Stamp of Identity

"The wax that has melted in God's will can easily receive the stamp of its identity, the truth of what it was meant to be. But the wax that is hard and dry and brittle and without love will not take the seal: for the hard seal, descending upon it, grinds it to powder.
"Therefore if you spend your life trying to escape from the heat of the fire that is meant to soften and prepare you to become your true self, and if you try to keep your substance from melting in the fire - as if your true identity were to be hard wax - the seal will fall upon you at last and crush you. You will not be able to take your own true name and countenance, and you will be destroyed by the event that was meant to be your fulfillment."

--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Quotes for the Bathroom Mirror

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

--Thomas Edison

Quotes for the Bathroom Mirror

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

--Thomas Edison

Driving a Standard

Starting the 13 hour drive to Kentucky today. Stopping at Seth's parents for dinner and good night's sleep. We celebrated my sister-in-law's birthday last night. And now I'm off to Target for the last bit of essentials. Man, I love Target. Target is the bomb dot com of all supermarkets. I also went to (drum roll please) Chick-fil-A the first chance I got. Mmmmmm.

For my sister-in-law's birthday, I got her a real cute bag and put lots of random stuff in it, like jellies. (gellies?) Remember those? They were on sale at Target. I bought myself a pair, too, and I'm wearing them today and I can't wait.


I learned to drive a standard. We're driving my brother's car to Kentucky, and it's a standard. My dad took me out and taught me, and I learned it pretty quickly, if I do say so myself. Except then later, when driving to dinner around rush hour time, I thought I'd show off my new driving skills. So four of us piled into the little car. Me in the driver's seat. Dad front passenger side. Mom and Seth in the back. Seth hadn't seen me drive yet. I was ready to show him how cool I looked driving a standard.

Except that I came to a stop on a HILL, wedged between a long line of cars in both directions. I had to keep inching forward on the hill because we were all waiting for people to turn left. I was scared to death because I had only practiced on a hill in our neighborhood with nobody around. My dad said just do everything normal. Just do it quicker so you don't roll into the person behind you.

So I went into first gear quicker, except I also pounded on the gas every time because I was scared, so everytime we moved I squealed the tires like a bat outa hell and went two inches and had to stop again. This happened I think six times in a row. My dad kept yelling at me to stop and I kept yelling at him to stop stressing me out. And mom and Seth were laughing in the backseat. And some funny smell started seeping out from the car.

I had on bad shoes, OK? They were weird flip flop like shoes. When I learned and practiced on the hill in our neighborhood I was wearing gellies. So obviously, the shoes were bad. I'll just wear my jellies when we drive to Kentucky.

My brother and his wife gave me a late b-day present. A book of poetry by Brian Andreas. I love love love it and was up way too late reading it last night. Here's one I like:

Whenever she stood
in line at the bank
or while waiting
for the bus, I noticed
her feet.
The right always in
front and perpendicular
to the left just so.

Even after 2
children she
still dreamed
of being a
dancer.

Title: Ballerina Mom

And looked what happened in New York today. Yeesh.

Positive Post Tuesday - My friend, Audrey

I have a friend whose name is Audrey. Audrey's 10. Audrey played Chip in the production I was in of Beauty and the Beast in Houston. She's currently singing as a member of the children's chorus in La Boheme at Houston Grand Opera. A professional singer-actress at the age of 10. Wow!

Audrey is my email buddy. She calls it BIFF: Best Internet Friends Forever. She keeps me posted on her life. What's going on at school and what's going on with her "career." She's got boys that won't leave her alone at school, and it really annoys her. I don't blame her or the boys. She's a very pretty girl. And boys get sort of stupid when it comes to pretty girls. But I agree with Audrey. They should leave her alone.

The first time I saw Audrey on stage, she was 7, I think. In Oliver. She was the smallest little tyke up there, but she absolutely glowed. I couldn't stop watching her. She was practically trampled by the other, bigger kids on stage who were dancing like theater-crazed maniacs all around her. But Audrey's smile and the twinkle in her eye were mesmerizing. I knew right then that the stage was where she belonged.

I admire Audrey for that twinkle in her eye. It's there off stage, too. She has the ability to look at every circumstance like it's a gift, and she's just glad she's a part of it. She takes nothing for granted, but delights in the smallest bits of what life offers.

I admire Audrey for her obedience to Christ, and her faith in prayer. When one certain boy wouldn't stop bothering her at school, Audrey (though, of course, very frustrated and annoyed) prayed for him. She said that God would fix him, but that God should fix her first so that she could have the right attitude to pray for him.

Here's what Audrey said after that:

"It is very amazing what miracles God can do. I feel very fortunate to have a great God like I do."

I hope for the faith, love, and fortitude that I see in Audrey. I hope for that ever-so-bright, fear-be-afraid, twinkle in my eye, that unknowingly dares the dead to rise, awakens the worried to a Father's presence, and demands the fearful to face the unknown.

Love ya, girl!

BIFF

The Big Giveaway

I like Oprah. I know there are a lot of members of the Christian community who don't like her and think she's New Age. I don't know if she's New Age. She says she's a Christian. I have to believe her.

I like the good she does for humanity. I like that she gives bookoos of her money away to help people. She changes people's lives. She raises awareness. She encourages action. I like that very much. I watch her show often. She has achieved the incredible, and she inspires me to move forward with my goals.

But I'm not sure I like her new show, The Big Giveaway. Something about competitive giving. It doesn't sit quite right in me. Something about giving for all America to see. Giving to win.

It's not only that Jesus' words keep running over in my head.

"1 Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Matthew 6:1-4)

Who knows how much money Oprah, personally, (not Oprah, the T.V. producer), gives away that nobody sees? I don't know. I can't, shouldn't, judge her life for what I see on T.V. I won't.

It was something she said today. And something Simon Cowell said today, on her show, that got me thinking.

Yesterday I heard a sermon by Tim Keller (here we go again...it's just too good, people!), and part of what he said was like this:

When Nicodemus came to Jesus that night, Jesus told him he must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. Meaning that, all those moral, outstanding, upstanding, deeds he did as a Pharisee (for he was a very good, kind Jew) meant nothing in regards to the salvation Jesus offered. Jesus said, that despite all of that, Nicodemus must be born again. A completely new life. Not a life born of flesh from the pain and suffering and blood of his mother in labor, but a life born of the Spirit...born from Jesus' pain and suffering blood of the cross. A life given to him, not something he could produce.

So what is sin, really? In all of Nicodemus' good lifestyle, what was it that kept him from the kingdom of God? It was, and is, man's completely self-centered idea of himself. Of his existence, his worth, his future, his meaning, his esteem. Jesus was saying that nothing Nicodemus did could excuse him from this state of sin. So when we do something good for the self-centered reason of being good, of winning points for the sake of righteousness, of thinking we are wonderful, of thinking we are more loved by God, better, SELF-righteous, we miss the mark. We misunderstand Christ. And we are not one step nearer to the kingdom of God. To God, himself. Because it's CHRIST'S sacrifice that saves us.

SO! Back to Oprah. Her guest today was Simon Cowell, the American Idol guru, and T.V./record producer. He talked about who would win this season. He showed off his new girl that won in Britain, and his ventriliquist that won America's Got Talent, and then he gave $165,000 to a family whose three year old daughter is receiving chemo and radiation for cancer. He wrote a check for $165,000 to pay off their mortgage. Here's the conversation that took place after he gave the money away, in more or less words:

Simon: I feel really good.

Oprah: Yes! Giving Makes You Feel Good!!

Simon: Yeah, I do. I feel really good.

Oprah: Giving Makes You Feel Good! That's the Point!

Simon: It took me forty something years to realize that and I credit you, Oprah, for bringing it to light.

Oprah: Me? When did you first figure it out?

Simon: Today. Today I can say: I'm a guardian angel now.

*****

Giving Makes You Feel Good. That's the point. I'm a guardian angel now.

That bothered me. It seems that the American idea of giving, as stated here on the Oprah show, is meant to give yourself a little boost. To esteem yourself. It's about what you get out of it. After all, doesn't the Bible say, give and it will be given unto you. You reap what you sow. Feeling good is natural, isn't it? Did Jesus feel good when he raised Lazarus from the dead? When he fed the multitudes and healed the sick? When he died on the cross? Or should it feel bad? Should it feel like bearing your cross? Like being crucified with Christ? Like a sacrifice?

Thoughts welcome.

Dangerous Prayer

I found these quotes from The Anchoress.

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.
- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.
- Mother Theresa of Calcutta

There is just one life for each of us: our own.
- Euripides

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
- e.e. cummings

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905

How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization.
- Eric Hoffer

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
- Johann von Goethe

"One of the most dangerous prayers to make, in a world full of dangerous prayers: Lord, help me to be what you have made me to be. Lord, help me to be myself, in all the vulnerability that comes with authenticity." - The Anchoress

Zacchaeus

Still reading Blue Like Jazz. I'm close to finishing. Here Donald Miller writes about hearing Brennan Manning speak. Brennan Manning is one of my favorite writers. I've heard him speak a couple of times as well, and it's a real treat. Here's what Don heard:

"A friend and I traveled to Salem to hear Brennan Manning speak. Manning is a former Catholic priest and a wonderful writer who has struggled with alcoholism and speaks frankly about matters of Christian spirituality. We sat so close I could see the blue in Brennan's eyes and that quality of sincerity you find in people who have turned trial into service. Brennan grew up in New York and speaks with a slight East Coast bite that has been sanded down by years of smoking.

He opened his talk with the story of Zacchaeus. Brennan talked about how an entire town, with their ridicule and hatred, could not keep the little man from oppressing them through the extravagant financial gains he made as a tax collector. Christ walked through town, Brennan said, and spotted the man. Christ told Zacchaeus that He would like to have a meal with him.

In the single conversation Christ had with Zacchaeus, Brennan reminded us, Jesus spoke affirmation and love, and the tax collector sold his possessions and made amends to those he had robbed. It was the affection of Christ, not the brutality of a town, that healed Zacchaeus."

On Belief

"The thing I have to work on in myself is this issue of belief. Gandhi believed Jesus when He said turn the other cheek. Gandhi brought down the British Empire, deeply injured the caste system, and changed the world. Mother Teresa believed Jesus when He said everybody was priceless, even the ugly ones, the smelly ones, and Mother Teresa changed the world by showing them that a human being can be selfless....But the trouble with deep belief is that it costs something. And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything....

What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do."

Donald Miller, excerpt from Blue Like Jazz

Everyone Wants to Be Fancy

I'm reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to read about God in non-religious terms. This quote stuck with me, maybe because I love the word: fancy...such a great word for so many reasons. But maybe because I relate to the idea. Here it is:

"Everybody wants to be somebody fancy. Even if they're shy.... Everybody wants to be fancy and new. Nobody wants to be themselves. I mean, maybe people want to be themselves, but they want to be different, with different clothes or shorter hair or less fat. It's a fact. If there was a guy who just liked being himself and didn't want to be anybody else, that guy would be the most different guy in the world and everybody would want to be him."

Thoughts welcome.