Evil?

This is the man that I'm going to marry:


The "evil balaclava" is from the hilarious War on Terror board game given to us by my lovely sister-in-law-to-be, Lynley.

Submission

In preparation for our impending marriage (44 days to go!), Matt and I have talked quite a lot about what we think headship and submission mean in a Christian marriage. Believe it or not, for those who think I'm a raving feminist, we will be having a reading from Ephesians at the wedding, and a sermon that will address this topic.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail now about what we think about submission and headship - I'll need more time for that than I currently have - but I'd like to share one thought that we received from Tim MacBride (preacher and musician extraordinaire, and associate pastor at my church). He said that if there are gender roles in marriage (he's not entirely convinced of the headship/submission distinction) it's not about who takes leadership or responsibility, or who gets to make the decisions. It's about who gets to be the bigger servant.

I think this is kind of reflected in the most common argument that Matt and I have. We're generally pretty good with arguments - we don't have too many. We've occasionally conflicted over big issues, but have always managed to sort things out. The issues we disagree over most, and generally refuse to compromise, are ones that don't matter at all. But this exchange, in the comments on this post and quoted below, is our most common argument:

chindogu said... My Fiancee is cooler!

lara said... Nuh uh! Mine is so much cooler!

chindogu said... I think not. Yours is cool, but mine is definatly cooler!

lara said... Nuh uh! Mine is definitely the cooler fiance!

chindogu said... I demand that you submit to my headship! My Fiancee is cooler!

lara said... OK!

It's the only time Matt would ever demand that I submit, and the only time that I would submit to such a demand!

And yes, I know, it's sickeningly sweet. We're kind of like that at the moment...

Don't sneeze on ducks!

I'm preparing for my classes today, doing a reading about flu epidemics. The author is talking about how viruses can mutate and pass between species, and makes this classic comment:

Many scientists now recommend that people not sneeze on ducks unless they are intent on making a new strain of flu.

Achoo!

45 days to go!

Hurrah!

I could write about all the things that we've still got to do, but that would waste the time I should be spending on actually doing the things! So, I'll just say this:

I can't wait to be married to the most wonderful man I've ever known! I love my fiance!!

Freezing!

When I got to uni this morning I noticed two things:

1. It's quieter than usual in the FASS

2. It's a lot colder than usual in the FASS.

It took me about 5 minutes before I put 1 and 2 together and got 3:

3. The air conditioning is not on.

I'm freezing!

On Speed

A recent release from New York University Press. I bought it today for one reason, and one reason alone - I got a mention in the acknowledgments!!

"The research assistance of [Lara] was most helpful in completing the work."

It's not much, but it's still exciting!

And ok, there was another reason I bought the book. The research I did (little though it was) was actually very interesting - looking at studies on the use of amphetamines in the military. And while I was fixing up the references, the bits I got to skim looked interesting too. I'm not sure I'll actually get a chance to read it in the near future, but that's never stopped me buying a book before!

2 months to go!

Very exciting indeed!

I need help!

This is a bizarre website!

Why???

I tutor an online subject on Science and Religion, and I always seem to get the most hyperactive groups. Compare the number of messages posted in each group so far. Mine are groups 4 and 5, in purple below:

Tute 1 140 Messages

Tute 2 64 Messages

Tute 3 99 Messages

Tute 4 348 Messages

Tute 5 239 Messages

Tute 6 94 Messages

Tute 7 104 Messages

Tute 8 172 Messages

This is just ridiculous! Tutors should get paid by the message instead of a flat rate per week!

Science and religion - friends?

One of the students in my Science and Religion class posted this excerpt from an episode of Friends. It's classic!

PHOEBE: You know, there're a lot of things that I don't believe in, but that doesn't mean they're not true.

JOEY: Such as?

PHOEBE: Like crop circles, or the Bermuda triangle, or evolution?

ROSS: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, you don't, uh, you don't believe in evolution?

PHOEBE: Nah. Not really.

ROSS: You don't believe in evolution?

PHOEBE: I don't know, it's just, you know...monkeys, Darwin, you know, it's a, it's a nice story, I just think it's a little too easy.

ROSS: Too easy? Too...The process of every living thing on this planet evolving over millions of years from single-celled organisms, too easy?

PHOEBE: Yeah, I just don't buy it.

ROSS: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact, like, like, like the air we breathe, like gravity.

PHOEBE: Ok, don't get me started on gravity.

ROSS: You uh, you don't believe in gravity?

PHOEBE: Well, it's not so much that you know, like I don't believe in it, you know, it's just...I don't know, lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down as I am being pushed.

ROSS: How can you not believe in evolution?

PHOEBE: Just don't. Look at this funky shirt!

ROSS: Pheebs, I have studied evolution my entire adult life. Ok, I can tell you, we have collected fossils from all over the world that actually show the evolution of different species, ok? You can literally see them evolving through time.

PHOEBE: Really? You can actually see it?

ROSS: You bet. In the U.S., China, Africa, all over.

PHOEBE: See, I didn't know that.

ROSS: Well, there you go.

PHOEBE: Huh. So now, the real question is, who put those fossils there, and why?

ROSS: Ok, Pheebs. See how I'm making these little toys move? Opposable thumbs. Without evolution, how do you explain opposable thumbs?

PHOEBE: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts.

ROSS: Please tell me you're joking.

PHOEBE: Look, can't we just say that you believe in something, and I don't.

ROSS: No, no, Pheebs, we can't, ok, because--

PHOEBE: What is this obsessive need you have to make everyone agree with you? No, what's that all about? I think, I think maybe it's time you put Ross under the microscope.

ROSS: Ok, Phoebe, this is it. In this briefcase I carry actual scientific facts. A briefcase of facts, if you will. Some of these fossils are over 200 million years old.

PHOEBE: Ok, look, before you even start, I'm not denying evolution, ok, I'm just saying that it's one of the possibilities.

ROSS: It's the only possibility, Phoebe.

PHOEBE: Ok, Ross, could you just open your mind like this much, ok? Wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the world was flat? And, up until like what, 50 years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess of crap came out. Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?

ROSS: There might be, a teeny, tiny, possibility.

PHOEBE: I can't believe you caved.

ROSS: What?

PHOEBE: You just abandoned your whole belief system. I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. How, how, how are you going to go into work tomorrow? How, how are you going to face the other science guys? How, how are you going to face yourself? Oh! That was fun. So who's hungry?

75 days to go!

I had a friend tell me I couldn't count down by the day until there were only 30 days to go - she simply wouldn't allow it. Good thing I don't care what does and does not allow!

I think I'll post every five days now. It's getting close, but not close enough! I just can't wait to be married!

Matt and I are going to count down the rest of the days until our wedding by reading through the Psalms, two a day. I'll try to post some thoughts on here, if I get a chance.

Wedding preparations are going quite well (though I can't say the same for my thesis...) The main thing at the moment is finding somewhere to live. We've had two applications to rent units knocked back so far, and we're waiting to hear about another. I'm going to check out a few places in Miranda and Caringbah tomorrow. It's good that I have flexible working hours so I can do these things during the day! It must be so hard for couples who both work 9-5.

Revelation - A Preview

A preview of my church's upcoming series on Revelation.



The main guy speaking is Tim MacBride, our associate pastor. The one who comes in to tell him to clean up the car park is Ange, the senior pastor. Christian, who Tim calls on the phone with a "ministry opportunity" is our (relatively) new student pastor. The girl who comes in at the end is Hayley, who works in the office one day a week.

80 days to go!

Very exciting indeed!

CPX

The Centre for Public Christianity website has launched.

Check it out!

5 songs I'm loving at the moment

1. Sweet About Me, by Gabriella Cilmi
2. Mercy, by Duffy
3. Saving my Face, by KT Tunstall
4. Untouched, by the Veronicas
5. Hot, by Avril Lavigne


Go ahead. Mock my taste!

For geeks with money?

Click here.

The Hermeneutics Quiz

Click here.

I scored 54, which makes me a moderate, albeit on the conservative end of the scale.

Oops

I missed the "90 days to go" milestone. That was yesterday. Now it's only 89 days to go!

I'm in a bad mood today. I got an email from my supervisor yesterday with comments on my draft of chapter 5 and the news that I have to rethink a lot of the way the second half of my thesis is structured and rationalised. Not good. At the moment, I'm feeling completely defeated by my thesis.

Why can't we just elope now and I'll finish the thesis later?!

The Seven Habits of Highly Testy Philosophers

Click here.

Three months to go!

OK, now this is just getting scary! I can't wait to get married to my wonderful fiance, but when I think about all the stuff that I have to get done by then, I freak out a little. OK, I freak out a lot. Pulling my hair out and moaning is usually involved. Here's a snapshot of what needs to be done:

• Finish PhD (by June 1, otherwise Matt says the wedding is off!)
• It's hard to estimate the percentage completed, but I've got one chapter in nearly final form, two chapters getting close to that, and three chapters that still need a lot of work. Plus the conclusion and introduction. And formatting and referencing.
• 11 weeks of teaching
• I'm teaching three subjects this session. I've got three face-to-face hours of teaching per week (two for history of medicine, one for the scientific revolution) and two online groups for science and religion
• Beyond preparing for and facilitating tutorial discussions, there's all the marking. I get out of the take-home exam for one subject because it's due while I'm on the honeymoon (!), and fortunately I have a whole week to mark all the science and religion journals before the wedding.
• Wedding planning
• Wedding cars
• Hair and make-up (i.e. find someone to do it on the day)
• Dress fittings for me and the bridesmaids
  
• Decide on vows, sermon, readings etc.
• Finalise music and ask musicians
• Decide on stuff for the reception - will there be dancing, what kind of music etc.
• Make and send invitations
• Order bonbonniere, make place cards
• Decide on flowers - I went to see the florist on Monday night, but I had a migraine, so it was a bit difficult to make decisions
• Gift registry
• Probably other things that I can't think of right now
  
• We still need to find somewhere to live.
  
• We put in an application yesterday for a unit that would have been perfect, but we missed out. Oh well. That would have been just too easy! Now it's back to the drawing board...
  

Overall, we're doing quite well with the wedding stuff. We've finished our marriage preparation course with Matt's minister, and that was very interesting and helpful. A lot of things have been done, and I know we'll get there in the end. Actually, it's probably the PhD that's stressing me out the most at the moment.

Still, only three months until I get to marry the most wonderful man in the world! Hurrah!

An interesting discussion thread

Interesting.

What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Neo orthodox 64% Emergent/Postmodern 61% Reformed Evangelical 50% Classical Liberal 25% Roman Catholic 25% Fundamentalist 21% Charismatic/Pentecostal 14% Modern Liberal 4%

Overloaded

I think I have taken on way too much teaching this session. One of my subjects is an online Science and Religion course. I've tutored it a number of times now, and once again I seem to have been stuck with the hyperactive students who post more than all the other groups put together!

OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but last session both my groups posted twice as many times as the next most prolific group. And they weren't just short, nonsense posts either - they had some really good things to say! So I guess I can't complain too much...

One really amazing thing: for the first time someone has suggested rules/guidelines for making sure the discussion doesn't get out of hand. A brilliant idea - it's a controversial topic, people are passionate about their own views, and being online, people seem to feel that they have more freedom to be rude than they would be in person, and comments are open to much more misinterpretation. I've seen some nasty exchanges in the past - I hope this session is different.

Happy International Women's Day!

Click here for more information.

Getting my hopes up

Received this email this morning:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Cambridge Platonist Spirituality (Classics of Western Spirituality) by Charles Taliaferro have also purchased The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées) by G.A. Rogers. For this reason, you might like to know that The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées) is now available. You can order yours for just $230.00 by following the link below.

The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées)
G.A. Rogers
Price: $230.00

Just $230? And I was getting all excited when I saw "Cambridge Platonists" in the subject line of an email from Amazon...

100 days to go!

WOOHOO!

You might have noticed the countdown timer to the right - courtesy of my pet nerd!

A Woman's World

This sounds like a fascinating book.

Perhaps I'll buy a copy when classes start and I'm earning money again!

Darn. I just looked at a blurb for the book on Amazon, and I think it gave away the big twist! Grr.

I'm an oxymoron

Apparently I'm a "Christian" Feminist, and that means I'm an oxymoron. This post is a response to my earlier comments on "gender-specific education."

To be clear this has nothing to do with how smart or capable a woman is and it has everything to do with God’s order for society. Lara, is a PhD student so I’m fairly certain God blessed her with an articulate tongue and a quick wit, as evidenced in her writings. I happen to think my wife is brilliant. God has given her the ability to think and to write and to be a blessing to those around her. These gifting are not lost because she submits to her husband, rather they are enhanced.

I've been doing a lot of reading about submission in marriage because I'm getting married soon, and I want to be clear on what the Bible says about the roles of the husband and wife in a marriage, and how to live that out in my relationship with Matt. I've read a lot of comments along the lines of "submitting doesn't mean a woman is not intelligent." But, a lot of what I've read has suggested that the only place for a woman to exercise these gifts is in the home. One blog I visited seemed to be arguing that the only reason for a woman to get an education is so she'll be better equipped to home-school her children.

I find it hard to get straight answers, though. What exactly does it mean for a woman to submit to her husband? What exactly is the wife's role in marriage? If I want to be a godly wife to Matt, does that mean that all my efforts should be put into our home and to supporting him, or am I allowed to use my intellect to help others as well? Would that be restricted to helping other women, perhaps by blogging or running a women's bible study, or am I allowed to go out into the secular world of the university to teach, encourage students and give public lectures? Am I allowed to write articles and books that will be read by men? I might seem petulant here, but for me these are real questions.

Someone anonymously commented on my post (I'm getting really tired of anonymous comments, and will probably end up not replying to any):

Could you explain more about why her blog makes you angry? I'm confused. She is only stating what she and her husband believe about the world and how they should guide their children. Nowhere did she state in her blog that "Lara in Australia" MUST do as I am teaching my daughters!" If she had done so, of course your anger would be justified, as she has no authority over you and no business guiding your life. But she does hold these positions in relation to her own family. Her blog is not about attacking others, but rather her purpose is to explain how God has led her family and why they do the things they do. Why does this make you angry? I would realy like to understand.

Why am I angry? It's a good question. But I think the blog I linked to gives some of the answer. People like this are not simply describing they way that they live - they are prescribing it as the only correct way for Christians to live.

What is confusing about Lara is she claims to be a Christian and says the Bible is her favorite book, “above all else“. The confusing part is how someone who reads the Bible can claim that feminism is a good thing and even countenance it as a philosophy.

Firstly, I don't know where he got the idea that I'm a "self-proclaimed reluctant feminist," or that I claim feminism as a good thing, and countenance it as a philosophy. Most of the posts I've put on my blog about feminism have been attempts to work through the issues, and I've explicitly said that I don't call myself a feminism. I'm a Christian - that's why my favourite book is the Bible, and not Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. I don't derive my guidance on how to live from feminist texts - in fact, I can only really claim to have read one (Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth) - I derive it from Scripture. The thing is, people's interpretations of Scripture differ. I'm not talking about ultra-liberal, everything in the Bible is just a fable-type people. I'm talking about honest, God-following, truth-seeking Christians. The Bible, while being God's word, is still a text written in human language, and we're still fallible and sinful humans. We can never hope to agree on absolutely everything. So, we shouldn't be arrogant about our own interpretations. And that leads me to my second point.

Anonymous wrote, "Nowhere did she state in her blog that "Lara in Australia" MUST do as I am teaching my daughters!" If she had done so, of course your anger would be justified, as she has no authority over you and no business guiding your life."

Well, in a sense, she was. If someone writes that universities are places of pagan indoctrination and that a degree is just a piece of paper certifying that you've been "fully indoctrinated with statist, marxist-freudian ideologies," what is this saying about Christians who not only choose to receive a university education, but actually pursue several degrees and enjoy the process? And even the Vaughnshire Farm blogger is claiming that Christians shouldn't be educated in secular universities: "As to the socialist humanistic education system, I don’t think it is helpful for men or women. Why would we go to the God hating Darwinist to ask them to teach us about God’s world?"

Another question. What if my husband tells me to go out and work in a secular job rather than be a full-time stay-at-home wife? Should I submit?! The Vaughnshire Farm blogger wrote that his wife's giftings were enhanced because she submits. I believe that this would also happen in my marriage to Matt, because he encourages me to use the gifts that God has given me - not just in the home, but also in the wider world.

I should point out again that I've got nothing at all against women who choose to be stay-at-home wifes and mothers. That doesn't make me angry at all. Why should it? Such women are trying to live out what they see as the biblical model for marriage and family. What does make me angry is any kind of assumption that women who don't follow this exact model are sinning or disobeying God. I think it's arrogance to presume that one's own interpretation of the Bible (and especially the technicalities of how that interpretation is lived out) is the only correct one. I get angry when someone implies that going to uni is only about pagan indoctrination when I've spent the last 9 years seeking to honour God through my studies. I get upset when someone implies that I should be staying at home to serve my husband full-time once I get married instead of seeking to use the gifts and opportunities God has given me to encourage other Christians and to reach the lost. I get incensed when people seem to presume that a woman who wants to work outside the home is seeking worldly glory instead of seeking to honour God. I get frustrated by seeming inconsistency - "I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God" (1 Timothy 2:9-10) but yet wives should make sure they're all dolled up before their husband leaves for work and again when he gets home, to make sure he doesn't stray.

That's probably enough ranting for now. I should be working on my PhD - after all, the sooner I finish it, the sooner I can escape the pagan environment of the university. But to conclude, I'll just add that I'm quite ready to admit that I've misunderstood or misinterpreted what I've read about the points above. Maybe I've got no reason to be angry - maybe these people are not trying to impose their view of God's order on everyone. Or maybe they are right, and I'm just stuck in my worldly indoctrination. I'm still trying to figure these things out. This blog does not contain the final word on anything. It's a work in progress, just like me.

110 days to go!

I've mentioned before that the time is going slowly in some ways, and speeding by in other ways. There's still so much to be done before the wedding - finish organising it, finish the PhD, teach two classes this semester, write two conference papers - but I just can't wait for it all to be done so I can marry the love of my life!

The Kissing Part

Kid – “The kissing again. Do we have to hear the kissing part?”

Grandfather – “Some day you might not mind so much.”

I promised that I would explain why it is that Matt and I are waiting until our wedding day to kiss. It’s not because we think it’s wrong to for Christians to kiss each other before getting married – we’re not simply taking the “chastity before marriage” thing to the extreme. For us, it’s a matter of prudence. Basically, there’s a line we absolutely don’t want to cross, so instead of getting as close as we can to that line without technically crossing it, we’re drawing an artificial boundary a significant distance away from the absolute boundary (see also Matt’s post on Flight).

It’s not that we don’t want to kiss each other – oh no, we definitely want that! And it’s certainly not easy, but I think in the end, we’ll be glad that we waited.

When I was in high school, I had a scripture teacher who was telling us about a wedding she’d been to where the couple hadn’t kissed before their wedding day. I thought that was crazy. I was rather boy-mad in those days. My first kiss was when I was 15 – at a youth group sleepover at church, actually. It was a week into the relationship – we broke up a week later. My second kiss was when I was 16. It was about two months into the relationship – we broke up less than two months later, and it was the only kiss we shared in that whole time. My third, fourth, and countless other kisses were when I was 22. I started going out with a guy I’d been friends with for a couple of years. He was going overseas for two months only a few weeks after we got together, so things went pretty quickly in that time. There was quite a lot of making out. I enjoyed it, at the time, but afterwards I felt almost guilty. I felt that he was always pushing me to go further than I was comfortable with, and I wasn’t strong enough to resist. In the end, he broke up with me because I wasn’t “fiery and passionate enough.” I thought that this really just showed how little he knew me. I felt that all he cared about was physical affection – he liked my body, but didn’t care so much about my mind. It took me quite awhile to get over that relationship, which really sucks, because he wasn’t worth it!

When I started going out with Matt, I was so grateful to have found someone who not only respected my boundaries, but who took initiative in setting up boundaries that would keep us pure in thought as well as in action. I feel so secure knowing that our relationship is based on so much more than physical affection. With my last boyfriend, physical affection tended to replace conversation whereas with Matt, conversation and getting to know one another has been the foundation of our relationship. I know that he finds me attractive, but for so much more than just my body. I know that he loves my mind as well, and that means so much to me.

I should point out that the “no kissing” rule only actually applies to kissing on the lips – we’re quite happy to give each other a kiss on the cheek, or the forehead, or the hand. We’re still able to show our affection for each other, but we’re in less danger of crossing the boundary we really don’t want to cross, because we’re not getting anywhere near it.

In some ways it’s getting harder. We’re engaged, so it will be very unlikely now that we don’t get married, so it would be easy to say that now it’s ok. But in some ways it’s getting easier. There’s a definite date now – we know when we’re getting married, and so we know when we’ll get to share that first kiss, and so we can count down the days.

111 days to go!

Richard Dawkins' job is up for grabs

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How do I know?

As an undergraduate, I studied some philosophy, including epistemology, which I thought was the most useless subject ever. The whole subject revolved around the question “What is Knowledge?” It seems that for a long time, philosophers thought they had it figured out. Knowledge was a justified, true belief. Then, in the 1960s, along comes a guy called Gettier who wrote a 3-page paper blowing this all out of the water by showing that there are examples of justified, true beliefs that are not considered knowledge.

A Gettier problem goes something like this.

Imagine you’re walking down a country road, alongside a field. You see something that looks like a sheep. It’s kind of white and fluffy, it has four legs, and you hear it go “bleat.” You say to yourself, “there is a sheep in that field.” It’s a belief. It’s justified – you’ve got good reasons to believe that what you see is a sheep. It’s true – there is a sheep in that field. The problem is, what you think is a sheep is actually a dog dressed up as a sheep, with a hidden tape recorder (although maybe today it would be an MP3 player – it’s been a number of years since I took this class!) The real sheep is hidden from view, just over a bit of a rise in the field. So, did you really know that there was a sheep in the field? You had a justified, true belief, but since your belief and evidence didn’t refer to the actual object, it’s not knowledge. So what is knowledge? My answer – WHO CARES?! Complete waste of time. Who goes around dressing dogs up as sheep anyway?!

I know that I want to marry Matthew, my lovely fiancé. What does this mean, that I know? It’s probably a bit hard to analyse even in terms of being a justified, true belief. Who can really verify that it’s true except me, and I could be deceiving myself? Anyway, I don’t think it really matters. What might matter a little bit more is how I know that I want to marry Matt.

On Sunday, I received a phone call from a friend who was overseas when Matt and I got engaged. I had emailed her to let her know to happy news, but Sunday was the first time we’d talked about it – she only arrived back in the country last Thursday. She said to me, “I can’t believe you’re engaged! How do you know?!”

It’s a little surprising – she’s actually the first person to have asked that!

When I was young, my mother always told my brother and I that when you meet the right person, you just know. When he got married, my brother said that he’d never believed our mother until he met his wife. When I met Matt… well, I didn’t “just know.”

This worried me for quite awhile. In fact, only three weeks after our first date, I actually broke up with him, because I was convinced it wasn’t going to work out, and I didn’t want to drag things on for too long, because I thought that would only hurt him more. Fortunately, I realised the error of my ways (in part because of the incredibly gracious and caring way he responded to my ending things), and fortunately he gave me a second chance. Of course, now that we’re engaged, I’m fully aware of how much I would have missed out on! But even after this, I still didn’t know.

Less than three months into our relationship, I was feeling completely confused about things. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get married at all, let alone married to Matt. I was concerned about how to balance my career/ministry goals and aspirations with marriage and family. I was wondering if I would be better off remaining single for the sake of the gospel. But it was difficult to think clearly about things. I was about to head off overseas for my third annual European conference adventure. I was trying to write three conference papers, while teaching, marking, working on my PhD and just keeping up with everything else in life. My head was a mess. I was hoping that the time away would give me some space to think, but that was wishful thinking. I was just as busy overseas – conferences, research, sight-seeing… It was exhausting!

While overseas, I spent some time staying with family friends in Walsall. I remember talking to Sheila (a lovely woman a few years older than my mum) about my concerns surrounding career and family. She said that I probably wouldn’t feel that way if I’d met the right person. Strangely enough, her daughter said exactly the same thing as well. Sheila knew I had a boyfriend, but her daughter didn’t. Understandably, this made me even more stressed. Did these conflicted feelings I was having mean that Matt was just not the right one?

When I got back, I still wasn’t sure about things. Seeing Matt again didn’t help either. It was wonderful to see him, and I enjoyed being with him, but I still had doubts. I was actually convinced that I was going to have to break up with him. The complicating factor was that we were going to Melbourne at the end of September (this was mid-August) and I thought that breaking up would make things awkward. Good thing I had a reason to wait – I could have made another terrible mistake!

A couple of weeks after I returned from overseas, I had hot chocolate with a couple of friends, Nicki and Liz. I shared with them about my doubts concerning my relationship with Matt. I can’t remember exactly what they said, but I remember Nicki telling me that she had doubts about marrying her husband almost right up to the wedding day (I hope I’m remembering this right!) It gave me such comfort to know that it was ok to have doubts – that all these feelings I was having were just part of working things out. As I thought about things more, I realised how wrong some of the advice I’d been given was. If I was seriously having concerns about how to combine career and family – because I was passionate about both – of course they weren’t going to disappear just because I met someone and fell in love, particularly as that person was always encouraging me in my academic and intellectual pursuits. In fact, I felt so much reassured by this conversation that I stopped in at Tiffany’s on my way home, just to have a quick peek at engagement rings!

It was at this time that Matt and I had our first fight. Matt had been told by one of his friends that it was important to have at least one fight before getting engaged, so it was good we got it out of the way! It was over something pretty small, but I was a bit upset, and I was concerned about possibly unhelpful relationship precedents. As it turned out, however, we set quite a good relationship precedent – conflict resolution. We managed to sit down and talk things through, sharing how we felt, and what we each had meant by what we’d said, and we both made an effort to understand what the other person was thinking. It’s kind of strange that our first fight was what made me so much more sure of my relationship with Matt, but I guess communication and conflict resolution are important in any relationship.

So that was around mid-August. Since then, I’ve only been becoming more and more sure of my love for Matt and my desire to commit myself fully and eternally to him. I’ve realised that what people really mean (or should really mean) when they say “When you meet the right person, you just know) is “When you realise that you have met the right person, you just know.” I didn’t know as soon as I met Matt – it wasn’t love at first sight – but I do know that he’s the right person. How do I know? Well, to a large extent, I just know. There are innumerable little things that reassure me that we’re doing the right thing, but I’m not sure it’s something that can really be described in words. Just for the record, here are a few key things:

• I love Matt. I want to serve him, and to serve God and others with him.
• Being around Matt makes me happy, and being apart from him makes me sad. It’s like I’m addicted and I can’t go for more than a few days without a fix!
• We really understand each other and appreciate each other’s quirks, like quoting the Princess Bride and other cult classics incessantly. “Turn here!” “Where?” “HERE!”
• Matt can make me feel so special just by holding my hand.
• Matt loves me for who I am, and just as I am.
• I love Matt for who he is, and just as he is.

112 days to go! I can hardly wait!

Spam

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Can a Christian couple choose to remain childless?

In a discussion over on Craig's blog, One Salient Oversight wrote:

One important thing to note is that there is sometimes a logical fallacy to this truth. I.e.:

1) Babies are a blessing from God.
2) If you refuse to have children you are refusing God's blessing.
3) To refuse God's blessing is sin.

Points 1 & 2 are correct, but point 3 is not. Alcohol and sex and meat offered to idols come to mind.

This is an issue I've been pondering quite a lot lately. There seem to be a lot of Christians who think that it is not a legitimate choice for a Christian couple to choose not to have children.

From another post on Craig's blog:

A friend made a comment tonight that I thought was pretty good. He said, "If you are not ready for children, you are not ready for marriage. And if you are not ready for marriage, you are not a man. You are just a boy with a drivers license and the right to vote."

Matt and I are getting married in June, but we're not sure yet if we want to have children. We do acknowledge that no contraception is fail proof, and that if God wants us to have children, it will happen. And of course, if I did get pregnant when we weren't planning it, there would be no question of not seeing it through, and I'm sure we'd be grateful for God's blessing. But it is necessary for all married Christian couples to want to have children, and to pursue that goal from the very beginning of marriage?

What would Jesus deconstruct?

This sounds like a very interesting book.

Grr.

I shouldn't read blogs like this. They only make me angry.

Apparently by going to university, I have taken part in "pagan indoctrination" and I've been "fully indoctrinated with statist, marxist-freudian ideologies." I should have stayed at home, learning to quilt and bake bread.

Interestingly, though, it doesn't say anything about men attending university. Perhaps they're stronger, and not so meek and mild as to blindly accept everything they are taught? Who knows.

Against anthropocentrism

For my part, I cannot believe that all the things in the world were so made for Man, that they have no other use. For it is highly absurd and unreasonable, to think that Bodies of such vast magnitude as the fixt stars, were only made to twinkle to us...

But though in this sence it be not true, that all things were made for Man; yet thus far it is, that all the Creatures in the world may be some way or other useful to us, at least to exercise our Wits and Understandings, in considering and contemplating of them, and so afford us Subject of Admiring and Glorifying their and our Maker.

- John Ray, Wisdom of God, pp. 128-9.

Doing science in eternity

Life after life after death - see also Byron's excellent series - but what will we be doing on the new earth? Perhaps some of the same things we've been doing on this earth, including, for John Ray, science!

It may be (for ought I know, and as some Divines have thought) part of our business and employment in Eternity to contemplate the Works of God, and give him the Glory of his Wisdom, Power and Goodness manifested in the Creation of them. I am sure it is part of the business of a Sabbath-day, and the Sabbath is a Type of that eternal Rest; for the Sabbath seems to have been first instituted for a commemoration of the Works of the Creation, from which God is said to have rested upon the Seventh Day.

- John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation, London, 1691, p. 124

I hope that means it's ok that I'm working on my PhD on a Sunday...

Take that, you atomical and Epicurean atheists!

Whosoever thinketh that the admirable Order and incredible Constancy of the Heavenly Bodies and their Motions, whereupon the Preservation and Welfare of all things doth depend, is not governed by Mind and Understanding, he himself is to be accounted void thereof.

- John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation, London, 1691, p. 50.

120 days to go!

I'm counting down in days as well as months...

The most important post of the day...

I'm getting married in four months!

Four months seems both a scarily short and a frustratingly long period of time. We're one third of the way through our engagement (two months on Saturday since Matt asked me to marry him!), and the time has gone quite quickly, but still it seems like we've got a long time to wait. It's strange: time until the PhD thesis must be done goes quickly but time until the wedding goes slowly, yet it's the same time. Weird.

Anyway, I am eagerly and not entirely patiently anticipating June 14. Here are some specific things (in no particular order) that I'm looking forward to.

• Wearing the most gorgeous (and most expensive!) dress I've ever owned
• Seeing the look on Matt's face when I walk down the aisle (the best part of any wedding)
• Celebrating with family and friends
• Making a lifetime commitment, before God, to the man I love
• Our first kiss...

Yes, that's right folks. I'm not just looking forward to our first kiss as a married couple - it'll be our first kiss, full stop. Long story. Remind me to blog more about that another time.

Stupid Matter

One might think that with all these blog posts, I'm getting no work done. On the contrary, I'm actually achieving quite a bit. It's strange. When I'm working hard, I post on my blog. When I'm procrastinating, I comment on Craig's blog!

Anyway, I'm reading through John Ray's The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (London, 1691) at the moment, so I can finish writing chapter 5 (which deals with natural theology among early members of the Royal Society of London, including John Ray). It's fascinating reading. I love these 17th-century books - the writers sometimes come out with the most amazing statements. I found this cracker from John Ray in a section where he's arguing against the great Robert Boyle. Boyle's mechanical philosophy involves the idea that the universe was formed by matter in motion governed by laws instituted by God, and the continuing preservation of the universe (i.e. God's general Providence) also taking place by these laws.

Ray disagrees that matter and motion are sufficient to do this on their own without some kind of external input. On the idea of the laws, he wrote:

And as for any external Laws or established Rules of Motion, the stupid Matter is not capable of observing or taking notice of them; neither can those Laws execute themselves.

I love it! Can't you just imagine all those particles of matter bumping around in the void, blissfully ignorant of the laws yelling at them to get into line?

Absolutely nothing new!

Reading a little further along in Ray's Wisdom of God, I found this classic:

If the Works of Nature are better, more exact and perfect than the Works of Art, and Art effects nothing without Reason; neither can the Works of Nature be thought to be effected without Reason... A wonder then it must needs be, that there should be any man found so stupid and forsaken of reason as to persuade himself, that this most beautiful and adorned World was or could be produced by the fortuitous concourse of Atomes. He that can prevail with himself to believe this, I do not see why he may not as well admit, that if there were made innumerable Figures of the 21 Letters in Gold, suppose, or any other Metal, and these well shaken and mixt together, and thrown down from some high place to the ground, they when they lighted upon the Earth would be so disposed and ranked, that a man might see and read in them Ennius's Annals; whereas it were a great chance if he should find one Verse thereof among them all.

Sound familiar to anyone? Of course, today the illustration is told in terms of monkeys with typewriters producing the complete works of Shakespeare...

There is nothing new under the sun

Intelligent Design is nothing new, and not because it is merely a tricksy rewording of Creationism (I would dispute that). Here's a quote from John Ray, one of the foremost natural historians (today he would be a biologist/zoologist/botanist) of the seventeenth century:

There is no greater, at least no more palatable and convincing Argument of the Existence of a Deity than the admirable Art and Wisdom that discovers itself in the make and constitution, the order and disposition, the ends and uses of all the parts and members of this stately fabrick of Heaven and Earth. For if in the works of Art, as for example; a curious Edifice or Machine, counsel, design, and direction to an end appearing in the whole frame and in all the several pieces of it, do necessarily infer the being and operation of some intelligent Architect or Engineer, why shall not also in the Works of Nature, that Grandeur and Magnificence, that excellent contrivance for Beauty, Order, Use, &c. which is observable in them, wherein they do as much transcend the Effect of human Art as infinite Power and Wisdom exceeds finite, infer the existence and efficiency of an Omnipotent and All-wise Creator?
- The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation, 1691.

Darwin's ideas about evolution were nothing new either. The idea that apparent design could come about by chance had been around since the ancient Greek philosophers (seventeenth-century natural philosophers such as Ray were particularly concerned with Epicureanism). And even closer to Darwin's own lifetime (overlapping with it, no less) were ideas about evolution such as Lamarck's. The difference was that Darwin proposed a mechanism (borrowed from social science and economics) - natural selection. This, combined with Mendel's genetics, gave us modern Darwinian evolution - a powerful way of explaining how complexity and the appearance of design could arise "naturally."

The "problem" between science and religion, between evolution and creationism, between Intelligent Design and theistic evolution, comes in the interpretation of the word "naturally." I'm not going to go into a lot of detail right now (I've got a thesis to write!), but if we understand that God is sovereign over all, but chooses to act through certain laws that he created and upholds, then "natural" does not exclude God at all, and the fact that evolutionary theory can explain the development of species through so-called "natural" means does not mean that God was not involved.

Pleasantville

This morning my chosen method of procrastination has been browsing some articles on Boundless.org. In an article on how cheaply our culture views sex, I found the following description of the movie Pleasantville:

The plot revolves around a teenage brother and sister whose TV remote control magically transports them into the peaceful, black-and-white world of a Fifties TV sitcom. The sister promptly seduces the captain of the high school basketball team, and before long, the once-innocent teenagers of Pleasantville are all engaging in sex. Soon, their dull, black-and-white world turns to glorious color. The director's message is obvious: Sexual promiscuity will lead to freedom and happiness.

I should say from the outset that I love the movie Pleasantville - it's one of my favourites. I know that a lot of Christians complained about it, but I'd never actually read any articles or reviews about it. Here's some more from another Boundless article:

While some film critics, notably USA Today’s Mike Clark, found [director Gary] Ross’ style preachy and his attacks on the 1950s “specious” and “simplistic,” even they bought into the notion that sex was a metaphor for something else: creativity, freedom or nonconformity what have you.

Perhaps these critics bought into the notion that sex was a metaphor for something else because sex WAS a metaphor for something else. But even if it was a metaphor, this reviewer still doesn't like it:

They fail, however, to understand why directors like Ross rely almost exclusively on this metaphor. For them, sexual freedom is synonymous with personal freedom. You see, at the heart of the 1960s, when many of these directors grew up, was a rebellion against traditional sources of authority: government, moral standards and the church.

True, in our society, sexual freedom is viewed in this way, and that's exactly why it works as a metaphor. But it was just a metaphor. To me, it seems crazy to think that the director was advocating sexual promiscuity in this movie. And to focus solely on the teenagers' sexual exploits leading to the colouring of their world ignores most of the movie and, to be honest, makes me wonder about the preoccupations of such reviewers. To be sure, Jennifer (the sister in the film) seduces the captain of the basketball team, and he starts to see the world turning coloured after this experience, but she herself doesn't change into colour until she ignores the basketball team captain in favour of reading. And her brother David, the geeky one, doesn't change into colour until he stands up to a bunch of nasty guys to defend his mother (well, his mother in Pleasantville).

Other changes that take place in the movie:

• The books are initially all blank, but the pages gradually fill with text, and going to the library becomes a popular pastime for the kids.
• The town is completely closed off from the outside world - the people can't even understand the question "what's outside of Pleasantville?" At the end of the movie, there are mountains and trees to be seen outside of the town.
• Things are not perfect anymore - people don't always get strikes in bowling; the basketball team loses a game; the firemen need to do more than just rescue cats stuck up trees; and it actually rains from time to time.
  
• People show emotions - good emotions, such as love, and bad, such as anger.
• Jennifer decides not to even go back home. She's done with being a "slut" as she puts it, and decides to go to college instead.
  

There's so much in this movie, and I find it very narrow-minded for people to look at it and condemn it as a bad movie because it "clearly" promotes sexual promiscuity.

To be fair, this article did have some good things to say about the way Hollywood views romance as identical with sex. For example, in Shakespeare in Love, the only reason we know that the two main characters are in love is that they can't keep their hands off each other. I felt the same way about Moulin Rouge. It was supposed to be some great love story, but there was nothing between them except lust.

It is good, and right, to challenge the world views that we are bombarded with by Hollywood. We should understand love as being much more than just lust - it involves sacrifice and commitment as well as fun and pleasure. But I think sometimes Christians can go too far in the movies they condemn. I'm not saying that Pleasantville is some incredibly deep, philosophical movie with an ultimately redeeming message, but it's fun and does make some interesting points about challenging the status quo (whatever that might be - not just the conservative status quo). And I just don't see that it's out to promote the destruction of all morality.

Amigurumi Ninja

I want one!

I hate Mondays

Where did the weekend go?

Friday night

Matt and I went to see Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It was very well done, and I enjoyed it, but I did leave feeling just a little queasy. I'd been warned that it was very bloodthirsty. The blood didn't bother me too much - it was so fake - but one of the characters being thrown alive into a furnace at the end - that was a little harder for me to deal with.

Saturday

Matt had stayed at my place Friday night, and on Saturday morning we spent some time searching for a cottage in the Peak District to stay in while we're in England. My parents were both out, so we went to Oatley for brunch and then I drove Matt to Hurstville to catch the bus back to Wollongong (the trains weren't running). When I got home I read the paper then went back to bed for a nap because I was so exhausted. I was disturbed twice: once by the phone (I picked it up and there was no answer, so I hung up quickly - I hate those telemarketing calls!) and once by by neighbour who thought he might have lent my dad some kind of gadget for cleaning out gutters.

I finally dragged myself out of bed mid-afternoon, but didn't have much energy to do anything. I watched Down with Love (very cute) then finally mustered up enough energy to vacuum the kitchen. Last weekend I'd had to put a collar on my poor cockatiel because he was chewing at the skin under his wing, and when I took it off this weekend, he had a week's worth of grooming to catch up on, which resulted in a lot of feathers and dust on the kitchen floor. Then I played piano for awhile - something I don't do very often these days. My mum got home about 7pm, and we had a nice quiet girls night, drinking red wine and watching Firefly. And then I went to bed early, but didn't sleep very well.

Sunday

I had planned to go to the gym, but I was too tired, so I read the paper over breakfast and then managed to tidy my room a little. I picked up Lynley (my future sister-in-law) at 11am, and we drove to Miranda to look for a dress for her to wear at the wedding (she's "best maid") and to see 27 Dresses. We followed that with very naughty but very tasty churros and chocolate. We shared, so it was only half bad!

I got home around 4:30pm, feeling very much in need of a nap before church at 6pm. I knew, though, that if I had a nap, I probably wouldn't get up in time for church. So I made a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table trying to edit my current draft of chapter 3. I wasn't feeling very well, though, and as time went by, I was just feeling worse. I decided I wasn't well enough to go to church, so I had a rest, and got up an hour later feeling worse still. I had dinner with my parents, watched Grey's Anatomy, and went to bed early. And couldn't sleep. Grr. So I finished reading Atonement. I enjoyed it, though I did feel a little let down at the end.

Monday

Where did the weekend go? I'm so tired, and it's only the first day of the week! It took me over an hour to drive to uni this morning - an incident in the tunnel, slow traffic on Southern Cross Drive, traffic lights not working at Todman Ave (I waited for nearly 10 minutes before getting out of the right-hand turning lane and going straight ahead), a breakdown on Alison Rd, cars blocking the intersection where I wanted to turn right at Wansey St. Then an email saying I'd exceeded the volume of my account on my uni computer - we've gone from having the whole hard drive of the eMac to having a 5GB mobile account - so I've been sitting here deleting files.

Now it's 9:30am, and I really should do some work on my PhD...

Superchic(k)

One of my favourite Christian bands. A little bit of "girl power" with the acknowledgment that although life is not always good, God has a plan. I've actually only heard one of their albums, but there are so many songs that seem to capture perfectly how I feel at times.

Beauty From Pain

The lights go out all around me
One last candle to keep out the night
And then the darkness surrounds me
I know I'm alive but I feel like I've died
And all that's left is to accept that it's over
My dreams ran like sand through the fists that I made
I try to keep warm but I just grow colder
I feel like I'm slipping away

After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

My whole world is the pain inside me
The best I can do is just get through the day
My life before is only a memory
I wonder why God lets me walk through this place
And though I can't understand why this happened
I know that I will when I look back someday
And see how you've brought beauty from ashes
And made me as gold purified through these flames

Here I am, at the end of me
Trying to hold to what I can't see
I forgot how to hope
This night's been so long
I cling to Your promise
There will be a dawn

After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

Fortunately I haven't felt like this for quite awhile, but there was a time in my life when this song described exactly how I felt, particularly the second verse: it did seem like all I could do was make it through the day. When you're in the depths of despair like this, it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel (and if you can, it's probably a train!!), but it helps to have this promise to hold on to - that God really can bring good from the worst situation.

Stand In The Rain

She never slows down
She doesn't know why
But she knows that when she's all alone
Feels like its all coming down
She won't turn around
The shadows are long
And she fears if she cries that first tear
The tears will not stop raining down

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down
You stand through the pain
You won't drown
And one day, what's lost can be found
You stand in the rain

She won't make a sound
Alone in this fight with herself
And the fears whispering
If she stands she'll fall down
She wants to be found
The only way out is through
Everything she's running from
Wants to give up and lie down.

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down
You stand through the pain
You won't drown
And one day, what's lost can be found
You stand in the rain

This is how I feel about my PhD. Sometimes it just seems so huge and I wish I could just curl up in a corner and wait for it to go away. But, of course, it's not going to go away until I get it done. The only way out is straight ahead, through the PhD, through everything I'm running from and want to escape.

Courage

I told another lie today
And I got through this day
No one saw through my games
I know the right words to say
Like "I don't feel well," "I ate before I came"
Then someone tells me how good I look
And for a moment, for a moment I am happy
But when I'm alone, no one hears me cry

I need you to know
I'm not through the night
Some days I'm still fighting to walk towards the light
I need you to know
I will be ok
Together we can make it through another day

I don't know the first time I felt unbeautiful
The day I chose not to eat
What I do know is how I've changed my life forever
I know I should know better
There are days when I'm ok
And for a moment, for a moment I find hope
But there are days when I'm not ok
And I need your help
So I'm letting go

You should know you're not on your own
These secrets are walls that keep us alone
I don't know when but I know now
Together we'll make it through somehow

I need you to know
I'm not through the night
Some days I'm still fighting to walk towards the light
I need you to know
I will be ok
Together we can make it through another day

Obviously this song is about anorexia, something that I've never experienced and don't imagine I ever will (is it bad that I wish I lost my appetite when I'm depressed rather than turning to food for comfort?!) But it still expresses something I feel. "There are days when I'm ok, and for a moment, I find hope. But there are days when I'm not ok, and I need your help." Most of the time I feel fine, and I'm generally pretty good at putting on a good show, so most people wouldn't know how much I struggle with stress and anxiety and panic attacks and feelings of complete defeat. But sometimes I really do feel like I'm fighting to walk towards the light.

Suddenly

She feels lost in her own life
Treading water just to keep from slipping under
And she wonders if she's where she's supposed to be
Tired of trying to do it right
Her dreams are just too far away
To see how steps she's making
Might be taking her to who she'll be

And suddenly it isn't what it used to be
And after all this time it worked out just fine
And suddenly I am where I'm supposed to be
And after all the tears, I was supposed to be here

She feels locked in her own life
Scared of what she might lose
If she moves away from who she was
And she's afraid of being free
There's a way she knows is right
And she can't feel the things she knows
And so each step she's taking
Is a step of faith towards who she'll be

And here where the night is darkest black
She feels the fear
And the light is farthest back
And through her tears
She can see the dawn
It's coming, skies will clear
And the light will find her where she's always been

And suddenly it isn't what it used to be
And after all this time it worked out just fine
And suddenly I am where I'm supposed to be
And after all the tears, I was supposed to be here

Treading water just to keep from slipping under - yep, that's how I feel. I'm still looking for the positive element of this song, and though I know it will come, it's still hard to believe it sometimes. Things will work out just fine. Not perfect, but fine. The will of God will be done. I know that he works in all things for the good of those who love him, even if we don't always see the results as "good." But like any parent, he knows what's best for us, and all these difficult experiences of life are a chance to grow in faith and learning to trust him more.

Amen!

130 days to go!

But really, I'm not counting...

Doing well

Two days in a row of PhD productivity! Hurrah!

Yes, it's not even 11am yet, but for me at the moment, working solidly since before 9am is an achievement. Unfortunately I do have to leave uni early today for a personal training session at the gym, but I'm actually looking forward to coming back tomorrow and getting stuck into my thesis again. Unbelievable!

Still got about 90 minutes to do some more solid work today... Best get back to it!

140 days to go!

But who's counting?!

A good start to the week

Today has been the most PhD-productive day I've had all year.

True, I've been a little distracted by wedding planning stuff, but I've still achieved a bit on my PhD, and at least I wasn't sitting at my computer, staring at my notes, feeling like crying all day.

It's a start, and it's only Monday! Woohoo!!

Only five months...

...until Matt and I get married!!

Preparations for the wedding are going well.

• I've ordered my dress
• We've decided on bridesmaid dresses (I think)
• We've booked the photographer
• We're closing in on a reception venue
• The church & ministers are sorted
• We start marriage prep on Saturday
• Invitations have been designed
• We've decided on music for the processional and recessional
  

Next steps:

• Finalise reception venue
• Decide whether or not to hire fancy wedding cars
• Talk to florist
• Finalise guest list
• Decide on music and musicians for the ceremony
• Order stationary and make invitations
• Organise honeymoon

It's all very exciting!!

Please pray

I'm not coping well with life at the moment. I feel that everything is just too hard for me. Especially my PhD. It's evil, I hate it, and I want it gone. NOW!

Australian Atheist

An interesting exchange over on Craig's blog. I particularly like this comment from John H:

Oh, and what is it with atheists these days saying "god" in lower-case all the time? It wasn't like that back in my day. I'm not a Buddhist, but I can still bring myself to use a capital "B" for the word "Buddha". Ditto "Allah", "Krishna" and "Flying Spaghetti Monster". :-) What next? Dropping the typeface a couple of points to show you really, really don't believe in God?

Wedding dress shopping!

I'm about to set off on my first ever wedding dress shopping expedition!

Ever since I was a little girl, I've loved looking at wedding dresses and dreaming about what my wedding would be like. Now that the time has come, I'm a little nervous. In general, I don't like shopping. I've never been completely comfortable with my appearance, and at the moment I'm quite a bit rounder and squishier than I would like to be. I've been trying to lose weight, but I'm not very good at it - I like my food and wine too much!

So I'm a little apprehensive about trying on dresses. I was going to wait a little while, but two of my bridesmaids suggested a shopping trip before we all go back to work next week.

It's pretty exciting that I'm finally getting the chance to find and wear a wedding dress, but even more exciting is the prospect of being married to my wonderful fiance!

A Witty Title and some exciting news

I've been planning for awhile to write some posts about my blogroll - who all the people are, how I know them, why I read their blogs, etc. I was going to save the best for last, but Matt's blog is first on the list in alphabetical order, and I do have a special reason for writing about him now...

I first came across Matt's blog, A Witty Title, through his brother Duncan's blog, which I discovered through Karen's blog. Karen was a friend from UNSW, and when I discovered that her newsletters also appeared online on her blog, I started reading regularly. Doing a PhD means that new avenues of procrastination are always appealing, so I started reading all the blogs in her blogroll, including Duncan's blog, Drawn From Still Water. I also decided to start my own blog.

After a little while, Duncan posted that his brother had started a blog called A Witty Title, so I began reading that too. I liked what Matt had to say - always interesting, thoughtful and challenging. I'd been reading his blog for about a month when he first commented on my blog. Again, an interesting, thoughtful and challenging comment. I kept reading.

I'd always suspected there was something pretty special about Matt, even though I'd never met him in real life. I met Duncan once or twice, and was hoping for a chance to meet Matt. Late last year, Matt left a comment on my blog asking me to email him. Ooh! As it turned out, one of Matt's "friends" had insulted me on A Witty Title, and Matt wanted to explain the situation - that this guy was just being a jerk, annoyed at Matt and taking it out on me. I was really impressed by Matt's thoughtfulness - I hadn't even seen the insult when Matt emailed me! This turned in to a moderately lengthy email exchange, talking about a bunch of stuff.

In January 2007, Matt suggested I come to the Word by Word literary dinner at Karen and Ben's place. I'd been to one Word by Word meeting years ago, and had been thinking about getting involved again, so I decided to go. The added bonus - the chance to meet Matt in real life! I remember we didn't get much of a chance to talk, but we did spend some time exchanging very bad jokes, which was all good. I was hoping he might offer to walk me to my car or something, and maybe, just maybe, ask for my phone number (I've always been a hopeless - hopeful! - romantic!) Not this time, though.

A couple of weeks later, Matt emailed me to ask if I wanted to catch up for coffee in the city one night. Of course I said yes. Among other things, it was the first time I'd ever actually been asked out on a date! We went to the Cortile at the Hotel Intercontinental, and despite my unsociable mood (I'd had a bad day) we talked for about three hours, then walked to Martin Place to catch the train together. He was getting off at Hurstville, and when he left without giving any indication of future plans or asking for my phone number, I was left rather confused. Fortunately he emailed me again on the Monday to suggest catching up for a movie. We weren't able to find a night we were both free until the Thursday of the next week, so we were reduced to an email conversation. He was dropping all these little hints, but I was getting more and more confused, so finally I sent an email saying "Do you find it at all strange that we've exchanged so many emails yet we've only met twice in person?" In response, Matt sent me the most beautiful email I've ever received. I printed it off, and it's still in my wallet! Basically he said that he liked me and wanted to get to know me better so he could see if his interest was just friendship or something more.

I was totally swept off my feet at that point, but unfortunately it didn't last long. I got myself all confused and convinced that it wasn't going to work out and that I should end it sooner rather than later, so a couple of weeks later I acually broke up with Matt. Two days after that I was having doubts. Three days after that I'd decided I wanted to get back together with him, but thought I should wait a little while to be sure. Four days after that, I decided I couldn't wait any longer, so I called him, said that I'd made a terrible mistake, and asked if he would give me a second chance. Fortunately for me, Matt is a wonderfully understanding and generous person, and so we got back together. We date the official start of our relationship from that night - April 2.

If you've been committed enough to read this far, well done! Here comes the exciting news...

Fast forward 8 months of spending time having fun, getting to know each other, talking about marriage, experiencing angst, talking some more, working through a book called 101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged, some more angst, and more marriage talk...

On Sunday night, I visited Matt's church down in Wollongong. I had decided not to drive back to Sydney that night because it was rainy and foggy and not particularly nice weather for driving alone at night. Good choice! After church, we drove up to Bulli Tops and while we were standing there, looking out over all the pretty lights, Matt told me that he had been very deceptive, started fumbling in his pocket, drew out a small box, got down on his knees in the wet grass, said some extremely beautiful things and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes! Easiest question I've ever had to answer, though not the easiest answer to actually get out. I was crying and giggling at the same time - I was quite hysterical for about an hour!

So, to cut a long story short, I am now engaged to be married to the most wonderful man I have ever known (close call - perhaps he ranks equally with my dad!) I have been so blessed by God - Matt came into my life at a rather difficult time, but it seems that God knew just what I needed. It's been a fantastic year - many ups and downs, but a fabulous time of getting to know Matt and growing closer together. I don't think I can find the words to describe just how wonderful it has been.

I knew it was coming - we'd been talking about getting engaged for awhile, and had even visited a jeweller together to talk about a ring - but the timing did catch me by surprise. Matt did a fantastic job of convincing me that he didn't have the ring yet, and despite a few inklings, threw me off by suggesting dinner on Wednesday night. He said that he had thought about waiting and trying to make it more romantic, but found he couldn't wait. Fine by me! It was such a special night and incredibly romantic, and I'm so excited to be able to tell people that I'm engaged!!

So, now I'm looking forward to 6 months of marriage preparation, wedding planning, (finishing the thesis), and growing even closer to my dearest fiance before our wedding day in June. Hurrah!

Here's a photo of us just after getting engaged. It's not the greatest photo - we were both pretty exhausted, but so incredibly happy!

The gorgeous ring Matt gave me - a beautiful symbol of this step towards complete commitment to one another.

A close-up of the ring. I totally recommend Jason Ree Diamond Design!

Facebook defines relationships

"Yeah, we would have broken up last night, but the net connection was down..."

A creationist in heaven

H/t Nick.

I'm a feminist!

You Are 85% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

Long distance love

Sometimes an impulsive 2:00am cross-country trip is the only solution.

Crazy To-Do Lists

Click here.

I think this is the coolest to-do list I've ever seen!

English Summer

I was tempted to buy this totally adorable pendant, but shipping cost almost as much as the necklace, so I restrained myself.