I was always afraid of cooking – partially because I didn’t want to have to put in effort to make something to eat but mostly because I was afraid I would be very bad at it. I made it all through high school putting off my mother’s attempts to get me cooking (I think maybe besides french toast I learned how to make chicken enchiladas once…). When college came along, I had a mealplan with the school, so anytime I became hungry it was close to one meal time or another and I would head over to the cafeteria for a variety of pre-prepared foods. You’d think after college I would have started cooking… nope. I spent the summer months living with a wonderful family in North Andover, MA while working for SoulFest full-time. The family I stayed with loved cooking and always had a meal prepared for me to eat whenever we were all home and ready to eat. When the summer came to an end and my job with SoulFest was over, I moved back in to my parents’ place where my mother continued to feed me.
A Recipe for Desire
The Vision
So this guy comes up to me and says “What’s the vision? What’s the big idea?” I open up my mouth and the words come out like this:
The vision? The vision is Jesus. Obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people. You see bones? I see an army. And they are free from materialism. They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday, they wouldn’t even notice. They know the meaning of the matrix, the way the west was won. They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations, they need no passport. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and young.
What is the vision? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure. Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps and their Satan games.
This is an army that would lay down its life for the cause a million times a day. Its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great “well done” of faithful sons and daughters. Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don’t need fame from names. Instead, they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again “come on!”
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Throwing Salt in the Hallway
For the first time in weeks, I was able to have a date night with Derek and we were able to talk for so long about so many different things. One of my favorite parts about our relationship is that we talk about everything, whether it’s a current issue, a remote possibility, embarrassing, frustrating or exciting. While sometimes these talks can be very intense, they definitely help us to learn a lot about each other, and I appreciate that honesty in our relationship.
Probably the most discussed topic that night was children – whenever either of us got married, when would we want to have children, how many, what names did we like and most importantly how would we want to raise those children. This is a hard subject for me to wrap my mind around. I have seen many different examples and outcomes of parenting styles and ways of raising children and I could tell you countless things that I am certain I do not want to do when it comes to raising my children. However, when it comes to thinking of ways I’m certain I want to raise my children, it gets a little harder. I want to be the best parent that I can be and I want to raise my children in a loving, Christian home and to train them up in the way they should go – down the path of righteousness. And I want it to become their faith and not just mine and my husbands. But how do I do that? I’m definitely not going to have all the answers right now, but that won’t stop me from seeking, reading, searching, praying and discussing the possibilities.
Mental Church Evaluations
I went out to my first church-hunting service alone on October 24th to a church in Chelmsford, MA. The previous week, I had attended a new church with my boyfriend and joined some friends we knew that were attending there. So, October 24th was my first real hunt alone – kind of exciting, kind of nerve wracking at the same time. : )
I’ve discovered that I have sort of a mental checklist or observation sheet in my head as I’ve started attending the churches on my list.
What’s the building like? The location?
I know the whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” thing, but I’ve always been interested in aesthetics. Everywhere I go I look at the surroundings and the makeup of different things to get a feel for what it is. Now, I know that what a building looks like on the outside and where it’s located doesn’t say everything about it, but I think it plays an important role. For example, churches that do not have the most beautiful exterior are most focused on their community, bringing new members in through connections with current members or denominations and what goes on within its walls, which is in no way bad. Meanwhile, other churches that have gorgeous landscapes and well-kept exteriors tend to be more inviting to passersby, bringing in people who may not be connected with the church or denomination based on what their exterior has to offer. Again, this is just a generalization about the outside of churches, but I’m sure we can all be honest that when looking at churches, passing a church that is not as well kept up as most, we would probably only check it out if we were familiar with the denomination or knew people who attended there, while churches that catch our eye and are better looking tend to draw us in initially.
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