giving notice

my dears, i am discontinuing the blog until further notice. i am increasingly convinced that it is unwise for me at this time to continue posting here until i can better distinguish what exactly i do and do not want to post. i would like to continue blogging, since it is the best way of staying in touch with many of you, but i am taking at least a brief break. meanwhile, you have my cell phone number, my email, and are probably friends with me on f-book.

the noise of beginnings is a hum

i have arrived safe and sound and i’m living in our house which will be soon be crazy with the noise of brownie baking, Danielle thinking no one hears her singing corny country music in the shower, Whitney’s made-up rock ballads of the 8 am hour, dishes clammering, doors slamming, the grass in the backyard growing over the volleyball court that is no more, small groups praying, and the oh-so-frequent yell of, ABBY! HELP ME?!?, as one of us realizes that she has nothing to wear.

but for now, all is humming. the fridge, the AC, and my bamboo plant Sam, which continues to flourish–hurrah!

and God provided me with a friend today. Even facebook can be used to good purpose in His plan. I already knew this friend (Julia G) from freshman year, and she studied abroad this past spring, too…. amazing, a friend who can identify with not being able to recognize the few people who are already on campus. i guess i just didn’t sort out the fact that there wouldn’t be very many people here yet. and that i know fewer people here than ever, which makes sense because a bunch of my friends have graduated. however. Cole Casper still recognized me, which, if he recognizes you, you definitely belong to this school somehow. and he even studied abroad our junior spring, too! if Cole Casper can re-adapt, so can I.

so i just wanted to say that God provides so well for me. because this morning i walked to campus and it seemed that each of my demons from my time at college rose up in front of me. like the dementors in Harry Potter or something. i don’t know why these things affect me so much more when i am here. aren’t you supposed to name the demons in order to get them to go away? well, there you are: Fatty, Sloppy, and Inconsequential. come and get those demons, Jesus.

You know what would be awesome for me to learn this senior year? learning to deal (again) with living my life and not someone else’s; learning (again) to thrive in what is sometimes a wilderness; learning (again) to be able to walk into a room as a single, not-necessarily-normal person and remind myself, Christ is sufficient for me. I don’t need your approval. I don’t need you to think that I am _________ (fill in the blank).

God provides me with a friend today, He will provide what I need tomorrow.

I feel like I am re-discovering old fashioned Christianity. All of those persons who have heard me say that I can’t stand Elisabeth Elliot may now laugh in my face. I just finished her book Quest for Love. It has lots of stories and letters which people wrote her following Passion and Purity. Read it and see for yourself how good it is. i think my dislike for her stemmed from the fact that my dad used to make us listen to her radio show during lunch growing up, and that made lunchtime be at 1 pm, which is definitely too late in the afternoon. so i resented her because i was hungry.

anyhow. what she writes about how good God is, is amazing. I want to worship the God that she is writing about…the God who is quite scary but also that much more Good–not the God I have altered to be a more friendly version. God does not withhold anything good from his children, and I had forgotten that. He knows much better what is good for me. Some Christians have encouraged me to think that because I desire marriage, God has meant me for marriage. I do not think He promises me that at all. He does not promise me life tomorrow, but He does promise me life eternal. He does not promise me a comfortable life, but He does give springs of comfort. I may live or die, soon. He promises me not certainty in what exactly His plan is ahead of time, but certainty in His goodness, certainty in a sovereign plan which means I do not live or die for nothing, but for His glory.

One of the stories was about a woman who prayed for a man who would love her second after God and put her second to the work that God had given him. I may be getting the stories all mixed together, but I believe they went on to become missionaries to China, and were martyred there. Do you have the boldness to pray for a love like that?

Many people have mentioned to me, in passing or by way of explanation, the idea of rediscovering one’s first Love. I still am not sure quite what this means, but I desire to know. Over the last 6-7 years, I have traveled far into the myth of romantic love, and let me tell you, it is a barren land. You will not find someone who will satisfy your loneliness, be your everything, complete you, always make you laugh… whatever those movies say. A marriage of a man and a woman reflects, and therefore is not identical with, the marriage of Christ and the Church. It manifests complement, and points to future completion.

I recently read this quote from a friend’s facebook profile:

“All joy…emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings.”
~C.S.Lewis

and, on a totally different note, speaking of Humming, read more here.

loving goodbye yet feeling it, too

i’m terribly happy to be in possession of one real live plane ticket.

but you’ve no idea how much i will miss the monday coffee’s with laura, the monday bible-studying with my dear katy and whoever showed up, the spanishing with nate and gib, the short but deep talks i’ve had with the women of this community, the four-month-old baby Sidster with the big smile, and the downtown where you can walk around and soak up the good (and slower) hustle and bustle of a southern city. but missing the city is kind of an afterthought. it’s mostly the people who draw me back to this place.

though the rivers and the leaves and the mountains and the bluegrass do somethin’ crazy on me.

and that coffee shop, the one where life’s problems seem to get better or worse depending on how sweet the tea is? i’ll miss that, too. today i went there and for the first time the barista asked me, now what’s your name again? that felt so good.

it’s been the most unpredictable summer. i thought i would hate it, but saying goodbye leaves a lump in my throat. that, my friends, if you have followed my summer, is an Ebenezer.

so long, verano!

straw and independence

i am staring at the last and final straw. there is no space to breathe in this house. how i wish i had refined the technique of drawing things inward, of going to that place inside where you can somehow breathe. i suppose some people call it going to your happy place. sounds corny. right now, it just sounds a lot more peaceful than the claustrophobia of family.

i am sharing a room again, my sisters are jumping rope with my every last nerve, and even my mom lost it. (it’s times like these that make me feel like it’s better for the family that i not be home, because then it’s one less logistical variable. i hate being a logistical variable.) meanwhile dad and i foolishly believed we could solve my transportation-to-school problems while we were both so tired that we were muttering zombies.

here’s an update: i have no car. i have no plane ticket. i do have a GRE ticket and plans to help freshmen and international students move in…plans which start on monday. God help me, please!

dad and i looked at some prospective cars today. one was a crown victoria ex-police car. i was unsure of whether i really wanted to drive that, but later in the day, i remembered why i want a car… and i never said it had to be a certain color or model. i drove a much uglier version of a crown vic in high school, and people thought it was endearing. they called it the hannahmobile, even. so what’s the problem? oh, i don’t know. one problem was that it creaked a bit, though the owner said it only does that when it rains. mostly it was that my mom pooh-poohed it when i got home. i knew she would, yet i’m not even sure why. sure, this family has had transportation and financial problems, but how many times have we thanked God for that stupid crown vic which has now become the newest modern art fixture in my lawn?

(we hippie-rednecks call such cars modern art, not lawn ornaments. we fervently believe that an ancient rusting car can be reborn into a beautiful trellis for a garden of wildflowers. and by wildflowers we mean weeds.)

i value my independence a lot now. i have goals i never thought i would have, like financial stability and independence. i never thought i was motivated by money… i thought people who were motivated by money were bad, or something. now i realize i am. i do not want to be in this state of living beyond one’s means. perhaps i just hate dependence and interdependence. God above is probably chuckling at how i believe i might truly be self-sufficient some day. God, help me to chuckle, too…

one good thing that has come out of the last days’ search for a transportation solution is that i have gotten to spend some time with my dad. it has been good. he tries, for my sake, to avoid certain subjects like Austrian economics, Georgia, and paper money. (fyi, i do think about those things, and i do care, at least about Georgia, but my dad tends to take the extreme downhill view of those things.) he still gives me detailed explanations of car parts, which i understand for about .2 seconds before they flee my brain. he did, accidentally, refer to me as his “son” when he was telling me about his insurance agent. As in, “just tell her you’re Bill’s son.” and we did go to J&S, where he made faces at babies.

i think i am coming around to a more tempered (balanced?) view of my parents, too, which proves interesting. it’s weird to think how like my dad i am in some ways. how there are things which are true about my dad, such as his sentimentalism/romanticism, which i value in myself and other people.

anyways. so back to the “last and final straw” thing. i am sitting in the laundry room to type this, sandwiched between the deep freeze and the washer/dryer, because there is nowhere else to be. i am in over my head. i think i can do so much…. see this person or that, arrange this or that, study quickly for the GRE (what a joke), drive this or that car 1,000 miles or so. i am anxious about this transition ahead of me. i must remember the good and deal with the bad sternly.

goodnight, dears. i’m off to find an empty couch and sleep.

the grrrrrrrrrre

oh man, so much to write about. i miss processing with my blogging friends! unfortunately, most of this still must wait.

the Olympics are addictive. i mean… it’s almost worth it to swim for 10 years just to be able to truly appreciate that inconceivable, incredible relay anchor by Jason Lezak. i even found a little animosity towards the “Frenchies” that I didn’t know i had. (they said they had come to Beijing to smash us. we didn’t say anything… just said it all, that’s all.) i have always loved the relay, and loved being the anchor. Jason, you have my permission to die happy now…

i’m back home now and… i think i’m going to start packing for school. that and buying a car and studying for the GRE (I like to call it the grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre) and a hundred other things. today church was so good, though i missed the first 20 minutes (and of course my family chooses this sunday to sit in the farthest front row, which faces sideways towards everyone else).

it stinks….i’m finally starting to really connect with people over 30, and now i’m leaving. i am glad i get to spend several months at one church soon. it’s too much to move and keep moving on this much, though i’m thankful for my parents’ church this summer.

some days i’m excited to test myself on the GRE, which is weird, but i’m a good test-taker and i have fun pitting myself against a standardized test; it can be kind of like a really hard game, a code to crack. other days i am not sure what the heck i am doing with my life, so why do i even think that grad school is a possibility? oh, this year will be one of sorting out. every year is, and i’m glad for that. i’m glad even for the tears that i’ve spent at this school, did you know that?

it has been a very long road to being able to love that school, and to treasure the time spent there. to treasure even the tears. this is one big fat Ebenezer for me, people.

i had a conversation with an awesome person today, someone who reminded me that no matter where you are in life and the background you come from, everyone has strengths and weaknesses…. which they bring to what God has for them in the church, and which they bring to relationships. it feels good to remember that. i think too often i identify myself as one big great ball of weaknesses, and i feel more comfortable using my weaknesses to relate to people, rather than my strengths. who am i to deny that God has equipped me with good gifts to serve him? now, just… what exactly are they? and how?

quick note

i’m coming back, no te preoccupes! i am keeping a list of things i want to write about. in the meantime, i must go take better care of myself.

chocolate with chocolate

do you ever find something so ordinary to be so very sad? today i bought my parents an anniversary cake, chocolate with chocolate of course, and a card. the card was the hard part. perhaps it’s the supermarket’s fault, but all the cards were either too tender or mushy or bizarre to me, in the context of my parents’ marriage. why don’t they have cards that say “we four sisters love you so much and here’s hoping that you two struggling wonderful people will have a marriage that only grows richer in love and more delightful to you both as time goes by”. but of course i would never send that card: though it isn’t passive aggressive, it might be interpreted that way.

i ended up buying one that was “humorous,” with two funny looking dogs on the front. the inside says, ‘it’s cute the way couples start to look alike after a while. happy anniversary.’ you know what? if i ever get married, i want anniversary cards to be painfully mushy. i don’t care how embarrassing they are. i just don’t want some humorous card about how the husband sits and watches tv, how the wife is a nagging shopaholic. that’s not funny to me. and yes, love is about the hard bits of life as well, but really? an anniversary is a time to celebrate the good stuff.

speaking of which, buying a card may be ordinary, but being married for 28 years is not, these days. so here’s to you, my struggling, loving, beaten-up parents. keep on truckin’.

In New York you can forget, forget how to sit still*

i’m going to New York! for the weekend. And I want to visit the Strand Bookstore! we shall see. I will think the trip a great success if we sisters are able to get along mostly and love each other and our uncle and if that happens, then heck, i don’t care what else happens. but we will go see two plays, i am excited and i shall dutifully report on them to you.

God keeps providing the people i need to talk to each day. Coral was the one today. i love her family, i love anna and those boys. i had dinner with them once, just me, and i just ate it up–the food and their familyness, their siblingness that’s so abrupt and peaceful at the same time.

one of the boys, nate, is going to work on a farm for two months, six days a week. i admire anyone who is that smart and can also handle and wants that hard work, good grief! i wonder if i could handle farm life? i pretend to be such a mountain girl, and in some ways i am one, but really i just like vegetables. especially fresh corn on the cob.

when i was small i wanted the life of a movie star or model. i mostly just wanted to be that kind of beautiful, that worshiped, i suppose. now i am so so grateful to live the life i am living right now…. hovering somewhere near middle class, living in the country, anonymity. mostly i’m just glad the street i live on is there and i can go walk on it and pick endangered flowers and look at the greenness and make up stupid songs and roll my eyes at the boys with their trucks that don’t impress me, no para nada!

basically cities like new york freak me out. i could live there for a small amount of time, perhaps a week… but where do relationships start and finish, and how do your shoulders ever relax when always surrounded by people and buildings and concrete and cars? i will love the visit, hate the stay.

*U2.

quite a day

woke up sad and couldn’t figure out why, almost wrecked the car, lost my breakfast into a nice lady’s kitchen sink, slept through the evening…having a bizarre dream about hippies which i told rachel about:

me: i had a dream about living with hippies

it was an awesome dream

Rachel:

WOW

me: more and more people just kept showing up

Rachel: i wanna hear more!

me: i was staying at this house

it had a lot of hammocks

and beds

and all these people lived there

even though i thought like three of them did

then all the others showed up

i don’t know

Rachel: i LOVE this dream already

me: it was just really happy

looking forward, i am going to miss Sydnie the 4 month old, as well as Jackson and Bettis (the dogs), i can’t wait to be a roommate with all six of my roommates (just thinking about Christi laughing and snorting some Sonic drink out her nose gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside), i am going to miss my family, i am scared of the transition, i will miss my disgusting dog and elusive cat, i am excited to hopefully have a car, i will miss my monday coffee dates like nobody’s business, i might die (but probably not) taking 5 literature courses at once, i can’t wait to be back at redeemer, back walking around my college campus, even though it will now be inhabited by a new creature: the freshman who looks like he’s 12 instead of 15, i can’t wait to at least once pollute my lungs with amy lane on our front porch, it’s going to be going to be going to be ok, i need to get a haircut, i can’t believe God provided me with a house-sitting job once i finally got over my griping about my family, i will miss this monday night bible study like CRAZY, by the way i finally can play the B-minor chord on the guitar!, God gave me some more money for school, i wish i could have a dog but i won’t because people say it’s irresponsible of a college student, i wonder who forgot my name while i was gone last semester, i hope seven roommates don’t make brownies all at once this semester, i hope bears don’t eat me while i’m house-sitting, i’m going to have a dinner party!, i can’t wait to give sydnie her new children’s book, i’m afraid of how much spanish i’ve forgotten, i want to go hiking before i leave, i hope we go camping with RUF this semester, i hope i hope i hope i hope!

: )

my grass is blue

so i just have to do another post today, because i had a lot of separated thoughts and i didn’t want these to run into the other ones i just posted.

first, what a great end to a weekend. i finished my paper, spent two long nights babysitting for the drunkenfest bele chere becomes after 5 on Friday and Saturday, went to church, and today spent a glorious hour and a half listening to some of the best bluegrass in the region: the steep canyon rangers. click HERE to listen. Especially note “Call the Captain,” and “Be Still Moses.”

I will admit, when I hear them on the radio or on CD, I just don’t get that excited. sometimes I even think it’s annoying. but LIVE? you can’t beat it. a band who doesn’t have a weak link… insane fiddle, mandolin, upright bass, banjo, and guitar. they all did solos and it was a sight and sound to behold.

it made me want to learn banjo so much. watching Graham Sharp play soft twinkling harmonics on that instrument was incredible. and they write their own songs…. sigh.

it was a nice finish off to the weekend to dance a funny little jig with Nathan while the sun burned us raw and the instruments were let loose to run.

do you ever have the sense that a really great musician isn’t doing the playing, isn’t manipulating it skillfully, but that he just lets that instrument come out and dance? it’s such a Plato-esque view of things, that the sculpture is in the block of marble, waiting to come out, and i disagree with its implications about humanity and especially what it does to women (makes them obsessed with bringing out the perfect form of their bodies)….. but as far as music goes, it’s a beautiful idea.

funny how i believe in both. that the musician frees the instrument to run wild but so much of how music sounds is in the soul of the musician, and the instrument lets him express it.

ANYWAYS.

one more thing bluegrass-related. at http://www.myspace.com/songsfromtheroadband you can listen to a jam band (thus the name “Songs From The Road Band”) that is composed of several local musicians (mostly from Brevard, NC) who hang out and play on the road.

the cool thing? this band combines members of the steep canyon rangers with members of my most favorite bluegrass band, The Biscuit Burners. Click on “A Mountain Apart,” “Off to the Sea,” (two songs which are also favorites of Amy Lane’s) “Don’t Leave Me Feeling Blue,” and “Harriet’s Flog.”

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some unrelated thoughts:

1. i think i am better off independent and free, but i’m not. when i have free time, i think i will do great things with it. that’s part of why i hate being tied down to a paper like i was. but then when i get that free time, i abuse it like crazy. perhaps all my readers are super disciplined. but i find that i do wasteful and wrong things with complete freedom.

i was super independent and free in Mexico, and i became very selfish. i went from lots of nourishment at Redeemer and RUF, the structure of school and RUF leadership, which pushed me to fellowship and service for others… to a totally self-centered existence. i don’t blame myself for being worried and feeling like i had to protect myself from people all the time. there were definitely people i needed to be careful around… like certain men on the bus. but when you ride the bus at least twice a day, that kind of ozone layer gets exhausting, and eventually you think you really do matter that much.

what i am saying is, my life revolved around me. i came back and, confronted by one of my friends, i started wondering about how to change. at first i thought i just needed to start thinking more about others and their needs, but now i am aware that i have a terrible heart-sickness. i am so tired of hurting people, but really i am so enamoured with myself i will love keeping on doing it. it’s scary to know that.
Jesus had a real good reason for laying down his life, for letting that sorrow and love flow mingled down on the cross: my extreme need and his extreme love for me. and He’s not going to leave me alone, though i despair over my darkness.

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2. at times the house burden weighs so heavily on me. my parents are in their fifties, living in debt in a large house in the country that they cannot manage. They need to move closer to town for the sake of sanity and for the United States’ supply of oil. granted, this is their burden, not mine. but they cannot do the work themselves…. they need help. at times i am inspired to give them next summer and do as much work as i can to get it market-ready (tons and tons of work) but i have told myself over and over again that i will not live here again, i cannot. i have been thinking that i must get out of this town after i graduate, or i will never get out of it in my mind. i want to move to a new city… philadelphia, waco, colorado springs, dallas.. somewhere, and just live there for a while. i don’t know what to do. could i live in this town again so soon? i am simply not sure.

why does this burden so weigh on me? why do i so easily possess it? i suppose because my mom talks to me about it… because i have had illusions of being the financial or material savior of my family. it was hard to quit that engineering major because of losing that paycheck that could turn my family’s situation right side up again.

money would not solve the deeper problems. but i hoped it would ease my parents’ burdens and worry so that the deeper problems could be addressed.

but there are people who live in the worst of situations with great grace, with grace for the people sharing those situations, even for the people whose fault the bad things are. where does that come from? it’s astonishing.

money is scary. i wouldn’t mind being poor. i mind having expenses beyond what i can pay, and that’s how i have been raised. tithing has been hard this summer, because i actually made a little bit of money. it has been a good reminder that God will provide the next week’s paycheck, too.

the sun burned and exhausted me, so this is hannah, signing out.