The question

The same question came back to me, in an unexpected place this time, like usual. It was a girl—not older than seven—who climbed onto the bus with her mother and another woman dressed in bright loose florals that stood out against the tight bristling black Italian leather, chatting in a language that sounded strange even in this strange country. The girl sat across from me, and I smiled at her over my book. She didn’t smile back.

What if I had been her? What was it like to have straniera stamped plainly in your brown doe-eyes and dark straight hair, to already know your place—your place as a foreigner in a country that would look down on you as rubbish come to steal their wealth; your place in a home where even little women were seen and not heard. Would I have resigned myself to my fate? Would I have even known that the rest of the world might resent it, might have something different? Would I have searched for a loving God?

I dropped my eyes back to my book, sinking into a place farther from here than even my home is, culturally if not geographically. But I could feel the eyes on my face, and I wondered what she was wondering.

Binario 2 in fog

Standing here
Upon the precipice of time
Between the end and the beginning.

Do not cross the yellow line.

It is perilous, terrible with
Fireanddangerandsword.

The fog surrounding isolates me,
Life-fog icing over as it parts
From the human body;
Smoke clouding from a million mouths obscures their flickering flames—
The only lights I see are red.
And I am distant from you,

Distinct

Apart

Standing here, next to me,
Beginning on the end,
Waiting for the whistle which will bring us back to life.

Taxi!

Apt. 2 & 3

apartment (1)

"This is what is laughingly known as my apartment..." It's been painted since--a buttery-ish slightly warmer color, and is lacking the ladder as decor. The blue on the couch is really a sheet--much cheaper and much more to my taste than all the real couch covers I looked at. The things on the shelf are my tazzini (little coffee cups for espresso) and tea candles, for when I am feeling candle-y.

No Guilt in Life, No Fear in Life either

Guilt and fear. They circle around, twin sharks ready to devour the Nobody little minnow that is me. And I panic and shut my eyes and put my hands over my ears and try to bury my head in the sand. Only there isn’t any sand.

Why do I allow myself to be so easily frightened by these things, even when I am swimming in oceans of love and grace and mercy and protection and blessing? (Okay, Hannah, metaphor’s getting a little thin now. Better stop before it gets all watered down.) Haven’t I learned to trust Him? Won’t I ever learn?

I look at God’s blessings, and say, he can’t love me like that. I know, because I know I don’t deserve to be loved like that. I have been focused on me, and I should have served Him better, and I should have trusted Him more, and I’m not a perfect Christian and I didn’t…

Or I look at the future, and say, I don’t know what I’m going to do, and I don’t know how I can handle this, and what if I mess this up, and I’m sure I’m going to suffer someday and I don’t if I can take it, and I don’t want to love this person because loving people hurts and what if…

Now some of this comes from personality. I am a wee bit of a perfectionist, and it’s easy for me to kick myself over lack of perfection in the past and to be petrified by fear of imperfection in the future. These are gaping holes in my armor that are just the right size for maybe not sharks, but arrows—and flaming arrows at that.

But youknowwhatyouknowwhat? I’m looking at the wrong person and the wrong time. When I am besieged by guilt, I’m looking at the past, and all I’m seeing is Me. Is God big enough to cover my sins and my mistakes? Well, Yes. When something paranizes me with fear, I’m looking at the future, and all I see is Me. But is God in control, and big enough to cover the sins and mistakes I will make then, too? Well...Yes.

Here I would quote The Screwtape Letters, except for the difficulties of finding the right passage and trying to quote it in a way to get across what Lewis is saying through Screwtape’s messed-up mouth. Besides the embarrassment of placing his brilliant and clear writing in too-close contrast to my own.

Instead, therefore, I shall attempt to summarize a new point I gleaned from them this time around.

God wants us to be focusing on only two times: Eternity, and the Present. Or perhaps it would be better to say, the Present in an Eternal perspective. He wants me to look at time the way He sees it, so that when I look back, I see a cross that proves His love and forgiveness. And when I look forward, I see the One with scars in His hands welcoming me home. The past is not there to haunt me; it is covered. Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead! The future is not there to hunt me; it is covered. What is what-if to you? You follow me!

The gratitude for the past, the promise of the future, drive me to live in the now. As I stoop to pick up the shield labeled, “Faith,” I see that He is here- right now- with me. And the burden is light.

Look what you've done!

"There is some one you ought to meet:
It's me, Mister Incomplete.
Look
At
What I've become.

For it's due to the lack of you
That I'm now only half of two,
Look
Back,
Finish what you've begun..."

~Bread, "Look What You've Done"

fine print: This post does not necessarily reflect the views of this or any other blogger. Meaning not included. Void where prohibited.

Thought

There is a vast difference between contentment and resignation. It's easy to mistake one for the other--to happily say to oneself, "I am not being constantly jealous or fretting: I must be content!" But resignation can simply be complacency-- not thinking or caring enough to care, passive. Contentment is a constant struggle, actively facing the desire and submitting it to God. It requires picking up the shield of faith over, and over, and over again. It is not a state of mind to be achieved, but a state of being to be sought. Contentment is a willingness to bear the present burden, leaving the future in God's hands.

"What is [fill in the blank] to you? You follow me."

"O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
My eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with its mother,
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth and forevermore."

my new friend

Naomi!

Licking the coffee-flavored condensation from the top of my cup, showing her humanness, and trying on my sunglasses upside down.

For anyone who wants to see a real tornado...

Last night at home

They always have all the fun when I'm not there. My mom said they had no idea there was anything there, until the neighbor called and said there were stormwatchers in front of their house. She went outside and saw a news helicopter, and told my dad. He turned on the news and could see footage being taken from the helicopter showing funnel clouds. There were actually two, and they did actually touch down, but only briefly. No injuries or property damage reported. The highway in this clip runs one mile north of our house, and the hills seen in the background are five miles from my home, so this was about two miles away. Don't you want to live there?

Greetings, earthlings!

From PA. It is beautiful, but it makes me homesick for VA and you people there and makes me remember being homesick for Oklahoma when I was in VA.

I am here in order to be trained in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and receive certification in preparation for going to Italy. Doing the training at Youth With a Mission, so it is learning how to teach from a biblical perspective for the purpose of sharing the gospel. We only had a brief introductory class today, but I think it will be a wonderful stretching class and very interesting as we learn about linguistics and cultural differences. Our professor is from Australia, so I love her accent (although when I met her I thought she said her name was "Ma-Lene"--it's Marlene). I'm also enjoying the people I'm taking the class with--there are 12 of us, and I am enjoying the challenge to grow and fellowship and fun of an intense time like this. As a matter of fact, I just came from an impromptu worship time with a few of the others and a couple of guitars. Nothing like praising God together.It's also fun hearing about the different cultures people are from--a lot of them are missionaries who have already been on the field, so although I'm a little intimidated, I'm trying to make use of them.

It's also surprising how nice it feels to be back in "school"! To do reading and go outside, and take breaks. Wow. I never thought it would sound this good again so soon.

I had a growing-closer-time yesterday (and also a things-are-not-important time) after I arrived here on two hours of sleep (plane left the city at 6, be there an hour early, 2 hour drive, you do the math) and being rather loopy (ok, a lot loopy. Loopier than usual. We can say I sounded a few tacos short of a fiesta platter. One french fry short of a Happy Meal. I wasn't firing on all cylinders). Anyway, I arrived after a 45-minute layover in Chicago O'Hare and found that my luggage was missing. It was off having adventures without me. This had never occurred to me as a possibility. I was thankful I had decided to leave Theodore Edward at home where nothing could happen to him. (Theodore Edward also being known as Teddy, for anyone who is not acquainted with him. He has served in the position of Teddy for 21 years now, and without him I would be lost. Or maybe he would be lost, but you know what I mean.)

So I kept calling all afternoon and the automated voice kept saying "your luggage has not yet been located. We are sorry for the inconvenience," in a computer voice properly modulated to create a soothing effect. Eventually I accepted the loans of everyone's just-about-everything and a ride to Walmart to pick up a few other things. When I was walking out the door after running around the store wondering what I could not do without and buying things that I probably could, my phone rang and it was Him. The man with my lost suitcase which had been found. "What side of Lebanon are you on?" he asked. "I have no idea," I answered. "Well," he said, "are you on the north side, or the east side, or the south side, or the west side?" "I really don't know," I said. "I'm not from around here." "Well you don't have to tell me where exactly you're at," he replied. "My GPS can do that. Just tell me what side of town you are on." "Really, I would if I could," I responded, almost panicking. "But I'm not from here and I'm not with anyone from here. Can you call me back in about half an hour?" Then I got a brilliant idea. "Wait!" I cried. "I am at Walmart! Surely someone at Walmart knows where it is!" So I ran inside and to the customer service counter. "Excuse me," I asked a woman standing in line, "but can you tell me where in Lebanon we are?" "East." she said. "Or maybe west." Fortunately someone else knew better. So I returned my purchases of five minutes before. Then I realized it might be awhile before my suitcase arrived. Oh well.

I stayed up waiting for it. And staying up waiting for something when you're on 2 hours of sleep is lots of fun. But the man who delivered it has a son who is a missionary. And it got here by 10 o'clock.

Then I took a shower--down the stairs and down the hall without turning on any lights. I probably could have turned on lights. And I probably should have. But after a few heart-stopping moments I was able to feel my way back to my room. And then couldn't sleep.


C.S. (Coming Soon) Pictures of the Grand Canyon trip. And maybe pics from PA before too long. You didn't know I had a camera, did you? =)

Congraduations

Dear Graduates (and anyone else listening in),

Congratulations! We rejoice with you on this milestone in your lives. We know your parents are proud of you, and glad to see you growing into responsible adults.

If you are anything like I was a few years ago, you probably have lots of emotion surrounding this time. You are filled with excitement and anticipation of what is going to happen next, but perhaps a momentary sadness for the child you remember being, a child with dreams and plans and things that seemed so important at the time, although they have been forgotten long ago. And you stand face to face with the only constant in this polynomial of life: change.

For most of you, change will take the form of college. Many people will tell you to enjoy these four years, because they will be the best years of your life. To me, that sounds like an awfully early highlight, so instead I say, enjoy them, because they are now.

College is an amazing privilege. And it, like most of the rest of life, is what you make of it. If you are really desiring to learn and grow, you will be able to, even if what you are learning is not what you expected. And you can learn these things if you're not going to college, too.

You might learn that there are people in the world who are smarter and more talented and nicer than you. It's a hard lesson, but blessed are you if you learn it early. It will make the rest of life a lot simpler.

You might learn that you don't know as much as you think you know. The more education you have, the more you will become aware of your own ignorance, and the fact that you could spend the rest of your life studying important people and ideas and never know enough. This may be depressing, but it is useful, and can provide incentive for a habit of learning. "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire," said W.B. Yeats. Memorizing and regurgitating information for tests is not education. Thinking is education. Arguing sometimes is. Asking stupid questions is a big part.

You might learn that the people you think know things aren't always right. You will hopefully be challenged to think for yourself, and even if you're not, do it anyway. Ask yourself if what you are being told lines up with what you can see of truth.

Truth is not relative. But our understanding of it is, and that goes for your professors too. Unless they claim to have divine revelation (and if anyone does, he might have some problems), professors are making assumptions and looking at information based on their primary beliefs (see Kant's theory of knowledge-- and if you understand it, please explain it to me). Some of these primary beliefs may be skewed, thus skewing their interpretation of the evidence before their eyes.

You might learn that knowledge isn't all it's cracked up to be. "Thinking themselves wise, they became fools." Some of the most brilliant men alive have narrowed themselves because they will only believe something if it is observable and repeatable. Materialism limits thinking. As G. K. Chesterton wrote, "Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it."

A pursuit of knowledge as the highest good can lead to confused and disorienting circles. J. Budziszewski wrote of his thoughts when he was a nihilist, "I concluded that reality itself was incoherent, and that I was pretty clever to have figured this out—even more so, because in an incoherent world, figuring didn’t make sense either.” Knowledge for it's own sake is futile. It must be in pursuit of something-- or maybe Someone-- else. Knowledge can never explain the "why?" of life.

So don't take anyone's word for it (including mine). Have the courage to find out for yourself.
Happy Graduation to you all! But even more so, Happy Beginning.

what is spring? part 1

"The dogwood blossom," she said, "is a reminder of the cross, with dark brown and red stains, which are the blood of Jesus."

Why I'm not writing about my mother

Trying to write about my mother is hard. Very hard. It's too close, too immense, too real. My palette of words dries up. It's like trying to capture the splendor of the Grand Canyon standing down inside it, when all you can squeeze in are some rocks and maybe a wildflower or two. Yes, they make up part of it; but the parts are not equal to the whole.

Or maybe it's like trying to take a snapshot of a prairie sunrise, when the world is clean and the sky is big and the sun is soaking up shadows with a whole day's worth of light and the clouds are colors we can never come up with names to describe that look like glimpses into heaven. You hear the "click," and wait anxiously to see the results, sure that this will win some kind of photography award, and when you see it, you say "That is not it at all. That is not what it meant at all."

I could give you reasons I love my mother. But they might sound like bragging. And what child doesn't think her mother is the prettiest, smartest, nicest, and generally best? I can't help it that mine really is.

I think what it comes down to is, as a character said in a book my mother would know, "Mainly, I love you for existing." I love her because she is the mostest, realest, bestest her there could be. She has done many things deserving of love, but being is the real reason I love her.

Maybe I can write about mothers in general. I think their importance and influence has been understood much better at some points in history than it is now. There was a time when people said that "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."

But I think people are afraid to say that now. Little girls have much more freedom to pursue careers and activities, and are encouraged to dream big. Freedom is wonderful-- I have always wanted to be a writer when I grow up, and love being able to chase that dream. But at the same time, I think a (perhaps unintentional) stigma is attached to being "just a mom." Being "just a mom" is big enough and real enough and enough to be a height to which any woman can fearfully aspire.

Women (and girls) are told that they shouldn't have to sacrifice their careers and their happiness for their children. But the essence of motherhood, just like the essence of any love, is sacrifice.

I have been very blessed through the pictures of motherhood that I have seen growing up. Not just in my own mother, although she is the one I know the most through experience. I also have a wonderful picture in my grandmother, and in other mothers I have observed, who I can appreciate even more now that some of my friends are mothers.

But I believe some of the most important people that we will never know about are the mothers who shaped the way their children thought, and instilled in them thoughts that mattered. And their children listened because they had seen their mothers living what they believed through their love and sacrifice.

As I grew older, I came to understand that my mother didn't wash all those dishes and laundry and cook meals and get up in the middle of the night when we couldn't sleep just because she loved doing those things so much. Nor was it because she was forced to by some law of nature that I took for granted, which made her be there whenever I needed her. But she loved us, and so she did those things even if she didn't like them.

This Mother's Day, let's each remember the first influence on our lives, who may be someone other than a birth mother, but who lived that position by choice. And let us tell them "thank you," and "I love you," even if that will never come close to expressing what we really want to say.

There is a lot more I could say if I were writing about my mother. But I'm not, so I can only say that I still want to be just like her when I grow up.

Don't talk to me....until I've had my coffee

I admit it: I have a drinking problem. I imbibe far more of the brew known commonly as "joe," "liquid sleep," or "coffee" than I probably should.

Both my parents drink coffee. I remember at a young age carrying my dad's cup to him and being rewarded with a sip. So began a life-long love affair.

My dad told me I couldn't drink coffee, because it would stunt my growth. I stayed away from it until I was about 16 on that principle, and then decided I wasn't going to grow much more anyway. Of course, it could be true: if I had consumed coffee before I was 12 I might not have reached my full five feet and two inches.

I was not really supposed to drink coffee until I was 18. The problem with this was that I started working at the donut shop when I was 15-- early mornings, the smell of donuts, and as much coffee as I could drink. All this added up to an unofficial cup every once in awhile.
But my dad had told me I didn't really like the coffee, just the cream and sugar in it. So when I did start drinking, I took it straight black, since I am a good-natured person who would never try to prove something... or not.

My coffee problem only grew when I went to college. The biggest problem with it was that the dining hall coffee was almost undrinkable. You know how the south had to use substitutes during the Civil War? Well, I think some places in Virginia never went back to the real stuff. This "coffee" had the deep, rich vibrancy of tar. But, as one of my classmates pointed out, the coffee improved with desperation.

If a person added a packet of hot cocoa mix and 3-6 flavored creamers, and then held her breath and gulped, it would go down and keep her awake. And if she didn't have time for a cup of...that, a serving of chocolate-covered espresso beans was also very effective. How big is a serving, anyway?

I had a roommate who was rather sensitive on the issue of coffee. I'm not sure why, but she decided to make it her mission in life to rid the earth of it. She (fruitlessly) spent four years of her life trying to save me from the vile black brew. Her ceremonial speech in rhetoric blamed it for the evils that plague mankind, and used me as an example of what it can do to a person.
Of course, I spent four years (of which I have not yet seen fruit) trying to convince her that coffee was really wonderful, and she really didn't want me to stop drinking it.

I did try to give it up recently. I had decided it was not good for me to be dependent on any material or liquid thing for happiness. And I had noticed that I have these funny things called mood swings that I have to be careful about displaying around the general public so they don't get worried. I also have to be careful about displaying them around my family, because they don't get worried, whatever else they may get.

Anyway, I had been cutting back on the amount of coffee I consumed, and decided I could go without it for a whole day, and I did.

But I took up coffee drinking again the next day, by popular demand of those who had to be around me.

I have often wondered who was the first person to look at a coffee bean and say, "I think I'll grind that up and boil it and drink whatever comes out." Someone told me recently it was a priest who noticed that a flock of goats were friskier after chewing the berry and decided it might help him to stay alert for worship. That sounds like a good idea.

I think I heard somewhere that drinking coffee can help prevent diabetes. That has the ring of truth to it, if you ask me. I know it is America's top source of antioxidants (isn't it?), which are something that everyone needs, although I'm not entirely sure what they do. Chocolate, I hear, also has antioxidants in it. What a coincidence that they go so well together!

Who said that we should practice "moderation in everything?" Maybe it was me. But even if it wasn't, I think it's a good idea, whether it's drinking coffee or working or sleeping. Balance is something I should continue to seek.

And in the meantime, maybe I'll put on another pot.

We Know We Belong to the Land

We celebrated my grandfather's birthday this past week. I'm not going to say how old he is, but I will say that he remembers walking over fences on dirt blown up as high as the posts. That's a lot of years and a lot of stories.

I like sitting around (with a cup of coffee, of course) listening to people remember an earlier time. I know compared to some places our area hasn't changed drastically from 80 or 100 years ago, but there are still a lot of things we young stupid people don't know about the way things used to work.

This really struck me last year when I started to try to write some historical fiction based on the life of my great-grandmother, who came to Oklahoma Territory to teach school. Sounds easy enough, right? After all, it was only three generations back, and I knew a little bit of family history.

As I got into it, though, I realized how woefully ignorant I am of the details of everyday life a hundred years ago, not to mention the details of my family's history. And some things are beyond the reach of even Google.

I came to understand what a thoroughly modern mindset I have when I sent my heroine--my great-grandmother-- out across the plains in a wagon looking for someone's house. I was a little concerned about her safety, but thought I was forgetting something--then I realized I had been feeling in the back of my mind that she could take a cell phone with her. You can all laugh at my stupidity now. What did people do before cell phones, anyway?

In our modern and mobile society, we don't always know a lot about our roots, or even feel like we have any. People transition from New York to California to Texas, and end up accentless and heritageless, not really sure where they are "from." Which is too bad, because a people who don't know where they came from more easily forget where they are going, or why they are here.

The story of the Trojan War is one of the greatest legends around, immortalized by Homer in the Illiad and the Odyssey. Did you ever think about what kept those men fighting for 10 years? One of my professors suggested that Troy was possible because of Ithaca (Odysseus' home). These men fought away from home for 10 long and difficult years because they had a home they came from that they wanted to protect.

Why did the American colonists, who were so proud to be British citizens, rebel? Why did Robert E. Lee resign from the United States Army to fight against it? Why could the men of World Wars I and II keep fighting in those horrible bloody trenches?

Because a man's first loyalty is to the ground on which he and his fathers were born.

Some of my foreign (California or Pennsylvania) friends used to laugh at the way I would brighten up at an "Oklahoma" license plate or flag or tell them what our state meal was (yes, we have a state meal) or belt out our state song during my exile in Virginia.

They could never see what made me homesick in pictures of what looked to them like a flat barren land. They could never understand why I cried for red dirt and open plains. They could never see the romance and excitement in the loneliness, or in a 1950 Dodge wheat truck that smelled like grease and dirt.

Because that is my heritage, and not theirs.

Most of my generation doesn't know their past. They can know facts and figures about it, but that does not compare with knowing the people who fought to make it, and the land that was a part of them. I wonder if that's why we don't have the power to fight a drawn-out war-- we are not familiar with the reason.

So please, older generations, pass on your stories. We need them. Write them down, tell them to the babies on your knees.

Younger folks: ask questions and listen to the answers. Those in the past were real live people with real problems and worries and loves. Think about their answers. They might tell you more than about them--they might tell you about you.

Confident Waiting

From someone else, whose blog I hope you read more often than mine. If you don't always get a chance to read it, read this post. Whether you are waiting to graduate or waiting to be accepted or waiting for a job or waiting for a calling or waiting for a spouse or waiting for a weekend or waiting for you know not what or why, remember the One on whom you are ultimately waiting.

http://wittingshire.blogspot.com/2007/03/waiting-in-confidence.html

Happy Second First Day of Spring

Why has spring changed dates?

Happy First Day of Spring

My Irish Heritage

My father, he was Orange,1
And my mother, she was a Green.2


Notes:
1. Orange, a reddish-yellow color. Burnt orange (all orange should be burnt) is the color of the Longhorns, the mascot of the University of Texas.

2. Green, mother's maiden name.