Author Archives: Jen

About Jen

Jen isn't quite sure when she lost her mind, but it is probably documented here on Meditatio. She blogs because the world needs her snark at all hours of the night... and she probably can't sleep anyway.

All Systems Go!

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Everything should be working on the main journal page. The rest of the site is still under contruction as I apply templates to my older pages and redo some of the content.

Thank you to Leenie for the preeeeeeety picture and for helping me troubleshoot this morning and everyone else who has emailed me to help me or been online with me feeding me code. Y’all are real cool!

To those whom I sent the survey, please answer me post haste. For those who are interested in being a part of the survey, email me.

Papers and Mindgames

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I’ve been working on my “white paper” on contemporary worship for my Worship class (duh!) and I wish my professor would realize that contemporary worship services attract more of the 65-70 crowd in the ELCA. People my age want liturgy and many want all the smells and bells (though in my case, I’d take the bells without the smells) and putting a Vineyard service in an ELCA church is not going to help. I think contemporary worship is wonderful and I recognize and respect what the Vineyard is trying to do. I used to be very much in the mindset that this was perfect worship but now I oscillate between liturgy and contemporary worship.

In my paper, I have to answer such questions as: What is Lutheran worship?Do new people need simplified user-friendly worship? Why is Sunday so important as a ay of worship? Define “traditional”, “contemporary”, and “worshipful atmosphere”. These things could be answered many ways. Lutheran worship can be anything from a chorale Mass to indigenous hymns in an African tribe with African instruments. As for new people needing simplified worship, do any of the converts among my readers want to answer that? Those words could be defined in a number of ways and I don’t think any of my definitions could do them justice.

I had lunch with Bruce (one of my classmates today) and it was good. We talked about classes and next year. I still need to figure out what’s up for next year. I’m still waiting for an answer from God on that…

I’m doing a survey…

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I’m doing a survey of how my generation and seekers prefer to do worship. If I don’t know you and you want to participate, please email me and let me know!

Choral Evensong

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Well… Choral Evensong is over now. I would have stayed at the after-party longer but Debi and Marrianne were headed home and I wasn’t interested in walking home alone.

The service (which was more of a concert) went well other than our Dean of the Chapel basically refusing to cantor part of it (or at least lead a section) so Debi had to take over for him. (I have issues with him but that will be in another entry.) It was Holden Evening Prayer and since I cantor that every week with Debi (who is ten times better than I will ever be), it was easy music. The rest was all anthems and fun stuff. We did Rutter’s “Te Deum” which was great and we had full brass percussion and organ for that. It was a worshipful experience since I really wasn’t thinking about notes or dynamics too frequently tonight. Singing Holden with 200 people does that to you.|*||*|The after-party at Nancy’s house was really fun. She has 5 kitties and this was a Very Good Thing. (I have cat karma and some of my college friends would argue that I am a cat. 🙂 I was a happy Jen.) The food was basically hors d’oeuvres but it was fun conversation. =^..^= I ate with Carla and her husband and we talked about earthquakes and rattlesnakes and my addiction to JigZone.Com. (I am *NOT* addicted. I play it when I’m bored at work which happens frequently because my shift is usually after my Worship class and I’m usually too burned out to think about anything else.)

I know there are some problems with my layout but those aren’t getting fixed until tomorrow (well…since it’s after midnight, later today), so please be patient. If you can point out what is messing up in my code, I will be eternally grateful to you.

C/S

Meditatio is up!

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OK… still making some changes to the journal layout. If anyone wants to volunteer to make me a new graphic, I’m taking submissions. Otherwise, I’ll play on MS Paint this weekend and do it. (Yes… I’m lame — I have no Adobe Photoshop or anything like that, but I still get stuff done.) Also… if you know the code for making the date appear on Greymatter, please email me. I will be a happy Jen when I can get that coded correctly.

Chapel went well this morning other than someone giving me a bad prayer request. One of Jon’s classmates is in the hospital with stomach pain and when our campus pastor called, they said that she was in the labor room. Well… she’s pregnant but not having the kid. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! She’s doing fine and home now. I think she has three or four weeks left until she’s due to give birth (God willing on June 10th because that’s where my bet is). Pastor Ruth preached well this morning and I got a lot out of her message. It was Corporate Confession and Forgiveness and it was a good service.

Currently, I’m sitting at the Circ desk in the library attempting to program in CSS and failing miserably. Props to Brianna for not yelling at me as I’ve been using her journal as my template and changing things around to fit my needs, basically as a way of learning to do this. If any of you know any good tutorials, please let me know.

Marcianism

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I’ve gotten several emails asking if I am currently open to hosting. The answer is:

NOT RIGHT NOW When people reply back, they point out that I’m already hosting one person and why can’t I host another. The answer is: I have to pay for any extra subdomains beyond what I currently have and if you want to pay me that $5 a month, be my guest. For those who ask why Brianna is so special, read both of our journals and compare them. You can figure it out. I also invited Brianna to be on my domain because she needed a place and when I prayed about taking on a hostee other than my husband, I felt a positive answer from God. Her journal is a blessing to read whenever she posts and not many journals do that to me. It also doesn’t hurt that she reminds me a lot of me in that she is also a convert, an IVCF chica, an Anglican, and into music that is theologically sound.

Now to my main point…..

In her most recent journal entry, Brianna writes:

One thing I touched on was my opinion that knowledge of the Old Testament is vital for all Christians, and as important as knowledge of the New Testament. You can’t understand one without the other, as far as Christian theology is concerned. It’s like trying to see through one eye. Your perception is completely thrown off, incomplete and confusing … I find that every time I read the prophets, I learn something new — usually something major — about God’s character. These epiphanies often help me understand the thornier aspects of theology, such as why evil exists if God is good and loving. The Old Testament helps me understand that God’s definition of things like love may not match my or my society’s definitions of those things. … The completeness of the Word is a beautiful thing.

I totally agree with her. The Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible or First Testament) is very essential to the understanding of God’s character. I hear from a lot of people that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are completely different and that isn’t true. It *is* the same God and it is a God of love. Granted, Israel is exiled but this comes after God sends them warnings that what they are doing is completely wrong. Read Amos 5. Through Amos, God sends the message that He hates their religious festivals and will not accept their offerings. He asks that “justice roll down like a river and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). If Israel would just humble themselves and put justice and righteousness into action, they would not be exiled. This isn’t a hating or merciless God. He says later on in Jeremiah that He will bring them out and He does. The example of Ruth and Deborah and Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel and Miriam and Hagar and Huldah and other women also doesn’t hurt. I’m identifying strongly with Sarah right now as I am embarking on a journey to a somewhat unknown land (i.e. Jon’s Internship and then transferring seminaries) and it is encouraging to see how God protected her and Abraham.

I also agree that God’s definition of love may not match society’s definition but it has made all the difference in my life. The hesed (Hebrew for mercy or steadfast love) of God is what Jesus showed during His ministry and what existed in the church in Acts 2:42-47. The purity standards for marriage were hard to keep (especially in our society which is very sexualized) but made for a wonderful start to marriage as Jon and I could truly enjoy ourselves and know that it was something that had been set in marriage for us that we might truly know the satisfaction of being one with each other. The Song of Songs talks about this kind of love and I think is a good way of looking at marriage love.

I so cannot wait until my copy of Daily Texts shows up…