A cup (or two) of Seattle's goodness

I love vacation. It's all the more wonderful after 10 weeks of summer school, but I love coming back to Seattle no matter what the occasion or time of year. These past several days have been full of seeing great friends, enjoying the Seattle-sunshine (yes, it IS sunny here in the summer!), marveling at the incredible beauty of the mountains and water that surround this place, and of course, savoring many cups of coffee from a variety of local coffee shops. I know that when people think of Seattle, they immediately think of Starbucks, but what I love so much about this city is that it is so easy to avoid having to purchase coffee from Starbucks altogether because of the sheer number of independent coffee shops that exist around here. I decided to demonstrate this via a set of photos taken throughout the week of no-Starbucks for Sarah :)

The Java Bean for breakfast

The Tea Cup on the top of Queen AnneCaffe Ladro, one of my favorite cups of coffee anywhere, I enjoyed a couple of these throughout the week!El Diablo, which is ironically located right across the street from my church, happens to have the best, most creative decor of any coffee shop. The Green Bean, the greatest coffee-shop with a distinct purpose I've ever seen, started and run by two young women about two years older than myself, this coffee shop truly does center as a community gathering place for the Greenwood neighborhood (I ran into two people I knew in the 5 minutes I was there one morning, a VERY fun thing!)

A quick recap

I was thinking back over the past few months and realize that I'm this tired for a reason--it's been a long and kind of tough summer! Hebrew ends tomorrow, and I only have a couple more pages to go on my final paper for my pastoral counseling class (although I'm pretty much out of things to say--so that could be a problem...) and on Saturday I will be leaving for 3 wonderful weeks away from the heat and smog of Los Angeles summers. I'm not quite ready for sleep yet tonight, so I thought I'd take a quick look back over the last 10 weeks. The internet "all about me" surveys are all over myspace and emails, so I thought I'd make up my own--here you have it, Sarah's summer in a nutshell:

• Number of Hebrew vocabulary words learned: 573
• Favorite book of the summer: there are two: Eat, Pray, and Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Music that kept me going: the Wicked soundtrack, the Folly (a band made up of my worship leader from Seattle and his wife) and Indelible Grace (a wonderful group that rewrites hymns to more modern tunes, they do a beautiful job with my new favorite song "O Love that Will Not Let Me Go")
• Number of pages read in my Hebrew book: 514
• Favorite experience of the summer: kayaking in Catalina
• Favorite random moment of the summer: getting hit on by some very strange guy in Jamba Juice--when he asked what I did and I mentioned I was a student at Fuller he said "woah! Dude! You like want to be a pastor?!" and I said "yes." "Woah! Dude! Does that mean you like have to take a vow of celibacy!?" "No, I hope to get married and have a family some day in addition to being a pastor." "Woah! Cool! So, like, do you have a phone number??" Seriously folks, not making this stuff up :) (Also not giving him my phone number...)
• Number of pages written for my pastoral counseling intensive: 36
• Favorite website to check up on: On Faith Dialogue
• Guilty pleasure of the summer: a LOT of Grey's Anatomy on DVD...I think I've seen seasons 1 and 2 a couple times each now.
• Favorite movie rental of the summer: Elizabethtown or The DaVinci Code
• Number of pages completed in the Hebrew workbook: 198
• Sermons preached: 1--I hung out with Mary and Martha a LOT in July
• Bible classes taught: 4--1 preschool class and 3 adult classes
• Favorite video purchase of the summer: "Today"--the new Nooma video (see http://www.nooma.com/ for more)
• Favorite new phrase: "oy shamamma!" (it literally means "Woe! Despair!" in Hebrew--it got used a lot in reference to Hebrew homework...) ("Seriously" and "fabulous" have stuck around as well...)
• Comfort food this summer: Pad Thai and edamamme soy beans
• New discoveries: I love white zinfandel -- had no idea!
• Favorite new cause: To Write Love on Her Arms
• Random places I was caught studying Hebrew flashcards: lines at Disneyland, restaurants while waiting for the check with friends, the post office line, traffic on the 134, traffic on the 5, the ferry to Catalina, the ferry from Catalina, the coffee shop on Catalina, grocery store lines, pacing around campus (I was NOT the only one doing this though!), on the treadmill at the gym
• Number of days until I get to be in the greatest city in the world: TWO!

Happy September everyone! I'll post photos and updates throughout my travels from the west coast to the east coast to the midwest and I'll be back in LA on the 14th of Sept in time to help with orientation--hooray for summer vacation!

it's all about the little things...

Our Hebrew TA is amazing--she really is. She did the Hebrew intensive last summer, so she knows how exhausting it is, and how long of a summer it can be--especially when we hit August and it is over 100 degrees here. So each Thursday she has been bringing treats for our class to enjoy during our break--we have a ton due each Thursday, so it always feels like our long day--but Becky brings us popcicles and fudgcicles, and really, when it is 100 degrees and you have taken two quizzes in one day, nothing beats a popcicle. It really is all about the little things in life :)

And, if anyone needs another movie recommendation, Gridiron Gang is a wonderful story of transformation, loyalty, and second chances :)

Using Your Words

I have the wonderful privilege of baby sitting every Friday for a family here in Pasadena, who I actually met through a couple at Cursillo in Houston (they are the grandparents of the three kids I watch here...) Anyways, Brannin and Tanya are amazing parents, I absolutely LOVE watching them with their kids, loving them, disciplining them etc. They've been working a lot with two year old Judson on using his words to explain how he is feeling rather than just getting frustrated and crying (it has been kind of a long process!) So today I went in to put him down for his nap and I was laying next to him on the bed reading and I finished the story and could tell he was trying to say something to me. He had been saying before nap time that he didn't want to take a nap, but instead of just telling me that again, he finally gets out "Miss Sarah...it hurts my feelings." "What hurts your feelings buddy?" "Napping...it hurts my feelings..." It was precious...way to use your words buddy!

words of wisdom

My two-week intensive class on scripture and pastoral care ends tomorrow, and it has been a wonderful experience. One of the things I have appreciated so much is that the core wisdom of the course has come through some incredibly profound statements that our professor has made that were not necessarily connected with the course lectures but came out in off-handed ways through conversation. I have had several people ask me what some of the main things I have learned are, and so I went through my notes and found some of my favorite statements our professor has made: (all quotations are by Canon Gordon Oliver)

"The calling of the Christian minister is to be daily with Jesus with the people on her heart, and to be daily with the people with Jesus on her heart."

"The only thing that is special about a pastor that is being used by God to bless other people is that the pastor is available for God to use. You are not more important than anyone else—you are only good at what you do by the grace of God."

"The purpose of history is to live from it and not in it."

“The best evangelicals are Catholics who have discovered the scriptures, and the best Catholics are evangelicals who have discovered the sacraments.”

“Churches will grow when they have good prayer and good parties!”

"People's defences are there to be understood not to be dismantled from the outside. People have defences because they have something very important to defend, and will bring them down when they feel safe."

"Jesus came to call us to a relationship with God who is, not the God who we construct."

"Having the ‘available Bible’ within the pastor is one of the things that makes the pastor available as an agent of God’s word. Of course this does not mean trotting out verses of Scripture, or reading it aloud in every pastoral conversation, but it does mean that Scripture may become ‘the available third voice in spiritual and pastoral care.’"

"The purpose of preaching is not to explain the word of God—it is to evoke the word of God. Jesus says in John 1, “come and see”—that is what preaching should be."

The Risks of Speech:
"The bible begins with God drawing breath, ready to speak. Love must be creative, love must be active, love must speak. The drama that follows is filled with stories, poems, prophecies where God is depicted as speaking. The tone of voice, the urgency of the message, the notes of instruction, warning, tenderness, healing….varies, but the central belief of the Bible is that there is one God and this God has something to say. The speaking of God in the Bible is not simply in the form of instruction – do this, don’t do that, do it this way. God’s speaking has all the tones of self giving love, including the tones that come when that love is denied or disappointed or stretched or rejected. There are risks to speech—you may think you are clearly saying what you want to, but that doesn’t mean that is what people will hear. The same is true when God speaks. If any passage of scripture demonstrates the risk of speaking it is John’s prologue—the people did not know the Word even though the world was created through Him."

"God’s word is to dwell in our hearts and speak in our minds. The messiness of scripture then comes face to face with the messiness of pastoral practice."

"Pastoral carers share in the mission of God. If it is not a mission activity it is not a Christian activity."

"There is no such thing as theology without biography. All theology is rooted in human story."

That's Not My Jesus...or Is It?

I mentioned in my last post that I've been taking a second intensive class this past week, and it is still a wonderful class! Today our professor was trying to make the point that when we come approach scripture, we have to allow people to ask questions of it, to wonder about it, to allow it to speak, to not be afraid to realize that scripture is not black and white all the time--but that does not have to be a bad thing. He wanted to let us experience this for ourselves, to help us realize what it feels like to come to something and allow everyone in the room to voice their questions or comments no matter how different from one another our opinions were. So to do so, he used artwork. He found nine paintings done throughout various time periods and in various countries, all depicting in their own way the crucifixion of Jesus. He left each painting up on the screen for 3 minutes and then silently went to the next one, asking us to simply reflect in silence on each painting. After the 1/2 hour was up we discussed each painting as a class, voicing aloud the things we were wondering about what the artist was thinking, what their life experience was that caused them to depict the event in such a way, what our thoughts or reactions were to each piece of art. It was a fascinating exercise, and I found a painting that I fell in love with (so did many others in my class) that I wanted to share. This photo appeared on the screen and was met with much surprise from people. We weren't aloud to talk yet, so we silently reflected on it. When it came time to share our thoughts on this painting, the reactions were fascinating. Many students (including myself) absolutely fell in love with it, and some didn't. At first.

This painting is called "Beneath the Cross" and was painted by a Catholic priest, Father Jim Hasse. I think that the comment that helps sums up our class conversation the best was from a young, white, man who said that when the picture first appeared on the screen his first reaction was "no way, that's not MY Jesus, that's got to be some feminist theologian trying to make some political statement." As he sat with it, he said that he started feeling drawn to it, but couldn't figure out why. He shared at the end of our class discussion that he realized that's not what the artist was trying to convey at all. This wasn't painted by someone trying to convince people Jesus was a woman--not at all. Rather the message of this painting is exactly what Galatians 3:28 says--in Christ, and at the cross, there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for we are all one. In our class discussion, many women and many people of different ethnicities mentioned that it was incredibly moving and powerful to be able to see themselves in the crucifixion story--that this painting isn't saying Jesus WAS a woman, but rather that Jesus DIED for all. We all belong on that cross, but out of his immense love for us, we don't actually have to take that place, Jesus took it for us, for all of us. The one student, who was at first so turned off by this piece, said very honestly, "I am so used to seeing Jesus depicted in most western art as a caucasian male with brown hair, and it is so easy for me to connect with that image of salvation because I can see myself in the Savior. I never considered what it would be like to never be able to recognize myself in any of these paintings. This painting seems like it could be used to start some incredibly healing conversations with people who have been wounded by the church, by men, or by people of different skin colors. I was wrong, that IS my Jesus, and I am so humbled by the fact that Jesus really did die for ALL, and somehow our churches have to get better at communicating that fact." Well, maybe art, when used properly in worship, could be one step on that healing journey. The hope in this picture is absolutely beautiful to me--as someone pointed out in class, it looks more like a resurrection painting rather than a crucifixion as she appears to be rising off the cross. May we all make more time to ask questions, to look at Jesus with new eyes, and to pray for the healing that so many need so badly in our world and in our churches.

Another piece of art I discovered this week, that I would highly recommend is the movie Elizabethtown, staring Orlando Bloom and Kirstin Dunst. I put it on last night so I could multi-task to it and get stuff done around my apartment, but had to stop about 1/2 way through and just sit and watch. We've been talking a lot in class this week about journeys, and how people journey through grief, journey from alienation to acceptance, and journey from hatred to love--and Elizabethtown was a wonderful story of a young man's journey to loving himself, his family, and his life. Next time you're at Blockbuster, definitely check this one out!

A few more Catalina photos

The rest of the photos from last weekend...

Pocket and Becca on the ferry heading over thereSophie and I on the ferryPocket overboard!Becca overboard!

We managed to hold our kayaks together long enough to enjoy a quick picnic lunch on the water

Back in the golf cartPocket and I actually got a lot of studying done on the ferry homeWhile Sophie and Becca read for fun

Time Out! (And my love-hate relationship...)

It's August. Seriously. Where did the summer go?? Oh wait, I haven't HAD a summer yet! I get the first three weeks of September off, which I am VERY excited about, but before that I have 3 more weeks of Hebrew to wade through. I gotta be honest, I have quite the love-hate relationship with Hebrew. I love the language, it is absolutely beautiful, and...ancient. We're talking a language that was created before people had a clue how to write, and because of that the modern-learner goes a little crazy trying to figure out some of the vowel-system they had and some of the grammar is a little crazy, but to be able to pick up a book of what looks like gibberish and be able to decipher "barayshith barah elohim eth hashamaiam waheth haaretz" ("in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth") is pretty incredible. And studying Hebrew has been such a wonderful break from the (literally) thousands of pages I read this past year in other classes. But, it's hard. It's really hard. And I am really really tired. I think I am definitely approaching a point of burn out and really need a vacation, or at least a few days of beig allowed to sleep in and do nothing without some assignment or vocab list hanging over my head. So 3 more weeks...I feel a bit like the little engine that could..."I think I can, I think I can...make it through about 6 more types of verbs...."

And, thanks to Fuller's wonderful financial aid system (definitely to be read sarcastically), I needed twelve credits for the summer quarter to keep my loans, and Hebrew is only 8--so I had to add another 2-week intensive class on top of Hebrew which started this week, every morning for 2 weeks. I can't complain too much, the class is AMAZING--maybe one of my favorites so far here at Fuller. It's being taught by an Anglican Bishop from England (this is his first time in the US--he's been having all kinds of fun exploring!) and is called "Using Scripture in Pastoral Care." The class is looking at themes in scripture such as alienation, hatred, love, discipleship, and witness and is looking at what various difficult passages of scripture might say to people struggling and going through seasons of lament, grief, hatred, abandonment, alientation or love in their own lives. So I definitely can't complain, the class has been immensely practical and a wonderful balance from the analytical/memorization driven class that Hebrew is!

Since it has been such a long summer, and I haven't had a break yet, and the other girls are in the midst of job-hunting (Sophie), moving (Becca), and classes of their own (Pocket), we took off last weekend to spend two wonderful days over on Catalina Island. One of the elders at the church Becca, Sophie, and Pocket all attended/worked at owns a VERY nice condo over on the island and offered it to us for a weekend this summer so we could get away and get out of the city (and honestly, we probably wouldn't have been able to afford to do so had we had to pay for a place to stay). It was a wonderful and generous offer and gave us a much needed mini-vacation. We had beautiful weather, and spent the weekend kayaking, sleeping in, watching movies until late at night, reading for fun (I did Hebrew too--I really did! But I also read a novel...) and wandering the port town of Avalon. We are VERY appreciative of Carol and her generosity! Here are some of the photos from the weekend (and yes, Catalina is still standing now that we have been there--I actually had two different people ask me that! We have apparently developed quite the reputation around Fuller...), and when I get the rest of the photos from Becca (she's the only one who had a camera kayaking since hers was waterproof) I'll post those...

Enjoying our Subway dinner before boarding the ferry to head over on Friday evening

Sophie and I on the ferry--talk about gorgeous weather!

Pocket and Becca on the boat

And then the sun went down before we reached Catalina (it's an hour and 15 mintes from the San Pedro harbor to Avalon on the island)--and our two who are usually always cold...well they got cold.

Pulling into the Island as the sun went down

And as the moon came out...

Friday night we just hung out around the condo, Sophie got aquainted with some of Carol's glass figurines that were around the placeAnd Becca read for fun! This happens so infrequently we had to take a picture...

And Pocket and I studied really really hard--seriously, we each did two things at once!

And 5 minutes later we decided we were done with homework...

Sunscreen? Check! Good breakfast? Check! Swim suits? Check! Hey we were ready for kayaking!

Saturday night for dinner we went into town and enjoyed an outdoor restaurant

The trip was planned a long time ago to celebrate Sophie's 26th birthday (which was back in December) but she got so sick from January through May that we couldn't really go--and then it was finals and graduation, so the weekend kept getting pushed back...so finally we went and we made them serenade her for her birthday even though it is now closer to her 27th birthday...oh well...we tried!

Dessert time! Becca and Pocket really love these huge gourmet caramel apples that they sell here in Pasadena and in Catalina apparently. Sophie humored them by posing for a picture but she thinks they are pretty gross. The view from our porch--yeah it was rough to wake up to!

Where we kayakedEveryone on the Island owns a golf cart which is the main mode of transportation--so Carol had let us use hers--Sophie was re-living her days of growing up driving one at a country clubHanging out in the condoand on the porch...