Working to Overcome Disappointment

I’ve been attending Lakeland Community College now for almost three years.  I thought I was going to graduate after this semester — I even went through commencement.

Unfortunately, due to how the Feds love to create lots of rules and regs, everything may be messed up.

I had signed up for three classes in Spring:  Life Drawing II, Package Design and Graphic Design Portfolio.  (I should mention that I’m majoring in Graphic Design, no?)  After attending one Life Drawing class, which was on the Saturday before the “drop dead” date, I realized that because of how the instructor was handling the class (which was “mixed”; mostly Life Drawing I with 2 or 3 of us taking II), it was mostly going to rehash what I had taken in LD I.  It didn’t seem worthwhile. 

Well, due to the timing and the weather (I don’t have a ‘net connection at home) and the fact that the following Monday was Dr. King’s birthday and the school was closed, it was the following Tuesday before I changed LDII for a class in Lakeland’s Weekend College.  Didn’t seem like a big deal and no one said anything.  But it has turned out to be.

Because I transferred in credits from my time at Kent State (number deleted) years ago, I am under a “Max Time” warning.  And because of the timing of the change in classes, they consider me as having tried 11 hours (instead of the 8 it really was) and the upshot of this all is that I have no financial aid (being all Federally-supplied Stafford Loans).  And this is a problem.

Oh, I filed an appeal, but the bottom line is that I’m hurtin’ — I have no way to pay for tuition, et al.  I’m utterly dependent on my FA to go to school.

If you’re a believer and you read this, please ask the Lord to help me get this straightened out.  And if He has closed this door for some reason — ask Him to help me accept this and to deal with it.  I know I can’t do it without Him.

What Theologian Am I, Anyway?

Which theologian are you?

You scored as a Anselm

Anselm is the outstanding theologian of the medieval period.He sees man’s primary problem as having failed to render unto God what we owe him, so God becomes man in Christ and gives God what he is due. You should read ‘Cur Deus Homo?’

Karl Barth 100% John Calvin 100% Anselm 100% Martin Luther 80% Jonathan Edwards 80% Paul Tillich 53% Friedrich Schleiermacher 40% Augustine 33% Jürgen Moltmann 27% Charles Finney 7%

Okay.  I’ll admit my ignorance.  Until I decided to take QuizFarm’s test, I’d never heard of Anselm and I sure didn’t think I was a Calvinist.  I was raised Lutheran, so I kind of thought that I might “be” Luther, but since I know I’ve parted company with Dr. Luther on infant baptism, I’m not altogether surprised.

So now, I need to learn more about whom I’m not and a little more about who I am.  Surprises aren’t all bad if they lead you to examine yourself and learn, right?

I just can’t help being offensive (don’t mean to be)

We live in an Automat world.  If you aren’t old enough to remember an Automat (I don’t think there are any around any more; if I’m wrong I’d like to know) they were a place where you could walk in, find what you wanted, put in some money, get that food, move on to another little door, repeat until you have enough.  No menus, just lots of choices which you could put together however you chose.  Think of it as a kind of walk-in vending machine, with tables.

Today, when it comes to matters of choosing faith, an awful lot of people treat their “god” the same way.  A little plate of Buddhism, a side of Paganism, with (if you went to church as a kid) a dash of “christianity lite” on the side.  And this is okay in our ‘anything goes, love the one you’re with, if it works for you that’s great’ culture.  Absolutes are out, a la carte religion is in.

This makes it tough for folks like me, who believe in absolutes.  In THE Absolute, in fact.  I grew up in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  After confirmation (which, if you don’t know anything about the Lutheran Church, is when you say you agree with all the stuff everyone else said for you when you were baptized as a baby/little kid), I flirted with Pentecostalism, Catholicism and other variants on mainstream Christianity, but we never really got serious about one another.  I went back to Lutheranism for awhile, even.  Then, after I met my husband (well, he wasn’t my husband then, but he got to be later), we went to the church where he wanted to be married.  This church was a basic, Bible-believing church with no denomination on the door or looking over the altar to supervise.  The bottom line was the Bible, which was presented as God’s inerrant, inspired word.  I didn’t have a problem with that, because that’s one place where this church agreed with what I was taught as a child.

After several months of attendance (and premarital counseling — hi, Pastor Dean, wherever you are!) I realized that this was where I wanted to be.  No denomination, just believing in and living for Jesus with His word and the Holy Spirit as my teacher and helper.  And so, I became <theramin music> — a FUNDAMENTALIST! <scream> </scream> </theramin>.

This is where I get to the point, I promise.  According to popular current opinion, we fundamentalists are embarrassing and offensive.  Not only do we insist on believing in absolutes: good/bad, right/wrong, white/black, and (oh, no!) in a very specific, non-PC God and in Jesus Christ, we also insist on sharing those viewpoints with the world on the basis that we are right and we want to (gasp! shock!) save the people who don’t share those viewpoints.

To those of you who fall into the “offended” category, let me ask you this.  Let’s suppose that someone you love very much was driving along an apparently wide, smooth highway.  Looks great.  No problems; 65 mph and not a hazard in sight.  But I know, (because I was warned), that the road ends abruptly ahead.  There’s a great, big chasm ahead and no bridge.  Anyone who keeps cruising along this road is going to go crashing into this cavern and die.  But I also know that there’s another road.  Doesn’t look as snazzy, but I know for a fact that this is the only safe side road there is.  How would you feel about me when you heard the knock on your door, got the bad news and later found out that I knew all about the end of the road but just sat there and let your loved one go on to die?

That’s how the Lord feels about it, too.  He asked us to let others know what we learned.  He loves all those who don’t believe or only think they do (including me at certain points in my life) so much that Jesus died so the road could be complete and the bridge could be built to end the separation of God and man.  And he doesn’t expect me to sit around and watch everyone zoom by without so much as a warning on my part.

So remember that when I (or some other offensive, annoying person) tries to talk to you about what Jesus did for you.  We aren’t trying to be awful.  But we do know that the road can come to an end with no warning — our life on this earth is so short and so fragile — that we want to try to keep you from hurtling into that abyss if we can.  Whether you believe it or not, the Lord loves you, and we do too.  No one who truly trusts in and believes in Jesus Christ takes any pleasure in the thought that people are entering eternity on the wrong road.  Really.

The Golden Rule, kinda

Lord Jesus said “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

In that spirit, I offer the following lyrics, because I find myself in major need of kindness this morning:

“Let me be a little kinder
Let me be a little blinder
To the faults of those about me
Let me praise a little more
Let me be when I am weary
Just a little bit more cheery
Think a little more of others
And a little less of me

Let me be a little braver
When temptation bids me waver
Let me strive a little harder
To be all that I should be

Let me be a little meeker
With the brother that is weaker
Let me think more of my neighbor
And a little less of me

Let me be when I am weary
Just a little bit more cheery
Let me serve a little better
Those that I am strivin’ for

Let me be a little meeker
With the brother that is weaker
Think a little more of others
And a little less of me

(Thanks, Glen Campbell)

It didn’t look at all like Christmas

While I have offered to host Christmas (my husband and I, and his mom and Aunt Betty are the only ones in the area) for our family and have been turned down, with varying levels of grace, depending on my mother-in-law’s mood at the time, I appreciate my mother-in-law wanting to do it and so she does.  But she doesn’t have to leave the house on Christmas day, and Tom drops me off (on his way to pick up Aunt Betty) to help.  So I don’t see why we can’t have a white Christmas.  Tom’s good at driving in snow and no one else has to.  Call me strange, but it really doesn’t seem like Christmas without snow. 

I know I sound like some aged curmudgeon (at 46), but Christmas these days isn’t like when I was young (harumph, ptui!) and the weather over the past few years has been a big part of that.  Hasn’t even been enough snow to cross-country ski in.  Why, I remember, mutter, mutter (fades off into inaudible ramble about the ‘good old days’ and ‘three feet of snow’ and ‘walked uphill both ways’).

So pardon me, but if there’s gonna be Christmas, there’s got to be snow.

I’d rather be right (or left, or anything) than be President ..

Looking around at the crop of Presidential wanna-bes is a depressing proposition.  Not one of them inspires me to want to even vote, let alone get involved as I have in the past.

 In college (first time around), I was in a class called the Presidency, and our prof ran a 2-week simulation.  My younger (and much more ambitious self) got to take the lead role.  It’s a thankless job, really; if things are going well, well, that’s how they’re supposed to be.  And when things go wrong — ouch!  Presidents get blamed for things they don’t even come near and rarely get acknowledged for things they do well.

This leads me to my next thought:  Anyone who wants to be President is certifiable.  What this country needs is not a good five-cent cigar, but to find some empty-nester soccer mom who was really good at organizing fundraisers and carpools (but never wanted to be president of anything) and DRAFT her.  She’d almost certainly be better than the professional pols who just want to be in the history books, as far as I can tell.

Nothing in particular … (or how do I get started?)

I have another blog; let’s just get that on the record.  It’s at brskeeper.blogspot.com and it’s about the Persecuted Church.  But that’s not personal stuff, in fact it’s really important for me to keep “me” off that site.  It’s not ABOUT me, after all, it’s about my brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who face persecution for what they believe, sometimes from the government and sometimes just from their neighbors or any random mob which happens by.  So that’s one thing.

But I wanted a place where I could rant and rave about whatever caught my eye.  So here it is.  (My husband will be grateful that I will be cutting down on ranting and raving at him.)

My first (and only, today) order of business is to thank TPTB at Lubrizol in Willowick, OH for the scholarships I found on my Lakeland Community College account yesterday.  I am truly grateful for their help.