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| A Lovely DayOnce upon a time, Caitlin got up on a Tuesday morning.
She took a shower. It was enjoyable. She had a cup of coffee. It, too, was enjoyable. She got ready to go to the beach.
And that is exactly what she proceeded to do, along with her sister, her aunt, and two of her 3 little cousins.
They arrived at the beach, rented chairs with an umbrella, and applied sunscreen.
Then
Laura, whose sunglasses had been regrettably left behind, ventured back
across the street, accompanied by Caitlin, to the Dollar Tree. To
purchase sunglasses, of course.
After standing in line, and checking out 3 items, none of which were sunglasses, they went next door to Publix.
Dollar
Tree has unreasonably ugly sunglasses, and Publix has unreasonably
priced sunglasses. But Laura found a pair that would do, and they
finally headed back toward the beach.
The water was warm, and the waves were calm, so the cousins all had
a lovely time swimming while the aunt sat in the shade and read a book.
A
valuable lesson was learned this day - shade at the beach means
nothing. Ample amounts of sunscreen are required wherever you may
happen to be, due to the unfortunate reflection of the sun's rays on
the sand. All members of the little party came away a much brighter
shade of pink than when they had arrived. A much more painful pink
shade of pink, I might add.
Caitlin was enjoying herself quite well, swimming in the sea, when
Laura called her forth. "I have something to tell you!" she said.
"We're going parasailing! Aunt Cindy has gone now to sign us up!"
Something in Caitlin's stomach lurched a little. But it's not every day
one gets to go parasailing. Moments later, a boat pulled up, and they
were helped on by a friendly red man with a mustache and a long, long
ponytail. And to make what could be a very long ramble into a much
shorter ramble, a few more moments later, Caitlin and Laura were all
harnessed up and ready to sail.
And so they did. Caitlin squealed with glee as the wind pulled them
away from the boat, and then with terror, as she imagined horrible
things happening if the cable should chance to snap. Once all of the
rope was let out, and they were at least at eye level with the city
skyline, she relaxed, and let go her death hold on the straps. It was
silent and beautiful. Sadly, excepting the seagulls below them, the
most interesting thing they spotted was a plastic bag. But it didn't
matter, as the ride itself was amazing.
Once again on shore, Caitlin took another dip, had some snacks,
then rested on the unoccupied chair under the umbrella. She feigned to
be napping, but she was really straining to hear the party beside them.
There was an adorable little boy, speaking in the cutest accent.
Perhaps British? Caitlin was uncertain, and knew that it was silly to
be intrigued... people are just people... but their accent was cool, so
there.
Around 3 o'clock, they packed up and headed home, driving through quite a storm the last part of the way.
They arrived home, had dinner, showers, tidied up and such, and the little ones were put to bed.
Then Caitlin and her aunt proceeded to watch the last 3/4 of North and
South. And for those curious minds who happen to recall that this was
currently Caitlin's favorite film, you may or may not recollect that
this was now her 5th time having watched it. Happy for her, she watched
the lovely ending twice through, due to her aunt's premature slumber.
The movie had ended, the credits were rolling, and Caitlin looked over,
smiling to ask if the ending was satisfactory. Aunt Cindy's eyes were
shut. "You've just slept through the ending, haven't you!?" Caitlin
asked incredulously. Aunt Cindy rolled her head in partial recognition,
but still asleep. Caitlin nudged her. "You've slept through the ending"
she said. Poor, dear Aunt. She'd tried so hard to stay awake. And so,
after many minutes of wrestling with the unwilling remote control, a
satisfactory re-starting place was found, and the dear Aunt commenced
watching the last 5 minutes. She was well pleased.
Of course, the Uncle would have to walk in and say something to the
effect of, "oh, it was quite wonderful. All it needed was a Mr. Darcy."
Objections were made to this mockery, but what are grown men for, but
to tease poor women out of their minds when they simply want to enjoy a
happy ending?
Nevertheless, all's well that ends well. Even with aloe-covered shoulders, quite a lovely day this turned out to be. | | |
| From the Mind of a Double-Anti-Contemporarian
So, after my last blog post, I waited for a comment. I thought surely it was worthy of at least one, from someone, somewhere.
And
then Zach posted this note in reply. He was going to leave a comment,
but it got a little long-winded. I liked it rather a lot, so here it is.
It's worth the read, but if you don't like big words, don't bother trying. :) lol
_____________________________________________________________
I
think I'm becoming re-addicted to this stupid venting thing they call
'blogging'...anyway, this started out as a comment on Caiti Butler's
blog about going to a contemporary-worship service. Miss Butler grew up
in a traditionalist environment, as did I. In fact, my mind was so
unused to feeling syncopation that it fought back while listening to
Charlotte Church and received an ache...yes, the 'classical' music of
Charlotte Church used to give me headaches! Ah, and at the age of 13 I
did a 'wild' thing of smuggling an Enya CD into my bedroom and
listening to it from start-to-finish. Though I now listen to a
smattering of hardcore and bang my head against some heavy metal, I
still can't stand the ear-damaging noise-level of rock concerts...
Yes, very applicable blog to our divisionistic human natures. Perhaps
this anti-traditionalist (or, better put, nor really
anti-traditionalist as anti-anti-contemporary...hmm,
double-anti-contemporary, I like that...) blog should've been entitled
'Praise the Lord, yo!' instead of your Shakespearean form? Hehe...jp.
When was the last time anti-contemporary-ists checked the context before quoting John 4:23?
"But
the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to
worship him."
They use this passage to 'prove' that our worship
should be in the 'truth' of classical structures. Yet this passage is
of 'the woman at the well', and it immediately follows their
conversation about Jews worshiping in Jerusalem but Samaritans in their
little hills. I.e., this verse is saying that Jesus came to put an end
to the formalities and forms of worship. Our body is the New Temple,
and as such we may worship God in our 21st-century Jerusalems, as well
as our Samaritan hills. Which antagonizes another point brought up by
anti-contemporary-ists, that the Old Testament proves that God desires
a specific kind of worship. Amen to that, but the specific type of
music we use to express our loyalty and love is no longer given to our
American equivalent of Levite musicians at the Jerusalem Temple. Yes,
God desires a specific kind of worship--as this passage says, in
'spirit' and 'truth'--but neither imply the avoidance of
pulse-heightening songs. But still anti-contemporary-ists insist upon
using this passage to 'prove' that our worship should be in their
traditionalist 'Jerusalem'.
On the issue of the healthiness of
Rock, many cite early deaths of rock stars. To counter that evidence,
all one needs to do is consider for a moment all the other factors
possibly involved in the poor health of such persons. Still, I cede the
fact that living in the non-ending presence of deafening noise could be
adverse to one's health. But does that mean a little is bad? We know
too much work can kill you...but does that mean we should avoid it
completely? Also, a heightened pulse is a natural effect of
emotion...so, should we have no emotion in our worship?
Concordance definition of 'spirit':
2) the spirit, i.e. the vital principal by which the body is animated
a) the rational spirit, the power by which the human being feels, thinks, decides
b) the soul
4) the disposition or influence which fills and governs the soul of any one
a) the efficient source of any power, affection, emotion, desire, etc.
Concordance definition of 'truth':
truth as a personal excellence
1) that candour of mind which is free from affection, pretence, simulation, falsehood, deceit
If
anything, 'truth' is double-anti-contemporary, free of biased affection
for old hymns (and thus disaffection with contemporary worship), free
of the pretense and simulation of ritualized worship, free of the
falsehood and deceit which says that we must worship in Jerusalem.
Having said all this, bleurgh on the awful mimic-quality of most
contemporary musicians, and bleurgh on their awfully repetitive and
shallow choruses--CCM artists are often like boys seeing how many times
they can make a rock skip across a pond, without acknowledging that
treasures lie in the depths of dark waters. But are hymns' depth worth
anything more than this, if our mind dips its big toe in just enough to
flick some droplets of words up into our mouths? Let us now worship our
Lord in spirit and in truth, without the dumbingly-stupid and
repetitively-redundant shallowness of most CCM, but neither chained by
the Pharisaical belief that non-syncopated songs--or anything other
than Grace--leads to holiness. | | |
| Praise ye the LordPraise the Lord, O my soul.
While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.
(Ps. 146:1&2)
Sunday
morning, Laura and I went to church with Aunt Cindy, Uncle Guy, and
Alli. I'm so glad we did. My visit there was like a little revelation
of sorts. The message was a tremendous blessing, but the spirit of
worship is what really ministered to me.
I've grown
up in more "traditional" style Independent Baptist type churches all my
life. Being so, I expected it to be totally awkward and hard to focus
on actually worshiping. It's been that way most of the other times I've
visited churches that weren't what I've been used to. I've
been brought up around people who sometimes tend to judge others by
whether or not they wear skirts, or use a specific version of the
Bible, or hold different opinions on music. Sometimes the assumption is
made that if others are worshiping differently, it must not be true
worship. Like if they do such and such, they must not be as sincere as
we folk with stricter standards, and more old fashioned beliefs. Not
that I believed those things, but visiting Bridgeway
was such a contradiction to those assumptions and judgements. I could
really feel the presence of God Sunday morning, and it was so sweet to
see how everyone was bent on worshiping Him, and giving Him glory. It
was plain to see that the main goal there is to serve God.
And
all of that mad me think how sometimes we "traditionalists" miss out on
the joy of worship. So many times people will just stand there,
mechanically singing their saintly old- time hymns with their
orchestra, letting the "contemporary" people do all the real, sincere,
joyful worshipping. I've seen a room full of people singing hymns of
joy and thanksgiving, and their faces looked as if they were at a
funeral. Of course, you could sing the popular praise songs just as
mechanically...
This isn't a debate on music or styles, and I
still prefer hymns to most modern praise choruses, but I guess my point
is that true worship comes from the heart. It should be sincere and
joyful. Thankful. And it should cause you to reflect on how small you
are, and how great God is. All of our being should be consumed with
praising the One who deserves more praise and love than we could ever
give.
It was really nice Sunday to experience that joyful, humble, sincere worship in a different setting.
That's all. :) | | |
| We're in Florida!
Hi!
Tuesday morning, Laura and I were dropped off at the airport a little
around 6:30 AM. Our flight wasn't until 9:10. We were expecting a long,
boring, miserable wait, but somehow the time went past pretty quickly.
We checked in our baggage, and one suitcase was 4 pounds over the
limit. The fee for that was close to 30 dollars, but the nice girl at
the desk advised us to move any jeans we may have in there to another
suitcase, and that would take care of it. So, standing there fighting
to pull things out of a half-zipped suitcase and cram them into another
one was a little awkward, knowing there were people in line behind us
who probably wanted us to hurry up. But it was much less painful than
30 dollars. :D
After we went through security, we decided to kill our time by riding
the concourse to the international side of the airport. We got on at
gate C, (we had headed there first to make sure we knew where we needed
to be) then rode all the way (shoot - I just spilled some coffee on
myself.) to the last gate, then AAAALLL the way back past C, past
baggage claim, to where we wanted to be. It was a fun ride. lol
We walked around looking for breakfast. Laura got a cinnamon something
at McDonald's. I had pretty much decided I wanted yogurt and granola or
fruit or something, but had no idea where to get it. We went to
Starbucks to get some coffee. Turns out, they have yogurt and granola
and fruit parfait thingies. So, I got one. It was good, except for the
blueberries. They were more like... chewy fibrous lumps. Weird.
As I was eating, I noticed a guy that looked like some sort of hippy
beach bum sitting in a comfy chair, reading something. And then I
noticed he was reading a Bible. And then I noticed that he was focusing
intently, and writing stuff down. And then I was very impressed that a
guy in starbucks was studying his Bible.
And then I thought how it's kind of sad to be impressed when you see
someone reading a Bible. This country was founded on the Bible.
Everyone ought to know it and love it. It should not be uncommon to see
young men reading and studying the greatest book that exists instead of
sports magazines. But it is.
Laura and I sat down in comfy chairs, too, and she read a Narnia book
while I wrote in my journal. We decided it was much nicer to kill time
in a Starbucks than by sitting, waiting, at our gate.
We went back to our gate, where there were no empty seats. Fortunately,
it was much closer to time to board than I thought it was, so we didn't
have to wait around too long. I left Laura with our stuff and went to
get a bottle of overpriced water. By the time I came back, it was time
to board! Hoorah!
I love flying. I hurt my neck looking out the window. :P My favorite
part is takeoff. Watching the ground get further and further away... so
cool. Especially when the plane tilts... Awesome.
The flight was relaxing and uneventful... although the man in front of me smelled kind of funny.
So. We got to Tampa, and waited for our bags. Got them, nearly had my
arms ripped off carrying them to Aunt Cindy's car, and then headed
home. Or home for now, anyways. And my poor shoulders were sore from
carrying our suitcases for the next two days. Blast us girls and our
need to carry everything with us. And I don't even like what I packed.
lol
Aunt Cindy and Uncle guy left a couple hours after we got here for a
little vacation. Sarah and Anna are also on vacation visiting some
relatives. So, it' jut been me, Laura, and Alli. Very quiet and
uneventful.
We've eaten leftovers all week. I have NO IDEA how to only cook for 2
or 3 people. I tried. And we still have had gobs of leftovers.
Seriously. heh.
So, um... kudos to you if you read this whole post. It seems kind of
boring to me. I'm sorry. I wanted to write a funny, interesting post,
but... I thought I should write something, so I just started rambling.
And this is what happened.
Have a good day. :)
Me | | |
| Return of the Redhead (and other short stories)Once upon a time, a couple of years ago now, Goldilocks dyed her long,
curly hair red. It was very red. It was supposed to wash out, but it
never did. She did all sorts of things to her hair during the next two
years. She cut it, cut it some more, turned it blonde again, and cut it
some more. Not quite so very long ago, she dyed it strawberry blonde.
She decided to let it grow out. Then she dyed it plain blonde. Once
upon yesterday, she colored it yet again.
Goldilocks is no more.
She's a redhead.
At least for now.
The End.
(Other Short Stories)
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