Any other Lifelong Learning Traveling Extroverts out there?

I took a quiz today at 43things.com (actually I took two...the first at bluezones.com said my actual age was 32 and that I would live to be 97.3). The quiz informed me that I am a lifelong learning traveling extrovert. Well, it got 3 out of 4 right. It also stated, astonishingly, that 0% out of 42,974 people were like me. Wow--I'm either really unique or I am forgetting the possible combinations of 43 questions.

Mike is an Organized Extrovert Believer - at least based on my taking the quiz for him. He says it isn't valid. Oddly, he also is completely unique.

Shut in

I have embarked on a self-imposed project this week to once again attempt to read through the Bible (or most of it) this year. Shameful for this literature major to confess, but I have not yet read the whole thing through even once. I have read a lot of it, but I can't tell you where exactly the holes are.

It is like roman numerals. Some schools must cover roman numerals in fourth grade and some in fifth grade. We moved every few years with the military when I was young. I also skipped a grade around that time. The result: I cannot read the year on movie credits as I never learned roman numerals past about XX. Skipping parts of the Word of God is probably more problematic than knowing when the movie was made. I'm on day 6 and doing well, but it is days 29 and 72 I worry about.

Today, I read about Noah and The Flood. "The Lord shut them in." God shut Noah, his family and all the animals in the huge, cypress football field block of wood. He closed and sealed the door. Was it necessary for God to help because the door was so huge/heavy and Noah hadn't engineering a way to close it from the inside? I doubt Noah overlooked such a feature, given that he would want to be able to open the door from the inside later and he had apparently plenty of design and build time with a project that massive and only handmade hand tools. (Did you get that part -- he and his sons would have had to make the tools to make the boat!)

No, on this rainy day in Virginia, I fancy that God needed to shut the door because the people and the animals might have been reluctant to do so themselves. Last breaths of fresh air. Last glimpse of sky. Last bit of personal space. Perhaps too Noah wasn't quite sure what this flood thing really would be, if it would really really really come. He believed enough to build the boat. That is a lot of belief. But, to close the door on life as he knew it, his friends, his house, creation?

Bread

The holidays are over. All our family has left. Sister Mandy is now in Namibia. Mike's parents are at their house in Pennsylvania and my parents are on the plane to Seattle. Chris is back in Seattle. School starts on Monday for the girls and Mike to work.

So, I did the only logical thing today to transition back to life's schedule. I made bread. Rye bread. Rye sourdough bread. It is lovely. I don't know yet what it tastes like, but it is one of those perfect breads. It came together lovely. It had just the right mixture of moisture and flours. It rose just right, not cracking or losing shape. I slashed it in a star shape and brushed on an egg yolk-milk mixture. And it baked to a beautiful deep brown.

Bread is life. Jesus tells us that and takes it even deeper: he is the bread of life. And the communal act of preparing and sharing food is universal and draws people into conversation and sharing. But, as a baker of bread for over 10 years, I can also tell you that every loaf of bread is different, just as every day is a surprise. Sometimes the day goes perfectly, like my rye bread. Other days are out of joint, rising too fast or too much oven spring or gooey in the center. Yet, consume each day slowly, savor and enjoy even the too salty ones because each day is precious, unique and can never be duplicated exactly.

All things new

My sister left today for Namibia - for 11 months of teaching. A change this big is a leap of faith. I know she is nervous, worried, emotionally exhausted from saying goodbye to family and friends and perhaps wanting to run back to home. Yet, she leaped, or at least walked, onto the plane anyway.

Mike starts his new job next week. My first GMU grad class begins in January as well. We've now visited five churches here. 2009 is starting off with almost too much "new" and not enough old. I'm not sure I want to make any "new" year's resolutions.

Getting current

Early adopters face a special challenge: when the technology is fully vetted and the field of competition sifted through to determine the leaders, early adopters can find themselves on outdated platforms and/or paying more than everyone else. Not really fair, but how the world works.

So, as early adopters of personal websites ("blog" wasn't a word then), our family website has been running for a few years. The interface is okay, but a little clunky by today's standards and (horror) we are paying a monthly fee for it.

Time to migrate. Painful. More work. Decisions about what to keep and what to delete. But, it is Advent season, the time of waiting and preparing. So, I figured I can use a little of that time to launch a new, more modern blog for the family. Here it is. I'll try to move the more worthwhile parts of the old site here (yes, the toilet paper counting episode of Mike's will be migrated).

Sleep: Overrated

Doctors and researchers always want to push sleep on us. Get more sleep, they say. At least 8 hours, they recommend. You won't function well if you don't. You'll be stressed and out of focus. You'll gain weight (okay, that one might be true given my late night snacking habits).

I'm hear to tell you as a single parent for the past 3 weeks that the doctors and researchers have not factored everything. If you are able to knock out three hours of billable work in the peace and quiet of past bedtime hours while also ordering the family's Christmas cards and shopping for matching holiday sweaters for the family, well, that is time well-spent and reduces your stress considerably. Sleep is good when you can get it. But, sometimes, that feeling of accomplishing and ticking off tasks on the ever-growing list is even better.

Gotta go now and finish the Christmas shopping before the midnight sale at Amazon ends.

Weighted Church Evaluation Plan

I am resisting my professional training and personality trait to make a list and being rating the churches. I have already envisioned the Excel worksheet, neat sections for different aspects of church life, cross-sectioned with weightings and then a simple 1 to 5 rating system (10 point systems are simply too broad).

I resist because it seems somehow wrong to find a new faith community in this manner, although I am trying to determine exactly why. Perhaps I feel it is too analytical or cynical, too narrow for God to work through. Nonsense though. God works through anything God pleases--at least that is what I take away from the Word. Maybe it is not fair. Not fair to rate a community gathered to worship God on their music selections that week, the bulletin order or how many people noticed us hovering in our own little bubble. It probably isn't fair, but it is hard to avoid evaluating.

If I do start that Excel file, I can at least start filling out the part on children's church, as that is most of what I have seen the past two Sundays. The girls have enjoyed their children's church experiences at two churches quite a bit, but weren't willing to let me go. I guess I will have to hold off on rating those churches on sermon message content/delivery or the overall service until I see a bit more.

Of course, I want to be wowed by God's presence in the worship and through the people so much that my brain forgets to evaluate and simply listens to a heart whisper that says "yes, here, this one".

Mike says he's found us a church, apparently hearing that heart whisper. The commute will be tough though for any sort of weekly attendance, given the church is in Beijing. I think even my six-year old would pick up on the irony.