A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a swan who was afraid of heights. When the other cygnets in her nest had spread their wings to fly, she had shaken her feet, one at a time, and set off walking. She walked over hills and across fields, through the rain and in the sunshine, and then, just when she thought she couldn't walk any more, she came to a pond.

The pond was full of small, noisy creatures. They looked rather like ducklings, but if she tilted her head and squinted, then....

"What funny-looking little swans," said the swan. "I think I will live here with them until they grow up and we can take walks together."

So the swan took up residence in the pond, and she lived there for many months. She tried to teach the little birds to trumpet, but they insisted on quacking. She tried to teach them how to stretch their necks far into the water below, but they preferred flipping their feet in the air. As they grew older and their feathers came in, she tried to clean them so that they were as snowy white as she was, but they remained persistently brown.

Alas, all too soon the swan had to admit that her charges were, in fact, ducks--that they had been ducks all along and that they would be ducks forever. She had to admit that they were very bad at being swans, but very good at being ducks.

One day, the ducks spread their wings and flew away. The swan got out of the pond and looked around, trying to choose a direction in which to begin walking. She turned back to the pond's glassy surface and stretched out her wings, slowly and not without some pain due to the lack of use. She was surprised to see how big they were.

Silently, she stared at the reflection of her wings in the water, wondering if it was too late to learn how to fly....

Figments

How strange it is that small children can't tell the difference between real and pretend, since they pretend all the time. A fellow skit participant had the idea that perhaps kids expect that adults don't pretend. This led to the rather disheartening reflection that adults do pretend, except it usually gets a lot more messy and complicated than it was when they were kids.

Part of the reason I like literature and theatre so much is that you know where you are. The characters are real to you, but you know they don't exist in the physical world. As for the people who surround you in that physical world—it's harder to tell which of those are real towards you, and which are only real to you. (If you grasp that last distinction, then you grasp the dilemma.) Art offers a clarity that is absent in much of life.

Who have you invented today?

Highlights

• Feeling like Mickey Mouse, because a girl I didn't know came over to say hi and hug me because she's seen me onstage.
• Having a little boy ask (after seeing me collapse earlier in the evening): "Were you dead?"
• Hearing that another little boy had been extremely concerned yesterday to see a bottle around with less "toxic liquid" in it than previously, and had told his mother that "Someone at church drank poison!"
• Coming home to a singing answering machine message.

Commander! Report!

First off, someone is trying to kill my bird, and I don't appreciate it. I have a scratch across my leg because when the neighbors set off this strange hissy firework, Apollo and I both jumped, except Apollo skittered across my leg and to the other side of me. I appreciate his trust that I could save him from the fireworks.


Tonight's VBS Stories

Kid to me, before VBS: "Are the skits gonna be better tonight?"
Me: "Is the audience gonna be better tonight?"
(My brother, after hearing this story: "Oh, great. Way to be a teacher.")

We got a lot of good feedback on the skit tonight. I love the little kids coming up to me to shake my hand. It's great to be a celebrity in the eyes of children—you can make their day just by talking to them. (Which is one of the things I love about kids anyway.) A pair of girls who must have been about 7 came up to ask if I really drank any of the toxic liquid from the skit (supposedly acid). I told them I didn't, but that it would have been okay if I accidentally did because it was really lemonade. This made their night even better, because, as both of them started saying at the same time: "I thought so! I thought it was lemonade!"

I incurred a minor rugburn injury tonight in practicing for tomorrow's skit. Some people sacrifice their bodies to catch spherical objects hurling through the air. I sacrifice my body for the show.

Best Groupie Award

Goes to two young girls from my church, who came up to me after each of the first two VBS skits to say things like, "You had a rough crowd. You guys were good, though. We were laughing. Don't worry; they'll come around." They are so sweet.

The skit group for this year has not yet had a practice together. The other two people in the skit are married to each other, so they've run lines at home. Then there's me. I love this stuff. I am comfortable onstage (sometimes more comfortable than I am offstage). I wish we didn't have to concern ourselves with microphones, but it's a necessary evil when your stage is really a platform in a gymnasium. Good acoustics are for the coddled.

Tonight my fellow actress told me a story about a play she was in where they dropped a crucial plot element in the first act and had to weave it into the second act. This was funny to hear because I, too, have had this experience (though from a directorial standpoint). It's kind of a rush in a way--or it is when it works, and in our cases it worked. Hers was even more involved, because while my play was The Importance of Being Earnest (the dropped information regarded the information that Bunbury was not, in fact, a real person), hers was a murder mystery. Bit more intricate plot.

Song running through my head this morning

Although I've only heard it sung by Harley Quinn in Batman: The Animated Adventures, "Say That We're Sweethearts Again" was one of those kooky songs written in the 1940's. I include here the Harley version, which is abridged and slightly tweaked from the original (but not much).



I never knew that our romance had ended
Until you poisoned my food
And I thought it was a lark
When you kicked me in the park
But now I think it was rude
~~~
I never knew that our romance had finished
Until that bottle hit my head
Though I tried to be aloof
When you pushed me off the roof
I feel our romance is dead
~~~
It wouldn't have been so bad if you'd told me
That someone had taken my place
But no, you didn't even scold me
You just tried to disfigure my face
~~~
You'll never know how my poor heart is breaking
It looks so helpless, but then
Life used to be so classic
Won't you please put back that acid
And say that we're sweethearts again

Pharisees from the inside

When you think about it, the Pharisees were the most theologically educated people of their day. They had gone to religion classes and had ample access to the Scripture and to commentaries. They sound...awfully familiar.

I've thought about the Pharisees a lot this year, since I am one and since I recognize them in many well-catechized and well-educated church people. As a general rule, I think Pharisees were probably nice people. They knew a lot about Scripture and the various commentaries on it. It probably would have been very easy to be friends with them (at least as long as you kept on the right side of their doctrine). I think many of them woke up every morning fully assured of their place in the divine covenant, and just as sure that those who disagreed with them in any point were NOT assured a place in said covenant. Not all Pharisees were wicked people, and probably all of them would have been considered moral people. Nicodemus was probably not the only one to become a follower of Christ. But what does Jesus say to him? "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?" He confronts Nicodemus with his lack of understanding because that was his stumbling block. That was the obstacle he hadn't known existed. Nicodemus had been following God, yes. But he had also been following Nicodemus. God could have let him keep on blundering around on his own, but instead Jesus brought humility to Nicodemus, right where he lived. Hundreds of years later, we modern-day Pharisees can look to the same source of deliverance.

It is God, not you or I, Who is the Keeper of Knowledge. Yes, He has chosen to reveal some of His knowledge to us (praise be unto Him!), but even revealed knowledge is His, not ours. May we use it faithfully.

On Encouragement and, for something somewhat different, Meijer

I spent around 7 hours in my office's warehouse over the past two days, accompanied by, from time to time, my boss and another coworker (hereafter known as "the guys"). We were doing Inventory, which in this case is capitalized because it could easily be preceded by words such as "The Dreaded" or "The Intimidating." Before starting any organization, everyone assumes they are fairly well organized. This is, of course, a delusion that enables people to go about their ordinary lives without the need to organize hanging over their heads. Like most delusions, it shatters upon closer examination.

Wednesday I went into the warehouse to see what we needed to do. I was overwhelmed in the span of seconds. I decided not to think about it until Thursday, which was the first time I could actually do anything about it since the guys weren't able to help until then and I can't drive a hi-lo. Thursday morning we tackled pallets, unloading their contents and stacking them in some semblance of order. I made labels for the re-loaded pallets. My coworker who can drive the hi-lo put the pallets on the racks. This is the sort of thing we did for most of the morning. We kept finding more of something that should go on a pallet we thought we'd finished.

This morning, the last odds and ends came together. I opened a few boxes to count and/or to consolidate their contents. I made the last labels. We were very excited.

This afternoon, The Man paid us a visit. ("The Man" in this case is the acting president of our company.) I said something about the warehouse looking good. He said, "Every little bit helps."

My heart sank. My spirit was dampened. I was totally deflated.

"You can't go around saying good things all the time, or people won't want to work or to improve!" said The Man.

To which I responded, "I'm not a guy! I'm a woman! We are motivated by hearing good things!"

"The warehouse looks great!" said The Man.

"I know!" I said.

"I mean, fantastic!" he said.

"We could do even better!" I said. "Now, see, that's how women are motivated!"

It got me thinking about all the times I've given and received so-called "constructive criticism" that was really just a slam. Thinking about the times I've received negative feedback (with nothing positive attached) that made me want to give up, and the times I must have given such feedback. It also reminded me of Pollyanna's contention that you find what you look for—and that it's always easy to find the bad.

What are we doing, settling for what's easy?

"Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble."—Isaiah 35:3


Today I ran errands. I got all the way to the bookstore (which, thankfully, is all of two miles from me) and realized I left my purse at my apartment. Take two, made it to the bookstore. But the bookstore is not the focus here, although the woman at the register was very helpful in reserving a book for me. In this post I am discussing that jewel of stores, that paradigm of convenience shopping, that giant of the Midwest: Meijer.

I feel sorry for those of you who may be reading this who don't have Meijer access. I know of two Midwest transplantees who miss it dearly, which makes me appreciate it even more. For those of you who do have Meijer access, I'd like you to know that it seems Friday afternoon is one of the Worst Times to shop there. The aisles were crowded with both stocking carts and people. It seemed to take me ages to finish. But when I got into my car I looked at the clock and saw that it had really only been about 40 minutes. I'm so American.

In the checkout lane, as I was thinking in irritation about all the time I had spent waiting for people to move faster, suddenly the voice in my head was saying, "What a lot of good opportunities for prayer you've had here, while you've been waiting." I humbly accepted the admonition, which included thinking about the enjoyable things that happened in Meijer instead of the frustrating things. If I had never gone to Meijer at this busy time, I would never (in chronological order):

• Have seen Santa Claus in a Hawaiian shirt
• Have co-helped an elderly woman who was bedazzled by the multiplicity of Jell-O choices and couldn't find "just plain strawberry." Another woman and I both went to work finding strawberry Jell-O. I found the large packages and she found the small packages. "I think I'll take one of the large ones and two of the small ones," said the elderly woman. My cohort and I handed the packages to her, and she moved off. "We make a good team," said the other woman. We smiled at each other. "Have a good night!"
• Have been helped by a Meijer stocker as short as I am, who climbed up on the shelves to grab two bags of potato chips for me. Another smile and "good night."
• Have purchased some Mike's and then had a conversation with the cashier about how I don't look like I was born in 1979, how I must get that all the time, and how in his last ID picture he had a beard and everybody who carded him would suspect that it was a fake ID because of the beard.

I was looking at this as my most frustrating and therefore my worst Meijer trip in memory. But really, it was the most interesting and best Meijer trip in memory. That could have gone either way. Thanks for the nudge, God.

Office Quote of the Week

"Isn't it weird how we're one way, and everyone else is dumb?"
-- My boss ("we" includes everyone in our office)

Benediction

"Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen."

~~ Hebrews 13:20-21

These words were pronounced over me for a fairly regular basis, and they sunk into my memory. Tonight I took this to heart: for longer than I have realized, I have been blessed with everything I need to do the will of God. The benediction has been said; the promise has been made. I don't know what comes next, but I know that I will be ready for it.

For now, here I sit, living on manna while I wait for the cloud to move.

And my password is....

Well, I'm back from Sedona. Lots of family fun, some hiking, and virtually no change in skin coloration (thanks to our friend sunscreen)! On with the blog....

You know how some people say humans only use 10% of their brains for cognitive function? Mine is probably down to 7%, because at least 3% is occupied by log-in and password information. What is my log-in? What is my password? Again, and again, and again, for a plethora of websites. (And don't think I don't know what a plethora is, because, trust me, I do.) This would be easy if I ignored all internet security advice to the contrary and had One Password to Rule Them All. But paranoia runs strongly through my family on one side, so I have a hereditary predisposition to it.

I bet a hacker could find his way into my personal information faster than I could. (It's not a real bet, for any hackers reading this. No fair taking me up on a fake bet.) I recently lost my online banking information, by which I mean I forgot it. I tried the "Forgot Your Password" link, but in order to make use of it I need to remember my check card PIN. I don't think I've ever used this check card. Want to take a guess as to why?

Back in the old days, all you had to do was remember was the combination to your safe. That's when you weren't keeping all your money in your mattress, or in a flour barrel. But there where downsides to the old days, one of the most horrific of which was the absence of proper indoor plumbing.

So I'll keep trying to remember all of that password information--and wondering what I could do if all 10% of my cognitive facilities were at my disposal.

You're how old?

Last night somebody said I look about 16.

"Does my brother look older than I do?" I asked.

The reply? "Everybody looks older than you do." I find that very hard to believe. I've met some very young-looking people. Infants, for example, are never mistaken for my elders.

Which brings me to the fact that tomorrow is my birthday. I will be 27. I am very excited about this. For possibly the first time in my life, and certainly the first time since I graduated college, over the past couple months when I have been saying how old I am I've been giving an answer that won't be official until tomorrow.

I am not too old anymore. I am not too young. I am where I am and who I am at this time through the grace, power, and providence of God. I don't know what this next year holds, but I know Who holds this next year. All praise be unto Him.

"Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
~~Philippians 3:13b-14