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(Not So Awkward) Silence

August 27, 2010 in Random with 2 Comments

“…..and awkward silence….”

That’s one of Jonas’ new things to say whenever we’re having a conversation and things go quiet. It happened the last time when I was visiting with him in his room before bed and we were talking about his dear and (recently) dearly departed hamster, Zipper. “….and awkward silence….” he proclaimed.

“Not really awkward. Just silent.” I replied.

I’m pretty comfortable with silence and it’s rare that I experience a length of silence that feels awkward.

Especially when I’m with people that I love and who love me, I’m very comfortable just existing. I can ride in the car with a friend for an hour without talking and it wouldn’t bother me a bit. I can sit next to Jason on the deck and not say anything for a long time. I’m even comfortable sitting at a table with someone, sharing a meal and not saying anything (although a whole lot of other people find that particular scenario awkward, so I try to do my part).

For as much talking as (many of you know) I’m capable of doing, I really do enjoy silence.

Sometimes, as I sit silently with a loved one, I’m thinking about what I’m going to say or what I need to say, turning it over in my head, making sure it’s going to come out the way I mean it.

Sometimes I’m thinking about things that have already been said.

Sometimes, I’m just grateful that I don’t feel like I have to say something.

Sometimes, honestly, I’m thinking about my to do list or what’s coming next or what we’re going to have for dinner or what’s going on somewhere else. Sorry about that!

Sometimes I’m just enjoying the company and not really thinking about anything else.

I don’t insist on it and I love carrying on conversation, as well, but there’s something wonderful about the things that can happen in silence and the things that are communicated when no one is talking.

It’s the weekend–weekends can either be very loud or very quiet. I’m hoping for and needing some silence today.

Present

August 17, 2010 in Family, Ministry, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

I don’t wear a watch.

This may be surprising to some of you because you know that I really (like freakishly really) like to be punctual. I also like to know what time it is so I can keep hold of my day’s schedule, which is often pretty full.

I wore a watch all through high school and most of college. And then…

“I’m sorry, do you have to be somewhere?” a friend earnestly asked when I glanced at my watch for probably the third time during our short conversation.

I realized that I looked at my watch all the time. So I stopped wearing one. Also, now that I carry a cell phone, I usually leave it in the car or put it aside whenever I’m spending time with others for the same reason–it’s too easy to constantly glance at my phone.

One of the things I’m learning a lot about in these past months is the discipline of spending time with others and being present with them.

See, I’m not really a quality time person by nature. Sure, I like to be with others and I do need quality time with my loved ones, but it’s something that I easily let slip through the cracks. It’s my fifth love language, if that tells you anything (interesting fact? Jason’s primary love language is quality time…another interesting fact? I feel like I’m back in the mid-90s, drinking strawberry kiwi Snapple and trying to remember the order of the moves in the “Macarena” when I write about love languages).

Yet, I do like to follow Jesus and it’s hard to deny that Jesus was about people and being present with and for the people around him.

Jesus didn’t remind the Samaritan woman at the well that it was lunch time. (John 4)

Jesus didn’t consult a calendar before he healed on the Sabbath. (John 5)

Jesus didn’t send the crowd away when he was tired and grieving. (John 6)

Jesus took the time to weep with Mary and Martha before he raised their brother, Lazarus. (John 11)

Jesus took time to be with his disciples, washing their feet and sharing a meal, even in the last minutes of his pre-resurrection life. (John 13)

The resurrected Jesus took time to share a meal with his disciples and reconcile his relationship with Simon Peter. (John 21)

At all times and in all things, Jesus was about being with people. I want to do that, too.

For me, this looks like a willingness to make time for prayer with others. One of the reasons I’ll miss Whitney so much is that she is a person who prays regularly with me. Rev. John is another person who prays with me. I also have a standing weekly date to pray with youth ministers in Henderson. There are others who share regular prayer with me and I’m grateful for that I’m so glad that I make time to pray with loved ones, even if it means my to do list isn’t accomplished today.

For me it also looks like a willingness to drop whatever task I’m doing when my phone rings or buzzes or there’s a knock at my door or I hear the familiar pop of facebook chat or I’m just out in the community going about my errands and someone needs to talk. It’s true, this can be exhausting, and I do try to have boundaries, but when someone needs me, I want to be as available as makes sense.

It’s also an effort to let people fill my schedule, not tasks. Lunch with friends, trips to the mall with youth group girls, time in my office with church members, special trips or treats with my family, time before bed with my husband listening to him recap his day and offering encouragement or laughter at his (sometimes corny, but always loveable) jokes. This is the part of putting people first that can really fun if you don’t let yourself be distracted by what you’re not doing instead!

Which brings me to the part where I try to be present with the people I’m with–not distracted by my calendar or my phone or a clock on the wall or thinking about what else I could or should be doing. That one can be hard, especially if someone catches me in my office where I’m completely distracted by things that need to be done. It is also hard at home, sometimes, when I’m at the end of my day and I’m drained and all I want is to bury myself in my bed or in my laptop or with the mindless company of the television. I’m working on that.

What’s happened is that I’ve come to love spending time with people. I’m still an introvert and I still need my quiet time and my alone time. I still am really far too busy and have a to-do list that chases me out the door, unfinished, each night when I leave my office. I still have to remind myself of how important being present with others is and make a concerted effort to live out the things I’ve listed above. Yet, it’s changed the way ministry happens for me and I really enjoy that.

Besides, I don’t have much money and my talents are limited–all I really have is time!

Miss

August 15, 2010 in Random with 1 Comment

There are many things that happened this morning that are blog-worthy, and I’m sure I’ll get to them at some point. But here’s a little gem from the 7:00 hour.

I had to stop at Walgreens on my way to God’s house this morning. First of all, the cashier was looking at me all weird and I was like, “um…hi!” And she launches into a story about how she just cut her finger and whenever she cuts something, she’s really afraid that she’s going to get a disease and she can’t wait until she gets home and can sanitize her whole hand so she doesn’t get a disease. Also, she loved my dress. “Oh, thanks,” I said. “I’m on my way to church…” And then she launches into her work schedule and how it means she can’t go to church and she’s glad I reminded her it’s Sunday because her work schedule is so crazy she can never remember!

I liked her.

And then, as I’m exiting, I find myself in a crowd of great, big, bouncer looking guys getting out of a huge black stretch limo in the Walgreens parking lot. “Oh, excuse us, Miss!” one of them says politely and the only thing that actually matters to me about this whole surreal moment is that bouncer dude called me “Miss” instead of “Ma’am,” which is what strangers usually call me these days.

Sure, it’s likely he was drunk or high, but whatever!

Greenbelt Bike Ride

August 8, 2010 in Family with 0 Comments

Jason and I took Jonas and our nephew, Nolan, for a ride around Owensboro on Saturday morning. We had fun!

Techno-fluence

July 29, 2010 in Friends, Random with 2 Comments

So I went to lunch with Nibby and Kathy yesterday. Spending time with either of them is always very fun and a little bit dangerous. Fun because Kathy and Nibby are each funny, entertaining and exciting people who do not go to my church (and as a church employee it’s pretty important for me to have friends who do not go to my church along with the dear friends who do). This was the first time the three of us spent time together, I think, but we are all three friends with each other. When we set it up, I thought, “this is going to be a good day,” and I was right.

It’s a little dangerous because Nibby loves gadgets even more than I do and while I dream about owning them he’s actually out buying them and telling me all about them and then I want them, too. Kathy also keeps up with a lot of the tech trends and I love all of it so the conversation lingered for awhile on technology and social media trends.

“How do you update Twitter?” Nibby asked casually. “Like, Tweetdeck, Tweetie, Tweettwittweettweettweet (I don’t actually know what he said, but it probably sounded kind of like that)?”

“Um…No?” I replied.

Well, that caught their attention. “What? Like…you just use Twitter? Oh, no, you need to get Tweetdeck.” They were both nodding and looking like they knew they had just saved me from certain doom.

So I went home and downloaded Tweetdeck.

And now it’s all over. Because I really kind of love it. I like that I can make it pink or blue or lime green or all three. I love that I can integrate Twitter and Facebook. I like that I can choose to update just Twitter or just Facebook or both at the same time. I like it that I can add columns of just the things I actually want to read and get to them quickly. I like how organized it is.

But mostly? I kind of get obsessed with keeping the columns empty. Which could be a bit distracting…

See, doesn’t that look better? This could be a problem.

In other news? I’ve been on the fence for weeks about what I’m going to do when I’m eligible for my phone upgrade with AT&T. Everyone (and I mean almost EVERYONE) keeps telling me to just get an iPhone. But I really like Jason’s Blackberry. And every time I start talking about getting a Blackberry, someone tells me about how that’s a bad idea because they/their cousin/someone they know has a Blackberry and hates it/the roller ball got messed up/it broke after 20 minutes.

“Play with my iPhone for awhile!” Someone will say, shoving it at me. “You’ll love it!”

And I do.

I really do kind of love it.

So I went to the AT&T store the other night and I played with the iPhones there and looked at all of the other kinds of phones. And then I went to lunch with Kathy and Nibby and they were all, “Just do it.” And I was all, “I’m not eligible for my upgrade yet.” And Nibby knows everyone (and I mean pretty much EVERYONE) and he knows the current manager and the former manager of the AT&T store in Henderson and darn if they both didn’t walk in together to have lunch where we were already having lunch.

Nibby gave it a good shot, but I still have to wait until September when I’m eligible for my upgrade, but I suppose when I am, I’ll get an iPhone and join the rest of the world (by which I mean most of the rest of the world and most of the people that you and I know. It’s really kind of ridiculous how many people have those things).

Also, Nibby brought his iPad to lunch and it made me feel a little bit drooly, but that’s another story I guess.

Note to conscientious readers: Yes, I know this post is obnoxiously materialistic. I’m aware that not using Tweetdeck, not knowing which phone to get and not having any hope of owning an iPad are definitely First World Problems. Thanks for indulging me, as usual.

Adventures In Keeping It Local

July 27, 2010 in Fun with 2 Comments

“Think Henderson First” is a campaign that the Downtown Henderson Project launched awhile back. Henderson County has a lot of wonderful, locally owned businesses and services and the campaign encouraged Henderson residents (and others) to remember this before jumping in the car and heading off to Evansville. I think the campaign has done a lot for local businesses, especially in our busy downtown area.

Supporting local business is a cause that has been on Jason’s and my minds since he started Durham Window Cleaning Service about five years ago. Jason has gained a true appreciation of what it means to buy and do business locally. He works for a lot of our downtown and around town businesses and he and I always try to reciprocate and do business with those places. We think it’s really important to support small, local business owners.

This weekend, several area farms and businesses sponsored the Back Roads Farm tour, which provided an opportunity for Henderson residents (and anyone else) to get an up close look at 14 local farms and the downtown Farmers’ Market (pictured above). Jason and I did not visit all of the farms on the tour, but we did go to a couple of them.

We have been buying our honey locally from Stone Hill Honey in Spottsville for awhile now. Consuming local honey is actually a very healthy thing you can do, especially if you have trouble with seasonal allergies. Stone Hill produces more than honey (we picked up some salsa), but bees are their business. While we were there, we played “find the queen bee” with an indoor hive and talked to one of the bee keepers about colony collapse disorder and how it’s affecting the Spottsville farm. I’m glad we visited.

At the end of the tour, we had picked up a watermelon from the Warren’s farm, peaches from the Daniel farm, corn and cucumbers from Cates Farm (at the farmer’s market), tomatoes and peppers from my father-in-law’s garden, and honey, salsa and honey sticks from Stone Hill. It was fun learning about some local farming businesses in our area and it’s good to know that money we were going to spend on food anyway went to support our local farmers.

If your community has a farmer’s market, you should definitely visit it and get some fresh produce. It’s good for the environment, good for your local economy, and better for you.

Human

April 22, 2010 in Bible Nerd with 2 Comments

I worked on a lesson plan this week for a discussion on the humanity of Jesus. I’m using a book called “Affirming Faith,” which is published by the United Church of Christ. As part of the lesson, I made signs that said:

Jesus Slept (Mark 4:35-38)

Jesus Celebrated (John 2:1-2)

Jesus Was Physically Hurt (Luke 22:63-23:46)

Jesus Got Hungry (Matthew 21:18)

Jesus Wept For A Friend (John 11:28-36)

Jesus Spent Time With His Friends (Mark 6:30-32)

Jesus Upset His Parents (Luke 2:41-51)

Jesus Got Mad (John 2:13-16)

Jesus Felt Sorry For Someone Else (Matthew 15:32)

In the past week, I have slept, celebrated, been physically hurt, been hungry, wept for a friend, spent time with friends, been angry and felt sorry for someone else. I’m not sure if I disappointed either parent in the past week. It’s possible. Either way, I can relate to that, too.

I take great comfort in the humanity of Jesus. It’s good to know that the Creator of everything spent time in a frail human body. It’s good news to me that Jesus didn’t just float around and wave a magic wand while he was on the earth–Jesus got his hands dirty, Jesus dealt with pain, Jesus knew disappointment and Jesus had to deal with all of the wonderful and less than wonderful things that go along with spending time on this earth.

Fully God and fully human. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that, but I find so much hope there.

The Bechdel Test

April 21, 2010 in Random with 0 Comments

The other morning, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts (“Stuff Mom Never Told You” from How Stuff Works) and toward the end, they were doing listener mail and they talked about something called the Bechdel Test. (Full disclosure if you google it: this test does not appear to have the most family friendly start, but it seems to have become a useful tool that is often used in film classes, etc. and I find it interesting still). I was fascinated as I had never heard of this test for movies. Here are the rules to pass the test:

1. The movie has to have at least two named women in it

2. The women must have a conversation

3. This conversation must be about something other than a man

Those seem to be pretty simple rules-right? I mean, surely, almost every movie has two named female characters. It’s amazing, actually, how many movies do not even meet this first requirement. Here are a few:

“Angels and Demons”
“Men Who Stare At Goats”
“Hancock”

Here are some other movies that do not meet all of the requirements:

“Avatar”
“How To Train Your Dragon”
“(500) Days of Summer”
“Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs”
“Up In The Air”
“Slumdog Millionaire”
“Wall-E”
“Sex And The City” (obviously this one meets requirements 1 and 2, but fails miserably at number 3!)

It’s an interesting thing to think about as you view movies, I think.

Here are some recent movies that ace the Bechdel test:

“Alice In Wonderland”
“Diary of a Wimpy Kid”
“Julie and Julia”
“Precious…”
“The Lovely Bones”
“Whip It”

I did a little research to see if anyone’s done a “reverse Bechdel” list–as in, there must be two men in the movie…they must have a conversation not about women…although it seems to me that men often talk about things other than women in movies. Or maybe I’m wrong? Either way, I didn’t find much about a reverse model. As a movie watcher, I think I’ll pay better attention.

Our Long Haired Hippie

April 14, 2010 in Family with 0 Comments

Jonas is refusing to cut his hair. He’s old enough, we figure, to begin making decisions about his appearance. It’s just that he’s not making good decisions. I mean, it’s just kind of starting to look really…shaggy. His hair is REALLY, EXCEPTIONALLY thick and it’s getting really hot outside–surely he’s getting miserable.

But Jonas is nothing if he’s not stubborn!

It all started when Jonas was mad at Jason about something else entirely and instead of arguing about what was actually going on, Jonas exclaimed: “You always make me get my hair cut!”

Jason replied: “I don’t care if you ever get your haircut again.

Sometimes, Jason and I have to talk about the things he says a little too hastily.

So, anyway, we are apparently “fighting the power” and “not letting the man get us down.” I’m pretty sure Uncle Jeff is pretty proud, since he also has prided himself on letting his hair grow as long as possible.

The other day, Jonas came home from school and gleefully told us about how his English teacher suggested that he move his hair out of his face because she’s pretty sure he can’t see the blackboard. He thought that was awesome.

More than a few people have offered to give him a barrette. There’s no shaming him. He thinks he looks like a rockstar.

Jason’s going to give him the chance to get a haircut this week…I’ll let you know what happens!

Crazy Week

April 7, 2010 in Random with 2 Comments

This week should win an award for being so incredibly unique and crazy. Here’s the rundown:

Sunday: Easter. Loved it. We had our last of three consecutive blended worship services and it was awesome. I think Rev John had doubts when we (the worship team) asked to end the service with “I’ll Fly Away,” but the congregation loved it. You might have seen the pictures, so you know we had an Easter egg hunt and lots of cuteness at church after the service. We went to Jason’s aunt’s house later in the day for dinner and the annual egg hunt.

While we were there, Jason’s mother, Shelia, mentioned to me that Jason was taking her for surgery on Monday morning. Jason had no memory of this arrangement. I was shocked that he forgot something.

Not really. So that brings us to…

Monday: I took Shelia for her oral surgery. When we got there, the staff told me that as soon as they started her IV, I could leave and they would call me when she was out of surgery. So I went to Borders. Best way to spend a Monday morning, actually. Of course, I was mindful that the worst way to spend a Monday morning is probably oral surgery, so I tried not to be overly joyful about this unforseen reward. Shelia’s surgery went really well, by the way. Bonus: people are funny when the surgical anesthesia is wearing off, so the ride home was pretty entertaining.

Tuesday: Tuesday was a full work day for me. I hit the ground running in the morning, spent some time with church staff in honor of Rev. John’s birthday, and had a Vacation Bible School meeting in the afternoon. It was busy, but pretty normal. I went and hung out with a pretty cool family that evening and had a mini-phone call with Jenny when I pulled into the driveway. And then LOST was way awesome, so that was a good way to end the day!

Wednesday: Gracious, today was a full day. We had our first high school mission trip fundraiser (a lasagna dinner) and I spent most of the day finishing our preparation for that. I set the tables and made place mats on Tuesday, but today was a day to get all of the other stuff ready. In the midst of it, I was trying to get some of my weekly work done, set up for after school club and deal with some frustrating things that happened right in the middle. The dinner went really well and our entire team was present–which is rare in this time of really full Spring schedules. And then after dinner, I ~~walked~~ drove around the block to Whitney’s (super clean) apartment for some good conversation, prayer and time with Molly, her borrowed dog.

Thursday: We’re not there yet, but I already know something about it. Jonas is sick. He came home from school sick this afternoon, has run a really high fever and had slept all afternoon and evening. I will stay home with him tomorrow while Jason goes to work. When he gets home, I will head to Evansville to get some supplies from Blick because we start our creative arts ministry on Sunday night and the first couple of sessions will be acrylic and canvas with one of our incredibly talented church members (Sharon).

Friday: I’ll start Friday at Holy Name School (behind the front desk). Then I get to have lunch with my dear friend Randa. Then I imagine I will head to my office to finish all of the work I will not be doing tomorrow morning.

Saturday: Let’s try to make Saturday a day of rest, okay? I’m tired.

So, all of this to explain that I really wanted to type some thoughts on Consumer Christianity. I have a post all started about that topic. But I’m exhausted from this week. Maybe in the morning I’ll find the right balance of caffeine and quiet time to type something that makes sense and isn’t boring.

May you know God’s richest blessings today! <3