PS: In my effort to recover from my infatuation with Firefly, I've started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy definitely used "Scully" as a verb in this one episode to mean, as far as I can tell, to refute the suggestion that something is supernatural with the use of logic and historical evidence. Rock on.

I just got back from the Fund for Theological Education Conference on Sunday. It was fantastic! I greeted this guy by saying "Hi, you're David Reese's friend!" and the conversation proceeded from there. When I told people I went to Oberlin, some of them said "I hear they have really good mozzarrella sticks there." And they'd never even met David! It turns out he and Andy told the mozzarella stick story at the conference talent show last year, and the story percolated through the ranks of some of the older FTE Fellows.

Speaking of modern and improv dance class, Bethany, I got to do liturgical dance at a couple of the worship services. We danced to a psalm that we semi-choreographed, and I added the obligatory Kate Bush bow and arrow move to the choreography. It went over well. I also got to dance in with a jug full of grape juice for Communion. It was a little scary, but I'm glad we covered props in improv dance! It was a really worship-tastic experience for me.

I left feeling very reassured about the future of America's churches. I found 200 passionate, intelligent, visionary individuals committed to dialogue with others with diverse beliefs and experiences. They came from various denominational, theological, and geographic backgrounds, and yet they had a lot of the same questions, concerns, and hopes that I do. It was a thoroughly empowering event.

I also got to visit Adalberto Methodist Church, which has become famous in recent news for sheltering an illegal immigrant named Elvira Arellano and her American-born son Saulito so Elvira won't get deported. It was the most unique Methodist church I've ever visited. It was started by a group of Mexican Catholic immigrants who were not accepted at the local Catholic Church, so they asked the UMC if they could start their own Methodist Church. They asked one of those who left the Catholic Church with them to go to seminary to become the minister for their little storefront church. It's the only Methodist church I know that has an icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe in it, where people come to pray the rosary. They have also developed their own liturgical calendar based on the life of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and their ministries and focuses follow that seasonal rotation. I thought that was a really powerful idea. The Christian tradition in which I was raised did have a liturgical calendar, but aside from individual days like Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, plus Advent and sometimes Lent, the vast majority of the ministries and worship in the Christian year was not defined by a season. Adalberto's method shows a cyclical understanding of time and ministry that I think sounds healthier, and it also shows the influence of Native American thinking in this church's theology. It sounds healthier to me because it recognizes that substantial time needs to be devoted to just praying, and discerning God's will. Sometimes I think that I have so little time to accomplish my ministry on Earth that I always have to be doing, doing, doing, and I forget that God calls us to pray, and pray A LOT. Like the time I spend praying should seriously rival the time I spend acting. I've resolved to do more nothing next semester, if I can help it. It's hard: Americanized, consumerized Christianity tells me that successful ministry can be quantified, and more is better. Backing away from active ministry to spend time in prayer is downright countercultural. I have to remind myself that Jesus only needed three years of active ministry out of 33 to make his lasting contribution to the world.

I also learned about the dangers of the octopus church that has one tentacle chasing after everything but never actually gets anywhere. That's another reason it's important to pray a lot for vision: realizing the kingdom of God often means doing one thing, and doing it well. Adalberto Methodist is proof of that.

In other news, I've finished my coursework (finally!) and I feel much better now. I'm going back to Oberlin on July 14.

I have fairly exciting news. Or, at least I'm excited about it.

So in modern dance (it might have been improv, I forget) we did this motion sort of like going into a handspring, but we didn't flip over, we just sort of went forward onto our hands, our feet hang out in the air for a couple seconds, and then come back down onto our feet from the direction we came from. It's pretty fun, so I do several of them from time to time.

Friday morning I started to do one of these motions, but I put a little too much energy into the first one of the day, and my left arm kind of collapsed. I fell on my head. I hit the floor sort of above my left eye/that side of my head, and my left shoulder. I was fine. However, the left bow of my glasses (the side part) got bent upward at about a 35 or 40 degree angle. I spent a long time trying to fix it, and eventually went to Vision World. The guy there tried to fix it, but either the hinge was going to be REALLY weak or he had to tilt the lenses slightly, which disrupts eyesight, since I'd end up looking through the lens at a different angle. Fortunately they were having a sale on frames, so we stuck the old lenses in new (identical) frames. What a day!

In other news, I still don't have a job, but I've been planning my actions for this Harry Potter release! The Borders stores in MN are each having a Grand Hallows Ball, where people can come in costume, or dressed up for a ball, and enter the costume contest! I'm totally planning a Charlie Weasley costume so Awesome the adjective needs capitalization. People can also participate in the Great Snape Debate (Friend or Foe?)(Answer: Friend!), so I'm refining my main arguments. I also have some frog shaped candy molds from a couple of years ago, so I think I'll get some chocolate and make myself some Chocolate Frogs, too!

Also, there's this really cool book called 'Charmed Knits', full of projects inspired by the HP series. I'm getting around to finishing that Ron Weasley Animal Cracker hat from the PoA movie. Woo! I also made a hat that looks like watermelon. It has black pony beads for seeds.

And X Files Season 9 Disc Four came in the mail today. I'm kind of scared to watch the end of the season, to be honest. Reaching the end of Harry Potter and X Files all in the same summer? I better wait to watch more Firefly with you, Kathryn. I don't think I can handle this many things being over.

first day of camp is over!
nuts man.
i feel this is going to be an intense summer.
i am pretty excited.

As you know, I've been thinking a lot about resurrection this year. I'm not exactly sure why. But in the process of writing my 17-page paper about it, I decided something. I can work for resurrection in this life, and hope for it after death. Or I can work for resurrection in this life and try to find peace in the thought that I sow the seeds of peace that will lead to resurrection for my community one day. On a practical level, the difference boils down to facing my own death and the deaths of others stoically, or facing it hopefully. I choose hopefully. It may be in part in light of the fact that if I become a minister I will be dealing with death and mourning on a fairly regular basis. It's also partly due to the fact that I want to be able to hope and love and be vulnerable unto death. I can only make myself vulnerable unto death if I do not fear it, and I will only not fear it if I can find hope in it.

I've finished my paper about crucifixion and resurrection. Yay! Now it's back to figuring out my paper about holy sex. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's going to turn out that my resurrection paper is more scintillating and passionate than my sex paper.

bah. i'm bad at updates!

i just got back from the ashland oregon shakespeare festival! we saw four plays and they were: the tempest, the taming of the shrew, tom stoppard's on the razzle, and a new musical about san francisco and coffee and the 1950s called tracy's tiger. they were all super amazing. kinda makes me miss theater. especially the musical, since sometimes i forget that not all musicals are stupid. this one was like, lifechanging.

i bought too many things! but they were all really really amazing. there was this store that sold all kinds of things made from recycled products, like bowls and clocks made out of old records, doormats made out of flipflops, and jewelry made out of forks. maybe i'll post pictures someday of those too. also, in most of the little stores hung out the owner's cats or dogs so we got to play with animals while looking at pretty things i probably shouldn't have spent so much money on. kind of like the ginko gallery (but, of course, no cats are as cute as those cats).

i got this cd by the puppini sisters, contemporary singers who specialize in 1940s harmonies a la the andrews sisters, and they do a rendition of wuthering heights that pretty much completes my life.

bethany, there were two amazing yarn stores that we went to. i took some pictures for you. they had yarn made out of bamboo and yarn made out of corn and yarn made out of soy and yarn made out of all kinds of things. and it was called "llamas and llambs." i think you should work there, personally, but you would have to relocate to jacksonville, oregon. it IS a pretty cool random little place though!

gah! i have to go pretty soon.
so, quickly.
i'm going to camp on monday: way super exciting!
but i have to pack, and i'm bad at that.

and, i'm really hoping to be done with the tmnt sweater before i go to camp. i've finished all of the main pieces and stitched down the pockets and done the neck and pocket borders and connected the front and back pieces. mainly left to do now is the front borders with buttons, the embroidery on the big turtle picture (but i wove in all the freaking ends! be proud!!) and sewing the sleeves and side seams. okay, that's kind of a lot. but it's starting to look like a real garment, which rules.

so do you guys!

kathryn, i hope your paper writing is going better. please know that there are few people i have more faith in to write good papers than you.

i may or may not check in again before rushing off to camp... love you guys!

~linden :D

I have good news, and some more good news and some bad news. The first good news is that when both my parents were gone last week (my mother was in St. Cloud for Minnesota Annual Conference, and my dad was, and is until this Saturday, on business in Houston) and my brother and I were alone in our house for three and a half days, things went well. We saw an awesome baseball game at the Metrodome on Tuesday night, and the Twins beat the White Sox 9-2. (Though next time I talk to Andy, I'm going to have to break it to him that Joe Mauer is no longer my second favorite Twins player. The Canadian, Justin Morneau, is, how shall I say, FANTASTIC.) The rest of the week was pretty good. I bought the new Nine Inch Nails album, which is pretty good. Also, the disc is heat sensitive: when you take it out of the case it's blackish, and taking it out of a cd player when it's still warm, it's more tannish. This was extremely startling at first!

The other good news is that the good news lasted through most of the weekend and even Monday morning. On Sunday, I met a United Methodist bishop from (Sweden, but currently serving in) Russia. I also read this brilliant little story in the paper Monday about how this railway worker in Poland went into a coma in 1989 and he just woke up and thinks the world is 'so much prettier after communism'. Even my work, which was canvassing for U.S. PIRG's clean energy campaign in Minneapolis, went okay Friday and early Monday.

Aaaand the bad news. After the first two hours on Monday, work sucked. I didn't raise any money, and could hardly get anyone to stop and talk to me. We decided at the end of the day that it wasn't a good fit for me and I shouldn't stay with them. Which was okay. Kind of expected. However, I went outside to find my (dad's) car, and couldn't. It was drizzling off and on, and I wandered around for over an hour looking for it before calling my mom to come drive around and help me. She did, and we still couldn't find it. We ended up calling the local police, who confirmed that it had been towed. I guess I parked in a no parking 9-5 zone, even though I parked it not more than ten minutes before 9 and the whole no parking 9-5 zone was full at the time. My not paying enough attention cost my mom $138 to get it out of the impound. And there's a $34 parking ticket. I was supposed to leave work at 5. I didn't get the hell out of Minneapolis until almost 8:30. And I have to find another job now.

Uuuugggghhhh.

I still can't write a paper without being plagued by the fear that this will be the one that I simply fail to finish. This will be the one that completely doesn't make sense and causes the Oberlin College Religion Department personified to say, "I'm very disappointed with you, Kathryn."

I have completed the work for my survey courses, and have embarked on my 15-page endeavor to sex Jesus. I shall start from square one, "Jesus did, in fact, possess a penis" and work from there. I think I'm going to argue something along the lines of understanding Jesus as a sexual being who had sexual relations is crucial if one is going to engage in fully loving divine-human and divine-human-human relationships.

If you have any ideas, please let me know.