i had today off.

took some engagement pictures for some pals of mine. painted my nails w/ pauline. played ultimate frisbee. ate two chocolate covered oreos (that’s right). saw hellboy2 (average). found somebody’s mix cd in a parking garage entitled “relief 1.” it contained a lot of The Fray and Elton John. ate pineapple. debriefed from my pride & prejudice marathon last night. [pauline concluded that i "need a man with balls."]

i wonder what it would be like to find a cd in a parking garage that contained information about some evil plot against america. i’d probably be hunted like in…shoot…what was it called…will smith. gene hackman. that chick from the cosby show. dang it. i can’t think of the name. anyway. will smith got hunted. that’s all you need to know. i’d probably be hunted too. i’ll try to remember that there are high powered satellite cameras watching my every move. remind me to find a subway system or wear a lot of camo.

or what if it was a suicide note? …or a crappy audition cd?

after pondering all these possibilities, elton john isn’t starting to sound so bad after all.

…ENEMY OF THE STATE! that’s it.

k, bye.

you know what’s funny? i feel so ridiculously ill-equipped to pen anything worth reading at the moment…IN SPITE of the fact that my life has changed RADICALLY in the past month since i last wrote.

i left an isolated apartment by myself. i moved in with 3 other women. i got a new job. i quit an old job. i became friends with a lot of alcoholics. ummm…i picked spanish back up. i now have to watch what i eat.

that’s about it for now.

man-o-man. how time flies.

it sure has been a while…

sorry. (i think.) i don’t exactly know who reads this or how dependent they have become upon the frequency of my updates, so it’s possible that i owe no one apology.

anyway…

so i went out of town, which was educational to the extent that i realized my extended family is crazy. i also bought some moccasins at my great-great grandfather’s hardware store. how many people can say that? not many, that’s for sure. i also accumulated a small collection of semi-entertaining quotes which i will now relay:

—

Adam (five-year-old cousin): Nuts, glorious nuts! (to the Oliver Twist tune, “Food, glorious food.”)

—

JohnMichael (seven-year-old cousin): If I had the option between jumping in water or driving a fork lift, I’d pick the option of jumping in water. I like water.

—

John Michael: What if fish were called lions and lions were called fish?
Adam: I want to be a cat.

—

Sarah (my sister): Do you like girls?
Adam: I’m seeing someone named Ella. She sits next to me on the carpet. She doesn’t really talk to me, but she follows me around and wears a lot of dresses. So I wear suits…on picture days.
Sarah: How often are picture days?
Adam: Not that often.

—

Sarah: So do you like any other girls?
Adam: Well there’s this other girl named Bethany. She and Ella are best friends.
Sarah: Oh. Well have you told any of them how you feel?
Adam: Yeah. It was the other day.
Sarah: Ok, well, what did you say?
Adam: Well, I said, “Hey, you never signed up to play with me in recess.”

—

Sarah: Is she taller than you?
Adam: She’s 5.

—

JohnMichael: If we switched brains, you would love storms and I would hate them.
Adam: And you would think you’re 5 and I would think I’m 7.
John Michael: And you would think you were crazy. ‘Cause you are.

—

JohnMichael: Why can’t you just get baptized in the bathtub? So then you could be cleansed of your sin?
Mom: Well, baptism isn’t what cleanses your sins - it’s accepting Jesus into your heart.
JohnMichael: Well, I already have…and I’ve been in the bathtub since then…

—

Me: So do you get along with JohnMichael and Amanda?
Adam: Well, Amanda doesn’t let us play with the cats, and JohnMicheal is really weird.
Me: What makes a person weird?
Adam: Well, JohnMichael says, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and then Amanda says, “then go,” and then JohnMichael says, “I don’t have to go anymore.”

—

JohnMichael: I was at a theme park and I was driving a bumper car, and I hit a kid whose leg was hanging out and I almost broke his leg ’cause I didn’t see it. But I kept on hitting it. And then they said I couldn’t ride them the rest of the day. And now my parents won’t let me do car rides anywhere, even in different theme parks ’cause I almost broke that kid’s leg.
Sarah: Wow. Did you feel bad?
JohnMichael: Yeah. I love car rides.

—

…so there you have it.

i’m out of town, which up til yesterday consisted of the middle of nowhere. now, i am in annapolis, md. less middle, more coastal.  i’ll have PLENTY to say when i return. never fear. i derive from a heritage of lunatics.

here’s a question. what would you do if you found a piece of candy under a desk, then realized it was a giant black and purple beetle, and that it peed on your hand and made it smell weird? if you said, “fling it across the library, then smush it,” well you’re not alone.

here’s a ‘nother question. what would you do if you felt something crawling on you and realized that it was a nasty stink bug? if you said, “fling it across erin keller’s apartment and let Meeko the Cat attack it then start foaming at the mouth so that you could call the vet and have a nice converation about why you should bring Meeko the Cat in to make sure he doesn’t have rabies only to find out from Google that foaming at the mouth due to stink bug attackal is a normal reaction for cats,” well then you’re definitely not alone.

thus went my day.

i also bought some paint.

I am regularly becoming more and more convinced of the value and necessity of community. I know I’ve written about this before, but it’s just so obvious to me. How would I know when I’ve become self-focused were it not for community? It is ONLY in community that my self-focus can be extinguished.

A friend of mine and I were spending time together this morning, as we often do, and realized collectively that self-focus permeates our minds so easily. It’s like dust. You don’t notice it caking all over your house, but if you let it go unaddressed, pretty soon you’re going to need a roll of paper towels to get that stuff up.

So my friend and I decided to pray for each other today. I wrote her name on my hand. We exchanged prayer requests. And we committed to remove our eyes from ourselves and lift one another up in prayer. I know that she is going to present my needs before the throne of our Father, and she has confidence that I will do the same for her. It is a portrait of community. She has my back while I have hers. The pressure that amasses due to the nature of life’s circumstances slowly subsides.

——–

I should probably balance this whole idea out with the fact that we all need to spend time praying for ourselves. Another good friend reminded me recently that our personal spiritual health will affect the health of our ministries. So we can’t never interact with God about our own needs and personal growth. But when we do that at the expense of praying for others, maybe something is wrong. Yes, different seasons of life call for different approaches to prayer…but I’m having a hard time imagining a season in which it is wise, healthy, or profitable, to omit intercession. [Not to mention, intercession is at the very least a byproduct of spiritual health, if not a means the Spirit uses to grow us.]

At this point, I’m kind of preaching to myself, because I really needed to be reminded of that. But perhaps it will serve some benefit to you as well.

ps. happy may.

10 interesting things about my day:

actually…some are interesting, some are not. so….

10 things about my day:

1) i spent the night at my parents house last night. i used to not like it because my bed wasn’t comfortable. then we got a really squishy mattress pad. it’s like a cloud. i don’t mind it so much anymore…
2) i have a mustard stain on my pants as a result of splitting a subway sandwich with Stumpcake (W.K.)
3) i walked to the hospital today, where i spent a chunk of time studying in the cafe next to starbucks. met a man named barry who works as a physical therapy technician. he wants to be a personal trainer. he really loves Jesus a lot. got to hear his testimony. all the stuff he said seemed theologically stable…then he told me about this “really great preacher” named Joel Olsteen. oh man. i don’t get it. regardless, he had some pretty cool examples of God providing for him at just the right moments. divine appointment? i would say so.
4) if you go to dts, you should check out the cafeteria in the basement of the hospital. just go in the part that is at the corner of gaston & washington, walk down the long hallway, and go down some steps. (if it’s a first time visit, you should check out the metal hands on display. there’s a set of a quarterback’s hands that are really messed up. makes me wish i was cool enough to have some metal hands…) anyway, there’s chick-fil-a there, pizza, stir fry, home cookin’, sushi, deviled eggs, orange juice, starbucks, smoothies, etc. worth the trip if you’re not susceptible to diseases…
5) on the way, try walking through the parking garage on the corner of washington and swiss. make sure to look up as you go…the ceiling has red, blue, and green squares. i spent my entire walk trying to figure out why, but i was at a loss.
6) i went with Amy to target to figure out what to do with her empty wall space. that was a good time. it reminded me how much i like interior decor. it also reminded me of the time i almost got married. oh shopping for home goods. *sigh*
7) woke up early to go to some book giveaway at a methodist church. if you go to dts and planned on going to that…don’t bother. all the good stuff’s gone. i got some of it, but Steve Netniss beat me to most of it. got some good ones by barth and bonhoeffer and lewis. …probably won’t read ‘em anytime soon. but it’s always nice when your library expands for free.
eight) i have to do a bunch of reflections on Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest. there’s some decent content in there. if you read it at least once, you wouldn’t have wasted your time. and being forced to reflect on it in writing has its perks as well. if you get a chance, read April 24th (i think).
9) i forgot how much i like sigur ros and larue.
10) this evening marked my second to last greek class. possibly ever.

I now have new headphones…thanks to Seth Stevens’ roommate.

A friend approached me this evening with a question. “Does salvation occur as a process or in an instant.” She was reading a book about salvation in which the author referred to salvation as an instantaneous switch over. This troubled her because she knew of specific examples in which there seemed to be no identifiable point of transition, but rather a gradual worldview shift…piece by piece.

As she was asking the question, I started thinking back to my Wheaton days. This topic came up a lot in my classes, for much the same reason why my friend raised her question. You see, based on experience, salvation often seems to be a process - particularly in other cultures. …Even in spite of the fact that certain organizations and methods rely almost wholly on perceivably instantaneous conversion to measure their “success.”

It seems difficult to deny that there is a process involved.

I think this is because there are more than one small transitions that constitute a whole. There is the transition from believing “all is well” to realizing that we are sinners and worthy of nothing but death. There is the transition from believing everyone deserves to go to heaven to seeing that only perfection is admitted. There is the transition from believing that the state of existence we are born into is sufficient to qualify us as “good.” There is the transition from believing whatever anybody believes about Jesus Christ to acknowledging that he is God, and his death on the cross paid the price for our sins, and he is the ONLY means sufficient enough to qualify us as good. And none of these transitions account for the number of other transitions that people have to go through on an individual basis, deriving from backgrounds, social constructs, culture, religion, government, etc.

At the same time…

…I think there is grounds for believing that there is an instant within the process in which a person, prior to that instant, was not heaven-bound. Post that instant, their name was forever etched on the guest list. Part of the basis for this has to do with death. Death is not a process. There are processes and series of events leading up to death. But death itself is an instant. One second prior to death, that person is alive. One second post death, that person is dead. Divide the process towards salvation into points and up to a certain point/instant, were an individual to die, they would end up in hell - eternal condemnation (and deservedly so). Regardless of what shape the process looks like, there is still a point at which an individual’s allegience switches.

I would argue, though, that we would be doing God a disservice to try to mark the exact point of transition in the lives of other people. That is between God and that person…perhaps sometimes even only knowable by God. So, instantaneous? As far as I can tell. Discernable? Not always.

…it’s probably better that way.

i was never in crew. i almost wrote, “and i’m not sure why…” but that would be a lie. i know exactly why. A) it was expensive. and B) you had to get up at 4am.

now, i’m not opposed to the morning. i am even what some would call a morning person (depending on my sleep schedule). but 4am is not morning. i don’t care what anybody says. if it’s dark and cold, it’s not morning.

while i was at wheaton, i also never used the gym. like…ever. i could probably count the number of times i used the gym on my fingers and toes, which for three years of availablility is really not a lot. if i ever did go, i used the eliptical. i don’t know what happened between then and now, though, because i can’t use the eliptical for the life of me. i always feel like i’m about to fall over.

speaking of now, i currently use the Tom Landry gym at Baylor medical center. i run on the treadmill, which is usually a good time. and i do stretches and stuff. …..and……i row. i probably do it wrong, but i row nonetheless. i know i’m not going anywhere. i know it doesn’t beat being on the water. but i still like it.

well this evening i was rowing. and, uhhh, i rowed right over my headphones.

to be totally honest, i wasn’t even surprised. why? because think about it - if you could list all the ways you would expect a person to destroy their headphones, rowing wouldn’t be on it. and why would God allow my expectations to be met? …i’ve learned to expect the unexpected. of course i would row over my headphones.

anyway, all that to say, i’m now headphone-less. [aren't you glad that's just one word? otherwise i'd have to be headless and phoneless. then again, if i was just headless but not phoneless...well...that would just be dumb. ...which i suppose is to be expected from a person who is headless.]

so if you have any headphones that you aren’t using and don’t plan to use for the rest of your life…may i have them? [i know beggars can't be choosers, but i plan to reject all headphones with excessive amounts of wax buildup.]