I read it somewhere on the Internet...
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| The Medieval Bestseller I read it somewhere on the Internet... |
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Tuesday, June 10, 2008
I've officially accepted my new job, officially declined a part-time hospice chaplain position, and officially have let my chaplain friends/co-workers at the hospital know that I'm leaving. I guess I was not prepared for this sort of transition to be so hard, with all sorts of conflicting emotions. At the same time I've been reading this book called Under the Unpredictable Plant by Eugene Peterson. The title of the book references the book of Jonah, Chapter 4, where Jonah (the one swallowed by the whale) sits under a vine after having gone from being disobedient and not following the call of the Lord, to being obedient and resentful of following the call of the Lord. The vine he sits under is healthy at first, then it withers and Jonah gets angry with God's ways. The book is about what it is to practice and have peace in your vocation, specifically in ministerial vocations, and it has been a very good read so far...helpful to where I'm at. The author follows the book of Jonah, a prophet who was ordered by God to go and tell a city to repent and he goes in the opposite direction. Then he gets tossed off the ship and gets swallowed by a whale and then eventually goes to give the city their doom proclamation, only to find that they repent. Jonah gets angry because God did not do what he said God would do. So the book follows the movements of Jonah in order to gain wisdom of what it means to have and find peace in the sense of "call" and "vocation." Reading this book, though, and going with Gavin to a church service at Ojai Presbyterian last month where the sermon was on a portion of the first chapter of Jonah, I am again reminded of my intrigue with that book of the Bible. Obviously I don't read the book with a literalist understanding (ie, that Jonah actually is swallowed by a whale), but I suppose I'm intrigued that Jonah, the "hero," never really does what is right. Initially he flat out disobeys God. Then he turns his ways and obeys God, but with a heart lacking compassion, which is also wrong. Yet somehow Jonah is still used by God in each situation to show God's mercy to those he encounters. Interesting. Anyway, you can probably tell that I've been reflective over the past few days with all of this. As far as my weekend, I never was called in during my on-call hospital time on Saturday night/Sunday morning, which was GREAT. I was able to enjoy my time with Gavin as well as my Aunt Trisha, who was up from Laguna Beach for the day. My dad taught Aunt Trisha all about Google Maps' Street View, which turned out to be fun for hours. Aunt Trisha was able to look at the street view for her neighborhood and see a friend of hers walking the dog. Sunday I worked at the hospital and it was fairly ho-hum until the last hour that I was there, when there were three traumas that came in. Quite busy. Sunday night I spent with Gavin, since he will be away all this week on his final training for the year. I feel a bit ridiculous even saying this, but I miss him. It's only Tuesday and, chances are that I wouldn't have seen him before now anyway, but I miss him nonetheless. So, tonight I have dinner with Karen and then tomorrow before working at the hospital in the afternoon, I am getting my hair cut, which I couldn't be more excited about. I have no idea how it'll be cut, but the sheer delight of it being cut (tamed is a better word) is enough to make me so anxious for Wednesday to arrive. - Jenny, 6/10/2008 05:30:00 PM |
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