was an experience. So really fun.

As far as studying goes, I read a book on how the church is part of God’s redemptive plan to create a new community of believers, which definitely changes the perspective from just going to hear a sermon. I also read a book on guidance, and that true guidance is in God’s word and that we should ask for wisdom to apply it to our lives. God can also guide us through other things like sudden insights or open doors, but that’s not true guidance because we have to test it just like anything else in life. Finally, I learned about how the Bible sometimes seems contradictory, but that we trust that it’s true because the important points (like Jesus’ death and resurrection) are clear and because the Bible makes sense as an explanation of our world (that we live in a fallen, abnormal world because of our choice to disobey God but that God provided a solution through Jesus).

I hope everyone is doing well and look forward to seeing y’all in a couple of weeks!

Hope

P.S. For more pictures check Facebook.

Some Stuff I've Been Thinking About

Hello everyone!

So far I'm succeeding at getting to the library on a more regular basis. I rode a bike here, which I feel is pretty impressive. Not a ton happened this week; I mostly just hung out. Today I went to Concord and toured Louisa May Alcott's house (she wrote Little Women) and saw Emerson and Hawthorne's houses too. But most of what happened this week has been me thinking about stuff, so here's some of the stuff I've been thinking about.

First off, I've been listening to lectures on postmodernism and lit in general, and I talked to Dick (the L'Abri director) about it for a while. I've been thinking about how I disagree with postmodernism's general assertion that language can have so many individual interpretations that it's meaningless, because that's clearly not true. For one, obviously people communicate fairly successfully all the time. Second, I think that Christianity provides some absolutes that language is based on. For instance, the Bible divides humans both from God and from animals and thus gives a clear meaning for the word. However, language and lit particularly do have a lot of interpretations; obviously everything isn't an absolute, and we just have to be careful to remember that some interpretations are wrong and that we should have respect for what the author probably meant, even if we can't be sure.

One thing I'm still grappling with with the lit lectures I've listened to is their moral judgment of books. I guess I really have gotten used to the idea that you judge them aesthetically and not morally, but I'm not sure if that's really right.

I've also been thinking a lot about God's guidance. I felt even when deciding whether or not to come to L'Abri that I had to get really clear guidance from God and was really frustrated when that didn't happen. Now I'm thinking that although I should definitely pray and seek God's wisdom and give him time to act, he gave me the ability to make decisions on my own and that I don't just have to sit around waiting for some kind of sign.

Finally, I've been listening to some lectures on women in the Bible and the meaning of some passages that seem pretty misogynistic which have always bugged me. I've heard some pretty strong arguments based on Genesis 3:16 that man's authority over woman was a result of the Fall when things got messed up and was not God's original plan for mankind and that women can legitimately teach in the church. It's pretty new to me, so I'm still thinking about that too.

Well, I've got to head back before it gets dark, but I hope everyone is doing well!

Hope

Update at L'Abri

So to y'all this is being posted at the same time as the last post, but I'm actually writing a couple of weeks later. L'Abri continues to be awesome, so here is an update on what has happened.

Boston was really fun. I went with two other students, Tabb

y and Rene. We went to the Union Oyster House, which is the oldest restaurant in the US and was delicious, then we went to see some historic places like Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church, which is where the "one if by land, two if by sea" thing happened to signal Paul Revere. Then we went to the Isabella Gardner museum, which is basically this lady's beautiful house with a great art collection. This is a picture of the inside of the house:

It was incredible. Our next day off was my birthday, which was great. The night before Tabby made me a cake and everyone sang Happy Birthday, and then the next day I went to Chili's and got to have birthday cake ice cream with brownie for dessert at dinner. Overall it was a pretty great birthday. On Saturday night we had a pizza party and everyone dressed up like superheroes (they could be invented). I was Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

The next night was youtube night, and we all showed our favorite youtube videos. It was hilarious.

I've also still been learning a lot. I've listened to a lot of lectures on postmodernism and have been thinking about how relativism is true for so many things in the world, but then there are some things that are absolute. I've also been learning about the Holy Spirit and what he does, especially about how the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace...) can only come from him since while you can act like you have those things, they have to grow in your heart to be real, which is something only the Spirit can do.

So anyway, I hope y'all are having a great year and miss y'all!

Hope

L'Abri! aka this blog comes back to life

Hey everyone!

Despite the fact that I haven’t blogged in over a year, I’m going to attempt to blog while I’m at L’Abri and Oxford. For those of you who don’t know, this semester I’m doing study abroad at Oxford, and since that doesn’t start until the end of March, I’m spending part of the free time before then at a Christian program in Massachusetts called L’Abri. I’ve been there a week now, though it will have been longer when I actually post this, since I don’t have internet access at the house where I’m staying and have to wait for sporadic visits to the library or Starbucks to go online.

So, what exactly am I doing at L’Abri, you may be asking. Well, we spend four hours every day (in the morning for me) working around the big house where everyone lives. Mostly it’s a lot of cleaning, laundry, shoveling snow (it snows so much here!), and hauling wood (a lot of the heat here comes from wood stoves). That may sound boring, but I actually kind of like cleaning, and the only one I really dislike is hauling wood because it’s heavy and hard and outside. But working is a really cool chance to 1) not sit around studying all day, 2) to have time to digest what I’m learning here and sort of chill mentally, and 3) learn about how I can glorify God not just by doing “Christian” things like praying and reading my Bible but also just by living life and doing work (more on this in a bit).

Then in the afternoons I study. They have a ton of books and recorded lectures here about pretty much everything. The main topics that I’m studying are hearing from God and what it means to be a Christian in the world of academics, since I’m a student now and want to be a professor. I’ve listened to a lot of cool lectures on both, and here are some of the things I’ve been learning. First off, I’ve been learning how hearing from God isn’t about having times of silence in your prayers and waiting for God to speak by bringing thoughts to your mind, which is really encouraging because I’m super distractible and I’ve been really frustrated because I’ve heard it talked about that way a lot and it’s never really worked like that for me. Not that God can’t speak like that, but more often he speaks through nature, through other people, and mostly through the Bible. The most practical way to have a conversation with God is by reading the Bible while you pray. As to the second topic, I’ve been learning a lot about how God cares about our whole lives and not just praying and reading the Bible and such. Those things are still important to do and something I don’t do enough, but God also has created us to do normal human things like work and read and hang out, and those things can be equally glorifying to God. Partially because we can’t have an impact in a world that we don’t participate in and that we know nothing about, but also partially because God wants us to enjoy stuff. And those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive; we can watch a movie for pleasure and enjoy it but still think critically about it.

Besides working and studying, we all eat together (the food here is awesome), and some meals are discussion meals where we can talk about stuff we’ve been learning or random questions we have. We have nights and one day a week off. Last night some of us went contra dancing, which was pretty much the funnest thing ever. Everyone is in lines but you have a partner and everyone weaves in and out and there is a lot of spinning around. Think the dancing in Pride and Prejudice but faster and more exciting. We’re totally going again. Tomorrow we’re going to Boston on our day off, so that should be cool.

Overall, I’m having a really great time and learning a lot, and I hope school and whatnot is going really well for everyone.

Hope

Cookies

So tonight I was thinking...

Fun/happiness are like cookies. If you want cookies, you can wait for them to come around and (except in college where you can get them in the dining hall every day) you probably won't get them that often, except at parties or when someone randomly offers you a cookie. But if you really want a cookie, you'll just make some yourself. Fun and happiness are the same way. If you just sit around waiting to have fun or be happy, it'll happen sometimes, but probably not that often. We have to make our own fun and happiness, and college is a great time to learn how to do that.

Reflections

So I just finished my last final. I feel really happy to be done with them, although finals week was actually pretty fun and relaxing. Mine were really spread out, so I had lots of time to watch movies, go to the mall, and just hang out with friends. Still, I'm happy to be going home for Christmas.

The other night Emily and Kelsey were talking about how they felt the semester had gone, and I guess this is the time when you think about that sort of thing. When they asked me how I felt my semester had gone, I said well, but really I was just thinking about grades. (Speaking of which, I'm having trouble getting used to the concept that an A is an A here and how high of an A it is doesn't matter.) I think this semester has actually been way too big and complicated to sum up in a single word like well. I've made some really awesome friends, although maybe not as many or in as cohesive a group as I'd hoped. I've learned a lot and taken interesting classes, even if they haven't been as hard as I expected. I've learned how to balance studying (which I definitely do a lot of) with making time for fun and how to live with another person (and thanks Emily for being an awesome roommate!). I'm still working on finding a balance between making new friends and staying close to my old ones and on finding a Christian group as awesome as Grace was.

College has definitely been different than I expected. It's not crazy exciting... in fact, it's a lot like high school, moved to a college campus. (To be fair, I have been told that that's because I'm not doing the right kinds of things... but I'm pretty sure I don't want to be doing the kinds of things that person was referring to.) It's not like TIP: there aren't a bunch of Harry Potter-obsessed people who are just like me waiting to be my friends, but in a way it's more real, more rewarding, because I'm making friends who each have something different that makes then awesome.

So, some goals for next semester:

1. Get more involved. I miss the crazy pile of clubs I did in high school. I want to start volunteering again, get involved in lit mag (though that will have to wait until next semester), maybe even be in a play.

2. Find a Christian group. I also really miss our awesome small group, and I really want to find a new one.

3. Meet guys. Okay, this one may sound kind of silly, but when I used to imagine college, there were definitely always guys involved. Plus, I miss having annoying guy friends. :P I've met some really amazing girls this semester, but I'm hoping to expand that next semester.

4. Meet more people in general. I've met cool people on my hall and in Emily's math class, but I'd like to meet some more.

5. Read more. Enough said.

6. Have more fun. I've enjoyed this semester, but it's been pretty low key: movie nights in our room, trips to Walmart/Target, going to Chick Fil A... I think that even if college isn't as exciting as I expected, it still has more potential than I've seen so far, and I want to get the most out of my college experience.

I wanted to have 7 things in that list, but I can't think of another one. So anyway, I hope everyone had a great first semester and has a very Merry Christmas!

Self-Control

So this month I've been doing No-Dessert December (at least until winter break). I thought it would be really hard (I have an obsession with the fudge brownie cookies in the dining hall, and Christmas=lots of desserts), but it's actually been a lot easier than I thought. Today I made tons of cookies and didn't eat any... not even the dough. And it feels good. People always talk about the importance of self control (esp. at college), but self-control isn't just about resisting bad things. It's about power. Having power over yourself and your actions; knowing that you are strong enough to resist. And even if it is just desserts, in a weird way, it's a big deal. And even though I'm going to start eating desserts again after this is over, I'm going to eat them when I actually want to, and not just because they look/smell good. And it applies to more than that... studying too: the power to not procrastinate. And other stuff that I haven't thought of yet (I guess since it's finals week, eating and studying (and sleeping) are about the only things I'm doing).

In other news, Emily and I have definitely gotten into the Christmas spirit. I never liked decorating that much at home, but here, it's so fun. Maybe it's because we have such a small space and just want to make it awesome, maybe because it's really ours and if we don't decorate it, no one will, but I really loved decorating with Emily. I can't wait for Christmas break and seeing everyone!

Merry Christmas!