movies

has anyone seen 'across the universe'? i'm waiting for it to show up in state college becky saw it in philly and she really liked it.

so last night i had a dream where i was telling my friend dave how much i like the movie 'state and main.' this is funny for a few reasons. one- dave was wearing a tux and i really don't know why, and b- i do love 'state and main' but i really don't know why. if you haven't seen it, here's the synopsis courtesy of imdb dot com

Having left New Hampshire over excessive demands by the locals, the cast and crew of "The Old Mill" moves their movie shoot to a small town in Vermont. However, they soon discover that The Old Mill burned down in 1960, the star can't keep his pants zipped, the starlet won't take her top off, and the locals aren't quite as easily conned as they appear.

the summer i lived with my friends mande and ian we watched this movie like 8 million times. but we never saw the entire thing because something was wrong with the tape (yes. it was a vhs) and we never saw the last 10 minutes of the movie. so i bought it when i lived in new hampshire i think and i freaking love it. i think all the characters are just so perfectly cast. alec baldwin plays a smarmy movie star who likes 14 year old girls, sarah jessica parker is a ditzy movie star, william h macy is a director who has a pillow that says 'shoot first ask questions later', philip seymore hoffman is a self deprecating playwrite. it's just spectacular casting, the writing is amazing. it's written and directed by david mamet. my favorite quotes are "It's not a lie.It's a gift for fiction." and "Yep, it's faggy without being homosexual."

i'm not sure the rest of the world shares my opinion that this is one hilarious movie, but i do enjoy it.

have a great weekend! i'll be out at a camp with college and high school kids. should be fun, it's suppossed to be a beautiful weekend :O)
peace, love and hugs
r

busy busy busy

holy cow it's been a busy week! i went out to kirkstock on saturday. spent the day listening to music on a hill in centre hall(20 minutes from state college). it was way more fun than it sounds :O) we camped out and then when we got back to state college sunday morning i promptly slept all day. work has been insane the past two days, lots of clients, lots of communication and miscommunication, lots of confused rachel. but it's wednesday. i'm hoping to spend some time doing stats today, so a fun filled day of typing on my computer :O) it neeeeeeeds to get done and if i don't do it wicked soon i'm going to be in a bad stats spot.

in other news, i'm trying to eat yogurt. it's so good for you and it's such a good breakfast thing to eat at my desk (where i usually eat breakfast). but the texture drives me crazy and even makes me gag a little. so today i'm trying blueberry yogurt with some wheat chex cereal mixed in. i'm hoping the crunchy will outweigh the gross texture. it's the same with bananas, although most of the time i can get past the texture with them. yes. this is very interesting, i know.

has anyone seen 'across the universe'? my sister saw it and thought it was great. i've seen the previews and i want to go but it's not in state college yet so i'm waiting.

oh and the guy ahead of dad got his transplant last week, so he's hovering at number 1. i guess he can fluctuate if someone gets more sick than him they'll bump him, but he won't be far from the top and his transplant guy said he expects to do the surgery in the next 2 months. i'll be out of town with crap cell reception this weekend so i'm kinda freaking out about that, but i'm sure it will be fine. right?

well. i suppose that's it. i've started looking at seminary application essay's, so i'm sure as i work on them they'll show up here in some form or another with a plea for comments :O)

happy wednesday everyone! hugs

happy friday!

sorry for the lack of actual postage this week. busy at work and life was hard and busy at the same time, so the blog took a hit. i want to officially welcome natron and ker bear to the commenting :O) it's so much fun!

so i was watching the today show the other day. now i'm pretty incoherent in the morning, but i do catch some stuff. so matt lauer is interviewing a guy who had been on a bike ride with his dogs and while he was on his bike ride he was attacked by a bear (!) now of course, he's still in a sling and whatnot and is on morning tv talking about his experience which brings up tons of questions about the celebrity culture we participate in and the voyeurism or exploitation that exists in our country. no the first thing we'll note is the interview. so matt lauer is talking about what happened, you know like 'ok so you're biking through the woods. now what' type stuff. and apparently this guy who was attacked tried to use his bike to get the bear to go away. so this guy. HAS HIS ARM IN A SLING and matt lauer says 'now can you show me what you did.' are you freaking kidding me? he's still not even recovered, he only has use of ONE ARM and you feel the need to ask him to demonstrate how he used his bike as a weapon to fend off an effing bear!?! what the fuck! it's bad enough that we feel the need to exploit this guy and put him on the today show just so we can stare at him and go wow. you almost died. scary. but why do we as a culture put up with shit like that? i mean, why not have a ranger on to talk about survival skills? why have the actual guy on and ask him to use his ONE ARM to show you how he got the bear away? what good is that doing? i mean honesty, if you're riding your bike in the woods and you see a bear, are you going to remember how this guy used his bike to hit it?no. i mean hell yes you'd hit the bear with the bike, but the one armed man's technique will probably elude you in the heat of the moment.
why do we need to put these people on tv? it's the same thing that happens when there's a tragedy, and people go on morning tv shows or oprah or dr phil or whatever. and they're on tv like the day after something happens and the anchors just exploit their pain and suffering for ratings. and it's not all tv's fault. i mean, what are we as a culture saying if we're watching this shit? i mean, we encourage people to do this, we made a culture that makes it hard to say no. we love people simply for being famous, for allowing us to see their lives. and if they make a spectacle of themselves, even better. we as a culture encourage them to go on the tv shows, to break down on the today show, to share their pain and suffering. and then we drop them about 10 minutes after the segment is over. and the next great thing is profiled. it's sad really. and there is so much more to say. but for now i'll stop ranting, my last client of the week just showed up, so time to wrap up this very long and very busy week of work.
have a great weekend! i'll be drinking in a field :O) i love central pennsylvania!

humpday poem

because i like it.
Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

so i guess

the problem with having a blog is that you need something to say :O) today was exhausting. meetings and court hearings and my first day of therapy and board meetings and pissed off clients and distraught clients and an upset dad. just a lot. i feel like i'm a broken record and that my friends have had enough of me complaining. and other people are dealing with so much more than i am. i'm sorry if you're sick of my sad blog entries i'm going to leave it up to you to stop reading them if that's the case. i'll be more upbeat tomorrow or thursday. but today was really, really hard. i mean, some days it takes all you have to just show up and be present and so much of my job is being able to communicate with other people and to support them. and i'm really good at being on, and being able to focus on people and not them them know how i'm actually doing. whether it's clients or other staff members. i don't know. i'm rambling. all i know is that i wish i could wake up tomorrow and it would be a sunday in charleston. and kerrie would go to church and then come home and we would eat lunch with frannie and then watch 'finding nemo' in the lounge while we did our laundry and life would be simple.
i love you guys. i hope that you're doing well. i miss you a lot. and i'm sorry this blog has disintegrated into rambling and missing blue 2. i'll be more focused in the morning.

yo yo

not much to say today. i had a good weekend, hung out with my friend J on saturday and then spent all day sunday cleaning my room and moving stuff around. i have a super busy week, won't be home until at least 8ish every night but friday. i have a cold and i am very much trying to get rid of it before saturday. some friends are playing at this little music festival so we'll be hanging out all day and camping out saturday night. don't want to be sick for that.

oh the disturbing news of the weekend was when i found a gray hair right on the top of my head. sigh. mom didn't get her first gray hair till like 50. and she had 4 kinds. sigh. although T has a little crop of gray hair in the back, so it could be worse.

ok. in 15 minutes my volunteer comes to hang out for almost the rest of the day. guess how much work i'll get done! oh well.

happy monday everyone!

My childhood Jesus

preface: every other week i'll be writing a program for the college aged group that i work with. most weeks this will include an essay of sorts (also called a "message" or "sermon" or "meditatin". since i see much power in words i'm careful to not call it the s-word and usually go essay or meditaition) so i figured i'd post these here on the blog. some of you will probably choose to never read these posts, and that's cool, i figure i'll post 'em anyway :O)

this week we started reading the book 'meeting jesus again for the first time' and in that book the author talks about his 'childhood jesus' and how that image changed for him as he grew up, went to college and then on to seminary. we used this theme of 'childhood jesus' to start our discussion tonight. so i wrote a bit about who my childhood jesus was and really continues to be. happy friday!

My childhood Jesus.
Whenever I talk about my faith inevitably the question of Jesus comes up. I suppose this is only natural as I am a Christian, but I’ve never really had a good answer. I’ve always seen myself as more of a God person than a Jesus person. See for me growing up I was always a little scared of loving Jesus too much. Starting in about 6th grade I saw the kids wearing their WWJD bracelets…and t-shirts…and hats…and buttons…and…you get the idea. They wore those letters like a banner, like they were better than me because I wouldn’t wear my faith on a t-shirt. I’ve never disliked an acronym so much in my life. It really annoys me that Jesus was a fad. Because you see, I think it’s a good thing to think about what Jesus would do. Example, you’re about to walk past a homeless person who’s in need of some food, do you walk on by or do you stop and talk and help them. Well, what wouldJesus do? We know that he would stop and talk to the homeless man, find out why he needs food, what he wants and how he could help him. If we were truly doing what Jesus would do we would do the same. And yet, how many teens wearing those four letters did that? it wasn't so much about action as it was about having the cool tshirt.
In a letter that Paul wrote to the Philippians he has this to say about behavior: 12Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. It seems like this is an old school version of WWJD. Those four letters are a way to help you think about your behavior and what, if anything, you could change. If that is how you look at those four letters, then it's a good thing. My experience is that people didn't use them as a guide, more as status symbol, and that I'm not a huge fan of.
As I have said, I was not a child of WWJD. I didn't own anything with those letters. My childhood Jesus was was not one of T-shirts and buttons, but of songs and stories. I remember one of the songs we used to sing in Sunday school, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow black and white we are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.” That was my childhood Jesus. One of love for everyone. We were not a house of icons so I didn’t have a picture of Jesus on the wall, but we were a house of words, stories, and songs so I had the image of a guy hanging out with everyone. And that was my childhood Jesus. In the book Borg talks about how when he went to seminary his vision of Jesus changes, he sees a childhood Jesus and an historical Jesus. I have my childhood Jesus, and then I suppose I have my grown up Jesus. You see, I think we are all children of God, and therefore, Jesus loves all of us. Red, yellow, black, white, gay, straight, married, single, young, old and everything in between. I think that even if you don’t accept that Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you. I believe so much in this childhood Jesus that it hurts for me to see people use Jesus to condemn others. I’m sure as I continue to grow up and learn more about Jesus my vision of him will change. Heading off to seminary will no doubt bring about some academic revelations, but I still think that my childhood Jesus, and his take home message, will prove enduring. A few years ago I taught 2nd and 3rd grade bible study. My teaching partner and I decided that if our kids learned nothing else, they would learn to love each other. We thought that if they associated our church, the bible, and Jesus with loving each other that we would have done our job. When you think about how many different kinds of people there are in this world loving everyone seems harder to do that it first appears. It’s the one thing I have consistently tried to do from my childhood into my adulthood. In my opinion it’s the most worthwhile thing that we as Christians can do.

P.S. my friend tom has a friend in seminary who has a tshirt that says "WTFWJD" and my friend diana has a sign that says 'what would jesus drink' hilarious if you ask me :O)

for serious

not 2 minutes after i wrote about how wonderful wednesday was, it went to shit and was stressful until i left for my doctors appointment at 3:30 which was also stressful because i was leaving the staff kinda short handed and i feel bad about that, but i needed to get my prescription so i left. so tonight i went to see dar williams at the state and she was awesome! our seats were in the 4th row, she played 'after all', 'the christians and the pagans', 'the babysitters here', 'spring street'. just amazing and she told really funny stories. there's a song about jesus camp that i neeeeeeed to find and play at a fish talent show. hilarious. i think this year i'll bust out 'christians and the pagans' for the christmas show. ha. good stuff. so my shitty middle of the day was totally won over by an amazing show. dar was awesome, my friend d went with me and we had fun, he told me some great (but creepy) stories and i ran into a friend who wants me to babysit her kids(= easy money and they're super fun anyway). and while i was sitting there listening to dar sing some fantastic song i got an idea of what to write for my little meditation thing for agape on thursday night(it's really a short sermon, but it freaks me out to call it that) so i'm writing that right now and i think i'll be posting those things each time i write them, every other week, just to put up what i'm doing and get some feedback (that means someone other than jess needs to comment.not that i don't love jessica's comments, cause i do, but come on. i know you're reading. i can see you)

oh two other fun things, i found out i get a free gym membership! yay! and two of my friends just joined the same gym so i'll have workout buddies some days and guilt me into working out buddies all the time :O)

i also made an appointment with a therapist next week. i'm trying to be excited, but right now i'm just a little scared. i have this terrible vision of going in there and either a)crying the whole time or b)cracking jokes so i don't revert to a and therefore not actually talking about what life is like right now and not getting any help. i would be, as my little brother likes to say, 'taking the easy way out'. and i'm not going to do that! it's time to commit to starting to fix rachel. i have all these things going for me, it will be all sorts of good :O)

ok. back to jesus.

peace yo

HAPPY WEDNESDAY!

now, i'm sure that the day could go horribly, horribly wrong at any moment, but for right now it is spectacular.

*tonight is the dar williams show
*the high today is like 73 and it's not humid at all (yay fall)
*i just found out that a grant was renewed which means that i get to keep my job until i'm ready to leave state college! wahoooooooooooo

gross

actual, serious comment by a coworker today:

'you want me to talk to her so i can impart my knowledge'

and she was not joking, not humble, just like. well yeah, i am brilliant and i shall pass on my brilliance to you peons who know nothing. now. yes. she's had this job at least 5 years longer than those of us who were supposed to be gleaning pearls of wisdom from her. but i would like to say that there are other people who know much more than i do and who manage to pass that information on to me in a way that doesn't make me what to vomit all over them.

is this day over?

update: i had forgotten that she also said, in reference to her imparting her knowledge 'well it's kind of a mother thing, i can do it for them or i can show them how to do it and they can learn from me'

ef you and the horse you rode in on.

boooooo

it's a heck of a day

so here's a picture i took of a flower in mom's garden a few summers ago.

thought of the night

Take time to listen to what is said without words, to obey the law too subtle to be written, to worship the unnameable and to embrace the uninformed. Lao Tzu

tomorrow there will be more posting...but i woke up around 3am and couldn't get back to sleep till around 4:30 and then was super super busy at work today. so i'm going to bed. i've been working on the worship part of agape and struggling a little bit with it. i've never planned a worship service before. even though it's only got to be like 15-20 minutes long it's still a little stressful to find prayers, pick something from the lectionary that i want to write about, pick songs that go with the text, oh and figure out what the heck i'm going to say. yikes.

had a great weekend hanging out with the other FISH leaders, we're reading a great book called 'contemplative youth ministry' just super stuff about being present and open to receive the kids we work with and being yourself and using that as your witness to jesus instead of trying to talk them into religion. (i hope that all made sense. i'm exhausted)

i rode my bike over to target tonight, it's really not that far but it felt so good to be riding my bike instead of getting in my car and driving. i will definitely be riding around more. in addition to feeling better because i'm not driving, it helps me only buy what i need to buy because i have to fit it in my backpack and ride home with it.

ok. i've rambled on and on...i really am off to bed soon :) happy monday everyone!

a couple quick updates

sorry i haven't posted in a few days, it's been a touch stressful/busy this past week. so i'll catch you up and then bitch about something that's bugging me. you're all so lucky ;O)

* it was really good that e,j and i went to the funeral. the family really appreciated us coming down and my aunt was just floored that we came. i also found out that my dad's siblings are planning to come to state college when he gets home from the hospital (!!!!) aunt leanna gave us a ton of university of kentucky stuff to bring home. including an 8 foot tall inflatable kentucky wildcat that we can proudly display on our front porch for all of pine grove mills to see. mom was THRILLED. dad was pretty upset all weekend, i think the combination of uncle d dying of cancer related stuff and dad not being well enough to travel and getting bumped to number 2 (see below) had him all kinds of emotionally screwed up. i mean, i'm sure all of us at one point or another thought about dad's cancer and death together during the weekend. even though he should be fine after the transplant.

* dad is currently number 2 on the liver transplant list! this is exciting, scary and confusing. it's not something that can really be scheduled or even like a heads up given, so that's been kinda tough for me. apparently the guy that's currently at #1 has been there for about a month. the doc's think sometime in the next month he'll get his liver and then expect to do dad's by the end of the year. which means that there is a chance i'll be out of town when it happens, but i just have to take that chance i guess. i'm going down to lancaster in october to check out a seminary, and heading to richmond, va in november. i'll have to plan about atlanta and chicago some more.

this whole thing is really stressing me out. i just feel so out of control about everything. sigh. lisa said that the whole thing is a little like giving birth. you can prepare and prepare, but you don't know for sure when it's going to happen. so mom and i were joking about packing our 'labor bags' so that we'll be ready when it actually does happen and we can just grab our bags and head out. i was reading a blog that i really do like and there was a post that i found just ridiculous for many reasons(i'll rant about that another day), so i was reading the 92 comments that people had posted and one of them talked about all the mixed emotions that you have as a caregiver. and he said he had read books and stuff. so i was like, oh yeah, there could be books i could read to help me with my freaking out! my fantastic coworker is also subtly(and not so subtly) encouraging me to go to a therapist, but i'm not quite there yet. i got phone numbers yesterday. maybe next week i can call. all i know is that i can't live like i am right now for another 4 months. i mean, 4 months doesn't seem like a long time, but i can't fathom being sane in 4 months if i don't get some sort of help soon. and that's probably one of the hardest things i've had to admit ever.
ok. this was going to be shorter...i even removed the 'and a rant' part of the title. oh well. i'm off to a retreat all weekend. so shitty cell service till sunday around 1. i'll be checking my messages--from the parking lot at the pool house--so leave one if you want and i'll be back on the computer on sunday. to think less than 10 years ago i didn't have a cellphone and i could have cared less if i checked my email. oy.

ok...happy notre dame beatdown weekend!

LETS GO PSU!

question for the people

what is anyone reading right now?
i recently bought 'meeting jesus again for the first time' by marcus borg. i'm planning to start it tonight.

i read harry potter all summer long, so this is my acknowledgment that it's no longer summer and i need to read something non fiction-y.

anyone reading anything good?

go here and post!

hey, time magazine did a cover story about community service. they have a place where you can post what you do/did in regards to community service. i posted, all you b2 peeps should go post!

http://time-blog.com/talkback/comservice.php

and even if you weren't in americorps but you feel like community service is important you should post too!

i'll post more later...i need to go take a bat survey :O)

hugs