First Breath After Coma

I'm not a musician. I adore music, and can sing/make some music, but I have no extraordinary musical talent. It doesn't come naturally to me; I have to work pretty hard to churn out something decent. So I usually just don't.

However, there is a particular band called Explosions in the Sky who really doesn't need to be excited about their music because I've got enough excitement for the entire band and a few audience members combined. (I have heard that they ARE a passionate band and therefore they are well-known for their live music... it's now on my bucket list to see them live.) Mind you, I don't really think of myself as a very passionate person, but many people have told me that they admire the passion they see inside of me, so I'll just take their word for it. I have, however, figured out clues as to when I'm passionate about something--I study it. I annotate it.

Also, I can't shut up about it. My friend Hannah and I have very deep heart conversations, and I mentioned Explosions in the Sky to her several times because they are so deeply embedded into my heart in the background of some of the subjects we talk about. Hannah became curious, so I recommended a few songs. She was converted after that. I burned a couple of CDs for her and handed them over.

I only have two albums out of six by this band because their music is so complex and beautiful to me that it takes me months to absorb and process each album. Every single song has a purpose and a meaning, and I LOVE figuring out how God fits each song into my life. Explosions in the Sky is how I hear God. It's my worship music. You already know I'm a writer and that I love words. I love song lyrics too. But see, Explosions in the Sky is a purely instrumental band. No singer, no leader of the group, just a bunch of guys all contributing equally. And I like that sort of harmony. And I like that there are no words. Your emotions, your dreams, your experiences... those are the lyrics.

Honestly, I have no idea if any of the guys in this band love God or not. And even more honestly, I don't really care. It would be fantastic if they all do, but if God wants to use people who don't even love Him to make His voice clearer to some people who yearn to hear it... hey, can't argue with that. Their music doesn't bring you down like a lot of music does now--it lifts your head. It makes you look up from the ground.

I would love to write about each song and what they mean to me all in one post, but that wouldn't be fair. It would mesh them all together and take the beauty away from the individuality of the songs. So I may scatter some songs throughout my posts. We'll see.

What is the point of this long intro, you ask? Some background, I guess. Some sharing of the passion I have for their music. I don't need to be a musician--I've got a Musician practically DJing for me. And that's pretty okay.

One of the albums is called The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (which is always a good reminder). It's the the closest to love songs they've got and will ever get. There is such a celestial sound to this album... it sounds the way heaven should.

The first song is called First Breath After Coma. It's meant to signify waking up from a deep sleep, and the drums create a heartbeat throughout the song. I think of the heartbeat as God's... and then at the very end, the heartbeat seems to expand and beat faster and it merges with another heartbeat--ours after He wakes us up to His existence.

It's also worth noting that Tammy wrote a bunch of letters consisting of things the Lord asked her to write down for the youth. One of my letters stated that the Lord really wanted me to just lay my head on His chest and listen to His heart beat for me. My thoughts immediately went to this song... and so that's what I hear when I listen to this.

Don't be disappointed if you don't experience what I do with their music. Sometimes when someone talks about their passion, we get intrigued and expect to feel the same. It's okay if you don't... we all hear God differently, and this is how I hear Him.

It's long, but it's worth it.

Don't Quit

Carrie found a poem and posted it on Facebook last year. I thought it was absolutely beautiful and copied it down with a word document on the computer I was using at the time.

Unfortunately, that computer broke. I was somehow able to salvage my word documents via flash drive and plugged them onto my personal laptop. Even more unfortunately, I didn't have Microsoft Word on the laptop, and so was not able to read any of the documents I had saved since there were no compatible programs to open them up. It was pretty disappointing.

Until...

A few months ago, I succeeded in downloading Microsoft 2010 onto my laptop, due to the fact that I needed it for school and a powerpoint for a youth lesson that I was preparing at the time. So I've actually been able to open up the old documents and never even knew it until a few minutes ago when clicking around on my desktop.

What I found were memorable papers from senior year, a half-written youth lesson, wonderful quotes from a particular book called Chasing the Dragon by Jackie Pullinger, a book that I'd begun writing about my time in Nicaragua... it was a treasure trove!

And then I opened up the word document with the poem Carrie had shared, well over a year ago. And after reading it, I decided that I wanted to share it too. Because today, a group of people and I began a 20-week class called Living Waters. It's for those who are sexually and/or relationally broken. It originally began as a class for homosexuals, expanded for the sexually broken, expanded more for the relationally broken, and then it was pretty much decided that ah, what the heck, EVERYONE could use some Living Waters.

Because some of us need healing. Some of us REALLY need healing. Some of us want to know how to relate to others better. Some of us just want to hear the Lord better. And just about all of us aren't satisfied with the way our lives are, and have decided that we want more of what God has for us.

Anyways, we were told that the next four weeks of the course are the most difficult, and to stick with it. I can already tell it's not going to be easy... I've heard quite a few comments on how hard it is to discover just how broken you really are and to muster up the strength to come back to another class and be broken open again. Living Waters is known for being a pretty intense course.

Needless to say, I'm a little morbidly fascinated at how things will go.

So I find it to be excellent timing that I found this poem right at the beginning of the class. It's pretty encouraging to me, and even if you aren't going through something absolutely gut-wrenching at the moment, it's still beautiful. And it will probably be all the more frustrating and beautiful when things do get tough.

I already have the ominous feeling that sometime in the next four weeks, I may come back to this post and promptly attempt to delete this post and pretend it never happened. If you're reading this, you're obligated to not let that happen.

And the poem is this...

Don't Quit 

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, 

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

 And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, 

When care is pressing you down a bit, 

Rest, if you must, but don't you quit. 

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

 As every one of us sometimes learns, 

And many a failure turns about, 

When he might have won had he stuck it out; 

Don't give up though the pace seems slow—

You may succeed with another blow. 

Often the goal is nearer than, 

It seems to a faint and faltering man, 

Often the struggler has given up, 

When he might have captured the victor's cup, 

And he learned too late when the night slipped down, 

How close he was to the golden crown. 

Success is failure turned inside out—

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt, 

And you never can tell how close you are, 

It may be near when it seems so far, 

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit—

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

It's okay to have more than one husband. Really.

My good friend Hannah (the writer, the one who let's me critique her work) found a quote just earlier today, I believe. She felt the urge to share it with me, and I am so thankful she did.

"Hollywood has given us two, equally false, notions of marriage. Either it’s the joining of two gorgeous young people “destined” to be together, or as a wheezing and cold institution inhabited by miserable and middle-aged wheezebags, usually meant to illustrate a counterpoint to the love the gorgeous young couple in the film will share once their destinies are realized, and they are able to finally be together against all odds. Yawn. Boring. Wrong…
It’s doing laundry. It’s paying bills. Cleaning the kitty litter. Marriage is a hundred thousand tiny tasks you share. It is peeling vegetables and changing lightbulbs and giving each other quick kisses and wishing for each other 'a nice day'. It is coming home and smelling dinner cooking, and running out on a cold winter night for antacid because she has a headache and cannot sleep. Sometimes marriage is being pissed off at each other for weeks at a time. And sometimes it’s walking into your children’s bedrooms and watching them sleep."

-- Micheal Ian Black

I kind of hate to admit it, but I almost cried. Emphasis on almost. If it was something sappy, I'd be snickering instead. But this is just so honest, and that's what makes it beautiful. Truthfully, I find this view of marriage to be absolutely gorgeous.

I've said this before, somewhere, but I'll say it again--if God hadn't specifically said that He wanted me to be a wife, marriage really would not be a big deal to me. Growing up, those of the male kind were gross. I enjoyed playing kickball with them, but that was about it. Romantic scenes in movies made me cover my eyes. I always wanted to puke when seeing a couple hold hands or kiss. (Actually, the reaction remains resolutely the same--I guess things will be different when it's me that makes others want to puke.)

God bless the man who is to be my husband. Honestly, there are times when I already pity him and when I'm glad I'm not married. For heaven's sake, I'm not even twenty yet, I work at a dog kennel, and I'm not much of a cook. I don't spend time thinking about ideas for dates, and I haven't begun planning every detail of my wedding. (Well, I do know that I want there to be a lot of dancing. The bridegroom doesn't have to dance at all--I'll dance for both of us.)

There are scores of young women out there who look better than I do upon waking up. There are young women who are kind and compassionate and who don't speak in words dripping with sarcasm, and they are usually also morning people. There are young women who are much more spiritual than I am, who speak in a much more appropriate manner than I do, and pretty much every single one of their Facebook posts has something to do about the Lord. Don't misinterpret, there is nothing wrong with lovingly speaking about God on Facebook. But every single post? If not doing that ensures going to hell on a technicality, I may as well just take the elevator down now. I just feel there's something false about it. Like they only speak of how much they love God and how wonderful He is all the time. Personally, I feel a little dab'll do ya. It's more meaningful to me to see a beautiful post about the Lord as opposed to fifty of them in the same week.

Maybe that's just me being critical. But when I read what these women post about the Lord, I can't help but feel bad because sometimes I get angry with God and argue with Him, usually out loud and loudly. How dumb is it to try to argue with your Maker?

But deep down, I know that being furious with God is just a natural part of being honest with Him. It makes the relationship stronger, and it makes us closer.

I guess it's just weird to me that some young women never mention feeling angry, or disgruntled, or annoyed at God. They would never dare say, "That's just sick" to Him when He moves in a way that catches them completely off-guard.

Whereas I have told the Lord, "I love you, and I trust you, but I think you suck right now," to His face more times than I can count.

I was praying last night about marriage. I told the Lord a lot of things, including the above statement. And for some reason, I thought about the promise in Isaiah 62:5, which is:

As a young man marries a young woman,
    so will your Builder marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
    so will your God rejoice over you.

In case you start mistakenly thinking I'm such an incredibly spiritual person, let it be known that I had no idea what the promise exactly was and where it was in the Bible. I had to open up another tab and do some research.

Anyways. I asked the Lord to be my husband.

It just came out of my mouth. I couldn't believe it when I heard it, and I couldn't understand it. But thinking about it more... Yeah, the Lord is our Father and Counselor and Savior and Rock and Prince of Peace and all that stuff and more. We get it. The thing is, though, I'm not really at a stage where I really want any of those things. Or, well... I guess what I mean is, God takes on different roles for us in different stages of life, you know? Some people need more emphasis on the Heavenly Father part. Some people require a Friend. For others, they want Shelter and Refuge. Personally, I usually refer to God as "Lord" because I am arrogant and self-serving and I need reminders that I am a servant, and I am not the center of the world. I also like referring to Him as "Big Guns Upstairs" as an affectionate nickname.

But right now, in this stage of life when I am so longing for an earthly husband, I need a Husband. I need a Husband who loves me passionately, who pursues me and wins my heart and who I love, but who I can constantly fall in love with again and again, more and more, every single stinkin' day. I need a Lover who does things with me, like sitting in a restaurant or driving together in comfortable silence or cleaning out the kitty litter box or listening to live jazz. I need a Marriage where we are both okay with the fact that I am honest or angry or honest about the fact that I am angry, and I need a Marriage that is full of rejoicing when there is growth in the relationship.

Look, I can't wait for my wedding day. If you're reading this, you're invited. But our wedding day should not be the best day of our lives. The day we meet the Lord, the day we discover how much He loves us, the day we fall in love with Him for the first time, and then the second time, and then the twenty-fourth time... THOSE days are the most memorable days.

And maybe I was wrong about asking the Lord to be my Husband. Maybe He proposed to me a long time ago. Maybe He's been in front of me, on one knee, holding out a ring, earnestly looking up into my face as I've grimaced and sighed and considered, and then finally thrown up my hands and said yes after years of Him waiting.

What I'm trying to say is this: I want a husband, but I don't need a husband. I want to be a wife, but I can't be a good wife until I am deeply immersed in my first Love, my first Husband.

"When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now."

-- C. S. Lewis

Rangoooooooooooooooooooooooo.

 My Interpersonal Communications teacher asked us to write an essay this week. Normally that induces panic, but not for this class. We watched the movie Rango in class, and then wrote an essay about what character we relate to most, and why. One page.

This is my essay. (Note: this won't be funny if you haven't watched the movie. It's on Netflix. Go watch it.)

It’s hard to pick one character I can relate to in Rango. Obviously I liked Rango himself—he is funny, eccentric, insecure, and ultimately, heroic. If I wrote this paper at the age of thirteen or fourteen, I probably would have related to Rango the most. Thirteen and fourteen mark the beginning stages of insecurity, worries about self-worth, and questions of our identities and who we are. That is when we are stuck between staying the children we are, and the adults we want to be. Rango is definitely at such a position in his life. If I were at such a stage in mine, this paper would be about that. 

However, I have passed that particular stage and aspire to avoid it happening ever again. Being thirteen or fourteen was something that only occurred for about a year or two, and I found it didn’t suit me—thus I moved on, determined to never return.

I would love to write about how much I relate to the determined, passionate, heroic Rango, but honestly, I have never lied about killing seven brothers with one bullet, ridden a chicken past a blazing sunset, or had a showdown with a rattlesnake. I’ve never even owned a cowboy hat. Therefore, I would be ashamed to compare myself with this side of Rango.

After much consideration, prayer, tears, and sleepless nights (even considering the fact that we were assigned this on Tuesday with a Thursday due date…which would equal only two nights between then) I have evaluated the characters, examined their physical and mental qualities, printed out pictures of each character, blindfolded myself, and thrown darts with alarming vigor to make my choice. It’s been a long and arduous task, but I have finally made my decision. 

I relate most to the mariachi birds. No, I don’t wear a sombrero, my Spanish-speaking skills are nonexistent, and my guitar-playing abilities are even more so. But they like narrating stories, and so do I. They are an absolute hoot, and so am I. 

And most importantly, they think it’s really funny when characters die in stories, and so do I.

Vodka Christmas Cake Recipe

Once again this year, I’ve had requests for my Vodka Christmas Cake recipe... so here goes. Please keep in your files as I am beginning to get tired of typing this up every year! (Made mine this morning!)

1 cup sugar, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1 cup water, 1 tsp. salt , 1 cup brown sugar, Lemon juice, 4 large eggs, Nuts, 1 bottle Vodka, 2 cups dried fruit.

Sample a cup of Vodka to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the Vodka again to be sure it is of the highest quality then Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar. Beat again. At this point, it is best to make sure the Vodka is still OK. Try another cup just in case. Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 eegs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Pick the fruit up off the floor, wash it and put it in the bowl a piece at a time trying to count it. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit getas stuck in the beaterers, just pry it loose with a drewscriver Sample the Vodka to test for tonsisticity. Next, sift 2 cups of salt, or something. Check the Vodka. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find. Greash the oven. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Finally, throw the bowl through the window. Finish the Vodka and wipe the counter with the cat.

 

 

Just kidding, guys. I found this on Facebook and thought it would be hilarious to post it on here. It's a nice change from the usual, I feel. :) Happy baking!

What's in a name?

I have a friend named Joe. Actually, his name is Joseph, but we call him Joe. Actually, his name is Joseph but we call him Joe, and he even said he refers to himself as Joe, but now Joe has asked to be called Joseph because Joseph is his true name and Joe isn't, even though Joe has called himself Joe since before we all knew him as a Joe or a Joseph or a Jose or a Joey. (He refuses to acknowledge you if you call him Joey. I checked.)

But Joe or Joseph or Josefina or whoever the heck he is isn't the point. I'm getting there. I promise.

The point is, Joe now wants to be called Joseph because that's the name God had given him in the first place. The name Joe was just kind of there, I guess. Symbolizing someone who didn't use their God-given name, until God asked rather politely for the name back. And so Joseph has regained his name. And honestly, I think it's cool. It's pretty hard to go through life with a name and then suddenly ask people to call you something else. Especially if God is involved. Not a lot people would understand. It's like me asking you to start calling me Ashlee instead of Ashley, insisting that there are different pronunciations and that you're saying my new name wrong, and why are you saying my new name exactly the same way as the old name when there is obviously a change in the spelling?

(Bad example. Only one of these situations is intended to make people mad. But let's just put the past behind us and surge on.)

In my opinion, there are names, and then there are shortcuts. For the name Ashley, there's a bunch of shortcuts in the forms of Ashlee, Ashleigh, Ashlie, Ashlyn, Ashlynn... the list goes on. All these different names, derived from the exact same meaning. And do you know the meaning of said name? "Ash tree clearing." That's so disappointing. Everyone else has a cool name that means something amazing and profound and powerful, and I'm named after a tree. Freakin' huzzah, man.

Not that there's anything wrong with trees. I like trees. Climbed them all the time when I was younger, enjoy watching them turn bright, vivid colors with the turn of the seasons, wish that there were more of them where I live... but still. A tree.

Obviously my name doesn't fit me like a glove (size small... I have tiny hands). Obviously my name doesn't mean too much and somehow became popular in the United States by the time I was born. Whatever.

I have another friend named Hannah. She has a brother named Josh. Last Saturday we were with a few other people, doing work around a house to raise money. We worked our butts off--there was a particularly ominous time where I had to climb onto the roof of the second-story house and butt-scoot up the roof to knock down a coagulated mess of leaves and pine needles and mud that refused to budge from the house. The reason I did all that with a broom is because the leafblower couldn't get that pile off the roof. And the reason I'm telling you all this is because I think it's really funny to let you know that I literally worked my butt off doing that. It was a rough roof.

Anyways. After the mess was knocked down from the roof and promptly disappeared into my and Hannah's hair, we all took a lunch break. We sat around in the shade and ate our sandwiches and chips. That wasn't the interesting part. The interesting part was when Hannah and Josh started arguing about The Hunger Games. They were really into it. They were bickering over the economics, the concept of the Games, the difference between the books and the movie. No one else really interjected. I didn't either. I just sat there grinning through my sandwich, because they were arguing about fiction and because sibling arguments amuse me so much that it's almost a guilty pleasure.

There was one part of the argument that particularly got my attention. Josh was picking apart the author's decision to name the characters the way she had: Katniss, Peeta, Effie... He felt the message could've gotten across just as well without all these strange names. "Why couldn't they just have normal names?" he bellowed across the table.

"It's fiction," I said lazily. "They can name their characters whatever they want."

Hannah was getting steamed. "It's not a normal world, they shouldn't have normal names! And if you look up the names, it fits each of the characters very well! 'Peeta' is a type of bread, 'katniss' is a plant--"

"Oh sure," Josh said scathingly, "name a character after a fictional plant!"

"It's not fictional! Katniss is a real plant!"

A long pause. "It is?"

Hannah was swelling indignantly. I was shaking in my chair from the giggles threatening to escape during this sacred moment of sweet victory for her.

It was interesting, though. See, we're both writers. The biggest difference between us is that I write the truth and throw in exaggerations, and she writes exaggerations and throws in the truth. I rarely write fiction. I write thoughts and ideas and facts. Hannah, on the other hand, writes stories. Damn good ones, too. We make a great team because she's much more imaginative and creative, but I have a more critical eye. That probably sounds mean, but basically I out-Grammar Nazi her Grammar Nazi, circle strange-looking things and write all over her papers with a blue pen because I don't have a red pen, and I ask lots of questions about the work so she knows what to include and what to take out. I critique her. And the wonderful thing about it is that I don't have to offer anymore--she just walks up and asks me to say mean things about her writing. (Not really. Like I said, she's a fantastic author. I'm very much honored to be her editor.)

Anyways, she got real fed up with Josh about his gripe with the character names because of her own experience with writing new characters. Names of characters take a long time to decide, she retorted. It's one of the hardest decisions to make because the name has to sum up who they are. It's not just the look of a name--like a simple name for a simple person, or an evil name for an evil person--it's the meaning of their names as well.

And it got me thinking. An author spends a lot of time carefully considering what to name their characters. They aren't real people, and yet the right name can make them seem that way. Expecting parents take probably even more time pondering the name of their child because usually they plan for them to turn out to be a real person. Not just one name, either--often a middle name involved too.

So what about the ultimate Author? The ultimate Parent? If so much time is spent over a character in a story, what about us... the characters in HIS story? Because if there's something I know to be true, it is this: we are not the hero of the story. It's a difficult pill to swallow. Maybe not for you, but it is for me.

As Donald Miller once said: "The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me."

We are not the main characters. We are supporting characters. Supporting characters do just exactly that... support the main character. The main character is Jesus. Well, maybe not. Maybe Jesus wouldn't want to be the main character. He seems more modest than that to me. So maybe the main character is the Author Himself.

We do what the Author asks us to, because we trust that He's written out the story and that He knows exactly what's going on. He knows all the action scenes, the romances, the deaths, the births, the climax, the denouement. He knows everything because He's written it long ago. Not only that but He doesn't write the way we usually do. God writes the end first, and then He writes backwards from there.

And if He's planned out our roles in His story, than maybe that means He's toiled and thought a lot about our names. About how to sum up who we are. 

So before I sat down to write this post, I researched my name. Yeah yeah, same old thing about an ash tree. Still just as disappointing as ever. 

Well, then. What do ash trees do?

Quite a lot, actually. Pretty useful, these trees. The wood is hard and strong, but also elastic, and it can be used to make bows, baseball bats, office furniture, tool handles, and lots of other things that demand a lot of strength and resilience. It's also used for the bodies of guitars because they are known for a "bright, cutting tone and sustaining quality". (Hannah, if you're reading this, I can hear you laughing.)

Ash wood is used for firewood. And medicine. And food and a habitat for animals. And for sitting around looking pretty on the streets. (I didn't word that very well. Skip that.)

The tree's name comes from Old English, and the generic name before that originated from Latin. And both names meant "spear".

Spear? Machetes?

And, suddenly, I feel my name isn't such a mistake after all.

Not My Plan

We're going to have a guest speaker today!

"Michael Smalley’s passion is in teaching couples the principles of loving well and loving for a lifetime. His popularity as a nationally renowned marriage builder and marriage consultant quickly grew through his signature straightforward, no-nonsense advice. Michael’s message inspires, motivates and challenges people to thrive in their most important relationships." via facebook

No, I'm not married. No, a lot of people reading this probably aren't married. But this man has fantastic advice that can be used not only for married couples, for those thinking about getting married, and those who are resolutely single. This guy's sermon and story definitely deserves to be heard at least once. (SPOILER ALERT: cheerleaders are involved... and not just the female kind either.)

Seriously, it's worth listening to. Take some time to listen if you're bored, are putting off work/schoolwork, or need some background noise while cleaning the house (I've done that--it works). Not only that, but this man is absolutely hysterical, and very dramatic. I laughed SO hard.

I've attached the website to his church's sermons. You'll have to keep clicking the Next button until you reach the video with the title "Michael Smalley: Not My Plan". You can watch the video, or download the podcast or work that out on iTunes. Your pick.

http://www.woodsedge.org/woodlands/edge.pl?page=messages

Happy listening!