Reverse Solar Eclipse

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...

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

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!

"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

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.

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

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!