Can I petition for a 25th hour of the day, or an 8th day of the week?
I'm beginning to realize that my current schedule is not sustainable. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are 12-14 hour days between interning at the church and going to classes, Thursday's I'm in class from 8am-4pm, Friday's I'm at work at the architecture firm from 9am-5pm, and Sundays I'm at the church from 7:30am-12:30pm. Mind you, this is before I've done the reading for my 18 units of classes or any homework. That essentially leaves the Thursday evening, Friday during the slow times at work, all of Saturday and the last half of Sunday to catch up for the week.
This weekend I attended a mandatory retreat with APU on Friday and Saturday. They graciously offered to waive any class absences I would have received on Friday (of which there were none, although I did miss 8 hours of work and the opportunity to do homework), and Saturday we got back at a modest 10:00pm. I wasn't able to get to sleep last night until 1:30 because I was really sick and jittery, so I got about 4 hours of sleep. Today I remembered that we had our monthly Jr High party from 6-8pm, which I was prepared for. What I wasn't prepared for was the impromptu pool party immediately after church that went until 4:30, so I worked 12 hours with a one-hour break in the middle on a day I would normally have for homework.
It's 9:05 right now, and in 20 minutes I have a meeting for a group presentation that's tomorrow, and I'm too burnt to be able to contribute anything significant to the group. I haven't been able to read any assignments for class except on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons for the last two weeks, which means I haven't read enough to attend any of my classes fully prepared. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can cut out of my schedule, since my internship is required for school and I don't do anything else.
Tomorrow I start my 3 consecutive 12-hour days over again.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
We're All Responsible
I was recently part of a discussion group in which we dialogued about the nature of sin and responsibility, and the conclusion we eventially came to was this: We're all responsible for each others' sins.
It was an alarming conclusion that we came to that night as we gathered around to discuss Dostoevsky's work, The Brothers Karamazov. It seems, on the surface, to be a rather outrageous statement; are we to be held responsible for the wrongdoings of the people around us? I have to admit, I was about ready to shut out the rest of the conversation and keep to myself until we moved on. Fortunately, I engaged the topic.
What's at the heart of the word "responsible"? Response. In being responsible, we're called to respond to the sins of one another.
That can be taken extremely legalistically, and we can easily "point out the specks in the eyes" of everyone else. The problem is that the American church has approached the problem of sin in a very juridical way - we've broken the law, and now we need to be justified. See, the rest of Christendom (a fancy name for the Church), sees sin as a sort of disease, or a brokenness that we suffer, and thus they see the redemptive work of God as more of a healing process than as some divine legal acquittal that we experience through the substitution of Christ. So if we begin to see sin as a state of brokenness, rather than focusing on merely the act of wrongdoing, the way we interact with each other changes drastically.
In saying that we are responsible for each others' sins, we are called to respond [in love] to the brokenness of those around us.
Love Wins.
It was an alarming conclusion that we came to that night as we gathered around to discuss Dostoevsky's work, The Brothers Karamazov. It seems, on the surface, to be a rather outrageous statement; are we to be held responsible for the wrongdoings of the people around us? I have to admit, I was about ready to shut out the rest of the conversation and keep to myself until we moved on. Fortunately, I engaged the topic.
What's at the heart of the word "responsible"? Response. In being responsible, we're called to respond to the sins of one another.
That can be taken extremely legalistically, and we can easily "point out the specks in the eyes" of everyone else. The problem is that the American church has approached the problem of sin in a very juridical way - we've broken the law, and now we need to be justified. See, the rest of Christendom (a fancy name for the Church), sees sin as a sort of disease, or a brokenness that we suffer, and thus they see the redemptive work of God as more of a healing process than as some divine legal acquittal that we experience through the substitution of Christ. So if we begin to see sin as a state of brokenness, rather than focusing on merely the act of wrongdoing, the way we interact with each other changes drastically.
In saying that we are responsible for each others' sins, we are called to respond [in love] to the brokenness of those around us.
Love Wins.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Where are our priorities?
I was watching CNN the other day, and it was the first glimpse I had of what's going on in Haiti. Trucks filled with bags of rationed rice, surrounded by soldiers armed with automatic weapons, further surrounded by rounds and rounds of razor wire. Children and old women who haven't eaten in days are pushed by the crowd into the razor wire, and soon become entangled in it. And off to the side of these people are the restaveks. They are child laborers, sold into slavery and hardly noticed. They are easy prey for exploitation, they're beaten, sexually abused, and frequently denied access to education. These restaveks wait off at the side of the crowd and literally search for scraps of food that fall from the relief packs given to everyone else.
In a matter of seconds, CNN transitioned ever-so-naturally to a more important topic: Sarah Palin's first TV interview since she was chosen as McCain's running mate.
Could our priorities be any more fucked up?
Are you more concerned that I just said "fuck" than you are that there are thousands of starving and abused children in Haiti?
I should probably explain my choice of wording... I don't think our culture has any phrase more suited to communicate such a strong distortion of justice and convey that deep level of brokenness. We live in a desperately broken world, and our main priorities are on our "struggling" economy (which is still among the most affluent in the world), and how much "better" our own country will be after the upcoming election (which we feel is of the utmost importance to cover every minutiae of the candidates' campaigns).
On a side note, even the news coverage of Hurricane Ike centered primarily on Post-Katrina politics. I don't understand why human tragedies never amount to more than the political soup du jour...
In a matter of seconds, CNN transitioned ever-so-naturally to a more important topic: Sarah Palin's first TV interview since she was chosen as McCain's running mate.
Could our priorities be any more fucked up?
Are you more concerned that I just said "fuck" than you are that there are thousands of starving and abused children in Haiti?
I should probably explain my choice of wording... I don't think our culture has any phrase more suited to communicate such a strong distortion of justice and convey that deep level of brokenness. We live in a desperately broken world, and our main priorities are on our "struggling" economy (which is still among the most affluent in the world), and how much "better" our own country will be after the upcoming election (which we feel is of the utmost importance to cover every minutiae of the candidates' campaigns).
On a side note, even the news coverage of Hurricane Ike centered primarily on Post-Katrina politics. I don't understand why human tragedies never amount to more than the political soup du jour...
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