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.

a white stone

laura (“home or away”) asked me if the title of my blog had anything to do with Revelation 2:17, which says:

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.”

well, laura, i didn’t intend that, but it definitely could have to do with that verse. i like the part about a white stone because i like bringing home rocks from new places I’ve been. and new places can change you. i had a really nice white rock from some Caribbean island with different layers of cream in it.

I didn’t have anything specific in mind in naming my blog, but I suppose i was thinking along these lines:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

also, i really like this verse, I think it is related:

Psalm 40:3a
He put a new song in my mouth,

a hymn of praise to our God.

Mostly, though, it came out of a conversation with Mrs. Callahan about a woman’s identity lying in something completely spiritual, nothing external, not homemaking, not being a career woman, not being anything in particular. but finding rest in Christ and not having to BE any one THING.

I also am (very, very slowly) reading this Christian book (eek!) about women called ‘Ruby Slippers’. It talks about ‘The Prayer of Identity’, the purpose of which is

“to help us remember who we are. It is a discipline for our souls, to begin stripping away the layers of our performance ability. These corsets need to be systematically stripped off, because they have tremendous sticking power. The prayer begins with negative statements designed to remove these layers one by one…

(these are filled out for the author of the book)

I am not a wife, a daughter, a niece, a sister (fill in your relationships)
I am not a philosopher (fill in your training)
I am not a writer (fill in your job)
I am not fun, enthusiastic, motivated, organized, disciplined, creative (fill in your gifts)
I am not bossy, demanding, impatient, stubborn, judgmental (fill in your failures)
I am none of these.
I am a naked soul clothed in the righteousness of Christ.”

briefly

i will just say that i am so happy for finishing my independent readings course. i thank God for this. i thought it was going to last forever and ever amen.

i am done with the honors program forever.

continue remembering love love love

i don’t have much time to post tonight, so i’ll just give the basics.

i’m still living at home, the world is not all well but it’s doing better from my perspective, i’ve got mad nannying skills, the paper is undergoing an overhaul (funny how that does and doesn’t make sense), i filed my graduation card, and the sky is beautiful in this valley. that’s one thing about texas.. not enough valleys for me. the sunsets almost make up for it, but not quite.

i talked to amy lane’s (college best friend and roommate) mom today and she was blunt and right. i didn’t like everything she said about breaking up, but she was mostly right. i was glad that she said that my emotions were valuable and valid… i needed someone to say that to me… but i was glad again when she told me that i shouldn’t go by them. whatever happens relationship-wise, i need to let this deep sadness fade with time. then i can decide things if i need to. meanwhile, she said, ‘get you a journal’ and rant it all out with God. bless that woman. scary as hell to talk to though, because as well as being wise, she can see right through me.

i felt a burden lift, hearing her perspective.

journaling, for me, is a good thing, but i never seem to stick with it. looks like that might have to change.

one last thing: I know this isn’t necessarily good logic… but one of the things i talked to ann about was
how when you’re deeply sad, it’s very hard to trust God. but know what? i am not sure it’s worth it to believe in a God who’s not sovereign, who’s ineffective, who isn’t holding me and caleb both in his hands. That’s surely not the God character in the Bible.

And sometimes it’s even harder to rest my mind in the idea that the God who is sovereign and powerful also loves me so dearly and deeply. but He does! He must!

getting out ?

thanks, Laura, for the ‘ebenezer’ email. i suppose i might have to see the dark knight after all.

just when i thought that things couldn’t get any heavier, any wearier, they did, last night. ironically, after that post about grace being seen within the family, i stopped being able to deal. perhaps it is my fault, that the family is fine and i am the one who isn’t normal, can’t deal. but i don’t think it is true. when i’m around all these hard, bad things, i want to fix them. every word of need or complaint lays a burden on me, whether of guilt or of grief. and i can’t carry all that any longer.

so rachel came and got me last night, and i stayed at her place. i don’t know where to go from here. (hopefully up?)

of course weariness is mixed with sadness. grief comes in an ebb-and-flow, some days i feel more at peace ..and other times i can’t bear another day without my best friend. he was the person who said, ‘you need to get out of there..’

i should go. today i am a mom until 4 pm, which is strangely such a relief from being a sister and daughter sometimes.

i am glad: i am none of those things at the end of the day, but a stripped-down soul clothed in Christ.

i’m a plant that grows in the dark

today i got to talk to my dear friend heidi for 44 minutes and 21 seconds. it was a beautiful thing.

i became really frustrated at church when all the hymns seemed to be about how God protects us, is a mighty fortress, keeps the devil out and smashes him down. i kept wondering, what if the problem is inside the fortress? what about sanctifying these sheep you are keeping safe? what are you doing about the mess I am living in the midst of, God?

one answer to my frustration could be that i need to realize that the devil is real and he really wants to destroy good things like families.

another answer could be that God is sanctifying us, and i am confusing what is meant by sanctification. basically i want sanctification to mean swiftly-moving change, and it just might not. yes it means change, but it’s probably not gonna be the change i imagine needs to happen (for example, usually i don’t envision that i am part of the problem) … and it’s likely not going to happen on my timeline.

heidi and i talked about how families are the hardest places to be hopeful. the grooves of brokenness run so deep, and you see others’ sin so clearly at such close range. and when you are part of the problem, it’s difficult to see clearly how anything can change. in other words, it’s quite easy to feel hopeless.

and yet.

thank God there is always the “and yet” part of it.

and yet aren’t families the place where when you don’t have your shit together, they are still around?

even when i refuse to balance my checkbook like my dad tells me to do and i don’t keep track of my money … i know that if i overdraw my account yet again, my parents will help me in some way, even though they have every right to tell me, ‘i told you so,’ and ‘forget it. grow up.’

rachel was griping about how she felt like she always calls our younger sisters, and they haven’t really learned to call her back yet. so then she calls again, and again, until she finally reaches them. it’s true, they’re old enough to call people back, and you can expect that, but being a sister, a family member, is about holding up your end of the bargain when the other person doesn’t.

so families can be the place where you most clearly see grace. grace does not ask to be earned, it does not chalk up ‘grace points’ for next time.

but, i ask, how will we break the pattern of the ‘bad family dynamic,’ whatever it may be, if i just let people walk all over me? it’s so passive and it doesn’t help the other person deal with their sin, they’re hurting me!

i think that if someone hurts you, you should confront them, tell them in the most direct way possible that you are hurt.

but is it ME that breaks the bad family dynamic, or is it love? greater love hath no man… than that he lays down his life. laying down one’s life is an active action.

sometimes ‘letting someone walk all over you’ can be the most loving thing you can do. other times it is not. don’t get me wrong there.

so anyhow: here i am, wanting to fast forward to going back to school, knowing that the mess i live in here just aches and hurts. every plan i laid for this summer went awry. even a small plan, like running a 5K with my mom, exploded into pieces along with her tibia. i am weary and heavy-laden, and i want to run away to a situation that is better for me.

so, dear friends, i will leave you with the quote that heidi gave to me:

“Some plants die if they have too much sunshine. It may be that you are planted where you get but little, you are put there by the loving Husbandman, because only in that situation will you bring forth fruit unto perfection. Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there. Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good.” (Charles Spurgeon)

grateful

last night i spent a long time at the Jeffries’, eating dinner with them, reveling in their siblingness, and discussing things. as gib did the dishes with his forehead on the cabinet, as ian became increasingly antsy to go shoot BB guns, as nate sat and asked questions and ate the peach peels from dinner. anna had disappeared some time ago to go watch 101 dalmatians.

it’s the strangest thing, and quite delightful: becoming better friends with people you already know.

i am reading a good book. it’s definitely has a love-story-heavy plot, but it’s also interesting because of the different ways women are able to live in the united states and in iran. the only problem is i am reading the copy of the lady i nanny for… and she doesn’t know i am reading it at the same time… so i can only read it while i am nannying there!

one of the things the jeffries’ and i discussed was the rules about when two people in the family are reading a book at once. does the person who picked it up first get to take it from the other person whenever they choose? i believe it works best this way: the person who started it first has permanent dibs on the book until he or she finishes. however, this person should also finish the book in a timely manner, so as not to exasperate the other person…but not hurrying the book too much and ruining the enjoyment of said book. the second person reading the book can always steal the book and read it in the bathroom while the other person is sleeping. we often did that in my family. results in sore bottoms, but very satisfied readers.

dr. jeffries asked me at dinner if i was doing anything fun this summer. i hadn’t the least idea what to say, so i told him i was really enjoying my nanny job, and i was hanging out with my family a lot. i’m not sure that’s what he had in mind. i have stopped thinking of things in the category of “fun.” that doesn’t mean i don’t have fun, just that i don’t really think of it that way.
this is perhaps why sports are hard to enjoy these days. inevitably i start thinking of something serious, like getting in shape or losing a bit of weight or becoming better at that sport.

i agree with augustine that you must be very careful when earthly pleasures become ends, and not means to enjoying God, because that may be an idol.

however, when all earthly pleasures fade into means, nondescript-all-the-same means, existence seems very poor indeed.

then there is no joy in a simple, familiar hymn, in a great frisbee catch by your formerly clumsy little sister, in a spontaneous war whoop.

the hymn becomes a “way in which you compose your mind to worship God,” ultimate frisbee becomes simply a way to become more fit by running around, and a war whoop…. i’m just not sure there’s much of a place for those.

of course a hymn could compose your mind to worship God, and that’s a good thing, but when you must take things so rigidly that you forget that the music stirs your blood for no reason at all, perhaps just because you like it. and frisbee should never be reduced to a means to getting in shape. why not just go the gym for a few hours? it might be more efficient. no, leave frisbee to be itself. some of my fellow bloggers would call frisbee a noble game.

anyhow, here’s to enjoying life. to enjoying the good things that are ruined when they become just a means to an end.