Chicken & Dumplings: A Slice of Life

I love Chicken & Dumplings. I have fond memories from my childhood of poking around the fat, gooey dumpling until it became many small gooey dumplings, equally distributed among bites of carrot I didn't really want to eat. Tuesday, I decided, via my loving mother drafting me as head cook for that night's meal, to make Dumplings.
I will begin with a disclaimer: my first experience with chicken was not so good. When I was 16, mom enrolled me in a serious cooking crash-course. Read: The You- can't live- on- sweets- and -rice- for- the- rest -of- your- life course. My first project, with her instructing, was to roast a chicken. The day of this endeavor was a toasty 100 degrees. All fine and good and HOT until I dropped the chicken on the floor. Yes, you read that right: I dropped the entire chicken on the floor. Let's just say my family have strong immune systems.
On to Thursday's chicken endeavor! I stared down into the sink with a whole chicken in the colander below me. I hate whole chickens. Foster Farms boneless and skinless are my forte, and, in my mind, the only sort of chicken they should produce. Here's why: whole chickens entail things such as chicken hearts, chicken livers, chicken guts. Disembowling a chicken is not my idea of a pleasant morning-time activity. It's not as if Foster Farm's is lazy and doesn't take the time to remove the unwanted detritus. No, they take the guts out and then put them back in. I am still mystified as to why exactly they do this. At the very least, they could have the chickens with hearts in tact for those who want them, and the gut-less ones for squeamish people like me.
Enough with that. I gutted the chicken and stuck it in the pot, happy to know the worst was over. Right. Time comes to remove the chicken from the pot and shred it. No big deal. As soon as I manage to lift the ungainly thing out, it splits. Lying their in the sink it looks like something of the cover of "Chicken Undead: Editor's cut, Unrated." Or maybe some sort of rotting zombie head. I shredded the thing and pondered how familiar I was becoming with chicken anatomy.
The rest was easy as pie, and I got my dumplings. I even made new fond memories in my adulthood of cooking the undead chicken and then enjoying it during a Once Upon A Time marathon with my corny-tv-watching-Partner-in-Crime. Here's to happy memories and slices of life and Christmas break!

{This is my family, and I like them a lot. My best friend took the picture. I like her a lot, too}

It's one o' clock in the morning and freezing. 3-blankets-and-tea-freezing. At least in my room, anyway.

As yesterday-or the day before yesterday, since technically it's Saturday- was Thanksgiving, I've been thinking quite a bit about thankfulness.

People are broken. Broken and torn up by sin, battling constantly-most the times on the verge of being just plain worn out. No amount of super glue, duct tape, or glossy varnish can hold us together or pretty up decay. Even if duct tape is a miracle-worker. Holiday's are funny things because they are generally harbingers of joy and delight and all manner of colored lights and yet, simultaneously, the harshest backdrop to the brokenness around us. I've never really understood why.

Thanksgiving then: a holiday set aside specifically for the purpose of gratitude. This is easy when presented with turkey and cranberry sauce and sweet potato casserole. Also, Christmas (since as soon as Thanksgiving/s done I break out The Carpenter's Christmas, I might as well blog about it too): a holiday for remembering and celebrating the birth of Christ. Somewhat harder to do when surrounded by mounds of glitter-y wrapping, unless you remember the outlasting glitter of eternal glory with Christ. Two holidays: an entire month to be lost in enough sugar to rival a snow storm, in ribbons and tinsel and pine needles, in jingle bells and Christmas carols over-played in Macy's. Time spent forgetting instead of remembering.

Maybe this is only my experience, but sin always seems more apparent around the holidays. Maybe it's lack of sleep and lack of space on the calendar, or maybe it's because black is easier seen against the glow of the most wonderful time of year. Either way, I see it. This is how I remember.

I cannot be held together by glooey bits of tape or triple shots of espresso, as much as I wish and think I can during finals. I cannot be thankful only in the presence of a turkey. I cannot celebrate Jesus' birth only in the light of a Christmas tree.

I'm held together by grace. I need to be thankful in the gritty moments. I need to remember Jesus' birth because I sin. Because of all the brokenness in and around me, I have cause to celebrate. True cause, because I am free from it.

I told you I was thinking about thankfulness. I am thankful for remembering and God who reminds.

{Some other things I'm thankful for: friends and Crixia Cakes and Berkeley and Coldplay and my brother who is better with directions than I am}

Follow the Leader

{My brother and I, goofing off in the food prep room and studying intelligent things involving lots of numbers}

"We have slipped into an adventure of our own unmaking. We play the game of our lives, indeed, the game of life. And it is meant to be played by exuberant, daring, and fun-loving amateurs."

~Terry Lindvall

This is one of my favorite quotes right now. An adventure of my own unmaking- life, this month, this weekend, today- is an adventure. One that I could not create.

Conference. Cupcakes. Coffee. Need I say more? These three words sum up the last two days, though I suppose you could throw in a heavy dose of Pascal and his lovely triangle and call it good.

I don't really know where to lead smoothly into my idea, so I'm just going to jump right in. Call it a sugar rush, if you like. (Or possibly a crash).

Have you ever played follow the leader?

Let's call that transition a crash...

It's the game every kid plays to make dull walks exciting and every teacher plays to get their students to do what they want. Me? I hadn't played in years, but I wasn't facing another ten minute walk back to the dorms in awkward silence, so I turned around to my girls and said, "Ok, we're going to play Follow the Leader!"

The stares I got were incredible:

"What. "

"I've never played follow the leader...."

"In front of the cafeteria?- In front of all these people??"

"Um, yes. It'll be fun!" I'm not sure my enthusiasm for the game carried over. Regardless, the ten minute walk became more of a 15-minute hop-skip-twirl-fly-like-a-plane jaunt. I'm sure it made quite a funny picture: 13 girls weaving and winding through 100 other people, the movements of the leader slowly disintegrating into bent-over giggles by person 9. No one in the back could really tell what the leader was doing, so we just sort of made it up and stumbled along.

Now making it up and stumbling along in game of Follow the Leader is all fine and good, but what about in real life? Really, if you think about it, life is a game of Follow the Leader. As a follower of Christ, I am supposed to imitate Him perfectly. Just as if I was in a line and the leader was pretending to fly, I would pretend to fly. As I end up 1 person back, 2, 3, 4, 5, I start to lose sight. Movement is slower and sloppier and, towards the end, isn't much like imitation at all.

I heard one conference session this weekend, but the illustration of us as believers Following the Leader- Following Christ- stuck with me. So I come back to my quote: life is an adventure. My life is an adventure of Christ's making.

Exuberant.

Daring.

Fun-loving.

Amateur.

I love these words! They're full of life and color and wonder and grace. We can dare to follow Christ, knowing He provides the grace for us to do so. And as His children, we are commanded to be like Him. It takes exuberance, because sometimes imitation is on the very bottom of our to-do list. Exuberance is defined as abounding in vigor, and following is vigorous work. Fun- loving? Yes, because there are too many surprising twists and turns along the way that I am convinced would sometimes shatter the soul if it were not for the gift of laughter. And because life abundant is a gift of grace to rejoice in! Finally, amateur. This is my favorite. This is grace. We were not chosen for our excellent skills of mimicry. For if it were so, we might as well just do it on our own thank-you-very-much. We were chosen because we were bad followers. Horrible, actually, because we weren't even following- we were running the other way!

Here I am then, full of hope and amateurishly living life and loving it in in a way I hope can point only to Christ. I've tried not following. Not aggressively turning around and running the other way of course, but passively. Slipping behind one person and another until I lose sight. Following doesn't come easy. It doesn't come in a happy cup of feel-good tea alongside a cupcake and sunshine and roses. Sometimes it does. A lot of times, though, it comes with vigor.

It comes with a hard days work where you purposed to wake up on time to get things done.

It comes with setting aside time to learn how to follow.

It comes with an investing attitude- choosing to invest time wisely, choosing to invest in people.

It comes with exuberance and crazy-fun and sleepy-happy and one humongous dose of amateur.

{Hooray for conference, coffee, and cupcakes!!}

Confetti from the Sky

I'm in denial that it's already October. I'm in denial that my mind is currently living in November, and that an entire month became booked in the space of a weekend. There it is though, disintegrating planner and all.

Funny thing though- as full-speed-ahead as life is right now-, I'm oddly detached from it. Not detached from it in a negative sense at all, but a sort of transcendence beyond the chaos. The sort of feeling that comes from the realization that being caught up in all the 'to-do's would just about drown you, and so you just live in the grace for the moment. Not in the grace for tomorrow's 6 am to 11 pm schedule (you don't have that yet), not in the grace for the homework project tonight (because it's only 2 pm), not in grace for anything 4 years down the road (especially since you don't even know where you'll be!)- no, just grace for today. For right now.

It's scrawled on my wrist, 'grace for today,' to fight the constant desire to know- to know more or less how my entire life will work out.

That's ridiculous.

It was phrased once that God doesn't burden us with knowing His exact path in life for us. He has one, for sure, and He's told all I need to know: His will is for me to know Him. To know and love and glorify. So there it is, the grey ink reminding me to not fret about tomorrow. Reminding me to enjoy this moment for all the wonder it holds.

The other night we were reading Jonathon Edwards after dinner. He was talking about time, about our lives, and how, when we stand before God and look back at all we've done, what will we tell Him?

Time. It goes too fast. Here though, I'm going to take that back. Because time goes exactly the speed God wants it to. Isn't it my own flurry of activity and rush letting time slip through tired hands? My own sin filling it with things better left undone? My own in-attention causing me to wonder where it went?

Confetti came from the sky today. Multitudes of clouds un-furled sheets of iridescent, symphonic rain. Earthy, spicy-I could almost taste the clean in the air. A new season was ushered in as stacatto downpours peppered students mad-cap dashing for their classes. There was an awe and wonder in it all. The newness of the rain that caused a few to set aside textbooks and lean against the doorframe, forgetting the dates and names of history tests to revel in the rain. Grace came in the rain.

Those are my 10-to-11 musings. My hopes to stand before God and not have tell Him I missed my life because it went too fast. My prayer to seek grace in the right-now and not always be tripping and falling my way into tomorrow, scrambling for what I can't have yet.

" ...if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary." John Keating Dead Poets Society

Quiddity

Quiddity: it's my new favorite word.

{ quid-di-ty: (noun) whatever makes something the type that it is: essence }

The Quiddity of Life

Coffee shop voices: the hum of the espresso machine, the chime of coffee mugs, murmers of conversations- drown out the sound of my typing. Cracks climb the creamy wall and my mind climbs out the window into the sunshine and lull of Berkeley in the early afternoon. Thoughts leave my fingers and find completion within a word, a sentence, a paragraph.

Leaving the House:

"Are you ready yet?" keys rattle at my door, an expectant face behind them.

"It's not 1:15," I reply under an avalanche of shoes.

"No, really, it's time to go!" Urgency

"No, really, it's not!" Found the shoes.

"I'm in the ca-aaar." door slams as he drags out his words. He likes to be early.

7:55 AM: Quiet. Gray sky, gray cement. Hushed and sleepy faces. Gray carpet, gray desk. Soft thumps of textbooks on desks. Coffee mugs raised as pillars on each desktop. Voices barely raised. People barely awake.

By the Kitchen Counter: It's one of my favorite places- leaning against the cool edge, my body eased awake by the ice of the tile floor and the steam curling from the battered Little Mermaid mug in my hands. Standing by it, confirming my belief that folding melted chocolate into pretty much anything is one of the most wonderful things in the world. Wiping it down, clean and silky once the remnants of 3 sleepytime teas are gone.

Maps:

"It's easy. I looked at the map," Malcolm looks at me, waiting for a response.

"That's nice."

"Ok, so," his hand waves aimlessly out the window, sunglasses cover his eyes as he coolly explains a massive web of directions. "Didn't you look at the map- see, the roads converge like this, see" he bumps my arm and makes a weird fish-like shape with his hands. No. I don't see.

"No, I didn't look at the map." I hate maps.

"How did you not look at a map? Didn't you get directions? How did you get the directions??" To describe his tone as shocked is an understatement. Apparently, looking at maps is as normal an activity for him as, say, eating.

"I got them from google maps. Like I always do."

"Right, you looked at a map!"

"No. I looked at the written directions next to the map." I win. Or not. He sighed loudly, I'm sure ashamed at my ineptness when it came to maps.

Books: Stacks and stacks and stacks. On the bed, under the bed, by the bed. Textbooks dishelved across two shelves. Everything else arranged by color. Pages wrinkly from water- summers spent by the pool and the ocean; fairytale after fairytale bound with childhood magic; battered second-hand Shakespeare, smudged with late Friday night scribbles and chocolate; black mysteries tinged on the edges from coffee- they couldn't be put down, no matter how late. So many stories helping to make mine.

Night: Microwave beeps. The milk is foaming and bubbly. "What did he say?" I shout from the kitchen, peering through to the tv. 4 of us occupying 2 couches along with pillows and blankets and cats. "Did they really just do that? Really?"

"SHHHH." Dad doesn't like commentary. Clattering: Malcolm finds the ice cream. "SHHHH" from the rest of us. Somehow he has managed to reach the decibel of "elephant herd" while getting his dessert. He's gifted. 10:00 pm. Dad pronounces it midnight. Some retreat to sleep. Me? Balanced book and mug and cat on my lap. Only 100 more pages. Empty mug now on the window sill, Big Dipper twinkling behind it. The silence of sleep. Glow of lamplight. Page turns. Outside reaches a hazy color only achieved at 11. Goodnight.

{ quid-di-ty: (noun) whatever makes something the type that it is: essence }

The Good I've Got

Sunday night I set my alarm for 5:20. 5:20. Usually any alarm set before 6 means I get to do something exciting, such as going to the airport. But today it meant I was going to the gym. Black- deep, dark, thick- was the first thing I saw. The next thing was Malcolm’s face telling me he was going back to bed instead of suffering along with me at the gym. Just as a little background: I've never been to a gym before. Most the stuff in there looks pretty similar to what I imagine the Spanish Inquisition may have used- and all I’ve ever seen of treadmills are the YouTube videos of people falling off of them. At 5:30 in the morning, I was pretty sure that was destined to be me. I got through it without incident, however, and 2 hours later I was in the car arguing with Malcolm over whether or not it was a viable option to listen to Pink before 8 am. I (barely) made it through U.S. History, escaped to Sweetie Pies for café au lait, and made it back in time to find a spot in the madhouse known as the NVC parking lot before Theatre 100. Lunch break. Homework. Read. Email. Class. Home. Breathe.

Bright- not the soft buttery light bright, but a hot, white blaze- rivaled with my alarm this morning. Today I don’t have to go to class. Today is an everything day. Homework-clean-errands-read-write-everything day.

Wednesday: Monday’s twin.

Thursday: another Everything day.

Friday: Happy-Weekend(!) day.

In the great scheme of things, most of my time is filled with pretty normal stuff: classes, homework, essays, conversations, losing paperwork, driving, novels, writing. Mundane.

Is it really, though- mundane? I’m not so sure I want to confine life under the constrains of those powerful 7 letters. As soon as any day-in-day-out becomes labeled ‘mundane’ it tends to remain there. And before I know it, whole slices of time are lost in the whirlpool of ‘everyday life’ and forgotten. Gone, with only the thrilling left to occupy. And when the thrilling becomes dull? Time is rushed- rushed for the next big thing, rushed to finish what doesn’t seem to count anymore, rushed and gone. Never to be seen again.

I haven't decided if then I should seek the extraordinary in the ordinary, or merely take joy in the mundane things. Maybe both. Either way, I never want today- or any day for that matter- to remain just another day.

Mondays, then- instead of treadmills and driving to school and wasting away in History class- hold the beauty of a black sky and the stillness before the world wakes up; bring the laughter that comes when Malcolm gives me his logic for driving around with a dead black rose on our dash; inspire thankfulness for the means to go to school.

" 'You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other' " (Perelandra)

* http://hannah-tomorrowisamondaymorning.blogspot.com/p/1000.html *

Life at the Moment

{2 of the crazy people living in my house right now}

I am thankful for cream + sugar+ egg yolks+ cornstarch because together they make custard.

And there's nothing more wonderful than watching melted chocolate ravenously engulf silky cream custard as they slowly become one rich and wonderful entity.

I am thankful for leftovers. For the 4 leftover shortbread pieces that give mom and me an excuse to brew tea and sit down and watch E.R. We haven't done that in awhile.

I am thankful for laundry. For a washer and dryer that function as they are supposed to. For the assurance my clothing will not be swimming in a soupy mess of un-drained water when I go to dry it.

On the other hand I am thankful for the washing machine that never drained. Because though it left me with soggy clothes and $1.50 less, it also left me with a happy memory of being doubled over with laughter- if it weren't for nebulous laundry rooms and equipment, laundry parties would be so much less fun.

I am thankful for having to figure out how to share a gas tank with my little brother. I'm glad I have a little brother to share it with.

I am thankful for gray mornings with pearly light.

I am thankful for the very last cup of black coffee. For every drop of bittersweet and warm. For the line of my favorite mugs on my windowsill that represent night hours spent writing and lazy mornings spent doing nothing much.

I am thankful for friends that live far away and for spontaneous Skypes.

I am thankful for friends that live 5 min. away who have a mutual love of strawberries and awkward symbols and who are not-so-great at Rock Band but rock "Walking on Sunshine" like we composed it.

I am thankful for the 5 crazy boys { My 2 little brothers and 3 who think they are }who have practically lived here the past 2 weeks, drinking all the coffee and taking up all the couch space and filling all the silence.

I am thankful to be rooted and grounded in the Solid Rock, and so to be able to offer thanks.

Tonight I thought a lot about tomatoes. Tomatoes.

I was making the salad tonight, pretty much like any other night. First of all, let me just make it clear how happy I am 'salad' no longer means iceberg lettuce,watery tomatoes and weird croutons drowning in honey mustard just to make it taste. Other than that, there's nothing much exciting about making salad. There I was, cutting up cherry tomatoes and musing over what generally disagreeable things they were. To start, the tomato plants harbor the mother of all Godzilla-like spiders. This alone is enough to persuade me to relinquish tomatoes. And then they taste weird. In spite of all these detractors, God could have made every single tomato the same shade of red.

Really.

If you stop to think about it, there's no reason for tomatoes to be anything other than red. There's no reason for them to have color at all. But as I cut them up and tossed them on the salad, I couldn't help but thank God for color. For the tiny jewels bleeding saffron and the ruby-red half moons cresting over the tops of the romaine leafs, for the sunset coloring that pervaded a dingy cutting board, making it beautiful.

I'm still wondering why I thought so much about a fruit I don't even like.

"Count your blessings" goes the old saying.

Some days blessings are brilliant neon signs in the middle of your life. Most days, though, they're brilliant and tiny tomatoes causing me to give thanks.

Coffee and Cinnamon Rolls

As much as I abhor airports, I've found some of my best memories are made in them. Saturday morning all of the staff packed up in the vans one last time to head off to Philadelphia International Airport and then home. For the most part I held up some sense of put-togetherness on the 45 min. trip there, and then promptly began to lose it as we pulled up to the terminals. 2 hours of sleep were a lovely thing to blame for the absolute puddle of tears I became, but in all truth I had just been hit with the realization of how much everyone I was saying goodbye to had become a part of my life. Goodbyes are messy and wet and mostly incoherent (at least on my part) when exchanged between dear friends. In the midst of all the hugging and sobbing, though, there was something beautiful. As cheesy as it may sound, our summer ending and all the heart-wrenching goodbyes it entailed was the result of a love that goes beyond understanding.

It would make sense that in over the course of 8 weeks, spending 24/7 with each other and sharing almost everything, people would come together. It just happens naturally. What made the difference, though, was that these people were "the excellent ones" (Ps. 16:3) who were made that way by Christ because it delighted Him to do so. Every Sunday night at t-time (a time where students are able to chill and consume copious amounts of Cheez-Its while debriefing the day), I told my girls that. I followed with the challenge to treat those around them as excellent and to delight in them as Christ did- because the knowledge of Christ choosing to make us excellent beings and to delight in us in order to please Himself should so thrill and draw our souls to loving Him that all our love spills over on to others. Here then, I find the love that passes understanding. Christ's love was filling each of us as staff, and so was poured out among our team. We loved each other with a love not our own as we saw Christ being manifested in each other.

I come back to goodbyes. Several hours after the team had divided among numerous airlines and had been separated by the 'wailing wall'( as Lydia aptly dubbed the obnoxious glass wall between us and security), Lydia and I sat in the Phoenix airport waiting for her flight. We had come off our first flight exhausted and eager for coffee. Cinnabon was the closest thing to her gate, so she came up to me as I stood with our bags and said "Let's have coffee and cinnamon rolls." Those 15 minutes in that dingy airport with mediocre coffee hold one of my favorite memories of the summer: to sit with one of my dearest friends and share the joy of completing a good summer- fully knowing its goodness and simultaneously its time to end- was total joy and satisfaction. Even in saying goodbye and joking about joining her in Idaho just so I wouldn't have to do that anymore, it was wonderful to know our relationship went beyond camp and summer and distance.

So here I sit in my bed with my cat, happy and content. Being home is good. Hopefully over the next couple weeks I'll be able to share some of my stories and thoughts from the summer, but for now- bed, because sleep is also good. Very good.

Staff Training: WVA 2011

I'm riding once again in a Worldview 15 passenger van, traveling through Kansas. I'm not sure what number state this is. :)

Staff training finished up not even an hour ago. I'm pretty sure we all just stepped off the plane into Tulsa and into so many loving arms. "Surreal" is how I would describe the week. Training was held on the Oklahoma Weslyan campus ,where my team had spent 2 weeks the previous year. I kept expecting to see their faces or hear their laughs as I passed certain spots, jerking quickly back to the present. I realized I was transferring the relationships from the end of last summer and expecting them to materialize among 18 strangers. A friend told me I couldn't re-create what I had never created in the first place. So over games resulting in multiple bruises, lots of cafeteria food (for me this was a steady diet of yogurt and granola, waffles, pb&j, soft serve ice cream and salad), and rolling numerous t-shirts, our team has started to come together. We also discovered a mutual love of good, strong, black coffee and are so equipped with 2 drip coffee filters and 1 french press.

A lot of logistics were discussed, from setting up banners and small groups to skits and opening day procedures. A morning Bible study held by one of the camp directors explored the theme of mercy throughout the Psalms. My mindset coming into training wasn't really one of dependence on God- I was so excited to be at camp and wrapped up in doing a 'good job' I lost some of my reasons for being there. I was hit soundly over the back of the head within these Psalms, facing God- whose power and might and justice should terrify us- and realizing my absolute helplessness before Him. But (and this is a wonderful thing) His steadfast love and faithfulness precede Him. And God keeps the promises He makes, not because any of our actions merit it, but because He is God and completely faithful to His word. We walk then with strength and dignity, knowing that through no action of our own the God of the Universe is behind us.

Tonight we had a girls' night: Olive Garden and Starbucks, where we quoted "Emperor's New Groove" like nobody's business and then had the opportunity to share our testimonies with each other. Sitting around that table in the warm Missouri air I could almost feel God's grace around us. Each of our stories was different in a way, but each one there had been gripped mightily by the grace of God. It was just the beginning of some of the truly awe-some things God will do this summer, and I revel in it.

Pray For Us :

1. Continue to pray for unity: again, our team is still learning to know each other and work together, now with the addition of running camp.

2. Pray for wisdom: For some of us, it's the very first week of camp ever; others, their first time staffing; still more us coming back for the 2nd or more year. However, the camp is still new, the students are different and we all need wisdom in leading it and them.

3. Pray for the students: Pray all the knowledge and truth they learn this week will be strongly tempered with grace. Pray a deeper knowledge, and then love, of God will be rooted deep in their hearts.

Spring and Camp Preparation

Spring has once again worked its magic and found a way to cram an event into every nook and cranny of these bi-polar May days. The weather simply refuses to co-operate and rain rapidly chases sunshine away for days at a time, only to give way to the sun again. It doesn't stop, and neither do I. I haven't stopped since April, May is manic. Beach trips, coffee shops, ladies' luncheons, girls' nights, brownie sundae Sunday's, graduations, retirement parties and so goes the circus. Oh, and finals, too. I managed to incorporate Calvin and Hobbes into my psychology final. I was immensely pleased with myself for finding a textbook example of the Pre-operational period in Cognitive Development. Running on a combination of coffee and adrenaline and sugar seems to be par for the course these last 2 weeks. This week, I'm heading full throttle into summer and pulling together all the last minute odds-and-ends before camp on Sunday.

Tonight I decided I would crawl into bed while the family was otherwise occupied and just read. I've been doing a ton of that lately, mostly for school and then because I want to finish all these books before I leave for camp. Otherwise they end up on the I-became-otherwise-occupied-so-abandoned-you-to-remain-forever-here-shelf. Those of you who read undoubtedly have a similar sort of location for those books. I just finished up Unfashionable by Tullian Tchividjian this afternoon and my next stop is Think by John Piper. At the same time I'm trekking my way through 993 pages of glorious fantasy in The Wise Man's Fear. Honestly, this is my favorite item on my "To-Do-Before-Camp" list. I love reading, especially in my backyard with iced coffee and strawberries. (I'm considering making that a part of my daily routine). Another thing on my to-do list is finishing the 5th season of E.R. My friends inform me this is old school, but I love the show and mom and I are trying desperately to finish before I go. Also on the list are important things like packing.....but that's boring, so I won't elaborate.

Sunday morning the sunday school lesson was on Psalm 16- God is for Us. Psalm 16 is one of my favorite Psalms, and I'm going to try and memorize it this summer while I'm away at camp.

"I say to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.' As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight." (vs. 2-3).

Two things come to mind reading these verses:

Firstly, there comes a point during camp where you truly say "I have no good apart from God"- the point where you're so exhausted emotionally, physically; when you don't want to think through yet another mealtime conversation; where you have such a tendency towards irritability it's obvious any good is not from you. This is not what I want. I want to be able to say I have no good apart from God right now. When my only problems are how to pack my suitcase under 50 lbs and finishing required reading before camp.

Secondly, "saints...in whom is all my delight." I meet a lot of people throughout the course of 8 weeks. Fellow saints. Some I rub shoulders with from 7 am to 11:30 pm for 5 days straight. Those are my students- my girls. The rest are my teammates. We work together all day, every day. Sometimes we rub each other the wrong way. Mostly, though, we learn to work as a team. From the very moment we step onto the Oklahoma Weslyan Campus, it is my prayer that my team sees each other as "excellent ones" in whom to delight.

For the next 8 weeks, then, I will travel all over the East Coast with Worldview Academy. As much as it is possible, I will update you weekly. This will probably be in the form of pictures more than writing, but we'll see. In the meantime, I ask that you would keep the Northeast team in your prayers. We need as much of it as we can get, as it is only God's grace that keeps us running strong for His glory. Here are a few specific things you can be praying for during our first week of staff training:

1. Pray for unity in our team. This first week sets the tone for all 7 weeks of camp and is crucial to developing the sort of team that will encourage, edify, and build up its members.

2. Pray for energy. For all of us it is an adjustment to a non-stop schedule, but for those of us coming from the West Coast (me!), it's also an adjustment to the time zone, which is 2 hrs. ahead of CA.

3. Pray for love. Amidst all the logistics of camp crammed into 4 short days, it's easy to let quiettimes and my desire to love God fall to the wayside. I get so caught up in doing and glorifying I forget I must first love God before I can glorify Him. Pray then, for love, that the faculty and directors and staff would not forget why we have gathered together in the first place.

My room is in turmoil at the moment. Everything needing to be packed is half in my suitcase, half out. I am excited! I am confident God will work marvelously this summer, in Worldview's three teams, in all the students attending camp- and I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to share it with you, thank you for all your prayers!

Speaking of Joy

"...The salt of joy is sorrow, a touch of tears. If we in our present mortal state met joy in her fullness, we would drown in laughter. We would be blinded and struck dumb by gladness and mirth. This may sound a pleasant way to die, but it probably would be undendurable. To be struck by unmanageable shafts of infinite sweetness would quake and crack our being into a billion pieces- it would break our hearts. Thus, instead of being explosive in us, joy is calmed and watered down like a potent wine with a note of gravity, loss, and sorrow."

~Suprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis by Terry Lindvall (emphasis my own)

Day-to-Day

March 14, 2011

I didn't want to get up this morning. I feel that this is somewhat a common theme among my posts lately, and I apologize, but it is also rather a common theme in my life. I wish it was exclusive to my blog world. I actually went back to bed after being up for an hour and rolled myself into something that looked like a caterpillar, hoping I wouldn't have to wake up until Spring Break started. The alarm cruelly shattered my delusion. I thought if I started listing off all the things I was thankful for in today (which started out something like "Thank you God that I'm breathing and was capable of opening my eyes this morning...") and taking to God everything I wasn't thankful for, I would actually start to be thankful and stop whining. It took about 30 minutes. At that point I was kicking myself for not being joyful because things weren't going my way. I tend to exaggerate when I'm tired, so, for instance, things like tests and speeches=instant death. As I said, exaggeration. I had to stop for a moment and tell my self I wasn't going to die, the day would be over soon enough, and if my hope was anchored firmly in Christ it should not waver because of speech class.

Now it's almost 7 pm and- obviously- I haven't died. Today was actually a really good day. I got a good grade on an exam, got through my speech without forgetting much important, received a wonderful gift from a friend, and got Over-the-Top and Sonic with another. This brings me to God's goodness. I realize that today became a good day and so an easy one for me to be joyful in. It really didn't start out that way, though, and I honestly didn't deserve any of it in the least. I've been reading through Knowing God by J.I. Packer for my Theology 1 class and one of the chapters I read tonight was on God's goodness and severity. Packer is talking about the most prevalent facet of goodness being generosity, and this is what he says:

Generosity means a disposition to give to others in a way which has no mercenary motive and is not limited by what the recipients deserve but consistently goes beyond it. ... Generosity is, so to speak, the focal point of God's moral perfection; it is the quality which determines how all God's other excellencies are to be displayed. ... Theologians of the Reformed school use the New Testament word grace (free favor) to cover every act of divine generosity..." (Packer 162).

It's the 'free favor' part that gets me. Free. Favor. It makes me think of party favors, except you only get the favor if you attend the party. God's grace is not just if you attend the party. It's favor. For free.

March 25, 2011

I love the sound of rain. It's a good thing, because for the past week it has been pouring. I try to think of rain as 'confetti from the sky,' if only because it makes going to school in a downpour a little less....gray. Depressing? Bleak? Wet? Anyways, I still love the sound, especially when I am indoors and warm. The best part, though, is after the storm when everything is green and glittering with the wet and so fresh and alive. After all the oppressive clouting from the rain, the hills still rise triumphant and once-blossomed trees now display fresh coats.

April 15, 2011

41 days until the last day of Freshman year. 43 until camp. *happiness* Mom and Dad got me a book for my birthday, Suprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis, and as soon as I finish this post I'll go start it. On one of the opening pages a quote stuck out, a defiant one I can only imagine came from a sad man: "If any cleric or monk peaks jocular words, such as provoke laughter, let him be anathema" (Ordinance, Second Council of Constance, 1418). I'm not sure how familiar he was with Psalm 100:1- "Serve the Lord with gladness." It is good to serve God with joy, because if we are not joyful in Him no due glory is given. A thought has been lulling in the back of my brain- God's glory and joy are inextricably intertwined. And if your joy is merely circumstantial, it isn't really glorifying because it's not joy in God, merely joy in the circumstance. And that is another post.

In Review

I'm irritated with myself because I can't seem to think of anything worthwhile to write. Time is going so fast and I want it just stop for a moment. Maybe it's the schizophrenic March weather, but I have a constant feeling of displacement, or being rushed from one day to the next without knowing how. The past three weeks have been pretty full, but looking at my now-rainbow colored planner (here's to highlighting assignments and tests in neon colors!), it was just the calm before the storm.

Here's a brief overview: I spent a full Saturday in SF shopping with my mom and fell madly head-over-heels in love with alpaca fur teddy bears. And gained extra appreciation for Blue-Bottle coffee for keeping me awake and warm as we waited for the ferry that never came. President's day weekend, I flew to WA and visited a dear friend in the minuscule (and I mean minuscule!) town of Yacolt. I'm not sure if I've ever eaten so much in one weekend, but it was a time for firsts: I went clamming and go-carting and thought my fingers were going to fall off after 7 times around the track in the below freezing weather. So much awesome in 3 days! This Tuesday, we celebrated Matthew's 13th birthday- 13!!!- in Tahoe and Mom and I built a snowman almost bigger than me. The rest of life has been mostly study guides, tests, and having fun in the in-between moments.

So if I could bottle up today, I would. I was out late last night with friends, and today was the perfect lazy-day Saturday. Time stopped for a moment, I didn't have anything to do, anywhere to go. I'm looking forward to another week of craziness and praying for the strength to continue to get up out of bed and to keep going hard at school. I don't know if I've ever studied so much in my life, and it makes me laugh when I open my planner and the whole day is a multicolored reminder of everything that's due. I don't know how it's March already. I'm la coiled wire, ready to release as soon as spring arrives (15 days!). Spring makes me crazy, and it's all I can do to breathe in as much of its sunshine as I can.

Right now, though, I'm learning contentment on an hour-by-hour basis. It's peace as I tackle 153 pg notes packages, knowing I'm in a position to be asking for a constant stream of grace. It's enjoying the all-too-short break before I have to re-enter my dungeon of a science lab because- before I know it- the day will be gone, never to be found again. It's turning over all my worries to God as I start to go to sleep and recognizing His plans are not mine. It's reveling in Friday nights with the whole week behind me and the weekend ahead.

Pizza's here, now, and I need to finish coloring my hair- Happy Saturday everyone!

Hello, Wednesday

It is the middle of the week, almost 5 o'clock and I can. not. focus. My friends, the 2 cups of coffee and 1 earl gray latte are not helping. Nevertheless, here's my little quote that causes me to smile every time I read it- for each time I think of all the "you too['s]" that have become dear friends:

" The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one.' "

~C.S. Lewis The Four Loves

Remembering for a Wild Moment...

Today is Wednesday, and usually by Wednesday I start missing my blog. Or rather, I miss the lull of checking my stats page to see what new obscure country has maintained a position on my readership list. Believe it or not, a person in Malaysia has read my blog! It was probably a mistake... So while my new official posting day is Saturday, as far as time allows, Wednesday will be something like "Quote Day," or maybe just a chance for me to offer up a middle week pick-me-up.

A Quote: " When we are very young children we don't need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales-- because they find them romantic...This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples are golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water." ~G.K. Chesterton

I want all day to be filled with those "wild moments" where everything is new and thrilling and lovely.

Drink some coffee. Enjoy the sunshine- or the snow. Have a wild moment and look at something mundane with fresh eyes. Happy Wednesday!

6:00 AM

Monday will mark my 3rd week of school and something like my 5th week of pursuing intentionality. It really only took until the Thursday of my first week of school to realize this was going to be harder than I thought.

Last semester, I had Economics at 8 am, so I would wake up 6/6:30 to leave the house an hour later. I didn't really have any problems waking up and getting going in the morning which was almost a semi-miracle for me. Now, Spring Semester '11 is upon me- marked by the ever-cheerful neon orange parking sticker- and at 6 am I am glued to my pillow. I had very excitedly scheduled my first class of the day at 9:30. This way I could continue waking up at 6, like the previous semester, but be able to fit more into the morning before school. I have 3 hours to have my quiet time, walk with my mom, get ready and take care of any chores/leftover homework. This should leave me incredibly thankful and springing out of bed when my alarm goes off at 6am. It doesn't.

It was once pointed out to me that morning when we first wake up holds the most potential for sin- in the form of selfishness- than any other time of day. This makes sense when you think about it. Often the first thought to enter my head when I wake up is something along the lines of wondering where I am and why on earth is that obnoxious alarm going off? I proceed to hit the snooze with a vindictiveness the alarm must feel offended at- it is just doing its job-and grumble in my mind about it still being dark and being the first person up and having to go to a boring class and there not being any coffee made and having to actually get up at all. All this happens in less than a minute, and before the sun has even risen I have engaged in selfishness, grumbling and complaining and laziness. And I pride myself with 'beginning' the day with my quiet time?

What occurs between the minutes of 6:00 and 6:01 am seems very hopeless. Most the time I can not even remember what occurred in the first 15 minutes of my day very clearly, let alone take any of those thoughts captive. However, the Bible makes no exceptions: it does not say "Take every thought captive, with the exclusion of the first 15 minutes you are awake because that tends to be extremely difficult." Ah, no. It requires every thought to be taken captive. This, like anything, takes practice. Lots and lots and lots of practice. It has been 4 months since I have become aware of this habit and I have maybe managed to wake up being thankful for the day twice. Quite pathetic actually. All it should take is waking up and being grateful I actually have a bed to sleep in, that I had a full nights sleep, that I am privileged enough to continue my education when there are many that can not, and that there is even coffee to brew. And overall being thankful for new mercies every morning and the grace of Christ I carry with me throughout the day.

Though I know waking up is going to be a struggle I will face throughout this semester, I take heart in 2 things: 1.) The joy I have experienced in these last two weeks through the time I spend with God in the morning and 2.) William Law and George Mueller. Firstly, by the time I have a cup of coffee in hand and have laid out my Bible and journal in front of me I am already thankful that I didn't hit the snooze button 2 more times. By the end of my hour, it is apparent to me the time I was able to spend pursuing my relationship with Christ and knowing Him more was infinitely more worth than the extra half hour I could have slept in. Though as we all know, there are those days where it really did not seem worth it and the extra half hour did. This is when I take encouragement from two men, William Law and George Mueller. In John Piper's book When I Don't Desire God, he quotes both these men frequently in the chapters on prayer. These are the two quotes that have encourage me most:

" When you thus begin the day in the spirit of religion, renouncing sleep, because you are to renounce softness and redeem your time; this disposition, as it puts your heart into a good state so it will procure the assistance of the Holy Spirit; what is so planted and watered with certainly have an increase from God. You will then speak from your heart, your soul will be awake, your prayers will refresh you like meat and drink, you will fell what you say, and begin to know what saints and holy men have meant by fervors of devotion." William Law

I bristled a bit when he referred to sleep as "softness." I understand Mr. Law is not referring to a good night's sleep as softness, but rather to the excess of sleep I dearly crave. After all, who would consider the half hour from 6-6:30 excess sleep? I call it being a student- isn't that what everybody does? Regardless, Christians are not called to be "everybody else," but Christ-like. I'm not saying we all have to wake up at a specific time, everyone has different seasons of life and different schedules and different requirements to be met. We are each accountable to how we utilize our time, though. For me this means making sure I am in bed between 10-10:30 pm. Let me clarify that 11 to 11:30 is staying up late for me on a week night. While I understand this freely allows you to label me as an old woman, I also understand that going to bed any time after 10:30 makes it all the harder to fight the urge to sleep at 6 the next morning. I have made it a goal to attempt to cultivate the desire to be in the Word early in the morning rather than in my book late at night. For this undertaking I am spurred on by this last quote of George Mueller's:

"According to my judgement the most important point to be attended to is this: above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord's work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself! Day by day seek to make this the most important business of your life."

My current thinking is that I need to order these last two quotes in the form of neon signs and flashing lights, to be attached to the ceiling as the first thing I see when I wake up. But something in me says continuous exposure to bright colors and blinking lights may result is seizures at a young age, so maybe I won't. The Holy Spirit is better than any neon sign, so I need to learn to let Him mold my will to staying awake rather than falling back asleep. So raise your coffee mugs to those early morning minutes of supreme and paramount importance and let the adventure begin.

The Big and the Little

It has been 2 weeks, 1 Hawaii vacation, and 1 first day of school since my last post. This means I am due for a new one. Trouble is, I have no new thoughts. Or more accurately, they have been thoughts along the lines of "Where on earth did they hide the Psych room?" "Did he really just LICK that?!?" and "rolloverhitthesnoozebutton....10moreminutes1omore." The last one really is how I think at 6 am. And multiple paragraphs of these sort of thoughts don't make for much of an edifying blog post. Instead, here are 5 things I'm thankful for, big and little, in no particular order.

1. Words For many reasons, words are one of my very favorite things. They are how people communicate, whether it be talking, or emails, or books, or letters, or postcards. Written words are how God chose to communicate with us. They are how people miles apart can stay in touch, and how mom can remind you via sticky-note that you really need to clean your room. We make ourselves known through them, teach through them, share through them.

2. Coffee surprise! Not only do I love it for the caffeine content and the smell, I love how it allows for people to just sit. The same goes for tea. Nothing else says to a person "I want you to stay for awhile to talk" than handing them a mug of something warm. After all, they have to wait for the beverage to cool some, and then they have to drink it all. It gives you a good 1/2 hr to an hr., and by then you'll have a good conversation rolling and all thoughts of science homework have gone out the door. Cheers!

3. Clouds I grew up in a place with trees. Lots and lots of very tall trees. It wasn't until I moved to a tree-less city that I really saw the sky- and the clouds in it. Cirrus clouds are my favorite, the thin whispy type, like ribbons across the sky. Cirrus clouds means high winds and unfavorable flying conditions. There's one outside my window now, it's a color undefinable by Crayola crayon, but looks like the center of a Cadbury Egg. Clouds make me think: about the weather that's coming, about the sort of shapes they could be, about the colors they are, about how neat it was that God gave us so much to wonder about and enjoy in a fluff of condensed water vapor.

4. Movies & Friends & Sugar Particularly tonight, when some of my favorite people are coming over to watch one of my favorite books (made into a motion picture, obviously) and eat some of my favorite types of cookies. And almost every other night, when I get to watch a.) a cop show b.)a spy/sci-fi/thriller drama show or c.) this is my developmentally-disabled child and these are the great lengths I go to to "..........." movie with my family, who pretty much only likes 3 types of entertainment.

5. First Days of School Really, I am thankful for the fact that I can spend the first week recovering from whatever break I was currently on by listening to my Professor read aloud the syllabus. It's a wonderful thing, knowing 90% of the time there will be no homework assigned on the first day, and if it is, it's usually just an assignment to go home and read the syllabus yourself. It's like a welcome-back gift!

There they were, 5 things. This type of post will appear every once in awhile when I have little else to write about. I realize I am not thankful enough, when I have so much to be thankful for. Though I deserve nothing and salvation is the greatest gift, God has still given me this life to live and enjoy! So I will be greatful for it and enjoy the masterpiece God has created in the sky while drinking a cup of coffee.

Reflections on Adventures in Narnia

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had an absolutely wonderful holiday (it's my favorite one!) and is enjoying whatever is left of Christmas break. I definitely am.

Christmas was lovely, and my parents surprised us with a trip to Hawaii from the 11th to the 18 of January. The prospect of sunny beaches between me and Spring semester is oh-so-wonderful. We should do this every year! Until then, I will content myself with the happy memories from the past weekend.

A week after Christmas, I packed up and headed to Denver, CO, where I met up with the WVA staff for 4 days. Needless to say, it was epic. There were snowballs, caffeine runs (Starbucks or the Pepsi machine, take your pick!), games, conversations, fireworks, frisbee games-in the snow-, and even a saran-wrapped staffer. And of course, a whole lotta' silliness. Meet the best college staff in America!

While there is little in this world able to beat a game of Killer Uno, or even a round of German Duck-Duck Goose, what I loved most about the weekend was the encouragement that came in the form of spontaneous hallway conversations and small group prayer. As a few of us would sit and dialog about our experiences since the summer and what we had- or hadn't- learned and applied, I felt the struggle to remain intentional with our lives at home was reiterated over and over again. Frankly, intentionality is a whole lot easier when someone else provides you with a schedule detailing every half hour from 7:30 am to 11:30 pm. The language Paul uses constantly throughout his letters, however, involves fighting and struggles and war. I.E., nothing involving 'easy.' Not to say that life has to always be difficult and challenging, merely that our purpose here is to run hard after Christ and stay our positions (2 Tim. 2:1-6). Therefore, my main 'war'- if I can call it that- is here, at home. And so it was often mulled over how we are to live at home in light of our experiences in Narnia- as I have affectionately taken to calling it as the Cook family does.

On Christmas day, our family went to see the Dawn Treader and a quote at the end stuck out to me. Aslan had just finished telling Lucy and Edmund they could no longer return to Narnia, naturally, they were a little distraught. I would be too.

" ' Are-are you there to, Sir?' said Edmund.

'I am," said Aslan. 'But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that be knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.' "

I love this because it sums up everything I wanted to say so much neater than I could've, because

I struggled with my specific purpose at camp. I knew, of course, that I was supposed to be there, after

all, that's where I was. But after that, I really had next to no idea. So after spending the past 6 months

trying to figure it out, I think I have it. I saw God work in ways I never had before while I was at camp,

provide in ways I don't know I'd ever asked for Him to provide in. He stirred up in me a greater recognition

of His mighty power and faithful love, so that I would have a taste of it and seek more. Now I cannot claim

God's specific purposes in doing anything- other than He does that which brings glory to Himself.

For the New Year, then, I want to act on my knowledge of God. Not just on Sundays, Bible Study nights,

in the mornings, during Worldview stuff, or when I feel particularly spiritual. I want my love for God to be so great

(and love comes through knowing Him), that I act upon that love first thing when I wake up, throughout

breakfast and classes, lunch, late afternoon coffee and homework. Play time, sleep time, practice time, study

time, all the time. That, dear friends, is my one resolution for the new year. Many little ones I am sure

will come underneath its umbrella, but I can aim no higher than the glory of God.