Praise be to the mind of God

Four loads of laundry. FOUR. And I haven't done the delicates yet.

I'm in a very weird state of limbo right now, post-Montreat and pre-college. I've spent the last few days unpacking (but not entirely because I have to repack shortly), seeing movies, seeing the occasional person, acquaniting myself with my new electronics (new pretty Google shiny phone) and getting addicted to bad pop music. (I skipped this phase of my life. While everyone else was swooning over the Backstreet Boys, I was sitting in a corner with Sweeney Todd calling all of them idiots. Guess it had to happen sometime.) I've got a housesitting job in a week, but other than that not much is on my plate. I'm using the time to relax, see people, meet with some of my teachers from high school (I have meetings to pick the brains of my teachers in college all the time, why should I show the ones from high school any mercy?), read more, do the research/daydreaming/planning part of preproduction, and generally girding my loins for next year. I have also spent a good chunk of the morning investigating whether or not Potiphar was a eunuch.

I'm at my church right now, sitting in my mother's office. I went to the early service and sat in the back house right corner of the balcony (as always), because, surprisingly, my mother told me at the dinner table last night that I wasn't doing anything in worship. Generally I'm singing or reading or doing something when I'm here. I have two more Sundays, though, she has opportunity to use me.

Today's service had both a creed (I champion the importance of creeds) and one of my favorite hymns, from The Praise We Sing (the United Methodist Hymnal suppliment): "Praise the Source of Faith and Learning". It reminds me of The Hidden Sky, an beathtakingly gorgeous musical that deals with this whole science vs. faith ridiculousness. The main character, Ganil, finds beauty and God in her discovery of the Fibonacci sequence.

I particularly love the third verse.

Praise the source of faith and learning
That has sparked and stoked the mind
With a passion for discerning
How the world has been designed
Let the sense of wonder flowing
From the wonders we survey
Keep our faith forever growing
And renew our need to pray.

God of wisdom, we acknowledge
That our science and our art
And the breadth of human knowledge
Only partial truth impart
Far beyond our calculation
Lies a depth we cannot sound
Where your purpose for creation
And the pulse of life are found.

May our faith redeem the blunder
Of believing that our thought
Has displaced the grounds for wonder
Which the ancient prophets taught.
May our learning curb the error
That unthinking faith can breed
Lest we justify some terror
With an antiquated creed

As two currents in a river
Fight each other's undertow
Til converging they deliver
One coherent steady flow
Blend, O God, our faith and learning
Till they carve a single course
Till they join as one, returning
Praise and thanks to you, their source

Wonder is so important. It's the cousin of curiosity, which is life.

Today in church I started to say, "And forgive us our debts" in the Lord's Prayer. The Presbyterians have gotten to me!

Now, for no particular reason except that they were on my mother's desk, I present two pictures of Little Colleen. Click to enlarge.


Who reading the blog remembers Marketplace, 29 AD? Best Sunday School EVER. I think I still have one of my tribe necklaces, I think when I was in the tribe of Joseph. Or maybe Judah. This is the rope-making station. There were other cool things, like brick-making, which kind of hurt because sometimes there were stones in the kiddie pool we stepped in to mix the... brick-making solution. I also remember making soap. I'm the second from the right, sporting an awesome robe. The dress I'm wearing had a little holographic thing on it which made fun noises when you ran your fingernail over it and I'm SURE I annoyed my parents with that. Who can name everyone in this picture?

I have to comment on what an adorable small child I was. It's kind of ridiculous. (What happened?) Somewhere in the world there is video footage of my father and I singing "Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree" when I was smiliarly small, and terrified in the stage lights, but singing very in tune.


That face I'm making? The intense concentrated face? I still make that face all the time. I was really was a serious little child.

Happy Sunday.