Today I....

....am going to to a post about what I did today, because I would like to blog, and with blogging usually comes deep and philosophical thoughts in their own time. So, ladies and gentlemen, a Monday in the Life of Jessica:

Today I woke up. The sun was not shining. I feel like I have written those two sentences before, side-by-side. Hmm. This probably means that this is how I start every day....moving on....

I did yoga, worked out some, made tea, grabbed a leftover biscuit, and read one of my favorite Richard Maybury books, "Are You Liberal? Conservative? Or Confused?" It is a brilliant book, as Maybury is a brilliant man. You should read it. Enough said.

After this, I went into my room, finished Esther, started Job, read some in Isaiah and some in Matthew. This completed, I set to work plotting my story out more. Man, I have seriously never planned this much before for anything. But this book must come to fruition. Therefore, someone must write it. And writing anything good requires sufficient planning. So, I must plan like crazy. I love my logic.

I ate breakfast and read a chapter in "How Should We Then Live?", which is another excellent book (not by Richard Maybury, but by Francis A. Schaeffer) that you should read.

After this, I did the dishes, folded laundry, cleaned my room (funny how I actually have a floor, walls, and furniture now), and thought about what to make for dinner. I settled on a dish called something like "wild mushrooms running rampant through a creamy forest of chicken and noodles." Yum.

I then settled down to read ANOTHER great book called "Story" by Robert McKee. You should read it IF you are interested in any medium of storytelling. It will change your life forever and all of your stories will increase in greatness by at least a tenfold!! =D This caused me to do more story planning as well.

Eventually, I stopped this and started to work for my dad. I answered e-mails, etc. for a while.....during which, my parents went on a walk and my siblings decided to throw a techno dance party in the living room in their absence.....

After working for some time, I looked up chord sheets for piano, printed them out, and went into the kitchen to make my chosen meal, only to find out I had been bumped by my mother, who insisted that the pork chops must be cooked at that very moment or they would go bad; that they were for dinner and I would either have to prepare my dish later and not-for-dinner, or make it another day.

"Well," I thought to myself (in an 'aloud' kind of way), "gee, mom, this is your night out with your yoga class, and my only night in this week: we're going to grandma's house tomorrow night, Wednesday is Radical, Thursday is either improv or Kara is coming over, Friday's the fair, Saturday's the improv show..." and I began to wonder what person in their right mind would schedule so much to do! But that is off-topic. The point is, I was bumped from making dinner.

I made it anyway, after everything else was done and everyone else had eaten the pork chops. WOE IS ME!!!!! Well, I ate the mushroom-chicken-noodle thing, and I thought it was quite tasty, if I do say so myself. And chicken is so much better for you than pork. And mushrooms are just so awesome. So there.

Between getting bumped and making my meal, I practiced piano. Okay...well.....sort of. I started off all nice and dedicated-ish, playing Ben Folds' "The Luckiest" like I was supposed to, and then suddenly I wanted to work on a composition I have been thinking about for a while. So that was my piano practice, until I got up for a moment and a certain dad and littlest brother turned on the TV (to watch while they eat their pork chops).

I cleaned up, read some more in "Story," attempted to upload pictures to Facebook (failing presently; must have something to do with blogging). And here I am now.

Well! That was most fascinating, I am sure. I even threw in some drama and self-pity to make it interesting.

Reflections on today:

1. What I have learned: It is very easy to be productive if you set your mind to it. It is also very easy to get distracted and forget to set your mind to something.

2. Best thing about today: Getting 1,000 brainstorms for my story.

3. Worst thing about today: Ummm....probably that I am staying up late right now and I will be very tired/groggy/falling-asleep-on-my-book-ish tomorrow.

4. If I could change one thing about today: I would go to bed. Now.

Fine. That settles it. I think I shall do more of these, though. At least so I can remember what life was like before it got hectic for the next 2 months...then I can get back to this life in January, right? Wouldn't trade it for the world...

~Jessica

Of Weddings (and wanting to have one myself)

Yesterday a friend of mine was married. To a really great guy. Her entire courtship, engagement, and wedding seemed to kind of “hit home” to me more than I thought they would. She is only a few years older than me. I have known her ever since we were little. The guy came from a good family who was friends with her family long before the courtship. My friend had placed her love story in God’s hands, knowing that if she was to be married, the right man would come along and ask her. And he did. All of this made me realize that perhaps marriage isn’t just a dream of mine that will never come true because it is just too wonderful. My friend’s wedding seemed so real for me. Weddings are no longer what “older people have.” It is hard to describe this feeling, but I am sure that at least Lizzie knows how I feel. ;)

The first eleven or so years of my life, I just accepted that one day I would get married to a man. Not a boy, a man. Surely much like my dad (I still hold that ideal, thank you very much). When I turned 12...yeah, you’ve heard that story before. What can I say? I’m only 18 ½, so I only have that many years to draw stories from. But anyway, I started “liking” boys, and thought that the first boy I liked and I would start dating once I told him that I liked him, and then when I graduated from high school we would get married. He was four or five years older than me, and I was a foolish little girl, but that is alright now. A little bit later, around 13 and 14, I was so boy crazy that I didn’t care to see the end of anything. I wanted them to love me, possibly date them, and hope for the best. I didn’t listen to my parents, who were attempting to teach me the “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”-ish approach. At least they had the power to say that I could not go on dates, and at least they kept me in their eyesight most of the time. So, yes. That story again. All of it to say that ever since I turned 17, I reverted back to “someday I am going to be married to a man.” Of course, I have had a few ideas of men or almost-men for God to destine for me. And every time I suggest someone he says, “Oh, yes, yes, that is nice,” nods absentmindedly, and gets on with HIS ideas. Like a writer who doesn’t want to take suggestions from his non-writer friends who don’t know how to write stories (I am not pointing any fingers, really!).

But along with the “someday” feelings, I have also felt an urgency to get married now. Have children now. I know, it is my biological clock, but it is a sometimes intolerable longing. It was worry...what if I never get married? What if I need to help God along and go hang out with some nice guys so I can have plenty of future husband options (I can’t decide if that is the stupidest idea I have ever had or not)? Everything was worry, anxiousness, not trusting God at all. I thought I was, but I wasn’t.

However, one night after a Radical Wednesday prayer meeting, some of us went out for subs afterwards, as the curse of being teenagers, athletes, and swimmers on top of that, is a triple-high metabolism than your average Joe (in other words, we are ALWAYS hungry, it seems). Kara and I, after food and drink, were much rejuvenated, so towards the time when we were about to leave, we started carrying on a conversation about life, as we often do. I won’t give you all the details of the conversation, but what I walked away with was her advice, straight from the Bible – “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” She added, “Sometimes, though, by delighting yourself in the Lord, your desires will change. But that is good, because your desires become HIS desires. And if you desire what the Lord wants for you, he WILL give you the desires of your heart!” Light bulb moment.

Since then, day-by-day I have delighted myself more and more in the Lord. He has shown me how to be content with what I am doing, instead of longing for something in the future. There is so much to do NOW, how could I not see it before?

God has not taken away my desire to get married. But he has carefully led me to a place where I know that marriage, for me, is for another time in my life. Soon, but not right now. Not till it is staring me right in the face, in fact. God showed me how to take the desire, put it aside, and focus on what IS in front of me. Working for my dad, helping my mom, writing, music, learning, being with friends, swimming, thinking, EVERYTHING I have at my fingertips right now. Marriage will be at my fingertips when the time comes. And I will know when the time comes, because, like all the things in my life now, I won’t have to seek it out. God will show me. It’s not like I am being lazy, saying “I am just going to sit here and be a religious couch potato till God’s will is right here in front of me.” But I understand that God’s will is something he reveals to me as I keep getting to know him more and more. I will seek his face, and everything else will follow. He wants me to trust him fully, not trust myself and my finding-out-what-life-is-for-on-my-own skills (which, I have discovered, are severely lacking). Every time I try to do something myself, I fail. I mean, it’s not like God cleans my room for me now or something. I do stuff here on earth. But I do it because I am supposed to; because God has made his will clear to me. I’m no prophet, though, of course. I don’t always get it right, and I mess up time and time again. It is so hard to describe this sensation. When I fall back on God, everything is clear and I know instinctively what to do.

It just IS. Does that make any sense?

Proverbs 3:5, 6 – “Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

~Jessica

Against Solitude

You may be wondering..."if there is a part one to 'On Optimism', surely there must be a part two, but then again, Jessica is apt to defy logic on a regular basis."  First of all, HUMPH!!  Second of all, yes, there will be a part two.  I just actually have to sit down and write it, which I haven't done.  This next entry is a small writing assignment I completed over breakfast last Tuesday morning.

Before now I have greatly commended solitude as something which I enjoy enjoying.  But there is a downside.  There is probably a downside to everything, but most of those downsides I would rather not think about.  I will acknowledge that it is good to be honest and realistic on some downsides, especially if in doing so I am kept or keep someone else from harm, one way or another.  

So it is with solitude.  I can tell myself, "Oh, yes, I can live alone in the middle of nowhere.  I would enjoy it; I don't need people."  But, for one thing, I would have no idea whether I was being true to myself by saying that.  I have never tried living completely alone.  It might be nice for a while, but surely I would get lonely.  A second point is that even if I don't need people...what if people need me?  Not to think of myself in such a great light or anything.  The thing is that nobody may actually be aware that they need me, but they still do, somehow.  If it isn't my direct help, then it may be at least some subtle influence or another.  My goal is to lead as many people to Christ as possible while on this earth.  That is really what life is all about; everything else is about having fun and/or surviving, and then surviving only to have fun, or to hang on to life for some odd reason.  Some do, however, strive for their own lives so they may continue to keep their children alive and protect their wives and things like that.  

But what is the point of living if, when you die, you go to heaven?  Why do even Christians value their earthly lives?  Why do we do things like eat healthily and organically and avoid other things that don't severely hinder our life's course if we are going to die anyways, and when we die we have eternal life in Christ?  Without the answer, it all seemed so pointless.  I guess if you don't believe in God or heaven, and you believe that your only life here is on this earth, and when you die you go nowhere, then it makes sense.  To hold on to your life here as much as possible.

But what about Christians?  And the only answer that has satisfied me is this: life is all about using where God has placed you, using the tools and gifts he has blessed you with to lead everyone possible to him.  To spread the Gospel; to give everyone the hope of eternal life, and the chance to live in their own heaven-on-earth.  

Now I get it!  That is why I have always been hearing things like "Do EVERYTHING to the glory of God!"  It's not some cheesy Christian saying that Christians say.  It is absoltely true.  

Thus, here is my argument: what good is solitute if it goes agains the meaning of life?  Even if it's solitude with only one's family, what is the point of living in isolation?  If it is to hide from economic crisis and an extremely overbearing and nigh evil government...why?  To grow one's own food that is without the poisons that the FDA requires to be in all they approve?  Good enough reasons, except...for what?  Why?  What is the point of trying so hard to survive, if you have no opportunity to preach the Good News?  It is selfish, really.  Why did I want it?  I wanted it for me, and no one else. 

Sure, I could justify it by saying, "Well, while I live out in the middle of nowhere all by myself, I will write books, and those can lead people to Christ."  And that may very well be.  And there is nothing wrong with a little solitude.  Personally I would love to have a little country cottage on rolling hills with giant oak trees sprinkled here and there.  But I would want it nearby to a community.  I may be introverted, but I need people just as much as anybody else.  God created us as social beings.  He knew Adam could not just live on earth by himself.  Adam needed Eve not just to be "fruitful" with, but also (and more importantly) as a companion on earth.

Therefore I am against solitude with all my heart.  Being alone occasionally and in small doses is fine, but isolation?  No.  We were not created for isolation.       

Names

"What is in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet: so Romeo would, were he not Romeo called."  

Seriously.  I have had just about enough debate with myself about this.  "This what??"  Okay, this: the notion that some Christians or Messianics or whoevers are better off in God's sight simply because they do not call him "God", but "Yahweh", and instead of "Jesus" they use "Yahshua."  Oh, and let's not forget "Shaul" instead of "Paul", and "Yochanan" instead of "John."  Now, personally I have nothing against anybody who uses the Hebrew names.  I just don't think it should be a matter of who-is-holier-than-whom.  As far as I am concerned, as long as we are all worshipping the same God, it doesn't matter what we call him, as long as it isn't something insulting.  

All I can see is that this whole "making sure to call so-and-so by his real, Hebrew name" causes you to do is feel prideful that you are a better Christian or whatever than everyone else because you know God’s real name and you don’t ignorantly sin by calling Yahweh God.  You know, if my name is translated to something completely different in another language, and I happen to go to say…Poland or somewhere and they address me differently, I am not going to mind.  They are still talking to the same person.  And I would hope that my friends over here in the states wouldn’t feel a sense of pride over the Poles because they say my name correctly, and therefore must be held in a higher regard by me.  That is so stupid.

Still, it may not really be so much of a matter of pride as I think it is.  I know it can be, because for a while (two or three months or so) after I learned the Hebrew names from some people I know (and love dearly, don't get me wrong) who prefer to use them, I felt a little high and mighty because I was "informed" on this matter and wasn't on the "ignorant" side of things, which contained the people who were using the wrong names of Jesus and God when addressing OUR heavenly Father.  Yessiree, I was doing things RIGHT, they were WRONG, I was an "elite Christian" and they were just ordinary.  And it was a sad, sad little...time.  Now, I didn't think badly of anyone, really, so if you are anyone reading this blog don't assume that I looked down on you to the point of really thinking less of you...more like I was looking up on myself and thinking more of me, if that makes any sense.  I was being foolish and immature, if nothing else!  

Anyways, there is that Michael W. Smith song "You are Holy", which lists many of God and Jesus' names.  He doesn't just have one, good grief!! It says, "He is Lord of Lords, He is King of Kings, He is mighty God, Lord of everything, He's Emmanuel, He's the great 'I AM', He's my Prince of Peace who is the Lamb, He's the living God, He's my saving grace, He will reign forever, He is ancient of days, He is the Alpha, Omega, Beginning and End; He's my Savior, Messiah, Redeemer, and friend; He's my Prince of Peace and I will live my life for you!"  And that is just scraping the surface... :D

Christ Jesus.....Messiah Yahshua.....SAME THING.  I can use one, I can use the other, I can use them interchangeably.  The name "Jesus" is "Yahshua" in Greek.  In Mexico, "Jesus" is pronounced "Hey-suse" (I'm pretty sure).  It's the same guy.  He just happened to be born in Israel, and God happened to choose the Israelites as his people before Jesus came to save everyone, so of course the original is Hebrew.  But if God had chosen the Greeks or Jesus had been born in Greece, they would have different names.  

Now I am just going to take a deep breath and rest comfortably in the fact that whatever I feel like calling my heavenly Father at the time (usually "my heavenly Father"), is FINE.  I hate looking down on others for any reason.  Pride is not good.  The Bible says that.  The Bible does not say thou shalt call thine Maker by His one real name or thou shall burn in the firey furnace of.....you-know-where.  

Ah.  A blog entry completed at long last!  Sweet bliss....

~Jessica

What do I Believe?

My friend Chris posted this homework assignment from his World Religions class on his blog, and suggested that I answer the questions myself on my own blog.  So, I shall.  First, the questions:

1. What is reality? How can you prove that something is real? What is truth? How is a religious truth different from a scientific truth?
2. Do you believe there are "beings" or a "higher being" "greater" than humans? Briefly explain.
3. Where do you think the world comes from? Where do you believe humans come from?
4. Are humans inherently good or bad and why?
5. What do you think is eventually going to happen to the world?
6. What do you think happens to people after they die?
7. How should people behave and why? What should guide people's sense of how they "ought" to behave?
8. Describe your attitude towards those who believe differently than you do. If you consider yourself to belong to a particular religion, describe how that religion responds to individuals of other faiths. Do you have any friends or acquaintances of a different faith?

Now apparently for this assignment one could not cite any scripture as a basis for anything one believes.  Now that will be hard considering the Bible is what my faith basically revolves around.  Nonetheless I'll try.  

1.  I like to think of reality in the terms of the Matrix.  No, really, I do a lot of the times.  This is not all "real", in a sense.  This is temporary.  We are only on this earth a short time, and this earth is only shadow-pictures of what is to come in eternity.  The only real things are our souls as people, because that is all that really transfers over.  But I don't think you can prove something is real.  Anything can be seen as evidence for or against something being real.  What right have we to say that anything is or isn't real?  Everyone is their own person and has an opinion.  In the Matrix everything seems real, but it's just a computer.  How do you know we all aren't just living in a computer?  How do I know we are?  It's the same kind of thing if you say, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  I mean, it is, but then it isn't, because how do you, as one "beholder", know that beauty is actually in the eye of the beholder?  You don't.  Essentially we have no right to assume that anything is real or isn't.  My view is just an opinion and we may never know.  As for truth, I remember there being some debate/argument/discussion about what absolute truth was on here probably back in May or something.  I have finally come to the conclusion that there IS absolute truth, but only God knows it.  We are imperfect humans who have opinions about right and wrong.  Like with reality, we have no right to assume we know absolute truth.  We may never know, or I may end up being right and we all die and go to heaven and are informed of absolute truth when we get there.  Until then the best we can do is make educated guesses.  Religious "truths", then, are what is considered "right" and "wrong" by a particular religion.  Catholics (I think) believe that they have to go to mass every Sunday or it is a sin (if you are a Catholic, please do not be offended and do correct me if I am wrong).  I think that most Christians will agree that if you don't go to Church every week then you will be fine.  Going or not going to church is not a measure of your faith and it's not the only way to get closer to God (as a matter of fact sometimes it doesn't bring you closer at all....but then I can get into all this Martin Luther stuff which can be saved for another rant).  I don't know much about what other major religions such as Buddhism or Islam think are right and wrong, but I am sure the "truths" of Buddhists and Muslims differ pretty significantly from that of Christianity, Judaism or Catholicism, because they have different books of life guidelines.  Scientific truth is what can be proved by science to be true.  Science has proven many things (macro evolution is not one of them), and when I see the proof, I believe it.  And proof is the key word there.  I need absolute proof.  Now, you may wonder why I don't need absolute proof for Christianity.  That is because there is no absolute proof to believe in anything.  Even Atheism doesn't have absolute proof (*gasp!*).  How can you prove there is not a God?  How can you prove that you alone can govern your life?  How can you fully trust in Science if Scientists don't know everything but consider many theories and hypotheses absolute truth?  You can't.  Atheists are as confident in their belief in non-belief as Christians are in their belief in God.  But we cannot be sure that one is right because no human knows.

Wow, this is going to be long.  Brace yourselves......or just get really comfy.

2.  If any of you have read Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, you will now know what I would like to say on this question.  Where do we get our universal ideas of morality and right and wrong?  Those kinds of things don't just appear out of thin air.  The Pagans in, say, the time Beowulf was told, had no god that they feared and worshipped and no Bible that they read every day.  Yet they valued valor, honor, honesty, bravery, and loyalty, and detested wimpy-ness, betrayal, dishonor, stealing, lying, murder, et cetera.  Atheists usually are really are good people (a lot of the time better than many Christians).  But where did we get these values and standards that we always hold each other to but a lot of the time forget to hold ourselves to?  Perhaps from some perfect entity who is above us all.  Aside from that little thought, yes.  I believe there is a perfect God who is above us all and made us all in his image.  But that is my opinion.

3.  The world was created by God and so were humans.  There is no way we could have just happened because there was a big explosion in the sky, and it is impossible for us to have evolved from apes.  Especially since apes are still around......how do you explain that?  Oh, and I DON'T believe the world has been around for a billion years.  What proof is there?  Of course, I believe all of this mainly because I believe what the Bible tells me.  But I also believe that science disproves macro evolution.  Nobody wants to educate themselves and accept it, though.  It's like some guy's avatar on a forum I was on said:  "The Frog-prince: a fairytale for children.  Evolution: a fairytale for grown-ups."  

4.  Humans are born selfish and self-centered.  And we probably wouldn't have half that idea of morality talked about in question 2 unless we were selfish to see how everyone else's actions affected our personal well-being.  And then we grow up and see that life is much more harmonious if we do to others what we would have them do to us, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Yes, that is in the Bible, but it is the best way of phrasing what every person really believes anyways.  You don't have to think about it when you see an old lady walking up to Wal-mart in front of you and you go and open the door for her.  You don't think, "when I am old and frail, I would like some young man or woman to open the doors at Wal-mart for me."  You just do it (hopefully not going home saying, "GOSH, I can't believe I opened that door for that stupid old lady today...what a waste of my time and energy!").  Still, humans are selfish and don't like to go out of their way.  A lot of the times they do have to think to be nice to people.  I know I do.  Sure, being nice to my friends isn't hard, but I have to be conscious of my actions at home.  I can blast my brothers a thousand times a day and not think twice about it.  Sorry guys....... :(

5.  How can I answer the question without the Bible?  Well, I believe this world will end and we will have a new one that is better and will last forever, and we all live together in peace for eternity.  There ya go.

6.  They go to heaven.  That sounds all goody-goody Christian-like, but as I am what you would call a "Christian", that is what I believe.  So get over it.  You are going to heaven and there is nothing you can do about it.  ;)

7.  Well, I kind of answered this question in 4 and 2.  But regardless of what any book says, I think that people should behave in a way that we can live as harmoniously as possible.  Considering that is not going to happen, I shall simply endeavor to improve upon myself and not worry about what other people do.  But if I were to pick something to guide people to good behavior, I would probably just reference the King George and the Ducky Veggie Tales video where Jimmy and Jerry are trying to pretend they are Bob and Larry hosting.  They play the film, "The English Man Who Went up a Hill and Came Down with All the Bananas."  After the film they go to the computer Qwerty to ask him if he has a verse for them.  Qwerty is turned off but they think he is broken, so one of them goes and gets a piece of cardboard and scrawls on it with a sharpie, "Don't be selfish!"  Jimmy remarks, "Wow, that is a good one."  I agree........but who keeps a computer on their kitchen counter anyways?       

8.  I don't really mind it when people behave or think differently from me.  Sometimes it is interesting and weird, because I have not ever thought or behaved that way, obviously.  Most of the time it isn't bad, so I don't let it bother me.  But sometimes it bothers me when people are doing wrong things because I know they are bringing harm upon themselves or others.  But just because someone is different doesn't mean I am going to criticize them (because it happens to me and I don't like it).  And even if I do feel like I need to talk to them about something, I would do it in love and not in a negative, critical kind of way.  Also the whole point of being a Christian is spreading the good news that Jesus loves us all so much that he went to hell for us and saved us from it so that when we die we all go to heaven and live with our father forever.  I can't imagine why somebody would reject such a wonderful thing.  But I'm a Libertarian.  You can believe what you want to, and I can believe what I want to.  I have some casual Catholic and Jewish friends, and a few agnostic/atheist friends, but most of my friends are some form of Christian or another.  Personally I think the other religions are kind of empty compared to Christianity.  Either you believe in nothing, or you believe in all these dos and don'ts and shoulds and shouldn'ts.  Christianity is just filled with love and peace and all that other good hippie stuff.  

So that is what I think, and I barely cited the Bible at all!  *is proud of herself*

~Jessica

A little word from my sponsor.

Well, I told a couple of people I would blog about all the books I bought yesterday, but that will just have to wait as I read something in my Bible this morning which confirmed what I have been trying to remember the Bible saying before.  Without trying to be overly argumentative, I have a few nice little verses for all of you out of Deuteronomy 17 (the italics are, of course, mine):

14 When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, "Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us," 15 be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. 16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, "You are not to go back that way again." 17 He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.

 18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law [well, that has been abandoned], taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. 19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

Pull from it what you will, but IMHO, nobody anywhere has followed this law completely for a long time.  I'm not going to say any more at this time as I don't feel like I should monologue about it.  But of course it's open to discussion.  :)

~Jessica