Saturday, December 29, 2007
2007- A year in review
So, here's a tribute to 2007 as experienced by Adam:
For half of 2007, I lived with Matt Huested and his family. They were gracious enough to open up their home to me for a cheap rent and live among them. I had been living in a rough roommate situation and moving in with them was a very happy alternative. It was nice to be able to occasionally sit down and eat meals with the family. Matt was also nice enough to let me learn how to smoke my pipe with him, as we sat on his back porch or huddled in his attic playing chess.
For the first 4 months, I was part of a house-church that met in the Huested home, continuing from 2006. At that time, we decided all together that the time for our church had come to a close and that we should pursue our worship and reaching out into our communities through other churches. The house church was a great support for me as I came to Louisville and played a large role in helping me deal with cynicism in my heart against the United States in general still carried over from the years while I was living in Nicaragua. It's crazy the stuff we continue to cling to.
2007 has also been a year of Starbucks. I don't know what to say about that except that it is nice to have a job and one that has so many co-workers with whom I enjoy working. And the free coffee is nice, too.
2007 was my first full year of being a seminary student... and seems to be also the last. It's really funny the way we make plans and work on steps toward reaching our goals, only to find that the steps we were taking were the right steps, but to an entirely different goal.
To speak directly, I did not come to Louisville to meet my wife. I knew I could only meet my wife wherever I was looking, but I never really figured on Louisville. So, January 15 of this year, I met her in the coffee shop co-owned by my landlord. I had her at "nice Mac." We started getting to know each other over the next few months and on April 20, I asked her to marry me. She said yes before she vomited. On August 18, 2007, I married my amazing wife in her parents' backyard in the garden. Two months later we bought our quirky little blue house, moved in the piano that I wanted to give her as a gift and acquired two dogs (one of which was hers before and one of which we picked out together). We spent our first Christmas together in our quirky little blue house with our own little Christmas tree.
Because of weddings and such, I got to see a lot of my friends this year that I did not expect to. I am very happy for that.
This has been a year of changing plans. I think if 2007 were to have a moral for me, it would be that life is never what you expect it to be, but that things never seem to be as bad as they could be.
Thank you, 2007. You've been a good 'un.
For half of 2007, I lived with Matt Huested and his family. They were gracious enough to open up their home to me for a cheap rent and live among them. I had been living in a rough roommate situation and moving in with them was a very happy alternative. It was nice to be able to occasionally sit down and eat meals with the family. Matt was also nice enough to let me learn how to smoke my pipe with him, as we sat on his back porch or huddled in his attic playing chess.
For the first 4 months, I was part of a house-church that met in the Huested home, continuing from 2006. At that time, we decided all together that the time for our church had come to a close and that we should pursue our worship and reaching out into our communities through other churches. The house church was a great support for me as I came to Louisville and played a large role in helping me deal with cynicism in my heart against the United States in general still carried over from the years while I was living in Nicaragua. It's crazy the stuff we continue to cling to.
2007 has also been a year of Starbucks. I don't know what to say about that except that it is nice to have a job and one that has so many co-workers with whom I enjoy working. And the free coffee is nice, too.
2007 was my first full year of being a seminary student... and seems to be also the last. It's really funny the way we make plans and work on steps toward reaching our goals, only to find that the steps we were taking were the right steps, but to an entirely different goal.
To speak directly, I did not come to Louisville to meet my wife. I knew I could only meet my wife wherever I was looking, but I never really figured on Louisville. So, January 15 of this year, I met her in the coffee shop co-owned by my landlord. I had her at "nice Mac." We started getting to know each other over the next few months and on April 20, I asked her to marry me. She said yes before she vomited. On August 18, 2007, I married my amazing wife in her parents' backyard in the garden. Two months later we bought our quirky little blue house, moved in the piano that I wanted to give her as a gift and acquired two dogs (one of which was hers before and one of which we picked out together). We spent our first Christmas together in our quirky little blue house with our own little Christmas tree.
Because of weddings and such, I got to see a lot of my friends this year that I did not expect to. I am very happy for that.
This has been a year of changing plans. I think if 2007 were to have a moral for me, it would be that life is never what you expect it to be, but that things never seem to be as bad as they could be.
Thank you, 2007. You've been a good 'un.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Offensive at Christmas
I feel like I offend everybody at Christmastime. On one hand, I'm a Christian and so i feel like people who are not immediately are offended by my being a Christian at Christmas, as if I came up with a holiday and deliberately chose not to include them in on it. It seems a more prominent time of year for me to feel like people think that all Christians are the same. As if all anything are the same. On the other hand, I feel that in Christian circles, I don't give ENOUGH importance to Christ's birth in late december. I generally try to celebrate his resurrection year round and don't feel the need to place great importance every year on the birth of Jesus just because it's Christmastime.
For me, the "reason for the season" is family. The reason that we have a chance to get together at this time of year is because of the traditional celebration of Christmas, which is a Catholic response to paegan religions for winter solstice, but I don't really care why this particular time of year is the time of year that we get together. Every year I have been alive, we have gotten together with family this time of year and I have always enjoyed that. It has become more important as I live farther and farther from home. I only saw my parents 7 times in 2007, so seeing them at Christmas was really fantastic.
The Christmas season is the time of year when i can remember that while "you can never go home again," there are a lot of things that stay the same at home and with the people I love.
So, while I wish year-round that you would know who Jesus is, when I wish you a Merry Christmas, please know that I wish you happiness with your family. Merry Christmas.
-Æ
For me, the "reason for the season" is family. The reason that we have a chance to get together at this time of year is because of the traditional celebration of Christmas, which is a Catholic response to paegan religions for winter solstice, but I don't really care why this particular time of year is the time of year that we get together. Every year I have been alive, we have gotten together with family this time of year and I have always enjoyed that. It has become more important as I live farther and farther from home. I only saw my parents 7 times in 2007, so seeing them at Christmas was really fantastic.
The Christmas season is the time of year when i can remember that while "you can never go home again," there are a lot of things that stay the same at home and with the people I love.
So, while I wish year-round that you would know who Jesus is, when I wish you a Merry Christmas, please know that I wish you happiness with your family. Merry Christmas.
-Æ
