Sorry these are so small. The Internet is so slow here... it would take days to upload them if I didn't reduce them first.

I'm usually a photo-taking machine, but I haven't been on top of it since I've been here. I think it's because I'm in school-mode rather than vacation-mode. I'm definitely going to get on that. I want to take some pictures of my everyday life activities too, since I eat a lot of interesting foods, learn in a cool classroom, run along a lush jungle path, etc.

:)

This is my blog for my semester in Rome, Fall 2008! I have never been to other country or even outside California. It should be fun. Weeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

The guy had attitude.

Young man, really.  Probably from a family with some money.  Not wealthy, but well enough off so that travel wasn't a problem for him.  Strong-willed.  Eager to be a part of things.

And then, for some reason folks can only guess at, he abandoned the cause with which he was working.  He left his friends and co-workers.  Disappeared from view for a while.  Later, though, he had a change of heart. Who knows why?  Did he miss the excitement? Was he recommitted to the cause? Did he have an attack of conscience?

No one really knows. But whatever it was, he was sincere enough to try again to join up, even when he wasn't wanted. His sincerity of heart and purpose was clear enough to at least one influential co-worker, who wanted to let him back in to the group.  A fight resulted. A temporary split of factions. It was probably not pretty. 

Stung, in all likelihood, and determined to prove himself, the young man went off after another leader in this same cause. There, he found acceptance. There, he grew older and wiser.  Eventually, he made a hugely significant contribution to the cause -- one that everyone knew of and everyone read.

At last, the breach was healed with the first mentor.  He was asked to return, welcomed with love and reconciliation.  He'd grown older. He had proven his worth.

But when he was a young man, he was likely considered a radical, a rebel and even a troublemaker.  Still, he wrote that book.  A biography of sorts. Filled with action! People knew that it was true -- many of his readers had witnessed the events in the book.

His name was John Mark, known today as Mark. He wrote the first (chronologically) account of Jesus' life.  Probably in the time between AD 50 - 60, before the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Hotheaded fellow, he got on good terms with another reformed hothead:  Peter.

In seminary, when we were asked to choose "our Bible" -- the books we relied upon the most when we studied God's word -- most chose John as their Gospel.  At Christmas, people read from Matthew and from Luke. 

Mark is largely overlooked.  Yet his was the first Gospel of Christ.  Vibrant, active, dynamic, it is an accounting that should be studied. 

He wrote in the working-man's Greek: Koine.  He got the story of Christ from Peter, a friend of Jesus.  Perhaps twenty years after Jesus' death, Mark was the first to be prompted to share the history and deeds of a remarkable life.

I'm not sure how long my study of this book will be, but as I have done before, I'll make it up as I go along, here.  :) 

Our singles group has a weekly Bible study - usually we're split up over Monday and Tuesday, but this week we had the whole bunch in the same night, in the same home. I didn't know BK owned that many chairs.

This series is on the Fruit of the Spirit. See 1 Corinthians. We usually have the same basic notes, and we just note the answers for ourselves. In my case, and I'm sure other people do this, most of my margins are taken up with additional notes about brainbenders people have said.

Tonight we're on gentleness. Or, if you like, meekness/humility. This is a doozy. I've heard a friend say, "Of all the cultures in the world, Americans have to have the hardest time being Christians. You have to submit to someone else, you have to admit that you can't do something on your own, AND you have to admit that there's something wrong with you. Americans can't do that." I don't know how accurate that is, but it made me think. Meekness is not a happy word in our vocabulary.

'Til we started exploring this further and figuring out, by a Christian definition, what meekness is. And contrary to the impression we've got, it doesn't mean having the temperament of Bambi's mother. Rather, it is the kung fu master, who holds the strength, and can recognize when not to use it.

The flip side of that is that if you can recognize when NOT to use it, you also recognize when TO use it - but we only made a note of that, it wasn't our point for tonight.

Meekness was Christ on the cross. He's God's son, he IS God, he has the power to bring himself down, or to call legions upon legions of angels to blast everyone there and carry him away. He's in so much suffering that a new word had to be invented to describe it - "excruciating" literally means "out of the cross". He's in pain beyond anything, he's humiliated, he can't breathe, his skin is hanging in ragged tatters, and he's likely excessively dehydrated. And he made the call, with every breath, that it was more important for him to die this way, for these miserable creations to be saved, than for him to come down.

We were talking about how that applies to us, in marriage (most of us aren't) and work relationships. J summed it up, "Yeah, I could win this argument, but then I'd do some major damage to the relationship." He's made the call to walk out of a fight, to let the other person come out on top, even though he knows he can completely destroy their argument. Not because he's afraid or submissive, but because it's more important to him that this relationship be maintained, and that they find a way to solve this (that's probably going to be longer and take more effort) that allows them to work together.

Strength under control. Having the power, and choosing to walk away from a fight. The kung fu master.

There's a lot of great stuff that was said tonight. I've got one that's definitely going on my quote board, and maybe three.

Britta: "For your own personal health, don't expect to be respected."
That one made us laugh, but she made an impressive point. Respecting the people around you, yes, we're supposed to do that. But as soon as you expect them to respect you back, you're setting yourself up for misery. If they don't, you're going to be irked, and you've effectively given them the power to wreck your day.
That's definitely another brainbender for me. I'll be working on getting my head around that concept for awhile.

I have one section that I'm definitely teaching on if I'm a counselor for the junior high or high school girls this summer. One of the girls read it, and you could see this smile spread around to every woman in the group, and then we all started talking.
By the way, the guys were NOT touching that one. It was talking about beauty of spirit, being more real, lasting longer, and being more attractive than physical beauty. Every guy in the room claimed that touching that one in any way was digging himself a hole.

Which made us laugh more.

There's a lot that we learn during these nights, but also a lot of goofy relationship building. Jared, who's very health conscious, made the celery sing at me when I chose the Oreos instead. Kristina and I were talking about some girl stuff on the stairs, Gabe came up to badger us, was perhaps kicked, and fell back down the stairs to land in a tangle with the bike. We're all in the same discussion during the study, but as soon as we're done, we break off into about six separate conversations, and there's this animated joy that just kinda hangs out in the atmosphere above all of them.

I love this group. :)

Artificial sweetener linked to weight gain

Rats fed food with saccharin added more body fat, researchers found

 

WASHINGTON - Using an artificial, no-calorie sweetener rather than sugar may make it tougher, not easier, to lose weight, U.S. researchers said Sunday.

 

Scientists at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, studied rats that were fed food with the artificial sweetener saccharin and rats fed food with glucose, a natural sugar.

In comparison to rats given yogurt sweetened with glucose, those that ate yogurt sweetened with saccharin went on to consume more calories and put on more weight and body fat.

 

The researchers said sweet foods may prompt the body to get ready to take in a lot of calories, but when sweetness in the form of artificial sweeteners is not followed by a large amount of calories, the body gets confused, which may lead to eating more or expending less energy than normal.

 

"The data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to greater body-weight gain and adiposity than would consuming the same food sweetened with high-calorie sugar," Purdue researchers Susan Swithers and Terry Davidson wrote in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience, published by the American Psychological Association.

 

"Such an outcome may seem counterintuitive, if not an anathema, to human clinical researchers and health care practitioners who have long recommended the use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners as a means of weight control."

 

Other artificial sweeteners such as aspartame that also taste sweet but do not lead to the delivery of calories may have similar effects, the researchers said.

 

"Animals may use sweet taste to predict the caloric contents of food. Eating sweet noncaloric substances may degrade this predictive relationship," the researchers wrote.

 

"With the growing use of noncaloric sweeteners in the current food environment, millions of people are being exposed to sweet tastes that are not associated with caloric or nutritive consequences," the researchers added.

The research was the latest to examine the question of whether artificial sweeteners -- used in many soft drinks and other foods — help or thwart those trying to lose weight. Various studies have offered mixed results.

 

Industry responds

The new research drew criticism from the food industry.

 

"This study oversimplifies the causes of obesity," Beth Hubrich, a dietitian with the Calorie Control Council, an industry association representing companies that make low- and reduced-calorie foods and beverages, said in a statement.

 

"The causes of obesity are multi-factorial. Although surveys have shown that there has been an increase in the use of 'sugar-free' foods over the years, portion sizes of foods have also increased, physical activity has decreased and overall calorie intake has increased," Hubrich added.