CDs!

I just got a few fantastic CDs in the mail! I'm very excited. It's very infrequently that I am not disappointed with classical music CDs, but there's a fantastic classical radio station here--classicfm, that actually plays good classical music, and so every so often when I've listened to it, I've found myself saying, "Wow, that's a really good " and I made a couple of notes and investigated.

Firstly, violins! My father was such an incredible violinist--there's this thing he used to try to teach other people when they asked fov violin playing advice...it's about making the notes ring. There is something about the acoustics of the violin, that, with the strings, when you really get the tone right, it rings. The only professional I'd ever heard that really got that was Itzhak Perlman, and his playing just about makes me cry.

Until now!

Don't ask me how I somehow managed to never hear Kyung Wha Chung before, but she is amazing.

Also, I love opera. Sort of. When I was at school, my instructors always tried to get me to sing in that traditional and, I think incredibly ugly mushy-mouthed overblown mezzo soprano style. Which my voice can't even do. After a while, I just gave up and decided to sing for fun and pleasure and stay away from opera.

So I love to hear Kathleen Battle or, my new fave, Sumi Jo, because they have that same light tone, and really good diction. And I feel vindicated, because they have exactly the voice my instructors were trying to get me to lose.

At any rate, here are the fabulous CDs:

Mendelssohn - Bruch: Violin Concertos (Kyung Wha Chung)
Virtuoso Violin (Perlman)
Classics of the Millennium (this is great, because it's a collection of recordings of famous pieces, but the recordings are all fantastic, as opposed to some incredibly crappy orchestra putting together a bunch to get people to buy the CD)
The Ultimate Divas Album (Has Battle singing Durch Zartlichkeit und Schmeicheln, and Sumi Jo singing the Queen of the Night's Revenge Aria--wow!)

Ah, happiness!

You should really hear Chung, if you haven't.

FAUNA

As I mentioned, a couple of weeks ago, a homing pigeon landed at work and displayed no intention of leaving. We looked up the information on t'Internet, and it said that they often stop for a bit and rest, but if a bird is in one place for more than 48 hours, it starts to think of it as its new home. So we let it sit for a bit, and then I called the owners (the number was on its tag) and arranged to have them pick it up.

Here is Rodney:



The hilarious thing is that the owners couldn't come and pick him up themselves, so they sent Amtrak, (they have a service over here like DHL or FedEx) and they came with one of their special pigeon boxes and picked him up.

Yes, Amtrak has special boxes just for shipping pigeons.

I FedExed a bird.

So, he's gone now, and if he shows back up, he can just consider himself a wild bird at this point.

Next!

I have been trying to avoid disturbing the baby frogs in the garden, but I couldn't resist. I had to pick one up to take a photo of it for here. I still haven't figured out how to use the manual focus on my camera, so I am afraid the focus is all out again. Also, I didn't want to traumatize the poor little guy any further, so I didn't use flash. But I put him in a bowl, and took two pictures of him next to a penny. A UK penny is the same size as an American penny, so I thought this would be a good reference point:






As you can see, baby frogs are just about the cutest things EVER.

I am a sad, sad person

I am about to drive for 45 minutes to find a sushi restaurant. There is no sushi in Essex, and although Mike brings me some sushi every now and then from Itsu, they only have a very small, set menu, and I have been craving the proper stuff. So I am going to drive miles out of my way to get sushi.

I really am that sad.

I swear, there's no Sushi anywhere else in this county.

NOT MUCH NEWS

I haven't posted much lately, mostly because I've just been really busy, both at work and away from work. We drove up to see Alnwick Castle, which is where they filmed the Hogwards scenes in the Harry Potter movies. It's pronounced An-ick. I have no idea why. We also took a boat to the Farne? Islands, and looked at all of the puffins and seals and things, and it was great fun, even though I was very seasick.

Out in the gardens, the tiny baby frogs are appearing everywhere. They are smaller than my thumbnail, and absolutely adorable. I haven't had a chance to photograph them, either.

I did take a photo of the homing/racing pigeon that just arrived one day at work for no apparent reason. I was calling him Rodney, because the phone number on his tag indicated that he was from Peckham. There was an old show here called Only Fools and Horses, which was set in Peckham and had a character named Rodney. This is one of those classic shows that is part of the kind of heritage, if that makes sense.

At any rate, my back is doing a bit better, because I've been going to the gym to try to strengthen it. I had the Anaesthetist from Hell at the hospital recently--I was prescribed a series of basically spinal taps to see if this would help my back. When I got to the hospital, this anaesthetist said she couldn't access my MRIs, but she was sure that I didn't actually have two slipped disks (oh, I guess the two spinal specialist Orthopedic Surgeons were just having off days) but instead had a bit of inflammation in one of my hip joints.

So she decided to give me an injection into my left sacroiliac joint. However, she neglected to wait until the local anaesthetic kicked in first, so I basically had a needle shoved into my joint without any painkillers, and I started going into shock from the pain, so they had to stop the procedure and feed my oxygen.

I've arranged for the rest of the procedures to be done at a different hospital.

Hmmm...what else...oh, we were in a bit of a fender-bender on the way back from the castle, and our car has been totalled, so we're in the process of trying to get that sorted out. And next weekend is the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, which I have convinced the lovely boyfriend to accompany me to.

It's been raining almost constantly, so I haven't been able to work much in the garden, and it is starting to resemble a jungle. I am hoping for tree frogs.

Hmm.

Yesterday, we had two conversations that went something like this:

Conversation One
Him: "Hello, honey bunch."

Me: "Hello, bunny hunch. Bunny hunch....hmmm...I think there might be carrots."

Him: *poke poke poke*

Conversation Two
Background: I had just returned from the store, where I had purchased a three-pack of DVDs for £5.99. As it turned out, two of these movies were, shall we say, not very good.

Him: Why did you buy these DVDs? These are crap!

Me: But they were on sale! Three in a pack for £5.99! That's like £2 per movie!

Him: But you could have gotten the one decent movie in the pack for £4. So you admit that you just spent £2 on crap. I tell you what. Next time, come home, give me the two quid and I'll take a big poo in your hands, and we'll save ourselves two hours.

So as you can see, I am still persecuted in my own home.

I suppose that's about all of the news for now. I am stressed about the amount of work I have to do, so I guess I'd best get back to it.

Dear Christians:

The first thing you should probably know about me is that I'm a Christian of the Messianic Jewish variety. I take my commitment to religion fairly seriously, but I take my commitment to God very seriously, and perhaps most importantly, recognise that there is a difference.

In some ways, I sometimes wish I had the faith I did when I was a child. I never questioned my position with God, always knew right from wrong, and never saw anything but black and white, and most of the time chose right over wrong. I felt confident and self-assured when it came to my faith.

Now I'm older, and not so sure of myself, and it seems like I make a lot more mistakes, and I am certainly less confident and self-assured. And, yes, sometimes I really do wish I had that absolute certainty all of the time, and knew exactly where I stood, God-wise, all of the time. But I don't.

But this is the thing about not being a kid. As I have matured, I realised something: I was raised as a Christian. I accepted the beliefs I had for a variety of reasons. But if I, as a Christian, said that people who were raised in a different set of beliefs should reexamine them and see if they believed them themselves, then I had to be willing to do the same thing. And I have.

Here's what I have learned.

Firstly, I was self-assured when I was a child, which was good at the time, because I had a child's brain and a child's faith. But I need to recognise where my assurance lies. Did I, and do I, have unshakeable faith in God, or unshakeable faith in myself? There's a difference. If I am willing to make a big stand--whether it is taking sides at an abortion clinic, actively supporting a politician, or standing in a picket line or holding a sign anywhere at all, I need to make sure that the faith I claim to be proclaiming is faith in God, and not faith in my own ability to know right from wrong, or choose sides. If I am not 100% convinced, down to my boot straps, then I need to step back.

You'd be surprised at how often someone who was as self-assured in the faith as I was finds herself now, as an adult, stepping back.

So I find myself less self-assured. Frequently. And I take more and more seriously my mother's advice: When in doubt about what might be right or might be wrong, step back, and say, "What is the most loving thing to do?" and do that.

At those picket lines, in those political rallies, we seem to lose sight of the fundamental truth, which is that God is Love. We may argue about the exact meaning of some scripture or other--how many times should we be dunked when being baptised, should we be baptised as babies, or whatever, but it seems to me that when God really really really cares about something, he states it really really really clearly, and you don't get much more clear than God is Love.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He who loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is Love."

I just don't see any other interpretation to that.

Even enemies, and people who I am 100% sure are completely in the wrong should be treated kindly and lovingly, if for no other reason that the fact that *I* am sometimes wrong, and I should think about how I would like to be treated when *I* am on the wrong side.

If I am not 100% sure that my choice of sides on an issue is as a result of my faith in God and not a result of my faith in myself, then I'd better think even harder about how I'm presenting myself and treating the other side. Because even a fraction of a percentage of unsureness means I could be wrong. And if I could be wrong, and I'm treating the people who are right poorly...well, then see the last paragraph.

You and I are not going to be 100% right 100% of the time. We are just not. So even if you are absolutely sure this is one of those times you're right, act with that in mind.

The second thing I've learned is that I, personally, don't think I have ever been persecuted because of my beliefs. I may be the only American Christian who believes this. But looking back, I just can't think of an occasion on which I was.

Modern Christians believe that they are under attack, daily, by society and as a result of their beliefs. I have lived in the same country, city, state, town, and community as many of these people. I may have been one of them at one point in my life, but I can't remember.

But I have never been persecuted because of my beliefs.

I have, on the other hand, frequently been "persecuted" for being obnoxious.

Again, there's a difference, and I think most of us need to learn to recognise it.

If you're constantly berating people about your faith in the workplace, and you get flak for it, odds are high you're being obnoxious. When you are at work, you are being paid to work. You have basically sold your time to the company, and delivering value for that money is part of your religious duty. You are not being paid to espouse your beliefs.

Yes, we all have conversations, and I'm not saying that you should keep your mouth shut at all times. And certainly, if someone asks you about your faith, there's no reason to be ashamed to discuss it. But the best "witness" you can do at work is not to try to force these conversations, but to let your actions speak for you. Everyone already knows you're a Christian, so you're essentially wearing a little sign that says that all the time. People are going to watch what you do.

That brings me to the third thing I've learned, which is this rule of thumb: If your life and your actions do not say everything anyone could ever want to know about your God, then you have not earned the right to represent him.

So, really, that's it in a nutshell. What I have learned, and am still trying to learn every day, is how to tell the difference between absolute faith in God and absolute faith in myself, the difference between being persecuted for my faith and suffering the consequences of my own annoyingness, and to focus way more on what I do than what I say.

It's much scarier and harder not having that religious self-assurance I had when I was a kid. I wonder sometimes if I have it right, or if I'm even going to make it at all. And then I think, this is where my faith in God belongs. God is love. I'm honestly trying. I'm going to be okay.