Jealousy is a Green-Eyed Cat with Sharp Claws

How do I know this? Oh, well, jealousy and I go way back. We're quite close, actually, in a wary sort of way. Wary on my part, that is. Did I mention the sharp claws?

Yesterday Jealousy showed up unexpectedly and caught me off guard in a big way. I was on my way to Starbucks with a friend, and she happened to mention in the course of normal, casual conversation that a mutual acquaintance (actually a former co-worker of mine) had recently landed a book deal. With a major publisher. The guy is 27 years old, which makes him younger than me. (Ouch! Claws!) He's going to have a book published in two years, and at the moment he is traveling through Europe to research his project, I'm sure at the expense of the major publisher.

So am I happy for him? Yes and no. I'm happy because he was always a good friend to me and an excellent writer, he's worked hard at it, he's passionate about it, and, he must be totally excited. I knew soon after I met him, I think, that I would see his name in print some day. I was jealous then, too! Not in quite so seething a way as I am now, but still a little green around the edges of my aura (if I believed in auras), you know?

I'm not happy because it didn't happen to me. He is going to be a successful writer. And I...well, at least I have my blog, right?

Of course, complicating matters is the fact that I'm a Christian and as such I'm not allowed to be jealous. But I am! So what do I do?

I can always go the typical Christian route and smile and say something along the lines of, "Praise the Lord, it's all in His hands. Thank you, Father, for this valuable lesson in character-building." The problem is, I'm not particularly grateful at the moment. Give me a year or two, maybe things will be different. (Maybe.)

Or I can take the road too often less-traveled (at least by me) and ask myself some hard questions, such as the one I'm sure a few of you are asking right now: "So what's stopping YOU from doing what you're friend is doing? Why don't you stop your moaning and groaning and just WRITE A BOOK?"

I could come up with any number of excuses, believe me. If I'm an expert at anything, it's excuses (and unasked-for opinions, but we won't go there, at least not this time). However, if I'm honest, which I do try to be as a rule, I have to face the fact that it's probably because moaning and groaning is much easier, and much MUCH less costly.

This is not a pleasant epiphany.

It's even less pleasant when I go a step further and realize that I treat my spiritual life the way I treat my writing life: I talk about it, I think about it, I occasionally put a bare minimum of time and effort into it, but for the most part I simply want the benefits of doing lots of work that I seem to have no real intention of doing.

(And this is the raw material God gets to work with. Lucky Him.)

I hope that in a year's time, I can look back at this period in my life, when I am between all sorts of crossroads and decisions that need to be made, and see that I have changed for the better. I hope that I become a lot less lazy, a lot more organized, and a lot more devoted to achieving intimacy with my Father. I hope that I'm a lot less jealous of my writer friend.

I know one thing. I won't be able to take any credit for any changes, because I've realized over the years how incapable I am of making them. God will get the glory. He's the one doing most of the work, after all.

And this is true for all of us who have set our hearts to follow Him. Let's not beat around the bush: we will fail alot. We stumble every day. If we're not jealous, we're selfish. If not selfish, judgmental. If not judgmental...well, you get the point. It's always something. And that can get depressing, if we don't remember that God knows all about it already. "He knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust." (Psalm 103:14). That's what grace is all about. He knows what a mess we're in, and He loves us anyway. He's at work In all of us til the day He brings us home.

And aren't you glad, at the end of the day, that He is?

"And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6

The Mystery of Marriage

I've figured it out. Why I'm not married, I mean. It's always been a bit of a puzzle to people who know me. I know this because they say things like this: "Why aren't you married by now?" Followed by this: "You're beautiful, talented, funny, easy-going, blah blah blah." And after I finish basking in the praise, I suddenly think, "Hey yeah. If I'm so great and all, why AREN'T I married?"

So it's been a bit of a mystery, but today I think I figured it out. Here it is.

I can't remember to take the garbage out.

So simple, really. Let me tell you how I arrived at my conclusion. My parents went on vacation this week. My mom asked me to take the garbage down. I said sure, no problem, I'll take care of everything. I didn't. I forgot. Whenever I remembered, it just wasn't convenient for me to haul it down to the dumpster. Then I would forget again. Today I finally took it down, but of course the garbage man had already been and gone.

What I'm trying to say is, I have a preternatural inability to do anything right when it comes to domestic matters. The garbage is just one example. I also can't cook, clean, or maintain an organized filing system for my bills (or anything else for that matter). I have a Palm Pilot I never use, except as an alarm clock (which I ignore anyway). I keep receipts in my wallet, and forget to go through them until my wallet gets to the point where I can't close it, and then I just throw them away.

Somehow, guys seem to have figured out my non-domestic tendencies. I don't know how, because in general they give off this air of stunning cluelessness (not ALL guys, ok?) about almost anything that has to do with the inner workings of the female mind and heart. But, unfortunately for me, I think they have a radar that is primed to pick up domestic signals from potential mates (especially in terms of cooking skills), and in my case, there are just no blips on the screen. So they pass right by, like a...submarine or a...I don't know, plane that uses radar? Um, yeah. Well, you get my drift.

Well, I'm here to say that there is more to me than making beds and whipping up a gourmet meal in 15 minutes or less. I may not be Martha Stewart, but who wants to be? Look where she is now--prison! That's right. An overactive domesticary gland landed her in the clink, folks. Ok, maybe it was her lying tongue more than the gland that I just made up, but who cares. The point is, she's in jail and I'm not.

No, wait, that's not my point! What was I talking about?

Oh right, why I'm not married. I have more to say on this subject, I'm sure, but I'm getting hungry. Time for dinner. I'm off to Panda Express, after which I'll sit down and avoid writing several more pages of the next Great American novel. Hear that, men? You'll just have to fall in love with my amazing talents.

Under Pressure

I wonder sometimes what happened to my life. When did it become so...unpredictable? So strange? So unfamiliar?

Actually I can answer that question. June 2002. That's when I left the United States for New Zealand. The first time. Who could've imagined the roller coaster ride I was in for, over the next two years? Not me, for sure.

What I'd like to convey right now is the feeling of falling apart that I can't seem to escape. The fact that I don't have it all together, no matter what sort of image I manage to project. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I am a mass of unfulfilled dreams, debilitating insecurities, strong doubts, tentative-but still determined-faith.

Some days I want to scream. Other days, I just want to lie in bed and never get out. And sometimes--like this past weekend--I take a break from my life to pretend I have a normal one again, and I hang out with friends, laugh, watch movies, go out for coffee...and imagine that everything makes sense.

I guess I feel a little like...well, like Mt St Helens a few weeks ago. Under pressure, but not quite ready to blow my stack quite yet.

Why am I saying all this here? Mostly because I can. But also, I just want you know...if I seem edgy, restless, easily irritated...I'm just trying to keep it together, and maybe I spring a few cracks here and there. Don't take it personally. I don't mean it that way.

Friday

It's Friday! I don't know why I'm excited; since I don't have a job, one day is pretty much like all the rest, but I always feel kind of happy when Friday rolls around. I suppose it's a sort of Pavlovian response, born of the days when I DID work, and when I positively LIVED for Friday. It's funny that I didn't live for, say, Saturday, which is actually the day off. Why is that? And I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. I mean, I don't know too many people who walk around saying "TGIS, guys--Thank God It's Saturday!" Do you?

So there is something about Friday. Maybe it's the anticipation of what's to come when Saturday does finally arrive. I almost always find anticipation more enjoyable than actually living in the moment. Not always, but a fair amount of the time. Friday is shot through with the golden thread of anticipation: the weekend hasn't happened yet, so that means anything is possible. And anything can be a lot of fun!

So what will you be doing this weekend? Post a comment and let me know!

Til next time...

Prelude: Mt Sinai

Me on Mt Sinai
Originally uploaded by grackyfrogg.

It was somewhere in the neighborhood of 3am when our brave little band of P17ers set off to climb Mt Sinai, not far from the border of Egypt. I think I have mentioned that I am not a morning person. Yet somehow I was strangely coherent and excited to be on this journey, making my way over the rocky, winding road that leads to the top of a mountain where, once upon a time, a man and God met face to face.

The magic wore off after about 20 minutes, largely because of the fact that we were sharing the narrow trail with a bazillion other people who also thought that seeing the sunrise from Mt Sinai's peak would be a good idea. Not to mention the hordes of Bedouins along the way who kept offering us camel rides every time we turned a bend in the road.

"You want camel? Only 10 pounds."

"No thanks, I don't want a camel."

"Very good camel!"

"No, look, really I don't--"

"Only 10 pounds!"

"I said, no camel!"

Pause. "Donkey?"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

This sort of dialogue was repeated roughly every 30 seconds or so, which, as you may imagine, began to wear away at my mood of awestruck wonder and reverent spirituality.

It took about 3 hours to reach the top. We staked out a few spots for all of us, amidst the hundreds of other pilgrims. It was freezing cold, just before dawn. The sky was so clear. The Bedouins were making a killing, renting out masses of musty, hairy blankets for 10 pounds.

We didn't have to wait long. The sun rose about half an hour later, a red disc in the east, an event which was captured on a seemingly endless array of cameras that appeared almost in unison. (Unfortunately, one camera it was NOT recorded on was mine, because I was really too cold to be bothered with getting it out of its case.)

Now, I would like to say that I experienced the presence of God in a new and mighty way on the mountain. I would like to say that I descended transformed, my face shining like Moses', a vivid testimony to my close encounter of the divine kind. But I'm afraid I would be lying, and that would seriously trash my holiness rating, which is a bit tattered these days anyway.

But I can tell you what I DID experience. The beauty of worshipping God with a bunch of people that I hadn't even known just weeks before, singing His praises from the heights, nestled among the ruins of what appeared to be an old church, as several Bedouin boys watched and listened. Looking out over the raw, untamed beauty of the mountains that rose up like rows of savage teeth all around us, rooted, like Sinai, in the desert valley below. Watching as a little bird playfully hovered over the plunging cliffside, then dove out of sight, only to fly up and hover once more, as if it were playing a game with itself. Having communion with a little red wine and pita bread.

In the end, it doesn't matter that I left feeling like I hadn't touched God. Now I know that, through it all, He was touching me, giving me treasures that can't be taken away, that will never fade or rust or be destroyed, because as long as I live, these memories will stay with me, and I'm a richer person for having them.

Thanks, God. What can I say...you rock my world.

A Morning Tale

Life is full of ironies. For example, yesterday I wrote about how much I love sleep. And I do. But then last night I was up til well past midnight because...I couldn't sleep! Typical. Even worse is the fact that I woke up before 8am, because I am not a morning person. But I was lying there, dozing, and I started thinking about snowboarding and how much I desperately want to do it this season, money or no money, I just want to get up there on the slopes a few times, when suddenly my eyes popped wide open as I remembered that my beautiful Burton Nicola Thost signature board was lying in the back of my sister's truck, and that truck (which had seen far, far better days) had given up the ghost at last and been hauled away to a charity that takes used cars, only I didn't know if anyone had happened to notice that my board was in the back! I leaped out of bed in an absolute panic (which is not at all how I like to start my mornings, as a rule), and ran down the stairs, all the while with visions of my board either getting destroyed at a junkyard, crunched up inside this truck (oh Lord have mercy), or else of some happy person on the charity crew discovering my board in the trunk ("Hey guys, take a look at what I found!"). Neither scenario was acceptable! Although I suppose, as a Christian, I should be happy if I somehow manage (however inadvertently) to bring happiness to others, but darn it, what about MY happiness this time?

I found the board leaning up against the outside wall of our garage. Crisis averted.

There should be a moral to this story, but it's too early for me to think of one.

I'm sitting in my favorite local coffee shop (and no, it isn't Starbucks!), even though I don't really like coffee all that much. But I like the atmosphere of coffee shops. Directly across from me is a framed picture, 50s style, of a woman holding a mug, and over and under her wide-eyed, smiling face are the words "Coffee! You can sleep when you're dead!"

Hmmm.

Me, I like my sleep, and I don't want to wait til I'm dead to enjoy the pleasures of oblivion. If I believed in reincarnation, which I don't, I'm sure I would have been a lazy housecat in another life. As it is, I might just have to face the fact that I'm a lazy human being in this one.

Case in point: I should be writing about my recent trip to the Middle East right now. People are breathlessly waiting for the report (well, waiting anyway, breathless or not). Instead, I'm writing this pointless blog. Why? Who knows? It's all part of the mystery of my inner workings, and if I don't understand myself, good luck to anyone else.

But about the Middle East. It's not that I don't want to write about it. I do. But where do I start? I was chatting with a friend recently, who made the comment that I probably had more stories to tell from the past month than from my entire time in New Zealand over the past 2 years. And he is right.

I want to tell you about the Arab man who took my hand and put my finger in the bullet hole in his head, a souvenir from the time he was shot in 1967, when he was eight months old. Or about sitting in the living room of the Palestinian woman whose daughter was the first female suicide bomber. Watching the sunrise from the top of Mt Sinai. Going to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Singing worship songs from the top of Mt Nebo. Seeing how the morning sun gleams on the golden Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Floating in the Dead Sea. Nearly getting hit by a truck while riding a donkey through a Bedouin village at Petra (seriously).

All these stories and more are waiting to be told. And at least some of them will be, I promise.

I may just have to do something wildly out of character to help speed up the process, such as, I don't know, have a few cups of coffee first? And maybe, God help me, a little less sleep...