Somewhere between life as I knew it and life as it will be.

How to begin, how to begin....

Contrary to what my location says on here, I am not in the Boro. I'm at my grandma's house, about halfway between Conway and Vilonia in the grand state of Arkansas.

I'm posting from my grandma's house because she has an Internet connection. My house back in the Boro doesn't.

That's right...my grandma has an Internet connection and I don't. She's hardcore. (She even social networks more than I ever could have dreamed of doing, but that's another story for another time.)

If you keep up with my posts (Lord bless you for your graciousness if you do), you may have noticed that I haven't produced anything in a while.

With time I expect a fuller picture of my life over the past six months will emerge, but the fullness of that time is not wrapped up in now. But I will begin with a piece.

The Internet connection at my house disappeared in October. I tapped into a wi-fi connection regularly for the remainder of the month, but eventually even doing that became difficult. Keeping up with a life of interaction on the Internet requires momentum. I lost what little momentum I had. I was out for a while, and the longer I stayed out, the easier it was to stay out. I found myself thinking, "Hey, now would be a good time to go get online," and would immediately ask myself, "What good would it do, though? I can't do much in the next couple of hours. Before I could even catch up it would be time to go." So I let it -the Internet and all life attached to it- go.

October left for November to take its place. I didn't get online at all in the month of November. Do you know how huge of a statement...of a reality...that is? Coming from me? Coming from a 20-something living in the 21st Century? I'll say it again. I didn't get online at all in the month of November.

December came quickly after, and before tonight, I only got online once earlier this month to try to take care of some important business (which I couldn't address in that one sitting and is still left undone...another story and all that).

During this time, I have been becoming reacquainted with what life used to be like, both my short one and human life in general. After I lost the Internet I even lost access to a functioning television for a while, which is a reality I had not known in my brief 23 years. (I've lived without indoor plumbing but never without a TV. Ah, the modern age.)

The only thing that has kept me from feeling entirely disconnected to the greater world around me was my cell phone (which was even spotty and questionable quite a bit of the time). Thanks to Twitter through texting, I've kept up with the tweet-worthy happenings of a few of my friends, as well as sent enough updates to not feel like I fell from the face of the planet. I've even texted in a few Facebook statuses, but Facebook through texting gets sketchy. Also, wonder of all wonders, a few people have even called me to chat. Did you know that people still do that? Make phone calls? And talk to each other? With their voices? Just because? Well, they do.

Since I still don't have an Internet connection at home and it's Christmastime and things are busy, it would still be really easy to stay away. But I do know that there are some people out there who actually pay attention to the things that I post (which I consider an honor) and have no clue what's been going on (or no clue that anything has been going on at all), so for them, here I am. If you're one of them, you have my gratitude.

Also, if you're one of the people who have been praying for and thinking of me and/or my family in the past months, thank you as well, whether you've known any details about the happenings of our lives or not. For those who don't know, things have been much more surprising and challenging than I expected them to be anytime soon. I've seen some trouble, and I've always been conscious of a promise for more, but I seem to have been under a delusion that the more was to come later. And every time that I have felt like we five were alone in our tiny corner of the world, I was reminded that there are a remarkable number of people who actually do know something about what's going on, and an additional number of people who haven't a clue, yet think warm thoughts about and conjure happy feelings for us out of the blue anyway, many of whom I know are guided by the Holy Spirit and have prayed sincerely whenever we've come to mind.

Adversity is a learning experience. Generally speaking, I like to learn.

A few short months away from obtaining an undergraduate degree, letting go of the burden of academia, and exploring more of the riches that life has to offer, I began this year in a state of optimism. I'm ending it in one as well. The time in between has been far different than anywhere my imagination had dared to go, and harder than I would have chosen, but a promise of newness is arising. We're in a new house, a new year doth quickly approach, I've learned new things, and in some ways I feel like a new person.

Ever faithful, the one seated on the throne is still saying, "Behold! I make all things new." Amen.

Abundance in drought.

Waiting, waiting.

Pressure builds.

You'd think eventually the top would pop off.

Sides are threatening to explode at their seams.

Seams that I didn't know where there until their strength was tested.

Surely there can't be anymore room?

But there is. Always, it seems.

I don't know from where it all comes.

It's like someone put an undetectable extension charm on my life.

I don't care so much that no one else can detect it, but it'd be nice if I could sometimes. Save me a lot of grief.

But then where would be the room for grace?

If there was infinite space and I knew it, grace wouldn't find a hole big enough to inhabit.

But with all crevices stuffed to their limits, grace multiplies.

It abounds.

...and here's where I quote "Rawhide."

I still got it.

What is it I still have? (Other than a propensity to abandon formal grammar on occasion?)

Packing skills. Relocation packing skills. specifically.

After talking about it for a long time, my family and I are preparing to move. "Somethin's gotta give" has been our desperate prayer for a while, and as nothing has shown an inclination to give for a few months now, it has been made clear to us that it's time to go somewhere else. The place we are living is the largest contributor to our burden. Our time here was blessed for a while - a long while - but it seems pretty clear now that it's time to move on.

We've been in this house for 3 years and 5 months. My brothers and I have never lived anywhere nearly that long before. After being stationary for such a time, as I prepared to start packing a box, I momentarily wondered if I would have to pack and repack it a few times to figure out how to use its space most efficiently. For those who don't know, packing is a skill. Like most skills it becomes (and stays) more refined with practice. Aside from my frequent weekend trips and summers at camp, my packing skills have not been used in years.

But as it turns out, in this case at least, packing is like riding bike. I shuffled the contents of the box ever so slightly as I was putting them in, but I mostly just looked at the box, looked at my junk, and my brain keenly deduced how to best fill the former with the latter. Thank goodness.

Where and when we're moving we do not yet know. But this isn't the first time we've blindly packed, nor do I expect it to be the last. I do expect this to be the last family move that we make. My parents are keen to relocate somewhere else as soon as they can, and my brother and I are both keen to stay in this area (as well as live by ourselves :) ). Until my parents are ready to do that, though, we need to reduce and simplify. So once more we shall find another place to live together, and fondly think back on all of the wandering memories we've made while making one last set of new ones.

So now I sift through my belongings, deciding what to pack and what to relinquish from my possession. Can you guess what are the only things I've packed so far? Books. What do I still have a lot left to pack? Books. Counting all of my possessions, what makes up the majority of what I own and have to pack? Books. What makes up the majority of what I've decided to get rid of? Books.

So I guess one day if I ever am truly poor and have nothing to eat, I'll have plenty of paper to satisfy me.

But that comment spawns another post altogether....

Film removal.

I stumbled upon a perspective-altering realization last night.

That seems to be happening on a regular basis lately.

But this last one was particularly stealthy and hard to ignore.

I realized that for a long time now I've been wishing I could have my life back. That necessarily implies that I had concluded that my life was gone. I also realized that I had not only concluded my life was gone, but that it had been taken from me, forcefully.

I determined a while ago that I've been going through a "my life is not my own" lesson, a lesson which aligns with feelings that acquaintance with my life has been severed. However, one of the biggest points I've found in this particular lesson is that what God has been doing with my life, whether or not I like it, has been a direct result of a commitment I made to Christ. I gave my life over willingly.

So nothing was taken from me.

But I've been sitting here under the delusion that it has and have been feeling resentful because of it. I've been waiting around for the day when my life will come back to me. When who or whatever took it away will decide that they're done with it and I can once again make its possession mine.

Whoa.

My life hasn't been taken. Furthermore, this is my life; everything that's been happening, everything that has made me feel turned upside down, everything that seems so uncertain, it's all my life. I need to embrace it and disallow myself to be deluded that some other kind of life that I've dreamed up in my head is a reality above what I have now.

Allow me now to quote one of my favorite songs from Derek Webb, one that I sing often: "I am wrong and of these things I repent."

The world has found somebody to love. I knew this would happen.

And it's about time.

Usually, when everybody's talking about something, I'm not. Sometimes - oftentimes - I don't even know about it.

But when someone I know is at the center of all the chatter, I'm more than happy, eager even, to make an exception.

I'm surprised it's taken me so long to post about this, actually.

Marc Martel, guitarist and co-lead singer for the band downhere, submitted an audition video  on Tuesday for a Queen tribute band, set to be called Queen Extravaganza. The contest and eventual tour is the brain child of Queen's drummer Roger Taylor, and while he'll have the final say on who all will be in the band, he launched this search to allow the public to vote on who they want one member of the band to be.

For years, Marc has had dozens of people come up to him after every concert he plays and ask him something along the lines of, "Has anyone ever told you that you sound like that guy from Queen?" So it was almost a no-brainer for him to submit his own audition. Out of the four songs hopefuls had to choose from, Marc picked "Somebody to Love."

If you haven't seen it, watch the video. Even if you have, watch it again. This is 2 minutes and 11 seconds of your life that you will not regret devoting to a blending of audio and visuals.



Impressive? I know the guy and I'm impressed. I even know he could have done better than this and I'm still impressed.

Apparently a lot of other people are too, because the video has over 2 million views as of the time I'm writing this and he's been popping up all over the Internet, television and radio. Wow.

I've known the band downhere for about three years (and been listening to them for about nine). They're not only four of my favorite musicians, but also people I genuinely like to be around. To say I'm proud of Marc is an understatement.

Voting begins November 11th. If things have already been taking off this quickly, I'm excited to see what happens between now and then!

Welcome to my library.

Do you like it?

I've been wanting to revamp the looks of my blog for a long time. For one reason or another I didn't do it. Until tonight.

It's not much but I think it makes a big difference.

I hope it does, anyway.

Again, I ask, do you like it?

What came of packing.

I have a proposition. How about we leave the typical psychological/theological/spiritual/deep reasoning tone that pervades everything I write and talk about something less taxing on the brain? Like fashion.

Seriously.

I've spent much of today both taking a walk down fashion memory lane and shopping in my closet, so such matters have been on my mind.

The stroll down the road of the past was triggered by a cleaning out of my decade-old bag of nail polish. (By the way, if you're wondering whether nail polish really does go bad, give it 8-10 years and it will.) Most people who have only known me since my late teens don't know that I was formerly an obsessive nail painter in my adolescent-mid teen years. My toes nails, that is. They were always painted. And I didn't let the paint chip. I kept them up regularly and changed the color often.

Until the one time that I did let the pain chip and wear. Then it was that I realized my heart was no longer in it. So I stopped all together. Thus my vast nail polish collection sat in its cute pink bag, where it was allowed years to separate and coagulate into pigmented chunks.

Something else that could be said of me in former times is that I was an obsessive and compulsive matcher. That is one of the primary reasons my nail color changed so often: it had to match my clothes. My shoes had to match my clothes. My hair accessories had to match my clothes. My bracelets and necklaces had to match my clothes. Most importantly, my clothes had to match. There was very little color-blending on my person. I was often a monochromatic wonder.

But could you blame me when a sea of one color, even one color in varying shades, brought a calmness over me that few other sights did? That's why I did it. A clash of color brought about turmoil in my senses and I tried to avoid inspiring turmoil with my ensembles by consciously trying to promote peace with them. (Okay, so I couldn't stay away from psychoanalysis altogether. I suppose that's what happens when one gets a degree in thinking. Or maybe I got a degree in thinking precisely because I can't squelch it. Moving on....)

That's only the tip of the iceberg of my obsessive/compulsive tendencies. Internally high-strung and uptight was I. In more recent years, I've become much more laid back. Sloppy even, in certain areas. And when it comes to choosing clothes to wear, I am sometimes downright cavalier with the colors I wear side-by-side. (By the way, a wash of monochromaticism still inspires calm within me. I'm just not as dependent on that calm as I once was. I've actually become somewhat of a chaos-seeker. But that's another conversation entirely.)

This matching vs. non-matching was brought to my attention as I was closet shopping. I'm preparing for a trip and browsing through my closet is something I always end up doing in the process. I usually feel compelled to not wear the same thing too often. Packing for a trip is a prime occasion to plan my outfits ahead of time and see if I can't come up with something I haven't worn before.

In case you're wondering, I was successful in my endeavors this time. I came out with the following color combos: brown, black, red and yellow; blue, pink and grey; blue, purple and yellow. This was one of my more cavalier days.

I also noticed and began to ponder other recent trends in my dress:

• Skirts pop up more often than they did in the past. I quite like to wear them now. When they're the right kind. They inspire a feeling of fun, and as I'm not the kind of person to care above an ounce about either keeping my clothes clean and orderly or appearing ladylike, wearing skirts does not hinder me from being my same sloppy self. Now I just look cuter when I'm doing it. That's what I tell myself.
• I'm a layer queen. Nothing I packed for this weekend is devoid of layers. I have shirts to wear on top of shirts. In the winter, I rarely make a public appearance without tights or leggings underneath my shorts/skirts/dresses. They serve the dual purpose of making my clothes look more interesting and covering my legs so that I don't have to wear pants. I typically consider that to be an accomplishment.
• I've lately been into belts. What inspired me was this really awesome orange one I inherited for free from I can't remember where that's woven out of thick yarn, is tassel-like on the end and looks like something awesome from the '70s. I told myself I had to wear it based on that merit alone. Then my attention was drawn to other belts in my possession that were being neglected. Upon adorning myself with them, I found I liked them.

Something that hasn't changed in a great many years is my distaste for wearing shoes. That's a trend that still continues. If anything, it's intensified. I only wear them because there's a social obligation. Even then, they fall off whenever I think I can get away with it. Along with my relinquishing of matching, this growing dislike of shoes has relieved the pressure of them having to match. I don't wear them enough to worry much about how they fit my ensemble.

Lest you get the wrong impression, I also feel like I should throw in here that it doesn't take me long to get dressed. My swiftness often propels my bold color mixing, because I don't take much time to think it over. I also don't wear anything fancy. Like I said, I'm sloppy and unladylike. Fancy and I aren't friends. At best we're occasional, cordial acquaintances. I also no longer accessorize to the hilt. The most I do is pull up my hair. But I don't even do that often, choosing rather to let it air dry and look like a long mess.

Now it's your turn, friends. What do you like to wear? Something that I don't? Like socks? Or pants? Maybe you like hats? I've been intrigued by hats, but can't decide if they're too much trouble or not....

The book that compelled me to stop everything and write.

I've started reading a remarkable book today. It's called Rees Howells: Intercessor and is written by Norman Grubb. The book is a biography about Rees Howells, a man from Wales who was born in the late 19th Century.

I glanced at a review of the book that Google pulled up and the reviewer described the book as "a mess-up-your-life kind of book." I've only read five chapters and I am beginning to see why she said that.

I just finished chapter five and was so compelled to stop and write about it that here I am now. I never do that with books. I always read them completely before feeling released to make more than small comments about them. This is certainly a unique situation.

I'm going to first quote and summarize what I feel are the pertinent parts in this chapter, then I will give my own commentary. In this passage, Howells is talking about and to the Holy Spirit (all bolded phrases are ones I wish to emphasize):

"'He made it very plain that He would never share my life. I saw the honour He gave me in offering to indwell me, but there were many things very dear to me, and I knew He wouldn't keep one of them. The change He would make was very clear. It meant every bit of my fallen nature was to go to the Cross, and He would bring in His own life and His own nature.'

It was unconditional surrender. From the meeting Rees went out into a field, where he cried his heart out, because, as he said, 'I had received a sentence of death.... I had lived in my body for twenty-six years, and could I easily give it up?...Why does a man struggle when death comes, if it is easy to die? I knew that the only place fit for the old nature was on the cross.... But once this is done in reality, it really is done for ever. I could not run int0 this. I intended to do it, but oh, the cost! I wept for days. I lost seven pounds in weight, just because I saw what He was offering me. How I wished I had never seen it! One thing He reminded me of was that He had only come to take what I had already promised the Saviour, not in part, but the whole. Since He died for me, I had died in Him, and I knew that the new life was His and not mine. That had been clear in my mind for three years....and I saw that only the Holy Ghost in me could live like the Saviour. Everything He told me appealed to me; it was a only a question of the loss there would be in doing it. I didn't give my answer in a moment, and He didn't want me to.'

It took five days to make the decision....

'Nothing is more real to me than the process I went through for that whole week.... The Holy Spirit went on dealing with me, exposing the root of my nature which was self.... Sin was cancelled, and it wasn't sin He was dealing with; it was self - that thing which came from the Fall. He was not going to take any superficial surrender. He put His finger on each part of my self-life, and I had to decide in cold blood. He could never take a thing away until I gave my consent. Then the moment I gave it, some purging took place, and I could never touch that thing again. It was not saying I was purged and the thing still having a hold on me: no, it was a breaking, and the Holy Ghost taking control. Day by day the dealing went on. He was coming in as God, and I had lived as a man, and "what is permissible to an ordinary man," He told me, "will not be permissible to you."'"

He then goes on to list the specific desires of his nature that the Holy Spirit started coming in to replace. First was "the love of money." Next was a desire to make a self-absorbed life. The Holy Spirit would always be reaching out to the world, so Rees would have to as well. Next was ambition. All desires to make something of himself, particularly above another, were not congruent with the life of the Spirit. On the last day of this process, the fifth day, it says that "his reputation was touched." "As the Saviour was despised, he must be willing to be the same."

"By Friday night each point had been faced. He knew exactly what he was offered, the choice between temporal and eternal gain. The Spirit summed the issue up for him: 'On no account will I allow you to cherish a single thought of self, and the life I will live in you will be one hundred per cent for others. You will never be able to save yourself, and more than the Saviour could when He was on earth. Now, are you willing?' He was to give a final answer.

...'I have been dealing with you for five days: you must give Me your decision by six o'clock to-night, and remember, your will must go.' ...It was the final battle on the will.

'I asked Him for more time,' Rees continued, 'but He said, "You will not have a minute after six o'clock." When I heard that it was exactly as if a wild beast was roused in me. "You gave me a free will," I answered, "and now You force me to give it up." "I do not force you," He replied, "but for three years have you not been saying that you are not your own, and that you wanted to give your life back to the Saviour as completely as He gave His life for you?" I climbed down in a second.... "I am sorry," I told Him, "I didn't mean what I said." "You are not forced to give up your will," He said again, "but at six o'clock I will take your decision. After that you will never get another chance." It was my last offer, my last chance!'...

'Once more the question came, "Are you willing?" It was ten minutes to six. I wanted to do it, but I could not. Your mind is keen when you are tested, and in a flash it came to me, "How can self be willing to give up self?" Five to six came. I was afraid of those last five minutes. I could count the ticks of the clock. Then the Spirit spoke again. "If you can't be willing, would you like Me to help you? Are you willing to be made willing?" "Take care," the enemy whispered. "When a stronger person than yourself is on the other side, to be willing to be made willing, is just the same as to be willing." ...It was one minute to six. I bowed my head and said, "Lord, I am willing."'

...'Immediately,' said Rees, 'I was transported into another realm, within that sacred veil, where the Father, the Saviour and the Holy Ghost live. There I heard God speaking to me, and I have lived there ever since. When the Holy Ghost enters, He comes in to "abide for ever." To the Blood be the glory!

'How I adored the grace of God! It is God who goes so far as to give us repentance. It was God who helped me to give up my will. There were some things He had asked for during the week that I was able to give, because I was the master of them, but when He asked me to give up my self and my will, I found I could not - until he pulled me through.'"

Whoa.

Before reading this, I don't think I had ever read or heard someone describe an experience such as this. What about it that impacts me so is not just how profound it is, but the fact that I have felt a similar thing happening in my life (!), only not nearly as dramatic nor as fast. Yet I have felt in many ways like I was a lone island in my experience. I have come to learn that no one is ever a lone island in anything, but as I hadn't encountered a story like this I was still searching for one that could confirm my non-solitary state. I seem to have found it.

I have mentioned in recent posts how I have felt like the theme of my life recently has been "you have no control over your life." Rees's experience here was certainly a confrontation with that, and for whatever reason that God ordained, it was very abrupt and final. While similar, my experience has been slightly different. There has been no five days holed up with God in heightened anguish. There has been little dramatic dialogue. No strict time limits. Nor do I feel as if my life has been devoid of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit before this point.

What I do feel like has been happening is that the Holy Spirit has been reminding me of the commitment I made. "Have you not been saying that you are not your own?," he asks. Yes. I have. Every time I've said it has been sincere, albeit I didn't know to what extent my sincerity would carry me. But God gives grace. And every time I have been challenged recently the Holy Spirit has brought that commitment to my mind. And just like Rees described my will is never taken from me, but whenever I remember that commitment, I relinquish it again, or, more often than not, allow God to help me to be willing to do so.

The section that describes which of the desires of Rees's nature the Spirit started touching and replacing was particularly poignant to me, with the challenging of ambition being the part that I see most in myself. I feel certain that my ambition has been directly and specifically affronted in the past few months. I've noticed ways in which it has also in the past, but never so as intensely as recent times. While I have never been cutthroat in my actions, I am not one to sit and let opportunities pass. I even go so far as to find opportunities when there are none present. In more practical terms, this translates into I am not the kind of person to graduate and then stay home. That's a ludicrous notion. Yet what have I done? Graduated and then stayed home, not desiring anything more than to be faithful to attend the whos and the whats in front of me. I never thought I'd be okay with that, even for just a short season as this one has thus far been.

I do also feel like God has been holding me in the place where I am now in order to allow this time to settle within me. He did the same with Rees in a short span of five days. I'm not sure why my experience has been so much more lengthy and slow than his, but I trust God has his reasons. Regardless of the difference in time and intensity, though, I do connect with Rees's story on that level and am slowly waiting until the time when this is over, which I do trust will come, perhaps in the not-so-distant future, if my feelings are correct.

When asked by a friend recently how I have been, the only answer I gave was to quote a few lines from one of my favorite songs by the band downhere:

"Love's breaking me down

Like waves to stone, over and over

Love's breaking new ground

Changing my every way"

Indeed it has, and my ways have been changing dramatically.

If I have gotten all of this from only 44 pages into a 280 page book, I'm eager to see what will come from the rest of it.

Announcing Centricity Nation!

I have thus far not been the kind of person who has fallen into the trap of unemployment equaling no life. Which in a subtle way is perhaps one of the reasons I'm not employed? (But that's another subject altogether.)

Among the many things I've been doing with my life is something that I am tickled silly to be able to share with you all.

Now announcing Centricity Nation!

Centricity Nation is a website run by fans and friends of Centricity Music and its goal is to connect fans of Centricity's various artists. I and the other brains behind the site believe strongly in the work of Centricity and its artists and as we were brought together because of them, we want to share that gift of community with others.

You can find the site at http://www.centricitynation.com/. If you see something that interests you, be sure to leave a comment. We have big dreams for the site and they'll only be possible with people like you.

Hope to see you around!

Independently dependent.

I've been thinking much about how I was raised and the ones who facilitated the said raising.

As a person who emerged from the womb with practicality and willfulness in her bones, I had a certain advantage in matters of successful, efficient independent thinking and living over some in the world. For that reason, in the hands of a different kind of guidance I think I still would have spent my childhood stubbornly desiring to assert myself and do it the best way possible. But I am not so foolish to think that my parents and the environment in which we lived, that was partly created by them and partly placed upon us by life's uncertain nature, but whose tone was always completely determined by them, did nothing to encourage those qualities that were in me before entering the world.

My parents have been amazing. My mom in particular, simply because she was the one I spent all day, every day with, and therefore necessarily bore a more direct impact on the finer points of my growing up. I was never belittled. Never made to feel dumb. Always called upon to rise to the occasion, all the while being encouraged to believe that I could rise to the occasion. I also wasn't coddled. Nor was I inappropriately sheltered. Life was hard and there was never a time when that was hidden from me. I don't ever remember living under a false pretense that a good life would be easily handed to me. My first memory is of visiting the Little Rock Children's Hospital where my newly-born brother was in the infant ICU, not able yet to survive off of medical equipment because his lungs were so underdeveloped that he couldn't breathe. I wasn't even two yet. My harsh reality check came early.

I feel like I landed in life and was told, "Here you go. This is it. Make of it what you will. It can be ugly. It can also be pretty. Either way it's a gift and it's yours to do something with," starting even before my then wee bladder was potty trained.

From the beginning I was also consistently told, "Here, you can do this. It doesn't matter that you don't know how to do it yet, I'll teach you. Or better yet, you may not even need a teacher. You might just be able to figure this out on your own. Try it and see."

I am inexpressibly grateful that the independence ball was tossed into my court so early on.

The combination of my innate senses and such encouragement to take ownership of myself and always strive to find the best in every situation formed the magic brew needed for me to become an independent woman who could successfully be independent and not just one who solitarily made a mess of everything she tried. By the time I was in high school I was able to take care of a whole household by myself, and actually did it when my mom became ill and there was no one else around to keep everyone fed, clothed and clean. I spared not one thought to incredulity at the time because I was just doing what had to be done and what I knew I was capable of, but from my 23-year-old perspective, if I were to meet a 15-year-old who cooked, cleaned, and did laundry for five people every day and took care of a 5-year-old, all while trying to study all those other trifles like science, history and how to form a well thought out essay, I would be amazed. I even started making my own lesson plans and homework schedules when I was 12. What kid does that? (If you happen to know one, feel free to introduce me. I would feel privileged to find such a kindred spirit.)

By the time I hit the magic adult age, I had no worries about being alone or taking care of myself. My family knew that and shared my lack of concern. But the other great thing about my parents is that the whole time they were encouraging me to think and act independently, they were still standing right next to me saying, "I want to help you. Not because you're incapable, but because I love you." Their combination of respect and sacrificial care left a deep impression on me and I grew to be compelled to reciprocate in kind and to allow myself to live vulnerably enough to let someone help me.

So that's how we've been rolling at the Harmon House and how we continue to roll. We're a family of five incredibly independent people who could easily hit the road any day and decide to leave the others on the other side of the country, but who have been given the grace to still like each other enough to stick around and make the decision to love enough to help and to let ourselves be loved by each other.

They are why I am exactly where I am now. I do have a feeling that our day-to-day dynamic will be changing soon. That's both expected and as it should be. Whenever it does change, I am very grateful to know that even in a lack of daily physical presence, they'll still be there offering up an emphatic "You can do this."

Why do I even try?

Today. Oh, today.

On Facebook, starting this morning and continuing on into the early evening, I campaigned, not fiercely but I campaigned nonetheless, to get someone to come to my house. My mom's been in pain, Calyn's been covered by the first week of school, Austyn, Adam and I have been stuck at home. (I would have included my dad in this sentence because he's been working like that proverbial dog, but because of all that work, I knew he probably wouldn't be home if someone came over. Or if he was, he'd probably apologize to whomever came over for being a bad host, and then promptly go to bed.) I knew we'd all like it if some new life walked into the house. The atmosphere has been far too despondent.

While enticing to some, my campaign proved rather fruitless. One friend this morning expressed interest in dropping by, but his wife was out of town and he was babysitting his granddaughter. Other friends vowed they would have been here in a second, but they live too far away. Folding a map to shorten the continent didn't work. No TV cabinets, wardrobes or other sundry pieces of household furniture were found to house magical passages to my house or anywhere near it.

At least I gave it the old college try.

Skip to the scene where we're eating dinner. There I sit on the couch with my plate on my lap, 2 of the 3 boys already populating the living room furniture as well, and what should we hear but a knock on the door. As I had a plate of food and a pillow in my lap and was sitting far back in the abyss of our monster of a couch, I knew I couldn't jump up right away. I also knew my dad in the other room was closer to the door and could probably make it there before me. So I stayed in my seat, eagerly looked at the door, and thought. "Did someone decide to drop by and they didn't tell me?!" My dad opens the door and in walks...

...one of Adam's brothers. He had come to give Adam some mail and some of his things that he wasn't able to get when he moved out. ("Moved out".......but that's a rant I don't need to get into right now.)

1) He is not one of the 300-something people who comprise my Facebook friend list.

2) He didn't come to see me. Didn't come to see my mom. Didn't even know that my mom's been ill. And wasn't intending to stick around and visit at all. Just drop off his deliveries, exchange a few societal conversational courtesies, and go back to his home.

I wanted someone to come over and someone came over, all right. But it wasn't because of any effort on my part.

No control over my life. None.

The romantic and the ordinary.

Latin.

What comes to mind upon reading that word? Think about it. Let it fill your brain.

Now hold that thought. Store it. But keep it close, as to facilitate recall momentarily.

Washing dishes.

What enters your mind after the leading of that phrase? Dwell on that a moment.

It is now time to employ your recall. Remember what you thought when reading "latin." Compare it to what you thought after reading "washing dishes."

Your thoughts aren't jiving, are they? They're nothing alike, right?

Neither are mine.

I did this same mental exercise earlier as I was singing in Latin and thinking about how wonderful it feels to sing in Latin, then being drawn back to the fact that I was washing dishes while doing so. Something about that seemed odd to my brain.

Yet completely natural.

It's really easy for me to get preoccupied with what's happening in front of my face, what physical activity my body is currently engaged in, what the people around me need me to do. I imagine that's probably true for you, too.

That's why I sing in Latin. That's why I read stories. That's why I listen to music, why I talk to people, why I stalk their Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. They all remind me that there's more out there than myself and the mire in which I tend to live. People and cultures have lived before me. People and cultures will live after me. People and cultures I don't know are living now. As important as it is to attend the crusty dishes residing in the sink, it's equally as important to be aware of the wideness of existence.

And so I sing Latin while I wash.

And speak German while I fold laundry.

Listen to centuries-old compositions on 21st-Century gadgets.

And write letters to a girl a world away in South Africa, whose life is more like mine than I expected.

Cooking for six

Today, I am trying to plan meals.

That sounds like a straightforward task, but appearances are often deceptive.

When deciding what to feed the six of us, here is a list of all of the things I have to consider:

- Some of us (and by "some of us" I mean "I") have a palate with the sophistication of a six-year-old living in a poor house. This translates into "Please, feed me Cheerios and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I don't want that fancy schmancy stuff they're making on TV."

- Some of us look at Cheerios and want to choke. And crave dishes with complex layers and textures that you just can't find in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

- Some of us are meat-phobic. Particularly beef phobic. It's not that we won't ever eat it, it's just not our preference. And it makes us gag sometimes. Steaks are the enemy above all others.

- Others of us can make a meal out of meat. Would even eat a whole cow if given the chance.

- Whatever it is that we eat, none of us want to consume masses of junk.

- Add to the top of all of that, our budget is of the ramen noodle/cereal variety.

I'm looking at making a lot of rice.

On seasons and my job today.

As overused as the word "season" is, I can't think of a better one to use in this context.

I think I go through seasons where one central lesson is forefront over all others. Like all worthwhile lessons, after each one's respective season it never disappears. But I think once it has penetrated deep enough to not be carried away by the latest wind, then that is the time when a new season comes and a new lesson accompanies it.

Ask me several years ago what the lesson was, and I would have told you it was love. I started really understanding that God loved me when I was 17. Evidence and reminders of that love started popping up everywhere. The books I happened to read talked about it, the songs I listened to, the people I heard speak, the lives I watched being lived around me. It was profound.

Then came the season of new life and identity. Everything around me was confirming to me that my life was new and different because I was in Christ and that everything that I am is defined by Jesus. It wrecked me. Then made me stronger.

After that was the season of grace and the inundation characteristic of previous seasons once again filled this one.

What I'm detecting right now is that I'm in a season of "you don't have any control over your life." That's the lesson I'm learning.

As always, it's very timely. I think I need this lesson at this precise moment, because I want to have control over my life. I graduated from college. Naturally, I want to go out and take on the world, decide what I want to do and do it. Especially since I did the whole college thing never understanding why I was there, and feeling that if I was truly doing what I wanted to, I probably wouldn't be there. But part of me wanted to be there (a small part) and I felt like I was supposed to be there more than anything, so a college student I was. Longing for the day when I could finish and move on with my life. Do something I really wanted to do for a change. And whatever it took to get there, I would make it happen.

Me. I'll do it.

But I told God a long time ago that my life was for him. I realized a long time ago that it would be better that way, because I really can't do much of anything on my own anyway. And if Jesus really loves me and the rest of the crazy world, then pursuing that love is what I wanted my life to be about more than anything else. So I said that I would let go of control.

These past few months have been testing the sincerity of that commitment.

On top of everything else that's been happening, my mom is now in severe pain and can't use her left arm. She's left-handed which makes it even more devastating.

So despite what I think I may want to do today, or tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, I chiefly want to love my family and support them. My attitude, how I treat people, those are really the only things I can control. Therefore today (and the next day and consecutive days after) I am a caretaker/7th grade teacher/surrogate mom/chauffeur/dish washer/laundry woman/cook who probably won't find time to take a shower. (Which I suppose is okay for a dirty hippie.)

On being a gypsy.

Mulling over my unusual state of being tonight.

This past May marked three years of my family and I residing in this house.

Since I've been born, that's the first time this has happened. Before now there's only been one other time that I've even lived in the same town for three years. And that was the town I was born in, and left at the age of six (after having lived in four - wait, five - different locations).

Since leaving that town at that young age, this family has always been a bunch of travelers. We had parents/grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins to visit. They all still lived in their 30-mile radius of each other, so we, the adventurers, would frequently turn our adventure back for a visit. That frequent trip made the making of other trips seem much more possible. Stay in one place and your brain will think, why should I go anywhere? It's too much trouble. Here is good. But venture forth frequently, and when some other place beckons, your brain will think, eh, I've already been going to a lot of trouble. I don't see any reason to stop now. So we didn't.

With such a childhood, as soon as I started driving I didn't see any reason why I couldn't take myself and my car wherever I happened to want to go. Within reason. So I started making solo 500-mile road trips a month after I became a licensed driver. And my car has seen a lot of country since then.

I just realized this evening that in the last 50 days my vehicular wanderings have not taken me further away from this spot of land than that same number of miles.

Feelings of stability are starting to creep in.

I'm probably one of the few persons on the planet who would greet stability with a skeptical eye.

I seem to specialize in being unordinary.

In an interesting turn of events, now that I've actually been home for a while - so at home that I've spent about half of those 50 days without even driving down the street - my home life has become more unsound than it's been in a large number of years. What I mean by that is that we've spent many days wondering where we're going to get food, wondering if our electricity is going to be shut off, wondering if we're going to be able to wash our clothes properly anytime soon. I've spent much of these past three years taking regular jaunts, even extended departures, away from my home without being overly concerned how I'm going to find something to fill my stomach, charge my cell phone, and wash my favorite shirt. But now that I'm not going anywhere, the kitchens' offerings are perpetually meager, we're furtively looking through the blinds to see if an electric company truck pulls in, and I spent a month handwashing clothes, hoping every day that I wouldn't do something to get extraordinarily dirty because I knew that my clothes probably wouldn't get very clean.

Go figure.

I guess life was determined to interject some kind of instability somehow.

I think I prefer the former type.

Where is Sheol, anyway? ;or, How drywall changed me.

Usually, when I blog I intend to finish it one sitting, or at least one day. Either way, I typically set out to post before I lay me down to sleep. When I have something to say, I say it and move forward with my life. This time, however, I'm writing with no intentions to post. Yet.

I will post. At some point. If you're reading this, obviously that point has come. But I don't think the world needs to see what I have to say yet. These thoughts and situations are still too private. But I need to get them out. I want to capture this moment and share it with my readers, few as they may be, but I can't share yet.

In my last post, I mentioned that I would be working with my dad on a project the next day. That day has come and gone. So did six more days after that. We were expecting three or four. Maybe five at worst. But nothing like seven. And soon to be eight. We're praying it doesn't come to nine.

In my head today I have been calling this "the job from Sheol." Never before have I even entertained the idea of condemning anything to Sheol, so this is evidence of how disturbed it has made me.

The job: put up drywall in a whole house. That seemed fairly daunting, but there are five of us, so I thought it wouldn't be so bad. Then we got there the first day, and I realize we have to do the ceilings. Not just the walls. I was only thinking about walls. Ceilings are a whole different story. Ceilings are high. And there's no help in resisting gravity.

I was still rather optimistic, though. I usually am. We'll work hard and we'll get this done in no time.

But it was a lot harder than I thought. I won't go into too many details. All that needs to be said is that it was an entire house. And only one of us is a professional in this area. But as professional in knowledge and skill as my dad is, he doesn't have the right kind of equipment to do this kind of thing as efficiently as those who specialize in doing only this, especially for a job of this size. So we, the posse of non-professionals yet hard workers, followed behind the able professional and gave it our all.

And it's still not done. Despite our best efforts, and even some help from a couple friends who joined us a few of the days, progress was slow.

It might be more worth it if the payoff was bigger. But considering how long it's taking to do and how expensive it is trying to sustain ourselves and facilitate the work to the end, the money that we're going to get is not going to be much. Which is disappointing, because the potential for money is why my dad took the job. We really needed it. As events have played out, though, we would have been better off if we had all stayed home and my dad had only worked his morning job that barely pays him anything.

But that's not really so bad. We've lived without money. We can do it some more. What's worse is the work itself.

I'm not against working hard. Or getting dirty. I willingly plunge myself headfirst into many dirty situations where there's not even an illusion of getting payment. Hard work and dirt can be rewarding.

But there's nothing rewarding about what I've been doing the past seven days. Aside from experience. And stories. This is the kind of stuff you do to help out a friend. Or to fix up your own house. There's a different feel to the work when you're doing it only to improve someone's living situation, either the friend's or that of your own. It can be fun. You can learn a lot. You can feel like you're making a difference.

But this is soulless work. There's a demand to get it done yesterday. You walk in to start the job and you're already behind schedule. There's no grace. At all. It's just hard, and nothing you can do is good enough. And you don't know the people you're working for. There's no personal connection. Worst of all, you're just doing it to make money. I hate working to make money. I know that's the system in which we operate, and I can handle it, as long as what I'm doing serves some other kind of purpose. But this doesn't. I've been trying for a week to focus on redeeming things about this, and I've been so hard-pressed to find them that I've actually been depressed for the first time in a really long time.

Most everything I tend to do in my life, however hard it may be, is typically life-giving. Enriching. Edifying. I went to college and got a degree. I didn't really understand what that was about, and it was so hard sometimes that I prayed for God to release me from it, but I still got something out of it. I found something every day to love about what I did. I work at camp every summer. Sometimes, while I'm giving those kids my all, I feel like a disrespected martyr. But then I see their lives being changed by Christ and I give up all desire for respect. I write and I sing, constantly wondering what the point is. I'm only marginally skilled at either one and neither of them have manifested in a career yet, nor do I see a way right now in which they will. But then God reminds that they're a part of who I am. He has purpose in them. I need to do them because that's how he made me. Life isn't about a career. It's about living, loving and being who you are.

I haven't really been who I am for a week. I'm not wired to do this kind of thing. I'm a thinker. I'm an expresser. I'm a server. This doesn't allow me to do any of them. The work is so demanding, I can't think about anything other than what's right in front of me. I mindlessly measure a piece of drywall (whose idea was it to give the English major the math job, anyway), mindlessly help carry it to its proper place, mindlessly put mud in all of the holes and mindlessly attempt to make it smooth. I'm so engrossed in work that my mind and heart become strangers to me. At first, we weren't completely distant from each other, but the pain of seeing them from afar and not being allowed to come any closer was so great that I wanted it to end. So I shut down completely. I didn't allow myself to think. I didn't allow myself to do anything but robotically, as best as I could, do the work before me.

I don't make a good robot.

One of the few things I did allow myself to think was how much I don't want my dad to do this kind of work anymore. He's worked like this his whole life, and he seems to hold up pretty well considering, but he doesn't need to have to only hold up pretty well considering. My dad's a genius. And I know that I know that I know that his heart isn't in this. He's like me, he needs to use his brain. He has two science degrees for goodness sake! I knew what he did was hard, but until this point, I didn't know how hard. If I'm going crazy from not being able to use my brain and from having to deal with unfeeling people who don't seem to put forth the bare minimum of being grateful for what I'm doing for them, then I can only assume that my dad lives in a perpetual state of frustration and defeatedness. That saddens me.

As depressing as this is, the job from Sheol wouldn't have been so bad were it not for other things happening at the same time. Most things wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for something else.

One day, as we were coming down our street, ready to get inside our house after a long, tiring day of work, we looked at our front yard and were flabbergasted by what we saw. I actually think I stopped breathing for a second. Right before I got the feeling of acceptance that comes when a person is operating under a belief in Murphy's Law. Our landlord had staked a for sale sign in the front yard. Which most likely means that we will need to move. Unless the buyer miraculously told us we could stay in the house, which they might be inclined to do if they were only buying it for rental property. We're not opposed to moving, but right now? While we're in the middle of this life-sucking job and can't even be home long enough to mow the lawn or wash the dishes? While we're broke and don't see how we can afford to even get our cars down the road once, much less the vehicle power it will take to move us and all of our possessions to a dwelling we can't afford to make a deposit on?

Also, we got a call on our second day of work from a friend. He's been having a tough time getting himself settled on his own two feet (something I understand) and it hasn't been helped by trouble at home. There's been constant tension with his mom and he needed to get away. We asked him if he would be interested in working with us, and offered to let him hang out at our house for the weekend so that things could cool off. He seemed to be cool with that situation. We even picked one of his younger brothers up a couple of days to let him get out of the house, and while he didn't stay with us overnight, it was good for him to spend those days away. After the weekend was over, the first friend went back to his home and, without any provocation from him at all, his mom was nothing but disrespectful to him and told him he had to leave. She wouldn't let him stay.

We couldn't let him drift out on the street, so he's now temporarily living with us. Even though we don't really have a good place for him where we live now. And we're struggling to afford to feed ourselves. AND we're now facing the possibility of having to move in the near future.

Usually, when I'm in the middle of having a week that looks something like a heavyweight championship boxing match, I at least have the consolation that I can gather with other like-minded people on Sunday, hear encouraging truth, and sing praise to the God that I know loves me and is giving me grace to make it through every moment of my life. But that consolation was out my reach this week. The whole day was spent working in a hot house, staring for the fifth day at drywall. God had a reason in place when he told the Israelites to regularly take a day off. It wasn't just because he wanted to lord another law over their heads. He knew it was for their own good. They needed to rest. And they needed to have a time to recenter their minds and hearts on what was ultimately important.

I spent most of Sunday forgetting that it was Sunday and feeling like my life was messed up every time I remembered that it was.

For many days now, my insides have been screaming "This isn't me! This is not what my life is supposed to look like! I shouldn't be here! I'm supposed to be establishing myself as an independent person in the world, finding what it is that I'm going to do with my life, and I know it's not this! But I can't do that, because I'm stuck here in this neverending hole of dirt that is slowly draining my life out of me."

I miss my friends. Or just people in general. My one consolation in the human department is that I have my family to commiserate with. This really would be unbearable without them.

I miss wondering about life.

I miss exploring.

I miss learning.

I miss dreaming.

I miss being able to touch a book. I don't even have to read one right now. I've been so dirty that just feeling one has been a luxury taken from me. To only hold one would be a joy.

I miss singing. I haven't been so altered from myself during this that I haven't sung at all, but I haven't really sung. Not like a singer sings. I just kind of sang, passively. A lot of people sing. It's something that all kinds of people do, even when they can't match a pitch to save their life. I want to really sing. To do it like my life depended on it. Because it does.

I miss writing. Like singing, writing is something that all kinds of people do. Making letters that form into words that form into sentences that form into paragraphs is a skill we learn in school and we couldn't function in this society without doing it. But not everyone who writes is a writer. I want to write like my life depended on it. Because it does.

I miss helping people. I have friends with immediate needs, and I can't attend to them because I'm stuck in a house where I don't belong. And whenever I emerge I'm so disoriented and out of it, that I can't even walk in a straight line. (I have honestly felt like I've been in a constant state of drunkenness for days. Or at least what I imagine drunkenness to be.)

I miss my life. It has been all but stolen from me this week.

"I've spent some days looking for a length of rope

And a place to hang it from the end of my hope

Where I thought hope had ended I always find a little bit more

It's not like I'm trying to be optimistic

If the truth be told I'd rather dismiss it

And be free from the burden of the living that hoping requires

To bring my heart to every day

And run the risk of fearlessly loving

Without running away"

-Jason Gray

Now that I've had a day off from working on this job I've had a chance to better assess my emotional state. And it's not great.

I said I missed all of those things that seem to make me who I am, so one would think that I would go back to them like riding a bicycle. I mean, they're me. But I haven't. Not really. I feel really detached. I want to do something, but I don't know what. Singing doesn't seem right. I've squeaked out a few notes, but there was no conviction behind them. They just came out and died. And I can't really write, either. This is the most writing I feel I can do. And it's only a shadow of what I want to do. The only thing I feel I can write at this time is how I feel. And the only way I can write it is like a messy flood. Creativity is lost on me.

And I feel like I can't think. I do miss exploring the world and trying to make sense of it with my mind, but every time I try to, I feel overwhelmed. The world is too big for me. Thoughts are too big for me. I so want to go out and connect with people. Or even stay in and connect with people. But it's too much. Like my writing, I don't think I could talk about anything but my life. And how I feel. But I can't do that. If it were just me, I wouldn't care. But what's happening to me involves my whole family, and I can't share their secrets. That's why I'm writing without posting. And I could plausibly go out with people and not say anything about myself. Just listen to them and what they have to say. But I wouldn't get it right now. The words they would speak would sound foreign. Their life would be strange. I wouldn't be able to come out of myself long enough to understand how they feel. I'd be so disconnected they couldn't help but wonder what's wrong. And that's saying a lot, because I go around living a lot of my life disconnected from the people I'm breathing the same air with. I think people come to expect it from me.

I want to connect so badly, that sitting in the same room with someone and being unable to connect would be more heartbreaking than staying away altogether.

I feel like a non-entity. I miss myself but I don't know how to get myself back.

Maybe time will help? That's all I can come up with. Give myself a chance to awkwardly relearn how to be me, how to be human, how to live in the world.

But maybe all vestiges of myself haven't left me. There's one thing I am thinking. And it's that from my perspective, maybe from yours, too, it seems kind of ridiculous that a week of putting up drywall would affect me so extraordinarily. It's one week. Just one. Out the hundreds that I've lived so far and thousands I presume I will live before leaving the earth. How could one week rob me of myself?

I feel like I'm overreacting. Maybe I am. But even if I am, I can't deny anything that I've already said. I still feel the way that I do. Nothing I've said is made up. So since it's real, I really have to deal with it, and I have to find a real solution.

It is currently four days later. I think I can post this now. But first, a few updates.

1.) The drywall project didn't end at nine days. It has gone on 12 days, and I think the grand total will be at least 13. Maybe a full two weeks. My part ended at 7 days, but the rest of my family has still been hard at work. I feel for them.

2.) The house is still for sale. So far, no one has seriously considered buying it. These things normally take quite a bit of time. So while we likely will be staying here for a little while, it would still be nice to know if we're going to have to move or not. And when.

3.) I think I've been able to find myself again. I've spent some time with and talked to a few people. And I've been able to sing with conviction. I'll get there.

4.) I went to church today. And it was even better than I expected it to be. I love the body of Christ. And I love the fact that I look forward to church and actually find it to be an encouraging experience. Too many times that hasn't been the case.

"How could a love be a love without a cost

And how could a life be a life without the loss

I won't trust my senses over anything you say

It's harder but it's better this way

Thank you for the heartbreak

Thank you for the pain

Thank you for the sadness on the gloomy days of rain

Thank you that the hard times have a reason and rhyme

Thank you that the healing makes the beauty shine"

-downhere

Taking control.

What I will be writing here is mainly a continuation of this post: http://extravagantlyloved.blogspot.com/2011/07/governor-or-on-letting-go-of-my-life.html.

Bearing that in mind, I have further proof that I really have very little control of my life. And that I don't need to worry about anything. What's the proof?

The Internet went out at my house a little while ago. Which is part of the reason I haven't blogged in a bit.

But outside of blogging, the Internet was my gateway to research. What do I want to do with my life? What's available? How do I go about doing it? Without my car, it was really the only resource I had to feel like I was making any progress at all.

And it was taken away.

Okay, God. I guess I'll keep leaving this whole job finding situation up to you and I'll do something whenever I'm given leave to.

And speaking of being given leave, glory hallelujah, I'm hoping that moment will soon be here. Because as of today, I can now access the Internet at home again! And my parents just got their car insurance re-instated, so my dad doesn't have to drive my car anymore! So I have Internet AND a car. Life can't get much more exciting. (I say that both with a hint of sarcasm and with overwhelming sincerity. Tough times make you grateful for small things.)

Interestingly enough, though, just as we got the Internet back today and I start dreaming dreams of getting back on the research train, my dad finds out about a job (of the sheetrock hanging variety) he is going to need the whole family to help him with. So it seems that the VonHarmons will be working together for at least the next two days, if not three or four, and my job hunting/figuring out what to do with my life efforts will have to wait that much longer.

See? No control.

Jon Foreman is usually someone appropriate to quote in any circumstance, and these words, appropriate for this particular circumstance, seem to be the ones I come back to most often:

"Why should I worry?

Why do I freak out?
You know what I need

God knows what I need"

Yes, indeed.

Northeastern Dopplegangers

There is a story I'd like to share with you fine blog readers, because it makes me excited.

As I am currently without a way to use an iPod in the car, and I only have so much room for CDs, I turn to the radio more often than I would if a greater portion of my music collection for available to me while driving. However, there are often many things I'm not interested in hearing on the radio. How do I fight to quell this quandary? I play Radio Roulette. It doesn't always prove fruitful, but generally my efforts are rather successful.

I took a short night time drive tonight, and as I always feel more adventurous in the night, my desire to play Radio Roulette was increased. So I did.

I punched through a couple of stations, stopping on them long enough to determine that I didn't want to listen to what they were broadcasting, then stopped on a bluegrass song. I don't make a habit of listening to bluegrass every day, but it holds a warm place in my heart. And this particular song caught my attention because they were singing about Greene County, Arkansas. (And I soon came to find out that the song was called "Greene County, Arkansas.") These guys were singing about my homestate. Granted, I had no idea where Greene County is located (or if there really is a Greene County.....apparently my study of Arkansas History didn't stay with me), but this song seemed to deserve my attention. Most bluegrass songs are about Kentucky or Tennessee. This was a rare gem.

I listened to what remained of the song. It was good. Then the radio show host announced the title of the song and said it was performed by a man, his wife and two children by the name of "Harmon." Really? Harmons from Arkansas? And music-making ones at that! (As an aside, after I got home, my friend Google told me not only where Greene County was, but also informed me that there is a Harmon Park in Greene County. !!)

My first thought: "This is too wild. And hitting awfully close to home. In more ways than one. My family's from Arkansas. And my mom, dad, brother and I (either all four or some combination of two or three of us) have played/performed together a lot." My second thought: "We could be related!" (Which really wouldn't surprise me, because I'm convinced I'm related to at least half of the state.)

If that wasn't crazy enough, the content of the song was something I relate to (which doesn't always happen with bluegrass/country music. Especially bluegrass. I was born and raised in the South, but I've never lived on a farm. Or driven a tractor. And I don't eat fried chicken or cornbread. I'm really not the greatest Southerner.) The song was a part of a show on NPR about the rich music of Detroit. This particular section of the show was talking about Southerners who moved up there to work in the automobile industry. The point of this "Greene County, Arkansas" was that the storytellers had moved away to Detroit and, after working there for years, had changed to the point that they didn't think they could go back and live in Greene County anymore. They still loved it, though, so they also sang about the certain grief it brought them to no longer fit in.

I've often wondered if I could go back to live in Arkansas again. Full-time, that is. Anyone who knows me fairly well knows I still spend a lot of time there, to the point that it's almost like I live there part-time. I don't want that to change. And I still call it "home," but technically my "home" is in Tennessee. And it has been in Tennessee for more years than it's been in Arkansas, despite the latter being the place of my birth.

It's because I spend so much time there that I wonder how I would fit again. If I didn't go back there often, and every visit I made was just a happy one with dear people that I miss more than any of the other treasured relations I have all over the place, why wouldn't I think moving back would be great? I'd only be there for a short while, and being with those people I miss so deeply would feel so right. That rightness would be so overwhelming I'd be blind to anything else. How do I know this? Because that's still the way I feel every time I'm in close range of these certain people. If they're all I'm thinking about, then the answer is clear: of course I could fit here again.

But I see those people fairly often. Not nearly often enough, but enough to not feel like strangers. I keep up with them enough to know generally about all of their important life events and even a fair number of mundane ones. And beyond those people, I, the person I am right now, know what it's like to live in their towns. To shop in their grocery stores. To interact with their neighbors. I know the rhythm of the city (metaphorically speaking, because there are few places in Arkansas that could remotely be called a "city." You're doing good if you can be called a "town." For those who don't know, I'm from one of the towns, a place where all kinds of people within a certain mile radius come to shop and find something interesting to do. Which always made me feel kind of like a city slicker........and now I live in a place with double the population......). And I'm not sure if that rhythm jives with mine anymore.

In certain sections it does. Like it or not (and I genuinely do like it), Arkansas is in my blood. There's a familiarity with that great state which will never leave. There are certain philosophies I hold and habits I have developed which can only be contributed to the time I have lived there. But while I'm there feeling those familiar feelings and rejoicing to be around people who have this one certain idea in common with me, there's another part...a larger part....that feels like a foreigner. I have a lot of ideas that most people I interact with in Arkansas don't seem to have. I've developed a growing number of habits which seem out of place when I'm back there. And I've just generally grown accustomed to spending my everyday life right here in Middle Tennessee.

So when I'm there, it's like consonance and dissonance coexisting. I'm not convinced that this isn't worse than pure dissonance. Because the blending of consonance and dissonance essentially only renders dissonance. The two don't blend and that's the definition of dissonance. What makes it worse than what I'm calling pure dissonance is that there is a part that wants to sound like it fits, like its settled, like it's lining up perfectly to make a sweet sounding tune, but it can't. There's another part there spoiling its efforts. And that spoiling makes it more sad than the tune would have been had there clearly been no attempt for a tonic chord to step in and provide resolution. Unsatisfied resolution leaves more longing than resolution never being considered.

When I'm there now, as a non-resident, I'm able to hold off the conflict long enough to get the little bit of resolution available to me. It's deeply satisfying. Then before the muddled music gets me down, I have an excuse to escape it. I can go home.

I don't have that excuse if my home is there.

Add my laments to those of the Greene County Harmons.

The effects of intending to write and not doing it.

I included this as an aside in another post, but thought it also deserved a post of its own.

Side note before I begin: I think up things that I want to write about often. I tell myself, "Maybe I'll get to that later." Which often means that I won't get to that later. This is unfortunate. But another reality in this situation is that because I think of so many things I want to write, and because the gaps between each post are so wide, I often forget what it is that I have written and what I haven't. For this reason, I often fear I'm repeating myself. I think "No, I haven't written about this. It's safe to talk about like people haven't heard this before, because they haven't heard it before." But then myself retorts with "Maybe you did write about it before. It seems like maybe you did. You should go check before you sound like a fool, repeating stories like you're a 90-year-old woman who forgets what she just said five minutes ago." (By the way, this is not meant to slight 90-year-old women who repeat themselves at frequent intervals. I find them to be quite precious. But I'm not 90 years old. I'll save that behavior for later.) Therefore, whenever I sit down to blog, I typically have to go back over my last few posts to remind myself what it is that I said. And it takes me that much longer to get around to what it is that I'm wanting to say.

And then I feel the need to explain all of this, as if anyone cares. And another 5-10 minutes of my life passes before my eyes.

The governor; or On letting go of my life and dreams of gainful employment.

Side note before I begin: I think up things that I want to write about often. I tell myself, "Maybe I'll get to that later." Which often means that I won't get to that later. This is unfortunate. But another reality in this situation is that because I think of so many things I want to write, and because the gaps between each post are so wide, I often forget what it is that I have written and what I haven't. For this reason, I often fear I'm repeating myself. I think "No, I haven't written about this. It's safe to talk about like people haven't heard this before, because they haven't heard it before." But then myself retorts with "Maybe you did write about it before. It seems like maybe you did. You should go check before you sound like a fool, repeating stories like you're a 90-year-old woman who forgets what she just said five minutes ago." (By the way, this is not meant to slight 90-year-old women who repeat themselves at frequent intervals. I find them to be quite precious. But I'm not 90 years old. I'll save that behavior for later.) Therefore, whenever I sit down to blog, I typically have to go back over my last few posts to remind myself what it is that I said. And it takes me that much longer to get around to what it is that I'm wanting to say.

And then I feel the need to explain all of this, as if anyone cares. And another 5-10 minutes of my life passes before my eyes.

I recently posted a "Scrawlin" on Facebook (as my piratical profile likes to call a "note") that highlighted a few ironies my life is currently using to make me laugh (cry/wonder why/feel confused). One of them is that I graduated a little over two months ago, am still jobless, am no closer to finding employment than I was the day I graduated, yet have been anything but idle. Nor have I just been busy for the sake of finding a way to ward off boredom. I'm sure there are probably many others in my same position, but I still find it interesting enough to comment about.

I have a theory. There are some people in the world who find work to be furthest from what they hold dear, and, in many instances, the only reason they have a job (in the formal sense of the word) is because they like food, shelter and entertainment more than they dislike work, and they haven't found someone who will provide those things for them. Then you have other people who can't call themselves living if they're not working. If they have a job, which they likely do, it's likely a demanding job, and they also are involved in other groups outside of their job, are tightly connected to their families and have active friendly social lives, which all demand the majority, if not all, of the free time they have outside of work. If they don't have a job, then those outside groups, families and friends become their full-time job. If they were to get a job, they'd make room for it. But their life is already so full that they don't need employment to fill up their time.

I'm one of the latter.

This obviously is a theory of extremes. If you find yourself thinking, "I'm not quite either one of those people," that's okay. You're in the middle. You live by the rule of moderation. I applaud you.

Moderation doesn't make sense to my brain, I guess.

Thus, if it were up to me, and if I were still a slave to my old self and not made new by Christ, I would have already had a job. I don't know what, but something. Simply because that's what a responsible, well-functioning adult does: has a job. It doesn't matter what kind of job it is. It just has to be a job.

But I'm learning, or being forced to, break out of that mindset.

Before I continue, let me make it clear that I'm not, nor will I ever, advocate irresponsibility. Nor do I promote being a leech, always demanding that someone else take care of you. Please don't be a leech. Please don't be irresponsible. I'm aware that you may sometimes, but don't make a habit of it.

What I am saying is that, as far away as I already feel I am from the "American Dream" mentality, I think God is trying to quell what of it still remains within me. I can live with a lot less than I think I can. And the things that I do need to live can often be shared. Especially at this time in my life when I'm a single person, not fully responsible for or obligated to anyone else. The only attachments I need are to people, not things. And since I don't yet have the irrevocably bonding attachments of marriage or children, I'm free to let my attachments expand to others without neglecting those of primary importance.

God is also not letting me forget that who I am is not about what I do. I am easily deceived into thinking that it is. The lie is that I can't be a complete person, a valuable person, unless I'm doing something, unless I'm performing, unless I'm being a good, respectable citizen. But the truth is I'm still a whole, valuable, loved person whether I do or I don't. And that wholeness, value and love doesn't come in degrees. That's radical thinking for an overachiever like me.

A third thing being impressed upon me is that what I do needs to be focused less on making a paycheck and more on fulfilling life, both mine and that of others. So many people in the society I'm a part of get caught up in a job and a way of life (largely determined by their job) that drains all that's good out of them and doesn't do anything edifying for anyone else. I cast no ill judgment on these people. The motivations behind going down this path are many and often thoroughly compelling. But I'm being led a different way. I think God's impressing on me to start down a different path while I can. Before I have a family that's depending on me. Before I'm living on my own and realize I can't suffer the reality of my life anymore and feel forced to start over, yet powerless to do so. I have little to nothing right now, so I'm in a perfect position to start something in my nothingness that I can work to build upon. Then, after a lot of hard work, something can come from my nothing, a system can be organized and set in working motion, and not only can what I do be enjoyable and utilize my abilities, it can be something that benefits other people while providing for my needs.

Speaking of provision, another lesson I'm confronting is that God is my provider. The end. He can choose to use a job to give me what I need. Or not. He may use a neighbor who has a little spare food and is willing to share. He may use a friend who got a bonus in their last paycheck that just happens to be enough to cover the bill for my electricity. Or he might use a stranger who drops a $20 bill from their pocket, which then falls to the ground later to be found by me. God has a good imagination. He can come up with something.

Finally, I'm learning the perils of being too disconnected from people and conversely how essential it is to have relationships. We need to share with each other. We need to help one another. We need to give to each other. If I'm cut off from people, then there will never be anyone around to give into, and therefore enrich, my life. I'll be a sad and lonely shell of who I could be. And I will never come to know what "regard others as better than yourself" means. Jesus set forth the ultimate model of service, and the more I become like him, the more I'll start reaching out to others. To the point that it's more of a compulsion and less of something I have to discipline myself to do. Opening up like this requires being vulnerable, dying to myself, allowing people to see my imperfections, which all push me to remember that I'm not all that and a bag of chips by myself; that God is where my strength, value and identity come from. Iron does indeed sharpen iron.

How are all of these lessons being conveniently placed before me at the precise moment I need to learn them? By me "conveniently" being unable to drive my car. If I was able to go anywhere, prospects would have already been scoured. Applications would have been submitted. But my proverbial hands are tied with a knot I do not possess the skill to undo. There's a lot of progression that I could have already made online, but should something have progressed so far as to demand me leave my immediate surroundings, I would have to tell people, "Thanks for asking me to do the job, but, after all that work we both put in, it looks like I won't be accepting your offer. Sorry I wasted your time and made you think that this was going somewhere when it wasn't." No thanks.

I'm learning more and more every day how much my life is not in my control. Sometimes, I think I'm going to do something, I see how it's going to happen, then it happens. But more often than not, what I think will happen doesn't. Or it does, but the way it happens is different than I predicted. I tell myself that I'm going to work at camp, then come home and get busy finding a job, but no. The pastor of the particular little portion of the Church that I have chosen to gather with every week told a story one time about how he decided to fast and get his mind off of food. He got sick. So violently sick that nothing would have stayed in his stomach had he even the gumption to try to put something in it. He needed to fast and refocus his attention on the source of his every need. God ordained that it would happen. I've needed to cool my heels and focus on the source of my existence and its meaning. God ordained that it would happen.

So I, the overachiever who considers it high treason to shirk responsibility, am not worried about the fact that I don't have a job. (Ask me again later and we'll see if I hold the same position.) I will make progress when the option to proceed is placed in front of me. This does not mean I will sit idle until then. I can't do that. That's not who I am. And that would be irresponsible. But responsibility does not lie in whether one has a job, but is rather rooted more in one's attitude toward life. I pray that with Christ's influence I will always keep the proper attitude. And I pray for grace the times I misplace it.

In an effort to be transparent, all of this that I have talked about in these many paragraphs goes completely against my innermost inclinations. Being aware of this truth and moving even further to accept it as a part of my life isn't easy. As I've said more than once, I'm an overachiever. I've also made no secret of my propensity to believe that I am what I do. But in the middle of my drive to do something, there was another little tug in the opposite direction. And it wouldn't stop. I've come to recognize that tug as the Holy Spirit. I know my own tendencies. I also know how much my own tendencies tend to either get me in trouble, or leave me with a life that's far less than what I know it can be. Finally, I know that I in myself am far from God's perfection and righteousness. So when I feel that little tug toward the other way, or hear that little voice telling me something different, I've come to assume that it's God. And I trust that his way is better then mine. It can be really scary to go the other way. There was a night recently when I felt like a blob of mess as I became aware of this truth and allowed it to make its way in to change me. And it felt kind of like a death sentence saying, "Okay, God. I'm going to let go of everything. You have it. I'll surrender myself completely to being faithful to following after you above anything else. Even above my own security. And my own sparkling reputation. My own dreams of success." In reality that's what it was: walking toward my own execution and flipping the switch myself. But the beautiful thing about Christ is that when you give up your life, he lets you have his own, and it's far better and more precious than anything that you gave away. You'll feel more like a whole person than you did before.

And I know that the complete lack of panic and surge of peace I currently feel is unmistakable evidence that "I am not who I was, I'm being remade, I am new."

On why I cried for two hours in a theater.

It's an overused metaphor, but it's appropriate for a word nerd such as myself and for the context, so I'll use it anyway: A chapter of my life has closed.

For those who didn't know, the final Harry Potter movie premiered to the general North American public today (yesterday, technically, as it's after midnight). Also for those who didn't know, I really like Harry Potter and the imagined world in which he lives. "Really like" is actually an understatement. A friend of mine was kind enough to take my poor, penniless self to go see the movie today. To employ another overused phrase, it was magical.

I've read each of the books in the series more times than I care to count. These literary incarnations of the Wizarding World have been my chief interest, as can be expected for someone with an English degree, but I have also appreciated the cinematic adaptations as well. They're not nearly as satisfying to my story-loving core, but even I will admit that there are virtues to be found in films which are not accessible in books.

As an avid reader of the original written works by J.K. Rowling, or Jo as I like to call her, I went into the theater today knowing how they story would end; knowing what each dramatic, climactic moment would be; knowing which characters would live and which would die; knowing who would triumph in the end. And despite all of that foreknowledge, I was still just as deeply touched by the truth in the story.

That is why I have been so attached to these stories: truth. Real, potent truth. Not something watered down to the point that it's lost all of its meaning.

That and the fact that Jo did such a wonderful job of presenting characters that came across as real people, characters to which my young self could relate and with whom I found a certain friendship. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Luna, Seamus, Dean, Fred, George....Draco....we grew up together. When the last book was published, the book's namesake was 17, and I was a mere 19 years old. We were peers. As much as I read, it's still not often that an author is able to convince me to pour emotion into a fictional character like I would a friend I can interact with in the flesh. I applaud anyone who can.

Getting back to truth, though, Jo's stories are dripping in them. A man I admire, Ben Shive, after he saw the movie today, posted on Twitter, "Harry Potter was so so good. I was praising Jesus. No joke." I was, too. I did the first time I read the book, and I have every time since then. Why?

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13

...and...

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay his life down for his friends." John 15:13

Harry does that, both literally and figuratively, repeatedly. Other characters do that, both literally and figuratively, repeatedly. The Harry Potter stories make no secret of evil, and pain, and struggle, just as life, if fully lived, leaves everyone to confront such horror and tragedy. But the truth is, in the end, love is victorious. Voldemort doesn't take over the world. And neither does sin. "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world," said Jesus.

It's the pure and perfect love of Christ that has saved the world we live in. And it's the same kind of love that saved the Wizarding World. Sometimes (most times) I have difficulty understanding concepts when only presented abstractly, or even concretely when related to myself. I've found that most people have the same trouble. David, one of Israel's greatest kings, did when he took Bathsheba from her husband and had him killed. It took Nathan telling David a story of a poor man's stolen lamb for him to understand how atrocious his actions were. We need stories to help us understand the world, to understand each other, to understand God. Stories, good ones, capture our imaginations, the part of us still capable of wonder. Then, once they have taken hold of that one part of us we have left open to being vulnerable, the light they shed on truth makes it apparent to us, and that fully revealed truth is able to come in and change us. I'm grateful for stories like Harry's that help me to understand love.

This statement may shock some people, but I felt like I knew Jesus better after I reached the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the first time four years ago.

The books reached their end a while ago. The movies have now done the same. Gradually, the hype will die down. But the stories won't change. They'll still be there, available for those who want to get lost in their wonder. Those who let themselves be lost will still find their way to the same truth. I intend to repeat the journey as long as my mind is still capable of understanding words.

And if I ever meet Ron Weasley in the flesh (although, his name wouldn't have to be exactly Ronald Bilius Weasley, or anything like it, just as long as his heart, personality and red hair are the same....I'll possibly negotiate on the red hair), I think I'll have to marry him.