ob.ser.va. tion

Moving on...

2010-01-07T11:38:00.001-06:00

I am saying goodbye to blogger today...and moving my site.

Visit me at:

http://charissahollandmotley.wordpress.com

goodwill to men

2009-11-18T14:48:00.002-06:00

The accordion man is standing outside Dominick's again, scraggly and weathered, shabby and worn. He has a menagerie of broken-down items surrounding him--a Casio keyboard, a couple of coffee cans, a bag filled with who knows what. He is wearing a tan trenchcoat and black shoes, a stocking hat and sometimes fingerless gloves. He appears to mumble to himself as he plays, his fingers moving across the keys and buttons of the accordion without his recognition of where they are or what they're doing. When he opens his mouth it looks like he may talk to one of the passersby, but he only continues talking to himself, and through the space between his lips you can see the teeth poking through, sparse and yellowed.

It appears he has become a fixture in front of the grocery store, and I pass him every time I walk that particular corner. He has a container sitting out for money, but on the corner of Fullerton and Belden the greater population is made of college students, most of whom are probably not carrying cash, the rest of whom don't even see the accordion man, so consumed are they with their own lives and the daily grind of their college existences.

I see him. Every time, I see him. And I walk past, afraid to catch his eye even though he never seems to see anything around him. I think I have mastered the art of examining the people around me without them catching me at it, and for the most part this is true. Especially when the subject of examination shows distinct signs of crazy. But every time I pass by, I wonder what happened to the goodwill of humanity. This time of year everyone is being tapped for cash--the Salvation Army buckets are out, church gift programs are in full swing, and holiday parties require food and gifts. But it is also the time of year when we come together, and we sing "peace on earth, goodwill to men."

But I don't want to be one of those people who throws money around just because of the season. Jesus told us that the poor would always be among us, and so they are, begging for change with their outstretched plastic cups, holding their signs that illuminate their plight, and the sight of the poor moves our pity. But it rarely goes farther than that. Cynicism has set in, and has taken a deep hold on our society. We don't trust the poor, we believe they should be able to help themselves, we yell "get a job" and tell ourselves their laziness is to blame.

And sometimes this may be true. But I wonder if we are being called to rise above the cynicism and offer goodwill for the sake of goodwill. If humanity as a whole would rise up and reach out to the downtrodden, perhaps they would be taken care of. Perhaps we could effectually achieve a glimpse of social justice.

But instead I keep walking past the accordion man. And the guilt builds up like plaque inside an artery, and I wonder if my conscience will come under attack the way my heart would when that artery burst. Until that day, I live with the guilt for the few seconds in which I find it affecting me.

And then I keep walking.

call me conservative

2009-11-05T10:27:00.004-06:00

I currently drive into Chicago three days a week for classes, and I pass the same exits, traffic, and billboards every time--so when a billboard changes I usually notice. Especially if it happens to be a billboard that informs you that should you have questions about your baby daddy, paternity tests are now available over the counter.

Let's pause for a moment. You might wonder why this has upset me...as it seems that I primarily blog about things that upset me.

What this means to me is that we are living in a society in which a woman may sleep with so many different men that she would not know whose child she gave birth to.

Call me conservative. I have a problem with this.

I firmly believe that there are reasons why sex outside the confines of marriage is a bad idea--STDs, unwanted pregnancies/abortions, emotional trauma, etc. Here is yet another factor. Clearly, in today's culture, it is so common for women to have doubts about their child's paternity, that these tests are now available OTC. There goes all of the appeal of Maury Pauvich. Just hop on into your local Walgreens and pick up a test--no need for national televisation any more!

And yet--and yet--this is a trend that is only perpetuating itself. I subbed for a middle school teacher on Monday, and the cheerleaders were all in uniform, begging the question: Why are mini-skirt against the dress code and not cheerleading uniforms? The obvious answer may be that the girls wear something under their cheerleading skirts. Well, good grief, I hope that the girls wear something under their mini-skirts too. The issue is that although it's not quite such a big deal in middle school, by the time these girls are in high school, it's a perfect opportunity to flaunt their youthful legs, and I do not doubt for one second that horny teenage boys are taking every opportunity to try to see what really is under that cheerleading skirt.

And if the girls let them, well, that is how we come full circle to the paternity test dilemma.

This is what terrifies me about being a parent--not how to keep my child from making bad decisions, but how to instill them with a value system that will not allow bad decisions to even enter their minds.

And then I pray to God that no child of mine will ever need to buy an OTC paternity test.

the art of dying

2009-10-28T08:38:00.002-06:00

Regardless of my feelings about the weather this fall, it certainly has surpassed itself in terms of color. I can't remember a fall as vivid as this one in recent years. This particularly struck me on the one sunny day we've had in the last week or so. As the sun came out the trees underwent a miraculous transformation--they were golden, and burning red, and various shades of orange; the world lit up in the light of these colors.

I couldn't help thinking to myself, seeing the world going up in a flame of color, that trees really know how to die. They have perfected the art of dying in a blaze of glory, and if I have to die, that's how I would prefer to go.

But when humanity dies, we spend ourselves in a sea of pastels--silvers and grays, sometimes blue, muted colors that will not overwhelm or alarm our senses, that won't shock us into a premature departure. Since this thought about the art of dying entered my head I have been thinking about my grandma--she was 98 when she died, and she was a picture of the silvery state of old age: white hair, translucent skin, faded blue eyes, soft, soft hands, and a voice growing rusty after so many years of use. She is forever in my memory that way, stuck as "always-old." I wonder what it would be like to remember her in her younger days, when she had long auburn hair and bright blue eyes--features I can only imagine as her photos are all black and white.

We die in so many ways...the old dying slowly and softly, fading into shadows of themselves, while the trees set themselves ablaze, daring us not to notice their descent into winter.

these are a few of my favorite things

2009-10-21T07:40:00.002-06:00

I became an English major primarily because I have a sick obsession with books. The book that started it for me? Anne of Green Gables, in 3rd grade. It turns out there is an entire series of those books, so that kept me going for a while.

This sick obsession manifests itself in several ways. As my husband can attest, I am never NOT reading something. Although lately I only read for school assignments, I already have a list of things I want to read when this quarter ends. Whenever I move, the first thing packed and unpacked is my collection of books. Organizing my bookshelves is more exciting than unpacking the entire rest of the house. As they come out of their boxes I view each book as an old friend, waiting to be placed in its new home on the shelf.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step.

So I decided that I would make a list of my top 5 favorite books. This proved impossible, and I upped the count to 10. Not enough. So here are my top 15 favorite books--and yes, they are in order of favor.

15. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. I don't remember when I first read this book, but I instantly loved it, and if you're thinking you know this story because you saw the movie...I must insist that books are ALWAYS better than movies. I have yet to find an exception.

14. Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist. I actually met Shauna at the Willow Creek Arts Conference 2 years ago, and she signed my book. With an orange pen that matched the cover. It was tremendously exciting. This is a beautiful book of self-reflection from someone who has grown up in the Christian world (she is Bill Hybels' daughter). Highly recommend this to all women.

13. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. Again, if you think you know enough about this story because of the terrible 1980s movie(s) loosely based on Michael Ende's masterpiece, think again. This story is so engrossing that you will find yourself, like Bastian, becoming part of the book. I would love to see the movie remade to reflect his story.

12. Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller. When I read Blue Like Jazz, I did not see what all the hype was about. So I kind of wrote Donald Miller off...until someone gave me a copy of this book, a travel journal like none I have encountered before or since.

11. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. If you like writing, or just like reading really good writing, this is a funny and charming book. There are so many quotables that can be pulled from it, and Anne Lamott makes you feel like if you met her you would instantly be friends. (This is also how I felt about Shauna Niequist.) She has an irreverent sense of humor that makes you just love her.

10. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. I read this in an undergrad class on Russian literature, and it is striking for 2 reasons. The first part of the book is a poem--a beautiful, haunting poem about death and loss and learning to live. But should this list inspire you to investigate any of these titles, be aware that the commentary in the second half of this book is a farce. And a masterpiece of parody it is. Nabokov wins the genius award for this one.

9. Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich. I had a hard time choosing my favorite of her books. She is a Native American author with a voice that sings out of each page--her books are beautiful. There is no other way to describe them. This one is probably the most epic, but if you decide you want to read her, I have yet to find a book I don't like.

8. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. I would be remiss if I did not include this on my list, for I have loved this series since childhood. I remember finding books 6 and 7 in my grandparents' basement one year, and doing the equivalent of inhaling them. This one may always be my favorite because of the imagery it holds. You can't explain the Gospel more simply.

7. Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil. Another book that I read in undergrad that has stayed with me. My copy is underlined, highlighted, and tabbed to tears. Simone Weil is one of the great female philosophers, and this book is a collection of her thoughts and essays.

6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a Harry Potter nut, and that I bear a special affinity for Hermione's character. If I could only read one of the Harry Potter books over and over again, it would be this one. It is THAT good.

5. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. If you have not read anything by Joan Didion, do it now. She is amazing. She began writing essays in the political movements of the 60s and 70s, and she captures the fervor of those decades effortlessly. This book is about the year immediately following the death of her husband, and it is poignant and moving.

4. Dracula by Bram Stoker. You may think that you know vampire stories because you have watched Buffy or read the Twilight series (yes, I have done both). But the original is much more thrilling, and more satisfying. Stephanie Meyer can't hold a candle to Stoker's original vampire mastermind.

3. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Another author among whose works I have yet to find something I don't like. But this is her tour de force. It takes the lives of 4 Chinese mothers and traces their history as they come to America, have families, and leave their Chinese families behind. The 4 daughters must struggle to assimilate their Chinese heritage with their American culture. Amy Tan is one of those writers whose every word verges on poetry. This is a redemption story unlike any other I have read.

2. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I'm pretty sure that I could write my dissertation on this book and still miss some of the minute details that lie in every paragraph. This is truly a masterpiece. Originally banned in Russia at the time of publication, it takes a stance on religion and politics that is funny and powerful at the same time. The Devil comes to Moscow and all hell breaks loose. But this is a Devil like you've never seen him before. And this Devil brings peace to the restless. Bulgakov is a master of his words, his allusions, his history, his story.

1. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I don't know that I can convey just how much I love this book. Again, Barbara Kingsolver is an author I adore in general, but THIS book...this book is one of those books that sticks in your brain, and every time I read it I remember why I love it so much. (And I probably read it at least once a year.) Following a Baptist preacher and his wife and 4 daughters into the Congo, this story is one of remorse and forgiveness, life and death, love and pain, and how the human spirit goes on or gives up. Whenever I recommend this book, I tell people to make sure they get through the first part, since to someone less effusive it might be tedious. But this is a book you will not regret reading.

So there is my list. These are my friends. I cannot really express the way these books have embedded themselves in my mind, and they are all repeat-reads. I could probably make a top 50 list, given enough time, but who wants to read that?

on my mind

2009-10-11T21:32:00.004-06:00

It has lately become a habit of mine that while driving home from class (in Chicago, 3 nights a week...) I think about topics to potentially blog about. So I do have some fun ones in store, people. Let me know you're reading; it makes me feel bad when I don't post.

Topic One: A few weeks ago I was at the mall, and outside a store which I have never entered (mainly out of fear of being attacked by overbearing salespeople) was a small congregation of people--a couple of nice-looking (and by nice-looking, I don't mean that they looked "nice") girls, and a pretty attractive (and pretty cut) guy...without a shirt on.

I was taken aback by this. Mystified. Slightly appalled.

I walked by in a hurry, trying not to look in that direction, but not really being able to help it...kind of like a train wreck.

It threw me for such a loop that I haven't been able to really process what was happening there. Obviously some kind of intense advertising ploy. And although I'm not really one for boycotts, I don't think I will be frequenting aforementioned store.

I think I am beginning to understand why it bothered me so much. It's the sad fact that sex sells. That the word sexy does not mean what it really means anymore--it has evolved into a common adjective that often really doesn't even pertain to sex. It pertains to an illusion, to some elusive standard that has overtaken our culture, the essence of desire, sleekness, seduction, attraction.

We are really living in a sex-saturated culture, and it scares me to think of what it will be like by the time my kids are in their teens. What it will mean for my currently-non-existent daughter to grow up in a culture that feeds off sex and sexual imagery.

I wrote a paper last spring for a medieval class I was taking about the "sex factor" in medieval times and the effect it had on the development of gender roles. In the 12th-14th centuries, sex was a taboo topic. You couldn't, in good conscience, even have sex for any reason other than procreation, and that only on less than one-third of the days out of a given year, due to religious holidays, saints' days, etc. So how did we get from there to here? Somewhere along the way, people realized that it didn't have to be a sinful thing. And I can get on that bandwagon. Sex in the context of marriage--not a sinful thing. Not even when you're not procreating. But THEN, culture continued to perpetuate this notion that sex isn't a big deal. And that's when we run into trouble.

Now that sex isn't a big deal, it shows up everywhere--movies, TV shows, books, ads, commercials, even IN THE MALL. Does this end somewhere? Does it reach a limit and then recede? Or does it continue in the same pattern, leading to looser boundaries and reduced limits?

I recently led a small group of high school girls, watching some of them graduate last spring that had come into my group as freshman. How do you convince teenage girls to hold onto their dignity and their purity in a culture that is telling them to be sexy at all costs? I resorted to telling them to hike up their shirts and wear skirts/shorts that actually covered more than three inches of their legs...but it might not be enough to combat the rising flood of sexiness.

I have to laugh at the irony of me writing this post...as I sit on the couch with my hair up, glasses on, decked out in sweats. The complete opposite of sexy, if you will.

I think I may start carrying around an excess of clothes. Apparently that guy in the mall was in need of a shirt, and I didn't have one to give him. What a sad story.

things i cannot begin to understand

2009-09-24T09:43:00.002-06:00

I have realized lately that there are many things in life that just don't make sense to me. Here is the short list:

1. Marathons. The Chicago marathon is coming up in a few weeks, and for the life of me I cannot understand marathoners. I can appreciate the fitness aspect, as I myself enjoy a short run (usually 5 miles or less) fairly regularly. But 26 miles is a bit extreme. I think I will even say crazy. Do people know what happens to you when you run 26 miles? Consecutively? You lose your bladder/bowel control. That alone is enough reason to not run a marathon. You also burn about 3 days' worth of calories--which is not nearly enough motivation to get me in public and not be able to control my bowel functions.

2. Skateboards. Call me old, but I saw two guys walking down the street last night--one walking, the other on a skateboard. And they were traveling at the same speed. So what's the point of a skateboard again? Unless you are Marty McFly, I'm going to say skateboards are unnecessary. And will leave you with more muscles in one leg than the other. Which may leave you looking a little lopsided.

3. Fergie. I cannot think of one single song by Fergie that I have heard without knowing it was her and thought, "Oh, I like that song, I wonder who sings it." Not one. So let's state the facts here: she is really not that talented. She is really not that attractive. Her songs are terrible. But hey, at least we know she can spell the word "glamorous."

4. The evolution of the word LIKE. This has plagued me for years. Like is a word meant to be used in comparisons--his eyes are blue like the sky, or as a verb--I like pizza. Like is not a filler word for when you don't know what else to say. Like is not a substitute for a comma. Like should not be inserted between every other word you speak. Like used to be a word relegated to a specific people group--the Valley Girls, the preps. It has devolved so far that I now hear it when talking with kids starting at the age of about 6. Preservationists of the English language, we must take a stand against this word!

5. Chicago's Olympic bid. If Chicago gets the Olympic bid, I sincerely hope that I do not live here by that time. The preparations are going to be awful. In the five years I have lived in the suburbs, not once have the tollways been free of construction. Let's imagine this for the next five years as well if we get the bid. Sure, the aftermath will be great--nice paved roads that will only have to be resurfaced every year or so after the winter cracking, giving us MORE construction...I guess I'm just not that into the Olympics. Boo if you must.

6. Women's fashions. This needs no explanation.

7. Genetics. If you know me and my sister, you know that we are nothing alike, and yet we have nearly the same genetic makeup. This baffles me. In my family, the oldest cousins in each family have very similar characteristics. The rest are a hodge podge, to say the least. Why is this? If someone could interpret DNA to me, this would be very helpful.

8.Why we continuously choose to live life in a stupor. So this is the serious one. Tuesday I was at school walking to class in the rain, but the sun was shining. Over my building I saw a perfect arch of a rainbow. I looked around me then and realized that no one else was noticing this. How is it that there is this remarkable world around us at all times and we consistently close our eyes to it? We become absorbed in our own little worlds, which contain none of the majesty of the greater world around us, the canvas of the great Creator. Too often we walk in a tunnel. Let us step into the light.

life lessons in small paragraphs

2009-09-21T07:59:00.002-06:00

Several things happened over the weekend: we played Clue with some friends, my parents came to visit, and a crisis was averted by the church being the church.

I feel that each of these deserves a brief description, and then it will take all my effort to find a common denominator and actually turn this into a coherent blog post.

Friday night we went to dinner with some good friends who are getting married next month, and afterward played about three rounds of the game Clue. I haven't played this in years, though it was a favorite of my sister and I. I learned something important though: this is not a fun game to play with boys. Neither of us girls won a single game, even when given the advantage of having an extra card, and the reason is simple--guys are willing to risk it when they're 90% sure. I have to wait to be 100% sure before I will take a guess, because it is worse to be wrong and not be able to play the game anymore. Anyone want to make a life connection here?

Saturday my parents came up. This has probably been the biggest adjustment for us in our marriage--learning to deal with each others' families. I love my family. But I have known them for 27 years and have had time to grow accustomed to their quirks. Lucas immediately sees these quirks. I could tell by the time they left on Sunday afternoon that he was really ready for them to go home, and I don't mean this in a bad way. I have the same exhaustion factor with his family sometimes too. Our parents are really different, and it makes being around the other's family trying at times. I can't imagine going into a marriage without having met my in-laws. THAT would be crazy.

While out with my parents, I received several texts wondering if I had checked my email. A man that had been on my worship team at my previous church had sent out a mass suicide email, and by the time I even heard about it, he had been taken to the hospital and updates were being sent out by several staff members. In a tragic situation, it was good to see that the church was caring for its people. It always makes me wonder how people can get through life without a support system like that. When things are hard in my life, I always know that I have the assurance of God's love and my family (biological or not), and that sustains me. I know that I am not meant to go through life alone, and I don't believe God intends that for any of us.

As far a common thread here, I'm coming up short...maybe you can pull all the threads together but I'll leave it with that. When you braid all three threads together, you come up with the stuff of life.

marriage is...

2009-09-17T08:46:00.002-06:00

Lucas and I recently celebrated our first year of marriage, and when I said, "Can you believe it's been a year already?" his reply was, "Can you believe it's only been a year?"

This year has been full of challenges and learning experiences and frustrations and just plain fun. These are a few things that marriage means to me. I would love to have you add to the list.

Marriage is...

-hard work.
-compromise, compromise, compromise.
-learning to love yourself the way your spouse does.
-ridiculous amounts of tickling. Not because I think it's fun...because Lucas does.
-accepting the fact that I will never be allowed to make tacos again.
-giving each other permission to be ourselves.
-learning the language of a NERD.
-listening to my husband regale me with his victories on WoW. (If you don't know, don't ask. Really.)
-bringing the crazy down a notch.
-keeping Mountain Dew in the fridge at all times.
-imagining the next fifty years.
-sharing your soul with another person and knowing it will be cared for.
-living with the clothes on the floor because they WILL get picked up in the next day or two.
-watching movies that you normally wouldn't watch in order to snuggle on the couch.
-talking things over before you make decisions.
-becoming less self-involved.
-speaking your other half's love languages, even if they are not yours.
-having someone around to do the home improvement projects you can't handle because you're a girl.
-putting SOME of his books on the bookshelf.
-wiping the hairs off the bathroom counter. Again. And then appreciating that he shaved.
-not what you expect.
-more than you could have imagined.

after a long hiatus...

2009-04-28T06:58:00.002-06:00

I sometimes feel like I have nothing to blog about any more. But really, life is one big adventure after another. So here are a few things that have been happening since my last post...in January...

I am currently substitute teaching (as in right now while blogging) and loving it! If you're anything like me, when you were in school you never wanted to be a sub because of how awful the kids were when their teacher was gone. But I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised. I haven't had any discipline issues, and I have my "scary sub" speech down to an art. In a way it's a shame that you have to go through college before you can sub, as it is a great experience for prospective teachers. Having been in all grade levels this semester, I can tell you that my favorite so far has been fifth grade. Who knew?

The best part about subbing is that I am making great connections. I sub in three school districts so it's always busy, but I always seem to know people. For instance, in Plano, no matter what school you go to, if you say your last name is Motley you instantly become recognizable. Because my in-laws have been a part of this community for 17+ years, I am always asked if I am related to one of them. And because my sister-in-law teaches in Yorkville, I constantly get asked if I am her sister. (Kids have a hard time with the whole in-law connection.) And when I'm in Oswego I usually see StuCo kids, which is always fun...until they yell "Hey Charissa!" down the hallway, when I am using my grown-up alias--Mrs. Motley.

I still haven't fully adjusted to introducing myself to a class as Mrs. Motley. It's very strange. But every day I feel a little more like Lucas and I are becoming "the Motleys." (For more on our daily life, check Luc's blog. He's funnier than I am.) It makes me feel very adult-like...and old.

You know you're becoming adult-like and old based on the purchases you begin to make. For example: Luc's birthday is today and he asked for a vacuum cleaner. (We got the coolest one ever.) With his birthday money he bought two ceiling fans for our house. This past weekend was full of home projects, and I think he was feeling a little exhausted after it all. And I am discovering just how infrequently I can stay up late. After spending a solid five hours at our friends' home in Springfield on Friday night, driving home at 2 a.m. was somewhat difficult...I mean, for Lucas. That alarm at 8:15 was brutal. Oh yeah, and we are using our tax return for health insurance. Lame. If this is the price of becoming an adult, I don't think I want to pay it.

a nicer way to say OCD

2009-01-28T08:08:00.003-06:00

I suppose you could call me a meticulous person. I live somewhere in between a state of carelessness and OCD that could be called meticulous. (It could also be called anal-retentive at moments, but we won't go into that now.)

Besides, meticulous sounds better. It means careful and tidy and attentive to detail--all ways in which I am fairly certain I can be described. I like to have the bed made (well, I insist on having the bed made--my husband indulges me). I like to have the bathroom counters clean and shiny. I like to keep the dust off the bookshelves (and believe me, this is no small task considering the sheer volume of bookshelves in our home). I hang the coats on certain hooks on the coat rack so that it looks uniform (this may be a revelation that borders closer to OCD...). We have nice things. I want them to stay that way.

I've never really understood people who live sloppily, and that is not to say that I judge them, I just come in to a messy house and can't comprehend what has happened. It's like the episode of Friends when Ross tries to date a supermodel whose name escapes me only to discover that her apartment is absolutely and completely trashed--to the exaggerated point that no one could actually live in such filth, but the point is that regardless of how hot she is, Ross dumps her because she lives in a dump. Mess and clutter gnaw away at me. Not that I don't have clutter. I just contain my clutter, in stacks and folders, stashed neatly away inside a cabinet or closet or file. Then, of course, I can't find it later, which has led to my reputation as something of a packrat, to which my husband can testify, as he has helped me move. Twice. "Do you need this?" he will ask. "Well...." is usually my response. He proceeds to toss said item into a garbage bag. At which point I protest. "If you're going to get rid of it, at least give it to Goodwill." I think we took half of my apartment to Goodwill after we got married.

My meticulous nature has yet to fully transfer to my husband, though. He is notorious for leaving glasses and half-empty soda cans scattered through the house, especially on nights when he is preoccupied by a certain computer game. We share the computer desk in our loft, and often the next morning I sit down to do school work only to find crumbs, sometimes enough that I can ascertain what he ate for dinner the previous night. And though he has learned to make the bed (thanks, honey), his bathroom habits are not up to par yet. As previously mentioned, I like a clean and shining sink counter. My husband has a frequent habit of trimming not only his facial hair but all of his other hair as well over the sink...on the exact day that I have cleaned the sink counter. So when I go to brush my teeth, there is enough of his DNA scattered around the sink to clone him. Last night I even found nail clippings. The FBI would have a field day with our home if they ever needed our DNA samples. What with the bathroom clippings and my constant (and involuntary) shedding of stray hairs.

Yet fortunately, Lucas is meticulous in ways that I am not--he is financially responsible, and now has an iPod Touch that has forced him to actually use a calendar. It's the single greatest purchase he has ever made. He also usually does the vacuuming and cleaning of other floor-type surfaces, a chore that I loathe. We made a deal after we moved in together that we would each have certain domains, and thankfully we are each meticulous about our given responsibilities.

And somehow, some way, my obsessive compulsive behavior has not deterred his love. It's an amazing feat, really. Sometimes we both wonder what we've gotten ourselves into. But there's never a dull moment. Except on my shiny bathroom counter.

reflections

2009-01-21T13:02:00.000-06:00

january 20, 2009.

This day began—ostensibly—
just like each one before it;
a January morning,
shining brightly crystalline.

But the nation rose—remarkably—
to stand as one together;
presuming, while the world looked on,
to gather on the Capitol’s lawn,
two million strong and joyous
joined in glowing adoration,
loud with crowing exultation,
loose with fleeing desperation.

He steps onto the platform
and our shoulders slowly lift
as he promises an age of change,
a healing of the rift
that has brought us to this moment:
the inauguration of the 44th President
of the United States.

As he speaks, we shine with pride,
people of heightened perceptions,
hearing in his voice the end
of malice and deception.
He has now been, officially,
cemented into history,
standing tall in his new company—
men of power and prestige,
surrounded by the living and the dead.

He rallies with the steady words
of Washington and Lincoln,
while Dr. King recalls his dream,
and listens to the masses scream
their confident approval
of this most auspicious day.

He holds their futures in his hands—
religion, economy, foreign lands—
he bears all the weight of the stifled and poor,
the prosperous man and the children next door,
the soldier still absent and longing for home,
the foreigner wanting a place to belong.

One hand on the Bible,
he embodies a new age
of great responsibility
in which the world can clearly see
us rise above our circumstance
to greatness, not just happenstance,
and lead the world in justice once again.
The hearts of the nation believe,
for this moment,
that one man can change the world.

This date will live in infamy
along with December 7, 1941
and April 14, 1865
and August 6, 1945
and November 11, 1918
and April 3, 1968…
January 20, 2009.

The inauguration of the 44th President
of the United States.

the state of the music

2009-01-15T09:04:00.002-06:00

I should've known better.

I only listen to the radio if I am in my car, and recently discovered that The Mix does "New Tunes at 9" every weeknight. I was excited about this, thinking that on my way home from classes I could get to hear some new cool music. I should've known that "new" tunes don't necessarily mean "good" tunes.

The following are artists recently heard on New Tunes at 9 and the comments I have regarding their songs.

Dear Kelly Clarkson: I have always liked you. I still think you are the best American Idol. I love your Breakaway album. But since then you have continued to disappoint me. And this new song? Really? How can you take yourself seriously while singing "My life would suck without you"? That's a terrible title and a terrible lyric and you deserve better. My regrets.

To Hinder: I will give you credit for having one of the catchiest songs about cheating on your girlfriend--I will admit to listening to it from time to time. But I guess your new song, Without You, made you realize that if it's hard to be faithful once, the romance won't last long, since now you're fine without her.

Saving Abel, your lyrics are so inappropriate that I don't even want to quote them on my blog, yet you have managed to get mainstream radio play. How did you do that with a song that's about all the things your girl does for you in bed? That's what you like about her, not her personality or her character. And here I am watching you move up the charts. Ugh.

Oh, Beyonce...you are a beautiful and talented woman. Why do you sing such crappy songs? I am forced to turn off my radio any time they come on, that's how awful they are. No offense.

Dear Meiko, I don't even know how your song makes sense. You claim that you know better than to be friends with boys with girlfriends, but the rest of your song is about stealing another girl's boyfriend. I heard it and was confused.

Miss Taylor Swift, how old are you again? Your song starts with the line "we were both young when I first met you"...um, aren't you still young? That's what I thought. You are not old enough to have flashbacks yet or tell tales of when you were young. Let's leave that to The Killers, please. But darn it, if this isn't a pretty catchy super-sappy overly-cheesy song. It did get stuck in my head the other day. But I'm not happy about it.

The rest of you featured on New Tunes at 9, I will let off the hook for now. But if this is the direction pop music is headed, I want no part in it. It is maddening to hear so much bad music broadcast nation-wide, while the talented songwriters remain stuck in obscurity.

In the words of Keith Martinkus...That is all.

the wii

2009-01-12T13:57:00.003-06:00

This post has been on hold for a few weeks because I thought Lucas would blog about it, but he hasn't yet, so since I have nothing else to blog about, meet our Wii Fit.

We got a Wii Fit for Christmas as our gift from Luc's parents, and it is one of the coolest things ever. No, really, I don't even like video games, but this is spectacular. Not only does it have balance games, yoga, strength training and aerobics, it is your very own personal trainer, complete with sarcastic comments and just enough of an attitude to make you feel guilty about your health choices.

For instance:
I logged in this morning after having not logged in since Saturday (only one day removed). The Wii Fit proceeded to ask if I was "too busy to work out yesterday?" You can almost hear the condescending tone, especially since Lucas has now become self-conscious about not only how much time he puts in on the Wii Fit, but about his eating habits. He even refused to go to McDonald's last week on the premise that the Wii would know that he had been to McDonald's. (Since watching Eagle Eye, he has become a little paranoid.)

But the games are fun, and this may be the only time EVER that I succeed in beating my husband at a video game. It has become my own personal conquest. Every time I get a higher score on a balance game I send him a text letting him know. And I successfully managed to make my Wii Fit age equivalent to my actual age, so I had to let him know that too. Unfortunately, he has managed to make his Wii Fit age younger than his actual age. But today I beat his score on the snowboarding game, for which he has many excuses, but I still hang on to the fact that even if it's nothing like real snowboarding, I still won!

the in-between phase

2009-01-06T12:29:00.002-06:00

I hate the in-between phase. I never have enjoyed it. I have always wanted to move ahead, on to the next thing, get on with it already. But I am in a very long in-between phase at the moment, working on my degree so that I can continue with the trajectory I long ago set out for myself. In the meantime, I work part-time jobs here and there, keeping myself busy with activities, but stuck in this rut all the time of feeling like I'm still waiting for my "real" life to begin. At 26, you'd think I'd have moved past that stage by now. I revert, though, to my last post, knowing that my identity is not in what I DO, but who I am.

Anyway, while sorting through all of this yesterday, I took some time to write. And here's what crawled out of my creatively dormant state.

.the in between.
in between the earth and sky
the reasons why
all disappear…
and asking only cultivates
an attitude of fear
of knowing all the answers
and failing just the same,
of looking through the surfaces
and finding just a game;
in the winter air
the need to care
can slowly wisp away…
a breath of air that dissipates,
the lonely sigh that emanates,
the heated tongue that hibernates
until the spring appears

but in between
we catch the dream,
the falling star,
the fable;
and all the things
that grant us wings
catch up before we’re able
to open wide
before the tide
our hearts, our souls, our hands
and grasp the fleeting vision
cast out upon the sands
waiting to be gathered
by the willing and the meek
granting sparks of purpose
to the ones with time to seek

the in between
appears unseen
and waits to be discovered;
in the waiting and the wanting
lie the opened and uncovered,
where the cracks have broken open
and the truth peeks through the holes
and we see with eyes of hoping
the way back into our souls

2008

2008-12-31T16:08:00.003-06:00

To encapsulate a year in one blog post seems mightily overwhelming, but as an exercise in brevity, here it goes. My "top ten list" of lessons learned in 2008:

10. I am less adaptable to change than I like to think.

9. Life is a constant lesson in humility.

8. My calling in life is NOT to work with elementary school children. This knowledge increases my level of respect for elementary school teachers.

7. My identity is so much more than just what I do for a living. A crucial point to remember in upcoming years.

6. My tolerance level for ignorance and stupidity is very low.

5. Good and loyal friends are worth their weight in gold...and if I could, I would share that gold with all of them. Assuming that I either won the lottery or became a leprechaun, of course.

4. Sometimes decisions must be made that you don't want to make, because neither outcome seems appealing. And in the end, even though you chose the best solution, you may not be happy. But sometimes it's not about you.

3. Family is one of the most powerful forces in existence...through thick and thin they are still your family. No matter what. Forever. And ever...

2. There is a very good reason to only get married one time: weddings. The light at the end of the tunnel is marriage...which is the greatest and most rewarding challenge I have ever undertaken.

1. Life swirls and changes around us every second of every day, and its unpredictability is part of the excitement and terror of living. It means that above all, I am not in control. I will be learning this lesson every day of the rest of my life.

the age of innocence

2008-12-19T13:54:00.002-06:00

Thanks to the snow day today (which I feel was somewhat unnecessary), yesterday was my last day at work. Because of changing schedules and financial situations, I won't be returning to my job with the YMCA after Christmas break.

So I've been reviewing what I've learned this past semester in the presence of these kids. The conclusion I have come to is that the age of innocence no longer truly exists in this selfish, chaos-ridden, morally declining world. I realize that I grew up in a state of relative naivete, not knowing or caring about "adult" topics, like swearing or using the middle finger or liking the opposite sex or watching movies with anything other than a PG rating. I led a sheltered childhood, protected from the world of divorce, abuse, homosexuality, drinking, drugs, and any other toxins that may have invaded my young, impressionable soul.

But the kids in my program weren't so lucky. I had a 5-year-old get a detention for saying the F word in his classroom. I had a first grader tell me she had to go to court and pick which of her parents she loved more to decide who to live with. She told me she was going to pick her mom because her mom loved her more; when I asked her if she loved her dad, she said, "No, because he doesn't really want to be a dad." Almost half of the kids were from divorced families, with step-brothers and sisters coming out the wazzoo. I had an 8-year-old ask me if I had seen the movie The Day After Tomorrow, assuring me that it wasn't scary; he would know, he watched it. I had a 7-year-old get an iPod with the new Indiana Jones movie installed on it for his birthday. I had an 8-year-old who couldn't read, spell, or do math problems; who bit my assistant's arm; who hurt other kids; who couldn't control his anger; who was really only looking for some positive attention most of the time. Virtually none of my kids knew how to respect an adult or listen when another person was talking.

I really and truly fear that we are entering a state where morals and values are going to change significantly; that right and wrong are going to become more black and white, and therefore more controversial. Perhaps my standards are set too high; perhaps I have unrealistic expectations of childhood based on my own experiences; perhaps the world is going to hell in a handbasket. I do think there is hope for all of our kids, but this society, this generation is making it hard to find amid the vulgarity and outright meanness running rampant in schools today. I don't want to shield my kids from the world, but I want them to know what certain words mean: respect, honor, boundaries. I want them to be safe and happy and somewhat ignorant of the underside of humanity, at least for a little while.

Don't kids deserve to have an age of innocence?

a rant

2008-12-04T12:27:00.004-06:00

OK, I just need to rant for a few minutes here.

With the Christmas season in full swing, the kids at my school have been discussing their anticipated gifts, and although the majority of my particular group is in grades 2-4, they were almost all talking about getting CELL PHONES for Christmas.

If you can't tell by the capitalization in the previous sentence, I find this ridiculous. Why on earth does an eight-year-old need a CELL PHONE? As if your parent doesn't know where you are and when you need to be elsewhere. As if you do anything when you're eight that requires you to have a cell phone. It makes me sick. These kids have things like iPods and PSPs, and as if that isn't already an excessive amount of expensive technology, they think they need cell phones too.

I'm sure that my thoughts and emotions about parenting will change once I actually become one, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to buy my eight-year-old a cell phone. But who knows what else it will be? In the (approximately) 10-15 years before I actually have an eight-year-old, the world might just go technologically insane.

OK, and now I must remember that these are not my children and I don't have to live with them.

The most ironic part of the title of this post is that my new cell phone is called the Rant.

being a christian

2008-11-23T21:34:00.003-06:00

For most of my life I've felt like I had a pretty good handle on what it means to be a Christian. Growing up with it helped. I had no sudden epiphanies, no real moments of shock or surprise, just a continual depth of understanding and knowledge that the root of my Christianity is in my own heart, no one else's.

But there are some fundamentals, right? I feel like I've had several conversations lately that have challenged me on this, on explaining what it means to be a Christian--not just calling yourself one, but actually being one.

On Friday at school, one of my little first grade girls was wearing a shirt that had a big Tweety Bird on it and said "Jesus is the tweetest." I made a comment to my assistant that I would never send my child to school in a shirt like that. He asked why and I told him that although I am a Christian and am not ashamed of my beliefs, sending your child to school in a shirt like that is just a cry for negative attention and mockery, and why subject a 6-year-old to that? He made a comment that he is a Christian too, but then proceeded to tell me that he doesn't "believe in the whole church thing...or the Bible, really."

Everything in me wanted to fight at that moment, to tell him why he was wrong (because his logic was not good), and to explain to him that the Bible and the Church are two fundamental properties of Christianity. Sure, you can be a Christian without going to church (although not a thriving, growing one), but there's really no way you can claim Christianity without a basic belief in the Bible. Otherwise it becomes a story, something along the lines of a fairy-tale with extraordinarily impossible events which lend an air of incredibility to the whole plot line of Christianity. If I don't believe the truth of the Bible, I have no foundation upon which to stand.

So many people are "Christians." So few of us actually are.

believe

2008-11-19T13:02:00.003-06:00

This morning I had a conversation about Santa Claus.

Usually when Santa Claus comes up in conversation people are quick to denounce their belief in him, saying, "Oh, I stopped believing in Santa since I was, like, five," or something to that effect. But this morning I talked to a second, third, and fourth grader about Santa and how each of them believes that he exists. Who else eats the cookies? Why else is he at the mall? How come my dad hears the reindeer on the roof every year?

As adults, it's easy to listen to these questions and logic everything away. Seriously, your parents eat the cookies, it's a guy getting paid to sit in the suit, your dad is lying to you. My mom likes to tell us that when she was a little girl she truly believed she heard reindeer on her roof and saw Santa's sleigh flying away from her house one Christmas Eve. I think part of her wants to believe it still, and she's 61 years old!

So today I did not dissuade my kids from their discussion. I did not try to reason with them; instead I told them about my mom, and their eyes grew wide--another adult giving supporting evidence to the case for Santa Claus. For once I allowed myself, for a few moments, not to be a skeptic, and to wonder what it would be like if there really was such a character as Santa, and to get caught up in the childlike excitement in my kids' voices.

I love the movie Miracle on 34th Street. (Lucas doesn't know yet that we are going to have to watch it this Christmas, and probably every Christmas from here on out.) Part of why I like it so much is that it puts all our doubts to shame. What on earth is wrong with believing? What harm would it do to put aside skepticism, if only for a month or two, and encourage the belief?

There is intention behind our belief; I am attempting to put the wonder back into my heart. Where it went, I can't say, but it comes back bit by bit, on threads of spiderwebs, on flurrying snow crystals, in frozen sunrises and faded sunsets, in two-year-olds' laughs, in the intricate patterns of the branches dancing in the wind.

Believing with your lips is easy. I can say it all I want.

Believing with your heart is harder.

halloween

2008-10-31T10:44:00.002-06:00

Halloween is probably one of my least favorite holidays, maybe because I don't really consider it a "holiday." (Apparently, though, the Oswego school district does--they are off today due to it being Halloween.)

Fortunately, I think we are getting off easy this year--no dressing up (that I know of!), which is a relief since Lucas has a lot of really...interesting?...costume ideas. If you ever want some abstract/chuckle-worthy ideas, please contact him. He specializes in couples' costume ideas.

I don't know exactly what it is about Halloween that I don't like...it's possible that it bothers me that I considered Halloween a fun and innocent day for kids to dress up and go trick-or-treating, and the retail industry has made it so much more. Or the fact that high school and college kids (girls in particular) treat it as a day to look trashy on purpose. I used to dress us as harmless things, like a pumpkin, or a crayon, or a bluebird, or a pilgrim (yes, those are all actual costumes that I have worn). Or it could be that I don't like to be scared. I don't like scary movies, or gory movies, or anything that has the word "Saw" in the title.

I also hate haunted houses because I hate not being able to see where I'm going (haunted houses are dark) and I hate the idea of things jumping out at me (that's what they do at haunted houses). I think I've had approximately 2 haunted house experiences, and that was enough to convince me that I don't like them. I don't even like corn mazes. This is just a bad time of year for me.

I blame the people-jumping-out-at-you fear on my dad. When we were kids we would go visit my grandparents several times a year, and my cousins would usually all be there too, so we could usually persuade my dad and uncle to participate in a game of hide and seek with us kids. My dad's favorite thing to do was make little noises--like whistling or saying something like "woo-ooh"--to clue us in to where he was hiding. This was great until you figured out where he was, and someone had to open the door to the room or the closet (he always hid behind a door of some sort)...at which point he would burst out with a roar and scare us all. Every time. Eventually we stopped asking him to play.

So there are a combination of factors at play here. Let's just say that I like the candy part of Halloween...that's about it.

make up your mind

2008-10-26T16:05:00.002-06:00

Have you ever entered a situation thinking that you had your mind set on an issue, or a person, or a possibility?

This has happened twice for me lately. One situation I don't think I can write about here, but the other I will share.

So, I now work as a site director for the YMCA's before-and-after-school programming at a school in Aurora. I basically keep the kids in my program, ages K-5, out of trouble and occupied in the morning and the afternoon until their parents can come get them. Most of my kids are tolerable, but I have one who I was warned about before school even started in August.

His name is Torian. He has a condition called Oppositional Defiant Disorder (yes, ODD), which basically means he cannot control his temper. So he goes to a special school for kids with behavior disorders and gets sent to my school in the afternoon.

I immediately did not like Torian. He is angry, and rude, and disrespectful, and a downright bully to the other kids in my program. I made up my mind about him the first week of school and was convinced it would not change.

Torian is in third grade at his school. I have come to the conclusion that third grade at a BD school is not equivalent to third grade in a regular school, because I also have Torian's younger brother Tahj in my program. Tahj is in kindergarten and is one of the cutest little boys I have ever seen. Tahj can write the alphabet, and sentences, and when he asks me to spell words he can sound them out and usually come really close to being right. Last week we sounded out the word absolutely...aside from the silent E in the middle he did all right.

So Tahj is a pretty sharp little guy. Torian, though, brought homework out for the first time last week, and it looked like the homework my kindergarteners work on--writing the letters A and B, and then short sentences using those letters. He can barely write his own name and can't read a lick, and he gets mad at me that I "won't help him" read.

So I'm a pretty big fan of reading, we all know that, and this not only breaks my heart, it infuriates me. That a child could be in third grade and not know how to read is preposterous and outrageous. A good day at his school means he got to play video games and get a soda. There is a serious breakdown in the educational system somewhere.

So after two and a half months of spending time with Torian, I am finding myself changing my mind about him...slowly. He still gets under my skin like no other child I have ever met, especially when he throws chairs and pushes the smaller kids and gets in fights and swears at me. But in the long run, if this path continues, I don't think he even has a chance at life.

And it's hard to see the world give up on someone before he really has a chance to start, no matter how oppositional he is.

I have been wondering for the last few months why I am at this particular job (since I don't particularly enjoy it), and Lucas suggested that maybe I should help Torian learn to read. Maybe there is a point to being at this particular school after all.

I'll let you know if I make up my mind.

FAQ

2008-10-19T18:23:00.006-06:00

A question that I have been asked frequently in the last month is if/when Lucas and I plan on having kids. Just to set the record straight, if all goes according to plan, it will be several years. I am not at all anxious to begin that phase of our lives...I am much too selfish to be ready for kids.

That doesn't mean, though, that I don't enjoy hanging out with other people's kids. Today, for instance, we spent an enjoyable afternoon at the pumpkin farm down the road from our house with Luc's family and the Keens. Normally I try not to mention too many people's names on my blog for the sake of keeping favoritism to a minimum, but I figured the photos would give it away anyway. The Keens are some of our favorite people to hang out with, and I find Maggie hilarious, but she is usually in bed when we hang out with them, so we had a blast listening to her almost-2-year-old chatter. Our niece is also almost 2, but talks less and sings songs.

The funny thing about this outing is that if you know Lucas very well you know that he does not want to have a daughter. He grew up with a brother, so he doesn't know any better. But he loves hanging out with Keira (niece). And today it was Maggie and Keira. Two little pumpkins running around the pumpkin farm. It was so cute...and then they went home with their parents and I blogged about it. Ah, the way life is meant to be.

Keira and Uncle Luc (she calls him Uncloo)

Maggie

Keira and Aunt Charissa (my name is Ga-witsa!--
yes, she pronounces it with the exclamation point)

the long goodbye

2008-10-16T12:28:00.003-06:00

When I was in first grade a new family moved to Mt. Pleasant, Michigan and decided to start attending the same church my family attended, and to send their kids to the same school that my sister and I attended, where my dad also taught. This family had four kids--their oldest son was in my class, followed by his brother, their younger sister who was the same age as my sister, and the littlest sister, following several years behind, only a baby really when we all first came together.

This was how we met the Koefoeds.

It may come as a surprise that as a child I was slightly competitive--in a subtle way: I was competitive about school. Not to brag, but kindergarten was kind of a breeze for me. And first grade was going fairly well too, until this family moved into town. Suddenly I had competition. Over the course of first, second, and third grades Jonathan Koefoed remained my chief competitor in the race to finish tests the fastest, to get the best grades on our homework, to earn the most extra credit points. It was a friendly competition, of course, and one I would never have admitted to, for those of you who know me well will recognize that I do not claim to be competitive when there is a chance that I could be beaten.

For three years my family and the Koefoeds were close friends. Jonathan and I had our ongoing contest in school, Rebekah and my sister Becky became the best of friends, and whenever Becky and I spent the night at their house, Daniel and Jonathan would both pretend that they didn't want to play with us girls, but inevitably they couldn't resist. We went trick-or-treating together, stayed over at each other's homes, ate meals together, played in the snow together, rode in their station wagon, jumped off cushions in their family room together.

After third grade my family ended up moving to Grand Rapids, about 2 hours from our previous home in Mt. Pleasant--a distance small enough to keep us connected to our old friends. I remember going to visit on weekends and holidays, hanging out with the college kids that Scott and Sally Koefoed ministered to, feeling really cool as a fifth grader.

Over the years my parents have kept in touch with Scott and Sally, although neither Becky nor I have maintained our former friendships with their kids. My mom used to show me the family photo they sent each Christmas after we moved down to Illinois, and though the kids all got taller, they still looked the same, and I think I will forever see them at the ages they were when we last turned their living room into a couch-cushion fortress.

Memory has a way of tricking us into believing things don't change.

Which is why it came as such a shock to find out that Sally Koefoed had cancer.

It feels strange to be so affected by news of someone you haven't seen or communicated with directly in years; someone who at one point was a major player in your life. My parents always talk about trying to drive through Mt. Pleasant on their way up to my mom's house in Canada, and somehow it has never worked out, up until about two weeks ago when my mom finally got through to Scott and arranged to stop and see him and Sally on her last trip up to Canada.

She is so thankful that she did that, especially since I called her today to let her know that Sally died last night.

I couldn't keep the tears out of my eyes as I read the last update posted by Scott letting their family and friends know of Sally's passing. She was an amazing woman of faith--they were an amazing family of faith, really--and her confidence in God, even after the trauma of her cancer, was evident in the peace she felt at going to sit at the feet of Jesus. I have no doubts that Sally is being loved this very moment by the Savior to whom she was so faithful.

I look at myself in light of people like Sally, and think how far I have yet to go. My faith is so shakeable, weak, selfish at times. Hers never was. I believe that the brief period of time I knew her impacted my own development; that knowing her kids played some part in my growing up process; that one person can leave a legacy that will outlive their physical presence. And I believe that the world is different because of Sally Koefoed.

the slow fade

2008-10-12T16:28:00.002-06:00

I was hoping to make my triumphant return to the blogging world with an amazing story about how my life has changed in the last few months, but alas, all I have at the moment is that it's been so long since my last post that my computer didn't even remember the link...I had to type in the whole thing by hand.

The last few months have had their fair share of insanity. Since my last post I have started a new job, survived my own wedding and one of my best friends' as well, made it to Hawaii and back with a motion-sickness-prone husband, moved completely out of my old apartment into our home, and begun the settling in process. It may seem that I have been busy, and some days I feel that way. But Lucas and I both said yesterday that it feels like our wedding was much longer than a month ago (our one-month anniversary is this Tuesday).

But what has struck me lately is how life often fades from one day to the next without my notice. My life as Charissa Holland has slowly faded into my life as Charissa Motley--I still am not entirely a Motley, I have yet to change my bank account and credit cards, but my driver's license declares that I have forsaken my former name and claimed another...and cue Motley Crue jokes here.

But it's more than that. Watching the change of seasons has a similar effect; the slow fade of summer into fall, as the leaves change and drop, the combines lay bare the landscape once more, predicating the impending winter; waking up cold, turning the furnace on for the first time and turning it off in the same week as the climate debates its allegiance to fall and summer in a matter of days.

I measure my life in weeks these days, waiting anxiously for weekends when I don't have to wake up at 5:30 a.m., when I can spend more than a few hours with my husband, when I don't come home from work with a headache and a crazy story about my day. Monday through Friday has become nearly intolerable as I attempt to adjust to the new schedule, the sharing of life with another person, and on top of it all feeling like I am constantly waiting for more, like I will feel more productive, whole, complete once I go back to school in January, once I finish my degree two years from now, once I get the house organized, once Lucas and I figure out how to live together instead of just in the same house.

And as I type this now, the day slowly fades into dusk, toward evening, into night, slipping, slipping ever-so-gently into tomorrow, and when I wake in the morning I will watch the night slowly fade into morning, the process so breathtakingly smooth that it passes before I can absorb its grandeur under the ritual of it all.

great america

2008-08-01T09:38:00.003-06:00

So we had our Stuco trip to Great America this week, which was also my first trip to Great America. Somehow I managed to convince Lucas that he should come along for the ride (pun intended). This is what I learned:

1. Theme parks are a rip off. I guess I should have known that, as I have suspected it all along, but still. We passed up several roller coasters because Lucas was carrying a backpack and they wanted him to pay a dollar to store it. At each ride. And due to the immense heat we spent half the day in the water park, where we ended up paying to rent a tube just so we wouldn't have to wait in lines all day.

2. Students are funny. We had one kid who came and didn't like roller coasters at all, so I'm not sure what he did all day. One of my students was adamant about the fact that she was NOT going to ride Raging Bull, but she got talked into it. Peer pressure is one of the more amazing forces of nature.

3. People do things that normally would repulse them when in close quarters. For example: while floating on the Lazy River (at Six Flags or elsewhere) you may in fact brush up against other people. You may in fact have physical contact with their arms or legs or sometimes even their feet, and there isn't anything you can really do about it if you are sunk into an inner tube. I don't typically enjoy touching strangers, but sometimes you just end up doing it, and it's not as weird as it would be if you encountered them elsewhere.

4. I am so glad I am no longer a teenager. Being a teenager is trying and traumatic, and I'm pretty sure I was either very sheltered or very naive during my teenage years, because I got off easy. I see all of these kids just trying to learn how to be themselves, and learn who they are so that they can be themselves, and it's such a painful process it makes some of them want to give up. Thank goodness for the company of youth groups. I love our Student Community. It feels to me like one of the most accepting environments I have ever encountered. We have such great kids.

5. I really am getting old. I remember taking my own youth group trips to Six Flags in St. Louis, arriving when the park opened and staying until it closed. We didn't get there until after lunch and Lucas and I were wiped by about 7:00. We both admitted our pathetic-ness.

the cynic in me

2008-07-24T08:56:00.002-06:00

Lately I have been experiencing a kind of cynical block about "religion." And by lately I really mean for the last several months. See, I am struggling with the balance of being excited about my faith and the power of God and the cheese factor.

What is the cheese factor, you ask? I can most accurately describe my attitude about it in two words: Christian DJs.

In order to break some of my cynicism I have started listening to more Christian radio, but I can't stand the DJs. They just infuriate me sometimes with their pat answers to everything, their happy, everything-will-be-ok-with-God comments. I can't really explain why it bothers me as much as it does. I think it comes down to a lack of faith on my part, that when I hear someone talking about praying and the power it has, sometimes I scoff in disbelief. Even though all my life I've experienced the power of prayer, I still have a hard time sometimes believing it does any good. This is my cynical side.

In light of so many atrocities in our world, I frequently despair that anything can make a difference. Sometimes not even our pleas to God seem to change things. And when I'm hurting and someone tells me they're praying for me, all I can do is smile at them and say thank you, even though I want to ask why, why they think it will make a difference...

Those are my darker moments. When I let myself undo the foundations of my whole life. Ultimately I am rooted on the promises of God, that He is faithful, that He never leaves us alone and vulnerable. All I have to stand on most days are those promises, and the lingering dream of who I could be if I truly, truly, firmly planted my feet in them, not to be moved.

The good news is that I have heard a few songs on the Christian radio station that I love. One is by Brooke Fraser (from Hillsong United). I love these lyrics. They are like water on my dry soul:

Walking, stumbling on these shadowfeet
toward home, a land that i've never seen
I am changing, less and less asleep
made of different stuff than when i began
and i have sensed it all along
fast approaching is the day

when the world has fallen out from under me
i'll be found in You, still standing
when the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
when time and space are through
i'll be found in You

summer reading list

2008-07-21T09:32:00.002-06:00

I finally finished the first year of grad school! What a relief. I had to go out for ice cream Thursday night after finishing my final (three hand-written essay questions...yuck. Major hand cramping!). So now I will be taking a break until the winter quarter in January, what with the wedding and moving and all.

But just a disclaimer, if you've been noticing my reading list to the left, unless you want to feel really depressed, don't bother with any of the following books:
McTeague
In Our Time
Paris Trout
No Country for Old Men
Seize the Day
Winesburg, Ohio
Ballad of the Sad Cafe

I must say that part of the huge relief of finishing this most recent class was not having to read any more depressing, dark, hopeless books--or at least not having to finish them should I accidentally start one. Everyone in my class was joking about wanting to go see a happy movie after finishing the class...but no, we went to see The Dark Knight last weekend. Great movie, terribly dark. I think my professor I just had would love it.

So now I am moving on to happier things, like wedding planning and moving and finding another job, etc. This is a bittersweet time, as I LOVE summer, but am dying for the next 2 months to just disappear...I am ready to have all this wedding stuff taken care of and just be married.

watch your language

2008-07-15T10:15:00.002-06:00

Recently I have become excessively aware of the way I speak. Finally, being an English major is starting to sink in.

What really triggered this new awareness was an incident last week. My boss and I had a "meeting" (lunch) with several women from the South Barrington community (= rich), and one of them was older, probably around 65 or so. We ended up talking to her for about 4 hours (I also have a theory that older women are lonely and take every opportunity they can to talk to anyone they can...another post, perhaps), and in the span of that 4 hours, she never once used the word "like" except in its appropriate sense--of comparison.

The word like is meant to be used in simile form (comparing two things using like or as). Bet you haven't thought about similes in a while. Consider this a brief summer school session.

Like has become the most overused word in the English language. And all of a sudden my awareness has been heightened, and it's driving me crazy. I accidentally yelled at Lucas last weekend for using it too much. I try to catch myself in conversation--not only is it a matter of sounding more intelligent, it is a matter of the state of the English language.

We have an excessive number of words constituting our verbal capacities, and we only use a tiny fraction of those words. I am afraid that we are becoming less eloquent as the years go by and technology makes it easier for us to slum our vocabulary. I get upset when I think about the fact that we are raising an entire generation on text message and IM lingo. These methods of communication are based on brevity, lack of punctuation is the norm, and spelling? Forget about it. If you can convey a word with fewer letters than it actually has, congratulations.

I get frustrated because I think of the papers I'm going to have to grade in future years (if I ever finish my degree).

I get frustrated because Americans already have a reputation as being one of the least expressive or eloquent nations of the world--a nation with mandatory education policies.

I get frustrated because I do it too.

So remember, "like" is a word to be used in comparison. Not as a stall tactic. Not as a filler when you don't know what to say. Not because everyone else is doing it.

And please, for the sake of your brain, watch your language.

the afterglow

2008-07-08T14:12:00.003-06:00

Since Lucas has been living in Sandwich for the last few months, once or twice a week I end up driving out there so that we can see each other, which is a long haul but very worthwhile. One of the best parts about driving to Sandwich, though, is that it feels like driving out in the middle of nowhere--country roads hemmed in by cornfields, scattered houses, the occasional stop sign. All these things remind me of being back in central Illinois, where I grew up. My parents' house edges right up against a field, alternating between corn and soybeans, and driving out straight west from there house takes you deep into the heart of the stereotypical Midwest.

I love it.

I love driving out there at dusk, stopping the car, and looking at the glowing world. I think dusk may just be my favorite time of day, as the sun drifts below the horizon, leaving behind a spectacle of colors, bordering at times on brilliant. In the afterglow of the sunset, the tiny lights of evening poke their heads, and out in the country, away from the city lights that glare orange against the sky, you can see them all, tiny glowing points, sparkles, glitter against the night. One of my favorite high school activities was driving out to the middle of the fields and then lying on the hood of the car to take in the vast blackness scattered with stars. Where there are no city lights, the stars seem to multiply, and constellations pop out of nowhere. My dad and I spent one summer trying to memorize as many as we could, and I still have a few favorites that I can point out if it's dark enough to see them.

The other glow that creeps up in the summer over the fields is the lightning bugs. They may be the only tolerable kind of bug, mainly because they don't bite but also because they seem to float in a kind of magical glow over the corn fields, giving off an aura of pixie dust and magic. There is a sweet smell in the air--the scent of crops and humidity and sweat and earth, tinged with the coolness of evening--that I love to breathe deep. I can't get enough of it in the all-too-short summer months.

It's worth reveling in the summer afterglow. It never stays long enough to satisfy me, but maybe that's what makes it so delightful.

identity theft

2008-07-02T08:11:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I have moments (days, weeks...) when I look at myself in the mirror and wonder who I really am. Generally I have a pretty good idea, but just occasionally it comes into question. So often I identify myself by the things I do...and lately that has all changed. Less often I identify myself by the things I know are true--even though I recognize those truths, they feel like the easiest things to be stolen away from me, leaving me with those moments of question.

In leaving my job at CCC, I felt like a huge part of my identity just disappeared. I have completely changed what I do for a living, what I do in my spare time, what occupies my mind, who I interact with on a daily basis. It's enormously dissatisfying to know that a part of you is missing. Currently on my reading list is Nancy Beach's book called Gifted to Lead--about being a woman leader in a world run by men. She reminds us that God didn't make a mistake when He made women leaders. That's reassuring. But only when I think of what could happen in my future life. Not in the context of my present life.

My identity constantly shifts--the things that identified me in high school and even college have morphed and adapted to new situations, my personality reflects some of these changes. There are parts of me that I like much better now than I did in high school. But there are parts of my high school and college identity that have been lost in the shuffle of my becoming someone different, someone more adult, someone more in control, someone needing order and balance in her life.

I don't think I can always control my identity. Sometimes it just happens to be who I am in the moments when I'm not conscious of my actions, when I have no one to impress and nothing to lose. I want more of those moments, but the reality is that I just care too much how I am perceived. I think this is a chronic condition...it's not going to go away no matter how successful or confident I become--I will still be somewhere inside the little girl I used to be...the little girl who envisioned herself doing great things but stayed within the limits of what she thought was actually achievable.

If I put my identity in the hands of the things I do or the hands of people around me, I will never keep it for very long. Those things are stolen from me every minute of every day. I am learning the art of gracefully accepting the identity stuffed inside my balanced and controlled exterior...and sometimes I look in the mirror and for a split second and see that true identity.

habits

2008-06-27T08:36:00.003-06:00

I have been sleeping in the same bed since I was 13. No joke. It is a wooden framed daybed, and I have grown quite fond of it. The mattress is probably conformed to the shape of my body by now, and the springs are a little squeaky, but at the end of a long day or after being away, there is nothing like sinking into my squeaky little bed.

I sleep on my stomach. It's really the only way to sleep. And I am a heavy sleeper. Once I am out, I am out. My phone has rung in the middle of the night, right next to my head, and I don't hear it. Thunderstorms? Nope. Not even the air conditioner which runs right outside my window can keep me awake.

I was thinking about my sleeping habits because the days are growing shorter until I am a married woman, and sleeping seems like a big thing to work out. I have to sleep under the covers, usually pulled up around my head, even in the middle of the summer, which means that then there has to be a fan running. Ceiling fans are preferred, but when lacking, a circulating floor fan will do. I cannot sleep under the covers during the day, no matter how cold it is--if I nap during the winter, I sleep on top of my covers with a different blanket over me. I find that I can't get into bed at night if it hasn't been made in the morning.

Lucas thinks some of these things are ridiculous. But I have been doing them for 25 years...how do you break 25-year habits? I guess I will find out soon enough. But still...I've been wondering how many of my idiosyncrasies will have to go 79 days from now.

morbid curiosity

2008-06-17T09:05:00.002-06:00

Last week I saw the saddest thing, and I'm going to write about it even though it's a little gross, so skip ahead if you would like...

I was leaving my apartment last week and on the sidewalk leading to the parking lot there are always leaves and such on the pavement. I happened to be watching my feet (a habit I wish I could break--wouldn't you rather look the world in the face as you walk instead of studying the ground?) and noticed some weird little grayish-brown blobs on the sidewalk. I of course wanted to know what they were. (I was a little afraid it was dog poop.) On closer inspection I found that they were little, featherless, baby birds. Dead on the sidewalk. They hadn't been eaten by any animals. They must have just fallen out of their nest prematurely and been left by the parent birds (because really, how is a bird going to put its baby back in the nest?).

I can't explain why, but it was just so sad to me to see these little completely helpless denuded little bodies, probably about the size of a half-dollar, with beaks and wings and little feet (yes, I studied them fairly closely with a sense of morbidity and curiosity). I've been trying to think of some metaphor to relate this experience to something in my life, but I can't, and believe me, I've been processing this since last week.

It's strange what things stick in our minds...

All I can think about is those little birds that never even had a chance. And that probably no one else even noticed they were there.

what i think

2008-06-12T14:11:00.002-06:00

I am at the Willow Creek Arts Conference this week. It's always one of the highlights of my year. There is something so comforting about being surrounding by people who are all artists of varying degrees, to be in community with right-brained people, to feel the collective sigh of appreciation over a great piece of art.

So here are some thoughts. I think art is the most subjective subject ever created. Even artists can't all agree on what constitutes as art. The great tragedy of this is that if artists don't value each other, the chances of the world at large valuing us is increasingly diminished. Art is frequently viewed as frivolous, an extraneous form of expression, by people who don't "get" art. For me, art is like breathing fresh air when you've had months and months of coldness, rain, or excessive humidity...that fresh air just sweeps through everything in you and restores the soul to a place of hope in the goodness that really does exist in the world. Art does that for me. Without it, I would be even more cynical than I already am.

I also think that art has the power to change the world. No, really. Hang with me here. Art in all its forms--film, literature, painting, sculpture, music--can impact cultures and political systems. I just finished writing a paper on the effects that a new kind of criticism can change our perceptions of the environment and the role we as humans play in its destruction, restoration, and preservation. Everything is interconnected, and the more we realize it, the better off we will be. Art gives us a reason to appreciate the beauty of the world. It gives us reason to take notice of God's miraculous creation and to place our lives in the context of something bigger and better than ourselves. We cannot isolate ourselves from the world. Not in any manner--politically, socially, environmentally. We live in this world, and ultimately it's God's world, not ours. What have we done? How can we rectify our human history? How does art change our perceptions?

These are the questions I ask myself. I also have a rant about the state of the English language...but I will save that for another time and post.

where to start...

2008-06-02T19:21:00.002-06:00

I have been meaning to write this post for the last two weeks and just haven't worked myself up for it. It's one of those posts I've actually been dying to write, and somehow the moment just never seemed right. So instead of waiting for the moment to feel right, I'm just going to write.

This was my first weekend away from home. For almost four years I have been a part of the CCC family, and this was my first weekend away. I didn't hate it and I didn't love it...it was what it was.

I'm not a huge fan of change. I know, shocking, right? But really. I can roll with the punches as well as the next guy, but ask me to voluntarily change something major about my life, and I'm a bit resistant. I've known this was coming since December, and still...it's a little like leaving my world behind. Not only am I no longer working as an Arts Director, I am now attending Luc's church in Plano--which is hugely exciting for us! It is unfortunate, though, that it requires me to say goodbye (for now) to a place that has changed me in a few short years.

Life really is all about people, isn't it? It has taken me the better part of 25 years to realize that it's our relationships in life that make all the difference. Working in ministry really opened my eyes to that, for better or worse, and there are so many relationships I would never have experienced if not for being here and being part of CCC. God really always knows what He's doing, He has proved that to me consistently, and bringing me here was one of those situations that I knew was too coincidental to be mere coincidence. I am fully convinced that He brought me here to meet the people I did, establish the friendships I have, find myself and grow into that person, meet my husband, and continue a journey of faith and trust, pushing me to the limits of my self.

I'm not a huge fan of goodbyes, either, and so while I could name drop for another whole post, I won't. So many people have contributed to my journey in the last three and a half years, and it would be too hard to say goodbye through a blog post. So thank God for the internet, which allows us to follow each other's lives even though our paths may not cross again.

Oh, and what am I doing now, you ask? I just started working for a small publishing company in South Barrington as an assistant publisher for a local magazine (finally putting that English degree to good use). I'll be around. I'm still the go-to girl for proofreading, if anyone needs something edited. I actually get paid to do that now...

It's been a trip.
Where to start?
Where to end?

untitled

2008-05-14T10:16:00.000-06:00

let the spring come,
let it wash away
all my thoughts of yesterday—

let the wind blow,
let the newness sweep out my soul—
let the rain fall,
let it drench my thirsty heart,
let it drown the weight that
suffocates the better parts of me—

let the tulips bloom
i will smile for you
i will smile at you
when the tulips bloom—

let the leaf-light in,
let it flood through the windows
and twirl in my footsteps—

can we dance in time
with the crooked sunlight?—
with the popping rain?—
can we dance in time
with the pouring wind?—
can we dance in time?
will we dance in time?
will the spring bring life
that will kill our doubts?—
that will let us shout?—
that will keep our faith?—

come and kiss this mouth, oh laughing spring;
i wait with hands outstretched:
bring your best
and your worst,
only give me the chance
to shout out my heart to the sky;
let the flowers wave
wave their heads at the wind—
let the sapphire sky
swallow my shadows—
let the spring come—
let it bring me
you

american sports

2008-05-02T13:28:00.004-06:00

I went to my first ever Cubs game yesterday. Actually, it was the first major league baseball game I've been to since approximately 1991, when my family when to a Detroit Tigers game. (Hey, we were living in Michigan, not a lot of options.)

Here are Lucas and I making cotton candy mustaches. Man, I forgot how much I like cotton candy...

OK, but here's the point. The Cubs were winning the game going into the 9th inning. They brought in Kerry Wood, who proceeded--on his first pitch of the game--to hit a batter and let 3 runs score. The stadium was ticked. I'll bet Zambrano was sitting in the dugout fuming, after pitching the first 6 innings and hitting the first home run of the game, and (for those Arrested Development fans out there) I'll guarantee that Lou Pinella was sitting there thinking "I've made a huge mistake."

This is my beef with professional sports. So Kerry Wood had a terrible day yesterday. But he's still making $4 million this year.

$4 million! (Yes, I did look that up.) Are you kidding me? And now, think of how many professional athletes we employ in this country. Most of them are making upwards of $1 million a season. I don't even want to know how much money that adds up to that this country pays to athletes.

Before you protest, don't hear me say that I am opposed to professional sports. I respect the amount of time, energy, determination, and hard work that goes into being an athlete, although I myself make no such claims. I am but a lowly everyman. I work hard, multiple jobs, to support myself. Most of the rest of the nation does the same. So how does it make sense that a guy who pitches half an inning a game makes $4 million a year?

This makes me sick. We can't afford to pay our teachers efficiently, yet we can put out this kind of money to support athletes? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the education of this nation surpasses in importance any game in existence. Call me crazy, I know. This is a dichotomy that shows no signs of disappearance, and it is upsetting. We live in a nation that can afford to pay baseball players obscene amounts of money but can't manage to live within our federal budget, can't employ, feed, or house everyone living in this nation, can't properly solve the problem of poverty in this country or any other. It's a major discrepancy. The money made off sporting events could be used for so many other things.

What is this world coming to?

art in the church

2008-04-29T10:11:00.003-06:00

Last Saturday I got to present a paper at Wheaton College on the role of art in the church and reproducing artists in the church. It was a new experience for me--I can perform on stage without any fear, but speaking in front of a group of people was a little unnerving, especially since I was the only presenter at this small conference without a PhD. I think it went over well, though.

But since then I've been thinking a lot about art in the church, and have had multiple conversations about it. Lots of people have lots of opinions. One thing that I will contend is that the church has recently fallen behind in producing good art. I think the secular world regards much of our art as being of a lesser quality than theirs, and they may have a point. I find it difficult to produce art without adding the "cheese" factor that turns off non-Christian artists to Christian art.

The interesting thing is that historically art was commissioned by the church. Most of the great masterpieces of the Medieval period through the Renaissance were paid for by church officials, commissioned of the great artists of the time regardless of their religious beliefs. And we uphold these as great pieces of art, timeless though created centuries ago. Now art in the church has become something less than respectable by the rest of the world.

This makes me sad. We have the ultimate source of inspiration and yet we struggle to create art that compels the world to see that ultimate source. While I think that we have the capacity to redeem secular art for the sake of the church, I also think that as the church we need to create redeemed art. I think we have a long way to go in certain areas--film and literature in particular. But I think we have the capacity to get there, and I love that at CCC we create art that to some degree stirs at least interest in the secular world.

I think the church needs art. We need good art. But we also need real, authentic, and vulnerable art that expresses the heart of the journey of faith. Where do we go from here?

going green

2008-04-23T09:34:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was Earth Day. I meant to write this post yesterday, but I of course forgot, or ran out of time, or had some other lame excuse like that.

So on Earth Day (pretend this was posted yesterday), I am thinking about the concept of "going green." It seems to be kind of a trendy thing to do...or at least an up-and-coming trend. People are claiming to be more interested in our environmental debaucle on this planet...everyone from politicians to radio stations like 101.9, one of Chicago's biggest radio stations. On the Mix you can hear daily tips on how to help Chicago go green, things like unplugging your phone charger, turning off the water when brushing your teeth, adjusting your thermostat by one or two degrees to save energy, even having a night where the whole city turned off its lights for a few hours.

I find this admirable. I find this a cause I can get behind. Growing up with parents who are religious recyclers and a father who has an interest in all things environmental, I was brought up to turn off lights when leaving a room, wear sweaters in the winter because the house was always cold, reuse plastic bags and eat leftovers. So I've always felt that I am an environmentally friendly person. It drives Lucas crazy that I bring my recyclables over to his house since we don't have recycling service at our apartment complex. I don't know what I will do when he moves.

But then I started reading a book by Barbara Kingsolver that has introduced me to the detrimental effects of America's eating habits, not only to our health but to our environment, due to our need for instant gratification of our every food want and need.

Going green is a harder lifestyle than I think I am ready for. I have heard more and more stories of people growing their own food or buying local, which I am starting to explore--buying local, that is. I don't think my apartment complex would allow for the planting of a full vegetable garden. And that would be a lot of work. So the whole local food commitment is a big one that I am thinking about, but it means only buying fruits and vegetables in season, which stinks. I love a good strawberry in the middle of the winter, which is clearly not in season. So mainly I'm just looking for farmer's markets right now. Whether I actually buy there or not is a different matter. I have an enormous amount of growing respect for people who choose this lifestyle. It takes a lot of dedication.

I was thinking about trying to ride my bike to work in order to use less gas, but that is an even bigger commitment, what with weather conditions being so unreliable.

And green is my favorite color. That should count for something, right?

words from the president

2008-04-16T10:32:00.003-06:00

Those of you who know me know I am not good at following current news stories. I did just read an article about the pope's visit to the US, though, and it was really interesting. (Badly written, but interesting nonetheless.)

President Bush reportedly told the pope, "We need your message [in order] to reject this dictatorship of relativism and embrace a culture of justice and truth." I like the phrase dictatorship of relativism, it strikes me for some reason as a phrase which not only could our president not have created himself, but also one that I think would be interesting to evaluate in light of our current culture. Are we living under a dictatorship of relativism? Are we capable of embracing a culture of justice and truth?

Sometimes I think truth is much too abstract and at the same time too concrete a concept to be lived out in a nation consumed with itself. The article also said: "Bush showed off America to its important visitor, ticking off what he said are its best virtues: a nation of prayer and compassion, a nation that believes in religious liberty and welcomes the role of faith in the public square, and one that is the most "innovative, creative and dynamic country on Earth" but also among the most religious."

I don't know that I believe that on the whole we are a nation of prayer and compassion, or a nation who welcomes faith in the public square, or among the most religious nations in the world. I think we tend to be on the whole a selfish and self-absorbed nation, focused on meeting its own needs above anyone else's, no matter the cost.

I also believe, though, that we have the capacity to change all that. I would love to live in a nation of prayer and compassion, focusing on how we can do good by the rest of the world rather than consuming it all for ourselves. I think the church is a huge part of this and we are making massive strides in the right direction, but it's a slow process and it's hard to stick with it when immediate results aren't visible, especially in a culture of instant gratification.

I am not immune from any of this. I live in this country. I succumb to the temptations of capitalism, living for myself, ignoring the problems I see around me, not only in the world on a large scale, but in my world on a small scale. I want to embrace a culture of justice and truth.

moe's

2008-04-14T15:06:00.002-06:00

Last Tuesday I went to Moe's. It was my first time there. Moe's is a pseudo-Mexican restaurant in the same vein as Chipotle and Qdoba, though the people I accompanied to Moe's claimed, of course, that it was highly superior.

Apparently I am not a good judge of food. I have been told that I should be able to tell the difference between World Famous Tacos and...all other kinds of tacos, but honestly, a taco is a taco to me. Yes, Moe's was good. I will admit that. And they have sweet tea. Which makes it better than any restaurant that does not have sweet tea. (I am slowly coming to believe that I was really meant to live in a much warmer climate...say, Georgia...judging by my penchant for warm weather and sweet tea.) My vegetarian burrito was tasty. (No, I am not a vegetarian.) But overall, it was pretty comparable to the other pseudo-Mexican restaurants in the area.

What made this dining experience interesting, though, was the company with which I visited this fine establishment. I went with some co-workers, Bill Carroll, BT (last name unknown), and Chris Heller. Apparently Chris frequents Moe's. As we walked in, several of the workers knew him BY NAME. I have never eaten somewhere frequently enough to have the staff know me by name, not to mention by order. It was so great. In a highly impersonal society, the workers at Moe's know Chris Heller. I love it. It may make Chris seem a little sad, I'll admit, but it's good to know that we still have the capacity to establish relationships with people beyond our circle of friends, acquaintances and coworkers. It's like being in a small town where there's only one restaurant so of course the workers know their regulars, but we are in the suburbs. I find this fascinating!

Nice work, Chris. Way to eat at Moe's so often that the workers know your name. I congratulate you on this shining accomplishment.

over my head

2008-04-06T07:09:00.002-06:00

Several things have happened lately that lead me to believe that I am in over my head, in more ways than one.

This whole comment debate on the two previous posts has generated a lot of thought on my end. As a disclaimer, I would like to say for the record that none of my students (and I have many) read my blog. They don't find me all that interesting. Reading what people have to say about my thoughts is somewhat overwhelming. I believe that I am entitled to write whatever I want to write on my blog. But I thank you all for reading. I suppose that if I am entitled to my opinions you are entitled to yours.

Next instance:
I started my new class last Thursday--it's called Theories of Literary Criticism. Doesn't that sound fun? I'm with you, it does NOT. But it's a required class, so I figured I might as well get it out of the way. But the scary part is that I haven't even touched anything having to do with Literary Criticism since undergrad, which was a good four or five years ago...so when on the first night our professor asked us all to tell the class what kind of critic we are, which was a stretch because I can't even define all the types of literary critics. It amazes me how much the brain is capable of forgetting. Then we covered the history of literary criticism--from ancient Greek up through the 1800s--in about 45 minutes. My brain hurt.

Next instance:
I am "presenting a paper" at a conference at Wheaton college at the end of the month, and after having a conference call a few weeks ago, I was completely overwhelmed by the intellectual level of ALL of the other speakers. I'm pretty sure I contributed nothing to that conversation, and am not even sure why I was asked to speak at this conference--the subject matter differs from almost everything else happening. It's very bizarre. So I'm halfway done with a 2500-word paper that I will be presenting in a few weeks. Yikes.

So, in the words of the Fray, there's 8 seconds left in overtime....everyone knows I'm in over my head.

Speaking of overtime, I know I've shared before that I'm a sucker for sports movies, but I re-watched Glory Road the other day and cried. That's all I wanted to say about that.

warming up

2008-04-02T11:08:00.002-06:00

I can't even begin to express how happy it makes me to look at the weather forecast for the next five days and not see snow anywhere in the near future. The effect that this has on my overall mood is simply outstanding. I must be affected by the whole seasonal depression thing, slightly at least. So this is a welcome change.

As the weather warms up, so does my attitude toward a lot of things. I am warming up to the idea of new things (which has been only overwhelming for the last few weeks), warming up more to certain people who God seems to have placed in my life for reasons I can't imagine, warming up to the idea that there is a larger plan in place here, and I am simply along for the ride.

I love watching the world come back to life in the spring, as the green comes back into the grass and the leaves come out and flowers speck the ground with all my favorite colors and people actually go outside after their 6-month hibernation. It all rings of life. Sometimes I feel like I start cruising on auto pilot in my life, and it's good to feel the life come back into me every once in a while. I feel it like the slowly rising temperature.

learning how to like someone

2008-03-28T09:21:00.005-06:00

I have a problem.

I am quick to jump to conclusions about people. Sometimes this may be considered judgmental. I prefer to say I make incorrect assumptions. It softens the blow a bit.

Most recent case:
I have a student that I have a difficult time with. Sometimes I just don't like her. She has a tendency to be a bit annoying and most things that come out of her mouth are completely self-centered...although I guess these actions are fairly typical of a student, for some reason she bothers me more than my other students.
As I was venting to someone about this, though, I felt really convicted about feeling this way. So I'm trying to learn to like her. Maybe that's too big a step...first I'll start with just trying not to dislike her.

I find myself making these sorts of judgments too often. Sometimes I'll say I don't like someone, and when asked to give a reason, I can't really come up with anything. I just don't like them based on a personality trait or a misplaced comment or the fact that I have a very low tolerance level for annoying people. So I've decided that my tendency toward pre-judging people (or making assumptions) needs to be toned down a bit. After all, God loves us all. He even likes us all, which is the bigger issue.

confessions of a bookaholic

2008-03-19T10:23:00.002-06:00

I love to read probably more than a sane person should. If I am in the middle of an exceptionally good book, I will choose reading over watching TV, movies, or sometimes even hanging out with other people. I will curl up in my papasan chair (which I bought for $5 at a garage sale) with a blanket and not move for hours, and when I finally get up my legs won't support the rest of me because my knees give out from being bent for so long. It's pathetic, really.

And I am one of those people who reads books more than once. In fact, some books I read more than twice. I can't count how many times I've read some of my favorite books. I just finished re-reading Pride and Prejudice for the second time (the first time was in high school, so it doesn't really count). It's a tough read. At least this time I understood what was going on.

I would rather read than do just about any other activity. If I am not in the midst of reading two or three books at a time, I am lost. I have to go to Borders. Or I will be forced to reread something from my library, which cannot all be contained in my apartment. It's true. I had to store books at my parents' house. They can't wait until I have my own storage space.

I claim that it's their fault, though. My dad (a combination professor-pastor) is also a bookaholic. One entire wall of his office is lined with books. In my family, books are a more-than-acceptable gift. In fact, we usually give each other a list of books before any major gift-giving holiday. We collect books like other people collect more normal things--video games, movies, trophies, etc. I have long been aware that we are somewhat freakish in this regard, an awareness which was heightened the first time I brought Lucas home to meet my parents. He thinks we're all freaks.

Lately I have made a rather comforting discovery. I am not alone.

There are other bookaholics in the world. I just started reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (a book on writing) and compared to her I seem a little more sane than I originally thought. Other people are freakish too.

I think that all any of us want in life is not to be alone in our freakdom. I am so relieved that other people wallow in the world of books, trading reality for the pages of a different reality.

I, of course, know the difference between fiction and reality. I'm not THAT bad.

men will be...boys

2008-03-09T19:26:00.004-06:00

Let's face it, the saying "boys will be boys" is applicable not only to small children, but to grown men as well. I am of the firm belief that men never really grow up--sort of the Peter Pan syndrome, but without the magic of flying away to a mythical land, which would definitely spice up life a little bit.

Digression: I loved Peter Pan when I was growing up. Actually, I was (and to some degree still am) a huge fan of almost any Disney movie. I remember the first Disney movie I saw in the theater--Grandpa took all of the grandkids to see The Little Mermaid. I was probably seven or so. I think it was my first movie theater experience, and the part where Prince Eric stabs Ursula with the prow of the ship and they flash her skeleton was permanently etched into the back of my eyelids for weeks afterward. I was a highly impressionable child.

Back to my point: I am at Luke's house at the moment, and there are four grown men playing the newest edition of Smash Brothers. They are highly invested in this game, and it is raucous and uproarious. I am listening from the loft. It is most entertaining. But this scenario proves the point I am trying to make. Men in their mid-to-late twenties are no more grown up than boys in high school. Sure they have their moments of maturity. I will concede that point. But for the most part they are funny and silly and appreciate an inappropriate joke, no matter whether they are pastors or not.

Obviously I speak only from my own experiences. Perhaps I overgeneralize. I think not.

Also--I must make a disclaimer that I had to "clean up" my list of blog links on my site. If yours was deleted, please don't take offense. It's just that some of you don't post very often, and the list was getting too long. I still love you.

who we used to be...

2008-03-03T16:19:00.002-06:00

I love my mother. Please understand that before I say anything else. But she has the power to make me more frustrated than any other single person in my life. Today she called me for the first time in a few weeks and was asking about the wedding plans, and when I told her all the things I'm trying to process, she says: "Whatever happened to the simple cake and punch reception you always talked about?" I have no recollection of that conversation, but she insists that in high school I always said that I wanted the simplest of receptions when I ended up getting married.

I may have said that. But that was then.

I would like to state for the record that I am in no way, shape or form the same person now as I was in high school. Traces remain of the girl I used to be, but on the whole I am perfectly happy with the woman I have grown up to be. I am a thousand times more confident in who I am today than who I was in high school. Everyone goes through a period of extreme self-consciousness and personal discovery, I know. But I can't imagine being the intimidated freshman anymore.

I was always the quiet one, the studious one, the good student, and the obedient daughter. Maybe that is who my mother misses, who she wishes I could still be.

Unfortunately...I still pride myself on being studious, but I don't think that on the whole the word quiet would describe my personality. Somewhere around my senior year of high school I realized I could actually talk to people. It turned out to be pretty fun. In college I learned that I had ambitions and talents that I hadn't known about in high school. After college I took a totally different life path than I had anticipated.

And I have no regrets about that. I think things have turned out rather well, I must say.

But some people get stuck on knowing you one way, and resist watching you change into someone they claim not to recognize. This is the case with my mother. She has expectations of me that fit who I was eight years ago.

Eight years is a pretty long time. I would be disappointed in myself if I had not grown into who I am now, leaving behind who I used to be.

thoughts on leap years

2008-02-29T15:07:00.004-06:00

I pretty much only keep track of leap years by the fact that they coincide with election years.

I think leap year is one of the strangest concepts ever invented.

I also think that the term leap year is a contradiction of itself. In an actual leap year (such as this one) we add a day to the calendar. Every other year we skip that day--we leap over it, if you will--so really this is the real year and the other three are leap years...if you think about it hard enough and agree with my conclusions, which you are under no obligation to do.

I would hate to have my birthday on February 29.

I am glad tomorrow is the beginning of March. I find March to be a more hopeful month than February--I anticipate the weather getting nicer, and even if it doesn't actually deliver for me it is easier to hope in March than it is in February.

I am also glad it didn't occur to Lucas to get married on February 29. It would make it much too easy for him to forget our anniversary.

all we can do is keep breathing

2008-02-21T09:40:00.002-06:00

Do you ever have those days when you wish you just didn't have to care about people? I'm serious. Between my students and the leaders on my team and my volunteers....sometimes I get so overwhelmed with everything going on in everyone else's lives that I wish I just didn't care. But the thing is that I do care--I have to care. I don't know how to not care.

Which is just so burdensome.

It would be easier to not care. But it also would be incredibly selfish. My problem is that not only do I care, I want to solve. I am a fixer. I need to have answers and solutions when things go awry. It is hard to admit that I can't fix most things.

Some days all we can do is keep breathing.

In the midst of all the hellish crap going on around me, all I can do is breathe...in...and out. And pray to God that something breaks, eventually. Because it can't always be this hard, right? It can't always hurt this much to watch people's lives fall apart, right?

Twenty five years is long enough to know that it never gets easier.

in the end...

2008-02-17T16:03:00.002-06:00

Past the point of exhaustion and sanity and hope and all that makes us function as normal human beings, we reach the end of what we think we can handle. And then if we're lucky, we realize that we still have faith, and that even though we can't SEE or TOUCH or often HEAR God, He is there in the end.

And in that moment, the end becomes the beginning.

God's pulse beats for us. It stopped beating for us. The challenge is to believe it. And to communicate it to high schoolers who think they have reached the end of what they can handle or want to handle. And we get a tiny glimpse into the heart of God, knowing what it is to feel frustrated and helpless watching a student you love WANT so much to give it all up and really LIVE...but not having the strength to do it. It's a choice you can't make for anyone else, the decision to believe in love and Life and hope. It's infuriating to watch hope slip through her fingers like water through a sieve. And all the love you try to give, you try to smother her with it in hopes that it punctures her skin somehow, that it reaches her heart...and she won't take it. She won't believe in it. She won't trust it, or you, or anyone else for that matter.

And it's heartbreaking. It's a heartbreaking world.

Sometimes I think, in the end, that once our hearts are broken we have two choices. We can either leave them lying on the floor in pieces, or we can use all the strength we have to bend down and pick them up, holding them in our hands and crying out with all we are for the faith we need to let someone else put them back together. And while we hold those pieces, the blood runs through our fingers, our own blood pouring out of us and dripping to the ground, our lives seeping out of us in slow, steady drops. Which is why we mustn't hold on too tightly, or the wounds will never heal...we cannot do this alone. It is foolishness to believe that we can solve our own problems without the help of someone whose pulse beats Life into our dying hearts.

Yes, die to the old.

But choose Life.

All we can do is choose Life. Every single minute of every single day for the rest of our lives. I choose the abundant Life that Jesus came to give me, Life to its fullest, the only Life that sets me free from drowning in my own blood and living through His.

updates

2008-02-13T10:44:00.002-06:00

The girl in my class who annoys me wrote her last piece on holiness. Of all things.

And the rug outside our door is gone.

mysteries

2008-02-09T13:46:00.000-06:00

Me: JK, when did you get that rug outside the door?

JK: I was going to ask you the same thing. I almost texted you when I left for work yesterday but I didn't want to wake you up.

Me: Funny, I was going to text you the same thing when you were at work.

JK: So, you didn't buy the rug?

Me: No. I thought you did.

JK: Did Lucas bring it over?

Me: No, it was outside our door when he came over the other night. That was the first time I saw it, so I just assumed you brought it with you after work.

JK: I didn't see it until Friday morning when I left for work.

Me: So, neither of us bought the rug?

JK: Nope.

Me: Weird.

piety

2008-02-08T12:27:00.000-06:00

Evangelism is not one of my gifts.

Case in point: last week in class I overheard a girl saying to the guy next to her (both of whom I know are Christians) "sometimes I just want to stand up and preach the Gospel!" I had a vague idea of what she was talking about, it had to do with some comments/language used in class. What does this have to do with evangelism, you ask?

In a setting like that I would not presume to push my religious beliefs on anyone else there. Her judgmental-ness was so off-putting that when I read her essay about going on a mission trip to Honduras, I was not nearly as moved as I should have been.

Call me a cynic--go ahead. But I cannot stand Christians who have a holier-than-thou attitude. They make me afraid to claim that I am one of them.

I think piety has gained a negative connotation in our society. The word itself (defined as reverence for God or devout fulfillment of religious obligations) is unassuming enough, yet has been transformed into a synonym for that kind of judgmental Christianity. Would you want to be called pious?

In our attempts to "modernize" Christianity, many words that people like my parents grew up using have become irrelevant, and even harsh--words like pious, devout, zealous--and they ring in my ears in a very negative tone.

I know that my classmates probably need Jesus--in fact, some of them need Him very much. (I have read their work about their lives--some of them are distressed indeed.) But hearing that girl make that comment left me with one reaction: What a pious and judgmental thing to say.

And now of course I am perpetuating the situation by judging her and her overly-zealous faith. None of us have this down.

vulnerability

2008-01-30T12:30:00.000-06:00

I am currently enrolled in a class called "The Personal Essay." I enrolled for two reasons: it fit in my schedule and I didn't have to drive to Lincoln Park. Plus the title of the class was interesting.

The class entails writing our own personal experiences....and then letting everyone in the class read what we've written and comment on our essays.

I didn't really know what I was getting into when I registered.

For me, blogging is an exercise in vulnerability. And I'm not even that deep in my posts. Writing a personal essay is a lot more intense than blogging...and a lot more personal. And then to open yourself up to twelve other writers for their feedback of your portrayal of your life...it's a bit intimidating, to say the least.

But I must say, I survived. Thus far, at least. We had our first workshop on Monday, and I survived my essay being on the table for all to critique. It was actually a good experience.

Which made me wonder why it is so difficult to be vulnerable. It's easy to share certain life details with certain people, to stay on the surface for the most part, to hole up the major emotional battles going on inside, to keep people at arm's length. Yet vulnerability is strangely liberating if done correctly. Sharing my essay with my class was almost a relief--so much of my life is so personally contained in my brain that very few people get to experience it with me. Plus, how do you get to experience someone's whole life with them? Only when we open up the curtains does the light come in...metaphorically speaking, of course.

And of course, I think it comes more naturally to some people than others. People who can just open up about their whole lives....it amazes me.

snippets

2008-01-20T10:01:00.000-06:00

the silence breaks upon us
in a sudden brutal wave.
in its aftermath a trail
of bruises on our hearts.

*

wake up!
the tide is ebbing
and there slip away our lives—
we leave temporary imprints
on the cold earth’s eyes.
we see but for an instant
how to clear away the dark
to keep the sea from coveting
the stories of our hearts.

*

the black horizon summons
calling shamelessly its own;
but the sunlight breaks the silence
calling all the stragglers home.

allegiance

2008-01-09T16:12:00.000-06:00

I admit that when it comes to politics, I am an apathist. Yes, that is a word I just made up, but it describes me perfectly. I don't care, really. I am as apathetic as one can possibly be about politics. I voted in the 2000 election--because I could. Because I had just turned eighteen that year and there was a small measure of excitement in voting. And I haven't voted since then. I blame it on the fact that I moved and am not registered where I live now...which is lame, I know. It all comes back to being an apathist.

Sometimes I want to be a more aware, more involved citizen, but it never lasts. And I pretend that I know what's going on in the caucuses right now, and at least I know the candidates' names...but that's the extent of it. And I never want to be involved enough to actually do it.

I wonder where this comes from. I've heard some sad statistics about the percentage of the population that votes; if I remember correctly, it's distressingly low. Yet despite the low level of actual involvement in the decision of our country's leadership, everyone later becomes a critic at some point. And I'll admit I've made my fair share of jokes at the expense of the president--but this joking manner generally pertains to his unusual vocabulary (which I technically can no longer mock since I myself invented my own word earlier in this post) and his lack of eloquence when speaking publicly.

I saw a sign a few months ago on my way home from class in Lincoln Park--it said God Bless America, God Damn Our President.

Really?

Maybe the person who made that sign did vote. Maybe not. But something about that struck me as somewhat offensive...and I don't even have strong feelings about the president one way or another.

And lest this becomes a forum for political debate, let me repeat: I am apathetic toward our current government, our future government, and the state of politics in general. I wish I cared. I'm sure that eventually something will make me care. I have never felt a real sense of allegiance to this country, though. Maybe it is rooted in the fact that my mother is Canadian--she has lived in the US for twenty-six years and is still a Canadian citizen...she carries a green card. Maybe it is rooted in the fact that I find so many other countries so much more interesting than this one--and though I live here, I have never felt that I couldn't live somewhere else.

Maybe I find it something of a paradox to ask God to bless America and damn its leader at the same time.

Maybe my allegiance lies to something bigger than borders and public policy and presidential candidates and the Constitution. Which may be heresy. But I might also just chalk it up to my apathetic state.

being a writer

2008-01-08T15:40:00.001-06:00

I've known for a while that writing is something I enjoy, and am relatively good at (and I say that without any sense of superiority--it's just been reinforced over many years), and would possibly be interested in as a career. But I still have a hard time calling myself a writer. In fact, whenever someone tells me they are a writer I am a little skeptical. I want to say--prove it. Show me something you've written and I will decide whether or not you can legitimately call yourself a writer.

I have come to the realization that writers come in all shapes in sizes and just as you can't judge a book by its cover, you can't judge a writer by their appearance. I started a writing workshop class last night that will last for the next ten weeks--and is full of people who I would never assume to be writers, yet there they are, in my writing class, all claiming that if they could do anything in their non-existent free time it would be to write.

Which just goes to show me.

I'm really excited about this class because it is going to give me a real chance to be critiqued by other writers. But it's also a little intimidating. I've always felt confident about writing, but I also fall into the trap of comparison far too often, and I judge myself too harshly against other people's standards. So it should be interesting.

I have found that being a writer is a strange fate, one that I would never have anticipated in my high school years being a viable career option. On my better days I have lofty aspirations of being published, of actually making money by writing, of being respected as a writer. The rest of the time I satisfy myself with blogging and journaling and keeping a file on my computer full of poetry and unfinished stories and short essays on my life that I never show anyone yet value as much as everything on my hard drive.

It is a strange and terrifying journey, this discovery that one can be a writer, and that writers are all around us, hiding in our midst, waiting to take our everyday experiences and turn them into novels and poems and short stories and essays, waiting to breathe life into the everyday mundane. We are the keepers of the English language if we are functioning correctly--we strive to expose the enormity of a language full of powerful and beautiful and absurd words...these little things that fall off our tongues like water, without thought, with the greatest power anyone can have.

The weight of this has prevented me from taking upon my shoulders the title of "writer."

But the weight of anything important is never as heavy as we believe it will be.

on becoming family

2007-12-29T16:18:00.000-06:00

Being family is a tricky thing. I am learning the differences between being family and becoming family--holidays have a way of congregating everyone together. Christmas this year was the first of many spent with both families...and it was chaotic and fun and crazy and exhausting.

My family is...my family. I have been around them for 25 years, so of course I have acclimated to their quirks. Bringing Lucas into the family atmosphere for Christmas heightened my awareness of those quirks, and the traditions that we have that are normal to me but probably seemed a little weird to him--

Like the fact that my Grandpa always gets all the kids the same thing, so once one of us opens our Grandpa gift, we all know what we're getting. Every year we get a calendar of varying themes--kittens, puppies, cows, pigs, etc. And something quirky. This year's random gift--a box of Cheezits. And various snacks. He thinks it's really funny, and by now it's a tradition...you always get a random/slightly odd gift from Grandpa.

Or the fact that my aunt usually gives us all an article of clothing that is never quite what you expect (although she has gotten much better since her children have become trendy)...like toe socks, or sweaters that don't quite fit.

And then my mom goes all out with stockings--every practical hygiene item you could need is wrapped individually so it looks more exciting. I never buy a toothbrush or toothpaste in the month of December, because I know that it will be in my stocking, along with a stick of gel deodorant, which I have told my mother that I don't wear but she insists on putting in my stocking anyway.

And then we have a turkey dinner and play games, and usually someone gets offended or mad at some point and there is an argument, but we resolve it quickly with more snacks or desserts or something, and my uncle lies on the couch reading National Geographic while the rest of us play Apples to Apples. He will get up if we play a Scrabble-related game, if my aunt doesn't play. My cousin Matt will be easily entertained by a new game--this year, it was a coffee mug--or by texting his friends from school, invariably girls.

So this year we packed all that in....plus a trip to Wisconsin with the Motleys. The Motleys go away for Christmas and stay in a hotel, which was not the most appealing thing I could imagine for Christmas because of the aforementioned things my family does. But it wasn't that much different--gifts, games, food, movies...with a waterpark thrown in and lots of Veggie Tales for the baby.

It's still weird to think about the Motleys as my family...because they aren't. They are becoming my family. Family is one of those tricky words that can cause confusion and anxiety, but also can be one of the most comforting and supporting places on earth. It's not a choice, family, it just exists. And when it functions, the holidays are absolutely worth all the chaos.

i wish....

2007-12-18T13:19:00.000-06:00

I wish there was a clear-cut road for life. A nice paved one, with painted lines and exit signs and turn lanes and stoplights. And maybe the occasional dirt road for people who feel adventurous. It would be so helpful.

But I know it doesn't work that way. I just wish it could sometimes. The next year is going to be insane. I guess I'm just trying to gear up for it.

we were made for each other

2007-12-05T12:13:00.000-06:00

No, I'm not going to write a mushy post about my new fiance. (That word is so weird!!) The title does not refer to our relationship...per se.

It refers to the fact that I am becoming increasingly aware of the fact that we are created to live in community. Life was not meant to be lived in a vacuum. It was meant to be shared in all its glory--including the ups and downs, the smiles and laughs, tears and fights and all that makes up a life.

I think I've known this for a while, but I was reminded again of how great community is by two things that happened recently. On Friday night we did our annual Christmas decorating at Montgomery campus. If you've never experienced Montgomery campus in December, you really should. It is very magical. I half expect little elves to come out of the cracks and crevices.

There were the most people I think we have ever had to help decorate this year, and of course the decorations were even more extravagant than usual--every year we get bigger and better, which means that every year we can say it was the best one ever. But it was so much fun to walk in to the building after work on Friday and feel like I had come home to a bunch of family decorating the house for the holidays. I can't explain why, but recently something has shifted within me and I have begun to really feel like my church family really is family. We had a ton of fun decorating, eating pizza, and just hanging out together on Friday. It was much less stressful than an actual family event!

And then on Monday (which should be recorded as one of the most magical days of my life to date thanks to one Lucas Motley) I was reminded again that people want to share things with each other. They really do, whether they admit it or not. Because Lucas proposed to me in the middle of the skating rink at Millennium Park, and when he stood up, we hugged each other and the whole crowd at the skating rink started cheering. And as we skated off the ice, people passing us wished us many congratulations, and you could tell that even though we were strangers there was something exciting about sharing that moment with us.

And oddly enough, we talked about community this morning as we looked over the Big Idea guide for January. It seems I can't escape the force of community. Even though I convince myself sometimes that I am fully capable of doing life on my own, it's not true. It's a lie that we can be self-reliant. We need community in order to be happy. In order to share our happiness. In order to get through this thing called life. We were made for each other.

You know it's a good date when...

2007-12-04T14:21:00.000-06:00

...at the end of the night you're engaged.

It was a great date last night. :o)

We all want to change the world...

2007-11-28T13:25:00.000-06:00

I'm currently working on the Big Idea discussion guide for our January series called Revolutionaries, and it's stirring up a lot of interesting dust in my brain.

When you hear the word revolutionary, what do you think of? I think of all the famous role models I look up to, whose achievements seem impossibly beyond my reach. I will never be a Mother Teresa, a Rosa Parks, a Martin Luther King...I always hope that eventually I will reach the aspirations I had as a child; I forget (often) that this is when I should be doing that--it slips my mind that I reside in the world of adults now. That seems so surreal sometimes.

As I was writing about revolutionary celebration, I was reminded that although I think that it's the massively life-changing people who revolutionize the world...the small things are just as important. Starting with the little things can revolutionize how I view my relationship with God and how I celebrate His constant presence in my life. Changing the world starts with revolutionizing my own way of celebrating my faith.

I don't know that I will ever be a revolutionary in my own mind, or that anyone will really take notice of my life in the vast scheme of the universe. But I do know that I can celebrate each day, even the really cold, windy, and ugly days of winter that have come upon us...I can celebrate the stray sunbeams that escape the blankets of clouds...I can celebrate the people I love...I can celebrate the wonder of this marvelous season of sparkling promise. Christmas always fills me with hope, despite the brutal weather, the materialism, the crowds...it's still a beautiful season. so maybe the revolution has already started...

and the angels danced...

2007-11-18T12:30:00.000-06:00

I love in the Bible that it says that heaven rejoices when someone comes to God. I think there was a LOT of rejoicing this weekend. In fact, I know there was a lot of rejoicing this weekend...I was there.

Baptism has become my favorite expression of faith; it is so public that you can't deny the decision, you can't be ashamed of your faith, you can't ignore the community of Christ followers cheering you on in that moment. The excitement of sharing that with people always overwhelms me.

This was one of those weekends. It's so powerful to see people make decisions to be baptized...it's so powerful when that decision happens in a heartbeat--because you can't deny the work of the Holy Spirit in those moments. Not only did we have 3 people baptized during service Saturday night, 3 more decided in the moment after service to make that commitment.

One of those 3 people was one of my leaders. He has been a dedicated leader for a long time now...and he played guitar this weekend. It was a whirlwind after service, and next thing I knew he was in the baptistry--in all his clothes, not even bothering to change, throwing things out of his pockets to his kids, his wife with tears running down her face (and she wasn't the only one)...it was one of the more beautiful moments I've seen. We celebrated loud and hard for him. And the angels danced, I'm sure of it.

This morning Jenn came in and said that her daughter Avery decided last night she wanted to be baptized. It was clear on Jenn's face how much that decision meant. My friend Heather told me that when her sons decided to get baptized it was the biggest moment of her life as a parent--that even though you think about the day when they'll leave home and get married and become parents themselves, the most important moment in a parent's life is seeing their children give their lives to Christ. It was so incredible to see our whole church celebrating with Jenn and Carter as they baptized their daughter this morning. And the angels danced.

They dance for each of us, every time we find our way back to God. No one is too unimportant. I like to think we each get our own individual dance, and that maybe when I get to heaven I can have a patented dance move the angels did when I made that decision. And when we're all there together, I can teach you The Charissa.

And the angels will dance. Forever and ever.

there are moments...

2007-11-17T10:50:00.000-06:00

...when being a woman in ministry feels a little bit like trying to get into the Boys' Club. They are all sitting around drinking beer and eating potato chips and I walk in with a martini...I'm at the party but not really partying.

I don't think this is ever the intention. I don't believe for a second that the guys I work with even think about the fact that they are guys and I am not. But I have the overwhelming urge sometimes to prove that I can do everything they can do, and I can do it better.

Is it wrong to be competitive in ministry? I always say that I'm not a competitive person...and relatively speaking, that is true. At least in comparison with certain parties....particularly the Pruntys....I am very non-competitive. But I think the truth is that I only compete when I think I can. When I think I am equal to the challenge and there is a chance that I might "win." It comes back to my fear of looking stupid in front of people. If I know I'm going to make a fool of myself, I will either not do something or I will make fun of how bad I am at that something. (I am trying to overcome this...Lucas is helping by making me do things like play Guitar Hero and go skiing.) But when it comes to ministry, I want my ministry to be the best. I want to prove that I can hack it, that being a girl doesn't put me at a disadvantage.

But I don't think I will ever like beer, so maybe the Boys' Club isn't for me after all...

*the author would like to thank Julie and a random bartender for inspiring this conversation*

Jesus On Demand

2007-11-14T09:32:00.001-06:00

So here's an interesting idea, right? Jesus On Demand, kind of like Comcast On Demand? Wouldn't it be nice sometimes to be able to have that kind of immediate response...just flip on the Jesus switch and get the answers you need?

It seems a little flippant, sure, but I have moments when I just need insta-Jesus. For example...my roommates and I (I guess I should say former roommates) have been having a really hard time talking to our former landlord in an attempt to retrieve our security deposit. I called him last week with every intention of being civil, and not only did he rant at me for a good five minutes without stopping, at the end of the conversation he swore at me and hung up on me.

In this scenario, I need Jesus On Demand to tell me 1) how to contain my anger, 2) how to act toward my landlord, and 3)remind me that he cares about my landlord as a person, even though I don't. But at the time, I didn't know that I needed all those things--I just knew I was mad. This post is several days removed from the incident, so I have had some time to compose myself, but honestly I can't remember ever being so angry in my entire life. How do you be Christ-like in such a scenario?

I don't know the answer. The problem is that I have a tendency to be highly impatient, and it's difficult to wait on God's responses to my cries...because that's what they are for the most part--cries for direction or attention or whatever the case may be. I am also a bad listener. I envy people who have the ability to really listen to God...I hear him mainly when it's the last thing I want to hear because I have been so stubborn that he has no choice but to shout at me. That's the way it goes.

So my Jesus On Demand idea would be incredibly convenient. For me.

a picture is worth a thousand words

2007-11-06T18:10:00.000-06:00

It's really true. A good photograph can make me think, laugh, cry, wonder, remember, admire, ponder, question. A good photograph can break my heart....from pain or beauty.

My friend Jer is an amazing photographer. I thought you should see some of his pictures. They are breathtaking and heartbreaking and spectacular.

legacies

2007-11-03T23:32:00.000-06:00

This morning's Leadership Community featured the commissioning of our team launching a new church in Kansas City (check out their blog--link to the left). There is something that stirs inside me every time we do this--when we start a new church or new campus, we bring up the team and pray over them, and then acknowledge the fact that they are doing something lasting for the Kingdom of God. I know that we all do lasting things for the Kingdom, myself included, but sometimes I want to be part of something bigger than my everyday life....

I want to leave a legacy. (Cue over-played, slightly-cheesy Nichole Nordeman song here....it should be playing in your head right about...now.)

Some people do this without even trying. At the end of LC, Perry Martin (also on the blog list to the left) got up to do reminders, but before that he shared how much Troy (leader of KC team) had impacted his life--he called it leaving a thumbprint. And then he asked everyone who felt that Troy had left a thumbprint on their lives to raise their hands...and it must have been at least about 75% of the room. It was something of an overwhelming moment....I can't imagine how that felt for Troy. The enormity of one person leaving a "thumbprint" on that many lives staggers me.

On a related note, I am currently back home in Springfield because my family is celebrating my grandpa's 80th birthday tomorrow. My grandpa is another person whose legacy will live on....I think half the city of Springfield is indebted to him in some form or another. My grandparents moved to Springfield in the 50s when my grandpa opened his medical practice. He eventually became the medical director of one of our local hospitals, and now is "retired", which means that instead of being medical director, he works at the hospice. (I think a real retirement would be hazardous to his health.) I am always proud of my grandpa. I am proud that he is MY grandpa. That he is well-known in his community as someone who puts others first, who has had a lifetime of selflessness, who lives humbly and loves his family unconditionally. I can't begin to express everything that my grandparents mean to me. I don't know who I would be without their influence.

When I look at all the people who have influenced (and continue to influence) my life, only a few have remained throughout the years as a constant source of inspiration. The biggest one is my grandpa. He has every right to live in a half-million dollar home, enjoying his retirement and squandering his money after the work he has done for the last fifty+ years....but instead he gives of himself all the time. And it shows in the way other people respect him. He has shown me how to live a blessed life, and I hope that when I am 80 years old I am halfway to the point he is now.

We leave legacies long before we die. The legacy lives in earnest with each day. I see people all around me seizing their dreams, their visions, and leaving in their wake a trail of inspiration. I count myself lucky to work with people whose vision is contagious, whose legacies follow behind them like their shadows--visible and present-- in a church that is never stagnant.

one of those days....

2007-11-02T13:16:00.001-06:00

So yesterday I had what can only be described as a retarded day. I know, I know, what an ugly word choice, but seriously....

On Thursdays I go to DePaul for class...in Lincoln Park. On Thursdays I also teach ONE piano lesson in Romeoville. And I live in Aurora (not just on Thursdays but every day). So typically I drive to Romeoville to do my piano lesson and since I'm right by the interstate I go ahead and head into DePaul. Yesterday, though, I forgot my wallet. This is significant for 2 reasons: I needed gas, and I needed my student ID. Generally I don't freak out if I forget my license...it's usually fine. But there was no way I was making it to the city unless I got gas. So I had to drive all the way back to Aurora, which put me way behind schedule, and also had me leaving at a bad traffic time.

Prior to all this, however, I walked into a window.
That was the low point of my day.
I'm serious. It's hard to envision without seeing it, but I went to open a door, found it locked, turned to go into another room (this was all right before I had to teach a piano lesson) and walked smack into the door-height window. I thought I broke my nose. I mean, I hit the window full force, with my nose. And I don't know about you, but I have found that I have a highly sensitive nose--in matters of pain. Any time I get hit in the nose (which, let me tell you, is more frequent than you might think) it hurts more than I think it should. So the dull throbbing that sustained through the rest of the day yesterday across the bridge of my nose and cheekbones did not help as I sat in traffic.

It was really one of those days. A retarded day. And yes, my nose is still feeling a little sore. I wouldn't be surprised if it bruises...it would be just my luck.

Why I love volunteers

2007-10-23T07:40:00.000-06:00

Exhibit A:

I guess I should clarify...I love MY volunteers at my campus. They are totally rad, as can be seen in the above example. But in all seriousness, our services would be totally lame without my awesome team of volunteers who give up their weekends after working all week in order to have artistic moments in church. I love working with my team of artists. I really do. And there is no way I could make all the artistic elements we plan happen on my own. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a one-woman show. So thanks to all the volunteers at Montgomery...I really appreciate you all. I love that you roll with the punches, and that no matter how weird our ideas may seem, you help me make them happen. Even when I want to sing Madonna. With a side ponytail. You wear afro wigs, and play crazy songs, and give up your Saturdays for rehearsal....and just plain rock.

I think I have the best volunteers at CCC. I know that it's not really a competition, but my artists are the best. We're not supposed to say that, but you know what, I'm gonna put it out there. Sometimes I feel like Montgomery is the little campus that could, the underdog campus, and I'm out to prove that we rock as hard as anyone else. Especially to 80s music...

the church....stayin' alive

2007-10-16T10:31:00.000-06:00

If you were alive in the 70s, it probably looked nothing like this:

...but we sure had fun this weekend!

a swift kick in the butt....

2007-10-12T16:41:00.001-06:00

Don't you hate when you think you are doing a good job at something...and then you find out that you're not? It's pretty much the worst feeling ever. Probably not ever...I guess I can think of worse things, like having someone be disappointed in you (which is THE worst feeling ever and infurates me!), but it's not too pleasant.

Take today for instance. Every time we talk about tithing at church, I don't really pay attention, because I tithe. Or at least I thought I tithed. But apparently I don't really. I got to see just how my record of tithing and the church's record of my tithing (since they also know my salary!) actually line up, and I was actually really surprised. So I guess when they talk about having leaders tithe, I should be paying attention. Huh.

It turns out that I am terrible at keeping track of my finances. Half the time I don't even know when I get paid...I know it's generally around the 15th and the 30th, but if it's an off-week, I don't pay attention. I don't balance my checkbook. I check my bank statements online. I use my debit card like there is no tomorrow. I never carry cash. (Although I'm trying to get better at that one to keep track of my small expenditures more competently...like Starbucks and Borders and WalMart...yes, I shop at WalMart.) And I found out that I don't keep track of my tithing either. I'm kind of hit or miss, I knew that, what with being at church so much that I forget to do things like write a check, but I had no idea it was THIS bad!

Nothing like a swift kick in the butt to make you see what you need to do better. This is the real me, I suppose. Slightly irresponsible and a little flighty...please don't hold it against me. I'm working on it, I promise...

nothing to fear....

2007-10-08T17:18:00.000-06:00

One of my greatest fears is that I will go through life living half-heartedly. I wonder, do we really live at our whole-hearted potential, or do we simply go through life waiting for those shining moments that allow us to really BE....be awake to the world as a marvelous and magnificent place, be in the presence of God, be in love with the people who make our lives worth living, be quiet and revel in the wonder of the stars....

Sometimes I want to just BE. In each and every moment, full of wonder, whole-hearted and involved in all the moments of my life. But it seems easier to live on the outskirts of passion. It seems less risky, less confusing, less hurtful, less intense....just LESS. But living on the edges is different than living on the edge. I've always found that phrase bold and inacurate. Aren't we all really living on the edge of something? Somehow living on the edge means taking risks, being brave, strong, courageous and innovative. We all live on the edge of something greater than ourselves, I think, even when we feel we may be in the midst of it. I always get the sensation that something is looming on the horizon, no matter what is happening in my life. We are on the brink...of something. But we also live on the edges....of relationships, commitment, happiness, contentment. Can we live IN the midst of those things for more than mere moments of our lives?

I like to think that I'm an optimist. I like to think that we can dive into the world as it presents itself to us, in ways unfathomably large and beyond our control. On my honest days, though, I have to admit that I am more like my dad the pessimist than I like to think, because sometimes the thing looming on the horizon is dark and scary, not shining and bright. It is more like The Nothing, coming closer all the time, threatening to envelop my whole world.

Fortunately,

Jesus calls us to Life. Life abundant. That is the Life I crave, for which my soul cries out and I find the energy to throw myself whole-heartedly into the fray. And in those moments, I can BE.

I think we're on the brink of something large.

blog neglect

2007-10-05T16:48:00.000-06:00

Yes, my blog has been suffering from severe posting neglect recently...I didn't realize how extremely time-consuming moving can actually be, and all the accompanying drama. Five people's crap + really big house x 2 years' worth of accumulation of junk, dust, and dirt = one really gross house, and one rather peevish landlord...or should I say ex-landlord...who is reluctant to return a rather large security deposit. Thankfully, this saga is drawing to a close, although we are not home-free yet...we are having waste removal problems at the moment, which makes no one happy, least of all those of us waiting for our security deposits. Moving is the bane of my existence right now.

But I have found an author who might be my kindred spirit in disguise. I picked up Shauna Niequist's book Cold Tangerines based mainly on the title and the bright orange cover...but started reading last night and only stopped when I was about halfway through and it was after midnight. I think if we ever met we would have a high probability of being friends. She writes the way I would if I wrote about myself, which I guess is what happens here on this blog suffering neglect and abuse, collecting figurative dust on the shelf. It's rare to feel like you know an author or that they are anything like yourself...but it's nice to sense that someone else is expressing your heart of hearts, and expressing it eloquently and poetically and humorously and beautifully.

faith like a child

2007-09-16T19:29:00.000-06:00

This was one of the best weekends we've had in a long time at church. Not because everything was executed perfectly or because we planned the best service ever, but because God changes people's lives.

Not only was this the first weekend in the Soul Cravings series, it also happened to be a weekend designed for baptisms in service. Even though this is programmed every month, we don't usually have that element in the service every month at Montgomery. But we sure did this weekend, and I couldn't help feeling overwhelmed.

On Saturday night two families in our church baptized their daughters, who are both around eight or nine years old. I was the one who got to read their testimonies--I love reading testimonies of kids...mainly because they're short (their stories, that is, not them, although that is also true)...but also because they're so simple. Sometimes things just click with kids in a way that takes grown-ups a lifetime to comprehend. But as I read MacKenzie's story (it was hand-written, and only about 4 or 5 sentences long, mind you), it was all I could do to keep the tears from coming. I can't even remember what she said now, but I know that I got choked up by the simplicity of her writing about her relationship with Jesus.

The coolest moment was having the kids from Kids City, who were all friends of Kate and MacKenzie (the 2 girls getting baptized), come and sit in the front row in support of their friends. Each time one of the girls came up out of the water, their friends were so excited for them. I think they cheered louder than the adults. Even if they didn't fully comprehend the immensity of that moment, I think they all knew something big was happening. Our StuCo director, Tim Raad, baptized his daughter about a year ago (I think she's ten now), and she was my favorite part of the whole moment. When her friends came up out of the water, she jumped out of her chair with both fists lifted in the air, cheering for her new sisters in Christ.

Her enthusiasm was uncontainable.

Later I heard her talking to Kate, the two of them having a conversation about what it felt like to come up out of the water, and Destiny said to Kate, "I know how you felt when you came out of the water. You just felt so....so GOOD."

And a little child shall lead them in.

Sunday morning we had two more baptisms--a mother and daughter of one of my favorite families in our church. What a cool moment to see a whole family in the baptistry together, encouraging and supporting each other in their spiritual journeys.

These are the moments that make church worthwhile. These are the moments that infuse a hollow room with life, and energy, and the presence of God--so close that you can feel Him. I felt His smile this morning, and last night, as He watched His children celebrating life. Not empty life, but Life. These are more than rituals, they are proof of an ever-present, real, personal, loving, relentless God, who calls His children home.

Salvation is here. Don't contain yourself.

life...in context

2007-09-14T11:22:00.000-06:00

Do you think objectivity really exists?

I mean, really exists. Is it possible to be truly objective in any given situation? Especially when asked to be objective, it seems nearly impossible to be so.

Here's why I think this is true. My Shakespeare class got me thinking about this. We did response writings last week and I was writing about how Shakespeare is almost never read and/or viewed objectively--there is always a context surrounding our experience of Shakespeare which then affects every experience we have with Shakespeare from that point on. Maybe you saw Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo & Juliet, and you loved him, so therefore you loved the film. Or maybe you didn't love him, so you didn't love the film. The point is that you didn't really experience Romeo & Juliet. You carried a lot into the viewing of that particular motion picture having to do with things other than the actual script. (And I'm not singling you out--this is the collective you to which I refer...)

The point is this: I doubt whether at this stage in my life I will ever be able to experience anything from an objective viewpoint. In the last 25 years I've had enough experiences that lie in deep recesses of my brain that can be triggered by any number of outside influences. Take Shakespeare again--I can't read Romeo & Juliet without thinking of my freshman English teacher since that's whose class in which I read the play for the first time. All of it--everything--has associations that may not be in our consciousness at any given moment, but can be triggered, which is why I am playing with this idea that we truly live life in context. I don't know if in our own personal lives we can ever take something "out of context", for we don't forget circumstances or experiences that easily.

Maybe the amnesiac can be objective. Or Jason Bourne. But the rest of us? Are we capable of making objective decisions? I don't know for sure.

I, personally, seem incapable of objectivity. Subjectivity, on the other hand, makes every experience interconnected with another...so that my life's context becomes as intricate as a spider web.

how exciting....

2007-09-11T20:25:00.000-06:00

The highlight of the last week?

I have my own desk in our brand new office!

You don't understand.

I haven't had my own desk in the 3 years I've been working at CCC.

I have my own desk. I could even put up pictures if I wanted to. Of my friends and such, since everyone else has pictures of their kids, and I guess I could put up pictures of my kids, but....yeah, I don't have any.

I have my own desk!!

It's lame how excited I am about it.

I know, you don't have to tell me.

Everybody's working for the...weekend?

2007-09-04T08:34:00.000-06:00

The weather this past week has convinced me 100% that I am not meant to hold a 9-5 job. Ever. I can't handle being indoors that long. Which is why my job is great. The only unfortunate part is that I don't have "weekends" anymore. This one was the closest I've had in a long time....though long and exhausting, it actually felt like a weekend.

One of my favorite things to observe is a group of friends who have known each other for a long time. That group of guys who have known each other since they were kids. And even though you feel like somewhat of an outsider listening to them talk about not just college, but high school and junior high, it's still entertaining to see them interact. I realized that I don't really have that. We moved so often when I was younger that I don't have any of the same friends I had in elementary school. There are a few I have known since junior high, but the bonds get weaker all the time, and even most of my friends from high school have begun to fall into the category of internet friends--we communicate via email, myspace, and/or facebook. And really, I'm ok with that. My life has gone through so many phases that I count this as just another phase....and keep going.

This weather was made for weekends and old friends. It feels good.

the storm

2007-08-23T21:13:00.000-06:00

and then I see the storm coming
slowly swallowing the sky
a wall of darkness, yawning
across the softly starlit night

it comes with lightning
flashing, pulsing,
burning, searing in my eyes
it comes with thunder
growling
in the recess of my mind
it comes in forms I'd not suspected
lying on the shallow pavement--

bare feet twitching in the soft grass
shoes rejected,
bearers of blisters,
heels relaxing in their freedom--

and next to me
our elbows touching
(purposely or accident?)
the man I thought had left no traces
suddenly materialized

and as the wind picks up its speed
wrapping the chill in the evening breeze
I wonder if it's just the air
that's causing my pulse to race
that's feeding the color into my face
that's pricking the skin of my shoulders,
my arms,
causing the goosebumps to rise
in heightened awareness of how close it lies:

the storm
and his heartbeat
and maybe my life
all wrapped up together
with love intertwined--

up from the sidewalk
through cracks of cement
the lonely hope rises
the lovers' lament
of trust born and broken
and brought back to life
emerging triumphant
yet brittle and tired
and waiting...for something...

(it doesn't know what)

but the flash and the crash
and the fat drops of rain
interrupt
the beginning
the electric flame
and after it all
when the moment has passed

we wait for the storm to break.

raccoons?

2007-08-22T11:24:00.000-06:00

Apparently we have some friendly neighborhood raccoons living on our roof.

They made a guest appearance after our small group dinner last night. Shelley and I went out to cover the grill and there they were, peeking in between the overhang of the roof of the house and the family room. I know raccoons are a nuisance, and not the kind of animal you really want hanging around, but they were little ones, and pretty cute....I made a few half-hearted attempts to try to scare them away, mainly by yelling (which, in case you were wondering, is pretty ineffective), but they were not threatened by me. They weren't even scared when we poked a long metal stick (the kind that you use to cook hot dogs over a bonfire) right at them....in fact, I think they wanted to play with it.

Seeing the raccoons that close took me back to fifth grade. When I was in fifth grade, my family lived in an apartment complex in Grand Rapids. I probably couldn't find it for you now, but it was sweet. At least to a fifth grader. Our apartment was on the ground floor, and we were at the edge of the complex, so not only did we have a pool for the whole summer, we had a large forest out back. An actual forest....with lots of trees. It was a haven for my sister and I. Growing up with a botany-teacher/naturalist father, we had a vast knowledge of all things having to do with forests. At least considering we were 9 and 11 years old. We would wander through the woods (what were my parents thinking?). I remember finding a sandy creek that had clear, clear water.....and sometimes little minnows. There was one spot where vines grew between the trees and made a swing. It probably wasn't the most sturdy thing to play on, but we did it anyway.

But the best part of that whole year was the spring.....when we saw the raccoons. They had been hanging around all year, but in the spring there were babies. For Becky and I, that was a highlight. They would come right up to our door and beg for food. They would even climb up the post to the deck above us. They were pretty daring little buggers. I remember not being able to leave the sliding door open in case they figured out how to get through the screen. It was always an adventure, waiting for the raccoons to show up.

Which might explain why they don't freak me out. I mean sure, they get into your garbage cans and climb on the roof and can make scary noises (Shelley will gladly tell you all about that), but their saving grace is that they're pretty cute.

Which can not be said of possums. I hate possums. (While we're on the subject of animals that live in the city that shouldn't...)

Sometimes I think I might be a country girl at heart.

And sometimes I walk out of the house and can't remember if I put on deodorant. Do you ever have those days? And then you feel self-conscious for the rest of the day, because by the time you've realized you don't know if you put on deodorant it's too late to go back and do it because you're already at work.

Today was one of those days.

on words

2007-08-19T21:02:00.000-06:00

Words are such interesting things.
So much of my life has revolved around their usage--being an English major with a lifelong appreciation for books will do that to you.

My friend Bob and I were discussing this last weekend. We use so few of the words that we actually know in our everyday conversations. We have a few standards that we refer back to over and over again....and they are kind of lame, if I can be honest. And I have noticed that particularly in "Christian" circles, we use 2 adjectives for almost everything--most everything is either awesome or amazing.

I find nothing wrong with either of these words. I just find them overused and unoriginal. Especially when you can look through the dictionary and find so many more interesting words that are so much more descriptive.
It seems that when trying to describe the God that we follow or express our very small understanding of how He works in our lives, we should use the best words possible. And God truly is AWE-some; not in the same way that my favorite movie is awesome or that restaurant is awesome, but in a way that inspires awe in its truest form. And sometimes so many things can be amazing that I forget what it truly means to be amazed....to have that overwhelming sense of wonder, surprise, excitement.... It gets lost behind so many other mundane and mediocre words. I guess the truth is that we have no words to truly express our reaction to a God like ours. So we stumble over words that will never be enough.

I often feel this same sense of inadequacy in conversation with people. I have known for a long time that I am much more eloquent in print than in person. That has kept me from participating in a great many conversations over the course of my life, for fear of saying something unintelligent. It has also kept me from expressing a lot of emotion, for fear of saying something I don't really mean.

During the conversation with Bob on vocabulary, I tried to come up with a list of my top ten favorite words. It was much harder than I thought it would be. My number one favorite word right now is ethereal. It is a beautiful word that I can unfortunately never manage to get into conversation....

This blog post does not do justice to the concepts running through my head. My vocabulary, at this moment, is sadly lacking to express what I truly mean. For words are such interesting things...

on music (part un)

2007-08-13T23:02:00.000-06:00

Music is a desperate being--
living, breathing, calling, freeing...
beckoning to something greater,
something far beyond ourselves.

I've been to three concerts in the past week, and each one has been different. The beautiful thing is that each concert, each style of music, had the power to evoke a different set of emotions for each experience. Take the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as example number one. Listening to a classical pianist play a Beethoven piano concerto, followed by Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, was a little glimpse into the world of dynamics--the power and precision of loudness and softness, in near perfection. How does a crescendo swell not only from each musician, but also stir in the souls of those listening? Why do I feel the need to close my eyes in order to better absorb the beauty of each note?

This past weekend I was in Springfield visiting my parents. One of the things I miss most about central Illinois is the clearness of the night sky. Saturday night was one of the most spectacular I have ever seen, with perhaps the exception of being in Africa. Over the weekend there was an annual meteor shower, the Perseids, and watching a few streak across the sky Monday night was really incredible. Looking at the sable sprinkled with sugared stars....and hearing the calming effect of the crickets and cicadas and far-away frogs....I couldn't help but feel that all of nature was playing its own symphony.

I don't think everyone hears the music of the universe. But I think it's there. Sometimes it goes unheard beneath the cluttered lives we live. There is something so satisfying about just listening....

And breathing.

For life sings its own song. And sometimes the dynamics surprise you.

on aging

2007-08-08T16:02:00.000-06:00

So...I have a relatively significant birthday approaching in a week, which I am NOT excited about. But in my family, landmark birthdays happen in threes--my mom, my dad and I are usually at "important" birthdays in the same year.

My mom's was the big one this year, though, far eclipsing my own. She turned sixty on Sunday. Is it just me, or does sixty sound significantly older than fifty-nine? I mean, other people's moms turn sixty....grandmas turn sixty....not my mom, right? No, apparently she is sixty.

And really, my mom is so cute. But I notice more and more the wearing of age....around her face, on her hands, which have started to get age spots, and in the increasing softness of her skin.

It's funny how the older I get, the more I appreciate my mom and the life she has lived. I was having a discussion about destiny and fulfilling destiny and finding destiny this morning, and the more I think about it, the more I feel like my mom really has found and fulfilled her destiny. She went to nursing school in Newfoundland, joined a mission organization that worked out of Kenya, did her midwifery training in Edinburgh, Scotland, and worked in rural Kenya for about five years before meeting my dad, getting married, and settling into family life.

And I admire that.

Not just because she has a million great stories about living in Kenya....involving delivering babies in huts, being atop her Land Rover on safari and having lions circling on the ground below, or having a herd of elephants cross the road in front of her....but because she has lived. She has lived a bold and reckless and dangerous life, not just abroad, but in the context of her family as well.

I think more than anyone else in my life, my mother has taught me what unconditional love means. And commitment. And unrelenting patience. And I hope that I can age as gracefully as she has....and love life the way she does....and look hardship in the eye and steel myself against it, knowing that it is but a pothole in my road of destiny.

Do you ever think about what you are destined for?

I believe we are all destined for something....very rarely is it the greatness that the world values so much, it is found more often in the little things that make up a life--
feeding the ducks,
looking at spiderwebs,
swimming in the Great Lakes,
having a picnic,
sharing a memory,
a smile,
a laugh,
a tear,
and saying I love you.

This is my mom.