Quote of the Day

"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." --Socrates

If this were really true, there would be a whole lot more miserable people philosophizing. It appears, however, that they are just...miserable.

Inspiration comes in many, many different forms. One of the people who has always been most inspiring to me on rainy days is Dave Barry. So I'm sharing some of the profound statements that inspired me today.

"Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing."

"Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear."

"Eating rice cakes is like chewing on a foam coffee cup, only less filling."

"Geographically, Ireland is a medium-sized rural island that is slowly but steadily being consumed by sheep."

"It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent."

"Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it."

"Magnetism, as you recall from physics class, is a powerful force that causes certain items to be attracted to refrigerators."

"My problem with chess was that all my pieces wanted to end the game as soon as possible."

"Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face."

"The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates."

"The simple truth is that balding African-American men look cool when they shave their heads, whereas balding white men look like giant thumbs."

"The word user is the word used by the computer professional when they mean idiot."

"We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail."

A few days ago, I was driving down the highway when I suddenly became painfully aware of the fact that my car was running a bit low on petrol. However, as this is America, there are gas stations everywhere. So Thea pulled into the closets BP station and inserted the magic wand into her car before heading inside to talk to the nice little man who stands behind the counter and gets paid to take people’s money.

As I was exiting the gas station, a mildly-stunning black dude appeared from somewhere and held the door for me. Charming. I was touched. Well, I was almost touched. But I WAS appropriately grateful for his gesture of gentlemanliness, and I told him so. That apparently is not normal.

He looked at me hard, and then got a really big grin. “Are you single?”

I thought I heard him wrong. I thought he’d asked if I was ill, but I wasn’t sure, so I asked him to please repeat.

And then I wished I hadn’t.

What is up with this?! I can only speculate that the hands of Cupid’s clock have finally landed on that magical month in which it is suddenly appropriate for college girls to be randomly propositioned by unknown strangers in fast food joints and gas station parking lots.

I laughed, told him I was, and that he should have a wonderful night, and then I hopped in my trusty car and drove away. And as I drove, I thought of all the things that I could have and perhaps should have said:

“Are you single?”

“Well, yeah, because…oh, well I might as well just tell you. You remember Mike Tyson, the boxer? Yeah. That ear biting thing? He kinda…got that from me. Bad habit. Just haven’t been able to kick it. Most guys just…don’t understand that. So yeah, I’m still single.” (followed by a puzzled shrug)

Or I could have given him the clueless stupid stare look for a torturously long moment…and then said, “um, duh!” before turning and getting in my car.

Or I could have chuckled, shook my head a little bit, and assured him that if he would just brush his teeth a little more often, he wouldn’t have to resort to such desperate measures for finding a date.

But I didn’t do any of those things, because deep down, I labor under the delusion that social interactions ought to be governed by some undefined standard of normalcy, simply for the sake of not causing needless psychological damage to unsuspecting strangers...

Of dreams and nightmares...

Supposedly we always dream when we sleep. We simply don’t normally happen to remember what we dream—at least, I know I don’t. But last night was exceptional—even a bit startling—for the fact that the dreams lived on in memory even after I’d awakened.

Maybe it had to do with the fact that I got up at 4:30 to bake scones…or that the essay I’d been working on the night before had slightly twisted some of the synapses in my brain. It was only about 5:30 in the morning when the scones had been safely removed from the oven and left on the counter to cool, so I decided to catch forty winks before seven o’clock rolled around.

I entered the dream world without realizing it…sometimes everything is so realistic you can’t help but fancy that it’s happening in real time as it plays out in your head. I remember standing on the doorstep of my house, clutching a 300 lb. book bag in one hand and fumbling with my keys as I tried to open the door. When I touched the handle, I found that it wasn’t locked. Strange, I thought…although sometimes Stephanie forgets to lock the door if she’s the last one to leave…

My car was the only one in the driveway…which meant that I was the only one home. I remember walking down the hallway in the dark towards my room, still holding the book bag. I remember putting my hand on the doorknob to enter my room. I remember the door swinging open, and I remember noticing that the covers on my bed were lying in a heap in the middle. That was made when I left this morning, I thought, the alarm bells beginning to go off in my head. Something felt off about the house…there was an eeriness I couldn’t explain. Who had been in my room? It was at that instant that I felt—or sensed—the pressure of someone on the other side of the bedroom door.

I remember feeling a sense of utter panic as I realized that there was no one within earshot. I jerked my hand off the doorknob, and stepped back, screaming, as a man in a black trench coat and a ski mask yanked the bedroom door open from the inside. I turned to run, and slipped on the linoleum…and then he was standing over me, and I was staring down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun…

And then I woke up, sweating, mumbling feverishly in my sleep, with my heart pounding away inside of my chest as if it was trying to escape. It took me about five minutes to realize that it had been a dream…part of me thought I’d been kidnapped and was now in a body bag being shipped to California, or something…

The most disturbing thing about the whole scenario is that as I lay awake pondering, I realized that if I were in fact placed in that situation…I would be just as helpless as I felt in that dream. God, are You warning me? Are You trying to tell me what’s coming? I asked silently, staring at the dark ceiling.

Was it forewarning? I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I sincerely hope that it wasn’t premonition—but if it was, then I hope that I remember in that moment that God has a sovereign purpose in all that He allows to happen…and that I’m merely an instrument with whom He can do as He wills.

I drifted off to sleep again…and dreamt that a cookie monster sneaked into the kitchen and ate all of the scones while I slept. When I woke up, that one hadn’t come true either. Phew.

baby steps & childhood scars

I have a good friend who was raised in a highly dysfunctional home. She’d experimented with cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, cutting, abusive relationships, and a number of other self-destructive behaviors by the time she had hit her sixteenth birthday. Her home life had disintegrated, her personal life was meaningless, and she was drowning in an ocean of depression—possibly going under for the last time—when Christ touched her heart and transformed her mind like He’s so very good at doing.

But last night she said something that rocked my world. We were sitting next to each other on a couch, talking about life, and she looked over at me, and sadly remarked, “Thea, sometimes I think I would trade my salvation if it meant that by doing so I could just have experienced a normal childhood.”

I was stunned. Shocked. The magnitude of what she’d just said stopped me in my tracks.

“Whoa, hold on,” I said slowly, silently praying for wisdom as I gathered my thoughts. “Let me explain something to you. Each one of us has a different home situation. Some people have what looks like a ‘normal’ family. Others of us grow up in homes that are clearly dysfunctional. But there’s something that I need you to understand: All of us grow up broken. Talk to any man or woman that grew up in an apparently perfect family, and they will tell you that they feel scarred, that they’ve had their hearts ripped open and trampled on, that they’ve felt dirty, and defiled, and worthless…because that’s what life does to everyone. Yeah, if we grow up in messed up homes, we feel more messed up. The scars are bigger, the pain runs deeper, and the sin is more obvious, perhaps. But those of us who grew up in idyllic families are broken in many of the same ways. Ask anyone on this planet, regardless of their home situation, and they will tell you that life hurts. It’s excruciating. It scars you. And sometimes the very pain of the brokenness of life causes you to doubt yourself, your worth, the love of others, their character, God’s heart...but in the end, it’s the pain of life that brings us—weeping and hopeless—to the foot of the cross where we find redemption and healing. No childhood, however perfect, has the capacity to spare us the pain of life. It’s only in redemption and forgiveness that we find the meaning and the joy that helps us to make sense of our childhood.”

I don’t know that she believed me. But as I thought about it later, I realized that sometimes God causes us to say words not because someone else needs to hear truth, but because we need to hear those words ourselves. And that night, I needed to see the events of my childhood from His perspective.

Memory Lane...

Sometimes it’s difficult not to look back with heartfelt longing at what once was…to want to return and relive our sweetest and most meaningful memories.

Today was one of those sort of dreamy days when I look back with wistful eyes at some of those significant childhood moments…and I must remind myself that I’m not that child anymore. Those days have served their purpose, and they have passed into history…for better or for worse.

While there is a part of me that would summon them back—a part of me that wants to curl up in the big armchair and be a child again in my mother’s arms, or spend an hour out in the garden picking beans with all my little siblings yammering around me in the heat and occasionally breaking out into tomato-splattering competitions (there’s a reason our barn was always red)—I must submit to the fact that while those moments have left an indelible mark on my character and my person, they’re not a part of my current reality…and God knew what He was doing when He planned life that way.

And so we’re called to move forward with both eyes eagerly and expectantly fixed on the path that stretches away into the distance before us, all the while acknowledging that we’ve been shaped, chiseled, molded, and strengthened by all that lies behind us…

But be that as it may…I think I’m gonna go get a big Snickers bar and whip out my old journals tonight to take a walk down memory lane.

the Problem of Pain...

This week, I had the privilege of listening to several online episodes of Ravi Zacharias’ program, Let My People Think. I have always valued Ravi’s wisdom, his insight, and his compassionate heart for humanity, and I was challenged this week by one of his itinerant pastors, Arun Andrews, who did a two-part series called “My God, My God, Why?” He addresses what he calls “the memories we cannot erase, and the feelings we cannot escape.” At one point in his address, he remarked, “There is this pain we go through in which we feel that life is not fair to us, and we discover, as this pain strikes us, that we are locked in a struggle of sleepless nights, the desire to hide away from all people, the scary nightmare of depressive thoughts and even suicide, and the realization comes to us that time does not heal—it only makes the reflection deeper.”

I wondered for a moment if that were really so. Is it true, that when we say, “time heals all wounds,” we are merely lying to ourselves, trying to create an illusion of future relief to help us cope with the agony of the pain we are experiencing in that moment?

It’s September 11. Nine years have passed since the day when hundreds of men, women, and children stared in disbelieving horror at the image on their television screens and realized that their lives had changed forever. Maybe they lost a father, a brother, a sister, a mother…or maybe it was simply their illusion of security that had been forever shattered. Does time heal those wounds? Does it ease the pain of remembering? Do we forget what it felt like to experience that kind of desperate agony—the moment we realize that someone we loved is never coming home again, never going to walk through that front door and smile, never going to say the words “I love you.” Does time heal that pain? Or does it merely change it?

In speaking of suffering, Arun brought up the story of Elie Wiesel, one of the young men who, by virtue of his being Jewish, was taken to the living hell of Auschwitz…and then Buchenwald…and somehow survived.

As he remembers the horror of passing through the gates of Auschwitz for the first time, Elie says this:
"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget the smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw turned into smoke under a silent night sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God himself.
Never."

Does time heal this kind of pain? I don’t think it can.

Elie speaks of a time when he was made to watch the execution of three Jews within the camp…two men, and a small boy. The three of them had been hung, while others in the camp were forced to look on.

Elie describes it thus:
"The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing...
And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows..."

Arun points out that such, indeed, is the nature of our God. Not that He ignores our anguish, or refuses to feel our pain…but that He suffers with us…that He is the God who is right there, hanging from the gallows.

Does it lessen our pain to know that we have a God who understands and experiences it with us? Perhaps not. But if should give us a sense of purpose and hope in the midst of that pain. And it should motivate us to DO something with that suffering. Elie expresses that better than I could:

"Better that one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling …if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all."

It is our most painful moments which most powerfully transform us, which change us into something we were not capable of before. For Elie, the horror of Auschwitz was the agony which drove him to challenge the way men think:

"We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph."

"I've been fighting my entire adult life for men and women everywhere to be equal and to be different. But there is one right I would not grant anyone. And that is the right to be indifferent."

"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe."

For each one of us, there are going to be many moments in life when we are confronted with a situation where our actions determine the spiritual, emotional, or physical fate of a human being. And we need to take that seriously. That situation needs to become the center of our universe. For most of us, the problems we deal with may not be as dramatic as the pervasive horror of Auschwitz, but may we have the courage to stand up and testify for truth in the face of whatever twisted darkness we are called to confront…because our faith is supposed to change us, to make us different…and cause us to care in a way that leads to action.

Weekends in Lynchburg...

This post is dedicated to my parents, on the odd chance that they might someday suffer from a fit of morbid curiosity and wonder what on earth their firstborn daughter is doing with her time these days.

This is my bookshelf. It is filled with my best friends. We spend LOTS of time together every day. These friends are inanimate, which is both good and bad...good in that they don't talk back, and thus I'm hopefully not picking up bad manners from them, but bad in that they have no personality whatsoever, which gets rather tiresome when you try to hold a conversation with one (something I've been doing more often of late, I confess).

This is...my bed. I make it a point to try to use it every night, unless I need to spend more time with my best friends.

This is my desk. This is where my friends and I mostly hang out, although occasionally we take a fieldtrip to the library. It's very exciting there too.

This is me, with one of my best friends. He's a beeg beeg one, who hopefully will impart prodigious amounts of valuable information to my sadly unedumacated head. (His name is Theo, because he's a theology textbook).

I'm thinking...next weekend? I'm gonna actually leave my room.

Life is about what you believe, right? Of course right. And next week, I believe I will be so organized that I will have no homework to do on Saturday. It will be amazing. I shall be free to do something interesting like...go get a job. Ooo, that would be both fascinating and lucrative...I can hardly wait.

Last night, I had an opportunity to spend some time with a few of my favorite Liberty students when Fish Hsu invited a couple of Varsity teammates over to her apartment for a taste of real Chinese cooking (she told us later that they toned it down considerably for our sheltered American palates).

One of the things that I LOVE about spending time with foreign exchange students is their English. They say the cutest things!

As we were sitting around Fish's living room, marveling over the flavor of several wondrous culinary inventions of whose ingredients we remain entirely uncertain, the topic of conversation turned to the furry little rodentian pet in the corner.

It was a chinchilla, one of those almost squirrel-like animals which were originally native to the Andes mountains in South America, and were presumably transported to the United States to serve as pets because of their exceeding cuteness or their general stupidity, both of which are endearing qualities.


Now, chinchillas very very soft, and rather touchable, and so pretty soon there was a crowd of curious college kids crowded around the cage...and a few of the rather curious college kids have a rambunctious side...so somewhere in the process, a pillow fight started, and the poor chinchilla's cage appeared as though it might end up in the mix.

It was at that point that Fish swooped in to rescue the chinchilla, carrying him off and locking him in the closet.

When she returned, she very solemnly informed us that chinchillas must not be badly frightened, or "they will become psychic!"

Poor Fish. She meant psycho.

She stood there looking mystified while the whole group howled with laughter until we couldn't breathe anymore. For the rest of the night, anytime someone mentioned a psychic chinchilla, it set the whole group off in fits, and Fish would just sit there shaking her head...

You know, I had so much fun selling plasma the first time that I decided to go back again today and repeat the experiment.

Only, being your typical savy college student, I thought to myself that it might be wise to eat/drink something BEFORE I went this time, to avoid potentially passing out on their nice clean linoleum floor. However, I was coming directly from school, and I'd forgotten to pack anything before I left this morning, so...that's right. Thank You, Lord, for Taco Bell.

I hadn't been at a Taco Bell for...I don't know...a year? I noticed immediately that the staff of this particular place in downtown Lynchburg was remarkably friendly, especially for a fast-food restaurant. Maybe it was just the fact that I was a girl, and I was alone, or maybe I just have "SUCKER" written across my forehead, but either way, I had to kind of chuckle at the enthusiasm of the young man who beamed down upon me with warm benevolence as he proudly handed me two tacos.

All I wanted was to get something with a little protein, grab some fluids, eat, and then get out, but no sooner had I sat down at a little table off to one side than the resident PR man came striding proudly up to my table. He must have been in his early seventies, and his name was Irvin. He asked me if I was from these parts, and when I said I haled from Wisconsin, his face lit up and he proceeded to tell me enthusiastically everything that he knew about Wisconsin from his brief tour through the state.

His enthusiasm and earnestness were endearingly cute, so I kept him going with a few questions here and there as I ate my tacos. I think perhaps he was lonely, and I've a bit of a soft spot for lonely old people (hey, some day I might be one myself, you know). He stood beside me talking animatedly, with me nodding appreciatively since I couldn't get a word in edgewise anyway, until his sense of duty pulled him away to speak with other guests of the establishment.

As soon as Irvin had moved on, the young man who had so smilingly handed me my order came breezing out from behind the counter and politely asked if he could take my tray, if I was through with it? I smiled, and said he might, and marveled to myself at receiving that kind of service at a Taco Bell. As he walked away with my tray, he called back over his shoulder, "I'm Jake, by the way."

Hi Jake. Nice to meet you. Thank you for clearing my tray.

I sat for a moment longer, looking out the window at the traffic, enjoying my sweet tea, and pondering the deeper lessons of life.

Irvin came back to chat for a few moments--he was on his second round of the establishment, and the other five people in the place hadn't been much for conversation, apparently.

We talked a few moments, and then Jake came over. Irvin nodded to him proudly, "This is Jake. He's my pupil. I'm teachin' him stuff about PR."

"That's so great," I told Irvin jokingly, "You guys probably know everything there is to know about this place."

Jake nodded, and Irvin just looked slightly confused. A moment later, Irvin wandered off to continue his second round of PR visits, and Jake just came and stood beside my table looking rather awkward.

"Hey," he said finally, "I was wondering if I could call you sometime." He had to repeat it three times before I heard what he said, because he was so nervous he was mumbling, and talking reaaallly quiet.

Inwardly, I was thinking, really? Are we now SO desperate for prospects that we proposition the stray college students who come into Taco Bell?

I joked around with him a little bit, and eventually he realized that despite the fact that I was blonde and feel comfortable talking to pretty much anyone, I'm not so naive as to be giving out my phone number to every Joe, Larry, Dick, and Harry and their distant cousins.

So he very generously gave me his phone number instead, and told him that I should just call him. Um, yeah. Definitely will be getting RIGHT on that, buster.

As I drove away, I wondered if I should have taken his humanity a little more seriously...maybe sat him down, asked him some questions, explained why I don't date, told him why it's probably an unwise investment of time to have phone conversations with people one doesn't know the first thing about, and asked him where he was headed in life, what his purpose is, and whether he's ever personally encountered the love and grace and forgiveness of the God who binds up the broken-hearted and comforts the chronically single...

But the other side of my mind told me that it wasn't my place...because he's a guy, and because his motive in asking for my number was probably not that of seeking for genuine conversation with an individual who cares more about his humanity than his gender and the amount he can benchpress.

All in all, it gave me something to think about this afternoon as I watched my lifeblood oozing away into plastic bottles...because in an odd sort of way, it's funny to think about the emotions and drives that make us tick--that cause humans to do the crazy things that we do.

On a different note, musing on how strangely we sometimes behave gives me a new perspective on--and new appreciation for--the patience of my friends and family, and the long-suffering persistence of God as He continues to walk beside each one of us in the long and often tedious process of sanctification...woohoo!

As a college kid who's still currently in the job search, I've been keeping my eyes open for time-efficient opportunities to earn a little extra gas money. Which is why I found myself in line today to sell plasma. (People do crazy things for money, seriously.)

It was truly a most interesting experience, and one from which I am still apparently recovering as I sit here munching saltines and patting the pretty blue elastic bandage wrapped tourniquet-style around my left elbow.

After a bit of meandering around trying to find the building (this is normal for me...I'm directionally challenged even when armed with Mapquest directions), I discovered a squat looking little brick place in the center of a strip mall that, from the sign outside, was apparently a plasma donation center.

Found the place. Check.

I was greeted inside the door by a jolly plump black matron who squinted one eye at me, raised an eyebrow, and asked, "Did you play basketball? How tall are you? You probably get that question a lot, don't you?"

I told her that I: 1) don't play basketball, 2) am approximately 6'1" tall, and 3) don't get asked about basketball more than ten times on an average day, so no worries...it's a very original question.

This introduction was followed by a barrage of paperwork that lasted about an hour and forty-five minutes...after which point a shriveled little Oriental doctor with a cute little mouse-like face beckoned me into his office to ask...you guessed it! more questions. But he was really nice about it, and asked politely if he could please check a few things (presumably to make sure I wasn't dead or dying...which I wasn't).

Part of the exam is a deep palpation of the kidneys...did I mention that I'm REALLY ticklish? The poor little doctor started palpating my stomach to try to find my kidneys, and I busted out laughing...which of course tightened all of my abdominal muscles, making it impossible for the missing kidneys to be located...

The little Chinese physician cocked his head to one side quizzically, and then nodded understandingly as he said, "It ok! I very ticklish too."

But apparently I passed the physical, because another plump black matron escorted me into the back room, where dozens of squishy green chairs were lined up, some of which were filled with people of all shapes and sizes who had, like myself, chosen to let their lifeblood be drained from them in exchange for filthy lucre.

Everyone was terribly nice, and the whole situation was really almost comical. I began to have second thoughts right about the time that I saw the phlebotomist coming towards my arm with a needle the size of a small ice-pick.

"Um...what gauge is that needle?" I asked, trying to smile nonchalantly.

"It's a 17-gauge," she replied equally nonchalantly. "It has to be big, so we can return your red blood cells to you, because we just keep the plasma."

17? Did she say SEVENTEEN? The biggest I'd ever seen was a 12 gauge, but I nodded, my head keeping time with the flipping of my stomach. You know, Thea, other people are doing it, and it hasn't killed them yet. Except for that little old lady over in the corner. Ok, kidding...she wasn't quite dead yet either.

Once they get the ice pick into your arm, tho, it's really not all that bad. And apparently Liberty students are their primary source of plasma. Now that I think of it, maybe that should tell me something about the intelligence of college students, but...whatever.

I felt pretty good as I walked out, until I got to the door...then I kind of almost passed out, which was fun too, because all the voices suddenly started to sound kind of echoey and really faaar away...and I remember thinking to myself, Self, you should probably sit down...or, as one of my professors likes to say, 'You'll be horizontal veeery soon.'

So I sat down, which was kind of an admission of weakness, but several of the employees bustled over with Gatorade, and the shriveled little Chinese doctor came running in with one of those spinny office chairs and offered to wheel me to my car. Yeah right. I'm approximately twice his height...I mean, never underestimate a Chinaman, but seriously?

I told him I was good, which I was after just a few moments. One of the plump black women placed a concerned hand on my shoulder and told me I should eat something as soon as I got home.

"Oh don't worry," I chirped, "that's one of my favorite things to do!"

She got a taken-aback look on her face, and then she tsked at me, and laughed. "Sure, dat one of yo favorite tings to do. You ain't nothin' but trouble, girl!"

If she only knew the half...my poor parents.

But at that point, I bid all the friendly blood-sucking employees a happy adieu, and came home to eat saltines and drop crumbs on my floor and do homework...in that order.