Lent, Day 29? Or something? Maybe?

Thoughts on blogging through Lent, in no particular order:

It was SUCH a mistake to put numbers in the titles of these Lent posts. Yikes.

I don't know why I ever thought I could be a journalist. I can barely manage to hit "publish" my own dang blog every day (by which I mean "most days"), much less deal with an external writing deadline, with content that matters AND has to be coherent and factual, day in and day out. Thinking about it kind of makes my blood pressure go up.

This spring has been a tough one. Usually by this point in the year, I'm feeling basically free of the winter funk, and I'm busy, rested, and motivated. This year? Let's just say that the winter funk is persisting.

Not-unrelatedly, a friend and I are reading Russ Moore's new book Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ.

I'm working on writing up each chapter as I read it. So far the verdict is possibly least-surprisingly-awesome book I've ever read. By which I mean, Dr. Moore's stuff is almost entirely fantastic -- convicting, encouraging, focused on Jesus -- and this, being no exception, did not catch me off guard with its amazingness. I highly recommend it, not only for the practical theology content, but for the strength of Dr. Moore's authorial voice. Reading this book is just like being in class with him. He's funny, relatable, a bit provocative, really, really Southern (in that genteel, coastal South way, not a redneck or hillbilly way), and whip-smart. Oh, and he loves Johnny Cash.

Lent, Day I am a terrible blogger!

Seriously, how Type A do you have to be to blog EVERY. SINGLE. DAY? Apparently a whole lot more Type A than I am. Tomorrow I'll start posting the next academic thingo, on the inerrancy debate. It's another one for a class, so I'll break it up into pieces again.

I got the sweetest letter in the mail from one of my Aussie besties last weekend, which was so great. It's really made me grateful for the fact that the Lord gave me a whole pack of fabulous friends in Oz when I went down there the first time just to visit one person. An incalculable blessing, really. I can't wait to be able to go back -- wish I could go every year but every two seems like a pretty good balance, since, so far, in the "between" years, I have Aussie guests staying at Chez Laura! Anyway, the letter was a whopper, long and chatty and newsy, with photos enclosed and a lovely piece of bona fide 3-year-old artwork. Aren't you jealous? Everyone wants cool letters from their overseas friends!

It was a bit of a crap weekend, to be honest -- or at least a slightly roller-coaster weekend: fun times with friends intermingled with a lot of OUCH. Plus, I spent almost four hours sitting in a coffee shop on Saturday getting absolutely nothing accomplished on the aforementioned paper. Ooh, but! Highlight! There's a newish restaurant in Louisville called Hammerheads, and anyone nearby needs to go ASAP. It's ridiculously good. Amazing. It's a total dive -- low ceilings, crusty old tables and chairs, zero ambiance -- with the most delicious food, focused on smoked meat, in a kind of gastropub way. Major yum.

In other news, I'm super excited to be reading through Russ Moore's new book, Tempted and Tried (read excerpts here and here), with a good friend. We're getting together to talk about it this week and I am stoked about it. Dr. Moore is the VP of Southern Seminary, as well as being one of the sharpest, most relatable, most theologically incisive dudes alive and writing at the moment. If you don't subscribe to his weekly podcast, The Cross and the Jukebox, you are missing out. Tempted and Tried looks to be a ripping read as well as a major encouragement.

All righty, that's all I've got. Peace out.

Lent, Day 19: UGH UGH SNOW UGH

Seriously, it snowed last night. Probably an inch of wet, heavy snow. Friday is the first day of April.

This week I'll finish the serious posts I started last week, and then I've got another paper due next weekend, so here's hoping I'll get that posted in pieces the following week. And then my sweet mama will be here to visit for the week! Hooray!

I'm so annoyed with the weather that that's all I've got.

Lent, Day 11: The Black Dog

This past week I was incredibly productive. I wrote a paper, got my tax stuff organized, worked on (and finished!) grades, cleaned my house, hung out with friends, took care of the last of Mt. Recycling that was in the closet, and did all the normal stuff of the week -- teaching, community group, cooking, errands. I feel rested and energized and am looking forward to a whole week of vacation in which to do things and see people and finish projects.

But a few weeks ago, my mood was very different. I could feel myself getting better as the days grew longer, but I was still struggling with what's probably the number one symptom of my seasonal depression: a knotty anxiety about getting anything accomplished. Even simple tasks like grading student essays look Herculean, and anything larger or more stressful I find absolutely paralyzing. I can even objectively recognize the simplicity of a task, and the necessity of doing it, but then my brain just shuts down when it comes to taking the first step. Churchill's "black dog" was still sitting ominously in the corner.

And when all this is going on, I am a very, very bad friend. I can handle getting together with friends to chat about trivialities; I can talk theology all day long because I enjoy it. I can certainly recognize my own sin (usually in an unhealthy way), but dealing with it productively in community becomes, again, an almost-insurmountable task.  But when friends are suffering and struggling -- and there's been plenty of that this winter -- I retreat in fear.

Whether I'm avoiding grading papers or paralyzed with anxiety about speaking into a friend's pain, the next thing that happens is a wave of guilt and condemnation. You should be able to do this. You're being irresponsible. You're a terrible person, and you're going to end up jobless, homeless, friendless and alone if you don't stop it. Do something! And the Black Dog rears his ugly head and says, You can't. It's too hard. Why bother?

And then, of course, the cycle starts again, because fear and shame are not good motivators.

But this last week has reminded me again of God's grace in the midst of this struggle. I don't know if my mood issues will ever go away or even improve. I don't know if there will ever be a January and February where dread and guilt aren't undercurrents. But I do know that in the Gospel I have hope -- the kind of hope that doesn't disappoint.

The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is at work in me, and promises that, as surely as the spring returns every year, the final renewal approaches that will never again cycle back into the bleak darkness of sin and death and despair. A day is coming when there will be no need of a sun to shine because the Lamb will radiate His own glory in the midst of the New Jerusalem.

So, friends, thanks for bearing with me through the difficult months of winter.

Lent, Day 3: I have completely forgotten how to write academic papers.

No seriously. Totally forgotten.

Should I post it here when I'm done? (It's a paper defending my understanding of general and special revelation, and lemme tell you, it's not NEAR as exciting as it sounds...) Maybe I will, in like five parts. 

That's all I got. Brain dead.

Sometimes I Feel Like I Need A Vacation

From serious posts.

My pal Jamie Barnes is currently on his way back from Waco, where he was at a (by all accounts pretty sketchy) conference.  He just tweeted that he feels like he never goes through the security line quickly enough, and I replied that, if you travel often enough, you'll soon have the satisfaction of looking down on all the noobs who don't realize that they can't bring their 3 full-size bottles of shampoo in their carry-on bag; and what's more fun than derision?  I mean really!

And that got me thinking of all the funny security-line and airport stories I've amassed over the years since I started traveling.

A recent favorite, in the Sydney airport on my way home from this last trip to Australia: a full-grown woman had a nuclear-attack-siren-level temper tantrum upon being asked to do the normal stuff you have to do in the security line.  Like, you know, wait your turn.  She was trying to snatch her bag and purse off the belt and shove through the line -- and she actually did cut in front of several of us, muttering that she didn't have time for this nonsense.  The security screeners, bless 'em, were just cracking up behind their hands as she screeched, "I want to speak to a manager!  This is absolutely unbelievable!  I have a plane to catch!  You can't make me wait here!  I'm in a hurry!  Give me my things back!"

There are really only a few things you need to know when traveling, most of them variations of stuff you learned in kindergarten.  Wait your turn.  Use your manners.  Read the directions. 

Any funny or horrible stories from your travels, dear readers?

One of These Days, Doggonit...

REALLY.  Next summer I promise I'm going to say at the end of May, "See you in August!" instead of just abandoning my, like, four faithful readers for three months.

School year's about to start again, which means my brain is back in blog-production mode.  Look forward to some actual content here in the next few days!

And An Update At Long Last

Hey y'all, as usual I've hit the Crazy Time at the end of the school year, and haven't had the time or energy to post.  Only two weeks left of school!  Here's what's been going down:

My students, God love 'em, have been going crazy writing their end-of-year thesis papers.  We use this curriculum, The Lost Tools of Writing, about which I was extremely skeptical at first.  Having taught it for a year now, I've changed my tune -- it's terrific.  I can't imagine a more valuable program for helping kids do every single part of a paper, from coming up with ideas to fine-tuning their sentences. 

I've gotten a little obsessed with Australian Rules Football (which, fyi, is neither soccer nor rugby) in the last week. I got to see an old Tassie friend last weekend when he came up to play against the Louisville Aussie Rules team, and it was so much fun that I've been watching games on ESPN3 to try to pick a team to follow.  My friend Kate (mum to Pablo) is a Carlton supporter but says I have the freedom in Christ to support any team except Collingwood.  It's nice to be able to shut my brain off for a little bit while I'm watching the games!

I participated (briefly and with much eye-rolling) in a little dustup in the comments section of a post by well-known worship music writer Stephen Altrogge called How To Write An Awful Worship Song.  As usual, a few humorless trolls came and took a tongue-in-cheek post and started making accusations and dropping big words like "judgmental."

I'm starting to get really, really, REALLY excited about going back to Australia in less than two months!!  Yes, I'll be there in the dead of winter, but I'm super pumped to see everyone.  I've been thinking about all the fun stuff I'll get to do... and "fun" in my universe is best defined by good food, good drink, good friends, and maybe some footy on the tv.  What could be better on a cold winter night?

Fasting From Facebook: Part Deux

I just re-read the little snippet Daniel wrote after Lent, about the stuff people had fasted from and how the fast had impacted them.  Great stuff.  Did you know that around 2 million people gave up Facebook for Lent?  Crazy. 

Anyway, it got me thinking about how to continue the pattern of 1 Corinthians 6:12 -- not everything is beneficial, and I will not be mastered (I think "overpowered" would be a good paraphrase of the Greek) by anything -- even though Lent is LONG over.

I put a couple of things on FB about how to keep from drowning when you're drinking from the firehose (hide people from your feed, check FB rather than keeping it up in your browser all the time), but I'm thinking about how to expand that to my other online time.  Using a feed reader has helped a bunch, so I'm not going to eight zillion separate blogs and sites every day. 

Do y'all have any other ideas that could help me streamline online time?

*Sigh*

Have you ever done this? Taken an accidental two-month sabbatical from your blog and then just wracked your brain fruitlessly for days, trying to come up with something really, really profound with which to break the silence?

It's just me, then?

I have had six thousand or so ideas sliding around half-formed in my summer-gelatinized brain. (Here's a sampling: The reason many pols and bureaucrats support abortion is that they're unwilling to tackle the more difficult task of dealing with pregnant women and the emotional complexities behind unwanted pregnancies. Modern American labor and delivery practices are sickeningly barbaric, and we've got the stats to prove it. Barbara Mouser's The Five Aspects of Woman is great, and I learned a bunch of stuff about womanhood listening to it. Why is U2 SO INCREDIBLY POPULAR?) But none of them, shockingly, have made the cut so far -- I just can't get stuff to congeal into anything coherent.

Once my schedule and my brain are working a little less... uh... Summer-time-ish-ly... I'm sure I'll develop one of the above topics (or, I mean, you know me, something completely different) into an actual post.

Tune in next time to see if I go for the controversial, the political, the theological, or the utterly vapid and meaningless! WOO!!!

Books, Thunderstorms, End of the School Year, and Other Miscellaneous Musings

Last night I went browsing at a couple of bookstores to try to find the Anne of Green Gables series in box set. The school has a few of them, and I've been reading (or, devouring) them this last week. Have you ever thought of books as friends? The Anne books are that for me -- dear old well-beloved friends. Monday night, when I was finishing up Anne of Green Gables, I sobbed -- sobbed! -- through the last four chapters, and laughed at myself for crying so hard, and then cried some more. If you've read it, you probably understand. It's been wonderfully restful to come home from school and sit in my comfy chair and just read for hours. I haven't done that in far too long.

On my way home from the bookstore, I got caught out in the worst thunderstorm of the year so far. Rain was coming down, hammer and tongs, with lightning streaking across the sky and downbursts of wind from the edge of the storm. When it started hailing, I pulled over in front of the Lyndon fire station, got in the rain shadow of the building, and prayed that the doors wouldn't suddenly open and a fire engine come roaring out! I listened in dismay as the hail pelted the back end of my car, and when it subsided, I pulled around to the side of the building just in case and waited for the rain to let up. It was wild! The hail turned out to be in the half-inch to two-inch range -- definitely the largest hail I've seen since I've been here.

I have two more academic days left at school, and then three fun days which will involve a baseball game, a field day, a talent show, an awards ceremony, and a picnic! And then three glorious months of Summer stretching out in front of me, waiting to be filled with cook-outs and visits from family and afternoons when it's too hot to leave the house and days by the pool and sunburns and hot, muggy air, and melty ice cream and all manner of other delights.

Do all teachers get a panicky feeling about how much hard-fought learning their students will inevitably forget between now and next year? Ooh. That reminds me. I need to get my hands on a couple copies of the books I'm assigning my 8th graders (almost 9th graders! Imagine!) over the Summer... Mwahahaha...

Ummmm...

*tap, tap*

Ahem.

This thing on?

Uh, sorry. I'm probably the worst blogger who ever blogged. It has been approximately seven million years since I blogged. My excuse is pretty decent: long school days followed by mental exhaustion compounded by zero inspiration to write. But.

I just couldn't resist blogging about the most boring subject in history, something so boring it's actually code for boring -- the weather.

Last "spring" (ha) we didn't really have much of a spring. We had a soggy winter, followed by a few half-heartedly springlike days, followed immediately by 24-hour-a-day air conditioning weather. It was hideous. But apparently God has been smiling on Kentucky these last couple of months and, boy howdy, have we had some unbelievable weather. Cool, breezy nights, and warm, sunny days, punctuated by big beautiful thunderstorms and enough days of soaking rain to keep us all from taking those sunshiny mornings and long languid evenings for granted.

Because the nights have been staying so cool, the flowers have hung on the trees much longer than in years past, and for one glorious week we had gorgeous, lacy dogwoods AND daffodils AND irises AND tulips AND the first azaleas. Cheeky azaleas -- I just can't get enough of them. They're like the girl at your first school dance who wears a sparkly, low-cut dress and makes all the boys stare. Brazen, those hot-pink azaleas, I tell you!

Hooray! It's supposed to get down to 49 tonight! It's a marvel, this weather. I wish it'd go on forever.

More Awesome Linkage

Man, I'm so lame. All I'm doing is sending y'all to other people's stuff right now. My excuse: I'm too tired to think and too busy to watch basketball (*sob*). So I'm copping out and giving y'all (both) another link. I need to update my links on the right over there to include this one, because it's so excellent!

SojournKids blog, managed by the brilliant and illustrious Jared Kennedy, whose intelligence is exceeded only by... his wife's intelligence. I'm just sayin'. Sista is SMART. ;)

Contributors include a bunch of other be-smarty-pantsed Sojourners. Check it out.

YEE-HAW!

It's a blog roundup!

Of sorts.

Christine linked over to the Most Excellent "Making Home" blog not too long ago, and I've become addicted. Ladies, it's highly recommended whether you're married or single. Yes, as a married woman and one with a teaching ministry she does discuss marital intimacy with some frankness, but -- I have literally never come across someone who does so with so much tact, nor with so much joy. Her blog is neither preachy, nor clinical, nor wishy-washy, nor lewd. It's a realistic, encouraging picture of the life of an ordinary Christian wife and mother. (Oh, and gents, I'd recommend reading all the articles but the comments sections frequently contain some very honest woman-to-woman discussions that you might not find edifying.)

Please, if you haven't done so already, head over to Last Night's Dinner and check out Jenn's gorgeous photos and inspiration. While you're at it, swing by Cook Eat Fret and take a gander at Claudia's salivary-action-inducing caramel cake.

Tonight's dinner for me?

An Ommegang Hennepin that took me hours to drink
a dozen or so Sicilian olives (might go down and get some more, actually...)
a wedge of this award-winning, smelly, gorgeous goat cheese
a handful of "everything" cracker-bread
a scoop of Huber Farms peach butter

And a very satisfying dinner it was, I must say. Delish.

We were out of school Monday and Tuesday because of Hurricane Ike, which was still (strong) Tropical Depression Ike when it knocked out power for around 300,000 people in the Louisville-metro area Sunday. I was blessed to have electricity back by Sunday night (apparently our development is on the Valhalla circuits...), but many folks in the city will continue to live a compulsory Amish life for another week or more!

Go check out Mikey's blog. He's one of the elders of Crossroads, the church Mike and Christine are a part of, and where I attended while I was in Hobart. It's an amazing church and Mikey is a pretty awesome dude with some unique and interesting theological insights.

That's all I got.

Bloggy bloggy blog blog

Well, a few things have been checked off my list of Things Which Must Be Done In The Next Two Months:

Start new job... check.
Survive first week of new job... check.
Move into James and Terra's spare room... check.
Make an offer on a condo... check.

The rest of my list looks increasingly manageable but still pretty hectic:

Continue new job
Read absolutely stacks of books for new job
Accept counter-offer on condo
Do innumerable closing-related condo tasks
Move AGAIN
Have nervous breakdown
Find time to go to Indianapolis and retrieve dining set and hutch of my Grandma's that now belongs to me and has home in condo

After that... well, I'm sure life in the asylum will be very peaceful. I wonder if they'll let me out every afternoon to teach my 8th graders?