Late Night Personal Reflections About Coffee

I've mentioned it before, but I was not a coffee drinker until last fall.  Sure, I had the occasional ghetto mocha (mostly hot chocolate)... and a gas station frappuccino here and there... and there was the seriously rare trip through the McDs drive-thru when the only other choice was falling asleep at the wheel and risking the lives of my children.  In the interest of full disclosure, there was also this one moment near the end of my studies for my BSM when my friend Mel brought an enormous mug of coffee to my back door, in the middle of the night, because I begged someone to do so... on social media... publicly!  My first thirty-six years were spent mostly coffee-free, though, and then I woke up one September morning in Portland and decided that was going to change.

Interestingly, this opened all kinds of doors, because people like to go out for coffee.  Even more interestingly, almost no one I go out with actually drinks coffee.  So we make coffee dates, and they drink their tea... or their healthy green stuff that I probably would have loved during the whole organic phase that I should really return to... or hot chocolate... or frozen confections that look more like ice cream.  And I sit there and drink coffee and wonder why we didn't get together until I was a coffee drinker, because apparently anything would have sufficed.

It's been a little over nine months now, and the truth is I want my cup of coffee every morning.  I wouldn't say I'm addicted, and I don't really want just any coffee.  If I find myself somewhere without good options, I just drink water... you know... like I used to.  But I have come to like the precise moment when I am about halfway through a cup and I look down, take a deep breath, and realize that there is life flowing through my veins.  Or caffeine.  It might be caffeine.  But we'll call it life for the purpose of this post.  Drinking coffee has changed my rhythms.

There are other things that have changed since September, too.

I've had quite a few moments in my life when I've stopped to re-evaluate where I am... what I'm doing... who I am... if I like myself... if it matters...  Heck, I've done some of that right here, on the pages of this blog, right out in the open for everyone to see.  It hasn't always been pretty, but it's real, so whatever. 

 
I may have shared, before, a quote from Donald Miller's book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, " The human body essentially recreates itself every six months. Nearly every cell of hair and skin and bone dies and another is directed to its former place. You are not who you were" (67) six months ago.  Or nine months ago.  Or last year.   

I'm sure not.  The last nine have been something of a challenge, but I guess that's normal.  There are things I wish I'd never done and things I'd change and others that I would leave exactly as they were, even if I could have the moment back.  That's the thing about life, though.  We don't get the moments back.  Ever. 

I wonder who I'll be six months from now.  For the first time in awhile, I think I really care... 

L.

How Social Networking Collapsed My Circles

I love the Internet.  True story.  My love for the world wide web looks more like my love for books and vacation planning than it does my love for my family, but love is an OK word to use here.

I love social networking.  There's an inside joke at our house that all of Mommy's friends live in her computer, although in recent months a lot of Mommy's friends have moved to the local coffee house, so at least there's that.

But let's face it.  This constant interaction with people can be a little overwhelming (at least for this melancholy, choleric, INFJ (advocate... yeah that's me being the 1%), conservative liberal, community minded, ever so slightly arrogant, stubborn to a fault, only child).

For as long as I can remember, I have been painfully self-aware.  A lot of people don't believe this, because I am also agonizingly... devastatingly... oh, let's just go with awkwardly honest.  So I start spewing stuff... true stuff... out of my mouth, and people take a step back and whisper things like, "Oh, she must not be very self-aware...  should we tell her?"  And I just laugh... hysterically... because I have meticulously planned every single word for public consumption.  Just because I tell the truth doesn't mean I tell it all.  I say a lot more than most people would be comfortable with, but we all have our secrets.

That's been my life.  Mostly.

We all have our circles, too.  Like the vast majority of people in this particular culture, this is what mine looked like:

Neat, right?  I mean, there was a little bit of overlap here and there with some creative flair, but pretty run of the mill when it comes right down to it.  There I am in the center, flaunting my, "please just call me by a letter and put a crown on that while you're at it," surrounded by family... and friends... and a smattering of other people.  Like most everyone, there were even a few people outside my circles, completely, who didn't like me, but whatever.  Circle's closed.  The temptation to type "Can't touch this" is so great that I had to do it, but please try not to dwell on MC Hammer for too long...

Seriously... stop right now...  I have more to say...

Even though I am ultra-self aware, though, I do have a tragic flaw.  My inner circle... you know, the one that's supposed to be reserved for family and maybe, just maybe, the most intimate of friends who have known me since Kindergarten (which, would be no one)... it's not airtight.  I would like to take this moment to do something that I rarely do.  I would like to blame this flaw on my childhood.  I honestly believe it is difficult for only children to accept the lack of sibling relationships in that inner circle, and for as long as I can remember, I have gone looking for them.  Except, they don't exist.  I should probably close the gate.

So I'm actually pretty bitter about this lack of siblings thing.  I'm trying to make this post sound sort of sarcastically funny so you won't notice.  When the bottom fell out of... well... everything, some years back, it would have been exceptionally handy to have a brother to run to or a sister to cry with.  Maybe I don't actually understand sibling relationships, but I have always imagined they are the type of people you can call at midnight when you're pulling out all your hair.  If that's not the way it really is, don't bother to correct me.  Let me have my sibling fantasy world.  It's not hurting anybody.

My error was forgetting that I don't have anyone to fill that role and reconnecting with or meeting new people on social networking platforms was never going to change that.  But goodness, there sure were a lot of people! 

Before I knew it, the capability of saying whatever I wanted to whomever I wanted whenever I wanted was at my fingertips (literally).  I am going to maintain that I remained intensely self-aware.  In any given moment, I legitimately only said what I wanted, when I wanted, to whom I wanted.  I take full responsibility for that.  But I lost track of what made sense.

My circles collapsed, and the resulting image wasn't too pretty anymore.  This is what it looked like:

I wasn't even sure which roles belonged to which people.  I'm still picking up pieces, and I probably will be for a really long time (maybe the rest of my life). 

There are some good things that have come from this.  The greatest one is that I think I have learned something about those people who knew me and didn't like me.  Well, maybe even a couple of things.  First of all, some of them are really great people who legitimately belong inside the circles, perhaps even pretty deep inside the circles.  That makes me happy.  Second, though, some of them are people that I just have to let go, remembering that they remain human beings, created in God's image, and it would be terrific if their lives turn out awesome.  I can pray for them, and I can hope for the very best for them.  If they ever approach my circles, I can even let them in.  But I don't have to chase them.  God will do a much better job of that than I ever could, anyway.

Reconnecting, in real life interaction, with old friends who come close to being lifelong relationships, has been pretty sweet, too.  One of them told me, the other day, that I need to focus on the people who love and support me.  She's so smart.  And brave.  Because I scare a lot of people too much for them to get in my face and tell me to cut the crap.

But I guess I'm just throwing this out there, mostly, because maybe it's still possible to save someone else from circle collapse.  I want to say something really provocative like, "Don't kiss strangers," but I didn't actually do that.  It almost never falls apart in one crushing move, though.  Just remember who you are.  Remember who your people are.  Set boundaries and love appropriately within all of them.  I think that probably works out best for everybody.

L.

I Didn't Even Like Sara

Recently, and probably especially since it's an election year, I have run across a lot of quotes, memes, personal communications, etc. that seem to indicate that we should surround ourselves with people who think in exactly the same ways we do, because this is how to protect ourselves from being influenced by others.  This is how to prevent change.  If you're looking for a safe life, you might consider taking this advice.  I don't really do safe.

So, here's the deal.  As a general rule, I make friends and adversaries quickly.  It seems that I am a first impression kind of person, which is sort of sad, because I am also a little bit slow to warm.  On the rare chance that people give me a shot at a second or third impression, I do pretty well with that, but we live in an instant gratification world, so I have a few very good friends who, mercifully, loved me immediately, and then there are a whole lot of people who are OK with the fact that I mostly spend my life in chameleon mode (Can I blend in with that wall?  If I sit here, will I be invisible?  Oh crap...  I'm in my purple flower pants...).

Sara and I met over twenty years ago.  We never really liked each other.  The truth is, we never really knew each other.  But let's face it, after twenty years, the odds were definitely against us ever being friends.  Something like a zillion to none.

And then something weird happened...

A couple of years ago, Sara and I found ourselves in the same place at the same time, and we had a couple of civil exchanges.  It seemed groundbreaking to me.  I sent her a facebook friend request, because... you know... we had spoken words.  She accepted it.  I started to see tiny glimpses into her life.  She started to read this blog.  It occurred to us that we didn't have entirely polarized views on everything in the world.  We were sort of nice to each other.

I don't really understand what happened next, but before I knew it she was one of the half dozen people on the planet who might occasionally send me a text.  Her name started making the list of people to include in a group message when I was in crisis.  The facebook algorithm people started sticking her face in the "bestie" slot.  And in the middle of my soul care days in January she suggested that we make a trip to Disney World together.  I laughed.  Then I checked flight prices.

I never, ever thought we would be friends, but there we were on Splash Mountain...

You want to know this story.  Really, you do.

Sara and I do not agree on everything.  As an example, Sara thinks that when it is 70 degrees out, it feels like 5.  For whatever reason, she thinks this is a terrible time to ride something that might leave her cold and wet.  She might have called me an idiot as we got in line... and as I boarded the front row... and as we ascended the lift to the final drop.  Oh... wait... she didn't call me an idiot during that last part, because she was too busy praying to the animatronic vultures in hopes that the ride would shut down,  but I digress...  This unlikely friend of mine seriously took her sweatshirt off (I couldn't even figure out why she needed a sweatshirt...  I was dying of heat stroke in my cami), rolled it up, stuck it under one of her other many layers, and proceeded to talk to it throughout the entire ride, referring to it as "sweatshirt baby".  By the time she uttered the words, "This is the dumbest thing that has ever happened to me," I was laughing so hard I was crying, because honestly... being friends with Sara might actually be the dumbest thing that has ever happened to me!  And with that, I would like to encourage you to do dumb things.  Really.

John 13:35, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (NIV).

Love is not rational.  Friendship is risky.  I mean, she could have killed me in my sleep, this weekend (There was some brief reference to how she would probably go to Disney with a serial killer, but I'm trying not to be offended...).  But she didn't, and now I have a very good friend that I would have missed, completely, if I had insisted on a monochromatic life.    

Sara and I probably have much more common ground than we would have imagined.  We probably have much more common ground than anyone would have imagined.  In fact, we spent some time wondering what our mutual friends must be thinking as we posted pictures of our weekend trip.  There are probably some people who had jaw dropping moments.  There might be a few people who are wondering if they need to make a countermove, because, quite frankly, the two of us being friends might be a little bit frightening.  It shakes the status quo.  There is no telling what kind of trouble we might cause.  Seriously.

But here's the thing.  If you take a chance on being the kind of disciples who set aside non-essentials to love one another, good things begin to happen.  Heck, I even think I could set aside essentials in order to show love at this point.  It doesn't mean that you stop having convictions or opinions.  It means that you are kind even when you interact with people who are different than you.  Think on this.  There is probably no one in the entire world who agrees with you about everything.  If you're only willing to associate with people who are just like you, it's going to be a very lonely life.

 
L.

Strippers and Billboards

Oh, dear sweet friends, it's Ash Wednesday.  What am I doing with a title like this?  Let me explain...

Today I was at a nursing home in Indiana having my hair cut.  It just gets better... I promise...

So, as I was sitting in the chair, Mel (my cosmetologist) began to talk about strippers and how there had been some sort of local controversy, because some of the women at a nearby strip club were not in the proper condition to strip for money.  Immediately, I knew this was what I would write about, tonight.  I told Mel.  She laughed, because she knew it was true.  It took me a couple of hours to figure out how it all fit together, though...

Lent is a season for stripping.  Goodness gracious, not our clothes, but stay with me...

I have recently been gently and lovingly informed that I am too hard on myself.  Listen to me.  I am made of dirt!  So are you.  It's OK.

On Ash Wednesday, "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return." (see Genesis 3:19)

And...

"Even now, declares the Lord, 'return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning'.  Rend your heart..." (Joel 2:12-13a, NIV). 

We don't really want to be exposed.  It's ugly.  We don't want to be exposed before the Lord, and we sure as heck don't want to be exposed in front of other people.  But to be rent is to be torn apart, split, divided, disturbed, distressed... forcefully, even violently.  No one looks good enough when this is happening.  No one looks presentable when it is finished.  Lent is about reflection.  It is about honesty and transparency.  It is about passion and contemplation.  Emptying ourselves.  Because ultimately it is about preparation - preparation for sharing in Christ's death.

I am in no condition to share my heart.  Sometimes my narrative stinks!  But this is exactly when I should be sharing most. 

Paul's words to the Corinthians are sort of incredible:

"We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited.  Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love;  in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;  through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors;  known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything" (II Corinthians 6:3-10, NIV). 

I think my favorite phrase here is, "And yet we live on..."

We need to do this... this living on... because Lent is also about the preparation for sharing in Christ's resurrection.

As I was leaving the nursing home, Mel told me that I could be her billboard, because... you know... I travel 222 miles to have her cut my hair.  In the end, I think we all know that I would make a scary billboard (even if I am currently sporting the cutest haircut I have ever had), but this has me thinking about how far we all might travel during this season of Lent to more accurately reflect the work that God is doing in our lives.

Strippers and billboards...  Who knew?

"Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me" (Psalm 51:12, NIV), because I sure need it...

 
L.