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Monday, June 30, 2003
[rambling unformed thoughts, my apologies]
I missed church yesterday, which is too bad considering that the gospel was the story that goes with the image I chose for this page, Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the well.
For people who know me, I think it's a big DUH why I chose this particular story as the illustration for going jesus. Let's see...Jesus starts talking to the least likely person, and turns her into a believer. Yeah, that works. The person is a social outcast who has to slip over to the well when no one is looking, she's screwed her life up, and she's rather prickly - oooh, right again! I'll take 'blatantly obvious' for $500, Alex.
In the end, Jesus spends two days with the Samaritans, and the people tell the woman that they believe now because of what they have seen, and not because of what she has said. I always wonder how she felt about that. Did she miss that little thrill of celebrity once Jesus himself took over? What was her life like after Jesus left? How did her encounter with Jesus change her - was she welcomed back into the community? Did anyone remember that she was the one who came running from the well, in the middle of the day? Did she keep reminding them over and over until they started to avoid her again?
Last week, we heard the previous chapter, in which John the Baptist (head still intact) says of Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease." and I see an echo of that here. JtB knew that he wasn't the messiah, that his job was to make clear the way of the Lord...and then get out of the way. I don't have as many questions about him as I do about the woman at the well. Maybe because I am no John the Baptist.
I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it: I must decrease.
That sounds really unpleasant to me, raised I was to believe that it really is all about me (and perhaps my silly little blog, too). Decrease? I got presents on my brother's birthday just so I wouldn't feel bad about it not being my birthday. And I'm supposed to let someone else be the messiah? I'm supposed to carry somebody else's message? I'm supposed to make the path straight and then get out of the way? Huh? I'm an American, raised in the 70s. That's not really what I'm trained for.
I'd really like my ministry to be all about me sometimes. Me me me. I want to be fabulous! I want to bring people to Christ! I want to fill churches with my brilliant faith! I'd want the people of Sychar to put up a nice statue of me next to the well, because I'm the one who told them about Jesus in the first place. Which is, of course, totally and completely wrong and not how it works At All.
I'm not saying that this makes a lot of sense to me right now - I'm stuck in the middle of knowing what doesn't work, and waiting for an understanding of what does. I know that there is a truth that I'm very close to grasping, and when I do, it will be another breakthrough. I'm turning it over in my mind, feeling the weight of it and not really expecting it to crack open just yet. I see where I'm being pointed, though, and that's a huge enough blessing for the moment.
*for any confused Episcopalians out there, St. Ned's doesn't always follow the common lectionary. We're reading John this summer.
related note:
The preacher last week used the term 'yield' to describe the decrease, which reminded me of this great bit from what may be my all-time favorite Annie Lamott essays. I am not exaggerating when I say that this piece of writing saved my life. Anyway, here's what she says about yielding:
But it was when I was hopeless, caught in desperation and grief, that I got humble, teachable, willing to surrender.
Of course, I grew up with an older brother, so to me surrender means you get your face ground in the dirt. It means you get noogies on your upper arm and then you have to go downstairs and get him oranges. But surrender to God means you come over to the winning side. A synonym for "surrender" is "yield," which means, agriculturally, to step aside and let something grow.
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Sunday, June 29, 2003
How do you think happiness works? Is happiness a baseline, or a peak? Do you think there's a far-off point in time where, if certain things align (job, relationship, family, body size, a good haircut) you will suddenly be happy, but in the meantime your job is to work towards these things? Does buying stuff ever make you happy? Are you ever surprised by what makes you happy?
How often do you notice yourself being happy? Is it usually a surprise, or more like an old friend stopping by, or is it more like noticing that you're blinking - it's there all the time but usually escapes your notice? Do you know where happiness is and can you get back there? No matter what happens?
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I'm sure a lot of people already knew about this, but I am totally blown away by my first experience in selling books; I took a single box of books that I won't miss from my life down to the huge used bookstore in Mountain View, and now I have a $40 credit to use there. This totally rocks. I think I'll try to get some art books with good decoupage illustrations. OR I'll hit their 2002 calendar section (this is where old calendars go to die) where I could get 40 calendars to cut up and glue to stuff. Wow. Total decoupage power shall be mine. Load up the
Mod Podge.
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Friday, June 27, 2003
I could complain about the heat, but I suppose you have plenty of people in your life already who are happy to fill that function.
 Pool = Good. If you need me this weekend, I will be in the pool. I've decided to just have a standing pool party every Friday evening, which will be very close to having an actual social life if this heat keeps up. And then the big party will happen later this summer, a pool-based pirate-theme fete entitled BootyFest. Yarrrr! I still be plannin' for that one. I be placin' an order with shindigz fer some plunderin' gear and decor. I'll be servin' margaritas with lime in 'em so nobody gets the scuuurvy. Yarrrr!
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Thursday, June 26, 2003
Totally irrelevant to just about anything, but I find it fascinating: The Octodog. Really, just the phrase 'frankfurter converter' delights me.
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Wednesday, June 25, 2003
The 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference
I am Mr. Laurent Mpeti Kabila, a senior assistant leader of the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone.
I present to you an urgent and confidential request: I request your attendance at The 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference. This is an excellent opportunity to meet your distinguished colleagues, learn new marketing techniques, and spend your hard-earned money. Attending this conference demands the highest trust, security and confidentiality between us.
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I'm currently re-reading Wayne Muller's How, Then, Shall We Live?: Four Simple Questions That Reveal the Beauty and Meaning of Our Lives, and once again I'm finding it very nourishing. This part from the first section, Who Am I, is particularly working for me :
Accepting who we are, who we have become, our lives, our jobs, our friends, our destiny as it has evolved - this is a fruitful practice. Accepting who we are is a practice of non-harming. Sadly, much self-help literature contains seeds of harm: We are urged to remake ourselves into someone who will be spiritually or psychologically acceptable, and that acceptance is conditioned on our performance in the areas of therapy, growth, or meditation. We are still not accepting ourselves unconditionally, just as we are in this moment, with a full and joyful heart.
A more merciful practice begins with acceptance. It begins when the assumption that we were never broken, never defective. By surrendering into a deep acceptance of our own nature - rather than by tearing apart who we are - we actually make more room for genuine, rich, merciful, playful growth and change. If we feel our fundamental strength, creativity and wisdom, then change is not frightening at all. Things simply fall away when they are ready, making room for the rich harvest underneath.
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Tuesday, June 24, 2003
I made a paper flower garland last night, using the Klutz Book of Paper Flowers as a guide. They turned out really nicely; I'm going to teach a workshop on them in a few weeks. Nothing huge, just something fun for the craftier kids at church to do while their parents are hearing the adult sermon (does 'adult sermon' sound like there's nudity?). We try to give them a couple of different options every week during the summer. I don't actually teach Sunday School at St. Ned's (I decided I needed a pseud for my parish, so it's St. Ned's, in honor of Flanders), although we're starting Godly Play in the fall and I'm going to get trained on it and see if it's something I feel called to do. I taught Sunday School at my old church, and I pretty much sucked at it, although the priest in charge of the family program was great and she helped me a lot.
I wasn't a spectacular failure; I mean, nothing caught on fire, no children emerged from the room saying that maybe they wanted to give Satanism a try, I didn't break down and sob in a corner. I just didn't connect with the kids.
I've seen what it looks like when someone has that special gift with kids, and I don't see that in myself. Realistically, though, I need to at least get to a better level of comfort with groups of those who are waist-high and under. There's this horrible myth in the church that, if you're young and especially if you're female, you must enjoy working with children. That's not true so much at St. Ned's, since we believe in finding places where people can work from their giftedness, but we're, well, we're freaks. Chances are, if I do the seminary thing, my first job as a newly-minted clergychick will involve kids. So I've got to try to grow in this area.
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Sunday, June 22, 2003
The body goes OW! OW! OW! I did too much yesterday.
But, my bed looks fabulous and I slept really well in it last night. Yay!
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Saturday, June 21, 2003
Helping a friend move this morning, so no garage sales today. In the afternoon, I'm going to move my fabulous bed into my room. It will be nice to be in a grown-up bed again, after a month in the twin.
I hope my niece gets her copy of the new Harry Potter today (I pre-ordered from overstock.com, after extensive searching for the best deal)...I've been tracking it and it looks like it could make it. Of course, did I order myself a copy at the same time? No I did not. But, then, I do have a lot to do this weekend and staying up all night to finish it would probably be bad for my schedule. I'll treat myself to it in a week or so, I think. I bet it's cheap at Costco.
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Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Moses Comes to Rock, from the people who brought you last week's Jesus of the Week, Jesus Comes to Play. I have to say, I don't understand the hockey stick. I didn't know Moses played hockey. But then, there are big parts of the OT I haven't read, so maybe I just missed that part.
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My diocese has published a new handbook for ordination. It's nice to actually see The Process all laid out neatly, which is more than my old diocese ever did. I always felt like it was some sort of black box diagram, where you put in people and they came out on the other side with collars, or not. There wasn't a lot of transparency to it. This new document is really useful.
And, you know, terrifying.
I'm pleased to see that there is no swimsuit competition.
I really need to find a new spiritual director, and get my spiritual life back on track again and see if Jesus is still interested in me that way. Right now, I don't think I'm in the best position to ask that question.
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Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Summer Squash, the color I painted my shelves and chair, is Way More Yellow than I expected it to be. I put the painted shelves back together last night and they are, um, just very yellow. I'm going to try to live with them for a week, and if I can't handle the yellow, I'm going to put a white glaze on them or something. They're just stupid pine shelves from the garage department at Target, so there is a limit to how good they can look, but still. This is a lot of yellow.
I haven't finished painting the chair yet, and I don't think it gets to stay yellow. I have some sage paint, and I think I'll try that. It will certainly make deciding which fabric to put on the cushion easier, since not much goes with this shade of yellow, as it turns out.
My bed, however, is coming along nicely. Yay!
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Sunday, June 15, 2003
On the surface, the beginning and end of my current story is that Dennis and I didn't work. If I sit and stew on that, though, I'm missing whole layers of what's been wrong with my life this year. I'm sure some people are thinking I should just accept that I was a crappy fiancee and deal with that. Take a Learning Annex course or something. But my theory is that as long as I'm sitting here in this much pain, with my defenses in shambles, I may as well get some solid work done. I'm going to change from all of this no matter what, so I may as well try to grow toward the light instead of away from it.
My spiritual life has sucked. I had the prayer life of a ferret for six months or so before the breakup. I had stopped looking for God, because I wasn't especially interested in the truth when I had so much invested in keeping up my own illusions. I had to turn a blind eye to the depth of Dennis' depression in my desperation to have things still be ok, and I had to avoid looking too closely at the life I was putting together for myself.
I probably would have stopped going to church except, well, I do get a paycheck there. The lousy thing about hanging around at really good churches is that the truth gets to you whether you want it to or not. So here I am. Looking at what I've done, finding a bit of grace, and seeing that I'm at the point where I get to chose transformation or sleep. Trying to make the right decision even though it's hard. It's like Jesus flung a sandal at the back of my head, just to get my attention and said, "babe*, if you're living for me, then we're going THAT WAY, not the way you're going."
* in my head, Jesus often sounds like Dennis Miller. I'm not sure what that means.
How 'bout if we all pretend I went willingly, that I hopped right up and followed? It makes for a better story. I relate more to the story of the man that Jesus had to heal twice (I'll look up the citation later, I promise) in order for him to have his sight fully restored. I feel like I'm part of the way there, but Jesus still has to give me another round of grace before I'll be healed.
The truth is, part of me would be happy to be living that nice dream life I had all planned out with Dennis, even if it meant choosing the other path. We'd be living in our little love-hovel in Oakland right now, about six weeks into our marriage, and he'd have a job and I'd be thumbing through brochures for seminaries, trying to find a party school. That life was never going to happen and there wasn't very much I could do about it, but I still cling to the idea, still feel cheated that it isn't going to be mine.
I'm grieving, and I have to remember that and be kind to myself. Tonight there was a new episode of Futurama and I had to watch it without him and I cried through most of it. Weird things happen that I want to share with him because he's the only person I know who would see why it's funny. The failure of this relationship means I'm very unlikely to ever have a child, and it turns out that I have a lot of grieving to do there, too. The grieving is separate from The Work, though, and I can't get lost in it, not for more than a little while.
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One of the best faith stories I've read: Real Live Preacher, and a piece about weddings I wish I had written. This guy is the real deal, folks. I am laughing my ass off reading his blog, and it's helping to fill in a few empty spots for me, too.
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Forgot to mention, on Friday I visited a new shop in San Jose called Blue Spark, which I found out about via not martha. They sell Sublime Stitching patterns, which saved me postage since I needed a couple more designs. I spent two grand on an embroidery machine a couple of years ago, and now I'm getting into hand embroidery. Yeah, that makes sense. (I do like to poke Jenny @ SS from time to time about getting her stuff digitized so I can make many many tiki towels)
Anyway, the store is at 416 S. Bascom, near a tattoo shop. They also sell hipster clothes and Archie McPhee stuff and shoes with insanely high heels which Leigh would love and which I tend to fall off of.
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Of course, my dad's homemade father's day present isn't even close to being done. Fortunately, he is relaxed about these things, after knowing me for quite some time.
There's nothing like being at a red light in a small green car, singing along with I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore, and suddenly realizing that the windows are down and the people in the car next to you are smirking. Damn you, Forever 80s!!
I'm painting the bed today. So far, I just have a coat of primer and a sunburn. There's some primer on the bed, too, but mostly it seems to be on me. Maybe I should paint primer on my body in interesting patterns, so my skin will be a more festive red and white design. I had a doll in the 70s that did that. Suntan Tuesday Taylor. You put stickers on her and then put her in the sun and her skin would turn dark except where the stickers had been. This was considered fun in the 70s. I bet poor Tuesday looks like hell now, after all that sun damage. But, then, she also had a revolving skull so she could change from blonde to brunette, so maybe that's the least of her problems.
Anyway, note to self for further paint adventures: sunscreen. Ow ow ow ow. I'm going to the late service at church today, and then I am going to pop into the drugstore and get a vat of aloe to stick my torso into. (hmmm...does that mean it's Rite II followed by Rite Aid? Sorry, bad Episcopalian joke. I've been in the sun too much today.)
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Saturday, June 14, 2003
Another day in the garage sale trenches.
Kat and I started off in the bug at 9 a.m., and hit a few sales. I scored a bunch of nifty things from an Everything's A Quarter box. Some unopened body glitter, a monkey head-nodder (monkey! head! nodder!) and some random cassettes for the car (yes, I know normal people's cars have CD players, but I'm still low-tech and besides with a cassette adapter I can listen to my MP3 player and hear This American Life whenever I want to) - 2 editions of Forever 80s: Love Songs, and Kate Bush The Whole Story, which I used to really love. If I don't love it anymore, then hey, I'm out a quarter. And I can put my Forever 80s tape back in and listen to Bonnie Tyler and the Bangles some more. I also found a lampshade for one of the lamps I bought a few weeks ago. If there is a 12-step program for lamps, I think I need to be in it.
Then we got to one of those weird sales where the people have waaaay too high of an opinion of what their stuff is worth, and you just keep looking at it all and going, yeah, right, ten dollars, uh-huh. But Kat is looking for bikes to take to Burning Man, for reasons involving popsicles (I don't have to understand this) and they were selling a bike for a neighbor for $15. This is an amazing girly-girl bike. It's all purple and teal and splattered paint and I believe that Bonnie Tyler and the Bangles were on the radio when it was first purchased, and the person riding it probably used a great deal of hair gel. Anyway, the bike was $15. And I have a bug and there's no way it was going to fit in there.
So, we popped over to Kat's mom's house to borrow her bigass Jeep. One of the nice things about my car is that people want to drive the little lime green bug and will usually trade their big, useful vehicle for it. We retrieved the Miami Vice bike and then moved on to the next sale, which turned out to be at the Museum of American Heritage. Lots of bizarre electronics, some old reel-to-reel tape machines and betamaxes and odd science-y stuff, much of which Kat snapped up for weird Burning Man projects. She also found a rusty bike with a 1952 license plate and a leather seat with the springs showing, which promptly went into the truck.
After that, we eventually got to an incredible estate sale. You know those people who never throw anything away? This is what happens when they die. What a crazy sale. Boxes and boxes of random shit, piles of magazines from when I was three years old, a history of fashion through hats and polyester dresses. For about five dollars I got a lamp (Hi, my name is Sara and I can't stop buying lamps with porcelain flowers on them), and some old necklaces that I'll take apart for the beads, some random sewing notions, a stack of magazines with great 70s illustrations (Family Circle presents: timeless fashions to knit and crochet - yeah, we'll see about that!), a planter and a really silly I Wuv You statuette, ©1967. What is this human emotion you call Wuv?
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Thursday, June 12, 2003
 Ryan has put together a lovely description of the Zombie Cake that Leigh made for Zombiefest last month. I was messing with people at the party and telling them how happy I was that she found a way to reuse the design she had come up with for my wedding cake. I think some of them believed me. But, then, I did win the horror movie trivia contest, so maybe they thought I was really that weird. The fact that I had stick-on googly eyes attached to my cleavage (I said it was in homage to The Hills Have Eyes) may have given them that idea. I really don't know.
I won a They're Coming To Get You, Barbara lunchbox in the trivia contest, and now I keep all of my embroidery stuff in it.
Today, I am enjoying my Dashboard Jesus, a small gift from Dennis last week. I have it on my monitor. I like to push down the spring, and then let it go and yell, ASCENSION!
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Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Or, do normal people get up early on Saturday to go and look at other people's stuff?
One of the difficult things about moving is the sudden realization that one owns no furniture to speak of, and that furniture really does enhance a room and is a good thing to have. So, I've been hitting thrift stores and garage sales a lot lately. This has totally revived some little magpie part of my brain that wants shiny things, so I don't think I'll be sleeping in much on the weekends. I'm not one of the Earlybirds from Hell (the first sale at our recent garage sale happened at 6:15 a.m., basically as soon as the garage door went up to start setting things out for a sale that started at 8) but I do like to get out there early.
Disclaimer, I do own some furniture. I have an Ikea desk, unfinished pine department. So I decided that I should paint it before I set it up at the new place. It now has a thick coat of creamy-white paint and looks faaabulous. Or at least like a painted Ikea desk. That, and a really tacky pine slat shelf thingy, is it for furniture carryover from previous life. I let Dennis keep my bed (futon on platform), as he would not have a bed if I took it and that seemed like a shitty thing to do to someone I care about. the fact that I'm really sick of sleeping on that stupid futon influenced my decision only a little
I am currently sleeping on a twin mattress/box spring on the floor, but I soon will upgrade to a fine queen-size bed. Bed in question is a captain's bed with storage drawers, which Jon and Ryan are getting rid of after getting a gorgeous hand-me-down from his parents. I will be painting it white over the next week, and then moving it to my house. Everything looks better when painted white. It's shabby chic. Or just shabby, at least the way I do it. Anyway, I like white paint.
I recently bought a sewing table at Goodwill (the overpriced Goodwill near work) and then gave it a makeover. I stuck on some carvings I bought from here, and then painted the whole thing white and gave it new hardware. I really like it. I'm beginning to suspect that my sewing machine doesn't actually fit in it, so I can't store it in the cabinet part, but it's still very nifty. I should probably take a picture of it or something.
I'm also in the process of painting a chair I bought for $5 at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago. See, I really need a chair to throw clothes on, and using my desk chair for that purpose isn't working out as I need to sit in it sometimes. So, I bought a cute little side chair and I'm painting it yellow (technically 'summer squash') and I have a nice floral fabric to cover the seat as soon as I can borrow a staple gun. I'm using the same yellow paint on the tacky wooden shelves, which may or may not make them more appealing. I found a nice embroidered linen tea cloth (maybe from the 40s? It's on the smallish side, and is embroidered with yellow and orange flowers in a black basket, and has a nice crocheted edging) that I'm going to put over whichever shelf is least attractive after the paint dries.
I'm excessively thrilled with two white wicker chairs I bought for $3 each last weekend. The wrapping on the legs needs a bit of repair (does anyone know where I can buy a roll of wicker reed? The thin kind for wrapping, not the structural kind?) but that's just cosmetic. They're broken-in and have flaky white paint and are really comfortable, and I see myself sitting out on the deck with a beverage and a book and my comfy chair and being very happy. When I am feeling wealthier, perhaps a nice chair pad from Pier 1 or Cost Plus will be added to this lovely picture.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Things that are making me happy:
- Silly cats movie
- Planning a 5th of July party, complete with cocktail monkeys
- My super-fabulous small group @ church. We meet at my friend's house, and tonight Oscar the goofy dog was chasing his tail in the middle of the living room, while the cat sat on the couch and smacked him every time he got close enough, to chastize him for having so little dignity.
- Listening to Bruce Cockburn in my car
- The new Smoove B on the Onion: If you want toast, I will make it for you and offer you a staggering array of exotic French jams.
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Monday, June 09, 2003
What I'm dealing with lately: Dennis in a state of serious depression. I have to say, I don't know what to do here. As he himself says, he's not especially interested in any help, and thus my attempts to force it on him haven't been at all useful. I spent time with him this weekend, and it was exhausting. He is in a tremendous amount of pain.
Near as I can tell, the public mental health services in Alameda county are crap, and of course he doesn't have insurance, so I'm not sure there's even a medical path available to him. I'd find a way to pay for it if he'd allow such a thing, of course, but without him being willing I'm stuck. I do not know what to do. I have certain pastoral care resources available, but they are all across the bay and surprise, he doesn't want that either. Faith sounds really hollow to him.
Right now, I'm just telling him that I love him, and that I believe that he is a good person with a fine heart and that this will pass. Which probably sounds like blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
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Desert Christ Park: YOU ARE THERE, at the Last Supper. You can pose with the Lord through a convenient window at Desert Christ Park, Yucca Valley, California.
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Sunday, June 08, 2003
Out on DVD: Hell House and The Devil's Playground.
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wtfwjd? stuff
The last time I checked, WTFWJD was available as a license plate in CA, but I don't have the guts to get one for the bug.
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Friday, June 06, 2003
 This was in a bit of spam I got a while ago...apparently, someone thought I might be enchanted by this "Remarkable, and very limited" collectible from the Bradford Exchange. Yes, it is very, very limited.
This is my favorite part of the description:
Beloved "Footprints in the Sand" poem is scripted in golden letters on a Florentine Crystal*
*Florentine Crystal is a special combination of sparkling clear resins.
The same guy who inspired the grand cathedrals of the world inspired this. I have a weird relationship with Jesus schlock. On the one hand, I find it sort of touching, at least when it's sincere (as opposed to the Jesus BobbleHead, which is just silly and fun) which is why I love my fibre-optic Last Supper. I like most bad interpretations of the Last Supper, actually. I just don't want anyone to think that Christianity is all about Pwecious Moments figurines, Touched by an Angel, Thomas Kinkade tea cozies, Left Behind, those horrid perma-forwarded emails about brave little kids and their dogs, and Chick tracts about how everyone is going to Hell. A lot of people are out there speaking for the faith - my faith - and doing it in a voice that doesn't resonate with me at all.
Voices which do resonate:
Rowan Williams
Anne Lamott
Barbara Brown Taylor
Henri Nouwen
Nora Gallagher
Kathleen Norris
Molly Wolf
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this site, but I've missed blogging since I stopped writing on going bridal. However, I think it's a pretty good bet that this one will be about The Jeez about as much as the going bridal blog was about the wedding. I'm probably going to say Fuck a lot.
Hey, check out my space vixens!
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