Spring is Relative

Spring has officially been here for over a month now. Sometimes that is not a reality in Spokane. Well, I guess it's just not the Spring that I think of when I hear the word. Growing up in Sacramento the lilacs would be blooming for my birthday at the end of March. In Spokane (the lilac capital of the world) lilacs don't bloom until May. In Sacramento people start where T-shirts and flip-flops in the 70 and 80 degree weather of March and April. In Spokane people start wearing flip-flops and T-shirts at the same time but it is only in the 60s and we are only imagining that we are warm. Today it is sunny and in the mid 60s and I feel like shaving my legs and putting shorts on. I guess even weather is relative sometimes.


Tori took this picture in the English Department Garden at Whitworth.

Counter Intuitive

I am currently reading through the Gospel of Mark and then I am going to go through it again with the commentary written by Jim Edwards, a professor from Whitworth and great Markian scholar. Today I read the part where Peter denies Jesus 3 times after Jesus has been arrested and is being beaten. I was struck by how horrible it would feel to be abandoned by your closest friends in such a desperate hour of your life. I can imagine Peter's shame when he hears the rooster crow and realizes that Jesus was right about him. It makes me wonder why in the world Jesus would stick by us and continue to love us when we are such jerks sometimes, being guided by fear or selfishness. Then Peter became a great evangelist and the Rock of the Church. WOW! God does not make sense to me much of the time, but it gives me hope that he can use me and still thinks it's worthwhile to love and help me. Sometimes His forgiveness is so overwhelming or counter intuitive that I'm not sure I can accept it or that it's real. Thank God it is real and present even when I don't think about it.

The Future

I work at Excelsior Youth Center. Today I went to a new employee orientation for 7 1/2 hours even though I've worked there 4 months now. It actually wasn't that bad. One enjoyable thing was meeting the CEO for the first time. He talked to us about his job and purpose there, etc. He also said that his mission statement for the place is to "connect these kids with their future." He explained that you can't change what happened in the past, and for these kids the past is scarring and painful for the most part. So our job is to try to help them realize that they can work towards a better future. On any given shift I feel like we are just trying to make it through another few hours, but I hope that on the whole my mission in working there would be to help the kids I hang out with see that they are good because they are human and their lives can and do have unlimited value and purpose. Even if it isn't always tangible or practical, the hope is there.

Music Lesson

Today I would like to commemorate some important happenings in music history:

1) Tchaikovsky completes his famous ballet, "Swan Lake," in 1876

2) The Blues Brothers (Dan Akroyd and John Belushi) make their first appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1978

QOTD

Quote of the day:

"Laughter is the closest distance between two people." -Victor Borge

My friend Alayna uses a variant of this one all the time. It is a good idea and a great truth. I like laughing. Here's something that makes me laugh...

Bringing People Together

Spread the good news!

No More Whitworth

I graduated from Whitworth College almost a year ago (man has time flown by) and the college graciously allowed me to continue using my Whitworth e-mail account... until now. I knew this day was coming, but I didn't know it would come so soon and so abruptly. I checked my e-mail this morning and I found an inbox that had none of my old messages in it and only one new one. So please, if you want to stay in contact with me use my gmail account: rlgraff@gmail.com

Pet Owner's Day

Apparently it is Pet Owner's Day. I have no idea who decided that, but I can celebrate. I am a pet owner. I have been estranged from my darling on and off for the last 3 years since I have lived part time in Spokane. I think she still likes me even though I've been away and... well... she's a cat. Meet Gigi.


She's about 14 years old, she only likes people she's familiar with and doesn't like other animals at all, and she has thumbs. I think she's great, but I don't expect you to share my opinion. In fact, if you met her I bet you wouldn't.

Great Comeback

I was just perusing the National Geographic website (as my sister taught me to do) and I came across these guys...

They are Siberian tigers which, according to the article "Biggest Tiger Pounces Back from Brink" on NG's website, almost went extinct in the early 1900s. There were 40 of them. Now there are 600. That's a great comeback.

NGGP Returns

My friends, Tori and Geoff, and I had another global night. We decided to make it a truly global experience by going to Safeway and picking up some accouterments. These included: aged cheddar from Ireland (it was two years old!), multi-grain club crackers, and Fat Tire Ale. These we added to our stock of Sweet Maui Onion Potato chips, and Verona cookies. Ok, so basically everything except the cheese was from the US but at least the ale was inspired by a cycling trip through Belgium and the cookies have an Italian sounding name. We played it up and tonight I came back from being last place to being first. Nice. This really is one of the sweetest games I've ever played but we will soon have a major problem... We're running out of questions! You can help us by leaving your favorite geography questions as comments to this post.

Best question of the night... Category: Wild Card
"Which are yeti and Sasquatch? a) American Indian guides who helped American colonists, b) a comedy team famous in Chicago, Illinois, c) mysterious creatures some people claim to have seen"

National Geographic Global Pursuit

My good friend Tori owns a game called National Geographic Global Pursuit. It's a geography game that was made in the 80s which means some of the answers are the Soviet Union or East and West Germany. It's really great fun. We played it on Easter and I want to share one of the best questions ever. It came from a Wild Card:

"If a three-toed sloth and a red kangaroo had a race, which would win?"

How did they come up with a question like that?! I don't know, but I'm so glad they did.

Deliberation

So here I am, finally joining the blogging community. I deliberated for a long time about whether or not to do this. I deliberated on the title, too. I chose "My Portion" because of the verse in Lamentations that I love and want to live by. I also thought it was fitting because this is sort of my portion of the dialogue about life that goes on all the time. I deliberated about what kind of blogger I was going to be. I could be the kind that posts my profound thoughts about religion and the world and people and life. But I don't know if I would actually succeed in being profound. Or I could be the kind that posts bunches of fun things found in the farthest corners of the world wide web. But I don't think I have enough time to do that. I guess there's really no telling what's going to come out. I'll just be me and hopefully entertain or encourage a couple people along the way.