Take that

My sister gave me my birthday presents this weekend. My birthday was in January. That's all cool, though, because I'm probably the worst gift giver ever, so I expect a little karma here.

One of the books she got me is awesome. It's by Kevin DeYoung, and it's called "Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will OR How to Make a Decision without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Impressions, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, Etc."

I'm only halfway through, and I'm loving it. For anyone who's ever struggled with "finding God's will," I super recommend this book. I know it's put some sizable dents in lies I believe about God and His will. And for anyone who's ever felt stressed about finding God's will, who's felt a burden of discovery on them, DeYoung's points are liberating.

One of my fav passages so far (and there are a few of them) -- "Just to be clear, God does not hide things from His people. There are lots of scenarios we don't know, lots of mysteries we can't figure out. There is a will of decree that is not usually known to the people of God (Deuteronomy 29:29). But He is not trying to confuse us or hide truth. In the conventional view of God's will, however, we get the impression that He not only hides His will from us, but He then expects us to find it. So we obsess over God's will of direction, eventually getting frustrated with God for not showing us what He wants. We end up disappointed with ourselves or angry with God because we can't seem to figure out how to find God's will for our lives (46)... We walk by faith, not by sight. We risk because God does not risk. We walk into the future in God-glorifying confidence not because the future is known to us but because it is known to God (48)."

So if you're interested in God, His will, or theology in general, pick up this book. If only because he has some hilarious things to say about relationships too. Or feel free to disagree with me.

And yes, I did decide what I'm doing next year. :)

My (Not so Subtle) Grand Plan

First of all, my grand plan will exclude buses as a form of public transportation. Buses will be outlawed to be replaced by transporters.

Second of all, you have to have a sense of humor to read this. Otherwise, we can't be friends.

Just kidding! That was my first joke. Why am I *not* a comedy TV writer?

Last night I went into the City for a University of Michigan Entertainment Coalition (UMEC, thank goodness) writers' group. It was very nice, and I look forward to getting more involved. There were five of us there, two actors, an editor, and a freelance writer. And the elementary aide. None of us brought work to read and discuss, so we talked a lot about our ideas. We talked a lot about mine first.

Let me just say something. I love Keys, but it is probably the most blatantly Christian thing I will ever right.

Until I get the rights to remake The Robe.

Everyone has an agenda when they write. Everyone has an agenda when they do... anything, really. I was going to slip the Gospel into movies while passing out free Koolaid with the popcorn. And Keys... well, Keys really lays it out there. No sort of ambiguous talk about forgiveness or redemption or unconditional love. I mean, it's about the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life. And how we're all sinners. You know, grade school theology.

And for some reason, some how, maybe they were just all very polite, or maybe they never read the pages (which I understand and did reciprocate. It was senior year, guys.), no one really called me on it during the master class I wrote it in. Prof J would enter his two cents, and sometimes there would be light hearted jokes about it (light hearted jokes about religion, any religion, are the BEST. They just make me feel like everyone's more comfortable and cool with people and their faiths. That could just be part of my neurosis.), but I never felt so acutely aware of the analogy that is Keys.

The UMEC group was though. As I described my story more and more (btw, have I ever mentioned how much I HATE summarizing? And how I really need to work on my pitch skills?), it got trickier and trickier to explain the plot without sounding like the next Left Behind novelist. I mean, I could have just said, "Aw, listen, why are we bothering with all this middle-man movie making business anyway? Let's just cut to the chase --"

Being an already awkward person, I was getting more and more uncomfortable as I tried to straddle this line of being honest and not sounding like a crazy person (that has a whole 'nother spiritual dilemma that I will spare you). I felt very clumsy. I didn't want anyone to dismiss me out of hand for anything I said. That's why I was so appreciative when Cool Freelance Writer Girl helped me out.

Cool Freeland Writer Girl: So wait a minute. Are you trying to do what Gospel music did, when they went from singing all hymns and stuff to the cool music Kirk Franklin and other singers did?

Me (dancing on the table): Yes! COOL!

Ok, I didn't really shout like that, but I definitely felt a lot better. It was a weird interaction because I don't know anything about her, about what she believes or anything. She might hate Gospel music and Kirk Franklin. She might think I'm completely crazy. But I do think she knows that I'm not going to attack her with a pamphlet and a WWJD bracelet.

I haven't really thought a lot about what it's going to mean to be a Christian in this industry. I think I'll be in the minority. I think I sorta had a laissez faire attitude about it before and that it might be more difficult than I originally counted on. But the Gospel is about unconditional love and forgiveness and reconciliation with God. And stories that are filled with love and forgiveness and peace -- well, you can say what you want, but I think I'm going to keep writing them anyway.

coconut creme cupcakes

I can't sleep.

I'm lying in bed at home (and by this home I mean my parents' house), listening to Coldplay and Damien Rice and over thinking. I think it's culture shock. Too many people growing up, leaving home and coming home, going on adventures, doing nothing. I stood on the beach yesterday and felt like I was fifteen years old. Today I felt old enough to start thinking about settling down and whispering suggestions about starting a family. I teeter every time I lose my sense of balance. I've had so many perfect moments in the past couple of weeks. Finding out how to show I care about the one I secretly care about, toasting to friends and true love and difficult times around the camp fire, wandering up and down the beach of the boundless lake with the most wonderful people, flying into the City at night so close to the buildings I could practically see the people in Times Square. Finally watching the season two finale of the Office.

And this is a sort of perfect moment, too. It's awkwardly unsettling, this quiet moment when I'm just thinking about life, because despite all the perfect moments, you have to deal with all the imperfect ones as well. And, maybe I'm just a little bit strange, but thinking about these things conjures pictures in my mind, not of my own life but of some other one, someone else's story, and the stories I make up are about me but they're about someone else. I used to think it was a great insult to say that you can see the author in a story, see how they've inserted themselves. I still think there takes a certain amount of craftsmanship to conceal your tracks, but now I believe that the stories with the most heart are often written when they come from the author's true heart, from the experiences and joys and pains held there, the invisible story teller whispering, "Don't you see the truth in this? Don't you feel it yourself?" I believe the reason that I love The 4:05 so much is because I wrote it trying to answer a question I was struggling with at the time and the answer I found there gave me hope. And as I lay here, unable to sleep, thinking about the big questions in my life right now is the same as thinking about the stories I would like to write. They are inexorably tied.

I was watching the director commentary of Walk the Line on the plane today, and writer/director James Mangold talks about how the characters and the actors are just real people, how beautifully the sincerity of the story plays. I've hardly written anything, really. But I think that the stories I will write over the next fifty years will be about real people as well. They will be about Real Me. Maybe, if I spin them with enough craft, you will see how they are about Real You, too.

As my dear H. D. Martin once said, sometimes there is only truth - and there is beauty yet in that.

I looked really chic in the coffee shop --

-- until I pulled my computer out of a plastic Old Navy bag. My friend once called me a rich hobo, because I carry my really nice computer around in a plastic bag. I swear, I'm going to go buy a proper carrying case tomorrow.

I wanted to post "Swallowed in the Sea" lyrics, but I just posted them in the past few months. So why don't you just go listen to that song for a couple of minutes and then come back?

In feminist film theory class today, we talked a lot about how the "happy ending" for women in films most often comes in the form of a stable heterosexual relationship, even for women who are portrayed as independent and anti-patriarchal. We used the example of Sex and the City, about how the entire show is supposedly about these four women with fabulous girl friendships, fabulous shoes, and fabulous independence from men. But at the end, they all end up in some sort of "satisfying" heterosexual relationship. It started to worry me at first, because, not being in a relationship right now and not having marriage on my list of immediate post-graduation plans like my best friends (I really am *so* excited for their weddings - they're almost too far away), I've had to think about my life plans in a slightly different way than I used to. I want to make sure that what I do after college is something that I'm passionate about, something that I feel is in God's will, something that makes a difference. Just because I'm not in a relationship doesn't mean that I need to feel like I'm missing anything - but I think many girls fall into the trap of thinking about their lives as what they do - until they get married. As if post-graduate life is a happy, eventful, but empty Act II until they finally meet Prince Charming, have their fairy tale wedding, and live in their happy ending.

So we're talking about this in class, and even though we talk quite a lot about how women are defined as "the other" in relation to men and how we're the dependent in this patriarchal society, for some reason today more than other days I was seized by this sudden fear that I would define my life by the waiting for and hopefully marriage to some amazing man (he will be amazing, just in case you were wondering). And my defensiveness kicked in - I don't want my life's happiness or importance or fulfillment to be defined by anyone, not a man especially, even he will be my husband. I don't want to feel like my pre-marriage years were any less fulfilled because of the lack of a man. And my independent nature started to question whether I want to be held back at all by any relationships, so as not to define a life well lived by the influence of anybody else -

And this is where something else kicked in. It isn't having a man, really, that makes life worth living - but it is the relationships. Yeah, they're scary and they mean being vulnerable and I can try to get defensive about needing them, but I do. I can't even imagine a life where I didn't have the close relationships I have now. One of the main reasons my life is so different than it was a year and a half ago is because of the openness and intimacy I've had with my friends. Everywhere I look and everything I've learned has reinforced that loving others is a secret key to life. More than my career. More than my comfort. More than my independence.

So yes, I do want my life to be defined by others. By their needs, by their love, by their friendships, by their lives.

Still, until that last love story is written, I'm not living any less.

Why are there strawberries on the Equal sweetner packs?

"Brighter than Sunshine" is my new favourite song

I'll slice your life...

One week up at camp this summer, we got into a discussion about difficult times during Bible Ex. My kids would pretty much unanimously agree that God would allow hard times to happen to a person, but they would say that He would *cause* a person to go through bad times. I tried to point out the flaw in this logic. If God knew that going through hard times would make a person better, and so allowed them, why would He not cause them if He knew the result would be good? When I asked another staff members what they thought, I found they would initial take the same position as my campers, though sometimes discussion would show they thought God might cause difficult times, though not trials that were the result of sin because God couldn't associate with evil.

In C.S. Lewis's book "The Problem of Pain," he talks a lot about God's love and how He can and will use pain to make us become more Christlike. And part of me just wants to accept an image of God who doesn't force us to go through hard times, but who simply uses the hard times we put ourselves in or the trials we are pressed with to create good in our lives. But really, I can't believe that. It doesn't make logical sense, for one. I would hope that a God who would allow a difficulty to happen to make me a better person would also cause it if He needed to. But more importantly, I can look back in my life and see how He dismantled it just to put it back together again. I think if God hadn't intervened, things would have gotten even worse in my life. It's like, some people think of how parents will have "tough love" for their children. But it's more perfect than that. Hard times are ok as long as you choose to believe that.

It's not necessarily an easy choice to make.

Why is pink lemonade pink?

Once upon a time (aka last Monday), I was sitting in a meeting, and the leader was talking he had heard about one family, more specifically the children of the family, who were not able to leave the church because of the love and faith they had found there. He said there was no way they could not be a part of it because of the way the church family had adored them and nurtured them as they grew up. I think these were pastor's kids, which is an even bigger accomplishment.

It was a thought provoking thing to hear, especially in light of what we had been taught the day before. S., during the service, had told us that the church should be the HOPE of the WORLD. That when people are asked what they think will be a source of help and hope, they should be able to say the Church of Jesus Christ, but that even Christians don't believe that. He talked about how the church was the only institution that Jesus founded, and that Jesus asked his disciples to love each other and take care of each other. And quite simply, that we as Christians, need to love the church. It's hard; I think often we don't think about loving the church. But don't we want it to be a place that people have a hard time leaving because of the love they've found there? Don't we want it to be the hope of the world? Don't we want it to be the place and the people that Jesus meant for it to be? What would it take to get us to commit to that?

Sometimes I wish I'd get into trouble just so that someone could rescue me.

I was hanging out in Borders for a little while the other week, and I picked up this book randomly called Post Secret. Inside were photos of postcards hundreds of people had made. On it they wrote a secret. Some were funny, some were shocking, and some were eerily familiar.

A couple days later I stumbled across this blog via Facebook (one of the reasons I love Facebook...): http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ It's the Post Secret guy's blog, and every week he posts new post cards people have sent him. He even holds events, which I would totally go to if there were one in our area.

So, I started wondering about what my post secret post card would look like if I made one. What it would say on it. And I had to figure out why this was so fascinating for me. Everyone has secrets, and usually, even when you learn someone's secrets, it doesn't affect you the way that these post cards resonated with me. And I think I have figured out why I am so enchanted with the post secret idea besides the fact that I love finding out secrets and I'm trying to work on better honesty in my relationships and life. I think it's because that when someone tells you a secret, usually what they tell you is the facts. When I was little, I did this. When you were gone this happened. Sometimes I think this. But these postcards don't just tell you what happened. They tell you how these secrets have changed the people's lives. How they're part of a person's psyche. What a person thinks about. These secrets could change someone's life. One of my favorites is a post card with a receipt stapled to it, and all it says is "If I don't get rid of this receipt, I'll call the number on the back and regret it."

There's this extreme honesty in these post cards that I don't feel even when I'm talking to people about secrets. You can still feel yourself or them hanging back from telling you exactly what happened. And giving you the facts of what happened, that's an easy way out because you're saying your secret, but you're not revealing it. But to say how it's affected you, why you did it, to show how it's changed your life or, in some cases, hasn't, the ways it's wrecked or helped your dreams. I don't know. Maybe someone else can say why these post secrets are so different.

I think I'm going to start writing my secrets down the way these post cards are written. I picked up my journal again for the first time since the summer. We were watching a movie in Spanish, and there's a boy who's an aspiring writer who's killed in a car crash. And his mother starts to read his journal. Someone is a completely different person in what they write, sometimes. I looked back at a couple of things I wrote over the summer, but I didn't really read a lot. There was one thing I wrote down that I wrote that was so blatantly truthful, it surprised even me. Sometimes I wonder, when I'm gone and I've left them to whoever, my children maybe, what they'll think when they read them. I got to know someone through reading what they left behind. Will they be surprised? Will they wish they had known me better? Will I make them feel like it's ok to be as broken as ever is but no one ever says they are?

Do you think everyone wants to know the truth? I don't think so...

As per my sister's suggestion...

The best of evangelicalism didn't prepare me for this struggle.
By Charles Colson with Anne Morse

Faith isn't really faith if we can always rely on the still, small voice of God cheering us on. A prominent pastor once told me he experienced the Holy Spirit's presence every moment. Contemporary evangelicals regard this as maturity. Perhaps it is—or maybe it is a form of presumption. True faith trusts even when every outward reality tells us there is no reason to.

Romans 8:18
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

2 Corinthians 5:7
We live by faith, not by sight.

Stolen from Emily Blake's blog

"If I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there."

"Truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy.
"So you have sorry now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you."

- John 16:20, 22

Yesterday was trouble. Friday night, and I'm utterly exhausted in every way. And quite randomly, at a time when I was minding my own business (aka being self abosrbed), a lady I know comes up to me and says, "It's alright. You'll get through it. We've all been there, and it all comes out alright in the end." I was stunned, because I hadn't shared anything with her (though she could probably witness the struggles that happen with the children.) This woman has been through more than I could ever dream of enduring; It was encouraging, because sometimes I can be a great fatalist.

AND I got to talk to one of my best friends for the first time since being in England. She's amazing. She even let herself be late to a party by 45 minutes just to be there for me. :)