The Sign of Unity

On Sunday, I was sitting near the sign language section during the morning worship service at my church, and because I know a couple of the interpreters, I realized something was going on. They were talking in hushed tones among themselves, pointing and occasionally signing as the volume in the sanctuary got louder.

When they came near my seat, I asked what was troubling them.

"There are deaf people coming to this service, and the seats are all taken," one of them explained. When I looked over at the section normally reserved for the hearing impaired, sure enough. Lots of hearing people were sitting there.

Empty {a habit}

Underneath my kitchen sink is a bucket where I throw vegetable scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds - anything suitable for composting. I keep the pail there so that I don't have to walk out to the compost pile in the middle of making dinner, but ideally, I make that walk a little later. Like after dinner. Or possibly the next day.

Only, sometimes, I forget. It is tucked away under the sink behind the cabinet door, after all.

But do you know what happens to vegetable scraps and egg shells and coffee grounds that are thrown in a bucket under the sink? They go ahead and start composting, right there in the bucket. And it only takes a day or two for the process to start.

A Warranty That Was Worth It

Yesterday evening, as my sister and I were heading out for a quick errand, I passed by the furnace in the laundry room, and something sounded amiss. The furnace would light and attempt to kick on, then nothing. Assuming it was a fluke, we left as planned.

Later, when we came home with pizza and were sitting on the living room floor eating over the coffee table, it seemed colder than usual. The EdenPURE heater I have as an auxilliary heat source was unexpectedly off, the plug cord jostled by my orbiting puppy. As I turned it back on, however, I remembered the furnace and checked the thermostat. Sure enough, it was set on 68 but the temperature in the house was only 66.

When adjusting the thermostat up slightly meant the furnace just lit and lit and lit but never actually came on, I called the repairman. And surprisingly, he was 10 minutes from my house, came right over, and took care of the problem. For free, since I have a 10-year warranty. He even held my puppy and scratched her behind the ears.

Later, as I laid in bed reflecting on the evening, I thought about that 10-year warranty and what a keystone it had been in my cancer recovery. In the middle of chemotherapy and radiation more than 3 years ago, my furnace had gone out, and when the repairman came to fix it, he said it was a lost cause. The next day, a salesman came, and while I sat there with a stocking cap covering my bald head, nauseous from the treatments, he laid out the options, including the 10-year warranty.

I remember thinking then that 10-year warranties are pretty audacious for a cancer patient. But I still had a glimmer of hope and a healthy dose of moxie, so I decided to trust the Lord that it was good stewardship.

Tonight, I am so thankful to Jesus that the warranty is paying off - in more ways than one.

There and Back Again: Holy Ground

I was having a conversation about writing with a dear friend recently, and like all conversations about writing, we ended up talking about whether I would ever be able to write full time. I've tried it before, and then, I didn't have the creative energy to produce for so many hours. Now, as I have been steadily increasing my hours of writing, I think I could sustain the pace, but it's impossible. I am not at an income-producing place in what I write. Then, there's the matter of insurance and 401ks and sick days.

So, I have to have a day job.

And some days, I resent it.

The Light of Life

Holding the body and blood of Jesus in my hand felt different yesterday. Surely these elements took on new significance because our pastor's entire sermon was about the Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples the night before His death, that meal in which he gives new meaning to the bread of affliction and the third cup of Passover. The same meal in which he dips bread with a terrorist.

But there was something else going on. As usual, when I received my little cracker and cup of juice, I tried to use all my senses to receive the body and blood of my Lord. I rolled the cracker in my hand, feeling its chalkiness, watching as the powder came off in my fingers. It was flat, matte even, and dry, dry, dry.

But as I brought the cup to my face and smelled the sweet juice, as I held it up to the light and swished it from side to side, I noticed something new there, something I hadn't noticed before. The juice in the cup reflected the light, creating the same life glint you see in the eyes of every living person.

Slow-Down Solutions for Singles: Taking Back Bedtime

When I was a child, I was afraid of the dark.

At least that what it seemed like to my parents, who had to leave the hall light on for me until I was in Junior High. It didn't help that we lived in a house that was built into the side of a hill and my room had no windows. At night, I couldn't even see my hand if I waved it in front of my face. I hated bedtime.

But I don't think it was just the dark that made the nighttime ritual so loathesome. It was the quieting down and the tucking in and the abandon that comes when we finally give in to the diurnal death we die each night lying between the sheets.

There and Back Again: Pondering

I was looking hard at the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, preparing to teach a Bible study. As I was reading closely that story we read usually at Christmas, the moment the angel came announcing the good news, I found something unexpected. Right there is Luke 1 was something I had missed during all those Christmas readings.

He said to her, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was.

Mary pondered.

I knew that she pondered later, sitting in the manger with a bunch of hurried, harried shepherds oohing and ahhing over her newborn. They had seen an angel, too, they had said. They had left everything to come, and then they were hurrying away to tell everyone. Mary, though, treasured and pondered all that was happening.

She let it all soak in.

Giving It All

Last week, I was browsing through the online catalog of my local library looking for an Annie Dillard book a friend had mentioned. She had referenced only the title of an essay, not the book itself, so I just searched on "Dillard, Annie" hoping I could fill in the blanks.

As it turns out, I actually own the book I was looking for, but in the search, I stumbled upon another title I hadn't heard of by Dillard: Give It All Give It Now: One of the Few Things I Know about Writing. So I submitted an online request, and within a couple of days, the book was ready to be picked up.

I thought there had been some kind of mistake when I went to the Hold section of the library and saw the first three letters of my last name on a tag rubber-banded to a box. A box? But when I pulled it down from the shelf, there was the same title I had requested right on the front of the box, and there was "Annie Dillard" listed prominently as the author.

When I pulled the book out of it's box, it fell apart like a giant accordion unhinged, and I saw a beautifully illustrated book with just a few giant words on each page. At first I thought perhaps this was a children's book. But then I read the back.

The Wonder of It

Is there any wonder

Slow-Down Solutions for Singles: Playing is Not Just for Kids

I'm trying to write, here, and my puppy, Tilly, thinks it's time to play. Three times she has come running over to my laptop and tried her best to eat the mouse. She jumps up on my lap, licks my hands - which comes dangerously close to biting -- and then nudges me with her nose.

She's going to play regardless, but she would really like to play with me.

Since Tilly came to live with me, I've realized I don't play much. Oh sure, young friends occasionally come over and we get out Candy Land. About twice a year I engage in very structured play like ping pong or volleyball. But even then, playing is not the goal.

Playing is for kids.

There and Back Again: Failure is Not an Option

It's Sunday afternoon, and Tilly and I are staring each other down. Her with her mouth open, trying to bite me. Me, with my hand clutched firmly on her scruff. We have done this over and over. She has already ripped the pants I am wearing with her teeth. Twice. And I have a horrible headache.

I can't do this, I decide.

And then I consider my options. Am I going to take her back to the breeder? Give her away? Leave her outside to freeze? No. I AM going to do this. But how?

Giving Up or Just Plain Giving?

"Take the next 30 seconds or so and write down specifically what you have done in the past three months to help the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, or in prison," our pastor asked us this morning. He was preaching from Matthew 25, the parable of the sheep and the goats, and making a list like this would be a "dry run of judgment day," he told us.

I found some white space in my journal where I had been taking notes, and I actually adjusted the pen in my hand, poised to write. But the pastor kind of kept talking, to make the lack of congregational writing less awkward, probably, and I had a headache, so I didn't actually write anything.

Not that there was much to write. Thankfully, the holidays fell within those last three months, so there actually were a couple of attempts to love like this. But it would have been a paltry list at best.

Nothing but Snow

We just couldn't resist writing about it and snapping pictures of it and mentioning it in every Facebook status and Tweet we posted all week. It was the only thing on our minds these last few days. And if we weren't mentioning it online, we were talking about it in person.

What else could it be, but snow?

The Cost of Fear

Fear cost me $5,000 last year.

I am a cancer survivor, as you probably know, and I certainly would have spent around a $1,000 on blood tests and CT scans anyway, just because doctors like to keep track of me. But because I am afraid of cancer, because I often freak out over little pains or the passage of time, I call those same doctors, and they order more tests.

They all came back negative, for which I am extremely thankful, but the price tag for fear was pretty steep.

That's not all fear cost me. I spent countless hours fretting over whether I should call the doctor and then waiting for the doctor to call me. I spent many conversations with friends and family talking about me and my fear when I could have been getting to know them, helping with their fears. And there's a couple dozen hours of sleep I will never enjoy because I was up stewing over my fear.

Fear cost me a lot last year.

There and Back Again: Digging

Some days, I move through life like a dragonfly, skimming the surface of the pond. I accept events, circumstances at face value. Running is just running; bread is just bread; training my puppy is just, well, hard, but yes, just training my puppy.

But some days, when I am fully alive, when I am writing even before I sit down at my laptop, when Jesus has me on the edge of my seat looking for ways He is real, things like running and bread and even training my new puppy don't exist on the surface. They take me down deep.

Slow-Down Solutions for Singles: Glasses On

Over the weekend, I slipped away from puppy care (read: indentured servitude!) just long enough to go to church then to the gym to run a couple of miles on the treadmill. Since Tilly came to live with me, I haven't had the time to run as usual, and so it was a nice break.

It was also a nice reminder that if I don't run regularly, running is not quite so fun. Needless to say, I was huffing and puffing, sweating profusely and looking forward to being done. My glasses kept slipping down my nose, so I decided to just take them off and run near-sighted.

While I was running toward the fuzzy nothingness, I thought to myself, who said you need to keep your eye on a goal in order to stay motivated in life? I couldn't see anything, and I was still running. But then I realized, I wasn't actually running toward anything. I was stuck in the same place, going through the motions of progress and achievement, but in reality, not going anywhere.

Eating Responsibly

Saturday, as I was enjoying the Indy Winter Farmers' Market with friends, I wasn't just shopping, though I did make a few purchases. And I wasn't just consuming, though I did enjoy a freshly made crepe with bananas and nutella.

While I was at the farmers' market on Saturday, I was being liberated from the trap of idealized food industrialization. That's Wendell Berry's way of saying that I was being a responsible eater. In his essay, "The Pleasure of Eating" in The Spirit of Food, Berry says this liberation is only possible by "restoring one's consciousness of what is involved with eating" and "reclaiming responsibility for one's part in the food economy."