I haven't entirely disappeared. Only in bits and pieces, one of which is the bit (or piece) that blogs, I guess.

Actually, it's still here -- it's just been kind of quiet lately. I've been thinking. Sometimes thinking needs a sounding board, and sometimes thinking just requires a quiet corner. This has been mostly quiet corner thinking.

Old testament is still my passion, still what I love best and would still rather study it than even to breathe, but it may not be where I'm headed anymore. It's still very much what I want to do, but there's a strong compulsion in a different direction in which I may actually be able to do more in a ministry sense.

And nothing says I can't continue to study OT, even if I serve in another way. Right?

This is an uncomfortable sort of shift, this direction of thinking. I'm not sure I like it, but somehow, I think I may also be at peace with it. Doesn't make sense, I'm sure, but then when we're honest, not that many things really do.

My brain may be twisting and/or writhing for the next while; in the future, maybe my "quiet corner thinking" will need a sounding board and I won't be so blasted cryptic. (Whether it sounds like it or not, this is actually something deeply entrenched in the last post re: "gifts." I think there's something I have that God can use if I let him. I've just got to get past the fear and/or reluctance and my own personal stubbornness that won't.)

Who knows?

I've been thinking a lot about the parable of the talents lately.

We just had a ministry fair at SVCC and it's stirred up some interesting thoughts about the nature of the body of Christ and the individual responsibility of every believer toward ministry.

And i've thought that "talent" might not be limited really to what I've traditionally understood: something a person is good at that's to be used for the glory of God. I think it's that, too, but I think that's an unnecessarily narrow definition and that a talent might be anything in a person's life that God intends to use -- and hiding one's talent in that respect would be standing in the way of his using it, or letting fear stand in the way.

God may not have given me the trials in my life, but he's given me what I've needed to survive them and he's given me opportunity to learn from them and, when necessary, to heal from them. And it strikes me sometimes that Mordecai's words to Esther, "who know but that you have come to [this] position for such a time as this?' may have far broader application. God spared her in order to spare his people. Who knows but that God has brought me through in order to use me to bring others through as well?

So maybe a talent isn't necessarily anything I'm good at or any specific gift God has given me directly. Maybe it's just something in my life he intends to use -- if I'll let him.

The Dan Brown Code

I've been re-reading The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. Well, okay, I re-read it Sunday night; now I'm re-reading the prequel, Angels and Demons.

The criticism I've heard most often is that "it's a fun book for the most part, an interesting mystery novel with a lot of factual errors." And that's true in part. But I've harped on elsewhere about his absolute lack of fact checking before (i.e. citing over 80 gnostic gospels ...and apparently locating some of them in the Dead Sea scrolls -- which all scholars seem to think are devoid of anything remotely related to new testament gnosticism, not to mention containing absolutely no gospels or gospel fragments of any sort, and which he claims were discovered "in the 50s," I think.) Anyhow, I have other opinions, too -- which may or may not involve spoilers.

The story is, in general, pretty entertaining. Except that it's been done. To death. And by much more talented authors. Umberto Eco, for instance, wrote Foucault's Pendulum back in 1989, I think. Heck, even The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors by Kersey Graves, an unsupported fabrication of the 1870's from which Brown gets most of his "information" about where Christianity supposedly drew most of the characteristics claimed to be unique in the life of Christ is a better work of fiction.

Robert Langdon, the protagonist, is a relatively well-developed character, though sometimes dense as London fog -- maybe it's part of his charm. But I think that the character is three-dimensional because Brown is writing himself largely into the role. And it's interesting to note that the character doesn't mind notariety even of the infamous sort -- and neither will his editor -- because book sales will jump. Given Brown's past assertions, this seems revealing.

His villians are lacking. The albino monk, Silas, is at one point incredibly sinister and evidences a devious cunning -- and in another breath shows all the intestinal fortitude of a mango, being both imbecilic and a 'victim of circumstance.' Poor disillusioned guy...

His plots are formulaic. It's as though he took Angels and Demons, shortened it, changed most of the names of the characters and moved it to Paris instead of Geneva. The puzzles really should not have kept him and his cohort busy for the entire length of the book if he is indeed a "Harvard Symbologist" and she a professional cryptologist.

It is an intertaining book. But is it worthy of all the attention it's garnered? No. Not in my opinion. There are far better books -- on equally controversial themes, if one really needs that sort of thing. There are far more entertaining books much better written, researched and plotted. There are books out there which contain actual surprises.

This is not one of them.

So I think I've decided to write the next blockbusting best-seller. I'm not sure what I'm going to call it, but I promise not to do any research and to try to tick off as many people as possible somewhere near the middle and promote as many ludicrous theories as I possibly can -- and even some I can't.

At 6:00 this morning, my phone rang. My brain, though benedryl-hazed and coherence-impaired due to the ungodly hour somehow managed to recognize the voice of my mother. You know, the woman who gave birth to me and the one who realizes that one of the larger blockaids to my converting was that the local c's of C all met hours earlier than did the Baptist church of my youth. In short, she knows I like to sleep. However:

Mom: "Quiara? I have a surprise for you."
Me: *mmmprhhp*
Mom: "Did I wake you?"
Me: frumph.
Mom: "Good." *sound of phone being passed.*

...

Nephew(!): "Key?"
Me (suddenly awake): "Yes, Doodle?" (Which is, of course, short for Doodlebritches)
Nephew: "I go s'prise for you!"
Me: "You do? What is it?"
...

Nephew: "...I 'on't know... But Brandon [my youngest brother, a.k.a. "The Prodigal"] is fweepin' in my bed."
Me: "He is?"
Nephew: "Uh huh. He snorin'. Like this:" *loud, adorable imitation of Brandon's snore.*
Nephew (again): "Key? You talk to Nana now. I got go play."

-----


Eh, I think he's cute. ^_~ (Stinkin' adorable is the term I use most often, in fact). His maternal grandparents (who are also custodial at this point, but that's a long story) moved to Mississippi a while back. Since my mother continues to live in the God-forsaken land that is Arkansas (as opposed to the far more God-forsaken land that is Mississippi), she doesn't get to see him nearly often enough anymore. And I, living in Tennessee (somewhere between the two on the scale of God-forsaken-ness, I'm sure) hardly see him at all. I think he now believes I live in a telephone.

Major Prophets:

Fortner's class this semester is Major Prophets. It meets 2 days/month, 6ish hours/day, for 3 months. It's a baptism in the prophetic books - and I can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday.

Well, I also cleaned house. But mostly I thought about the prophets, their function, and the manifestations of the presence of God among his people throughout the ages.

Classes like this are air to me. I try to inhale enough to sustain me between class meetings. It almost works.

I'm still stewing over the things we talked about. Friday evening, we had a lecture by Dr. Jack P. Lewis. Incredible man. I've got tons of thoughts I want to coalesce at some point.

What I think I need....

That would actually be a better title for another post I want to write, but not right now. Right now, what I need (I think) are two people, one who believes particularly strongly in the complementarian/patriarchal mode of women in the church and one who believes in the egalitarian model because I have questions for each of them that, to my mind, each "side" has entirely failed to address.

But I dunno who to ask, dangit.

Wow.

Well, we're back.

The retreat was great. There wasn't a lot of "formal" devotional time, but there was definitely Godstuff happening all over the place.

We also recorded 24 songs in less than 24 hours -- about 5 of which (the hours) we slept and about 3 hours were devoted to eating. All in all, not a bad ratio. There was only one song we didn't get to and it's one that we hadn't even got the music for until this past Wednesday, so even if we hard started it, it's not likely we could have made it into something of recordable quality given the time we had.

But it was fun!

And I am so stinkin' sleepy.

I wonder about the strangest stuff sometimes. But today, I was listening to my iPod at work while doing some routine file stuff. And for me, it's an effort NOT to sing when I'm listening to music. But I didn't sing. I focused on the words -- I even mouthed along with them, "singing" without any air. And while it's good to just listen every once in a while (I love the words -- and I noticed a spot where I'd consistently been singing the wrong note. It sounded okay, but it was wrong), I have to wonder: why is it that people would turn shades of fuschia heretofore unseen on earth if you caught them singing -- but these same people think nothing of walking around in public talking into "hands-free" headsets on their cell phones? Is it really any less embarrassing to look as though you're engrossed in a conversation with a particularly chatty imaginary friend? There are even people who gesticulate wildly while doing so -- something that not that many years ago would have found them straightjacketed and pumped full of thorazine before you can say "Can you hear me now?"

What is it about singing that mortifies people before they even open their mouths? One of the statements I hear most often when it comes up is, "Oh, I can't sing...."

So?

Singing isn't always about hitting the right notes. Sometimes it's just about being happy. Or sad. Or whatever. The Psalms, the book that best expresses not only God to man, but man to his Creator, is a bunch of songs -- and some of 'em aren't tunes I'd call "perky." And how did radio catch on? People like songs. Sometimes you sing just because you sing.

But beyond that, how do they know if they never sing? More often than not, I've found that most people just need a little encouragement. Yes, there are those who cannot carry a tune if I loaned them a forklift, but for the most part, people can sing. They just need someone to fail to laugh for once. And the most important part of singing is also the hardest -- but it's the most important part of life, too: LISTEN.

I think we need to listen, to stop laughing, and for cryin' out loud, just to SING.

I'm looking forward to this weekend, even if it will be spent in Mississippi.

SVCC is having a "worship retreat," which amounts to "Kip and some singers go hide out for 2 days and record a CD. And also have a devo." I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm singing alto this go-round, and it's fun to get back to it again. I sang alto all through college, but tried to increase my range by singing soprano for the last couple of years. (Plus, Dr. Ganus tried to convince me that deep down, I really wanted to be a soprano. Ha.)

Anyway, looking at the music, I recognize bloggers' names all over the place! Or if not names, then people and/or groups with whom they are associated. That's nifty. It makes it that much more important to sing it "right." Somebody worked incredibly hard to get it down on paper right, so I ought at least to have the courtesy to give it my best shot. ^_~

I've been walking around the complex with my iPod singing along. It dawned on me earlier what the alto part must sound like without any of the other parts -- and that's all any of the curious onlookers have heard. They must think I'm tone deaf or something.

That's one thing I like about a cappella music, too: all the parts inter-relate. They just make more sense when you've got all four (or more). Okay, too, as a convert, I prefer it to the untuned, no-tempo piano of TinyBaptistChurch, Inc., a.k.a. my first home church. But if I start talking about that place, I'll probably never shut up. It's a tiny church (with 25 - 30 on a crowded Sunday) so the auditorium was usually nearly empty, but the people were full of love. That church survived a lot of conflict. It's not small because it split and it's not small because they lost people (well, except for the random conversions which don't exactly count). It's small because it's located in the middle of nowhere, it's a 40 minute drive from anywhere and a lot of people don't even know it's out there. It's also small because the members who do attend, who do know it's out there, are getting older. Several have died in the last few years.

Sometimes I miss that church.

Too often, where I work is silent.

I work in a clean lab and my computer has no sound. (I'd send it down to IT, but I'm afraid it'd come back with sound but no operating system or something worse.) I hadn't realized how much music impacts me, how much it shapes my moods and the way I encounter things. Silly as it may sound: I need music. I need to play music, sing, or even just listen, but I need music.

I have a friend who believes that music is just another way in which God speaks to us. And I tend to think he's right. And just like we can abuse the other channels through which God chooses to communicate, so this, too, can be abused -- and often is, as is apparent if you turn on nearly any radio station.

I don't mean that I think all music has to be (or even ought to be) "Christian" music insofar as it's defined by the music industry today. But I think that all good music cannot help but be Christian music -- because every good and perfect gift comes from above.

Anyway, not incredibly deep thoughts. Just randomly thankful for the invention of the iPod: portable music in a silent lab. ^_~