ms. woolf meets maroon 5

the eyes of others our prisons;
their thoughts our cages.

virginia, i don’t know you.  but i want to.  so bad.

why am i even in ministry

someone credible told me this morning that a family in our congregation lost their dog last night.  this family is very open about their grieving processes with various circumstances, and the same was true of this situation.  i heard they were taking it very hard, but wanted people to pray for them.  i went back to my office and facebook messaged one of the daughters in that family who is away at college.  i told her i heard what happened to her dog and expressed my condolences and told her i was praying for her family during this hard time and i asked how they were doing.

several minutes later, i received this response:
my dog?  what do you mean?  what’s wrong with my dog?

!#$!$%^!#%$!$!^&*#%$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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holy crap.  i suck.

those french

i love artists who are deservedly cocky; few things are better.  i read the following quote two years ago in the bathroom of an old house in philadelphia.  haven’t stopped thinking about it since.  so driven and committed to his work, a firm believer in his art, he challenged himself to make even a still-life tantalizing:

“i will astonish paris with an apple.”

committed

i’m helping lead another all-nighter lock-in tonight.  8th grade students only.  we’re limiting the monster drink purchases from the cafe to ONE PER STUDENT this time.  no explanation needed here.  there’s one boy in particular who another leader and i are convinced has the church mapped out.  blue prints and all.  let me explain.  he’s already on meds for hyperactivity, and we see him walk past the cafe last lock-in with a giant pillow case, sans pillow.  i asked him to hand it over.  he ran to the third floor.  walked by again later, and i took the pillow case from him.  LOADED with candy.  loaded.  he looked mildly disappointed, but decided to move on.  i was impressed with his maturity.  fast forward two hours.  walks by again with his pockets bulging, munching on a candy bar.  i said, hand it over.  half hour later, he walks past the same place again, different candy in hand.  the dude’s a genius.  we swear he sneaks in the church a few days before lock-ins and gets his stash in place.  we fear there are several main locations, possibly several annex locations as well.  i’ll update this post tomorrow with reports on the possible sting operation.

lock-ins… with 8th graders… a family friend told me last night that i’m either totally committed to my ministry, or i need to be committed.  good times!

UPDATE: after gearing myself up to be awake, with pubescent teens, for 24 straight hours, we had to cancel the dang thing.  winter storm advisory.  blast.

cellphoneless

you never thought it’d happen, right?  it’s my second tumor, aside from my pink nalgene water bottle (thanks, lynne!).  here’s the story.  i like to housesit.  it’s the best job ever.  sometimes when i housesit, i leave items behind.  this time, though not leaving underwear saved me minor embarrassment, i’m not sure there’s anything worse than leaving my charger behind.

my wonderful pink phone (thanks, jordan!) stayed alive and well for two and a half days.  on that last half of a day, i texted one of the family members who returned home that i had left my phone charger.  they said it was nowhere to be found.  i copied down her number for when my phone died.  then, my phone died.  i used someone else’s phone to tell her to look again.  she found it.  i asked her to leave it in her mailbox and that i would swing by late to pick it up.  swung by.  empty mailbox.  attempt number three: called from a different phone again another day, asked if i could swing by at a reasonable hour.  answer: yes.  swung by.  bag in hand.  get home.  wrong freakin charger.  fast forward three days.  i cope with the shame of being yelled at and ignored for being unable to retrieve messages.  middle school large group comes around.  the students from the house where i sat arrived.  sans my cell phone.

here i am.  two days later.  beside myself.  “help me, oprah winfrey!”

like fine perrier

come, let’s drink deep of love till morning;
let’s enjoy ourselves with love!

say what

i have ventured into the wonderful world of the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy.  one character just said to another, “okay, computer.”  i thought… hm.  several paragraphs later the same character called the computer a “melancholic paranoid android”.  too much of a coincidence!  after extensive research, i learned that thom yorke and i have similar impeccable taste in literature… except his likes lead to writing music and making millions; mine result in marking off another recent read on facebook.

in other exciting news, i just learned that the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.  who knew.

life imitates art

amusing muses from sarah…

went to starbucks [with james] to write with him for a while this evening.  he was there before me and when i went up to order my drink he walked over to throw away his empty cup.  i was amused to see him dismantle the whole thing before throwing it away.  he took the lid off, threw it away.  took the sleeve off, threw it away.  lastly, he threw away the cup itself.  but it was all done in a very quick, efficient, purposeful manner.  immediately made me think of the way christian bale dismantled the shotgun that he takes from that guy as he’s walking purposefully down the hallway.  you know, in the scene where joker comes to the fundraiser looking for harvey?  the parallels were hilarious, and the fact that it was james and a coffee cup was just great.

i love people.

why so serious

on the front page of the arts & life section of the paper on sunday was heath ledger’s face as the joker.  covering the entire thing.  i feel like i’ve waited so long for this weekend.  ever since seeing initial make-up trials for ledger’s look.  the first line of the article read, “is batman even in the dark knight?”  haha.  their marketing campaign has been incredible – the trailers, the ads, the billboards, the online advertizing, the articles, commercials.  “why so serious?”  seriously??  completely brilliant.

and now, the film has been released.  i still feel like there’s so much i haven’t read – the social commentary on this film, the recent ledger documentaries, the magazines with christian bale plastered everywhere, interviews with christopher nolan, high-brow articles on life immitating art or art immitating life.

imdb has it ranked at #4.  that would be the fourth best film of all time– at 11amPT of opening day.  #4 as in, right below the godfathers of film – the godfathers, of course.  what in the world am i doing, sitting here at my desk, when i could be viewing this film myself.  i can fantasize all i want, but i’m working on being faithful – i promised jordan and angie i’d see it with them when they get back from their honeymoon.  i think i can wait four more days.

wait…

good cinema.  is there anything better?

scepticism and n.t. wright

going into simply christian, i wasn’t too passionate either way.  if anything, i wasn’t exactly pro-wright, which made me a little more excited to read it.  as a supposed contemporary version of mere christianity, wright’s book does manage to cover similar ground with a twist that would appeal to eco-sociofriendly academia.  not necessarily my bag, but i’m half way through and n.t.’s starting to win me over – slightly:

the roman governor was weak and indecisive; the priests, manipulative.  jesus went to his death on a charge of which he was innocent – actual rebellion against rome – but of which most of his contemporaries were guilty, at least in intention.  barabbas, a rebel leader, went free in his stead.  a centurion, looking up at his thousandth victim, saw and heard something he hadn’t expected and muttered that maybe this man was god’s son after all.

the meaning of the story is found in every detail, as well as in the broad narrative.  the pain and tears of all the years were met together on calvary.  the sorrow of heaven joined with the anguish of earth; the forgiving love stored up in god’s future was poured out into the present; the voices that echo in a million human hearts, crying for justice, longing for spirituality, eager for relationship, yearning for beauty, drew themselves together into a final scream of desolation.

nothing in all the history of paganism comes anywhere near this combination of event, intention, and meaning.  nothing in judaism had prepared for it, except in puzzling, shadowy prophecy.  the death of jesus of nazareth as the king of the jews, the bearer of israel’s destiny, the fulfillment of god’s promises to his people of old, is either the most stupid, senseless waste and misunderstanding the world has ever seen, or it is the fulcrum around which world history turns.

well put, wright.