Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Problem of Pain
As I blogged about a few months ago I am reading a daily devotional that has portions of C.S. Lewis' work each day. I happen to be a huge fan of C. S. Lewis, and so when my mom saw it she knew I would love it. It's not often that is presented that day of what he wrote doesn't turn on a lightbulb, as it were, in some way, but there are a few days, where when I read it it's like somebody turned on floodlights. And today was one of them, so I figured I would share.
This is from 'The Problem of Pain' discusses the often asked question of 'why would an all knowing and all loving God allow people to experience pain and suffering.' It's a question most everyone has asked, and few have bothered to really answer - chalking it up to 'only God knows' or 'God has a plan' - which while all well and good, doesn't really teach you anything about the whole process, which in my opinion (and as it turns out C.S. Lewis') is the whole point. And so for 176 pages he discusses this one question. The thing I love so much about C.S. Lewis is his honestly. Multiple times he says something profound and then follows it up by saying something along the lines of now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it doesn't hurt or that it seems fair, I've experienced my fair share and I most certainly haven't acted the way I should, but I'm just telling you what I've learned in hopes it helps you understand. In my opinion, it's the only reasonable way to address someone else's pain - try to help, but don't try to pretend you know what they feel or that you can fix it. Only God can anyway, so don't hurt them more by pretending you can. But I digress, for what it's worth here is what I read this morning...hopefully it helps you understand a bit as well. As a preface I will say that leading up to this excerpt he has been talking about the products of suffering and pain - all of which are not bad IF the person experiencing it chooses that to be the case. He now flips to talk about the person 'producing' the pain.
"A merciful man aims at his neighbour's good and so does 'God's will', consciously co-operating with 'the simple good'. A cruel man oppresses his neighbor, and so does simple evil. But in doing such evil, he is used by God, without his own knowledge or consent, to produce the complex good - so that the first man serves God as a son, and the second as a tool. For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John. The whole system is, so to speak, calculated for the clash between good men and bad men, and the good fruits of fortitude, patience, pity, and forgiveness for which the cruel man is permitted to be cruel, presuppose that the good man ordinarily continues to seek simple good...To turn this into a general charter for afflicting humanity 'because affliction is good for them' is not indeed to break the Divine scheme but to volunteer for the post of Satan within that scheme. If you do his work, you must be prepared for his wages."
This is from 'The Problem of Pain' discusses the often asked question of 'why would an all knowing and all loving God allow people to experience pain and suffering.' It's a question most everyone has asked, and few have bothered to really answer - chalking it up to 'only God knows' or 'God has a plan' - which while all well and good, doesn't really teach you anything about the whole process, which in my opinion (and as it turns out C.S. Lewis') is the whole point. And so for 176 pages he discusses this one question. The thing I love so much about C.S. Lewis is his honestly. Multiple times he says something profound and then follows it up by saying something along the lines of now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it doesn't hurt or that it seems fair, I've experienced my fair share and I most certainly haven't acted the way I should, but I'm just telling you what I've learned in hopes it helps you understand. In my opinion, it's the only reasonable way to address someone else's pain - try to help, but don't try to pretend you know what they feel or that you can fix it. Only God can anyway, so don't hurt them more by pretending you can. But I digress, for what it's worth here is what I read this morning...hopefully it helps you understand a bit as well. As a preface I will say that leading up to this excerpt he has been talking about the products of suffering and pain - all of which are not bad IF the person experiencing it chooses that to be the case. He now flips to talk about the person 'producing' the pain.
"A merciful man aims at his neighbour's good and so does 'God's will', consciously co-operating with 'the simple good'. A cruel man oppresses his neighbor, and so does simple evil. But in doing such evil, he is used by God, without his own knowledge or consent, to produce the complex good - so that the first man serves God as a son, and the second as a tool. For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John. The whole system is, so to speak, calculated for the clash between good men and bad men, and the good fruits of fortitude, patience, pity, and forgiveness for which the cruel man is permitted to be cruel, presuppose that the good man ordinarily continues to seek simple good...To turn this into a general charter for afflicting humanity 'because affliction is good for them' is not indeed to break the Divine scheme but to volunteer for the post of Satan within that scheme. If you do his work, you must be prepared for his wages."
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Running in Place
At the beginning of the day I had a bunch of e-mails, and 4 major things to accomplish. I answered/responded/dealt with all the e-mails and amazingly enough did all the things I need to. It is 4:00 and I now have a bunch of e-mails and 4 major things to accomplish tomorrow. And it was at that moment when I decided I have no motivation to work for the last hour today - it's the same reason I don't like doing dishes. Sure it looks nice for a while, but before you know it the dishes are piled back up and it feels like you've accomplished nothing.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Hands Around the World
Our church picnic this weekend was awesome! We have quite a number of people from different countries that attend our church (hence the name International Church of God), and so each year we have a picnic to celebrate our cultural heritage as it were. This year, seeing as I'm now in charge of the kids, I was in charge of the kids crafts and pinata smashing :) All the countries make food, so we can sample different food from different countries (Aunt Barb - you guys should come down and we should totally do an Ethiopia table next year!) Sandor added Hungarian food to the festivities this year, as well as making a kilt for Justin (whose family actually is Irish and thus the kilt makes sense). Justin by the way won the best outfit award, earning Sandor his first award-winning kilt :)
After eating, we had a little pinata smashing and then retired to the volleyball court, where there is a battle of the nations...well kinda...this year we had Asia, Africa, Micronesia, and two USA teams. I think the rules are you need at least 2 people from the actual country (continent in many cases), and at least 2 girls on each team. I have never joined in the volleyball festivities as I haven't played volleyball since high school, but this year I was almost drafted for the Africa team, until they realized they had all the people they needed, and so at the last minute (as in the team was standing on the court and yelled, Becky where are you?) I was drafted onto the Asia team - hey what can I say, I go where I am called :) Considering I was a bit rusty, I wasn't all that bad - a few missed serves being the most obvious sign. In the end Micronesia won, thanks to their ridiculous ability to actually spike the ball.
Of course we picked the hottest day of the month, but whatever, it was fun anyway :)
I couldn't help but put this picture in - Good Lord she is cute!
Justin in his kilt looking for Ireland on the ginormous globe
Sandor showing the kids how to do one of the crafts that I brought for them, but for the life of me couldn't figure out
award time
me and Cynthia - you would not believe what it took to get the picture - Sandor kept snapping them without telling us and we looked ridiculous in every one!
After eating, we had a little pinata smashing and then retired to the volleyball court, where there is a battle of the nations...well kinda...this year we had Asia, Africa, Micronesia, and two USA teams. I think the rules are you need at least 2 people from the actual country (continent in many cases), and at least 2 girls on each team. I have never joined in the volleyball festivities as I haven't played volleyball since high school, but this year I was almost drafted for the Africa team, until they realized they had all the people they needed, and so at the last minute (as in the team was standing on the court and yelled, Becky where are you?) I was drafted onto the Asia team - hey what can I say, I go where I am called :) Considering I was a bit rusty, I wasn't all that bad - a few missed serves being the most obvious sign. In the end Micronesia won, thanks to their ridiculous ability to actually spike the ball.
Of course we picked the hottest day of the month, but whatever, it was fun anyway :)
filling the Pinata - those things take a LOT of candy!
I couldn't help but put this picture in - Good Lord she is cute!
Megan sporting her 'Team Leonard' t-shirt (otherwise known as Team Africa, but I like Team Leonard better) :)
Justin in his kilt looking for Ireland on the ginormous globe
Sandor showing the kids how to do one of the crafts that I brought for them, but for the life of me couldn't figure out
award time
me and Cynthia - you would not believe what it took to get the picture - Sandor kept snapping them without telling us and we looked ridiculous in every one!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Day Trip...of sorts
This week I was in Savannah for 2 days for a meeting that I was hosting as part of work. There were 4 other people from my office attending the meeting, which was on community based social marketing - super cool for anyone in the world of environmental education by they way. Problem was, an out of state travel request may as well be a request for a million dollars, because even though Savannah is closer than a number of locations in South Carolina, in the world of state governments it is all about process and procedure, and out of state travel is it's own process and procedure. Thankfully, there is a DNR facility about 45 minutes from Savannah, on the South Carolina side of the line, so we had a pretty easy way to deal with the denied travel request. And thus we had two day trips to Savannah :) Wednesday morning we drove down nice and early (a sweet 4:30 wake-up) and headed to the meeting. Afterwards since we were staying at a dorm-esk type thing we needed to find ourselves some dinner and so took a nice walk downtown to get moving after sitting inside all day, had some pizza, and then found our way to the...
...Savannah Candy Kitchen! Where we bought bags full of taffy...and ate disgusting amounts of taffy the next day (fyi - don't buy bags full of taffy if you don't want to eat bags full of taffy).
The place we stayed, though 45 minutes out of the way, was beautiful! It really is nice that the DNR mariculture center has this house full of rooms where interns stay during the summer. And it's hard to beat waking up the next morning, and reading devotions looking out on this...
We headed back down towards Savannah, however, a much later start time this time! One problem - we forgot the fact that we weren't staying in the city, and didn't plan in time to stop for breakfast. Instead we found ourselves driving through the city looking for some kind of fast breakfast items (there is literally nothing on the drive from the mariculture center to Savannah). One of my favorite quotes of the two days 'you know you're a state employee when you're in a car full of people and no one has an iPhone'. Eventually we found a little diner that was very sweet to make us egg biscuits and OJ to go.
It was a great conference - and super easy on the planning side since I'm used to being the only host, and we had 3 this time! Afterwards we headed back to Charleston - our 2 day trip to Savannah complete :)
...Savannah Candy Kitchen! Where we bought bags full of taffy...and ate disgusting amounts of taffy the next day (fyi - don't buy bags full of taffy if you don't want to eat bags full of taffy). The place we stayed, though 45 minutes out of the way, was beautiful! It really is nice that the DNR mariculture center has this house full of rooms where interns stay during the summer. And it's hard to beat waking up the next morning, and reading devotions looking out on this...
We headed back down towards Savannah, however, a much later start time this time! One problem - we forgot the fact that we weren't staying in the city, and didn't plan in time to stop for breakfast. Instead we found ourselves driving through the city looking for some kind of fast breakfast items (there is literally nothing on the drive from the mariculture center to Savannah). One of my favorite quotes of the two days 'you know you're a state employee when you're in a car full of people and no one has an iPhone'. Eventually we found a little diner that was very sweet to make us egg biscuits and OJ to go. It was a great conference - and super easy on the planning side since I'm used to being the only host, and we had 3 this time! Afterwards we headed back to Charleston - our 2 day trip to Savannah complete :)
Friday, October 9, 2009
Morning Laugh
Ok, I am having major issues concentrating this morning, and then I got these on an e-mail, which didn't help but did make me laugh so hard I started crying. So, I figured I would share (it's kinda long, but oh so worth it). And no judging, you know it's true!
-The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.
-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.
-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
-I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.
-I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.
-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.
-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.
- A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.
- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?
- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"
- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.
-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
-I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
- Bad decisions make good stories
-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....
-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.
-I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.
-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'
-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?
- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
-The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.
-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.
-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
-I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.
-I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.
-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.
-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.
- A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.
- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?
- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"
- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.
-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
-I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
- Bad decisions make good stories
-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....
-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.
-I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.
-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'
-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?
- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
Confusion
So quick question...when did the Nobel Peace Prize become a joke, or worse, some kind of political statement? Al Gore and now Obama? I mean I voted for the guy, I support him and his presidency, but I still don't see what he's done for world peace. He's been president for less than a year. Somehow I feel like they could have found someone on this planet who's been doing what they are doing for more than a year and thus a bit more deserving. I'm not saying he's not going to do anything for world peace, I'm just saying you don't give someone an award for what you THINK they are going to do, you give them an award for what they've DONE. Perhaps, I'm crazy.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Priorities
Well, the couponing isn't going well this week - I'm having a problem with adding time into my schedule, but I will not give up so easily, I will regroup and continue...just as soon as I get back from a 2 day work trip to Savannah. I will say however that Google Reader may have just given me a bit of an easier way to deal with priorities on the Southern Saver site - you can star blog posts just like I star e-mails in my g-mail that I need to do something with. It's brilliant. So I can slide through, star the ones that I need to look at later and thus don't feel like I need to have an extended period of time to look at the site in case I forget what I needed to do and can't find it again...something that is happening a bit more often recently :) Way to go Google.
While I'm on priorities, I will note a little priority check God gave me today. As I was leaving work, thinking about all the things that I didn't get done today and annoyed with all I needed to do tonight, I was more or less hit in the face with a 2 by 4. The 2 by 4 was a cool breeze and this view:
Suddenly the day didn't seem all that bad.
While I'm on priorities, I will note a little priority check God gave me today. As I was leaving work, thinking about all the things that I didn't get done today and annoyed with all I needed to do tonight, I was more or less hit in the face with a 2 by 4. The 2 by 4 was a cool breeze and this view:
Suddenly the day didn't seem all that bad.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Another Glorious Day at the Office
This ladies and gentlemen is why you'll take pathetic pay and still be happy about it - yesterday Maia and I joined Kim for one of the Coastal Exploration Series events. Those who live in the Charleston area may want to check it out because it's pretty sweet - I mean granted I'm Kim supervisor, so I think the programs she puts together are pretty cool and perhaps am a bit biased by her coolness, but really it is a good program.
Anyway, yesterday was Fall Wildflower Walk, and being that I haven't been in the field in about 2 months I was itching for a day out of the office. I could have gone the whole day and not seen a single wildflower and still thought it was a great day based purely on the beautiful weather, so all the following pictures were a plus :)
Maia's nemesis - the fire ants. She unfortunately walked onto a nest, and thankfully Kim noticed it because she only got one bite and her entire ankle is swollen to a ridiculous size today!
in addition to flowers we saw some animals...small though they may be
Our favorite flower - gerardia - I had forgotten my zoom lens which was making me mad, and then I finally realized that if I took off the auto focus I could focus onto something much smaller...only took me about 2 hours to figure out that obvious fact!
Broom sedge - apparently you really can make brooms out of this
We ended up on the marsh to see a few plants out there that flower in the fall - here is sea lavender.
Maia and I were kinda over the whole walking thing so we sat in the sun and looked through the wildflower and caterpillar books while everyone else continued down the boardwalk
After a wonderful day in the sun, we stopped at Kudzu Bakery for a delicious lunch and then took one more break on the way home for a little something sweet...a wonderful end to a wonderful day!
Anyway, yesterday was Fall Wildflower Walk, and being that I haven't been in the field in about 2 months I was itching for a day out of the office. I could have gone the whole day and not seen a single wildflower and still thought it was a great day based purely on the beautiful weather, so all the following pictures were a plus :)
Maia's nemesis - the fire ants. She unfortunately walked onto a nest, and thankfully Kim noticed it because she only got one bite and her entire ankle is swollen to a ridiculous size today!
in addition to flowers we saw some animals...small though they may be
Our favorite flower - gerardia - I had forgotten my zoom lens which was making me mad, and then I finally realized that if I took off the auto focus I could focus onto something much smaller...only took me about 2 hours to figure out that obvious fact!
Broom sedge - apparently you really can make brooms out of this
We ended up on the marsh to see a few plants out there that flower in the fall - here is sea lavender.
Maia and I were kinda over the whole walking thing so we sat in the sun and looked through the wildflower and caterpillar books while everyone else continued down the boardwalk
After a wonderful day in the sun, we stopped at Kudzu Bakery for a delicious lunch and then took one more break on the way home for a little something sweet...a wonderful end to a wonderful day!
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