Well, I guess I can say I'm so glad she's over the phase where separation from me caused her to throw up all over herself and everyone else in the room ...
I'm so glad I've gotten her involved in ECFE. It's been a really amazing thing for both Rosemary and myself.
Anyway, so I was afraid to commit to doing too much during the 2 hours that I had to myself (you know, what if I'm a second late and Rosemary burst into tears of abandonment ... yeah right). I decided the best thing to do would be to head to Coco Moon (local coffee house) and read a book. I pulled out The Irresistible Revolution and yowser. I've been reading that book for like 2 months (I'm a slow and distracted reader) and the chapter I read today really knocked me over. I was reading about the time Shane Claiborne spent in Iraq and blubbering over my latte. I mean, really just blubbering. I so deeply appreciate the way that guy is challenging my faith, my politics, and the way I read the bible. The book makes every fiber of my being uncomfortable and antsy and I am excited to see where these challenges bring me.
I just can't help but feel like there's deeper meaning to all this crap Joel and I have been going through lately. We've gotten into some serious (to us, anyway) debt. Things with our house are not going well. Blah blah blah. All this stuff that really doesn't matter except that it's refining us in some way. It's making us more compassionate, challenging the way we've viewed things, burning a seriously deep desire for community, changing our visions for what we truly want out of this life, and so on and so forth. Sometimes I want to get into a pity party for myself and then I feel this excitement ... like, all this stuff is going to so drastically change the course of our lives and although I didn't know I wanted it to be changed, I did and I do.
I've been praying a lot (well, a lot for me which is probably a little for a lot of people ...) about this desire for community and what it means. Joel just keeps saying that he feels like the only answer to all this debt that we and so many people we know are in, is some sort of community living where we all support each other, share our resources, etc. etc.
This is a small excerpt of the video. You can watch the whole thing (about 20 minutes) at The Story of Stuff.
edit: I learned about it through this podcast at Woodland Hills Church. The Story of Stuff is not a Christian website and there's no connection. Also, to listen to the podcast, scroll down to 5/18/2008. It's the one titled "Stuffocating."
Molly was one of my dearest friends through the later years of high school. She and I had a lot of fun together, were very creative together, and were genuinely goofy together all the time. I still remember some of the things we did together as some of the favorite things I’ve ever done – I’ll never go to Optimist Beach without thinking of the time we freed the crickets, or drive by that one street without thinking of planting the fork in the road. Or the music videos we made. Or whatever, the list goes on.
In my senior year of high school, I got into a pretty serious relationship with a guy named Mike. It was the most serious relationship I had ever had up until that point and I fell pretty hard for him, and he for me ... for a time. Molly and Mike had [from what I understood] a fairly insignificant history – and really, most girls I knew had some sort of a history with Mike. She wasn’t bothered by our relationship as far as I knew, and all was fine. Except I did like too many girls do and completely lost myself in Mike, and pretty much stopped hanging out with Molly (and all my other friends) completely. Toward the end of my senior year, my relationship with Mike got a little rocky and I started hanging out with Molly again. We laughed and cried together and I apologized for basically forgetting her. Mike and I worked through some issues, we were still dating, and Molly and I were better friends again. All was pretty good. Or at least okay.
And then things with Mike got bad. Real bad, real fast. At this point in my life I had no idea how to communicate and things just spiraled downhill. That’s all I’ll say about that. Mike treated me horribly, started saying really hurtful, really terrible stuff about me to all of our friends and it was a mess. A really, really hard mess for a 17-year-old girl to deal with.
Then I figured out that Molly was messing around with Mike and I was devastated. Not in the “I’m jealous you’re with my guy” devastated way ... but devastated that she could even find somebody who hated me so much to be attractive. Devastated that she could kiss the same guy who was speaking so horribly about me even though she knew what he was speaking was not fair or true. And I tried to communicate that with her. I didn’t do a good job, and that was pretty much the end of our friendship.
Molly was never really a “christian” and at this point in my life I was turning into the kind of christian that I never want to be again. I had fervor – a fervor that I would love to have again, but I also had a lot of judgment and was developing a skewed, legalistic version of what it meant to love God. I had a lot of hurt in my life – not just from this thing with Mike – but serious family issues, and other things I won’t go into. And, as I have said before, it was a form of rebellion on my part to be good ... really, really good.
I don’t exactly remember how it happened, but when I went off to college, Molly and I started writing a couple of letters. She never really got why I was so hurt about Mike and although I don’t think she did it on purpose, she would say things about Mike that really hurt me. Then she broke the news that she was bi-sexual and that didn’t bode well with this hardcore “christian.” I didn’t preach hellfire and brimstone to her, but I didn’t acknowledge it ... at all. I did that by choice as I thought she was telling me this more for the shock factor than for the love and acceptance that she probably needed from me. And that was the end of it, I never talked to her again.
Fast forward about 9 years to our high school reunion. I desperately wanted to go to this reunion, to see Molly and to give her a big hug. I had a grand vision of speaking apologies, laughing about unrequited love, and hopefully having a good enough conversation to stay in touch. She is somebody I thought about regularly, still think about regularly, and had even [unsuccessfully] attempted to get in touch with from time to time. I didn’t ever expect that we’d be the kind of friends we once were, but I just wanted ... a better ending, I guess. She was very dear to me and I’m still really sorry about the way things went. And I probably wouldn’t have cared much about going to the reunion if I didn’t think I’d run into her.
So I was really disappointed when she basically wouldn’t talk to me at the reunion. And, to be perfectly honest, I’m still disappointed. I tried, I went over to her table a couple of times and tried to talk to her and she made it pretty clear she didn’t want to talk back. She even turned her back on me at one point, and so I gave up. I don’t totally understand what the deal was – and I’m sure there’s a whole other side to this story than my own. I understand that and I wish it was a story I knew, but it’s not and it probably never will be.
I didn’t stay too late at the reunion, I was a pretty new mom at the time and was eager to get home to Rosemary. I didn’t go to any of the after parties, and who knows how things might have been different if I had. Joel was leading me out the door – and it was already an hour later than we told his parents we would be – when Molly came up to talk to me. She was pretty drunk, and I was really disappointed that she didn’t want to talk to me until that point. But I still tried to give as much as I could to the conversation, because I really wanted things to be different. We talked a little bit about what good friends we used to be, etc. and then she said, “I have something to tell you ... after you broke up with Mike, I made out with him.”
It was so silly. Here it was 10 years later, I am very happily married and have a daughter – I even keep somewhat in touch with Mike and consider him a friend. So I don’t know exactly what I said, but it was along the lines of that – there are no hard feelings whatsoever. I really wanted to talk with her more, but I couldn’t. She suggested we keep in touch and I happily gave her my email address, but she never wrote. I should have asked for hers, but I didn’t and I haven’t been able to find it.
And that is that. I’m disappointed by the way it turned out. Disappointed that she didn’t want to talk to me until she was drunk. Disappointed that there wasn’t some sort of happier ending. C’est la vie, I guess. It is not something I dwell on, but I think about it, sadly, from time to time. Maybe I’ll see her at the next reunion and things will be different. But I won’t get my hopes up this time.
Lately I have been getting a lot of headaches (if you’ve known me for awhile, you’ve known this has been a huge problem in my life, which has mostly been resolved), and it’s been a reminder that I pretty much stopped with my morning stretches on the day Rosemary was born. For the last week or so, I’ve been trying to remember to stretch every day; and today was the first time in, maybe ever?, that my stretches were accompanied with complete silence and peace.
I decided to use the silence to pray and it was such a good way for me to start the day. I asked God to help me have rest and peace. I know there are a lot of techniques out there to relax – and I am definitely open to using them – but I also want the kind of rest and peace that comes from Him. It’s different ... and better.
I started thinking about the verses in Matthew 6:
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
I know that verse and think about it often, but I allow my body, my mind, and my spirit to hold onto so much stress. In a lot of ways I think it is a part of my to be tired and stressed out. When I was younger – high school and college age – I used to thrive on having every minute of my 24-hour day planned. I was always telling people I was too busy to do something – and I was, but it wasn’t a problem, I sort of let that define me. I think it is something that has become deeply rooted and I don’t like it about myself/don’t want it to be who I am.
Even if I am busy or have a lot of stresses in my life, I want to be able to have peace first. And just acknowledging that this morning – and asking for help – felt really good.
Anyway. What I'm here to talk about is my experience at church yesterday. Rosemary was very hyper/energetic in the service and so Joel decided to take her to the nursery and allow me to stay through the service. We sort of take turns with that because Rosemary can't be left in the nursery alone yet. It's just too traumatic for her and the people watching her, because of course she usually ends up crying/throwing up.
Anyway. I actually really enjoyed the service. I was sitting there amazed because this is the second service in a row that I felt like I was learning something and like the pastor was doing a good job getting his message through. Then he started talking about sin/conviction. And, you guessed it - the subject of Harry Potter came up.
Gar. In years past, he has expressed his distaste for the series and it's bothered me, but I've chosen to ignore it. It's too big of a mountain to deal with or care about. I used to hide my HP books when Joel's family would come over and even regrettably sold the first 5 books in the series at a garage sale because I felt bad for hiding them all the time. That was about 3 years ago. I have since become very disappointed in myself for selling the books, determined that I am not going to hide the ones I have, and also determined that I will not hide the fact that I read them AND greatly enjoy them. The subject hasn't come up with Joel's family and I have also decided I'm not going to be the one to bring it up. But I will stand up for myself when the time comes.
Tangent aside, it's bothered me that my pastor has said what he's said about Harry Potter - just like some of the political views he has expressed have bothered me. I think I've talked about it in here before, right? I have chosen to just shrug it off. I do love this church, I don't see it as being my home church forever, but I love it and I don't want to leave it out of anger.
I felt a twinge of anger at what he said ... because he actually said that if you can sit in a church and not see the spirit of darkness surrounding the HP books, and not feel convicted about it, then you don't have the spirit of Christ in you. So, of course anger began to rise up in me. But I choose not to feed that or allow that anger to grow. Instead I just feel ... sad.
It's sad to me how "christians" (and I use that word loosely) can allow themselves to so easily label something as "bad" without even really understanding the subject. Instead, they just blindly jump onto the judgment train without knowing. I personally want to know how he can see a spirit of darkness around something that is causing millions of people worldwide to turn off their TVs, put away their video games, and actually read.
I would feel differently if this was a modern-day, practical guide to witchcraft and wizardry. You know, something that was actually attempting to teach the world how to murder and hurt other people. But this is FANTASY and FICTION. A part of life that is so important, especially to children who are learning and growing. And more importantly, it shows the classic struggle of good over evil. Harry has a great heart and a good set of morals, despite having been raised by a family that could care less about him.
It makes me sad that these "christians" want to take imagination, pretending, fantasy away from us and label it as "bad." It's not bad, it's important. It's a major element in development, it's what allows people to function creatively as adults. It's so GOOD in so many ways.
It's also so hypocritical to just focus on HP as the bad book. What about the magic and witchcraft in the Chronicles of Narnia? What about Lord of the Rings?
Deep breath. I'm sure I'm not the only one of you who has encountered this. I'm also fairly sure there are some of you who think it's bad. I think you're wrong, plain as day. And I don't think your argument is valid if you have not read the book, but have only read accounts from other people who haven't read the book who think it's wrong.
And I'm not friends-locking this, because I have nothing to hide.
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katielovesjoel- healthy american female
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