Dancing Queen

I need to dance more. Anyone who really knows me knows that I do dance. I dance in musical theater. I dance at the annual medical ball which, believe me, has little else to recommend it in terms of entertainment. And here's a tidbit of trivia for you-I belonged to the ballroom dance club in college.

I won the the father-daughter dance contest my senior year in high school. Well, my dad and I won it. That's not something you can do alone. I went to the disco every Sunday afternoon in high school. Yes, go ahead and laugh. But to this day I can do a mean swing dance. I'm just way more likely to turn an ankle than when I was seventeen.

But this week, I was startled by a kind of dance I don't do enough of. Joyful dancing. 

"You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
    You have taken away my clothes of mourning
and clothed me with joy,

that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!" (Psalm 30.11-12)

Have you ever prayed to be rid of a fear and then, when you got what you asked for, continued to be fearful? Or manufactured another fear to take its place. When I was a kid, I was afraid of the dark. Okay, I'm still a little afraid of the dark, but now I have better coping skills.

You remember the drill when it was bedtime? Check in the closet for monsters. Or scary animals. Or serial killers in clown masks with pitchforks. I had a very vivid imagination. Sigh in relief when no monsters show their face. Even after you got up the nerve to check under that suspicious three-foot pile of dirty laundry your mom was always bugging you to bring down.

But then . . .  Got to check behind the curtains to be safe. And behind the door. And in the bathroom. Don't forget behind the shower curtain. When it's finally safe to get in bed, you suddenly realize you'd better not dangle toes or fingers over the edge of your bed because heaven knows what is lurking under it that could grab your hand and pull you under. This was, I have to admit, a very real possibility the way I kept my room as a kid.

I want to suggest an alternative to this slightly deranged frenzy. If the closet is clear, how about we do a dance of joy in the middle of the room and yell, "Praise God--my closet is all OK!" Or something a bit more creative, if you like. But we don't, do we? We find more things to be afraid of, more worries to imagine, more concerns for the future that, while certainly possible, blind us to the moment that deserves a dance. 

I've had a lot desperate prayers answered over the last few years. Many things that could have gone tragically wrong did not. I'm not saying this in a hypothetical fashion; God really has pulled people I love deeply off the road to a devastating end, and I have wept for others who failed to get off the road. I recognize the terror I have stared down. I know I have a lot to dance about. 

But instead, I too often find myself focusing on what is yet not right. I look under the bed for the relationship that is still damaged. I peer into the closet at the habits that still need reform. I sweep back the shower curtain searching for what still is imperfect. And I totally miss the fact that what is now is so much better than what was. I should be thanking. And I should be dancing.

Psalm 34 says, "I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears." If you've been free from even the smallest thing, take time today to dance. Stop worrying about new things that may come. Stop focusing on what is not, and where you would like it to be. Look gratefully at what is. And dance.

Freak Out Monday

Yesterday was Easter. Today is Easter. Every day is Easter, from my point of view (and the point of view of some pretty reliable historic sources). True story. Because if what the Christian church says happened on Easter really happened, then every day after that is a repeat celebration. An encore. One more chance to stare up into the heavens in what should be daily freaked-out surprise and say, "I can't believe you did that for me!" If Jesus truly--physically, spiritually, historically, existentially, and any other 'ly'--was dead and then wasn't anymore forever,  then today is still Easter. And that needs to mean something. Quite honestly, if such a thing happened, and you don't think it merits more than one day's notice in 365, you're not taking this whole life and death thing we're all in very seriously. 

Sometimes on this blog I mention my faith, and sometimes I don't. I won't force it on you. I may occasionally offend you by the way it works out in my life. That happens when someone believes something with all her heart, devotes her life to it, and is passionate about it. If you never want to be offended, only interact with people who don't care about anything. You'll be crazy bored, but you won't be offended. 

The fact is, at one point in my life, I did look at that cross in freaked-out surprise and say, "I can't believe you did that for me." It happened for me when I was watching the movie Jesus Christ Superstar. Not a conventional conversion, I admit, but a fact. It took a few years of being around better people than I to realize exactly what that belief meant. I'm still working on it.

I'm writing about fear this year. Easter is the ultimate release from fear. Without Easter, I'd have nothing to say about fighting fears. I might try, and I might unleash all kinds of pop psychology to make you feel better temporarily, but really, without Easter, I got nothing.

On Easter, it seems appropriate to point out that fear comes from somewhere. It was never innate to human nature. Humans started this gripping emotion called fear by running away from God in the Garden of Eden. Why? Because they knew they had messed up, they knew He knew it, and they didn't know what He was going to do about it. 

It's the same basic principle that caused me to hide in my closet when I was eight and I skipped out on dishwashing duty to go out and play even though I knew that my name was clearly on that chore chart and my mom would find me. No one who knows in her soul that she has deliberately opted to go against the established order of rightness feels good about that choice for long. We may go through all kinds of emotional gymnastics to pretend and believe we do, but eventually that delusional behavior bites us from behind. How long we choose to run from it depends on how stubborn we are. 

We don't like accountability for our actions. We've outgrown the notion that any behavior could actually be wrong. And we certainly have lost all enchantment with the word 'sin.' It's quaint but irrelevant. Except no matter how far or fast we try to run away, we have soul-deep-knowledge that won't be suppressed that there is wrong; that in fact, there is wrong in us, and it scares us. We hide, because our parent might notice our name on that chart at any minute and realize we aren't doing our job.

Personally, I've come to realize that hiding in the closet comes with a few problems:

• One, the anxiety about what my (loving) parent might do imprisons my soul. I could just go and find out and get it over with. But why do that when I can spend hours imagining it in ever-increasing degrees of worry? 
• Two, It locks my relationship into the realm of fear, when it could be transformed into the heathy thing it was meant to be--a parent and child teaching and growing.
• Three, hiding becomes my default whenever I don't want to face something, robbing me of experiences outside the closet.
• Four, it's really hot and stuffy in an upstairs closet in a century-old house with no air conditioning. I think this may have been the beginning of my claustrophobia issues.

It's Easter. Still. Are you running? Running was never part of the nature God intended for you. He proved it by walking straight into the consequences of our behavior, facing the terrors there, and blasting them to bits with one shove of a stone away from a tomb and a sunrise beyond our craziest dreams. Today, instead of turning around and going about your day like it's a normal Monday, look up. Stare into the sky. Say in freaked-out surprise, "I can't believe you did that for me." Yell it if you want to. Then, say to yourself,  "And I can't believe I haven't responded."

sitting by the pool

“What do you stand to gain by returning to your illness? There must be some potential payoff. How do you suppose remaining sick will serve you? What does disorder offer you that wellness doesn’t? What scares you about being healthy again?”

These are the words of a counselor in the book I read yesterday, Hollow: An Unpolished Tale, by Jena Morrow. http://www.jenamorrow.com/fr_home.cfm  He asks tough questions, because Jena is struggling with one of the toughest of demons--anorexia. If he’s unwilling to ask, and she’s unwilling to face the answers, she will die. And truly, she’s not sure which is the more appealing scenario.

To say I enjoyed the book would be an odd sentiment. To say I was engrossed and emotionally intertwined with the “characters” (though this is nonfiction) would be absolutely accurate. For a blog devoted to facing fears, I feel that telling you about this book is the best thing I can do today.

One in 200 women lives, or dies, with anorexia nervosa. You may know, or be, one. Jena’s story will haunt you, but that's a good thing. You want to find out what happens to Jena. You desperately want her to be OK. Through that, you also come to understand and care about all girls (and there are some guys) who are trying to climb out of the deception of eating disorders one nail claw mark at a time.

I came away with a far greater understanding of what drives a young person to self-destruct and what can bring one back from the edge.  That’s saying a lot, since I’ve lived with one of those young people and known others. Jena will break your heart--which is where we all need to be if we really want to help other people heal. 

One of the main points, though, is that those people need to choose healing. We all do. In fact, Jena’s therapist asks an old question, one Jesus also posed. 

“Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people—blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, ‘Do you want to get well?’” John 5.1-6

Do we? It seems an odd question, but it’s the right one. Let’s expand this beyond eating disorders. We allow a lot of things to keep us at the side of the pool. Is there something holding you there, saying you want change, yet really content to remain where you are? Why are we sometimes afraid to be well?

• What we’re doing is comfortable. It may not work; it may cause us pain. But it’s known. If we decide to be well, we venture into the unknown, and it’s scary.

• What we’re doing gets affirmation. We don’t know how to ask for what we need. We’re afraid we don’t deserve to ask for what we want. It’s scary to put our feelings out there and run the risk of someone saying, “I really don’t care.” It’s far less risky to find affirmation that we matter some other way. 

• What we’re doing avoids letting go. No matter how bad it is, we control it. And feeling in control gives us the false security we think we need. 

Jesus knew the first step, just as Jena learned it. Want to be well. Want it with all you have, putting aside all fears that it may change life as you know it. It will. But, as Jena figures out, 

“Maybe the victory is just in showing up for life, one day at a time, and learning and growing and discovering and exploring and messing up and saying ‘sorry’ and moving on and loving and living. Maybe the victory is in the living, and life is supposed to be messy sometimes--and that’s OK. The plan is to keep on squeezing tightly to the hand of God and go on to focus my life and energy on other things.” Amen.

dirty words

She goes for the layup, the toss, the big finish, and . . . nope. Nowhere close. Once again, I have to actually walk over to the recycling bin, pick up the spaghetti box or whatever ill-aimed piece of detritus it was, and place it where I thought I had aimed it. In the recycling. Because my throw was not close. It wouldn't even have counted in horseshoes. The sad thing is, it would not matter if I had been standing two or twenty feet from the receptacle. I would miss. Every time.

This bothers me. I feel like I should  be able to hit a two-foot wide opening from two feet away. I think this is a skill I should have mastered by this period of my life. I should not still be that girl in high school who would rather spend her time on a balance beam or a badminton court, or, best scenario, in a corner with a book, than playing a team sport. Any team sport.

But I can't, and I am.

Then, the last time I lamented that fact, I remembered something. I have never actually aspired to be a basketball player. This is a good thing, since at 5'2", despite American attitudes and Hollywood folklore, it is simply not possible to be anything I want to be. There are limits. Why, then, do I think I have to be able to make a basket, and why do I feel some small measure of self-worth evaporate when I can't? Why would I ever allow the fate of a tossed milk carton to determine any part of my value, no matter how minuscule?

I believe there's a larger question. Why do I think I have to be able to do everything and do it all well? Why is there no room for me to be "just OK" at anything? Don't smirk. You know you have the same issue. And heaven forbid I am far less than "just OK"; perhaps I'm just plain sucky at whatever it is (like basketball).

I need to be comfortable being just OK. Even bad. I want to stop feeling inadequate when I feel incompetent. Because sometimes, we're just going to be incompetent. We need to stop seeing that as inherently a bad word. "Incompetent" conjures up all kinds of negative images, doesn't it? But what does it mean? To be competent, according to the dictionary, is "to have suitable or sufficient skills, experience, knowledge for some purpose." To be incompetent, then, is not to have the skills needed for some purpose. What's actually negative about that? Where is the moral judgment, the stamp that makes you less than you were before if you don't possess those skills?

The problem is, we have wholesale adopted dictionary.com's second definition, "adequate but not exceptional." And "adequate" sounds like a dirty word to our purpose-driven society. We all want to be exceptional, and we all want to be exceptional at everything. Which, if you dig deeply enough, you have to realize is ridiculous. I will never be exceptional at basketball. Or hang gliding. Or quantum physics. And why should I be, because--here it is--I don't want to be. I don't like those things, and they aren't what matters. To me.  I realize quantum physics matters greatly to some people, and I'm probably very lucky it does. But not to me.

I'm incompetent. There. It's true. Let's be OK with that. Let's stop fearing being adequate. It leaves more room to pursue being exceptional in the things that really, really matter.


Photo by StuSeeeger on Flickr. Cretivecommons.org

It's a Conspiracy

A while back, a friend emailed me a photo of a theater prop from her phone. She sent the picture and apologized that it came out upside down, claiming ineptness with her new iPhone. The odd thing was, it came out upside down on my desktop PC. But it came out right side up on my Mac laptop. 

Which led me to wonder—did the Apple electronic devices talk to one another to get the picture right side up in spite of the human beings involved? Clearly, the phone refused cooperation with the inferior life species known as a PC. If this is possible, is it also possible that my computer talks to other random Apple products I am unaware of? Does my phone, for instance, have a good laugh with its friends over my iTunes playlists? Do they make a habit of talking to one another? If so, do they sit around chortling their keypads off, and saying things like, “What fools these mortals be?” 

With all the talking behind our backs we mortals already worry about, now we have to worry about our electronic devices having confabs about their owners? Or do they call us owners? Maybe it's the other way around. Maybe as I type this thing is planning on going all G-Force on me and taking over the world. Or at least the living room. It's welcome to it if it plans on cleaning up. 

I know this computer already has a lot of goods on me if it chose to use it. I've seen my image on Skype. That gorgeous under-the-chin angle? I would pay whatever blackmail it asked to keep that from going public. 

OK, this is not truly a fear of mine. You don't have to get concerned and consider blocking me from your Facebook account. But irrational fears claw their little roots into all of us in one way or another, and one person's irrationality is another's perfectly logical fear. 

My daughter runs for cover whenever birds fly overhead. She is certain they're going to do their business on her hair. This seems rather irrational, though it is a great source of entertainment for us. I used to be unnaturally afraid of seaweed. I could not swim anywhere the stuff might reach out its slimy arms and touch my defenseless leg. I don't know what I thought it was going to do with my leg. The same daughter has a friend who is afraid of . . . fruit. Not kidding.

A lot of irrational fears center around animals. Bats, birds, rats, snakes, mice, spiders, wasps. Many focus on the unknown—darkness, murky water, tunnels, and the possibility of life in our toilet pipes waiting to come up and bite our unprotected derrieres. Another common set revolves around what we view as unnatural. Clowns are a big one here. As well as puppets, mimes, masks, and Snookie.

So last year I decided to tackle one of my biggest fears head on and actually allow someone to put a tarantula in my hand. A living one. And you know what? We both lived through the experience. You know why I did it? Because I decided I don't want to allow anything to control me. (Except God. He's good at it.) But I did not want to remain at the mercy of spiders or anything else that could control my choices but shouldn't. We spend way too much of our lives giving over control to fears that don't deserve it. Do you want to quit? Me too.  

So what's your best irrational fear? Why do you think it's so scary to you?

good grief

I’ve just finished the final manuscript on a book about The Hobbit. I’ve also just finished a sermon on dealing with grief and loss. And oddly enough, the two intersect. (Although, finding a connection between anything and Tolkien isn’t really a stretch for me. I do it on a scarily regular basis.)

But this connection leaps at me without effort or expectation as I search one passage in the book. Tolkien’s party of dwarves, one hobbit, and a wizard, recovered from their second or third near-death experience, continue their quest. They pause on the edge of Mirkwood Forest, a dark, mysterious place they have good reason to fear, and Bilbo pleads with their departing wizard about the path ahead.

“Do we really have to go through?” groaned the hobbit. 
“Yes, you do,” said the wizard, “if you want to get to the other side. You must either go through or give up your quest.”
“Is there no other way round?”
“If you care to go (hundreds of miles) out of your way. And even then you wouldn’t get a safe path. There are no safe paths in this part of the world.”

There are no safe paths in this part of the world, either. Life takes us to scary places where pain happens and loss blindsides us from places we least expected it. A spouse is unfaithful, a child turns her back on you, a doctor tells you your mind or your body is going to fail, slowly but surely. 

We had a plaque on our wall when I was a little girl with a poem that said, “God did not promise . . . flower-strewn pathways all our lives through.” I used to stand over the heating vent and read that poem a lot. Because it was warm there, and I liked the poem. Now I realize, cheesiness aside, the author sure got that right.

We fear that path of pain, because we fear we may never get to the other side. We may just curl up on the path and end the quest right there. So, we try other ways, detours around, which end up taking us far afield. We pop pills; drink, smoke, or inject something; buy something new; or, if you’re Elizabeth Gilbert and publisher-financed, you escape on an around the world odyssey.

The thing about loss is, like the Forest, we really have to go through. We can’t circumvent it. We can’t ignore it. We can’t put on a happy face and pretend it didn’t happen. We dare not mouth Bible verses or insipid quotes off of Pinterest that make it sound like we’re on a higher spiritual level with the whole thing when we really are not. Those things work only until, having detoured away from the scary giant spiders in the forest, we find ourselves facing goblins and wolves hundreds of miles away and realize we’ve gained nothing and gotten much farther off the path.

Going through makes us healthier people. Wholer people. Better people. People who understand that life has an exquisite tenuousness about it we never valued. Who don’t waste time grasping at grudges or playing hide and seek with honesty. People who look for ways to hold out grace because we know other humans are as afraid as we are. Who realize that being afraid is an illusion that keeps us from completing the quest.

I hate grief. I hate loss. I really hate giant spiders. But I love the other side. 

not the happiest place?

Facebook is not the happiest place on earth. Two German universities have proved this.

This new study reveals that envy is rampant on Facebook. To be precise, “The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users' life satisfaction."

In fact, we are so jealous of our social counterparts that we feel less happy with our own lives after spending our mornings with social media. We also embellish our own public lives. Just a little. Maybe. To keep up.

When I first heard that people were dissatisfied with their time on Facebook, I thought, duh, if I see one more post on a) the presidential election, b) gun control, or c) I Haz Cheezburger-style grammar, I might actually purchase one of those guns and go postal on my laptop. (After which, of course, I would post the video on Facebook.)

But no, the two sources of unhappiness surprised me. They were looking at other peoples' vacation photos and checking how many times other people were wished Happy Birthday.

What? Someone actually sits around doing that? Counting birthday posts? I am beginning to see why those people might have life satisfaction issues. They have no life.

The interesting point getting less press is that envy and dissatisfaction were linked to how much the person actually interacts on Facebook. Lurkers feel more envy. A lot more. The more people simply look at your vacation photos without interacting with you personally, the more they envy you. The more they spend their time counting 'Likes' as opposed to talking to people they like, the more unhappy they are.

We did not need a German study to tell us this. Common sense should point us in that direction, though sense is far less than common these days.

Sense would tell me that it's easier to compare myself to someone and envy them when I have never really talked to them, never discovered their hurts, dreams, and common threads. It has never occurred to me to envy my friends' vacation photos and birthday wishes because I am genuinely happy when they are happy. I have made their happiness a part of my life. (Also because most of us, if we're honest, are annoyed by 500 birthday notifications ringing through on our phones all day.)

If we choose to watch other people live their lives rather than living our own, we are unhappy. This is not new to Facebook world. It's just more easily accessible.

Maybe rather than cause some people to tone down their vacation pics or others to ramp up their stories to compete, this study should call us to recognize that our happiness is in our own hands, not those of our “friends.” 

We can choose to compare lives or we can choose to make lives.

Making a life doesn't mean streaking off to the Bahamas or Paris and then posting pictures. It means finding the richness we have where we are by interacting with life and with others rather than watching then live. It means to stop observing and saying “I wish” and start jumping in, saying, “I will.”

I will. What do you want to jump into today?

what if it totally bombs?

Can I make just one more mention of Christmas before we wrap it up? Yes, it's February. Time to move on. But it's kind of relevant to the rest of the year, too.

We did something different this year for Christmas. Besides being away from home, which has never happened other than visits to family. We spent the break on a mission trip to Costa Rica. But that isn't the different thing.

The different thing is that we decided, in light of having to save money for the trip, we would not buy gifts for one another this Christmas. We would give only what we made ourselves. This also worked in light of the whole "the point of going on a mission trip is other people" thing.

We've thought about doing something similar before. It's often seemed like a good idea to focus on what we have and not what we want.  To emphasize Jesus, given the invaluable gift he gave to us.

But it always ended the same, for me. I like shopping for gifts. (Well, I like shopping online for gifts.) I love seeing my family's enjoyment of gifts. YES--I completely enjoy seeing a giant pile of presents under a tree and hearing the sounds of ripping paper and frustration over bows that won't come undone. (I may purposefully cause some of that.) I like the knee-deep ocean of sparkly paper, tissue, and random lost cats that my living room becomes after a massive gift-fest has been executed. I do. Report me to Overdoers Anonymous. It doesn't happen any other time of the year.

Plus, there's the nagging fear. What if we try something different and it bombs, totally? What if the kids hate it? What if I hate it? What if instead of being the hap-happiest time of the year Christmas becomes a giant letdown laid at the feet of yours truly? Mom the usual Christmas machine epically fails. Since it's only once a year, this really matters.

You know what? It didn't fail. More than once I almost caved and started shopping. I really wanted to. But I think, inside, all of us knew it would feel so wrong to come home from working with people who didn't have enough money to buy school uniforms and diapers to face a giant pile of glinting paper under a tree. (Not to mention that the cats would have torn it all to pieces by the time we returned and very possibly peed on more than one box. Plus, the tree was very not cheery green anymore.)

Instead, we savored everything someone had made for us. We appreciated the thought that went into another person pouring themselves into a gift. We valued the realization that someone created something personally for us. We felt we'd done the right things for the moment. It was, possibly, the best Christmas ever.

Why is this relevant for the rest of the year? Because we fear change. All year round. We hesitate to do something other than the way it's always been done. Why? The same reasons I did. We like the status quo. It's known and comfortable. We don't like failure. We fear that if we try something new, everyone will hate it. We'll hate it. We'll have an epic failure at out feet with no one else to blame.

Is there something you really want to change, but you're afraid? Something new you'd really like to try to see if it's a better fit, but you're terrified of launching out?

I read a Dear Abby column years ago that I just loved. A woman asked her if she should forget her dream of medical school because, "If I go, I'll be fifty years old in four years when I finish!" Abby's answer was so simple. "How old will you be in four years if you don't go?"

Don't let fear keep you from changing something today you really want to change. What's the worst that can happen? And--what's the best? Whichever way it goes, you'll have the experience of knowing you did the right thing for the moment.

Jumping on the Bar

I watched my daughter do something courageous this weekend. Let me explain first--she is a gymnast. Right there, most of you are now saying, “Duh, she did something courageous. She does things on a daily basis I have no intention of ever doing.” Which is true. The only sane adult I've ever seen attempt these kinds of moves was my Uncle Jim. But it was the 4^th of July, and he was very drunk, and it was NOT a good idea.

One year ago at her high school championships, she jumped on the uneven parallel bars to do a routine that should have been fairly, well, routine. But it wasn't. It ended in a fall and a concussion that left her disoriented, weepy, and in pain for two weeks.

She's been haunted by that fall ever since. She's relived the feeling every time she even thought about performing that dismount. She hasn't been able to mentally get past the fear of trying it again.

Fast forward to this weekend. Same competition, same apparatus, even harder dismount. I watch her chalking up, and I know she's afraid. I know she's remembering. I know she's thinking, “What if?” And I watch her unhesitatingly jump anyway.

At that point, her score didn't matter. Whether or not she stuck the routine didn't matter. The most important thing she accomplished all day was simply jumping on the bar.

How many of us have fallen on our face off the bar and are terrified to try again? You got fired, or had a business fail. Your marriage fell apart. You alienated yourself from a parent or a friend because you behaved like kind of a jerk. You sent out a manuscript you'd poured your heart into and had it rejected 26 times. Ouch. And now you feel like it's too late or too scary to try again.

Maybe you can relate to this guy. Remember Peter, the guy who promised to stand by Jesus until the end and then, when the soldiers came, decided that was end enough? Um, yeah, Jesus. That's far enough; we're done here; you're on your own now. He swore on a stack of Bibles he didn't know his Teacher. Afterward, he was terrified, with good reason, to go back and face the resurrected Jesus. His was a pretty big time failure. So Jesus specifically tells his friends, “Hey, tell Peter I really want to see him.” I want him to try again.

Was the hardest thing Peter ever did to walk on water, start the church, or face martyrdom? No. The hardest thing Peter ever did was go back to Jesus and face down his fear of rejection and failure. It was to resist the temptation to crawl into a box of anonymity and never try that scary thing again.

What's the scary thing in your life you don't want to jump back into? Take a few steps toward it today:

• Live in the present. Whatever happened last year or yesterday is old news. It doesn't define you today. It can't hold you.
• Pinpoint the problem. Exactly what scares you about trying again? Isolate the real source of the fear.
• Objectively decide how realistic that is. What's the worst that could happen? Not that you imagine could happen but what could really happen? Will it kill you?
• Do it anyway. Unless it's, say, a fear of jumping off a building and you realize that is extremely realistic and a bad idea. But chances are it's not, and you should just jump onto that bar.

Let me know how it turns out. I'd love to cheer you on in trying again. Just leave a comment about it here.

And yes, that's my kid. Second place, uneven parallel bars.

scarce in this neighborhood

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!" (Martin Luther King Jr.)

Last week, I said I wanted to talk about fear on this blog. And wow, what a way to start. With a man who was more afraid to miss God's will than to die. I wish I could say that was my life, too. But I can't. God's still working.

Who hasn't noticed the huge resurgence of superhero movies the last year or two? (I swear this relates to MLK, trust me.) It seems that if comic books ever created one, there's been a recent movie about him/her. Or will be in 2013. 

I'm thinking maybe the best way to finally secure my financial future in writing is to find some obscure superhero and turn him into a movie. There's got to be one left no one has grabbed. Maybe I'll go with the one a friend invented several years ago, Captain Never On Time, the distracted superhero. I think I'd find him easy to write.

But why the sudden interest? I wonder if maybe we're looking for a hero. We know they're an endangered species. We seek one. At the same time, we don't believe in them. Which makes the search kind of challenging. Witness the "new" superman logo above. No longer super--more dark and uncertain (https://www.facebook.com/manofsteel). 

And maybe we don't believe in them because, looking into our own hearts, we know there is little commitment there to go beyond our comfortable lives and really seek the promised land. A wish, perhaps. A deep desire. But a commitment that puts that vision above the fear? I wonder if we've lost it in this century.

Honestly? I think MLK Jr would be appalled to witness us all too willing to post Facebook messages about how much we hate the injustice of the world (or our personal version of injustice) but be extremely skittish about putting our time, pocketbooks, or reputations on the line to actually seek the Promised Land. Never mind our busy lives. And I am one of the guilty.

As was said in the movie I saw the other night,

 "I tried to find one (a hero); but warriors are busy fighting one another in distant lands, and in this neighbourhood heroes are scarce, or simply not to be found." (Gandalf, The Hobbit) 

I think that's the appeal for me of my favorite pieces of literature. Frodo and Sam were more afraid not to do what they were meant to do than to die trying. Jean Valjean was more afraid not to be the good man God spared him to be than to face imprisonment and death. I find those the compelling stories of my reading life. I want them to be the stories of my real life. I want to see the vision of  the Promised Land and not be afraid to say, "That's where I'm going." Whether or not I make it doesn't really matter, because it's pointing my face the right way and keeping it there that matters. No matter what.

That's what King understood. That's what made him a hero. Lord, give us more women and men who understand.

sore afraid

Best moment of Christmas TV. Ever.

Yes, Christmas is over, though our family extended it this year quite a bit. Nevertheless, some thoughts deserve revisiting.

Here's an fyi Linus knew—real angels do not resemble Precious Moments figurines. At all. They do not have sweet cherub faces, they do not hover over people and toss flower petals and good feelings, and they do not await their wings by anything we may say or do for them. (Sorry Jimmy Stewart, you know how much I love you and your movie.) They are also not our dead relatives, but that's another story.

Real angels, the way they talk about them in the Bible, are big, scary things George Lucas could not imagine the special effects for. They could and should scare the heck out of anyone who happens to be visited by one. They don't look like my angel collection, however much I love it. They are the material for "sore afraid" to be sure.

In the coming year, I want to focus here on fears—what they are, what they aren't, and why we need or don't need them. I figured the Christmas story was the place to start.

“An angel of he Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2.10-11

Whenever an angel greets someone, the first line is often, “Do not be afraid.” Like they are well aware they need to break the ice with something a little disarming. Then immediately, they follow that up with the why. In this case, do not be afraid because . . . here's the news, and you're going to like it.

The things that look terrifying to us from our perspective aren't always. Sure, if you're on the wrong side of an angel, things could get heated, and you will lose. But the shepherds weren't. They were just receiving a newsflash from a cosmically cool messenger. They also were being given a job.

The things that terrify us probably look a lot worse than they really are as well. But when we stop covering our eyes, turn around, and look and listen, we can discover the message those things are trying to deliver.

So I'm inviting you to join me on a journey this year. Or just today, your call. What do you fear? List the top five. Write them on a piece of scratch paper, on your bathroom mirror, in your Bible, or right here in the comments. It would be great to share together to know what the biggies are. Then decide which one you're going to spend time with this week opening your eyes to and listening to the message behind it. Let me know what you discover. It just might be good news of great joy!

we interrupt this program

How many Nativity sets can fit on the top of a television cabinet? I don't know, but I may be going for a record. This is only one representative of the collection.

I have Nativity sets from Guatemala, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Ecuador, Israel, Mexico, and probably Walmart. I didn't actually visit any of these places, but relatives did, and they know I love to collect nativity sets of the world. (Walmart being, of course, a huge part of the world since we know none of those sets were made here, right?)

I have one my mother-in-law made and the one that sat on our shelves when I was a child. I have the first one we bought as a married couple and the one I made several years later for our kids to play with so they would leave the glass and ceramic ones alone.

Obviously, they mean much more to me than nice Christmas decorations that may or may not have all their pieces intact each time I take them out of wraps. They speak of the divine interruption that happened one night in a stable that changed everything with one cry of a baby. They remind me that God doesn't always work within our expectations, and sometimes he give us the greatest of gifts in the most unlikely of packages.

The international flavor of the collection reminds me of another interruption. The one where he promises to come back and finish the story. “There before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.” (Rev 7.9) I am in awe of the beauty promised in the second great interruption. It will look a lot like the people in my nativities. They are colorful bunch, if you noticed.

God has interrupted your usual programming. Are you listening?

Do you collect a Christmas decoration? What is your favorite symbol of Christmas?  

how many of you?

How many of you dropped your child off at school today, said “I love you,” and thought for a moment, 'that could be the last time I ever see her?' I did. How many of you held someone, anyone, just a little tighter this weekend? I did. How many of you cleaned sloppy gross hair from your shower drain this weekend and, for the first time, were grateful you could because of the child who left it? I did. Yes, really.

Like a lot of people, this is not the blog post I had planned for today. And I hesitated to write anything at all about Connecticut because so many have done so already and written better.

The usual sides have been taken and lines have been drawn. Some good conversation is being had; some bad won't go away. But what if, amid good and bad conversation, the most important conversation never happens?

We've read so much already. Taking sides is easy. Blaming 'the system' is easy. Coming up with plausible reasons and solutions is easy. And some of those things are partially correct and needful. But nothing should be easy about this conversation. Nothing.

We all know what will happen here. People will feel terrible. For a while. People will cry for solutions. For a while. People will shake their heads and wonder what's next, and we now know we will inevitably find out, because this is becoming not uncommon. So it anesthetizes us all too quickly, making our tears and resolutions to be more appreciative and “do something” dissolve into “real life” before the New Year rings in.

The most important conversation? It's the one with the person in the mirror. The one where we stop distancing ourselves from evil and look it in the eye. Where we quit trying to blame everyone and anyone and look into our own souls. Where we admit the world is terribly broken, not just slightly sprained, and ask ourselves why we spend our lives running in fear and denial of that fact. And what effect that collective running is having on our culture.

Today. And tomorrow. And every day we need to remember and not go back to business as usual. Look in the mirror and ask yourself, “How long have I known the world was broken, and what have I done to fix it?” Not fix as in lobby the government for more programs or proffer opinions on Facebook. Not fix as in bury into my own safe little world so at least my family can survive intact. But what have I personally done to push back the iron force of evil in at least one person's life? If only starting with my own.

Easy answers? If the answer was easy, the Son of God would not have had to be born on this earth with the intention of dying. “Easy” doesn't end up in a virgin's uterus and a trough with wood that stinks of manure. “Easy” doesn't end up on a cross that reeks of blood. There's nothing easy about innocence giving its life for evil. It's complicated and messy. It happened two thousand years ago voluntarily. It happened three days ago horrifically.

To borrow from last week's sermon, "Christmas is not a reminder that the world is really quite a nice place. It reminds us that the world is a shockingly bad old place. . . Christmas is God lighting a candle; and you don't light a candle in a room that's already full of sunlight." - NT Wright

Christmas isn't really for children. It's not for the meek and mild at all. It's for hardy souls who are willing to admit that the world needed a healer and mender. It's for those courageous enough to take that redemption into our lives and the lives of people we contact. In ways that matter. And not just today.

just grace

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. 
Victor Hugo 

What's the last 700-page book you read?

Yes, I'm aware ninety percent of you, if you have read a 700-page book, just responded with something in the Harry Potter series. Few authors have the guts to attempt this feat. She is one who did it well.

But mine is different. I fell in love with the story of Les Miserables watching the nonmusical version. I took up the book with some trepidation, noting its bulk. It's rare that I'm going to say a book is totally worth all 700 pages. I'm one of those people who believes if you can't say it in 25 minutes, you probably haven't thought out what you needed to say. An appreciated quality in a preacher, but Les Mis would have suffered considerably by turning it into a novella. It was totally worth it. All. 700. Pages.

Going downtown Chicago to see it on stage followed, naturally, as I am a fan of musicals in general and this story is particular. Now, the movie.

But what is it that makes me love this massive story so much? Yes, it's a fascinating study in character, which is what I'm all about when I read or write. But more, its point is also what I'm all about in life. Les Mis is about second chances. About looking at someone others have written off and saying, “God hasn't written you off. So neither will I.” It's about giving them dignity and another shot. And yet another if that one fails. It's about looking people in the eye and communicating, 'You my well let me down, but I'm going to love you anyway and extend as much grace to you as I've had extended to me.” Which is more grace than any single one of us deserves. That Hugo's story does this all while feeling more like you're listening to a great symphony than poring through a book adds immeasurably to the enjoyment level.

So while we're still thinking about Christmas, I invite you to do a couple things.

One, extend grace. Give a second chance. Do what was done for you at Christmas—go out of your comfort and personal space to love someone else. Not just a little and not just because they deserve it, but with genuine sacrifice on your part, because they don't deserve it at all.

Second, if you're looking for someone to help this year, whether because you've been grabbed by the Christmas spirit or because you need a write-off before any more great fiscal cliffs, check out a couple organizations that specialize in second chances. These people are on the front lines of loving those others have written off. Give them a look this year. Love sacrificially through those already doing it. 

http://www.prisonfellowship.org. Love this group. I've organized angel drives for years. No one feels more unwanted than prisoners and their families.

http://www.setfreemovement.org. Working to free people from modern day slavery. Yes, it still exists, and not only overseas.

http://worldrelief.org. Working to empower and encourage refugees. Definitely a forgotten and unwanted group in so many places.

ten things we can learn from a hobbit

This week, I will be doing something I rarely do. I'll be following the crowd. Into a theater filled with people, smelling like imitation popcorn butter and gross gumdrops (that is a redundant phrase). It will be very loud. If you cannot see many things wrong with that scenario, you are not a flaming introvert with sensory overload issues. But I will do it because . . . I love the magic combination of J.R.R.Tolkien and Peter Jackson. Love as in, I own Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit, and I will dominate you at it.

Why the big deal over The Hobbit? A fantasy creature barely three feet tall? Admittedly, it is not the epic its sequel is, literarily or theologically. It's just a good adventure story, written for children. But in its own different way, it is so much more.

Ten things we can learn from a Hobbit:

10—Every enemy has a weak spot. No matter how big and fierce our nightmares are, they are vulnerable somewhere. Find the spot, employ the right weapon, and watch them fall.

9—Don't leave the path. If you've been given a path to walk on, stay on it. No matter how tired you are or how endless it seems. Regardless of how good another path looks. Just keep going forward.

8—Something that appears insignificant to you may prove very important in the future to someone else. Pay attention to the insignificant things right under your feet.

7—Never laugh at a live dragon. It pay to remember that no matter how smart or fast you are, showing it off can give you a warm backside.

6—Never leave home without your pocket handkerchief. I don't know why, but Bilbo seemed to think it important.

5—No matter how small or worthless others may think you, take up your job and do it with courage. They may be surprised.

4—When you don't have an obvious or easy way to accomplish something, think creatively. Rafting in barrel may not be one's first choice of transportation, but it got the job done.

3—The word “mine” will always get you in trouble. A tunnel focus on “what I deserve” rather than “what I can offer” ends badly. Always.

2—Sometimes the biggest thing we fear is not the dragon but our own reaction to it.

1—Home never looks the same after a real adventure, but it always looks good.

Bonus lesson—Stay away from large spiders. Really, why should anyone have to tell you this? It should be obvious.

And . . . watch this space (and my website and facebook page) for the upcoming devotional/youth group study based on Tolkien characters written by--yes--me! 

We've always done it this way

This year, child #2 flew to Atlanta for a wedding the day after Thanksgiving. She missed the Great Tree Cutting last year on account of being a couple thousand miles away in Guatemala. I could not let her miss it again. We could not go before the flight because child #3 had gymnastics practice at school. (Turns out, we should have skipped practice and cut the tree, since she sprained her elbow that morning and was out for a week, but hindsight, you know.)

Parents of older children, you know this drill. It's called “My Kids' Schedules Are More Complicated than a NASA Liftoff.” With one in college, one working full time, and one in a sport in high school, getting all three in the same place at the same time is like trying to get Halley's Comet to jump through the rings of Saturn.

But I've noticed a funny thing. The harder it gets, the more they want it to work. It's like the farther they go away from the things of childhood and make their own futures, the more they cling to the solid things of their past. Those things that just always were. Like a tree on Friday. A gingerbread extravaganza sometime in the vicinity of Christmas. (That one's not so particular on time. We've been known to do it in January.) A birthday breakfast out with mom.

I remember having to cook the huge Thanksgiving dinner the year my mom died. Keep in mind, cooking was not then nor is it now one of my spiritual gifts. I hadn't a clue. But I knew somewhere inside it had to be done, then more than ever. So I invited all the siblings, I cooked, and no one got poisoned so far as I know.

I don't mean we need to keep traditions in a legalistic sort of way—like “you will do this or else be cut out of the will." We got our tree on Sunday. Faced with the choice of doing it on the traditional day or doing it together, we chose together. Modifications and compromise become absolutely necessary.

It's so much more difficult to keep these things solid as they get older and go on to their own hopes and dreams and traditions. But I'm realizing, that's when it gets the most important. We think it's when they're little we need to keep the traditions alive the most. Really? We need to when it's the hardest. Whether that be because of illness, death, or distance, the time to keep the solid things solid is when everything else is too fluid to walk on.

It's worth fighting for those rock solid things that make you the "whole" you are together rather than just individual people joined by DNA. Keep up the fight. 

What's your favorite family tradition?

this is a turtle. and it's the next big thing.

Happy week after Thanksgiving! This odd picture is from what I hope is an upcoming young adult book by . . . me!

Today I’m having fun participating in a series of blog articles called “The Next Big Thing.” It's kind of a ‘Blog Chain’ I was invited to by author Tracy Krauss (http://networkedblogs.com/EIjqP), and it’s my job to invite several people and so on. I’m not sure where it all began, but it’s a cool idea, and it's spreading. So if you like to read about what people are writing, or if you're looking for a good Christmas present book, read on.

The book i'm talking about isn't one I'm currently writing, but it is one I'm working on getting published. So I'd love feedback!

What is the working title of your book?


How NOT to Be Noticed: My High School Anti-Plan for Success. You have to know this is about the fifth working title. My title-creating ability is up there with my knitting mittens ability. Which is not up anywhere. Someone else came up with this title. That is why I like it best so far.

Where did the idea/inspiration come from for the book?


I love reading and teaching YA literature, but I never thought I'd write for kids. Then, after trying to read my novel for adults, my youngest daughter begged me to write something for her age. I figured, if I love reading it, why not try? So she is to blame.

I don't remember the inspiration for this particular story, but it's born of a couple things. One is my friend Rocio who came to this country, worked like crazy to make a life, and allowed me the privilege of sharing in her citizenship ceremony. The other is my middle daughter, whose zest for the unusual in life and whose former fear of the spotlight find their counterpart in Madeline just a little.

What genre does your book fall under?


Young adult contemporary humorous fiction. There are no vampires, werewolves, zombies, or other supernatural creatures to be seen (or unseen). Unless you count the creepy geometry teacher.


What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Madeline―as in fine, not fin―wants to be called Arwen. She also wants to pass art without breaking anything, to live down her junior high nickname, to stop letting her best friend entangle her in activities that imply she cares about high school, and to convince her parents to give up their quest to adopt another daughter. Like any of that is going to happen.

She wants not to be noticed, to stand out, or to have to come out from behind the stage curtains, ever. Like that’s not going to happen. Freshman year is not starting well.

Enter Angelina and Rocio, who complicate everything. What are they hiding and why don't they want to talk about Angelina's dad?

So how does this girl who only wants to be not seen and not heard get to speaking her mind in front of half the town―and not necessarily the friendly half?

OK, that was a bit more than one sentence. Oh well. To see more, go to: http://jillmarierichardson.com/YoungAdult.html


Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It's with my agent now, so say some prayers!


How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I did the first few chapters over a couple months, then I finished it off during NaNoWriMo. For the uninitiated, that's National Novel Writing Month, in which you write a novel in a month. Makes sense, no? Obviously, that was a rough draft.


What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

My favorite YA author is Sharon Creech, so I'd love to be compared to her. I think the current writer my style is most like is probably Julie Halpern.



What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It focuses on the issue of illegal immigration in a very personal way. It also looks at how Madeline's faith changes how she acts, but not in a “Christian novel” way. It's not aimed at Christian publishing, though if it goes that way I'll take whatever I get!

So—to the next five authors, tag, you're it!

Elizabeth Dudak: http://writewhereibelong.com

Catherine Hackman: http://www.catherinehackman.com

Deena Remiel: http://deenar116.wordpress.com

Amy Sullivan: http://www.amylsullivan1.com

Sadly, the fifth person I had 'tagged' passed away this last week. She was a great and encouraging writer and will be hugely missed.

just a spoonful of good sense

Everyone, it seems, is posting requests on Facebook these days begging that we all return to civility and forgive and forget post-election day. I am all for this. Civility is nice. It's good. It's . . . civil. In the back of my mind I can hear Mary Poppins' voice (or Julie Andrews', which is synonymous) offering her approval.

There is one problem with this petition for amnesty. Sometimes, you really do have to ask permission first, not forgiveness later. Sometimes, it's too difficult to go back to how things were when hurt has been done. Not too hard to forgive, mind you. That's always necessary. Forgiveness is vital to our mental health and soul. But I don't think forgetting is going to be as easy as everyone hopes.

I wish it was.

But Facebook has created a monster we previously saw only in ill-advised emails or incredibly stupid comments on Youtube. The monster of “It's electronic, not face-to-face, so I can blast people with my 30-second opinion and feel no consequences.” OK, Facebook hasn't created this monster. Occasional bad manners are native to most of us. But it has facilitated poor judgment on a vast scale.

See, if someone is willing to basically call me an a selfish moron in a Facebook post for not thinking they way he does, I can reasonably assume he would call me one in person as well. This is not the behavior of friends. Realizing that Facebook “friends” and real life friends are different creatures, I hope that if a person is the former, I would still treat her with the respect of a face-to-face friend.

I don't post politics, so I haven't lost any friends over it so far as I know. But I know several people who have. Unfriending someone simply because she doesn't agree with your brand of thought is absurd. I mean really, who wants to live in a world where everyone thinks the same thing? Opinions among friends are part of the fiber of a free country.

But unfriending someone because he persists in comments, statuses, or comics that imply or outright insist I'm an idiot and his opinion is the only intelligent/morally defensible one? I can understand that. I'm in a cranky enough mood first thing in the morning when I sit down and open the computer. I don't need to add insult to insufficiently-caffienated injury.

Point being, think before you type. Ponder before you post. Are these really your friends? Then let's begin from respect rather than end with apology. Mary would approve.