Art class

I realize it's time for some pictures but my old digital camera has officially retired. (If anyone has a recommendation on a new camera, preferably not too expensive, let me know). So I apologize for using Photo Booth instead (not recommended, but it's all I've got right now).

I'm currently in the third week of my first real art class: 2D Basic Design. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly that means. Skipping too many details, I'm convinced that I don't speak the same language as my art teacher, which makes everything sort of difficult. I'm relying a lot on my art major roommate (who, thankfully, is in the same class) to help me out when she can (and I in so doing remind her when we have homework). I'm also really, really glad now that I am not an art major.

Here are some of the things I've done so far:

Initial drawing that has to be included in my portfolio to show improvement. We had 30 minutes to do something that showed what we already knew about design "and if that's nothing then, well...just doodle and see where it goes." Yeah, that would be my doodle given the previous class's lecture on unity.

First assignment--"doodle design" focusing on the use of line. The assignment sheet for this might as well have been written in French for all I understood of it but my teacher liked it, even if she thought it was a scorpion.

Shape exercise--apparently I didn't quite follow the instructions for this one either, but abstract art just isn't my thing. I can sometimes appreciate it when someone else does it well, but my mind just doesn't think that way when it comes to creating it.



Value exercise using high key, low key and dramatic study--don't ask about the subject...it pretty much comes down to me having way too much fun creeping out my roommate.

Algunos de mis incertidumbres de actualidad

"Overwhelming" would describe how my life has been recently. Classes, homework, my volunteer job and my work study job all fit so closely together in my schedule nearly all the remaining hours have to be dedicated to whatever sleep I can get just to keep going each day. I keep saying over and over again that I hope God knows what He's doing with all this stuff because I certainly don't.

For example, my signing up to volunteer more hours at an elementary school across town. Last semester one of the many requirements of my Spanish class was to be involved in a service project to the Hispanic community and so I ended up in a volunteer program reading Spanish books with a couple of kindergartners. For various reasons I decided to drop the second semester of that Spanish class and had no logical reason to agree to continue volunteering. But I had the time slot open. There was no great reason why not to continue with it either. And so I agreed to help out at the same times.

Over winter break I got an email from my supervisor asking if it would be possible for me to add a third reading session before my other two. "I hope God knows what He's doing with this because I don't," was my thought as I replied with a simple "I can do that."

So now I walk the eight or so blocks to the school every Tuesday morning and spend time with three amazing and bright kids who don't care if my Spanish is less than perfect as long as the books we read together have cool pictures. This semester has been pretty exciting so far with them too, because these kids are now able to sound out the words and read some of the books for themselves. It is so cool to watch how they've all progressed!

The reason I struggle a bit with this work is that for nearly all my life people have told me I ought to be a teacher and equally often I have insisted that I do not want to be a teacher. So why am I working in an elementary school? I still don't want to be a teacher. I'm not opposed to helping people, I just agreed to help someone with math tomorrow and I can enjoy that sort of thing and I know I'm good at it. I just really don't want to be a teacher and I can't understand exactly what has led me to work at this school.

As a result, not only have I had an abundance of work to keep me busy but my mind has been occupied with all sorts of confused thoughts and prayers, this situation being but one example, and I've got really nothing to do but keep plodding through it all while waiting to see what God makes of it.

Trip to a used book store

My mom and I went to Half Price Books today. I'm taking a literature class titled "Great British Writers" this semester and there are nine books I'm supposed to get for that class alone. Nine!

But any day I'm allowed into a used book store is pretty much guaranteed to be a good day. The only problem was that I knew my mom would get sidetracked from our mission to look for school books immediately so I thought maybe if I managed to stay focused there was a chance we might make it out of there before closing. That resolve didn't exactly last very long. I picked up two non-British books from the clearance shelves outside, before even entering the store.

Exciting find number one: Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl for $1.00. You can't get much better than that. I don't remember much about what's in the book because it's been a really long time since I read it but I know I really liked it and can't wait to read it again. It's a very creative mix of sci-fi and fantasy.

Next I found a writing book called "Chapter after Chapter" by Heather Sellers. It's mainly about dedication and focus. I like what I've read so far (introduction and chapter 1) and think it will be helpful for me.

After that I stuck with my goal to find the books for school and was quite successful. My mom and I found six of the nine books at that store for reasonable prices. Of the other three my sister is supposed to have two, though so far I've only found one in the places she directed me to look. Looking for the books I need for my computer and Bible classes was completely unsuccessful, but I didn't have high hopes for finding those there anyway.

At this point my mom felt the need to look through just about the entire store so there was no reason for me not to wander through the sections that interested me too. I started with music, went to computer games, then various fiction, sci-fi and fantasy sections. I found it amusing that "Tolkien" is its own shelf category but most of the books written by Tolkien were on a different, though nearby, shelf. And then I looked at art books but none that interested me were all that cheap so I moved on to see if my mom was anywhere near ready to go yet. She was still in the wedding section (my sister is getting married this summer) which luckily was right next to the writing section so I wasn't too bored.

Finally I returned to the performing arts section where my mom had left her basket of books to see what she had picked up and wait. While waiting I noticed a book titled "I Hate My Life and Want to Die" and curious about what the point of such a book might be (it was about depressing songs), started looking through the introductory material. Of course that's the moment that my mom returns and demands to know what I'm reading. Needless to say, I didn't have a chance to find out what the rest of the top ten genres of depressing songs were. I think I'll live.

Secure (another art request)

A friend at school asked me for a favor just before Christmas break and showed me a sketch she had drawn. She requested that I draw it better for her and this is the result. The background I added but otherwise the concept is hers.

It is graphite with a charcoal background. I used this photo as a reference. Every time I scan something that's 9x12" you can't see the whole thing because the scanning area is only 8.5x11" and the drawing tends to look lighter. There's actually about an inch of white space at the top.

A defense of Christianity

I recently found it necessary to write an email to a dear friend of mine (an atheist who is over-fond of arguing anything and everything) in response to a comment she posted on a Christian friend's Facebook post, which was roughly about how Muhammad and the Qur'an are false.

While I originally wanted to deal with the issue privately (hence email instead of another Facebook comment), it occurred to me that someone else might find something useful in what I had to say or else would be able to correct me if I'm wrong or missing something important.

It is long because my friend brought up many different points and I wanted to try to address them all. Her words are italicized.

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I know it's been sort of a long time and I really did mean to finish writing and sending this much earlier, but the overwhelming busyness of finals week and winter break managed to get in the way.

I saw the comment you posted on ______'s wall post about a month ago and it bothered me enough to want to make a few things clear because upon looking at the passages of Scripture you cite I can't help but wonder if you even read some of them yourself. I apologize that this is really long for an email but you brought up a lot of different points in your comment and it's taken a lot of time for me to go back and study the contexts of many of them so I would appreciate if you read all that I have to say.

Firstly, many of your examples seem to be trying to attribute the actions of men to God. The Bible contains countless examples of people who sin because it is a part of human nature. Honestly, if the Bible only told stories of perfect people who always did perfect, righteous things I wouldn't believe it one bit. Do you know any perfect, sinless people? I don't.

Secondly, it is important to understand some things about judgment. God is holy. He cannot sin, nor can He tolerate sin. It's not part of His character. Thus, once Adam and Eve sinned, they could not be permitted to stay within God's presence in the garden. He created all these people to have a relationship with them, but they rejected Him, choosing instead to follow their own desires and sin against Him. God is holy and just, the Judge of the world, and the sins of His creations cannot go without consequence. The result in the Old Testament is often the purging of the world of many people at once. God knows the actions of each and every person and He judges the individual accordingly.

"Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments." (Rev. 16:7)

An essay on Divine Judgment can be found here: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:iv_a7wVXnbkJ:biblicalresearch.gc.adventist.org/documents/judgment%2520in%2520bible.pdf
I have not read the entire thing as it's a bit lengthy but it provides some general information on the nature of God's judgment in both Old and New Testaments of the Bible if you're interested.

What Christianity is about is God's making a way to live eternally in His presence. That cannot happen without the judgment of sin, and so He poured out His wrath for the sins of man on His Son Jesus, so that the price of the sins of any person who accepts this one and only way into the presence of God (heaven) has been paid (atonement). God then declares the person righteous before God (justification). Christianity is based on the New Testament way of justification by faith. Old Testament sacrifices were figurative of the sacrifice of Jesus, which was sufficient for all and did not need to be repeated. Sanctification is the process that follows "being saved" and involves learning how to become more like Christ.

See Hebrews 10.

I have broken up your points to try to address as many of them as I can. You made a lot of them :)

1. Jesus is descended from a prostitute (Rahab).
This is true. But what is your point? Are you saying that the actions of one's ancestor's determine if one is good/bad/worthy to be followed? We're pretty much all screwed then aren't we?
Yes, Rahab was a prostitute. However, in Scripture she is commended for her faith in God and not her occupation and not her lies. It was her faith and saving the Israelites that resulted in her being honored in Jesus' genealogy.

2. And god directed the Israelites to rape/kill thousands of people (Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18, Deuteronomy 20:10-14, Deuteronomy 22:23-24, Ezekiel 9:5-7).
Judges: The chapter you cite says absolutely nothing about the direction of God. Instead it says "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (v. 25). These are the decisions of men.
Numbers: This is a more valid example of your claim. It is God's judgment of the nation of Midianites.
Deut. 20: The Isrealites are told to utterly destroy the previous occupants of the promised land because mixing with them is what later causes their downfalls.
Deut. 22: This is the law regarding adultery. I don't see how it contributes much to your point unless you think the death penalty should never have been used in ancient times. It wasn't exclusively used by the Israelites.
Ezekiel: This is the judgment upon those who do not repent. They had been warned about what would come if they continued in their sins. God is not arbitrary with judgment.

3. And a lot of the men in the bible had multiple wives.
Having multiple wives is not a part of Christianity. In general, it was done because it was part of the culture of the time or because those men were being disobedient or unfaithful to God's commands.

4. And God directed people to burn humans to him (Judges 11:29-40, 1 Kings 13:1-2... See More, 2 Kings 23:20-25 ).
Judges: God does not tell Jephthah to burn his daughter. Jephthah makes a foolish vow to do so. It is his foolishness combined with his daughter's faith and willingness for it to be so that result in her being burned.
1 Kings: There is no direction here from God to burn people. There is a prophecy lamenting the actions of Josiah doing this.
2 Kings: Again, I see no order from God that specifically tells Josiah to burn the priests. It is an account of the judgment that came upon those who disobeyed God's law.

5. And to stone women who weren't virgins upon their wedding (Deuteronomy 22:20-21.)
God cannot tolerate the sin of adultery. Our culture today might be very different but that doesn't make it right.

6. And kill ANYONE (even your sibling/family) who doesn't follow Christianity (Deuteronomy 13:7-12.)
I'd think it quite hard to follow Christianity before Christ came into the world. The Israelites were told to follow God. This is the God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt and promised them great things if they followed Him. The gods of other nations that are warned about here were false, and choosing to follow them was an act of rejecting and hating the God who saved their lives. Rejecting and hating God is sin, and according to God the just reward of sin is death.

7. And let's not forget the killing of all the first-borns of Egypt (Exodus 12:29-30). Numbers 25:1-9 too.
Exodus: Pharaoh severely oppressed the Israelites and refused to listen to God's warnings. He also refused to believe any other sign that God had given him. God is glorified in both mercy and judgment. He could have justifiably killed all the Egyptians but instead did what was necessary to free His chosen people.
Numbers: This is similar to #6. God set the people of Israel apart from the rest of the world. He chose them as His special people who would follow Him and in return be protected by Him. When they wandered away from Him and threatened to pull the faithful ones away into their lives of sin God intervened to protect His people from following a path that would lead to their own destruction.

These crimes were COMMON in ALL regions/sects/groups/organisations/cults/moon-worshiping hippy communes in this time. EVERYONE converted by the sword, really. All religions have a bloody, bloody history, and hence it is hard to vilify one without analyzing your own.

I would argue the crimes are the result of human sin, not religion. Everyone is a sinner, including Christians, and while that does not excuse their actions, it makes no sense to blame them on God. My relationship with Christ is based on faith, not killing people for His sake, not condemning others for His sake, and not for vilifying other religions for His sake. It is arguable that Christianity is not really a religion, but I don't think it matters either way what we call it in this context. The human race has a bloody history, and humans are usually tied closely to religions and worldviews that influence their actions, so one might cite religion as a cause for a conflict, but humans will usually do what they want regardless.

But converted by the sword? Sure, that might be the case for many, but not for the early Christians. Christians were brutally persecuted in the 1st century. They continue to be persecuted around the world today. If everyone converted by the sword there would be no Christianity, because it was on the receiving end of the sword from the start.

Finally, the New Testament freed all Christians from the Old Testament law, so drawing on it as a way to undermine the Christianity of today is usually irrelevant. (Colossians 2:13-14, Galatians 3:13).

Why do people argue so much about this? People long for security in their beliefs. When people's worldviews are opposed they find it necessary to try to find security by finding ways to strengthen their own faith or put down others as false. My Christianity directly opposes your Atheism, your Atheism directly opposes my Christianity. That doesn't mean we have to kill each other over it.

One of the reasons I haven't pursued analyzing other religions too much is because I know how tempting it would be to want to rip them apart. I don't think that would help me in any way. Don't take this to mean that I follow my own faith blindly simply because it was the first I was introduced to either. My faith is grounded more firmly than that but I do believe we've discussed this before and to do so again here would be going a little farther off topic than I have time for right now, though if you have questions, feel free to ask.

Thank you for the challenge, and thank you if you read this far,

Melissa