Palmtree Contemplations

         One of the first thing I learned in high school was that the next few years of my life would be spent taking notes and studying for tests with the notes I had taken. Taking notes became crucial, and eventually frustrating for me. I remember saying to my sister, "I see my whole life stretching out before me and it's just one endless stream of notebook pages filled with words that don't mean anything." I began to feel numb at the thought of school, and rebelled at the idea of belonging to a system that expected only consumption and regurgitation of ideas.         Paulo Freire, the author of The Pedagogy of the Oppressed , must have had a similar experience. In the second chapter of his book he describes two different kinds of education: the banking concept and problem-posing.        The banking concept works like this: the teacher is like a banker who presents information to the students, and then expects them to file all of it away as though they were identi

       It is one thing for me to write all these blogs about my gifts and strengths. It is another thing altogether to pick up the phone and call people who really know me, and ask them to analyze and picture me in the future. It was quite an experience, one that kept me up late making phone calls to high school friends, my two older siblings, and my dad. I asked them three questions:       #1. What do you think I am most passionate about?    #2. What am I good at?    #3. Where do you see me in ten years?        My top three responses for the first question were God, music, and books. I understand why the people I talked to see these things in me. Over the years they have seen me getting up in the morning to read my Bible, heard me practicing the piano in the early and late hours of the day, and watched me consume books on a regular basis. I would have thought it strange if they hadn't noticed all these things. It was encouraging to know that I was right in seeing these passion

       Most people might be musing over their day while they mop floors, but I was trying to figure out how my strengths are compatible with my spiritual gifts. At first I had them set up as two lists in my head. One was "Strengths," under which I listed Responsibility, Belief, and Learning. The other list was "Spiritual Gifts," under which I listed Faith, Poverty, and Celibacy. I tried to draw lines between them in my head, matching each one with another, and then redrawing the lines because they didn't fit. Then I realized I was looking at it all wrong. The way to do it is to imagine yourself going in circles, where each gift plays a part in each strength and vice versa.        For example, my Belief strength would not exist without my spiritual gift of Faith. At the same time, it is because of my beliefs that I have faith. It goes in a circle. If I did not have faith that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that He has the power the save me from sin, I would

       Ever since I was able to think about what I was going to do in the future, I have also been pondering what my gifts are and how they can be used. I have considered my strengths, taken those cute quizzes in girl magazines with titles like "What Color Is Your Personality?", and tried to memorize acronyms for how to use my talents for God. In short, if ever someone was supposed to know their spiritual gifts, it would be me.       At least, that's what I thought before I took a spiritual gifts assessment test online and printed out the results. There, in black and white, my top three spiritual gifts were listed as Faith, Poverty, and Celibacy. These are definitely gifts, but I can't say I would immediately put those in the top three. After a lot of pondering, though, I realized that these are gifts I do have, I just never knew they were there.      Having Faith as a gift means that I will act with confidence on what God has promised to do. In my own life, especia

        Somewhere in my mind I have a list of books that I want to finish someday when the endless hours of forced reading, cramming, and writing are over and done. One of the titles on the list is a book by Mark Noll called The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. The little bit of this book that I did get a chance to read inspired me to really ask myself, "How can I redeem the culture for Christ with my talents? What can I do to honor God with my mind and talents?"       The first answer of how to go about that is through music. For as long as I can remember I have loved music. I love practicing it, performing it, listening to it; I love everything about it. I believe I have the talents required to become a good performer and also in time a great teacher. What will set me apart from my secular peers is why I play. I don't play just because I love it. I play because I love God, and I believe playing is one way that I can praise Him. Because it is an act of love, as all serv