Transience

unexpected meetings

It's always weird when parts of my life overlap unexpectedly. Sitting at Dunn Bros reading a book, I look up to see Javier standing 15 feet away, taking Sarah's photos from the wall. It was nice to chat briefly, to feel a sense of connection in the midst of a very solitary weekend. Unexpectedly seeing my friends as they go about their lives is a good reminder that the world doesn't revolve around me, that things continue even when I don't think about them.

I spent much of the afternoon reading journal entries from the past few years. It's frustrating to see myself repeating the same patterns again and again. My life goes in the circles KP mentioned at tonight's gathering. Around and around the same loop: God, you're great and I love you. Why are these things happening? Why am I single? I want a husband and children. I'm mad that you won't give them to me. Why don't I trust you? And then back again to loving God.

There were several passages that stuck out to me as I leafed through my journal, so I thought I'd put them here so I could find them again.

I started out building a fence to guard my heart, but somehow I ended up with a 20-foot stone wall, moat, and dragons. (11/26/02)

"So long as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about; He is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high rebellion against him. And He knows that and has taken it into account. He has followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape him, we run straight into his arms. So we do not have to erect a false piety for ourselves, to give us the hope of salvatiohn. Our hope is in his determination to save us, and he will not give in." --- Simon Tugwell (Prayer)

Longing for the not-given,
I blind myself
to that which God has already provided.
This dance with shadows,
futile, insubstantial ---
it wearies me.
Steps out of rhythm
do not satisfy.
(6/2/02)

"Frivolous they might be, but the people of Ecbatana at least saw that the world was created for their delight, and as they jumped about in the frigid streams and wasted their money in the crowded bazaars, they came closer to living their lives as the Holy One intended than those who were continuously apologizing for their unworthiness and trying to avert the wrath of the One who, had they but known, wishes the whole world only well. --- Frederick Buechner, On the Road with the Archangel, p. 55

hope

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up, left everything, and followed him. Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus answered, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance." --- Luke 5:27-32

As I've been thinking about this passage today, the end result is a deep sense of hope. I know the wrongs I do, how many ways I miss the mark. And yet Jesus is still willing to accept me; not only that, he chooses to spend time with people like me. On days like today, where I alternate from one minute to the next between gratitude and a sense of closeness to being completely pissed off with God, it's nice to know that my mood swings and temper tantrums aren't going to chase him away.

One thing I have noticed during my tv-less afternoon is just how noisy "silence" can be. I hear the whine of my laptop, the rumble and clank of the dryer, the horrible sound of rushing water as the washing machine overflows the drain and floods the basement once again. I have not yet succeeded in my plan to sit quietly and listen for God; even without the tv running in the background I still find plenty of things to fill my mind and distract me.

2 am

Body aching, I shiver under the comforters. I hurt too much to sleep. Aidan comes up, purring loudly, and I turn my back to her because I can't deal with the noise. She nestles herself between my shoulder blades, pressing into me so hard that I find I have moved halfway across the bed.

Do I long for anyone or anything that intensely?

walking the forgotten paths

O god, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what thou would have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in they light we may see light, and in thy straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. --- Book of Common Prayer

I have been pondering Deuteronomy 30:15-16, 19-20. What does it mean for me to "choose life" or to walk in God's ways?

If we are to choose life, I suppose that means that we are choosing to take part in the full spectrum of emotions, desires, longings, and experiences of this world. If I choose to protect myself from pain, from discomfort, am I not living a half-life? Perhaps it is similar to my experience with antidepressants; the prescription the doctor gave me cut off not only my intense pain, but also the ability to feel any joy. I walked around in a fog, feeling less than fully myself.

I suspect that I would not be truly able to appreciate joy if I had no pain with which to compare it. It's so easy to take things for granted. It is so easy for me to wander onto my own pathways in pursuit of comfort and happiness. I pray for the wisdom to know where I have gone astray and the willingness and strength to return.

fun with google

Rachel hopes...
Rachel hopes to restore their friendship by telling Joey a big lie about her unborn child.
Rachel hopes to revisit Great Britain and Ashland again soon, and would love to
travel to New York, New Orleans, Prague, Ireland, Italy, Prince Edward Island....
Rachel hopes to go to Indiana University for college and become a high school english teacher.
Rachel hopes to study.
Rachel hopes a new job is in the cards for her.
Rachel hopes to make it down for Thanksgiving and we all hope that she can too.
In the future, Rachel hopes to become "an actress", she says, "and later a nurse."
Meanwhile Rachel hopes to be the "belle of the ball" when she attends a Halloween party at her new school in Columbus next month.
Rachel hopes for the best.

Rachel is...
Rachel is sitting in the window
Rachel is pretty.
Rachel is a dancing flower.
Rachel is late
Rachel is weeping
Rachel is out tonight
Rachel is a dork
Rachel is offered a place at Oxford.
Rachel is no ordinary high achiever.

Rachel wants...
Rachel wants it to be opulent.
rachel wants to say hi.
Rachel wants to be a child free to play and learn.
Rachel wants to move the couch so she can see the TV.
What Rachel wants, Rachel gets.
Rachel wants to create a living work of art - using a parrot - and she's come to me for advice.
Rachel wants a relationship with him.
Rachel wants to trust him, but she isn't sure she should.
Rachel wants to write a mystery story.
Rachel wants somewhere she can call home.

dies cinerum (day of ashes)

Lent is a time of repentence, a time for turning back to God.

During college, fasting was something I did regularly, and with relative ease. I'm not fasting from food today or during the rest of Lent, though. I've decided, for various reasons, to give up something which has a much greater pull on my mind and heart - TV. Sadly, I already feel a sense of loss, knowing that I can't go home and watch The Simpsons after work.

My overall approach is that of taking up something (prayer, spiritual reading), rather than viewing this as a time of deprivation and punishment. Instead of distracting myself with humorless sitcoms and endless un-reality shows, I hope to free up the time to refocus my attention on God. Perhaps then I will regain a bit of the intimacy I feel I've lost over the years. Perhaps I will come to trust God once again.

The plan: read more. pray more. write in my journal (and blog). listen.

deep calls to deep

Things that tug deep within me, drawing me to them:
1) Hebrew, especially prayer. Baruch atah Adonai.

2) Glimpses of grass through mud-stained snow.

3) The color pink. I've always been more of a blue/green girl, but I realized this week that almost everything I find myself wanting to buy, from mop buckets to a new bracelet, is pink. This must have been creeping up on me for a while, as I realized that both of my umbrellas are... well, I'll let you guess.

4) Slightly cruel social commentary

5) Chocolate.

6) John Donne's sonnets, especially "Batter my heart, three-person'd God".

7) Chosen solitude.

8) Chosen intimacy.

9) The incredible vastness of space.

curly girl

Well, Chris just cut my hair. I haven't had it this short in about 7 years. It's kind of weird; I think I have to get used to it before I know whether I really like it. I just keep flipping my head from side to side so that I can feel the curls bouncing around.

my new dream job

Last night I started watching the "Making of" DVDs for the first Lord of the Rings. Oh. My. Goodness. I now am ready to quit my job and devote myself to designing and creating movie sets, props, and costumes. Watching all they were doing was incredibly fascinating and really appeals to my touchy-feely creative side. I suspect I may not leave the house for the next 3 days, as I'm not even done with the first of the 4 DVDs.

why I haven't been posting

Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon at a seminar on the Minneapolis campus about a new Portal and Content Management System at the U. Call me cynical, but I don't see either of them being particularly useful. "This new CMS lets you edit everything in the browser! You don't need to know html or have Dreamweaver!" "Does it work on Macs?" "Well, not the editing function. You would either need to type in the html by hand or cut & paste it from Dreamweaver." "So the benefit of paying $10K for this is....?"

And then two of the presenters read straight from their PowerPoint slides, except for when they tripped up and made grammatical mistakes because they were trying to reword things on the fly. So boring.

Gosh, I'm bitchy today. Perhaps it's my new Spiritual Gift (^TMJenell).

I took an extended lunch today to look at a house with my friend Holly. She dropped me off at work & went to put in an offer on it. Sigh. I remember that feeling of utter terror & disbelief at what I was about to do. But the house looks solid, has good space, is surprisingly cheap, and is quite close to where I live. I hope she gets it. I thought I was fast, making my offer after seeing only 12 houses in about 10 days, but she only started looking on Tuesday (7 houses).

So my office/computer time has been kind of limited. But don't worry, peeps - I still love ya.

free to be me

I've been thinking all day about Jenell's first paragraph under Where is your self? In some ways, I find myself in the opposite position; work is a place where I show up, but my gifts are not fully used and I am unwilling to reveal my true self to my coworkers. Despite the fact that mine is ostensibly a design position, I feel the noose of guidelines and design-by-committee strangling my creativity and pushing me into a passionless rut. At church, though, I have been explicitly given the freedom to use my gifts and to pursue projects which draw on my strengths.

This does not mean that am always willing to act on that freedom, however. There are some aspects of my spiritual life which I still hold close to me, I suppose as a protective measure. At last night's gathering, when Doug was encouraging us to speak up if we had experience with any of the spiritual practices discussed, I found myself burrowing into my seat. Despite the fact that I'm quite willing to discuss it with people I trust, I don't really want to stand up and say, "Yes. I know about speaking in tongues and prophecy. Come and talk to me about it." Maybe it's just too intimate; how do you discuss the feel of a kiss, the smell of rain, or the way you recognize a close friend's voice? Some things simply are.

There's also an element of fear and uncertainty, for these are largely experiences of my past. At times where I felt the first stirrings of knowledge, I have willfully said "no" and refused to listen. Though I fully believe that past experiences were genuine encounters with God, other events have left me questioning my ability to hear God's voice and unwilling to risk being mistaken.

I am afraid. Both of what God might tell me or of the silence I might find when I listen. So I fill my life and my mind with noise and activity so that I can avoid that moment of truth.

As long as I run away, though, I fear I shall never be fully free.

in honor of the season

I'm quite fond of Poundy's alternative valentines. For the "not trying to be disturbing but failing dreadfully" category, may I present My Creepy Valentine.

Have you ever wondered How Much is Inside a bag of conversation hearts? Now you know. And if you want to do something besides eat them, there are always crafts. I'm actually thinking about picking up a bag of hearts on clearance & making some votive holders for friends. Yeah, call me cheap.

annoying books

The Weight of Water - I might have enjoyed the story, had I not been completely confused by the author's style. If you're going to jump from an event 100 years ago in one paragraph to current events in the next, it would be nice if you indicated that. Perhaps a little space between the paragraphs. Perhaps a new chapter. Perhaps a change in typeface. Even one of those little leafy-things. But for the love of God, don't just immediately jump into the new paragraph and assume that it won't take me 5 sentences to figure out that - hey! - we're no longer in the past. It's annoying and just poor style. Thanks for your attention.

Some book with a title like 1001 Wardrobe Mistakes No Woman Should Make - The library website isn't responding, or I'd double-check the title to save you the trouble. I figured that a book like this might be useful as I fight the frump. Alas, the author believes that suits & scarves are integral parts of every working woman's wardrobe. I haven't worn either in nearly 8 years and I don't really think I'll start now, thankyouverymuch. I have trouble respecting someone who believes that the following tips will make you look "put together" and people will be impressed with your style: always wear just one or two colors, such as turquoise or cream (wouldn't that get boring?); one day wear everything in raspberry (from shoes to stockings to suit), the next day in cream, etc. (ick anc ick); match your shoe color to your hair color all the time.

Oh, and remember The Perfect Date? (I ranted about it a few weeks ago.) I just ran across a website where a bunch of Christian teen girls were going on and on about how wonderful & inspirational & awesome!!!!! it is. Bleck. I'm sure they'd think I was going to hell for making Carla's WTFWJD bracelet. (PS - I'm taking orders if anyone else wants one.)

where are they hiding?

Netscape has an article listing the top 10 cities to find a single, rich man. Here they are:

The top 10 U.S. cities in which to find a rich, single man:

1. San Francisco Bay area, including Oakland and San Jose
2. Anchorage, Alaska
3. Washington D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland area
4. Sheboygan, Wisconsin
5. Naples, Florida
6. Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota
7. Rochester, Minnesota
8. Boston, Massachusetts
9. Fort Walton Beach, Florida
10. Dallas, Texas

kingdom giving

A few thoughts inspired by KP's question wondering at what point we stop helping people or giving them whatever they ask.

I think that sometimes the most loving thing we can do is say "no." Is it truly loving when we enable someone to keep hurting herself or endangering others? There comes a point where parents have to say "It's time to learn how to tie your own shoes now" or "Ice cream for breakfast every day isn't healthy. Have some yogurt." I imagine there's a similar point in every situation, where helping or providing whatever the person wants actually begins to harm her. The hard thing is figuring out where that point lies.

the solution to my problems

Dressed in a demure black suit, a 35-year-old Frenchwoman has married her dead boyfriend

Well heck, why didn't somebody tell me that my husband options weren't limited to the living? This opens up a whole world of possibilities.

Speaking of the dead marrying... be sure to view Gator Bride.

veggie girl

In my quest to be healthier (and maybe stop getting these damn colds over & over), I have revamped my eating habits. Too much bread & not enough veggies over the past few months. (No, I haven't given in to the blackhole of low-carb which seems to be sucking in the whole world. I'm just readjusting the proportions. I had a piece of cake at a going-away party today. But it was TINY, and I skipped the Krispy Kreme doughnuts only had one KK, so I'm feeling like a good girl.) I hope that whatever my body has been lacking will now be present.

Actually remembering to take my vitamins daily is another part of the Big Plan^TM. I know that getting the Bs keeps me from PMS, so why do I forget to take them? I also added 5-HTP, which is used to treat depression in Europe. (It raises serotonin levels.) Rather than my usual 6 hours of sleep, with frequent awakenings, I ended up sleeping very soundly for 10-13 hours every night over the weekend. But I think the dose was a bit too high, as I still felt really loopy on Sunday. Monday night, after 48 hours without a dose, left me back at my sleepless tossing. My only real complaint, besides the annoyance of feeling loopy & a little out-of-it, is that it gives me incredibly vivid dreams. And they've been fairly disturbing, though not nightmares. The last one I remember involved a large book of photos from Gettysburg, full of close-ups and posed photos of soldiers being stabbed, shot, or otherwise killed. Ugh. I hope that aspect of the side effects passes soon.

And the deal of the week: last night I bought a recumbent exercycle on clearance for $150 at Fleet Farm. Big happy dance, as this model cost about $400 on several websites I checked. The new deal is that Rachel can only watch TV as long as she's pedaling. We'll see how that goes.

I must admit that walking through Fleet Farm was a surreal experience. The exercise equipment was past the hunting & fishing gear, so I walked through rows & rows of camoflage and rifle cases. At one point, I looked up, only to be startled by a lifelike mannequin of a man dressed in camo, aiming a gun at me. I just kept thinking, "This is so not my world." The other surreal part of the evening was picking up the bike. I had to drive to the end of the building and show my receipt to a man at the gate. He said, "Door 26. Drive in when they open the door." So I drove in to this large warehouse, two men came in with mini-forklifts, and the door shut behind me. I just kept thinking, "I'm locked in a warehouse with two strange men and nobody knows I'm here but the gate guard." They loaded the bike in the car a few minutes later & I was on my way, no harm done.

And now, a helpful quote for us girls: "Your underwear is the foundation of your figure, just as Jesus is the foundation of your faith."

I get around

Here are the countries I've visited. I've probably missed a few in eastern Europe, and I didn't count Thailand, even though I was probably there as a kid. I'd fill out the state one, but everything except Hawaii would be red, so what's the point?

Create your own visited country map.

whirlwind in my mind

It's one of those weeks where the thoughts run though my head in an almost overwhelming gush, leaving me pulled in many directions but unable to actually accomplish anything. At home, I am consumed by projects, such as Kitchen 2004^TM. I want to paint, but before that, I need to scrub the walls, patch up that mysterious hole near the ceiling, buy new paint, and clean the kitchen. And then I get drawn into researching how I would go about painting the fridge so that it goes better with the new look (because ugly beige just doesn't match with the new white cabinets or the white stove). But should the fridge be white or something wild, like coral or lime? And hey, I should refinish that little table that's on my porch. I think green would be nice. Which tiles should I pick for the kitchen floor? And hey, maybe I should clean the living room before I do any of that.

So I have done nothing.

The same goes for my freelance projects. Jenell, Olivia, Marian. I so much want to play with my kitchen, rather than working tomorrow. I just have to remind myself that work=a new sofa.

At work, the problem is poorly defined projects and a feeling of inadequacy. There's nothing quite like the thought "I am a talentless hack" to send you surfing the web for hours.

And then I read Jenell's blog and I feel inarticulate. Or perhaps just sad. Because I truly wonder whether we (the church) will ever have a healthy view of sexuality, expecially for singles. This week I have had feelings of regret at never having slept with my first boyfriend. Trust me, these are not feelings I've ever expected to have. Perhaps it's all part of the "what if things had been different?" questions we all have. Or perhaps it's a sense that I missed out on something wonderful because of fear or misinformation. There are nights where I look at my bed and think "so much wasted potential." It's hard not to feel jealous of the friends who have been married 3, 5, 10 years. The third birth announcements from two separate girlfriends (both younger) sent me into a downward spiral of anger and despair.

Those who lose children or are infertile get sympathy and prayer. Those of us who feel trapped in the same situation are given no support, with the added burden of being unable to even try to do anything about it (short of desparately surfing dating sites for someone who appears half-way normal).