Reflections on Laura’s 31st birthday

I met Laura on my first day of 4th grade in Jos, Nigeria. My family had just moved to Jos from Los Angeles—quite the culture shock, I assure you—and we arrived a few weeks after school had started. So when I joined the class, everyone else had already started to make friends. We’d arrived in our new town on Saturday, and over the weekend before that Monday, I had started playing with a few of the girls on the compound. Because I had those initial friends, I suppose I did not pay Laura the attention she deserved until months later.

To be honest, I don’t have many memories of Laura from that far back. She lived 20 minutes away from me (driving) in a different part of town, and I did not get to visit her home very often. Our brothers were in the same 7th grade class and became friends, so perhaps we did some things together that year. I do have a photo of Laura, Ruth Arrowsmith, and me showing off a project we had worked on together for Miss Lewan’s social studies class that year.

The next year we were definitely spending more time together. I remember getting in serious trouble once in 5th grade because I had gone to Laura’s house after school to work on a social studies project for Mrs. Ellis’s class—without permission. Laura’s house didn’t have a phone, so my parents had no way to reach me without driving out to pick me up. OK, Laura’s house did have a phone, even a working phone, but people kept stealing the phone line—the actual physical wire. No lie. Not until mobile phones became popular in the 2000s did we really have a reliable way to reach anyone in her household.

At the end of 5th grade, all three of my neighbor agemates moved away, one to Australia and the other two to the U.S. So when 6th grade rolled around, I started spending a lot more time with Laura and with Tammy, my new neighbor. The three of us became inseparable. I have several photos of us from that year, but my favorite is from Crazy Dress-Up Day. We were pretty silly.

Things changed between Tammy and me over the next few years, as I had to return to the U.S. in the middle of 6th grade and was there for a year. Life in Jos moved on without me, and when I got back, all of my closest friends were in the other 7th grade class. The rest of middle school was hard. I often felt left behind from the group of girls I’d had sleepovers with since we were 9. But I spent more time with Laura, until we were again inseparable.

From that point on, Laura has been my encourager, supporter, confidant, sister, and friend. I lived with her family for three months when we were 16, and her family is my second family. Her father baptized me and officiated at my wedding. If anything happened to my mother—God forbid—Laura’s mom would serve as my mom.

La has seen me through depression, excitement, the deaths of mutual loved ones, middle school, high school, college, marriage, ups, downs, ins, and outs. And every time we’re together, it’s like we’ve never been apart. We’ve laughed together, cried together, been crazy together, fought together, and always ended up being better off for it.

But it’s not just how much I love La and am glad to be part of her extended family. I am proud of her beyond words. She has known since she was 16 that she wanted to be in the medical field. We debated about becoming nurses for awhile after we’d volunteered as dental assistants for a visiting dentist. But we also spent a whole summer (and other vacations) shadowing doctors in the hospital, and I think La knew from the beginning that she wanted to be a medical doctor. She worked her tail off in college but had a hard time getting into m edical school with everything else going on. But she didn’t give up. She persevered, becoming an EMT and then a paramedic, all while studying hard to get into medical school.

Laura did get accepted into medical school and joined the Navy. Today she turns 31, and in May she will graduate from medical school with her Doctorate of Osteopathy and start working as a licensed doctor in a family medicine residency program with the U.S. Navy. It has been a long, hard road. But Laura has always been a hard worker and one who perseveres. I am so immensely proud of her persistence, her positive attitude, her accomplishments, and through it all her ultimate trust in God.

I love you, La! I know we are far away and don’t get to see each other much, but I thank God for you and all we have been through together. Here’s to your 31 beautiful years and to another 21 years of friendship!

Love, Sa

The Unsinkable Molly Brown - April 1999

May 2000 May 2002

Spring Break in Lookout Mountain, GA - 2004

Laura, her sister Carmen, and me at Carol Beacham’s wedding (Spring 2005)

Being silly at O’Hare airport

High school 10-year reunion – Labor Day 2010

We flew together to San Antonio, TX, for the Fighting ALS with Jay 5k -  June 2012

What church means to me

Let me start by saying that I’m not really a very denominational person.

What I mean is that I don’t hold to the theological tenets of any one particular mainstream denomination. As long as a church believes in the main things I believe in (which I believe are scriptural), I can give or take the timing of water baptism, the timing and understanding of the end times, and how spiritual gifts manifest in believers (among other things). That being said, I’m not a Pentecostal. I do not believe that one must speak in tongues if one has the Holy Spirit. So I’ve never been comfortable in those kinds of churches. I also tend not to go to Lutheran churches because I think it’s a little fishy that only Lutherans can take communion. 

I grew up in a small Presbyterian (USA) church from ages 3 to 12, but I was baptized by sprinkling as a pre-teen, not as an infant. Three years later I was baptized by immersion in a pool beneath an African waterfall out in the bush. That really brought home what baptism meant, made it real to me. (The same amazing man of God who baptized me that year also presided at my wedding nine years later.)

While we lived in Nigeria when I was growing up, we mostly attended chapel services at my school, which is interdenominational. Our services ranged from very Baptist to very Anglican, with everything in between. So I got a taste of different liturgies and a broad spectrum of music. You can see why I’m sort of a mish-mash of church styles.

I won’t attend a church that is led by a professed homosexual or by a pastor who will publicly condone that lifestyle. But neither will I attend a church that doesn’t have anything to say about its members divorcing and remarrying at will, living together without being married, being Scrooges, or being unloving. I believe a church should tell it like it is and use discipline as necessary, along biblical lines.

A church should be a family. It should have love and generosity and—yes—discipline. I know this opens a whole can of worms. (Feel free to discuss your thoughts on my FB page if you feel strongly about any of this.) But this is what I think about a church, or at least the Church.

There isn’t any perfect church. I’ve attended many, and none of them is ideal. But there are some in which I have felt at home, and there are others in which I have felt like a complete stranger, as if I had to ask myself, Who are these people?? I’ve never agreed 100% with any church I’ve attended, but I’ve usually agreed enough to continue attending and sometimes to become a member.

But the one thing I really miss is feeling at home in a church. When I was very small, my family attended Community Church of San Diego, and even after we moved to Los Angeles (and later to Nigeria), we would attend CCSD whenever we visited our extended family in San Diego. It is super small, and while many families have moved on to other places, there are still a few people there who have known me practically my whole life. If any church had ever made me feel at home, it would be CCSD. Another amazing church at which I felt right at home was Grace Community Church of Visalia. We happened to visit for the first time on the day they had a sign-up fair for Bible studies, Sunday school classes, AWANA, and other ministries. And that evening, an intern from the church and his wife brought us cookies and a packet of information. We didn’t even try any other churches in town. That was the first one we went to and the last. Everything Timothy & I did socially was through the church, and that felt right.

I’ve attended other welcoming churches, including First Pres of Coalinga and Church of the Great Shepherd in Wheaton. But I’ve never felt that family-ness except at CCSD and GCC. I am longing,  yearning for that family-ness and closeness for my own little family. I want my kids to grow up with aunties and uncles and friends, with surrogate grandparents (as long as their real grandparents remain thousands of miles away at any rate). I want to fellowship with brothers and sisters, not just strangers whose names I may or may not happen to remember. I want to be a part of other people’s lives, to be able to go to their houses and have them in mine. I want to share in ministry together, to grow together, to reach other people together.

When I attend a small church for six weeks in a row, I’d like someone to actually try to strike up a conversation with me, to find out who I am and what I’m doing here, where I’m from and where  I’m going. How can I get involved in a church that is not interested in being involved in my life? If no one bothers to take the time to get to know me, even a little, after repeat visits, what could possibly entice me to remain and give of myself there?

I know that closeness can take time. I know that I can’t expect to walk into a group of strangers and feel immediately at home. But we’re all believers. We’re all brothers and sisters in Christ. Surely we can put aside our stranger-ness and welcome each other with open arms? Maybe I will just keep attending churches until someone invites me to their home after church (or out, I guess), until someone shows me that I am not just a weird Northerner with biracial kids and a low voice but am actually a child of God who is worth an hour of conversation.

Or maybe I am doomed to float around from church to church, never finding another church home, just attending on Sunday mornings for worship and struggling to get by during the week with other local ministries. *sigh*

My bucket list (a work in progress)

• Join my mom in writing the story of her life.
• Visit North Dakota, Alaska, and Hawaii.
• Go bushwalking.
• Run a whole 5k.
• Get eight hours of sleep every night for a whole week.
• Learn how to knit.
• Take my eldest niece to see The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway for her 16th birthday (assuming it is still playing and assuming she wants to go!).
• Walk 20+ miles of the Appalachian Trail.
• Watch a meteor shower with the kids—really watch it, lying on blankets and sipping hot cocoa.
• Eat Persian food in Iran.
• Climb the Eiffel Tower.
• Ride a bullet train.
• Travel to another African country.
• Go hiking in New Zealand.
• Read Les Miserables, at least the abridged version.
• Drive to Alaska.
• Go snow-shoeing.
• Ride in a sleigh.
• Be in a friend’s wedding.
• Fly in one direction all the way around the world (with stops, of course).
• Experience zero gravity.
• Watch a Star Trek movie marathon (of course, the order presents a dilemma).
• Grow my hair out to below my shoulder blades (for the first time since 2000).
• Complete all the homework for a Beth Moore Bible study.
• Welcome my little brother Luke to the U.S.!
• Be part of a flash mob.
• Save someone’s life.
• Go deer hunting with a compound bow, even if I don’t shoot anything. 

Tastes and tidbits

I can still very vividly remember my first taste of alcohol.

We were in Charlotte, North Carolina, for my parents’ missions orientation when I was seven years old, and we went to visit a Lutheran church one Sunday morning. Everyone was given communion, including the children, and to my surprise, it was red wine.

Ew.

It was really gross. I mean, yuck. Afterward, they came down the aisles and gave children fresh mint gum to chew, but I’ll never forget that first pungent taste.

So I was never really disappointed that my parents’ mission forbade them to drink alcohol (for many reasons). I never wanted to taste it. I was never curious about it. That communion totally turned me off to the stuff.

And when I went to a Christian college that forbade the drinking of alcohol, I thought that was super. I looked down on the students who broke the rules and sipped wine in secret. Not that I thought drinking alcohol was sinful. Obviously, Jesus drank wine (and turned water into wine). But each of us had signed a paper saying we wouldn’t drink the stuff, so it seemed not quite right to break the rules. I’ve heard many, many stories of what can happen from drunkenness, and I would never want to be around someone who is drunk (like the man who dropped his trousers and urinated in the middle of the Cincinnati Greyhound station when I was there at 2am in March 2005). So in college I was one of the happy non-drinkers.

After I turned 21 and was out of school on break, I let two CRC guy friends give me a taste of beer. I tasted it to be polite, but it tasted bitter and fermented. (I guess that’s the idea.) *shudder* Thanks, Jimmy & Ethan, but no thanks!

When I got out of college and moved in with a young and successful harpist, I let her persuade me to try some Baileys on vanilla ice cream. OK, I’ll admit it. That was darn yummy. It was yummy enough that I had it twice while staying in her home.

And it gave me enough courage to try champagne at my cousin’s wedding later that year, when my uncle coaxed me to at least taste it. It wasn’t so bad but not what I’d really want to drink if I had my choice. I’d much prefer Martinelli’s.

So when I visited a friend tonight for the season 3 premiere of Downton Abbey, I agreed to at least taste the sangria she’d made. I’m not a teetotaler. As you can see, I’ve had interesting run-ins with alcohol. But mostly I avoid it because of the flavor and because since moving to a very military part of the country, I have heard of so much calamity and disaster being caused by drunken behavior (including the drunk driver who—a couple months ago--ran into someone’s kitchen while the family was at breakfast).

But sangria wasn’t so bad. I was glad to only have a few sips, but it actually tasted kind of good. So maybe someday I will be able to stomach certain alcoholic drinks, if only to be polite.

Cheers to new experiences.

Going deaf, one concert at a time

My dad wears earplugs to church.

He really does.

But before you think he is trying to tune out the sermon (after all, why else would he attend church?), let me explain that it is because he is worried about losing his hearing in church.

This is a real and legitimate fear that I, at age 30, am realizing is something we really all ought to have.

My dad’s not the only one. I have heard other people—though I admit they are mostly over the age of 45—complain that churches today are just too loud.

I attend a rather quiet church. Yes, most of the time, I wish the music were a little more upbeat and contemporary, that there were a guitar rather than just a piano, that sort of thing. But at least I don’t worry about losing my hearing. There is no worship team, and the choir has simple choir mikes. Nothing is blasted anywhere. My eardrums are grateful.

But I attended a concert last night that made me wonder, Why do we think louder is better?

I admit I didn’t know most of the songs, and I went mostly for the company and the experience. I had a fabulous time, thanks to some ladies from my PWOC group and to great musicians. (And dinner at Dairy Queen, which is a rare treat.) But because I didn’t know many of the songs, I felt pretty out-of-the-loop.

Why?

Because I couldn’t understand the words! I caught maybe one out of every ten words.

Why?

Because it was so darn loud! There was so much audio distortion due to volume that I literally could not understand the lyrics of the songs. If it had been true only for the warm-up bands, I wouldn’t have minded so much. (OK, so the Sidewalk Prophets can hardly be considered a warm-up band, but they were not the name on the ticket.) But the featured artist was just as hard to understand.

I get having loud music for a rock band. I’m totally down with that. I went to an Audio A concert once, and we sat right in front of the speakers midway back in the fair tent. Dude. We could feel the bass just pounding in our whole bodies. Quite the experience. But I’d expect that sort of thing from Audio A.

Honestly? The songs I enjoyed most the whole evening were the ones with the least accompaniment. Francesca Battistelli has a lovely voice, and I loved the songs in which I could actually hear it, when she wasn’t being drowned out by the bass or electric guitar, the songs in which she sat down and sang to a single guitar.

Yeah. That was nice. I didn’t know the songs, and I could hear her singing, understand the words, and be moved by their power.

OK, yes, so some songs are more upbeat and can use some more pep and volume, but really, to blast the music at a level that will literally cause long-term hearing damage if the listeners (not to mention the musicians) are exposed over a long period just doesn’t make any sense to me. Why is louder better?

From another angle entirely, if the musicians really do seek to minister to people in their concerts and spread the gospel, wouldn’t their music be more effective if the lyrics were intelligible? Some of the words are so juicy and powerful if only they could be heard. Evangelistically, loud and distorted music just doesn’t seem very ideal.

Maybe it’s just me. From now on, though, I think I’ll either have to stick to concerts of people with whose music I am rather more familiar or take earplugs and enjoy the lights show. And when my peers are going deaf at 45, I’ll just smile and whisper, “Can you hear me now?”

I believe in ghosts.

Yes, Halloween is still six weeks away, but I got a catalog in the mail last week that had costumes on the cover, and Timothy is already talking about what he wants to be for Halloween. Just like last year, we had to discuss the options that were “out” because Halloween isn’t about scary things; it’s about dressing up and making sure everyone has a fun, safe time.

I’ve mentioned before that we were never allowed to dress up as scary characters when we were children. No witches, ghosts, skeletons, goblins, vampires, werewolves, zombies, or Frankensteins (although of course we educated folk know that Frankenstein was the name of the creator of the “monster” while arguably being himself a human monster for his role in the creation, right, Ruth?). My brother Jonathan dressed as a bum when he was in 6th grade, but I think that’s the closest we got to negative characters. My sister was Laura Ingalls Wilder at least once and even made herself into a jelly bean jar one year. But it was always clear that the “traditional” Halloween themes were not welcome in our home.

That went for decorations, too. We never ever decorated for Halloween except with a Jack-o’-Lantern (or two or three). My sister and her now-husband one year carved a globe into their pumpkin for Halloween. Talk about awesome! So pumpkins are good. Witches & ghosts, not so much.

We were never allowed to watch any scary movies, either, which is completely understandable. Not only that, but we weren’t even allowed to watch friendly ghost movies like ones about Casper the Friendly Ghost. I have still never seen Ghostbusters, The Addams Family, or The Nightmare Before Christmas.

But I believe in ghosts.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe in Casper. I think dressing up in a white sheet is kind of silly and ridiculous, and I can see how it might be fun (though I won’t let my child do it).

I’m talking about actual ghosts. I think they do exist, just as I think real witches exist, and I have what I consider to be a healthy respect for spirits I cannot understand.

In 1 Samuel 28, a medium (or “witch” in some translations) called the spirit of Samuel up at King Saul’s request. Saul spoke with Samuel’s ghost about an upcoming battle, and the spirit of Samuel prophesied the death of not only Saul but also his sons, in addition to a rout of the Israelite army (v. 19).

I’m not a Bible or theology scholar, so I could not explain to you how this fits in with the concept that death is the end of reality here on earth, and that once we die, we spend eternity with God or apart from God. Yet even in the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:27-31), the rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus back to the rich man’s family to warn them about the torment awaiting them if they did not change their ways. Was he referring to sending a ghost? I don’t know. Maybe it was rather a request for someone to “ris[e] from the dead” (v. 31) as in the NIV. Either way we’re talking about people who have died coming back to talk to the living. But notice that Abraham said no.

By way of pop fiction, the Harry Potter books give a great deal of discussion to ghosts. In Book 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Sir Nicholas tells Harry, “Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where their living selves once trod. […] But very few wizards choose that path” (p. 861). He explains later,

“I was afraid of death. . . I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtn’t to have . . . Well, that is neither here nor there. . . . In fact, I am neither here nor there. . . . […] I know nothing of the secrets of death, Harry, for I chose my feeble imitation of life instead.” (p. 861)

It certainly is food for thought.

While I am curious about ghosts and the spirits of those who have died, I will leave that in Pandora’s box, so to speak. After having lived in Nigeria, I have no doubt that spirits do exist, and I should think ghosts fall into that category, too. I believe a spiritual battle is waging, just as Frank Peretti so eloquently depicts in his novels. But since the only instance I’m aware of in the Bible that mentions ghosts is a negative portrayal [the medium is terrified because God has forbidden His people to turn to mediums or spiritists (Leviticus 19:31)], I will just assume that we’re not supposed to summon ghosts but let them be at peace.

When I lived in Nigeria, every time we traveled to the nearby village of Miango, where there was a cemetery for missionaries and their children, it was my habit to visit several graves at night, when all was quiet and peaceful. I miss that. I miss laying flowers down for Hyo Jin Lee and Aimee Ardill.  I would stand by their graves—pensive, mellow, and not a little bit hopeful, but never afraid.

While I believe that ghosts do exist, they do not frighten me.

My God is bigger than they are.

Image courtesy of http://www.uttertrivia.com/halloweentrivia.php.

Where I come from (Part I): Seasons

Many people ask me, “What was it like growing up in Nigeria?”

Wow, what an overwhelmingly huge question.

I usually have to follow the question with my own question: “What do you want to know?”

I mean, if you moved to a foreign country, and someone asked, “What was it like growing up in America?” how would you respond?

Umm… Different.

So, in case you’re curious about what it was like growing up in a foreign country, I’ll try to tell you a little bit and hopefully not bore you to tears.

***********

The first thing that struck me as we journeyed from the northern airport town of Kano five hours south to our new hometown of Jos, Nigeria, on Saturday, August 24, 1991, was how green everything was. I was coming from southern California, which is dry at the best of times but which that year was suffering from drought. The vivid green was just startling. It rained on our trip. It rained during dinner at our new neighbors’ home that evening. It rained the next day after we had lunch with other new neighbors. Welcome to rainy season in Jos!

Nigeria is a very disparate country as far as climate. You wouldn’t expect it when you think of Africa. The average person tends to picture “Africa” as Sahara Desert, flat savanna with giraffes and zebras, or jungle. And he’s be right. Africa is really, really big and has all sorts of climates and topography. Even in Nigeria, which is not by any means the largest country in area, has all three of those main areas. The south is coastal and very tropical, a typical rain forest. It rains a lot all year round and is hot and humid all year round. The central belt is more of a grassland with two distinct seasons that are as different from each other as summer and winter in Minnesota. The north is arid and is the beginnings of the dry land that becomes the Sahara the farther north you go.

Our town, Jos, is in the central belt, on a plateau of about 4000 ft. It’s the second coolest place in the country (on average). Really, the temperatures are a lot like southern California: in the 70s. Most of the year.

We arrived in August, which is the peak of the rainy season. And in July and August, it rains every single day. Sometimes it’s only in the afternoon. Other times there are thunderstorms on and off all day long. Most of the rain is from storms: hard, driving rain that pounds on the zinc roof. And hail. I can’t forget to mention the hail. It doesn’t hail every day by any means, but there are always several good hailstorms every year, casting down ice as big as cherry tomatoes. During our awards ceremony at the end of one school year, the electricity went out (which is normal), and no one could hear the speaker because of the rain pounding on the high roof of the chapel. Our high school math teacher had to do the rest of the awards and announcements in his booming voice. That’s the kind of rain I’m talking about. Not rain like in the U.K. or Pacific Northwest.  The season starts in late April to mid-May and always comes with the explosion of flying termites that seem to literally erupt from the ground after the first drenching rain. They are everywhere. They get in your face, fly around the house, flutter around the car, crawl into your bed, the whole works. They totally creep me out, even though I lived in Nigeria a total of nine years. I hate flying termites. The local kids will run around and collect them, grabbing them and throwing them into a bucket of water. The wings fall off in the water, and once the termites are drowned, they get thrown into a pan and fried… or sometimes eaten raw. No, I’ve never eaten one. I just could never get up the courage! Driving at night could be dangerous because there would be flocks of children around the few working street lights (to which the termites are attracted), all trying to grab the flying bugs. Delightful.

The season usually starts off slowly. It rains a couple times a week at first, then three or four times. By mid-July, it’s raining every day. Beautiful thunderstorms and lightning that also bring high winds and flooding at times. Washed out roads, huge potholes, everything. It’s my absolute favorite time of year. The rain cools things off considerably, and I used to love curling up with hot tea (my family is obsessive about hot tea) and a book on summer vacation. You have to sit right by the window, too, because the electricity is often off, so the house gets pretty dark during storms. Our windows are slatted, though, so you have to risk getting rather wet. Even when the windows are closed all the way, rain still gets in. During a really hard storm, we’d have to remove the cushions from the couch, which was pushed up against our living room window, to keep them from getting soaked.

Then in September, the rain starts tapering off, and sometime in October, it mostly stops. It’s warm and humid, but it doesn’t rain.  In November, the dust rolls in. Some years it happens gradually, but other years, we’d wake up one morning, and literally overnight, the air had become filled with a thick cloud of dust. Not like a dust storm you might imagine from watching Lawrence of Arabia. It’s a fine, reddish brown powdery dust called harmattan, and it gets everywhere. In your hair, your nose, onto the furniture, window panes, clothing. Sometimes you can even feel it when you breathe. And the land just dries up. Grass withers and dies. The lush green landscape turns into a brown wasteland in the space of just a few weeks.

But it’s not hot, as you might expect when you think of dust and dry weather. On the contrary, the coolest temperatures usually come during the dry season. The dust is so thick in the air that the sun’s warmth just doesn’t penetrate as well. It never gets cold, but it can cool off enough that people begin to die of exposure. It has been known to be in the 40s at night on rare occasions. The whole season isn’t like that; mostly it’s in the 60s and 70s, but the cold nights can be refreshing…as we snuggle in blankets because homes are not insulated and have no heating mechanisms except for fire. The visibility decreases, too. Distant hills become practically invisible. The sun vanishes before it goes below the horizon at sunset as it sinks below the layer of dust in the air. It’s a red sun, a harmattan sun. One of our missionaries used to sing, “I’m dreaming of a brown Christmas.” How fitting.

Dry season lasts through about February. March brings warm, humid weather again. This is the time of year my mom and I dislike the most. Neither of us is suited for heat, and the humidity can be overpowering, especially without electricity to run a ceiling fan. (Besides, ceiling fans are problematic in the kitchen, where it’s hottest, because they blow out the gas flames on the stove and while you’re trying to light the oven—with matches.) It is warm and humid but doesn’t rain. You can just feel the heavy air. High school classes after lunchtime were particularly difficult in March, since most classrooms didn’t have fans. We were pretty droopy.

And then finally, one day, we’d spot a dark cloud moving in, and we’d hear the sound of distant thunder. We’d go in to class after lunch with the fragrance of rain filing us with hope. Then, about 1:30 or 2 o’clock in the afternoon, we’d hear the pitter-patter of rain on the roof, and we’d beg to be allowed to dash outside to enjoy it. When the bell rang, we’d all dash out from under the veranda roof and lift our faces to the rain. That blessed, refreshing, rejuvenating rain.

I wonder what Vivaldi’s masterpiece The Four Seasons would sound like if he had grown up in Nigeria…

 

Harmattan photo courtesy of http://ebushpilot.com/blog/index.php/2007/01/harmattan-daze/

Rainy season photo courtesy of http://kimkennett.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/settling-in/

It’s about me, not about you.

This blog is very simple. I’m a writer. My thoughts and feelings have been pent up for much, much too long, and I am trying to finally release them. I have thoughts I like to share. Sometimes I want feedback. Sometimes I just want to express myself without the fear of judgment and ridicule. I can’t do that in my everyday life, so this is my place of escape. I haven’t had such a place for years, and I ache for a venue I can just be genuine, just be me.

I have controversial thoughts. I step on people’s toes. On Facebook, I have hosted discussions on Islam, gun control, modesty, health care reform, and other hot topics. I really enjoy discussions and the way in which people [generally] interact in a civil way. I don’t want to necessarily convince anyone of anything, but I think we should talk about things. We can never get along if we don’t get into some of these issues and at some point either agree or agree to disagree and move on. Civil, loving, and informed discussion is healthy and awesome. I love it. It’s probably what I miss most about my college years at Wheaton. (OK, Heather & Will, you’re right up there, too.)

I offend people. I step on toes. That’s not my intent, but it happens. When I have controversial ideas and openly discuss them, I cannot avoid offending people who take my ideas personally instead of in the spirit of academic debate. I don’t mean to hurt feelings. Really, I don’t. But I cannot possibly agree with everyone. I don’t want to. I like variety, and I can’t take a stand on anything if I’m worried about offending someone.

We read in Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God last night that we cannot expect to make everyone happy. Christians who take stands on important issues are going to offend people. Jesus offended the Pharisees big time. No lie. The apostles and early church leaders spoke the truth in love and gently (when they could), but they spoke the truth, and they were persecuted.

I’m not saying I speak the truth necessarily, but I think it’s important to at least search for the truth instead of assuming we know what it is. It’s important to open your mind to other ideas and possibilities, to not be narrow-minded. Not to accept everything and become so tolerant that you forget your values. That’s not what it’s about, either. But I am changing all the time, developing and growing, and I want to evaluate my ideas and beliefs to see if they still make sense to me as I get older and learn more about life. That’s my personal reason for these discussions. I think I have that right.

That is Facebook. This blog is not designed to be a forum for discussion. Sorry, but that’s not its purpose. This blog is my selfish indulgence in my love for writing and my attempt to be genuine in some tiny area of my life. The brutal truth is that while I have lots of friends here in Georgia, I don’t have a bosom friend or a kindred spirit. (Yes, that may offend some people, but it’s true.) I have had such amazing friends in my lifetime that I have really, really, really high expectations. While I might talk about “struggles” in my life to some of my local friends, no one really knows the real me. No one here. That is just the truth. I have dealt with it and moved on. And this is one of the ways in which I’ve moved on. Here, I can spill my guts, just lay it all out on the table, be totally me. Please don’t judge me. This is my space. Let me have my moments here. Don’t take things personally. No offense, but I’m not thinking about you here in my space. I’m thinking about me. I need this. I really do.

I love my readers. So many of you have encouraged me and blessed me by reading and commenting, and even just by nagging me to write. Thank you! But seriously, if I offend you, please just don’t read. If you can’t handle my brutal honesty, that’s fine. But don’t whine about it. Just give me my space. Peace out.