living with children

So, I am staying with a friend in my homeless between moves interim, and she is married with two young children. I haven't spent much time with children in several years, really not since I finished college I suppose, and I am realizing that being a full fledged adult gives me an entirely new perspective on children. (I suppose living with them also creates a perspective different from just babysitting or spending an hour or two with them)
Anyway, some things I am seeing differently. Learning to negotiate one's own space, sharing space and things, and dealing with feelings, experiences, and emotions, is quite a task. A lot happens in life, and my abilities to regulate my emotions (more or less successfully) I often take for granted now.
Life is simpler, and at the same time it's still a lot to deal with. Milk or juice, Elmo or Pingu, which ball bounces best, and whether or not a bath or diaper change is really necessary are all very serious choices. And at the same time, the mind seems to be always working, taking in information, trying things out, figuring out what everything means and what consequences come with what actions. Watching the little guy poke things, drop things, throw things, pick up things, and otherwise explore is really fascinating.
At the same time, he also has personality and humor, and sometimes just likes to say no because he can. I had what I felt was a victorious moment when I bested him in a philosophical debate. It was time for supper, and his mom called them to come eat, and he stayed on the couch. I went over to him and said "Let's go eat," and he responded with a simple "No." (which is much cuter when he says it, but try to imagine that from a 20 month old) I said, "No? Don't you want to eat?" to which he again replied, "No." So I asked, "Why not?" He sat there for a short while, seemingly contemplating the question, and I can only suppose he couldn't come up with a good answer, because with no further ado he crawled off the couch and went to the bathroom to wash his hands.
Besides all the complicated parts of negotiating emotions and negative feedback and uncomfortable feelings, there is little more fun and contagious to listen to than little people laughing. It is often very simple things that make them laugh, such as funny faces or noises or even just playing along and throwing a ball, but get them laughing and I can't help but laugh too.
Raising children, I see most clearly now, is no small task, and makes for tired parents and a lot of randomness (I never know what I will find in the bathroom when I go to take a shower, or in the yard or living room when I get home from work), and at the same time is a powerful work, guiding the development of young minds, bodies, and souls. Amazing, really, and not something to be taken lightly.

suggestions for direction

Hey all, here's the very beginning of a story. I'm looking for suggestions and plot ideas. Let me know what you think. Thanks! (poll the audience... why not?)

The cold naturally made her cry. It was getting dark and she hurried down the sidewalk, ready for a reprieve from the cold air and a chance to dry the cold tears. It was the middle of December, and there were bright wreaths and sparkling multi-colored lights on many of the houses, brightening the walk. She tried to take notice of these things, revel in the way the lights reflected off the snow and how crisp the neatly shoveled walks looked as they ran dark ribbons through the bright snow. The snow had a bluish tint from the darkening sky.

                She arrived at her ribbon sidewalk and followed it around the house to a back door. She let herself in and went up the stairs to her attic apartment. The stairs opened into a small kitchen, and she immediately filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove to heat. She set down a brown paper bag with the bagel she had picked up on the way home and went to put her bag down in the corner of her living room that was her work space. She went to hang her coat in the bedroom closet and pulled off her boots. She glanced quickly out the window in her bedroom and saw that it had started to snow again. She watched the flakes fall for a minute until she was pulled out of her reverie by the whistling kettle and hurried back to the kitchen.

                She pulled a mug from a cabinet and grabbed a package of hot chocolate from the box on the counter. She poured that in the mug and then filled it with hot water, stirring as she poured. She grabbed an orange from the basket on the counter and sat down at the kitchen table, pulling the bagel out of the paper bag. She took a bite, staring thoughtfully out the kitchen window. It was completely dark outside now, but the snow always made the night brighter, and the streetlights reflected off some of the snowflakes as they fell.

                She had not taken the time to pay attention to these things in a while.

just a spider

This is an excerpt from a paper, so it may seem a little disconnected, but I wanted to share it anyway.

"I’m watching a spider slowly make its way across the ceiling. It falls, catches itself with web, and climbs back up. It falls again after travelling a bit further, and appears to be trying to find ground, sinking a bit lower in exploration, before giving up and climbing up again. I do not know how it got up there, and it probably has no recollection of that either. However it happened, we find it there now and it must fight gravity and rough terrain to continue its journey. Persistence is required.

Sometimes I look at myself and am not quite sure how I got here. Sometimes I fall off the ceiling and hang there for a bit, hoping maybe ground will appear beneath me. Then I climb up and keep going. I could catch the spider the next time it falls off the ceiling and move it outside, which would keep me from having a spider web in my apartment, although I am not sure the spider would find it helpful (even though we usually like to consider that a rescue)."

people we meet

As I'm getting close to what is likely the end of my time in Minnesota (various details still to be worked out), and being all graduated and having classmates already beginning the post-graduation migration throughout the wild blue yonder, I'm reflecting on the people I know, the people I've met here, and people in other places.
Some people we meet and we know our interactions with them will be short lived. Some people come and go, many whose names we will never even know.
Thanks to the internet and all the ways of keeping in touch with people instantly all over the world, many people that would be part of our lives for only a short time get to remain on the peripheries, connected with us through the occasional e-mail, Facebook post, or online chat.
Then there are those people that we spend more time with, in classes or working together, connecting regularly for social occasions, etc. We share some common interests and a decent bit of time, often becoming familiar with some of each others' idiosyncrasies.
There are many layers of connections we make with people, from student-teacher relationships, peer relationships, random common interest relationships, etc. We are relational by nature, and we naturally connect with others in various ways while we are in a place. The thing about moving is how all those relationships change. They change over time anyway, but a geographic jump has a large affect. Who will I still be in regular contact with? Through which media? Will I ever see some of these people in person again? Probably not.
To me this also makes the idea of networking fascinating. We network with one another to fill various roles and needs in our lives, and while sometimes that can be manipulative, most of the time it is human relation and ingenuity at work.
The deeper bit of this that I ponder is those connections that have been deep and helpful that must change. We often meet someone who touches our life especially, maybe in a way we needed most at the time, or simply finding connections to some people that mean more to us than others. We experience this all the time, greater affinity for some people over others. These must also change over time and through distance, and I can't help but think about those old images of heaven I grew up with, when we all meet again together. Our life is never perfect now, and circumstances take us to and from people all the time, whether we want them to or not. Is this part of our promise for a hope and a future, a chance to spend time with not just family but also friends that we lose sight or touch of over the years? Can there be reunion of these treasured moments of relationship, in whatever form, when we are all redeemed and renewed? I want to think so. It seems to fall in line with God's vision for the future. I hope so.

God's ambivalence

I will tell you, a week of manual labor when one has spent the last several years mostly sitting and studying will certainly clear the head through monotony and exhaustion. That and some helpful conversations. And I could use some clarity. I just graduated, and once again I am stuck in post graduation ambiguity. Unlike many of my classmates, I do not have a clear path ahead and no immediate full time job prospects. Thus I had been feeling quite a bit of anxiety as the semester wrapped up and since graduation, with various distractions thrown in, until this past week and the start of my summer job on grounds crew, mowing, weeding, etc.
Then I also had the chance to have some conversations, one in particular on balancing independence and dependence, that helped me chill out some and recenter myself a bit. Then this morning I went to worship and the sermon was, to use words from a conversation I had yesterday, about the ambivalence of God. Not that God does not care about us, but that God does not micromanage. Sometimes we will be presented with various opportunities, and sometimes they mean we have to make a choice where there is no clear right choice. So we seek guidance, and then do the best we can with our choice, and God can and will still work with and through us regardless of which way we end up going. One thing that often frustrates me is the inability to see very far into the future and thus being unable to discern what consequences lie on the path ahead, which leads to a proper amount of trust and dependence on God and others, which is something I have long struggled with (I am far too independent much of the time).
I still can't tell where exactly I'm headed, but I'm starting to take some small steps and hopefully will continue to be reminded to pause, breathe, and listen to the still small voices that will speak if I stop getting so distracted by the storm swirling around me.

natural gas and being smart

I'm not sure that's the most appropriate title for this post, but let's go with it. You might say this is a tale with a hidden public service message (or slightly explicit one). 'Tis a harrowing tale (or could have been).
This past weekend I had been out a little later than anticipated playing games with some friends. I got back to my apartment building around midnight, and when I unlocked the front door and stepped in, I was immediately struck by the strong odor of natural gas. We have gas stoves in our apartments, but I knew there was no gas line running through the front stairwell anywhere, and it was much stronger than a hint of gas where maybe someone had just started cooking. There was a brief moment of wondering what on earth I should do since it was midnight and I was fairly certain everyone else in the building was already asleep. I was also trying to remember all the things I'd ever learned about natural gas, like if it was lighter or heavier than air (thus would it rise or fall) and if it had any other side effects besides being explosive (none too insignificant a property, either). I determined if nothing else I should open the front windows to let some of the gas out, and I should not flip any light switches.
The next thing I did is never recommended, and had there been no one else in the building I might not have done it, but after letting some of the gas out of the stairwell I went searching for a source to what must be a leak. I moved very cautiously and did not flip any light switches and tried to avoid anything that might cause a spark (I do not know what the concentration needs to be before it ignites, but I can only imagine we were getting near that). There was too much of the smell in a large portion of the building, however, so after finding someone else awake in the building and asking if they smelled gas, too (looking back that seems rather silly, but I was beginning to second guess myself; after a while the smell almost seems to follow a person and goes to the head). They said they had noticed that, so I determined I needed to call someone. This all took probably much more time than it should have, but I had opened a few more windows in the building by now, so at least the concentration of gas in the building was going down. I called our campus watch number, they came and checked it out, and then used their calling procedure to call those who could appropriately respond to the situation. After several phone calls (by this time everyone we called was asleep), opening more windows and doors to create more ventilation, and determining that none of the gas lines in public places were leaking, and waiting, the head of facilities came over and woke all the residents to check each apartment for leaks (and I imagine at this time to make sure we were all still alive). The leak was found in one of the apartments, that resident was instructed to leave all the windows of the apartment open and the facilities head turned off the gas line in that apt and would call the plumber in the morning to fix it.
As all of these adventures concluded, and I crawled into bed at 3am, I reflected on the whole thing and realized just how dangerous that could have been. Had I already been home, already asleep as well, or had come home an hour or two earlier (the resident in the apt with the leak had noticed a smell around 9 or 10 but didn't know what it was), there would have been gas leaking all night and we likely would have either asphyxiated or exploded. Rather sobering thought, really.
So I conclude with the admonition: if you have any appliance or anything that uses natural gas in your home, be familiar with the smell (it is an added smell because natural gas is odorless by nature) (and this can be done, especially if you have a gas stove, by paying attention to the smell that comes out when you first turn on and ignite a burner) and take it seriously when it seems strong or otherwise more than you smell on a regular basis. It's great to cook with (and otherwise a useful fuel), but like most things, requires attention and responsibility.

reflections on this end

It's funny how quickly we get to the end of something when, at the beginning, it seemed like it would take forever. That's a bit how I feel these four years of seminary have gone. Four years sounded like forever four years ago. And now they're over and I don't really believe it. A lot has happened, and I am not the person I was when I started. I have learned a lot and done a lot. And yet I still feel there is so much more to learn.
I turned in the last of my assignments, and now I am just waiting until graduation. (I have stuff to keep me occupied, no worries) It's weird to not have homework anymore, even as it was weird to start having homework again. My habits are going to have to change again, and I never enjoy that.
And now I walk around campus and start thinking about some of these things being the last time I will do them, the last time I will see something from this perspective. Everything changes, so we walk around and soak it up while we can. (well, this year the weather's been rather reluctant to change from winter to spring, but most everything else is moving full steam ahead)
However, I think my brain may still be a bit mushy from all the thinking I've been doing lately, so I think this post is even more mundane and pointless than I originally imagined. Sorry y'all. Give me a topic and I'll try to do better next time.