God loves ugly

dead things

2009-09-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

Not a sermon post. Not any sort of organized, bulleted variations on a theme. Just some thoughts at 8:15 in the ay-ehm and a reflection on my first month of living in community.

So I was cleaning the girls' side back porch the other day, and it presented me with an interesting task - separating the "good dirt", which I would transport to the front garden, from the "bad dirt" which was mostly rocks and twigs that I would dispose of elsewhere. I noticed that the soil didn't start getting nice and dark and fertile-smelling until it was full of disgusting things. Decaying insect carcasses, moldy and withered leaves, rotted pecan shells. That was the dirt I wanted. That was the soil with the potential to nourish our garden.

I know that this is the stuff of third grade science projects and no real revelation to anyone, but I felt very akin to those broken, diffused dead things in the ground at the time and it was comforting to think that I may at least be useful for something. That, in fact, I have to be dead in order to be of ANY use to the Gardener. (Romans 6:8) Death--to ourselves, our pride, our entitlement--unlocks the nutrients. The potential. Gives us a chance to nourish each other, and to be a part of the beauty of the Garden.

But first...there's still death. Everyone told me that living in community "is hard," "will break you," "will drive you crazy," etc. and it's all true and it's already happening and there's no way to circumvent it no matter how much you knew about it in advance. We've already had topics like "Nikki's tears" and "Brent's apology" on our house meeting agenda, and I'm learning just how much and in what particularly uncomfortable positions this lifestyle is going to stretch me. It's hard for me to tell people that I have a problem with them. It's hard for me to share work instead of trying to do it all myself. It's hard for me to have so little privacy and solitude, and to give up the reins on my personal schedule. It's hard to work 54 hours a week and come home to a house that needs so much more work. Work, work, work....it's hard to remember to play from time to time.

But there are good things, and on all but the worst days they outweigh the bad. I live with a little alien creature called a One-Year-Old and his SuperMom. I miss not being able to have breakable things anywhere below my hip, but I love his tiny little vice grip and his goofy laugh in the middle of morning prayer, so it's all good. He has also re-introduced me to Goldfish crackers, which are delicious and I can't understand how I let them slip out of my life.

The House takes shape before my eyes, and I still can't believe that I'm here. That God did it. That so many people--even those that initially hated the idea--have poured out love and support for us in the short time that we've been in the neighborhood. All frustrations and pitfalls aside, I am most certainly living the dream. My dream, at least.

I miss Marc very much while he's away in Nashville this weekend, and I've been trying to fix up the house as much as possible for when he comes back, because I know how lovely it is to leave for a bit and come home to a place that's markedly nicer/cleaner/more pretty-fied than you left it. He at least has a nice cleared-out back patio on which to re-weld his tall bike that sustained massive injuries during a joust at the Rat Patrol Hootenanny. It's very nice to live next door to my boyfriend, and rather than strain us, I think living in community has actually improved our relationship. Or maybe not improved so much as given us new opportunities to love each other, serve each other, and grow closer. Either way, it's been good. I've found a good man indeed. Perhaps the one good thing about him being away is that apparently his absence compels me to produce whimsical steampunk Sharpie art, like so:

So yeah, that's what life has been like lately. I've got far more than I need and good company to share it with. Life from death, and life more abundant. =)

Nik

nature vs. nurture

2009-07-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

I think that if I could, I'd make it a requirement that all government officials and religious clergy work a minimum of one year as a caretaker. It would be a refining fire for anyone who claims to want to lead by serving. They would come out of it either callous beyond all reckoning, or humbled and sufficiently prepared for their roles as representatives and intercessors. Cleaning up human waste on a regular basis will, in time, show you what sort of person you are.

That thought occurred to me tonight as I was trying to deal with two sick clients, a water leak from the washing machine, and a backed-up toilet full of poop all at the same time. I started to see some of the uglier parts of me rise to the surface--my impatience with my client's refusal to listen to my instructions, my selfishness in caring more about my own inconvenience in having to deal with the situation instead of my clients' wellness, the generally crappy way I tend to deal with crises if I feel overwhelmed. I didn't like the girl with the pissed off expression that I was seeing in the bathroom mirror.

Suddenly, while I was pacing around the wet floor trying to figure out what to do next, I got zapped with conviction about the way I was acting. "You're frustrated right now," I heard God say, "because you feel like what you're doing is trivial. Do you not realize how important your job is? Have you forgotten that these are people you're taking care of, and that every day you have to choose whether you're going to nurture them and encourage them like they deserve or just treat them like an obligation?"

Supposedly I have a gift for nurturing, and every time I think about what that should look like, I think of my mother. She is, without a doubt, the most comforting and nurturing person I've ever known. I was positively spoiled with love from her when I was growing up, and I never felt more loved than when I was sick. When I had the flu as a child, my mom pulled out all the stops of her hospitality. She fed me chicken noodle soup, she changed out my videos on the VCR while I lay in bed, she drew me hot bubble baths and sprinkled scented baby powder on my bedsheets while I dried off. She had, at one point or another, cleaned up every single one of my bodily fluids off the bathroom floor and/or clothing, and she never once complained or made me feel bad for inconveniencing her.

I know that a mother's bond with her children comes with a special serving of grace, but should it really be all that different between any caretaker and the person they're serving? Those who follow Christ are called to love in absurd and impossible ways--why shouldn't I try to love each one of my clients like my mother loved me, especially when so many of them haven't known the care of a parent for years, if at all?

Whether it's undergoing surgery, lying bedridden with the flu, or simply aging, we all have to be cared for at some time in our lives. What sort of heart do you want the person who will be there during your most vulnerable state to have? I think we would do well to think on that, and then make the decision to have that sort of heart ourselves, every day, in all our relationships.

We may find we complain a little less.

We may find we're not as easily offended.

We may find we have more patience than we thought.

We may find we're just a little bit closer to the character of Jesus, and that it's a whole lot less glamorous than we've made it out to be.

let's err on the side of love, shall we?

2009-07-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

There is something that I've been wanting to speak out about for years now, and recently attending a seminar at Cornerstone called "Love is an Orientation" has helped me feel empowered to articulate the attitude that I have about Christianity and homosexuality. I feel that the principles that I'm going to talk about are are Biblical, loving, honest, and long overdue to be lived out by those who claim to follow Christ. As someone who has had ample life experience in both the Christian church and the gay community, and as someone who has felt the temptation of same-sex attraction myself, I want to address and rebuke the Church for its overall treatment of this particular enclave of our Father's beloved creation.

Christians, let me start with this: I know you are aware of the gay community's aversion to you. I know you know that they hold much against you. Now let me tell you what they DON'T hold against you. The gay community does not hold against you your right to the belief that homosexuality is a sin according to the Scriptural principles of your faith, according to your God. They do not hold against you your right not to approve of a homosexual lifestyle according to those beliefs. But the keyword there is your. Your God. Your faith. Your beliefs. The gay community is perfectly fine with agreeing to disagree. The problem comes in when you demand that a gay person operate by the moral code of a God they don't believe in or don't care about. You cannot in sound logic expect them to do that any more than a Muslim could expect you to eat only halal meat because it is prescribed in the Quran.

And why, do you think, would the gay community not believe in or not care about our Christian God? How much of it has to do with the actual principles that are found in a close, well-informed reading of the Bible, and how much of it has to do with the vastly prejudiced and very often despicable behavior of so-called Christians towards themselves and their loved ones? If we say that the Bible designates homosexuality as a sin, let's go ahead and take a look and just a few of the ways in which we deal with other sins according to Scripture and see if they line up with how we treat homosexuality:

1. Temptation vs. Action - If a brother confides in us that he had the urge to shoplift while he was waiting in line at the grocery store but resisted it and paid for all his items instead, what do we do? We pat him on the back and thank God that he defeated his temptation. If a sister confides in us that she is struggling with homosexual desires but has not acted on them, what do we do? How do we view her? As someone who has triumphed over temptation, or as someone who is already tainted, sinful, and an outsider merely from the thoughts that are in her head?

Hebrews tells us that we do not have a God who is unable to identify with us, but "one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin." There is a clear separation here between the temptation of sin and the sin itself. If the Scripture says that Jesus was tempted "in every way," would that not also include lust? Instead of sinking immediately into shame and defeatism when temptation of any kind strikes, we are instructed to "approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

I wonder how many gay folks have felt that they have found mercy and grace to help in their time of need at the doors of the Church.

2. Behavior over Relationship: When we talk to a straight non-Christian about Jesus, what is the biggest point we hope to emphasize? This could probably be a whole entry in and of itself, but for the time being let's assume that we all have a correct understand of the Gospel and would want the person to understand that God loves them and wants so desperate to commune with them that He sent his own Son, and extension of his own Being, to sacrifice himself in order to bridge the gap between God's heart and theirs. In comparison, what is the biggest point we always end up emphasizing when we talk to a gay non-Christian? Homosexuality is a sin and you're going to hell if you keep it up. Do we even understand how insulting that is? Do we even get it? The straight Gospel message says "You matter. You are of value, so much so that the Creator of the universe is desperately in love with you." The gay Gospel message says "Your entire personhood is defined by this one single characteristic, and God despises it. And since you and your homosexuality are inseparable, God despises you."

So what exactly does God think about these two alternate Gospels? "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" - Romans 2:1-5

When a gay person walks away from a conversation with you, do they feel God's kindness or your judgment?

3. Get It Right Or Get The F&%$ Out: So you were perfect by the time you gave your life to Christ, right? You were a spotless lamb before the Lord, already cleansed of every sin, bad habit, and incorrect worldview and really just looking for some heavenly companionship rather than any sort of salvation. Your perspective of God and the world has never wavered because you've never spiritually matured or grown in any way (already being perfect and all).

Wait...that's not the case? You're telling me you came to Jesus full of sin, hurt, and brokenness, and the promise of healing the gaping wound in your heart is what drew you to Him in the first place? And you mean to tell me that healing hasn't happened overnight? That in fact, it's still in the process of happening, and that there are sins that you deal with on a regular basis, over and over again, even when you think you've finally gotten free of them?

You're telling me that your brothers and sisters in Christ act like just that--brothers and sisters? That they love you unconditionally just as your heavenly Father loves you, and they deal patiently and mercifully with your every weakness, fault, and bout of utter stupidity because they too are just as weak and stupid? Oh really. That's very interesting. Then why exactly are we so eager to kick a gay man out of our church the moment he shows up with his boyfriend when we have no problem whatsoever bearing with the Sunday School teacher's gossip problem, the megachurch preacher's lust for riches, or our own [straight] secret porn addiction?

Again, God's command to us is clear through humble admission of Paul: "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me...All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you."

__________________________________

I have, at least to some extent, seen the view from both sides of this fence, and I firmly believe that there is no group of people in the world today to whom the message of Jesus Christ has been more grossly perverted than the gay community, and that is a tragedy that falls squarely on the shoulders of us, the messengers.

Why oh why do we feel that the proper and necessary way to show a gay person that we disapprove of homosexuality is to withhold love from them? Is that how Jesus showed his disapproval of our sin to us? Or did he lay down His very life for us to demonstrate His love?

Woe to us. We ought to be ashamed.

I know many Christians would argue that they do not talk to/associate with/welcome/hang out with gay people for fear that their actions might possibly get misinterpreted as approval of homosexuality. To that, I say: Take that zeal for righteousness and clean your own house with it first. Keep your integrity, leave the judging to God Almighty, and do the one simple thing your Lord and Savior commands you time and time again to do: LOVE.

people like you when you like yourself...and if they don't, who cares?

2009-06-26T21:42:00.000-07:00

Dread update photo--my babies at three weeks, just before Brent, Marc, Heather, and I set off on our trek to CORNERSTONE. Epic times are at hand. I just know it.

My first DIY sewing project: modifying one of my old Whole Foods t-shirts by sewing this huge screenprinted patch on the back that Marc's friends in Nashville made and cutting-and-tying the sides so that it fits tighter. I also cut off the sleeves and neck to make it a tank top. That shirt, plus my cut-off jean shorts, is my holy-crap-New-Orleans-is-hot-in-June ensemble.

Brent playing his didjeridoo (that's what she said??) in my living room this afternoon. It's an oddly calming sound after a while, kind of like the white noise of a box fan lulling you to sleep.

It's funny how quickly a person can change, and for such a multitude of reasons. I'm not oblivious to the transformation I've gone through in the past couple of months. Much of it has been external: I've dreaded my hair, started dressing differently, probably giving off a downright different aura. The reasons are intensely personal and deal with the heart of my personality and my relationship with the Father. The best way I can describe it is to say that, for the first time, I feel like I am myself, and I am living my life. C.S. Lewis says that, contrary to what most people think and fear, growing closer to God means blossoming more and more into the unique, multi-faceted, dynamic individual that you have been created to be. Whoever that is. Whatever that looks like.

My friend Katie recently asked me if I'd be interested in going to Europe with her, and it got me thinking about two summers ago when I went abroad for the first time. My cousin Amy and I recounted over and over again the incredible feeling we had when we came out of Victoria Station and stepped onto the streets of London with all of our suitcases and a little printed map with directions to our hostel and not a single agenda until our flight to Spain two days later. It was a feeling of total empowerment, like someone just tapped us on the shoulder and gestured to the bustling urban cityscape surrounding us, saying "Hey, guess what? You did this. You want to come here and you made it happen, and you can do it again if you want. You are limitless."

I feel a little like that about my life right now. Those limits...Good Lord...does anyone on earth put more limits on us than ourselves? I subdued and walled off the parts of me that I felt were too radical, or too offensive, or too weird, or too unconventional because I was seeking the approval of the people around me. Now, I've gotten to a point where I'd much rather have people's respect for following my convictions and being true to God and myself than have their approval of my every lifestyle choice. It's a much better plan, I think.

See you all after C-Stone! Pray for a safe journey!

- Nik

just a little something to brighten your day.

2009-06-22T08:33:00.001-07:00

the best radio show you've never heard of.

2009-06-20T15:17:00.000-07:00

NPR, you can keep This American Life. I'll take Little Steven and his Underground Garage for the win. Being a sucker for both the nostalgic and the kitschy, you can imagine how thoroughly delighted I was to stumble across this crazy New York Italian voice going on about the impact of the beat poets on the post-WWII American consciousness after playing The Ronnettes, Bob Dylan, The Ramones, and Jack White all in the same set. Listening to the Underground Garage is like taking a history class in an opium den while being serenaded by John Lennon and Bo Diddley. Each week has a theme that is reflected in both the playlist and the talk segments, with some of the more recent gems being "Pirate Radio", the 42nd anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club, "The Ramones Forever and Ever and Ever", the invention of the 45 vinyl record, and the evolution of film noir. You feel smarter by the end of the show, but you also have about five new bands you want to look up on Google.

If Little Steven looks familiar, it's because, along with being a songwriter, arranger, and producer, he was also a member of Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band as well as the character Silvio Dante on The Sopranos. The show would absolutely cease to function without him, as he is a humanoid encyclopedia of knowledge on 20th century music, society, and culture, and is able to relay that information in a way that's fresh and entertaining. I wanted to post this blog because, after almost 3 years of listening to the show, it still shocks me how few other people that I mention if to have heard of it. I promise you, friends--you are missing out! If you live in New Orleans, you can catch The Underground Garage every Sunday night on 95.7 (I think it runs from 7-10PM) OR, if you're absent-minded like me, you can listen to all the archived shows any time you want at wwww.littlestevensundergroundgarage.com.

well that came out of nowhere.

2009-06-19T18:18:00.000-07:00

I literally think it's been something like 4 years since I've written a poem. It's been that kind of day. Unexpected, and kind of lovely.

Gomer's Song

(Hosea 1-2)

a wayward lover am i

that i would rather fuck these tragic johns

than make love to You.

they are dull razors, the men I chase

i scrape them across my skin

but they only bloody me

and the hair remains

i do it because it's what i deserve

and it's what i deserve because i do it

their water is brackish

their wool and their linen is mildewed

and threadbare in my hands

and i am parched

a prideful lover am i

that i would rather choke on their water

than sip honey from Your lips.

for your nectar is sweet

and your linen is royal

such things do not come cheaply, i know

a time will come when i must pay, i know

ruminating on "Doubt": part one

2009-06-16T22:16:00.000-07:00

I recently saw this movie for the first time, and then immediately forced Marc to watch it and saw it a second time. It has refused to leave me alone since, as many disturbingly-good movies tend to do. In it, Meryl Streep places a cynical-but-righteous nun who runs a school in 1950's New York. She suspects Philip Seymour Hoffman's character, Father Flynn, of molesting the one black student in the school. As the title suggests, the movie deals with themes of doubt, faith, and integrity and the audience tries to decide who to believe and which character to align with.

So what to do? Well, blog about it of course! I'm going to do a three-part series focusing on the quotes from the movie that stuck with me the most.

Sister Aloysius: What have you seen?

Sister James: It is unsettling to look at people with suspicion. I feel less close to God.

Sister Aloysius: When you take a step to address a wrongdoing, you are taking a step away from God, but in His service. What have you seen?

Do you agree with Sister Aloysius? I think her statement conveys something that many Christian missionaries and those devoting their lives to social justice or humanitarianism feel, if not say. Some of the darkest moments in people's faith often occur when they are in exactly the place God wants them to be, doing exactly the work God wants them to be doing. In a private letter to one of her spiritual confidants, Mother Theresa wrote from Calcutta in 1979 that "Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear."

People, as a general rule, like to feel comfortable. And one of the most uncomfortable things you can do to a person is force them to face a contradiction. In fact, there's a psychological term for that feeling: cognitive dissonance. People like Mother Theresa have been existing in state of cognitive dissonance for years. It is a contradiction that there are 12.4 million orphans starving in India while a kid in America throws away his cheeseburger because it has mustard on it instead of ketchup. It is a contradiction that a man can mutilate a black or Jewish boy in an alleyway and then go home and lovingly tuck his children into bed. For most of us, these sorts of realizations hit us in moments of clarity or the introduction of an unsettling statistic. We experience a bit of discomfort over them, but soon enough there is a show on TV or a spreadsheet that needs to get done or a friend who calls and dispels the cloud for us and we are able to forget about uncomfortable paradoxes and go on with our everyday lives.

But when you "take a step to address a wrongdoing," when you refuse to forget and instead make an effort to correct the problem, you will soon find yourself immersed in the darkest parts of the human heart. Like Alex in A Clockwork Orange with his eyes pried open, you will not be able to look away. This is the enticing offer of Jesus when he asks us to clothe the naked and take care of widows and orphans in their distress; this is the requirement that made the rich man turn away in shame.

While fighting injustice and refusing the be inoculated to the reality of the world around us does draw many away from God, I don't believe that it needs to. Jesus promises in Matthew 28 to be with us until the end of the age not because he is sending us out into uncharted waters, but because he is inviting us to join him where he already abides. When faced with evil, our spirits inside of us cry out, "This isn't right! There is something horribly wrong with the world!" What we don't always realize is that Jesus is crying out right along with us. There is something horribly wrong with the world, and will be until the work Jesus did on the cross is brought to completion at its end. What else is the peace of God for if not to combat the universal cognitive dissonance of existing in a world where good and evil are constantly at war?

"If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there."

- Psalm 139:8

...and the livin' is easy.

2009-06-05T18:25:00.000-07:00

Yep. It's summertime, and I've got no more excuses left in my bag of tricks for not updating this thing. So that it won't be too tearfully boring, here's a few photos to go along with all the catching-up:- Marc and I are throwing ourselves headlong into Operation House Recruitment. We have 5 or 6 contacts who are interested in moving in with us in the fall, but so far the only definites remain me, Marc, and Brent. We're still doing our bible study on Sunday nights at Cafe Envie, and are going to start looking for properties this month. Ideally, we're looking for a shotgun double with a backyard, where we can designate one side as girls' house and the other as boys' house and have garden in the back. For more info on the House and updates throughout the summer, check out the rockin' website that Brent set up for us at www.houseoftherisingson.org

- A picture that Leanna, one of our potential housemates, took of me walking her son Zebediah's stroller outside Cafe du Monde. Notice anything different? Yup. I HAVE DREADS AGAIN!!!! I'm really excited, can you tell? Brent flew down this week and Leanna drove in with Z, and we had what amounted to a three-day dread fest. When all was said and done, there were 90 locks created - 40 on me, and 50 on Leanna. I couldn't be happier with how they came out (back combing, rip-n-twisting, no wax whatsoever). What's funny is just how much they mean to me already. Besides remembering all the advantages and things I like about having dreads, I told Marc today that they honestly make me feel more like myself. Like I'm being true to my personality for the first time in a long time, instead of always trying to be just mainstream/traditional/non-threatening enough to placate my friends and family. I have a feeling that this set is going to be around for quite a while. =)

Leanna and her little man on the river

- As for summer plans, writing, House stuff, and making money are my triumvirate of priorities. I was fortunate enough to get a truly kick-ass summer job at the Magnolia School, an organization that supports adults with developmental disabilities. I work 4-5 days a week and get paid to do things like cook, go to the park, and watch America's Funniest Home Videos. What more could I possibly ask for? On Monday nights, some UNO friends and I are getting together to do an informal workshop designed to keep our lazy butts productive during the non-school months. Seeing as this is my first summer in two years spent at home (as opposed to studying abroad), I'm trying not to overload my schedule and just relax and enjoy life for a bit. So far, so good, although Marc and Jac do have to remind me of that goal every once in a while. =) The only traveling I'm going to do is to Cornerstone at the end of the month (my first time--another coming-into-my-true-self milestone) and a possibly weekend trip to visit Violet in Virginia. Other than that, I'm going to be a homebody...even moreso now that I don't have a car. So come visit me during my final months at the Metry house!

- Still learning about photography, and loving it more and more. I just upgraded my gear to a Canon 20-D with a bunch of great lenses, a tripod, etc. My friend Thea was kind enough to offer my first paying gig, but mostly I'm still just shooting for fun. This week I'll be doing a portraits with my friend Lauren and her baby Reed, another friend April and her dog Jazz, and yet more friends Jenna and Mike to do their engagement photos. Fun times. Look for the results on my Flickr account.

- And last but not least, the man and me. Things continue to be wonderful, as we continue to learn more about each other and work together to pursue God's heart for the Quarter. After almost four months together, I can tell you that Marc is an honest, passionate, charismatic person who loves the Lord and people with everything he's got. He's also hilarious, a great kisser, and a darn good bike mechanic. Chelsea took this picture last time she was in town.

In short: life is hard, God is good, and I am learning. That's the update.

a texting exchange.

2009-04-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

ME: "I want to cut out my uterus, cook it on a George Forman grill, and eat it with a side of coleslaw."

MARC: "Baby, that's gross. But I love you!"

Yep. It's like that.

the shape of things to come.

2009-04-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! In case you were wondering - yes I am, in fact, alive. Sorry for the absence. As the semester went on and the Tennessee Williams Festival got closer, I just couldn't justify spending time on this blog, love it though I may. But I definitely plan on resurrecting it once summer starts (May).

Until then, though, I just wanted to get the word out about a few of the things that have been occupying me recently and that I'm very excited about. The vision that God put on my heart for French Quarter ministry is coming to fruition with a speed and passion that is wonderful and fairly jaw-dropping to witness. It looks like the first step to all this is going to be the community house that I blogged about a while back. (which, by the way, had the added bonus of finding me an amazing boyfriend a co-laborer for this shindig...yay for God working through the interwebz.)

So here is your sneak peek for the community house:

and here is the handbill for what's we're doing in the meantime:

and just for fun, here's a picture of me and Marc:

Ain't he handsome? =)

So yeah...if you love Jesus and have ever thought about moving to New Orleans, pray about this! And as always, e-mail me at pencil_dharma@yahoo.com if you have questions or want more info.

Nikki

you give 80's rock a bad name.

2009-02-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

I couldn't help but post these. I suppose that whenever you get a bunch of writers together, pretty much anything they type is going to be entertaining, but I maintain that my own little UNO family consistently goes above and beyond the call of hilarious. Here are a few choice quotes from a very long Facebook message thread concerning the plans for the MFA Prom, an annual tradition in our program that is basically an excuse to hang out and drink beer in costume, as opposed to our usual habit of hanging out and drinking beer in regular clothes.

Enjoy.

JAMIE
Hey everyone,

It appears that prom preparations have not yet been started. I know we're all busy (I may not have hair at the end of this semester), but the fact is: PROM CANNOT DIE. So I propose we all get together somewhere that serves cheap alcohol and start talking about forming some kind of prom committee. Unless anyone has objections, I'll try to secure the lounge for the last weekend in April, Saturday the 25th, today unless I hear from any of you about that being a bad weekend...

DANNY
I'm in, kiddo. I think that weekend works. I suggest a LOST theme, where everyone comes as a famous writer now stranded on a desert island. That's right.

NIKKI
I guess I'll toss in my two cents. May 1st is fine and I can meet up to help organize after Mardi Gras also.

And I think Danny's theme idea kicks ass. Let's do it.

APRIL
Oh, I may be the lone dissenter but I think Danny's Lost theme is the lamest thing I have ever heard of. Hugs chocolate bear!

DANNY
April, I think your face is the lamest thing ever. So, that would make my idea second. To your face.

JESSE
Oh, snap! You just got served!

JAMIE
Jesse suggested a goth theme, which would be hilarious, especially if it's 1987 Bauhaus goth. You know, pre-beer-bloat Robert Smith. But that could also be redundant--how much black can we all really wear?

NICK
let's have a beyond thunderdome theme. two enter, one leave. except we'll call it beyond thundernoun or something. and we'll have people duke it out, like danny and april, in some kind of awesome fashion.

DANNY
nice! (btw, I will in no way fight April. She will destroy me.)

NICK
we could also have a theme that somehow encompasses the inevitable war of the future between robots and humanity, and some of us could come as robots and some of us as the last bastion of the human spirit.

JAMIE
The consensus seems to be that Jazzfest weekends don't really work well for anyone. Which only leaves May 8th, a date that also seemed like it didn't work well for numerous people. If Jazzfest is going to lead to a prom with lackluster attendance, we should probably avoid it. What's prom without A LOT of drunk people in bad costumes?

DANNY
I am going to be at Jazzfest, for sure, and I don't mind skipping out for setup and prom. I vote May 2. LOVE-FEST!

JESSE
Here is why May 2nd sucks: Bon Jovi, live at Jazzfest. May 1st, we miss Tony Bennett and Bonnie Raitt. I'm just sayin.

KELCY
I've got the answer. A Jazz Fest themed prom on May 2nd and everyone shows up sunburnt, drunk, and half-clothed in straw hats and aviators still singing Bon Jovi songs...

NICK
i vote for the date in may, the 1st or the 2nd, whichever it is.

i will sing bon jovi in my skivvies for anyone that is upset they will miss a few middle aged jersey dudes singing all of their new, shitty ass songs about how it feels like summertime and how great making memories can be.

_____________________________________________

In other news, a real post will come...eventually. Probably after Mardi Gras. But only because there is so much awesomeness going on right now! Especially with the community house...God keeps confirming to me in about a hundred different ways that this is something He wants to happen and that He's already setting up the building blocks to do. Which makes following His lead pretty flippin' enjoyable.

Until next time, happy Mardi Gras to all and lessez le bon temps rouler!

Nikki

this is why I love my family.

2009-02-11T14:30:00.000-08:00

The tail end of an e-mail I sent to my dad earlier today:

Love you Dad...and thanks for being pretty much the best dad in the world, by the way. I don't tell you that enough.

Colie

And his response:

Are you drinking?

Thanks sweetie...I love you too.

jumping the shark...

2009-02-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

Has LOST done it? Is it inevitable that they will? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Committed though I am, I find myself almost dreading Wednesday nights rather than looking forward to them--trying to muster up the energy to go through the motions of believing that I'm ever going to understand a single thing that goes on, longing wistfully for the good old days when there was only one set of Others and you had total faith that there would be a perfectly reasonable explanation for the smoke monster, taking guilt-filled glances at other soul-devouring shows like Heroes and 24. It's like a bad marriage.

While pondering this sad state of affairs yesterday, I was reminded of just how much I enjoy the phrase "jump the shark." I wonder how many people nowadays know or remember where it originated. I, of course, was an avid Nick-at-Nite watcher in its hey-dey, before all this Family Matters and Home Improvement nonsense. I can vividly remember watching the iconic Happy Days episode where, in a last-ditch effort to save the show's floundering ratings, they decided to launch a 3-part on-location episode in which Arthur Fonzerelli, the biker thug with a heart of gold, attempts to jump over a shark on water skis.

I must couldn't have been more than 10 years old when I saw this episode, but even then I believe my immediate reaction was, "WTF, mate?"

Oh man. Poor Fonzie. Note that he's still wearing his signature leather jacket, although personally, my favorite part is the cut-off jean shorts. Did you know that Henry Winkler was a classically trained Shakespearean actor before landing his role on Happy Days? He was also my second celebrity crush (after the Green Ranger), although that status was drastically affected by the cut-offs.

As long as they don't stick Sayid into a pair of frayed Levi's, I think we'll be okay. =)

Amanda's writing exercise

2009-02-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

A lot of MFA students hate writing exercises, but I seriously love these things. They jump-start my imagination, which can grow stagnant sometimes. Here's the little diddy I came up with for next week's class--the assignment was to write two pages in the voice of a character that we drew from a hat. Mine was a Mexican roofer. Enjoy.

___________________________

Fidelia doesn’t understand. Comprender. Fidelia doesn’t comprehend. She doesn’t understand that it was enough for Tomas to practice his trade in his own country, among his own people. The tin walls and dirt floors were enough. The colonia. He did not want to come to this place. It used to be enough for Fidelia too, or so he had thought, but all that changed with Tohil. As soon as she found out she was pregnant, she began begging him to move the family to the States. It was as if the child triggered some sort of alarm in here, powerful and frantic. She fretted so much that Tomas began to worry that she would lose the baby. He gave in. They came to live with some of Fidelia’s cousins, and her uncle gave Tomas a job. They were currently remodeling the pool house of a white man who owned seventeen television sets. Tomas had counted them.

In the noonday heat, Tomas positionsthe last shingle on the east side of the pool house roof. He adjusts the t-shirt that he had tied around his head to protect his skin and uses the corner to wipe the sweat from around his mouth. Tomas sits on the edge of the roof and takes large gulps from his canteen of water. He looks across the yard to the main house. Through the large, paneled windows, the white man’s daughter is watching one of the seventeen televisions.

Tomas is uneasy. Inquieto. Something happened last night that sits dull and heavy in his stomach. He had been lying with Fidelia on the tiny cot they shared in the storage room of his uncle-in-law’s house. They had made love. Tomas had told Fidelia, “Te amo,” but in his head he said something different. In his head, he said, “I love you.” After months of struggling to learn this new language—trying to communicate with the store clerk, trying to communicate with the doctors, trying to communicate with his uncle’s clients—after so much slow, deliberate English spoken to him like he was a child, that he hated himself for requiring, there was this. I love you. The foreign words had rushed in unexpectedly. They had invaded. Tomas was horrified. He repeated the Spanish words to Fidelia, over and over: “Te amo, te amo, te amo…” And in his head, he repeated: te amo, te amo, te amo. He tried to remember the phrase in Achi, but he couldn’t wrestle the words from his childhood memory. Tomas had cried, and Fidelia did not understand.

Tomas closes his empty canteen and stands to his feet, taking care to keep his balance on the slanted roof. Once down the ladder, he looks again at the white man’s daughter sitting in front of the television. He knows he could walk into the kitchen and ask her to refill his canteen from the cold water jug in the refrigerator. He goes over the phrase in his head—he will say, “Excuse me, may I have some water?” The girl will smile obligingly at him, always smiling, and say something fast and clipped that he will have to ask her to repeat. He will thank her—“thank you”—and then he will get his water and she will go back to watching her television. He is sure that is how it will go.

Tomas shakes his head. He says a word that is the same in both languages—“no”—and walks to the side of the house where the garden hose is kept.

redemption for cockroaches

2009-01-31T21:41:00.000-08:00

Terry: I feel like a cockroach. That is, if cockroaches are capable of making mistakes that blow apart the world they live in.

Kate: Well if you're a cockroach...then what does that make me?

Terry: Dangerous.

- Bandits

Grace is such a mind-blowing concept. I love that quote from Bandits (well, okay, you got me - I really love everything about that movie, including staring at Bruce Willis for two hours...) because I know that feeling so well. The screw-up. The massive one. The one where you wonder if you've finally crossed the moral point of no return and become, in effect, unforgivable. Unlovable. We imagine God ticking off that final tally mark on our score sheet of wrongdoings, or perhaps just simply, calmly turning His back to this train wreck we have single-handedly orchestrated--abandoning us for good. We know how grace is supposed to work and what it's supposed to mean, but in our hearts we still believe that there is a measuring stick, a sin gradient that it is possible to rise so high on that grace no longer applies.

It's only natural, really. That is how humanity operates. We each have a personal threshold for offense and, eventually, a breaking point. Maybe you could forgive your boyfriend/girlfriend if they lied to you, but not if they cheated. Or maybe you could forgive your mother if she verbally abused you, but not if she physically hurt you. Inside our hearts, we draw a line in the sand and say, "This far and no farther. This is where my grace runs out."

In my nonfiction class, we read a book called The Adversary, in which a man named Jean-Claude Romand lied to his entire family for 18 years and then, when they were about to discover his secrets, killed them all--wife, children, parents. He tried to kill himself too, but survived and was sentenced to life in prison. The book ends with Romand telling the author that he had become a Christian, that he had given his life to Jesus and was forgiven of his sins. What are we to think about such a man?

It's one thing to read about people like David and Paul in the Bible and "forgive" them. Yes, they killed men and persecuted the church, but God redeemed them. We are happy for David and Paul and believe that their conversion was sincere. If we are totally honest, though, I think there's a little voice inside us that adds, "And besides, it wasn't my husband he killed. It wasn't my child." We are able to forgive them because their stories seem too long ago and too far removed to hit home in any sort of uncomfortable way. But Romand? Jeffrey Dahmer? We know the details of what these men have done. We've seen pictures of their victims. We know it is all too real.

I'll be honest: when I was confronted with Romand's story, my grace for this man ran out. I thought about an eye for an eye. I thought about what must take place in a person to allow them to point a rifle at their five year old son and pull the trigger. I thought, "No. That's too far. There can't be anything but oblivion after that."

And yet, God says that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
God says that there is forgiveness for even the worst of sinners.
God says that there is no sin gradient.

What it really comes down to is that we want to be forgiven, but we still can't quite let go of the notion that somehow, some way, we can earn our way to heaven. We still want to know that we are better than someone. That no matter how badly we screw up, at least we aren't that guy. That way, we can keep drawing our sense of worth from ourselves instead of facing the humbling fact that if God's grace is truly sufficient, then we are completely dependent on it. We deserve nothing. We are given everything.

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." - 1 Timothy 1:15-17

cutest. picture. ever.

2009-01-29T21:25:00.001-08:00

See? I wasn't joking.

ain't no mountain high enough

2009-01-29T08:32:00.000-08:00

The book of Hosea has held a lot of fascination for me ever since I first delved into it while reading Captivating by John and Staci Eldridge. It's a prophetic and allegorical story in which God tells his prophet Hosea to do something seemingly unthinkable--to redeem his wife Gomer who has left him and abandoned their children to become a prostitute. This is hefty enough--the sheer act of taking back such a wife into his home instead of allowing the law of the land to punish her (almost certainly by death) would have been considered ludicrous in Hosea's society. But, as usual, Jehovah is not satisfied with just the outward action. He commands Hosea to do something even more radical: he must love his wife.

"And the Lord said to me: 'Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.'" - Hosea 3:1 (the raisin cakes were sacrificial food used in idol worship)

Just as he tells Israel that he desires mercy over sacrifice (Hosea 6:6), and just as Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for tithing their income but neglecting the principles of justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matthew23:23), God is making this a matter of the heart--something you can't fake.

God then makes a promise directly to his own Gomer, the people of Israel:

"And in that day, delcares the Lord, you will call me My Husband and no longer will you call me My Baal. For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground.

And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord."

- Hosea 2: 16-20

They don't call it the oldest profession for nothing. I believe that there is little more inherent to the human condition than prostitution--the giving away of something of great value and infinite goodness in exchange for a lie, a deception, and a million fleeting consolation prizes that wither and decay. Isn't that exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden?

The amazing thing to me about these verses is that even after all this, God is still concerned with our hearts. He promises not only to redeem us, not only to love us, but also to give us peace--to make us lie down in safety. No more struggling to survive in a war-ravaged land. No more fearing for our lives from evil that lies in wait on every side. And then, at the end, comes the best promise of all: "And you shall know the Lord." Relationship. Intimacy. Unconditional faithfulness. Isn't that what we were looking for all along?

Alternatively, you can also look at this verse as a sort of litmus test for whether or not you really know the Lord. Does the God that you imagine give you peace? Does He love you, and are you secure in the knowledge that that love is eternal? Do you feel betrothed in righteousness and justice, love, mercy, and faithfulness? If not, something is wrong . It may be unrepented sin, it may be lies that you've been told, or it may be a limited understanding of God, but either way it's going to wedge itself between you and the true heart of God.

_____________________________________

In other news,

Chi Alpha tonight! Yay for community and pizza.

Lost is ridiculous. Simply ridiculous. But I really like Daniel Faraday.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is my current soundtrack. I never get sick of that CD.

Off to get lunch. Peace out ya'll!

Nikki and writing have changed their status from "in a relationship" to "it's complicated."

2009-01-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

All writers go through it, I'm told. The seemingly endless cycle of worry, self-doubt, and obsession, with only the occasional bumps of accomplishment and satisfaction in the road. We are a self-destructive, self-deprecating lot that is tragically (at least in our own minds) never happy with the craft that is supposed to be sustaining our very breath (or so we imagine).

The cycle goes something like this:

Optimism: "I'm going to pen the great American novel."

Frustration: "Penning the great American novel is much harder than I thought."

Self-doubt: "I can't imagine things were ever this hard for Steinbeck! I must just suck at writing."

Self-sabotage: "The blank page has become a terror to me. I'm going to make my 10th turkey sandwich for the night in order to avoid writing."

Panic: "That's it! I'm finished! I have no ideas, nothing to say, and not even a hint of verbal skill with which to say it! THEY'RE ALL GONNA LAUGH AT ME!"

Determination: "I'm either going to get 500 words down, or I'm going to sit here until my muscles atrophy and my skin eventually melds into this poorly designed office chair."

Breakthrough: "Hey....I think I may actually have something."

Brief, Fleeting Euphoria: "I love writing!!!! Writing, writing, writing! I shall never doubt my destiny again! Oh, the joy of the written word!"

Optimism: "Maybe I can pen the great American novel after all..."

Rinse and repeat.

I think right now, I'm at the "optimism" point in the cycle, holding on for dear life and trying to enjoy it while it lasts.

Amusingly enough, my friend Ryan gave me a writing challenge this afternoon that may have prompted me to write my first science fiction story. At least that's how it's working out in my head so far. You can check out his blog at http://brontobrothel.wordpress.com/ . The challenge is to come up with a story or a fake essay to explain the meaning of his blog title: A brontosaurus in a brothel.

Interesting. Interesting indeed. Who knows, maybe it'll end up being the great American novel...

move them feet, to easy street

2009-01-25T11:56:00.000-08:00

Things that make me happy on a winter Sunday morning include:

a clean living room
free coffee
frosted mini wheats, even though the milk's gone bad and I have to eat them dry
cold dog nose on my knee
a good book

So, something has died somewhere in our house. Again. I was listening to show tunes on Youtube this morning when Jac called out from the bathroom: "Put that on pause and come smell this," which is pretty much never a good sign. So I go to the hallway and stand over the heating grate like she instructs me to, and sure enough there is the unmistakable scent of small mammal death in my nostrils.

"Awesome," I say, and we shake our fists and rue my uncle, the man we are convinced summoned the restless spirit of my dead grandmother to torment the new tenants in her house. It's kind of a long story, but it involves mysterious speed bumps appearing in wood floors and plagues on par with the ones Moses warned about. At this point, we're both happy that at least the animal is deceased and not helping himself to the dry goods in our pantry.

Lucy seems oblivious to any carnal instinct this smell should ignite in her and is far more interested in catching any stray crumbs of cereal that I might bestow upon the floor. I love that stupid dog.

That's really all I've got for now. Just felt like writing a bit of something. I'm off to enjoy the rest of my Sabbath, before the big bad productivity machine switches back on again for the week.

Peace out.

(In case you were wondering just exactly what show tunes I was listening to on Youtube, I'll leave you with the comment that Burnadette Peters, Tim Curry, and Carol Burnett are some of the best casting choices ever for Annie...)

NOLA community house, coming to a hood near you in fall 2009

2009-01-23T16:15:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, I've been praying for years for God to show me how He wants me to serve the homeless community of New Orleans, a heart-burden that I've had for a long time. In the past month or so, I feel like God's given me confirmation to move forward in my vision of either pioneering a homeless ministry in the French Quarter/Bywater/Treme area, or joining up with an already existing organization.

I know that whatever direction the ministry takes, moving to the neighborhood where I'll be serving is imperative. God has given me a desire for community that just isn't being met in the suburbs, and I want to be in a place where the homeless and poor are literally the neighbors that I am called to love as myself--not a job that I commute to.

So I'm putting out the heads-up on this thing: I won't be ready to move until at least August of this year, but when I do it's my sincere desire to create a Christian community house in the Quarter. Nothing groundbreaking, nothing fancy. Nothing that hasn't been done for centuries. Just a body of believers who live like the church in Acts. A place that operates on Love and Grace.

If that sounds like something you're interested in, I urge you--please pray about it! You've got plenty of time; that's why I'm announcing this so early. Get in contact with me and tell me what God's laying on your heart, so that I can be praying too. And pass the word along to anyone you know who might be interested.

Gracias,
Nikki

(pencil_dharma@yahoo.com if you want to e-mail me)

thoughts while sneezing my face off

2009-01-16T20:45:00.000-08:00

sun catcher on my front porch

Just as a little geiger counter for how annoyingly bad this cold is...

While driving to Karrie's house tonight, I sneezed so hard that I spit-fired my cough drop right out of my mouth. Don't ask me where it ended up, because I have no idea. I just know that I had a cough drop at the beginning of the sneeze and did not have one at the end of it. I'm sure that will make for a nice surprise next time I'm vacuuming out the car seats.

This was the first time I had visited Karrie at the place where she now lives with her boyfriend Scott, a bite-sized shotgun double of Orleans Ave. that they share with a fiesty black cat and a greyhound mixbreed dog named Wraith. I had come to deliver a space heater and a blanket to the woefully underheated house, and even though, as Karrie pointed out to me, the rooms are "freakin' cold," I was nevertheless struck by how homey the place felt. Lived in. Loved in. I found myself thinking that I would give up all the vaulted ceilings and plush carpeting and marble countertops in the world if I could be guaranteed a house that would forever feel like that tiny little shotgun.

I've noticed that change in my personality at my own house, too. Jac can tell you--I've become significantly less anal retentive about things being spotless and the table being perpetually clear and having every stray object in its designated place. We've settled into a kind of sloppy chic around the house, Jaclyn and I, and I have to say I don't really miss the spotless days. (Somewhere in Metairie right now, Jac is on her knees thanking Jesus for my transformation) I used to want a "nice" place with plates that all match and big, luxurious area rugs and aesthetically pleasing furniture arrangements. Now I just want a place to write and create in, with windows that let in light and lots of wall space to hang up my friends' art. And who cares if there's dust on the bookshelves? If an asteroid hurtles into planet earth tomorrow afternoon, I certainly don't want to die dusting bookshelves.

Actually, that's really terrible logic, and I'm not trying to tout some kind of extremist carpe diem philosophy that's just a thinly veiled excuse to make selfish decisions and not put any time or effort into anything. But as a person who can easily get consumed by the details--by the mundane to-do lists and the relentless hamster wheels--it's nice to shift over to the big picture once in a while. It's been oddly comforting to me lately (whereas in the past this type of thinking used to terrify me) to remember that our lives are brief and fleeting, like the grass of the field that soon withers (Isaiah 40:6-7). I don't know if I can even completely convey why, except to say that it reminds me to be grateful, and to relish each new experience, and not to fall into the trap of hanging all my hopes on some indefinable point in the future--in essence, not to wait for my house to more closely resemble something in Martha Stewart Living before I call it a home.

Through Christ, we have hope now. Our hope and our joy is already within us because of the Holy Spirit, if we will only learn to tap into it.

I guess I should also mention that I watched Into The Wild tonight. SUCH an amazing movie, and the catalyst for a typical Jac-o-Nik conversation:

NIK: "Oh my gosh, Jac, that movie was great!"
JAC: "Doesn't he die in the end?"
NIK: "Yeah, he does."
JAC: "Doesn't he die in the wilderness?"
NIK: "Yeah, he does."
JAC: "And you still want to run off into the woods this summer?"
NIK: "Yeah, I do."

I need to re-read some Jack London before then. =)

fear and freedom

2009-01-12T21:44:00.000-08:00

"Aint it funny how the night moves,

When you just don't seem to have as much to lose,

Strange how the night moves,

With autumn closing in..."

- Night Moves, Bob Seger

When is the last time that you felt free? I'm talking truly liberated, way down in your heart and in your soul? Our society is, by most accounts, the most free it's ever been. Now, before I get bum-rushed, yes--there are still freedoms that are restricted. There is Prop 8 and there is the Patriot Act and there are still unofficial social mores that govern what we are and are not "supposed" to do. But by and large, we have reached a point of unprecedented individual freedom in our culture. With relatively few exceptions, the doctrine of postmodernism and relative truth has allowed us to do what we want, when we want, in whatever way we want without having to fear being burned at the stake, shunned by the village, or outright killed. And in most urban areas, we won't get so much as a second glance.

All restrictions and morality are out the window, except for those that we create for ourselves. We are utterly master-less; we answer to no one and have no agenda. We are without limits of any kind. But if that's the case, why don't we feel the freedom that we supposedly have?

As a good little Christian girl who grew up in a good little Christian home and went to good little Christian schools my whole life, I can tell you firsthand of the absolute rush that accompanies breaking the rules. It is exhilarating to throw a wrench into the machine--to just plain disobey. And at first, it certainly does feel liberating. Like speeding down the highway with the windows rolled down and your head sticking out sort of feeling.

...But eventually, I've found, that car runs out of gas. Or maybe it's more that you think you're driving, only to found out that the damn thing was on autopilot the whole time. Whatever metaphor you slap on it, the feeling that I was left with was...lacking. Restricting. Definitely not free. And the reason is this: simply throwing out the rulebook does not, and will never, free our spirits. It frees our limbs to act and our mouths to speak, but it can never break the chains on our captive hearts--the burning core of us that knows that there is something more, that we were made for something more than the reckless pursuit of our ever-changing whims.

All too often I find that the move from a "less free" environment to a "more free" one (say, the jump from living with your overprotective parents in high school to living on your own at a dorm at college) just ends up being a new set of rules, with a new authority. Instead of not being allowed to say curse words because your parents think it's wrong, now you're not allowed to be a Republican because your friends think it's evil, or you're not allowed to stay a virgin because your boyfriend/girlfriend thinks it's pointless. We may think we're living the good life, flying high above the restrictive world of our upbringing, but in reality we're just in a different cage. A much cooler one, to be sure--with trendy wallpaper and hip ambient lighting--but a cage nonetheless.

We are still looking to someone else to tell us who we are, and what we should and should not do. And that person that we're looking to is looking to someone else, and they're looking to someone else, and so on and so forth.

So where does real freedom come from? (Come on, you knew this was coming...)

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life SET ME FREE from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. - Romans 8:1-3

The "law of sin and death" that Christ freed us from goes A LOT deeper than just the lies we tell and the atrocities we commit. It encompasses the entirety of the Fall of Man, the whole spectrum of consequences that resulted from our separation from God. And one of the biggest consequences was our collective identity crisis. The social laws that exist in every walk of life, in every society, that say we must do a certain thing and act a certain way and toe a certain line in order to be loved. In order to matter.

For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. - Romans 8:13-17

God offers us something incredible here--the only thing I have ever found to be truly, wholly liberating. The identity of a child of God. And not a superficial identity like we find in the world, not the sort of thing that you can write on a nametag or post on a Facebook profile, and that you can't find three people to agree on the meaning of. The identity that Paul is talking about here is dynamic. It is the continual, ongoing affirmation of love and acceptance taking place between God's heart and ours--"the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."

Once you have that, whoa buddy, watch out. Swing wide the gates and prepare to watch your chains disintegrate.

I like that Bob Seger song because it speaks of longing for freedom, of trying desperately to find it, and of time running out. As I get older and the remnants of my teenage immortality fade away, I have become much more conscious of the parameters of our time here on this earth. They are not so wide and so deep as you may think. The time we spend in our chains becomes more and more tragic with each passing day. So I'll pass along a question that was posed to the students at the World Missions Summit:

What would you do if you had no fear?

What would you do if your identity was secure, if your heart was so much in communion with God's that you could truly, utterly care less what anyone else in the world thought?

What would you do?

"For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

twilight....no, not that one.

2009-01-07T22:50:00.001-08:00

"Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapors Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from Sinai."- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline

“Nobody of any real culture, for instance, ever talks nowadays about the beauty of sunset. Sunsets are quite old fashioned. To admire them is a distinct sign of provincialism of temperament. Upon the other hand they go on.” - Oscar Wilde

“Science will never be able to reduce the value of a sunset to arithmetic. Nor can it reduce friendship or statesmanship to a formula.” - Dr. Louis Orr

my mandatory WMS post

2009-01-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

This is probably my favorite moment in the movie Castaway. Chuck Nolan has spent the last four years surviving alone on an island after his plane crashes in the ocean. One of the most agonizing scenes occurs early into the movie as the desperate, inexperienced man tries to start a fire. After hours of failed attempts and frustration, Chuck finally succeeds at igniting the wood, leading to one of the few triumphant moments on the island as he dances joyfully around it, caveman style.

This photo is from after Chuck is rescued and has returned home to Tennessee. His friends and co-workers have thrown him a huge party at his house and have now left him alone for the first time. Chuck walks over to the buffet table literally spilling over with food and picks up one of the giant crab claws. Then he picks up the lighter and flicks the switch. He stares at the flame.

At their worst, Christian conferences such as the World Missions Summit can encourage people to substitute emotional highs for the still, quiet voice of the Lord and come home with unrealistic expectations for what their life will be like after the sound system is packed up and the worship band has left the building. At their best, though, I believe they offer us a chance to experience something very rare--a true change of perspective. A chance to live, even if only for a few days, without the constant bombardment of the world and all its expectations, deceptions, temptations, trivialities, and distractions. A chance to make even a momentary path for God to reach us, like when you have to kick all the dirty clothes on your floor out of the way just to make it to the bed. When we retreat, especially in the fellowship of other believers, we are able to toss our own paradigms and agendas aside in order to get a glimpse of the Kingdom. And when we get back, we start looking at a lot of things differently.

That was my experience in Cincinnati this past week. Turning my survival callousness off in order to soak in stories of immense suffering and pain, hearing the testimonies of so many missionaries who have sacrificed all for the glory of God and the love of people, worshipping next to so many other young people who are at that point of decision, who are listening for instructions...it was amazing. Out of 3,700 students, at least 800 (it may have been more, that's just the last number I remember hearing) made commitments to 'give a year and pray about a lifetime' in missions. And guess who was in that mix? =)

At this point, I feel like God has confirmed to me that I am supposed to be involved in ministry to homeless youth in New Orleans. It's something I've been praying about for years now, and a desire that only got stronger after the time I spent at Sox Place this summer. At first, I thought the obvious choice would be to open a drop-in center similar to Sox Place in the French Quarter, but since then I've done some more research and found that a drop-in center (underwritten by Tulane, partnered with Covenant House - http://www.tulane.edu/~dropin/) already exists on Rampart St. So now I am praying about whether God wants me to work with this center, or to minister in some other way. Either way, I know that moving to the Quarter will be part of the deal, as I don't want this to be a ministry that I commute to--I want to live close enough to be involved in the community and to establish relationships. I'm taking my time with it all, though, as I still have at least until the summer when my commitments to Chi Alpha and my internship with the Tennessee Williams Festival are up. But that's the direction I'm going and that's the desire of my heart. The river's been parted and I'm taking my first step onto dry ground.

Here are a few of the extremely memorable pictures from the trip. I've emphasized the seriousness of the conference, but make no mistake that we had a blast. My cheeks literally hurt from laughing so much over a period of four days, and I don't think I've ever used the word "whoremonger" so much in my life.

Until next time, blogosphere...

me about to break it down in the post-midnight New Year's Eve dance circle

(left to right) Kelsey, Ashley, and Jen demonstrating the "gimpy" scout's honor

Chi Alpha New Orleans representin' at the exhibit hall

New Orleans girls about to tackle the ice skating rink

me likey coffee

back from the mountaintop

2009-01-03T01:37:00.000-08:00

Just got home from the World Missions Summit with my amazing Chi Alpha community. Dropping in to say that I'll be catching up on blog/internet stuff this weekend and will hopefully post about my experience at the summit and the vision God confirmed in me there.

Exciting stuff, friends. Truly.

But for now, goodnight!

emmanuel.

2008-12-25T10:36:00.000-08:00

Every warrior's boot used in battle
and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.

Isaiah 9:5-7

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!

________________________________

On a related note:

Got leftover Christmas cards this year? Check out this article and make some holiday mischief.

oh how quickly we forget

2008-12-24T22:04:00.000-08:00

He was in the world,
and thought the world was made through him,
the world did not recognize him.
He came to that which was his own,
but his own did not receive him.
Yet to all who received him,
to those who believed in him name,
he gave the right to be called Children of God--
children born not of natural descent,
nor of human decision or a husband's will,
but born of God.

John 1:10-13

We read this passage at Olive Branch tonight during the Christmas Eve service, and although John 1 has always held a sort of mystic fascination for me--all that Word was God and the Word was with God craziness--this time I was struck by something very specific in the text:

The world did not recognize Him.

I've been reading Donald Miller's Searching For God Knows What lately, and he spends the majority of his time in that book trying to get the reader to grasp this concept of a relational God. Not relative (as in postmodern relative truth), but relational in the sense that the Christian God is a Person (and became, literally, a person) who has created us not to be some kind of entertaining ant farm or an army of minions, but merely to enjoy communion with Himself. A relationship, if you will, although even that simple word has been dragged through the mud of Evangelical Christianese. He tries to explain that all the "stuff" that normally comes to mind when we think of God--church, morals, spiritual disciplines, etc.--is completely trumped by and totally meaningless without a dynamic, loving relationship with our Bridegroom and Beloved, Jesus.

A lot of the time I have trouble getting past that notion of a stoic, detached God who's just sort of lazily watching history unfold the way a magician watches as he shuffles a deck of cards. But this time I think I understood for a moment the pain contained in these verses: "though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him." And as much as I hate to admit it, it reminded me of The Notebook.

The most touching part of this otherwise throwaway movie occurs when Allie, an elderly woman with Alzheimers, briefly has her memory return to her and is able to remember her devoted husband, who has written down their love story and reads it over and over to her on a regular basis. The couple embraces, but all too quickly they are pulled back to reality. Allie asks Noah how long it will be until she forgets him again, and he answers that if varies every time. The best they can do is make the most of the time that they have, and when Allie does forget, Noah goes right back to reading her the story and pursuing her with the memory of his love.

I can't help but think that God must have felt very much like Noah. Here He has created us in His likeness and given us this beautiful planet to enjoy together, and we turn our backs on Him. Then, when He has given us the ultimate demonstration of His love, when He has contained His infinite glory in human flesh in order to repair the bridge between our hearts and His, we don't even recognize Him. The love, the intimacy, the joy that we felt with Him in the Garden of Eden has slowly faded from our collective memory. We are Allie with Alzheimers, a wife unable to remember her husband. And our husband, knowing full well the seriousness of the disease, must decide whether he will remain devoted to a woman who may or may not ever return his love again, or whether he will slip out the back door and leave her alone in the nursing home in the fog of her mind.

But of course, where true love is concerned, it's no choice at all.

As for me, I am all too aware of my own spiritual Alzheimers. Those fleeting moments of recognition, of beholding the face of God and truly knowing Him, are precious and rare. Inevitably, I ask the bittersweet question: "How long until I forget again?"

Merry Christmas, everyone. I pray we all have a memory flash.

my side of the wilderness.

2008-12-17T16:40:00.000-08:00

It all started with NIMBY. I was stumbled across this website the other day when I was researching, of all things, steampunk art. NIMBY is a "DIY industrial art space" in Oakland, CA that caters especially to large-scale artistic and engineering projects. But the thing that caught my eye wasn't the giant robotic spider or the 30-foot-tall illuminated clown face; it was the organization's slogan: "Refuse to live vicariously."

And that's what did it.

We all have bugs in our system. Dreams--some feasible, some nearly impossible--that we hide in the soft, fleshy folds of our hearts and rarely let see the light of day. Some want to climb Mt. Everest. Some want to open their own restaurant. Some want to hurtle themselves at the ground from the top of a cliff with only a rubber cord standing between them and eternity.

Me? I just want to get lost.

Call it what you will--a transcendentalist fantasy, a danger complex, a death wish. I have always had an obsession with stories of survival. Two of my favorite books as a kid were My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George and Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, both stories about kids who find themselves alone in the woods and must learn to survive. When I got a little older, probably in conjunction with my OCD fear of global nuclear war, I became interested in the post-apocalyptic and zombie genres (both of which center around an individual or group surviving after the collapse of modern civilization). I devoured books and movies such as Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, The Postman, the "Of The Dead" series, 28 Days Later, and Waterworld.

Finally, all that merged with: an inherent distaste for the alienation and detachment that results from much of the technology we use, a stubbornly independent spirit, and a deep, abiding love for manual labor and its fruits. (My favorite part of the Chi Alpha mission trip to Mexico was hand-mixing cement and digging ditches.)

Put it all together and you have a very deep yearning in my soul to pitch a tent in the woods and start working on a fishing pole. I don't want to live vicariously anymore.

I remember having a conversation once with a friend where we were talking about what we would do in a post-apocalyptic scenario. It went something like this:

ME: "But...don't you think it might be kind of, I don't know, cool in a way if all our modern luxuries were stripped away and we had to start over living in cabin and growing our own food and stuff?"

FRIEND: "Umm...no, not really."

So maybe I'm a little bit alone on this, but my reasons are simple enough. I want to learn about and be connected to the natural world. I want to see the exact source of the food that I eat and prepare it with my own hands. I want to live, even for just a little while, without the distraction of a single electronic device. And when the zombie pandemic strikes and America is riddled with atomic bombs, I want to be able to escape to the middle of a Canadian forest and know that I can survive.

So that's the plan, essentially. I'm going to spend a lot of time this spring preparing: taking a first-aid course, training Lucy, researching all aspects of wilderness survival, and learning from my friend Liz who did this exact thing the summer after she graduated high school. And then in June I'm going to take my dog and load up my car and drive somewhere--maybe Tennessee, maybe Colorado--find a national park, and set up camp for about a month. I'm not sure yet exactly how much I'm going to bring in the way of supplies, but I do know that I want to only eat off the land. So that means fishing, hunting, gathering, and probably some weight loss while I learn through trial and error. I'm also going to bring a spiral notebook and my Bible (along with some plant identification books and the Army Field Survival Manual) and keep a daily log of the journey, which I will hopefully turn into a long work of nonfiction over the rest of the summer.

(don't worry, I won't be nakey...at least not most of the time.)

So, am I crazy? Maybe.
Is this a really extreme way to go about fulfilling a pipe dream? Probably.
Is it completely and absolutely necessary for me to do this? You betcha.

The funny side note to all this is that a few months back, my brother Danny had a prophetic dream about me that involved me looking out at the world and Jesus telling me "This will all look different in June." I had totally forgotten about the dream and had already scheduled this trip in my mind for June when he reminded me of it on the phone tonight.

So don't worry. God's got my back on this one. Just pray that my parents don't have instant coronaries when I tell them.

dinner roulette

2008-12-15T09:27:00.000-08:00

Nicole

haha sure

hey you know what i was thinking about this morning?

11:22amJaclyn

what were you thinking about this morning?

11:22amNicole

remember in high school, we used to go to all those sketchy chinese buffet places like the one in elmwood and the one out in chateau?

we never do that anymore

we should do that one day

11:23amJaclyn

when i get off work tonight?

11:23amNicole

it's kind of like dinner roulette

haha...you're on

we could try the "ho ho buffet" on labarre!

11:23amJaclyn

yay!!!!!

_______________

I love my roommate. =)

isaiah 61

2008-12-14T22:26:00.000-08:00

1 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,

2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,

3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.

I'm a little late in the game on this, but I have been wanting to do a blog series on some of the prophecies about Jesus in honor of Advent and Christmas. So far, this is the one that has struck me the most - Isaiah 61. When I first read it, a single word jumped out at me and stuck in my brain: brokenhearted. For an entire day afterwards, I couldn't get that word out of my head. Brokenhearted. What's the deal?

It occurred to me that it isn't a word that often appears in the Bible; I mean, it certainly isn't in the canon of Biblical words, like "love," "sin," "oxen," "ploughshares," and everyone's favorite, "verily." It's more like a word you'd hear in a country song or some of my 8th grade poetry.

bro.ken.heart.ed - burdened with great sorrow, grief, or disappointment

To be brokenhearted is to feel pain on an intense emotional level. It is, symbolically, the destruction of our most vital organ. The tearing of our flesh. A broken heart. I thought about it, and the little hamster wheel in my brain began to turn. The word stuck out to me because not only because I'm not used to associating it with the Bible, but because I'm not used to associating this concept of "great sorrow, grief, or disappointment" with the story of Jesus' birth and the promise of salvation.

The story of Jesus was taught to me as a child in a very formulaic way:

the wages of sin = death

the gift of God = eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23)

I sin, so I need Jesus in order to not go to hell. The end.

While there's nothing technically wrong with that theology, there's certainly something implicitly wrong with it. It reduces Jesus down to a mathematical formula. Salvation becomes merely the better of two options, and the Christian life becomes nothing more than fire insurance.

But Isaiah isn't talking about the pros and cons here. The word "sin" (which we've already established is a Bible canon word) doesn't even appear in passage at all. Instead, the Messiah that Isaiah talks about is one who comes to:

bind up the brokenhearted

proclaim freedom for the captives

release prisoners from darkness

comfort those who mourn

provide for those who grieve

We have sinned, yes, and we need a Savior. But we don't just need him to wipe our slate clean. The tally marks against you are the least of your problems when you're trapped in the carnage of your shredded, bleeding, broken heart. The Church has failed to understand this. We tell someone, "Go and sin no more," and we do nothing whatsoever about the aching hearts and unmet needs that caused them to sin in the first place. Isaiah says differently. He prophesies a Savior whose absolute first priority is to heal the hurting souls of His people and set them free from their chains.

In my opinion, Jesus fulfills this prophecy when he meets the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. Jesus doesn't condemn this woman (who, by the way, he legally shouldn't even be talking to in the first place) for committing adultery. He doesn't break out his hand-printed evangelism scroll and start showing her the salvation equation. Instead he offers her something rather cryptic: "living water."

"Everyone who drinks this water," he explains, "will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

For Jesus, it was never about the sin tally marks or the fire insurance. It was about the broken heart, the wound that only Isaiah's Messiah could bind up and make whole.

snow x2 - photos

2008-12-12T08:56:00.000-08:00

Been trying to get better at my novice photography skills (mostly portraits, mostly through trial and error). Here are a few of my favorites that I took yesterday:

this was at the very end of the shoot...I think she was tired of smiling, but I think it turned out cute.

on the porch in front of the house

snow on our sad little tree in the backyard!

looking @ the sleet...I mean snow.

here's looking (up) at you, kid.

snowage.

snow.

2008-12-11T21:50:00.001-08:00

"New Orleans is one of the two most ingrown, self-obsessed little cities in the United States. (The other is San Francisco)" - Nora Ephron

It's true. We are. I find that, far more than most places that exhibit some sort of civic or regional pride, New Orleans really and truly loves being New Orleans. We wrap our sweaty, bead-draped arms around ourselves and hang on for dear life. We memorialize every single bit of our culture, never content to let even the smallest things fall out of our collective memory. I had this conversation with someone a while ago about the local cult fascination with K&B, (for proof, click here) a New Orleans-based drug store chain that went out of business in the 90's.

ME: "Why do people always talk about K&B like it was this great, amazing thing?"
OTHER NEW ORLEANIAN: "What are you talking about? It's K&B!"
ME: "Yeah, but it was just a drug store. There was nothing inherently special about it, it was just a New Orleans business."
OTHER NEW ORLEANIAN: "Yeah, but...it's K&B!"

We don't discriminate. We do this sort of thing not only with the cool stuff, but with the annoying/stupid/horrible things too. It's kind of like groupthink complaining. And it used to be that one of our favorite things to complain about was the fact that it never snows in New Orleans.

Enter Katrina. Then, by a miracle that may have made even the staunchest Nawlins atheist tilt their head, we got snow on Christmas Day of 2005. Angels sang. Trumpets sounded. People went crazy and made tiny 6-inch snowmen on the tops of their cars, the only place the snow would stick for more than a second. It was, by all accounts, the most grateful snow to ever fall.

But it was over in less than an hour, and the next two winters saw a return to the 70-degree norm that New Orleans was used to cursing over their Christmas ham. But hey, what did we expect? It was a miracle, after all. Let's not get greedy here.

But then, lo and behold, on the third year following the Post-Katrina Flurry of the Century, we get this craziness. Snow again! This time for over three hours, generating piles of wet, slushy fluff capable of producing snowmen that were at least as tall as a first grader. And for a little while, just a couple of hours, New Orleans got lost in the snow. For once, the city that is the self-analytical equivalent of an emo kid sitting alone in the back of the school bus forgot about itself. It indulged in a little escapism, a little costuming. It could have been the frozen Artic tundra outside for all we knew!

It's good to widen the scope every now and again. To rejoice in the unfamiliar and leave your problems to lie for a little bit underneath the snow bank. Merry Christmas indeed, New Orleans. You look good in white.

the [fun] is in the details.

2008-12-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I had a really interesting conversation with my new friend Katie while baking cookies. I asked her if she wouldn't mind greasing the pan with her hands, because I hated the greasy feeling of shortening. She said sure.

"Actually," she continued somewhat sheepishly, "it's weird, but I kind of like the feeling of food in my hands."

I pretty much love any sentence that begins with It's weird, but... so I was already enjoying this. Katie continued: "A while ago, I worked doing dishes for a soup kitchen. Everyone else would use a utensil or something to scoop out the excess food, but I always used my hands."

After hearing such an awesome, cool, self-assured woman admit to me her bizarre tactile fascination, I felt okay revealing one of my own: "You know what I like? Sticking my hands in a bag of dry rice, or coffee beans. There's something cool about that."

(By the way--yes, I am aware that this specific oddity is referenced in the French movie sensation Amelie, but I maintain that I felt this way long before seeing it.)

It was exhilarating for a minute there, just being able to connect with someone about such an innocent, weird little pleasure of life. And I couldn't stop thinking about it all that night. I kept mulling it over while I took Lucy on one of her near-midnight walks around the block.

It occurred to me that so often we get caught up in the "big" things of life that we really do neglect the thousand little wonders that God's creation has to offer. We've been oversexualized--we forget that an orgasm isn't the only pleasurable thing in the world. We've been overstimulated--we forget the joy of simplicity, of doing one thing at a time and giving it all your attention instead of multi-tasking 24/7. We've been overtasked--we forget that, in the midst of working towards these lofty goals that we have set for ourselves, the journey itself is beautiful and worthwhile.

It reminded me of a C.S. Lewis quote that I recently saw on Pam's blog, about the spirit of God dwelling in the mundane: "Our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the divine life operating under human conditions."

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel a tremendous freedom when I remember that not only does God CARE about the number of hairs on my head and the lifespans of sparrows, he REJOICES in these little things as well. I feel like I have permission to take a breath. To laugh. To lift my head up from the drawing board and enjoy the glory all around me.

And it's silly, of course, that it took that amount of analysis to come to such a conclusion, since God practically falls all over Himself trying to spell it out for us in Scripture, but hey...we all know I'm not always the brightest crayon in the box. =)

I hope that encourages you if you feel like you are struggling with the big, hefty, weighty things of life today. Go stick your hand in some coffee beans and you'll feel better, trust me.

Just be sure to pay for them first.

not in the Bible.

2008-12-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

hilarious.

Merry early Christmas, everyone!

recipe: White Trash Barbecue Surprise

2008-11-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

PREP TIME: 45 mins. TEMP: under 60 degrees Fahrenheit

INGREDIENTS:
1 fire pit (any kind will do)
1 starter fire log (if unavailable, substitute old telephone books, take-out menus, or other paper products)
2 chairs (preferably the folding kind)
1 bottle Arbor Mist (any flavor will do, just as long as it is labeled "fine wine product" and costs $3.99)
2 drinking containers - the less appropriate to hold $3.99 wine product, the better (coffee mugs are a good choice)
1 old broom handle, or "pokin' stick"
1 dog, dumb and loyal
2 female roommates (best after they've been simmering in a horrible day)

DIRECTIONS:

1. While the first roommate is finishing up the night shift, have second roommate pick up the necessary supplies from the grocery store. The best combination for this is cheap alcohol + fire log, and nothing else. Your goal is to obtain a sideways glance from the cashier, which will give second roommate the proper seasoning blend of amusement and self-pity.

2. When first roommate comes home, have her pay for her half of the supplies with that day's tip money. Prepare Arbor Mist by arguing over the relative deliciousness of the peach, strawberry, and "sangria" flavors. Open the bottle of wine product that doesn't require a corkscrew and pour into coffee mugs.

3. Set up two folding chairs in the backyard near the fire pit. Careful with this step, as you will likely have to avoid the poop piles from the dog that second roommate has neglected to dispose of. Place coffee mugs of Arbor Mist near chairs until needed.

4. Light starter log in fire pit, adding to the initial flames by burning the extra paper items. You will know this step is done when roommates one and two discuss, for the fiftieth time, how much fun it is to burn stuff.

5. Stoke the fire with the "pokin' stick," and let the dog outside to run around frantically in the cool night air and bark at imaginary squirrels. If possible, have her sneak a sip of the Arbor Mist while the coffee mugs are still sitting on the ground.

6. Sit back and enjoy. (The "surprise" is that it's more fun to be white trash than you thought.)

Karrie and Jaclyn in a slight variation of this recipe: White Trash Birthday Bundt Cake

sprung!

2008-11-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

Questionable Content

stumbling headlong after freedom

2008-11-24T21:57:00.000-08:00

"It seemed like we, as women, have been should-ing all over ourselves." - Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

"We were never intended to be the center of the universe--to be God. If you try to be God, or organize life around yourself as God, you run against the grain of the universe. The universe won't back your being God. So you are frustrated." - E. Stanley Jones, The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person

"Who told you that you were naked?" - Genesis 3:11

The issue of value has been extremely important to me in recent months. You could pretty much say it's the Nikki Gordy 2008 theme. I went through some major transitions in my life this year--graduating college, the break-up of a serious relationship, starting an MFA program and a campus ministry internship, hearing a call from God about ministry to homeless youth. It's no small thing to go from a Whole Foods workhorse in a steady relationship and in college to a single graduate student living off two internships and having less than an iota of certainty about what the future holds. It makes you think, for sure. It makes you stop and take a look around and ask yourself just where exactly your sense of identity is coming from, and the answer may surprise you.

For me, my sense of worth was coming from a lot of sources other than Jesus. I realized that I felt like I had greater value in life when I had a full-time job, a boyfriend, money in my savings account, and size 8 jeans. It's pretty terrible, but I had to admit it. I had to come to terms with the fact that I had this very specific set of principles that, to me, defined a successful life. I accumulated them through cultural influence, family values, and my own personal goals and desires. There were all these things that I felt I should be doing, and very specific time frames in which I should have them done.

This, of course, seeps from pragmatic things like money and jobs inward to the spiritual realm (not like it isn't all connected, but you know what I mean). I start criticizing my own relationship with God, telling myself where I should be spiritually, the incomparable prayer life I should have achieved by now, the sins I should have long since overcome. I become my own worst enemy as I start chip-chip-chipping away at the covering of grace, insisting that these religious gold stars should be the measuring stick of my value as a human being instead of the unconditional love of Jesus Christ.

I'm reading Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller right now, and in it he talks about the Genesis story in a pretty fresh way. He says that the crux of original sin was that humanity looked to something other than God to tell us who we are. We went against the grain of the universe, the entire fabric of Eden, by placing ourselves as the center of it and accepting Satan's twisted assessment of our identity: "You're inferior. You're worthless. Eat this, and you can gain worth. You can be wiser than God." When God confronts them afterward, He goes straight for the heart of the matter: "Who told you you were naked?" In other words, who told you there was something wrong with you?

I feel like I could spend a lifetime "improving" myself and still come up unfinished and unsatisfied. I don't want to fall into the trap of "shoulding" all over myself, of buying into the world's standards for what makes a successful career, a pretty girl, a good Christian. It's exhausting, and it's a wild goose chase that doesn't have a happy ending.

Instead of heaping hate and condemnation onto my own head, I'm going to accept God's invitation to a life of freedom--one where the sole rule, benchmark, and standard is this: Follow me.

New Orleans, I am your daughter.

2008-11-23T16:47:00.000-08:00

Sipping chicory coffee at Cafe du Monde: $2.00

Eating brunch at Commander's Palace: $75.00

Munching on a box of Aunt Sally's pralines: $12.00

Using French bread as the communion wafer at your church: priceless.

An actual entry to come soon, I promise. Just let me get through the last week of heavy classwork and the hundred-and-fifty Tennessee Williams plays that I have to collect, process, and redistribute to second-round readers. THEN I will blog. =)

In case I don't see ya, have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving, everyone!

Nik

meat you don't have to chew

2008-11-14T15:25:00.000-08:00

So my quote this time is actually not a Jac-o-Nik quote, but rather a Jen-o-Nik quote from the Friends of Tennessee cocktail party I went to with her for work:

Nik: Are you about ready to go?
Jen: Sure. Wait. Let me just get some more of this weird seafood mousse and then we can go.

I could never come between a girl and her seafood mousse.

And a related quote from later in the evening at the Gold Room student reading, when I told my friend Erin about the food selection at the party:

Erin: "Ugh, seafood mousse? Why do people do things like that to food? 'Oh, look, here's some delicious prime-cut beef. Let's make it into a foam!'"

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the seafood mousse or any other aspect of the party, because I felt that walking in with a big ole SLR camera and snapping away would be really awkward. As if I wasn't already out of place enough being under 50 and tattooed. It was kicks, to be sure, but my favorite part of the evening had to be IHOP burgers at 1 in the morning with Casey a.k.a. the Fox Bandit. Did you know IHOP has iced coffee now? Or at least, some sort of artificial ingredients chemical soup that is coffee flavored. Hey, it was 1 in the morning. I wasn't picky.

Off to face the rest of the weekend: editing my uncle's screenplay Crawfish Zombies (which is destined for cult B-movie glory), seeing Brian's workshop production of Merrily We Roll Along, and going on a dog park date with Jamie and her adorable boxer, Mingus. Till next time.

that's my teacher!!!

2008-11-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

A jubilant Joseph Boyden nabbed the $50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize on Tuesday night for his second novel "Through Black Spruce," saying he wants his win to inspire native youngsters to pursue their artistic dreams.

"I hope that it gives any aboriginal kid the idea that if he wants to write, or she wants to act or he wants to sing, or she wants to rap, you've got to do it," said the Toronto-raised Boyden, who makes his home in New Orleans.

"It's time to express yourselves."

"Through Black Spruce" is a portrait of contemporary aboriginal life and family struggles that ensue after a beautiful young woman goes missing.

Boyden, who has Irish, Scottish and Metis roots, burst onto the literary scene in 2005 with his debut novel, "Three Day Road," which told the story of Cree snipers who fought in the First World War.

The author - who teaches at the University of New Orleans - was emotional as he accepted the lucrative award, which he said would allow him to continue to push his literary goals.

______________

Holy crap, Joseph won the Giller Award! From what I can gather, that's like the Canadian version of the Pulitzer prize in literature. I am so flippin' excited for him. And even more excited now to be in his spring workshop. =)

Fight FOCA.

2008-11-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

Even if you are pro-choice, I think there are very few people who would agree that legislation making partial-birth abortions legal, releasing abortion providers from having to get informed consent from patients, and forcing pro-life taxpayers to fund a practice that they find morally objectionable is NOT a good idea.

Although I largely like President-elect Obama, I am extremely disappointed to hear that he favors FOCA and plans to help it get passed while in office. Please take a moment to read this information and/or research FOCA yourself. If you feel as I do, that this is a radical and dangerous piece of legislation, please consider signing the online petition at www.fightfoca.com. (this website is also where I got the information below)

To read my personal statement of why I am pro-life, click here.

Love and grace and peace,
Nikki

What Does FOCA Say?

FOCA provides that "[i]t is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman."

Further, FOCA would specifically invalidate any "statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision, policy, practice, or other action" of any federal, state, or local government or governmental official (or any person acting under government authority) that would "deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose" abortion, or that would "discriminate against the exercise of the right . . . in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information."

Clearly, its reach is very broad. This single piece of legislation would apply to any federal or state law "enacted, adopted, or implemented before, on, or after the date of [its] enactment."

What is the Legal Impact of FOCA?

FOCA creates a new and dangerously radical "right." It establishes the right to abortion as a "fundamental right," elevating it to the same status as the right to vote and the right to free speech (which, unlike the abortion license, are specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution). Critically, in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court did not define abortion as a "fundamental right."¹⁰ And with the exception of one justice's attempt in 1983 to distort the Court's abortion jurisprudence by framing the abortion license as a "fundamental right," the Court has not subsequently defined abortion as a "fundamental right." Thus, FOCA goes beyond any Supreme Court decision in enshrining unlimited abortion-on-demand into American law.

FOCA would also subject laws regulating or even touching ..ion to judicial review using a "strict scrutiny" framework of analysis. This is the highest standard American courts can apply and is typically reserved for laws impacting such fundamental rights as the right to free speech and the right to vote. Prior to the Supreme Court's 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (which substituted the "undue burden" standard for the more stringent "strict scrutiny" analysis), abortion-related laws (such parental involvement for minors and minimum health and safety standards for abortion clinics) were almost uniformly struck down under "strict scrutiny" analysis. If enacted, FOCA would retroactively be applied to all federal and state abortion-related laws and would result in their invalidation.

What is the Practical Impact of FOCA?

In elevating abortion to a fundamental right, FOCA poses an undeniable and irreparable danger to common-sense laws supported by a majority of Americans. Among the more than 550 federal and state laws that FOCA would nullify are:

Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003
Hyde Amendment (restricting taxpayer funding of abortions)
Restrictions ..ions performed at military hospitals
Restrictions on insurance coverage for abortion for federal employees
Informed consent laws
Waiting periods
Parental consent and notification laws
Health and safety regulations for abortion clinics
Requirements that licensed physicians perform abortions
"Delayed enforcement" laws (banning abortion when Roe v. Wade is overturned and/or the authority to restrict abortion is returned to the states)
Bans on partial-birth abortion
Bans ..ion after viability. FOCA's apparent attempt to limit post-viability abortions is illusory. Under FOCA, post-viability abortions are expressly permitted to protect the woman's "health." Within the context of abortion, "health" has been interpreted so broadly that FOCA would not actually proscribe any abortion before or after viability.
Limits on public funding for elective abortions (thus, making American taxpayers fund a procedure that many find morally objectionable)
Limits on the use of public facilities (such has public hospitals and medical schools at state universities) for abortions
State and federal legal protections for individual healthcare providers who decline to participate in abortions
Legal protections for Catholic and other religiously-affiliated hospitals who, while providing care to millions of poor and uninsured Americans, refuse to allow abortions within their facilities

Notably, pro-abortion groups do not deny FOCA's draconian impact. For example, Planned Parenthood has explained, "FOCA will supercede anti-choice laws that restrict the right to choose, including laws that prohibit the public funding of abortions for poor women or counseling and referrals for abortions. Additionally, FOCA will prohibit onerous restrictions on a woman's right to choose, such as mandated delays and targeted and medically unnecessary regulations."

State FOCAs

Seven states have enacted versions of FOCA, further entrenching and protecting the "right to abortion" in those states: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, and Washington.

Conclusion

Clearly FOCA will not make abortion safe or rare – on the contrary, it will actively promote abortion and do nothing to ensure its safety – so, abortion advocates' unrelenting campaign to enact FOCA is a "wake-up call" to all Americans. If implemented, FOCA would invalidate common-sense, protective laws that the majority of Americans support. It will not protect or empower women. Instead, it would protect and promote the abortion industry, sacrifice women and their health to a radical political ideology, and silence the voices of everyday Americans who want to engage in a meaningful public discussion over the availability, safety, and even desirability of abortion.

likeable

2008-11-02T21:23:00.000-08:00

I'm coming to a rather startling discovery in my journey-o-faith:

100% of people do not have to like me 100% of the time.

Anyone that has known me for any significant length of time knows that I am a self-described, nearly-obsessive people pleaser. In every area of my life, whether it be family, friends, or work, I try my very best to make sure that I am on good terms with everyone and that (God forbid) there isn't anything so horrible as conflict between us. This mentality can sometimes result in behavior that most normal people would find ridiculous. For example, if I'm talking with someone more confrontational or assertive than me and we disagree about something--how far down the interstate exit is or what Faulkner's first novel was--9 times out of 10 I will concede the point, even if I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm right. It's especially fun when the person quickly realizes his/her mistake and tells me I was right in the first place, making me look like an extra-big idiot for wholeheartedly agreeing with something that was obviously false.

There was the time last semester when a very confused girl in my online writing class e-mailed me a scathing rant in which she accused me of turning the professor against her and complaining that she was getting special privileges for being disabled, since I was the only student who had had an on-site class with her before and knew that she was legally blind. The accusation was so totally off-base, so completely untrue that it shouldn't have even bothered me. I should have been able to simply delete it and leave the girl to her delusions, but instead it kept me awake half the night and was at the forefront of my mind for the next several days. Just the thought of someone being that angry with me--even though I had done nothing to deserve it--made me so anxious that I felt sick.

The worst of it, though, is manifest in my spiritual life and my relationships with friends. Far, far too often I have been the person who has fed my friends the emotionally soothing, completely false bullshit that they've wanted to hear instead of the stinging truth that they needed to hear, just because I didn't want them to be mad at me, even for a moment. I have watched them wander down horribly destructive paths without so much as a heads-up from my seat in the bleachers. I have refused to give people words of prophecy that I knew God spoke to me because I was afraid of how they would react.

People-pleasing is so deceptive because on the surface it looks like a noble thing. Oh isn't that sweet that she cares so much about other people's feelings. But really, it's much more about my feelings than anyone else's. It's about my deriving my sense of worth from other people's opinions, and sacrificing everything in order to maintain those opinions. It doesn't come from some pure and holy desire for peace, because if truth be told it doesn't really bother me when other people are in conflict. It only bothers me when I'm involved.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God." - 2 Corinthians 2:14-17

I've never been comfortable with that verse, with the idea that I have to "smell of death" to people who are embittered against the truth of the Gospel. But I can't ignore it any longer and pretend like passively acquiescing to everyone else's whims is equivalent to loving them, because it's not. On Friday, Matt preached on Ephesians 4 and the Church's calling to "speak the truth in love." He talked about people-pleasing, grudge holding, and gossip, and how none of it is how God wants us to handle conflict. He quoted these two verses from Psalms and Proverbs:

"Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."

"Let a righteous man strike me--it is a kindness; let him rebuke me--it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it."

There's a big difference between being sensitive and being a complete doormat. When we do not speak the truth in love, when we start to value reputation and complacency more than truth, we are acting as enemies to each other, no matter how many arguments we avoid. I want to end this love affair I have with people's approval. It doesn't do anyone any good, which is why God warns against it in the first place. So if I don't bend as easily as I used to, or if I state something that I believe plainly and not padded with conditions and generalities, I'm not PMSing, I'm just try to live with integrity. Like it or not.

uh-oh...Pearls Before Swine might have some competition

2008-11-01T19:18:00.000-07:00

Why I can't get into Jac's fantasy novels, with the grand exception of Tolkien

and what I feel like doing in the midst of this political turmoil

a horrifying lack of theology and geometry

2008-10-29T08:45:00.001-07:00

Okay, so last night Jaclyn and I were watching My Redneck Wedding on CMT. Don't judge! This show is an absolute pearl of documentary television, offering such wonderful soundbytes as:

"You're gonna marry your brother whether you like it or not!"

"I was droppin' a deuce while he was droppin' the diamond."

And my personal favorite: "Nothing says love like a Glock."

Anyway, during the commercial break there was a preview of something called "Crossroads" where 80's rock legend Def Leppard will perform with...are you ready for this? Taylor Flippin' Swift.

Seriously, America? Seriously? I swear this had me channeling Ignatius J. Reilly the rest of the night. "It's an abomination!" It's not even that I particularly care for Def Leppard or think they should even have a spot in the Top 20 Rock Bands of the Century, but they certainly shouldn't be sharing a stage with Taylor Swift. I mean, don't get me wrong. I am happy for little Taylor. Good for her! Country girl power. Congratulations on your new line of tween Wal-Mart apparel. But let's be realistic here. Did Taylor Swift even know who Def Leppard was before her agent signed her up for this gig? According to my calculations, Taylor was -12 years old when Def Leppard began, and she doesn't exactly strike me as the kind of girl who taken it upon herself to learn her rock history.

This is almost as bad as the time some genius at MTV decided it would be a great idea to let Avril Lavigne cover "Fuel" by Metallica during their Hall of Fame tribute.

Oh yeah, wonderful concept! Hey, while we're at it, why don't we have Aaron Carter do a duet with Barbara Streisand, or have Pixar remake Citizen Kane?

What happened to musicianship, people? What happened to skill and talent and paying your dues sleeping in vans and selling platelets in order to earn a gig in a sold-out stadium or a prime-time televesion special? Sure, there have always been the teen idols - Davy Jones, Leif Garrett, the New Kids on the Block, but this whole Disney Channel generation of pop stars are just nervy on a whole different level. I'm all for "crossroads." I love musical collaborations, and I think country/rock combinations are particularly interesting. But please, match the artists properly! If you're going to have Def Leppard, get someone who has at least been alive as long, or has as much musicality. Get Reba. Get Garth. Anyone but Taylor Swift.

I don't know about you, but I think it's a sad day in America when an ugly, crusty old rock star can't outsell a bubbly, pampered 17-year-old who can barely strum chords.

End rant.

:::EDIT:::

Brent brought to my attention that Pantera and Willie Nelson would be an example of a good collaboration. Here are a few more of my own dream duos:

Jay-Z and Rage Against the Machine (think "99 Problems")
Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell
Joss Stone and Aretha Franklin (she's young, but I think she's proven herself musically)
Audioslave and the Foo Fighters
Ani Difranco and Tori Amos....or Stevie Nicks

and one for the Christian music dorks out there:
Lecrae and DC Talk

What about ya'll?

quotable church

2008-10-28T06:30:00.000-07:00

My favorite quotes (paraphrased a bit, I'm sure...I didn't have a tape recorder =P) from the Hispanic Ministry Director (or some such title) for the Evangelical Free Church, the denomination that Castle Rock, my new church, belongs to. Whew! That was a mouthful. Here we go:

"I tell Dante (African American Ministry Director) all the time that he gets no credit from me for loving black people. He's supposed to do that. But when he empathizes with my Latino brothers and sisters, when his heart breaks over issues of immigration and the modern economic slavery of America, when he reaches across that barrier, that's when we start fulfilling the Church's mission to be a body of believers of every tongue, tribe, and nation."

"I'll be honest. At first, I didn't want to send a Hispanic pastor to New Orleans. We have so few of them right now and I wanted them in other places. But Pastor Gerhardt told me something that rebuked me and made me change my mind. He said, 'I'll be his friend.' He said, 'I'll watch our for him. I'll pray with him. I'll be his friend.'"

"Look over to your neighbor on both sides of you. You see that person? That person is A MESS. And you are A MESS. And this church is A MESS. That's why Jesus came."

"Is it potluck Sunday? Is it potluck Sunday?!?!?" (Okay, that one wasn't from the pastor, it was from a very excited 7-year-old after service.)

In the immortal words of the little orphan Annie, "I think I'm gonna like it here."

Christian economics

2008-10-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

Acts 2:42 - 47: They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Widows and Orphans by Kathe Kollwitz

food distribution at The Church Under The Bridge in San Antonio

I'm not even going to pretend like I understand the American economic system. I remember trying to study it in high school, trying to simply wrap my head around what the stock market was and how it worked, and it just never clicked. I still don't get it, and that's a large reason that I've shyed away from many a political conversation these past few months because I'm smart enough to know that I don't know. I've listened to John McCain's proposed economic policy and though, "Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty good" and then I listen to Obama's economic policy that is saying something completely different and I think, "Wait...that sounds good too." I can't make up my mind about it because I don't understand economics enough to see through the political rhetoric on that issue.

So when that happens, I have to go back to the basics. I have to go back to what I DO know and start from there. And for me, the deepest, most secure knowledge in my life is the Bible and the whisper of the Holy Spirit in my heart.

One of the most common statements I've heard recently is opposition to tax reform that would play heavier taxes on the wealthy in order to benefit the poor, or "spreading the wealth" as I think Obama once referred to it. Middle-class people are strongly opposed to this idea because they don't want higher taxes getting taken from their paycheck going to support people who are too lazy to work. I think that concern is definitely legitimate and also Biblically sound, because Paul tells the church at Ephesus that "he who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands..." Sounds good so far, right? Except it doesn't stop there.

"...that he may have something to share with those in need."

Whoa! That changes everything, right? Not only is Paul telling the Church to share their wealth, but he's saying that giving to those in need is the reason we should be working in the first place. Not so we can buy a Bentley. Not so we can buy a huge house with rooms we never even use. Not so we can build up a fat retirement plan and spend our golden years doing nothing in Key West. To share with those in need.

So as much as our American history of capitalism and rampant individualism ("I can do whatever I want and no one has a right to tell me anything") tells us that we have every right to keep every cent we've ever earned, Jesus says differently. And if you're a Christian, you should already know where your first allegiance lies.

One of my favorite stories in the Gospels demonstrates Jesus' intense love for the poor and the broken:

Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." (Luke 14:12-14)

So what concerns me is when I hear Christians feverishly defending the hoards of money (yes, hoards - if you live and work in America at all, you have hoards of money compared to most of the world) that they have "earned." I put that in quotations because I think we are on seriously dangerous territory when Christian start talking about what they have earned. It absolutely tramples on the theology of grace, because if we truly understand that, if we understand that the only thing we have earned is eternal separation from a holy and just God because of our sin, then we're going to have trouble seeing anything in your life as ours and ours alone. We are going to start seeing ourselves as stewards instead of possessors, and stewards have the responsibility of seeing that their money gets their Master intends to go.

So what exactly am I saying politically? I don't know. I have zero faith in our government (and human nature) to live by the economics of Jesus. Apart from grace, we can do nothing. I guess what I'm saying is that no matter who gets elected, no matter what tax policy is in effect, our economic mindset should start with how we handle what is in our own wallets right this moment. And there's no better moment to start giving.

Madea, you're so wise.

2008-10-16T17:11:00.000-07:00

from Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which Jac and I watched the other night and absolutely LOVED:

Madea: I remember this dude made me so mad, I didn't even know how mad I was until I went to his funeral.

Helen: Why were you so mad at him?

Madea: Because he hit me. Yes he hit me... and I didn't even know how mad I was until I saw him in his casket, he's 8 feet under.

Myrtle: 6 feet, that's how they bury people, Madea, 6 feet under.

Madea: That's what I'm trying to say, I thought I was over what he did to me until I saw him at the funeral, I was so mad I BEAT HIM DOWN 2 more feet. You see, that's how you know if you're over something or not. If someone hurts you and you get a chance to take revenge and you walk away from it, then you're over it. If you don't, then you're not.

why I am pro-life

2008-10-14T14:55:00.000-07:00

So I've been thinking about writing a post on this topic for a while now, but haven't (as well as generally kept my mouth shut when the subject arises among my pro-choice friends) because, to be honest, I'm afraid of conflict. I'm a huge people pleaser and get my feelings hurt somewhat easily, and so I'm frankly been pretty terrified of the schoolyard bully tactics on both sides of the political spectrum in my generation of citizens. It seems that the point in most 20-somethings' political discussions isn't what idea is better, or what policy could be more effective, or even what is morally right. Instead it's about just how stupid you can make the other person feel, and how irrefutably superior you can make your position sound at the expense of the other position's weak points.

I'm not about that. I'm about rational, respectful discussions that lead, or at least attempt to lead, to solutions. With that being said, these are my thoughts on abortion and the pro-life/pro-choice debate. It is nothing more and nothing less than what I believe, so whether you agree or not, please...don't be mean.

I think abortion is wrong. Depending on how you look at it, that is either predictable because I'm a Christian or surprising because I'm a young woman who believes in female empowerment. So here's the thing: I do believe in female empowerment. What I don't believe in is anyone, female or male, being empowered to take a life for any reason other than self-defense. I believe that is an act of murder. That being said, these are the most common pro-choice arguments that I've heard, and my responses to them:

1. I have a right to make a choice concerning my own body. Yes, you do. But choosing to abort a pregnancy doesn't just affect your body; it affects another body as well, small though it may be. Therefore, your right to do absolutely anything you want to your body is temporarily suspended for the time that you are physically, consequently linked with another human being. That's just how nature works. For example, we all have the "right" to hold a knife in our right hand and make a slashing motion with it, so long as all we're slashing is air. But the moment we take that knife and slash another person with it, we are committing assault. The exercising of our right has trampled on someone else's right, and the only reason abortion is a "gray area" in this respect is because unborn children can't speak out on their own behalf.

The other problem I have with this argument is that it seems to point to the choice to either keep or terminate a pregnancy as the only choice involved in the whole process. What about the choice to have sex? That was also a choice (except in the case of rape, which I'll get to later), and one that has the possible consequence of pregnancy. This is a little more speculative, but I don't understand how we as a culture have gotten to a place where we think we can completely and totally divorce [heterosexual] sex from procreation. I believe that we have a right to monitor and control our fertility as we are able, but how can we expect to have sex whenever we want and only get pregnant when it's convenient, to enjoy an action indefinitely without accepting any of the consequences? We don't use this kind of logic in any other scenario that I can think of. We don't play a scratch-off lottery game and then expect to get our money back when we don't win. The clerk would laugh at us, because it's obvious that not winning was a risk you took when you made the choice to spend your money on a lottery ticket.

2. A fetus isn't human; life begins at birth. When "life" begins is ultimately an opinion. It can't be proven either way by science because people have differing definitions of what "life" consists of. I will say this, though, that although our culture currently says that life begins at birth, we very rarely act like it does in any situation outside of arguing for abortion. Otherwise, why would parents grieve over miscarriages? Why would they bother to read to their pregnant bellies, or play music for their fetuses? Why would people get so incredibly offended by images of aborted fetuses if they aren't even human?

3. Abortion controls over-population. So does famine, genocide, and war, but that doesn't make those things good or morally acceptable. The ends do not justify the means.

4. If abortion were made illegal, many women would try to obtain them illegally and risk dangerous procedures that could hurt or kill them. It makes absolutely no sense to legalize something to protect the safety of those who would break the law. That's like saying we should legalize bank robberies because many bank robbers injure themselves trying to flee the scene.

5. What about rape and instances where the mother's life is in danger? Both of these situations are horribly tragic, to begin with, and any decision made regarding them is going to come with some amount of pain and suffering. Here's the way I see it: If a pregnancy is causing a mother's life to be in danger, then that unborn baby is in effect threatening another person's life. I think they call this an "innocent agressor." In that case, I believe the mother has the right to abort the baby in an act of self-defense, to protect her life. In the case of rape, the woman's choice over whether or not she wanted to have sex is taken, violently and horribly, away from her. This is probably the hardest scenario of all, because although I believe that a woman has a right to terminate a pregnancy caused by rape, my heart still breaks because an innocent child (in addition to the innocent woman) has been made to take the punishment for someone else's despicable actions.

6. Pro-lifers should only try to end abortion if they are willing to provide care for all the unwanted babies it will produce. Pro-life advocates are in no way responsible for the care of un-aborted babies any more than Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe were responsible for fixing the cotton industry after emancipation. You don't excuse a wrongdoing just because it's too much of a hassle to change your ways.

7. So what do you suggest, then? Again, not that I think I am obligated to have all the answers before lobbying to end abortion, but I do think better and earlier sex education in public schools is a good place to start, and not abstinence-only programs. I also think more information should be made available to people about adoption, and that more federal and state funding should be providing in order to make the system work as well as possible.

And that's it, really. That's what I think. And although my Christian faith hugely informs my personal beliefs about all political issues, I consciously didn't factor that faith into this defense because honestly, I would be against abortion even if I weren't a Christian. To me, the whole things stems from one premise that is consistent among nearly every culture on earth: that murder is wrong.

halloweeeeeeeny

2008-10-11T21:29:00.000-07:00

After much deliberation and consideration of areas such as Nerdiness Factor, Fun Scale Position, and Re-wearability, I have decided on my Halloween costume. Are you ready? I'll give you a hint:

"The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat."

Sound familiar, Poe lovers?

That's right - it's from The Masque of the Red Death. I've decided to go as a female Red Death, with the help of Karrie's numerous talents with her special effects makeup, a few trips to Wicked Orleans and Party City, and some ingenuity. I want the costume to be all in black and red, and to resemble an 18th century Venetian masquerade ball, something like the picture above. I'm going to get a black and red corset top, a poofy skirt, a cape, and a Marie Antionette wig that I'll spray paint black.

So. flippin'. excited.

A lot of people have good costume ideas this year. Jaclyn is going as Jessica Rabbit and having a dress custom made by Rob. She's going to look simply amazing. Karrie and Scott are going as the Joker and Harley Quinn, but they'll stand out a bit among the throngs of Heath Ledger tributes because Karrie said they're doing the TV cartoon series Joker instead of the Dark Knight version. I still don't have any definite plans for the evening, but I'm sure something will surface eventually. I may just end up checking out Frenchman Street because I've never been to the Quarter on Halloween and I think it'd be fun to see so many people decked out in costumes.

Yeesh, you'd think I'd never seen Mardi Gras, huh? Oh well, I'm just excited about making the costume - the pure, girlish delight in playing dress-up and forgetting I'm supposed to be an adult for one night. According to sociologists, that's why we invent things like Halloween and Mardi Gras and Carnival. Society is something akin to a teakettle constantly on the stove, and it needs that release of steam every once in a while to keep from exploding. We need a break from our routines, a temporary reversal of power and order, a chance to be someone other than ourselves. I don't think there's anything inherently ungodly about that concept, because even the Israelites had the Year of Jubilee, where all debts were cancelled, indentured servants emancipated, and regularly harvested plots of land left fallow.

That's about it for now. Nothing particularly poingnant or insightful in this entry. Just wanted to share my costume excitement and affirm that I haven't fallen off the face of the planet.

Till next time,

Nikki

I'll spare you the predictable canine pun

2008-09-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

I find my dog more and more of a kindred spirit these days.

Those of you who have met Lucy know that she is sweetest, gentlest, most well-intentioned overgrown puppy you will ever meet. She is also, as Jenna originally coined the phrase, "dumb as toast." It's true. She's not the brightest Milkbone in the box. Lucy has had some exciting adventures the past couple of days as she slowly but surely learns to navigate this strange existence of Living With Humans. Here's the story:

Two days ago I was going to meet up with Jen at the PJ's on Metairie Road and, it being a nice day and all, I decided to walk there with Lucy so that we both could get some exercise. Well, walking Lucy is always a bit of a challenge, to say the least. She is 55 pounds of stout, husky muscle and she loves to run. That plus the aforementioned "dumb as toast" trait equals not a good combination for leash-walking. Lucy pulls tremendously on her collar the entire time you walk her anywhere. Try as I may with our training, I can never seem to make her heel. At some point over the summer, I just gave up and decided to let the dog pull herself to exhaustion--at least she's tired afterwards.

Well yesterday she got just a little bit too tired. Although the humidity was very low, I didn't realize how hot it still was in the middle of the day, and apparently Lucy didn't either. After about 3/4 of a mile of straining against her leash, she collapsed on the sidewalk in front of me in near-heatstroke. It was terrifying. Thankfully (literally, thanks be to God), Brian just happened to be riding his bike up Codifer at that very moment and sprinted off to the gas station to get her the water she needed. She was fine after a little while, and I sat there in the shade with her until Brian rescued us with his car and brought us back home.

I remember saying in that furious-but-terrified-and-concerned tone that I think only parents really use, "What on earth is her problem? How can she still not understand? Is she really incapable of comprehending that pulling against her leash equals death?"

I'm not sure if Brian picked up on it right then or not, but if he did he was at least polite enough to keep his mouth shut for the moment. How can she not understand indeed...

"Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ's death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross. Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting you Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it?" - Galatians 3:1-4

I'm sure God has looked at me many a time and thought to Himself, "How can she still not understand? Would she really rather die than listen to my voice?"

I'm not trying to control my dog like an evil puppeteer dictator. I love Lucy, and I want her to have the most joyous, fulfilling life that a rescued lab-rottie can possibly have. But she has to walk with me on a leash because I am the only one that can protect her from the thousand and one evils that await her in the world, the things that she only barely comprehends and has no means of defense against. And here's the thing--if she would give me control, if she would allow me to lovingly guide and direct her, she could experience freedom. She could walk with me anywhere, because I would know that she trusts me.

So is it a coincidence that I inexplicably fainted while driving down Magazine St. last Friday (don't worry, I pulled over first)? Maybe. Maybe my dog and I both have hydration problems, but maybe we also share the same self-destructive love affair with trying to make it on our own.

Nikki

Oh Ani, you're the only one that gets me

2008-09-24T13:42:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to Ani Difranco again. I think it's amusing that I "discovered" her at age 14 on Napster and thought I was the only person on earth who knew of her until I discovered a few years later that, no, Violet knows her too and then later on, so does everyone else. And by everyone else, I mean lesbians, poets, and granola hippies. =)

(dreadlocked Ani is my favorite...)

(...followed closely by artsy black and white photo Ani)

These have been some of my favorite lyrics by her during the near-decade that I've enjoyed her music. I'm sure they've influenced both my writing and my personality far more than I care to admit. Enjoy.

______________________________________

"Tell you one thing, I'm gonna make noise when I go down
For ten square blocks they're gonna know I died
All the goddesses will come up to the ripped screen door and say,
What do you want, dear?
And I'll say, I want inside."

- If He Tries Anything

"So many sheep I quit counting,
Sleepless and embarrassed about the way that I feel,
Trying to make mole hills out of mountains,
Building base camp at the bottom of a really big deal,
And did I tell you how I stopped eating?
When you stopped calling me,
And I was cramped up, shitting rivers for weeks,
And pretending that I was finally free"

- Independence Day

"I am watching your chest rise and fall
Like the tides of my life,
And the rest of it all,
And your bones have been my bed frame,
And your flesh has been my pillow,
I am waiting for sleep,
To offer up the deep,
With both hands

In each other's shadows we grew less and less tall,
And eventually our theories couldn't explain it all,
And I'm recording our history now on the bedroom wall,
And when we leave the landlord will come,
And paint over it all"

- Both Hands

"Here comes little naked me padding up to the bathroom door,
To find little naked you slumped on the bathroom floor,
So I guess I'll just stand here with my back against the wall,
While you distill your whole life down to a 911 call

So now you bring me your bruises,
So I can oh and ah at the display,
Maybe I'm supposed to make one of my famous jokes that makes everything okay,
Maybe I'm supposed to be the handsome prince who rides up and unties your hands,
Or maybe I'm supposed to be the furrow-browed friend who thinks she understands"

- Two Little Girls

"And maybe it was I who betrayed his majesty,
With no opposite reality,
Like a puddle with no reflection,
Of the sky or the trees,
But after my dreaded beheading,
I tied that sucker back on with a string,
And I guess I'm pretty different now,
Considering"

- Manhole

"To all the people out there tonight,
Who are comforting themselves,
If you should happen to see my light,
You can stop and ring my bell,
I'm just sittin here in this sty,
Strewn with half written songs,
Taking one breath at a time,
Nothin' much going on"

- Recoil

just a tidbit

2008-09-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

I have an actual blog that I plan on writing some time soon, but this will have to suffice until then:

Jac-o-Nik quote of the week:

Nikki: (looking at a rental ad on Craigslist) Look, Jac! It has three bedrooms AND a den-slash-office-space! We could use it for entertaining...

Jac: (unimpressed) Yeah, that'd be cool.

Nikki:...or we could use it as a video game room.

Jac: (very impressed, then catches herself) Ooooooo....hey wait. You're just telling me that to get me to agree to this. You have no intention of letting that happen!

Nikki: Yeah, I really don't.

Poor Jaclyn. The day she gets an entire room dedicated to video games is the day I get a cherry wood library with a rolling ladder. I think we'll both be waiting a while for that. =)

Banksy does New Orleans

2008-09-14T08:48:00.001-07:00

Holy crap! This is more exciting than when Brangelina came to town!

For those who have never heard of the anonymous British graffiti art Banksy, here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

"Robert Banks (born 1974), better known as Banksy, is a well-known yet pseudo-anonymous English graffiti artist from Yate near Bristol. His artworks are often satirical pieces of art which encompass topics from politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti with a distinctive stencilling technique, has appeared in London and in cities around the world.

Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-establishment or pro-freedom. Subjects include animals such as monkeys and rats, policemen, soldiers, children and the elderly. He also makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and sculpture (the murdered phonebox), and was responsible for the cover art of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank."

I posted my favorites of the stencils he did in New Orleans, but you can see all of them on his website. I'm especially excited that he came to nola because my Form and Idea class in San Miguel this summer spent a ton of time talking about subversive, illegal art like graffiti. We watched a documentary on subway graffiti in New York and talked about Banksy specifically.

Now having seen more of his work, I really like him. It's kind of hard not to, when his medium is so deliciously mischievous and sarcastic. Even if you don't agree with his politics, it has to at least bring a smile to your face to think about this guy sneaking around cities, exploring, tagging, like some sort of urban Robin Hood for the sake of art. It brings out the adventurer in the viewer, while making them think about difficult things at the same time.

A lot of Banksy's work eventually gets tagged over or removed by the local government, but I'm willing to bet his New Orleans stuff is going to get left alone and embraced by us, the locals. I mean, we've already managed to turn those spray painted X's from Katrina into iconic symbols, even a popular tattoo. I think a city like that can appreciate Banksy.

P.S. - If anyone knows where exactly these stencils are, let me know. I definitely want to go see them in person when I get back into town.

it's comforting to know...

2008-09-13T07:03:00.000-07:00

...that no matter how hard we try in life, we'll never be as funny as a cat with a grammatically incorrect caption.

in case any UNOers read this...

2008-09-11T17:24:00.000-07:00

SATELLITE on Thursday Nights!
Friends. Discussion. Jesus.

- Maybe you've been a Christian your whole life and are looking to study Scripture in a deeper way.
- Maybe you've had bad experiences with churches or Christians in the past and want to find a safe, non-judgmental place to find out what real Christian faith is about.
- Maybe you've never heard of Jesus before and just want to know what all the fuss is about.

Satellite is a place for everyone, no matter what their background, to encounter God through Bible study, discussion, and prayer.

Bring your questions.
Bring your burdens.
Bring your heart.

Fall Semester Focus:
The Book of Phillippians: Joy, Humility, Peace, and other things we want more of.

Every Thursday night @ 8:30 PM.
Pontchartrain Hall South, 4th floor lounge

(if you're not a dorm resident, meet us in the lobby)

See you there!

Nikki

For more info, see www.nolaxa.com or e-mail pencil_dharma@yahoo.com

the great razor battle

2008-09-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. An apology to the world, really.

I am hairy. That's right, folks. The Nikki you've previously known and loved has actually turned out to be....a mammal.

I was pondering this subject of body hair, as usual, when I was laboriously shaving my legs last night in the bathtub. I had put this little feminine ritual off for as long as possible because things were, shall we say, overgrown from the post-Gustav week in Mississippi with no running water. And it ocurred to me as I started (not for the first time) that there is absolutely no practical, logical reason for me to painstakingly take a razor to my leg hair. Why? Why, why why do we do it?

First of all, I'm probably the worst case scenerio when it comes to body hair. I have dark hair and extremely white skin, especially on my legs. It's actually slightly translucent through the first few layers. No joke. As my friend Margot memorably pointed out one day, "Nikki, I can see through your legs!" So that means that even immediately after I shave, you can still see the little roots of the hair follicles through my skin when you get up close. And my hair grows extremely fast, so I only get one day before I'm stubbly to the touch. That's it. One freakin' day a week of smooth, nearly clear legs in exchange for a lifetime of annoyance. And don't talk to me about shaving every day, or even every other day, unless you want to talk about razor burn so bad you'd think I scorched in some horrible below-the-waist fire.

So the question remains, why? Leg hair isn't unhygienic, or else men would be shaving them too. It isn't a sensory problem, like dry skin being unpleasant to feel, so we use lotion. Once you've actually let your leg hair grow back long enough, the scratchiness goes away and it's actually soft and kind of nice. At least, a lot nicer than that razor-sharp three day stubble. And although none of the things we do to groom ourselves can really be considered "natural", I'd argue that continuously shaving an entire half of our body so as to give the illusion that it doesn't grow hair at all is particularly contrary.

Eventually, I had to face the fact that the only reason I shave my legs is because I have an indoctrinated belief about what the female body should look like and I'm terrified of what people will think of me if I deviate from that. I remember one time when I was walking around the French Market with my family and my Dad discreetly motioned for me to look at one of the women who was running a booth. She was hippie/gutterpunk chick and she was lying down on a blanket taking a nap in a tank top and shorts. And guess what? She didn't shave her legs. My mom and my dad both scrunched up their faces like they had eaten something rotten, and I was horrified at the way everyone who passed the booth had much the same reaction. Sheer, unadulterated disgust.

I had a similar experience once in 9th grade. This being the height of my bodily insecurity, I had taking to shaving my arms in a final, tragic attack on what puberty had wrought. One day a guy at school bumped into me in the hallway, his arm brushing mine the wrong way and catching a bit of stubble. He jumped back like he'd been electrocuted. "God, Nikki," he said. "That's gross!"

Gross. Disgusting. If you're being polite, unsightly. Such strong words for such a little thing. Is it really so outrageous to want to be found beautiful just the way you are, instead of after you've ritually cleansed yourself by razor and allowed the world to pretend that you're hairless?

Just a thought.

There's of course much more to say about this subject, sociologically speaking. But I'll let someone else do that for me for now. Here's an interesting article I found on the history of female shaving in the U.S.

The Straight Dope

and a timeline of shaving since...well...the beginning of time.

Quikshave Timeline

I'm going to go to work now and revel in my one day of leg smoothness. Maybe one day I'll get up the courage to toss the razor altogether, but I'm not holding my breath. I think taking on the collective ideal of Western feminine beauty is a bit much to pile on my plate at the moment.

Hey, I guess I could always move to Greece. =)

fun with armageddon

2008-09-04T12:30:00.000-07:00

So yeah. Gustav. How 'bout that?

I don't have the time right now to write something poignant and witty and Chris Rose-esque because I'm typing on a borrowed Mac in the middle of the Edgewater Mall in Bilouxi? Gulfport? Wherever we are.

Much to my chagrin and to my friends and family's answered prayers, I abandoned my original plan to bunker down at my parents' house with the four life vests, the propane tank, and the life raft. Actually my parents abandoned it. They bailed on me Saturday afternoon, going from sharing my lifeboat to threatening my life if I dared try to stay in this woebegone fishbowl of a city in 2.5 seconds. A girl can only hold out for so long. My constitution broke and I caught the hysteria bug along with everyone else Saturday night, prodded along by a mayor's press conference that sounded more like a tent revival sermon. I loaded up the car and left.

So I've been in Bay St. Louis since then, at my friend Brian's family's house. No, not house. Plantation. Complete with an oak-lined driveway and a solarium and a pigeonnaire, whatever that is. It's pretty surreal, if you must know. At first it was his family, my family, and two other Tulane students--Greg and Stephen. But now we have lost some and gained some and shifted around some bedrooms and are no worse for the wear. My parents went home on Tuesday and I plan on being home by tomorrow night, no excuses.

But right now I'm on a borrowed laptop in a mall in Bilouxigulfportwherever. Going home starts tomorrow. School starts on Monday. Life starts....when?

Existentialism goes out the window in times of crisis, as is good and proper. The only thing you want to know is where you're sleeping and where you're peeing, and the only things you need are your dog and your God.

A Bible wouldn't hurt, either. See ya'll back in the Big Uneasy.

Nikki

an overdue errand

2008-08-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

Today I picked up my wedding dress from my parents' house and brought it to a consignment shop where a thin, attractive woman in her 40's took it from me and raved about how beautiful it was as I filled out paperwork on its size, condition, estimated value. I could see it hanging on the wall behind her the whole time, the delicate beadwork and the tiny peach-colored rosettes along the lines of the corset. I have photos of myself trying on the dress in my bedroom, three tattoos and a fiancee ago. They're somewhere.

"Did you get another dress or did you call the wedding off?" asks the woman as gently as possible.

"We called the wedding off," I say. I feel nothing.

"Ah," the woman says, illuminated. "Okay then." After that her tone becomes very explanatory, very routine. I suppose she wants to assure me that this sort of thing happens all the time. Broken engagements. Consignment wedding dresses, never worn. Life.

I can match her. That evenness, that control. I finish the rest of the paperwork like I'm filling in bubbles on the SAT. Size: 8. Retailer: David's Bridal. Label: Michaelangelo. I could be dropping off my dry cleaning for the amount of emotion I feel. I slide the paper across the counter.

The woman talks to me about resale value, about realistic and unrealistic expectations. I would have better luck with it at the downtown store, where there was an entire bridal room full of the remnants of marriages-that-would-never-be. She offers to send it over on the delivery truck so I won't have to bring it myself. "Leave it here," she advises. "Don't put it back in your closet."

I nod. Sounds like a good idea. I thank the woman again--all smiles. Just dropping off my dry cleaning. "Don't worry," she assures me. "It's a beautiful dress. We'll get rid of it for you."

the little brown couch under the window...

2008-08-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

...is calling my name. I'm going to go back to sleep soon, I think.

But first: Things I Learned Over the Weekend.

1. Six hours of sleep is not enough. At least not six hours of sleep three nights in a row.
2. I like zydeco music even though is mostly all sounds the same. I also like James Brown.
3. Wood floors in a house should more or less level all the time. They should not, as a general rule, contain speed bumps.
4. Garage sale traffic hits hard from 8-9 AM....not so much after that.
5. Making new friends is hard and I am a cloistered, picky, jaded spinster-in-training.
6. Safari Car Wash may not be able to get all the soaked-in water out of the floor of a Jeep, but they will certainly make it smell better.
7. A southern night sky during a tropical depression is nothing short of captivating.
8. Driving a standard is much harder than I ever gave standard-drivers credit for.
9. Deep-cleaning the entire kitchen and living room of my house takes approximately an hour and a half.
10. Did I mention that six hours of sleep is not enough?

Goodnight, all, and happy First Day of School for the UNO peeps.

Sunrise Out of Portland

2008-08-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

*names have been changed to protect the hobos*

Train riders have become somewhat of a rarity at Sox Place in the last few years, and even more so in these recent weeks leading up to the Democratic National Convention, when Obama will give his nomination acceptance speech at Coors Stadium. Along with the skateboarders, gutterpunks, and hobums, the Denver police have put pressure on the train riders in numerous ways, from simply kicking them out of public places to following them in unmarked cars and arresting them for no reason. Two days ago, a group of about five or six train riders showed up at Sox Place, all cloth and coal dust and romance.
Everything about a train rider is brown. Their skin, their hair, their clothes are all covered in a fine rust powder that blurs the spectrum of their ethnicity and unites them under a banner of dirt. They are walking anachronisms. Except for the piercings and tattoos, they would fit in nicely among the mine-swallowed forty-niners, the factory-weary union pioneers, the starving Oakie pilgrims. They are young, hopeful, dirty, matted, wily, curious, thoughtful, and resilient: the transient, outlawed American dream in overalls with hand-stitched patches.
Although Shane classifies himself as an “old school gutter punk” and not a train rider, he did in fact ride trains up and down the California coast, selling dope. “Do you know why they wear those?” he asked me, nodding at the black and gray bandana around the neck of one of the guys in the group.
I shook my head. I had wondered this before, having noticed the bandanas on the train riders in New Orleans.
“For the tunnels,” he explained. “All the carbon monoxide from those coal cars. You pull that bandana up over your face when you go through a tunnel so you don’t breathe that shit in.” The patches, too, were there for a reason. Haphazard and erratic, they cover up the numerous rips and tears that a train rider sustains from catching trains on the fly (while the train is moving) and getting hit by rocks and twigs while riding. When he told me this, I nearly laughed out loud. I thought about all the hipster kids I’ve seen back home starting to wear bandanas in an effort to steal, filter, and redistribute counterculture fashion. I like that the real reason behind the bandanas isn’t reactionary or deviant; it’s deliciously practical.
The group of train riders hung around for a couple hours, eating ham with rice and watching lame TV movies with the rest of us. They were all friendly, but mainly kept to themselves since they didn’t know very many people. I could see the microcosm—the smaller family of the travel crew inside the larger family of the street kid community. With them were two dogs and a white rat that didn’t look long for this world, but who sat obediently in its owner’s overall pocket and obliged the mob of toddlers that begged to hold it.
I wanted to talk to them, but I couldn’t work up the nerve to start a conversation. Maybe you can’t imagine being in a situation where you would be embarrassed to be clean, but I was. I felt sterile and clumsy with my machine-washed clothes, my shaved armpits and legs, my middle-class privilege wafting around me like spray deodorant. I thought there must be some etiquette I wasn’t privy to, some ceremonial rain dance or secret handshake that I would have to master before I could enter the club. Intimidated, I sat on my hands and didn’t say a word to any of them beyond my awkward self-introduction.
To our disappointment (mine huge, everyone else’s slight), the group didn’t come back on Wednesday. I was told that they were probably just passing through but that hopefully some others would stop by soon on their way to flee the persecution of the DNC. Sure enough, at around two o’clock yesterday a girl named Jamie drops in to get some nonperishables to take for the road. Jamie is a tall, solid, and gracefully built woman. She reminds me of a cross between Rosie the Riveter and an Alphonse Mucha painting. She is wearing a mangled brown halter top with a picture of a stallion on it and a sort of patchwork skirt with brown boots. Her cap covers most of her hair, but I can see that it is straw-colored and cut very short. Near the nape of her neck are a few baby dreads. Her face is round but not quite moon-round, with warm brown eyes behind her glasses. She is one of those people that smiles with her entire face. When she turns that smile towards me with her arms full of canned beans and crackers, I think I may have found someone who will talk. I introduce myself, still awkward.
“If you’re not in a rush, would you mind talking to me for a little bit?” I ask. “I’m a writer and one of the things I’m doing here is interviewing people, getting their stories.”
“Sure,” she says, “I’m going to hang out for a while.”
Jamie fills a styrofoam bowl with chips and salsa and we sit together on a wooden church pew behind the pool table. I start out with basic questions: Where are you headed? (New York) How long have you been traveling? (a month and a half) How many kids are in your group? (one other, a travel partner) Pretty soon, though, the conversation morphs into something more like a seminar discussion at a liberal arts college than an interview at a drop-in center. We start talking hobo aesthetics.
“It’s a very romanticized subculture,” Jamie says. “When I was a kid I used to hang around the train yard all the time. I loved it. I would watch them and dream about hopping one, just up and going. When I started meeting train riders, I realized that, ‘Hey, this isn’t just me. There’s a whole lifestyle here.’
There are many practical reasons for people to hop trains. Some, like Shane, are drug runners looking for a fast, cheap, inconspicuous way to make deliveries over a wide area. Others are simply homeless and ride trains the same way they would a Greyhound if they could afford it. Jamie, however, is one of the many people of all ages, backgrounds, and education levels who have consciously chosen train riding as a way of life.
“I just wanted to get out and experience life,” Jamie explains. “I wanted to do this now so that when I do settle down, I can say that I traveled, that I saw the world.” Jamie has been living on her own off and on since she was sixteen, so she said it wasn’t a big shock to her parents or friends when she left. “I didn’t tell too many people. It was very spontaneous. My travel partner Zack said he was heading out of town and asked me if I would come with him. I thought, ‘This is my chance,’ you know? I sold everything I owned and just left.”
There is a girlish excitement in her voice when she talks about the idea of train hopping itself. I ask her what her favorite experience has been so far. She only takes a moment to think, and then her eyes sparkle. “My first morning on a train, after hopping on in Portland. There was a group of us and we sat looking out at the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen. We had a bottle of Jack and were just howling at the moon, all of us. It was incredible.” Her candor and passion are infectious, and I find myself leaning forward in my seat. I can hear the whining metal slice of wheel on track. I can smell the musk of sweat and unwashed hair. I can see the smears of pink and purple along the horizon. She’s got me sold.
She must sense it, too, because she is quick to bring me back down to earth. “But it’s not easy,” she cautions. “A lot of people fall in love with the idea of train riding and don’t realize that it is wonderful, but it’s also very gritty and dangerous and difficult. Because of the internet and technology, a lot more people know about us and as a result there are a lot of kids out there riding trains who probably shouldn’t be.” Jamie complains of the ‘yuppie riders’ who come from middle-class suburban homes and bring their entitlement issues along with them: “Those are the kind of kids that will do something stupid and get you caught.”
Getting caught, Jamie says, has become a much bigger threat in a post-September 11th, Patriot Act world. Jamie and her friends have noticed a significant increase in the amount of police profiling, unwarranted arrests, and ‘yard bulls’—train yard guards who ride around at night specifically looking for riders. “It used to be that if you got caught, you got a ticket or went to jail for a night. Now it’s a federal offense, and it’s much easier for you to get put away for a very long time.” Indicating her clothes, she continues: “It doesn’t help that we’re very conspicuous. I’ve seen kids pulled into unmarked police cars, white Suburbans, and just taken away right off the sidewalk. I’ve been followed about three times since I’ve been here.” The increased manpower is a hassle and the DNC is ominous, but the biggest threat to train riders can be found once again in technology. “We’re probably the last generation. There are more and more of these heat scanners and infrared lasers at checkpoints. It’s making it a lot harder.” Her voice is mournful.
Suddenly I feel like I’m watching Chief Sitting Bull lay down his rifle at Fort Buford, or Neal Cassady drop to his knees on that long, lonely walk from San Miguel. The idea that train hopping might one day be impossible had never occurred to me. “People don’t realize,” Jamie says, “that we’ve always been here. We’re a part of American history.” I realize that like every good counterculture, the train riders are an endangered species, and their warriors are fighting hard against extinction.
Writer that I am, I’ve been contemplating metaphors since Jamie started talking. It seems to me that train riding taps into some of our most universal urges as human beings: to escape, to assert our individuality, to build community, to live out an adventure. The wheels that never stop turning. The tracks running off into the great unknown. People like Jamie have taken those longings—those quiet, pulsing moments when we stare at the trees through the office window or take a different route home just to see if we’ll get lost—and tossed them onto a coal car in a canvas bag.
Jamie says it simpler: “It’s worth it,” she says. “To be free.”

fun with chemical poisoning

2008-08-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

Some of you might know by now of my affinity for the web phenomenon, Is it a Good Idea to Microwave This? Well, I'm thinking of starting a new spin-off web phenomenon called "Is it a Good Idea to Put This in the Dishwasher?" It all started this morning...

(cue dreamy harp trills signaling flashback)

I woke up to a sink full of dishes this morning because I was too lazy to do them last night. Fine, whatever, not unusual now in the "subdued cleanliness mode" I've learned to adopt after two years of living with Jac. I start scrubbing the dishes with my handy-dandy scrub pad and loading them in the dishwasher. But for some reason I'm in a productive mood this morning, and I'm thinking that I don't just want my dishes clean. I want my dishes AND my dish-cleaning apparatuses (apparati??) clean. So at the last moment before shutting the dishwasher and turning it on, I toss in both the metal sink catch and the scrub pad.

Emphasis on toss.

Fast forward a half an hour, and I'm putting in my contacts in the bathroom after my shower. I notice a peculiar smell. An odor, really. Not pleasant. So I open the bathroom door and promptly begin to freak out. The smell is everywhere. It is downright cloying. Now, as someone who has been through a gauntlet of domestic problems in this house--warped floorboards, vines growing through the walls, fleas, flies, and one very persistent rat--an odd, nasty smell in the house normally wouldn't phase me. But this smelled like chemicals, and that ups the ante in my opinion. I mean, this was like someone lit a gallon of nail polish remover on fire in my kitchen.

I had visions of the quaint little blue house with its brand-new wooden gate transforming into a fireball the size of Haley's comet.

I checked the oven. Off. I checked the stove range. Off, off, off, off. I checked the thermostat. Nada. Finally, after much longer than it should have taken, I remembered the dishwasher. I opened it. Hmmm.

Did you know that there is a heating coil at the bottom of a dishwasher? Like an actual, exposed heating coil? Remember how I said I "tossed" the scrub pad in with the dishes? Yeah. It pretty much crumbled into black, sooty ash when I picked it up off the coil. Now I've been sitting here with both doors open for almost 45 minutes and I can still smell that horrible stench. Something tells me that burnt scrub pad is the kind of smell that sticks with you for a few days.

So that was my morning. Do laundry? Check. Do dishes? Check. Eradicate all living things in the house under 25 lbs.? Check. I told you I was feeling productive.

Mom's big 5-0

2008-08-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

Some of you may recall my frantic for ice chests for this event. To those that were able to oblige ahemBrianMattandJenahem thank you so much. The party was a complete success, Mom was totally surprised, and all beverages were adequately chilled. Here are a few shots from the festive evening:

The big moment. Dad told her they were going to a surprise party for one of their friends, Joe, whose birthday really was that day. She was so shocked that she dropped the birthday card she was holding.

Amy and Uncle...er, Captain Chuck. This photo pretty much explains itself. If any of you have read my essay "The Church of Rat," yes, this is indeed that uncle.

Jac and Karrie, my adopted sisters. Dad spent at least ten minutes trying to convince people that Karrie was of legal age to drink and not, in fact, in middle school.

My grandparents cuttin' a rug. They're so freaking cute.

I barely survived this dance. Chuck had already managed to drop Aunt Vicki about 30 minutes prior, so in all fairness that really should have tipped me off. Here was the conversation that took place sometime between the frantic spins:

Nikki: Whoa, Chuck, I don't think I can turn that fast...

Chuck: That's how you do it, babe! Gotta get the girls dizzy!

Nikki: Oh yeah, sure. Who needs roofies then, right?

Chuck: (laughing, a little too much) Ha! Right!

But I count it all worth it for this picture.

And now, ladies and gentleman...I give you...soulja boy.

I am quite proud of that performance.

And last but not least, a cute picture of Amy and me. Cousins for life...literally.

So that was my Friday night. Enjoyable though it was, I'm kind of glad that we won't have to worry about throwing a shindig of that caliber for another decade or so. And now I have six ice chests to return. =)

thoughts while watching Father of the Bride

2008-08-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

Jac: "See, I want my wedding in a small church, not a big cathedral. Because I can't fill all those seats, you know? And that would just make me feel bad."
Nik: (cheerfully) "Well maybe the person that you end up marrying will have more friends than you."

girl meets God

2008-08-16T19:40:00.000-07:00

John 6:66-68 -

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.
Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

This is one of my favorite passages of Scripture. I've grown up in church my entire life. Supposedly I accepted Jesus into my heart when I was four years old on our front porch. I spent my formative years in a Baptist church, and we all know how Baptists love their Bibles....needless to say, I am well versed in, well, the verses. I know I had heard this story many times in church or Sunday school growing up. But the time I actually remember reading it was the first time that it actually meant something to me--when the words of God jumped off the page and pierced something long-buried and hidden inside.

In this case, it was the realization of how I would behave when the chips were down. I was nineteen and living illegally in my friend's dorm room in Lafayette after Katrina. I was bitter and angry at the God of my Baptist youth group, a God that flaunted double standards, demanded conformity, and whose followers stank of pride and self-righteousness. I was even more angry at my seeming inability to escape God. No matter how cynical and wayward I got, no matter how many other religions I toyed and tinkered with, no matter how long I went without uttering so much as a syllable in a skyward direction, I could not get Jesus' voice out of my head. It was extra infuriating because I knew it was Jesus--not Buddha or Krishna or the world soul, but unflinching, unfashionable Jesus. Of course, I had a good many doubts about its authenticity. I spent close to two years trying to convince myself that I was making all this up, that any ooky feelings or voices that I heard in my head were nothing but my subconscious response to a lifetime of religious indoctrination.

But what about these other people, convert-Christians I had known who had grown up with no religion at all, no connection to Sunday school or the Caucasian Republican Jesus that I had been introduced to at church? What made them read the Gospels, if they weren't being bribed with gold stars or candy? And more disturbingly, how could I account for the God-voice in their heads? Or the radical, loving change in their lives as a result of becoming a Christian? Eventually, all my reasons for not believing in God started to sound like excuses.

I remember the process of letting Jesus into my heart. It didn't happen all at once in some magnificent conversion experience complete with holy fireworks. It was more like letting go of a rope after a long game of tug-of-war. Your hands are so completely cramped up that you have to do it slowly, one finger at a time, as the feeling slowly returns and your muscles remember how to do something besides clench. It was a painful, mysterious, joyful surrender.

I read that verse in John and for the first time I understood Peter. I too stayed with Jesus because I had nowhere else to go. I had exhausted all my options and found them all lacking, meaningless. You can say that my experience is explainable--that I became a Christian because I couldn't accept the sociological implications of being an atheist in a Christian family, or that I use God as a crutch and a buffer against the reality of the world. That's a logical conclusion, and I understand it. But isn't it also logical to drop a handful of stones in order to lay hold of a diamond? To reject the worthless for the supremely valuable? My testimony is that I found the words of eternal life, and everything else just paled in comparison.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it." - Matthew 13:45

just call me Susie Shameless

2008-08-14T19:38:00.000-07:00

1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them for everyone to guess.
4. NO GOOGLING/using IMDB search functions.

I'll give a dollar to anyone who can name all 10.

1. "It's funny. It's all mixed up. There's something in you, and you don't know anything about it because you don't know it's there. And then suddenly, one night a little girl gets bored and tells a lie, and there, for the first time, you see it. Then you say to yourself, did she see it? Did she sense it?"

2. "You stopped talking because of Friedrich Nietzsche? Far out."

3. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome. "

4. "What'd you bring her here for?"
"One, I had no choice. Two, I may have suffered a slight concussion. And three, she is mentally imbalanced to a spectacular degree."

5. "Buon giorno, Principessa!"

6. "Yes, I have risked! I hope I am always able to risk everything for the just and right cause. If we did not make this decision, we could never again call ourselves innocent, and that in the end is what we have protected here: innocence! That, I'm not ready to give up."

7. "You know, that is so thoughtful. You are speaking to me so selflessly. I mean, you just don't want me to castrate you for my own benefit? Wow, I'm touched. Jeff, why don't we imagine someone saying the same thing to you at a random moment? Imagine that when you downloaded this little girl... I was sitting by your side saying, "Stop...don't do that to yourself..." Would you have listened?"

8. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I don't know. Were you thinking, 'Holy shit, holy shit, a swordfish almost went through my head?' If so, then yes."

9. "Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."

10. "OK, remember when Paul McCartney wrote the song "Michelle" and then he only wrote the first part, Annie said. And then he gave that part to John Lennon, and he wrote the part that said, "I love you, I love you, I love you." And Annie said that it wouldn't have been the same song without that... and that's why the whole world cried when the Beatles broke up on April 10, 1970. "

the weather in limbo

2008-08-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

...is overcast. In these the final days before the semester starts and I have Real Work to do, I'm having some trouble being focused. Don't get me wrong, I love having the free time, and it's really given me an opportunity to experiment with my schedule in the morning to see what works best--when I should get up and what order I should do things in. Walk the dog, exercise, spend time with God, etc. But by early afternoon when I've gotten all that done I'm left with a gaping, directionless void that tends to paralyze me. There are a million things I could be doing, none of them particularly more urgent than the other, and that's where I fall apart and end up wasting time on the Internet or cleaning some ancient, dusty corner of the house. Or blogging.

I had a good workout today, though. I almost copped out of going when I saw that a big 18-wheeler accident had blocked my usual route to the gym (when I'm not in the mood, I'll take pretty much any excuse to turn the car around and pick up a pint of Ben and Jerry's on the way home). But I did go, albeit a little late, and had a grand ole time on the cardio machines. I've decided, for about the millionth time, to try to cut out sweets cold turkey for about a month or so. That's really my Achille's heel, and I'm realizing more and more as time goes by that I can't really do the "moderation" thing with food. I can't have "just a taste" of cheesecake or cherry pie. I'd rather be told that I can eat an entire vine of grapes than 3 ounces of ice cream. And now that I'm actually putting in the time and effort to exercise regularly, I'd rather not have the results neutralized by that mega-chocolate-chunk cookie that I insist on getting from CC's every night that my guilty, sulking conscience will allow. So here goes nothing.

But I did get a few important things done today, one of which being the permit for the garage sale that Jac and I are going to have. New Orleanians, mark your calendars! We're going to be selling our possessions on Saturday, August 23rd from 8-5. Message me if you need the address. The selection will include:

- various home decor - candleholders, picture frames, etc.
- lots of women's clothes sizes 8 - 13, shirts of all sizes
- futon with metal frame
- CD's and DVD's, books
- whatever else we or our friends scrounge up

I don't have a Jac-o-Nic quote for today, so here's one from Smart People, which I watched and enjoyed last night:

Vanessa: You should really make your bed. It sets the tone for the day.
Chuck: But how do you know what tone I was trying to set?

microwaveable pad thai

2008-08-11T19:15:00.000-07:00

Your Jac-o-Nik quote of the week, brought to you by the letter ridiculous:

Jac: I haven't had a Blockbuster card since they tried to make me buy that overdue movie I had...what was it? Kung Pao Chicken.
Nikki: Kung Fu Hustle??? Is that what you're trying to say?

Sometimes we have a language all our own.

God has been abundantly good to me this week, but not in any tangeable way that I can easily explain. Just a supernatural peace in the midst of chaos, which was ironically what the sermon at church was on this week. Pastor Paul used the story of Jesus calming the storm to make his point. It's a good metaphor. I feel like for the first time in a long time I see my options on that boat very clearly. I can rage and curse the heavens for the storm around me. I can run around on deck tying ropes and bailing water, trying to fix the problem in my own power. Or I can curl up next to Jesus below deck, sleeping in the perfect peace of the Father, having confidence that my safety, future, finances, whatever, are in hands more capable than my own.

I wonder if that's why I like sleeping during thunderstorms so much. Just today I took a nap on the couch, in my favorite spot under the window, and let the thunder and rain lull me to sleep. Usually Lucy is nervous during thunderstorms, but this time she slept too - curled up against the couch right underneath me. She knows, through instinct and experience, that to be near me is to be safe. I want to be that way with Jesus.

Okay, time to go. After a long day of office work and errand running in the rain, it's time for some microwaveable pad thai and a movie with friends and a slightly muddy dog. It's a good night.

last call for support raising!

2008-08-11T07:33:00.000-07:00

So as some (none) of you may (not) remember from my post earlier this summer, I am support raising to be a student leader with Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship on UNO's campus.I've had some great responses, but the twilight is drawing near on my fundraising deadline, so I just wanted to remind anyone that was interested in supporting me about the ways that you can help:

- You can support me at any amount on a monthly basis, either by sending a check to my account with the Assemblies of God Missions or opting for a direct monthly withdrawal from your bank account. You can also give a one-time donation if you'd like. All supporters will receive monthly newsletters from me so that you can share in the encouragement and excitement of the things God is doing on UNO's campus.

- I don't think this is an official Chi Alpha support category, but I think it's truly important: PRAYER. If you would like to support me but cannot do so financially, I would love to have you commit to being a prayer supporter. I believe sincerely that "man does not live on bread alone" and that having a strong group of people praying for UNO and for me as a student leader on a regular basis is absolutely essential. Of course, these supporters will also receive newsletters so that they can see the fruits of their prayer and hear about new requests, praises, etc.

- If you belong to a church or other organization that you think would be interested in supporting Chi Alpha, I would be happy to visit a service/meeting and give a presentation.Just tell me when and where!

Thanks again to everyone who has encouraged me so far to pursue this internship and listen to where God is leading me. We just got approval for our first kick-off event of the semester, and I can't wait to get started! If you would like to support me in any way, please either message me here or e-mail me at pencil_dharma@yahoo.com.I look forward to hearing from you!

Finally, I'm reposting my support letter below in case anyone missed it or wants to re-read it. See you at UNO!

Dear Friends and Family,Summer is definitely here, isn’t it? I hope you have been keeping cool (preferably through snowballs and water parks) in this tropical New Orleans heat.

As you might know, I have been actively involved in a Christian campus ministry called Chi Alpha since my sophomore year of college. Chi Alpha is an interdenominational Christian community of students who minister to their campuses through small group discussions, worship gatherings, community service projects, and outreach events. When I had a crisis of faith during my freshman year of college, it was Chi Alpha students’ sincerity, love, and clear representation of the gospel that first set me back on the path of following Christ. Now that I have graduated from UNO and will be pursuing an MFA there over the next two years, I believe that God has called me to a greater involvement in campus ministry by becoming a Campus Missionary Associate with Chi Alpha at UNO.

Of the three campuses with established Chi Alpha groups (the others being Tulane and Loyola), UNO is a unique community with very different ministerial needs. Having a large commuter, international, and nontraditional student population, UNO’s students are highly diverse. It is common to see a 27-year-old ex-Marine, a 72-year-old retiree, and a 20-year-old Austrian exchange student in the same classroom. I count this diversity as a huge blessing and an opportunity for us as Christians to witness God’s love as it extends to all people, not just those within our peer group. The construction of a new and larger dormitory complex is also exciting because it has encouraged many more students to consider living on-campus and will provide a perfect setting for Chi Alpha to build a true faith community that behaves like a family, right down to the little things like midnight Wal-mart runs and sharing quarters for laundry. Up until now, UNO has seen very little in the way of thriving, functional Christian organizations. In my three years there, I have felt God’s fervent desire to introduce what is sometimes seen as a highly secular and apathetic campus to a Jesus that is relational, loving, and altogether real.

As a Chi Alpha Missionary Associate, I have the unique privilege and challenge of raising financial support. The hours I would have devoted to working a 'day job' will be spent on campus, with students, and developing the Chi Alpha group at UNO. I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to share this ministry vision and financial challenge with you in person. I will call you in the next week or so to see if we can setup a time for a brief appointment.I look forward to sharing this with you!

Nikki

rollin', rollin', rollin'...

2008-08-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

It takes 37 minutes to bike from my house to UNO in noonday heat in August.

I can say that with certainty. It was so nice to finally be on my bike again. Legs pumping, heart rate accelerated, endorphines kicking into high gear, that sort of thing. And when I got back dripping with sweat, it was equally nice to sit in front of the window unit with my bottle of water and a turkey sammich. Yes, sammich.

I also had an interesting discovery while riding my bike - somewhere between June and August I lost my fear of traffic. I don't know if it was the narrow streets in Mexico and the constant threat of being mowed down by a Volkswagon or the downtown treks in Denver under the watchful guidance of strict crosswalk signals. I don't know what did it, but something flipped the "caution against gasoline engines bigger than your head" switch to off. I remember being terrified the first time I rode my bike across and down Vets to Whole Foods in May. But today? I was just zipping along without a care in the world, straddling my little white line like I'm supposed to and coming to the general consensus that the cars behind me can bite it. Which one of us is saving the planet, after all?

I'm starting to love this phenomenon of biking because it appeals to my deeply-engrained love of multitasking. If I can commute, exercise, and reduce my carbon footprint all in one fell swoop, well by all means hand me a helmet. Thankfully, I had enough sense to dismiss the idea to listen to my Spanish language CD's while on the bike riding through traffic, but there might be an old-school handheld radio in my near future, if they even still make those.

So I'm going to get my money's worth out of this bike. And how. Before I put that key in the ignition, I am going to ask myself "Is it a good idea to drive to this?"

This line of questioning is very similar to the popular Youtube video series, "Is it a Good Idea to Microwave This?"

I'm hoping that the answer to both questions will usually be no.

back.

2008-07-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

A conversation from last night:

Nikki (in pajamas, entering from hallway): Dude, Jac....guess what.
Jaclyn (on sofa, looks up from TV): What?
Nikki: I can sleep in my underwear again!
Jaclyn: That's nice, Nikki.
Nikki: No, seriously! It's exciting.
Jaclyn: Uh-huh.
Nikki: I just want you to know...I'm going to be pants-less in about three minutes.

It's good to be home.

nickel and dimed

2008-07-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

moms and kids at Sox Place

When I was in Mexico, a newly acquired friend of mine told me about a nonfiction essay he wrote documenting the last time he did cocaine. Something he said about it stuck with me and started to sort of glow during my time here in Denver. "We cheer and clap when a sports star or a celebrity gets clean," he said, "but we don't do that for anyone else. Our society doesn't celebrate the average person's recovery from drugs."

When he told me that, I knew I wanted to shatter my ignorance of drug culture and recovery in particular. At Sox Place, that wasn't difficult to do. Well over half, maybe as much as two-thirds, of the kids at Sox Place are heroine or meth addicts. Some have no intention of stopping; others are trying their best to quit and re-integrate into mainstream society--a job, an apartment, maybe even the holy grail of health insurance. A few days ago I talked to a guy named Chris who was all too eager to talk about one of the most frustrating aspects of staying clean: finances.

Let me walk you through the math.

You were a heroine addict. You have supported an $800 a day habit. You stole cars. You sold drugs. You robbed people. You either couch surfed amongst your friends who happen to be holding down apartments or you lived on the streets. You did this for a very long time.

Now you're clean.

You need an apartment, but you don't have a job. You need a job, but you never graduated high school or at most you have your GED. You need money now because you have to pay for the methadone pills that are allowing you to stay clean in the first place.

Let's say you manage to get a job bussing tables at Applebees for $7.50 an hour. (They have graciously overlooked your prison record)

Let's say you manage to find an efficiency apartment for $600/month, and let's say by some miracle they waive the deposit, just to get the best case scenerio.

Now the bills:

Rent - 600

Utilities - 100

Bus fare - 60

Methadone - 200

Total: 960.00 per month

Now the wages:

40 hours a week at 7.50/hour =

1200.00 a month BEFORE taxes, so let's be extra optomistic and say 1100.00/month after taxes

Once you have taken care of the absolute essential items that allow you to keep your job and retain your status as a housed individual, you are left with approximately $140.00 per month for such luxuries as food, insurance, clothing, a phone.

That is the financial rubik's cube that people like Chris find themselves in. Contrary to our stereotype of the ex-addict, Chris has no desire whatsoever to return to his old life and lives in constant fear of going back on the streets. "I don't ever want to go back there," he told me. "Once you get sober and you get a taste of what life can be like, you don't want to go back. But when you live like this, every little thing that goes wrong terrifies you because it could turn into something huge."

I don't know if this is the type of thing my friend had in mind when he made that comment, but it gave me a whole new perspective not only on drug recovery but poverty in general and all the opaque, treacherous roadblocks that come with it. It's especially scary to me when I think that my "equation" was extremely simplified. I didn't even factor in things like court costs, other prescription medications, child support, baby and childcare costs, or hospital bills. It is by no means an excuse for crime, but it does help me empathize with someone who has to choose between buying formula for their baby, making the month's rent, or stealing a few bikes and affording both with cash to spare.

I'm not interested in getting political or complaining about how broken the system is and how it's all the president or the mayor or the economy's fault, mainly because I think if we as individuals opened our hearts and took better care of those around us, we wouldn't have need for any of those things. What I am interested in is learning and having my preconceptions changed. I want to live to see the day that I run out of people to look down on.

and one more thing...

2008-07-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

Peals Before Swine 7/27

This seemed particularly funny considering where I am right now.

Oh, Steven Pastis, how I missed you!

no small thing

2008-07-27T13:22:00.000-07:00

Loving a person just the way they are, it's no small thing
It takes some time to see things through
Sometimes things change, sometimes we're waiting
We need grace either way

There's a lot of pain in reaching out and trying
It's a vulnerable place to be
Love and pride can't occupy the same spaces baby
Only one makes you free

If we go looking for offense
We're going to find it
If we go looking for real love
We're going to find it

- Loving a Person, by Sara Groves

So I'm at this little place on the 16th Street Mall in Denver called The Corner Bakery. I described it to Brian as "sort of like McAlister's, but with espresso and a bakery too." I ordered and ate a turkey sandwich with artichokes and some sort of questionable pickled onions that smelled like horseradish. I'm basking in the familiar again, haunting my coffee shops and plugging in my laptop like it's an I.V. This morning I went to Red Rocks church again with Sox, his family, and Shane and Dondrea's family. It was, for the second week in a row, positively cathartic and dead-on as far as what I need poured in my life right now. Of course, it could just be that I'm community-starved after being away for so long, but I'd like to think God's just being extra special nice to me because I'm a walking basketcase.

I think if I had to distill what I've learned from this whole trip down into a single thought, it would be this: We are all human, and God loves humanity. The busty belle of Hollywood Mae West once said: "I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better." Well, Mae, I have to disagree with you. This summer I've observed the lavishly rich and the broke-ass poor and seen that both have the potential to crush your soul. Each of us has the ability to destroy or create, to protect or abuse, to love or hurt. Money and status don't change our hearts or make the choices any easier; they just shuffle the options.

I used to think that I was naturally a pretty forgiving person. Now I realize I just hadn't been hurt bad enough. Trying to keep your heart open after experiencing real heartbreak is like trying to keep a bear trap from clamping down on your weak little ankle. It's a worthwhile venture, sure, but it's also exhausting and dangerous. I've been holding that bear trap back for a while now, and I'm (thankfully) getting to a point where the fighting ends and the forgiveness actually starts.

Because we're all human. We're running around with swords and switchblades in our hands, trying not to nick each other up too badly. And we need grace.

brave new blog, that has such words in it.

2008-07-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

So I've decided to switch my blog over to blogspot for several reasons:

1. I like the layout/editing system better.
2. It allows people who don't have accounts to comment.
3. I felt like it.

That' s pretty much it. I'll be posting here the same way that I was posting on xanga, and hopefully making the layout a little prettier in the near future. Until then, please enjoy the blank page space as a focal point for meditation or a swatch to base your living room paint off of.

Nikki