Nuns Having Fun!

I'm in my second year of using the fantastic Nuns Having Fun 12-month Calendar. Every month, I look up and think, "Those crazy nuns. I wonder what they're going to do next." This month, the nuns are doing karate, and the caption says, "Everybody was Nun Fu Fighting." Those crazy, silly girls. Whenever I remember to bring the camera cable back to work, I'll show you a fine nun-filled karate kick. For now, this will have to do.

Wedding Website

I know the blog's been in sad repair lately...but to appease you, you can go read my newer, cooler, mac-ified website...it's Clay and I's wedding website, and I'm pondering moving my blog that way as well...mostly because our domain name is cool:

www.sinceaustin.com
www.sinceaustin.com
www.sinceaustin.com
www.sinceaustin.com
www.sinceaustin.com
www.sinceaustin.com
www.sinceaustin.com
www.sinceaustin.com

A New Approach to Lent: Tilling Dry Soil

For a large part of my adult life, I have observed Lent. This has typically meant "giving something up that I'm really fond of but it's kind of unhealthy." The first year I gave up soda, because I felt quasi-addicted. The second year I gave up dessert, because I was hoping to trim up a bit (bad motivation!) Another year, I gave up music, which was constantly playing in my car, in my apartment, and in my office. (Although I did permit music chosen by others, which was even more painful than the silence most times.) Last year, I gave up all forms of caffeine, which induced the most terrible headaches.

Why do I fast for Lent? Because it feels good to give something up. It feels good to take away something in my life I feel like I can't live without and surrender that desire. It's good to realize that caffeine and music aren't my Lords, Jesus is. I love this tangible reminder, and it always fills me with hope and new love for Christ.

This year, my observance of Lent is not going to be about fasting so much as it is going to be about renewing my commitment to the Lord as my first love. Clay has returned home from a weekend of traveling feeling convicted that our relationship needs to be much more diligently focused on the Lord...and fortunately...over the last few weeks, both of us have independently come to the conclusion that we have not been treating the Lord like our King, but more like a button we wear or a box we check.

So during Lent, we are renewing our commitments to the Lord as King of our life, and we are committing to pray and read His word daily. This morning, we started our daily readings out in Lectio Divina style. We began this Lectio Divina using the guided readings in a book called Enjoy the Silence. The book is actually marketed for youth leaders to use with teenagers, but it's application is not limited to teenagers...and we renewed by beginning our day with meditation on God's word.

Our reading this morning was in Luke 8 (The Parable of the Sower). The reading guide in Enjoy the Silence directed us to read through the passage three times, listening for new insights each time we read it...the third time through, we specifically stopped and meditated on the different kinds of soil in the passage, inviting the Lord to reveal to us what kind of soil our hearts most resembled.

It was evident to me that my heart was similar to the seed that "lacks moisture." I could feel my heart as parched and dry. I also got very distracted during our meditation about the seed the grows up in the thorny grounds, and woke up from my daydreaming to realize I was living out my own distraction in the midst of attempting to meditate. I was able to confess my dry and distracted spiritual life to the Lord and invite him to cultivate my heart into something that's ready to grow His word.

It's amazing what 30 minutes in the morning of silence and reading God's word can do to renew my heart. It feels like bringing a cup of cold water to my lips after a long hike in the desert.

I'm excited about what Lent will bring in 2008, and I'm excited to have a partner in my spiritual journey.

What does Lent mean to you? Does this all sound crazy or weird? How do you choose to celebrate Lent, if you do? Why do you think fasting is or isn't important?

Your First Love

Who or what is your first love? What's the thing you want most when you're tired or lonely or upset? Who do you think about when you first wake up?

Lately, I think my first love in the morning is my down comforter...or coffee...my first love in the afternoon is my lunch break...my first love in the evening is Lost on DVD...(Clay's been away this week, so we'll assume that Lost is taking a place usually taken by him.)

Based on the way I live my life, I wouldn't really call Christ my first love.

Last week, at our staff conference, one of our staff read to us from Revelations about the church in Ephesus (Rev 2):

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

So the speaker is saying that the church in Ephesus did a lot of good stuff...they worked hard, did good things, kept wickedness from themselves, endured hardship, persevered. But they still weren't completely right in the Lord's eyes because of one simple reason:

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

What are the things you do at first when you're in love? For me, it was staying up late at night to talk on the phone and spend time with Clay. It was saving up all of my available time and money to travel to see him. It was thinking of him a hundred times a day--sending him emails or text messages. It was seeing fabulous gifts in a store window that he would love and buying them for him.

What does it really mean to love Christ like this? With fresh eyes? With new love? What does it mean to make Christ your first love?

The Engagement

I now have a fiance! It is true! And Clay now has a fiancee!

The fact that Clay moved up here to be with me in Washington in September seemed to tip off 95% of our close friends and families off that something serious was going on...but it didn't become official until December 27th, 2007.

Clay and I were in Texas in the midst of a hectic week. We'd been in North Carolina for my brother's wedding, driven back to Ohio to celebrate Christmas with my family, flown to San Antonio to celebrate Christmas with Clay's family, and were preparing for Clay's sister's wedding. For our second evening in Texas, Clay said, "Let's get away and have a date night." He had no problem convincing me!

"Where do you want to go?" I asked.

He replied, "How about Austin." Oooh this guy knows the key to my heart. Austin is where Clay and I met at the National Youth Worker's Convention in Fall 2006. We hadn't return to Austin since our initial meeting, but it's only a 90-minute or so drive from his parents' home in San Antonio. I was eager to take a sentimental journey of all the places we'd hung out on that first meeting.

So we hopped in the car and drove into downtown Austin on Cesar Chavez Drive. We headed straight to Waterloo Records and Book People, fantastic independent stores we'd spent hours in during Quasi-Date #2. When it was time for dinner, I again asked, "Where do you want to go?"

Clay responded, "Let's go to Threadgill's." Again, he knows the keys to my heart. I agreed, and we went to eat dinner at the restaurant/concert venue that sparked our first meeting of Not-Really-Even-A-Quasi-Date #1. We enjoyed a very home-cooked vegetable platter. And afterwards, we wanted to walk out to the Congress Street Bridge (aka the Bat Bridge)...which is where we officially first met, on our way to the Eliza Gilkyson concert at Threadgill's.

So--we walked out to the bridge, excited to be at "the spot" where we met. As we neared the middle of the bridge, we picked a spot next to a pole that had a Christmasy/guitar-type decoration attached to it. We're obviously not confident that this was "the spot." But it seemed as good as any other spot on the bridge. At this point, I was just ahead of Clay. I turned around to hug him, but he was already down on one knee. He said some nice things that neither of us really remember and pulled a ring out of his man-bag. I'm confident that at some point in there, he said he wanted to marry me, and I responded with, "Yes, I would love to marry you."

And there it was. He slipped the ring on my finger, and we went from being non-engaged to engaged.

We continued our walk on the bridge and had a celebratory dessert at TGI Friday's, which we had also originally visited during Quasi-Date #2. What amazed me was that when one goes from being non-engaged to engaged, the world does not actually stop turning on its axis, a corps of singer/dancers does not emerge to throw confetti into the air, and millions of doves do not fly in front of you, foreshadowing a spectacular fireworks display. It was all very normal. For the rest of the world, they wouldn't have really known that our lives were changing in that moment.

So now, Clay and I are engaged. We're getting married in Ohio on August 2, 2008, a mere 6 1/2 months from today. I looked the definition of engagement up on Wikipedia and discovered that engagements began so that people could have time to figure out if there were any "legitimate impediments" to this marriage. So, if you know of any of those, you're evidently supposed to let us know.

Thanks for journeying with us, and we'd appreciate your prayers over these next 7 months!

P.S. For those of you who wish to know if I was surprised, I will say, "Moderately so." Clay and I had already looked at rings, but I had no reason to suspect he'd have a ring by Christmas. He hadn't done much to tip me off during our date to Austin, mostly because he was so nonchalant all day. The only thing that tipped me off was his Jack Bauer man-bag, which he rarely carries unless we're going someplace to sit and read. I figured the only reason he'd have the man-bag was if he was carrying something special in it...which turned out to be true. I was still pretty surprised when he pulled out a ring, and so glad that Clay knows me well enough to know exactly how I'd hoped he'd propose.

The Top 2's of 2008

Top Two Gifts I Got for Christmas:

• A Sparkly Diamond Engagement Ring
• Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade and How We Can Fight It by David Batstone

Top Two Weddings I Participated in This Christmas:

• Sean and Rachael Baker's (My brother and new sister-in-law)
• Brendan and Erin (Utley) Voss' (My sister-in-law and brother-in-law to be!)

Top Two Cups of Coffee I Had Over Christmas:

• The First Americano I got at The Dripolator in Black Mountain, NC.
• The Second Americano I got at The Dripolator in Black Mountain, NC.

Top Two Best Unplanned Moments of the 2-week Whirlwind:

• Seeing Billy Harvey open for The Old 97's in Austin, Texas. My friends and I stumbled across Billy Harvey's website a few years ago and have been closet fans of his website ever since. We own none of his albums and have never attempted to see him in concert--until I accidentally did!
• Spending 8 hours in the car with my aunt and uncle riding back from North Carolina to Ohio. This included playing James Bond Scene It, laughing a lot, and a fantastic visit to a Texan restaurant in West Virginia.

Top Two Touristy Things I Did Over Christmas:

• Visit the Biltmore Estate near Asheville, NC.
• Visit the Grand Canyon in Northern Arizona.

Top Two Scariest Moments of Christmas Break:

• Riding into downtown San Antonio with someone at the wheel driving 35 mph on the interstate in 8 lanes of traffic.
• Having to help a van full of my exhausted friends come to consensus for where we should eat dinner in Flagstaff, AZ.
  

Top Two Things About Returning Home After A 2-week Whirlwind:

• The killer cold I've been battling for the last week.
• Returning from vacation in need of another vacation.

When your baby brother gets hitched, you should visit a mansion in your time of mourning.

This past Friday, my baby brother gots himself hitched to the now Rachael Baker.

There was much revelry and celebratory-type activities throughout the city (village) streets of Montreat and Black Mountain, North Carolina. For several days, I shared a cabin with Mom, Dad, Clay, 4 Grandparents, and My Aunt. Woo-wee! For several days, we all had to wait in line to pee.

After the revelry was waning, we all said, "Enough of mourning Sean and Rachael's departure into the sweet land of matrimony! We're going to take 8500 of our closest friends to party at the Biltmore Estate!" So that's what we did...visit the Vanderbilt mansion.

I have to say, the Biltmore Estate was pretty rad. 250 rooms, an indoor swimming pool and bowling alley, a 35-foot-tall Christmas tree, 30 some bedrooms and 40 some bathrooms. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Vanderbilts were worth 96 Billion Dollars in today's money, which was before there was income tax. A double Woo-wee to that!

It reminded me how vast the discrepency is between the rich and the poor. And you know what the crazy part is? To most of the world, we are closer to the Vanderbilts than we are to them. The fact that we're reading this on our computers is proof of that.

It's Christmas eve, and since there are now a few days to rest in between my brother's wedding and Clay's sister's wedding, I'd like to try my best to celebrate Christ-mas today and tomorrow. And I'd like to ask the Lord what he wants me to do with my wealth? Should I build a mansion? Should I give to the poor? Should I build a mansion for the poor to live in?

What does He have for us this week?

Sweet Coffee Shop Respite on a Busy, Dreary Day

If you ever come to Black Mountain, North Carolina, you should have coffee at The Dripolator Coffee House. It's really great. In fact, even though I'm using free wi-fi in North Carolina, it feels like I'm using free wi-fi in Seattle somewhere. The skies are gray, I'm drinking an Americano...it feels like a very abnormally normal day.

...oh, except my one and only baby brother is getting married today! And I'm in a city I've never been to before staying in a cabin with my entire extended family.

The Americano is making my day pretty great. Why is it that coffee and coffee shops are so therapeutic? I mean, I guess craving some nice tasting stimulants on a gray day is well not so thrilling, but why is it that I crave a spot like this when I need some alone time or some rest? I'm not exactly alone--there are 30 other people in the coffee shop. And I'm not exactly unplugged, since I'm sitting here on Clay's computer...

What is is about a coffee shop on a dreary day that feels so good?

Let's Ditch Christmas and Make a Christ-Month

Since Saturday, I have visited all of the following shops:

Kohl's * Best Buy * Sally Beauty Supply * Adara Hair Salon * Macy's * JC Penney's * Foot Locker * Cascade Mall Movie Theater * Quick Lube * Sunny Teriyaki * Knot Just Yarn * USPS * PWG Design * Padgett and Padgett CPA's * NAPA * Red Robin * Skagit State Bank

In that time, I've also gone to church twice. Once was for the choir's Christmas program on Friday, and once was for Sunday morning church. Something's out of balance there, right? If there is sin to be confessed about falling prey to the consumerism of Christmas, let me first confess that my heart is not where it should be.

Christmas is really what we've made it...shopping, running errands, and preparing for cross-country plane flights. Let's just be honest...it's not really about Christ. This year it feels especially not about Christ because on top of the shopping, errands, and plane flights, are two weddings in two different states. Christmas just feels like it's getting in the way of all the other stuff I need to get done. That doesn't mean Christmas is about bad things; it's about family, loved ones, bringing them joy by giving them fantastic gifts we've worked so hard to find.... But it's not about Christ.

You know what would be really great...if we moved Christ's birthday to a month like February. People mostly stay indoors in February, and they're in the process of paying off the credit card, so there are no outings to be had. What if we changed February to Christ-month. We could easily move Black History Month to January, so it could culminate with Martin Luther King's Birthday. We could move President's Day to July 5th, since everybody usually takes an extra day off then anyways. And February could just be about Christ. We could still have Christmas in December, only, we could rename it per my friend Stuart's suggestion: MeMas.

What would Christ-month look like? Lots of worship services and corporate prayer. Maybe a morning and evening vesper service everyday. Maybe some fasting. (Woah--this brainstorm is starting to sound like Ramadan!) So--we wouldn't want it to be crazy legalistic, but we would want it to be holy.

And we could title it what it would be about:"Christ-month: Getting Back on Track." It would be a chance to reunite from the way we've strayed away from Christ throughout our pagan holiday celebrations, when we erect a golden Christmas tree in our living room and lay our gift offerings at its feet. Instead, during Christ-month, we would kneel humbly beside a tattered wooden cross and lay our lives down at Christ's feet.

I know I'm supposed to sacrifice daily, but would it be so bad to have one time a year to really get back on track? A realignment towards North? Maybe that's what Lent is supposed to be...that time of preparing ourselves to bring our own sacrifice to Christ in honor of the sacrifice he's made for us at Easter. Maybe I'm already thinking past Me-Mas and looking forward to Lent, knowing it will lead me back to Him.

Would you join me in celebrating Christ month?

It's Not Easy Being Green

Are you familiar with the idea of green living?

A few months ago, I bought a book called The Virtuous Consumer because I desire to live as a good steward, but I wasn't exactly sure how to get started. Since I live 30 miles from my church and boyfriend, riding my bicycle everywhere is highly unlikely. (Also, I haven't had a bicycle since the days of my Bahama Mama 10-speed.) I chose this particular book because it didn't recommend I make a hut out of banana leaves and throw away all of my electronics--but it did recommend small changes, like buying local foods, buying low-impact makeup...stuff like this. So--if you're interested in knowing more about green living but aren't ready to go Vegan, read this book.

On the green scene, my brother and sister-in-law-to-be have started a green living blog. I'm excited that they're partners in the green scene...excited that they're hoping to buy a hybrid...well, and excited that they're getting married next week. Please read their blog if you're interested in the green scene....

And on that green note, a video for you: