He taught me to love doctrine and I taught him to skip class.

Fair trade, yeah?

In celebration of one of my favorite people being in Portland for a business trip this week,

a repost from 2011...

a glimpse into why I am thankful for my friendship with Chet.

In Powell's tonight, looking at an edition of Augustine's Confessions

and muttering "Unbelievable" at me under his breath for feeling a need to take a picture right then.

*******

Vignette #1:

It is 6:25 A.M. My phone beeps. I roll over and squint at it. A text. From Chet.

"Are you up?"

"Yep."

"Really or like you'll be here in 20 minutes up?"

"I'm out of bed. I'm getting dressed."

I'm lying. But he knows that. So fifteen minutes later, when I run into the breakfast restaurant in downtown Wheaton we meet at every other week or so, apologizing and still throwing my hair up in a ponytail, he just smiles and sips his coffee and glances up from his paper. "I just got here. I knew you weren't up."

I order the same thing I always get and he rolls his eyes and tells me I'm unbelievable for eating so much sugar so early in the morning just like he always does. And we drink our coffee and eat our breakfast and talk theology, or what we'll do at work today, or our roommates, or what we're praying through regarding church or grad school plans, or the weather. And then whoever's turn it is pays the bill, and we head off for our respective jobs.

And it is comfortable and just right.

(And I start work way happier and more caffeinated than I ever do otherwise.)

Vignette #2:

It is Valentine's Day and I ask him to go on a run. He kindly agrees, and then spends five miles listening to me freak out about a guy. I repeatedly ask him what he thinks and then immediately act shocked and tell him all the reasons he's COMPLETELY wrong when he attempts to give me some, you know, male perspective.

Then I slip on the ice, and this happens:

Me: $@*#!!!! Don't judge me for cursing!! OW, ^&%*@!!! Don't judge me!!!

Chet: Omigosh, are you okay???

Me: NO! %#&@*!!!!!! OWWW!!!! Chet, do NOT judge me for cursing- oh, OW!

Chet: Will you stop saying that?!! I'm not judging you, I'm wondering if I should take you to the hospital! Geez!

This is, for the record, exactly how every attractive, financially independent, single, spiritually mature 22-year-old man hopes to spend his Valentine's Day evening.

Vignette #3:

It is last August and I am sitting alone at Caribou Coffee, staring at a book that was recommended to me on trusting God in the face of suffering. 100 pages in and I am calmly, desperately, considering throwing it across the coffee shop (not exaggerating).

I call him. "Hey. Can you meet me at Caribou right now?"

He comes without further explanation needed. And my most doctrine-loving, sovereignty-of-God-trusting friend, sits silently across from me as I choke out through tears how ridiculous I find every argument this author makes. How hollow words that would have brought me comfort a year ago seem now. How I feel we are speaking different languages and his response and this Scripture verse and that logical conclusion do not speak to my girls, do not speak to what they went through... and I am crying and I am angry and I am so, so scared. And I ask this friend, this most doctrine-loving, sovereignty-of-God-trusting friend, what I am supposed to do with that.

And he does not judge. And he does not attempt to give answers. And he does not minimize, in any way, what my girls went through. Or where I am now.

He sits silently with me. And then he reads me 2 Corinthians 4. And then he sits silently longer while I cry. And he does not try to explain it, because this doctrine-loving, sovereignty-of-God-trusting friend finally tells me that he thinks God is sovereign, but that all we can and should do before certain types of suffering is be silent.

And right then I can't trust God, but I can trust him. And so that makes doctrine and the sovereignty of God seem just a tiny bit more believable.

Spring Tea Party.

Dreamed up, planned and executed by Erica,
who regularly fills my little home with her beautiful creativity and joy.

There were flowers, and scones, and cucumber and egg salad sandwiches...

And carefully made favors...

and beautiful ladies.

Oh.

And there were

BUTLERS TO SERVE THE TEA.

(I'm serious. And it was their idea, too. They DRESSED UP and refilled tea pots and brought trays and trays of food up and down my stairs for over an hour. And responded to the names Carson, Alfred, and William. Do YOU know any twelve year old boys who do that?!) (A. was SO excited to be on "the boys' team".)

We drank four kinds of tea and ate delicious scones and sandwiches

and spoke in British accents

(I watched Downton Abbey with one of these families every week this year)

and read favorite poems

(guests were invited to bring one with. Shakespeare was represented, as were Cicely Mary Barker's flower fairies and Mary Oliver...)

and shared spring blessings.

...cause life is just too short not to celebrate spring.

(We finished up with a rousing game of...

that thing where you draw, and then pass it, and write what you think the person drew, and then the next person draws what you wrote... you know?)

And then you.

We arrange our lives as best we can,
     to keep your holiness at bay,
          with our pieties,
               our doctrines,
               our liturgies,
               our moralities,
               our secret ideologies,
Safe, virtuous, settled.
And then you-
     you and your dreams,
     you and your visions,
     you and your purposes,
     you and your commands,
     you and our neighbors.
We find your holiness not at bay,
     but probing, pervading,
          insisting, demanding.
And we yield, sometimes gladly,
          sometime resentfully,
          sometimes late... or soon.
We yield because you, beyond us, are our God.
     We are your creatures met by your holiness,
                    by your holiness made our true selves.
     And we yield. Amen.

(pray as you can, not as you can't.)

What am I, some sort of wizard?

Cass in my cohort emailed this graph to me today.

It describes my adult life with such accuracy that it's slightly frightening.

.simple and good.

My body and heart have been telling me they need some rest.

There has been a lot of taking a book on the porch swing.

Sitting outside with tea and a blanket through twilight.

Walking to the produce stand and cooking with whatever I find.

Sewing through quiet afternoons, piecing patterns together.

Sundays with cousins watching Little League games.
Summer garden planning.

Spontaneous evenings with easy friends, laughter, ice cream, a Redbox.

Lots of walks. Lots of long, open mornings. Lots of candles lit.

Taking it slow.

Reading...

Books of late:

Crossing to Safety, Stegner

I LOVED this book. Like want all my friends to read it, possibly is my new favorite novel after Hannah Coulter. Beautiful prose. Likable, well-developed characters. Joyful and focused on the beauty of life without being overly sentimental; it went into the painful, rubbing nuances of joy and goodness. Reading this book was especially meaningful to me right now... Lots about growing older and what matters as you enter adulthood and "real life". Lots about the unexplainable joy that are deep friendships.

Isaiah 40-66, Brueggemann

I'm doing this in my personal times with God right now. Great to dive deep into my favorite book of the Bible, great to learn interpretation from a scholar and pastor I respect so much, and great to love God more as I learn how His goodness and greatness show in the book of Isaiah.

Celebration of Discipline, Foster

I've been re-reading the chapter on simplicity a lot the last few weeks, reminding and refreshing... "If what we have we receive as a gift, and if what we have is to be cared for by God, and if what we have is available to others, then we will possess freedom from anxiety... the inward reality of simplicity." "Simplicity knows contentment in both abasement and abounding."

The Hobbit, Tolkien

I love reading out loud with people and being read out loud to. My friend Courtney and I decided that The Hobbit, which I had never read, seemed like the perfect read-aloud book (for grownups).  On random weeknight evenings when we both have time, we take turns reading chapters out loud to each other and knitting. Love the memory with her and loving the book. Also, I think I must have been switched at birth because inside I really am a hobbit.

Bread & Wine, Niequist

Christine gave me a beautiful hardback copy of this new release while I was in Wheaton. So special because it's a gift from her and I know how much she loves (read: is obsessed with) the author. I can't wait to get more into: "...A collection of stories... about the ways God teaches and nourishes us as we nourish the people around us." "This is what I want you to do: tell someone you love them, and that dinner's at six."

The Snow Child, Ivey

I cancelled multiple plans this week so that I could spend hours on my porch swing this week finishing this new favorite. Simple, beautiful writing. Vivid imagery of life on an Alaskan farm in the 1920s, which I really enjoyed- the kind of creation of a setting where I was surprised to look outside and realize it wasn't snowing. Joyful, sad, and beautifully tender.

The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, Noll

I'm about a third of the way into this and it's kind of rocking my world. Fascinating look at America in the early-mid 1800's if you enjoy history, which I'm discovering more and more I really do. The vastly different conclusions that "Bible-believing" people can defend as holy  and obvious... make it very humbling and thought-provoking for me.

Love Does, Goff

My sweet friend Elaine read this, texted me that I had to read it, and the next time I stopped by her house had bought me a copy. I love the playfulness and energy the author describes and it's inspiring me to live love in fun-for-no-reason ways. I texted Matty two chapters in and said, "You have to read the book Love Does, you would love it", and he texted back, "Already read it and I did love it :-)." I'm excited to keep reading.

Someone Knows My Name, Hill

This narrative of a the life of a woman captured in Africa as a young girl and sold into slavery in the US was fascinating, page-turning, beautiful and horrifying. I couldn't put it down. It added a lot to what I knew about slave life- and reading it simultanously with The Civil War as a Theological Crisis makes the latter much more meaningful and real. The author did an amazing job capturing the protagonist's grief, joy, and strength. One of my biggest take-aways was the picture he painted through her of resilience.

Two kinds of crazy.

There are two kinds of crazy people in the world.

The kind of crazy people

who invite fifteen kids to their house

on a Saturday night to watch a movie...

And,

the kind of crazy people

who invite fifteen kids to their house on a Saturday night

to watch a movie

and don't remember

until 45 minutes beforehand

that they

don't

own

a TV.

Thankful for neighborhood dads with portable flat screens

and really, really good senses of humor.

 (Side note, Up is my new favorite movie.)

.grateful down to the marrow of my bones.

i spent all morning at a clinic for farm workers

where i will be working one day a week

through this spring and summer.

hearing fast spanish flowing

makes my heart happier than i can say.

sitting in windowless exam rooms

and twenty-minute appointment slots,

all of a sudden

i couldn't breathe for gratitude

at where He has sent me...

for bolivia,

where i learned this language,

where i got this fire in my bones,

where i met the girls whose faces propel me.

for my year with head start,

where i fell in love with this population

and learned how i can serve and know Him in others,

right here.

for grad school,

where i am so privileged

to be learning,

which lets me get to do this work.

yes,

yes,

yes,

yes,

yes.

thank you for every single one.

for the homesickness

and the nightmares

and the faith crisis,

for the times in that wheaton year

that were long and lonely,

for the exhaustion

and frustrations

and my misfit in this academia world,

yes,

all worth it,

i would take them all again,

to be here, now, with them;

for all the places i can't believe i've gotten to be,

i thank you.

Isaiah...

...has been my obsessively-favorite book of the Bible since my freshman year of college.

I started reading a Walter Brueggemann* commentary on its second half a few months ago but put it down for Lenten reading. Going back through my notes on the first few chapters this week. A few quotes which stand out from the introduction...

"This single assertion, that Yahweh has defeated Babylon and Judah is free to depart exile, is the primary theme of all of Isaiah 40-55."

"Emancipation is perhaps for a larger purpose than simply the gift of homecoming."

"The text gives 'comfort' from the God of all comfort, but not easily and not obviously- perhaps only hiddenly (see 45:15)."

"Yahweh has planned comfort for the exiles, and none can prevent it." (emphasis is text's)

"The ministry of Jesus is a glad and public homecoming for all those alienated and dislocated."

"The 'good news' is summarized: "Behold your God". Or we might say, "Look, here is your God.""

"Yahweh is present, powerful, active; Yahweh's presence changes everything."

"Yahweh is strong enough to emancipate, gentle enough to attend to wants and needs."

"On both counts of strength and attentiveness, it is asserted that Yahweh is incomparable."


So good to be comforted by learning about His character.



*Walter Brueggemann has decades of Old Testament scholarship and is widely respected as a hugely influential theologian...
And he writes prayers of praise which contain "...deep awareness of all the places where your newness is not yet visible, and has not yet come."
Learned and respected theologians... who praise simultaneously with acknowledging deeply fallow places... are just like so totally my favorites.

The best addition imaginable.

I lived with Ryan and Kendra for a full year after I graduated from college. The three times now I've been back to Wheaton since moving to Oregon, going over there has felt a bit surreal.

Unlike the other places I called home in my five years in that town-

campus, which is now teeming with infants I don't recognize, or the house seven of us lived in after HNGR which is blessedly rented to a family who appears to be taking way better care of it than we did,

Ryan and Kendra's looks virtually exactly the same.

Same dining room table set with the same cloth napkins and same Anthropologie glasses.

Same sunny couch where I had all my quiet times in the mornings and same wall hangings from Ten Thousand Villages in every room.

Same Book of Common Prayer on the coffee table and same organic food in the fridge.

After we ate last Thursday, I had the strong urge to say,

"Hold on, before dessert I'm gonna just go get ready for bed, be right back."

It felt completely like if I opened the door to what had been my bedroom, I'd find my quilt on the bed, my pictures on the wall and my clothes in the closet.

December 2010

But there is this one wonderful, wonderful change in their house.

The Lord has done great things for us,

and we are filled with joy. 

.HNGR girls.

Three years later and we're still rocking the stereotype...

matching long flowy skirts today, without even planning it.

Don't miss her Indian-print scarf...

and you can't see them, but I'm totes wearing my Chacos.

.in wheaton.

With Luke and Christine for the weekend.

"...A bunch of us spent a whole year reading Cicero-

De Senectute, on old age; De Amicitia, on friendship.

De Senectute, with all its resigned wisdom,

I will probably never be capable of living up to or imitating.

But De Amicitia I could make a stab at,

and could have anytime in the last thirty-four years."

-Wallace Stegner,

Crossing to Safety