Back again

Now that grad school is no longer zapping all of my time and energy and I am happy to announce that the next year of my life is going to be entirely devoted to pursuing a variety of eclectic interests that have been postponed in the onslaught of academic accouterments...

In order to maximize the margin in my life I need to consider throwing out some other wasteful excesses as well. In today's Washington Post the Outlook section ran a feature entitled "12 Things We Should Trash." Herein, twelve writers made their case for disposing of various elements of our society - virginity, tactical nuclear weapons, lawns, and many others. I thought this was a good idea and began asking myself what twelve things can I can rid myself of, and what will I add instead?

The first is going to be meat (with the exception of fish). Why meat? There are a variety of reasons people become vegetarian. They believe it's healthier, they believe it conserves energy, or because they oppose commercial farming methods. None of those reasons apply. I am basically doing it because I'm tired of food options. I'm tired of sitting down to eat at a restaurant and getting overwhelmed by the menu. I'm tired of trying to figure out what to eat for dinner. There are so many important decisions in life, why should I waste my mental energy trying to figure out if I want the chicken and rice or the steak? Once you cross all the meat options off the menu it's so much simpler. Life is less stressful with less choices. (that said, I'll eat meat if it is served to me by a host and probably won't forego my mom's hamburgers on the grill)

The truth is we are living in a society with way too many choices. This doesn't just apply to food. I rarely go to Tysons to shop, I like to just walk around and gaze at the mecca of consumerism going on around me. It's way to overwhelming to actually decide on something to buy. I rarely buy books at Barnes and Noble, though I visit nearly every week. There is so much I want to read, I can't pick just one, and I can't afford them all, so I walk out empty-handed.

There is so much I want to do with my life. So many roads to travel and things to learn. I want to take tennis lessons. I want to take a photography class, a creative writing course. I want to go to concerts and Seattle and Texas, and Chincoteague. I haven't even been to Baltimore or Annapolis yet! I love being 25 with a whole lifetime of experiences and lessons still ahead but sometimes I wonder if I'll be able to fit it all in. I don't want to walk out empty-handed from life.

That's why I'm throwing unnecessary stuff out. I don't want to become needlessly overwhelmed. Realistically, I can't have it all. I'll live without Omaha steak.

So True...

"I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it."
-William Faulkner

A Life To-Do List

I'm obsessed with lists. During the school year I generally have about three to-do lists going at once, each neatly categorized into long-term, daily, work, and life. I even record tasks on the to-do list after I've completed them for the sheer thrill of being able to cross them off. I even have a summer to-do list and I secretly take it with me on my travels. I just feel better with a list in hand.

Recently I read a book called "If I Live to be 100." The writer interviewed a series of centenarians about their lives. The book inspired me to open my journal from my Senior year of college and review my "Life To-Do List". I've revised it a bit, and added a few more things, but I was also happily able to check off a few more items.

(note: they are in no particular order)

- Go to Japan during cherry blossom season - DONE
- Travel to Southeast Asia - DONE
- Live on a kibbutz in Israel
- Teach English in India
- Backpack through Western Europe - BEGINNING PHASE 1 PREPARATIONS
- Backpack on the Appalachian Trail for at least 3 days
- Drive across America
- Go to Alaska
- Eat bugs - DONE
- Become adept at eating with chopsticks - IN PROGRESS
- Visit Auschwitz
- Buy a hat in Fez (Morocco)
- Ride an elephant - DONE
- Learn to cook exotic foreign cuisine - IN PROGRESS
- Go back to Kosovo
- Help kids in Kosovo go to college - IN PROGRESS
- Grow an exquisite rose garden
- Sing my favorite They Might Be Giants Song in Istanbul
- Ice skate in Central Park - DONE
- See the tree in Rockefeller center at Christmastime - DONE
- Throw a huge reunion party for all my college friends and their families in 20 years
- Learn to speak another language
- Ride and own horses
- Play tennis well
- Go swimming in the ocean at night - DONE
- Find the perfect beach
- Inspire someone to become a teacher
- Run a triathlon
- Go scuba diving in Turks and Caicos
- Learn to surf
- Take art classes
- Take a creative writing class
- Knit socks - DONE
- Knit a fabulous sweater
- Grow my own vegetables
- Have a house in the country with a front porch
- Explore Seattle
- Write and publish a work of fiction
- Get my Ph.D. in something
- Ride the C&O trail from Harpers Ferry to Georgetown
- Ride the entirety of the W&OD - DONE
- Meet the President of the United States
- Become good at photography
- Own a Lab of every color in addition to a Basset Hound and a Saint Bernard (but not necessarily simultaneously)
- Play a historical character at Williamsburg
- See a Broadway show

I guess I've been a bit of a slacker up until now. At this rate I may need to live to be 100 to get it all done...and I'm sure I'll be adding more to the list as we go along.

Coming up next: Things that I done that should have been on my to-do list

Asa and the Idols

Working backwards through 2 Chronicles, we encounter Jehosephat’s predecessor, Asa. This king laid the groundwork for a godly kingdom by removing the foreign idols from the households and public squares.



In Thailand there are Buddhas all over. They garnish the street corners, or sit centrally in the squares and temple complexes across the land. The golden statues even mingle amidst the debauchery in Bangkok’s brothel-laden districts. The offerings of prostitutes, placed hurriedly at Buddha’s golden feet. Inching through traffic on Sukhumvit, the little Buddha sits on the dashboard of each taxi. In the countryside Buddha simulacrums dot the landscape. Sometimes these are very unique, usually they are not quite as shiny, often weathered and cracked, but still, the same idol. The poorest of the poor offer their Orange Crush, noodles, flowers, and incense to these lifeless figurines. If you don’t think about it too much it’s comedic. If you do think about it, it’s incredibly sad.



I wonder if Judah looked like this. Alters dotting the city. Can you imagine the amount of courage it would take to uproot these idols. It’s easy to read 1st and 2nd Chronicles like a history textbook. They leave out the drama, the passion of the story. You must read between the lines.

Can you imagine the repercussions of Asa’s edict? There must have been massive dissent, as there always is when a leader takes away an entrenched practiced. I wonder how much opposition Asa incurred from his advisors, from the wealthy and powerful, from the “old guard,” that saw no harm in these foreign idols? Who did he get to enforce the destruction of idolatry? Was there an “idol police?”Asa, this guy in his twenties, shaking things up! Did he ever second guess himself? In the midst of all the opposition did he ever doubt? How was he so sure of his convictions?
Perhaps that is why 2 Chronicles 15: 7 says “But you be strong, and do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.” The next verse says “He took courage and removed the abominable idols.”

Asa did some amazing things for the Lord. He “took courage.”

Ten Thousand Years

“A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the father.” John 16:16

“They said therefore, ‘What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is saying.” John 16:18

About two thousand years ago Jesus prepared His disciples for His death, His sustained absence and their futures of persecution and hardship. He was preparing them to live in a broken world without Him. He was preparing them to seek the power of God through the “helper” – the Holy Spirit that would come and imbue their hearts with a mysterious power and hope. He was preparing them for a life of sorrow, yet telling them that it is only a little while.

The disciples and Jesus had a very different idea of what “a little while” meant. They would soon learn that “a little while” was a period of years, a lifetime even. They were learning the lesson that Moses, their great forefather recorded thousands of years before, “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past.” (Psalm 90:4) Perhaps this is why God’s story of creation, sin, redemption and glorification spans millennia. But we who are waiting get impatient, as we should. We were not created for this world.

Jesus knows this but recognizes that it is all part of the story. Sorrow MUST be turned into joy. That’s what makes this drama truly spectacular. God incorporates waiting and hardship into His plan for our refinement. Only in a world full of pain will the Kingdom of Heaven be longed for with an intensity that would be absent if life were easy.

“Therefore,” Jesus says, “you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.” (John 16:22)

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years” John Newton so aptly wrote, our lives of pain and sorrow will be so distant, yet so indelibly etched into our eternal nature. Mark Driscoll said once that looking back a billion years from now will be like looking back on one memorable recess on the playground when we were kids. It will be so far away, and yet the blessing and rewards that we enjoy for eternity are in many ways dependent on how closely we follow and serve God here (see parable of the Ten Virgins and Talents in Matthew 25).

Jesus left the disciples only a few days after his resurrection. He left them with the express instruction to “tarry in the city of Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:49) Both literal and figurative – they were to tarry until they received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, but also they were to tarry in this “old Jerusalem” with the promise of a “New Jerusalem” ahead. They were to go forth, living each day as a testimony to Him – living, journeying, teaching, preaching being tortured, humiliated, killed all in the name Christ and sustained by the hope of that “New Jerusalem.”

Here we are today. We are plagued with disappointments, with sickness, death, pain we never could have imagined, things we never planned for. Are we tempted to believe that God has dumped too much into our lap? Do we sometimes wonder why He can’t just let us be happy and peaceful for just a little while?

We’re not there yet. We live our lives in America striving with everything we have to be happy and prosperous. Trying to shelter ourselves as best as possible from the brokenness of the world. Keep it at an arms length. Safe inside the T.V. Miles away. It’s not the time for that. Today is when we live in a world of pain and sin. Tomorrow is when we rest, when we have real, perfect, fulfilled joy.

And the cool thing is that tomorrow lasts forever.

“So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

When You Just Need a Good Cry

I’ve met a lot of people here in the suburbs who don’t like dogs. That’s inconceivable to me. Growing up in the country everybody had animals of some sort – and to be honest I’ve always been slightly judgmental of a person who can’t love a dog. What’s not to love?

I really like Marley and Me. It’s the only movie in the world that can make me cry. In fact I’m not a crier – I’ve cried about twice in the past year – the two times I saw Marley and Me. Why am I so attached to dogs?

I think, simply put, it’s encapsulated in John Grogan’s super-cliché last line in the film: “A dog doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull, just give him your heart and he’ll give you his.”
You don’t have to earn a dog’s love. Dogs depend on you, but they don’t get mad if you forget to feed them. Dogs don’t fight with you like teenagers do. Little kids may be utterly dependant on you, but they also throw temper tantrums. People in general are horribly selfish. I don’t get that from a dog. All they do is chew your shoes and eat the hamburger off your plate when you’re not looking. I can handle that.

People are hard to please. People create stress and strife. Most people have a very conditional love. Even if they love you, there is usually someone else they care about more. I like how dogs don’t operate that way. The way they love you is pretty simple and full and consistent. I know they’re not created in the image of God and all that…but again…maybe truth is found in the unlikeliest of places. You can learn a lot about unconditional love from a dog.

When it comes to dogs giving and receiving love is easy. In all other cases it’s pretty hard. Drama and selfishness get in the way. It’s nice to have things come easy sometimes.

Winning Outcomes

That is educational jargon for you. I just came across some brochure for some conference somewhere with that title plastered across the top, promising to make me an all-star teacher in three easy steps. Thus, my satirical tribute and utter disenchanchment with our society’s - and my own - propensity to have faith in our own effort and strategy.

God brought me to Virginia through His own creative means. And there is not a day that goes by that I don't say a little prayer of thanksgiving as I pull into the driveway to Briar Woods (especially on those 6am debate Saturdays). I couldn't have gotten there on my own - without a few miracles along the way. When God caused the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir to turn upon one another and destroy each other before they even got to Judah, that was again His divine creative plan. And He did a much better job of ensuring victory than the Israelites ever could have done. God told Jehosephat to “stand still.” I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around that. Stand still? Really God? You mean I don’t have to do anything?

God is a lot more competent than we are. The sooner I understand this the better. The sooner we stop striving to control our destiny, the easier it will be to sit back and enjoy Him and the life He’s put us into.

That’s lesson number two of Type-A therapy.