THE CURATED MIND

***Warning: This post contains brief nudity and is not approved for audiences younger than 13 without parental guidance.***


A friend of mine once pointed out in Michaelongo’s “Creation” painting on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, you can see the passion and intensity that God has towards Adam and man, and vice versa you can see Adam’s reaction, or lack there of, to God’s passion for him. For those of you who haven’t seen the picture a copy is provided below.

In this painting you can see God the Father is stretching out of heaven with all of his strength and might, and His arm, hand, and finger are fully outstretched as He is grasping to touch Adam. The angels surrounding the Father are all holding Him to keep him in place, similar to someone holding someone who is leaning over a ledge and the rest of the crew are holding him in place to keep him from falling to His own peril. This scene from Cliffhanger helps display the intensity in this scenario, and also gives a good metaphor for the situation that Adam is in.

Cliffhanger - video powered by Metacafe

Something that is very evident from the painting and when you make a comparison with the video is that Adam doesn’t realize the situation that He is in and the desire that God has for him. He is sitting there listlessly holding his arm across his knee as his finger is just dangling from his hand. All that is necessary to connect with God is to lift his hand and grab hold of Him.
I use to talk about this painting in this sense it gives a good description of the relationship between God and man before salvation, before coming to Christ and receiving his indwelling life, and knowing Christ in the way that Paul talks about him, “Christ in you the hope of glory.”

Last night during our church meeting I brought this up and realized that the same intensity that you see in the Father the longing to connect with Adam is now dwelling inside of us. It made me think of this painting again in a fresh new way.

Now since we have received the life of Christ within us, that same desire that the Father has for us is now living and dwelling inside of us and is reaching out towards Him as well. All we have to do is to give in to that instinct, to spend time with Him, to fellowship with Him, to receive His love, and to pour that love back out to Him. The passion of Christ is in us because we have been made a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come. There is no longer a need to think of ourselves as a fallen human being, but to think of ourselves as a new creation that is being transformed from glory to glory. A creation that is becoming what He has already made us.

So, here is a revised copy of my conversation about “the rock-a-fire explosion” with my brother just after he watched the videos for the first time:
Eric: that was AWESOME!!!!

wow

me: im glad you like it!

we can share that

me: i personally like the version they do of Shakira ‘These hips don’t lie” because Mitzirella ella sings it (she is the one whose eye they had to oil half way through)

Eric: wow

that is pretty intense

I got a little bit freaked out

they’re a little scary

there is this deliberate nod to small town oddities that makes you squirm.

me: yes, and in these hips don’t lie they remind you that this is a children’s show…so “no fightin’ not even tickle fightin’ “

oh yes and be glad you live in a different place and decade

that interview with the animatronics guy was recorded in…March 2008

Eric: wow

wow

omg

me: i know

i only know this because I read the blog by the creators of the rockumentary

Eric: wow

me: i admit to being a bit OCD about the rockafire explosion

Birthday week started just as it should— a trip to the Jim Henson exhibit at the Smithsonian!

Our next stop was the Crystal City Wine an Jazz Festival. Too bad these grapes didn’t deliver the plump, juicy ripeness their size led me to believe they contained.

On Monday, my mom kept the party hoppin’ by ordering 3 (count them- one, two, three) birthday cakes from Randolphs and had them sent to my school from Pastries by Randolph! Chocolate Mousse=ah-may-zing!

She also sent me these beautiful (and gigantic) flowers

Unfortunatly I spent most of the day in various teacher training activities and James also had to go to school. You can see Georgetown— tiny in the distance— in this picture of the beautiful day!

Little did I know that my beautiful and wonderful girlfriends were planning a b’day celebration for me already! The surprised me for dinner at Medaterra in Adams Morgan. They are so lovely and full of sweet lovin’ for me! (this is a picture of cake #4, by the way)

Rachel and Virginie

Marisha, Heather and I

The birthday celebration continued all week—
Many friends and loved ones sent me facebook messages (actually there were almost 70 messages sent on my birthday); even my TA kids gave me an awesome card and surprised me at school with cupcakes in the shape of a fish and a gator! They are the best!
I feel so overwhelmed with love! Thanks to everyone!

That’s what I’m talking about….

This week during our church meeting we discussed the Lord’s Supper as a church in preparation to partake of a Lord’s Supper meeting, and I am always astounded about the wisdom and insights that comes from the Body of Christ. To begin with, we read a chapter from Frank Viola’s book Reimagining Church entitled “Reimagining the Lord’s Supper” Clever chapter title huh.

However, I would not necessarily call the treatise that Frank gives of the Lord’s Supper a reimagining but a refocusing on the original idea of the Supper that comes from the New Testament. As we discussed this subject the Lord openend my eyes to see many aspects of this remembrance of Him that I have never seen before. We spoke of how bread is an accessible food to all cultures and how this represents the Lord’s humility in accepting all people groups no matter their race, gender, or class distinctions. That when we gather to partake of the supper, that we are siginifying the unity that we have in His Spirit, we are proclaiming the oneness in His body, and we are experiencing the spiritual realities of the unity that Christ has given us. It is odd how the Lord’s Supper has become such a point of division among churches and believers, something that represents our unity as the family of God has become stumbling blocks to us.

We also talked about how when we come together and we are unified with one another, we are unified with Christ. How could we be united with Christ if there is something that we have against our brothers and sisters. Christ himself said if we come to offer a sacrifice but remember there is something our brother has against then we are to go and ask for forgiveness and then offer our gift to the Lord. And Paul in his letter to the Corinthians ask them, “Is Christ divided?” Christ does not separate himself from His people, His people are His body here on this earth, and as we gather together to share His supper and remember Him we are a reassembling of His body and physical manifestation of His headship and His kingdom. So when we are united together we are united with Christ, after all Christ is living in us. Additionally, when we share and remember Him the Lord is speaking to us through His Spirit and His is teaching us when we gather together. It is like

the Lord’s Supper that is described in John’s gospel is recreated with the Lord taking center stage and teaching us as we share what the Lord has given us with one another. We are dining with the Lord when we come together to remember Him by partaking in His body and His blood. One sister so eloquently said that the Lord’s Supper is not an eating of food, but it is a partaking and eating of Christ. That we are partaking of Him. This is such a beautiful mystery. We also talked about the guilt and fear we have experienced in the past about taking the Lord’s Supper. The lies that we have heard about being fearful of taking the Lord’s Supper while living in sin. I know I have had the experience of thinking am I right with the Lord what sin is present in my life that I must purge before I partake of the typically a cracker and thimble of grape juice; however, Paul was talking to a church that was eating all the food before all the members arrived, particularly the poorer brothers and sisters, and getting drunk on the wine. If we are not partaking of the supper in such a way we should not undergo such guilt and condemnation to remember our Lord. His supper is a joyous occasion. A time of remembering

all the things that He has done. We also spoke about who gets to partake of the supper and who does not and the requirement that came up was that anyone who the Lord has accepted is able to partake of the supper, and the Lord accepts anyone who calls on His name. That if someone is partaking of His supper to partake in Christ that is all that matters. I was so encouraged my brothers and sisters last night and saw a fresh how when I gather with them I am gathering with Christ. We are His body and He is our head.

A video that does a good job of pointing out one of the absurdities of our modern day communion practice.

While news sources and storm chasers scramble to the center of the storm activities to catch images of nature’s destruction, my husband has given me one more reason to love him more in the midst of inclement weather—a desire to catch images of beauty in the storm.

So—- when most people were using Saturday’s storm surge as a reason to stay indoors, James and I set out to Old Town Alexandria to catch glimpses of the city we don’t normally have time to enjoy. Here are our pictures of Old Town, all wet:

We have found a new favorite place in Old Town!! They serve a mean gyro on a wet afternoon.

James figured out that the umbrella dances wildly when you throw it up in the wind gust.
Sorry, neighbor’s car… :(

Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

Here is the dress I made for the first day of school. My teaching strategy: catch them off guard with my killer style…and maybe scare them a bit with this face!