Monday, August 28, 2006

Also

Does anyone know why about every other time I open Mozilla (where my home page is Blogger Home) it says the document has no data, and the other times it works fine? It's been happening for, oh, three days now?

P.S.

Smith College lets alumnae change their address online, with a link on the front page of its alumnae section. I'm just sayin'.

How to change your billing address in the technology age

11:15: Log on to (Visa, MasterCard, etc) website
11:18: Figure out that you need to go to sponsoring bank's website
11:19: Log on to bank site
11:22: Discover that you can't do it online, or at least can't figure out how to right now
11:23: Call number on back of card
11:25: Finally get to main menu
11:26: Discover that "for address" means "if you want ours"
11:27: Return to main menu
11:28: Press 0 to speak with a representative
11:29: Begin blogging about changing billing address
11:32: Speak with customer service representative
11:33: Convince her that you really do want to change billing address
11:35: Establish new billing address
11:37: Finish rejecting other associated offers
11:38: Post

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Time to go

There are things I like to do with people, and there are things I like to do alone. Sermon writing and packing are things I do best when left to my own devices. Unfortunately, they also seem to be things about which my parents want to advise me. I do not blame my parents for the fact that I'm unhappy with several parts of tomorrow's sermon. It is not at all their fault that I seem to be in a rut right now (not a preaching-the-same-thing-every-week one, but the kind where I seem to be utterly unable to fix the mistakes that I know are there). It's also not an invitation for them to explain to me what I should do about it (especially since neither of them has ever actually DONE it. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the last time either of them wrote anything other than an email or a memo.)

It's time for me to get back to Evanston - unfortunately, I've got another week, in which I still have to pack all my stuff, fix this sermon as best I can, write another one for next Sunday, and spend a lot of family time.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Then Again, Maybe I Won't

I was going to write you a beautiful poem...

I mean, I was going to write you all a real, actual post. Then my mother called and asked me to come help reorganize her new library (she's recently become the high school librarian). And you know how I feel about organizing books....

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Very Model of a Modern Minor Generalist

So, I was just listening to my iTunes, which includes a couple of uploaded albums from my flirting-with-fundamentalism period - and by "couple" I might actually just mean "one," Steven Curtis Chapman's Heaven in the Real World album.* I'm not sure there are any others in there. Anyway, "Dancing with the Dinosaur" came up, and it occurred to me that the lyrics to that particular song read somewhat like a modernist Christian anthem. It starts out:
Once upon a time not so long ago in a land not so far away
Right and wrong were not quite so hard to know
And black and white were not so gray


Then there's the bridge:
Right is right and wrong is wrong just like it has been along
We cannot sit by and see conscience become history
So come on, get up and dance
Dance this dance with me
(Gonna keep on dancing, gonna keep on dancing with the dinosaur
Gonna keep on dancing, gonna keep on dancing with the dinosaur)


I've been reading about postmodernism, theology, and Scripture the last couple of weeks, and continuing to discover how many of my long-standing (read: since before memory) habits and tendencies fall under that umbrella. Suddenly, I'm a little clearer on why parts of that song never quite sat well with me. (Yeah, I never really made a very good fundamentalist. I dropped it about as soon as I figured out that "serious Christian" didn't have to equate to "fundamentalist." Which, really, didn't take that long.) It might be interesting to spend a little more time thinking about the ways this particular song, artist, and/or genre are or are not thoroughly intertwined with/dependent on modernism. (For instance, he seems to assume that before the "tolerance movement" everyone (at least in the Church) saw things as black and white all the time, whereas I think Augustine's work on grace and free will pretty well shoots that down all by itself.) I wouldn't be surprised, really, to learn that someone's already doing/done this with the genre, but this song seems particularly useful for that kind of investigation.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

While I'm at it

While I'm here and book posting, this one came from the Little Professor: Which authors dominate your shelves? (Domination = five or more books)

This is from memory, since most of my books are at school, but here's a guess: Louisa May Alcott, Madeleine L'Engle, Maud Hart Lovelace, L.M. Montgomery, J.K. Rowling, Valerie Tripp, Shakespeare, Ann M. Martin, Toni Morrison, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Irving Stone... ok, I'm not sure I can think of any from my shelves at school that I have in such volume, except L'Engle. (I do not count either General Convention or the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music as an author.) These are all from home.

I'll keep thinking, but now it's time for shower and bed.

If Ryan's posting, I am too.

(For clarity's sake, I mean this Ryan.)


1. One book that changed your life:
Madeleine L'Engle, A Swiftly Tilting Planet

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women is the first one that came to mind.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
The Bible (Since that's not a terribly interesting answer in these circles, if I could have two I'd also want Little Women.)

4. One book that made you laugh:
Jon Stewart (&co.), America (the book)

5. One book that made you cry:
Nicholas Wolsterstorff, Lament for a Son - five lines in, and all the way through

6. One book that you wish had been written:
Rumor has it that, before she left the public eye, Madeleine L'Engle was working on a novel about Meg Murry after her kids have left home....

7. One book that you wish you had never read:
Alas, Babylon. That's 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
Stephen Fowl, Engaging Scripture

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Augustine's Confessions