[Eastertide, day 40: Ascension] joy sadhana
"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [ more info]
On one occasion, Jesus told them [the apostles Jesus had chosen] not to leave Jerusalem. "Wait, rather, for what God has promised, of which you have heard me speak," Jesus said. "John baptized with water, but within a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
While meeting together they asked, "Has the time come, Rabbi? Are you going to restore sovereignty to Israel?"
Jesus replied, "It's not for you to know times or dates that Abba God has decided. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth."
Having said this, Jesus was lifted up in a cloud before their eyes and taken from their sight. They were still gazing up into the heavens when two messengers dressed in white stood beside them. "You Galileans -- why are you standing here looking up at the skies?" they asked.
-Acts 1:4-11a (The Inclusive Bible)
Good things about today:
["anything that you're looking forward to, that means you're facing tomorrow with joy, not trepidation," as Ari says]
-mylittleredgirl [ more info]
On one occasion, Jesus told them [the apostles Jesus had chosen] not to leave Jerusalem. "Wait, rather, for what God has promised, of which you have heard me speak," Jesus said. "John baptized with water, but within a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
While meeting together they asked, "Has the time come, Rabbi? Are you going to restore sovereignty to Israel?"
Jesus replied, "It's not for you to know times or dates that Abba God has decided. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth."
Having said this, Jesus was lifted up in a cloud before their eyes and taken from their sight. They were still gazing up into the heavens when two messengers dressed in white stood beside them. "You Galileans -- why are you standing here looking up at the skies?" they asked.
-Acts 1:4-11a (The Inclusive Bible)
Good things about today:
- ~stress-free bike ride to work (I left 10 minutes before I usually do and didn't encounter ANY busses -- except one Not In Service bus at Brattle; AND, there was a walk light at the Mem. Drive intersection so I opted to bike through, even though that's technically illegal, and that meant I could actually move into the lefthand lane and go directly into campus, instead of my usual stay on the left and then pull over and eventually cross the street into campus -- though I ran a yellow and definitely had a little fear that I was gonna get run over)
- sitting outside for a while between gym and work
- JP Licks has Cow Trax ice cream this month! Despite the fact that I get their monthly emails, I had missed that and was thus pleasantly surprised when I looked at the menu in Newton Centre tonight (I'd decided I wanted ice cream with dinner). I'd texted Dawn and Julia to ask if they wanted any, and Dawn said yes please, so I got her ice cream and hung out in her room for about an hour (with Renée for much of it -- Dawn did introductions almost immediately, which I affirmed her for, even though she and I have known each other for about a year) and then went to Art Night for about an hour (and yes I did do art).
- some more PIC work (mostly printing stuff out to prep for Sunday's meeting)
I really wanted to call Catharine C's cell, but I left a vm at her office yesterday and calling ~24 hours later seems pushy... - CWM announcement (draft) -- today's announcements brought to you by: @GLBTCulturlComp (which FCS!Missy sometimes RTs and thus @queerchurch now follows), The History Project (thanks to the Boston LGBT Film Festival -- which I follow on facebook -- mentioning something about them; and now @queerchurch follows them both on Twitter), Arlington Street Church (whose email list CWM is on because of me)
hedy once called me AcaMedia back at Smith, and I thought that was inaccurate since I was doing after-the-fact writeups, but now I really am being AcaMedia :) - unsubscribed from a bunch of retailer email lists my gmail is on which I've been just ignoring for months -- and then deleted those 317 ignored emails
- biked to the div library on my lunch break (they're on summer hours -- 9-5, M-F)
I brought my backpack mostly because I didn't wanna bike back through Harvard Square without both hands in complete control of the handlebars, but it is unsurprising that in addition to borrowing Texts of terror: literary-feminist readings of Biblical narratives (Phyllis Trible, 1984) I also got:
* Eve's children: the biblical stories retold and interpreted in Jewish and Christian traditions (ed. Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, 2003)
* After the apple: women in the Bible: timeless stories of love, lust, and longing (Naomi H. Rosenblatt, 2005) -- which, looking at the GR description, I feel like I came across on the Internet before and opted NOT to add to my To Read list...
I did not take Charles Spurgeon's Sermons on women of the Bible.
So, the context to this is:
At book study on Tuesday (chapter: Pentateuch) we read Genesis 18:1-15, and one of the things we talked about was hospitality, which led to comments about the immediately following story of Sodom and Gomorrah also emphasizes the importance of hospitality ... and okay Lot offered the townspeople his virgin daughters, because misogyny, which led to Jeff M. mentioning that story from Kings, which he called "disgusting," to which I was like, "Ugh, yeah."
After I got home, I emailed the group Sarcastic Lutheran's "Agape Doesn’t Mean “Potluck”"If we knew that the people entering the doors of [our church -- or our lives, I would add] were actually Jesus’ friends, that they were those whom Jesus loved then despite what we thought of their personalities, despite how we felt about them or their status in society or their politics, despite any of this they would automatically have an honored place, right?
because I'd been thinking of it during discussion but hadn't found a moment to bring it up.
In her Reply All, Lisa C. said (among other things)Jeff and Elizabeth mentioned there was one really disturbing story in the bible somewhere and I'd never heard of that. What story/book was that? It was supposed to be misogynistic?
so I was gonna scan that chapter of Phyllis Trible's Texts of Terror and send it out ... except this is the Reply All I ended up sending after all:Jeff said the story in Kings, but when I looked it up in Phyllis Trible's Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives, I realized the story I was thinking of was Judges 19:1-30.
The 4 stories in Texts of Terror are:
Genesis 16:1-16, 21:9-21 (Sarah's slave woman from Egypt)
2 Samuel 13:1-22 (Tamar -- the one who gets raped by her brother, not the Tamar from Genesis 38)
Judges 19:1-30 (an unnamed concubine from Bethlehem)
Judges 11:29-40 (Jephthah's daughter) - Anyway, things I did well: I biked through the Mem. Drive walk light again and there was traffic ahead of me and I pulled over into the lefthand lane anyway, despite my fear of getting stuck at the intersection at the next red light, but the light turned green and I went through behind the cars in front of me, and the oncoming traffic didn't try to kill me (the people behind the first car might have been honking at them, but I was v. grateful to them for not trying to cut me off).
- looked into the Harvard Credit Union for Harold (Tuesday, some folks were talking about banks and about credit unions, and I mentioned FCS-Ian commenting on the fact that Harvard's credit union advertises on the T)
- stopped at the ATM next to Boloco because I realized recently I had almost no cash on me
- found appropriate joy sadhana verse :)
["anything that you're looking forward to, that means you're facing tomorrow with joy, not trepidation," as Ari says]
- Friday!
- calling Catharine C.
- emailing Pr. Lisa if she still hasn't gotten back to me about the CWM announcement email
- making a facebook event for Housemate's and my joint birthday party (Saturday, July 7th, 7pm - sleep)