i originally wrote this on 2/12, then deleted it. I'm putting it back up!1. A lot of people think I am cheating Lent by substituting other forms of caffeine for coffee. What's up with that? Who would have thought that so many people around me would actually turn into these weird Pharasee type people criticizing me for drinking a flipping coke! People don't seem to get that I gave up COFFEE ONLY and NOT CAFFIENE! It seriously makes me just want to get some damn coffee. What's the point of continuing if everyone thinks I'm cheating anyway or not really sacrificing anything. It would be really easy to rationalize at this point, considering especially how stupid giving up coffee is in the grander scheme of things. In fact, upon reflection, it seems like if there was one thing I was going to share about my faith, giving up coffee for Lent is probably the dumbest idea I've had in awhile. Live and learn, I guess! Still I like the idea of being able to celebrate Easter this year with a triple latte-- and the likely inappropriate comicical vision of Christ coming back from the dead with a coffee stand punch card in his hand looking to get his free 20 ouncer. (I can't believe I just wrote that!)
2. So I didn't really go into a whole lot of detail about my experience at the barn church that I wrote about a couple of posts ago. I did tell what happened but I didn't go into a lot of detail about the actual art. When I told my brother the story, he immediately coined the phrase "painting in tongues" to describe what I saw the man doing. The cynic in me likes this phrase a lot (side thought- are there any cynics in Christ!? seriously!). One painting was of Mt. Rainier erupting and in the lava there was a lion growling. Talk about making guests feel welcome! Actually the people there were very kind and nice seeming, except for the fact the whole church seemed to point to what McClaren has termed "evacuation Christianity". Its too bad so many Christians want to evacuate the earth, though things are so bad now for so many, who can blame people that follow religions offering a fairly straightforward way out. Anyway, I wanted to write a post about different worship styles. What's the deal with public worship being so damn important? It always feels so fake to me, but maybe I'm just bitter because I can't sing. I don't want to drive people away from God by singing in church. Ok, thats a bit of a lie. Still, it seems so unnatural to me to stand there and try to sing, especially stuff that reminds me of a TBN benefit for Paul and Jan. This is part of the reason I like hymns and even then I've noticed some hymns aren't really hymns, but "contemporary" stuff from the 70s disguised as hymns. More on this soon, I hope!
3. Today I had to attend a conference for work on the washington state learning standards and their application to volunteer run programs such as ours. Eventually I have to figure out how to get the volunteers to understand and follow the standards as well as the curriculum framework, since the volunteers are acting as teachers even though they are tutoring and there are major differences (and questions about) how the material should be presented. First though I have to understand the standards myself! I have to learn how to make volunteers feel excited about this. There are a lot of people around the state in community based orgs trying to figure this out. Still, the idea of trying to make volunteers understand this and actually do it gives me the chills. I guess ultimately it will come down to how we talk about the standards and framework with volunteers. This is still at least a year away and I have a great mentor. The reason I am writing about it on my supposed sprituality blog is because it reminds me of how I am trying hard to figure out how to write and speak about my faith in a way that isn't so --insert undesirable adjective/s--
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