Falling Short

Wiser? Or just older?

2008-08-16T22:55:00.001-07:00

I've been writing blog entries a lot in my mind lately. I didn't realize until I finally logged in tonight, that I haven't actually published one for over a year. It is cliche to ask where the time has gone, but I really can't say. I know from looking back on past entries that I'm still much in the same place, treading water I suppose. Still reeling a bit from God, living at arm's length for fear some action of His "goodness" may actually wipe me out. But still not ready to let go of Him. Of the possibility of a close relationship again. Of the possibility that I might really come to trust and depend on Him and give Him my heart without reservation, and in spite of the very likely reality that, in the process, I will hurt and even feel the loss of some of my more cherished idols. And even possibly be sent to Africa as a missionary.

I am still single. The last thought in my mind every night as I go to sleep is inevitably, "I can't believe I live in this house all alone." I'm still hoping my singleness might change, but then again, it's hard to hope. I had a conversation with a dear and saintly friend tonight who basically believes I am the one putting up the walls that keep me alone. I can't say she's wrong, but I'm not sure how to stop doing it. It's something to think and pray on, at least.

I am changing jobs, but still in teaching. I'll be at a new high school and starting a new program. I'm excited in the sick sort of way you get when something has a lot of potential and you are afraid you may be the only pitfall.

The biggest change for me lately is that I seem to have become a very active and fervent agnostic when it comes to church-going. I don't have a church and am really tired of looking for one. I can't seem to find a place that can really compete with staying home in my jammies and watching "Sunday Morning" with Charles Kerault. (Yes, I know, I'm OLD!) I keep hoping to find a church that really communicates joy and authenticity. And if they happen to be Christian, that would be a bonus at this point....

So why am I writing tonight? Especially in light of the fact that I'm pretty sure no one is out there to read this? I guess it's a good question. I could certainly journal privately. That probably even makes more sense. But I guess there is a part of me that hopes for connection through writing. Even the mostly self-indulgent type of writing this is. So I thought I'd start again.

I first called this blog "300 words," from Anne Lamott's idea that a writer should do at least three hundred words a day. I think the current title is far more accurate. I am falling short - in the writing department and pretty much every other one I can think of, at least at some point in my life. And even though I am holding Him at bay, and even though I am a disobedient, mopey, and selfish child, I'm thankful still that God chose to substitute His holy life for mine.

Walking on Cannon Beach

2007-08-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

Last month, a friend and I took a trip to Oregon. I've been wanting to visit for a long time. Seems like I keep reading about it and meeting people from the area. So finally I found a willing traveling companion and we took off.

I quickly learned that a week is not nearly enough time to spend in this beautiful area. I think I need at least a week more in Portland and a couple of more exploring Oregon and maybe heading down to Northern California. Maybe next summer. While on the beach in a lovely little town called Cannon Beach, however, I got to live out one of my adolescent fantasies. If you're of a similar age, you probably know the one. It's born of one of those "Love Songs of the Seventies" compilation album commercials. In it, a lovely woman (with long blond hair, of course), walks along a windy beach. She's wearing jeans and one of those nubby white fishermen's sweaters - probably her boyfriends. The commercial cuts between scenes of her walking and looking into the surf to shots of her sitting on rocky outcroppings staring out into the surf. Depending on the commercial, she may even ride a white horse bareback at sundown as she stares off into the surf. Her true love, of course, is not present, but in his absence, he is palpable. As our heroine stares into the surf, she remembers his strong arms and tender caresses and.... oh, where was I?

Well, this particular commercial image somehow implanted itself in my prepubescent brain as the epitome of romance. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention to the fact that the woman is ALONE. Might have changed my whole life. But still.

My situation wasn't a complete mirror of my beach fantasy stroll. I don't have long blond hair. I was wearing a blue polka dot sweater instead of the cool fisherman's one. And there is no strong-armed, tender-kissing man I was missing (well, not a specific one anyway.) But the longer I live, the more and more I see God redeem dreams and desires long forgotten and pushed aside.

I set out that morning on a walk to the iconic Haystack Rock, which was up the beach a ways. I was lucky enough to get there at the end of high tide. I got to walk around among the tide pools and look at sea anemones and starfish. The sun was high, but it was still a misty, cold day and the rays through the clouds were golden. I poked around for a while and decided to head back to the hotel for breakfast.

As I walked along the beach, the wind was blowing in off the surf, the mist and breeze tangling up my hair. As I looked out at the waves rolling in, the sudden thought of the compilation album commercial played in my head. All I needed was a Leo Sayers song to start playing somewhere. Unfortunately, I can't remember any of Mr. Sayers many hits, however, so I substituted an Air Supply medley instead. I started to laugh as I realized that even this silly little fantasy I had when I was nine or ten mattered to God. He brought it into being and then brought it back to my mind to remind me that he cares. Nothing, no desire, no prayer, no tear is wasted on our loving God.

Catching Up

2007-01-29T18:51:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling excited a lot these days! (You know, it's funny just how unnatural that exclamation mark felt). Lots of things playing zing with my heart. Some deep stuff that God finally seems to be getting into my head and heart, like just how much stress it saves me when I don't just say every little thing that comes into my head. Or that waiting for the right time is better than forcing the issue. Or that being single may just be the thing I should be most thankful for since it gives me lots of freedom and the ability to engage in things I'm passionate about without having to stop and make somebody dinner.

I'm also happy about some upcoming times. A birthday party for one year old Joachin Perez, a little boy who I joined my friends Kara and Ram in praying for last year at this time, little knowing his birth and adoption were right around the corner. My friend Pammy is having a b-day, and I'll finally get to meet her new friend Sergio. There's a Todd Snider concert next week (actually three, but I've determined that one late night school night is about all I should reasonably attempt). There just seem to be lots of reasons to be thankful these days.

I was listening to a Don Miller message the other day. My former future husband was talking about how our lives are like stories. We need to see ourselves as the characters in our own lives and ask what God would have us do. We should live with grand purpose in mind and understand that conflict is what a good story is all about. We shouldn't be surprised when our lives wander off in a different direction than we had thought they were going - interesting and compelling characters do that.

I feel like I'm largely still trying to figure out what my story is about. I realized recently that I've spent most of my past years trying really hard to please the "authority" figures in my life, from Dad on down. After a year or so of a break from the last place this was largely in play, my old church, I'm finally less of a pretzel and more of a, well, pretzel stick, I suppose. In other words, although I'm no longer bent out of shape, I'm still not sure that I'm fundamentally any different. I keep trying to remember my dreams from long ago, but I can't. The only thing that I can vividly remember is how I wanted to be a lawyer and judge after reading back-to-back biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Richard Nixon. OK, it was pre-Watergate, so cut me a little slack!

I don't know what dreams God has put inside of me, but I want to find out. I want to listen to my heart in a way that I haven't before and be willing to risk disappointment and hurt to pursue them. I want to build my hope muscle and my faith muscle and learn to trust God - not that he will act as I want him to, but that what he does is Good, so I'm OK no matter what the outcome. I ask God to grow the hunger inside of me to know him and help me not be able to ignore his voice when I hear it.

Beginning a new year...

2007-01-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

I woke up to the alarm this morning at 6 AM. Nina Totenberg was telling me that twelve people have died in the past weekend due to ice and snow in Colorado. I quickly turned off the radio alarm and went back to sleep. The perfect beginning to a new year?

Last year, I promised myself no more New Year's parties until I had someone to kiss at midnight. Otherwise, it just feels so forced and fake. Actually, in this past year, I've come to realize that I'm the one who felt forced and fake - because I've been lying to myself and so many others for so many years about what I really wanted, I suppose. I'm reading a book with an embarrassing title right now (no, I won't say what it is, but the subtitle is "Trusting God with a Hope Deferred"), and the writer talks about how we sometimes we start in a place of honesty with God, asking for a desire we have. That desire is almost always good and created by Him, but somehow, along the way, we become convinced that it needs to be fulfilled in a certain way. And then we close our hands over it and make a fist - holding tight to our own vision of fulfillment and alternately begging and blaming God for not fulfilling it. We become the bridezilla of Christ.

That picture certainly describes me during 2006. In a lot of ways, it was a tough year. I spent time learning to cope with Carie's loss, with the loss of my grandmother and with the loss of my church and so many relationships there. This past summer, during which I'd hoped to do and see so much, ended up with me sidelined with an injury to my foot, physical therapy and instructions to stay inert. I got digital cable and spent a month or so in a haze of home improvement and cooking shows, which really wasn't what I'd hoped for. Then, this fall, with all of the tragedy at our school, a lot of tension and pressure on the job, my mother's health crisis - well, it's just been downright eventful. In the middle of this, I've felt incredibly alone. I've really begun to feel the loss of my old church. Not that I feel like I should go back there, but more the sense that I lost a part of my identity when I left there. I thought I knew where God had called me and what I was supposed to be doing in ministry. I'd even hoped to be working in ministry full-time by now. Now, I feel at a loss. The passions I'd been able to engage in at that church are pretty much unheard of elsewhere. I haven't found a creative community with which to engage. And I miss it far more than I ever thought I would.

I miss wanting to go to church. I miss having a sense of purpose and direction. I miss feeling like I had a calling on my life from God. I suppose I still do. I guess we all have a calling of some sort, but I feel like that is one of the things I lost this past year and I don't know how to find it again. And tied into all of this is unhappiness at being single at my age. I've approached God, especially this last year, with a combination of incredulous entitlement and wounded uncertainty. One of the things I realized in 2006 is that God's goodness and my perception of goodness don't necessarily match up. Sometimes the good things that God does feel painful to me. Seem senseless to me. It is a matter of faith to continue believing God is really good and in control, but I haven't always approached it that way. As I look back, I realize this last year has involved a lot of lip service on my part as I said, "Yes, God. You're good and in control," while I very carefully protected my heart from Him. I acknowledged His goodness without believing in it, and the past year of anger, frustration, and distance from God have resulted.

This year needs to be different. I need to open my heart to God in a new way. I know that it may be good for me to live as a single woman. I know it may be right for me to stay in a job that is difficult, in a church that is unfulfilling, in a life that falls short of my dreams. Because it may be that in the midst of the pain and frustration and downright boredom, God can shape me into his own image in ways I would never allow him to if I came into possession of all of my dreams. It may be my role to stand by and watch others receive or achieve the things I've dreamed of. And if it is my role, it will not feel good, but it will be Good, because God will have his way with me. But I cannot go into that prospect in anyway other than abandon. I know now, that resignation is a spiritual death sentence. I need to go in to everything, even disappointment, with a full heart and honesty. I need to be willing to cry before God, to wail and scream if necessary. To beg and plead and cajole and even bargain, knowing full well that the Almighty will have his way, and whatever it is, it is Good. And in that more honest place with God, as I open my fist over the dreams and desires I've been strangling, I think I'll find God's goodness in a very real way. In a deeper and more lasting joy than I would have felt over the satisfaction of what is ultimately a momentary desire.

I enjoyed my new year's eve last night, which was just a low-key celebration with a friend. Maybe next year or in years to come, though, I'll enjoy going to a New Year's party because I'll be able to accept it for what it is, not place my own fisted expectations on it. I'll not feel like it is a celebration of my own failures because I am not kissing anyone at midnight, but instead I'll be able to enjoy the company of those around me. And maybe even help someone else who is feeling alone and unloved know the truth. Know that, in all things, God does work for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

Lobotomy & the Social History of Food

2006-10-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I finished The Lobotomist. One bad thing about reading a book about drilling into people's brains is that it is difficult to find people who are willing to talk about the topic with you. Especially when you get to the transorbital part - that's the entering through the eye socket with a pick part. It did lead to an odd discussion with my mother and sister-in-law about trepanation, the practice of drilling through the skull to "free" your mind. By the way, the International Trepanation Advocacy Group (http://www.trepan.com/) is looking for some folk who'd like to undergo voluntary trepanation as a way of "evolving." Hope that works out for them.

So, having poorly followed the suggestion of Don Miller, too-cool-for-church writer dude, into the muddy waters of brain surgery, I have found my next book to read. First, I've been on something of a book-buying binge of late. I'm thinking I may need a voluntary fast from Amazon for a while. I have numerous options at my fingertips. I have several more books DM suggested - books I accurately remembered and purchased, mind you. I have several books that promise to tell me how to be a completely fulfilled single person, which is a topic I desperately need sound advice on. It's been a tough few weeks of feeling very lonely. But somehow, I'm pretty sure these books are really going to either tell me nothing or tell me everything I've been doing wrong. I'm feeling a little fragile for that right now. I started reading Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire. I have thoroughly enjoyed his other fairy tale offerings, especially Wicked, but I'm feeling like I need to reread it before I'm really ready to read the sequel.

So what has finally made the bedside table? A book I've been dying to read: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Last summer, I read The Botany of Desire during a family trip to the beach, which completely mystified my family. ("You're reading a book on potatoes and tulips? Why?") I found it completely fascinating. His thesis is essentially that these particular plants (potatoes, tulips, apples, and marijuana) have tapped into particular desires in people that have allowed them to propagate beyond what they naturally would have done on their own. Pollan's latest book is a social history of several meals. I've only read through the introduction so far, but the book appears to take the growing of corn through its eventual fate as part of a Happy Meal in its first section. Later sections examine "organic" farming and what that really means and a kind of "back-to-nature" approach in which Pollan makes his own meal only from food he has found or killed himself.

In the introduction, Pollan asserts that we Americans have a national eating disorder. He cites the bread-phobia of recent Atkins persuasion and the wild swings we seem to go through as we label certain foods "bad" or "unacceptable." As a current (and probably forever) dieter, I'm fascinated by this idea. I know that I don't do myself any good when I decide that some foods are bad and rule them out completely. I'm setting myself up for a fall. But there are foods that are just a bad idea pretty much all the time. And foods I know I can't eat- I can't even have in the house. For some reason, one of those foods for me is the Pop-Tart. Iced brown sugar and cinnamon pop tarts, to be specific. For some reason, pop tarts are a total trigger for me. I'll eat a box in two days. I've had to come to the conclusion that they simply can't be in the house.

I know moderation is the key in all things. Unfortunately, I've been rather "moderate" about staying on Weight Watchers this weekend. I decided I didn't want to "count" this weekend. But I know I've got to get with it again this week. I also haven't been to the gym in two weeks. It's just been so stressful with so many hours needed at school of late, but things finally seem to be settling down, so maybe this week will be better. At least, according to Pollan, I'm in good company with my "issues."

I've been promoted!! And demoted!!

2006-10-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

I got to play at being a school administrator this evening. Our school has two open "principal" positions and our head principal asked if a few people could help cover some of the after school activities. So I got to be one of the "administrators on duty" at our 7th grade football game tonight. What does that entail? Mostly walking around with a walkie talkie and occasionally saying things like, "Toni, what's your location? I copy that" to the other admin on duty. FUN!

Still, after getting home at 9pm, it makes me even more amazed at all our administrators do for us. I can't imagine doing that week in and week out! And I'm glad I don't have to.

Oh, and we lost. Really badly. No glory for the 7th grade tonight.

Why I am reading "The Lobotomist"

2006-10-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

What I'm Reading Now...

2006-10-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

How I came to read The Lobotomist by Jack El-Hai is a classic story, really. It basically goes like this:

Girl meets intellectual idol (also a total hottie). II recommends girl read about brain theory. Girl scours bookstore for book on brain. Girl finds finds book on Walter Freeman, creator of the lobotomy. Girl somehow thinks this book will shed light on II's theory that human brain structure mirrors the holy trinity. Girl was wrong. Furthermore, girl buys book and risks chasing away even more future relationships by being seen reading book on lobotomy at Starbucks. Things not turning out as girl hoped, but she now knows about a medical procedure that may help her if things keep going in this direction.

So, I'm about a hundred pages into this book about the man who created the lobotomy. I'm just getting to the drill-right-through-to-the-brain good part. It is amazing to me, however, just how cavalier these early researchers were about chopping up the gray matter. I suppose I ought to be grateful that they learned all they could from these horrifying experiments, but reading about doctors randomly removing parts of the brain just to see what would happen is truly frightening. Somehow, so far, the stories that have bothered me most are about the medical experimentation on chimpanzees. That may be a sign of my own bias toward the furry and cuddly, but it just seems so wrong to experiment on truly innocent beings. I guess that's my post-modern sensibilities being applied to an earlier time and place, however.

The descriptions of various mental deficiencies and brain injuries don't explain, however, what possessed me to purchase AND read Mitch Albom's For One More Day. I bought it at WalMart, no less. How suburban can I be? Well, apparently quite suburban. At least I didn't cry as I read it, though. This book is very much in the style of his other tear-jerkers Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I think the fact that Albom is a sports writer should have been a signal to me that the emotions might be a tad heavy-handed. And I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to get from this book, since much of the main character's sense of peace came from a revelation about his father that would never have happened during life. It took a day of hanging out with his long-passed mom to finally gather the clues that made him a better person ever after. I know I'm sounding pretty harsh on the book. Of course, that won't keep him from selling millions, nor should it. I bet lots of people will read One More Day and immediately go tell someone they love them. The afterglow will last for literally minutes. Sorry, I'm in that kind of mood. (Mad over the success of people who actually work for it, I guess.) At any rate, I'll put it in my classroom library. My eighth graders will love it.

Back to the lobotomy factory...

Thinking of Grass

2006-10-08T16:41:00.000-07:00

This weekend has been a schizophrenic one. After a week of what I call "extreme reality," I ended up doing something uncharacteristically spontaneous and meeting me own personal idol, Donald Miller. I'll post the evidence later. It was fun and exciting to meet him, even though, or maybe especially because, we had to "crash" a conference for Christian youth group leaders to do it.

The whole thing felt strange because, usually, I'm such a rule follower that I never would have just walked into a conference without registering or at least seeing if it was OK for me to come. But when my friends Laurie and Judy proposed going, I knew I wanted to. I've wanted to meet Miller for a long time and had even prayed about it, knowing that he would be in town this weekend. I even got to ask him a question at a Q&A and get my book signed. A nice payment for my lawless behavior!

The "extreme reality" I referred to earlier has me thinking about the way I'm living life. It's been all over the news that an assistant principal at my school died in a mysterious fire this week after some allegations were made that he had been inappropriate with a student. This situation has been and will continue to be really hard on the students, teachers and especially the admin staff at my school. The kids are sad and angry, too, that the reputation of someone they loved and respected is being attacked. I feel the same way. In the middle of the afternoon on Friday, though, my attention was diverted elsewhere, as I received a call that my mother had been taken to the hospital with heart problems. She's doing OK and will likely recover just fine, but the prospect of her being seriously sick on top of all I've been dealing with with my kids just about put me over the edge.

As I sat in the convention center last night, a fraud among a group of ministers, one of the worship songs and some recent studies in Daniel came together. The song was "Arise" by a Christian due called Shane & Shane. The lyrics go like this:

arise and awaken
He is king
He is king
arise, my soul awaken
all flesh is grass
surely fading (fast)

oh soon, it's all gone, we'll fly away
oh soon, it's gone, it's gone

You are the maker, life sustainer
everything comes and everything goes
when you give the word of mercy, oh lord
satisfy, You and i

arise my soul awaken
that i might see
and be happy all my days
how long will there be mourning?
return to us
return to us

As I sang these words, I kept being reminded of Daniel in exile - watching leaders rise and fall; watching his own personal fortunes change with the winds as one empire tumbled and another came in, and his personal faith in the midst of it all as he understood that God was in control. Not Nebuchadnezzar or Balshazzar or Darius or any other leader of any other empire.

My thoughts inevitably drifted to our principal, Mr. Ramirez. In a space of less than twenty-four hours, he went from a position of irrefutable respect as an educator of honor and compassion to a man under suspicion of a horrible crime. In a space of a few mintues, he was lost to us in this world, gone and never coming back. His horrifying situation reminded me that my life is like grass - transitory and short-lived. At any moment, I could lose all that I hold dear - family, friends, my job, my reputation, my life - and there's nothing I can do about it. And yet...

What is the "and yet"? What is the answer that makes this situation bearable? Or even better, what was it that caused my heart to worship in the midst of this realization as I haven't for many months. The answer is, of course, in the Bible. Psalm 103:15-18 says:

15 As for man, his days are like grass,
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.
17 But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD's love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children's children-
18 with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.

What can make me worship in the face of the tenuous nature of life? That God isn't. That God is eternal and loving and most amazing, that He loves us and takes care of us no matter what. It is the realization that I am created for that relationship and no other that makes me happy to be living like the grass, green and free and, yes, very temporary in this world. Walt Whitman wrote this about grass:

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

It is a truth worth remembering: to die is different from whan any one supposed, and luckier. And I am more grateful than my control-freak heart had imagined that all is within my Lord's hands.

Life Change, Week 1

2006-09-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

I had a doctor's appointment recently that I'd been dreading. I know he'd comment on my weight. I knew he'd ask me what I'd been doing to exercise and get healthy. I knew I didn't have any kind of good answer.

So after the gruesome tete-a-tete, I made a vow to change my life! Seriously, to make those kinds of small changes that add up over time to make you into a marathon-running Heidi Klum look-a-like. So last Thursday I joined Weight Watchers. Nothing like weighing yourself in front of total strangers. Well, actually there's something better. Weighing yourself in front of a co-worker you see everyday.

Then today, I joined the Ladies Workout Express. It's an institution apparently founded and quite stuck in the eighties, down to my hot pink and turqoise logo'ed t-shirt. But it has the advantage of being right next to work, cheap and chicks only. My friend from work, Amber, and I joined together and endured our first workout together. It wasn't easy for me, but I made it and I'm only slightly in pain. Right now at least. But I did find something even more embarassing than weighing in with a co-worker. Yes, that would be exercising with some of my students and their moms. Yikes. I left the stretch room a little early rather than continue to "hang" with a student in my 7/10th period block.

So far, life change has been OK. I'm on plan and even avoided eating yummy muffins today. Hopefully, I'll be seeing a little more Heidi in myself soon.

Settled, unsettled

2006-09-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

Today it occured to me that I finally feel settled after a few months of not really having my bearings. I found a church I am beginning to love, and this morning found a Sunday morning class that really felt like home. I suppose it's mighty subjective of me, but what I've been looking and hoping for as I've been searching for a new church is a place that felt like home. There's some sort of feeling I get sometimes - it's not really familiarity or comfort. More like a feeling of acceptance and hopefulness. It's usually a very good sign when I feel it. I knew as soon as I walked into Grace Covenant Church that it was home, but I was eager to find a smaller group that I could connect with, and this morning I think I found that. The class is diverse and loving and seems to have a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone there.

I keep praying that God will finally finish these "unsettled" feelings I have - all associated with my old church. All the scraps and leftovers of hurt, frustration, and anger. An unresolved relationship that will probably remain that way. Confusion over how very differently we can each see the world and still be brothers and sisters in Christ. It's the same old stuff I've been writing about for over a year. I'm tired of it. I want it to be over. I want to move on. But finding a new church that I really love seems to bring a lot of it up to the surface again. I spent almost a year at a different church and honestly looked at it like a job. I never gave my heart to it. Now that I want to again, I can't help but remember just how badly it can hurt when things go wrong, when relationships go bad. It hurts to care again.

The body of Christ is the most beautiful institution ever made. It is other-worldly and supernatural. It is the bride of Christ. It is also an imperfect institution, full of sinners, full of the hurting, full of agendas and power plays. It can be so ugly and unspeakably beautiful. And the truth of it is, if I don't accept the ugliness--and my part in making it ugly--I can't know the beauty either. The words of Christ are full of paradoxes. Perhaps my feelings of being home and being on edge are another paradox in the reality of walking Christ's path.

Out of It

2006-08-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

Out of steam.... out of commission.... out of the groove...

It's been months since I've written, and even that was "forced" out of me in a writing seminar I was taking. Today I started back to school and realized that the summer is truly over, with very little to show for it. I joke with friends that I spent this summer perfecting my cat impersonation - napping daily in warm, sunny spots - but its kind of depressing to get to the end of two months off and not really have gotten much out of it.

I'm excited about the upcoming school year, and scared at the same time. Seems like every year, I start off with this kind of double-sided excitement/terror. Lots has changed this year, but then how much can really change in one year in a middle school classroom? Middle school is still and always a study in contradictions. Maybe that's why I like it so much.

Well, I don't have much to say right now. I'm doing some studying for my final seminary course and want to share some of that soon. But not right now. It's still percolating. And I've got nothing profound to say, tonight. I guess I just thought I'd better check-in with my blog - and anybody else out there....

Oasis

2006-06-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

Oasis

She was the only one who kept notes
As if this was a normal meeting.
Always efficient,
Always the assistant.
Did the waiter think he was taking a tourist picture,
or just some random, nameless celebration?
Gay's homemade blackberry cobbler fought
for space on the table with nachos and Oasis cups.
Someone had a margarita. Note: make sure it's not on
the church's tab.
Looking at the camera, Carie's lips smiled,
if not her eyes.
Did anyone else realize, she wondered, that their smiles
were for memories, not for blue skies outside the window?

A Path of False Promise

2006-04-30T16:43:00.000-07:00

I set off down a promising path with a light breeze blowing the sunshine around and through my hair. Although another group at the retreat had headed off for a hike, I chose a more solitary ramble instead. Hikes are sweaty and strenuous and you never know if rock climbing may be involved. They are sport. They are exercise.

Rambles are slow, gentle and completely without physical challenge. They involve butterflies and flowers and frequent stops in the shade to study a peculiar rock or the pattern of bark on a tree. They do not involve sweat, heavy breathing, or anything remotely close to exercise. They are useless and glorious all at once.

Rambles most often involve paths of some sort. I like paths. There are few surprises on a path. Paths are even and well-maintained, leading from point A to point B, or at least a planned meander. Paths have edges and sometimes actual curbs to keep you from straying off into "nature" and to keep nature from imposing itself on you. Paths represent order and comfort - a sense of purpose and clear, concise direction.

As I took off on my path, I was enjoying the effects of the previous night's rain. A cactus had a beautiful purple blossom opening on it. Down a hill, away from my line of vision, I could hear a creek rushing. Everything felt fresh and new, and the path I had chosen had a lot going for it. It was not too rocky, but not muddy either. There was a broad curb along the edge that kept cedar trees from venturing out and getting in the way. But as the path went on, it turned rocky and uneven. There were pieces of PVC pipe and glass from beer bottles littering the ground. Finally, the path stopped altogether at the edge of a rocky outcropping. No view. No bench. The path simply stopped, short of its promise. I'd picked a path to nowhere.

I was thinking about heading back and looking for another path when the sound of the stream stopped me. If I looked, beyond the branches of several cedar trees, I could just a make out a small view of the little river. I pushed in a little farther, hesitating with my toes at the edge of the curb and I saw, halfway down the gentle slope, a large flat rock - a perfect place to sit and write. Carefully, I pushed between the branches and found my footing down the hill side. Once I had to grab onto a branch as the rocks underneath me started to roll. When I reached my rock, I suddenly remembered that rattlesnakes like to lurk near shady rocks like this one. I checked thoroughly and sat down. My willingness to get off the path gave me a seat on a damp rock with a couple of tree branches persistently sticking in my side. And I must admit that thoughts of the camouflage capabilities of snakes kept coming to mind.

After I settled my perhaps realistic fears, though, I took some time to look around. The stream was rushing, with impromptu waterfalls in several places. Across the stream, some tall green grass looked like rushes. Sitting in the dappled sunlight, I felt at peace and happy. I wrote for a while, and actually felt my anger and frustration over a long-nursed wound begin to evaporate. For the first time in a long time, I felt like myself, no longer striving or grieving. Contentedness. What a wonderful trade off for leaving the comfort and false promise of my chosen path.

The Power of Fortune Cookies

2006-04-18T15:51:00.001-07:00

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm writing this as I'm waiting for Chinese food. With the MooShu Pork and dumplings will be an oracle - yes, a fortune cookie. I somehow have become captivated by these little messengers from the unknown and distant future. As I break open the bland, crispy outer shell, I feel a little tingle of hope. What will this one say? Will it promise me wealth? Health? A new job or a cutie-patootie husband and 1.5 perfect little kids?

Well, on March 30, I got one that promised me that, "The coming month will bring winds of change to your life." Cool! I've always felt a special affinity for April, no matter what T.S. Eliot says, so this fortune seemed especially auspicious. I was excited to have a happy memory of change to overwrite a blow up that happened at my former church last year, starting on April 1st. I've spent most of the last year trying to get over that and find my way within the world of church. My relationship with Christ was never threatened, but after all that happened, it left me wondering about the purpose and need for church. And I've been trying to recover from anger, hurt, and the loneliness of losing a group of people I'd been connected to for ten years.

Unfortunately, my fortune seems to have actually been referring to something way too familiar. Last week, completely out of the blue, the pastor of my new church announced he was resigning. The church has been limping for a while and, under his leadership, has begun to come around again. I respect and love him and was truly looking forward to building our arts team and the church up again. It seemed like things were looking up.

Apparently, they weren't for him, though. The pressure must have just been too much, and he made the decision to leave - very suddenly and without giving our church many options. In the position our church is in, all bets are pretty much off. If it survives, it will be a radically different church. And being in the emotional place I've been in all this year, I'm honestly not up for the extraordinary efforts it will take to keep things going. So now, I'm looking for a new church, too.

Well, at least I know I "should" look for a new church. The truth is, I now understand why so many people are interested in God, but not in church. It's a rather trite but true saying that churches are organizations filled with imperfect people, but I'm wondering these days if it goes much further than that. I guess I'm wondering if churches aren't more disproportionately filled with hurt and damaged people - people with agendas - people who want to control and dominate - or be controlled. And somehow, it feels right to me that they should be filled with hurt and hurting people. But when do we get healed? And when do we stop hurting each other and messing up each other's lives?

To be honest, this whole church explosion, while really destructive, hasn't really touched me emotionally. I do not kid to say that my heart was crushed at my last church and it wasn't truly together enough for me to give it again. Maybe I shouldn't be giving my heart to an organization like a church anyway. I don't know. I do know that if I do go back to church, I'm not going to jump in. I'll wade around the edges until the water seems to be safe. I probably won't get as much out of it, but I'm not up for risking so much again so soon.

My Chinese food is here. And I couldn't wait to see. My newest fortune is: Prosperity makes friends; adversity tries them. Wow, that really sucks.

Purple Haze

2006-03-25T21:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a little over a month since I last wrote. I haven't even had the urge to, for the most part. I've found myself lately in a very particular type of funk. The fantasy kind. For most of my life, I've hit patches, sometimes long patches, in which I feel pretty dissatified with what is going on in my life and instead of addressing it, I find it easier to live in my imagination. I can spend hours daydreaming of exciting and fulfilling variations on the basic facts of my life. Invariably, this fantasy "me" is thinner, funnier, smarter and far more righteous than I am. She has it together, knows all the right people, and is endlessly fascinating. I really wish I knew her.

I heard once that the Dead Sea is so full of salt and minerals that nothing can live there because it is below sea level. That rivers flow in, but nothing flows out. I think my "fantasy" focus might be the same kind of mind pollution. It seems to happen when I'm spending a lot of time alone. When I'm watching a lot of television. When I'm running and the meter is getting close to empty, but I am not slowing down. Well, slowing down in the spiritual sense and taking time to refresh. I have been spending a lot of time sleeping and being pretty doggone lazy.

I recently signed up for the last of my classes at DTS and one of them is "Evangelism." To be honest, I'd really wanted to avoid that one. I'm ashamed to admit that, but not actually so ashamed that I wouldn't drop it if another class was available. I'm all talk, no action when it comes to sharing my faith. Well, "talk" if that means with other believers in a sheltered environement where no one will make fun of me or challenge me or actually care if I live what I say I believe. But I find myself lately so disgusted with my own apathy and laziness that I am actually somewhat timidly praying for a change. My prayer goes something like "change me but let it not hurt." A silly prayer, no? I think God likes silly prayers, though.

One thing that has broken through my haze this past month or so is a better and more full undertstanding of walking by faith. My dear friends who have wanted a baby for so long finally received one through adoption. Not a week before their baby made his appearance, we had dinner and talked about disappointments in life and not being able to understand just how God works. Why some receive certain blessings so freely, while others don't. And then, God so miraculously gave them this perfect baby boy. Just getting to hold him, I couldn't stop crying at how perfect and lovely a gift he was.

I look back even over the past year, which has truly been a traumatic and changing one for me, and I am astonished by my prayers. By the things I've asked for, the ways I've tried to bargain with God, the "deals" I've tried to make. Truly, all in the name of getting what I wanted, not in the name of getting to know God better. And even over this past month when several big prayers were answered, for me and for others, when I've seen God's provision and loving care, my heart still just wants more. Wants more things and feelings and people and emotions. Wants its own satisfaction.

Antoher silly prayer I've found myself praying of late is that God not give me what I want, but somehow, to change me so that I want him. To change this stubborn, bitter heart to passionately love the one who saved her and who is walking with her even now. Who knows all things, holds all things and is perfect. Whose timing is perfect. Whose decisions are perfect. Whose gifts are as perfect as a newborn baby's sweet sleeping face.

There is a sense in which my heart and spirit have been clamoring --I've been trying to fill myself with whatever would fill the enormous hole we all nurse in our hearts. I've been spiritually binging, I suppose, hoping that something I could find would satsify me. It's control - it's being able to find satisfaction myself and on my own so that I don't have to depend on God to do it - so that I don't have to depend on someone who might not show up, or at least show up in the way I want him to. God, give me the strength to be still, to know you are God, and to wait for whatever you want to give and trust it is enough. My mind knows it is more than enough. My mind knows that you are more than enough - and you are all I need. Please, Lord, teach my heart.

A Goodbye Finally Said

2006-02-13T17:45:00.000-08:00

When the phone rang at two in the morning, I knew exactly what it was. My grandmother, who had been gradually wearing down over the weight of Alzheimer's, Crohn's disease, strokes, high blood pressure, and eighty-nine years of living was finally going home. The person on the phone was my mother. "Your grandmother's not doing so well," she said. That was most certainly an understatement.

It seems like people in my grandmother's family simply don't know when to let go, physically, I mean. My grandmother was tired, especially of living in a body that hurt and didn't do what she asked of it. Of seeing the world through eyes that were blurry. Of hearing through ears that didn't work well anymore. Of trying to get up, only to realize how weak, weary, and wobbly she was. In many ways, I've found myself over the past few weeks in particular asking God for his will to be done in the situation, and secretly hoping that she wouldn't have to live much longer in such a miserable state. If my grandmother had been happy, that would have been one thing; but she wasn't. She longed for perfect rest, for the opportunity to be at home and see her husband and family once more.

I have often felt that there is too much emphasis on us regaining relationships we've lost to death in the afterlife. After all, the Bible doesn't say we'll be excited to see each other. It actually says we won't be given in marriage in heaven. It does say we will be incredibly excited to see God - to see his son ruling on the throne - and to finally understand what this life was all about. But for my grandmother, this would not be heaven. Please don't hear me to say that she wasn't a believer. She was, absolutely. But the best kind of love she could have ever imagined she got to share for sixty-two years with my grandfather. He died seven years ago tomorrow, and I know with everything in me, that his face is the one she looked for first, and I hope, saw.

My grandmother and grandfather were so good to my brother and I. They always made the routine fun and exciting. We had camp-outs on their living room floor, suspending sheets over tables to make tents. They had box turtles in their back yard. It was so much fun as a child to go out with little balls of ground meat and see this 1/4 of a mile per hour rush of turtles come creeping up to get dinner. My grandparents both loved to garden, and we spent many hours with them, digging and planting and raking leaves. We went out to dinner a lot, or would get Kentucky Fried Chicken and head over to Zilker Park right near their house for a picnic. And every Friday night, I would think of some new way to "fool" my grandmother. I'd call her, pretending to be a salesman or an announcer for some contest or sweepstakes and "convince" her that she'd won a fabulous prize. She never once failed to go along with it, even when we both knew that she wasn't fooled.

When the phone call came Sunday morning, in some ways it was a relief. In many ways, I've been saying this goodbye to my grandmother for years. And tonight I realize that I'm still not quite ready to say it. The only thing I can say is that I hope you and Grandaddy Melton are having a good time, and I hope that when you got there, you finally understood how perfectly God loves you. And I hope you know that I love you too, albeit very, very imperfectly.

Intimidation

2006-02-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

I felt pressed down into my chair under his stare. It was Sunday morning. People were milling around, hello-ing and how are you-ing as they filed in to cushioned stacking chairs and found a place for the upcoming service. I was in place, myself, at the front; thinking through the upcoming service, checking the clock every few minutes. Three minutes until service was supposed to start. Where is the band? There's Nic, there's the bass player, lead guitar, keyboards. Where's the multimedia guy? Make a mental note to check again in a minute or so.

I play the role of "director" at my church on Sunday mornings. You see, we program each service with music, videos, and dramas that connect to the topic of the sermon for that morning. To make our services run as smoothly as possible, we have a run-through beforehand - a sort of dress rehearsal to make sure everyone knows where he or she should be. We work on details like lighting transitions, timing, and how to work elements in and out of the service most effectively.

To assist with the process, we have a director. In essence, the director is in charge on Sunday mornings. As director, I run the rehearsal, decide if elements need to be changed or cut, and am generally the decision-maker for the morning. It's a role I'm comfortable with from a standpoint of ability. I know how to program. I know how to manage a group of "creative" types while keeping an eye on the clock. Years in middle school have taught me that much. Unfortunately, though, directors are a new idea to the church I am a part of, and we all know how strongly new ideas can be resisted. While most of the folks who are active parts of the ministry are strong supporters of the new ideas, others are definitely not.

It started simply enough and didn't even directly concern me at first. The head of a ministry approached our pastor who was standing near me, asking him if he could get an announcement in that morning. My pastor referred the man to me and I found myself in an incredibly uncomfortable situation that keeps replaying in my mind.

The guy was standing over me, mind you. There wasn't room for me to stand up. We've never met and he didn't introduce himself. He just repeated his rather insistent request that his announcement be made. I told him I'd talk to the person who was doing announcements for us that morning and see if he was comfortable adding it. I also mentioned that all announcements are supposed to come in by Thursday to me so that we don't put people on the spot like this.

The guy leaned over me more and asked who was doing announcements, no doubt so he could press his case himself. I repeated that I would take care of it. That's when this guy actually yelled at me, "Who is it?" His body language was threatening. His eyes were downright mean. I told him I'd take care of it again and he repeated his demand, so against my better judgment, I told him and repeated again that I would take care of it. He straightened up and said, "Oh yeah, (name) will do it. He's a good guy," and walked off.

So what's the big deal? It's no big surprise to find you're dealing with jerks at church. After all, church is just made up of people, a surprising percentage of which are just not very nice when they don't get what they want. I guess what has me feeling unnerved is the fact that this guy felt it was OK to treat a woman this way, even more so, at church. I know that probably seems sexist. I can't have my cake and be equal too. Or can I? I guess what I'm saying is that I've seen guys clash heads before, even in ministry situations. And usually, they can do the pat each other on the back thing and get over it pretty quickly. It's like a guy shortcut.

But that doesn't exist between men and women. And when a man feels it appropriate to stand, speak, and act in a physically intimidating way just because he wants an announcement made and isn't instantly getting his way, it concerns me. It lets me know that I need to stay away from him. And it makes me wonder if I should talk to someone on staff about it.

So is there some moral to be gleaned from all this? Some universal truth that can be learned? I think there is, but it's not really a comforting one. We all seek out sanctuary somewhere. For some of us it's church. For others, it's friends or family. I guess the moral is that our sanctuary is only as safe and sure as the other people who share it with us. Part of the process of maturing is, I think, is learning to keep our eyes open and know when our place of sanctuary needs to be readjusted or made smaller. Just calling ourselves by the same name doesn't really make us family.

Brokeback Mountain

2006-01-29T18:37:00.000-08:00

I went to see Brokeback Mountain with a friend tonight. The issues of the particular relationship depicted aside, it's a beautiful story of a complicated and loving relationship. It also seemed to me to be a touching depiction of that universal need we all feel to be loved and touched, as well as the compulsion that drives us to find the satisfaction of that need wherever we can. The characters in the story both were stunted men in some ways, gnarled by their experiences with loss and abandonment and unable to find the caring tenderness that they have denied they need.

The movie touched off all sorts of emotions in me. I identified more than I'd ever expected with these characters. And given my previous posting of the day, I found myself weeping on a friend's shoulder tonight.

She reminded me of something very, very important. Pain screams. Truth whispers.

Thank you, Laurie!

Hanging on, hanging in.... maybe hanging up?

2006-01-29T12:25:00.000-08:00

That's about where I find myself these days. Just trying to hang on. My work at school is going at a pace that I have no hope of actually mastering, but for the most part I still love it. I'm not sure I'm really teaching that well this year, but I joked with a friend that as long as I "first do no harm," I think the kids are flexible enough to rebound.

My personal life is, well, probably more a matter of hanging up. Still not much time with friends. Still alone most of the time. I have come to some important decisions. One has to do with seminary. I've decided to quit, sort of. I was working on a masters. This is my fifth year and I'm not even halfway through. I'm supposed to graduate this year. Oops.

Ever since I started the program, I've encountered tons of problems, mostly in the form of the lack of financial provision. I went heavily into debt to take classes until I realized that wasn't OK spiritually, either. A dear friend solicited supporters for me to take the classes I was taking until Thursday, but ultimately, the schedule was killing me. The stress was truly taking me out. I woke up every day this week crying because I was so tired and had so much to do. As I've looked back over my blogs for the past few months, I've seen statement after statement of being utterly exhausted.

This week, I finally got to the point of really crying out to God about it. It wasn't pretty. And I heard a very tiny voice inside that has been trying to be heard for a long time. It told me to quit seminary. It didn't matter how much I wanted a seminary degree. It didn't matter how many great reasons I could make up to get it. It's not God's plan for right now. It's simply not.

Here's the thing: I knew that. I just didn't want to hear it. The justifications in my own mind and heart have gone something like this: You've taken everything else, Lord. I'm not married. I don't have children. I don't have a close set of friends. I haven't been able to work full-time in ministry like I desire. I'm not beautiful. I'm not a great writer. You've taken everything else I ever wanted. This is mine.

Not exactly a holy attitude, is it?

The truth is that I've been holding a giant pity party for myself for years, and showing how very little I trust God in the process. As I've realized this over the past couple of weeks in particular, I'm pretty disgusted with myself, but I also have found a place of honesty that I don't think I've ever been at with God. One in which I've said, "God I know you are good, in theory. And I know you love me, in theory. I wish I knew it in experience, in life. But the truth is, it's hard to remember when I see my life so empty."

I'm no example to follow, obviously. I'm sorry if this is disturbing to those of you with more faith than I have. I truly and deeply admire you. I'm just not there right now.

I think I will be someday, though. It's analogous to allowing a wound to heal. Sometimes, after scar tissue and infection have seized the area, you have to open it up and expose it all to the light and air. You have to be vulnerable and just let it hurt for a while before it truly begins to heal the right way.

In this whole process, I was brought back again to the very first lesson I ever learned as a Christian. In my newest days of believing, my dear friend Kara told me repeatedly about the "blessedness of obedience." When I called the seminary to withdraw this week, some pretty amazing things happened. First, the seminary showed me a way to take two more classes over the summer and get some sort of degree. Not the one I wanted, but nothing to sneeze at. Secondly, I got almost all of my money back for this semester. Another friend has volunteered to help me raise whatever I need to finish those two classes. And the biggest thing was the total sense of relief and peace I felt as I was finally obedient. I was happier, had more energy, and felt lighter than I've felt in months. Maybe even all this year.

I realized that this was really the lesson God was trying to teach me when I read Jeremiah 29 this week. That's where that most over-claimed of promises is: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future." I don't know how many times I've prayed this verse, or recited it like a money-back guarantee. This time, I read it in context and it hit me right between the eyes. The chapter is in the midst of God telling the Israelites something along these lines: You are going into exile. I'm not going to preserve you from it. And once you're there, it's going to last for over a generation. Settle down. Plant crops. Get married. Live your life. You're not coming back to the promised land for seventy years. And don't believe anyone who says they are a prophet and says differently. You're going into exile and it won't be a short one."

Wow. What harshness this seems. And in the midst of it, God reminds them that he can tell them this news they don't want to hear because he knows the plans he has for them, and these plans are not for their harm, but for their good. That he has a future planned for them and hasn't forsaken them. In the middle of pain, heartache, frustration and barrenness, he is still God.

God, please plant this lesson deep down in my soul.

Real Community

2006-01-08T18:11:00.000-08:00

I've been kind of bummed today. It wasn't a "good" church day. There was a lot of tension in the air. A member meeting after church with some not-so-pleasant financial news. Overall, there is resistance and criticism pretty much running rampant over some of the changes we've started to make in programming, as well as a few folks who think we haven't done enough and wonder why. I left thinking about how nice it would be to sleep in on a Sunday morning.

As thoughts are wont to do, mine wandered for a while. I thought about other churches I've visited recently and wondered if they might be a better "fit." Then, when I realized they weren't, I started to feel a bit lost and alone. Isn't there any church out there that is tailor-made for me?

As I filled up my gas tank at Exxon, I was starting to feel defeated. Started thinking that maybe I just shouldn't think about it. And I definitely should figure out how I could talk myself out of some of the committments I've made. I mean, I don't want to be in a church with people who are critical, do I? I especially don't want to deal with some of the downright insensitivity and meanness I saw today on a long term, right?

Wrong, oh so wrong, I realized. Maybe it was the gas fumes, but I realized that this is it - this is community. You know, I think most of us have this idea that living together in community is some sort of permanent DisneyLand. We never hurt or bleed. Our houses are always clean, and we always have a friend's shoulder to cry on. OK, I'm overexaggerating. But I do have a very rosy picture of what "community" should look like.

But then I look in the mirror, spiritually speaking, and realize that I don't qualify to live in this wonderful fantasy land. Or do I get the right to be the only sinful human being hanging around the community? Do I get to be the only selfish one? The only one who analyzes everyone and everything and isn't hesitant to give you her opinion? Oh, wait, didn't I just call that "being critical" when I was on the receiving end?

More than conviction, I felt some encouragement at this thought. Maybe, the fact that I'm starting to see people at my church with warts and all actually means that this is a functioning community. Lord knows I've been in enough churches in my life where people were these smiling plastic puppets spouting back the rhetoric they'd heard across the pulpit but never really embraced. Where people would serve until they bled, not because they loved Jesus but because they wanted someone to love them. Who's to say that my church is more disfunctional just because I got to see the less flattering side that we all have, no matter what we say?

Next week, my pastor is preaching on what a fully functioning Biblical community is. It will be interesting to see what he says. And this week I'll pray for my church. In particular that it might be saved from sinners like me.

Béseme

2006-01-01T16:29:00.000-08:00

I survived another annual terrorism incident/tradition. I described it to a friend this morning at church and she told me I should put aside my horror and, yes, disappointment, to write about it. You see, she told me, she got married too early (by that she meant her twenties) to know about that.

What am I talking about? The annual seemingly compulsory midnight kiss on New Year's Eve and the terror it inspires in the hearts of long-time singles like me. Every year, as the clock ticks away December, one thought is on the minds of singles: that moment when the entire world will be slapping a wet one on each other and whether, this year, you'll be a part of them. If you're not dating anyone, you furtively begin to imagine all of your New Year's possibilities: a bar and lots of liquor, a family gathering (shades of "Deliverance"), a low key party with friends, or one of those frenetically-paced, expensive, you'd-better-enjoy-yourself professional productions such as a benefit or dinner/dance.

At which event do you have the chance of finding some random, not-too-random stranger to kiss? Definitely the event with the most liquor.

At which event will you feel the most comfortable? Any one that allows you to wear pajamas. (That better be family.)

Where will you have fun, but really, really hope NOT to end up in "to kiss or not to kiss" limbo? That would be the low key party with friends.

I admit to taking the last option over the past few years. The few folks who are dating in the group snatch a quick midnight smooch (some with a little too much showiness, thank you very much), while the rest of us look at the TV screen filled with thousands of lip-lockers in Times Square and pretend we aren't wishing it were us. Of course, the more frightening option occurs when, on a rare occasion, one of the guys decides to take "pity" on all us hapless females and pass out kisses for free. Umm... let's just say as little as possible about that.

So last night, I weenied out. I went out, I talked and gnoshed, I even swung by a second party. And then I went home at about 11:30. I watched Times Square all on my lonesome, in my nightgown and fuzzy slippers with a Coca-Cola Zero in hand. I'm definitely getting old. And maybe I'm just giving up hope. But next year, if there's not at least a 95% chance of getting a kiss from someone I want to kiss (who, of course, returns that interest), I'm foregoing all the other options in favor of a movie and soda in my jammies all night long. I may even protest and go to bed at 11:45, just to be persnickety.

So now, with the holiday season behind us, I've only got six weeks to begin thinking about the next big event: Valentine's Day. I think I'll just recycle that "jammies" and movies idea. Ooh... with chocolate!

The Horror! The Horror!

2005-12-31T07:11:00.000-08:00

It happened last night in a rather unassuming Chinese restaurant. I had gone out with a friend to see a movie and we were catching dinner afterwards. My friend lives in China most of the year, so we were joking about the fact that I'm the only person brave (or dense) enough to ask her to go get Chinese food on her brief trip back to the states.

I met this person when we were both teaching at my middle school. She's 26 and about six to eight inches taller than I am. She has dark brown hair and eyes and a pale complexion. We look nothing alike.

So anyway, we're talking about the differences between American and authentic Chinese food, which interests our waitress. She confessed that she would like to travel around, but her parents are hesitant about letting her, for safety reasons. My friend smiled and laughed, kind of gesturing to me as she said her parents had the same reaction. We'd been talking about it earlier in the conversation.

That's when the frightening thing happened. The waitress looked at me and said, "Oh, so this is Mom." Mom? Mom.... MOM! To a full-grown, 26 year old woman! She blew her tip.

Certainly, this girl had very much misjudged things, probably mostly because of my friend's body language that she didn't understand. But still, to be mistaken for someone old enough to have an adult child, even for a minute, shocked me.

Still, it's something I'm getting used to gradually at my school. My students will tell me what fuddy-duddy's their parents are (no, they don't use that word. I'm old, remember). As we talk, they'll tell me things like the fact that their parents are 34, so how could they understand anything that's really important? That's when I have to let them in on the secret that I'm.... 38. I'm older than most of their parents, but I can't even think of what my life would be like with a teenaged son or daughter. I can barely handle the cats.

Age is such a funny thing. You're supposedly only as old as you feel, but that must only be true within degrees or maybe within certain decades. I can definitely say that I've learned to be more comfortable with who I am in my thirties than I was in my twenties. And according to Oprah, 40 is the best age for a woman to be. Hmmm.... I'm going to have to take that idea on slowly.

We judge and measure ourselves by what we have accomplished at various age milestones. I have a career and a house. Good. I'm not married and don't have children. Bad. I have a few loving relationships of long standing. Good. I'm still slowly plugging away at that master's degree. Bad.

I don't want to jump into this evaluation mode. I judge myself enough on all sorts of different criteria, thank you. But at some point, you realize that you're there. You've gotten to retirement age or past the age you can have children. Suddenly, you age has closed options that you were most happy leaving open. Then, there are some painful realitities to face.

I'm probably just mulling melancholy because it's the end of the year. Who knows? For today, I'll try to focus on the present. I'm certainly not promised a future, so it is kind of silly to worry too much about it. And tonight, with my friends, I'll bid a new year and all of its possibilities a cheery, if wary, hello.

Better to give?

2005-12-27T20:42:00.000-08:00

I have to confess to something pretty sad and shameful. My family decided this year not to give gifts to each other - only the kids. After all, Christmas isn't supposed to be about the stress and strain of finding the right present, going into debt to buy people things they don't really need, or spending time shopping instead of together. So we decided together to call a halt to the madness and not give each other gifts.

It seemed like a great idea at the time. I actually felt more like a mature adult making this decision. My credit card debt would certainly thank me. And maybe I'd even spend a little more time on the spiritual reasons for the season.

So, it was with some dismay that, earlier today, I finally gave voice to what I'd been secretly feeling for the last few days. I've been gyped! Robbed! This sucks! OK - at least I didn't scream it out during our family gathering (we kind of stretch things out in my fam). At least I passed it off as a joke about the tragedy of being single when I realized that, of course, my parents had given gifts to each other, as had my brother and sister-in-law. I'm surprised at how much it really bugged me not to get gifts from my immediate family, especially since, for the past few years, I can remember coming home about this time wondering where I can possibly put all of the stuff I received that I didn't want and didn't need.

I'm not sure why it surprised me, though. I know it definitely points out that I'm way more superficial than I want people to know. (Hence it will come as no surprise that I, the whiner, am the one who actually suggested the present moratorium when talking to my stressed out family). I think I also feel loved by getting stuff. That's kind of sad, I guess. But I love opening presents. I love seeing a brightly wrapped box with a bow and getting to rip through the paper and see what's inside. And I did get that moment this year. We exchanged gifts within other segments of the family, so it's not like I went completely without participating in the annual exchange. I just wanted more, to be honest. Not more stuff necessarily, but more presents, if that makes any sense. Never mind, I know it doesn't.

Wanting more is the opposite of gratitude, isn't it? Hmm... that's something to think about. Especially as I vault myself back into the attempt to lose weight and get into shape this year. I did a fairly strict diet plan last year for about six to nine months and lost a lot of weight. I've gained some back now and finally realized that the problem really isn't something that dieting can fix. It is, in some respects, a lack of gratitude. I eat for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with being hungry, and as a result, I am never full. I always want more. Whether I'm eating because I'm happy or sad or just because I feel guilty for eating too much, I'm definitely abusing the whole notion of food and what it was meant for. I'm starting a new plan with a friend that is actually more a Bible study than a diet plan. Hopefully I'll learn a little more about how I'm eating and why and be able to honor God with that area of my life more honestly.

Overall, I feel like this next year is going to be about not living in fear as much. We all let our fears limit and hold us back. I've been surprised over the past month or so how my attention keeps getting called back to the fears that rule my daily life. From simple things like not speaking to a stranger because I fear I'll say the wrong thing to much more serious spiritual issues. Lately, everytime I've spoken to my friend Phillip he says something that causes me to realize that he lives a life that trusts God at his word. That he doesn't have all the answers, but that he really lives in the full-hearted belief that God is good and out for his best. That God is in control. I want to live that way and trust that way. I want to love God that way.

It probably sounds goofy to be determining what the upcoming year is going to be like. Yes, it's the "year of no fear!" You know, I would think it was silly too, but last year about this time, every time I prayed my mind kept going back to a couple of things that I really didn't want to hear from God. Basically, that the year was going to hold some events and situations that I really hoped it wouldn't. Not Jeanne Dixon prediction type stuff. More just the idea that the year in general was going to be about my learning to depend on God more in several very specific ways. A year later, I can look back and say that those lessons were, indeed, the focus of the year, although they played out in ways I had never anticipated. Perhaps it's just a matter of my own thoughts and focus causing me to see those situations more. I don't know. If I have a say in the matter, though, I'd like for this year to be a year of courage. There are so many things I want to try and so many things I'd love to do if I just had the courage to try. Maybe this year, maybe by learning more about who God really is, I'll find that courage.

And maybe I'll even have the courage to admit next Christmas that I'd really like to exchange gifts. Small things, homemade even. And if that makes me selfish, then so be it. I love thinking of others and trying to find something that they would appreciate. And I enjoy knowing that they did the same for me. That and tearing into all that wrapping paper. What is the difference between childish and child-like, after all?

Healing in His Wings

2005-12-18T15:25:00.000-08:00

I've always loved the imagery of us nestling up under the wings of God, finding ourselves in a close and intimate and protected place with Him. This morning, I felt myself right there, under his wings and so close to his beating heart. It started as a typical Sunday morning. I was helping out at church as we practiced the service. The exact situation doesn't matter, but basically, my dear pastor said something that stung. He never, in a million years intended it to, but it hit home and brought tears to my eyes.

This is, unfortunately, not a completely uncommon occurrence, and I don't mean with my pastor. I am sensitive. I've always felt and been told, oversensitive. I think in the past ten years, in particular, I've felt that my oversensitivity has been at the root of pretty much every relational problem I've had. It's a big part of my insecurity and the nagging feeling that if I could just get over it, that people would like me more, maybe even love me more, and I'd just overall be a more deserving person. There you go, my neurosis in a nutshell.

So I told my pastor his comment stung and he apologized. Usually that's the end of things. Actually, the end is where the other person typically either rolls his eyes, or tells me I'm too sensitive, or just starts to walk on eggshells around me. This didn't go there, though.

Instead, after giving me a chance to cool down for a second, my pastor walked up and asked me if we were OK. I told him we were (even though I didn't really feel it yet), and then went into apology mode. (I'm sorry I'm so oversensitive. It's not you. It's my fault. etc.) Over the past, this has been my only recourse - to go on the defensive immediately and acknowledge that I'm the problem.

What my pastor said next floored me. And as I heard him say it, I knew it was directly from God. They were words I've longed to hear my whole life. Mark said that I shouldn't apologize for being sensitive. That I was a sensitive person and that he wanted me to feel free to be myself around him. And that he wasn't afraid of my sensitivity.

I cannot tell you how deeply those words touched me. They were like manna. Like a quenching rain on a dry and dusty land. Please know this: I know I can be oversensitive. I know that can be a pain and definitely a sin at times. But never in my life have I had anyone say what my pastor, Mark Adams, said to me. That I am welcome to be myself, warts and all, and that he doesn't need me to change to be acceptable. My entire past life with the church (not just my previous church, but all of them since I was a child) has consisted of me hearing the message at different levels and in different ways that I am not good enough to be there, to serve there, to be loved there. There was always something more I needed to do and someone more I needed to be before I could be really accepted.

I'm willing to own that most of that was a message I was sending myself. But you know what? I think most of our churches prey on that mentality. We've stopped, a long time ago, really extending the kind of radical grace we see in the Bible. I know I did. I'm not blaming. I'm a part of it, too. A part of the sinful, imperfect mess we people tend to make of just about everything God gives us.

What I heard today was my pastor saying what God really wanted me to hear: that I've got to get over this and accept myself as I am and then extend that acceptance to others. And here's the amazing thing. As I accept myself for being a sensitive, perhaps oversensitive person, I actually want to change. My heart opens up to God and asks him, "How Lord, how can you change this in me? What do you want to do?" I no longer have to defend myself and push up walls. Instead, my heart begins to open like a flower in the Son's presence.

I am thankful today that I have a godly and gifted pastor like Mark Adams. I'm grateful for his obedience to and dependence on God. I am thankful that God led me to Bridgeway, a church in which I've known more healing and grace in seven months than in the past seven years. Most of all, I'm thankful for the gift God gave me, so perfect and perfectly for me. And for the times like these, when I know I'm hidden beneath his wings.

Malachi 4:2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.