A different kingdom

When the Israelites asked for a king "like all the nations," God told Samuel he'd give them one. But he told him to warn them: that kind of king wouldn't be what they thought he'd be. 

Sure, Saul was tall and charismatic and popular. So were a lot of Israel's kings, no doubt. But God warned the people that their kings would look out for themselves first and their friends second; that they would raise taxes higher and higher; that their administrations would balloon out of control.

Sound familiar? It should.  This is what happens with human rulers. Even now, even here in the United States, where our form of government is far more free than that of other nations. This is what happens.

I haven't been watching political ads much this year. They used to make me angry, but this year they make my heart ache. Every ad promises that a better life hinges on which candidate you vote for. Every ad promises change. Every ad promises more than any human being has a right to promise, let alone the ability to follow through on.

Every ad sounds like offering cosmetic surgery to cancer patients.

John McCain may be able to keep the troops in Iraq, but he will not be able to stop terrorism. Barack Obama may be able to change your health care plan, but he will not be able to keep you healthy. They are right: we need change. They are wrong about the kind of change we need most.

No matter who is elected on Tuesday, on Wednesday morning there will be people who wake up hating each other. There will be people who wake up with physical illnesses, people who wake up apathetic about their jobs, concerned about their relationships, afraid of what will happen to them in this economy. People with, at the ground level, the same concerns that people had back in the founding days of the United States. Or in the founding days of the nation of Israel, for that matter.

Who is going to protect us? Who is going to look out for us? Who is going to make us look good to everybody else?

Two thousand years ago, along came this blue collar worker from a backwoods town, with no ad campaign to speak of except for some guy dressed in camel skins. He didn't address the problems people brought to him, he told them they only really had one problem.

Our problem isn't that we don't look good enough. We don't need nose jobs or tummy tucks. Our problem is that we are not good enough. Like cancer, which turns the body's cells against themselves, our very selves are operating at odds to the way they are meant to operate. (It is said that, when asked to write an essay on what was wrong with the world, G.K. Chesterton replied, "I am.")

We stand guilty before God of violating our purposes. Our hearts need to be changed.  And only God can do it...so it's a good thing he's already offered: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Exodus 36:26).

There is only one physician capable of this kind of heart transplant, and of cleansing us of the cancer of self-righteousness. The only conditions? That we acknowledge that we can't do it ourselves and that we ask him to do it for us. That we stop trying on our own and do it his way. It isn't painless; no surgery is. But there's no other cure.

If you'd rather opt for cosmetic change, there is no end to your options. Two men and their running mates have been throwing some of those at you for months now.

"The kingdom of God has come to you," the blue collar worker named Jesus said (Luke 11:20). And this kingdom is about power, not fancy speeches (I Cor. 4:20).

I'm so tired of fancy speeches.

Dark Phoenix Rising

Lately I've been feeling like Dark Phoenix. Yeah, from the X-Men. (I identify with fictional characters on a level nobody else I know of has ever been on.) There is a lot simmering in my heart and mind and soul just now, and some days it feels like I'm hovering on the edge of a psychic break.

"What are you talking about?" the non-X-Men-literate among you ask, quite probably while shaking your head fondly all the same (I'm thinking of a few of you in particular here). Well, once there was a woman named Jean Grey who had the powers of telepathy and telekinesis.  Through a series of strenuous events it eventually became clear that Jean was far more powerful than she thought she was, and that she and her mentor had been blocking off that power because it was confusing and frightening and she didn't know how to handle it. But then the psychic break happened and she became Dark Phoenix, all that power unleashed, not suppressed anymore but also not under proper control.

Sometimes I feel like I am more than what I have settled for, that there are things I could have and be with a simple flex of power running just under my skin. And feeling powerful scares me. I'm afraid of turning into Dark Phoenix, that my judgment isn't strong enough to temper my abilities, that I could destroy just as soon as create, wound as soon as heal.

But you could also argue that pretending the power wasn't there was what started the Dark Phoenix problem in the first place.

It's all very confusing, even to me, and I live in this head. (There are days I can't help but think that my life must make more sense from the outside.) So if you're confused now, too, I certainly can't blame you for it. 

Things I Don't Get #56: Spiky Hair

Okay, okay...I don't really have a list of things I don't get. And I did just randomly pick that number. But it's true that I don't understand the current male obsession with spiky hair, which to me includes any form of hairstyle in which the hair carries too much product to actually move.

I say "current obsession" like it hasn't been around for a while. I don't actually know how long it has been around, because I was home-schooled and thus insulated from trends, but I know that my first exposure to it was when I was about sixteen and the ten-year-old boys I took TaeKwon-Do with were sporting the spiky hair. I used to pat them on the head and mock them for their vanity and for the fact that I could almost slice my hand open on that crusty mess.

Flash-forward to the present, and the crusty spiky look is everywhere. Last night, for instance, I saw a guy walking around Meijer with his hair spiked up so much a bird landing on his head could be killed. (Maybe he fears birds. Maybe the hairstyle is defensive.) 

Despite thirteen years of increasing exposure to it, I still think spiky hair looks ridiculous. This could be more nurture than anything else...neither my father nor my brother has ever gone in much for that sort of thing. I don't mock people for it anymore because it's been a trend for so long it's practically normal now. It's morphed almost completely into "something I personally think looks silly" from "something I mock you for because you're only following the crowd." Also, most boys who were ten when I was sixteen are now too tall for me to pat them condescendingly on the head and crack some of their hair product loose. The mocking just wouldn't be the same, somehow.

Besides, it might take me three tries to wash the gel off my hands.

New Works by Old Friends

Last weekend my alma mater, Calvin College, put on a production called New Works by Old Friends. It was a selection of 10-minute plays written by alumni, and mine was one of them. As in, I wrote one. Very few people caught on to that right away when I would mention "my play." They thought I might be directing something, or maybe acting in something ("Oh, you mean Midsummer Night's Dream?" one girl asked me after hearing "my play"). Writers fly under the radar...though possibly still not as far under as the tech crew. I've never been on tech crew, so I can't be sure.

I've written skits for youth group presentations before, but this was different. People would be auditioning for the chance to be in this play, not drafted into it against their will. Also, the writing of the play was the extent of my creative control. No one consulted me on my vision or asked me what I meant by one line or another. I had no input in casting, staging, anything. This was exciting in that I love that theatre is a collaborative art, and all of the imaginations involved bounce off each other and create something greater than the sum of the parts. This was terrifying in that I wondered if that sum would be recognizable. 

What if my writing didn't stand up under outside examination? What if what I thought was clear was actually obscure? Or what if all the people I had told in my initial excitement piled in to see the play, found that they didn't like it at all, and felt they had to come up with something nice to say that I could tell was spoken out of pity? 

There was a lot of internal wrestling over these questions and the larger question of where they were coming from in the first place, but I won't get into that now. Now, what matters most is that none of my doubts were justified, and more than all of my hopes were. From the moment my portion of the show began on Friday night, I knew that. My play had taken on a life outside of me. It had been processed by a director and a pair of actresses, all very talented young women, and it was being taken in by an audience. It was an incredible experience. 

(It was the first theatrical experience my little buddy Lucas ever had, too...he did very well for a two-year-old. I was proud of him. My favorite part of him being there was when he tapped the back of my chair because he wanted to hold my hand.)

Saturday night they gave me a name tag to wear that said "playwright" on it, and they had all the playwrights in attendance come up on stage after the show. This was far less comfortably incognito than Friday night had been, but it was kind of fun in a ridiculously surreal way. And then after it was all over I got to spend time with Calvin friends I haven't seen in ages.

I'm so glad I got to do this, and that it came this year. I couldn't have written this play any earlier than this year and had it have nearly the depth and truth it has. I received so much encouraging feedback last weekend that has encouraged me to hope for...well, for more than I was settling for. I could keep going with all the mental and emotional and spiritual stuff that was/is bubbling up because of this play, but I don't feel I could do it justice at this point. 

To sum up, it was quite possibly the best weekend I can ever remember having in my entire life.

Seven Things

 My friend Beth tagged me on a blog challenge I had never seen before. I've seen more than my fair share of blog challenges and never get tired of them, so this is hard to do. Props to Beth. Rules: Write 7 little-known facts about yourself and then tag 7 other people to do the same.

1.  I can't remember a time before I could read.

2.  I can't remember a time before I was writing something or other. One of my earliest works (self-illustrated) featured a pair of parrots who got everything I wanted at the time, including a doll house. Someday this might be worth millions, so I hope my parents have it in a box somewhere.

3.  I enjoy cooking once I get going on it, especially with a long day ahead of me and a lot of throwing random things together. ("What's in this cupboard? Oh, I'll use some of that, too!") Of course, I can also be mind-numbingly lazy when it comes to food and do something like finish off a jar of peanut butter for dinner. Just eating it off a spoon, not with bread or crackers. I don't recommend this.

4.  I've never tried to hide this, but apparently it's still a little-known fact: my general dislike of dirt and danger is not a result of age (twenty-nine is really not that old in the grand scheme of things). I have never been a fan of dirt and danger. As far as that goes, my personality was pretty firmly formed by the age of eight. I can break out of my usual spheres by choice, and usually enjoy myself, but I only get more rigid if I feel badgered to the point of insecurity.

5.  I have found that I usually get most irritated at someone when they are displaying character traits that I myself have/repress.

6.  My favorite part(s) of living alone: having dance parties and crying at whatever I want to and singing randomly to myself and not having anybody around to mock my weirdness. 

7.  My favorite friends embrace and enhance the weirdness.

Okay, I'm going to tag the following people: Kerri, Sabrina, Brittany, Abby, Stephenie, Lisa, and Jessie (Beth tagged her already, but it's been months since she blogged so I think she needs an extra nudge).

(I will post something about last weekend before the end of the week. I'm still processing the awesomeness.)

Interpretation

I write a lot of fanfiction. Sometimes I get quality reviews, even quality critiques. And sometimes I get reviews that say things like this: "Sorry to say, but that's kinda sad. But otherwise, good job." Sad happened to be what I was going for in that fic, and I thought I warned people about it upfront by including the word "angsty" in the summary. 

When I read reviews, I find that things which are perfectly obvious to me are not obvious to everyone. Sometimes I read the story over again and I can see that the flaw is in the writing, that I failed to accomplish what I was trying to accomplish. Sometimes, as in the case above, the flaw seems to be in the interpretation.

Granted, interpreting some of my writing might be a little difficult to people who come to fanfiction sites to read about their favorite characters making out (there are lots of these people out there). The story, the characters, the themes sometimes hover between the lines. I don't like to be thoroughly obvious in any form of writing because I like to make people do a little digging, which in turn is because I like to dig myself. My favorite writers of all types write in a slightly oblique fashion, making things a little difficult. Life isn't easy, and not all of us really want it to be.

I have been thinking a lot about interpretation this week. This weekend, for the first time ever, a play I wrote will be in performance. There will be three layers of interpretation between my original intent and the end result: the director, the actors, and the audience. This is as it should be, but I wonder...what will people see?

Friends have been asking me what I want their reactions to be, and up to now I have been unable to formulate a proper response. But every time I've tried to give it a shot, because the way I think about the reactions of others is broader than the scope of this weekend. So if you're coming to see New Works by Old Friends, and curious about what I want from you, here's my go at it for tonight:

I want you to be you. 

One of the downfalls of my creative side has been that I have tended to script life. I'll say such and such, and you'll say such and such, and I'll throw you this witty remark, and you'll give me this certain look, and I'll...etc., etc., etc.

I'm tired of that. I want people to be honest. I don't want to tell them what to feel or say or think. I want to interact with them in real life, not direct them in my own personal mental theatre. If I can keep my character inventions confined to the page, that will be a much more useful way to channel creative energy that has previously been wasted inventing scenarios featuring invented people who wear familiar faces.

~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~

Speaking of familiar faces reminds me of a story about the opposite. Tonight I went to see the fabulous Deborah Lew perform at Calvin. While there, two girls I'd never seen before approached me.

"Are you Suzanne Winter?" they asked.

"Yes," I said, panicking briefly and wondering how they could possibly know...oh, right, my publicity photo for the play, probably from....

"I'm directing your play," said one, introducing herself. 

"We're both producers for the show, too," said the other, also introducing herself.

Note that I can't remember their names. I am not proud of this, and their names will definitely be the first ones I look up when I get the program in my hands tomorrow night, but my brain seriously short-circuited at being approached by strangers while I was alone. I am glad that for Friday and Saturday there will be people I know around. I can be a lot more extroverted when people I'm comfortable with are somewhere close by.

Road Trip!

This Friday I will be leaving on a road trip up to Houghton to visit my friends Abby and Ryan. I will be riding in a car with four other people. For about nine hours. One way. I'm not a fan of road trips, in general, but I'm trying to reason with myself that this trip will be fun. The following are some pros and cons. Let's start with a con.

I'm not a big fan of driving. I just want to be there, already. Driving is such a waste of time. You can't multitask at all. Well, you can't multitask very safely. I have in fact written out checks, wedding cards, and grocery lists while at the wheel. I have compiled said grocery list from flipping through a flyer. I have read the next page of my book, or the next chapter. Granted, all of this was (mostly) while traffic was stopped at stop lights or really long construction delays, but it's still probably not the safest thing ever.

On the other hand, driving with people is a much safer form of multitasking. You get to socialize while traveling. And if you're not the one driving because you're riding with people who actually like to drive, you can read or make lists or write checks with no major repercussions on the horizon other than maybe a little bit of carsickness.

I do get a little carsick sometimes when I sit in the back seat. Just in the nauseated sort of way. This comes from seven years in which I've mostly driven myself everywhere.

On the other hand, I have these acupressure wristbands that look like something out of a movie from the 1980's. They work. I won't have to spend the whole trip trying to sleep my way through the carsickness.

Speaking of sleeping, on the long trip down to Pennsylvania I have the back seat to myself. This means I can stretch out for naps. On the trip to Houghton, I won't be able to do that. I'll likely be sharing the back seat with two other people for the whole trip.

On the other hand, these two people I'm thinking of are Lisa and Mara. If I fall asleep leaning against the seat behind me and end up against one of their shoulders, it won't be awkward.

And then there might be sing-alongs, and reading out loud, and trying out our Office character skills, and those really deep conversations you can get into in a dark car when nobody has to make eye contact with anybody else. And at the end of the trip there are two friends waiting for us, and a weekend full of both invading each other's space in ways that will be good for the practice of patience and of spending time together in ways I love.

Sometimes I just need to talk myself into things to realize how great they are.

I don't get it

When I was 8, I spent a lot of time in “junior church.” Junior church, for those who haven’t been, is sort of like youth group, but for kids. So there is some attempt at having lessons and meaningful discussions, but mostly the kids get to run around and goof off in the basement, which is something those in the sanctuary above us would have frowned upon had we been up there.

I have a lot of junior church stories, because apparently most of my childhood church memories come from Oak Park. And I’m sure I’ve told the following story before, but it is one of the most prescient stories of my childhood, so it keeps coming up.

After the lesson, the free time was often spent with the boys chasing the girls around the basement. (It’s only now that I wonder if these were the mornings when the teachers had just been so overwhelmed that they were giving up for the rest of the day.) I distinctly remember one particular time when the boys were trying to snatch purses from the girls, and most of the girls were squealing and running. I, however, was standing firm in the center of the room, calling out to the other girls, “If you don’t want them to chase you, just stop running and they’ll lose interest!” A boy ran past me and grabbed at my purse. I yanked it out of his grasp and gave him a withering look.

This story is a good illustration of my personality on several levels, but for the purposes of this post, it's a good illustration of the fact that the guy/girl dynamic mostly escapes me. I don’t like the double-talk and the backstage chatter and the dissection of meaning. Not that I haven’t done it, because I totally have. But it just gets…*annoying*. And it often seems like such a pointless waste of time.

Example that inspired this post: overhearing a group of guys in the cafeteria at work talking about how “whipped” somebody was. I thought to myself, “This guy is either disrespecting the other guy’s girlfriend, OR he actually believes it’s really nice that the girl calls her boyfriend so many times a day, and this is a weird male way of expressing that.” I don’t understand.

And as the song says, “We don’t like what we don’t understand—in fact, it scares us.”

On a semi-related end note, if I ever am “seeing” somebody in the dating sense, and anybody starts calling him “whipped,” I’ll probably hate it so much that I’ll try to break up with him.

Summary: I don’t think I operate like normal girls.

Making It Right (part two)

I've been thinking more about my post from Thursday, and felt as though it could stand expanding. Because while the most important part of making things right is realizing that you can't do it alone, that's not all there is to it. I for one have wasted far too much time sitting around waiting for God to fix me without me having to expend any energy or put any thought into what's behind what I say is wrong with me. It's possible to do this with relationships, too.

For instance, I've had a lot of relationships that went south, without (or more usually with) my active participation. "Every time you raise your voice I see the greener grass," as Alanis says. Most of those relationships came back around after I had given up on them. I hadn't done anything, but they were given back to me as unearned gifts. This, combined with the fact that the way in which I chose to participate often got me into relational trouble in the first place, makes it easy for me to take a passive "wait-and-see" attitude. Which can be good. Sometimes. But it can also be making the other person do all the work, making the other person responsible to come to me.

On the one hand, over-passivity. On the other, over-aggressiveness, pushing people where they weren't meant to go. I try to walk the line.

If I feel that I have wronged someone and that they are aware of it, I trend towards one of the two extremes above: ignore it or go way too confessional. Either one just adds baggage. In the first case, I end up wondering how much the person remembers, how much our relationship is being affected in subtle ways, how much staying silent can be a form of lying. In the second case, I wonder what possessed me to reveal so much about my motivations and inner life to somebody who was really only wanting to hear "don't worry, we're still friends."

If I have wronged someone and they are unaware of it, sometimes it might be for the best to let them remain unaware. For instance, I had a college friend whose boyfriend broke up with her after telling her he thought she still had feelings for her previous boyfriend. Later, he felt the need to confess that really it was that he had just been using her to try to get over somebody else. I'm not sure that was helpful. I think sometimes we confess to make ourselves feel better, not to heal a breach.

There are situations in which total openness is valuable, but maybe those are only for very close friends and people who are planning to marry each other. My example for this: someone I know whose husband only told her he sometimes suffered from severe depressive mood swings after they were married. A confession that wouldn't have been about an error before marriage became a huge wrong after it.

I once heard somebody say, "People don't want your apologies, they want you." It has the ring of truth. I'm going to wrong and disappoint people, and they're going to wrong and disappoint me. And yet it's amazing what honesty can do. It's amazing how easy it can be to forgive and be forgiven when we repent sincerely and don't drag our self-protection into it ("I'm sorry, but I only did that because...").

Is there a simple 12-step program for forgiveness? No. But what if that's because it could be even simpler, if we didn't spend so much time complicating it?

What if it's as simple as love?

Making It Right

This might be the hardest part about life: people need people, but yet people disappoint people. 

I want to believe that people are more than what they seem, but maybe I'm making them up and they aren't even what they seem. I want to trust, but I have so many good reasons not to. A little voice in my head tells me people are out for what they can get from you, however they can get it; they will use you up and throw you aside without even blinking if you give them half a chance. (Don't think I exempt myself from this. I'll be the first to tell you I will let you down in almost as many ways as I let myself down, and almost as frequently.) Perhaps worse than the pain of disappointment is the self-inflicted pain of never letting people get close enough to disappoint you. Because they almost always get in under your guard anyway, and then you're hurt twice. 

People who need people aren't, as the song claims, "the luckiest people in the world." They are the only people in the world. And yet we are frustrated so often by our inability to connect in meaningful ways, by our shallow love and weak or nonexistent trust.

On Tuesday night some friends and I watched a documentary about a woman who used to be a stripper and a drug abuser and a lost soul, a woman who was pursued and loved by and in turn came to love and pursue a patient and gracious God. She now devotes her life to connecting with girls in the industry who are devaluing and debasing themselves. Some people in her community were not okay with this, as though God couldn't use somebody who had sinned so much.

"What could I do to make it right?" a friend asked me not long afterwards, a hypothetical question in response to the issue of hidden sins coming to light. "If you found out about something I had done that disappointed you, what could I do to make it right?"

The first answer that came to mind was "Nothing." It's the wrong answer. And the right one.

It's the wrong answer because it's not who I want to be, who I'm called to be. I may not have committed many of the big Socially Unacceptable sins, but I am daily guilty of selfishness, of loving myself above others, of trying to fix myself, protect myself, take care of myself, live by and for myself. Me. Alone. Nobody else. But if nothing can make it right between and among people, nothing can make it right inside of one person, either.

It's the right answer because it's not up to the people who have wronged me, directly or indirectly--how many people do we wound arrogantly, casually, not even thinking of them at all?--it's not up to them to make anything right. They can't. It's not up to me to make it right. I can't.

But I know someone who can. I know someone who suffered wrong but never inflicted it. I know someone who loves me and forgives me because he is more than big enough and more than strong enough and more than willing enough to do those things. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

And so I will believe that people can be more than what they settle for, because God doesn't settle for leaving us where we are (even when we're happy to be there). God catches up to world-weary ex-strippers and world-weary "good church girls" alike. God won't leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8), even when those closest to us forget us (Isaiah 49:15). God makes it possible for us to love people and forgive people and trust people even though we know what they are capable of because we know what we are capable of (I John 4:19). God gives us all we need for our fullest protection and empowers us to throw away the shadow-armor we cling to so fiercely (Ephesians 6:10-17). No, we are never going to attain perfection here and now on this earth. But here and now is not all there is (1 Corinthians 13:12). 

God makes it right. God uses implausible people. And the God who turns mourning into dancing can surely turn deep disappointment to even deeper satisfaction.

"For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life" (Romans 5:9).

When she was young

Several years ago I had a major computer crash, receiving the error message "Hard Drive Not Found." This had been the computer I had all through college, and had been the family computer before that. I had a lot of stuff on it. I was distraught. Fortunately, I also knew a computer geek named Micah who was able to rescue my data and put it on a CD for me. I uploaded a few things from the CD to my computer, put the CD in a drawer, and forgot there was anything else on it.

Fast forward five years, and I turned to this CD so I could send my friend Abby an electronic copy of the classic work "Cooking with Suzanne." I discovered there was far more on it that I remembered. I have work on there dating back to 1990. Let me tell you, my writing style was not always this (still with me?) gripping. In fact, some of the diary entries from the early 1990's are almost painful to read, managing to combine over- and under-description. But other bits are salvageable, and I will be sharing such bits with you where I find them entertaining.

To start off, here is an excerpt from a letter written July 10, 1993. I find this an amusing look into my 14-year-old world:

"Jeremiah and I went on the Indy Go-Karts, where the phrase 'speed-demon' explained itself. Jeremiah collided head-on with a wall upon coming down a hill, and my Go-Kart was bumped by another driver. I was very tense, and it seemed to me that I was the only one that cared about slowing down on curves and hills. I think I will be a much more responsible driver than any of the others, with the possible exception of Jeremiah. After the Indy Go-Karts Jeremiah and I (with Kathy this time) went on the Slick Track Go-Karts, Go-Karts on an ice-like surface. I hope I never have to drive on real ice, because slipping and sliding around made my neck ache."

Love and obedience

My first first-grade Sunday School class was something of a disaster. Or rather, two or three boys made enough commotion to make it seem like one while it was happening. I understand I'm dealing with a large room of six-year-old children, but it is still frustrating for me when they don't listen to me. 

Ironically, our lesson set this trimester is on obedience even when it is hard. Our Bible verse for the morning was "If you love me, you will obey what I command" (John 14:15). I wrote that without looking it up. I doubt anybody else in the class could repeat it back to me with all the commotion at the back table.

I was thinking a lot about that verse today. When I was a kid, I thought it was kind of harsh. "Love me means you do what I say"? Why not just have slaves? Why bring love into it? I read the sentence as prescriptive, another command on top of the long list of commands. 

But it isn't prescriptive. It's descriptive. It's like saying, "If you love me, you will like spending time with me" or "If you love me, you will speak well of me to others." The heart is always revealed in actions.

The boys I had the most trouble from today were kids I hadn't worked with before much, or at all. I had a few problems with some other boys, too, but when I would ask them to stop they would stop...at least for as long as they seemed to remember I had asked them to do so. Which is maybe as close to the spirit of that descriptive phrase as any of us can ever get here on this earth.

I'm thankful for the Spirit who strengthens our memories, and for being able to see him working in six-year-old boys who love me enough to stop throwing papers around. Even if it's just for a few minutes.

Don't make me turn this bus around....

Tonight while on Facebook I stumbled across a group for highschoolers. It's basically about how juniors and seniors are awesome and freshman and sophomores are so annoying. I hope they're kidding. I'm definitely going to give them the benefit of the doubt on that.

Because, seriously? High school. No one is as cool as they think they are. 

I was homeschooled, so I didn't really have major class system awe until I got to college. (I do remember thinking, as an 8-year-old, that 13-year-olds must have a much better grasp on the world. And that by 40 you had probably had enough time to figure everything out. Oh, little Suzanne! How sweetly clueless you were!) As a freshman in college, I was sure that the seniors knew everything that was really necessary about life. Things like what they were going to do after graduation, for example. 

During my first class of my final year of college, when we were going around doing the name/major/class rank introductions, somebody introduced himself as a senior. My first thought ("Oooo, a senior!") was quickly followed by a jarring, almost panicked thought ("Wait a minute! I'm a senior!"). That year I directed a piece for our theatre company's "Wandering Thespians" (we went into a class that had been studying that play/subject/etc. and put on a bit of a play). The three people involved were me, another senior, and a freshman who actually said something to the effect of "I can't believe I'm talking to seniors!" one time when we were sitting around companionably after rehearsal had concluded. My fellow senior and I looked at each other, shrugged, and tried to communicate that we didn't really have some mystical source of knowledge. I don't think he was convinced.

The moral of the story: Class rank doesn't mean as much as you might think. Physical age doesn't mean as much as you might think. And only sticking to one class or age range really limits you in your friend pool. 

So why can't you all just get along and stop being posers, highschoolers? After all, we'll always be whippersnappers to somebody. Or at least we will until we're old enough to be ignored by all the punk kids. (Will they say "punk kids" in 40 years? Keep this question in mind and report back to me in four decades.)

DISCLAIMER: Harvest highschoolers and family members who are still highschoolers, you know I love you. Or if you didn't, let this be your notice. 'Cause I do.

"I am today." -- Jarod

Since I needed to submit a headshot for the program for the play this October, and since Brittany is an excellent photographer, last night I went downtown and met up with her for a photo shoot. First we toured her office, located in an impressive brick building with a security guard and elevators and real wood finishes and giant open lobby-ish areas on each floor. Her office is full of books and nerds, which is excellent. Currently she works in an actual office with an actual door, and she dresses professionally, and altogether looks the part of a woman with a fulfilling career.

She introduced me to one of her co-workers as "my friend Suzanne...she's a playwright." I immediately felt like I was trying to pull some kind of con. I mean, honestly. Writing one play is just a fluke, right? There I was, trying to dress the role and seem like I knew what I was doing, but really I was so unprofessional and non-nonchalant abou this that I had been flipping out with excitement when I heard the news that my little play was selected.

When I arrived home that evening, I finished writing up my publicity homework. It took an excruciatingly long amount of time, mostly because I'm so conflicted when it comes to publicity work. I'm good at it, and it can be fun, but it can also feel too much like lying. And while it can be hard to write about other people or things, it's even harder to write about myself. (I've long confused self-deprecation for humilty and I am still trying to figure out what the latter really looks like.)

With all that said, today I'm thinking about image, and how we present ourselves to others. We tweak ourselves to fit different audiences. We try to make people like us. I've done more than my share of changing to fit an audience, and I always end up frustrated that I wasn't good enough for them in my normal state. I won't always be young. My face will wrinkle and (if heredity is anything to go by) my joints will weaken. I can't always be exciting, or funny, or intellectually stimulating, and it's tiring to try, to feel like people will only talk to you if you measure up to some invisible standard and will drop you as soon as someone more interesting comes along. 

I want to be truthful. It's so hard to be completely truthful, but I think it's even harder not to be, in the long run. I want to explore what it means to be all things to all men in a sincere way, like Paul did, not through manipulative self-marketing ploys but in finding the means to live contented. I want to let myself change for the better and to expect that the same thing is happening in other people. I want to allow plenty of space for pretending, but none for pretense. 

So am I a playwright? 

I am today.

A Hiatus of a Different Sort, and a Stepping Back

I have company coming up for the long weekend, so I'll be on blogging hiatus again. When I return, I've decided I am going to ease back on the blogging and focus on other writing in the "off" days....both because I am feeling the need to do other writing (the foremost in my mind being a Psych fanfic this time, not another play just yet) and because I am feeling the need to do less blogging. 

It's kind of dangerous to blog every day. I start feeling like people out there really care what I'm talking about (which some of you certainly do), and yet also like I'm talking to myself (which I'm certainly not). I read some posts from an older blog last night and it was...painful. Seriously, nobody needs to get that much information about me without having to talk to me. Hence the search for a happy medium. I'm aiming for no less than two posts a week, but not necessarily seven. I mention this for the sake of my own motivation.

Speaking of motivation, I am going to do a little bit of cleaning now. I have been putting it off for two hours.

Enjoy your long weekend, everyone!

A little overwhelmed just now

I have homework. This is exciting because 1) it's for publicity for the play I wrote and 2) homework is something I generally enjoy.

It is throwing me off, however, in that it's write-about-yourself homework. You are probably wondering how this is difficult when I've been blogging just about every day for a month and a half. So am I, kind of. But this writing is of the "what have you been up to" variety. 

On the written homework list (I also need a headshot and am hoping that the deadline is far enough out that Brittany will be able to do it):

1) Approximately 500-800 words on what I've been up to since Calvin, especially as it relates to theatre.

2) Advice to current theatre students.

3) A bio of 40 words or less for the program.

4) A summary of my play in one or two sentences.

5) One quirky thing about me.

I think I'll do this homework tomorrow after getting more sleep than I did last night, because this is going to be hard. I mean, seriously, how can I narrow my quirkiness down to one thing? Anybody have any suggestions?

The Purpose of a Blogging Hiatus

 Remember when I took a blogging hiatus a few weeks back? 

I had started a play quite some time ago and it had been languishing in my electronic files, waiting for the right combination of inspiration and motivation so I could finish it. And then along came notice of the Calvin Theatre Company's 10 Minute Play Festival, a notice that came with a one week deadline (the deadline was slightly flexible, but if I allow myself to think that way about deadlines they are far less motivating). 

ANYWAY, I finished the play.

And submitted it.

And it was selected.

And I am so very excited and happy and I haven't been this much of either since I don't know when, and there is nobody here but Apollo and he doesn't want to jump around the room like an idiot with me, so I'm blogging out to you, loyal and casual and first-time readers, known and unknown. Celebrate with me! Pass around the virtual ice cream!

The play is called "The Cloud Watchers" and will be performed at Calvin College on Friday, October 3 and Saturday, October 4. It will be my first written work to be performed outside of a Harvest youth group setting. 

AAAAHHHHH!!!! [/scream of girlish excitement]

Wild Geese, I love you so much more than usual right now. ;)

*Cue Wicked Witch theme music*

Tonight Trudy and I rode our bikes to book club and back. There is something about both physical exertion and intellectually stimulating socialization that makes me feel alive in a way that simply sitting at a computer does not. A pair of bike rides bookending...well, bookending book club was a lovely way to spend the evening. Rather especially so since we were discussing Cranford, a book by a woman about a society comprised nearly exclusively of women. All around, I feel very empowered tonight. (Not that I am anti-men. My neighbor held both doors open for me as I wrestled my bike upstairs, which is actually a very Cranford-esque good reason to have a man around.)

As for the title of this post...we raced the darkness home, and I challenge anyone who has ever seen The Wizard of Oz to ride a bike at breakneck pace and not play this theme song in your head.

You don't know me...and maybe also you do

This morning I was part of a conversation on the value of Facebook, and whether it helps or hinders relationships. A friend of mine said she hated the shallowness of it, the lack of truly meaningful interaction, the ease with which time can be wasted. I have a Facebook account myself, but I agree with her, and while I don't think those problems are unique to the internet, I think they are definitely exacerbated online. (Isn't "exacerbated" a great word?)

Also this morning, my church grandma Rosemary said she is enjoying reading my blog, that she feels she is getting to know me more and more because of it. She said she doesn't want to comment because she doesn't want everyone to be able to see what she writes.

At first I was looking at these as purely internet-related issues, but the more they simmer in my mind, the more they clarify into issues of exposure. No matter what the avenue, from the stage to the internet to the living room, those who present themselves before us will be seen as people we know.

We were created to exist in relationship. We were created for openness and depth. Now, twisted and fallen, we walk the line between perceiving what does not exist and denying what does.

What do I mean? Let me try to explain by a few examples:

• I appreciate the writing of Andrée Seu, a columnist for WORLD magazine. She makes me think and challenges my faith in encouraging ways. Do I know her?
• 
  
• I greatly enjoyed Calvin's improvisational comedy team. I attended their shows regularly and laughed over the jokes with friends later. I even had a few classes with some of the members of the team. Did I know them?
• 
  
• I have heard my pastor preach hundreds of times since I joined Harvest. I have been in smaller classes under his leadership. I have attended church picnics where he was present. Do I know him? 
• 
  
• I was homeschooled. I spent nearly all day, every day, in the company of my mother and brother. I talked to them on the phone frequently when I was in college and more frequently afterwards. Do I know them?

To all of the above, the answer is the same: "Yes and no." I knew the part of themselves they chose to reveal to me, whether or not it was in a public forum. Even then, I only knew what they were showing in the moment, not the totality of their experiences. Knowledge, but incomplete knowledge.

One more example: I live in my own head. Much as it is a constant struggle for me to understand those outside of me, it can be as much of a struggle to understand myself. Do I really believe what I say I believe? Am I living honestly? Do I know myself? Yes and no.

The danger we all face is the danger of assumption. We assume we know people, that our relationships are solid, that we don't need to put any more effort into them. We assume everything on the surface is all we need to know, and maybe sometimes that is enough. But maybe sometimes we want to be read. And always, always, we desire someone who desires to know us. We don't want to spill our hearts and lives into the void. We want someone to catch us...to want to catch us.

It's a desire that's either doomed to be unfulfilled or destined to be fulfilled beyond all we could ask or imagine. "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

For now, incomplete knowledge and imperfect relationships are all we have.

For now.

So would it be desperate...

...to link this post over to one of my fanfics just because I'm brain-dead with the combination of low amounts of sleep and a cloudy rainy day and because I don't want to use a reserve post today? 

Okay, how about just because it contains the line I quote more frequently to myself in my head than just about anything I've ever written anywhere?

Okay, how about just because? 

I will return to my regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow.

Squirrelly

I hoard food.

I will buy cans of soup, or mixes from those Tastefully Simple parties, or fruit, and will be so pleased at having it that I will not actually eat it. If I ate it, I wouldn't have it anymore. See the logic? Well, me neither, I guess.

If it's something I am excited about, like leftover pizza or half a wrap sandwich, I don't like to bring it to work. I don't want excitement-worthy food like restaurant leftovers to mix with boring-worthy eating areas like my workstation. I want to enjoy this food while sitting on my couch, or in one of my two dearly loved dining room chairs.

I am trying to kick the habit of squirrelling away food for an unspecified later date. I am trying to buy what I will eat, and to eat what I buy soon after I buy it. I'm trying to wash off vegetables and fruit right away so I don't put it off for two weeks and then find them decomposing in my fridge.

My goal: that someday in the fairly near future I won't own any food past its expiration date, because I am properly managing my hunger expectations.

Meanwhile, yes, I have finished using that soy milk that was "best by" last March.

Internet Friends and Other Methods of Classification

One of my friends is very up front about the fact that he classifies his friends. He will tell you to your face that you are a level 4 friend, or whatever. I'm not sure how solid the classification methodology is, and actually "methodology" might be a strong word considering the source, but the basic principle is there.

At a conference I attended a few years back, there was an exercise in which we moved from one person to the next in line and voted them on what was essentially a scale of 1-4, with 1 being equivalent to "I don't even want to talk to you" and 4 being more like "I want to be best friends." Considering we were doing this publicly, everybody was voting other people in at 3s or 4s, but meanwhile the conference leader was saying, "This is what you do every day."

I hate this. I hate being classified on a friendship ladder. I hate that we can't all just be friends. What I hate most is that the conference leader was right. We're ascending and descending relationship ladders all our lives. And I have classifications, too. They're just not numerical because one of my most constant relationships is my uneasy relationship with numbers. 

I don't rush into friendships, and my hesitance comes through verbally. Words are important, and I don't throw around the word "friend" about everyone I ever meet. The progression goes something like this. 

The Pre-Friend

When this person comes up in conversation, she is referred to as "someone I know" or maybe, if she's hovering on friend status, "an acquaintance of mine." Generally I haven't known her long, or maybe have known her but not spent much quality time with her. Sometimes I use this phrase because I'm not interested in knowing her any more and am cutting off friend potential, but usually there is a good chance of upward mobility. After all, to refer to her as "someone I know" means I'm talking about her when she's not around, and usually that involves some friend interest.

The Qualified Friend

This is the most basic level of friendship. This is where the word "friend" first comes into play, and there may be a few gradations in the qualification. For example, Jen started out as "Lisa's friend Jen," then became "my book club friend Jen," and then finally graduated all the way to "my friend Jen." If you only interact with somebody in one arena of your life, that person is a qualified friend.

The Internet Friend

This isn't a level of progression, but it's such a specialized form of qualified friend that it needed its own heading. There are two main types of internet friend. The Solely Internet Friend is easy to deal with. Problems may arise, however, with the Primarily Internet Friend, who is a person you see in real life. A Primarily Internet Friend is often confused with a real life friend of some other category. You may have friends you talk to via the internet who do not fall into either of these categories, in which case the internet is a tool to further your relationship, not the main vehicle for the relationship. I repeat, do not be confused into thinking that because you talk a lot online you must necessarily be A-List friends (we'll get to this one). You may really just be casual friends.

The Casual Friend

Otherwise known as the "Oh, there you are" or "While you're here" friend, the casual friend is somebody who is fun to hang out with when she's right in front of your face, but not somebody you'd go out of your way to hang out with. You do not make plans with casual friends, unless they're of the sweeping group invitation variety. If a casual friend invites you somewhere, you ask who else is going to be there before you make your decision. You would never go just to see this person, but she's okay in crowds.

The Fallback Friend

Sometimes your A-List friends (almost there) are busy, but you are still feeling social. The fallback friend is someone you hang out with at these times. You like them, they just haven't made it all the way into the A-List. This could be a transitional stage or one that you end up staying in, whether because of a disparity in social circles or because your paths don't cross naturally all that often. Again, you like these people, they just wouldn't be the first ones you call if something big and important happened in your life.

The A-List Friend

These are the friends you have standing plans with, the ones you see every week and start missing if it's been longer, the ones you could spend time with four or five evenings in a row and still feel ready to say "yes" if they ask you to do something tomorrow night, too. You've seen each other at your best and worst times and love each other through all of them. You can talk about everything or nothing. You can sit companionably without needing to talk, because you don't need to fill an uncomfortable silence if silence isn't uncomfortable. You can disagree (sometimes passionately) and then be joking around the next minute. These are the people who encourage you the most.

The Trump Card Friend

If an A-List friend moves away, she becomes a Trump Card friend, a friend you would rearrange plans for if she were to suddenly be in your neighborhood. Generally Trump Card friends don't mix well with other friends without concerted effort, because there is a lot of history there that is hard to translate for people who haven't known you as long or in the same ways.

Like I said, people move up and down the friendship ladder. It's not always solid. I wish any two participants in a friendship were always on the same rung. I wish I never lost contact with anyone I ever cared about. I wish I had time to be friends at a deep level with all of the people I've met who I feel a spark of friendship with...I can think of so many people right now who I enjoy very much but don't spend much time with at all. I'm grateful for the time we had and the time we have.

One of the things I'm looking forward to about heaven is having an infinite amount of time to become friends (or better friends) with people. I guess I don't know if that's really a part of heaven, but from all the "one anothers" of Scripture it seems it would be God-glorifying to sit down and share the stories of our lives with each other. As a matter of fact, I think it already is.

I'm grateful for all of you who have shared your lives with me. No matter what friend ranks we attained.

Good good-byes

Tonight I said good-bye to my friends Abby and Ryan, who will be moving pretty far away for the foreseeable future (the foreseeable future being two years). I thought I was prepped for this, but on my drive home the good-bye sadness hit me. 

I'm glad that good-bye doesn't feel natural, because it isn't. We weren't made for separation; in fact, that's the opposite of what we were made to experience. 

I'm glad that this good-bye is bittersweet, and that the sweetness comes from parting on good terms, with no regrets and nothing standing between us.

Most of all, I'm glad that all good-byes between these friends and I are only temporary, no matter what happens.

I'm sad, too. But it's a sadness with joy undergirding it.

Et tu, MacGyver?

When you're a kid, you don't notice everything they put in TV shows. As I remember MacGyver, it was about a clever, laid-back, quick-thinking guy who could figure his way out of any tight spot using whatever was at hand. Many is the time I myself have been inspired by MacGyver to look for unconventional solutions to practical problems.

Watching MacGyver again now (Jeremiah and I bought some seasons for my parents' birthdays, because these are the sorts of gifts we buy in my family), I notice something else, something a young friend of mine at church noticed before I did: "In every episode, he fixes things, and at the end he kisses the girl."

Alas, it's true. MacGyver turns out to be quite the ladies' man. He doesn't come on James Bond strong (don't even get me started on James Bond), but he does throw out really corny lines and grins at the women like they're something special. It's kind of hard to believe they really are, both because there's a new one every week and because nobody in the 1980s was as good-looking as they thought they were, but the women go for it. Most times they are the ones asking him to kiss them, or making the first physical move, and MacGyver just responds with a polite "aw, shucks" demeanor that almost makes you forget, again, that this happens EVERY EPISODE.

Top ten signs that MacGyver was not written by women, you say? Possibly true. But still kind of disappointing.

Peaks and Valleys

It is incredible how much better about life I feel when I get enough sleep. This weekend, for example, was mostly amazing. I got about eight hours of sleep each night, and I think that helped a lot.

Last night I was tossing and turning for a while and then awake for an hour in the middle of the night because I couldn't handle the humidity. Today I am feeling...not amazing.

Sleeplessness greatly impairs my perspective. I forget who I really am and where I really stand and start to define myself by societal labels and the imagined opinions of others. I feel all of my flaws more keenly and every thoughtless word heard or remembered cuts deeper than usual.

Thank God that today I have not been lashing out at other people. More and more, I would choose to cry at my desk instead of guarding myself with anger (a false protection and one more thing to regret later). Not that I did more than almost tear up at my desk today. Once I was out of the building, of course, it was another story. Considering I was praying for protection at work, it's interesting that I started crying almost as soon as I left the building. Thanks for holding that back until then, God.

Here are some things I was/am fighting to remember today:

I am more than a census statistic.

I am more than what I appear to be.

I am more than my feelings.

I am more than my thoughts.

I am more than any definitions imposed by others, even those who love me.

I am more than this moment, this day, this year, this lifetime.

I am more becoming less for the sake of something and someone who is.

I AM is watching over me.

Coincidence? Absolutely not.

A long time ago I starting work on a play that I never finished. It was very much a "someday I'll get around to this" sort of project, but I didn't have sufficient self-motivation to complete it.

Until this week, when a friend of mine asked if I had anything to submit for consideration in an upcoming performance of short plays by Calvin grads.

Which led me to research on the time of the Exodus, then more specifically to the craftsmanship in that era.

Which led me to the passage on the tabernacle.

Which also contains a beautiful story of how the Israelites had to be stopped from bringing their gifts for the construction of the tabernacle, because they were bringing too much.

And this morning in the meeting on our church's very low general fund balance, this is the story I felt compelled to share when somebody asked "How do we live with a giving spirit?" (We remember we were slaves, and now we are free, and we give in celebration of that fact.)

Meanwhile, in the same week I was reading about the tabernacle, a couple who doesn't even attend our church made out a check for $20,000 to be put towards our general fund, an amount that matched almost identically with the worst-case scenario end-of-year deficit number the church leadership had forecasted.

I was shaking and in tears by the end of the meeting this morning, in sheer awe of this God who created time itself and still times things so exactly in our lives. 

What plans are in motion at this very moment?

Get Smart about Shopping

Last night I went into the Barnes & Noble DVD section. I know what you're thinking: "What, a savvy shopper like Suzanne looking at DVDs in a bookstore?" I had made the mistake of looking at their online site after they sent me a sale notice, and I had seen that they featured the first season of Get Smart for only $0.50 more than the Amazon.com price. I had also received a 15% off coupon of theirs via email.

This was the plan: to go into the store, see if the price was low enough that by combining it with the coupon it would be cheaper than buying from Amazon sometime in the future, and make my decision from there.

What actually happened was that I made a classic hunter mistake: forgetting the territory. (It isn't just salesmen who gotta know it.) I sped into that DVD section with purpose. I didn't browse. This allowed me to fall victim to the Shopping Ambush, which is when you are trying to hunt and suddenly a salesperson appears. Sometimes this is a mere distraction, sometimes it is a complete diversion from your goal.

Last night, I was taken completely off guard. Behind a display one second, face-to-face with a salesperson who had been cleverly disguised as a cashier the next. Before I knew it, I was telling him what I was looking for, being shown to it, and having my purchase rung up...for $2 more than I had planned to spend. (As my fellow hunters are aware, in the game of shopping, every cent counts.) 

Out of my mistake comes this addendum to the hunter advice I've already given you: when in territory dominated by salespeople, you must appear to be browsing. No matter how many years you have been waiting for a TV show to come on on DVD, no matter how sort of jealous you are of your brother getting it first even though he said he wasn't going to, no matter what, you must look as though you are there for no specific reason. Look as though you're waiting for somebody in another location in the store and are just in this section out of extreme boredom. Look standoffish. Look as though you have no money. When the salesperson approaches you, don't make eye contact for more than 5 seconds as you throw a "Thanks, just looking" over your shoulder. 

I was consoled in this blunder by the knowledge that I have indeed been anticipating the DVD release of this show for years now. Also by the fact that when the salesperson showed me where it was, it turned out to be right by the entrance to the section.

"Walked right past it," I said, then chuckled and added, "Missed it by that much."

The cashier/saleman chuckled politely, but I could tell he was really just plotting his next ambush.

Bisy Backson

I'm taking a week's blogging hiatus to work on other forms of writing (specifically, one form).

"See" you soon.

Advice from a Shopping Champion

I don't like shopping, in general. I don't like to spend a lot of time in stores, and I don't like to spend money in them if I can avoid it. I used to get really fidgety in stores when I was younger, waiting for my mom (who is something of a browser) to get on with it. Once, when my dad and I had taken part of the list and headed off on our own, he said: "There are hunters, and there are gatherers. Your mom is a gatherer."

Suddenly I wasn't fidgety just because I was bored. I was a hunter. 

I have developed a fondness for grocery shopping since then. Every trip is a reconnaissance mission, a personal challenge. Grocery shopping has become a personal competition. I'm not much good at racing or volleyball or games involving any kind of math, but I win grocery shopping almost every time I compete. (And yes, you can compete with yourself. I do it all the time.)

Below are the main criteria of a winning shopping trip.

1) Speed: The most important factor. The goal is to get out as quickly as possible. You don't want to stay in that store any longer than necessary.

2) Planning: Stick to your list. You lose extra points for deviating for luxury items like ice cream (which is okay if it is on the list), but you lose points even for something like "milk" that you "just forgot" to write on the list. "Just forgot"?? What do you not understand about reconnaissance?

3) Costs: Meijer receipts have little asterisks next to all of the items on sale. The goal is that these asterisks would appear by every item on your list. (Bonus points if you have coupons for things on sale, especially if you're strategic and buy exactly as many sale items as the coupon covers and no more.)

4) Efficiency: Start at the back of the store and work your way to the front. Points will be lost for every aisle you go down unnecessarily. Extra points lost any time you have to double back.

Perhaps some of you have recently found out that you are hunters. Perhaps some of you are seasoned hunters looking for ways to hone your technique. Perhaps some of you are gatherers just trying to get in on the game. Never fear. I have some helpful hints for you in your quest for the Grocery Gold Medal.

1) Weekly ads: Whether in your newspaper or online, these will tell you what's on sale before you get to the store. This is the most helpful way to build your list.

2) Getting in the zone: If outside distractions like too many people start throwing you off, funny-looking "framing" or "wizard" hand gestures will not only help you re-focus, they will signal to all other shoppers that you are to be avoided.

3) Rapid visual scanning: If you have played video games, you should have this down already, but this means taking in labels and packaging and such without lingering. If Frosted Flakes aren't on your grocery list, it does not matter to you what the giveaway is. Do not be sidetracked.

4) Comfortable shoes and socks: My mom told me not to post the cautionary tale that follows, as people might think I don't know how to dress myself. But I will not let pride stand in the way of improving the shopping experience for the dozens of people who may read this. Last Thursday night, I went shopping in work shoes and socks. My work shoes are less fitted than my athletic shoes, and most of my work socks tend to lose all elasticity as soon as I put them on, which means my socks are constantly trying to slide down into my shoes even when I'm walking around the office. It gets worse when I'm hustling around a store. (For those of you wondering why I don't just buy new socks, please go back and read the first two sentences of this post.) The lesson in this story: wear comfy shoes and socks so you can move more rapidly with less distraction.

There you have it, folks. The secrets of my shopping success. Use them wisely and well.

Caught out again....

You know how sometimes you get really passionate about how some thing or other that you do is not good and you should stop, and then the next day you do exactly what you said you hated doing? Yeah. Today was one of those days.

Go ahead and read my blog post from yesterday and then come back to this one. Ready? Okay.

I talked way too much today. I was mad at all kinds of people/situations, and I talked. Very few of the "Why can't so-and-so give me a break?" and  "This is the problem with that...." and "Wait until you hear what so-and-so did" sorts of questions and comments I had were stopped. I let them keep pouring out.

I am thankful for Peter. Talk about a guy who didn't know when to shut up. He talked big, his verbal filter was missing, and he contradicted Jesus. "Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away," he vowed. (Rashly, of course.) And when Jesus gently prophesied that in fact Peter would deny him three times, Peter asserted, "Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you."

I wonder what Jesus did then. I wonder if he stared at Peter and thought about how typical it was for Peter to make grand pronouncements and fall flat on his face. I wonder if he changed the subject and moved on with the conversation, knowing that soon enough Peter would have to see himself. Or maybe his heart, heavy as it was with the weight of what was to come, lifted slightly. Because it was so obvious that Peter needed this sacrifice.

I do, too.

Speech Problems

"For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so." (James 3:7-10)

This year I've been under a lot of stress, from one quarter or another. I've felt unappreciated and invisible, abused and neglected. Whether or not I have been isn't really the subject of this post. This post is about how I handle it.

I talk too much. I tell people things that are none of their business. Not in just an internet forum way. Here I work on distilling my thoughts, on sharing what's going on with me in the hope that somebody might benefit from some of it. No, I mean the sort of way in which you start talking about personal things to people you barely know, and the voice saying, "Why should they care?" in the back of your head is probably not a self-deprecating question, but a legitimate one.

I'm verbally fierce. For instance, I work customer service. All too often, people on the other side of a phone or a computer connection get called out...well, called out to other co-workers, anyway. Everyone is going to know that it wasn't MY fault that such-and-such didn't happen, because so-and-so was incompetent. My knee-jerk reaction certainly isn't grace, that's for sure.

My mom says I should learn to speak the above sorts of thoughts to God instead of spouting them off to anybody who would listen. I agree, but from past experience I'm a little afraid of taking them solely to God. (See my post from July 16 on subtle idolatry.) My quandary, then, is this: When does explanation cross over into complaining? When does a prayer request become gossip? How much do I need to say before it becomes self-justifying?

It seems many of the answers lie in self-sacrifice, in seeking to elevate others above myself, in trusting that God has my back even if nobody else knows the trouble I've seen.

I can see why so many people in religious orders around the world take vows of silence. And why so many moms say, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." 

Projection Screens in Church, or A Little Piece of Me Dies

Last Sunday I was invited over to the TerHaars. There was some reason thrown out about something I can't quite recall, but mostly Sandra loves me. (Hi, Sandra! The feeling is mutual! Thanks for the awesome broccoli salad!) After lunch, we gathered around the piano for singing. Because this is what the TerHaars do. (I think I like that even more than the broccoli salad, because I know other people who do the salad thing.)

Anyway, enough TerHaar love for this post. This post is about projection screens in church.

After we were finished singing some Trinity Hymnal favorites, we sang a "praise song." (At my church the distinction between a hymnal song and a praise song is, apparently, whether or not it's in the hymnal.) A discussion ensued about how we were going to get the lyrics into everyone's hands when we sang the song at church. Someone mentioned (ah, here it is!) using the projection screen. We'll be using it at the new building anyway, they reasoned.

I yelled louder about this than I maybe should have in a small room full of people who are mostly not me, but there you have it. I hate projection screens in church. It's not that they don't come in handy sometimes, but they're the bare minimum version of something more substantial.

I am a very tactile person. (Take me through the clothing section of any store and see how many things I touch if you need empirical proof.) And one of the things I hate about projection screens is that they deprive me of the heft of a book in my hands, the feel of the crisp pages, the smell of it. They deprive me of all that goes into sharing a hymnal with somebody who forgot to pick one up for themselves: finding the right height (the person next to me is rarely my height), tilting it at the right angle, and in general sharing the song with someone in a way I don't when I sing from my own solitary hymnal, or (worse) from a screen.

My hands feel so empty without a hymnal. I don't know what to do with them when I'm singing if I don't have one, and often grip the chair back in front of me to keep from breaking into sweeping arm-dance gestures. (The fact that my hymnal or the chair in front of me or the presence of other people is/are sometimes the only things that keep me from dancing during worship is another subject entirely.)

I am not the best sight-reader, musically speaking, but I am getting better. I like to be able to sing the harmonies. Without a hymnal, I would still sing harmony, but it would be a harmony I found by myself. And sometimes it would fall off the harmony wagon.

With all that said, I could live without hymnals. I would be very sad, and it would feel like there was a hole in my heart that would never be mended, but the human heart is like Swiss cheese anyway, so I would live.

But I will take it up with the elders if we have Bible verses onscreen. I don't think the Bible is a book any of us should learn to go without...no matter how convenient that might be.

Things I needed to hear today

"Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" (Luke 11:11-13)

I've been wrestling again with what it means to want things I don't have. Isn't that covetousness? Over and over again, God tells us to ask. But should I ask God for anything besides the Holy Spirit?

"And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.'" (Matthew 26:39)

The fact that Jesus Himself asks for something that doesn't happen is immensely comforting. It means requests aren't denied because of a lack of faith, or because certain hurdles haven't been leapt, or because God doesn't love me that way. It means it's God-glorifying to simultaneously pray for something you strongly desire and lay it at the feet of God in sacrifice. We don't have to be ascetics. As my friend Lisa has told me repeatedly, "We're not Buddhists. It's okay to want things." It's only a matter of which desire is to be master.

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me." (2 Corinthians 12:7-8)

I think Satan would be thrilled if I settled into the lie that God is in the business of ambushing me, of setting me up for a fall. If it weren't for the fact that I grew up in a Calvinist denomination that didn't talk much about him, I'd say with greater confidence that I can hear his voice at times (one of two voices calling for the same sheep).

"You can lower your expectations," he says. "Stop wanting the things you're wanting. Isn't it a waste of your time? You'll never be worth them. You're not trying hard enough. Look at all the people around you who've got things figured out. They certainly seem to be content in every circumstance, don't they? They ask for God to remove temptation, and it disappears! They plead for clarity and receive it. Their prayers have greater efficacy. Why do you suppose that is? Suzanne, have you seen yourself? You keep thinking you're trying to follow God, but you end up disappointed again, and again, and again...does God treat His children that way?"

But every time I fall down in disappointment, "Not my will, but yours" comes faster to my mind. (Not easier, exactly. But faster.) Every time people and places and situations and things and my own foolish flesh and heart fail me, I want to be wholly His even more than I did before.

He's good, but He's not safe. And through all of these everyday trials He's making me dangerous, too.

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Closed Windows

Despite how hard my mother has tried, I'm not that great at eye contact. Here the top three scenarios that throw me off:

1) Spotting someone walking towards you. You see her. She sees you. You are both thoroughly aware of each other's presence...in fact, painfully so. Do you sustain eye contact, even though that might mean staring at each other for 45 seconds before you're even within proper hollering range? Do you pretend there is something else that has suddenly caught your eye off to the side? Do you look down at your feet as though suddenly afraid that the terrain in, say, your office building is treacherous and takes careful attention to navigate? 

2) Catching somebody's eye while sitting at church. There you are, casually glancing around to see who's there, and you've accidentally snagged eyes with somebody doing the same thing. If you're close friends, you can smile and wave or nod, almost as though you were looking for them. If you don't know them that well or are currently feeling a strain in your relationship or have simply been caught off-guard in the middle of clandestinely perusing a room full of a people when you're "supposed to" be meditating on the service (ahead or in progress, depending on the seriousness of the offense), it's more likely you will break eye contact awkwardly and go back to staring fixedly at your bulletin. (This is where it helps if your church has a large bulletin with lots of coming activity notes or prayer requests. Our church's evening bulletin is a flimsy subterfugeous refuge. Yes, I just adjectivized the word "subterfuge.")

3) Having a one-on-one conversation. This is the most pulse-pounding form of eye contact, and is why my favorite conversations are conducted in cars, on bike rides, or on walks. It is easier for me to talk to you if I don't have to make eye contact with you. Seriously, I love you and everything, but I like my secrets. I've been told I have a very expressive face and I don't want to accidentally say something with my eyes that I didn't want you to know. In small group conversations that vary the eye contact, it's a little better. You can dodge eyes around from person to person fast enough that (hopefully) people don't get any unwelcome glimpses into your soul. However, I still do a lot of staring at random points on the ceiling/floor/wall/etc. when I start talking about important stuff, or when I'm nervous. 

It's not that I don't appreciate everybody's eyes, or realize that making eye contact is respectful and shows interest in the other person and that talking to a person with shifty eyes is both distracting and a little bit disturbing. I do know all of that. I hate when I'm trying to make eye contact with somebody who is studiously avoiding it, so I know I'm a hypocrite on that point.

How about you? How much eye contact can you handle?