Bible Olympics

My roommate and I were discussing The Olympics over tacos one evening and we decided to figure out which biblical characters would participate in which sports:

The 12 Disciples: crew or a hockey team
Peter: sprinting
Paul: the decathlon
Timothy: the triathlon
Mary Magdalene: rhythmic gymnastic
Solomon: swimmer
Joshua and Caleb: synchronized diving
David: archery
King Saul: archery (but of course he frequently comes in second)
Samson: weight lifting
Jacob: wrestling or boxing

Other thoughts about who we missed?

Capes

When I was a child everything seemed larger.
The sun wasn't just a sun but a giant glowing ball of awesomeness in the sky that hurt your eyes if you looked at it for too long.
Its presence meant being outside and playing
and despite my lack of understand for how things worked, I knew that it brought life.
Grass grew taller like when all the boys in the fifth grade suddenly became tall and lanky over the summer and I was no longer the tallest person in class.
Hair grew brighter in the sun so I would actually look blonde instead of the "dishwater blonde" my mother called it but I referred to my hair as golden.
The sun was life and love and summer time.

When I was a child I used to play pretend.
Whether it was sword fighting or dragon slaying or cookie baking or dog chasing
there was no end to the ideas in my infinite imagination.
An empty wrapping paper roll became Excalibur while a piece of rug began a magic carpet and a hammock a motorcycle.
I could travel to Narnia or Tattoine or under the sea or in the jungle, go wherever I pleased and always make it back in time just for dinner.
Nothing had to be simply what it was.

When I was I child, I thought like a child and everything was magical.
The only evil in the world wore black capes and red masks and cackled as they laughed.
It was so simple to identify every villain and so simple to vanquish them with one wave of my wand or slash from my sword or one bite from the poisonous cookie they were destined to eat.

As an adult, evil doesn't wear such bright colors.
It hides in subway stations and parking lots. Underneath flowerbeds or regular beds, blending into the bleakness of the floor below.
It mixes the good with the bad so well that it turns into a gray blob that no longer holds any color but disguises itself as a well positioned rain cloud.

Sometimes I wish I wore a cape.
Bright red with a large letter M embossed on the back so people would know that I fight against evil.
But only kids wear capes nowadays, just like kids are the only ones to wear the illusion that they can make a difference anymore.
I put away that costume years ago.

Sometimes I wish I wore a cape so I could remember that I too can make a difference.

Twinship

I am very grateful for an amazing start to summer with Sol coming to visit. Some things I'm grateful for: 

I am grateful every time someone asks us how we know each other. It is not a simple story but shows the amazing power of God's timing and sense of humor. We became best friends that summer (or as we call it, "twins") when there was this one student, Alex, who managed to frustrate us both somehow and we responded with the same response, in the same tone, and using the same gestures. We were amazed and our friendship was solidified right there.

I am grateful for the opportunity to make new friendships. Sol got to make new friends with my students (who I have been talking about to her constantly for the past year) and she finally got to meet some of them. It was also a chance for some of my students to meet my best friend, a person very dear to my own soul, and be a part of my life pre-Northridge/CSUN.

I also got to make new friends this weekend and see a part of Sol's life pre-FUI.

Lastly I'm graetful for yet another shirt we have where we match or close enough. That makes a total of 5 (Frybread Power, Powell's, Cookies and Milk, a CBS shirt, and now tie dye). We like to match, as most twins do.

Violins

New music find #3

Lindsey Sterling is AMAZING. I have two videos of her that I love: 

1. Shadows - one her original songs that has a techno/dubstep mixed in with violin. It is beautifully done. And I like the Peter Pan-esq feel the video gives off. Really shows off her talent.

2. We Found Love - Lindsey's visit to Africa. Beautiful cinematography and I love her arrangement of the Song We Found Love. It just kind of makes you cry. 

As the Sun Rises...

Apparently we like to take hikes a lot with our group. And many involve waking up at very early hours to watch the sunrise. It's usually worth it. This time it was the Griffith Observatory.

Three Years Later...

As graduation approaches for my CSUN students, I can't help but think of my own graduation from college (the B.A. - not the credential). When I graduated I was 22 years old, had no idea what I was going to do with my life, and just came off a series of major rejections for things I felt I wanted to do. I only knew I was heading to Fresno about a week after graduating to live there for six weeks again.

Now that three years have passed by, I'm pretty sure I never imagined myself where I am today. I imagined myself living comfortably in Pasadena (or somewhere around the San Gabriel valley) with a nice teaching job or perhaps a marketing job, but whatever I ended up getting right out of college. Successful and hopefully a lot thinner to prove to everyone who had ever rejected me that I was worth something.

In the three years since graduating, I did none of that. After graduating college I went back to SLO to get my teaching credential and never stayed anywhere long. In the past three years I've had six different addresses, transitioned to and from seven different jobs (some paid, some not), lived with a family of 9, and had six different roommates (not counting the roommates from my summer in Fresno which is ups it to 15). Instead of transition out of college into a season of consistency and stability I went into a season of constant change, frequent transition, and a lot of unknowns.

It was difficult not to be jealous of my friends who seemed to jump right from college to a job and to a stable life. How could I not be jealous of those who found steady churches, significant others, who have been able to buy homes and new cars. In the last three years I found more rejection, failure, loneliness, and debt (thanks to the wonderful invention of student loans). While I understand my friends haven't had this easy fanciful lifestyle, I can't help but feel like I'm not a real adult, fully living out my mid-20's.

But I've been made a better person through the last three years. I've had a lot of pride chiseled off (more like with a jackhammer than a chisel), a lot of self-worth questioned and answered, and a lot of opportunity for God to show his faithfulness in the midst of some really crappy stuff. I have a better idea of who I really am - the vibrant, bold, emotional, feeler, visioner, exorter, teacher - that I know God has created me to be - someone who loves photography, talking really fast, and spending large amounts of time with the same people because she loves them. Someone who is easily swept up in her emotions and although she doesn't cry much, her heart feels things deeper than words could ever explain, someone who loves her friends deeply, perhaps more than they would know, who loves laughing and making jokes, and gets easily excited about the little things. This is the person I may not have seen if I settled into a life right after college. I had to work to find her.

Now that I'm 25 - I would have thought I would have a lot of things I don't. A large pay check, a fancy apartment, a full sized bed (I'm still sleeping on my faithful twin bed I had in college), a boyfriend or even a husband. But while I don't have any of those things I still have a bed that is extremely comfortable, a thinner waistline, a new city to explore, newly developed friendships, a church where not everyone looks like me, and experiences I never thought possible. And while it definitely is not easy being single (no matter how many times people tell me to not worry about the timeline of when I need to be in a relationship), at this moment, I'm happy to explore who I am without being in one.

Sometimes being an adult doesn't mean having it all together. It means going on an adventure to not be so afraid of doing things any more.

Birthday Hikes and Beach Adventures

I went on this hike a couple months ago, but we decided to take an easier route this time since there were more of us (less mountain climbing and making our own trails). We also paired it with a beach adventure.