Biotikos

I was about to step out the door and realized it was raining. I must admit, I like running in the rain. It cools me down and keeps me motivated. Though, I came back soak ‘n wet! Oh well.

My brother received his high school diploma last night. We were so proud of him!  I can’t believe he’s done; it makes me feel so old. This made me think about graduating from college and how soon that may be. Although I’m a double major in English and psychology, I’m also thinking about having a minor in history and/or religious studies, which means that school may take longer than I expect (possibly a semester longer). This turns into a litany of questions. Should I chose one minor, even though some of those classes are cross listed? Should I just have a double major? Could I possibly try more summer classes, or will this be too expensive? Is it rational to get a double major with a double minor? I don’t know anyone who has done this, but I want to do this for some reason. Maybe it’s because I have so many interests and I will regret not pursuing all of them after I graduate. Is it more important for me to graduate “on time” or to get everything I want out of college? There are way to many options… I’ll let you know if I ever make a decision!

1 First make sure that you are using eggs that are several days old.

2 Put the eggs in a single layer in a saucepan, covered by at least an inch of cold water. Starting with cold water and gently bringing the eggs to a boil will help keep them from cracking. Adding a half teaspoon of salt is thought to help both with the preventing of cracking and making the eggs easier to peel. Put the burner on high and bring the eggs to a boil. As soon as the water starts to boil, remove the pan from the heat for a few seconds.

3 Reduce the heat to low, return the pan to the burner. Let simmer for one minute. (Also, if you are using an electric stove with a coil element, you can just turn off the heat. There is enough residual heat in the coil to keep the eggs simmering for a minute).

4 After a minute, remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let sit for 12 minutes. If you are doing a large batch of eggs, after 10 minutes you can check for doneness by sacrificing one egg, removing it with a slotted spoon, running it under cold water, and cutting it open. If it isn’t done, cook the other eggs a minute or two longer. The eggs should be done perfectly at 10 minutes, but sometimes, depending on the shape of the pan, the size of the eggs, the number of eggs compared to the amount of water, and how cooked you like them, it can take a few minutes more. When you find the right time that works for you given your pan, the size of eggs you usually buy, the type of stove top you have, stick with it.

5 Either remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place them into a bowl of ice water (this is if you have a lot of eggs) OR strain out the water from the pan, fill the pan with cold water, strain again, fill again, until the eggs cool down a bit. Once cooled, strain the water from the eggs. Store the eggs in a covered container (eggs can release odors) in the refrigerator. They should be eaten within 5 days.

Tips:

• You can make the eggs easier to peel by using eggs at least one week old, and by adding plenty of salt to the boiling water. You can also add two or three teaspoons of white vinegar to the water. It is also easier to peel the eggs when they are properly cooled.
• It is easier to peel the eggs if you crack it a little at the less pointy end, peel a little and then slide a spoon under the shell. Just move the spoon around under the shell and it will easily remove the rest!
• To ensure your egg is hard boiled, when it is cooled off, spin it on a hard surface like a top, and if it spins quickly without flying off in one direction, the egg is finished. Undercooked or uncooked eggs will have a wobbly, unsteady spin and will spiral off to one side.
• Hard-boiled eggs will keep for approximately a week in the refrigerator.
• Another method is to place the eggs in the water as mentioned above. Allow the water to begin boiling then remove the pot from the heat. Cover the pot and leave it alone at least ten minutes, or until the water cools. You end up with perfectly cooked eggs - firm yolk and white, and no cracked shells from rapid boiling.

Today, my friend and I played my favorite game-SCRABBLE!! We had so much fun, even though it took a long time (we are both slow Scrabble players). And yes, I tried to make up words as I usually do! But that makes it fun and keeps us laughing.

After we finished playing, the laughter we shared made me think about all the humor in my life. Humor is a key component of joy, which relieves my stress, helps me open up to people, and, most of all, makes me happier. I am so thankful for the humor God has given me today. I have been going through an emotional battle of regret and depression. I needed Him to lift me up from those worries. And today, He answered my prayers through humor to relieve those burdens, to remember that any distortions in my thoughts are in fact *humorous.*

Scripture on God’s humor: Matthew 17:17; Luke 13:6-9; Psalms 59:8.

As I looked for new recipes, I thought, “why not try the King’s favorites?” It turns out, Elvis Presley’s favorite food was actually the peanut butter and banana sandwich, also known as “The King” during the Great Depression. Who knew? Of course, I’ve made this sandwich before, but here’s the King’s recipe:

After eating “The King,” I realized that Elvis has good taste. Maybe I should try some of his other favorites.

Works Cited

Brenda Arlene Butler. Are You Hungry Tonight? Elvis’ Favorite Recipes. New York: Bluewood, 1992.

I am so thankful for a wonderful mother who has taught me faith, shown me hope, and given me love.

Happy Mother’s Day! 

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

The phrase “psychology of religion” means to use scientific methods that can improve our understanding of religion. Religious orientation can be labeled as Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and many other religious affiliations. Religious individuals believe in a divine power and can be separated into two religious orientations: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic religious motivations are characterized by internalized beliefs that are adhered to regardless of the external consequences. Extrinsic religious motivations are characterized by a desire to gain status, security, self justification or sociability. Conducting a research study helps determine whether intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientation has a relationship with depression in individuals.

In a previous research study, Genia, Vicky, and Shaw hypothesized that depressive symptoms were negatively related to intrinsic religious orientation and positively related to extrinsic religious orientation. The results supported this hypothesis and the final conclusion between depression and extrinsic scores showed a correlation when the sociodemographic variables are controlled. Extrinsic orientation puts the center on oneself and prevents spiritual growth. Intrinsic orientation, however, seeks future growth, faith, humility, and perfection. According to the data in this periodical, religiosity (without regard to particular denominations) in adolescents is related to less problem behavior and prayer is an effective coping strategy to decrease anxiety and depression. Referring to Carl Jung, adolescents with high levels of church attendance and spiritual meaning in life, that is, intrinsic orientation, demonstrate lower levels of depression.

To see if a correlation exists between religion and depression, a random sample of twenty-five students (aged 18 to 24) was taken from North Dakota State University, which consisted of 12 females and 17 males with religious preferences of Evangelical Free, Presbyterian, Assembly of God, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Jewish. Since this study focuses on intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientation, only religious individuals who believe in a divine power participated in this experiment. The participants were asked to fill out a voluntary consent form, followed by their personal data, which included sex, age, religious denomination, church attendance, household income, and marital status to find possible confounding variables. After the participants completed these forms, they took the Religious Orientation Scale Survey (ROS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) to find out if there really is a relationship between religious orientation and depressive symptoms in individuals.

The hypothesis of the NDSU study is based on Genia, Vicky, and Shaw’s research. I predicted that people who were extrinsically motivated would have higher symptoms of depression than those with an intrinsic orientation. This hypothesis was accepted after viewing my results on the following graph. As depressive scores increased, extrinsic scores increased and intrinsic scores decreased. This means that people who have intrinsic religious views have fewer depressive symptoms. So, if people seek future growth and have more personal attachments to their religion, they are less likely to have depression. The results from both studies show that an intrinsic view of religion is related to lower depressive symptoms.

If the studies in both of the results are true, then we should be aware of our religious motivations and how they can affect our own depressive symptoms. Gaining awareness of this correlation will empower people, making them conscious of the connections between their symptoms and motivations. The sample of NDSU students that participated in this study is representative of all college students between 18 to 24 because they were randomly chosen for a scientifically designed study. The relationship between depression and religion is also useful for people other than college students, whether it’s a doctor trying to detect or treat depressive symptoms, parents deciding how to teach their children about religion, or individuals seeking knowledge about their psychological symptoms.

 
Works Cited

Genia, Vicky, & Shaw, Dale. (1991). Religion, Intrinsic-Extrinsic Orientation, and Depression. Sociological Aspects, 32 (3), 274-283.
Spillet, M. A., Park, H.-S., Murgatroyd, W., Raynock, D. C. (1989). Relationship between intrinsic-extrinsic religious orientation and depressive symptoms in Korean Americans. Taylor & Francis, 11, 315-324.
Navara, Geoffrey S., & James, Susan. (2005). Acculturative stress of missionaries: Does religious orientation affect religious coping and adjustment? International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29 (1), 39-58.

Here is an easy recipe for cinnamon rolls… yum. I recently made them for my Bible study group. It only has 6 ingredients and one of them is store-bought crescent rolls.

INGREDIENTS:
1 - 8 ounce tube crescent rolls
1/4 cup butter, melted, divided
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk

 
PREPARATION:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Butter 8 or 9-inch round cake pan. Open crescent rolls can. Pinch seams together to make large rectangle. Brush 1/2 of melted butter over dough. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll tightly from long end of rectangle. With serrated knife, cut into 8 rolls. Place in prepared pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until tops are lightly browned. Stir together remaining butter, powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons milk to make icing. Spoon icing over rolls just out of oven. Serve cinnamon rolls warm.

I highly recommend these rolls if you are serving a large group. They’re easy to make and unbelievably yummy!

At the NDANG chaplain worship service, one of the chaplain assistant’s served his last day. He graduated from North Central University to be a youth pastor in Wilmar, MN. We will miss him, as he used his musical talent to worship God and told so many amazing stories.

Today, he shared a baseball story, where he comes up to the bat and lets out a swing. Strike one! He starts feeling nervous. So, he makes a couple practice swings for the second pitch. Strike two! Now he plans on bunting the final strike, making it easy to sprint to first base. However, he decides to swing it at the last second, and CRACK–he hits the ball and runs like the wind to first base. Pausing on first, he looks up to see his coach saying, “HOMERUN!” As he slides back to home, the crowd rises and applauds.

On this day, his girlfriend said, “If he hit’s a homerun today, I know I’m supposed to marry him.” When they got engaged, she told him about the baseball story and feeling like he was “the one” for her. When he asked her to marry him, he also asked her to “follow” him. This made sense. When we marry someone, we also agree to follow them. The same applies if we give our hearts to Jesus–we agree to follow Him. It is important to marry in Christ, something I have been thinking a lot about lately. When people enter a good marriage, they just seem to “know” they are the one.

This relates to my previous relationship and “knowing” whether he was the one. The person I was with was unsure about his faith. I did not know what to do and I kept blaming myself. But then I realized that this is up to God and that I cannot take His place. God’s plan seemed to be different from my own. I cannot be in a relationship just because they make me feel loved. I need someone who follows Christ and loves me as Christ does. My plan would be to stay with him, but I felt God tugging me away from that plan.

Our plan to “bunt” everything thrown at us and taking the easy way out is not God’s plan. He wants us to feel confident, without turning back. No matter how much I try to plan, I just need to give my life to God. He wants to play a part in every decision we make. This includes all decisions–relationships, jobs, everyday choices, and so on. If we don’t allow Him to play this role, who are we really following? Ourselves? Our girlfriend/boyfriend? Other idols? God wants us to chose Him to defeat the idols that are continually thrown at us.

“Thus let all Your enemies perish, O LORD!
But let those who love Him be like the sun
When it comes out in full strength.
So the land had rest for forty years.”

Deborah, the first judge in the Bible, sang this song for the victory over the land of Canaan. God chose Deborah to serve God, just like he chose the next judge, Gideon, to serve. In the Bible, the book of Judges shows Gideon as one of the three judges in Israel. God called these judges, Deborah, Gideon, and Jephthah, to communicate His will to the people.

 
While reading The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, by W.P. Kinsella, I found an interesting correlation to the Bible. Matthew Clark names his son Gideon because he, like the biblical Gideon, played the trumpet. The name Gideon means “mighty warrior.” Although the biblical Gideon appears weak and cowardly, he is chosen to fulfill a mission, just like the Gideon of the IBC. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy remakes this story, yet in a different context.

 
The Chosen

As is the pattern throughout the book of judges, the Israelites worshiped idols instead of God after forty years of peace brought by Deborah’s victory over Canaan and were allowed to be attacked by the neighboring Midianites. One day, the biblical Gideon sifts wheat, where the angel of God appeared and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior!” In reply, Gideon asks why God was not helping His people. But the angel told him that God chose him to help His people. The angel of God sent him to fight the Midianites to save Israel. However, Gideon was afraid to conquer the Midianites since he was the weakest of his family. At the beginning of this biblical story, Gideon faces a serious challenge, but he is not confident he can fulfill the role God has given him.

In Big Inning (”beginning”), Iowa there was baseball. And like the biblical Gideon, the Gideon in The IBC encounters a mission. Gideon’s father, Matthew Clark, has given him information about the Iowa Baseball Confederacy, a league he envisioned after being struck by lightning. He gained encyclopedic knowledge of this team, which brings Gideon on a quest to prove that this confederacy played against the Chicago Cubs in the summer of 1908. Gideon then enters the time and place of this event in 1908. Here, he meets Drifting Away, an Indian that Gideon’s father recognized. When he sees Drifting Away, he asks why he was chosen to save the confederacy’s record. Drifting Away chose him to embark on this quest, as the angel chose the biblical Gideon to fight the Midianites. Gideon was trying to save the confederacy - symbolizing the biblical Gideon’s calling to save Israel. He feels as scared as the biblical Gideon to pursuit this journey, since he believes no one cares about this confederacy. Both Kinsella’s Gideon and the biblical Gideon are given a duty that is not explained or proven; nonetheless, they strive to follow their calling.

In biblical times, the Lord tells Gideon to cut down the altar of Baal and the Asherah idol, and replace it with an altar for the Lord. Gideon knew the Lord would guide him and his people to the right direction. Therefore, Gideon and his servants did what the Lord had told him to do at night, so they would not be seen. When the men in Midian awoke, they asked each other who replaced the altar. Someone told them that Gideon, the son of Joash, did this. So they told Joash, “Bring your son out. He has pulled down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah idol beside it. He must die!” But Joash said, “Are you going to take Baal’s side? Are you going to defend him? If Baal is a god, let him fight for himself. It’s his altar that has been pulled down.” The next night, the biblical Gideon had a dream, in which a loaf of barley bread rolled into the camp of Midian. In ancient times, God spoke to people through dreams. Gideon interprets this dream as the Lord handing the army of Midian to his people. Throughout his mission to defeat the Midianites, he gives his army “a trumpet and an empty jar with a burning torch inside.” He told everyone to follow his actions. So Gideon and a hundred men came to Midian, where they all blew their trumpets and smashed their jars. Gideon and his army attacked the Midian soldiers, in which twenty-two thousand men returned home and ten thousand remained. After the victory, the people, recognizing their need for centralized leadership of the confederacy, petitioned to Gideon that he establish a hereditary monarchy, with himself as the first king. Gideon refused, however, on the basis that “the Lord will rule over you.”

 
Comparably, Gideon of the IBC fought a similar battle. Baseball became a battle - one that had more than two thousand innings (note that ‘two thousand’ comes from the ‘twenty-two thousand’ men returning home in the biblical Gideon’s tale). As he does this, “ten men lay in their bed rolls about the camp,” which portrays the biblical Gideon’s dream where a loaf of barley bread rolled into the camp of Midian. Gideon, parallel to the biblical Gideon, blows a blast on his trumpet to draw attention. Throughout this battle, Drifting Away visits the camp of the white men, killing them in their sleep. Drifting Away, who represents the angel of God in the Bible, represents the actions of the battle in The IBC. This makes sense, as the angel of God in the Bible works through Gideon and guides his battle. As you can see, both of the battles provide a common theme: to let go and let the Lord control the battles of our lives.

 
Peace will fill our lives if we accept what the Lord has given us. In The IBC, Gideon was obsessing over a false way of life. Drifting Away assumed, when he saw Gideon and Missy looking happy, that Gideon’s quest was also over. Maybe Gideon does not think his quest is over yet. Or maybe he’s been searching so long that he doesn’t know how to stop. Before he runs into the 1978 version of Drifting Away and Onamata, he dances with Missy and says that he’d like to have that moment frozen in time. Drifting Away says, “Maybe I’ll see you at the ballpark in Onamata,” then thinks about it, and says, “After.” Gideon replies, “Yes, after…” then pauses and says “Sarah.” This means that he’d be going back to a time “after Sarah,” after the flood. Big Inning, the IBC, and Sarah are all permanently lost. After this happens, Gideon allows God to control his life, just as the biblical Gideon - realizing this would lead to happiness.

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

I believed that his trip back to 1908 represented a spiritual journey, in which he learned that clinging too tightly to a obsession led to doom, while pursuing love and learning to be happy with what you have brought rewards. For Gideon, Missy was love, and Sarah/Sunny and the IBC were obsessions, or “idols,” like the Israelites’ false gods in the Bible. But if he’s going to “take something with [him] this time,” he’s obviously going somewhere. I still believe that Gideon can’t go back to Sarah or to the game. I’d like to think that he understands this, though perhaps he doesn’t (notice that he tried to save Sunny, even though she was obviously fated to die). Even so, Gideon learns to stop worshipping over a false way of life and, like the biblical Gideon, chooses to follow God’s will.

 
So, what can we conclude from these afraid, yet noble warriors? From both the biblical and IBC Gideons, we learn that God takes weak, humble, sometimes fearful people and uses them to do wonderful things. God uses the biblical Gideon to stop the Midianites from worshipping false Gods. And The IBC explains that Drifting Away does the same, showing Gideon that he was not alone in the battle, and that he would direct him. The Gideon warriors communicate God’s will to the people. And the story of Gideon has been repeated (in each persons own way) through the lives of millions throughout history.

“Don’t let the world deceive you,
I shall not be moved.
Like a tree
That’s planted by the water
I shall not be moved.”

 
Religion takes its turn, in the form of the Twelve-Hour Church of Time Immemorial. Their constant refrain of “we shall not be moved” could be construed as the theme song for this particular game, but, in the end, they find themselves washed away with everything else, leaving only baseball. This song relates to the song of Deborah, in the Bible’s book of Judges. At the end of her song, “… the land had rest for forty years.” This means that the people did not worship false idols, or a false way of life, but lived in peace according to God’s will. The Gideon in The IBC stopped allowing the world to deceive, or move him, from the true life God meant him to live.

Works Cited

Extreme Teen Bible. New Century Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001.

“Gideon and How God Worked with Him.” The Journal of Biblical Accuracy. 29 Jan. 2008 <http://www.jba.gr/Articles/nkjv_jbaoct97.htm>.

Kinsella, W.P. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. New York: First Mariner, 2003.

“New King James Version.” Gospel Communications International. 29 Jan. 2008

<http://www.biblegateway.com>

“Old King James Version.” Gospel Communications International. 29 Jan. 2008

<http://www.biblegateway.com>

“Old Testament: Gideon Listens to God.” Mission Arlington Metroplex. 29 Jan. 2008

<http://www.missionarlington.org/pdfs/OTL2Year>.

Sullivan, Dale. “Gideon.” Biblical Lives 29 Jan. 2008 < http://www.evangelbaptist.org/

highschool/lessons/gideon.htm>.