Say what?

I've had several spam comments here lately. A couple of them were completely in Asian (Chinese?) characters, so I have no idea what they said. Today's was special, though. It made me laugh, so I thought I'd share.

"Yes undoubtedly, in some moments I can bruit about that I agree with you, but you may be considering other options.
to the article there is stationary a definitely as you did in the decrease publication of this request www.google.com/ie?as_q=scheibe motorfalke ?
I noticed the utter you have not used. Or you use the pitch-dark methods of promotion of the resource. I have a week and do necheg"

That, to me, inspires utmost confidence and really makes me want to click on that link.

small things

This week has been crazy busy at work. CRAZY. BUSY.

Baylor students started back to school on Monday, so I've had requests from teachers to change classrooms, students needing me to issue permits or waivers so they can add or change classes, textbook issues, and other start-of-semester administrative stuff.

But there've been several other things I've had to do over the past few days that have made me even busier. We're bringing in candidates so I'm helping to arrange travel for them, professors are back from break so they're turning in various forms to me for processing. The fall 2010 schedule is due this Friday so I'm finishing that up. Plus my coworker has been busy with some pressing issues, leaving me to deal with more stuff than I normally would (not her fault, them's just the breaks). On top of all that, phone and foot traffic have been extremely high this week (mainly due to the start of classes), so on top of juggling numerous tasks at one time, I've also been constantly interrupted.

It's been a rough week.

Emotionally I'm doing okay. I've been really worn out when I get home, but I haven't had a breakdown, so that's definitely positive news. (See that, depression? This is me appreciating the positive!) I did have a near breakdown tonight because I couldn't find my brand new dress pants that still need to be shortened before I can wear them. I looked everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I looked through all the dirty clothes in my room, the dirty clothes in the hampers, the clean clothes in the baskets (this despite the fact that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had not yet taken the tags off, and, ergo, had not yet washed them). I looked under my bed, under the couches, under the dining room table, in Noah's room, in my dresser, Aaron's dresser, Halle's dresser (I couldn't get to Chloe's dresser--long story), my closet, the upstairs closet, and in all my sewing stuff. Nowhere. I was getting panicky. I felt like I couldn't breathe and was about to start crying really hard. Brand new pants. Haven't worn them once. Can't find them.

But I kept breathing, didn't break down crying, and eventually found them in a shoe box in my room. I have no idea how they got there, but I found them. And, yes, welcome to my world--pants in a shoebox.

So as I was laying in bed trying to calm down from the near-breakdown so I could get some sleep, I was reflecting on how crazy this week has been and hoping things calm down before I start school next week.

And then a profound gratefulness washed over me that school didn't start this week like I had thought it would. Goodness! If I'd have started school this week on top of all the work stuff, I'd be a mess right now. A great big heap of crying, hyperventilating mess.

But, no, school doesn't start until next week. And, on top of that, tomorrow's my last work day this week and I have a four-day weekend.

Pants found. Breakdown avoided. Break coming up. Thank you, Jesus.

blessed quiet for my soul

I know I've mentioned how much I *heart* projects several times on my blog. I don't usually have much time for projects, but over the Thanksgiving break and now during the Christmas break, I've found I am really gravitating toward projects. I think, especially as I'm dealing with my depression, projects are a good way for me to spend my time. I don't end up wasting the day in blah and blech. I have a purpose, and I enjoy what I'm doing.

I've been meditating on Jesus' words, "Come to me..." lately, first in a devotional, and then in a song, and today I looked up the verse. "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest," Jesus says. "I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest and relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet for your souls." Matthew 11:28 & 29.

I have certainly felt heavy-laden and overburdened lately, not just with work and school and all the stress that comes from that, but also from the depression. Some days I am laden with feelings of profound discontent, uneasiness, and agitation. So the idea of refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet is supremely attractive.

I've also had time lately: beautiful, blessed time. I finished school a few weeks ago, and Baylor has wonderful holidays. I had Wednesday through Sunday off for Thanksgiving, and I've had off work since the 23rd and don't go back until January 4th. In this time, I've done several projects, and I think some of these projects have been a way that the Lord has brought recreation and refreshment to me.

Over Thanksgiving I did several house-cleaning projects because I *wanted* to (a novel feeling!), and I felt a great sense of accomplishment. But I also found time to put together this 500-piece Thomas Kinkade puzzle, and I really enjoyed it.

The kids and I also put together a gingerbread house earlier this month. We bought a little $9 kit at Wal-Mart that had everything in it but the candy canes. It was a fun experience! Had I attempted to make everything from scratch, it would not have been a fun experience.

I also took some Christmas pictures of the kids so I could finish up my yearly calendar project for my family's Christmas presents. After two hours, which included a long break because Noah was crying because he didn't "know how to smile," I wound up using one of the very first photos (isn't that the way it goes?!?) and one where I said something like, "Just do whatever you want to get the sillies out!"

And now over the Christmas break I've made a lovely cake:

I've also spent several hours painting the girls' new window seat and my mom and I are working on a cushion for the seat. No pictures yet, but I'll share when we're done.

I'm also finding sanity and refreshment in the music of J.J. Heller. Check her out. It's good stuff.

The moral of the story? I still struggle. This morning, for example, was quite difficult. But I know where to turn for soul refreshment, and he is creative in his ministrations.

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.