"We None of Us Deserve Forgiveness"

When change and tears are past

2012-01-11T18:34:00.002-05:00

This past week or so have been difficult. My Grandma Givens was in the hospital. She's out now, and back in the skilled care area of the village where she lives, but we know she's not well and we don't know if she'll be with us ten more days or ten more years. There's not much more wrong with her than age - her body is simply wearing out. After 93 years, I suppose it has the right.

But it's been hard. It's hard to think about my life without Grandma as a part of it - she's been an institution for 30 years of it so far. I know grandparents die - I lost both my grandfathers when I was very young, and my other grandmother when I was in high school - but somehow I never really thought about the idea that Grandma Givens would die.

I still can't quite imagine a world without Grandma praying for me.

When I heard she wasn't doing well, I panicked at first. Then I prayed. Then I got a chance to call her and tell her I love her. All of those things needed to be done.

And God gave me His comfort, and He gave me His grace, and He gave me His love. And all those things were good.

But yesterday He gave me one thing more. During our start of semester hour of prayer we sang, as we always do. Dr. Toews got up to read the opening passage of Scripture and he said that he had just finished teaching a course on the Wisdom Literature. And he said something that stuck out to me in a new way: "What became very clear teaching the wisdom literature is that one thing unique about Christianity is that in the midst of trouble, Christians sing."

In an instant I was standing around a piano at Grandma's house in my memory, singing with the whole family. Grandma was playing at the piano and working her way through the hymnal from favorite to favorite. We sang some of those hymns yesterday, and I needed to hear them.

Near the end of the service we sang one that I've known for a long time. It's one that I can sing without paying a whole lot of attention to the words, because I've done so many times. But suddenly it was new and fresh to me, and I realized it was the story of Grandma Givens.

From a childhood without a father, to stepping away in faith from the Mennonite church, to raising six boys, to losing Grandpa fairly young, to dealing with fractious church members and family members, there have been griefs, pains, changes, and thorny ways. But Grandma's best friend has always been Jesus. And He has always been faithful.

The second verse we sang targeted me. My turbulent fears of losing Grandma calmed as I thought of all the ways God has guided her through her life, and I remembered that He will do the same for me.

And as we sang a final verse, I began to cry the good kind of tears. Because I remembered that while I will be left without her, when Grandma goes to heaven, she will be with her Lord. Sorrow will be forgotten, love will be restored.

And one day, when change and tears are past, all safe and blessed we shall meet again at last.

Be Still, My Soul

by Katharina A. von Schlegel, 1752

translated to English by Jane L. Borthwick, 1855

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In every change, He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend

Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake

To guide the future, as He has the past.

Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;

All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know

His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on

When we shall be forever with the Lord.

When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,

Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.

Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past

All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

Missing Uncle Sam

2011-12-03T13:54:00.006-05:00

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer

Our spirits by Thine advent here;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

“Christmas is a time of joy,” my boss said yesterday. “I have to keep reminding myself of that.”

It is. A joy tinged with sorrow, as the Man of Sorrows left his throne and came to be born in a manger, knowing he would be the sacrifice that redeemed the world. But a joy nonetheless, because the end result of that sacrifice was resurrection – not just once, but for all who believe.

I’m holding onto the hope of resurrection right now. Holding on to the hope that the Day-spring will put death’s dark shadows to flight. Because they are dark. And they are present. And I ache in the missing him.

“I’m okay,” I keep hearing myself say. “At the moment.”

On the one hand, day-to-day, I didn’t see Uncle Sam much – certainly not compared to his students or his fellow professors of music. But sporadic lunches, quick conversations in hallways or offices, greetings at concerts and events were enough to keep that long-seated friendship fresh, one that had grown from years upon years of relationship with my grandparents, my parents, my sisters, his brothers, his nephews, our shared friends. And now I am left with them all, aching.

He was a musician. I know that. But it’s not like that stood out to me in a unique way – saying Sam Hsu was a musician would be like saying any other person had eyes. It’s a given. His music was so much a part of him that I sometimes didn’t even take note of it.

I know that must seem strange to those who knew him from the world of music. But that wasn’t the world where we overlapped so much. We met more frequently over meals, at family celebrations, or academic discussions. He was my friend, my “uncle”; and my friend came with music in his blood.

He was a friend I was privileged to sit under as a student, enjoying the breadth and depth his knowledge gave to a class that could have been routine. And in between the insights into the music, art, and literature of the western world, were tidbits of great beauty and depth that would flow from him: “He’s experienced a little of me and I’ve experienced a little of him. That’s what friendship is, isn’t it?”

He was a friend who may have been thought somber by those who did not know him well. But they never got to experience the moments of humor that would come from around side – hilariously unexpected. I’ll never forget the day he sat at the keyboard to introduce us to a Russian Romantic composer and paused with his fingers hovering above the keys: “I’m going to show you how the Russians loved,” he said. Then he lowered his hands to the first chord; it struck and faded as he paused again: “I’m not a Russian. I hope you know that.”

I stood at the hospital on Thursday afternoon, looking about me at Uncle Sam’s students who were there, and thinking of those, former and present, who were not. Men and women of God whose passion for music is fueled by their passion for Christ. And I thought: that is what they learned from their teacher. More than fingering, more than history, more than style. They learned Christ-following from one who was, preeminently, a Christ-follower.

I have allowed my mind to swim freely in the lyrics and music of hymns and carols for the past few days, knowing that it is a place he would have loved to be with me. And the joy of Christmas, the beauty of this world, the grandeur and faithfulness of God, the great truths – all of them have resounded over and over to me.

And I will rejoice. For God is with us.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Slow Burn

2011-11-11T17:15:00.002-05:00

It's been a long autumn this year. The colors have passed their peak (evidenced, if by nothing else, by the fact that I could barely see the lines in the parking lot at work this morning for the carpet of yellow that covered them), but only just, and they began weeks and weeks ago. I saw a flaming maple in the middle of the park at the beginning of October, all alone in its glory, the deep green of late summer still on the limbs of the trees around it. The massive maple across the street has shed most of its foliage, but others are still bearing their yellow and scarlet leaves. I saw sun light the crimson tops of the grand oaks on the front drive as I was leaving work today. Meanwhile the small oak in my front lawn rusts away quietly.

A slow-burn autumn.

My mother has nicknamed me the Dragon. It's a nickname that brings concerned expressions to the faces of strangers and raises eyebrows among aquaintances and friends sometimes. But family - and I mean that in the non-biological definition of the word - family understands the name. I love the nickname. It reminds me that there's someone in the world who knows that deep inside of me is a burning intensity that I don't let out very often, because it's likely to scorch. That there's a passion and energy there which I'm constantly reigning in just so that I can function on a day-to-day basis. That when I've found something to believe in, or something or someone that I love, I do it fiercely-if quietly, because I struggle to express its force.

A slow-burn intensity.

I write. I write because I'm a storyteller and because I have ideas that can only express themselves through story. But it takes me a long time to get it all down. I mull and mull and mull over scenes or plots for days or weeks or months (or years, sometimes) before I start writing them. I play conversations out in my head before I type them on the page. I run through three options of direction a scene could take before I choose one.

A slow-burn creativity.

I've realized that I like a slow-burn autumn. I always say that fall and spring do a lot to make up for winter and summer here in Philadelphia - they have a lot to make up for, winter is usually pretty lame and summer is stupidly hot. Fall tends to be lovely here, with brightly colored leaves dancing in blustery breezes on sunshiny days. But this slow-burn autumn makes me even happier - like all the majestic intensity of this past week when so many of the trees seemed to suddenly realize it was fall and come out dressed for the season together was made better for the wait.

And that has made me wonder if slow-burning isn't so bad after all.

Nothing is Wasted

2011-10-27T07:22:00.003-04:00

This has become a theme of my week - not because I'm going through anything particular, but simply the truth of it - and its applicability to past and future events. Its been, for lack of a more somber word, "refreshing" to remember that Christ redeems sorrow and pain.

The hurt that broke your heart
Left you trembling in the dark
Feeling lost and alone
Will tell you hope’s a lie
But what if every tear you cry
Will seed the ground
Where joy will grow?

Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is wasted.
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted.

The wound that leaves a scar
Becomes a part of who we are,
But this is not the story’s end.
The pain that closed the chapter
Sets the stage for what comes after
When all we’ve lost is found again.

Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is wasted.
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted.

When hope is more than you can bear,
And it’s too hard to believe it could be true,
And your strength fails you half way there,
You can lean on me and I’ll believe for you,
And in time you will believe it too.

Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is wasted.
Sometimes we are waiting
In sorrow we have tasted,
But joy will replace it
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted.

Jason Gray, “Nothing is Wasted (Alternate)”

Living Stones

2011-09-08T06:53:00.005-04:00

In Joshua 22, there's this misunderstanding.

The tribes who took allotments of land on the east side of the Jordan are finally going home after helping the other tribe conquer the land of Canaan, and they build an altar, somewhere near where they are going to cross back over the Jordan.

The tribes in Canaan think they're trying to build a second place of worship, away from the Tabernacle, so that they don't have to travel so far to make sacrifices. They rise up to make war against the eastern tribes and fortunately stop to ask questions before they do so.

It all comes out in the explanation: the eastern tribes didn't want anyone to forget that they fought for the land. They pulled out the practice of their fathers and forefathers and built an ebenezer - a an altar of remembrance - so that when their children asked why they had to go all the way to the tabernacle to worship, or when the western tribes' children asked why these strangers from across the river kept coming over into their land, someone could point to the altar and say, "See, your fathers and our fathers fought together and God gave them this land. It is His, and we all worship Him here."

Except, here's the thing. The stones could stand for generations, and they could represent what the eastern tribes wanted them to say, but only if someone said it first. The whole misunderstanding arose because no one was there to remind the western tribes of what had happened.

I've been thinking lately about living stones. Josh Garrells uses the phrase in his song, "White Owl": Every dream that you have been shown / Will be like living stone / Building you into a home / A shelter from the storm.

And I've been listening to him almost incessantly, so, frankly, living stones in my head. But that is just the background music.

On Tuesday evening we gathered together the Chorale that went to Poland this spring for a reunion. A significant portion of the group was able to make it, and we were able to have a little bit of time for people to share what God had been doing in their lives since the trip.

One by one, as they shared, I was reminded of the things we learned together as we traveled.

And I had this thought - we're living stones.

The Israelites set up piles of stones to speak as a remembrance of the things God did. But without a message to go with them, as we see in Joshua 22, they failed to tell the story.

But then I started thinking and trying to remember exactly what it was that Peter says about living stones. I looked it up: "As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." It's all in the context of the Church - and fitting that it's one of Peter's letters that uses the analogy. Jesus is the cornerstone, the one upon which He will build His church, but we are the walls, the steeple, the body - a spiritual house.

As I wander forward through history I begin to see that we didn't leave the piling of rocks back in ancient times. One has only to look at Notre Dame de Paris, or Westminster Abbey, or St. Paul's, or the National Cathedral for that matter, to realize that we've been piling stones as markers of God throughout the centuries. Problem is: one only has to look at the words coming out of some of those buildings to realize that the message has gotten confused along the way.

Perhaps then, we should pour ourselves into building piles of living stones, gathering around us other members of the holy priesthood who can remind us of what we learned, of what we want to remember.

But then we run into this: for all their faults in communicating messages, stones have one serious factor going for them: they last. There are still altars built along the Jordan River. We don't know exactly if one of them is the one from Joshua 22, but it's quite possible. If that one isn't standing, others from near the same time still are.

Living stones on the other hand, well, they're fallible.

Time, philosophies, and the evil one take their toll on living stones; making us wonder if perhaps they were never stones at all, but something false, like the lithops plant that avoids being eaten by blending in to the stony ground around it. And we're left wondering if it might have been better to build up stone walls as remembrances, rather than facing the disappointment and confusion that false living stones give us.

I haven't finished thinking about this whole thing, but I'm going to say no. Living stones are worth the risk. Because not only can they tell the story of what happened then, in that time that you're building the remembrance of, they can also tell the stories of what has happened since, and the new things that God has done.

A Little Bit of You

2011-08-12T21:29:00.002-04:00

I've been attending a writer's conference for the past few days and have founds some really helpful tools and met some really interesting people. There's been encouragement; there's been frustration; there's been review; there's been new material.

In all, a positive experience.

A few thoughts and things I've learned:

1. Put a little bit of you into every character you create. - This shouldn't have been a new idea; and I don't know that it really was, but it struck me today in a way it hasn't before. And I immediately started thinking about an unfinished novel I've got in which the three main characters are basically a tri-furcation (see, I can make up words now) of my own personality. And then I had to tell myself not to get distracted from the other projects I'm working on.

2. "Save the cheerleader. Save the world." - There's a reason why the first season of Heroes was amazing. It lies in their tagline - all the cards were on the table. Goal (what are the characters aiming to do?) - "Save the cheerleader." Motivation (why are the characters doing what they're aiming to do?) - "Save the world." Plain, simple, and absolutely perfect. Note: once they saved the cheerleader, the entire television show fell apart.

3. It's really nice when the conference you're attending is at the place where you work, for, not only can you lock your purse up in your office all day and not have to carry it around with the 10 pounds of manuscripts in your bag, but also you can mooch coffee off the Admissions staff in the Welcome Center, which is way better than the Food Services coffee provided.

See, there you have it. I'm learning things.

Eleven Years

2011-07-15T09:03:00.001-04:00

I first met him in the Oxford Valley Barnes and Noble on a rainy afternoon about eleven years ago.

I’d heard he would be a bad influence on me, but I wanted to draw my own conclusions before entering the debate. And time was running short: a discussion about his worth was planned for the next day.

It was a tentative first meeting – I wasn’t sure I was ready to invest in the relationship, but I wanted the option to do so if things went well.

So I did what any frugal college student would. I found a comfy chair in a quiet corner and sat down overlooking the parking lot (no, the view from the Oxford Valley B&N is not what draws one to spend time there). Three hours later, my stomach growled, reminding me that as a frugal college student, I should eat in the dining commons. I sighed. I stood. I looked down at the paperback book in my hand, my finger marking the spot a couple hundred pages in, and I decided to take the plunge.

I walked downstairs to the counter and bought Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

I wolfed down dinner then returned to my room. Less than three hours later I closed the cover on the final page and took a deep breath, returning to the rarified air of reality after reveling in the rich atmosphere of fantasy for the bulk of my day. And I knew I’d made a new friend.

I won’t say the relationship wasn’t rocky at times. I went to the panel discussion and heard one of my favorite professors recommend staying away from Harry, not because he was necessarily evil, but because the Bible tells us to avoid even the appearance of evil. Another favorite professor lamented: “Fantasy writers create fantasy worlds. That’s how it works. I wish, for the sake of Christians, that Rowling had used something other than the trappings of magic for her world, but that’s what she used.”

They didn’t sway me away from my newfound friend. The trappings of magic were no trouble to me. They were simply the décor in a world unlike my own.

I started late in the relationship. Many were there before me. Rowling had already aged Harry four years by the time I began, and so I was able to work my way through books two and three in good time.

Then came the wait. I’d finished The Prisoner of Azkaban, but Goblet of Fire was only available in hardcover. College student that I was, I couldn’t justify spending $25 on a book that wasn’t for class. I waited for summer vacation, hoping I’d earn enough to justify the expense. A birthday present of a Borders gift card sent me to Border’s Express, where I found the book for just $19, and devoured it within three days.

I thought the wait was awful when I went a few months between books, but after Goblet, we were all forced into three years of agony. The pain was mitigated, slightly, by Harry’s arrival on the screen.

I remember going to meet him in visual form for the first time. The theatre was huge. I was with my friend Bekka. I sat in the vast darkness and watched quidditch for the first time, just as thrilled as I’d been to imagine it in the books.

In the time it took for Harry to turn from 14 to 15, I aged three years. I finished college and found myself working in the summer programs at SEND the next time I was eagerly anticipating Harry’s visit. I’ve never been a midnight showing kind of girl, and midnight book releases hold little more appeal to me, so I waited until the day of his release, after work, to find a copy of Order of the Phoenix.

And then, in panic, I searched in vain. Barnes and Noble, Borders, Borders Express – no luck at any one of them; all sold out. Unwilling to give up, a brainstorm occurred to me: Meijer. The great, the wondrous, Meijer. I swung into the parking lot at Eight Mile, hopped out of the car, and ran inside. Meijer has probably 20 aisles of groceries, a good acre of clothing and home goods, and another half acre of electronics, toys, pets, etc. But there’s only one row of books.

I went directly there. And found many copies of Order. I picked up the thick tome and took it to check out, proud that I’d out-smarted hundreds of other obsessed fans.

Order was probably the most difficult point in our relationship. As a 15 year old, Harry became annoyingly whiney and brooding. Sirius, who I’d come to love in Azkaban, wasn’t much better. I ignored my urge to slap Harry and pushed through to the end. And then, of course, Sirius’ shocking death. But I heard the prophecy for the first time, and another piece of the grand puzzle fell into place.

I finished Order staying in a tent on Grandma’s back porch over July 4^th weekend. The house was full of guests, we added the tent for space. It was hot, and humid as only Southeastern PA can be. By the time I finished, the books pages were wavy

The two-year wait for Half-Blood Prince seemed like a blip on the screen after the longer one for Order. But when the book was released I found myself in a conundrum. I was living in rural Alaska, far from a bookstore. I hadn’t ordered the book online, because there was something about getting it off the shelf that appealed to me. But I wasn’t planning to head into town around its release. I considered ordering it, hoping it would make it to me promptly, but I knew if I could just ask someone to get it for me, I’d have it sooner. Problem was: I was living in a community with a lot of those Christians who were caught up in the fact that Rowling had used the trappings of magic. Not wanting to offend, I didn’t know who to ask…until one (again rainy) afternoon on a boat in the Prince William Sound, when I overheard Larry say, “I’m going to town this weekend. We need groceries, but really, it’s because Josh wants the newest Harry Potter book.” And Kelly, his wife, chimed in, “Yeah, Josh reads through those things faster than anything. I’ve never seen him so focused on a book.”

And I’d found my solution. I sidled up to Larry a little later, and looking out over ice floes and glacier silt, I asked him to get me a copy. A few days later I had the green-covered book in hand, and I was happy to discover that Sirius’ death, though tragic, seemed to have pushed Harry out of his whiney phase and back into a nice form.

Throughout these years the movies came out one by one. I watched most of them in the theatres with friends, though Order, which I dreaded, I didn’t see until it was on DVD. Happily, time constraints forced the writers to reduce Harry’s whining significantly, and he was a much nicer person in visual form than on the page.

Waiting for the final book, I began to look back at them all with a critical eye. I thought I detected a chiastic structure which gave me ideas of what would happen in the end. I debated with friends questions of who would live and who would die. And I hoped for an ending worthy of the choice I’d made years earlier to invest in the relationship.

Then came the final anticipatory summer. Back in civilization, I got The Deathly Hallows from the bookstore the day it was released, and, not working at the time, I settled in to the final chapters of my relationship with Harry similarly to my first experience with him. The final book is significantly longer than the first, of course, so I couldn’t go straight through in a day, and besides, I wanted to make it last – but I allowed myself to be engulfed in the world of Potter, it’s magical trappings, and the friends I’d made along the way.

And at the end, I once again took a deep breath of the rarified air of reality and returned, satisfied.

It’s been five years since that summer when I stepped onto platform 9 ¾ for the last time with Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and their children. Filmmakers have given me layers of the relationship to continue to explore – seeing Half-Blood Prince come to life and reveling in the quiet emotion of Deathly Hallows, Pt. 1 on the screen have sated my desire for “more” when the author inside me knows there can be, and should be no more.

But this weekend, the final part of the final version of the final chapter of this friendship will project onto screens. I’m not sure when I can see it – I have responsibilities this weekend which prevent me from going right away. I’m embracing the delay, though. I anticipate seeing the translation to visual Harry, but I don’t want it to end. I don’t want to experience that epilogue’s finality again. I know I have to.

But here’s the great thing about this friendship that started eleven years ago on a rainy afternoon: it doesn’t ever have to end. If I want, at any time, I can go back into the world of Hogwarts and Muggles. I’ll never experience them again for the first time, but I can experience them again.

So it’s not an end, per se. But it is a close. And the world is different than it was eleven years ago. But then, so is Harry. And so am I.

Elephants

2011-04-11T10:03:00.004-04:00

I've always admired elephants. It's a little complicated to explain to people (they always jump to "that's weird" before they hear the whole reason), but if I were able to choose an animal to be, it would be an elephant. I love that they remember things; that they commemorate them. I do that as much as I can, but I'm not as good as an elephant.

But there are moments when I curse my elephant memory. When a conversation overheard about taking time off for a funeral sends me immediately back to a snowy January morning when I called my manager and asked for more time off because Keren had died.

And I'm there. And I'm grieving all over again. And I'm reliving that morning through my elephant memory.

And then I'm thankful. Thankful that that phone call to my manager was made from Michigan, not from Pennsylvania. That I was there, with my sisters and brothers-in-law and friends and family. That I did not have to get those phone calls when I was alone or drive or fly there by myself.

Mercy. It's a memory of His Mercy.

Update on Poland Trip Preparations

2011-03-27T15:16:00.000-04:00

Friends -

I wanted to post an update on what's happening regarding the trip to Poland this summer. This coming week is the airfare deadline, and there are still quite a few who are short the money. Please pray! We know that God is the great Provider, and we trust that He will provide the finances for each student He wants to go to Poland to be able to go. This evening the Chorale has a concert in New Jersey in which they will share about the trip. Pray for the Lord to move in the hearts of those attending to give.

This morning, I shared at Glenside Bible Church, my church here in Philadelphia, about what we plan to do and how to pray for us. As I did so, I realized that one thing I really need you to pray for me about is my role in mentoring and leading the young ladies on the trip. Pray that God would give me wisdom and a giving heart in my interactions with them both before we go and as we travel together. I've come to really enjoy the members of the Chorale, and I look forward into building into their lives more closely.

The response I received at church this morning was loving and encouraging. I know that we will be upheld throughout our travels by those who have invested in our journey. Currently, I'm a little short in my account for my plane ticket. If you feel the Lord leading you to give, please do so as soon as you are able. Thank you to the many who have already partnered with me financially and in prayer. I currently have about $1,000 in my account, and hope to have the entire amount, $2,525, raised by mid-April. Please use the response form below and return it to Nancy Musgreave in the School of Music and Performing Arts. Please place my name on the response form only; do not write it on the check.

I’d appreciate prayer for these needs right now:

1) Pray for me as I continue to build relationships with the students in the Chorale

2) Pray for the Chorale as they continue to train train to sing, and as they perform concerts throughout the region this spring

3) Pray for open hearts among the people of Poland

4) Pray that God will teach me all He wants me to know through this experience

Thanks for considering your part in what God is going to do through this trip to Poland this summer. You can follow the Chorale as we prepare and as we travel by visiting our blog:www.send.org/pbuchorale2011

Sincerely,

~Carrie Givens~

UNIVERSITY CHORALE

This trip and its ministry will not happen without your prayer and financial support. Would you join me in this ministry opportunity?

Name________________________________________________________________________________________

Address_____________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Phone number ______________________________________ Email address ___________________________

Team Member _______________________________________ Account number 20-4201-5161-303

O Prayer for me and the team as we prepare

O Financial Support: $50___ $100___$200___other____

Please send this Response Form with your financial contribution. All contributions are tax-deductible.

Please make checks payable to: Philadelphia Biblical University (PBU)

PBU is a non-profit organization and is registered with the state of Pennsylvania.

According to the I.R.S., gifts to PBU, even though designated for a particular ministry event or individual’s ministry support, are under the control of PBU and that while PBU will seek to apply the gift to the designation, PBU retains the right to redirect use of the gifts based upon the needs as determined by the Board of Trustees. According to the I.R.S., the tax-deductibility of your donation is dependent on it being “unconditional and without personal benefit to the donor,” and that it “is made to or for the use of a qualified charity. Further, Philadelphia Biblical University (PBU) must have “full control of the donated funds, and discretion as to their use, so as to insure that they will be used to carry out its functions and purposes.” Thus, we can only accept tax-deductible donations which are given in this way.

Paper

2011-03-08T15:16:00.005-05:00

Of late, my "blog" posts have rarely made it off of the paper they often are started on. In the few moments when I actually sit still without a task in the week, I find myself thinking (which to me, means writing), and I'm rarely in front of the computer screen at those moments. That's the whole point of those moments - NOT being in front of the computer.

But then, to share with the world, I have to transfer. And in the transference, what was once timely may become out-dated, what was once living may become a dead thing.

Still, I don't want to let go of my paper. The rolling of the tip of pen over the blank space gives me a feeling of security that black characters on a white screen cannot replace. The ruled lines give me a structure that a bare document or post box cannot contain.

I love to look back at my handwritten words and see where the ideas really got flowing, and the letters lengthened and angled, and the periods became more pronounced. In re-reading a typed document I lose that. I have to rely on my memory to know if it was a great creative moment - and I forget too easily.

No, I do not hand-write everything. I am a product of my generation and have touch-typed at ever increasing speed since I was 15, but sometimes, when the thoughts really begin to flow, the speed of my fingers on the keyboard give me no help in getting them out of me. So I go to the pen.

And I write on paper.

"Every Creation Myth Needs a Devil."

2011-02-13T16:39:00.003-05:00

I finally saw The Social Network yesterday. Yes, I know I'm well behind the times. But, you know, these things happen. There were many fascinating aspects to the film. I see why they have continually pointed out that this is an unauthorized version of events, and that these are characters based upon the real people, not representations of the people themselves. I see exactly why it has been winning awards left and right. There are great things I could mention about the writing, the directing, and the acting - but those are all well-discussed elsewhere. I don't need to.

Instead, I've been dwelling on one line that caught in my memory, which in the context of the story being told is directed at the main character, Mark Zuckerberg: "Every creation myth needs a devil." The phrase is stated to Zuckerberg at the end of the film, following the depositions which have been used as the framework device to communicate the tale of the origin of Facebook. The character speaking is saying that Zuckerberg himself will play the role of the devil in that particular creation story - that is, the version that arose from the depositions. But what fascinates me is the layering of this creation story throughout the film.

Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter, and David Fincher, the director, have managed, in a single film, to tell at least two creation myths for the phenomenon which is Facebook. Atop the myth that reveals itself through the depositions in the film, casting Zuckerberg as the devil, is the myth revealed by the film overall, in which identifying the devil is more complicated.

In the film's version of the creation story, Zuckerberg certainly is one candidate for the role of devil. He begins the film by eviscerating an ex-girlfriend in a blog; he promises three other students that he will build a website for them, and instead builds Facebook for himself; he begins the company with his best friend, and then dissolves his friend's ownership share in it down to nearly nothing, while keeping his own share absolutely intact. There's plenty of evidence for the deposition version of the creation myth.

But there are enough nuances throughout the film which raise doubt about Zuckerberg's role. When he meets the girl he wrote about in the blog later in the film, he goes to speak to her. He does not apologize, per se, but the audience is not quite sure whether he would have had he been able to. His attitude is such that we think he might truly regret his actions. When he reneges on his promise to build the website, there's a certain amount of understanding we have for him. He was 19 years old. He talked with some guys who had a great idea for a website. He said he'd help them out. Then he started thinking more about it, and came up with a better idea - yes, inspired by the first, but bigger and broader - and got excited about it. Perhaps the fact that he didn't follow through on his promise was not, after all, deliberate perfidy, but rather the immaturity of a teenager who has a brilliant idea. The betrayal of his best friend is, perhaps, the hardest element of Zuckerberg's devil-role to poke holes through, but the film brings in other characters whose influence over him could be the reason for it.

It is one of these characters, Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, who is, in the end, the other best contender for the devil role in the film's version of the creation myth. I was reminded every time Parker came on screen with Zuckerberg of a snake fascinating its prey before it strikes, weaving to and fro before it, beautiful and dangerous. The character Zuckerberg is on the one hand, lured into a world he doesn't really care about.

But here's the thing about humankind: even when they are archetypes in a creation myth, they don't stop being human. Zuckerberg is not innocent. While the character is portrayed as not caring about the money his new company will bring him, he is consumed with a desire for prestige on his own terms. We see that he was not deeply involved in the dissolution of his friend's shares in the company, but we also see that he allowed them to be dissolved. While Parker fascinates him, he buys into the fascination, because he sees in Parker something of what he wants to be.

In the end, the film leaves us with a creation myth that needs a devil, and Zuckerberg is probably the best option for the role. But it also leaves us with questions about the nature of mankind, about brilliance without guidance, and about the idea of influence and power.

And, finally, we're left with a character who could be any one of us: a young man who had a great idea and was capable of accomplishing it. And we're left asking what the cost was for him to do so.

I'm getting on an airplane again!

2011-02-12T19:42:00.001-05:00

Friends,

You know those times when you have something big happening in life, but you just haven't found the time to tell people about it yet? That would be the state of my past couple months. There have been many big things going on in life, and, while this email is about one in particular, I wanted to take a moment and share a few of them.

As many of you know, I've been working at Philadelphia Biblical University for the past 18 months. I started right after graduating with my master's from Arcadia University in Professional and Creative Writing. What do I do at PBU? I'm writing - among many other things. I work as a Communications Specialist in the Communications and Marketing Department at PBU, and I spend my time writing, editing, managing projects, helping build web content, coordinating the upkeep and expansion of our photo library, and generally having a good time. I work on a team of about 10 people who handle everything from making sure people have business cards, to overseeing the University's communications operations with prospective students, to launching a brand new website. The PBU website is one of the major things that's been keeping us all busy in recent months. We launched an entirely new site in January, and are still working on upgrading and working out the kinks. Another big part of my job is writing for and editing the University magazine, PBU Today. I've really enjoyed magazine writing and am looking into freelance opportunities in that field.

In addition to my work in Communications and Marketing, I've been an adjunct professor in the School of Arts and Sciences for the past three semesters, teaching freshman writing courses. I'm taking a break from that part of life this semester, which means that I don't have 10 papers to grade each week - and that's nice. Outside of work I'm involved at my church, Glenside Bible Church, teaching the college-age Sunday School class. I spend lots of time with college students in general, often having small groups over to my apartment to hang out or eat a meal. In the fall, my friend Christine began working full-time as a mobilizer with SEND International (I know, my mission!), and she moved down to be based out of the Philadelphia area as she covers the Northeast and Northwest regions of the US. She moved in with me and we've enjoyed sharing an apartment in Newtown, PA.

All this working with college students and living with Christine and continuing to have a finger (or two) in the world of SEND have converged to bring about a new opportunity. In May, 2011, the Chorale of Philadelphia Biblical University (PBU) will be presenting evangelistic concerts in Poland. Christine and I have been invited to go as co-leaders with the Chorale Director, Dr. David Shockey, to help oversee the group of about 45 students. Christine is also coordinating and leading the pre-trip training for the team and I have been able to help her with that some. In Poland, we’ll be serving with missionaries from SEND International.

Why are we going? SEND International, working with pastors and believers in Poland, is starting churches in strategic regional towns where there are no evangelical churches. Only 1/10 of 1% of Poles are true followers of Christ. Most of these new churches are very small, so the Chorale will perform in community centers. Our concert will give the church an opportunity for many people to hear the gospel and meet local Christians.

We will be going to Poland May 21 – 31, 2011. The cost for each team member is $2,525 which covers airfare, food, lodging, etc. In order to not be a burden to the students who are raising their own support, I am aiming to do the same.

I need ministry partners to join me in prayer and/or financial support for this ministry. Would you consider how the Lord could use you to be part of this team? If you feel led to assist in this trip, either with prayer or financial support, please use the response form below and return to PBU.

I’d appreciate prayer for these needs right now:

1) Pray for the missionaries in Poland as they set up concerts

2) Pray for the Chorale as we train to sing, and start our regular Chorale concerts in churches in the near future.

3) Pray for open hearts among the unreligious people of Poland

4) Pray that God will teach me all He wants me to know through this experience

Sincerely,

~Carrie Givens~

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PBU Chorale Poland Trip

This trip and its ministry will not happen without your prayer and financial support. Would you join me in this ministry opportunity?

Your Name:____________________________________________________________________________________________

Address/City/State/Zip:__________________________________________________________________________________

Phone: _________________ Email: ___________________Chorale member:___________________________ Acct #______

O Prayer for me and the chorale members as we prepare.

O Financial Support: $25 ____ $50 _____ $100 _____ Other _______

O Prayer support for the trip to Poland

Please mail this completed information with your financial contribution to Philadelphia Biblical University, 200 Manor Avenue, Langhorne, PA 19047, Attention: School of Music and Performing Arts. Please make checks payable to Philadelphia Biblical University. All contributions are tax-deductible.

**Gifts to Philadelphia Biblical University, even though designated for a particular ministry event or individual’s ministry support, are under the control of PBU and that while PBU will seek to apply the gift to the designation, PBU retains the right to redirect use of the gifts based upon the needs as determined by the Board of Trustees and the Administration of the University.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

The 25 Days of December

2010-12-26T10:12:00.003-05:00

The first 25 days of the month are over now, and the challenge to post a photo per day completed. I had a photo for each day, and only one was posted late.

So now it is done, and it accomplished my unspoken task. I caught the blogging itch again. I may not have a photo for each post, and I certainly won't get them up daily, but I will be more regular with them, working to share my thoughts in this space, out there for all the world to see.

Please continue to read and continue to comment. Your words back to me confirm that my words were not just spoken into the void. As God-like as that would be, I'm fairly sure that this creation wouldn't get the same result. No earth and sky, land and sea, plants and animals. So I look for your words, to know that I have created something.

Mystery

2010-12-25T07:44:00.004-05:00

A child was born on Christmas Day
Born to save the world
But long before the world began
He knew His death was sure
The pain and strife secured

Mystery, how He came
To be a man
But greater still
How His death was in His plan
God predestined that His Son would die
And He still created man
Oh, what love is this
That His death was in His hands

The Christmas trees
They glow so bright
With presents all around
But Christmas brought
A tree of life
With blood that sacrificed
The greatest gift in life

Mystery, how He came
To be a man
But greater still
How His death was in His plan
God predestined that His Son would die
And He still created man
Oh, what love is this
That His death was in His hands

I am just a man and
Can?t begin to comprehend
When You look into this traitor?s eyes
What do You see that justifies the Lamb

God predestined that His
Son would die
And He still created man
Oh, what love is this
That His death was in His plan
Mystery, mystery

Music and Lyrics by Selah

Jon-boy

2010-12-24T15:46:00.002-05:00

It's high time I show off my nieces and nephew in this lot of photos. So I figured I'd start with Mr. Handsome, who though he certainly has the word "Cheese!" down, ignored the camera the best.

But just so you don't think I have favorites, here are the Bear and the Bug...

You see, there's this book...

2010-12-23T22:37:00.002-05:00

There are some books that I always have in the back of my mind when I'm in used book stores or wandering the wide web. They're often the ones from childhood which are just so worn (after all, even if they were just given to my sisters and not passed down from our mom, they'd been through nearly 10 years of children before I was even born!) that they won't last to another generation.

Some have been "easy" finds - they've been reprinted in another edition, and while they don't have quite the charm of the old books, they do - the story is still there. Others have proven more difficult.

One in particular is The Big Jump-Up Animal Book, which, if it were as boring as its title I would care nothing about. But it's not. I' s the kind of book you just can't judge by its cover. There's this lovely story within of five jungle animal friends who need food, so they all go out searching but can't find anything. When they gather again, they realize that the giraffe is missing, and so they go searching for him, only to find that he has discovered a feast of food, but, since he has no voice, he couldn't call out to them to help him carry it back.

It's a great story, with beautiful illustrations, and yes, "jump-up" animals, but honestly, that's the least appealing factor of the book. But that's its title, making it all the more difficult to find.

So, I'll continue the search; Google on my side, I shall persevere. And maybe, just maybe, one day I'll find a copy with the binding still intact.

Making Christmas Gifts

2010-12-22T22:37:00.003-05:00

My mom is going to be the rocking-est Grammy in this hemisphere this Christmas.

She just did awesome work.

Beauty - in new forms

2010-12-22T00:52:00.004-05:00

Beauty has taken on a new definition since I got nieces and nephews. There's something truly beautiful in the scribbles of a child, drawn just for me.

Great art? No.

Beautiful, though.

If only it were Euchre...

2010-12-20T22:04:00.002-05:00

Playing "cahds" a time-honored family tradition, passed down from a bunch of MKs on one side and an adopted uncle nicknamed "Bones" on the other, is something I miss when I'm not at home. I just don't get the opportunity to play much when I'm not with my family.

The primo game in our repertoire was introduced by my not-sister-in-law Katrina when she married in: Hand and Foot - or, as I like to call it, "Hoof and Mouth." We're rather particular about our rules for the game, and rules that deviate from ours are promptly labeled "Cheater rules."

It's a good game, and tonight was pretty competitive until the final hand, when Dad decided to finish off in style, and it has introduced words and phrases into my vocabulary which have now become normal, such as:

Befooted - the state of being in one's foot, rather than one's hand

[said with scorn]: "Dirty Queen!"

and, last, but not least,

"Red three. Very bad."

House of Books

2010-12-19T22:47:00.002-05:00

"A house without books is like a room without windows." ~Heinrich Mann

People marvel at my bookshelves when they come to my apartment...I come home and realize that I come by it honestly.

Ticket Stubs

2010-12-18T18:31:00.003-05:00

Christine (bless her - wonderful roomie who mailed me the negatives I forgot so that I could work on a scanning project over break) gave me a "ticket stub album" for Christmas.

For a while now, basically since college, I've kept my ticket stubs when I go to movies and shows. I've tossed them into a little box in a drawer, thinking someday I'd do something with them.

Well, this delightful person paid attention to that, and found me "something" to do with them...

I began to organize them this evening when I got home (HOME, to Michigan!), and just had to stop and think for a moment about the experience of movie going. I read somewhere once that movies should be watched in theatres because you get a community experience that you just can't replicate even in the best living room set-up.

Sure, I could look at all these stubs and say, "gee whiz, that was money I could have used elsewhere." But, rather, I look at them and think, "Oh, that was the time I was sitting between Natey and Paul when they wanted to talk about football during Remember the Titans" or "Oh! That's the movie Loren and Kraig and I went to the first time they left Keren with the grands after she was born."

I look at these stubs, and more than anything, I remember the people I saw the movies with. Hmm...maybe movies really are about community.

Sunset at 70

2010-12-18T10:36:00.002-05:00

Driving down the Turnpike at 70 MPH makes it a little hard to take photos...and then to get them posted when you're visiting friends is a little rough, too.

So here's yesterday's:

"Up Five Ghetto Notches"

2010-12-16T20:57:00.004-05:00

A week ago we turned on the TV.

Sound came out.

No picture.

Currently our TV is nothing more than an immensely large speaker. Immensely.

So I will have to get a new one, some time. But, well, there just isn't time right this moment. I mentioned the situation to my coworker, Jodi, and she offered an extra TV they had sitting in their garage as a fill in.

I happily accepted the offer and brought home the TV the other night. Not able to do with the old one yet, I set the borrowed set on a small table in front of the old one. Then I went to hook it up.

But here's the thing. The borrowed set only has a mono audio plug in. And I only have a stereo audio cable.

So, as a solution, we improvised. Currently the video cable is going into the borrowed set. The audio cables, then, are going into that massive video-less speaker sitting behind it.

Christine laughed at me. And then she declared that our apartment just went up five ghetto notches.

But hey, we both appreciate that we've got a TV.

Heritage

2010-12-15T15:47:00.002-05:00

There are times that my family's long connection with the institution where I work is complicated, but more often than not it is a benefit.

Sometimes it is funny. Sometimes it is bittersweet. Sometimes, it's just nice.

This morning my boss said, "I need someone to start a 'Centennial' box."

I volunteered.

So, sitting on my desk, looking for a place to live for a couple of years as we prepare for the University's Centennial, is an old magazine with my grandfather on the cover. The photo is totally 80s. The issue was actually published a few months after I was born. But right now, it's sitting on my desk, and my grandfather is there. And it's just nice.

10th Hour Breakfast

2010-12-14T23:37:00.002-05:00

Eggs, waffles, pancakes, bacon, sausage, cereal, pastries...you name it, 10th Hour Breakfast has it.

Yes, that's breakfast. In the 10th hour post meridian (aka 10 pm). For 300 students. Who sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" table by table, led by the Jazz Band.

Welcome to Finals Week.

Extravagance

2010-12-13T21:56:00.002-05:00

"What Jesus said to [Mary in John 12], and those around Him as well including Judas, was 'she has done a beautiful thing and wherever the Gospel is preached what she has done will be remembered.' That is an amazing commendation for someone like me who tends to work from the heart, who tends to work with precious and costly materials. I remember that the extravagance of Christ’s love for me prompted an extravagant response. Eventually, I came to connect what I do as an artist with Mary’s devotional act. Maybe that is the one act we can look to as the centerpiece for a paradigm of creativity."

~Makoto Fujimura

Men will grow in the oven.

2010-12-12T19:03:00.002-05:00

I few weeks ago I needed to make cookies, and I had a hankering for gingerbread. And I also had molasses in the cupboard. And in the back of my brain was a memory that the best gingerbread cookies I'd ever had were from a Christmas recipe book that my uncle and aunt gave my mom for Christmas about 15 years ago.

So I called up my mom and described the book and the recipe I was looking for...the description went something like this: "It's the one Uncle Paul and Aunt Elaine gave you one year. Sort-of country-ish? Christmassy, though. Yeah, and there's a recipe in there. It's either for molasses cookies or gingerbread cookies. I don't remember what they're called. Oh, gingerbread? Yeah, with molasses in the recipe. Yep, that's them. Can you email me that recipe?"

I ran by the store and picked up a couple items I was missing and I came home to print off my mom's email - and opened it, and read through, and began to laugh.

The final instructions read like this: "Add more flour if making gingerbread men. Cut them out and place them on the sheet. Men will grow in the oven."

And my mom had added: "(yes the recipe says just that) :) See if any men grow in YOUR oven."

None did. Much as I tried. Instead, cookies came out. And they were a hit. A HUGE hit. All the college girls that ate them loved them. More than men.

I need cookies again this week. So I decided to see if men would grow in my oven again.

Still no men. But awfully good cookies.

I wish...

2010-12-11T22:51:00.004-05:00

I wish I could say I had this delightful day wandering the streets of the City and topped it all with finding the perfect gift.

But, in reality, as most trips to the City do, it actually looked a lot like this:

And that perfect gift? The almost perfect one I found was about twice what I'd budgeted...so that won't work.

But, after all, I can say the day was nice.

Freedom to Flee - er, Fly

2010-12-10T22:58:00.002-05:00

I get itchy feet. I haven't often, in recent years, gotten to indulge their itchiness. But I get them, just the same.

Next spring, I get to go. Hop on a plane and cross an ocean.

But I needed to update my passport. It was nearly at the end of its life. So I sent it off for renewal, and for the past month have had this horrid feeling that, if I needed to, I couldn't leave the country. I mean, not even for Canada.

Today the new passport arrived in the mail, all stiff and computer-chippy and fancy. And, for another ten years, I can go wherever I want.

Bright Morning

2010-12-09T09:27:00.004-05:00

At a biblical university, even the geese walk on water.

It made me laugh, which was a delight on this bright morning. My sister wrote about comic relief yesterday, at the end of the surgery. She likened the moment to the steam coming off a pressure cooker - laughter.

And this morning, in the bright sunshine, I gloried in the silhouettes of trees against the sunrise. It brought to mind the lyrics of a favorite carol: Disperse the gloomy clouds of night / And death's dark shadows put to flight.

And I laughed at the geese.

HONK!

2010-12-08T06:59:00.004-05:00

In these dark, predawn hours I'm imagining the household awakening - ZEB crying a bit, his Nana or Grandpa comforting him. Mom's hands are busy with Meimei, his little sister, and they shake a little as she bathes her in the special soap and dresses her in the freshly laundered clothes. Dad helps out, or just stands behind Mom with a comforting hand on her shoulder.

And then they're off. And the hospital staff welcome them in. And the day begins; the day that a surgeon will fix Meimei's heart.

Through it all she's probably gurgling and charming. This baby girl who came into the world almost unobtrusively - she scheduled her appointment and kept it perfectly. She came home on time, without a fuss. She's lived the past four months in a home with a boisterous older brother and a great mom and dad, and lots of neighbors. Most of the time you would not think a thing is wrong - but from the very first day we thought today might come - just a little murmur through the stethescope - but it could lead to this.

Today is the day, though, that it gets fixed. And we'll all breathe a little easier.

So I look at the picture of the baby on my fridge, flanked by her brother, overlooked by her grandparents, kitty-corner from an old card from a friend that says, "HONK! Fact # 4 - Geese in formation honk at each other as a means of encouragement." And I think of all the "geese" honking for Meimei today, and I trust that God hears those honks, and I look forward to tomorrow.

The things we don't see

2010-12-07T14:30:00.005-05:00

I've walked past the display for months now. I helped, a little, in setting it up. I have my favorite pieces - the mask with the enormous beak, the woven rugs.

But I never saw this one before.

Forced to go and take more photos of the Charis: boundary crossing exhibit for a project I'm working on, my eyes were suddenly opened to the simple beauty of one piece - tucked away in a corner, its neutral tones almost blending into the wall behind it. Perhaps it was the spilling rice that caught my eye. Or the rose petals. Maybe just the brown paper, so different than the garish gold, green, and red typical of this season.

I don't know why I saw it this time. But I love it.

Oblation, 2008

by Jo-Ann VanReeuwyk, United States, Canadian

Fiber; variable size installation

Why He Came

2010-12-06T18:53:00.002-05:00

For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

by God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

Crazy, Small-Town Parades

2010-12-05T15:12:00.006-05:00

I thought that the small-town parade had been left behind me in Glennallen when I moved here from Alaska - really, who could compete with the shutting down of a main highway for 45 minutes at the height of tourist season so that the Electric Company and Parks Service can drive big trucks down the road and throw candy to the crowd.

But Newtown almost compares. There is a whole lot of character - and a bunch of characters, too.

Textures of the 18th Century

2010-12-04T16:30:00.002-05:00

You know those days that are just right? The ones where you wake up in the morning, having slept just enough, and you get up, and you do the things you need to do to get the day rolling, but no more. The ones where you take a walk, pick up a hot cocoa at Starbucks, stop in at the jeweler's and find that you only owe four dollars for your fixed earrings, and then continue your meander down the street. As you go you pass the Tubby Olive and the Grapevine Grocer, the Lubavitch and the Newtown Borough Hall. Flakes begin to fall as you approach your destination, the Newtown Theatre, and you cross the street to the chattering voices of children, coming out from their viewing of The Polar Express to the sight of snowflakes.

You make your way inside, buy your ticket, and find a seat, thrilling in the old red curtain that covers the screen and the miniature town and train that stretch from side to side of the stage. And a few moments later the lights dim, and the curtains open, and you take a trip back to your childhood as you watch a Disney fairytale and melt into your seat at the song where the hero and the heroine fall in love.

It's those days that make you think that it can't get much better. That this must be the pinnacle, but you realize that it's only 3 PM and you still have much to do. You walk back out into the chilly town and you remember that the Half-Moon Inn is open for visitors, so you wander back through the streets, approach the stone building at the corner of Center and Court, and reach your hand out to open the door...

And that's when you realize you were wrong. Because, as much as the day had been perfect so far, it only got better when you stepped back two centuries into the wood, metal, and stone of an old inn, full of the smells of crackling fires, mulled cider, and roasting duck.

After all that, the best part of your day were the textures of a lost century.

Scarlet and Silver

2010-12-03T23:21:00.002-05:00

Tonight was a party to kick off the season with Bing, Rosemary, Danny, and Vera Ellen - i.e. White Christmas. But, my favorite color of the season is the reds - from the deep rubies to the dark crimsons. So, here, shades of scarlet:

Not Quite Winter Yet

2010-12-02T18:49:00.004-05:00

I sometimes have a hard time believing that winter will really come here, to Philadelphia. Already, the sticky heat of summer has pushed the memory of snow piles up to my elbows deep into the recesses of my mind - I have to force myself to realize that I made those snow piles less than a year ago.

A reliable weatherman, a coworker, has predicted that there will be a snowstorm within the next two weeks, and, based upon his track record, I'm inclined to trust him. But for now, I look out at the sunny early mornings and late afternoons, at the brown leaves clinging to the trees, at the rakes still standing in front of the hardware store, and I think, "Not quite winter yet."

The view out my office window, late afternoon

Newtown Hardware, ready for anything

The single tree across the street, whose leaves alone have filled my driveway

December - and Photos

2010-12-01T18:15:00.009-05:00

I haven't done much photography of my own in the past couple of years. I sort of overdosed in AK, and then had to recover for a while. But this fall I've been taking more and more shots for work, and trying to get my artistic eye back in gear.

When I saw this referenced on my friend's blog, I decided it would be a challenge, and would force me to write more, too, and I should take part. So here I am, posting my first series in The December Photo Project.

After a chilly, drab, day marked by torrential downpours of rain - very November-ish - I decided I needed to get back into the Christmas spirit with some shots of the tree:

Then I saw the olive wood nativity, and the ornaments, and found I needed to get a little closer.

On a quiet road in Maryland

2010-11-29T23:33:00.002-05:00

Written 28 November 2010

Dear Aimee -

I went to your grave today. You weren't there. I didn't expect you to be; you left your earthsuit almost a year ago.

I stood quietly for a moment. It was cold, but not nearly so cold as the day we buried you. February's chill hasn't yet come. Then I read a part of First Corinthians 15 - one of the best parts, the part about earthly bodies and heavenly ones. The part that says we bear the image of the Second Man in our heavenly bodies. I wonder what you look like now.

I didn't have anything to leave at your grave - it was sort of a whim to come by today. There were flowers there, though. Someone else came this week. I just read Scripture and then whispered to God.

I asked Him to hold your family tightly. To comfort them particularly in the next few months. I saw them a week ago, and we missed you. You were with us in our shared memory, but we missed the particular lilt to your voice, which didn't enter the conversation, the particular turn to your smile which didn't take part in the merriment, the particular tune of your laugh which didn't ring at the jokes.

We talked of you some, we thought of you more, and when we parted, we prayed for one another. And I thanked God He's protected them all this year. I thanked Him for holding your dad, for comforting your mom, for strengthening and encouraging your brothers, for caring for your sister. Some people might not think, knowing everything your family's been through this year, that thanking God for what He's done in their lives is the right attitude. But those people haven't met your family - and they haven't met their God.

I went to your grave today, Aimee, and as always, you pointed me to God.

Lamentations

2010-10-29T11:44:00.002-04:00

He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drunk with wormwood.

He has broken my teeth with gravel;
He has made me cower in the dust.
My soul has been rejected from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.
So I say, "My strength has perished,
And so has my hope from the LORD."

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.
Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.
This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
"Therefore I have hope in Him."
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the LORD.
It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke in his youth.
Let him sit alone and be silent
Since He has laid it on him.
Let him put his mouth in the dust,
Perhaps there is hope.
Let him give his cheek to the smiter,
Let him be filled with reproach.
For the Lord will not reject forever,
For if He causes grief,
Then He will have compassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness.

Spaghetti in the Pensieve

2010-10-26T19:51:00.001-04:00

In one of the Harry Potter books, when Harry and Dumbledore are examining memories in the Pensieve, there’s one memory that Dumbledore has trouble getting out of its little bottle into the Pensieve. It clings to the glass, and stretches into strings as he forces it out…I think all memories are like that, in a way. They all cling, typically one to another, like strands of spaghetti that haven’t been tossed in olive oil.

It’s strange, really, the way things connect in the mind. One item references another, which triggers a third, and then, before you know it, you’re years away from where you started, deep in the reaches of memory or facing an unknown future.

It was editing an article that did it for me this time around. The author quoted Tobias Wolff, a contemporary fiction writer. At the moment, all I thought was, Tobias Wolff. I was in a writing workshop with him once. But hours later, in the quiet before sleep, strands began to cling, and my mind was off.

I remembered the writing workshop. It was in a richly paneled room in the back of a mansion – a chilly day, grey out the windows. Mr. Wolff presented briefly, then dug right into our work. When he got to mine he said he bet that I wondered what people would think of one of my characters, the Imp. I hadn’t wondered anything of the sort; in my mind, my Imp was the centerpiece of my story. Without her, I had no tale. But I found it interesting that he was considering whether the Imp worked. I suppose, if she didn’t, then the entire piece would be a flop. She must have worked, though. Tobias Wolff liked my story.

To the workshop clung the story, the conversation I recorded between myself and my Imp. And to the story clung the event that spurred it: an afternoon, a few months after Keren died, when I watched a video about a Trisomy-18 boy who lived for just three months. To that afternoon clung grief. The loss of my little niece, the impact it had on me.

And then, like that memory in the Pensieve, reluctantly pulled to the fore, came a thought: my new baby niece has to have heart surgery. Up until that moment I had not allowed the thought sway. A routine surgery. Something that they do a lot. But in that moment, intertwined with my grief, I saw the unknown future – Emily on an operating table. And it terrifies me.

The tears come – the ones I’ve held back for the past few weeks, the ones I’ve heard in my sister’s voice on the phone – and they wash over the strands of thought and memory, dissolving them together into the basin of my mind where they bubble now, just below the edge, in danger of splashing out at any moment.

School Spirit

2010-06-19T14:52:00.002-04:00

Late in the fall of my senior year of high school, my friends discovered that I'd never been to a football game. They informed me that this situation had to be rectified before I graduated.

I resisted them. I'd made it through nearly four seasons without attending a football game and had not yet felt the lack. Generally, I am not a football fan - and I knew even less of the game in high school than I do today.

But my friends insisted. It was a high school experience I should have.

I still disputed them. My high school experience was not particularly normal in any sense. I felt no need to pretend it was.

They informed me that there was only one game left in the season, and I needed to support my school.

I said I had no school spirit. My school was actually two schools sharing a campus; we had classes in both with people from both and were only separate for administrative things and sports teams. So my attachment to Canton, my own school, was not particularly strong. Salem had better pep rallies (which I attended because I got out of class), and better sports teams overall (but I'd never seen them play). The final game of each football season was the Canton v. Salem game, and Salem had won for 17 consecutive years.

My friends ignored my protests. They informed me that I was going to attend the final game of the season. They informed me I was going to support Canton.

I tried to plead that one of my good buddies since Kindergarten played for Salem, but my friends would not allow me to root for the "other" team. They dragged me to the game, and I determined I would be neutral.

I really can't remember much of the actual game. I remember the cold. I remember walking up into the stands. I remember looking down at the field from above and seeing the teams stretched out in formation below me. However, understanding none of the rules of the sport at that point in my life, all I saw was a line of blue and a line of red running into each other at regular intervals. But slowly, as the temperature dropped, the numbers on the Canton side of the scoreboard rose.

And, as the moments of the game ticked away, I found myself growing agitated, interested, and even, dare I say it, excited that Canton was winning. I looked down at the blue Salem bench and spotted my friend's number on a jersey. I had a moment of divided loyalties, but as the crowd grew noisier, I discovered something: I had school spirit.

When the final whistle blew, I cheered and yelled and smiled and laughed with the Canton fans as I watched my friend fall to his knees as his team lost the game for the first time in 18 years.

Yesterday, I didn't get to watch the whole US game. I had to go to lunch with friends who are coming as students next year. As I stood in line for the cafeteria, one of PBU's soccer players was checking people in. A small crowd had formed around her - some with responsibilities, others just hanging. I came up to the table to scan my card, and one of the crowd was giving commentary: "They're still down 2-1." She glanced at her phone. "No! Wait! They tied!"

The soccer player cheered, and nearly lost count of the people in line. And I, scanning my card and turning in, felt that strange stirring within my heart once again. I missed the controversial recall of the 3rd US goal, but when I looked it up later I felt a little outrage deep inside.

These feelings make little sense to my brain. After all, I'm rooting for England, right? But, if the US continues to do well, I might just discover that deeply hidden "school" spirit once again.

Whoever Plays the Yankees

2010-06-15T07:25:00.004-04:00

I have an uncle who loves baseball. When I say that, I'm not sure you can quite understand me - unless you have one of those types in your own family. He LOVES baseball.

Now, often team loyalties in sports come through familial ties. A son loves the team his father loves, unless of course, he grows to hate that team. But probably, more often than not, the favorite team passes from father to son. One reason for this may be location - if a boy grows up in Baltimore, just like his father, he's likely to love the Orioles, just like his father.

But for my uncle and his sons, that love of team has gotten a little confused. They've moved all over the country, and while the love of baseball has passed from father to son, the team loyalties are representative of each son's experiences. The youngest, born in Chicago, is a Cubs fan to the end. The middle son, who went to school in Boston, loves the Red Sox. The eldest, living in Minneapolis, has become a Twins fan. They all love baseball, but have their own voices as to which team deserves their fandom.

My uncle, though, has passed one thing along to his sons. You see, he has a favorite team - if you push him, he'd root for the Phillies or the Orioles - but on a day-to-day basis, my uncle's favorite team is whoever plays the Yankees. And this loathing is what he's passed on - they all hate the Yankees. Any chance they have to see the Yankees lose, my uncle and my cousins are there, cheering for the opposition.

I feel the same way about Germany in football. Too many times I've seen the powerhouse nation crush the hopes of the underdog. I was in Czech Republic during the 1996 final EuroCup game, and listened to the silent streets when Germany defeated them in extra time. I've watched them defeat my favorite England in various matches. Any chance I have to see Germany lose, then, and I'm cheering for the opposition.

Here's the problem, though. Germany's good. Really good. I actually really enjoy watching them play. I went into Sunday's game slightly hopeful, but my hope in Australia was crushed, then crushed again, then crushed for a third time, and a fourth. Yeah. It was painful. I have a fondness for Spain simply because they beat Germany two years ago in the EuroCup final...and they got upset yesterday by the Swiss - I wonder if the majority of the Swiss team is German- or French-speaking?

But hey, upsets happen. The other day New Zealand pulled out an equalizer in the final minute of extra time. Today Mexico beat France by two. And maybe I can take comfort in that. Because tomorrow morning a little country I wouldn't typically root for is playing Germany, and it's pretty likely that they will fail miserably.

But I'll be rooting for an upset - by Serbia of all teams - because, when it comes down to it, I cheer for whoever plays the Germans.

Why England?

2010-06-10T07:12:00.009-04:00

In case you didn't know, the World Cup starts tomorrow. Some delightful student painted the spirit rock before the end of the school year, and we're still enjoying it.

Added to that enjoyment, my boss brought in her Brasil flag and jersey to hang in her office. She's feeling homesick, a little. We went by the dollar store the other day to get streamers, and she decorated her ceiling with green, yellow, and blue tassels.

I, on the other hand, typically have a little dilemma when it comes to the World Cup. See, I have two favorite teams. Fortunately, if I'm just going for colors, I'm pretty safe - red and white cover both - but if I want a flag, well, then things get complicated.

However, this year, Croatia didn't make it to the Cup. And I'm sad about that, but relieved that I won't have to have torn loyalties again. Instead, I can focus my attention on my other favorite: England.

The other day, someone asked me, "Why England?" And it caught me a little by surprise. See, I can tell you the whole story of why I love Croatia. In fact, I'll include that story at the end of this post. But I don't quite remember why I like England.

Maybe it's the red and white. Since I went into sixth grade my school colors have included some form of red and white. Perhaps, subliminally, I'm drawn to the shades.

Maybe it's St. George's Cross. I've always loved the legend of St. George and the Dragon. I'm still waiting for my brother-in-law to have time to actually make the bronze miniature of the scene he once described hoping to make about 14 years ago.

Maybe it goes back to Beckham. I definitely became more aware of England when Beckham played for them, and I still argue that there's no one more enjoyable to watch on set plays than the man who can "bend a ball" like that.

But the school color concept could be shot full of holes, probably, if I tried. And St. George and the Dragon doesn't seem to really hold up as an argument for liking a soccer team. And Beckham's not playing this series, and there are other players who I've always liked as much or more than him.

So when I was asked, "Why England?" I had to dig a little deeper to find my answer. It struck me with surprising clarity when I finally came upon it. "I think it goes back to Hong Kong," I said. "I did live in a British Territory."

I often tell people that I'm Chinese on the inside. My time in Asia and my family's love of the continent has shaped who I am. But maybe a little part of my inside is English, too. It's the part that thinks "rubbish bin," or spells "favourite" and "behaviour" with a "u." And actually, it's the part that remembers pausing on the sidewalk to watch a rugby game or cricket match at the school down the street - and yes, the part that stood by fences watched a football match out on the pitch.

---

Yesterday, I was sent a link to an article on the idea that "Football is War," and it reminded me of some of the reasons I love Croatia. When I have a chance, I'll post my thoughts on that football team.

"Listening Walls"
I watched it on a small TV at a friend’s house in rural Alaska. Outside my window were scruffy spruce trees and rugged mountains on a cool spring June day, on the television was a hot European summer and an old stadium in Berlin filled with fans – some in yellow and green, some in red and white. The walls of that Olympic Stadium must have shaken with the swelling sound of the crazed supporters for the opposing teams. As it came over the airwaves to me, a part of me had to laugh – I was watching this scene in a place where soccer is barely recognized as a sport (it’s not hockey, after all). But for much of the planet, the World Cup is the greatest sporting event.

It was the ultimate underdog soccer match, Croatia against Brazil. They’d made it to the World Cup again, but no one expected much from Croatia, especially playing against Brazil. There are reasons why Brazil leads the world in football. They are truly great. But, alone in the wilderness of Alaska, I was rooting for Croatia.

My love affair with Croatia began ten years earlier than that game, on a hot June day in 1996, when I landed in the Zagreb airport and headed out across the country to my friend’s home. Forty years of communist rule followed by four years of war for independence had left its mark on the countryside. The beautiful landscape, once a draw for tourists from around the world, was ravaged by bombs and landmines. The fragile economy was taking its first tentative steps toward a market system. A proud race of people looked at their devastated countryside and found it hard to muster confidence for the future. Buildings bombed at the beginning of the war were overgrown with vegetation, while the ruins of more recent battles were still charred rubble.

There was a hospital that had once been premiere in the region, which had been bombed by Serbian troops. Passing the shell of the hospital complex, I wondered at the hatred that could lead to such atrocity. We stopped outside a little town named Lipik, at the ruins of a Lipizzaner horse farm. It seemed to fit that Croatia, home to a strong and proud people, would also be home for the tall, beautiful show horses. On a tour of the farm, I learned that the Serbs had positioned themselves on the ridge, bombed the stables with napalm, and then stolen the horses that weren’t killed. At one time, Croatia had the largest population of Lipizzaner horses in the world, but the man showing us around told us with tears in his eyes that they had all been taken away. The war was not simply about land and sovereignty; it was the age-old story of brother fighting against brother – each knowing just how to strike the rawest nerve and cripple the enemy’s pride. Walking through the stable, my toe touched a half-burned name plate and I bent down to read it: Vida, “life.”

It is said that it was a soccer match that triggered Croatia’s war for independence. In 1990, violence broke out between Croatian fans and Serbian fans at a match between a Zagreb team and a Belgrade team. No one knows who threw the first stone, but the police force, mostly Serbian, allowed the Serb fans to continue and beat the Croatian fans. One Croatian player got involved and karate kicked a Serbian policeman. It was known as “the kick which started the war.” Within the month, a Croatian parliament held its first session and war began.
War in the Balkans is always a complicated matter: religion, ethnicity, and political affiliations divide people who in reality are very similar. But brutal fighting has torn the region for over a thousand years. In the Croatian war for independence, over ten thousand people were killed. At the end of it, a place that had once been a favorite stop for tourists became known as a war zone. A country that hoped to prove its potential to the world was relegated to the status of “former Yugoslavic republic.”

The experience of watching the 1998 World Cup final in France is a still image forever imprinted on my memory – a crowd of people gathered in the rain around one television set, covered with a raincoat in an outdoor café – but it is the game a day or so earlier that plays itself out on live video in my mind: the third place game. The great Oranje of the Netherlands against the unexpected Croatian team – this team, from a country that had not even existed seven years earlier, was up against one of the best teams in Europe. I watched the game in a French bistrot, surrounded by drunk Dutchmen garbed orange…and I rooted for Croatia.

I’ve been on the streets of a European city when their team is the underdog in a major match. Traffic stills; the bustle of an ordinary day quiets. In cafés and on street corners men huddle around television sets intent upon the action. No matter where you go – from hotel lobbies to police stations, cafés to grocery stores – you can find a place to watch. I’m sure that the streets of Zagreb were quiet that day. They may have even set up large television sets in public places so that people who didn’t have them could watch. When Croatia scored, I bet you could hear the roar of the crowds echo through the cobblestone streets, all sharing the euphoric experience of joy.

In the little French bistrot, I was the only one rooting for the checkered red and white team, and, for fear of inciting the drunken, orange mob surrounding me, my outward celebration at their win was subdued. But internally I thrilled with joy. I knew I was joining thousands celebrating in a little country on the shore of the Adriatic Sea. I can imagine the silent streets of Zagreb flooding with citizens, singing and celebrating all night long in the city’s square. Only three years after the end of a terrible war, a young and struggling nation had made a name for itself on a world stage. I remember images of grown men weeping, and a country celebrating together as if it had again declared its independence.

Eight years later they returned to the World Cup for an encore performance. The team’s play was not as impressive as their first turn, and early match-ups against Titan teams didn’t bode well for the little country’s success. But the Croats had not forgotten what it meant to be there, to be playing – even if they were the long shot.

The old stadium in Berlin was overrun with Croatian fans, whose voices never hushed throughout ninety minutes of play. I watched from the other side of the world, kneeling on the floor in front of the television – rising up when the play grew intense, leaning back in the few quiet moments. For the entire game Brazil out-played Croatia. And for the entire game Croatia hung in there. They only allowed one goal.

The final 10 minutes of that match were electrifying. Watching on a small television, thousands of miles away, I was engulfed by the sound that filled the stadium. Every thought I was thinking and feeling I felt were displayed in full color and noise. The commentators could barely be heard over the din, but one of them said, “And remember, this is for the team that’s losing!” The entire Olympic stadium swayed with the sound and fury of the Croatian fans, who never gave up, even as their team lost.

The Olympic Stadium in Berlin was built at Hitler’s orders. He moved the games to Berlin from Poland in 1936 with the intention of showing the world the superiority of the Aryan race, but an American Black man named Jesse Owens won four gold medals. As I watched a soccer match in that stadium on a June day in seventy years later, a little part of me wondered what those walls – built for the glory of Hitler – thought about that crowd. A group of people whose land had been wracked by genocide and war, playing their hearts out on the field, singing their hearts out in the stands, forgetting for a moment the horror they had lived – the killing and being killed – in the glory of knowing that they had made it through and were once again players on a world stage.

This is a test...this is only a test

2010-04-27T20:00:00.002-04:00

You will soon be returned to your regularly scheduled programming.

I'm actually trying something out, trying to figure out if my link to FB is still working on this, so yes, in reality, it is a test.

But to give a slight insight into the world of Cg: This week I've been working with a photographer to get profiles of next year's bloggers...and after lots of wandering to random places on campus, I'm rather tired.

And there you have it.

You may now return to your normal lives.

Resurrection

2010-03-28T20:53:00.001-04:00

28 March 2010
Palm Sunday

I am again in a part of the world where Spring flourishes. Though today’s weather is chilly and grey, the flowers have been bursting forth for weeks now. The crocuses and snowdrops are already being replaced by daffodils and columbine. The forsythia glows along the sides of the road and the edges of fields and yards. A few blooming trees have burst in the unseasonable warmth, but most just sit, prepared, a sheen of color over their branches, ready to bloom forth from long Winter slumber with the coming of Easter next week.

This morning the words of an old hymn flow from my lips: “Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature, O Thou of God and man the Son.” The hymn goes on to compare all nature to its Ruler. Te meadows, woodlands, blooms of Spring, sunshine, stars, and moonlight pale in comparison to the Son of God and Son of Man. This year, even the season seems to be in submission to Him. As though the resurrection of Spring desires to reflect the First Resurrection.

And resurrection is coming. But today I enter a week of reflection on His passion. More words blend with the music in my soul: “Amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?” Then we sing out His name: “Jesus, Messiah. Name above all names. Blessed Redeemer, Emmanuel. The rescue for sinners, the ransom from heaven, Jesus Messiah, Lord of all.” Before we celebrate the resurrection, we must face the reality of death. Rescue. Ransom.

Yesterday I cleared away the dead leaves and branches from around the green shoots and bursting blooms of daffodils. The leaves died last Autumn, and fell to the ground, turning brown. As I cleared the dry, dead leaves from the top, I found those underneath had begun to disintegrate, the papery brown giving way to become rich, dark soil. From the black soil, new life was coming forth. Their death led to new life.

The leaves paid a cost. They lost their glossy greenness, flaming out into red and yellow, then fading to brown. They lost their shape and structure, the membrane between the veins disintegrating into dirt. They died and their death paid a ransom that equipped new life. Nature once again following the pattern its Ruler set.

The Ruler arose, though. His real death, His rescue, His ransom, did not end His life. Resurrection. The blooming trees which lost their leaves last Autumn are perhaps a better analogy. They sacrificed their crown, their beauty, the bright green of high Summer, paying a price for new life to come forth. But now they await resurrection, to burst into greater beauty than they lost.

As I enter my reflection of Christ’s sacrifice, I look forward to Resurrection. Not only His, but also those for whom His sacrifice paid ransom. Their bodies lie still beneath the earth. Beauty covered by dead leaves. But from the dirt they will arise. Their former bodies having served to bring forth good things from the soil, they willl arise with a new crown of beauty.

I think of Keren’s grin, Aimee’s smiling eyes, Peter’s dad’s hands. We keep the old body in our memories, but we shall not see it again. As the glossy green leaves of Summer cannot compare to the flowering beauty of Spring blossoms, so those old bodies will fade in relation to the resurrected ones. I miss what I knew. I cannot imagine what resurrection will bring.

As Spring bursts forth from the ground in yellow, pink, purple, blue, and green, as the sheen of color replaces the icy white of winter’s blast and the dead brown of its end, I consider what the ransom of Christ’s death paid for: the resurrection of His own.

Longing---Peace

2010-01-24T17:55:00.001-05:00

The hymn “It Is Well with My Soul” begins with the following line: “When peace like a river attendeth my way…” Peace. My first thought is that there is no peace today in my heart. There is restless longing. I’m not satisfied anymore with walking with Christ through this life. Not when I desire so to be with Him. My eyes, my heart, have opened to the reality of eternity in His presence. I want to be there.

Is it simply because I long to be reunited with those I’ve lost? I don’t think so. It’s the idea of true rest. It’s the understanding that true peace and joy exist in His presence. Knowing that, can I be satisfied with less?

And then the words of the hymn roll over me again. “Peace like a river attendeth my way...” Is it here? Can I experience it now? Maybe it’s just a matter of perspective. To one who doesn’t know Christ, we who grieve in Him are bewilderingly peaceful, joyous. They see us and wonder. They cannot understand. They desire such peace and joy.

But here, the step closer, belonging to Christ and living and grieving within His light, right now it doesn’t seem enough. Walking with Him through this broken world seems tainted. The peace I can have here is not what I know exists. I can almost touch that greater peace; I can see it, but I can’t yet experience it. Somehow, though, I live in peace in the midst of turmoil. I live in joy in the midst of suffering. I have respite in the midst of care.

But today the final words of the hymn are so much fuller of meaning than they used to be. “Oh Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight. The clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend, ‘Even so’ – it is well with my soul.” Now, I see through a glass darkly, but then I shall know as I am known.

I’ve always loved that phrasing. The concept that there is a veil, an obstruction on my vision. Lewis’ The Last Battle has called to my heart for that very idea. In The Great Divorce the grass of heaven is so much harder, more real than anything we’ve ever felt here. My heart recognized, desired that truth before I realized it intellectually. It is only recently I’ve begun to grasp this longing with my mind. To comprehend it.

I’m restless in attending peace. I’m longing in grateful fulfillment. I’m sorrowing in unending joy. We truly are a peculiar people, set apart. We long even as we experience glimpses of that which we long for. We experience joy as we look to celebration. We have peace while we wait for rest.

Losing Aimee - Transformation

2010-01-23T15:35:00.003-05:00

On the loss of Aimee Powell, 21 January 2010

A friend asked if I would write about Aimee…about losing her, and grieving. My friend said it would help her know how to pray. And it made me wish I was closer. Wish it hadn’t been a few years since I’d spoken with Aimee. Wish that we kept in contact more than through Facebook and our mutual friends. Wish I were the right person to write about losing her.

I’m not.

But I am a writer.

So maybe I’ll try.

You know those friends you have sometimes in life, who you’re not in touch with every day, or even have been really close to – in the way you’re close to a best friend – but who you’ve always known, who you’ve shared times with – good times, and who, no matter how far apart you get, you love?

That’s who the Powells are to me. Who Aimee was. I don’t know when I first met them. I first remember spending time with them during our year in Hong Kong. We visited Taiwan, and hung out with the Powells a lot. As soon as I heard about Aimee’s accident, vivid memories of chasing a spider in her bedroom into the corner behind the dresser and squashing it there came flooding back. They were followed by the Taiwan conference that year – when I hung out more with Aimee’s brothers than her, but remember her there on the edges, playing with her sister Allison, a blonde toddler at the time, on the open lawn. The memories jumped ahead a few years – our touches during my teen years were rare and brief – she was three years younger than me, and when you’re 11 and 8, or 15 and 12, that makes a difference.

But Aimee came back into my life in college. I was a senior, and RA, and she came in as a freshman. I don’t think she requested my dorm – though she might have – but God knew where to put her: right across the bathroom from me. We didn’t become best friends, or deep bosom buddies. But we shared our lives for a school year. There were jolly conversations into the evenings, boggled laughter at her roommate, Cammy, who would surprise us with random information like the fact that shooting and field dressing an eight point buck over Fall Break was nothing compared to the alligator she’d once hunted, and good talks – talks about being an MK, about what it meant to “re-enter” a culture you didn’t know you belonged to.

After that year we went our separate ways. Aimee went on to another school. I graduated. I honestly can’t say if I’ve seen Aimee since then. I think we may have connected once, in New Jersey, but I’m not sure when that was…For six years the river of time has flowed past. But Thursday, when I first heard of her accident, my mind jumped back almost twenty years, and then slowly worked its way forward from scene to scene to the present. In every single memory, Aimee’s joyous smile and sparkling eyes stood out.

I read in one of the articles about Aimee that she recently wrote she felt “settled” for the first time in her life. And I know exactly why she wrote that. Most of our mutual friends know why she would write that. We’ve all experienced the rootlessness that comes from growing up as a TCK, an MK. We know what it means to try to be rooted now that we’re adults, and the itching that comes to the soles of our feet when we leave them in one place too long. It’s no surprise to me that the people who Aimee and I both know are grieving across the globe – posts from California, Hong Kong, Michigan, Taiwan, Maryland, Germany, Pennsylvania, China, Alaska are filling her family’s Facebook walls.

When I’ve worked with MKs going through culture change, one of the things that we talk about is citizenship. The definition of a TCK is someone who spent a significant portion of their formative years in a culture different from that of their parents’ passport culture. Citizenship is a confusing concept for a TCK. But God seemed to know the needs of TCKs when he inspired the words of Scripture. He had Paul pen this: “But our citizenship is in heaven,” (Phil. 3:20a). He gave TCKs roots, an unchanging citizenship.

But here’s the thing…Paul doesn’t stop with that phrase. He goes on, “and from it [heaven] we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:20b-21).

Heavenly citizenship isn’t about having roots, though that’s an effect of it. It isn’t about feeling settled, though it gives us a place to belong. No. Heavenly citizenship is about transformation…change from the weak, dark, painful, hard world we struggle through – with bodies and minds diseased by sin – to His glory.

Heaven’s grown closer for me this year. That concept of transformation is played out in my mind’s eye as I see my niece – who was limited and handicapped in this world – running, jumping, and singing with Jesus. Aimee lived across the bathroom from me the year Keren was born. I don’t remember how much we talked about her, but I’m sure we did. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Aimee remembered; that would be like her. So, maybe today Aimee’s playing with Keren – reveling in the transformation that’s taken place for both of them

Urbana Update

2010-01-01T12:57:00.001-05:00

Urbana Day 4 –

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. This morning, at Urbana, York Moore shared the gospel. Hundreds of students made a commitment for Christ. There were those who came from religious backgrounds, but have never made their faith their own. There were those who didn’t know why they came to Urbana. God is working in the lives of the individuals here both for their salvation and the salvation of others.

A young woman wants to work with the Goth subculture in Japan. An Asian-Canadian has a heart for the Native peoples of Alaska. A young man is looking to use teaching to reach the hearts of students in Asia. A guy is wondering how he can use sports ministry in Europe.

These students share the light of Christ with a dark world. Pray for us as we spend one more day talking with students who are seeking God’s will in their lives.

Urbana Day 5 –

Finishing well, it's always a challenge. You come to the end of a semester as a student and you're worn out. You come to the end of a mission trip and you're spiritually exhausted, to the end of a job and you just want to move to the new opportunity before you. Today at Urbana the SEND representatives greatest challenge was finishing well. We were tired. Our throats were growing scratchy. We'd shared our heart with student after student for four days already. Somehow, though, we had to give today's visitors to the booth the same care and attention that we'd given visitors on Day 1.

The day started with a study of John 4, Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. He was tired. He was thirsty. He asked for a drink, and then He shared the living water. In the general session, the words, "Man of Sorrows what a name, for the Son of God who came ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah, what a Savior!" washed over us, our voices joining with 17,000 others who were calling out to the Man of Sorrows for another day of strength.

And that tired, parched, sorrowing Savior gave His strength, His encouraging hand, His power for one more day. From the moment the hall opened until a few moments after the final call for students to depart, we continued to talk with students about what God is calling them to. The board with the prayer of surrender continued to fill.

The night finished with an hour of communion, breaking the bread together, sharing the cup. And then, we worshiped in the New Year;17,000 students, thousands of exhibitors and people from local churches, singing and praising God together for His goodness.

When the emcee, Greg, began his announcements in the evening, he mentioned that it was the end of our time together. To the sound of disappointment that rose from the crowd, Greg held up his hand, "Woah!" he said. "No! This is a missions conference! If we were to stay here worshiping together we would have failed! We are called to GO!"

Thousands of students were called to GO this week. May God equip them to answer the call.

Urbana

2009-12-29T23:29:00.003-05:00

Urbana – Day 1

Morning began with most of the SEND crew having arrived…Amy still stuck in Chi-town, Dan still driving in from VA…we rolled on over to the exhibit hall to register and set up by mid-morning, and wandered through the floating snowflakes. Unloading the van in the cold was, well, cold.

The SEND crew got registered and the booth set up, and the doors opened to students at 3 PM. For three hours various members of the crew hung out by the booth connecting with students. Amazing to see how many students came through already today, looking to see what God might have for them to discover this week.

Over the course of the afternoon, it wasn’t uncommon to see a SEND exhibitor talking with students, taking them over to the opportunities peg board to pick a card or two, then stopping to pray with them before they left.

In the kick-off session for the week Jim Tebbe, the director of Urbana challenged us to think about our neighbor, both next door and around the world. Ramez Atallah, the Bible expositor for the week, challenged us to imagine any middle class couple choosing to have their baby in the slums outside Cairo – no medical care, dirty facilities – and reminded us that God sent His Son to be born in a dirty manger among the poor of the earth.

Urbana Day 2 –

Amy made it in! We celebrated her arrival by singing “Happy Birthday” to Tom, about 10 times over the course of the day, in every public venue we could find…

Students have dreams…a girl we met wants to start a school in Japan, another a bookstore. A missionary kid is discovering how God has prepared him to reach international students at his university. A couple is searching for how their gifts in carpentry and administration can be used on a field. All of these students with dreams spoke with SEND reps today. Conversations led to connections, connections to prayer.

One of the most exciting parts of the Urbana experience is the opportunity to connect with students who are seeking God’s direction. There’s a board at the SEND booth that students can sign on which is written a simple prayer of commitment: “I will go anywhere to do anything, at any time, at any cost.” There are signatures beginning to fill the white space, students who are willing to commit themselves to God’s call, without agenda or plan.

Urbana - Day 3

Three years ago Drew met Ron at the SEND booth at Urbana. Drew was in college, interested in missions, and looking for a place to serve. Today, Drew came back to the SEND booth. The colors of the display have changed; the location in the exhibit hall is a bit different. Drew is now a graduate student in seminary; Ron's grandkids have grown a little older.

But the mission has not changed. There are still people who need the gospel, still people groups who have no evangelical witness. There are still young people seeking God's mission for them. There are still mobilizers who desire to equip those young men and women and mentor them through the process.

Drew and Ron spent time talking and praying together this afternoon. Drew spent two of the last three years on a short term experience overseas and is thinking about going back long term. There are decisions to be made, and things to consider. He doesn't know exactly what God's next step for him is, but he is trusting God's leading. And he knows that Ron is there as he walks this journey, available to listen, to mentor, to pray.

We found a nickname

2009-11-28T20:44:00.002-05:00

Conversation before dinner:

Ev: "My brother's Jonathan Blewis."
Clare: "No. Jonathan Lew-is. She sometimes says it wrong. Maybe it's too long for her. Ezelyn, you can just say 'Jonathan'."

Conversation after dinner:
Aunt Carrie: "What color are carrots?"
Ev: "Pink!"
Aunt Carrie: "No, carrots!"
Ev: "Orange."
Aunt Carrie: "What color is Jonathan?"
Ev: (Pauses) "Jonathan Blue-ass."
[Aunt Carrie begins to laugh uncontrollably.]

Rest

2009-10-09T18:23:00.002-04:00

I've redefined rest today. I came to this conclusion just a few moments ago. Rest isn't not doing anything, it's doing something different.

Today, I'm not grading papers. I'm not writing Annual Report text or editing PBU Today. Today has been a day of rest.

What did I do on my day of rest? Well, I still had to teach, but one class took an exam and in the other I got to talk about the climax of one of my favorite dramas in the world...oh, and worldviews. But then, I went to chapel and sat once again under the Bible teaching of Dr. Master, and remembered why I loved his classes so much. And then, I left PBU.

I went to the Social Security Administration and sat in their waiting room for half an hour before I got called to a counter to submit my application for a new card. Then I went to Target and the bank before driving back to my apt. to gather together the million and three documents needed to transfer my licence to PA. I took off for the Driver's License Center and there waited for only about 10 minutes in the waiting room before they called me to a counter, then sat me down again, then called me to another, took my photo, and sent me off with a temporary PA license.

On my way home I stopped by the library and switched out the CDs of The Witch of Blackbird Pond for the audio Fever 1793, jumping forward in history about a hundred years in the process. Then, before 3 PM I sat down upon my bed and spread out bills to pay and numbers to crunch and organized my finances for the next few months. Following that, I got a few quotes on car insurance and made a decision, paid for six months what I used to pay for two, and then checked email.

Email led me here, to the blogs of family and friends, reading, thinking, processing, resting.

Looking at the list above I don't think I should feel rested, but I do. In the back of my mind, I know that there are still 40 papers, 19 exams, and 16 blogs to grade. In the back of my mind, I'm concerned that I don't have the third student profile written for the Annual Report, and that I still haven't gotten text from two authors for PBU Today. In the back of my mind those things remain, but for today, they're staying in the back of my mind.

And that's rest. After weeks on end of constant focus, always processing, always thinking, always figuring how I'm going to get this and that done, I took a break from it--and rested.

Tomorrow the break will continue. I'll grade a bit on the airplane early in the morning, but the majority of the day will be spent in a cozy kitchen with apples simmering in stock pots on the stove. I'll crank the handle of the sauce-making thingy; I'll stir the apples with a wooden spoon. But I won't worry about the PBU Today; I won't concern myself with the papers and blogs. They can wait for Monday.

The Tribe

2009-08-13T19:59:00.002-04:00

At some moment last night, I looked at the mass of small children on the floor before me, laying, crawling, toddling, walking in a great conglomeration of arms and legs, heads and bodies, and had a vision of the future.

In twelve years, the youngest there will have just passed that year marker. There will be two thirteen-year-olds, two fourteen-year-olds, and a sixteen-year-old. Add in the other cousins from the rest of the tribe and there will be another at thirteen and an eighteen-year-old in the bunch.

The boys that now climb all over each other, squeaking out shouts of glee and pain in toddler-sized voices, will wrestle on the floor, their voices cracking between high and low notes. The girls, who now giggle and push dolly around in a stroller, will still giggle, but will be more likely to be kicking a soccer ball around in the back yard. Chubby little calves will have elongated into skinny legs. Dimpled knees will be nobby. Tiny paws will have grown into strong hands.

A part of me hopes they remain friends like they are right now. Remarkably, for a tribe made up of families who spent the past thirty-five years traversing continents on the other side of the world, these cousins have all landed in the same place for a time: seven kids spanning four years who see each other more than once a week. If the families stay where they are, they'll attend the same schools or church youth groups.

But I know this tribe; those traversed continents make for itchy feet. Already, some cousins have moved away, and these that remain may well travel the world as well. However, they'll congregate with some regularity, perhaps at holidays, or in the cool of a Michigan summer evening like last night.

Two families joined years ago and formed a tribe - it's grown since, with additions through marriage and birth, but remained joined. The crew of kiddos crawling over rocking horses and sharing dollies today will not lose their bonds. Blood, tears, joy, pain, and love join them.

A Quoteable Week

2009-08-11T23:50:00.002-04:00

Home for the birth of Jonathan Lewis Warnemuende, who made his arrival a few days late at 9:56 am, Monday, August 10, 2009, weighing in at 9 lbs. 11 oz., and 21.5 inches long, I've realized once again how quoteable my family can be. Here's a few choice notes from the week so far.

In a discussion about various family members' names -
Aunt Carrie: "Ev, what's your middle name?"
Evelyn: "My middle name's not here, it's in the car."

As we waited impatiently for Baby Button to be born -
Kraig: "This kid's going to have to be named 'Spot,' as in 'Out, out, damned...'."

Upon meeting Jonathan for the first time -
Clare: "He's not in baby-land anymore!"

Talking about her 1-year-old cousin -
Evelyn: "I like Zachary. He's nice."

Upon meeting her brother -
Poppa: "Clare, what's your new brother's name?"
Clare: "C. S. Lewis."

Sitting at the breakfast table, pointing to her bent-over middle finger -
Evelyn: "Stay down! Stay down!"

Telling us about staying the night with Grandma and Grandpa W. -
Clare: "And we played Little House on the Prairie and I was Laura and Evvie was Mary. Grandpa said we should play Big House in the Suburbs."
(Then she wondered why we all started laughing)

2009-08-08T14:06:00.002-04:00

The Comfort of the Familiar

It was a few years ago that I had the realization - my entire being would relax when I heard Tagalog. It was something I'm sure I'd experienced prior to the realization, but it hit me one day that though I couldn't understand what was being said, my mind just let the words and intonations roll over it without struggle or effort.

I've since concluded that the reason for that response is based in my childhood and before. My mom was pregnant with me in the Philippines, and when we returned to the States we made lots of Filipino friends. Much of my early childhood took place surrounded by commingled Tagalog and English, and it's comfortable.

Once or twice in my life that sort of realization has hit me in other ways: when I'm surrounded by Chinese, I forget my skin color and height and think I look like them. When I enter an Asian market my mind knows exactly where to look for the products most Americans wouldn't ever think to buy.

The other week I was at the Willow Grove Walmart and an Indian family passed me in the aisle, the boy in the cart chattering away in Hindi, the parents discussing whether or not to buy this and that, their voices mingling with their son's, the tones skimming up and down scales in ways that English never does. And I closed my eyes for a moment to enjoy the sound, and felt my mind relax, without even wondering why.

Today I went to the library in my hometown. In the space of five minutes I passed four Indian families and scanned a shelf of DVDs with 3 in Hindi and 2 in Punjabi. And I suddenly realized that the faces and languages of a country I've never set foot in have become familiar comforts. When I find them in another place, I think of home.

What's home? The familiar. To me the familiar is a mix of countries and cultures. When I see those faces, hear those languages: I'm home.

2009-07-17T10:17:00.003-04:00

Apartments, Storms, Power Outages, and Syllabi

Well, I found an apartment. It's the downstairs of a neat old house in Newtown. And I love that concept. The house is on a little V of land between State St. (the main st. of Newtown) and Court, a residential street which goes off at an angle. Means that there's traffic out almost every window, but since it's Newtown, most everything rolls up by 7 PM. Anywhere I go is going to feel noisy after my current apartment; I figure I'll get used to it. The apartment is the bottom floor of the house, and the top two floors are a separate apartment (a little larger). I had originally looked at both, and liked the idea of either, though the upstairs is probably more than I need, and therefore more than I need to spend. There's a patio/deck out the back, fenced in, for outside-ness, and then, of course, all of Newtown for walking and exploration. I love both the main street and the surrounding neighborhoods there, so I look forward to lots of walks. Right across Court St. is the Friend's Meetinghouse, with a big hedged lawn, that Chuck, the owner of house, said they often went over and used when they wanted grass space.

Aiming for mid- to late August for moving in. I'll miss being where I am now (in terms of setting, and comfortableness of the people), but I won't miss how far away it is from everything! I'm looking forward to avoiding the turnpike. Currently I'm spending almost $20 a week in tolls alone.

PBU is on a four-day work week over the summer, so I'm basically working Monday through Thursday, and taking Fridays off. So yesterday was the "end" of an extremely long week. Here's hoping when Lisa's back in place things will settle into some sort of routine. Pretty much the entire department will be completely new. Good things and bad things about that. It means that we won't be stepping on toes when we say, "no, we're not doing things that way anymore," but it also means that there's no one around who knows what's been done and whether or not it's worked...guess we'll have to find out the hard way.

It was my intention to do some writing last night, and maybe watch an episode of something off of Hulu, but as I ate dinner, the heavens opened, and I set my computer aside to watch the storm. I closed up all my windows and the rain came down like a waterfall. Fascinated, I changed into clothes that could get wet and stepped out the door. I was hot and sticky (yesterday was a truly Philly summer day), and figured I would probably need to take a shower to cool down anyway, so I might as well let the rain soak me. Within a minute I was absolutely drenched, and at about the two-minute mark I was cold. That and the sporadic lightning encouraged me to go indoors again, so I went in, dried off, and changed. I walked through the living room with the wet clothes to take them to the laundry, and somewhere between the living room and when I entered the laundry, the power went off. Suddenly my evening plans changed - no computer (or, very little since I didn't want to use up the battery and I couldn't get online), limited phone use (again to save the battery), and no lights...I pulled out a book and used the daylight while it lasted and then a flashlight for a little while before sleep overcame me - got more than halfway through.

After the rain stopped, around 8 o'clock, Chris (my landlady) hopped into her car to go get Bill (her husband) from the train station. He was coming home from a business trip. About 10 minutes later she was back, there were two trees down at the end of our road, and she couldn't get out. She ran into a neighbor whose son was bringing him back from the end of the road in a golf cart and he had gotten home from work after the trees fell, so his car was parked on the far side. He agreed to go get Bill, and a bit later Bill was delivered safely home by golf cart.

The power was out all night, and Bill pulled out the generator early this morning to cool down our refrigerators for a few hours. The road got cleared by about 8:30 AM, so I came on over to Starbucks for a while. I have a syllabus to finish and had planned to work on it here anyway, just now I do it out of necessity. That said, I should probably stop writing this note and get cracking on that...it's due by the end of the day. Hopefully the power at home will be restored rapidly. This time it seems to just be a downed line, whereas when it was out the other year the entire transformer had gotten struck by lightning...here's to less than two days without power!

2009-07-08T20:53:00.001-04:00

Irregular Update
From Carrie Givens
Blog: MaidCarolyn.blogspot.com
Facebook: MaidCarolyn

What’s Been Going On?

For the length of time it’s been since my last “irregular update,” I can only apologize and say that I’ll try not to let it happen again. I feel like I’m getting back into the sort of life that lends itself to sending out updates on a more regular basis, but the past two years have been anything but.

Let me show you what I mean:

May 2007 – Left Alaska after two years and flew to Macau, China for two weeks before heading back to Michigan for the summer.
August 2007 – Packed up everything that had made its way down the Al-Can Highway and moved it to Pennsylvania.
September 2007 – Started my Master’s in English with an emphasis in professional and creative writing and teaching at Arcadia University. Began working for Starbucks Coffee Company.
Fall 2007 – Took three full-time courses, worked 30 hours a week at Sbux, worked 4 hrs/wk in the AU Writing Center (WC).
Spring 2008 – Worked 35 hrs/wk at Sbux, 4 hrs/wk in the WC, took three more full-time courses.
Summer 2008 – Took two full-time courses, worked 8 hrs/wk in WC, 35-40 hrs/wk at Sbux where I became a Shift Supervisor.
Fall 2008 – Took three full-time courses, worked 30 hrs/wk at Sbux, 4 hrs/wk in WC, and taught one English Composition course.
Spring 2009 – Researched and wrote my thesis, worked almost 40 hrs/wk at Sbux
May 2009 – Graduated with an MA in English from Arcadia University, planning to continue working at Sbux while looking at possibilities for employment and pursuing publication.

What’s New?

I had planned to spend another year working for Starbucks and exploring writing opportunities. God decided He had different plans.

In May, I met Lisa Weidman, the Communications and Marketing Director at Philadelphia Biblical University. In our conversation she asked me questions about the types of writing courses I took in my program at Arcadia. Her eyes lit up when I told her about the Writing for the Web and New Media course that I took last summer.

A couple weeks later, Lisa and I got together again and she began to pick my brain about my concept of a biblical university. We talked for nearly two hours about how a university should present itself. Concurrently, Lisa was working with a team to reevaluate the entire Communications structure in place at PBU. Basically, an overhaul of the system was needed.

About three weeks after our first meeting, I met with Lisa again and she offered me a position as a Communications Specialist in the new Communications and Marketing Department at PBU.

I accepted the job. Next week I’ll start full-time at PBU, but I’ve been going in a few afternoons to get my feet wet. Rethinking the whole system is going to be a big task, especially as we’re putting together a new team to do so. It will be a challenge, but I’m looking forward to it.

Oh, and meanwhile, I’ll teach two freshman English courses at PBU and possibly a course for home-school high school seniors this fall, too.

Celebrate and Pray with Me:

· Thank God for His provision of a good job in an economy where so many are struggling.

· Praise the Lord for His guidance in the education I received that prepared me adequately for this new position.

· Pray that I’ll find a new apartment. Working at PBU means I’ll daily be in Langhorne, about 40 minutes from where I’m currently living. Therefore, I’m looking for new digs closer to campus.

· Pray for God’s continued provision for my needs, my health, and my energy.

· Pray for the new Communications and Marketing Department at PBU, that we would be able to handle the tasks set before us and that we would be able to communicate the value of a biblical education to the varied audiences PBU reaches.

2009-06-28T16:51:00.001-04:00

Where I Am Now – Keeping Focused

This morning, someone made a comment about passages of Scripture that have, in the past, impacted you so deeply that they’ve become a part of the fabric of your being. At the words, I cast my memory back and thought of passages like that in my life.

The first to come to mind was a verse in Second Timothy that resonated with me in times of struggle during college, hard times when I didn’t even have the strength to pursue Christ: “If we are faithless, He remains faithful—for He cannot deny Himself.” Having the strength for faith isn’t something I’m currently struggling with, but the verse still resonates—it is a truth I rely upon and live in.

Today, though, I went back to the beginning of the chapter to take a look at that verse in context. I wanted to see what I was to do with the phrase right before the one I’d grasped: “If we deny Him, He will also deny us.” It’s a frightening verse, really. What does it mean by the word deny?

These days, my spiritual struggles are wrapped up in the struggles of others. I have friends and mentors who have turned their back on the God who is my life-force; friends and mentors with whom I learned Christ and a biblical worldview. And I do not know what to do with that. If God taught me something through the words or actions of a friend, and that friend no longer follows that teaching, what am I to do? How am I to comprehend that teaching now? Through prayer and consideration, I’ve come to realize that my philosophy that God’s Truth is Truth, no matter in what vehicle it is presented, applies here, too. But even so, the struggle remains. My faith is currently secure. By God’s grace, I am not doubting His person, His faithfulness, His goodness, His justice. But these friends cannot say the same—and some have said the very opposite; they have rejected God.

So I read the whole passage again, finding myself in a different position than when I last spent time looking at it. This is what I read:

“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in sufferings as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

“Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect; that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with Him, we will also live with Him;
if we endure, we will also reign with Him;
if we deny Him, He will also deny us;
if we are faithless, He remains faithful—
for He cannot deny Himself.” (2 Timothy 2:1-13)

Who am I in all this? Where do I stand today? I am the “child” addressed at the very beginning. I’m exhorted to be strengthened by Jesus’ grace, by the truth I’ve heard all my life. I’m commanded to pass this truth along—which is what I’m doing right now.

I’m to pursue Christ single-mindedly, undistracted by those around me who doubt. Not without care for them, but with the knowledge that my pursuit benefits them, as a soldier’s obedience to this commander serves everyone he protects. Yes, certainly, there is reward for faithfulness, like the athlete’s crown or the farmer’s crop, but that is secondary to the soldier’s focus upon his commander. That aim to please the commander comes with hardship sometimes; soldiers are asked to lay their very lives on the line, but their aim is not focused upon the suffering, rather the goal.

And what is that goal? That Truth will be heard and understood. Paul exhorts me to remember Christ Jesus. He is bound for the sake of the Truth, but the Truth still speaks, still goes on. Paul sets aside his own cares; he shows the soldier how to endure the suffering for others’ sakes.

This is where things get nitty-gritty and theological, and I’m not sure if I’ve got it all right, or even exactly how it plays out in real life, but here’s what I’m thinking on the end of the passage. Paul says he endures everything for the sake of the elect, and it is in that context that he says what follows. He knows the elect will be saved, but he wants them to obtain salvation with eternal glory…living fully forever, starting now.

The saying Paul quotes at the end of the passage is the part I’ve always spent time upon. There’s salvation: dying with Christ and also living with Him. There is suffering and reward: enduring and reigning. And then that denial. Those who deny Christ will be denied. So who are these ones? I think, based in the idea of election, these are those who are not elect, who were never saved to begin with. The faithless, on the other hand, are believers who falter, either through willful sin or simple exhaustion. To them, Christ remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself – and they have co-died and co-lived with Him.

So where does it leave me with these friends who have turned their backs on the Savior who suffered for them? I mourn to think that some of them may have denied Him from the start, and they will be denied by Him. But others, even those who have shaken their fists in His face and said, “I will not serve!” may still yet find Him faithful. For He cannot deny Himself, and they are His.

I wish I could figure out who falls into which category. I wish I could shake those who have lost faith and say, “Wake up! Don’t you see? He’s still here! He hasn’t given up on you!” Right now, I don’t have the opportunity to say those words, but at least I can keep my focus and hope He speaks through my life. I also co-died and co-live with Christ. He is my commander. It is He for whom I compete, for whom I work. And it is that that will benefit those friends around me; it is that which will point to the Truth. I love that right in the middle of this whole passage there’s an encouragement to think on all this, and a promise that God will give understanding. I don’t know if I’ve got it yet…but I’ll keep my focus.

2009-06-14T16:33:00.001-04:00

Unfathomed Mystery

It's funny - strange, really: grief. One of those mysteries of life we experience as human beings but never really understand.

This week I watched episodes from the show Roswell--not a series of great depth or insight in general, mostly just fluffy teen pulp with aliens thrown in for good measure. An entertaining diversion, but not much more. But there was an episode I saw in which one of the main characters died in an accident and the rest of them dealt with the loss. It was a very real hour of drama. Despite the random alien elements of the show, it took the time to focus on how death affects us as humans, how we grieve.

I've been grieving lately, that's no secret. My niece died in January and the loss has marked me forever. As I watched that episode this week, I shed a few tears for Keren. But here's where grief bewilders me: that recent loss was not at the forefront of my mind as I watched. Instead, I found myself once again grieving the loss of my friend Carrie Wolfe who died in 2003.

I got word of Carrie's death just after we'd finished celebrating my birthday a day early. The next morning, the day I turned 22, I awoke to the knowledge that my friend was gone. It was not the happiest birthday I've ever had.

In the Roswell episode, on the morning after the accident, one of the guys, Kyle, awakes to his typical morning routine but then, remembering, he crawls back into his bed. His dad comes in and, sitting next to him, says, "Not a very happy day, is it? I want to tell you something. It may not seem like much, but you need to know it: your friend died yesterday, not today. Have a happy birthday, son."

At those words, the loss of Carrie washed over me once more, and it was followed by a wave of relief. I'd never realized how closely I've connected Carrie's death and my birthday in my mind. With the words of a fictional character on a silly television show, God reached into my heart and set up a hedge of proper separation between the two events.

I lost a friend, and that loss is a thing to grieve, and the knowledge that Carrie is in heaven is a thing to rejoice over, and the anniversary of the day I was born is a thing to celebrate. But they are not one event. I can commemorate each, day after day. Though they fell together in time, here on this earth, God holds them each in His hands individually, having known since before the dawn of Creation that He would place both grief and happiness in my life and that they would become intermingled. But to give each event its own value, I cannot remember them as one. Instead, I should hold them separately, as precious memories in my heart.

2009-06-06T16:54:00.000-04:00

Random and Ridiculous

An occasional assortment of things I've found of (humorous) note:

1. T'other day, I drove through a neighborhood on the way home from work. In one lawn stands a lightpost. That day, there was a bright yellow recycling garbage can upturned over the lamp post. I'm still not quite sure why.

2. Sometime in the media blitz that followed the American Idol win of Kris Allen, I saw a clip from the first morning after his win. He arrived at a red carpet press gathering early in the morning after only a couple hours of sleep to begin the morning show interviews. Upon arrival he was greeted by a woman (some sort of publicist or something), who asked him if he'd gotten any sleep and then offered to get him a cup of coffee. He accepted the offer and she took off. A little while later she returned, and pulling him aside between interviews handed him what I know to be a venti-sized Starbucks reusable mug. "Thanks! Oh, look at this," Allen said, admiring the mug. "Yeah, we're being eco-conscious, too!" the woman replied. "Vanilla latte, right?" Kris took a gulp. "Wow," he said. "Thank you."

And I laughed. Originally offered: Cup of Coffee: $1 at a 7-11. Recieved? Mug: $19, Vanilla Latte: $5. Yep, that "cup of coffee" was worth nearly $25. Welcome to your new life, Kris.

3. Yesterday, my friend Courtney and I went to Max & Erma's for dinner. The closest one is more than half an hour away, so it's a treat to head there. I, confident in my memory of the direction, did not look it up again before going. My confidence obviously misplaced, my memory failed me and when I took what I thought was the right exit, I found myself feeling that I was headed in the wrong direction. Courtney offered to pull out her GPS and fix the problem for me by typing in Max & Erma's and getting the Garmin to lead us there. When she did so, the woman in the little box informed me that I was headed in the right direction and that Max & Erma's was less than four miles ahead. Still slightly suspicious, I believed the determined voice of the woman, and drove on. Then she told me to turn right. Doing so, I found myself in a neighborhood. Continuing along, I followed her directions through the neighborhood back to a main road where she told me I'd arrived at my destination. I looked right. There was an STS Tires, Honeybaked Ham, and Curves. None of those were Max & Erma's. After a little fiddling, I found the right town on the Garmin's map and she eventually led us to our destination, which was, after all, in the direction I'd originally thought was correct. Silly GPS.

4. In the course of the above adventure, Courtney informed me that when she first got the GPS she wanted to call it Jack Bauer, 'cause it was so often useful for getting her out of a pinch. But, realizing that the little black box had a woman's voice, Courtney found that Jack Bauer was probably not the best namesake for the little device. So instead, she named it Sydney Bristow. "I usually just call it that to myself, though," she said. "Not many people understand." I, of course, understood completely, having often attempted to name myself Sydney Bristow whenever I have some sort of experience that I can remotely connect to being spy-like.

2009-05-21T15:10:00.001-04:00

Did America Get It Wrong?

For weeks, now, Adam Lambert has been proclaimed the preordained holder of the American Idol crown. He fit the bill, too: powerful vocals, huge personality, determined glint in his eye. Adam singing a cheesy victory song with confetti raining down around him at the Nokia seemed a foregone conclusion.

Then Ryan opened the envelope and read the winner’s name: Kris Allen. The guy from Arkansas, the boy next door, the “dark horse” takes home the crown.

How did it happen? Even before the confetti began to fall online message boards were throwing accusations around: “Did people not vote for Adam because he might be gay?,” “They must have messed up the tally!,” etc. Shall we shut the door on the accusations straight away? America voted. America got what it wanted.

Surprisingly, perhaps, for Simon Cowell, America doesn’t want Whitney, Celine, or Mariah anymore. Paula Abdul might be shocked to learn that glam rock is no longer in style. Randy could be mistaken in thinking that vocal ability is all it takes to make a star. Kara may be surprised to discover that “artistry” has been redefined in recent days.

I’m not trying to put anyone down. I love classic rock and glam rock. I recognize the powerhouse vocals of the divas of the late 20th Century. I state unequivocally that Adam Lambert is an amazing vocalist.

But I think America has chosen from its heart, rather from nostalgia or homage to ability. The past six months have been tough ones for this country. The economy is in bad shape, the promised change is not as quick to arrive as the voters expected it to be, friends and loved ones are still in danger in Iraq and Afghanistan. American Idol has played its role admirably this season. It has been an escape.

For a season that so many found difficult to “get into,” Idol has, in recent weeks particularly, become a nail-bitingly close competition between remarkably different contestants. The final five could not have been more individually unique: Matt, the jazz singer; Allison, the rocker; Danny, the crooner; Adam, the glam; and Kris, the boy with his guitar. Yet their performances on Rat Pack night were almost equally good. There wasn’t a let-down in the bunch. Matt went home, but it wasn’t because of “My Funny Valentine,” the jazz classic. Allison the rocker went home in Rock week, singing Janis Joplin’s “Cry Baby” with a passion that rivaled the original. Danny left after crooning “You Are So Beautiful.” Each went out on a high note.

The same could be said of Adam. While I found his vocal stylings awe-inspiring from the get-go, I have to say I struggled to be an Adam fan. His pattern of back-and-forth manic-and-maudlin performances got dull after the first few. He is a man of extremes: screaming (perfectly on pitch) the lyrics to “Whole Lotta Love” or delicately handling “Tracks of My Tears” in a falsetto, Adam rarely used the middle ground. But in his final performances, he found the center, singing “A Change is Gonna Come” with a strong, full, restrained voice. Even so, Adam didn’t take the crown. America voted for Kris.

When his name was read, Kris seemed shocked. “Adam deserves this,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He was right. That said, he deserved it no less himself. Both men had week upon week of solid performances. Both men had a slight misstep (Adam with “Ring of Fire,” Kris with “All She Wants to Do is Dance”), both an “off” performance (Adam’s “One,” Kris’s “The Way You Look Tonight”).

The difference between the two is the difference between the entertainer and the everyman. Adam is entertaining. No matter whether you loved him or hated him, you watched, just to see what he would do next. Every performance was expertly crafted, so well that the stitches were invisible, but crafted nonetheless. His confident attitude assured us we were in the hands of a proficient. Kris, on the other hand, is everyman. He picked up his guitar or sat down at his piano just like he would in your living room, with gentle, but complete, authority. He understood that he couldn’t compete with the belting power of Adam, or Allison, or even Lil, so instead he imbued his performances with a quiet, moving passion. His humility, so annoying to Simon Cowell, made everyone else smile; his genuine surprise at his success brought joy to everyone watching.

America chose the everyman. With Adam, a distance was created: he was the performer, we were his audience. We reveled in our role, for who doesn’t like to be audience to a great performance? But we didn’t intimately connect with this entertainer, who, after all, seems by all accounts to also be a really nice guy. He was confident, but never cocky. He was polished, but grateful for good advice. He pointed the spotlight upon those who helped him and those he worked with. All this and a great voice, yet Adam’s not the American Idol.

Instead, the American Idol is the guy who said, “Don’t cry, Momma,” when mothers around the country are shedding tears over how to pay next month’s bills. He’s the guy who sang about hopefully pointing a sinking boat toward home when families are trying to keep from drowning in their troubles. He put aside the band and the back-up singers and invited us to join him as he sang. Instead of his audience, we were his listeners, and we heard greatness in the quietude.

2009 is the year that a little movie about choosing love over money took home the Oscar. 2009 is the year that Kris Allen became the American Idol. Both things you wouldn’t expect in a country looking for escape.

Did America get it right? Did the best man win, or even the better man? Let’s set aside the superlatives. They don’t seem to matter at all this morning. Both Kris and Adam deserve their moments of glory. If 19 Entertainment has any foresight at all they’ll give both record deals, because America still loves the diversion of the entertainer, even when our heartstrings are tugged by the decent humility of the everyman.

2009-04-27T13:52:00.000-04:00

A Few Notes on My Weekend

1. While originally intended to be a party of multiple members of an older generation and multiple members of a younger generation, Friday night ended up being just me and Kristina - so, at least we got one representative from each generation - since the Rebeccas were both busy, as was the Christine, the Courtney, and the Bonnie. Anyway, the purpose and intention of this gathering was to introduce the wonders of Newsies to the younger generation. Kristina, born in the year the film was released (oh, goodness I'm old!) had never seen the movie. As a girl who spent many, many hours of my teen years watching Christian Bale and David Moscow singing and dancing their way through the streets of New York (or, at least, Disney's version of the streets of New York), I felt it was my civil responsibility to correct the egregious error of Newsies omission in Kristina's education.

She liked it. My favorite moment of the evening: after telling me that she'd just recently seen The Dark Knight with her brother and his girlfriend, Kristina began to examine the Newsies DVD case. She pointed to a picture of Jack and said, "Who is this actor? He looks familiar." My reply: "Um, well, that's Batman. Much younger."

2. Friday morning when I got to work at five AM, it was thirty-five degrees outside. By noon on Saturday, it was ninety. This weekend, when I wasn't working, I spent time in front of fans and finding new things to freeze in my freezer.

3. Last weekend I mentioned to mi madre that I'd love to have some of the Tupperware popsicle forms that we had when I was growing up. She went to the basement, pulled out her two sets, and handed them to me. Thrilled, I packed them up and brought them back to Philly. I was not expecting to use them quite this soon, but I was glad to have them yesterday afternoon when I had apples to use up before they went bad, so I quickly made applesauce and then filled the popsicle forms with it. I've been eating applesauce pops for a day...they're delicious.

4. So far, with the applesauce pops, tank tops and shorts, the fans, and the shades down at every sunny window, I've managed to remain at a decent body temperature these past few days. However, I'm looking forward to Wednesday when the high is supposed to be sixty-eight.

And looking forward:

5. Tonight is Chuck's season finale. I live in fear that it will not be renewed. If that is the case, I will weep. Okay, maybe not weep, but definitely be sad. That said, I've decided that I would totally hire Zachary Levi to be in my coffeshop sitcom, if only just to hang out with him, 'cause he seems pretty cool.

2009-04-27T13:51:00.000-04:00

A few random thoughts...and American Idol

Random thought # 1 - The cheese factor of signs in front of churches bewilders me. Is it really helpful to have a ridiculous saying like "Now open between Easter and Christmas!" on your sign? Does it bring people into the church? Oh, and how 'bout the one that I saw the other week: "Come early to get a seat in the back." Was that supposed to be funny, or just insulting to the regular congregation?

Random thought # 2 - On Monday evening I had one of the three worst airplane landings I've ever had. In a rainstorm. It was bad. I'll spare you the gory details, but it was gross, too. I sometimes wonder why I like flying. Is it really worth the headache of takeoff and landing?

Okay, there are the random thoughts I've had today. Now onto American Idol.

I haven't said much about AI this season, mostly because, though I've been following it, I haven't been enthralled by it. But, now that it's down to the homestretch, I thought I'd put down a few words about the remaining contestants.

Comments (in no particular order):

Allison - I like her. She's a great singer, and a solid performer. Of all the girls in all the seasons I've watched, she and Brooke White are probably the only two that I've really rooted for. So, there you have it. And I think Simon was being ridiculous the other week when he made some comment about her not being likeable. She's totally likeable!

Danny - I never really got into him. I didn't ever love him or hate him. There was all sorts of controversy early on about him using his dead wife as a pity thing, but I was just kinda "meh" the whole time. He's got a pretty good voice, but there's very little about his performances that make him stand out.

Adam - I will never have anything bad to say about his voice. The boy can sing. It's amazing to listen to the control and capability he has with his vocal chords. That said, he's kinda boring. He seems to have only two modes: manic and maudlin. One week he plays manic, the next he plays maudlin, then back to manic, then to maudlin again. Sure, no matter which mode he's in the vocals are great, but I would like to see some shades of grey in there.

Kris - He's been my favorite since the very start of the semifinals. Part of that is style preference; give me a boy with his guitar any day over the screeching rock stars or R&B soul singers. But generally, Kris has put in solid performance after solid performance, barely missing a step the whole way along, with good vocals, original arrangements, creative song choices, and great musicianship.

Matt - I've tried to like Matt more than I do. I mean, he's from Michigan, I think my friend knows him, he's kinda cool. I like him, just not tons. Probably it's because he falls into the R&B soul singer category, at least in the eyes of the show, if not in his own. I was glad to see him saved, if only because he certainly deserved to outlast Lil, but he's never completely hooked me.

My Rankings (from least favorite to favorite):

5. Adam
4. Danny
3. Matt
2. Allison
1. Kris

My Prediction (of the order they'll fall in)

5. Matt (could be 4)
4. Allison (could be 5)
3. Danny
2. Kris
1. Adam

It's kinda sad, really. I don't think Adam should win, simply because he hasn't shown range, only extremes. I think Danny should certainly go before Allison, but I doubt that will happen. Actually, I think Matt should outlast Danny because at least Matt has taken risks and tried new things, but for some reason Danny seems to be untouchable. Maybe it's some big fanbase in Madison, WI.

2009-04-04T21:32:00.001-04:00

"With all due respect, Madame President..."

I discovered this week that one of my coworkers dislikes me so much that she's now quitting because of me. Evidently, I'm impossible to work with. I didn't know. I make light of it, and will continue to do so, because in so many respects she's being ridiculous, but at the same time, it breaks my heart. I've known she didn't like working with me, and I've walked on eggshells with her for months, but nothing has helped. Me being me is just too overwhelming, I guess.

I actually thought we were doing better than we had in the past. She was gone for a couple months on medical leave, and since she returned, I didn't feel the tension quite so palpably. Granted, I'm not a rocket scientist when it comes to reading people, but I thought we were doing okay. I was careful to be interested in her personally, and tried to talk to her as much as anyone one else we work with. I took care not to let my annoyance with some of her actions reveal itself, I just bottled it away and let it go (how's that for mixing metaphors?).

But then, Monday morning, another coworker informed me that she had called our District Manager about me. Wow, skipping the manager this time. I mean, when she was bothered by me before she never did talk to me, but at least she took it to the shift supervisor and store manager levels in order. So, my kind coworker just let me know that this was going on, so that I wouldn't be blindsided by whatever repercussions were going to take place.

I was a little stunned. I like our DM. He's really with-it, and I trusted that he'd have a level enough head on his shoulders not to take one person's side of the story without investigating further, but I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I was totally prepared for him to come and ask me for my POV on the situation. I actually thought through all the other people I've worked with at the store and had conflict or differences with, and thought about how we'd handled those and come through them as friends on the other side. I had a list of references for him to talk to. And I totally wanted to use Jack Bauer's line from this season of 24, when the President asks him how she can know where his loyalties lie and he just growls, "With all due respect, Madame President, ask around."

So, I waited. I didn't initiate any further discussion of the topic. I was pretty sure everyone else in the store knew what was going on, but I didn't ask. Then, on Thursday morning, I worked with my manager. Now, my manager and I aren't best buddies at all, but there's a certain level of respect there. Somewhere, then, in the course of the morning, she informs me that this disgruntled co-worker would be leaving us after next week. To which, I raised my eyebrows.

Then, piece-by-piece, the rest of the story came out. Pretty much, she'd called the DM, and complained about me, and he asked for some specific examples of what I'd done that was so offensive. When she gave him the examples, his response was something along the lines of, "Well, um, that is her job." He also had heard complaints from other people about her, which weighed in to his words to her. Whatever the whole conversation consisted of, the DM's pretty sure that what he said to her made her seriously consider quitting. Then next week's schedule was posted and we're scheduled to open together every single morning...and she quit. Now, supposedly she'll fill out her two weeks, so I get the joy of opening with her every morning this next week, and not letting her know all that I know, but who knows what will really take place? I'll keep you updated.

I still was holding my own counsel about everything at work, not wanting to say anything that would confirm my meanness, 'cause there's plenty of things I could say, but shouldn't, when yesterday, working with a different girl (someone who'd originally thought I didn't like her, approached me about it, discovered we'd just miscommunicated, and has since been a delightful coworker and friend), I got to hear about how this has gone down in the store scuttlebutt. Evidently (and this is exactly why I want to write a sitcom about this kind of job--the drama!), she'd worked with another person the night before, who was telling her everything that the quitting coworker dislikes about me, and my delightful coworker completely turned on this person and laid into them about how ridiculous the quitter is being and how I'm one of the best employees in the store and that the quitter could learn a thing or two from me, etc. She then went on to say that I was a better person than the quitter in so many ways and that when I leave a shift and the quitter is still working I'm barely out the door when she starts in harping on all the things I do that she dislikes, whereas when quitter leaves and I'm left she never hears one word about my frustrations.

I thanked her for the vehement defense, shared that I really don't want to be hated, and wish I could have done something to prevent it or fix it, but don't know how, or even exactly what I've done that's so horrible, and then smiled very broadly on the inside, glad that I'd kept my own counsel. I know I'm not perfect, and I'm sure I'm at fault to some extent, but it is nice to know that other people don't think so.

In other news, I got Slumdog Millionaire on DVD this week, and had my friend Courtney over last night to watch it...and loved it just as much this time around, and then today, when I put it in to listen to the commentary and watch the special features, discovered that they are missing from my disc. I got online to see what the issue was, and evidently FOX messed up and didn't get the special features on the discs (oops!), so there was a help-line to call, and once I proved that I did actually purchase the disc by reading random things of the disc and the box ("what does it say in the white box under the Special Features listing on the back of the DVD case?"), they told me they'd send me a replacement in the mail. Which is all fine and good, except now I'm bummed 'cause I have to wait longer to see the special features!

2009-02-26T12:13:00.000-05:00

The Random and Ridiculous

I've come to the conclusion over the years, that to survive in this world you have to have a healthy sense of humor about its foibles and ridiculousness. Here's a few things I've found funny in the last week.

There are still political signs in people's yards. Seriously? I mean, the election was four months ago! If your sign's for Obama, well, people, he's in office - get over yourselves! If your sign's for McCain, um, he lost, it's done, no changing it now. And, if you're the one random person on Bethelehem Pike that still has a Hillary sign in your yard, give it up! She was out of the running almost a year ago!

On Tuesday, I went to IHOP to celebrate the National Day of Pancakes (and Fat Tuesday, of course) with a free short stack. There was a woman at a table near us who called over the waitress and informed her that the bacon she had was not turkey bacon, but was pork. The waitress assured her it was turkey, but when the woman wouldn't believe, took it away and brought her new turkey bacon. A few minutes later one of the cooks came by and the woman caught his attention and asked him what brand the turkey bacon was, because it tasted like pork. Really? Isn't the whole point of turkey bacon to taste like real bacon? So why are you complaining when it does?

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. I'm pretty sure three quarters of the penitents went to Mass and then came to Starbucks afterward and stood in line for their lattes and mochas with ashen crosses marked on their foreheads. Here's my question: if they came straight from Mass to Starbucks, what are they giving up for Lent?

This morning we had a customer tell us (as she ordered an apple fritter) that Starbucks food was horrible, because (and this is a direct quote), "I mean, even my dog will eat it." Right, 'cause dogs have really discerning palates. She then proceeded to inform us that we should get our food from some bakery in downtown Philly which, "isn't as good as it used to be because the new owner is all about profits and is cutting corners on making stuff." Uh, so why would we want to get food there?

I have also concluded that I want to create a sitcom set in a coffee shop. That's my new goal in life.

2009-02-15T17:25:00.000-05:00

There and Back Again

“Well, I’m back.” So ends Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series. Sam returns to his home and family after seeing Frodo sail away from the Grey Havens, having been entrusted with the red book to continue writing the story. He returns home.

I’ve often wondered, when I’ve returned from a long journey back to the world I left, how Tolkien knew – the feeling of alienation, of difference – that you’ve changed, but no one really knows or understands. Had Tolkien been on a great journey? Had he had that experience? And the telling of the tale – I’ve wondered about that, too. Was it some innate instinct of the storyteller within that made him leave a character to tell the story? Or had he, having had some great experience, have lost those with whom he’d journeyed, attempted to tell their story to a misunderstanding world?

Before Keren was born we nicknamed her Baby Baggins. Loren and Kraig loved Tolkien’s stories and the first film was still in theatres when Loren found out she was pregnant. The theme continued with her birth: she was small, like a hobbit, and she even had pointy ears. Loren and Kraig saw even then that her journey would be something like Frodo’s, arduous, hard, painful, and the only way through would be with the help of friends.

When the third film came out, the final song, “Into the West,” sung by Annie Lennox, caught our hearts. For Tolkien, the West is heaven, and Frodo goes there, leaving Sam with the commission to tell his story. The song was also written in honor of a young man, a friend of the filmmakers, who died of cancer while they were making the film. Sometime after Loren heard the song, she said to me, “I hate to think about this, but if Keren dies I want this song at her funeral service.”

Loren remembered that last week, and once again we were reminded how like Frodo’s Keren’s journey through this life was. And our role, her family and friends, was confirmed to us as well – we have gone on this journey with her and remain behind to tell her tale.

Well, I’m back. And I wake in the morning and make and serve coffee, and I walk through the grocery store or fill my tank with gas, and all around me, speaking to me or going about their own business, are people. And when I look at them I want to scream out, “Can’t you see? Can’t you see that I’m different? My world has changed and I’m looking at you through a lens that has transformed my view. I know I look the same, but I’ve changed; I’m different!”

I want to tell Keren’s story. I want to write it in the red book and share it with those who did not take this journey with us. They need to see, to experience the changed world I know. And perhaps their lenses won’t change as definitely as mine has, but even one divot will alter their view. The story must be told by those who remain.

2009-02-08T17:00:00.000-05:00

Keren Elyse Warnemuende

Last Wednesday morning, my niece Keren woke up with labored breathing. My sister Loren called me to come take care of the younger girls, Clare and Evelyn, while she took Keren to the doctor. On the way, Keren stopped breathing.

Loren turned toward the emergency room and called 911. An ambulance met her along the way and took over the efforts to resuscitate Keren, but she didn't come back to us.

I've been writing, it's how I think. But I haven't share it broadly yet. Today I will. This is long; it's a lot, I know. And you don't have to share this time with me if you don't want to. But I want you to know, if you read, that we do not mourn like those who have no hope. We rejoice.

Loren and Kraig chose a few verses to go on Keren's memorial service bulletin/flyer thing. One was Isaiah 57:1-2:

The righteous pass away; the godly often die before their time.
And no one seems to care or wonder why.
No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come.
For the godly who die will rest in peace. (NLT)

Thursday, 29 January 2009 – 6:30 AM

The conversation is forever imprinted on my memory:

“Carrie.”

“Yes.”

“Carrie.”

“Yes?”

“Keren died.”

There it was, bald-faced, laid out in black and white. I’ve always hated euphemisms for death, but the words were so stark by themselves.

“Okay.”

“Are you alright?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t tell the girls yet.”

“Okay.”

“I’m gonna try to come over to you soon.”

To hang up that phone and turn around to face Keren’s little sisters doing watercolors at the kitchen table was so hard. “Who was zat?” Clare asked.

“Aunt Jessie.” I kept my voice light.

“Why?”

“She might be coming over soon.”

I returned to emptying the dishwasher. I needed to keep my hands busy. Later in the day that wasn’t always true. I could help, and I did, with folding laundry and washing dishes, and organizing cupboards, but Jessie is the task-oriented one in crisis. Loren’s the dreamer, but Loren’s the one who’d just lost her daughter. I’m somewhere in between, always have been. I tried to help where I could, but sometimes, like Mary, I just needed to sit with Loren or Kraig.

This is going to hit Kraig hard, I thought, looking at the picture on the bookshelf of him and Keren, joy pouring out of their eyes into each other’s. Mid-afternoon I looked into the family room and saw Kraig sitting on the end of the couch, surrounded by people but completely alone. A piece of his heart is gone, my brother, my big brother. Give me pen and paper and I can write, but yesterday I had no words. I sat down next to Kraig, just to be with him.

Every once in a while it washes over me again, Keren died. I see her waxen body with its blue-tinged lips lying still on the bed in the hospital room, so still.

“She wasn’t my Keren-girl, even then,” Loren said about when she tried to get her breathing again and called the ambulance.

She was gone, so quickly. I think I may have known it then, though I held onto a hope. The first call, “Keren stopped breathing on the way to the doctor’s. I’m following the ambulance now.” I hoped the paramedics could help, but I think I knew she was gone.

“That was mommy; Keren’s very sick, so can we pray for her?”

“Is the new house ready?” Clare asked. A seeming non-sequitor.

“You’re in your new house, Clare,” I said.

“No, the new house Jesus is building for us. In heaven.”

“Oh.” Maybe Keren’s new house was occupied right then, and she could run, and jump, and talk, and do so many things that her body on this earth couldn’t do. “I don’t know if it’s ready yet, Clare. But it will be a wonderful day when it is.”

“But you don’t want to die!” Clare said.

“Not right now, no.” I smiled at the girls and gathered them in my arms. “Let’s pray for Keren.” Unable to tell them everything that was happening, I couldn’t pray with any specificity for my little niece, so I repeated the same words over and over, “God, take care of Keren.”

Thursday, 29 January 2009 – 3:00 PM

Her skin had a yellow tinge to it. Like wax. Her beautiful eyelashes lay spread across her cheeks. Those eyes-deep, blue, sparkling-would never open again. I had to grasp her hand. I needed to touch her once more. The face wasn’t her, but her hand was still warm, and her fingers still curled as they always did. No grip, just her never-straight fingers. Then I kissed her forehead, quickly – barely a touch, really. Someone started praying, and I took Loren’s hand on one side. I wanted to take Keren’s, but she wouldn’t have closed around my fingers, so I just lay my hand atop hers above the blanket.

Larry’s prayer was exactly what we all were thinking. How much Keren can do now in heaven that her body would never let her do on earth! I was so glad he was there, that he could put into words our gratitude for Keren’s life, for every moment God lent her to us. We received her with open hands, and when she’s taken from them, we cannot grasp her back, that’s not part of the deal. When you give her over to God, you have to trust Him with her.

The room began to clear out and I turned to kiss Keren’s forehead one more time. That peck earlier wasn’t enough. Her skin was cool, slightly chilled, even – wax, like wax. My lips held the chill, and I wanted to wipe them, but I wanted to keep that kiss. I fought the urge to rid myself of the chill…I feel it now. Keren was no longer there.

Thursday, 29 January 2009 – 9:00 PM

Sometimes the moments of normalcy are worst of all, for, right in the middle it all washes back over me. I hear the words again, Keren died. And I see her small body lying on the bed at the hospital, covered with a sheet – so pale, ivory, so still.

The busy house, a-bustle with adults and kids finding dinner and vacuuming floors and washing up dishes. And we’re all together so there’s laughter and children running around. I stand at the kitchen sink and the words echo in my head, Jessie’s voice on the phone, “Keren died.” And I see it all again. My heart aches, my throat constricts, my fists clench. I take a deep breath; I shed a few tears perhaps, and then I take a rag and wipe the counter. Even when tragedy strikes, life goes on.

Monday, February 02, 2009 – 10:00 AM

Can I say how wonderful it was to see people yesterday? Over and over again, the words came out from my lips, “It’s so good to see you!” We wish the circumstances were different. We wish we didn’t only gather for funerals and weddings. But these friends, this family, they are beloved.

Saturday evening we gathered together, my family. My whole family. It’s always hard to explain our relationship to outsiders. For six and a half years we’ve been able to say, “We share a niece.” That first niece is gone now, others remain, but among ourselves we don’t need them to explain our connection. We know we’re sisters, brothers, parents, children; somehow, long ago, two families were forged into one. We came together long before marriage or shared grandchildren bonded us with legal or blood connections. Last names no longer mean much: Givens, Warnemuende, Bash, King…it’s one family.

It’s my family. Together we’ve shared hard times, good times, tears, laughter, grief, joy. Governments have been struck down; bombs have fallen; marriages have been celebrated; children have been born. Together.
Now we face a struggle that may be the hardest yet. We bury a child. But we look at the earth-suit that held her for six and a half years and we know she’s no longer there. Her three-year-old sister attempts to understand why she looks different. “Keren’s not there, Clare,” we say. “Keren’s with Jesus.”

Kraig points out that Clare probably never saw Keren’s body before. She knew Sissie as a person, not as an object, a thing. Clare asks about Keren’s eyebrows, those Warnemuende eyebrows, “What are those?” We have to chuckle, we’ve always thought how distinctive they are, but Clare’s never seen them before; they were merely the housing for Keren. Keren was within.

Grammy and Clare have a talk: “You know when you go to Barakel, Clare? And you put up the tent and you go inside and there’s all sorts of fun and activity in there? But then, when you’re finished, you take down the tent and undo the poles and it’s just an empty piece of cloth?” Clare begins to grasp it: that body is just the tent Keren lived in.

Evelyn is just forming words. “Sissie sleeping. Resting. Jesus.” Yes, Bug, Sissie’s resting. And you won’t remember her laughs and squeals. But you’ll know her heart, because your Mommy and Daddy will never forget it. And they’ll teach it to you, and to the next child who’s coming.

Keren’s tent was “damaged” by earthly standards. She couldn’t walk, or talk, or eat. She flung her head from side to side because it was something she could feel. She poked her fingers in her eyes or down her throat, driving us all to distraction at times. But a look in her eyes, deep into her eyes, revealed the person trapped inside that stiff, awkward body. And when you looked, she looked back, and put out her hands and brought your face close to hers, and wrapped her arms around your neck, and hugged as tightly as she could. The life inside that tent wasn’t damaged in any way; it was the kind of life that we all wish we had: loving not only our neighbor, but the stranger, as ourselves.

Sunday, 08 February 2009 – 4:30 PM

“Well, I’m back.” So ends Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series. Sam returns to his home and family after seeing Frodo sail away from the Grey Havens, having been entrusted with the red book to continue writing the story. He returns home.

I’ve often wondered, when I’ve returned from a long journey back to the world I left, how Tolkien knew – the feeling of alienation, of difference – that you’ve changed, but no one really knows or understands. Had Tolkien been on a great journey? Had he had that experience? And the telling of the tale – I’ve wondered about that, too. Was it some innate instinct of the storyteller within that made him leave a character to tell the story? Or had he, having had some great experience, have lost those with whom he’d journeyed, attempted to tell their story to a misunderstanding world?

Before Keren was born we nicknamed her Baby Baggins. Loren and Kraig loved Tolkien’s stories and the first film was still in theatres when Loren found out she was pregnant. The theme continued with her birth: she was small, like a hobbit, and she even had pointy ears. Loren and Kraig saw even then that her journey would be something like Frodo’s, arduous, hard, painful, and the only way through would be with the help of friends.

When the third film came out, the final song, “Into the West,” sung by Annie Lennox, caught our hearts. For Tolkien, the West is heaven, and Frodo goes there, leaving Sam with the commission to tell his story. The song was also written in honor of a young man, a friend of the filmmakers, who died of cancer while they were making the film. Sometime after Loren heard the song, she said to me, “I hate to think about this, but if Keren dies I want this song at her funeral service.”

Loren remembered that last week, and once again we were reminded how like Frodo’s Keren’s journey through this life was. And our role, her family and friends, was confirmed to us as well – we have gone on this journey with her and remain behind to tell her tale.

Well, I’m back. And I wake in the morning and make and serve coffee, and I walk through the grocery store or fill my tank with gas, and all around me, speaking to me or going about their own business, are people. And when I look at them I want to scream out, “Can’t you see? Can’t you see that I’m different? My world has changed and I’m looking at you through a lens that has transformed my view. I know I look the same, but I’ve changed; I’m different!”

I want to tell Keren’s story. I want to write it in the red book and share it with those who did not take this journey with us. They need to see, to experience the changed world I know. And perhaps their lenses won’t change as definitely as mine has, but even one divot will alter their view. The story must be told by those who remain.

2009-02-01T10:39:00.000-05:00

For Keren - September 27, 2002-January 28, 2009

My Psalm

Written after the birth of Keren Elyse Warnemuende, born September 27, 2002 with Trisomy 18 Syndrome. Dedicated to her, my beloved neice, who is herself the loudest voice in the silent testimony of God’s grace and faithfulness.

The silent voices which praise You, Lord
The silent testimony of Your faithfulness
If we are faithless, He will remain faithful
For He cannot deny Himself.

The hundreds hear Your voice through the silence
The many see Your hand in the blind
Those who cannot speak sing Your praises
The still ones minister for You.
A withered hand is Your creation still
A laboured breath is perfect
For You designed it so.

My table is full; the blessings are here.
These ones have moved my life.
The ones You have given me have been my life.
But those who look from above
See me, too
Those who stand behind, silently smiling
Speak words of Your love
Show marks of Your faithfulness

The scars on my heart are healed by Your hand
The pain I feel is slight
Your suffering made a path – led the way
And now I hope.
There will be a day when all are joined together
A banquet feast will be prepared
And we will see the Lamb, and He will show us
The ones we loved and lost while here on earth
Who for now are silent voices to praise You, Lord.

2009-01-22T17:37:00.000-05:00

Slumdog Millionaire

I finally saw Slumdog Millionaire last night. I've been wanting to see it since I first heard of it, and my desire has only grown as I've heard more about the film.

I was a little worried going into it that perhaps my expectations were set too high. There was no way it could live up to the hype, could it?

Perhaps not. Perhaps that is impossible. But it sure came close.

There is a harsh portrayal of poverty, corruption, and greed - and the effect those things have on people, especially children. But even in the midst of that there are moments of delight, joy, freedom. And it is a fairy tale, and there is a happy ending, and it's wonderful.

In church on Sunday, the pastor made the comment that the only reason we, as Christians, should look back at our pasts is to remember God's blessings, the things we've learned, the good He's done for us, not to examine our failures and the hurt. I thought of that last night as I watched the film. There's a moment, right at the end of the film, when an earlier scene is played in reverse, like a video rewinding, from its tragic end to its hopeful beginning.

The pain, horror, and sorrow of the past was not gone for the characters, no, that couldn't happen no matter how delightful a fairy tale. But instead of looking back at the bad, they chose to see through it and dwell on the moments of joy.

2009-01-05T17:25:00.000-05:00

My Hand is Not Broken

Just thought I'd let you know, my hand is not broken. In a way, that bums me out, 'cause if it were, there would at least be a reasonable guess at a timeline for the stopping of pain. Instead, I'm in that bewildering realm of strained or sprained or bruised or something tendon or muscle or flesh or something...Seriously, I should just stop using my hands.

What? What's that? I didn't tell you about my hand? Oh, that's right, 'cause I've been on sort of vacation since it happened (on my last day of classes for the semester) and haven't been blogging much. Right, well, here's the fascinating tale of my hand injury (actually, the end is pretty good):

On December 15th, at about five o'clock in the morning, I was walking quickly toward the coffee urns from the cold beverage station and in the process I slammed the back of my hand against the metal divider that rises between the sink and the trash can. Don't ask me why there's a piece of metal sticking up in the middle of our counters at Starbucks, there just is.
It hurt. Lots. And most of the day I could barely use my right hand. I figured I'd probably just wait it out and see if it got better, but, when at 1 PM it wasn't feeling much better than when I'd originally bashed it, I had a coworker call in an incident report just in case I needed to go to the doctor or something.

That night in class, I talked it over with Mike, a classmate who I figured probably had some knowledge of broken bones, particularly metacarpals...he's just that kind of guy. He did, and thought it probably wasn't broken, but gave me some tips on looking after it.

So for a week-ish I waited it out, babied my hand a little, and didn't spend much time on the bar at work, 'cause that just hurt. Finally, about a week later, the very slight swelling that was there went away and the pain settled into a single lump right at the base of the ring and pinkie finger metacarpals, near the wrist. Just one spot. Hmm...perhaps a sign of a small fracture, I thought.

Unfortunately, it was now pretty much Christmas, and just as my hand settled into a specific injury instead of a general ache 'cause I whacked it, I couldn't go to the doctor or even call the insurance people to find out how to do workman's comp because no one was open. So I waited. And then I went to hang out with mi familia for a few days after Christmas, and evidently picking up little kids is no where nearly as injurious to hands as working at Starbucks, because after three days away my hand felt pretty good.

Then I went back to work. And it still really hurt. So I got the info for workman's comp, and then I got ahold of my doctor to write me a prescription for an x-ray, and then, last Friday afternoon, I went to Abington Memorial Hospital to get a picture taken of the deep recesses of my right hand.

In order to have that happen at Abington, I had to "register." I'm not sure what all that means, but they made sure they had all sorts of information about me and made sure I signed things that told them I understood what they were talking about...'cause I totally did. Anyway, as the nice lady was asking me questions about my contact information, I began to recite my address for her, "PO Box..."

She interrupted me. "Were you ever on Keswick Avenue?"

I paused, befuddled for a moment. "Er, uh..." Realization dawned. "When I was born." I paused again. "Which was the last time I was in this hospital."

After they took a picture of my hand, I drove home, and called my mom as I drove to inform her that the hospital where I was born still has me in their records 27.5 years later...wow.

2008-12-24T10:56:00.000-05:00

Non-Traditional Christmas

The driveway is still covered with a thin layer of ice. The north and shady sides of hills are covered with frozen grass, each blade encased in crystal. I drive carefully around the puddles, not sure if they’re liquid or solid, not particularly eager to find out.

I live in a world of the winter ice storm, my windows were covered with a mottled sheet of frozen water yesterday morning, like the privacy glass of a shower door. It’s melted now, and the sun is shining brightly, but there’s little promise of warmth in the light – the mercury is holding steady at nineteen degrees, up three from when I left for work six hours ago, but not exactly balmy.

In the dark, driving to work this morning, my headlights glinted off the salt crystals scattered all over the roads and I remembered that I’m back in a world of salt-covered cars, gloves, coats, shoes…I already managed to get it on my coat, must have brushed against the car last night…

It’s winter here, but winter here isn’t what I’m used to. Even this cold snap won’t last; it’s supposed to be fifty degrees and rainy on Christmas Eve.

Hanukkah has begun, and the synagogues will be alight each evening. Houses are bedecked with lights; in their yards reside Santa and reindeer, massive blow-up snowmen, and garish plastic nativity scenes. Some are simpler: a single glowing candle in each window and greens on the front door. I breathe a sigh when I see those houses; it’s the beauty of simplicity.

I’m ready to celebrate Christmas, non-traditional though it may be this year. I’ll go to the Christmas Eve service at church, and remember the time that the luminaries on Roberts Ave. caught fire and all the volunteer fire fighters ran out of the service. Then I’ll have a late dinner with good friends, family really, and hope that the rain lets up long enough to see their street decorated with the candles in paper bags.

On Christmas morning I’ll celebrate by myself, not with any self-pity, but hopefully with gratitude for the peace. It’s taken years, but I’ve learned to appreciate solitude. Then Christmas evening I’ll have dinner with friends, and I hear I’m in for quite the treat at their home.

But my Christmas won’t come until a few days later, when, surrounded by my family in a hotel in a little town somewhere a few hours from here, we sit around and open presents, one at a time, and maybe go for a swim with the little girls, and eat stew out of a Crockpot on the bathroom counter. Sure, it’s a little weird; but Christmas isn’t about where or when you celebrate. It’s about Who and with whom. My family and I have celebrated in places all over the world, with friends and family from all walks of life, but we’ve always been focused on Who we’re celebrating: a baby born in a manger, who came to show us how to have life, and to offer us a way to have it.

My non-traditional Christmas is okay by me. I’ve been listening to carols for nearly a month now, but in a way I think the season only really began for me last night. I went to a Christmas program at my friends’ church: Beautiful Day, A U2 Christmas. Sure, it was off the wall; it was as non-traditional as my Christmas is this year. But somewhere in there, listening to the words of songs by Bono and company, Christmas began – God’s pursuit of man took on human flesh, and was born in a manger.

He lived and died that we might live, both now and forevermore.

I want to feel, sunlight on my face

See that dust cloud disappear without a trace

I want to take shelter from the poison rain

Where the streets have no name

He became dust that we might be redeemed from it.

2008-11-11T15:12:00.001-05:00

I'm currently still posting at my other blog...there are too many people who find me there to change locations right now. So, hey, come visit me!