Effortless Effervescence

Read my pre-review warm-up here.

I didn’t believe in Jesus as my literal savior; I believed in him as an expression of god, one of many - none of which could be fully trusted or leaned upon. What I leaned upon was the truth of my experience, the exhilaration and devastation that go hand-in-hand when you live a life of faith. I refused to let anyone to tell me what to believe; I’d been led astray once, with disastrous consequences, and I’d rather be wrong of my own accord than follow someone else’s dogma.

Until this past summer, when I became online friends with someone who asked me some frank questions about my faith, and who responded with indignation when I made an offhand comment mocking the Christian scriptures. Not only was I embarrassed and horrified that I’d offended someone by speaking without thinking (something I do All Too Often, though I think I’m getting better with age), but for the first time in a long time, I realized that I needed to think critically about who Jesus was to me. As I did, I realized that my so-called beliefs were thin and weak, based more on suspicion and long-held grudges than on objective reasoning about right and wrong. I decided that I needed to figure out Where I Stood, if for no other reason than to be able to answer intelligently when someone asked me, “What do you believe?”

Reading The Case for Christ was part of that quest, one of many books that I’ve picked up and read in whole or in part to get an idea of where I fall in the broad spectrum of spirituality. I had something of a panic attack early in my research, while reading Strobel’s equally compelling book, The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity, which addressed the cognitive dissonance that keeps so many people from putting their faith in Jesus - or having any faith at all. “If God is love, why is there so much suffering in the world?” is the first question Strobel tackles in Faith, and as I read his arguments - which were not perfect, but more than satisfactory - I began to freak out. “I know this is right. I believe God is real. But I can’t become a Christian again. I can’t be that unkind again. I can’t be that vulnerable again. I just CAN’T.”

You see, my experience over many years has taught me that God is real and good, but that human beings are capable of doing just as much evil in his name as good. My studies over the past six months have taught me that the evil people do doesn’t change the reality of God - and it doesn’t relieve me of the very difficult choice I have to make in response to Jesus’s question, “Who do you say that I am?”

This is why I bought a used copy of The Case for Christ, and reviewed the “Reasons to Believe” that I’d learned more than a decade ago. Strobel’s book is effective and interesting, and usually has the effect of blowing a first-time seeker’s mind wide open. But it’s not the last word on the subject; a Google search of “review case for christ” yielded this site as the top result, which answers Strobel’s arguments more than adequately. This confirmed what I’ve known for a very long time: many brilliant minds have believed in Christ, and have offered good reasons for their beliefs. And many brilliant minds have NOT believed in Christ, and offered equally good reasons for their unbelief.

So here is the source of my conflict: my visceral fear of becoming once again enslaved to a man’s idea of God was - and is - at war with my heart’s longing for Jesus. And intellectual arguments only buffer me back and forth over the line: Yes, I believe. Wait! No, I don’t. As a good friend of mine said recently, “proving Jesus’s existence may be a matter of science and history, but proving his divinity is a matter of faith.” And faith is not something we can manufacture all on our own. So I don’t recommend The Case for Christ as a definitive answer to all of your questions about this person named Jesus. I don’t have all of my questions answered - I’m not even sure what all of my questions are! - but I’ll keep you posted.

I finished The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus a few nights ago, and although it’s been entirely too long since I last posted a book review, I hesitated to write one for this particular book. Don’t get me wrong - it’s a quick, engaging read, and I’d recommend it to any skeptic who insists that there’s absolutely NO historical evidence to support the worship of Jesus - or to any Christian who has ever felt their faith was weak and thin. Strobel provides a good starting point for further thought and reflection on the subject, but he certainly has not written the final word on the subject, and that’s what’s got me in knots. If you’re going to understand why I’m so conflicted about this book, I need to share some background from my spiritual journey. So let me pour you a cup of coffee, and we’ll chat a bit.

I grew up going to church and was “born again” at the age of three, but in eighth and ninth grade I had a serious crisis of faith and ended up rejecting the teachings of Christianity. When challenged by schoolmates about my religious beliefs, I realized that I had no solid arguments to distinguish the Bible from any other holy book - or, for that matter, from Grimm’s fairy tales! Though I wholeheartedly believed in a god - I could not fathom that our planet and the many thousands of species living on it were a cosmic accident - I wasn’t sure who this god was. For a few years, I was a devout deist. Surely god was “out there,” but his existence caused no ripples in my life.

Until…

My senior year of high school, when I found myself suffocating in a deep depression. I had no idea where to turn, but I knew that I needed help, and bad. I happened to mention my mental state to a friend, and she invited me to her church’s youth group. Now, maybe I AM a raging narcissist, because I dared to believe that this coincidence was nothing but. Maybe god wasn’t just “out there,” maybe he was present in our world and interested in my life, in ME. Perhaps this god was actually the God I’d heard about as a child, and in his love had arranged a way out of the darkness for me. Although my rational mind still suspected that this Jesus stuff was a load of hooey, my emotions compelled me to take a leap of faith, and I re-converted that winter.

The first few months after being born again again, I swung back and forth between a religious elation better than any chemical high and overwhelming doubt more painful than any midday sugar and caffeine crash. Then Lent came, and in preparation for Easter, my pastor preached his annual “reasons to believe” sermon series. To say that I was “blown away” would be completely insufficient in communicating my amazement and gratitude. Though I grew up going to church, I’d never heard any apologetics teaching, and my first exposure was exhilarating. Though I still had doubts about whether Christianity could work for me, I had no doubt that Jesus was the real deal.

Fast forward six years, as my faith grew strong and my relationship with Jesus became as real as - ever more so than - any other friendship I had. I began serving at my church and was to many an example of God’s love and power. As the years went by, though, my pastor’s deteriorating mental health and his crushing demands on me and my peers slowly ate away at my confidence in myself and God.

In 2003, our pastor was fired following allegations of spiritual abuse, sexual misconduct and thievery, and many people assumed that with his exit, all that was wrong in our church and our lives would immediately be righted. But healing often takes a great deal longer than we suspect. Having seen - lived! - a perfect example of how Christianity can be twisted to control the faithful, I again reached a crisis point. Objective historical arguments meant nothing to me; my subjective experience had taught me that theology in practice could be a very dangerous thing.

Fast forward another six years. I’ve been traveling a long, winding road, trying to figure out where I belong spiritually. I think I considered atheism for about 2.5 seconds; still, I cannot give up the idea of god. And if god is real, he must be good - I was certain of this. But I didn’t know what to call god. So I tried on different belief systems, looking for one that fit. Nothing fit. I finally decided that all religions were a myth, and that the myth of Jesus was the one that resonated most deeply in my soul, so that was the one I would lean into. I didn’t believe in Jesus as my literal savior; I believed in him as an expression of god, one of many - none of which could be fully trusted or leaned upon.

Until…

In this special edition of the Saturday Evening Blog Post, Elizabeth Esther has asked her faithful fellow bloggers to pick their best post from 2009. I’ve chosen my Blogging as Prayer post, for a couple of reasons. Not only do I consider it an example of some of my finest and most honest writing, but several of my readers were deeply touched by the subject, which always makes me warm and glowy inside.

Why not head over to EE’s place and share your best post of the past year? She said it herself - the more the merrier!

Read Part I here.

I love watching TV on DVD – I don’t have to wait until next week to see what happens in my favorite characters’ lives, and I don’t have to deal with annoying commercials. (Pet peeve: how the volume goes WAY UP as soon as the station cuts from TV show to commercial.) My latest obsession is Grey’s Anatomy, which is addictively awesome in all the ways I like a TV show to be awesome: very realistic characters, bruised and raw and sometimes unkind; epic storylines with plots of epic OMG!ness, and lots of very attractive, very talented actors who manage to make an environment I will NEVER work in seem incredibly familiar to me. In other words, Grey’s Anatomy has managed to nail the human condition right on the head.*

While working my way through season three a couple of weeks ago, I found myself moved to tears during nearly every single episode. This may have had something to do with the pregnancy hormones, but I’m not so sure. It really was an emotionally wrenching season for the show’s main character, Meredith Grey, and I found myself “feeling her pain” even more than I usually do. One episode in particular touched me deeply – in a good/bad way.

In case you’re not a fan of the show, let me give you some background. Meredith is an intern at Seattle Grace Hospital; the show follows her professional and personal life, as well as that of her coworkers and friends. Meredith is a real mess (one of the reasons that I can relate so well to her) but by season three, she’s finally found some peace and happiness. Meredith’s mother, Ellis, is also a doctor, and was a brilliant surgeon, revered in the medical community, until she had to retire due to early-onset Alzheimer’s. Meredith clearly had a difficult relationship with her mother, but we don’t realize how difficult until one day Ellis wakes up, completely lucid, and she and Meredith pick up where they’d left off five years before – spitting the worst insults they can think of at each other.

Ellis is horrified to find out that Meredith has been “distracted” by a love affair and isn’t working harder to make a name for herself in the medical field. At one point she growls, “I raised you to be an extraordinary person. So imagine my disappointment when I wake up five years later and find that you are no more than ordinary!”

Wait, wait, wait. I can’t do this scene justice. You just need to watch it for yourself:

One would think that having a child become a doctor would be enough to make most parents proud – but Ellis Grey isn’t most parents. To her, good enough isn’t good enough. Professional greatness – at the expense of goodness in every other area of life – is the only thing that will satisfy her. Her own romantic relationships died painful, strangling deaths and her relationship with her only child is suspiciously civil at best and downright antagonistic at worst, but she doesn’t seem to regret the fact that she is slowly dying alone and unloved, because she was an “extraordinary” surgeon. Meredith knows instinctively that her mother’s worship of professional greatness is nothing short of pathological, but she cannot help but feel that maybe she has failed at life, by failing to give up love and friendship for the sake of making a name for herself.

Ellis’s abusive rage reminded me all too well of the times my former pastor would scream at us for imagined slights and innocent mistakes. For five years, I lived for his approval, hoping to figure out what God wanted from me by decoding my mentor’s emotionally manipulative behavior. I can’t imagine being raised by a parent like that; I’m surprised poor Meredith is even capable of interacting with other human beings without dissolving into a puddle of anxious terror.

There was a time when I believed that everything must be sacrificed on the altar of “greatness,” but that time is long passed - something that was quite clear to me as I watched Ellis unleash her hateful insecurities on her daughter. “Boy, did she get it all wrong!” I thought. “What a sad, pathetic person.” Perhaps I’ve healed, learned and grown more than I realized. Perhaps I’ve been transformed by this brand new person whose physical, psychological and spiritual health depends largely on me getting the hell over myself. No matter the reason, I was horrified at the thought of letting my career or my “mission from God” get in the way of my relationship with my family and friends. I made that mistake before. I’m not doing it again, dammit.

So what if my life is ordinary? So what if I succeed in being a good and loving person, but no one outside of my small circle friends knows my name – is that so bad? I used to think so, but I can’t hold onto that foolishness any more. Where I used to recoil from the idea of living an unexceptional life, I now recoil from the idea of living an unloving life. I don’t want to reach the end of my days I regret how I treated my child, or my husband, or my friends, because love is what makes a difference, a real and lasting difference, in this life and the next.

It’s quite clear to me now what the difference is between good and great.









* Another favorite show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which goes even further by taking a fantastic, unrealistic premise (fighting vampires and demons in SoCal) and making observations about friendship, identity, self-worth, interdependence and morality that are completely relevant to the real world. Joss Whedon, I HEART YOU.

I used to think – or, at least, hope – that I was destined for greatness.

I had fantasies as an adolescent of being a famous actress (not much of a stretch, had I actually worked hard to hone my dramatic talents and went through the painful and ego-crushing experience of attempting to make a career in film or on stage) or rock star (ironic and impossible because I’m not musically gifted AT ALL) or writer (I began writing imitative stories when I was in just fourth grade; at the age of eleven I read Gone with the Wind and was convinced I’d produce an equally paradigm-shaking work of art by the end of middle school) or famous-by-association because I dated someone very talented/rich/intelligent/respected/yougettheidea. I believed that someday, someone would notice me, notice how special I am (cue The Pretenders), and call for the attention of the whole world: “Check out this Emily gal! She is something else.”

Some would call me a raging narcissist. I prefer to think of myself as a very sensitive soul who dealt with standard childhood rejection by escaping into a world where everyone worshipped me. And I don’t feel all that bad about it, especially since I know that world doesn’t exist and I’m (usually) content to live in the real world, where more than enough people love and appreciate me.

Speaking of raging narcissists, my Evil Ex-Pastor used to tell his minions that we were destined to do “something great for God.” The person who should have taught me the value of humility and selfless giving instead preached and modeled an intense self-focus that did very little to cure me of my need to be “special.” The environment that should have fostered gratitude for God’s grace freely given – no matter how much or how little we have to offer Him – became an environment that made me think I had to measure up to some cosmic yardstick. “To whom much is given, much is required,” was a verse oft-quoted in our little cult – and never once did it occur to me that maybe Jesus wasn’t talking about working ourselves to exhaustion trying to earn something that cannot be bought or sold. Never once did it occur to me, when my pastor would go into one of his red-faced screaming rages about how we were pissing our life away and how God had created us to be spiritual giants and we were making choices that would lead us into sin and obscurity, that maybe my pastor – and I – had it all wrong. Maybe God hadn’t handed us a heavenly to-do list when we were born and shook his head with disappointment when we didn’t check off our daily allotment of assignments.

It never occurred to me that God’s idea of greatness might be different from ours.

After I was liberated from the cult, some of the things I was taught were easy to throw off – I rebelled against them openly, almost offensively. Other things I understood academically but struggled to feel their truth. Still others I didn’t realize were lies until years later – and I’m sure there are still some deeply embedded grains of deception that I’ll be discovering for years to come. That’s all right, because life is long and recovery is a process and I don’t think God ever meant for us to heal in an instant.

I had an inkling of what living a great life might really mean when my ex-husband’s father passed away in early 2004. He was a poor man, unlucky in love, unemployed and without any assets to speak of. He lived with my ex and I, and sometimes made remarks that indicated he considered himself a burden – the very last word either of us would have used to describe him. I’m sure he felt, at the end of his 54 years, disappointed with the way life had turned out, regret over the choices he’d made, and bitter toward those who’d abused him. I’m not sure he understood, though, what a wealth of love he had given to his son and me, and many of our friends. I only wish he’d known how much he meant to so many people, how fondly we remembered him and celebrated his life. Even today, as I write this, I find it difficult to keep my composure as I think of such a valuable person gone too soon from this world.

It was as I prepared to speak at his memorial service that I began to understand the truth of 1 Corinthians 13:13, “These three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” All we take with us into the next life are those intangible things we hide in our heart, not the material things we acquire or the accolades we collect. So what ought to be our focus in life?

As I said, I was just beginning to understand this. Post-cult life was difficult; I had to forge a new identity. Actually, it’d be more accurate to say that I needed to discover my true identity, but that’s not what I tried to do at first. I tried to make myself into the person I thought I wanted to be – someone special, extraordinary. I began to daydream again of making a name for myself as a writer or artist. I had fantasies of being a guest on the Oprah show and having her just gush over how wise beyond my years and fabulously gorgeous I am. I dated a lot – or rather, threw myself into the arms of a variety of totally inappropriate pseudo-boyfriends, trying to get them to recognize what a unique and special snowflake I am, dammit. (They did not cooperate, which now makes me breathe a sigh of relief.) As the years went by and I never finished my Great American Novel, as I plugged away in my safe and steady and not-at-all flashy job, as I entered and exited ill-advised “relationships,” I would sometimes, late at night, be consumed with the fear that maybe I was truly gifted, and meant for greatness – but I would never achieve it because I was too afraid, too lazy, too timid, too broken.

I was living a secular life, but I still felt bound by the fear I felt while eating, sleeping, breathing church – that I wouldn’t measure up. Good enough wasn’t good enough (that’s actually a line my pastor used!) – I had to be GREAT. And what if I wasn’t? Then perhaps my life had been wasted. How would I bear the regret of reaching the end of my days without accomplishing something of real value? Considering that my definition of “something of real value” was “something that made me rich and famous,” the chance that I would have to bear that regret was very high. This terrified me.

To Be Continued…

Photo credit.

(Normally Fridays are the day to share my Seven Quick Takes, but this week I have something on my mind that can’t be stuffed into a “quick take.” I do recommend that you take a look at the SQT posts featured on Conversion Diary today!)

Have you ever had the feeling that someone just doesn’t like you? I get that feeling a lot, partly because some people DON’T like me (it’s shocking, I know) and partly because I was kind of an outcast as a child, so I always assume that when a situation becomes a little awkward, I’m doing something wrong. (Which is rather self-centered and yes, I’m aware that if I would just stop obsessing about it I’d probably do just fine, but that’s like telling a tiny hairless dog to just stop shivering. It’s in our nature, okay?) My “effortlessly effervescent” personality can, in unfamiliar and stressful situations, become loud, abrasive and domineering, so it’s no surprise that sometimes when folks first meet me they’re a little put off. Usually once they get to know me (and I remind myself to dial it down, for Pete’s sake) we end up just adoring each other.

Then there are the folks whose personalities just don’t mesh with mine, or who, for one reason or another just don’t like me. Or I don’t like them. I know this is okay - we don’t have to be BFFs with everyone we meet - but it still unnerves me a little bit. I feel like I should get along with everybody, even when the getting along is a Herculean effort. And I know that many other people have been in this situation - actually, I’m sure we ALL have! - but I still often feel as though I’m the only socially awkward loser out there.

The reason I bring this up is that I was feeling as if the leader of my Bible study just didn’t like me. I mean, we could make small talk, but every once in awhile during the group discussions, she’d give me a look or say something that made me think, “Uh oh, I must be hogging the conversation.” or “Uh oh, that comment must have been really shallow/mean/prideful/stupid.” And I’d resolve to sit back quietly throughout the rest of the evening. But I don’t sit back quietly very well! And so I was starting to feel as if I was in the Wrong Place. What was I thinking joining this study group? I’m not ready to be hanging out with Real Christians yet!

Well, this past Wednesday, God arranged it so that the group was just me and the leader. The other three attendees had emergency doctor’s appointments or whatever. I have to admit that at first I PANICKED. I was like, “Oh my God, I’m stuck for two hours with someone who doesn’t like me. She thinks I’m a heretic, and a loud obnoxious one at that. She’s judging me. Oh my God, SAVE ME.” But under the panic was a small voice that said, “This is a God thing. You’re supposed to be alone together.”

So we settled in with our notebooks and coffee and cookies - and she let her dogs out of their room so they could curl up with us - and watched the DVD that goes along with our Bible study. When the DVD session was over, we began discussing the topics it covered… then wandered into related subjects… and started sharing very openly about our lives, our past mistakes, our fears for the future, what we’re currently struggling with. We found out that we have a whole lot more in common than we’d realized, and we encouraged each other without judgement. It was a holy time, beautifully set apart just so this woman and I could get to know each other beyond the facades we presented at church.

The small coincidence of our one-on-one evening is just one of many small coincidences that God has worked in my life. In these little God-incidences (as I’ve heard them called) I learn that things aren’t always what they seem, that God’s got a plan, and most of all, I am reminded again of how much God loves me.

I used to say, years ago, when I often counseled and prayed people who were hurting, that when someone poured out their heart to me, trusted me with the darkest parts of their soul or their brightest hopes and dreams, I felt as if they had just handed me a million dollars. I was always humbled and honored that anyone would feel safe enough with me to trust me with the treasures of their heart. And this week, for the first time in a very long time, I felt that way again.

Photo credit.

photo credit

Jen’s not hosting Seven Quick Takes this week because she’s offline, presumably reconnecting with the real world. We’ll see when she reports back next week if her net-fast achieved the anticipated result. I really enjoy the Seven Quick Takes tradition, so I’m gonna do it anyway. And since several of my seven takes deal with an alcohol of some sort, I thought I’d throw together a different banner for today’s post.

Take 1: Yesterday was my father-in-law’s birthday, so we joined him and my mother-in-law at The Lucky Star, located in Virginia Beach’s Town Center Westin, for dinner. The Lucky Star is one of those upscale restaurants that has only six entrees on its menu, not one of which costs less than $20. It’s also one of those restaurants where each glass of wine costs what one bottle would “on the outside;” in fact, one of the selections on their reserve list was an $800 bottle of Australian shiraz, vintage 2004. (One of the lovely ladies at The Lucky Star informed me that it’s quite a famous wine - I’ve never heard of it, but that’s probably because I usually drink $8 bottles of Australian shiraz, vintage 2007. Yummeh.

Anyway, I had two classes of bargain cab with the blackened scallops and goat cheese ravioli, which was beautifully presented, spicy and filling. My mother-in-law had the Caesar salad, which was probably the most beautiful salad I’ve ever seen in my life: a head of romaine sliced in half and presented on a long rectangular plate, sprinkled with croutons and cheese and drizzled with a creamy dressing. I should have taken a picture of it. I should have had my picture taken WITH it. My husband had the 12 ounce sirloin and the same wine I did; his father paired his sirloin with three martinis, Churchill-style.

After dinner, our lovely waitress (who had been constantly confused and harrassed by the guest of honor, who loves to “educate” the server when we’re out to dinner) brought a complimentary “Chocolate Foreplay” dessert with a single candle in it. My father-in-law blew out the candle and took one bit of the dessert, then passed it over to his wife. She was kind enough to share it with me, and I regret that I can describe it only as heaven wrapped in ganache. Both of the menfolk had port wine for their after-dinner treat.

In all, it was an enjoyable dinner, and though I’m certain the chef’s expertise was worth every penny, I’m certain I could have found something just as delicious in my one kitchen for a fraction of the price. I am also certain that I’ll enjoy the wine I pour for myself this evening more delicious than that I was served last night at a 300% markup.

Take 2: As you can probably tell, I and my family enjoy our spirits. That’s why I bought a bottle of the 7 Deadly Zins and 7 Heavenly Chards for his birthday gift. I will be completely honest with you: when buying wine, I am seduced by pretty labels and clever names. That’s why one of my favorite wines happens to be Pinot Evil. I mean, yeah, it tastes great, but that’s only part of its charm.

Take 3: Now, let’s have a serious moment. I started exercising again about a week ago. I’d hardly call it a habit yet; I haven’t lost any weight and there’s no noticeable difference in my muscle tone. However, I already feel better physically and I feel better about my body. I don’t think that’s a coincidence - when we care for ourselves, we care more about ourselves. Ya know?

Take 4: More seriousness, sorry.

Oh, Victoria’s Secret. Bad form.

Casey is 19. Casey is battling a form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma, which metastasized into her lungs and right shoulder. She was scheduled to have her right leg and part of her pelvis amputated in mid-September because the chemotherapy made her leg so brittle it fractured just from walking on it.

In August, Casey entered the Victoria’s Secret Love Your Body contest. The prize was airfare and a trip to New York, spending money, a spa visit and a shopping spree at the Victoria’s Secret flagship store in New York. It was a whim on her part, a dream.

Family, friends and random strangers–like me–who heard Casey’s story rallied round and voted for her. People, including me, wanted her to have this trip. Over 26,000 votes later and this courageous young woman had won the contest. She was thrilled. All her supporters were thrilled. Casey was going to get her trip.

Except Victoria’s Secret, who acknowledged that all 26K of Casey’s votes were real and genuine took the win away from her. They gave her a $500 gift card as a consolation prize. This is where it gets tricky and interesting.

Please read the whole story. I’m not going to tell you what to do - like boycott Victoria’s Secret or their affiliates - because it’s none of my business where you buy your brassieres. But I do want to give Casey’s story value and power, which is why I’m passing it on to you.

Take 5: Okay, back to the fun and frivolity and drinking. Please take a moment to visit my friend Professor Woodchuck’s blog, appropriately entitled Walking Brews, where yesterday she recalled her visit to the Raffles Hotel in Singapore and all the interesting people she and her father “met” there. Professor Woodchuck and I have known each other since we were in second grade and bonded over an entirely different addictive substance and as we have matured grown up gotten older, we’ve bonded once again over our love for America’s Oldest Brewery.

Good times.

Take 6: I just found out that one of my friends has MRSA. This is the same friend who has endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, and PCOS. I swear, some folks can’t catch a break. I found out she had MRSA when I called her husband and invited them over for a night of drinking and debauchery (see how I can right back around to the alcohol? I’m a brilliant little monster) and he said they couldn’t cuz she’s sick, but maybe tomorrow when she’s feeling better. To which I say: y’all better take a bath in a different kind of alcohol before you come into our house! (My husband’s had MRSA before, and has a rather large scar to prove it, so he’s slightly gerb-a-phobic. Rightly so, I suppose.)

Take 7: Now, lest you think I’m just a wino with no depth or soul, let me talk to you about my volunteering discernment dilemma. Last week I filled out an application for a local hospice care program, but I decided not to sign and submit it yet. I wanted to sit on it for a little while and ask God to make it clear to me whether or not this was something I should do. (Because I am so impulsive by nature, I am trying lately to take my time and think before I act or speak.)

Well, I think God’s given me a pretty clear indication that working in hospice might be the thing for me. Why? Because I keep getting “pings” in my heart. That might not make any sense to you - in fact, it might sound downright fruity - but let me try to explain before you write me off as completely cuckoo!

Here’s an example: the entrance to my neighborhood is right next to a funeral home, and sometimes as I’m coming home from work or a friend’s house, I notice that the parking lot is packed for a viewing or service, and I feel this tug on my heart, like, “Gosh, I wish I could be there and be of some help.” At first I thought I was just being morbid and busybodyish, but then I thought, no, that could be a “God thing.” Then yesterday, when I heard that an acquaintance’s husband is dying of cancer, I again felt that tug, that desire to help. Keep in mind that I’ve never even met this man, but I wanted to reach out to him and his family.

I believe that God impresses on our hearts the needs he wants us to meet. This is why some people are moved to tears by orphans in Somalia and others are kept awake at night thinking about the homeless in their own town. The fact that I am feeling drawn to minister to people who are in the last stages of terminal illness - as well as their family and friends - says to me that it’s a God thing.

So here’s where we get into the audience participation part of today’s seven quick takes: How do you go about making a Big Important Decision^TM? I know that those of you who are spiritual likely pray and seek the counsel of other spiritual types. And those of you who aren’t all touchy-feely-spooky-Jesusy might make a list of pros & cons and weigh each one. But what happens when your friends and family are pretty divided on their opinions of the situation, or when the benefits and drawbacks of your available choices are pretty evenly stacked? How do you get from the painfully tentative “what should I do?” to stepping out confidently?

What do you suppose this

has in common with this

and this?

(For the visually challenged among us, let me describe the three images above. One is a central air conditioning unit, much like one you’d see in any backyard in American suburbia. The second is a 17-inch Mac Book, which is the laptop model my parents bought for me when I graduated from college in May 2003. The last photo is an 8-cup coffeemaker with a thermal carafe, similar to the coffeemaker that has served me faithfully for seven years.)

I ask again, what do you think these three possessions have in common? The answer, dear friends, is that all three of them quit on me in one 72-hour period just a few weeks ago. Saturday, our air conditioning died. (May I remind you that I live in the MOST HUMID PLACE IN AMERICA? Okay, that’s not true. The most humid places in America are in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest (who knew?), but Virginia Beach gets damn hot and muggy during the summer.) Okay, fine, we made do, and had a great time with some friends who came over for a cookout that night. So we were hot and sticky! Oh well! We just drank more beer to help us cool off.

Well, Sunday, I awoke to find that one of those friends had spilled a cocktail on my laptop. Not only was it wet and sticky (something you NEVER want your electronics to be!) it was unresponsive. I managed to get it to work for about five minutes, long enough to copy some important files (that I SHOULD have backed up two months ago) onto a CD before it pooped out altogether, yet I was filled with woe.

On Monday, when I stumbled into the kitchen to pour myself a cup of caffeinated delight from the pot my husband had made that morning, I found that the carafe had leaked ALL. OVER. THE COUNTER. Repeat: the thermal carafe that’s supposedly to stay tightly sealed until I come along to partake of the javaliciousness had somehow sprung and leak and there was lukewarm coffee ALL. OVER. THE COUNTER.

The disappointment of the defective coffeemaker was the proverbial icing on the cake, the last straw, if you will. We could also say that it pushed me over the edge, that I came undone, unglued, lost it. Whatever trite cliche you wish to use will likely get the point across: I was Not Happy. I was, in fact, Really Mad and Sad and Feeling Bad. Who was I mad at – the inanimate objects that had disappointed me? No, even more ludicrous: I was mad at God.

If you want to tell me how dumb it is to be mad at God over a broken coffeemaker, which can easily be replaced by walking into my local Wal-Mart with $30 in hand and participating in a five-minute sales transaction, go right ahead, because I agree with you wholeheartedly. It’s actually rather embarrassing that I got so upset over those three tiny spots of bad luck, that I took each one soooooo personally. Sure, I still had a roof over my head and food on my table, friends and family that love me and the cutest furbabies in the universe - but dammit, I was uncomfortable and irritated! My life was SO HARD! This must be how Job felt – cursed, afflicted, unloved, grieving. Speaking of Job, I told God, you’d better be setting me up for a HUUUUUGE blessing to pay me back for all the hardship I’d endured, being hot and sweaty and unable to check my email. I mean, come on. You can’t really expect a person to live like this, can you?

*ahem* See? Embarrassing.

It didn’t occur to me til about halfway through Tuesday that maybe I was missing the point here. Maybe the point wasn’t how bad I’ve got it, but how GOOD I’ve got it, and how often I forget that, and most of all that I don’t NEED a lot of these things I call necessities. I’ve never seen high-speed internet or Arabica beans on Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs, have you? Of course not. What we need to survive – and even thrive – is a lot less that what we think we do.

When all that finally DID occur to me, I wanted to shout, “How cute, an object lesson! Thanks for letting me know, God, I got it now! Thanks for all my cool stuff. I love it. I’d love it even more if you’d fix our air conditioning!”

And he did, with the assistance of a friend-of-a-friend who came out after hours and fixed the problem for free. (Want to know what the problem was? A clogged air filter. Dumbest thing ever, right? Should have been obvious, right? Well, apparently lots of people forget to change their filters, and it can cause some permanent damage to your air handling unit. So let my stupidity be a lesson for you!) My computer has sputtered into consciousness more than once in the past two weeks, but a few days ago it proudly announced that it wasn’t having any more of this computing nonsense. And the coffeemaker? Is in the trash, after an unsuccessful repair attempt, and we’re using our “back up coffeemaker.” (Read: old, ugly, and with zero bells-and-whistles.)

The “hardship” I’ve endured really got me thinking about NEEDS vs. WANTS. Interestingly, MSN featured an article about a poll that asked over 1,000 Americans whether they considered items such as dishwashers and televisions to be luxuries or necessities. Some of the items named I’d be hard-pressed to give up; for instance, if I didn’t have a car, I’d either have to bike 7.65 miles to work and back or spend 2 to 3 hours a day on a city bus. Other “luxury” items, such as the microwave, I could live without easily. I didn’t have a microwave for more than a year after I moved into my first apartment and never missed it.

Now, I’m not about to get all Thoreau on you guys. (Simplify! Simplify!) I promise I’m not moving into a mudhut by the Elizabeth River. I do, however, think it’s good for me to examine the choices I make about how to spend my time and money. Actually, I think it’s good for all of us to do this.

So tell me: What modern conveniences do you consider a necessity? What do you consider a luxury? What’s one thing you can’t fathom spending your money on?

I am SO SO SO SORRY for neglecting my blog the past few weeks. I’m sure that my dedicated readers (all three of you) missed me terribly. I wanted to blog - in fact, I started several rambling posts - because I had so many thoughts whirling around my head, revelations and convictions and “a-ha!” moments. Yet every time I tried to give those thoughts form, they turned ponderous and sticky and not nearly as profound as they were inside my brain. I took this as a sign that 1) those revelations may be just for me, and I don’t need to school anyone else and/or 2) my brain still had some working to do before I truly “got” what I needed to get, and eventually I’d be able to share my newfound wisdom clearly and concisely.

So here are seven little bits of my life for your amusement, and perhaps next time I post, I’ll have something “heavy, deep and real” for you to read.

Take 1: In case you’ve been wondering about the kittens, let me put your mind at ease: they’re doing GREAT! They get bigger every day (although they’re still awfully teeny-tiny) and have taken over the entire house. See, after doing some net research and talking to other owners of FIV+ kitties, I realized that there was no need to quarantine the kittens since FIV cannot be “caught” through casual contact. Our adult cats are suspicious of the little hellions, but Milo thinks they are the best thing since Milkbone. And I have to say it is SO. MUCH. FUN. to have two little baby cats running around. They are a whirlwind of fun, constantly running and pouncing and wrestling, until they collapse into a pile of sleepy cuteness. They are guaranteed to make me smile every single day, and I am so glad they came to live with us - even if it’s just for a short time until we find them another home.

And because it would be cruel to tell you about their cuteness without SHOWING you, I offer PICTURES!!!

Here are a couple photos of them snuggled together in the crook of my brother Glenn’s arm. I can’t believe how much they’ve grown in the week or so since these pictures were taken. Look how peaceful Randall is when he sleeps - it’s the ONLY time he’s peaceful. And I love how A.C.’s markings are coming out - she was completely black with just a few tiny splotches of orange, but every day more color emerges. She’s going to be an absolutely lovely tortoiseshell. Although I have to say that I wonder if she’ll ever lose the bug-eyed, freaked-out look she’s had since she was a starving little kitten. She seems to be constantly on alert!

And here are both of them, snoozing on the floor… with a pair of flip flops. I have no idea why, but they are OBSESSED with shoes. They play with them, chew on them, sleep on them. Weird little beasties.

Take 2: An old friend of ours lost his mother last week, so he and his family came into town for the funeral and stayed with us. We had three children and three adults in our home in addition to the four adults who already live in our home. It was, as you can imagine, crowded and chaotic. It was also wonderful - I love having tons of friends in my home, and if I could, I’ve have a full house every weekend. My friend’s children (ages 7, 5, and 3) are absolute darlings, so different from one another and delightful in their own ways.

The oldest, a girl named Lucy, told me soooooo many stories about her family and friends at home. And she often wandered around the house with a sleeping kitten cradled in her arms. (So cute! OMG!) The middle child, a boy named Gabe, diligently colored for days on end, and before he left, organized my 64-crayon box by color. How cute is that? It’s exactly the sort of thing I used to do as a kid. (And now that I’ve been diagnosed with OCD, we all know WHY I did it.) Roman, the youngest, is the smiliest little boy I have ever met. He’s a lot like my middle niece, Katie, who is the most laid-back, happy-go-lucky little girl in the world. I didn’t believe Roman’s mother when she told me he still smiles when he’s being scolded - until I saw that it was true! The only time he pitched a fit was when we has utterly exhausted, and it lasted about five minutes.

If my biological clock hadn’t already been ticking loudly, it definitely would be now. I want to have a baby LIKE WHOA.

Take 3: The funeral was held at the same funeral home that prepared my ex’s father for burial; the familiarity was weird and wonderful at the same time. I anticipated a super-duper religious service, as the owners are more Baptist than you can possibly imagine, and super-duper religious was exactly what we got. Interestingly, I found myself greatly comforted by the sermon, and I often nodded along with the pastor read certain Bible verses. I’ve been so hostile & critical in church services for years (especially very Biblethumpery ones) that it felt really weird to be edified by a preacher’s words! I took it as a good sign, though a perplexing one. I know that God is still at work in my heart, and I figure that stuff will make sense when it’s supposed to.

Take 4: In my time as a blog addict, I have “met” quite a few people with whom I felt a deep connection, and with whom I’d love to hang out all the time - if there weren’t hundreds of miles between our homes! One of these folks emailed me earlier this week to say that she and her family are going to be spending a weekend in Virginia Beach later this month, and I am SOOOOO excited about finally getting some face-to-face time with them. I’ve known this woman for (IIRC) more than three years now, and we’ve witnessed all kinds of huge and wonderful milestones in each other’s lives, as well as daily annoyances and encouragements. And now we get to enjoy food and drink together and laugh like idiots. I can’t wait.

Take 5: Tonight I have a date with my brother’s GF to see The Time Traveler’s Wife after she finishes closing her store. I AM SO EXCITED I CAN’T EVEN TELL YOU. I think I might just treat myself to dinner out before the movie. I like having someone else cook for me and serve me, and being all alone (well, as alone as you can be in a restaurant with a hundred other patrons!) with a book and good food.

Take 6: Speaking of books, I just finished Caitlin Flanagan’s To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. I first heard of Caitlin a few years ago when I read an article about her in I-can’t-remember-the-name-of-it-magazine, which painted her as a she-devil anti-feminist who wanted all women to be beaten back into submission and relegated to their proper roles as slaves and baby machines. As a result, I’ve been suspicious of her ever since, and was shocked when I saw her byline a few times in O, the Oprah Magazine. (Though, I really shouldn’t have been shocked, considering that O features monthly columns by Dr. Phil and Suze Orman, who are wonderful and well-meaning people, but whose advice sometimes strikes me as a little NUTS.)

Well, when I finally picked up Caitlin’s book to see for myself what a mouth-breathing female chauvinist she was, I was quite surprised to find that… she… wasn’t. In fact, I was impressed by how much sympathy and understanding she had for the difficult choices women have to make regarding work and family and - most of all - their own sanity. Her commentary on modern marriage and motherhood was refreshingly candid, and I found myself nodding along several times. Most of all, I was impressed with how honest she was about her own confusion and shortcomings. Now, not everyone will agree with her - OBVIOUSLY - but that’s okay. Caitlin’s strongly stated opinions don’t have to be right or wrong to be helpful - her essays were, for me, merely a challenge to think and discuss what it means to be a woman, a wife, and a mother, right now.

Next on my list? Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas. I can’t wait!

Take 7: Audience Participation. What’s your favorite place to get coffee? My absolute favorite is my own kitchen, because I’m kind of picky about my coffee. I like full-bodied flavored coffee, not too strong and not too weak. But if we’re out of coffee or cream at home and I have to go out, McDonald’s and Wawa are my faithful standbys for regular brewed coffee. When I want the treat of a sweet espresso drink - latte, capuccino, what have you - I always go to Starbucks. I do that very rarely, though, because my morning coffee serves the sole purpose of delivery vital energy and awareness to my central nervous system.

Take 7.5: By the way, I’m still smoke free! It’s been more than two weeks, and I’ve saved over $50 by not-smoking nearly 200 cigarettes. Woo hoo!

At my former church, we had a saying: “CIQM,” pronounced “sic em,” like what you say to an attack dog when you want him to make hamburger out of someone’s face. “CIQM” stood for Catch It Quick Missionaries, referring to how our pastor would send us missionaries (those of us who worked or volunteered full-time at the church and were part of the pastor’s inner circle) to confront someone who was “in sin.” “Sin” was basically not doing what the pastor wanted you to do, and if the person in question did not yield to the pressure we applied in the form of yelling, belittling, and threatening, we washed our hands of the situation and effectively shut him or her out of the congregation.

Let me assure you, I am not proud of this part of my past. But you need to understand where I’ve come from to understand where I am now.

Yesterday, Jen @ Conversion Diary wrote a very interesting post about selfishness and sacrifice. I love reading Jen’s blog, but this time, the most interesting thing about the post is the comments! Some folks are all, “Whoa, Jen, thanks for your honesty! This post really convicted me about my own selfishness. Blessings!!!1!” Other folks are all, “Dayum, Jen, you’re a big fat meanie. HATESTABKILL!!!1!” I was kind of blown away that such a touchy-feely post could generate such widely divergent points of view and some truly genuine antipathy. (I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering that I have, in my blogging career, managed to unknowingly offend countless readers and stir up sh*t storms the likes of which civilization did not know before the anonymity of the internet. However, I usually assume that I’m a Very Special Case, being impulsive, mouthy, and opinionated.)

Reading the comments on Jen’s blog inspired me to share a story from my early post-cult days, when my ex-husband and I were trying to figure out how to live without having “God’s” will for our every action spelled out to us by a mentally unstable, egomaniacal pastor. Having decided to leave the church staff, I was feeling adrift in a sea of WTF DO I DO NOW??? As I questioned all the things we’d ever accepted as right and true, my ex clung tightly to fundamentalism, afraid that if he admitted anything was wrong, the entire house of cards would collapse.

So there we were - spiritually traumatized - standing in line at Wal-Mart, when the man ahead of us said, “Excuse me, but I was wondering if you’d be willing to pay for part of this lady’s groceries?” He gestured to the older woman who was accompanying him; all of her groceries had been rung up and she’d just been given a total. “She has brain cancer and is on a fixed income.”

I answered immediately, without apology or qualification, “NO.”

The guy looked at me with horror and disgust baldly apparent in his eyes and repeated in disbelief, “No?” My ex apologized (as he often did when he felt I was being too blunt), saying, “We really can’t, we’re kind of on a tight budget, too.” The guy gave my husband a sympathetic smile, as if saying, “I’ll pray for you, buddy - your wife is a SHREW EXTRAORDINAIRE!” and returned to his friend’s side.

I wondered then - and now I’m pretty sure I’m right - whether that man approached us because my ex was wearing a T-shirt that said something on it about Jesus. I think he assumed that because we were Christians we owed him or his friend something. Guess what? We don’t. The only person I owe anything to is God, and if he wants me to pay for your groceries, he’ll tell me to.

You know how when you were a kid, and your younger brother stole your favorite toy or ruined one of your sweaters, and you tried to exact revenge on him in the form of a good, hearty beating, and your mom hollered at you, “Emily, I’ll handle it! You worry about you, and I’ll worry about Glenn.” (Maybe your childhood didn’t include frequent episodes like that, but mine certainly did!) Well, I think that’s how God handles stuff. We get all huffy and self-righteous about people who don’t do what we KNOW for SURE God wants them to do and God says, “Would you cool down and worry about your own stuff? I’ll handle this.”

God knew all the things that this guy did not know about me and my husband. He knew about the spiritual abuse, and how poor we were because we gave well beyond a tithe to our church and I was rarely paid for the work I did there every day. He knew that we’d have lost our house if I hadn’t received an insurance settlement for a minor traffic accidence earlier that year. He knew that we’d had to rely on the charity of others to get through the winter, that I hadn’t had new clothes (unless you call the secondhand stuff I pulled out of the donation box at church) for years, and that despite all of that we still made an effort to give cheerfully to people who had less than we did.

Was this guy right in judging me for refusing to give money to a sick old woman? No. But was I right in being so flaming pissed off at him, considering that he did not know any of the details of my life? No. We both could have cut each other some slack.

Often, Christians are quick to point out what a sinner someone else is. True, they might not be so bad as those of us on the CIQM team, but that judgement and self-righteousness is there all the same. We measure ourselves against each other, and find one another wanting. What we forget is that we’re not supposed to be comparing ourselves to one another, but to the model of Jesus. And guess what? ALL OF US ARE EPIC FAIL WHEN IT COMES TO BEING JUST LIKE JESUS.

As Jesus himself said, we’re missing the point if we’re trying to pick the speck of dust out of someone else’s eye when we have a huge plank sticking out of OUR eye. If we’re going to catch anything quick, let’s catch our own bad behavior - not someone else’s.