Lasagna helps, a little.

Today I stood in a catholic church and sang about heaven. I looked around at the people in the pews, most of them old - some with white hair, some hunched over, some with oxygen tanks, some with canes, others healthy. I looked up to the front of the stage where my Auntie Elsa smiled at me from behind the glass covering of a large framed picture that stood beside her ashes in a box. The priest spoke about heaven, and prayed for Auntie Elsa's soul. We went next door to St. Michael's Hall and ate lasagna and biscotti and drank coffee. And that's it. Auntie Elsa is gone. My Nonni's sister, my dad's aunt, our next door neighbor in Edgewood. I loved her, and I will miss her. I believe she knew Jesus, so I have hope I'll see her again. Right now, though, my heart is heavy for the people in attendance today who don't think they will see her again - or worse, think they will, but won't. Or think they might, but aren't sure. What a scary, uncertain feeling! I sensed hopelessness there today. What do you say when heaven isn't real to you? What do you think of death? When JB found out Auntie Elsa died, he said, "but that just wasn't on my calendar." It's never on anyone's calendar, and the lasagna after the service can only comfort for so long.

Some of my favorite Scripture

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.
Acts 17:24-28a

Ignored by the world but RECOGNIZED by God; terrifically ALIVE though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives but refusing to die; immersed in tears,yet always filled with DEEP JOY; poor yet making many RICH, having nothing and yet possessing EVERYTHING.
2 Corinthians 6:9-10

Blogging breeds narcissism... I think.

My fingers move across the keyboard in an attempt to prick morsels of meaning out of the air, out of cyberspace, out of my head, and meld them together in an intelligible, articulate, ultimately meaningful blog post.

What does blogging really accomplish, though? It enlightens others to my thought processes, makes them aware of what I care about and sometimes informs them of funny or interesting events in my life. Of course you want to know all about me and my opinions. Does this form of relaying information from my brain to your brain help define who I am? Maybe.

Sometimes, I get so fed up with my blog, email, iChat, facebook, I just want to delete it all and go climb to the top of a remote mountain and get all this cyber mumbo jumbo out of my system. I just want to extricate myself. Ahhhh. But the next day I'm usually right back at it. I put off another paper to post another quite unecessary blog. I can never bring myself to delete things either, because, maybe I'll want to read them later, right? (Thank goodness for gmail and it's archival capabilities... I never delete a single email. Currently I have over 3,000 emails in my inbox.) Why is it so hard for me? As if, if I delete it, I lose a part of my history or identity.

"I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies... it's exhausting. "
(from He's Just Not that Into You)

Why does my pulse quicken when I see that little red box in the bottom right hand corner of my facebook page? Who is talking to ME, who invited ME to an event, who was admiring a photo of ME? Yes, I enjoy sending other people messages and looking at other people's photos, but really it's all about that little red box.

When I think about it, it's exhausting to worry (even if it's subconsciously) about how I am projected through different mediums to all different kinds of audiences. I wish I didn't care when no one comments on my blogs, but I do. I wish I wasn't concerned about my various portrayals through the internet, or that it didn't really affect me, but it does... I haven't really decided what I'm going to do about it yet. Or if I'm even going to do anything at all.

Pop

I wrote this story about four years ago when I was in England. I came across it tonight, and thought I'd post it. I hope my writing skills have improved a little since then, and although the lesson learned seems elementary, it is still applicable and a good reminder for me at present.

Once upon a time there was a girl who was not the most adventurous
person you would ever meet. She had lived at home her entire life, and
had never even been away for an extended period of time with the
exception of a week or two away here or there. She loved her house and
her town and her family and her friends. She had a car that she loved
driving around the area where she lived, or her little bubble, which
stretched for not very many miles in either direction. She, to say the
least, was comfortable.

When she was sixteen, she started a job. That was different for her
because it changed her schedule and tied her down; but she adjusted.
She grew to love her job and the people she worked with. She again became
comfortable.

When she was eighteen she started attending college in her bubble.
This made her nervous and she did not really want to go, because she
was unsure of what she wanted out of life and felt like she did not
have a solid goal to pursue. However, because her family encouraged
her, she went. She began to enjoy the classes she was taking and the
people she was getting to know. She again became comfortable.

Now she had been attending college for almost a year, working at her
job for almost three years, and she was perfectly content.

On an ordinary day in her ordinary life, her sister asked if she
wanted to move to England together for six months and go to a Bible
school. She thought about it carefully and realized that this
meant she would have to leave, or in more brutal terms, burst, her
bubble. On this ordinary day she decided to spontaneously apply. Both
she and her sister were accepted, so they moved to England.

She was nineteen when she got to the school, and did not know a soul
besides her sister, but she began making friends. She began attending
lectures. She began traveling around the UK. She became familiar with
her surroundings. She again became comfortable.

How can a person whose bubble was only a circumference of a few
hundred miles stretch overnight to thousands of miles? How can a
person who is nervous to get a job and go to a community college in
her area pick up and move to a different country to go to school
without having a nervous breakdown? It is because she serves a God who
is bigger than her bubble. He can break a bubble so fast you won't
even realize it's broken until you look back on its glistening remains
on the ground.

This story may seem boring to you, but it was a life changing
experience for me. I am the girl in the story. I allowed God to become
the center of my bubble. I say bubble, because I am still living in
one and so are you. No matter how fast our bubbles are popped, they
reform even faster. It may not be the same bubble I lived in a year
ago, but it is a bubble all the same. Staying outside of our bubble is
a constant state of action. If we really want God to use us with
eternal significance, we need to put Him in the center of our bubble
and allow Him to constantly be holding the pin...

In the end, it really has nothing to do with fortune.

Have you ever heard of the game "Fortunately Unfortunately?" It can be quite fun and allows for considerable creative freedom, because it deals mainly with hypotheticals. If you've never played it, I would like to explain the game to you, using the example of my life in the past week. Each scenario listed, whether fortunate or unfortunate, is added in turn by each player. The game continues until a) it ends happily, b) the stated scenario is so unfortunate it could never be recovered from, or c) it simply gets too ridiculous to continue.

Example:

One day, Karen and Carla planned a weekend together in San Luis Obispo.
UNFORTUNATELY the trip was never realized because of their grandma's declining health.
FORTUNATELY they both had the weekend off, so they planned a trip home instead.
UNFORTUNATELY Karen could not fly out until late Friday night.
FORTUNATELY she got a good deal on the ticket.
UNFORTUNATELY her flight (the last flight of the night) from San Francisco - where she had a layover - to Medford was canceled!
FORTUNATELY it was canceled for mechanical reasons so the airline paid for her hotel in San Francisco.
UNFORTUNATELY she had to stand in long lines for long periods of time.
FORTUNATELY she did not have the reaction the girl in front of her did, which was to call her mother (on the phone) a *@!*$#@ @#*&% for making her come home, then sit down in the corner of the room and sob... REALLY LOUD, then yell at the customer service lady who was trying to calm her down. When offered a flight to Eugene instead, the girl said, "do you have ANY idea how far Eugene is from Medford?!? Ugggghhhhh."
UNFORTUNATELY she had to stand in line in the hotel lobby for almost two hours. (Yes, I mentioned the line thing twice. It still counts.)
FORTUNATELY the bed in the Crowne Plaza hotel was a king size, and super comfy.
UNFORTUNATELY she could only stay in that bed for about four hours.
FORTUNATELY she found a flight to Redding that arrived by 10:00 the next morning!
UNFORTUNATELY the zipper on her duffel bag broke off!
FORTUNATELY her bag stayed zipped all the way from San Francisco to Redding.
UNFORTUNATELY her dad, Carla, Ellie and Amy were 45 minutes late to pick her up.
FORTUNATELY she was so tired she didn't even care.
UNFORTUNATELY they still had a few errands to run in Redding.
FORTUNATELY they made it home in time for lunch at Grandma's! And played a fun Italian writing game in the car on the way home.
UNFORTUNATELY Grandma's internet was down, which equals no homework done on Saturday...then the power went out at the house in Edgewood.
FORTUNATELY they have a sweet candelabra.
UNFORTUNATELY time with Grandma and Nonni was shortened due to long layovers and canceled flights.
FORTUNATELY she got to see them at least a little!
UNFORTUNATELY her flight out of Medford on Monday was canceled! (She really was baffled that this could happen twice on one trip...)
FORTUNATELY she was booked on an earlier flight out of Medford.
UNFORTUNATELY her earlier flight was delayed to a later time than her original flight.
FORTUNATELY she finally flew out of Medford by 7:45pm.
UNFORTUNATELY there was heavy fog and rain in San Francisco.
FORTUNATELY she talked to a nice lady on the plane for an hour and a half who used to be a typesetter at a magazine in San Francisco called "Undertaker's Retort," then went back to school to be a microbiologist, and now is retired, playing and singing classical music...after she has an extremely interesting surgery on her thumb, which we talked about at length. It made the trip seem shorter.
UNFORTUNATELY because of the rain in San Francisco, they were only using one runway for all flights... so that made her nervous.
FORTUNATELY it didn't affect her flight at all.
UNFORTUNATELY the pilot announced they might be rerouted to Santa Barbara because of the low visibility.
FORTUNATELY they were not rerouted, the sky was clear above the fog, and they landed safely in San Luis Obispo on time. Karen was picked up by her roommate, holding a sign that said "International Businessman." (It's kind of an inside joke, but if you watch How I Met Your Mother, you should get it.)
UNFORTUNATELY she had an early class the next day, and it was already midnight.
FORTUNATELY when she checked her email at home, she found out her class was canceled!

The End

So, you get the picture. It ended on a happy note. My trip was a little stressful, but it was good to see Grandma and go to Nonni's 87th birthday party, and hear an awesome sermon by Pastor Bill, and hang with my sisters and parents. I am really glad life isn't actually based on fortune... but if you're ever bored, you should play "Fortunately Unfortunately."

"The things of earth will grow strangely dim"

"She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her.
Then she went inside there to see what it was.
It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered.
But looking at it she saw it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams.
Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over..."
-Zora Neale Hurston, from Their Eyes Were Watching God

I recently read that book, and that quote stuck with me. And made me think...
What am I grabbing up to drape my dreams over...?
People will let me down. Jesus never will.

"Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save.
Blessed is he[...]whose hope is in the Lord his God[...]
the Lord, who remains faithful forever."
- Psalm 146:3-6

My Day in A Sentence

Asleep at 12:30am....wake up at 6:00am....stumble to the bathroom....turn on the light....squint at myself in the mirror....seriously, whose hair does that??....turn on the hot water.....shower, thoroughly enjoying the five minutes of nothingness in the hot water....get dressed....blow dry hair while reading Colossians 4 and part of Psalm 136....wear the most despised pair of pants I own because everything else is dirty, I'm even on my very last pair of underwear....think about how I must go to the laundromat later today, even though I already know I don't want to, and don't have time....catch the 7:11 bus to school....read an assigned text for my 8:00 class....get a small americano at starbucks (one pump of sugar free vanilla and room for cream, please)....arrive at class early....drink coffee....realize I came to class only to watch a movie that isn't on the syllabus....we're not being tested on it....we don't have to write a paper on it....nothing....oh well....I'll do my reading for my English class at 12:00....read for two hours during the movie....walk to the library for my two hour break....take the elevator to the fifth floor....sit down with my laptop....begin working on my annotated bibliography for my linguistics class....see Carla online....get distracted....chat with her....listen to pandora....check facebook....wish I was all over the world like some of my friends....pray for grandma....sad for grandma....wish she wasn't sick like this....thankful I found a cheap flight home for the weekend....get back to my bibliography for a while....my computer battery dies....pack up my stuff.....call my mom....she'll have to call me back.....she doesn't.....call Ellie....talk to her for a while....what time is it??......oh, I have to go to class....get my midterm back.....I did good.....relief.....find out the discussion on the reading I did in my first class is being pushed to Monday.....wonder if everything I do is useless and unnecessary.....discuss some poetry for two hours....catch the bus home....call my mom and talk to her on the ride home....get off the bus at the SLO Senior center...walk home in the sunshine....make taco salad for lunch...eat it while watching an episode of law & order....suddenly wonder why I'm wasting my time watching a rerun of law & order....go upstairs....hesitantly open my bedroom door....it's a mess....the cleaning fairy didn't come....make my bed....resist the urge to lay down on my bed....email my professor.....get everything in order to register for classes tomorrow.....return some personal emails....throw all my clothes into my laundry baskets.....drive downtown.....deposit a check at the bank....a small check....my checks are decreasing in size....it's not a good thing....worry about how I'm going to make it next quarter without working....choose to put that out of my mind....be super nice to the bank lady even though she's obviously having a week of repeat Mondays and is grumpy about it....laugh at the security guard who probably couldn't protect me from a fly....wonder why he has a job as a security guard for a good five minutes....wonder why I'm wondering about that...drive to starbucks....yes again....this time it's a grande americano....return The Secret Life of Bees to Blockbuster....think about how I really should look into Netflix....drive to the laundromat.....talk to a nice homeless man about fried chicken for a few minutes....he thanks me for being nice to him....I feel good about that....open my computer to do homework....write a blog instead.