Speechless (or, Part B)

Does the right word always exist? Does any adjective convey enough power to describe what a life has become, to illustrate its complete transformation? Maybe we need to invent new phrases for a dream that suddenly leaps into reality.

Because, for once, I have no words.

All I know is that my heart's desires are blooming into reality before my eyes, shifting out of tightly furled, half-hoped-for achings and suddenly blossoming to life, huge and vibrant, breathtaking as a leap into sheer air.

I can't tell you how I felt when I shook hands with my new boss as he welcomed me into the company for a position far above my level of experience or knowledge.

I can't tell you how I felt when my mother called me, sobbing, saying that my grandfather was in the hospital - yet again - for cancer. I am equally inarticulate about the day my big sister announced that a baby was on the way. Elation, coupled with fear of the unknown. Has every new baby been welcomed with such a mixture of joy and terror? Indescribable joy and unfathomable pain, sharing the same heartspace.

There are no words for the October evening when my best friend knelt in front of me with a ring for my left hand, voice shaking and eyes shining, but with a full heart fit to burst with love.

That was the moment my heart stopped talking and it began to sing instead.

Sometimes, there are no words left. And that's where the music begins.

Life called just when I lost signal.

I've missed my life calling.

As I stood at the kitchen counter, chopping zucchini with one hand, sauteing bacon and onions in butter with the other and checking on the homemade stuffing with my free hand (yes, I have three hands. Doesn't that explain a lot now?), I realized that this was what I've always, always loved to do. Perhaps it was the smell of fresh bacon that did it, or maybe catching myself narrating each step of my original recipe aloud was the clincher, but suddenly, it hit me.

I've missed my life calling as a TV chef.

Yes, the Food Network is my true home. After years of studying the English language and nearly blinding myself with pouring over its treasured tomes of literature, my passion rears its creative head, not in writing, but in cooking. I take great pride in flipping the perfect omelette, in minced onion blended with mashed garlic and spread over a toasted, buttered baguette just so. I narrate to myself constantly, inventing sometimes-bizarre meals out of basic ingredients (ergo, the advent of the Muen-dog Omelette), or testing a made-up a recipe for baked stuffed zucchini because I was bored and hungry (recipe soon to follow!). And yeah, I did just whip out homemade ice cream. Oh, you don't like ice cream? That's ok--I got more concoctions up my sleeve that you can even guess. I'm a kitchen fiend. Throwing seven different kinds of smoke over the stove here. Oh wait...sorry, no, that's the steam from MY HOMEMADE LONDON BROIL. If I wasn't me, I would totally marry myself.

Four years of college misdirected. Twenty-two years' energy wasted. Thousands of appetites left empty, possibly millions of empty stomachs, all starving, because I never taught them how to make my special holiday version of snickerdoodle cookies.

There's my plans put to shame. Oh wait...I don't have any plans anymore.

Looks like I'm setting up a videocamera in my kitchen and finally putting my YouTube account to good use.

BOOM. ROASTED.
__________________________

Baked Stuffed Zucchini

Ingredients:
1 large (or 2 medium) zucchini
1 box Stouffer's Whole Wheat Stuffing
1/4 cup onion, minced
4 strips cooked bacon, minced
1 1/3 cups water (for stuffing)
1 1/2 tbs butter (for stuffing)

Prep time: 15 minutes
Bake time: 20-25 minutes

Prepare stuffing as directed on box. Boil zuccini whole for 8 minutes, turning at 4 minutes to evenly cook. When done, cut zucchini into quarters, and scoop out the pulp, chopping it finely. Place the zucchini quarters in greased baking pan. Saute the bacon and onion together, and add to the stuffing. Combine stuffing mixture and chopped pulp. Spoon mixture into zucchini quarters and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

This is Part A, because I'm convinced Part B will follow.

I didn't think it would be like this.

Frustrating, sure. Moneyless, absolutely. Only a lucky few college graduates walk off the platform and into a full-time, permanent job. The rest of us press into the workforce, fired up and ready to hand out resumes to whomever will take them.

But not deadening. Not suffocating. Didn't see that one coming.

I get that some level of disillusionment is normal. I understand that, after such an adrenaline-drenched experience as college, the process of coming down off that high is often an emotionally brittle time. I also realize that trying to reason this with your heart only goes so far.

In all honesty, I'm not worried about the job search itself; there will always be jobs for people willing to work. No, it's that I think I've burned the candle at both ends so long that I've burnt myself out, long before I even got started on what really matters. I feel like I've used up all my energy and talents, so that there is very little left to work with. That's not exactly a comforting realization at the onset of a job search meant to propel the searcher into a fulfilling and decently well-paying career of...well, we'll get to that.

The only thing I know these days is this: Deus providebit.

Then again...isn't that all we ever need to know?

Philosophia

I'm home.

I love Kansas City. I love the back roads and the barbecue shacks and the Spanish-style plaza downtown. I love how the early morning sun hits the skyline right where 23rd Street crests between Independence and downtown. I love the barely-tamed Wild West feel of the River City Market and the steep hills throughout the city blocks leading to the library, where the outside steps are painted as book spines and the soaring columns are obscured by the trees. I love the jazz music floating down 18th and Vine, where dark, shabby men carry upright basses and trombone cases to the Blue Room for an improv jam session. The bright blue Royals Stadium looked luminous from the highway, a massive half-spere in the floodlights of a twilight game. Some evenings were s'mores over the fire pit, some were nights out on the Plaza or swimming in a friend's pool, and other nights were storytelling on Skype, intent on weaving the thread of daily life into another's day. 

Those two months in Kansas City became a lifetime and a lifeline, both linking me to this new home and keeping me away from those I loved before, itself a bridge and a wall. 

So now, I am home, and another chapter of my life is about to begin. I'm glad I went, so glad I stayed out there, but it's good to rest where the homes of those I love correspond with the location of all my stuff :) 

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, especially now that I'm back to job searching. And keep on reading--maybe one day soon you'll find that I have something interesting to say!

Cheapskate Innovation

Muen-dog Omelette
- 1 egg
- 1 slice of Muenster cheese
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 grilled, cold hotdog

Using a cheese grater, shred the hotdog and saute it in a small frying pan on medium for five minutes with the olive oil. Whip the egg and pour it into the pan to create an even layer of egg and shredded hot dog. When the egg mixture is ready, place the slice of cheese on one half of the pan and fold, making an omelette. Voila!

Beautiful Blueberry Breakfast
- 1 Bagel Thin
- 1/2 cup blueberries
- cream cheese

Toast the bagel, spread with cream cheese, and arrange blueberries on one half of the bagel. Place other half of bagel on top, prepare yourself for deliciousness.

Peanut Butter Fried Rice (recipe courtesy of Jennifer Jacquet)
- 1 large takeout container of white rice
- 1/3 cup peanut butter
- 3 teaspoons soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Mix peanut butter, soy sauce and oil in a frying pan to melt. Add rice and stir until all is coated. Could also add in chopped peanuts, green onions and cooked chicken!

Donne Undone

Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend;

That I may rise, and stand, overthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new.

I, like a usurpt town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end,

Reason, your viceroy in me, I should defend,

But is captive, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betrothed unto your enemy:

Divorce me, untie or break that know again;

Take me to you, imprison me, for I 

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chast, except you ravish me.

- John Donne, Holy Sonnet 74. "Batter my heart" (update language mine)


Donne was a master of the extended metaphor (although English teachers would tell you they're called metaphysical conceits) and wove together seemingly unrelated topics to construct a vibrant image.

Did you catch that he compared his heart to a city under the devil's rule ("I, like a usurpt town, to another due"), and that Donne is begging God to come into his heart ("I...Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end"). Maybe you noticed that Donne sees himself as married to the devil ("...betrothed unto your enemy:") and is begging God is sever that relationship ("Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again:"). Does it surprise you that Donne begs for God to pull him into himself, to ravish, enthrall, imprison him? Are you shocked at Donne's brutal, warlike tone? Are you offended?

Why?

Some people are offended by a poem of such passion for God, such angst and rawness of heart, or misunderstand the rawness of emotion as sacrilegious towards a pure God. I envy Donne's ability to craft an image out such incongruent pieces, and I envy his openness of heart that allowed him to release that passion. I don't think God minds it at all when we burst open with love and passion for him. In the last lines, Donne is overwhelmed with his brokenness and filth and begs God to clean him up and bring him back to himself. It's a praise, a lament and a salvation story all in one.

Wouldn't it be worse if Christians were always socially appropriate and dutiful, always proper and politically correct? When did it become such an outrage to be fiery, outspoken people of such love and passion that offends rather than sits back in silence? Do you think the Apostle Paul was a wallflower, or that Peter was known as the one who always said the right thing?

Every time I think I'm doing alright, some other deficiency gapes back at me, or some rough spot rasps out to be filed down. Some days I ride too high, and once I've fallen off and see how far I've wandered, I ache for God to take back my heart, to be divorced from the power that rules the self. But it's not just God that makes this happen - I have to move, too. It's the both of us working out salvation, it's God who readies my hands for action and my heart for love.

I'm still a work in progress (but aren't we all?). I wish I could write as fluidly as Donne, with his vivid images and gripping style, but I'm just not there yet. I wish I could be as outspoken about my faith and convictions as Donne, but then again, God is still working all that out in me, and that part's not finished yet.

I'm not Donne yet, because I'm not done yet.

Chopsticks

I'm pretty sure God eats with chopsticks, which is to say...

one bite at a time.

No more than needed for a mouthful, enough to satisfy, no less than what is required. Spoons overflow, forks shovel , knives disintegrate, but chopsticks hold just the right size piece, filling our mouth without making us gasp for air around an over-large bite. He knows that anyone can choke on too much of a good thing.

~~~~~~

I'm pretty sure God gives us grace with chopsticks, which is to say...

one day at a time.

No more than we need for the day, enough to strengthen, sustain and grow, never less than what we require. God knows we could hoard his grace, choking on too much of a good thing, so he gives us enough for one day at a time, always reminding us he's got plenty more for tomorrow.

~~~~~~

Thank God for chopsticks.

Harry and the Potters

1.) There is a band playing in Kansas City called Harry and the Potters. It is two brothers who dress up in wizard's robes and sing their own songs, like "Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock", "Save Ginny Weasley from Dean Thomas" and "Felix Felicis (Eighth Clockwise Stir Mix)". I actually went to their concert, dying a little on the inside with every song. Thankfully, your jealously needn't go unfulfilled. They are currently on tour all over the nation this summer, stopping in Philadelphia and Boston.

You're welcome.

4.) For those of you who remember that I had NO clue what my job would entail, let me tell you now:

I edit. All the time. I rewrite awkward sentences and check scriptural references for accuracy and punctuation, and sometimes I give the axe - brutally, bloodily, with great satisfaction - to wordy, repetitive, diction-challenged sentences that just repeat themselves in a circular fashion. (You see what I just did there? Exactly.)

I have my own office/cubicle section with a huge window facing out towards the city skyline and a fantastic view of the NPH parking lot. On good days, I will tell you that I like the quiet nature of my work, sitting in a secluded corner with some fresh coffee (Starbucks in a Dunkin's mug, oh the humanity!), reading through the work of dozens of respected authors who set the spiritual tone for that publication and having the authority to edit such work as I see fit. My most recent project is editing a book by a famous author whose works are on the shelf of nearly every pastor and religion major - talk doing something worthwhile! I enjoy discussing the proper placing of an m-dash or how to reference a sermon both written and preached. On those days, I am wholly an introvert and it feels empowering to be around people who understand the importance of sentence structure and correct punctuation.

But on bad days, I dread the isolation of my cubicle, when the only other people around are other editors with their office doors shut, concentrate on their own work.   On those days, the silence is oppressive and I can't help but envy the Barefoot Ministries office down the hallway that plays round-robin pingpong off their desks. My computer screen is very old, so the screen flickers  just enough that you feel as if your eyes will shrivel up and rot. Because I mostly edit curriculum (Sunday school lessons, Bible studies, quarterly devotions and magazines - and most recently, books!), the writing tends to be somewhat repetitive.

The managers of all the departments usually talk up their interns with other departments and recommend them for jobs and projects so they will get useful experience and feedback.  I overheard someone say once that they don't envy interns in my department, because that manager keeps to himself so that no one else knows who his intern is or how they are doing. In other words, the interns in my department leave the publishing house with few connections and little feedback to bolster their experience.

Well, that's depressing. So, I had two choices: be crushed and disappointed that no one will ever see my work, or make myself known on my own terms without relying on someone else to do it for me.

If you are reading this right now, you have some sort of relationship with me, be it casual acquaintance or life partner. You already know I picked Option Two.

The good thing about my personality type is extreme optimism, sheer nerve, ability to multi-task, a can-do spirit. That, combined with the conviction that God led me here--against all odds, against my inclinations and against every argument for financial responsibility--made me feel, well....unassailable.

I can do this. Living out here, driving around the prairie, getting lost every ten minutes, working proactively, texting in the office and not getting caught....yes, they are all in my grasp!

A little gumption, a little initiative, some guts and ample prayer. I can do this!

Baby Gurl'z Nails of Glory

The city of Independence (pop. 116,830) was established in 1827 and is famous for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and for being the starting point of famous westward trails (Oregon Trail, Sante Fe Trail, and the California Trail, as is evidenced by the annual Santa-Cali-Gon Festival). Harry Truman lived here, as did Albert Pujols, Ginger Roger and Paul Henning, who created such sublime American classics as Green Acres, Pettycoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies. It is also recognized as being part of the videogame "Oregon Trail", thereby known to millions of Facebookers as well as history buffs.

Independence is not, however, particularly famous for its high level of culture and class. My 30 minute commute to work at the publishing house in Kansas City guides me through miles and miles of pot-holed roads lined with "Tobacco Paradise", "Bud and Nan's Beer Hole", "Sal's Sexy Western Wear" and "Baby Gurl'z Nails of Glory". I want to meet this Baby Gurl and shake her gloried, manicured hand.

There are remnants of past glory and of lost hope all over the place. I drive past a strip mall with a church in a converted storefront...but the church is shuttered closed with metal doors and bars are over the windows. A green, rusted out, mid-80's Buick roared through a red light last night, and the passenger threw two beer bottles out the window, smashing them on the battered tarmac below.

I compulsively check the locks on my door. It feels like a twitch - left hand flying to the lock lever on the door, right hand flung out to check the passenger door. I realized today, while driving past a padlocked park (the ghost of a tennis court peering from behind a skeleton fence), that I'm afraid of it all. I'm afraid of the gang of boys standing on the street corner, yelling at cars whizzing by. I grip the steering wheel a little harder than usual whenever people walk close to my car.

They are so close, after all. Close enough for me to see that the man walking across the four-lane highway is barefoot, with faded tattoos creeping up his neck. The jeering boys on the street corner can't be more than 16 or 17, but their faces are lined and baggy clothes can't hide that they are malnourished, starving, skinny ankles sprouting from too-big shoes like flamingo legs.

There's a song (by Brandon Heath) that goes something like this:
Give me your eyes for just one second,
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken-hearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the one forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see.


It came on the car radio right as I drove by the abandoned park, the one closed off with a rusted gate and empty tennis courts. And the same song came on again as I drove by the street corner with the boys. And again, as the drunk man crossed the street, barefoot, half-dressed, swaying with beer bottle in hand. Why did it take so much for me to remember that these people were not "poor", "homeless", "delinquent", but  heartbroken, dreamless, hopeless? Once you see the look of absolute hopelessness in someone's face, you can never forget the emptiness in their eyes, and that's the expression I see every time I drive to and from work.

If I were God, my heart would be utterly crushed to see what humans have done to each other. I'd be nauseous with heartsickness and longing for my loved ones to come back. The loneliness and homesickness that I feel now is incomparable to someone who has completely lost any sense of home and any hope that such an environment still exists for them. I'm not writing to tell you my Five Evangelistic Points that I will share with such lost ones, only that I wanted it out on paper (per se) that I'm beginning to see what people must really look like to God.

I usually pray for strength, clarity of thought, wisdom....but really, they are merely my own heightened senses that I've masqueraded as God working in me. Truthfully, those are all things I could achieve on my own.

But without love, all those virtue are ash and mud. Without love, strength is brutal, clarity of thought is a critical spirit, and wisdom is superior enlightenment. All those I have exhibited, all those I have achieved on my own. But I can't do love on my own. I can't do mercy, I can't do graciousness, I can't forgive on my own, and I certainly cannot see people with God's eyes on my own, either.

Allowing God to show your the world through his eyes is terrifying. The vision burns like fire, searing the conscience and scalding a toughened heart, burning off the layers of judgment and presumption like so much dross. The result is a heart raw with God's pain and throbbing with his love, pulsing harder at every injustice, beating with pride for those who are faithful.

This week has already left my heart raw, so I suppose we're off to a good start if seeing people through God's eyes includes a tender spirit. Pray with me - and please, for me - as this summer at the publishing house is officially underway as of last Thursday and as I learn how to do this whole life-ministry thing.

Oh, and if you ever find Baby Gurl'z, go ahead in and get your nails did.

Go West, Young Man...Um, Woman.

Five days until I leave for Kansas City.

Only five days to pack up my room, to plan a driving route, to budget money for gas, food, hotels, to say goodbye to newly-made friends, to spend time with my family, to snatch just one more hour with Trevor, just a little more time at the only house that's ever felt like home.

Forgive me for my nostalgia, but the preparations of leaving for my internship at the publishing house are cementing the existence of my new reality, the one where I'm responsible for things like, you know, real life.

For so many years, I've planned for and saved for college, thought about and talked about nothing but college, so much so that I never visualized life without a syllabus outlining the exact requirements.
And now I'm done, and it's a good thing, but it feels a little like falling out of love, like you moved on and didn't realize until later that your beloved never came with you. You walk away, but leave more than a little of yourself behind, trusting in the One who's promised to give you a new direction and a new love.

So, in five days, trekking out into the unknown, with naught but a tank of gas and a heart full of God's promise to never leave me, I begin anew.

Only this time, the syllabus is mine to write.

Salt

I have no patience with ambiguity and indecision.

Wavering between what clothes to wear? Just pick a shirt and get on with it already. If you really hate it, then pack the other choice and change in the bathroom at work. Problem solved.

Can't decide what time you want to leave for dinner? X minutes for travel + Y minutes for traffic + Z minutes for emergencies - time of dinner reservation = departure time. Boom. Roasted.

You say you're a Christian, yet you go everywhere but Christ's words for answers to your questioning? You don't like what you read in the Bible, so you rationalize away your stubbornness in following your own will, then claim it's the Bible's fault for being vague? I'm sickened - and saddened - by that double-mindedness. If it is a fault, then I am guilty but I feel no shame in this.

Life is complex for sure, but I think we pretend it's complexities are inevitable, so we sink into philosophizing about social norms, religion and morality....and then do nothing.

Money is useless if you do nothing with it. If it sits under your mattress for years and years, rotting to dust until it crumbles away, then it has been wasted. It doesn't matter how big your pile of money dust is, or how loudly you brag about how much it was worth, it's still worthless because you did nothing with it.

Such is also true about philosophizing, which is, I'm coming to think, just an educated way of saying that you straddle the fence and can't decide on which side you will fall. It doesn't matter how much you talk about morality if it doesn't affect the way you live. It doesn't matter that - seriously now, listen to this, think about it, chew on it - it doesn't matter that you talk about God if you do not live a godly life and if His holy fire is not burning out your heart with uncontrollable, intemperate love.

I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear.

Actually....

No, I'm not sorry at all.

Because there ARE answers to your questions, and there are very concrete principles in the Christian life, whether or not they are easily digestible. The harder you chew on them, the more they will sustain your faith in a God more powerful and loving than you can ever realize. The deeper you chase God into the Bible, the more you will find that His searing, healing love burns off our pride, purifying us like newly forged steel so that we, far from merely mirroring Him, have become Him.

Don't confuse the message with the messenger. I haven't got this whole thing down pat yet, either, but passion to know my Savior has burned away my fear of being misunderstood and, frankly, of being disliked for speaking the truth. The truth means more to me than anyone who cannot bear to hear it spoken. This is neither intolerance nor arrogance. It's love.

The truth of the Gospel is called "salt" and "light" (Matthew 5:13-16, btw), because the truth burns and illuminates that which strives to be hidden, not because it tastes nice and makes things look good.

"Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey!"

The week before Easter, the Nazarene Publishing House called me back concerning my application for an internship...

...and I got it! I've been accepted as an intern to WordAction Press in Kansas City, Missouri! 

Now keep in mind that, for a word nerd like me who wanted to work in a Christian industry, this is Mecca. For so long, I've felt torn between jobs that I want and jobs that I can get, but this is the bridge between what I love and what pays. This is the job I've wanted for so long but I was at a loss, because I was too shy (or lacking faith?) to just go for it. I've tried so many other venues - teaching, journalism, writing - but nothing fit, and I couldn't explain why I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin in these jobs. There was no motivation to apply to anything, no direction for any job. 

But this one was different. As I flipped through a flyer from NPH advertising for interns, my heart began to race - "I could do this... I could actually do this!" As surely as the sun rises each morning, I felt God's certainty descend on me that this was the Yellow Brick Road of directions. There have been a handful of these God-given certainties before now, and they have always been followed by huge blessings and deeply challenging times. And when I've doubted the certainty and chosen not to take the risk, I've felt a sense of God's sadness, as if I've chosen not to explore his blessing on my life and that I've missed out.

Moving cross-country for a two-month-long internship is a very expensive risk. No job is guaranteed after the internship, and the intern must supply food, transportation, housing, etc, while working for minimum wage - or for free - in an unfamiliar area. I have no money, since I've funneled my paycheck into paying school loans for the past four years, which means that I have no savings, no car, no resources to do anything other than live with my parents and pay off my school loans.

I've used all of this as an excuse to stay in my happy little Pennsylvania comfort zone, ignoring my own obvious hypocrisy while I encourage others to break out of their narrow experiences. And what better way for God to convert this hypocrite than to draw me to a mirror and show that the comfort-zone-loving person is none other than myself? Yikes. A little embarrassment there, not to mention a lesson in humility. How dare I doubt the certainty that God had placed on my heart about the NPH internship? How could I possibly feel justified in not applying if I knew that God would take care of my needs if I got accepted?

 

The day NPH called me and I accepted the position, I was flat broke. After I hung up the phone (and hollered in sheer triumph for a minute or two...or five...), I sat at my desk and dropped my head between my knees, fervently thanking God for giving me this opportunity, and for a way out of cleaning houses and dogsitting for another summer. And then the panic set in - how in the world was I supposed to come up with hundreds of dollars for gas money, tolls, a hotel, meals and my first month's rent? Though I had a full time job all throughout college, I only took home $15 each week. It would be at least two weeks after I started at the Publishing House before my first paycheck there, and there was no way I could come up with that money between now and then. I didn't even have anywhere to live.

Everything before now has been all well and good, but here is the part you'll want to read:

Two days after NPH called, someone dropped off an envelope for me at my office. Inside was $200 cash, and an anonymous letter reading, "God's money is for his people to do his work." Two hundred dollars is the exact amount of gas money I needed, and I hadn't told anyone that yet.

But I still needed somewhere to stay, somewhere cheap, with a non-psychotic family, and that family would want me to pay rent - which I couldn't afford. Again, the panic, again the prayer. What I really needed was to live somewhere for free, but I understood that just wouldn't happen - except by a miracle.

Fast forward two weeks - the day before I graduated, a woman from NPH called me. She and her husband (a youth pastor) were also ENC grads and were willing to open their house to me if I was willing. They knew my boyfriend and we had several friends in common, and in talking to her, I felt another sense of certainty and peace. And then she said it, the words which made my heart drop and nearly brought me to tears - "My husband and I consider it a ministry to open our house to people who need it. We've never charged anyone to live here, and we certainly would not start charging with you." 

There you have it, ladies and gents. In plain black and white, you have the concrete, very real story of faith given, faith rewarded, of grace given and grace received. I may not be eloquent, I stutter and ramble, and sometimes get lost in over-thinking and worrying, but I will never again doubt. Here, in plain black and white (technically the computer pixels are a rainbow of colors but we won't get into that now), you have the story of Philippians 4:19 come to life.

"And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus."

Amen.

(And shame on you if you didn't recognize the title of this blog as a Beatles' song!)

"Monster.com" Should Be Renamed "Meth.com"

I've become an expert in stealth job-searching.

In class, eleven windows are pulled up on my computer screen, and my class's lecture notes are minimized. Professor walks by, lecture notes are pulled up and job sites minimized, crisis averted. Wednesday morning at 2 a.m., I'm in a study group working on my senior thesis and my study-mates are doing whatever study-mates do. When no one's looking, I quickly pull up Monster.com, sneaking through listings for Executive Administrative Assistant, or Travel Associate, Medical Billing Worker, Trash Picker, Egg Donor, Unemployed Beggar With College Loans. I'm not too picky anymore.

It's painful to drool after all jobs for which you are not qualified, and to fully realize that they only jobs for which you ARE qualified pay $10/hour part-time. Too many rant-y, whiny blogs are dedicated to the despair of unemployment, but my real questions is - how can you be unemployed when there are so many jobs open? Are people picky, or am I just THAT oblivious to a super-obvious fact of the universe somewhere?

Right now, I am supposed to be writing the bibliography to my senior thesis, a twenty-page behemoth ten months in the making, but all I can focus on is the eight tabs on my Safari page advertising for very well-paying, lucrative jobs within 20 miles of my home.

I'm graduating in 17 days. I have no jobs lined up and have applied to one internship half-way across the country which will, if I am accepted, only last for 8 weeks. Instead of faithfully applying myself to finish my LAST undergraduate assignment, I'm on the prowl for a paycheck that will keep me warm at night.

It's painful to drool after these jobs....but oh, so addictive. I dream about job hunting now. And have nightmares about it, too, but it's been consuming so much brain-power that I feel like I have a legitimate addiction. My heart races when people cheerfully wave at me, wondering if they know I haven't been sleeping or doing my work so that I can job search. My boyfriend keeps me accountable to my work and tries to keep me off Facebook....which is effective, until he realizes that I've been on job-hunting sites instead.

I'm terrified of moving out, unwilling to live at home, too shy to pursue a Fortune-500 job, and too proud to pursue a no-name business.

But I am not desperate. God has always - and I mean always - taken care of me, and no amount of unemployment fears will shake that confidence, even if it means I clean houses and churches for another summer.

For hire: one copy editor, amateur chef, organizational expert, writer, nature walk-lover, job-searching, junkie, former editor-in-chief, disillusioned college grad.

Growing up is hard.

Mullets for Jesus

On my 21st birthday, I decided to enact a drastic life change, one that would announce to the world and to myself what a grown-up woman I was becoming. For a few months before that December day, I thought that God felt like I was too preoccupied on my appearance. More specifically, I thought that God felt like I spent too much time and money on my elbow-length curtain of gloriously long hair (which, in all fairness, was probably true), and was - hyperbolically - requiring me to undergo an ancient ritual hair-cutting-off-ceremony in order to pass into the realm of womanhood. Coincidentally, my grandmother had just undergone a series of chemotherapy for her cancer and had, like most chemo patients, lost all her hair, and had bought a hairpiece from a company who created wigs from donated hair.

So, being an extremely literal person, I cut off my hair.

The way I figured it, the physical transformation of removing 16 inches of shiny, swinging, light brown wonderfulness would effect an inner transformation of my attitude about appearances and would instantly create me into a more spiritually attuned and charitable person, because I donated those 16 inches to the same company where my grandmother bought her wig.

Oh man, was I wrong.

This life-altering haircut, the one meant to release me from obsession over beauty, turned out to be....a mullet.

The first time my boyfriend saw me post-haircut, he blurted out that I looked like a soccer mom from the eighties. Children stared at me as I walked back to my car, and as I looked into the rearview mirror at my business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back head, I burst into tears.

Traumatic Life Moment #11 had just occurred. The hair (or lack thereof) was bad, but the realization that I cared just as much as ever what I looked like was even worse. Instead of being enlightened, I was even more shallow than I had realized, more superficial than I could have imagined, and - worse yet - I now resembled Billy Ray Cyrus. I was no closer to God with a mullet than I was without, and certainly less confident that I had heard Him correctly on the whole "Cut your hair and get your priorities in check" deal.

A bit dramatic, yes. But I was seriously questioning things, now that my head was free of any burden of follicly-enhanced beauty and my heart was open to the other options that God was throwing my way.

Because it never occurred to me that God didn't care at all what I looked like, or what I did with my hair,  and He wouldn't know what to do with a hairdryer if it hit Him in the face. Maybe, just maybe, the image of spending time and money on something so insignificant as hair was pointing to a larger truth of how we utilize our resources in the face of our excess and someone else's poverty.

Still think I'm being dramatic? No apologizes here.

Sometimes God guides us through traumatic experiences to upset our self-oriented mentalities and uses the big picture of a death or break-up to show us how to orient ourselves to His truth - but I'm convinced that sometimes He highlights the little things (like spending a small fortune on coffees, or slamming doors when we're angry, or white-lying) to snap our hearts and minds back into action, back into realizing that every. single. thing. impacts other people.

That $4 you non-chalantly pay for a large caffiene-chino with an extra helping of child-labor-produced sugar?

Those 15 minutes you spend on Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace every morning?

That new phone, the one you're going to buy once you save up enough?

And yet we frown and shake our heads when the pastor challenges us to find time each day to spend quiet moments with God, and we duck away when a homeless man begs us for money, any money, any spare change he can have. How many times a day have we ignored the people and places who could ask us to share our resources? The smaller my paychecks get, the more I realize that "I don't have enough to give" is never an option. You have yourself. You have your attention to give, your time to give, your love of baking, your talent for fixing cars, your listening ears, your willing attitude to give, and there are literally millions of people who are begging for what you have to offer.

This, I have found, was the real lesson behind the mullet for Jesus.

So yes, if God again asks me to do something as ridiculous as cut my hair - or to give up makeup, or quit drinking from plastic bottles, or to buy only locally-produced, fair-trade, recycled, pre-owned, or do to completely without - I will do it. It doesn't matter if I see the result of my action - the fact is, God does see the results, and not just of my actions, but of all our actions combined. That can either be terrifying or rejuvenating - all depending on what our actions are, of course.

Now that's something to think about.  

X Marks The Spot

You need to know - first and foremost - that I don't have it all together.
I don't have all the answers, only more questions than can ever be asked.
Don't be disappointed if I can't give an eloquent, totally fulfilling response to any of the great mysteries of life and - dare I say it? - I'm fine if you think that a conversation about coffee is irrelevant to self-confidence.

Because the truth is that I'm clumping along on this journey...quest...life thing just like you.

Still want to read on?

Good call.

Because the truth is that we all have something to learn from each other, whether it's learning to stand up for your own God-given dignity or just how to whip up the most spectacular cup of vanilla ice cream coffee ever created.

(But may I suggest that you never, ever underestimated the power of coffee. There's just something about sugared-up caffeine typhooning through the blood stream that makes even a gray Monday afternoon hyperactively glorious. More on that later.)

Agree? Then you and I will be good travel companions - or, at least, we'll have fun discussing the finer points of bad coffee, good books and the glorious - and sometimes painful - lessons of adulthood.

We may not have our destination in view or know how we will ever reach our goals, but who's to say we won't land on the moon and reach the stars, too? Perhaps you'll come to see that the big X you've been looking for all your life, the one that points you to the exact location of the place where you are meant to be, is

right 
where 
you 
are 
standing.

But you'll never realize that if you persist in looking for miracles and wonders everywhere else but here. The future starts right now, my friend.