Signs of Fall for a Florida Girl

So even thought I've lived most of my adult life outside of Florida, this whole changing seasons phenomenon still takes me by surprise.  On this, my fourth fall in GA, here's a couple of the signs I've learned to appreciate -

1.  Leaves, like, actually start falling here.  The trees look so naked in the winter!  In Florida, leaves fall twice a year.  The first time is during hurricane season when the dead palm fronds you were too cheap to get trimmed end up delightfully strewn about your yard after the first tropical storm moves through.   The second time is that day in February when it freezes and all the non-palm leaves just fall off dead in one day.

2.  You actually need pajama pants here - they're not just for marking the season - example:  Oh, it's Fall now so I call pull out these super lightweight Old Navy pj pants with leaves and pumpkins to look appropriately seasonal.

3.  Boots!  Oh my word, boots are so much fun!!  Who knew?  These are awesome!!!  1 new pair per year.  That's my limit.

4. Open windows in cars and homes.  And not just because the AC is broken.  What a crazy idea!!!  (Some day I will tell the story here of how a broken AC gave me a black eye).

5.  The sweaters are heavy and warm and stuff.  In FL, the sweaters tend to be, shall we say, loosely woven.  Lots of room for air to circulate since it's only 75.  Like you still need to wear a cami underneath to be decent.  Those don't work so well for me up here.

6.  One that's really kind of loopy is this whole baseball thing.  It actually ramps up in the fall (and interrupts the TV line -up.  Sigh.)  Peak baseball season in FL is in February when spring training starts (hopefully after that one day it got down to freezing for 10 minutes in the middle of the night).  

Gratitude 83-112

83. Fall candles!!  Pumpkin and cinnamon smells wafting through my house

84. The return of TV shows!

85. A Tivo so that I can watch those TV shows with no commercials on my own schedule

86. Brunch with Mom & Doug as they swung through town

87. That it's cool enough to wear PJ bottoms at night now (by "night" I obviously mean from the second I get home from work onward).

88. Trader Joe's

89.  Trader Joe's chili cornbread thing that is so yummy and perfect for fall

90.  Community group starting again

91.  Getting to teach Sunday School to awesome K-1 kiddos

92.  That we get to pray a lot where I work.  It's actually encouraged.

93.  For days cool enough to walk in the park.

94. And also for rainy days like this where I'll hit the gym, have some soup, and curl up in PJs (with TV or books!)

95. For much improvement in my health

96.  For all the people all over the world that have been praying for my health for the past 2.5 years.

97.  Boots.

98. When the missionaries I work with ask for me for prayer requests

99. And then follow up and ask me about those same things the next time we talk.  (I have a former team leader who said she was so thankful when I would ask during our meetings each week how I could pray for her and I so totally, totally get that now).

100.  The new Mumford & Sons

101.  The new Avett Bros

102.  But the new Mumford & Sons more

103.  But seeing the Avett Bros live.

104. A new "hand me down" TV that is so nice and pretty

105.  Super duper nice neighbors who help me when my car won't start.

I started this list of mostly fun/silly/playful things that I'm thankful for a few days ago.  And while I am thankful for those little things that make life a little lighter, on such a deeper level I'm also thankful for

10-6. The birth date of precious Zoe Claire

107. Who lived her 2 hours under the fullest, sweetest love and adoration two parents could offer

108.  Who is home

109. Forever

110. Who will know no more tears or sadness or pain of this fallen, broken world

111. Who I will one day meet

112. When I meet my savior

Summer Reading List 2012 Report

At the beginning of the summer I posted this picture of my summer reading list. And here's the post where I describe each of them.

Hmm...well, apparently I still need a firm deadline and maybe a couple of character and plot analysis papers due because I completely failed this summer reading assignment.  I only finished one of these - the vampire book by Charlaine Harris - and I'm not sure I could even remember the main plot points.  I lent one of these to a friend, read the first chapter or so in 3 others.  And returned a couple to the library unopened.  Sadness, because I do really want to read all of these books.

What got in the way?

1. So are the Olympics the biggest time suck ever or what?  I LOVE the Olympics and was actually on vacation with a good friend for about half of them, so we straight up laid on the sofa, ate, and took naps (like didn't get out of our pj's until dinnertime level of laziness - and then only because we had to go out in public).  So that was over 2 weeks of practically no reading because then I was watching the stuff I'd recorded on Tivo.  I still have some women's gymnastics and the closing ceremonies on there.  It's slightly less fun to watch when it's a month or two in the past.  

2. Another factor working against me was the time limits on the library books.  Most of these have a waiting list, so I'm only allowed to have them out for 3 weeks at a time.  Generally I'm a pretty voracious reader, but not with library books.  It's like I rebel against the fact that I don't actually own them and refuse to read them on someone else's time schedule.  Ok, that sounds kind of ridiculous.  Anyway, I definitely fall prey to the Law of the Universe where all 5 books you've had on hold at the library for months where you were first on one list and 220th on another list all become available on the same day.  I need to go ahead and sign up for these again.  Maybe just one at a time.  I also want to add a book called The Expats.  

3. I finally started reading Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn about the oppression and the promise of women worldwide.  These authors are a husband and wife team and I read some of their book about China, China Wakes, in college and found it to be incredibly insightful.  This book is truly exceptional although I will confess that's really hard and really slow to read because of how heart-wrenching the material is. 

This is the kind of book where you'll just sit there and cry after reading some of the stories.  It will make you angry and it will make you motivated to get involved.  Fortunately, there's a whole movement around this and it's actually "half the sky" month that focuses on lots of ways to take action.  I haven't been able to get involved in what's going on with that, but I am making strides to get more involved in protecting and promoting women's health and safety by getting involved in fight sex trafficking in Atlanta.  What can you do to get plugged in where you live?

I will say that the book does paint a really bleak picture of men.  My struggle in walking away from this book is in thinking through what it looks not just to turn control of everything over to women (although I definitely believe we need women in charge of some more things), but how to empower men as well as women in some of these incredibly impoverished communities to make decisions that benefit their family, community, and country.  Wresting authority away from men to give it to women is a tale as old as the Fall from Eden.  But I don't think the solution to women's oppression is as simple as the book suggests -my understanding of the book's solution being basically that we should give women control over family resources at the expense of men being active decision makers in the life of the family.  Have many men damaged their position as head of the house?  Hell yes.  But how do we empower and protect women without emasculating the next generation of men? How do we raise up both our boys and girls to have a healthy respect for themselves and one another?  Even harder, how do we enter into foreign cultures to promote not only the greatly needed education of women, but also an education of men in how to break free from the cultural norm to care for and respect the women in their lives to the betterment of the entire family.  

I wholeheartedly recommend this book (although the chapter on religious influences was not my fave - any discussion of religion, particularly by those who don't personally practice the religious, is bound to be laden with generalizations and misunderstandings).  Half the Sky will open your eyes to atrocities that are occurring throughout our world and the role we can have in standing up to those who abuse women.  I haven't watched the PBS special "Half the Sky" yet, but I'm recording it tonight.  

Double Dog Dare Update

So now that we're 3/4 of the way through the year (crazy, huh?), I've realized that I'm long overdue for an update on the dare I challenged myself to in January.  You can read about my challenge to not buy any clothes new from a store (only thrift and consignment) for the calendar year of 2012 here.  And you can read about how I "cheated" at Marshall's but rationalized (I'm soooooo good at that) by saying Marshall's is like the consignment store for department stores here.

Where do things stand now?
1. It's really gotten way easier.  Basically because I never go in clothing stores anymore.  I should definitely do this with any place that has chocolate.  Seriously, I don't even really feel a pull in that direction anymore.  Except maybe when other people show up in their new clothes and then I want cute new things.  Two ways to combat this are 1 - picking something up at a thrift store and 2- losing more weight so clothes that are actually 4 years old seem like they're brand new.

2. A recent trip past the clothing land at Target did make me slightly concerned that I will in fact have absolutely no idea of what's in fashion when I end this year.  Canceling the Glamour subscription the same year I gave up clothes shopping was wise in some ways, but not in the way that I have no idea what's in style.  Fortunately for me, I have been in this position before when coming home from Asia.  After weeks of making comments like "Oh my goodness, nobody in the States would ever wear that?  I can't believe that's in fashion here." followed by landing in O'Hare and going "ohhh, so that is totally in fashion.  wow."

3. Cheating with Marshall's was mostly worth it.  I bought two things at Marshall's in the Spring.  A tank top that I also needed a new bra in order to wear it (undergarments were not affected by the dare) and a long skirt.  The top I've only worn once or twice.  The skirt I wore at least once a week (once to work and likely a second time on the weekend if I wasn't seeing work people) for almost the entirety of the summer.  It's a perfect "I don't quite feel like shaving my legs yet" skirt.  That skirt was so worth it.

4. I hardly pay attention to sizes any more.  When you're shopping thrift and picking stuff up from stores you've never heard of before, you tend to be so excited that something is cute and/or fits that you really couldn't care less about what size the label says.

5.  A downside I didn't anticipate is how hard it is to find just regular old solid colored cotton T-shirts.  Those are really hard to come by!  At least in any of the colors you happen to be looking for at the time.  Hence, I've worn some of mine a time or two past their prime by telling myself that I'd keep my cardigan on all day or keep my arms pinned to my sides.  That didn't always work out so well.

This final 3 months should be interesting.  This last quarter was definitely the easiest, but I'm imagining things are about to get a bit tougher as I actually go inside malls again with Christmas right around the corner.  And there will be sales.  And there's two weddings to go to.  And parties.  And I'll just try it on to see how it looks.  Holiday season looks like it could be pretty tough.  I'm hoping I don't make it all the way through the year only to blow an entire year's clothing allowance on January 2.  :)

Recipe: Cornbread Chili Bake

I'm always on the lookout for a quick 'n easy crowd pleasers and if the reception of this new recipe at my community group on Sunday night is anything to go by, then this is a new favorite!  It's perfect for rainy fall football days, too!

Yesterday I was a Trader Joe's which is so fun, but because everything is so fun, I end up spending twice as much there as I do at Kroger's.  For almost twice as much food, so that's good.  But then, the food itself is so good that I tend to eat it twice as fast.  Not good.  Anyway, I grabbed one of the samples they had and it was really good.  Like do a double take and wander back to figure out exactly what it is good.  And lo and behold, only 3 ingredients.  Welcome to my recipe book yummy new easy (and cheap!) pot-luck recipe.

So without further ado: Cornbread Chile Bake

3 cans of chili (they used Vegetarian at TJ's, I picked up their turkey chili for mine)
1 Pub Cheese (hmm...Publix cheese?  Are you sending me to a different store?  I have no idea what this is?  Oh, it's a kind of cheese sold at TJ's.  Basically, it's what we called "spready cheese" growing up in my house.  I think you'd be fine to substitute about 1 c of shredded cheese).
1 Package of TJ Cornbread Mix (or another brand is also probably fine.

Dump 3 cans of chili in 9 x 13 pan.  (Don't you love this recipe already?)  In separate bowl, follow directions to make cornbread batter (TJ's calls for egg, milk, and oil).  Add cheese to cornbread batter.  Mix it up.  Spread cheesy cornbread batter over chili.  Stick it in the over for 30 minutes at 350.  You're done.

How.
Easy.
Was.
That.

And it's so good.  Like so good that about 6 people asked for the recipe right off the bat.  And so good that I myself was kind of surprised when I took a bite.  And so good that I was kind of ticked that everybody ate it all because that would have been awfully nice as leftovers this week.  Fortunately, the few ingredients meant that the total cost of the meal came in around $10.  Definitely doable.

Twists:  At TJ's they used the pub cheese with jalapenos.  It was just a twinge spicy for me, so I bought plain sharp cheddar.  But feel free to mix it up with spices.  I also thought about adding more veggies to the chili or something else to the cornbread (corn? rotel?).  Definitely share if you come up with a fun twist on this recipe.

How do you remember something you weren't there for?

I was in first grade when the Challenger exploded.  I lived just a couple of hours north of Cape Canaveral, close enough that you can sometimes hear the sonic boom as the shuttles blast towards space.  It was first grade, though, and we were all going to be able to watch the shuttle take off.  However, we had a substitute teacher that day and apparently we had been misbehaving so our punishment was that we were not going to be able to watch the shuttle take off.  In many ways this ended up being a protection to our little hearts and minds because what first grader needs to see a space shuttle explode.  I was in my 20s before I ever saw the footage.  Even though it was in many ways a blessing to miss the live coverage of that event, I always felt detached from what for many of my peers was the defining tragedy of our childhood.

Fast forward about 15 years and I'm a 22-year-old two weeks into my first year in China.  Sept 11, 2001 was just another day for us.  We taught our classes and went to bed.  Shortly before midnight that night, our team leaders called to tell us there was an emergency team meeting.  They had been informed of the attack on the US by an Australian ex-pat on our campus and then called home to try and find out what they could.  We met, and prayed, and shared what information we could (which was precious little).  We returned to our rooms and I and my two roommates all climbed into Helen's bed sitting in a little row holding each other and desperately trying to find out more on the internet.  The internet was so, so slow.  And msnbc had basically crashed at that point because of traffic.  There was no facebook or twitter or youtube.  We cried and worried and prayed and eventually drifted off into fitful sleep.

The next day, while our country mourned, we got up and went off to teach class.  For us, it was just another day, one like any other that year.  Except we were exhausted and still really didn't know all that was going on back home.  Our Chinese colleagues expressed their sorrow, but this was shortly after the bombing of the Chinese embassy and the Hainan spy plane incident, so you did have to wonder whether that was said in complete sincerity or with a slight twist of thinking that the "superpower" America had finally gotten what it had coming.

Someone had apparently told the kids at the school because my classes all started the same way.  A group of Chinese 2nd graders would surround the desk at the front of the classroom.  They would call "Teacher, Teacher!" and lacking the words to say what they wanted to express, they would run around with their arms out making buzzing noises and then mimic crashing into something and make explosion sounds.  And then say "Sorry, Teacher, sorry." It was like the most horrifying game of charades ever.

At home, friends and family were off work, out of school and watching 24 hour coverage of the event. In China we were desperately flipping through Chinese TV stations trying to find footage of the events since none of the broadcasts were in English.  Life marched on very quickly for us in China.  There was no pause, no break.  There wasn't even really much information.  While my nation grieved and gave and rallied, I taught the A-B-C dance and the banana song to 80 seven year-olds.  My mom sent me a VHS of the telethon for 9/11, but we never got around to watching it.  By the time it arrived weeks after 9/11 life had quickly moved on in China.

Shortly after the attack, I remember going to an English Corner where some of the college students would practice their English with us.  One student came up to me asked about 9-1-1.  She said it like that - "nine one one" - and I assumed that she was talking about our emergency system and launched into a whole explanation about emergency and rescue services.  She was like "no, with the planes."  I had no idea that in America it was even being referred to as 9/11 (nine eleven) to make that connection for her.  I didn't know what we called "that day." 

Having not experienced the tragedy of 9/11 in my homeland, I was definitely disconnected from it.  I remember causing a friend's mom to break into tears in the candy aisle at Walgreens with my ignorant comments about 9/11 and the aftereffects.  So today, 11 years later, as my nation remembers and mourns again, I'm still struggling to understand what really happened, what it was really like to live through those horrible days and what the toll on my homeland was.  How do I remember something I wasn't here for?

Today I'm incredibly thankful for Meg Cabot's (yes, of the Princess Diaries) post on her experiences in downtown New York 11 years ago.  I'm thankful to her for providing one more bridge into understanding and identifying with how my country, my family, and my friends were affected on that horrible day.

Here's the link to her post about it.  Warning: I cried basically once a paragraph.

http://www.megcabot.com/2012/09/9112001/

Garden of Eden in our Homes

A few years ago I went to this lovely place I call Depression Camp because, well, I was depressed.  I had just come back early from my second assignment to East Asia because of what our staff counselor called an "acute depressive episode" which is basically where you turn into a Cymbalta commercial overnight.

I don't recommend having one of those.

But my wonderful agency recommended I go to Alongside for a couple of weeks, and I eagerly trotted off to Michigan.  No, of course I didn't.  I was depressed.  I somewhat less morosely than I had been doing anything else managed to get my sh*t together enough to get on a plane and go to strange place  with strange people to learn about how to deal with some of the hardest, darkest stuff I'd ever faced.  And there was group therapy.

However, it wasn't all group therapy (praise the LORD!) and I LOVED Depression Camp.  I had a cabin on a lake all to myself.  We would go to classes in the morning where I learned sooooo much about myself and about why and how I ended up where I was.  And then there was group therapy, so it couldn't all be perfect.  But then it was lunch, and a nap, and a walk, and a one-on-one counseling session.  And then reading.  And more sleeping.  I couldn't believe how much sleeping I could do in a day.

And I learned.  And I healed.  And I stood up for myself.  And I began to recognize where my theology had gone so terribly, terribly wrong.  And I rested without the pressure of a thousand different expectations and obligations (real or imagined).  And did I mention that I learned so stinkin' much?

One of the things I learned was how I had been wearing myself ragged fighting battles I was never going to win.  All new missionaries hear that team is hard.  Ya'll, I'm here to say that team is the most rewarding and the most devastating thing I've done.  Some of my very truest and deepest friendships are former teammates. However, I learned that I spent my time and energy trying to change the things (ahem, people) that were entirely beyond my power to change.  I wore myself out and broke myself to pieces trying to please and trying to appease and trying to arrange my life and the people in it according to my preferences.  So much energy wasted on trying to change what was beyond my control instead of trying to change the things I actually had a modicum of authority over in my life.

We had this worksheet at Depression Camp that was a wheel and it was divided up into all the different facets of your life that could influence depression.  Suffice to say I was a mess in just about all of them.  But the first one we talked about, and the one that's stuck with me the longest, was about your home.  The counselor explained that we were designed for paradise.  We were created to dwell in the Garden of Eden, which was an eternal feast for our senses, so our homes should seek to replicate that.

Say what?  I'm a missionary.  It's supposed to be about deprivation and making do and suffering for the Lord, right?

Well, let's just take a little tally of how well that philosophy worked out for me.  I had a little apartment and after a year and a half I had finally gotten it all nice and cozy (especially at Christmas, which may be why I kept my Christmas stuff up for a quarter of the year).  But then, my apartment started to rain down raw sewage and since the lady above me refused to fix the problem that meant I got to move.  2 days before Christmas. Into a bigger apartment.  Which everyone said like it was a good thing.  It had taken me 15 months to finally get my little apartment somewhat homey and now I had to start over with an entirely new, 3 times bigger place (with a couple of rooms that I couldn't use because they were storing the belongings of the Korean teacher who used/still did? live there).  So here's what my Garden of Eden looked like.

1. Hearing - first floor apartment meant that I could hear everyone in the building clomping up and down the concrete stairs.  Also, I lived on a main walking path of our campus, so I could hear vendors walking by hawking their wares throughout the day.  So relaxing.
2. Seeing - Concrete walls that were nigh impossible to hang anything on.  Nothing worked on these walls.  It came with less than stellar curtains.  A friend was looking through pictures on my phone once and said "why did you take a picture of this ugly bathroom?"  So that about sums that up.
3. Smelling - That ugly bathroom?  Also smelly.  There was no bathtub so the shower water just drained down into a grate in the floor which conveniently allowed all sorts of smells to drift on up.  I pressed a kitchen pot lid into duty to try and stem the aroma and lit my biggest, smelliest Bath and Body Works candle whenever I was home and still it was a good idea not to sit downwind of the bathroom.  Which was the entire apartment.
4. Tasting - Ok, this was not too bad because I did have a little control over this and I liked the local food and there were import stores for fun American products. But my fridge, toaster and microwave were in a different room than the sink and stove.  Super convenient.  Plus, it just took so much extra time, energy, money to make things that were familiar.
5. Feeling/Touch - I had one of those ubiquitous IKEA rockers and that was my reading chair.  This country isn't really known for its super plush, comfy furniture.  Also, the apartment came furnished so I didn't get to choose anything except my IKEA chair and bookshelf.  It was OK.  What was not OK?  When the rat fell out of the water heater inches from my face.

So all of that added up to a home that was not in fact a garden of Eden. It was not a place of rest and respite.  It was, in fact, one more place to struggle against.  However, what I didn't realize at the time (and honestly, in all likelihood, it was probably too late in the game for it to have made much of a difference) is that my home was one of the things that I COULD do something about.  Maybe not fix everything, but there were battles that I could fight and actually win in my own home but I spent all that energy trying to change other people's behavior , or even more effective, trying to change the culture of one of the world's oldest civilizations.  That was super productive.

So this is a super long post about the positive effects of taking the time to evaluate whether or not your home is a place of renewal and refreshment for you.  Ok, so it's actually more like a cautionary tale of what happens when you don't do that, but still, you get the picture.  And hopefully soon I'll do some posts about how I've incorporated what I've learned into my life now.

I do want to emphasize that this is one facet of what I learned about my depression.  I'm not saying people fall into clinical depression because they don't have pretty homes.  I am saying that having a restful home was more important to my emotional health than I realized.

These are lyrics from I song I love called "Gentle Arms of Eden" by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer and whenever I hear the song, it reminds me of how we were designed for Eden.

"This is my home.  This is my only home.  This is the only sacred ground that I have ever known. Should I stray in the dark night alone, rock me, God, in the gentle arms of Eden. "

Ok, so the song is actually about evolution and there's this Goddess referenced, so it's not for everybody, but the spirit of the song and most the lyrics (if you just change Goddess to God in your head - or your blog) totally embody what I feel when I think about wanting my temporary home to reflect my eternal home.

Art Contemplation Exercise

Can 40 women really all be in the same room, sitting right next to each other, working on individual projects without saying a word?  Well, on our Women's Retreat earlier this month we answered that question with a resounding "Heck yeah!" during our Art Contemplation Project.  I know, it sounds too new agey to be for real, right?  However, I totally LOVED it and was able to interact with God's word in a new way through this project.

I was first introduced to the idea of using art as a means of contemplation during my debriefing when I returned from China (the last time).  It's part of the debrief process at MTW and while some people roll their eyes or scoff or deny any little itty bitty artistic talent, I absolutely loved my project.  Working through art (and I promise I'm not super artsy), I was able to give a voice to the combination of bleak despair and soul-deep hope I experienced during my last term in China.  The project revealed to my truths I didn't even remember I knew. So when I found out we were doing a project on the retreat, I was pretty excited.  

We started by meditating on our theme passage for awhile.  The leader of this exercise read the passage through three times and each time asked us to think about different things as she read.  While she read all of Isaiah 61, I chose to focus on verses 1-3:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord    for the display of his splendor.

Here's my final piece of art and below is the process of what I went through and what it means to me.

I started out by writing across the canvas all of my favorite phrases from the verses.  There are such rich promises in this text, and I wanted those to be the foundation from which I would build.  Good news to the poor.  Freedom for prisoners.  A crown of beauty. A spirit of joy.  A garment of praise.  The year of the LORD's favor.  Oaks of righteousness.  May these promises from God undergird my very life!

Next I painted over all of that in white.  I didn't mean for the words to show through quite as much as they did, but the paint dried a lot thinner than I thought it would. Oh well, it's not going to hurt to look at those words more frequently!

I wanted my art to show the transition from a life of despair, mourning, and desolation that we have without Christ to an eternal of life of joy, praise, and beauty that we have with Christ.  I had limited tools to work with, but I used the straw and black beans to represent poverty and hardship.  And then the burlap represents sackcloth which was an ancient garment of mourning.  I was going for more of a tattered look, but we had awesome scissors that cut through it so cleanly.  

Then the sackcloth turns into a dress of rich, plush velvet - a true garment of praise.  The leaves represent a branch of the Oaks of Righteousness that we are destined to become before the nations.  And the crown of beauty is waiting to adorn us in heaven.  

I love having this in my house now.  Currently, it's residing in the kitchen and it's a continual encouragement to me each time my eyes land on it.  The garment of praise reminds me to speak praises to God for His goodness while packing my lunch or sorting mail (or dealing with the compost bin which now totally revolts me-I'm pretty sure I did something wrong).  Reading those promises are such a sweet assurance from the Lord!

What about you?  Have you ever done a project like this?  How did it turn out?

And just in case you think you're not creative, here's an excerpt from my devotion last night (from Mosaic Bible which I totally love).  This is part of a longer article by Mark Miller:

Wherever there is a divide, God's creativity in us leads us to build a bridge.  Wherever there is doubt, God's creativity in us stirs our imagination produces faith.  Wherever there is despair, God's creativity in us pictures and produces hope.  Wherever there is injustice, God's creativity in us finds a way to show his love. 

Check out my previous post about a song I was introduced to at the retreat that challenged my perspective on hope.  

Anchor of Hope

Last weekend I had the absolute joy of going on the women's retreat at my church.  We do it up right at All Souls with a super relaxing, slightly decadent getaway to the lovely Inn at Serenbe (which is soooo my church - Serenbe is like its own working farm + yoga + a little town with cupcakes + wine + a spa + a prayer labyrinth).  I also have a minor freak-out before retreats because it's where the fact that I'm just slightly more of an I than E comes into play (check your Meyers-Briggs if that sentence is confusing).  Part of me wants to meet new people and laugh and talk and share good, deep, true things.  And the other part is inordinately thankful to have a Kindle and roommates who like to go running and yoga-ing and stuff (thus leaving me alone in the room with the Kindle).

Luckily for us ladies, the pastor's wife is also our worship leader so we have awesome music on our retreat.  We sang several new songs on this retreat.  At least they were new to me.  Apparently, if you're in Young Life then you've already discovered Ellie Holcomb.  We sang her song Anchor of Hope several times over the course of the weekend.  This is a rich, rich song with so many different facets of God's character to meditate on, but the words that stuck with me were "He's the anchor of hope for the souls of men." (note: I really, really tried to find a whole listing of the lyrics but came up empty. Internet, where are you hiding these lyrics!?!?)

I'd never, ever, ever (I've also been listening to some new Taylor Swift) thought of hope as an anchor before.  As I began to ponder what that might mean, I realized that I'd always been more of an "elusive-balloon-of-hope" kind of a girl.  I knew that hope was something good, something true, and something real.  Well, I mean, it was going to be real one day and it was kind of real now, or I fully believed now that one day the hope would be real, but it is kind of real already.  So...it's kind of like that whole already/not yet thing.  Although, it seems really, really "not yet" most days in the playing out of day to day life, hence the realization that the way I interact with hope seems more like it's a bright helium balloon with a string that's almost always just out of my grasp.  Every once and awhile I hold onto it for a second, but then it drifts off again.  I like some parts of this imagery - the looking upward and outward and pursing something, but I don't like the not ever feeling like I've really grasped it part.

So looking at hope as an anchor for my soul was revelatory.  Wait a minute, this hope, it's a foundation?  It roots me to my faith, to my God, and to my future.  It actually grounds me when the temptations and stress and fears and trials of this life would cause me to drift too far off course.  It's the nourishment my soul needs in the long hours of the night when healing seems still so far away.  When the depravity and brutality of this fallen world threaten the very fabric of my faith, it's this anchor of hope that provides the knowledge that one day evil will obliterated.  One day, this hope will be finally and fully consummated in the return of Christ.

While I still believe that we're running the race for this hope set before us, it's awfully nice to know that the very same hope keeps me from veering too far off course.

Oh, He's the Anchor of Hope for the souls of men.

Credits:  The balloon art came from this blog - http://ashlieblake.wordpress.com/illustration-friday-drifting/ - on which I have looked at nothing but the page this illustration is from.

Vacation Eve

Tomorrow night I get on a plane and fly away to Michigan to see these awesome girls!  And their awesome husbands!!  And FIVE awesome kids!!!

This picture is from the end of my first year in China.  Just over 10 years ago.  So thankful for my China family!!!

Gratitude 51 - 82

51. the Lumineers

52. the Word of God

53. that He's writing it on my heart

54. song lyric "you're like a Sunday morning, full of grace and full of Jesus"

55. skype

56. great strides toward healing of an ailment I've walked the last 2 1/2 years with

57. Jesus Calling

58. community garden

59. color that conceals roots

60. new paint on my walls

61. fabulous parents (who did a lot to help with the above walls)

62. Mi Taco

63. the Olympics

64. air conditioning

65. the Holy Spirit

66. pay day

67. an interlude with a house to myself

68. that His mercy is new each day

69. vacation with sweet friends on the horizon

70. sitting in front of a fan to journal

71. guys who plan dates

72. my physical therapist

73. my doctor in Charlotte

74. Amitriptyline

75. itunes

76. carpooling

77. a car that works

78. cranberry chocolate spread from Montreal

79. bit torrenting

80. being reminded of the practice of being thankful

81. that the next decision I make doesn't have to be the same as the last

82. that sometimes it's OK to skip the gym and have a cheesestick and ice cream for dinner

Summer Reading List 2012

I just picked up a fresh batch of books from the library (my luck at the library being such that every book I've been on the wait list for comes in during the same week) so I've corralled together books I've started to read or hope to read this summer.  Here it is - the 2012 Summer Reading List - 

I've actually already read 2 books this summer.  So I kicked off the summer by reading Tina Fey's Bossypants by the pool on Memorial Day.  It was really funny although it did take me a couple of chapters to get into it.  I enjoyed the inside peak at SNL and 30 Rock more than the early chapters about her family life.  

After that I read The Garden Intrigue by Lauren Willig.  It's like, I don't know, the 10th book in her Pink Carnation series about (mostly) female spies during the Napoleonic wars.  This one also took me a few chapters to get into as I didn't love the characters at the start, but they grew on me and I ended up quite enjoying it (for the summer beach read it is).  Her books jump back and forth in time telling the story of a modern PhD candidate doing research in Britain about the characters of the historical part of the novel.  The jumping back and forth can be a little disconcerting, but all in all, a nice read.  

I'm looking forward to reading the following (pictured above) -

All of the Sherlock Holmes remaking made me want to read something from the original stories. I'm a fan of both the movies - at least the first one - and the super British contemporary adaption with Benedict Cumberbatch (what a delightfully British name).  Anyway, I jumped on paperbackswap.com and ordered the complete works.  I'm starting with "A Study in Scarlet", but let me know if you think there's a better place to start.  

Next is Geraldine Brooks' March which tells of the story of what Dr. March was doing while all those Little Women were holding down the storm front.  I've heard good things about the book and enjoyed Brooks' People of the Book.  I also have a book of hers about the plague on my kindle that I'm hoping to read at some point.  This was also a "free" paperbackswap acquisition.  

My church is having a women's book club during June and we're reading Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.  I haven't read any O'Connor since college and even then I'm pretty sure it was only the short stories.  I have yet to make to any of the actual book club meetings, but I am reading along (and hope to make the next meeting).  So far it's a quick read and pretty dark and twisty, but I have underlined some interesting quotes like this one - 

"There's no person a whoremonger, who wasn't something worst first," Haze said.  "That's not the sin, nor blasphemy.  The sin came before them."

Makes you stop and think, huh?  At least it did for me which is saying something as I tend to inhale words trying to get through the plot and seldom let them steep.

Next up is book called Bond Girl by Erin Duffy which was mentioned like a 100 times in EW (Entertainment Weekly) over the spring.  It's about a recent college grad (spoiler alert: she's a girl who works at the bonds desk of a financial institution).  I got about 60 pages in before I had to bring it back to the library last time.  I decided to try again and see if I'm compelled enough to finish it.  So far, I feel it's a little shallow, but I'm also really interested in what life on Wall Street looked like prior to the economic downturn (and the author actually worked that and did stuff so should know).  

Yep, I read Charlaine Harris' vampire/werewolf/fairy/other weird stuff series (the series True Blood on HBO is based on these books).  I will say that I feel like the books are less racy/gory than what I've seen of the show, but maybe I just feel like it's easier to skim over it in a book instead of having it fully visualized on a show.  I think there's only one more book after this one planned which seems like a good idea. Time to reign the crazy in.  

The Orphan Master's Son is a (fictional) inside look at North Korea.  I'm totally interested/slightly scared  to read what it might actually look inside the world's darkest country.  I've read the first chapter and it's that kind of that shocked laughter type thing.  Like remember when you watched the first season of The Office?  I feel like it's bound to get equally more fascinating and horrifying.

And finally is The Lost City of Z (subtiltle: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon).  I saw this book on quite a few airport kiosk book stands a few years ago and had heard that Brad Pitt's production company had optioned the script at one point.  Not sure what happened with that.  (IMDB says "in development" so who knows what that means).  I actually just this minute (when I was flipping to the jacket cover to tell you something about it) noticed that there are pages of pictures inside which usually indicates some part of the book is actually true.  Turns out it's actually based on actual facts.  Go figure?  Still looks good. :)

So, that's the list.  Oh, and I also hope to read The Great Gatsby before going to see the movie.  How I escaped being an English major without reading any F. Scott is a mystery.  

What are you reading this summer?  I love recommendations!!!

Vacation Remix

Last month I was totally privileged (I never spell that word right on the first try) to go on an amazing vacation with one of my best friends.  She lives in Australia, so I hardly ever get to see her, but she was in Canada for work so we met up in San Francisco for a week of fun before she headed back down under.  

Day 1: Meet up at the airport where we're both totally exhausted.  Cassi from teaching for an intense 2 weeks and me from going to a support raising boot camp for work, then heading directly to the Avengers (totally worth it), and then packing, and then sleeping 4 hours, and then feeding the worms and the cats (dark shed with 1000 worms at 5 am - not my fave), and then driving to MARTA.

We got a great deal at the Intercontinental downtown and had fun shopping, walking around the city, eating sushi, sour dough, and cookies.  

Day 2: We packed up the car and had a great brunch at a local place before heading on up the coast to Bodega Bay.

Super Yummy Brunch

View from the rocking chairs at our Bodega Bay resort

Taking break from reading on the rocking chairs

Dessert at the hotel that night

Day 3: We had a very leisurely morning, set out and found a few vineyards and did a bit of tasting, came back and got a warm shell (think hot stone) massage at the spa, had dinner and started the nightly S'mores ritual.  It was Cassi's first time to have S'mores!  

Starting the fire

We found our own sticks (by poking around in their landscaping)

Day 4: After a few false starts, we finally made our way to Bodega Head where we walked along the cliffs of the coastline and looked for whales making the migration back up to Alaska.  We saw some right after we got out of the car, then we walked up and back, stopping along the way to look for more, splitting the ocean in half to have a keener view, and of course, didn't see any more whales until we returned to the parking lot.  Gorgeous view, though!!

View up the coast

Ready to look for whales

Along the path

So, so pretty

 And, of course, we stopped for more wine tasting on the way home.  This is called a wine surf.  

Sunset from our hotel

No day was complete without S'mores!!!  Way to take advantage of a room with a fireplace!!

Day 5:  Today we got up and headed off to Armstrong Nature Reserve (or something like that) to look at the Sequoias. They were amazing!!!  And, of course, there was an obligatory stop off at a couple of vineyards on the way home.  And then we went back to try out the warm shell massages for a second time.  

It's a long way to the top of these trees.

Getting ready for our last night of S'mores!!

 Day 6: It was time to end our vacation and head back to San Francisco.  We decided to take the scenic route along the coast back.  It was beautiful, but maybe not the best idea for 2 girls who both get carsick.  At one point, after driving on curvy twisty roads for well over an hour, a road crewman told us to take a detour.  I felt sick, Cassi had to pee, we were almost out of gas, I was trying to navigate off my phone, and the worker told us there no "close" gas stations - it wasn't pretty!  Fortunately, we found a town within a few miles and then were back on the sweet, sweet freeway. 

One of the places we stopped so I could get a bit of fresh air (euphemism for "not barf")

We spent the last few hours doing really important touristy things like -

getting our portrait made by a street artist

Dead ringers, right?

And stopping off at Ghiradelli!!!

Such a great vacation - I can't wait for our next adventure!!

Mother's Day...eh, Month?

Totally belated Mother's Day post but I've been meaning to give a little link love to these other fabulous women who posted great things in honor of mothers (and not mothers, and want to be mothers, and all the different types of women)


This is from a friend in China.  She's amazing.  And I LOVE this post. (seriously, click on this link right now) It's an open letter to pastors about the totally awkward stand-up if you're a mom on Mother's Day thing.  It's awesome, like in that make you cry kind of a way.  As is the follow-up one. 


And then over at Momastery with Glennon, she posted this excellent poem from Tina Fey's Bossypants. 


Enjoy!  And let me know what you think. 

I Cheated. And I liked it. (ok, just with clothes)

Apparently I'm the type of blogger who's not above using scandalous titles to try and entice readers.  Hmm...learn something new about myself all the time.

What's not a new thing to learn about myself is my struggles with self-control, discipline, doing the thing I ought and not the thing I want.  A lazy vacation morning is the perfect time to do this because what is vacation if not the time when you ignore all the good intentions you set for yourself in regular life (and, ahem, pretend you're actually going to follow while on vacation) - I'm looking at you eating habits, exercise, and budget...and shopping dare.

why hello lovely view of the coast out of my hotel window

Other things I'm cheating with - Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Warm S'mores Pie - thank goodness for friends to share desserts with!

I did it. I shopped.  It started out so simply.  I went to a Gap to pick up some underwear. This was only the THIRD TIME I'd been inside a clothing store in 2012.  I went to American Eagle to get a birthday gift for my sis in January.  I went to Kohl's with a friend.  And then, no stores (other than 1 or 2 consignment stores where I realized it was REALLY hard to find things to wear) until this Gap in early May.  Apparently, Gap is my gateway drug.


If you're wondering why I'm freaking out about something that seems like a nice normal thing then check out this post where I dared myself to only shop consignment or thrift for the entirety of 2012.  Since I was just picking up underthings at Gap that was legit.  Shoes and pajamas and scarves are a grey area that really just means I'll kind of try not to buy, but if I really just need to buy something, then those are things I'll let myself get away with.  


Anyway, as I wandered through Gap and looked at $36 pajamas to see if it was something I could get away with buying I realized that there was some deeper stuff going on.  Was I just looking for excuses to buy stuff?  Why did I feel this compulsion to shop?  I hurried out of the shop and dashed out of the mall.  However, this project has gone from a let's see if I can do this dare and save some money and maybe attach it somehow to taking a stand against slave labor to introspection about what's really motivating me when I think about shopping and spending money.


Things I've realized (don't worry, we'll get to how I cheated soon).
1. I want new things. ESPECIALLY because it's a new season and other people have new things.  I've become like the most observant person ever when it comes to coworkers new spring clothing items.  Is that new? So cute!  Love it!  As I stand there in my PERFECTLY FINE tops from last year, I look at the new colors and styles and variety and choice and I want so very much to have some of that for my own.  What drives this need to have new things?  Seriously, that's a legit question.  I don't have an answer.  Because as much I chant my "Make do and mend" mantra to myself, I still really, really want a new splash of color or two.  


2. So since shopping at all wasn't off the table (just a lot harder since I had to find a thrift/consignment store) I headed out to Plato's Closet to see if I could pick up a couple of fun new things for vacation.  Plato's Closet had worked in the past when I'd needed to pick up a few things before trip.  Usually those trips were to random, possibly remote, parts of Asia and I didn't particularly care if the clothes came home in one piece which was why I was in a thrift store in the first place.  Anyway, I was in Plato's Closet and even though I didn't love the stuff I was getting, it was stuff and it was something new and it was cheap.  However, I dropped $20 on 3 tops and a skirt I wasn't totally in love with.  Am I missing the point with this exercise if I buy stuff that I don't really love on consignment if I could have a spent a couple of bucks more on stuff I like on sale at a regular store?  Things like that kept popping through my head as I was in the store.


The store, of course, was located in a strip mall that included a Ross and a Marshall's.  "Hmmm"...my totally-skilled-at-rationalizing-anything brain went.  "I could just pop in and see what they have." "Aren't these stores kind of like consignment for department stores?"  "It's not like I'm walking into Loft or Banana Republic."  "I may not even buy anything, it's just looking." Dude, isn't this how all cheating starts, a little slipping, a little rationalization, a little just this one time because it's vacation?


Anyway, I went in and looked.  And looked and looked and looked.  Until I found something I wanted.  Because at this point I was pretty committed to the fact that I was going to break my rule (although, is it really cheating because it's only Marshalls, right?). And then I did find a skirt I love.  A long swirly skirt (that fit!) and was perfect for a California coastal vacation.  And a shirt.  A cute, cute top that I could wear for fun or work and was so much nicer than the ones I'd just picked up at the thrift store.  So I gulped.  And grabbed them.  And headed straight for the register (after looking everywhere for a white shirt to match the new skirt - including the store next door).

And I love them so very, very much.  Well, I've only worn the skirt so far, but it's fantastic.  And now my new clothes and I are off to a winery followed by warm shell (the beach version of hot stone) massages and maybe s'mores in the fireplace to finish the day off.  


And tomorrow or next week or next month, whenever the shopping buy bites again, maybe I'll get closer to answering a few more of those questions and finding out a little bit more about what makes me tick. Because for right now, I'm not shopping again (unless I find a white shirt for my skirt).  At least, I'm not shopping until the next time I start making rationalizations.