an update for the sake of publically recognizing this monumental moment

but without the least bit of creativity or capitalization or punctuation due to the fact that my mind is swimming with redaction criticism and my eyes are blurry because I read (looked at) too many pages today... and yesterday... and for three years...

and all this to say... today i finished my coursework for DTS. i thought that was blog worthy.

Feelin' Hopeful. FullaHope.

June turned purple today. I was typing it after May after April and suddenly it turned purple and flowery, like a willow tree or a pompom flower but flowy and coming from my heart and I knew that when I heard “This too shall pass” in February, He meant it. And now I am watching in teary eyed amazement as it passes. As I type the last word and read the last pages and rush for the last time and slow to a halt, surrounded not just by purple dahlia flowers that keep kissing me on the cheek, but also by the ladiest of lady bugs.

Wishing I Were A Photographer

But I'm not. And perhaps it's better because there are some things I want to show you that can't be photographed. The woman on the subway would have considered it an imposition if I had drawn close to her and snapped the lines on her face, the vacant, fixed look on her eyes, the way her shoulders pulled forward though she was carrying nothing material. I would have stolen something from her, and she would have glared, and stepped away. So I memorized her for you. I memorized her as she saw past and through me, and never knew I existed. Her eyes were clearish green.

I want to show you the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. If Christen were here, she'd take pictures, and maybe you'd see it. You'd walk with her camera into the biggest cathedral in the world and feel for the first time the weight of Job's words, "Do you have an arm like God's,
and can your voice thunder like his?"
You'd feel irreverent for not falling to your knees, or you'd fall to your knees, as you realized how small you are, and how massive God is, and how you are at His mercy.

I wish I could show you the sideways rain in NYC, and how hard we laughed, soaked and freezing with umbrellas bent backwards, when the city tried to blow us back to Texas (We stood our ground).

I've been in New York City for five days. I've been walking miles a day, sipping coffee and interviewing pastors and ministers who profess love for God and love for their city. Men and women who eat, breathe, and live New York. Who strive to understand and serve their neighbors, who long to be faithful with what they've been given. I've met Presbyterians, Anglicans, Baptists, Atheists, Pluralists, Feminine Theologians, Counselors, Academics. To say I'm overwhelmed is an understatement. We've sat with some very experienced church planters, writers, theologians, hippies... and my head is swimming with words, ideas, and dreams. I got pretty worked up about it earlier but I've decided for the night to not take myself altogether too seriously.

What I mean by that is these men and women are exhorting us to serve God in their context. My context tonight is my roommate Chelsea and our lovely hosts. So tonight I'll serve them, and the people praying for me by updating my blog. And I'll listen to some beautiful music and worship my gracious Lord who cares for me and helps me to care for others.

And I'll think about the city and my future, but not now. Tonight I'm going horizontal, and praying for sweet dreams. Love to you, my friends.

First Impressions

Today was a day like any other. I rocked, I boomed, I carried the world forward. I moved and swayed and towered and held within me bustling cold business. It rained, and they went out anyway. They hid beneath my awnings, yelled when cabs drove by and muddied their boots. But I stood like a rock, foundations deep, not minding at all about the aching, moaning, screeching, singing, of a few. There were millions. I had to think of the mass, not the parts.

Two Texans came, feeling pretty big. Didn’t take them long to be cut down to size. Standing in Time Square, soaking and lost, wide eyed. I took note, boomed, they shook and scurried.

-New York (as interpreted by frenzied Abby)

a day in the life

Today has been so shimmery I think I should write it. At the same time I fear that writing now, 17 minutes before midnight, may somehow take away from it. I'm not sure I've enough skill to write shimmer, and I'm so tired and filled up that my bed wants to wrap me up and pull me underneath at once. Still, I'll try.

My roommate and I woke up, emptied our desks and hauled them to a West Dallas garage sale. We are not moving anytime soon, but they were having a sale and we realized we don't ever use our desks. They serve mostly as what my dad poetically termed, "crap-stackers." So we emptied them and whisked off to a garage sale. Along the way we had confession, tears, good conversation and some earl gray tea. When we got back, I had to laugh at the stacks of stuff piled up in my room. I whined, "Chels, I don't know what to do with this stuff," to which she replied, "look! more room for piles!" I thought this was great, and now I think I like my pile room better than my room with a pretend desk where work was never done. I prefer to work at the kitchen table or my couch or the coffee shop or any place but that desk. Now, I have piles.

I felt cleansed from getting rid of something I don't need, and from good honest hard conversation with my roommate who loves me without judgment.

Next I caught up with my baby sister on the phone and we laughed and exhorted one another and watched for truth in our conversation, and I organized my piles. Shortly after, I went to a local nursery to browse their flowers and spices. I decided I wanted to grow things, but that now I can't. So I will someday. Someday, I will have a garden.

Then a friend called with a direct answer to prayer. We went to White Rock Coffee and he poured truth into me and we prayed and I understood things more. And that is ambiguous and unclear but he was a good friend to me and I needed one.

Then I went for a walk at my lake. (White Rock Lake is my lake. It is also a lot of other people's, and we get along quite well). White Rock Lake hosts the most eccletic group of people a lake has ever hosted, and I couldn't help smiling watching the old men who take care of the ducks, the spandex people, the hippie hula hoopers (I was secretly jealous of them), the girl walking in silver stilettos, and the couples wrapped around each other around a bench around the lake, soaking up the sun's reflection on the water. I wished I were a photo-journalist, and I would have done an essay on love at white rock lake. A brother pushing his sister on her training wheels bike and the girl in the stiletto's with her boyfriend would have had the central focus.

I came back, got super cute, and my picked up my friend for a completely unbelievable evening. She had two free tickets to Savor Dallas, and she gave them to us! This event hosts sixty of Dallas' finest chefs offering samples of their best dishes over 400 wines. For $175 you can eat/drink as much as you desire. I had NEVER had food like this. Steak tartar, lobster bisque and the winner of the World's Best Chocolate award four years running... We walked around for hours, tasting, talking and listening to a band whose lead singer had one of those smooth-twenties voices and the big silver stand microphone to go with it. He sang and between the people watching, the fancy food tasting, and the laughter and live music, I was well filled up, and pinching myself to see if it was real.

So I started the day at a garage sale and ended the day with Dallas socialites. In between I had flowers at a nursery and beautiful conversation. I am... tickled, and so grateful.

and then she thought

i'll tell you one thing. there are so many girls with lovely hats and boys with scruffy beards and beat up jackets banging on drums, and singing to make something beautiful happen. and there are so many fields that haven't been mowed, and yellow dogs catching frisbees.

and then there are the cowboys, who have really got it figured out. and they lean over their fences and look at you when you pass them, and they've got it, and you know they've got it.

and there are the hippies and the mennonites, and they (respectively) live together and share and ache and break and celebrate as one.

and i'll tell you something else. there's something beautiful, something that they can't wrap their arms quite around, that's pulling them all, and they catch it like a lightening bug in a jar. sadly, the bug suffocates when caught and goes out after awhile. so they search again, with the jar in the field for the bug. with the guitar and the horse whip and the music and the commune. and the truth is, they've got it, at least, a piece of it. they're RIGHT. but still, just when they've caught the bug, it dies.

so they've got to learn, and i've got to learn, to let beauty pass through us like a cool breeze, to inhale but to exhale too, and be okay when the breeze stills, or when the breeze freezes.

and more, they've got to look, and i've got to look, beyond the breeze. beyond the hippies, to what brings them together... to the Source...

wedding car cans

When I live in survival mode, I coast on top of my days, unable to really dig my heels in. Unable to stop, to soak, to lift, to stretch out a bit.

I do NOT like to live in survival mode. I think I'd rather eat chalk than chase my day like the cans tied to the back of a wedding getaway car. Those sad cans. Eyes brimming, heart swimming love just a few meters ahead, coasting smooth, and they just bump and jolt and slam along, never quite able to catch up. Then, when the car finally does stop, they're too tired and banged up to be of much use. Oh! That's quite perfect. That stop, that arrival-- that's my friday. My week is the wedding getaway car, and I am the cans, hopelessly chasing it down.

So Friday comes. This Friday, for example, I woke up, and felt it. I knew that the week would stop today. So I got up and went to substitute teach for the first grade. In the first hour a child projectile vomited all over the classroom. (He had told me he felt sick earlier and I told him he was fine and to please sit down). In the second hour a child spit on me (purposefully, while screaming "I HATE THIS SCHOOL.") In the third hour, while reading the bible, I read one phrase at a time, in between telling children to stop coloring, picking, jumping, tickling, poking, etc. You can imagine how conviction and worship welled up in the hearts of the children by the climactic exhortation, "And then God said to David-- SIT UP AND STOP TOUCHING THAT..."

I made it to 3:30pm. Scoreboard read: Kids- 1. Miss Lorenc- 0. And I drove home, slouched in body and heart. I don't remember putting them on, but I found myself in my pajama pants by 7pm. Like the wedding car cans. The car had stopped. And I was worthless.

Thankfully, a friend called and asked me to get root beer. I sensed myself getting to a very bad place, the place where I convince myself of the utter worthlessness of my life and look at prices for one way tickets to developing countries with hammocks and mountains. So I decided to take her up on her offer. I spent the evening half asleep at the Alligator Cafe, content at least to be around jovial people who didn't seem to be convinced that they were eighty-year-olds in twenty-five year old bodies.

AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE?! Boys should KNOW, they should just KNOW, not to tell girls they look tired. Why?! How is that helpful? I heard it three times in three days. The third time I cried, but in a bathroom stall by myself. Ick. Boys. Please if you can remember, it is nice when you open doors and don't tell girls they look tired. So nice.

Today I filled up on beauty. Spent hours in a coffee shop with lovely friends and books. Cooked. Listened to peaceful music. Drank tea. Curled up in the library. Prayed with a godsend of a friend. And now I'm sitting with thoughts and music and three candles. And I'm thinking about how I know God, and He loves me, and keeps me. And how if I don't point up to Him every time, then what am I really doing?

And I'm thinking that He'll be faithful always, and one day, I WILL be with him in a way that is different than now. And I'm hopeful.

Berbery

Context: 1) I work as a receptionist at an AMAZING school. 2)Berbery is a very strong Ethiopian spice comparable to Turmenic, or Curry.

I had reached my capacity for weird at 1:15. It was little things, really.

A fourth grader called the front desk to inform me that he was terribly sorry but would not be coming to school today.

A certain high ranking government official came to the school, I welcomed him and asked him to wait one moment while I got someone, and his body guards (there were two) looked at me like I was ridiculous, and let themselves right in. By the time I picked my jaw up off the floor he was in the cafeteria.

Shortly thereafter I went to one of our student’s parents house for lunch. They are Ethiopian, and know of my fondness for Ethiopian cuisine. What I did not know is that today, January 7, is Ethiopian Christmas, and I walked in to a complete party, where I was stuffed with food, asked to show off every Ethiopian phrase I know, and invited to meet with an Ethiopian priest who can teach me about Orthodoxy. I was also hugged and kissed and patted repeatedly by total strangers. (I liked this part very much.)

As I rushed ten minutes late into my office, my boss noted that she smelled Ethnic food. Her nose led her around the office, to my hair, and to my horror, I discovered that I was a walking Berbery Air Freshener. I started to really be hyper aware of the smell and sat in a corner self-consciously, warning everyone that came to my office to please wait at the door. Then, when no one was around, I bent over in half and shook my hair out with my hands. As I flipped it back right side up (you know my hair, I looked like Diana Ross) I found myself face to face with one of our schools board members. I tripped over my words, explaining that I wasn’t doing anything weird, it was that I smelled like I had washed my hair in berbery lamb shampoo. I thought that would ease the tension. He smiled sympathetically, and walked away.

Then, just before I sat to write this, I had our office manager spray bathroom freshener in my room, and walked through it. So now I smell like steamed Ethiopian lamb bathed in Hawaiian Aloha Hibiscus.

Weird.

Taping My Ears to My Face: the most recent testimony to my neurosis.

Warning: this is kind of gross.

It started about a month ago, when my brother-in-law leaned forward across my parent’s kitchen island with a furrowed eyebrow concentrating his stare toward the left side of my face and said, “What the…?” He thereby sent me into a three second eternity in which I imagined all the things that could be wrong with my face, including a newly formed giant birthmark in the shape of California that would eventually start growing hair. The hair I could of course exterminate, not without a certain amount of nausea, but the mark would grow darker and darker every time I set foot in the sun, and I would be forced to either start a scarf-around-the-face trend or have skin grafted from my thigh and plastered to my face.

Just as I was starting to get dizzy, he finished his sentence, disconcertedly noting that it looked like my earring was about to tear through my ear. I suppressed my indignation at the seeming disproportion of the disgusted look on his face and a lobe pulled down by a heavy earring, covered my ear, turned on one heel, and in a most dignified manner scurried to the bathroom, where I removed my earring. There, in my mother’s bathroom, facing a mirror that transforms pores into caves and eyebrow hairs into thorns, I noted that sure enough, this was more than a temporary lobe pulled down by a heavy earring. Rather than a tiny pierced hole, my ear appeared to have been pierced by an envelope opener, and I was forced to admit… a problem.

The first sacrifice I made in effort to coax the skin back to unity was to quit wearing dangly earrings, (a sure sacrifice to anyone who knows me, and undoubtedly the source of my new… malformation). I thought surely this would curb the degeneration of my earlobe.

So now I check my lobe every day in the mirror, to see if it has getting better, and while it doesn’t seem to be getting worse, healing is certainly not taking place either. Much to my regret, I confessed my problems to a friend with an imagination, who noted that if my ear did tear all the way through, my earlobe would look like a tiny hoof. I shrank back in horror, visions of my new freak hoof ear dancing through my brain.

And most unfortunately, my brain seems to have chosen the hoof image to shove to the front of my consciousness each night as I lay down to sleep. Recently it has gotten so bad that I cannot sleep. I tried counting sheep, but of course, sheep have hoofs. Soon in my counting, thousands of pairs of sheep with their hoofs were standing in the middle of a field like a drill team, high kicking their little split toes to the tune of “Isn’t she lovely.” I tossed and turned all night long, but got no rest. So the next night, I took a large band aid and plastered my earlobe to my face. That way I could be sure my earlobe would not move while I was sleeping. Peeling it off the next morning was rough, but the peaceful rest was worth it. So now this is my plan.

Please understand. My ear doesn’t hurt at all, but as soon as I think of it, I swear I can feel it. For those of you wondering, yes, I am fully aware that the angst leading to insomnia is “all in my head,” (while the earlobe hanging on by a thread on the left side, is actually quite out of my head), and don’t care to be reminded. I’ve got plenty of problems in my head, and being reminded of their locale provides little comfort.

I am open to advice, recommended earlobe surgeons, ideas for gracious responses to being called hoof-ear in the new future, and to being unconditionally loved by my faithful friends, whose love for me is in no way contingent upon my earlobe remaining in tact.

Until I figure out a better plan, my ear will remain earring free in the day and taped to my face at night.

To be continued…

Starting Small

Ann Lammott advises writers to start small when they feel overwhelmed by the white page before them. Specifically, she suggests writing about childhood school lunches. I want to write about SO MANY THINGS, big and small and scary and hairy (actually just one thing hairy, my apartment floor, because we can’t afford a flipping vacuum cleaner), and bursting with passion, but I’m too overwhelmed.

So I’ll just write, for now, about the fact that I am HUNGRY. I have been running around since 5:30 this morning, and I PREPARED for the day. I packed myself a nutritious breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but FORGOT flatware. So my dinner is sitting under my chair in class (yes, I'm blogging from class) because I can’t figure out a graceful way to slurp or scoop garbanzo beans using nothing but… myself. Ugh.

I imagine having a dear friend or parent or spouse in prison, behind the glass wall thing would feel something like this. We’ve all seen the movies, where separated lovers, one unjustly condemned, place their hands against the screen, the comfort of seeing their beloved almost voided by the torture of not being able to touch.

Or perhaps the man who lost his leg in war, but still wakes to feel it itch. He reaches, only to touch the bedsheets where his leg would have formerly rested, unable to experience the satisfaction of a good, scratch.

My garbanzo beans are the condemned lover, the amputated limb. And I. Am. Hungry.

Back to school.

twenty-four oceans

Today was the death day of my twenty fifth year. It dies officially tonight at twelve. Tomorrow, when people ask me, I'll answer, twenty-five. I celebrated this death by waking up slowly and having four cups of coffee with my mother, and then by meeting my beloved sister Ali for antique shopping, walking, talking, and of course, crying in an old historic downtown square. My father and brother-in-law came and met us for lunch, and we just... enjoyed each other.

The funniest quote of the day (and there were many) was a toss up. I mortified myself by exclaiming "MOM, DID YOU KNOW THAT ERIKA IS TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH A MEXICAN?" just as our lovely latina waitress set the tortilla chips on the table. I love Mexico, and meant it in complete eager excitement for my friend, but the timing was... poor. (By the way, congratulations my friend). Earlier at an antique store my mom picked up a doll and moaned, "I have this in my ceder chest! I'm antique!!!" Later my mother (who NEVER shops) bought some jeans called "Not Your Daughter's Jeans" at a store around the corner. When she came out of the dressing room to show them off, my dad whispered in her ear. I'm not sure what it was, but the smile on her face made me sure that the self-doubt caused by the antique store was now quite invalidated.

I loved twenty-four, and heartily recommend it to anyone. It has been a difficult year, full of lessons hard learned (though well learned. I personally would have chosen to read a book about, and fixed myself completely beforehand rather than walk the road, but God in His wisdom had other plans). It has been a year of the Lord's steadfast faithfulness, a year of His power and glory, and a year of His strength in my weakness.

It has also been a year of listening to the switchfoot song "twenty-four" about 365 times, knowing that as of tomorrow, it just won't mean as much.

And now tomorrow I welcome twenty-five with open arms, knowing that whatever may come, He wills it so. I am frightened, of course, of many valid things (or at least, I think they're valid), and then some completely irrational things as well, but at least acknowledging it. That's a start.

God, grant me the serenity, to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Celebration

Today was a day of celebrations. I celebrated with some of my very good girlfriends. We celebrated knowing each other, and being alive, and fall and pumpkins and good books and truth.

We celebrated by walking at the lake, and then by a picnic at the arboretum. We got cold, so we left after a few hours and went to sit by the fire in my apartment, where we celebrated by talking and laughing and praying.

My roommate and I left around five, and we went to meet some friends of a friend whose parents welcomed us into their home. We ate dinner with them, and heard stories of redemption and hope. We talked for hours with Arturo, originally from Monterrey, who had raised his family in the states, and Hannah, my beloved Mennonite friend who I met in Ecuador studying abroad. We listened and laughed and reveled and ate dessert.

And now I'm in another home, lit only by lamps, celebrating just... being... with two very safe people who know me very well and love me anyway. When peace like a river attendeth my way... oh, it is well with my soul.

i spy

I wrap myself up in a café chair
And hide behind my coffee cup and hair.

Then stand up gracefully inside my mind.
(Of course you’ll think I’m sitting all the time).

I read over his shoulder, word for word.
I laugh at whispers she thinks no one heard.

I stare across and drink in love from eyes
Not meant for me-- I find this most unwise.

I listen to your heart and to your feet.
I see her drum her hands to match your beat.

I climb inside my body once again
And take a sip, and shed a tear and grin.

balloons drifting out of my head.

Have I thought about all the things i need to think about today? I thought about plane tickets, and about hippies with low pony tails, and about cuticle cream, and how I'd like to meet the inventor of cuticle cream. Not because I need some (though I do). Just because I bet he has an interesting story. A story about a wife with bad cuticles. And he told her they were bad and she did not appreciate it one bit. So he invented this cream, and frankly, she didn't appreciate that either. But he made a lot of money and bought her a ridiculous wrinkly dog, and when she saw the dog with a bow on it's head, she forgot about the source of their riches, and when her husband made insensitive comments, she found comfort in her pup, who never commented on her cuticles.

And I've thought about China and about washing my hair, and I've thought about being lonely and scared, and I thought about the mountains and resting in them. And I thought about swimming in my mind.

And I thought about how I wish I had someone to walk with at the lake, and how God satisfies desires of all things. And about writing this versus not writing this, and about how long past the due date you can eat turkey (I might should have thought more about that).

And only now at 9:57 pm am I getting to the tiny light flecks that some people have in their eyes, to the word "berry"-- a nice little word that sounds quite like what it is. And to hospitals with people saying hello and goodbye, for a long time. And about how my dad hugs me so tight sometimes, and doesn't let go till after I do. (If you are a dad with a daughter who is grown, which you probably are not, because no dads read this blog that I know of, please continue to hug your daughter very tightly. I promise you, to her breathing is less important. Hug her tight enough, and then tighten a bit more. Good.)

And I'm thinking about truth that sets me free, that allows me to live on a plane just an inch or so above the earth. Only an inch, but it makes such an incredible difference. The difference between anxiety and joy, between pressure and peace, between selfishness and love.

I was asked today if I think too much. As long as there keeps being so much to think about, I've at least got to try to keep up.

Today I...

…woke up at 4:56, four minutes before I was supposed to leave to take my roommate to the airport. I jumped off my bed into some clothes, splashed something that I hope was soap onto my face, grabbed everything I could think of for my day, and ran out the door with her at 5:03.

…decided to put on loose powder in a traffic jam. I’ve had some pretty bad ideas, and this one just saddled right up to the others. Less than two seconds after opening the powder the jar jumped from my hands, bounced from the passenger seat to the floor, and I found myself trying to see through a thin film of Beige 1 dust. (I know- I'm really Ivory 2, but I pretend) Twenty minutes later, I was locked in the Starbucks bathroom doing laundry- trying to shake, wash, and then scrub the powder out of my clothes, and off of my teeth.

…had breakfast with a beautiful friend who is leaving to do mission work in Nicaragua. I wanted to jump in her car and go with her. I bet they don’t care at all if you have powdered pants, whereas I’ll probably be gently reprimanded at work.

And it’s only 8:44 in the morning.

slivers

Today…

I read about Jesus and the masses. He was tired and frustrated, yet filled with compassion for the people who sought him. I am tired today, and mildly frustrated, and thankful that Christ in me can fill me with compassion for those who come across my path.

I drove one exit too far to go to work so that I could turn around and drive into the sunrise for a bit, and the rings of my eyes turned gold for a moment.

Javier, a ten year old boy, came in to take his medicine. I asked him how his birthday was- he turned ten on Monday. He told me they didn’t do anything for his birthday. I asked him if he got any gifts, and he said no, that his mom said they don’t have enough money this year. I nodded and hugged him. Inside I wished I could buy him anything he ever wanted. Instead, I told him I had met some children his age this summer who lived in orphanages, and who didn’t know when their birthdays were. We talked about how good it is to share with those who don’t have, and he perked up and ran to class.

On a lighter note… The headmaster of my school brought in a premature, tiny baby possum, with no fur or eyes.

I’ve had China stuck in my head all day long. Yes, the country. I don’t pretend I can contain it all, but I’ll be answering the phone, or handing out a tardy slip, and all the sudden I’m sitting on the roof eating sushi, or laughing at the Chinese air conditioning system (which for our city, meant men pulling up their shirts to let their bellies hang out), or near-fainting at the magnitude of the city apartments.

Slivers... so far.

The. Fall.

I think I've figured it out. The new winds that I'm breathing have come from far away, in the Rocky Mountains and perhaps even the Himalaya's, and they smell like newness and depth and I can't help but feel I should follow them. Every fall I feel that if I knelt down and then jumped high enough I'd simply fly away. Every fall I cry for beauty and changing leaves, and I live in DALLAS. It's probably God's grace that I have never made it to New England in the fall (though I check flight prices daily). I think I might faint for beauty. And it's God's grace that fall dies into Christmas, because I love twinkling lights and warm drinks and red cheeked children and soft sweaters. So I don't think to mourn the fall until the Spring, but then people are always falling in love all around me, and that drama keeps me too busy to think about weather until the time change, and I love the time change. Pretty soon school lets out and then everyone can take a deep breath and rest in the water, and travel to see family and go on mission trips, which makes summer quite... a delight.

The only reason I'm gushing like this about the seasons is because it is the fall. If you cut me, I think I'd bleed apple cider.

Cheerios and Sunsets

The recent gray skies and fall breeze have been sending nostalgic whispers to tease me. I say tease because I can’t catch them. One will jump up out of nowhere, kiss me, and I’ll sit, frozen, trying to hold on to the memory, the feeling, the scent or longing from the past.

It’s been happening all the time, and without warning. Today my banana tasted like the ones I used to eat in my cheerios. I chewed slowly and closed my eyes, back at the kitchen table with my sisters, in our pajamas on a slower day.

And I remembered being whisked away from school by my mom, for orthodontist appointments, optometrist appointments, what have you. I loved those days, not just because I got out of school, but because it would be me and mom, for a while. I’d want to freeze time driving in her car, sitting with her in the lounge, too young and too in the moment to be aware of the magic she held over me.

Every year autumn's breath wakes me up, alerting me to the beauty my friends, the grace of women who let their hair gray, the speed at which I’ve been running, the joy of holding coffee in my mouth a little bit longer before swallowing.

Yesterday I biked around the lake, and then sat to watch the sunset. I prayed and listened, and while we talked God wove a sunset so glorious I wanted to shift from a sitting position to a kneeling position. But if people noticed then I wouldn’t be invisible anymore, and I desperately wanted to be invisible. I was talking to God about all sorts of things, but soon He hushed me with a slow reaching of sun rays to water, and all I could say was, “Beautiful.”

How are you?

This morning a slightly chubby boy walked in twenty minutes late to school. I handed him a tardy and asked how he was. He answered, “I found two locusts at my dad’s house. They’re dead.” We looked at each other in mutual pensive respect for the dead locusts, and he went on his way.

I wonder what would happen if adults started answering the question, “How are you?” with a little more spunk?

The frame and a snapshot

When I haven’t written for a long time, it’s difficult to know where to start. Do I start in theory land, in what God is teaching me, rolling out, revealing about his world and himself? Or do I start in practical land and tell you stories? Even now as I write, I haven’t decided.

I’ll start with the frame, and then paint the picture. I came back from Ethiopia and ran, into a new apartment, a new job, a bit of a new life. I have eleven hours left in my degree, and am taking six right now. Lord willing, I’ll take five in the spring, and then graduate in May. I work as a receptionist at West Dallas Community School, a private Christian school in a historically underprivileged area of Dallas. The mission of the School is:

“to provide students with a challenging educational experience designed to help them know, love, and practice that which is true, good, and excellent and to prepare them to live purposefully and intelligently in the service of God and man.”

The school is a calm and peaceful place in the midst of a dangerous neighborhood. It is part of a West Dallas Initiative to bring redemption and hope to families in the area. Less than two percent of adults in this zip code have gone to college, and for many of the children, college seems like an impossible goal. The school is funded by generous donors who are committed to giving their money to eternal things.

Within the year, they want to hire someone from the community to serve as a receptionist, but haven’t found the right person yet. I needed a job like this for a year to help me pay for school and life until I graduate, so on both ends it works very well. I love the mission of the school and the people I get to be around. On very hard days at my job (and there have already been plenty) I am reminded of how God blazed a path ahead of me to put me here, and how He will sustain me to do what He’s asked me to do.

I take classes at DTS at night. Not shockingly, I love them, and find myself energized by being able to learn about the reality of God and the way the world works. But I also can barely keep my eyes open once I get home at night.

This is the frame of my life, if you will. But the picture changes every day as I walk around within the borders God seems to have set for me. Today, into my frame, walked a woman whose nieces go to West Dallas School. They live with her because their mother does not want them. After a year and a half in foster care, this woman took them in even though she can barely afford to take care of her own children. She sat at the front desk and told me their story. Her niece is in Pre-K and has been sent home most days because of acting up, but this little girl has had more trauma in her life than most of us will ever experience. She is handicapped due to her mother allowing a fever to persist for two weeks before going to the doctor, and doesn’t trust a single adult in her young life. My keyboard was soon wet with tears, and I promised to pray for her.

I hate some of the things I saw in Ethiopia and some of the things I see here. But that makes sense, according to the Bible, doesn't it? This world is broken, and we who wish to give our lives away as He gave His know that there is nothing better than to Love Him and to Love others. To give ourselves away, and to be a part of making things right. More thoughts to come. Be blessed.