Reading with Discernment

I came across this article earlier today, written by my former rhetoric teacher (now co-worker :) ).  She once again articulated what I always thought but could never get down on paper in a reasonably coherent fashion.

You can read the article here.  (It opens in a new window.  :) )

My favorite part:

"...Whatever is true” includes not just beauty but also the whole truth about, well, truth. What’s true and real is that this world is full of sin. It’s ugly, and it warps everything it touches. And evil is evil; it is to be avoided, not desired.

 I think I've been trying to say that for a long time but always failed.

It's important to realize that you aren't going to become tainted by sin just because you read about sin or watch a movie where people sin or, God-forbid, even know a few people who are sinners.  =P  You're already a sinner, and there's nothing you can do to make your condition worse (or better, for that matter :) ).  Isn't it good that God knows exactly how terrible we are and chooses to love us anyway?

And then people's next argument is that "all things are permissible, but not everything is beneficial," which is obviously true.  (Even if you don't believe the Bible is inherently true, I think we can all agree that certain things influence us negatively.)  I think that's where discernment becomes especially important.  For example, if I find that reading books about a certain topic (let's say... romances, because I can't think of anything else) leave me more open to sinning, then I shouldn't read romances.  But someone else might be able to read those types of books without any ill effects, and I shouldn't try to stop them just because it's not helpful for me personally to read about those things.

I'll be interested to read Part 2 in this series, and if there are more parts to look forward to, all the better!  :)

It's Tutoring Time!

Hi everyone!

As you may or may not know, Justin is an excellent math and chemistry tutor.  When we lived in Alabama, we had quite the tutoring business built up -- Justin tutored from 8-5 every Saturday and from 5-10 every week night except for Friday, and I still had to turn people away just because he didn't have time to help everyone!

So now that we're in West Virginia, we're trying to build that business back up.  One of our friends got a flyer made for us (you know who you are! :) ) and today I sent that, Justin's resume, and a short introduction to all of the chemistry professors at Marshall University, as well as to some high schools in the area.  Please pray that these professors and teachers will think of us when someone could use extra help!  We trust that God will provide students at exactly the right time, both for us and for them, and we're hoping that time is now.  :)

If any of you need tutoring or know of someone who does, please don't hesitate to contact us.  Justin is a wonderful tutor.  He really cares about each student he gets to interact with, and we've never had someone come for just one tutoring session.  I can personally testify to his ability to explain difficult concepts, because I was abysmal at math and didn't know the first thing about chemistry before we got married.  Even though we don't sit down and have math lessons or anything like that, I'm much more confident with advanced math than I was three years ago!

Posting Regularly

Justin, at a previous apartment, sitting grumpily at the computer.

So I thought I'd say a word or two about posting regularly.  I often see people say, "Sorry for not posting in a while," and then go on to tell you all about why they haven't posted.

The fact of the matter is that I have a lot of things to do.  Justin and I both work (he does more than I do most weeks).  We're selling a car, working on the house, buying the house, trying to get the garden in order, outfitting a nursery, preparing in other ways for a baby, staying involved with our church, reading books, keeping up with friends, volunteering our time and skills (such as they are, in my case :) ), and on top of all that, trying to keep a household running smoothly!  There is always something else to do, often something that really can't stay undone.

My goal with this blog is to keep far-away friends and family updated and to keep a sort-of-record of what's been going on lately so that I can read through it later, too.  But in the grand scheme of things, if it comes down to a contest between making dinner and blogging, what do you think should win?  Probably making dinner.  Food is necessary for life.  Blogging isn't really necessary at all.  It's a just a bonus.  :)

Anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying that I don't plan to post regularly.  We'll see what happens, and I hope you all will be understanding.  It's easy to forget that people on the internet do things aside from what we see them do.  :)  I'll post as often as I reasonably can, but I don't need another thing to feel guilty about not doing!  I'm just not making any promises about regularity, that's all.  :)

Piles Beget Piles

Image from www.theexpeditioner.com -- not my house!

In my house, piles beget piles.  This is an amazing phenomena that occurs when one solitary item is left in a place it doesn't belong.  Before you know it, the out-of-place object spawns five or ten other objects, and continues to multiply if left to its own devices.

Not everybody has this problem.  My mom, for example.  For as long as I can remember, she had two piles: one pile of school books and papers in the dining room, and a mail pile on the kitchen counter.  Occasionally she'd have one or two other temporary piles (around Christmastime in particular), but they never lasted long.

This is definitely not the case for me.  I didn't take pictures because that would be embarrassing, but here's what happened last week for me.

I left one dish in the sink to soak.  It had baked-on potatoes which just weren't coming off no matter how hard I scrubbed.  While I was upstairs doing laundry, Justin helpfully stacked a few more dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the (empty) dishwasher.  So what had been one, manageable dish became about ten dishes, which effectively made the sink unusable.

Another place this often happens is the dresser.  The dresser has four things on it: a lamp, some flowers, a picture, and a jewelry box.  That is all that belongs there.  Unfortunately, it's a very handy place to stack... well, everything!  Every single morning and night I clear off all the accumulated debris.  I don't know how things accumulate overnight (well, actually, I do... a certain someone stays up later than I do :) ), but during the day it's almost entirely my fault.

It happens a lot of other places, too.  We live in a three-story house and if you run up and down the stairs for every little thing, you don't get anything done!  So we make a pile at the top and bottom of each staircase of things to go either up or down.  The idea is that we'll take something whenever we use the stairs.  Sometimes that works, but mostly Justin gets tired of stepping around things (he has bigger feet than I do, and consequently they take more room at the top of the steps :) ) and makes about five trips up and down, carrying things to the appropriate floor.  It also happens on the bathroom counter.  If I leave a hairbrush out, soon a towel joins it, then the toothpaste, then the hair dryer, then one of the cats decides that it looks like a comfy spot to nap, etc.  It never ends!

Thus far, I haven't found a long-term solution.  Right now, my theory is that if we just put things away, things won't even have a chance to spawn into piles, but that is far more easily said than done!  "I'll do it later" isn't a good option, and "I'm tired" isn't a good excuse to avoid something that takes about two seconds to do.

But oh well.  We'll keep trying!