Worth Reading: Three Views of Hell

I recently discovered Nathan Alterton's blog, and have found his most recent posts particularly thought-provoking. Nathan family used to go camping every summer with my family and several other families of good friends. Those days of sunburns, sailboats, canoe races, bike rides, hikes, and endless speed card games are long gone, and now Nathan is a father of five boys - with a sixth on the way! Somehow he still manages to find time to blog, and I find his thoughts well worth reading.

Recently he's been writing about the Biblical doctrine of Hell. Three Views of Hell, Part 1 provides an overview on the subject, Part 2 brings to light how translation issues necessarily affect a study of the subject, Part 3 discusses the commonly-held view of Eternal Torment (those who die without accepting Christ's atonement will spend eternity separated from God in a place we call hell), and Part 4 is his critique of this viewpoint. Part 5 has really had me thinking over the past few days, as it lays out a Christ-centered doctrine of Universal Reconciliation quite unlike the "universalism" advocated by Unitarians and others clearly outside of orthodox Christianity.

Near the end of the post on Universal Reconciliation is this paragraph:

"There is one more argument in favor of Universal Reconciliation that I haven’t touched on yet, and in my mind it is the most powerful of them all. If Christ truly desires that all men should be saved and He paid the price for all men, yet because of Satan’s interference the majority of humanity is lost forever – then who is the real loser and who is the real winner for all eternity? [emphasis mine] Satan may be cast into the Lake of Fire at the Judgment, but even then he would be able to rejoice that he took the vast majority of men, the pinnacle of God's creation, made in His image, with him into that place to be separated from God forever. God wanted them saved, but the work of the Devil destroyed them, which seems to go against the teaching of scripture."

Nathan's posts have prompted me to think more deeply about my understanding of hell, and have motivated me to pull out a few things for re-reading, including C. S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce" and maybe a little Gregory of Nyssa, too.

Part 5 is Nathan's most recent installment to date, but I believe he is planning on covering the view of Conditional Immortality in the future, so if you find his posts interesting, be sure to stay tuned. The comments on his posts are also well worth reading. I hope you find Nathan's thoughts as interesting as I have!

Twitter

At the suggestion of my brother-in-law Gabe, I recently started using Twitter. I enjoy the opportunity to post condensed, brief updates and thoughts from time to time. I've added a little twitter update gadget to my sidebar in case any of you are interested. Let me know if you're on twitter so I can follow you!

Holly's Visit and My Studio Recital

It's hard to believe it's already July, especially since it's been raining almost nonstop for weeks here in Massachusetts.

As you may have surmised from the recent lack of posting on this blog, I've been busy lately!

Our long-lost friend Holly came to visit us from Washington state. We were so happy to be able to spend time with her after almost a year since she moved back to WA for graduate school.

Holly and I went on a couple of runs together, hit up a Saturday morning yard sale (I got a wooden shelf that works well as a spice rack for $0.50!), made lots of healthy spinach and fruit smoothies, talked about vegetarianism and nutrition, and caught up on life. We even made garlic scape pesto using garlic scapes from my produce CSA and enjoyed it over sprouted wheat pasta from Trader Joe's. We really enjoy cooking healthy meals together. With Nathan and friends, we watched quite a few good JAG episodes (best TV show ever), played and listened to lots of music, and enjoyed good food and even better company. We headed into Boston one afternoon and Lisa snapped this photo for us:


Holly's visit happened to coincide with my very first studio recital. Planning this recital was quite a bit of work, and there were lots of discouraging setbacks - by the time the recital rolled around, fewer than half of my usual students were actually able to make it, although all parents had committed to the date months in advance. Despite a few bumps in the road, the recital day came and the effort was well worthwhile. It was nice to have a chance for my students to showcase the fruits of their labors, and we had a good-sized audience of about 50 family members and friends.

Here are the terrific students who played in the recital last Sunday:


And here are a few supportive friends who came to hear my students play. (And my wunderhusband Nathan who accompanied everyone):


What an eventful month June was. As we've been settling into our new home, with lots of unpacking to do and house and yard projects galore, we've been enjoying good times with friends and making the first of many memories here in our colonial house in Danvers.

Wall Art

Back in February I posted a few photos and ideas that had inspired me, including one link to wall hangings made of styrofoam and scrapbook paper. I subsequently found other examples of this type of wall art, including this art panel at Apartment Therapy, these wall hangings at Eight Crazy, and this example in the Craftster forums. (I also like this idea, which uses frames rather than styrofoam; however, the foam provides some nice 3-dimensionality.)

Well, since February I've acquired a house that needs decorating, so I decided to try making wall art from styrofoam and scrapbook paper. I find myself drawn to scrapbook paper despite the fact that I am not, and probably never will be, a scrapbooker. Using it in this way seemed like a fun - and frugal - way of decorating.


My friend Beki, who is studying interior design in graduate school, came over to lend her artistic eye and was graciously willing to stoop to my inferior artistic level of styrofoam and glue dots!

These were quite straightforward to make. Each 12x12x1 square of styrofoam has a brown grosgrain ribbon wrapped around the sides and affixed using glue dots. We used the same means to then attach the selected 12x12 pieces of scrapbook paper to the front of the styrofoam squares. I've seen instructions for this project that indicate painting the sides of the foam, but I like how the ribbon hides the texture of the styrofoam altogether, and I think it makes for a nice finished edge. I also saw directions to attach the paper to the styrofoam using a spray adhesive, but I was concerned about wrinkling and bubbling and decided glue dots were a safe way to go. They worked very well, and any slight raised bump from the glue dot can be pressed into the malleable styrofoam for a smooth finished surface. We hung these by simply pressing the upper center of each square onto nail heads we had already hammered into the wall at measured locations.


Since I got the styrofoam squares on sale, each piece of "art work" cost around $4, and I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying the results. They turned out better than I imagined - and even Nathan seems to like the finished product. High praise from a fellow with self-proclaimed "Grandpa taste" in furniture and decor which rears its graying head from time to time. (And yes, I'm patting myself on the back for that clever sentence.)

Bathroom

While Nathan tackled putting in a garbage disposal, I felt the downstairs bathroom was among the first things that needed to be dealt with. For the first four or five days we lived here I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was using the bathroom of some strangers, and it wasn't a good feeling. I didn't feel clean after showering. No matter how many times I cleaned the toilet it didn't seem clean enough.

Well, I took off the old toilet seat and put on a new one. That improved things significantly, psychologically if not in any absolute sense.


(If I were a person of quality, no doubt I would have removed the toilet plunger before taking this photo.)

Then I found a shower curtain I absolutely loved, and used a 20% off coupon at Bed Bath & Beyond to buy it. I love the pattern and the colors (my friend Beki suggested a turquoise/brown color combination and I'm really grateful for her decor help), while the cream colored background keeps things light enough to use it in a small bathroom like ours. It also works well with the current teal wall color, but will still work when we mostly likely re-paint the room something more neutral.


The shelving unit was left here, and after a thorough cleaning I'm finding it quite useful, and a good fit for a small bathroom.


Finally, here's the other side of the room:



The bathroom finally feels like our own, and while I'd like to make more changes in the future, I am pretty happy with it in its current incarnation.

Garbage Disposal

One of the first projects Nathan tackled after we moved into our house was to put in a garbage disposal. He did a great job and it is so nice to have one after three years of cleaning out a gross little mesh strainer in the sink in our apartment!

Please excuse the fact that the flash makes every little water droplet and speck show up, and me appear to be a slob of a housewife. The drilling project created a bit of a mess and I failed to scrub out the sink before we took photographs.

Handsome and handy, here's my favorite guy displaying the unit prior to installing it.


And here it is under the sink:


Nathan got a pneumatic button to go with the disposal for me for my birthday instead of the usual light-switch-style. I love it! We decided to install the pneumatic button to the left of the faucet. Here's what it looked like before:


Drilling...



And the finished product!


Trying it out for the first time:



Now that I have a garbage disposal and a backyard with space for composting, we'll never have to deal with smelly garbage again!

House Update

Pictures of our new house, including the garbage disposal Nathan installed for me for my birthday, will be coming soon... I promise. The stars have to align for me to find my camera, my memory card, and my battery charger all at the same time amidst these piles and boxes!

We're having a little house-warming party tomorrow afternoon, so we have a definite incentive to get things done around here. We were the fortunate recipients of some free old library shelving - the nice wooden kind! - and having floor-to-ceiling shelving in the office is making the organization of dozens of boxes of books and sheet music much, much more manageable.

Last night Nathan and I hauled two bookcases upstairs to my teaching studio, and I proceeded to spend the evening organizing all my teaching materials and violin music upstairs. The studio is still a work in progress, but I'm liking the results already.

We've spent lots and lots of time outside clearing back overgrowth of vines and brambles, digging up excessive amounts of day lilies, and putting in a few new plants and seedlings here and there - including a small vegetable garden space Nathan rototilled for me. Picture of our backyard, which I love, are forthcoming.

I'll also post pictures of the downstairs bathroom, one of the first rooms I tackled after our move because it just felt so weird to be using what still felt like someone else's bathroom. I put on a new toilet seat (no help from the husband required!), bought a shower curtain I absolutely love, and together with lots of cleaning and a few other small touches, it now feels like ours.

In fact, the whole place is slowly becoming ours.

(I'm glad, because we didn't like the feeling of living in someone else's house.)

Beauty School Graduate

I was a little overdue for a hair trim, and I had a coupon from the Community Greetings gift bag we received when we moved in here for a free wash, cut, and blow dry. It seemed to be a somewhat upscale salon - probably a step up from the mall place where I usually get my hair trimmed - and I decided to give it a try.

It was at the salon that I discovered that you don't have to be a beauty school dropout to have quite possibly been a high school dropout...

I heard this alarming conversation unfold between the woman cutting my hair and a male stylist giving a haircut one chair over:

Him: ...something about coral reefs in North America...
Her: "What's North America? Where is that?"
Him: "Tell me you're joking."
Her: "No, really! Where's North America?"
Him: "You're in it."
Her: "It's here? This is it?"
Him: "Yes."
Her: "So what's South America? Is that like, Spain?"
Him: "Spain is in Europe. South America includes countries like Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile."
Her: "No way... I guess I'm not good at geography! Haha!"

(You can't make this stuff up, people. This conversation really took place.)

And I thought about saying, "Hey lady, I want him to cut my hair."

I know geography may not be necessary knowledge for a hair stylist, but there's just something comforting knowing the person wielding the scissors has a basic level of awareness, you know?

Birthday Simplicity

Earlier I said to Nathan, very happily, "It's my birthday, and you got me a card, and we're going out to dinner!"

He lovingly replied, "Oh babe, you're so... simple."

(I'm hoping he meant it in the "simple-to-please" sense as opposed to a "simple-minded" sort of thing.)

Simple Shoe Sale

I mentioned once before that I've been admiring Simple shoes for a while. Well, thanks to It's Hip 2 Save, I found out that Simple has some great sale items right now. The women's "Layaway" shoe, usually $60, is currently only $9.90 - and shipping is free! Right now they still have lots of sizes left in the teal and the brown, and limited sizes in grey and pink. Let me know if you decide to get some of these cute wool shoes!



(You can view all the sale items here.)

"Settling In"

Moving is quite a process. How two people can accumulate about 80 boxes of stuff by their mid-twenties is beyond my understanding, and is a rather horrifying fact, but a fact it is - we have boxes and boxes of books, music, electronics, kitchen gadgets and utensils, clothing, and more. How did we fit all that stuff into our little apartment? And now that we're in our house, how is it that the stuff that fit in our apartment is practically spilling out of the house? I've unpacked almost all the kitchen stuff (with the help of my wonderful mother-in-law!), and more than half of our bedroom stuff, and most of our bathroom stuff, and a few other odds and ends here and there - and there are still boxes everywhere.


Let me put it this way: If someone broke into our house while we were out and ransacked the place, when we got back we probably wouldn't notice. For a few months.

Moving In

Buying a house in May gives new meaning to the concept of "Spring Cleaning."

Tired of Packing

56 hours until we sign closing papers and move in.

Yard Sale-ing 5/23

This morning I hopped out of bed bright and early to go yard sale hopping. After my yard sale success last Saturday, I figured driving around our town looking for yard sale signs couldn't hurt. I'm glad I gave it a try, because I found some good things!

I was looking specifically for storage solutions. In our current apartment we have quite a few built in bookshelves as well as other shelving, cabinetry, and storage. Now that we're getting ready to move into our first house, I'm aware we're going to need some storage options!

I found this wooden shoe rack and only paid $1.00 for it! The woman selling it was asking $2, but when I pointed out a slight wobble (easily fixable with a little glue, by the way) she put the price down to $1. Not bad! I'm thinking I'll either paint it or stain it.

This storage tier still had the original $15 price tag on it from Bed, Bath, & Beyond, but I got it for $2. I'm planning to use it for craft supply storage.

This sweet little baby-sized quilt was just twenty cents. I can't tell if it's handmade or not, but it seems like it probably is...? It seemed too cute to leave behind; some little fellow somewhere would like to use this, or perhaps a little girl could use it as a doll blanket. I'm sure I'll think of someone to give it to!

Look at this fabulous giraffe marionette! Asking price: $5. Price I paid: $3. It's wooden and looks to be pretty durable - a good quality toy. I bought it with my three nephews in mind, but as soon as my husband saw it he begged me to let him keep it for himself. It is kind of fun, I must admit. I guess my nephews will have to fight my husband for this find!

These five items cost $2.50 altogether. They are not particularly useful, but I thought the little blue glass inkwell would look cute in a windowsill or something, and I liked the plates, too. I'm thinking of using the square glass vase to transplant some of my rapidly-growing cactus plants into.

Here's a closeup of the blue inkwell. Cute!

And finally, more storage items - three big baskets for $2.50. I think I'll store my sewing supplies in these, as my fabric, thread, patterns, and notions are rapidly outgrowing their current home in just one basket.


All that for $11.20. The craft storage containers alone would have cost me more than that if I had done my shopping at retail stores! Yard sales are my new favorite thing about summer.

Children's Orchestra Concert

I have written before about the children's string orchestra I have the privilege of conducting, and they are just as much a blessing in my life today as they were when I wrote those two posts a year ago. I love these sweet children, and working with them, while it is certainly challenging, is also very rewarding.

Our musical year has come to a close. At our spring concert, my group played a Merle Isaac arrangement of "The William Tell Overture," and a really beautiful little piece called "Prelude and Fugue" by Gerald Sebesky. The ensemble played so well considering their very young ages (my group ranges from kids as young as seven up through third and fourth graders) - the work we've done on intonation, dynamics, ritardandos, and important harmonies all came through in the performances.

On the Monday following the final concerts, we always have an "Awards Night" ceremony and celebration. This year I gave each student in my group a certificate highlighting a particular strength, and chose one recipient from each section (1st violins, 2nd violins, violas, and cellos) for the "Outstanding Musical Achievement" award. Seven-year-old Jeffrey in the first violins learned his music backwards and forwards and brought enthusiasm and joy to each rehearsal. Nathaniel in the second violins surprised me in every way when he went from being the weakest member of the group to the 2nd violin I depended upon the most for his careful practice and reliability. He even took weekly lessons with me to work on his orchestra music in addition to his usual lessons with his violin teacher at school! Julia, a very young and sweet violist, held down her small section of two with strong playing, her big eyes constantly upturned to watch for my cues. And Olivia, a lanky blond cellist with a braces-clad grin, may have been the single student in my group who improved the most this year, becoming a solidly dependable principal cellist, standing firm in a section with one silly seven-year-old cellist with a constant case of the giggles, one frequently misbehaving cellist with a misplaced need for attention, and one cellist who played about a half-step sharp all the time.

I could go on and on about all the kids. Each one of them has a special place in my heart.

I had recently mentioned to Trudy, the founder and director of the youth orchestra organization as a whole, that it's sometimes a little depressing to conduct the one group that everyone wants to get out of. My group is the most beginning group, and the goal is to prepare students to graduate into the next group, and from there, into the next one after that, and finally, into the advanced orchestra. So if I do my job well and the students do theirs and work hard, after a year or two in my group, all these little ones leave me and move into a more advanced group. And I miss them, and sometimes feel a little sad that the dream of each young string player is to move up after a year in my group. But I got some affirming words at Awards Night when executive director, music director, and parents all thanked me for my hard work, my patience, and my musicianship... and the conductor of an advanced ensemble told me my group sounded the best it had ever sounded (this has only been my third semester as conductor of the ensemble), and that I was "setting the bar higher" for the more advanced ensembles by doing such a good job! I felt a lot better. I'm sure the wishful thinking will still creep in from time to time - "If only the kids loved my group so much they wanted to stay!" But I think that enjoyment of my group and the desire to move forward can co-exist together for the students. And their progress is a good thing, and something for me to be thankful for and proud of.

I was presented with some lovely, thoughtful gifts.

From the organization as a whole, a beautiful begonia:

From the parents of my ensemble kids, a mountain sage for our new yard:

And a gift card, with our upcoming move in mind!

As a freelance musician and music teacher, I have a lot of jobs.

I tend to think that most of them are the best jobs in the world.

Packing Joshua Harris

Nathan and I are packing, packing, packing these days. (Have I mentioned that we bought a house and we're moving?!)

This afternoon he's been sorting through bins of books from our spare room and packing them into boxes for the move. I began to notice that he was becoming easily side-tracked by the lure of reading these books rather than packing them, so I asked innocuously, "Hey, what can I do to help you get those books packed?"

His reply: "Perhaps a brief side-hug would be appropriate at this time."

And that's when I realized he was flipping through that 90's Christian hit, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" by Joshua Harris.

Free P. F. Chang's!

If you have a P.F. Chang's restaurant near you, check out this great deal:

P.F. Chang's is offering a FREE order of their signature lettuce wraps with the purchase of an entrée. Just go here and enter your email address. The coupon will be emailed to you.

I am definitely going to take advantage of this offer, since I still have the better half of a P.F. Chang's gift card burning a hole in my wallet. I foresee a dinner out with Nathan... he'll order an entrée and I'll enjoy the lettuce wraps for mine. (I hope the coupon will work for the vegetarian version!) The coupon is good for dine-in only, and expires June 14. Enjoy!

(Thanks for the heads-up, Hip2Save!)

Yard Sale Treasures

On Saturday morning Nathan and I went to a neighborhood community yard sale, in which a few dozen homes all hosted simultaneous sales. It's a rather wealthy community, so we correctly suspected that we might find some deals worth having on things we'd need when we move into our house IN EIGHT DAYS!

(Did I mention that WE'RE MOVING a week from tomorrow?)

Please forgive the terrible photos. Every surface in our house is covered in moving boxes or piles of things waiting to be packed into boxes (Oh, by the way, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE and WE'RE MOVING REALLY SOON!) and there's no available space for picture-taking. But such as they are, here are the items we found:

Starbucks Barista Zia espresso machine. Retail value: $275. Yard sale price: $5.

Wooden quilt rack. With a fresh coat of paint, this is going to have a place in our bedroom to drape clothes over when we're too lazy to hang them up display the handmade quilt I'm going to make some day.

Wooden shelf. This will also be getting a new paint treatment, and maybe some new hooks as well. The quilt rack and the shelf were $8 combined. The lady was trying to get $15, but I stood there looking uncertain until she lowered the price a couple of times. Heehee.

Two glass jars. $1 apiece, picked up in two different yards. These will find homes in the bathroom and/or the kitchen.

Three old glass milk bottles. $0. I plan to use them as vases!

Four new IKEA chairs ("Jokkmokk"). Not even assembled yet when I walked away with the set for $10.

Wood pedestal for potted plant. $5. In retrospect I wish I had put in a lower offer for this, but then again, we got this in the same yard as the espresso machine, so maybe the two deals even out somehow. I'll probably refinish this at some point.

The Joy of Cooking. Now that I have this, I think I have all the "staple" cookbooks that everyone should really have. The price tag says $4, but I offered $2 and got it.

Three interior design books, including Pottery Barn Home. The Pottery Barn book alone is usually around $15 I think; I got all three books for $5.


Total spent: $38. Not bad considering the useful things we got, but I think in the future I'll be braver about haggling for lower prices. This was only my first time garage-saleing, after all... I'll improve with practice, I'm sure!

Like, Whoah

Looking for a weird auditory experience? Do what I accidentally did this morning:

1) Open about ten different tabs in your browser, all of cool YouTube videos.

2) Somehow crash your computer and cause it to restart.

3) Re-open your browser.

4) When it asks if you want to restore the last browsing session, choose "yes."

All those YouTube tabs will re-open and begin playing simultaneously.

I actually found the combination of musical and spoken chaos rather pleasing, in an odd sort of way.

"Pass It On" Giveaway

About a month ago my sister Emily hosted a "Pass It On" giveaway on her blog. Since she recently alerted me that I was one of the first to comment and yes, siblings are allowed to 'win,' I'm now alerting you to my participation. Here's how it works:

Since I was one of the first three to reply to Emily's post, she's going to give me something - probably something cool and handmade, if I know my sister. The catch is that I in turn get to offer to give things away to my readers who comment. I can choose how many things to give away and what kinds of things to give away. If you leave a comment saying you want to participate, you're agreeing to receive what I want to give you and to "Pass It On" yourself by hosting a similar giveaway!

I've decided to open this giveaway to five people. So, if you're one of the first five people to leave a comment saying you'd like to participate, you'll be receiving something - and it really could be anything - from me. I might make something for you, I might bake you cookies if you live nearby, or I might give you something cool I don't need anymore... you'll have to wait and see! (And if you've ever seen a craft or sewing project featured here on my blog that you were particularly fond of, feel free to drop a hint...)

I'll be sure to update my blog with winning participants and the things I decided to give them, so stay tuned!

Now, go ahead and leave a comment if you want to participate.