A few words

"One understands a word much better if one has met it alive, in its native habitat."

C.S. Lewis, Studies in Words

5 things that made me laugh...

or 4 (can't think of a 5th right now). Anyway, minor amusements in the life of Hannah:

1. The cow who kept sticking her head out of the back of the trailer in front of me to stare at me rather vulgarly; or to look at surrounding countryside every once in awhile (maybe you had to be there for that one...)

2. A sign: "try our new shrimp items go Jackets win!" (the 'Jackets being the local high school football team--and yes, it would have been funnier without the "try our," but I'm honest)

3. When I was sitting in the waiting area of a psychiatrist's office last week (waiting for a rider to finish), and the psyche dr. came in and said (in a tone and accompanied with a hand motion used toward children and dogs by people who don't understand them) to me, "come on back, Maggie!" I'm afraid my eyebrows were a little rude (she interrupted Fitzgerald, and I was wearing red, too), but the rest of me tried to be polite. (There's nothing they can do anyway...)

4. Another sign: "flea/farmer's market" (no comment)

On the Road

The red rivers intersect and merge on the white page beneath my finger, calling to the red within my veins. I follow them a little absently, tracing my finger across miles no bigger than an elm bug. In my mind they are transformed; no longer red lines (whether curved or straight), but blinding ribbons of white furling ahead of me, smoking along behind; consuming me in the rhythm of the road. Each has its own siren song number; it is a delight to recognize old friends traveling in new places.

I am a faithful wanderer. A fugitive from my comfortable home. I seek safety from the mundane through something larger than myself. And I have joined the eternal Quest, unsure of what I am questing for. Not the end of the road, for real roads have no end I can find. Knowledge? Only of my frailty and ignorance, since there is always more road to know. I recognize my own limits through my love.

I am a jealous wanderer, having a passionate impatience for those who travel in front of me. Not for being in my way, but because they are having my experience before me. I meet people with curiosity, wanting to know what they have seen; knowing what they are about to see.

The center stripe reflects the joy of sunflowers, and I am free.

How do I know God loves me?

Because of sunflowers.

A Better Resurrection

Psalm 121; 119:145-147; 39:4-7; 51:10; Job 23:10; 2 Corinthians 4:4-18; 2 Timothy 4:6-8; 1 Peter 1:3-9
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

~Christina Rossetti

Question

For my entertainment (borrowed from others):

What does my name (first and last) sound like I should be? (if I weren't what I am, of course)

Anyone want to offer an opinion?

Study in Strangers I

"There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken."
~Crime and Punishment

Our eyes locked in a crowd.

I turned mine down--
Unwilling he should see a secret
Burned in fire and trembling--
But not before
A smile had slipped between us:
Knowledge of our mutual ignorance, an instant's
Curiosity, or interest, it may be; recognition
Granted innocence and possibility. Unanimity
In living strangers, sharing
The hunger and humor of humanity
In silence.

Whose face, whose smile, what name from long-ago?
I'll never know;
I'll never need to know.

Nostalgia

Okay, so I’m suffering it: post-college withdrawal. I miss…lots of things. Not quite the tests, but I miss Latin parties, and I miss metaphysical parties with Someone sitting with a jar of sugar cubes on her head, and I miss taking personality tests at three in the morning when we have a test at eight, and I miss "studying" at coffee shops, which always turned into something more important. I miss intelligent conversation and people who get my jokes (which, as the Lyonesse heretic noted, are two things not related—but I would like to point out that she was the one who started the conversation, "if you were a french fry…" I love you, Ashley! ;). I miss "sprawling" in the hall for backrubs and talk (or just plain giggling); I miss trying to fit too many people on a bed to watch a movie, and ice cream at the slightest excuse; I miss dancing around the mirror in the morning with all of us trying to get ready; I miss being a french shrub or an ewok. I miss hiccups through the wall, and I miss told being not to drink coffee, and I miss throwing snowballs at our RA’s window, and I miss the nod and saying, "we know." Lyonesse, and the Dragons, and the World, and the Radical Freudeggerian Feminists Against Interpretation and the Older Sisters of Brothers on Campus and the Brothers in Burqas Society and the Society for the Defense of Hannah and the League of the Sleep Deprived. I miss you people something awful.

But I don’t just miss the people: I miss the place, and what was possible there. I miss stalking security guards (or occasionally assaulting them, although not usually when they were on duty—there was that time when one tried to break into the bookstore…) and Viking burials for goldfish and funeral ceremonies for de-Caput-ated knights and warm-fuzzy wars and Hobbit parties and duels and haunting the main building and play rehearsals and dancing and engagements (and all things attendant upon those occasions). I miss a place where I could wear red hats to finals and where red wigs were out of dress code (it looked pretty awful on me anyway). I miss a place where boys could propose just to give someone the pleasure of rejecting them, or where we could expect email proposals every time it snowed. I even miss ASEs and Councils of War. I miss knowing more about everyone else’s lives than I ever should have. I miss the Chestnut race and the GSE and the ever-present game of Ultimate. I miss the professors. I miss the way they ate with us and played with us; and I miss being scared to talk with them for fear I would say something stupid; my distant adoration. I miss the way their eyes lit up when someone understood.

I miss chapels, and I miss praying together, at planned and unplanned times; the spiritual challenge and encouragement by people who were sold out for God; the way we were bound together in Him.

I don’t want to be one of those people who’s constantly remembering college as the best years of my life and believe life goes downhill from here: I think it does get better, because I have that as part of me now, and I can go on to new and exciting things God has for me. But there are moments when I just miss Us Being There.

Read it and Laugh

On today’s edition of On My (Library) Bookshelf, we have these special guests:

Marianne Moore, Complete Poems:

"O to Be a Dragon"

If I, like Solomon,…
could have my wish—
my wish…O to be a dragon,
a symbol of the power of Heaven—of silkworm
size or immense; at times invisible.
Felicitous phenomenon!

Andy Adams, Why the Chisolm Trail Forks, and Other Tales of the Cattle Country

Ogden Nash (selected poems), I Wouldn’t Have Missed It (from which, Oh, how to choose a sample?):

From "The Slipshod Scholar Gets Around to Greece"

I sing of the ancient Greeks.
They had magnificent physiques.
[…]
If the Greeks had never existed who would have been the most annoyed?
Freud.

Wendell Berry, A World Lost
Wendell Berry, Farming: a Hand Book (I decided if Dr. M. was going to write about’m, I wanted to read’m):

From "A Letter"

Now back in Kentucky, far from you again,
I often think of those days and nights, and long
for their music and their mirth. And then
I remind myself: the past is gone. Remember it.

Wodehouse
And my (favorite) find of this time:
Odgen Nash (trans. James Gleeson and Brian Meyer), Ave Ogden! Nash in Latin (original in comments. The meter is not the same as Nash, or Vergil, for that matter, but it’s still fun):

"Hipppotamus"
Ecce hippopotamus, sis!
Ridemus quomodo videatur nobis,
Tempore tamen miserabili
Miror quomodo videamur ei.
Pacem, pacem, hippopotame!
Videmur grati nobis vere,
Es dulcis sine dubio
Aliorum hipporum oculo.

Rebuilding

I went unto the place where I had been a safe child, and had grown to be a vulnerable child, and its walls were broken down. The offices of my fathers were changed, with new people at their desks and new books in their classes; the school suffered great trouble and shame. And I wept for the places that were vacant, for the people in exile, for those who survived; for my nourishing mother, for I love it. And I prayed to the God of heaven that He would rebuild the walls His people destroyed in their sin.

I do not know the rest of the story. But I pray that it will be one of His servants rising up to sort through the rubble and fill in the gaps in the wall, to rebuild while fending off the arrows of the Enemy and his servants. A story showing that the God of heaven is a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, who has not dealt with us as we deserve, but has dealt faithfully even when we acted wickedly. I pray that His Holy Spirit will work with His supernatural power in the hearts of men, that where there has been pain and anger and bitterness and injustice, there may be love. That the world may see us, and know there is a God by the way we love one another. That we may have the attitude in us which was also in Christ Jesus; that our love may abound more and more.

Have mercy upon us, Oh God, because of your unfailing love.

Over the Rainbow

I love airports: they are one of the magicalest places I know. Where else are there so many possibilities? Walking down the hallway, there are doors a person could step through and magically end up in Denver, Detroit, Atlanta, Tampa, L.A. or D.C. Not to mention Paris and Oklahoma City.

I love watching people in airports. They are usually hurried and bored, but I can imagine interesting things about them all. In BWI I stood up to walk around and get a drink, and when I came back, my seat was gone. The elderly lady sitting next to her overalled husband looked up from her baby blue crochet, smiled at me and patted the seat next to her. We talked.

I love airplanes, too. They are one of my favorite property-things; even though they are not substantial, they almost seem to have an essence of their own. I sat in row 5, counting the individual rocks on the pavement outside. The engines came to life beneath me, and I caught their excitement, drawn into their passion, impatient to fly. It occurred to me that airplanes are rather like people, with the coach area being the belly, the passions. But it was alright, because we the passions were controlled by reason in the pilot. I was happily trying to finish up my comparison and remember the third part, when the pilot’s voice came over the system. "Welcome to our flight to…" he cut off for a minute, and I was about to decide it was a glitch in the sound, when his voice returned… "Memphis." I laughed at my metaphor.

Just west of Memphis there are strange squiggly lines on the ground that reminded me of Dr. V.; I wondered if they had anything to do with communications from outer space.

I saw a thunderstorm from the air: a flashing silver thread of electrical energy, a rainbow underneath me. "Oh, let me dance on rainbows..."

And I read Chesterton, on the magic of repetition in nature; the marvel of the beauty and humor of the cosmos; the smallness and greatness of man. I looked out the window and saw he was right.

To my Friends in VA, and Otherwise

To any friend(s) I may happen to possess in the VA (no, not Veteran's Administration) area:

WHEREFORE, The First Dragon Wedding (DWI) is taking place upon the 4th day of this month of August (an excellent day for marriage, if I may be allowed to recommend it as the daughter of my parents who were married on that excellent day), and

WHEREFORE, I wish to attend said wedding, and furthermore

WHEREFORE, I am on the support-raising trail,

LET IT BE KNOWN THAT

I, H. Rebekah C., will be visible in the VA area from the seventh (7th) to the thirteenth (13th) of this month, and desirous of seeing you. If the feeling is mutual, let me know and we'll get together.

Otherwise:

we are all here (albeit briefly). This is not a statement about the mental state of my multiple personalities (all schizophrenic), or royal Self with a hamster in the pocket. Nor is it a statement about the mental state of my family. But he is making jokes, and I am laughing at them (and stealing an old one).

And the happiest of birthdays to the youngest of the tribe, who entered the perilous year between 11-12 today. May God have mercy.

"Let Right Be Done"

“Very easy to do justice. Very hard to do right,” says Sir Robert Morton in “The Winslow Boy.” But is that right?

Justice, from jus, juris: law. Portia, in Merchant of Venice, reminds us of the shortcomings of justice in praising mercy:

“It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.”

Justice is not enough. In the case of the Winslow Boy (an excellent movie based on a play, which is presumably also excellent), justice would have been following the technicalities of law, which would have resulted in doing wrong. This was partly because human justice is imperfect. But even pure “justice” which knows all the facts does not go far enough. It leaves us all condemned; unless we go beyond the justice of the law to the justice of grace. “Whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Justice is, in a sense, very easy. It is written where we may all see, declaring all of us guilty.

Except that Someone took upon Himself the harder course of “right,” and made it just. Or rather, made us just, even though we were guilty. That is the righteousness apart from the law, in which we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, “that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus…therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law (emphasis added).”

It’s also easier to accept justice than right (or grace). If we were justified by law, we would all know that we got what we deserved. Under grace, we know we don’t deserve what we get; we deserve nothing, and are not capable of justifying ourselves. This is the stumbling-block simplicity of Christianity: there is nothing we can do for ourselves, for we are justified only by grace through faith.

This is what makes the chapter before Javert’s suicide in Les Miserables so powerful: he is an exact picture of someone who is so riveted on justice that he cannot accept grace. When the law condemns him, he refuses to acknowledge that there is a higher law which will save him, the law of right, and so he condemns himself.

And this is ultimately the problem with an idea of salvation based on works: it’s setting ourselves up as God, the arbiters of a different standard than the one He set. But it is easy to produce our own rules, by which we can condemn others and save ourselves, and much harder to admit that we are nothing, that we can do nothing, that we deserve nothing but punishment. That we need a God who will make us just because He is righteous.

“If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

“Grace, grace, God’s grace:
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace:
Grace that is greater than all our sin."

Mi Amiga

She wears red fingernail polish and hot pink lipstick, gold rings on her fingers (and possibly bells on her toes); but she is not gaudy, only vibrantly alive. Her red brick cottage overflows with radiant flowers; the fuschia bougainvillea which came with her from Mexico is most like her, and I think it’s secretly her favorite.

[we interrupt this blog post for a moment of poetry:

"Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip,
Its soft meandering Spanish name.
What a name! Was it love, or praise?
Speech half asleep, or song half-awake?
I must learn Spanish one of these days,
If only for that slow, sweet name’s sake."]

She has a lovely lilting Spanish name and a lovely lilting Spanish accent to go with it; sometimes I catch myself listening to her voice instead of what she is saying. She tells me about growing up in Guadalajara, heaven on earth, the city of fountains and roses; not too many people, like in OKC, or too few, like the gasping little town she’s in now, but perfect. Her family was well-off, but her father insisted she learn to sew, and go to cooking school. "Why?" she asked. "The maid can do that." "Yes," her father answered, "but you will need to know how to do these things if you marry a poor man, and how to order it done if you marry a rich man."

She married a poor man from here when she was 18, because all her friends were getting married and she didn’t want to be an old maid. "Tell me you aren’t even thinking about getting married yet, hahnee," she turns to me seriously. "You have plenty of time."

["Roses, if I live and do well,
I may bring her one of these days
To fix you fast with as fine a spell,
Fit you each with his Spanish phrase…"

We interrupt this poetry with your regularly scheduled post. Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to interrupt?]

When she crossed the border, the patrolman asked her why she had picked the worst state in the union to live in. "Don’t you know there are wild Indians there? They’ll shoot you with their bows’n’arrows and scalp you." "Is that true?" she whispered to her new brother-in-law.

["But do not detain me now,
For she lingers
There, like sunshine over the ground..."]

It was November when she came, and there was snow on the ground. The only shoes she had were sandals. She cried in her pillow every night.

["Is there no method to tell her in Spanish
June's twice June since she breathed it with me?"]

She worries that she’ll be cranky when she gets old (she’s only 70 now), because she’s always liked to be independent. But I know she’s sweet. She can’t go back to Mexico now, because she takes care of her ex-husband. He’s at their son’s for a couple of weeks so she can go to the doctor, and the cat she bought him tries to sleep in her bed, but she won’t let it. She doesn’t want it getting attached to her, so he can feel like it’s his very own. She speaks well of her daughter-in-law, and buys a chocolate malt for her dentist.

["Roses, you are not so fair after all."
~Robert Browning, from "The Flower's Name"]

conversation of the day

[after a discussion of the differences between Jehovah's Witnesses and evangelical Christians, part of which included their changes to the Bible]

Anon: I read my Bible, 'cause that's what I grew up with.

Me: Oh, yes? What kind of Bible do you have?

Anon: A Holy Bible.

Life in the Zoo

The little girl who had a little curl is sleeping with plastic bags around her bed. The reason: our house has become the domicile of undomesticated beasts. It happened while I was gone…

The house was silent; the inhabitants resting peacefully. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of baseball bats danced in their heads. And then they heard something which sounded like a woman screaming. It was. My mother, to be exact, who had been rudely awakened by the clattering of a tea cup — landing beside her. From the shelf over her head. Knocked off by a four-foot snake. In the ensuing battle there was unfortunately no carnage; the snake slipped through their fingers (metaphorically speaking—dad was actually using a broom handle and a baseball bat). And somehow the cover on the electrical outlet got busted.

It was enough to make my sister set up a guard across her door and around her bed. Unfortunately, I stepped on it two nights ago, and almost got shot. I would hate to be the snake if he meets up with a shriek like hers…

The coon in the back yard decided to take the opportunity to create a little havoc himself. And the scorpions thought the next day would be a good time to clean up in our bathtub. And then there are all the Yahoos...no. My brothers and sisters may be what they are, but they have not reached the point of Yahoo-ness. Wahoos, perhaps, but not Yahoos.

I voted yesterday in the Republican primary. But first I had to change into my red-and-white striped shirt, so I would coordinate when they gave me the "I voted" sticker with the American flag. I filled out all the lines very neatly straight across, coloring them in to the edges so that they were even, instead of leaving two half-arrows with a too-thin line between. When I was finished, I confessed to my mother what I had done (both about the arrows and about changing clothes) and found out she had done both of those things too. Then we went to the photography studio and straightened pictures in the waiting area.

I was amused when I read on the ballot that if you couldn’t write you should put your mark here. Theoretically, I suppose, you could read and not write, but the two usually go together. When I am dictatrix del mondo (yes, I know I’m mixing my languages, but I can do that when I’m in charge) I think I shall establish some basic requirements for voting, which include literacy. I shall also require voters to pass a proficiency test in history, and a mental competence test, which will consist of the following question: "do you intend to vote for Empress Hannah I?" A negative answer would, of course, prove that the individual was not responsible enough to have a vote.

We slept outside last night, although curl-girl wasn’t sure at first, with all those wild rabbits running around. We told her we’d let the snakes take care of them. And then she was the one pretending to be a snake crawling on me--can you imagine?

The snake spake unto the woman with a voice which strangely resembled that of the middle Backseat Boy.

The Caboose and I have different ideas of camping, incidentally. I wanted to sleep outside without the tent. He wanted to sleep inside with the tent. Sometimes I wonder.

We argued over whether lights were stars or airplanes, or falling airplanes or stars which had just taken off. We talked about snake repellent and falling tsars (not a typo), pretended to be cowboys camping on the Chisolm Trail who were about to be massacred, and (for the comfort of some) pretended to be inside the house pretending to be outside.

I recited The Highwayman with almost all the melodrama in my power. And when I was finished, the first sound was the Caboose: "I don’t get it." sigh. So I tried to explain it in as terribly boring prose as possible. I fell asleep to L telling Dr. Pepper stories…

Money, Money, Money

TEFL certification/visa/plane ticket to Bologna: $2,000 (well, okay, so I'm rounding and don't have the exact figures, but it's something like that).

Living in Italy: $3,000 (per month)

Obeying God's call to share His love with the Italians: priceless.

Yes, I have passed the grueling trial and have been appointed a missionary. Now I get to begin the really grueling part: raising support. If only I would get a letter in the mail saying that someone was supporting me for my whole amount without me even having to tell them about it. That would be so much easier. But no. I have to ask.

Why is this so hard for me? I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with my Tocquevillian independent-American-young-woman streak, that wants to be self-reliant and never need nothin' from nobody. And work ethic is a good thing. But the pride that never wants to ask for help is definitely not good--it's what makes me try to be good enough to please God. I can't live as a Christian by myself--I have to ask for God's mercy and grace not only for salvation, but for everyday life. Neither can I go serve Him by myself. I need His strength, and I need the support of others in the church, even (gulp) financial support.

It helps to think of it as asking others to give to the Lord, and me trusting Him for it, but I'm still the one who has to take the initiative. And it helps a lot more when I think of It--I am very ready to love It, but I have to get there first. Lots of people are probably still wondering why there? But besides the obvious cultural draws (Ferraris, you know), Italy really needs Jesus. Less than 1% of the population are evangelical Christians. Most of them are trying to work their way to heaven, and don't know about God's wonderful grace. Please pray that my heart will be broken over their lostness as His is. And pray that I will have the silly little courage to ask people for support.

And if I possibly happen to ask you--please know that it's ok to say no and don't go hide around a corner when you see me coming. I'll love you anyway.

"Italy, we're gonna love you forever..."

no longer a "missionary-to-be..."

Avant Ministries

by authority of the International Board of Directors, and upon the recommendation of the Candidate Committee and successful completion of Candidate Orientation, hereby appoints

me

to missionary service.

In testimony wherof, they have affixed the Seal of Avant Ministries and signed by their hand this Twenty-Second day of July, in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Six.

Happy Birthday!

to someone who doesn't share Miranda's worry, but requires the same answer (and it's an excuse for me to post Ogden Nash, which I never refuse).


To a Lady Who Thinks She is Thirty
Ogden Nash

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?

H's Feet on High Places

Like the top of the stairs.

"I went to Kansas City on a Sunday
By Monday I learned a thing or two
But up 'till then I didn't have an idea
Of what the mod'rn world was comin' to...

Everything's up to date in Kansas City
They gone about as fer as they can go
They went an' built a skyscraper seven stories high
About as high as a buildin' orta grow.
Everything's like a dream in Kansas City
It's better than a magic lantern show...

They've gone about as fer as they can go.
They've gone about as fer as they can go!"

~from Oklahoma! (slightly modified)


Yessir, that's right. Here I sit, in that very up-to-date city, properly having visited KC, since I've eaten BBQ twice. And yes, it was KC style BBQ that made me do a double take, it was so sweet. But that hasn't been the sweetest thing in this half-week...

Where do I begin
To tell the story of how great a love can be?
The sweet love story that is older than the sea
The simple truth about the love He brings to me
Where do I start?

~From Love Story (also slightly modified)

Yes, I'm at Candidate Orientation, and yes, it's amazing. I keep meeting people who know people I know. And all of them know my Father, because He's their Father, too! These people are thoroughly passionate about God, and committed to the concept that if we believe Christianity is real, it's going to affect the way we think and talk and plan and live!

So far, we're studying cultural differences, and interpersonal communications, and writing prayer letters. I'm realizing how many things I take for granted that are really only part of our culture, and aren't exactly normal in a different culture, and how helplessly American I am. For example, one question we had was: what irritates you most? My answers really reflected American values: "lack of honest communication, laziness." In other places, politeness is often more important than honesty, and people might not be so open to telling you everything about themselves. And what I see as laziness, a lot of other cultures would just see as being relaxed and enjoying life. So, I'll have some growing to do. We also talked about some of the things we will miss, and a lot of those make me think too: independence, the ability to be smart (how stupid am I going to look trying to speak Italian?!), being in a position of importance.

But I'm going to Italy!!!! This is starting to hit me. People who have been there keep telling me how much I am going to love It (coffee! chocolate! art! music! history!) and how much It is going to love me (warm, smiling people; as opposed to Germans and Czechs, who don't like smiling or making eye contact). They're making plans for getting my visa (pray about that please; it can be hit-or-miss)! I'm going to Italy!!! And they won the World Cup. Viva Italia (or something to that effect)!

God's grace is amazing.