Hebrew Bible and Christian Scriptures

On the post I wrote a few weeks ago about my favorite books, I left off so very many that I loved. In my normal fashion, I’m combining a few of the prompts from Emmy’s list; one that asked for a non-fiction book and one for a fictional.

non-fiction: mountains beyond mountains by tracey kidder

I read this book during a trip to Rwanda in 2008 and could not put it down. I’d place it in my top ten humanitarian books of all time and cannot believe I left it off the other list. Kidder, an amazing writer, tells the story of Dr. Paul Farmer as he seeks to eradicate the world of poor health care. Farmer is an extraordinary humanitarian, scientist and the co-founder of Partners in Health, a non-profit which provides world class healthcare in remote villages of forgotten worlds. Seriously, friends, read this book.

fiction: deep river by shusaku endo

Clearly, as this is the novel the Onion draws its name from, I have a special place in my soul for this work. The fictional tale of Japanese tourists on a spiritual sojourns through India – specifically Varanassi – the vignettes of each character are rich and detailed, making it hard to imagine these people as fictional. Dealing with grief, rebirth, faith, death and hope, the novel offers few easy answers and myriads of questions. The best kind of book.

There’s this great episode of Scrubs where Elliot talks about how she has to keep the crazy contained so that the boy she’s seeing will continue to love her. I laughed out loud at her antics and consoled myself that her crazy was, in fact, crazy and I would make no boy jump through such hoops.

However, the idea has stuck with me. I have all sorts of crazy that I keep bottled up, and I’m sure you do too because we all do. The pieces of us that make no sense, our neuroses, psychoses and the like. The things our friends make fun of us for is included in this, but also the crazypants things we do or think that we fear we cannot ever let anyone know. Ever. If they did, the crazy would scare them off.

One of the things I’ve learned through doing life with people is that if they’re really in your life on purpose and they really love you, no level of your crazy can scare them off. Some of your crazy may need to be contained, but they probably want to help you with that. They want to mock you gently for some of them, but they know the things that aren’t funny. That’s part of community; your crazy spills out and their crazy spills out and you all learn how to swim in the combined crazy.

I have some things about me that aren’t fantastic. I’m working on them, attempting to be a better version of me, but some days I just wave the white flag. I had one of those days a few weeks ago and I apologize to anyone who’s head I bit off in the process. The legitimate scars and traumas in my stories are always handled with care.

That’s not to say I’m not mocked. Ask my friends sometime about how I once sternly chastised Joell for getting stuck in a revolving door; that story is one of their favorites.

…i decided to start doing a series of some of my favorite things. thus, every week on friday, i’ll post some of my favorite things from that week. please post your own favorites in the comments…

modern family: seriously, one of the funniest things that happens every week on my television. it’s one of those shows that’s funny because it’s true.

kari’s letters to atticus: for her nablopomo project, kari is writing letters to her almost-born son, atticus. today’s is about how naming is powerful. i love kari’s blogs always, but this series is especially wonderful.

wearing sweaters: thank you, central texas, for remembering how to exist at temperatures appropriate to fall. it has been so fantastic to breakout my sweaters and scarves this week.

dreaming of belfast: as i fill out my application for queens, i catch myself mentally strolling down botanic and stepping into starbucks for a quick coffee with a pal. oh please, universe, let that be my life again.

avett brothers: “i and love and you” has been in my head for weeks. their songs are this autumn’s soundtrack.

~*~

that’s my five friday favorites, friends. what are yours?

I was on Skype the other night with a friend from another country who happens to be interested in American politics. He was asking several pointed and informed questions, but his essential point was to wonder why voting isn’t something most of us bother to do. He was looking for a more nuanced answer than, “most people think it doesn’t matter” and I was unable to give it to him. I was only able to explain to him why I choose to vote.

Yesterday, before the sun was up, I journeyed to my local polling place. This particular election, Central Texas saw it fit for me to vote at the Texas Ranger Museum, so that was a new experience. The whole process took almost no time at all. I handed a nice woman my driver’s license, stepped up to a booth, clicked a few button and then got a sticker out of the whole process.

I did all of that because I believe it’s important. I do not believe government can change the word, but whether I like it or not, it does shape the world. I vote because, by simply being a citizen, I participate in government. I receive mail, drive on roads, use water and even attended public school. And honestly, those persons in power have the ability to shape certain aspects of my world in a very specific manner. They have the ability to cut funding for a program I support. They have the ability to determine how my nation interacts with other nations. I want them to do so with respect to my opinions and choices, so I vote for the people who best reflect those, however lacking ‘best’ may be.

I also voted, in part, because I can. I am acutely aware of the myraids of people, especially women, around the world who cannot do so. I try to live out my privileged status as a blue passport holder with respect to persons who would want me to wield my power responsibly. For me, this includes voting.

Yesterday, I cast a vote for district attorney with the understanding that the individual I voted for will specifically seek to prosecute those who commit crimes against women and children. He used language during his campaign which demonstrated to me he is interested in protecting specific populations in our community which are often maligned. Thus, I voted for him. (He won, for the record.) Will that man completely reformat our legal system? Of course not. Will he fix our problems? No. But my expectation that he would is wrong on my part, not on his.

Government is not the answer, friends. (For the record, neither is handing all control over to corporations, but that is another post.) It is a piece of some answers,  but the state can never accomplish all we want it to. Voting is only a piece of our responsibility. I like what Meredith said in her post about responsibility: we are citizens with power to wield and choices to make. We must do so wisely and with grace, because the reality is that we live in a pluralistic society. Sometimes living in a republic means that other people are in charge.

I also voted because there are some important legislative conversations which must be had over the next few years. We must decide how to handle marriage, immigration and the economy. Whether I like it or not, there are things which can only be handled legislatively in the country we specifically live in. Is the system broken? Unbelievably so. Do we still have to play in it? For the time being at least.

So yes, I voted. I voted for several people who ended up loosing – but that’s part of the process. I voted out of duty, out of responsibility. But I also voted in hope. I hope that those important conversations can happen better than they have been. I hope we can craft some laws and policies to let all Americans have a voice at the table, not just the ones on TV. I hope that citizens, and especially persons who cast their faith in Christ, can mobilize to create a better world and that some of the current cultural conversations become obsolete.

(Before you ask: I completely respect those who choose to abstain from voting for articulated reasons. I am, however, often disappointed when I hear that over 50% of the population abstained from voting – especially since that often appears to be out of apathy. I only offer the above as reasons why I choose to vote.)

Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats or Republicans or conservatives or liberals. Most Americans live their lives that our just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often it’s something they do not want to do, but they do it. Impossible things get done every day that are only made possible by the little, reasonable compromises.

According to estimates, 200,000 some people gathered on the Mall on Saturday to rally for sanity. Many articles have been written about the crowd; how unique it was to essentially rally with mature adults. (My favorite is from Entertainment Weekly, linked here.) There is lots of hubub made of the signs, since Stewart himself offered beginning suggestions. (My favorite from his offerings: “I may disagree with you, but I am pretty sure you’re not Hitler.”) A photolog of 100 is located here, but some of my favorites aren’t included. My favorites tend to be the comments on reasonableness and not the ones simply trying to be funny. “You are entitled to your opinion, but not your own spelling,” is a personal favorite; followed closely by “I don’t like taxes either, but I like school and getting mail and driving on roads, so I pay them.”

I don’t want to offer a review of the rally, especially since I have yet to go to an event on the Mall that isn’t awkward or have it’s flaws. I do want to remark on the last twenty minutes of the event, when Stewart took the stage to tell us, his audience, why he hoped we were there. (click link for full text of speech or find a video of it at the bottom of this post.) After talking about the press for several minutes, he launched into an explanation as to why America simply isn’t as bad as the “country’s 24-hour politico pundit panic conflict-onator” makes it often seem to be. Using the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel as a video example, Stewart explained that we cooperate in large and small ways every day, often with significantly less bile than is demonstrated on cable news.

My frustration, as an American, over the past several years has been our national inability to have an adult conversation. We’re separated into demographic categories which do little good and are constantly subjected to screaming people on our televisions telling us to fear everyone and everything. We’re told the person who votes against your candidate is, in fact, evil and may just be responsible for the downfall of society. We’re told it’s okay to hold signs labeling our leaders as genocidal dictators and to live in a general state of civil unrest.

In my experience, most of us don’t actually believe that. But civil conversation doesn’t often bring in ratings or sell newspapers.

If I may offer a personal example. Academia is one of the places where you are encouraged to voice your opinions and attempt to sway those of others. Especially at Truett, where we have our classes in seminar style, I articulate controversial and quasi-heretical opinions on a regular basis. In all of my classes, there are people who disagree with me. People who have completely opposite views as I do, both in theology and politics. We may not be ‘friends’, but we are adults. Civil and mature disagreement is possible. It takes work and I’m not about to say I achieve it every day, but it is achievable.

My hope is to continue to uphold the value of civil discourse and mature conversation. To remember that despite everything, we still manage to all get through the Lincoln Tunnel every day. We do it by making small concession after small concession, and by remembering the kindergarten wisdom that sometimes other people are right and we are wrong.

1: A favorite had the day off from work, so after taking an exam that morning, we had a leisurely lunch and great conversations. Game night that evening was also epic.

2: Breakfast with sister, homework on the couch, The Social Network in the evening. Aaron Sorkin reigns.

3: I turned 27 and birthday week began! Gift #1: a magnet with Edna Turnblad on it.

4: Birthday Week Gift #2: “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog” on DVD. Love.

5: Birthday Week Gift #3: “Music Man” on DVD. Theme is clearly musicals and that is FANTASTIC.

6: Birthday Week Gift #4: a beautiful book on musical posters. Gift #4a: Roy Halladay pitched a no-hitter against the Reds. I floated through the Onion that night.

7: Birthday Week Gift #5: a book covered in monster fur! That’s right, the official Avenue Q book. The book is now molting all over my house, but I love it oh so very much.

8: Friday evening brought about my photo job again, this week in Cayuga, Texas. A favorite joined me for the road trip and we laughed the entire evening. Another dear one texted me updates of my Phils all evening, so I will say that I was not mentally “there” on the football field at all. Thankfully, after bungling most of the evening, the boys pulled it out and we lead the series 2-0.

9: Birthday Week Gift #6: West Side Story on DVD. Birthday Week Gift #7: Chess in Concert on DVD. Indina Mendel in my house each and every day. FANTASTIC.

10: I kept hearing rumors of this thing up in Dallas known as “The Texas State Fair” and had to investigate for myself. Many deep fried things which were never meant to be deep fried and a few other food items on sticks later, the ladies and I checked the event off our Texas Bucket List. The evening was spent watching the Phils clinch the series and advance on to the NLCS. I love playing baseball in October.

11: Mondays are generally productive days and today was no exception. It also included sushi and a few great conversations with favorites.

12: Road trip to Dallas for various appointments; so we feasted in Indian food and listened to Glee.

13: Wednesday, clearly meaning time with Sedona (who I  affectionately refer to as ‘bucket’ for myraid reasons) and her favorite Muppet and then the Onion gathered in our usual way.

14: One of those days where I was profoundly aware that life is fleeting and hope is all that anchors.

15: This may or may not have been the day that I read the first Percy Jackson novel in its entirety and then promptly went and got the others from the library. That’s right. I’m awesome.

16: The Onion celebrated me at Sam’s on the Square with excellent food and great fun. Then we traipsed back to my house to watch Game 1 of NLCS. Disappointing ending, but great fun watching.

17: We gathered in my living room to watch Oswalt and the Phils represent – complete with appropriate snacks and snarky commentary. Ask me sometime about my theory that the Giants are powered by the grease found in their facial hair.

18: Productivity day! Read, ran, wrote and then watched Chuck.

19: My health was not at its best, the Phillies were destroyed in the afternoon; not my favorite day on record.

20: I wore purple and attempted to stand in solidarity with those who are bullied and rejected. While the day was planned especially for LGBT students, I spent the day thinking about the horrific power of bullying and how it must be a national conversation. In less serious and yet not less significant news, the Onion gathered that evening to watch the game and I hung my head in shame at the end.

21: The hope was so tangible I could taste it: the Phillies remembered how to play baseball and we headed back to the Bank with a 3-2 series.

22: Joell joined me for an evening of photo job and we learned that small town Texas keeps it classy.

23: Phils once again forgot how to hit the ball (fundamental to the game, boys!) and we fell to the Giants in the NLCS. Despite the events of the evening, I still love baseball.

24: I walked around in a bit of a daze of mourning all day. However, on the upside, it was an incredibly productive day since we lacked baseball.

25: Realized that “applying for a PhD” is an intense phrase in a new way. I also need to remember that “adolescent faith development in post-conflict societies” isn’t exactly a colloquial explanation for my future.

26: Rocky Horror Glee Show and homework

27: Amy, Jo and I traveled to a small town about an hour away to speak to a brave and battered community about adolescent suicide. There were some absolutely holy moments and one of my favorites was incredibly brave.

28: Coffee and ranting with some Truett colleagues, sushi with Jo for lunch and a mini-road trip with Sarah.

29: My parents came to town for a spontaneous visit, so we spent the day collecting them from the airport and running some errands. We had some great bruchetta at Gratziano’s, but also suffered minor hearing loss because the music was simply that loud. “I’m IN THE WOOFER, MAN” came to mind.

30: Day of errands, capped off with a double-feature. We saw Red at the theater (hilarious) and then a cheeser rom-com on DVD (not recommended).

31: Celebrated Halloween by taking the parents to the airport, ignoring trick-or-treaters and eating Indian food. As is appropriate.

Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

So, my boys lost. In a valiant example of what happens when you forget how to play the game you are paid to play, the Phillies fell to the Giants, loosing the pennant and dashing the dreams of a city. The entire NLCS has been dramatic and I think no more so than this evening – what with Chase getting hit and the amount of times we almost had it and then we didn’t. To quote the NYTimes, “the last time this many people were left stranded, the Dharma Intiative was involved.”

I digress.

Clearly, the Phillies have not been the only baseball story in town. As I am located in Central Texas and am a good, self-respecting baseball fan, I’ve been cheering for the Rangers as my AL team for the past several seasons. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that they get a chance at the big dance and how thrilled I am for many of my beloveds here in TX who feel about Josh Hamilton the way I feel about Chase Utley. The Cinderella story of the season, for sure.

Over the past three weeks, as we’ve been discussing baseball throughout the halls of Truett, I’ve been reminded why I love baseball. Honestly, it’s my favorite sport to follow here in these United States. I don’t always get football (it’s too irregular) and American soccer is often lame. I do love college basketball (thank you, Baylor Bears for making that love easier), but I love Major League Baseball.

I love the rhythms it moves in; slow buildup and dramatic moments. I love the ability of how any member of any team can become a breakout star at any moment, just with the swing of a bat or the fling of a mitt. I love how heroes are born in the psyche of entire cities and how it feels completely natural to pin my dreams to nine men each October. I love the smell of ballparks, the way lazy conversations swirl all around you and how fans can literally carry or crush a pitcher. I love following the stats and knowing they’re meaningless if a player’s in his head.

Most of all, I love the hope. It’s true what Terence says to Ray in Field of Dreams, baseball is a constant. Every April, the slate is clean and hope renews again. I get to dip myself in magic and hope that my Fightin’ Phils will live up to my hope and deliver. If they don’t, there’s always next year as my hope hibernates for the winter. As Harry Kalas always used to sing after we won, “we’ve got high hopes, high hopes, high in the sky apple pie hopes.” We’ve got hope.

The hope is over for this year and I look to the Rangers to hope for. However, next year? When the pitchers and catchers report for duty? I’ll feel that stirring in my soul and I’ll dress myself in hope. After all, they pass out new championship rings every year.

…yes, i know this post is overdue. however, birthday celebrations will continue until this saturday, so there’s that…

Birthday always serve as markers for me. While the favorites gleefully bestowed their birthday week gifts upon me over this past week, I spent a lot of time wondering how my twenty-seventh year should be different than my twenty-sixth.

To be honest, twenty-six was pretty fantastic. I celebrated New Year’s in the middle of the Caribbean, danced at an Indian wedding, ate dim sum in Hong Kong and witnessed baptisms in Medellin. I found new and beautiful definitions of family, strength and community. I had the privilege of sitting around the table at Truett and discussing deep wisdom with some fellow travelers and took huge steps towards defining my life calling. There were some serious bumps along the way, complete with scars and bruises, but I would never trade (most of) this past year for anything.

I have ruminated about it on this blog before, but I wonder what my adolescent self would think of my adult self. On my seventeenth birthday, I was living in Yardley and dealing with my senior year at Pennsbury. I was juggling work, school, theater, music, friends, youth group and stuffing them all into my hopes and dreams for the future. I thought I knew exactly what life would look like, how I would get where I want to go, so on and so forth. Very little of that life came to pass. While I have no idea what 17-year-old Kristen would have thought of 27-year-old Kristen, I can honestly say that 27-year-old Kristen is pretty proud of herself. Growth, maturity, hope and change have been themes of my time in Waco and I am sure they will not cease to be in this last year.

Over the past ten years, there are some detours I never thought I would take. Some have turned out to be not detours at all, but re-directions. Wonderful, life-giving, re-directions. It’s taken me several years to realize that most of the strands of passions in my life really can work together towards a viable profession. Amazing.

So, here’s to year twenty-seven. Hopefully, it’ll include a graduation, a few more international trips and a student visa. I know it will also include laughter and seasons of love, tears and mourning, grace and hope.

Here’s to road trips with favorites and coffee dates with new friends. Here’s to leaning into Waco for one final year and checking things off my Texas Bucket List. Here’s to ridiculous pictures and Glee sing-alongs. Here’s to theme parties, game nights and merriment. Here’s to the Bloomin’ Onion. Here’s to grace, hope and love. Here’s to twenty-seven.

I ducked into Starbucks to grab a quick cup of coffee and a few moments of productivity. Autumn has settled into Central Texas (for now, at least) and has definitely wrapped itself in my soul. Courtney guest-posted on Leah’s blog about how autumn is a season for her soul to inhale.

I was thinking about Courtney’s words as I walked into Starbucks. I paused for a moment when I noticed a graphic on their front door proclaiming “take comfort in rituals.”

I live in rituals and rhythms. I wake up at about the same time each day and pour the coffee beans into the grinder. I move in academic rhythms and familial ones, friendship rhythms and ones of mourning. I use these rhythms to mark my life. I know it’s a Wednesday if I gather among the Onion and it’s a Tuesday or Thursday if I’m across the table from Mike Stroope. When I was younger, I remember thinking that truly adventurous people live in spontenaity. Now I know I’m wrong. Bravery and adventure come in living out the hope and destruction found in rhythm.

I say that to mean that being an authentic person takes an amazing amount of bravery. To find hope and joy in the midst of the everyday is something that is hard. However, over the past few seasons of being, I have learned that rituals are what bouy my hope. On the days where I am defeated, I move through the rhythms and rituals of my life in the knowledge that they will not always be depressingly routine. They will soon be returned to markers of hope.

Thus, on this autumnal Monday, one specifically where I need reminders of hope, I am glad that both Courtney and Starbucks reminded me to lean into my rituals. To take comfort in rhythms and markers and anticipation. To breathe deeply and love wastefully and give generously and hope extravagantly.

For those of you who don’t follow such things, we are in the midst of Banned Book Week. I have some severe ideological problems with the idea of banning books, not the least of which is that I think it’s simply ridiculous to assume that banning a book will silence it. I also wonder why one particular person’s opinion of a certain work means that it should be banned for all other persons. For instance, I am not a fan of most modern art. I think it’s childish and ridiculous and don’t really want to spend my time staring at a rope hanging from a ceiling and attempting to discern what the artist is trying to say from it. (Yes, this is a real life example. Thank you, MOMA.) However, there are people who derive deep meaning from said rope and who am I to rob them of that?

If someone wants to claim protection of children, then I will certainly grant them a listen. But that’s a conversation about age appropriate play, knowledge and development, not censorship. If you want to convince me that the basis of Harry Potter isn’t appropriate for four-year-olds, I will absolutely agree. There are certainly scenes in those novels which are age-inappropriate for certain ages. But definitely not for all ages. To assume so is ridiculous and only proves to me that the person screaming about banning the book has probably gotten hung up on the “witchcraft” and has therefore missed the entire point of the series.

We need different opinions in this world. We need ideas and thoughts that offend us and challenge us, mostly in order that they may shape us. Clearly, I value discussion and education highly and am confused as to why anyone else would not. I have chosen to celebrate Banned Book Week by reading works that others have found worthy of banning and would encourage you to do the same. For a list of banned books, check here. I am particularly partial to the Harry Potter series, To Kill a Mockingbird and Brave New World.

I keep tabs on the current literary world through several blogs and several friends. I’ve been reading through opinions and ideas about banning books, but wanted to share this link to Kari’s blog, in which she talks about a particular controversy surrounding a book called Speak. I would encourage everyone to read Kari’s entry and follow the links and discussions within.

Once again, I do not think all art is worthy of consumption by all. Nor do I believe all of the books on the list are particularly good. Banning them, however, is a little extreme and rarely serves the purpose the banners think it will. Discernment and discretion, yes. Tantrums and exaggeration, no.