A local parable

Last Sunday I looked for my favorite spring "church coat" only to find that it was not in my closet. This was distressing, as I had been away the previous Sunday and therefore had not had the opportunity to see if my coat was at church then. After checking my closet repeatedly to be sure I wasn't just missing something, I decided to demonstrate my faith that the coat would still be hanging up at church by not wearing another coat to church that morning. I was cold that Sunday, a coldness that saddened me because it reminded me of my carelessness with my personal possessions, a coldness that reminded me of every person, place, and thing I had ever lost in all of my life. (A physics major would probably have shrugged all of this off and picked out one of the other coats in the closet.)

I sent emails to several people, including the church secretary, inquiring about the coat. The secretary sent an email to everyone on the mailing list. The one response put forth a theory I had dreaded: my coat had quite probably been donated to a thrift store. My church meets in a school, and the school's semi-annual donation to its thrift store of choice had taken place recently.

Anger mixed with sadness as I railed against the donation system as well as my own ability to keep track of my belongings. I mourned the coat, which had once belonged to my mother and as such had sentimental value beyond the sentimental value I assign to virtually everything I own.

I called the school and took down the name and address of the thrift store. I drove there after work to find that it wasn't open late enough on Tuesdays or Wednesdays to enable me to make it out there. Disappointed, I left my car running and walked right up to the windows, peering inside at a rack of coats near the window in a vain attempt to locate mine.

Tonight I tried again. "You're really desperate over this," my brother said jokingly, but if I had left any stone unturned I would always have wondered what could have been.

Also, I wouldn't have found my coat.

YES!

The coat was there! Not on the rack that was visible through the window, the rack in the "boutique" section, but with the more humble coats towards the back of the store. The women at the cash register let me have it back for free because I had "donated" it.

As I drove home, secure in the presence of my coat on the seat beside me, one sentence kept running through my head: "Rejoice with me, for I have found my coat which was lost!"

"In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." – Luke 15:10

No, gracias....

I called a bank this afternoon. In trying to navigate one of those labyrinthine automated phone messages, I encountered the following option: "If you would like to send money to Mexico…."

What? What's Mexico done for me lately? Mexico never even remembers my birthday!

In Commemoration

Five years ago, on a day that was warmer than today has been thus far, I walked down an aisle wearing a black robe and a black hat. The walk (and the receipt of the folder which did not yet contain my diploma) was a bit anticlimactic, but the masking-taped slogan on the hat helped to make up for it: "MEN FOR SALE."

Happy five-year graduation anniversary, class of 2001!

It is good!

Do you ever consider your own work—writing, knitting, performing, etc.—and find yourself amazed? You know that it is good, and you want somebody to share it with, not out of pride, but out of the joy that is the creation of a good thing.

Tonight I was reading over some poems I wrote in the past weeks, and I came across one I had forgotten. (Yes, I forget things I've written. Some do.) I read the poem and appreciated it almost as though I hadn't written it. It was interesting to feel that this work was so much mine, and yet had such a life of its own.

It started me thinking—this "it is good" feeling must be a pale reflection of the pure joy God took in His creation, and the delight He takes in it even now, fallen though it is. It also made me think that this might be a way to think of the question of free will and predestination, because when I write something it takes on a life of its own, and yet I am still the one writing. Strange! (Thankfully, there is never a work of God that He forgets and surprises Himself with later. "Oh, right, Suzanne! I wonder what she's been up to?")

When theologians say that God delights in Himself, and not in a prideful way, this is what they mean: that God delights in His love, and mercy, and creativity, and because He delights in them He wants to share them with us. Because they are good things, and because He is good.

That sent shivers down my spine tonight, and so that was something I wanted to share with you.

Parody Hilarity

Current Favorite Parody Site: www.fiveminute.net/smallville/

This is a subsite of Five-Minute Voyager. This site has lots of different science fiction "fivers" (brief parodies), from Minority Report to Star Trek to Smallville to Final Fantasy (yes, the computer games). It's great. I want to do this for a living. Oh, but these people probably don't live on this. Hm. Too bad, since that one time a friend and I did a Smorgified version of The Importance of Being Earnest proved that writing these things is at least as fun as reading them.

Highlights from recent Smallville fivers:

Chloe: You know, honestly I don't think I'd win. You'd be mad at me if I did tell you, and you'd be mad if I didn't.
Clark: You think I get mad at you? That makes me ANGRY!

Lois: So why do I always pick the homicidal maniacs for boyfriends?
Ma Kent: Probably because you're stupid. Look, when I was your age, I had some real losers for boyfriends, but --
Lois: I know, I know. You had to date the bad ones to know the good ones and so I just need to stick with it and try to find the Right One™.
Ma Kent: Actually I was going to say, "but none of them were even close to homicidal."

Lex: I don't trust you, so let's have one of those verbal chess match thingies.
Fine: It'll end with me saying "Go on up, baldy!" and you breaking down into tears, so let's just skip that, okay?

Seriously, any parody that includes a reference to one of the less familiar stories of Elisha? Triple the coolness points.

Kiss me, I’m ignorant! (And proud of it!)

This morning two of my co-workers were complaining about the stupid president interrupting their programs with his stupid speech, and how first he did it with the finale of Friends and now he was going to do it with Gray’s Anatomy, and doesn’t he watch TV?

As Bruce Willis would say, somebody call the wahhhmbulance. Like the president or not, watch his speeches or not, going on like this is essentially saying, “I’m an American—I’m politically uninformed and entertainment saturated and if you disrupt my cushy little life you may feel my wrath, which is more likely to come against you for disrupting my TV schedule than for any of your so-called ‘policies,’ whatever they may be.”

Which all goes to say: Don't parade your ignorance for all to see.

Ads don't age well....

My brother loaned me his CD's of "The Amazing Spiderman." All the comic books from 1963 through 1989 are on these. The ads alone are worth reading, with their get-rich-quick schemes and personal improvement plans. They're sort of pathetically hilarious—in about 40 years we'll be looking at internet forwards in the same way. Wait, we already do.

Here is an example of the ads from 1963 (actually, it's an inset in a larger ad about a body-building program):

FREE! 'Secrets of Attracting Girls'!

Fellows! Mail the coupon now, and receive Mike Marvel's FREE GIFT to you, this exciting and informative book. Discover a secret method for developing a new, almost MAGNETIC way of attracting the girls. At parties, dances, at the beach—you will have the girls clustering around you breathlessly, while the guys watch enviously. "What does HE have that WE don't?" they will say. The answer is in this exciting new book, your GIFT from Mike Marvel. Fill out and mail the coupon NOW!

Awww!

"I still have the picture of you, Rebekah, Dave, Morgan, Bram, Becky, Ryan, and Beth on the wall in my office." -- Michael Page

Yay, Advanced Acting class....

Best. Stoppard. Ever.

There are no charms that soothe the savage beast like going to see Arcadia with people who want to discuss it. (The award for Most Endearing Thing Anyone Has Said to Me in Quite Some Time goes to this comment: "Keep talking about the play....")

Physically speaking, Arcadia is not a very intense play. It is set in a single room, and most of the time people are sitting at a table.

Mentally speaking, Arcadia is dense, rich, stimulating material. Where else do considerations of time, literature, math, and sex overlap and interweave so intricately? What other play ends with a reminder of connectedness and (simultaneously) of disparity?

Thomasina mourns all the lost knowledge of the past, symbolized for her on a large scale in the burning of the library of Alexandria: "How can we sleep for grief?" Valentine says any knowledge of value is lost only to be found again. Yet we who watch the play see that the knowledge that is lost is not only mathematical, or literary. Over time we lose, not mere equations or poems, but life, all of the nuance and interactions of life.

Septimus puts it best: "We shed as we pick up, like travelers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it."

To the writing of many poems and the formulating of many equations there is no end. Most of life lies in the "unimportant" details and the undocumented moments. Time is not guaranteed, so put down the pen while you can— and waltz.

"Why can't the past just die?"

Maybe it's an American thing, but we expect the past to stay in the past. If it weren't past, it would be present; and, after all, it is the present that is the gift. (*involuntary gag response*) We like things new and shiny and futuristic. If we are going to buy vintage clothing re-worked into this year’s fashion, we're not going to notice the repetition. We also want the past to become the past quickly. We aren't good at waiting.

Large parts of the rest of the world move much slower than we do as a matter of course. Large parts of the rest of the world place a high value on their connections to their ancestors, their traditions, their heritage, and their inheritance.

More importantly, Scripture emphasizes not only the inevitability and importance of waiting patiently, but also the living nature of the past. It emphasizes remembering the past, not in remembering its mistakes or wishing we could still be there, but in remembering the faithfulness of God—remember the Exodus; remember the Exile; remember the Cross.

Remembering God's faithfulness strengthens us in the weakness of our own forgetful faith. We use the phrase "remember when" casually enough now, and we feel the power it has to connect us to each other. Let's go a step further. Let's remember as God remembers, in remembering as a necessary precursor to action. More importantly, let's remember that God remembers, that He does not forget us and that His love never falters.

Remember when we first knew that He had loved us since before we had the ability to recognize it? Remember when the joy of the Lord sang in our hearts? Remember the touch of His healing hand? Remember when our frustrations with the past fell away when we turned our faces to Him? Remember His good and precious promises?

Praise God for the past, even the past we wish would just die—it points to Him.

Remember!

"This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."
~~Lamentations 3:21-23 (KJV)

"Seek the LORD and His strength;
Seek His face continually.
Remember His wonderful deeds which He has done,
His marvels and the judgments from His mouth,
O seed of Israel His servant,
Sons of Jacob, His chosen ones!"
~~I Chronicles 16:11-13

"Remember, O LORD,
Your compassion and Your lovingkindnesses,
For they have been from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
According to Your lovingkindness remember me,
For Your goodness' sake, O LORD."
~~Psalm 25:6-7

And today's Favorite Person Award goes to:

“Sweating like a pig, thanks, and you?”

Some people exercise and still stay “pretty.” Anybody who has worked at or worked out at a gym probably knows what I’m talking about. You know, there are some people who have the cute tight sporty clothes (some flashing more skin than others…there’s a Jessica Simpson wannabe at my health club), and they run and lift weights and everything without breaking a sweat.

Me, I walk in with my baggy T-shirt and shorts-over-stretchy-pants and within 3 minutes after I start running I am doing just as the title of this post suggests. My face gets so red that “flushed” really isn’t the word for it anymore. The wispy hair by the side of my face gets the touch of exertion-induced humidity and pops out to each side (when it’s not plastered down by the sweat). This has always been true. My brother and I were in TaeKwon-Do classes in our high school years. In the summer especially, people would be asking us if we needed to stop and get some water. We don’t look pretty when we exercise. We look like we’re going to pass out.

Last night I went to the gym and saw two of the gym workers I usually see there. One was working behind the desk. She didn’t get that job for no reason—I walk in and her face lit up and she said “Hi!” as if she’d really missed seeing me (I don’t think she’d been on duty any of the times I was in over the past two weeks). One was “off-duty” and was in the weight room, and said “Hey, how you doing?” as he walked by. Gym etiquette aside (aren’t you NOT supposed to talk to people in the middle of a set?), it was still sort of nice to have another person around say hello.

These people smile and say “Good night” and all that even though I don’t exercise pretty. They are professionals. I like them.

Heard and Overheard

After talking about running outside

Friend: “Don’t go running on the Kent Trails, though, okay? Well, okay, you can run on the Kent Trails, but don’t run with an iPod. And borrow a big dog.”
Me: “And take a gun?”
Friend: “Yeah, take a gun. Or a knife or something…mace. Take mace.”

Before splitting up from the main assembly to go off to our classes last night at church

Pastor: [asks question]
Girl from 3rd/4th grade class: [raises her hand, answers]
Pastor: [asks question]
Another girl from 3rd/4th grade class: [raises her hand, answers]
Pastor: [asks question]
ANOTHER girl from 3rd/4th grade class: [raises her hand, answers]
Pastor: “Wow, we have a lot of young ladies up here tonight.”
Me [turning proudly to the woman behind us]: “Yeah, this is my class.”

My kids rock.


After taking the butterfly clip out of my hair at the end of the class time last night, several 9-year-old girls swarmed around to look at it

Alicia: “Look how curly it is!” [it was wound in one tight rope at this point]
Other girls: “It’s so pretty!”
[A few seconds of running hands through my hair and exclaiming over it followed.]


Somehow awkward-feeling explanation to a guy about why I wasn’t going to hang out last night

“I have this headache….”


Today’s memorable conversation snippet about the weather

Coworker: “I can’t believe it—Wyoming got two feet of snow and in Louisiana it’s 96 degrees!”
Me: “They are pretty far apart.”
Coworker: “No, not really, they aren’t….”
Me: “…”

A song I heard part of when I had to go out and move my car for the landscaping guy, then had to find the lyrics for online

“run away girl”
by Sean Watkins

from his solo CD Blinders On

(he's also part of the band Nickel Creek)
~~~
please show me there's something wrong

that i don't see in you

some terrible secret flaw that no one could excuse

i've tried to hide you from my mind

and make myself forget

please don't try to stay

we'll only make what's clean a mess

~~

run away girl

run away now

run away girl

~~

the way that you smile at me

isn't helping much at all

please try not to laugh it only makes me want you more

we both know this could never be

but i can't let you go

~~

run away girl

run away now......

~~

what if you thought you saw a ghost

a hundred times a day

what if the thing you wanted most

was impossible to say

~~

run away girl

run away now.......

Run, Forrest, Run!!

My parents' computer doesn't like Yahoo. It will randomly decide that it won't let me send messages. Weird.

Today Dad and I went running (and walking). We were out for two full hours, and we went a little over 7 miles total. Mom gave me a heart monitor of hers that she wasn't using anymore, so I could look down at my wrist and there was the stopwatch/heart rate at the same time. Very cool. Dad postulates that the reason I have only been able to go about a minute at a time outside is because I "take off like a gazelle" and don't set a sustainable pace. This was borne out by the fact that at the pace Dad set, I was able to get up to about 5 minutes at a time, a length of time I had previously only achieved on the treadmill.

I wish somebody who lived close by was a runner, so we could go running outside. I want to make friends with an imposing-looking male who can go running with me, so that nobody will honk. Even better, I want to make friends with an imposing-looking male and his intellectual wife (both beginner runners), so that we could have the male deterrent factor without really having the male/female factor, and so we could also have good conversations as we ran.

I also want a pony. (Okay, just kidding on that.)

Maybe I just need to move back in with my parents. That would solve the "nobody to run with" dilemma. Hm...tempting....

Haitian Proverbs

A few weekends ago my church held its annual missions conference. The pastor who spoke about Haiti shared the following proverbs with us.

• "Behind mountains, more mountains." (Sort of like "Don't be anxious about tomorrow; each day has enough trouble of its own.")
• "An empty sack cannot stand up." (A man with an empty stomach cannot work.)
• "See it or not, your funeral is at 4:00." (From the days when all Haitian funerals were held at 4 p.m., this basically says that everyone will die.)
• "Whatever happens to the turkey could also happen to the chicken."(Just because you're smart doesn't mean you can't do something stupid.)
• "The rock in the river doesn't know the pain of the rock in the sun."
• "A little dog is really brave in front of his master's house."
• "A leaky house can fool the sun, but it can't fool the rain."
• "Women are like mahogany: the older, the better."

And my favorite:

• "If it is God who sends you, He'll pay your expenses."

Sentient, but not sensible

Scenario: You're driving along, and you see someone out walking/running. You do not know this person. What is it that makes you honk your horn? What makes you think that is a good plan?

My dad says that he doesn't think male runners have this problem; at least, has never had anybody honk at him. As a female runner, I certainly don't find the honking flattering. On the contrary, it's creepy. It almost makes me want to stick with running on a treadmill in the gym, where people don't whistle at you because they would have to deal with your reaction and the fallout from their actions.

To anybody who might be reading this who is in the habit of honking at strange women as they pass by, allow me to enlighten you: pretty much any woman you've ever honked at just thinks you're an idiot.

From the Calvin alumni magazine

"The Calvin community includes several gifted writers, be them professors, institute directors, students, staffers or graduates."

A Bad Analogy

From this year's VBS curriculum:

• "Signs of a covenant [...] are like a flannelgraph—a concrete, real picture to us of a spiritual truth."
• "The Lord's Day is another 'flannelgraph' from God" [italics in the original].

On Trust

"You can't go through life thinking that everyone you meet will one day let you down," Danny Glover's character says in Angels in the Outfield.

Yet our experiences constantly prove that people are not to be trusted. They will lie to your face and defend themselves for it vigorously afterwards—it wasn't really a lie because everyone says such-and-such in this-or-that situation. It wasn't a lie because everyone knew it wasn’t true. It was a lie, but it wasn't a big deal.

Every lie is a big deal. Every exaggeration, every omission, every error of speech, every careless word is a huge deal. ("But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." – Matthew 12:36-37)

Seen in this light, "everyone does it" is not only an invalid excuse, it is a greater condemnation. There is no hope that anyone will ever be worthy of trust.

"Do not trust in princes,
In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation."
~~ Psalm 146:3

"As it is written, 'THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.'"
~~Romans 9:10-12

Have you ever felt the weight of that statement? Not even one is anything but useless. Not him, not her, not you, and certainly not I.

I cry out, with the disciples, "Then who can be saved?" And I receive the words they heard, the words that put them in their proper place and at the same time showed them the perspective they had been missing: "With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:25-26).

"How blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust,
And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood."
~~ Psalm 40:4

We are all proud. We all lapse into falsehood. People are not to be trusted—nor are they meant to be. In the end, there is only one worthy of trust, and only when we are trusting Him as we should can we see the deceit and failures of others and of ourselves in their proper perspective.

I don't want to be such a trouble....

As usual, I have a nasty cough hanging on after the cold. Actually, I never know if it's just a cough hanging on or if it's turning into something worse.

Yesterday, I was thinking that it would have been much easier in the 19th century, when I could just label it "consumption." So that's what I'm calling it. I'm consumptive. I need people to come over and tuck the piano cover around my legs and perhaps start crying as they contemplate how much I mean to them.

I've always been more of a Jo March than a Beth. But the Brontes were all strange and moody, and they got to have consumption, right? Clearly an angelic temperment is not a prerequisite. So it could be consumption after all.

Now, where did that piano cover go?