The 12 Months of 2015 Blog Challenge

Yesterday was the 12th Day of Christmas... and thus, the official end to the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge.

It's the one time of year I force myself to blog every day. I love the exercise of writing... of capturing the thoughts and feelings swirling around in my head, and organizing them into something that makes some modicum of sense... of sharing those thoughts, however dull they may be on any given day, with those who care to read them... of chronicling the mundane and the ordinary from our daily-day life, and thereby--if only occasionally--hallowing it as something extraordinary. It also forces me away from the tyranny of the urgent and back to the truly important, so often overlooked in our daily-day busyness!

Therefore, for a second year, I am committing to continue throughout the year with the 12 Months of 2015 Blog Challenge. The rules are simple:

1) Blog at least once each month, sometime during that month. (You may post to an actual blog, if you have one. If not, compose a note to be published on Facebook, or simply write it out longhand and share it with at least one other person. Whatever works for you. Just grab your thoughts, organize them, capture them in words, and share them with at least one other person.)

2) Give your blog post a clever title, using the title of or a line from a song. (Identify the song at the bottom of the post.)

3) Include a photograph you took to accompany your post, if at all possible. ("If at all possible" is the caveat for those of you who don't take pictures, or don't own a digital camera, or don't use a smartphone, or don't look at life with a photographer's eye... But maybe 2015 is the year to learn to do just that! Look for ordinary miracles in your days, and capture them. Look at life with gratitude, and express it. I'm planning to, and I know that it will change me!)

Won't you join me?

"There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know 'til he takes up the pen and writes."    ~ William Makepeace Thackery

Oh Christmas Lights, Keep Shining On

Christmas lights are a magical thing for me... ever since I was a little girl, lying on the couch in the dark and watching the blinking lights—waiting for the inevitable moment, which would come for the patient, when every single light was out for a brief moment. I loved it. I would blur my eyes and watch the twinkling colors, magically heralding the fun of the season.

Many, many years have passed since those days, and I still find myself watching the lights. This year, they're not blinking, but they are still colorful, and they were hung more masterfully than ever by my oldest daughter, EV, who went up and down instead of round and round with them. The effect is beautiful, and it's a whole lot easier that way! (Who knew?!)

Tonight I begin what will be a fourth year (for me) of completing my friend Pam's "December Blog Challenge." Though she hasn't mentioned a word about it yet, I can only assume she is continuing the tradition this year. Even if she doesn't, I will, because I love the forced exercise of sitting down and gathering my thoughts during the comparatively calm days between Christmas and New Year's when it seems possible to grab a few moments from the busy life of a homeschool mom—happily on break!—to write.

Won't you join us this year? You don't have to join us every day. (My first year, I only got to December 30, the 6th day of Christmas!) Just grab a day or two during these next two weeks and capture your thoughts. I'd love to read them!

...'til he takes up the pen and writes

I am a teacher, and one of the great privileges of my life is teaching young writers to express themselves better on paper.  I am deeply humbled by this privilege, for I know that there are far better writers out there than me, and I know that all of us can be better writers than we are.  However, watching a few of my students wake up to their potential and to the glory of taking one's thoughts to the keyboard or the pen and capturing them... refining them... perfecting them to communicate just what you want them to... It is glorious work indeed.

Very soon their "writer's notebooks," which they've used every week for this school year to practice the art of writing well--whether writing descriptively, writing in different points of view, or writing using different tenses--will shift from being solely places of "assigned writing" and "writing prompts" and will move into being the writing of journals.  They will be forced, by assignment, to write a first-person journal entry to the Lord.  They will be forced to capture their daily thoughts and feelings in love letters to God.

My goal, of course, is that this forced habit will be continued long after our class is over, just like the daily reading for pleasure, and the Scripture memory, and the blogging, and the writing and memorizing and reading of poetry...  My prayer for them is that they will be blessed daily by all these things, and by communion with the Lord through written journal writing.  Whether that comes to pass, of course, remains with them!

"There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know 'til he takes up the pen and writes." - William Makepeace Thackery

 *Entry 3, March - The 12 Months of 2014 Blog Challenge

The 12 Months of 2014 Blog Challenge

Today is the 12th Day of Christmas... and thus, the official end to the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge.

I love the exercise of writing... of capturing the thoughts and feelings swirling around in my head, and organizing them into something that makes some modicum of sense... of sharing those thoughts, however dull they may be on any given day, with those who care to read them... of chronicling the mundane and the ordinary from our daily-day life, and thereby--if only occasionally--hallowing it as something extraordinary.  It also forces me away from the tyranny of the urgent and back to the truly important, so often overlooked in our daily-day busyness!

Therefore, this year I am committing to continue throughout the year with the 12 Months of 2014 Blog Challenge.  The rules are simple:

1) Blog at least once each month, sometime during that month.  (You may post to an actual blog, if you have one.  If not, compose a note to be published on Facebook, or simply write it out longhand and share it with at least one other person.  Whatever works for you.  Just grab your thoughts, organize them, capture them in words, and share them with at least one other person.)

2) Give your blog post a clever title, using the title of or a line from a song.  (Identify the song at the bottom of the post.)

3) Include a photograph you took to accompany your post, if at all possible.  ("If at all possible" is the caveat for those of you who don't take pictures, or don't own a digital camera, or don't use a smartphone, or don't look at life with a photographer's eye... But maybe 2014 is the year to learn to do just that!  Look for ordinary miracles in your days, and capture them.  Look at life with gratitude, and express it.  I'm planning to, and I believe it will change me!)

Won't you join me?

"There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know 'til he takes up the pen and writes."    ~ William Makepeace Thackery

Uplifting Stories

I discovered this blog site today, featuring an Uplifting Stories section and an Uplifting Person of the Day video segment.  I might like to find this UPtv site again sometime!

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

I'm not cheating! I'm just getting a "practice day" head start or two on my friend Pam's December Blog Challenge.

I've been more than a bit absent from the blogosphere lately, and, though I could blame it on the intestinal flu our family has been passing around, it would be a lie.

I am sitting at my in-laws' house in NC...the delicious smells of pork roast and verivorst--Estonian Christmas sausage--wafting through the house...listening to the achingly beautiful strains of Pandora Radio's "instrumental holiday" station...

Life really is so unbelievably rich and wonderful, and I am so sinfully, defiantly ungrateful when I stew around in impatience... Indignance... grumpiness... ingratitude. May I remember every moment of every day those good "tidings of comfort and joy" that changed absolutely everything! What have I to grumble and fret about when the Lord of all has rescued and redeemed me and walks with me in sweet fellowship and the promise of unending faithfulness.

"Here all eyes gaze upon us."

I have been thinking a lot lately about social media... including Facebook and Twitter (and, yes, blogging!)... and I think we are becoming--for good or ill--a culture that handles its grievances publicly.  The language of gossip and slander have become acceptable fare for the public eye... and not just for young, sophomoric teens who don't know better and are busy trying to navigate the tricky waters of junior high school and who like to post mean things about their peers in the process.  But grown adults... twenty-somethings and beyond... are taking their issues, with great specificity, "to the wall."  And the more sensational the issue, the more comments it receives.  The more comments it receives, the more eyes view it.  And so the vicious cycle continues and escalates.

This is in sharp contrast to the admonition of the scriptures: "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone, " Matthew 18:15 (ESV).

I am reminded of the words of Benvolio in the Shakespearean play most of us studied in high school, and which I studied again in college:

"We talk here in the public haunt of men.
Either withdraw unto some private place,
And reason coldly of your grievances,
Or else depart; here all eyes gaze upon us."
Romeo and Juliet, III. i. 50-53

A Sting in My Nose

This is a very tender, pensive time for me in regards to a lost friendship in my life.  I haven't chosen to blog about it because I never really know who is reading what is written here, and I don't want to make any "relational waves."  I'm aware that many people I know, were they to read any of the many confused, convoluted thoughts and feelings I've had over the past several years, might figure out who and what I'm referencing--and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or make anyone upset.

Today, however, I read some words on my friend Rachel's blog that have really stirred a reaction in me.  The Lord is using my reaction to her words to reveal to me just how much I have not been able to move on in healing after this particular relational break.

Just what did my friend's blog say?  Taken out of context (she was referencing her emotionally-difficult-but-very-rewarding new job as an oncology nurse, which often makes her cry), her words were as follows:

"There is something redemptive and beautiful about the process of vulnerability, fear, compassion, love, and tears."

The reaction I had?  It is a familiar one... one I've repeated countless times over the years since the rejection of my other friend.  It is complicated, and it goes something like this: I read those words, and a spark of recognition fills my heart with agreement and joy, but it is immediately eclipsed by a wave of extreme hurt that pricks my throat and my gut, causing tears to spring to my eyes and a little pain to rise in the side of my nose.  This reaction--which always catches me off guard and which is extremely unwelcome, given my complete inability to do anything about the unresolved relational break--is almost immediately swallowed away into cynicism.  My dear friend self-protection, who has come to be my constant companion these last five years, swoops in to save me from the pain of that brokenness.

The only problem?  It doesn't work.  And so at that point I choose to loop back around to the initial fleeting feeling of agreement and joy.  I camp there, preaching the gospel to myself and reminding myself what I know to be true of grace... of God's amazing, immeasurable grace... of the grace of this One who will never leave me or forsake me, even when others do.  I also choose, by sheer force of my will and surrender to the truth,  against my feelings, to believe that grace is also possible in human beings; that my husband, and my children, and the other people in my life with whom I've chosen vulnerability and realness, really can and do accept me and love me, in spite of all my many flaws and the myriad of ways that I may (read: will) hurt and disappoint them.

I spend my days walking with God... trying to stay tender and soft and supple in my heart... striving to stay open and real and vulnerable in my other relationships, despite the fear of rejection that always threatens to show its ugly face and rob me of the joy of grace-filled relationship... despite how the cynicism has subtly and irrevocably infected my feelings about the church we both once attended, rendering me unable to sit there and listen to messages about practicing humility, modeling authenticity, demonstrating love...

In short, I know that this unexpected, unwelcome response to certain things (a friend's words in a blog post, a song on the radio, a message in a sermon) belies the healing that I assumed had taken place.  Yes, the frequency of this surprise response has gone down as time has passed.  Yes, the time spent in the different stages of the loop has shortened.  I have mistakenly assumed that this means healing has taken place.

But the truth of the matter is that healing has not taken place.  Restoration has not happened.  And so, sitting a pew or two apart, pretending this horrible relational abandonment and rejection never happened, listening to messages about grace and "real relationship"... well, the words ring hollow at best.

Just this past week it was my youngest daughter's Language Arts lesson which arose to surprise me with this little loop.  It was nearly three years ago that this very same lesson surprised me over this very same issue and prompted me to blog about it:

"It's very simple," Herkimer told her. "To turn an enemy into a friend, all you have to do is love him."

"Love him? Are you sure? That doesn't sound easy at all. That sounds terribly difficult to me," Annabelle said.

"Oh, it is difficult, " Herkimer agreed. "Probably one of the most difficult things in the world. But I said it was simple, not easy."

From The Tale of Annabelle Hedgehog. Published by Lion Publishing, Batavia, Illinois. Copyright 1990 by Stephen Lawhead.

Still trying to figure it out, these many years later... this very simple, not-at-all-easy thing we're called to do.  And whenever the surprise cycle comes, I fall to my knees in my heart, silently thanking the Lord for His matchless, limitless grace, and "weep to the praise of the mercy I've found."  May I be continually transformed by His merciful Spirit to learn to love like He does, in spite of the reality of past hurts that leave a prick in my throat and a sting in my nose.

Finding Gumption

It has been two months since I last wrote here.  That is unbelievable to me; but, then again, not really.

I wrote something a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving and here it is a month after Christmas.  I sort of just skipped two months!  Well, of blogging, yes.  Of life, not a chance!

I absolutely love the whole "holiday season."  I love Advent and all the Christmas traditions our family has come to love and enjoy.  The links are to posts from last year, where I wrote about those things.  It felt silly to write about them again this year.  And yet, in that beautiful, cyclical, ordinary way that life has of just marching on, it came around again.  We pulled out the Advent Banner again.  The kids shopped for each other again.  We once again made deliberate strides to skip the whole materialistic, "obligatory gift" overspend and to buy one large family gift of something we need but can't really afford if we blow hundreds of dollars on possibly-wanted-but-of-dubious-value stuff.  (This year: electronic collars for the dogs.  When you've tragically lost a beloved pet to the highway that borders your side yard, you get a little paranoid when your dogs are running around the backyard park not on a leash.  But when you have an English white lab, you absolutely must make allowances for running around the yard without a leash!  Hence, this year's family gift.  Those buggers are expensive!!)

At any rate, I've noticed that--as with all things--anything that is habitual and good, but that you get away from for a while, will be hard to get going again.  Consider flossing.  Working out.  That morning prayer time with your spouse.  Those evening gatherings with your kids.  All of these kinds of things take conviction... and commitment... and gumption to get back to them when life--or the Enemy of Your Soul, who hates all habitual, good things that you deliberately put in place in your life--finds you having abandoned them.  Blogging is one such sort of thing for me right now.  As each new un-blogged day passes, I find myself less likely to open the browser and go for it.  Too much else to do.  Too much I'm thinking about.  Not enough time to write.

What will I say?  What will possibly seem important enough to have been "worth the wait"?  Whatever I post after two months will likely seem inane and silly.  Why do I do this thing anyway?

I "do this thing anyway" because it is an exercise in capturing life... some big, important things I'm deeply pondering.  Some little, ordinary things that I want to remember.  You know... scrapbooking, for the rest of us.

I think of so many things I should have posted but didn't.  Cousins came to visit from Atlanta, and we all played in thirteen inches of snow!  (This never happens where I live!)  New calves were born at the farm where we get our milk.  My eldest daughter got her driver's license.  Big life events that I didn't capture here, but could have.

There were also countless little things... little things that caught my attention or warmed my heart.  Many of these were likely forgotten, because I didn't grab the moment and immortalize it through words.  So, here's just one, remembered because it was only yesterday.  Yesterday I walked into my bathroom, mid-morning, to find my youngest daughter in my bathtub... reading her history book!  She was surrounded by flickering candles, immersed in warm water.  Nate Saint, of whom she's reading right now, was coming alive in her mind... and she was enjoying the warmth of a mid-morning bath.  (This is one of the lesser known lovely perks of homeschooling: the mid-morning bath, complete with history book.)

If I could have gotten away with a photo to capture the memory in my mind, I would have.  For obvious reasons, however, I did not do so, and so it must live on here in words.  And thus I am reminded of the value of the silly little blog post, important to possibly no one but me.

Blogging

This made me smile! How true it is...

Upon being published, however humbly...

My poem, This Was Once a Love Song, was selected for publication by PoetsOnline for July 2009.

It has been a little while since I've seen something I wrote published. (This is besides here on this Blog, of course, which doesn't count since it is self-publication in its purest form!)

I had forgotten what a strange mix of emotions it stirs... I feel happy and proud, but intermingled with a profound humility and feeling of diffidence, almost embarrassment. It is exciting and at the same time induces a sort of shyness.

I think I feel vulnerable... exposed... like my emotions are out there for all the world to see, and possibly misinterpret or misunderstand.

It's probably just my own baggage. I have a thing with being misunderstood. Not feeling misunderstood, mind you, but actually being misunderstood. It goes hand-in-hand with being me.

I am pleased, I think, to have taken a stand for marriage, in all its rawness.

...for faithfulness, with all its attendant blessings and burdens.

...for a real definition for and understanding of love.

To read it - or some of the other offerings for the This Was Once prompt - online, see the July 2009 archives of PoetsOnline.

How Firmly They've Been Nailed

John Piper today, on Twitter:

DEALING WITH YOUR SIN: Don't minimize how many times you've failed. But magnify how firmly they've been nailed (Col. 2:14).2:05 PM Jul 9th

John Piper is the only person I follow on Twitter. I don't really need a blow-by-blow update about dozens of people's lives. "Mary is doing aerobics" interruptions are not something I have time for.

But John Piper's updates arrive at my Google Reader, and they always break into my computer time with useful spiritual insight, a word of encouragement, or a much-needed spiritual kick-in-the-pants.

For me and 17,403* others...

* The official number of John Piper's Twitter followers as of today's date.

Why Do I Blog?

"Why do you do a blog?"

This question was posed to me recently by one of my students, and I have been giving a little bit of thought as to what I think is a fitting reply.

My earlier thoughts on this, although still valid, are a little bit incomplete, since my blog is no longer "secret" and "private," as it was then, and I've gotten over the initial self-consciousness that accompanies writing for an audience.

For now, for me, I would have to say that blogging is "scrapbooking for the rest of us."

I don't scrapbook. I love the beautiful products that my Creative Memories-type friends create, but I don't have a lick of that gene in me.

So, although I have no aspirations of ever being read by more than a small audience of family and friends, it is fun to post things in a way that looks and seems "polished."

And it is nice to actually get around to doing it at all.

We have photo albums chronicling my entire pregnancy with my first child, week by week. Slight changes in my burgeoning belly are captured on film and played out relentlessly over page after page. Who on earth thought this was worth capturing in this detail? I often ask myself as I trudge through page after page of photos. (The main merit at this point is a good laugh over my hair styles and the silly maternity clothes I was wearing.)

My first child has a baby book. And there's stuff in it. Lots of stuff in it.

My second child has a baby book. There's some stuff in it.

My third child has a baby box, which is the box the still-relatively-empty baby book originally came in, together with a newspaper from the day she was born, a handful of congratulatory cards, and a copy of her birth announcement.

My fourth child has an empty baby book, purchased by her grandmother but filled in by no one. Our family Christmas card doubled as her birth announcement that year. There are fewer pictures of her as a baby than there were of my belly in that original pregnancy photo album.

So, while I don't post photo after photo of every detail of our lives, sometimes I do, and so some of them are captured. And though I don't capture every deep (or not-so-deep) musing that runs through my head, I do find a quick moment to grab some of them and share. And so they are captured, too.

I guess that's the best answer I can give to why I blog. Because life is worth capturing. And worth sharing.

"There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know 'til he takes up the pen (or, in this case, grabs the keyboard) and writes," William Makepeace Thackery.

A Different Kind of Tweeting

From John Piper, the man I most trust on the planet right now to engage and study the Scriptures with integrity and then share what he finds with boldness... noted theologian, prolific author, pastor of preaching and teaching at Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis:

I see two kinds of response to social Internet media like blogging, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and others.

One says: These media tend to shorten attention spans, weaken discursive reasoning, lure people away from Scripture and prayer, disembody relationships, feed the fires of narcissism, cater to the craving for attention, fill the world with drivel, shrink the soul’s capacity for greatness, and make us second-handers who comment on life when we ought to be living it. So boycott them and write books (not blogs) about the problem.

The other response says: Yes, there is truth in all of that, but instead of boycotting, try to fill these media with as much provocative, reasonable, Bible-saturated, prayerful, relational, Christ-exalting, truth-driven, serious, creative pointers to true greatness as you can.

Together with the team at Desiring God, I lean toward response #2. “Lean” is different from “leap.” We are aware that the medium tends to shape the message. This has been true, more or less, with every new medium that has come along—speech, drawing, handwriting, print, books, magazines, newspapers, tracts, 16mm home movies, flannel-graph, Cinerama, movies, Gospel Blimps, TV, radio, cassette tapes, 8-Tracks, blackboards, whiteboards, overhead projection, PowerPoint, skits, drama, banners, CDs, MP3s, sky-writing, video, texting, blogging, tweeting, Mina-Bird-training, etc.

Dangers, dangers everywhere. Yes. But it seems to us that aggressive efforts to saturate a media with the supremacy of God, the truth of Scripture, the glory of Christ, the joy of the gospel, the insanity of sin, and the radical nature of Christian living is a good choice for some Christians. Not all. Everyone should abstain from some of these media. For example, we don’t have a television.

That’s my general disposition toward media.

Now what about Twitter? I find Twitter to be a kind of taunt: “Okay, truth-lover, see what you can do with 140 characters! You say your mission is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things! Well, this is one of those ‘all things.’ Can you magnify Christ with this thimble-full of letters?”

To which I respond:

The sovereign Lord of the earth and sky
Puts camels through a needle’s eye.
And if his wisdom see it mete,
He will put worlds inside a tweet.

So I am not inclined to tweet that at 10AM the cat pulled the curtains down. But it might remind me that the Lion of Judah will roll up the heavens like a garment, and blow out the sun like a candle, because he just turned the light on. That tweet might distract someone from pornography and make them look up.

I’ve been tweeting anonymously for a month mainly to test its spiritual and family effects on me. In spite of all the dangers, it seems like a risk worth taking. “All things were created through Christ and for Christ” (Colossians 1:16). The world does not know it, but that is why Twitter exists and that’s why I Tweet.

By his grace and for his glory,

Pastor John
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2009/3951_Why_and_How_I_Am_Tweeting/

And so I am reminded again that the Lord is about the business of redemption, and that moving into things with deliberateness and purpose, for His glory, is possible. But it isn't easy. And it isn't common.

Here's to being uncommon...

Sharing Recipes

Today, in response to the fact that there were two recipes which folks were asking me for, and one recipe which I was wanting to get from my sister, I created a new Blog. If you are interested in yummy food, you might want to check it out. Let me know if you ever want to join the community of recipe-posters. It is certainly easier than repeatedly sharing those more-popular, most-requested recipes individually!

Nods to Johanna's small group, which has a similar site of its own and from whom I shamelessly swiped the idea.

Happy cooking!

Re-Entry

It is always both gloriously wonderful and a little jarring to return home after a week's vacation. So here we are, with all the coolers and suitcases and laundry and mail and email and bills and, and...

Who has time to Blog in the midst of "real life"? Until the next hastily-snatched minute...

Happy first day of summer!

The Many Versions of Me

I was reading recently--in the newest "Rough Guide"--about America. One of the things they said was this:

And for all of its pride and bluster, the USA can be a land of quiet nuances: snow falling on a country lane in Vermont, cherry trees blooming under Washington memorials, crocodiles swimming through the bayou. You could easily plan a trip that focuses on the out-of-the-way hamlets, remote wilderness, eerie ghost towns, and forgotten byways that are every bit as "American" as its showpiece icons and monuments. Putting aside the sheer size of the place, deciding exactly what version of America you want to see, may be the hardest decision of all.
(You are reading content from The Rough Guide to the USA.)

Reading that has gotten me thinking, and not necessarily about the United States itself. I'm intrigued by that final sentence. "Deciding exactly what version of America you want to see may be the hardest decision of all." I think it is true of people even more than it is of countries.

What exactly do I mean? I don't really know, but I've been noticing something...

Last week I received an email from a friend whom I haven't been able to see for a while. At the end of it, she directed me to her family's blog. (It seems that everyone has a blog these days, and I love keeping up with folks this way. It is especially handy when they are in another state, or even another country, and hopes of actually seeing them anytime soon are rather slim.)

One thing I'm realizing, as I keep my own little "private" blog, is that I often have a desire to let someone know about it. Some particular something I've posted is something I want some particular person to see... the heartening sermon excerpt for the discouraged friend, the fun vacation photos for the distant grandparent, the link to the challenging and thought-provoking website for the youth group leader, even just the daily humdrum of life for those who love us very much and are the only ones who might care to read such things...

This morning, even, as I taught children's church, I had a desire to tell them I would record the scripture memory song I was teaching them and post it on my blog so they could go listen to it during the week and learn it more easily.

The "problem," I'm realizing, is that we have many selves... different personae we adopt for interacting with different folks. It isn't necessarily that we have different selves, per se, so much as that we reserve a view of many of the aspects of our true self for those few who are closest to us... or maybe that we change which dimensions of ourselves we choose to present, depending on the context of the interaction and the persons involved.

This is especially true of someone like me. I am frequently accused of being intimidating. I am often referred to as very intense, very deep, very pensive. Some who know me love this aspect of my personality, and intend it as the highest compliment. Others who know me have broken off friendship with me because it was "just too much," and they want simpler, shallower, "nicer," less exhausting.

And so, even when we consider ourselves to be persons who are very vulnerable, very "real," very willing to share whatever we're dealing with freely and openly, we find ourselves in many relationships that are not on a level that can handle that... or that even want to. There are those--particularly family members whom we rarely see--who don't even understand half of what we're talking about when we're "waxing philosophical." And we don't really "get them," either, or half the choices they make, so we just don't interact on those levels.

"Smiles, everyone, smiles" as the Fantasy Island guy used to say.

And there is, of course, a reason for the age-old adage to "never discuss religion or politics." Those who are relationally savvy keep quiet when the topics may be sensitive, stay mum when the implications of the topics may potentially offend, share certain dimensions of themselves but not others when doing so will keep everyone comfortable and happy. We do so with varying degrees of comfort, and we do so with differing levels of satisfaction and pleasure, but we do it almost unconsciously, without even realizing we're doing it half the time.

And so, the idea of actually publishing your blog and letting people know about it becomes intimidating. If you are open with your true self--all your true "selves"---on your blog, then there are those you know who may read your blog and freak out. And so, a little while after publishing it, you may end up halting discussion of the meaningful or the thought-provoking, and the blog becomes a handy place to share photos and cute stories, but nothing more.

"Deciding exactly what version you want to see may be the hardest decision of all."

That, and deciding exactly what version you want to show.

Lost Nerve

A friend of mine literally spoke the words to me today, "Maybe you should do a blog." Little does she know. Little does anyone know. I am not even fully able to be fully free in what I say even now, when I know that NO ONE will ever read the thing except my husband. I can't imagine if I knew there were people--especially people who actually know me--reading it.

My friend was saying to me--rather out of nowhere--that she and her husband were discussing the fact that they think I'm "a bit of a prophetic type personality." Further, she was suggesting that I should be willing to share those "prophetic insights" because the church needs those who are willing to challenge and confront and stir up and make people think.

I'm reminded of Jo's question to her husband Bill in the movie Twister. "Have you lost your nerve?!"

Yes, Jo, I have. I've been burned by one too many "offended" friends who weren't up for the "let's dialogue and wrestle and banter and vent regarding all the dimensions of life and the questions that arise as we seek to live it in Christ" kind of relationship.

In fact, I am currently having a bit of a questioning time in my life regarding friendship, relationship in the Body, the contemporary Evangelical church in America, and “redemptive relationship” in general. Basically, I think that the kind of relationships that are truly beneficial and redemptive and sanctifying don’t happen much because people aren’t much interested in having that kind of relationship.

In general, it seems that people don’t want you to “cross them” in any way, and that means not dialoging together about life in Christ and what it all looks like. (Forget challenging each other... doing the difficult work of prayerfully agonizing over sharing with one another regarding possible “sin” areas observed in each others’ lives!)

I’m not even talking about bemoaning the loss of that kind of relationship, because it is still my sweet and precious experience with a very few faithful treasured friends. I just mean that now, in general, in the contemporary Evangelical church at large, one can’t even try to talk together about normal life things without stepping into someone’s zone of offense. The general mantra is “grace = don’t cross me in any way whatsoever.” Further, almost anything one says might be construed as judgmental, offensive, implying something, or whatever.

In practice, I can't even discuss my own life experience with others. (I'm choosing to _____, after all, so that must mean that I think anyone doing anything differently from me is wrong.) Fill in that first blank with whatever you like... used to be breastfeed; spank; be a stay-at-home-mom; avoid too much sugar, packaged food, television, computer games, vaccines, even fever-reducers... now it is stuff like homeschool; not do the sleepover thing, or - get this - not have naked ("Christian" porn) pictures of myself made to give to my husband. No, I'm not making that up. I actually did recently deal with that last one. I have not, however, chosen to express my opinion that perhaps the practice isn't wise, or that perhaps it doesn't reflect what sex is supposed to be about. I know there's a good chance that I'd be accused of being "judgmental" if I were to do so, so I have said nothing.

I could go on and on about my confusion and frustration in this arena. Suffice it to say that relationships that faithfully exhort one another... women with whom to wrestle and wrangle and grapple and support and challenge and love and help and share... these treasured friends are few and far between and... as a dear friend called me the other day... "rare." ("You are so rare," she told me. "Beautiful and rare and a treasure." I have never felt more special in my life than in that moment. But I digress.)

I have wonderful friendship with my husband, and we talk about everything. And I am developing a really neat friendship with each of my children, which is especially sweet as they get older. But the kind of friends who will listen faithfully and then share faithfully are hard to come by... those who will "think out loud" with me, using all the wisdom, discernment, and biblical support they can muster... who will help me think through the issues... who will wrestle and wrangle and give and take and help me see things from all kinds of angles that I might often miss in my fleshly, self-consumed blindness... who are faithful to listen, and really hear, and then really share...

I call for friends in the Body who will step out of themselves, and take the risk, to share both truth and opinion with me. Who will trust me - and our relationship with each other - enough to risk that. And then who will trust my relationship with the Lord enough to leave me with it, whatever "it" is, and pray for me in it. I want friends who want any and all "think out loud together" feedback I can come up with, and who are willing to give it to me right back. I want to open the Scriptures together and talk about whatever applications I might think I see in whatever the issue is... and I want to hear whatever applications you might think you see, too. I want to walk together, share together, find agreement, find disagreement... all with the respect and freedom and security of biblical love, which "always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres... never fails" (I Cor. 13).

"Better is open rebuke than hidden love. The kisses of an enemy may be profuse, but faithful are the wounds of a friend," (Proverbs 27:5-6).

Maybe I should blog, huh?! I don't know if folks are ready for the musings inside my head to move outside of it...

Happy Birthday to Me

Well, my "sad little pen-and-ink" journal is again up and running, because it didn't take long to figure out that a personal journal is very different from a personal Blog, however much one is certain that no one else will ever read the latter. When one writes a Blog, one is composing for an audience - even if the audience is anonymous or imaginary. When one writes a journal (or at least when I do), the audience is either one's self or (again, when I do it) the Lord. There I find first person dialogue with the Almighty, with all its honesty and unguardedness. It is indispensable and necessary, and is as important - for me - as reading the Word, or praying, or memorizing Scripture, or gathering together with other believers for encouragement and worship and exhortation and fellowship.

Blogging, however, is not at all necessary. It is not a connection point in one's relationship with the Lord. And it is probably neither fully revelatory nor unguarded. It is simply - for me - one of the expressions of the craft of the written word. Like reading and then wrestling with the ideas that arise thereby, it is a part of the processing of the musing of life. It is true composition at its best. It is an art. And although I'm not necessarily very good at it, it is a noble exercise in its own right. It stretches my brain. It uses my intellect. It forces me to process and organize and make tangible the stream-of-conscious thoughts and random flow of emotions that move through me... to attempt to turn them into something at least remotely intelligible. No matter if no one ever reads them. They are written for you, the hazy and undefined one whom I imagine cares to read my thoughts. (Yeah, right!)

Today, my thoughts are raw and my emotions a little fragile. Today I turned 41. This would not normally bother me in the least, I don't think, but this birthday comes at the end of a year during which I experienced several miscarriages. Four little lives have been created, and yet for one reason or another didn't survive. Why? Who knows. The party line at the OB/GYN office is "old eggs." As we get older (my husband is 40, and I, 41) our chances of a "blighted ovum" increase, and things "just don't come together quite right, genetically" and this is "Mother Nature's way (don't you hate her?) of taking care of a baby that wasn't growing right." All fine and good unless you long for another baby. All a little strange four times in a row. All a little sad, even in light of an (at least limping) understanding of the goodness and sovereignty of God, and even in the midst of (limping) trust and hope and joy in His plans for my life and for our family.

So, today is my birthday, and all it means this time around is that I'm "too old to have another baby." Too old. Old. I don't want to be old. I don't feel old.

And so, alas, today's thoughts are far less noble and aspiring than they could be. I think of an Isaac Watts quote I remember, from Improvements of the Mind: "Once a day... call yourselves to an account what new proposition or truth you have gained, what further confirmation of known truths, and what advances you have made in any part of knowledge." A worthy aspiration, but today is not that day. At least not here on this Blog.

Lost in the Translation

It is amusing to me that I have created a blog. I am not an electronic-medium type. And, who am I to think that anyone would ever want to read anything I have to say? In reality, I think I haven't created this blog for any other soul to read, ever... it is just for me. I don't much care for MySpace, and for reasons beyond the reality of psycho Internet predators who jump on and look for unsuspecting, young, naive victims. It seems to me to be sometimes a bit of a venue for sophomoric meanness and shallow, mindless frivolity. If I were a singer/songwriter trying to "get my stuff out there" or a professor trying to give information to her students or something, maybe. But as a way to communicate or "do relationship"... I don't know, it just isn't my cup of tea.

I have seen many blogs that have some depth and importance to them, however, and I've also seen some that are quite light, but intentionally so, and thereby terribly entertaining. I anticipate that this blog will never be light and entertaining, however, for I am neither. And, if it ever happens to achieve such distinction, it will likely only have depth and importance to me, as I assume I will be the only one ever to read it. Why make it, then?

Well, I suppose that this is a silly little stab in the direction of "modernized communication" for me. I have always kept a journal, but it is a sad little pen-and-ink affair that remains in my (gasp) Daytimer, and has been sorely neglected of late. (Yes, I still have a paper-based, non-electronic calendar where I write down the appointments and meetings that are the skeletons of my days!)

There is something powerful about the handwritten page, for me, as it contains the handwritten word, which is - like it or not - different from the typed word on the typed page. The latter must work hard to overcome a certain emptiness that is just part of its nature. There is no smell to it. There is no tangible feel to it. There is no distinctive penmanship. You don't touch it and breathe it and weep over it, leaving little blotches that will forever mark the poignant pages. And so it is a little cold and detached, in a way that it can't help, but that it must bear nevertheless.

I remember once receiving flowers from my not-yet-husband, delivered from across the miles to the school where I was teaching, and opening the attached card. The very large, sloppy, juvenile handwriting of the florist's assistant jumped out at me, and the essence of my sweetheart--the true author of the message of undying love accompanying the bouquet--was somehow lost in the translation.

Much will be lost in the translation here, I'm sure, but much will be gained in the actual doing of the thing, which is, after all, the point.