Whoa! My blogger editing page has been renovated. New and improved... or at least new.

Hey! Life is good! I discovered something amazing and life-changing this weekend. Why didn't anyone ever tell me that the Holy Spirit offers the Christian more than the big things like tongues and healing? Or maybe they told me and it just didn't penetrate, or maybe it was disguised by religious language. Thanks to various circumstances and a little poke or two from God, I stumbled upon the remarkable knowledge that the Holy Spirit is what enables a person to live a... oh dear. I fear I am forced to use a very religious sounding term here. Yuck. But I don't know how else to say it. The Holy Spirit is what enables a person to live a "victorious" Christian life. *cringe* I know... that sounds like churchy gobbledygook. Let me put this in personal experience terms.

For some unknown reason, I bear an irrational but horribly overwhelming fear of gifts of the Spirit. Tongues, healing, slaying in the Spirit, you name it... I don't even want to be in the same room with people when they're engaging in those things. It's not that I don't believe in them, or that I think they're wrong or anything. Seriously. For other people, it's great. But put me in a position where I might end up being part of anything like that, and I freak out and run. I don't really know why. This fear has been with me since at least my preteen days. I'm also sensitive to the Spirit's movement within a group of people... for example, during a church service. With that as a warning system, I'm usually able to avoid sticky situations.

As a result of this fear and other complicated reasons, my relationship with the Holy Spirit thus far had remained simple; if He wanted to do something interesting (but scary) in my life, He could, but I really didn't want Him to. Life was going along fine without extra miracles or other interventions to rock the boat. Secretly, or maybe subconsciously, I did want Him to do something so I knew I wasn't being left out of the Christian thing. But the problem was, I had a huge misunderstanding of who He is and what His purpose is in Christians' lives. Because of that, I didn't really see how He could be much help in my life, since I obviously had not been called to minister to natives in Africa or any other such "big" calling.

This weekend, I found out that I was wrong. I'm not even sure how I figured that out... maybe God told me in one of our conversations, maybe I read it in the Bible somewhere (I just started reading it regularly again) or was influenced by the Christian allegory called "Arena" that I finished reading just yesterday. (Excellent book!! Yall should check it out!!) Whatever the case, I realized that in order to find the joy, peace, and contentment God intends for Christians, I needed to give the Spirit free rein in my life... for the everyday things, the normal stuff. Without His help, I wouldn't be able to overcome the issues in my life that are holding me back, like procrastination, laziness, and various fears. The strength I need to fight those problems needs to come from Him. Without Him, I am stuck in my selfishness and a slave to my fleshly passions.

Ugh. I'm beginning to sound hopelessly religious here. It's so difficult to explain the change in perspective that I've gained. To sum it up, I guess I should say that my understanding of the Holy Spirit has undergone serious change, and I'm not afraid of His influence in the daily aspects of my life. As I learn to let Him handle those things, He'll help me work through my other fears... eventually including the one concerning spiritual gifts.

I can't put into words what a dramatic, pervasive effect this realization has already had on my Christian walk. You'll hear more about it as time goes on, no doubt.

 
Yet another Monday. Yuck. I do have to give Mondays a bit of credit, though... they do have their little perks. For example, Monday is skirt day for me at work. Blue jean skirts are somehow more comfortable than work pants, and they make the transition back into the work week that much easier. Another perk is the knowledge that when I get home, I have the opportunity to experience a new Strongbad email. Yes!!! My mood has escalated 10 points' worth already.

This weekend was remarkably pleasant. My sister and I met with two other friends for a movie and dinner (no, not dinner and a movie, since the movie came first). The four of us used to hang out a lot during our high school days. Good times! Friendships like that are worth making the effort required to hang on to them. Besides which, you just can't break up a group that came up with the concept of The Quote Book. I'm considering putting together a site in honor of it.

Rain, rain, rain... I need sun!!! So does my garden. My tomatoes are beginning to look sun-starved. The peppers seem to be taking it ok, thankfully. The rest of the garden is doing great, thanks to all the moisture. I spent some time this weekend weeding it and staking the peas. Nothing like garden work to lift one's spirits, even in the midst of wind and a brief spattering of rain. I need to get outside more.

Hazel, my kitten, got spayed and declawed last Wednesday. She's doing well though, and (despite the painkiller's influence) has proved to the household that she's just as naughty as ever in spirit, though losing her claws has restricted the amount of damage she can do. I love that kitten. I must love her, because I spent nearly $200 to get that procedure done. Good grief, animals are expensive. She's definitely worth it though. If I had the choice to make all over again, whether or not to help a tiny, shivering, half-starved kitten lost in my college's parking lot on a cold November day, I'd do it again without question. You bet I would.

 
Dads are smart. Mine sure is. Thanks to him, I've got yet another chance at finding stability in this crazy ride through Christianity's obstacle course. I'm learning that sometimes, asking questions just makes it worse. Faith is supposed to be simple. Don't get me wrong... I'm totally in favor of challenging ideas, and asking questions isn't an inherently bad thing. But lately I've been so tied up in knots over the intellectual stuff, when most of that doesn't make a real difference to me anyway... so what's the point?

You know, the Church of 100 years ago had its problems, but they did have a few important things right... like worship. Think about it once. People went to church on Sunday and sang hymns, and that might not compare to the rousing services available to the public today; and they didn't have a lot of the freedoms that we do. But then they went home and lived their faith day to day, all through the week, by doing simple things like working hard, helping neighbors, opening up their homes occasionally to friends or for feasts and celebrations... and so on. There's a lot to be said for maintaining that kind of life. Some people do, nowadays; I'm not saying there's no kindness left in America or anything. But I've run into so many Christians who are all involved in church activities, and dance in the aisles every Sunday, and meet for Bible studies and make deep theological points when talking with friends... and they also go to work late, forget to pay bills, ignore people who aren't in their circle of friends, engage in road rage, complain loudly when life doesn't treat them the way they want it to, and so on.

I'm guilty of all those negative things, too. But I don't want to be. What happened to the value of punctuality, hard work, honesty, and etiquette? What is it about personal freedom that brings out the rudeness, insensitivity, and apathy that characterize this generation of Americans?

I don't know. I'm not even sure I'm saying this right. The older I get, the harder it is to express myself. Is that because my thoughts are more complex, or is my mind already deteriorating? At any rate, sometimes I think I would have been happier if I'd lived 100 years ago or more... except I would have had to wear a dress all the time. No thank you. Never mind, I'll stick with my own generation, even though I don't really feel like I belong in it.

 
Bored, bored, BORED. I'm not entirely sure I can endure dealing with computers for the rest of my working life. Sometimes it's just such a dry job.

So! Life goes on. My moods have stabilized a bit, thanks to the offsetting effect provided by homestarrunner.com. Nothing like Strongbad's emails to light up my life. Read the techno email if you happen to meander over to his corner of cyberspace. It's well worth the effort.

Hmm... what else is going on? Not much, really. I find myself alternating between (1) a frenzied determination to break out of my shell in pursuit of a social life, and (2) resigned enslavement to a superiority/inferiority complex which insists no one will understand my giftedness/weirdness, so it's useless to try. Most of the time I reside within the third mindset, which ignores the situation completely. That's the only way I can achieve any kind of peace.

Must get going. Check out homestarrunner; it's worth the clicking effort, trust me.