Journeying

My second Blog-day is coming up this month, and I just googled my blog; one of the listings that came up is my first-ever post, in which I discuss why I started a blog and in which I mention talking to my friend, Author-Sarah (aka Sarah Arthur, interestingly), "who is a published author, unlike me." (Incidentally, I feel I should "shout out" to the great people who commented on that first post, proving that they were with me at the outset, and all of whom still are. Yay, you!)

Hey! I thought. I'm a published author now, too! I'm not sure exactly how instrumental this blog has ended up being in that process, but I do feel better connected and like I have another community and outlet and forum of accountability, not to mention a whole lot of other people's stories to share in. I like this journeying together, and I like the idea that, even though it's taken a few years, we've all learned things and experienced things and even maybe moved a little bit in our journeys. Things have happened. A lot of times, from the close-up view, it seems like things don't.

Here's something else that's "happened" since my first Blog-day, last summer. Starting Labor Day weekend (ironically), I have a new job.

Oh no. I'm not leaving Starbucks. Seriously? I don't think anyone really leaves Starbucks. I've been at my store longer than any one person has, but in the last year, at least four people who once quit and left have all come back. And anyway, this new job is only part-time. But you know, I've been wrestling with and praying about and mulling over my calling (again) for the better part of a year. This new job looks like it might just be the next thing. I'm really kind of excited. I'll have to tell you about it . . .

What? Now? No--of course not! But probably tomorrow.

Photo by jennw2ns: Thames facing East, without a tripod

Me-Ville

I was going to introduce this post with a funny little story about me as a kid conflating words in songs and thinking they said something else . . . and then I realised that the post would end up being about me, instead of about the book my friend the Zimmerman recently had published. Which would be ironic, since the book is called Deliver Us from Me-ville.

Me-ville, where everything is all about me. That would be in my head. And, respectively, in most other people's heads, too.

This is a tricky topic to tackle. How do you write about self-absorption without being self-absorbed, and yet also without sounding as if you think you're preaching to a whole bunch of people who you think are self-absorbed, while you yourself are exempt?

I'm not sure how the Zimmerman did it, but he definitely did it. It doubtless helps that he has a knack for self-deprecation, although even that can become an outlet for selfishness if overdone. He did not overdo it. He's just self-aware enough to know that he can be as guilty of self-absorption as the rest of us. He admits it, but doesn't get mired in a self-gratifying public guilt-fest.

As a reader, reading it was a different but similar kind of challenge: if I happened upon a part to which my gut responded, "Hey--he's talking to me!" I then had to pull back with a, "Hey--wait a minute . . . " How can I not resonate with talk of self-centeredness? But . . . it did seem a little suspect.

I'm glad he wrote the book. I'm glad I read it. I don't want to tell you you're selfish or anything, but you might want to pick up a copy and read it, too.

While you're waiting for your order to come in, you could play along with this little game which the Zimmerman devised recently in a brief email exchange we had about the prophets of the Old Testament:

"Which prophet's trials and tribulations would you be least unwilling to endure?"

He says this would be a good icebreaker for Bible nerds. I agree. But even if you weren't the kids whose hands they tied down in youth group so that you wouldn't answer all the trivia questions, I think you can play along . . .

Vignettes

Yesterday, I bought a mattress set. The one that it is replacing, I think I got when I was 14 or something. Yes, I still have a twin bed. It is true that I have spent large swathes of time since acquiring said bed, not using it (having lived in many other places). However, this does not take away from the fact that it is over 20 years old, and I have been sleeping on it regularly for the last five years. It also does not take away from the fact that I have been unable to sleep comfortably on it for some time.

I do not like spending money on myself, particularly in amounts over three digits. This purchase would have been over four digits if it hadn't been for the kindness of the salesman and the powers that be in the bedding universe. As it was, I can now say I have officially spent my allotment of the money the government sent us this spring. The bed is now twice as tall as it used to be. It comes just below my waist, and looks something like a loaf of bread, or a muffin. I think I will no longer be able to loll over the side and pick books up off the floor without some danger of falling on my head. But it's sooo nice and soft . . .

*****

My parents have returned to Ireland. Actually, they're probably boarding their plane right now. Some time after they get back, they are going to attend a birthday party for a friend of theirs. It is a Medieval party, and requires "fancy dress" (which means "costumes," for our American readers). My mother tells me that some of the children who will be attending this party intend to dress as rats . . . because of the bubonic plague. I think it's wonderful. Not the plague, of course, but the inventiveness.

*****

In the next town stands a gas station called "Global Village Fuel." It sounds simultaneously ominous, obvious and light-heartedly realistic, and I chuckle every time I drive past it. I don't believe I have ever fueled up there, however.

*****

Yesterday, I tried silkworm pupae. Eating them, I mean. They had been marinated in soy sauce, which is, therefore, pretty much what they tasted like. The texture was brittle and slightly internally fuzzy, in a preserved-with-soy-sauce kind of way. I don't know that I'd go out of my way to buy the things, but if I'm ever in similar positions to the ones I was in the three times I had to eat chicken livers, I know I can at least get them down.

Apparently, My Niece Is a Girl After My Own Heart

When I was two, my parents made an audio cassette of me opening presents. (This was because we didn't have anything more technologically advanced, and we were living in Honduras at the time, and they wanted my grandparents to be able to "hear" our Christmas.) Fortunately I was a highly verbal two-year-old.

After some paper-crinkling and discussion of what I was opening, my mother said, "Jennie, would you like to open some more presents, or read some of your new books?"

Without a moment's hesitation I said, "Read books."

There you have it, folks. It looks like Hannah is heading in the same direction . . .

It's That Time of Year Again

Actually, I guess I get older every day. But this is when everyone's all, "Hey--you're older!" And in case anyone didn't know enough to say it, I like to post it on my blog so they can: it's my birthday tomorrow.

We've already celebrated it. My parents are doing their Annual Summer Tour thing, where they come home and make sure their mothers are okay, and I'm okay, and this year they got to see their new little granddaughter, too. Then they came here, and on Sunday evening we had a nice dinner and I got my presents. In my family, we tell each other what we want for our birthdays and Christmas, because even though we know each other pretty well and surprises are awesome, it's also awesome not to feel like someone you love spent money for you on something you don't. Plus, none of us like to spend money on ourselves too much, so this is one way of saying, "If I were going to splurge on myself, I would get this, but since I'm not, you can get it for me!"

This year I was both pleased and surprised: I got what I asked for, and I got everything I asked for. (Also, the Milk Guy didn't get the wish list but managed to come up with some great presents all on his own.)

It isn't always thus, but this year, everything I asked for was books.

I feel like I should mention them, because they're all books I heard about from you, Dear Readers. One is LL Barkat's Stone Crossings, one is Tim Keller's The Reason for God, and one is NT Wright's Surprised by Hope. I didn't have to ask for Dave Zimmerman's Deliver Us From Me-Ville, because I already have it. But this new influx of reading gave me the impetus to finish that one (and a couple of others), so expect to hear more about it here soon.

Blatant Self-Promotion

Stephanie, who goes to my church, has written an article about me/my book for a nearby publication. You can download the current issue here. The article about me is on pages 16 and 18.

Two corrections, though: The publishers who liked the story but didn't feel it fit their niche did not point me to CFP--my aunt did that. (They did try to point me in a helpful direction, but I didn't fit that publisher's niche either, it didn't seem to me.) And secondly, CFP is in Scotland, not Ireland. Given that I was just in Ireland, though, with my parents, I guess this is an easy mistake to make . . . !

Sneaking Up

The Milk Guy has morning glories. Well, they don't yet have their glory (i.e. flowers), even in the mornings, but the plants are growing in profusion, with the promise of more beauty even than heart-shaped leaves, to come.

There's a fence for the tendrils to wind up, and some of them are doing so, but others are growing back along the ground. The Milk Guy was contemplating training them up the fence, too, but they're too far entrenched along the stonework or whatever it is down there, so he said, "I guess there'll be some 'creeping glories,' too, then."

"That sounds funny," I chuckled. "'Creeping glory.'"

"It would make a great name for a band," he said. I'm sure it would. The band we saw recently was called "Raging Grace." I'm not positive it occurred to him right then how similar in genre the names are. Regardless, I just think it's an unmitigatedly great phrase, whether it's referring to a band or not.

It seems like it should be mitigated. Creep, creeping, creepy--none of these have very nice connotations. They make me think of certain customers we have . . . There's a sinister undertone to any word with "creep" at its root. But I think it's apt anyway. I think sometimes the onset of glory feels sinister, even if it's--well, glorious, in the end. Ultimately, we probably have to die first, which doesn't have really fantastic connotations either. And even the hints and whispers of glory we receive here are often hard-won and feel a little bit like dying.

Also, they're usually just hints and whispers. "Creeping glory" reminds me that sometimes the glory of God doesn't burst upon us like a thunderclap, but sneaks up and surprises us. It makes me think of the parables Jesus told about the coming of the Kingdom--it's like a mustard seed, which surprises us with the large shrub that's inside it; or like a tiny bit of yeast, which surprises us by rising a whole batch of bread dough; or like a treasure, hidden in the ground.

I Can't Think of Any Clever Titles Playing on the Word "Meme"

The Zimmerman seems to think I need to lighten up around here. I have been suspecting that I do, even before he suggested it. So I am going to play along with this meme he tagged me for. Then I am going to tell you something else about the Zimmerman.

Here are the rules for the meme:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.


Here are the seven things about me. (Do not get on my case if I repeat myself from previous similar memes. I am also not sure how random or weird they are. I am probably not that interesting.)

1. I once started a collection of Dr. Seuss books. After collecting seven (only a few of which were my favourite classics), I quit, but not before getting a first-edition copy of Horton Hatches the Egg.
2. I have only taken one art class in my life, which is why I have no technique, but I still like to try to draw and paint things on occasion.
3. I have an uncle who is on tour with Emmylou Harris and was recently seen on David Letterman.
4. My favourite colour changes every so often, but I am still stuck on green these days.
5. Growing up, my brother and I had a cocker spaniel named Chocolate Chip (aka Chippy), who was adorable, very stupid, and did not live a long and healthy life (but we loved him for as long as we had him).
6. I am six feet tall.
7. Today I talked to the local librarian about buying a copy of my book for the children's section of the library and she said she would. Yay.

Here are the people I am tagging for this meme:

1. The Greek Geek
2. The Llama Mama
3. The Burnside Writers
4. The Jeff Campbell
5. The Pastor Marty
6. The Rhonda
7. And The Dave (or The Elizabeth) Madeira

And here are some more words about the Zimmerman:

1. He has written a second book. (I have a signed copy of his first one, and a copy of his second.)
2. It's really good.
3. He wants me to review it here, which I will be delighted to do, once I have finished reading it. (Sometimes my reading projects take some time because I get sucked into all the fresh writing in my Google Reader subscriptions instead . . . ) But stay tuned for more about his book.

The Hitch

I may not actually think I'm better than someone who doesn't know Jesus. Or at least, I may be realising that sometimes I do think that, by accident, and I may be starting to get a clue that it isn't true.

But here's the hitch. After the startlingly offensive tirade on Friday night, the non-Christian present said (even though we both agreed that the tirade was offensive and the tirade-giver was in error to have behaved that way), "The thing is, I just don't get what the deal is with Christians feeling like they have to tell people what to believe."

I tried to explain (again) why I am intent on sharing my faith. I love Jesus. He told us "make disciples" for Him. I want to obey Him. Also, I have experienced Him in my life and I know that He is the one who walks through the tough times with me and who will get me to God in the end, in spite of all my mess-ups. The more I care about someone, the more I want them to experience this life, too.

"Okay," said the one objecting. "That makes sense if you're talking to someone who doesn't have any system going that works for them, and they're actually looking for something. But what about people who are all set? People who have something that works for them? I feel like you're telling me I'm wrong."

I didn't know what to say. I tried to say something about how it's just that it's not about a system, and that really, all the "systems" are wrong, including Christianity if it's just a system and not a Person, and without that Person, nothing really works in the end. But he wasn't convinced, and I have to confess that even to me it sounds like I'm telling him he's wrong. And actually, I guess I kind of am. This makes me feel like not-a-nice-person, and I think it makes him feel like I actually do think I'm better than he is.

I don't think I'm better (in some ways, he exhibits Christlikeness more effectively than I do--although he said it's silly to make those comparisons, and I guess he's--hey! he's right!). I don't even feel like I'm "right" in this area--just chosen and grateful and blessed. But I can't escape the idea that at least, playing some kind of semantical game, I think he is "not right" about his system. And I don't know what to do with that.

Better Than You?

The church I go to here has a chapter of Celebrate Recovery, a 12-step ministry developed out of Saddleback Church. I think I may have mentioned not preferring programmes--quite possibly because I am not very organised myself, so organised things make me feel skittish and boxed in, even if that's not truly what's happening.

But I have a lot of "room" for Celebrate Recovery, partly because I went through one of their step-studies one year and somehow (though I still can't explain how, exactly), God used it to break some patterns and stuff that needed to be broken in my life. And partly because the people in my church who are regular participants in the programme are some of the most genuine and grace-filled people I know.

One of the things I particularly appreciate about the programme and my friends in it is the acknowledgment that no one is better than anyone else--that we've all messed up pretty royally, and that we don't have any greater merit than someone else who may not know Jesus and who is maybe tangled up in the same sins we are working to get rid of. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and about how somehow I, and I think Christians in general, accidentally slide into thinking that I (or we) are better than people who don't know Jesus yet--even though it was miraculous grace that saved us, and not anything we did.

Last night a few of us went to hear a local Christian band play. They were actually really musically excellent, and the band members seemed genuinely humble and had a straightforward but appealing way of presenting their own faith in the Gospel. Unfortunately, their host's approach was not nearly as winsome--and, I don't think, as theologically accurate either. At the end of the gig, after the band had set up a good atmosphere for considering the claims of Christ, the host got up and began to rant. In his rant, which went on for a good fifteen minutes, I think, he bashed Muslims (of whom there were none present) and non-Christians in general (of whom there was at least one present). We sat cringing for most of the diatribe, until the guy said, "If you don't accept Jesus, you're stupid!" (Yes. Complete with exclamation mark.) It was at that point that I stood up and walked out of there.

The resulting impression was pretty terrible, although I don't think any of us blamed the band. I left imagining a little more clearly maybe, some of what people who are not Christians must go through when they're around Christians. There's absolutely a call to share Jesus with people--but when I feel like someone's putting themselves above me, I don't necessarily think of Jesus, and I don't know how I expect someone who hasn't gotten to know Him yet will get any kind of accurate impression of Him if they feel like I think I somehow have more merit as a person than they do.

I Can't Explain It

When I was little--like, in kindergarten--sometimes my mom would ask me what we did in school that day. Being fundamentally lazy, I never really wanted to go into it--not to mention that I don't think I was really sure what I was supposed to tell her about. After some prodding I'd sometimes start to describe something, and then get bored or frustrated or whatever, and say, "Oh, I can't explain it." My brother had his own version of this excuse, which was, "I'm too tired to." (When he was even littler, he used to say, "But I don't want to," which was more honest, but amounted to the same thing. It always ran together and sounded like, "BuhdaidohWAnoo.")

Sometimes I think this is why I don't blog. I have these thoughts. Or someone else has them and they strike me as interesting. Then I think about sharing them here, and it seems too complicated or too confusing or like too much work and I think something along the lines of, "Oh, I can't explain it." After which, I have a backlog of ideas which I wish I had written about after all. Sigh.

I say this because there are one or two things I was thinking about back in January or something, which fall into the above category. It's a warning, maybe, that I might just drag them out into the light of day after all. I could do it right now. BuhdaidohWAnoo.

They Have Arrived!

A funny thing happened on the way back from London . . .

My publishers sent me six free copies of my book, to me care of the friends I was staying with in the UK. I can have more copies at a discount, but these six were already designated in my head: one for my parents, one for my brother and his family, one for each of my grandmothers, one for the Milk Guy and one for me.

But then there was a little mailing mix-up and so my parents actually got a couple of free copies, too (by the grace of the publishers), so I could give their copy to my London hosts. But then one of my friends asked if she could buy one off of me. And then another friend, to whom I was showing a copy, thought I was giving it to her. And then I needed another gift for someone else . . .

By the time I got on the plane to return to the US, the only copy I had was the one for the Milk Guy. Which I gave to him when he picked me up from the airport, and then that was it. It didn't matter how much church and Starbucks friends clamoured--I could not show them my book, because I didn't have it. But it was okay, because even though my book isn't quite out in the States, I had ordered some at my discount, and they would surely be arriving soon.

"Soon" would be the wrong word to describe how they actually arrived. But they did arrive interestingly. This evening when I returned home from an afternoon out, I noticed two rather conspicuous mailbags on the front step. There was one box of books in each bag, and each bag was tied up with all sorts of tags and markings. Inside the boxes was a whole lot of shredded paper and . . . my books!

Messiah Complex

The other confusing thing about a "missional" bent is that it really does look like arrogance at some point. I already blogged a little about how I don't think it ultimately is arrogance to say, effectively, "I have Good News for you that you can't live without" (well, it might be arrogant to say it that way), although I definitely see how it can look like it is.

If there is a God, and He's the God portrayed in the Bible, particularly through Jesus, then the Good News surrounding that comes from Him, not from any of His so-called representatives, and so there's not a lot to do with arrogance there.

It's the so-called representatives part that seems a little off. I mean, I can say that I used to pray for movie-stars after movies when I was a kid, so in some sense I'm "wired" to pray for and care about whether or not people have a relationship with God through Jesus. And it's sort of hypocritical to say I care about something if I'm not going to try to do something about it, I suppose. But at some point I have to wrestle with the question about why I think I'm the one God wants to use to help other people get to that point. Particularly when I haven't seen Him actually do it very often, to my knowledge.

It might be a better question than "Where or to whom am I called?" More like "Am I called?" Who do I think I am? Seriously. I have lots of questions in my faith, and not a lot of answers, and the answers I feel like I have don't translate very well into dialogue with people who are disinclined to agree with me on this to begin with. Besides, my attitude is very often not "the same as that of Christ Jesus," and so I'm not sure how excellent my witness-by-example really is.

I would like to assert here in all honesty that this question did not arise from an outside source; I've been mulling it over a little (and avoiding it a lot) for quite some time now. What kind of messed up Messiah complex did it take to make me think I myself had something to offer the people of East London--or does it take to make me think that somehow the Milk Guy or the people of my city in general need me in their lives to show them that Jesus loves them?

I really do think sometimes this ends up being more about me than about Him--or even about the other people I care about.

On the other hand, one time, within my first few months in London, I messed up. (I don't mean I only messed up once in London. I wish! I'm just talking about this one time.) I honestly don't even remember all the specifics, but I know that I ended up looking somewhat hypocritical and I was keenly aware of how that was, in that moment, going to make all my nice words about Jesus up to that point, sound. I walked home that night feeling all self-flagellating and I remember articulating in my head the words, "I don't deserve to be a missionary!"

And suddenly it was like my brain stopped and Someone else thought into it, "Bingo!" Or "You sure don't!" Or, "Well, duh!" Or, "Seriously? Is that why you thought you were here?" Something like one or a whole bunch of those. And then the thought went on to assure me that, regardless of my inherent merit or ability to do the job, He was the one who had brought me there, and I just needed to keep going.

Even saying that sounds a little arrogant. It's a weird position, this one that Jesus puts us in. As soon as I'm humble enough to go there, I notice . . . and then I'm not humble anymore.

So strange.

Can I get, um, a witness?

Weird Trends

Since everybody's talking about The Economy, I feel that I should get on the bandwagon (though I don't like bandwagons) and tell you how The Economy is affecting my Starbucks.

Actually, I don't know. I'm only kidding. This is a barista's-eye perspective. All I can do is tell you about The Line these days.

Last week was hot--like the time I went to India--at least, as far as I remember. Only it didn't last as long. I don't think I have ever brewed as much iced coffee consistently in my entire life. The ice machine could scarcely keep up with the need for ice. There were lots of Frappuccinos . . . but not as many as there were iced coffees. Which makes me think that either people are a lot more refined in their tastes than I thought, or they are going crazy for an iced drink to make them feel better, but they can't quite find it in their wallets to fork out for a whole Frappuccino.

Apart from the hour-long iced-coffee-extravaganza each of the hot days, no one came in at all. It could have been that everyone was at the beach or something . . . but most schools didn't get out here until this week, so I find it a little unlikely.

This week, on the other hand? Yesterday, it was as if everybody had just found an extra $20 in their jeans pocket that morning, and all decided that the most fulfilling way they could spend it was to visit Starbucks--all at the same time--and buy three drinks a piece. Today was much of the same, but they were obviously all spending the change of the day before, because we didn't sell a whole lot of lattes, but we went through more hot brewed coffee than I've ever seen.

I'm sure none of this actually interests you, but when you spend six hours of your eight-hour shift "spoodling" coffee, you'd feel the need to comment, too. (I might be exaggerating a little bit about that hourly ratio, but not too much.)

Also, this just in: although most Starbucks stores are still only brewing a "bold" option until noon, our store--yes, ours--is now being permitted, yea verily commanded, to brew it until 5 p.m., along with the usual Pike Place Roast. People will love us even more now . . .

Sometimes I Should Just Take a Deep Breath . . .

. . . and not post anything. The post called "So . . ." was a bad idea, and although you have all now read it, I am deleting it, although please don't delete your prayers.

Here

is something I keep forgetting to post:

This crazy-cute photo of my glam niece.Not to mention some other cuteness.

This Time It's Personal

I grew up reading missionary biographies (as well as a lot of other things, but they're not immediately relevant here). These people were amazing followers of Christ who gave up things that were really hard to give up, so that they could tell a bunch of people they had never met before that Jesus loves them. I found these stories daunting and inspiring, and knew I wanted to "be a missionary when I grew up." So I did, for a while, although I never felt like I was quite giving up as much as I should have been.

For example, in the 1800's, this dude Henry Martyn broke up with his fiancee so he could go to Asia Minor and translate the Bible and make the Gospel known. He did, and people who would otherwise not have heard about the truth of Jesus, actually did, even though Martyn himself ended up dying very young. I think I always thought eventually I'd go overseas and get martyred or something dramatic, too.

If God actually called me to be a missionary, shouldn't I be doing something like that? So what am I doing at Starbucks? Particularly when, in the course of the last year and a half, I've hardly had the opportunity to share the Gospel with anyone?

Then I got to know the Milk Guy.

Someone said to me recently, "If you were once a missionary, I would find it very unlikely that you would date a non-Christian." I considered this, and thought that actually, in some ways it might make perfect sense, because a missionary (or an evangelist, or anyone like that) ideally already loves the people who haven't met Jesus yet--that's why they tell them about Him. If there's already that initial caring present, and then some sort of "chemistry" is added to the mix, there's nothing very surprising . . .

I suppose some would say that, whether surprising or not, my actually deciding to consider a non-Christian "romantically" is out-and-out disobedience to the Gospel. I guess I think it's a little more open to debate, but I certainly don't want to be disobedient. Which is why my brain is getting all mixed up about this "just one person" concept. I know that we are called to put Jesus above all other loves. I truly want to do this. But if I have a missionary call, does it mean I should start investigating international options again, and clear myself out of here? Or would that, in this case, be like running away, and am I being called to reach out with Jesus' love to this "just one person" who happens to be in the place Jesus most recently brought me?

Either way requires a sort of sacrifice, and I don't know for sure which is the one Jesus is requiring of me. I don't know what the end result will be. According to the law of averages, I'd be better off going and doing "official" missions again, because I'd have a broader base of people to share Jesus with than "just one person." Also, shouldn't I be going someplace where people have less access to the Gospel? On the other hand, as I said to Jeff in the comments previously, I'm not sure God's all that concerned with the law of averages, even though He created it. And who am I to say who God should send to, say, the Turks, and who He should send to the Milk Guy.

Meanwhile, oddly enough, since I've been seeing the Milk Guy, suddenly I'm having all these other Jesus-conversations, too--at Starbucks, where I hadn't had one in ages.

Photo by jennw2ns: Sheep by water, Dingle, Ireland. 2008.

Procrastination Tips

I am not domestically-inclined. One might even call me domestically-challenged. However, I have discovered a fail-safe way for me to get stuff done around the house. I simply have to have an even higher-priority project hanging over my head.

My next community profile article (on Kennebunkport, story out in August) is due on Wednesday. I have today set aside as the day to write it, because . . . it's my day off, and the next couple of days are busy.

But first, you know, it's weeding season again. I mean . . . there are weeds everywhere, and once again my parents are returning soon, and things should probably look a little better around here than they do. (Besides which, it is gorgeous outside.) And then, you know, I have to do laundry. I even hung it on the line today, which, admittedly takes a little longer, but I'm trying to conserve. And I ate lunch. And I really should probably vacuum, now that I've found some vacuum bags that fit the appliance . . . And then, of course, I'm back to blogging, so I should probably check in today.

Article? What article?

Just One Person

I've been thinking about the aforementioned Christian cliche, about "just one person" becoming a Jesus-follower, and whether that really makes it all worth it.

I think I've already mentioned that when I was very little I wanted to be a missionary. Because I went to Christian schools my whole life, there was a dearth of obvious heathen to evangelise early on. I'm not sure, but I suppose that's one reason I used to write down the names of the actors and actresses in the credits of movies and pray for their salvation. (Not regularly. My intentions were always much loftier than my actual practice, but I really did do this. Another reason might have been to justify praying for the one or two actors per film on whom I had crushes.)

I tell you this, not to highlight what a freakish adolescent I was (though it does that, I realise), but to reinforce the idea that this sense of wanting other people to get to know Jesus has been with me pretty much since I found out that not everybody did. It's been a long time since I've had a really specific sense of calling, but I do feel like getting to love Jesus and trying to share His love with others so that maybe they'll learn to love Him, too, is at the core of who I am and what I've been called to do.

So here's what I'm mulling over right now. Is the "one person" assertion really true? Do I really not mind if I spend my whole life praying and crying over people and only one of them acknowledges Jesus as the Son of God who has everything to do with his or her life? I think I might mind. I think I might feel like a failure. I don't really think I'm the only one who, under similar circumstances, might feel that way, either.

But how does God feel about it? I live in the United States, and everybody knows that here, we succeed-by-numbers. And let's face it. Nobody says that "one person" thing about witnessing to just one person. As far as I can see, we only say it when we're putting on some big event (or, if we're kind of skittish about talking to crowds, we've been trying to tell a whole lot of people about Jesus over a period of time) and we're trying to make excuses for ourselves, or even God, about why we had such a measly response. There's got to be a pretty big pool to draw from, and then, if only one person becomes a Christian after all that, well, it wasn't our fault, and God knows what He's doing, so clearly that one person was worth it. (But seriously? we think, it would be nice if the financial and/or emotional outlay wasn't so extensive, because worth it? Just barely.)

Is that how God sees it? The "right" answer is, "No, of course not," but you have to wonder. If God doesn't actually want any to be apart from Him, how can "just one person's" salvation really be acceptable?

On the other hand, if there's a heavenly party over "one sinner who repents"--well, that must mean something. I believe God wants all people to relate to Him in love. But I also believe He wants individuals to relate to Him--not just "all people." We're each "just one person," in the end. Just one person getting to know Jesus, and just one person trying to introduce Him to other people.

So here's what else I've been wondering about this: Does the Great Commission ever work backwards? Instead of spreading out to the ends of the earth, what if it narrows to a point? Say you know you've been called to share Jesus' love with the world. And you start out far from home as a missionary to a ton of people from all the ends of the earth. And then you return to your home country, though not a part you've really known before. And then you return to your home state. Is it possible for it to work like this? Is it okay? Is it worth it, when the pool of potential "converts" gets smaller and smaller? Is there even a chance that you might, sometime, be called primarily to share Jesus' love specifically and intentionally with "just one person"?

By Way of Explanation

Or excuse.

In case you are pining for lack of words from this particular url, let me apologise. There are things to say. Or at least to think. Things are "going on"--let's put it that way. But everything's kind of up in the air and strange, and while I have thoughts in my head, so far it has seemed fitting for them to stay there for a while, instead of broadcasting them across the WorldWideWeb.

I haven't had much room in my brain for broadcast-able thoughts lately. One of these days, I think things will come to light. In the meantime, I have a sidebar of very excellent friends and bloggers you can read to occupy your time, if you're feeling deprived. Just make sure you come back when I start saying stuff again, okay?

A Reminder

I've been going through this phase (for probably a year and a half) of wondering, not so much if God really speaks, but how one really knows. Or at least if I've ever really known. Then on Saturday I went to a wedding.

But first, I need to backtrack a little bit.

After London and that strong sense of "leading away," I never got a very clear sense of "leading to," so I went to grad school for a year and disliked it and quit. Then I wanted to open a coffee shop, but I had neither money nor coffee-knowledge, so I headed back to my home state to work at Starbucks. For a while (even though I was concurrently going through a heinous time of reverse-culture-shock), I really felt like Starbucks was just the place to be, because I could still hang out with people and talk to them about Jesus. But in the last two years I haven't felt I was doing that so well, and so I've been casting about, trying to find other "callings" or something, and not really succeeding. Because I've felt sort of "flounder-ish" lately, it's made me doubt that I was right to work at Starbucks in the first place, and then that I was right to leave London, and then pretty much everything else.

But on Saturday, Jerry got married to Kristin. Jerry was one of my first and best friends at Starbucks. Even in my first week there, he didn't make me feel like I had to prove myself before I could feel like a valued member of the team. He also started, pretty much immediately, talking about faith-related issues. We ended up having a lot of those conversations. He didn't really seem to "get" where I was coming from a lot of the time, but he tried really hard, and he still kept asking me about it, challenging me, not (usually) to be obnoxious, but because he really wanted to know why I did or didn't do certain things, and how consistent I was about doing or not doing them.

Eventually our conversations tapered off, but then a while back, he started asking questions again. They were a lot more specific and a lot more personal to him. Also, Kristin started working at our store. Kristin is a pastor's kid like me, and she was just beginning to walk back toward Jesus, having taken a break from Him for a while. I can't really unravel the chronology at this point, but eventually (in some order, but not necessarily this one) Jerry and Kristin started dating, Kristin's relationship with Jesus re-established, and Jerry's relationship with Jesus got started. It was really exciting for me, because in spite of having been a missionary, I haven't really seen very many of my friends decide that Jesus was really worth it to them. But it's been some time since Jerry did, and it's amazing (and dismaying) how you can take something miraculous for granted after a while.

At the wedding reception on Saturday, I sat with a former Starbucks colleague and her fiance, who Jerry is now sort of discipling. We sat with some other people, too, who were really cool and also really into the usual Conservative Evangelical Christian Subculture, so I found myself talking about My Life as a Missionary. Then I talked about Starbucks as mission. It was sounding all very spiritual until I confessed how discouraging it sometimes is never to see friends whom one has been given to love and care about, learning to love and care about Jesus. One of our table mates said, as people always say, "Well, but you were planting seeds. You were being faithful." It's just that sometimes that's not very comforting to hear. Sometimes I'm not always sure.

And then Former Starbucks Colleague burst out, as if it were most obvious and I was just being silly, "What about Jerry? Come on, Jenn. He's changed so much. He's not the same person at all!" And I realised that, though I don't know how much of that change was related to anything I did or said, God did allow me to be in Jerry's life at that time, and He did allow me to see at least the beginnings of the transformation.

I thought of that pious-sounding thing we evangelicals like to say at meetings or choir concerts: "If just one person comes to know Christ through this, it will have been worth it." I wondered if I believed that, really. I guess I do, but I think I might need reminders, especially if I end up at Starbucks for years and years (more than I already have been). But this was a good time for the first reminder to come.

And then I thought . . . Jerry's discipling Former Starbucks Colleague. And her fiance is the cousin of another former Starbucks colleague. And I'm still friends with her. And relationships grow and fade and sometimes come back, but none of our stories are over yet, and maybe there will be more than just one person who comes to know Christ . . .

London Calling?

Here is (at least partly) how I came to be in London in the first place, and how I came to leave it again:

I grew up wanting to be a missionary. It didn't hurt--though it very well could have given another set of parents--that my parents were missionaries and church planters and pastors (sometimes at different times, sometimes all at once). I also grew up wanting to live in England. I thought the two "wants" were mutually exclusive, and then one amazing season (around my senior year of college and for some time thereafter) I discovered they weren't. I went to England on a two-year commitment, but I said early on, "I have a feeling I'll be here five years."

At the end of my first term, I really finally settled in, and, having received "indefinite leave to remain" from the British government, I decided to remain indefinitely. I was queuing up for dual citizenship. I was thinking about transferring my church membership to the church I attended and worked in, in London. Then I went back to the US for another furlough.

While I was there, I had a number of conversations with people who didn't even know each other, and who, though all Christians, have very different approaches to God. (Well, I mean, they all approach through Jesus, but their respective "styles" are different.) These conversations shook me up a little and started to make me wonder if I was supposed to leave London instead of staying there. Three days before I was to return, I was overcome with a sense of utter dread at returning to my life there, that I never really could explain. I decided to go back, take six months, and see if I could figure out what God was really telling me to do.

I guess it depends on your level of cynicism as to how you interpret things, and which things you decide are open to interpretation. It's probably also partly dependent, if you're looking for God's leading, on what kind of church you affiliate with. I've affiliated with a pretty broad range, so when I got back to London, I was bombarded with intimations in my Scripture readings, words of counsel from my friends, dreams of my own and dreams of my friends and colleagues, strong senses of direction. Eventually I decided that, though things were tremendously better for me than they had been immediately before I had left London, I was being called to move away. It was okay that I was leaving when things were good again; I always think that it's better to leave on an up-note than in shame or high dudgeon. On the other hand, it was hard to leave, too--all those friendships that had been forged, all those prayers that had been prayed, all that learning and growing. Not to mention the urban environment and the cosmopolitan nature of the place. I knew I'd never find another place like it. I haven't.

But the sense to leave seemed unequivocal. I even believed I had been directed as to a specific date of departure, which was appropriate, because the date of my arrival had also been significant. And so it was that in May 2002, I moved back to the USA. I had lived in London for five and a half years.

To be continued . . .

Hannah

I have a niece! I am an auntie!

Hannah Louise was born to my brother and sister-in-law last night. Isn't she cute? Congratulations guys!

Number 7

The day I moved to London, Lisa took me to have tea with Megan, so that I could stay awake and get over jetlag more quickly. Megan lived at number 7, Cotswold Gardens, a house with a Winnie-the-Pooh-yellow door. (You could maybe also call it goldenrod, but Laura Lee, a much later addition to the team, cited Winnie the Pooh.)

I'm not the biggest fan of "goldenrod," except on goldenrod, but I absolutely loved this door. It was such a happy shock of insane brightness in such a usually grim and grey city. I also loved the house on the other side of that door. I thought to myself, "I love this house. I'm going to live in it one day." The house was owned by the churches I worked for, and it was often changing hands, though I didn't know that when I first "met" it.

About two years later, I really did move in. That first night, as I lay down to sleep, I thought to myself with a sense of confirmation, "Yes. This is your house."

It was my house for three years, and when I left, they painted it and Laura Lee picked the colour. She wanted to paint the door something sensible, but I made kind of a stink about and spoke up for the yellow door. So they did repaint it, but it was still that crazy yellow.

Last year Jayne told me in an email that the church was trying to offload some of their extraneous properties, and that was one of them, and they were putting it on the market. I wanted to buy it. It was my house, after all. But they don't pay you enough at Starbucks to put a downpayment on a home in London. I never heard anything else about it, until I got to Jayne's house for dinner on my first day in London last week.

"Number 7 finally sold last week," she said.

I shouldn't have been surprised. And it's good for the church and everything. But was I ever disappointed. I stayed the week in the house next door, with some friends, and so I got to see my house every day. But the house had been painted off-white, and the door had been painted blue, and the last three days I was there, the new owners spent gutting the place. The front garden was full of the bricks that didn't fit in the skip (dumpster) hired and sitting in the middle of the street.

I think I might have been sadder, except with the door now blue instead of yellow, it wasn't my house anymore. It does kind of feel like the end of an era, though.

London Revisited

After Ireland, I spent this last week in London and saw a whole bunch of people I love and missed a whole lot of other ones because of time constraints, and saw the first copies of my book. I just got back and now I have a headache, but it was worth it.

London still holds a strong and significant place in my life, even though I haven't lived there in six years and I actually got lost trying to walk from Oxford Circus to Covent Garden yesterday. (This was demoralising. And I didn't have an A-Z to help me out.) London is the place, I tend to say, where I became an adult. Not necessarily a mature one (maturity might be an attribute my possession of which is still debatable. But it's okay. I've got the convoluted grammar down). I've changed in some ways since then, and there are plenty more ways I dare say I should change. But I still feel like that was the beginning of it.

So going back is kind of bittersweet. The first time I went back after moving to the States, I felt like everything was all wrong, and London was my home, and why was I not permitted to live there anymore? The next time I went back, I felt like I was in a place I had never been before--but where I knew exactly what to expect. This time I feel like I could move back. Or not. (Most likely, according to the Home Office at this point, not.) It's both hard and easy to imagine moving back and slotting into the same neighbourhood and churches that I worked in and with before. And it's equally hard and easy to imagine moving back and living and working somewhere else.

And meanwhile, I still haven't found a new job.

I have a lot of posts built up in my head since probably January. They're going somewhere, I think (kind of like me), but I'm not quite sure where (also kind of like me). Bear with me while I keep trying to figure it out.

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.