because I want a lot of like-whoa's.

I've started a list.
I think it's typical around this time.
We look at the year ahead and think of resolutions, trips we want to take, set aside time to map out and prepare ourselves for big plans.
But it seems like resolutions have a way of only lasting a good 2 hrs into New Year's Day, trips require hours of pre-planning (if you know me, you know this is laughable), and big plans turn into half-day events.
These can be good things thought up with good intentions, but sometimes grander doesn't always mean greater. And sometimes, I forget that.

What tends to linger in my mind the most are the smallest of places, circumstances, and encounters....like Dad and his insistence on a live Christmas tree.  And my brother and summertime and Coca-Cola.  Or how whenever I hear John Denver, I think Mom and long car trips.  Small things.

This year, I want more small things that are really the big things.  I want to have a lot of this-one-time's and like-whoa's and tell a lot of tales about this one long adventure because that's what it always is with God. An adventure.
And that will be my reason.

So. this is my list...my list of big small things for 2013.  Twenty and counting.

1. Learn to play the banjo.
2. Start and finish St. Augustine's Confessions.
3. Dance in a Chicago cafe, because the music in Chicago cafes is typically dance-worthy.
4. Create something from Pinterest.
5. Trade books with a stranger.
6. Do a New York Times crossword puzzle.
7. Spanish Spanish Spanish
8. Visit my Dad in Montana, coffee and conversation included. (ok, yes, it's a trip. definitely no hours spent on pre-planning. beyond buying a plane ticket...or a car).
9. Write at least 5 letters of encouragement. one, to someone I've never met.
10. Buy a bike, name it, and ride it in the city.
11. Buy a friend popcorn from the stand in my hometown.
12. Try a new food. a new, new food. like alligator or octopus.
13. Do more pinky-swearing.
14. Make my Grandma's peanut butter fudge. following a recipe. successfully.
15. Be intentional about finding Jesus in the seemingly small things, and thank Him for them.
16. Spend a weekend at a local monastery.
17. Take at least two weeks off all Facebook and Pinterest.
18.  Find a quiet spot somewhere and quite literally, put my name on it.
19. Read Scripture aloud.
20. Write more about Mom.

10:07pm

"oh Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness."
  :W. Shakespeare:

it wouldn't be like this.

that armchair next to me is as empty as the years would have been without You.

but I can't remember a time when I didn't know You to be next to me in all of these rooms,

even the ones where I could see my breath.


It wouldn't be like this, You know.

if winter never came,

and You hadn't let the cold in,

that cold, it was the unbearable kind.


You knew then it wouldn't be like this between You and I, not without the winter air.


because had it not been I wouldn't have known the warmth of Your words

and all that You left here for these begging hands of mine,

a beggar with pride one-hundred miles high veiled by good deeds veiled by a verse or two.


and I wouldn't have seen You in the glorious days,

or the shadowed days,

or the ones heavy with longing for something called forever.


But I can't remember a day that You didn't invade,

And I don't know a part of me that You don't inhabit.


and sometimes I think of You in that armchair next to me,

You and Your words that lasted the winter.

9:31am

"No amount of fire or freshness
 can challenge what a man will
 store up in his ghostly heart."
                           ::The Great Gatsby::

some nights, you leave the dishes in the sink.

I have exactly two roommates and goodness, do I love those sweet girls.
They're friends {more like family} of mine from college and we are all different, the "night and day" kind of different, but alike in that we love Jesus, theology, and coffee mugs...and really, that's close to all that matters.

Still, as well as they know me, I'm kind of embarrassed by the thought of them seeing my clothes thrown across the floor or my dirty dishes in the sink...so I do my best to make sure that clothes are folded and the left-overs done away with before they lay their eyes on it.

I can tell you and myself it's out of respect for them, the fact that this is their space too. And it is, for the most part.
But honestly? A good part of it is because I don't want them to think I'm a mess of a girl (even though friends already know these kinds of things).

This might not seem like a big deal or even warrant a second thought. Who cares if your friends see a dirty sock now and then?  Really now.
But recently, I realized that as much as I am keeping things tidy for their sake...it's still about me.
I make sure they think well of their roommate and friend. I make sure they know I'm not a slob.
Because there's that lingering fear that maybe, if I don't have it all together, they may think less of me.

I can live my life this way for an increasingly unsatisfied, faceless audience as well.  and I have.

People-pleasing ways leave a lot of room for sweat and worry, and not much room for the Gospel.  It's no life at all and it is sure not freedom.

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." -2 Corinthians 3:17

Those who have the Holy Spirit are a free people.  God is well-pleased with His people.  So why is it so easy to still live as a slave shackled to pleasing others?

Because it's an ugly-faced idol masked as a mere subtlety.  We call it simply our "personality" and can keep it to ourselves and dress it up real pretty as a favor or a cause or even a matter of good house-keeping. That's a dangerous thing.  And no matter how many times you tie a bow around the deeds you do, there's always another to be done.  Nobody wins at this. Not ever.

I've tried, and all I've found is inadequacy, a whole lot of wasted time, and still another item for the to-do list.  That list never ends, by the way.

These people and their praise; It's a bit addicting, erected over too many of my thoughts and actions and that ambiguous place between the two.  And you can bet that it's taking awhile and won't be knocked down from its lofty pedestal easily.
But oh, is it coming down.

to my sweet friends & roommates: yes, sometimes those are mine in the sink. yes, I know you love me anyway.

when lemons are really just lemons.

I remember when a cardboard box and mom's lemonade made for two sticky hands and one glorious day.

Because when you're 6 years old and the owner of a lemonade stand on the corner of Townsend St and W Kerr, 25cents from a neighbor lady means you're 25cents closer to the mega-pack of markers or a rocket ship.  and the commute home is 10 steps to the door and your dog.  It's all in a day's work.

But lemonade-stand days have this way of ending too soon, and the years tend to leave you with a lemon or two. Didn't someone somewhere say, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade"? 

They were well-meaning I'm sure.  But that sounds like messy business to me.

"In-between" things, like hurt and ache and waiting and more waiting are lemons that can and, I think, should really be sat with for a while. Not that it's easy. Sometimes it means crying a little more than usual or throwing them at the wall and always, always laying them out before the God Who Sees. 

Those things, they're between where we've been and where we're going.  And Jesus, He knows about that.

That's a relief because these knees have shaken more than i'd have liked them to this year and my lemons look different and are weighty and cost a little more than 25cents.  But He knows that too.

I'm thankful today, for a God who knows exactly what the in-between feels like.  With its "lemons" and sticky hands and all.

ps If you have some lemons you'd like to share here, please do.  we'll chat. or pray. or throw them together.

sometimes, I throw things.

I have a thing for BBC.
You know, the one that airs all of those Dickens-esque miniseries' that manage to make tragedy and romance seem equally wonderful.
Shows like "Downton Abbey" and the miniseries "Pride and Prejudice" are filled to the brim with effortless elegance and plenty of good grammar. I admit, a few favorite friends and I have sat down to watch more than one episode of more than one series with more than one kind of carb. If we're honest, we mostly adore what we've seen.

The men in these types of things are always gentleman (at least in the public eye), and the women?
Well, they seem to float through life with straight backs, flawless skin, great hats, and of course, those accents. Sure, there's a fair amount of drama, but nothing that can't be tamed with a word uttered at a whisper.  It's all very romantic.
But, as giddy as I am to have BBC in the USA, it can be a little bit unnerving. And make me feel quite less than a lady.

Because sometimes,
I throw things.

When I'm mad, you won't find me whispering politely about it over a cup of tea. Something's probably soaring through the air.
And I don't cover my split ends with a great hat, or have any trace of a British accent, and the closest I get to a dinner party is cheeseburgers and sweet potato fries with the two little gentleman I nanny.

So, how do we measure a "lady" these days?
Because as much as I admire the seeming flawlessness of the early 20th-century version, I've met some lovely ladies who do not fit that description.  Not even close.

Thinking about this has stemmed from my own insecurities, really.  There are days when I don't like what I see and so I start wondering what everyone else is seeing.  I'm under no illusions that a person can't look straight through a smile and a coat of mascara.  I've done the seeing-through before and there's no doubt that there have been plenty who've seen through me.  So, since we're rarely fooling anybody, and never fooling God, what's to be done about it?

I met a lady once some time ago in Guatemala City, Guatemala.  A friend and I stayed in her home during a missions trip for only a little over a week,  but I remember noticing how rarely she spoke about herself.  She mentioned that she was a widow, her 34 year old husband having passed 6 months before from a heart attack.  So, one morning she woke up and found herself with a young son and an elderly mother-in- law to care for.  And then decided she'd take in two naive stranger-girls from America and treat them like family.  While we were there, it was home.
Is there a word for that?
Hospitable, selfless, kind maybe. But those kinds of things tend to not fit very neatly inside of our vocabulary.  Because God, he uses people to define what can't be found in Webster's book of words.

You won't find this woman next to the definition of "lady" in any dictionary, maybe not even in a telephone book.  But she's more a lady to me than one with a straight back and high collar.  Shoulders hunched from mourning can be the strongest there are.  And I could go on and on about this.

Is that it really?  Is the measure of a lady the amount of people at her dining room table rather than the length of it? Or the space between the doors opened to a couple of well-meaning girls from a world of wealth?

I think it's okay that we come unglued sometimes.  Because at the end of the day, if we throw a hairdryer across the room, does it take away from the Grace that's already measured our worth and counted the cost and enables us to do the above? No, thankfully it doesn't.
That goes for those of us who can sip our tea and whisper our madness too.