I'm back. Really.

I can't believe it's been two years since I last blogged on this blog. So much has happened... I've been lost in a whole lot of transition the since my last post: baby, new job, homeschool changes, etc. Now that things are settling in and we're well into the two-year-old phase with Ashleigh, I'm settling in and finding myself again...

...and trying to find my creative self again. I've been so hungry to write, to create, to sing, to record. I need it, and I deny myself the pleasure more often than not because the day-to-day gets in the way and I fall into an endless cycle of laundry and dishes and retreat to the TV, and I forget that God created me to create. I'm so much happier when I'm doing what He has called me to do.

To that end, I am doing NaNoWriMo this year, albeit quietly and in a very laid-back sort of way (not pressuring myself to keep up the daily word count quotas, but just making sure I show up and write something every day). It's been wonderful. Story sucks, but it's a first draft. Anne Lamott says I can write a crappy first draft. So I am.

David and I have discovered the wonders of Garageband, and he's become quite adept at producing some really great music with it, so we are looking toward recording some new stuff pretty soon. I'm really excited about this; it's really incredible that the type of record that cost us thousands of dollars to produce 10 years ago in a studio is now free and possible to create at home... and then instantly upload them to iTunes and share them with the world.

My goal is to set aside a little time every day to write. I stink at the discipline part of it, so if I can just make myself show up, well... who knows? I may actually crank something out of value someday.

So this is my first stab at what I hope to be a more regular blog, with no expectations on myself to be witty or profound. It's more for my own enjoyment and satisfaction than anything; if people happen to read it and glean something useful from it once in awhile, well, that's great, too.

Now I'm going to bed. More tomorrow...

Since I've been gone...

Yeah. I really need to write more. I miss it. Thing is, I have no time now... my life is no longer my own. It belongs to a very short person who (very selfishly) needs to eat and poop and who depends on me to make those things happen... I jest. I love every minute of having a new baby again, but I forgot how hard it can be at times.

I'm attempting to be a stay-at-home, work-from-home mom, homeschool my son, and to be sane in the process of it all. It's just sort of working right now. Ashleigh has colic and reflux, so it's been a challenge to get her on much of a schedule, which has made my time to work and do simple things like showering downright unpredictable. And sleep, you ask? We're finally, six weeks on, beginning to only wake with her twice a night (it was every two hours until last week.. which meant that by the time I put her back down, I was sleeping an hour in between feedings. Unfun.) We'll get there... I just discovered the Baby Whisperer and I'm gratefully combing her site for all the amazing resources she has on scheduling and such (and by the way, why is everyone whispering these days? We have the Horse Whisperer, the Dog Whisperer, the Baby Whisperer, and now, I just saw on Discovery, the Shark Whisperer. Is there something special about whispering that I'm missing out on? If I become the Novel Whisperer, will I actually get a novel to cooperate with me and get itself written? The Laundry Whisperer? The Get-Off-Your-Butt-And-Go-Jogging Whisperer? I must research the practice of whispering further).

So I'm stealing a few snatches of time right now while the baby is asleep in her bouncer seat, and feeling guilty for letting her sleep because she's slept all afternoon. Usually I pay for it at night when she sleeps this much, but she has inherited my husband's knack for sleeping like the dead, so any attempt to wake her is usually futile.

Ashleigh is, by the way, amazing. We're at that perfectly cuddly 6-week-old stage. We're starting to get real smiles, and her little personality is emerging. I love this. I can sit for hours and watch her stare at the ceiling fan and smile at it. Everything is new and fascinating to her, and it's sweet to drink in that innocence. There is not enough innocence in the world anymore; working with teenagers in this age is a reminder of that, unfortunately. It's so refreshing to see a perfect little human with no knowledge of evil, or of heartache, or of anger. She is totally trusting, dependent, and willing to learn. I pray daily for the protection of her innocence.

And little Dave is smitten with her. I knew he would love her because he loves kittens and little kids and cute things. But he really, REALLY loves her. I'm so glad for that. He has a tender heart and will be an amazing big brother.

Anyway, I hope to begin falling back into my routine again. I'm slowly getting some things back: running, my dominance over my house clutter, etc. Hopefully things like sleep and writing will come next. We'll see.

mamma mia, here i go again/ABBA back together...

If only for an evening:

http://tinyurl.com/6okgyv

The four members of ABBA reunited for their first public appearance since 1986, gathering on the red carpet for the Swedish big-screen premiere of "Mamma Mia."

This excites me greatly.



Ok. I admit it. I LOVE ABBA. I love every song. Spandex aside, I actually find artistic merit in the work of Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus...they invented their own unique "Wall of Sound" by stacking and layering every vocal, instrument, and sound that was recorded, and then by slightly "detuning" one of the tracks to create a chorus track. This was done before ProTools and digital recording, before auto-tune, etc. It was all analog, and it was brilliant.

As songwriters, they dominated. They have sold 370 million albums worldwide. Countless hit songs, numerous number ones in countries worldwide. "Fernando" beat out the Beatles "Hey Jude" as the longest running number one song. Call them cheese nuggets, but they were an important part of pop music history in the 70s and 80s.

I grew up on ABBA records. They were my first love musically. As a kid, I would hole up in my room, turn on "The Winner Takes It All," and get lost in the story and the emotion in the lyrics. It was the first time I connected song with soul and realized that music could move a person in a powerful way... and I was only 9. I had no personal experience with heartbreak and lost love at 9 years old, but that song took me there. It so captured the essence of devastating loss that I didn't have to personally experience the emotion to know it and to feel it.

For me, their music was the beginning of connecting emotion to music, specifically as it was so flawlessly and skillfully delivered by the two singers, whose interpretation of the lyrics made you the first person in the story of each song. When I started singing at 13, I unconsciously drew off of these women, my first influences, and it made me the singer that I am today: interpretation is everything. The listener must feel the soul and the emotion of the song. It's everything.

So laugh if you want... but almost everybody secretly likes ABBA. Even Bono says that they were one of the most important bands in modern history.

I'm just happy to see them all together again. Maybe now that they're all on speaking terms again, they can be persuaded to do a reunion tour (they were offered $1 billion for a reunion years ago, but they refused!).... I would fly to Stockholm to see that.

Newspaper Outsourcing Editing to India

Now here's a fabulous idea.

Because outsourcing customer service call centers have been such a great success...

I know *I'm* always thrilled beyond measure after hanging up from a 3 hour conversation with an overseas, non-English-speaking CSR.

Good call.

I Can't Wait.

It's official...

I'm 6 months pregnant today.

That's very exciting.

I want a cracker.

I hate Windows Vista.

Windows Vista BITES.

I have three computers at work that are cursed with the dreaded Vista OS, and NONE of them ever work...

They especially love to crash just before a church service, sending me scrambling up long flights of stairs to the balcony (lemme tell ya, THAT'S fun when one is 6 months pregnant!) to rescue the computer operator and contol-alt-delete my way through a panic attack...

I HATE Vista. I hate it more than I hate the devil.

Bill Gates should be ashamed of himself for releasing such a shoddy product. It's worse than Windows ME, and that's saying something. I really want to sue him for pain and suffering... Vista constantly interferes with my JOB, makes ME look bad to my superiors, and never works when I need it to. My job performance suffers constantly because of this piece of crap.

I HATE Vista. I hate Windows. I hate Microsoft. Make a product that works, and I'll reconsider.

It's reason 7834212 why I'm a Mac girl.

/end rant.

Snails are faster than Kerrville residents...

I'm learning to navigate through life in Kerrville, slowly but surely. Really, more slowly than surely, because I'm learning that EVERYTHING in this town is done slowly. Like, death-crawl-slowly. Like, I-want-to-tear-my-eyeballs-out-slowly.

Today, I grabbed Punky from VBS and we were going to take my lunch hour to go to Wendy's and then to Wal-Mart. I'm pretty much already over the whole old people driving in slow motion thing, so getting there wasn't bad. We decided to eat inside Wendy's, something I rarely do, but I didn't want to sit in the Walmart parking lot and eat in the car. We went inside, stood in line, and after literally 10 minutes (and I was only third in line), I finally got up to the front.

Now, during my tenure in line, I noticed people ordering from both registers (I couldn't understand why the line was moving so slow with both registers open, but I did notice the staff behind the counter, numerous though they were, all leisurely strolling through the kitchen. Keep in mind that it was noon, the peak of the lunch hour). I stepped up to the open register, and watched as the staff continued their slow-motion pace. The family who was behind me in line stepped up to the other available register, and a girl immediately walked up to their register and took their order. She looked at me from her register and said, "Hi," and then went back to her order-taking. I stood there, still waiting for someone to come back to the register and take *my* order, since I was there first, but continued to be ignored. After the other family ordered, I said, "Umm, is this register still open?" The girl said, "No," and began to take another order. Umm, okay. So you *saw* me standing there, waiting to order, and you didn't bother to mention that the register... o...k. Sigh.

I stepped behind the people who were ordering at rude girl's register, ordered my food, and then stepped to the side to wait for my order. Most of my order was filled in a miraculous two minutes, but Punky wanted a shake, so we waited. I stood there with my food and watched as an elderly Wendy's employee with very brightly dyed red hair, God love her, slowly began to add the ingredients in his shake, and then she shuffled over to the shake machine and mixed it... slowly (keep in mind that I've now been in line for about 15 minutes. With the drive over to Wendy's, 30 minutes of my lunch hour have now been taken). Then, she slowly put his shake down on the counter next to her, picked up a rag, and began THOROUGHLY cleaning the shake machine. Yeah. From top to bottom. Inside and out. And she was wiping it SLOWLY...savoring every swipe of the rag, probably humming a little tune while she did it. The shake was sitting there next to her on the counter, I was standing there waiting for it, all she had to do was turn around and hand it to me, but no, she decided to pull a Heloise and scour not only the shake machine, but the entire counter surrounding it. Slowly.

At this point, I could feel my chest getting tight, and my breathing becoming shallow, and my blood pressure rising... I toyed with the idea of calling to her and saying, "Ma'am. Ma'am... yes, you, hi. Can I have my shake SO WE CAN EAT OUR FRICKIN' FOOD?!" My eyeballs almost began to shoot blood. But she was old. She was like 70, and she was working at Wendy's. I felt bad. I couldn't berate her for being tidy...

But oh my GOSH!!!! She *finally* turned (slowly) and picked up the shake in her little gnarled hands... and then shuffled SLOWLY over to the other counter, where she gingerly picked up a pair of tongs, got a cherry out of a container, DROPPED IT (I'm about to hyperventilate at this point), got another cherry, put it in the cup, put the lid on (which took another hour), and then shuffled to the counter, where she finally handed me my shake. With a smile. And I resisted the urge to snatch it and run, because I looked into her eyes, and they were kind, and I wanted to cry. She was sweet. She was working at Wendy's. Dangit.

I literally almost collapsed by the time I had the thing in my hands... my nerves were shot. Seriously. 20 minutes after I walked in and stood THIRD PLACE in line, I finally had my food.

We ate and then went to Walmart, which took another 45 minutes to get through... this Walmart here was designed by kindergarteners, apparently, and then I drove back to work, frazzled, my lunch hour over long ago.

I thought Bandera was bad when I lived there... but Kerrville operates on Retired Standard Time. No one is in any hurry to do ANYTHING. I guess I wouldn't be, either, if I had moved to Kerrville to RETIRE... but alas, I live among them, and I will be forced to either slow down and chill out, or I will have a nervous breakdown in about a month.

Just had to share.

Resigned

I'm resigning myself to the fact:

...that sleeping is going to be merely a nice concept for the next year.

...that no matter how hard I try, I will not be able to resist breads and ice cream during this pregnancy.

...that some people just aren't going to keep in touch, and "busyness" is just an excuse for their lack of interest. However, rekindling old friendships is amazingly easy, and incredibly rewarding, thanks to technology.

...that sleeping in one's contacts is probably not the best idea.

...that someday I will want to write again. Also, I will have time.

...that I really should be playing my cello, and I must get off my duff and practice.

...that both candidates for president have wives that scare the living daylights out of me.

...that, no matter what, I will always crave the wrong things.

...that, in church work, there will always be some who will make it very hard for me to "be Jesus" to them. However, I must constantly remind myself that the three or four who make me cynical do not represent the body of Christ as a whole, and that most people are lovely, beautiful, and caring.

An Open Letter To Aslan

Found this on McSweeney's... thanks, Ed, for the heads-up. Hilarious for those of us Narnia geeks.

A LETTER
TO HIS IMPERIAL
MAJESTY, ASLAN.
BY MARI NESS

- - - -

To His Imperial Majesty, Aslan, the Great Lion, he who rises from uncomfortable and broken stone tables, son of the Emperor-Over-Sea, with extreme respect:

In the course of talking-animal events, it may become necessary for one animal—or human—or divine being—to come and rescue Narnia from its deepest, darkest hours. We're cool with that. We're just saying ...

Why does it have to be kids?

No offense to your wisdom and such, but, frankly, things don't go so well when they show up. Consider the results so far:

Visit 1

1. The illegal immigration of a dangerous terrorist responsible for annihilating the entire population of her previous world, thanks to the direct assistance of these kids.

2. Criminal disruption of a process critical to national security—namely, you, quietly and then gloriously, singing our magical world into existence, and us, quietly and a lot less gloriously, rising up from the mud, which we consider kind of important, if leading to very puzzling questions about our later biology and ecology.

3. And—oh, yeah—the first entrance of evil into Narnia, which transformed it from a place filled with merry singing to a sometimes dark and scary place filled with kidnappings, sacrifice, and war. (However, some of the signers of this letter wish to note that with evil often comes excellent beer, and they like the beer part, so: not entirely a bad thing.)

Visit 2

1. The sudden and terrible arrests of multiple Narnia residents, stemming entirely from the unauthorized visits of a small child to the forest area.

2. The sudden release of multiple dangerous creatures, who, until then, had been safely imprisoned as stone animals.

3. Your own bloody and demoralizing assassination.

4. The destruction of a valuable ancient stone table.

5. A major battle resulting in the injury and death of several Narnian citizens.

6. Restoration of a nonparticipatory monarchy, headed up by four children with limited education and absolutely no civil governing experience.

Visit 3

1. Eruption of war within days.

2. Major destruction of infrastructure, including a valuable bridge.

3. Multiple incidents of public drunkenness.

Visit 4

1. One kid turned into a dragon. Enough said.

Visit 5

1. Complete destruction of a vast and valuable underground city and mining complex.

Seeing the pattern here?

Frankly, we'd be less concerned were it not for our understanding that your true intentions are less to help us and more to help these children understand their own religion, which, we admit, sounds pretty confusing. End result: the kids get a deeply transforming religious experience, and we get left with shit. Excuse our language, but we're basically animals here.

(As a side note, did your foresight ever suggest recording that creation song? Because, from what we've heard from these kids, you could have made enough money from that recording to completely compensate us for the damages, at least financially. We're just saying.)

So, anyway, here's what we're getting at: Send us a hero. Send us a grownup. Send us someone capable of understanding the complex economic structure underlying Narnia, of understanding why destroying our mines is not exactly a major plus. Just stop sending us kids. And consider this message urgent. We understand that something called a last battle might be coming up soon, and we're a bit afraid that if you send us any more helpful kids they'll end up destroying our entire world. Sure, we could end up in some perfect magical mirror of it, but what are the chances of that?

- -

Wha? oh... hello... where was I?

So... hi!

I fell off the writing/blogging wagon. It's been crazy-busy around my house(es) and I just haven't had the time to sit down and be a good little writer. We've had several major life events in the past few months, and my computer just hasn't been a priority lately.

To catch up those who are interested:

We're expecting a baby in October. Weird, huh? It's strange being pregnant again after eleven years, and it's even stranger trying to wrap my brain around us having "kids" instead of "a kid." It sounds so... like my parents: "Honey, let's get the kids to bed..." wow. It's been so long with just David, little Dave, and me, just the three of us, that it's hard to fathom having another person joining our household. Little Dave is going to be a great big brother, but I've had so many panic attacks already ("They're going to be 12 years apart! They'll never really know each other!!" and "Omigosh... when little Dave starts driving, the baby will just be entering Kindergarten!" which leads me to, "Holy schneikes, when the baby turns 15, I'll be FIFTY!!!!!").... but it's going to be amazing to start over and have the opportunity to do all of those "firsts" again -- first steps, first words, etc.

So I'm four months into my pregnancy, just starting to feel those little kicks, starting to feel fat, and thoroughly savoring pregnancy this time around. We find out on the 27th of this month (hopefully) if it's a boy or a girl.

Next unexpected life event: we've moved from Boerne to Kerrville, which is something we really were never interested in doing. Funny how God changes things, eh? We just happened upon a great house, and once we did the math and realized how much stinking money we were spending on gas driving 60 miles a day to and from work, it just really made sense. We are five minutes from the church, and, once school ends for little Dave, we'll be saving a LOT of money. Plus, the house is perfect for us, and we needed something a little bigger in light of our growing family. However, for the past month, my life has consisted of packing, boxes, tape, cleaning, and sheer exhaustion as we have moved piece by piece

Finally, at the church, my job has expanded once again to include yet *another* hat to wear: I've taken on the position of interim worship leader. I think that makes the total number of jobs I do come to exactly 9645. But who's counting?

This has been a strange year for me in that regard. Vocationally, I've always been a singer and a musician first, but for the past year, I really hadn't sung a note. I got hired to do technical work, and my job has become the catch-all, "anything-technical-that-no one-else-wants-to-do" job...web design, podcast production, video editing and production, graphics design, book editor, sound operator, mediashout expert, computer network overseer, and "Sarah! Come fix my computer!!!"... all stuff that I was never trained to do, but that I just know how to do because I was a stay-at-home mom with lots of time on my hands and just enough left-brained curiosity that I learned. And that's all cool... I love what I do, and I can't believe they actually pay me to play with tech toys all the time... but it's not what I was CALLED to do.

I was called to be a singer and a writer, and, if I'm really honest, worship leading is specifically the form of singing and writing that God called me to years ago.

It's been YEARS since I led worship, partly because I ran from it for awhile, and partly because I wasn't given the opportunity. God kept me out of it for a long time, made me die to my desire to do it for me (worship leading cannot be an outlet to fulfill your own selfish creative whims and need for recognition, or it is done in the flesh, which is not glorifying to God), and I was dormant in that area and wondering why.

A few months ago, our music minister left, and I was asked to take on the role of leading the contemporary service at church on Sundays. It's been nice, and it feels right, like putting on old shoes...there is something very peaceful about finally being able to walk in the area of my primary gift.

I'm not sure how long this responsibility will last... they are actively seeking another music minister... but I'm honored to have the opportunity as long as it's entrusted to me, and I will learn and grow in this area for however long this season lasts.

Anyway, that's life for now. Hopefully, now that we are a little better settled, I can get back into the writing routine again.

For now, I'm off to put together some furniture we purchased last night from the wonderland that is Ikea. Man I love that place.

Live Blogging American Idol

So I just found this awesome new widget, and instead of going to the gym, which I am supposed to be doing, I am sitting on my couch being a loser and playing with my new gadget.

I could be liveblogging something meaningful, like the primaries, but I am choosing to be mindless. Call it Guilty Pleasure Night.

Things

I'm...so... out of shape.

Referring back to a previous post regarding my desire to write, run, and pray more consistently, I am painfully aware of my failure. I'm a slug.

I haven't worked out since October. The miscarriage sent me into a physical slump of laziness. I just didn't have it in me to work out. Then the holidays happened, and chips and queso took over. Ugh.

I haven't written since November. Again, the holidays. But it's almost March. I need to declare an end to my own personal writer's strike now, please. Thank you.

I have been a prayer slug, too... although certain life circumstances of late have caused me to look up a little more often. I am having to walk by faith and not by sight these days, and that is good. Fear creeps in through the tiny cracks of my thinly-paned heart, and I have to constantly bring it back to God. "Do I trust You?....yes. I will trust You."

Changes are afoot. I have to come to hate where I am before I can move forward.

This afternoon, as I was sitting in my room on my laptop, I heard a loud crash in our walk-in closet. I ignored it, too lazy to get up at the time. An hour or so later, I went into the closet to find that the entire shelving unit had come loose from the wall and fell to the floor, dumping our entire wardrobe and rendering the shelf no longer useable. It's going to be an annoyingly large task to fix the mess, and it's going to require new shelves (actually, a total closet makeover, most likely).

The upside of it is that our closet has been disorganized for a long time. This closet disaster is really just what I needed to get off my duff and make a change.

I guess getting fat, forgetting how to write, and getting depressed for lack of prayer are the agents of change I needed as well.

Wish me luck.

Back to Work

I hate that I am so quick to turn off my creative self. I have been creatively "AWOL" since early November, when the rush of the holidays took me hostage for awhile. Like a miniature tornado, the Christmas season whooshed in and swept me up and away from my novel -- which was coming along splendidly, by the way, thank you very much -- and sucked me in to a swirling blur of play practice, family, youth retreats, wrapping paper, and dishes. And then, just as suddenly as they began, the holidays abruptly fizzled and dissipated, and on January 2, I was left standing in my living room looking around at the mess and wondering where to start trying to get back to doing whatever I was doing. What was that? I forgot.

And then I entered the January vacuum. The "shoulds" attacked: "You really should start thinking about getting back to the gym, fatty." "You should mail those packages." "You should start paying attention to the presidential election and be informed." "You really should be more organized." "You should work out a new budget." "You should be investing in your retirement or you will die poor and angry." All of the "shoulds" hung around my head like shiny trinkets, their sparkle and glitter distracting me, calling to me, teasing me with their pleading little voices. They all demanded my immediate attention. I became restless, wanting change but not knowing where to start.

I finally settled on the organization thing, because, well, that is what one does in January after taking down the Christmas tree, right? It's pretty easy... unlike solving the 2008 housing crisis and figuring out my retirement. The next several weeks involved much sorting, cleaning, dumping, donating, and exploring boxes I forgot existed. I got lost in my garage one day, my closet the next, and I found myself obsessing about shelving and space bags and wanting to spend all my Christmas money at the Container Store.

I wish that Writer Me was as loud and obnoxious as Manic Me. Writer Me is entirely too passive. Writer Me just shrugs, sighs, and retreats when Manic Me starts crazymaking. Every now and then, Writer Me will try to get a word in -- it happened when I was madly cleaning out the garage, going through boxes, and happened upon a large box. I opened it to see if it was a "keep" or a "donate" box, and found that it contained all of my best books. Writer Me came out of hiding briefly, just to give a look of tacit disapproval, and I felt a twinge of combined guilt and epiphany wash over me. It was a reminder. Oh, yes, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. Something with books and words and... oh, yes... writing them. Hmm.

Then I closed the box again and went back to my task. Must....clean...the....garage.

Long story short, we finished the garage and I cleaned my closet and I'm over it now.

So now I think I'm ready to let Writer Me back out and get back to work.

Julia Cameron inspired me today. I picked up my copy of "The Right to Write" and was thumbing through it, and she says of the writing life, "I like writing to be...portable and flexible. I like writing to be something that fits into cracks and crannies. I don't like it to dominate my life. I like it to fill my life."

Yes.

I get overwhelmed sometimes by the feeling that I must quarantine myself for hours without interruption in order to be effective as a writer. When I slip into this mindset, though, it paralyzes me, because I know I'll never be able to find that time without sacrificing family time or time that should be spent doing something more practical, like cleaning my house. I can't fit it all in, so the writing stops. When the writing stops, I get antsy and detached because I feel like I'm not being a good steward of the gift God has given me.


I like the idea of it filling my life instead of dominating. I can do that.

So this year, my resolution for Writer Me is to shift the thinking. Find nooks and crannies to fill with this glorious gift that God has given me, and let Him glorify Himself through me in this way. I'll take care of the quantity and trust God to take care of the quality. Manic Me may not like it much, but she can get over it. Charles Hummel called it "the tyranny of the urgent," and I'm tired of being ruled by it.

"I myself do nothing. The Holy Spirit Himself accomplishes all through me." -- William Blake

Things I Have Noticed

1. Elderly ladies put everything in ziploc bags.
2. Coffee, while amazing, will always, without exception, keep me up all night. Especially nonfat quad peppermint mochas.
3. Too much television keeps a writer from writing.
4. The holiday season keeps a writer from writing.
5. Presidential races are alternately like cheese, coffee, and morphine.
6. Cedar makes me very ill.
7. Britney Spears is ubiquitous.
8. It is very hard to get to the gym.
9. There are a lot of movies about teachers who change the world through the power of books.
10. Librarians are underrated.

In honor of Nano, an excerpt

Here is an excerpt from my last year's Nano Novel, just for fun.

(I am feeling compelled to add all sorts of disclaimers at this point, but I'm going to resist. It is what it is.)

Here we go:

Chosen

Chapter 1 excerpt


The cavernous underground room was deathly silent. Over three hundred people stood in rows, uniform in dress and in emotion. Each was clad in a white, gauzelike tunic and loose-fitting white pants, each person barefoot, each without any distinguishing adornment in their hair or on their bodies. Each woman had their hair fashioned into a single braid, and each man had been shaved bald. Each member stood facing the front of the room, solemnly and with a mixture of monastic calm and stoic determination. No one moved; no one dared breathe. A woman near the back of the room began to cry softly and was quickly ushered out. No one among the rows acknowledged the incident. Their training had been thorough, and only the weak dared show emotion or stand out during a meeting. There were no individuals here, only a collective Body.

At the edges of the rows, men and women in black tunics moved silently, carrying trays with paper cups. The women in black carried trays with cups containing water, pausing at each row and handing out cups to be passed down to each member of the row. The men in black passed out smaller cups, each containing one white capsule. The congregants in white also passed these down the rows, faithfully, bravely. Each person had prepared for this moment, this communion, whether consciously or unconsciously, for many months or years.

When the elements were distributed to every member of the Body, the people in black formed single file lines along the side walls of the room and slowly made their way to the front. They then turned and filed across the front, facing the crowd. The tall man in the center of the black-clad ushers spoke:

"Brothers and sisters, we have waited for this beautiful Day since we embarked on our journey together many years ago. As our numbers have increased, our energies and our psyches have been knit together as one. Now is the time of fulfillment and ultimate enlightenment. We have attained greatness on earth; now we will attain the ultimate achievement, the prize. It is time to journey to the next level. Our travel will be swift. In the shedding of our earthly shell, we will achieve a new freedom and a new level of enlightenment. We will truly become melded into one Great Body, and our collective energy will empower our great leader and strengthen him in his continued work here on earth. Let us therefore cast off the bonds of this plane, and partake together in the final Communion of transcendence."

The tall man lifted up his small paper cup containing the capsule. The crowd in white followed suit. As one, they lowered the cup to their lips and partook, following with the cup of water to wash it down. The tall man knelt down on the floor, and the throng followed, each with eyes closed, heads dipped in silence, and there they waited.

In the middle of the sea of white tunics, a young woman also knelt, eyes closed, heart pounding. She did not know why, but she felt that this was not right. She trusted her leaders -- her Leader -- implicitly; still, this seemed too...something. Her gut screamed, "NO!" She had made a split second decision in raising the cup to her lips: she did not allowed the capsule to enter her mouth, but instead, tipped her head back with her lips closed. When the group knelt, she had quietly spilled the capsule out onto the floor, flicking it away as far as she dared without drawing attention.

"What am I doing?" Her breath caught as she realized the gravity of her rebellion. Independent thought was considered the worst of all sins. She had been taught that it caused a rift in the collective energy. She was probably going to be the sole cause of the failure of this journey to the next plane; she knew she was hindering the process for the group.

She didn't dare move, but listened carefully to the breathing of those around her. She wasn't sure what her next steps would be; at the very least, she was buying time. She had discovered early in her tenure here that she did not have the option of leaving. One of her roommates had tried and was "taken care of." A revelation flashed through her like lightning, providing a brief glimpse at a new idea: she was miserable at the Institute, always had been, and she may actually get to leave now. This revelation was quickly replaced with another: where would she go? Surely they would find her as soon as she reached her home.

Towards the front of the room, she began to hear retching. Behind her, someone gasped. She held her breath. Suddenly, the room was filled with a cacophony of death: sounds of labored breathing, and many beginning to convulse and cry out as their hearts began to freeze within them. The white-clad congregants began to drop like common street rats, foaming at the mouth, seizing, bleeding from their nostrils. She could hear it. She was terrified. She dared not open her eyes.

She forced her breathing to become audible now, mimicking that of the people around her. She rocked back and forth and tried her best to blend in with the movement of the room -- she had to pretend she was dying. Her heart was pounding; it was not hard to feign the fear and adrenaline rush. The man on her right side fell into her violently, knocking her sideways to the floor, and she used him to hide as much of her as she could as she deftly maneuvered her way to a prone position on the floor. A long lost memory flashed into her head - she remembered playing "Charlie's Angels" as a kid, and having to pretend that she had been chloroformed, and she wondered why this random memory would surface now. Her past had been erased from her mind in her training here. She wondered if the others were experiencing their former lives flashing before them. She focused on the childhood memory as she lay pinned under the man. She had to think. "Natalie." That was her name. It had been months since she had used it, heard it, needed it.

After many long minutes or hours -- she lost track of all sense of time -- the chaos subsided and a sickening, almost deafening, silence settled over the room. It was a tomb. She was still face down; her head twisted uncomfortably sideways, her cheek pressed against the cold cement floor. The man who had fallen on her was still on top of her, obstructing most of her head and upper body from view. She dared not move a muscle; any twitch, any breath, any indication of life at all would stand out like a sore thumb to anyone who may be watching. She didn't know who was left alive; she wondered about the one they referred to as the Great Leader. Charles Lazalle. In her tenure here at the Institute, she had come to speak his name with love and adoration. They all had. Though the students had never seen him, save for a few telecasts of his shadow that would deliver messages to them from time to time. The body of believers here would watch each telecast with rapt attention, drinking in every word he uttered like sweet honey, so great was the wisdom he proffered to them. As the students grew in their love for him, so grew their desire to please him. Obedience grew out of this love – though sometimes their devotion was enforced by various methods of “correction.” She was sure Lazalle was still alive somewhere, and that he would be watching to make sure that each of the Faithful had followed through with their part of the ritual. To Natalie, as with the others, Lazalle was her father, her friend, her god. She would do anything for him...although at this moment she was struck with the realization that she would not die for him.

Lazalle was a charismatic leader. He had come from California and was a man to whom people were instantly drawn; a visionary who made students and outsiders alike want to passionately participate in his vision. She had always trusted him, cared for him, looked at him with utmost admiration.

Natalie was jolted out of her memory as she heard a door suddenly scrape open in the back of the room. The door was the only entrance into the underground room from the outside. It was also her only possible exit. She froze, breathing ever so slightly, hoping that her fear would not cause her to gasp for air or tremble uncontrollably. She heard footsteps behind her, walking slowly, methodically, throughout the rows and rows of bodies on the floor. She heard a rustling, then a gasp, and a weak voice cried out, "No, please..." Then a gunshot boomed like a cannon. Her ears were instantly filled with a high-pitched whine. She began to panic. Lazalle -- or one of his helpers -- was making sure that there were no survivors.

As her hearing returned, she could hear the footsteps continuing as the unseen assassin slowly worked his way through the room. He was turning over random bodies, weaving in and out of the now haphazard rows. The footsteps approached her, and she held her breath, her lungs exploding with the rush of adrenaline and the need for extra oxygen. She began to pray, desperately, feverishly in her head to anyone who might happen to be listening. The footsteps stopped a few feet where she lay. After a brief but horrific silence, the assassin stepped over her and moved on, patiently working his way back to the door. Satisfied that there were no survivors left, he left, scraping the door closed behind him. She heard a bolt turn.

She waited several more minutes, listening with batlike senses. She could hear nothing but the ringing in her ears and the pounding of her heart, which, at the moment, sounded like a drum corp.

"What am I doing?" The invasive question came to her once again. She shook it off. She had more immediate concerns.

She lay there a few more minutes and relaxed ever so slightly. Whoever had come through the back door was apparently not coming back… at least, not for the moment. She had to get the man off of her. She slid herself out from under his one hundred eighty-plus pounds worth of dead weight, struggling to free her arm, which felt heavy and numb, from under his torso. Finally, she managed to pull free, and stiffly sat up, turning her head from side to side to work out the shooting pain caused by hours of being pinned to the floor. She shook her arm in an attempt to gain feeling in it again, and soon, pins and pricks in her nerve endings told her that it was coming back to life.

She looked around at the scene, taking in for the first time the carnage and the horror that she had heard. The room was a sea of bodies, stark and surreal in their uniformity. She could not see her roommates, but saw many faces of the people she had grown to like and even care about, despite the fact that emotional bonding was discouraged here at the Institute. She didn't know their names or how they came to the Institute, or even what they did in their former lives. They were all nameless souls who had sacrificed themselves to be added to the collective goal. Who were they? "Who am I?" She was not sure anymore.

She was numb to the notion that each of these familiar faces was now lifeless. She could not get her mind around the enormity of the situation. She began to tremble uncontrollably. She was cold. Her mouth was so dry she could hardly swallow. She knew she was close to shock. She had to get up. She had to do something.

She stood shakily, feeling as wobbly as a newborn lamb. Carefully, slowly, she stepped over body after body, almost losing her balance as she tried not to step on one of the lifeless forms at her feet.

Ooohh... I love memes

Okay, so Marcus tagged me to participate, so here we go:

Quick: what were you doing ten, twenty, and thirty years ago?

Hmmm...

Ten years ago, I was 25, married for two years, had a one-year-old, and was singing in coffeehouses. Lady Jane Grey was in its early days... and I mean very early days: I think, at that point, we had maybe just begun singing songs on our back deck. We were living in a tiny house in Pipe Creek, TX, had no friends, and David was working at a dating service in San Antonio doing telesales. We had no clue what we were doing, what we wanted to do, or where we were going. Oh, and we were poor as Job's turkey. Good times.

Twenty years ago, I was 15 and living in Arlington, TX. My dad had passed away a year earlier from AIDS, and I was picking up the pieces and trying to figure out life as a sophomore in high school. I was thick in the midst of rehearsals: my school daringly decided to take on "A Chorusline" as their spring musical, and I was cast as in the chorus, which required 8 hours of dance practice a week. I loved every minute of it, and I can still remember what the auditorium of Lamar High School smelled like: musty, like old band instruments and carpet.

Thirty years ago, my family had just moved to Texas from Ohio, and I was in the first grade. I was one of the few five-year-olds in my first grade class. Because I was an "October baby" and the schools in Ohio had different birthday requirements fhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifor school than Texas schools, I had already completed Kindergarten, and my mom fought tooth and nail for me to be placed in first grade in Texas. Consequently, growing up, I always felt like the baby amongst my friends...always felt like I didn't "get it," like I had yet to be clued in to information the rest of my peers were privy to. I was always a little "behind" everyone else maturity-wise. Sometimes I still feel like the baby among my peers because of this. Maybe that's why I like youth ministry! :)

Okay, so that's it!

I will tag:

Kathy (my sister from another mister... seriously, I think we were separated at birth)

Sarah (my writing soul friend)

Flo (my non-blogging friend... maybe I can convince her to blog with this? ;) )

David (my dear hubby, of course)

And I think that is all.

Good night.

It's that time of year again... (on why I love NaNoWriMo)

That's right, folks, it's time for NaNoWriMo!

Yep. November 1 is the commencement of National Novel Writing Month.

In short, it's an excuse for us Bipolar/artistic types to have a month long manic episode in which we write like crazy, live in sheer insanity, drink too much coffee, blog about nothing except our novels, obsess about word counts, and try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month's time. It's insane, and why they decided to make NOVEMBER -- the month in which Thanksgiving occurs and the holiday season ramps up in full force -- the month in which one is supposed to accomplish said goal is beyond me. But I do know that it's possible. I did it last year. And I'm going to try it again this year.

Now, for all you haters out there, don't hate. I know that NaNo can be viewed as an event strictly for geeks who write Fan Fic and Emo girls who write vampire novels (and there are certainly many of those present in the NaNo forums), but I think it's an excellent tool for "serious" writers, too.

I do it because it's a month-long excuse to get my butt in the chair. There is a sense of community with the boards and the local write-ins and the podcasts. And there is a healthy, positive peer pressure present (how's that for alliteration!) that spurs me on to get my word count up there... I see my peers' word count graph grow and grow, and I am challenged to keep up.

Anne Lamott, in "Bird By Bird," talks about how, as a writer, you have to only be concerned at first with getting the words on the paper. She says to just get your butt in the chair and "write a sh***y first draft" (her words, not mine). This is why I do NaNo. I have a first draft of a novel from last year, which, incidentally, was my first attempt at writing fiction. I was pleased at the outcome. It needs much revision, but creatively, it was a huge milestone for me.

Last year, I had NO CLUE what I was going to write about until the moment my fingers touched the keyboard the first time. It fascinated me to watch as a story came to me and wrote itself, simply because I allowed myself to get out of the way and let it flow. That is when I fell hopelessly in love with the writing process. I started to view myself as a writer, and I let myself write.

This year, I am a little more prepared: I still have no plot idea, but I have a cast of characters -- rough sketches -- whom I am looking forward to getting to know as the month progresses. Last year's novel was genre fiction, and very plot driven. This year's, I think, will be more character driven.

We shall see.

At any rate, the typing begins on Thursday. I have to write 1667 words a day to stay on pace. Wish me luck.

Oh, and I may be posting excerpts here every now and then... if I feel brave. We'll see about that...

Fire

We are driving through the Mohave Desert, and I never knew such a barren place could be so rich in color. The pale tans, blues, purples, and a black that is the exact color of cocoa decorate the mountains on the horizon in perfectly layered lines, while the bleached sand in the foreground is dotted with scrubby trees that are surprisingly green, complementing the color palette perfectly. The sky is awash with a pinkish haze – whether from smoke from the fires in California or dust, I don’t know – and it blankets the landscape, softening the edges.

We were in California for 10 days, but as we make our way homeward, I feel as though I am leaving behind a lifetime’s worth of emotion.

When we began our trip, we left home a family of “four”… the three of us and the hopes of a new baby, whom we found out I was carrying the week before we left. Now, on the way home, we return as a family of three, the dreams of a new baby left behind in San Diego.

Having miscarried at the beginning of the trip, I allowed myself to grieve very briefly during the two days of limbo when we didn’t know whether or not I was going to be able to keep the pregnancy. Like King David, I spent those two days crying, praying, and asking God for healing and deliverance… and waiting. I was sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

On Sunday, then news came. It was over. The first four days of our vacation had been colored with worry, fear, and grief. I – we – decided, like King David, to wash our faces, get out of the sackcloth, rise from the ashes, and enjoy the rest of the week. We did so for Punky, because he deserved to have a good vacation, and we did so for ourselves, because we had looked forward to this trip for a year.

After the hospital drama, we enjoyed another day in San Diego, and then the fires came. We were oblivious to the sheer scope of the flames; we frolicked on the rocks of La Jolla cove as the smoke rolled in and masked the sun, turning the sunset a deep tomato red, and we smelled the smoke and wondered at the ash. We had no idea the fires were so close.

As the latter part of our vacation began, we headed up north towards Los Angeles. The fires in San Diego were raging, and when we left the area, we drove through smoke and ash as the hot Santa Ana winds whipped the fires into a frenzy. Evacuations had taken place ahead of us on our route, leaving the middle class suburbs where we stopped for gas and food quiet and empty, like modern-day ghost towns. The freeway route we were traveling literally closed in our wake as we headed north.

We arrived in Fontana where we stayed with my former youth pastor and his wife, Dennis and Karen. Seeing them felt like home. It was so amazing to get to hang out with them and catch up – we’ve seen each other just 3 times in 20 years. We cherished our time together, and it was water to my soul. Dennis and I sat up till 2:30 am our last night there, and when we left yesterday, my heart was breaking.

Last night we stopped by the Grand Canyon at sunset and stayed long enough for the full moon to rise all orange and plump like a pumpkin over the South Rim. And now we are headed home, and I hear that autumn has finally come to South Texas. This year, it rained more than it has in our whole lives, and the Indian Paintbrushes bloomed all the way through September. They say it will be a mild winter. I hope so.

Loss

I haven't blogged in a few weeks because I was pretty busy preparing for a two-week vacation to California. You know how it goes: there's mountains of laundry to be done, cleaning, and then the setting of the office in order so that things will (hopefully) go smoothly while I'm gone.

In the midst of trip preparations, we found out that I was pregnant. We were shocked and excited at the prospect of having a baby after so long (our son is 11 now, so we've not had "baby" on the brain for some time). We started thinking baby thoughts. We started looking at baby clothes. We started thinking about converting our guest room into a nursery. And when we got back from vacation, I was to have my first doctor visit. We were looking forward to that first sonogram and that first heartbeat.

We began our road trip without a hitch and arrived in San Diego on Thursday. I was looking forward to taking Punky around San Diego while David was in his conference. We planned our next few days in the car on the way out to California: one day we'd go to the zoo, one day we'd see downtown, and one day we'd go exotic car hunting in the fancy areas of town.

As soon as we got into the hotel room, though, I had just gotten settled when I noticed that I had started spotting slightly. I immediately began to panic: this didn't happen when I was pregnant with Punky. This can't be good. I called my mother-in-law and she eased my fears a bit. A little spotting is normal. Don't worry about it. I called my doctor in San Antonio, too, and they told me the same thing: Don't worry. Just take it easy, but as long as it doesn't progress, you're fine.

The next day, Punky and I took the train into downtown to look around. I tried to enjoy myself, but in the back of my mind, I was concerned. We walked around for half of the day, and when we returned to the hotel that afternoon, I was exhausted. I laid down for a bit, hoping it would help to be off my feet.

When I got up, though, I knew things weren't right. The spotting had progressed. I went outside to find David, who was waiting at the rental car for AAA — the van had a flat tire! — and told him that we needed to get to the hospital.

So we hired a cab, got to the hospital, and spent exactly 6 hours in the E.R. waiting for the doctor. They took blood, told me to come back in two days to take more blood so that they could compare the levels, told me that I was to be on bed rest, and sent me on my way. Oh, and the doctor said, "If you do miscarry, it will probably happen sometime next week, so you'll need to find another hospital in LA just in case that happens.

I spent all day Saturday in bed, and it was a very low day. Why had God brought us all the way to California for this? Why had we had such a surprise pregnancy — gotten pregnant on the pill, no less — for it to end in miscarriage? Why, when we had spent a year talking about this vacation, looking forward to it, and talking it up to Punky… and now, it seemed, all we were going to be able to do was sit in the hotel room and in hospitals, mourning? Why? My heart was broken.

I picked up my Bible and prayed through Psalm 139. It didn't help. It only made me cry more. I set my Bible in my lap and wept, flipping randomly through the Psalms, asking God for some help.

Then my eyes fell to Psalm 116.

" 1 I LOVE the Lord, because He has heard [and now hears] my voice and my supplications.

2 Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live.

3 The cords and sorrows of death were around me, and the terrors of Sheol (the place of the dead) had laid hold of me; I suffered anguish and grief (trouble and sorrow).

4 Then called I upon the name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech You, save my life and deliver me!

5 Gracious is the Lord, and [rigidly] righteous; yes, our God is merciful.

6 The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He helped and saved me.

7 Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

8 For You have delivered my life from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling and falling."

I breathed it in. My self-pity began to vanish. Indeed, God has dealt bountifully with me. And then I read this:

"15 Precious (important and no light matter) in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (His loving ones)."

Reading this through the lens of Psalm 139 gave me a revelatory perspective on my situation. God saw what was happening to me at that moment. He was right there. He knew, and was grieving with me.

What a relief. I decided at that moment that I was going to trust Him, and whatever He allowed, I would choose to trust in His perfect sovereignty.

And as I gave it to Him and read the rest of the Psalm, I discovered how I needed to respond:

"17 I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call on the name of the Lord.

18 I will pay my vows to the Lord, yes, in the presence of all His people,

19 In the courts of the Lord's house–in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)"

I had been in bed all day. I made my choice: I got up, washed my face, got dressed, and went to the evening worship service at the National Youth Workers Convention with David. I knew that my going was symbolic act of trust. I went… and I paid my vows to the Lord in the presence of His people. I offered, through an abundance of tears, my sacrifices of thanksgiving to my God. Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.

The next evening we went to the hospital and found out that we had lost the baby.

And while it has filled me with sadness, while I grieve for my lost baby, I know that God has a plan. He is the author of life. I have to trust Him.

While I may never know the whys, I know the Who. And if nothing else, this was a fierce reminder to me that I cannot do anything apart from Him. I am His, He is God, and I am not.

At the conference on Sunday, Steven Iverson led us in Taize-style worship. We sang one line over and over again, and I wept as it penetrated my soul:

"Your way, Your will, Your heart… not mine, Sweet Light, not mine."