WaHOOOOOOOO!!!

[2eclipse]

this is the last day of nonsense.
i am just cleaning up a paper and studying for my LAST FINAL!!!
and i WILL be at game tonight.
and i am mostly packed for MN. although i'm not sure HOW i'm going to fit ross's xmas present in as carry-on.

gotta luv academic stress.
not only have i kept off the weight that i lost this summer - through thanksgiving no less - but i've lost another three lbs.
forgotten to eat a lot. and when i don't sleep much i lose my appetite.

my mom made vegetable beef soup last night and we actually had a family dinner - which has happened....maybe 4 times since i've been home (ie. in the last two years).
and we sang xmas songs and read theology and talked about the role of grace in politics...
yes, my whole family is geeky.

but it was really wonderful.:)
i got introduced to a franciscan blessing in my human rights class that i had never heard before and i LOVE IT.
so ya'll get the opportunity to read it too.

May God bless you with discomfort at easy ansewrs, half-truths, and superficial realtionships, so that you may live deep within your heart. Amen.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. Amen.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy. Amen.
May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.
And the blessing of God, who creates, redeems and santifies be upon you and all you love and pray for this day, and forever more. Amen.

Comments

[keisolo.livejournal.com]

Yay! Someone else who has read the Black Company. Must say I have not liked the newest additions to the series as much as the old, but it is still the world, still quality, and still (mostly) the characters. I think he might have lost the thread or jumped to an alternate world or something, though.

Lackey is easier and faster to read than most of what I like, but the concepts are good. There was a period where (the owl books among others) where there was a fair abrupt drop in how much I liked them. I think the workshare in the writing team changed or something - the things she's done more recently have been more like what I remember. She did a trilogy with James Mallory recently that ate my brain for a day and a halfish.

Tolkien is lovely - and there are things he is one of the only authors I have read that he did right that I wish to do similarly right. Not an idol or a model to emulate, exactly, but definitely lessons learned and things to aspire to. He's one of the reasons I'm working on the languages of the world my fantasy style tales are written in. (Then again, I'm also just fascinated by languages and language, so I may well have done it anyway, even if I'd never read his books.)

The name Robin Hobb sounds vaguely familiar, although I do not recall if that is someone I tried to read and could not, or if it is in the large file of authors to look into when I have the time.

Elie Wiesel is a survivor of the Holocaust - child at the time. He's done a lot of peace work, taught for a time at BU (I still wish I could have taken classes with him.) "Night" was the first of his I had read. He has quite a catalog, pieces of it dealing with the nature and effect and interpretation of God.

I do realize the bible has to be interpreted, and my urge to hack at in was motivated by a desire to take out that which does not have a context, or not a direct context in the present times, and to try to ameliorate some of the known translation errors that have become fact over time. Fact due to time read? If that makes any sense.
The passages I was referring to were ones I was beaten to the rhythm of as a child, even though I'd read them, and knew the secondary statements.
"Children obey your parents for this is right." ........ "Parents do not provoke your children...."
"Wives honor and obey your husband..." .... "Husbands, care for your wives, your authority is not to be a foot on their necks."

Paraphrased, yes, but that is the sort of pick and choose that angers me about so many "Christians."

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

i have not only read black company, but i have introduced others to it...including my ex-fiance who ran off with all my books....grrr...however since he did that, i have not kept up.
have you read the stuff lackey did on fairy tales? i liked the gates of sleep and in the serpent's shadow and the phoenix and the ashes...i hated the wizard of london. bloody awful.

robin hobb is amazing and also writes as megan lindholm.
she did the assassin books and is working on the forest mage books right now under robin hobb.
as megan lindholm she writes edgier things, example included. http://www.asimovs.com/Nebulas03/cut.shtml

alien earth is my favorite, but her other stuff is good too. for philosophy though....the mad ship contains most of what i've taken to heart.

i grew up with tolkien, but i only fell in love with him as a person and a model when i was in college and read humphrey carpenter's biography of him. my only beef with him is that he never understood women and never succeeded in writing them well.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

wow, you really got the ass-hatted end of christianity growing up, didn't you?
i probably benefited more than i know from having a minister for a dad. i had friends tell me growing up that my parents were the only "real" christians they knew

[keisolo.livejournal.com]

On so many levels that phrase is so right. There were things I learned from "Christians" that are so far outside the protocols for the religion... Yeach.

I've met more real Christians since I stopped being forced to go to church than I ever did whilst I was.