What am I DOING?!?

I will not quit.

I will not quit.

I will not quit.

Never mind that my life is hell. Never mind that I just started a new job. Never mind that I'm likely to go even further out of my mind.

This is tradition. This is what I do in November. There is no November without NaNo.

But.

Did I mention my life is hell? My life is hell. A big, roiling, boiling pot of hell on wheels. Fiery, burning waves of scalding hell in a soup tureen.

Great galloping goblins, my life SUCKS. It SUCKS. I cannot overstate how much my life totally and completely SUCKS.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

<\whine>

Disciplers

I have to admit, I skim my blog subscriptions more than I read them these days. This is why it is beneficial to have short paragraphs, small words, and plenty of pictures on your blog, because that's what it usually takes to get my attention. Dan Edelen's post got my attention with a pretty picture, but reading it has gotten me thinking. And wishing.

Dan is apparently lucky enough to have had bad experiences with "disciplers". Myself, my experience with "disciplers" ended around the time I entered middle school. He describes the ways discipling relationships can go wrong; I wish I could experience some of them.

Who am I learning the faith from?

I have to ask myself, again and again: where can I find real spiritual food?

The more I learn, the more I am learning that I am just beginning to understand the basics of the gospel. What I was taught for years about the Christian faith was hardly gospel at all. But now that I have tasted the real thing, I'm desperate to find someone who can feed me more of it.

But who? Where? Where is the godly person who can take time to teach? Where is the one who teaches with authority? My mentors in the faith are people with blogs and podcasts, people I may never meet face-to-face. The Bible is impenetrable to me without someone whom I can ask for help and guidance. But it seems to me that those who teach don't know, and those who know don't teach, so where is the one who will show me how to follow Jesus?

Somebody please catechize me.

Wake-up calls

My phone has started doing something interesting. At approximately six o'clock every morning, Monday through Friday, I get a call. When I answer, a robotic voice says,

Hello! I'm calling for a substitute.

Now, this is not totally unexpected. I've been hoping to get calls like this. That's what I was aiming for when I applied to be a substitute teacher. But there's just one problem: I can't accept the jobs yet. To accept a job, I need a PIN, so that the system knows it's really me- but the sub subcontractor (hahaha) has not sent me those precious digits.

It's like getting woken up every morning by a maid in a frilly apron with a tray of strong coffee and Cocoa Puffs who stands in the doorway, laughs, and leaves.

So I'm spending my days reading, replaying old Doctor Who episodes in my head, tangling up large quantities of yarn, and wondering how I will ever last in a classroom full of restless natives exuberant children. Mostly I imagine all the ways this new job, if it ever materializes, could go very, very badly. When I get stuck in that mode of thought too long, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and think of November, because November proves I can do anything. Twice.

What? You don't remember what November is? You must need some coffee. (I always need extra caffeine in November.)

We're less than two weeks away from National Novel Writing Month, and I'm starting to get excited.

Well, excited and nervous.

Well, okay, mainly nervous.

It may seem like a minor thing, in light of the chaos the rest of my life is in, but my muse seems to have gone on vacation. He checks in every once in a while, sends me postcards with pictures of beaches and a hint of a plot idea scrawled illegibly on the back, but basically he and my Inner Editor have gotten married and are off on an extended honeymoon trip. There are flashes of inspiration, sure, but they're lightning bolts, and I would settle for a nice, steady night light. The plot I was thrilled about at midnight has faded by the time I wake up at noon. Characters are figures so shadowy I can't see the whites of their 70's disco wear, let alone their eyes.

Last year I started planning in July. I am starting to panic.

I know other NaNo writers have been in this same position many times- some of them late in November. And I know others have wise advice on how to reach the 50,000 word mark. I just fear I'm going to end up with a month's worth of confused and verbose dreck. Particularly, I dread having to take up a strategy like that of one "Indie", whose forum topic is titled "This Year, I Shall Mostly Be Padding My Word Count With Pornography".

No, this year I want to write a serious novel. Not characters being chased by agents of death and stopping to play mini-golf. Not misfit alien voyagers who make chicken soup and teleport onto football fields. I want to write a Real, Proper Novel. One that doesn't involve randomly placed animals or long discourses on cheap food.

I need a panic button.



Ahh, that's better.

Cheque-ing in

Is it August again? I swear it's August again. It's hot outside, my life is thoroughly boring, and I'm hunting for a job again. Does this sound familiar?

It's hard to say how I feel right now. I feel like I've been stuck in the same place for months. On the edge of going broke, with painfully unoccupied days and a thousand desperate plans to get some quick cash. I always thought people who took vows of poverty were noble and brave, but right now I think they might just be crazy.

I'm making a crazy move right now; I'm going to apply to be a substitute teacher. It would be a good position in so many ways- it would get me some teaching experience and give me summers off to to SIL training. Brilliant, no? Here's the catch- it will take nearly all the money I have to pay for the training to be certified.

It's terrifying. But I have to try for something. I just hope whoever cooks for Bible study in the next few weeks cooks lots, so that I won't have to go buy lots of groceries before I have a paycheck.

Of course, if anyone would like to buy, say, a pair of hand-knit socks or mittens, or a crocheted quilt, that person could help ease my worries... ;)

The poor among us

I will do my best not to make this a rant and not gossip. If I thought the problem was only with the anonymous man mentioned below, I would not write so publicly. But it's too easy to see the same kind of reasoning in churches across the country, and I can't keep silent about it any more.

I didn't make it to church today. I was on my way. I was looking forward to being there. I needed to be there, I thought. But I didn't make it.

I was waylaid by another member of my church. Why, exactly, he stopped me, I don't know. I don't have any idea what he was trying to tell me, or at least not what was important enough to stop me on the way to service for. But stopped I was, and stop I did. Something was on his mind, and for some reason, instead of fleeing from him and his pontificating ways (like I usually do), I stayed to listen.

The topic we eventually got to didn't surprise me. It was the homeless people who sleep outside the church.

It took us forever to get there, so I'll spare you the defensive and outrageous conversational padding and get right to the major points. Here's what he said, in one poisonous nutshell:

1. Our church has good preaching, a good organist, a good choir, and a pretty sanctuary.
   
2. Despite this, our church experiences only minimal growth.
   
3. Since, in his words, we have the "big things" covered (as detailed in point 1), we should look at "small things" that are keeping people out of the church.
   
4. Outsiders have complained to him that the homeless people outside make them uncomfortable.
   
5. This is a problem because without numerical growth, monetary giving to the church will decrease.
   
6. Any adequate solution to this problem involves forbidding homeless people to sleep on our porch.
   
7. Anyone who doesn't like this solution is too wishy-washy to make a decision and stick by it.

So what's the problem? Well, this:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor...
Isaiah 61:1-2a

... or any other of what must be hundreds of instances where God makes it clear that in his Kingdom, his poor are taken care of.

There are many things to be concerned about in this reasoning, but I'll just highlight one. It seems obvious: "What you win them with is what you win them to," as some now-anonymous wise person said. If your primary attraction as an organization is fine oration, good music, and beautiful architecture, then of course the presence of the poor on your doorstep is just an aesthetic problem, just a blemish. A little bleach and elbow grease will have it out, and the crowds will come pouring in to your sanctuary.

If only Jesus had said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you surround yourselves with beauty." I wish. But it's "if you love one another". And people don't get excluded from "one another" because they have to take their weekly bath in your restroom sink.

It's the first part of that verse, though, that is at the heart of my concern. "All me will know that you are my disciples." What does that mean? It means that we take up our cross. Not necessarily that we do pleasant work, or even safe work, but that we do the will of our Father in heaven. If our primary concern as a church is to preserve our organization, then we are dead already. And if we are doing the will of our Father, it's probably going to turn some people away.

Could we do better? Absolutely. The sight of a homeless man sitting at our church door begging, day after year, seems ominously prophetic in its symbolism. Should we be opening our homes to these people? Probably. Not that I have any room to talk. But letting people sleep under our porch is one small concession we can make toward having a ministry of hospitality. It's one step closer to having the poor "among us" in a real sense. In short, it's one tiptoe closer to doing the will of the Father.

And because of that, I get to say something unpopular. If I were the one to choose between one more white middle-class family and the poor, smelly drunk at the door, I pick the smelly drunk. There are any number of places that will happily show the love of Christ to a family of nice people with advanced degrees and well-behaved children. But this church has a duty to love its neighbors, which means also to the people who sleep, literally, next-door. And the call of this church should be not to comfort but to a discipleship that gets its hands dirty, to a way of living and loving and serving that will ultimately cost us all we have- including our sense of security and comfort.

♫ You say goodbye... and I say hello ♫

I was getting nervous. Application after application went in, and no prospective employers called back. I think I was failing their automated exams, which I am convinced are illegally discriminatory. But railing against the automated application process wasn't getting me any work either.

I was learning what it meant to pray "Give us this day our daily bread". I was scared.

Last week, I sold my most precious yarn, giving me enough to buy a decent load of groceries for that week. I told myself it was a good thing, really; I was learning to let go of material things. Store not up for yourselves treasures on earth and all that.

This week was harder; I sold a shelf-full of my books. Books I love. I gave them one last caress before handing them over to the used book dealer, who cared for them not at all. 22 books turned into $15. I tried very hard not to cry, and succeeded- barely. I still believed God would provide what I needed, but I suspected the Almighty and I were disagreeing on just what constituted need.

I got home, dejected but with money enough to eat. And I looked at the phone. I had a message.

This morning I was selling bits of my soul. This afternoon I had a full-time job. Tomorrow, I'm going back to work.

I say, old chaps, this is a lovely picnic spot, wot wot? We ought to call it Jehovah-jireh. The Lord will provide, you know... eventually.

Nothing new under the sun

On the knitting front:

• I found the lost dpn.
  
• My size F crochet hook is MIA.
  
• I finished up that pink shawl from months ago.
  
• The cursed Christmas afghan yarn is rapidly turning into a log cabin afghan.
  
• I am avoiding weigh-in because yarn is scattered all over the house.

Knitting does not occupy my mind as much as the state of my church right now, though. I know full well that the Living the Questions handout does not represent the actual views of more than, say, 15% of my local congregation, but what I read is still terrifying.

Take this snarky little statement:

And yet many Christians today make it proof of their faith and a litmus test of their relationship with God that they embrace thousand-tear-old religious ideas- and are proud of it.

The handouts for this series have been abominable at best, but this last one really takes the cake. It's seven pages portraying believers- the kind who think that maybe orthodoxy isn't a bad word- as stupid legalists afraid to think and afraid to lose the religion of their childhood. The growth in conservative churches and the death of liberal mainlines is explained by saying "people are desperately looking for just one place in this crazy life where things don't change". If you're not on board with the progressive Christian- or progressively less Christian- agenda, then you're a dead church that teaches stale rules and makes people shut their brains off in church- and you're so stupid, you like it.

Have the authors of this thing ever stepped inside an actual conservative church? Where on earth are they getting their facts? The model of churches they set up looks like this:

Type 1: Church of the Evil Conservative Nuns with Rulers

• God hates you.
  
• Stop thinking and follow the rules.
  
• The Bible is the fourth person of the Quiddity.
  
• God never meant for you to be nice to people.
  
• So scared of change we're theological LARPers.

Type 2: Church of the Smart People who Love People

• God is love, love, love and never gets mad, except at conservatives.
  
• Rules, schmules. Our only rule is... all that social justice stuff from the Old Testament.
  
• The Bible is a book written by ancient, stupid people.
  
• The only thing God cares about is that you try to do good.
  
• The only thing we fear is old stuff.

This is madness. We started the series by jettisoning the Bible, because no thinking person could ever believe that. Then we jettisoned everything else that looked vaguely orthodox, because no thinking person could ever believe that. And what have we ended up with? The sort of Pelagianism that no thinking person should believe. The earth's orbit must be bit wobbly, because I believe the Reformers, that brainy bunch, must be spinning madly in their graves.

How can these "progressives" miss that all they have is a kinder, squishier legalism? Nothing new under the sun, I guess.

Senseless Saturday

From BBC Sport:

England's experimental team ran up a record score against Wales as they put a second-string Principality side to the sword at Twickenham on Saturday.

...

Fly-half Jonny Wilkinson, who looked sharp throughout, kicked 18 points as a dominant display by England's massive pack gave him an armchair ride in temperatures of 30C in London.

...

Wales infringed in desperation and England kicked the penalty into the corner before a machine-tooled catch and drive from the line-out saw Easter - like Perry looking much fitter - power over once again.

This time Wilkinson converted and with Wales looking under increasing pressure up front a big score was already on the cards.

The hosts collected a third try before half-time when the England pack once again put the Welsh on the back foot and a hot-stepping Wilkinson set up a beach head from which Borthwick plunged over.

I read things like this and think, We really don't speak the same language, do we? I mean, what's this about an armchair ride? Isn't 30C a bit hot to be carried about in an La-Z-Boy? There are all these words that I recognized- "romp", "fly", "massive", "beach", "machine-tooled",- but I can't put them together into anything that makes sense. The reporter might just have well written about his colorless green dreams sleeping furiously, for all the sense I can make of it.

No wonder rugby hasn't made it big on this side of the pond. Nobody can understand what the commentators are talking about.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find a metal detector. Somewhere between casting off one sock and casting on for another, I lost a dpn, and I'm down to three. I really like the first sock, and I need that needle to make the second one. Wish me luck.

It's poison, I tell you.

I have decided that politics is bad for me. Really bad.

I read the news that the chief justice of the US Supreme Court had a seizure, and my first reaction was, Maybe he'll have some horrible disease and have to step down.

I am ashamed. I am a terrible person. Politics has somehow sucked away the last trace of my humanity.

Besides, at this point Bush would just replace him with another sycophant who eats civil rights with his Cheerios in the morning.

Terrible. I am a terrible, terrible, terrible person. How did I turn into this?

How to mop a floor.

1. Run out of dishwasher detergent.
2. Substitute a small amount of regular liquid dish soap.
3. Use a dishwasher that randomly develops leaks every three months or so.
4. Have my luck, courtesy of our friend Murphy.
5. Use a mop to clean up the results.
6. Admire the nice, sparkly floor.

Tonight is the night for Harry Potter! Old Voldyface is going down. And both Harry and Dumbledore are coming out the other side alive. That is what I choose to believe. (But I think we'll either be saying farewell to Ron or Neville- and please, if there is any good left in the universe, let it be Neville. And not, like, Professor McGonagall or something.)

The celebration in my hometown starts in three hours! And to celebrate... a little poetry from Shakespeare and the Doctor...

Foul Carrionite spectors, cease your show
between the points 761 390!
Banish light and tinker’s cuss, I say to thee…
EXPELLIARMUS!

See you when I've finished the book, and finished crying.