Church

Yesterday Dave and I decided to try the catholic church in town (we've also gone to a different catholic church east of here). While we were living in Duluth we attended services at the Coppertop (United Methodist) church where Dave most times played guitar in the contemporary music group (during the service). This may make my mom cringe a little, but I don't really care too much which christian faith we decide to go with. I have mixed feelings about organized religion, but I definitely see many of it's benefits so I'm not at all against it - I just think there's a lot of room for improvement and that people should be able to really look at what is working and what is not. It just seems like there can be a lot of mixed signals/hypocrisy involving inclusion and loving ALL of God's people. So I will get off the little podium (stepping stool more like) to describe in detail the Crucifix at this particular Catholic church.

Most people have seen likenesses of Jesus' crucifixion at some point or another. It's Jesus nailed to the cross. Different artists have rendered the icon in different ways, and the artist (not sure who) that made the crucifix at the Grand Rapids church makes quite an impression. The church is fairly large and open (at least for this part of the country). The ceiling reaches it's highest point above the altar and about halfway between the ceiling and altar is the crucifix. The cross in thick wooden beams, just an ordinary cross, maybe life-sized. Jesus is also close to life-size, and Jesus is in immense, terrible pain. That may not seem strange, especially given how painful it probably is to be nailed to a cross. The reason it seems so different is because most crucifixes seem to show exultant, peaceful, or maybe just a little grief-stricken Jesus'. This Jesus has his head thrown back in agony, (his face is almost out of view since it's looking at the ceiling), his fingers are splayed out, on the right hand they are turned upward almost asking why, on the left hand they just seem to be stretched as far as possible to suggest further pain. His back is arched as much to his right as his spine will allow, portraying writhing pain... noticing a theme? pain, pain, and more pain. On the one hand, the crucifix shows what a tremendous sacrifice and gift Jesus provided, on the other, is that what you think of when you look at the Son of God full of misery?

Dave and I did like the sermon. It was mainly about walking your talk (don't just talk the talk, walk the walk, or however that saying goes). If you think something is important, it should show through your time, actions, and dedication. Since it was church this was applied to our faith and going to church, doing good acts, and so on, but I thought it was a great message for anything in life. If something is important to you, do other people know it? How involved are you with it?

I guess it's been a slightly philosophical day. On a lighter note, the weather sure has turned toward fall :) Work was very busy today and I was mildly frustrated a few times, mostly with mistakes I made. I'm trying to learn how to breathe when it gets busy at the drug store. This weekend Dave and I went to Duluth to see his family (Grandparents from CA came to MN to visit), and I got to visit with my sister. She just got a mini-lop bunny. It's super cute and has attitude which is nice to see (I wasn't sure how smart rabbits were, so it was amusing to see Temperance/Keystone (it has dual names at this point) be a sneak and move a blanket to get to a forbidden tunnel). On Sunday a couple of our friends from Duluth stopped by on their way home from further up north (it's sort of hard to imagine, sometimes I feel like we're it for "up north" as far as the U.S. is concerned). We had a lot of fun playing guitar hero 5 (Dave's b-day present from me), and going out to eat. The weather has been rainy and cold but it had to happen at some point.

I intend to post more photos soon"ish" so I'll find a few to leave you with.


this is my bruise from the small trees I hit with the four-wheeler, and because I'm a huge dork, there's a penny so that you have a bit of a scale to show how large the bruise is. I think the picture was taken 4ish days after said incident.





Before our friends came over on Sunday, we decided to take the 4 wheelers out for a last spin before M took them back. We went back to the mine pit and these are more pictures of where I jumped into the water. After talking to my sister I feel a little less brave and brag-worthy because it sounds like she's been off some pretty scary stuff up the north-shore of Lake Superior. Maybe next summer she can show me some of the spots :) The first of these pics is looking down to the water, the second shows Dave standing just down from where I jumped, the next one is the rope you climb back up on, and the last is just another pic looking out from the jump site.