My life has finally slowed down to take a breath. For the past month, I've been uber busy with three things: my work term report, the Christmas play, and my distance course. It is with great delight that I declare that all three have been completed, and I feel good about them all.
My work term report was about steel sections. I won't go into details (I was sworn to secrecy), but suffice it to say that it was interesting, educational, and hopefully even a contribution to the company.
The Christmas play turned out really well. Memorizing all those lines was harder than I thought! Peter did a great job writing it, even though we did some re-writes in some places. I really enjoyed "fighting" with Allison - I was acting opposite her. She was playing a thirty-year-old taxi driver named Jen and I was playing a thirty-year-old university researcher named James. The idea of the story was that we went to Sunday school together as kids, but hadn't seen each other in years. I get a ride to church in her taxi, and it's a while before we realize that we knew each other as kids. I've "become quite involved in the church" and she thinks "the Christmas story is just too far fetched to be real". I spend the entire taxi ride telling her the Christmas story as it is told in the Bible rather than the Sunday school version she remembers. The scenes of the two of us in the cab alternate with scenes of Mary and Joey (Peter and Amanda) acting out the Christmas story as it might happen in a North American city today. Cowgirls come visit them instead of shepherds, and they sleep in a parking lot instead of a stable. As I tell the story, Jen goes from being incredulous to accusing me of changing the story to being outraged at people not treating Jesus with respect. When we get to the church, I've convinced Jen that the Christmas story really happened, and we walk into the church, only to find that all the people in the story are there in the nativity scene.
My favorite idea presented in the play was one of its main purposes; to highlight how difficult the whole Christmas story was for the people involved, especially Mary and Joseph. In the play, when Mary tells Joey that she's pregnant, he accuses her of cheating on him and demands the engagement ring back. When Joey is confronted by an angel, he goes back to Mary to beg forgiveness, and it takes a lot of pleading on Joey's part before she's willing to accept the ring back. It's emphasized that Mary had to ride 100km on a donkey while she was nine months pregnant "and Joseph had to walk!" It's a huge deal when there's nowhere for them to stay when they get to Bethlehem, and then Joseph has to deliver the baby himself. Like Jen says, "I don't know why as kids they show us pictures in books of baby Jesus lying in a pile of nicely groomed hay, looking like he's getting the royal treatment. It wasn't that way at all! He was probably lying in a puddle of goat drool or something!" Jesus' birth wasn't just humble; it was painful and humiliating. It was accompanied with the cries of mothers and fathers whose babies were being slaughtered because of the King's fear. The story of Jesus' birth is almost as ugly as it is beautiful, just like the story of his death.
My distance course was Engineering Economics. It was the first course I've ever taken by distance, and I enjoyed the format tremendously. I could pause the professor, eat during class, and watch a class as many times as I wanted. It was sweet having such a flexible schedule. This was also my first economics course, and it will probably be my last. Don't get me wrong, the material was quite interesting, but it's the only economics course that will fit into my schedule until I graduate, and I don't forsee taking another undergraduate degree. I'm really glad this is a required course, because through it, I learned a lot of practical things about how to manage money. When it started, though, I found myself rebelling against nearly everything my professor would say.
My thinking could be exemplified by a psychology experiment I learned about in the True Love Waits Bible study back when Leanne was my youth pastor. A researcher left a child in a room with a marshmellow, telling the child that if after five minutes, he or she had not eaten the marshmellow, they could have two marshmellows. The researchers then recorded which children waited for the second marshmellow. Once the children had grown up, the researchers found them again. They discovered that the children who had waited for the two marshmellows became more successful in their careers and their relationships.
The analogy for the Bible study was that God was leaving us in a world with lots of people we could become romantically involved with, but if we waited, He would give us a better relationship than any of the ones we could find on our own. My analogy for finances, however, was that I could either spend my money on something small now, or I could wait until I had more money so I could buy something better.
The problem with analogies is that they over-simplify the case. If they didn't, they would be allegories. The problem with my finances analogy, as I discovered by taking the economics course, is that money doesn't retain its value. It's like the "Magic Penny" song. Do they sing that in Sunday school anymore? I hope not. That song confused the life out of me. "Hold it tight and you won't have any"? Hold a penny in your fist as long and as tightly as you can. If it magically disappears, kudos to you. If it doesn't, you'll understand why I was confused. Why we teach kids to sing about things they don't understand, I have no idea. It teaches them not to think when they're worshipping. When they become adults, they sing songs like "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" and never think to actually move when they say "They will dance with joy like we're dancing now"... but that's a topic for another time. The point is that if I don't invest my money, then I'm already wasting it.
Did you know that investing money is Biblical? Try Matthew 25:14-30. Use The Message instead of NIV or KJV. Normally, I'd suggest NIV, but the word "talents" just doesn't mean what it used to. This is a story I still struggle with, but I'm getting more of the picture. Starting off, I definitely would have been on the side of the third servant who buried his money in a hole. The first two guys could have lost the money! Anyway, this is a blog, not a sermon, so I'll leave the further reading up to you, but i think it's an important story.
My time in Calgary has come to an end... for the second time this year. Leaving the first time around was much different than leaving now. Having spent an extra four months here, I've grown a lot closer to people. I've grown used to the schedule of driving in to work with Uncle Kerry in the mornings, coming 'home' to Aunt Cheryl who always asks how my day was, and eating supper while watching Gilmore Girls (well.. maybe haven't gotten used to everything). It's going to be sad not seeing Lindsay and Michael on Fridays for youth group, not talking with the people at Glenmore on Sundays, and not getting together with the Christmas play cast four times a week. It's going to be difficult not having a Bible study anymore, especially after having one that has been such a blessing to me. The hardest difference, though, between leaving the first time and now is that the first time, I knew I was coming back.
Not to end on a sad note, there is much for me to be looking forward to over the next while. I'm going to finally see my parents and my brother again, I'll be getting together with a lot of good friends, and I'll be able to sleep in my own bed again in just a few days. My birthday is coming up, Jesus' birthday is right after that, and then I'm off to the amazing conference called Urbana to do some more God-seeking. Finally, to finish off my travels, I'll be going to see Leanne and Dallas in Ontario for a few days before I get back to MUN for another semester. God lavishes His blessings on us when we ask!
My work term report was about steel sections. I won't go into details (I was sworn to secrecy), but suffice it to say that it was interesting, educational, and hopefully even a contribution to the company.
The Christmas play turned out really well. Memorizing all those lines was harder than I thought! Peter did a great job writing it, even though we did some re-writes in some places. I really enjoyed "fighting" with Allison - I was acting opposite her. She was playing a thirty-year-old taxi driver named Jen and I was playing a thirty-year-old university researcher named James. The idea of the story was that we went to Sunday school together as kids, but hadn't seen each other in years. I get a ride to church in her taxi, and it's a while before we realize that we knew each other as kids. I've "become quite involved in the church" and she thinks "the Christmas story is just too far fetched to be real". I spend the entire taxi ride telling her the Christmas story as it is told in the Bible rather than the Sunday school version she remembers. The scenes of the two of us in the cab alternate with scenes of Mary and Joey (Peter and Amanda) acting out the Christmas story as it might happen in a North American city today. Cowgirls come visit them instead of shepherds, and they sleep in a parking lot instead of a stable. As I tell the story, Jen goes from being incredulous to accusing me of changing the story to being outraged at people not treating Jesus with respect. When we get to the church, I've convinced Jen that the Christmas story really happened, and we walk into the church, only to find that all the people in the story are there in the nativity scene.
My favorite idea presented in the play was one of its main purposes; to highlight how difficult the whole Christmas story was for the people involved, especially Mary and Joseph. In the play, when Mary tells Joey that she's pregnant, he accuses her of cheating on him and demands the engagement ring back. When Joey is confronted by an angel, he goes back to Mary to beg forgiveness, and it takes a lot of pleading on Joey's part before she's willing to accept the ring back. It's emphasized that Mary had to ride 100km on a donkey while she was nine months pregnant "and Joseph had to walk!" It's a huge deal when there's nowhere for them to stay when they get to Bethlehem, and then Joseph has to deliver the baby himself. Like Jen says, "I don't know why as kids they show us pictures in books of baby Jesus lying in a pile of nicely groomed hay, looking like he's getting the royal treatment. It wasn't that way at all! He was probably lying in a puddle of goat drool or something!" Jesus' birth wasn't just humble; it was painful and humiliating. It was accompanied with the cries of mothers and fathers whose babies were being slaughtered because of the King's fear. The story of Jesus' birth is almost as ugly as it is beautiful, just like the story of his death.
My distance course was Engineering Economics. It was the first course I've ever taken by distance, and I enjoyed the format tremendously. I could pause the professor, eat during class, and watch a class as many times as I wanted. It was sweet having such a flexible schedule. This was also my first economics course, and it will probably be my last. Don't get me wrong, the material was quite interesting, but it's the only economics course that will fit into my schedule until I graduate, and I don't forsee taking another undergraduate degree. I'm really glad this is a required course, because through it, I learned a lot of practical things about how to manage money. When it started, though, I found myself rebelling against nearly everything my professor would say.
My thinking could be exemplified by a psychology experiment I learned about in the True Love Waits Bible study back when Leanne was my youth pastor. A researcher left a child in a room with a marshmellow, telling the child that if after five minutes, he or she had not eaten the marshmellow, they could have two marshmellows. The researchers then recorded which children waited for the second marshmellow. Once the children had grown up, the researchers found them again. They discovered that the children who had waited for the two marshmellows became more successful in their careers and their relationships.
The analogy for the Bible study was that God was leaving us in a world with lots of people we could become romantically involved with, but if we waited, He would give us a better relationship than any of the ones we could find on our own. My analogy for finances, however, was that I could either spend my money on something small now, or I could wait until I had more money so I could buy something better.
The problem with analogies is that they over-simplify the case. If they didn't, they would be allegories. The problem with my finances analogy, as I discovered by taking the economics course, is that money doesn't retain its value. It's like the "Magic Penny" song. Do they sing that in Sunday school anymore? I hope not. That song confused the life out of me. "Hold it tight and you won't have any"? Hold a penny in your fist as long and as tightly as you can. If it magically disappears, kudos to you. If it doesn't, you'll understand why I was confused. Why we teach kids to sing about things they don't understand, I have no idea. It teaches them not to think when they're worshipping. When they become adults, they sing songs like "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" and never think to actually move when they say "They will dance with joy like we're dancing now"... but that's a topic for another time. The point is that if I don't invest my money, then I'm already wasting it.
Did you know that investing money is Biblical? Try Matthew 25:14-30. Use The Message instead of NIV or KJV. Normally, I'd suggest NIV, but the word "talents" just doesn't mean what it used to. This is a story I still struggle with, but I'm getting more of the picture. Starting off, I definitely would have been on the side of the third servant who buried his money in a hole. The first two guys could have lost the money! Anyway, this is a blog, not a sermon, so I'll leave the further reading up to you, but i think it's an important story.
My time in Calgary has come to an end... for the second time this year. Leaving the first time around was much different than leaving now. Having spent an extra four months here, I've grown a lot closer to people. I've grown used to the schedule of driving in to work with Uncle Kerry in the mornings, coming 'home' to Aunt Cheryl who always asks how my day was, and eating supper while watching Gilmore Girls (well.. maybe haven't gotten used to everything). It's going to be sad not seeing Lindsay and Michael on Fridays for youth group, not talking with the people at Glenmore on Sundays, and not getting together with the Christmas play cast four times a week. It's going to be difficult not having a Bible study anymore, especially after having one that has been such a blessing to me. The hardest difference, though, between leaving the first time and now is that the first time, I knew I was coming back.
Not to end on a sad note, there is much for me to be looking forward to over the next while. I'm going to finally see my parents and my brother again, I'll be getting together with a lot of good friends, and I'll be able to sleep in my own bed again in just a few days. My birthday is coming up, Jesus' birthday is right after that, and then I'm off to the amazing conference called Urbana to do some more God-seeking. Finally, to finish off my travels, I'll be going to see Leanne and Dallas in Ontario for a few days before I get back to MUN for another semester. God lavishes His blessings on us when we ask!
