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time of your life

I've been thinking about time. One time in high school while volunteering in Houston I recall praying before a meal at a homeless shelter. The person that was praying started out that prayer by saying "Thank you God for this day that we will never live again..." That moment has stuck with me for the last seven years.

Everytime I think about that prayer I consider what it means for me to have the chance to live today.

"For everything there is a season and...
for every activity under heaven its time...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;a time for mourning and a time for dancing...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing...
a time for silence and a time for speech."


I was on the phone with my mom today and before we concluded the call she said "okay, goodbye, I love you." It might appear commonplace for a parent to tell their child she loves them but when she said that it caught me off guard. What got to me was the fact that she took the time to tell me that sentiment. When I called her again later in the day I made it a point to tell her I love her because it was important to me that she knew how I feel. In that moment I was grateful that I got the chance to tell her that.

So I thank God for this day that we will never live again.

   [ posted by ophie @ 12:31 AM ] [ ]

got margins?


so every year i try to think of some practical resolutions to make. this year i felt like i was learning a lot about making space in my life so that my schedule wouldn't be packed back to back with stuff to do. i was reading somewhere about making margins in your life in order to have more time for rest and for God. so i thought to myself it'd be important to make margins in my own life.

have you ever experienced a day that you didn't have anything specific planned to do but you end up doing a million things? there's just some driving force of our cultural that leads us to fill up our lives with time. guess i shal see how this margin resolution works out in 2009.

   [ posted by ophie @ 5:10 PM ] [ ]

Star Girl...

"Whose affection do you value more, hers or the others'?"

I just finished reading the children's book Star Girl. There's this interesting flavor to the book that I really enjoyed about it. I'm not much of a reader anymore but I remember when I was a kid, reading was like watching a movie. I could see the images of the characters in my head and I would linger on their every action. When I read children's books now, it's not quite that simple anymore. Children's books make me think.

That quote above was from Star Girl. I really liked that quote. The quote brings back a lot of memories from growing up. Whose affection did I value? Whose affection do I have now? Have they changed?

I think that when we know who to value in life, everything else falls into place because we live for that person's or peoples' affection.

   [ posted by ophie @ 12:35 AM ] [ ]

social work

"We exercise the skills and talents God has given us. We have the opportunity to put His commandments and His love into action in a setting where, for the most part, He is not recognized or known. We face new situations every day that challenge our Christian values, our self-control, our creativity, and our compassion; and out of the challenges we grow stronger and more mature "

I've had that quote on my blog for almost four years now. I don't remember where I read it or why I decided to put it up. All I know is that when I read it, I liked it.

About the same time that I put that quote on my blog I was deciding to major in social work for my college applications. At that time I had just realized what social work was and I knew that I wanted to help people.

"I want to help people" was the answer that I gave to people who were interested in knowing why I wanted to major in social work. A part of answering in that manner was because I didn't truly know the reason why I wanted to be a social worker.

Throughout the process of going through the motions of college, the real reason for partnering in social work slowly emerged. Going on missions trips to Mexico and Atlanta were the sparks that led to my major decision. In retrospect there was a sense of disatisfaction with coming home after a mission trip where I actively served God each day by serving others, to life as a comfy kid in the suburbs that would live incarnationally if the opportunity arose.

As I consider my future in child welfare and child protection in the year to come, the quote above sums up really nicely all my reasons for doing it. I believe that God has given me certain skills and talents that kind of fit social work. The opportunity has come for me to put those skills and talents in a setting where God is definitely not recognized or known. Since I've been interning in a social work setting, my Christian values, my self control, my creativity, and my compassion have been challenged and tested everyday. And I sure hope that being able to live that experience everyday will grow me into a stronger and more mature follower of Christ.

   [ posted by ophie @ 11:45 PM ] [ ]

I read this from urbana.org and was moved. Moved in the sense that I want to do something. I felt like moving beyond the safety of oblivion about what happens in the world. Maybe these poems will do that for you.


--------------------------------------------------------------
The Zion Project
by Sarita Hartz

This is a story of a girl child soldier in Uganda.
What follows is mine.

Her eyes haunt me still.
The hopelessness of them was hard to bear
as she told me what happened to her.
There were gaps and stops. Hesitations where I knew
she was thinking, remembering, like fingering a scar
that was too painful to touch still.

The stories. So many of them, the same:

They came.
In the night. Ripped me from my parents'
arms. Killed them. Then and there.
Made me walk. Miles.
No water, only rain. If lucky.
I begged him to pee in a cup for me.
We ate grass like cows.


They gave me to an old man.
They made me kill my best friend.
They said they would kill me.

My baby is all I have now. My only family.
I left him in the garden once with friends…
I came back and they were beating him
calling him the son of Kony.
They called us “killers.”

Sometimes, sometimes I think of going
back to the bush.
At least there, there, I was accepted.

If only I could have
a place of my own.


Coming Home
The sun sets a stream of red over a long horizon above the deserts of Sudan. As I fly over towards Uganda, I feel my heart sense that I am coming closer to home. From the air there is no landscape just the black shape like a backbone rising out of the African dust. This is Africa. A strong back lit up by the sun. Always breathing, always rising.

She rises still.

I do not know what will become of me here, only that I am drawn here as the wild geese to a warmer spring, the trout who swim upstream, and the wolf to the studded moonlit darkness. There will be many failures but maybe there will be one life utterly transformed, catapulted into redemption. I used to think that I could bring something, that I could save the many, but I think more now that this is about God doing something in me.
I think of what Lilla Watson said: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time... But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

Some say God left Africa a long time ago. The tribal wars clash on, the governments steal and crack the backs of children in mines for money they will never see, Aids spreads, malaria consumes, and girl child soldiers seem beyond repair. But I find God in Africa - in the midst of the most destitute of places, in the least ones whose lives have been given up on, in tiny acts of grace and raw human need. He is close to the poor. His world order is very different from our own.

Here is where revolution will not come through the wise or powerful, but through the children who stretch their arms to the sky. And I realized that all I can give is Him through love that never says enough is enough but cracks on through the middle of the most painful places. It’s not that they need Him more than we do, but it is because He is at home here, He flourishes here, He is making a way because he is wanted. Here we live close to our desire. Close to want for more in life and close to disappointment. We befriend the lack of things meeting up to our expectations. We sleep with dreams of possibility in our heads.

It is never as we think it should be. It is harder than we thought it would be. But here we are being born and baptized over again with light and with fire.


There is a war in Northern Uganda that has been going on for 21 years. Children are abducted to fight as soldiers with the rebel army. They are often forced to kill family members and friends. For more info on the crisis and how you can help in the current peace talks visit: http://www.resolveuganda.org/.

   [ posted by ophie @ 11:42 PM ] [ ]

success

the pressing question: what is success measured in?

my family and i were eating shaved ice and we were discussing the horrifying truth that some parents have the tendency to compare their children. my baby sister hates it when my parents do it because it makes her feel like she has a lot to live up to. on the flip side, i feel like she's lucky to have me as a sister because my shoes aren't that big to fill. the little sister believes that i've had my share of being a successful student and that's all that success is.

amidst the debate, my conclusion to the pressing question was: success is measured in how good your relationship with your family is. i've heard that your family is the training ground for how you deal with life. how you handle your parents nagging, criticism, advice, rules and regulations are a reflection of how patient you are. your ability to do what you're told even when you dont want to, reflects the submission you'll show to authority in the future..your boss...pastor...team captain. i've also heard that how a guy treats his mom reflects how he'll treat his wife in the future and maybe that goes for gals and their dads too. family is also the place that you learn how to love. family are the people that can be the closest but hardest to love, maybe because even if you get mad at them and they get mad at you they have to keep you around anyway.

the thing is, sometimes our generation has a completely skewed idea of what love is. love is not just googlie eyes. love is not just romantic dinners on the beach. love is not just a diamond ring. love is not when you have someone to call for no reason. love is not a lot of things. so what is love?

i found one illustration from a friend's facebook

"I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. " - Good Will Hunting

another illustration from Jesus in John 13

"It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.
The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him."

much like success, love is not easy. i'm pretty touched by the image of Jesus washing his disciples feet. he was down on his knees, the position of a servant, and he did it without being asked. if loved was expressed through feet washing, that would be beautiful. and if you think about it, you'd have to really love someone to wrap yourself up in a towel, get down on your knees, and scrub the grime off of their dirty, crusty, fungus infested feet.

to elaborate on what i meant when i said that success is measured in how good your relationship with your family is, it's probably more accurately put if I said that success i measured in how well you love your family. so once again, what is love?

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud."
- 1 corinthians 13:4

it's hard to be patient and kind to your family but choosing to do it anyways is love. the arguements and times when my family and i dont see eye to eye aren't things to be envied and i certainly dont boast about them and the times that i've hurt my family are not things i'm proud of. so i guess that's love. i guess it also means that i havent been the most successful person in the world but there's definitely room to become more successful.

   [ posted by ophie @ 11:43 PM ] [ ]

Live Free or Die Hard....


I had a really interesting conversation with a friend the other day. We concluded that as social workers, we have a very daunting occupation ahead of us. Who in their right mind chooses to help other people solve their life problems when one has many problems of their own? In the eyes of the world we are insane but then again, who isn't?

The conversation reminded me of the movie Live Free or Die Hard. In the movie, the young guy asks Bruce Wilis why he does what he does as a cop. Why he chooses to jump out of flying cars, jump in front of bullets, and all that cop-y stuff. Bruce Wilis said that he's just "that guy," if he doesnt do it, nobody will.

I think everyone is called to their future professions whether it's a chef, a missionary, or a garbage collector to be "that person." Everyone is "that guy" or "that girl." If everyone thought that there's someone else for the job then the job would never get done. If you don't do it, who will?

   [ posted by ophie @ 9:23 PM ] [ ]

got IMAX?

so i've been pulling my hair out trying to think of something blog worthy to write about and i may have come across something FINALLY.

sunday night i went to watch harry potter and the order of the phoenix at the IMAX for the full 3D experience. those of you who've been to the imax will know that when you watch for the 3D experience you're given a pair of 3D glasses. so i ask my dad what's so fancy about these glasses and he says that one lens is normal, like a pair of sunglasses, and the other lens does something to the images by 180 degrees causing a 3D image.

when the movie starts i look around and everyone is wearing their fancy smancy 3D glasses so like the good audience that i am, i put mine on too. soon i begin to realize that the movie looks about the same with or without the glasses and in fact, things seem a little bit more clear without the glasses so i decide to take the 3D glasses off. every once in a while i put the glasses on just in case i'm missing out on something the 100s of other people around me who are wearing glasses are seeing.

towards the end of the movie this glasses icon flashes on the screen signalling the audience to put on their 3D glasses. that's when it occurred to me and the rest of the audience that we didnt have to wear the 3D glasses until that symbol flashed. a huge surge of laughter was heard throughout the theater as the audience realized their lack of IMAX 3D experience experience.

after about 25 minutes or so an icon flashed signalling us to take our glasses off. let me tell you when that icon flashed, the theater of harry potter viewers felt like a buncha loonies....i know i did. i could only imagine what those people up in the room where the reel was rolling was thinking. they probably intentionally didn't tell us about the glasses icon so that they could get a kick out of all the crazies that wore their 3D glasses during the parts of the movie that didnt require them.

moral of the story is...never assume that you need to wear 3D glasses during a movie when the image looks the same with or without them because you could be terribly wrong. the good that came out of this experience is that i can now laugh at myself and share this knowledge with you.

   [ posted by ophie @ 8:02 PM ] [ ]

revelation

after 2 months of blog haitus, I am back. What a long ride this year has been. One of the great defeats of this year has been blog neglect...which is what happens during the more busy times in my life.

Coming home after a long year and spending time with familiarity is definitely a breath of fresh air. One of the things that I really love about coming home is being able to put my sister to sleep.

I've noticed changes in her response to things that I ask her. After we do devotions together we pray and I'll ask her for prayer requests and she usually tells me things like "I hope everyone in our family has a good day tomorrow." I was dismayed and surprised when her response today was "I dont know." That seems to be her favorite phrase these days...but nonetheless these precious moments are treasured.

The passage that we read during her devotion was from Matthew 7:7-11
7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

The story that went with this verse was about a little girl who was sewing something and it wasn't working. She kept asking God to help her sewing machine work so that she could complete the stitch. The mom later comes to the aid of her struggling daughter and realizes that the spool of thread had been incorrectly placed in the sewing machine. Then the mom says to her daughter, "aren't you glad that God didn't answer your prayer the way that you wanted him to? If he had then you would have had to undo all of your sewing work and re-sew everything!"

Although this was a story for little kids, I realize that it has a lot of dept even for older people. It's easy to read something like Matthew 7:7-11 and think that God will answer anything we ask for, as long as we ask. But after reading this story it's clear that sometimes, the things that we ask for end up being unhelpful or harmful to ourselves and it turns out for the better that God didn't answer the prayer in a way that we intended for it to be answered.

Funny how we can frustrate over the way God answers our prayers when we don't understand the reason why things happened the way they did but when we finally see God's intentions, we can be thankful that God answered our prayers in the way that he did.

   [ posted by ophie @ 12:19 AM ] [ ]

google is taking over the world.....


every few months that i update joey i find some sort of upgrade made to blogger. now google is invovled with it?! crazy....google really is taking over the world.

speaking of the world, I've recently realized how small my world is. It's one thing to see the world but another to experience it. When I look at my life I always feel like I've never been through seriously traumatic experiences or suffered deep ills in my life. For the most part I've been blessed ten fold.

Watching the news, reading the newspaper or hearing about world events can sometime make me feel disconnected with the news. It's always curious to wonder how we can live our lives each day, going about it knowing that someone is suffering from sickness, poverty or other injustices.

When I hear my social work professor talk about her client who was raped repeatedly each night by her brothers and experiencing the trauma of it now, makes my world bigger. When I hear about the average American going overseas on missions and delivering babies as a part of the trip it makes my world bigger. When i visit another country and see the faces of children feeling joy even though their stomachs are empty and their homes are not livable, it makes my world bigger.

It excites me to think about going into field work next semester because I know that my world is small and through experiencing what it's like to interact with those who deal with real problems day to day I can better understand the vast reality of how big this world is.

   [ posted by ophie @ 12:06 AM ] [ ]

UT's first snow day

In February of 1899 there was an Arctic surge that brought 6 inches of snow to the south. Students awoke to a snow-covered campus during the days before telephones and email and six days of classes. So like any ordinary saturday morning, classes began at 8 a.m. Students went about their regular business only to be distracted by the snow! They held the president hostage with snowballs and fired a cannon to bring the entire campus to get a holiday for having snow in Texas. So, this is a picture of that fateful day =)

   [ posted by ophie @ 6:06 PM ] [ ]

oh the questions we will ask.........

i always have really mixed feelings about filling out questionnaires. they're always tedious and require much strain on the brain. however, i always feel so much more enlightened after filling one out. as a result of questionnaires i'm able to realize more about myself than i had never thought of before.

i always have mixed feelings about those questions that deal with your strenghts and weaknesses and I ususally get stumped by those questions that ask me about the greatest challenges in my life. More recently, I've come across questions dealing with my encounters with cultural diversity. In the past when I thought about that question, my mind would rewind back to mission trips or moving around a lot as a kid. Now when I think of an answer to that question I'm reminded of the orientation program.

The irony of orientation is that I don't feel like I got most of what I went there to get but at the same time I didnt leave the experience empty-handed. It's funny that it's taken me nearly half a year to debrief this experience. After it ended I really wasn't sure what to make of it. Now that it's winter break I finally have sometime to sit down and process everything.

I met many great people and was exposed to multiple schools of thought. I was challenged for my beliefs and respected for them. The experience thought me how to deal with conflict and resolve differences between people. I was forced to take on leadership roles and be a representative of something greater than myself. Constantly, I was put into uncomfortable situations and was expected to make the right choices. All summer the orientation staff joked about filming our lives at orientation like the Real World series....the drama, the conflict, the romance, the action, the cursing, the hot girls, you name it....we had it. Orientation was truly a real world experience. Too bad it's taken me this long to sell this experience to the world...otherwise I could have made better efforts to recruit people to orientation.

It's taken me a while to realize why I was given the opportunity to be a part of orientation. At the fall aacm retreat I constantly heard people sharing about how significant things happened for them at orientation. Interestingly, I felt joy thinking about how I was inadvertantly present during those significant moments. Somehow I think we're always at the right place at the right time, we just don't know it till it's over.

   [ posted by ophie @ 11:06 PM ] [ ]

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