Housesitting...

...this weekend. Invited good friends to share it with (or, "with which to share it" as she would like me to say). Spent Friday and Saturday in and around the pool, hot tub, soaking and swimming under the waterfall, slipping down the slide, playing a game of water volleyball or two, dunking their spunky toddler, kayaking on the lake, walking around the lake, throwing the ball for two good dogs, enjoying late breakfast and grilled dinners, wine in a vineyard, plucking plump berries from the strawberry patch and snipping off basil and thyme for pasta tonight--

this just in: hummingbird spottings in the rose garden!

--and best of all, renewed friendship with good friends. Note to self: you can never be too thankful for good friends.

Feather

Travel--any sort, but especially flying if only because it's one of the extreme forms of transportation (not counting ziplines or bungee jumping) is risky. Stuffed with surprise, shock, suspense. New locations multiply the number of uncontrollable factors.

But it is also a relief. The very fact of kinetic energy destined towards an end is a promise of purpose, the hope of better to come. Exhilaration. Careening down a runway, building speed against the traction of rough gravel, wheels crunching hungrily for lift off and finally, heart jumping into the throat in anticipation, breathless, rising weightlessly into the air, faith placed entirely in the engine, pilot, mechanics we know nothing of.

I can't imagine life without travel, without experiencing new cultures and the people and locales around them. Growing outside myself, expanding my interests, being challenged to think and speak differently, never content with my state of being.

The sense of adventure is heightened by time. Knowing it has to end eventually, in some way, increases my sense of ambition from the start of the trip and I even play unintentional mind games. Every hundred feet ascended into the air I watch a slow-motion movie of failure. A distant popping noise like the firecrackers that sound like guns, scaring me for just a second until I laugh nervously. The pop and then deflating and twisting, the twisting and ragged turning until the engine sputters out its final stale exhale, and we're left hovering in its fumes. . . and then dropping. Dropping. Sinking to the earth for the final time.

To not travel outside oneself is to become too comfortable in a worldview. Its end is my own righteousness. It's breathing without a perceivable meaning, except my own physical life which will eventually disintegrate into dirt again.

How can we live believing that the meaning of life is us, is for us, is circled around us? This life ends too quickly, floating through the air and into the earth as weightlessly as a feather.

Bigger But Not Better

The plant outside our kitchen window in California. It's a bit larger than our London plant. And it attracts pretty dragonflies! One of these days I'll take pictures of the luscious vineyards and strawberry stands we get to drive by everyday.

Denver will always have my heart, but nothing beats California vegetation...

Whatever Hippie Means

Due to the allowance of a particularly revolutionary and yet not so revolutionary book in my house (which I brought in myself, so no excuses here) I'm decided to reorient my personal time continuum with the divisions "BHA" and "AHA," or, "Before Hippie Amy" and "After Hippie Amy." Not because I recycle a lot more or try to hang dry my clothes as much as possible or wear dreads (cuz I don't actually wear dreads) but because I'm thinking a lot more about living in a commune these days, or at least something that looks more like a commune. What I mean is a commune that looks more like an Acts church where we share everything. Doesn't that make so much sense--economically, relationally, spiritually?

This irresistible book is called the Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. It took Shane's words to help me understand certain areas of the Bible that I've been ignoring. Maybe it's better to say I chose not to highlight those areas. I'd been hearing rave reviews for awhile, but the idea of reading it myself unnerved me a little. I knew it would be convicting and life changing. And it was true. And I'm not even finished with it yet.

Mostly it has me asking lot's of questions. Like, how can I implement Biblical ideas of communal sharing practically while living in a small town of northern California in the twenty-first century? Practically, what does that look like? I don't think I could take it so far as to share a house with people. Maybe if I was single, but not so much as a married person. But there are other ideas. Can it mean sharing household items with people in your neighborhood? Having a co-op type "store" in your church where people could leave things and borrow things? Forming a babysitting service and helping neighbors around the house with handyman stuff? Probably all of the above and whatever else God's blessed us with--including possessions, money, and time. Time. Now that's a challenge.

I guess what I'm asking is how can I be more generous? That'll be my new definition of hippie.

Half Moon Bay

Plucked for a moment--

rootless, breathless--

for one gaze

of the beauty that would drown her.

Not Just Another Hopeful Thought (I hope)

It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to continue living the way I have been cultured to live, and to continue to call myself a follower of Jesus.

I have begun to hear, as from a very muffled, fuzzy, static distance, the sound of weeping. I don't know who it is yet. My ears have only just begun to open after years of numbing deafness, and since I've only been tuned in to myself, it is probably my own whimpering I hear.

But the Grace in my faith acknowledges that Jesus promised his Spirit to be in us, and that he alone makes it possible for me to share in his pain--but that it is possible--to feel a tiny bit of his overwhelming lament for poverty, loneliness, consumerism, homelessness, hunger, etc. etc. etc.

If it isn't Jesus I hear, I pray that I will hear him soon, that my good intentions won't fossilize as intentions, but will germinate into practical action and I can be a useful part of the Body. That I won't be so selfish anymore. That my service could help to bring the Kingdom of God here, now, instead of my money used to continue to feed the American dream (even the Christianized version, which doesn't appear all that different sometimes...)

For the first time in my life (sad it's taken me this long), I think I've finally grasped the forever nature of eternity--it really is forever!-- in comparison with this temporary, dusty, earthly life. And for the first time, I think I've begun to sense the urgency of love in this life.

Honestly, I don't really know what's next. This is a new road for me. One that, God-willing, doesn't fulfill me, but empties me. I've been putting some thought into it. Will hopefully have a plan of action soon.

Funny about that word 'actor'

I can see this is becoming an unfortunate pattern--these few and infrequent blog posts of mine. When I had all the time in the world I would get frustrated when my favorite blogs went un-updated. The empty spaces loomed over me laughing, a symbol of what I didn't accomplish when I wasn't blogging. But now it's just a blog. I'd like to blog more, but there is life to live too. And I quite like life.



Thankfully my thoughts have not mimicked my blog these past few weeks. If you took a picture of them you would see something like a skillet of half-scrambled/half-cooked eggs with partly melted cheddar goo-ing through the mush. (Ah, the multi-functional Janzow cheesy eggs... good for high cholesterol, New Testament jokes and brain metaphors...) This is due in part to books, podcasts, discussions with friends and family (too many to list here) and in part to my own writing.

But probably what's cooked up the most is what I hope is righteous anger, not just narcissistic ranting, toward the topic of American Christians, especially leaders, lying by omission instead of speaking the hard truth. My mind was opened to this when I started listening to Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church. If you haven't heard of him, he's the main pastor at a church that started mid-90's in Seattle that has grown like crazy, mostly made up of Gen Xers and Yers and a lot of new Christians who I guess you would call hipsters (I dislike the buzz word, but I guess it's the best word to describe the people there). Driscoll is also one of the founders of Acts29, a church planting network.

Driscoll is pretty controversial and in the media often because he's not a pastor who speaks niceties and vague wishy washy faith to give the Christian public what they want to hear. He holds himself and the church accountable to handling sin, prayer, Bible study, finances, stewardship, leadership, community involvement, gender relationships, sex, etc. to God's standard. He even visits local coffee shops and restaurants around his church on Sunday afternoons and asks the managers if Mars Hill members tipped well after their meal. If they didn't, Driscoll takes out his wallet and pays the difference himself. But it's not a law based church. It's not a fire and brimstone church. It's a church motivated by God's love to glorify God in the way they live, and they're dedicated to holding each other accountable for it.

My point is not that Mark Driscoll is my new favorite Christian hero. My point is that recently I've heard of quite a few American churches with leaders who ignore the Spirit-driven courage to speak the difficult truth. Whether it's confronting a member or a staff member who is living in sin, or motivating a congregation to move outside the four walls of the church into the community, or teaching about God's standard for love, sex, marriage and gender roles within marriage, too often church leaders avoid the difficult parts of Scripture. And this is because we preach the Gospel (yes, this is the most important part--don't misread my theology) but then we stop there.

Lying by omission stalls the church and shuts our ears to God's desires. We do not lack motivation. Nothing is more motivating than knowing that God humbled himself to become one of us to save us when all we wanted was our own glory. But after a person sees how much they need God and gives their life to Christ, what comes next? How can you tell a new Christian he or she has to give up his un-married sex, his binge-drinking weekends, his selfish living without giving him anything to replace it?

The point to all of this: I believe the American Church is shrinking because we are not being given a mission. Maybe it's better to say that we are given a mission (especially if Christians are reading their Bible) but it's not taken seriously enough, and the Church is not teaching us how it can be accomplished practically. Or, we are not being held accountable to it.

The Church is begging for a call to action. We are the Church. What does the call look like for you and how can it be accomplished in your community?

This is No Bridget Jones

Jonathan promised to take me swing dancing when my ankle heals. SWING DANCING! :) I'm so excited that I just vacuumed the house (the thrill of anticipation somehow makes me more productive?)

Maybe we can pull off this look again:



The picture was taken before a Great Gatsby party we went to in Reno that lived up to its namesake in decadence. Women were decked out in fringe and pearls and some guys wore zoot suits and we had cocktails and dinner on the lawn. Sadly Jonathan is sans his dapper hat in this picture, but let me just say that if I had met him at one of Gatsby's roaring parties, he would have been first on my dance card.

Who Will Sign My Petition?

Not speaking from my own job, but generally, I've always wondered and especially wonder after being exposed to other countries' work philosophies...

Why do Americans work so hard?

Why are our work weeks bleeding into evenings and weekends?

Why is it so rare in this country to be given paid vacation automatically--or even more than a week or two--rather than requiring people to put in the time and prove their worth before they're treated like a human being?

Why do we believe the lie that work gives us our worth? That money equals success?

. . .

I'll sign any petition to change this. Please just don't tell me the answer is socialism.

One Small (but really quite big) Step

Anyone call fall in love. Not everyone can marry their life to another's. The same is true for any obsession. It's easy to fall in like, in lust, to be infatuated and passionate and let it take over your thoughts and time. It's not so easy to commit yourself to it when it ruts into routine, when it feels like a task, when it makes you sweat, when it loses it's glitzy sheen.

It didn't take me long to fall in love with stories when I first learned to read. It's been one of the enduring romances of my life, this appreciation for linking word pictures and sentences with the purpose of interpreting life, of explaining it in ways that you hope resonates with people who perhaps just needed a different way of looking at things. Last year was my honeymoon. Kind of like how in the Old Testament newlyweds were meant to take off an entire year from work to fully engage their new spouse, to understand each other and learn to communicate in their spouse's language, that's how last year was for me and my life's ambition. Without distraction, I had all day to process what I was reading and learning. I wrote, too, but for me the value was in the absorbing, not the actual writing, because like a newlywed I was so thrilled with the newness of the experience that my head was in the clouds and the writing was sometimes foggy, sometimes clear, but not without purpose. No work is purposeless.

Now here I am, faced with the commitment I made and encountering the problems I tried my best to mentally prepare for: disciplining myself to write without assignment, with a full-time job, with only my infatuation and honeymoon years grounding me. Anyone can write. Not everyone can marry their life to a passion. So today, with God and you as my witness, I'm here to make a public commitment to the work that's called me and consumed me for as long as I can remember. And starting tomorrow, I'm going to do what anyone should do when they've made a commitment. I'm going to take the first small step of discipline. I'm not going to finish a book or call an agent--that'll happen later, in its proper time. No, I'm going to wake up an hour earlier and write before I go to work, when my mind is fresh and clean. It seems like such a small thing, I know--but that's the trick. If I'm tricked into believing it's a meaningless thing, I'll be tricked into making light of it and getting out of it. But commitment requires practicality. Romanticizing is fun and has it's place, and there will be times when it's the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. But now I must act. I must avoid the snooze button. I must lift my feet out of bed and place them on the floor. I must walk to our guest room and turn on the computer and write without stopping. I must.

And after quite a few 'musts,' eventually I'll realize that I want.

A Taste of Italy

You must slice thin, not translucent, milky discs of real whole milk mozzarella to top a homemade marguerite pizza. Layer them on like petals. Ring them in, over the top, until a spot of sauce is left breathing in the middle. Cover it quickly before you think it looks pretty--wet tomato rose spinning in an English Garden--cover it quickly! and sprinkle fresh snipped basil over the pie. (Unless you prefer it underneath the mozzarella. Then you should perform this step after the sauce and before the cheese. I never said the steps in my recipes were chronological.)

. . .

I interrupt this blog to bring you . . . a pathetic excuse.

signed with deepest apologies,
The Working Amy Who Hasn't Gotten Her Sea Legs Back After Spending the Year Adrift in Unemployment.

More words to come soon.