The Cage of Lesser Affections

I can feel the coolness of the bars pressed against the sides of my forehead. I close my eyes and idly slide my hands down the metal, feeling the slightest prick of a weld gone wrong. I turn my back and slide to the floor, resting against the metal, tilting my head back. It's not so bad in here, I tell myself. There is that one little window, after all, with a little bit of light streaming in. I can still breathe. I can still feel the warmth of the sun on my face. Sometimes. I can still move around. Mostly. I don't go hungry. At least not every day. I'll get out. Eventually.

One rationalization after another. After another. After another.

This is the cage of lesser affections.

Of indifference.

Of apathy.

But these gilded bars are leaving me reaching for wider spaces and freedom, but I can’t figure out how to squeeze between them. If only there was someone on the outside with a key who could set me free.

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I feel the intensity of the crazy storm of cancer slackening (for now?) and it seems my affections for God are going with it. I feel my prayers drying up. My desire to spend time in his word vaporized awhile ago. I haven't been to church since May (However, in my defense, my mid-morning crash/fatigue comes at the same time church is going on. I'd be sleeping under the pew the whole time, leaving my pastor thinking he's the most boring preacher ever.)

It seems my affections for God are strongest when at the extremes, either when I'm raging against him, wrestling with him over things I don't understand, or the other extreme when I'm so desperate for his presence and need his comfort, hungering for his kindness and peace. 

That space in between is where the lesser affections dwell, where we convince ourselves it's not so bad, that it's okay to turn our backs and just call a timeout on life. And God. The waters are seemingly calm, the pace easy. So, we start to loosen our grip. We explain away our comings and goings.

And all the while, we feel the indifference and apathy pressing in, the bars getting closer and closer together. We settle for the bits of sunlight and the occasional hunger pang. We decide those things are enough to get by in our walk with Christ.

Why? 

Why does it take the tossing of the storm to keep us tucked close to God? 

Why do we start coasting when it seems the waters are calm? 

Why do we need the heat of the flames to stay pressed next to his presence? 

Why does it take the crucible and the crisis to bend us toward the cross and Christ? 

Because we are made of dust. God knows this. "...For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust" (Psalm 103:14).  He's under no illusions about our sinfulness, our frailness, our weak knees, our feeble arms. 

He knows we prefer the safety of the cage rather than the uncertainty of freedom. He knows we are fickle, feckless creatures. He's not surprised by my ineptness to follow him faithfully. 

On my nightstand, there is a canvas, a painting I made probably over a decade ago. It's embossed with a quote from Lord of the Rings (For those who really care, the original quote comes from book Return of the King, but in the movies, it is scripted into The Two Towers.) It's from a scene where the king of Rohan's niece, Eowyn, encounters Aragorn, the king of Gondor. (They are all on the same side, so it's not a confrontation.) He asks her what she fears, and she says something that has resonated profoundly with me since the first time I saw the movie, "A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire."

Like Eowyn, I, too, fear staying behind bars. To let fear and apathy so take over my life that I settle into the cage, unaware of the prisoner I've become. When use and old age settle in, it's hard to rewind the clock, to go back in time and draw a sword against the indifference that unknowingly becomes so pervasive in our lives. 

That's not how I want my story to end.

Thank God, though, there is one who holds the keys to my freedom, who knows the way out beyond the fear and apathy, the indifference and lesser affections. 

His name is Jesus.

When the storm comes for me, he's walking on water toward me.

When the waters are calm, he's still near, patiently waiting.

When the heat from the flames start licking me, he's there with me in the fire.

When the crucible and crisis seem overwhelming, I can rest in the shadow of Christ and the cross.

I pray to God I do not spend the rest of my life trapped in the cage of lesser affections. (But neither do I want it to always take the extremes to turn toward him.) 

I don't want the chance of doing great deeds to go beyond recall or desire.

I am a daughter of the King, a shield-maiden of his kingdom. 

I do not think that will be my fate.

Because I know the one who holds the key to my cage.

______________________________

Functional updates:

Nearly done with cycle #2! It has been like night and day difference between the first 28-day cycle I had back in September to this one. I've had virtually no symptoms this time around. No nausea, no brain fog, no lethargy, etc. I still totally take a nap every day but I've been amazed at how much better I've been feeling. It was also six months this past week since the craniotomy. I get overwhelmed sometimes at realizing how far God has brought me in that time. Back in April, May, and June, it felt like hell on earth. Back then, I couldn't envision any days that didn't include grief, darkness, and sadness. Oh, me of little faith!

I'm so grateful to have more energy, especially as things heat up with my job heading into November. For those who don't know, I am a conference and event planner, and the conference I co-plan is every November. I have to be on my A-game right now. So, to pull a Hazel Grace Lancaster moment (from the movie The Fault in Our Stars), "I need my [body] to keep its sh-- together."

I meet with my neuro-oncologist this week for my monthly check-in where we review the latest and make decisions about any changes we need to make to the chemo dosages. In November sometime then (just not the week of the conference), I'll have my first scan to see how things have changed with the tumor since my baseline scan in August.

Prayer requests:

• Clarity of mind to do my job and to keep track of the many details I need to between now and the conference
• Continued absence of side effects and symptoms
• Progress toward independence again, being back in my own house, etc.
• Wisdom in how/where to spend my energy
• Renewed/increased affection for God, his word, his presence

On the Edge of What I Can't Escape

If you're just joining the party, I'd recommend reading my first post as a primer, which includes a few disclaimers and housekeeping items of note.
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I went to the hospital earlier this week for a routine pre-op physical. I met with a variety of practitioners - medical assistant, nurse, pharmacist, doctor, and lab tech - and their job was to collectively determine whether my body is physically strong and healthy enough to endure the trauma and rigors of the upcoming surgery.

Here's my CliffsNotes of their conclusions:

"Congratulations! We think you’re healthy enough endure having the unhealthy parts of you removed. We obviously can’t guarantee or say with any sort of certainty to what degree your healthy parts will be able to function after said removal of unhealthy parts, but we’re fairly confident at the end of it all you will, at minimum, still have a pulse. We wish you all the best."

Well, ain't that a bowl of chicken soup for the soul.

Prior to those conclusions, though, I had to wait. The medical assistant came in first to check vitals. Then I waited a few for the pharmacist to go over my medications. He was in and out in fairly short order. But then I waited about twenty minutes for the nurse to go over my medical history. Then I waited maybe another ten minutes for the doc. He left and then I waited some more. Finally, the lab tech came in to draw my blood and sent me on my way.

And each time I waited in between, I felt like I was one step away from transforming into Captain Hook. If you're not familiar with the movie Hook, Captain Hook cannot bear the sound of a ticking clock. When he hears the sound, he might as well be the pirate version of Bruce Banner turning into the Hulk. There's one scene where he hears ticking and basically loses his marbles. 

I sympathize with the man.

The exam room I was in had the loudest ticking clock I have heard in quite some time. I heard with clear distinction the passing of every single second, like the room had its own heartbeat. If the doc was pulling out a stethoscope to listen to my heart beat, I was there to listen to the heartbeat of that room. It took everything in me to stay seated on that exam table because what I really wanted to do was rip that clock off the wall and chuck the batteries out the window. I'm assuming hospitals (or anyone, for that matter) don't appreciate such destruction of their property, so thanks to the restraint of the Holy Spirit and good manners, I refrained from vandalism. I turned neither into Hook or the Hulk.

But I can still hear that ticking clock in my mind because I also hear the same ticking clock over my life, ever so loudly, one second at a time passing by. 

Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. 

And it is that metaphorical clock especially that I want to rip off the wall and chuck the batteries out the window, to silence the reminder of time passing.

But all the while the clock is ticking, I'm waiting. And I'm waiting on the edge of something I can't escape.
In JRR Tolkien's final book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Return of the King, he captures a moment between one of the captains of the guard, Beregond, and Pippin, a hobbit. For you non-Lord of the Rings fans, these two are some of the good guys. (In the movie, the conversation is rewritten to be between Gandalf and Pippin.) In the battle for Middle Earth, the worst is yet to happen. The two are waiting on the eve of the siege of Gondor, one of the last strongholds for the good guys. Pippin turns to Beregond and utters words I have mulled over countless times in the past two months, and I heard it in my mind while waiting in that exam room:

"I am no warrior at all and I dislike any thought of battle; but waiting on the edge of one that I can't escape is worst of all."

I am waiting on the edge of what I cannot escape. There are nine days between me and a drill being taken to my skull and a brain tumor being removed. Nine days between me and the possibility of losing everything.

Trust me, I feel the weight of that wait acutely. That waiting on the edge is worst of all.

But aren't we all waiting on the edge of something, whether for good or for ill? It's just that some of us are more aware of that waiting, that edge, than others. Due to life circumstances, some of us have ears tuned to the sound of that ticking clock. Being confronted by your own mortality will do that to you.

Hanging on my refrigerator is a quote from my all-time favorite sermon by any preacher I've ever heard. I can't tell you the number of times I've listened to it over the years, as it is now over a decade old. Louie Giglio, pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta, preached the series during Advent in 2013, talking through what it means to wait on God, even in the darkest of seasons, using text from Exodus 13:17-21. He said, 

"You were created in the image of the Almighty God and you have a very brief window of time on Planet Earth, a very short opportunity, and in that window you have the chance to use your life to bring glory to God and to fall in love with Jesus. And here's the deal - if you get what you want when you want it, most often neither one of those things is going to happen. But in the waiting - that's where God gets glory, and in the waiting we learn that Jesus is really all we have and all we need."

In this waiting on the edge, I am having to learn yet again that Jesus is all I have and all I need. I am becoming very aware of just how short this window of opportunity on Planet Earth is. Like every other human being that's ever walked this planet, I have spiritual amnesia. I forget God's faithfulness, his kindness, his goodness, his mercy, his justice. I want the waiting to be over, and I want everything to work out just like I think it should. I somehow still want God to get glory and to fall in love with Jesus, but I want to do it without the uncertainty of waiting, without the problem of pain, without the discomfort of sitting in the unknown. 

But God - in his infinite wisdom - did not rig the world that way. Because he sees what I can't see. He knows what I don't know. As my former pastor used to say, "When you can't trace his hand, trust his heart." I can't allow the metaphorical clock over my life tick louder than the drumming heartbeat of God. Like the psalmists, I have to determine that I am waiting on God and God alone.

I'm not waiting for the outcome of surgery.

I'm not waiting for the effectiveness of chemo and radiation.

I'm not even waiting for a miracle.

I'm waiting for the Lord.

And by his grace and his mercy, I will find he is all I have - and all I need.

I'm not writing these words because I hold these words as firm convictions. Like the psalmist, these words are an exhortation for my own unsteady soul. As I heard a worship leader say years ago, "Sometimes we sing because we are sure, but sometimes we sing until we're sure." 

Sometimes I write because I'm sure, but sometimes I write until I am sure. It's usually the latter that is true most often.

So, I will keep telling myself, like the ticking of a clock, I will wait for you, Lord.

I will wait for you.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

I will wait for you.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

I will wait for you.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

I will wait for you.

And in my waiting, may God get the glory and may I fall more in love with Jesus.

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;

     Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive

    to my cry for mercy.

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,

    Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness,

    so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,

    and in his word I put my hope.

I wait for the Lord

    more than watchmen wait for the morning,

    more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord,

    for with the Lord is unfailing love

    and with him is full redemption.

He himself will redeem Israel

    from all their sins. 

- Psalm 130

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Functional updates:

I'll try to carve out space in each post to provide updates on where I am in the process. So, if you're just here for the nuts and bolts, in the future you can slide straight here to the bottom and skip my idle wanderings above.

We're a little over a week from surgery. Some moments lately have felt like the walls are caving in mentally and other moments, I forget entirely I have cancer, even if fleetingly so. 

I started spending a few hours each day back at my own house - working, decompressing, regrouping, napping. It has proven vital to my mental health to have that space and privacy. I love my house and I miss it a lot, so it's been tremendously beneficial to be back in that space, even if for a few small chunks here and there.

It turns out I'm going to have to fire my hair stylist for the foreseeable future. I'm going to lose all my hair to surgery. That prospect has brought with it its own form of grief. As one friend commented, that's probably landing in such a tender spot because it's a "visual representation of the suck." Yes, so much suck right now. And now the suck will be on display for the world to see. 

I'll have a final set of MRIs early on April 15 and surgery then likely the morning of the 16th, but we won't know the official surgery time until the afternoon of the 15th. I will also have a final appointment with the neurosurgeon on the 15th. The surgery is expected to last 2-4 hours, and the goal is to remove as much of the tumor as we safely can without impairing anything. I will then be in the hospital 1-3 days, which I kind of marvel at. I want to be like, "You're going to cut out part of my skull, remove a large tumor, stitch me back together, and then potentially release me back into the wild after a one night stay?! Are you nuts?!" But such is modern medicine. And that's barring no complications. 

Like I mentioned previously, communication will be questionable in the days surrounding surgery, so I make no promises as to when I will be able to post updates for the good of the order. My brother has access to the blog if need be, but we're just going to have to wing it for a period of time, depending on how circumstances play out. Hang with me as we cross this next hurdle and then hit reset on another version of 'normal' life post-surgery.

_________________

PS: Want to leave a comment? If you select "Anonymous" and if you're comfortable, would you mind including at least your first name and last initial directly in the body of your comment? 

Shadows, Sunlight, and Carbonated Holiness

If you're just joining the party, I'd recommend reading my first post as a primer, which includes a few disclaimers and housekeeping items of note.
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Some people might have spent the days and weeks proceeding a cancer diagnosis anesthetizing themselves with the saccharine sweetness of Hallmark or some such escape, or drowning in the abyss of alcohol or any other sort of numbing agent. We are all unique and we all process differently, so I'm in no position to judge. 

But my own personal response?

I made a beeline for balrogs and wargs, orcs and Uruks, hobbits and wizards, "epic battle sequences" and armies of the dead. I've spent the last three evenings rewatching the entirety of The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the umpteenth time, much to my mother's concern and consternation.

I am by nature more at home with the bittersweet, melancholy, and quiet, drawn far more to shadows than to sunlight. (Susan Cain's books Bittersweet and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking have been tremendously helpful in making sense of my own wiring. I highly recommend both.)

My precious friends Jeremy and Emily sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers while I was in the hospital. I drafted a thank you note to them in response, telling them that it was friends like them, friends who have sat in the shadows themselves, that I will need most in this season of life. I will need friends who have traced the contours of their own dark night, memorized its form, studied its stillness. I will need friends who have plastered their faces to the floor, inhaling carpet fibers through their noses, masked their tears in the veil of the shower. I will need Jeremy and Emily, Cindy, Siobhan, Derek, Travis, Venita, Kristina, and countless others who have been well-acquainted with the night, each for their own reasons and in their own seasons.

Because these will also be the friends who will remind me that the shadows won't last. Not forever, at least, and they certainly won't do it in a toxic positivity kind of a way, a mere sending of “positive vibes." But rather in a way that has been tempered and tried by their own crucibles. They will be the Sam's to my Frodo, reminding me that even darkness must pass - and that there is still some good in this world worth fighting for:

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.

My new favorite sweatshirt,
compliments of Cheryl, a fellow Lord of 
the Rings fan

But I also need the friends who will be court jesters, the ones who come with their humor, snark, and occasional irreverence. Despite the catalyst for the resurrection of communication, it has been an absolute delight to hear from people I have not spoken with in years. Former co-workers from my days in Missouri, old friends from my previous church, an assortment of people surfacing from the nooks and crannies of my past lives. 

One such person was Amanda, a former co-worker of mine when we were both grad assistants in Student Life at William Woods University. I hadn't heard from her in years, but we found ourselves texting recently, reminiscing over the ridiculous stunts of fraternity and sorority members gone rogue. I've been a pretty straight-laced person most of my life, and she joked, "Maybe if you had acted more like the monkeys and pumas [our nicknames for the wayward Greek life students among us] in your youth and done alcohol slip and slides, it would have warranted a few ER visits in your 20s. 😂" 

Yes, maybe I should have been more wayward in my youth so that Flash could have been discovered sooner. 

And Cheryl. You're a hot mess in your own right, young lady. But I have worn the sweatshirt you bought me nearly every day since. Because, yes, one does not simply walk into Mordor. Especially if you're prone to seizures and have balance issues. 😆

As much as I need the friends in the shadows, I need the ones in the sunlight, too, coming with their grace, strategic sarcasm, and tactful humor.

As Anne Lamott said in her book Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, "One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day.  Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness."

I will need a lot of carbonated holiness in the days to come. 

(But I will also need not everyone in my tribe to be nuts on the same day.) 

The fact of the matter is that none of you will be able to carry what is before me. 

This particular story, in this particular time, will be mine alone to bear. 

But you can carry me, just as Sam carried Frodo, just as Jesus carries me.

I will need friends of all kinds in the days ahead. 

So, whether you come with your own shadows, sunlight, or carbonated holiness, come.

I will need you all the same.

_______________________

Functional updates:

I'll try to carve out space in each post to provide updates on where I am in the process. So, if you're just here for the nuts and bolts, in the future you can slide straight here to the bottom and skip my idle wanderings above.

I have a follow-up appointment with the neuro oncologist from the hospital next Monday, where we will continue to discuss and review options. I also have an appointment scheduled to get my knee checked out, make sure I didn't jack that up in addition to my brain. It still feels a bit puffy and doesn't quite straighten all the way, but it is decidedly less black and blue these days.

Sleep does seem to be improving, for which I am very grateful. Flash's office hours seem to be diminishing from 11 pm - 4 am to more reasonable hours of maybe 11 pm - midnight, and then a few scattered moments throughout the night.

I'm restricted from driving for a minimum of 3 months, but my parents make for amazing Uber drivers and we've been able to still get out and about on occasion to run errands and pick up things at my own house as needed. My body still doesn't feel entirely like my own, but it seems each day, it grows a tiny bit steadier.

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PS: Want to leave a comment? If you select "Anonymous," would you mind including your name directly in the body of your comment? That way I know who you are!

On Loan from Middle Earth: Do Not Touch

I've decided there are varying levels of fan-dom when it comes to literary and cinematic works.

Let's use The Lord of the Rings as an example, since it is one of my very favorite books and movies.
 
There are those reluctant LOTR fans, the ones who merely partake in reading or watching the trilogy because a friend or family member has coerced them into watching it.  They find, though, they eventually love Sam and Frodo and Aragorn as much as the next person. It just took them awhile to warm up to them.  (I have frequently been the one coercing the reluctant fan.  Except sometimes it backfires and in my zeal and love for the movies, I overwhelm the person and they just wind up more annoyed with me than delighted with the films.)

There are those momentary fans who are obsessed for a fleeting moment with the trilogy, but quickly pass them by and move on to the next book or movie.  They get caught up in the hype of the movie debut and the midnight showing, but rarely return to it after that.  It's a passing fad for them. (My tolerance is low for such people.)

The dwarf who greeted me at the airport,
with a sign that said,
"On loan from Middle-earth.  Do not
touch."  Noted.  

We also have the purists, the ones who so dearly and deeply love the written and cinematic versions that they own all the film scores and all of the extended editions and all of the books and dare anyone to speak ill of either Peter Jackson or J.R.R. Tolkien.  They harbor a pure love and affection for the magic of it all.

Lastly, there are the fans who I deem just all together weird, the ones who arrive at the midnight showing of the movie dressed in Hobbit costumes, complete with hairy feet.  They have watched every minute of every film extra created about the series and they can even tell you what's contained in the appendix of the trilogy, like the fact that Sam would go on to be mayor of Hobbiton for many years after his return from Mt. Doom.

I fall somewhere between the latter two.

I do own the trilogy and all of the film scores and all of the extended editions and I do get a little cross when people do not love them as much as I do.  I currently have a map of The Lord of the Rings hanging on my apartment wall, one of the few things I have hanging. I have lost track of the number of times I have watched the movies.  I even have extra copies of some of the movies still in plastic wrap in the DVD case, even though I have ones already open.  I bought them with the intent that should my first copy ever go bad, I already have another copy on hand.  (And it was on sale super cheap so don't judge.)  My friend, Jonathan, gave me all of his extended edition collections because he was upgrading his own collection of the trilogy to Blu-ray.  I gladly accepted his gift.  I have read the appendix to the trilogy, but I have never showed up in a Hobbit costume anywhere, nor do I have plans to ever do so.  I'm not that kind of fan.

When I would talk about going to Hobbiton and all the things I loved about the books and the movies, my mother would ever-so gently say, "Do you hear yourself?" Which was a polite way of saying, "You do know this is not normal, right?"

Yes, Mom, I know.  

While I was making plans to go to New Zealand, at the very top of the list was to visit Hobbiton.  I figured there was no way I was going to that corner of the world and NOT going to visit the place  It would be a crime not to.  I didn't care what I was going to have to pay or how far I was going to have to go. I was going to figure out how to get there.

So, I did.

I booked a tour through Bush and Beach, which is a great tour company by the way.  The tour included everything, (lunch, pick-up, drop-off, tickets and souvenir voucher) which made my life very easy.  They picked me up in downtown Auckland at 7 a.m. Saturday morning and we drove two hours south to Matamata, where Hobbiton is located.  I got geeked out long before I even got on the tour bus as there was a large stone-looking dwarf greeting me at the Auckland airport.  I could barely contain myself even then.

Me, in front of Bag End

We thankfully arrived in time to be the first tour of the day, which meant few other people were around and the Shire was empty.  The movie set sits in the middle of a working sheep farm, which makes for a picturesque view of the New Zealand countryside.

We were ushered through the set as a group, with the guide pointing out fun facts along the way.  This is Sam's house.  This fence looks a hundred years old, but it's only six-years old, built specifically for the movie and aged accordingly with some sort of goop that includes yogurt.  This is the bridge that Gandalf drives across in the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring.  And this tree above Bag End is actually fake.  And those vegetables in the garden are real.  And this hobbit-hole is built to Gandalf's scale, not Frodo's scale.  And these hobbit-holes don't appear in the movies.  And there are 44 hobbit-holes total.  And the green dragon carving inside the real Green Dragon tavern took two Maori men two hundred hours to carve.  On and on went the details, with me taking pictures of just about everything and walking around in a slightly stunned state because I couldn't believe I was finally walking around Hobbiton.

Which, unfortunately, caused me to feel like I missed the entire thing.

Panoramic shot of Hobbiton, complete with the party tree and the party field

I was so busy taking pictures of this, that and the other that I missed just being there and enjoying it for what it was, this little slice of my favorite books brought to life.  I'm so glad I went and I really did love seeing it all, but I have a small pocket of regret that I didn't stop long enough to really linger and soak it all up.  I mean, hello, I was at the freaking party tree in the freaking party field and I didn't stop long enough to process that I could have my own 30th birthday party underneath the party tree in the party field, just like Bilbo had his eleventy-first birthday there.  I was in such a foul mood later that day after I got back to Auckland that I had to work hard at getting a grip.  Again, not normal.  

I'm trying to look on the bright side and use that as a justification to go back some day.  I plan on marrying somebody with a good deal of spare change so that he will take me on the 14-day tour for our honeymoon, which will only set him back about $6,000 for each of us (not including airfare).

That will qualify him as super fan and my favorite person.  And if I can convince him to build us a hobbit-hole to live in, we'll be set for life.

              

New Favorite Hobby

I think my new favorite hobby may be embossing things.  I have had this painting in my head for months now (probably since last November) and when I tried to hand-write the quote on it, it just didn't look right.  I had never embossed anything before, but I knew in order to get the look right, I would need to figure out how to do it. So I bought some slow-drying ink and embossing powder, thinking I could get away with just using a blow dryer to apply the heat.  Nope.  Needed to find a legit heat gun.  So I've been on the hunt to find a cheap one.  Thank you, JoAnn Fabrics, for having an awesome sale today because I finally found one on sale.  Cost me a whopping $10.  Watched a few how-to videos on YouTube and we are good to go.

I came home and pulled the painting out.  I had already painted the background and the gold lines, it just needed the quote added. I hand-stamped the letters, dumped some embossing powder on it, shook off the excess and applied heat. Voilà.  Okay, so some of my letters and lines are crooked, but in this instance I don't care because I am so jazzed about the final product and the fact that I didn't do something crazy like burn a hole through the canvas on my first attempt.   

This stuff is magic.  And I might be obsessed.  

  

One of my very favorite quotes from The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien originally wrote it in
Return of the King, but when Peter Jackson made the movies, he put it in
The Two Towers.  But who cares.  I love the line either way.

In No Mood for Words

Oddly enough, I have not been in much of a mood to write as of late.  This is a strange occurrence that happens every so often when I am just fresh out of quasi-witty, quasi-profound thoughts or stories to tell.  It can be a bit distressing at times.  I guess you could call it writer's block.  I could probably just call it laziness some days.  I do, however, have pictures and those often more than make up for lack of words.  So, in lieu of words this week, I give you my life recently in photos:

One of the groomsmen in Jeremy and Emily's wedding recommended
I read The Silmarillion by Tolkien.  I'm just wondering how long it will
take me.  The Lord of the Rings trilogy took me about 3-4 months.
Give me about a year and then ask me how far I made it through this book.

Yes, this would be my cousin Christian with Bob Goff at the
Love Does Stuff Conference in Tacoma, Washington last week.
I'm not jealous.

And yes, this would be Christian again with Donald Miller at the
Love Does Stuff Conference.  And again, I am not jealous.  

Christian was kind enough to pick up signed copies of Love Does and
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years for me at the conference, two of
my very favorite books.  The jealousy mildly eased. 

I bought a box set of Passion City Church DVDs.
Thank you, Louie Giglio, for ruining my prayer my life.  I now have no idea
how to pray and I ding myself every time I find myself starting to pray
"Lord, bless this...watch over and protect me...be with me..."  But that's how it should, I suppose.
That I would not mindlessly pray to the God of the universe.
  "Boys Meets Girl" is solid wisdom.  "Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness!"
Haven't watched the others yet.  

My niece Sophie and her dad/my brother Jeremy working on the pulling tractor.
Just by the looks of Sophie that day you would have thought she had spent
more time working on the tractor than the boys did. Grease stains on her
hands. Oil stains down her shirt.  Dirt smudges on her cheeks. Happy as can be.  

I was going back through journals last week. I found this on the very
first page of the first journal I have.  I think we got resolutions 2-4 covered, thankfully.
It's the first and the last ones we are still working on.  Sixteen years later. Obviously
I have never been good at resolutions.  That's probably why I don't make them anymore.

My latest commissioned art project per my sister-in-law's request.
I'd say with 4 kids and baby #5 on the way, that's a fair statement to
make in their household.

Prep list for what, you might ask? Guatemala, silly!  My next overseas
adventure will take me to the hotter-than-blue-blazes location of Guatemala.
I'm headed there in August for a week with a trip my church is taking.  It will be strange
going overseas for only a week.  Packing will be a breeze!

That's all I have for now.  When I find some words worth putting down you'll be the first to know.  Thank you to the 12 people who routinely read this blog and sometimes find me funny.  You do wonders for my self-esteem, even on weeks when I have no words.  

A Home

I remember sitting in the hotel parking lot, staring out the windshield, knowing I would sleep in perfect peace that night, but some woman somewhere was living in utter fear of the night that was to come.  I knew I would go to sleep that night and be free of nightmares.  I knew I would go to sleep and be free of shame.  And I knew some woman somewhere would not have that luxury.

I was spending my Saturday a couple of weeks ago volunteering with an organization called S.O.A.P. - Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution - whose mission it is to distribute bars of soap to local hotels, which list a hotline number a victim can call should she find herself being trapped in human trafficking.  Theresa Flores, the founder of S.O.A.P. and a survivor of human trafficking herself, facilitated the training that morning, explaining to attendees the staggering statistics of human trafficking around the country.  (Yes, it really does happen here domestically.  This isn't some far off third-world problem.  Ohio happens to rank fifth in the nation for human trafficking, with Toledo ranking third.)

The outreach was targeting the Arnold Sports Festival, which was just this past weekend - and it's known to have high amounts of human trafficking.  Any major event where there is a large gathering of people, predominantly men, the numbers spike.  The Super Bowl.  Daytona 500.  The Memorial Tournament.  Republican National Convention.  Democratic National Convention.  Kentucky Derby.  Detroit Auto Show.

But Theresa also explained some of her own story and the stories of many other women she had encountered. And as I was sitting in that hotel parking lot, thinking over all I had learned and thinking of their stories, picturing their faces, J.R.R. Tolkien popped into my head.  Ah, the brilliance of Tolkien at just the right moment.  I thought particularly of the movie The Hobbit.  In the story, Bilbo Baggins is this quiet, unassuming hobbit who really just wants to be left alone to tend his garden, read his books and generally stay far away from adventure.  Through a series of events, he gets wrapped up in this journey with a host of dwarves and Gandalf, the wizard.  The dwarves have lost their land and vast amounts of treasures to the evil dragon, Smaug, and they are on a mission  to get it back.  The dwarves don't really trust Bilbo or really know what purpose he serves on the journey, and at one point their leader, Thorin Oakenshield, questions Bilbo and his motives, to which Bilbo responds:

"Look, I know you doubt me, I know you always have. And you're right... I often think of Bag End. I miss my books, and my armchair, and my garden. See, that's where I belong, that's home. That's why I came back... 'cause you don't have one, a home. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can."

And as I sat there thinking, feeling a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation, the horror that 27 million people around the globe are caught up in human trafficking, I thought, "Who am I to do something?  My life has been relatively easy, relatively pain-free.  I don't know what it's like to be kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery.  I don't know what it's like to be blackmailed and brainwashed, thinking my family will be murdered if I ever speak out and try to fight my way out the situation I find myself in.  I don't know what it's like to have my body tortured and destroyed by those that thirst for control, power and lust."  I mean let's be frank here - I'm a young, white, privileged, well-educated, American woman, who in all honesty has had an easy road to walk.  I know that.  And that's just the lie the devil wants us to buy, the lie that because we can't relate or can't fully change the situation, then we just shouldn't bother at all, that we shouldn't get our hands dirty, that it's someone else's problem. Just be quiet...you don't have a voice in this matter.  What do you know?  He's so good at whispering the lies.  

What a load of baloney.       

Yeah, sometimes I want to be like Bilbo and just honestly and selfishly admit, "You know what?  You're right.  I don't always understand.  And I do think of home.  I like my safety and comfort and self-confidence and peace.  That's where I belong."

But I simply cannot leave it there.

Because there is also that moment when I want to say to these women caught up in trafficking, or to the children I have seen face-to-face so often in Kenya, to look them in the eye and say with a touch of fierceness in my voice, "But that's why I came back - because you don't have that. You don't have a sense of emotional safety, you don't have a sense of comfort, a sense of self-confidence, a sense of peace, a sense of dignity, a sense of home.  It was taken from you.  But I will help you take it back."

I will help you take it back.  I will help you take back your dignity.  I will help you take back your confidence.  I will help you take back everything that was ever stolen from you.  And I'm not just talking about tangible possessions here, I'm not just talking about homes and clothes and finances.  I'm talking about the very things that define us at our core, our very identities.  I'm not saying in a I-am-your-hero-here-to-save-the-day kind of way, but in a way where we enter into other people's lives with grace and humility, as their co-equal, not as their superior.  

As Christ-followers, the hallmark of our lives should be the mission to take back that which is lost or stolen.  It should be our mission to restore the years that the locust have eaten (Joel 2:25).  It should be our mission to give people back their dignity and self-worth - whether orphan, alien, widow, man, woman, child.  It should be our mission to reclaim ground that Satan has claimed for himself, for evil.  We should be rising up in righteous anger far more often than we currently are.  Things like this - injustices like human trafficking - need to rub us the wrong way far more often.  It needs to get under our skin.  It needs to compel us to action, not indifference.

The movie Machine Gun Preacher follows the life of Sam Childers, who took a very rocky road to building an orphanage in war-torn Sudan.  At one point he said, "I'm afraid that someday I'll close my eyes to all of this and make it someone else's problem."

Every day we rub shoulders with people who have had their homes stolen from them, so to speak.  It's your job to make these wrongs your problem.  It's your job to make it right.  It's your job to help them take it back.  Even if you have to slay a dragon or two to make it happen.

The Company You Keep

I am swimming in a sea of suitcases, ziploc baggies, piles of clothes, paperwork, unchecked emails, flight confirmations and fears. It's been a long week. After being in Indianapolis for 5 days for Convention and working about 60 hours and then coming home to no power (at home or the office), it's been a disjointed few days, to say the least. But I'm trying to roll with it as best I can. Right now, all I can see past is making sure my Cheez-its fit somewhere in my suitcase without getting smashed to crumbs. Priorities, people, priorities.

I've debated for awhile on what literature to take with me to Kenya. Thirty hours on a flight or in an airport equals a lot of time to read. The last trip included the final installment of Lord of the Rings. I'm thinking Tolkien will be coming along again on this trip. Maybe a new tradition? Maybe some Tozer, maybe some Vanauken, too. I'm not particularly looking forward to this flight, either coming or going. I generally love traveling by myself, but this time around, I actually rather dread it. It's a lot of time alone and some things are just better shared with others. But you know, I did it once, I guess I'll do it again, right?

They say you are known by the company you keep. I'd say Tozer, Tolkien and Vanauken count as pretty good company. Any other company I should consider packing?

If C.S. Lewis were 40% More Sarcastic...

So I've been reading this book called "Stuff Christians Like" by Jon Acuff, given to me by Jess T. (thank you!) and let me tell you, there's some seriously funny (no oxymoron intended) stuff in that book.

Here's what the back of the book says to give you the jist of what it's is about:

Sometimes, we fall in love on mission trips even though we know we’ll break up when we get back.

Sometimes, you have to shot block a friend’s prayer because she’s asking God to bless an obviously bad dating relationship.

Sometimes, you think, “I wish I had a t-shirt that said ‘I direct deposit my tithe’ so people wouldn’t judge me.”

Sometimes, the stuff that comes with faith is funny.

This is that stuff.

Jonathan Acuff’s Stuff Christians Like is your field guide to all things Christian. Like a satirical grenade, Acuff brings us the humor and honesty that galvanized 730,000 online readers from 209 countries in a new portable version. Welcome to the funny side of faith.

I've followed the blog for awhile and always found it amusing and the book is equally amusing. I probably find it so entertaining because he says the things I either say anyway or have at least thought to myself when it comes to Christians, church, God, and whatever else belongs in that boat of faith. My favorite line in the whole book was in regards to what an alternative title to SCL could have been: "Stuff Christians Like: The Book C.S. Lewis Would Have Written if He Had Been 40% More Sarcastic and 100% Less Dead."

I have no idea why I found that so stinking hysterical - maybe because I just got done reading a book not too long ago about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien and have those two authors on the brain. Who knows. Nevertheless, if you have a moment, pick up the book - and if nothing else, check out his blog. And laugh at the funny side of your faith.

Current Reading List

I realized I've got stacks of books scattered all over my apartment, all of them with bookmarks in various places, and various sticky tabs sticking out from some pages, indicators of quotes to write down or profound thoughts. I just love books. I have this horrible fear that some day they will stop printing books and everything will be electronic. Maybe that explains my subconscious desire to buy books nearly every time I'm in a book store or at the local public library book sale. I like to touch and feel and underline and reread - and I supposed I could do that with an electronic version of a book, but it just doesn't compare.

I subscribe to a weekly e-mail from Cardus and they recently had an article entitled "The Wake for Printed Books." One particular section stood out regarding books andtheir potential demise:

And I'm a lover of books, too, unaccustomed to making a body/soul distinction where the printed word is concerned. The book is the object and its contents, inseparable in my mind. I dwell in a house lined with shelves, most of them bowed by the weight of their printed content. Beautiful books and ugly ones. Read and unread. Objects of comfort, outrage, derision, admiration. Some pristine and others scarred. Some bound in leather, some in paper (at least one in shagreen). Prized and cheap side by side. Tangible things, each with a history. I can tell you where they came from, where they've been. The ones I sought out and the ones I discovered unexpectedly. The ones kept under glass in dark bookstores and, all too often, the ones overnighted from the clean, well-lit warehouses of Amazon. All of that will disappear when the book's body does.

Perhaps nothing can stop the change. Perhaps nothing should. As at the wake for the dead friend, that's not the point. Sure, he was sick. Sure, we all saw it coming. In a way, we're even relieved that his suffering is finally over. But don't expect us not to miss him. And don't expect us not to pity you for never having the chance to know him. Those of us who did will never forget.

So to honor my love for books and to stem the tide of those who love the electronic versions, I encourage you to go to the local library and pick up these bodies of books, some of my favorites and also some current reads:

Current reads:
King Raven Series, by Stephen Lawhead (the Welsh version of Robin Hood, very good read)

Citation - In A Class by Himself, by Phil Georgeff

Lord of the Rings Series, by J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien is a literary genius - his books are so good I nearly want to cry while reading them)

The Hole in Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns (convicting and inspiring in light of upcoming travels to Africa)

Favorites:
A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken (hands down, my all-time favorite book)

Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella (this book is just plain magical)

"The Beast in the Jungle," by Henry James (my favorite short story, language is a little dense but profound story nonetheless)

So enjoy some good books this summer. Enjoy the feel and smell of the pages. Savor the printed word.

"A room without books is like a body without a soul." - Cicero

Sad the stories had to end...

So I just got done reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy and I'm wondering why in the world I didn't read these books sooner. Tolkien is a brilliant writer and gifted storyteller. That's not a news flash or anything, as people have known that for decades, but there is always something greatly satisfying when you find out for yourself why some authors are such geniuses. I think I zoomed through all 1200 pages in about two weeks or so - and considering I've got two jobs and going to classes two nights a week, I think that's decent timing.

As I was reading, I think I was just so utterly captivated by the vast creativity and imagination of Tolkien. His characters are so uniquely defined in the book - but always honest and real. He captures the little idiosyncrasies about each without explicitly saying what the character is about. Tolkien is a show, don't tell kind of author. He crafts the story in such a way that allows the reader to get lost in what is happening, the struggle in good and evil, the importance of relationships, and the ultimate victories to be shared.

I think my favorite character is Sam - both in the movies and I came to love him even more in the books. His fierce loyalty and his ever watchful eye over his "master" were endearing, something that I wish were modeled more often in the lives of real men. He's quite possibly one of the most unselfish characters in literature (not that I've read every book known to mankind to say without a doubt that he is, but I would imagine that he's got to be at the top of the lists of unselfish characters in the history of storytelling). He was always putting the needs of Frodo above his own, always seeing that Frodo was able to eat, rest, and complete the journey set before him. I loved his line at the end (I know it's in the movie and I'm pretty sure it's in the book), "I can't carry the ring for you, but I can carry you!" What a fighter - compassionate and strong, ever focused on what is ultimately at stake.

Aragorn is another character that I love - maybe just because of his portayal of what I think masculinity ought to be on some level. He's a man's man. I think in some ways he reminds me of King David in the Bible - that tender warrior, a man not afraid to fight for his land and people and what he believes in, but also gentle and tender in his dealings with those around him. He leads with the integrity of his heart and isn't afraid to make some unpopular decisions. He's a character that can be easily respected.

And despite my decision not to watch TV and movies for the summer, I did decide to watch the movies after reading the books. The movies are some of my favorite movies ever and I didn't want to wait until August to watch them all. So I dug the TV out of the closet and set up shop. Parts of my DVDs are messed up so I had to skip entire sections of the trilogy, but after I got done watching them all, I think my affection for the story deepened even more. It's just so stinkin' brilliant! And Peter Jackson - what a marvelous job of giving life to a story that was already leaping off the pages. He certainly did the books justice in my opinion.