hope is alive

Hello.

How was your Christmas?

Mine looked like this:

December 23rd: Oh What Fun!, a Christmas service for the whole family @VCC. I was an elf, and I found baby Jesus at the end. (He was under the tinsel, garland, and Christmas ornaments.) I went to Wal-Mart afterward, still dressed as an elf, and even amidst all the people walking through the parking lot, the guy selling garland picked me out of the crowd to pester me. I may have pointy shoes, but I'm a person, too. And I don't want your garland.

December 24th: Two Christmas Eve services, six Lindor white chocolate truffles, a nap, and another Christmas Eve service. I loved the darkness of the auditorium and hearing 170 voices sing out, "For He alone is worthy." It was beautiful and intimate, and I fell asleep that night thinking about how blessed I am to be in this church, with these people, and a child of this amazing God.

December 25th: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned (Isa 9:2). I watched White Christmas and ate Raisin Bran in bed before heading out to spend the day with some of my favorite people on this earth. So much to make me laugh, so much to make me full, so many bourbon balls. I will not say I did not miss my family & the traditions I missed having for the first time in 24 years. But I am one blessed cookie to have the people in my life who are in my life.

December 26th: Happy day after merry Christmas day! (To quote Mom.) I went to work for a couple of hours, thought about how practical gas cards are & how I wouldn't be sad to get one, and was surprised by a Speedway card at my desk! And when I pulled into the gas station, my empty light was glowing. It's little things like a full tank of gas that make my entire day glowier. And the fact that I've scrubbed my bathroom and kitchen floors and watched a few episodes of The King of Queens and wrote a poem.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas of experiencing God with us, wherever you were and with whomever you were. I for one hope to continue to experience His nearness in new and dependable ways in the days after Christmas. For He alone is worthy.

come back to center

There is a woman in my building who drives a yellow station wagon, somewhat the color of a melted banana popsicle. She has a license plate on the front of her car that says "Namaste" in the same letters as Disney uses for Aladdin. All I know about "namaste" is that the woman in the yoga videos on FitTV says it at the end of her yoga episodes. Namaste to you, too, yoga lady.

Well, one evening, Banana Popsicle Station Wagon Woman, pretty close to the start of my residence in my apartment building, took up two parking spaces with her bananamobile. And they were the two parking spaces closest to the dumpster, which may sound unappealing, but they're my favorite parking spaces because they're so easily accessible.

And she took up both of them.

It's okay, I told myself. It's a weekend. I'll give her some slack because she was probably drunk when she tried to park.

But then it happened again.

And again.

And I'm telling you, she does it almost every time, weekend or weekday.

So the other morning I looked out my window and caught her little station wagon in its crime.

Proof.

That's not even like an "Oops I accidentally leaned across the white line a little but oh well I'll just leave it for now" parking job. That's like a "Take THAT apartment dwellers, now you can't use EITHER of these spaces! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha I am evil" parking job. How does she think that this is okay?

Next time she does it I'm going to write a little note and stick it in her windshield wiper.

Dear Resident,
       I am a quadriplegic who also suffers from epilepsy and ADHD. The closer I can park to my front door, the easier it is for me. Please stop taking up these parking spaces, as you put my life in jeopardy each time you do. And if I die I will come back and haunt you.
       Hanging on by a thread,
               A fellow resident

Namaste my eye.

unbridled spirit

My car is an official Kentuckian. I was going to join him in this identity transfer, but then the car inspector wrote down my Wisconsin driver's license number and talked about how Wisconsin and Florida have the longest license numbers, and then I felt bad going and changing my driver's license after all the work he just put into write down its number. So I'm still a Wisconsin resident for a little bit longer. This makes me feel a little more legitimized when I get excited to watch a Packers game, because, hey, I'm legally a Cheesehead.

And guess what: The Packers are throwing a celebratory game in my honor on Thursday, September 8th, to kick off football season and my 24th year of birth. Just watch and see if Aaron Rodgers doesn't throw a touchdown and then throw his arms up in the air and shout, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEATHER!" Because it's all about me.

As I waited in line at the county clerk's office to register Dule (my car - he's named after Dule Hill, which I don't know if the real Dule Hill would appreciate), I stood sandwiched between a guy who kept turning around and smiling at me, and a girl who looked like she'd share her entire life story with me if I merely made eye-contact with her.

Finally I said, "Great way to spend an afternoon, isn't it?"
The guy started speaking rapidly in a thick Spanish accent, and I, not understanding any of it, smiled and chuckled and then said, "Yeah."

This is always my default position when I don't understand what people are saying. This is going to bite me one day in a very scarring way, I'm sure. Like the time I was at a Mexican restaurant with a friend and, after my friend, let's call him Fred, went to the bathroom, our waiter pounced on me like a hungry leopard.
"Is he your boyfriend or your brother?" He asked.
Oh. Um...."Well, neither."
The waiter, let's call him Manuel, smiled. "He looks like he could be your brother." Translation: You shouldn't consider dating him. DATE ME!
I chuckled. "He does sort of look like my brother."
Here's where the indistinguishable part of our conversation came in, and, not understanding what he just said, I just smiled with closed lips and shook my head.

WHAT POSSESSES ME TO DO THIS? Why do I feel it's okay to answer people when I haven't even heard their question?

Manuel, taking my shaking head to mean that I actually heard his question and was honestly answering him, looked me in the eye and said, "Too bad." Then he walked away.

What do you think he could've asked? Whatever it was, I think I unintentionally led him to believe I was off the market. Which is a blessing, because I didn't particularly feel like going out with my waiter from the Mexican restaurant. But this time I was spared; what if next time I accidentally agree to something?

"Mumble mumble mumble mumble."
"Heh, heh, yeah."
"Really? Okay, pick you up at 8!"
"Wait, what?"
"Bring your castanets!"

Back at the county clerk's office: The clerk who helped me with my paperwork was friendly enough, but she never really made eye contact with me.
She asked, "Which license plate do you want?"
I looked at the two license plates pictured on the window, one that said "Unbridled Spirit" under the picture of the Kentucky horse, and one that said, "In God We Trust." I chose the unbridled spirit one, because, though I trust in God, I think it's a little presumptuous to assume that all of Kentucky does.
I tried to say "Unbridled Spirit" as inspiringly passionate as I could, like William Wallace maybe, but the woman simply smiled accommodatingly and went about her business.
Well, of course I accepted this as a challenge to make her day brighter. I waited in silence for an opportune moment, watching her float from left to right as she grabbed papers, stapled them, ripped others, tossed some, filed those, stamped here, all in one fluid motion. I looked at her in captivated awe.
"Wow," I said. "It's like a dance."
Her face relaxed and she smiled a genuine smile and chuckled.
I'm in! "You've got this down."
"Oh yeah," she said.
When she handed me my papers, she looked me in the eye and smiled. I smiled back. Day brighter.

Then I noticed she put my "Fayette County" sticker on my license plate completely crooked.

After all we'd been through.

C-I-T-Y, you can see why

I haven't met many of my neighbors, though I've caught glimpses of them. They're like those butterfly clams we used to catch on our vacations to Florida, who would stick their little pink tongues out until they realized they were in our hands, and then they'd swiftly retreat and pretend like no one was inside their pretty pastel shells. Unlike those clams, however, I can't pry open my neighbor's homes and reveal their lying fleshy bodies. Or make necklaces out of their walls.

The other day I went to my car to retrieve my iPod, however, and noticed a man sitting in his suburban (I had to google image that to make sure that's what it was - and I was right!), just chilling out. That's okay, I often like to sit in my car with the windows down in 90-degree weather next to the dumpster that smells like dead raccoons (as a friend of mine so eloquently put it). When I pulled my head out of the backseat, his suburban had used some sort of stealth mode to creep up behind my car, and he was leaning out of his window. "Excuse me," he said, "I just moved here, and I'm looking into Internet providers. I've been asking around as people come out of the building...."

In my mind I was thinking several things.


1. Do not stand too close to his car.
2. Be helpful and friendly, but not too helpful and friendly.
3. I wonder if this guy is a creeper.
4. Well, if he's telling the truth, maybe he'll find a good Internet provider and he can tell me about it and then I won't have to do any of the annoying research.
5. Wait until he is gone before going into my apartment, so he doesn't know which one's mine.


Since then I've seen this fellow talking with several other apartment-dwellers, so I feel pretty convinced he was just taking some quiet time to himself out in the parking lot, meditating on Internet providers. Ommmmm....Windstream....

I've seen several attractive men riding bicycles, but fortunately for me I don't have to worry about them hitting on me, because the only time I see them is when I, too, am exercising, and we all know how freakish I look when I exercise. Thankfully my hair is short enough that, after sweating and running into the wind, my hair sticks up straight in the front, a la Roxanne Ritchie.

Who wouldn't want to hit on this?

I've also noticed that men don't honk at me when I walk down the street. I think it's because females are much more common here in the city than they are in the country, and to see one walking down the street is not worth honking at. Life's so different far from cow country!

I've been making a lot of different foods, too, now that I'm not living at home where the men like meat and potatoes at every meal. At first I thought the spinach and artichoke hummus on my sandwich was gross because it looked like mold, but now I think it'll be a good way to keep other people from eating my food.

Random coworker: "Do those cheese puffs have mold on them? Yuck! I'm definitely not eating those."
Me: "Bwa-hahaha, THEY'RE ALL MINE." (My imaginary dialogue is always so believable, isn't it? Especially since spinach and artichoke hummus goes great with cheese puffs, and as we all know, very rarely am I seen without a cheese puff in my paw.)

Perhaps I will try this "slathering of green goop" method on other things that I don't want people to use. Like my sharpies. And the little lever that I stuck double-sided tape onto that keeps the paper cutter at the perfect measurement for cutting weekend handouts.

"Can I move this lever from 5 1/2 inches...why is there green goop all over this?"

Don't move my lever.

P.S. I confess to riding my bike multiple times without a helmet.

leave the gun; take the cannoli

Today I saw a man standing on the yellow center line on 1268. He was holding a pole. I had just rounded a curve and he caught me off-guard. I expected him to move over, or wave me by, or maybe look up into the sky, nod, and be beamed back up to his mother ship. Instead he just stood there, in the middle of the road, holding his pole.

So I slowly drove up beside him, eying him as I passed him by, wondering if he would step backwards, or ask me to turn around, or tap his pole on the roof of my car and turn me into something unnatural. He didn't even make eye-contact with me until the very last minute, and he smiled at me. It said, "I know exactly what you're thinking, but I don't have to explain myself." On the other side of him, I laughed.

I know now that when I feel crazy for wearing red tights or headbands with flowers on them or my pink jelly shoes because, come on, Heather, you're 23, not eight, I will think of Man on Center Yellow Line (Holding Pole). You're not crazy as long as you love what you do, no matter what anybody else thinks.

"Why mind the fashion? Wear a big hat, and be comfortable!" - Laurie, Little Women

they'll know we are Christians by our love

This week I’ve been nannying for twin 6-month-olds. On my route, I pass a junk yard with a big yellow and red sign that says,

WARNING
JESUS IS COMING SOON
GET READY

Do people in junk yards have some correspondence with God that we folk living on the other side of the rusty fence don’t?

Scene: Junk yard.

Man in overalls sits on a chipped blue pickup, eating Vienna sausages.

Voice of God: "Bert, I'm coming on June 3rd. No one else knows. Send a vague message about it to the world. Use red and yellow paint, if possible."

Little known fact: When Jesus came the first time, the angels appeared to the shepherds with signs that said,

WARNING

GOOD TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY

GET READY

warn
–verb (used with object)
to give notice, advice, or intimation to (a person, group, etc.) of danger, impending evil, possible harm, or anything else unfavorable

Ah ha, precisely the method I'd use to describe this man's coming who died for us his first time around because he loved us so much. And this collaborates well with the billboard on I-65 that says,

HELL IS REAL

So we know it’s a fact. And that's a comforting thought.

Let's just skim over all the 365 times in the Bible that God tells us not to fear.

Because the parking is limited on the street where I work, I’ve had to park in the closest parking I could find: A Presbyterian church’s parking lot. I’m thankful for church’s generosity and charity and general open-arm-ed-ness. I’ve never felt unwelcome at a church I’ve visited.

Except for today. I found this on my windshield:

#1, there were 2 inches of snow on the ground and ZERO cars in the parking lot. ZERO.

#2, it wasn’t a Sunday, or a Wednesday night, and did I mention there were ZERO cars in the parking lot?

#3, orange is such an abrasive color, as if I could hear them shouting at me and being angry.

Scene: Church secretary’s office.

Enter: Pastor in tweed suit with leather elbow patches, feeling bored and territorial.

“Hey Barb.”

Secretary with horn-rimmed glasses looks up from her typewriter and snorts.

“Have you seen that car that parks itself out in our parking lot?”

“You mean the only one out there, where otherwise there would be absolutely no vehicles except for that one?”
“Yes. Put a note under the windshield wiper that this lot is for church parking only.”

The secretary’s acrylic nails start typing.

“Oh and Barb?”

Snort.

“Make it orange.”

So far this week, the Christians I've come in contact with from afar have made me feel a.) very afraid of Jesus, and b.) very afraid of churches. Little known fact: After Jesus told His disciples to go into the world and make disciples of all nations, He actually ended by saying, "And if at all possible, make them never, ever want to have anything to do with Me."

"dear" old books

I walked into the used bookstore that my coworker Ashley had called "odd." I had only been there a couple of times before and hadn't noticed anything particularly odd about it. But I remembered Ashley's statement yesterday as I stepped inside.
"Hi," I greeted the lady at the wooden counter just inside the door. Her salt and pepper hair fluffed out on the sides like Christopher Lloyd. "My dad brought in a bunch of boxes of my books the other day and said I had some store credit."
"Oh, yes," the woman said. "You have tons of it. They were in such good condition. You take very good care of your books."
I smiled at her. I know, thought Inner Me. When I was in high school I carried Sense and Sensibility in a Ziploc bag.
She shuffled through some papers in a drawer and found my sheet. "Yup. You have tons." She closed the drawer and looked up at me.

At this point in the story, I would like to introduce you to Inner Me. Inner Me is very blunt, honest, and feeling. Sometimes I wish Inner Me would smother Outer Me with a rag soaked in chloroform, and take over the conversation. Instead, Outer Me's composed, polite, homeschooled interaction takes the form of the following visit to Dear Old Books.

Umm...."Could you tell me how much?"
She shuffled through the papers again and said, "It's a ton. Like $80. Oh, it's not quite that much. $57.50."
"Okay, thanks!"

I walked down the aisles of books. I didn't want more books. The reason I painfully gave away my own books was because I have, in the words of Christopher Lloyd, tons of them. I don't need more books I want to have read but don't want to read sitting on my shelves.

But as I sat on a footstool in the classics section and stared at the books in front of me, there, my own bindings looked back at me with betrayed and lonely faces. I felt what a mother must feel when she hands her baby over to be adopted. How could I explain to them that I couldn't care for them anymore? That hopefully they'd go to a good home with someone who loved them more than I could?

I admit that I looked at my own books more than I looked at possible purchases. I wanted to collect all my lost children and take them back again. "I've made a mistake," I could say. "They weren't supposed to go. I was weak!"

I finally picked up John Steinbeck and went to the counter. A man was there instead, and he looked up my information on his cream-colored computer, in true 90s condition.
"That'll be $3.50," he said.
I slung my purse over my shoulder and froze. What? "But...the credit doesn't count?"
"It takes off half. So a 6-dollar book is $3.50."
"Oh. Oh I see." I looked up at the crack where the wall meets the ceiling and pretending to be calculating something, when inside Inner Me was seething, Are you kidding me? You want me to give you my books AND pay for yours?
"Well, in that case, I don't think I want this book," I said kindly.
He just looked at me.
"Is that okay?" I offered meekly. Is that okay?? You don't need his permission to not be cheated.
He nodded.
"Do you want me to put this back? I know where it was."
"Would you mind?"
YOU ARE A SWINDLER!
I put the book back and walked out the front door, saying, "Thank you," though I have no idea for what. Thank you for taking my books and being willing to take my money, too. Thank you for being rude and having very bad people skills. Thank you for making me want to cry because I am very sensitive to people who look at me with annoyed expressions. By the time I reached my car, Inner Me and Outer Me had melded into one, and I replayed the scenario in my head again, only this time with me demanding all my books back and telling them they are a lame establishment.

The only thing that gets me through it is imagining that my Barnes & Noble classics will go to good homes, maybe to a teenage girl who will obsess over keeping them as pristine as I did, or, better yet, someone who will wear out their covers with repetitive reads.

Ashley was right. And I am never, ever going back into that store. On principle.

learning doesn't end with graduation!

Last night Lydia (my soon-to-be Wooster roommate and partner in InterVarsity ministry) and I watched An Education. It was heavy and full of deceit, yet redeeming at the end. I've also been receiving an education...though, I am thankful to God, nothing like the one Jenny received in the movie last night.

One lesson I'm learning, in-process:

- The Asbury community is a rare thing, even among other Christian communities. Unconditional acceptance and love for people just because they're brothers and sisters in Christ is not a given.
- It's not as easy to show unconditional acceptance and love to others when you're not surrounded by it yourself. Suddenly I begin to see that maybe loving others came so easily to me because I was being loved so much by others. It's not so easy to give out love when you're not receiving it.
- The wise words of my friend Ciara: "Even if you aren't getting that love and encouragement from those around you, don't be afraid to give it anyway. It's worth it."
- The wise words of Paul the apostle: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Ephesians 4:29-32). Just let it sink in for a moment that hurting others grieves God's Spirit...even if it's something so "small" as words that are not wholesome.
- Back to Ciara: "I think we forget how much power we have over other human beings. It really makes you think about how you treat people yourself. I never want to make anyone feel the way some people have made me feel."

It's so easy to stick with people who make you feel good and love them because they love you. It's even easy to love those who don't love you, as long as you have people who are pouring love into you. But when you aren't being loved by those around you, and those who do love you are very, very far away...do you still love? And how?

- The wise words of Thomas the Domino's Guy: "The Lord is your strength, if you allow yourselves to be vessels."
- Back to Paul: "Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work" (2 Timothy 2:21).
- And to quote Tim Hughes: "Fill us up and send us out."