May 14, 2008

festival de cannes 2008

Every year around this time, I get nostalgic for the days that Erin D. (now L.) spent in Cannes. We lived across the street from the beach, rarely had an afternoon class, took A LOT of afternoon naps, and ate endless amounts of yummy food.

One of the perks of our study abroad program was getting tickets to the Festival. It was here that I first saw Beautiful People, The Straight Story, and sat alongside Ben Affleck to watch Dogma --- So, yeah, we didn't really sit "beside" rather we were in the middle row of the balcony and he was down front. But, we did walk the same red carpet! Check out this year's line up if you're interested.

Posted by charity at 09:49 AM | Comments (5)

November 25, 2007

science and faith

I wouldn't call it a "quest," but I have a continuing interest in seeing Christians engaged in the questions and art of science beyond controversies such as stem cell research. I was encouraged to see this opinion article on the ways in which science has its own faith in the things that just are.

Posted by charity at 09:42 AM | Comments (0)

October 05, 2007

camaraderie

Last night I had a wonderful conversation with an old friend, where we had a long talk about our issues and experiences with counseling. My friend had the quote of the evening, when she said (not verbatim):

"You know, I don't feel like such a nutcase when I hear that other people are crazy too."

Amen! Just one of the reasons why God created us to live in community.

Posted by charity at 09:06 AM | Comments (1)

July 27, 2007

front porch

I often miss the Grand's front porch. I'm missing it especially tonight as the storm has rolled in, the raining is falling straight down and the lightning is dancing in the sky.

Posted by charity at 08:43 PM | Comments (1)

July 09, 2007

re-entry

*deep breath* 1...2...3

...1,078 e-mails....

*deep breath* 1...2...3

*deep breath* 1...2...3

ok... re-entering my work world... exhale...

Posted by charity at 08:24 AM | Comments (2)

July 08, 2007

a return to fiction

It seems that our jaunt across the ocean has kindled, or re-kindled, a love for reading fiction. It helped that the books I read were fantastic. The book I enjoyed the most was A Tale of Two Cities. I picked it up with the thought that it was "one of those books" everyone should read. Though I thought I should read it (and anticipated having to trudge through), when I picked it up I couldn't put it down and read it in about two and a half days. It was intriguing with characters that you love and are eager to learn and understand more about. I felt that about the characters as well as the history of the time - I'm now hoping to learn more about the French Revolution.

While A Tale of Two Cities was my favorite, I heartily enjoyed Lewis' perspective on the divide between heaven and hell in the The Great Divorce. I devoured and eventually cried through The Kite Runner. And my second reading of Love in the Time of Cholera was better than the first. I recommend them all!

Posted by charity at 07:22 AM | Comments (6)

May 24, 2007

alice munro II

My pure delight in Alice Munro's short stories continue. This time Andy picked up her newest collection for me: The View From Castle Rock. This collection of stories, almost a memoir, begins with Munro building upon the historical records of her Scottish relatives and then moves on to stories built from her own memories. These stories are not only captivating themselves, but also contribute to an intriguing larger narrative. Munro describes the process of writing these stories as

"exploring a life, my own life, but not in an austere or rigorously factual way. I put myself in the center and wrote about that self, as searchingly as I could."

As I read the latter half of the book, I found myself oddly relating to her story. Not necessarily in the specifics of her circumstances, but rather her specific emotions. Most of these connections were made in the moments in her story when she realizes she doesn't fit into the life she grew up in. In the story What Do You Want To Know For she writes:

I notice something new in the readiness of both this older woman and the energetic younger woman in the log house. They do not seem to find it strange that anybody should wish to know about things that are of no particular benefit or practical importance. They do not suggest that they have better things to think about. Real things, that is. Real work. When I was growing up an appetite for impractical knowledge of any kind did not get encouragement ... If you had to learn history or foreign languages to pass out of school it was only natural to forget that sort of thing as quickly as you could. Otherwise you would stand out. And that was not a good idea.

Posted by charity at 08:06 PM | Comments (2)

April 28, 2007

an uneducated dean excels at MIT

The dean of admissions at MIT, one of the premier academic institutions in the country, never graduated from college. Unfortunately, when she applied for an entry-level position at MIT 28-years ago, she said she had.

Most people see this as an issue of integrity, and rightly so. But what is more fascinating to me is that she was considered one of the best in her field. Here is a woman who doesn't have an undergraduate degree, excelling in an academic environment.

When she first applied to MIT in 1979, she probably could have gotten that entry-level position without a college degree. Would that academic institution have let her rise to the level of dean? I doubt it.

In my mind, the moral of the story is that you don't need academic degrees to make a big impact in academia. Unfortunately, unless you get those degrees -- or are comfortable lying about it -- there's little chance they'll let you in the front door.

Posted by charity at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

February 25, 2007

keep your eyes peeled, sort of

Keep your eyes peeled for changes coming to "in process". I've got some ideas floating around, and some ideas I haven't even thought of yet.

The "sort of" part is that nothing will be happening here until after March 12th and, more realistically, more like April-ish. So, the blogs not dead, but don't expect a recovery for a few more weeks.

Thanks to all of you who keep checking!

Posted by charity at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)

January 08, 2007

alice munro

This past month, the Atlantic ran an article on the career of Alice Munro. The article touted her as "the living writer most likely to be read in a hundred years". This seemd quite a statement about a woman I'd never heard of before. The article asks the question as to how such a revered writer could be so unknown to the general public. When musing about this question, the article states, "The short story, Munro's preferred form, has been blamed... No one would ever sugget today that fiction helps sell any magazine, as stories did when Fitgerald and Faulkner churned them out to support their longer projects. Being a most unexotic Canadian probably hasn't helped, either."

This rang true to me. Until recently (with the help of another short story writer, Saul Bellows), my middle school mentality of "people who can't write novels, write short stories", prevailed. And I couldn't think of the name of any famous Canadians, let alone a contemporary Canadian writer. But with such praises, I thought her book was worth pursuing and I have to say I'm loving it. I just finished "Labor Day Dinner" and which may be my favorite so far. Here's a sample:

Roberta thought that after speaking in such a friendly way to the girls, and helping them into the truck, he might speak to her when he got into the cab, might even take her hand, brushing away her undisclosed crimes, but it did not happen. Shut up together, driving over the hot gravel roads at an almost funeral pace, they are pinned down by a murderous silence. On the edge of it, Roberta feels herself curling up like a jaundiced leaf. She knows this to be a hysterical image. Also hysterical is the notion of screaming and opening the door and throwing herself on the gravel. She ought to make an effort not to be hysterical, not to exaggerate."

Posted by charity at 12:27 AM | Comments (1)

August 02, 2006

food philosophy

The Omnivore's Dilemma - The first 400+ page book that I've read in its entirety (or very close to it) in a long time!

It isn't much of a secret that I love food. I love growing it, preparing it, serving it, consuming it and sitting back and reveling in the finished meal. I enjoy long lingering meals with a number of courses, flowing wine and conversation with old and new friends.

I've written about my thoughts on food before. What I just realized tonight is that the article I referenced in the blogpost is also the author of this book.

I've never been zealous about food needing to be organic, free-range or grass-fed, but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't be. I've always liked going to the farmer's market, but normally would buy a potato or tomato, more for the experience than the actual need. My general thinking was that limiting pesticides and the better treatment of animals was a good thing, but still looked for the least expensive price and the best deal.

But this book has me rethinking my food philosophy. The book follows four meals that each represent industrial agriculture, big organic industry, small organic industry and hunting and gathering.

One of the biggest reasons for rethinking my food philosophy comes from the book's challenge to the assumption that a chicken is a chicken or a tomato is a tomato no matter how it's grown. In recent months I've definitely tasted the difference between an industrially grown tomato and an organic tomato in a basil and tomato recipe where the organic is head and shoulders better than the industrial. But the book goes beyond taste and looks at nutrition. Depending on how food is grown, the nutritional content is different, especially in reference to polyphenals - "a group of secondary metablites manufactured by plants ... Many are potent antioxidants; some play a role in preventing or fighting cancer." According to new research:

The reason plants produce [polyphenals] in the first place is to defend themselves against pests and diseases; the more pressure from pathogens, the more polyphenals a plant will produce ... The [University of California-Davis] authors hypothesize that plants being defended by man-made pesticides don't need to work as hard to make their own polyphenal pesticides. Coddled by us and our chemicals, the plants see no reason to invest their resources in mounting a strong defense.

The nutrition question is also addressed in animals. Did you know that cattle cannot digest corn (which is a major portion of their diet in industrial agriculture) on their own? For a variety of reasons, not the least of those being the overproduction of corn in the U.S., industrial cattle farms use cheap corn for feed. I won't go into the details here, but in general the cattle's high corn diets lead to diarrhea, ulcers, bloat, rumenitis, liver disease and general weakening of the immune system. In addition, "corn-fed meat is demonstrably less healthy for us, since it contains more saturated fat and less omega-3 fatty acids than the meat of animals fed grass. A growing body of research suggests that many of the health problems associated with eating beef are really problems with corn-fed beef."

There are tons of other interesting things in the book such as the predominance of high fructose corn syrup in American food products, butane in Chicken McNuggets, the perils of the "big organic" industry, and the question of cost for alternative food systems.

I finished the book feeling like Michael Pollen was a friend. I wanted to have him over for dinner when it was finished. The book takes a relatively unbiased look at where our food comes from and the tradeoffs we've made to have cheap food when and where we want it. It's a must read that will only take a couple of days.

Posted by charity at 09:04 PM | Comments (5)

June 13, 2006

the nature of miracles

How would you describe what happens when a miracle occurs? I have often thought of miracles as instances where God intervened in His creation and suspended the rules it abides by. Unfortunately, to "intervene" implies that God wasn't involved before the miracle. It seems I've been defaulting to a mechanical, or deist view, of the natural world where God created it and then left it to run on its own. But, in fact, God doesn't intervene in the natural world when a miracle occurs. It can't be considered an intervention when He is already continuously involved in upholding and guiding it.

Since God is upholding and guiding the natural world, why does he do so in a highly predictable and orderly fashion? It seems to be described in Romans 1:20:

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

The natural world is not chaotic and unpredictable because these are not attributes of God's nature. Just as the character of the painter flows into a painting, so does God's character flow into His creation. If the natural world was unpredictable there would be no way of knowing or understanding it. But God is knowable and desires for us to know Him.

It seems that to truly embrace the view that God is upholding all of creation to abide by specific rules every minute of every day, we may find the not-so-out-of-the ordinary, or the predictable, just as awe-inspiring as the miracle.

This molding of my thinking about creation, makes me think about how God interacts with me, His human creation. It's been reaffirmed to me that God doesn't intervene in times of trial, rather He is always upholding me in the seemingly mundane normalcy of every day life.

All of these thoughts (and others!) flow out of, and from, my reading of Science & Grace. It delves into the history of the philosophy of science and building a biblical perspective of science. I'm sure few of you will find it as intriguing as I do, but I encourage those few to take up the read!

Posted by charity at 07:51 PM | Comments (2)

February 12, 2006

the purpose-driven journal

I have a box full of journals in the upstairs closet. Some I read with fondness as forgotten memories are rediscovered, others I read with frustration as I see my sin repeat itself page after page.

In college I thought I was supposed to write in a journal - to have a journal. Mine was a prayer journal with normal entries beginning with "Dear God" or "Heavenly Father". I found it helpful then, and still do, in being able to focus my prayers when the thoughts and feelings in my heart and mind are jumbled and difficult to articulate. But there came a point when I realized that I was treating it as something I was supposed to do rather than an earnest desire to know God.

Since then, I've still had journals, but only occasionally written in them. The one I've had for the past few months is half full and multi-purpose with prayers, "to-do" lists, letters, and plans all intermingling.

So when I got a gift certificate from Barnes and Noble I was surprised that I gravitated towards the journal/sketchbook section where Andy had gotten his a few weeks earlier. I purchased one, held it, opened it, flipped through it, and smelled it. But had yet to write in it. What would this journal contain? Do I fill it once again of prayers, sermon notes, and Bible studies? Is it soley for musings, ideas, and sketches? It seemed that if I started out on the wrong foot the book would be ruined; writing an ignorant sentence or one with a scratched-out mistake.

But this morning I felt I had to take the chance that I'd mess up this endeavor. I felt I needed to start moving towards the thoughts, ideas and prayers rather than pushing them to the back of my mind. I had to take the chance at writing something ugly in order to make something beautiful.

As I reached the bottom of the second page writing similar thoughts as to those in this post, my hand rubbed over the not-yet dry ink and slightly smeared the words "would' and "starting". There was freedom in making the first mistake of many in the process of creating something beautiful.

Posted by charity at 12:58 PM | Comments (3)

December 10, 2005

fluidity of blessing

Over Thanksgiving, Andy and I spent some time with friends in Lincoln. On Saturday night we were sitting around the Tredway's living room sipping on our beverages of choice, when the discussion turned to blessings. What does it mean to be blessed? Why are some people blessed in ways that others aren't? How have we traditionally viewed blessing?

Throughout the course of the conversation my thoughts were shaped and molded by the insights of others, especially one that came from Nathaniel (our trusty RUF intern!) who took my "self" out of the center of the discussion and put God in it. He defined a blessing as something that draws you closer to God and away from sin.

I think my definition of blessing has always had "me" at the center of it, as I've tried to reconcile why some people are blessed with wealth and others with health, and others with neither. The problem being that blessings aren't necessarily a quantafiable list, rather it's fluid for different people at different times.

The example given in our conversation was why some people have jobs they love and others have jobs they hate, assuming that loving your job was a blessing and hating it was not. Previously, my response would be that we are all blessed and that God gives certain blessings to some people and other blessings to other people. In some sense I still believe that, but what was underlying that sentiment was the belief that there are a list of blessings that you can receive. For example, though you may not have blessings 1-4, you do have blessing 5-20. But as I think about if further, it seems there you can't make a list proclaiming that 1, 2, and 3 are a blessing and A, B, and C are not. Going back to the previous example, someone may love their job, but to the point that it's not a blessing, like when it becomes an idol.

In this way, it seems easier to understand how suffering could be a blessing. It may not be the kind of blessing we would prefer, but if we are called to know God and to love Him with our whole hearts and suffering brings us along in that process, who am I to complain? (sidebar: This is not to say that we shouldn't grieve or lament over suffering...that's another conversation!)

All of that to say, I'm learning more what it means to "Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." Amen.

Posted by charity at 10:41 AM | Comments (3)

July 11, 2005

hand writing

I want to trip inside your head
Spend the day there…
To hear the things you haven’t said
And see what you might see
--U2, Miracle Drug

I like seeing the process of thought formation, whether it be in conversation or letter writing. Letter writing is in many ways an unpolished stream of consciousness. Throughout the previous blog post I've deleted, re-wrote, and re-organized a number of times. But you wouldn't know it. These are more polished thoughts (though not comprehensive). My scratch marks and messy handwriting from an idea that came too quickly doesn't come across here. Is there value to that? Here it seems that the process of thought formation is lost to a final product. In a letter, the reader sees the process. I suppose I could just choose not to use the delete button and instead use the strikethrough font, but somehow I don't think it would have the same affect. I don't begrudge the final product, but like seeing the process of getting there.

Posted by charity at 08:59 AM | Comments (3)

July 04, 2005

timeless letters

It's been a long time since I've sat down to write a good, long letter. Growing up (and often still) my letters were filled with the happenings of yesterday and today. What I did, where I went, who I saw. But now, it seems those things are quickly spouted off in an e-mail that can be written and read in a matter of minutes. This seems to be e-mail's place. Quick communication containing time bound information.

If my e-mails are containing the time bound information, it seems my letters should contain the timeless information. As I've tried to figure out what timeless letters look like I've been reminded of two quotes. The first being Corrie Ten Boom describing the letter writing of her mother:

When Mama wasn't supplying the neighborhood with caps and baby dresses from her flying needles, she was composing cheery messages for shut-ins all over Haarlem.

And the second was someone's remark that a friend's letter writing reminded them of an epistle because of their encouragement and reminder of God's promises.

As I wrote letters today, I was reminded of the desire once more to write letters with timeless content. So instead of my normal who, what and where, I tried to write more about what I was thinking through, struggling with and hoping for. They were far from epistles and don't think I was successful at cheering anyone up. But it was my attempt to write in an enduring way.

I want my letters to encourage others and be epistle-like in their longevity. To have someone sifting through boxes of old letters two, ten, or fifty years from now and to be encouraged by what they've read because they relate to the similar thoughts, struggles and hopes while being reminded of God's promises.

Posted by charity at 11:31 AM | Comments (2)