#I travel too much to own books anymore pdfs are where it's at | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

its-bianca · 5 years

Text

Studying/Planner Apps

Essential apps for studying, planning, health, etc. Who says everything has to be analog?

These are all the ones I’ve tried and downloaded (unless said otherwise). The ones with the * next to it are the ones I don’t use or have gotten rid of for personal reasons, but still highly recommend all of them.

I go through apps like a child goes through toys. I try them out, get rid of the ones I don’t like. Apps are toys.

There’s tons more, but these ones are the ones that I recommend to people with similar needs and schedules like mine. The ones I haven’t or don’t use anymore are ones I could definitely see being helpful to others or that I’d maybe use in the future if my needs change.

Note: these are things from the App Store, but I’m pretty sure most are available on the Play Store too.

Podomoro Time Trackers

Forrest* - Haven’t tried this because you have to pay for it on the App Store, but I’ve seen everyone go bonkers over this app and how they plant trees for studying, etc. etc.

Plantie - Best and only Podomoro app I still use. Gamified, but not TOO gamified. You just grow fruit, collect, coins, buy more fruit trees. It’s super simple, while still providing really good graphs and charts. Also, it allows you to turn off the feature where it stops your task as soon as you leave the app. Sometimes I need to use my phone for assignments, and I still want to track my time. It’s completely FREE, with GREAT charts as a visual. Other apps need a premium subscription to access the graphs and charts, which is why I love this app because even though the chart is quite simple, it does its job. Although, it doesn’t tell you when to take the longer break and it has to be adjusted manually. That’s fine for me, because I always get disturbed by something before I even get to 4 blocks, and if I waited until I had a big chunk, I’d never get anything done.

Block & Flow: Stay focused* - Podomoro but visualised with stacks of blocks for each day or week. And you can list out what tasks you have for that day and sort out sections for work, reading, school, etc. I didn’t need that feature, which is why I used Plantie instead.

Workflow Timer* - Another good option with options to make multiple tasks lists. One of the simpler and more user-friendly ones. It also looks really good!

Hours Time Tracking* - App for timeblocking, scheduling, and tracking the time while you’re working. It’s not helpful for me, because it’s practically impossible for me to strictly schedule something in my day after school, but could be useful for others. Really easy to makes tasks and separate by color.

Stay Focused* - Simplest Podomoro timer out there. No distractions, no graphs, no gamification, just pure focus.

Planners/Calendars/Tasks

Wunderlist - Great reminder system, intuitive (type in “essay next mon” and it will schedule the task to be due next Monday), syncs everywhere, attach documents, etc. I used this for my assignment list, books to read list, schedule etc. for a long time, until recently where things got hectic and I wanted to make a daily to do list rather than only a master list. I use a bullet journal for school stuff now, but still keep Wunderlist for that shopping/movies/books/apps/websites to check out list.

24me* - Personal assistant, lots and lots of features, with scheduling, to-do lists, notes, journaling, etc. Tracks weather and traffic to and from work/school. All in one.

Google Calendar - I don’t schedule on this, but use it to sync my school calendar with personal calendar. Easy scheduling and you can SHARE your calendar with a friend! All Google apps are made for collaboration basically.

Habitify* - Habit tracker on your phone and tracks progress every day, showing when you skip and reminding you of it. Don’t quite remember why I got rid of it because checking back it seems really good. Might redownload.

Trello* - Kanban boards, “cards” and lists, great reviews. I’ve heard people use it as a bullet journal sort of and project planner though that wasn’t it’s original purpose. I downloaded it for a club thing, but never really used it personally.

Notetaking/Planning/Journaling

OneNote - I use this ALL the time, even though I don’t use my Microsoft account much anymore. My notes are organized and have a hierarchy. Very customizable with headers, notebook sections, pages, subpages, etc. Easy to share with group mates and an okay collaboration space if you want to see each other’s progress on research or something during a group project. MUCH better than having tons of Google or Word docs of notes. Completely FREE for the full experience.

Notion* - One in all workspace for journaling, notes, scheduling, planning projects basically a mini-website for your life and work. Great guide for bullet journaling on Notion from studyblr Eintsein here. Another Notion bullet journaling guide on YouTube here and here. I highly recommend it, but don’t use it since I use an analog bujo, prefer OneNote for class notes, and don’t have much use for it other than that currently. You do have to pay for unlimited notes, but there’s a pretty good amount to start out, and if you really don’t want to pay, there are workarounds to it.

Milanote* - Like Notion, but more restrictions on the free version. I don’t use it anymore because I’ve realized I didn’t really have a good purpose for it and it cluttered up my phone. In a way, it’s more ~aesthetic~ than Notion, but there are less things you can do. It does have a better learning curve though.

Evernote - I don’t use it often, but I have it to take quick notes or other stuff. Evernote is like a god in the notetaking world, because it’s user friendly, quick, and syncs up really easily with everything.

Health

7 Minute Fitness - There’s a lot of these out there. Go find one or two. Don’t be sedentary.

30 Day Fitness Challenge - Same concept as above.

Simple Habit - FULL of free mostly 5 minute guided meditations (though there’s premium access). There’s no excuse now. Also, I used to try 10 minute meditations on Headspace which made me really sleepy. 5 minutes work best, because they’re quick, and if you want more time, just move on to the next part in the series or find another one. Lots of free series for basically any subject (school, women, mothers, grade anxiety, sleep) and SOS mode. Unfortunately, you can’t download any of them in the free version.

AloeBud* - Self-care pocket companion. Make reminders on your phone for every self-care thing you can think of. Schedule notifications multiple times a day with personalized messages.

TaoMix2 - Mixer for relaxing nature/white noise sounds. It’s pretty restricted in the free, but it’s enough for me.

Cove* - If you’re a music person, this app let’s you make quick music and tunes matching your mood. A sort of an easy music therapy if you’re not good with instruments or composition.

Reflecty* - Little journal buddy asking you fun/reflective questions about your day and tracking your mood. It’s short and sweet. Each entry is a “story”.

Oak* - Great for breathing and very simple guided meditations. Breathing practices for anxiety, freshening up, and calming nerves before a big performance. It just takes 15 seconds to breathe.

Grid Diary* - Journal prompts in grid fromat. Customizable daily prompts.

DayOne Journal* - Again, RAVING reviews. Everyone loves it. I haven’t used it because I prefer analog journals, but it’s a pretty good for travel journals with pictures, audio, video, etc.

UVLens - Reminds you to put sunscreen on throughout the day depending on your skin, activities that day, and type of sunscreen.

Flo - Period tracker. Need I say more?

Tasty - FOOOD (by Buzzfeed). New recipe ideas, includes shopping list, make your own cookbook.

KitchenStories - MORE FOOOOD. Includes Asian and international cuisine since it’s crowd-sourced.

Miscellaneous

Audiobooks - Audiobooks from the Gutenberg Project, but in app form. You can download classics for free, etc. There are some paid audiobooks, but they’re usually for better narrators/text corrections, so absolutely not necessary to get lost in an old book. Jane Austen, Charlotte Brönte, L. Frank Baum, all the good stuff.

Daylio - Tracks mood, activities, with intuitive charts. You can edit moods and activities shown per day. Free version is pretty good, and it replaces the need for making a habit tracker in my journal, because I don’t like making those.

Scannable - Very intuitive scanning app. I’ve used this for many legal/important documents and nobody had a clue it was “scanned” on a phone. It makes regular photos of documents easier to read and look like it came from a scanner. It can share as a PDF or jpg. Granted, you need good lighting for the best quality.

Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Slides - Everyone’s probably used this before, but to reiterate, this is the best collaboration app/website. Super easy to share with real-time tracking and updates.

BEAKER by THIX* - For chemistry people. Mix compounds/elements together, make new compounds, see their reactions. Don’t have much use for it since my chemistry class is moving at a glacial pace but I could see this being useful for others.

Chemtriz - Same as above, but gamified. You take elements and put them together in the right configuration to make compounds.

PictureThis - Plant Identifier - Weird addition to list, but it’s a cool app to get back in with nature. Now I know what a boxwood plant looks like.

IFTTT* - Hard to explain, but it enables different apps that don’t usually work together to work together. So if you input something in an email, you can make it go into a Google Spreadsheet(?). Just go check it out. It’s cool. Many shortcuts, track stuff in the Health App, get emails showing cool NASA pictures.

Canva - AMAZING graphic design app/website for those who can’t use Photoshop (ie. me). It’s better online, but there are hundreds of templates for magazines, book covers, planners, posters, flyers, and basically any graphic design needs. Many free graphics and photos ready to use. Premium version is NOT necessary to get full benefits from this program. I used it to create this calendar for my room.

23 notes · View notes

nowtravel · 3 years

Link

Rejecting the nauseating mix of new age spiritualism and old age religion that defines the Camino de Santiago, Bert Archer embarks on the lesser-known Via de la Plata

The road is just wide enough for a pick-up truck loaded with building supplies to rumble higher up into the hills that overlook Baños de Montemayor, still terraced after 17 or 18 centuries. The road is mostly flagstones, mostly level, with tufts of beaten-down grass poking up between them. But every so often, there’s a stripe of more obviously found stones, rounded and less evenly spaced, laid around the same time the terraces were being carved, that gave the Via de la Plata its name (which, despite sounding like it has something to do with silver, actually comes from the Arabic al balat, which means “cobblestone road”).

Following the pick-up are five men, aged probably 25 to 50, Croatian by the sound of them. Three have wide-brimmed straw hats, the sort that were probably conceived as modest country hats but that stand out these days as the millinery equivalent of the peasant dress; two of them have thick socks under sandals; all have conspicuously large and conspicuously new backpacks: pilgrims, on their way to Santiago de Compostela.

I hate them on sight.

These are the people that make the more popular parts of the so-called Camino de Santiago so intolerable; these are the people I wanted to get away from when I took the Via de la Plata, a lesser known pilgrimage than the Camino.

I like the idea of a structured route with some heritage as much as the next guy, walking in the footsteps of thousands who have walked the same road. I just can’t stand the arch admixture of new age spiritualism with old age religion that infuses the very dust kicked up by every be-sandaled foot that strides the Camino.

Born in the Dark Ages from a myth about the mystical appearance of the clam-encrusted body of St. James, executed by Herod in Jerusalem in 44 AD, the pilgrimage route had slowly fallen into desuetude until the 20th century, when people realized they didn’t have to walk anymore. They still visited the church where the mythical body of the saint mythically rests, but they got there by 20th-century methods: planes, trains, and automobiles.

Then came the 1970s, a decade that has a lot to answer for: the Khmer Rouge, China’s Cultural Revolution, Idi Amin, Allende/Pinochet. To that list may be added a resurgence of pedestrian pilgrims, dedicated souls who cut through the undergrowth to reveal the neglected paths, going back to primary sources, like Pope Calixtinus II’s 12th-century guide to the camino, the Codex Calixtinus, to re-establish the route. There were some faithful in there, certainly, but the fact that the resurgence came at the same time as the international marathon boom is not pure coincidence.

As the line-ups at Machu Picchu and the final approach to Everest’s peak attest, an increasingly leisured and monied Western population has taken rather warmly to artificially reproducing the sorts of physical hardships their ancestors fought so hard to put behind them. Iron Man competitions, extreme sports, and the blooming of a hundred million six-packs all bear witness to a population for whom leisure has become oppressive and regular achievement—stable income, family, housing, a general lack of conflict—is too easy, no longer enough.

Marathoners and Everest climbers are noxious enough, but what makes the Camino so intolerable is the added celestial righteousness. I have no pilgrims in any of my social media networks, but I have read the comments elsewhere: regular reports on how far, how much, how great, with the added bonus of conspicuously quiet—but not silent—averrals of how grounded they feel now, or what inspiring people they met along the way, like the 82-year-old woman who did it barefoot, or the uncle who did it for his cancer-stricken nephew. Ugh.

And those who do not believe they have a friend in the sky, but follow the same route as those who for more than a thousand years did and made the trip in the hopes they’d escape the business end of his supernal hob-nailed boot (though for those who still believe, the route is still, as the Catholics say, “indulgenced”) seem to me disingenuous and possibly deluded, like mindful college kids who think Buddhism is an alternative to organized religion, or people whose third car is electric.

Robert Ward, who wrote two good books on the subject of being a secular pilgrim on the Camino, is neither disingenuous nor deluded. He started out as a guy who just liked walking. Then he heard about the Camino, and something happened to him. In the middle of many good sentences in these books, one about walking parts of the Camino several times over the course of a decade, the other about tracking down as many depictions of the Virgin Mary along it and similar routes, he comes out with ones like “While we’ve all heard it said that life is a pilgrimage, it is also true that a pilgrimage is a life,” and “I was a pilgrim and always had been one. It was something that dawned on me day by day, not a lightning flash on the road to Damascus, but a slow recognition that ‘pilgrim’ is another way of understanding who we are, and that to make a pilgrimage is only to formalize that understanding.” There’s something about walking holy roads that makes you think big, beyond what’s in front of you, that attempts to give it all a meaning that transcends the cafes and the bars, the jamon and the queso, the beer and the fina.

There is one very good thing about the Camino though: It goes through small towns that would otherwise never attract travellers. As the route increases in popularity, however—there were 237,886 pilgrims in 2013, according to the official count—they are becoming more and more like standard tourist towns, albeit catering to a very particular demographic.

The Via de la Plata is different. It’s been around as long, and has been used from time to time over the centuries as an alternative, all-Spanish route to the tomb of St. James (the standard Camino routes begin in France). But it has never been primarily that, and that has made all the difference.

The Via, also known as the Ruta de la Plata, began life as a pre-Roman trade route, first for the transport of tin, then as a way for the Romans to conquer various bits of Iberia, who later, according to Pliny the Elder, used it to trade gold and copper, running as it did between the copper mines of Rio Tinto and the gold mines in Las Medulas.

Practical people built practical settlements, unlike those who, from Charlemagne forward, built basilicas and monuments to saints and martyrs around which towns like Redecilla and Ourense grew. There are churches in Fuente de Cantos and Casar de Caceres on the Via, but they’re not the main attractions and not being on the Camino has meant they’ve been thrown back on their own devices to come up with economic engines to replace the trade no longer being done along the route, which is now the A-66, which, though it pretty much follows the old Via, allows you to efficiently bypass all the towns. (In fact, a drunken holler in a Seville bar asking if anyone had heard of Fuente de Cantos drew a chorus of equally bibulous “No’s,” and one meek response from the kitchen, “I think it’s a town.” Fuente de Cantos is just 37 miles north of Seville, and the A66 is the way you get from there to Madrid.)

When I got to Fuente de Cantos (population: 5,002), the church was shut, so I visited the house of the doctor of the mother of the second most famous Spanish painter of the 17th century. Francisco de Zurbaran lived the first 16 years of his life here, before his father sent him off to Seville to be a painter’s apprentice. Specializing in monks, nuns, royalty, and, in the painting that’s become his most famous, a cup of water, Zurbaran was second only to his friend Velasquez in esteem in their day.

Since then, he’s not fared too well in international circles, though in Spain, he’s still fairly well known. He’s Fuente de Cantos’ favorite son, and since the house he grew up in is still in private hands, the modest museum dedicated to his time here is in the house he was actually born in. It’s a small affair, renovated last year for the 350th anniversary of his death, so actually having any original Zurbarans was out of the question—as the museum-keeper told me, the security expenses will probably never be feasible. So, on the walls there are pictures of his pictures, blown up and framed. There’s also a new touch screen counter where you can flip through a PDF catalogue of his work. It is thoroughly charming, if earnest but underfunded and mostly amateur projects charm you.

Seville, where by some definitions the Via begins, is gorgeous. The Alcazar, recently re-celebrated as the stand-in for Game of Thrones’ Dornish palace, along with its cathedral, its jamon iberico, and many, is as glorious as you’d expect. But Fuente de Cantos, with its single visible bar, where the tapas is still free (even though the bars tend to close pretty early), and its streets lined with white-washed houses populated only by pint-sized Iker Casillases and David Silvas is unexpected, which is where its beauty lies.

The cheese you get a few miles north, in Casar de Caceres, a tiny suburb of the larger Caceres, is slightly more famous than Zurbaran. Torta del Casar is a raw sheep’s milk cheese; soft and either white or pale yellow, it’s most often served as a spread or dip. It’s a designated cheese, which means the sheep have to come from this part of Extremadura, where shepherds began making the torta accidentally, when bunches of the harder, more regular white cheese they were trying to make spoiled during humid spring seasons. Until quite recently the cheeses were given away free with the purchase of one of the more popular hard cheeses. Then an American food writer stumbled on it, praised it to the heavens, and, over the next couple of decades, turned it into one of Spain’s most expensive cheeses.

Every town along the Via has its version of the torta, something unique they’ve cultivated and are waiting for the world to recognize, from the never-quite-finished Gaudi-esque house in Los Santos de Maimona, lovingly constructed over the last three decades by a passionate septuagenarian builder named Francisco González Gragera, to Hervas, with its annual Jewish festival that celebrates the fact that it is one of the only towns in Spain that didn’t tear down its old Jewish quarter with its gentile citizens dressing up in their versions of Jewish costumes and doing little dances they think might also be Jewish.

But my favorite is the parador in Plasencia. A former nunnery, it provides a striking contrast to another one I visited just outside Fuente de Cantos, one of the few bits of evidence, aside from those Croatians, of the seeping influence of the religious pilgrimage into the Via de la Plata. The Albergue Convento Vía de la Plata de Fuente de Cantos was a modest but lovely little former convent turned into an albergue of the sort that dot the Camino de Santiago, cheap, with communal facilities and a cafeteria where you get your daily bread, and not much more, before heading out again.

Except here, it’s the exception rather than the rule, and when I called ahead to say I’d be coming, and that I thought I’d like to write about it, there was enough excitement that the mayor invited me to lunch in the albergue cafeteria, where big aluminum platters of modest food like cheese on toast and slices of jamon were served as we talk about tourism, the fantastic success that other route has made over the past couple of decades, protecting many of its small towns from the financial crisis that’s still going on here, and how she’s trying to get some of that sweet pilgrim cash out her way, to add to the mostly school group business of the Zurbaran house.

I sympathize, but later, as I sit in the vaulted brick cellar of the Plasencia parador and a waiter who knows his gin brings me a gin and tonic, served in a big-bowled stem glass packed with ice, the way they’re doing it in Barcelona and Rotterdam these days, with Fever Tree tonic and garnished with a sprig of basil, I silently hope she fails.

By the time you reach Baños de Montemayor, where I ran into my Croatian pilgrims, it’s almost time to turn off to Madrid. The Via continues, all the way north to Astorga, but this isn’t the Camino. There’s no one, in heaven or earth, tracking your progress or waiting to be impressed with your endurance, self-abnegation and weeping blisters. You can do the rest some other time if you like; the bars are open later in Madrid.

#walking tours

0 notes

doxampage · 6 years

Text

Custom Printing: Revising a New Asphalt Paver Logo

A short while ago I wrote a blog posting about a new logo I’ve been designing for a local asphalt paver. I described its genesis as a coroplast sign that morphed into a logo commission and then into cups, hats, and finally a large format print vehicle wrap. With my fiancee’s input, I provided three options a few days ago and then heard nothing back from the client. I started to get nervous. I assumed he had hated them. Then I reviewed the logos again, and I wasn’t so sure anymore either.

So today I shared the PDF of the three options with a friend and client of mine who designs print books. Interestingly enough, she used to be an editor, and I started her down the path of design, and since then I have consulted with her on the design of many of her print books, which are for such high-profile clients as the World Bank.

Turning the tables and having the student educate the teacher was humbling but very instructive. It is a lot easier to tell someone how to improve a design than to come up with a good one yourself.

That said, this is what she suggested, what I learned, and what I created for the revised, new logo. As with the initial batch of logo options, we can only wait and hope the client will be either pleased or at least articulate about what he likes and dislikes. Fortunately he called me this morning, and since then we have been playing phone tag.

What I Had Initially Created

As a recap, this is what the first three logo options looked like:

Option #1 was a background rectangle picture box containing a photo of asphalt. Over this I had placed type in Gill Sans, flush right, with the name of the state in all caps and the word “asphalt” below in lowercase letters. I made the first line white and the second line a darker gray than the background asphalt photo. I also added a black and red stylized road above the state name, with a dashed line in the center.

The second option was the same type treatment over the state map (both color and black and white versions).

The third option was the irregular outline of the state map with the type superimposed over the map image. I made the “A” in the word “asphalt” red to provide drama and immediately grab the viewer’s attention.

What My Friend and Client Said, and What I Did in Response

My fiend/client said the road would be more recognizable with a yellow line down its center rather than a red one. I had initially chosen red because of its impact. My friend was absolutely right. I should choose a color that is relevant to the logo, and the line down the center of the road is not red. It is either white or yellow.

She also suggested putting the asphalt image within the outline of the letterforms. I tried this with both the name of the state and the word “asphalt.” It seemed to be too much, so I made the name of the state red and then reduced its size and increased the size of the word “asphalt.” Because of this, the rocks in the image of asphalt (within the outlines of the letterforms) were more visible. Moreover, the image of asphalt was really only pertinent to the word “asphalt,” so it made sense to only have the image within this one word.

In addition, I used the colors of the state flag, rather than the flag itself or the outline of the map. As noted before, I replaced the red in the stylized road with a yellow dashed line. I also made the all-capitals name of the state red (the other color in the flag). So the color palette now reflected the colors of the state flag without my directly including imagery of the map or flag, and at the same time this simplified the overall look of the logo considerably.

Finally, my friend and client had suggested simplifying the overall design by making the top line and bottom line justified rather than flush right. I had resisted this idea. I felt that flush right would be more unique (less expected) than flush-left type, and that justified type would only create an undifferentiated rectangle (the shape of the exterior boundary of the logo). There would be no drama.

Therefore, as a compromise, I enlarged the word “asphalt” (as noted before), reduced the size of the state name, positioned the type with a flush-right alignment, and then added a stylized road (with the yellow, dashed line in the center) immediately to the left of the state name.

Because of these graphic decisions, I had created a continuation of the rectangle on top (the shape of the state name rendered in all capital letters) with the simulated road extending (to the left) to the same vertical axis as the left edge of the “a” in “asphalt.” On the right, I vertically aligned the final letter in the state name and the final letter in the word “asphalt.”

The gist of what I just said is that I had a rectangle. All visual elements of the logo nestled tightly into one another: the simulated road, the state name, and the word “asphalt.” Everything was tight, simple, and airy (in that the logo was not superimposed over a rectangular image). Moreover, the logo includes the texture of the asphalt within the word “asphalt.” So it has a humorous tone.

This is a viable fourth option for my client. We’ll see what happens.

What You Can Learn From This Case Study

Here are some thoughts:

I hadn’t thought of this until just now, but not having either a map or the image of the flag (or the image of the asphalt) behind the logotype will make the overall logo more flexible. It will be easier to coordinate the design of the business card and the vehicle wrap (at vastly different sizes) without a background image. The shape of the words will also be more evident and therefore more immediately recognizable (since the viewer will more readily see the descender of the “p” and the ascender of the “h” in the word “asphalt”). Plus, the slanted letterform of the letter “t” in “asphalt” will also be more visible. The take-away is that you should check your own logo design in a similar manner. Think about what is all uppercase and what is all lowercase. The eye will immediately identify a lowercase word (or one in uppercase and lowercase letters). It will recognize the shape of the word (without needing to read all the letters). If you put part of the logo in all caps, it’s shape will be just a rectangle. This will slow down the viewer’s reading speed. This doesn’t have to be a problem. You just have to be aware of it.

Think about where the reader’s eye enters the image of the logo. In the case of the logo I just created, the eye enters along the simulated road with the dashed line. The yellow grabs the reader’s attention. Then the horizontal line of the road leads the viewer’s eye to the all-caps name of the state (in red). Since the final word, “asphalt,” is larger than anything else, that’s where the eye goes next. It would go there first if not for the yellow in the simulated road and the red in the state name. In your own work, be able to articulate how the viewer’s eye enters the design, where it goes next, and where it goes after that. Make it easy for the viewer’s eye to travel comfortably through the entire logotype and image.

Finally, see what the logo looks like when you make it very large and very small. After all, it may be reproduced on both large format print signage and a business card. Also see how it looks in black and white as well as color. In the case of my project, a black-and-white-only logo directs the viewer’s eye to the word “asphalt” first, not to the yellow line in the middle of the road.

Then put the mock-ups away, and don’t look at them for a day or so. When you see your work again, you will have more objectivity. You will see both the good points and the flaws.

Finally, show the logos to other people, particularly other designers. You don’t have to take their advice, but it will help to get different points of view on your work. It may even give you new ideas to pursue. Then show your logos to your client.

The post Custom Printing: Revising a New Asphalt Paver Logo appeared first on Printing Industry Blog.

Custom Printing: Revising a New Asphalt Paver Logo published first on https://getyourprintingcompanies.tumblr.com/

0 notes

carterconlon · 6 years

Text

How Many Christians Weep On Sunday Night? by Carter Conlon

Download PDF of "How Many Christians Weep On Sunday Night?"

In the book of Numbers, the Lord instructed Moses, "'Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel.'...Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel" (Numbers 13:2–3).

The passage goes on to say, "Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told him, and said: 'We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there...We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.' And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land" (Numbers 13:26–28, 31–32). The original King James Version calls it "an evil report of the land."

The spies continued their report: "There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight. So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night" (Numbers 13:33–14:1).

I cannot help but wonder how many Christians today weep on Sunday night. After being in church on Sunday morning, how many go home hopeless—without faith for the future or a belief that God is able to save their families? They are left with no ability to believe that God is able to take them out of their despair and give them joy, a new voice, a new purpose, and a new vision. And so they go home and cry on their beds on Sunday night because they know that Monday morning is coming, and all things will remain just as they always have been.

Note that these spies were leaders who had risen to reputation among their peers; they were not selected randomly. A multitude of people were traveling through the wilderness, and these men were among those who had risen to the top. They were perhaps recognized for their ability to lead people, for skills and giftings they had, for their natural strength.

FAITHLESS LEADERS

Surely these spies, whom I will call the faithless ten (for two of the twelve spies, Joshua and Caleb, were convinced that they could take the land) did not consider their report evil. The word "evil" in the original text means it was slander and defamation against the character of God Himself. However, I am sure they considered their report analytical, measured, and reasonable. Yet here was the problem with these ten: They could claim to have knowledge of what was in this place of promise; they could claim to have seen it for forty days; they could lay out all the fruit—but they could not cause the people to believe that in spite of their littleness, God was still willing and able to give them all that He promised.

Remember, leaders cannot lead people any farther than they have gone themselves. They simply cannot reproduce what is not there. Think about the history of these faithless ten. The supernatural power of God was all around them; they saw the plagues come down upon the nation of Egypt, and the Red Sea part right before their eyes. They knew what God was able to do, but they never really became partakers of it. They witnessed it but they themselves were not walking in the supernatural.

It is so critical today that you listen to the right voices, for we are living in a day of sorrows. As this world continues to spiral downward into deeper confusion, distress, division, hatred, and war, you and I are called to be a supernatural testimony of who God is on the earth. We are called to stand with the strength that only He can give, to have wisdom that could come only from Him.

Now is not the time to be under the ministry of somebody who is not truly walking in the supernatural and instead has risen to their position merely by natural means—perhaps their gifted speaking ability or their great intellect. If you are listening to teaching that is not stirring your heart to believe God, you need to get out of that place. As brilliant as the report might be, the Bible calls it evil if it is not leading you into faith. If it is merely an exercise in intellect—a discovering and rediscovering of the fruit—but nothing in it leads you to believe that it can actually be yours, it is an evil report.

In fact, the apostle Paul gave us a warning regarding such leaders, saying, "[Pray] that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith" (2 Thessalonians 3:2). In other words, not everyone who preaches the Word of God believes that He is still able to do the miraculous today. Therefore, you must pray to be delivered from unreasonable people whose theological focus is all in the natural.

ANOTHER KIND OF LEADER

In contrast to the ten spies, the apostle Paul said, "My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:4–5). Now Paul was anything but a weak man in the natural. He was a leader among leaders. He even once declared that concerning the works of the law, he was blameless (see Philippians 3:6).

Nevertheless, when Paul came to Christ, he said, "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:7–8). In other words, "I do not want any more of Paul; I want everything of Christ. I do not want anything left of natural wisdom. I would rather stand in weakness and trembling so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. I desire that the people I speak to would not be looking to a man but rather to Christ inside of me—as not only my hope, but as their hope as well."

I know that I would not want to listen to a preacher who has no personal testimony of the miraculous power of God at work in his or her life. I would much rather listen to somebody like Paul who stands in weakness and trembling—the kind of person you could look at and say, "There is a power touching my heart that I know cannot come from this physical vessel. It must be from the Spirit at work inside of this one who is speaking to me. Lord, let that be my portion in the days ahead!"

Unfortunately, listening to the voices of the ten spies ultimately caused the people to end up in a wilderness where they died. Likewise, if the voices you are listening to today are not provoking you to faith, you will die in a spiritual wilderness. You will simply live through an endless succession of funerals, which was exactly what the Israelites experienced for forty years until eventually they all died and another generation arose.

HOW THE WALLS FALL

Finally, a new generation was about to go in and possess this Promised Land which the others had forfeited through their unbelief. This time, however, they were to go with the instruction that God gave to Joshua: "'See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor.'...Now Joshua had commanded the people, saying, 'You shall not shout or make any noise with your voice, nor shall a word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I say to you, "Shout!" Then you shall shout'" (Joshua 6:2, 10). In other words, "We are going to go in and take the land, but this time we are going to be quiet. We do not need to listen to any voices telling us how many giants are in the land!"

Note that when they walked in and surrounded Jericho for seven days, they had no weaponry. In the natural, they were insufficient for the battle before them. Nevertheless, they chose to simply obey God and be quiet. It was just as the Lord said in Isaiah 30:15, "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." One more time, walking around the city, they were quiet and confident—thinking about the promises of God, remembering the history of who God was—until that moment when an inner shout came into their hearts. I believe that by the time Joshua told them to shout, the people simply could not contain it any longer, for God had already convinced their hearts that they had the victory!

And so I challenge you today: As you go around about your city, as you are tempted to think of all the things that you are fighting to get through, begin to think, instead, about all the things that God has done. Meditate on His Word. If there is anything pure, anything lovely, anything of virtue, anything of a good report, think on these things, and the God of peace will be with you (see Philippians 4:8–9).

Suddenly, confidence will fill your heart. "God, I am going to trust You. I am going to believe You for my family. I am going to believe that You will heal the wounds of my past. I am going to trust You for my future. I am not listening to any voices anymore that say I am not smart enough or strong enough. Let the evil reporters die in the wilderness; I am going with You! I do not care what giants I have to face, for You are going to take my life in its total nothingness and raise it up to be something that brings glory to Your name!"

Then one day, when you cannot contain it any longer, you are going to shout so loud that your whole neighborhood will hear! The Scripture tells us that when the Israelites shouted, the walls of Jericho fell, and every person went into that city and took the victory. Today, as we trust God in our own cities, I believe we are going to take with us into God's Kingdom a multitude of people too numerous to count, and we are going to do it by the power of God!

This newsletter is an edited version of "HOW MANY CHRISTIANS WEEP ON SUNDAY NIGHT?," a sermon given on October 15, 2017 in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in New York City. Other sermons are available by visiting our website at tsc.nyc. You are welcome to make additional copies of this sermon for free distribution to friends. However, for all other forms of reproduction or electronic transmission existing copyright laws apply. This sermon cannot be posted on any website or webpage without permission from Times Square Church. Unless otherwise noted, all scripture references are from the New King James Version.

0 notes

ceridwyn2 · 7 years

Text

Writing Meme: Cool Asks for Fic Writers

Snagged from a few others :D

Describe yourself how you would describe a character you’re introducing Mmm. Petite. Early-mid 40s. Adept at many things. Nurse, photographer, writer, crafter. Introvert. Observer.

Is there any specific ritual you go through while/before/after your writing? Often tea & biscuits (digestives, gingersnap or shortbread)

What is your absolute favorite kind of fic to write? Drama w/ slight to moderate angst

Are there any other fic writers you admire? If so, who and why? Many. And they vary by fandoms that I’ve participated in. However, Melissa Good (Xena /Dar & Kerry) particularly stands out because she was one of the early fic writers I started reading, and I’ve gone back to read her stuff many times. Her stories are very well-written. She does over-arcing love stories that are not explicitly sexual in detail, nor do they need to be. Her love scenes, when written, fit in very well with the tone and style as the rest of the story. Trust me. That vision of Xena scaling a mountain, risking death more than once, then running - practically flying - over the fields in a rainstorm to the borderlands between the Amazons and Centaurs to save Gabrielle from a renegade shit disturber amazon, then landing a big kiss on Gabrielle in front of said crowd of Amazons and Centaurs is pretty legendary. Story is called ‘At A Distance’ (http://www.merwolf.com/ata1.htm). The series of stories is A Journey of Soulmates and begins with 'A Warrior By Any Other Name’ (http://www.merwolf.com/warrior1.htm). Melissa’s Dar & Kerry series is here and starts with 'Tropical Storm’ - http://www.merwolf.com/ffiction.html#dk

How many words can you write if you sit down and concentrate intensely for an hour? Don’t know that I’ve actually counted. When I get into a zen stage of writing where the characters keep talking I just go with the flow and don’t stop until a) I need a trip to the loo, b) my tea has gone too cold/run out of biscuits, c) my stomach is growling to loudly to ignore.

First fic/pairing you wrote for? (If no pairing, describe the plot) Oh heavens. Not published anywhere, but Beauty & The Beast (Catherine & Vincent) - the Linda Hamilton & Ron Perlman version. I was in my late teens. Pre-internet.

Inspiration, time, or motivation. Choose two. Inspiration & time

Why do you choose to write? An outlet to explore feelings, explore characters that speak to me on some level, and sometimes to challenge myself.

Do you ever have plans to write anything other than fic? I have one original story in the works. I’ve also written a published academic article in a Canadian Oncology Nursing Journal back many yrs ago when I was a nurse trainee. I’ve also written interviews with musicians, writers, creators. (https://celtic-dragon.me/tag/interview/)

What inspires you the most? Different things. Sometimes it’s being out in nature, conversations, reading other well-written stories, sometimes music, travel.

Weirdest thing you’ve ever written/thought about writing/etc.? At the moment I can’t recall. Well, not completely true. I can write a love scene and have done in the Otalia Virtual Seasons, but I can’t write explicit sex scenes as it feels weird to me. Not a prude; I can read them at times - if it feels right within the context of the rest of the story and it’s well-written without feeling like I’m reading a young-adult’s attempt at porn. I’m also not a fan of vulgarity or overly flowery terms for sex.

A fic you wish you had written better, and why? My early stuff seems a bit cringeworthy now but again we only learn from our past and reading other well-written stories. Also, as we age, our own life-experience contributes to our overall knowledge (or at least it should). How I wrote as a teenager/early 20s is quite different from how I write now (nearly mid 40s), as well it should. Reading other well-written stories with correct spelling, proper punctuation and grammar, verb-tense agreement, etc. REALLY helps improve one’s writing skills, as well as really knowing the characters (and their development). Getting a beta-reader who can constructively critique your stories to bring out the best in your work is also a recommendation. I’ve been writing fic off and on for about 25 years.

Favourite fic from another author

@lunacatriona - 'Waves that Rolled You Under’ (Holby City - Bernie & Serena). More of my Holby fic recs here: http://ceridwyn2.tumblr.com/post/160719828756/a-warm-blanket-of-a-story

LarkhallReturns: 'Love With Deception’ and 'Abuse of Power’ (Bad Girls - Nikki & Helen AU). I don’t think either are online anymore (I have them in PDF format for reading offline); they might be accessible via WaybackMachine search - it’s been a while since I checked.

SelVecanti: 'Reunion’ (Babylon 5 - Ivanova/Talia, set post S4.) Brilliant story. Capt Ivanova has a new Warlock class ship made unknowingly to her at the beginning using Shadow technology. Psi-Corp are trying to get to Ivanova by using Talia.

Nordica: 'Jungle Fever’ (Hospital Central - Maca & Esther, plus other HC regulars). An AU set at a Médicins Sans Frontières clinic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Another story I have archived in PDF format offline)

G.L. Dartt - After Larkhall (Bad Girls - Helen & Nikki) series, starting with 'Dead Slow’ (http://users.eastlink.ca/~ginadartt/OtherFanFicIndex.html) - some odd coding on the site at the moment, though.

And just to plug something I was a part of (both as a writer, editor, and sometimes season planning collaborator) was the Otalia Virtual Seasons (http://www.celtic-dragon.ca/otalia_vs/OVS_Downloads.html) - Guiding Light - Olivia & Natalia.

Your favourite side pairings to put in?

Depends on the fandoms I’m writing in at the time. And not necessarily romantic pairings, but sometimes just friendship pairings.

Holby City sides: Sacha & Essie.

Call the Midwife sides: Delia & Phyllis friendship or pretty much any dynamic with Sister Monica Joan. (This is stuff I’ve only partially gotten round to writing)

Scott & Bailey sides: Gill Murray & Julie Dodson - though sometimes they’re the main with Janet & Rachel as the sides.

Guiding Light sides: Doris & Blake

Your guilty writing pleasure? Don’t know that I really have one, that I can think of at the moment.

Do you have structured ideas of how your story is supposed to go, or make it up as you write? I have a general sense of direction for the story, particularly if it’s a shorter one-off piece and not a multi-part story. When I was writing with the OVS (mentioned above), we had an over-arcing plan of things that we wanted to accomplish over the season, so specific plot points were planned out well in advance. However, like a serial drama, one story had to follow from the previous so we needed to be aware of what the writer before us was incorporating so that there was continuity between one story and the next, also to lay in bits in our story that would be picked up in the next one. What was really fun was coordinating the multi-author stories in the season, where each writer would take a different group of writers to write about and making sure no one character was in two different places at the same time.

Would you describe yourself as a fast writer? On the one-off pieces, usually. Or if I’ve got a deadline. Multi-part stories, not so much…unless I’ve got a deadline.

How old were you when you started writing? Crikey. In my teens I wrote for my high school Creative Writing class book (circa 1989-1991). Before that, just my own jotting of ideas.

Why did you start writing? As a way to express ideas & feelings

4 sentences from your work that you’re proud of. Oh, good heavens. There are many, over 20+ yrs of writing, writing in over a dozen fandoms.

#fic meme #Berena #fanfic questionnaire #Holby City #multi-fandom fic

0 notes