Can we please canonize this?

“What is real?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL.

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who will break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

A Satisfying Day

-Church this morning.
-Filling out oodles of hospital surveys on a sunny deck with my parents.
-Driving with the windows down and music blaring; Dima's head hanging out the window, sniffing voraciously.
-A run with the dog in mid-70s weather.
-Grocery shopping and an attempt at a new recipe.
-Another walk with the dog--this time beside open water with wind carrying the promise of rain on it.
-A nap after a little reading.
-Realizing that, for the most part, I still remember Greek while finalizing what I'm going to speak on in church (April 15th!). Books are strewn about my living room . . .a good chaos.

Maybe I'm getting somewhere?

Procrastination . . .it gets the better of me when it comes to anything academic. Normally I'm the mad-planner when it comes to physical life stuff: goals, goals, goals--but when it comes to getting a paper together, and, say, putting a sermon together . . .well . . .those CSI shows are pretty engrossing.

However.

Nansi: "Kristy, let's get together Thursday to talk about the liturgy and service layout. We'll talk about your sermon, too." Some stalling on my end as I flip open my calendar, and then slowly, "Uhh, sure . . .but it's still looking a little rough." Try I've-thrown-out-what-I-started-a-month-ago-and-have-only-a-vague-idea . . .but yeah, Thursday, as in TOMORROW. No problem.

So I've returned to one of my favorite teachers, Wendell Berry, and have decided on his poem, Envoy, for the bulletin cover. Initially I wanted this poem to grace the front of my wedding bulletins or invitations, but given the likelihood of my ever getting married, I think it will do just fine on a Sunday morning.

I've also just finished reading The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, which truly deserves a post of its own. It is absolutely brilliant--so well done and creative--and it has made its entry into my top 5 (which is no small feat). I have nothing but genuine love and admiration for this book--truly! Stunning work.

Anyway, I'm going to use a section from The History of Love and speak on silence.

Imagine that.

Especially when the Greek scripture reading is about Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Even the Psalms passage urges one to verbally declare God's glory. And yet, I'll throw a wrench in the works, make things harder than they need to be, and talk about reading God in the silences life offers us. (Maybe it's the Zen Buddhist in me. Or that whole apophatic theology bit.) Now to put it to hard copy and some semblance of order . . . .

Whatever happens,
those who have learned
to love one another
have made their way
to the lasting world
and will not leave,
whatever happens.

-W. Berry, "Sabbaths 1998"

The Meatrix

Check this out.

Taxes

Again, I owe the federal government a sizeable amount of money . . .money that will probably go toward paying for another bomb.

Thankfully my independent contracting days are over. It's a shame I can't write the same for the war in Iraq.

Quirky, or not quirky?

Your Quirk Factor: 65%

You're so quirky, it's hard for you to tell the difference between quirky and normal. No doubt about it, there's little about you that's "normal" or "average."

How Quirky Are You?


Not so sure if this is good or bad . . . .

Lent

The past few weeks have been interesting . . .my father in and out of hospitals, a new OR scheduling system at work that has been a nightmare to transition into, working the "crack shift" which involves getting up at 3 am for 2 consecutive weeks, my bathroom getting ripped apart, dogsitting Chachi (who enjoys fighting with Dima), making some major career/possibly-moving-back-to-MN decisions, trying to get a sermon together for next month (any ideas?), Lenten soup discussions on Thursdays, and some nasty driving weather to boot!

And what tops it off, you might ask? I gave up coffee for Lent. I thought it might be good to sacrifice something I genuinely like, instead of something that would ultimately be self-serving (I admit it; I contemplated giving up chocolate or going on a sugar fast to possibly lose some weight--all in the name of Lent, of course). So with that said, I am now more aware of coffee than I have ever been in my entire life!!

Despite its presence everywhere, I have thus far held out: in emergency department waiting rooms, at work, church, in my own kitchen . . .and I'm learning small things along the way. For instance, this morning I was in the hallway of Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital, waiting for a nurse to update me and my mother on my father's condition. The coffee pots with their creamers, stir sticks, and other essentials were staring at me as I was lovingly staring at them, and I went about rationalizing why it was perfectly fine for me to have a cup. Quickly, the internal dialogue led to a resounding "Jesus himself would urge you to drink this cup, Kristy!" (Feel free to think "psycho" here, I could very well be a sinking ship.) But then I thought of the shoes I had wanted to buy at REI, and I thought of a cross country race in college where I had actually looked around for a hole to twist my ankle in so that I could be done with the race (no hole available, thankfully), and I thought of Israel's desert years and the golden calf . . .and I again realized my need to find the quick fix in a situation instead of suffering through something that is uncomfortable, but for my good. There's much more to unpack here . . .but I know that it ultimately comes down to my inability to fully trust something, someone else, myself, even God. My skepticism rules frequently!

So who knew free coffee and a refusal to drink it would lead to such a helpful realization?

Change is A Comin'

"Remember, the most important and most loveable parts of you are invisible."--Toni Raiten D'Antonio

This is what I tell myself when I look into the mirror and see the sad and unseemly results of a desk job, a long winter's hibernation, and "Soul Food Day" at work . . . .