well f*ck. or, 2011, the year of crying.

Next January, before I tell Jesus I want depth with him this year, someone stop me. Getting to the depths is hard, and it hurts along the way. The picture I have of myself right now is one of someone standing in the ocean, digging her hands and feet in the sand, reaching for anything to hold onto as the waves hit, over and over again. 

The depths. 

If I'm honest, I want to go back to January and tell Jesus, "Eh, if this year could just pretty easy, that would be fine. No need for depth here."  But I asked for depth, and I am getting it.

What's hard is the means by which I'm being drawn closer to Jesus. Now, I'm not trying to have a pity-party here. But let me just share with you what those means have been:

1. a fairly traumatic trip to the ER, after which I found out I have a cyst the size of a racquetball in my body. I guess I should spare some of those details, but let me just say that they were giving me multiple doses of morphine, and it did not remedy the pain.
2. my parents moved from dayton to salt lake city. that means they now live 1700 miles away.
3. my sister and brother-in-law moved from DC to breckenridge. I don't even like skiing.
4. my grandma passed away after battling alzheimer's for years.
5. twenty days later my other grandma passed away.
6. I got dumped. which also meant 1. I stopped leading my small group because the person I led it with is also the one who dumped me, 2. I don't get to hang out with a bunch of my friends as much, 3. I'm down a best friend.
7. I am soon to be unemployed. and let me tell you, there is not a surplus of jobs in ohio.  

Now, I'm just trying to be honest, not sappy. Yeah, I have cried a lot this year. I went from being a girl who who cried less than her male friends, to one who is crying ALL THE FREAKING TIME. But,Jesus cried, so I'm in good company.

The good news is (besides the gospel) my mom sent me an email this morning in which she relayed some info she heard on the news that women who drink 1-2 alcoholic beverages a day are less likely to gain weight. Thanks mom!

Everyone Needs A Little Wildness To Set Them Free

This was a favorite Greek saying of my late grandmother, Marjorie Grace  (Gaitanis) Kearney.  She died August 11.  It was only twenty days after my dad’s mother, Emily Kathryn (Bassett) Agnew, passed away.  It’s hard now not to hold up their lives, as well as the manner of their deaths, one next to the other in comparison.  For the sake of clarity, I’ll (mostly) refer to them by their first names.
    Marge was born September 18, 1925 and spent her whole life in Cleveland, Ohio.  She was the third in a family of five girls, the daughters of Alexander and Mildred Gaitanis.  Her father came to America from the Peloponnese peninsula when he was 15.  He and his brother had to stow away on a ship to come to America.  She met Russell J. Kearney (aka Pops) at church and married him in February of 1948 in a Catholic Church in downtown Cleveland.  Below is their wedding photo.  

Marge was a successful realtor and she and Russell have three kids:  Kathi, Carol (my mom) and Joe.  Pops still lives in the house my mom grew up in, in Avon, Ohio.
    Emily was born September 25, 1921 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Mark and Edna Bassett.  Her mother died in a car accident when Emily was a baby.  She was in the car too; I think her mother may have even been holding her.  Emily’s family moved to Chicago and eventually settled in Springfield, Ohio.  Her father remarried while Emily was young.  She met my granddad, Paul, while they were both attending the Dayton Art Institute.  They married and both worked as artists.  

 

 

Emily and Paul have five children:  Peggy, Patrick (my dad), Jennifer, John, and Molly.  They lived on Grafton Ave in Dayton, in a house that my dad has always said was haunted.  Paul died in 1991 from lung cancer.  A few years later Emily moved out to Arizona, where she lived by herself and frequently painted the beautiful scenery surrounding her.  In the mid 2000s she fell and broke her rotator cuff.  She was no longer able to paint.  She moved in with my Aunt Jenny after the fall and the surgery, but she spent most of the days alone in the house, unable to paint or drive a car.  Quickly, her mind began to betray her and she struggled to remember names, faces, details, and even basic social norms.  She was diagnosed first with dementia and later with Alzheimer’s.  Emily was moved back to Dayton and into assisted living in 2009.
    Because my grandma Emily moved to Arizona when I was still in elementary school, I didn’t get to know her as well as my grams Marge.  Every summer growing up, we’d drive from Atlanta up to Cleveland and spend a week at my grandparents’ house in Avon.  We’d be greeted by grams with a plate of her sugar cookies.  My sister used to weigh herself at the beginning and end of the trip, calculating how much she gained from eating grams’ cooking (well, mostly baking). 
    In the two years between Emily’s move back to Dayton and her death, my interactions with my grandma were difficult, saddening, and often frustrating.  She had no idea who I was by that point.  I’d repeatedly explain that I was Patrick’s daughter, but she thought Patrick was her husband, not her first son.  Emily’s body eventually succumbed to Alzheimer’s as her brain no longer told her body to fight off infection.  When Emily finally passed this July, I was more sad for my dad than myself.  For me, my grandma was already gone long before her death.  But it wrecked my dad, marking the first time I’d really seen him cry.
    With Marge’s passing, it was very different.  Of course, it was harder to bear simply because it was only twenty days after Emily’s death.  But it was more than that.  She died essentially just from old age.  Marge had temporal arteritis, which causes the inflammation of blood vessels in the head.  Any health issues she had occurred primarily in the last year, and she lost her eyesight because of the temporal arteritis.  Her body began to shut down rapidly in late July, as she developed pneumonia and her lungs began to fill with fluid.  My sister and I were able to see grams in the hospital just a few days before she passed.  As I sat next to her bed, stroking her hair, I could hear her choked-out request to God:  Take me up, just take me up.  Hearing her plead with God, and watching Pops stroke her cheek and hold her hand broke me. 
    I thought about Jesus weeping at Lazarus’ death, and I cried, not just because I was sad being in that room, but because it wasn’t supposed to be that way.  My grams’ body wasn’t supposed to just shut down, and my pops wasn’t supposed to watch his wife of 63 years die.  And so I cried.
    I wouldn’t call Marge a “wild woman”, despite that favorite saying of hers.  But I would say she lived a full life, marked by trips to Greece and Ireland and fifty-year friendships.  At the funeral wake, I listened to my grams’ girlfriends tell stories about how Marge sparkled and brought joy to the people around her.  Marge and Russell had been close friends with three other couples since their marriage in 1948.  They continued to play bridge together and go dancing well into their seventies and eighties.  My pops is the last of the men, and grams was the first of the women to pass.  Everyone agreed:  Margie had lived a full life, and she was just ready to go.
    So why is it hard to bear my grams’ death, despite the fullness of her life? Maybe that’s exactly why--because her life was so full, full of love and joy and an excitement for living.  To watch those things unravel, to watch a person so full of life deteriorate, it reminds me that it wasn’t what God intended for us.  When Nick preached on the death of Lazarus earlier this year, it was the first time I thought about the idea that Jesus cried not because Lazarus was dead (he knew he was going to raise him), but because death was not the Father’s hope for us.  I have to remind myself of the truth constantly, and I still miss my grams, but ultimately I can have peace, knowing she is in the one place God did intend for her.

Dove Promises and the Lifetime Movie Network

Those are just two of the reasons I want to put on a Women’s Training Day of sorts at Veritas.  And it’s true, I do have a dish of Dove Dark Chocolates on my desk in my office, but back off, they were a gift.  And they’re for guests.

Along with Melissa (the saving grace of summer), I’ve been meeting with some of the women at my church about putting on an all day conference for women.  The men of our church host an event like this (www.actlikemencolumbus.com) and from the start, there have been women hoping to do the same.  Unfortunately, we don’t get a clean, pretty piece of scripture to pull out and use as our event title.  See 1 Corinthians 16:13.  So Melissa and I spent approximately 2 hours fleshing out the theme for the day and also ravaging the bible for any reference of women in hopes of finding a quick name for our event.  We both really liked the call in Isaiah 32 to:
 9 Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice;
   you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.
10In little more than a year
   you will shudder, you complacent women;
for the grape harvest fails,
   the fruit harvest will not come.
But "Rise Up" sounded a little too women’s empowerment for us.  We tried adding onto that:  Rise Up You Complacent Daughters.  Not quite catchy enough.  I suggested we make it a bit more colloquial and go with Rise Up You Lazy Bitches.  Obviously kidding. But it would have attracted attention for sure.  In any case, the search continues for a name.

Earlier this year I spent a few weeks going through the stories of some of the women in the Old Testament with a friend.  Sarah, Rahab, Ruth.  These women were risk-takers.  They loved fiercely and they trusted in the Lord.  We seem to have moved so far from these strong women.  Now, it feels almost taboo to talk about being a strong woman AND a Christian.  Blame it on Disney Princesses or whatever cultural phenomenon you want, but it’s not just the secular world that puts a tiara on your daughter.  In fact, the Christian world probably does this more than the secular world.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that women in the secular world feel more empowered by their culture than women in the church.  (I’m talking about the American culture here too, I can by no means speak to the feeling of empowerment in the rest of the world.) 

Too often, the materials and events we have for training women in the Church are flowery and soft, telling you that Jesus will be your boyfriend and that there is something precious hidden deep inside you that a real man is willing to search out.  The only precious thing that’s inside of you is the Holy Spirit and the Word of God (1 Cor 3:16, Colossians 3:16). 

That Time I Went to England and Thought About Staying.

I went to England in March with eleven other men and women from my church.  A year earlier, two of Veritas' pastors met Gary, a church planter in Leeds, England.  They were very quickly encouraged by Gary's vision and heart for Leeds and the church.  After this initial meeting, a return trip was in the works.

That's the trip I went on.  

From the moment Nick and Brad returned from the first international meeting with Gary, my heart was a-flutter with the thought of joining the church plant in England.  Now, I know my tendency toward wanderlust, so I asked the Lord not to let me run away with dreams of living in England. BUT, if that was the pure desire of my heart and he wanted me to go, to show me.

So I decided to go on the trip to England.

And here's what happened:

Day 1 - Friday

Land at Heathrow around 5:45pm England-time (9:45pm Ohio-time).  Took a taxi driven by a Turkish man to our hotel on Liverpool Street in London.  Gary met us at the hotel.  We must have gone to eat dinner, but I can't honestly remember this night very well.

Day 2 - Saturday

We spent this day doing most of the typical London sightseeing things.  First, we went to the Monument, built after the fire of London.  Gary thought it would help us get our bearings a bit to see the city from the top of the Monument.  Next, we explored the Tower of London for a couple hours.  I didn't realize everything encompassed by the Tower.  (It's not just a tower, fyi.)  We took a guided tour by one of the Beefeaters, who informed us of the various famous prisoners kept in the tower, showed us the chapel and the Traitor's Gate, as well as royal family's living quarters.  They lived at Tower of London for quite a long time. Next, we walked along the Thames and across the Tower Bridge (which is NOT London Bridge).  We went to St. Paul's Cathedral next.  It's beautiful.  Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take photographs.  You are, however, able to walk the 500-some feet up into the top of the dome.

That's the view from the top of the dome.  It's amazing visit the incredible ornate cathedrals in Europe.  There isn't much in America to compare them to.  You just know you are in a place of worship as soon as you walk in.  Of course, because these are tourist sites, it's a little strange, but even so, it's obvious when a place was built to be a center of worship.  After St. Pauls, we went to the National Gallery.  It's an enormous art gallery, so unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to see everything.  I did get to see some of the very famous paintings they house, including Van Gogh's Sunflowers.  That evening, we went to the George, which is the oldest pub in London. Maybe England.  Most places have a patio area, so we sat outside at old picnic tables and enjoyed some good English bitters.  (It turns out, American microbreweries are better.)

Day 3 - Sunday

On Sunday we went to East London Tabernacle, a good Bible-teaching church recommended by Steve Timmis.  The church was outside the city centre and home to many different kinds of people.  The pastor is an American from Boston who married a Scottish woman and has lived in England for about 30 years. His accent is quite confused.  Everyone was very hospitable and we enjoyed tea and biscuits with them after the service.  (Miss the constant supply of tea.)  We took a riverboat tour down the Thames on this day.  The tour ended in front of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.  Couldn't go in any, unfortunately.

Later, we walked through Green Park up to Buckingham Palace.  Going to the palace is like going to the White House, you just have to stand outside a gate that is pretty far from the actual palace.  

Above is the ceremonial route to the palace.  Below is a silhouette of the palace and the Victoria Memorial.

Covent Garden and the Lamb and Flag

I Just Freaked Out A Little. Or, The Waffle and Spaghetti Thing.

Isn't it strange how something that was not taking up any space in your mind a month ago can so quickly kidnap your thought-life?  The mind is proof enough for me that God exists.  At times I envision my mind the way this MacBook works, toggling back and forth between screens, except that the other screens are simply veiled in the background, not entirely out of view. 

The point is, I realized I am distracted.  And then I freaked out a little.  Got a little nervy.  Because I should be able to control my mind and push certain screens out of view, right?  WRONG.  Well, wrong in part.  I don't believe we have zero say in where our minds wander, but I do believe we can't stop the wandering.  Recently, my roommate was recounting a description she heard of the male and female mind.  Now, these analogies are ridiculous, and you've heard them before, so just go with it.  They said:  the man's mind works like a waffle; there is a very clear grid with many compartments.  They have to move out of one compartment before they move into another.  And the woman's mind they described as a plate of spaghetti; all the thoughts are interwoven, occurring simultaneously and existing together.
(I've decided I prefer Legos and yarn.)
It's true that women are better multi-taskers than men, so it makes sense we would hold numerous thoughts at once.  

But sometimes I want the Lego brain.

The yarn brain is crippling at times.  Because so many thoughts are mulling at once, I need to devote time to thoughts individually if I hope to process them at all.  And let me tell you, there is never enough time.

It Happened (Again...)

On Wednesdays we have staff meetings from 9-10am.  (Usually more like 9:30-11am, but I'll save that for another post.)  Then, we go to lunch together as a staff.  

Today we went to North Star.  I often wonder as I'm walking into a restaurant with 4 bearded men what people are thinking I'm doing with them.  I'm sure I appear out of place.  Anyway, lunch very often consists of NFL coverage and other topics of non-interest to me.  But today we were discussing our upcoming Staff Christmas Party.  Now, I've had mixed feelings about this party.  I mean, I love my coworkers (and okay maybe I love their wives more) so I'm always happy to hang out with all of them.  But this is the sort of event you'd want to take a date to, if, say, you were the only single person at your office.  Which I am.  However, it would be COMPLETELY WEIRD to bring a date to this event, so I'm not going to.  

And yet this is exactly what they proposed I do as we leapt into the discussion of where to eat and what to do for the Staff Christmas Party.  I squashed that one fairly quickly.

Unfortunately, this conversation led to one inspiring this post and its title:  Nick asked me what I thought about a guy at the church.  Now, props to Nick for not trying to be coy or act like no one knew why he was asking.  BUT STILL.  I knew this day would come (again; yes, it's happened before, though less explicitly).  The thing is, I've told them, on multiple occasions, I'm not interested in anyone at the church.  (To be honest, it's fairly slim pickings for single post-grad males.)  But they don't listen.  I think they want me to have a boyfriend more than I want me to have a boyfriend.  It's a little humorous.

Well, another Wednesday of staff meetings and staff lunches and staff discussions on Meaghan's non-existent dating life.  I'm sure there's only about a thousand more to go!