i refuse to settle for burnt cookies

two dozen cookies in the trash can. that's how my baking extravaganza began.

well, let me rewind a little bit... the baking really began when i had to borrow a mixer from a friend because mine finally bit the dust. then i had to go to the store because i needed some ingredients for my favorite cookie recipes. i mixed everything together, taking extra care to get it right since these were for students from my alma mater who are visiting the queen city for a swim meet. i spooned each dollop of dough onto my baking stones with precision then put them in the oven to bake.

unfortunately, my kitchen timer decided it didn't want to work properly and i ended up burning the cookies. thus, two dozen cookies in the trash can.

i hoped that they only looked burnt on the outside, so i broke one open. still looked hard.

i hoped that they were only hard, not really burnt, so i took a bite. tasted burnt.

i hoped that if i dunked it in cold milk before eating it that the yumminess would somehow be revived. no luck.

finally, i threw the lot in the trash. there was no hope for those cookies.

i was discouraged. frustrated. tired. and out of eggs. i had used the last of my eggs on the burnt batch of cookies. somehow i gathered up the energy to go back to the store.

i baked all evening and ended up with 10 dozen cookies that were well worth the wait, all soft and chewy and delicious.

part of the reason i'm single is because i refuse to settle for burnt cookies. i've done it before, but i'm not going to do it again.

i thought that maybe the relationship just seemed bad, but it really wasn't. if i just broke it wide open and dove in deep that i could fix the relationship. if i could saturate them in love that the burnt taste would go away. eventually though, it ended up next to the cookies in the trash.

it's hard to go back to the drawing board. i hated that i had to go back to the store for eggs. i had used up so many ingredients in that first batch of cookies. i had put in time and energy that i will never get back. i didn't want to have to start all over again, but i did. and i ended up with something pretty tasty in the end.

are you settling for burnt cookies? are you scared to go back to the beginning - to those awkward first dates and uncomfortable set-ups? are you telling yourself that your relationship just looks unhealthy from the outside, even though it really is unhealthy at the center? are you afraid that you used up all you had inside of you on this other person, and you won't have enough of the right ingredients to start over?

then stop. breathe. take a moment to regroup and throw it away. gather up everything you need and start fresh. you might be amazed with what you can create with someone new.

secrets secrets are no fun

requiem for a dream is one of my favorite movies. the movie depicts the many faces of drug addiction in such raw honesty. i was just telling someone about it the other day, and as i told them, if it weren't for some very graphic scenes i would push for every high school to show their students the film. in time, i believe that would put an end of drug use in america. unfortunately, those select scenes are so horrible, so graphic, that even in my early twenties i wasn't ready. i saw things i wish i could un-see.

it's amazing how simple moments can completely alter you. images of that film burned in my brain, haunting my nightmares for days, even weeks after the film. tonight i learned something about a friend that, although it is still fresh, i foresee it forever altering the way i view him.

curiosity got the best of me and, as they say, you can find anything on the internet. after knowing someone for so many years and not knowing this part of his life, well, it's clear that he wants to keep it secret.

have you ever stumbled upon a secret about someone you love? something they would not want you to know. something that it seems no one close to them knows either. something that makes you cringe in disbelief.

what do you do? do you confront the issue? do you pretend like it never happened?

like the moment she tells you it's cancer or the moment he tells you he had an affair.

you can't undo it. you can't press rewind. and if you're like me, you desperately want to avoid the issue but it will rot you from the inside out if you try to keep it inside and pretend like nothing's changed.

unfortunately, like the scenes from requiem for a dream, some things you just can't un-see or un-know.

with my face pressed up against the pain

"oh, i guess they'll say i've grown
i know more than i wanted to
i've said more than i wanted to say
i'm heading home

yeah, but i'm not so sure
that home is a place you can still get to by train

so i'm looking out the window
and i'm drifting off to sleep
with my face pressed up against the pane"

with my face pressed up against the pane.

with my face pressed up against the pain.

"with the rhythm of my heart
and the ringing in my ears
it's the rhythm of the southbound train"

where is home? where is that place where the comfort and the ease of life makes the pain drift away?

for me it's the mountains. i love little mountain towns. i love mountain craftspeople. and Lord knows i love mountain men :)

i love the mountains.

i think it goes back to that idea that mountain people have a richer history than the rest of the country. i know that's just a myth i made up in my own mind, but who cares. (as i write, i can't help but hear alabama's "oh play me some mountain music like grandma and grandpa used to play") i think of families tending their farms, children playing in the wood, mamas making homemade bread and daddies making moonshine.

there's this beautiful harmony of liveliness and tranquility of the mountains. even in the silence of hiking through the woods, i can't help but sense the trees wishing to tell me stories of all the things they've seen in their hundreds of years of growth.

tomorrow, after a long five hours of work, marisa and i will make our way to asheville to spend a couple days in a mountain retreat. i can't wait. i need this. my soul is ready to be revived.

i wasn't born or raised in a mountain town. i have no family or friends who live in mountain areas. still, the mountains are where i call home. it's in the mountains when i find the peace that passes understanding, where i find the joy that overflows, where i find the grace of life everlasting. it's in the mountains where my mind finds rest and my soul finds rebirth.

"i'm headed home
yeah, but i'm not so sure
that home is a place that will ever be the same

so we gather up our things
and we head out in the cold
and your eyes are where you carry the pain

when i hear the whistle weeping
it's crying to the sky
it's the rhythm of the southbound train"

~jon foreman "southbound train"

grace

i grew up in a church called grace. seriously. the church was named grace united methodist church.

interestingly, though, it wasn't until i was in my twenties that i really learned the meaning and the magnitude of marvelous grace.

"the faithful love of the Lord never ends
His mercies never cease.
great is His faithfulness.
His mercies begin afresh each morning."
~ lamentations 3:22-23

God's mercy is new each morning.

each morning.

each morning?

really?

thank goodness...

i screw up daily. i need grace. i desperately need the mercy God so lovingly gives me. not begrudgingly, not half-heartedly, not because it is a rule but simply because God loves me.

as john mark mcmillan writes, "if grace is an ocean, we're all sinking."

i am drowning in grace. there are a million reasons why i should be dead right now. a million poor choices that should have completely altered my path in life, but instead God stepped in and gave me mercy that i, in no way, deserved.

thank God for the free will to make poor decisions and learn life lessons, and thank God for grace.

thank you

the first manners we teach our children are to say "please" and "thank you". these are relatively easy things to teach a child, as it comes with repetition. before you give them anything, you require a "please" and you don't let them leave the situation until they say "thank you". consistent repetition and positive reinforcement and you've got it down.

teaching children to say the words might be easy, but learning the meaning comes with age and experience. someone was telling me recently about their daughter lily. lily is 18 months old and very graciously says "please" every time she wants for something. the problem is that she believes that "please" means "now!" because she has often received what she wants when she has said the special word, she thinks that if she says "please" that she should get whatever it is that she is asking for and that she deserves to get it immediately.

i know some adults who are just like lily. lately, i've been hearing a lot of "please" but very little "thank you", and a "please" to me is negated without a "thank you". i keep getting e-mail and voicemails to "please do" this or "please do" that, but the message never ends with even a simple gesture of gratitude.

when i say the word "please" i am recognizing that i am asking a favor of someone. i recognize that what i am asking may not necessarily be their job (as a coworker, a friend, a family member - whatever the case may be), that what i am asking will take time from their day and/or energy that could have been spent elsewhere.

but all of this is nothing if we don't follow it up with heartfelt gratitude. when we say "thank you", we invoke a sense of service to our neighbor. when we don't take the time to acknowledge the work and say "thank you" then we aren't just displaying bad manners, we are proving to others that we don't recognize their worth.

i heard a story today about the mayor of dillsboro, nc. every year the town comes together to decorate the whole mountain town for christmas and, although no one ever noticed, the mayor always put the lights on the center light post in the town. well, they got a new mayor last year and this christmas the light post didn't get decorated. the people were really upset about the oversight, but no one had ever paid attention to the fact that the previous mayor had always done the job so no one had told the mayor that it was his responsibility. if you've ever done something that people take for granted, then you know what it's like to be asked but not thanked.

a friend of mine got a divorce a few years ago. his wife had a lot of expectations of who he should be and what he should do for her, but never took the time to recognize how hard he was trying and how much he loved her. she gave out a lot of "please"s without saying "thank you". if you've ever been taken for granted, then you know what i'm talking about.

i'm in the south where people claim to have better manners than the rest of the nation, but i have to say...we're failing. sure, we've got "sir" and "ma'am" down and, heck, we've even mastered the perfect tone for "bless their heart" but we still haven't figured out how to truly appreciate one another...

a staring contest with change

choices. every day is filled with millions of them, most of which we don't even recognize. but every so often we're faced with a choice that could really change our world.

recently i was having a staring contest with one of those kinds of choices.

i felt like it was snickering right back at me saying, "so, what's it gonna be? are you too chicken to leap into something brand new?"

i am a creature of habit. deeply seeded habit. it's not that i dislike change, it's just that i love consistency. i love knowing where to find my toothpaste in the morning (1st shelf on the right in the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink) and predicting when pete will finally get out of bed (at the very last possible moment). i love that i created a monthly budget plan in 2008 that is detailed through April of 2013. i've had four different pairs of hot pads in my kitchen over the past several years. they are all the basic tan variety from target. same exact ones, over and over again.

so there i was this weekend, with an incredible opportunity for catastrophic change in my life, not knowing if the hesitancy in my heart was my gut telling me that it wasn't right or if it was simply my fear of change. how do you tell the difference? i made pro/con lists. i prayed. i sought guidance from friends. i looked to worship and Bible study for signs. i tried everything i knew but, as it turned out, i was just as confused as i was when i started.

in the end, the confusion was the answer. if i was that unsettled about this opportunity then the answer was "no".

i'm comfortable. i've settled in to my life here. i know what to expect. and when an opportunity comes along that doesn't get overpowered by my deathly allergy to change then i'll know that it's a good and right opportunity for me. until then, though, i'll keep playing 2 games of yatzee on my phone before i go to sleep and counting the steps as i race out the door for work each day.

you may call it ocd, but i call it my regular routine. :)

a song about saving

"i thought that we'd be further along by now.
i can't remember how we stumbled to this place...
i've seldom seen so much anger in a face..."

i was sitting in the second row of a small concert venue listening to my favorite band perform live. the hunger for truth that i found in their albums was nothing compared to the raw intensity in linford's fingers dancing across the keys. i had just quit my job and i was more hurt, more angry than i've ever been in my life. i hated the church. i hated God.

my faith was broken. my heart was bruised. my life was lost.

(...years later a friend and colleague would tell me that she didn't realize just how low my depression hit until she saw me rise out of it.)

the night of that concert was the night i began to rise.

"so tell me your troubles, let the pain rain down," karin sang.

i found myself wanting to tell her all the reasons for the aching in my soul.

"the trouble is i'm so exhausted. the plot, you see, i think i've lost it. i need the grace to find what can't be found."

i was lost in the song. lost in the moment. lost in the hope that someone, somewhere cared that i was hurting, even if it was a stranger singing on the stage a few feet in front of me. the defenses that i had so carefully constructed were falling brick by brick around me and quiet tears fell from my eyes as i bowed my head and prayed the chorus:

"i wanna do better.
i wanna try harder.
i wanna believe down to the letter.
Jesus and mary, come and carry us across this ocean into the arms of forgiveness."

i don't have the "salvation" moment that some christian faiths require. i couldn't tell you the moment i "accepted Jesus". it happened over time when i was a much younger version of myself. it wasn't a moment, it was more like a lifetime. however, i can tell you the moment that i chose to get over my anger and my hurt and my disappointment. the moment that i chose to forgive the church for its downfalls. the moment i chose to try again. i was sitting next to monica in the second row of the visualite listening to over the rhine perform "long lost brother".

of all of the songs karin has sung over the years, youtube had yet to find anyone who had captured her singing this song that has come to mean so much to me but tonight i was searching the web for bits and pieces of their upcoming album "the long surrender" and ran across a rare video of "long lost brother". the visual quality is poor and the sound lacks clarity, but the feeling...that raw intensity i felt that night at the visualite in charlotte...that feeling pierces through the muddiness with such power that i found myself holding my breath.

i will forever remember this as the song that brought me back to my faith not only in the church, but in God my Creator and Sustainer.

i wonder as i wander out under the sky...

as i walked pete around in the yard tonight, i couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of the stars. it is on wonderfully clear nights like tonight that i fall in love with living in the village. you just don't see stars like this in the city. i even pulled out my phone and checked google sky to point out some constellations. one star, in particular, shined brighter than the rest. google sky told me that the name of this star is sirius, and after some research i found out that sirius is actually the brightest star in the nighttime sky. i began to wonder...could this have been the star the magi followed to find Jesus?

so much of what we believe about christmas is based on the carols we began singing as children. we imagine mary riding a donkey, led by joseph, arriving in bethlehem just in time to give birth. we see a knock on the door of the inn and the keeper turning the young couple away to a stable nearby. Jesus, born among barn animals and laid to rest in a manger with shepherds and angels and three kings and their camels all watching as the silent baby king is lulled to sleep by his maiden mother.

according to the bible, though, there may or may not have been a donkey, that the young couple could have been in bethlehem for a couple weeks leading up to the birth, like the supposed donkey, no innkeepers are ever mentioned and knocking would not have been customary for that time anyway. the word "kataluma" which is commonly translated as "inn" could also mean a guest room, meaning that mary and joseph could simply have been visiting a family member's home and there wasn't room for them or the new baby. the only thing that we know for sure, is that they laid Jesus to rest in a manger, which makes sense as it is the perfect size for an infant.

and then there are the magi. they didn't find Jesus until he was already introduced into the Temple and was probably a toddler running around and hiding behind his parents' legs. we call them kings because it was prophesied in isaiah that the messiah would be worshiped by kings, but they were more likely zoroastrian priests of persia. we sing "we three kings" because there were three gifts, so we assume there were three magi, although the bible never mentions exactly how many there were. we sing "of orient are" because matthew's gospel tells us that the magi were from the east. just how far east, though, we cannot be sure.

we celebrate epihany on january 6th, twelve days after christmas, as the day god was revealed to us through the son. in the west, we celebrate this day as the day the magi (gentiles) visited our baby savior (and served him as king). some traditions even call this day "three kings day", but we aren't sure there were three and we don't even know that they were actually kings. what we do know, however, is that there were more than two wise men from "the east" who visited Jesus and brought him gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh, gifts befitting of a king: gold, a valuable symbol of kingship; frankincense, a perfume of priests; and myrrh, a symbol of death for its use as an embalming oil.

tonight as i was out underneath the stars i thought about those wise men, seeing a star rise at the birth of Jesus and following as it led them to the child king. i thought about the gifts they presented to Jesus and how a small child would have responded to such gifts. for some reason the two-year-old Jesus i imagine would not have cared about the gifts. he would have been more interested in watching his dad go to work on his latest carpentry project or playing with his cousin john.

but then again, kids can surprise you...

the day after thanksgiving, trevor, nicole, and zedica arrived for a short visit. i had just decorated the house for christmas and zedica seemed to like the nativities i had scattered around the house. we were playing with my favorite nativity (i bought it in prague as a memento of my first visit to the homeland) one evening when she decided to give the baby Jesus the rings she had been playing with earlier. apparently, we forgot about them because weeks later when i was cleaning up all of my christmas decorations and packing them away i found her two rings still right there with the manger.

i sent them with mom and dad who are visiting trevor this weekend to return them to zedica, although it doesn't sound like she missed them at all. mom gave them back to her, but she hadn't even realized they were gone. when grandma, who didn't know the whole story, asked zedica where the rings came from she simply replied, "from God."

what gift will you bring to Jesus this year? the gold of being King over your life? the death of bad habits? the favorite of our toys?

i think that, in the end, you'll find that the details of the christmas story aren't that important. the bottom line is that God came to earth through this child to bring creation closer to our Creator. so no matter what we put in that offering plate on Sunday morning, no matter what our new year's resolutions may be, no matter what we offer of our souls to Jesus, it all came "from God" anyway.

silent night

"silent night, holy night
all is calm, all is bright
round yon virgin mother and child
holy infant, so tender and mild
sleep in heavenly peace"

years ago our house would be full of guests for christmas eve. my grandparents would be visiting from bellaire and chris would be in from pickerington for the night. to make room for the extra people, my brother would move into my room and sleep on the floor. one of my fondest christmas memories is laying in bed delaying sleep, staring at the ceiling singing silent night with my big brother, taking turns to create the coolest harmonies.

then there was the first time i ever heard my grandfather sing. although mom and dad tell me that he used to sing me czech lullabies to help me sleep, the first time i remember my grandpa singing was when i was in middle school. it was at our christmas eve worship service during silent night. the tender sweetness in his voice gave me chills. if i could have seen into his mind during that song, i think i would have seen childhood memories of singing carols with his many siblings in snowy st. joe, ohio.

tonight, as i sang the song for the millionth time, i couldn't help but marvel at the many changes over the years. sure, i was in the same church i had spent christmas eve most years of my life, but as much as time seemed to stand still, the faces around me told a different tale. the new faces sitting in the pews around me, the many old familiar faces that have gone missing over the years...the bible study mentors who left such a strong impact on my theological thought process, the youth group friends and their families who shared so many experiences, missionary george who taught me what it was like to be a servant leader, worship team leaders who challenged me to let the holy spirit out of the box, best friends who showed me unconditional love, family who now has families of their own, family who have died.

so many people were missing. so much has changed. and yet, the song is a constant. year after year we sing the verses and raise our lit candles in the air. for those few minutes, all truly is calm. babies who have screamed throughout the service are somehow hushed, noses that sniffled and sneezed are dry, hearts that have been hurting finally sense the hope that the newborn baby we sing of brings. for maybe the first time in the busy holiday season, we think not about what is missing in our lives, but about who just arrived.

i can't help but think of mercyme's lullaby told from joseph's point of view - "i believe the glory of heaven is lying in my arms tonight, but Lord i ask that He just for this moment simply be my child." this hope that we've all been waiting for, this knight in shining armor - He's here. but for now, he's just a child. for now, we must remain patient. for now, we cherish the still calm night, because it is only a matter of time before Jesus goes to work in us and through us to change the world.

boston

if friends are defined as people who love you the way you are and stick around long enough to see who you become, then i have surely been blessed with more friends than i deserve.

over the past week, i have enjoyed a lovely vacation in boston where i have had the privilege of spending time with three such friends:

adriane and i met in middle school. we were in separate grades and although we ran in different circles, we gradually bonded through band competitions and choir trips to new york city. when adriane graduated from high school, we were (un)affectionately known in our little group of friends as the giddy patrol. we were always smiling, always giggling, always having fun together.


sean and i met in college. he was friends with my roommate's crush. the four of us (me, my roommate, her crush, and sean) became fast friends our freshman year. most of my early college memories revolve around the four of us getting ourselves into trouble in one way or another. whether it was sean and greg sneaking onto our dorm roof to escape pledging craziness, saving sean and kelly from drowning in the river, or jumping into the pond at our seventh and final formal together, well, we were living life to the fullest.


charlie and i met a couple years ago at a mutual friend's wedding. i had heard his name consistently for at least five years, but had never met him. instantly, i knew this guy was someone i could appreciate. he could carry on worthwhile conversation, liked to people watch as much as i did, and his facial expressions and good humor kept me laughing most of the night. as much fun as we had that night, i wondered if i would see this new friend again. luckily, i have.



i could have been anywhere this past week - boston, buckhannon, or buckeye lake. what made this vacation so soul swelling was the friends who accompanied me on the little journey. i went to bed early and woke up late, but in between those times i spent time with friends who have allowed me the ebb and flow that comes with growing up.

during this vacation my body rested and my soul stretched, but tomorrow i head back to the village. in six hours i will board a plane and return to a lifestyle that stresses my psyche and tires my feet. i will rush into the office to make the necessary changes to the weekly newsletter before going to print at 9am. then i will put the finishing touches on my presentation for class before going to a staff meeting that will take most of the rest of the morning. i will grab lunch, teach class, and have just enough time at the end of the day to skim through the pile of mail that is surely waiting at my desk.

my prayer is this... that God would quiet my mind long enough to enjoy the last few hours i have of freedom and that i might remember that my life was made for more than work. my life was made for friendship and adventure and love and laughter. may God remind me of those times spent as a giddy little girl with adriane and a trouble-making teenager with sean because healthy doses of those will help me to one day become the unforgettable woman i was created to be.