Seder Pictures

Here's some pictures from my makeshift seder tonight.  It was a little weird doing seder on Easter and not on the Thursday afore Good Friday, but it really was combining two of my favorite holidays, so it works.

Charoset before it turned brown...no nuts this year because bad stuff happens if I eat nuts.

The kitchen table at school as I worked...

Very nice looking GF, egg free Matzo balls, before they failed

Matzo ball fail.  But the pudding type stuff should make a decent breakfast. It tastes alright.

Our makeshift Seder plate...we were missing horseradish (Maror) and the shankbone (Zeroah)

Our table.

Easter is HERE!

Anybody who knows me well know that I love Easter.  I love Easter more than any other holiday.  Even more that Christmas.  I am an Easter person.
Not being able to go home for Easter this year was tough.  I would rather miss Christmas with my family than miss Easter with them.  I jsut love the whole season.  I love lent (I know, I'm strange.  If you didn't know that by now, it's time you learned).  I love memorizing verses with my brothers and sisters and hanging them on the memory cross.  I love helping mom make the play-doh for her class.  I love Palm Sunday and watching the kids process in, poking each other in the eye with palm branches and singing the same songs I sang when I was one of them.  I love welcoming the new members into our congregation. I love cleaning the house for the seder.  I love getting out the passover dishes and setting the tables.  I love the smell of all the different foods as they arrive on Thursday evening.  I love the somberness of church on Good Friday morning and the potluck that follows.  I love eating leftovers from the seder on Saturday.  I love Easter morning.  I love waking up and knowing that today we are going to be celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I love hunting for my Easter basket.  I love reciting my verses so I can get my clues so I can find my eggs.
I love going to church and greeting everyone with a hug and the words "Christ is risen" and hearing the response "He is risen indeed".  I love getting together as a family and dying dozens of eggs with white crayons and dye and then sitting down to eat them with bread and butter and meat (and raisin bread!) and smashing them into each other (or someone's head).  And I love Easter Monday, even if it does just mean more homework and such.
Yes, I love Easter and not being able to be home for any of it this year was hard, but, G-d is good. Last night as I sat at my computer journalling, talking (instant messaging) with friends and working on my paper (I like to multi-task...) and G-d brought some scriptures to my mind.  Some really good ones (All scripture is good, but these were especially meaningful at the time).  I grabbed a book to try and find some more clarity on the topic and ended up stumbling (not literally) onto some really good stuff that I needed to read right then.  G-d is good, G-d is faithful, and G-d blesses me so much.  Hallelu....JAH!
I finally went to bed at about 1:15 this morning...when it comes to Easter I'm worse than a kid on Christmas Eve, no joking.  I love Easter.  Then I was up shortly after 5 so that I could be at church for the 6am sunrise service.  Yeah Easter! We sang some of my favorite Easter hymns and everyone else had communion and then we had breakfast and then more church...After that though, it was nap time.
After nap I went down to the kitchen to start prepping for the seder.  At home we usually do the seder on Thursday afore Good Friday, but when you are in college you improvise sometimes.  Really most of the seder was improvised this year.  I was celebrating with friends who had never celebrated before though, so they didn't know the difference.  Now I am very full and very content.  I like Easter a whole lot.

How to Write a Paper (in 45 simple steps)

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As a college student I often have to write papers.  I have a feeling most college students find themselves in this place frequently.  So a little "how-to"....
1. Put on your painting clothes.  Paper writing could get messy.
2. Turn on some fun tunes.
3. Open a word processor and type a title.
4. Make a sketch of your next painted masterpiece.
5.  Have a snack.  Paper writing is hungry work.
6. Write a few sentences.
7. Gaze longingly out the window at the beautiful weather.
8. Go on facebook and update your status.  Something about how awful it is that you have to write this paper.
9. Erase what you've written and start again.
10. Work on your painting.
11. Go on facebook and check your groups.  Someone may have posted an important question.
12. Type a few sentences.
13.  Have a snack.
14.  Go upstairs and give your friends hugs.  After all, it takes 4 hugs a day just to survive...
15.  Rewrite your title.  After all, the title is the most important part of the paper (Especially if Joe B. is your prof)
16.  Go on YouTube and check out the video that everyone was talking about in class.
17. Get inspired and type a whole paragraph.
18.  Realize that your paint has dried enough that you can do the next step. Paint some more.
19.  Go outside and chase a few squirrels, just for fun.
20.  Go to lunch for a couple hours.
21.  Panic over how little you've accomplished and type diligently for about 5 minutes.
22.  Go on facebook and read everyone's status updates.
23.  Facebook chat.
24. Do some more painting.
25. Type some more on your paper.
26. Grab a friend and go for a walk (or watch a movie, depending on the weather)
27.  Nap time. Paper writing is exhausting!
28.  Go on facebook and look at everyone's photos from last weekend.
29. Type a few more sentences.
30. Read children's books to your friends.  They needed a study break.
31. Check all your friends' blogs.  You might miss something important if you don't.
32. Decide to make a blog post of your own.
33.  Go to supper.  Spend a couple hours there.
34. Resolve to work on your paper and nothing else until it is done.
35. Watch the sunset and take pictures.
36.  Post the pictures on facebook.
37. Realize your paper is due in the morning and you have wasted the entire day.  Panic, close facebook and all forms of IM.
38.  Eat a snack.
39. Get bored with your paper and go on facebook to see who else is still up working on papers.
40. Do some detail work on your painting. (you need a study break every once in awhile)
41. Finish your paper, go to the lab to print it, realize the printer is out of paper, decide to print it in the morning and go to bed.
42. Stumble into class with your freshly printed paper and eyes half open.
43. Turn in paper.
44. Vow never to procrastinate on a paper again.
45. Repeat.

Good Friday Thoughts

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It’s Good Friday. If I were at home I would have gone to church with my family and then pot luck after church, followed by going home for leftovers from last night’s seder. But I’m not home. I’m at school.
In honor of the holiday I’ve been listening to !Hero: The Rock Opera while writing a paper and painting a new shirt. Later tonight there will be some Jesus Christ Superstar action happening, but for now it’s paper writing and !Hero. (!Hero is a retelling of the story of Jesus set in New York which is being ruled by an "iron-fisted" government known as ICON...think rock-and-roll meets Broadway meets the Gospel)
As I write this I’m about half way through. If I remember correctly this song (He just had to stir things up/leave here) is sung when Maggie (Mary Magdalene) is trying to tell her prostitute friends about Jesus and what he has done in her life. The lyrics (in part):
Prostitutes: Who does this man think he is? None of us need his help. Why don’t you just take your big kingdom to someone else? You shouldn’t be here. We don’t need you telling us how we should live our lives. How do we know you’re not just telling a pack of lies? You shouldn’t be here. Leave here. We don’t welcome any outsider inside the gang. We’re just malcontents but content to keep things the same. You’d better leave here. We don’t take our spiritual guidance from vagabonds. We don’t need a miracle worker to wave his wand. We’ll make you leave here.
Maggie: what’s the matter with you mental giants? Just afraid of what you can't explain. He only offers you a chance to try it, but all you do is mock him and complain.
Prostitutes: Hey girl let's remind you of something that you forget. You're just of us so go work it and paint your lips. white trash girl Maggie. We don't need you telling us how we should live our lives. How do we know you’re not just telling a pack of lies? Tell him to leave here.
Maggie: You really hate it when a person changes. Do you feel better when you call me names? My life's been clean since I met this stranger and all he does is offer you the same

As I listened to this I put myself in place off all three groups of people: Jesus (!Hero), the prostitutes and Maggie. I wondered how Jesus must have felt to be rejected before people even gave him a chance. All he was doing was offering hope to these people and they wouldn't even give him the time of day. They wouldn't even try to trust him. How does Jesus feel when I don't trust him? How many times do I tell him (maybe not in the exact words) that I don't need him telling me how I should live me life and that I've got it all under control?
And Maggie...she's met Jesus and she wants to tell others about the hope she has, but they won't listen to her. They can't see that she has changed. They still see the old Maggie. It must be frustrating for her. She knows she's changed and isn't the person she used to be, but no one else will accept that. How many times to I treat people the way the prostitutes treated Maggie? How often do I refuse to move beyond the past and accept that someone has changed? How often do I believe, even subconsciously, that someone is too bad for Jesus to change?
The prostitutes: they were scared. They didn't understand how or why Maggie had changed. How would they support themselves if they gave up prostitution? Who would accept them? They had a history after all. They aren't happy with the way things are, but the are more scared of the unknown. A chance at real freedom and healing is standing in their midst, but they are too scared to even give it a chance.

It's a lot to think about. Unfortunetely thinking about this does not give me progress on my paper on the five marks of global missions, so I will have to stop thinking and get back to work...Have a blessed Good Friday and remember that Sunday is coming!

For I know the plans...

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Sometimes plans change.  Sometimes things don't go the way I expect them to go or want them to go.  When this happens I get frustrated.  I like to know what is going to happen, when it's going to happen and how it's going to happen, so when it goes different, I get frustrated and upset.  However, once I calm down, I begin to realize that even though my plans didn't work the way I expected them to, G-d's plans were being worked out in ways I couldn't imagine.
Last night I really really wanted to go see the sunset out at the lake. I'd even asked a friend with a car to take me to the lake (She likes the sunset too) and she had said she could and would...It appeared a rock solid sunset-watching at the lake plan...until about 6pm. She couldn't bring me anymore.  She had a previous committment that she had forgotten about.  I put a desperate plea out on facebook for someone to watch the sunset with and I started calling people who I thought might be interested.   I found someone.  Once again I had a rock-solid sunset-watching at the lake plan...except it got cloudy and there really wasn't much of a sunset.  Either that or we were just too late.  I was frustrated.  All I had wanted to do was watch the sunset.
Looking back, even though the sunset-watching at the lake plan had failed, it was a good night.  We drove around semi-randomly and found some places that would be good for future sunset watching at the lake, we went to Wal-Mart and had an adventure. I got some new detail brushes. We talked. We listened to music and sang along. We got to hang out and just be friends.  It was good.
 
I must be a slow learned because last night was not the first time in the last two weeks that G-d has taken my plans and turned them on their head.
New Orleans.  My plan was to go and spend the week serving others.  I did not plan on spending 4+ hours in the hospital on Monday.  Nor did I plan to be so out of it Wednesday that I couldn't even come close to doing my share of the work.  G-d however planned that I would learn to lean on other people and develop new friendships.  I don't think it would have happened if G-d hadn't slowed me down first.  Sometimes it takes a lot to get me to slow down and listen.
This week Wednesday I planned on going to be early and sleeping long.  I did not plan on going to Nine.  I did not plan on playing badminton at midnight...G-d planned for me to be at Nine and it was amazing.  The words spoken and the songs sung were exactly what I needed to hear.  And playing badminton at midnight...I like to think G-d planned that for a purpose too, even if it was just to have fun.
G-d's plans are so much bigger than mine.  It's easy to write this, but so much harder to live it.  I like to know what is going to happen, when it's going to happen, and how it's going to happen.   I need to learn to lean more on G-d and trust him more fully..."For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11
 

What we saw instead of the sunset I had intended on seeing....

Turtles

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Just a little something I wrote about turtles...It's nothing fancy or profound, but it's something and I'm not even sure it is finished yet. Pictures are just random ones I found online...
Turtle
I am a turtle with a shell
As hard as
Rock.
I start to trust you and
I begin to
Talk.
And like a turtle in a shell
I can hide just as well.

But even little turtles learn
Although their insides churn
That hiding in their private shell
Doesn’t work out quite so well.

NOLA snapshots

A few snapshots from New Orleans

Five years after Katrina, there are still areas that have not been touched

Umbrella hanging by what is left of the door

doing landscaping at the Slidell church

Sunset over the Mississippi

tearing up tiles and linoleum to get to the original flooring so it can be repaired and replaced