Danger Craft Night

What is this you ask? Posting two days in a row? That's right!

Actually I have a confession. Lately I've been trying to avoid watching TV, and avoid checking facebook and pinterest regularly. As a result I have spent more time reading and writing blogs. So yeah...Never underestimate the power of a busy person to find new ways to procrastinate. However I do feel better updating all of you about my life than looking through pictures of random crafts that I'll never try.

But this is an example of a random craft I thought I would never try. This weekend I had a few of the grad students from my department over to my apartment for an evening of snacks, pizza, and X-treme crafting. We decided to try and make drinking glasses out of empty wine bottles. In order to cut the bottles we got to do exciting things like light string on fire.

Here is our evening:

Pizza dough rising.

Homemade pizza is a good way to start off any event. And here's a tip: whenever you are letting dough rise, put it in the oven, the oven is very well insulated so the dough will usually rise fairly easily in there. Here's another tip: don't pre-heat the oven while one of your plastic bowls is still in there. Would I ever do something so stupid? Uh, maybe. I'll just say, that this is the last time that bowl looked like a bowl and not a piece of modern art. 

Crust that came out before the pre-heating debacle. And I was going to take a picture of the finished product, but I forgot, so enjoy looking at my empty pizza crust :)

Holly's dog Zoey in her Halloween costume.

Friends and some pre-pizza snacking

Now the moment you've been waiting for, the fire pictures! To do this procedure you dip cotton yarn in acetone nail polish remover, tie it around the wine bottle, light it on fire, then when the fire is about to go out, dunk it in ice water. The top pops right off. Probably a bad idea for someone who cannot pre-heat an oven without melting something, but it seemed like fun. 

Sam holding the flaming wine bottle, I assisted with the lighter.

Me with the flaming bottle! Wasn't it great that Sam brought safety goggles?

Close up of the bottle and flame.

Yes, I decided it was more important to look at the camera than the fire in my hand.

Pam putting on the precautionary safety glove.

Holly and Sarah, Holly always makes the best facial expressions.

I'll let you know what we all end up doing with our cut up wine bottles (might not be the best for drinking glasses). Maybe that will be another craft night. The evening ended safely with no injuries and no burning apartments. Success!

Treehouse

I know you've been wondering just how I spend my Thursday evenings. Well you got your wish, here it is...

Treehouse is the name of the Lutheran Campus Ministry in College Station. Our group is called Treehouse with the idea that it is a place where you can feel at home, with the tree representing growth of the group and reaching out to people outside of ourselves.

We arrive at 6:45 on Thursday evenings, there are a few minutes of socialization then we sit down to a family style dinner which is graciously provided by families of the 2 ELCA congregations in College Station.

Dusty and Elizabeth at dinner.

There are about 6 tables in the room each seating 5-6 people. The structure of dinner is centered around a short service. Before we sit down we begin by the sharing of the peace. This is not the normal church service sharing of the peace where you feel good about yourself if you shook hands with the people in the row in front AND behind you. This involves hugging everyone in the room and saying, "Peace be with you," or some other variation like "Joy be with you" or something else. Is all the hugging awkward for the new people? Yes. But you'll get used to it, and then its a great part of the week.

When we sit down for dinner we pass around the bread for communion then catch up for a few minutes and start a conversation around whatever question is listed on the table for that week. Then as a large group we pick one person from the table to share an answer to what they discussed. 

Paul, sharing his discussion points. This weeks topic was more fun than serious. 

Near the end of the meal there is a short reading from the Bible, the passage often relates back to the questions that were discussed at dinner. 

Paige, she was our assisting minister for the evening. I had this job last week.

Following the reading the wine for communion is distributed, prayers are said, and we sing a closing song. 

That portion of the evening ends around 7, and then from 8-9 there is an hour that is spent on a specific topic or activity. This week we had the bishop of our synod come speak. He came once last semester and he is a great speaker. I guess that is a pre-requisite for becoming a bishop, but he really does his job well!

Bishop Mike speaking, I chose the blurry hand picture so you could see how energetic he was when speaking to us. 

Mindy giving a few announcements for the week

This is the spot I was sitting at, we got to write on the table last week, I was having fun reading what everyone chose as inspirational words. 

Group picture!

Nothing like a little post-Treehouse, post-dish washing dance party with Angie and Jessie.

Well friends, that is a typical Thursday evening in the life of Beth.  

Theological Discussions

So far this year, especially in this past week, I have regularly had my mind blown about different theological topics.

For instance, our campus pastor Mindy, has been leading a 3 week theological study on forgiveness. We have finished week 2 and I'm pretty sure I don't even know what forgiveness is anymore. But now I'm constantly thinking about it and trying to evolve my definition of the word. My original definition that I wrote during the study was something along the lines of forgiveness being letting go of past wrongs and genuinely holding no anger or resentment towards that thing that had caused you pain. Now, I don't agree with that definition at all and I'm trying to make sense of what forgiveness might mean.

Yes, I think that definition works in a lot of situations. If someone cancelled plans with me, spilled a cup of coffee on me, or many other little things I could find that easy to forgive. But in the examples we looked at in the study things get a little harder to understand where there was abuse or a huge life-changing hurt involved. If something happened that really impacted your life it is not something you can just "let go" of, it impacted who you are and is now a part of you. We talked about all of this while keeping in mind that forgiveness and reconciliation, while closely linked, are two different things.

A broad idea behind this study is that if people who went through extremely difficult and life altering situations are feeling guilty that they cannot forgive (whatever that word means) is the Church doing something wrong in the way it teaches forgiveness?

I don't know if I did a good job clearly summarizing what is going on in my head, but any thoughts or input is greatly appreciated.

September

Hello all! My last post was about classes starting...I guess that was pretty telling because I haven't updated since.

Just finished week 3 of classes and everything is in full swing.

I have a new job, I'm the coordinator for the agriculture ambassadors and mentors for study abroad. Between that, classes, presentations, Sunday school teaching, Treehouse, and job hunting for after graduation I've been kept pretty busy.

One weekend I had a really great visit with Allie and Ian. Allie and I met on the first day of kindergarten. She is doing Teach for America in Baton Rouge right now. Funny that we ended up fairly close to each other. While they were visiting I paid another visit to the Bush library, spent an evening in downtown Bryan, toured a winery, and ate some barbecue.

Wine tasting

Delicious food

Last weekend I had the chance to go First Friday in Bryan. The first Friday of each month all of the stores stay open for the evening. There are usually lots of events going on as well. Sam (one of my Namibia friends) and I stayed to watch the movie that was played outside. 

Not a great picture, but the general set-up of the movie watching

This past week I had the opportunity, along with several other students, to talk to the CEO and others from Heifer International. They are thinking of starting a partnership with Texas A&M. Leighton, Josh, Holly, and I got to represent the students in our department. 

I'll try to keep you more regularly updated on my adventures. Let me know what you are up to!