mytho·ma·nia

: an excessive or abnormal propensity for lying and exaggerating

My sister used to have this horrible habit of lying - even sometimes when it did no one, even herself, any favors. It was like she just loved to get away with making someone else believe something that wasn't true...just for fun...

My parents were less than thrilled about this.

I think the thing that got her started on lying was the fact that she hated brushing her teeth, and wanted to avoid doing it as much as possible. I'm betting that she just got hooked on the adrenaline rush of passing the goodnight-kiss test and getting into bed with out her hygiene-deficient, foul mouth being found out. (Can't you just imagine her thinking, AH ha ha ha...my mouth is disgusting and nobody knows but me, I am a genuis!...I can imagine it).

Eventually, though, she matured and grew out of it. I, on the other hand, might be growing into it...(not skipping brushing my teeth, just to be clear - in fact, I am usually told by dentists that I need to brush LESS often).

I am not trying to diagnose myself as a mythomaniac, or anything. I have just been aware, lately, of how easily and quickly I might lie in certain situations.

Common lie situation #1: at work

I am still pretty new at my job, so when I am on the phone with a student, it isn't super rare for them to ask me a question I don't quite know the answer to. But after the first couple of weeks, it kind of got annoying when people kept asking to be transferred to someone who knew what they were talking about. So I realized that it just works better for me to say what I think could be the answer, and say it with confidence, so as to avoid their lack of faith in my information. I'm sure you agree.

Common lie situation #2: no reason at all

Again, I am pretty new to the area, so there have been lots of new places and people and experiences. And I have found that I might have a tendency to lie a little bit to random strangers...possibly as a form of defense or something. Actually, not really sure why at all.

For instance, I was shopping at the fabric shop the other day and when I went to get my fabric cut there was a boy at the counter. This was strange to me. I have never had a boy cut my fabric at a fabric shop. Not saying its bad...its just that I suppose I have come to expect that my fabric will be cut by women, generally in their 50's, and generally wearing something homemade. Possibly with a cat theme. So, I guess I was a little thrown. Anyway, it would seem this boy knows his stuff...he knew to ask me what I was working on. I wouldn't have expected that either, and I think that is why I made something up. The truth is, I was going to reupholster a chair. What I told him, however, was that I was lining a jacket.

I wish I could tell you. Somehow, it must have felt way too intimate to share my upholstery plans with this boy.

Common lie #3: a more interesting answer to "what did you do today?"

I used to do this a lot with Jamie when we were first dating. I guess I just thought that he would think that I was a really boring person if I couldn't come up with something really interesting and great that I did that day and would want to stop calling me...maybe. Or maybe I was just bored with myself and wanted to pretend I was more interesting than I was. Anyway. I am really doing my best to not lie to him anymore, so you know. I think I realized that if I started to tell him all of the ridiculous or embarrassing things about me, it was really even more fun than making something up...mostly because it didn't completely freak him out! Well, not yet anyway. I mean, I don't know if I've told him about my lying habits yet...

sin·is·ter

1 archaic : unfavorable, unlucky
2 archaic : fraudulent
3 : singularly evil or productive of evil
4 a : of, relating to, or situated to the left or on the left side of something b : of ill omen by reason of being on the left
5 : presaging ill fortune or trouble6 : accompanied by or leading to disaster

I have a number of left-handed people in my life, and have long been after an explanation as to why they seem to be a particularly difficult bunch. Okay, that may not be exactly fair...or true, but it is nice to have a little extra ammunition for arguments with those of the left-hand persuasion.

Some ill-fortune as a result of left-handedness occurred this morning. I went over to Jamie's house early to iron his shirt so he would look all dapper for easter (I could let you go on thinking how ridiculous it is that he doesn't know how to iron his own shirt, but I have to confess that this is really my issue - he doesn't exactly iron to my standards, so I'd rather do it myself. I know. Perhaps it's a little overbearing, but it doesn't seem to bother him since it means he doesn't have to iron). He was all excited to wear his hot new madras tie and had looked up a different way to tie it just for the occasion. So as I was watching him tie his tie I noticed that he was doing a few things backwards (slash wrong). Not that I love pointing out when he's wrong...I don't...but I thought I should maybe help him out, since I noticed and all.

As you can probably guess, my criticism was not very well received. Not that I can blame him...I mean, who wants to hear that they are unable to follow simple, illustrated instructions? But seriously, why let someone do something wrong when you know how to do it right? Maybe I should have just stayed out of it and let him figure it out on his own. Oh well. I blame the left-handedness. It is evil, afterall.

chi·me·ra

1 a capitalized : a fire-breathing she-monster in Greek mythology having a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail b : an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts
2 : an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially : an unrealizable dream

"a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayer" -- John Donne

Fantasy seems to be a theme lately - I have had a number of conversations on the subject of recent, one of them being a discussion/debate on the validity or purpose of fantasy in the entertainment world (ie: The Lord of the Rings). I'm not going to go deep into that, but I will say that I have yet to comprehend what is gained from watching or reading stories such as these other than to be moved/inspired/whatever you want to call it by the "save the entire universe" plots filled with magic and inhuman creatures and usually lots and lots of war. I also have yet to understand why certain fantasy stories receive so much acclaim when they are really just a version of some hapless, simple hero going on a dangerous adventure and bringing peace to the world somehow. So they made all the evil people look a little different and created entirely new races of disgusting creatures...it's still the same story (to me).

Am I alone in this? Am I missing something? Do these stories really give people hope that they could someday be a hapless simple hero and restore the earth to peace and harmony? If not, what on EARTH is the draw? (And why do people want to spend millions and millions of dollars to keep telling this story every 20 years?)

Okay, I really didn't mean to keep talking about that...again. On a somewhat related note, I love living in Seattle. Every once in a while I look around and I suddenly remember, I live here! I may only be paying cheap rent for a makeshift bedroom in a little old, dingy house, but there is something about living in a city that just gives off more of a feeling of shared space. It's so great to walk past the cherry and the magnolia trees that are blossoming over the sidewalks and feel like they are almost as much mine - just because I get to walk under them everyday - as they are the person's who owns the yard they are on. It kind of makes feeling poor feel not so poor...

Another reminder of how not poor I am is the very present very poor in the city. I am daily face-to-face with those whom Jesus called me to love - and I have to confess that I don't know how to do it well yet. But I love that they are there everyday - reminding me that I need to learn.

I probably shouldn't encourage people to move to Seattle as much as I do, given the already ridiculous housing market and obvious traffic problems, but I just can't help it. This is a great place. I get this feeling about once a week that I am living what I thought was an unrealizable dream - and it would get even better if more of my favorite people were to join me...

Just throwing that out there.

pet·ti·fog·ger

Etymology: probably from petty + obsolete English fogger pettifogger
1 : a lawyer whose methods are petty, underhanded, or disreputable : SHYSTER
2 : one given to quibbling over trifles

I HATE emotions. Usually. Except, of course, that if they didn't exist, I couldn't hate them, or anything else.

This is one of my parents' favorite things to do: whenever they catch me using the word LOVE or HATE in a statement, they often repeat it with greatly exaggerated expression, as if trying to imply that I am being somewhat dramatic. They would have you believe that I overuse the words, applying them to things too "petty" for such strong language. I disagree. I just happen to have very strong feelings about EVERYTHING.

So, this is my frustration with emotions: sometimes when I get mad about something I cannot figure out why exactly I am mad, or if I even should be mad. (This never happens with being happy, by the way, usually people do not question the validity of happiness, although maybe they should...)

So how do I know whether my feelings are valid or not? I can usually tell pretty easily when other people's feelings are invalid. That is to say, when other people are mad at me, I can quite often convince myself that they really have no good reason to be mad at me. I am pretty great at justifying my end of the argument.

I am not trying to say that I should supress my emotions, but that it would be incredibly helpful to be able to step outside of situations - to somehow be unbiased in figuring out whether I have actually been wronged or not. (To avoid being a pettifogger).

I have come to realize that I am a lot to deal with. I also usually feel quite confident that I am, however, worth the effort. Now, if only everyone else would realize they are a lot to deal with - we might all be better off. Well, maybe it would be more helpful if I reminded them (and myself) that they are worth the effort, too.

dor·mant

1 : represented on a coat of arms in a lying position with the head on the forepaws
2 : marked by a suspension of activity: as a : temporarily devoid of external activity b : temporarily in abeyance yet capable of being activated
3 b : having the faculties suspended c : having biological activity suspended: as : being in a state of suspended animation

Another word could be biding. It is a strange existence to be waiting for something. To be always in the present, unable to move forward. It kind of feels like not existing at all.

My entire life has been focused around finding a job for the past two weeks. I have hardly thought of anything else. Except for the time I spent shopping online for things I could maybe buy as soon as I got a job. I hate to admit it, but I have wasted these two weeks.

I have been a prodigal...which, if you are like me, you thought meant lost or rebellious or something like that. Turns out, calling him the prodigal son was in reference to something else about him:
1 : characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure : LAVISH
2 : recklessly spendthrift
3 : yielding abundantly : LUXURIANT

This is something I have very recently been convicted of. This is why I was determined to learn some discipline. I guess I need to try again.

I want so badly to be useful, to have meaning and purpose. And not just any purpose, but to do something that will really be a contribution. And I am beginning to think that God is calling that meaning and purpose to be, if nothing else, to sit at His feet. Which doesn't often feel like much of a contribution, unfortunately. It is becoming much more apparent to me that God is less concerned with my being productive and contributive toward the forwarding of the Kingdom than He is with me just being in awe and wonder of who He is, the times when I wait for Him. The whole Martha and Mary thing. It is a hard balance to find between "take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light" and "from those who have been given much, much will be expected." I thought doing outreach ministry as my full-time job would automatically satisfy all of these things. Well, I might not have thought this explicitly, but I think it was sort of always in the back of my mind. It seemed so much more worthy, so much more vital than decorating cakes. And it made it a lot easier to justify being selfish all of the rest of the time.

For instance, it made it much easier to spend whatever money I may have had access to on whatever I wanted, since, after all, I was assured what I was making was in no way excessive. I find myself doing this thing where I have certain expectations for what I need to give, whether time or money or whatever, and as soon as I feel I have met my quota, the rest of what I have is mine to do with whatever I want. But that isn't sacrifice. And it doesn't often include an ambiguous number of hours for sitting at the feet of the Master.

People always talk about this crazy shift that happens when you go from being single to being married, and then to having kids. How you lose your freedom, you learn to be less selfish. Maybe it shouldn't be such an adjustment. Maybe we should learn to give of ourselves better when we are single and we have the freedom to do that in a lot of different ways. Maybe if we, as single people, could learn how to share our selves with others, to forget this idea that our time and our money and our energy are ours, perhaps we would be less inclined to not want to be single, or to be in this posture of waiting for our singleness to be done. (Not that any of us ever do that...)

un·du·late

intransitive verb
1 : to form or move in waves : FLUCTUATE
2 : to rise and fall in volume, pitch, or cadence
3 : to present a wavy appearance

transitive verb
: to cause to move in a wavy, sinuous, or flowing manner

adjective
: having a wavy surface, edge, or markings

I am a little nervous. The last couple months have been saturated in undulating thoughts, feelings and convictions. It has been a conversion of sorts. Not a conversion in religious practices, but a conversion of how I see myself...how I allow myself to be. I cannot hold myself to the same standards, they are higher now in many respects. The complacency I had grown so accustomed to has changed to aggravation and restlessness, and I have felt the need to change old habits and practice new ones, such as discipline.

So, why am I nervous? I am going home. To a place in which old habits abound. And temporary as it might be, I am afraid I will find myself strange in this place, as I am no longer that person who was comfortable there...or that I will revert back to that person and forget all of my recent convictions.

There are so many good things to go home to. It isn't as though I do not want to be with family and the friends I have there; I love them more than I can say and am so looking forward to having some time to spend with them over the coming months. But I can't help but think there are many more undulating tasks ahead of me, and I am afraid that I will get stuck in another complacency...

There is a song by Sara Groves about the Israelites in their time in the desert; in their time of being in between, that I think really captures what I am feeling about this piece of time I have been in, and also how I feel about going back:

"I've been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacks.
The future feels so hard and
I want to go back,
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I've learned,
And those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned."

In case I end up having to eat my words in the near future, I just want to throw out one of the greatest draws to this place of comfort and familiarity: this miraculously new person, my nephew Garrett. I cannot even believe how much I can love someone I haven't even met yet! Isn't he amazing! I can't wait to teach him all kinds of tricks to play on his dad!

man·i·fest

adjective
1 : readily perceived by the senses and especially by the sight
2 : easily understood or recognized by the mind

transitive verb
: to make evident or certain by showing or displaying

Circumstance after circumstance has led me to an absolute frustration with the misuse and misunderstanding of language that has resulted so often in needless pain and turmoil. How can someone truly make their feelings, ideas or convictions manifest with a language that will fail, giving the audience, whoever that might be, the wrong impression?

A good friend put the problem into excellent clarity for me: that language, as with anything else in this world, is fallen.

I don't know about you, but this makes me really angry. To think about how often, in relationships in which both people care deeply for each other and want to avoid hurting each other, they end up hurting each other anyway just because of the language they use and how they each understand it differently. Now, obviously there are times when people, even in relationships in which they care about each other deeply, hurt one another purposefully. We are messed up. It is an inevitability. But when relationships become broken and come to the point where they seem unfixable as a result of miscommunication after miscommunication, this is obviously Satan's work, and I hate him for it.

It might seem like the easiest way to avoid miscommunication would be to not say anything at all, but I think in doing so, you miss an incredible opportunity for grace and redemption. I am determined to not only make work of a restoration of language and its place in my relationships, but in doing so, to also not fall into the trap of avoiding saying what I think or feel in fear of being misunderstood.

"And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times." Psalm 12:6