an ordinary player in the key of c

It's about that time

2012-01-17T21:11:00.000-08:00

I should preface to anyone who has started reading this blog in the last few months: A few times a year, I take a break from my sporadic theological ponderings to review awards-show fashion. It is not the world's most serious endeavor, so feel free to skip this one -- or indulge the side of yourself that is sick of listening to me rant about Mark Driscoll.

OH, what a night! Ricky Gervais delivered on lackluster jokes about the celebrities in the room, George Clooney got away with the dirtiest joke of the night in his charming, I-stole-Brad-Pitt's'-cane kind of way, and The Artist and Downton Abbey deservedly won their respective categories. Of course, if you've been following this blog for any amount of time now, you know that this is all warm-up for the Oscars, which my family is absolutely religious about. So I'm on to a month of reading wacky prediction blogs, but before I go there, needed to debrief some of the Golden Globe fashions.

Loved Laura Dern's dress. Loved loved loved it. So classy, so 1970s Halston -- Sarah Jessica Parker would be proud. The color is so rich. It reminds me of Angie's Golden Globes dress last year, but I think I like Laura's even more. The V-neck adds something, and I love the contrasting colors of the collar and the belt. Her hair looks like she just read an article in Teen Vogue about putting it in two braids at night and then undoing it the next day for a fabulous style!, but it doesn't really do much for me.

Okay. Now that we've talked about her dress, can we talk about how she brought Ben Harper (her estranged ex-husband) as her date?! I love the two of them together, and the news of their possible reunification brings me great joy.

OH, Rooney Mara, I have a feeling that you love all the Lisbeth Salander attention you are getting these days. Since you've essentially transformed yourself into the character. Because they interview her all the time ("What was it like to get the role?" "When did you change from your seemingly sunny former self into a goth Method actress?"), I know that the most Commonly Asked Question of Rooney Mara is whether she kept her piercings from the movie. She kept a few. Consequently, all I could think when I saw her was, "I wonder if her nipple piercings are chafing under that dress." Because, I mean, ouch!

I would just like to say that Carey Michelle Mulligan Williams is looking very cute these days. Didn't you love when she sang "New York, New York" on Dawson's Creek? Or when she dated Shia LaBouef in Blue Valentine? What a gamine talent!

This one just makes me think of Jessica Biel, but looks ten times worse because the wearer did not just get engaged to Justin Timberlake, rendering her temporarily insane. What has Amanda Peet even been up to lately? Shopping Florence Welch's closet, apparently.

Zooey! You looked fantastic. Better than adorable, or 'adorkable,' which is a word I refuse to use, so let's pretend I didn't. Her Prada dress was gorgeous -- so different from what almost anyone else was wearing. I love that she had a pop of color on the dress and clutch, and the bottom of the dress totally reminds me of my wedding dress--except don't worry, it wasn't black, I'm not that weird--which is always a good thing. The only thing that really bothered by about this whole look was her hair. She looks like Liza Minelli (or, more accurately, the Andy Warhol image of Liza Minelli.) The fringe-y bangs combined with the oddly-layered hair makes for a funky combination. But overall, much more sophisticated than we might have expected. A victory.

The winner of the night was, hands down, Charlize Theron. She looked absolutely stunning, and I know that the dress has a ton of stuff going on -- drapey bow, brooch, slit up to there -- but it just worked. The peachy hue was a gorgeous shade against her skin, and the headband and hairstyle and shoes all conspired to form a perfect Golden Globes look. Playful, stylish, not overly formal or elegant. She looked statuesque. The only thing I might have added was one of those backwards necklaces that are so hot nowadays. All jewelry should be worn backwards.

This dress was also a great example of a skin-tone dress that was the right shade. Julie Bowen, bless her heart, gave it the old college try on Sunday night, and I LOVED the sleeves on her gown but the rest of it just looked like . . . pretty skin. Is that too Silence of the Lambs?

Blergh! This makes NO sense, excepting the aforementioned temporary insanity plea. I mean, girlfriend. You are GORGEOUS. She looks like my friend Mallory from highschool, I think -- the prettiest girl next door/tomboy you've ever seen, so WHY are you walking around in an oversized doily with a scalloped center slit? Why do you want us, your loyal fans from the days of 7th Heaven, to think that you have a third boob somewhere on your chest? The phrase "Jessica Biel stylist" brings up a cadre of unrevealing results, so I can't tell if she was given professional advice to look like the Bride of Frankenstein or if she came to it honestly. Either way, blergh! ALSO, UPDATE, I just read that she was wearing a backwards necklace. So, you know, there's that.

"Giddyup, ladies! I'm playing Annie Oakley in my next movie, Annie Oakley Sings!, a musical about a funeral singer named Annie Oakley who finally embraces her ancestral roots and impossibly high cheekbones. I -- I mean, Annie -- popularized the current phenomena of Dress Pockets, which you can see here by the way I have casually inserted my right hand into my Dress Pocket. An alternate title for the film was The Guns in My Dress Pocket: The Annie Oakley Story, but Lifetime didn't like it. Annie grew tired of excess material on the top of her dresses, so she replaced the top with whimsical mesh fabric and placed the extra on her hips, for an extra flattering fit! Oooh, my ponytail holder fell out! Must run!"

I almost never post two pictures of a dress, but the back of Claire Danes's dress is what makes it. I was struck not just by how modern this dress is -- stark colors, simple design -- but how delicate it manages to be at the same time. The back, especially, looks held together by almost nothing, and the whole thing looks demure in the best possible way. Old Hollywood, if I dare trot out that old cliche. Her makeup was a bit much for me -- I get that people are loving a bright red lip right now, but it's not my number one favorite all the time. However, this was such a fantastic look overall that I can't complain much.

Honorable Mentions: Reese Witherspoon, who was all vava voom with beachy hair and a mermaid red dress. Lea Michelle in a non-fishtail, non-little girl Marchesa number. Jessica Alba in a gorgeous lilac princess-y dress that was still sleek and elegant.

Dishonorable Mentions: Tami Taylor in what looked like a sequined linen napkin. Dianna Agron in a Valentino homemade Valentine (all that was missing were the dry macaroni noodles). Sarah Michelle Gellar in a tye dye experiment gone terribly awry. Angelina Jolie in what looked like another napkin, weirdly folded at the neck (and again with the red lipstick.)

Madonna Mention: Madonna. I have no idea whether I loved or hated her dress, "The Punisher."

Whence real love?

2012-01-05T15:18:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of chatter online the last few days around the newly-release "Real Marriage" by Mark and Grace Driscoll. Reviews (both from those in the Reformed camp and outside of it) abound; you can find them here, here, here, here, and here. (Okay, so not the last one. But I thought you could use a little levity, and who doesn't love Steve Martin?)

While my own thoughts about Mark's theology are both widely available and probably quite evident, I wonder now more about the marriages that are going to be shaped by reading this book. The couples, old and young, whose behavior and attitudes and life together have been laid at the altar of the Driscoll's teachings.

I haven't read the book, and probably won't, so this isn't meant to be a review of any type. And as much as I know I could go that way, this isn't meant to be a condescending portrait of a lost couple -- no "oh, poor things," or "they just don't know how to discern good theology from bad." I don't want to say that I feel sorry for them, because that assumes that I, on my high horse, have somehow managed a superior skill at living in a relationship. And that certainly isn't the case.

I do wonder, though. What must it be like to be a young woman, newly married, raised to find your own voice, lead your own life, only to be told that the home is the place where you must use your gifts. To learn that, as a young mother, you must first consult with your husband about your new haircut -- because no matter how many minutes you save in the morning by not having to dry, curl, and spray, no amount of time is more valuable than your husband's pleasure in glimpsing your long locks. To have grown in a relationship of partners, only to find out that perhaps your marital struggles are stemming from your 'disobedience' to God in wanting to work outside the home.

No, I don't feel sorry for them. I feel sad. And confused -- confusion akin to that I feel at the growth and attractiveness of a church like Mars Hill, under the teaching of Driscoll and others who teach that God hates you and that you shouldn't worship a Jesus you could beat up.

When will we be free? When will the time come that we don't need to have these conversations? It can't come soon enough, to be sure, but I fear that it will take longer than I hope. We have lived under false teaching long enough.

This year.

2012-01-05T10:03:00.000-08:00

"When you discover in yourself something that is a gift from God, you have to claim it and not let it be taken away from you."

So says that modern hero of the faith, Henri Nouwen. And these words -- words that should excite, inspire, spur on -- these words scare the shit out of me.

Over the Christmas holiday, I had a long, rich conversation with my sister, dad, and aunt. We walked for hours through the terrain of growing up: setting goals, treating yourself thoughtfully and with care, loving others well, letting go of contempt.

I like writing. I am good at writing, and I want to do more of it. It is a gift from God, and I will not let my fear (so much fear!) stop me. Not this year, or the next, or this day. I will claim it and not let it be taken away from me.

That's all.

Right Roads and Wrong Roads

2011-12-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

I discovered one of my favorite poems in the seventh grade.Most of you probably know it—The Road NotTaken, by Robert Frost. I thought of it as I was out hiking in the hillsabove Woodside yesterday.

Two roads diverged ina yellow wood

And sorry I could nottravel both . . .

I kept the first foranother day

And that has made allthe difference

Literary scholars have debated about the ending for scoresof years. Is the author happy with the road that he chose? Or is it a nostalgictelling, a wish for a second chance, a second life? That ambiguity is preciselywhat I love about the poem.

There are two lessons to take away; First, we must makechoices. We can’t avoid them, and we have to choose between several options –mostly without exploring each one fully. Second, there is no right road orwrong road. There is no road in the entirety of the world where God cannot meetus.

We all have threads – words – that mark our roads and makethem uniquely ours. Part of my road, one of my threads, is anxiety.

I started college in the fall of 2003 at Westmont College, atiny and lovely school 2,000 miles from where I had lived the last long chunkof my life. My parents had just moved from that place to Northern California,so my last vestiges of ‘home’ were gone. In the midst of one of the mostanxious times of my life, I took a risk, trusting God in a moment-by-momentway. It was profoundly rewarding, an experience of clinging and abiding infear.

I graduated college in the spring of 2007, and I wasterrified. Terrified of the unknown, of the end of something familiar andcocoonish, and on a road that required very little work of me. I avoided painwith finesse those few months, and wasn’t willing to trust or be still.

God was no less present with me at the end of college thanhe was at the beginning. But that’s not how I felt. I’ve come to learn slowlysomething that Dallas Willard says well – that emotions are terrible mastersbut excellent servants. You don’t get to know at the beginning, most of thetime, whether a road is a ‘right’ or a ‘wrong’ one. It is a mostly falsedistinction anyhow. My road is my road, and when I waste my time wantingsomeone else’s journey, I lose any ability to be faithful to God and to thepresent moment.

At that time, I had (many) long conversations with my goodfriend Michele. She asked me a bunch of questions, as is her wont, and I didn’thave good answers so I tried to fabricate what I thought were the ‘right’ ones.

“What do you want from God now?” she asked me.

“I guess . . . more of him, and less of me?”

“Okay. Why?”

Why? What does she mean, why?It’s in the Bible! It sounds great! I don’t know why.

“Try again,” she would say.

“Maybe I just want to find God,” I finally told her.

“You want to find God? Why can’t you let God find you?”

For someone who couldn’t sit still, couldn’t trust, thesewords were like an arrow to my heart. Immediately, I thought of Robert Frostand that poem. I thought of a million reasons why God couldn’t find me: I wason the wrong road. I was running away from him. I was terrified of encounteringhim, so I hid.

But what Michele said struck me as incredibly characteristicof the one who would go out to find his one lost sheep, the one who would cometo dwell among the people he loved on earth. God is in the business of findingpeople.

Lest that sound passive, it is not. This endeavor requiresno less than our very souls offered daily to God – it is a pursuit to which weare called body, heart, strength, and mind.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

We don’t get to come back, most of the time. Our lives arefairly linear, which means there can be growth, and what a good thing that is!And we can live in nostalgia, or in joy, or in some bittersweet comingling ofthe two. And that, too, is our gift – the coming of the God who finds us.

How could I know?

2011-12-05T21:18:00.001-08:00

there is a scene in the movie 'soylent green' that kills me every time i see it. (maybe not the most appropriate turn of phrase, considering the ingredients of the titular stuff.) Edward G. Robinson plays Sol, a former federal agent who is trying to find the truth behind the propaganda related to the Soylent Corporation, a company whose rations are the most commonly consumed sources of energy in a world so overpopulated that trees and greenery have been bulldozed for row upon row of concrete tract housing. Charlton Heston plays Robert Thorn, the young up-and-comer to Robinson's aging Sol, and a winsome and important friendship develops.

a lot of stuff happens, and it isn't as sci-fi as it sounds, and you really should watch the whole thing. But the scene that gets me -- i think of it often.

toward the very end of the film, Sol is about to die. it is a choice he has made, and for doing so, he is rewarded. he is taken into a round room, surrounded by screens showing images of the world he once know -- a field of tulips being battered around by the wind, a troop of deer posing skittishly, wave upon wave lapping up on cliff, rock, beach. Music is piped in -- Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven -- and Thorn strong-arms his way into a viewing area. He sees a world totally foreign to him projected all around Sol. He sees the goodness of it, the beauty and diversity of it, the colors that have been wholly subsumed by wan, monochromatic gray.

"Isn't it beautiful?" asks Sol.

"How could I know?" replies Thorn. "How could I ever imagine?"

. . .

I can't think of a better scene to bring to mind, a better thing to talk about, when we talk about God. I was out of town when Dallas Willard came to Menlo Park Pres a few weeks ago, and tonight, finally got around to watching the video of his discussion of God and the problem of pain.

Everyone ought to have a Sol in their life. I am blessed (and I don't use that word lightly) enough to have a handful of people who point me to truth and beauty, who surprise me time and again with their wisdom. I do not know Dallas well, personally, but a bit. And more than that, I have read and heard and seen him whenever possible, soaking up the opportunity to hear what his mind is thinking. Not because he is a perfect person, but because when I hear him, I think, "How could I know?"

How could I ever imagine a God who is this good?

"We are living beyond death now as we identify with Jesus," he said.

Or this: "Could God have made a world where pain and suffering don't exist?"
"He could have, I suppose, made a world with only minerals. Or perhaps minerals and vegetables. But a world with persons such as us? No, he couldn't have. This is not a limitation of his power. The idea of a world with persons such as us that is free from suffering is contradictory, and a contradiction is not something you can fail to do."

there are some people who get it. they get God's goodness and power so fundamentally, and live out of that conviction so readily, and they are people I want to learn from. But lest I turn that into another form of Christian celebrity worship, it is all because (and only because) we worship a God who is unfailingly good.

and the people around us help us to see. help us to say, "How could I know? How could I ever imagine?"

2011-11-21T11:00:00.001-08:00

"When we assign roles to any person strictly on account of gender, we miss out on an abundance of gifts that person could bring to the table by first paying attention to their giftedness."

I wrote a guest post for CT's Her.meneutics website today . . .

Stuff Christians Like (to argue about)

2011-11-13T14:30:00.001-08:00

I'm a big fan of self-deprecating humor, and a big fan of Christians not taking themselves too seriously. So when I first heard of the blog Stuff Christians Like, written by a guy named Jon Acuff, I knew I would love it. He writes about the culture that Evangelical Christianity has created in America, and he writes with wit and insight about things like judging a church's quality by its website, or saying one thing and really meaning another. I don't read it all the time, but when I do, I really enjoy it.

So on Friday, when I saw people on Twitter abuzz over a new guest post by Jon Crist, I headed on over to take a look. The post was called "Stuff Christian (Guys) Like: Girls with a Past," and the gist of it is that most good, Christian guys are more attracted to girls with a past or a rebellious streak than they are to the 'good girls' who were homeschooled or wear praying hands jewelry. In fact, the post
awards or subtracts points to girls based on their (relatively tame) 'bad girl' behavior. Late to church? Plus one. Had a crush on kirk cameron? Sorry, minus ten. Wear hoop earrings? Plus two. (everyone knows that girls who wear hoop earrings are sluts.)

It was, unsurprisingly, a fairly polarizing post. There were two common reactions among the female readership: 1, I'm a girl with a past and I think this is really funny and 2, I'm one of the girls without a past and this is pretty hurtful.

Jon Acuff wrote an introduction to the original post and added another series of thoughts when it became clear how much response this was eliciting. And they are thoughtful pieces, but largely stand by the decision to run the piece, while offering apologies to those who may have been hurt. I think it's great that he did that.

Here's the thing: It's true. A lot of it, anyhow. I remember thinking in high school that I was too much of a 'good girl' to really get the attention of the guys I was interested in.

Here's the other thing: The truth of it can hurt, can perpetuate stereotypes,

Women are used to being judged -- to a system of points, pluses and minuses. We do it to each other and to ourselves all the time. The shitty thing about this post, even though it contains seeds of truth, is that it promulgates yet another system of point-awarding, this time from the guys whose opinion of us we already worry about. It's a little bit like being the only girl at a guy's night out, getting an front-row seat to how they think, what they talk about, what they want. And the result of that can make you feel insufficient.

I don't think that this is anyone's fault, in particular. Should Jon Crist have thought more about its implications for women who have been made to feel bad about themselves as a result of this way of thinking? Should Jon Acuff have made a different decision about posting it on his website, even though it fits the mission in many ways? Probably, on both counts. But bigger mistakes have been made, and I don't believe that there was any intention to harm on either Jon's part.

But the awarding/subtracting of points by men to women . . . even in jest, that is an abhorrent and immature practice, but in the Christian community? Crist's point may have been to demonstrate how shallow Christian men can be (or, as Acuff says, 'This post is about the foolishness of men,') but it doesn't stop there. The lighthearted manner in which this post is written suggests to readers male and female alike that this is a fairly harmless way of thinking about women. And it is not.

I'm really grateful to people like Jon Acuff and Jon Crist for what they do, for their desire to approach faith with humor and engage in conversations that the church hasn't been great at doing. That is something to celebrate. But when it comes to women and the point system . . . let's let that be a thing of the past, for everyone's sake.

when God disappoints

2011-10-21T10:04:00.001-07:00

I wrote a guest post for Scot McKnight's blog today, on when God disappoints. You can read it here . . .

Not clear on...

2011-10-20T20:22:00.000-07:00

There is an account on Twitter called Not Clear On. It's mostly a parody of things and people and ideas that are confusing, like rolling backpacks, or subscribing to people on Facebook, or hiking in Iran. It didn't take me too long to start coming up with my own topics of unclarity.

One thing that confuses me -- that I'm not clear on -- is people who start things. People who seem to lack the fear of failure, or have the ability to 'face the fear and do it anyway,' and go on to create wonderful things and inspire others, or create wonderful things and no one hears about them, or create terrible things but have still tried, have risked. I don't know what it's like to have that kind of bravery, but I want it very much, and I recognize that not only is it an important life skill to develop but that it may even be a sin not to develop it -- that God, all through the Bible, calls us to lives of bravery and risk and adventure (certainly in the great commission, among many other places). His plans for our lives are daring and grand, but fear can keep us from even starting to risk on God's behalf -- risk a conversation, an invitation, expressing our creativity . . . the list goes on.

It's not that I don't have ideas, or that there aren't things that excite me. It's that I get paralyzed by fear. Sometimes, driving down the street that I live on, I marvel at how all these houses got built, concrete got laid down, streets created and gardens planted. How does someone move out of fear and anxiety and into creativity and production? There is evidence of it all around me . . . but there is a panic that grips my heart so tightly when I think about starting something, creating something; a voice that tells me that no one cares and I'll certainly fail and then people will really think I'm worthless. What if my tomato plants fail, or the article isn't well-received, or the program doesn't take off? I can hardly be trusted to pick up my dry cleaning within the same calendar year I dropped it off; is it really such a good idea for me to be dreaming audacious dreams?

The thread underlying all of this, though, is that we worship a creative God. A God whose very existence is known to us only because of his creative act. People start things -- crazy, scary, daring things -- because we cannot help but in our own small ways bear the mark of our maker. And perhaps even more important than whether I succeed at something new is how I respond to the call of God on my life, in success and in failure.

I think this is part of why people felt so deeply and personally moved at hearing about Steve Jobs's death. He embodied this kind of person more than almost anyone else in the public eye.

I am afraid to try, to start, to fail. Especially to fail. But I do believe that my life will be richer for having failed knowing the glory of God than successfully sitting on my couch.

Whirlwind

2011-10-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

There are days when it rains, and then the sun comes through -- days when the leaves wave just a little bit outside my window, and the new season is upon us, and on these days I remember what God talked about with Job. Those words that I love . . . "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know!"

I love this for several reasons, but two stand out: First, that God is sarcastic. Which is my spiritual gift.

Second, though, I love that these words remind us of the mystery of it all. I don't do too well with mystery; with not knowing and uncertainty. Fear and anxiety tend to creep in at those times. But this, these words of God, God who 'answered Job out of the whirlwind,' this is the God who holds everything together. This is the God who knows what we do not know, and gives us what we think we may not want. This is the God who loves us, and who is in our corner.

These words don't make sense of everything, or give us certainty in our circumstances or, most of the time, remove our fear entirely. But they remind us of reality, and who couldn't use that reminder from time to time? We create a million little worlds in our head every day, and instead of sending us spinning, God wants us to know that we are his, that we are loved, and that the world is his. We operate in his reality, and how funny and sad and pitiful it must seem to him when we frantically search for a place to stake our flags in his world. It is all his!

the emmys

2011-09-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

I didn't anticipate writing anything about the emmys this year, because I usually try to save my sartorial wit exclusively for awards season (and snarky comments on the street). But the people have asked, (well, one person) and I have answered! So, one person who reads this post, I hope you enjoy -- and now all the rest of you know how little prodding it takes for me to make fun of the carefully culled wardrobe displays of celebrities.

One of my favorite moments of the night was when the best actress in a comedy nominees were announced and they, one-by-one, walked up on the stage in the style of Miss America contestants -- holding hands, wiping away tears, grinning broadly. Seeing these six incredibly talented, funny, and powerful women on stage was such a strangely touching moment for me, and the way that they surrounded Melissa McCarthy once her name was announced, looks of genuine happiness on each face, topped it off so well. Later in the show, McCarthy and Amy Poehler were presenting the award for best actor in some kind of TV show, they did this great bit about how men in Hollywood were finally getting their moment, moving away from being 'pretty pretty things to look at' and getting roles of substance and character. Loved it.

The Emmys are, in some ways, are actually more fun than a number of the other awards shows. They don't take themselves as seriously, which can be refreshing. Or it can fall flat and feel gimmicky (case in point: the show choir composed of, among others, wilmer valderrama and robin from 'how i met your mother.' I mean, why?!) and confusingly self-referential (the lonely island skit with gyrating wave dancers, michael bolton dressed as jack sparrow, and akon. What does that have to do with television?). But, they laugh at themselves, and I can respect that.

Clearly, though, the most important part of the entire evening is the fashion. And this particular show was nothing more or less than 'meh.' Some cute dresses, some weird ones, and one very handsome Coach Eric Taylor accepting an Emmy in a nice tux and adorably rumpled hair. I will stick to two outfits this time around, although many more deserve a mention, like Julianna Margulies's upside-down-lampshade-as-bustier, Lea Michele's trying so hard to be Somebody that I feel embarrassed for her, Katie Holmes's blue sad sack, or the middle daughter from Modern Family displaying major cleavage at the same time that she is wearing braces. But tonight, we look at two women who are polar opposites--physically, personally, sartorially.

First, let us look at Gwyneth Paltrow, she of the Goop and backyard pizza oven: One word comes to mind, as is so often the case with the lithe blonde actress:
UGH.
I loved the movie Sliding Doors. I liked her in Emma. But somewhere along the way, our dear Gwyneth became the paragon for virtuous and responsible living. started dispensing lifestyle advice, became best friends with Beyonce (I'm sorry B, you can do better), and became completely ubiquitous in kind of obnoxious ways. I know some people love her and think she can do no wrong; if that is you, feel very free to skip over this part. Because . . . this OUTFIT! If you can even call it that. I really feel like she is trying to send a message with it: "I have flat abs and pretty blond hair that I casually push aside once every three minutes and I know that crop tops were hot on the runway during fashion week and I want you to know that I know that" and on and on and on. "I only eat macrobiotic things and I make cheese out of nuts and looking at meat makes me want to vomit but, you know, it's okay for you because you are not Gwyneth Paltrow and your body is not a temple to the glories of eight glasses of water a day and a diet of homegrown kale."

Moving on . . .

There were a number of ladies in red last night, but none quite so lovely as the inimitable Ms. Winslet. I got to watch the program with one of my best friends, and she and I couldn't stop gushing over how much we adore Kate W, how fantastic a person she seems, how wonderful it is that she, a big time movie star with an Oscar, is not above getting incredibly. jump-around, hug-everyone-else excited that she has won an Emmy! We also marveled at her ability to wear a dress that certainly put her ample bosom on display but somehow still seemed demure and old-fashioned.

That's all I've got. I need to rest up for February 27, 2012. The world won't have ended by then, right?

death

2011-09-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

It happened last night - one of too many text messages, telling me that my friend's sister had just passed away. I've never met her, know only pieces of her story, but felt deeply the heaviness and pain of deep loss, untimely loss, the kind of end of life that seems unfair and truncating and inexplicable. Dying is the end of all of us - it is what we know and what we hate to know, what we are fixed on a course toward and what we avoid with all of our effort. In short order, all of us who inhabit the earth now will be gone, and there will be new people to take our place, much like what you realize has happened five years after college when faces you don't recognize are living in your room, learning in your classes, driving on your roads. Things, including life, end. And I don't say this to be morbid, but to remember and live in the truth of life, which is that it ends. And living in light of this truth encourages me to live the kind of life that I really want, or want to want - the kind of life that is deeply invested in others and that matters in the eyes of God. My first encounter with death was when I was four years old. My grandfather died of pancreatic cancer, and although I don't remember being particularly sad or aware of what was going on at the time, I do remember feeling resentful at not being allowed to go to the funeral. I also remember my great aunt mistaking a strip of butter for string cheese at the wake; although getting to know her more later in life I wouldn't be shocked to know in hindsight that she was actually pleasantly surprised to be eating butter. She is gone now, too.In a chapel talk at Westmont this week (which I've only heard about from my dad, but am anxious to watch), Dallas Willard talked about the saved life. There are a bunch of questions that Dallas poses in his book Knowing Christ Today, but one of the most important in defining a worldview is 'What is the good life?' The saved life, as we might call it. What does it mean that Jesus has saved us? It is not, Dallas would argue, primarily about being saved from the torments of hell or the wicked ways of this world, as some might suggest. The saved life consists in deliverance. Deliverance to God, to a new life with God, to a life in which we love each moment because each moment is a moment where we might meet God. The world would distract us, which is the subtle temptation that Christians so often give into. A nicer car, a better image, a bigger wardrobe or home or bank account. Feeling 'happy,' arranging your life's circumstances so that you are 'happy' all the time and changing the circumstances when you are 'unhappy.' This is a worldview that we all buy into at some time or another in our lives, and it keeps us from living the kind of life that honors God and the kind of life that keeps death in mind. We are comforted into ignorance of our mortality. A year ago today, my dog died. Our family dog, Winston had been our pet for eleven years, outlasting by far all the other parakeets, rabbits, cats, and various other livestock that entered our home. He was a yorkshire terrier, gray and brown, with the most curmudgeonly personality imaginable. And we loved him. He had big, button eyes and horrible teeth and would perch himself on the corner of our couch and bark at anything that passed outside. My mom got him for us while my dad had driven to Missouri to pick us up from camp; we got home and ran with delight toward this ball of fur outside. "When did we decide to get a dog?" my dad asked my mom, who had brought the pup home unbeknownst to him. "I don't know when, but we must have! Why else would it be here?" And here he was, for eleven years, with us. And now he is gone. There is a new dog, a yellow lab, and my mom is very excited to have him. But for me, there will always be Winston. Life is not meant to be lived in ignorance of death. My time with my husband, my sister, my good friends is more rich and is better spent for knowing that we will not have this forever. That we will die, and that our life in light of that matters deeply to God - this is no small thing. And it does not make parting with loved ones easier, or less complicated. It is not an ignorance or denial of sadness and grief and anger. There is room for all of it.When I was a sophomore in college, I got a phone call late one evening from friends back in Chicago. One of our good friends had gone missing and, over the next few days, we found out that she had taken her life. None of us knew what to do with this; we still don't. It has shaken our faith, strengthened our faith, terrified us, made us angry and confused and closer. I flew back for her funeral, and on the program were a few words about her life and what I know now are lyrics to a song that perfectly captured the very bitter moment for us, and the sweetness for those who are with God:Imagine stepping on shore and finding it heavenTouching a hand and finding it God'sBreathing new air, and finding it celestialWaking up in Glory, and finding it Home

in your corner

2011-08-17T08:57:00.001-07:00

"all the circumstances of life, how anything turns out, whatever work you do or don't do, whatever jobs you do or don't get or take, matter not at all compared to the person you become. no one can block that.
and I admire how you work and strive and persevere.

I am on your side and in your corner."

these words from my an email from dad have been sitting deep in my soul the last couple of days. i hope that they are helpful to some of you, too. because this is the truth: who we are matters far more than any circumstance of our lives. but we all need someone in our corner, someone to speak those words to us, when we cannot speak them to ourselves. let this sink into you today.

File under: Oh, my.

2011-08-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

These are two of my favorite days of the year, the Thursday and Friday of the Leadership Summit. And as much as I will always love Willow as the church where I grew up, this time is about so much more than Willow. It is about churches and Christians and leaders coming together to get a fire under their collective ass. It is about reminding all of us who love the church just what we can do when we recognize the reality that we are part of -- the reality of the power of God in the world, the joy that unleashes in us, and how that intersects with our unique gifts and callings and talents.

So this year, the day before the Summit launched, I found out that Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, had decided not to show up to speak at the Summit. A group of people signed a petition calling for Schultz to break his contract with the Summit, or else the signers would boycott Starbucks. After what sounds like some thought and conversation on Schultz's part, he decided not to come to the Summit. (Some other blogs and websites have said that Schultz 'caved' or 'capitulated' to the pressure. And maybe he did -- but he made a business decision, and thinly-veiled insults aren't going to get this conversation anywhere.) Willow, in the meantime, has gotten Patrick Lencioni (a fantastic author and leadership consultant) to come in his place.

Bummer that Schultz can't make it, but this sounds like a good solution for everyone, right?

Apparently not.

Things have quickly gotten ugly on both sides. On one hand, there are Christians suggesting that Willow Creek should never have gotten mixed up in learning about church practices from the business world, and that this is some kind of just dessert (Never mind that this has never happened before and is unlikely to happen again). Christianity Today wrote a thoughtful, pretty neutral piece (read it here) and it took hardly any time at all for Christians to do what we are so good at doing -- spouting mean-spirited sentiments about the gay community in the comments section, and suggesting that Christians ought to boycott Starbucks now.

People who signed the petition on change.org, however, have made their share of cruel comments as well, and seemingly without doing their research. Willow Creek is not an anti-gay church. I can understand how gay people might feel not fully accepted there, both given the record of Christianity in relationships with the LGBT community and the fact that most people at Willow would probably believe some form of the idea that the Biblical sexual ethic looks specific to a man and a woman in the confines of marriage. But, it is a place full of good people who want to listen and understand, and the unmitigated hatred and condescension from the commenters on change.org only serve to push people farther away from true understanding. I don't think that's what much of the gay community wants.

But it's rarely the moderate, thoughtful commenters who get attention online. Or elsewhere. Which is why I really appreciate what Bill Hybels said today (watch it here) at the Summit. And why I really hope that we, as Christians gathered together in the name of a good and loving God, can take responsibility for our actions, our complicity in judging and mistreating and distancing.

Because the point is this: We don't get infinite chances to love each other. We get this chance, and this life, and for those of us who claim to represent God, this means everything. It means everything to the God who has given us this life, and it ought to mean everything to us. Let's make it count.

A spirit of love, power, self-discipline

2011-07-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

I woke up in the middle of the night to go pee. It's not a terribly uncommon occurrence, but for me, it can often bring up the kind of anxious thoughts and feelings that seem to strike particularly deep long after the sun has gone down.

It wasn't even like I had prayed or asked God for comfort -- the thought was simply there, the second I was roused from sleep in the middle of the night. "I have not given you a spirit of fear."

It wasn't even a complete verse. I know I should remember the rest of it, and vaguely knew that it was in one of the Timothys, but it took me getting into the office to pick up my Bible and read through the rest of it. For that hour last night, laying in bed, mind racing, that was what I had to hold onto: "I have not given you a spirit of fear."

Mired as I had been in anxiety, I kept wondering: Then what is the spirit you have given me? You say it isn't one of fear, but perhaps I just got a raw deal. Maybe I'm not quite good enough to have actually inherited this spirit. It's probably one of those things that really wonderful, mostly sinless people experience, but that will sort of haunt me for now because on my worst days I feel that I am composed of fear, and not much more.

It's funny what seems like it makes sense to us at two in the morning -- what feels real, what our minds believe, what we tell ourselves. And if it was just at two in the morning, it wouldn't matter a whole lot. But this hour was just a sort of continuation of the kind of thinking that I can build up over days and months and years. I deserve a spirit of fear, I'll tell myself, because I don't trust in God enough or pray enough or read the Bible enough.

But I kept coming back to those words at two o'clock this morning, and at two-thirty, and three, and on and on until I finally fell back asleep. And the more that I heard them, the more that I knew, and know, that they are true. I think that God gave me those words as I stumbled bleary-eyed to the bathroom so that I could know, deep down to the marrow of my being, that my spirit was not a spirit of fear at that moment, and would not be a spirit of fear when I woke, or when I went to work, or at any other moment as long as I should live with him.

Our spirits are not meant to be fearful, but so often we live out of fear. So often, we make decisions that are motivated by fear - fear of failure, of the future, of being uncomfortable, of not being perceived well - and not out of the fact that we are loved by the creator of the universe, a fact which should give us all the confidence we need when it comes to failure, the future, comfort, perception.

Today, I am going to give these words as much credence as any words I have ever believed:

"For this reason, I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that

is within you through the laying on of my hands;

for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice,

but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline."

2 Timothy 1:6-7

Yesterday

2011-07-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of my worst days with anxiety in a long time. Anxiety is a funny thing that way; it can seem completely banished for a long time and then rears up at unexpected moments. There were no big changes occurring, nothing strange happening, nothing, in short, that would seem to predicate an onset of dizzying anxiousness. But there it was, a familiar specter, squeezing my heart like a vise and setting my mind racing about everything and nothing at once.

When I'm feeling that anxious, it's as if everything that doesn't really matter, in the long run, is of the utmost importance all of a sudden, and the things that really do matter to me almost disappear. I grasp at straws for hours on end, convincing myself that control over my circumstances is what I'm really looking for.

I'm trying to give myself a break today, to rest in what is important and how I am known. It is harder work for me than almost anything else I do. But I know that God is in it. And my job is to be found by Him.

Find the Source of Your Loneliness

2011-07-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

with thanks to Henri Nouwen . . .

"Whenever you feel lonely, you must try to find the source of this feeling. You are inclined either to run away from your loneliness or to dwell in it. When you run away from it, your loneliness does not really diminish; you simply force it out of your mind temporarily. When you start dwelling in it, your feelings only become stronger, and you slip into depression.

The spiritual task is not to escape your lonelieness, not to let yourself drown in it, but to find its source This is not so easy to do, but when you can somehow identify the place from which these feelings emerge, they will lose some of their power over you.

This identification is not an intellectual task;

it is a task of the heart.

With your heart you must search for that place without fear.

This is an important seach because it leads you to discern something good about yourself. The pain of your loneliness may be rooted in your deepest vocation.

You might find that your loneliness is

linked to your call to live completely for God.

Thus your loneliness may be revealed to you as the other side of your unique gift. Once you can experience in your innermost being the truth of this, you may find your loneliness not only tolerable but even fruitful. What seemed primarily painful may then become a feeling that, thought painful, opens for you the way to an even deeper knowledge of God's love."

(From The Inner Voice of Love, emphasis added)

there's this thing...

2011-07-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

there's this thing that no one tells you. after you graduate college, all you think about is how you're going to change the world. you can't believe that it hasn't already been done, really, because it's pretty simple.

then, one day, you wake up and you're twenty-six and you wonder where the years have gone. (yes, i realize how totally ridiculous that sounds), and you learn that the secret goes something like this:

it's not what you thought it would be.

and

it is everything that you thought it would be.

two of my greatest temptations since graduating college have been the drawing towards cynicism, on the one hand, and naive idealism on the other. most of us can probably understand that slide into cynicism, especially if the message we got (heard, created, received, whatever) in our undergraduate years was that the world was looking for people just like us. The world needed us -- our particular gifts, our affinity to parade around shoeless in solidarity with, um, the shoeless folks of the world, our strong messages and even more strongly-held convictions that had been thought out but never put to the test outside our college environment.

Now, we find ourselves in data entry jobs, or struggling conscientiously to create very small companies of our own, or working with people who could care less about our unique gifts and personal development and care mostly about a bottom line. To borrow from F. Buechner, the world doesn't seem to care about meeting its great hunger with our great gladness. It just wants to be fed.

(To be clear, I don't feel this way about my current job -- I don't want to give that impression. But I have been here, and return here from time to time.)

On the other hand, there is this truth that I believe in viscerally, that I would stake my life on, that undergirds most everything I do and believe and it is this: We are God's plan to change the world. We -- you and me and every other person who has ever lived -- are part of the work that God is doing in the world and, in fact, we ARE the work. And that is no small thing, because even when we are entering numbers into an Excel spreadsheet for eight hours a day, we are part of making this world better, making each other better, making ourselves better, participating in transformation -- and in that way, changing the world.

Dallas Willard, who is otherwise pretty much a slouch in the intellectual category, (I kid!) has said numerous times that 'eternity is already in session.' And isn't that good news?! We don't have to wait for death or heaven to become who God wants us to be -- that is available to us here, and now. When we allow our thinking to be transformed in this way, even eight hours of Excel data entry can become meaningful work (The caveat here is that it's still a good thing to want to work in your giftedness. Which, for me, would emphatically not be Excel). But no matter who you are our your giftedness, if you've found yourself at twenty-four (or fourty-four, or seventy-three) in a job where you don't feel your deep gladness meeting the world's deep hunger, there is still this remarkable opportunity to become who God wants you to be.

And we work hard to become that person, and we work hard to change the world. I'm not going to get into a James Davison Hunter/Andy Crouch conversation here (although I would highly recommend both "To Change the World" and "Culture Makers"), but I will say that at my core, I believe that God created people with specific gifts to be used in specific ways for no smaller purpose than reconciling the world to its Creator. And that is what we get to participate in -- Excel spreadsheet or not. We lose sight of that when we lapse into cynicism, and we take too much into our own hands when we don't acknowledge the help that we need and the power of community. God will use us - unleash us, if you will - to achieve his purposes. But it won't always look the way we assure ourselves it will look. So we are patient, and we walk in faithfulness the path that is before us...

moxy

2011-07-06T18:07:00.001-07:00

I guest-blogged! And it's a good deal more thoughtful than the usual ramblings. You can read it over at Michele's...

Ryan Adams, running, and life

2011-06-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

when I was finishing my sophomore year of college -- I had been an RA for freshmen girls that year, and was headed to a semester in Europe in the fall -- one of my good friends gave me this mix CD. she actually gave it to a bunch of us girls who were part of a class-mandated small group that turned into way more than a class-mandated small group, and even though I don't see this person much anymore, I still think of her as a close friend (am I weirding you out yet?) because of the intimacy with which we traveled the journey of a deeply and intensely formative year.

the small group has, obviously, since disbanded, and in ways that I could never have expected, they mostly all remain in my life in some fashion. one of them lives not too far away, and keeps teaching me thing after thing after thing. another one is part of a new small group, four hundred miles away from where the first one took place. there was one who i thought would be a best friend for the rest of my life and, as life would have it, is not.

but you know how some people influence you - the right people at the right time, or not right, but right for you, or however you think of it - more than you actually know in the moment? that was this small group. and that was lisa, the maker of the mix CD. it was named after our omelet orders in the DC at Westmont -- class would get out at an hour reasonable enough to still be having breakfast, especially for college, so we would sit at the same table and take bites off each other's plates. sin cebolla, no bacon.

this was my first introduction to Ryan Adams, and I played that CD on loop so many times those last weeks of sophomore year that I cannot hear "La Cienaga just smiled" without an instant mental image of my tiny RA room crammed to the gills with boxes, hot breeze blowing through the window, lots of future ahead of me but only existing, for that moment, in R-207. Time stopped when I listened, and that was where I was.

And quickly, life moved on. But it moved on just a bit differently, because I knew that I was known. And I was in the throes of deeply anxious feelings, but being known gave me something to rest into.

I went for a run this morning. Zack took my iPod to Tahoe last weekend and, ahem, forgot to charge it so I was faced with the prospect of running without music -- and I am just not there. So I picked up my iPhone, shuffled around to see what could get me through several miles in the mounting morning heat, and headed off with Ryan Adams in my ears. And for so many reasons that I couldn't even begin to mention, when La Cienaga comes on, I am transported instantly to a table in the DC, to my packed-up RA room and saying goodbye, to an uncertain future and to dreams I have and dreams to let go of and a world of goodness to live in-between those two. It was a gift of the moment and a gift of the past; the two gifts that give us all what we need to move into the future with a sense of who we are.

And I hold you close in the back of my mind
Feels so good but damn it makes me hurt
And I'm too scared to know how I feel about you now
How I feel about you now
La Cienega just smiles and says, "I'll see you around"

birthdays and expectations

2011-06-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

5 year old Laura

When I turned five, we had a birthday party at a park in Simi Valley. My best friend, Brittney (who I would later live with after college) came with the best present: Her mom had made this beautiful Barbie outfit - a silky, black dress with big white polka dots that made me think about the glamourous fashion that was surely not too far away from my own wardrobe, now that I was five.

My mom made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (still my dessert of choice), and drew the Little Mermaid on the cake in frosting. This has since become something of a family legend because, although my mom is not blind, you couldn't tell that by looking at poor, lopsided Ariel.

There were a bunch of kids - boys and girls still played pretty freely together, without the weird chasing and pushing and liking that would develop a few years down the road. It was a warm day, and the park was familiar and I wore a dress.

That was what you did on your birthday. You played with your friends in a place you loved. People brought you really fun presents, and you ate too much sugar but it was okay because your mom would carry you home at the end of the day. You spent too much time outside and got a little sunburned, and you said "Thank You!" really loud every time you opened a gift because, hey, you had good manners even then.

Today, I turn twenty-six. I will spend the day at work - doing work that I enjoy, sending emails, making phone calls, preparing for a big event tomorrow. I will get some presents and lots of Facebook wishes and phone calls from those friends who know how much that means to me. I will have a nice dinner with my husband where we order wine and pay for the bill ourselves. And it will be a lovely day.

But I noticed myself feeling sad this morning. Sad that at twenty-six, I don't think I'm where I thought I would be with my life. And sad, even more so, at the expectations that I need to let go of, to some degree. Because now, those five year-old kids have jobs, and live all over the country, and we don't really go to parks and play too much anymore. (This isn't to say that we can't, or that we never do -- the magic of that is still hugely important. But it isn't the same, now.)

So, I grow reflective and dream dreams for this coming year. I want to write more, and to take my writing seriously. I want to grow friendships that mean the world to me. And in the sweet and nostalgic sadness of remembering that early birthday, I want to live out of gratitude for the years I've had and the years to come.

Happy birthday to me.

cinema verite

2011-05-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

after a really long saturday that involved driving to all corners of the Bay Area, zack and I were both in the mood to relax and do something a bit mindless. we found the nearest movie theater in san francisco (bonus! you can buy a beer and bring it into the theater, which lets you pretend like you're in Europe) and went in to buy tickets. Forgetting that this was san francisco, the city where selling PBR at any event means a guaranteed sell-out to flannel-wearing hipsters, we realized that we had no shot at getting in and walked down to the decidedly less-cool AMC. Two tickets to Bridesmaids, a chocolate chip ice cream thing, and a medium popcorn later, and we're good to go. (Okay, and some peanut M&Ms. Go ahead and judge us.)

We laughed, a ton, and were glad for something funny after that hectic day. It is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen, and I've seen Left Behind. (Actually, I haven't seen Left Behind. I just thought that was a funny joke.) I'm such a fan of any time we can remember that women are totally funny - and not as sidekicks to men, and not as someone's wife or girlfriend, but as lead actors in a big studio movie. Women are funny, and we don't get to see that enough. (The airplane scene in the movie is worth the price of admission alone.)

But the thing that really, surprisingly, got to me about Bridesmaids was its touching and totally accurate portrayal of female friendships. (This may apply to guys as well - not being one, I wouldn't know.)

Without giving too much away, it's safe to share that a big part of what drives the movie is the friendship between Kristen Wigg and Maya Rudolph (I cannot remember movie character names, so don't even ask. It's my fatal flaw.) Maya's gotten engaged, and has this new WASPy friend, and Kristen's business has closed down and she has to move home with her mom and their friendship is totally changing. They're not the same people anymore, not in the same stages of life. And what the movie captures beautifully is how, when friends grow at different rates, one or both of them can end up feeling lonely and confused, and the friendship that was once so life-giving is now in a shambles.

Remember that movie Waterboy, with Adam Sandler? I wouldn't, either, except that while the rest of us were busy wondering when Adam Sandler would go away, my dad sat crying a few seats down from me. There were some family dynamics in that movie that resonated with him deeply, and this strange film had managed to communicate something of his own experience to him, with new words and enough distance that he had permission to access his own feelings around the dynamics.

Well, Bridesmaids was my Waterboy. Not mine alone, apparently--there were several other women in the theater who were quietly crying during the same scene, a bridal shower gone totally bananas where the growing distance between Kristen and Maya came to a head in one of those laugh-through-your-tears moments.

And this is what it meant to me: Sometimes, friendships don't go the way that you think they will. Sometimes, the closeness that meant security shatters when you reveal too much of yourself, and the safety that you enjoyed in vulnerability is lost. You learn to put guards up again, and to hold things a bit closer. Sometimes, the women you thought were your champions have actually been saying things about you that breaks your trust and breaks your heart a little bit, too. Sometimes you get your hopes up, enough to lift you out of loneliness, only to find out you things don't really look like you thought they did. You can grow apart from someone, you can disappoint them, you can hurt them, you do all of these things and it makes a life and without forgiveness and grace and open hands, you just get lonelier and more stuck.

The movie brought up sadness and anger in me about a particular friendship I lost a bunch of years ago. I know it's absolutely a good thing for me that this friendship ended, but the scars run deeper than I thought they did. The loneliness is still there - even though I have more lovely and wonderful friends than I could rightfully expect, to fill that loneliness - and the void from that friendship is a place that I will painfully invite God into, time and time again. Relationships are hard, people aren't perfect, and every time we enter into a relationship we open ourselves up to the possibility of hurt--the closer the friendship, the greater the potential for pain.

But knowing you aren't alone in the pain -- seeing the movie, watching other women in the theater use their shirt sleeves to dab at the corner of their eyes -- that is the gift.

Did you see the movie? What did you think? I'm curious to hear from some of you about this whole issue....

the gift

2011-05-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, for some period of your life, you get a gift. A gift so good that you can't explain what it means to you, or why you received it, and so comfortable in that era that you may not recognize the richness of the gift until it is farther away from you and impossible to recreate.

I wasn't too cool in high school. I liked it well enough, but I didn't walk down the halls every morning with tons of friends, and sometimes I felt lonely. And through luck and grace and that magic confluence of time, place, and personality, I found myself belonging to part of a group of friends whose presence in those high school years have left an indelible mark on my heart and my character. I can hardly think of these people and these memories without a welling up of emotions, thinking of how I was so in the middle of that gift as a 17 year-old high school junior, and I didn't even know it. these people are still some of my very best friends, and we are entering into a totally new phase together now, with the first baby of the group on the way.

but those times - the nights outside around a bonfire, sitting in someone's basement - kaitlin's to draw on the walls, cook's to play silent football or the sign game, randi's after a dance or taking communion together in our earnest attempts to learn to live into the church - the school dances that we all attended together, switching dances and making long-living memories, the first sadness of some going off to college, and the making our way through the ending of high school and into a new life. the visits to california and back to chicago, trips to michigan and camp and long summer nights drinking beer outside and welcoming new members as the weddings started happening. those times have defined me and now, ten years later, those times bring tears to my eyes.

some of us are still very much part of the faith in which we all grew up, and some of us have questions and thoughts that are drawing them down different roads. some of us are married, some of us are not, one of us will be, very soon. but here's the thing: there was safety in this group. there were lovely friendships in which deeply vulnerable conversations took place. there were young men and women who learned that good, healthy friendships between men and women are not only possible, but are life-giving in really unique ways. There was, perhaps more than with any other people in our lives, a sense that we were all truly known and truly loved, even as we revealed flaw after flaw. We had each other, and for a time, that was all that mattered.

now, we don't have what we once did. we have weddings, and several years back, we had a funeral. we have facebook and pictures and email, which are nice but are poor substitutes for what we know we share. but we still share the goodness of it all, that thing that unites the memories we have and makes them real and relevant, that gives them flesh and the ability to, even now, transform us and remind us of who we really are.

No Scrubs

2011-04-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

Some people do really great, educational things on road trips. Things like stopping at museums, listening to the Classics on tape, having life-giving conversations with their fellow travelers.

Mallory (sister) and I drove to Santa Barbara on Saturday, and home on Sunday. We did no such useful things, instead filling our time with the Alphabet Game (it's super complicated, don't ask), spending an hour to find a particular Baskin Robbins (it's closed), and memorizing the rap that Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez (RIP) performs during "No Scrubs."

Oh, you want proof that we memorized it? My word isn't good enough for you? Clearly you have trust issues, but lucky for you, I'm happy to oblige. I will dictate it, word-for-word, to my transcription robot. (Okay guys, not really, I'm just typing).

Ahem.

See, if you can't spatially expand my horizons
Then that leaves you in a class with scrubs, never rising.
I don't find it surprising if you don't have the G's to please me and bounce from here to the coast of overseas.
SO
Let me give you something to think about
Inundate your mind with inventions to turn you out
Can't forget to focus on the picture in front of me
View as clear as DVD on digital TV screen
Satisfy my appetite for something spectacular
Check your vernacular
Then I'll get back to you (really, more like 'ya')
With diamond-like precision
Insatiable is what I envision
Can't detect that position from your friend's expedition (I don't know if 'expedition' here is a reference to the Ford Expedition SUV, or a long and arduous journey undertaken with a specific purpose in mind. Clearly, Left Eye was a women who saw every facet of this concept.)
Mister! If really, if you really wanna know.
Ask Chilli: Could I be a silly ho?
Not really - T-Boz and all my senoritas are stepping on your feelers.
But you don't hear me though.

You're welcome.

nostalgia

2011-03-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

Zack's 27th birthday is tomorrow. Twenty-seven . . . places you on the early end of your late twenties which, honestly, still sounds older to me than I have any business being. Luckily, I've got a year and a half to go before that existential crisis.

Tonight we went out for a family dinner to celebrate Zack (We couldn't go tomorrow because my MOM is going to HANA with my BROTHER, but that's another story and clearly I'm above being bitter). While we were out, I kept looking at this man across the table from me (to clarify: it was Zack), thinking about what it must have been like for his parents to hold him when he was born, for him to start elementary school and play football in junior high and start college in Santa Barbara and get married. The parents who knew him from the day he was born until now, who have loved him so dearly, who have become such wonderful in-laws . . . what is it like to see your child grow up?

I don't know what it's like, but I do know that times like this make me feel exceptionally nostalgic. When we woke up this morning, I told Zack that it was his last day of being twenty-six. He shrugged it off pretty quickly--it's just another day.

My mom always used to say that to me on the day before my birthday, reminding me that another year had passed and I was moving on to a new and unknown stage of life. Neurotic kid that I was, it used to kind of freak me out. What had I done with my life at 9? At 12? Couldn't I have done more? Look at Haley Joel Osment, I would think, he's a star!

I would get so mad at my mom for saying this -- not because of my neuroses, though they existed, but because I am such an intensely nostalgic person that the thought of any time of life slipping away is enough to make me tear up and wish for the days when everything was simpler. (When that was, I don't know.) Even at 11 and 12 years old, I would regret that I had to gain another year, would wish that I could stay the age that I was forever. As I moved on to college and four years of uncertainties, that sense deepened all the more.

Now I see the lovely parts of moving on, of getting older, of going through life experiences that enrich and bolster us and give us a wealth of knowledge to draw on. This is good. But there will always be something about the past, about the way things were, that calls to me in its way. The falling asleep in the backseat of the car, flushed and mouth open, getting carried into the house on a warm southern California night. The fireflies signaling the arrival of the evening in Hoffman Estates, the drive to Kaitlin's house on White Willow Bay, the things that I will never do again, at least never in the same way, the things that used to be as familiar as my face in the mirror or the back of my hand, things I can still retrace behind my eyelids but the outline is all that remains. I want those things back, now. I want the feelings that they made me feel, but have to take what I have -- the memory that still lingers, the sounds and smells and sights that trigger what the past-tenses remind me. What was, what I knew, what I had, who we were.

So, happy birthday Zack. Thank you for living in this moment and teaching me about the sweet beauty that I can only find now. And while I celebrate that with you, I celebrate who you have been, what you have learned, what you have known, and how you are becoming even more the best man I know.

(P.S. - In case you were wondering, it looks like Haley Joel was arrested for a DUI and drug possession, starred in a Broadway play with Cedric the Entertainer, and graduated from Tisch. Don't say you weren't curious.)

2011-03-12T17:19:00.000-08:00

I never grew up wondering what the position of women in the church should be. Never was part of a church that relegated women to the nursery or planning potlucks or singing; in fact, the thought of a place like that, were it not for the conservative and complementarian churches that I read about or have friends who attend, would be foreign to me. It is astonishingly sad to think of our churches without the contributions of women in leadership -- a Willow Creek without the remarkable programming of Nancy Beach, Menlo Park Pres without the leadership development skills of Nancy Ortberg. These places would be so much poorer without these women, would be a shadow of what they could be.

Yet there are so many people and churches in existence who would have them stay at home with their children while their husbands were tasked with finding jobs and providing for their families. Without even entering into the conversation about the kind of pressure this puts on men, what a tragedy this is for the women whose spiritual gifts, should they fall too closely to leadership or teaching, must be ignored and caused to wither. What a loss for the Kingdom of God!

One of the greatest gifts that my father ever gave me, in retrospect, is his commitment to women in leadership. When I was eighteen, we moved from Chicago to Northern California. There was a church in southern California that had offered him a position as well - a good church, with good people, who were immobile about their commitment to maintaining a male-only teaching staff and elder board. So we didn't go. And I think it would have been easy for him, or for lots of males in his position, to ignore it. To not think about what this meant for his daughters, or his wife, or any other woman. But his commitment to women in leadership, in part, told me that I could use my gifts of leadership. His decision was an enormous, if unwitting, gift to me - because it contained a commitment to the truth of Galatians 3:28, and because it contained a commitment to me. I am so grateful to my father for that decision, to my mother for exercising her enriching gift of leadership, to a God who sustains them both.

All I want.

2011-03-09T18:35:00.000-08:00

There are only two foods I really want when I'm sick (apart from peanut butter toast, which I want every day of the year regardless of how I'm feeling):

1. Stouffer's macaroni and cheese

2. Tombstone extra cheese pizza

And the Oscar goes to . . .

2011-03-01T13:29:00.000-08:00

Where to start? It felt like a somewhat mediocre ceremony this year -- a crazy acceptance speech here, a stoned-looking host there, but nothing too wild to speak of. Even Helena Bonham Carter looked like a Normal Person. (Note: Further research has revealed that she was wearing a flag with the Union Jack strapped to her thigh. Thank the Good Lord!) Where were the mismatched shoes? The bodysuits or the headdresses or the on-stage ensemble numbers? The whole thing, from start to finish, was vaguely 'meh.'

(If nothing else, the evening DID yield one of my all-time favorite Oscar looks. More on that later . . . )

The first one on the red carpet was Jennifer Lawrence who, really, has come out of nowhere this year to be such a red carpet treat (and no, "treat" isn't some kind of euphemism.). It seemed kind of boring at first, like a classier, dress-length version of the Baywatch swimsuits. And when Ryan Seacrest asked her who had designed it, she couldn't remember Francisco Costa's last name, so I was yelling it at the TV which made me look like a damn fool.

But it grew on me! Really. She pulled off the 'I-just-came-from-the-beach' look better than most, and I think the way she carries herself helps a lot. I didn't want to pull her dress up or mess with her hair--it's just a lovely, simple, California Girl look, and what event is more California than the Oscars?

If you start to type "Helen Mirren" into Google, the first autofill option that comes up is "Helen Mirren is so hot." Remember the bikini shot heard 'round the world? She's worn some weird stuff in her day, but she's lived through World War II, so you've gotta give her that. I think she looked lovely on Sunday night--almost demure, but glamorous at the same time. Her hair, her jewelry, the dress, all in such good taste. It's not even a case of "She looks good for her age." She just looks good, period.

UGHHHHHHHHH.

The only thing I like about this whole outfit are her shoes. As a fellow redhead, I have a lot invested in Nicole's success. She gives us someone to aspire to, someone besides Kathy Griffin or Jessica Rabbit. And some of her fashion choices are, in my mind, inspired (see previous post).

But this one! As my friend Jess pointed out, it looks like it could have easily come straight from your local Jessica McClintock. It's way too stark white for her most people, let alone someone with her fair skin tone. Her ponytail is kind of cute, but her bangs are woefully insufficient and her choker just reminds me of an American Girl doll. And the weird hip juts that cascade into a big ribbon . . . just not doing it for me.

Okay. This one. I LOVE this color on her. Love the cut of the dress, the train, the jewelry. Even the butt pleats, which I am normally anti-, somehow worked on this one.

BUT.

Can we talk about the boobs? (I've just spent five minutes typing boob jokes here, and Zack reminded me that you guys probably don't want to read them. GOSH.) They just look . . . flat. Pancaked. Distributed. And I can't imagine that's what she was going for, but it was such a noticeable side effect of the gown that I also can't imagine she wasn't aware of it.

The dress was so close to a total victory, but I think the smooshed cleavage sort of ruined it for me.

This is probably going to stir up some controversy (for you five readers), but:

LOVE

THIS
DRESS.

Yes, the pleats look like a coffee filter. Yes, there is a picture-frame sized cutout in the middle of her chest. Yes, it is a little bit weird. But it is so RIGHT on her. It has something totally iconic about it, in my mind - I don't know if it's the kooky sleeves or the color combination, but this is one for the books. She looks elegant and lovely, but also fashion-forward, which isn't easy to do, and the structure at the top of the dress balances beautifully with the ladylike bottom. If Givenchy made it in white, I'd probably make Zack get married again.

Camilla Alves (Mrs. Matthew McConaughey, but not really Mrs.).

IT HAS POCKETS. Pockets! In that gown! It feels like the love child of January Jones' Golden Globes dress and the full skirts that Katharine Hepburn was known for: super feminine, probably fairly comfortable, super functional, and Old-Hollywood-glamourous. She looks stunning, not to mention that her boobs are holding up pretty well on their own here. Her clean hair and simple jewelry only add to it, really. And did I mention the pockets?!

MILA.

I am a little bit obsessed with her. I haven't seen Black Swan, so that shouldn't sound too dirty. Really, though, her career is so fascinating. She's on "That 70s Show" for what seems like nineteen years. She voices a cartoon character on "Family Guy." She dates Macaulay Caulkin who, you know, hasn't won any awards for being normal lately. And she looks like this! If I were to guess what she would look like based on all of the above, I would have gone in a different direction.

The dress is lovely. I think Monique Lhullier designed it, which makes sense because my only beef with it is that it looks a little Bridal. But other than that, I think she looks beautiful and feminine and the draping is super pretty and even the boob things are kind of growing on me.

. . . and then, there was THIS. It's like the top of her dress vomited out the tulle-encrusted bottom, and then vacuumed her in super tight to make sure that none of it could ever reach the top again. I mean, HONESTLY -- who told her this was a good idea? In a year of mostly non-superlatives, this is certainly one of the most spectacularly awful dresses I've seen.

To be perfectly honest, I don't really know much about Florence Welch besides that super catchy song and that she has a great colorist. But now I can add to that list: She only owns ONE dress. She has a very talented tailor that she keeps in her closet at home, and in between award shows she throws the dress in to her and yells "SEW!" And the tailor, swimming in a sea of discarded lace and ivory fabric, sews until her little hands bleed while Florence looks on with her one facial expression and yells "BIRDS! TIERS! THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER!"

Honorable mentions to: Reese Witherspoon's ponytail, Natalie Portman, HALLE.

Meh mentions: Hilary Swank.

Dishonorable: Melissa Leo's macrame gown (and her acceptance speech, which was CRAZY!), Marissa Tomei's weird fishtail of a dress, Gwyneth's performance, James Franco's hosting.

Here's hoping that next year gives us some more interesting material to work with, or that something crazy happens, or someone goes up in flames or punches Tom Hanks or makes out with Justin Bieber backstage. Fingers crossed!

The Oscars are less than two weeks away . . .

2011-02-16T16:52:00.000-08:00

And I am so excited I could pee my pants. Seriously. But enough about what happened last week at the grocery store; I am just PRAYING that Gwyneth repeats something like her 2002 nightmare (seriously, I Googled "Gwyneth Awful Oscar Dress" and this was the first hit), or someone wears a dead wolf or another ballet ensemble, a la Lara Flynn Boyle or Hilary Swank in 2003. Give me something to work with!

I'll leave you with one of my favorite Oscar gowns of all time. Contemplate, enjoy, remember simpler times:

Feminst?

2011-02-04T14:03:00.000-08:00

I read an interesting article yesterday - "7 Reasons There Are No Women Speaking at Your Conference." The author, Rachel Held Evans, talks in it about getting yet another announcement about a keynote lineup at a Christian conference. It was being headlined by six white men. No one is surprised by this, but she offers an articulate series of thoughts about why this is the case - women have their own separate Christian subculture, hold fewer pastoral positions and seminary degrees, and they're expected to be submissive.

It's a really interesting and thoughtful post, but I was a little bit (really, just a little) bothered by the opening paragraph. Specifically, the sentence in which Held says:

"not because I’m a raging feminist . . . "

In the Christian world, 'feminist' is (still) usually thought of as a four-letter word. It cuts quickly and deeply to the heart of our deep-seated and funky gender dynamic. A 'feminist' is someone who thinks that women and men are equal. It's pretty simple. And everyone, but especially Christians, should be proud to identify themselves as such.

Instead, it's become a label that Christians are quick to dissociate themselves from. I've heard so many variations of "I'm not a feminist, but I do believe that men and women are created equal."

Guess what? You're a feminist! Congratulations! You can keep right on wearing pink and getting pedicures and shopping, or wearing black and kickboxing, or wearing neutrals and going to yoga. Women have historically and systematically oppressed -- and no, it isn't nearly as bad as it used to be and yes, we have many more opportunities than our forbears. But women still get paid less than men for doing the same work. They still hold far fewer executive positions across the board than men do. And they are under more pressure than ever to look and act Just Right, some ludicrous combination of sexy and confident and demure and skinny and intelligent and not too intelligent and nonthreatening and a little bit helpless and on and on. We have a long ways to go.

So let's go there. Together. In all our messy and nonconformist ways. And let's give credence to what - and who - we are along the way.

Golden Globes 2011

2011-01-20T20:08:00.000-08:00

I'm totally late to the game on this one, but I was visiting dear friends in Chicago while the Globes were on. And while the Midwest is known for many lovely things (Portillo's hot dogs, deep-dish pizza, the cold . . . ), it isn't the most fashion-forwa

rd place on earth. Not to say there aren't some attentive people in the region; I spent a few minutes of breakfast the next day dissecting fashion trends with my friend Shauna. But by and large, the attention was on the Bears-Hawks game, which, whatever.

The Oscars are the Big Game around here, so I'm mentally (physically, emotionally, spiritually) preparing for February 27th. The Globes can serve as sort of a poor man's Oscars, and the fashions are usually far less reverent. Which, you know, maybe explains Helena Bonham Carter? But I've gotten ahead of myself.

Since we're speaking of the Oscars, let's start with 2011 hostess Anne Hathaway . . .

Such a pretty dress. And, yeah, it has a lot going on - the long sleeves, the shoulders, the paillettes, the cling. But having a consistent color and pattern all the way through makes a big difference. I will say that, while Anne totally has the body and lovely face to carry this dress, it doesn't feel totally consistent with her demure personality. But I like the choice, and I love the hair with it.

Her report card is solid so far.

Until . . .

Now, I do not know who she is talking to (but doesn't she eerily resemble an older/facelifted version of the grandmother from gilmore girls?). It doesn't matter.

Because, just like that, the dress goes from intriguing/Dynasty-esque to Senior Ice Skating league. WHY, when you have a slim, young star, you would attach yards of Ecru Leggs panty hose to the back of her dress is beyond me.

MOVING ON!

Emma Stone was one of my favorite looks of the night. She is back to her natural blond now, and looks a little bit like Kate Bosworth from a distance, although Kate Bosworth would have cut the bottom like seven feet from this dress and painted braids on it. Anyways. I just saw Easy A and thought it was really cute, so I'm predisposed toward ES, but I think she pulled off a great look--simple, elegant, and really sophisticated. She had a nice back cutout (no hose there), and the color is so nice on her, and a welcome interruption of the jewel tones that have reigned the last few years.

Before we move on . . . Do you remember Claire's? Or the Icing? Do you remember when you got your ear cartilage pierced there when you were in seventh grade because jenna simms had her ear pierced there too and she was dating jim williams and you thought that if you had that same piercing he might think you were really cool and ditch jenna for you? Okay, good. Glad we're all on the same page. We're ready.

Because Michelle Williams' dress, I'm pretty sure, is actually a beige maxi dress on sale at Ann Taylor Loft for $29.99, appliqued with daisy pins and brooches and magnets from the Icing. And here's the thing: It's Valentino! She would have been so much better off just going with one of his iconic red dresses. Maybe that's what he should stick too, if this is what's going to come out. That, or he could change his line to Goldie Hawn and Bob Dylan's Love Child House O Fun.

It's a bummer, too, because she usually makes really great fashion choices - remember the iconic yellow Vera Wang at the 2006 Oscars? This one just seems like it may have been borrowed from a really tall 12 year-old at the last minute. And don't even get me started on her eyebrows.

CZJ was having a total Gone With The Wind moment at the GGs - and I really cannot think of anyone who could pull it off better than she. I hope that her dress really was made of impromptu drapes. Plus, she totally looks like a Holiday Barbie that my cousin and I got one year for Christmas, which makes it that much better. That forest green color was big this year - Angie's dress, Elizabeth Moss (although her hip pleats, meh).

Natalie Portman - the boob rose, again? It was reminiscent of Charlize's 2010 Oscar gown

In general, I'm not a fan of red and pink together. I mean, how much more 'Valentine chic' can you get? Plus, she's never struck me as a pink-and-red kind of girl. I mean, I get it - you're pregnant, you want to be comfortable and look good, you just did a ballet film, so, you know, pink . . . but it leaves me feeling totally 'meh,' with a little bit of 'remember how in elementary school we used to have those paper bags on valentine's day and you would just give them to the people you liked?' (right?)

helena bonham carter was, as usual, batshit crazy.

She wore two different colored shoes - which, you know, not the craziest thing she's ever done. As one blogger I read pointed out, though, we wouldn't be entirely shocked to find out that her hair is made entirely out of unraveled casette tape. I also wouldn't be shocked to find out that she chooses her dresses based on what some psychic dog named ZsaZsa Gabor XVI points to on her wardrobe Ouija board. My friend Shauna mentioned how Vivienne Westwood must cringe when she hears HBC praise her on the red carpet - Vivienne surely meant for a quirky, Carrie Bradshaw bridesmaid dress, not something that gets slapped on as an accessory to holiday-themed shoes and Yoko Ono sunglasses.

At least we can always count on HBC to give us something to talk about.

My last, and favorite, dress of the night was a total runaway.

Although, I feel that it is my duty to say upfront: Her hair could have been better. And by 'could have been better,' I mean 'was pretty plain and kind of looked liked Sandra Bullock with a bad dye job and styled by someone who treats hair-brushing as a "theory."'

But the dress. OH, the dress. It's like what Jessica McClintock wants to be with every factory prom dress it runs off, but never will be. And I mean that as a total compliment - this is the dress that every young American woman wishes she had found and worn. It is elegant and classic in its shape, but edgy in its execution and simple in its accessorizing. It is lovely, in every sense of the word: feminine, charming, and almost flirtatious.

And OMG, the shoes. BAD ASS.

Until February 27th . . .

italian men

2011-01-04T16:50:00.000-08:00

i always have such high expectations for the first few days of the New Year -- like the stroke of midnight on december 31st should have some kind of pixie dust that transforms me and brings things like Willpower and Resolve in heaping doses. and it doesn't! it isn't magical, friends - but it is a day of embodied hope, and i can live with that.

in other news - i was just listening to 'leaving on a jet plane,' and i always used to mishear those lyrics ' i tell you now, they don't mean a thing.' in my mind, it was 'italian men, they don't mean a thing.'

So, you know. take that for what it's worth.

sometimes

2010-12-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

sometimes, it is very good to be quiet and listen to your soul. to sometimes close your eyes and feel your way around without seeing a thing or knowing your direction. dallas willard talks about the concentric circles that compose a human - our mind, our body, our will - and the largest circle of them all is our soul. as far as it extends, we can go. as far as it extends, God is there, and so we know that there is no wrong direction or right answer, so long as we live in that sphere.

yoga is demonic, says mark driscoll

2010-10-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

Oh, here we go again!

My coworker pointed me to this article in Relevant about Christians doing yoga. An avid yoga-goer, I was super interested to read it. Until, that is, I saw Mark Driscoll's name in the first sentence. Rolling my eyes at least halfway back in my head, I sighed and pressed on.

He never disappoints. "Yoga is demonic," Driscoll announced definitively. "Yoga is absolute paganism." "Yoga and meditation and Easternism (yes, he said that) are all opening to demons." Anticipating the counterargument that yoga can actually help people connect to God, Driscoll was quick to compare this with "getting drunk and sleeping with your girlfriend in the name of Jesus" or becoming a Jehovah's Witness and worshiping a false God.

As someone who has never held Driscoll's teaching in high regard, it's not shocking to find that all of this strikes me as deeply thoughtless, bombastic, uninformed, and frustrating. Beyond my own opinion, though, is real (anecdotal) evidence. I know several Christians - myself included - who have benefitted in very real ways from doing yoga, and whose walks with God have been deepened through their practice. The Psalms, Proverbs, and other parts of the Bible make reference to the goodness of meditating on the word and works of God, and practicing yoga is a fantastic space to practice taking your thoughts captive to do just that, as you connect with your body, a good gift from God.

"If you just sign up for a little yoga class, you're signing up for a little demon class, that's what you're doing," Driscoll says. (A 'little' yoga class? Are we four?)

The point that Driscoll is missing here is that we can connect with God in all things where he will choose to meet us. And turning away from him, or to another God - as in the Jehovah's Witness example - although not beyond the pale of God by any means, aren't usual instruments of God's formation. But yoga? Yes, it originated in the Hindu tradition. And people were praying long before Jesus set foot on earth. Should we summarily dismiss prayer, as well? Or fasting, or solitude? Or should we meet God where he is, and where he is working in us? That's what I'll choose to do.

don't worry . . .

2010-10-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

don't worry about skills you don't have. just extract your uniqueness. - max lucado, via a coffee mug in our office.

i'm going to do this today. i hope you do, too.

good night

2010-10-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

it's seven fifty pm and i am showered and in bed, with no intention of leaving until morning. i'm sleepy, and it's times like this when i think of how my friend sarah and i will joke (half-joke, really) about being jealous of babies. (really, think about it - you're cuddled up all day long, you get pushed around in a stroller when you're going from place to place, and at the end of the day, someone puts you in bed and sings to you and pets your head as you go to sleep. but i digress.)

the time before i fall asleep is one of my favorite times of the day. i'm usually reading, and zack is next to me looking up cute pictures of animals online. that is not a joke, or a thing i say to try to embarrass him. it is the truth.

i'll start to get drowsy, and float between the page and the near temptation to close my eyes. and i am warm and cocooned and happy.

anxiety

2010-09-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

that is my big, fat secret. the thing that i'm afraid of; the thing that keeps me from being normal and well-adjusted, just like everyone else. i am an anxious person.

it comes in waves. some days are really bad, and i wake up before my alarm is set with my heart already feeling vise-squeezed, and my mind and pulse racing. sometimes, the mornings are fine and it's not until i'm halfway through the workday that i am gripped by the familiar tightness in my chest, or it's on a weekend, or on vacation. i thought there were some places that anxiety wasn't allowed to visit, but now i know that's not the case.

lately, i've learned to be gentler with myself on those hard mornings. to get out of bed quickly after waking, because lying in bed only encourages scarier patterns of thought. i try to meditate and, failing that, slow my breathing and pray a bit.

i talk, too. sometimes it feels so goofy, and always it feels so vulnerable, vulnerable in a way that makes me want to wriggle and apologize for what i'm saying because i know i'm such a burden. and i always say the same thing, some variation of "hey, i'm feeling really anxious right now." i hate this because i think that it means i'm not strong enough or independent enough, when really i think it just means i want to be known and not in hiding.

if i just read the right books, i think, i'll find the secret that will bring me permanent inner peace. if i repeat the right verses to myself, do the right things, take the right job and marry the right person, then i won't experience anxiety. except i still do, and all i can think of in my best anxious moments is that God is with me, that at the very moment i am trying to find him, he has already found me.

i've had two panic attacks in the last month, and have tried to go off of medicine i've been taking for awhile, with bad results, and now i'm trying a new one. and this is super-personal, i realize, about as personal as i've ever gotten on the internet, and i'm sharing it all because i have hope that i am not alone, hope that things will get better, hope that no matter how things are there is still a good God who is close to me and close to you.

so, internet, and friends, that is my deep dark secret. i am filled with anxiety, often to the brim.

some days

2010-09-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

there are days when i bring a peach and some string cheese to work, and then feel disappointed in myself when my stomach rumbles at two o'clock.

and the winner is . . .

2010-09-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

carmella! congratulations, you've won a free copy of bittersweet. send me a quick email with your mailing address and we'll send the book to you (lkoturner at gmail dot com).

thanks to everyone who shared a bittersweet moment . . . i hope that they will continue to encourage...

bittersweet - a review and a giveaway

2010-08-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

When I was seventeen and deciding where to go to college, I had lots of conversations with lots of different people. I went on campus visits and read brochures and then, one weeknight, my best friend and I had a college summit at noodles & co at the deer park mall in arlington heights. We met up with our friend Shauna, who had graduated from this small school in santa barbara not too long ago. I was sold on the school; my best friend, not so much. So we walked through this time of separation--from each other, from our families, from our homes--and I waited, super uncertain of what the future would hold.

It's been seven years since that night, and with time I understand now how those bittersweet days and weeks of august years earlier had provided the dirt from which this rich life would grow - and I had no idea.

So Shauna, as fate and other things would have it, has written two absolutely lovely books - Cold Tangerines, which was published in 2007, and Bittersweet, which was just released and is the book I want to talk about briefly now.

Bittersweet is written in Shauna's typical style, which is to say: raw, funny, honest, painfully honest, poignant, and hopeful. I don't know too many writers (especially Christian writers) who have the courage to share about the deepest and darkest parts of themselves, but Shauna does this -- and does it in a way that builds God's Kingdom, because it makes you feel less alone for all your brokenness. Shauna is winsome in the best sense of the word, and that bleeds through onto every page of Bittersweet . . . you want to be her friend and her student at the same time.

One of my favorite parts of the book comes from the chapter called aurora, which is sort of a welcome letter to the people who move into their family's old house in Michigan. Read what she says:

"I believe in a very deep way that our past is what brings us to our future . . . I believe in mining through the darkest seasons in our lives and choosing to believe that we'll find something important every time. In my worst moments, I want to slam the door on the hardest part of our life. Deadbolt it, forget it, move forward, happier without it. But I don't want to lose six years of my own history behind a slammed door. So now I'm minng through, searching for the light, and the more I look the more I find. I see the moments of heartbreak that led to honesty about myself I wouldn't have been able to get to any other way."

There are many more favorites, and you would really hate to miss them, so you should really read this book. You can buy it, of course, or read below for the chance to win a copy . . .

The giveaway. Here's how it works:

1. In the 'Comments' section of this post, write about a bittersweet moment in your life. Keep it short.

2. If you Tweet about this giveaway, send me a direct message (@lauraortberg) and I'll enter your name into the drawing a second time. (With thanks to @berryman for this idea)

3. The last comment will be accepted at 9pm PST on September 31st (strict rules, right?). I'll announce the winner the next day and mail 'Bittersweet' to the winner!

Happy commenting!

((3.1 - If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in coming to an event with Shauna, let me know on Twitter and I'll make sure you get invited. Save September 13th, evening.))

feel bad.

2010-08-19T15:01:00.000-07:00

there are some days where i feel really bad that i don't cook wonderful meals from scratch every night just because i love to cook and love to use fresh ingredients and then post photos of my creations on my blog. days i feel really bad that running doesn't clear my mind and relieve my stress and that i'll never get a tan and that there will probably never be a picture of me at the met gala in vogue (seriously, i feel bad about that). days when my to-do list seems to fill itself out, page by page, and i am afraid to even look. and i feel bad that i don't want to look. i feel bad, on these days, that i haven't already started a company or become a household name or written a book, and then i google "people who were famous before 25" (which is really not helpful) so that i can compare myself to rihanna and jonathan safran foer and everyone i know.

most nights, i'd rather have frozen pizza for dinner. and broccoli on the side - not from the farmer's market, but the kind that comes from the frozen bags you get at the grocery store. most days, i feel the deep pull of laziness and idleness as i go through my tasks. sometimes, i feel disconnected from other people. sometimes i feel disconnected from God.

some days, i just feel bad.

letting go

2010-08-03T10:26:00.001-07:00

Part of me always hoped (to be perfectly honest, expected) that there would come a moment sometime in my mid-twenties when I would be Enlightened. I'd gain knowledge in a flash of what it means to be a Grown-Up and How to Balance a Checkbook and Act Maturely in all Relationships and see the world free from the cloudy lenses of my emotions and anxieties.

To be perfectly honest again, this has sort of been my religion. Hoping for the day when everything would be perfect, when I would be whole. Hoping for wholeness to come from marriage, from my career, from a beautifully decorated home and a full wardrobe and lovely friends. This is what I've put my trust in, what I've had faith in. And I've liked to think that everything, every little thing, is a stepping stone on my journey to clarity and wisdom and a God-like worldview.

When I was nineteen, one of my good friends from high school killed herself. And I remember thinking that she just didn't get it: the goodness of the future, the hope for what's to come, the love of God. And to a degree, I still believe that to be true, while recognizing all the complications of deep depression to preclude you from seeing the truth. But some of my journey has been and continues to be this struggle against a moment. Our lives are made up of choices, and hard work, and there is no magic moment. There are setbacks and deep valleys and there is a good, a very good God whose deepest desire is not that I know everything he knows, or become immensely wise, although those are good things, but that I live with him in peace and joy and not in fear.

My deepest fear is that I will keep waiting, and I will spend my waiting on managing others' impression of me. That I will shop and talk and not really listen and complain and smile and wait and wait and wait until my life has slipped away and there is no time to wait anymore. There is a new country, as Henri Nouwen writes, where my real life is ready to be inhabited. And I don't get there by waiting, but I am so afraid sometimes of leaving behind what I know to go somewhere unfamiliar. I think that if I had that moment of Enlightenment, of growing up, then I'd be ready to walk forward untethered to fear or anxiety.

So if I'm not waiting, then what do I do? That's the question that rings in my ears when I feel brave enough to ask it.

There was a dream and one day I could see it
Like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it
And there was a kid with a head full of doubt
So I’ll scream til I die and the last of those bad thoughts are finally out
-The Avett Brothers, Head Full of Doubt

guilty pleasure for a thursday

2010-07-29T09:05:00.000-07:00

i am listening this morning to the musical stylings of mariah carey, circa 1995, and am brought reeling back to fourth grade when gina trapani (not this gina trapani) and i would play 'daydream' on repeat, before we knew that 'open arms' was a journey cover and before mariah went crazy (see: glitter) and came out with a fragrance whose name suggests that she is even crazier now.

i remember playing the song 'one sweet day' on a cassette for my parents in our green minivan, driving down 90 toward chicago, waxing earnest about how touching this boyz II men duet was. and you know what? i sometimes still choke up. don't tell, though. that's my guilty pleasure (for today).

belize

2010-07-28T17:39:00.000-07:00

in t minus two weeks or so, we will be here.

staying in one of these:

probably drinking something with an umbrella, reading in the shade, snorkeling until the sun goes down, and seeing the rainforest before all this goes down.

oh, my

2010-07-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

it's been a really rocky last few days for me, and i'm learning that my intuitive response when things get rocky is anxiety. i guess i've known this for quite some time, but it always feels new when the emotions are so strong and all-consuming.

so here's the tricky part: how do i change my intuitive response? what practices do i need to take on to get a better gut reaction? because sometimes, even when i want to seek after growth, i get anxious instead.

this morning

2010-07-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

everything in me wants to complain right now. about being at work, about leaving vacation, about not getting to see the ocean enough and my desk being too messy and our house being too messy and missing my friends. i just want to feel bad for myself, complain, pout, and daydream.

actually doing anything about this would, while possibly having the consequence of being productive, ultimately put me in the position of having to be moved from this posture of complaint, and if i must be honest, i really like being in this posture right now. i enjoy building a case in my mind whereby i am a victim with no active responsibilities, especially because it means that everyone else is responsible for making my life better.

and this is where i start to run away from myself, from the hard work i need to do to become better. this is where i leave who i am and ask everyone else around me to fill me up, when really, only one thing can fill me up. when i leave my self-centered mind, i cling to the truth that henri nouwen writes about:

"be patient. when you feel lonely, stay with your loneliness. avoid the temptation to let your fearful self run off. let it teach you its wisdom; let it tell you that you can live instead of just surviving. gradually, you will become one, and you will find that Jesus is living in your heart and offering you all you need."

comparative yoga

2010-07-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

and again, it all comes back to yoga.

i went last night. laid out my mat in the usual spot, stretched, and no sooner had i laid down for my pre-yoga nap than my mind began to race with the comparative competencies of the people around me. the guy with the curly hair who does the hop-up thing reeeally well, but otherwise just sits in prayer position most of the class. the woman in all black with cropped blond hair who, even with a wrist brace can do a headstand that puts the rest of us to shame. the new girl in the magenta top--ooooh, she's grabbing one of the studio's mats. she doesn't even have her own; she's in over her head.

really, who am i kidding? this started before i even walked into the studio, when i started wondering who would be in class and who i would be better than and who i could try to beat. in yoga! has my need for recognition really grown so trivial that i need to win at yoga? then again, i guess, the need for recognition is inherently trivial and immature. still, this feels like a particular low. but that's what happened. i compared and compared all class long, with intermittent guilt breaks. when does it start to get better?

You teach people how to treat you.

2010-06-10T11:23:00.001-07:00

thanks, mom.

puppy diddle

2010-06-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

i cried over dog pee last night.

zack and i had just gotten home, both from wonderful weekends in different places. we had missed each other, but i was moving quickly toward my sunday night meltdown, wherein Laura Realizes What She Didn't Get Done This Weekend And How Close Monday Morning Is.

and our adorable, energetic, frenetic, five month-old puppy (see above) had, quite predictable, lost control of his inordinately large bladder during the four hours we left him home alone. he peed on the kitchen floor.

it's a lovely kitchen floor--spanish tile, raised, so that any time you spill a glass of water it forms little rivulets that run like streams down the grout to the back door. no big deal when it's water, but extremely tricky when it's smelly puppy urine.

and i saw it, and zack didn't, and he thought he had already cleaned everything up. he was proud, glad that artie had stuck to his little pee pad. but he hadn't, and i pointed that out with just a little bit of i-can't-believe-you-didn't-see-that-this-is-probably-your-fault in my voice. which is when i started to tear up--those hot, stinging tears of frustration that pool up in your eyes and blur your vision, that make your nose tingle and make you realize that there's other stuff going on behind the dog pee. but really, if a puppy drives you to tears then GOOD GOD how in the world will you ever deal with CHILDREN?

there they were, sliding down my face and collecting underneath my chin, and after awhile they dripped off and i was there, with my tears and the smell of diluted bleach and the dog trying to lick my toes, and then all of a sudden it was our house, a very very very fine house, and the dog pee was gone, but it would come again. you know? it always comes. it's always something. but it's our house, and life is easier with you. someone cleans the dog piddle, and someone cries, and then the next day it's someone elses turn to cry while the other one cleans the piddle.

books n books

2010-06-03T10:49:00.000-07:00

I discovered this incredible website today, bookshelfporn, and have spent the last twenty minutes poring over all the different ways that you can display books--stacked, shelved, strewn, by color, by title, by author, on racks, on the floor, on ladders, and (my favorite) as a stairway. can you imagine? "to get to the bathroom just walk up the books. careful on the fourth step; that's first-edition flaubert."

Right now we've settled for a lovely (truly) Ikea bookshelf and way too many stacks of seven and eight books in inconvenient locations throughout the house. as gorgeous as the stacks in this photograph are, you can do a lot more with sleek design and fashion coffee table books than with short and chunky philosophy volumes or every copy of pat conroy you've ever seen because you might have one more friend you haven't given his books to. those just aren't the prettiest books out there.

luckily, though, i now have a decorating scheme for my pied-a-tierre on the champs elysees.

You know you're a westmont graduate when . . .

2010-05-18T14:59:00.001-07:00

I love lists - lists of any kind, really: the visual impact of orderly rows, the space between items, the neat collection of like things into one meta-thing. And I read something earlier today that made me think about things that westmont graduates have in common - so, this list! It'll probably be most applicable to people who graduated in the handful of years around mine.

SO, You know you're a westmont graduate when . . .

- You have more Save the Date magnets than space on your refrigerator
- Someone you know was totally entrepreneurial your sophomore year and created a recipe book of secret treats you could make with ingredients from the dc
- You were probably shushed by BP in chapel
- The fire was an awful tragedy, but you're secretly a little jealous of all the students who got their rooms rebuilt with modern conveniences like air conditioning
- Giving directions to campus almost always ended with, "You know what? I'll just meet you at Starbucks on Coast Village; it's easier."
- You could make prank phone calls by dialing someone's number from your room phone. Those were good days. (For st & kp)
- Blowing off a week's worth of class and homework for spring sing was not unheard of
- Getting tests and papers moved because of spring sing was not unheard of
- The best way to spend an afternoon was playing hooky from class, getting blenders, and laying out at butterfly beach
- Of course, you always ran the risk that though it was 80 and sunny on campus, butterfly was fogged in and 32 degrees.
- Theories circulated, from the benign to the grotesque, about the origin of the smell emanating from outside the study - grease trap, sewage, compost - but it remained a mystery
- Your friend group still has at least one member living in santa barbara, and you're probably a little bit jealous
- All of your friends are married. Except for the fifty percent who aren't, but it feels like all.
- Your coffee shops and your bars are the same place
- You're well accustomed to telling distant relatives or curious friends that no, West Point is a different school altogether and yes, Westmont is a Christian school but it's not like what you may be thinking. (Super conservative)

Fun thoughts. I always like thinking back on my time at Westmont. I'd also like to note that the items on this list do not all naturally flow from their leading statement, for which I apologize. Sorry. (Not really)

name changing

2010-05-17T16:37:00.000-07:00

i feel like i've had a lot on my mind lately, not the least of which is my constant self-nagging to get to the social security office and make an honest woman of myself. really, though, wouldn't my name-change make such a lovely 25th anniversary gift?

in the meantime, lots of good things coming up. coming down the pike. coming through the door.

kristy and alex.
corrie and bowman.
adam and emily.
san clemente.
belize.

in the meantime, i loved this dress from the met. yes, it was weeks ago now. still, i love it. curiously underaccessorized, however, which is a disappointment:

Diane Kruger was probably my favorite of the whole Met because 1) Pacey and 2) her dress, wow! Not many people could have pulled that off. Sadly, Tina Fey, you are the Worst. Really, let the models and the crazy people wear the jumpsuits. You keep wearing pretty strapless dresses, and we'll all be okay.

The boat

2010-05-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

I think that, in life, most people have certain things that they struggle with (or against) for years. My mom will talk about your 'words' - the idea being that everyone has two or three words that stay with you and that you find, to your chagrin and frustration, come up time and again. Depression, anger, gossip, discontent, fear . . .

One of my words, for as long as I can remember, has been anxiety.

I remember at seven years old, starting second grade and feeling so afraid to enter a new world that I would cry in the morning, feeling panicked and alone and unable to explain to my concerned parents why going to school felt like such a terrible weight.

In eighth grade, I remember very distinctly a moment by my locker on the first day of classes when that familiar tingling and stomach-churning sensation took over, and I felt sure that I would not make any friends that year, that I would be alone every day in the cafeteria and have no one to walk the halls with between classes or sit next to on the long bus ride home.

Starting college and my family's moving to another state at the same time felt like too much to bear; I still can't remember a time in my life that felt more acutely anxiety-producing than those first few weeks in Menlo Park and at Westmont.

And regardless of how these events turned out, the beginning was always, without fail, awful. Marked by a sense of dread and a certainty that I was alone on my journey, I wandered through the haze of those times totally unable to find anything good in my days. The summer before college, I went to a therapist for the first time. She was pretty woo-woo and nurturing and didn't like the word 'challenge,' I remember. But she also gave me one of the most helpful images that I've ever received, and I carry it with me now.

She drew a picture of a little boat - a canoe, probably, with two wooden planks stretched across for seats. Next to the canoe was a dock. The boat, she explained, was me. I was the small canoe, facing a vast waterfront of possibility and anxiety. I sat next to a dock, still tethered to it but floating far away. One small breeze, it seemed, was all it would take for the rope to slide off of the dock and into the water. And that dock, that was my family. It was everything that was familiar to me - our home, the kitchen table that looked out on our backyard, my mom's banana bread and dad's story-telling voice and our dog. And this little boat was about to go out on its own to explore.

So not only was I moving, but my dock was moving, too. It would be in California with me, which was nice, but what I really wanted was the white dock with red shutters in Hoffman Estates. What I really wanted was home, known, ragged and known and so known that I could run my fingers over it, eyes closed, and trace its shape and call it home. Because at home there is no trace of anxiety, there is only presence.

Catherine of Siena said a lovely thing, a thing that makes sense of this boat-and-dock life that we all live, and that reminds me that anxiety does not bring freedom.
"Make for yourself two homes, my daughter. One will be your actual cell . . . The other will be a spiritual home which you carry with you always, the cell of true self-knowledge where you find withing yourself knowledge of God's goodness. This is actually two cells in one."

The harder I try to get rid of anxious thoughts, the more I fail. But as I accept them, and know that anxiety may always be one of my 'words,' the less power my anxious thoughts have over me. The more I am captain of my ship, steering to the old dock when I need to see familiar land and taking heart in the God who brings me to new land, and with whom we build a new dock.

puppy diddle

2010-03-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

i cried over dog pee last night.

zack and i had just gotten home, both from wonderful weekends in different places. we had missed each other, but i was moving quickly toward my sunday night freak out, where i realize what i didn't get done that weekend and how much lies ahead on monday morning.

and our adorable, energetic, frenetic five month old puppy (see above) had, quite predictably, lost control of his inordinately large bladder during the four hours we left him at home alone and peed on the kitchen floor.

it's a lovely kitchen floor--spanish tile, raised, so that anytime you spill a glass of water, it forms little rivulets that run like streams down the grout to the back door. no big deal when it's water, but extraordinarily tricky when it's smelly puppy urine.

and i saw it, and zack didn't, and he thought he had already cleaned everything up. he was proud, glad that artie had stuck to his little pee pad. but he hadn't, and i pointed that out with just a little bit of i-can't-believe-you-didn't-see-that-this-is-somehow-your-fault in my voice. and that's when i started to tear up. the hot and stinging tears of frustration, of disappointment in yourself and exhaustion and a five month old puppy and GOOD GOD, how will you ever be able to have a child if a dog drives you to tears?

but, there they were, sliding down my face and collecting underneath my chin, and then after awhile they dripped off and i was there, with my tears and the smell of diluted bleach and the dog trying to lick my toes, and then all of a sudden it was our house, a very very very fine house, and the dog pee was gone but it would come again. you know? it always comes. it's always something. but it's our house, and life is easier with you. someone cleans the dog piddle, and someone cries, and then the next day it's someone elses turn to cry while the other one cleans the piddle.

do not rent me anything.

2010-03-17T16:01:00.000-07:00

otherwise, this happens.

i had no idea that DEBT COLLECTORS came after you for overdue library books. i thought that librarians just glared at you a little more harshly, or you would drive an extra ten miles to the branch library out of sheer embarrassment, or you would get a medal one day for returning your books after they were 60 years overdue and everyone had a good laugh and your integrity was remarked upon.

nope.

i think i have some kind of gene that precludes my ever returning a book or dvd on time. honestly. would that hold up in court? otherwise, i'm takin' it on the lam!

'heartbreakingly succinct'

2010-03-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

. . . this was probably the best description i have heard of the oscars in my extensive online debriefing.

it was an okay ceremony. nothing about it was superlative. where were the bjorks, in their dead swan dresses? the nicole kidmans in their chartreuse dior? the fact that they cut out the 'best song' live performances was compensated for in time and pain by the interpretive dances for best score and the glossy recaps of the TEN best picture nominees. alec baldwin and (especially) steve martin were great, but they got such little screen time that it almost didn't matter.

in a word: meh.

Of course, i don't really mean that, because i LOVE the oscars and couldn't sleep the night before they were on and i totally have letdown symptoms today. it just wasn't a lively ceremony. gabourey sidibe was the only person there who acted totally excited to be there and not movie-star smug.

the real disappointment for me, thought, comes in the fashion. let's be honest, zoe saldana's dress was a lavendar nightmare, but at least she took a risk! in the words of my good friend rachel, when something is boring, it is BO-RING. and the dresses this year were just that.

nevertheless, i will not refrain from commenting, judging, and generally playing joan rivers. let's get started.

PENELOPE CRUZ

so, so, super classy.

it looks like it's the color of every red wine ever made. also, 'burgundy' would work. i love the diagonal ruching, the asymmetrical top, the length, how it probably swished when she walked by you. . . . it's the perfect "i'm nominated and i know i won't win but i am classier than anyone else here and i am dating javier bardem so bite me" dress. and really, what more could a girl want? she looks incredible.

DIANE KRUGER

i just do. not. understand.

she is gorgeous. really, SO pretty. and i do love black-and-white dresses. and the accordion pleating at the bottom, and then WHAT THE HELL is going on in the middle? and more importantly, WHY is it going on? what a totally awesome dress it would have been belted ONCE, right around the middle. i'm not picky. waist, hips, under the hips for the mermaid look, above the waist for the empire . . . but it's like Karl Lagerfeld ran out of fabric, threw up his bejeweled hands and covered up the middle of the dress with his goddaughter;s christening dress.

FAITH HILL

i hoped against hope that she had learned from the 'my-little-pony-rainbow-mermaid' dress a few years ago. should have known that she doesn't seem to learn from her mistakes, though.

the 'bra' here looks like it was an afterthought, picked up from the dumpster outside catwoman's house and more than a little too narrow for comfort. and the rest of it . . . honestly, it just makes me think of my grandma's old nightgowns, the ones that my sister and cousin and i would pose in and clip in the back because there was too much lace, except more revealing and less flattering.

also, it's just boring to wear black to the oscars. even this black. and she's so pretty . . .

CAMERON DIAZ

wow.

SERIOUSLY. wow! cameron, almost reliably, shows up to shows like these looking like she walked straight off the treadmill and slathered on some bright red lipstick. her dress choices aren't awful, on average, but this oscar de la renta is heads and shoulders above A) most of her past choices and B) most of the other dresses at the oscars on sunday.

i hate myself for saying this, but she is reminiscent of grace kelly. in looks alone.

KATE WINSLET

mallory said on sunday night that kate looked better as a brunette. while i initially disagreed, i'm coming around right now . . .

however, that is neither here nor there. because, look! kate winslet managed to wear THE MOST BORING THING EVER to the oscars! as another apt blogger pointed out, helen mirren or meryl streep could have worn this down the red carpet and gotten nothing but respect. the point being that, last time i checked, kate winslet is not sixty years old and NO ONE SHOULD EVER SHOP AT CHICO'S, where i believe all of this came from. chico's probably custom-made it for her. it feels kind of sad - have fun with it, kate! you are impossibly beautiful! and these are the oscars!

also, the skirt looked a little bit like harem pants sometimes.

SANDRA BULLOCK

first of all, let's address the fact that sandy dressed LIKE an oscar and she WON an oscar. i don't think it was a coincidence. i think when they academy saw her, and realized how good her dress would look on that stage with the little man next to it, and saw meryl, whose dress was reminiscent of celine dion's backwards pantsuit, they just called an audible. they crossed out meryl's name (don't worry, it's happened like 14 times) and gave it to sandra, in all her raven-haired, red-lipped, sparkly golden glory.

really. she looks fantastic. she makes some bad decisions at times - remember the purple dress at the golden globes this year? - but she is so beautiful, and radiant, and for the combination of perfect hair and makeup and OMG that dress, i think she officially wins best-dressed at the 2010 oscars. not counting my new best friend, gabby sidibe. but seriously. just look at her! how could you not?

ZOE SALDANA

. . .

good
good
good
cute
nice
huh?
hmmm
okay,
i could
get used
to . . .
WHAT
THE
HELL?

seriously. what the hell. this dress starts off well. golden, sparkly, warm - follows the motif of the best dresses of the whole night. and then it ends like a bad joke! or like an explosion of paper mache! lots of purple sponges! a parade float, toilet paper, loads of tiny shih tzus dyed all shades of purple? a royal pinata? help me out here, you guys.

for this awful thing, zoe receives the FIRST ANNUAL "Oh, honey, no," award. as i don't know her personally, i will not hand it to her, but if i were to, please picture me shaking my head disapprovingly and clucking as i did.

okay, i'm kind of wiped. there are so many still to talk about! but for now, i will leave you with this CRAZY recap from the lady who kanye'd that other guy:

BURKETT: What happened was the director and I had a bad difference over the direction of the film that resulted in a lawsuit that has settled amicably out of court. But there have been all these events around the Oscars, and I wasn't invited to any of them. And he's not speaking to me. So we weren't even able to discuss ahead of the time who would be the one person allowed to speak if we won. And then, as I'm sure you saw, when we won, he raced up there to accept the award. And his mother took her cane and blocked me. So I couldn't get up there very fast.

CHARLIZE

oh my gosh, you guys. i can't believe i was totally ready to go without even talking about this one!!!

Two things:

1) Her hair that way? Kind of makes her look like Kate Gosselein.

2) Boob rosettes.

I mean, REALLY? What did she think, that differently-colored fabric on her boobs, in the shape of little roses, wouldn't make people be like, whoa, charlize! your boobs! because that didn't work. she has rosettes. on her boobs.

finally, this dress (minus the b.r.s) looks a lot like my prom dress senior year of high school, long sash in back and all. and while that was a beautiful dress, i was seventeen years old and living in hoffman estates, il. you can do better, sweetie.

your life

2010-03-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

Your life is made up of so many elevator rides; so many full moons and half-eaten cups of frozen yogurt and solitary drives in the car.

For your hands are small and there is a limit to what you can do. You have the beauty of your life already in you, it is what pumps your heart.

Your days are numbered as surely as the hairs on your head, and you will one day cry yourself to sleep for the last time, the very last time. Until then you will go on eating Indian food and pretending to like certain television shows and thinking thoughts and fighting or not.

It is your life, and it is not about passion, though that is important; and it is not about adventure, though god knows that's important too. Don't ask what it is about, at least not until you've lived it. Then you may ask, then you will know, but for now, your hands are small.

would you believe?

2010-03-02T16:26:00.000-08:00

i was originally going to write about 1939, the golden year of american cinema; stagecoach, gone with the wind, wizard of oz, mr. smith goes to washington, etc. etc. but my internet sleuthing led me to the conclusion that i would way rather talk about CRAZY people who have won oscars in the past!
do you remember that BARBRA STREISAND won an oscar? and that this is what she looked like doing it?

OR, okay, OR, we have Cher.

who, somehow when accepting the oscar for her role in Moonstruck, remembered most of her outfit but FORGOT HER HEADDRESS. don't know how you forget a headpiece the size of a baby blue whale - wouldn't you think you'd notice that 300 pounds were lifted from your head? - but maybe it fell off when she took a bow and then ripped off nine-tenths of her dress to reveal a lovely, if long, shrug.

marisa tomei, of course, upset expectations when she took home the oscar for 'my cousin vinny.' so much so that there remains speculation that jack palance read the wrong name when he was announcing the winner. but, she's not so much crazy, you know?

off to class now. more tomorrow, we're at four days people!

in the spirit of the oscars . . .

2010-03-01T14:19:00.000-08:00

which are SIX DAYS AWAY . . . I would like to share with you my first official 2010 pre-Oscar post.

(for those of you who don't know, dear readers, that the Oscars are the event of the year in my family of origin, consider yourselves warned. it is a battle TO THE DEATH each year, mostly involving myself and my father, who has run an ABL ["Anyone But Laura"] campaign for the last six years running. each year, we all vote in every Oscar category. the winner receives compensation in the form of 80 american dollars, give or take, and pride to carry in her heart for the rest of the year. i claimed the title for five years running, but have had a bumpy road of late, due to the entrance of Zack into the kitty, the surprise late entry of Mallory in 2007, and the vehemence with which the pater familias has been running his little campaign. am not too worried about 2010, although the jump to ten best picture nominees has thrown me for a bit of a loop.)

I digress . . .

To kick off OSCAR WEEK 2010 (think Kitty yelling "Spring Break!" in Arrested Development), I would like to begin with the five worst-dressed Oscar nominees of all time. By 'all time,' naturally, I mean searchable on the dubya dubya dubya.

Gwenyth Paltrow, 2002, Alexander McQueen

First of all, RIP AMcQ.
Second of all, sometimes I look at this dress and think, it's not so bad. The braid looks kind of Swedish milkmaid cute. And that's when I know I haven't gotten enough sleep lately, and probably have scurvy. Skeletal hemorrhaging always messes with my sense of right and wrong. This. is. awful. The weird, nipple-baring ruched top. Her hair, which is a color that doesn't really exist in nature. The fact that the top of the dress has a hue barely discernible from her own flesh. I don't even want to start on why she felt like she had to wear that stupid necklace. Really.

Demi Moore, 1989, biker shorts and bustier, plus hip-enhancing cape (her own design)

Huh.

MAYBE, she rode her bike to the Kodak Theater, got the front-train stuck in the gears, got so frustrated that she tore it off, then walked down the red carpet saying "TAA DAA! Someday, I will be married to a man who is eleven right now!"

Huh.

Tilda Swinton in the Lanvin trashbag, 2008

She scares me. Even more than her heartless and robotic lawyer in Michael Clayton. At least she wore mascara for that role! She looks like a life-sucking fetus, and I do not care what you say, this is not avant-garde or edgy, it is scaaaary. Rated NC-17. She's like the ghost of Mister Burns in that Simpsons episodes where he became radioactive and wandered the forests of Springfield. BUT SHE'S REAL!!!

Phillip Seymour Hoffman, 2009, ?

You've decided to wear a skullcap. To the Oscars. How do you go about selecting juuuuuust the right one? Will any old beanie do? Do you have to make sure it doesn't have any logos on it, or you'll have to put black tape over them like on The Real World? Do you pull a hat out of your closet? Do you go shopping? Do you send your stylist out to Burberry to choose a wool-lined cashmere number that is measured to fit your bulbous head, and yours alone?

These are questions you should NEVER have to ask yourself. When in doubt, look at Phillip Seymour. Then do the exact opposite of him. Voila! No more worst-dressed lists for you.

the fifth . . . i might have to resort to microfiche or something, because i'd really like to include someone from back in the day. let's just say, buster keaton, 1956. i bet bette davis wore some pretty big dresses when she ruled the roost.
i would say Bjork in the swan, but this one is too obvious. I'd be disgusted with myself for being so unoriginal.

Cher would get an honorable mention, maybe, but she is Cher after all. So whatever it is, on her, it looks totally normal and it would be weeeird if she wore some classy Marchesa frock. Let's hope Bob Mackie lasts as long as she does. And then some, because who would Cher in her casket be without a feathered headdress?

any thoughts on your fifth man/woman? hopefully. i want to hear. but please remember, if you will, the i was the earth's only fan of jennifer hudson's bolero back in 2008, so no ragging there.

see you tomorrow for more oscar madness - the best week of the year.

ek

2010-02-26T11:51:00.000-08:00

love emily katz. everyone should have a friend who will wait outside reading work power point slides to make sure we have a spot in this fantastic restaurant. love flour and water. the pizza was fantastic. the conversation, even better. she's one of those people who reminds me that, however easy it is to get distracted from the things that matter in life, they're always there waiting for you when you turn back to them.

thanks girl.

praying for a hotel room

2010-02-25T16:10:00.000-08:00

We were in Venice. It was the fall semester of my junior year, and I was traveling with thirty-five of my new best friends. My sister had just flown out to visit me during fall break in Salzburg, and once that was over we all reconvened at our typically European (read: tiny and with wafer-thin mattresses) hotel just a few bridges from St. Mark's.

It didn't take long for everyone's stories about fall break to tumble out . . . She cut her hair, which was jarring to the rest of us who had seen her daily for months. They went to Innsbruck and illegally rented a car, enjoying the thrill of doing something forbidden to us during these three months. He fell more in love with the girl who was also on the trip, and she continued to pretend not to notice.

She went to Ireland with her parents, and they decided to come back to Venice with her. She had always been unpredictable, so we had no idea what to expect from her parents. I don't remember, now, what they were like then. But I remember this. Apparently, all of Venice was booked. Not a pensione to be found. So they prayed. They huddled together, the three of them in a corner, and prayed that God would give them a hotel room in Venice where they could stay the night.

He did, I think, or they did, or whatever. They found a place, is what I mean.

But what does that mean? What would it mean of God that prayers for hunger to end, for a mother's life to be saved, for a family to be lifted out of poverty would all fall on deaf ears, or that the answer would be 'no, not now,' and that this family prayed and were not only heard by the Lord but were cared for? Perhaps this is all unknowable, and part of the mystery of God's character that really confuses people. Or, perhaps they just got totally lucky.

Either way, all I really know is I don't get it. I do get that we are meant to bring all that concerns us before God, so praying about a hotel room doesn't seem like a bad idea in itself. But in some ways, to me, it seems more like superstition - rubbing a lucky charm and repeating my wish over again until I believe that my efforts led to the positive outcome I wanted all along.

All of this came to mind for me because I saw that someone had written on Facebook about her iPod being found. "God is good all the time!" she said."Oh, the power of prayer!" And I just don't know how to respond to these kinds of comments. Why would God bring you back your iPod, but not get me on an earlier flight at the airport? Why would God save your child with cancer, but let your friend's child die? Is it because of prayer? Is it random? Some combination of the two, or is it how we pray, or our motivation for prayer? These aren't rhetorical questions - I would really love to know . . .

In the meantime, I'm going to pray for a nice dinner with my friend emily

angelo

2010-02-24T11:57:00.001-08:00

I have changed his name for the sake of privacy, but the details remain the same. I want to share with you the story of a man in my yoga class. It is a story that I know admittedly little of, but holds an odd interest for me nonetheless . . .

His name, let's say, is angelo. He is probably in his early to mid thirties, with short but shaggy brown hair, the kind i'm sure he spends a lot of time on but wants you to think is effortless-looking. (no judgment here; i'm in the same camp)

He loves to do headstands. No joke. Every time we are in the same class, he always requests 'inversions.' For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it means a headstand. Yes, you stand ON YOUR HEAD. Me, not so much with the headstands. But Angelo has a mean headstand in his practice (that's how you say it. "If you have an inversion in your practice, you may take it now." me, i lay on the floor with my feet up against the wall.)

So angelo gets up on his head - look mom, no hands! - and balances there like it's the easiest thing in the world. he's not afraid that his shirt is going to fall over his head, leaving him blind and with pale tummy exposed, because he doesn't wear a shirt. maybe he'll walk in with one on, but it reliably comes off at the five-minute mark.

when class is over, just as surely as the shirt has been removed, angelo will find some unsuspecting yogi and ask him or her for a ride home. i'm not sure how he gets to class, but he always wrangles some hot young woman to drive him home and suggests they get together to meditate, but always at her place, his place is too small.

he is an interesting figure. part of what i don't get is, how as a Christian do i respond to people who are just kind of weird? or seem weird, to me? i'm uncertain about this. the other part i don't get is the shirt. honestly? we get that you're proud of your six-pack, but checking out your armpit hair in warrior one makes me want to gag.

prep

2010-02-22T15:02:00.000-08:00

last night i finished the book i'd been reading all weekend - prep, by curtis sittenfeld. and now, i feel that kind of deep sadness that i feel when a good book is over, and it can never be read for the first time again. or like someone i love has moved away, and i don't know when i'll see them again.

maybe more to come on this book later - i need to think through a way to revise what i've already written about it in a less maudlin way. but suffice it to say for now, you should read it. it isn't what you'll think it is. actually, it's everything you'll think it is and then more than you knew you remembered about certain times of life.

tender, chickified church guys

2010-02-09T12:15:00.000-08:00

"You get around Paul when he was a young guy, you got around John the Baptist or Elijah, , these dudes seem pretty rough to me, you know they don't look like church boys wearing sweater vests and walking around singing love songs to Jesus. guys like David are well-known for their ability to slaughter other men. I kind of think these guys were dudes. heterosexual, win a fight, punch them in the nose, dudes. the problem with the church today is that it's just a bunch of tender, chickified, church guys.

When you walk in [to a church], it's sea foam green and fuchsia and lemon yellow, the whole architecture and aesthetic is kinda feminine, the preacher is feminine, the music is kind of emotional and feminine - why aren't we being innovative? Because . . .
ALL THE INNOVATIVE DUDES ARE HOME WATCHING FOOTBALL OR THEY'RE OUT CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN OR MAKING MONEY OR WORKING ON THEIR TRUCK.

IF YOU DON'T GET THE YOUNG MEN, YOU GET NOTHING."

(Caps mine).

Really, just don't know where to start with this one. I can hear a very rational voice in my mind telling me to let it go; there will always be people out there on the fringes of any social movement or religion who you disagree with. That's fine. Just disengage. They want the power that you're giving them by reacting, don't give it to them.

And that's all fine and good, and probably why I don't go around seeking out incendiary videos like this in my spare time. But when I come across them, when I come across this kind of teaching, I don't want to ignore it.

It strikes me first that God, in his infinite wisdom, did not divinely grant the gifts of innovation, creativity, strategic thinking to men only. I know many incredibly innovative women, and believe that it would be nothing less than a denial of God's work in them to say that we have to wait for young men to show up before we can innovate.

Read what follows below, which is excerpted from a booklet Driscoll put out called Church Leadership:

Without blushing, Paul is simply stating that when it comes to leading in the church, women are unfit because they are more gullible and easier to deceive than men. While many irate women have disagreed with his assessment through the years, it does appear from this that such women who fail to trust his instruction and follow his teaching are much like their mother Eve and are well-intended but ill-informed. . . Before you get all emotional like a woman in hearing this, please consider the content of the women’s magazines at your local grocery store that encourages liberated women in our day to watch porno with their boyfriends, master oral sex for men who have no intention of marrying them, pay for their own dates in the name of equality, spend an average of three-fourths of their childbearing years having sex but trying not to get pregnant, and abort 1/3 of all babies – and ask yourself if it doesn’t look like the Serpent is still trolling the garden and that the daughters of Eve aren’t gullible in pronouncing progress, liberation, and equality (p. 43).

If anything could get my blood boiling more quickly, I don't know what it would be. Both because of his glib treatment of significant sociocultural pressures, and the wholesale dismissal of over half the American church population as leaders and influencers in our churches.

As if, it might be fair to say, as if women in the church ought to be defined by the covers and content of magazines in line at the checkout stand. As if women impregnate themselves recreationally and categorically turn down help from their partners who offer endless support because men never run away from the unexpected responsibility of being a father; as if Adam, in the Garden of Eden, bore no responsibility for taking the fruit from the woman and the Serpent is surely not running amid his kind! We are naive and empty-headed, good for looking nice and pouring into our husbands but in a 'seen-and-not-heard' kind of way. As if emotion has no place in the church. As if Jesus himself did not show emotion. Women are gullible and easy to deceive, Driscoll says. And he has every right to think that. And while again I don't buy into this wholesale writing off of all women, and I believe that categorizing ALL women in ONE group makes no sense, EVEN IF IT WERE TRUE, doesn't our God work through broken and weird and gullible people? Or is that just too much for him?

Of course, that isn't true. Women, as a group, don't exist in such a way that they can be characterized by traits. Neither can men. There is no male or female, not anymore, not since Jesus. And if I remember correctly, Jesus, our savior, is the one who let the children come to him when all the men around him said not to. Jesus told Peter to sheathe his sword in Gethsemane, and then put Malchus's ear back onto his head. Jesus reminds us to walk farther than we are required, to be compassionate to those who hurt or cannot care for themselves, to submit to him just as he submits to God. Ours is not a gratuitously violent God, not a God who would belittle those on the margins, not a God who would deny anyone her or his place in his Kingdom for any reason.

Just go read this

2010-02-08T14:41:00.000-08:00

From Michele's blog, while she's talking about a friendship that ended:

Drop your expectations.

Remember that people cannot give you what they do not have.

In a nutshell, that’s what happened with my friend and I. I realized that she could not give me what she did not have to give. I still grieve that she didn’t have it; I wished she had it like I wish for my children to have character or my husband to have success. (He already has character.)

And believe me, I still endeavored to get from her what she couldn’t give in all kinds of different ways, all the way up until the end. Coercion, dishonesty, pity, indirect communication—I tried it all.

Sometimes these kinds of “friends” in our lives go by another name: Gaslighters.

The term comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight, where the evil husband tricks and manipulates his wife into thinking she is insane. From the film’s title, “gaslighting” acquired the meaning of ruthlessly and deviously manipulating an individual into believing something other than the truth for one’s own purposes.

Our relationship worked because on some level, I had decided that I needed to tolerate anything, and that I had the power to fix anything. I made up a vision of myself as able to transform any situation, if only I did things right. All the times she made me doubt myself, wonder if I was crazy, even feel safe to an extreme degree–were all part of my quest to prove to myself that I was better than the circumstances. In reality, I was being compromised in ways and with consequences that I am still discovering to this day.

To anyone with gaslighters in your life, even now: you have an opportunity to show yourself a great deal of compassion and accept that there’s no shame in having made a mistake, or even several mistakes. The sooner you can find someplace else to sling that self-blame, the more likely you are to find your way out of the darkness of confusion and fear and into the light of grace and truth. If you need help, ask for it. Grace be to you.

MORE here: http://themoxyprojectblog.com/

yoga, part 2

2010-01-25T15:06:00.001-08:00

one thing you learn about yoga is that everybody farts.

it is, i suppose, altogether impossible to get into so many positions with your butt in the air and your head on the floor and not pass gas at least once or twice in your career.

everyone has a different M.O. with this, too. some people, nice, embarrassed people, will look around apologetically and offer a quiet "sorry" to their classmates. not infrequently, the smell will hit you before you even realize what happened and it's all you can do to stay in warrior 3 and not run out of the room, mouth covered. and all too often, you'll hear the telltale noise ('shooting a bunny,' my grandmother calls it) in the middle of the silence and dread the seconds it will take for the smell to waft over your way. everyone ignores the noise because we are, after all, adults; serious adults who don't find anything funny during yoga.

still - i'm ready for it to stop. or at least to buy a hell of a lot of febreze for the studio i go to. ewwwwlll.

competitive yoga

2010-01-19T09:19:00.000-08:00

Yoga is a funny thing.

I've been going to classes lately. You're supposed to do certain things in yoga; things like engage and pay attention to and enter into. Sometimes, you're even supposed to breathe for other people. But one thing you are never meant to do in yoga is compete.

Oops.

See, the instructor is forever talking about how you do what only you can do, and how when you're supposed to be doing crow but all you can do is lie on the floor like mush pretending to do a child's pose, you should thank your body for what it can do - and let it not do what it can't do.

Maybe I picked the wrong sport, then. Because how does a woman who, at the age of twenty-four STILL cheats at Scrabble, enter into a room to work out with a bunch of strangers (okay, and my mom) and not compare or compete? I couldn't lose to the kids I was baby-sitting for in high school. What makes me think that I can lose now?

There is no losing in yoga, I can hear the instructor say. Well, that's fine for you because you can do the air splits. But whenever you preface a pose with "For a challenge," or, "If it is available to you," or (my favorite), "If you are really bendy," I AM GOING TO DO IT. Probably really poorly, and with a resultant knee injury that I will nobly hide, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to do what the fifty year-old man next to me or the weird looking redheaded girl (my new nemesis, by the way, since Vince quit Blockbuster, but that's another post) are doing with supreme ease and serenity. You don't just sit idly by in yoga. You win! And you, instructor, may pretend not to acknowledge that reality but everybody sees it. Everyone knows who the winner is when we walk out of class. It's usually the redheaded girl, but I hear that she's going back to fourth grade soon. That's when I'll have my chance.

I think I've finally found my people, though. The ones who are really out in the open about all this stuff. The picture at the top of this post? Sonja Wyche, from Washington, D.C., in a YOGA COMPETITION. It was started by a guru, so you know it's legit.

Because really, why do anything if you can't win?

cling to the promise

2010-01-13T09:13:00.000-08:00

there is nothing quite like hard times to make you live in the moment. the worries of the past are totally irrelevant, and the threat of the future doesn't matter at all because the only thing that you can see is right now. and that doesn't make hard times any easier, but it is a glorious and lovely part of pain.

i read this last night in bed and shared it with zack. it is from the inner voice of love by Henri Nouwen, which is a journal he kept when he went through "mentally and spiritually debilitating anguish" during his time at L'Arche. DAMN is he wise.

Cling to the Promise

Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected.
People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you
expect from people's response to your experience of abandonment, the more you
will feel exposed to ridicule.
You have to close yourself off to the outside world so that you can enter
your own heart and the heart of God through your pain. God
will send to you the people with whom you can share your anguish,
who can lead you closer to the true source of love.
God is faithful to God's promises. Before you die, you will find the acceptance
and love you crave. It will not come in the way you expect. It will not follow
your needs and wishes. But it will fill your heart and satisfy your deepest
desire. There is nothing to hold onto but this promise. Cling
to that naked promise in faith. Your faith will heal you.

sadness

2010-01-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

sometimes, i fall into these times of feeling great sadness and grief without what i think is a good enough reason, or any reason at all. (i say 'fall into' because it feels involuntary. it is involuntary, really).

and, as might be clear to you, i am in one of those times right now. the sadness is vague but acute, somehow, and is present with me like a small bird that has gotten inside my head, or the cat that is crouching in the corner. i can't go anywhere without it, and my first instinct is to feel powerless over it all. well, that and to complain about everything and wish that things were different.

i talked to one of my friends about this last night, and she reminded me of a lot of the changes that have been going on in my life which, for someone who is practically allergic to change, can bring about a lot of weird emotions. she also talked about leaning into this sadness, feeling it, and living in it. rushing through it or ignoring it or covering it up, tempting as they may be, will never really be helpful responses.

sometimes, like now, this sadness creates an ache right next to my heart, straight under my throat. and usually what that means is that i don't want to grow up. i don't want these changes, i don't want these responsibilities, i don't want to create a new sense of home in a place that doesn't always feel like home. i don't really want God to do anything in me, because i just want to go backwards. and he's not in the business of moving people backwards, or tying them to the past, or preserving comfort above all else.

so, i'm sad.

and anna jordan, you don't have to respond to anything this time
:)

ira glass cares about you

2009-12-17T16:01:00.000-08:00

sometimes, when i am going on long-ish drives, i like to listen to podcasts of 'this american life.' so yesterday, as i was getting ready to take off for a couple of hours on the road, i made sure to have a new one on my phone. i was thirty seconds into it when i was hit with a question that i never expected to encounter as a result of radio fundraising:

"Who do you want to be?"

And Ira, in all his Ira-ness, said this a couple of times. He probably said something like this: "Really. Who do you want to be? I mean, think about it. You could be the person who just listens to this podcast every week, who never contributes to their local radio station, who assumes other people will just step in and cover for them. And you know what? You're right. We'll never start charging for this podcast. Your neighbor or teacher or colleague will pay, and you'll get to keep on listening. But again, let me ask: Is that who you want to be?"

I want to hear from Anna again about this one, since she can analyze media content and culture with the best of them. But I really want to hear from everyone, and to express my surprise. How should I feel about this? Should I be glad that this radio program has decided to integrate fundraising and integrity? Or is it scraping the barrel, guilt-inducing stuff? I can't decide. Ira sounded so earnest. Then again, when does he not . . . I just don't know.

on aging

2009-12-09T16:57:00.000-08:00

I literally have to roll over my 401(k).

When did I turn fifty??????

advertising by mark driscoll?

2009-12-07T14:49:00.001-08:00

has anyone else seen the new Dockers ads? i was reading the sunday paper yesterday and came across a full page of Modern Man.

the full text of the ad is below. i would love to know what your reaction is to this:

Once upon a time, men wore the pants, and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone. Men took charge because that’s what they did. But somewhere along the way, the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny. But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for. The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes. We need grown-ups. We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It’s time to get your hands dirty. It’s time to answer the call of manhood. It’s time to WEAR THE PANTS.

Last time I checked, Dockers also sold pants to women. Additionally, if you're going to sell something to a man, tell him to walk away from foamy lattes and salad bars, something that will make him a MAN, don't you think it should be something other than pleated trousers?

It seems like the Dockers marketing team lifted copy straight from Mark Driscoll's blog - especially when you read what he has to say about biblical masculinity:
"latte-sipping Cabriolet drivers do not represent biblical masculinity, because 'real men'—like Jesus, Paul, and John the Baptist— are "dudes: heterosexual, win-a-fight, punch-you-in-the-nose dudes."

But would dudes wear Dockers?

Really would love to hear what all of you think about this. Especially you, Anna Jordan...

if i could be anywhere in the world right now . . .

2009-11-30T22:09:00.000-08:00

well, this is usually my answer. what i would do for a slice of chocolate cake, two hot dogs with ketchup and mustard, and a medium iced tea with lemon. maybe some fries. preferably some good company to go with the food, in a corner booth, playing truth or dare and mixing condiments together even though we're 25 and should be respectable.

but, i'd take just the food, too. in case you're offering.

today

2009-11-18T15:30:00.001-08:00

my boss told me:

"don't put all this pressure on yourself. you are doing an incredible job so far. i don't work off of the assumption that you will impress me. you already have. if i put this kind of pressure on you, you would never enjoy working here. so enjoy it."

i think i will. what a gift.

there will always be surprises along the way

2009-11-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

"Don't worry about the future-worry quenches the work of grace within you. The future belongs to God. He is in charge of all things. Never second-guess him."

-Francois Fenelon, as read in The Will of God as a Way of Life

i've been reading a fair amount on worry lately. worry is based on 'unreality,' it strips us of our trust in God, and it creates a cycle of anxiety and restlessness that spin into an illusion of control.

first things worry me, and bring out anxiety in me. i woke up in the middle of the night on friday, my chest squeezing like my heart was in a vise. a panic attack. a new marriage, a new home, a new job, a new lifestyle, a new financial responsibility.

worry quenches the work of grace within you. God, that is so completely true. when i worry, i think i lose my capacity for grace. my capacity to receive it and recognize it from the Lord, and my capacity to give it openly to others. i lose flexibility in my time, and lean into my plans and ideas and timelines.

"Whatever we decide," says jerry sittser, "there will always be surprises along the way. Worrying about our future will not change it, nor will it help us make good choices." He goes on to talk about how worry causes distraction, and (ironically) robs us of the ability to prepare for the future.

i think part of this involves removing some of my own self-inflicted pressure to do things perfectly, to be the best wife, the most innovative employee, the kindest neighbor that there ever was. i want to be good, innovative, and kind. but i need most to be myself, i suppose, because if God meets me where i am and i am not there, i will probably not listen to him.

like damien rice says: time, always time. some things just can't be rushed. and there will always be surprises along the way.

firsts

2009-11-16T16:38:00.000-08:00

firsts are hard. but you don't ever get to the sweetness of flow without the first. so today, i'm grateful for a first. for a new start and for freshness, and for an office where i can see outside.

a good memory

2009-10-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

there was a week night in january or february, i think, of 2007, when i got a call from my boyfriend. he was an admissions counselor, and he was staying in bakersfield that night, visiting high schools in bakersfield and trying not to be too bored. he looked up one of our favorite musicians, to see if he could surprise me with tickets to a show in the future - but he found out that this guy would be playing at a lounge in LA that night.

so, this very spontaneous "P" of a boyfriend called his plan-ahead "J" girlfriend and suggested that they both drive from their respective places - santa barbara for her - to largo, in LA, for the show. she surprised him and said yes, and so he drove down the 5 and she went south on the 101 by the ocean until camarillo, and they parked their cars in really lucky parking spots and met each other outside the restaurant - bar - lounge - venue.

the menus had big pictures of marty feldman on the cover, and it was hard to get over the googly eyes while they ordered their penne al pesto and red wine, but the whole place was eccentric. their table was a few feet from the musician, and the opening act pleasantly surprised them, and it was the kind of night that made them both exhausted the next day and that found them both on solitary highways at 2 in the morning on a thursday, the moon glimmering off the ocean for one and almond fields for the other.

she had so much fun that she went back the next night with three girlfriends, and again the next year. and now, coming up on three years later, these two are sitting together in their little bungalow of a house listening to teitur less than one month after they got married to each other. it was a good time. it is a good memory.

anxiety

2009-10-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

sometimes, i feel like i'm the only person in the world who struggles with anxiety. of course, that's part of what all people who struggle with anxiety feel, which sucks, because worrying alone always makes matters worse and makes your mind feel like it's on constant spin cycle, like the washing machine, wanting for rest and peace all the time but never getting one second of it, really.

i will make a confession to the internet: about six years ago, i was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. and it makes so much sense to me, because when i think back on school from an early age, the first week was always like a living hell for me. everything was new, nothing was familiar, i had to make new friends - which takes time, and people with anxiety are low on patience - and had to be away from my family, who i had made into my rock and my refuge. then, sometimes, waves of worry would come over me for no reason at all. the only language i had for it was a mental image i got, of me standing in the ocean (in carlsbad, if you must know, wearing my red plaid one-piece bathing suit) with sets of overhead waves hitting me again and again and again; allowing no time to get my feet under me.

so as the years have gone by, i've sought relief from my anxiety in different ways - often through other people, or seeking control of different variables, or trying to get perfect grades and test scores, or counseling, or talking, or hiding, or medication, or prayer. but it still haunts me, nips at my ankles and clouds my mind, this unwanted friend.

now, my life circumstances include almost all new things - only even more intensively than the beginning of the school year or going to Europe for a semester. i'm married, and we live in a new house, and i quit my old job and don't have a new one waiting for me, and this is hard. zack bears a great deal of this burden with me, but i'm still working on the extent to which we should carry it together and the part where i bring it to God and lay it at his feet.

i had a fun coffee time with a friend this morning, and she mentioned that she leans toward anxiety at times, too. cognitively, i know i'm not the only one. but experientially, i feel lonely in my anxiety.

all of this is to say something publicly that i think is good to say publicly, and also to issue a giant thanks to zack, who i love with all the sappy, grateful, fierce love that i have. and the rest of the reason i don't really know. but there it is.

back from the honeymoon

2009-10-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

and, though i have plenty of words, for now, i'll let the pictures do the talking. you can see a couple sets here:

Shanni's Blog

and here:

Gabriel's Blog

with love love love to you all!

help is always on the way

2009-09-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

"all i knew was that help is always on the way, a hundred percent of the time. Rumi said, "someone fills the cup in front of us." i know that when i call out, god will be near, and hear, and help eventually, although it is hard to envision this at the moment ... god always hears our cries, and helps, and it's always a surprise to see what form god will take on earth: the the old joke, a man whose plane crashed in the tundra bitterly tells a bartender that god forsook him - that he waited in vain for divine intervention & would have died in the snow ... if it hadn't been for some f---ing eskimos's who came by." --Anne Lamott, via mm.

all roads lead to LAX

2009-09-08T16:21:00.000-07:00

i'm convinced that this is true in my life. while i was walking down its storied halls yesterday, i tried to add up how many hours i've spent in that place. i stopped counting early on, because that's the kind of thing i give up on quickly. so let's pretend the number is somewhere between 24 and 500. i think that's realistic.

necessary stops include wolfgang puck's in the united terminal. united is really the only airline i fly with consistency, so i don't have many other suggestions, as one probably should when one begins a list of 'necessary stops.' there was a burger king in the virgin america terminal i was at yesterday, but i didn't go to it.

across from said wolfgang puck's (where the cashiers are always mad at you, by the way), is one of those 'california' shops with pre-packaged see's candies, magazines, newspapers, LA paraphernalia, bottles of water for $4.99, curio, kitsch, souveneirs, and bric-a-brac.

i would recommend picking up an US or PEOPLE magazine for your flight. somehow, it always seems to me, if there are people in the world who write about what katie holmes at for breakfast or how jon gosselein cheated on his 23 year-old girlfriend with a STAR magazine reporter but then went back to her (and it's not that i don't care; believe me, i care) -- somehow, it seems like the world that allows that kind of minutiae to be published will surely not allow a planeful of people to die upon takeoff. this is why i always read trashy magazines on takeoff. this is also my advice to people who deal with planeophobia, which as we all know, is the real name for fear of flying.

south of broad, part ii

2009-08-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

i'm done with the book. it was a thing of beauty, and now i'm in that post-novel denouement into which pat conroy invariably hurls his reader. if i could have one super power, it might be the ability to pick up a book for the second, fourteenth, hundred time just like it was the first.

reading minds would be nice too, though.

in the meantime, go out and buy the book and get yourself a nice plot of land and park there for one day and you'll know what i mean.

karl barth on theologians:

2009-08-20T16:00:00.000-07:00

"You can tell what kind of a theologian somebody is by what they smoke.

If they smoke cigarettes, they’re liberal; if they smoke cigars, they’re orthodox; and if they smoke a pipe, they’re neo-orthodox. Then somebody asked Barth, ‘What if they don’t smoke?’ And he said, in his heavily accented English, ‘Then they’re no theologian.’”

(i don't know if he actually said this, but i read it and thought it was humurous. for the record, this puts me somewhere between liberal and orthodox. but at least i'm a theologian)

growing up

2009-08-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

"I don't think that growing up should be synonymous with becoming stressed about life, though. I don't think it should have to mean losing patience on the freeway or running errands all weekend or dashing out the door for work without having eaten breakfast. "

i stole the above quote from my friend maggie's blog. i secretly like to read all the blogs that emily has listed, but now i guess it's not so secret anymore.

i've been thinking about growing up a lot lately. (A. LOT. - as michele would say). and when i think about growing up, i think about stress and bills and travel (not for-fun travel, but business travel with briefcases and work to get done on the flights). i think that when i read the newspaper, as a grown-up, it is no longer acceptable that i turn to the comics first or get bored by the front page or don't even bother to look at the business section.

i confess these things: sometimes, to me, growing up means being busy, all the time. hopefully busy doing really important things. and i kind of know where i got this picture, because both of my parents are very busy people. they like to be busy. but i forget sometimes the ways they build in 'play' to their daily lives. i forget about the things that mom says to herself just to make herself laugh, or the quiet mornings with steaming coffee and good music my dad has, or how he wears vacation hats and makes up stories or she does strange dances to christmas music.

i confess that in the middle of preparing and expecting, i forget and i grow anxious. i think of adulthood as what maggie reminds me it doesn't need to be: stressful, rushed, lonely.

awhile ago, my dad asked one of his friends what he needed to do to be spiritually healthy. the friend replied with characteristic wisdom and brevity: "you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life."
that phrase sticks with me, as i grow up.

i was in carmel with my dad last weekend, and went for a run that took me all along the ocean. i was feeling particularly anxious about growing up at that moment, and i detoured to some rocks and tide pools down the hill from the road. i saw a bunch of families out on a sunny afternoon, and watching the kids in their little-kid bathing suits with their little-kid floaties and little-kid bravado running up to wave after wave, i felt deep pangs of sadness for the little kid that i will never be again.

the more i watched, though, the more that i saw that it wasn't only the kids running and splashing in the water. their parents joined in. their too-cool older siblings got up and walked around, and their dogs ran and ran and ran until they could run no more.

the ocean is a great equalizer, and this is one of its ways. it is life-giving, and life-affirming, and reminds me that i am free to disregard whatever secret grown-up manifesto i keep thinking i have to embrace. Jesus does not stop doing his work in me because i am growing up; in fact, i expect that he will do even more. and isn't that lovely.

south of broad

2009-08-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

today is a big day. i'm sure that somewhere, someone has rescued a cat from a tree or planned to perform an entire opera on twitter or campaigned for world peace. but none of that matters, because today, august 11, 2009, is the day of south of broad.

pat conroy is, in my opinion, one of the best wordsmiths ever to live. he writes like he was born to write, and he's from the south, and his descriptive voice make things and places and people come alive so convincingly that you can smell the magnolia and hear the military barks and see the marsh land behind his house.

so don't come looking for me in the next few days, because i'll be in south carolina.

“I would like to have walked his world, thanking God for oysters and porpoises, praising God for birdsong and sheet lightning, seeing God reflected in pools of creek-water and the eyes of stray cats. I would like to have talked to yard dogs as if they were my friends and fellow travelers along the sun-tortured highways intoxicated with the love of God… I would like to have seen the whole world with eyes incapable of anything but wonder, and with a tongue fluent only in praise.” -- prince of tides

reminder for the day, again.

2009-08-06T14:24:00.000-07:00

"the beginning of wisdom is a firm grasp of the obvious."

what do you think of that?

things you can't feel sad while doing . . .

2009-07-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

skipping

whistling (especially 'dixie')

reading wodehouse

buying manolos FROM SEX AND THE CITY THE MOVIE that carrie wore on her real wedding day to wear to my wedding (and not even knowing they were the ones until later)

having good taste.

monies

2009-07-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

i am what you might call a 'spender.' part of me hates to say this, because it fits into that gender-stereotypical role of woman-as-shopper and i don't like fitting into gender-stereotyped roles. that's part of why i drink whiskey, and have my coffee black, and am such an avid sports fan. (HA!)

but in this case, you can stereotype me, label me, pigeonhole me. i spend money quickly and loosely. not just on cute clothes and big purses, either, but on eating meals out and buying a round of drinks for all my friends when we're together. i don't hold money tightly. and that can be a good thing that results in generosity; but it can also result in the kind of bank account statements that make me cringe, and a short-sighted view of money in my life.

so, naturally, i decided to marry this guy who is frugal franny. naturally, at least, according to this article that franny sent me earlier today about how 'big spenders (that's me) tend to marry big savers (that's zack).' aside from the fact that they cite a paper called "Fatal (Fiscal) Attraction," it is a serious article backed by serious research that indicates how people may want to soften their own financial habits by marrying someone whose habits are different from their own.

it makes me wonder. is this usually the case? can two people with very different views of money consistently meet each other in the middle, or is one always left feeling unheard? and what are practical ways to honor the role of finances in marriage or dating or friendships when two people disagree about how it should be handled?

i will think this over with a glass of johnny walker and mourn brett favre's decision to 'remain retired.' (sports and whiskey!)

reminder of the day

2009-07-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

today:

to myself

never worry alone.

credit: dad.

why do people get married?

2009-07-26T20:19:00.000-07:00

because my friend emily recommended it, i recently bought a really comprehensive anxiety workbook. it is full of chapters on things like self-talk, breathing exercises, and has lots of text boxes with questionnaires. one of the chapters walks through the Holmes and Rahe stress scale, which lists 43 different life events in descending order of difficulty.

the number one most stressful life event is the death of a spouse. it's an event that merits a '100' rating on the scale. the next-highest event, divorce, is a 73 -- followed by marital separation, coming in at a 65.

marriage is a 50. trouble with in-laws, shared finances, children, and a spouse's work all follow down the line.

i just re-read the wikipedia article. if you're a 'non-adult,' getting married rates 101 on the scale. which seems like cheating. but, more importantly, when does a non-adult become an adult?

why, again, do people get married?

book review day

2009-07-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

i am committed to writing more on this little blog, and one thing that i know will light the proverbial fire is to talk about books that i am reading, have read, or would like to read. perhaps if i get really bored i will talk about books that i never, under any circumstances, want to read. for now, though, i will open with the book i am three pages from finishing: the elegance of the hedgehog, by muriel barbery.

hedgehog has won a great deal of critical acclaim, which often makes me skeptical about a book's accessibility. add that to the fact that it is a french novel by a philosophy professor with a shining-like cover illustration, and i will tell you that i was not chomping at the bit to read it. i love a good novel as much as anyone, and would never turn down a trip to france or a crepe. but the esoteric, materialistic, despairing ways of french philosophers and novelists don't normally make for good summer reading, and what else is july for if not plum sykes et al?

fortunately, i got stuck with hedgehog at fallen leaf lake, when my enormous volume on the mitford sisters proved entirely too heavy to hold up to the sun down on the dock, and too willing to transfer its dark cover images to my white, sunscreen-covered thighs. reaching for the only other book that i brought, i read and read and read until i found myself deeply interested in this book, which feels like a lot of essays and a story all at once, and its characters, who are by turns endearing, snobbish, surprising, funny, wickedly intelligent, and insightful.

one of the reviews on the back of the book says that this book is a great deal more than the sum of its parts, and i think that is the most apt praise i have heard. hedgehog is the story of two women - a girl and a woman, really - living in the same apartment building on one of the ritziest streets in Paris; an apartment building with eight units which, until halfway through the book, have never transfered ownership but merely been passed on from family to child for generations.

paloma josse is twelve years old, and has just the kind of wealthy, eccentric parents and cloyingly banal older sister that you would imagine come with an apartment like that and a girl who announces early on her intention to commit suicide on june 16th because life is meaningless and full of the "vacuousness of bourgeois existence." she keeps journals, which we read in bold typeface, of her deep thoughts and the various movements of the world around her.

renee michel is the fifty-four year-old concierge at number 7, rue de grenelle. she has a deep appreciation for russian literature (see: cat named leo), philosophy (although not phenomenology), white tea, and japanese films. she is completely resigned to her station as a concierge, meaning that she should not be interested in these things and she hides behind a feigned commitment to all things pedestrian. with time, friends of hers (including, later on, paloma) crack through her veneer and give her the gift of herself, a gift that the reader senses she has never really held onto.

renee and paloma are totally different and completely similar, and you sense the tragedy it is that they only become friends in the final chapters of the book. renee teaches paloma that not all adults are the same, and paloma draws renee from her sitting chair into the world of people. it is a lovely friendship, and a lovely book. it is charming and tragic, and is lofty without turning you away. it assumes nothing about the reader, and that is refreshing.

books, publishing, and a small house

2009-06-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

Not everyone is interested in writing. Or reading, or books, or the things that go along with them. But if you are, if you've ever written and enjoyed it or wondered what it was like to get a book published or how the vast publishing machinery worked, there is an interview that you should read. I love reading good interviews, and this is one of the best-done that I have seen.

Jonathan Galassi is the publisher of Farrar, Straus,& Giroux (FSG). He talks in the interview about being a 'small' house (publishing companies = houses), which they are, relatively speaking. But they've produced some of the top American literature in the last handful of decades and are consistently on the bookshelves alongside Random House, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins. They've won 22 Nobel Prizes for Literature, 22 Pulitzers, and have published books by Marilynne Robinson (Gilead), Pablo Neruda, Seamus Heaney, T.S. Eliot, Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex), Jonathan Franzen, Flannery O'Connor, Roberto Bolano, Elie Wiesel, Shirley Jackson (The Lottery), Philip Roth . . . the list goes on and on. The point I'm trying to make, I guess, is it may be a smaller house, but it's huge in terms of literary impact. Mostly literary fiction, they also publish some nonfiction and a good deal of poetry.

SO - all that to say, it would behoove anyone even sort of interested in the process of writing, or in reading a good interview, to check this out. Galassi strikes an integrous figure; he represents his love of writing and authors well, acknowledging that bookselling is nothing less than a competitive business but that when all is said and done, "It's the intimacy with the author" that makes publishing more than just a day job.

http://www.pw.org/content/agents_editors_qampa_jonathan_galassi

(p.s. - interview is 5 pages long. be warned, or get excited)

The Will of God as a Way of Life

2009-06-18T16:33:00.000-07:00

"How wonderful it is, then, when faith gives way to sight and we catch glimpses of God’s wonderful plan . . . All will be well. Not because life will turn out that way naturally, as if there were some kind of universal law that ensures it. Life is not good because that is simply the way life is. If anything, life is often hard, mean, and brutal. But in the end life will turn out well because God is good and kind and gracious. He is working mysteriously to redeem us and restore the world to what he intended it to be. All will be well because God is God. "

I subscribe to this publishing-industry e-newsletter, Shelf Awareness. One of my favorite parts is down at the end when they’re interviewing an author and they ask a bunch of questions, like “What book have you faked reading?” (War and Peace is a big one) and “What book have you bought just for the cover?” One of the last questions is “What book are you an evangelist for?”

Well, this is my answer. The Will of God as a Way of Life, by Gerry Sittser. My friend Michele first made us buy it because we both LOVED the title (subtitle: How to Make Every Decision with Peace and Confidence). If you don’t want to run out and buy it after that, well, I don’t think I’ll be able to convince you. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. After my first time reading it through, I stalked the author on his college’s website and sent him a totally effusive e-mail about how his writing had revolutionized my way of thinking about God’s will, and he very kindly wrote me back.

Sittser’s personal story is deeply compelling, filled with the kind of tragic loss that is literally hard to believe. You can read about it in another one of his books, A Grace Disguised, but suffice it to say that his understanding of the will of God is deeply rooted in the life-shaking, earth-shattering events that have served as markers in his life, as well as in the mundane and quiet moments that make up the vast majority of our time. And that’s the beauty of his writing – Sittser ‘gets’ it; he lives out of the center of God’s will and understands that God cares most about who we are becoming, not what we do or where we go or where we work or who we marry, even. It’s a delicious kind of freedom.

can a girl get 125 mercury bud vases?

2009-06-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

apparently not. wedding stuff is starting to remind me a lot of spring sing . . . lots of balls up in the air, and no where for all of them to land. not yet, at least.

but this isn't going to be a wedding planning blog. i promise. it is just a quick hello. lately, i have been loving the tv show 'gene simmons family jewels,' and have set it to be perma-TIVOed. my evening routine usually goes something like this:

6:25 - get home from work
6:27 - eat a piece of string cheese, a brownie, and a few pieces of the roast chicken in the fridge for dinner
6:30 - eat another brownie
6:50 - eating that brownie took my 20 minutes, so now i lace up my tennis shoes and go for a run on my preestablished route that really never varies
7:40 - get home after being lapped by a 14 year-old highschool kid running for track
7:45 - pray that no one else is using the television, grab the exercise ball from the back room, and turn on gene simmons.
8:45 - take a shower, after loving my life for the last hour because of the zany hi jinks of this former rock god and his family
9:30 - think about going to sleep, but the gene simmons theme song is playing so loud in my head that i have to stay up at least two more hours
10:00 - look online for mercury bud vases, fail miserably, keep singing

it's not a bad life.

2009-06-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

if you were ever on dawson's creek, chances are that there is not much wrong you could do in my eyes. i love all, equally (shout out to meredith monroe!!). i love it when former creekers thrive, and mourned along with the rest of the world when katie holmes did whatever she did that made her suri cruise sr. there are all kinds of success stories, though. did you know that dc has its own "official" website? i mean, still? and that james van der beek was on 'how i met your mother?' and pacey is doing something else vaguely famous.

anyways, all that is to say that, given the chance, i will root for one of these people any day. and i am so happy about michelle williams. since i feel like i know her, and we should be friends, i just would like to publicly applaud her for this excellent choice of dress. i don't even know what she wore it to or for, but it's totes adorable. so, well done michelle. well done my dawson's creek friends.

(except for busy phillips. i never liked her)

ranunculus and friends

2009-06-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

my friend, master emily, (that sounds like a dominatrix name) did a really awesome thing yesterday and brought me flowers to work. they are pictured here, on my cluttered desk, because they have been such a bright spot in a bumpy couple of weeks.

also, these are not just any flowers; they are ranunculus. she knew that i wanted them at my wedding. she also knew, as i learned from my florist, poppie (yes, that is her real, God-given name), that ranunculus are out of season in North America in October, and that flying flowers up from South American or Thailand for a wedding is a little more Jay-Z and Beyonce than we're going for.

so, thank you, emily. i love them and i'm really glad about our friendship.

t.s. eliot

2009-05-27T00:28:00.000-07:00

i'm awake too late, because there are many things on my mind, and i have a hard time sleeping when that happens. one person who i love just told me recently that she hates the word 'hope.' hates what it represents, hates the idea that there might be a promise of something better that turns out not to be true, not to be reality. and i wish that i could say that everything will be okay, but i know enough to know that this is not my phrase to say, not my consolation to give. i am grateful for the Lord, even though my heart is heavy.

i said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith,
but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought;
so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

-ts eliot, east coker, four quartets

the shepherd who goes out to me

2009-05-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

“It often seems that the more I try to disentangle myself from the darkness, the darker it becomes. I need light, but that light has to conquer my darkness, and that I cannot bring about myself. I cannot forgive myself, I cannot make myself feel loved. By myself I cannot leave the land of my own struggles, I cannot bring myself home, nor can I create communion on my own. I can desire it, hope for it, wait for it, yes, pray for it. But my true freedom I cannot make for myself. That must be given to me. I am lost. I must be found by the shepherd who goes out to me.”
—Henri Nouwen, The Prodigal Son

There are some days, more than others, when I need to remember these words for the sake of my heart. They are usually days like today, when I feel a bit anxious and am sure that God has put me in the back of his mind, like a chore that he’s meaning to do, but may not actually get around to for awhile. Days when I am so worried about finding God that I forget to remember to let him find me. And that’s what he does; God is in the business of finding lost people. Not halfheartedly, either – it is his passion. And that’s a good thing – such a good thing – because then it doesn’t matter if I forget or remember. The shepherd still goes out to me.

the hook.

2009-05-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

i used to have this really close friend. we spent a lot of time together, and we got close with each other's families, took road trips, the things friends do. as an artist, she was always making cool things out of leftover fabric scraps and photos, and this one time she made me a small plaque, if you could call it that, out of cardboard with splotches of paint and a funny quote on it.

our friendship wavered, flagged out, reignited, and finally ended with something between a whimper and a bang. and that is okay. it is good, really, even though it's been hard for me and sad sometimes.

one of my friends wrote this book and in it, she talks about forgiveness. she uses the picture of taking someone off the hook -- and in my mind, it's always giant me picking up tiny her by the extra fabric of her sweater and removing her from a closet hook -- as a way of helping us remember what it looks like to forgive. this is what she says:

'When I'm trying to forgive someone, I picture myself physically lifting that person off a big hook, like in a cartoon. I never want to. I prefer to stew and focus my anger on them like a laser pointer, and wish them illnesses and bad skin. I hope that they will get fat and people will talk behind their backs and their toilets will overflow and their computers will crash. I work on my anger toward them like I'm working on a loose tooth with my tongue, back and forth. I work on it like I'm training for the Olympics, with tremendous dedication and force."

me too. oh my gosh, me too. i can sometimes notice myself, in the middle of a thought, wanting bad things for other people, and even picking those bad things out. this plaque that my friend made me, for instance. i still have it; it's above my computer in my bedroom where it's been for years. mostly i don't really notice it except as another decoration. but sometimes, when i look at it, there's this anger that bubbles up inside of me and i start to want justice (my version of it, at least) and people to tell me they're on my side and for her to call me and tell me that i was right and she was wrong and will i ever forgive her?

will i ever forgive her?

it is a lot of work to take someone off the hook time and time again. it is hard, and i don't much like doing it. plus, it's been going on for years now. i didn't sign up for that. i thought i'd take her down, take anyone down, one time and be done with it. how wrong i was. i have been given a good gift in my friends who listen to me and pray for me and read my page-long emails of new ideas i have that are really things they've been trying to tell me all along.

one time, awhile ago, i had the nice idea of praying for my friend every time i thought of her. and i never did it. i don't think i've prayed for her in years. but that seems like one small way to take her off the hook. it will feel weird, probably, at first, and i won't have the right words. but i can ask for those.

funny list!

2009-04-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

i read this on the website for 'the stranger,' the quirky seattle newspaper that is also home to savage love, a column everyone should read and learn great words from. in the meantime, enjoy this list of all the kinds of people that there are.

The Different Kinds of People That There Are

A Complete List

by Lindy West

Top left: Kelly O / others: Mike Wilkes

People Who Choose to Correct You About the Definition of "Hobo"

Am I making this up? I feel like every time someone uses the word "hobo" to mean "homeless person," somebody else has to climb waaay up on their high horse and don their semantics cap and start getting highfalutin all over town about how "a hobo is someone who rides the rails in the Great Depression, and is it 1934 right now? I don't think so! And I can't believe you don't even know what words mean. How embarrassing. Have you heard of Wikipedia? Hhhhhhhhhhhhh." Maybe I'm making all of this up, but if I'm not, I'd just like to say that I'm aware of what year it is, these people are annoying, and I am going to continue using the word "hobo" however I please (within reasonable homeless- related limits, of course), thank you very much, and the way in which I please to use it is, "No thank you, hobo, I do not wish to go on a date with you." Also I will accept "transient."

People Who Are Mean to Hoboes

Lay off, man. Being homeless is terrible. Give the dude a dollar. (I'm still not going on a date with you, hobo.)

People Who Still Have Jobs

As bad as things are right now, this is still most people. Like, 93 percent of people. People with jobs are great, except for the few who talk shit to people without jobs (things like "Hey, get a job!" or "Where's your job?"). In such instances, these people need to be reminded that they, too, possess jobs vulnerable to layoffs and should probably shut the fuck up.

People Who Are Quietly Less Than $100 Away from Complete Destitution

You have to hope it's going to be okay. This recession can't go on forever.

People Who Secretly Have Vast Family Fortunes/Trust Funds to Keep Them from Ever Knowing Complete Destitution, or Even Mild Hardship

Just do something interesting with it. You already won. Don't be a douche.

People Who Care About "Tweet" Being the Verb Form of "Twitter" and Have Opinions About Its Usage

This includes people who think you should say "tweet" when you talk about the activity associated with Twitter and people who think you should just use the word "Twitter." These opinions are equally uninteresting. If you must use the Twitter, or not use the Twitter, just do it (or don't). Let's not bring grammar and logic and giving a shit into this.

People Who Claim to Be Afraid of Clowns

These people (and they are numerous) are attempting to cultivate a cute quirk, but they are really just aping a cute quirk cultivated by thousands of cute-quirk-cultivators before them in a giant, gross, boring feedback loop. Yes, clowns can be mildly creepy. But come on. Among the many things that are scarier than clowns: fire, earthquakes, a guy with a knife, riding the bus, colon cancer, falling down the stairs (it could happen at any time!), rapists, people who just kind of look a little rapey and are standing too close to you in line at 7-Eleven, Marlo from The Wire, influenza, and scissors.

People Who Don't Watch TV

Symbolically not doing something for the sake of not doing it is almost never evidence of sophistication. It is evidence of not knowing what you're fucking talking about. Are we really still having this conversation? Television is a part of the cultural landscape at this point—a lot of it is good. A lot of it is bad, some of which is also good. You know, LIKE ALL THINGS MADE BY HUMANS? Obviously it is also a good idea to go outside once in a while. But the presence of a television in your home does not make that decision for you. You make it. Feel free to still go outside at any time.

People Who Will Just Have a Bite of Whatever You're Having

Please, please, please just order your own lasagna.

People Who Studied Abroad in a Third-World Country

Congratulations.

People Who Are into Whimsy

You can't really be mad at people who send away for porcelain figurines of poodles wearing poodle skirts that they saw in the back of PARADE, or who enjoy movies in which impish children attempt to call grandma in heaven on the CB radio. That'd be like punching Helen Keller in the face. These people just want to be left alone with their extremely lifelike baby replicas—small false humans filled with pretend love, that can be asphyxiated with attention and never poop, cry, or grow up to make fun of anyone's stretch pants and doily collection. Forever-babies. (Note: Sometimes people who are into whimsy vote against things like gay marriage. In which case, fuck 'em.)

People Who Complain About the Printed Seattle P-I Going Under Even Though They Never, Ever Used to Read the Seattle P-I

You know what? That's called "heart in the right place." Don't even sweat it.

People Who Are White Who Call Black People "Brothas" When Talking to Other White People, as in, "A Lot of My Friends Are Brothas"

These embarrassing people have lots of black friends and are very comfortable around black people. They also aren't weirded out about being at the gay bar because their ex-girlfriend was bisexual.

People Who Are Old

Notable old people include: Methuselah, George Burns, Andy Rooney, an elephant, Dick Van Dyke, Slade Gorton the senator, Father Time, Slade Gorton the Gorton's fisherman, Chinese people (they kick white people's asses at not dying), John McCain's mom, the old lady who dropped it into the ocean at the end, Harrison Ford.

Old People Who Think Pigeons Are Their Best Friends

Listen, old people. Pigeons do not love you. Much like robots and the British, pigeons do not have the capacity to feel love. They only have the capacity to desire croutons. And when you spread infinity croutons across the grass outside MY house, for the purpose of making pigeons love you (WHICH WILL NEVER HAPPEN), the only result is infinite feces. I now have to walk upon feces-encrusted streets through a feces-encrusted world. Because of you and your delusions of pigeon love. Stop it.

Babies

The opposite of old people. They are like you and me, except smaller, more illiterate, and with less money.

People Who Are Secret Hookers

They're your friends, but they're hookers! Ssssh!

Recession Hookers

No judging. Sometimes these things happen. There but for the grace of writing a bunch of bullshit in the newspaper go I.

People Who Are Pretty and Smart and Funny and Nice

You probably want to hate these people, but why bother? They are absolutely wonderful, and all we can do is deal with it and hope to be charming enough that they will some day mate with us so that our children can absorb some of their impossible magic.

People Who Are Hot Greek Waiters

Once, my sister and I were in a restaurant in Greece, having a fight, and the hot waiter (all waiters in Greece are hot) took one look at our bleak, tear-puffed faces and said, "Ouzo power." He brought us two little glasses of cold, cloudy ouzo, and the ouzo cured our fight.

People Who Smile at You on the Street

It's always nice when any noncreepy stranger smiles at you. There is not enough interstranger smiling going on these days. I also appreciate it when people working in customer service behave in a genuinely nice manner. Thank you. Please enjoy this large tip for your wonderful smile.

People Who Don't Know How to Drink

Sometimes a person forgets to eat dinner, or sometimes they just didn't have time or money, and then they end up at the bar and the only snacks available are Rainier tallboys. And yes, sure, sometimes they grab your beard and tell you, "You are drinking the most successful sausage," even though that's barely even English, and then they lose their keys and have to sleep on your floor, where they wake up utterly bewildered and have to walk back to Capitol Hill and drink a Big Gulp of Sprite for breakfast on a Thursday. Be kind to these people. They mean well.

People Who Are Only Interesting When They're Drunk

This one is a bummer, but it's so much less depressing than its half brother, which is People Who Are Just Boring All the Time.

People Who Believe in Sasquatch

What's that? You couldn't afford your bunion surgery because you spent all your money on Sasquatch detectors? And now your bunion hurts? Bummer. A few years ago, a friend of mine told me that he'd discovered the secret to finding Sasquatch (he's a believer because once, in an Idaho forest, he "heard things" that he "couldn't explain") and called some cryptozoological society to announce his epiphany: "Just find out what it eats, and then go to where that is." He and I, we are not friends anymore.

People Who Don't Believe in Evolution but Love Antibiotics

Seriously? Either you believe in science or you don't. If you want to say sentences to me like "God made the earth 29 years ago out of Billy Graham's stool" or "Every time you take the morning-after pill, Satan has two orgasms," then go ahead and stay away from Dr. Syringey O'Medicine, MD, from here on out. Because you know that pill that made your strep throat go away? Science invented that. For you. Hey, why don't you just pray for God to take care of that root canal? I'll tell you why: Because God didn't go to dental school, because dental schools don't admit people who DON'T EXIST.

Wizards

Assholes with beards who do magic. In modern times, wizards look just like normal people, because they've learned to wear tracksuits and tuxedos over their robes. This means that wizards could be anywhere. Can you trust the people you work with not to be wizards?

Russians

Citizens of Russia. The sworn enemies of wizards.

Russian Wizards

Don't be ridiculous.

People Who Let Their Cat Walk Across Their Kitchen Cutting-Board, Even Though Those Are the Same Fucking Paws That Have Been Tramping Around That Shit-Filled Cat Box and I Don't See a Kitty Foot-Washing Station Around Here, Do You?

Well? Do you? ANSWER THE QUESTION.

People Who Don't Know How to Navigate a Four-Way Stop or an Uncontrolled Intersection

Can a lady get a wave, please? Just a courtesy wave. That's all I ask. These people are under the impression that rules do not apply to them. They do not have to wait their turn because they are special. They are probably the worst people on this entire list, and that includes wizards.

Animals That Are Really People Who Got Transformed by a Witch

These are people who got on the wrong side of a witch. Now they are turkeys and iguanas or some shit, and all they can do is cry (except not really, because emotional tears are a physiological phenomenon unique to humans and possibly camels). Don't loan these people money, because they obviously have bad judgment.

People Who Are Just a Down-to-Earth Guy, Who Enjoys the Little Things in Life Like Going for Walks, Lifting Weights, or Just Doing Whatever (LOL), Whose Friends Would Probably Describe Him as Honest, Truthful, Loyal, Affectionate, Compassionate, and Romanceful, and Is Looking for a Woman Who Is That Rare Combination of Stunning on the Outside and Beautiful on the Inside, and Most Importantly Down to Earth, Enjoys the Little Things in Life, Loves Children, Animals, Has a Passion, Laughter. I Especially Like Asians.

Can we just skip to the part where you gun down everyone in the Taco Bell?

People Who Try to Pretend Like They Already Knew the Story About Jimmy Stewart Smuggling a Yeti Hand out of Nepal in His Wife's Underpants

I do not believe you, unless your name is Jimmy Stewart's Wife's Vagina. And I'm pretty sure Jimmy Stewart's Wife's Vagina doesn't know how to read. So...

People Who Sit at Their Day Jobs All Day Anonymously Posting the Meanest Things They Can Think of in the Comments Sections on Blogs

These people are just mad because they all have herpes of the eyeball. And diarrhea of the heart. But just to save them some time: I am fat; I am a hipster; I am an idiot; this is the most boring, self-indulgent article ever written; I hate everything because I work for The Stranger, and if I ever say anything nice about anything I will be fired immediately because this is the policy; I should be fired right now; why don't I just go write in my LiveJournal; Dear LiveJournal, I am sooo cunty and fat; I am a "hiptard" who thinks that everything not on Capitol Hill is like that space desert in Beetlejuice with the giant sand worms, and I don't want to go there because I can't ride my fixie on the space dunes (and also I don't want to be devoured); anyway, I probably haven't even seen Beetlejuice because I'm too busy FIRING MYSELF FOR BEING FAT; Dan Savage supported the Iraq war; and something about pit bulls.

People Who Are Bill Paxton

I really enjoyed your work in Twister.

People Who Miss the Point

(See also: People Who Choose to Correct You About the Definition of "Hobo," People Who Claim to Be Afraid of Clowns, People Who Don't Watch TV, People Who Will Just Have a Bite of Whatever You're Having, Old People Who Think Pigeons Are Their Best Friends, People Who Don't Believe in Evolution but Love Antibiotics, People Who Are Bill Paxton, and Babies.)

People Who Don't Miss the Point

I love you.