Snowy Sunday

Well, I finally completed my assignment for school, so I am free! Of course, the fact the prof gives out the following weeks’ assignments early creates this perpetual feeling of behindness even right after turning one in. Actually, I really didn’t like this week’s reading. It was a lot of different articles and chapters by different authors but it all equated to socialistic utopian lies. I sure hope we were supposed to see that and slam it cause I did! If not, oh well. I’d be surprised to discover this prof isn’t as conservative as I’d once thought… But I don’t think anyone w/more in their head than a Harvard education can possibly believe that crap. It’s more idealistic than ridding the world of tyranny! Actually, I referenced that in my analysis—though I didn’t mention Bush by name. The prof has been sending all of us a lot of diff articles on the address. I don’t know how he really felt about it. When I talked to Dr. Neff about it today I was glad to discover someone else who had the same exact reaction I did: neither positive nor negative. Ok, great goals, leaders are supposed to have vision, sounds good… but reality is it won’t happen cause we live in a fallen world and there will always be tyranny and the govnt can’t bring true social and political freedom in the absence of spiritual freedom. As Dr. Neff said though, idealism is far better than cynicism. Perhaps my analysis of these papers was a little cynical but it makes me angry because it is the exact same ideology that made the Cold War last so long—and the price for that was paid in lives.

Ok, I’ll get off my political … umm, what do we call that? Not footstool…not pedestal… oh, you know what I mean I’m sure but the word for the thing you say you’re standing on when you’re lecturing is completely evading me at the moment. Anyways…

We got more snow last night…but not nearly as much as further north so I could still get out. Since where I’ve been going to church is directly accessible from the metro they didn’t cancel services when other churches did. However, Union Station had a fire alarm go off during the first service and we all had to evacuate and stand outside in the cold. It brought back lots of Glide-Crawford memories from Asbury as we waited in the snow… Then the services ended up being combined with worship on either end and a sermon in between. It was a good service…esp. considering the distractions…

After church I went out to Arlington cemetery for a walk since I wanted to see it in the snow. I love finding a deserted spot and analyzing the gravestones…figuring out how old these men were as many died in active duty and how long their wives outlived them. Found one today where the son died and then the father died a couple days later. The mother survived them both by 30 years. I’m sure she had quite a tragic life’s story. It always overwhelms me to see the miles of gravestones of those who served our country. I just had to answer an essay question about what I consider America’s fate as a superpower. I hate it when what I really think is one thing and what I want to believe is another. The price that has already been paid for this nation is so high…how can that be thrown away now? I’m glad that our lives are being given in the service of a Kingdom that cannot be ruined by later generations.

After Arlington I went to the hotel where the Asbury team is staying to meet w/dr neff. The team was all at the holocaust museum, but he came back early since he’s been bringing a team to DC every year for like 20 years so the same exact museum routine gets a little old. We had a good talk for a few hours…I had lots of pent up questions I wanted his opinion on! We talked about everything from the future of Asbury as a Christian college to escatology and the antichrist…and as usual I came away with about 4 books I’m DYING to read now. Oh, I got something cool a couple weeks ago. I found a book designed to keep track of the books you want to read and to mark when you read them and notes on them etc… It’s so perfect for me since my list of books to read grows so much faster than I read! Ok…where was I? I paused to go order this one book I have to read cause Dr. Neff said it would help with my confusion on my grad school class. Anyways… it was a really good talk.

On my way home I stopped at the health food store, as Sunday has become my shopping day somehow. Shopping at this store (the only one convenient) has really been an eye-opening experience. Did you know, for example, that there is a such thing as organic lemonade? This is very different from non-organic lemonade which I’m sure has some evil component such as LEMONS… I also discovered there is no organic version of sauce mixes so they must be all inherently non-organic so they won’t even sell them. On the other hand, they do sell Haagen daz so they haven’t completed eliminated all real food =) I shop carefully now…having had two bad experiences: chicken teriyaki that turned out to be chicken flavor tofu and not real chicken…and organic crackers that are so earthy and organic they haven’t quite left the forest yet—they taste like bark. Ahh, the joys of a health food grocery store… but thus far I’ve avoided the “Organic Soil Juice” (ie-it MUST be mud!)…. And hey, maybe I’ll get smarter cause I had organic mac&cheese for dinner. ;)

Anyways, that was my day except for coming back and doing homework which I’ve already complained about. Oh, and I listened to Central’s service via internet. The women’s testimonies from the encounter weekend were…uh…emotional =) I knew the weekend had to have been miraculous when Mavis gave Deb walker a MICROPHONE (ky translation-that’s like givin’ mrs deitrich a mic) … the testimonies were good and made me cry…but I also had to laugh because over the radio they all sounded like weepy women! Oh, and whatever mavis did at the beginning didn’t translate over radio so I’ll have to get a first-hand account.

Now I’ll get to sleep cause I’m starting new hours tomorrow of 8-6 because I want to take one morning off a week for Heritage.

Happy Monday!

Marc/marco/#2/Martha/me