musings

i love daylight savings. love it.

i also love southern california. thank You, God, for bringing me here!!

i've now finished 75% of the things on my "to-do" list from spring break. spring break ended a week ago. things left: CA taxes, VA taxes, burning cd's for friends, a trip to Ikea, printing some photos, and hanging said photos on my wall.

have i mentioned recently how much i love my room? i love the view, the color i painted it, my bed, that it's mine alone, i LOVE it!

i cut my hair. but i need to trim it a bit and put layers in... i've got a bit of triangle-head going on. it's just long enough to put in a ponytail.

i bought daffodils! trader joe's has 10 stems for $1.29, so i bought 2 bunches. i love them! i also bought a potted plant and a small cactus. we'll see how long it takes for me to kill them.

school is already catching up to me. i barely had enough time to breathe over spring break, much less recuperate from last quarter and get excited about this one. i'll post soon enough about my classes this quarter.

i'm excited that due to easter next weekend, my thursday night class and my friday morning class are both canceled. so i only have 1 class this week! don't worry, i'm keeping busy! i'm meeting with a group from last quarter to finally celebrate the end of our project from last quarter. the missions fair is this week, so i volunteered to help with that a few hours. i figure if i'm trying to claim CA residency, i should have a CA driver's license, so i hope to get to the DMV on wed to get it. not to mention for the classes i don't have to attend this week, the syllabus says something like "this is a great time to get ahead on reading!" yeah, right!

i'm currently trying to burn CDs, but my burner keeps flaking out on me. it's done one copy ok, but 3 died. argh. i also want to burn a cd of songs for the schell family as they transition overseas this summer/fall. they're good people, and i wish i could support them in more ways.

i went to san diego today to be moral support for stacey, who was preaching at a church down there. she was fine-tuning her sermon on the way down, and it was really neat to talk through it with her and learned so much! if you had asked me a year ago, i would have pooh-poohed the idea of sermons at all. in some ways, i still really don't like them. i feel like it's all one sided, that often it's one person who tells others what "truth" is and that's it. there's no feedback, there's no conversation, there's no responsibility or response of the congregation. these things are still true, to some extent. but i do see the need for a humble teacher to speak and teach new things. and it's my responsibility to respond and think critically about what was shared. and even more, i'm a verbal processor, so that's why i feel so passionately about it. but so is stacey. so her talking through her sermon was the perfect opportunity for me to ask questions, give her my feedback, and make connections with the material i wouldn't have been able to if i were just being "preached to". it was fabulous.

we talked about how subversive Jesus really is. we talked about it in my culture and transformation class this week, and i am amazed at the creativity, glory, and fullness of our God!

ok, so palm sunday. Jesus's mission all through the gospels was heading for Jerusalem. so here He is, finally entering Jerusalem, "the triumphal entry". normally when kings come back from war, they enter the city in a triumphal entry, like napoleon entered paris via the "arc de triomphe". but here Jesus is, entering in triumph not because of what He has already accomplished, but because of what He WILL accomplish.

He enters via the kidron valley, the burial place of the kings - foreshadowing. also in the valley are many lush gardens because of the life-giving water flowing through - Jesus is the Living Water.

He comes on a colt, a donkey that has never been ridden before. in the old testament, a donkey that had never been ridden before was used for 1) a sacrifice of atonement for murder; 2) the purification ritual of priests; and 3) to carry the ark of the covenant, which carried the law and the presence of God. Jesus came to be the atonement for our sins, purifying us of our sins so that we all are priests, He IS the presence of God in human form, and He is the new covenant, the new law. Jesus fulfills ALL of these OT forms!

if i were a king, riding in triumphal entry, i would want to come in on a stallion. nope, Jesus comes in on a humble donkey. i would also command everyone to create a parade just for me, to honor me and praise me. Jesus gets such praise, but it's spontaneous from the people - those whose lives have already been changed. they are voluntarily worshiping.

man, i love this stuff. so amazing. what a God i serve!