Ready?

Firsts:
First best friend: Michelle Something-or-Other
First car: champagne colored Mercury Mystique.  But no cars have ever really been mine.
First real kiss: never kiss and tell (online)
First break-up: Hmm...Matt Tatum, sixth grade.  I dumped him for Greg Carroll.  I was an idiot.
First screen name: iamrachimo
First funeral: first one I remember...Aunt Barbara's, May '98.
First pets: cat named Toby
First piercing: right ear
First true love: Jesus
First musicians you remember hearing in your house: Raffie ("Come Mr. Tally-Man, tally me bananas...")

Lasts:
Last cigarette: ten minutes ago

Last car ride: to my house from the Hoover Public Library last night
Last kiss: goodnight kiss from Mama, last night
Last good cry: If by good cry you mean a really long, hard one...Saturday night over a Lortab and an Amoxicillin.  If by good cry you mean an actual good, cathartic one...I'm not sure.
Last library book checked out: five Junie B. Jones books and a kids' book on tennis (last night)
Last movie seen: in its entirety...wow...maybe Roxanne...?  That was a few weeks ago...
Last phone call: Arthur Welling from the Christian Children's Fund (I'm pretty sure he was a recording because he wasn't really answering my questions and he kept interrupting me.)

Last time showered: Define shower...
Last cd played: Andy Davis, "Thinks of Her" (illicit burned copy)
Last item bought: Andy Davis, "Thinks of Her" (legal pressed copy)
Last annoyance: a hidden puddle of water in the seat cushion on the deck swing
Last disappointment: the windshield fixer being late (still not here)
Last time wanting to die: Saturday night, after the Lortab and the Amoxicillin (which failed to cure me)
Last shirt worn: Before this one?  A Camp Chula Vista middler camp T-shirt from a couple years ago (theme: Armor of God)
Last website visited: http://www.thehungersite.com
Last word you said: "...recording!"
Last song you sang: "Only a Miracle"
What color socks are you wearing?: invisible
What color underwear are you wearing? none of your beeswax
What's under your bed?: monsters, duh
What time did you wake up today?: 9:15 in the AM, baby!  (Spring break rocks my face off.)

Current:
Current mood: chipper
Current music: the hum of the space heater
Current taste: classic with a touch of hipster
Current clothes: blue jeans, chaps, cowgirl boots with spurs, and a Stetson
Current annoyance(s): this question
Current desktop picture: my dad's desktop, which is a funny picture of my mom making a mad face
Current book(s): Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, Junie B. Jones Loves Handsome Warren by Barbara Park, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott, Colossians by Paul
Current color of toenails: Bubble Bath
Current hate: The Devil!

One or the Other:
1. Black or white? Hispanic
2. Boxers or briefs? Can you really compare a dog and a length?
3. Coke or Pepsi? either, as long as it's cherry flavored
4. Salt or pepper? I don't really eat either of those apart from the food it's seasoning...
5. Sweet or sour? SWEET
6. Vanilla or chocolate? vanilla (ice)
7. Short or long? Hair? Toenails? Life span?  My answer is E) not enough information.
8. Cheap or expensive? frugal
9. Firm or soft? Geez.  Whoever wrote this quiz had a serious problem writing complete sentences.
10. Hot or cold? H-O-T-T

Do it now.

C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed: "Sometimes, Lord, one is tempted to say that if you wanted us to behave like the lilies of the field you might have given us an organization more like theirs.  But that, I suppose, is just your grand experiment.  Or no; not an experiment, for you have no need to find things out.  Rather your grand enterprise.  To make an organism which is also a spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a 'spiritual animal.'  To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants its mate, and say, 'Now get on with it.  Become a god.'"

As I looked around at the women at the retreat Saturday evening and was in the midst of my typical cynicism and haughty judgment, the Holy Spirit brought that passage to my mind.  "Rachel, they are gods.  That chubby, awkward woman--a social disaster, prone to ruining witticisms by taking them too literally, unable to make a point without restating it eight times, sitting there with her mouth aimlessly gaping and her eyes closed so she can get the most out of the breathing exercise--she is a god; I have made her so.  And you don't even know her."

So I guess it’s a new year. This past Sunday at church I was feeling pretty sick to my stomach, as I often am mornings, particularly Sunday mornings, so I cringed a little to see the communion table set at the front of the room. I never want to cringe at communion, but the corner of a Saltine I had forced down on the way to church hadn’t even sat well with me…I was pretty sure the bread and grape juice wouldn’t calm the waters. Of course, part of my mind hoped that as the elements represented Christ’s body and blood, so their effect would represent Christ’s effect on my soul; maybe I would be healed. I learned a little something different, though, when communion made me physically feel more rotten than before: Christ doesn’t go down easy. You can’t swallow Him like an Ibuprofen, expecting Him to dissolve inoffensively and make everything feel good again. He heals by breaking; He causes us to stumble in our ways so that we can feel our need of Him. His body and blood are bitter. They taste like hurting, and they remind us that we killed the Son of God. But they (should) force us to cry out for His mercy, to draw together like the band of unruly and undeserving invalids that we are and beg Him for healing and thank Him that He has already provided it. Communion went down my pipes like a sack of rocks this past Sunday, but the Holy Spirit picked one up and tumbled it and shone it and handed a ruby back to my soul. I guess I’ll take communion on a stomachache if I get a heart treasure in return.

Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving - it doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even though you have broken your vow a hundred times.
Come. Come again. Come.

-Jalal-ud-din Rumi (quoted by Anne Lamott)

Two updates in one day...is she human?

A girl from Baton Rouge was killed by a drunk driver a couple years ago, and her journals are being published now. She had thirteen of them. That's amazing...she was amazing. It makes me realize why I write so infrequently in my actual journal--what I write far outlasts me and will eventually be the only way people know me. What I write has to be exactly me. Because of my preoccupation with true (or good) impressions, it also has to be concise, poignant, insightful, never fluffy; lacking in drama, brimming with sincerity and meaning. That's difficult to turn out every day--and that's why I don't write every day, or even every week. What I write will be largely what people remember of me when I'm gone, and what do I want people to remember? That I loved well, that I was honest and true and up-front and meant what I said, that I always had a reason to laugh. That I was a thinker and a dreamer. That I was compassionate and kind, that I was intentional about my pursuits but impulsive about serving, loving, giving. That I was restless but content, the way a lover of Christ naturally will be as she is working with Him on Earth but longing for perfect union with Him in heaven.

If my dreams don't lead to failure, am I dreaming big enough? Hmm.

What an exciting caper Adrienne and I went on last night!  It all began after our weekly CSI:Miami date when I decided I was going to make butterscotch chip cookies.  Now, I used to have very little faith in my cooking abilities, and although I still get flack from people who have never actually tasted anything I've made, a nearly-perfect hashbrown casserole and two delectable batches of fudge have sent my confidence level soaring to new heights.  And since chocolate chip cookies were one of the first things I ever conquered...how hard could it be to make them again (just with butterscotch instead)?  Well, apparently butterscotch is a little gooier than chocolate, and the first batch was more approximately like a cookie cake than anything else.  So I thinks to myself, "Hm.  Now how am I going to get this off the pan?"  Simple--flip it.  The result was a pan of butterscotch-and-cookie-dough stalactites and a wax paper sheet full of chunks.  Once I scraped off the remainder onto the wax paper, Adrienne decided the cookie pile would not go to waste: she sculpted it into a cookie ball that had an alarming resemblance to cat vomit (but smelled better).  Understanding the importance of visual aesthetics in cooking, Adrienne raided the cabinets for anything beautiful and edible to contribute to the cookie pile.  She found some silver cake decorating balls and some colorful sprinkles; unfortunately, the newly adorned cookie pile now looked like the cat had eaten some jewelry, then vomited.  Our conclusion was that cookie piles were the new fruitcake, so Adrienne wrapped it up, slapped a bow on top, and conveniently forgot it in my kitchen when she left.  After a couple more batches, I got it right--I now have about seven small butterscotch chip cookies to show for it.  But the caper continues...

I never do this, but I'm starting a new paragraph for the caper story.  There was a meteor shower last night, so Adrienne and I drove out to Highland Road Park Observatory and spread out a blanket on the gravel (yes, gravel) to watch the sky.  It was truly amazing--we saw several shooting stars, and one was clearly in the near atmosphere because it was really bright, had a long tail, and lasted about three seconds.  I've never seen anything like it.  On that note, we headed out, confident that the blaze we had just seen couldn't be beaten.  On the way into town, we nearly ran into a fox darting across the road.  Adrienne had never seen a fox, so we screeched to a halt to watch the sly little fellow (or lady) dash back into the woods.  Then, on a whim, I took a turn down Rodney Drive, a route I never would have taken normally except that I thought I'd show Adrienne where my grandparents used to live.  What do you know...everyone had left their garbage out for the trashman, and there was some pretty quality garbage over on Rodney.  After all, one man's trash...

So we stole a bike.  Out of a trash pile.  This is the raddest, baddest, laddest (?) bike you've ever laid eyes on (or, in your case, not laid eyes on).  It's an old white Huffy with these 70's looking orange and maroon stripes on the bars and a camel colored patent leather seat.  The chains are rusty, the kickstand basically topples the bike over singlehandedly if you kick it down...but oh, what a bike.  Even in the darkness of 2 am, I looked at it and saw jewels.  Adrienne and I stuffed it into my trunk--at least, as much as would fit--and drove ever so carefully back to my apartment.  Then we stuffed it into Adrienne's trunk to take back to her apartment because her neighbor fixes bikes.  (See?  It was just meant to be.)  The final leg of the caper happened to me alone after Adrienne had taken our treasure away (and not taken the cookie pile away), but this is simply too long to relay any more.  Maybe I'll get to it another day, but if not...just know that watchdogs were involved.

I'm right where I've wanted to be.

oh heart of mine, why must you stray?
from One so fair you turn away...
-Chris Tomlin

Is a failure in ministry always a result of my own straying heart? Is there such thing as a failure in ministry? Is there such thing as a heart not gone astray?

You’ve probably never met a more convinced hypochondriac than me. I was playing a game of Red Rover the other night (I work with high schoolers…we do that), and I’m pretty tough. I mean, you know, they think I’ll be an easy breaking point—but I’m not letting go. As a result, every kid has to try me, and at one point I felt some distinct breakage of some sort in my hand. After about fifteen more minutes of playing, I realized that it was actually rather painful, and discovered upon looking at it in the light that I had a tumor-like swelling on my hand. Naturally, I immediately began telling people I loved them and giving away special things of mine because I knew, due to the obvious subcutaneous bleeding occurring, that I didn’t have much longer. Well, as it turns out, it’s just a nasty bruise…but for a couple hours, I was genuinely worried for my health and life. I wonder why, upon being injured, I can instantly recall all the freakish stories I have ever been told about people dying from yard games, but I block out the majority of stories that prove what I know: that people tend to pull through.

In re-reading quite a bit of children's literature (for my education degree), I have stumbled upon quite a lot of truth--certainly more than I have found in adult fiction.   Here is a comment on the business of seeing, literally (the speaker is a creature whose race has no eyes, talking to a human little girl):

"We do not know what things look like, as you say... We know what things are like.  It must be a very limiting thing, this seeing."

-A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

And a line from a song:  if i could only see the way You see/i wouldn't even need to use my eyes

turn down all the noise around/cause silence speaks louder than sound/Your presence is all that I remember...

I imagine that's somewhat how Elijah's thoughts went in 1 Kings 19...even though he had just experienced a fiery display of God's sovereignty, he forgot how big God was, got scared of a mean girl, and ran away to hide in a cave, where he begged to die.  It was there that God reminded Elijah, My Spirit can do mighty things, but your spirit needs Me alone, not spectacular shows.  And that's what Elijah remembered.  And I guess that's what I remember best, too...the personal movement of the Spirit.

See, time is not the problem; deadlines are.  Until I die, all this world offers me is time--I'm not going to run out of it.  Some people like to say there aren't enough hours in the day, but when the hours in this day run out there are just more hours after that.  The issue I have with time is that everyone wants to pack so many deadlines into such a small segment of it.  That's what has me stressed out--not that there isn't enough time, but that there are too many deadlines.

Laura is keeping her mom's dog while her mother is out of the country, and this is the third week in a row that this dog has nearly made me wet my pants. Barnabas is its name, or Barney. I can't say what kind of dog it is (because I have no idea), but I can say that it is ridiculously large. I mean, it's truly outrageous--I've never ever seen a dog so big. If it didn't walk, I would think it was a loveseat. The first week it was there, I came around the end of the kitchen counter and spotted this monstrosity with Elvis hair on its head (no kidding, a little curl that hangs over its eyes) waddling past me into the living room, and I jumped about ten feet in the air and then just fell out laughing. It still catches me off guard when I see it again after not having seen it for, you know, more than three of four minutes...dogs just should not be allowed to be this big without being called ponies. And it's fat. Grey and curly and soft and fat and enormous. And if you touch its butt while its asleep, it gets mean at you. What a dog...

Okay. So God left heaven and got killed so that I could live life the way I'm living it right now.

Hmmm...the word squander comes to mind...

Ahh, bluegrass on a Friday afternoon. Think I'll catch a hometown high school football game tonight and maybe spend tomorrow morning at the farmers' market and local artists' fair.

I think part of my problem is that I want spirituality to be more close and more real.  I understand why people wear crystals around their necks and why they perform chants and gaze at stars.  They are lonely.  I'm not talking about lonely for a lover or a friend.  I mean lonely in the universal sense, lonely inside the understanding that we are tiny little people on a tiny little earth suspended in an endless void that echoes past stars and stars of stars.  And it's not like God has a call-in radio show.

And then further on, in the next chapter, he's talking about how ridiculously bitter we can sometimes get about having to be human.  It's not like someone explained the world to us in the womb and then asked us if we wanted to join, he says.  I love his honesty because anyone who thinks has felt at least a little bitter about the human experience and has taken that bitterness to an absolutely childish level:

I spent an entire week feeling bitter because I couldn't breathe underwater.  I told God I wanted to be a fish.

(from Blue Like Jazz)

"I think that God is wanting a relationship with you and that starts by confessing it directly to Him.  He is offering forgiveness."

"You are not making this easy, Don.  I don't exactly believe I need a God to forgive me of anything."

"I know.  But that is what I believe is happening.  Perhaps you can see it as an act of social justice.  The entire world is falling apart because nobody will admit they are wrong.  But by asking God to forgive you, you are willing to own your own crap."

from Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

Can there be a better day than the one in which you get to hear Norah Jones, U2, and James Taylor on the radio, all in a row and all on the same station? It's great to have all the good songs on CD, but there's just something endearing about hearing them on the radio, as though someone was adding a hand-picked soundtrack to your drive. And don't we sit in the car after we've parked and wait until our favorite song ends on the radio, even though we have it on CD? I do. It's like out of all the songs in the wide world, some kindred stranger pulled out your favorite and used up all a station's bandwidth just to play it for you. Bring on the hurricanes, bring on the drama of the everyday...just play me my favorite song on the radio and let me sit and listen to it, and I think I'll be okay.