christmas store crap.

last night buddy, lily, big guy and bri came over for some soup and laughter. we had a solid group "remember when" session.

remember when your elementary school set up santa's shop in your gymnasium!!???

remember the tables upon tables of flimsy, useless crap that they overcharged us for? remember how we paid them whatever price they slapped down because we were still young enough that we trusted strangers in santa hats?

think of the fortune they must have pulled in. it's sheer genius.

i remember i would wake up shivery with excitement, anticipating my first steps into that fantastical winter wonderland. my mom would put a glittery red coinpurse in my lunchbox with a list of people to buy gifts for.

herself included.

garfield the cat potholder? score.

brooch shaped like a smiling teapot? jackpot.

she might as well have put her money through a paper shredder.

but no, being the mommiest mom in the world, she would always go wild over this junk and thank me repeatedly for being such a thoughtful daughter.

it wasn't until we had this wonderful community remember-when session that i grasped the ridiculousness of the whole situation.

my mom gave me HER money to buy HER a crappy gift, which i then ecstatically presented her with and she oh-so-sincerely raved over. but that's the beauty of being a kid: thinking you're awesome when really you're just being lovingly indulged.

this makes me think of God. (oh yea - i'm going to bring it back to that.)

i think about how awesome i think i am with the "work" that i'm doing for His kingdom or the "worship" that i offer him. i threw the quotes on there to emphasize the ridiculousness of THIS situation. He doesn't NEED my worship. He doesn't NEED my help with any of His work. For God's sake....He's God! anything we could offer Him is really just something He could reach down and snatch from us anyway.

But in his infinite Grace and mommish indulgence, He allows us to partner in creation and even goes as far as to say that our praise is a sweet song in His ears and that by living sacrificially, we are pleasing to Him.

my favorite Bible verse says that

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.

all we have to offer is crap from santa's shop and He - the guy who made aaaaalllllll of this delights in us and rejoices over us???

that's the kind of God i can jump on board with.

iblog.

i passed in my book proposal this afternoon. now, the waiting begins. jo's going to take a look at it and if there are no further edits, she will pass it on to her agent.

(i'm a little giddy because i just found out he works for alive communications...aka donald miller, franklin graham, eugene peterson...yikes.)

one thing jo drilled into me at our meeting is that i need to step it up with my blogging. i'm a first time author- aka liability, so my "hits" and "followers" are my only currency. and let's face it, i don't really care about this thing.

but now i must hardcore blog for my very survival.

everyone keeps telling me that social networking is the best thing for publicity these days and i should be blogging, facebooking and tweeting with every spare second i have if i ever want my book to sell. but oh, it just makes me cringe to think of myself as a 'blogger'.

but, in the wise and comforting words of peng yu,

a blog is acceptable if 1) you have interesting things to say 2) you are doing something awesome that others want to hear about (aka girdie's african adventures) or 3) you want to get the word out about something (you.) no one wants to read a blog about stupid shit someone is doing every damn day."

i hope i fit into at least one of those categories...

you'll be hearing from me alot more now and i will try to keep it interesting. gulp.

this next posting is from the middle of the manuscript, from the section called " I'm awake, I'm naked and I think I'm a Christian". (hard to explain out of context...)

I didn't keep posting consecutively for 2 reasons:
1) i realize that if i keep doing that, eventually no one will have reason to buy my book (knock on wood).
2) the first section seems so whiney and memoir-y without the other parts and i didn't want people to get depressed and stop reading.

so here's a chapter straight from the middle. hasn't been proofread yet...



*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I think it’s called a Revolution.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right
Ah

I took this class called American Pop Culture at this school down the road from my school taught by this man I secretly call Flat Top Terry. It was a pretty cool class, seeing as I like to learn where things come from, including trends and history and all that. I learned all kinds of trivia, like that Peter Paul and Mary’s “There is Love” is the only secular song blessed by the Roman Catholic Church for a Wedding Mass.

Everyone says that this world is getting worse and worse and I guess I see what they’re saying, but one thing I saw from this class, as we moved from decade to decade in American culture, is that we aren’t really getting worse…we are just moving in a circle. People have always been and will always be the same flawed, beat up (dinosaurs) that we have always been. Human nature is not getting worse because you can’t get much more broke than broken. I think people are always searching for ways to fill our wounds, to stop the bleeding and we see the ways it didn’t work for our parents and so we try a new way and our children do the same and it seems like eventually we come full circuit. (examples).

If history does indeed repeat itself, as Flat Top Terry says, then if I could pick a decade for our present time to resemble, I would have to choose the 1960’s. It’s like those word similes (“associations”?) you have to do in the SATs

1960 is to Y2K as:
a) Vietnam Conflict is to the War on Terror
b) John F Kennedy is to Barack Obama
c) The Beatles are to the Jonas Brothers

I’m not saying things are identical but it is more like a second cousin type thing- you can see it around the eyes. One thing Flat Top Terry taught us was that the revolutionary spirit of the 1960’s was fueled by education. This makes sense to me. I see this at college all the time: we learn things away from the confines of our old self, have a group of peers learning the same things and we talk, discuss and get each other amped up to make a change. College enrollment swelled in the 60’s because parents of the baby boomers wanted them to have a better life than their generation did. Flat Top Terry said that some colleges had to build temporary trailers and even rent out hotel rooms just to house all of the students. So when the Vietnam Conflict happened and the draft started snatching these college age men off to war, their peers were informed and united enough to make a stink about it.

I’m really not trying to be political about all of this. I’m actually just trying to make a point about the Church, if I can just get to it.

My friend Danielle is one of those people with what I think of as a sensitive spirit. Like she has a divining rod in her heart that tells her when change is coming or when God is moving. Honestly, sometimes it’s creepy but most of the time I’m spine-tingled in awe. We have been friends for a long time (in fact, she was one of my Werewolf Jesus cohorts) and I have learned that when she says she feels God doing something, I shut my face and listen. Right around the time I started thinking about this Christian culture that I am trying to unpack, she started telling me about the work she is doing in a local youth group and how she feels this generation yearning for a change. She says she feels like something is going to happen but she’s not sure what. I picture it like those massively pregnant women you see on the beach in bikinis. There’s so much pressure on that skin and you just know a baby has to come soon or she will bust open. Danielle says she can’t see the Church functioning much longer the way it has been. That a revolution has to be born or we are going to explode. Actually, she said “implode”, nova-like, collapse in upon ourselves…but explode matches my pregnant belly description.
Here’s the thing about revolution, though. I think it usually has two parts: the deconstruction of the present way of doing things and the construction of a newer, better way. But one without the other is just stupid chaos. My 6th grade teacher took a missions trip to Haiti and came back with all kinds of stories about the poverty and squalor she encountered. She told us that Haiti used to be a rich and beautiful French territory, built on slave labor. When these slaves banded together and overthrew the French rulers, they burned and destroyed most of the French construction on the island. You can’t blame them for wanting to wipe the slate clean, but the thing is that the French had built some helpful inventions, like irrigation systems and farming machinery. Without these things, Haiti had a hard time getting back on its feet and has yet to develop much since then.

The students who led the revolutions in the 1960’s wanted the government to stop doing things the way they were doing and start doing them a new way. I’m sure there were students who joined protests in ignorance, just jumping in on a cause because their brother/boyfriend/roommate got killed or sent away. I think this is where a revolution can get into trouble- when people desire the deconstruction of the “bad” without being informed enough to see it through to the construction of the “good”. I think some people just say “yes! I agree with what you’re saying! The way we do _____ sucks! Let’s destroy it!” This kind of short-lived passion can help fuel revolutions but it can also set them off track. (They are built off of pain and anger…instead of knowledge and care…fundamentalists, radicals, jihad, crusades, Haiti…) From what I can see, the best kind of revolution is the kind that is done with a plan from the very beginning (Civil Rights, Ghandi, etc)….

But the change that Danielle feels coming (and the reason I write any of this) is not in Iraq or Vietnam. It’s closer to home. It’s in the Church that we love.
(And there’s this squeezing on my heart when I write this because I really do love the Church. It’s my home and it’s the people I love. I know things need to change but I hate to be the one to suggest a deconstruction zone. It feels disrespectful and judgmental and ungrateful and disloyal to say that I think the church is doing anything wrong. )
In a world of crooked politicians, voice synthesizers, food preservatives, breast implants and pastors with fake smiles, I think our generation is yearning for authenticity. We have grown up learning to discuss problems and seek our own solutions, but in Church we memorize the answers and are sent out to tell them to others. We have grown up encouraged to be the best that we can be and stay true to ourselves, but in Church a lip ring or an honest confession can get you bumped down a notch on the hierarchy of holiness. We grew up learning about equality and freedom, but we all know there is black church and there is white church. In Sunday school we read the Sermon on the Mount and recite the Beatitudes when there are people begging for money and lonely souls cutting their wrists just steps down the street. (When what matters more is that we are safe and happy and blessed. If we can sit in our pews and feel content, I think that might not be a good thing? If we are comfortable with everyone in our congregation, maybe that’s not good? Maybe we should bring someone to church who makes us uncomfortable? – quote from Traveling Pants 3 about people acting the worst when they are hurting the most?- not saying I do this…not gonna be one of those people who tell you that in order to be a Christian, you can never be happy or admit that you are blessed. But maybe that shouldn’t be our goal? ) I think our generation is tired of this disconnect.

But the revolution that Danielle feels coming in the church and I see necessary for our generation needs to be holistic. It needs to include a deconstruction of the way we do things and a reconstruction of a newer, better way. But we need to learn from the Haitians to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. But we need to deconstruct without destroying. I believe we are uniquely primed for this too. Our postmodern mindset may be built on the nonexistence of objective or absolute truth, but Christianity- or any belief- is built on the existence (and need for!) truth. This creates a unique standpoint for any postmodern Christian today. I think it finds balance in the embrace of “fragmented” or “conglomerate” truth, where one that admits that no human can have it all figured out. It is a willingness and humility to admit that we could be wrong and the way we do things could be wrong, we are just messed up humans trying to follow and imitate a perfect God. The way our parents did church is flawed…and so will be our newly constructed way. The only type of plan a flawed human can make is a flawed one. We need to realize this and take the truth and the beauty from the present way and use it as a foundation for the new way. And then we need to see it through to fruition. This is difficult, because some of us are in this because we are angry or hurt. Some of us want revolution because we hate what the Church did to our brother/boyfriend/roommate. This is not productive or useful.

I have no idea what this new church will look like. That will probably be someone else’s job. But since I know our generation begs for authenticity- I think we will go back to the basics. We will choose a Werewolf over a WASP. We will look at the Church Jesus built and try to move back to that blueprint. The way I picture it is that so much time has passed since the good old original that cultural traditions and ridiculous ritual overgrew it and became calcified and mistaken for actual Truth. I think our generation would like to just Bic off all of those falsities and just have bald, naked church back. Maybe that’s what we will call it. Bald Naked Church of God.

update

also, just an update for those of you who care... i'm still working on this book proposal but my deadline is october 31st - after that the agent will pitch it to several publishers (some of his clients are big time, so keep your fingers crossed!!!) and see if anyone likes what they see! yikes!!!

but there's a whole section on the proposal where i have to list different "broadcast platforms" that i could use to help market the book. they ask how many people i can contact within a month, how many people regularly read my work, etc etc...so this is where this stupid blogging comes in. so thanks for being a member and helping give me at least ONE platform to brag about!

so keep the comments coming, because i can use every suggestion and improvement that i can get! (or just plain old encouragement is never a bad thing either).

I am Truman. (from chapter 3)

Remember Jim Carrey in The Truman Show?

For months after seeing it at my friend’s 10th birthday, I was ridiculously suspicious of my surroundings. Was my mom really changing the battery on the smoke detector, or was she adjusting the hidden camera? Had the entire free world seen Becca and me pretending our Barbies were having sex? I remember having a very grave conversation with my 8 year old brother about my misgivings toward the dining room chandelier. The movie puts you on edge, because, if you’re like me, you hate the idea of your life being run by something outside of you and you hate the idea of being kept ignorant.

Sometimes, looking back, I feel like I did kind of grow up like little Truman. Not in the sense that I was adopted by a media corporation as an infant or that my mom was hired actress, but that decisions were made for me, my environment was strictly monitored, even fabricated. Remember the lengths the producers went to when Truman tried to leave the “island”? They set dogs on him, collapsed the bridge, drowned his father. They did everything in their power to keep him in his world, and my parents did everything they could to keep me in a purely Christian world. If I tried to venture into the secular realm, I was cut off and offered a Christian alternative.

I remember when my best friend Jared secretly bought the Backstreet Boys Millennium album. We kept it hidden in his room because neither of us was allowed to listen to secular music. I actually don’t think we listened to it for the first month or so, we were so nervous, we just took it out and admired how white their shoes and smiles were, occasionally gushing about how happy we were that Brian recovered from his heart surgery. Jared’s mom found the CD and threw it away and we both cried and listened bitterly to the Carmen’s RIOT that she bought him as a consolation gift.

I pendulate between feeling upset at being so sheltered, so boxed in by my Christian bubble, and being thankful for parents who just wanted me to feel safe. Do you remember when Truman finally sets his mind to escaping and sails literally into the edge of his world? The producer of the show, who has seen him grow from a baby and has designed the only world Truman has ever known, comes over the loudspeaker and tries to convince him to stay. He asks Truman not to be angry, but thankful because he was only trying to protect him from the cruelty of the world outside. He created a safe space for Truman to live and grow. I know my parents are not these sinister psychologists doing experiments on me by controlling my environment…they love me so much they tried to keep me in a world where I could roam freely. A world where joy and hope had a fighting chance. I don’t blame them, but as I get older and think about my own kids, I’m plagued with the question of when should this end? At what point does the Christian culture stop being safety and start crippling us? We have to live in the real world at some point- when should our parents start preparing us for that?

In my seventh grade science class, we were each given a caterpillar. We fed it this weird goop and eventually, they all wove themselves into little cocoons and we waited for them to emerge as butterflies. I have an embarrassing phobia toward moths and this makes me wary of butterflies, but this didn’t stand in the way of my overachieving nature. I wanted my butterfly to come out first, so when the cocoons started shaking and pulsing, I put a little slice in the side of mine, to help the little guy along. My butterfly came out limp and sickly and died soon after. Mrs. Bishop judged me through her bifocals and patiently explained that a butterfly needs to struggle out of the cocoon in order to develop the muscles to actually fly. Of course I denied helping my cocoon in any way, but I still feel a little flutter of guilt deep in my ribcage when I think about that little butterfly. I was just trying to help, but I killed it. When Truman actually escaped his island, when I finally made it out of the Christian bubble, stepped out blinking into the blinding reality of life, my question is, were we protected or crippled? Should we be fed reality in little jars like baby food? Or simply thrust into the water, learning to swim out of necessity?