What's a Golden Birthday?

So Yesterday was my golden birthday. Have you every heard of it? Well don't worry, I'd never heard of it either until yesterday when I was at church and someone told me. It means that you turn the same age as the date you were born: so in my case, I turned 25 on the 25th. How exciting! To be honest, I didn't do anything all that exciting to celebrate, but I did have a good day: went to church and sang in the choir(they even sang to me in harmony), played my new card game called set (makes my brain hurt, but in a good way), played frisbee with glenn (with brand new frisbees!), talked to my family and friends:), then ate lots of chocolate chip date cake, sugary spicy candies, and fine chocolate truffles, and topped it all off with some nice thai take out food for dinner with a side of Academy awards- just like a good spoiled birthday american girl should. I know, doesn't sound quite like me ya? Well I tell you what, those big glowing boxes are hypnotising. But don't worry, it's not starting a trend, I still don't watch T.V. I am glad I watched though, it was pretty worth it to see Ellen as the host and hear Al Go
re say "my fellow americans" and see The Inconvenient Truth win an oscar- if you haven't seen this yet, watch it! I have a copy if you want to borrow it, or you can rent it, or you can buy it.
Anyways, the most important thing that I do on my birthday is to wish my twin brother a very happy birthday too...HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLE!! (It's his golden birthday too...and no, we're not identical:P)
That's him-->

Oh ya, I do have to mention that I did have a fabulous little tamale party with some friends on Saturday night, which was a wonderful celebration equipped with all kinds of gourmet vegetarian fillings including mole (pronounced Moleh) from Mexico and cactus salsa; Plus a nice game of apples to apples with lots of good people:)- if you haven't played apples to apples, or made tamales yet, I would highly reccomend them both- especially in groups.
All in all, I'd say I had we had a pretty fabulous celebration. Thank you Caroline and Glenn for hosting and making my birthday special! And to all the cool people that came:)

So back to the golden birthday, I want to tell you more about the actual day because it turned out to be quite inspiring. Yesterday actually started out in a really nice way that kind of set a contemplative and rejuvinating mood for the day (which was a little jaded by all the hollywood stars, but definitely not ruined.) This being the season of Lent, which I have never really celebrated, but like the idea of re-evaluating what is wrong or missing in your life and making changes in new positive directions, i'm thinking it's a good time of year to think about what we are doing that we would like to be doing better, what we haven't been doing, but would like to start doing, or what have been doing that we probably shouldn't be doing.

I've been going to the Montclair Presbyterian church with Glenn and his mom Caroline (we all sing in the choir together) and the pastor women (her name is Karen) always gives really meaningful, thoughtful and inspiring sermons. Yesterday morning, after a couple different meloncholic, yet hopeful songs sang by the choir and members of the choir, she spoke about what repentance is and what being "meek" really means.
I always understood repentance to be the act of making your sins right through the grace of Christ and his sacrifice for humankind. She explained it in a different way which I think is a cool way to think about it: to turn around or change direction. Apparently when mary magdeline looked into the tomb to see that Christ was gone, she "repented", or turned around in a new direction, and that is when she saw the resurrected Christ. So really, lent is a time that is about changing directions and re-focusing to find what is truly important in life. This time of reflection happens in a lot of traditions too- I know in Judaism it's during yom kippur...

So seeing as I just celebrated my golden, once in a lifetime birthday, I'd like to take this special time to reflect, renew and repent.

So part of this process for me is going to involve meekness, which was the other thing that Karen mentioned in her sermon. Now I always thought of meek as being humble and submissive. In my shy disposition, I have always kind of identified myself as being a meek person, and therefore, was happy to read that according to the bible, I was promised to inherit the earth. But after hearing Karen speak, I have a totally different understanding. First she talked about how many negative conotations the word meek has, someone who is a "schnook" weak, wishy-washy, compliant, plain and passive. This didn't make me feel so nice, I don't want to be a schnook, even if I can inherit the earth. But then she continued to talk about positive definitions of meek: how we can be humble, gentle, and peaceful, without letting ourselves be trampled upon by others. She used an interpretation of Matthew's Beatitutdes in the bible from "The Message" by Eugene Peterson, a fellow pastor friend of hers. He interpreted the phrase from the bible"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth," to say "You're blessed when you're content with just who you are- no more, no less. That's the moment you find youreselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought. " I like this perspective because often I feel like the shy disposition that I was feeling kind of proud of has been a hindrance to me often times in my life: I am too passive when I shouldn't be and can be too wishy-washy to make definite decisions when I need to.

Beth Grossman "She who dwells within"
-->she's a bay area artist who is hosting a workshop on Wed to make "green pin-ups."
They're kind of like war-time pin-ups that were used to boost soldier's morale except for these will be for the public to be boosted about saving our planet:) I'm excited.

I'd like to take this golden birthday to give up being shy and submissive and work on cultivating more confidence, pride, strength and assertiveness (in a humble and gentle way of course) filling myself full of spirit and gratefullness for all the beauty and magic and good in the world. I also want to work on building faith around the belief that a better world is possible, and each of us has the power to change it: the first step is belieiving that it can happen! This is a continuation from what I learned last week at the same Presbyterian church from a guest rabbi spoke (isn't that cool? a rabbi at a Christian church:) His name is Michael Lerner and he wrote "The Left Hand of God," which was apparently one of last year's best sellers in America: one of the central themes is that security comes through cooperation rather than domination, what a novel idea.... He also helped start the network of spiritual progressives- check em out. I think they're pretty cool:)
I'm feeling inspired, can you tell?
Bonjournee!