Daily Epiphanies: April 19th

My Christian upbringing would not have been the same without hymns and sacred choral music. Contemporary worship is good, but there is something about the mixing of marvelous harmonies and biblical truths that makes my heart happy. I have had hymn tunes stuck in my head all week, and it has been amazing!

What's your favorite hymn?

Mine this week is:

How Firm a Foundation

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
to you that for refuge to Jesus have fled?

"Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed!
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
the rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
for I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell shall endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake."

Daily Epiphanies: Reasons my world is falling apart

1. I don't think I got the internship.
2. Application due dates for any other possible internship have passed, or are close to passing.
3. The Evanston History Center has shut down . . . for now.
4. My academic adviser is leaving to go to another school.
5. I woke up last night to an 5.4 earthquake--literally thought someone was shaking my bed.
6. Classes are over in a week and I don't know what I am doing this summer.
7. First time ever, I am not with my family for Passover.

The End

Prayer request

I am being considered for a summer internship at the library of congress. I thought I already had it, but apparently I am only on the short list. They make the decision this week. Please pray for God to put me where He wants me this summer.
Thanks!

I am proud to introduce. . . Daily Epiphanies

I am starting a blog series called Daily Epiphanies. Most likely I won't be able to post one every day, but be on the lookout for tidbits from my thoughts/day dreams.

Sunday, April 13
When I am old and wealthy (I am assuming that this will happen) I am going to give large monetary donations to the music/theater ensembles that have made an impact on my life.

Inspired by: My excursion to hear the NPU Band Concert this afternoon . . . and then my sneak peak at the Spring theater production (that building needs a wealthy benefactor!).

"Since I've Been Gone . . ."

Does anyone even read this thing? Maybe I should start inserting into Facebook Notes . . .

Anyway, I am back from my un-official hiatus from blogging. I think I became slightly disillusioned by the idea of recording my daily musings. Maybe an audience would help.

Since my last post, I . . .

1) Got a job at the Art Institute--working with Discovery/Antenna Audio selling audio guides for the special Edward Hopper/Winslow Homer exhibit. Simple sales in a magnificent museum (alliteration anyone?). The wet toes paid off, apparently.



Mid-March my family drove me back from Easter-in-Madison and we all experienced the exhibit together. This sparked my desire to re-pick up Chaim Potok's "My Name is Asher Lev."

2) Cut my hair. It's shoulder length now.

3) Finally stepped foot in North Park's archives. For a class project I used their repository for a mini internship/volunteer job and ended up processing a former professor's collection of newspaper clippings.

4) Compiled and published a history picture-book with Blurb.com's Booksmart software [http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/212693].
















5) Got a summer internship at the Library of Congress in their Prints and Photographs division!

Wet toes and cinnamon rolls

Yesterday I went on an adventure downtown. I had two job interviews and needed to go see the McCormick Freedom Musuem . . . however, when I planned this fun outing, I did not anticipate the horrible weather. Snow snow snow and slush slush slush everywhere! I probably stepped in 20 ice cold puddles. I literally could not walk across and intersection without stepping in the water. Yuck!

But to rectify all grossness, this morning I woke up and made cinnamon rolls. I cooked them a little too long, but they are still yummy.

Last night I went with my friend to the emergency room. Nothing was really wrong, but we had to sit there from 1am-4am while she had the usual blood tests done and got an i.v. drip.

I'm running on five hours of sleep. Not fun.

I woke up this morning with the Chronicles of Narnia soundtrack stuck in my head . . . I've only seen the movie 3 times and heard the soundtrack once . . . so I don't know what that means.

Death: From the death of a close friend's father to the death of a international celebrity, death is suddenly everywhere. We are not promised a certain amount of time on Earth . . . our own mortality is not in our hands but God's. Very humbling.

My one constant . . . the library, is closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Urg!

It's amazing to watch the steam/smoke that billows from the chimneys across the alley. Emerging in strong bursts of white, the cloud is quickly dispersed as it tuck-rolls into oblivion. If you watch closely is looks like a stampede of horses, racing into thin air.

See what you can notice when you sit in silence and just watch the world around you.

"Battening down the hatches"

-It seems as though Chicago is "battening down the hatches" in preparation for this very cold weekend . . . very cold in comparison to the winter weather so far, but north of us (i.e. Wisconsin) is getting hit even worse.

I kind of like the bordering on single-digits temperature myself. Bundling up so you can barely move and jumping out into a city that has become strangely desolate. Below-zero, on the other hand, is just sinus suicide.

-It has only taken me 4 1/2 years of living in Chicago, but I finally have a Chicago Public Library card. I am so excited. Now I sport cards from three North American cities: Madison, WI; Chicago, IL; and Huntsville, Ontario. Good times.

Now, of course , I do not have time to read any of the books that I might acquire from said library, but that is besides the point. Re-reading Harry Potter 7 is now within my reach, however.

-I am thinking about writing a book. Much research still needs to be done, but eventually I will know enough about my maternal grandmother's side of the family to compile a historic narrative. After exhausting all my free trials from Ancestry.com I finally subscribed. Hopefully I'll be able to make the most of my $30/month.

Well everyone, I have converted to Blogger. Xanga seemed over.
Hopefully my postings will be more regular and exciting.

Let's start with some of my favorite quotes:

"I want to do something splendid . . . something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead . . . I think I shall write a book." - Louisa May Alcott

"Your purpose should be greater than the problem at hand." -unknown

“Why does anybody tell a story?” Madeleine L'Engle asked.
“It does indeed have something to do with faith,” she said, “faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
- Laurence J. Peter

Anne Shirley: Don't you ever imagine things differently from what they are?
Marilla Cuthbert: No.
Anne Shirley: Oh Marilla, how much you miss.