Moving!

Hello friends - all 10 of you who might read this...

I will be MOVING my blog sometime soon - just to go along with all of the other changes in my life.  Stay tuned!  Once it is in some kind of shape, I will post the new link.

Diana

Hey there! It's been a while...

from album Lonely Avenue Track 1: "A Working Day" 2010
by Ben Folds and Nick Hornby

"Some guy on the net thinks I suck / And he should know / He's got his own blog."
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I think Ben Folds is great.  The Lonely Avenue album is fantastic for many reasons - but mostly because of its unique conception.  So Nick Hornby, author of great works of fiction like High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch, and many others, wrote all of the lyrics.  Then, he sent them off to Ben Folds (of the 90s "Brick" fame) to put them to music.  The listener is left with a quirky but beautiful marriage, with lyrics that catch you off guard and instruments that change the mood of what you think you should be feeling.    

Anyway, this line comes from the first track of the album - talking about artists who must deal with the tension that exists between their draw towards creativity and their fear that they aren't actually contributing anything of worth to society.  Then this line - about being judged by someone else who's only authority on the subject is that he has a blog - lightens everything and demands that the listener crack a smile.

As we know, anyone can have a blog, and anyone can neglect a blog.  I had a lot of fun last spring posting to this blog, but then, you know, life happened.  Summer vacations happened.  Teaching an adjunct class happened.  Family crises happened.  Untold blessings happened.  And despite my busyness over these past six months, I still took time every day to check the dashboard of all of the blogs that I follow.  I still delighted when a friend or mentor would post a nugget giving me a peak into their brains or lives.

Just like the tension that exists in the song, I still am unsure that I have anything interesting to say. Still, I do really enjoy reading ideas from other people in the cyberspace.  So, I think I'll try to get back in the habit of posting something - to continue the blog chain.  And I am sure you will want to read it. After all, I should know.  I've got my own blog.

Peace!      

Beauty and Big Hips

From The Eyes of The Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found, 1999
by Frederick Buechner

In speaking about his mother:
" I always felt [it was a] curse upon her of having been born blue-eyed and beautiful, with the result that she never had to be especially kind and loving in order to draw people to her because they were drawn to her anyway."
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So there was this girl that I went to college with named Ashley.  I really didn't know her all that well - she lived in my dorm but on a different hall than I did.  All I really knew about Ashley was that she was gorgeous.  So much so that my friends and I started calling her "Pretty Ashley."  (Coincidently, one girl in my close group of friends was also named Ashley.  We did not intend for the adjective to become a point of comparison between the two girls with the same name, but I have not ever asked my friend if she was specifically hurt by the nickname for the other.)  So conversations might be like this:  "Pretty Ashley was at the gym this morning with me" or "Oh, Pretty Ashley was looking for her backpack - have you seen it?"  I don't remember if we ever called her Pretty Ashley to her face, but to this day I think about her as not Ashley, but Pretty Ashley.

We females are great at comparing ourselves to others - as my friends and I secretly did every time we saw Pretty Ashley on campus.  I know that many "ologists" (Psychologists, Sociologists, Anthropologists) have scientific and cultural explanations for our tendency to always size each other up.  It's an instinct thing - we are competing with each other for a mate.  It's social - we associate beauty with wealth, so our chubby pale ancestors were beautiful because they didn't have to work and had money for food, but now tan and skinny is a cultural sign of wealth.  In the end, I am sure that there are many logical reason that women walk into a room and immediately rate themselves against the others.  "Well I am bigger than her, but prettier than that other girl..."  Still, it can't be healthy and I wish I could stop myself from participating in this culture of comparison.

When I first read this quote from Buechner (Sorry - I didn't intend to post twice in a row from the same author) I was shocked.  I neglected to underline it, as I was reading in the pre-kindle days.  Still, the idea that Buechner planted has lingered in my consciousness for years, so I finally hunted and found the direct quote:  "She never had to be especially kind and loving in order to draw people to her because they were drawn to her anyway."  


What an insightful turn of perspective!  Is it possible that my "Coomer Boomer"* hips have given me a wider sense of understanding?  Could it be that my crooked nose has helped me to love straighter?  Maybe my muffin top shaped my peaceful nature.  If so, than did my symmetrical lips cause me to talk negatively about others?  Did my pretty hair cause me to see others as ugly?


Now I know that in many ways, this is a gross oversimplification and it does not work out.  I know that a healthy self-esteem is good.  It's normal for me to love and hate parts of myself.  After all, there are plenty of unattractive people who are cruel and mean, and plenty of beautiful people who are warm and kind.  Still, thinking about body image from Buechner's perspective helps me to shut out the negative self talk, the objectified comparisons, and the unjustified superiority - and I am guilty of all three.     



*"Coomer Boomer" is the name that my mom's generation of sisters and cousins have given to the genetically wide hips that run the family.  My generation has adopted this nickname as well.  Honestly, I have never met a stronger or more self sufficient group of women than the Coomer Clan, and I'll take these hips all day if it means that I can inherit an ounce of the drive and grace that comes with them. 

Prayer

From Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, 1979

by Frederick Buechner

"What about when the boy is not healed?"
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Because I have been traveling and working crazy hours and not updating my blog, I decided today to forgo the "original" part and stick to some pure "plagiarism."  Enjoy this message from Frederick Buechner, one of my favorites.

"Everybody prays whether he thinks of it as praying or not.  The odd silence you fall into when something very beautiful is happening or something very good or very bad.  The ah-h-h-h! that sometimes floats up out of you as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the sky-rocket bursts over the water.  The stammer of pain at somebody else’s pain.  The stammer of joy at somebody else’s joy.  Whatever words or sounds you use for sighing with over your own life.  These are all prayers in their way.  These are all spoken not just to yourself but to something even more familiar than yourself and even more strange than the world. 

According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it.  The images he uses to explain this are all rather comic, as though he thought it was rather comic to have to explain it at all.  He says God is like a friend you go to borrow bread from at midnight.  The friend tells you in effect to drop dead, by t you go on knocking anyway until finally he gives you what you want so he can go back to bed again (Luke 11:5-8).  Or God is like a crooked judge who refuses to hear the case of a certain poor widow, presumably because he knows there’s nothing much in it for him.  But she keeps on hounding he hears her case just to get her out of his hair (Luke 18: 1-8).  Even a stinker, Jesus says, won’t give his own child a black eye when he asks for peanut butter and jelly, so how all the more will God when his children----(Matthew 7:9-11).

Be importunate, Jesus says—not, one assumes, because you have to beat a path to God’s door before he’ll open it, but because until you beat a path maybe there’s no way of getting to your door.  “Ravish my heart,” John Donne wrote.  But God will not usually ravish.  He will only court.

Whatever else it may or may not be, prayer is at least talking to yourself, and that’s in itself not always a bad idea.

Talk to yourself about your own life, about what you’ve done and what you’ve failed to do and about who you are and who you wish you were and who the people you love are and the people you don’t love too.  Talk to yourself about what matters most to you, because if you don’t, you may forget what matters most to you.

Even if you don’t believe anybody’s listening, at least you’ll be listening.

Believe Somebody is listening.  Believe in miracles.  That’s what Jesus told the father who asked him to heal his epileptic son.  Jesus said, “All things are possible to him who believes,: And the father spoke for all of us when he answered, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:14-29).

What about when the boy is not healed?  When, listened to or not listened to, the prayer goes unanswered? Who knows?  Just keep praying, Jesus says.  Remember the sleepy friend, the crooked judge. Even if the boy dies, keep on beating the path to God’s door, because the one thing you can be sure of is that down the path you beat with even your most half-cocked and halting prayer the God you call upon will finally come, and even if he does not bring you the answer you want, he will bring you himself.  And maybe at the secret heard of all our prayers that is what we are really praying for."

Amen!

Vocation

From Cutting For Stone, 2009*
by Abraham Verghese


"WE COME UNBIDDEN into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot."
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One of the best parts of my job is working with a group of eight Maryville College students known as the Isaac Anderson Fellows.  The IAs, as we lovingly call them, are tasked with thinking seriously about vocation.  Vocation is such an overfilled idea, and it is their job to unpack it.  Each of these students completes a summer internship to explore how their own vocation relates to their faith.  It has been so fun to watch them travel all over doing meaningful work.  


Noah went to China; Katie went to Scotland;  Alli went to Ghana;  Michae went to Peru; Amy went to Italy; Hannah went everywhere;  I went to work.  (Kidding aside, I was so envious of their adventures, but I was also grateful that I spent a few weeks in college exploring Ireland with my pal Marie and London with the always fun Amanda.)  Other students took less glamorous positions, but had very meaningful experiences.  Jordan went to Louisville, Sarah went to Birmingham, Jacob went to Chattanooga.  They all returned with stories - of how they glimpsed a bit of what they want to do, and learned gobs of what they wanted to avoid.**


I am sure that all of the IA students would say that these trips are their favorite part of the program.  Well I don't go on those trips.  So my favorite part is our reading discussion group.  Every month, the eight students, myself, and the fabulous Rev. Dr. Anne McKee, meet for lunch at a place called the House in the Woods.  (I know- it sounds like a children's fantasy book.  It's not.)  We sit together around a table, and in order.  The students created this musical chairs journey all on their own.  Each year, the class moves over two seats, allowing our new members a place at the table,  and forcing the previous Juniors to fill the chairs of the graduates who have just left.  One year, they even entered the room 2x2, just like the Noah's animals.  


Anyway, we've read great books.  Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation.  Leading Lives That Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be.  Awakened to A Calling.  And this year, On Our Way: Christian Practices for Living a Whole Life.  


Last month, we read a chapter from On Our Way.  This collection of essays edited by Dorothy Bass and Susan Briehl invites a different author to take on a Christian Practice.  We were discussing the chapter on "Making a Good Living."  As you can probably surmise from the title, the chapter highlighted the tension that exists between making enough money and doing what fulfills us.  In other words, which "good" matters more?  What was great was that Frank Schaeffer  was with us for our discussion.  He was so caring and interested in these eight students lives.  Frank was impressive.  But our students were more impressive (I know I am biased).  


One student spoke up as we were discussing the weight of vocational exploration, "It really is a privileged question."  And of course, he is correct.  How blessed are we that we get to choose a vocation.  What a serious responsibility we have to the discernment process.


Thanks to all of the IAs for teaching me so much - I am so blessed that it is my vocation to spend time with you all. 


*So if you haven't read this book, do. Seriously.


**This is just one of the many scholarship programs that Maryville College has to offer.  I know it looks expensive, but you seriously could attend Maryville, go to Spain, have smaller classes taught by doctors, and pay the same as your buddy at UT.  I promise.  Just call the admissions office.  

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

from The Help, 2009
by Katherine Stockett


"The colored part of town seems so far away when, evidently, it’s only a few miles from the white part of town."
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Tuscaloosa, Alabama is hot.  I experienced this first-hand when I ventured to the world of Bear Bryant to visit my great friends, Amanda and Andrew, who were both in graduate programs at the university.  So when it came time to select a destination for the Maryville College Alternative Spring Break trip (which I would be leading) I figured we could all use a little more heat - and I knew Tuscaloosa was the perfect spot.  Actually, we picked Tuscaloosa because we knew that the city would still be rebuilding from the April 2011 tornadoes, and we figured there would be plenty to do (for work and play).  It also just so happened that Amanda and Andrew had their baby girl a week before our trip.  (Total coincidence that I got to hang out with them and baby Adeline. *wink*)


The trip was a great success.  The students worked hard, had fun, and ate like kings and queens.  I got some quality baby time, and I was grateful that most of the organizing work was done by our partners in Tuscaloosa.  The Presbyterian Disaster Assistance lead us to First Presbyterian Church, Tuscaloosa, who connected us with Habitat for Humanity.  Bam.  The trip was planned in full with a few phone calls. 


On Thursday night, squeezed between our work day and a dinner at Dreamland BBQ, the good people at First Presbyterian Church drove us around the city to show us the path of the tornado and the destruction that was still evident 11 months later.  Our tour guide worked as a city planner, so he really was on ground zero right when the tornado hit.  The tour was long, the devastation vast, and stories tragic.  I asked our three tour guides if the city learned anything from Katrina - if the response to the disaster was different having witnessed that event.  One woman spoke up, "Yes," she said, "the Church responded very quickly because of what happened with Katrina.  There was food everywhere.  You literally couldn't walk down the street without being offered two or three meals."  She and the other two church members elaborated that one thing they learned was that communities can care for themselves better than outsiders can.  (This was spoken as a criticism of the fumbling government intervention and thus the Democratic party, so I got a bit defensive.  Still I understand their point.)


Next, our guide spoke this sentence, which made my heart drop: "this tornado couldn't have picked a more perfect path to take out all of the poor and immigrant communities in Tuscaloosa."  


Now, my thoughts on this conversation were converging into this idea:  "If you knew, with clear borders, where the poor and immigrant communities were, where people live and are under housed, under paid, and under fed, WHY DID YOU WAIT UNTIL A TORNADO CAME THROUGH TO DO SOMETHING??"  Ok.  I realized that my anger was totally displaced; Tuscaloosa was a good town with good people who were working to make things better.  They were welcoming groups, like ours, to re-build houses for those without insurance.  They were housing and feeding us every day that we were there.  My anger rested in the fact that still today, as in the 1960's when The Help was set, the lines in our towns are still very clearly drawn.


In the end, I realized that my community (and yours, too) could learning something from Tuscaloosa just as Tuscaloosa learned from New Orleans. We do not have to wait for a disaster to help each other.  We do not have to accept that there are lines between the poor and rich, immigrants and locals.  We do not have to wait for government assistance.  If each community took care of the people in its own community, we wouldn't need FEMA to send agents to help us organize.  Just send us a check to cover some of the costs of rebuilding - we've got it covered, thank you!


Feed people NOW.  House people NOW.  Love people NOW.  Not later, when the storm has come and gone, when lives are already lost, when hopelessness overwhelms our souls, but RIGHT NOW.
(Cue Van Halen)

The Beauty of Writing

"Be Still and know that I am God."  Psalm 46.10


"Peace, be still."  Mark 4:39


"....a still small voice."  1 Kings 19:12
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This piece of my mother's calligraphy hangs in my office.  These three scriptures, all dealing with stillness, confront me daily as I arrive at work.  I'll admit, I don't have much of a problem with being still; I can sleep forever, nap at any hour, and relax without the nagging feeling that I need to be doing something.


I'm not sure what sparked in me, but suddenly I have been filled with the urge to follow my mom's path and learn the art of calligraphy.  The desire hit me without warning and with a strength that I could not resist.  For two weeks, I spent vast quantities of time sitting at the kitchen table writing letters - with my mother's examples to guide me.  My birthday arrived at an opportune time for me to indulge my new addiction; I headed to Hobby Lobby to buy some real calligraphy pens (as opposed to the calligraphy markers I had been using up to this point).  I sent emails to any calligraphers I could find in town, inquiring about classes or lessons I might take - so far without response.  Needless to say, I became a bit obsessed with this new hobby. 


Quickly, I felt a bit of anxiety around the venture.  First, I'm not that good.  One problem is that I will always have my mother's work for comparison, and she is skilled beyond belief!  Second, I found that I could sit and write words with no regard for the time.  I am sure we all have passions in which we "lose time," and practicing calligraphy was becoming this for me.  I realized that if I wasn't careful, I could neglect my family, friends, and job for the thrill of the hunt fort the perfect line, with beautiful, consistent curves and equal spacing.  


Luckily, my mom is only a few hours away, and she is thrilled to be a mentor and teacher - we will probably head to a beginners class together soon.  (This makes me chuckle a bit - in NO way does she belong in a beginners class.) Maybe when I have been writing as long as she has, I will have the ability to create art the way she does.  I am also thrilled that this new passion has hit alongside baseball season. Strange, I know, but when Daniel is in bed and Mark sits down to watch the Oakland Athletics, I can sit at the kitchen table and practice my calligraphy.  It's perfect, really, because I can be with him and we can talk, both enjoying our own pastimes.  He comes over to see what I am writing, and I in turn follow the game.  When the game is over, I can pack away my things for another day, and spend time in other ways.


Our word calligraphy comes from the Greek: κάλλος kallos "beauty" + γραφή graphẽ "writing."  Ahh, I love when things come full circle.  This blog began as a way for me to indulge my longing to be creative, and I started in spite of the fear that I, myself, do not have much creative to say.  I reconciled my desires and my fears with "Original Plagiarism," so that I could respond to the ways that beautiful writing inspires me.  Of course, I was regarding "writing" as words in a book, lyrics in a song, scriptures, or quotes that move my emotions in some way.  


How fitting, then, that I have found calligraphy!  I am still exploring beautiful writing, but now I am looking at words themselves, and the letters that make them.  With studying this art form, like writing this blog, my emotions are moved and my creativity tapped.  Maybe soon I will be able to calligraphy well enough to earn some money, since I doubt my unoriginal "creative" writing will ever earn me a dime more than satisfaction.  


All of this leaves me thankful for my mom and her influences on my life, not to mention my husband who supports my new habit.  I am thankful for my stepson, who includes me in his creative and imaginative world.  And when my work is done, and the little one in bed, I am thankful for the time I have to breathe, "peace, be still," with a pen in my hand and a great man at my side.