God in the Pyramid?

There is an article in the local paper today about a church who has offered $12 mil for the Pyramid.

A mega church in the Pyramid? Would it be a large symbol to the city of Memphis of God's power and abundance or the excesses of men?

Sweet on Geeks

Ok this is totally hilarious, and it almost hits too close to home:

http://sweetongeeks.com/

Will we see Judas in Heaven?

So the hot topic around the post-church lunch table yesterday was, "Will we see Judas in Heaven?"

Our pastor, the gentleman that he is, was posed this question by a child in the congregation. His response was that we will not see Judas in Heaven because he represented the devil in the flesh just as Jesus was God made flesh.

Was Judas possessed? Did Jesus know when he was picking the apostles that Judas was the one to betray him or did Judas have a choice in doing it? My dad postulated that Judas thought that Jesus was going to kick ass and take names with the Romans, but when he saw that Jesus did not roll like that, struck a deal to make sure he was on the "winning" side. My sister thought that Judas might have made a mistake that he did not think all the way through, and he got stuck suffering serious consequences. I can imagine going to the Garden of Gesthemene and facing the man that you knew was omnipotent as his betrayer had to make Judas think twice about what he was about to do.

Perhaps it is my more "worldly" upbringing, but I do not think that we can posture whether we will see Judas in Heaven. We are not the judge of that, God is. He knew Judas' heart, and not every word that each of the disciples uttered was recorded in scripture verbatim. Although he did commit suicide, perhaps he did it because he realized what a grevious error he had made. However, just like the guy on the cross next to Jesus, if Judas repented of his sin, perhaps he will be with us in paradise.

Thoughts?

801 day hiatus

How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings. You feed them from the abundance of your own house, letting them drink from your rivers of delight. Psalm 36:7-8

I have been wanting to return to blogging for the past few months, but it was just this week that I realized just how long it had been. It isn't that I have stopped writing- I have seen more of the mountains and valleys of life in the past 801 days than I care to recount, besides the fact that I am not sure whether I have the desire or the words to recount them here.

In 2006, the list of 43 causes major causes of stress was updated to include 55 items that serve as a link between stress and illness. Many psch people boil this down to seven. Supposedly if you have experienced stress in two or three of these in the past year, you are under major stress. I find that laughable. Here the leading seven:

1. Finances
2. Work
3. Family
4. Personal Concerns
5. Personal Health and Safety
6. Personal Relationships
7. Death

At some point over the past 801 days, I have been touched by all of these. From my Grandmother's death, Mom's cancer, my health scare, a job change, renovating a house, and the end of a relationship, my life has been a veritable roller coaster of stress. I admit now that I did not always react in the best way to this stress, often making bad decisions or shaking my fists at God.

The book of James 1: 2-4 says "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."It has just been this summer that I have had the time and space to think, process, and evaluate all that has happened. I have taken conscious steps to reorganize and adjust my perspective on my life and why I am here on this planet. I can honestly say that I am a different, and hopefully better, person because of these experiences. God truly does have a purpose for me, and it is good to get back to a place where I realize that things are better when he direct my paths instead of me gripping the steering wheel and trying to drive.

I am eternally thankful for my family and friends who have been stalwart support for me, even when I have not always been the best friend in return. I am truly blessed.

Enough of the sappiness! I am going to backfill some posts about my trips abroad, so make sure you scroll down the blog, but don't be fooled that I was blogging anywhere other than my trusty yellow legal pad!

Greece Day 14- Last Day

Because Mom and Mary E.B. have a quota of ancient sites and museums that they will visit, we had saved the National Museum until our last day in Greece. This was a great idea because we had checked out of the hotel and stored our luggage and made it our goal to not get sweaty!

I really enjoyed the museum, but it focused on more ancient things than the paintings and such that we have visited on our trips to other places so it only held our attention spans for a few hours.

We ate lunch at this fast food pastry kind of place that had a lot of versions of things wrapped in pastry. Mary and mom got spanakopita and I got some version of chicken and tomato. Mary has introduced me to the wonderful world of European Fanta. Although it lacks caffeine, it is quite refreshing in the heat of the European summer. It is less sugary than it tastes in America, probably because like the Coke here it is made with real sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup.

Remember that we are on day 5 of operating without the guidebook, but Mom had the great idea of taking the public tour bus around Athens to get some pictures of things we had missed. It was supposed to be a hop-on, hop-off tour, but we ended up taking the route 5 times without getting off anywhere but the terminal! It was neat to see the American Embassy and the Pan-Athenaic stadium and to be able to say farewell to the city.

After the tourbus, we ended up continuing our farewell tradition of eating at the Hard Rock cafe. This is something that we started on our first trip abroad in London in 1999, when I went in search of biscuts after eating a months worth of toast. When we sat down, the waiter said something to us about where we were when the earthquake hit earlier that afternoon. We were like Earthquake? What earthquake? thinking that he was playing a joke on the tourists. Turns out, there was an earthquake, but we were totally clueless since we were riding on the bus.

After dinner, we had planned to take the metro to the airport and sleep in the airport. (See this website) It was great, but the people had taken all of the good sleeping spots by the time we got to the airport. Mom staked out some seats and guarded our luggage while we explored. The athens airport had free terminals to check emails, and that was really popular among the wayward college students. Mary and I wandered up to the chapel, but we couldnt figure out how to get mom and the luggage up there, so I went back downstairs and read a book all night. We were delirious by the time we boarded the plane. The flight from Athens to Amsterdam was delightful, and we had many hours to sleep in the Amsterdam. We took great advantage of it. I am sure we were quite a site of 3 American girls splayed out on these really comfy chairs, but we were so tired, we didn't really care. After some nutritious Burger King, we headed to the gate, where we met a whole group of Senior citizens from Bellevue who had just spent some time in the Holy Lands. We compared trips as we boarded the plane.

The return trip seemed like it took an eternity. I watched The other Boylyn Girl and every other movie available. At last, though, we were finally home! Yay!

Greece Day 13- Shopping!

Today was devoted to souvenir shopping. We always try to buy one thing memorable and one thing collectible. I was looking for something for my house, mom was looking for something to wear, and Mary E. B. was looking for a soccer jersey for her boyfriend Gregg. We were also looking for some various small things.

I ended up with some olive wood book ends embellished with olive carvings. They are going to look great in my living room holding my collection of rare books. Mom ended up with a necklace and bracelet from the same shop.

I am excited to be here, but I am ready to go home.

Greece Day 12- Olympia

Wow. What a marathon today has been. We arrived back in Athens and at the Omiros Hotel last night just in time to wash some clothes and eat at our favorite souvlaki place! We knew we had to get in bed early because mom had booked a private driver named Kosta to take us to Olympia at 6:30 the this morning.

Kosta is this middle aged Greek guy who runs a tourist agency for Greeks. It was raining as we got on the road, and it was downright cold when we reached the Corinth Canal, which turned out to be like 100 yards from the bus station where we had been a few days before. It is funny how when you are in a foreign country you have no sense of how close or far one place is in relation to another. The Corinth canal separates the Peloponnese from the mainland and connects the Gulf of Corinth to the Aegean sea.

Kosta talked to us the entire way to Olympia. This was a good thing because his driving scared me to death. It seems like all of the highways are 2 laned, and the Greeks drive on the SHOULDER and pass in the actual LANE. This is frightening when you are going 100 km an hour!!

About four hours later we arrived in Olympia just as the sun broke through the crowds. This was a more touristy place, probably because the E.U. and the GK government dumped a bunch of money in it when the Olympics came to Athens in 2004. The actual site museum was not that interesting, but the site was cool. It was neat to process into the stadium like an Olympic athlete. One of the most interesting things I learned was that athletes who cheated had to purchase a statue with a plaque that described their offenses that was displayed in a row on the way into the stadium. Talk about peer pressure.

After the site we went to the Museum of the Olympic games. This was a very well done museum, which talked about all of the different events in the ancient games and had some great artifacts. I really enjoy museums that take the time to tell you about things rather than just assuming that you know what you are seeing.

We made a quick trip to the Museum of the Modern Olympic games, which was not very updated according to my mom, and then it was off to lunch.

We ate lunch at this seaside resort that was one of the most posh places I have ever been. Would be a great place to honeymoon. Soon it was back to Athens.

I really enjoyed getting to ask Kosta all of my burning questions about Greek culture. I was uncertain how today was going to turn out, but in the end it was one of the most memorable parts of the trip.