Notes from a Nearsighted Soul

The New Blogchild in the Family

2011-03-26T15:34:00.004-05:00

Well. Time for an announcement. Last Sunday I decided to retire Notes from a Nearsighted Soul...and begin again with what I have termed a new "blogchild." So to those of you who may still be faithfully straggling along after months of not posts, thank you for your dedication. A fresh string of musings (and what I hope will eventually blossom into a sort of interaction) will be found at http://thatglazedlook.blogspot.com/. See you there!

In Which I Decide to Always Wear Matching Socks in the Future, Just in Case I Visit a Mosque for Eid Again

2010-11-16T14:56:00.010-06:00

Today, for the first time, I visited a mosque and experienced an Eid al-Adha celebration. The Muslim Student Association took a van to the mosque in Somerset, so we left at 7:30 and drove about an hour to join the cheerful community celebrating Eid, which involved a service and a potluck and merriment that was sort of like Christmas. I was excited and pleased and amazed and thoughtful all at once because this event held a lot of meaning for me after the studying and searching I've been doing.

Of course, a new adventure could not come and go without a little Cassie-Goes-to-Kaniv moment. If you don't know what Cassie-Goes-to-Kaniv means, or have somehow forgotten (I fail to believe that anyone who knew and ribbed me about it for weeks has forgotten) I advise you read the May 12th 2009 post of this blog.

But back to the present. It all started over the weekend when I innocently did the laundry. The dorm laundry room is equipped with three washers and three dryers that are usually more or less functioning. We share. Sometimes stuff gets moved or "disappears." Sometimes there is malevolent intent, but mostly I think that the dryers, like every other dryer I have encountered thus far in my existence, have a taste for socks.

This one apparently prefers striped fleece ones, because somehow, one sock from each of my two favorite pairs of Ukrainian fleece socks vanished this weekend. I was very sad, especially because the Kentucky weather has taken a bitter turn of late. My boots will be lonely without them.

I rose at 6:00 this morning to a cold, wet world and crept to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Brittany was still asleep and it was dark as Hades.

Now I was well aware that I was visiting a mosque today, and after all, I have been to Afghanistan. I knew there were certain things you shouldn't wear in the setting I would be in, but I still tried a little research online to see if there was anything I should consider as far as dressing in a way that wouldn't offend. So I put on what I had picked out, a pretty normal outfit from my generally conservative wardrobe, slightly modified with a headscarf. So far, so good.

By 6:50 I had dressed, had breakfast, and made a cup of tea for the road. I was about ready to meet the others at Alumni Circle. But it looked so cold outside, and there were my boots. I looked down at the sorely un-matching socks I had left in a sad little huddle by my nightstand. Both of them were striped, but one was blue, white and gray, while the other was all dark brown, blue, and black. I looked back at my boots. I looked back at the socks. I needed to leave, and I needed to be warm, and oh-what-the-heck-who's-going-to-see-my-socks-anyway? No one would ever know.

I pulled on the fleecy goodness and my black boots, grabbed my tea, and headed out into the drizzly cold. No one was waiting outside the Alumni Building and it was 6:59, so I went inside to our alternate meeting place, the little prayer room inside the building. The other students greeted me, and I went into the prayer room with Ayuna, the other girl in our group. It was only when she started taking off her boots at the door that the realization hit me: my little secret was about to be exposed, not just to my four classmates, but to the whole Somerset Muslim community within the hour.

The guys said their prayers and Ayuna and I sat quietly on the benches. I tucked my blue striped foot behind my brown striped foot and prayed silently too.

In the end, socks don't matter so much. We got to Somerset I don't think anyone really noticed; or if they did, they graciously didn't comment. I felt like I was welcomed into a family. The smells of delicious slightly unknown food, the reverent whisper of sock feet on perfectly vacuumed carpet, the rythmic prayers in Arabic and the thoughts about Abraham's unswervingly obedient faith, the little kids kneeling with their parents, the almost-kisses the women gave me and each other on both cheeks, all combined to give me a sense of awe and wonder.

We were sleepy on the ride home. The rain slid down the fogged windows like tears and clouds hung mysteriously in the hills along 75. Somebody turned on the radio and it was hip-hop, and then it got turned off again. I thought a lot about what devotion means and how holy God is. I thought about the paradoxes in my life and the way my socks don't match. I thought about what it's like to wrestle for answers till you're worn out, and what it's like to be so in love with God Incarnate that He's the only answer you end up wanting after all.

People of the Heart

2010-10-27T21:39:00.003-05:00

The days are long now. I don't mean anything having to do with seasons. I just mean that I feel disturbed that the moon is shining a greeting to me in the morning as I walk to food service and it is shining again when I get to bed at night. And the hours in between are full of activities and challenges that pull at my brain like it's silly putty (which it feels like at this point). I hope it will harden up a little by the end of the semester.

Tonight I tried multitasking by doing stretches and reading an assignment at the same time. It worked pretty well because I sort of forgot what I was doing and stretched back and forth for a long time. I'll probably be quite aware of it tomorrow.

Speaking of stretching, we did Danish Gymnastics in PE the other day. When I tell people about it and act excited they want to know how it's different from other gymnastics, say, Finnish ones. I guess I wouldn't know, seeing as I've never had Finnish gymnastics or any other kinds of gymnastics. All I know is that one of the few somewhat reasonable compensations for having to be at class at 8:00 in morning on a mournfully rainy and chill day is listening to good music. And since we, as beginners, did only very simple moves, (not ones you have to bust out, but just gentle ones) it was incredibly relaxing.

Today I visited my Archaeology professor, because she offered bonus points to anyone who would come see her at her office this week and bring some object that is dear to them as a conversation piece. She's cool like that. She said some people have brought their sisters before. I couldn't bring my sister because she is about a 1000 miles away right now, so I settled for my big, beautiful blue and gold Islamic art book, since that's what I wanted to ask her about generally anyway.

I still am uncertain about my major. I just know what makes me feel alive. It's a little complicated because I love Jesus so much and I'm entirely committed to Him, while all the while I'm going giddy over Islamic architecture. My logical side says this can't work, but some little voice inside me says it's supposed to be this way. What's a girl to do? Nobody offer trite platitudes, please; I've already thought through them.

But for now I'm not going to worry. Luckily I've got time to make the decision. And as T.S. Eliot wrote in The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock: "In a minute there is time/For decisions and revisons which a minute will reverse." Even if this four year education business threatens to push me into becoming someone I don't want to become. I'm not talking about religion here, I'm talking about the toughness you have to assume in order to get through it all. I don't want to become hardened at all. I wonder if I have to. I wonder if I really want to go where this path logically leads me. I wonder if I can survive the "real world" and why I would want to anyway if it's just about achievement and getting your rights.

Tonight I was reading a book that a fellow student loaned me by a guy named Osho. The book, called Intuition, made me sad at some places, but it did have some interesting points. Osho said:

"[The heart] knows love, but love is not a commodity of any use in the world. It knows beauty, but what are you going to do with beauty in the marketplace? The people of the heart-- the painters, the poets, the musicians, the dancers, the actors,-- are all irrational. They create great beauty, they are great lovers, but they are absolutely unfit in a society that is arranged by the head."

As I researched for my Peace Research Project today about the heated issue of the Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan, I struggled between sets of information and ideas that oppose each other and yet both seem plausible to me. I am quick to see the reasoning behind both sides of an argument, which makes me a great sympathizer and a horrible debater. It's a blessing and a curse. Sometimes I feel guilty for not making up my mind about my "convictions." To some people the issues are so clear cut, but I feel that they are so layered and nuanced I'm likely to drown, suffocate, or run screaming from the room before I ever come to a conclusion.

It was in the midst of this that I felt a great welling up of God's love for me, right where I sat at my desk this afternoon. In my mind I could see a stream flowing over rocks, and I sensed God saying that He made me this way and He has grace for my slow processing, my malleability. I am the water flowing around the rocks; the rocks are the solid ones who are standing on beliefs that are clearly marked out to Him. All of us are necessary to Him. He doesn't see me as betraying Him, but seeking deeper than the surface. He is there. He will not leave me. I trust His leadership.

A Bit of Solace

2010-10-03T09:21:00.004-05:00

I love families. Can I say that again? I love families. And if I can't be with my own family, it's somewhat of a solace to be tucked away in the hills of eastern Kentucky for a weekend with my room mate and her family. Putting roots down in Appalachia.

This morning the ridge behind the house sits solemn and overcast under a bank of clouds, and raindrops hang on tree branches. Outside the kitchen window the dogwood tree is full of red berries. I feel that red berries will be the ticket to my survival through a long winter. Not eating them, just feasting my eyes on something of good cheer against this untellin' lonesomeness.

"Untelling" is a word I picked up from Brittany. She's an Appalachian Studies major and knows these things. I love it and think it should be in Websters. Where my mom might say, "How many hours of sleep do you think you'll get this week," and I would reply, "There's no tellin,'" I'd say instead, "It's untellin.'"

It's getting cold outside. The birds are jumping around in the dogwood tree nibbling at the berries. Inside, I'm at the kitchen table and can hardly say how pleased I am to be in the center of a house full of a family, Brittany and her parents and two sisters and Michael, her boyfriend. In a few hours, after a warm home-cooked meal, it's back to The Bubble for us. But small delights go a long way. I won't give up hope just yet.

A Post That Could Be Taken Very Wrongly by A Lot of People

2010-09-19T20:32:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I cry because I miss God. It's true. Today I did. I've never seen Him, but I miss Him. It's not because He isn't with me, but because I can't see Him and talk to Him as flesh and blood.

Today was a very good day. I got very little done this weekend out of all the homework I have. I find that I'm very slow at getting homework done, which is sometimes because I dread it and other times because I love it.

Last night I worked for a long time but got very little done because I was lingering over Gurney Norman's exquisitely written but sometimes painful and peculiar book, Divine Right's Trip. It's about a guy who is always on drugs, and his girlfriend who is almost always on drugs. I can't believe I like it so much, but I think it's because Norman is so sensitive to detail and the communicates the lostness that human beings feel in life.

I was supposed to read 100 pages and write a two-page response, but instead I just read and read and scribbled notes in the book and thought and read and admired the book because it is a brand new book and it belongs to me and I had forgotten what a delicious feeling it is to have a brand new book that belongs to you, especially when it is a book worth reading.

After a very good morning at church (I love the preaching at River of Life!) I spent a while in the art building with two of my classmates staring at a tiny ancient bowl from Palestine. I've never looked at a bowl for so long before, but it was important to do so because I need to write a paper describing it artistically. It's for Archaeology.

My classmates were writing about another object, a small Egyptian figurine with hieroglyphs all over him. David named him Billy Bob. I don't know how the Egyptian figurine felt about that. I decided he must be from Southern Egypt. Julianna took tons of notes, but I consoled myself with the thought that my handwriting is smaller than hers, so I should have plenty of notes too. Unfortunately that is not quite true; I'll have to go back tomorrow. We were so still that the motion detector lights kept going off, leaving us in the shadows.

After about forty minutes of standing in line at the cafe for tea + fruitless work on the beginning of my paper while gazing longingly at the hills of Berea forest from the patio, I decided on a brisk hike up Brushy Fork trail. I just needed to talk to God. I missed Him.

I hear people talk about God like He's an object that can be shelved if one feels like it. A lot of people look down on God like He can be put under a microscope and analyzed scientifically. Or others seem to think of Him as a warm coat they can interchange with other coats depending on the weather that morning. Few people, even self-identified Christians, are willing to accept the incredibly unpopular idea that God is the I Am and doesn't owe us an explanation for His actions.

In the past week I've heard people say that they used to believe in God, but then they got educated and realized they couldn't responsibly believe that anymore. They are people who really care about society and injustices in the world. I'm glad. Now it's all up to them to fix this mess. Good luck with that.

Admitting to God and subsequently submitting to God is scary. Even with my Pollyanna glasses on, I know that it is. The big problem is that the password to the Door is "I believe," and until we're able to say that and step through the Door in faith, we won't ever begin to understand God's character. We can't know Him unless we say yes, but we don't want to say yes till we know Him. It seems quite unfair.

There's an incredible arrogance afoot that says that God needs to be fair and logical for us, intelligent humans that we are, to accept Him. It's a good thing God hasn't been fair or logical with us lately or we'd all be dead. Including me. No one can see God by putting Him under a microscope. He isn't willing to be brought down to size, not unless you count the exception for love when He chose to become a man on earth for our sakes.

I'm sure I'm doing a dis-service to my reputation by putting all this out there. Please know that I don't condone mindless acceptance of any idea or religion, even my own. In the end, each of us will have to account for whom and what we placed our faith in, and that's a choice no individual can make for another. I only know that the more irresponsible my commitment appears and the more uncomfortable it becomes, the more willing I must become to say what is rooted deep in my heart.

In the woods, expressing all this to God, all the love I know I don't have to earn or prove flooded back to me. I have chosen a road less traveled by. In a society that recoils from the idea of submission in any form, I have chosen to submit myself to a Man I've never seen. I've decided to believe that the book so many consider a myth is actually the Word of God. I've chosen to believe that someday I will meet Christ in eternity and be completely fulfilled.

What do I get for all this strange belief? Not exactly a cozy blankie of religion to comfort me on cold nights. Comfort, yes, in times of pain and fear. But it leaves me with a lot of explaining to do, something I'm not skilled at. It's beginning to put me in uncomfortable places. It's the kind of thing that could get you in a lot of trouble, this being absolute and all.

The reward isn't material wealth. It isn't a free pass on trial and hardship. It isn't a cheat sheet with all the answers to the hard questions. The reward He has given me is Himself. The love pent up in His heart, He has poured out on me. The help of His Holy Spirit, He has installed in me. The work of complete transformation, He has started in me. I can't prove it scientifically, but it is. I might never be eloquent enough or theologically studied enough to discuss it with some of you. But just as I can't explain this bond, I can't break it either. I am incapable of going back.

The Unfairness of Time and Grammar

2010-09-09T09:48:00.003-05:00

Sometimes life feels unfair. And maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I hardly feel the unfairness more keenly than when hearing grammar technicalities being applied to writing. The Henry David Thoreau in me that would stare at a single, crimson leaf for three hours at a time feels a sort of dying sadness when writing has to become scientific. I could cry.

It's fall, the best time to write. Alumni field is full of fog below my dorm in the morning, and just before dusk the yellow flowers there look like they're going to miss the sun. A lot. "It's crispy outside," I told Mikheil, when we went to the Labor Office. Crispy can be chicken nuggets, but it can also be aged leaves and fresh notebook pages. And that's why it's time to write.

Time is the key, though. Writing feels like something illegal when I've got homework due. My classes are billowing with assignments that feel like they're hung out on a clothesline in my back yard in a gale with gimpy safety pins. Some of them fly away and are forgotten, to my chagrin and shame.

Last night I sat on my bed and skimmed through a chapter of a writing handbook. It was very well made, and I liked it as writing handbooks go. But I guess I felt a little of that dying inside when I thought of applying science to my soul. And citations. There won't be those in heaven, I think. We'll just know who said what and whose research that really was and MLA and Chicago Style will cease. Hallelujah. Forever and Ever, Amen.

Cannonball off the High Dive

2010-08-24T20:46:00.005-05:00

The lamp throws a warm light around the room. The air conditioning unit thrums rythmically in the corner. Emily Dickinson sits calm and green on the desk beside me in the quiet room. A book of her poems, that is. And I? I'm finally at college, in a dorm of my own.

As it happens, my room mate hasn't shown her face yet. So I have a room (a big room!) to myself until she materializes, or someone takes her place. Which I expect to be any day now.

I definitely won't be able to recount all the bliss and whirlwind of the past few days since I arrived for orientation on Saturday. (Is it really Tuesday night?) It feels like a year since I left. In a good way.

After yesterday's extreme schedule makeover, I find myself the proud, happy, and excited enrollee of an Ancient/Near East Archaeology class and a Conflict Transformation class, plus Appalachian Literature taught by a local author I'm already really appreciating. Also a writing class and a health class.

Berea is crawling with possibilities. Opportunities. Chances to try things I've always wanted to do and didn't have the guts to. I know that voice lessons, cross country running, and swing dancing aren't fear factor fare for most folks. But for me, it's what Hasan Davis at freshman convocations called "the cannonball off the high dive." Now is the time to leave behind the excuses we've always carried around with us.

I love my home, but in a way I feel like a prisoner released from a life sentence, or a cancer patient restored to health. Being landed a place like Berea with $100,000 tuition covered and everything from free laptop and very low cost music lessons to unbelievable study abroad options feels like being handed a new life.

It's not just the opportunities though-- it's the atmosphere. I'm quick to let others "name" me and allow the tradition of who I've been and how I feel defined by myself and others rule everything I do and don't do. I have my excuses following me around like mongrels on a leash, yapping at my heels. And anybody who really knows me would wonder why I'd stay okay with that, 'cause I'm certainly not a fan of dogs.

The biggest thing that has impressed me so far at Berea is the diversity and respect that is cultivated in this place. I don't agree with everything condoned by people on campus. Or a lot of the things. But I can't begin to say what pleasure I get from seeing black people and white people walking around on campus together, looking an African American in the eyes and smiling like we're actually friends. Cause we are. And for some reason, even when I wanted that to be a possibility, it was a struggle at my community college at home.

I can't begin to tell you the relief, surprise, and dignity I feel when, in an auditorium NOT homogonously Christian or even religious, students can stand on stage and say they want to stay a virgin in college, and the place erupts in cheers. Respect. I feel it for real here. And I like it a lot.

I feel like I've entered some kind of bubble, some kind of dream world. I have four years here max. I want everything to count. I want to love people. I want to do the things I've craved and dreaded. In the midst of it, the heart of it, I want the Holy Spirit to be my Teacher. I want to listen and hear "This the way, walk in it."

I want to ask the important questions, like "How do you see me?" and hear Him say, as I felt Him say to me out of the blue during a very worldview-challenging session, "I think you're beautiful." I want to constantly exalt Him to the highest place, because He deserves it. I want to give everything to Him because $100,000 tuition is nothing to the new start He has given me by the sacrifice of His Son's beautiful life.

A guy named Jake in Ukraine talked to us in a retreat about how he always thinks of the scene from The Count of Monte Cristo (movie) where the main character beats the pirate Jacapo in a fight (I think this is what happens; it's been a while since I've seen it) and Jacapo, after being mercifully released from death, pledges his life to serve him. His words in that piratey accent keep coming to mind, "I am your man forever."

I guess the gospel shoulders fresh meaning when I realize that He's offered me every opportunity for new life free from the fear, guilt, and shame that was always dogging me, if only I would step up to the challenge of faith. The challenge to obey His Word and see what happens, forsaking every doubt, fear, and self-will for the sake of an enduring loyalty for the Friend of Friends, who first gave His love to me.

It's time for the cannonball off the high dive.

In Which I Actually Shed Tears of Pain but Consider it Worth the Results

2010-08-13T20:43:00.005-05:00

I have a lot of questions about life. Especially here. Especially now. But despite the metaphysical ponderings, one question rises above all the others, begging to be resolved:

How, I wonder, does one go about picking one's nose with a nose piercing?

I guess that question has been on my mind more than usual in the past 48 hours: On Wednesday I got my nose pierced. Connor drove me in Little Stu, his Toyota, and on the way we ate dark chocolate because he was in a mood for driving around and eating dark chocolate. And I was pretty much in the mood to get my nose pierced, though I was trying not to give myself time to think about it too much.

I have thought about it, off and on, for about four years. But since the strained phone call between me in India and Mom and Dad at home in which I asked their blessing to pierce my nose and was met with mildly appalled and incredulous responses, I left the idea dormant.

But it was always there, and I guess I hinted a little that since I was going away and Dad wouldn't have to look at my face anymore, it might not be such despicable thing. He didn't answer. But on Wednesday, he came into my room where I was sitting on the floor, surrounded by cardboard boxes, sorting clothes and notebooks and things.

Later I realized that he had that look on his face that feels like he's hugging me, the look he gets when I'm going somewhere for a long time. Because we were talking about something, and then suddenly, he handed me some money and told me I could take it and get my nose pierced. Which, in that moment, showed me how much my dad loves me because that was a lot of money to give someone to do something that you personally think is disgusting, especially when that someone is your oldest daughter. It was totally a sacrificial gift. Not to mention a surprise.

So naturally, there was no going back on it. And I really still wanted to do it. So I wheedled Connor into going with me. I just wanted someone to stand there while I got punctured. Cause wow, it hurt. I knew it was going to hurt, but I thought it would be really quick, like getting your ears pierced...just shoot it and you're done, and it just stings for a little while.

But instead of a quick little shot, Tattoo Man grabbed the inside of my nose with a clamp (not too big of a deal) and then put the needle through it (a much bigger deal). And it wasn't quick. Their was a major piercing moment, and then I thought Tattoo Man was going to let go, but he didn't. Just sat there with the needle in my nostril while the tears squeezed out of my eyes.

I wasn't trying to cry and I never expected to cry, but suddenly, there they were, warm, fresh tears popping right out and rolling down my cheeks. Two to three seconds felt more like twenty minutes. "Aw, you're crying," Tattoo Man said. "Yeah, it hurts." I said. "I want my mom." Somehow I figured my mom wouldn't have much sympathy for me at that moment.

But I sat up, dried my eyes, and looked in the mirror, and there it was, a sort of bloodied sparkle sitting on my nose, reminding me of Queen Esther and Agra, India at sunset and a little girl named Jaya.

And now, I am happy with it. I must say it presents a few challenges on the practical side of things (hence the all-important question of nose-picking). But who am I, after all, if I can't embrace a few challenges for the sake of something beautiful and meaningful to me? Let it be a reminder for the future, I tell myself, that there's always a price to pay for the things I really want. And may a little clear crystal in my nose be a symbol of always wanting the good things, the true things, the eternal things that really cost you something in blood, sweat, and tears.

Cleaning the Closet of Catastrophe: A Date With Disaster

2010-08-11T12:32:00.004-05:00

I am organizing my room. Finally.

For weeks I've been avoiding eye contact with my fourteen year old sister just because I'm ashamed that I'm the one who thought I was a neat freak but can't seem to control my junk piles.

But now, I've finally dived into the Closet of Catastrophe. I spent yesterday morning and part of this morning exploring the Harrowing Hanging Rack, then plunged into a Rubbermaid tub of Lamentable Lingering Letters. Tomorrow, the Shelves from Sheol and Daunting Desk of Doom. And finally, if I keep my courage, the Banal Bookshelf.

I love that bookshelf. And I love the books in it. Every last little one of them. Like children. So the Banal part is picking which ones stay and which ones go to Berea with me, where I can almost guarantee there will be no space for them, and my room mate will hate me forever and ever Amen.

To steel myself, I continually quote Laurie from Little Women:

"Jo, I won't be taking all of Dickens to college with me..."

Fortunately, I've not yet acquired a taste for Dickens. A few less tomes to agonize over.

Today it was the letters I had to work with. Ever since I concluded that at least part of my life will probably be spent moving to and fro over the globe, I figured I should forget collecting excessive amounts of anything.

Haven't convinced myself of this entirely regarding objects made of paper. And though I'm more than willing to rid myself of some of the ponderous proof of correspondence from the past fourteen+ years of my short life, the process feels a little like trying to get rid of the toilet paper after having your yard rolled.

Wow. That really makes it sound like I don't appreciate all those letters. But that's not what I mean. In fact, the reason it's so hard to toss them is that I feel like I'm betraying my friends by throwing away their letters.

So if you're one of the friends who wrote me letters, and you feel betrayed, sorry. Of course, I still have all the really pretty ones and the ones that still move me when I read them. Just not the whole rubbermaid tub-ful.

Due to the time consuming nature of having to open every card and letter to skim it before making the fateful decision, the tub of Lamentable Lingering Letters may have to be finished another year.

Chickpea to Cook

2010-08-08T19:41:00.003-05:00

"A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot
where it's being boiled.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

The cook knocks him down with the ladle.

"Don't you try to jump out.
You think I'm torturing you.
I'm giving you flavor,
so you can mix with spices and rice...

Eventually the chickpea
will say to the cook...

You're my cook, my driver,
my way into existence. I love your cooking..."

-Rumi
From "Chickpea to Cook"
(Coleman Barks translation)

I tried making a chickpea curry for the first time a few days ago. It was surprisingly good. I didn't have to hit my chickpeas much, because it was more simmering than boiling. I went the easy route and used canned chickpeas.

I was going to write something about the honest terror I feel at leaving most of what I know and love to go to college in another state (don't try to comfort me with shallow platitudes; they've already told me it's a wonderful opportunity and how I'll make lots of friends, etc.) New friends are great. I would just like to keep the old ones too.

I don't want to be melancholy, because I said I was going to practice gratitude instead. And because I know in a short time, most of the shallow platitudes will prove to be true. Even if it involves some boiling.

Because, eventually the chickpea will say to the cook...

Consequences

2010-08-03T13:13:00.005-05:00

Well, I'm back. Don't feel threatened. It's just me.

What do you really say after a trip like that? I feel a sudden urge to flee this blog entry and go make banana pancakes, even though it's one in the afternoon and I'm not even that hungry.

I returned from Afghanistan with great joy last Tuesday, flying into the Shreveport airport. An intensity of green everywhere. It felt like things should have changed while I was gone, but it didn't seem that they had at all. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't even gone four weeks. Not even Ethan had time to grow perceptibly.

The flight was delightful, as most of my flights seem to be. We'll just omit the part about the food. To think, I would survive (and thrive) on Afghan food for a month, only to fall prey to a container of discolored rice. Let's just say my layover in Atlanta was more exciting than last time. Ahem.

I loved the part where I got a window seat flying out of Kabul so that I could say a proper goodbye, because I have no idea when I'll get to come back. I spent half the flight water coloring frantically in order to finish the storybook I was making of the trip. The rest of the time I watched two thought provoking movies and conversed with a rather outgoing marine biologist who had just spent two months on a boat near Dubai and must not have talked to ANYONE during that time. Because she had a lot to say to me. And she likes dogs.

And on the flight between Atlanta and Shreveport I had another window seat and couldn't sleep, so I put a kink in my neck staring out the window at my homeland going by. So green! (At least that part of the country.) Prayers filled my heart for the place I was leaving and the country I was flying over.

I think on this trip my heart has been tenderized and my eyes opened to how people all over the world are in deep bondage, all kinds of bondage, without the power of Jesus. And how prayer is the way that His power changes things. Prayer, obedience, love. And it has to involve His bride. Us.

In Atlanta, pressing through a very disorganized line at five in the morning, I found myself feeling bitter and frustrated with my fellow Americans for the lack of dignity, the slouchiness, the sense of flopping all over the place. It was silly and petty, and pretty soon I was hit with how much we all have our issues, all over the world. One society might have strength in certain areas and another in others, but we're all a hopeless cause without Jesu, joy of man's desiring.

I guess the consequences of getting nosy and crossing oceans is that you find yourself torn between two (or three or four or five) sets of customs, scenes, mindsets, people, and experiences, and it's impossible to ever put yourself back together again. But that's a price I'm willing to pay.

I've decided to practice gratitude wherever I am for the good things in the spot I'm in today. Such as my family members. Good coffee. Fast internet. My bed. Going for walks and singing as loudly as I want. Worshiping with a big fellowship full of people who are seeking. Stuff like that.

SARS?

2010-07-29T12:50:00.004-05:00

(from the 24th)

Hello all!

Here it is, my last night in Afghanistan. I maybe be contracting SARS already…what expats here call “Severe Afghanistan Return Syndrome.” You come, and then you have to come back. It’s a mystery really, but I see what they’re talking about.

As I rode back through the city this evening at sunset after an afternoon with two local girls, I found myself soaking in every last sight. The sunlight pouring its haze over the mountains in the distance, the pink and green lights coming on in the nan shops, bicycling guys bumping down the street with scarves draped haphazardly over their heads. Little kids holding hands and flying kites. Street vendors selling oodles of melons. Toyotas everywhere, often highly decorated, sometimes with a sticker on the back that reads “Masha Allah,” or roughly, “God protect us!"

The past week has been a blast. It’s incredible to be part of a huge family that is spread across continents.

Earlier in the week there was an international peace conference here, which meant tighter security resulting in a public holiday. We couldn’t go out much, so it was sort of like being snowed in. Only there was no snow. So friends came over to the guest house and we had good conversation and ate together and played Taboo for quite a while. The guest house has been so quiet that it was nice to have a little group.

I’ve wondered a lot about the purpose of this trip. I still don’t have the answers, but I have confidence that it was right. I’m glad for so much time to soak up the little glimpse I’ve had into this complex country. This house has been the perfect haven, with the roof that’s cool in the evening with a view of the lights coming on in the houses on the mountainsides, the rhythm of gathering for delicious meals three times a day, the quiet room...

So at the end of that day when we had a time of singing and reflection, a little spark jumped in me suddenly at the thought that someday I could provide this same kind of haven to seekers, learners, pilgrims. Maybe people who are struggling with questions. I love the idea of meeting people coming and going from all different places. That’s something to chew on.

The pictures this time are from Babur’s Garden, Balkh-e-Babur. It’s a big, beautiful that was built up in the 1500’s by Babur, the founder of the Moghul empire. He spent a lot of time in India (His descendents built the Taj Mahal) and was originally buried there, but later they moved his remains to this garden, because that’s where he wanted to be buried. According to Wikipedia (since my Persian’s not so good) the inscription on his tomb reads:

“If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this![“

So I guess he liked his garden. And now, various levels of destruction or falling into disrepair, it’s being tended and cared for again. Roses are everywhere, flashy geraniums, cherry trees. The garden is nestled at the foot of more of those rocky mountains. Since neighborhoods are carved out of the rocks, practically, there is an impressive view both from the garden, and into the garden.

I kept wondering what that wonderful smell was, and then I realized that oh, I’m smelling green growing things! I heard that this was the greenest space in Kabul, and I believe it. Families were there having picnics, and a whole class of university students were drawing the buildings on the grounds. The white marble mosque, though pocked with bullet holes on one side, is well worth sketching.

As usual, I could fill books with all I have to say about this time…but now it’s time for bed because it’s an early start in the morning!

The Small Stuff in Afghanistan

2010-07-19T04:52:00.001-05:00

Asalaamu Alaykum! Peace on you! It’s Friday, Holy Day. The weekend looks different here (it’s Thursday-Friday instead of Saturday-Sunday.)

I am thoroughly enjoying this trip. I’m daily impressed by how meaningful the small experiences are and what a privilege it is to be here, even if it has turned out different than I thought!

I’m getting more medical exposure than I ever bargained for. No blood and guts, but it turns out that with two doctors around I’m ending up in places like Afshar hospital, going on rounds with the residents!

They said by the end of the day they’d have me applying for medical school, but unfortunately, the main impression I took away with me was that it’s a bad idea to lock your knees while standing in a small, un-air conditioned hospital room, wrapped in a headscarf, with fifteen other people when you haven’t had anything to eat or drink recently.

Actually I managed to rally myself after a short time with my head between my knees in a welcoming hallway chair. There were some rather sick folks. I felt for them, because it’s hard to be sick no matter what, but if you have no hope in life, it’s desperate. I wished that I could talk to them more, but there really wasn’t opportunity for that.

An exciting thing I’ve had the chance to be part of is a student network that a local guy has started here. They host discussion groups at universities and at their base, which has been newly refurbished and painted to be a nice hang-out area for students off campus to freely discuss their ideas and thoughts. It’s an excellent environment.

Dr. Dilip, whom I’ve been traveling around with some, has presented a talk on Holistic Health/Leadership to four different groups now, and I’ve been at every discussion. So we’re joking that I could give the talk now if I need to!

I’ve been privileged in those discussions in some smaller discussions to get a picture of what the students think, and a little bit of what their lives are like. These are the future leaders of Afghanistan! So this is a good work, giving them stimulation to seek out what a good leader is like.

Yesterday we visited two of Morning Star’s clinics in rural areas outside of Kabul. I had been to Tangi Saidan before, but the drive to Lalander, just another fifteen minutes beyond it, took my breath away.

We whirled down a pretty decent dirt road through a narrow valley. A green stream ran through groves of fruit trees, and people in the fields cut shining heaps of hay. Ancient mud brick compounds with hidden private courtyards clustered near the road, and the steep mountains, nothing more than piles of crushed, stubborn rock, rose high on either side. Pictures don’t do justice, especially since I could only take them from the car as we jolted through the valley.

The clinics provide midwifery and basic care for the people all through the valley. The infant mortality rate is extremely high here, and sometimes the women don’t want to come to the clinic for cultural reasons. The midwife is often able to go with them.

Through these services and visits, the workers have a chance to develop relationships with the village elders, these great old fellows with their turbans, prolific beards, and traditional clothes.

So many of these folks just want to be able to live their simple, peaceful lives in the valley without fear. I long for them to be free from fear on every level.

A Kite from the Roof

2010-07-13T23:30:00.003-05:00

As it's a little difficult to keep up with email updates, personal journaling, and my journaling experiment, as well as a blog, and since internet will be better at home, I'm probably going to wait till I get home to really blog. At that point, maybe I can do a blog "mini series" of my time here.

This is from my last email update:

Well. The days that have passed since I went to Tangi Saidan have been quiet ones! There is a lot of time to reflect and soak up this place.

My situation here is unique, since I’m not with a formal team that has a schedule or a master plan. Although I tried to prepare ahead of time, I find that now my options are limited for getting out to the village, or getting much of anywhere. However, I have been able to join other guests. So today, for instance, I get to attend a discussion group for university students…and it’s in English. It’s a group started up for students to share thoughts and ask questions. I absolutely love this idea. I’m eager to get to visit other projects that are going on, especially in nearby regions.

Actually, since arriving here, I’ve discovered a lot of purpose for this trip that has rather different than what I thought. Naturally you go with the intent to serve, and I do have that. But as plans shift like tidewaters, every day or maybe even every hour, I find myself being led into quiet times of reflection, rides around the city where I learn fascinating history, and amicable conversations with other expats. Always hovering in my mind is the question, “What could I do here?”

Apart from with delicious food, my favorite thing about the guest house is the roof that overlooks part of the city. From here I can feel the dry breeze and look out over the place where, unlike back home, I can’t freely walk down the streets in jeans and a t-shirt. I get a better appreciation for the secluded life of women here. The day is marked by five calls to prayer from the nearby mosque, and, about as often, the cheerful call of the ice cream truck. Prayer and ice cream. What more could you ask?

What strikes me about Kabul is that when they say they’re rebuilding, it’s the truth. They’re literally rebuilding what was bombed out, torn up, ripped apart by war. And for me as a youngster from a country that hasn’t seen war on its soil for over a hundred years, it’s hard to grasp. Driving around, it’s rebuilt enough that you don’t always see the evidence of war, but then someone starts telling very recent history about this building or that, and it’s startling.

Gazi stadium was one such place. I got to go there with the sports clinic team I mentioned before. What a privilege to see it! It’s Afghanistan’s biggest stadium, and it was built in the 70’s with the land around it allotted for development in hopes of becoming Olympic grounds. That hope was shattered with the attack of the Soviet Union, and the ensuing years of violence from one group or another. Some pretty gruesome things went on in the stadium a couple of years back. A hush fell over our little group as we stood there looking at the green field, listening to the sounds of birds chirping happily, the guys practicing soccer in one end of the field. They’re training for the Olympics again now. That makes me happy. It’s not all gore and sadness. Afghans are fighters, winners—and that spirit can be harnessed for good things. I’m confident of that.

I was especially privileged with a sight from the roof a few nights ago: A lone kite, suspended in the air above the city, hovering and dipping in the pale sky. I realized later that the colors were different, but from first glance far away it looked like they were the colors of the flag—black, red, and green. It was just like a scene from Kite Runner, except that the city looks different. Sorry to disappoint everybody, but apparently the movie was made in China!

I'm finding peace and joy daily. Usually these kinds of trips are like raging thunderstorms of activity and experience; this one is more like a gentle rain. And as we know, that’s when things begin to sprout and flourish.

The 4th of July in Afghanistan?

2010-07-09T05:14:00.004-05:00

(revised from my first email update five days ago)

So. I never dreamed I’d be spending the 4th of July in Afghanistan, playing softball with Afghan girls, eating lamb kabob with mint and cilantro salad, or jerking along a dusty road with a view of the mountains around Kabul. But that’s exactly what I did today.

I arrived yesterday morning at 6 am, very excited. My hand was shaking so that I was having trouble filling out my visitor’s card at the Ministry of Interior desk.

A staffer picked me up at the airport, and we made the exciting ride through the busy, rather smoggy streets of Kabul. I spent the day getting a little orientation at the house and settling in. It’s a very homey, welcoming place, and my friends here are very gracious, to say the least. Last night I got some time chillin’ on the roof, listening to the city’s sounds, enjoying the light breeze, and watching the lights come on in the houses up the nearby mountains.

I’ve learned a lot in just the two days I’ve been here.

1. I’ve learned some Dari phrases, such as “Salaam,”“Hello,” and “Naama Chst?” “What is your name?”

2. I’ve learned that no matter how hard it is to keep your headscarf on and no matter how many things you’re looking out for at once, you have to pay enough attention that you don’t run slap bang into metal bars that appear out of nowhere.

3. I’ve learned that Duck Duck Goose is NOT child’s play at 5800 elevation when it’s 100 degrees out.

4. It would be the work of lifetimes to understand this place.

I slept well, and in the morning went along with a team of five ladies who have been having a sports clinic at the community center started by the organization I’m with. I went to observe and participate to get to know the girls a little, as I’ll probably go out there some days to help with English lessons.

What an amazing experience. I find myself standing by a garden of sunflowers surrounded 20-25 bright eyed little girls in trousers, tunics, and scarves. They’re shy at first. They already know the other team and they cling to their hands and arms, grinning, laughing. Quietly I wade in, like a cautious swimmer in new waters, and before long they’re grabbing my arm, speaking a lovely but unfortunately unintelligible string of sentences. They want affection. They want to be on my “team.” They nearly knock me out (Duck Duck Goose is challenging on multiple levels.)

It’s all a little surreal. I keep looking up at the mountains rising behind the community center building, thinking I’ve never realized that massive chunks of such dusty, desolate rock could be so majestic, and even beautiful. They seem to say, “We are Afghanistan. We are ancient. We may look desolate, but there’s nothing you can to move us.” I sense this determined hardness in the girls, even in their affectionate curiosity. But I’m very excited to be here. There’s just a “rightness” about this trip, in a lot of different ways.

Kuda Hafez (goodbye!), until I blog again...

Agh! My Google is in Arabic...and other small obervances

2010-07-02T14:03:00.002-05:00

I only have 12 minutes before battery runs out on my dear little overheating computer, but I had to take advantage of the rest of my Dubai layover. Here I am, finishing hard-earned chicken dimsums and and a pepsi.

My Checking in process will start in about an hour, and so far things are looking pretty good in the transferring department, though there have been a few hairy moments. I'm on a major learning curve. In fact, I suspect that this may actually be a circle. I'm just going to keep going 'round. But thank heavens for 7 hour layovers. I've spent the better part of it inspecting the nooks and crannies of DBX.

I have to say that I can hold no grudge toward anyone in this airport after experiencing the free hot shower...utter bliss to aching bones. Even if I did wash my hair with body wash. And did somebody say that Dubai was dry? No, no. One trip down the sidewalk to another entrance and my hair completely poofed. Not that I care right now.

From the safety of the shower cubicle, I could here the girls and ladies trickling in and out, giggling, laughing, talking, scolding...and I felt that, yes, they are just like me, and everything is going to be okay. If I don't trip over my headscarf and strangle somewhere along the way.

Love to you all.

...end of battery life...see you in Kabul...

2010-06-25T11:27:00.003-05:00

Just in Time is Not Too Late

2010-06-25T10:11:00.003-05:00

I've decided not to take offense at the way God works. I sure would miss out on a lot of awesomeness. Yesterday was a payment deadline for my trip. I owed $1035, and it was supposed to go in a week before I leave.

In my mind, "a week before I leave" was Wednesday the 23rd, not the 24th, however. Seven days before, my bank account was empty and the modest contents of my wallet pledged to the voracious gas tank of the Great White Beast. I had been reading about some awesome men of faith who saw God provide at the last minute over and over again, and I just knew He was saying that He was going to give me the money the day I needed it, if I was willing to trust Him to that degree.

Gifts came in from unexpected places. $500. $100. People were just giving me hundred dollar bills. So Tuesday the 22nd came, and I had this miraculous wad of hundreds, but I was still short $335. In the morning, the thought came into my mind that I was going to get $300 dollars that day. Why three hundred, I wasn't sure, because there would still be $35 to go, but I just let it slip to the back of my mind.

The day passed, and in the evening, a good friend came over unexpectedly. She wanted to give a $100 to me, and $100 each to my brother and a friend of ours who were going on a different trip. When she handed a hundred to Connor, he grinned and said, "Well, really this should go to Cassie because we just got $80 over what we needed today." The math wasn't too difficult...I got $300!

The next day (Wednesday the 23rd, the "deadline") I fully expected the money to come to my doorstep. I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't getting paid till Friday. I spent all morning working very hard to rest in the conviction I had. I didn't get much done at all because I shut myself up in my room, hashing out the desperation I was feeling.

$35 is not a big deal in itself. But the other $1000 appeared to be useless without it, especially since I barely had gas money to get to the bank and deposit it. I could have borrowed gas money, could probably have worked something out, but I really wanted to see God do what He had said He would do. Eventually it got late enough that there was no chance of going to the bank.

Some doubts tried to come..."But God, don't you love me?" It's hard, maybe impossible to love someone completely when you don't trust them. But since this is not the first time in the past few months that we had had this conversation, I knew right away that I couldn't take offense at the way God was choosing to work. Like Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego, I needed to be able to say, "I know you will deliver me, but even if you do not..." I told God I would love Him even if I felt disappointed or ashamed that it wasn't working the way I had envisioned.

So, I scraped myself up off the floor, collected about four dollars in quarters from my room (to go to coffee with a friend...but then she paid!), and borrowed $20 from my account for gas, remembering that I would have a $20 babysitting check that night. Then I left. Before going, I realized, with a look at the calendar, that "a week from today" was really the following day, the 24th. It wasn't too late yet!

Judging from the way the story has gone so far, I'm sure you won't be surprised when I tell you what happened. I was just walking to the door after babysitting for the Testimonies class that night, when a family I've barely even met before stopped me and the guy asked if he could donate toward my trip. He proceeded to hand me, yes, another hundred dollar bill!

As grateful and relieved as I was, it was almost anticlimactic, because the biggest miracle had really happened earlier when God gave me grace to commit my love to Him even when it looked like he wasn't coming through for me.

In the morning, Thursday the 24th, I jaunted off to the bank with a grateful heart, made the deposit, and made the payment. And now I just laugh at how just in time is not too late. I hope to never be offended by God's timing.

How a Flight Over a Particular Desert Four Years Ago Changed My Life: An Unfinished Love Story

2010-06-20T17:08:00.009-05:00

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes...and ships...and sealing wax...
Of cabbages...and kings..."

This quote from Lewis Carroll's The Walrus and the Carpenter has always made me very happy, though I seldom chance to remember the words correctly. I do know this quote is correct, however, because I looked it up just now. It's not terribly relevant, but then, when is Lewis Carroll ever relevant to anything?

I suppose the relevance lies in the fact that it is now time to talk about the journey I'm about to embark upon. A journey that a part of me, deep down, has been waiting to make for four or five years now. To this place:
At least, somewhere near this place, if my calculations by the vague airliner's map were correct. I took this rather prophetic picture on the flight to India several summers ago, while we were flying over some of the "Stan" countries. There was a lot of desert, and then there came this.

Something happened to me on that flight. This area of the world had already been on my mind, but when we flew over it for real, my chest got tight and I cried a little, and something like love that I really didn't understand welled up inside me. It was just the jet-lagged emotion of a seventeen-year-old, maybe, like some kind of crush, but it's stuck with me these past four years, so much so that I've now taken the physical steps to make it real.

But maybe my journal explains it best. I chronicled like mad at that time in my life, and I'm not sure what use it is to me now to know what I puked up the morning we left Yavatmal. Or how many hours I slept on the top bunk on the train ride to Delhi, but I still have those three journals. This is what I wrote impulsively as we flew over an expanse of desert. I lost track of the countries exactly, but like I said, they were "Stan" countries.

"We are over the desert. My heart is crying out! It is Samarkand and Tashkent and Kabul and Dushanbe. Around Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and nearing Afghanistan and Pakistan and then India...But my love is poured out on the desert.

And then there were those barren, creased mountains that met a green, tan, brown quilt-blocked place, an inhabited place. There were cities, orderly cities from this view, in lines and rows and curves of lines and rows and roads. It was a valley, because there were more mountains on the other side.

Out the plane window I could see both mountain ranges with the valley looking like a paved, cobbled road stretching out into the dim, distant horizon, over the rim of the world.

It is beautiful. So beautiful. That kept going over and over and over in my mind. Beautiful to me in its barren way. The man sitting in front of me said that this part of Asia is "the stage of history, the heart of the world." And the world's heart is dry and thirsty.

And on the way home, flying out of El Paso:

"Staring off into the flat earth curving away to the horizon haze, I'm filled with love. I remember what the rest of the world looks like. I remember that desert and I will go back one day. I don't know what that means for my life...for now I'm awed and somewhat surprised. As we took off over El Paso it just flooded back to me from our first flight..."

And so, in less than two weeks, I'll be on a flight over the same patch of beautiful barrenness I first saw four years ago. Only this time I'll be landing. The grandparents are on their knees more than they've ever been before, bless their courageous trembling hearts, and the looks I'm getting from the people I tell about my trip are...different.

(In line for passport photos:

Lady: So, are you going on a cruise?
Me: No, actually, I'm going to Afghanistan.
Lady: Smile vanishes, blankness spreads over the face.
Me: Um, well I won't be in the south...)

Nothing comes out of the TV but bad news, so it's no wonder that people are worried. I understand that things can happen, and do happen, but it's too bad more people don't get to hear the hope stories. I guess that's what I'm after.

Dis-Orientation, or My Dizzying but Blissful Day at Berea Transfer Student Orientation

2010-06-07T21:35:00.004-05:00

I really need to go to be because it's really 10:30 here. But my computer and my body both say it's only 9:30 even if it has been a very long day. So I'll blog anyway.

It came at last. Berea orientation. I'm not sure I was terribly oriented by the end of the day; actually I was a little dizzy with all the information and activity. But when I crossed the sunny parking lot behind Presser Hall and found my Dad and little brother again, I was happy because the day had been a success. And because now we could go eat pizza at Papalenos.

This morning I was a little nervous about the whole thing, which was demonstrated in the five or ten extra minutes I spent in front of the hotel mirror, fiddling with my bobby pins. "Come on, Cass," Ethan urged, heading out the door on his way to breakfast. He and Dad were, of course, ready to eat and not concerned about their hair at all. "Just give me a minute," I said. "Girls always want their hair to look perfect when they go somewhere new." In fact, this is the part where you say, "Wow, Cass, you look super amazing today." And then I feel better. And then we get our waffles and orange juice sooner.

Soon I forget about my hair, finding myself in a little knot of 8:30 in the morning-ish looking people in Presser Hall, with a blue folder, thinking it's too bad that the raspberry danish I just plucked from a platter is going to be entirely wasted. There is no way I can eat at this moment. My goal today is to greet people, meet people, and generally be sociable if it kills me. I notice that the lady I didn't have the gumption to talk to at the hotel continental breakfast (where they had the waffles) is in the corner with a girl my age who must be her daughter. We start talking, and by the end of the day we're both in Appalachian Lit. Then I talk to a few more people. And they are so nice. People are just cheerful here. I like it.

We got a lot of info in a short time. Most of it hasn't sunk in yet. I just pinned down the important bits like when we have to pay for things and what classes I'm taking. I aimed to branch out in my classes, explore Berea's unique offerings.

So I started out with Writing/Critical Thinking, Scientific Knowledge and Inquiry, Human Rights/International Law, Fundamentals of Drawing, and Outdoor Adventure Activites I. But because of schedule and classes filling up, I had to change the last three to Approaches to Ethics, Appalachian Lit., and a basic health class.

I'm so excited about being in a place where they like to learn that, where, where basics are concerned, I'll be happy with pretty much any class I get. If I managed to enjoy college algebra last semester, I figure I can learn something from anything.

I was even going to take Middle Eastern Dance instead of Outdoor Ad. Activities, except that was the wrong time, too. I mean, the worst thing that could happen is that I'd fail, right? Note on transcript next to the gigantic red F: She couldn't move her hips. At all.

Moving right along...I had very pleasant talks with a few folks in the Study Abroad and International Student offices, and then visited the campus job fair downstairs, which was close to closing up but still miraculously had three 10 hr. per week job openings for working with the international center on campus.

That's exactly what I hoped to do when I heard about Berea's labor program, but also when I heard about Berea's labor program, I thought I'd start out doing something more like mopping, which, don't get me wrong, is a noble pursuit in itself, but to tell the truth, I'm pretty experienced in that line of work and I'd love to try my hand at something else. So I applied and...it might just happen!

Wow. The idea of having work and school in the same place is amazing. No car necessary (or allowed, the first year). They actually have these things called sidewalks here, little paved pathways beside the road...they're ingenious. You people from Longview should come check it out; I know you've never seen the likes of this before. Well, not ones that actually go somewhere.

Nah, there are certain things I love about my hometown, but absence of sidewalks and destinations you can reach by sidewalks are not some of them.

So really, I've supplied the juiciest details now and really (I'm starting to use more reallies because I'm really getting really tired and at this point that's really all that really comes to mind. Really.) Umm, Yep, I'll go to bed now...now that you have the story of my orientation at Berea.

You Can Play This at My Funeral...

2010-06-06T21:09:00.002-05:00

I must, I must keep blogging. Life has gotten busy, but I don't want to abandon the blog.

I'm in Berea! I love Berea. This cozy Kentucky town is just right for me. It's just as charming in the green summertime as it was in a snow-dusted January. The rolling green farmlands on the trip here were a soothing treat.

Tomorrow is Berea College orientation for transfer students, and I'm both nervous and excited. Mostly excited. It's just, no matter how much I like the town and the school, the thought of starting over where I don't know a soul is a little...oh, daunting. But thrilling too. As you can see, my emotions are mixed.

But no matter what I feel, I want a challenge. And here it is. An adventure, if you will. I hope to meet lots of people tomorrow. Talk with them. Laugh with them. Get comfortable with them, even a little. Maybe I'll find a roommate. Maybe she's right here at this hotel and we'll meet suddenly at the continental breakfast in the morning, in line by the waffle machine.

I honestly have no idea what I want in a roommate. When I think through it, I vacillate wildly between hoping for someone compatible and like-minded and someone vastly different whom I can learn a lot from. The most important thing, when all is said and done, is agreement about lights out. I think I can adjust to any personality as long as there aren't crazy parties going on in my room at 4 in the morning and I can get some kind of sleep.

I have high hopes about Berea. I want to learn all kinds of mind-boggling things, I want to write, engage in conversations. I want to make friends I can share with, laugh with, pray with. The sense I get about the place is that there will be room for me to grow as a person. And I do need that :)

I can't help thinking of our visit here five months ago when I was hoping so hard I'd get accepted, and so uncertain of the future, and here I am, orientating tomorrow! What will come in these next few years, I wonder? God just blessed me so much. For so long I just never thought I'd find a school I liked that would be possible for me to attend. And here I am.

Today Ethan, Dad and I did two tours at Mammoth Cave, about 120 miles from here. So now I can say I've officially eaten lunch in a cave. A boxed lunch. Complete with apple, cookie, and vegetable soup. The soup was necessary, let me tell you. It was damp and 54 degrees. I was prepared this time, however, after the experience Dad and I had two years ago at the same place.

I believe I've blogged about it before. After an intense downpour that drenched us on the way into the cave, we spent 2 hours in the 54 degree cavern...in dripping shorts and t-shirts. Brr!! But I definitely have vivid memories of that tour.

Today, Ethan enjoyed his first real caving experience (ok, if you call following a five foot wide, artificially lighted, tour guided path a "real" caving experience). "I think I want to live in here." he announced. "You could have a pet bat," I told him. "They're like little chicken nuggets with wings," a little girl in the group said.

On the way from Bowling Green to Berea, we listened to an older Mark Shultz cd that I'd dug up from a dusty cd case. "Running Just to Catch Myself" is a family favorite and we hadn't heard it in a while. It's an upbeat, funny song about a day of rat-race in the corporate world. Ethan approved. "You can play this at my funeral," he told us. "'Cause I don't want ya'll weeping at me." "And pour coffee on me," he added. "But no roses. Only the girls can put roses on me." I'm glad he's getting all this straightened out now.

Gotta love these little moments.

2010-05-24T16:03:00.003-05:00

Blackberry cobbler. That's what I smell. That's what I taste, in the back of my mouth, where a seed or two is still stuck between my molars.

I just pulled the cobbler from the oven. My cousin, Kim, and I made it as a reward for the team berry-picking efforts of the day. Dad rounded up the troops, armed with cut-off milk jugs and dressed in jeans to defer the thorns.

Kim is visiting from Tennessee, where there aren't many fire ants. And according to her, no ant bite like the one she got a few days ago while we were decorating for Connor's graduation party. It swelled to about two inches in diameter and got red and itchy, so naturally she was a little apprehensive about more ant encounters.

"It's no big deal," I told her, "All you have to worry about are a few berry briars, cows, snakes, wild hogs, mosquitoes, thistles, and cow pies." "Remind me why I'm doing this again?" she asked.

We reached the aluminum gate, which we had to climb over, and Ethan said, "Ladies go first, but they're not wearing skirts, so I'll just go." And he did. I only wear skirts twice a week or so, but apparently Ethan sees a difference.

The cows didn't appreciate our intrusion to their sunny pasture. In fact, when we made it down to the lower pasture, they silently followed us, creeping in around us with stealth unnerving in a beast of that size.

But then, I've always found cows unnerving, ever since I was old enough to lay awake listening to their far-off mooing at night when the windows of our old mobile home were open. Very freaky for a three year old, let me tell you. I had cow nightmares. But I've probably already shared that before.

But the creeping cows...they eyed us with contempt but did nothing really menacing. Mostly they disliked the dog, I think, who felt it his duty to chase them off if they got too close to his people.

The best berry spot was a patch of little bramble islands, each one full of dewberries (yes, I've been calling them blackberries, because they're so similar, but they're really dewberries. Just sweeter and closer to the ground.) So it was WWII in Japan all over again, with us hopping from one island to the next. That's a horrible thought, actually.

Nearly every "island" was situated around a thistle, which pricked much worse than a berry bramble. And wouldn't you know that the best berries were tucked right under the thistle leaves. I was down on my knees hunting out the berries, attacking almost, getting a sunburn, smooshing berries into the knees of a decent pair of jeans.

I'm very reluctant to go berry picking, because I know this is how it will be. Once I'm in, I can't seem to stop. I'll be the last to go, but probably the last to come home. Except Dad.

Finally, part of the crew headed back with most of the berries and Dad and I explored another pasture. We weren't going to pick anything, just check to see what there was. But there was that one bush...loaded with shiny berries...and we couldn't just let them rot. There was another patch, and another. But we soon we were wandering back home through the pastures, with me a little disoriented and Dad knowing just where we of course, thank goodness. Glad it wasn't just me and the skulking cows.

Kim and I made the cobbler, with berry patterned aprons on and everything. And seeing as there was that bit of extra crust, and a drizzle of berry juice, and a cookie sheet to bake it just to flaky perfection...we've been have a little preview snack before the real cobbler this evening. Hence the berry seeds behind my teeth. Amen.

Stir and Enjoy...My Life

2010-05-14T16:21:00.006-05:00

"Just stir and enjoy."

Those are the words I saw this morning on the peanut butter lid as I was making my toast. It's the all natural kind of peanut butter that comes with an inch of oil on top that you need a concrete mixer to mix. When I use it I usually sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar on my toast just to "help the medicine go down."

But when I saw those words, I got tickled and had a little laugh to myself, as I'm prone to doing more and more lately, because I thought of how true the words seem to be for my life. I envision myself as a little pot of pudding and God as Himself, with a spoon. And every time the pudding seems to be settling and thickening up, he sticks His spoon in, stirs, scrapes the goo up off the bottom, takes a good lick, and...smiles.

I, to throw in a very different comparison, feel like a wet cat at the stirring, but the thought that God loves me enough not to let me settle into globby old pudding is really a relief. And I feel His enjoyment of me. I am glad because He is glad.

Stir and enjoy.

So, finals are over and I'm very satisfied with them. I'm done with Kilgore college, presumably forever, since I plan to transfer in the fall to Berea. Today was my first unschool day of the summer, and I spent it running, reading, and housecleaning, in that order.

And I thought a lot. Not about what I was doing, unfortunately. I realized that taste-testing is not the brightest way to find out whether the liquid in a spray bottle is water or not. I was 99% sure it was either peroxide or water, and since Mom sometimes uses peroxide as mouth wash, I knew it wouldn't kill me.

After a hasty thoughtless squirt in the mouth, I remembered the 1% possibility of it being some extremely toxic chemical. But of course it was too late and I'm not dead yet. The strange taste, I decided, must be that of stale peroxide. And with an optimistic laugh I applied it liberally to the sink, the toilet, and the tub, and scrubbed away. Just wait. It'll end up being some kind of liquid super-glue, and tomorrow my mouth will be stuck shut and someone will be stranded on the toilet. Ha.

Today I ran for thirty minutes and came home flaming red, having worked up an admirable sweat and stench. The sweat and stench I was proud of. The redness of face I was not. Too much like embarrassment.

Running is stretching me. Not just my legs, but my mind, my heart, my faith, my will. I began sneaking out of the house to run because I was ashamed to let even my family members see me attempt something I've failed at consistently, mostly in the willpower department. And I didn't want them to see me all red and soaked. And I wanted it to be just between me and God at first. Him stirring the pudding and smiling. Me running. And smiling.

I am half way through a seven week plan which, if all continues to go well and I don't get heat stroke, will have me running a modest three miles in somewhere under a modest 30 minutes and, more importantly, confidently grinning at passersby from an unashamed, crimson-hued face.

For the first time I'm liking running, because it seems to be an allegory of life, that I do over and over. I practice living. Practice fighting the good fight. Practice grinning instead of flinching when people drive by. I know they don't care if I'm red or not; it's me learning not to
care.

That guy who just went by in a black PT Cruiser, he doesn't know my story. And you don't know his, a voice whispers. He has no idea how far I've come or how far I'm going, and I don't know anything about him except that he looks middle-aged-ish and I think he's wearing a black suit. And I will never see him again. Phew.

Stir and enjoy, folks, stir and enjoy.

The Room

2010-05-11T11:32:00.004-05:00

There is a place of love
Where not even questions go
Behind the stained-glass window of my heart
Into the sanctuary
World-wisdom hesitates
At the door; turns and leaves,
Silenced by a sight of profound intimacy
Doubt enters, only to incinerate
Paranoia passes into recognition
Of the Expert Lover
Sin is laved from me
By the blood of His own heart
The spinning world outside
Knows nothing of this knowing
I, in turn, am for a moment weaned
From its portfolio of counterfeits
In the place of love
Where not even questions go

I find
That You are no stranger to me
That Your LOVE
Has become my nature
That this PLACE
Has become my portion
That YOU
Have become my desire
That my HEART
Will continue to seek You
All
The days
Of my life
And I will dwell
In the House of the Lord
Forever.

I don't know what to think, because this was supposed to be one poem, but it acts like two. Same thought, two different expressions. It starts in hopeful timidity and explanation and crescendos into confident truth. And maybe I'll leave it this way, because I feel that the movement signifies a sudden change that comes over our lives much as it happened in this poem.

A Little Exuberation

2010-05-10T13:35:00.002-05:00

Oh happy day! Math class is finally complete. A complete success. A final completed. A successful completion...Oh I'm happy.

I was the last person to leave the room this morning after two solid hours of math final. My concern toward the end was not so much that I couldn't do the work as that I wouldn't finish in time. But it worked out just right. Just as everything about this class miraculously has, even after long travail. It is so satisfying to stand at the top of the hill and gaze over the long trail winding through forests, valleys and morasses and know that I've finished. And not only finished, but finished well, with a sigh of contentment and not of resignation. I've learned what I came here to learn.

Yes, it's just one class. Please bear with me as I exuberate, if that non-Webster approved word can be allowed. All semester, algebra class has been a picture to me of my race on earth, the perseverence, the trust, the everyday miracles. So it's no wonder that the day of the final would feel like heaven. But lest you think I rely on works to get me through, know that working though algebra has in itself been all God's grace! Through faith I kept trying...but I know God was the one "doing!" Even in math.

Love the Cat

2010-04-28T14:41:00.007-05:00

This blog is probably not the place to vent my grievances concerning small felines, but I may just do it anyway. Really just one small feline. Really not venting. Really just realizing that I don't want a cat of my own. Any time soon. I would much rather have a kid (I mean, eventually, and several.) At least you can clean them and they don't (usually) flaunt their hind ends in your face.

But cats. Especially this cat. Her name is Love, which is ironic, because although hate is much too strong a word, love isn't exactly the word I would use to describe my thoughts toward her, except in more tried moments in the context of quoting 1 Corinthians 13.

Love bears the sorrow of being separated from her adopted mother, Kaylee, with a tenacious loyalty I would, under more favorable circumstances, admire...but not at 5 in the morning.

Love believes with the faith of a saint that I will share my spaghetti with her, even when I've warned her countless times to the contrary.

Love hopes desperately that I will tolerate her noisy, nosy presence all night in the bedroom (she's dead wrong).

Love endures the unfortunate, reoccurring difficulty of getting stuck behind the door flap of her litterbox, and makes wise use of her detainment by leaving fragrant offerings for us.

LOVE NEVER FAILS.

Prophecy will be done away, tongues will be done away, even knowledge will cease, but I'm afraid Love will always be with us. Even after she gets another worm shot I'm not sure I will be all open arms.

However, I try not to insult Love to her face. Kaylee loves her like a mother loves her suckling babe, and who am I to douse that kind of loyal affection with the icy deluge of my misgivings? In fact, Kaylee's adoration of the four footed gray and white creature reminds me so much of my love and dependence on my own gray and white kitty at one time, that I am forced into a reluctant understanding.

When I was eleven, Emily was my baby, doll, companion, entertainer, and possibly mentor, and I'm not sure I would have survived the next few years of my turbulent inner life without her furry companionship.

So, where Love the Cat is concerned, I practice a policy of tolerance. While I am babysitting, Love roams the living room with the exception of meal times, when she is contained in the bedroom. During Bible time, she follows her exploratory nocturnal impulses at will until 10:00, when lights go out and Love goes out- to the living room/bathroom.

Kaylee shows her plenty of affection. All the love Love needs from me is letting Kaylee love her. After all, we don't always have to like the people we love, right? Or cats, I might add?

I Never Thought I'd Say This, But...

2010-04-24T18:21:00.003-05:00

"Well, it's happening," I announced to the general populace this morning. The populace was my family members. They were eating breakfast, while I was elbow-deep in algebra homework. As usual, my folders, pens, pencils both blunted and sharpened, calculator, various napkins and a yogurt encrusted bowl occupied about half the table. I was plotting the points of an exponential function. "I'm officially becoming a math nerd."

My Dad gave a chuckle. "Now that's one thing you'll never be, Cass." "What if I told you I graphed an exponential function in my journal last night to illustrate my feelings about life?" I asked. "Ok, well that's...ok. Maybe you are." I grinned. I'll never be a math whiz, but suddenly I see meaning in math I've never seen before.

Here we are at the end of the semester. Only one test stands between me and the final. And I don't really feel like I'm going to war anymore. It's more like coming admire the enemy.

Here's something I never thought I'd hear myself say: When we've exhausted words, we still have numbers. I can't say I've entirely exhausted words, because here I am still blogging, but I must say I was shocked to find a new medium in which to express myself. A new language, if you will. Another code that represents a picture of what is in my mind. Because really, that's all that letters and words are too.

Eliza (Whom I Met in the Library)

2010-04-23T14:02:00.001-05:00

Brown and chubby baby feet stretch before her on the

Seat; raven hair slips gracefully around the archway of her face

Fully focused on me. Now she’s firmly pointing, with her deep swamp eyes

Anointing me like I am set apart for her

And her alone

She babbles and she gabbles

On and on and on

Flipping pages as she gages

Our reading marathon.

She turns around and runs for another book and

Comes; my smile has made her bolder, and I feel her smooth brown rounded

Shoulder touching mine. Saucy and demanding, she is forcefully

Commanding me to read her book and put my own

Good book away

2007

The Wheel Keeps Turning!

2010-04-22T09:54:00.009-05:00

I am a baffled child learning heaven's cycle of Hope, Waiting, Surrender, and then Hope again.

I was on the way to the mailbox three days ago, talking with God along the surrender and direction thread. "I know I never have to worry, but help me..." I told Him. The flowers bursting from everywhere with no want for beauty and provision remind me of this every day, that golden evening being no exception.

I opened the box with a faint throb of curiosity, and pulled out an envelope with the circular blue logo I'd been hoping to see for weeks now. Tearing it open like a long-awaited Christmas present, I scanned the top line, which read:

"Congratulations! It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been selected for admission to Berea College for Fall 2010..."

I went home trembling with good news. I told my family. I called my grandparents. A renewed sense of God's customized love for me and gentleness flooded my heart. Yes, it felt warm and fuzzy!

It's not that all my hopes have been set on going to Berea. In fact, college is a goal I've been learning how to deal with in the surrender department. It seems that just when you excavate your heart deep enough to find the treasure of desire, you're called to go and sell it.

I'll try to make this long story short.

Last year I figured out I really wanted to go to college, not just because everyone else is, but because I love to learn.

Last year I also started attending community college here when I returned from Ukraine. It wasn't Harvard, but it was a start!

I began searching for a 4-year school to transfer to, but the cost of tuition, room, and board was frightening. In conviction, faith, and a considerable amount of naivety, I determined that I didn't want to wade into a slough of debt in order to go to college. Especially when I didn't have a desire to make money in the first place.

I wanted to purpose to be as financially free as possible so I'd be free to go where ever God might take me. I might not have a penny to my name, but I wouldn't have to spend years saving pennies for Sallie Mae, either. I prayed that God would make a way for me, all the while wondering if this was stupidity, pride, or just part of Cassie-dream-land!

In the fall, while searching online, I discovered Berea College, in Berea, Kentucky. The school is a private college that provides free tuition (worth $25,000 per year) to their students!

I trembled and choked my way through the website as I saw the character and personality of the college. Too good to be true! Study abroad opportunities, a small school with huge diversity, Christian foundations from a man of intense faith and love for Jesus and people (John G. Fee), emphasis on art, the tranquility of a small Appalachian town...what more could I ask?

So I started applying, and after a snow-graced visit to Berea in January, I was even more hungry for the chance to go. I was also a little daunted by the news that Berea only accepts 30 of every 300 transfer students that apply. The heart of the school is to provide quality education for those who don't have the money, and I certainly qualified in that department, but that still didn't guarantee anything in a crowd of 300.

What to do next? My only other option seemed to be attending a state college in great state of Texas, though that idea really didn't quicken my pulse. I was a little lethargic about looking into other colleges, hoping so hard for Berea.

At first, the challenge was, "Will you hope for it?" But when I had practiced that assignment for a while, God gave me another. "Will you surrender it?"

The days and weeks passed, and the mailbox remained forlorn and empty. As my roots deepened here, I wondered, is it right for me to go away? Does God have different plans for me to deepen in prayer at my church, where good seeds seem to be coming up? Am I betraying His gospel when time is so short, when lost souls are right outside the door?

The letter kept delaying and delaying, and well-meaning friends and relatives were always asking about it. But there was no way they could see the earth-moving equipment rumbling around in my heart as God created a landscape where my desires to go to college were open and bare before Him.

And now, the letter has come. And I take this as confirmation from the Lord that I'm to go to this beautiful place where I can learn and grow and expand. I hold it very loosely. With Mary, I'm saying, "Let it be to me as you have said!"

I've been skimming though John Eldredge's book lately, thanks to Brett and Pam (when two friends encourage you from the same book, it's time to pick it up), and found a quote that describes this loosened grasp:

"Desire is still present, felt, welcomed even. But the will to secure is made subject to the divine will in an act of abandoned trust." pg. 193

And this sums up my story. As the my "will to secure" goes down to the dust, the wheel of God's will is turning to lift my hopes up toward the sun. And who can tell the joy that awaits when this cart gets Where It's Going?

in a thousand years

2010-04-21T18:32:00.003-05:00

a thousand years in Thy sight
are like yesterday
when it passes
so is it really
too much to hope
that the small,
shriveled seed
i planted yesterday
might break open
tomorrow morning?

Symmetry and Sleeplessness

2010-04-19T13:13:00.005-05:00

"Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

The sidewalk of Kilgore campus between math and history classes at 9:57 a.m. is, perhaps, a strange place for William Blake's words to be running through my mind, but then, I have had stranger thoughts coming out of math class.

This image at least didn't feature my instructor with a lasso. Instead, I was still dwelling on that beautiful little graph on the board that nearly moved me to tears. It was an inverse reciprocal function, just two gently curving pieces opposite each other and a few points away, an identical set. And a straight slant ran through them, slicing them cleanly in half diagonally.

When I saw it sitting there, complete, a little bit of peace diffused into my brain. It was a gentle whisper, a quiet reminder that in one small corner of one small classroom in one small town in the not-as-big-as-they-think-it-is-state of Texas, "all is right with the world." Ahh.

As for tears, perhaps they are a bit much. They didn't actually fall out of my eyes. I was still in shock over making a 99 on that math test, which is, as you may already realize, a miracle worth crying about. And, more than anything, I was tired.

Although I never planned it this way, the sun had arrived just in time that morning to rouse me from a two hour nap-- not a normal occurrence! There were a lot of factors to my sleeplessness. Possibly a certain feline who shall remain nameless, or a certain sore hip, or a certain delectable cup of coffee. But in the end, it worked out for the best.

It's a mysterious truth, but one that is becoming more and more evident to me, that God sometimes goes to unreasonable lengths to keep us up at night because he likes to be with exhausted, slightly cranky people who are helpless to change their vulnerable state.

And as for me, I find that the more wide awake hours I spend, the more wide eyed I become to God, and the more thankful I am for the small beauties and privileges in life; asymptotes, for instance. Or naps.

Garden

2010-04-17T10:31:00.000-05:00

My wakeful heart
Is a Garden of Desires
Budding, bursting, blooming
I crave Your tender hands
The taming and the tending
The binding of bending tendrils
To the trellis of Your love
I hunger for Your quick keen blade
To prune the places found unfruitful
And for Your jealous watching
To wait and win the fruit.

Oh for Hours to Dream With...

2010-04-17T10:11:00.004-05:00

I want to get back to art again. To habitual writing and a rhythm of creating. I'm out of practice. I don't know if you've noticed, but it takes time to do anything creative. I don't just mean that you have to have time to physically sit down and write or learn to paint or whatever. I find that I need hours at a time to wander around in a dream before I'm good for much of anything creative.

College life, for all its glory, isn't conducive to that at all. American life isn't either, for that matter. But maybe the season will come again for wandering. Right now, my brain wants a rest. I think it has shoved the luxury portion of my vocabulary and my ability to think of stimulating sentence openers to the back closet to make room for efficient lists pinned to the fridge with pictures of my friends.

During this season, I'm hoping to train myself to create along the way with the words, thoughts, resources in front of me. Maybe something good will come.

I Win the Math Battle and Stuart Gets a Bath

2010-04-16T16:16:00.005-05:00

Math test: I've decimated it! Decimation! Annihilation! Extermination! I can't believe it! Today's conquest contradicted all my worries and fears. I'm confident of an A, and yesterday, I was worried I'd fail the test altogether. I still don't understand how it happened. It's a wonderful thing, being a pessimist. One is constantly being pleasantly surprised.

I know it wasn't my own powers, because I managed to be alert and energetic even with the very meager ration of sleep I got last night. Connor, Mattie, and I went to Thursday Night Prayer as usual at 9, and it was a very sweet time of about ten of us sitting at the Lord's feet and really just being washed and renewed. I love this time. I think it's the highlight of my week.

And afterward we laugh. Last night we really laughed,about not much of anything, and about everything. Laughter with good friends is delicious, and when I considered it afterward, I thought, this will be what heaven is like. A riot of joyous laughter with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and all the washed, freed saints!

Speaking of washing, Connor and I finally gave Stuart a much-needed bath today in the sunny drive way. Stuart is Connor's dear little Toyota Corolla with a rather battered coat of champagne-colored paint. Only lately he's been sickly green with pollen. He faithfully carts us to school and back three times a week and takes Connor lots of other places, so it was time he got a little TLC.

So we rinsed him, and scrubbed him, and rubbed his scabby hood. He was growing a whole bushel of potatoes behind the hubcaps! Connor polished up the inside with armor-all, and I beat out and vacuumed the floor mats. And before we knew it, the sun had warmed and dried Stuart's grateful back. Come Monday, we'll have the satisfaction of riding to school in a clean, happy Stuart.

The End

In Which I Prepare for War and Draw up Battle Lines Against a Bosom Enemy

2010-04-15T18:19:00.005-05:00

Math. It wants to annihilate me. But here I stand, relatively unscathed at the end of the day, gazing across the battlefield at my crippled enemy. Tomorrow will be the true test-- exam 3, 9:00 sharp.

I was so giddy over getting an A on my last math test that I got a little overconfident. Thus I was quite unsuspecting of the sneaky ambush the enemy had planned this week...rational inequalities swooping out of nowhere to pluck out my eyeballs. Violent, I know.

Today, in distress, I called for reinforcements, hoping in the dusty but sometimes helpful skills of my brother. But alas, he could offer little aid. Seeing no other way to gain the upper hand in the conflict, I embarked on a reconnaissance mission to study the ways of the enemy. I met with Commander Abdulziz, a friendly tutor at Student Support building on Kilgore campus, a lengthy trek from home territory. A costly journey, too, in precious fuel, and since I was already exhausted from previous skirmishes and the wearing ways of war, I nearly fell asleep at numerous stops (that is, stop lights) along the way.

But under Abdulziz's patient tutelage I was able to gather valuable secrets and develop a plan. And now, I gather heart and hope, and take courage in both hands as I prepare for a blazing victory on the morrow.

Miracle

2010-04-08T11:41:00.004-05:00

(written yesterday)

Spring! I think I've got it in my blood. I'm sure you can tell, because of the way I mention the weather in every blog entry I write, even if the blog entry ends up having nothing at all to do with spring. However, I'm coming to believe that pretty much everything has to do with spring, because spring is about new life, and life is central to...well, this is profound...life. I'm just so philosophical, aren't I?

I think my sheep-like (i.e., rather foolish and gullible) nature) will always keep me from waxing stuffy. I will always be wondering things like, "Huh, isn't it funny how the border of Texas runs right along the Rio Grande?"

Spring. New life. Watch the news or pick up the papers and you'll see no end of tragedy and strife, but talk a walk outside today and you'll find yourself realizing that apart from anything horrible that goes on, it's a brilliant miracle that life exists at all. My friend Lauren lives on a farm and she wrote about this after observing the animals and their personalities. Unfortunately I can't find the link to that blog so you can read it...me and technology. What a joke.

Sometimes I think about it in airports. The miracle of life existing, that is. It's a perfect opportunity to stare at people, being so tired you can't think and you're licensed to stare blankly at people (within reason). Features and complexions differ nearly as much as clothing and luggage styles. The travelers come from a city on the other side of the world or right down the road from you, and they might be headed to a grand city or to a remote desert.

The miracle is that two people ever found each other in this chaotic world and conceived them and they somehow survived the trauma of being an infant. (Can you imagine the culture shock of living outside the womb for the first time?) And then they traversed they intensely awkward and perilous years of young adulthood, braving all the questions of existence, finding a way through the murky waters of life to some sort of job or family or community life.

And all these people, whether strong or weak, happy or unhappy, confused or content, good or bad, all of them are milling about the terminal or taking off their tennis shoes right in front of you in line, and it's stunning, if you think about it, that they made it here at all. Life.

I was so chipper and happy this morning that I went out on a walk twice just to look at everything, to feel the sun, to tell God how happy I was, to just thank him for all the good things He's put in my life. I used to complain so much, and I still fall into that, but I find that when I practice the discipline (and it truly is a discipline,) of thanking Him for every little thing, even the things I don't like, I end up falling into a state of intense happiness and peace. Which is a very good state to be in. And I'm still here, only now I'm blogging about it.

The sky is like an exquisitely blue eye with a burning yellow pupil, which became a disturbing image when I dwell on it too long, but is effective anyway, and the whole landscape looks drunk with vibrant green. The wind is happy, the little birds and bugs and small animals can't get enough of it. Cars on the distant highway even drone with a happy drone. Sometimes they just sound lonely, but today, they're different. Flowers have come up that weren't there just days ago, proudly sporting their purple and yellow, glowing with radiance. Even my hair feels happy and curlier than usual, reaching out to touch the sun.

We forget to worship the Lover of Our Souls, because we're human and we're busy, but creation doesn't forget. Creation exists to worship. And I don't think the trees get bored of it, all winter standing in reverence with their branches lifted to a quiet sky. I don't think a single square inch of ground is grudging when it's time and it's able to bring a blade of grass or a violet into the world as an offering to the Master. It's spring, and even the torn and weary creation is beside itself to celebrate the new life that is to come in Jesus.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Come Lord Jesus!

Sword and a Flame

2010-04-05T21:05:00.002-05:00

Here I am, sipping the sweet, gritty goodness of coffee from Connor's French press. A hint of cool breeze is coming in through the open windows, bringing a fresh dusting green fairy dust with it, I'm sure. Not the kind that makes you fly. Sneeze, yes. Fly, no. If it could, we'd be fluttering all over the countryside this season.

But it's night now, and after a very green day, I can't see the pollen anymore. I just hear the crickets, which remind me that it's spring and it's humid again and that in the morning the whole world will glow green again.

I'm full of questions for the future. For right now. I'm glad God knows me so well. I'm glad He's not surprised by the revelations popping up in my heart. They're news to me. Not to Him.

What have you called me to do, God?
What really matters in life?
Why does the world seem to center around making money?
What place does it have in the Kingdom?
What if I'm dreaming too small?
Have I just been playing around till now?
Did I really think having "good" dreams meant that God wouldn't need to do anything drastic to shake me up?

God has questions for me, too. They cut straight to the heart. They hurt.

"Do you love me more than these?
These things?
These dreams?
These people?"
"Will you obey Me?"
"Do you really think I won't provide for you?"
"Will you really care about what I care about?"
"Who will go for me?"

I thought being called was a call to somewhere. I guess I thought it was going to fit in with my dreams. I always thought since my dreams are good dreams, God would just use them for His purposes. But I suppose I've used those to justify avoiding the messy business of surrender.

I've offered a general offering of my life with a somewhat conditional "yes". Yes, if I can finish school. Yes, if I can get married. Yes, if I get to have kids and a home of sorts. Yes, if I can teach or write or live here or there or minister to these kinds of people.

Did I think God would be satisfied with my "Yes, if?" I wasn't even aware I was Yes-Iffing, but this week God's been slicing me open with what seems to be a double edged sword of love and fire. Burn me God, I prayed...He's kindled a flame, but it hasn't completely done its work.

Where the world wants a job description, God looks for obedience. Where the world seeks degrees and positions, God's eyes rove the earth looking for someone who passes the test of faith. When the world asks for future plans, God looks right in the eye and asks, "Are you doing my will this minute?"

Do the wheres and hows of the future matter as much as obeying one step at a time? Does anything really matter but to work honestly with our brains and hands, find people to love, pray, and walk with in community, and learn to constantly speak out the truth of Jesus to those who don't know yet?

I told God I was sorry for taking some sort of smug security in this spiritual sounding calling I had in mind. Not that He hasn't been leading me to do certain things, particularly this summer, which I will share more about later...but my pride has been a bit slapped around this weekend and I realize that God, well, God should get what He deserves from me. An unconditional yes, every minute. Ready response to His spirit in an ever-changing world. If my plans for next year change tomorrow, I need to be okay with that.

God whisked Philip right up and took him to the Ethiopian's chariot because that's where He wanted him that day, and I somehow doubt that was in Philip's five-year plan.

One of the crazy prophet dudes had to lay on his side for three years eating only bread baked over dung. I'm sure that felt weird for him. It was probably not the fulfillment of one of his cherished dreams. What counts is that he did it.

Was Jesus in love with the idea of being crucified naked? I doubt it. I do know that He was in love with the whole human race, and that His intense love carried Him through that horrendous experience in perfect obedience.

The more I pray, the more real I become. I need to go pray some more, though. I am asking Him to burn me with His fire. The more I stand before Him, inviting His gaze, the more of my playacting He strips off, the more cute scrapbooks in my mind he rips up.

"Do you love me?" He wants to know. And I do so love Him. It's quite an experience loving Someone who loves me so deeply and yet has no qualms revealing my deepest flaws. If His love is going to plunge into the depths, it's going to cleanse the depths so He can dwell with me.

So may the questions continue, may the fire not go out until my life here is through. And in the end, I hope to be found faithful.

Cry for the Unborn

2010-04-05T21:03:00.000-05:00

On the day I was born
They said
Welcome to a world of injustice
But I was well acquainted already
From the safety and the terror
Of my mother’s womb
No one knew me there
And I did not have a face
Injustice, I knew,
As with a pounding
Not of a fist, but with my human heart
I beat upon the darkened wall
Who will stand and defend me?
For the voiceless, a voice
For the weak, a witness
For those in darkness, light.

Aug. 2009

Peanut Butter and Farming...Just Random Ramblings to Distract Myself from Impending Doom

2010-03-31T13:15:00.005-05:00

Ok, I'll admit it. I'm just a little too giddy over having a cheese stick in my lunch today. I haven't had a cheese stick in ages, and I must say, it spruces up the pb&j menu considerably. Takes me back to first grade. Only, in first grade I didn't have cheese sticks, either, I don't think.

Usually I had peanut butter crackers for snack, the packaged kind very conducive to mutilation. My preferred method of consumption was scraping the peanut butter off, rolling it in a gummy, fingerprinty ball, and eating it bite by luscious little bite. I guess you could say that I have a history with peanut butter. Right now I'm just about sick of it.

My classmate, Jordan, is sitting at the next computer Facebook farming as we await the looming computer test. The test shouldn't be hard because I know how to do the work, but the multiple choice questions are sneaky and obscure and I somehow managed to get a rather unsatisfactory grade on what I assumed would be the easiest test. Oh well. I'll take that as a lesson. I see that farming in some form is making a comeback in rural America. I'm afraid I won't be joining, unless it's to plant some actual (not virtual) eggplants. But don't count on that either...

Oh, someday I will blog again...

Party Punch

2010-03-13T14:28:00.004-06:00

Oops, you spilled your joy on me
Like party punch
Right down my formal front
And I almost started dancing
With the smell of that strawberry wine.
Friends, let's raise a glass
To the Lover of Our Souls!
I'm not one for getting drunk,
But I'll get drunk on this.
I'm not the best at dancing
But I'll dance all night for this.
I hope it spills all over town
I hope it runs into the rivers
I hope it swallows up the oceans
I hope we drown.

A Rainy Day Curry Craving

2010-03-08T16:38:00.003-06:00

Today was not the day to wear a spring skirt, but I missed the memo and did it anyway. Actually, I did get the memo, and ignored it. Rain, temperatures in the 50's, and I said, no, surely the sun will come out. So I wore a skirt and short sleeve while everyone else was bundled up in hoodies. The sun must not have been impressed, because it didn't come out, and I was so chilled that I got Connor to drive me over to the BA building for computer class in the afternoon instead of walking there like I normally do.

Afterwards, he came and got me and we listened to Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack on the way home. I remembered all over again how much I love that movie and tried to think of a good excuse to watch it a fifth time and tried to decide whether or not I would be burned out on it. Probably not.

Both of us were about to eat the seat upholstery, we were so hungry. I usually make sandwiches for school, and I did today, but I left Connor's. So after sharing mine and having a full day of classes, we were still famished. The music made Connor want curry, more specifically, Li'l Thai House curry, and in a rare spontaneous moment I said we should go and split some. He looked at me like I'd proposed a plan for a Better Mouse Trap (if, hypothetically, he had been a professional exterminator...never mind.) and veered onto South street.

Since we failed to catch the Green Street underpass, we ended up behind a stripey blinking barrier waiting for a 40 mile long train to go by. We were there a long time. Connor turned off the car and we sat watching it. The cars were red and orange and navy, which struck me as a nice color combination on a rainy gray day with the wind blowing like it was. They all appeared to have been brought from China and I wondered how much of our stuff comes from there? A lot, I know, but the whole trainload?

We drove up to the little wedge of a building that is Li'l Thai House and found it closed. Pho's was the next option because by that time we really wanted some non-buffet Asian food. And I must admit, Pho's has the best French-pressed coffee I've ever tasted. It's all in the condensed milk. There we met Kate and Stan and a friend of theirs and Kate's mom, and began to visit with them.

It was very satisfying eating something with chopsticks. I'm glad we did split a plate, because I felt obligated to leave room for the spaghetti my sainted mother had made for supper.

We drove home with the heat full blast on my chilled toes (flip flops to go with the skirt, naturally) and I told Connor I thought I had the skirt thing out of my system for a while. Think I'll don a hoodie for the next month. Of course, this is East Texas weather we're talking about. I'd better not make rash promises.

And now I'd better stop writing because I'm writing rather recklessly and don't feel like using commas which can get you into trouble sometimes with grammar police which people think I am until they really get to know me because I really don't care much about some aspects of grammar I just like to ramble...

Ok. I do care some. I mean, I'm a little embarrassed at that run on. But not enough to take it out. Ok, as I said, I'd better stop. Now.

Trailers With No Tail Lights

2010-03-03T12:43:00.004-06:00

This morning I woke up and, while waiting for the windshield to de-ice so I could go home from babysitting, I thought, what, is this March??? March is acting like January. Hard frost? Ice? Where is the White Witch? More importantly, where is Aslan?

I guess Aslan, bless him, must have heard me, because by the time I stepped out of the car for my 9:00 class at Kilgore two hours later, the day had changed from frosty January to sweet, clear March with sun and an attempt at green. I love spring. I love it, I love it, I love it. Every fall my favorite season is fall and every spring my favorite season is spring. Not sure how that happens.

Today I was thinking about how much people matter. There's such a fine line between people mattering and people mattering too much.

Sometimes being in public feels like driving behind a trailer that has no tail lights. You're constantly forced to guess when to stop and start. It would be easier not to care what other people do and keep rolling along on your own, but that will most likely result in a wreck.

It's stressful to constantly be trying to read what others are thinking. It's stressful making judgments of yourself and for yourself based on unreliable cues from other people.

Grades worry me too. They feel like a very direct reward or punishment. Do good work, get a doggy treat. Do bad work, you get beat with a stick. Some instructors seem to be on the students' side, while others strike terror in the hearts.

But last week, I thought this out a lot, and I wondered, which would I rather have? A high approval rating with man that rises and falls, or a high approval rating with God that lasts forever? When I have twenty priorities, who is going to dictate what comes first? People, who want me to be and do ten worthy things at once, or God, who knows I am made of dust, and only expects me to obey the next step?

If people really matter, sometimes they take precedence over the most pressing deadlines. As in the case of one of my classmates, who skipped a day of classes to make time for a friend's birthday. Or like last night, when I opted out of unfinished homework to watch Roman Holiday and eat frozen pizza with Kaylee. Not that that was a chore...not that my brains were functioning at a high enough percentage to produce anything worthwhile...but I made a decision with the imagined gun of academic pressure to my head, and I was proud of myself for it.

So Kaylee and I watched Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck fall in love, and made sad faces as he walked down the loooong palace hall *sniff*, and I tried to get a piece of pizza with a maximum number of pepperonis. I could have done an equation for that but decided against it.

The human body is limited. It needs rest. It needs replenishment. I always had the idea that college students are superhuman because they can go nights without sleep and live on coffee. But we aren't! More importantly, the soul needs rest. I want to pursue my work with diligence, but sometimes a quick conversation with Mom over breakfast does more for my well being than cramming the undone worksheet. So I'm tuning my ears to the quiet voice of God's Spirit guiding me in the pattern of work and rest, work and rest.

He's directing traffic for me, and when my eyes are on Him, my inside ears tuned in, I don't care if the trailer in front of me has gimpy tail lights.

The Group

2010-02-22T18:58:00.006-06:00

Today was the day the Lord has made, and I did rejoice and was glad in it.

I was also wearing the color purple, which I've discovered makes me feel more creative than usual. Not that I created much. But I thought about it. And that counts for something. You have to have so much thought in proportion to what is actually produced, kind of like needing forty gallons of sap to make a gallon of good maple syrup.

Today I began learning to act "groupy," as my math teacher so aptly put it. Group project? In math? Ok, I thought, I'm ready for anything. I shoved my bulky desk around and glanced back and forth at the rest of my group-- two girls whose names I still didn't know. I wasn't sure what we were doing, but I assumed they would.

I scanned my group mates' faces for vital signs. They looked like they hadn't had their coffee yet. They looked unhappy. They acted like they didn't know if we were a group or not. I thought it would be a nice group. We would sit there and do our worksheets and maybe I would ask them questions if there were problems. But after yesterday's massive homework initiative, I was pretty confident about the graphing thing.

We mumbled a few words to each other and one of the girls pulled out her homework to work on instead. I asked their names and forgot them immediately. I worked at my graphs, trying not to panic at my tendency to freeze when called on to work math problems in public. Ms. V's lovely asymptotes on the marker board looked like a multicolored snowflake, delicately resting on the surface of my brain. But now, the board behind me, the privacy of my brain was being invaded.

And that was only the beginning. Ms. Verheyden showed up on my left. "Are we being groupy?" She wanted to know. "Not really..." I said, laughing a little nervously. "Well, are you on the same problem?" "No..." I had just finished it, but it was more of an accident than anything. "Well, show them how to do it."

She moved on to another group, and we began to explore the complications of groupyness. We tried to talk to each other. I mean, we're girls, girls are supposed to be able to talk, right? I tried to explain the problem, but I really botched it. The only advantage I had was more motivation than the others, and while motivation is helpful, it doesn't explain algebra concepts in a matter of minutes.

But we tried, and I got an adrenaline rush, which I always seem to get in math class because I'm usually teetering on the narrow fence rail between the vale of understanding and the Stygian abyss of confusion. But I'm discovering the balancing itself to be a skill worth developing...and enjoying.

Later in the day, I again found myself in a "group," a group of all the people whose names begin with C in Ms. Rushing's sociology class. There were four of us. We were playing a weird little game to demonstrate the five types of social interaction- (Nonverbal, exchange, cooperation, conflict, and competition.) I love sociology. It's basically learning what everyone else & I are doing all day, every day.

We talked about Groupthink- "the idea that agreement with the group is more important than doing what you want or what is right."

Peer pressure. Our whole culture has an agenda and I can feel the waves of it surging over me when I walk around campus, every time I walk through a store. I can detect it and stand up to it to a certain extent, once again, in the privacy of my brain. There is a capital "They" out there that wants to eat my life.

But what I want to know is, when will be the time when I'll stand up and say what's really in my heart? When will I get to scream from a rooftop the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? When will I get to speak straight from the heart, straight out about the worth of every person I meet? When will I get to hear the others speak out what they really think as well? What they really want, down in the dregs of themselves, where they don't even know they want anything?

I find myself becoming a lover of souls. And I want to round all the souls up and grab their shoulders and shake them and tell them how much Jesus loves them and how rich life can be. But I haven't thought of a socially appropriate way to do that. So we'll see what happens. It wasn't socially appropriate for David to go dancing in the streets in his linen ephod, either.

That Sunny Field

2010-02-16T15:51:00.003-06:00

Ah, school. Well, if Anonju wants to hear about it...

I haven't blogged about my classes at Kilgore, not because I don't like them or they aren't noteworthy, but rather because I like them very much and they have a way of gobbling up my minutes, hours, and days. Before I know it the week has darted by and I've forgotten to wave.

But I love it. And here is something I wrote last week. It didn't show up on my blog because I had other plans for it which I also got too busy for.

It is now my first full-time semester at Kilgore College, and I’m getting along famously. The classes are generally engaging, the teachers generally helpful, and the homework generally manageable. Three days per week I pit my wits and will against the likes of algebraic functions. I maneuver the maze of Reconstruction in the 1860’s. I hear second hand and see first hand the social differences of the East Texas area. And more.

After several years of subjugation to high school algebra and the lingering sense of defeat, I decided this is the semester to revolt. So I am waging my personal revolution of sweat and blood on this dreaded subject, and maybe I’m winning.

However, my greatest downfall is distraction. Even on the foreign field of algebraic notation, my English-loving eye catches glimpses of the Roman alphabet and falls head over heels. Letters begin to form imaginary words, and my mind is floating up, up, and away, far beyond the battleground.

I love geography. I love foreign places, the names that roll off the tongue. I love imagining the exotic scenery. So when Ms. Verheyden, my algebra instructor, asks us to picture the Cartesian Plain, I am in my element.

What visions come to mind! I see no staid and stoic graph carefully squared. Instead, my living inward theater launches the scene of a grand desert, stretching to the azure horizon and painted in ocher and orange. Cactus and scrub are everywhere, and in the middle stands Ms. Verheyden, lassoing algebraic functions and reeling them home to their proper plots. And, of course, there is yet another gap in my memory of graphing functions.

This sense of imagination will go far in English class, I’m sure of it. However, one cannot graduate on English credits alone. The distractions do not stay behind when I move on to U.S. history. I’m truly interested in the details of Post Civil War Reconstruction. But when Mr. Seals mentions the reconstruction of Afghanistan today, I’m lost again. My page of thorough history notes is bordered by scribbled blue questions about Afghanistan, and my mind is roaming the Hindu Kush mountains.

Before government, I light for a moment on the bench outside the classroom to devour half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This is standard operation for me at 11:00 am, as my new friend, Paige, knows. She is always there when I sit down, and last time she said she was going to bring a sandwich, too. “Good,” I tell her, “We can sit here and eat our sandwiches together.”

In government, we watch a documentary about Texas. The Lone Rangers are in it. Immediately, my mind drifts to The Lord of the Rings, and I picture Aragorn, Son of Arathorn, standing rugged and ragged on a lonely hill in Middle Earth. Eowyn or Arwen, Eowyn or Arwen? I ponder.

After class I visit the restroom just to check on my hair, which I swear is occupying more space in cubic feet than it was earlier this morning. I washed it and left home, and I know I could feel it growing during class as it dried. My hair is an unstoppable force. If only we could harness this energy, we wouldn’t have to freak out about saving the rainforests. I am sure I could get all my homework done, plus some.

No amount of energy, however, could reign in the wandering thoughts that liven up my day. Down in my heart, in a sunny field where my imagination runs wild, I am quite sure of this.

Take it Personally

2010-02-14T14:00:00.006-06:00

I noticed with some alarm that I haven't blogged in a very long time, but I can't bring myself to be unhappy about it. In fact, there is little I can bring myself to be unhappy about right now.

The snow is almost gone now. The spontaneous holiday has ended. The snowmen in every yard in the neighborhood have expired, and the Great Blizzard of 2010 has retreated into history. But what a time! Truly, I don't think we've ever had six inches of snow here in my lifetime.

That somewhat short lifetime reached 21 years the day the flakes started falling. I thought it was my own personal birthday snowstorm, but so did everyone else in East Texas.

It was Ethan's snow because he got a snow boat in January and has been praying for snow for the past five months. It's Iryna's snow because she was missing Ukraine so much. The snow belonged to the 9:00 MWF college algebra class of Kilgore College because an exam was scheduled and I know that even the most staunchly irreligious must have uttered a few petitions. With just a few exceptions, we all must have felt personally privileged, like the children of a loving parent who each think they are the particular favorite.

Funny how snow made the whole world stop. My whole family stayed home for the day. Mom made eggplant parmesan for my birthday. Gracie and Lauren came over. Connor drove us to prayer and we prayed happily, then returned home and went outside to sled and snowball in the fresh white inches of snow after dark.

We built a snowman named Herb. He had a really nice smile and I really liked him, but we decided to hook him up with Gracie because he was taller than her. But there were some misgivings. He was a cool guy, but I was sure he'd have a meltdown before the wedding. Sure enough, by the next morning, although the snow hadn't melted, he had completely fallen apart. Cold feet, you know.

The next day, certain relatives of mine hooked a row boat to my grandfather's tractor and gave a new meaning to the term "snow boat." I wasn't there, but apparently Connor drove the tractor around the field yelling maniacally.

I may not have been there for the tractor experiment, but I was involved in using the boat as a bobsled to slide down the hill into the pond. Unfortunately I don't have the pictures of that right now. Only the people in the front got uncomfortably wet. The people in back got pond algae slung on them from the front paddlers. In a few years, this sport could make it into the Olympics.

The power was out for 31 hours, but I suffered only minimal internet withdrawals. The whole thing turned into an unexpected three day holiday in the midst of a hectic semester. I know it's nothing for the folks who get a foot of snow on a regular basis, but when you only see it once in two decades, it's valid grounds for a regional holiday!

Out of Broken Eggshells...

2010-01-26T09:51:00.004-06:00

Today I found out why God gave us math. From now on, so help me, I will never complain about Algebra! God in His kindness gave us math so that, somewhere in this maelstrom of a world we live in, we could find refuge in a concrete answer. There’s a problem. There’s a formula. You solve it.
The End.

Most of life isn’t like that, and I’m okay with that for now. In fact, I am more okay with it than I’ve ever been. This week I went around in such a silly stupor of joy in what God has done in my life that questions and regrets are still just falling off me like old leaves off an oak tree.

It didn’t start out that way. In fact, two weeks ago, at the beginning of the special prayer week at church, I went into the “Redemption Room” to cry out to God because I was feeling so messed up. As in, months and months of built up messed-up-ness

I empathize with Humpty Dumpty. Before last week, I felt like him. You know the story…sat on a wall, had a great fall, no one could put him back together again. A kind of Jeremiah character. I was getting really tired of being a shattered egg. The whole world is a carton of broken eggs. But if I’m the one with hope in Jesus, why was I still laying there in pieces?

In the Redemption there were piles of rocks, and you could write in Sharpie the thing or person you were asking God to redeem. I could think of a hundred things, a hundred people, but I simply put, “My Joy.”

Throughout the week a series of shakings and quakings happened through various circumstances. I prayed, I made new friends, I called old ones, I went running, trying to remember how people breath when they haven’t been socked in the chest. Then, the sweetness of God’s healing and redemption began washing over me in wave after wave. An old shell was coming off. I felt, well, if you’ll excuse a silly pun, like a newly hatched chic!

The freedom is still unbelievable to me. I didn’t know that the things I thought were so good in my life could be such chains, and I didn’t know how chained I was until the chains were torn off. I didn’t know I would rejoice over something that would have grieved me weeks ago. My time of sorrow is over; He has freed me from my chains. And now, before me, I have a future full of “the One Important Thing,”
Jesus. And when you get Him, you get everything.

Now I walk around with a different view. God gave me compassion where I only wished I had it before. I want to take this outside! This morning I walked out of algebra class with tears in my eyes. It wasn’t because of Algebra, by the grace of God. It was because God gave me the chance to help the student in front of me, a girl from another country, in the simplest way. And I was looking around at the current of students passing by, looking out on them like Jesus looked on Jerusalem, seeing that so many are “sheep without a shepherd, harassed and thrown down…” and suddenly I knew that the joy of my salvation has been restored. My cup, even my cup over flows!

“The Lord is my shepherd
I shall not want
He makes me lie down in green pastures
He leads me beside still waters
He restores my soul
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake
Even though I walk
Through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil
For though art with me
Thy rod and thy staff,
They comfort me
Thou hast prepared a table before me
In the presence of my enemies
Thou hast anointed my head with oil
My cup overflows
Surely goodness and lovingkindness
Shall follow me all the days of my life
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.”

Amen.
Psalm 23

A Dangerous Business: In Which I Go to the Bistro and Find Nothing With Which to Wipe My Nose

2010-01-16T19:24:00.003-06:00

Yesterday my grandmother took the three of us, my brother, sister, and I, out to eat at a pleasant bistro on the other side of town. The cheerful waitress handed out our menus, and it dawned on me what a strange thing it is to eat out. I tend to agree with Tolkien’s words in the mouth of Bilbo Baggins: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, stepping out of your own front door.”

You leave your home, where you might have had homemade spaghetti, and drive thirty minutes to a building primarily designed preparing food and hosting the people who eat the food. After being seated in a room full of strangers, you choose a dish from a menu arrayed with sometimes familiar, sometimes foreign dishes, none of them like your mother makes.

After waiting with usually pleasant conversation, you get your food and try to eat it with some semblance of manners, even though your sandwich is greasier and unreasonably larger than anything you ever attempt to eat in the private confines of your home. If you are paying, and are as mathmatically strained as I am, you might be mentally calculating the tip for the last half of the meal.

You can’t finish your fries but think your little brother might enjoy them later. A waiter produces a to-go box, which you fill but inevitably leave on the table among the used napkins and crinkled straw wrappers.

Despite all this, there is a certain appeal to the restaurant experience. As I sat with my siblings and grandmother at our table for four, surveying the menu, I thought about how nice it was to be here, in a new place, to be served food, to have conversation. I admired the mix of tall windows at the front of the long room with high brick walls, and dark wood floors, the light coming in on the tables.

Connor was talking about the character of Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, whom Grammie and I both shared his admiration for, and Mattie will admire as soon as she reads the book this semester for English, I’m sure.

I noted the misfortune of coming to a restaurant nice enough to have cloth napkins, which I could not, with good conscience, wipe my nose with. I could feel the beginnings of a drip. I never have a Kleenex when I most need it. Not even a scrap of paper, and the waitress was approaching us.

Oh Dear Most Venerated Abby, I composed mentally, when one is without a Kleenex in public, which is the most appropriate and acceptable course of action—wipe with the hand or leave it there and hope no one will notice? I chose the former, thinking of the times I was sure I had something the size of a blimp extending from a nostril when in fact it wasn’t even noticeable. Of course there are those other times when a kind relatives enlightens you about the booger dangling precariously from that same place...

“Shreddedsteaksandwich,” I blurted when my turn came, averting my eyes and hoping she wouldn’t look at my face, particularly the middle section of it, which I was positive must be dripping. “Fries or onion rings?” she persisted. “Fries,” I shot back, picking up my purse and excusing myself to the ladies room.

The restroom was painted in warm, comforting red, and made a good place for me to find relief in a large wad of paper towel, with which I duly punished my nose for its untimely behavior.

After that the meal was peaceful. You aren’t paying all that money for food. It’s an hour of atmosphere you’re buying, an opportunity almost to be expansive and creative and inspired by the sights and people around you, and to enjoy the friends you came with. You meet over such a seemingly insignificant thing as food, and sometimes even your souls can connect.

We left happy, having chatted about books and life and the coming semester, my sandwich successfully consumed, with the floor sullied only by one stray slice of mushroom.

A Winter Roadtrip Comes to a Satisfactory End

2010-01-11T18:27:00.003-06:00

After inaugurating the new year with ten days away from home, it's especially nice to be back, back in our still-chilled house with the minor toilet leak from the icy elements outside.

We spent two nights in Arkansas at Queen Wilhelmina lodge with a passel of relatives comprised of maternal grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. From there we drove to Tennessee to stay at Dad's mom's house and also see an aunt and cousins. During that time we took a one-night trip to Berea, Kentucky for a college tour that, in my elated opinion, was excellent.

Now I am beset by strange homey feelings and urges to do impulsive homey things, such as plant a bulb garden, or sew a tunic, or putter around the kitchen, or buy a goldfish. Things one cannot do in a hotel or in one's grandmother's house. Not that I would normally plant a garden at home- and I've never bought a goldfish by my own initiative- but I feel oddly like doing so. I think it's the wrong time to plant bulbs. There is no room in my room for a fish. Maybe tomorrow, I'll start sewing before the impulse deserts me.

I did a fair amount of reading on the trip. Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, plus parts of a book on the life of Mohammed and another one by a man who bought a dilapidated zoo on a whim. Oh, and Donald Miller's newest book which is either called A Thousand Miles in a Million Years or A Million Miles in a Thousand years, I can't remember which.

I would have enjoyed that book more if I hadn't grown momentarily discontented with my life and spent an evening sprawled disconsolately on the perfect white hotel room bedspread grasping at scraps of emotional comfort from my mother. It ended when massaged her back and my little sister's and Mattie Kate massaged me back and we all felt better, and my hands still smelled like peppermint lotion in the morning.

Connor and I left this morning in one car and the rest of the family followed an hour or two afterwards in the other car. Sometimes I mourn the days of the minivan, but being in the car with Connor was fun too. I read three chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird aloud before he put on his new cd and we listened to music and talked here and there for the next five hours. By then I was over the I-Can't-Hike-Machu-Picchu-like-Donald-Miller-did fuss and was in high spirits. I even fell into the backseat while trying to retrieve a water bottle.

The afternoon shadows fell over the interstate through the wooded Mississippi area, icy gray shadows on yellow grass, on gray-blue asphalt. Yellow lines on asphalt. Sometimes ridges rose on either side of the road like the ones that line old stagecoach roads, and despite the interstate, the place felt old, 1800's old, like the Civil War could still be going on. And I thought about how glad I was that it wasn't, and about the sad and senseless loss of life.

Four hours from home we stopped in Vicksburg, at a welcome center on the Mississippi side of that great river, and from the hilltop watched the roiling brown waters sliding forcefully under the bridge. We admired the giant cannon from the siege that happened there during the civil war, and I was thinking about the siege on the Dneiper during WWII at Baliko Shechenko, and looking around the war monuments last year.

We crossed the interstate into Louisiana, and I felt glad to be even a little acquainted with a part of history, however sad. I always thought it was best to forget about the Civil War, a confusing morass of motives and passions and unreasonable attitudes about human life. But after learning a bit more history this past year, I think it might be good to remember more, and to understand the thoughts and actions that could lead to such a tragedy. Both the slavery practiced back in the 1600's and the natural consequences of slavery were tragic.

Suddenly, there was an outbreak of pine trees, and I knew we were close to home without looking at roadsigns. From Louisiana, to Texas, though a car wash, and then home we went, to our cold little house, a frantic cat, and a warm pork loin sent from our grandmother up the hill. Ah, to be home again.

Reverse Solar Eclipse

2009-12-31T09:58:00.005-06:00

This past week has been one of freakish circumstances and what seems to be unreasonable pain. Circumstances that didn't happen to me directly but somehow managed to affect me deeply. And physical pain that seems to come out of nowhere(difficult to accept for those of us who want black and white answers to everything.)

Monday was a weird day that shook us but left us seemingly ok. Monday night I came home from Cheddars and the movie theater with Connor, Grammie, and Lauren. The movie was great. But one little word sparked an angry burst from me that was alarming. What, I'm angry? Why? What? I'm pretty much heart broken? What? I can't sleep because everytime I lay my head on the pillow a new breaker of tears washes over me?

I've asked a lot of questions about why bad things happen, why God seems to let evil go on, why there is so much brokenness. But that night was not a night for those questions. I can't say I have specific answers, but I don't feel like I'm struggling to mount a beach ball in a surging ocean any more. I don't feel like everything is going to slip out from under me. I don't feel the need to ask "why" right now.

What I did feel was a deep pain for the brokenness that is, and the brokenness that will be until Jesus comes back. And now my question was, How? How, God, can we deal with this pain? How am I, looking from the outskirts, supposed to deal with it, and how in this breaking deluge are the people in the middle of the circumstances supposed to survive? I can't even hold up physically. I'm nothing but a stick of drift wood, God. How can people live in this hellhole we call a world and still smile, and laugh, and play?

It all sounds pretty miserable and Job-ish. But in the middle of this I read Malachi, and in chapter four, this verse suddenly changed me.

"And the sun of righteosness will rise with healing in His wings."

You know the verse in the gospels where Jesus says that His followers must hate their mothers and fathers in comparison to their love for Him? I know that Jesus loved every person and told us to follow suit, so obviously He means that we deeply love our families. But if we have to choose between family and Jesus, there isn't even a question...we pick Jesus.

He is so full of love that He cares deeply about family relationships, while our relationship with Him is so vast and deep that it entirely eclipses the love we have for our families. It's hard to believe.

Basically, from what I can see, God's people are going to experience a complete reverse solar eclipse of several thousand years worth of pain and sorrow. Jesus, blotting out the darkness...with light!

For just a moment, when I read the verse about Jesus healing His people, I could glimpse what Paul meant when he said "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not to be compared with the glory to be revealed to us." (Romans 8:18)

If Revelations speaks truly that "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Revelation 7:17) then we aren't going to be weeping in heaven for all the things that happened on earth. He will make all things new, and the joy we have with Him will be so vast it will completely eclipse anything painful we've ever experienced or witnessed.

No darkness will be able to enter the heavenly city. No gloom or depression. Nothing will be able to weigh us down. Our bodies will be free from the physical limitations of living in this fallen world. Free from sins that plague us. Free from the enemy's plots.

In a strange way, the suffering here doesn't matter. Don't get freaked out. I don't mean that in a New Agey way. It's not that suffering doesn't exist. It's not that we pretend it's not a big deal. It's never, ever that we react indifferently or harshly about it. But compared to the joy that waits for us, it doesn't even mark the radar. Why else could Peter, who suffered intensely, even willingly for the sake of the gospel say,

"And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory..."
1 Peter 1:8

"Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father's house there are dwelling places; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you." John 14:1-2

How could I ever sleep at night if not for this? How would I get up in the morning? How would I make it past the age of 20? Even in a fallen world, God is the lifter of my head, the prince of peace, the God of comfort, author of faith, merciful father, God of hope. He brings joy to my soul. Even now! He brings laughter and victory, even now! He fills my life with good things, even now.

All He asks is that I believe. All He asks is that I follow the footsteps of the men and women of faith, the Abrahams, the Marys, the Gideons. All that He asks is that I remember, day after day, the joy set before me, just like Jesus did.

No, I'm Not Coming Out...

2009-12-22T12:02:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I was supposed to meet my friend Iryna and we were going to go for coffee or something like that, as we've done several times in the past few months. But yesterday the house felt so cozy and as usual, I was loath to leave my habitat. So I thought maybe I should bring her here and we could make cookies.

The more I thought about it, the happier I grew, so I finally called to ask if I could pick her up an hour earlier so we could do it. And she said yes. And when I drove up in the truck (a large white vehicle I like to call "The Tank") she was so elated that she hopped right in and gave me a big smooch on the cheek. I guess we were both missing Ukraine a bit.

Before stopping to get her, though, I had to make a Walmart run for baking supplies. Jiminy Cricket! The traffic...the hustle...the bustle...the lines!

I thought there were a lot more efficient people in the world. I thought last minute shopping was supposed to be the exception to the rule. Don't you guys want to go home? Isn't that what a holiday is for? Shouldn't pickup trucks be banned from the roads during Christmas holidays? Wait...I'm driving one...Ok, but I don't have a choice...couldn't the rest of ya'll have bought mini coopers or something? Not redneck enough for ya? I'll getcha some duct tape.

So I found two pounds of butter, two pounds of powdered sugar, and 8 ounces of creamed cheese. And I waited behind seven or eight carts in the express lane. The checker was holding out pretty well. I bet it's spiked eggnog for her tonight. She could probably use some extra Christmas cheer.

So I stood in line surveying the newest varieties of M&M's. Strawberried peanut butter??? What? I want to go home now. Gosh, I love to be home. Just two days ago I was all irritation about home. But I always get over that. It takes little more than a trip to Walmart. Abscence makes the heart grow fonder.

So, after sitting in traffic on the narrowest road in town with three hundred other pickup trucks and other such unwieldy vehicles through about four lights, I reached Iryna wrecklessly (without a wreck) and we went back to my house and made cream cheese cookies, which turned out super yum.

And now nothing can induce me to come out of hiding but dire emergencies or dear friends...until after Christmas.

A Room Cleaning Observed

2009-12-10T19:44:00.004-06:00

All the clever things I was planning to write earlier in the day have flown my mind like little birds going south for the winter. But I live in south. So I don't know why my thoughts would want to fly anywhere.

Today I cleaned my room. I haven't done that in a long time, and I should have known better. I told myself it would only take thirty minutes, but an hour and a half and 2000 dust bunnies later, I was just getting warmed up.

It needed cleaning in those sneaky places like under the bed, on the window sills behind the blinds, and behind the Rubbermaid containers in my closet. Once the vacuum cleaner came out, I couldn't stop. It would have been an ideal situation, a joy to my mother, but the timing was bad. I needed to stop so I could have tea with Mrs. Burklin, which I was greatly looking forward to (and thoroughly enjoyed).

So I did claim victory over the vacuuming impulse. I found some things in the closet along the way. T-shirts, hoodies, someone's bow and arrow, my scattered drawing stuff, Mom's Christmas present, a lot of ladybugs.

Our house is infested with ladybugs. I vacuumed up dozens of them. The ladybug inundation marks the onset of winter at our house every year, and has done so for as long as I can remember. Whenever I am in bed watching them crawling around on the light fixture like little turtles, I think of my dear friend Chelsea. She walked into my room one day (ten or twelve years ago), got one look at the wildlife, and fled screaming. She eventually recovered.

I don't mind the ladybugs, if they stay on the ceiling. But the past two mornings I've woken to the sight of a little spotted bug scurrying along the line of my bed covers at eye level, and that's a little disconcerting. Especially since the little creeps let off such a stench if you disturb them. Connor said, "They're like little skunks in red suits." I wouldn't go that far, but...

I didn't get around to everything I could have done in there. There is still a huge Rubbermaid container full of all the cards and letters I've received since I was seven; that needs some attention. I can't carry those to and fro across the planet for the rest of my life.

I did put away the last little pile of gear from my last suitcase from Ukraine. So that is that. After five months, I guess it was about time.

You are so Embarrassing Me!

2009-12-01T12:43:00.004-06:00

"I'll be glad when Mom is my teacher."

That's what my little brother said this morning, slouching in his desk while I tried to control my laughter. He said this because I am his teacher right now, and I embarrassed him. It was not intentional at all. I merely pointed out that a "b" has a big belly and a "d" has a big bottom, because sometimes he doesn't remember which letter goes which way. Visual usually helps, but Ethan just got mad at me. And they say I need to lighten up!

He was also mad because I kept trying to speak Russian to him. What could have been a great learning opportunity turned out to be a pain. It drove him crazy. So I stopped. But I could hardly help myself!

During breakfast I pored over a library book on the Czech immigrants in Texas. At the end is a Czech pronunciation guide, and with this magic key, I was able to unlock precious mysteries. You wouldn't know from looking at the words, because the Czech and Russian alphabets are so different, but the two languages are extremely similar. Once I knew what the funny hats and lines meant, I could sound out words that were, if not siblings, rather close cousins to the Russian ones. *squeals of delight*

I only know enough Russian to be annoying, and even less Ukrainian. Actually, Czech seemed more like Ukrainian than Russian, but they're all in the family. I declared that I wanted to learn all the languages in the world. And then I started school with Ethan.

No one else in the family cared about my exciting discoveries. One member was irritated, as aforementioned. I'm not sure why it means so much to me either. I guess I like how things are related to each other. When I see how languages interconnect, they no longer seem like random gibberish, but a series of complex patterns that could only have been designed by God.

Language discoveries are exhilarating, too, because love finding out how closely related we really are to people who seem completely foreign to us. People all over the world greet each other, they just do it in different ways. Every culture offers proverbs and words of wisdom, the worldviews are just different. Pretty much everyone in the world has to eat, and usually they have to work in order to eat. They sleep and wear clothes and try to get an education and get married and have families and funerals and holidays. We all just have different ways of talking about it.

Here is a thought from the Czechs that I appreciate:

"Everything has an end, but a sausage has two."

And this is certainly true:

"Without work there are no kolaches." (!)

And this is how the Czechs see it:

"Where a Czech housekeeper cooks, everything fares well."

I believe it!

(proverbs from Krasna Amerika, A Study of Texas Czechs, by Clinton Machann and James W. Mendl.)

So I will enjoy my little epiphanies as they come and try not to bother Ethan too much. After I did away with the Russian, math went much better and we even got to make a paper mache volcano which is now drying by the fire, waiting to be painted.

In Which My Siblings and I Wage WW3 and Enjoy Ourselves Immensely

2009-11-25T13:50:00.006-06:00

It is 2:00 pm on the day before Thanksgiving. Connor left for work just when I was enmeshed in the delicate process of conquering the world. Now the suspense is killing me.

I forgot how much I like to play Risk. I'm not much of a board game person, or a take-over-the-world-person, for that matter, but today I was getting a bit angsty over that land war in Asia. As it stands, Mattie is spreading herself out over Asia but growing stronger, while Connor camps in a small cluster in Europe, just recovered from a sweep into North America that dealt me a keen blow but did no lasting damage. I'm holding the Americas a bit shakily with Alaska badly exposed to Mattie's forces in Kamchatka and the cold uppermost reaches of Asia.

After some Thanksgiving baking this morning, the four of us sat down to a game of Risk. Ethan was on my team and has been my faithful dice roller, until the last ten minutes or the game, when the little traitor went over to the other side. He thought he would get to play for Connor when Connor left, but was thwarted when we decided to keep the game till Connor's return.

At the beginning, I lined up our extra roman numeral figures into lines by tens, fives, threes, and ones (ours were yellow) and Ethan expressed his admiration. ("That is so cool, Cass.") Of course Ethan would think that was cool. Lining things up is a hobby of his. He was simply admiring a fellow master.

Ethan dropped the dice at every opportunity. After retrieving them with his toes, he shook them ferociously for about ten seconds, scrunched his nose up, prayed for a good roll, and let them go. I'm not sure that his rolling tecniques have benefited us much.

Connor consistently reminded Mattie and I to take our precious cards at the end of our turns. Mattie croaked like a frog throughout the game, fighting off a headcold. We ate leftover lasagna while gambling the fate of Irkutsk. And now, we suspensefully await the return of our honored opponent and the end of the world as we know it.

2009-11-16T14:33:00.003-06:00

November has finally hit with a chill blast! I said something about Christmas music this morning, and Connor said not till after Thanksgiving, which I usually agree with...but I said, what if it never gets this cold (you know, the 50's) in December? This might be our only chance.

But he ignored me. His car, his ipod, his choice. But he did ask me what music I wanted to listen to, and he let me ride in his car, and...hey, it's not a bad deal for me.

So we drove off with our scarves wrapped around our necks, (respectively), humming along to Regina Spektor, which can be hard to do when she really gets up there. And I was thinking of how nice it will be to come home tonight in the cold dark and find my warm house again and a kitchen steaming with the chicken soup my Mom put on this morning before she left for work. And this thought made me very happy.

Human beings are the funniest things ever. God must have had a fun time making us. Here I am, sitting at my laptop in a gray sweater feeling small and grayish and composed, and across the table is this big fellow in a black and white t-shirt, with a lot of hair, periodically looking up at the ceiling between spurts of paper.

First he asked me if internet worked here, as I was setting up my computer. Then he went away. Then he came back and asked if I knew where another plug was. With the scrap of human kindness usually residing in my soul, sometimes farther in than not, I offered to move the table over and share, and that's when he set up shop across and over one. And began talking about how bored he was with internet down. And making money.

My little brother, Ethan, is a funny person too. Probably because he is so serious. A few nights ago, I was reading a book about countries that don't like America and it was making me blue, and I said, to the general audience of the living room, that the world is "so messed up." And Ethan, who was wandering around the couch in Robin Hood-ish garb and a wooden sword, said,

"No it's not." And I said,
"Yes it is." And he said,
"Well my world isn't messed up. And you shouldn't say that right in front of my face!"

This is entirely true and I should have apologized for my insensitivity to his little bubble. Yes. No matter how messed up the world is, there is still humor in it, and it's good to have people around to remind you, passing stranger and little brother alike.

In Which I Become Aware of Significant Envelope Licking Rituals

2009-11-02T14:20:00.005-06:00

According to Bruce, my blog is no longer interesting because I'm in school now and not having any adventures. (Besides those tidings of ill news it was wonderful to see Bruce and Deb again while they are in from Ukraine visiting Longview for a few days.)

But though I can't be the judge of my Blog Interestingness Quotient, I can, today at least, and as many times as I continue these charming visits to the Financial Aid desk, share an experience to satisfy my readers' taste for the ridiculous.

I understand that a home made high school transcript might raise a few eyebrows. After all, this particular student (probably not the first time in the history of homeschooling) had to design and fill out her own transcript. What can I say? The principal was busy! At least they taught me to be honest.

It's true that I made my own transcript, faithfully filling in the grades received from parents and other instructors. And when they told me at the Financial Aid desk that I'd have to have it notarized, I didn't make a fuss. If they want a little extra ink that's fine, although I didn't see how it was going to make anything more official. I know my notary better than most people know theirs because she also happens to be the church secretary, but that doesn't mean she knows how I fared in Biology.

I got the transcript notarized, and, having nothing but a plain long envelope, popped it in. I left it open because I figured that looked cleaner and neater than what it would be if they had to rip it open and look at it. Oh, how wrong I was.

When I returned to the registrar's desk and handed her my envelope, she looked it over and said,

"Well, I'm sorry, but we can't accept this. It has to be sealed." I stood there, a little concerned, picturing some kind of fancy sticker...bees wax...something official that I needed stamped on the outside of my envelope, something that definitely wasn't at my house.

"So...it's a homeschool transcript. Where am I supposed to get this seal?"

"You just need to bring us a sealed envelope, that's all."

"Oh, you mean it just needs to be closed?"

"Yes." I think for a moment, trying to get this straight.

"So you mean...that I can just go outside, lick my envelope, and come back in?"

"Uhh..." Awkward silence. Mostly for her. She turns to the lady at the desk behind her and asks what to do. That lady brushes it off with a wave of her hand and a crinkle of her nose that says "No big deal." And I heave a sigh that agrees.

The lady behind the desk carefully licks the envelope and regards me seriously.

"I guess it's ok, just this once," she concedes.

"So let me get this straight," I say, one more time, just to clarify. (I know my Dad's going to be all over this.) "What I should have done is licked the envelope at home and then brought it here, and that would have been ok?"

She nodded.

Well, my transcript is now sufficiently licked and filed away (I hope) and all I can do is issue a warning to my fellow homeschoolers planning to submit high school transcripts to a college...Never underestimate the importance of that official, clandestine ritual of Licking the Transcript Envelope...it could mean your future!

Causes of the Revolution: A Poem

2009-10-19T14:22:00.005-05:00

Last night when we arrived home from a weekend of camping, Connor and I had now idea that we would be up till 3 in the morning studying American history-- and liking it.

But that's what we did. Camping was a thrilling, though somewhat face-chapping affair, what with the wind and all. I'm glad I went, but after hiking 9 miles in two days I was happy to see home and my bed. The trip home took longer than usual because we had to make an extra stop at Walmart in DeQueen to find some brie. I had a sudden revelation on the trail between the Shady Lake dam and our campsite that I desperately needed to eat some brie. It sounded good to Connor, too, and Rebekah, who rode home with us. So we bought it and traveled on our merry way.

Bekah's parents were still at life group when we got home at 8:30, so we stood around in the kitchen eating brie and crackers and hummus and drinking earl grey to warm up. The house was freezing inside, and the cat was tearing around like some kind of dervish. I take it she was happy to see humans, but I think she was upset that we weren't the particular human she wanted-- Mattie Kate.

After collectively consuming six ounces of brie (my instincts were right. It was just the ticket) we drove Rebekah home to be reunited with her waiting family, who were overflowing with anticipation. Except Sarah, who is still at Shady Lake with the others.

Connor and I were tired out, not to mention grimy and greasy from camping. So we weren't exactly pumped about breaking out the textbook. I'd had the chance to at least make notes on the material beforehand, though, so we stood in the kitchen (it's the best room in the house-- everything exciting happens there) and shot questions at each other.

It got a little out of hand. The answers started rhyming. And then we were ad libbing, and before you could say "Boston Massacre," I was bending over the blank sheets of Mom's grocery pad, scribbling couplets of doggerel foolery and madly twisting my greasy hair while Connor spouted out more rhymes and slapped his thigh with the hilarity of it all. It helps that it was 1:00 in the morning and many ordinary things become hilarious at that time of day.

I thought I'd share the results of our efforts with the rest of the world, with an apology to any Brits and a disclaimer that it's hard to tell the truth when it has to rhyme, so we fudged a little on that. Poor King George got it hard, but then, you have to find someone to blame. Back then there were no presidents.

Causes of the Revolution

The Causes of the Revolution
Were not Helen of Troy, or air pollution
They were political factors, economic strifes,
Social troubles, (the stuff of life)
An unwillingness to compromise—
If you think it’s otherwise
Go ask Sam Adams, he’s the fellow
Who fanned the flame with his rhetorical bellows.

After Pontiac’s rebellion (trust me dears, he was a hellion)
King George issued the Royal Proclamation,
“I will squelch this budding nation!
No more moving farther west!
I’m the king, and I know best!”

With the fall of Salutary Neglect,
King George sat and did reflect
This was no little piece of cake
The health of his empire was at stake
The Sons of Liberty were about,
Committees of Correspondence were on the scout
Patrick Henry had assumed his stump
And Ole’ Sam Adams had put a goad in their rumps

After one too many mugs of beer
Those Liberty Boys weren’t thinkin’ too clear
They threw some snowballs at a guard
Gee, I guess some were a little hard
British regulars came out to spar
And some bloody idiot shouted, “Fahr!”
There was a massacre on the premises—
At least that’s what Paul reminisced

After that the Townshend Acts
Were declared to impose a tax
On glass and paper, tea and paint
(“What do I look like,”
Said King George, “a saint?”)

The colonists were up in arms
They donned some feathers and left their farms
They had a party on the sea
And ruined all King George’s tea.

King George declared the Coercive Acts
“Boston port closed till my tea is paid back!
Privileges limited, legislatures suspended,
By Goerge, we’ll have this government upended!”
So the colonists made a fuss
“We’ll have no more of your laws on us!”
They’d rather have been stabbed and died,
So this is how those boys replied,
With the Continental Congress of ‘74
(The British knew not what was in store)
Suffolk Resolves declared Acts impolite,
They drafted a Declaration of Grievances and Rights
They organized a boycott against British trade,
Then sent the militias off to raid

The Midnight Rider, Paul Revere,
Rode away (he is not here)
He rode with buddy William Dawes,
Who did not follow British laws
The minutemen were good old boys
Their guns were not just childrens’ toys
Their shots were heard around the world
And then Old Glory was unfurled!

By: Cassie and Connor Walters

This morning, we presented the poem to Mrs. Szafran, and she got a laugh. And all the way through the quiz we smirked with glee as little couplets ran through our heads, igniting our craniums for victory.

No Mommy in Morocco

2009-10-14T15:55:00.004-05:00

Today I spent the time after government class while Connor was in computer class to attend some of those delightful little details such as finding someone to talk to about financial aid and registering for a CLEP test.

One of the major problems in trying to communicate with human beings is that it's hard to know the right questions to ask. If that isn't bad enough, when you think of the questions, you have to get up the nerve to ask them. Then you have to deal with the change in brain waves depending on the answer you get, which you sometimes can anticipate and sometimes haven't the foggiest idea of. Communication is a beast, I'm telling you.

There, I'm sounding like Junie B. Jones. What can I say? I like third graders.

But-- communication. Whenever I go to the financial aid desk, I try to pull up the questions from the files in my brain. Right now the files are full of messy details of money and transportation and scheduling and tests and homework and other peoples' tests and homework that I am assigning them. The files are chronically unorganized so it's hard to pull up the right questions. And when I think them up ahead of time and write them down, I always leave something out.

Or I stroll up to the desk and ask a question, only to be confronted with another scenario that requires me to think up and ask more questions. And the ladies behind the desk are nice enough, but they aren't prepared to sit there doing nothing while I shuffle through the mental files (besides, seeing as I'm the only one who can see the files, it probably looks a little more "mental" than that).

The result of all this is that I have to visit the F. A. office frequently as I think of questions. But bit by bit, it's coming along.

Today I was also registering for a CLEP test for English, trying to add a few more credit hours without all the time and cost. More information, more mental memos to attend more little details. I am my personal secretary.

On the way out of the Student Center, a red and white magazine caught my eye outside the international student office. It said "Study Abroad" in catchy red font, and I immediately sat down on the bench to take a look. I glanced quickly over Argentina and Mexico and Peru and Spain, lingering longer over Brussels and then landing on Morocco, where I stopped to stay a while.

Ahh. Sometimes I just want to jump up and grab a backpack, catch a bus to the airport, and fly far, far away. Not because I don't like it here. Just for an adventure. And Morocco has always grabbed my interest. It seems obscure. Mysterious. Exotic. Not a popular cruise destination, not the top pick of exchange students. The kind of place that makes me think of my favorite shade of blue. The kind of place that, while flying home standing in an infernal customs line at 3:00 in the morning you would casually be chatting with the person behind you and they'd ask "Where were you?" and you would modestly swallow the grin that is attacking you and say, "Morocco." All casual-like, you know.

Yes, I do a great deal of fantasizing. Don't worry, there is plenty to keep me firmly anchored to the ground. All those previously mentioned "little details," for instance. What do I think I'm going to do with a semester of Arabic, anyway? Or "Conflict Resolution?" (Ok, well I might be able to put that to good use.) As far as I can see, people don't usually take a semester of college courses for fun. They usually need to count for something.

Well, I will give this some thought. I think for now, it's here for a year or two at least. And of course I'm glad. I would probably miss my Mommy in Morocco.

Giving it a Try

2009-10-12T14:33:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago I got inspired and decided to submit an article to the local newspaper, just for kicks. I didn't tell anyone except Connor because I wanted to surprise the rest of my family. I was so giddy I could hardly contain myself. It's funny, the things that turn a person on. Road trips and freshly sharpened pencils. Sending an article to the newspaper.

I had figured newspaper editors were like publishing people on a smaller scale, and I expected a sort of disinterested, condescending aloofness. But when I talked to Ms. Ana Walker, who is over the Voices column of the Longview News Journal, I was surprised to find her kind, positive, enthusiastic, and very accessible. The whole experience was very encouraging to me.

Here is the article for those of you who don't get the paper. Or read the paper. I'm just now looking through it a few times a week. Ours was sopping wet from rain that morning, and I had to hint pretty strongly to get Dad to pry it open and check the insides. Of all mornings for the paper to be so drenched no one wanted to open it!

http://www.news-journal.com/search/content/news/opinion/stories/2009/10/09/10092009_voices_walters.html

I just had a little scuffle with Starbucks internet. Starbucks isn't my first choice of coffee shops, but here I am and I bought a gift card so that I could access the internet. Too bad I couldn't buy a side of brains with that.

I tried typing my card number in several times without any luck. Every time, ugly red words came up telling me my card wasn't activated. I went to the barista up front, who was really busy with other things and couldn't help me much. I went back and retyped the numbers. Twice. It was then I realized I'd been typing in the card number of the sample card on the screen-- not my card!

So now I am reveling in the light of my own shocking brilliance of mind, drinking an especially delicious hot chocolate.

My Words are Chewing on Themselves

2009-10-05T14:28:00.003-05:00

I am sitting at Goodday Coffee+Book shop in Kilgore. I'm with Connor and we just finished classes at Kilgore for the day. He is in a chair nearby wrestling with a computer class assignment and talking to his laptop in an unfriendly way in short syllables.

I am lucky because major tests are over for now and I'm free to blog. At least I want to say I'm free to blog. My head is still imprisoned in a rut of the antithesis of creativity and when I start to write, sadness comes out. I don't want to write about sad things, because I figure I've done that enough. But how do you write from the heart on such an overcast day without sounding sad?

The sad things I feel but don't want to write about are like boxes in a room in a house I moved into a long time ago. I don't come into this room much and it hurts unpacking the boxes, but I am curious about their contents because I seem to remember some things in them that used to be displayed and enjoyed in the brighter parts of my house, and some time ago I packed them away out of sight. I miss them like a favorite book. Or a favorite tea cup.

This coffee shop is peaceful. The soft green on the walls is soothing, and so are the beautiful books that line the walls, books that look like they were chosen for expressly decorative purposes, but are actually for sale. On the wall over the table
where Connor and I often sit, there is a quote by T.S. Eliot that says "I have measured out my life in coffee spoons."

Connor thinks this is an awesome quote and so do I, although putting it up in a coffee shop is taking it grossly out of context, I would think. But poetry is subjective-- I suppose you can take it to mean anything you please, as long as you don't assume the author meant that as well.

My brother and I have been thinking about art and discussing it lately-- music for him, writing for me. Art is something that has to be shared, or it will ferment and burst out of you. That's why we have to listen to music in the car together, that's why I want to write a blog, that's why I am glad there is poetry on the walls of a coffee shop. It's why I wish more people took time to love beauty instead of trampling it. It's why I want to find more creative outlets. I don't know much about art, only that there's a part of me that hungers for beauty, and a part of me that was created to create.

After a long walk at the walking track a few days ago, and the conversation we had there, Connor and I agreed that what we are looking for in art is what is REAL. On my part, if I have to wake up to the ugliness of life, I need all the more to wake up to the beauty, because the beauty is the rope where we hang onto God. By beauty I don't just mean flowers. I mean everything that is good. A Weird Al song that makes me laugh my head off, walls painted green, Winnie the Pooh, rain outside the window, my sister's shimmering hair, sitting in the living room with friends talking about life...real life.

I didn't mean to write about this. It seems foolish to me somehow. Every time I write a word it turns and attacks the word behind it so that my sentences regularly get chewed to bits and I have to erase everything and start over. Even now they are salivating and growling and I see that I should post this blog before I lose my chance...

Triumph in the Hunt

2009-10-01T19:17:00.004-05:00

Today I embarked on a journey to find and seize (lawfully) some of that stuff that has given humankind the most pleasure and botheration since the advent of the fig leaf: clothing.

I am like the guy in that one Sonic commercial-- my wallet creaks when I open it. I don't go shopping very often. It's not because I don't like nice clothes; I have plenty of good reasons for not shopping. I won't enumerate them now because many of you are familiar with them yourselves and it will only bore or depress you.

Well, today, I did go shopping, and today, I did buy clothes. After discovering four small rips in the back of my favorite and nearly only pair of jeans on Monday, I decided that was the limit. And today, because of unexpected events at our house which kept Dad from his usual grocery shopping, I got the groceries instead.

Before Walmart, however, I stopped at two other stores to hunt for jeans. Not only did I find jeans, I found shirts and a dress that all fit and I liked. I bought some of them. I had forgotten how to swipe my debit card. But I figured it out without too much trouble.

I could just keep my holey jeans. After I got a look at what was selling, I figured mine were pretty much in style. The difference is just where you put the holes, unfortunately. I don't care how stylish they are, when I get around to buying new jeans every eon or so, I'm not going to pay for holes. I can make them myself, thank you.

I went home to tell my family what I'd done. I had not warned them before hand, and I wondered if the shock might not be too great.

"Well good for you," Dad said, (Not the response of average Dads to average daughters.) "Do we need to put this on the record or something?" Mattie congratulated me warmly and said she I could tell she was proud of me.

And I-- well I'm downright proud of myself. It's not every day I go out on the hunt and return triumphant, clothed in the booty.

The Big Book of Why (is too heavy to lift.)

2009-09-22T16:15:00.001-05:00

Sometimes you come to a place inside your head where you feel terribly small and helpless and forget that God is bigger and better than you.

It hits you at night after the house has fallen silent besides the whir of the fans and the faint breathing sounds, and you are lying there in bed, unable to sleep. In the lonely hours you begin to think about love and loss and all the genocides that have happened that you wish you didn’t know about, and you can’t see that God is really bigger than bombs and heartbreak.

You write a book in your head and it is called “The Book of Why.” It is a huge book. There are several chapters, titled, “But…,” “What?,” “How Come?,” and “How Could You?” Then you stand up in front of God (which is easier to do at this point because you cannot see Him) and insist on reading the book to Him, to see what He will have to say for Himself.

But the book is so hard to lift and your tears are so thick, and God is being so quiet, that you start to think that maybe there is something you don’t know. Even though you know so much, so much you wish you didn’t know, maybe God still knows something you don’t.

So, exhausted from the ordeal, you throw yourself back down among the tangled blankets and try, once more, to sleep.

And God says, I’m glad you wrestled with me.
And you say, But I’m limping.
And God says, It’s ok.
And you say, But it hurts.
And God says, I love you.

And in the morning, you find the twenty pieces of wadded tissue on the floor beside your bed, and your eyes are squinty. But outside it is raining quietly and in the kitchen your mother is making blackberry pies, and you think perhaps it will be alright after all.

Based on a true story.

“Therefore thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation, well-placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed (i.e., in a hurry).'” Isaiah 28:16

A Family Adventure

2009-09-19T09:39:00.004-05:00

The kitten incidents are far removed, but I am now seeking blog solace in yet another Texas town (besides my own.) Another adventure trip, this time with my family on a weekend adventure planned by our own private travel agent, Agent Dad. As usual, he braved hell and high water to get us out of town and find some hiking and good food—two ingredients to an enjoyable vacation.

Mom got the weekend off and the plan was a camping trip in Arkansas. But as it often happens with us, storm clouds caught wind of our sunny plans and gathered for miles around to settle in a steadily spinning system directly above every camp ground in Arkansas and Oklahoma, delivering a generous supply of wetness. Camping plans were squelched. Travel plans—not so much.

Camp grounds in Texas are reservation-only and this weekend the nearbyish ones were full. The Hilton sometimes runs rooms on Priceline.com for ridiculously low rates, thus luring unsuspecting bumpkins through its doors with Playmate coolers full of breakfast to be duped by their stupid internet fees. And consideration of these facts may explain why my family is presently camped out in the Hilton in Austin, within view of the airport and a pleasant show of airplane departures.

We don’t “belong” here, but this is, after all, a free society depending on how you look at it, but at least we gave the bellboy some entertainment.

This morning we ate our nutri-grain bars and drank some kind of fortified breakfast drink fortified with enough chocolate to wake us up, and then we drove to Enchanted Rock, a few hours from here.

This rock is enchanted because it is a solid granite dome-like formation that rises 425 feet in the air like a miniature Ayers Rock. Unlike Ayers Rock, you can walk up it because it curves gently on the sides. From a distance you can see the people moving around on top like little bugs.

As we came within sight of it, Dad explained to Ethan about climbing it. “And you have to be careful up there on top, that you don’t fall,” he said.

“Well, I’ve never fallen off a cliff before in my life,” Ethan replied matter-of-factly, as if to say how could you doubt me when I’ve always proved myself so responsible?

“In all your six years…” Dad added.

“But I did fall off the couch once.”

We climbed the rock, which was like a giant tombstone with prickly pear cactus sticking up in patches, which is surprising when I remember that it was a rock and had no soil to speak of. I ate a prickly pear fruit not long ago with taco salad for supper because I got curious while shopping with Dad and we bought a couple of them. It was full of seeds but otherwise very tasty. The skin is thick and green and slimy, and the insides are a watery, sort of green version of pomegranates. I could never decide whether I liked it, so I kept eating it until it was gone. (Other people helped.)

But when I saw bulbs of prickly pear fruit sticking off the cacti on top of Enchanted Rock, I suddenly decided I liked them and desperately wanted one. The only problem is that gathering fauna and flora in a state park is prohibited by law and I already have this problem with park rangers. Actually it is their problem. They’re the ones having heart attacks over innocent children idly plucking an oak leaf. But I have bad memories and there are better reasons to get thrown in jail, so I didn’t think I would pick a fruit.

Dad, however, found a prickly pear already plucked just sitting there on the ground like it was waiting for me. Last I had seen the Park Rangers, they were sitting in their cute little uniforms having lunch at a picnic table, and one of them was having a smoke, so I figured they were not after me and this particular prickly pear. So I sat my bum on the rather stony granite and started prying the thing open.

I forgot about the “prickly” part. The ones at the store were, as I always suspected of the other Walmart vegetation, genetically engineered for physical perfection rather than taste, and therefore had no prickles. This is what they would like to do to people too, but I doubt it is working.

But I found the prickles. Every prickle spot generously gave me seven or eight stickers. So I plucked them all out and then shaved the outside with my water bottle cap. Then I started prying again and got slime all over my fingers. My labor revealed a disappointingly small, hard lump of fruit, which tasted like most unripe fruit tastes. So I threw it in the little pool of water I was sitting by.

The rest of the afternoon I sat on the rock with Mom enjoying the view of Texas (well, you know, some of Texas since Texas is so big and you can’t see all of it even if you climb up on a very big piece of granite.) I was going to go hiking around the base of the rock with Dad and Mattie and Ethan (Connor stayed home and missed out.) But Mom and I don’t get to talk together much anymore when she is working and I am going to school, so we took advantage of that instead. And she said she was hoping to lay out on a sunny rock this weekend and just enjoy it, and look at the rock God gave her…a 425 foot tall one.

For supper we went to a German restaurant and ate outdoors on the porch. Mid-way through our meal some young guys came and set up speakers and instruments on the stage and we were waiting to see what kind of music they would play because they were wearing black t-shirts, and designer jeans with dew-rags and cowboy boots. They seemed like fellows too decent to play country music, and I wanted to hear what they had to sing for themselves, but they spent the rest of the time check-check-checking and 1-2-3ing while I chewed my half of weinerschnitzel and tried to hold my own with a stout batch of sauerkraut. And then we left.

It took one and a half hours to reach the hotel again, and it got dark, and I was reading an implausible but somewhat thrilling book called Blink, about a Saudi princess runaway who likes to wear jeans and a guy with an IQ of 193 who surfs (and will eventually save her and precipitously fall in love with her). And I must be getting tired because on the way home I misread a sign that said “Cap. of TX.” for “Cup of Tea,” and you can see where my mind really is.

Since I got back to the hotel I have showered and blogged this and I will have to post it in the morning in the atrium where internet is free, because I don’t want to pay $10.77 for room internet like I accidentally did last night. Ouch.

I really have it too good…

The Kitten From Paris

2009-09-13T17:26:00.003-05:00

We found a kitten in Paris. Paris, TX, that is. In a moment of particular foolhardiness we pulled out and followed our lead to Paris, where a woman with three kittens lived in a small house we spent a good deal of time trying to find with an internet map on Lauren's computer. She and Gracie had sisterly disputes about the four points of the compass for a while as I stared out the window enjoying the scenic route through downtown Paris, which contained a lot of run-down buildings that seemed to have potential to look vintage, although I am still not sure what vintage looks like. Exactly.

We found the house by accident, after accidentally losing the map, and we knew it was the right house because a small curly headed, brown-eyed boy was standing behind the screen door, holding a resigned black kitten upside down in his chubby hands.

There were two additional more or less resigned kittens in a cardboard box begging in kitten eye language for us to rescue them from certain imminent death. So we promptly did. I commandeered the fuzzy black thing and he rode in my lap all the way home. Except for the time he spent burrowing against the seat behind my neck. He was silent as a shadow all the way home, never once mewing or showing any sign of purring. He didn't shake or tremble, just gazed imploringly up at me with round, blue-green eyes.

After all the deliberation of the morning, Gracie settled on Puddleglum, as the orange kitten's name (due to his melancholy propensity to complain) and Bagheera for the new kitten, because of his panther-like coloring. He is not the sleek stereotypical panther, having a bit of a wormy paunch, but he will most likely grow into it...

Kitten Hunting

2009-09-12T16:57:00.004-05:00

It is a very good day today, because it is raining, and I am in a car with two very dear friends. I am also on a trip, which, however short, still qualifies as a trip because it took over two hours to get here and I am spending more than one night away from home. Which greatly buoys my spirits, even though I am such a home body and like to be home. I usually want to be completely home or completely not home, not just...busy.

Gracie and I came to visit Lauren in Bonham for her birthday, trying to surprise her, which we generally did, except that she walked out of the house too soon and we had to be quicker on the draw with the silly string than originally intended. She also had a surprise for Gracie: a striped orange kitten who was paranoid to breathe and spent the afternoon yelping and crying in his new mother's arms. He is very cute and still nameless, but he needs a sibling.

Hence us, in the car, in downtown Bonham, searching for free kittens on the internet. We tried sitting in McDonalds but they had no Wifi. So after an iced mocha and a large shared order of fries and half an important conversation we left and went searching for Wifi...and kittens.

No luck yet.

A Wallfower on Mount Everest (Included: A Tribute to Guys)

2009-09-08T11:14:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was a great day in the history of Cassie Walters. Yesterday I scaled my Mount Everest. Yesterday I found out that I can mingle with other human beings in a human being-ish manner…and survive. And be happy. This is a very good thing.

Yesterday was the lake party for college students at our church. And against all my hermitical inclinations, I went. I thought I might chicken out and go home after church because of a sudden onslaught of what I call the “social headache” a queer ailment I deal with whenever there are too many people around and I feel out of my league. I’ve left so many of these sort of gatherings so discouraged that I didn’t want to try any more.

But the good news is that God doesn’t desert His kids, and He changes them when they aren’t looking for it. I went to the lake party with my history of wallflowerism and left with confidence that even wallflowers sometimes sprout tendrils and reach for the sun. We played spoons and Frisbee and ate Mr. Hammond’s delicious brisket. I stayed out of the shell the whole time and managed to meet and talk to a number of people, and really appreciate them.

While on the subject of people, I have to give some sort of tribute to guys. Guys in general, God-following guys in particular. I don’t hang around very many guys very much of the time, but in a culture that attacks masculinity I guess somebody (in this case, me) needs to stand up and say that you guys are great.

You make much funnier jokes than most girls, you don’t tend to form clicks like girls do, and you can be really encouraging when you want to be. You have confidence that lends a certain amount of stability to the human race. I know girls complain all the time about how guys are clueless and don’t seem to remember a lot of things females deem vital to social existence…such as birthdays and anniversaries and what she was wearing the night they first went out…but that’s ok.

It’s nice if guys manage to get a handle on those things too, but basically I realize that most of you are too busy locating things without asking for directions, building contraptions that make our world run, and figuring out how to blaze a trail into the world where no other guy has actually gone before, whether spiritually, physically, or mentally. And I, as a girl, am personally ok with that. (My apologies to any girls who like to do all those things too, I’m just trying to make a point). Thanks guys, for being yourselves.

A lot of people were going around in the boat on the lake but I was satisfied with hanging around the deck on the porch swing and jumping off the roof into the water. The running leap…the sensation of flying and the plunge into the murky depths of Lake Cherokee...The moderate rush from jumping off the roof diminished the repulsive feeling of sludge at the bottom of the lake. I got more microbiotic friends out of the lake water than I ever wanted, but then, nothing can be too bad after swimming in the Dneipr river south of Chernobyl. All the locals say it’s no big deal. I haven’t grown an extra arm yet or anything.

The day was fine, and the breeze after a dip in the lake on a warm day…heavenly. I treaded water for maybe ten minutes maximum and then got out and just enjoyed the breeze and the porch swing. I felt so relaxed after treading water that I could have gone to sleep. I thought I should try treading water in public more often, seeing as it’s so therapeutic for the disturbed soul. I came up with an idea involving the church baptismal but decided it wasn’t one of my more brilliant ones.

By the end of the day I felt like the old me had melted and drained away like so many saccharine ice pops, and the sun had left me feeling either slightly delirious or maybe just relaxed to a normal human level. Dare I assume that I’m beginning to feel happy inside my own skin and at ease with this whole group of nice people?

Squinting at Life

2009-09-03T18:28:00.002-05:00

I suppose I am a little lost when it comes to blogging. What is this blog about again? Oh yes, a close up look at life. Let’s just say I’m having to squint.

I smell coffee. Mom is making it, because she just got home from work and it’s a rainyish day. I spent a lot of the day schooling and reading to Ethan. He seems to have the same interest in geography that the rest of us kids got from Dad. I showed him the seven continents and tried to demonstrate the world on an apple, which, because this apple was even less spherical than normal apples, was tricky.

I never thought of myself as a coffee drinker, but now I want it whenever I can get it. But not ice cream. My whole family swarms to the freezer for ice cream about half an hour before bed time, but I don't feel interested. Is it a bad sign to not want ice cream?

Although I dreamed of Rocky Road Blue Bell for months before I came home, and after I got back, I watched a whole carton be devoured before my very eyes without eating a single bite. It’s not that they wouldn’t share. They offered. But I just didn’t feel like eating it. No thanks, I said. Just make it an aspirin with a side of sledgehammer.

Squinting…squinting…

I drank my coffee.

I took a walk.

I got a shower because I tend to think better when I don’t stink.

Now I give up. I’ll try to write another day.

Thoughts About Learning

2009-08-25T13:06:00.005-05:00

Well, I have been trying unsuccessfully to post on my blog for a week or so now. Something always gets in the way. Last time it was the computer itself. But that is beside the point.

Connor and I had our first day of classes yesterday. He is taking three dual credit courses this semester and I'm just taking two regular courses. Part of me would like to be doing a lot more, but this is how it works this semester, and in the end, I'm happy with it. I get to supervise Ethan's schoolwork and plan Mattie's English and Spanish work for the year, and I love doing that. It might not count as college credit, but I enjoy the experience.

So, the classes. I went into this with a biased view of Kilgore College. Most of what I'd heard about the school was negative. That, coupled with my propensity for expecting the worse, set me up for a very pleasant surprise. The buildings were good, the people were really helpful, and the teachers actually acted like they wanted to help us succeed. I was stunned. First impressions may lie, but basing your impressions off the impressions of other people isn't the way to go either.

Of course I'd love to be at a four year university right now, but that's not what I'm doing. So I figured I may as well swallow my pride and appreciate what I get. There are a lot of things I'm going to like about Kilgore. I love to learn, and I've always tried, (maybe not always striven,) for excellence. I'm not going to Kilgore so that I can shirk. But, it did occur to me yesterday that perhaps a bonus to attending Kilgore instead of a more challenging school would be that I can relax and enjoy learning instead of continually scrambling to make top grades with a really high standard. Enjoying what I learn is more important to me than earning the highest grades, and I think it's the key to retaining information anyway.

Our history teacher emphasized that she believes in redemption, and as I understand it, giving us room to fall and pick ourselves back up again. As a person who wants to try hard anyway, I appreciate that. I have spent way too much time kicking myself over mistakes, and it helps not to have someone else kicking you too.

I've been reading a book on probiotics (almost the opposite of antibiotics, but not quite!) that I got from the library. I love it. I love learning about my guts. I love learning about other peoples' guts. And all the little bugs. I lovingly refer to them as my "internal garden" and have had a great interest in promoting the health of my microflora lately, mostly with yogurt. I found a recipe on line for making it (very inexpensively) in the crock pot. It's delicious. It's almost scary how important the balance of bacteria in our gut is to the health of our whole bodies.

Anyway, all that is just to say that I've been learning far more about biology from that book than I ever did from my high school science curriculum, and with 100% more enthusiasm! I was never interested in biology in school, but now I'm almost looking forward to the college class. Massage therapy is next on the list.

Well, at this point, my only issue with college, besides the fact that it costs both arms and both legs, is that I need to pick only one or two majors...because suddenly, the whole world looks like a new and fascinating place, full of so many things to learn.

New Starts and Memory Blanks

2009-08-05T18:14:00.003-05:00

This week I've been pouring my time into the details of getting into college. Yes, it's a bit late to be "starting" on this. That shouldn't actually be in quotation marks. I literally started on Monday looking up information on Kilgore's website. I wasn't prepared at all. I met with several large roadblocks. But after seven hours on the computer, phone, etc., and some sweat (jogging to loosen my tense shoulders) and blood (cut my leg on the metal filing cabinet while locating SAT scores), I was able to make great progress and somehow the worst of the roadblocks melted away.

After I finally quit for supper, I got a particularly encouraging bit of news concerning funds and promptly burst into tears. I'll never understand girls. Hold out under all kind of pressure all day, and when something good happens, we start bawling.

There's a long way to go, but I feel amazed at how God is making my paths straight. I am not Miss On Top Of It, and I'm not Miss Self Sufficient, either. I didn't "do my homework." And compared to "everybody else," I'm behind. I'm not even planning to take a full load this semester, but I keep on thinking of the Tortoise and the Hare! God has provided just right for the amount of work I feel comfortable with during this transitional time. Right now I'm Miss Standing In Awe.

I've been driving Dad's truck (I expected it to have died in my absence). But it's still chuggin'. Driving comes back to me with surprising ease, but directions...not so much. I sometimes draw a complete blank when trying to picture roads connecting. I keep getting lost on the way to places I used to know how to get to. It's a strange feeling. As if I'm trying to remember a map in a dream world, except this world is my real world. Oops.

The Rains Came Down and the Floods Came Up

2009-07-29T14:37:00.002-05:00

Well. The world continues to turn. And although I haven't continued to blog as frequently as I'd like, I continue to want to blog...

I've been back from Ukraine for two weeks today. Dwelling on the adjustments only confuses me, so I won't. But I like being back, and I'm excited for the future as I look into courses at Kilgore Community College and think about options for work.

Today Ethan and I started reading lessons. He already knows some, but with the topsy-turviness of Mom working, he hasn't practiced in a while. So we worked on sounds for a bit. He's so serious that his subtle humor takes me off guard. It creeps into his eyes under the long lashes when I'm in the middle of an explanation, and then I look up and find him cracking some joke. Which takes me off guard, because I'm being serious too. And then I remember that silliness is a greatly underestimated part of education. Not constant silliness, but a healthy sprinkling to loosen things up a bit.

He wanted to go and build things in the creek. After a year in the Crowe household, the lack of boy around here is absolutely alarming. What? Only one? You need two at least, preferably five...

I am a sad substitute for a boy, but only Ethan and I were home, so we went to the creek to build things.

Since I've been home it's done almost nothing but rain. When I left Ukraine it had been raining, and Dad told me to bring some with me, because they hadn't had rain in weeks. As soon as I arrived home, storm clouds began to gather and within two hours there was a shower. Then we went to Glen Rose, TX for the weekend, where they hadn't had good rain for a month. It rained two days. Incidentally, the evening we got home, it stormed violently at our house again. Dad said he should send me on a world tour :)

Well, yesterday and the night before we had five or six inches. Afterwards, it was so humid out that our windows fogged up. Naturally, the ground couldn't hold it, so our lowland lot became a wetland lot, with an island of sagging vegetable garden and an island of house. The creek, which normally runs at only a few inches, was flooding its ten foot banks for a few hours.

This left a nice scene to be explored this afternoon, and some pleasantly squirchy mud to be tested by feet. The water has gone back to almost normal.

(and here I wanted to insert a few pictures I took, but alas...)

One is of Ethan beside the water with the yellow sun on his tanned back mingled with shade, and the coffee-and-milk creek flowing by. Another is of the two of us, and he is making a face. And the last was of the miniature (3 inch high) hut I made out of reeds woven together. We were the proverbial (parablial???) man who "built his house apon the sand," and Ethan spent as much time repairing his house as he spent building it. He dug his out of the shifty bank. By the time we finished we had had three leaf boat races and a million mosquito bites.

In Which I Lose the Rest of my Dignity and Arrive Home Happy

2009-07-22T11:01:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm back. No, I'm not threatening anybody :)

I can't believe only a week ago I was in the air probably over an ocean, wishing I could sleep but probably reading Flowers for Algernon instead. (I picked that book up at the airport...it was really interesting, but I would be very cautious in recommending it.)

I have to relate one last Ukraine incident. I suppose I was bound to close my time there in style...my style...

After hugging the sending off crew goodbye (Deb, some of the kids, and Simeon & Asia, who were going shopping with Deb) I got through checking in just fine and got my boarding pass, then sat down in the lounge area to wait, staring for a while at the wavy lines in the roof design and the blue ones of the walls with names of cities painted on.

I discovered that I was suddenly very hungry, so I went over to the little cafe type place across the room. I saw kefir there and, thinking "When am I going to get kefir again?" I decided to get one. In Rzhishchiv it would have only cost fifty cents or so, but this one was four "stinking" dollars and I was a little affronted to find that I had not only been grossly overcharged by also badly ripped off with a bad exchange rate. But I figured that breakfast is breakfast, and I would rather have a four dollar Kefir than a four dollar anything else. So I was a sucker and bought it.

I returned to my seat, as usual trying to act more graceful and composed than I really am, and as usual, not succeeding. I tried to pull off the tab that sealed my kefir, but instead of peeling back, it broke off. Result: sealed kefir, no tab. Unwilling to sacrifice four dollars to a kefir never to be drunk, I pried it open with my fingernails with some trouble. It opened with a sudden burst, spraying kefir onto my face and down my shirt! Dignity...composure...grace...

Well, I managed to clean it up and drink my kefir from the awkwardly designed bottle before boarding the plane. What better way to exit the country? I told myself.

I settled onto the plane, relished the lift off, and spent the next half hour nursing a surprise nosebleed that shattered the rest of my dignity. So I gave up on dignity and composure for the rest of the trip and had a great time, happily joking with the Gatwick checking people, who shocked me by being very nice to me, and laughing almost out loud at the ogreman who yelled at me and everyone else throught the line at JFK. Somebody was having a bad day, but it wasn't going to be me!

I arrived home after a long and sleepless journey, and delighted in the hugs and raptures of my family members. We spent a night in Dallas, then came home for a day or two, then went away again to Glen Rose, TX for a few days.

And now we are home, and I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff with blankness before me. All the nicely formulated plans I had back in Ukraine now seem to fade to mere ideas and wishes, and at least for the moment I feel the need to look down at the ground to steady myself, because looking out THERE is making me dizzy. We only get one day at a time anyway. God is good to keep me trusting Him.

More Later...

A Raw Sort of Love

2009-07-12T06:32:00.002-05:00

This morning was my "last" church service with my folks here. I am leaving on Wednesday.

If I've learned anything about God this year, it's that He's a faithful provider. He gave me this family that I love and belong in. He'll make a home for me everywhere I go no matter who I am with.

All week I was sensing that something was going on behind my back, especially when Masha begged me not to go away on Thursday night, because I had planned to visit Nadia at a camp in nearby Baliko Shuchenka.

So I stayed home and Nadia came for supper and then we went over to my house for Thursday night prayer meeting. I already knew something was up, but I didn't know what. I came into the living room, which was rather fuller than usual, to be greeted by a lot of goofy looks, and balloons and something behind the semi-see through guest room door, which Masha was diligently guarding.

Then Cheryl asked me to go get my Bible, so I went to open my door, and Bam! The door flew open and out flooded a dozen or more people! I screamed and then started laughing and we had a hugging assembly line because they could only get out my narrow bedroom door in single file.

I was a little shocked to see most of the church there (about 30 people,) because, having rather limited ideas about parties, I had imagined a small quiet get together. And then this. I was so blessed and I felt blanketed in love. I just have these awesome sneaky friends! I tend to be uncomfortable in groups, but this was a very good kind of uncomfortable, a raw sort of love, one that we could all share. The Body of Christ is precious and I feel so privileged to be a part of it. I love it that even when I wasn't a very sociable person, people loved me into the family anyway.

The only thing that saved me from crying was the fact that I was laughing almost the whole time. They said a lot of really nice things, and there were poems and a song, and we prayed, and they Cheryl and Deb served up banana splits. Ruth said they were talking like it was my funeral, but I didn't mind. Yeah, what's with all the past tense, anyway??

So I am very happy, and very at peace. It's like what Simeon said in his message this morning at church, that we are like sheep, and sheep need the shepherd to take care of certain things for them so that they can relax, like protecting them, finding food for them, making space for them, etc. They get really nervous and freaked out about just about anything. But they know the shepherd so well that just his presence on the scene is enough to calm them.

And I guess that's what I felt this morning as I sat in the upstairs of the Gollan's house with these friends, listening to Simeon talk about the Good Shepherd. God's comforting hand soothing me, completely resting me.

My Weird Dream

2009-07-12T06:28:00.002-05:00

Last night I had a very weird and detailed dream.

In it, Masha and I woke up very early and we drove Gaven’s mo-ped to the bus station. I discovered that it is nearly impossible to be ladylike while riding a moped in a skirt. When we got there, we met Gaven and took a bus to Bila Tserkva, where Masha used to live. We went shopping and I found souvenirs for my family and Gaven picked out shoes for Masha that she liked and she bought them. (Weird or what?)

The next thing that happened was that we were in a pizzeria and ate you guessed it, pizza…and then the lights turned off in the toilet while I was there and I was left in the dark.

After that we went to a park where Masha and Gaven went on a spinning-round-and-round-kind-of-ride, but I didn’t do it because just watching it made me feel sick. So instead I took pictures of them, and of the colorful zinnias along the fence. They got off and my nose started to bleed, so I had to sit on a bench with my head cocked back, waiting for it to stop and trying to clean up with Kleenex and water.

I said that it was like a weird dream, and they said that maybe it really was.

When the “leak” as Gaven put it, had stopped, we rode a decrepit ferris wheel that was slow enough that I didn’t get sick but had plenty of time to think about the distance between me and the ground. I was scared silly but it was a nice view.

After that park we went for a walk in a foresty park and saw pelicans and lions and statues we didn’t want to look at, and I ate a hazelnut snickers. Masha hit Gaven a lot with a bottle and I laughed a lot. We were so hot and tired and happy that we dozed on the way home in the marshrutka. And that was that.

Actually, it wasn’t a dream at all. It was all real…except that the lions and pelicans were not real, they were statues. And it was a very nice day.

St. Sophia's

2009-07-09T04:46:00.004-05:00

Here are actual pictures of St. Sophia's cathedral. I didn't take very good ones because I was so embarressed at being caught "touristing."

This picture was taken from the other side, right above the entrance.

This Road DOES Lead to Kiev...I Think...

2009-07-08T06:40:00.008-05:00

I am so enjoying the Texas team being here. We have the three girls/ladies staying with us. The team is here for a business seminar and has also been getting acquainted with the area, so I've joined them on a few sightseeing ventures. It's perfect timing, considering I hadn't so much as visited the tomato farm in my year here, and it's only a 15 minute drive from here.

Yesterday we went to Kiev. Although the original plan was to ride in by Marshrutka, we ended up having to take the rental van with the heroic Mr. Art Bradshaw as our driver. And guess who navigated? Tanya (from here) and I did the directing, which sort of went like this...

"Well, I think you turn up here. To the left. No wait, right! It's just past that thing...next to that other thing...across the street from that blue thing...How much farther? I don't actually know. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes. Or maybe more. I don't really know, sorry. The speed limit? Umm, well I know you can go at least 60 Ks. Well I think 80 would be ok. You could try 100. Well this looks right. I know I've seen those kind of trees before..."

It didn't help that the roads were abnormally thick with policemen, one every 100 yards or so along some stretches of road. But in the end we made it victoriously to the Fershette parking lot, where we changed to the metro and began a new adventure.

I don't think our driver had much faith in my navigational abilities, but then, what could I say? At least we didn't end up in Kaniv. I really thought we should make a trip there, seeing as it's such a special place and all...

I had a blast on the car ride. It was delightful to be with a vanload of people and laugh at all the jokes, gleefully discovering that I could understand them. The world is funnier with it speaks your language. I guess I've grown accustomed to being in groups where everyone is laughing their heads off about something I only half understand, and I didn't realize what a treat it would be to be with these folks! On the rare occasions that I actually catch what Ukrainians are saying in Ukrainian, I get a glimpse into their humor, but the rest of the time I am...lost. And as Elizabeth Bennet says, I dearly love to laugh!

But I haven't even got to Kiev yet. Nadia and her dad met us in Kiev to give us a tour of the city. We saw St. Sophia's cathedral, which was built in the 11th century I think, and was inspired by the Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, now Istanbul. The inside is covered in detailed mosaics and ancient paintings of apostles and Jesus and royal people. I could have stared at some of them all day. I feel like it's such an unbelievable privilege to be all the way across the world seeing something so old and historic and beautiful. History seems much more appealing than it ever did in school!

We also visited a monastery called Pecherska Lavra, and were twenty minutes too late to go into the caves that lie under the extensive monastery grounds in the middle of Kiev. Monks built the caves so that they could do their monkish living-in-poverty-thing, and later the impressive buildings up top were constructed. Quite a contrast between caves and the domed and guilded monastery! I would have loved to see down there, although I'm told it's dark and narrow and there are a lot of people kissing mummied remains of deceased monks...which is really sad, because they really do that, thinking it will add fervency to their prayers.

Here are Tanya and I on a street on the monastery grounds.

And this is part of the monastery...as I was saying, they must have given up the whole poverty idea...

This is the gate of St. Sophia's.

And lastly, a "We Love Ukraine" sign...

Team Coming!

2009-07-03T10:47:00.002-05:00

The last couple of days we have been getting ready for the team coming from Longview and Kilgore to have a "Sister Cities" seminar with business people here in Rzhishchiv. Exciting! It will be fun having six visitors. The three ladies will stay with Masha and I. It's so nice that we have a house so close by with plenty of extra room. God gave us such a good place...for free.

Yesterday I stayed home from the Crowes and scrubbed and vacuumed and did dishes and spent a lot of time packing my stuff. Even though I still have a week or so here, I wanted to pack the things I don't need so that there would be room for our guests. Plus, I will be a lot more relaxed knowing that I don't need to pack in those few days remaining after the team leaves. I can just enjoy time with my "family."

This is so weird, guys! I'm leaving and starting a new life. And it's like Masha said, "But I just got used to you!" It's both sad and exciting at the same time. I think I will just with the flow. I was listening to a sermon today on Luke, I think chapter 12, a passage that warns us to be ready when Jesus comes and not to cling to things. I'm glad that everything that really matters will be restored to us one day when Jesus comes. Until then we live as if waiting for a "heavenly city, one that is to come."

This afternoon it has been raining deliciously. I love rain, and it doesn't seem to rain in Rzhishchiv very much. There was distant thunder, but the rain was soft and gray, and between dishes and housework I snatched a moment to curl up on the Crowes' wide windowsill. I sat there, feeling the breeze in the window and just drinking in the smell of the rain and dust meeting, and hearing the gentle pattering, and watching the drops form pools and rivulets in the leaves of the grape vines beside the house. Mmm. My very soul was refreshed :)

God is such a good father, such a good friend. It's been so long since I really felt "in love" with Him, and I miss that. We have been on good terms, and I know I am growing in Him, but I miss those foolish, happy feelings of "wasting" time in His presence and liking it. But for a few brief moments, in the windowsill, my heart remembered what only my head could recall before, and I could feel Him as a blind person feels the face of an old friend and finds familar, beloved lines.

I want more of this.

Our visitors will be here any minute now, so I will go...

Blood but (thankfully) No Guts

2009-06-30T11:58:00.006-05:00

We did it!

Bruce and Deb just got back from their trip and I'm happy to report that we at home all survived, and what's more, have full use of our faculties to tell about. I would venture to say that we are all happy, even. Who needs extreme sports? I'm into Extreme Babysitting.

Today there was more blood and gore than usual. It started when Noah came wailing into the house with blood smeared over his bare tummy and mouth and dripping from his fingers. Naturally I was a little alarmed, but instinctively felt that it wasn't as bad as it looked. All that blood came from two small cuts on his fingers where he had picked up a piece of glass outside. Definitely sad for him, but no severed arteries! I cleaned him up and gave him candy to try and quell the anguished cries. We didn't have any small bandaids, so I tried bandaging the little injured fingers with paper towels and tape. Poor little guy. It worked ok for a while, but he got upset eventually and ended up having an early nap. Which was not the end of the world.

Twice during the day I had a thorn in the flesh interrupting my housecleaning when my nose started streaming blood. Nosebleeds are very rare for me, so I felt a little freaked out laying flat on my back with toilet paper stuffed in my nose and blood draining down my throat. While making supper I stuck wadded kleenex up my nose to prevent further deluges, which was entertaining for the kids at least. "What is that thing in your nose, Cass?" I couldn't keep a straight face when they looked at me.

In the afternoon we had a casualty of war when Tucker got beaned in the nose/forehead with a grenade, er, metal spray can during a battle outside. It was a large one, and it left a nice bruise and some scratches on poor Tuck's head. I gave him a plastic baggy of ice to put on it, and I think he recovered pretty quickly, because next time I saw him he was contorting his mouth around the corner of the bag trying to slurp ice water out of the tiny hole he had made.

Those were the sum of our crises for the day. I am tired but marvelling at the energy God supplied this week. I really enjoyed the kids. We had our moments of course, but hopefully we made some memories to treasure before I leave in two weeks' time. I can't believe these little sprouts will all grow up into men and women (woman, I should say). That will be something to see.

I Want Some Too

2009-06-26T07:32:00.004-05:00

This morning around breakfast time:

Clark: *Babbling* "I didn't make any sense."

Me: "No, you didn't."

Clark: "Well, if some people make some sense, they can give it to me."

Now we're talkin'!

The Crowes' Nest

2009-06-24T07:57:00.004-05:00

Yesterday Bruce and Deb left for London/then Ireland and the kids and I are here for the week. "A whole week with no PARENTS!!!" Bronwyn chortled gleefully, to which I said, "Sounds like a Disney movie," and Deb replied, "Scary!"

Nothing Disney about this actually. Chores, chores, chores. Scrub the floors with toothbrushes! I want those tiles clean enough to eat from! (Not that they don't already...)

No nothing like that, either. They have just enough chores to keep them out of trouble, and just enough free time to have some fun. We will make ant farms with all the ants scurrying about the house (as Rodge said, "We already live in an ant farm.") And we'll make homeade ice cream (or try again anyway.) Tomorrow night will be pizza-movie-night.

The kids like to sleep in the basement, since there is no air con. in the house and it's much cooler there, so this morning, because it was completely dark, the five older ones didn't get up till 8:30 or so. Even Noah, who was upstairs like I was, slept till 8. Surprise! I wonder if luck will hold out for another 12 hour night...

I love these kids and I'm so glad to be with them. (Ask me about this again next Tuesday) Parties are fun, beaches are good, conferences are nice now and then, and camps and classrooms are great too, but what I love best (closely seconded by car and plane trips) is a happy home. The family unit is a most fascinating creation.

Here's what the little birdies have been up to:

Noah is still potty training, so basically he spends his waking hours in a rather messy cycle of drinking and peeing, sometimes on the toilet and sometimes not. He does a good job of alerting us when he needs to go, but unfortunately he has some tummy trouble at the moment, so there have been as many as five or six underwear changes in an hour...

The lifesaver for me is that Broderic and Bronwyn are getting paid (by their ingenius parents) for every time they take Noah potty, which cuts my job in half, and has them jumping at every chance and practically begging Noah to go.

Clark has reconciled himself to having me in the house. A few days ago he told me, in some little mood that took him, "I don't want you in this house, Cass!" He got in trouble with his dad, and since then he has been really angelic. Every few hours he reminds me of his repentance and his changed life. "I really like you in this house, Cass. I do." And more often, "I very love you, Cass, I very love you."

Tucker only has six more lessons left in "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons," which I've been going through with him. He's getting so fast and so good, and he claims he wants to finish before his parents get home. I reminded him that this will take extra work, and his eyes got big and he nodded his eagerly and assured me that he still wanted to do it.

Last night Brent came in with an interesting contraption, composed of wood pieces nailed together and a stick with about ten rubber bands wrapped around it. It's an airplane, and he's trying to get it to wind up and fly over the house. Someday that kid will invent something great.

Bronny has been a right-hand helper. She keeps the other kids in line :)

Rodge and I are reading "The Giver" by Lois Lowry in the afternoons. I read it for the first time a month or so ago after finding it in the Crowes' book shelf. I loved it and I think he is enjoying it too.

I wanted to write something more "inspired," but Noah is doing interesting things in his pants about every ten minutes, so things aren't exactly flowing. I mean, for him they are, but...

Get Off the Drug

2009-06-16T10:17:00.005-05:00

I have concluded that chic flicks should be outlawed. They are detrimental to the mental and emotional health of females, (as well as physcial, as they provoke irrational consumption of chocolate.)

A chic flick is a narcotic that gives a high for approximately 1-2 hours and then drops the user with a sickening thud into reality where real guys don't kiss girls the first time they meet them and romance take months and years, not minutes and hours, to develop. Those most susceptible to this drug are females between the tender ages of 12-24. Its effects include abundant sighing, an apathetic attitude towards life, antagonism and resentment towards well-meaning males, bouts of moaning and weeping, and a curious attraction to chocolate.

I've decided to get off this drug. I will stick to fairytales. In fairytales, damsels cheerfully clean houses for incorrigble dwarves. They wait, shut up in high towers for undetermined amounts of time. They sometimes fall into a coma for years on end. There is a lot of encouragement in that. There must, after all, be some hope for the rest of us.

Also, fairytale princes are chivalrous, and they never expect vulnerable maidens to compromise their honor. Nay, good folk, they are sworn to protect a lady's honor at all costs. Not so in Hollywood.

I will go home and find my Jane Austen and The Princess and the Pea. Not to mention the Bible, that great True tale of chivalry, justice, and undying passion from which all beautiful fiction is derived.

In Memoriam

2009-06-12T08:06:00.002-05:00

This is a poem to honor Masha's and Gaven's chickens, lately slain on the Ulyaniki farm in a brutal and senseless manner by a wild animal. For the sake of the poem, a few facts have been exaggerated :)

The Great Ulyaniki Chicken Massacre

The ghostly moon shone wicked white
The grass flashed silver in the light
A foreboding calm hung in the night,
As the fox crept nigh to the henhouse.

Unsuspecting, the roosters did peacefully sleep
The hens, they uttered nary a peep
As the wily fox through the grasses did creep
Toward the slumbering fowl in the henhouse.

In the silent night, the silence broke!
The fowl in a frenzy of fear awoke
The eggs, they scrambled, white and yolk
With fright that night in Ulyaniki.

The fox attacked and severed their heads*
Feathers flew and blood ran red;
A score of chickens soon lay dead
By the light of the moon in Ulyaniki.

The fox seized his prize and away he shot,
Leaving the headless chickens to rot
And has not since been seen or caught,
The phantom fox of Ulyaniki

This gruesome tale I do relate
To remember the truly terrible fate
Of those innocent fowl, the good and the great—
The fallen on the fields of Ulyaniki.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Masha and Gaven, my heartfelt condolences.

*Whatever the creature was really did bite their heads off, leaving most of the chickens in the henhouse. Weird or what?

The Flower Girl Ruined My Wedding

2009-06-05T09:07:00.003-05:00

This morning was one of those mornings when I wrapped myself in my fuzzy blue blanket and huddled in bed fervently praying between snooze alarms for the will power to rise from my bed. Sinus trouble lately.

Anyway, I did get up, as I always inevitably do, and I put on some normal sort of clothes and decided to brighten up a little by wearing my favorite earrings-- the dangly silver ones my 6-year-old friend Eric gave me for my eighteenth birthday. I hastily put them on and left.

Deb's sis is visiting here this week, and they seem to be having a blast together. Today they went to Kiev to spend the night and have some girl time, so I came to watch the kids today, because Bruce was in Kiev for the day. So I greeted them, said bye to them, and had continued on my merry way for an hour or two before I looked in the mirror and saw, to my acute embarressment, that I had two different earrings in my ears!

I've only done this one other time that I remember (and it was worse, because I went out to breakfast with my friend Chelsea, who notices those things, and we were in public). Of course, I may have done it countless other times and not ever realized it. If you ever see me with two different earring in my ears, please graciously let me know.

This incident pretty much describes my life at the moment. Actually, lots of exciting things are happening right now, and I'm glad. But I tend to hover more or less in a state of dazedness. I think I'm tired.

Masha and I had several girls over at different times during the past week for supper, or tea, or to spend the night, or both or two at once or all three. I got a lot of Russian practice, and found that I was even wanting to try speaking Ukrainian one night when I felt particularly relaxed. Russian seems harsh to me, but I love Urkainian. It's much more musical, and although the alphabet is almost the same as in Russian, the few changes soften it and keep it from looking so intimidating. I feel like it's a little too late now to be learning Ukrainian.

What else has been keeping me so busy? How could I have forgotten! I almost got married on Wednesday night! Sorry, it was all so sudden I didn't have a chance to send out announcements or anything. In fact, I was planning to mail the bouquet to my mom, but I regret to report that the flower girl ate it. Unfortunately I don't have the photos, either, because they are still on Masha's camera.

It happened like this. Two friends (both named Anya) were spending the night at our place, and Masha was digging through boxes finding dress up stuff she has for skits for English Camp. She produced a wedding veil and a black top hat from a box. She got all excited.

"You have to try these on!" she told Anya and I (the "new" Anya, as I call her, because I met her only a few weeks ago.) We tried the things on and took pictures, and pretended to serenade each other with Masha's guitar, and she took picutures of that. And then my brilliant Masha had an epiphany and got a white summer dress out of her cupboard for me (since I was in the veil at the time) and a black dress coat and pants for Anya. We made a stunning bride and "broom," as Masha likes to say.

And then we recruited, or I should say Masha recruited Nasok to be the flower girl. We thought it would be droll to have him holding the flower in his mouth. But mostly the other Anya, who came in in the middle of our game when I was standing there in my wedding dress and navy blue house shoes, just got shots of Masha trying to shove the rose stem into Nasok's mouth while Anya and I struck wedding photo-ish poses. Finally Nasok chewed the rose off its stem, so we decided to call the wedding off after all. It wasn't really working out :)

Midnight Snack at 9

2009-05-29T14:46:00.003-05:00

Life is fun. Here are a few reasons why.

This is the alphabet according to Tucker:

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y n z

His perfectly logical question: "Why are there two "n's" in the alphabet? Haven't you always wondered the same thing? And why God's name is "Harold" and what in the world a "one horse soap-n-sleigh" is?

Today I got a much needed sleep in. I keep planning to a) go to bed earlier and b) wake up later but life doesn't work that way, most of the time. Which is fine. If you want to live a fuller life, just pretend you're leaving the country in less than two months...or better yet, do it...you're a lot more likely to take the crazy opportunities that present themselves.

A few nights ago I almost made it. I had been writing and just having a sort of pleasant, boring kind of evening, and I looked up, saw that it was 9 pm, and decided, "Tonight's the night. I'm going to bed early. I'm getting some sleep." Then Masha walked in. Since she's recovering from her operation she keeps weirder hours than usual and sleeps for most of the hours other people are awake. Naturally she wants to be awake during the hours other people want to be asleep, and she wants other people to be awake at those times too. Other people means me.

She also wanted pancakes. She has been pining for pancakes for days, ever since that jar of apple jam made its home on our kitchen table. So she whipped up a batch of kefir pancakes with her amazing whipping up skils and I got my little collection of saggy candles, and we put a nice, mellow cd in the stereo, and had what she called a "midnight snack." "Midnight for some people," she added.

I was very glad. I didn't want to sleep that much after all. At 10, Cheryl dropped in. She ate the three tiny remaining pancakes (Masha and I had no trouble doing away with the rest) and visited with us.

Well, for now, I'll once more attemp going home and going to sleep. May your days be full of tea-time conversations and your nights with candlelight pancakes...

Having Tea

2009-05-25T09:28:00.003-05:00

Ok, this is for Masha, because she's had a leg operation and I think she needs cheering up. Not that she's not a strong woman and all that, but strong women still need cheering up ;) Be cheered, Mash.

I'm glad Masha is back. (She was gone for her operation and stayed at the Gollans for a few days.) Human beings are very weird creatures and when you are living by yourself you forget how weird other human beings are and begin to think you are the only one who is weird, which can drive a person to a New and Dangerous Level of Weirdness.

You begin to talk to yourself in the mirror to make sure your self is still ok. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. You start to analyze normal actions like cooking dinner until they appear trivial and ridiculous (going to all that trouble to make food for yourself that you are going to eat by yourself? Come on, have some cookies.) Something inside you wants to have a cup of tea, but what's the point of having tea when no one else is around?

I'm learning this about tea. The point is not tea. The point is people and conversation and friendship. The same goes for coffee. Americans have these drinks so that they can get energy to keep working. Ukrainians have them so that they can relax and enjoy each other. Which I think is absolutely brilliant.

When I came home on Thursday afternoon, a girl named Anya was at our house, having tea with Masha. I had been cleaning and I was stinky and dirty, so I went to change and then came back and Anya asked if she could make me a cup of tea. Masha was tired from her operation and went to lay down. So Anya grabbed some mugs and made tea for the two of us. She handed me my tea and then sat down with Masha's giant red mug.

"I took the biggest mug so that I could talk with you longer," she said.

I like that.

So the next day, when Masha was using her laptop in the schoolroom at the Crowes, I asked if she wanted a coffee. Deb and I have coffee while we're cleaning the kitchen, sort of snatching a gulp here and there...usually there are several mugs of luke warm coffee mixed in with all the other counter-clutter.

"Do you want a coffee?" I asked.

She was sitting with her leg (which was stitched up like a grotesque rag doll) propped on a stool and her computer in her lap, and she gave me a look that was close to her "sassy" look but not quite there. It was more of a "testy" look.

"Well, if you will have it with me," she said.

*Mental Culture Shift*

"Well, yeah, I will!"

And we did. And I liked it.

So now she is home and we can have tea more often. And we can go to other people's houses and have tea, like Saturday night when we went to Jono's for supper (and coffee later) and sang Ukrainian/Russian karaoke. And other people can come to our house and have tea, like Sunday afternoon when Cheryl came over and spent the evening curled up on our couch and then it rained deliciously and was cold out.

So that's one of the reasons I am glad Masha's home and glad that I am in Ukraine. As long as we have "tea" I won't be in too much danger rattling around the house like a babushka and possibly losing all my marbles.

A Nice Song

2009-05-18T12:02:00.002-05:00

"At the foot of the cross
Where grace and mercy meet
You have shown me your love
By the judgement you received

And you've won my heart
Yes, you've won my heart
Now I can
Trade these ashes in for beauty
And wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy
I lay every burden down
At the foot of the cross

At the foot of the cross
Where I am made complete
You have given me life
Through the death you bore for me

And you've won my heart..."

At the Foot of the Cross (Kathryn Scott)

That song has been on my mind a lot lately and I really love it. I commented to Deb this morning that it's weird how I can be struggling with so many things and at the same time be so happy with life. When you have hope in Jesus for eternity and you know He's going to redeem all things, you don't have to be afraid or worried about the painful or scary stuff. Of course I'm still learning this...but I know it's true.

When I wake up groggily in the morning I remember that the Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead probably won't have a problem raising me from bed in the morning. And sure enough, I sit up, rub my eyes, slip on my shuffly houseshoes, and there I am, up for another day.

Speaking of another new day...there will be one soon and I promised myself I'd go to bed earlier and get some sleep tonight, so since I don't know where this blog post was going anyway...I'll end.

All Roads DO NOT Lead to Kiev

2009-05-12T09:06:00.003-05:00

This weekend I decided to go on another little adventure to Kiev. Nadia said she wanted to take me to the Botanical Gardens while the lilacs are blooming, and it didn't take much persuading...

As often happens on these experimental excursions, I got a little more adventure than I planned on :)

After a late pancake breakfast that nearly succeeded in rendering us immobile and useless, Masha and I spent the rest of Saturday cleaning up our yard. The owner is letting us stay for free, provided that we clean up and do some odd jobs around the yard. So we moved sand, raked, swept, and hauled leaves, twigs, and hundreds of nut shells out of the yard on old blankets.

Masha cut the crop of cheery yellow flowers out front with a scythe. I was enthralled. She let me try, and I managed to sort of get the hang of it while still retaining all limbs and personal appendages. It was fun. I kept thinking of the Far Side comics about the Grim Reaper...I can't picture them now.

I was a little sad to see the flowers go (they were weeds-- pretty weeds, but weeds.) She left a patch in front of my window because I like waking up to them in the morning. It helps to have something nice to look at first thing when you wake up.

But on to the important stuff.

I planned to head to Kiev in the afternoon when our work was done, but by the time I'd scrubbed off the grime and soothed the nettle stings and messed with my hair and gone to the Crowes to call Mom for Mother's Day (seeing as I'd be gone on Sunday) it was evening. I wanted to dress up a little (not by Ukrainian standards maybe) because it's such sunny weather and I've hardly worn a skirt in months.

I didn't know when the last Marshrutka was, and I was getting a little concerned that I was too late. So after the call home, Bruce drove me to the bus station to cut the walking time.

Luckily, I'd barely been standing there two minutes when a bus drove up with a "Kaniv-Kiev" sign on it, just like the ones I always take. I hopped on, relishing the swish of my white skirt and the neatness of my small brown shoes after wearing tennis shoes for six weeks. Free as a bird. Experienced traveler. Sun on my face, wind in my hair, etc, etc.

I took a seat by the window and the bus pulled out. I sat happily contemplating the new green of the great outdoors shining in the sun, enjoying the comfortable warmth, the faces of the people we passed, the smells of summer coming on. I started composing a poem in my head and got absorbed in trying to write it down against the bump and bounce of the Marshrutka.

Spring had changed the landscape so drastically since my last trip to Kiev...no more snow, no more drab brown. Green everywhere. Growth. In fact, everything looked so different I began to wonder if I'd...no, no. Surely there's more than one route to Kiev.

I thought it might be worth a bus ride to nowhere just to see these sights. The ride was so peaceful. I shoved aside my internal warning signals and just enjoyed the ride. Besides, I reasoned, Kaniv is just on the outskirts of Kiev; I'll manage to get there somehow.

Apparently, my premonitons were correct, but my reasoning dreadfully flawed. I've never seen Kaniv on a map. I just figured that if they put it with Kiev on the sign, the two must be close together, right? Kaniv must just be a suburb. The bus might not get me there, but it would at least accomplish some of the goal.

No such luck! I still haven't looked at a map, but I now know that Kaniv is a number of kilometers in a much different direction than Kiev. I've also discovered that Marshruktas don't run from Kaniv to Rzhishchiv in the evening, at least after 7 o'clock.

The bus driver pointed out the station, but after asking around a bit I found it to be closed. Nearby there were babushkas selling vegetables, and the sun wasn't going down yet, so I didn't feel too worried. I called Bruce. He said to call Daniel for translation. I called Daniel. Daniel talked to a babushka on the phone, the babushka conferred with a nearby taxi driver, and in the end, I had my first Urkainian taxi ride back to Rzhishchiv.

The ride home was surprisingly pleasant. The taxi driver was friendly, but calm, and I didn't feel uncomfortable at all. He couldn't speak a bit of English, but he spoke Russian in slow and simple fragments for my benefit and we chatted all the way home about taxi driving, and his daughter who works in a bank (I think), and my home in America, and what was growing in the fields we passed, and about the holiday.

There was no Kiev that night! The taxi stopped right in front of my house, because it's directly on the way to the bus station, so I got out feeling like a queen. Of course the taxi fee was royal too, but I'd say it was worth the experience. I don't get out of Rzhishchiv often, and I'm sure I would never have seen Kaniv otherwise. The taxi driver asked me if I took a photo while I was there...which I should have!

Early Sunday morning I started over, carefully inquiring after the destination of my Marshrutka. Nadia and I spent two days running hither and yon over Kiev and I took the subway by myself for the first time, (and never got lost more than a few minutes at a time). I'm so glad I got to go, but it's nice to be back in my quiet little Rzhishchiv again.

Rumple and me

2009-05-04T07:42:00.003-05:00

Here I am, holding Rumplestiltskin the hedgehog. Apparently hedgehogs carry diseases, but I didn't know or think about that. I guess we'll be ok. I did wash my hands after touching...

Oops, Sorry Cheryl, My Pet Hedgehog is Loose in Your House

2009-04-30T07:57:00.004-05:00

Haha just kidding. I mean, he did escape and roam at large (I'm not sure how long because I was asleep at the time) but I apprehended him before any damage could be done.

It's like this. I was walking down the gravel road near Cheryl's place last night after Home Group at Yacob's cafe, enjoying the thick flowery scent hanging in the air and the sliver of mellow gold moon hanging in the sky, when I heard a rustle beside the road. There was still some dim light left, and I could see a dark shape about the size of my shoe (I wear 8's) shuffling around. I've never seen a hedgehog in real life, but I immediately recognize the "thing" as one because the kids had mentioned seeing one by the road not long ago.

As I bent down and got a better view of the creature (or rather, of its quills) it abrubtly stopped rooting around and pretended not to exist. Smart. But since I DID know it existed, I wasn't about to just walk away. The animal absolutely fascinated me. I thought hedgehogs were things of myth and legend (I have Brian Jacques and Beatrix Potter to thank for any previous exposure.) In fact, I read today that we don't have any indigenous species of hedgehogs in the States. Apparently people do keep them as pets.

I wanted to take it home. The Crowe kids needed to see this. I wanted to share my wonder with someone. Plus, my camera was at the Crowes, and it was well worth a picture. Wondering vaguely what the spines were really like and if they were poisonous (no, I didn't think they were) I reached down and gingerly tried to pick up the hedgehog. It immediately flinched and curled tighter, jabbing me with its needles. But I carefully worked with the thing until I could pick it up without too much discomfort.

Poor little guy. He wasn't aggressive, just shy and scared silly. I had a dawning sense of kindredness with this creature...not the hippy one-with-the-universe kindredness, but the kind of kindredness that comes of recognizing your own personality traits. Kind of funny, really.

So, I trotted down the road, Rumplestiltskin in tow. I settled on that name as we went along, feeling it was a stickery sort of name and therefore (ouch!) fitting. I went at a much quicker pace than before, goaded by pricks. Every time I moved too much, my thorny friend jerked this way and that, driving his vicious little spines into my hands.

When we got home, and I dropped him uncerimoniously on the doorstep and fished my key out to unlock the door. Lady was looking with interest by this time, and probably some jealousy as I plopped the Rumple (as I immediatly nicknamed him) in the entryway and closed the door. Right away I got the cardboard milk box-gone-potato bin and put him in it, adding a jar lid full of water and some big leaves I thought he might burrow in.

Then I inspected the little beast. He was adorable. The quills, brown with white flecks, nearly covered the visible part of his body. His face was long and pointy, with round black eyes and a soft wet nose. Even his eyebrows were clumps of spikes, and they scrunched up when I touched him. Surprisingly, the coarse-looking fur on his underside was soft and there seemed to be extra folds of skin so he could move around easily.

Since he didn't seem to be enjoying the bright light very much, I turned out the light and left Rumple by himself. He rustled around for a while, but eventually quieted down.

Eventually I went to bed, but was awakened very early in the morning by a scuffling, scratching, tapping commotion. I'd gotten used to the sound of Rumple's rumplings before I went to bed, but this noise seemed much nearer than the entry way. Much nearer. I jumped out of bed and looked at the clock: 5 am. And there was a dark sort of oblong shape on the linoleum just outside my bedroom doorway. Good grief!

I flipped the light on and returned the errant hedgehog to his box. Then I went into the other room, trying to think of something to put on top of the box to prevent further escape attemps. I didn't want anything too heavy because I was afraid he might tip it over on himself and get smooshed to death. I lit on the idea of two 8-packs of toilet paper on the shelf (Ukrainian toilet paper is more heavy-duty than ours). It would work.

I turned back just in time to see the thorny rump of Rumple disappear over the edge of the cardboard box once again! Minding my fingers, I extracted the disgruntled captive from under a shelf, made secure his prison, and returned to bed.

The added security worked, for lo, in the morning, there was Rumple still in his box, having drunk (or possibly spilled) all of his water. I didn't know what he would like to eat, but I figured he would be fine till this afternoon. I just wanted to have some show and tell. His nocturnal adventures had worn him out, and he lay curl in a ball, a sight of angelic repose.

After photo shoots and sufficient gawking at the Crowe house, we left Rumple in a corner to sleep. Clarky peeped in the box and then announced excitedly,

"The eggnog is sleeping!"

After reading up on hedgehogs via internet, we tried feeding him some boiled egg, but he was disinterested. Apparently hedgehogs are "diurnal" like cats-- they are awake mostly at night and only stay up a little in the day. They eat roots, insects, worms, and even snakes when they live in the wild, but domesticated hedgehogs can be fed cooked meat and eggs, as well as cat food and a little treat of fruits and veggies now and then. They're lactose intolerant.

He is asleep now, and I'm going to take him back to his spot and release him. I'm sure he'll be relieved. I was stricken with the thought that maybe Rumplestiltskin was a girl, and might possibly have babies that would starve to death in their captive mother's absence...but I'm not too worried. Rumple doesn't show any signs of being a mama hedgehog.

He's awfully cute and I'll be sorry to see him go...but then, he wouldn't have made the most affectionate pet with all those quills sticking out of him. It would be like hugging a pincushion in reverse!

Life for Real

2009-04-23T09:32:00.006-05:00

I'm thinking about fairytales again. And something much more real than a fairytale. I told you I was listening to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on audio cd...well, now I've finished that and started The Silver Chair.

This morning I was in the kitchen washing up. It was Home Group last night, and there was Deb's lauded soup, so there were bowls...and bowls...and more bowls smeared with the leftovers of something cream based and spinachy and probably delicious in its hour. I didn't mind the dishes.

Some people talk about having "laundry days." Sometimes we have "dish days." Thursdays especially, after Home Group. But there's something about a kitchen drowning in dirty dishes that throws out its taunt, its challenge, its ultimatum, and I step forward into the fray and deal it a look that silently roars, "Gimme what ya got!!"

This morning though, my mind was elsewhere, and the battle was going at a slower rate, more scattered, and you'd never have guessed I was "taking anything on." Nope.

I moved around the kitchen feeling dazed. For one thing, making too many turns in such a short time resulted in a queer carsick-y sensation in the aftermath of the stomach bug. The sun was dazzling me through the open window, shining in the warm water as it flowed from the tap into greasy pot and soup-encrusted bowl.

What was I just doing? Oh yeah, those clean dishes in drying rack. Put dishes away. Teal collander. Stainless steel spatula. Saucepans. The counter is covered in crumbs. Whose toast is smoking in the toaster? I'll wipe the counter. Water is running on my cloth.

"'I tell you the water's sweet,' said the Mouse. 'Sweet, fresh. It isn't salt...'

'Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter East.'"

"Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." John 4:14

Jesus, I want you.

Pot is full of greasy water. I'll clean it right now. But the drying rack is still full. Let's empty that first. Teal collander. Stainless steel spatula. Saucepans. The counter is covered in...where is that dishcloth? What, you need toast too? Sure. Here you go.

"'Come and have breakfast,' the Lamb said...Then they noticed for the first time that there was a fire lit on the grass and fish roasting on it. They sat down and ate the fish, hungry now for the first time for many days. And it was the most delicious food they had ever tasted."

"Jesus said to them, 'Come and have breakfast"...Jesus came and took the bread, and gave them, and the fish likewise." John 21:12a-13

Jesus, what would it be like for you to invite me for breakfast?

There are some more plastic bowls from last night. Green, blue, orange. No more room in the dishwasher? I'll just wash them in the sink. Warm water running in the sun. I really should put those dishes away. Teal collander. Stainless steel spatula. Saucepans. But look at the counter! Can't put the jam away yet. Who still needs jam on their toast? It's all over the counter. Where's the knife that was in the jam? Ok. I'll wash one. Sun in the water.

"'Lucy, do not look so sad. We shall meet soon again.' 'Please, Aslan,' said Lucy, 'What do you call soon?"

"I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and recieve you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also."
John 14:2a-3

Jesus, I long for you.

Wait, is there a knife in the drying...what? Teal collander? Stainless steel spatula? Saucepans? This counter sure is covered in...

Down for a Day

2009-04-22T03:08:00.002-05:00

Back from the dead. Yesterday I woke up around 4 am with the certainty of impending doom, that is, puke...the tummy bug had infected me, too. I laid in agony till 4:30, when I got up and did the inevitable, went to bed for an hour or so, got up and puked again, and repeated the process. I hope Deb's world famous curry (which I had the night before) is not forever ruined for my taste buds.

The day seemed to slide by quickly, though I spent it languishing in bed in a mass of blankets until about 2 or 3. The sunlight came in around the edges of the curtains, and I guess I slept a good bit.

In a bold effort I rallied and set up camp on the couch in the lounge room, picked like a bird at a handful of cheerios, and tried to read. Massive headache. Then wobbled through a dizzy haze to the stereo and put in the first audio cd of the Chronicles of Narnia book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

That was beautiful. For the next few hours I was whisked away on the Narnian breeze with Edmund and Lucy and noble Prince Caspian, and the incorrigible, nuisance- turned-nice Eustace. In spite of myself, I giggled aloud over the Dufflepuds and the kind old grandfatherly magician and Lucy's accent.

The hours pulled on. Tried to eat soup. Too puny to take a shower. Attempted another book, against my better judgement. Finally lay listening to music, letting it soak into my helplessness. All day, in the intervals between books and Narnia, scenes from the past couple years of my life played themselves over in my mind like a movie. They were jumbled, and I wanted them to come out clear so I could see what really happened. It was odd. Narnia was better.

Finally I went to bed, thinking I might not sleep well after being in bed all day. But with some painkillers I went to sleep and slept almost normally, and woke this morning still a bit unsteady, but much, much better. Deb picked me up this morning, because she and Bruce had an important visit to make with their good friends at the OVIR office for registration (oh joy!) So we're taking it slow around here today. Tuck is the only one who has been sick at the Crowes, which I'm glad of. In his words,

"It was sweating all over me like lava, and that's what made me sick!"

A Scoop of Brain Soup

2009-04-20T10:00:00.003-05:00

I've had a lot of disjointed goobledegop going around my brain the past week and haven't wanted to blog because of it. But the less I blog, the more disjointed the jumble grows, so I may as well force something out and hope the writers block melts away on its own.

I'm rocking Noah on my hip and hoping his cookie is taking effect and will quiet the wailing. His mom just went to the store and he feels a bit bereaved.

I'm tired of writing about spring. Spring this and spring that. Spring comes to mind first because it's all around me, but it makes for boring writing after a while. Case in point.

Today Deb played a song in the house from Slumdog Millionare, a new favorite movie of mine. It's called Jai Ho, and it's sort of Indian, and wild, and beautiful, and roused my blood. I felt freaked out and wanted to know why in the world God gave us crazy emotions our brains and bodies don't have the capacity to hold or express. I have no idea why music creates such powerful emotions in me, but maybe eventually I'll start dancing and get some relief. Maybe music gives us glimpses of heaven that we crave and can't get enough of. There was something in India like that. Something in the drums, I think.

There is a little old man who lives down the street; his house is on the corner of the Crowes' street and another one. He seems to always be outside, puttering around or working on what I assume to be a chicken coop. And he has a huge grin that I look forward to every time I walk by. I've started saying "Dobry Dyen" a little more often to people I meet when walking througth the neighborhood, and I enjoy the results. Most people here are really friendly.

My brain is still mush and the writers block isn't subsiding. Maybe it's the headache I've had all day...so I'll say goodbye...

The Aroma of Spring...

2009-04-10T05:18:00.002-05:00

Spring. Freshly plowed earth and cow dung. Shy green buds and sunshine. Short sleeves and concerned looks from Ukrainians...

I guess I always thought if you lived in a cold climate, you'd strip down to shorts and shortsleeves as soon as the sun showed its face and the temperature was the least bit tolerable. I know that my aunt, after a particularly vicious cold snap in Upstate New York, reportedly donned her shorts when it reached a cozy 14 degrees Farenheit.

But that's not the way it is in Ukraine. Here I am, shedding my jacket at the first possibility of sun on my deathly white arms, and I get these looks. I've been told that the wind is different here, blasting out of the wilds of some Artic Waste, I think...but it feels great to me.

The aromatic pungence of cow poo if wafting into my nostrils from the great outdoors, where someone is preparing that rich black Ukrainian earth for planting.

Yesterday, Bruce had a guy with a tractor out here disking up the back yard. I stood at the kitchen window in the full morning sun scrubbing the dishes, listening to the familiar drone of the tractor that, to me, signifies spring. It was so much like home that I kept looking up from the dishes, half expecting to see Dad on the tractor with one hand guiding the steering wheel and one arm around Ethan's waist. But I was disappointed. There was only an old guy with a wooly beard.

Bruce and Deb made their trip to Poland to have a few days together and get their visas renewed. The kids stayed here, with me. We stayed up here some and at the Gollans some, and managed to come through it fairly intact :) The two youngest missed mom, I think, but I got a lot of cuddles out of the deal.

One night the four older kids stayed at the Gollans and took Clark and Noah home after supper. The sun was almost down, and wind was tossing the trees. I pushed Noah up the hill in the stroller and he sat dociley, bundled in his coat, without making a peep. Clark, however, was scared of the trees and his face crumpled up to cry. He ran to my side and grabbed my hand, glancing fearfully around him at the waving branches overhead and the lights twinkling in the dusk.

"Wanna hold your hand, Cass, wanna hold your hand!"

"Ok, you can hold my hand. Help me push the stroller," I said. "Listen to the birds, Clarky," I told him. "They're singing themselves to sleep." He listened, alert, with big eyes.

"Yeah, I hear them. They're singing to sleep?"

"Mmhmm."

And then we tried singing the English equivalent of the lullabies the birds were singing, one about the sheep in the pasture and the moon being a shepherdess. But I couldn't remember all the words properly.

I've been homesick this week for no apparent reason, missing family and friends, old familiar sounds and smells and places and memories that I try not to dwell on too much. But it's ok.

"Why are you downcast, oh my soul? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God."

Well, I'll be off...time for Lady to walk me. We'll see how that new leash I found at the center works :)

In Which Lady and I Walk Each Other and Enjoy the View

2009-04-04T06:47:00.009-05:00

Folks have been asking me how I like my new house these days, and I stare at them blankly for a few seconds before answering. The fact is, I don't know, because I've hardly been there at all the past week and a half. I've become a sort of nomad, wandering from place to place.

For two weeks Masha and I camped out at our house, and got the heating system working a week or so into it (Thanks, Tom!). I slept in Masha's room because it was much warmer than my room. When my room had stopped producing icycles and become comfortable, I slept there one night (or part of one night) and then we were off to Zhovti Vodi for the weekend. I then visited my room once more before heading to Cheryl's to housesit while she is away. Today I'm moving in with the Crowe kids for a few days while Bruce and Deb go to Poland. We'll be spending some time with the Gollans, as well.

I like it. Several months ago I was in some sort of phsycological terror of moving. It just upended me every time I even went somewhere even for a night or two. All part of culture shock, I suppose. Now, maybe somewhat due to Spring-in-the-Air, I feel carefree and happy to be a gypsy, chucking my stuff in a backpack and strolling up the road to the next house. It's not like I'm actually camping. Cheryl's place is like a little haven to me. The Crowes' house smacks of home. And Zhovti Vodi was a pleasant, mild type of adventure.

I told Masha as threw my clothes, etc. into a borrowed backpack the day I went to Cheryl's, that I felt like a runaway. But then, my Mom doesn't mind. I already ran away from home, and mostly she's fine with that.

I feel like that commercial slogan (for what, I can't remember) "You are now free to move about the country." Free to just go and love Jesus wherever, and I hope I'll learn to truly serve.

I'm learning how to walk a dog. A large, energetic dog that could knock me over and lick me to death if the whim took it. Since I'm staying at Cheryl's house it's also my privelege to walk Lady, her huge furry beast that looks sort of husky-german shepherd-I'm not sure what else-ish.

She needed a walk desperately yesterday, so I decided to brave it. Cheryl said that maybe I'd need to get Masha (who is used to dogs) to walk Lady because I might not be able to, ah, control her. But I felt I must at least attempt to overcome my cowardice and distaste.

So Lady and I went for a walk. I'm not sure who walked who exactly, or if it was really a walk or a run or a sort of trotting treasure hunt for tasty garbage. We started off on a run with me gripping the short, rather fragile looking leash with both hands. I was laughing and my hair was flying around and the neighbors were looking up from their garden plots, a little startled.

When my heart rate was sufficiently stimulated, my charge slowed to a gentle trot. But she didn't want to stay on the road. Every dog, cat, shrub, and scrap of rubbish in the neighborhood captured her interest. However, since this gave me an opportunity to stop and breath, I didn't mind so much.

The day was gorgeous. I think spring took April seriously, because since April 1 the sun has been shining, a fresh wind blowing, and the new green trying very hard to come out. It has to work harder here than in East Texas. We walked, ran, trotted, tugged, sniffed, pulled, and cavorted all over the neighborhood, enjoying the grand view of the windswept Dneiper from the hill.

Everyone in the countryside seems to be burning their fields to be rid of the dead winter stalks, and green grass bristles up everywhere throught the blackened earth like so much fresh beard on a very large face. The sun was so warm and good and the view so intriguing that I let Lady roam at will.

The twenty minute walk turned into an hour and more as we wandered. I tugged Lady down a dirt and stone track that led past a tiny cemetery. Following it down a steep hill, we came to the river. Moss covered rocks and patches of shy purple snowdrops lay under the trees. And at a lonely place near the water a giant hunk of what used to be a barge sat sagging and rusting in the weeds. It gave me an eery feeling, especially when I got up close and peeked in the portholes at the stagnant water and ruined insides. Then I caught a glimpse of the shining wide water ahead and ran towards it, with Lady bounding along at my side. The water rolled up on the sand with a rythmic sound that may as well have been the ocean for me. I felt like I was in another world, maybe Narnia, maybe better.

The sound of water brought up some deep emotion in me, like the attachment sailors have to the sea. I just wanted to fall down on the shore and worship God. Since it's a little hard to do that when holding onto a dog leash for dear life, I just darted delightedly after Lady, who sniffed and sputtered at the water, jumping and running up and down the sand strip with great vigor and trying to drag me under dead tree branches I couldn't fit through.

Finally we started home. I'll never understand dogs. Their goal in life appears to be to get as gross as possible and be admired for it.

Lady stopped on the path, sniffing at something with ears pricked up, and then flopped herself on the ground, clearly communicating even to my untrained cerebrum, "Hey look, I found some poo! Let's roll in it!" Which she did. I let her. I watched. (Sorry Cheryl, but this canine of yours hasn't had a good poo-roll in far too long- it was for her mental health, I assure you. What do you think she does when she is off her leash?) Seriously, though, there was hardly anything there. But of course if there was even an iota of grossness, Lady was going to find it.

Ah, dogs. Ah, spring. Ah, life.

There and Back Again: A Trip to Zhovti Vodi

2009-03-31T07:43:00.009-05:00

Well, I have been "there and back again," and am much better for it. This past weekend we, (six from Rzhishchiv including Gaven, Jono, Sergei, Tanya, Masha, and myself) bumped and rattled our way over the approximately six hours worth of crater ridden asphalt between here and the town of Zhovti Vodi for a conference. It was well worth the potholes, however (maybe not for the van!) and I went away so blessed by God.

Aside from all the cool things God did and shared with me, the trip itself was quite an experience. I woke up at 2:30 a.m. out of sheer excitement, just like I've been doing before nearly every roadtrip I've been on since I was old enough to know what roadtrips were. But I went back to sleep until 3:20, when it was really time to get up and get moving. There's something about being up when the stars are still out, and setting out on a journey :)

We headed down the road and watched the Ukrainian countryside awake with a soft pink glow on the horizon cut by the bare trees that lined the fields for miles. The gray-blue haze eventually lifted to reveal fields and fields of rich black earth and dry, broken stubble; andvillages caught in that mud-laden time between winter snow and spring growth. Then we started hitting the potholes, trying to avoid the potholes, and generally still getting our brains jiggled to bits by the potholes. There's not much that can be done when the road is more potholes than road in places.

At least the potholes provided great entertainment. I've never been on a roller coaster before, but I don't feel like I've missed out at all. Any need I have for motion thrills can be more-than-adequately satisfied by car rides in foreign countries. Take, for example, the one where your van is in the proper lane, headed in the proper direction. Before you lies a series of potholes that could be mistaken for the great lakes, dried up and filled with asphalt. Coming around the bend straight ahead of you, in your direction, are two cars in each lane. You're going about 70 kilometers an hour, which is hard to describe if you're like me and still think in miles, but in any case feels like a rocket about to break up when you're on a a two lane road in that situation. I actually kind of enjoyed it.

Then there was the bit where the front seat drivers, the back seat drivers, and actual driver had conflicts and we ended up in Pyatixati (Five Houses) which just barely surpassed its name. There we saw a lot of mud, numerous species of barnyard fowl, and a nice lady with four adorable piglets who pointed us in the right direction. (Oops, I mean the lady pointed us in the right direction, not the piglets.)

Eventually we arrived in Zhovti Vodi (Yellow Waters) and got to the church where they had the conference. The first day and night were ones of dazed bewilderment because I was feeling a little faint from lack of sleep and food (breakfast at 4 a.m., lunch at 3 p.m., and supper around 10 p.m.) and it took a little time to get used to the new surroundings and a style of worship I wasn't quite accustomed to. We clapped a lot and people on the stage danced around and made funny faces while they sang. But by the end I figured out we could all worship Jesus just fine together, funny faces or not.

That night a gal from the church named Tanya, took Masha, Tanya, and I to her apartment, where we stayed the night. I was so impressed that this church of approximately 300 people (though I could be mistaken on the number) hosted 200 guests in their houses and apartments! I'm still stunned and inspired by the hospitality around here. I love it.

I made immediate friends with Tanya's cat, "Zhasmeen," who curled up in my lap when I sat down for tea. *Purr* :)

After a good nights' rest and a fresh dose of perspective, I felt much better.

I was one of only five "foreigners" at the conference, and we had our own translator, Sonia, whom I became friends with. I'm so thankful for her! So we just clustered around her at every session and she translated very thoroughly. I hung out with her a good bit the rest of the time, too, because I wanted to get to know her, and because there weren't a lot of other people to talk to in English.

It's a very vulnerable feeling to be in a a place where you don't know people and you don't speak the language. You start to feel like a dumb animal that can only communicate by grunts and squeaks. (Mostly squeaks in my case, accompanied by frequent blushes.) And an inaudible, but definite mental "Oh d-d-d-dear!"

You crave respect and the sort of power you had back when people could understand you and you were actually considered smart sometimes. But it's easier to take when you are prepared for it, and this time I guess I saw it coming when I signed up for the conference.

Why does so much of what I write come out sounding negative when I'm acually very happy and excited about the whole thing? Just ignore what I'm writing, please, and know that I had a blast. Even when I almost got squished in the snack line :)

The main things that God spoke to me about throughout the conference were: Purity, Worship, and Creativity. He seemed to unfold those things to me in that order and blend them together like an exquisite painting being done before my very eyes. It was so cool.

He's purifying my heart from all the things that steal my life from Him and giving me a deep desire to worship Him. Linked to that is the yearning to see other worshipers raised up, because the Father seeks worshipers in spirit and in truth (John 4, I think). And entwined with that is the idea of creativity in worship-- or, using every area of our lives to glorify Him.

I crave art in almost every form it comes-- language, writing, painting, drawing, poetry, song, dance...the list goes on. I've had a desire to actually do a lot of these things, but I've always had different fears and inhibitions. People tell you all through your teen years to find out your talents and abilities and serve God with those things, but what if you don't feel talented at anything? I've waited and waited, driven by fear of failure and desire for assurance and man's approval, and now God seems to be saying,

"What are you waiting for? Don't hold back because you lack ability. Forget about talent. Use your desires to follow Me."

One speaker at the conference used the example of how a baby has to learn to walk and use the potty, etc. It isn't born knowing how, and it takes a lot of practice and mistakes to learn. But the kid is put in a family with a father and mother and siblings who love it and care for it and help it along, and it learns. I feel like that in the area of art and a lot of other things. I feel so ignorant. But there's something me that is screaming to get out, and now I know that it's not just me wanting to "express myself," but my self, wanting to express God. There's something that needs to be poured out. It belongs to God and it shouldn't be altered by human opinion or my pride.

I don't know what that something looks like yet, but...I'm encouraged to create whatever beauty I can.

At the conference several music groups played, some groups did dances, and they even had a mini video contest of clips different churches had put together. There's a lot of talent here. It was very inspiring.

Well, when all these "revelations" came, I was pretty excited. But the the crowning joy was yet to come.

That night, a lady stood up and said that if any of us wanted to share a testimony from the conference, we should come talk to her about it and then we could share on Sunday. I felt that little prompting, but I wanted to ignore it.

It would be a lot easier to just stay in my seat instead of plunging myself into what I knew would be a tortuous process of pressing through a throng of human bodies to find the woman, standing there feeling red and foolish while being translated, enduring a restless night of anticipation, and the trying to keep my adrenaline-laced heart from pounding out of my chest the next morning as I faced a crowd of strangers, once again with a translator. BUT-- then I thought about how Jesus and these people deserved to here a testimony about Him. Sure, other people could give testimonies, but nobody could give my testimony except ME.

I wanted to tell them how, when I came to the conference, I had thought I might not understand anything, and how God had just told me "Go and praise Me." And then how I had come, and God had spoken so much to me, as if He'd given the speakers just the right words to speak to me about things that had been in my heart for months and even years.

So I gave in and before I knew what I was really doing, had jumped in over my head and talked to the lady. I walked to the apartment in the dark with the girls and my head was spinning. I started to think of what I would say, and then Russian words came to mind. And suddenly I thought, "I could say this in Russian!"

My cranium picked up speed as the impulse grew stronger-- I wanted to give my testimony in Russian! A day earlier I wouldn't have done it, but now I knew that I shouldn't be afraid to use what God had given me to bless Him with-- at least to give it a try.

As I sat on the bed pulling my socks off, I mentioned it to Mash.

"I really think I could do it in Russian," I told her. She looked at me with a look that said "Don't kid yourself." She pointed out that I don't like to be in front of people in the first place, and that when I try to speak Russian it takes a long time for me to come up with the words, and that this wouldn't be a good time for that. Which was true, of course. True enough to make douse me with doubt. But then, I still had this crazy feeling...

I managed to sleep just fine, and in the morning, after some consideration, I still wanted to try. The rest of the testimony came to my mind and I started asking questions about Russian words I didn't know. It wasn't very long, and I would need help for the last few sentences because they were a little too complex, but Masha said she would go up there with me.

So when testimony time came, I went up there and started talking in Russian! It was simple and very imperfect (I said the word "city" instead of the word "year" at one point, and who knows what other mistakes), but everything I had planned to say just poured out in whole sentences. I couldn't wipe the silly grin off my face, and I think I was laughing in disbelief while I spoke, because I was so excited not just about the testimony I got to share, but about the one I was living out right at that moment.

I've been discouraged and guilty that I haven't learned or used Russian more, and like I said, a lot of times I feel degraded because I can't communicate. But in that moment, there was an intense, rich beauty of crossing a barrier into the world of this church in Zhovit Vodi. I spoke to them in their language! Looking back on it, I see that it was a miracle. I'm not fluent by any means, and I feel like God just scraped up the meager scraps of my Russian and put them together to make something special.

After saying my bit, I handed the microphone to Masha and finished in English, and then went grinning to my seat, adrenaline rush in full swing. I loved how afterward I felt liek such a part of the body there. I think it means something to people when you try to speak to them in their own language.

After church we left hurriedly and went bumping home, snacking on the sausages and bread the church had supplied us with. We reached Rzhishchiv while it was still light, rounding the bend to be greeted with the sight of the beautiful little town on the shining blue river, and I thought that this is still the prettiest place I've seen yet in Ukraine. I'm sure it doesn't compare to Crimea and Carpathia and those sort of places in other parts of the country, but this is a dear little shire, and in a way, I love it. It's like Hobbiton. They even hunt mushrooms :)

It's good to be back.

Pizza in the Sky

2009-03-24T12:55:00.004-05:00

When you hang around kids for an extended period of time, you end up getting asked a lot of questions.

"What are you making?"
"What are you putting in there?"
"Why?"
"Are you peeling it?"
"Are they done"
"Why?"
"Why do they have to cook?"
"Can I flip them?"
"Why?"
"Can I have some?"
"Can I have syrup too?"
"What is 12 + 3? 'Cause Tuck says it's 15."
"Why?"

Tonight, after having hawaiian pizza for supper, Brent was wandering around the kitchen in his usual distracted manner, his brow furrowed deeply as if pondering great mysteries. I was by the sink, loading the dishwasher.

"Cass, where does pizza come from?" He finally asked.

"Heaven." That's what immediately came to mind. But he was still thinking.

"Well, actually," I said casually, capitalizing on further opportunity for indoctrination, "it grows on trees."

"Trees?" He looked me a look that said "I know you're pulling my leg, but I'm enjoying it." "So the pizzas grow and you can just reach up and pick them off the tree?"

"Well, yeah. But the trees are re-ee-ally high. They grow up in the sky close to the sun, so that the cheese will melt."

A pretense of realization dawned on the sly face of Brent.

"As everyone knows, the moon is made of cheese," I continued, beginning to have fun reeling out my imagination, "and when it's full, they start grating it up until it gets smaller and smaller, and during the day, the sun melts the cheese, and the moon grows back, and it starts again. And every noon they harvest the pizzas."

"But how do they get them off if they're so high up?" Brent inquired.

"Helicopters, of course. And then they deliver them all over the world to all the pizzarias."

This seemed to satisfy, if not his curiousity, at least his imagination.

A few days ago I realized that I brush my teeth like Monk, with a mug of boiling water. I pour it over my toothbrush and down the sink. We usually don't have the water running in the sink, so I was using a mug of water anyway. I'm not sure how I started with boiled. But it keeps my toothbrush clean, and the sink semi-clean, so it must be worth it. Monk would not like our house, but I think I'm ok with it :)

On Friday I'm going to a conference with several others from Rzhishchiv. It's in Zhovti Vode (or however you spell that) several hours away. So I feel like it's my first "journey" in Ukraine-- exciting! It was going to be through the night by train, and that would have been a good deal excitinger of course...but I can't say I'm too sorry that plans have changed, seeing as Masha and Sveta got lice on the train last time they went. We have enough pets at home without lice.

So, I don't know if I'll understand a word of the conference, but it will be an experience, anyway. We'll leave Friday and be back Sunday.

Tell Me About the Zoo

2009-03-22T08:17:00.002-05:00

I just had a phone conversation with Ethan. We went through the usual questions. He always asks me, "Are you having fun?" To which I generally reply "Yes." I live with Masha. Of course I'm having fun :)

I know that in some cultures they greet each other by saying "Have you had food?" And when I got ambitious and started trying to learn Hebrew (a shortlived fling) I learned from Hebrew for Dummies that in Israel they say "How's your peace?" Hey man, how's your peace? I actually kind of like that.

As usual, Ethan and I stumble around trying to think of things to say.

"I have a new lego jet," he informs me. "It's right here in my hand. I can't wait till you can see it. How many days are you going to be there?"

"Umm...a lot of days, buddy. Like four months."

"Oh. Well, there are thirty days in a month."

"You're right!" I exclaim. "Who told you that?"

"Daddy. And there are 7 days in a week." I ask him if he knows the days of the week. He doesn't, so I list them off.

Long lull. I resist tempation to fill in the blanks. Maybe he is incubating some profound epiphany. Suddenly, he stirs, as if fueled by new life.

"There is something I want to talk to you about," he says, his tone becoming serious.

"Oh, what's that?"

"I want to talk to you about the zoo."

"Oh, ok, tell me about the zoo!" Mom and Dad took him to the zoo last week and I guess he's still pumped. I can hear his quickened breathing in my ear through the Skype phone and hear him shifting the phone.

"Well," he begins, "I dinnent see an ephelant, but I did see a lion."

"You did?"

"And I saw an alligator and birds and slithering snakes."

"Oh I love that word "slither," I say, grinning as I pace the floor of the Crowes' schoolroom.

"Yeah. And I saw g'raffes."

"What were they like?" I glance out the window at the sparse snowflakes falling.

"They had tall necks, and they were eating."

"What were they eating?"

"I dunno. But I saw a lion."

"What did it look like?" I press, wondering what description I'll get this time.

"It had a hairy neck."

I also discover that he saw meercats and penguins at the zoo, fed ducks, and got sunglasses and toy animals and a ball that he accidentally left.

"And what was your favorite part about the hotel?" I press for more. He doesn't even have to stop to think.

"Garfield!" He watched the movie there, apparently.

I've never had a phone conversation this long and detailed with my little brother before. He's growing up, that one. I don't know if I'll even recognize him when I get home...

Getting Toasty

2009-03-22T07:06:00.007-05:00

I am about to go phone my lovely sister and wish her a belated happy birthday. Yesterday I think she was traveling, so I didn't call then.

Masha and I are warming up to our house. Our house is warming up to us. Long johns are still a must (for me at least) but this morning the kitchen was so toasty that Masha complained of being hot. Hot was not the word I would have used, but "cozy" with the mug of hot chocolate that she made for me...yes.

Yesterday Cheryl, Masha, and I cleaned up the other house and Masha gave over the keys, and we walked away forever. I suppose forever. How strange to move out of a house. I only lived there for two and a half months, but I still feel it. Not that I really miss it, but I feel like I left part of myself there. I think my only regret is that I never got to see the cherry trees bloom in the yard. But I think I can find some other cherry trees.

Here, by the way, is a picture of the new house. I don't have many good ones yet. And the next is a not-so flattering picture of Angel and me scrubbing in the kitchen last week.

First Night in a New Old House

2009-03-18T10:08:00.005-05:00

As of yesterday, Masha and I have taken up residence in a new house. A new old house. Newer than the old one, but older than a new one. The owners decided they wanted their house back, so they booted us out, and long-story-short, we have a beautiful new house.

I had no idea a week ago that I would be living in a different house today, and I've been sort of going around feeling that I had the breath knocked out of me. But after going through half a bottle of Domestos cleaner, nearly rubbing through a couple of sponges, and scouring the place to bits, our house is looking better.

Yesterday the fire department (oops, Jono in a psychedelic yellow jacket and big red van) and Gaven came and helped cart our stuff away. Then Bruce and Rodgy came and heroically shovelled the rubbish out of the old bathtub outside into a trailer and hauled it to the dump. Rubbish is too tame a word. Rubbish is what my grandma has in her trash can. This stuff was definitely garbage. Garbage with an attitude.

As to the "stuff"- suffice it to say, moving is a good reminded not to buy, obtain, or otherwise find oneself in possession of more worldly goods, unless they are things to eat, which should also be kept to a minimum. I was able to pack up in a little over hour, because I've only been here a few months, and because having a weight limit on luggage is good encouragement not to get too much stuff. But Masha and I were both bemoaning her acquired clutter the night before we moved as she went around the house collecting odds and ends from shelves, cupboards, and corners, and looking for bags to stash them in. I said I would never buy anything again, and she scoffed. Rightly so, I suppose, because just this morning I bought a toilet brush at the market. It's shiny and sort of pink.

So we moved. A few hours later, Masha had swept and arranged the bedroom and lounge room, and I had the kitchen tidied and dishes organized in their cupboards, and was enjoying the luxury of a sink with pipes. There is indoor plumbing that works, and it is great. For some complicated reasons which I won't go into we can't have it running all the time, but we can turn it on when we need it and fill buckets.

We lit up the burners on the gas stove to offer a little heat, because the heating system doesn't work right now (and may not for a while...like, until we don't need it anymore.) When we moved in it was 4 celsius, which I think is about 42 farenheit. We were a little numb. I was washing some things in the kitchen and besides steam rising from the dish tub, there were trails of steam issuing from my hands and mouth. Masha laughed and we decided I was a dragon, minus the fire.

So last night was our first night at the house. By the time I went home from the Crowes' Masha had got the temperature up to 9, which sounded vicious to me until I thought it out in farenheit...50 degrees. Still cold, but we had hope. Bruce and Deb lent us a huge "ufo" heater, and downy duvet I've become fondly acquainted with on previous cold nights.

We plugged in the heater, hoping the electrical system would handle it in our funny little house. The heater has 4 or 5 levels, and we found it was fine on level two. On level two, we could have the fridge plugged in and choose one light. Two lights- POOF. All off. So all evening we played our little game.

"Can I turn on the bedroom light so I can put some things away?"
"Sure, I'll flip the kitchen off."
"Ok. Let's go eat." (she flips bedroom switch, while I hit the kitchen one)
"Um, I need the porch light to get my laundry." (Whole indoors goes temporarily dark.)

After our first meal in the cozy new kitchen, we were both exhausted. I was ready for bed. Masha wanted a shower, so she went down to Tom and Lena's because it was just too cold in our house for that.

We had agreed to spend the night in Masha's bedroom because my room is bigger and we hadn't even started heating it yet. Besides, two is better than one because if two lay down together they can keep warm...a bit of biblical wisdom from Ecclesiastes 4. No need to fight over the downy duvet. So I brought my stuff into her room and got under my mountain of blankets like a polar bear going into hibernation.

It was something like a glorified indoor camping trip. I've camped in temperatures a lot colder than 50, but this was a kind of dank, cold 50. I had bundled myself in a long sleeve, a short sleeve, a fleece jacket (thanks, Brie!) thick velour pants, cotton socks, fleece socks, two blankets, and half the duvet. The heater was full blast (full blast level two, that is) on the bed. We were snug as bugs in rugs. Half way through the night I kicked off half my half of the duvet and shed the fleece, and was quite happy. This morning I was pleased to find that I had survived.

We are doing quite well, I think. What a house. What a friend. What a life. I need to go eat supper now and get to Home Group.

A Great Idea

2009-03-11T09:59:00.003-05:00

Over the weekend I spent the night in Kiev with Nadia. (Well, Sunday night, rather.) Sunday was March 8, Women's Day, which is a big holiday in Ukraine. It's kind of like Mother's Day, but bigger, and it's for all the girls. It's awfully nice. In all this dreary Marchness, booths of flowers popped out everywhere over the weekend, sporting carnations, roses, irises, daffodils, jonquils, and my mom's favorite-- hyacinths. The colors were a welcome treat against the muddy bleakness.

I went to the Women's Day celebration at Nadia'a youth group with her, and it was so special. The guys in the youth group decorated the room, set up tables, lit candles, and laid out chocolate, apples, cookies, and drinks. They had taken nice photos of the girls and hung them around the room. They wore funny outfits and sang songs, showed slideshows they had prepared, and acted out blonde jokes that had us all rolling. It was great. I don't even know anyone in the youth group but Nadia and another sweet gal named Sasha, but I still felt very honored and special. It was like Valentines Day, only you didn't have to be "attached" to anybody :)

As a girl, I guess I felt it was special that people would recognize being feminine as a good thing. It's not that girls are better or boys are better...it's that we're different and there are unique and wonderful things about both. Personally, I really enjoy being a girl...but I find that being appreciated for my feminine qualities makes me appreciate guys for their masculine ones all the more.

I think we need to start this holiday in the States. It could replace Valentine's Day. I think about the girls in the youth group from home and how much it would mean to them to be "honored" in a general "attention to all, intention on none" way, with chocolate...

I, at least, went away with a fresh reminder-- "Oh. I'm valuble!" :)

Oh, and just so you know, there's a Men's Day too, in February I think. Somehow we missed that. I suppose guys don't really enjoy flowers and heart shaped candles the way we do :)

Thank God for Masha

2009-03-06T15:40:00.003-06:00

Winter Clothes

Under my hood I have a hat
And under that
My hair is flat.
Under my coat
My sweater's blue.
My sweater's red.
I'm wearing two.
My muffler muffles to my chin
And round my neck
And then tucks in.
My gloves were knitted
By my aunts.
I've mittens too
And pants
And pants
And boots
And shoes
With socks inside.
The boots are rubber, red and wide.
And when I walk
I must not fall
Because I can't get up at all.

-Karla Kuskin

This poem by Karla Kuskin describes me to a t. Not a t-shirt, because I don't get to wear those any more. I told Masha that this poem was about me, but she said, "No, it's not about you! You don't wear enough!" She thinks she's my mom. But after all, I do need somebody to help me with all those clothes. Thanks to her I've probably avoided death by strangulation, (Help, helg ggaggaggggg...somebody please, it's got me in its death grip...guguuuggggggg) Yes, she's saved me, but it's only out of the frying pan and into the fire...suffocation being the alternative.

I seem to have a profound talent for getting tangled in my scarf and despositing my gloves in random inconvenient places. And a while back I actually dropped my Bible on the road without realizing it one afternoon on the way home from church. Amazingly, somebody found it and I got it back that evening, which was pretty much a miracle.

On the way out of the yard this evening, Masha stopped me to tuck the hood of my hoodie into my coat with my scarf, which was in front of my coat hood below my hat...see how complicated it is?

I'm very glad to have Masha for a friend. It's nice to live with someone who tucks in my scarf, steers me out of mud puddles, and is a fabulous cook on top of that. My tummy is still happy from those mashed potatoes and fried onions. This girl has converted me into a potato lover. Or is it the sour cream? One way or another, she works her magic.

They are so beautiful, these quiet winter afternoons in the warm kitchen, sharing good food with a good friend. I'm glad to be here.

Who's Next?

2009-03-05T10:13:00.003-06:00

Who's next. WHO'S NEXT??? we wonder...Rodge, Bron, and Brent have all come down with some fever/stomach bug in turn, in age order, even, and we're wondering who will be next to fall. My stomach has definitely been strange, but I'm not sick at the moment. I keep coming through these things unscathed and I marvel at my good health so far while here in Ukraine. Thank God for that. I can praise Him when I'm sick, too, but it's obviously nice not to be. (sick).

Deb is so cool. She takes the quirkiest interruptions with the greatest spirit. She might say differently, but I get to see her reactions of consistent grace and joy, and it inspires me. Today people came in the morning to measure the house, and then she needed to go to Khagarlik nearby to get a stamp with Svetlana, and this afternoon there was a "Women's Day" celebration in town that she needed to go to, and of course laundry, laundry, laundry...Go with the flow...

So here I stand at the window, pondering the universe but not knowing at all what to write in the five or so minutes remaining. Yesterday before Bron got sick we curled each other's hair. We got through the whole time without burning or maiming each other (well, Bron burned herself, but it wasn't severe). So that was good. We looked so alike when we were done! It was really funny. It helped that we were both wearing gray shirts, I suppose. I felt a little like Shirley Temple. It's been eons since I curled my hair. It was so relaxing, despite the proximity of the scorching hot curling iron to my head, that I almost dozed off. Ahhh. Therapy.