9.30.2008
9.29.2008
I can't control my imagination sometimes
So I leave my apartment tonight to run an errand. I had just finished watching Heroes.
I open the door and shriek a little when I see my neighbors g/f bounding up the stairs. She laughed, because I made her shriek a little before as well when I apparently snuck up on her in the parking lot one morning.
So I was a little discombobulated. I get in my car and head out the front entrance of my apartment complex. I see a van, one of those white windowless vans a la "killers coming to abduct and dismember you" vans. As i drive towards the van (which is parked in the middle of the driving part of the parking lot) it flips on it's brights and starts backing up. So I keep driving towards it. It veers to my right, so I go my left. The van immediately veers to my left as well. When I veer to my right again it stays left and a hand starts waving wildly out the drivers window asking me to stop. :blink:
As if I have NEVER EVER watched a horror movie I stop. I roll my window down. The driver asked me how to find the 11 apartments. We have a ton in this complex, and for example my # is 1103. He kept trying to say 1165 but was pronouncing things wrong and stuttering a lot. So I said, 1165? He said yes that's it! So I said he should keep driving back the way I came from since my apartment number is 1103 :blink: (I'm sorry, did I just tell this strange man in a white windowless van my APARTMENT NUMBER?) He said thanks, and actually tips his hat and drives off towards my apartment.
I drive on my merry little way, and am getting ready to turn left onto Rt 4 when suddenly it hits me. OF COURSE!
Obviously the mans stuttering and confusion was merely a diversionary tactic and there is a KILLER that has somehow climbed into the backseat of my car ( of course without activating the dome light ). While this man is tracing my steps the other man is burgling my apartment and laying in wait for me to come back. Since I ran out so fast, I didn't bring my cell phone. I was on Yahoo IM with Katy before I left, so I can only hope that for SOME reason the burgler in my apartment decides to talk to her, she somehow senses that it's not me and calls the Cincinnati police department to report my imminent demise. I drive slowly there and back, tentatively glancing into the backseat as if I'm looking behind me to change lanes and see nothing...but that doesn't mean anything, these killers are tricky.
I actually end up following a police car down the Swanson shortcut, and hope that he somehow knows that there is a "perp" in my backseat and another one back at my apartment.
So I get home. I get out of my car quickly and slam the door shut. I look into the backseat. Nothing.
I take the stairs up, mentally preparing to shriek as loudly as possible so that my neighbors can hear me over the thumpa thumpa of their music. I slide my key in the door, I turn the lock, I squeak open the door...and I find that all of this is of course the result of my active imagination.
How am I ever going to survive living in a big house, all alone, with a basement. :-\
I open the door and shriek a little when I see my neighbors g/f bounding up the stairs. She laughed, because I made her shriek a little before as well when I apparently snuck up on her in the parking lot one morning.
So I was a little discombobulated. I get in my car and head out the front entrance of my apartment complex. I see a van, one of those white windowless vans a la "killers coming to abduct and dismember you" vans. As i drive towards the van (which is parked in the middle of the driving part of the parking lot) it flips on it's brights and starts backing up. So I keep driving towards it. It veers to my right, so I go my left. The van immediately veers to my left as well. When I veer to my right again it stays left and a hand starts waving wildly out the drivers window asking me to stop. :blink:
As if I have NEVER EVER watched a horror movie I stop. I roll my window down. The driver asked me how to find the 11 apartments. We have a ton in this complex, and for example my # is 1103. He kept trying to say 1165 but was pronouncing things wrong and stuttering a lot. So I said, 1165? He said yes that's it! So I said he should keep driving back the way I came from since my apartment number is 1103 :blink: (I'm sorry, did I just tell this strange man in a white windowless van my APARTMENT NUMBER?) He said thanks, and actually tips his hat and drives off towards my apartment.
I drive on my merry little way, and am getting ready to turn left onto Rt 4 when suddenly it hits me. OF COURSE!
Obviously the mans stuttering and confusion was merely a diversionary tactic and there is a KILLER that has somehow climbed into the backseat of my car ( of course without activating the dome light ). While this man is tracing my steps the other man is burgling my apartment and laying in wait for me to come back. Since I ran out so fast, I didn't bring my cell phone. I was on Yahoo IM with Katy before I left, so I can only hope that for SOME reason the burgler in my apartment decides to talk to her, she somehow senses that it's not me and calls the Cincinnati police department to report my imminent demise. I drive slowly there and back, tentatively glancing into the backseat as if I'm looking behind me to change lanes and see nothing...but that doesn't mean anything, these killers are tricky.
I actually end up following a police car down the Swanson shortcut, and hope that he somehow knows that there is a "perp" in my backseat and another one back at my apartment.
So I get home. I get out of my car quickly and slam the door shut. I look into the backseat. Nothing.
I take the stairs up, mentally preparing to shriek as loudly as possible so that my neighbors can hear me over the thumpa thumpa of their music. I slide my key in the door, I turn the lock, I squeak open the door...and I find that all of this is of course the result of my active imagination.
How am I ever going to survive living in a big house, all alone, with a basement. :-\
9.21.2008
Thank God Someone Finally Said Something!
I just started a book called Starving Jesus by by Gross and Mahon and it's really good so far, and by so far I mean page 21. There has already been so much to think about, dream about, and chew on. Here's one quote in particular:
Once Paul and Sonya told their story move then 20 families were spurned to act. They are taking steps today, right this minute to get a grip financially. So many people that I've talked to, or overheard talking have said that they were moved during the original series, but they were scared, or didn't think they could do it, or felt a lot of shame in admitting that as grown ups, a lot of them as parents responsible for the life of other human beings, they were failing to manage their money wisely. But when Paul and Sonya got up and said, yes, were felt that way, but we knew it had to change, the people watching felt that hope and they moved.
This isn't really even about finances. This is in general, about things that we all struggle with, things that we keep secret and hidden because they might disintegrate the facade we've so carefully built. This can be about finances yes, but it can also be about porn, lying, promiscuity, masturbation, sexuality, (ok, that was a lot of sex stuff all at once....) integrity, leading well, raising kids, anger, thoughtlessness, hypocrisy, drug or alcohol addiction, pridefulness, greed, and the list goes on and on. Sometimes it just takes one person, just one, to stand up and say that they're scared, that they feel that oppressive shame, but they also know that in the shadows of shame there isn't really any healing. Sometimes it takes someone to call someone else on the carpet. Please, I do not mean some random person. I mean someone that you know, that you love and that you know is struggling with something they keep secret, they keep hidden. Maybe you don't know what it is, but you see the cracks in the facade. Maybe all it takes is for you to sit with them and ask how they are doing, and for you to listen for the real answer, not just the obligatory "I'm fine".
Someone has to be brave enough to fall recklessly in love with loving, loving someone and partnering with them in their life, lifting them up and holding them and living out the heart of Jesus to them even when you don't agree with their choices. Someone has to go first. Jesus didn't agree with sin, but he also didn't feel the need to point it out to every single person he saw sinning....why should we?
Go first, today, tonight, tomorrow. Go love people irrationally and unrestrained.
The only thing keeping sin hidden and shameful accomplishes is assuring that the sinner stays afraid to speak out loud what it is that they are struggling with, they stay suffocated under the burden of thinking, "I got myself into this, I'll get myself out of it" or "I'll just take care of this myself and no one ever has to know I'm a failure in this area of my life".
The truth is, we're all failing at something. We all sin, we probably even did it today. We all have something we cover in darkness and shame. That doesn't make us alone in our failures, alone in our sin and our shame, that should tie us together, connect us in the need for a God that desires our redemption, our reconciliation, our salvation.
But sin-why can't we take sin head-on in the church? Why do we whisper about sin, creating layer after layer of shame for those struggling with it? Why are sinners running to self-help groups, reading books by doctors who have never seen a Bible, and logging hours with counselors who charge by the obsession?The last sentence is something that I'm so stoked to say I've been hearing these last few weeks. Back in February (or maybe March) our church did a financial series about when enough money is enough, and what you do with that money, how it affects you, how you deal with it. The series was called Enough, and if you click on that work you can listen to it online (it's very good) Then a few weeks ago a couple that was moved to action by that series went onstage and told their story and how God moved in their lives and they didn't just take a bold step, they took bold leaps and bounds to get their finances under control and move forward into a more stable future. You can watch the video of that day here, I highly highly recommend it.
Our leaders are doing everything they can to guide us into the good life by placating our sinful natures. We need some good old-fashioned butt kicking in the form of honest talk- and not just in the Wednesday night small group. We need it on Sunday mornings in the open, so the people- and there are many of us- enslaved to sin can get up and say, "Thank God someone finally said something!"
Once Paul and Sonya told their story move then 20 families were spurned to act. They are taking steps today, right this minute to get a grip financially. So many people that I've talked to, or overheard talking have said that they were moved during the original series, but they were scared, or didn't think they could do it, or felt a lot of shame in admitting that as grown ups, a lot of them as parents responsible for the life of other human beings, they were failing to manage their money wisely. But when Paul and Sonya got up and said, yes, were felt that way, but we knew it had to change, the people watching felt that hope and they moved.
This isn't really even about finances. This is in general, about things that we all struggle with, things that we keep secret and hidden because they might disintegrate the facade we've so carefully built. This can be about finances yes, but it can also be about porn, lying, promiscuity, masturbation, sexuality, (ok, that was a lot of sex stuff all at once....) integrity, leading well, raising kids, anger, thoughtlessness, hypocrisy, drug or alcohol addiction, pridefulness, greed, and the list goes on and on. Sometimes it just takes one person, just one, to stand up and say that they're scared, that they feel that oppressive shame, but they also know that in the shadows of shame there isn't really any healing. Sometimes it takes someone to call someone else on the carpet. Please, I do not mean some random person. I mean someone that you know, that you love and that you know is struggling with something they keep secret, they keep hidden. Maybe you don't know what it is, but you see the cracks in the facade. Maybe all it takes is for you to sit with them and ask how they are doing, and for you to listen for the real answer, not just the obligatory "I'm fine".
Someone has to be brave enough to fall recklessly in love with loving, loving someone and partnering with them in their life, lifting them up and holding them and living out the heart of Jesus to them even when you don't agree with their choices. Someone has to go first. Jesus didn't agree with sin, but he also didn't feel the need to point it out to every single person he saw sinning....why should we?
Go first, today, tonight, tomorrow. Go love people irrationally and unrestrained.
The only thing keeping sin hidden and shameful accomplishes is assuring that the sinner stays afraid to speak out loud what it is that they are struggling with, they stay suffocated under the burden of thinking, "I got myself into this, I'll get myself out of it" or "I'll just take care of this myself and no one ever has to know I'm a failure in this area of my life".
The truth is, we're all failing at something. We all sin, we probably even did it today. We all have something we cover in darkness and shame. That doesn't make us alone in our failures, alone in our sin and our shame, that should tie us together, connect us in the need for a God that desires our redemption, our reconciliation, our salvation.
I'm hooked on a feeling, I'm high on believing
I posted a quote from Fee and Stuart a bit ago, but didn't prattle on about it (which I know sent many of you into spasms)
Have addicted to an emotion? Because sometimes I do. Sometimes I am slave to my emotions and how they run rampant in my head. I confuse these irrational and often inappropriate emotions for the way that it really is, and I not only don't reign in these emotions, I stoke them. I stoke them with sad songs, with ruminations on conversations long (sometimes years) over with. I curl up around pain. anger, depression and hold on for dear life because there is a certain orgasmic thrill out of being so damn down.
Don't get me wrong, there are many times that I feel grief, despair, sadness etc that are real. But it's like I magnify them sometimes. Maybe when I find myself thinking about JCWC that's not a good time to listen to Damien Rice. Maybe when I find myself missing DLC I shouldn't listen to that Green Day song that carries her memory in it's chorus. There are definitely things I do to exacerbate whatever emotion I'm having at the moment. Another example, when I'm angry, maybe that's not the best time to listen to Prodigy or Nine Inch Nails.
It all seems so clear in the rational light of day.
But in the moment, I'm hooked on the feeling. Those feelings that get my creative juices flowing, that cause me to write these ridiculously despondent things that cause several of you to come running and love on me. It's as if I don't trust you'll love on me if I'm just ok.
There's just something so seductive about crisis mode.
I was sitting in church today during worship, and I was thinking about all this while trying to worship...but I wasn't feeling it. Then I started down that rabbit hole of what that even meant, and what on earth that had to do with praising a God that is an amazing and mighty God whether I think so or not.
I think about those times when I feel God near me, so near that I could reach out and actually touch him. The hidden thought behind that seems to be so often, that when I don't feel God near me, that must mean he's not near to me. Those time I feel God near it's easier to be obedient to him, it's easier for me to not trip up, for me to avoid temptation, to not sin so blatantly. Why? Is it because I feel like he's watching me so I better shape up? As if shaping up ever had anything to do with God lavishing grace on any of us.
What does any of this mean? That I should stop feeling things, probably not. That I should ignore the feelings I have and think they are all a bundle of lies and manipulations, unlikely.
Maybe it means something different for us all, but I think for me it means starting to consciously pay attention to the fuel I throw on my emotional fire, because honestly it's just exhausting sometimes.
Have addicted to an emotion? Because sometimes I do. Sometimes I am slave to my emotions and how they run rampant in my head. I confuse these irrational and often inappropriate emotions for the way that it really is, and I not only don't reign in these emotions, I stoke them. I stoke them with sad songs, with ruminations on conversations long (sometimes years) over with. I curl up around pain. anger, depression and hold on for dear life because there is a certain orgasmic thrill out of being so damn down.
Don't get me wrong, there are many times that I feel grief, despair, sadness etc that are real. But it's like I magnify them sometimes. Maybe when I find myself thinking about JCWC that's not a good time to listen to Damien Rice. Maybe when I find myself missing DLC I shouldn't listen to that Green Day song that carries her memory in it's chorus. There are definitely things I do to exacerbate whatever emotion I'm having at the moment. Another example, when I'm angry, maybe that's not the best time to listen to Prodigy or Nine Inch Nails.
It all seems so clear in the rational light of day.
But in the moment, I'm hooked on the feeling. Those feelings that get my creative juices flowing, that cause me to write these ridiculously despondent things that cause several of you to come running and love on me. It's as if I don't trust you'll love on me if I'm just ok.
There's just something so seductive about crisis mode.
I was sitting in church today during worship, and I was thinking about all this while trying to worship...but I wasn't feeling it. Then I started down that rabbit hole of what that even meant, and what on earth that had to do with praising a God that is an amazing and mighty God whether I think so or not.
I think about those times when I feel God near me, so near that I could reach out and actually touch him. The hidden thought behind that seems to be so often, that when I don't feel God near me, that must mean he's not near to me. Those time I feel God near it's easier to be obedient to him, it's easier for me to not trip up, for me to avoid temptation, to not sin so blatantly. Why? Is it because I feel like he's watching me so I better shape up? As if shaping up ever had anything to do with God lavishing grace on any of us.
What does any of this mean? That I should stop feeling things, probably not. That I should ignore the feelings I have and think they are all a bundle of lies and manipulations, unlikely.
Maybe it means something different for us all, but I think for me it means starting to consciously pay attention to the fuel I throw on my emotional fire, because honestly it's just exhausting sometimes.
Things I learned...
It is not a good idea for me to watch Silence of the Lambs when dogsitting alone.
Watching Open Country is questionable because of a few scenes that involve a lynch mob staring in the window during a thunderstorm at night.
I'm a big scaredy cat. Yet I think things like locking the bedroom door will keep me safe from the killers.
Watching Open Country is questionable because of a few scenes that involve a lynch mob staring in the window during a thunderstorm at night.
I'm a big scaredy cat. Yet I think things like locking the bedroom door will keep me safe from the killers.
9.17.2008
Day Three
Third day of no power at work, so I'm home again. Frankly I'm a little bored and afraid of what my inbox is going to look like.
I slept in, showered, and now am contemplating being productive. But instead I'm typing on here and watching MISTER ROGERS.
I LOVE Mister Rogers. It makes me calm to watch him. Today he is showing a documentary of how to make balloons.
I'm running out of stuff to pack. Maybe I'll pare down my kitchen cabinets and pack up some of that today. It's definitely about to be clean sheet day (I love clean sheet day!)
Sharen, Jeff, Doug and I are embroiled in a blood feud over Skip-Bo. It was an agonizing defeat last night as Jeff and I went head to head, each with only a 6 left in our draw pile. When Jeff won he literally stood up and threw his chair over in triumph and he and Doug high-fived. Oh silly boys.
Ok, that balloon documentary was really cool. How can PBS even consider taking Mister Rogers off TV?!
I slept in, showered, and now am contemplating being productive. But instead I'm typing on here and watching MISTER ROGERS.
I LOVE Mister Rogers. It makes me calm to watch him. Today he is showing a documentary of how to make balloons.
I'm running out of stuff to pack. Maybe I'll pare down my kitchen cabinets and pack up some of that today. It's definitely about to be clean sheet day (I love clean sheet day!)
Sharen, Jeff, Doug and I are embroiled in a blood feud over Skip-Bo. It was an agonizing defeat last night as Jeff and I went head to head, each with only a 6 left in our draw pile. When Jeff won he literally stood up and threw his chair over in triumph and he and Doug high-fived. Oh silly boys.
Ok, that balloon documentary was really cool. How can PBS even consider taking Mister Rogers off TV?!
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