youreinmygoodgraces

The Last Time it was like Old Times

2012-01-14T23:29:00.007-05:00

This series is acrylic on 5 different canvases. Most of them came to me used and incomplete and I repurposed them. Enjoy!

Sunflower and Bee

2011-12-17T13:33:00.002-05:00

I took pictures of sunflowers that I grew this summer and discovered while I was photographing them that they were covered in insects--this one had bees buzzing around and others had ants everywhere. I spent part of my week off painting this one. It's 2' x 3' acrylic on canvas.

Ecotoons

2011-11-13T16:25:00.007-05:00

So I've been doing cartoons of ecological disasters that have happened or are continuing to happen around the places I've lived. When you live in poor areas, people are inclined to use the land, air, and water to make a quick buck and create a few jobs for one generation, but these decisions are usually costly. They create a debt that can't be paid back. It's like check cashing businesses--you get hooked by fast money, but then you're in the hole for good. I thought it would be appropriate to paint them on cardboard boxes. Click on them to see them much bigger!

Need Cash Fast?: Appalachian Deforestation

100% Approval: Dupont C-8 Spill

Payday Advance: Mountaintop Removal

Cash Loan: Bayer Cropscience Explosion

Emergency Cash: AEP Cheshire Water Supply Contamination

Georgia O'Keeffe

2011-07-25T00:20:00.004-04:00

In tribute to Georgia, young and old. And also so my charcoal skills don't get so rusty.

Here they are side by side. I'm not sure why I like them that way, but I do.

You work on comission, right?

2011-06-18T14:47:00.002-04:00

So my mother in law is paying me (apparently) to do this painting that I finished last night. It's for my father in law, Chris, who took the photo that it's largely based on. Chris frequently goes to Hawaii to help his parents and he photographed this flower in their yard. The painting is for his birthday in October.

Paintings for the kids

2011-05-24T14:33:00.003-04:00

Here are the 2 latest installments of painting for nieces and nephews.
Abbey requested "A butterfly! That's pink! And green!" Which doesn't exist, but I improvised...
Liddy asked for "The Universe!" and wanted it to glow in the dark. The universe is a little expansive (get it? Ha ha. Sigh.), so I went with part of the solar system.

Winter Leaf

2011-03-27T17:02:00.002-04:00

That's it. That's the end of the series. I took the photo on a walk with my friend last winter. It's a maple leaf with ice frozen onto parts of it. Some of the brighter spots on the leaf are metallic paint glare--It doesn't necessarily have that much glare face to face.

Knots!

2011-02-17T20:40:00.006-05:00

About a month ago I re-learned how to draw knots. Here are the ones I've done at my house (there are a few others that I did during various staff meetings that I'm not going to dig out of my work stuff).

Click on them to see them bigger.

They appear in the order in which I drew them.

This last one is for my friend, Bill, who LOVES dragons.
My favorites are the ferret biting it's own tail and the vine.

Birds!

2011-01-17T17:01:00.004-05:00

I've been working with pastels lately. I love it. They're great for things like feathers and fur. These are a couple of birds from national geographic.

Black Eyed Pea-king

2010-12-15T21:31:00.003-05:00

This is a black eyed pea peeking out of it's pod. It's from my garden over the summer. When you open one of these pods while it's still green and lush, before it dries, the spot on the pea is deep crimson and purple, and the pod is speckled and technicolor. The painting is 18" x 24". Click on it to see it larger.

A new cartoon! (An Unholy Last Supper)

2010-12-04T16:59:00.003-05:00

This is "An Unholy Last Supper." I painted it for the farm down the street on some salvaged wood that they sanded for me. Click on it to see the image larger.
My favorite characters are the turkey and the pig.

Some long awaited cartoons

2010-09-11T00:14:00.004-04:00

So, this first one is older. Like a year or two old. The text is a pretty famous international workers of the wold slogan, "Workers of the World Unite! All you have to lose are your chains!" Maybe you can tell--if the flash hasn't washed it out too badly, that the lobster has freed himself from the thick blue rubber bands that had once restrained him. This is painted on the surface of an end table. It's about 1' x 2'.

Click on this one to see it larger. The text of this is:
Whale: Pie. I made a pie.
Stick bug: What kind?
Whale: Vegetable.
Stick bug: I don't eat meat either.

This is painted on remnants of an old dresser, and is hanging up in my friend's apartment at White's Mill.

Thelma Sanders

2010-05-25T21:15:00.002-04:00

That's the name of this kind of squash. I painted this for my sister in law's breakfast nook. I believe it is "homey."

Wild Grape Vine and Ice

2010-03-08T20:52:00.002-05:00

I painted this (18"x24") from a photo I took a the West State Street park. The bottom photo is more true to the colors in the painting. The snowy background was especially fun to paint. Enjoy!

Collard Greens

2010-02-13T02:23:00.002-05:00

I drew this bunch of greens over the last couple of weeks. Soon I will trade them for actual delicious food.

A taste of things to come...

2010-01-14T21:22:00.004-05:00

Meet Terrence, star of the children's book Anne and I writing. The working title is the Dino-Rama.
That's his mom holding the tea cup. We made all the furniture and set by hand. It's one of the best projects I've worked on.

Fall

2010-01-03T22:16:00.003-05:00

This is FALL--currently on display in the front office of the Timothy House. I took the photo there and the flash washed out the center, but you get the idea.

The Shepherds

2009-12-17T00:29:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas.

Ben and I threw our third annual holiday blow-out for our friends who don't usually get invited to things like Christmas parties. I have to say, this is becoming my favorite Christmas event.

It started out as I described--a special kind of dinner for our friends who don't get invited to things much. Last year we invited a few more people and had a Christmas cookie decorating party as well. This year was better, though. Our friends who came who were former residents of the Timothy House, or members of the house church we're a part of in Carpenter Hall didn't feel like "special guests" who we needed to "reach out" and throw a party for. They're just our friends. And they're wonderful people. And they spent time and played games and music with all of our other friends.

I think everyone's enjoyment was...mutual...except maybe our 4 year-old friend, who partied the hardest and then puked green Christmas frosting everywhere. Way to get into the spirit of things, kid.

Millstone--the real part 4

2009-11-20T21:26:00.002-05:00

OK. This is part 4 of a possible 66 part series. As you may have guessed, it's a man with a millstone tied around his neck being thrown into the deepest part of the sea. I would have posted a photo of it earlier, but it was up at Arts/West for a while. I only just got it back today.

Part 4

2009-09-05T00:53:00.002-04:00

...or maybe it's part 5 of a 66 part series. At any rate, this is my great aunt Clara. She illustrates, to me, Titus 2. She's been a good example to me. Not a gossip, not overindulging. Teaching me to love people, to be kind, and faithful. Thank you Clara. Thank you God.

Part 3

2009-07-10T21:07:00.002-04:00

Of a possible 66 part series. This is the prophet Jeremiah feeling like the word of the Lord is a fire inside his bones. When I showed it to guys at the Timothy House, two of them said, in unison, "That would make a great back tattoo!" I took it as a compliment. He is yelling on their behalf, after all.

Hygiene

2009-06-18T00:08:00.001-04:00

So...I was brushing my teeth just now and accidentally smacked my hand really hard into my toothbrush while it was still in my mouth. The toothbrush, in turn, smashed my lip into my tooth. What I'm saying is, I just gave myself a bloody lip brushing my teeth.

Full contact hygiene.

Happy Anniversaries!

2009-06-10T00:32:00.002-04:00

So I celebrated two great anniversaries last week. The first was my four year mark with Good Works. I like my job and I love the people that I work with. It's an opportunity and a privilege, and I feel that way even on crappy days, so I count myself the fortunate one in this scenario.

Then, over the weekend, Ben and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. Ben got us a cabin at Dillon State Park for the weekend and we slept in and went swimming and hiking. We cooked great food. It was awesome. First marriages have a way of tanking right out of the gate among the young people in my family, and staying together, working things out when we have conflicts, and generally being happy at the five year mark is something to be proud of. I'm proud of us.

Finally, my parents hit their 40th anniversary on Christmas Eve, but are just celebrating it now. They are currently on an Alaskan cruise. I'm so happy for them and I know they'll have a great time because they're so easy to please and there's so much to see.

This might sound weird, but I think the reason they've made it so long is that they had low expectations from life and marriage. I think, even though they've worked hard for it, that they've taken the good things in their lives as pleasant surprises.

For your viewing pleasure

2009-05-19T22:11:00.003-04:00

This is #2 out of a series of 4 seasons. This is SPRING. I'm pleased with how it turned out. The pictures aren't great, but they'll work for now.

Nerd Love

2009-05-08T22:42:00.004-04:00

Ben and I are about to celebrate our 5th anniversary. When we were falling in love six and a half years ago, we made several discoveries that sealed the deal, so to speak. They were mutual loves of the following things:

1. Red wine
2. Spicy food
3. Left-wing (dare I say socialist?) political leanings
4. The Impressionists--not Monet, but the rest--innovative geniuses
5. STAR TREK

All of the above were a shocking delight to uncover about another student at our uber-conservative, fundamentalist Bible College, but #5? That bumped him up to marriage material.

You know, there are a few levels of Trekie nerddom...Lovers of this particular fantasy world range from the totally obsessed Klingon language learners who own full convention style wordrobes and can't tell reality from their favorite episodes, to people who take in an ocasional movie and watch original episodes when they're a little baked out. But Ben and I discovered in one another an equal match of nerdiness.

We had a very memorable discussion one day to feel this out. Our answers to most of the big questions were the same:
Kirk or Picard? (Picard)
Original or TNG? (TNG)
Seen all the movies? (Yes)
Seen all the episodes? (Yes)
Own all the movies and episodes? (No, but I would like to one day buy them used)
Read any of the books? (Yes--nervous laughter as we know the answer to the next question is a deal breaker)
How many? (Three, but I never bought any or anything like that)

Wow. We were even. We had each dipped our toes in the world of TV based sci-fi fantasy novels and decided we didn't want to swim in that sea. Tied--just to the weird side of socially acceptable.

The first time we hung out alone together we drank Merlot and watched two episodes of The Next Generation. I would still maintain that that evening is the quintessential picture of our relationship.

And can I tell you that the best man's toast at our wedding was the toast at Troi and Riker's wedding? He memorized the whole thing--it was our favorite wedding present.

All this to say, I had the best time seeing the new Star Trek movie with my husband tonight...

but I don't speak Klingon.

Beas and ant bait

2009-04-27T00:42:00.002-04:00

When I told Ben that Bea Arthur had died, he immediately gave a most concerned look to the gerbil cage and back at me, anticipating a melt-down from his wife at the death of her pet. He was visibly relieved when I told him that, in fact, Bea Arthur the PERSON had died, not Bea Arthur the GERBIL.

For the record, my favorite episode of the Golden Girls is the one where Dorothy auditions for Jeopardy and totally excels at guessing the clues, but is not invited to appear on TV because she's cocky and the Jeopardy people don't believe anyone would root for her.

I don't know if guys realize it or not, but every group of women my age, at some point in high school, college, and/or their first few jobs, have assigned themselves and their friends Golden Girl characters. I think it probably goes without saying that I was always and unanimously elected Dorothy for the group...leading in part to my great affection for the woman and the legend, Bea Arthur. RIP Bea.

On an unrelated note, I think I got a little bit of ant poison in my mouth while I was unpacking groceries tonight. My stomach hurts, but I think I'll make it.

Facts of Life

2009-04-09T22:41:00.004-04:00

Ben and Amanda and I had our friend Donna over for super terrific pizza night and a movie of Donna's choosing--Donna picked a hit! Christopher Reeves in "Somewhere in Time." This also happens to be my mom's favorite movie. Everything was cool until Anne called me from the Timothy House to tell me that one of our most steady residents came home high.

I'm so sad. It makes me want to pray and cry and lift weights and paint all at the same time.

So, I'm going to lift weights and pray and listen to music. When I'm done with that, I'm going to figure out how to draw Jeremiah feeling like the word of the Lord was fire in his bones. It will be Bible illustration #3, if I can figure out how to draw it. Initial sketches are going well.

Until that's done, please enjoy this poor quality photo of a mare and a colt standing in a field (probably in Middle Earth, like Gondor) that I painted for my neice...

...YES, Napoleon Dynamite helped.

A Visit With Keith (aka: Why I will never go to seminary)

2009-03-23T23:28:00.003-04:00

Keith is away at Asbury Seminary this spring, visiting as a guest practitioner. He's sitting in on various classes and contributing as invited. As far as I can tell, he loves it. Those of us who can manage to get away are invited to come visit him there for 4 days--kind of a staff development event. I was really excited when my turn came last week because, well, I love it when work isn't work.

I remembered, as we were driving down, that I hated college. I thought it was the homework that I hated, or trudging through group projects that were of no consequence with people who put in little effort...you know, the things that drive you crazy about high school. I think, after going back to school for 3 days, that I was wrong. I like to write. I love to read about things I love. I like team work, even when not everyone cares.

I'm pretty sure I hate trying to learn in a classroom. I mean, florescent lights! Seriously. And sitting at a desk at 9:30 in the morning! This environment gives me contempt for learning, and I hate it, especially on sunny days, but that's not what made me crawl out of my skin.

It was the atmosphere. The idea. It was the same as my college--where people who want to go into full time ministry are all herded together into one place for a few years to learn as much good theology as they can learn from people who really only talk about theology all day long. The institution says, "Come here and learn the keys to ministry." They recruit people who sincerely believe that they are learning what they need to know to help people from lectures. So the students come to believe that the key to being great in the kingdom of God is all this knowledge that they have. You can tell, because doling out the parcels of this magic knowledge to their congregants in the local church when they think it's appropriate is the topic of most of their conversations. "How do we do that? What methods should we use?"

Seminary (or in my case, Bible college) produces its own particular kind of arrogance and distraction. I think students sincerely think that to be good at being a Christian is to excel in acquiring knowledge, because that's the kind of disciple our institutions are making--pastors who are good at filling their heads, but not so great at using their hearts or hands. Christ tells the poor that they're blessed, the salt of the earth, and that they should let their light shine like a city on a hill.

I think we should let the janitors give the lectures and let the profs mop the floors. Switching things up would be good for everyone. Profs and students alike could learn that to be first in the kingdom is to be last, and could think very actively about taking on the nature of a servant.

Until that happens, I'm not too interested in seminary. I'm too good at feeling smart and arguing my point already--I don't need any help getting better at it. I think seminary would be bad for my soul. I would rather be a waitress at a truck stop and soak up the wisdom and humility that sad, poor people who lean on Christ for everything have to share. I think I would learn more that way.

Headache

2009-03-06T19:29:00.002-05:00

I just ate a grilled cheese sandwich and a salad. I had one beer to go with my meal and I totally fell asleep on the couch watching the Simpsons Movie. I woke up with a headache and my arm covered in drool. I just can't party like I used to.

Speaking of which, for Lent I'm not cursing. I did this last year, too, but it didn't stick. I'm hoping cleaning up my mouth this year takes on a little more of a permanent role in who I am and what I'm like. I've screwed up more so far in the past week than I did all last year put together, but my effort is for the long haul...I want to be a person who uses words to bless God, not to curse everything and then try to figure out how to pray with the same mouth.

On a not-so-related topic, my friend Anne and I are writing a children's book and building a diorama and characters out of clay for the illustrations. We'll photograph it and then write the text into the digital pictures. I'm a little obsessed with it, and seeing Coraline in 3D is only throwing fuel on the fire. Anyway, the book is about dinosaurs, and our working title is "The Dyn-O-Rama." It's pure genius, and because Anne is working on it with me, it probably won't even be creepy.

Jacob's Ladder

2009-02-05T00:39:00.005-05:00

"He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it..."

Jacob's vision in Genesis 28 goes on from there. I'm tired of precious moments illustrated Bibles. I'm illustrating the parts of the Bible that speak to me. I think the visual arts are an overlooked kind of worship, and that the gospel is too often presented in shrink wrapped nuggets of crap and pop culture.

When Solomon built the temple--a dwelling place for the Lord on earth, he called on skilled artisans to decorate it with their trade to the glory of God. There's no expiration date on that commission. If we're hopeful that the kingdom of God would come on earth as it is in Heaven, let's bring it with all of our skills, not just singing and talking.

Click on the image to see these way bigger.

It's really pretty here...

2009-01-29T00:21:00.001-05:00

...and slippery. (Photo of our yard by Ben Horsch)

Most things were closed in Athens today. Like, for example, Ohio University.
Some things were open, though, and stuffed with people. Like, for example, the Good Works Timothy House and China Panda.

Hard hearted

2009-01-15T00:23:00.002-05:00

I'm finding that it's really difficult to care about things.

That is, I do care about things, and caring about things makes life harder. A lot of my life has been lost to sarcasm and not giving a damn about people around me or the events going on in my world. It must have been about eight years ago that I asked God to take away the terrible apathy that I felt. I think that's been happening for a few years now, but it feels like it's all catching up with me this week.

I don't exactly regret praying against apathy, but...compassion hurts! Life is better with compassion, but it is also harder in a lot of ways. I find myself thinking a lot about things I didn't commit much time to before. I feel like I'm describing an android getting a soul...here are some things I'm chewing on tonight:

We're taking some disciplinary actions with a woman living at the Timothy House right now. She's being awful to the other women she lives with, picking on them, and generally insulting every aspect of their lives. Obviously, this is not OK and we have a responsibility to protect these other women from abuse. But I keep thinking about the woman we're disciplining. Like many people we meet, she doesn't have custody of her kids. She's disconnected from her family. All of her relationships are broken. She is full of bitterness and jealousy because of her fractured personal life, so she's taking it out on people who have meaningful relationships.

I also feel a lot of pressure about the WALK for the Homeless. It's really, really important to me to produce content that helps walkers understand the significance of solidarity--of voluntarily suffering with people. I want them to feel empathy for their homeless neighbors in a new way, and I don't want the experiences we create to fall flat.

Finally, I'm feeling really emotional about our friend Robert's death. I feel a lot of emotions about his passing, and many of them are in conflict and making it hard for me to work through them in my mind. I miss him. He filled a role in my life that no one else is filling--he was a person with whom I could be honest about embarrassing things. His physical vulnerability invited me to be vulnerable as well. He also had high expectations of me--in the way that parents or teachers do, and his expectations helped me to become a better person. He was also my friend, and maybe my husband's best friend. At times over the past couple of years when we were hungry for companionship, we had Robert. We were faithful to him, and that is good, but he was faithful to us, too. He didn't have to take an interest in us, or buy us steaks, or pick me wildflowers if all he wanted were rides to church or the store. But he didn't want rides; he wanted a friend and we needed one, too. So he wasnt' our pet project. He became family. His life is so devalued when people who knew him a little want to only talk about all the things we did for him. It's not like that. Robert expanded my definition of "friend" and "family." He was a person from whom I learned gentleness and patience. We opened our hearts and our family to him and I feel a loss.

This post is getting long and I need to go to bed. I'm having trouble articulating a lot of my thoughts. I think what I'm getting at is...opening my heart to people is new territory for me. Not totally new, or anything. I'm not discovering America. It's more like negotiating the Louisiana Purchase. Caring is hard, but really good.

My Friend

2009-01-06T00:11:00.002-05:00

Some people wear their goodness on their faces and in their words for anyone and everyone to share. Other people are in pain and hide their goodness. They ration it out from deep inside. Maybe they don't have much to go around, so they keep it back just for a special few. But if we can be patient with the hard people, sometimes we are so blessed as to see their kindness. May we receive their smile, their blessing, their prayers, and may we be blessed indeed.

Thank God for the saints who are walking around among us who are willing to be faithful to the pricks and the bastards, because they hold the keys to our salvation. These friends are truly Christ-like in their love.

My husband is a faithful man.

Our friend Dr. Janet brought Robert Dorn to the Vineyard for the first time about three years ago. He was terminally ill and more than a little spaced out. His comments were pretty clearly intended to scare us off. He wanted to make it clear to us that he was an asshole and we wouldn't like him...but we did. I think what I liked about him most in those first few months was his gruffness; society paints a picture for you of how you should die--all peaceful and grateful for the time you've had. Robert wasn't like that. He was pissed that he was sick, angry at his body, cursing, and threatening with every turn for the worse to blow his brains out. He was a prick, but he was honest and he was entertaining. Ben and I took to him immediately, and he took to Ben.

I don't think it's an exageration to say that after about six months or so, Robert became Ben's best friend in Athens and Ben Robert's. They spent every Sunday after church together. Ben would take Robert home and Robert would talk for hours about anything and everything, and Ben would listen. I gave up on the idea of Sunday lunch with Ben. Sundays were for Robert.

Ben made an investment in him and Robert made an investment in Ben. Robert's heart began to change. He started talking to the frail women at church. He hobbled over to them and really listened to them. If he found out they had a problem or a need, he was insistent with us--what we were going to do for them? He started really listening to us, too. When Ben got stressed out about school, Robert asked me if he was OK and encouraged him. When our friend wanted to buy chickens, Robert taught him how to raise them. When I got a chest cold that didn't go away, Robert put his hand on my shoulder and prayed for me.

Somewhere along the way his words turned from poison to kindness, and we knew they were sincere, because he didn't know any other way to be.

Robert died in his own bed in his trailer some time Thursday night or Friday morning. Over the past few years he had become a member of our family and I miss him.

Robert's life causes me to consider God's faithfulness and love. Because God has been faithful to us, and because we hold his love in our hearts, sometimes we can see the potential in others. Loving communities give us the courage to love ugly people. God is so gracious in reaching out to us. I've had the great joy of seeing Him use my husband's faithfulness to turn the stoney heart of the hardest of men toward the gentleness of Christ.

I was blessed to witness this transformation. I am grateful to be married to a person who sees the best in people. I am glad to worship a God who so loves us.

Disdain

2008-12-30T22:05:00.002-05:00

My husband has pure disdain for this video and (maybe even more so) for my deep, deep love of it. He thinks that I'm only pretending to like it to bother him, but that's just not true. After all, I'm the one with a gerbil named Bea Arthur.

A Date.

2008-12-17T23:57:00.002-05:00

I'm pretty sure I went on a date with my husband tonight. He left me a voicemail asking me out while I was in the shower this morning, then made super sure I wanted to go when I got home from work.

We went out to eat at China Buffet. We bought 2009 calendars at Staples. We bought parts to fix our cable at Radio Shack. We watched SpiderMan 3 with our housemate.

I know what you're thinking...you're thinking, "Wow! It sounds like they've been married for four and a half years." But the truth is, this is pretty much like most of our first dates.

I love it.

Thanxgiving

2008-11-30T17:23:00.005-05:00

We're kind of having 3 Thanksgivings this year. Two down. One to go.

The first was steaks with Horshes at our house. Ben's mom and dad and younger brother Josh drove out for the first few days of last week. Hanging out with them was good, but involved eating a lot of red meat that I don't really like and later threw up. But between eating the meat and throwing it up we played two rousing games of Jenga and watched A Mighty Wind. It was great!

Thursday we drove up to Zanesville for Thanksgiving with my mom & dad, brothers, sisters in law, three neices and one nephew. Normally mom is really tense during holidays at her house, but for the past few years Ben and I have brought a lieter of White Zinfandel, or "Holiday Cheer," as I've taken to calling it. Things have loosened up. We at too much food all day and then played Win Loose or Draw--the 1980-something edition of the board game based on the TV show. The girls won 25 to 20. I had to draw such classic subjects as "bootleg whiskey," "Arsenic and Old Lace," "The Jungle Book," and "Michale's Navy."

I'm most excited about tomorrow's Thanksgiving, though. We're having a few people over from church who don't have a lot of money or family and throwing them a Thanksgiving party. My friend Anne is bringing a chicken and some pies and rolls. Ben is making his mashed potatoes, and I'm doing dressing and sides--including a super sausage dressing and a vegetarian option.

It will be great.

Let's try this again.

2008-11-21T00:39:00.002-05:00

Most of the time, you can click on these images, and it opens a window with a giant, close up version of it. That didn't happen with my apocalyptic battle locust in the last post, so I'm trying to post it agian. This is my favorite part.

What can I say?

2008-10-28T00:25:00.002-04:00

It's "A Really Real Looking Bunny."
In fulfillment of my Christmas gift to my niece, Sandra of "a painting of anything you want."
...I love that kid.

Homecoming

2008-10-14T00:03:00.004-04:00

I went back to my home church Saturday. I was invited to speak in both morning services about "how North Terrace short term mission trips changed my life."

My general philosophy of living is becoming more and more divergent from this church, and there's a lot of bitching I could do about materialism, america worship, and country-clubish-ness that I'm going to put aside to tell you this:

God used North Terrace to teach me what it means to make disciples. Sunday was the yearly missions rally and it was a great reminder of everything that the church is doing right. Multiple generations of people who have grown up at North Terrace and gone into full time ministry were represented. It was beautiful. My friend Michael preached and my friend Jessie was there representing a Christian school. Michael and I especially could easily point to mission committee members or missionaries present who had intentionally given us opportunities to feel out what we thought God was calling us to vocationally. Our church has an overall philosophy of "you think you could do this? Let's talk about it and then find a way for you to try it!"

I only spoke for about 4 minutes in each service about my experiences and what I'm up to now, but still, over a dozen people came up to me later just to tell me that they were proud of me. It didn't even feel a little patronizing and the more I think about it, the more I realize it's because the church made an investment in me and my friends. They're proud of what I'm doing and they own it because any ministry I have is fruit of the ministry they had with me first.

I also got to see my brother coach his son in a 7th grade football game. Drew looks like a half size version of Lee and acts like it, too. It's good to see my brother turn out to be a good dad.

On Sunday, I picked peppers out of my parent's garden with my brother Charlie and his daughters. They're beautiful and he looks at them in a way he doesn't look at anyone else.

It was good to be home.

Eye Sore

2008-10-05T22:45:00.003-04:00

Um...literally.

It hurt like crazy when I took my left contact out last Thursday. As the night wore on, it hurt more and more. My eye was irritated and pink, and felt scratchy. So I rinsed it with saline. And rinsed it. And rinsed it. It didn't do anything, so I looked at my eye closely, shining a flashlight into it and found a little white dent on my iris. I said a white dent on my iris! It's the weirdest thing I've ever had happen to my body. I went to the optometrist the next day, and he said I had a sterile ulcer--as in, my immune system was trying to kill germs on my eye. I guess this happens to some people when they sleep in their contacts. But I know not to sleep in my contacts, so after being reassured that I wasn't going blind, I tried to figure out what the hell happened.

And then I remembered...

The bugs. I usually wear some kind of protective eye wear on bicycle, but I skipped it one day a couple of weeks ago to take a long bike ride at dusk. I couldn't believe how dense the bugs were on the southern part of the bike path. I got so many in my mouth...and my eyes...so many, in fact, that when I woke up the next day, I found one still in my eye.

So I guess the lesson is, try not to kill bugs with your eyes?

Oh, also, our computer crashed the same day I found the dent in my eye ball. This week has been much, much better.

I make the weather

2008-09-12T09:45:00.001-04:00

If it rains as much as the weather says it's going to rain over the next few days I'm going to FREAK OUT.

Summer

2008-08-27T23:25:00.003-04:00

I think the Summer has been going well. I've taken a few long bike rides and it feels good. I've enjoyed the drought despite my brown, dead yard. I've enjoyed work even though we've been so full that we're turning someone away almost every day. I enjoyed the beautiful orchestra of carnage that is the Athens County Fair Demolition Derby, and I caught Olympic Fever.

So, the painting below is my tribute to summer. It's more luminous in person and I'm sorry that doesn't come across in the digital photo, but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless. Expect Fall, Winter, and Spring to follow.

Good Night

2008-07-29T00:17:00.002-04:00

Very good night.

Got off work today and took my raft out with Anne. We paddled all over Strouds Run. It was so beautiful. We go to see the sunset from the raft on the lake. Just great.
We also saw two creatures that we thought for a moment could be cats. Then we decided they were aquatic mammals. I just looked them up, and they're river otters. We saw otters! and we were like ten feet from them!

Then, I went to the Hannah House and hung out with Dr. George Pickins. He was a prof at my college and my adviser for 2 and a half years. He is leading a work group at Good Works this week. It was so good to catch up. I think he's doing well and all and I told him that life here was good, too. But he's a mentor of mine more than a friend, so really, it was just good to feel like he was proud of me. And even better to hear him say things to that effect. I've been feeling kind of discouraged lately, so it was good to hear someone I trust tell me that I'm on the right track.

Also I ate chocolate chip cookies for dinner.

Yep. It was a good night.

Congratulations

2008-07-16T18:41:00.001-04:00

To my friend Julie the med student, who just passed the Boards.
Damn straight Julie.

Big Round Steamy Disapointment.

2008-07-15T23:25:00.003-04:00

Do you have a favorite meal? A meal you find so delicious that, given the opportunity, you would eat it once a day every day for years without ceasing?

I do.

A Donatos Mariachi Chicken Pizza.

You can imagine my excitement when I found out months ago that Donatos was moving to Athens. I waited with baited breath until the grand opening today. I drove straight there when I got off work, but the place was totally packed. No spaces in the lot. People parked in places that weren't spaces. Line stretching out the door. I called the number on the letter board thing twice before I left the parking lot and another two times on the way home. Busy.

I gave up. I settled for a Hungry Howie's substitute. I got a medium with chicken, olives, and jalapeños. When I got it home, I discovered that the chicken was cut up chicken finger. It sucked, but I had kind of a crappy day at work and I was feeling really sorry for myself, so I ate half of it alone in the basement.

Yup, feeling really pathetic right now.

These Dreams

2008-07-08T00:34:00.004-04:00

I don't often sleep very well, and the good streak of deep sleeps that I had going for about 3 years ended around a year ago.

Sometimes my sleep is bad because I have nightmares. Other times it is bad for no other reason than I've always been a bad sleeper. Last night was more bad sleep, but it was, at least, interesting sleep.

I wasn't sure at first, but now I'm certain that I had several dreams in which a beach-ball-sized chick pea puppet was talking to me...a lot. It wasn't scary or anything, just really vivid.
And that is why I have never, and will likely never need to do illegal drugs.

Day off

2008-07-01T12:24:00.002-04:00

Mmmm...I just slept until noon.

Also, this past weekend, Ben and I drove to Virginia to meet our new niece, Josie. She is snuggly like a kitten.

End of an Era

2008-06-24T23:28:00.002-04:00

Man. Jenny moved out on Saturday. The house feels super weird. She lived with us for almost 2 years, and it worked out better than I think any of us had hoped it would. But...she got a grown up job and her own apartment a few miles away.

The experience of having a friend live with us was great, and we're looking forward to our friend Amanda moving in to the rooms Jen had rented over the next couple of weeks.

In other news, Ben turned 28 today. I made him a pizza with so many toppings that I think it weighed around 8 pounds. He bought himself a snow plow blade for our Cub Cadet riding mower. We watched the movie Eagle vs. Shark. It was great.

We also went to my family reunion on Saturday in the holler, but that's a post just on its own. It was funny and sad and heart warming. More on that later.

Legit.

2008-06-18T21:59:00.003-04:00

So, I heard of 2 occurrences over the past few weeks that I think totally qualify as minor miracles. The first is that a woman I work with had a heart attack in her home, by herself. She was too weak to lift her hand and call 911. She was pretty certain she was going to die when she fell asleep (or passed out) that night. She woke up the next day and went to her doctor who confirmed that she'd had a heart attack. He scheduled an EKG & stress test. She went the next day to a church prayer meeting, where her youth group prayed for her. She goes for the EKG, and it perfectly matches EKGs before the heart attack. There was no damage to her heart whatsoever. Awesome.

The next is, my friends are having a baby. They've been trying to have a kid for years and have used fertility meds to help them conceive. But they totally conceived a kid while they were not taking any such meds. Stellar.

In unrelated news, The Happening is one of the all time worst movies I've ever seen. I'm happy to explain in person why you should not spend money seeing this movie.

Sunday, SUNDAY, Sunday!

2008-06-02T23:09:00.003-04:00

Yesterday marked one solid week of my husband's failed attempts to contact our beloved, aged, terminally ill friend, Robert. He did not answer the phone, make his doctor's appointments, or come to the door when Ben pounded on it for 7 days. Feeling distressed, with images of Robert fallen down, bruised and bleeding, passed out, or deceased inside his trailer, Ben called the sheriff. He went through the details of why we were so antsy, and the sheriff's office agreed to check things out and call Ben back...but no call came. Around 10pm, I encouraged Ben to call the sheriff's office back. They told him in not-so-nice terms that they were not sending out a deputy, as they had done so many other times and Robert, who is pretty much a gun-toting nut, had threatened them.

We paced around the house for a few minutes, and decided to drop by the sheriff's office and talk in person. The deputy who we met was much more pleasant face to face. We talked for probably 20 minutes and persuaded him (since he wouldn't give us permission to break into Robert's house) to send a couple of other deputies out with us to check things out. We had to wait to meet the deputies in the AEP parking lot off of Rt. 682, by the railroad tracks so they could follow us out to his house.

That's where I had one of the weirdest, is-this-for-real style moments of my life.

While we were waiting at midnight in the Electric company's parking lot for the sheriff's deputies to take us out to our friend's house to make sure he wasn't dead, I watched a train approach the crossing right next to us at full speed. At first, I didn't think the crossing bars and lights were going to activate, but then they did, right at the last second. The conductor was caught off guard, I think, and "slammed on the breaks" of the train right in front of the intersection. Right at that second, an ambulance pulled up, lights flashing, to the far side of the crossing and had to wait for the train to go by. At the same time, some guy on a bicycle, smoking a cigarette, pedaled up to the crossing right in front of us. He pulled up beside this crappy white car and started giving the passenger directions somewhere. All this while a train is screeching, trying to slow down. And then, as quickly as it formed, the scene dissolved.

The deputies arrived a few minutes later and followed us to our friend's house. A TV was on in his trailer that hadn't been on earlier, and they had Ben pound and pound on the door. I pounded on the side of building, too. Eventually, we hear rustling near the room with the TV glow. Robert managed to hobble, shirtless and disoriented, to the front door. I thanked the deputies and sent them on their way. Ben talked with Robert and discovered that his phone was broken. We're pretty sure that Robert was unconscious for a lot of the past week, but he's the kind of stubborn SOB who doesn't accept things like ambulance rides, so we promised to help him sort out his phone problem and went home to bed.

Family in law

2008-05-29T21:57:00.003-04:00

The inlaws visited this weekend from Maryland. It was good. My mother-in-law is writing a children's book about how she got her cat, Simon (ridiculous, I know). We had schemes of sitting down and doing some pen & water color illustrations on Sunday afternoon, but it didn't happen...because I was puking. Jenny had just been through the plague the day before, so I knew it was coming, but that doesn't make it any more fun. I barfed so hard my nose bled. I deserve a medal.

The next day we went to my mom & dad's to eat grilled meats and check out their pictures of the grand canyon. The grilling was good, but the digital photos of Arizona all looked the same. And they took each picture 5 times. Then, they took it 5 more times, because they went with my mom's 4 brothers and sisters and everyone needed a shot of everyone else. So there were lots of pictures of the bleak desert, then a picture of each couple in front of each not-so-different desert landscape. And my mom and her siblings all look alike, so it really looks like the same person wearing different clothes in front of a brown blob. There were over 200 pictures. It was a marathon.

Any way, the in-laws are back in MD. I think I'm still going to draw some cat cartoons. It should be fun. Corney, but fun.

Faithfulness

2008-05-19T00:49:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking a lot this weekend about keeping commitments to people you love, and caring for people when it's painful. We sang this song together this morning, and it reminded me of why followers of Christ will always follow him into sad places, but carry hope with them while they do.

You are the God of the broken
The friend of the weak
You wash the feet of the weary
Embrace the ones in need
And I want to be like You Jesus
To have this heart in me
You are the God of the humble
You are the humble King

Neighborhood

2008-05-11T23:36:00.005-04:00

I did this drawing of our neighbor Robert this week. Robert does interesting things like grow habanero peppers, fire guns, and tell stories about hookers. Robert is also frequently shockingly sincere. The guy lives in the middle of dueling hells of chronic pain and severe mental illness, but still has the perspective to be grateful about so much. I like Robert.

Bad day, eh?

2008-04-30T00:07:00.003-04:00

I felt crappy when I got up yesterday, so I called in sick, as I had felt crappy all weekend and needed an extra day of rest. Turned out to be a pretty good day. I took naps. I took pseudophed. I watched TV. I washed clothes and dishes. Good day.

Today started off way better--I felt better when I woke up, and gladly went to work, where my coworkers are dropping like flies. Anne was clearly sicker than me, but because she has a sense of obligation, came to work anyway, and by afternoon, another one of our coworkers had gone home sick. Before I left work, the lady who's kid spread her cold germs to everyone in the house asked me why everyone was edgy. I not too graciously explained that it's hard not to be when everyone has the cold that her kid passed around. (This was far from my proudest moment and I think I owe her an apology.)

Got home, at tacos, hugged Ben. The day is getting better.

Went out with friends to see the movie: Constantine's Sword. This film was excellent. I highly recommend it for 1. any Christian who feels remorseful about the history of the violence of the church, 2. any Christian who is down with just war, or 3. any non-Christian who is pissed about killing in the name of God. It was just great. I would be happy to offer all of my thoughts, but they're mostly super sad, and I have more to report on.

We were recovering from the terrible sins of the Church we love by eating eating ice cream at Coldstone when my dear, good, alcoholic friend called me drunk, asking for a ride home. I'm more than happy to let many people suffer consequences for their actions, but we were moved to give my friend a ride, so we did. I can't express how sad it is to see friends at their worst and most pathetic.

So we dropped off my friend, came home, told sick, tired Anne that she should sleep on our couch, and thought about settling in for the night, when I found a wet spot on our carpet. No leak from above...and it's really, really wet...I tried sopping it up with a towel, but the wetness was coming up from the poured slab floor, though the padding and carpet. Crap. The sump pump. Yesterday, I discovered that the sump pump had not been running, maybe all day, and had, in fact, filled to brim and begun overflowing just slightly into Jenny's office/guest room. The plug had been loose, and when I plugged it back in, it seemed to work normally. Today, I reached my hand in to see if the little floaty switch was working, and got shocked. Not super badly, but my hand was tingly for a while. The switch was not working right. I finally got it to switch on and drain the well, but it doesn't switch off any more, which means that it could easily overheat, kick off, and leave the downstairs to get even more soggy.

In short, we need to replace our sump pump in the morning if we don't want our downstairs carpet to get all ruined. Also? I think I might be staying up most of the night to plug in the sump pump and run it from time to time. I'm really, really, really hoping that the steady stream will slow to a drip and I will be able to just sleep and sleep and sleep. Yes. Sleep.

And then a brand new day which would surely be better, right?

Responsibility

2008-04-27T12:41:00.004-04:00

I have this dilemma going on inside myself. I've been praying for a long time about a couple of areas of my life in which I think I might have some giftings, but haven't explored their use in the kingdom of God much. Specifically, these areas are painting and public speaking (sometimes taking the form of preaching or teaching or leading).

So far in life, I would call these hobbies, interests, or pursuits that are not central to who I am. In the past year, though, I find them being pushed right into the center of my field of vision. To tell you the truth, I am nervous as hell about this. I'm nervous about the idea of things that I do for fun becoming regular obligations. I don't want the accountability that comes with saying, "Yes, these are things I do for God."

I'm not too interested in censoring my art or my speech, or, for that matter, in developing a consciousness about either. I love speaking my mind, and what I can't say, I love to put on a canvass or draw out all over paper. I love having that to myself. I'm feeling pretty possessive about it all, but I'm trying to hard to turn these things over. To start giving with them instead of just taking satisfaction from them.

But I don't like responsibility. I don't really care much for making commitments. I'm getting what I've been praying for, and I'm being reassured by reassuring people, but it's stressing me out. I've been asking, "God, what am I supposed to do with this?" and God, of course has been saying, "Use it!"

My aversion to anything that feels like an obligation is sucking some of the joy out of these pursuits. I think maybe the next step is to start praying for maturity to gladly follow the leading of the Spirit.

Yeah. I'll bet that's it.

I wouldn't exactly say that I love flowers...

2008-04-20T14:47:00.003-04:00

but I can appreciate beauty, and I do love to paint. I did this painting this week. It's 20'x24'. We're shipping it to Ben's grandparents in Hawaii as a "thank for flying us out to visit you" gift. Hopefully it will inspire them to fly us out again and again and again. It's an orchid that I photographed at the botanical gardens. Like I said--the photos are much more interesting to me than the actual plant.

Eclectic

2008-04-13T00:37:00.003-04:00

These, in order, are the main events of my day:
Brewed coffee
Drank said coffee until the very last second before I...
Played inter mural soccer
Showered in a rush
Wore a skirt to...
The wedding of my co-workers, Ken and Sherilyn
Saw the groom's mother pray in tongues during the wedding (a wedding first for me)
Came home
Ate pizza
Wrote out the message that I'm giving at church tomorrow
Napped
Went out to Strouds Run to smoke cigars with friends
Blogged.
Good day.

Magritte (aka, "This is not a Beer)

2008-04-08T00:39:00.004-04:00

I barter. I did this painting in exchange for hard cider that my friend brewed. Soooooo gooooood. The picture of beer as his head is in honor of the Belgian Surrealist, Magritte. You're familiar with his work, even if you don't recognize his name. I promise.

What delicacies do you possess that you would prefer to exchange for oh-so-classy paintings? Jackson Pollock used to buy groceries with his paintings.

Back Home

2008-04-01T23:51:00.004-04:00

Yup. I decided that although Hawaii is beautiful and contains family, fresh fish, and is surrounded by the sea, I want to keep living in Athens. My friends are here. My church is here. My life is here. This might sound crazy, but I missed work while I was away. More specifically, I missed the people that I meet at work. I missed the character. Vacations are insulating. They're an escape from reality. I don't think I like that. I like reality. I like real people. I want them in my life, and I don't think I like the idea of escaping from this poor place on purpose. So, I want to move my job and all of my poor friends to Hawaii. I am open to suggestions for how to make this work.

I also decided that this place--Secret Beach--is the most beautiful place I've ever been.

I took this week off of work, too. I am 2 days into this second vacation and I know already that it will not be long enough. I have a long list of things to paint and write. So far, I can only cross off one thing--an underwater fish painting for my 12 year-old nephew. We haven't unpacked our camera yet, or I would be posting a photo. Sorry. Anyway, it's not especially good, but it is especially fun, which I think is what 12 year-olds care about.

Tomorrow I'm spending a lot of my day in the prayer cabin at Good Works. I like the cabin. I think I'll need to build a fire. It's only supposed to be 54.

Gardening.

2008-03-27T15:51:00.002-04:00

I really, really love studying the details of remarkable flowers. For example, Ben's grandpa grows birds of paradise in his garden. These are amazing and colorful. I like looking at them because the details make me contemplate concepts like God knowing the number of hairs on our heads. Also, I like to think about how I would paint various flowers. This is because I love God and I love painting. I also like to hear people who really, really love flowers talk about why they really, really love them. I think this is because I like to hear people talk about what they love.

I do not love flowers. I do not love shrubs or other plants. I love enormous trees--the ones big enough to really climb, or the kind that five people need to hold hands around to encompass them. I like the concept of nature and I love to observe the big picture. I love the forest, enormous stones, and the sea.

I say this to tell you that Ben waisted $20 taking me to the botanical gardens yesterday. I would have been interested in many of the flowers there if someone had lined them all up in a row, but because we had to walk a mile and a half to see just a few varieties, I was too bored to notice any of them. The only flowers I saw were the ones Ben pointed out. I don't mean to sound ungrateful or unappreciative. I tried as hard as I could to force myself to get interested in all the plants, but I failed.

My favorite parts of the botanical gardens were the trolly ride there and back, and the volcanic rocks. My least favorite parts were the mosquito bites and the plants.

So, now we have lots of photos of flowers, which are infinitely more interesting to me that the real flower bushes, and lots of photos of me standing with my arms crossed, bored out of my mind.

Poor Ben. I hope I didn't ruin his day.

Directions

2008-03-26T15:11:00.003-04:00

Hawaii is great. I can't, right now, remember the reasons we don't just live here. There is family, and jobs of all sorts. Wait. It's coming back to me now. Something about a calling to work with poor people. Oh yeah.

There have been 2 major hilights from our trip so far. The first is Ben's awesome grandpa. We had an hour and a half long conversation about mental illnesses and deamon posession the other night. It got late and he had to go to bed. Instead of saying, "Well, that's enough of that," he said, "to be continued..." Geez. Bob loves to talk about politics, religion, and money. Loves it. I'm game. And I do mean talk, not argue. It's great.

The second hilight was our hike on Monday. 2 years ago we cruised by the hanging valleys--the awesome shore line at the begining of Jurasic Park. Monday, we took a 6 or 7 mile hike out onto the top of one. The view was so amazing, and the sides of the trail were sheer in some places.

The biggest downer of the trip has been the really very crapy head cold that I have. It was at its worst during our 7 mile hike and made my head throb for the second (uphill) half.

I got a voicemail from Jen saying she's stranded in Athens with no knowledge of how to use our DVD player with the TV. Jen, here are direction. Everyone else, stop reading now. It's mind numbing.

1. Turn on the TV, DVD player, and stereo receiver.

2. Insert DVD.

3. Look at the rown of buttons on the stereo. One of them says "video 3." Push that button.

4. Get the old TV remote--the big gray one, not the colorful Direct TV remote.

5. To the right of the up/down chanel buttons is a small, round input/av button. If you can't find this button on the remote, you can also use the button on the front of the TV by the power & volume buttons that looks like a button you would never, ever need to push. Both buttons do the same thing. Hit this button until you get to a screen that says "a/v 2."

6. You should now be able to see & hear your DVD.

7. If you CAN'T hear it or see it, try hitting "video 2" on the stereo.

8. If you can HEAR IT BUT NOT SEE IT, hit that input/av button on the remote until the right screen comes up.

9. TO WATCH TV AGAIN, turn off the stereo and DVD player and hit the input/av button until you come to the screen called "s-video." This in the Direct TV screen, and you can now switch back to the normal, colorful, familiar remote.

I realize this is complicated, but wow! it really sounds like you're in the movie!

Kauai

2008-03-21T02:10:00.002-04:00

In about 26 hours, Ben and I are driving to Port Columbus and flying here:

This is Kauai. It's one of the the northernmost islands that make up Hawaii. Ben's grandparents live there. They're flying us out so we can spend some time with them over Ben's spring break.

I must say, I'm pretty excited.

Mapled!

2008-03-17T19:26:00.003-04:00

Uh huh.

So, my brother Charlie is a lumberjack mountain man of a construction worker. He has a lot of maple trees in his yard, and has tapped them all this year. Last night he gave me about 3 gallons of sap, which I'm boiling down right now so I can have home-made maple syrup. I tried Charlie's last night and it was awesome.

Waffles for dinner. Soon. You're invited.

Oh yes...

Tiny bears.

2008-03-13T00:39:00.003-04:00

So, I know this is inane, and maybe a waste of words, but I love miniature things. I love them so much that I keep these two gerbils as miniature pets. They stand on their teeny tiny back legs a lot, and when they do, they look like little kangaroos, or sometimes tiny circus bears.

Just wanted to let you know what's on my mind right now.

Also, sometimes, for days at a time, I get songs stuck in my head. Pop songs. Except they're sung by a cat chorus, like the Meow Mix theme.

Yup. Pretty deep.

Billy Jean

2008-03-09T21:35:00.003-04:00

Sometimes, every great once in a while, I have a day where I feel like Michael Jackson in the Billy Jean video--like every step I take lights up. Half of today was like that.

At church this morning, I got to play airplane with a little kid for like 20 minutes. It was amazing. This kid frequently screams through all of church, so discovering that she loved airplane was a small miracle.

Tonight, my volunteers were stranded in Columbus, so I had to work their shift. This shift was great. I ate pizza. I hung out with people I don't get to talk to often, and my pastor had this open time of discussion about faith with anyone who wanted to come. 3 former residents came--it was great. I though they had just come by to see if they had mail, but they stayed for an hour long conversation about who the Holy Spirit is. Unreal. This shows that all the energy and love we've been pouring into these folks is sinking in. And these are people we've been tough on, too. We let them know when they're slacking off or being foolish, and they still come around. I'm so glad.

The not so lights on the floor part of my day was staying up 'til 3 am, taking a super crappy nap, and waking up from it with a sinus headache, but that was easily overcome by medicine and coffee. I also had a former resident tell me I was mean for being hard on him. That was a bummer, but I can understand his perspective.

Yeah, lights on the floor.

Voting

2008-03-04T16:43:00.002-05:00

I'm not voting today. I don't know who to vote for and I'm exceptionally discouraged by political talk that doesn't ever add up to anything. I couldn't work out in my conscience how I should decide which candidate's fake promises to endorse. I feel like voting is a big deal, especially if you live in Ohio. I don't take it lightly and I'm not blowing it off. I'm deliberately abstaining from practicing my right to vote today, just like I'm deliberately abstaining from my right to bear arms. I think it would be dangerous to do so, and I'm not willing to pick up ballot or a gun in the hopes of producing change today. I'm not sure if or when my feelings on the matter will change.

I am glad so many people are voting today. I'm glad people are feeling good about it and, in this most economically depressed part of the state, taking action that they believe will lead to a better life. Good for them.

Feel free to descend upon me with anger and fits of rage--I can hack it.

In the mean time, read this article about Southeast Ohio in the Chicago Tribune.

Like no sleep...

2008-02-25T16:19:00.003-05:00

I'm going on like no sleep. For a few months, I've had problems falling asleep, then problems staying asleep, and also problems waking up too early and not being able to fall back to sleep. That pretty much adds up to no sleep.

Today I came in to work 2 hours late because I did not sleep during the night and could not get up in the morning. I couldn't make my brain work, so I dozed for an extra 2 hours, during which I also did not really sleep.

This sucks.

I had the worst insomnia my whole life. It got better for a while after I got married, but it sucks again now.

The Dump

2008-02-19T00:38:00.002-05:00

This morning was my first trip to the Athens/Hocking Reclamation Center.

On Saturday afternoon, Ben helped a friend of ours who lives way out in the sticks pull scrap metal and tires out of the muck in his yard. I wasn't there, but I hear it was quite an ordeal. Ben put our truck in 4 wheel drive and tried to get out of the yard, but ended up burying the suspension up to the axles and sliding sideways so that our truck was resting against our friend's house. By the time our friend's sister hauled our truck out of the mud with her gargantuan diesel one million horse power truck, the dump was closed. When I saw that the load was not very large, my first thought was, "Oh, we should just throw that into the woods behind out house," but the eco-friendly part of me overpowered the trashy part and I didn't suggest it out loud.

So I drove our truck full of half a tractor tire, the back half of a TV, a spare tire, long strips of jagged, rusty metal, shards of glass, and a tattered seat from a small car to the dump this morning. Jenny came along, as I am currently her ride to work and class. I confessed my blue collar desire to start a dump of my own in our woods. She laughed.

Let me say, I grew up next to a junk yard. As in, I could see the junk yard from my bedroom window. My dad is a mechanic and we took regular trips there together in our galoshes, work pants, and flannel shirts. I am perfectly at home in a smoky trailer that serves as an office. I used all my junk yard skills this morning.

The dump was like the worst parts of the junk yard times 1000. Even with a small load, they have you drive straight back about a mile, right up to the edge of the pit that used to be a hill. There were two enormous bulldozers pushing piles of garbage into the pit, and one normal sized bulldozer trying hard to keep the 5 t0 10 inches of mud from becoming the kind of disaster that swallows men whole. I couldn't believe the size of the pit. It looked like someone had ripped a hole out of a huge hill, and was slowly but surely filling it in. Amazing. When I pulled up, the only instruction I got was from the man in the closest giant bulldozer. From my truck, I gestured to ask if I was in his way, but he just pointed at a small pile of trash (maybe 10 by 10 by 30 foot), as in, drop your crap here.

So I backed up to it and heaved my garbage onto the pile. Jenny was full of horror at wonder at the whole mess. I felt at home. I'm not sure what the dump is reclaiming. I know eventually, my garbage will be covered in a few dozen feet of soil, and grass will be planted on it. Eventually, people will forget it was a dump, and they will build houses and plant trees there. Garbage is different when you think of it terms of what you want your grandkids to build their house on, or what you want the hills on the countryside to be made of.

The Tragically Cloistered Homeschooler's Guild of Athens

2008-02-14T16:59:00.003-05:00

Last night I was supposed to speak about poverty at an event that a servant-hood-based Christian student group had planned and promoted. Chapters of this groups exist at many different schools, and I've had excellent experiences with one or two others, so I was glad to do it. The student I spoke with on the phone said they were planning for 100 people, and that the dress was "business casual." He said he may wear a suit. From his voice and plans to over-dress for the occasion, I thought perhaps he was a go-getter business major and that I was maybe a rung or two below the quality of speaker he was expecting. It especially made me nervous when he asked me if I required payment for coming. I wondered what I had gotten myself into with this very professional young man.

The answer, as it turns out, was a club of people who had been severely sheltered from life by their hard-core home-schooling parents, who now had found one another away at college. These kids struggled to converse with each other and with me, and I could have a conversation with a tree stump if you told me it was lonely. I realized immediately that our conversation had not been formal, just awkward.

When half an hour went by and no one had arrived for the event, I asked how they promoted it. He said, "Oh, we facebooked the international students. Word of mouth, mostly." He pointed across the room at a woman of ambiguous age wearing a black dress, "She put up flyers." I later talked to the girl in the black dress. She said she didn't really like being around people her own age, and missed "all the little kids and grown-ups."

It was sad.

There was one diamond in the rough, though. An Indian student named Bobby, who I talked with for a good 15 minutes. It was great and he was great, so I'm glad I went. But, it did leave me wondering how on earth you help a person who is now an adult learn to compensate for only ever having conversations with parent and aunts and uncles growing up.

The Holler

2008-02-08T00:55:00.000-05:00

This is Salt Gum Holler, as recreated by Google Earth. This is the land my great, great grandfather Simon settled when he immigrated to Ohio from Germany. His son John built the house that my grandfather, father, and brother lived in at different points in their life. My aunt and uncle live in it now. My dad's aunt and her brood live in the branch of the holler that leads off to the right--they are the rebellious drunken side of the family. My aunt's (the one who lives in the homestead) inlaws live down the left fork. My dad's brother lives at the bottom of the picture, across the street from his cousin. My cousin lives in one of the trailers at the top left, and his aunt and cousin live in the other trailer.

The fields just above the fork in the road are fields my family farmed and plowed for generations and generations, only ceasing in the last few decades. My great grandfather built the barn on the homestead with logs he pulled from the Muskingum River during the great flood in the 1920s. Down the hill there is a machine shop where my grandfather kept an ancient lathe, as well as a root cellar, and a shack that has housed a nanny goat for I don't know how many years.

This is where I spent my summers growing up. My parents worked, but my aunts and grandparents didn't, and I would spend all day with them on the front porch swing of the homestead, looking down into the valley out over the beautiful countryside and going for walks.

This piece of land and the people who live on it are an awfully big part of who I am. They are the reason I love country music and listen to it when I'm alone. They teach me what faithfulness and loyalty mean. They remind me to treat poor people well, and to take care of people you care about. This place is everything that holds us back, and everything that comforts and defines us. This has been home for 200 years.

Characters

2008-02-04T23:50:00.000-05:00

My life is full of characters. And by "character," I mean, interesting, wily, one-of-a-kind people who stick in your mind.

Our newest resident is one such character. I met her when I was 19. I was visiting Good Works in the spring of my sophomore year of college and spent an evening hanging out at the Timothy House. I was pretty wide-eyed and felt a lot like a tourist. I ate dinner with Mindy (not her real name), who I learned was an alcoholic. She seemed really nice and put me at ease. When it was time for me to go back to the Hannah House (where interns stay) that night, Jessi, the staff member who was driving me gave Mindy a ride to work on the way. I remember being really surprised that Mindy had a job and also being full of wonderment at riding in a car with a homeless woman. I thought something like, I'll bet my life will never be the same after this! Wide-eyed, like I said.

The next time I saw Mindy, she had dug her way out of the cycle of alcoholism....

and fallen straight into the cycle of domestic violence. 2 and 1/2 years ago, she showed up at the shelter escorted by a short man with no fingers on his right hand, mean, clear blue eyes, and white stubble on his face. They were looking to get some kind of reference letter from us. He spoke in clipped words and only gestured with his lesser hand; every bit of his communication was an attempt to intimidate. I was working with my friend, Rosenna, and we both knew immediately that he was a wife-beater. They did not get what they were looking for.

Neither of us was surprised when Mindy called for shelter a year later. She was still sober and was on the run from the short man with the missing fingers. She did OK at the shelter, but left to return to her abuser.

Now, she's running from him again. During our meeting with her today, she said something about guns and alcohol not mixing well. We all agreed, and were cautious, but happy to move her back in, but most people who are the victim of such problems move in with a few of their own. Mindy has already accused everyone in the house of stealing a pouch of tobacco from her things, as well as a cigarette roller. She's asked the staff to rip the house apart looking for it. We said no, so now she's trying to start fights with her 2 roommates. I wished my night shift guy good luck refereeing the cat fight.

Welcome back Mindy. Sincerely.

In Dreams

2008-01-29T23:23:00.000-05:00

Do you have a cough due to cold? Yes Forest. I called in sick today and slept until 1:30pm. I'm feeling better now.

Last night, Kevin called me and my squeegee into the Timothy House for an emergency. The creepy, dungeon-like basement was flooding. Part of the old part of the basement wall was leaky and the sump pump in that room, as I discovered upon arrival, was not working properly. It just churned and churned the well of murky black water, but didn't suck anything up. Hmmm...must be clogged, I thought. So, I crouched down and dug into the water past my elbow and this is what I pulled out:

2 disposable pudding serving cups
2 rotted rolls of electrical tape
1 rotted roll of duct tape
3 shards of plastic
1 straw
1 spray bottle cap

Did you know that electrical tape rots? me neither. While the excavation was satisfying, it didn't unclog the sump pump, which overflowed numerous times today while I was out sick. It had to be replaced.

While I was sleeping, I had two opposing dreams. In the first dream, I discovered that my gerbils (named Bea Arthur and Gena Davis in real life) were not both female, and had reproduced the most adorable, tiny baby gerbils. I was so happy and played with them for hours.

Then, the gerbil dream ended abruptly, and I found myself in a nightmare in which I had been abducted by a serial killer. I was being held hostage, tied up to a chair in his creepy apartment. In my dream, the apartment was Lindsey McDonald's house, but not really (not relevant if you don't know Lindsey). Anyway, the killer went to find a scalpel to torture me, but I managed to get out of the ropes that were tying me down. I silently crept over to a book shelf and found a big, heavy Greek Lexicon and hid behind a doorway waiting for him. When he came around the corner, I jacked him in the face with it and then beat him unconscious and escaped.

Yeah, I have really vivid, intense dreams. Always in color. Always weird.

Don't worry.

2008-01-26T21:52:00.000-05:00

Sorry if I alarmed anyone with my exhaust leak. Ben is super duper responsible, and we got the leak fixed the day after I posted about it. My throbbing headaches cleared up immediately.

Last weekend, my "girls from college" weekend was great. We got things off our chests during this awesome, spontaneous time of confession and prayer. I realize that's not everyone's idea of a good time--screw it. It's healthy and therapeutic and pleasing to God and we loved it. Living with those girls was one of best times of my life, and it is excellent to be reminded why. Part of our time involved a State of the Union style report. I was glad to be able to say that I've been happier this year than I think I've ever been. My marriage is out of the honey moon phase, work has been intense, and everything costs more money than we usually have, but I feel good. I feel good about life with Ben. I feel good about painting. I feel good about work. There have been things to grieve over in past year, but I think I've been able to do that and experience closure and move on. Yes. Life is good.

Major Events

2008-01-18T09:33:00.000-05:00

2 of the events I look forward to most all year are going down tomorrow. The Walk for the Homeless is in the morning and my awesome girls-i-went-to-college with reunion tour is happening in Indiana. I could hardly sleep last night, I'm so excited.

I hate being awake early, but tomorrow, I'll jump out of bed at 6am to make it to work in plenty of time to get ready for the "Kid's Walk" that's going straight through the Timothy House. I love the Walk. I love it because it's such and encouraging show of solidarity. It makes me want to become a Steinbeck style union organizer, or some kind of powerful writer. We don't get a whole lot of "thank yous" at the Timothy House, and I feel like this is our community saying "thanks."

Then, immediately after the Walk, I'm driving up to Indy to hang out with these terrific friends from college. They are all teachers or in ministry, too, and I feel at home there. We'll catch up and eat each other's great cooking, they will inevitably drag me shopping, and I will attempt to put the kibosh on their plans for a "makeover night," and we'll encourage each other and pray. I can't wait.

Fumes & Propaganda

2008-01-13T23:56:00.000-05:00

My dad & husband installed a tub surround in our downstairs shower on Saturday morning. This shower had previously just had drywall and wall paper in the shower--a bad idea, I know. So, as you can immagine, there were some issues witht the drywall, namely that the joint compound all the way around where the tub joins the wall was cracked and falling off. So, my husband the science teacher and my father the mechanic decided to replace the cracked plaster with quick drying BONDO. Bondo, if you're not familiar, is the stronger than steel, toxic putty type substance that is used to patch the body of cars. At any rate, the bondo filled the whole house with raucous fumes. Although we opened all of the windows for hours in the cold that afternoon, some of the fumes are still lingering and ruining my lung capacity. I feel sluggish and not so bright. Oh, and did I mention that we've been driving around in a car with an exhaust leak? Apparently, in my toxic haze I left Jenny a rambling, nonsensical voicemail telling her the fumes were cleared out and it was OK to come home. I think maybe I was wrong, as the message made perfect sense to me as I was leaving it.

While dad & Ben were Bondo-ing the shower, I was in the Kroger mezanine (read cart coral) with an intern, Hank, promoting the Walk for the Homeless. Hank and I both enjoy talking, so I would say this went well. I am that person you know to whom complete strangers feel compelled to share their entire life story, and some of krogering townspeople who stopped to talk did so. I continue to be entertained by this phenomenon. I'm also going to KCU on Tuesday and Wednesday to represent Good Works and recruit interns at the missions fair. I hope this goes well. If you have youth group kids or know people who go to KCU, please tell them to come by and see me...I think I know one student who's still there.

Thinking

2008-01-11T01:02:00.001-05:00

I've been staying up kind of late recently, thinking about a lot of things. This pastel is about a friend of mine and the things that hold him down. These things are primarily addiction and location. When I say addiction, I mean he's hooked on a little bit too much of everything. When I say location, I mean he was born here and he's too poor and ignorant to move away, or to ever desire to do so. Plus, this is home. The pastel isn't quite done yet, but it illustrates what I'm thinking about better than my words likely can.

My friends and my theology are the topics of my thoughts. I have an awful lot to say on the subject, but I think I'll keep the majority of it for some kind of essay or short book. The short of it is, well...

I used to think that the world is the way it's supposed to be for now, and heaven, or "The Kingdom Of God," (which really means the reign of God--like, his dominion and the working out of his will) would be like taking the earth and turning the whole thing inside out and upside down. And the inside out way would be the way "heaven" was supposed to be. I used to think that there was some kind of eye-for-an-eye justice going down on earth, and that things were, for the most part, quite ordered and proper. I thought bad things that happened were aberrations; small moth holes in a fabric that was otherwise intact. I thought those holes were "evil," or maybe "sin."

During that time, I was sometimes depressed and lonely, I certainly didn't treat people around me very nicely, I was a Young Republican, and I sincerely believed that Jesus was, too. I was in the middle class, and all of my friends were, too.

Jump ahead and I've had a couple of epiphanies. The first was that I wasn't the center of the universe. The second was that God is not cool with me treating people like shit. And the third was that, rather than treating people like shit, it would be way cooler with God to treat them well on purpose, especially people who no one else wanted to treat well.

Move ahead a couple more years, and I'm feeling great about working at a homeless shelter. This is some reaching down to the poor. Like, full time balls to the wall charity-is-my-job kind of reaching out. I was at a staff meeting and my boss suggests to everyone that there's something out there much better than charity. He suggests that we should give our social lives over to God, and that if we did so, God would probably give us poor and lonely people to hang out with. I was not OK with this suggestion and let God know it. I think I told him something like, "I need down time. I need my friends to be like me so I can blow off steam with them. If you want me to spend my free time with poor and crazy people, too, then you're going to have to make me feel differently about it."

God said something back like, "OK." And through events and people he's erased my previous notions of what it meant to be cool and have cool friends. It felt like the day you looked around and realized that neon pink,teal were not it any more, and that they had been replaced with flannel and Kurt Cobain t-shirts.

So my husband and I have been hanging out with people, like my friend with the mullet, who are broken and lonely, and cool as hell. The more I hang out with these guys, the more I realize that world is upside down now. Things aren't at all the way they should be. The whole thing is the mess. The fabric is bad--it's a heavy curtain and it's the moth holes that are good, and let us see through the curtain to God.

Being upside down friends with my broke neighbors opened my eyes to what was actually happening around me. People who aren't poor look at my poor friends like animals at a zoo, or like ET just waddled off the space ship. Almost all of my poor friends have cell phones. I used to think it was because their priorities were messed up, then I realized it was easier to get a cell phone than it was to get necessities like food stamps, or health care, or a steady place to live. Lots of my poor friends have cable. I used to think that was bad prioritizing, too. Then I realized that tensions run so high in relationships between people who are right on the edge that TV is a welcome distraction, but poor substitute for working things out.

Things are upside down. In the kingdom of God, you get what you need, not the shady substitute. With Jesus, you get healing, not the bandaid. You get the new family, not cable. You get food instead of distracting toys. I wish things were that way now. I think that's what it means to pray, "your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven..."

Maybe I'm rambling because rain makes me sad and I feel like I have to get things off my chest. Maybe it's because I watched the movie Sicko last night and was so bummed that I couldn't think straight. I don't know.

Waiting

2008-01-08T08:26:00.000-05:00

I got up at the ungodly hour of 7am today so I could shower and be ready to wait for the TV repairman, who was to arrive at our home between the hours of 8am and 5pm. The Sears TV guy, Mark, actually woke me up. "I'm not sure where you live. I have down here Athens, KY." Hmmm...I'm still waiting. I hope he finds out house before I have to leave for work.

In the mean time, the American Electric Power guys are cutting trees down and chipping them into dust in our neighbors' yard. These beautiful, 20 year-old pines provided a lot of blockage between our lot and the road. I miss them already. In my mind, I march over to the AEP guys and have an imaginary argument with them. I ask them who they think they are, and why they can't just trim the trees. I ask them what they're going to do with all the wood, and why they have to cut it up, when they're clearly cutting down lots of pines and poplars the same size to make electric poles. Then, in my head, they look at me with sad, tired eyes and apologize. They tell me the don't hate trees, but they need the money. They tell me they use all the materials for things like mulch, and they apologize more. They tell me this is the best job they could find, and I know it to be true and feel like an ass for being the 50th person to bitch at them this week without even saying hello, and in my head, I feel badly about the interaction. So, I keep it in my head.

Skype

2008-01-05T21:57:00.000-05:00

Have you heard of this? Skype? My inlaws got us this magic, Logitech webcam for Christmas. As it turns out, this little ditty is pretty great. We have a subscription to Sype, an online communications tool that allows free phone calls via computer to other people with the service, as well as free VIDEO PHONE conversations. We just got off the phone with Ben's grandparents in Hawaii. This is the technology we were promised as children. Next step? Teleporter.

So, I was working out today with dumbbells and did a lift that I do probably 3 times a week, and my neck and shoulder went crazy. The whole muscle group is tight, but it doesn't hurt so badly that I'm crying anymore. My shoulder problems stem from a youth group water skiing trip. It was, like, 10th grade and I was in an inner tube behind Dr. Allen's boat, The Fellowship Hull 2, when I went over a wake and felt a rather intense snap under my right scapula. I'm pretty sure I broke a rib, and certainly tore up some connective tissue. Any way, I couldn't take a deep breath for over a week, but didn't go see a doctor, either, for fear of my mother. So now, a couple of times a year, I move just so and am in intense, stabbing pain for about a day. I'm treating my injury with red wine, Tension Tamer Tea, and motrin. Oh, and human growth hormone, of course.

SOB Turkey & Poisonface

2007-12-31T15:17:00.000-05:00

I realize this post is super long, but if you read it, I promise it won't disappoint.
The makings of one GREAT day:

Saturday was one for the books. I'm super allergic to mother nature & for 3 or 4 out of the last 6 winters, I have gotten some manner of poison ivy or other, unspecified contact dermatitis ON MY FACE. You can imagine my dismay when, during a staff meeting on Friday, my face began to itch. I felt around, and had itchy bumps on my left cheek and temple. Shit. I excused myself from the meeting, dug around in the meds cabinet and work, and slathered my face with cortisone. The itching was briefly satiated, but the angry red bumps spread. By Saturday, they were on my eyelid and jaw as well. Not one to panic, I persisted with home remedies of oatmeal, benadryl, cortisone, and caladryl, toughing it out until I could get in to see the doctor and get some steroids today. On Saturday, though, while my face was inflamed, itching and raw...

You see, every year a kind member of the community gives a 20 pound turkey to each of my coworkers and myself. Most of us 20 somethings have never cooked a whole bird before, and have done things like not so accidentally forgotten to pick it up, or given it to our moms for the family dinner. Well, this year I thought I was doing my friends a favor and picked their turkeys up for them. I had them in my trunk and made my 2 friends take theirs out before they left work, because I didn't want turkey thawing all over my car. One of my coworkers went home and crammed the obligation into her tiny fridge to cook when she feels like it. The other forgot his in the trunk of his car. You can imagine his disappointment the next day when we informed him that he must now cook his turkey, and that re-freezing it would be a small disaster.

"Hey," I said, "You can borrow my roasting pan. Or, for that matter, you could come over and cook the turkey at my house so you're not alone in your apartment cooking and eating a bird for hours and hours all alone."
"OK," he said, "that sounds good."
And we made an event of it. 2 other friends came over, and Jenny and Ben were here, too. The bird wasn't quite totally thawed, so the meat handlers did their best and we got the beast into the oven. We seasoned it well with lots of aromatics, herbs, and garlic injected into the meat. Everyone broke and went about their afternoons engaging in solo activities. I opened the Timothy House and waited and waited and waited for my volunteer, who I eventually had to call at home, to arrive.

I got home a little late at 6:30pm and our friends arrived shortly thereafter. Ben took the internal temperature of the bird, and found it to be a tepid 120 degrees. Hmmm... 60 degrees to go. So I made some dip, we talked and played games and I enlisted Jenny, who has prepared multiple birds to check into things, assuming that, since the temperature had risen 100 degrees in 3 hours, it had surely risen another 60 degrees in the last hour and a half. Jenny takes the temp...still not close. Jenny flips the bird over and takes the temp from the other side. It is now 8pm.

"Oh, this is quite raw," she says with big, distressed eyes. "If we want to eat before 11pm, we're going to have to cut it up and cook it some other way."
Everyone frowns. I suggest eating all the side dishes and just letting the turkey cook all night. Ben points to OUR obligation, now thawed and resting in our sink. "But we have to cook ours, too. It won't keep now, and we said we would bring it to church."
By this point, the owner of the raw obligation has joined us in the kitchen. "I'm fine with throwing it away. I was told this was the 'easiest thing I would do today.' I'm fine with throwing it away."
Jenny's eyes grow bigger and more distressed. The oven door rests open, and she is still holding the roasting pan handles with oven mits, contemplating the albatross. "I can't throw away 20 pound of meat. That doesn't happen in my world." Everyone murmurs agreement and I find the sharpest knife we have.

The struggle was epic. As she hacked into the carcass, I brainstormed ways to cook the bird. We settled on braising some on the stove top in BBQ sauce, George Foreman Grilling some, and letting the rest finish baking. After half an hour of hacking and another half hour of cooking, we had meat to eat. We stood around staring at each other, but finally someone stepped up and served themselves some. I took some of the George Foremaned beast, as the BBQ sauce looked too much like blood for me to cope. I cut off a small slice, popped it in my mouth, and it crunched. Oh...oh no...oh, it's a piece of garlic. Man. My first bite of the hot, cooked obligation was 80 percent crunch garlic. It was gross. But I plugged away and finished my supper, as did my friends and husband.

The highlight of the day, by far, was the bananas foster Ben made for desert--way to save the day, babe. After desert, we left the picked carcass cooking and watched The Big Lebowski. Near midnight, as the plot was wrapping up, I remembered the carcass. Ben, who feels the most obligated to follow through with any obligation, ran up to check on it. We all heard laughing. He had tried to pull of a drumstick and the whole femur had fallen off in his hand. "It kind of looks like that bird from Christmas vacation," was his report.

Upon inspection, we discovered that the carcass was, well, not food anymore. Our trash was overfull from some home construction projects earlier in the week, so I asked the owner of the obligation to kindly dispose of it in whatever way he saw fit, provided we had our roasting pan back so we could prepare our obligation, which was still staring at us from the sink. Recalling the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, I half jokingly suggested he heave the cursed albatross into the sea, or, as we call it here, the Hocking river. He laughed, hesitated, then buoyed and left with the bird. I wanted to go along really badly, but didn't want a $500 littering fine. He didn't make it all the way to the river, but settled for a creek that was closer by and much more out of sight. I've protected his anonymity in this post b/c I don't think he's a criminal--desperation will make you do things out of character.

Once the pan was returned, Ben had a mild existential crisis. He contemplated ditching our bird, too, but his deep sense of duty came through and we got our albatross in the oven by 2am. The people at our church said it was delicious. I wouldn't know. I don't like turkey--I choke it down, but in the end, I always think it tastes like dark meat on chicken.

Arghh!

2007-12-27T17:52:00.000-05:00

Hasn't been the best couple of days.

Christmas was AWESOME and my family is adorable and loving, generous, and all of those other things...work however, is stressing me out more severly than I normally permit. It's stressing me out enough that I'm blogging from work rather than working because I can't take it. I think part of the problem is that I haven't been engagin 2 of my 3 normal coping mechanisms. Out of my triumverate of prayer and meditation, art, and excercise, I've only been employing exercise for the last 2 weeks or so...I think I'm accidentally ruining my own life a little bit. I'm planning on spending my evening remedying this problem. I need some time alone, man.

A resident said something great to me today, though. We have an older wirery guy at the shelter right now with a great big, bushy, gray beard, and I was commenting to him that a stocky, younger guy with an even bushier red beard (whom I've named "Small Bunyan") was giving him a run for his money. The older guy said, "Yeah, but I've got the gray advantage; Old age and treachery trumps youth and whatever else."

You made my day old wirery guy with a great big, bushy, gray beard. Totally made my day.

Xmas in Maryland

2007-12-23T11:04:00.000-05:00

My father-in-law is making bacon and eggs right now. Awesome.

We drove to Maryland--my husband's hinterland--yesterday morning for the Horsch family Christmas. It was good for several reasons that mostly stem from my inlaws not being wrapped up spending tons of money or particular traditions. So, we had terrific spaghetti for Christmas dinner and every couple brought 2 gifts for an exchange. I won (I do feel like I win or earn presents) the book Into the Wild and a bunch of Napoleon Dynamite posters. Ben won a box of different soup mixes. We gave (which I hear is the best part of presents) 2 pounds of coffee from a local fair trade coffee shop, and one of those I-gave-a-gift-in-your-name Heifer International gift of chickens to an impoverished 3rd world family. It felt a little like cheating.

Time for bacon.

Christmas Parties

2007-12-19T11:40:00.000-05:00

Christmas parties make me nervous. They are inevitably held at some stranger's home where toilets break and there are inside jokes from 30 years ago that no one gets anymore. There are cats that I'm allergic to and dogs that I'm allergic to sleeping on my coat in the guest bedroom, and those delicious looking cookies are full of nuts that I can't eat. Someone is drunk, and no one is cutting him off, and then there are gift exchanges for people you don't know who don't want to know you...not how I want to celebrate the incarnation.

So, I host Christmas parties when possible. In part because I love to host things, and also in part because because I have created for myself an allergy free bubble of a home in which I am perfectly comfortable. So, I hosted the Good Works Christmas party yesterday morning. I love the Good Works Christmas party. We draw names and exchange words of encouragement with one another. And my coworkers are for the most part, incredible cooks. For example, I ate cheese grits yesterday and breakfast casserole that was full of crab meat. The Christmas party is 3 of my favorite hours of the year.

I like drawing names and writing words of encouragement. I like it SO MUCH. We did this last year, too, and an older (maybe 75) woman that I work with complained. There are only 15 or 16 staff members, but she wanted to do something else because she didn't want to get someone she didn't know. Someone she didn't know?? I insisted. "Then that's a great reason to get to know them! How do you not know people you see for at least 2 hours every week?" I was especially fired up because we work for a ministry of hospitality.

So, last years Christmas party rolls around, and my 75 year-old coworkers has drawn my name. She wrote me some encouraging things and I thought, "Oh good, I'm glad she got someone she knows."

Pre Christmas party this year, she says to me, clearly having no recollection of last year, "I'm glad I got someone I know this year. Last year I got someone I didn't know at all, but I'm glad that didn't happen this year."

Wow.

I wasn't offended, just surprised and entertained.

Merry Christmas Party.

What's in a name?

2007-12-15T15:00:00.001-05:00

Last night, my friend Heidi invited Ben and I over to her house to hang out with 4 Chinese students. Their names (phonetically) are Shwen-shwen, Shwen-shwen, Tsai, and Ginny. Shwen-shwen and Shwen-shwen were discussing what their names meant, as they are from different regions of China. One Shwen-shwen meant "beautiful girl" and the other meant something like "lovely pond."

I knew, from taking ancient greek in college that Andrea comes from the root greek word andros, or "man." So, my name means "manly" in Italian or any other romance language. Lynn means "from the lake." And I'm assuming that my new last name, Horsch likely means "horse," as english is a germanic language and these cognates are frequently correct. In short, my name is Mandrea Sea-Horsch.

So, I explained, "my name is Andrea. It's Italian for 'manly.' Americans don't think much about what names mean. My husband is Benjamin, which means, 'son of my right hand.'" They all laughed and we played some games. An hour goes by.

Later, Shwen-shwen asked me, "So, do you think you grew up according to the meaning of your name?" I shrug my shoulders, about to half agree, but am interrupted by the other Chinese girls agreeing vigorously. Wow. They really, really think I'm manly.

It was a little bit of a downer.

Untitled

2007-12-13T01:12:00.000-05:00

Um, this is the 3rd in the series of oil pastels I'm working on now. It's based on our friend, but I wussed out and made the face in the pastel a lot more gentle. I think I'll do a different pastel some time that shows all the gory details of life, but for now, here it is. Not sure how I feel about it yet.

Ornaments

2007-12-11T00:31:00.000-05:00

Our super-duper fake tree has no tree topper. Last year, our friend Dr. Janet gave us a starship Enterprise that is about 3 and a half inches long that lights up. I hung it at the top of the tree, but really just as a gag. I think I might try now, before I go to bed, to make a new, better, prettier tree topper. Yeah. I'd feel good about that. Something that says, "Hooray! Jesus was born." Not, "sometimes I watch Star Trek marathons when I have the day off."

Also, for the record, grown ups still like it when other grown ups make them Christmas tree ornaments...

Preachin'/False alarm #3

2007-12-09T15:51:00.000-05:00

I gave the message at my church today. Before you are too impressed, I should say that my church is 20 or 30 people who meet in the basement of an old church building that is now an arts building for the city. We sit on metal folding chairs and there are frequently art exhibits involving naked ladies on the walls. Today, there was a crochet circle in an adjoining room. Let me tell you, though, this is one awesome group of 30 people.

I spoke on Isaiah 9:1-7, a prophetic hymn about Jesus that's quoted in Matthew 4:12-17. I really, really like Isaiah 9. It's SO hopeful. I want so much to take people beyond their understanding of Christmas being a bout baby Jesus in a manger, to the beginning of a revolution. The life of Christ is a life of revolutionary hope, so I spoke a lot about hope.

I came home, ate chili, put on the movie "The Life Aquatic" and took a nap. Ben went out to the garage to engage further in his epic struggle with our '81 Volkswagen Rabbit. An hour and a half into my nap I hear a big "KABOOM" coming from the garage. I ran out, picturing Ben crushed a bleeding, but the car was still on it's jacks and he wasn't there. Ben was on the computer, upstairs. The kaboom was in the movie.

We have the best sound system ever in our living room.

False Alarms.

2007-12-07T18:46:00.000-05:00

So, my mom coughed up a big blob of blood two times in the last month or so. Mom's a nurse, which means two things. 1. She gets regular TB tests, and knew she didn't have TB, and 2. She doesn't feel the need to go to the doctor unless she is certain she will die.

So, when mom used words like "blood clot, bronchial scope, CAT scan, and chest x-ray," in a conversation with me last week, I, naturally, pictured a giant throbbing tumor. Today, though, she called me with the news that she, basically, has a scar from a severe childhood sickness, and should treat this by going to the doctor before death is immanent. No big deal. Thank God, false alarm.

Onto the next story. Did you know that Athens County, with a poverty rate of around 27% is the poorest county in the state? Consequently, we, at Good Works, were not surprised to get a call from the Red Cross/FEMA today asking us to feed an additional 40 people who had been flooded out of their homes at our community dinner tonight. (See actual photo of Chauncey when flooded, left.)

We scrambled a little bit, given this would be a 30% increase in the crowd we usually have, but we're pros. This is what we do. By 4pm, when our Friday Night Supper staff left our afternoon meeting for the dinner, we were ready. Ready to feed 40 more people. Ready, even, to distribute non-perishable food to them.

At about 4:15pm, when our staff had already gone to work at the supper, our Director of Operations, Paul, made one last call to the Red Cross/FEMA to make sure we were prepared. The response he got went something like, "Oh, this was just a drill. I told the pastor of the church where you have the dinners. No one is coming."

And the incompetency of FEMA hits home. If you run a disaster organization and want to condition the helping community in areas prone to natural disasters to NOT respond when there's a crises, might I recommend holding drills and not letting anyone know it's a drill? I know I won't jump so quickly the next time I hear from FEMA. That is one hell of a false alarm.

"Crushing Sadness"

2007-12-03T11:32:00.000-05:00

I'm having coffee with cardamon. It's terrific. YOU can buy this as well as other spices, herbs, cheeses, and dried fruits at the Bulk Food Store on West 40 in Zanesville. Can and should.

About a month ago, I dried about 50 peppers of different varieties and pulverized them in my food processor. I cleverly named my smokin' hot home made chili powder "mace." As, when pulverizing, it made tears run from my eyes, and made me choke. Well, you can immagine
my surprise when I found a spice already named "mace" at the Bulk Food Store. What a bummer. Does anyone know what this other, surely inferior "mace" is?

Anyway, "crushing sadness" is a quote from my coworker, Chris. The phrase describes the state of being at work right now...at least to some degree. We've seen some successes over the past few months, but the theme that stands out is neglectful parenting. I can't handle it. Seeing kids suffer for their parents' incompetencies is the reason I hated the internship I did at a domestic violence shelter. At the DV shelter, I was running a therapeutic art group with the kids. Every week was heart wrenching. At the Timothy House, I'm working with the parents, and it's enraging. We see moms drag their kids back and forth between the Timothy House and their skanky, criminal boyfriend's apartments, with children's services on the trail. Anne and I have to meet with one such mom in two and a half hours. This woman has such blinders on. She can't see anything that isn't right in front of her face, and clearly can't think about the future. It's so sad. So, our job becomes to first empathize and seek to understand, and then to attempt to persuade. To persuade her to look for steady housing (not live in her car), to get help for her kid, to stay put, to be patient, and to listen. It's a monumental task.

We have hope, though. Jesus not only makes people right with God, but he fixes their relationships with other people. He rescues the wounded, and transforms people who hurt others into healers. We get to see that happen, too...sometimes.

Update

2007-11-29T00:29:00.000-05:00

FYI, I've regained my will to live.
I know. I'm relieved, too.

I'm a person of pretty level moods, and usually good health, but rain does me in. It robs me of my will to live and I just let the germs take over. But the sun was out today and I buoyed enough energy to fight off my head cold.

If you're thinking now that you need to caution me to never, ever move to say, Seatle, don't worry. I won't. I lived in swamp land Kentucky for 5 years, where it never snows and only rains and is 33 degrees and wet all winter. I just barely got out alive.

SO sleepy

2007-11-27T23:47:00.000-05:00

This morning, I woke up about 5 minutes before my alarm was going to go off, as usual...except today, I thought it was, like, 2 hours before my alarm was going to go off, so I had just given myself permission to sleep for a good, long time when the damned machine started going crazy. I was tired all day. I spent most of the day slumped at my desk checking emails. I felt out of it and pathetic. I don't think I even washed my own lunch dishes. I just abandoned them in the kitchen. Thanks, whoever had enough will to live today to wash my dishes. It was probably Anne. Thanks Anne.

Maybe I'm sick or depressed. I hope not. This is several days of feeling sleepy in a row. Maybe it's just the awful, awful gray weather. And the terrible darkness that comes in the middle of the day, before I get off work. Shit. I'll bet that's it. Bummer.

I know adding this photo to this post makes it out like I'm some depressed teenager, but here's the zombie table top I painted for my friend, Kevin.

The severed head is painted inside the drawer...I know, I'm sick.

Life is on Fire

2007-11-24T16:11:00.001-05:00

I finished this yesterday. It's acrylic on canvas, approximately 3ft by 4ft.
Don't paint a lot of flowers, but it's for a friend.

Gratis

2007-11-23T19:36:00.000-05:00

So, we had 2 Thanksgivings. The first was at our house with our 2 rather odd middle aged friends, and the second was the normal Thanksgiving with mom & dad, the brothers, the sisters in law, and the nieces and nephews. The normal Thanksgiving was super enjoyable and ended with delicious rasberry pie made from berries that grow in my mom & dad's yard.

That first Wednesday night Thanksgiving though...

Matt, Ben and myself sat down at the dinner table, and Robert (our very sick older neighbor who has, among other things, organic brain disease) begins talking in the middle of a sentence and proceeds to tell the three of us about the one and only time he hired a prostitute. It went something like this,

"It was the first time I had called one of those escort services, and we went to a hotel. And I wanted to make it nice, a somewhat romantic time...so I asked this girl, how much of this money goes to you and how much goes to the pimp? Anyway, I was kind to her, and she said, 'For you, none of it,' and she didn't charge me. That was the first and only time I ever did that and I didn't have to pay for it."

Something to be thankful for.

Sick day & Thanksgiving.

2007-11-20T23:37:00.000-05:00

I had a personal day yesterday and accidentally slept until 11:30am. Last night, during our book discussion group on Shaine Claiborn's "The Irresistible Revolution," I got tired. By 10pm I was downright lethargic, then, by midnight, I was just plain sick. Bummer. I felt achy all over. As the night wore on, I felt grosser and grosser. Thought I might barf but didn't. I think the experience would best be described as "flu like symptoms with stomach cramps." By 5am I didn't feel like barfing any more, so I could finally sleep. I woke up at 8:45am to call in sick, then slept until 1pm. Got up to eat some rice, slept from 2:30pm to 5pm. Took some Tylenol and I'm feelin' fine.

I prefer, if I'm sick and I know I'm not contagious, to just go to work sick. I use these sick days at work to do things I hate, like well over due paperwork, or cleaning my desk. There are 2 benefits: 1. I don't use a sick day. And 2. I have all of the negative experiences all at once--only one day is ruined.

After I felt better today, I made 2 kinds of stuffing (dressing, really, as I'm not cramming it into the ass of any dead birds). Ben and I are having 2 older (46 and 50 something) friends over tomorrow night for Thanksgiving dinner who are pretty broke, so we're treating them. One of them is a vegetarian, so I made stuffing with a bunch of herbs, garlic, celery, butter, veggie stock, and almonds for him. It tastes great and I wish I had made more. The meat stuffing for the other three of us is approximately half sausage. This, in my opinion, is the only way to live. I am so looking forward to this dinner. Ben and I are trying hard to take Christ's advice about inviting people who can't repay you to your feasts. So far, Jesus is right, and we're being rewarded in ways that encompass a lot more than food and money.

Insular

2007-11-18T20:57:00.000-05:00

Some people live rustically on purpose. It's trendy. My friend Matthew built a big one room house with a nice shower and super efficient washer and dryer. Nice big one room house with an out house instead of a toilet. On purpose. Way to be sustainable, Matthew.

Others are just hacks. Unfortunately, that's what I must assume about the incompetents who have lived in the house we bought for the last 30 years. Last winter, it wasn't unusual for our thermostat to read 55 degrees inside our home. We knew from our home inspection that the place needed some extra insulating. Last winter, Ben went into the small storage room under our entry way to insulate it, and he could see LOTS of day light. Even after we insulated our basement, the house was still freezing. So this week, Ben dug out the extension ladder and peeked up above the entry way of our house...guess what? No insulation. No insulation over our entire entry way. It's like a 10 by 15 foot room with no insulation. All of our heat, expensive, polluting heat was rising up from our downstairs and going straight through the roof of our entry way.

So, we bought $700 worth of insulation and Ben's been installing it all weekend. Our house is so much warmer already. I can feel my hands. It's great.

communion

2007-11-15T23:24:00.000-05:00

This is a pastel I did last night of an old woman from my church...sort of. It's kind of about communion and the love feast. I don't know. I hate talking about things like this, hence my expression of ideas as images instead of words.

Anyway, I know it looks like a drunk at a bar...that's about half on purpose.

Thoughts?

Warmth

2007-11-13T23:33:00.000-05:00

So, I started this drawing Sunday night and finished it last night. It's in oil pastel, which you can draw with and paint with.

Here's a closer view of the central figure. I hate talking about this kind of thing, but this is about a kid from my church. Her mom is like, 17 and doesn't take the best care of her all the time. I think she's just trying to make it herself, let alone care for a kid. Anyway, I pray a lot that God would fill this family with hope...that's kind of what this is about.

Mmm good.

2007-11-13T01:12:00.000-05:00

Over the summer, when it was around 95 degrees, I made a crock pot full of French onion soup for a work function. Not wanting to spill a gallon of soup onto the floor board of my truck, I taped the lid onto the crock pot, placed it on the most level part of my floor, and held onto the top of it with my hand as I drove the 1 mile to work. At the first big corner, the crock pot slipped out from under my hand and up-ended itself, spilling nearly every drop of my delicious (and I do mean delicious) soup onto the floor mat. When I arrived at work, I had just enough time to fold my floor mat into a scoop and heave a few throws of it into the yard before we departed for 6 hours. I did have the presence of mind to leave the crock pot and my floor mat sitting on the ground under my truck instead of in it, but nevertheless, I was unprepared for the slap in the face of hot, stinky onion and beef when I returned to my vehicle that afternoon. I can't even describe it. I shampooed my upholstery and floor mats, and well as the floor of the truck. I scrubbed it. I scrubbed the hell out of it. That was months ago, and the smell is still there. It hit me in the face this morning, even though it was only about 50 degrees. Other people say they can't smell it, or that it's not bad...they're wrong. Maybe they think that smell is BO, or that I deliver pizza for a living...but I know it's soup. I think this smell may have ruined me on French onion soup. I hope not, but I'm having trouble recovering.

Anybody ever tell you....

2007-11-05T22:45:00.000-05:00

That they're a prophet of God?
That they know God made them a horse and a lot of other animals?
That people who don't go to church are stabled?
That they have lights in their eyes?
That they won't eat any GODDAMNED MEAT or take any pills?
Or that people are following them everywhere?

We met with a woman today who was really paranoid. Really, really paranoid and delusional. She scared me for a minute. Every couple of months, I meet a person insane or drunk enough to make me wonder, "Is there a gun in that bag? I guess I wouldn't know until it was too late..." This woman is that ill.

We could not house her; she's far too sick right now. So after we talked to her, we just prayed for a while. It didn't seem like there was anything else to do. Through a series of events, she came back to the house later and we called her a cab. I offered to pay for it if she would take it to the hospital to get a psych evaluation, but she declined, quite angrily.

God is faithful, though, and I think he looks out for people. I just talked to a woman who does psych evals at the hospital, and they are admitting the paranoid woman from this afternoon. I'm glad. We prayed that she would have a place to go and that she would get help. Seems like it's working out.

They COULD amputate...

2007-11-03T20:35:00.000-04:00

My inlaws are in town. This is a good thing. I like my inlaws. They are kind. They are concerned with our lives but don't butt in or give unsolicited advice. They're never snotty or judgemental, and they're really generous. Right now, they're downstairs with Ben watching "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a movie that I only sort of like and definitly can't stay awake through. So, I update.

Any way, because my inlaws are in town, we had my brother Charlie and his wife and kids down. The kids are ages 6, 5, and 3, so it was a little nuts in our not so child proof house. Abby, the 5 year-old is autistic, and therefore doesn't have the best concept of empathy or understanding of small creatures as delicate, living things. Our 2 gerbils only weigh ounces and have very tiny teeth that don't even hurt when they bite and therefore are rather defenseless against creatures as large as 5 year-olds. So, no one was that surprised when Abby loaded one into their plastic gerbil ball and threw her accross the room. Well, I guess the gerbil was probably surprized. Poor, dumb animal. Poor, dumb, helpless, limping animal. I think she'll be fine, she's just favoring her right, rear paw. When I pointed this out to my husband, he immediately googled "broken+paw+gerbil," and said, "As long as it's eating food and the wound isn't open, it should heal and be OK. If it gets infected, you can take it to the vet and they can amputate."
"Amputate? What would that look like?"
"They can make it on 3 legs."
"I know they can make it on 3 legs, but what on earth would they do to amputate? Oh well. We'll cross that bridge when we get there."
Hmmm...I like my pets. Maybe I even love my pets, but, not to be cold hearted...they only cost $5. I'm not sure trips to the vet are in our gerbils' future.

In unrelated news, my mom is in Haiti for the 3rd time. She's there with a surgical team doing outpatient procedures. She arrived 2 days ago and have already done 2 or 3 cases, and have many more coming up next week.
Way to go mom.

Soilent orange is made of...

2007-10-31T23:11:00.001-04:00

Today was trick or night in the neighborhood of the Timothy House. We like to be good neighbors, so we pass out candy every year and serve people hot dogs, eat some for dinner ourselves, and have cider or hot chocolate. My coworkers, Kevin and Anne, were feeling particularly generous this year and dug a sack of "hot dog sauce" out of the freezer. We had probably 50 lbs, or several bags of it donated a couple months ago and haven't know what to use for until today. I would estimate that one frozen sack of hot dog sauce yields one a half gallons of finished sauce. When I first saw it on the stove top, bubbling in its cauldron, I said, "That looks like rendering lard or something." Then Kevin said something to Anne like, "Add more water," and I thought, That can't be right. You don't "add more water" to something like chili. Then Kevin stirred the cauldron, and I said, "Oh. This is meat oatmeal. This is oatmeal made out of meat." Kevin proceeded to explain that I wasn't too far off base, as the first 2 ingredients were "beef hearts, textured vegetable protein." Anne ate a spoonful of it straight with the promise of a peppermint patty later. I was disgusted. "Anne, you got a raw deal," I said.

But, if you know me well, then you know that I'm quite stupid. You probably know that I don't learn well from other's mistakes. If you know me well, I don't have to tell you that I ate an enormous hot dog with a ladle of bright orange meat oatmeal on top. But I'll tell you any way. I ate the orange beef heart oatmeal. I ate the hell out of it.

It didn't "sit well," but it didn't poison me either.

I have this theory.

Everyone has, as a part of their intense, ingrained survival instinct, and ability to consume anything that resembles food that does not smell rancid. Some people, even when they are not starving to death are capable of shutting down their higher brain functioning and only running on survival instinct. I believe this is the key to winning something like, say, a hot dog eating contest. Shut down most of your brain, and channel completely the God given ability that every human has to think, This dead zebra ass is my only hope of survival. I must eat this carcass if I want to have energy to hunt meat for my starving family for the next week. You go to that place in your mind, and maybe you eat 30 hot dogs in 5 minutes. Or maybe you eat orange meat oatmeal out of curiosity.