Novembers past, present, and...

I put on my NaNoWriMo t-shirt today for the first time in a long time and realized it's been three years since the madness. Sadly, it wasn't until several hours later that I realized it's been EXACTLY three years. See, this is November, and this is NaNoWriMo month.

(Oddly enough, when I was looking up old posts to link to, I realized I'd also called it madness then. Yeah, there's really just no better word for it.)

I stopped by the NaNo site to see if they are still selling the 2006 shirt (they're not), and happened upon a discussion board that caught my interest. Long story short, I found this and it made me giggle:

"One wordcount to rule them all
One website to find them
One month to bring them all
And in NaNoWriMo bind them
-- SynapticJam"

I don't know who SynapticJam is, but well done, my friend. Well done.

Oh, and my story? Yeah. I haven't worked on it since the summer before last. That makes me a little sad. But it's still percolating. I've had several ideas for it and am keeping them in a safe place (but not a place I'll remember where they are, mom). My more recent writing news is that I'm planning on submitting two of my short fiction pieces I've written this semester for my fiction class to the UIS Literary Journal. And after that, who knows? Further news: I wrote a short story based in Glockenspiel in the Forests of Waldweg and my teacher (who used to be an editor for fiction journals and who taught my Children's Lit class) loved it. She told me to polish it up a bit and submit it. So that's extremely encouraging. I'm not sure where I'd submit it, but I'm looking into it. So, while it's not quite NaNoWriMo, all is not quiet on the writing front.

...from ashes

More articles. Sorry.

Except, I'm not sorry.

You may have heard of Steven Curtis Chapman, and you may know his youngest daughter died under particularly tragic circumstances a little more than a year ago. He has a new album out, so there's lots of press out there right now. But this is not slick, new-album marketing; this is not glossed over in any way. This is real. This man has poured his grief and hope and anger and faith into these songs, and that is coming through in the press. I admire so deeply the way he and his family have dealt with this, not glossing over the grief, and not giving into it either; living relatively publicly that constant struggle of faith. This whole thing has touched me deeply, so I wanted to share.

So. The articles.

An interview from Christianity Today.

An article from CNN.

And, best of all, streaming music on his website. I wept through the entire first song, but not entirely out of sadness. I guess the title of the album just really sums it up.

Beauty Will Rise.

Oh, yeah

I also thought this article from Christianity Today was good, and it's short enough to post:

Come, Lord Jesus
Oh, wait. He's already here.
by Carolyn Arends

I was a guest musician at a church in Winnipeg, engaged in the familiar liturgies of a pre-service prayer huddle. One person prayed for the congregation's safety in inclement weather, another for the technical aspects of the service, and a third kindly remembered my family back home.

When my turn came, I must have used a phrase like, "God, we invite you here among us." I clearly recall the minister's prayer, which followed mine: "We know we do not have to request your presence, because there is nowhere you are not. So we celebrate the fact you are already here with us now."

My head stayed bowed, but my face burned. This guy is correcting my theology with his prayer!

The service went as planned. But throughout the evening, I was mentally defending my choice of words. Of course I know God is everywhere—I've read Psalm 139! I was requesting an extra measure of his presence, an outpouring of his Spirit. Or, if you want to be more precise (and clearly you do), I was praying that God would help us to be open to him. Aren't we just arguing semantics?

I never articulated any of these thoughts to the minister. But the dialogue I've had with him in my head ever since has gradually refined my thinking—a case of iron sharpening particularly dull iron. I now believe that pastor's gentle correction was necessary.

If the psalmist is right—that there truly is nowhere we can go to flee God's presence—why do we act like his attendance is intermittent? And why do we assume it's dependent on us?

"Halfway through the retreat, God showed up," we say. As if he wasn't there before we were, drawing us to that time and place.

"Lord, we welcome you to come," we pray. As if he needs us to usher him into the world he created. As if we do not "live and move and have our being" in him alone (Acts 17:28).

In the Gospels, Jesus makes a simple proclamation with seismic implications: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near" (Matt. 4:17). For those of us who grew up in the hot, scary shadows of brimstone pulpits, the command to repent causes an involuntary shudder. But the Greek word is metanoeite, which is more invitation than threat. It means "change your mind" or "reconsider."

Reconsider what? According to Jesus, everything you thought you knew about reality. Why? Because the kingdom of heaven is near.

Most of us think of heaven as somewhere out there, the place where God watches from a distance and we will one day join him. But for the biblical writers, heaven is close. In fact, the "first heavens" is a term used to describe the earth's atmosphere. So when Jesus describes the invisible (but very real) realm that God inhabits, he lets us know it's not only out there, but also as near as the atmosphere surrounding our bodies and the air we breathe.

That Winnipeg minister was calling me to repent—to reconsider what I thought I knew about reality and the way God pervades it. I don't have to invoke God's presence. I only have to attend to it.

This change of heart and mind alters the way I approach discipleship. I suspect I have sometimes unconsciously used spiritual disciplines as smoke signals to get God 's attention. Now I am learning that they are simply ways of letting him capture mine.

A similar change has occurred in my orientation toward evangelism. I don't have to give a nonbeliever something I have that she doesn't. I need only invite her to open herself up to what God is already doing all around her.

The other day I was trying to describe this shift in my understanding to my friend Roy Salmond. He ran to pull out an article he'd read in Time magazine more than a decade ago. It's an eloquent piece called "The Game of Catch," by Roger Rosenblatt, about baseball, parenthood, and the wordless communication between a father and son tossing the ball around. While the article is in no way religious, one thought in particular has permanently changed Roy's view of life with God.

"They do not call it a game of throw," Roy quoted, grinning. "They call it catch."

Oddly enough, I understood exactly what he meant. Spiritually speaking, I've been preoccupied with throwing the ball; this turns out to be a case in which it would be better to receive than to give.

God is the initiator. We love because he first loved us. We're here because he thought of us and welcomed us into his world. Yes, he stands at the doors to our hearts and knocks, but we need only let him in. We don't have to summon him from another country or galaxy. The kingdom of God is already near.

Repent. It's time to play catch.

Good stuff

I think this article titled "Sex & the City of God" is phenomenal. It's long; read it anyway.

Here's the part where I whine

So, it's no sooner than I say, "Oh, I can handle this" (insert goofy, sarcastic voice) that I have this overwhelming feeling that I can't handle this. I just can't do it for one more day. I'm fractious.

And maybe fractious is what happens when I've had basically nothing to do this week. Yeah, you heard me right. It's not that I'm overwhelmed because I've been so busy. No, I'm just tired. I'm bored. I'm ready to move on already. I have senior-itis. I am sick of it all. It feels pointless and monotonous and never-ending. And I'm glad work has been reeeaaallly slow, because I've been able to do school work. But I'm a bit bored. I've seriously moved from easy to medium to hard to evil on websudoku.com just this week. And I'm glad my classes are relatively easy, because it's nice not to have to bust my ass to get a good grade (see posts here.) But I'm over it. Learning has become something that sounds nice, but, really, who freaking cares? Give me the diploma already. I'm a life-long learner, blah, blah, blah. I'll pick this stuff up later, just let me get off the ride.

And even more, I am overwhelmed by all the things--all the many, many things--that I want to do, and should do, and need to do, that don't. get. done. I want to smack people when they talk about how busy their lives are. I want to give them a run-down of my schedule and my husband's schedule and my kids's schedules and say, "What were you saying about busy? Hmmm?" I hear people talk and read articles about how busy we are these days, and "Here's a list of 5 ways you can learn to say no" and I'm all, "SAY NO TO WHAT?!?" What in my life can I say no to? My life is so busy that when I'm not busy, I revert into an almost comatose state. And that's just one more state of dysfunction that overwhelms me.

And I'm just tired. I'm so tired. I'm tired of the busyness and I'm tired of the daily grind and I'm tired of school and I'm just sleepy-tired. I walk around in a constant state of fuzz. Tired fuzziness. I forget simple words like "overhead projector" and "transparency." Seriously, I just had to remember the word "transparency" so I could tell you I forget it.

And while I'm at it, let me throw this out there, too: I think I'm afraid. I'm afraid that all this effort will be for naught. That I will have poured myself out for three years--found this desire for copyediting and the courage to call myself a writer and dare to see where it takes me--and it will be for nothing. I'm afraid that, after all, I'll end up being a teacher for the rest of my life, and I don't want that. I don't want to clock in every day and deal with a room full of America's future leaders whose lives I could impact for good. I don't want to deal with parents, and I don't want to deal with administrators, and I don't want to deal with the TAKS test, and I don't want to do it. *Stomps foot* I want to work from home, and write, and maybe do laundry and clean my house and pick my kids up from school. I want my dream job. I am doing all of this so that I can have my dream job, and I'm afraid the temp job will throttle the dream job.

So, there. It's out there. All the crap, there it is. And, despite the fact that it's almost midnight ("You say you're tired, Amy. Well, here's an idea..."), writing makes me feel less tired. More whole. Because if I can still write, then maybe I can actually help others write. And maybe I can help them write well. And if I can help others write well, then maybe I can write well, too. And then, maybe...

Because through it all, there's still hope. And that's why I keep going.

Even though the day be laden
And my task dreary
And my strength small
A song keeps singing in my heart
For I know that I am Thine
I am part of Thee
Thou art kin to me
And all my times
All my times
Are in Thy hands

(From the Iona community)

As to win the prize

I feel like I’ve been running a marathon.

Not that I’ve ever run a marathon. I’ve run a mile, albeit several, several years ago. I used to run a mile every day in 7^th grade. I hated every minute of it, and yet I was always proud at the end that I did it. I ran a mile. Better yet, I ran a mile and I wasn’t last. I wasn’t even close to last. Feels good.

I’ve even run a mile and a half. Did I ever run two miles? I don’t think so. But I remember running that mile and a half. Oh, dear Lord, I did NOT think I could make it those two extra laps. Are you kidding me? I couldn’t do it. That last lap was torture. I had a stitch in my side, I was hot and sweaty, I couldn’t breathe, I was thirsty, and I was tired. But I did it, of course. Because if you can run a mile, you can generally run a mile and a half.

Now, I understand that a mile and a half is nowhere near a marathon. So maybe I should say I feel like I’ve been running a mile and a half. Because I can do a mile, no problem. A mile? I’ve been doing a mile for years now. Kids? No problem. 50,000 words in 30 days? Piece of cake. School on top of it all? Okay, that’s stepping it up, but it’s still doable.

Now throw a full-time job on top of it, and you’re pushing it. Have the husband go back to school, too, and we’re into those two extra laps. We may even be up to two miles by now. And you know what? It’s doable. Because if you can run a mile, you can run a mile and a half. And if you can run a mile and a half, you can run two.

But, Lord, I’m tired. I’m thirsty. Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe and I’ve got a stitch in my side.

But I can see that finish line coming up. I can see it.

Classes for spring 2010 posted, and I know that for my final semester—my final semester—I will be taking Creative Writing: Prose and World Literature. Once more, I have professors I’ve had before, and I am interested in the subject matter. I will graduate in eight months. That’s still a while, but it’s only about one more lap.

One more lap. I can do that.

Did I mention I *heart* projects?

As if my posts here and here weren't enough to convince you how much I love projects, here's another one.

Noah's room is very bright. This is lovely and all for daytime play, but isn't so great for Saturday morning sleeping in. I've wanted to get curtains for his room for just about as long as the boy has been alive, but just never did. Curtains are friggin' expensive. So the boy has gone curtain-less.

Until I recently had a brainstorm (it does happen every once in a while). See, we had these light-khaki-colored cotton duck curtains in our living room when we lived in Tyler.


They were great at blocking the neighbor's view into our picture window. But when we moved to Waco, we didn't have anywhere to put them. Sure, we could have put them in our current living room, but the curtain rods don't suit our present living room window configuration, so they went into our bedroom. And, well, curtain rods are friggin' expensive. Besides, we didn't really want curtains in the living room. They messed up the vibe. So, the curtains sat on a shelf in our closet for five years. Wait, six years. Geez.

Until the recent brainstorm. One day I was contemplating the curtain dilemma and suddenly thought, why not dye the light-khaki-colored curtains? Brilliant! One trip to Jo-Ann, $15, and about 3 hours later, voila! Kelly green curtains that uncannily matched Noah's kelly green canvas bins. Does it get any better? No, it does not.


(The color is a little off. Whereas before this room got lots of sunlight, the curtains have made it darker, and I had a hard time getting good lighting. In real life, it's a great kelly green).

And then the kelly-green-colored curtains sat on Noah's dresser for two or three months until I could find some reasonably priced curtain rods. I considered finials and all, especially since Pottery Barn Kids had some stinking cute, glow-in-the-dark star finials. But PBK is a little out of my budget range, and besides, they no longer carry those finials. Instead, I went with the traditional, cheap curtain rods, with a twist. They're brown and have mini-finials. Say that five times fast: mini-finials, mini-finials, mini-finials...

And so, the curtains are now hung and Noah's room is completely finished and decorated.


Well, okay, not really. See, I only bought enough dye for four curtains because I thought I was going to just hang one per window. But that didn't look right, so I had to do the traditional two curtains per window. I need to buy more dye so I can do two more curtains. But at least I don't have to buy more curtains!

And, yeah, so we haven't quite finished the wall where we closed in the door to the living room. And it turns out, Noah has this thing for superheroes, hence the Transformers poster that just does NOT go with the star theme.

And, in the interest of full disclosure, you should know there are Spider-Man sheets under the quilt. But at least he'll sleep longer in them on Saturday morning!