The Edge of a Precipice

You would think I would be all "Ireland this," and "Ireland that," and I dare say I'll get to that point . . . sometime back on the other side of the Atlantic. But for now, we're going to talk about other stuff.

Someday, when I'm ancient and long-ago menopaused, so that no one about whom I could possibly be alluding even remembers me, let alone thinks I'm talking about him, I'm going to write a book about the role of sexuality in evangelism. Of course, it might not make much of a book. I can tell you the conclusion right here: it doesn't help anything. At least until recently, any overt or covert heterosexual attraction between me and any guy I've ever tried to talk to about Jesus has not led either to dating or to conversion. I do wonder sometimes, though, if God allows that dynamic so that people who might never get prayed for otherwise, get someone praying for them for a while. (When I'm feeling less positive about this, I think cynically that God's purpose for my life is "bait.") At the very least, it paves the way for unexpected conversations.

Like, one time I was returning to London after a visit to the States, and there was this striking man on my flight. We caught each other's eye, and then, during a stop in Frankfurt (yes . . . I had to fly through Frankfurt to get to London), ended up conversing a little bit. He was Turkish, and a doctor. (Well, he might not have been a doctor, I suppose, but he said he was.) My relationship with Jesus is usually the first thing I tell attractive men about me. In this case, I think that information might have come right after telling him I had learnt to make kisir and borek a few weeks before. Turkish Doctor, trying to be tolerant, no doubt, did not try to argue with me about my Jesus-fanaticism, but he did hint something along the lines of people being like trees--how they grow and change and don't look the same when they're finished as they did when they've started.

I had just recently gone through the tolerance-challenging, grace-building upheaval of my life, and so I could agree with this, except that I would have said that that had only drawn me closer to Jesus instead of making me branch out farther. And after Turkish Doctor and I had got on our respective and divergent planes, it occurred to me that what I really could have said was that he was right about the tree, except that the thing is, it's still always a tree.

I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago on a walk when I passed this tree. I pass it every time I walk in that direction, but I had never looked up at it before. This time I did, and it struck me just how astounding it was. It's enormous and beautiful and serene. I thought about how a tree's root system is supposed to be as extensive underground as its branch system is above-ground. I know something about this tree's root system already (see fifth photo down in this link). It has kind of "eaten" the rocks in the stone wall above which it grows, and I could imagine the rest of its roots extending back into the yard behind it. It is kind of awe-inspiring. Who knows what it's gripping, under the grass, under the rocks, under the road. It would need that, because like I said, it's a massive tree, and it's growing right on the edge of a mini-precipice. I don't know how big or how old it was when they dug out the land to make the road this tree is on, but it's still growing straight and strong and rooted.

I couldn't help wondering, though, what would happen if there were a really big storm. I suspect it has already weathered really big storms, and like the house on the rock, this tree is rooted in the rock and it's still standing. But the last few weeks I feel like I've been standing on the brink of a precipice, too. Maybe a bigger one than the one than the hop between yard and street. I feel like, thanks to God, I'm pretty well-rooted. But it's still scary on the edge like this. I have to trust in the Rock to hold me and not let the big winds blow me over.

Out of Commission

Well. Not really. Just on vacation. With limited internet access. But I'll be back.

Meanwhile, Ireland is drizzly and beautiful, and I'm loving it.

Good Tolerance/Bad Tolerance

Back in January when our Teen Girl Squad started, we were talking about the charge to love God and love people, and some question came up--maybe one about how to do that, exactly. And somebody mentioned tolerance.

Tolerance is (and has been for a while) the big-word-on-campus. The "secular world" loves to exhort us to exhibit it, and, by and large, the Christian subculture like to tut about it and talk about how it's all well and good, but What About Relativism, and Humans Do Sin, You Know.

All of that is as may be, but I have a sort of tenuous relationship with the concept of tolerance myself--partly because I grew up as a self-righteous twit for some reason, and partly because my own encounters with tolerance have left me a little jaded. So I told the girls about this jading experience:

Back in the day ("the day" always being a different point in time depending on my story, in case you hadn't noticed), I had this group of about six friends. We were a mixed group both in terms of gender and in terms of culture, so this led to some interesting dynamics and also a lot of talks at McDonalds. McDonalds was the place where any two of us would meet to "have it out" if we were experiencing, shall we say, communication difficulties, and because of this we ended up avoiding it most of the rest of the time. (Well, also because, you know, it was McDonalds.)

Everybody has their own personal failings, and mine were, perhaps, a little more glaring or culturally inappropriate in this group or something, and so eventually things broke down pretty badly, and I had to meet up with one of the guys in the group--at McDonalds--to have things out for the last time. The conversation (which is a polite word for what actually went down) was summed up when the guy made this statement: "Jenn, for as long as I've known you, you've been [this particular personal failing]. I've tolerated you for four years and I can't take it anymore. I'm not speaking to you again."

We ended up speaking again (though we're not in touch now), through a long and painful and healing process, but it was in that one instant that I decided I don't have much use for tolerance. It sounds all nice and innocuous when someone says, "We should just tolerate everybody," but when someone tells you they are, or have been, tolerating you, it's like they just slapped you in the face.

I don't, I realised, want to be tolerated. Ideally, I would like to be understood, but I'll go for being challenged if understanding isn't a possibility. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said that the opposite of love isn't hate but indifference (quote, anybody?), and I think that's true. Love and hate at least both dignify their object with some sort of value. Indifference is complete and utter disregard. Indifference and tolerance, in my experience, end up being just about the same thing.

My McDonalds friend was right about my personal failing. I can see how it could have become unbearable. But I wish these friends would have told me ahead of time how unbearable it was, and would have tried to help me through it, instead of tolerating it up to the point where they couldn't take it anymore and just slammed the door in my face. I realise they might not have known how to do that, or furthermore that I might not have been as willing or able to change if I had been coaxed instead of being outright rejected. Sometimes it takes a shock to make a change. But I'd still like to make the argument that love of any variety, and tolerance, don't really go together very well.

But, we asked in our girls' group, aren't there ever times when tolerance is good? The girls talked about their younger siblings, and how they would stand up for them if it came down to it because they love them and they're their siblings, even if they drive them crazy. We tried to define this and didn't really come up with anything more definite than "good tolerance" versus "bad tolerance." But upon further reflection, I have started to wonder if maybe the name that distinguishes "good tolerance" is grace.

Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Teen Girl Squad

The Teen Girl Squad (not to be confused with the virtual but original Teen Girl Squad) has a concluding party here at my house tonight. This was a group of girls (it ended up being just me, a co-leader, and two high-school girls) who got together to study the Bible on Tuesday nights. There were a lot of interruptions. It took us about three months to get through six studies. But we did it, and we have bonded. I'm going on vacation for two weeks, but then we need to talk about whether we're going to keep doing this.

I was going to talk about one of our "deep topics" of conversation that came up fairly early on in our meetings, and I think I still am. But it suddenly feels daunting, and I really do need to make some chocolate chip cookies for this party . . .

****************
Update:

Photos: Jenn, Tisha, Julia, Sarah. April 2008.

I'm Not Lying

In case you were doubting my freelance writing claims, the publishers who print New England Condominium magazine have finally posted online the issue with my first article. It is, I admit, the March issue. And it is, I acknowledge, almost May. But never mind.

St. George's Day

Hat tip to my father for reminding me of this.

Apparently today is St. George's Day. I knew that once--back when I lived in England. You would think that, having lived in England, I would maybe remember this better, since I'm all about little-known reasons to celebrate. (I forgot No-Ruz this year, too, and I never forget that.) I rarely have trouble remembering St. David's Day (1 March) for Wales, or St. Patrick's Day (17 March) for Ireland--although I nearly forgot that one this year, too--what is it with this year?--or even St. Andrew's Day (30 November) for Scotland (although with that one, sometimes I only remember the month). But St. George?

Poor St. George.

Probably why I usually forget him completely is no one likes to celebrate the oppressor. To these other places, that's what England was, at least at one time. (I suppose some might say still is, but I'm not convinced they really have a case.) Apparently even the English had kind of forgotten to celebrate him--or were too embarrassed to. Now, however, it seems, the holiday is reviving. I'm not certain that St. George really embodies all of the things that people would like to pin on him, but maybe some of them. So sure--let's celebrate him.

Happy St. George's Day, everybody! What's left of it, I mean.

Being Glad

That Barrington day? I was walking back to my car after the breeze got too much, and found myself absolutely riveted by the sight of a dead tree. I couldn't stop looking at it--or taking photos of it. An older couple walked by and the man said, "Pretty wood, isn't it?"

It was a relief to know that someone else got it, even though I'm quite sure "pretty wood" didn't encapsulate it. I don't know how old that tree was, or what killed it, but there was that pretty wood, rising sinuously out of the ground, as if the tree had spent its life pouring itself upward.

I know I keep going on and on about trees. I just can't get enough of them. They make me think of God for some reason, but it isn't a consciously unpackable reason. I mean, sure, there's lots of tree imagery in the Bible--the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Cross of Christ, the Tree of Life, and even the trees of the fields clapping their hands. But I don't usually look at a tree and think, "This reminds me of a cross" (it very rarely does) or, "This makes me think of the Tree of Life in Ezekiel." Even though I appreciate all that imagery, of course.

I'm a great one for analogies and allegories, but I just don't think there is one to sum up why trees remind me of God. They just do. They remind me of God in a glad way--even if I'm mad at Him or something (which I'm not, currently, but I have been a fair bit), if I look a tree it calms me right down and makes me feel like thanking Him anyway.

Oh. And I didn't do this on purpose, but . . . Happy Earth Day, everybody!

Barrington

I went to Barrington this weekend.

It turns out there are quite a lot of Barringtons out there, but the one I went to is in Rhode Island, and is where my mother grew up. I kind of grew up there, too, because we visited my grandparents a lot, and also I spent eight weeks each of five summers living with them while I worked at a daycamp at the church they helped plant a long time ago. I didn't have a car at the time, so I guess Grandpa must have driven me to camp when it rained, but for some reason I can only remember the sunny days, when I would ride his ancient brown bike (which I still have but haven't ridden since that last summer at camp) to the church, and then in the afternoon take myself on leisurely bike rides around the local neighbourhoods.

Nobody I am related to currently lives in Barrington, but I have some friends there still, so I stayed with them. I thought I was going to feel all nostalgic, and I drove past the house where my grandparents had lived for decades. It is now yellow and not green, but there's a baby-swing hanging from a tree in the front yard, and the house looks cared for but lived in, so I'm going to trust that the people in it are the kind of people who should live in your grandparents' house if your grandparents can't and you can't. I did sort of wish I could park my car in the driveway and go for a walk in Haines Park and then walk back and have tea and danish puff pastry with my grandmother, but other than that I felt more happy than wistful about my memories and the fact that that's all they were.

Unable to park in the driveway, I drove to Haines Park instead, left my car in one of the many intermittent car-spots, and walked down to the water. Then I sat on a picnic bench under a tree, facing the water and the boats and the wind. I journaled until the breeze got too bracing, and then I walked back and drove to my friends' and had a nice time with them, too.

I like weekends like this.

A Time to Rejoice and a Time to Whinge

And now is the time to whinge. Well. Actually. I suppose that really it's always time to rejoice. I further suppose that, even if that were not the case, I should really rejoice a whole lot more than I do. But . . . right now I'm going to whinge anyway.

Getting old is really annoying:

For as long as I have had teeth, not one of them has had a cavity. Today I went to the dentist and found out that . . . one of them has a cavity. I really can't take any credit for my previously cavity-free teeth (can you say "cavity free"? is there such thing as an absence of a hole?)--it's heredity and early and regular fluoride treatments and such. But I feel somewhat affronted regardless. The dentist is calling it a "pit," which I guess is not as deep as a "cavity" and is somewhat less invasive and painful to treat, but whatever. There is something wrong with my tooth. I am not pleased.

Probably the reason there is something wrong with my tooth is that I have taken to drinking milk steamers with honey syrup in them at work, and this is because of getting old, too. No, no--I don't think old people drink milk all the time. But, because of getting old I guess, I have some other physical health concerns which are soon to be checked out. The presence of caffeine affects these tests, and so I have not been drinking anything caffeinated, formerly caffeinated, chocolate, anything, for three weeks. Me. Let me remind you I work at Starbucks. I really only like my brewed coffee with milk, or maybe black tea--but those are off-limits. Herbal teas are getting on my nerves. So I'm drinking steamed milk with syrup, and I just bet that stupid syrup made that "pit."

Also, my metabolism has finally slowed down, I think. I am finally my optimal weight--instead of dangerously below it. This is cause for rejoicing indeed--except that now that I'm there, and my metabolism is slowing, I feel that I actually have to make conscious choices about whether or not I eat french fries (a long-standing weakness) or stuff with whipped cream. And sometimes those choices have to be "no." Sheesh.

Okay--so I guess I don't have so much to whinge about after all.

Corrections

It has been brought to my attention that the Milk Guy actually puts half-and-half, and not milk, in his coffee. Perhaps we should call him the Half-and-Half Guy. I think that this makes it sound like he's sitting on the fence about something, but he doesn't seem to feel this is a problem, so, if he manages to come up in conversation again, I suppose we could call him that. Or we could call him the Guy Formerly Known as the Milk Guy.

Also, there is some concern that I was unclear about the nature or the tenor or the something of the email in which he objected to certain implications of arrogance in Christian assertions. I thought I was clear that it was the assertions he was objecting to, not to all Christians, and also that we only had this discussion once. But looking back over it all, I suppose I did say things like "the Milk Guy's charge of arrogance" kind of a lot, which could make it sound like he just kept harping on how arrogant Christians are, or something. Plus I kept talking about it. I hope everybody knows that was me talking to you about it, and not a conversation I actually had with him.

But if you missed that, I apologise. Let it also be known that he did not require me to write this. I did it myself.

Reflections on a Saturday Afternoon

Stuff That's Too Big for My (Even MY) Head

I feel like I should be continuing the discussion started by the Milk Guy (who, to my knowledge, doesn't even read this blog, although he's welcome to) and continued by some of you. But I suddenly feel like I'm in the middle of this idea that's so big that not only can I not get my head around it, but I can't find a piece to grab onto and start talking about. Or keep talking about. Or whatever.

So, while I'm trying to figure that out, here is a blog my brother just alerted me to. (I'm a little annoyed at him for this; as if I didn't have enough internet reasons to procrastinate! So . . . I'm just going to take out that annoyance by recommending it to all of you.) It is kind of like this site (or, as its author says, "a direct rip-off"). And here is a post that kind of reminds me of what we've been talking about lately. Which I alert you to because, tongue-in-cheek regardless, I like the point he makes at the end--and the way he makes it.

For Future Use

If I ever decide to write a novel about the city in which I work, I would like to incorporate the following sentence:

It was spring, and the tax-help businesses in Webster Square were proliferating again, like mushrooms after several days of rain.

I'm not sure exactly in what context I would use this, but it just sort of came to me this evening as I was driving home from work . . .

My Next Point

Jeff, who, one might say, has some personal knowledge of these matters, left a comment on my second-to-last-post that set things up well for what I was going to say next about the Milk Guy's charge of arrogance. I don't know how to link to comments, and he delineated the argument better (or more concisely) than I was going to, so I'm just going to quote him here. He said:

It might not be thought out in this way, but I think the "arrogant" argument goes like this:
A) There are many people who are in circumstances that make it easy for them to know Jesus.
B) There are many people who are in circumstances that it literally (or atleast nearly) impossible to know Jesus.
C) Many of the determining factors of A. and B. above have nothing to do with the actions of the person.
This seems to leave open only the following conclusions:
1. Somebody who is in circumstance A. is more loved by God than somebody in circumstance B: If God loved them both the same he would have put everybody in circumstance A. This is where the claims of arrogance come in: it can be said that if you're in circumstance A, in some sense you're claiming to be better, or more loved than circumstance B.
2. The alternative is God is quite random and capricious about who is in A. or B.; if this is the case his love, fairness, and wisdom are all called into question.

I do think that, really, this is what the Milk Guy was talking about. And, as Jeff further says, I don't know exactly how to tease all this out. I mean, I believe God really loves everybody, so I don't understand why some people are in situations where they get to hear about Jesus easily and others don't. But I will say this (and this, and this).

First, just because you live in a place where it's easy to hear about Jesus, doesn't mean you'll accept him. Clearly. So something else has to be in play here, too. Also, there are all sorts of evidences that God has made Jesus known even in places where it should be impossible. I think that (for reasons I still can't get my head around) God would rather use His Church to communicate Jesus' love. But I personally know people from ideologically closed countries who have had visions and dreams of Jesus, and I've read plenty of other historical accountings of other supernatural communications to tribal peoples or individuals, which were only interpreted later. I guess I imagine that God judges us on the information (or relationship) we're granted, and it's His business how much information He chooses to give, though I don't really understand all that.

But anyway, the other irony of this version of the arrogance argument is that it's always linked with what we were talking about before. So . . . people get upset that not everyone has an equal chance to hear about Jesus . . . but then they also get upset when we try to tell them? I'm sorry. This makes no sense.

I wonder if the Milk Guy would be appalled to know that this discussion with him is making me consider going back into traditional missions overseas . . . ?

Caahffee and Tauwlk

I'm not done with the previous discussion, but I would just like to interrupt the thought process for these totally unrelated little asides.

So, you know how I've been writing community profiles for New England Condominium? (You only know because I've told you, because so far, their website still only carries the February issue, as far as I can tell.) The community profile for the June issue is on Providence, Rhode Island. Today I had to call the Providence tax assessor's office for some information. I've lived in New England for a significant part of my existence, and I've heard Rhode Island accents for a significant part of that. But today's experience seemed notable for some reason.

The actual people I talked to had their own version of Rhode Island, of course, and it was noticeable. But the woman they used to record the message telling you which number to push in order to be directed to certain departments could seriously be considered for Ms. Providence-Accent 2008. Most of the words that you would spell with an "o" were pronounced with a flat "ah" sound. ("Plot"--this is a tax assessor kind of plot, not a book publisher kind--sounded almost like "plat"). Meanwhile, the words spelled with "a" were pronounced with that "auw" kind of sound that sounds almost New York--"If you're cauwlling about . . . " It was an interesting linguistic experience.

Furthermore, wikipedia has this interesting little tidbit:

"Providence also shares Rhode Island's propensity for coffee, as the former has the most coffee/doughnut shops per capita of any city in the country."

Take THAT, Seattle!

Irony

Today in the coffee mayhem (and was it ever mayhem), the Milk Guy handed me his copy of Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground, whether because I mentioned I love Dostoevsky, or because he can't bear to pollute my ostensibly pristine and faith-filled mind with the likes of Nietzsche, which is what I actually asked to borrow, I don't really know. I shall ask him about that presently.

Anyway, I'm still trying to gauge his openness to actual discourse about things of faith. It might be kind of "safer" and easier and nicer just to keep lobbing books back and forth at each other without actually talking. But I'm still thinking about the charge of arrogance, so, as promised, here are some of the thoughts.

First I would like to admit that I think there is often a fair amount of arrogance communicated (whether or not it's actually felt by the communicator) through proselytisation. There are a lot of angles from which the arrogance could come and I don't want to diminish that fact, but, since this is my blog and everything, I am going to ignore it for a minute and take another tack.

The tack is this: the Milk Guy said that the idea that there are consequences for not getting to know Jesus means that "most of humanity is condemned." Which isn't funny at all, obviously, except in an ironic sort of way, because I actually agree with him. Only I would say all of humanity is condemned.

And see, here's the thing I find even more interesting: to me that sounds about as un-arrogant as it can get. It's only arrogant if the person saying it (me, for example) is putting herself outside of the premise. But I'm not. So instead of arrogance being at the root of that premise, I see it as extremely equalising. We're all in the same boat, and we might be bailing water, but it would appear that the combined weight is driving us under. The only way we can be saved is if someone pulls us out. I believe that there is someone to do it, and that it's Jesus, but that He's the only one who can.

The thing I find arrogant, conversely, is the idea that some people are better or can make themselves better. I mean, the premise that we're not all in the same boat. Who decides? Who says what's better? Why do we have to compete or compare at all? It's Survival-of-the-Fittest, Level 3--the Spiritual Level. Or something like that. I happen to know I'm not the fittest.

And if the Milk Guy were to argue (which he might) that it isn't survival of the fittest, and that everyone's okay, well then, what's the point of living an exemplary life (which he has, at some point, cited as a value) at all? I mean really--who cares? Or maybe I mean someone like me on a lower level, who is more selfish (but why is that of lesser value, in this system of arbitrary inequality?), surely wouldn't care.

How could this system not be survival of the fittest, in the end? That's a basic premise of the natural world which is, according to some, all there is. I'm not trying to be stupid, and I'm not trying to be offensive or mocking--and certainly not arrogant. I just really truly genuinely feel and see and believe that when you take Jesus out of it, the entire system falls apart. It's futile, and plus it's exhausting. It wears me out just thinking about it. I don't want to have anything to prove. I don't want it to be just me, trying hard to do something I'm not quite clear about. I'm not a very relaxed person, but at bottom, I'd rather just rest and allow the Person I'm often so at odds with to lift me to safety anyway.

Arrogance

(I am having some font issues here. Hopefully I can get this legible soon.)

If you've ever tried your hand at telling someone that didn't already believe it that Jesus is the Son of God and that He loves them and died for them to be able to join Him in Heaven, you've probably had the charge of arrogance lobbed at you once or twice.

I'm currently in patchy email correspondence with one of our Starbucks customers whom we can call the "Milk Guy" because the milk or half-and-half at the condiment bar always runs out just before or just after he tries to put some in his venti coffee. We have, in our emails, briefly touched on this issue. (Not the milk issue. The Jesus issue.) In one email, I said,

If you really believe that there's a God, and that that God wants everyone to know Him/Her because S/He loves them, and that the completest way to do that is through getting to know Jesus, and that there are some pretty severe consequences for not, then there's probably something wrong with you if people's dismissal of Jesus doesn't make you cry from time to time.

The Milk Guy then charged me with using a lot of disclaimers, which just goes to show that trying to present a scenario which encourages the other person to put themselves in your shoes doesn't always work. (My point was that I do believe all that stuff and could he imagine what it would be like to be me, believing it? But all he seems to have gotten was the "if.")

He also, quite naturally, took umbrage with the "pretty severe consequences for not" line. I figured he might and almost didn't put it in there, because sometimes I can hardly believe Hell either, and in any case, I'm not sure that it is what we often think it is. But whatever it is, I don't want anyone I know to have to experience it.

He retorted that such an assumption has arrogance as its root, and that it automatically condemns most of humanity, and that it's not fair if someone overseas, due to lack of knowledge, ends up with the "severe consequences" just because they were born in the wrong place.

Back in the day ("the day" in this case being about three years ago when Antagonist-Andrew worked at our store and the two of us bickered about faith issues at work all day long and drove everybody--including ourselves--insane), I would have jumped on this as an invitation to rebut. However, the Milk Guy hasn't really asked what I think. And he has made it clear that he isnt' really comfortable talking about this stuff. Which makes me think that he might not even hear what I'm saying anyway. So I'm trying a new tack and just holding my peace for the moment.

However, I do have thoughts about this. Lots of thoughts. And so for lack of another audience, I have decided to spend the next post or so mulling them over. Feel free to issue your own responses, retorts and rebuttals to me, too.

Easter Monday

In 2000, I was living in London and having a rather dreadful time of it really (it got worse as it went on), but I remember the day after Easter as being really lovely, and I wrote a poemish sort of thing about it. This poem still makes me happy, so even though it is 8 years later and Easter Monday is not a holiday in this country and today is not even Monday, I think I shall post it here. (I find it funny that Starbucks figures in it, even though I hadn't an inkling at the time that I'd ever work at one.)

After the Resurrection
The gave us a holiday,
So we took it
With our umbrellas
(To keep it from raining
Which they did).
We drank cappuccinos at Starbucks
And watched the foam clouds
Scud across the top of Green Park
Until the sky was blue
And we had to go for a walk in it,
As the trees exploded
Around us
Like suspended fireworks
Sizzling seedbursts down
And bringing them up
Short of the lampposts,
And the sun showered late daffodils
Onto the grassy slope,
Which begged for someone
To run spring-fever-crazy
Through them
Or to gather them up in a ball
And toss them--
Glorious glowing life.

And, since we're talking poems here, I just have to share with you this brief piece of silly brilliance composed today by my colleague Ben (whom I sometimes call "Bentleman," from the time when he was the only guy who worked at our store and it was "ladies and Bentleman):

Haikus are easy.
But sometimes they don't make sense.
Hippopotamus.

Life in Death

I took this photo last fall, but the title still applies.

ISBN

I was initially a little disappointed to discover that my editor's warning was correct: they changed my book cover. (I'm not sure specifically who "they" are, which is probably as it should be.) I liked the original cover so much. But the current one is probably truer to the contents of the book--in spite of the fact that no one in the book takes an airplane.

Anyway, I discovered the cover change because I decided to search myself on the CFP website and, for the first time, there I was! Books are still not orderable, but look, I have an ISBN number.

What? This is a Holiday?

I have this friend who is convinced that all Americans want to be Irish, and that fewer of them have Irish ancestry than claim to. I think he should take into account the stereotype that the Irish are known for following the injunction to procreate, so it's not totally impossible for all the Americans claiming Irish ancestry to be telling the truth.

Also, this same friend is convinced that I am one of said Irish-wannabe Americans. But he is in error about this; I have never claimed to be Irish. I do claim, however, to have relatives in Ireland. They're not actually Irish either.

Be all that as it may--or may not--today is St. Patrick's Day and I keep forgetting. I'm far more apt to remember and get excited about St. David's Day, largely, I expect, because hardly anyone has heard of it, so it hasn't had the chance to get all obnoxious. I think that, like Cubicle Reverend, I find St. Patrick's Day manifestations over here to be less than compelling, and more than irritating. I also feel like telling everybody that they should have been celebrating it last week, because the Catholic Church tried to move it this year. But of course, that wasn't really going to work.

Annoyingly Vague

Here is a post that is likely to be annoyingly vague, but I'm going to go ahead and write it anyway.

Last week, as you may know, I found out some saddening information about a former acquaintance from high school. Even though I haven't seen this person since graduation (that is, a very long time ago), finding out this piece of information has catapulted me back in time, as it were, and I am reliving a lot of stuff I would prefer not to.

I was one of the not-coolest Not Cool Kids, and it is tempting to try to garner pity for this role. I could probably do it, too. Nobody else was very perfect either. But the fact is that I was also not a very nice Not Cool Kid. The only thing I felt good about, in my painful insecurity, was my spiritual life, which I managed to completely undermine by projecting a terrified and scornful self-righteousness on all and sundry (and particularly on the person referred to above). I don't know if it was hurtful to anybody besides myself, although I do know I got on a lot of people's nerves.

Anyway, I am currently trying to process the person I was in high school, and it is turning out to be at best an embarrassing, and at worst a painful endeavour. (Partly it turns out that I'm not really as different now as I would like to think I am--I'm just better at facades.) I'm trying to figure out if I need to make some amends to people, and if so, who they are and how to go about it. I'm trying to figure out what God wants me to do and learn in all of this--how He wants me to change.

So that, if you want to know, is my excuse. It's hard for me to write about anything at the moment, and if you wonder why you don't see me here for a little while, this upheaval is probably the reason.

It Is . . . Finished?

Here's the discipline I set myself for Lent: I wanted to finish the first draft of the novel I've been working on for the past, oh, since-I-left-London. (As an auxiliary to this discipline, I have banned myself from facebook--the Number 1 Procrastination Weapon in my arsenal.)

And today . . . I did!

I didn't know it was going to be today when I sat down to write. I just got to this point and thought, "Oh. This is how it ends." It was pretty cool.

Stephen King says to wait a couple weeks after a first draft before you start revising it, but I have already established that there are some things Stephen King says with which I cannot agree or comply. Plus, it's only a 300-page book, but there have been weeks between pages, let alone between drafts. I feel I will be more likely to work on it now that I've made it to the end and all there is left is . . . well, possibly rewriting the entire thing . . .

I still can't say it's any good. But at least I got to Page Last.

(Does this mean I can go back to facebook? Or do I still have to wait for Easter?)

Upon Further Reflection

A few moments ago, in the throes of nostalgia and something I was trying to pass off as fellow-feeling or something, I wrote a post here. Upon further reflection, however, it occurred to me that, though I am no longer in touch with any of the relevant people, and although I don't think I said anything mean about them, and although I think I made identifiers mostly pretty vague, probably some of the information I shared was not really mine to share. I thought I was processing saddening information. But some processing, I guess, is best done silently.

So, if you managed to get it in your RSS feed or something anyway, please forgive me, and please just keep it to yourself. Thank you.

Nudge, Nudge

Here is a story that's hard to tell without sounding like I'm parading my works of righteousness before men. But it does seem somewhat relevant to this post. And if you look closely, you'll see it's not about my works of righteousness at all, but about a woman named Lisa, and about God telling her something. Thing is, I can only tell you the bit I know about.

This afternoon, I had to mail my dad a bundle of papers. By rights, I should have mailed them yesterday. I busied myself with stuffing the priority mail envelope, sort of semiconsciously noticing a harried woman at the counter on the phone. As I turned around to wait my turn, I noticed that she actually had been using the post office phone and also that she was dripping wet. It has been pouring for most of the afternoon and all evening, so I could only assume she had locked herself out of her car or something. This very thing had happened to another woman in the same post office the last time I was there and it was precipitating.

I thought nothing more of this, being innately incapable of picking locks, and so I finished my postal business and drove off to run a few more errands. I had scarcely left the post office environs when I saw a figure walking along the side of the road. I occasionally walk along this particular Side-of-the-Road myself, but only when the sun is shining, and even then it's a little tricky because there's no sidewalk, and in the summer time if you edge off to avoid cars, you might end up in poison ivy. Today there was no poison ivy, but there was sure a lot of mud.

It took me a second, but I suddenly realised this was the woman from the post office. I wondered how far she had to go. I wondered why she was walking. I thought about the above-mentioned blogpost and about the dangers of picking up people I don't know.

Then I thought about how I would feel if for some reason I was stuck walking in the rain for miles, and how I would just about die for someone to have mercy and pick me up and give me a ride somewhere, but how I would know that people are just too afraid or too selfish and they never would. Five more cars passed her in my wake. But she was just a woman walking. I had this sense in my gut that I could drive by as usual but that if I did, I would never be able to stop wishing I had done something else.

So I turned around. And I rolled down my window. And I said, "Do you want a ride somewhere?" She hesitated, but not very long.

It turned out her name was Lisa, and she was headed in the direction I was going in the first place. She admitted to some "troubles," not least of which was the lack of a car, although she didn't divulge why she had already walked through about two other towns that day, in the rain, to get to where I met her.

She also couldn't stop talking about God and her finds. Just before I dropped her off, she said once more, "I was just praying, and wondering if God really hears me, and two seconds later I found this!" It was a little metal cross on a chain which had, apparently, been on the side of the road. She had also found a little trinket for her daughter. "And I thought, 'Maybe God really does listen . . . ' and then you came along, too! And the walk wasn't so bad after all. I mean, I got to spend all this time talking to God, and it was kind of an adventure."

I thought how great it is that God does listen, and how miraculous it is when He gets me to listen, too. I don't know that in the end my giving her a lift was worth as much to her as that little cross, but it didn't matter. I felt indescribably honoured to have gotten a glimpse of God's showing His presence and love to someone else. Probably this happens sometimes, when I actually get around to doing unto others what I would have them do unto me.

A Year Ago Today

I was wishing you all a Happy St. David's Day. Now I'm doing it again. Happy St. David's Day! This is one holiday that happens every year, but nobody knows about it--unless they're Welsh. Or me. Or know me.

The photo is courtesy of my Dad, though I can't tell if he took it or got it from somewhere else.

This Is Not the Template . . .

. . . I actually wanted. But the one I wanted is way too complicated for me. And I've talked about it so much this week, that, well, we're stuck with this one for now. But what on earth is 565 all about?

Leap Day

Today people were saying "Happy Leap Year." But isn't the whole year technically Leap Year? Should we have been wishing that to people on January first, instead? I prefer to call today Leap Day--although I'm still confused as to what leaping has to do with anything.

I like this day, though, whatever you call it, because you can never say about it, "A year ago today I did thus-and-so." I am going to try again to change my blog template tonight, because it seems like an even better day to do it than 2/22 did. The day itself feels to me like a hidden track on a CD, or the secret compartment in the bottom of the dresser.

I am not doing anything special on this day, really. Staying in because of weather, which has been a little par for the course lately. But still. It's a whole extra day on which to stay in because of weather. Just think of it!

Fraud

Do you ever feel like one? A fraud, I mean? I was not going to write about this, but then I read this post on one of InterVarsity Press's blogs, and it reminded me . . .

I had a tremendously lovely day off yesterday. After being at Starbucks from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesday (minus two hours when I drove to the small and annoying mall down the street because I just couldn't take it anymore), having worked a full shift and then sticking around for the world-famous meeting, I felt I deserved a day off. I would have lain in bed luxuriantly for hours, except that my body was so exhausted it couldn't actually rest, and woke me up at 7, and so I got up. I had breakfast. And coffee. And finished Harry Potter #3, which I then took back to the library.

After that I did what I have been waiting over a month to do, and have been prevented by weather and illness from doing: I went to Barnes and Noble to use the gift card my aunt had given me. I bought a piece of Cheesecake Factory cheesecake, and a cup of tea, and sat in a comfy chair in the cafe and read intermittently out of two books, trying to decide which one I was going to take home with me. (I ended up deciding on The Last Unicorn because it's way better than I remember it being when I was 11, and also because it was hardcover and beautiful and cost the same as the amount of my gift card.) I sat in there and read for about three hours, and had a slightly bizarre and interesting conversation with a person sitting in the comfy chair on the other side of my table (about which I may write some other time).

Also, I had a phone call from my friend Rebecca, whose mother is in town and who wanted to know if I would like to join the two of them for dinner.

I was feeling refreshed and content as I drove to the restaurant for dinner. Then I pulled off the highway. At the stoplight at the end of the exit ramp was a person with a sign. The kind of person it was is often derogatorily referred to as a "panhandler," and this particular person's sign made no bones of the fact that he or she was there for a hand-out. I said "he or she" because I don't actually know the gender of this person--not because it was unclear, but because I was trying very hard not to make eye-contact.

Which is ironic, since "Twenty-First Time" had, just sixty seconds before, been playing on the radio (you can listen to it if you follow the link). I sat in my car, at a very long red light, trying to justify to myself the fact that I was not going to roll down my window and hand over the $5 worth of change I had in my wallet. We all know the arguments for keeping the window up, so I will not enumerate them here.

Then I thought, "Well, if I had something else to give them . . . but I don't." I did, however, have a warm car, and it was quite literally freezing outside. Also, I had just spent the afternoon somewhat decadently, and I was about to go have dinner at a restaurant. I had a momentary flash of inspiration. What if I brought this person to dinner?

Well? What if I did?

But I didn't, of course. Social convention and all that. I had never met Rebecca's mom before. I didn't expect her to treat this person, but what if she wasn't, you know, cool with picking people up off the streets? It would certainly change dynamics. Plus, I'm a woman, alone, in my car.

These are all considerations, certainly. But sometimes I wonder if Jesus thinks they're kind of lame. At least, maybe in some circumstances they're kind of lame. I don't know what I should have done, but I'm pretty sure that in that particular instance, at least, "nothing" was not it.

That's what I did though. It bothered me enough that today, on the way home from work, I gave my wad of change to the guy standing in the median strip at the five-way stop. Even though, you know, he was probably going to use it for drugs or something. That's what they tell us . . .

But, as Zimmer-Man reminds us, someone else said, "Go and do likewise." So . . . what exactly is "likewise"?

2/22

My friend Brooks has this idea that there's something semi-magical about the number 222, because it is suspiciously ubiquitous. (Just you wait. You never noticed before, but you're going to start seeing that number All Over The Place now that I've told you.) He and his brother and cousin have made 22 February a sort of unofficial holiday, and I have taken it upon myself to crash the virtual party. We don't interact except on Sundays, as a general rule, and already today Brooks and I have exchanged four or five emails just regarding this date.

So I thought, what better day to completely overhaul my Blogger template? I've been wanting a change, so maybe I'll make one. I am going to try my hardest to avoid brown. (But I like brown. I like it so much!)

Only, the templates which actually originate with Blogger are a little . . . well, boring. And yours truly is a little . . . well, technologically inept. So, I found some templates on some other sites that might be kind of cool. I just . . . I just can't figure out how to add them.

Sigh.

Help?

International Mother Language Day

Apparently today is it. I would just like to know if that title translates any better into someone else's mother tongue. 'Cause I find it a little cumbersome.

You Called?

Jeff mentioned narcissism in a comment on the previous post, and I was going to say more about that . . . along the lines of how it occurred to me just yesterday that while I've never wanted to be rich (just solvent), I think I've always wanted to be famous, though I can't think why. But . . . that's really all I have to say about it, at least right now. I could be verbally self-bludgeoning about the pride inherent in this, but it would probably only amount to another skewed demonstration of narcissism--which I'm too proud to indulge in right now. (Huh?)

So instead, I've decided to pose a question to you which came to me from Barry's comment on the same post. Barry said, "Achieving publication . . . is inarguably a vindicating sign. It is an evidence, at least, of gifting and skill, if not calling."

To which I retorted, "If it's a gifting, is it possible for it NOT in some way to be a calling?" (You can check this dialogue out below if you don't believe me.)

But then I started thinking about this, and I got about as dizzy as I just did above with the narcissism thing, so I thought I'd pose the question more broadly. Well--is it?

I mean, I used to have some skill with the flute. And some time around the turn of the year I decided I needed to re-hone this skill, but that little endeavour got sort of mowed down by Christmas and New Year's--or at least, that's my excuse. I'm aware I'm making an excuse about it, and I feel badly about it in the sense that I'm not sure I can successfully play "Syrinx" anymore, but I don't feel guilty about it in the sense of burying a gift in the ground. Whereas, with writing, I've had to journal since I was 13 or I would have exploded, but I don't feel that way about writing for the public. (Well, except for wanting to be famous enough so that everyone would want to read my--very boring, samey--journals after I died, of course.) However, I have spent a vast proportion of my not-so-vast life feeling somewhat under a cloud about the writing thing--as if I were squandering something by not spending it. But is a slight emotional malaise about something the same thing as a calling?

Is there a difference between a gift and a skill? And if there is, how do you know? And if something's a gift, does that instantly make it part of one's calling? And if it doesn't, why not?

Okay, Fine

My father's reaction to the aforementioned situation is, "I think you just wanted to whine a little bit."

It can be rather intensely frustrating to be told how you're really feeling. Particularly by a parental unit--because s/he might be right. While I'm in the throes of confessing, I might as well confess to liking to whinge on occasion. As you might know. If you've been reading this blog for . . . at least a month.

But it might also be more a matter of what we're actually talking about. I can say I Don't Like Writing, but maybe what I really mean is I Don't Like the Discipline of actually making myself sit down and pound out a few pages. Once I start doing it, though, it's not so bad. I still have to take it in baby-steps--like, yesterday I wrote for an hour and that felt like a record. But, you know, I did it.

My dad might think I really like writing, and what he's thinking of is that I like Having Written. Which is most undoubtedly true. And the fact remains that I communicate with more people more and in more depth via the written word than the spoken one, usually, I think.

Reluctant Writer

This is, evidently, the season of disturbing self-discoveries.

For example, Christianne is just coming to terms with the fact (and please correct me if I'm misinterpreting, Christianne) that connecting with people on a heart-level is more important to her than her writing is.

Personally, I've known that about myself for years, but the thing that has dawned on me this week that is rocking my world is that I don't think I like to write.

This comes as something of a shock, since I have always identified myself (somewhat perfunctorily, as it turns out) as someone who "likes to write," and furthermore, I have in the last month been permitting myself to call myself a writer. I am starting to wonder if the reason I never did before is because I didn't want to have to take responsibility for it. But now I have a book coming out, and I'm writing freelance articles for New England Condominium magazine, and I'm reading books on writing and wrestling my way through a second novel . . . which, by the way, is terrible. It seems that I could vindicate the mild embarrassment I feel for being a barista at . . . this age . . . by implying that, sure, I work at Starbucks to pay the bills, but really I'm a writer.

I wonder if what I like about writing is the self-broadcasting potential, and the fact that I can do it with a modicum of flair. But I very rarely enjoy it. This is making me uneasy, but also illuminates for me why I keep having to browbeat myself to get any writing done. People ask me how "my writing" is going, and tell me I'm "a good writer" or even (this was my favourite, because of the respect I have for the literary savvy of the person who said it) "an unusual writer." And every time someone says it, I feel guilty. Stephen King says that the sign of a true writer is that they have to write and it "blisses them out." I'm pretty sure I've only ever "blissed out" when I was writing once. Maybe twice. Mostly I sit down to do it only when I can no longer find some other worthy excuse not to do it, and then I try to find some other worthy excuse to stop doing it as soon as reasonably possible.

Why would God give me a gift that I use so begrudgingly? Why is it so hard for me to apply myself to it--out of gratitude to him, if for no other reason? Why do I find this gift such a hard thing to be grateful for? I feel like the guy who buried the king's money in the ground.

I have friends who love to write and would love to be published (and deserve the credits, too, no doubt), and heck--I like that I'm going to be published, but I feel like I don't deserve it, since I view the process with such distaste. It's kind of like those friends of mine who are all, "I never wanted to get married--it's so funny that I'm married now!" Well, I've always wanted to get married, and those kinds of statements are a little galling to me. (They also feed my Murphy's-Law-esque ideas about God which are supposedly false--that the things I really want I am unlikely to get, whereas what I don't want will no doubt happen.) I feel that my publishing opportunities are likewise unfair, though I don't particularly want to trade them or anything.

This whole thing is baffling to me. Including the ironic fact that . . . hey, look! I had to write, in order to tell you this!

Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Valentine's Day

Me, for one, although my parents sent me a really cute card . . .

But the weather, maybe, for another. Last winter we didn't have a whole lot of snow. Most of what we got came down in one terrifying blast on Valentine's Day, and I had to drive to work through the worst of it; I arrived at the store an hour and a half after leaving for it, in tears and minus a windshield wiper. It was Not My Idea of A Good Time. After my risking life and limb to serve coffee to, oh, maybe three people, District-Dan decided to have us close the store two hours early. I made arrangements to stay overnight with a church-couple in the City, so that I didn't have to haul myself back through the snow, and then back again in the morning. Fortunately the couple didn't seem to have any big Valentine's Day plans that year.

Today is, I realise, not Valentine's Day, and according to AccuWeather, we may actually see some sun tomorrow. Also, this year has been making up for all the snow we may have missed in the last decade. So maybe it's less random that the weather would be stormy right now. But I find it interesting that, just about one year out, I had to spend the night at the same friends' house so that I could get to work in time to open the store this morning. If they have Valentine's plans this year, however, I am happy to think I did not interfere with them.

We are having a "winter storm," which basically means Precipitation of Various Forms On a Rotating Basis For Approximately an Entire Day. It started with snow last night, and has been pouring down ice for most of the day. I think it may have switched to rain by now. I have no intention of actually going outside to find out.

But anyway, it is people like these Valentine's-Day-sacrificing friends who make me wonder why I would want to leave this area. Sometimes church frustrates me, but other times I think that the people I know in it really are doing just what they should be, as Christians in their respective contexts. In December, when we got pummeled with snow just about every other day, men from four different church families came over to help me shovel. It was almost embarrassing--to need the help and to ask for it and to receive it. But it was also overwhelmingly good.

The weather this holiday kind of reflects the way I feel about it (though a little less passively), but it's that same weather that provides opportunities for me to find out that somehow, and for some reason, I still am loved . . .

Itchy Feet

Store-Manager-Hillarie said, "Are you just getting that five-year itch thing you were talking about?" And I said probably.

Then Decaf-Scott asked me if I didn't just want to settle down and have kids or something. This is the kind of question you maybe try to dodge when a customer asks you it, because you can't be entirely sure what they're asking, even if they sport a wedding ring and have just mentioned that they have a six-year-old. But I'm also not very good at dodging direct questions. (I have gotten in trouble because of this before, but fortunately that did not happen this time.) I said actually, yeah.

Then Decaf-Scott looked at me really hard (but not too creepily) and said, "You do." It was less of a question than a statement of skepticism, and I could have grumbled that what did he know about it, except that I had just given him the run-down of my Adventures-Since-Growing-Up-Here: 4 years in Chicagoland, 2 years in Nannyfield, 5.5 years in London, and roughly 4-5 years here. "Um . . . " I said, "well . . . I'm not sure about the kids part."

I'm not sure about the settling down part, either, apparently, because although I've applied for a few jobs out here, most of the ones I'm looking at are in the Northwest or the Midwest. (And seriously. You would think that if I were going to relocate, I'd at least pick somewhere warm for once.) Over the weekend it occurred to me to wonder if my problem is not an actual desire to pack up all my earthly goods and cart them around like an overladen turtle, but more some sort of inability to do Something Different in the Same Place.

Maybe I identify so fully with whatever my occupation happens to be at any given time that once I feel the need to do something else, I also feel the need to be somewhere else--at least for about ten years or so. I mean, I grew up in this area, but I couldn't come back and live here until I had redefined myself in about four other places first. Now I would, for example, like to move back to Chicagoland, but it's been aeons since I lived there before, so I'm okay with it.

In the last week I actually got contacted by two different academic institutions at which I would like to work. Neither of them are local. Whether or not the jobs panned out (and one of them already hasn't, by mutual but more-than-amicable agreement), it was a great relief to hear something from anybody, because I was starting to fear that I was utterly useless for anything except serving coffee. I had visions of becoming The World's Oldest Barista, at age 97 still hefting change-laden tills to the back room to count them in the wee hours, simply because I never made enough money to retire. However, now that I'm hearing from people out of state, it's making me second-guess myself. I love my Starbucks and its people. Do I really want to move?

I think I do. But there are things that might keep me from it. I don't know. I expect I'll explore some of that here more later.

Easy as 1-2-3

ZimmerMan memed me, only I didn't know it until my mother (who is always telling me when ZimmerMan is talking about me, it seems) said, "I can't wait to read your meme." What meme? Oh. This meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

So . . . here we go.

1. The nearest book (next to me on the couch) is The Master Puppeteer by Katherine Paterson, which I checked out from the library because I love kids' books (I wrote one, for goodness' sake), but I don't feel I have read enough of them lately. I haven't read this one yet, either, actually.

2. Did it.

3. And that. Oh. You wanted to know what the fifth sentence was. Okay:

"Yes, sir," replied Jiro meekly.

4. The next three sentences are the following continuation of dialogue (with the next sentence being spoken by whomever Jiro is meekly addressing):

"And I'm not a Buddha!"
"No, sir."
"Will you get your head off the floor before it takes root?"

This is about all I can handle these days, what with job applications and magazine articles and not visiting facebook so I can work on my current novel . . .

5. If Stacey were still blogging, I'd tag her, but since she isn't, I tag, um: Heather, Jasdye, Inihtar, Jenn, and Marty.

This is not part of the meme, but I would just like to copy here, for the general edification of my reading public, the fourth sentence on the page in question, which runs thus:

"The convenient stupidity of you boys--it's enough to try the patience of a Buddha."

Copyeditors Anonymous, or: A Ghost Story

I am telling you this story because I personally find it hilarious. But I would like to state at the outset that I am not making any assertions or theological assumptions about ghosts.

Whatever comes after the "outset" but before the actual story shall be stated here, and it is the following three facts:

1. I just watched the season premiere of Lost, which included the character "Jacob," who might be a poltergeist or something--who knows? Who knows what or who anyone is in Lost?
   
2. I have recently decided that now that the bandwagon has mostly safely passed, I can read the entire Harry Potter series with impunity. I am on book 2.
3. Yesterday I finished reading Stephen King's book On Writing, which is actually . . . on writing. It's not a scary book. But it's still Stephen King, and he really did get pulverised by a van in Maine and survive, so . . . you know, still Stephen King.

Okay. I think you know all the relevant backstory now.

Last night I had this dream. In it, I was visiting somebody up in Maine. I have no idea who this person was, but in the dream we were friends, I guess. Anyway, her house was haunted, by a ghost who was classified as a poltergeist. He didn't do all that much throwing stuff around, though. He just kind of hung about invisibly and interfered with things you were trying to accomplish. He also talked. A lot. Man, could that ghost talk. It was really annoying.

I had a pretty clear intuition that this ghost was malicious, but mostly he hadn't done anything more than get in the way (as much as an invisible being can) and grumble. All the time. He wasn't too happy about being a ghost, it seems. He was also kind of snooty about it, though. It was weird.

Anyway, in spite of my intuition, I wasn't very afraid, reasoning with my sleep reason that if this ghost tried anything, you know, really evil, Jesus was in me, and the ghost would have Jesus to answer to. I was in the midst of trying to figure out whether some sort of exorcism would be in order in any case, just to get a jump on things, and the ghost was blabbing away about something, when he suddenly employed absolutely abysmal grammar.

Apparently I was just nervous enough of this ghost not to want to correct him or anything, but in that instant, one of my colleagues, Constant (for whom English is not a first language) showed up. "What?!" he said indignantly to the ghost, and promptly corrected his grammar. The ghost was never heard from again.

I always knew language usage was important . . .

Careful Language

This evening I was cooking dinner and opened a package of mushrooms. I noted that on the underside of the label was, as there often is, a recipe. This recipe? Was for "Asian-Flavoured Mushrooms."

Think about it for a minute. What does that even mean?

Finally!

Today (technically yesterday), I drove all the way to Cape Cod to see my friend Anne get married. It was fun. Beautiful drive. Lovely ceremony. Fun reception. Also, there were friends there I hadn't expected to see, so it was a little like a reunion.

I know Anne from when I lived in Nannyfield. She's some years older than I am, and we've had our share of Girl Talks about guys and marriage-longings and that stuff. Anne's never been married before either and she's held out a good long time for the right guy, so I think that everyone was just really happy to see that her steadfastness had finally paid off.

People don't always express these things so well, though. It was one thing when the pastor said to her, during the ceremony, "You've waited a long time, Anne." It sort of okay when her brother, who was also officiating, (and who was also her brother) said, "It's been a while!" But by the time the ceremony was over, people were going up to her father, congratulating him, and saying, "Finally!"

Here's a little heads up. I currently have no plans to get married (although, you know, I'm amenable to making such plans, you know, whenever). But if it ever happens? I am the only one who is allowed to say, "Finally!" at my wedding. Okay? You can tell anybody I said so.

Yes, I Have Written a Book

I seem to have acquired some Readers since this post. (How gratifying.) What's more, even some colleagues and Favourite Customers (I'm sorry, but I have favourites, okay?) have stared at me blankly when I have said, "My book has a cover!" Then I have to say, "Oh. Did you not know I was having a book published?" I guess I thought everybody knew, partly because the ones who do know have been asking for about a year, "So, what's the latest with your book?"

Anyway, for those of you who haven't been asking that because you didn't know you could, here's a recap:

I have written a children's novel about an 8-year-old refugee girl and her family who flee prejudice in Kosovo, only to arrive in London and discover that prejudice is alive and well there, too--outside them, but also within them. It is fiction, but I couldn't have written it had I not lived and worked among refugees (quite a few of them Kosovar) in London myself in the 90's.

Christian Focus Publications (in Scotland) has kindly taken it upon themselves to make this story available to the world, so stay tuned. It will be available in the UK (and on-line from them) in May, and everywhere else in June. It's been kind of a long wait, and so I've been kind of blase about it up to this point, but now that it actually looks like something, it seems for real.

There is probably some deep philosophical point and analogy that can be drawn from that, but we'll just leave it there for now.

Check. This. Out.

My book has a cover! It looks (at least for the moment) like this:



Editor-Catherine says I can post this here.

Valid Cultures

Magazine-Editor-Jim, one of our Starbucks customers, has gone out on a limb and recruited me to write an article for New England Condominium. This is daring of him because I have never written a commissioned article (let alone conducted an interview) in my life. And although he has maybe visited my blog occasionally, experientially all he really knows I can do is give him his daily grande coffee.

Yesterday I headed out to Concord, Massachusetts, about which this article is supposed to be. (And can I just say that I think that the fact there is a Thoreau Shopping Center is one of the most hilarious pieces of irony I've run across in a long while? I didn't see it, but I did see a sign for it.) Apart from the fact that I'm having a rerun of my New Year's Cold and so my head felt like someone was gripping it in a vice all day, it was quite a lovely little outing. The early morning slush-pelting had stopped, the sky had given way to blue and the temperatures had given way to 40. I visited shops, had a heart-warming (and maybe -stopping, but whatever) bowl of clam chowder at a local eatery, and I visited the Concord Museum.

Even though I was writing about living in Concord now, and the museum was about what Concord was famous for a long time ago, that visit was probably the most helpful for my article. But in one room, I saw something that gave me pause. And then made me a little angry, in two apparently opposing ways.

Of course in Concord, as in other parts of New England, there lived a tribe of Algonkians before the English settlers arrived. At some point (I'm sure after Concord was incorporated as a Puritan town), a missionary named John Eliot began to make inroads into the Algonkian population. A number of them became Christians (and were known as the "Praying Indians"), but they also were rejected by their "non-praying" cultural counterparts. Turns out, though, that their supposedly Christian brethren rejected them, too. The Puritans in Concord were afraid that the angry unconverted Algonkians, who were ravaging English settlements during King Philip's War, were going to attack them, too. So even though the Praying Indians were fighting on the side of the English, these Puritans sent their local Praying Indians off to a little island where many of them died.

I think I learned all this stuff once, but I had not thought about it in some time, and I read it with horror and found myself utterly infuriated. What right do we, as Christians, have to make our ethnicity of greater importance than our family-hood in Christ? How is it that we can imagine that Jesus does not transcend all that? Or that He won't call us to account for betraying His children that way? I think we still do it, when we forget the Persecuted Church or imagine the culmination of history and return of Christ is dependent solely on American or Western history and experience. It made me want to scream. Or cry, or something.

Then I read the next set of placards and felt like screaming again, for the opposite reason. This was set up as a sort of board-book and written in a somewhat condescending manner, as if by someone who does not really understand children. The text was in question-and-answer format. It delineated certain native customs which the Puritans were outlawing among the Indian converts. Then it said something like, "Why do you think the Puritans wanted to keep the Indians from performing their ancient rituals?" (for example). After you turned to the next board--well, what do you know? Apparently "The Puritans didn't think that other cultures were valid. They wanted to make everybody just like them." (I am not quoting verbatim, here, but if you doubt that I'm getting the basic spirit of this, you can just go visit the museum yourself.) At some point there was some dismissive mention of a belief in devil-worship.

Okay, look, guys. Puritans have a somewhat, er, puritanical reputation for a reason. The witch trials were a travesty. Also "American literature" from that time period is really boring. There were a lot of things wrong, I fully admit it. I just don't think it's fair for someone who obviously has no sympathy for a particular group of people to assume they know why that group did something, and then to present it to the general public. A lot of cultural desecration has happened in the name of Christ, and I don't want to try to justify it. I'm sure many of the laws the Puritans set down for the Praying Indians were condescending and culturally insensitive and arbitrary.

But the writers at the Concord Museum have conveniently ignored the fact that John Eliot, for one, was being as culturally sensitive as he, in his day, knew how, and that he loved these people and wanted them to know the salvation of trusting in Jesus. They don't take into account the idea that, for Christians, Jesus must take precedence over everything, and that even though for the most part we mess that up and assume Jesus to want certain things He probably doesn't, some cultural practices (like worship of natural spirits--or betraying a group of people because they're browner than you are) really do have to go. Some things do have to be renounced. Undoubtedly the Puritans didn't renounce everything they should have. But I do feel a case could be made for at least the above question, as follows:

The Praying Indians had dedicated themselves to Christ.
The Bible says that communing with spirits other than God is forbidden.
The Puritans (and presumably their Praying Indian counterparts) believed the Bible was truly inspired by God.
The Puritans wanted to help the Praying Indians to obey God, and not to be in contact with demons. So they forbade the use of powwows.

Maybe there was a better way for them to have gone about this. Maybe some of them were racist. But I don't think it's very helpful to assume such things. It's like assuming we have the only valid culture, or something. Sometimes I wish people would recognise that true diversity requires listening to what Christians have to say, too.

Happy Martin Luther King weekend, everybody!

One (?) Book

I've been memed by Heather, and I haven't been memed at all in a while, so even though I can't actually think of any of the right-for-me answers to the questions below, I'm going to try to answer them anyway.

1. One book that changed your life.

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. I read it my senior year in high school, along with my first Dostoevsky and my first Fitzgerald. All three books rocked my inner, conservative-in-a-box, Evangelical world a little bit. But Asher opened up the world and ideas of art to me in a way I hadn't been able to access before, in spite of having grown up in a pretty creative and artistic family.

2. One book that you have read more than once.

All of the Chronicles of Narnia. Which isn't just one book. But . . . it could be. A really long one.

3. One book you would want on a desert island.

Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. Though I don't know why, because it's so relational, and if I were on a desert island (unless I crashed there with a plane full of other people and we all survived), I doubt I'd be being very relational.

4. Two books that made you laugh.

The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies. (Not an all-time favourite, but I did laugh.)
How to Be Good by Nick Hornby. It was also poignant, but that guy manages to do poignancy with hilarity.

5. One book that made you cry.

The High King by Lloyd Alexander.

6. One book you wish you'd written.

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton.

7. One book you wish had never been written.

Any of the ones I never finished reading. And maybe the one I'm currently writing.

8. Two books you are currently reading.

On Writing by Stephen King, and From Pentecost to Patmos by Dr. Craig Blomberg

9. One book you've been meaning to read.

Tiger Rising by Kate diCamillo. I found it in the children's section of a bookstore in London once, and then forgot what it was called and who wrote it. Then, just last month, thanks to Chris, I heard about it again on a podcast and knew that was the book I had been blindly searching for all these years . . .

10. Five people that I tag:

Cubical Reverend ('cause he keeps SuperPoking me on Facebook)
A Musing Mom
Craver VII
Greek Geek
and Barry Pike

Glottal Stops

I got some Arabic language-learning CD's for Christmas.

"Who would give someone something like that?" you may ask. You may wrinkle your nose. I'll tell you who--my brother and sister-in-law (who are, by the way, going to have a baby girl in June!). This is because it's what I asked for.

"Why would you ask for something like that?" you may ask. With the same quizzical and wrinkle-inducing facial expression.

Um . . . to give me something to do in the car on the way to work at 4.30 in the morning? I don't know. I guess I feel I have totally underused second-language abilities, and I'm testing them out. Also, I think that, while Spanish may be the most practical second language to learn in this country, people the world over might be a step ahead of the game if they picked up some Arabic, too. I think Christian colleges should include Arabic in their foreign language programmes. But I digress . . .

Anyway, here are some things I have noticed, after going through just two lessons:

1) When you're learning a language which has very little overlap with your own, you start to hear words from your own language in some of the sounds. Sometimes it sounds like "bad words," actually. This can be funny . . . and a little distracting.

2) Speaking Arabic with a cold is a challenging endeavour. The first time I tried it, I found myself helplessly choking on all the glottal stops. And all the different aspirated sounds are tricky. I feel like I'm practicing tongue twisters, except that my tongue is scarcely involved at all, and the part that's twisting is the back of my throat.

" . . . Sometimes Use Words"

I'm applying for a new job. I feel that I can announce this on the internet now, because most people know about it, and I don't think either of my managers really expect me to stay at Starbucks forever, especially now that I'm not planning to go into management myself.

Here's the thing, though. I have never exactly had to apply for a job. Mostly everything I've done in my life has happened because I thought, "That would be cool to do," and then I've gone to the place I thought would be cool to work at and talked to some people, and they've said, "You want a job?" After which point, the application and resume are kind of a formality.

Which means my resume is kind of feeble.

So I have a couple of friends who have been helping me tweak it over the past, say, six months. A couple of nights ago, one of them said, "You might want to leave out the missionary part--if you want to apply to a secular school it's unlikely they'll even look at your stuff once they see that."

I got all huffy about this and pompously protested that to leave such person-forming information off my CV was Not Me and I would rather remain unhired than stoop to such dissembling. (That isn't really what I meant, but I fear that's probably how it came across.) I'm still not convinced that leaving such information off completely is really the tack for me to take, just because five and a half years in London really was character-forming and gave me some useful and transferable experiences. However, this is not my point.

My point is that I started wondering about how necessary it necessarily is to let all and sundry know that I am a Christian right off the bat. If I went back to traditional missionary-dom, there are some countries where it would take a long time before I knew who I could share such information with at all. And it occurred to me that if I waited a bit before spilling these beans, I would probably have to live a little bit better than I do.

If I had any desire to communicate Jesus' love with people without actually talking about Him first, I'd have, for example, to stop getting upset when someone's sense of entitlement encroaches on mine. Better--I'd have to stop feeling like I'm entitled at all. I couldn't slip up and make snide remarks about customers. I'd have to remember that it is the Lord Christ I'm serving, instead of getting annoyed that District-Dan wants the retail shelves rearranged for inexplicable reasons.

You would think I would be more motivated to live like this because I trumpet to the world that I am a Christian. But I think maybe talking about it makes me subconsciously imagine I am making up for any actual and practical failures. Oops. I messed that up . . . but I shared the Gospel once in the last six months. So, you know. It's all good.

But I don't really think it is. I haven't had that many "evangelistic" conversations in quite some time anyway, but I think I'm going to experiment for a little while. I don't want to refuse the conversations if they come up. But I think I need to maybe not consciously look for them for a while. I think I need to focus on letting my light shine before I let my words run away from me.