"Kiss me, it's beginning to snow."

After a few more “warm” days, the temperature has dropped yet again, this time maybe for good. But now I’m not so bitter about it because I’m prepared. Also, a miracle happened over Thanksgiving Break that allowed my new Landsend coat that had been backordered until Dec. 12 to be delivered to my house last Friday. My Ireland coat was so nasty I didn’t even bother bringing it to TU. This new jacket is rainproof, windproof, lightweight and surprisingly warm. I’m a happy customer.

That reminds me, I need to return Rebekah’s winter gear now that I have my own. She was so amazing to loan it to me when I had nothing. I love my friends.

Unless you’ve heard the original Rent soundtrack, the title of my blog probably doesn’t ring a bell. That’s really sad, because it comes from one of my fav songs, “Christmas Bells.” Therein lies my biggest beef with the movie version; they cut out some of the best songs! Ugh…

But it really is beginning to snow...

To be beautiful

Il faut souffrir pour être belle.

I don’t know a lick of French, but according to Frederick Buechner, that phrase translates to “You have to suffer in order to be beautiful.” Oh how true I’m finding that to be.

There’s something about “perfection” that makes us squirm. It’s just not natural to be perfect and human at once (unless you’re Jesus, but, chances are, you’re not). And yet, it seems everyone strives to be perfect anyway, usually in an attempt to appear more attractive to others. In order to be “perfect,” one must wear a mask and hide the true self. After years in disguise, we lose ourselves, all in an attempt to be liked, to be beautiful.

But is beauty in “perfection” or in the breakdown of all the lies we hide behind? I believe true beauty comes from the broken heart exposed. A perfectly symmetrical face is not desirable. One marked with flaws captivates the beholder.

And so it is through suffering that our beauty is made clear. At 11-years-old, I declared myself an atheist. I didn’t see how a God could exist in a world disfigured by divorce, abandonment, and heartbreak. Of course even in my disbelief, I still searched for God. He wasn’t in Sunday School trivia. He wasn’t in the half-hearted sympathy of well-meaning adults. But He was in the convoluted story of a misplaced teenager, blown to the Islands by the winds of chance. An illegal immigrant from Indonesia named Cathy led me to Christ. As far as messy testimonies go, hers took top honors. She showed me that being a Christian (and, I’m now learning, being beautiful) does not mean being perfect. It means being unfinished. It means challenging preconceived beliefs. It means letting go. Cathy used an illustration of a clay heart to make sense of my trials. Your soul is like a clay heart, she explained. God is carving the heart with intricate designs. Each carving pierces your defenses and brings great pain, but in the end these carvings will result in a beautiful work of art.

Let go of the striving, the hiding, the manipulating. "There’s beauty in the breakdown."

Forget regret or life is yours to miss

Thanksgiving Break has come and gone. Bring on the academic barrage of papers, projects and presentations. Not to mention final exams. Graduation seems lightyears away. It’s really about six months. Scared yet?

In reality, I’m not too worried about the upcoming weeks. I have three classes MWF. Two have been cancelled for the entire week, meaning I only have one class every day this week. What will I do with all my free time? Work on projects, of course. But, hey, at least that means they won’t cut into my real free time so much.

I need to stop by campus safety and get a temporary parking permit for my mom’s car which I had to bring to school in the place of my beloved ’91 Ford Taurus. Something is broken on the Taurus and my grandpa didn’t trust it to bring me all the way back to school. I hate car trouble. Give me a train pass and some walking shoes any day.

Over break I bought about 600 diapers to donate to Crisis Pregnancy Center as part of our senior project (the Penny War). I only had half the money, too, so for Christmas, CPC is getting well over 1,000 diapers from TU. I’m so excited!!! I’m actually really thankful that we had to do this service project for senior sem. At first I thought it was ridiculous and a waste of time, but we were really able to make a difference. Serving like this is really helping me see my heart for changing the world, even if it’s just one woman’s world.

I have Rent songs stuck in my head, which is not at all an unpleasant experience. I tried to find my complete soundtrack while I was at home, but amid the avalanche that was once my room, all I found were some ancient t-shirts that surprisingly still fit me. Right now, I’m wearing one from zoo camp in 1992. It’s black with white writing and says, “I did the Wild Thing at Mesker Park Zoo.” It makes me smile.

Why Dorothy and Toto went over the rainbow to blow off Auntie Em.

"How can you connect in an age where strangers, landlords, lovers, your own blood cells betray?" In Jonathan Larson's hit Broadway musical-turned-movie Rent, seven friends seek to answer that question in HIV-positive New York City. The answer they find: "love."

The plot relies mostly on the character development of its ensemble cast. There's Roger the struggling songwriter, Mark the renegade filmmaker, Mimi the drug-addicted stripper, Collins the gay philosophy professor, Angel the transvestite street drummer, Maureen the exhibitionistic performance artist, and Joanne her lawyer lover. Their stories weave together one Christmas Eve as they fight eviction from their apartment building in the East Village. Over the next year, their friendship is tested by jealousy, betrayal and loss. In the process, they find that the risk of authentically engaging one another in love is worth the pain.

Rent is a thematic treasure trove. It stresses the importance of authentic relationships that go well beyond the surface. Everyone has baggage, but when we can bear with one another and "cover" each other with love, life is worth living. This theme is aptly expressed in many scenes, but one of the most compelling is in Roger's struggle to let himself love Mimi. A year prior, he'd lost his girlfriend April to AIDS and had been waiting for the virus to take him as well. Mimi challenges him to stop dying and start living, to "give into love or live in fear." It's a fitting testament to essential Truth of the power of love to "drive out fear." (1 John 4:18).

Artistically, the movie is beautiful. The lighting, the imagery, the cinematography... perfect. I wasn't terribly pleased with the re-writing of some of the dialogue, though. Much of the dialogue was taken directly from original song lyrics, which made conversations sound sing-songish and odd. It was a bit jarring for someone like me who has the entire show memorized to hear the many places where songs were mangled to fit onto the big screen. They also entirely cut out some of my favorite songs, including "You Okay Honey?," "Christmas Bells," "Happy New Year," and "Halloween." I also didn't like the added scene of Joanne and Maureen's engagement party. Oh well. Some things will just have to be better on stage.

It was incredible to be able to see the characters' faces the way one can only through cinema. Of the eight principle players, six were original Broadway cast members. Each one brought an intimacy to his or her character that can only be cultivated over 10 years. The only two non-original cast members were Tracie Thoms (Joanne) and Rosario Dawson (Mimi). As Thoms was a virtual unknown, I wasn't too concerned about her performance. She was magnificent, by the way, especially in that little black dress in the "Tango Maureen." Wow. I was, however, entirely skeptical of Dawson's abilities. In fact, I was prepared to hate her. I didn't, though. I actually loved her and thought she just about stole the show.

I would advise discretion in viewing this movie. Everything shown can be seen on primetime television nowadays, but drug use, language, and sexuality are fairly prominent. However, I felt it was largely shown in good taste and I didn't mind viewing even the most explicit scenes in mature mixed company.

Rent exceeded my already high expectations, leaving my friends and I in awe. It's a powerful show that could very well transform the box office the way it did Broadway several years ago. At least I hope so.

Nothing lasts forever...

I was quite dismayed by one sight on my way to a lunch date at G.D. Ritzy's today. Seriously, I leave the city for three months and everything changes. I'm of course referring to the name change of Putt Putt Golf. It is now Mr. T's Fun Center or something like that. I mean, ok... the mooning giraffe is still there and everything, but the point is that we cannot honestly go "putt putting" anymore. All the memories of elementary school birthday parties, scavanger hunts, IMPAX outings... it's like they're all gone. Rest in peace Putt Putt.

I guess the only good thing about overdevelopment is that Evansville is now the proud owner of a PANERA!!! Welcome to the 21st century! Mmmm... Bacon Turkey Bravo... Cream of chicken and rice soup... I.C. Mocha...

Tonight I'm hitting up Rent with KT. Get excited!!! I miss that girl. She's my rock. Seriously.

Pumped

I just gassed up for $1.88/gal. I heart the Flying J of Haubstadt, IN.

Great Expectations

“I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.”

–Fritz Perls, Father of Gestalt Therapy

I love that quote. It’s so brilliant, yet also so challenging. Last Friday in Fundamentals of Counseling, Vance was discussing Gestalt therapy, a theory of counseling that focuses on the “here and now” and the “what and how” of individual experience. While the theory has its flaws, it has some good things to say about human interaction. In class, Vance was explaining the ramifications of imposing one’s expectations on another human being. He said an example of a bad expectation would be “that my son grows up to be a godly man.” Hmm… sounds like a worthy goal, doesn’t it? But if you look closely, such a goal demands the involvement of another person. When we impose our expectations on other people, our own identity gets wrapped up in their performances. People will let us down. If we let the actions of others determine our own self-worth, we run the risk of certain devastation.

I’m humbled to consider the many ways in which I’ve imposed expectations on others. Whether those expectations were fair or not matters little, the point is that I’ve often let healthy hopes become unhealthy goals. It’s ok to hope someone will treat you a certain way, but when you begin to expect that kind of behavior, you’re just asking for trouble.

While I was in Ireland, my dad and I began to nudge toward reconciliation. It all started with an e-mail and slowly progressed to the end of the summer, when he took me out to dinner at Red Lobster. For the first time in my memory, I felt like I was sitting across from my father and not some enigmatic stranger who took me to the movies every now and then. Things continued along those lines when he asked to come to Parents’ Weekend. While the prospect of having both of my parents in the same place at the same time stressed me out, it excited me to finally show my dad the place I’d been living for the past three years. About a week before the big event, all of my expectations came crashing to the floor when he e-mailed to inform me he would not be coming to visit.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I felt like I’d finally let myself trust him again and he’d betrayed that trust. My pent-up anger unleashed itself into the cold night as I struggled to overcome the hurt and shame. How could I have let myself trust again?

I now see that my trusting him was not the problem. Long ago I’d come to terms with the fact that my father was not a perfect man, and yet at the first sign of progress I put him right back up on his pedestal. It wasn’t fair, nor was it right, to expect him to come and then be furious at him for not meeting that expectation. He didn’t do it to deliberately hurt me and he has shown me in recent months that I do matter to him. Sure, he doesn’t make it very clear, but he has made an effort. I need to appreciate that in him and stop blaming him (and myself) for the flaws in our relationship.

When something goes wrong, especially in relationships, we always ask, “why?” or “what could I have done differently?” It’s basically a grasp for control that supercedes our reliance on God to restore us to each other. “God’s not calling us to figure it out, he’s calling us to let it go,” Vance said. Let it go. Sound familiar?

Here comes the cold...

So Tuesday we had thunderstorms and tornadoes because it was so warm. Today and yesterday it’s been snowing. I forgot what cold felt like. Ha! I thought Galway was cold!

And then the most amazing thing happened. I walked into Rupp from the DC a few minutes ago and the cleaning lady opened the handicap door for me. I thanked her and she said I looked really cold and asked where my coat was. I told her it was at home and I’d get it over Thanksgiving Break and she offered to bring me a coat from her home! Can you believe that?

“We live in a beautiful world, yeah we do, yeah we do.” --Coldplay

"Which way to Never Never Land?"

Pretending to read:

Here I Am: Now What on Earth Should I Be Doing?

By Quentin Schultze

I’m doing a pretty unconvincing job at pretending to read Here I Am, considering I hadn’t even picked it up off my shelf until today. I’m supposed to be writing a 3-5 page essay about my “spiritual and vocational calling” based on this book, but as usual, I’m not feeling it. I mean, (1) I don’t like writing papers, (2) I don’t believe in the idea of “vocational calling,” and (3) I don’t even have any good ideas about my future from which to BS a paper, much less write one seriously.

Toward the beginning of the year, I started stressing out about the future. My counselor pointed out that this is crazy. I could have the next 10 years of my life planned out to the second and it could all change tomorrow. God does NOT guarantee us tomorrow. He doesn’t even guarantee us an hour from now. Worrying about my future won’t add a single day to my life. So why plan? Ok, maybe that’s just me being a bit irresponsible… or maybe it’s me learning to trust that God will provide my path for me when he leads me to it.

I could be doing a lot of things seven months from now. This week (World Opportunities Week) has been reminding me of all of my options. Even though the world feels full of choices, I feel overwhelmed about picking one. I’m pretty sure I’m moving to Indy this summer, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. No job. No apartment. Still, it seems like a logical step. Beyond that, my choices are endless. Do I get my MSW (I haven’t even taken the GRE, so this probably won’t work)? Do I join a newspaper staff? Do I move to Dublin and become a bum? I don’t even like Dublin that much! Why would I call that an option? Basically, I have no direction. Just scattered thoughts of things I could end up doing. I don’t feel “called” to any of them. But that makes sense.

A month or so ago, Kathy Bruner (my interactive media prof) really inspired me with this concept: Never in the Bible did God “call” someone to paid vocation. Our primary calling is to relationship with Him. The rest are just details. Whew! I can stop stressing.

My roommate loves Shel Silverstein and was sharing with me about her new favorite, Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back. Lafcadio is a lion who learns to shoot a gun, so he goes to the city and lives among sophisticated humans. He’s invited on a hunting trip where he faces a dilemma: either join the hunters and shoot the lions or join the lions and eat the hunters. He wants to do neither. At the end of the book, Lafcadio walks off alone; unsure of who he is because he doesn’t fit the mold. I can relate to Lafcadio. Here I am (ahaha), graduating in May, completely unaware of where I fit in this world. And so I’m walking off alone, but in faith.

"And [Lafcadio] didn't really know what was going to happen to him, but he did know something was going to happen, because something always does, doesn't it?”

Hello again

So about an hour ago, I got off the phone with KAYLYNN KIYABU!!! I haven't spoken to her in, like, two years. She told me all about her life and all of my old Hawaii friends in Koinonia. Everything has changed in everyone's lives (naturally) and it's amazing to get up to speed... but I'm still catching my breath.

People lose touch with one another. It's a fact of life that is sometimes very sad and at other times is kind of a relief. Losing touch with Koinonia is sad. One is married. Two are in California. One is still in Hawaii. Kaylynn just moved to Las Vegas. I'm in Indiana. Maybe in summer of 2007 we'll all go to Europe like Kaylynn was saying. It would be amazing, but will it ever happen? A lot can happen in two years. Obviously.

This means WAR!

Our senior sem. project is blowing my mind. Each group had to plan a service project, so at my roommate’s suggestion, we organized a Penny War to raise money for Crisis Pregnancy Center in Marion. Each residence hall can donate spare change in milk jugs at its front desk. Pennies count toward the hall’s total score. Silver coins (nickels, dimes, quarters) count against the scores of all other residence halls.

I’ll be honest, I was skeptical. I mean, I’m sure it worked in Margaret’s high school, but would Taylor students donate money? I never even notice things at the front desk unless I get a package in the mail (which is never). I figured we’d make $5 at the most. As of last night, we had about 25 times that (and we still have a week left in the war)! Obviously this campus (especially English Hall) knows how to answer a war cry. I’m so excited to really be able to meet a need for an organization about which I care so much. So… party on.

In completely unrelated other news, I’m SO PUMPED about next semester! I registered last week and I’m all set to grad in May. Contemporary Christian Belief TR 9-10:15 is going to be an absolute PARTY. I mean, we’ve got Win Corduan, almost all of my girls, and my two favorite Asian boys (as if one could quantify such a thing). Yeah, so I’m going to die of over-exposure to Gen Eds (adolescent psychology will be my only respite from lib. arts core curriculum) and I have to write a senior paper, but with Jenny on campus and Janell taking Contemp before rushing off to her practicum, I think it’ll be a good time.

There's no place like home...

This morning while I was having fun with a new friend in Indy, a tornado was pummeling Evansville and Newburgh. As far as I know, none of my friends or family were in its wake. Still, it's sobering to see your hometown flattened on Fox News.

To the fatherless:

“The sadness was I’d lost a father I had never fully found. It’s like a tune that ends before you’ve heard it out. Your whole life through you search to catch the strain, and seek the face you’ve lost in stranger’s faces.” --Frederick Buechner, Godric.

Buechner’s father committed suicide when he was 10-years-old. The tragic event, in addition to his father’s alcoholism up to that point, colored Buechner’s life from then on. His perception of reality shifted, but perhaps more importantly, he lost touch with a sense of God’s character. It’s hard to see God as a Father when you don’t have one. I know from experience.

It’s chapels like today’s that bring back all the confusion. Renowned Bible expositor Sinclair Ferguson spoke on Romans 8. His chapel on Wednesday had been quite inspiring to me, so I looked forward to this message with anticipation. What I got instead was pain, guilt, confusion and heartache.

Ferguson’s words cut to the core of my soul. “No true father restricts his children from knowing him,” he said. This proclamation was met with a smattering of “Amens” from the surrounding student body. Tears flowed from my eyes. For 11 years I lived in the same house as the man with whom I share 50 percent of my DNA and I can’t remember a single thing about him. The only words I can remember him saying to me came after he moved out when he told me he would not tell me his side of the story. He refused to share his story with me. He refused to let me know him.

Ferguson went on to illustrate God’s love for us in the sacrifice of His Son. This too fell flat, as he explained how terrible it is for a father to be separated from his children. Much like Everclear’s Art Alexakis, “my father gave me a name and then he walked away.” He wanted separation. He declined joint custody. He’s never even set foot on the college campus where I’ve been for the last three years and two months. Difficult for a father to leave his children? I don’t think so.

To be fair, I don’t think my dad did any of that stuff to hurt me, but whether intentional or not, I will bear these scars for the rest of my life. Just like Buechner, I search through every face trying to discover the man I lost. God has been merciful, providing “father-figures” in the most unlikely of people, and yet the confusion, the fear, the vulnerability remain. A huge part of my soul is missing and always has been, to the point where I can’t even understand a simple example in a chapel message. Oh, God, please help me in my unbelief.

Alpha huh, what?

I should probably be writing a precis right now, but I'm not feeling it.

This past weekend I was inducted into a hoop-jumpers society. The ceremony was one of those tasteful affairs where professors rattle off each students’ achievements to the subdued applause of their parents and peers. When it came my turn, I was pleasantly surprised by my advisor’s introduction of me. Instead of listing my accomplishments, she chose to define me by my character and my wounds.

She described the various meanings of my names and explained how I embodied each of them. She briefly mentioned work I’d done, but placed overwhelming emphasis on my personality and affliction.

I was so encouraged by my advisor’s synopsis of me because it truly reveals where I am in life right now. In the past year, I’ve fought with the idea that all I am is what I’ve done. I took dramatic steps to negate that perception by dropping the Echo and learning to say “no.” The result has been a much more fulfilling semester in which I’ve faced my everyday battles head-on instead of burying them beneath workaholic tendencies. Slowly but surely, I’m discovering who I am and what I desire out of life. It’s good to know that others are seeing the fruit of this invigorating/agonizing process.

Humanity should not be defined simply by labors and accolades. It should be defined by stories. Are we not human beings as opposed to human doings? I am my feelings, my desires, my hopes, my wounds, my struggles, my stories. So what if I can jump through some hoops? What is important is that I am an authentic human being.

Red scare

They don't call it the Dining COMMONS for nothing. Marx would be proud.