January
January has been at least two months long.
Seriously. It has lasted forever! A week and a half ago I felt like it should be February already… and it’s STILL January! Unbelievable. Rumor has it that tomorrow is the last day of January, but considering how long the month has been already, I’m having trouble believing it. If February ever does decide to show up, I might need to host a January-Is-Finally-Over party or something.
Since January has been extra-long this year, I’ve had plenty of time to come up with theories to explain its perpetual existence. For example, maybe all of the calendar-makers held a secret meeting last year to develop a comprehensive plan to play a mean trick on the world. Or maybe people have been adding extra pages to my calendar when I wasn’t looking. Why couldn’t they add them to June instead? (Side note: yes, I use a pencil and paper to keep track of my life. Anyone want an obsolete antique Palm VIIx that I got for free?) Or perhaps February simply went on strike to prevent January from morphing into February.
It’s not that January has been so terrible… just interminable. Sometimes when life is full the days fly by, but not this month. Each day and each week have stretched out as far as possible… and then some. I spent the first day of January with my family at the end of our Christmas/New Year’s holiday time together, and then I spent the first weekend on a retreat (it was for work, but it was lovely nonetheless). Since then, my life has been jam-packed with all kinds of things — working hard, having friends over for dinner, going to basketball games, enjoying my friends’ babies, playing music for worship on a Steinway concert grand, rejoicing with my friend who started dating a woman he REALLY likes, procrastinating and then doing work for the seminary class I’m taking, singing in a choir again, and getting too little sleep. That’s not an exhaustive list, of course… just an exhausting one.
I mentioned in a previous blog entry that one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to do new things… and I have been. During the past month, I ate at a new Thai restaurant, started a new blog (this one!), bought a tampon out of a machine for the first time (sorry, guys!), and visited a new church. I also started meeting weekly for conversation with a young Korean woman who is learning English. I know, that’s an incredibly exciting list. Stay tuned for next month’s installment…
-sigh-
January has been good, but I can’t say I’m sad to see it go.
And I missed it!
For at least six hours today, my blog was listed on this page of the 100 fastest-growing WordPress blogs. However, since I have more to do in life than sit around monitoring blog stats, I didn’t even get to see it on the list. 
But thanks to those of you who helped make it possible! 
If I’m not mistaken, today was Monday…
I spent the first part of my workday today dealing with mistakes. Other people’s mistakes… mostly.
While my computer was booting up, I dialed into my voicemail. “You have ONE unplayed message.” Beep. I listened as someone told me that I had made a mistake a week ago, and asked how we could get that resolved. I called her back to assure her that I hadn’t made a mistake. (At least not that time…)
Next I placed a call to someone to gently let her know that she was repeatedly making a certain mistake that caused extra work for me. I had been in my office for all of two minutes; the day wasn’t starting too great.
I quickly sorted through some things I had set aside on Friday as top priority for this morning… as well as some things my boss had added. My next task was to repair the damage from a mistake someone else had made a year ago, and when I completed that, I pulled a report that would make it easy for yet another person to identify mistakes they might have made recently. Next on the agenda? Fixing a set of three mistakes I had made last week.
Dealing with so many mistakes was a pretty rotten way to start a Monday. I’m not the World’s Most Patient Woman when I encounter incompetence and inefficiency, whether in others OR MYSELF. So before I had even put in an hour of work this morning, I was feeling frustrated and annoyed.
Lord, have mercy.
Fortunately, I know a Great High Priest who was available to swing by my office on a Monday morning to hear my confession… and to grant mercy and grace in my time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16). I highly recommend Him. 
Home Sweet FEMA Trailer?
This morning at church several people shared about a recent trip they took to help with Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts at a church sixty miles south of New Orleans. The message they brought back from the people they worked with is, “We feel forgotten, both by the U.S. government and by the broader church community.”
Everywhere I turn there are people suffering, struggling, and hurting. Their stories are heart-wrenching. I wish I could DO something to solve their problems, to alleviate their pain, to help carry their burdens. But I usually feel helpless. What can I really do to make a difference in their lives? I can’t possibly demonstrate the love of Jesus to everyone in the world… right?
And yet I always know that I could be doing so much more than I am. I could be more generous with my time, my money, and my abilities. I see other people doing so much and I find myself wondering why I can’t be more like them… but then I start thinking about the variety of ways I do minister to others, and my conscience is eased a bit. This, of course, is exactly the moment at which God steps in to remind me that I am not a contestant in a Compassionate Action Competition. It doesn’t matter that I’m doing more than some people and less than others. What matters is whether I’m being obedient to Christ.
The problem, however, is that I don’t always know what God is asking me to do. The path of obedience isn’t always clearly marked. And so I surrender myself yet again to God’s guidance as I consider ways to encourage my Christian brothers and sisters in southern Louisiana…
journey of a spiritual hobo
I’ve been somewhat of a “spiritual hobo” during the past four months.
For a variety of reasons that are still not entirely clear to me, I made a decision in September to be temporarily homeless. Church-homeless, that is. I had been experiencing what some would call a “holy restlessness” for quite some time, but I was absolutely committed to following through on all of my ministry commitments at church. When those came to a natural close, I was ready to find out where God would lead me.
During these past four months, I’ve visited ten churches in five states, several of them multiple times. I’ve been to Baptist, Lutheran, Mennonite, Presbyterian, and non-denominational churches. I’ve been to urban churches and rural churches; old churches and new churches; a megachurch, an emerging church, and churches of every size in between.
I wish I could say that this variety of church experiences has been the result of wonderful advance planning, but I assure you that this is NOT the case! I have often felt like I’m wandering alone in the wilderness as I try to figure out where to worship each week. I’m still amazed at how the Holy Spirit has responded to my prayers for guidance, though sometimes not until Saturday night. Trying to “keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25) has been an interesting challenge!
During my journey as a “spiritual hobo,” I have experienced more confusion than clarity. While I haven’t necessarily LEFT the church where I’m a member, I’m also not sure whether I’ll ever return to stay. I despise the term “church shopping” (which often involves a spiritualized cost-benefit analysis of music, sermons, and fellowship meals), and yet I long to find a vibrant community of Christ’s followers among whom I can say, “Yes! I want to be a part of what God is doing here!”
Meanwhile, God has been chipping away at my pride. I hate to think that some people will see me as just another transient, apathetic young adult who drifts from church to church, not really wanting to roll up my sleeves and get involved in Kingdom work. Nothing could be further from the truth, so it’s humbling to realize that some people probably make that assumption about me.
Even though I believe that God is doing something new in my life, I really dislike this murky in-between time. I don’t WANT to be a “spiritual hobo.” I want to hurry up and be finished with this time of transition so I can be actively involved in a church again. It’s hard to wait, hard to keep hoping. But I’m still on this mysterious journey from ‘what was’ to ‘what will be,’ and God is setting the pace, so I have no other option but to trust God and try to be patient…
resolutions for 2007
I’m always glad when I actually learn something from my failures. When I got to the end of 2006 and realized that I had only really achieved one of the resolutions I had set for the year, I knew I would need to find a different approach for 2007.
So in those lazy days between Christmas and New Year’s last month, I sat down again with my journal and a pen to make some resolutions for 2007. But first I needed to figure out what was wrong with the resolutions I had made in 2006. I concluded at least three things.
(1) Even though they were all good resolutions, I had set too many goals for myself. Eight resolutions was an unmanageable and overwhelming number, and I would have probably achieved more if my list had been shorter.
(2) Most of the resolutions I had set were nebulous — i.e., they weren’t specific and measurable. For example, “get more sleep.” I didn’t know how much I was already getting, nor did I know how much I wanted to get. So how could I really say for sure whether I was achieving that goal??
(3) In retrospect, I realized that I had put some things on my list merely because they SHOULD be there, and not because I had a deep, internal desire to make those changes.
So on three consecutive days at the end of 2006, I made three resolutions for 2007… and three weeks into the year, I’m making progress on all of them! All three are meaningful, reasonable goals, but I’m only planning to discuss one of them here.
DO NEW THINGS. That’s my resolution. It may seem strange and unusual, but it’s so simple and clear. It’s easy for me to get stuck in a rut in life, doing the things that are familiar and comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with having a routine, of course, but it’s good to sometimes say “yes” to things that I would usually say “no” to — or vice versa.
A note to those of you who know me in real life: you may NOT use this resolution of mine to manipulate or put pressure on me, as in “C’mon, you have to go skydiving with us! You said you wanted to do new things…” I can identify somewhat with Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, who was quoted in an article in Time Magazine, saying, “I am not spontaneously courageous.” Setting this New Year’s Resolution doesn’t mean I’m going to jump at every chance to do something that I wouldn’t typically do. Sometimes there are very good reasons to NOT do certain new things!
I did a variety of new things last year — anything from participating in Postcrossing to going on a date with a guy I met online — and I’m going to make a concerted effort to do even more new things this year. We’ll see how it goes!
resolution to read
On December 27, 2005, I sat down with my journal and a pen to develop some New Year’s Resolutions for 2006. One of the resolutions I listed was to “read one book a month.” I knew it was a very reasonable goal, but since I hadn’t been reading much more than the newspaper (and a random book now and then), I knew it would take persistent effort to develop this as a regular practice in my life.
Unlike the other resolutions I made for 2006, I actually achieved my goal of reading one book a month… and then some. By the end of the year, I had read a total of twenty-five books. I discovered half of those simply by browsing at the public library, and in fact, I borrowed 23 of the 25 from the library. (The other two I bought at a thrift store!) I selected two books from the New York Times’ “Best Books of 2005″ list, and I also sought out two books by Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri. The remainder I learned about in a variety of ways.
I would recommend almost all of the books I read last year, but if I had to choose my favorite, it would definitely be “The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade” by Ann Fessler. The title is quite self-explanatory, and the book is both well-written and incredibly fascinating!
Occasionally I have asked people what books they would recommend, and invariably their initial response is, “Well, what kind of books do you like to read?” Silly people. I want to know what books THEY like to read! Besides, I don’t limit myself to one genre, so I’m never sure how to answer the question. I know I often enjoy biographies, but if you look at my list and can help me find an answer for the “what do you like to read” question, let me know!
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* Just for the record: I don’t want to lose weight quickly, I don’t do fad diets, I like to exercise, and this advertisement was NOT paid for by either the American Red Cross or Virginia Blood Services…
am I giving off an “I’m married” vibe?
This afternoon I attended a chamber music concert in which a friend of mine was the pianist. I happened to be sitting next to a casual acquaintance, and as we chatted during intermission, she asked, “So is your husband graduating this year?”
My husband? Hmm. “Well… I’m not married, so I don’t know! He might be graduating from something this year, but since I don’t know who he is yet, I can’t say for sure.” 
She apologized for asking the question, of course, and I resisted the temptation to ask her who she had in mind.
The situation reminded me of a conversation I had on the Sunday after Thanksgiving when I went with my parents to the church where I grew up. After the worship service, a sweet, older gentleman came up to me and said, “Y’know, I was sitting there trying to think for the longest time where your husband was…”
“I know! I’ve been wondering the same thing!” I said with obviously exaggerated enthusiasm. He laughed, and then explained that he eventually remembered that I wasn’t married. I told him he was right, and then added, “But if you figure out where he is, you let me know, OK?”
Conversations like these rank right up there with other questions I’ve gotten, such as “What was your maiden name?” and “Do you work outside the home?” I could choose to be annoyed, but playing it up and adding some humor is much more fun…
