Food for Thought...

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Try saying that five times fast.

Obviously, that’s just a bunch of gibberish, the result of my drumming my fingers over a series of keys as I try to figure out what to write. Or rather, how to begin. I already know basically what I would like to say, but coming up with an interesting, eye-catching, attention-grabbing introduction is always a challenge. And today, it seems pretty clear that I am failing miserably at it. But you are apparently still reading, so I guess I must be doing something right.

You see, I knew when I started this post that I wanted to talk about Thanksgiving. But if you attended a public or private school in the American educational system at any point in your academic career, you’ve already heard all there is to know about Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims held its inaugural celebration in 1621 to show their gratitude and joy at surviving the devastating first year in Massachusetts Bay. The Native Americans brought along deer and other food to the feast; they ate together and enjoyed God’s blessings. Then 142 years later, during the height of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln made this tradition into an official American holiday in his Thanksgiving Proclamation on October 3, 1863. Today this holiday is enjoyed across the country as people consume ungodly amounts of turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie while watching back-to-back-to-back games of football. Thus, Thanksgiving is a truly American holiday.

All that being said, I really do like Thanksgiving. Although it’s not my favorite holiday by any means (Independence Day holds that honor), I certainly love everything it entails: getting together with family, eating lots of delicious food (and pretending that my dad’s annual “I wave my hand and thereby remove all calories from this food” so-called magic trick actually works), and pausing to reflect on all of life’s blessings. All in all, Thanksgiving is good, and I am thankful for it. Really, I am.

But just like coming up with a creative introduction, figuring out something insightful and meaningful to say about Thanksgiving is rather challenging. Just like all the fun historical facts about Thanksgiving (fun for me as a history major, at least), you already know all the important things about this holiday: being thankful for God’s innumerable, undeserved blessings and reaching out to those who are less fortunate. I could go on and on about how important these are, and though it would be worthwhile and you might gain something from it, I might lose the attention that I worked so hard with my gibberish to gain. And so, I am going to forego the discussion of the usual Thanksgiving themes to try a different approach. I’m not sure how it will turn out, so humor me for a minute. Or a few minutes, rather. You know how I ramble.

Okay, here goes…

How about we thank God for simply being God?

Yes, that seems really basic or maybe even a bit counterintuitive, but work with me here. Have you ever taken a moment and thought about Who God is and what that really means? And if you have ever taken that moment, when was the last time you did? To be entirely honest, this is not an activity that occurs to me often and, when it does, I doubt that I usually act upon it. So how about you and I, right now, on this Thanksgiving holiday, pause for a second to reflect on who God is and then express gratitude for it. Are you with me? Good. Let’s continue.

So we want to thank God for God. But what exactly does that mean? Well, seeing that I am just an amateur, wanna-be theologian, I don’t have an expert strategy or game plan for making that happen. But I do have one possible way to go about it.

I’ve blogged about my mom a few times, but she really doesn’t appear in my writing as often as she deserves. So today is her lucky day. Mama, you are getting your own official shout-out. Hope you like it! :) Among her many admirable—and sometimes slightly idiosyncratic—tendencies is my mother’s propensity for garage-saling. She truly has a knack for finding the best bargains at the lowest prices, all in the neighbor’s front yard. As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Or in this case, a “woman’s treasure,” and that woman is my mother.

Last summer (during peak garage-sale season), my mom purchased what I believe to be one of the best investments. For the negligible price of one dollar, she bought a framed collection of the Hebrew names of God with their English translations. Each one is used at least one place in the Bible by God Himself or people writing about Him. Cool, eh?

As I said, I am not an expert on God, but I believe that if we really want to appreciate Who God is and have true, sincere gratitude for what He has done for us, then we first have to know who He is. That means having a grasp on His character and nature. And I think that God gives us a glimpse of that via His names. Once you read them, you’ll have a better idea of what I mean. Here they are:

Yahweh: LORD Jehovah
El Shaddai: The All-Sufficient One
Jehovah-Nissi: The LORD is my Banner
Jehovah-Jireh: The LORD will Provide
Jehovah-Shalom: The LORD is Peace
El Elyon: The Most High God
Jehovah-Tsidkenu: The LORD our Righteousness
Jehovah-Rapha: The LORD that Healeth
Adonai: Lord
El Olam: The Everlasting God
Jehovah Sabaoth: The LORD of Hosts
Jehovah-Mekod-Dishkem: The LORD who sanctifies
Jehovah-Shammah: The LORD is There
Elohim: Creator
Jehovah-Raah: The LORD is my Shepherd

Wow.

If you’re anything like me, it’s hard to read that list without being blown away. And if you weren’t blown away on the first reading, take a second to read it through one or two more times and really think about it. Or better yet, read it aloud. Then see how you feel.

God is awe-striking. He is so worthy of all the glory, honor, and praise—of everything. Yet in our day-to-day life, it’s so easy to forget about Him, about Who He really is. How do we manage to overlook the most significant Being in the universe? I don’t have an answer to that question because, to tell the truth, I do it the most often. As backwards and confused and messed up as it is, I do it all the time. But right now, starting with today, I am going to try to change that. And what more appropriate day to do that than on Thanksgiving?

I challenge you today to join me. In the midst of all the turkey-eating and general face-stuffing, take a moment and reflect on what God has done for you and, moreover, on who He is. And when that moment of reflection is up, take a second moment and thank Him—truly thank Him from the bottom of your gravy-covered heart—for Who He is. I have a feeling that you’ll be glad you did.

And with that, I wish you a very “Flusavfnjb3e Ghrfunvetuhgveen,” which is gibberish for “Happy Thanksgiving!” God bless. ;)

When in Rome...

I love my parents an awful lot.

They are absolutely amazing, they take such good care of me and my sisters, and they just plain great. I am so grateful for them, and since Thanksgiving is around the corner, I felt that it would be appropriate to express that gratitude in a blog. So, Mama and Papa, here is a shout-out just for you. Thanks for being so incredible.

Although my parents did many sacrificial and loving things for me and my sisters as we were growing up, one major decision of theirs stands out to me, and for it I am truly thankful. Somehow or another, by pinching their pennies (and much larger denominations of cash), they managed to send my sisters and me to a private Christian school to ensure that we would receive the best possible education. Because of their generosity, I am a shamelessly full-fledged nerd. Thanks, Mama and Papa. I mean that.

Now here I need to make a note about the type of education I was so blessed to experience. It wasn’t just any old private Christian school. No, it was a classical Christian school. This had a variety of implications (all of which destined me to my current state of nerddom): grammar training, logic classes, and—most importantly for this story—Latin.

We have already established this multiple times over, but I still feel as if it is worth repeating: I am a nerd. I am 100%, through and through, without a doubt, unashamedly nerdy. And it can be traced back to my elementary school days in my Latin class. For some reason, I fell in love with Latin. Call me a forensic linguist, but I had a blast poking around the carcass of this dead language. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I even asked for and obtained special permission from the principal to take my Latin textbook home with me over the summer, so I could study more. I spent days on end—no lie—copying down conjugations of verbs. Sick, but true. And so, I developed a bizarre infatuation with Latin. As they say, when in Kansas, do as the Romans do. ;)

But then I went to high school and decided to suspend my pursuit of Latin in order to learn another language. In case you don’t know this, Latin, though unquestionably deceased, left behind several grandchildren. These are the Romance languages (don’t you just love them? Haha), and they are as follows: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. So, having learned Latin for five consecutive years, one of these related languages would have been a logical choice to study, right? One would think.

But no. I decided to take German instead, and I’m pretty sure that the Latin language rolled over in its grave. Haha. Pun very much intended. Anyway, so I took three years worth of high school German and returned to Latin during my senior year (Darn budget cuts took away my school’s German program. Grrr.) Then I came to the university, where I currently study history and German, and I love it.

Having studied abroad for six months, I think I really appreciate the importance and value of learning a second (or third) language. There are countless benefits that come with it, including a heightened sense of cultural awareness, the ability to befriend people from different countries, having people think you are cooler than you are…. Haha. But one of the unexpected perks for me has come in my faith walk. Let me explain.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a fascination for words. As I have gotten older, I have become increasingly aware of their power. Each word is so intricate and carries with it such weight. How one phrases something and which words one chooses can completely alter a sentence’s meaning. Take for example the sentences “The room is cramped” versus “The room is cozy.” Both convey the image of a small, closed-in space, but the former produces a negative image and the latter a pleasant one.

Having learned two additional languages, I have an even greater appreciation for the power and meaning of words and, moreover, what they can teach us about God. My most recent favorite example can be found with the word “compassion.”

The root of the English word “compassion” comes from the Latin. “Com” is Latin for “together” and “pati” is Latin for suffer. So the English word compassion literally means “to suffer together.” Cool, eh? But wait! It gets cooler! The German word for compassion is “Mitleid”, which translates literally as “with suffering” or “suffering with.”

Whoa.

Let’s stop and dissect that for a moment (Don’t worry, not like the frogs in 7th-grade biology. Bleck). This means that compassion is not a passive emotion, a feeling that you can just shake off and forget about. On the contrary, compassion hurts. It means taking on someone else’s pain as your own and feeling it with them. Yikes. But maybe this is just something that got lost (or gained, rather) in translation. Maybe we aren’t supposed to literally feel the pain of those around us. Let’s see what the Bible says about it.

In the Bible, eight different Hebrew words are used to express compassion. Rather than diving into all of these, though, in the interest of time and space (and your wavering attention span), I will only look at one. And to change things up, I won’t even talk about a Hebrew one; I’ll discuss a Greek word (Betcha didn’t see that one coming, huh?) ;)

This word is Splagchnizomaito. (Try saying that five times fast! Or better yet, say it randomly in public and count how many people say “Gesundheit!” because they thought you sneezed!) All humor aside, this word has a very serious meaning: “to be moved as to one's bowels, hence to be moved with compassion, have compassion (for the bowels were thought to be the seat of love and pity.” This word is used multiple times in the Gospels to describe Jesus’ feeling toward people. For example, “Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36). Or “Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes; and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him.” (Matthew 20:34). Thus, one could also say, “Seeing the people, Jesus had bowels for them” (emphasis added), which means that Jesus felt their pain in the core of his emotional being. Incidentally, the Greeks believed this so-called emotional core was in one’s bowels. Go ahead,; take a moment to laugh about that because I am about to become very serious. Hahahahahaaha. Are you done now? …. Good.

So what can we take away from this brief Greek language lesson? Jesus felt other people’s pain when He walked on the earth, and I believe it’s safe to say that He feels the pain of His people today, right down in the core of his heavenly, immortal gut. But He doesn’t just stop there; He doesn’t merely feel pity in the form of an irritable bowel. Rather, He takes action. In Matthew 9:37-38, He told His disciples to pray for God to send out “workers into His harvest field” in order to reach the lost. In Matthew 20:34, he touches them and heals their blindness. Jesus knew that simply feeling for someone was not enough; He was “moved with compassion” and chose to help.

Even though the Latin-based word compassion and the German word Mitleid don’t sound nearly as cool as the Greek word, the idea remains the same. God calls us to identify with and share in the suffering of others. But He doesn’t want a passive pity; rather, he desires for us to do something about it. This doesn’t have to be earth-shatteringly large. It can be something as small as listening to someone vent after they have had a bad day, or offering a hug to a stranger simply because they looked like they needed one. Or it can be educating yourself on the sufferings of oppressed people around the world and then educating others about human trafficking. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s something we can do on our own. Luckily, the God of all compassion who actively experiences our pain is here to help us. If we ask Him, He will fill our hearts—and bowels—with more compassion than we will know what to do with. And then He will help us do something with it anyway.

So that’s my prayer for you this week: that God would teach you more about true compassion, and then help you to live it out, whether you’re Oklahoma, Kansas, Paris… or Rome. ;)

Raining (Cats) and Dogs

I’m really thankful that I’m not a dog.

Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing personal against dogs. I have no bone to pick with them, so to speak (Pun intended). I just think that if I were a dog, life would be a little less enjoyable in some crucial ways. For instance, I wouldn’t be able to eat chocolate. How tragic! Or even if I could eat chocolate, I wouldn’t have the opposing thumbs to be able to open the wrapper. Also, if I were a dog, I would have to wear a collar. And with my luck, my so-called "best friend" wouldn't give me any old collar; no, I'd probably be stuck with an electric collar. Based on my slow learning curve as a human being, I am fairly certain that I would be shocked a lot--and I mean A LOT--of times before I would finally learn my lesson. I may not be an old dog, but it can still be hard to teach me new tricks.

But the absolute worst part—hands down, no question—of dogdom, in my opinion is simple: colorblindness. Call me strange, but I really love colors. Specifically, bright colors. Lots and lots of bright colors. And if I were a dog, I wouldn’t be able to distinguish between or appreciate those bright colors, or any colors at all. That would be very, very sad. I mean, have you ever heard of an exciting shade of gray? Or have you ever pondered what it would be like to sit at an OSU football game and shout “GRAY!!!!... POWER!!!”? It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it? No, not at all. Why? Because gray is lame, gray is boring, gray needs to go away and hide because gray doesn’t have any friends. Except for dogs. Which is why I don’t want to be one.

And missing out on sea of orange at Oklahoma State football game, though terrible, pales in comparison to this: Colorblind dogs can’t see rainbows. Awful, isn’t it? As you probably know, dogs have super sensitive auditory faculties, which means that they hear things really, really well. Although I’ve never personally owned a dog (my dad is allergic), dog owners have told me stories of their canine best friends hiding under the bed for dear life because they are mortally afraid of thunderstorms.

Now, I haven’t seen too many rainbows in my life, but they tend to come after violent storms. But if I were a dog, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy—let alone see—the rainbow. I would just remember whimpering in a corner, praying that heaven is one gigantic leash-free park.

All that to say, rainbows are awesome, and I am sad that dogs don’t get to enjoy them. During my semester in Graz, I developed a special appreciation for rainbows. Let me tell you why.

If you read any of my blogs from Austria (or even some of them I have written since coming back), you will notice right away that I loved it. LOVED IT. As in, I quite literally had the time of my life, at least thus far. It was amazing, incredible, wonderful, exciting, and packed chock full of new experiences and adventures that I will remember as long as I live. But the best part was, without a doubt, all the new friends that I made—friendships I will truly cherish forever with people whom I dearly miss.

But Austria wasn’t all sunshine and roses; no, it had a few storms—both literal and figurative. At the end of May, I went through one of the worst. I had just returned from the ESN (Exchange Student Network) Summer Event, during which a group Erasmus students from all over Austria spent a weekend at a mountain lake, swimming, playing volleyball and doing what Erasmus students do best: partying. Overall, the weekend was a blast, I met some cool new people, and I got to know my close friends even better. However, as I pedaled from the train station back to my apartment, the storm clouds began to gather, both in the sky and inside my heart. I had barely made it into my third-story flat when the thunderstorm hit and the lightning started splitting the sky. As if on cue, the clouds in my heavy heart suddenly broke, and tears fell in perfect cadence with the raindrops on the roof. But why—heave—was—heave—I crying—heave? My heart, I soon realized, was breaking out of love for my friends. My soul physically hurt because I wanted them to find the hope that I have—the kind that comes only from Christ. And so, in that moment, in the midst of the overwhelming pain like nothing I had ever felt before, I started to pray, to pray from the bottom of my heart.

Gradually during this time, the storm had been dying down. As I neared the end of my praying, I felt the weirdest urge to check my Facebook. Strange, I know. When I did, I saw half a dozen updates on my news feed from my friends in Graz saying stuff like, “Check out the rainbow!” and “Wow! The rainbow is so beautiful!” When I looked out my window, which faced the city, no rainbow was in sight. Grabbing my keys, I hurried to the back of the building, which faced the other direction. And sure enough, above the Schlossberg in vibrant, untainted, breathtaking beauty were not one but TWO perfect rainbows. Two undeniable reminders of God’s unending faithfulness.

After the great flood that destroyed all of mankind except Noah and his family, God made the first rainbow, saying, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you.” (Genesis 9:12-14a).

Whenever a rainbow appears for all generations to come, God remembers His promise to us. So whenever a rainbow appears, God shows us his faithfulness. That means every single rainbow that has ever been and ever will be—including the perfectly-timed double rainbow over the Schlossberg that evening in May.

So wherever you are and whatever you are going through, whether you’re in a sunshiny meadow or just praying to survive the storm, know that God hasn’t forgotten you. Even if you can’t feel Him now, He is still with you, and He will never leave you. He has a way of turning even the darkest, rainiest, most seemingly hopeless moments into unforgettable, unbelievable, awe-inspiring rainbows.

And that, even if you’re a colorblind dog, is something to bark home about. ;)