wedding.

 for those of you who asked, here is what i read at Big Guy's wedding... i'm amazed and humbled at the reactions i have received. i thought i was going to be the debbie downer of the wedding.  i think it's kind of out there in the universe that you have to fight to have a great marriage and if you don't fight, it's just a dead marriage. the truth is, you have to fight to have a marriage at all. and i'm learning that there's hope and beauty in that truth.

In the book of Revelation, Jesus’ disciple John is trying to describe his vision of Heaven. He is the only man I know of to see Heaven and come back to tell about it. He describes it the best way he knows how, which amounts to a lot of really bizarre metaphors and illustrations. But the one that fills me with the most hope and the most joy is this:

John, trying to cram all of the perfection, beauty and unity he saw up there into our whisperingly fragile language, describes Heaven as a wedding feast. 

He describes the meeting of God and His children as what we just saw, what we stood and rejoiced in, what we marvel over time and time again : a bride, making her gorgeous and thrilling walk toward her first love.

There’s not much advice I can give you two. Most of what I know about unconditional love, I learned from you. But there’s something I can tell you about, something I have learned about during this, my first year of marriage. I’m not too proud of it, because I didn’t learn it like a scholar gains knowledge through hard work or as an old man gathers wisdom over time- but more like a drowning person learns to swim: out of savage necessity.

And that is courage.

I’ve learned that there is a dark force in this world that doesn’t want us to live beautiful stories. It doesn’t want us to walk toward Heaven, toward God and toward each other with the love and joy that we celebrate today. "It doesn’t want us to face our issues, to face our fear and bring something lovely into the world."* I think you will learn that marriage is all at once unexpectedly difficult and unexpectedly beautiful because of this force.

So if there’s one thing I know from 385 days of marriage it is this: you have to be really brave.

Because in a world that resists beautiful stories, you constantly have to choose between love and fear. You cannot have a little bit of each. But here’s the wonderful truth, the lovely secret that I beg you to cling to when the promises you make today get hard to keep:

You are fighting for the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.

When all hell breaks loose against you, that’s when you know you’re in the middle of something eternally right. Because if there’s a dark force resisting beautiful stories, then imagine how ferociously it will resist this, our personal illustration of Heaven on earth.

So, my beautiful friends, wake up every morning and be brave. Root yourselves in His perfect love that is here, around us and within us, driving out our fears and calling us home.






*this is a quote from don miller's 'a million miles in a thousand years'. in a dreamworld where he actually reads my blog, i wouldn't want him getting pissed...

inception.

i wanted to start this post with a clever insight or a witty reference toward the total mind grenade that is INCEPTION...but i am a) not smart enough b) getting ahead of myself.

IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MOVIE, you should. and when you do, come back and read the rest of this post, so i don't spoil parts of the movie for you.

IF YOU HAVE SEEN THIS MOVIE, check out this  guy's interpretation. i came out of the movie in an intellectual depression. i get that way when i can't wrap my mind around something. i felt about 87% better after reading this article.

now, i wasn't going to blog about the movie because this is supposed to be a blog on christian culture and the last thing i want to do is be THAT writer. you know, the one who feeds on every pop culture spectacle by giving the christian view/version/interpretation. but, like an idea that's been INCEPTED into my mind...i can't stop looking at the world around me through the lens of this incredible movie.

i've been thinking alot about death lately.
not in a creepy, angelina jolie way, but more of a...musing. i recently had my wisdom teeth out and while on vicodin, i dreamt that i died. it was a vivid dream and death felt just like...falling asleep. (the heaven that i dreamed is beautiful enough for a whole separate post...) and i've been wondering how accurate my dream actually was. i've been thinking about that moment when our inner candle gets snuffed out, something in us dissapears and we we stop being a person and become just an object that gives people the creeps. it's weird, right? everyone wonders what it's like to die.

in pilgrim's progess, christian has to walk through the river of death to get to the celestial city and as he walks in to his neck and the water starts to wash over his face, he panics, floundering about until he feels land under his feet again and suddenly he's in heaven. props to john bunyan for this world renowned allegory but WOW could you come up with a less horrifying analogy than drowning!!? i remember in touched by an angel, when andrew - the angel of death - would come to a person while they were sleeping and explain that it was time to go see God. he was so pretty and calm and he would take them by the hand and they'd walk off into invisibility, beautiful as can be. that was nice.

in a jodi picoult book i read once (don't hate...) she wonders if it isn't like when you're little and you fall asleep in the car during a long trip. someone bigger than you carries you inside and lays you in bed and in the morning you wake up and wonder how you ended up at home. and i always liked that explanation. i thought about it while i was watching inception and also after i had my vicodin dream.

stay with me on this one.

i wonder if that's most what it will be like to die. in terms of inception, you "hit the drop" and wake up with a start, look around and realize you're Home. you're with your Creator, the Being that fills the universe with love, joy, color and goodness. and you'll think "oh good, i'm awake!" and all of the things you did during that dream on earth will seem a little fuzzy. being truly awake, you can look back on that dream - the life you lived so ferociously and obliviously - and see all of the things that don't quite make sense. because, like leo says, you don't realize that something was odd until you wake up. like how you cared more about being promoted than you did about helping your neighbor pay his heating bill. or how you attended church so faithfully but never forgave your ex for cheating on you. or how you spent so much time shopping and so little time trying to get in touch with this overwhelming Presence of love that fills up your senses now that you're awake for the first time.

and i wonder how silly i'll feel. how funny my little blog will sound in the presence of pure Truth. how bizarre things like pornography, competition, pollution and self-help books will seem. how wimpy and broken our religious rituals will appear. how truly SHORT our time will have seemed.

and we'll all be up there together, God chasers, awake and giddy with that specific combination of excitement and relief that comes from waking up from a dream - no matter how good or bad. and like all dreams do, maybe our times on this version of earth will fade from memory and all that will be left is the lessons we took away. the lessons in love and mercy, kindness and joy. forgiveness and patience. the kind of lessons that cs lewis says will make us "more solid, more suitable for heaven".

sometimes i can catch myself falling asleep. it's that feeling of falling away, the pull toward blankness. i always resist it, as i've always fought the unknown. it's not that i'm scared- it's a control thing. but if that's death, that right there...the feeling i felt in my dream...i believe that someday -  when i've told my stories and fought the fights i need to fight and learned the lessons i still need to learn - i'll reach a point where i won't resist it. i hope that a lifetime of Godchasing will have made the unknown a little closer to known. and i'll just...go.

and the most affirming, comforting moment in my life thus far?
in my trippy little vicodin dream, as sun splashed into the ocean and i felt the rush of a million birds flying at me (i told you it would take a whole separate post to explain...) and the world disintegrated around me, pulling me into death, the only thought in my dream-dying mind was this:

"i'll see you soon, Jesus".

and i think i can spend the rest of my time here on earth sprinting toward that same steady thought.

so thanks, vicodin.

schmancy 2.0

ok, 1st makeover was not such a hit.

what do we think of this one?

well, readers, i've got good news and bad news.

bad news first, always:
the agent 'passed' on representing me. wrote me a raving review but says his client load is full and he can't take on anyone new (especially a baby author like me). sad day. he was sure to let me know i am very publishable and that he loved my manuscript, so that softened the blow. so did the massive amounts of chocolate chip ice cream and dino nuggets i ate afterward.

good news:
now is my chance to cash in on all of those "ins" you have all been offering me these past months. for everyone whose brother's friend's roommate works at an agency or whose next door neighbor's dog walker works at Zondervan... hit me with it. we are back to square one...but in a good way. we are staying positive. we are exploring our options.

we are sick to death of dino nuggets.

genie.

i used to need a tiny God.

and when i say that, i think of the cheesy John the Baptist snowglobe (well, technically it was a water-globe) that we had in our living room. Jesus and JTB were inside and when you shook it, the artificially blue water sloshed down, "baptizing" them. wahoo.

i used to need a God who would fit in a delicate glass globe amongst my mom's victorian hat boxes.

when i thought about the real God, i pictured Genie from Disney's Alladin: He could be everywhere at once, he could stretch out to fit the sky, he could multiply and race around the globe,  he could melt down and fill the ocean, he could grow big and bounce the earth like a ping pong ball. He was this giant, uncontainable presence that scared the crap out of me.

so i wanted him to be small. tiny. my-size-barbie-esque.
i liked when God was described as "here beside me" or "my best friend" "my confidant". i liked the stuff about Him being a part of my daily life and caring that my guinea pig died (rest in peace, Zippy) and helping me finish my math homework. i liked the cozy side of God. all of the other stuff - the stuff about Him ruling the earth and reigning in power and majesty and commanding the waves and overseeing history - that was all just much too much. it made Him feel distant and terrifying - not in a bad way but more in a strange, unfamiliar way.

i've been reading through Psalms lately.
and i used to think of Psalms as kind of a bipolar teenage diary. one second it's all "God, where are you -  my life sucks" and the next, it's "God is so good! praise Him forever!". and of course, we can all relate to both. but since i have been reading through it front to back, i am seeing two consistent themes. the first is honesty. these people tell God EXACTLY how they feel and in the end, realize who they're talking to - which is why i think so many of them take a bizarre turn toward praisetown. which brings me to the next thing i am seeing. the most consistent message i keep getting smacked with in Psalms is this: God reigns. the Lord reigns. He is above it all. so many of the Psalms focus on His power and majesty and...bigness.

and the little kid inside of me wants to shrink away from this. wants to shove that tricksy Genie back into the waterglobe. but at this point in my life, when i'm standing on the edge of the real world and realizing just how enormous it really is, a big God doesn't seem so scary anymore. on the contrary, it feels like quite a comfort. to see the job market as this vast, bustling landscape and then to imagine Him stretched out over it. large and in charge. to see my future rolling out like a not-so-red carpet with a million multiplied Genies lining either side. to know that as bipolar as i may feel day in and day out, and as big and tangled and complicated this adult life may get, HE REIGNS. bottom line is, at the end of the day, no matter what life throws at me, He is bigger.

and i don't say that as a chirpy, saccharine Christiany answer to any problem. like the Psalmists, i know there will be times when i'll pull a line from a Mel Gibson movie, shake my little fist at the sky and say "this sucks!" but to know that He is bigger than the suckiness is a tiny comfort in and of itself.

shmancy.

so, what do we think of the new design?


 vote now, yea or nay.

i think it might be a little TOO pretty for werewolf.

latest and greatest.

still waiting to hear from the big, bad Agent.

thanks for all of the inquiries. in the meantime, instead of twiddling my abnormally long thumbs, i have been very busy. here's some of the many very important things i have done:

1. i set up a twitter. i'm still learning my way around the branches, tweetage and all that, but i'm on there. follow me, if you're into that thing. werewolfjesusbk
2. i removed the wallpaper in my bathroom. i was a little too enthusiastic in my removal. so then i spackled the holes and sealed everything up, forgot to ventilate and got a little high off fumes.
3. i roadtripped to pennsylvania and met my husbands entire family. there are alot of them and they all promised to visit my website so let's see who followed through. (guys, i know i said no pressure but let's be honest, i have been checking ever since...)
4. i got the thrilling news that my wisdom teeth removal surgery will take place on my birthday. superb.
5. i got my hair cut short. on the good days, i decide that i am very katie holmes-esque and that everyone envies my sleek, artsy style. on the bad days, i am convinced that i just look like johnny dep from the new, creepy willy wonka movie. i spend most days in an exhausting flip flop between the two ideas.
6. i wrote a proposal for A SECOND BOOK. i started getting inklings toward the end of Werewolf Jesus that there might be a second book rumbling up within me. it is so. more to come on that later but for now i will say i am calling it "Animangels" (i'm really into word fusion these days and if i need to spell it out for you, i will. animals and angels and the weird ways we humans are all at once both and neither.)

i'll keep you updated (hopefully via tweet...) on the book progress.

in the meantime, if you're new to the site, excerpts are in the archives, feel free to look around.

tinkle.

ladies and gentlemen, we have entered crunch time.

my nose is spending so much time pressed to the grindstone this week that i am starting to chafe (har har har) and maybe i will end up looking like michael jackson (too soon?) but Werewolf Jesus must be in the mail, padded envelope, on its way to Colorado by FRIDAY. after that, it's in the hands of the agent and i don't know much about the process from there.

'rocketman' was my absolute favorite movie growing up (followed closely by 'dunston checks in' and 'good burger') and there's this part where doofy fred z. randall - last minute choice for a trip to mars - is about to takeoff in the spaceship. they start the countdown and he starts freaking out and saying that he's not ready and finally screams

I HAVE TO GO TINKLE!

and it kind of feels a little bit like that to me right now.

needless to say, i should be getting back to work, but in the meantime check out my friend knuck's blog
i'm stealing a quote from her entry on a wrinkle in time, so you can say you read it way back when.

prayers, encouragement and shipments of smartfood and red grapes (preferred writing snacks) are welcomed and appreciated.

weirdness.

In the early 90's, my little brother was completely obsessed with Hanson. (MMMBop - don't act like you don't remember.) We, of course, weren't allowed to listen to secular music, so we would go to Becca's house and dance to her cassette on repeat, our sockfeet making swirls in the dust on the hardwood floor.
     They had this one song called 'Weird' that sang (in a gorgeously pre-pubescent soprano) isn't it weird, isn't it strange, that we all get a little bit weird sometimes. 


I'm nearing the end of my book. (!!!!!) and yes, freaking out a little bit. I passed the 50,000 marker last week, which means I could hand it in now and breathe easy. But I want to hit 60,000 and finish on time and with excellence. so thanks to those of you who have been encouraging me along the way.

above is a little blip from the chapter I'm scurrying to finish this week. It's about how the more I live, the more I realize how truly, wonderfully weird everyone is, in their own way. I'm starting to see and appreciate the bizarre, unique and often unrecognized gifts the people around me possess and the equally bizarre, unique and unrecognized ways God uses these gifts in His big story.

My friend MJ (holla!) has a quote that I've been marinating on -

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." I'm starting to see that the plans God has for the people around me are as crazy as the things that make these people come alive. 

Don Miller's blog this week was about asking people about their stories (you might as well start reading his blog too, because I am hooked and will probably just keep on citing it...). I absolutely love this because I absolutely hate small talk. I don't care about your job or your kid's 2nd grade graduation - and what's more, I know you probably don't really care either. I'd rather hear about the things you really DO care about, even if we're not "at that point" in our relationship yet.

So my question, in this scattered blog entry is this:
what makes you come alive? specific and unique to only you.

i'm looking for examples to feed on.

comment anonymously or email me at majecla317!

nathaniel.

My friend Big Guy (who is a girl) names cars. You might think this is silly until she names your car and you feel the difference. She has a bizarre gift. She comes up with the name that exactly personifies your car and after that, everything you hated or loved or even briefly noticed about your car has a ring of affection to it.

I had a big, gray, fugly Mercury Grand Marquis for the longest time. The woman who owned it before me smoked like a chimney and it absolutely rotted the interior. The thing was disgusting and bits of it were always just falling off. It had no AC, only 2 working windows and chugged gas like crazy. But after Big Guy named it Nathaniel… I couldn’t help but smile at “him.” (It’s like that smelly, awkward cousin that everyone has – you wish he was different, but if we was, you almost wouldn’t like him as much.)

There’s just something about names.

Something that instantly spins a thread of relationship and meaning between two people (or a person and a car…) When a baby says your name, it makes you feel awesome. When someone mispronounces your name (story of my life) it hurts a little. When someone forgets your name, it makes you feel insignificant.

I think about the Bible and how Adam names the animals and God renames people like Abraham and Sarah and then God as Jesus renames his disciples. I think about places like the DMV or the deli or prison where people’s names are substituted with numbers. I think about the levels of degradement we feel in those places and how different we would feel if they simply used our names.

There’s something about names that tugs on our identity.

Don Miller’s “What If Challenge” is buzzing all over the Christian culture. I agree with him – “what if?...” is one of the most powerful questions we can ask, because it sends us foreward. When we make promises, resolutions, and challenges to ourselves, they only go so far. They say “tomorrow I will do this…” without considering the end result. There’s something powerful about imagining the outcome of your promise first. When you ask “what if?”, you invite yourself to dream. You allow yourself to see the possibilities and the repurcussions of your actions. Those glimpses into a possible future hold you accountable more than you realize. They motivate you.

I asked myself “what if I called people by their name more often?”

When I thank the tattooed cashier at Dollar Tree.

When I catch my elusive downstairs neighbor, getting into his car.

When the guy outside 7-11 asks me for change.

The future I see, growing out of this question like a lovely, iridescent bubble, is small but beautiful. It is beautiful for me and for the people whose names I will call. Because when I learn the name of the man outside 7-11, he becomes more of a human to me and less of a statistic. He looks more like my “own flesh and blood” that God tells me in Isaiah to stop turning away from. His name reminds me to abound in grace and compassion and I imagine (I hope!) that when I say it, he feels valued.

Because, as I’ve said before, the business of Jesus that I feel most powerfully in my life, is the business of looking people in the eyes and showing them they have value and they are loved. I’m not very good at it. I struggle every day. But if I learned people’s names, if I called them by that name, I think it’s a pretty solid (ever so small) step in the right direction. 

first of all

i have to say, i'm so flattergasted (flattered AND flabbergasted) that so many of you were concerned that i haven't posted in a while. i will use three of my fingers to point blame in this situation.

-index finger goes to florida - thanks for the vacation but you sure were distracting.
(skipping middle finger for obvious reasons)
-ring finger goes to SPRING. new sprengland is one of the most gorgeous things you'll ever witness and --the last thing i have wanted to go is be inside on my laptop
-pinky for my book. everything i end up posting ends up in the book somehow and i figure at this rate, no one will buy the end result! also, my deadline is coming soon and i have been panicked/busy.

which brings me to my next point.

several of you have asked for an update on the book situation. plain and simple, i have to have 60,000 words by june 11th. i want to finish by may 11th so i can tidy up and edit for a month. i'm at 45,759 currently so...getting there. i'm averaging 4,000 words a week, made possible by the system of rewards and punishments laid out by drew. i win things like dove chocolate ice cream bars, grey's anatomy episodes and trips to the science museum. the punishment has been a constant since the beginning: for every day i don't meet my quota, i have to give drew a 20 minute massage. there's nothing i hate more (besides moths) than giving massages.

so thanks for the inquiries/encouragement.
i'll try to come up with a little summin summin for you in the next week.
and, i am almost positive that what i come up with will have to do with the "what if challenge" from Don Miller's blog on April 13th.

the 'what if' challenge

read up and let that percolate for a while. send me your thoughts. send me your what ifs.

i'd love to hear.

talk to me.

i've received some wonderful stories in response to the "caleb" post a few weeks ago. for those that shared, thank you for telling me your stories! i have been blessed and inspired and encouraged by each one of them.

and i don't just say crap like that because it's nice to say.

i've started writing the chapter i had in mind when i asked for responses and with each story, a new idea bubbles up. so please, continue to be my nameless, faceless, electronic muses.

if anyone else would like to share puhleeease do.

you can comment anonymously or email me at majecla317@gmail.com

an elephant has fallen through the roof.

There are those people in the world – they seem to make up the vast majority, if you ask me – who, when something significant or out-of-the-ordinary happens, ask

“what do we do about it?”

“how did this come to be?”

and other logical, pertinent, practical type questions that are expected of humans who are busy developing, understanding and moving forward.

But, living among these logical, practical, expected humans are another breed entirely. Those that ask less-expected and (to them) more important questions, like

“what does it mean?”

“could it be?...”

"what if?..."

I am one of those people. I can’t help it -  it’s the way my brain wanders.

I’m reading The Magicians Elephant, in which, after an elephant crashes through the roof of an opera house and lands on a woman, the town of Baltese is alive with all sorts of expected questions like “what do we do with this elephant?” “whose fault is it?”

But there is one policeman who, as he walks home and watches the lamplighter bring the city into warm ambiance, wonders 

“where is the elephant’s real home?” 

“why did it come here? Does it have a mission?” 

“Could it be that he will bring his friends and soon a whole zoo will drop through the opera house ceiling?” 

His mind races and swirls and dips, diving through the imaginative possibilities of this elephant’s arrival.

I think there will be those people who scoff at my book because there is a great deal of it that deals with simple wonder. What if Jesus was like this? What if Heaven is like this?

To some people, these seem like silly questions because they have no answer and they do nothing to solve the more important issues at hand:

“what do we do about it?”

“how did this come to be?”

But, if you ask me, when it comes to things like Jesus, Eternity, Salvation and Grace, there are the things we know:

Jesus died so we wouldn’t have to.

Eternity can be spent with or without God.

Salvation is free and everlasting.

Grace is the best thing that has been extended to us and that we can extend to others.

An elephant has fallen through the roof.

And after these things, there are not many more solid facts to uncover. The majority of the people in the world will spend their days asking logical and practical questions about these simple, unalterable facts, filling up books and conference halls, never getting much closer to an answer than the generations before them.

But the poets among us, the wonderers, the dreamers and the children will ask:

“What will we look like in Heaven?”

“What was Jesus like when He was tired?”

“Are there whole other galaxies of people who worship God in completely different ways than we do?”

These questions don’t get us any more answers than the logical, practical questions of the vast majority do. But they point to a God who is more majestic, breathtaking, fascinating and beautiful than our logic and practicality can contain. They evoke a sense of wonder. 

And I’ve heard it said that there is no better worship than wonder.

So I think it will be ok if there is some scoffing. I think we need both types of people and both types of questions. 

caleb.

this excerpt (from chapter 15ish) is very special to me (for obvious reasons). i debated on whether or not i should share it but i finally decided to because i need help with a new chapter and was hoping this one could serve as a template. i'll explain more at the end. 


i cut out some parts that wouldn't have made sense out of the context of surrounding chapters, so just bear with the randoms analogies that seemingly have no reference. 


i incorporated a previous posting "moths. gag." into the book, so you'll recognize the first few lines...

.........In the same vein, I know there are a lot of people who think of Christians and want to gag. They’ve been traumatized by a series of bizarre and probably stupid encounters and now want nothing to do with anyone who calls themself a Christian. They come up with complicated maneuvers to avoid these people. But what if they met JUST ONE Christian or had ONE ENCOUNTER that didn't make them want to run in the other direction? That would be their Gandalf Moth. Maybe it’s a someone, maybe it’s a feeling…maybe its JESUS.

So instead of running from my Damascus Road and my consciousness, instead of giving in to the perplexity, frustration and seeming impossibility of trying to find Christ among the Christianity, I search for the exception. Something that defies my urge to abandon, something that pulls me back to fight for what’s important. Something to hold on to.

For me, it’s Caleb.

When I feel like running, Caleb is what brings me back. Caleb makes me fight. Caleb’s story makes me believe in church and makes me want to keep burrowing until I find more and more pieces of Christ.

.......

Sometimes I think I catch glimpses of Him, in moments of beauty, stillness and awe. Sometimes it’s the really terrible things that call Him to visit.

The most beautiful and the most awful thing happened at my church. Baby Caleb died – that’s the awful part. He was the first baby born into our tiny congregation for as long as I could remember. We all loved him and secretly pretended he belonged to our family and sat in our row of chairs. He was a laughing baby and had big brown eyes and ringlets. When he died, nobody knew what to do. It was like our small church and our small town were paralyzed. Nobody expects babies to die and when they do, there’s not really a protocol in place. My mom was there minutes after they found him and she said even the firemen were frozen.

The beautiful part happened after all of the awful stuff- the tiny casket and trying so hard not to look at his mom, shaking and shaking. The first Sunday after the awful parts, Caleb’s mom called my mom to say they were going to skip church – they couldn’t bear to be in the place where Caleb would be so obviously absent. They were going to stay home and try to pray. Pastor Jim stood behind the pulpit and couldn’t even speak – the empty row in the back glowed in the corners of everyone’s minds. Finally, he choked out what every person was thinking- “what are we doing here?” Everyone got back in their cars and caravanned to the house where the awful things happened. Cars bumpered up the street and filled the front lawn. Crowded into in the living room, everyone shared hymnals and Bibles and God’s family worshipped Him in the house where He took Baby Caleb home, making sure everyone had someone to lean on.

In something as beautiful and as awful as Baby Caleb’s story I sway with a jolt of understanding and then spend the rest of the week scrambling to hold on to it before my eyes cloud over again with theology, culture, false prophecy and my own humanity. For the most whispering of a second, thousands of years seem to fall away and I see what God was doing. I understand Church. I believe in Church. Then the hair starts to grow back and I lose sight of that beautiful bald naked plan we are all chasing after.

so my question to you, average-of-18-hits-a-day-on-this-blog, is:

what is your Caleb?

we all know that the church is messed up - it's inevitable. we're only human. but when you feel like throwing up your hands, what makes you stay and fight? what makes you believe that this is all worthwhile? what reminds you that under all of these shenanigans, there is a God of truth and peace and purpose? 

i'd love to hear your stories. i'm hoping that the chapter after caleb's can include similar reminders and i only have so many storytelling friends :)

-and to clarify, i'm talking about CHURCH stories. i have no doubt God does amazing things in your life. He's not the problem - we are. (no offense, humans everywhere.)  

comment or email me at majecla317@gmail.com

new feature.

also i just figured out how to do this thing where blogger will send automatic email to people when i update. if you want to be on this list, just let me know (i guess you can leave a comment or email me your email address at majecla317@gmail.com)

audio adrenaline.

i'll keep this short since i know all of our ears are a little flooded with haiti information lately.

...also i have no idea how many people actually read my blog thus how effective this will be.

all the devastation in haiti has me reeling and i'm flooded with the helplessness i discussed in the ashton kutcher post. i saw footage of all the dead bodies on the tv screen above as i was getting a root canal...no such thing as novacaine for the heart.

as i'm barraged with heartbreaking statistics, videos, pleas for help, my first response is GIVE. but then there's all of the ridiculous arguing over which organization is "better" to give to. people say the red cross only gives 33 cents to the dollar and bill clintons organization isnt much better. i dont much care about the percentage as long as these people are getting help.

my point: i just found out that the lead singer of audio adrenaline has had a nonprofit in Haiti for some years now and was there when the earthquake hit. you can donate to his organization on the "hands and feet" website...he's been blogging since the destruction hit and it's cool to hear exactly how they are helping people and how the money is being used.

come on, audio adrenaline was the best!

heaven revised.

i've been working on the heaven chapter some more this week. still working tonight and tomorrow but here's what i've got so far. feedback? what did you used to think heaven would be like? what do you think now? 

I’m often afraid of Heaven. If I think too long on it, I feel a shivery nausea run through me before my thoughts skip somewhere safer. The sheer, unfathomable Otherness of such a place or existence always overwhelms me. I think it’s the same with most people. I think that’s why books like The Lovely Bones are such a hit: they make our fear manageable. One of my earliest and most revisited memories is of my mom calming my fears about Heaven. She found me hysterically sobbing into Carebear in the dark of my canopy bed. When I admitted that the source of my panic was the thought of spending “a forever” in Heaven, she laughed (the nerve!), but then got very serious.

“What’s the hardest thing you’re learning in school right now?” She asked.

Sensing a diversion and feeling one hundred percent above her child-psychology tactics, I answered hesitantly

“…long division?”

“Now imagine an ant trying to do your long division homework…do you think that’s possible?”

I remember cracking up, thinking that was just about the funniest thing I could picture,

its little antennae twitching and fizzling as it struggled to compute. Haha! Stupid little

ant.

 “No! Their brains are way too small!”

And then she told me that’s what it’s like when we try to understand something like Heaven. She said our human brains are too small to handle something so God-sized.

“You don’t have to be afraid of something just because you can’t understand it. The trick is learning to trust that God does.”

But that’s such a challenge from the very beginning. We have so many weird images of heaven fed to us – no wonder most of us are terrified. One of my least favorite childhood movies, All Dogs Go to Heaven shows it as this weird, cloudy void with a phone that can receive red-hot calls from Hell.  And the dogs bounced from cloud to cloud as they sang their chirpy cartoon songs and I clenched my teeth thinking Don’t fall through! FOR PETE’S SAKE STEP MORE CAREFULLY! Because one wrong move and you could straight up FALL OUT OF HEAVEN. I remember having nightmares about that voice in the locket – you can never come baaaaaaack. You can never come baaaaaaack. What a horrible, horrible movie.

There’s the Philadelphia Cream Cheese indulgence view of heaven where we all lie on clouds half naked and eat piles of cheesecake or onion rings or baby carrots – whatever makes you happy. Because, to most American minds, in a place of no tears there must be partial nudity and plates upon plates of food.

And I was (ok, still am) a big-time fan of the Phillie Cream Cheese view.

When I was younger I had a borderline frightening obsession with chicken wings – I would eat them day and night if I could, tearing through them like a savage feral child, just stumbled in from my woodland home. My parents say that the only reason us kids any self-control whatsoever is because of their mini temperance act: if things got out of hand, like if I got that look in my eye where they knew I was seeing everyone as a giant, talking chicken wing or when I would wake up early to try and eat the leftovers for breakfast, they put us on prohibition: I wasn’t allowed to have chicken wings and for similar reasons my little brother Ryan (who was a fatty little kid) wasn’t allowed to have candy.  It was torture and I remember comforting myself with the thought: well when I get to Heaven, I get to have all the chicken wings I want. And I pictured me and Jesus sitting Indian-style at a sturdy, primary colored Little Tykes table, leaning back on our cloud chairs and sharing an enormous platter of chicken wings. And the platter would magically refill itself every time it started to get low and Jesus and I would throw our greasy faces back and laugh, laugh, laugh. Ryan of course, would be there too in an overstuffed armchair, his chubby ankles sticking straight out off the edge. He would have a similarly magical cut-glass punch bowl in his lap, filled to the brim with Blow Pops and Razzles and Pixie Sticks and Hubba Bubba. (And there would be no licorice present because I was fairly certain that Lord Licorice From Candyland was the devil and there was no way he was sneaking up into my heaven through his tasty consumer products.) We would eat and eat to our hearts content, therefore fulfilling St. John’s prophecy that in heaven there would be no tears, no suffering etc etc.  And the glorious songs we sang would blend into an everlasting jingle for our favorite snacks, in order to show God how grateful we were for the endless food. I love these fishes cuz they’re soooo delicious! Gone goldfishing!!! Thanks for that blue box, Kraft macaroni and cheese – we got the blues!!!

And then, probably sensing that they were feeding the chicken and candy obsession rather than squelching it, my parents kind of snatched that snacky version of heaven away and start to teach us a more serious faith. No, you won’t be eating Smartfood all day, because you’ll be too busy praising God. And I pictured us all floating around in choir robes, our hands folded Von Trapp style, high on our chests. And there are so many versions of this boring Heaven from TV shows, movies, even children’s books to feed my imaginings. You know - people just kind of hovercrafting around, admiring the beauty, being pious, talking in library tones. Like my grandmother’s retirement megavillage in Florida. All landscaped and perfect and quiet and cookie-cuttered. There’s a pool but no splashing, bikes but no racing, shopping – but from stores like Chicos, Naturalizer and GNC. Let’s be honest – it sounds more like a punishment than an eternal reward.

To add to this, my parents started to read us the baffling descriptions of Heaven from Revelation. Then, in what used to be more of an echo-ey endless fog-filled buffet, some architecture slid into place. Now Heaven had streets of gold, mansions with countless rooms, seas of crystal, jewels everywhere and freakish multi-limbed (but friendly) talking creatures. It was like The White House, Emerald City and Narnia all rolled into one.  I was torn between glee and terror. Because you see, places like that - that are terribly large and beautiful are generally very cold and lonely places. I would have much rather heard that Heaven was like a snuggy cabin from a Thomas Kinkade painting. And we would all gather around that magical fire and sing twangy bluegrass songs. A plain but homey Heaven was much more appealing to my small-town mind than a dazzling, colossal palace filled with sunshine and stainless steel.

Even as I’ve grown up and seen more of the world, I can’t say much has changed. I feel closest to God in small, warm settings – at candlelit Christmas Eve services, canoeing on the river, reading the Bible in a coffee shop, snuggled up by the woodstove.  When I go to conferences, when I tip my head back in the St. Paul’s Cathedral, when I shrink down beneath a curtain of stars, it feels like there’s too much space. Like He’s dissolving.

Maybe I’m trying to fit Him into my little ant brain…or maybe my little ant brain is trying to tell me something - like that perfect communion with a God who is Love is less like visiting the Wizard of Oz and more like snuggling up by the fireplace. Like that when we’re all “up there”, chicken wings and all – it won’t feel alien, vacant or cold. It will feel a little bit like coming home.

(And ya, ya, ya I get it that we will also be filled with awe and wonder and fall on our faces to worship, etc. But I don’t think it will be a trembly, fearful worship like so many pastoral type people describe. I think it will be more like the first time you see Mickey Mouse. You hide behind your mom’s leg at first because he’s freaking huge and you weren’t expecting such enthusiastic grandeur…but then you start to grin because you think I knew it! I knew you were real and I have believed in you for so very, very long and you’re FINALLY finally here!  And he reaches out his arms to you and your smile nearly cracks your face in two because he wants to hug you. He wants to hug you of all people. )