Baruch students' takes on life/spirituality via pictures

One of my favorite parts of staff life is getting to talk to people about what they believe about life and spirituality. To help us get into these kinds of conversations, I like to use surveys.  One particular survey I like is Soularium, which was developed by college art students and asks people to answer 5 questions using pictures.

Here are some sample responses (aggregated from actual conversations at Baruch last Monday 10/22).

1. What pictures describe what's true of your life right now?

Feeling conflicted

In need of sleep

2. What pictures describe what you WISH were true of your life?

Who doesn't want more money?

To be carefree

3. When you think about your spiritual journey so far, what pictures describe what you'e experienced?

Wanting something, but can't see yet.

People keep telling you what to believe

4. What pictures describe what you would like to experience in your spiritual journey?

Want the ultimate thirst quencher

Want eyes to see the meaning of life

5. What pictures describe who or what God is to you?

A mystery - no one knows

Someone who created nature

Someone who takes things away from you

It's fascinating to see how different people can pull so many different meanings from one pictures.  It speaks volumes to the power of art to evoke memories and emotions within us, and I'm grateful for a creative way to connect with people.

Were you surprised by any of the images or interpretations?  What pictures would you choose?  For more responses nation-wide, check out www.mysoularium.com.

Snapshots of San Francisco Summer Project 2012

A bit late, but here are some snapshots of my summer in San Francisco.  I was one of 16 staff serving 23 students from New York, California, Texas, Wisconsin, and even Nebraska!  

For ministry, we're splitting up the group into 3 teams and rotating among different types of community service - children's day camps, elderly, and homeless.   Unfortunately, the day camps fell through, so instead we are surveying students at San Francisco State University on their religious backgrounds and beliefs and sharing the gospel whenever possible.  

Here are a few glimpses of what we did this summer:

Friday, June 22: Women's Time
One of my roles here is co-leading Women’s Time.  Tonight, we talked about femininity and what we’ve learned about being a woman from  our families, media and popular culture, and from women of the Bible.  

Waiting for women's time to start

I’m very passionate about empowering women in their understanding of their femininity, with both tenderness AND strength (Genesis 2:18, where the phrase translated “helpmeet” is literally, “a strength, like opposite him”).  I think this discussion was really eye-opening to the student women and I’m really excited to see how they will rise up to the call God has given them as women!

Saturday, June 24: Lindy Hop in Golden Gate Park

One of my other roles on this summer missions trip is co-leading Experiential Learning — in other words, taking the team into the city and helping them look at it from a spiritual and scriptural perspective.   I LOVE this role because I love cities and showing people that there is beauty here too, not just dirt and crime.

Today for Experiential Learning, I took our team to a free swing dance lesson in Golden Gate Park, which is a giant park on the west side of SF,  even larger than Central Park in NYC!  Afterward, I had them reflect on Jeremiah 29:1-7, God’s letter to the exiles in Babylon instructing them to seek the welfare of their city of exile, and think about the following question:  “Given this secular example of people seeking the welfare of the city by providing free public space and arts, what are ways that you can bless this city and your home city?”

As we discussed the passage, one of the freshmen (Justin, below) shared how he was finally able to see beauty in the city.  I was super encouraged to hear how his attitude toward cities had changed so much in only 2 weeks in San Francisco!  He wrote about shifting perspectives on his blog -- go check it out: http://ohhyehh.tumblr.com/post/26326970608/god-of-this-city

Bernice and Justin doing the Charleston

Line up with your partner in a big circle

Changing partners

Sunday, July 1: Sunday Streets

Today for Experiential Learning, I took the team out to the Sunday Streets Fair in the Mission district, which is a predominantly Latino neighborhood.  Once a month, the city closes a major avenue for over a mile so that people can ride bikes, jog, dance, and play in the street.  It’s a big festival, with musicians every few blocks, street dancers, and vendors lining up the avenue to entertain people as they walk by.  

After the street fair, I had them go to a park and reflect on Acts 17 with the following instructions: “Observe how Paul ministers to people of different cultures in the city.  Ask God—How can I also minister to people who aren’t like me?”

SF is the mural capital of the world, and Balmy Alley in the Mission district is full of murals depicting dreams, wishes, critiques, and struggles of this community.  This one appears to highlight the disparity between the rich and the poor, and the policymakers and the public.

A demonstration of the history of street dance through the decades.  This gentleman  was illustrating funk.

A poet sets up shop with his typewriter on the street.  His sign reads: "Pick a subject and price and get a poem"

Mission is a predominantly Latino district.  This shop proudly displays its  lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) masks.  One of my students offered to buy me one if I would wear it for the rest of the day.  I declined.

On long-distance

 
If you stick around me long enough, you'll hear me talk about being in a personal relationship with God.  If God is a relational God, then it follows that we learn about him through the relationships we have with people - from parents, siblings, friends, bosses, lovers, etc.  For some reason, it just never occurred to me that these relationships also teach me about how to relate with and love Jesus -- until I started dating.

I've been in a long-distance relationship for nearly a year now, and the longer I'm in it, the more I realize...this is not so different from my relationship with Jesus.  They're both very far away, and I know they're coming back...but I just don't know when.

Because Jayson and I don't get to see each other very often (~ once every few months), a large portion of our relationship has been spent waiting, either wondering about when or eagerly anticipating the next time we'll be together in person.  Most days, the distance is just a fact of life and I don't really dwell on it, but other days, the weight of 3000 miles overwhelms my heart with an incredible yearning for his presence.

Honestly, the waiting just plain stinks sometimes.  But I have to say, it gives an incredible contrast to the amazing joy of seeing one another for the first time in months, with faces lit up, grinning like crazy, internally shrieking with excitement and only the fear of tripping over myself (and/or my luggage) holding me back from running into his arms at the airport.  This, is but a tiny glimpse -- a mere shadow -- of how incredibly awesome it will be to finally see Jesus, the lover of my soul, face to face.

Oh Lord, please help me to live with this kind of ansty, impatient, squirming anticipation for your return.  Let me live knowing that the present ickiness is only temporary, with a heart full of faith, hope, and confidence that there will be a day when You will come back and make everything ok.

I miss you.  Come back soon.

Specific Heat Capacity and Patience

I put a pot of water on the stove the other day to make some pasta, and as I waited for the water to boil, my inner engineering nerd made an appearance as I started thinking about the specific heat capacity of water and how it relates to patience.

For those of you who aren't so physics-inclined, the specific heat capacity of a material is the amount of heat energy energy required to raise the temperature of a unit mass of that material by one degree Kelvin (or Celsius).

In other words:

c = q/(mΔT)

with units J/(K*kg)

where
c = specific heat capacity
q = heat energy applied to the system (J)
m = mass (kg)
ΔT = change in temperature (K)

As I thought about specific heat capacity, I realized it describes "patience" remarkably well.  When things don't go your way, how much frustration can you handle before you start getting angry...or boil?  To be patient then is to have a very high (figurative) specific heat capacity.

The thing with specific heat capacity is, it's intrinsic to that material.  It doesn't change with amount of material or what your starting temperature is.  You can't do anything to change it...except to transform your material into another.

In the same way, how patient I am isn't dependent on the circumstances.  I can't say, "I would have been more patient, but he was super aggravating."  Rather, whatever he did only served to reveal the pre-existing limits of my patience.

I can't change how patient I am, but thankfully the Holy Spirit can and is slowly transforming me (if I let him!) into the woman God created me to be.  The Bible confirms patience as evidence of His work in our lives in Galatians 5:22: "But the fruit of his work in our lives is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."  May He increase your specific heat capacity as well.