come, let us return

engagement post (better late than never)

2006-06-05T16:42:00.000-05:00

it happened on the 21st of february. we took a trip to inís mór. and david griffith asked me to be his wife.

that part makes me happy.

the part where he left and went back to the states makes me sad.

but the part where we look forward to the future together... that's a very good part.

the stillness becomes the dancing

2005-11-01T14:15:00.000-05:00

i'm moving out of laurel today. back up to philly. david is going on leave, renee is moving. the time has come to leave my happy little home here. i gave david's car back to him last night.

it's sad. i know the timing is right. this was only ever temporary. renee needed a roommate, i needed a place to stay. it was perfect for a time. but now the time has passed.

i went for a walk around laurel yesterday. it's a great place to walk. as i turned onto main street, i smiled. i passed the dodgy coffee shop that's always empty because it has bad hours. there was the mediterranean food shop with the broken credit card machine. the row of consignment stores.

the sun was shining and it was unusually hot for the last day of october. i was walking because it was a beautiful day, but also because i was restless. i'd spent the morning mulling over questions i don't have answers to for the thousandth time. a week ago i pleaded with God to give me sunshine and balanced hormones in order to cope with the questions. yesterday i had both. i've had a place to live, a good friend to live with, a man who cares for me. what more do i need in order to feel settled? what more do i need in order for those questions to stop plaguing me?

i asked God as i walked. as i turned off of fourth street onto montgomery, he said, you have everything you need.

i waited for a car to pass and thought, yes, i do. i have made my heart known to a loving Father. i have laid my questions before him. he will answer when he will answer.

for now, enjoy what he's given.

for now, wait, and let the stillness become the dancing.

there's a roast on the floor

2005-10-13T19:46:00.000-05:00

i am sitting in my adopted living room, sipping hot cider with david and renee.

there is a roast in the crockpot on the floor next to me. it will be there for a few more hours.

for more adventures in cooking in the laurel pad, see renee's blog.

a triune chord

2005-08-30T13:12:00.000-05:00

it's been a litte while since an abstract thought really got me going, but last week my sister had me read an article about a guy who had spoken at one of her chapels at college. it was about how music can inform our understanding of theology.

a couple of years ago i read dorothy sayers' the mind of the maker. sayers was saying that God has left his image on creation... and so a lot of things that we take as theological mysteries are actually displayed in our daily lives. for example, the trinity. how do we wrap our heads around three persons in one godhead? but a book is both the creative idea that conceives it, the tangible manifestation of that idea in book form, and the effect that the book has on those who read it. the Father--the creative conceiver; the Son--the tangible incarnation; and the Spirit--the continual effector.

jeremy begbie, the guy the article was about, draws out the idea of trinity in a musical chord. in a chord, each note remains unique and individual, but the three notes blend together in harmony to create a whole chord. while objects can't occupy the same space (and our minds tend to work in terms of objects, thereby making the trinity a difficult concept), sound can. here's a link to an interview with begbie and one to the abstract of an interview he did with mars hill. he's also got a book out called beholding the glory. i'm too cheap to buy it, but if anyone else does, i'd love to hear about it.

i don't have much to say about all of this other than that i love to discover new ways that God has revealed himself in creation and in art. a while ago, pat wallin posted on the role of art in the church. something that we've lost in the modern evangelical tradition (which is making a comeback in the emergent church) is a respect for God's revelation in the arts. we have been created in the image of our creator God to be creative. it's not a frivolous thing. it's vital--it's intrinsic to our understanding of who our Father is.

i voted for bush

2005-08-01T12:36:00.000-05:00

i just found out that i'm a flaming liberal feminist. i'm always a little amused to find out how people perceive me (i tend to keep to myself, which means people end up drawing their own conclusions), but i have to say this one has come as quite a surprise.

somewhere between high school and now, i stopped being ultra-conservative. i know that. living and traveling in europe helped me to question some of my presuppositions and try to see the validity in the 'other side.' i know that, too. and i started to really love the unique voice that women have--the beauty and the strength--and i've wanted to hear it expressed more. i long to see men honor women by encouraging and validating their voices.

but i didn't know that all of these things added up to being a flaming liberal feminist. here's how i found out: i started hanging out with a guy who works for the united states secret service. he carries a gun. he wears body armor. he protects the white house. and as i've started telling people about him, they're shocked. really. several people have implied that his job surely must clash with all of my ideals. as liberal as i (apparently) am, it doesn't seem possible that i would be comfortable with someone who works for The Man.

there are many layers of irony here, but the one i find most humorous is that i actually voted for bush. there were several extra-political reasons that i did, but none of the political ramifications were strong enough for me to decide not to vote for him. and i'll be honest--i've kind of resented the fact that i've had to keep that on the DL. i'm not saying that i'm 100% behind everything bush does. there's a lot that i don't agree with. but aside from the politics, i resent the fact that i lose cool points because of the way i voted. i am absolutely against the idea that to be christian is to be republican. that is anathema to me. (i went to a church the sunday before july 4 where they sang patriotic songs instead of hymns and preached on why the constitution is worthy of respect. i had to dig my fingernails into the pews in order to avoid jumping up and screaming. this is the first time in four years that i've been in the states for the fourth, and the whole thing was so strange. can i just point out how appropriate it is that our major national holiday is a celebration of independence? bullheaded american independence. we will depend on no one.) but i don't think the solution is to vote against the 'moral majority' to maintain edginess.

so this is my public confession: i voted for bush. twice.

you may now think less of me. but i warn you: if you think less of me for this, i will probably think less of you.

a fresh coat of paint

2005-07-29T06:46:00.000-05:00

when my sister got home from her first year of college in may, she decided to redecorate her room before moving her stuff back in. her room hadn't changed for the eight years that we've lived in this house. so for a week the entire family was stepping over suitcases and milk cartons full of clothes and books and picture frames, stacked in the hallways and on the stairs and in the laundry room. we stripped the old border off--the one she was never quite sure she liked, though she had never hated it. we painted over the neutral sand color on the walls--a color she had always resented because she hadn't picked it--with a bold rose color. (i'll spare you the description of the kickass cutting in job i did. i'm a little ocd when it comes to cutting in. i have dreams about it.) we hung new curtains. we rearranged the furniture.

the other night i was hanging out in her room while she hung some pictures. we got talking about the way going away changes you--how it affects your identity and sense of self. and how one of the hardest things about going away and coming back is that the people you left expect you to be what you were when you left.

i think everyone rubs up against that at some point in their lives. you go away to college, or leave for a summer. you establish a life of your own somewhere, and then try to come back and interact with your parents. you go abroad and interact with the ideas and customs of another culture. you experience some dramatic healing from some lifelong crap.

i've done all of the above over the last few years. and it's always hard to come back and translate the changes. how do you communicate subtle internal changes? slight realignments of identity? i went with a friend of mine in ireland last year to pierce her nose before she came back to the states. i usually come back and purge my wardrobe. i've changed--those clothes are no longer an expression of my self. i cut my hair. i do my make-up differently. i change my language. like sharon redecorating her room, i need some sort of external manifestation of the changes that have taken place. i need a fresh coat of paint to remind myself that i am not the woman i was.

said the beggar

2005-07-20T15:59:00.000-05:00

just came across this poem i wrote early last year (inspired by a dublin beggar) and it made me chuckle.

i will get a
9 to 5 job.
i will buy a
three piece suit.
it will be my
holiday from
this life of
ease.

i've taken a bit of a holiday from blogging because it was pissing me off. may be food for later posts, but for now i'll sign off with a plug for stephenhill.info. i was just listening to his 'jesus said' demo cd this afternoon for the first time in a while and remembered how much i like it.

stephen, when does the cd come out?

it's we we we who build community--boom boom boom

2005-06-29T15:09:00.000-05:00

i'm in chicago this week with my sister and brother-in-law. last night we went downtown to the 'taste of chicago.' a bunch of area restaurants set up booths and sell their specialities. it's a great street carnival of food. you buy tickets and then crawl from booth to booth, eating. you can buy whole meals or just a bunch of 'taste portions.' the booths take up three or four city blocks.

sarah and nate live outside of the city, so we drove in and parked. it was raining a bit, but there were still a lot of people--not so many that it was claustrophobic, but enough that it felt alive and buzzing. it was one of the most beautiful things i've ever done in a city. we walked with the crowd (or against it) and sampled food. the food was from all over: mexico, jamaica, thailand, puerto rico, china, italy, germany, india, ireland. the people were from every imaginable walk of life. and everyone was there to eat and enjoy. it wasn't overly commercialized. there were booths for cell phones and army recruitment and (my personal favorite) maalox... but they weren't an overwhelming presence. it was about the food.

and because everyone was there for the food, it was about community as well. it was a celebration of chicago. it was a feast on the best the city had to offer.

at one end, we took an extra loop that took us through a new park that the city just built. in the park, right across the street from some towering examples of chicago-style architecture, there are two identical, rectangular brick structures. they're set apart maybe 40 ft, and they're about 20 ft tall. water falls in sheets on all four sides of each. periodically, huge digital faces appear on the sides and look at each other and smile and blink. then, suddenly, they purse their lips and blow and jets of water, like 10-ft-high fire hydrants, shoot out of their mouths. it creates a half-inch pool in between the pillars--an open invitation to come and splash and cool off. last night there were kids and adults laughing and screaming and splashing. we joined the crowd standing around the edges. we started laughing, too. it was something you wanted to be part of--this city enjoyment of life, the shrieks of joy as the water came streaming down. there was a grown man sitting in the water, splashing it over his back. it was refreshing just to watch.

i always love the city. it always reminds me that i'm part of something larger. last night was a taste of heaven. a bunch of dappled people, eating together, enjoying together. it was like a great city worship service.

P M S

2005-06-22T13:22:00.000-05:00

i realize that at the moment this blog is being read primarily by guys (which is an interesting phenomenon in and of itself). but stick with me for a minute.

in the last year and a half i've become much more aware of how i'm affected by my hormones. at first it was just good information to have: i knew that the feeling that the world was collapsing was only temporary, and i knew when to give myself some space. but after a while i started resenting how predictable it was. how frustrating is it that there are a few days a month that i can't interact with people without being a bitch? how agonizing is it that there are regularly times when i'll cry out to my father to comfort me, and feel like it's completely futile? every month i feel like i come back to the same struggles, to find them just as debilitating as they were the month before.

it's really easy to begin resenting the fact that guys don't experience this cyclical hell as well. my friend, erika, and i have spent a lot of time shaking our fists at how unfair the curse seems to be. it's not bad enough that we have to deal with pregnancy and labor, we have to have this monthly plague as well.

in january i screamed into my journal at God: what about pms? do you go there, too? how do you redeem that?! i scream at God a lot. and, in testimony to his incredible graciousness, he usually gently allows me to see the answers.

i've been realizing over the last couple of years how amazingly capable women are. they can do a lot, and what they can't do, they can figure out well enough to get by. they are more willing to put up with doing things it's killing them to do than men are. (i know these are generalizations.) it's really easy for women to believe that they can hold it all together; that they can save and sustain everyone.

and then pms hits, and they lose control, and they hurt the people they care about--the people they're trying to save and sustain. and they realize their need for a savior. pms is God's monthly mercy to women, calling them away from self-dependence and into dependence on him. that, at least, is what he's been showing me over the last six months. my regularly scheduled breakdowns are usually the times i come crawling back to him with fresh repentance. they're usually the times when i'm broken by my sin and the fruitlessness of my coping with it.

so, six months after my screaming episode, i think i can say: praise him for pms. his mercies are new every month.

i am anakin

2005-06-15T16:25:00.000-05:00

my family went to see star wars episode 3 tonight. (i like star wars.
don't argue with me.) you've got to give somebody props for the fact
that in this one movie, they managed to transform anakin from an
annoying two-dimensional twerp to an engaging, conflicted character.
there must have been a few people working hard on that one. despite
having known the ending for years, i still found myself hoping for
anakin. he was so gifted. he had such potential. and then he went and
blew it because he was told to wait when he wanted to move.

that was the moment where i had the most sympathy for him. he gives
the chairman-of-the-jedi-council dude the info that the chancellor is
the sith lord (hope i'm not ruining this for anyone) and he wants to
come along and be part of the clean-up, but he's told to wait. he was
exposed and vulnerable. he was betraying someone whom he had
considered a friend and mentor. and he's left standing there.

i'm feeling a little bit like that with God this week. i want to be
in ireland, i want to be doing battle and using my gifts there, and
instead i've been told to wait. and while i'm waiting, i feel like
nobody gives a shit about my gifts--in fact, that those gifts have
been harming my relationships rather than helping them. in my hot-
headed arrogance i'm mad at God for not letting me use the gifts he's
given me. why bother having gifts if you can't use them?

i know the answer to that one, but i don't really want to hear it
right now. the dark side is threatening.

a moment for countercultural props for the box

2005-06-08T17:44:00.000-05:00

my generation doesn't like boxes. in fact, we make a very big deal out of how much we hate boxes--how limiting, confining, restricting they are. we're so much more individual and free-spirited than boxes let us be.

generally speaking, i don't like boxes any more than the next postmodern. but i do want to take a moment to defend personality tests, which i've heard criticized several times over the last couple of weeks.

to be fair, a lot of the criticism is wise and valid. there is a danger in personality tests being interpreted by lay people. there is a temptation to excuse sin on the basis of it being part of your personality. and it's even possible to define yourself by your personality and thereby limit your abilities and excuse yourself from challenges. and of course, the limitation of personality tests is that they really only tell you what you already know--or think you know--about yourself.

so the reason that i want to defend them isn't because they're flawless, but because in my life, the boxes of personality tests have set me free. american culture tells you that you have to be extraverted to be successful--you have to be able to jump from one thing to the next, juggle a thousand responsibilities and invest in a million relationships. american christian culture tells you that women are supposed to be soft and fuzzy, slightly irrational, but tender-hearted. being critical--especially as a woman--is as good as being a prostitute. being indecisive is a weakness, and a sign that you don't have enough faith. in some places it's frivolous to be visionary. in others, it's a shame to be bogged down in details.

the reason that i'm a fan of the meyers-briggs personality test is that it helped me to see that God created me as an analytical, indecisive introvert for his own glory. and he looks on me with love--not as an egregious failure. it's helped me to see the good things about my personality, and to stop beating myself up for being so unable to live up to societal expectations. it's helped me understand that when i love people, it looks more like a sword than a teddy bear.

that's not to say that i don't sin in those areas as well. i do. i hide from people and criticize them instead of love them. and i make an idol out of the ability to make right decisions. i have as much to repent of as a decisive extravert. but let me repent of my sin, and not of my personality.

your references are illusions

2005-06-07T10:15:00.000-05:00

"i guess culture shock is more powerful than anyone realizes. i really felt like i was drowning. i've never felt like that before, like being in a place with no references. where what you thought were references are illusions." kimberly, the american in thailand, bangkok 8.

i'll admit--i'm a little obsessed with culture shock. i love the interaction of cultures and the necessary dissonance that occurs. i love the way it rocks your perception of reality. i love the way it makes you question all of your assumptions and presumptions. don't get me wrong--it's a bitch to live through. but if you can hear the gospel in the midst of it, it's more beautiful and multi-dimensional... more dappled, as gerard manley hopkins would say.

last week i read bangkok 8, on recommendation from krissy. a nice little murder mystery, with insights into thai culture and buddhism thrown in. or maybe vice versa: a fascinating study of thai culture and buddhism and the way the west has affected them with--oh yeah--a murder investigation thrown in. observation: other cultures seem to have a much better understanding of themselves than americans do. i think it's because we're young and so many cultures combine to make us who we are.

here are a few quotes from bangkok 8 on the east and the west:

actually, the West is a Culture of Emergency: twisters in Texas, earthquakes in California, windchill in chicago, drought, flood, famine, epidemics, drugs, wars on everything--watch out for that meteor and how much longer does the sun really have? of course, if you didn't believe you could control everything, there wouldn't be an emergency, would there?

there will be a massive shift of power from West to East in the middle of the twenty-first century, caused not by war or economics but by a subtle alteration in consciousness. the new age of biotechnology will require a highly developed intuition which operates outside of logic, and anyway the internal destruction of Western society will have reached such a pass that most of your resources will be concentrated on managing loonies. there will be tv news pictures of people fleeing from supermarkets and pressing their hands to their heads, unable to take the banality anymore. the peoples of southeast asia, who have never been poisoned by logical thought, will find themselves in the driver's seat. it will be like old times, if your timeline stretches back a few thousand years.

and one on insecurity:

i note that he has chosen the theme tune from Star Wars for his ringing tone, whereas i myself opted for 'the blue danube' (thereby demonstrating that i am no more than an impostor in western culture, a naive tourist anyway, with the musical taste of a grandmother; i can't think why i didn't choose Star Wars, which i actually prefer).

looks like you're waiting for something

2005-06-03T08:34:00.000-05:00

for memorial day this past weekend, my dad's side of the family had a work day at our house. i should tell you--our house is big and old and falling apart. we have a hard time keeping on top of it. last year when i got back from ireland, there were huge chunks of concrete that had been thrown into a ditch in our backyard. later, just before winter set in, someone anonymously left a load of rocky, clay-ey dirt on top of the concrete. all through the rainy philadelphia winter, we had a mud hole in our backyard. it was depressing.

so my aunts and uncles and cousins came over on monday and we broke up the dirt, evened it out, replanted some flowers to prevent erosion and spread grass seed. (my uncle mark was a farmer and has the most amazing grass sowing technique i've ever seen. it's like watching ballet.)

that was monday. this is thursday. but i still have the happy glow of a job well-done--of something that was ugly being made beautiful. i'm sitting on my porch swing now, admiring our work. every morning i get up and look out the window. i can't wait until the new grass grows in and we have a lovely, green yard.

we're also in the middle of remodeling our downstairs bathroom. the floor had always been a little dodgy and one morning my dad decided to fix it. that night the entire bathroom had been gutted. my dad had always thought it was ugly. now there's a solid, beautifully tiled floor. the walls are straight and painted in this purple color that never would have gotten there if my mom hadn't found it on sale. it's still not done, but i walk in sometimes just to appreciate the solid craftsmanship and restorative beauty.

yesterday at the mission, we read revelation 21 and 22. a new heaven and a new earth. paul cried as he read it, and i teared up as i reread it this morning. my heart aches to see creation restored. projects like the backyard and the bathroom pull at something in me--it's something that was old, dirty, ugly and broken being made new, whole, clean and beautiful.

i was talking to my friend, lara the other night. she told me people keep telling her they think there's something big in her future. it's kind of like what the oracle tells neo--it looks like you're waiiting for something. i feel that, too--the expectation of huge things to come. lara wondered if that isn't just what hope is--opening yourself up to the reality that this isn't all we were created for. we were created for a new creation. we're waiting for the Kingdom to come. we live in an atmosphere of expectation--of a hope that doesn't disappoint; of a Lamb who is worthy; of a King who is victorious; of a bridegroom coming for his bride.

even so, come Lord Jesus.

a trend in going

2005-05-25T13:12:00.000-05:00

i'm at the mission today. we're sending out summer interns to five different countries (today is uganda, kenya and spain--check out www.whm.org for more info). i love the days when we send people out. i love it because it's a picture of how God is at work, twitching strings, drawing people to himself, weaving together stories and causing the nations to worship. the group here today is no different. i can see that these guys are going to be different at the end of the summer than what they are now. they're going to have a different understanding of who God is.

i was struck with a thought, though, as we were praying for them. it's a thought that was piqued by two comments that i've heard over the last year. the first was with a similar group of people who had just shared their hopes and fears about what they were going to do over the summer. and someone made the observation that they were all expecting some sort of personal growth... but very few expressed anything missional or other-oriented. then, a couple of months ago, i was talking with my aunt about the number of young people who are going into cross-cultural missions. she said it was cool to see the holy spirit at work in my generation... at least... she hoped that's what it was and it wasn't just 'the thing to do.'

so the first thought is: is missions just the thing to do for a generation disillusioned by corporate america, rejecting authority and the confines of a 9-5 job? a generation that tends to like cultural differences and where it's trendy to hate america? or is it that my generation, because of an interest in cultures, because of a freedom from the expectation of making more money than their parents, is bolder in going to see the kingdom advance?

and the second thought: are people expecting personal growth on missions trips because of hundreds of groups returning from short-term trips who give the pat, 'i expected to go there and help the poor, unfortunate [insert people group here], but instead, i learned so much from [said people group]'? and so now people are going expecting to learn. (or at least, saying they are. in my experience, americans still expect to be right.) maybe it's a positive growth in humility. maybe it's just semantics.

thoughts?

can there be minis outside of starbucks?

2005-05-19T16:48:00.000-05:00

i'm sitting at my coffee shop--yes, it's my own, personal coffee shop. beautiful day for it, by the way. i just saw someone leave the coffee shop and get into a mini. and i felt like i knew the sum total of this person. he leaves an independent coffee shop in this neighborhood--an eclectic neighborhood with lots of students (esp. grad students), young families, yuppies, families that have been here for a long long time, black, white, hispanic. he gets into a mini--every europhiles dream car. and he drives away and i know him.

i'd like to propose that someone who drives a mini wouldn't be found at a starbucks. but maybe i'm wrong. maybe minis have joined mass americana. dostoevsky says that psychology is a two-ended stick. maybe that applies to minis and coffee shops, too.

perfect provision

2005-05-18T16:31:00.000-05:00

i watched 'cat on a hot tin roof' twice this weekend. because paul newman is hot. and because it's a fantastic film. so many great themes: mendacity, disgust, crutches, love, truth, a prodigal son, the american dream. tennessee williams was a little skeptical of the american dream. there's this scene where brick and big daddy are finally having an honest conversation. the whole movie there's all this talk about how rich big daddy is and how he owns 28,000 acres of the most fertile land this side of whatever river. in this scene brick gets through to big daddy that he doesn't want his things, he wants his love.

and we all say, yes big daddy, love isn't things. because we all know that's true when we watch movies. but we still get up the next morning and go to work so that we can provide for ourselves.

provision is something that's been knocking around in my mind a lot in the last few months. it's had to be--i'm raising support. everything my life /is/ right now revolves around provision. my friend, dan, was the first one who introduced the idea that support-raising is the antithesis of the american dream. the american dream is all about independence--achieving financial independence so that you can have an independent lifestyle. depend on no one. earn everything on your own. raising support, i'm not only dependent on everyone, i'm also asking independent americans to part with what they've worked so hard to earn. it's not really a comfortable place to be.

when i started out support raising in january--not really support raising... more just having to entertain the reality of having to raise support--it took a while for me to come around to having to depend on God's provision in that way. but i did eventually. eventually i was able to say that that's what we're called to as christians anyway--we're called to dependence. support-raising is my object lesson in dependence.

and then in february, just as i was warming up to the idea of support-raising, God gave me an opportunity to quit my job and support-raise full time. dependence again. provision again. my job was my independence. it was a place where i was highly capable and competent. my paycheck gave me the freedom to do what i wanted to do. no job. no paycheck. no freedom?

but it was like God was saying, 'do you trust me to provide in this, too? do you believe that you can live freely in my provision for you?'

i quit my job at the beginning of march. i still don't really believe his provision is perfect. i don't believe he's really going to provide my support. i think i have to go out and force it out of people. i don't believe he's going to provide for me emotionally. how could the God who created the universe possibly provide a boyfriend--let alone a husband--for me? and--perhaps most ironically--i don't think he's going to provide for me spiritually. i'm on my own to feed and nurture myself.

and yet, really, i've got my own big daddy. and he's not irritable and tempermental like tennessee williams's big daddy. and he's a lot richer--he's got way more than 28,000 acres. and he doesn't want to substitute things for love, he just loves me so much that he's promised to provide for me out of his abundance. to provide completely, fully, perfectly.

why can't believe that? i can believe the american dream. but i can't believe that i'm provided for.

seeing paramilitaries

2005-05-17T12:49:00.000-05:00

i think i've got ireland on the brain. yesterday driving into the office there was a black suv in front of me with a sticker from county tyrone with the red hand of ulster. now, the dynamics in northern ireland are still a little outside my realm of knowledge, but the red hand of ulster is creepy to me. and it was made more creepy by the fact that we were on a road that was taking us past a pub that i picked out as an i.r.a. pub a couple of months ago. can't tell you why, but i get a dodgy vibe every time i drive by it. i actually started to envision a drive-by shooting happening between the obviously uvf suv and the ira pub.

today as i was driving in i saw, in passing (give me credit--it was in passing), a sign that had 'IRA' in big letters across the top, some smaller letters and then 'lucky lever #13.' it was close to the ira pub. what the heck is going on in this neighborhood?

turns out it was some guy named ira running for a public office.

Lord, get me to ireland soon and relieve my over-active imagination!

identity crisis

2005-05-16T13:16:00.000-05:00

so, i just need to get it out there that starting this blog has called up all sorts of insecurities for me. i wasn't really in a good place to begin with last week. but a friend was obsessing about blogs and the more we talked, the more i wanted my own. i want a forum where people have to listen to what i have to say, and talk about what i want to talk about. and, because i wasn't in a good place, i was trying to avoid support-raising anyway. so i created a blog.

bad idea. suddenly, an abundance of decisions--my personal hell. what will i name it? what will it look like? what is it going to be about? and underlying all of them was this fear of how people would view me based on all of these random decisions.

so i put everything on hold until i was in a slightly better place. well, before that i went to hosea. hosea is a good place for me when my identity is being rocked. there's all this talk about sonship. i want to be a wife. and i want to be a wife like in hosea, where she gets romanced away from her sin and brokenness. where she no longer has to sell herself and market her beauty because she has someone who's invested in making her as beautiful as she possibly can be.

that's where ruhamah came from. gomer and hosea had to name their daughter lo-ruhamah--not loved. but later God says, "i will show my love to the one i called not my loved one." and that's what this is about--me learning that i'm loved. and learning to love.

so hosea is now splattered all over the blog. and my dark cloud has lifted... for now.

working out the kinks

2005-05-10T14:05:00.000-05:00

the first post seems incredibly futile. no one even knows this is here yet. but some day people will know. and they'll come. and maybe they'll go back and read.

there's some sort of odd hope in that.

i have a tendency to endow small things with far too much significance, so i ought to end this now before i need a box of tissues.