Boys and Berries

Small hands stretching for the table, barely reaching the treasure atop.

Hands close around ripe, brightly colored jewels.

Ruby lips upturned in anticipation, part into a smile.
Bursts of red, blue, and the deepest purple are followed by sighs of delight.
Blonde heads full of curls and faces stained by bounty.
Pleasure in its purest form.

A Few Things...

to love about Pittsburgh.

The Strip District

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Specifically, Prestogeorge Coffee and Fine Foods

So many childhood memories of sights, sounds and smells held in this store.

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Heinz Tomato Ketchup

If you use anything else... well, I'll pray for you.

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PNC Park

Guys, this is what a baseball field should look like.

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The Rivers

The Allegheny and Monongahela come together to form the Ohio and the most striking downtown, known as the "Golden Triangle."

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Spring Break Dreamin'

With the much needed break fast approaching, I cannot help but let my mind wander to exotic locations and dream of my coming trip to... Pennsylvania (super exotic, right?).

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RIP Mellon Arena

Steel Country, it's a real thing, people.

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Yinz can take the girl outa the 'Burgh, but yinz can't take the dahntahn outa the girl.

Small Fish in A Big Pond: Thoughts on the Struggles, Humor, and Blessings of being a "Covenant Kid"

Here's something I bet you didn't know about me: within my closest circle of friends I am sometimes known by a curious nickname. What is it, you ask? Well, those who know and love me best have affectionately dubbed me "Covenant Kid."

Now, for those who don't know, a "Covenant Kid" is one who has grown up in the church under the baptismal covenant which binds them to the Body (Church) through God's promise and faithfulness to their believing parents from the time of their infancy.  This term typically refers, more specifically, to a human who has grown up in a church that is Reformed  in its teachings.

Hi, I'm Caity and I'm a Covenant Kid.

I feel a little like I'm at an AA meeting writing about this, or publicly proclaiming some wrong, which I am. But it is also much more than that. As my friends know, I have quite the superiority complex and while their nickname keeps me humble through its reminder of the grace that's been shown to me (the whole idea of being a Covenant Kid necessitates an acknowledgement that you did not choose God, or the Church but rather were chosen), it also feeds this little, extremely hungry part of my ego that believes I am better for having grown up this way. 

Going to a small Christian school in Pennsylvania that was started by my OP (Orthodox Presbyterian) church and densely populated by children from various Reformed churches in the area, I remember knowing exactly who the mysterious breed of Christians  referred to as "Charismatics" were.  During class discussions it seemed that the only thing the majority (coming from a variety of Presbyterian churches) and the minority (Charismatics/Nondenomintaionals, Lutherans, etc.) could agree on was that Catholics were "wrong, oh so wrong."

The Struggles

In 9th grade, my youth group literally took a field trip of sorts to a Charismatic church.  To my no-hand-raising, clapping-only-during-the-appropriate-songs ("And all the trees of the field will clap, will clap their hands!"), liturgically programmed brain... well, it seemed like chaos.  They were singing. Randomly. AND raising their hands! Hand-raising was the stuff of myths, let alone random outbursts of song WITHOUT ANY SPECIFIED LYRICS! Needless to say, it was an experience I will never forget.  It is also an experience that probably increased my conviction of my way being the right way.

Being a Covenant Kid, for me, ingrained a sense of self-righteousness that I've never quite grown out of.  The edges have been dulled a bit by my 6-years and counting in Oklahoma where I've loved and cared for many with a less structured tilt than myself.  However, I still cringe at excessive references to "the Spirit moving" someone to do anything, shake my head at the sight of someone in Bible study with any translation other than the ESV, and repress the desire to jump on anyone whose theology I perceive as being flawed rather than engage them in polite and constructive conversation.  It also seems to have a crippling effect on my appreciation of the broadness of the Kingdom. When I become so obsessed with wanting everyone to agree with me and see things my way, I often lose sight of the fact that God is so great and so gracious and so BIG that he builds his kingdom on people as one-track minded as myself as well as the entire spectrum of believers.  Despite my attempts to force Christianity into my small, intellectual, comprehensible, and manageable box, God is at work bursting those constraints in which I have actually bound myself.

You Know You're a Covenant Kid When (The Humor)...

Okay, if you don't think that it is hilarious that I had to be taken on a "field trip" in order to see someone raise their hands in worship for the first time (I was in 9th grade people! I was 15!) , well then, you clearly have no sense of humor. Wondering how to know a Covenant Kid when you see one?

Here are a few distinguishing characteristics:

• you are a pro at sword drills and Bible Trivia 
• you can recite Catechism by heart ("The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, etc.)
• you can make reference to any and all "-toins" (justification, sanctification, glorification, etc. Put a "-tion" on it and it automatically becomes religious and/or funny)
• your favorite flower is TULIP
• you get slightly disgruntled when your worship leader opts for more contemporary worship songs over the traditional hymns
• you take wine at Communion even though you're under 21
• you can legitimately answer "Jesus" to any question posed in Sunday school and defend it using your knowledge of Covenant theology

The Blessing

The most beautiful thing about this stigma of the "Covenant Kid," the thing that brings me to tears every time I have the privilege of watching an infant be baptized into the Church, is that there will never be a day when that child looks back and sees that he/she  didn't know Christ. There is no "testimony" in the most common religious sense of the word, because the testimony lies in the faithfulness of God to complete the good work which he has begun through the instruments of God-fearing parents, the love and care of the local church, and a growth in understanding of what all this means within the child him/herself.  I am a Covenant Kid, and I will never be capable of boasting in my own salvation as much as I try. It is not the choice of the child to be brought from death to life, from darkness to light, from sickness to health, but rather they were chosen, even without knowledge, to testify to God's faithfulness and the abundance of life in Him every day of their  lives. 

On Keeping My New Years Resolution (So Far...)

So, in order to keep my Resolution to be more creative and/or write more often this year I have been participating in Moorea Seal's 52 Lists.  The basic premise is that she provides a prompt every week and you end up making 52 lists over the course of the year. Brill, right? Well, the simpler the better for me. And being naturally inclined toward list making, I love it. It's an organized linear form of the chaos in my brain.

This weeks prompt is "List your greatest comforts," so I though I'd share a few of mine. And who knows, maybe you'll be inspired to make a few lists of your own!

• My morning coffee.  If anyone follows me on Instagram, this comes as no surprise. Coffee is clearly my most photographed object.

• Being surrounded by family.  

The more the better.

• Long, meandering conversations with friends.

• Ice cream eaten on the kitchen floor.

• Baking.  Maybe I should just start answering the question, "What are you going to do with your English degree?" with, "Bake it into a cake."

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• Lounging around campus on a sunny day with the first hints of Spring's aroma wafting in the air.  

It's great, you should try it.

A Few Things...

That I Learned Over Christmas Break

After having awakened less than two hours ago and having no obligations to school until tomorrow, I feel that the only way to disprove the nagging voice at the back of my mind convicting me of such slovenly behavior is to share some things learned over the last three weeks. Take that accusatory voices of self-judgement!

1. Fortune cookies really only give you two things: bad advice and an obligation.  I mean, how can you say no to eating a cookie that you've just destroyed in order to get at its ever disappointing contents?

2. People have a strange fascination with owning a money counter.
I have my hypotheses as to why this might be - class envy, thinking that having a money counter means that you have enough money that you would NEED such a device to aid you in your tabulation of wealth, just liking the rather loud whirring sound that it makes (which I have begun to find oddly soothing), etc. Regardless of reasoning, this was a common statement over my three week return to the banking world, "Man! I wanna get me one a those [money counters]!"

3. Nothing says Christmas like a pair of footie-pajamas.
Or filling said footie-pajamas with balloons and popping them all in the Christmas spirit of competition.

4. It is safe for humans to consume glitter.
I admit, I was skeptical at first, but a Google search yielding 5 sources affirming glitter's edibility was good enough for me. However, don't go adding glitter to everything you serve now, as tempting as it may be. It is not safe for children to eat glitter and can actually cause injury to their internal organs.

5. Muppet Monopoly is far and away more exciting than regular Monopoly.
As if this were a surprise to anyone.

6. Pizza is better when eaten on a pizza plate.

I knew this already but thought it was time to share my secret knowledge of maximum pizza enjoyment.

7. My New Years resolution (which I am just making right now on January 7th) is to be more creative and/or write more often for the simple pleasure of writing.

I'm pretty good at thinking lots of thoughts inside of my head and never writing them down or doing anything with them except store them within my mental archives which end up overflowing and bursting their floodgates and spilling out in all the wrong places. So maybe journaling more regularly - whatever that looks like -  will aid me in emptying my over-filled brain.

Christmases Past and Why Growing Up is Hard to Do.

Well, folks, in a few short days I will be making my way back to my parents' house in Tulsa where I will partake in all sorts of Christmasy pleasures. Gatherings of friends and family, finding the perfect gift for each specific person, baking peppermint into everything I can think of, sipping a "Dirty Santa" at my favorite coffee shop: all give immense pleasure which is intensified by the fact that not one thought will be given to school. No. Not one.

However, in looking forward to these rare treats, I cannot help looking back to years past. Years when my mom's family was there, present and accounted for at our house every Christmas Eve. Years when I literally couldn't sleep because I was so excited for the festivities, which would ensue the following day, so I would beg my mom to read The Night Before Christmas to me just one more time. Years when we would make the trek out to Beaver, Pennsylvania for a Christmas Day filled with cousins, aunts and uncles, an abundance of food, and an even greater abundance of hugs and kisses. Someone always got the most ridiculous gift imaginable  - like the watch my dad received from Grandma Kullen one year with Bill Clinton's profile as the face and his growing Pinochio-style nose as the second hand - and the house was filled with laughter and joy and family and adventure.

It is hard to put into words what these Christmas Days entailed fully.  I remember the cold and trudging through the snow to and from the car but I remember it being warm and cozy inside. I remember being forced into my snowboots against my will and in later years being chastised for complaining of cold feet in favor of fashion. I remember playing Connect Four in my grandma's basement and hardly being able to wait to get my hands on whatever new babies there were (there were always new babies at Christmas). Mostly, they all run together into one great memory of being surrounded by the people who loved me most in the world and vice versa.

Now, we still have family Christmas and it is equally wonderful but with those formerly distant, the ones who used to call the house in Beaver every year and talk and the phone would get passed to you long enough to hear what was important, "I love you! Merry Christmas!" Roles have been reversed now and new traditions born. And it is good.

It is odd to think, though, that this will be my last Christmas in college. My last as one of "the kids." This time next year I will be graduating and starting real life and things will become far more complicated. At this point, it is a little hard to know exactly where I fit. In transition, I can only foresee Christmas and life becoming even more hectic. I suppose, this is what I mean when I say that growing up is hard to do. College turns into an awkward phase of in-between and sometimes it seems like things will only get harder. What I do know is that despite the awkwardness, the Light and Life will continue to be present.