Observer

אֵל שִׂמְחַ֪ת גִּ֫ילִ֥י

Posted by on Apr 29, 2012 in Blog, Observer | 0 comments

I am indwelled by joy. I am exhausted. I am under-rested. I am ridicu­lously behind in my final class. I am scrap­ing together my shekels to last through my first pay­check of my upcom­ing job. I can­not decide whether my love of the class­room and library is greater than my burnt-out will to study. I grieve for the men­tal ill­ness of a beloved, aged rel­a­tive. I fear that I am insuf­fi­cient. I live out­side my well-rehearsed plans. and I am indwelled by joy. My par­ents led a total of 31 Christians, mostly teenagers, through the streets of a Texan town yes­ter­day. 1,300...

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How to Bake Kale Chips

Posted by on Apr 4, 2012 in Blog, Observer, Odds and Ends | 4 comments

How to Bake Kale Chips

I stum­bled onto this recipe a few months ago: chips or crisps made out of kale.  The leafy super­food is, well, super. Vitamins, good things, pro­tein, and blah blah blah. Read this for more infor­ma­tion about the crazy good­ness that is kale. More impor­tantly, it bakes up to a very crispy-crunchy snack with no gluten or starch. Brilliant.   1. Wash and dry oodles of kale. Really dry. 2. Chop the leaves off the hard stem and try to keep the leaves in fairly medium-large pieces. 3. Toss with olive oil and sea salt. Alternatives: add lemon juice, gar­lic pow­dered or minced, or...

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Deeper than the Incongruity

Posted by on Mar 11, 2012 in Observer | 0 comments

Deeper than the Incongruity

In Ecclesiastes, Qoheleth strug­gled with a per­ceived gap between that which he believed and imag­ined and that which he observed and expe­ri­enced. Much of human expe­ri­ence seems incon­gru­ous with itself, and Qoheleth sought under­stand­ing. Qoheleth ini­tially con­cluded that the incon­gruity meanth that life was a pur­suit of futil­ity and hope­less­ness. Life is the “van­ity of van­i­ties”, hevel, he claimed. Yet his final res­o­lu­tion of his study was that beyond this per­ceived hevel is the secu­rity and hope of God the Creator. The despairs of this...

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Elsewhere: Terrorist in Love

Posted by on Apr 26, 2010 in Elsewhere, Observer | 0 comments

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Elsewhere: Camera Obscura: Honey in the Sun

Posted by on Apr 13, 2010 in Elsewhere, Observer | 0 comments

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Failing at Fondue

Posted by on May 7, 2009 in Missionary, Observer | 4 comments

The Daily Mail has pub­lished an arti­cle about yet another retro-living woman who has spent a week pre­tend­ing to live with the resource lim­i­ta­tions of another era. We’ve seen women of the 1930s and 1940s, and cou­ples of the 1950s… today, how­ever, we are graced with the attempt by one woman to live in the 1970s of Britain. Not the full range of retro ele­ments, mind you — no bell-bottomed leisure suits for her! Just the cooking. The woman in ques­tion bemoans the loss of her microwave, her bread maker, her cof­fee maker, her elec­tric scales… and even her food...

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