A Modest Proposal

I try and avoid blog rants, but I just couldn't today.
Christmas-time craziness has officially begun at the mall, and my normal 20 min drive to work took substantially longer due to the massive influx of holiday shoppers.
Said shoppers, I have only three humbles requests:
(1) When the sign says "keep moving," just go ahead and do that.
(2) If you have a tiny car, please do not pull all the way into the space. You lure me into a false sense of excitement over finding a spot to park, only to squash my dreams.
(3) Please try to do your shopping at a normal time of day ... not 11:00pm. Or at least don't be needy that late at night.
That is all.

Tree of Codes

I am a book dork ... most of you know that. And I know several readers of this blog share that affinity. Thus, I have to share the book that I am currently most excited about.
I have been a fan of Jonathan Safran Foer ever since reading "Eating Animals". Now, all you vegetarian-haters, don't go gettin your panties in a twist and write him off. That book is fabulous, even if you have absolutely no interest in a meatless lifestyle. It is not the dry, morality-wielding literature that characterizes most vegetarian writing. It is funny, creative, philosophical, anecdotal, well-rounded and engaging. I have yet to read his other two books, "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Load and Incredibly Close," but I saw that Barnes and Noble is carrying a pretty hardcover edition with both titles in it (good Xmas present ... I'm just sayin').
But he recently released his newest work, "Tree of Codes." I am thrilled at the prospect of reading it, because it is not an entirely original piece of work, but a story fashioned out of words from "Street of Crocodiles" by Bruno Schulz. I was reading about it online, and came across Foer's own description of the task --

Working on this book was extraordinarily difficult. Unlike novel writing, which is the quintessence of freedom, here I had my hands tightly bound. Of course one hundred people would have come up with one hundred different books using this same process of erasing words from "Street of Crocodiles" in order to carve out a new story, but every choice I made was dependent on a choice Bruno Schulz had made. On top of which , so many of Schulz's sentences feel elemental, unbreakdownable. And his writing is so unbelievably good, so much better than anything that could conceivably be done with it, that more often than not I simply wanted to leave it alone.

For about a year I always had a printed manuscript of "Street of Crocodiles" with me, along with a highlighter and red pen. The story of "Tree of Codes" is continuous across pages, but I approached the project one page at a time: looking for promising words or phrases, trying to involve and connect what had become my characters, and thinking, too, about how the page would look. My first several drafts read more like concrete poetry, and I hated them.

At times I felt that I was making a gravestone rubbing of "The Street of Crocodiles," and at times that I was transcribing a dream that "The Street of Crocodiles" might have had. I have never read another book so intensely or so many times. I've never memorized so many phrases, or, as the act of erasure progressed, forgotten so many phrases. Tree of Codes is a small response to a great book. It is a story in its own right, but it is not exactly a work of fiction, or even a book.

I am astounded by the creativity of this task, but the relentless commitment to his artistic vision is what really arrested me. I am sure someone else has thought of creating a story in this way, but surely shrugged it off as too daunting and impractical a task. But Foer was not easily discouraged, and invested the whole of his mental and artistic energies into something wildly new and wonderful.

I haven't even read it, but I am pretty sure the entire world should read it -- the cutouts in the pages seem an inspriation to look at the world differently, to scheme drastic and undoable dreams, and then offer the world your gifts by doing those very dreams.

Hairs

Apparently I have one of those 'familiar faces,' because people are always telling me that I look like someone they know -- sometimes celebrities, sometimes their friends and family I have never met, and once I even got compared to someone's brother (sad day).
But ever since I got my hair cut short, I have gotten compared to a slew of celebrities who have one thing in common ... short hair. I look nothing like some of them, but apparently my haircut is now my defining feature.
And after Emma Watson cut her hair off in defiance of her long-standing Hermoine role, I was just waiting for someone to compare me to her. And, yesterday, it happened.
Here are some pics of people that I supposedly look like:

Don't get me wrong ... I am flattered! All of these women are beautiful, but I don't look anything like Carey Mulligan or Keira Knightly. Demi Moore in "Ghost" was by far my favorite comparison (thank you, random stranger at Barnes and Noble) because it is probably her worst look ever. And apparently I am rockin' it.

So Far

I have been married for 1 whole month as of yesterday! It feels like a lot longer than that (probably due to the craziness that is my life), but not in a bad way. Our love is comfortable, and it just feels like the comfort that comes with time. Josh and I had a mini-celebration last night that included lipstick & heels, dinner at the Geisha House in Atlantic station, fudge & a giant caramel apple, some store browsing and an in-bed showing of our wedding video. Turns out our little ring-bearer, Cal, was the best part of our wedding. He was just runnin' around in his own little world, eating sand and hanging out while we were getting married. Other revelations that came from watching our wedding video:
1. My mom dances by running in place. Awesome.
2. We picked the most ridiculous song we could think of for our first dance, and I am not sure anybody caught on.
3. My bridesmaids were beautiful and incredibly attentive during the ceremony, while Josh's groomsmen were antsy and distracted. Women, 1. Men, 0.
4. I like the way my left side looks better than my right side. Don't judge.
5. My sister is really pretty, and my dad is "smooth" (according to Josh).
6. Joel's dancing is the best.thing.ever.
7. The day really was as perfect as I remember!
Yesterday at lunch, my sweet friend Lauren asked what the biggest adjustments have been. I told her that waking up to Josh hocking loogies (spelled according to urban dictionary) in the shower has been quite the adjustment, but that's about as bad as it gets. My serious answer to her question was adjusting to being totally honest and forthcoming ... not that we kept secrets before, but trying to make my thought-life an open book has been quite the challenge. But it is a joy to be known more fully, and to love him more deeply than I ever thought possible.
Here are some little insights into our oh-so-fresh marriage:
- we have developed this habit of getting back in bed for a morning snuggle after we have already gotten ready ... love it!
- because Josh just lives his life with intensity, we now approach grocery shopping with a divide-conquer mentality, racing to leave the store as fast as possible. This is quite the adjustment for me, who loves to mosey through the aisles.
- when I read at night, Josh makes me tell him what is happening in the book and then he falls asleep (PS for Josh -- Robert isn't dead!)
- every night, we take a few minutes to communicate WHY we love each other. For example, one night Josh told me he loves me because I leave a half-empty coffee cup in the same place every day. I never thought anyone would appreciate this behavior ... Josh is the best.
- I have started reading this blog called Today's Letters (thanks Kim!), and I was so excited to find out that they share in one of our traditions (click HERE to read about it). Some sweet little old lady gave us a glass biscuit (biscuit used in the old-school sense meaning cookie) jar for a wedding present, and little does she know what we are using it for.
In short, being married is the jam. It miraculous, really. Can't wait for the days, months and years to come!

In other news, I have come across the word egregious twice already this morning. I think that is a divine nudge to learn the definition. Here you go:

1.extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an egregious mistake; an egregious liar.

2.Archaic . distinguished or eminent.

Too Long

So Josh and I are sharing a car these days, which means I arrived at work this morning exactly 2 hours before I wanted to be here. I have plenty of meaningful things that I could do, but I have been putzing around on the internet as a metaphorical middle-finger aimed at my undesired early arrival. In all all my world-wide-web wanderings this morning, I ended up reading some random blog posts.
Somehow, it had never occurred to me that blogging is a strange concept. I mean, I read the blogs of two people I have never met in my entire life, and I know intimate details of their goings-on. Weird.
And yet somehow that revelation left me wanting to blog. So here I am.
As I gallivanted through my blog page, I realized that I have been epically terrible about posting. Especially since these past few months have been some of the most important of my life! I wedded my forever man on October 16th, an event which precipitated some of my greatest joys and frustrations. Sorry, my blog-reading-friends, that I kept you in the dark during those days.
During that time, I kept wishing that the wedding was over -- and, trust me, I am glad that my mind is no longer plagued with crafty to-do lists. But regular life has not been the utopia I imagined.
This has nothing to do with Josh, however -- being married to him is the best thing ever! Every time we have to part, it hurts a little bit. I love being one with him.
But most other things about my life are less elating.
But God, as usual, is using his tricksy little schemes to teach me things. Don't worry -- more blogging will come.
But I just wanted to let you know that I am alive, and that my blog has a new address!

Long Time Coming

So it appears that I haven't blogged on here in two months -- for those few, faithful friends who read this, I apologize. I have done a minimal amount of blogging on an alternate blog (not sure I am ready to share those musings with the world), which is why I have been neglectful here.
To be honest, I don't even have anything important to blog right now -- I was just listening to Ray LaMontagne yesterday, and I just had to share my revelation about his voice.
His voice sounds like a campfire -- heated, crackly, and fed by woods that have seen seasons and stories. His voices creates shadows, creating a perfect palate for myths of simple heroes and ethereal maidens. His voice makes me crave flannel, romance and profundity. He makes my heart ache for a log-cabin retreat with my forever man, reading Tolkien and snuggling close.
That's some powerful music.

Side note -- In the Wikipedia article on Ray LaMontagne, it says he spent much of his time reading fantasy novels in the forest. I love that. It makes me feel better about singing oldies in the corner of the playground at recess. Maybe awesome adults are the inevitable result of weird children :)

Offering

My chronic headaches have good days and bad days. That is not to say that their intensity varies much, but my attitude towards them is consistently undulating. Yesterday must have been a bad day, because the subject of my headaches weaseled its way into my subconscious. It had been a very long week, and I barely made it home and into my bed. Much to my chagrin, I didn't immediately fall asleep. Instead, I found myself in the chasm between wakefulness and deep sleep ... rest, we'll call it. And I had a dream ... not a day dream, or a regular dream, but a rather a cloudy vision, a love-child of my exhaustion and frustration.
I dreamt that I had been diagnosed with brain cancer and given 4 weeks to live. Don't worry -- I am not a hypochondriac nor have I given in to a sick fatalism. This is a concept I have entertained once or twice before, though -- years of headaches affords one the time to chase diagnostic rabbit trails. And I have already decided exactly what I would do in just such a scenario -- (1) I would marry Josh immediately if I hadn't already, and (2) I would jump on an airplane and head for Calcutta. There is a place in my heart that has always longed for India, and I have always esteemed Mother Teresa's work among the poor. Facing death myself, I can't imagine a more beautiful place to be than ministering in her home for the dying. To hold someone closely, to let your tears run together, to mourn the loss of this world while looking with expectation to the next ... I would want to bring hope to those who need Jesus so deeply.
In this dream, I had already gone to India, and when I came back to Atlanta, the leadership at 12Stone gave me the opportunity teach that Sunday morning. This especially was a hallucination, because interns will always look from afar at the mainstage platform (which is just fine with me). But it is perhaps a notion worth entertaining -- you are on the brink of life eternal, and you are given a platform to share whatever wisdom God has given you. What would you share?
In my dream, I taught on making your life an offering. A familiar topic perhaps, but with my physical body failing, being lain on a metaphorical alter, it was poignant. Or perhaps it was just awesome because it was MY dream :)
I have spent some time today meditating on what it means for my life to be an offering, and (interestingly enough), my dream sermon ministered to my conscious heart. The reason I think my deathbed ministry in India would be so powerful is because of the coexistence my pain would afford. In other words, who better to minister to the dying than one who is dying herself?
I know that suffering is a powerful tool for personal sanctification, but I am coming to see that is also a weapon to be wielded on behalf of the Kingdom. We are called to love broken souls -- those who are mourning, those who are wounded, those who are enduring the deepest and most terrifying pains. When I too have faced those deeps and endured only through the strength of Christ, I am a more capable, loving, patient, merciful and expectant minister. Our suffering allows us to speak into the lives of those who are suffering too.
As I pulled up to work this morning, I noticed two things: (1) my manager hadn't arrived yet, so I couldn't get in and (2) one of the cleaning ladies was waiting by the door. I wanted to just sit in my car ... I was too tired to conjure up small talk. But I felt a familiar leading, and I reluctantly got out of my car. I sat next to her -- we never exchanged names, and we existed in an awkward silence with a few comments about the weather and such. She asked me if I've always lived in Georgia, and our conversation gained momentum from there. In just a few minutes of sitting with this woman, I found out that her sister had been murdered in Baltimore while resisting rape, and that she had moved to the south to escape that painful memory. She used to work at Wal-Mart, but had to quit her job when a several ton object fell on her son at work, shattering his pelvis and rendering him helpless while recovering. She didn't make much eye contact with me ... but I did see her eyes fill with tears as she explained his frustration with his new-found handicap. She is hurting ... deeply. Her son is hurting ... deeply.
My headaches are a minuscule affliction when compared to hurts such as those. But it is precisely the work of God in the midst of my pain that gives me a place to start with those who are hurting. So I prayed a dangerous prayer at church this morning while the room filled with exclamations of His holiness ... I prayed that God would increase my pain and brokenness if it will increase His kingdom. I am not a spotless offering ... my sins and pains have blemished and maimed me. And, with all honesty, my heart longs desperately for the day of my perfection, when I am given hind's feet to run on the high places with Him. But the blameless sacrifice has already been given, and my broken and contrite heart will not be despised. And I trust it will be used.