Terrapin Station

But I am happy

about my new knitting project: 

The Mother Bear Project, which knits teddy bears to send to children with HIV/AIDS in Africa.  :) 

Can't wait to get my pattern! 

I am deeply troubled

by Doyle Davidson and the Water of Life Church. 

I have to tell you that Ken has a weird fascination with TV preachers and he will watch them for what seems to me like hours.  Therefore, I have seen much more than I ever wanted to of said preaching & stuff. 

Clearly, I bring my prejudices to this: I tend to think that preachers should have been to seminary and stuff.  Maybe even ordained, depending upon their groove (I'm in the Episcopal type of groovy as you know). 

Of other sorts...seems to me that Bishop TD Jakes does some interesting work....Joel Osteen is a nice happy fellow...But now, Robert Tilton needs to go away and take Benny Hinn with him.  And Mike Murdock...!  what a shyster.  His offices were in our town for a while.  Ken striped their parking lot and saw the Jaguars and Porsches that he and others drove. 

But my lord Miss Agnes...Doyle Davidson is in a category all his own.  The Water of Life is a non-denominational church in Plano (north of Dallas).  Do you remember the case a couple of years ago where that poor sick lady Dena Schlosser cut off her baby daughter's arms?  She said God told her to...she and Andrea Yates have been keeping each other company in the state mental prison and I am not making this up.  Schlosser had been going to the Water of Life church and was supposedly obsessed with Pastor Davidson.  For his part, Davidson quickly disavowed any connection with her and I don't know anything about that, certainly not enough to judge. 

HOWEVER.  Last night when we were looking at TV, we came across the Water of Life broadcast again.  Not only is Mr. Davidson unintelligible, not only does his stage / preaching area look like the inside of a casket, not only do they sing terrible dirges...we are used to that...but last night I guess they were having an exorcism or something, because he was pacing around the stage saying over and over again (as best as we could make out), "LOOSE! Jezebel! Amen!"  There was a lot of praying and chanting going on in the background, and there was one woman screaming like her life was ending.  It went on for at least 10 minutes before we couldn't take it anymore. 

Understand that I grew up Episcopalian, but also going to charismatic churches on the side, so being around speaking in tongues, singing in the Spirit, being slain in the Spirit...is not new to me.  However, screaming bloody murder in the Spirit, that's a new one. 

I was so mystified and distressed that this morning I went to teh trusty Internets and looked up Mr. Davidson's church to see what I could learn.  Not much: there are some videos you can watch if you want to see him talk and try to understand what he says. 

But then I found the Letters to Lisa section, where he writes daily letters to Lisa Staton, a former member of his church whom he believes God has sent him to be his wife.  Trouble is, she is and has been married to someone else for 20 years.  You can read more about this weird obsession here - go past the part about Dena Schlosser to the part about Davidson himself. 

No wonder Christianity has such a bad rap. 

Later, kids; I need to go wash my hands. 

Friday Five: Whassup!

Over at RevGals, ReverendMother says:  Well friends, this is one of those weeks when I simply must work today, which is normally my day off. I know, I know. We may tut-tut all we want, but the fact is, some weeks are like that. So, this week's F5 is simple.

Name five things you plan to do today.

Bonus: If today is about "have-to" for you as well, share up to five things you'd like to be doing today.

1) Go to going-away breakfast and party for Natalie, our administrative assistant, who is leaving for another position on campus.

2) Catch up with all the things I have not gotten done so far this week (get ready for presentations, etc.), because next week is Spring Break, woohoo!

3) Finish cleaning off my desk, so when I come back it will not HORRIFY me

4) Go to the chiropractor

5) Cook stir-fry for dinner

Rathers:

1) Sit outside, it's perfectly beautiful today

2) Sleep for a long time...maybe in the hammock outside!

3) File the sales tax before I forget it...if I miss the deadline of midnight on the 20th, I can't file it online...have to do the paper return...what a hassle!

4) Take the dogs to the park for a long time

5) Read, read, read.

As I say, Spring Break is next week and we are off the whole week, so I'm hoping to get all the latter things done then!  :)

Book Clubs!

Two great new book clubs, and I am SOOO excited! 

The RevGals are going to be reading a book a month and discussing it on the fourth Monday, starting this month.  We'll have "facilitated" discussions...and I am facilitating the first one.  The book is Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church.  I read this book and found it so compelling that, when I finished it, I didn't even put it down...I immediately turned back to the front and read it over again. 

If you should wish to purchase this book, please do so by clicking on the link above ( Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church ); that will lead you to the RevGals' Amazon.com store and we will receive a small percentage of the funds for our non-profit corporation. 

And!  ......

The City of Denton (where I live) is starting a Denton Reads! program.  It's part of the One Book, One Community program, which encourages everyone in a city or community to read the same book and participate in discussion of it.  Our first book is The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods by Julia Butterfly Hill. 

Ms. Hill spent 738 days sitting in a redwood tree to protest logging.  She will be speaking here on Earth Day, April 22. 

Spring Break is next week.  Of course I have many chores to accomplish around the house, but...I have reading to do as well!  So exciting. 

Good reading to you all!

For This I Believe: International Education

Are you familiar with the NPR series, "For This I Believe?"  I always think I will write an essay for that, reading something like this:

I believe in the power of international education.  And, you will say, of course I do, as I have been working in this field for over 20 years.  But not only does it pay my bills…I believe in it with all my soul.  International education is our best hope for actively creating a peaceful future. 

Specifically, my work has been in study abroad...and yes, I've heard that bad old joke ("Heh, heh, I'd like to study some broads!")  I'm not laughing.  I've had the pleasure of working to facilitate international education experiences of all kinds, for students of all sorts.  Since the week before I graduated with my bachelor's degree, this has been my occupation, and increasingly my passion.

I thought, when I took my first job as a secretary in the Texas A&M Study Abroad Program, that I was just working there while I was getting my Master’s degree in English (my other passion), pursuant to a PhD and a career as a university professor in that field.  But the more I worked with students who were getting ready to have a life-changing experience, and with those who had returned from one, the more intrigued I became with the transformations I saw.  And after I went on a study abroad program offered by my own institution and facilitated by my office, and served as a teaching assistant on the program, I realized that I wanted to spend my life helping students have that amazing experience of realizing that there really is a place outside of Texas.  Those students had the OPENEST eyes I had ever seen...and none of us looked at College Station, Texas the same way when we got back there.  Or anywhere else, for that matter. 

Yes, of course Texans know they are not from the ONLY state in the union.  But you must understand that there's a big feeling around that it might be the only worthwhile one.  Besides, there are few other places in the United States where you can drive so very far and still be at home.  You'd be halfway across Europe by the time you drove out of Texas.  Yes, I know that Russia, China, other places put us to sharme.  But you know what?  Russia and China are just clear outside of the imagination for most Texans, dare I say for many in the United States. 

So the job that I do every day is one of educating the imaginations of students, parents, faculty and administrators, high school students, anyone who will listen.  Read this sentence in a Texas drawl:  "Na-ow, whah wuld ah wa-unt to le-uhv Tex-us!?"

That's my challenge. 

What they say when the come home is my goal, my purpose, and my joy.

International Education Needs your Help!

On March 12, the House of Representatives introduced H.R. 1469 the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act of 2007.

Building on the momentum created in the Senate last year, this bill establishes a national study abroad program named after its intellectual author, the late distinguished Senator Paul Simon, and is based on the recommendations put forth by the Lincoln Commission. The bill, sponsored by Chairman Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), is expected to be considered by the House Foreign Affairs Committee soon.

The legislation will establish an innovative public-private partnership with higher education to make study abroad accessible to all students. Within ten years time, the program’s objective is that: at least 1 million undergraduate students in the United States will study abroad annually for credit; the demographics of study-abroad participation will reflect the demographics of the United States undergraduate population; and an increasing portion of study abroad will take place in nontraditional locations.

Take Action TODAY! Please take 5 minutes to personalize the following sample letter urging your Representative to support H.R. 1469. The legislation will benefit students, campuses, and communities by having more U.S. students who are educated about the world.

(Note that this form letter indicates the writer is a professional in the field of international education, so if you are NOT, you will want to change that!)  It is so very easy to personalize the letter and send to your representative.  If you are so inclined, your help will be immensely appreciated!

Please see my next entry for more thoughts on this topic.

Which Sci-Fi / Fantasy Character am I?

Devoutly dedicated to helping lead others to glory, you are a strong, supportive, and spiritual caregiver.

Summoned, I take the place that has been prepared for me.

Delenn is a character in the Babylon 5 universe. You can read her biography at the Worlds of JMS fansite.

Now I'll have to start watching B5!

Headache

Headache...

Last night's Lenten supper (hosted by the Daughters of the King) went really well.  We had five different crock-pots of soup, Meg's amazing cheese bread, 2 kinds of salad, and tea and lemonade, with snickerdoodles for dessert.  There were 50 people in attendance!

Someone asked me earlier what we were going to do about sodas.  I said, "It's LENT, we aren't having sodas!  We are having ice tea and water!"   A pitcher of lemonade turned up too...I guess the drinks lady thought that something else was warranted.  That's cool with me. 

Oh, my head aches.  Must be change in weather plus pollen...Driving to Jazzercise this morning at 5:30 was like driving in pea soup.  FOG...never saw such thick fog.  It was like being at sea.

The headache is like being in fog, too. 

My Song is Love Unknown

I had not heard this hymn before we sang it yesterday, and oh, I'm in love with it.  You can listen here, but the poetry is really the point.  By Samuel Crossman (1624-1683).

My song is love unknown,
my Savior's love to me,
love to the loveless shown
that they might lovely be.
O who am I
that for my sake
my Lord should take
frail flesh and die?

He came from his blest throne
salvation to bestow,
but men made strange, and none
the longed-for Christ would know.
But O my friend,
my friend indeed,
who at my need,
his life did spend.

Sometimes they strew his way,
and his strong praises sing,
resounding all the day
hosannas to their King.
Then "Crucify!"
is all their breath,
and for his death
they thirst and cry.

Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
he gave the blind their sight.
Sweet injuries!
Yet they at these
themselves displease,
and 'gainst him rise.

They rise, and needs will have
my dear Lord made away;
a murderer they save,
the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet steadfast he
to suffering goes,
that he his foes
from thence might free.

Here might I stay and sing,
no story so divine:
never was love, dear King,
never was grief like thine.
This is my friend,
in whose sweet praise
I all my days
could gladly spend.

Friday Five: Matters of Taste

Songbird Says: 

My mother loved figs.

I only like them in a Newton.

It's all a matter of taste.

Name five things you like a lot that some close relative or significant other did/does not like. This could be food, movies, hobbies, music, sports or whatever springs to mind.

Since you mention it...Mmm, I love figs!  My grandfather (who could grow ANYTHING) had huge fig trees in town and at the coast.  We had to go out EARLY in the morning to get the ripe figs before the birds did.  Sometimes a sun-warm fig with a bird-bite (peck?) is too good to resist!  they don't eat very much!  Actually, I don't know whether Ken will eat figs, so I'd better find out!  (I guess this doesn't really count, does it?!  On to the Five Items.)

1)  The most significant thing I can think of is that my husband Ken does not like to read.  AT ALL.  Like, never.  He reads magazines very rarely and has probably read 2 whole books since I have known him.  Clearly, he knows how (he has a Master's degree), but reading for pleasure is entirely foreign to him.   He had VERY, VERY bad eyesight for many years, and only recently has his Crystalens cataract surgery plus Lasik freed him from THICK glasses.  He doesn't wear ANY glasses now!  What a miracle of modern medicine!

If you know me at all...you know how extremely different this makes him from me!  I'm not really sure how it works, but usually it doesn't make a bit of difference.  Sometimes I wish we could browse bookstores together for fun, but that's okay. 

None of my siblings are as avid readers as I am.  My parents are, though. 

2)  I love my funky, patchwork-y, embroidered clothes.  Ken does NOT.  Mostly I get these items as gifts from my sister Nancy, who has all kinds of taste and style, and co-owns a boutique in Mertzon, Texas.  Ken thinks they make me look like Carol Burnett's washerwoman character (and, sweetly, he says I am so attractive that he wants my clothes to be as attractive as I am!)

Here's the first funny thing:  Ken and Nancy are the two people who most frequently choose clothes for me (I do not care to do this for myself!), and they both do a wonderful job.  Whatever I wear of their choosing is always greatly complimented by others.  However, their taste is clearly very different. 

Here's the second funny thing:  last week I had an email from a faculty member in Fashion Merchandising who leads one of our study abroad programs in Asia.  She asked if she might take my photo as illustration for a talk she was doing on "How to Present a Professional Image Through Dress."  Talk about LMAO!  I said of course, if she promised NOT to use it as "What NOT to Wear."

She came to take the photo on Wednesday and was disappointed because I was wearing a business suit!  Well, shucks...I thought that was what I was supposed to wear!  "No, no," she said, "I hoped you would be wearing one of your wonderful exotic outfits!" 

So, we arranged for her to come back today.  I am wearing the gorgeous red, black and tan Alex
Kim jacket that Nancy gave me.  It looks something like this, but the reds are much more subdued:

She said, "That's EXACTLY what I was hoping you would wear!"  I told her that Ken had mentioned (again this morning!) that he didn't find it flattering, and she said, "Well, he's wrong." 

And she's the professional!

3) Well:  Folk music.  I grew up with Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio...etc.  Now I love The Indigo Girls and other folksy type bands.  And hey: Los Lonely Boys!  But Ken cannot STAND to hear it.  In fact, he pretty much can't stand to hear anything except sacred music written before 1650.  He does love classic rock and roll, so we share that...and he IS being a darling and going to The Police concert with me in June!  My birthday gift!

4)  Vegetarian fare, especially including black beans, couscous, portobello mushrooms, most meatless dishes...  He will express his distaste for these sorts of things.  And I will say sweetly, "I didn't buy it for you."   We have plenty of what he likes.  I have plenty (!) of what I like.  It works out fine. 

5)  Democratic politics.  Yes, friends, I'm in a mixed marriage:  my husband is a conservative Republican and I'm a bleeding-heart liberal.  I'm not sure how this happened; except we didn't talk about politics when we got together in 1998.  So, the 2000 elections and the run up to them...came as a rude shock to us both! 

We are very different in many ways, but I actually treasure those differences about us.  What an interesting life it makes!  And there are so many characteristics that this doesn't address...like how smart he is, inventive, funny, honest, etc.  I guess that's fodder for another Friday Five...