...the right time to roll to me

perhaps the source of my angst and jaded frustration was not so much the failure of men in my life, but the failure of my image of God. i thought all of the harrowing situations i faced were a result of my wandering heart. but those situations would not have proved nearly as harrowing would i have had a proper understanding of my heavenly Father. good things and bad things; strange and unusual situations, present themsleves to each and every one of us...that's what its like being human. its what we do with those situations that matters. i guess somewhere along the line i decided i had to stop trying to pull everything back together on my own and i chose to start looking in the right places for strength and inspiration to live out each and every day. it was in the midst of my searching that i found my heart once again romanced and enthralled with a love that is deeper and wider and higher than my imagination could ever begin to behold.

the thing about God's love for us is that it is so humble, so quiet and still that we cannot take hold of it. the moment we notice His movements and we look in the direction of His love it seems to vanish and reappear in the very place we just turned from. so maddeningly elusive, if we stop believing He is courting us for even a moment too long the coerricive, calculating seductions of this World will rush into the weak cracks of our hearts and take us captive until we once again still ourselves to hear the gentle call of the Lover of our souls. He is so patient and so very very good. i am thankful my heart has been softened, i am thankful i have begun to learn to love deeply and sincerely, once again...it is His beauty i see in the romance that is all around me!

look around your world pretty baby...

so for my friend's bridal shower i compiled a cd of some classic, semi-sappy (and maybe a little cliched) love songs to play during the evening o' cheesy, girlie, bridal-shower goodness. i have the playlist saved on my real-rhapsody (yeah baby!) account and i have to admit i really love listening to it. i know some of my friends would roll their eyes at this but some of my fav's are alison krauss' "when you say nothing at all," whitney houston's "i will always love you," enirique jammin' out "hero" (eek! i can't believe i am confessing this!), etta james' "at last," i can't forget ub40's version of "can't help falling in love with you," and of course marvin gaye's "ain't no mountain high enough."
maybe i'm the only one whose stomach still fills with excitement at the thought of those early days of romance...middle school dances, passing notes, the day before feb 14th when you agonized over whether to give jared blum the "you're cool" or "you're cute" valentine...eek!!! i was always filled with so much wonder and anticipation for life and love. i'll be honest, i was enchanted. even in my first few years of college i think i continued to swoon at every thought and word tied to romance.
so what's with this sudden resurgence of rose-coloredness to my life???
it seems at every turn eros has laughed in my face and said "fat chance chica, this romance thing isn't for you...why don't you try back in about ten decades?!" leaving me to be quite the romance cynic and, at times, an embittered boy-hater.
admittedly, when i made this cd for my friend, i was inclined to choose the most grossly hyperbolic love songs...in a bit of malicious revenge on my foolish heart i chose some of those songs i remember hearing for the first time and closing my eyes as i envisioned the day i would fall in love with such depth and purpose and richness...gag me! thus, there was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek scoffing as i rolled my eyes and assembled the playlist, thinking of how there was a time when i actually bought the crap these people were singing about.
one day i had the cd in my car and i was bored so i popped it into my purple audiovox cd-player. its been there ever since...and i cna't get enough!
at first i was a little concerned by my sudden infatuation with the cd but i told myself it was probably a good thing that i was actually enjoying some stupid, sappy loves songs instead of the r&b crap i typically fill my car with. i guess its really going to my head though because the other day i caught myself singing "danke shoen" to all my baristas at work.
one of them turned to me and said "what's with you?...did you fall in love or something?!" quite suddenly i was awakened to the fact that indeed i have fallen in love.
and that's when i started shrinking myself...doing a little self-psycho analysis.

o say can u sing

April 24) - "Canadian singer Caroline Marcil had a rough night at a Canada-USA hockey game on Friday.
She was invited to sing "The Star Spangled Banner," but forgot the lyrics not once, but twice. She left to get the lyrics and when she returned to the ice, took an embarrassing tumble.
She left the ice in tears at Quebec Coliseum's exhibition hockey game.
When the audience booed, she told "Good Morning America" Weekend on Sunday, "that made me completely blank. I didn't know what I was singing."
But Marcil flew in from Montreal to appear on "Good Morning America" to redeem herself, and she sang the American national anthem flawlessly.
Marcil, whose first language is French, isn't alone in not knowing the words to the song. A 2004 Harris Interactive survey of 2,200 adults found 61 percent of Americans don't know the lyrics to "The Star Spangled Banner."
Of those who claim to know all the words, only 39 percent know what follows the line "whose broad stripes and bright stars," the survey found.
The lyric problem is often evident at sporting events.
The National Anthem Project has an education campaign to re-teach America to sing the national anthem, with major singing celebrations throughout the country."



i'm not sure what i find so intriguing about this article. maybe it's the fact that it's about a french-canadian's failing attempt to sing the u.s. national anthem (wha??!) or maybe its that so many american's appear to have such a short attention span that they can't even get through the first complete stanza of their own national anthem or maybe that the NAP hopes to revive america's awareness of the national anthem through "singing celebrations." hey! i'm all for patriotism but really, if its not on mtv or in video-game format i don't think the majority of american's are going to care...i especially appreciate the statement that "the lyric problem is often evident at sporting events." cool. welcome to america. we like to spend money writing articles about anthem-lyric amnesia epidemics and how one can observe its impact at sporting events!

my little buick of regalness

so my chronic coolant leakage has finally been remedied. but, in all honesty, the sappy sentimental in me misses it altogether. there was something so calming and familiar about popping the hood every time i arrived at the gas station. pulling out my faithful coolant jug, mixing in some water and slowly quenching the thirst of my poor little regal. now i'm back to boring old stops at the gas station. i guess i can mix it up with the occasional window-washing, oil-checking or slurpee-buying, but it just won't be the same.

i think what i will miss the most are the well-intentioned comments from my fellow gas-station patrons who observed my little coolant-filling ritual.

it seems any girl looking for a little attention need only lift up the hood of her car and guys from every walk of life will come with offerings of their great and assumedly impressive automotive/mechanical knowledge. every time i stopped with that nagging little low coolant light glowing in the corner of my eye i wondered what adventures awaited me the moment i reached under the hood of my car.
"looks like you might be leaking a little coolant" "i think you might need to put in some more antifreeze" "sooooooo, i'm pretty sure she's overeheatin'..." "did you know you have coolant leaking?" or my ever-favorite "i never met a girl who knew how to change her oil" ;o) oooh my little gas-station buddies! how i will miss you!

the scandal of Christ

do you ever have those days where you hear a word that you're not familiar with and then it seems like you hear it everywhere you turn? well, i do. often, actually. which is proof that i am vocab-challenged or that i spend way too much time listening to other people's conversations ;o)

so in...pee-wee herman fashion...the word of the day (in my little world) is...collusion (ko-lu-shun). i heard it on the radio this afternoon and then it was on the news and then audrey tautou used it in an interview?! strange. i suppose it hit me the hardest when someone whose native tongue isn't even english used my word of the day! aye. was i just completely narcoleptic during sixth grade english class or something?

according to merriam-webster, a collusion is a "secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose" hmmm.

at first glance, i would conclude that the reason i find myself unfamiliar with this term is because i don't tend to engage in many collusive conversations. but the irony is that the original place i heard the word was on the radio when hank hanagraf used the term "collusive" in reference to some people's speculations on the resurrection of Christ.

some people suppose that the resurrection of Christ was a collusive collaboration of underground cultish Christ-followers. their zealot tendencies inclined them to become impassioned about this Christ who claimed He would tear down the temple, set up His kingdom over all kingdoms and finally fulfill the nagging "law" of the jews. the tantalizing story of this same Christ denying his death-sentence, carried out by the forceful romans, would sensationalize their cause and bring in supporters from every oppressed region of the middle-east and mediterranean.

unfortunately, most people won't die for a collusive movement that is founded on legend. but these so-called zealots were burned at the stake, fed to the lions and crucified in much the same manner as Christ Himself, because they refused to deny their belief.

they believed the resurrection of Christ was more than a story, and they were convinced it was a Truth that could not remain untold.





do i live with such passion for Christ?






do people see me and wonder what i'm up to? or do my actions leave me blending in with the massive majority?

maybe its time i became a little more familiar with the early founders of Christ's movement on our humble planet. because there's nothing ordinary about being a Christ-follower...some might even say its downright collusive ;o)