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