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(480, 1, '2009-09-25 01:31:58', '2009-09-25 05:31:58', '', 'lovelist', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'lovelist', '', '', '2009-09-25 01:31:58', '2009-09-25 05:31:58', '', 479, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/lovelist.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(481, 1, '2009-09-28 10:02:27', '2009-09-28 14:02:27', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/kgb.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-483" title="kgb" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/kgb-538x368.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="368" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by fellow writer/reader Elisabeth Kinsey</h5>\r\n<strong>It has taken me many years to grow even <em>slightly</em> comfortable talking about my faith, particularly in the company of hipsters and intellectuals.</strong> You might think it''s effortless for me, but I can assure you it isn''t. It makes me squirm, stall, stray, and pray fervently for a magical deliverance from my discomfort.\r\n\r\nThe reading I participated in at the <a href="http://www.kgbbar.com/bar/">KGB Bar</a> in New York City last week had me squirming like nothing quite has before. First of all, it''s a literary reading in<em> New York</em>. From my perspective, this translates to an audience of highly cultured, educated, skeptical, hard-hearted people with no time to waste on silly, old-fashioned notions like belief in Jesus. When I asked my New Yorker friend Carmen, who was at the reading, to tell me that all the people crowding into the bar weren''t as hostile toward Christians as I imagined, she laughed and replied "I wish I could honestly tell you that." Gulp.\r\n\r\nThen there was the venue: the KGB Bar, for goodness sakes! In the East Village! As Denis Woychuk writes, about his opening and naming the establishment: "...what do you call a place that’s almost impossible to find without special knowledge or a guide, a place with a history of left wing radicalism, which I intended to establish as a legitimate counter-culture venue? KGB seemed my obvious choice." <strong>From my point of view, Jesus was a counter-cultural left wing radical, but I''m pretty sure Woychuk wasn''t thinking about people coming to his bar to talk about how Jesus changed their lives.</strong>\r\n\r\nThe KGB Bar is dim and mysterious, with sultry red walls and Soviet-era propaganda and mystique. As all the black-clad New Yorkers crowded in and ordered their cocktails, I felt more and more sure they would be filled with disdain for what I was about to read from my essay entitled "Redeemed" (published in the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ask-Me-About-My-Divorce/dp/1580052762">Ask Me About My Divorce</a>). I scrambled to find a different segment to share, but the whole essay is pretty much about how six years ago I walked away from the institutions of church and marriage, and then how God opened my eyes to what he''s really all about, and how confused I had previously been. There was nothing to read that wouldn''t lay bare my soul.\r\n<h4>Moments of doubt are made for being bold</h4>\r\nI was slated to read second. I whispered to Jason that I wasn''t sure I could do the reading. He told me to read extra loudly and boldly. The first reader, Sally Blakemore, was quirky, hilarious, irreverent, alternative, and read her story with a wonderful Texan drawl. Even as I reveled in her ability to spin her true tale, my stomach was in knots. To make matters worse, she told how her parents, in their Southern Baptist intolerance and ignorance, forced her into her first failed marriage so that she could "be cleansed in the eyes of the world and the Lord," (and Sally added plenty of emphasis and drawl to the word LORD, which got a good chuckle from the crowd).\r\n\r\nI was next. Why did I have to be next?\r\n\r\nBecause I trust Jason''s advice, always, I walked up to the podium, took a deep breath, and read from my essay as boldly and confidently as I possibly could:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>...I could see—clearly—that the institutions of marriage and church were all wrong. In My Life (Take Two), I would get it right. But stories, like lives, take unpredictable turns. And although I desperately wanted to demonize both the church and the idea of marriage, this, it turns out, is not that story.</em></p>\r\nAs I looked into the crowd, I didn''t feel hostility or skepticism or anything like that. People laughed, they were attentive, their faces open. I got the sense I could even detect some open hearts. During the break and at the end of the reading, several people approached me—to share their own similar experiences with faith and life, and to tell me how much they connected with my story. If there were any hostile listeners, they kept their distance!\r\n<h4>Of course, I learned a lesson from all this</h4>\r\nI feel kind of silly, in retrospect, about how certain I was that this crowd would dismiss me. As I talked to Jason and Carmen on our way to dinner after the reading, I admitted that I''ve long had a really narrow, either-or, all-or-nothing understanding about how people view faith. In my imagination, they either completely embrace belief or completely reject it.\r\n\r\n<strong>But this experience has proven to me, once and for all, that only a fairly small percentage of people fall into one of those extreme categories. The rest of us fall into a deep and wide category I''ll call "It''s Complicated."</strong>\r\n\r\nOur past histories with faith and current feelings about God are rich in complexity. We have some good memories and some bad ones. We have a hard time separating God from his churches and the people who like to publicly claim him. We feel a fair amount of confusion, and also some hope—that hope fluctuates between a vague tickle and a strong surge, and is always hard to put a finger on.\r\n\r\nSome of us are more actively seeking and grappling with our belief than others, but not one of us in this big category can completely shake our curiosity, our longing, our need for something beyond ourselves and our day-to-day lives. Just realizing this is a relief. I feel less alone, and very glad to share this space, and my story, with whoever feels inclined to join me.', 'Telling Jesus stories at the KGB', 0, '<em>There''s a lot less disdain for faith (& more complexity) than I thought.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'telling-jesus-stories-at-the-kgb', '', '', '2009-09-28 22:55:31', '2009-09-29 02:55:31', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=481', 0, 'post', '', 7),
(482, 1, '2009-09-28 01:45:04', '2009-09-28 05:45:04', '', '10416_153446544144_528599144_2558407_2134827_n', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', '10416_153446544144_528599144_2558407_2134827_n', '', '', '2009-09-28 01:45:04', '2009-09-28 05:45:04', '', 481, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/10416_153446544144_528599144_2558407_2134827_n.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(483, 1, '2009-09-28 01:59:15', '2009-09-28 05:59:15', '', 'kgb', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'kgb', '', '', '2009-09-28 01:59:15', '2009-09-28 05:59:15', '', 481, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/kgb.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(484, 1, '2009-09-30 18:45:32', '2009-09-30 22:45:32', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2203300529_6680f38d02.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-485" title="2203300529_6680f38d02" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2203300529_6680f38d02.jpg" alt="" width="510" height="383" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 240px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/photosoflessthanamazingjourneys/">photosoflessthanamazingjourneys</a></h5>\r\nI just made one of those crazy Chicago trips, there and back within 24 hours. I drove up to teach a copywriting class for <a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/courses/cache/crs5018.asp?c=mbcrsfc">MediaBistro</a> last night, then spent the night at my in-laws in Evanston and drove back today.\r\n\r\nIn the days leading up to it, I was dreading this little journey. Because I often have a difficult time being kind and compassionate toward myself, I alternated between scolding myself for being such a whiner and demanding that I get to the bottom of whatever was causing this dread, and extricate it from my system.\r\n\r\nA big part of it, I decided, is that we''ve been way too busy and have been traveling too much. I''m burnt out and wanted nothing more than to spend an entire week of nights in my own bed, driving no further than the couple of miles it takes to get anywhere in our town.\r\n\r\nBut I had to finally admit, <strong>I was also dreading being alone.</strong> The long highway 57 drive along cornfields, alone. The stress of navigating Chicago rush hour traffic, alone. Dinner before my class, alone, without Jason there to make me feel relaxed, confident and generally likable and brilliant.\r\n\r\nThere was no way around it: I didn''t want to be alone, and I despised myself for feeling that way.\r\n<h4>Once upon a time I didn''t know how to be alone</h4>\r\n<strong>There was a time in my life—not that many years ago, really—when I had done almost nothing truly on my own.</strong> At 30, I had never lived alone, never taken a trip or long road trip alone, never made a significant purchase like a computer, a car, or a house alone.\r\n\r\nAfter my divorce, all of that changed in a matter of months. And it was exhilarating. I''m not a fan of the word "empowering," but there really isn''t a better word for how doing all of these things alone made me feel. <strong>I realized I had missed so much by marrying young and letting that tiny but insistent internal voice tell me I probably wasn''t capable of these things, and there was certainly no reason to find out.</strong> Once that simpering voice had been banished, I vowed to do lots of things alone, boldly and with pleasure.\r\n<h4>Learning to claim independence <em>with</em> someone</h4>\r\nMy initial reaction yesterday, when I detected that <em>I don''t want to go alone</em> whine welling up in me, was something like this: "You''re getting soft! And weak! And dependent! Only two years into your marriage with Jason! Don''t let it happen!"\r\n\r\nAnd in some ways I didn''t let it happen. I drove to Chicago alone, navigating my way through rush hour traffic downtown and up to the north side. I ate dinner alone, gave myself a pep talk, taught my seminar and drove myself to my in-laws'' house for the night.\r\n\r\nBut as I thought about this more today, driving the two and a half hours home, I realized how different my feelings about being alone are now. <strong>Before, in my "other life," I didn''t do anything alone because I really didn''t think I could.</strong> I didn''t have the confidence or the independence.\r\n\r\n<strong>Now, I <em>know</em> I am capable of doing so much alone,</strong> from single parenting to house buying and lawn mowing and long road trips. I can even do long evenings and weekends alone. I just choose not to, if I have the choice, because I''m better with others—with Jason, in particular, but I''m just better with others, in general. I''m finally starting to accept that <strong>being with others doesn''t make me weak and <em>less</em> myself, it makes me strong and <em>more</em> myself. </strong>That''s just the kind of person I am.\r\n\r\nAnd I''m glad to finally be able to say "I don''t <em>want</em> to do this alone," but to also know that I can.', 'Making the choice to not "go it alone"', 0, '<em>I know I can do many things on my own, but it doesn''t mean I should.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'making-the-choice-to-not-go-it-alone', '', '', '2009-10-02 00:58:31', '2009-10-02 04:58:31', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=484', 0, 'post', '', 9),
(485, 1, '2009-09-30 18:19:42', '2009-09-30 22:19:42', '', '2203300529_6680f38d02', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', '2203300529_6680f38d02', '', '', '2009-09-30 18:19:42', '2009-09-30 22:19:42', '', 484, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2203300529_6680f38d02.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(486, 1, '2009-10-02 01:24:26', '2009-10-02 05:24:26', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-487" title="lovelist2" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist2-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="513" height="385" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Illustration by Jason Berg</h5>\r\nThere have been many #lovelist highlights in the last week, and I''ll include some of them at the end of this post. First, though, I want to talk about a particular love list that was shared on my blog, and some of the thoughts it unearthed in me.\r\n\r\nThe list moved me on multiple levels, because it is my mom''s. Here''s part of it (the full list is in the comments section of <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=477">this post</a>):\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Walks with our dog on a cool night with the moon coming in and out of the clouds and the crickets and tree frogs singing. I love figuring out how to fix a problem or brainstorming ideas. Cooking a delicious meal that someone enjoys. Walking thru a great yarn shop and dreaming of having time to knit again. Just watching and listening to our granddaughters interact, think, express love and to see their happiness. Teaching Sunday School classes and thinking of ways to do it well and watching the lights come on in my students. A good deep discussion. </em></p>\r\nWatching anyone you love claim what <em>they</em> love is a pure joy, but my mom''s selfless, giving spirit makes her love list even more meaningful for me. <strong>My mom is, without a doubt, the most tireless giver I know, both inside and outside of the home.</strong> As kids, my brother and I benefited in almost every possible way from having a mom like that. She always had time to listen to us, always found time to bake cookies and make delicious dinners, always pushed her own wants and needs aside to attend to ours.\r\n\r\n<strong>You can''t live this way without sacrifice, though, and I think my mom''s love list points to just what she has so often given up in the process of caring for others.</strong> Sure, some of what she loves is wrapped up in loving others, and in those cases everyone wins. But much of her life, my mom has told me, has been driven by her desire to please others and do the things she thinks they want her to do, rather than the things she really wants to do.\r\n<h4>Do you feel guilty when you claim what you love?</h4>\r\n<strong>My own sense of guilt—particularly when I claim what I love and do something for myself—is an outgrowth of my mom''s selflessness.</strong> I have often struggled with the feeling that I''ll never be as good a mom as <em>my</em> mom, because I''m too selfish. Compared to my mom, at least.\r\n\r\nBut there''s also truth to the saying "If mama isn''t happy, nobody''s happy." I get a lot of joy knowing my mom is taking back her life, and making time for the things she loves. It''s important for me to recognize how this makes me feel, and to translate that to my own daughters'' perceptions of me. Because just as I was really getting into this love list idea, I felt that characteristic twinge of guilt—that little voice saying <em>It''s so selfish of you to spend so much energy focusing on what you love.</em> (Am I the only one who thinks like that?)\r\n\r\n<strong>Seeing my mom''s love list gave me good reason to squash that guilt monster. </strong>Not only is my mom better off for focusing on what she loves, everyone around her is, too. So claim what you love without guilt.\r\n<h4>A #lovelist update:</h4>\r\n<strong>- Four bloggers I know wrote great posts about the Love List Project:</strong> Lesley at <a href="http://barefooton45th.com/?p=670">Barefoot on 45th</a>, Jules at <a href="http://mojojules.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/starting-the-lovelist/">The Wonderer</a>, Katie at <a href="http://salvagedfaith.blogspot.com/2009/09/love-list.html">Salvaged Faith</a>, and Lance at <a href="http://www.jungleoflife.com/2009/09/29/what-is-love-really/">The Jungle of Life</a>. I''ve loved reading their thoughts and seeing some of their readers end up here! (If you plan to write a post on your blog and link here, let me know if you''d like me to email the graphic.)\r\n\r\n<strong>- Here are a few of my #lovelist additions from the past week:</strong> <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4399612577" class="msgtxt en">walking to the farmers'' market is such a great expression of being part of a community, from seeing people I know to buying local; </span></span><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4470187361" class="msgtxt en">I love walking my youngest daughter to school, esp on crisp morns. halfway up the block she always slips her warm hand into mine; </span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">I love having in-laws I can truly be myself around, who love and accept me for who I am; </span></span><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4527020515" class="msgtxt en">I love creating a safe space—a friendship, blog, dining room table—where others can open up.</span></span>\r\n\r\n- The <a href="http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23lovelist">#lovelist hashtag on Twitter</a> is attracting new people and contributions by the day—in fact, about 100 in the past week! It''s so inspiring. <strong>Here''s a sampling of your #lovelist additions:</strong>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4419352012" class="msgtxt en">- The sense of satisfaction you get when you dive into a book discussion with others who are just as passionate as you. </span></span><em>@McMer314</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4441406513" class="msgtxt en">- I think I relate to fall spiritually firey colors, a time of harvest and gatherings. These make my soul leap. </span></span><em>@MoJoJules</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4473199510" class="msgtxt en">- I love relationships where you feel safe enough to say whatever is on your mind or not say anything at all. </span></span><em>@lizdyer</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4426149837" class="msgtxt en">- I love moments in life like when u pull cheese out &amp; it appears moldy &amp; disgusting, but upon inspection is Stilton and delicious! </span></span><em>@scheidel</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4475835084" class="msgtxt en">- I love knowing my coffee house is run by one of the most descent, goodhearted people I know. Makes my coffee taste even better. </span></span><em>@delightedscribb</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4480372534" class="msgtxt en">- I love laughing so hard with a close friend that I cry. </span></span><em>@workhappynow </em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4488363575" class="msgtxt en">- I love watching someone''s face when they light up to talk about something they are both expert in and passionate about. </span></span><em>@thekla_richter </em></p>', 'Claiming what you love isn''t selfish', 0, '<em>When we make room for what we love, everyone around us benefits.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'claiming-what-you-love-isnt-selfish', '', 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=477\nhttp://barefooton45th.com/?p=670\nhttp://mojojules.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/starting-the-lovelist/\nhttp://www.jungleoflife.com/2009/09/29/what-is-love-really/', '2009-10-02 01:24:26', '2009-10-02 05:24:26', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=486', 0, 'post', '', 18),
(487, 1, '2009-10-02 01:20:35', '2009-10-02 05:20:35', '', 'lovelist2', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'lovelist2', '', '', '2009-10-02 01:20:35', '2009-10-02 05:20:35', '', 486, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist2.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(488, 1, '2009-10-05 16:18:27', '2009-10-05 20:18:27', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/peace.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-489" title="peace" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/peace.jpg" alt="" width="411" height="458" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/rs-foto/">rs-foto</a></h5>\r\n<strong>I think it''s pretty safe to say that nothing gets more in the way of peace than our differences.</strong> Different values and beliefs, opposing goals, different affiliations and approaches to problem-solving—they all tend to result in something bad, whether it''s constant bickering or deadly violence.\r\n\r\nThis has been on my mind a lot, lately. I listen to news stories on NPR about the health care debate and the escalating problems in Afghanistan. All of the tension is rooted in differences. I try to address issues at my daughters'' schools, where a classroom of kids can have so many different educational and emotional needs—how can everyone be properly cared for? I think about why my first marriage failed, and my overwhelming frustration with the many ways we were different. Could we ever have overcome that?\r\n<h4>Ephesians is all about embracing a whole new way to handle differences</h4>\r\nThe pastors at my church have been teaching this fall on the book of Ephesians, so we also decided to study it in our small group. One of the first things our pastor pointed out is that the word "you" is used by Paul over 100 times in  Ephesians, but only <em>once</em> is the "you" in the Greek singular form. In other words, <strong>Paul isn''t talking about an individual faith or personal goal we should each be striving for, he''s talking about a communal process of faith.</strong>\r\n\r\nIt''s hard enough for a group of people to band together and do something collectively; when stark differences are involved, it can be nearly impossible. That''s what''s so amazing to me about the book of Ephesians. This collective group Paul is writing to includes both the Jews and Gentiles—two groups that had historically seen each other in stark contrast and division. And they weren''t joining together to throw a party or start a business, they were focusing on the very thing that divided them most, and starting a church. Surely, if they were to accomplish such a crazy thing, they''d have to start by abolishing their differences, right? That seems like a reasonable route to peace.\r\n\r\nWe all know how differences are generally put to rest in a marriage or other personal relationship: lots of coercion, compromise, give and take. You make one decision, I''ll make the next. <strong>In less healthy interactions, the person or group that is more powerful—bigger, stronger, more educated or wealthy—just forces everyone else to conform to their ways.</strong>\r\n\r\nIn the early church, the Jews had that power, both in terms of number and because they had a historical claim on the God the new church was worshiping. They could have easily demanded mass Gentile circumcision or adherence to any of the other Jewish customs and laws. In Acts, we learn there was plenty of debate and discussion about what exactly they should enforce.\r\n\r\n<strong>But as it turns out, with Jesus it isn''t a "my way or the highway" sort of deal. It isn''t even a painful compromise—we''ll do some things your way and some things my way, so we''ll both be sort of happy and sort of frustrated. Jesus makes it possible to choose a "third way."</strong> Here is how Paul puts it in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ephesians+2">Ephesians 2:14-15</a>:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace....</em></p>\r\nThe rules, the law—done away with, entirely. Even the wall, the very symbol of division, destroyed. It''s not like it was left up but a doorway was cut in the wall so you could take turns visiting each other from time to time. It was taken down, completely.\r\n<h4>A dose of hope for the cynics</h4>\r\nIt''s easy for the cynical among us (a category that often includes me) to say "Well, that''s a nice idea, but it isn''t very realistic. It''s symbolic at best, and anyone who looks at the history of the church can see that the followers of Christ have done a terrible job living this out."\r\n\r\nAnd that''s true. Much of church history makes me cringe, and not want to have anything to do with it.\r\n\r\n<strong>But what''s also true is that this whole movement, which has survived for nearly 2000 years, was built on this principle of embracing, incorporating and celebrating differences. And it wasn''t just a nice idea. It happened. </strong>It worked. Not the way things work when we try really hard and put all of our effort into it, but in the more mysterious way things work when we trust something bigger.\r\n\r\nAnd I believe this "third way" can keep working in our world, wherever there is no peace because of our differences.', 'A third way to peace', 0, '<em>There''s an alternative to the "my way" or "your way" approach.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'a-third-way-to-peace', '', '', '2009-10-05 16:18:27', '2009-10-05 20:18:27', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=488', 0, 'post', '', 5),
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(492, 1, '2009-10-05 14:11:59', '2009-10-05 18:11:59', '', 'peace1', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'peace1', '', '', '2009-10-05 14:11:59', '2009-10-05 18:11:59', '', 488, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/peace1.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(493, 3, '0000-00-00 00:00:00', '0000-00-00 00:00:00', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/peace1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-492" title="peace1" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/peace1.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="418" /></a>', 'new post', 0, '', 'draft', 'open', 'open', '', '', '', '', '2009-10-05 15:35:16', '2009-10-05 19:35:16', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=493', 0, 'post', '', 0),
(494, 1, '2009-10-07 12:17:46', '2009-10-07 16:17:46', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/3297040703_620e3900e7.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-495" title="3297040703_620e3900e7" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/3297040703_620e3900e7.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gustty/">Gustty</a></h5>\r\n<strong>"Always tell the truth." It seems like one of the most straight-forward parenting maxims around. </strong>After all, it''s not like teaching our kids about religion or sex, or demonstrating to them what success and happiness look like, and how to achieve it. Lying is wrong, period. Even very small lies leave vacuums for bigger lies to fill, and they never result in anything but grief.\r\n\r\nI''ve been thinking about truth-telling a lot, lately. First, there was the now-famous <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091703329.html?hpid=opinionsbox1">"You lie!" outburst</a> by Rep. Joe Wilson during  President Obama''s healthcare speech a month ago. Then, last Thursday, Jason and I went to see the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130080/">"The Informant!"</a> as David Letterman was practicing some of his own <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hG_NJxjVbEDzC1OGFuIK3mtDeEpAD9B5VOK80">truth-telling on national television</a>. Both situations offer classic illustrations of what lying and truth look like, albeit on a large scale.\r\n\r\nIn "The Informant," which is based on a true story, the main character''s inability to tell the truth snowballs over time—a compulsive lying habit that leads to a prison sentence. In Letterman''s case, while some applauded his confessional honesty about his affairs, others have criticize him for waiting until he was blackmailed to come clean.\r\n\r\nIn both scenarios, I think the ultimate lesson to be learned is the same: Tell the truth. All the time. But they also illustrate that lying is not as black and white as we''d like to think it is, and our kids learn that (or instinctively know that?) at a very young age.\r\n\r\n<strong>Is it possible that when we, as parents, present lying as utterly clear-cut, we are doing them a disservice? When we pretend that something is simple, rather than complex, are we encouraging them to hide more, bury more, and internalize more guilt and confusion about their thoughts, feelings and temptations?</strong>\r\n<h4>What happens when I don''t tell my kids the truth?</h4>\r\nThis morning, as I walked S to her elementary school, we passed our next door neighbors'' house, with its "Sale Pending" for sale sign in the yard. S, who has been struggling with a series of disappointments lately regarding close friends switching to private schools and moving out of town, said "I really hope a family with kids bought their house. I think someone with kids probably did, since the house is so big, and it has a play set in the yard and is so close to the school."\r\n\r\nI replied, "That would be fun, but I don''t know. We''ll have to see."\r\n\r\nIn fact, I do know. A wealthy grandma bought the four-plus bedroom house—perhaps the most expensive one on our street—for her college student granddaughter and some roommates. Who knows who will live there when the granddaughter is done with school. It is a truth I am frustrated and even angry about, so I chose not to tell it.\r\n\r\nOf course, I''m not lying, exactly. And my decision to withhold the truth comes out of love for my daughter—my desire to not upset her on her way to school, and my desperate hope that this truth will somehow change, melt away, and not need to be told at all. Our motivations count for something, don''t they?\r\n\r\n<strong>I have to wonder, though, is there really a better time to tell the truth? Is there value in warming up to a truth we don''t like—coming to terms with it internally, then maybe telling part of it now and the rest of it later?</strong> Or do we end up with a pile of falseness that becomes too big to face, the way credit card debt grows into something monstrous? And we''re left declaring bankruptcy on a debt of lies, much like David Letterman was?\r\n\r\nI feel like I know the answers to these things on a big scale, but when I go back to my interaction with S this morning, everything is less clear. I am, however, left with this truth: <strong>Truth-telling and lies are not as black and white as we pretend, and I think we need to engage our kids in conversations about those complexities.</strong>', 'Is there such a thing as the "simple truth?"', 0, '<em>It''s time to admit lying & truth-telling aren''t as black & white as we pretend.</em> ', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'is-there-such-a-thing-as-the-simple-truth', '', '', '2009-10-07 12:18:45', '2009-10-07 16:18:45', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=494', 0, 'post', '', 11),
(495, 1, '2009-10-07 12:08:25', '2009-10-07 16:08:25', '', '3297040703_620e3900e7', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', '3297040703_620e3900e7', '', '', '2009-10-07 12:08:25', '2009-10-07 16:08:25', '', 494, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/3297040703_620e3900e7.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(496, 1, '0000-00-00 00:00:00', '0000-00-00 00:00:00', '<div class="MsoNormal" style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I am very excited about this post—it''s the third in the Love List Project series, and the first ever guest post at Halfway to Normal. I really couldn''t be more pleased to have my dear, long-time friend and talented writer, Carmen Scheidel, be the one sharing herself and her words here. She immediately embraced what the #lovelist concept is all about, and has been exploring all that she loves with the curiosity, reverence and joy I hope we all have. </em></div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal" style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Carmen''s post was inspired by this #lovelist tweet earlier this week:<strong> "</strong>I read the word Iowa this morning and felt a pang. I loved that sweet old place. #lovelist" I responded: "what did you love about it? the person you were? the things you were doing? the friends you had? the feel of the place?" Here is her response. I hope it inspires you to share with us a place you have loved, from your past or present.</em></div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">I moved in the fall of 1990, when I was 20, a junior in college. I had just spent the summer in Italy and had a week to pack up and move to Iowa City. My dad drove me in the truck 391 miles from Grand Rapids, Michigan down around Chicago and west on I-80, to Church Street and Dubuque at the bank of the Iowa River. There I was, plopped down of my own volition.</div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">My mind never had time to process the impending move that summer, hopped up as it was learning proper nouns like Jacopo, Gianni, and Franco. Somewhere between fall of my sophomore year and the screech of the jet wheels at Florence Airport, I had gotten annoyed with the waiting list to be an English major at my college in Michigan. I asked a favorite professor what to do. <em>Iowa</em><span style="font-style: normal;">, she said in a dreamy tone, and started drawing me an inked-up map of the Old Capitol Building that was now the center point of campus, the dentistry building that''s shaped like a molar, and even a good bar called The Sanctuary. The next day in Second Year Italian II, she handed me a copy of John Cheever''s essay "An Afternoon Walk in Iowa City, Iowa."</span></div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">A couple of semesters later, I was there walking around my new home. Pearson''s pharmacy had a soda fountain in the back that sold ham salad sandwiches and malted milkshakes. The gas station one block up had a tiny sliver of dirt where cornstalks grew up like peonies. The winner of the Iowa Pork Queen Contest smiled out at me from snapshots posted on a restaurant window. The place felt outsized in its wholesomeness. It felt safe. Yet I was far from home and it occurred to me for the first time that I didn''t know a single person.</div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal"><strong>I soon learned that Iowa City was a Mecca for all of the whip-smart misfits who didn’t exactly blend with their farm towns.</strong> Anyone gay, anyone artistic, anyone who wanted out or wanted more came there. You could find them at Prairie Lights Books. Breugger''s Bagels. Great Midwestern Coffee Shop. At the Deadwood, half biker bar, half student hang, the juke box spit out the Pretenders and the bartender shouted out their names—Michael!....John!—when they received calls on the payphone.</div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">The place was amazing to me. In winter, the skies were bright blue. It was freezing, of course, but the sun was out! I had never seen anything like this. In Grand Rapids, the winter weather patterns gathered force above Lake Michigan and created an opaque tent of stratus clouds—<em>white</em><span style="font-style: normal;">—almost every day of the year. I never imagined my world could be another way. </span></div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">My extended family thought it was strange that I was there. <em>Iowa? </em><span style="font-style: normal;">they asked.</span><em> Iowa!</em><span style="font-style: normal;"> No one on either side of the family really left a 20-mile radius of where our apple-farming forebears landed in the 1850s. When it was time for college, I can remember my dad pleading, </span><em>It would mean the world to me if you finished your first year. </em><span style="font-style: normal;">I was the first of the generations in line to do it.</span> I had been a B student in middle school, boldly proclaiming to my mother that I wasn''t going to be like my studious older sister, I was going to have fun! But my sister''s path had grown complicated in the years surrounding my parents'' divorce, and she quit med school before she really started.</div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">The little communal house on Church Street in Iowa City was my first home as an adult. My room was off the kitchen and felt like an oasis of pale green shag. I ran up my phone bill, read more than I ever had in my life, took long baths. I didn''t know what my career would be, but I knew I wanted one. I hid inside the room on Saturday mornings when the landlord came in to maniacally wax the living room furniture, cursing all of her renters as she went. By afternoon, she''d be gone and I''d join the Chinese and Japanese grad students in the kitchen to cook rice or ramen.</div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">Some nights, keeping up with reading and trying to comprehend Italo Calvino <em>in Italian </em><span style="font-style: normal;">was just plain hard. I got frustrated one night and threw both the book and the dictionary across the living room like a dud firecracker that split into two. One of the grad students came in. "How is your night?" Good, I said. And she left. I picked up <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Pw8inb9L0ecC&amp;dq=creative+visualization&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=OqhROTkJb0&amp;sig=o9ZKgnAEPXt5IB-WJB-_o9GXtK8&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=pszLSszUK463lAeMpKDOBQ&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=3#v=onepage&amp;q=&amp;f=false">Creative Visualization</a> which was in the stack on the couch next to me.<span> </span></span></div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">What was the alternative? Start throwing a tantrum and call my dad to pick me up? I read the part about attaining what you want by envisioning it inside a beautiful pink bubble. I willed myself to master Calvino and get straight ''A''s. I wrapped it all inside the bubble. If I was going to be in this faraway land, I wanted to make it worth it.</div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">On campus during finals week I was in a hurry to get to the admin office and trek down the hill to meet a professor, I caught myself walking just like my dad: with purpose, heels hard to the ground, charging across the sidewalk to get things done and feeling good about it. It made me miss everyone at home, yet I smiled, catching myself doing something so ingrained. I was a part of them, but I was also defining myself apart. I was experiencing a world of my own creation and I loved it!</div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">I took more and more literature classes and studied writing. Report cards came in with good results. (<em>Really? It was that easy? Creating the life you want—I so wanted—was actually possible?</em><span style="font-style: normal;">) It took months for me to realize that it wasn''t a fluke. </span></div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal"><strong>In Iowa City I first realized that I could land in a cornfield to study something as obscure and unmarketable in my rustbelt town as Italian literature. I could dream up a plan and make it happen. There was nothing so empowering.</strong></div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal"><strong>Years later I would use what I learned in Iowa to propel me to New York. The city would be a much tougher landing, but the drill was the same. Pick up that sweet little life and push ahead to what you want. </strong></div>\r\n<div class="MsoNormal">I still love that quirky town in the middle of Iowa because it showed me that I could be whoever I wanted to be.</div>', 'What does it mean to love a place? (draft)', 0, '', 'draft', 'open', 'open', '', '', '', '', '2009-10-09 00:54:14', '2009-10-09 04:54:14', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=496', 0, 'post', '', 0),
(498, 1, '2009-10-09 01:06:09', '2009-10-09 05:06:09', '', 'lovelist21', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'lovelist21', '', '', '2009-10-09 01:06:09', '2009-10-09 05:06:09', '', 497, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist21.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0);
INSERT INTO `wp_d8mand_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_category`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES
(497, 4, '2009-10-09 01:22:50', '2009-10-09 05:22:50', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist3.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-500" title="lovelist3" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist3-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="522" height="392" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Illustration by Jason Berg</h5>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I am very excited about this post—it''s the fourth in the <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List Project</a> series, and the first ever guest post at Halfway to Normal. I really couldn''t be more pleased to have my dear, long-time friend and talented writer, Carmen Scheidel, be the one sharing herself and her words here. She immediately embraced what the #lovelist concept is all about, and has been exploring all that she loves with the curiosity, reverence and joy I hope we all have.</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Carmen''s post was inspired by this #lovelist tweet earlier this week: "I read the word Iowa this morning and felt a pang. I loved that sweet old place. #lovelist" I responded: "what did you love about it? the person you were? the things you were doing? the friends you had? the feel of the place?" Here is Carmen''s response. I hope it inspires you to share with us a place you have loved, from your past or present.</em></p>\r\n--------\r\n\r\nby Carmen Scheidel\r\n\r\n<strong>I moved in the fall of 1990, when I was 20, a junior in college.</strong> I had just spent the summer in Italy and had a week to pack up and move to Iowa City. My dad drove me in the truck 391 miles from Grand Rapids, Michigan down around Chicago and west on I-80, to Church Street and Dubuque at the bank of the Iowa River. There I was, plopped down of my own volition.\r\n\r\nMy mind never had time to process the impending move that summer, hopped up as it was learning proper nouns like Jacopo, Gianni, and Franco. Somewhere between fall of my sophomore year and the screech of the jet wheels at Florence Airport, I had gotten annoyed with the waiting list to be an English major at my college in Michigan. I asked a favorite professor what to do. Iowa, she said in a dreamy tone, and started drawing me an inked-up map of the Old Capitol Building that was now the center point of campus, the dentistry building that''s shaped like a molar, and even a good bar called The Sanctuary. The next day in Second Year Italian II, she handed me a copy of John Cheever''s essay "An Afternoon Walk in Iowa City, Iowa."\r\n\r\nA couple of semesters later, I was there walking around my new home. Pearson''s pharmacy had a soda fountain in the back that sold ham salad sandwiches and malted milkshakes. The gas station one block up had a tiny sliver of dirt where cornstalks grew up like peonies. The winner of the Iowa Pork Queen Contest smiled out at me from snapshots posted on a restaurant window. The place felt outsized in its wholesomeness. It felt safe. Yet I was far from home and it occurred to me for the first time that I didn''t know a single person.\r\n\r\n<strong>I soon learned that Iowa City was a Mecca for all of the whip-smart misfits who didn’t exactly blend with their farm towns.</strong> Anyone gay, anyone artistic, anyone who wanted out or wanted more came there. You could find them at Prairie Lights Books. Breugger''s Bagels. Great Midwestern Coffee Shop. At the Deadwood, half biker bar, half student hang, the juke box spit out the Pretenders and the bartender shouted out their names—Michael!....John!—when they received calls on the payphone.\r\n\r\nThe place was amazing to me. In winter, the skies were bright blue. It was freezing, of course, but the sun was out! I had never seen anything like this. In Grand Rapids, the winter weather patterns gathered force above Lake Michigan and created an opaque tent of stratus clouds—<em>white</em>—almost every day of the year. I never imagined my world could be another way.\r\n\r\nMy extended family thought it was strange that I was there. <em>Iowa?</em> they asked. <em>Iowa!</em> No one on either side of the family really left a 20-mile radius of where our apple-farming forebears landed in the 1850s. When it was time for college, I can remember my dad pleading, <em>It would mean the world to me if you finished your first year.</em> I was the first of the generations in line to do it. I had been a B student in middle school, boldly proclaiming to my mother that I wasn''t going to be like my studious older sister, I was going to have fun! But my sister''s path had grown complicated in the years surrounding my parents'' divorce, and she quit med school before she really started.\r\n\r\n<strong>The little communal house on Church Street in Iowa City was my first home as an adult. My room was off the kitchen and felt like an oasis of pale green shag.</strong> I ran up my phone bill, read more than I ever had in my life, took long baths. I didn''t know what my career would be, but I knew I wanted one. I hid inside the room on Saturday mornings when the landlord came in to maniacally wax the living room furniture, cursing all of her renters as she went. By afternoon, she''d be gone and I''d join the Chinese and Japanese grad students in the kitchen to cook rice or ramen.\r\n\r\nSome nights, keeping up with reading and trying to comprehend Italo Calvino in <em>Italian</em> was just plain hard. I got frustrated one night and threw both the book and the dictionary across the living room like a dud firecracker that split into two. One of the grad students came in. "How is your night?" Good, I said. And she left. I picked up <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Pw8inb9L0ecC&amp;dq=creative+visualization&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=OqhROTkJb0&amp;sig=o9ZKgnAEPXt5IB-WJB-_o9GXtK8&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=pszLSszUK463lAeMpKDOBQ&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=3#v=onepage&amp;q=&amp;f=false">Creative Visualization</a> which was in the stack on the couch next to me.\r\n\r\nWhat was the alternative? Start throwing a tantrum and call my dad to pick me up? I read the part about attaining what you want by envisioning it inside a beautiful pink bubble. I willed myself to master Calvino and get straight ''A''s. I wrapped it all inside the bubble. If I was going to be in this faraway land, I wanted to make it worth it.\r\n\r\nOn campus during finals week I was in a hurry to get to the admin office and trek down the hill to meet a professor, I caught myself walking just like my dad: with purpose, heels hard to the ground, charging across the sidewalk to get things done and feeling good about it. It made me miss everyone at home, yet I smiled, catching myself doing something so ingrained. <strong>I was a part of them, but I was also defining myself apart.</strong> I was experiencing a world of my own creation and I loved it!\r\n\r\nI took more and more literature classes and studied writing. Report cards came in with good results. <em>(Really? It was that easy? Creating the life you want—I so wanted—was actually possible?)</em> It took months for me to realize that it wasn''t a fluke.\r\n\r\n<strong>In Iowa City I first realized that I could land in a cornfield to study something as obscure and unmarketable in my rustbelt town as Italian literature. I could dream up a plan and make it happen. There was nothing so empowering.</strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Years later I would use what I learned in Iowa to propel me to New York. The city would be a much tougher landing, but the drill was the same. Pick up that sweet little life and push ahead to what you want.</strong>\r\n\r\nI still love that quirky town in the middle of Iowa because it showed me that I could be whoever I wanted to be.\r\n\r\n<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/iowacity.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-499" title="iowacity" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/iowacity.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="305" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/alan-light/">Alan Light</a></h5>', 'What does it mean to love a place?', 0, '<em>A place can change you for good, and stay with you long after you leave.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'what-does-it-mean-to-love-a-place', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472', '2009-10-09 12:15:13', '2009-10-09 16:15:13', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=497', 0, 'post', '', 16),
(499, 1, '2009-10-09 01:14:40', '2009-10-09 05:14:40', '', 'iowacity', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'iowacity', '', '', '2009-10-09 01:14:40', '2009-10-09 05:14:40', '', 497, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/iowacity.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(500, 1, '2009-10-09 12:14:25', '2009-10-09 16:14:25', '', 'lovelist3', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'lovelist3', '', '', '2009-10-09 12:14:25', '2009-10-09 16:14:25', '', 497, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist3.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(501, 1, '2009-10-12 13:14:43', '2009-10-12 17:14:43', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/995_fullfloor-nobg_typeedit_v1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-502" title="995_fullfloor-nobg_typeedit_v1" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/995_fullfloor-nobg_typeedit_v1-538x348.jpg" alt="" width="574" height="370" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 330px;">Floor plan from <a href="http://www.535wea.com/">535 West End Avenue</a></h5>\r\nWe just said goodbye to my parents and their big dog Calla, who have been visiting since Thursday. Each time they visit, I am very aware of two things:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1) How thankful I am to have such wonderful parents we all love spending time with.</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2) How small our house feels when seven people and two dogs spend several days in a row together.</p>\r\nSeveral months ago, I wrote a post called <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=260">Making do: less money and a bit of paint</a>. In it, I describe the addition we''d love to put on our three-bedroom, one-bath house (sooner rather than later—we have three girls, you know!), but how, for now, we''re finding creative ways to make do with the space we have. One of the things we''ve done since Jason and I got married is to finish off a nice room in the basement. It''s a great guest room when people visit, and a Wii and movie room when we don''t have company. But things are still tight.\r\n<h4>Putting things into perspective</h4>\r\nYesterday, as the confines of too much togetherness began to press in on me, Grandpa took Q off on a bike ride, Grandma and S worked on a project in the dining room, and I sat on the couch with the <em>The New York Times Magazine</em>. I opened it up to the first spread: The all-new 2010 Cadillac SRX, as shown $45,820.\r\n\r\nThe second spread features advertisements for two condo buildings in New York—one on West 86th Street, the other on Fifth Avenue. I would have flipped past them without a glance, but both ads feature floor plans, which I find somehow irresistible.\r\n\r\nThe half-floor residence at <a href="http://www.535wea.com/">535 West End Avenue</a> (at West 86th) features 5 bedrooms, 5.5 baths, a library, and a family room, for a total of 4,396 square feet. The half-floor and full-floor options range from $8.5 million to $25 million.\r\n\r\nAt <a href="http://www.995fifthave.com/">995 Fifth Avenue</a>, where you get views of Central Park, full-floor residences <em>start</em> at $23.5 million. At this point, I was so disgusted I didn''t bother examining the floor plan. (But I''m looking at it now, for the purpose of this post: looks like 5 bedrooms, 8.5 baths, a media room, a fitness room, a play room, a gallery—you get the idea.)\r\n\r\nI realize I run a lot of risks with what I''m about to say next. Some people could say I''m jealous. Others might say I''m being judgmental, or I''m just an Obama-loving socialist. And there''s always the "she''s an ignorant girl from the Midwest, who''s never lived in a real city" argument against me.\r\n\r\nBut I''m going to say it anyway: <strong>This kind of excess disgusts me. This kind of disparity, between the rich and the poor, is wrong.</strong> (And no, I''m not suggesting I am the poor—we are solidly middle class.)\r\n<h4>Has anyone really <em>earned</em> a $25 million home?</h4>\r\nI don''t care how hard someone has worked, or how much money they''ve sunk into a top-notch education, or how smart they''ve been about their investments. Even impressive amounts of philanthropy don''t take much of the sting off. I just don''t believe anyone has a "right" to live like that while so many kids in our own country are stuck in terrible schools, and don''t have anything healthy to eat, and their parents are forced to decide between paying the gas bill or having some important dental work done.\r\n\r\nOf course, I''m not implying this is an easy problem to solve. Where do we draw the line? How much does any given family need? How much do they deserve? How can people be rewarded for hard work and important contributions to society? How do we begin to factor in and level out everything an individual brings to the table in terms of privilege—education, connections, parents who have the vision and energy to guide their kids? People have been struggling with these issues forever, and I''m no economist.\r\n\r\nI will say this, though: <strong>I don''t think it''s just a matter of spreading the wealth around more equally, and giving kids a more equal shot at success through better education. It''s also about attitude—what we''re willing to accept as normal.</strong> Do we accept that this is just the way the world works? Is that what we tell our kids? Is that what we demonstrate by our choices, our votes, how we live?\r\n\r\n<strong>Because our attitudes about what''s "normal" are more powerful than we''d ever imagine. So is our ability to gradually shift the paradigm by shaping a different dialogue around a different ideal.</strong>', 'Comfortable homes, uncomfortable disparities', 0, '<em>A small rant about our willingness to accept wealth & poverty as normal.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'comfortable-homes-uncomfortable-discrepancies', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=260', '2009-10-21 00:39:31', '2009-10-21 04:39:31', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=501', 0, 'post', '', 20),
(502, 1, '2009-10-12 12:59:44', '2009-10-12 16:59:44', '', '995_fullfloor-nobg_typeedit_v1', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', '995_fullfloor-nobg_typeedit_v1', '', '', '2009-10-12 12:59:44', '2009-10-12 16:59:44', '', 501, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/995_fullfloor-nobg_typeedit_v1.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(504, 1, '2009-10-13 17:46:15', '2009-10-13 21:46:15', '', 'cornmaze', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'cornmaze', '', '', '2009-10-13 17:46:15', '2009-10-13 21:46:15', '', 503, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/cornmaze.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(505, 1, '2009-10-13 17:51:12', '2009-10-13 21:51:12', '', 'cornmaze2', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'cornmaze2', '', '', '2009-10-13 17:51:12', '2009-10-13 21:51:12', '', 503, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/cornmaze2.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(506, 1, '2009-10-16 11:31:54', '2009-10-16 15:31:54', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-507" title="lovelist" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="403" /></a>\r\n\r\n<strong>As I''ve watched my Love List grow these past few weeks, I''ve noticed some patterns.</strong> Have you noticed any patterns in your lists? (If you''re wondering what this whole Love List Project is about, check out the <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">first</a>, <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=479">second</a>, <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=486">third</a> and <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=497">fourth</a> posts in the Friday series.)\r\n\r\nOne of the themes I''ve noticed is that <strong>I need more time in my life.</strong> Not surprising, eh? We all need more of that. Doing things we love takes time, which means prioritizing the things that eat up our waking hours, and being more mindful of time-sucks that are neither useful nor enjoyable.\r\n\r\nBut it''s not just more time that I crave. I''m not simply thinking "I want to spend an hour knitting, so I need to find an hour in my day." <strong>It''s a certain <em>kind</em> of time that I long for—time that doesn''t feel hurried, hedged in, or distracted by other worries about what''s next and what''s not getting done.</strong> Here''s how I worded it in my <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=479">September 25 post</a>:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>When I look at the list as a whole, I definitely notice some themes. One is that I crave open-ended blocks of time and the organic experiences that flourish there. These next few weeks I’m definitely going to be thinking more about how I schedule my life, what’s necessary and what isn’t.</em></p>\r\nI''ve actually made some progress with this over the past week. Lately, I''ve developed a habit of putting little things off, like an email I need to send, a call I need to make to my accountant, or a simple house project that bothers me every time I see it, like light bulbs that need replacing. Jason told me about the two-minute rule: If it can be done in two minutes, do it now. Don''t put it on a list, or let it gather over your like a dark cloud, with all those other little things. Just do it.\r\n\r\nI tried it out on Tuesday, and was amazed at how great it felt (and how easy it was). On Tuesday evening, my friend Lisa came over to talk and knit. <strong>Not only did I set aside a block of time to spend in a way I love, but that time felt so free and unhindered.</strong> I really felt the Love List doing its work in my life.\r\n\r\n<strong>Now for some updates from the past week or so.</strong>\r\n<h4>Recent blogs linked to the Love List Project:</h4>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://sarahealy.com/index.php/2009/10/15/like-minds-the-love-list-project/">A Sharing Connection</a> by Sara Healy</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://www.ordinarymer.com/2009/10/ordinary-mers-love-list.html">Ordinary Mer</a> by Merideth</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://mojojules.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/special-lovelist-my-gram/">The Wonderer</a> by Jules</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://bridgeout.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/joining-the-love-list/">Burning or Building Bridges in the Community</a> by Bridgeout</p>\r\n\r\n<h4>A selection of recently tweeted #lovelist items:</h4>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4630646210" class="msgtxt en">@lizdyer: I love wide eyed, hopeful, optimistic Christianity. #lovelist</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4662022739" class="msgtxt en">@lje2me: Lunching with a friend and running out of time long before you run out of conversation. #lovelist</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@jenluit: <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4740529170" class="msgtxt en">I love rainy days, a quiet house, the promise of a Friday night. #lovelist</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4743537302" class="msgtxt en">@delightedscribb: I love it when personal fulfillment and professional development intersect.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@TrinaMb: <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4816198560" class="msgtxt en">a fine meal; we fix ~ under family tree; we ate ~ my life full; #lovelist</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4838400102" class="msgtxt en">@amandalinehan: Outside of my office are trees that are a brilliant shade of yellow-orange.  I love looking at them. #lovelist</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4861442283" class="msgtxt en">@MoJoJules: the smile I just got from one of my students seeing I''m back. *breathe in &amp; out* yes this is my heart and my love. #lovelist</span></span></p>\r\n\r\n<h4>Additions to my own #lovelist:</h4>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4660918831" class="msgtxt en">- Feeling lucky on a cold wet day like this to work from home &amp; to have leftover chicken masala J made &amp; a dog that fits on my lap.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4740008840" class="msgtxt en">- I love doing something on my own, while sharing space w someone I enjoy.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4840283867" class="msgtxt en">- I love being able to share something I''m pondering, and then watch all kinds of wisdom &amp; thought pour in from others.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt4841618375" class="msgtxt en">- I love that my blog community isn''t entirely comprised of like minds, but it does seem to gather like hearts. (corny, but true!)</span></span></p>\r\n<em>Keep sharing what you love and how it''s changing your life, here and on Twitter! Next Friday look for another guest post, this time by Lance of <a href="http://www.jungleoflife.com/">The Jungle of Life</a>.</em>', 'Craving more of a certain kind of time', 0, '<em>Examining my Love List prompted me to think differently about time.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'craving-more-of-a-certain-kind-of-time', '', 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=497\nhttp://sarahealy.com/index.php/2009/10/15/like-minds-the-love-list-project/\nhttp://bridgeout.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/joining-the-love-list/\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=479\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=479\nhttp://mojojules.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/special-lovelist-my-gram/\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=486', '2009-10-16 15:10:34', '2009-10-16 19:10:34', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=506', 0, 'post', '', 13),
(507, 1, '2009-10-16 11:22:05', '2009-10-16 15:22:05', '', 'lovelist', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'lovelist-2', '', '', '2009-10-16 11:22:05', '2009-10-16 15:22:05', '', 506, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(508, 1, '2009-10-19 12:04:50', '2009-10-19 16:04:50', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/meands.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-509" title="meands" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/meands-538x550.jpg" alt="" width="473" height="483" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Photo by Jason Berg</h5>\r\nJason and I just spent a weekend at home without our three girls. This is, in fact, how we spend every other weekend, and it''s always bittersweet—sweet because we get to eat and sleep and go out when we please, but bitter because there are always moments in every weekend that feel empty and tinged with sadness because our kids aren''t there to share them.\r\n\r\n<strong>I''m gradually getting more used to this give and take, the all or nothing rhythm of post-divorce parenting. It''s not easy, in so many ways, but there are some aspects of two-household parenting that I''m beginning to recognize as a gift</strong>—one I wouldn''t get in quite this same way if my kids lived with me every day. (Yes, I''m definitely doing the silver lining thing here.)\r\n<h4>Keeping in touch</h4>\r\nThe first gift comes to me in the form of emails, voicemails and phone calls from the girls. Last Thursday afternoon, for instance, this email arrived in my inbox:\r\n\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Dear mama,\r\nI figured out my Halloween costume!!! I can be a detective!\r\nI''ve attached a picture of me, I love you soooo much.\r\nLove,\r\nQ</em></p>\r\nIt''s true, I wasn''t the one who was there brainstorming costume ideas with Q, but receiving her email really made my day and created a bond between us in a different sort of way.\r\n\r\nS, who is nine, prefers the phone to email. If I''m not able to pick up and talk, she leaves me long, detailed voicemail messages that end up being a fully-formed, one-way conversation, packed with news and personality. She always closes her calls and voicemails with a loud, smoochy kiss sound, followed by a sound that, in her mind, represents big, strenuous bear hugging (and also sounds a bit like someone trying to bench press more than they should).\r\n<h4>Rich reunions</h4>\r\n<strong>The other thing that I''ve been noticing about this parenting situation we''re in, is how distinctly different our sense of "reunion" is with our girls.</strong> After days with just the two of us, suddenly Jason and I are pulling more chairs up to the table, setting more places, cooking more food, and reveling in the buzz that comes with more personalities, bodies and voices in the house. Just think of the "How was your day?" question many families ask daily after school or over dinner. Now multiply the responses by four or five (the number of days the girls have been away), and add in a bit of a party atmosphere, complete with the intensity of love that accompanies reunions.\r\n\r\nLast night at dinner, we asked the girls about their weekends, and asked if there was anything exciting or stressful about the week ahead. We touched on some issues that had clearly been waiting to come out, and they did. Some tears needed to come out, too, and we were glad there was a place for that to happen.\r\n<h4>More than a silver lining</h4>\r\nMaybe it''s bad when something that''s on our kids'' minds gets put on hold until they see us again, but maybe it''s good. Maybe it builds just enough that they actually reach the point of communicating it, rather than brushing it, crumb by crumb, under the rug.\r\n\r\nDivorce is pretty much always viewed as something bad, especially for kids.<strong> But what I''m realizing is that there''s lots of good and bad wrapped up in sharing custody of your kids. </strong>People see what they want. We also have the power to make the realities we want—to turn less-than-perfect situations into something good.\r\n\r\nI never imagined that my life as a mother would look like this, and I would never say I would choose this setup for my kids. But there is something to the whole "absence makes the heart grow fonder." <strong>There''s something powerful in missing each other</strong>, and wanting to share something enough to call or send an email. <strong>There''s something poignant about reunions</strong>, and that time spent together after a time apart.\r\n\r\nAnd somehow that seems like more than a just a silver lining, or a glass-half-full way of seeing things. It''s very much a beautiful reality in my life.', 'Absence and a mama''s heart', 0, '<em>Being apart from your kids is hard, but there''s good to be found, too.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'absence-and-a-mamas-heart', '', '', '2009-10-19 12:04:50', '2009-10-19 16:04:50', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=508', 0, 'post', '', 14),
(509, 1, '2009-10-19 11:58:32', '2009-10-19 15:58:32', '', 'meands', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'meands', '', '', '2009-10-19 11:58:32', '2009-10-19 15:58:32', '', 508, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/meands.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(510, 1, '2009-10-21 02:44:44', '2009-10-21 06:44:44', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/comic_wtf.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-511" title="comic_wtf" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/comic_wtf-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="403" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Illustration by Jason Berg</h5>\r\nPerhaps you''ve long suspected it, or maybe I''ve had you fooled. Either way, here''s the truth: <strong>I have almost no idea what I''m doing when it comes to social media.</strong>\r\n\r\nSure, I''m tweeting away on Twitter each day, I publish a blog and comment on other blogs, and I participate in the tertiary networks, like Facebook and LinkedIn. But I can assure you, <strong>there is no master plan or strategy here—unless you call trial and error and "making it up as you go" a plan.</strong>\r\n\r\nI''m the person who ended up on Twitter because a friend told me I should have an account. (My first tweet was something like "Trying out Twitter. Not sure how this is supposed to work.") I''m also the person who knows what SEO stands for, but has no idea how to leverage it to optimize anything when it comes to my blog.\r\n\r\nI regularly second-guess myself, too. <em>Is this blog headline really more enticing that the one I thought of 15 minutes ago? Should I tweet the link to my blog again, for the people who missed it, or will that be annoying?</em>\r\n<h4>The Facebook fan page conundrum</h4>\r\nOne of the things I''ve been hemming and hawing about for a few months now is whether to create a Facebook page for my blog. The whole issue came up when a stranger sent me an email asking if I had a fan page for the blog; I thought "why not?" and started to set one up. But two main issues kept me from publishing it: One was that I couldn''t really figure out the point of fan pages, and the other was that I just felt funny asking people to become a fan of my blog. It feels too much like asking them to be a fan of <em>me</em>.\r\n\r\nA couple of months went by, and the page sat there unfinished and unpublished. Then I went to Portland, Chicago and New York to participate in readings for the book I''m a part of (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ask-Me-About-My-Divorce/dp/1580052762">Ask Me About My Divorce</a>). At the readings, I met people who were interested in my blog and wanted to connect in some way, but they aren''t on Twitter and I''ve made a personal decision to not friend people on Facebook I don''t actually know (in a real-life way).\r\n\r\nFinally, I decided to set aside my tendency to over-think things, and just get the page up there. I would have to figure out how to use it as I went. When the page was live I shared <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Halfway-to-Normal/92902118213?ref=ts">the link</a>, and wouldn''t you know someone had to comment: "I don''t understand fan pages. You already have a page and post links to your blog from FB, why have a fan page?"\r\n\r\nMy real response was maybe slightly defensive. What I should have simply said was "I DON''T KNOW!" <strong>I don''t know what I''m doing, I don''t know where this blog is heading—I''m just experimenting and learning, and trying to figure out what works for me as I go. </strong>After all, there''s plenty of advice out there about these sorts of things and no shortage of opinions, but there are no rules. I get to decide what feels right for me and my readers.\r\n<h4>I''m a fan of taking concrete steps</h4>\r\nLess than a week later, some of the benefits of having a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Halfway-to-Normal/92902118213?ref=ts">Facebook fan page for Halfway to Normal</a> are beginning to take shape. Over a third of the people who have become fans of the blog are not friends of mine on Facebook—this is a way to reach out to those people, who don''t know me but are genuinely interested in what''s happening here. (And now I can reserve my personal Facebook profile for my own status updates, and use the Halfway to Normal page to let people know about new posts.)\r\n\r\nBecoming a fan also gives people an easy way to share the blog with others who might enjoy what I''m writing about, or who need to know they''re not alone.\r\n\r\n<strong>So that''s what I''m a fan of: Trying things out and seeing what works. Taking concrete steps even when you don''t know exactly where you''re going. Recognizing that there is no "one way" to do things when it comes to social media.</strong>\r\n\r\nMy next task? Figuring out how to spread the word that our #lovelist hashtag on Twitter has been co-opted by a rapper with more than a million followers. Overnight, it went from a tight community of people sharing what they love and want more of in their lives, to pages and pages of people I''ve never heard of sharing...well, I''m not quite sure what. Anyway, our new hashtag is #thelovelist. I suspect I''ll muddle my way through this little conundrum, too.', 'Confessions of a social media lackey', 0, '<em>Confession: There''s no master plan here, I''m just figuring it out as I go.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'confessions-of-a-social-media-lackey', '', '', '2009-10-20 23:46:55', '2009-10-21 03:46:55', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=510', 0, 'post', '', 11),
(511, 1, '2009-10-20 23:41:48', '2009-10-21 03:41:48', '', 'comic_wtf', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'comic_wtf', '', '', '2009-10-20 23:41:48', '2009-10-21 03:41:48', '', 510, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/comic_wtf.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(512, 4, '2009-10-23 03:23:09', '2009-10-23 07:23:09', '<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist5.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-513" title="lovelist5" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist5-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="403" /></a></p>\r\n\r\n<p style="text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;"><em>Today''s post, the sixth in my Friday <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List Project</a>, is written by Lance Ekum. Lance, creator of  <a href="http://www.jungleoflife.com/">The Jungle of Life</a>, was one of the first bloggers I connected with after throwing myself blindly into Twitter and the blogging world. I feel lucky to have crossed paths early on with someone who is so inspiring, encouraging and generous.\r\n</em></p>\r\n<p style="text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;"><em>Lance not only embraced #thelovelist idea from the very beginning, he also wrote <a href="http://www.jungleoflife.com/2009/09/29/what-is-love-really/">a post</a> about it on his blog—as of today, the post has garnered 83 comments! Clearly Lance has gathered a community of big hearts and open minds around him, and I''m honored to have him sharing here.</em></p>\r\n<p style="text-align: left;">________________</p>\r\n<p style="text-align: left;">by Lance Ekum</p>\r\n<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>“One touch of nature makes the while world kin.â€ ~ William Shakespeare</strong></em></p>\r\nWhen I read Kristin''s first post about the concept of a <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472" target="_blank">Love List</a>, I was drawn in by this idea that focused around the idea of publicly claiming what we love in our lives. How often do we go through our days not fully acknowledging those things/moments/people that really touch us in some special way? Well, as I thought about it...for me, it''s far too often that I just take for granted all that which I really do love.\r\n\r\nKristin and I talked about the concept of the love list, and after that I wrote, in general terms, what this <a href="http://www.jungleoflife.com/2009/09/29/what-is-love-really/" target="_blank">meant to me</a>. And I thought a lot about what triggers that feeling of love—from my family, to the smell of  coffee in the early morning hours...\r\n\r\nOne thing that came up when I originally wrote about the love list, was fog—more exactly, the settling fog on a cool autumn evening.\r\n\r\nMy thoughts go back to a certain September evening, just as soccer practice was getting done. And how we, as a team, watched as the fog started to magically settle into pockets on the field, just as practice was culminating.\r\n\r\nPicture this with me. A still evening. The sun is just setting on a picture perfect autumn day. Sports fields that are now mostly empty. A slight chill in the air. The evening dew settling upon the blades of grass, moist to the touch. And then picture a child, maybe a couple of them, drawn in by this magical lightness of something white and fluffy, appearing seemingly from out of nowhere. In little pockets strewn throughout the field, this fog is there, settling in.\r\n\r\n<strong>There’s something about this fog that feels especially magical, almost surreal.</strong>\r\n\r\nFog always has that draw for me. It’s just, I’m so much more used to seeing fog in the early morning hours, light outside, the fog rising—all of which is still very magical. This moment, though, it was different. It was the evening “settling of the fog.â€ Coming in to rest, to stay the night, on those fields—in the stillness, the darkness, the peacefulness.\r\n\r\nI love the mystery it evokes. I love the peaceful harmony in which it rests upon the ground beneath.\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>"Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved." ~ Søren Kierkegaard</strong></em></p>\r\n<em><strong></strong></em></blockquote>\r\nAll that makes me think more deeply about my life. Does this settling evening fog mean something? Something more than the mystery it evokes? Perhaps.\r\n\r\nSee, I start to think about the mystery within my heart...as things began to "settle" there. <strong>Much like that fog on a cool September night, if I stop and take in with wonder that which settles upon my heart, I''m drawn to the magical feel of my heart connecting with something greater</strong>...something meant to settle there. Settle there, stay the night or maybe many nights. Stay until my heart is ready...ready to embrace the mystery and give it flight...much like the rising fog in the early morning hours. To come full circle, settle upon the heart, then rise and show its colors...\r\n\r\nIt’s easy to come here and talk about the love we have for family members, for some material possessions, for life. Today, though, let''s set these aside for just a moment, as important as they are. Today, I ask each of you—what part of our natural world do you love? Nature is a very connecting force for so many. What makes that connection for you?\r\n<p style="text-align: center;"><a title="Obscured" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28177041@N03/2861197593/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3162/2861197593_141f7eb524.jpg" border="0" alt="Obscured" /></a></p>\r\n<small><a title="Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.jungleoflife.com/wp-content/plugins/photo-dropper/images/cc.png" border="0" alt="Creative Commons License" width="16" height="16" align="absmiddle" /></a> <a href="http://www.photodropper.com/photos/" target="_blank">photo</a> credit: <a title="viking_79" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28177041@N03/2861197593/" target="_blank">viking_79</a></small>', 'The wonder of love settling like fog', 0, '<em>Loving nature can connect our minds & hearts to something bigger.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'the-wonder-of-love-settling-like-fog', '', 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472\nhttp://www.jungleoflife.com/2009/09/29/what-is-love-really/\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472\nhttp://www.jungleoflife.com/2009/09/29/what-is-love-really/', '2009-10-22 13:23:46', '2009-10-22 17:23:46', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=512', 0, 'post', '', 39),
(513, 1, '2009-10-22 13:16:41', '2009-10-22 17:16:41', '', 'lovelist5', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'lovelist5', '', '', '2009-10-22 13:16:41', '2009-10-22 17:16:41', '', 512, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist5.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(514, 1, '2009-10-26 00:32:57', '2009-10-26 04:32:57', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/bigapplecor_subway_ad.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-515" title="bigapplecor_subway_ad" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/bigapplecor_subway_ad.jpg" alt="" width="411" height="593" /></a>\r\n\r\n<strong>"A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?"</strong>\r\n\r\nWhen I first saw the ads that are scheduled to be displayed in some New York City subway stations starting today, I bristled. I imagined the religious counterpart to the atheist ad: "Five million New Yorkers are good with God. Are you?" It felt snide and aggressive.\r\n\r\nThen I realized that many God-believers are snide and aggressive on a regular basis—maybe they don''t advertise in subway stations, but they don''t need to. They have hundreds of other platforms available for spreading their message, plus strength in sheer numbers. I shifted from defensiveness to compassion to curiosity. What prompted the <a href="http://newyorkcity.unitedcor.org/node/68">Big Apple Coalition of Reason</a> to create and place the ads in the first place?\r\n<h4>In the name of awareness and dialogue</h4>\r\nAccording to <a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#1DfSrZ/www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/21/new.york.subway.ads/index.html/">this article</a> and a statement from the coalition, the ads are "part of a coordinated multi-organizational advertising campaign designed to raise awareness about people who don''t believe in a god."\r\n\r\n<strong>That''s something I can generally get behind—raising awareness, along with encouraging conversation and thought. We all need more of that. We all need to be reminded that not everyone is like us, just like we need to be reminded that we''re not alone.</strong> These ads will do both of those things, depending of whether you read them as an atheist, a believer, or something in between.\r\n\r\nThat "in between" contingent, though, is one I can''t ignore. <strong>This is essentially what''s at the heart of my issue with these particular ads, and with many other aspects of religious and secular society: The human tendency to draw lines in the sand—to say I''m this, you''re that, and we simply don''t overlap. End of story.</strong>\r\n<h4>What about the millions stuck somewhere in between?</h4>\r\nI touched on this "in between category" in my recent post <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=481">Telling Jesus stories at the KGB</a>. Here''s the essence of what I concluded:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>...I’ve long had a really narrow, either-or, all-or-nothing understanding about how people view faith. In my imagination, they either completely embrace belief or completely reject it. But this experience has proven to me, once and for all, that only a fairly small percentage of people fall into one of those extreme categories. The rest of us fall into a deep and wide category I''ll call "It''s Complicated."</em></p>\r\n<strong>With that in mind, I would like to propose an entire series of subway station ads</strong>—not to replace the "good without God" ad, but to accompany it. Here are a few ideas to get the series going (disclaimer: I''m completely making up the numbers, here). I''d love to hear your ad concepts. After all, the goal is to increase awareness, dialogue and thought, right? Let''s do it as broadly as we can.\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?</strong></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Six million New Yorkers are confused about God. Are you?</strong></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>A million New Yorkers believe religious conservatism and social liberalism are not mutually exclusive. Do you?</strong></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Four million New Yorkers aren''t exactly good <em>with</em> God, or good without him, so they avoid him. Do you?</strong></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Two million New Yorkers have taken part of the religion they grew up with and blended it with other beliefs and traditions. Have you?</strong></p>\r\n\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>All eight million New Yorkers are love by God, even if his followers consistently fall short of doing likewise. Do you?\r\n</strong></p>', 'God in the subway?', 0, '<em>An ad raising awareness about atheism prompts a whole series of possibilities.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'god-in-the-subway', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=481', '2009-10-26 13:41:48', '2009-10-26 17:41:48', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=514', 0, 'post', '', 33),
(515, 1, '2009-10-25 23:58:57', '2009-10-26 03:58:57', '', 'bigapplecor_subway_ad', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'bigapplecor_subway_ad', '', '', '2009-10-25 23:58:57', '2009-10-26 03:58:57', '', 514, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/bigapplecor_subway_ad.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(516, 1, '2009-10-28 13:11:25', '2009-10-28 17:11:25', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/3184534515_b316924977.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-517" title="3184534515_b316924977" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/3184534515_b316924977.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/rmlowe/">Robert Lowe</a></h5>\r\nA friend recently told me she thinks her marriage is over.\r\n\r\nThese stories always really sadden me, but I felt the effects of this tale deep in the pit of my stomach. As she described the state of her marriage, I felt like she was talking about the marriage I was in a decade ago.\r\n\r\nI haven''t written much about that marriage, or what went wrong, for a number of reasons. It''s not that it''s some big secretive drama—it''s just that <strong>I feel called to focus on the redemptive, new creation that arose out of the mess more than I feel called to tell about the cumulative unhappiness that fed the mess.</strong>\r\n\r\nIt''s also true that these things are very complicated, and to try to explain what led to a marriage''s demise is almost always to oversimplify it, leaving out many important details, nuances and perspectives.\r\n\r\nThere''s much to be learned from looking back, though, and much we can learn from one another''s mistakes. As I listened to my friend share her struggle, <strong>I realized that what was at the heart of my unhealthy marriage is perhaps more common than I thought.</strong> Maybe it''s a story that needs to be told. Maybe it can help someone, somehow.\r\n\r\nI don''t know what to tell my friend or anyone who''s in a marriage that seems unfixable. That''s always hard, and always a case-by-case matter.\r\n\r\nBut to anyone who isn''t yet in a marriage or long-term committed relationship, I will say this: Make sure you know yourself and your partner knows him/herself. <strong>Make sure you can each answer these types of questions for yourself, and then talk through how the similarities or differences in your responses might play out in a lifelong commitment.</strong>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- I feel content and most fully like the person I was meant to be when I am_______________. <em>(This can and should become a list of many things, in the spirit of the <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List</a>.)</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- When I am in need of energy, ideas and a sense of joy, I turn to________________.</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- When I am stressed, confused, sad, angry, or faced with a difficult decision, turning to _________________ helps most.</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- I feel most loved by others when they __________________. <em>(This question is inspired by the wise-but-cheesy book "The Five Love Languages," which I''ve written about before, <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=339">here</a>.)</em></p>\r\nNow that I think of it, if you are already in a marriage or relationship that you consider to be for life, it certainly wouldn''t hurt to ask these same questions of yourselves and then talk about them together. The ultimate downfall of my first marriage was our fundamental lack of compatibility, but if we had each developed a greater understanding of the other''s perspective and needs, it would have gone a long way.', 'What I wish I had known about compatibility', 0, '<em>Solid relationships & marriages begin with a solid understanding of self.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'what-i-wish-i-had-known-about-compatibility', '', 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=339', '2009-11-02 00:54:29', '2009-11-02 04:54:29', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=516', 0, 'post', '', 11);
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(517, 1, '2009-10-28 12:55:35', '2009-10-28 16:55:35', '', '3184534515_b316924977', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', '3184534515_b316924977', '', '', '2009-10-28 12:55:35', '2009-10-28 16:55:35', '', 516, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/3184534515_b316924977.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(518, 1, '2009-10-30 12:25:42', '2009-10-30 16:25:42', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-519" title="1" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/1-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="403" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Illustration by Jason Berg</h5>\r\nYesterday I spent the day in Springfield, Illinois with three busloads of third and fourth graders—well, I actually only spent the day with 10 fourth graders, which was much more manageable. We went to the New Salem historic site, a reconstruction of where Abraham Lincoln spent his early adulthood, and then the state capitol building and the state museum.\r\n\r\nOur group was high-energy, so I had to be really "on," (much like I described in <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=351">another post</a> about chaperoning a field trip), but <strong>I also just purely loved observing and interacting with the kids.</strong>\r\n\r\nWhen I''m spending time with kids, I love seeing things in a new light, through their eyes. I love learning again some of the things I learned so long ago—both academic information and those important bits of knowledge about how the world works, and how social interactions and negotiations play out.\r\n\r\n<strong>Perhaps what I love most is the opportunity to be transported back to my own childhood</strong>—to remember so many of the fascinations, fears, discoveries and confusions I felt. Being able to get in touch with the nine-year-old version of me is fun, and I also think it helps me understand more about my adult self.\r\n<h4>The rewarding challenge of explaining the world, honestly &amp; simply</h4>\r\nAs I interacted with the kids yesterday, I was also reminded how much <strong>I love thinking about how to answer their questions, and how to explain what certain words mean.</strong> When Laisha saw a sign and asked "What does ''prohibited'' mean?" I responded "It means it''s ''not allowed.''" Then she asked "Why don''t they just write ''not allowed?''" I had to swallow my laugh and tell her that was a very good question—in fact, it''s one I spend much of my professional life advocating. "Sometimes big words do a better job explaining something, but a lot of the time people use them when they don''t need to, just to sound smart or official," I explained.\r\n\r\n<strong>As adults, we often fall into ruts, forgetting to question why things are done in a certain way rather than another, just as valid way.</strong> I love how spending time with kids can jostle you out of those ruts.\r\n\r\nBefore I started writing this post, I went to <a href="http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23thelovelist">#thelovelist hashtag on Twitter</a> to pull some recent additions for this post. A few of them, in particular, went right along with this theme:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5111792261" class="msgtxt en">@MoJoJules just got back from seeing my niece. she makes my heart complete and laugh. she is precious!</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@jenluit <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5211358091" class="msgtxt en">I love that my daughter protests the idea of "girl" and "boy" toys.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5154816183" class="msgtxt en">@kt_writes Q, my 11-YO, just said "I love tea &amp; books. I could live without computers &amp; TVs &amp; lemonade, but not without tea &amp; books."</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@OSG <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5065757501" class="msgtxt en">Sent an email that I signed "Dad".</span></span></p>\r\n<strong>Here''s to kids—not just for who they are, but for how they change us.</strong> If you don''t get chances to interact with kids on a regular basis, I really encourage you to find ways to connect at a church or by volunteering as a tutor or mentor at a local school or non-profit.\r\n\r\n<strong>Now for some updates from #thelovelist over past week or so:</strong>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@MoJoJules <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5033980378" class="msgtxt en">Just helped my dad do the Halloween "boo" gift in our neighborhood. Never laughed and ran so hard in my life.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@bridgeout <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5025035414" class="msgtxt en">So grateful for the bright blue sky today and short sleeve weather after several days of cold and rain </span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@OSG <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5093910050" class="msgtxt en">Love when things on my #thelovelist are actionable. eg, love trees fall colors, reminds me of Delaware; Write M a letter.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@lje2me <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5128406699" class="msgtxt en">Losing myself in creativity in my craft room is so healthy for my heart &amp; soul.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5165851172" class="msgtxt en">@kt_writes when writing a blog post becomes an active part of the thought &amp; idea *process*, not just a way to record an idea/thought.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5188460970" class="msgtxt en">@scheidel I love that I work in an office in midtown manhattan where 30 out of 30 employees get excited about the fall lunchtime potluck.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5212246792" class="msgtxt en">@remtobreathe So glad I dragged myself off to church prayer last night ... was awesome ... and badly needed.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5248589176" class="msgtxt en">@mojojules I got to go into the "deep" with a new friend. Loved the honesty and rawness of the convo.</span> </span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@cnewvine<span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5288495976" class="msgtxt en"> I''m grateful for sunny autumn days when the air is crisp and smells like leaves.</span></span></p>\r\n<strong>And I''m really excited about next Friday''s guest post, by my book-loving, Gen-Y friend <a href="http://www.ordinarymer.com/">Meredith</a>.</strong> Here are some of her recent love list additions, just to give you a sense of who she is and what you can look forward to:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@McMer314 <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5021337295" class="msgtxt en">I love snuggling into oversized sweathshirts, burrowing underneath blankets instead of turning on heat when it gets cold.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5047401796" class="msgtxt en">@McMer314 Singing in my car along with the radio/ipod, at the top of my lungs, not caring if I''m in tune.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5162570812" class="msgtxt en">@McMer314 Sunday nights mean reconnecting w/ my family through phone calls. I like hearing their voices - makes the distance seem less.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5190646993" class="msgtxt en">@McMer314 Reading a beloved book again for 2nd (or 3rd, 5th or 8th) time is like catching up with an old friend - familiar and new.</span></span></p>', 'Seeing the world through the lens of childhood', 0, '<em>Much of what I love involves seeing & understanding the world as a kid.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'seeing-the-world-through-the-lens-of-childhood', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=351', '2009-10-30 12:25:42', '2009-10-30 16:25:42', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=518', 0, 'post', '', 9),
(519, 1, '2009-10-30 12:15:07', '2009-10-30 16:15:07', '', '1', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', '1', '', '', '2009-10-30 12:15:07', '2009-10-30 16:15:07', '', 518, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/1.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(520, 1, '2009-10-30 16:24:55', '2009-10-30 20:24:55', '', '11', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', '11', '', '', '2009-10-30 16:24:55', '2009-10-30 20:24:55', '', 472, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/11.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(521, 1, '2009-11-02 14:51:30', '2009-11-02 18:51:30', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/mary.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-522" title="mary" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/mary.jpg" alt="" width="421" height="475" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 180px;">Photo of St. Mary Magdalene by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/antmoose/">antmoose</a></h5>\r\nYesterday was All Saints Day and today is All Souls Day. All morning I''ve been mulling over a group of images and ideas that are collecting in my mind. I was trying to sort through it all and tease out the red thread, so I could share something concise with you.\r\n\r\nBut then I thought about how much I love to see what emerges <em>as</em> I write, and to see what takes shape later, as all of you add your thoughts. So I''m just going to share my collection, laying it out before you to add to, sort through, rearrange and meditate on along with me.\r\n<h4>Joy and sadness, side by side</h4>\r\nThis morning I went to my daughter''s elementary school for<span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content"> a Dia de los Muertos assembly. We were gathering to remember our friend &amp; teacher, Maricela, who died in September of cancer (I wrote about that <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=474">here</a>). </span></span>Maricela was quiet, but not shy. Her presence was strong, expressed mostly through her dark eyes, which spoke of compassion and love. Maricela listened with those eyes; she was someone who truly saw you—maybe even saw straight through to your soul.\r\n\r\n<span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">After S sang with a group of kids, others read poems they wrote, and Maricela''s colleagues shared stories about her life. There was so much joy and sadness colliding in that gymnasium. How difficult it is to grasp it all even as an adult! I wonder if the kids can begin to fold the idea of Maricela''s death into their comprehension of her love.</span></span>\r\n<h4>Can we even begin to be saints?</h4>\r\nIn an email my mom sent to me Saturday, she mentioned that she was pulling together her Sunday School lesson for All Saints Day. "My SS lesson says that modern Christianity identifies a saint as ''Any baptized Christian who prays well and loves well.''"\r\n\r\n<strong>What does it mean to "pray well" and "love well?"</strong> What does that really look like? Could I work to become a saint—not in the way we tend to think of it, as a "good, long-suffering, selfless person," but as someone who prays and loves in such a way that the world is changed?\r\n<h4>Hate is easier than love</h4>\r\nThis morning I noticed an incoming link to my blog with the words "What''s on your hate list?" I panicked just a bit, thinking it was a cruel twist on my <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List Project</a> series, but I quickly realized it linked to a post at one of my new favorite blogs, <a href="http://newvinegrowing.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/day-eight-whats-on-your-hate-list/">Newvine Growing</a>. Colleen has been writing about the Love List Project as a part of a Month of Thanksgiving; today she looks at hate, in an amazingly refreshing way:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>What comes easy is hate.</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I hate how noisy our upstairs neighbor is, stomping around her apartment and apparently moving furniture and hammering on something at midnight.</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I hate the trash scattered all around the subway stop near my office.</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I hate that my cat has heart disease and probably won’t be with me much longer.</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>As part of the Month of Thanksgiving, I’m going to try to turn around some of this free-flowing negativity. I’m going to look for things to be grateful for in life’s frustrations and disappointments.</em></p>\r\nThis has left me thinking. Can I truly love some things while I''m hating others? <strong>"How does hate affect my ability to love well?"</strong>\r\n<h4>Only one thing can cover all the ugliness</h4>\r\nYesterday in church, this verse was read:\r\n\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong><em>Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.</em></strong>\r\n~ I Peter 4:8</p>\r\nI have heard it many times before, but never quite in the way I heard it yesterday. I''m not sure why.\r\n\r\nMaybe because I have been feeling sad about how capable friends and community are of hurting one another—even communities that have joined together around the love of Christ.\r\n\r\nMaybe because I was thoughtless and unkind toward Jason on Saturday, when he made a simple mistake. As I apologized later and he forgave me, I was able to see how powerful real love is, when time is taken to carefully, regularly tended.\r\n\r\nMaybe because I have been aching with love for my girls as I watch them grow and change. I can see their shortcomings clearly, and sometimes I get so frustrated with them. But that deep, deep love is so much greater.\r\n\r\nAnd I''m more certain than ever it''s not just the only thing that can bind together my family and unite my church community—<strong>that deep love that covers sin is also the only thing that can change the world.</strong>', 'Love deeply', 0, '<em>Some thoughts about joy & sadness and love & hate on All Souls Day.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'love-deeply', '', 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=474\nhttp://newvinegrowing.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/day-eight-whats-on-your-hate-list/\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472', '2009-11-02 18:27:04', '2009-11-02 22:27:04', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=521', 0, 'post', '', 6),
(522, 1, '2009-11-02 14:26:50', '2009-11-02 18:26:50', '', 'mary', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'mary-2', '', '', '2009-11-02 14:26:50', '2009-11-02 18:26:50', '', 521, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/mary.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(523, 1, '2009-11-04 14:17:53', '2009-11-04 18:17:53', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/1142424516_69c87402aa.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-524" title="1142424516_69c87402aa" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/1142424516_69c87402aa.jpg" alt="" width="528" height="396" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 420px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/dasqfamily/">Qfamily</a></h5>\r\nSome things require fixing. The toilet that won''t stop running. The pedal on your bike that makes an annoying screech with every round. The soup that''s lacking a bit of spice or salt, to add interest and bring together all of the flavors.\r\n\r\n<strong>Fixing is what you do to something that is inherently good and clearly on the right track, but just needs a bit of help—some tweaks—along the way.</strong>\r\n\r\nWhen it comes to our stuff, sometimes it feels like my generation of Americans are too quick to toss out the old and replace it with something new. Shoe repair shops are becoming almost a thing of the past. It usually costs more to fix a DVD player than it does to buy a new one. And while I have many friends who know the proper way to darn a sock, I suspect that my collection of friends is somewhat…err...unusual.\r\n\r\n<strong>Ironically, though, when it comes to societal and personal problems, we seem all too eager to “fix.â€</strong> We’re especially fans of the quick fix. We love the band-aid approach—we''re more than happy to see if we can cover up the problem with a fresh coat of paint so we can forget about it a bit longer. When problems are mostly out of sight, after all, they can be mostly out of mind.\r\n<h4>Are we misusing (or over-using) the word "fix"?</h4>\r\nSo here''s what I''m pondering: <strong>Maybe we need to stop using the word "fix"</strong> unless we''re referring to physical objects with minor broken aspects that can be made right. There are <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fix">many definitions</a> for the word "fix," but I think the one we tend to have in mind in these instances is this: "The act of adjusting, correcting, or repairing. To restore to proper condition or working order; repair."\r\n\r\n(Maybe I''m being a bit nerdy about the semantics, but that''s what tends to happen when you major in English and make a living using words.)\r\n\r\nOf course, our use of the word "broken" goes right along with "fix," and should also be looked at more carefully. A marriage can be referred to as broken. So can a healthcare or education system. Trust can be broken, too. But not all broken things should be fixed. In some cases, they <em>can''t</em> be fixed. What do we do, then?\r\n<h4>Fix it, toss it, or claim a third approach</h4>\r\nI began mulling all of this over yesterday when someone I follow on Twitter, @RogueReverend, tweeted this:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Did you really think Obama was going to fix everything? Because some stuff ain''t gonna be "fixed." It''s gonna be different.</em></p>\r\nI "retweeted" (or quoted) her statement in my own tweet, then followed it with this:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I like the distinction between *fixing* things &amp; doing them differently. for so long I felt like I needed to *fix* my life, then I reframed.</em></p>\r\nWhat I meant by that is this: <strong>I saw all kinds of things in my life that I thought needed fixing, and other things that I thought were beyond fixing, and just needed to be tossed.</strong> If you have a broken DVD player, those are your options—try to get it fixed, or toss it and decide what to do from there.\r\n\r\n<strong>But in life, with people and the messy situations we create, I''m discovering that we don''t have just two options.</strong> There''s a fuzzy third alternative, the one @RogueReverend referred to as "different."\r\n\r\nIt isn''t going to be "fixed."\r\n\r\nIt isn''t going to be trashed, and then replaced with a new version of the same old thing.\r\n\r\nIt''s going to be "different." Re-framed and surprising—not the same old thing with just a fresh coat of paint.\r\n\r\nThat specific marriage or the idea of marriage? That health system intended to care for people who are sick and hurting? That idea of "church" or "community"? I believe they can all be seen in entirely new ways, from a previously blocked vantage point. It takes a bit more effort, but I believe it''s the only way we can begin to see what''s possible.', 'Maybe we should stop trying to "fix" things', 0, '<em>If it''s broken do you fix it, toss it, or find a different way?</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'maybe-we-should-stop-trying-to-fix-things', '', '', '2009-11-04 14:17:53', '2009-11-04 18:17:53', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=523', 0, 'post', '', 12),
(524, 1, '2009-11-04 14:13:16', '2009-11-04 18:13:16', '', '1142424516_69c87402aa', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', '1142424516_69c87402aa', '', '', '2009-11-04 14:13:16', '2009-11-04 18:13:16', '', 523, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/1142424516_69c87402aa.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(525, 4, '2009-11-06 13:13:04', '2009-11-06 17:13:04', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lovelist31.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-528" title="lovelist31" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lovelist31-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="403" /></a>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I have met many wonderful people on Twitter and through my blog. Some of those people have even crossed some invisible boundary into a place that feels like true friendship, even though I''ve never met them face to face. Meredith has become one of those friends.</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>It''s not that we share everything in common. I''m GenX, Meredith is GenY. I live in a small city in the Midwest, she lives in a big city in New England. I have gone through a divorce as a spouse and mother, she has experienced divorce as a child. Yet we have really connected through a variety of issues and interactions. I think, in large part, that''s a result of Meredith''s honesty, openness, and willingness to dig deeper. Once again, I was deeply moved by the words she was willing to share with us here as part of the <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List Project</a>. Please welcome Meredith, and make sure to check out her blog,</em> <a href="http://www.ordinarymer.com/">Ordinary Mer</a>.</p>\r\n_________________________\r\n\r\nby Meredith\r\n\r\nWhen Kristin first asked me to write a guest post, she suggested—and I agreed—that I write about life being good and how important it is to recognize and deliberately hold on to the good things. For me, the Love List is a way to be very conscious of all these good things in my life.\r\n\r\nSometimes I have a tendency to focus too much on the negative and not enough on the positive. Over the last year, however, I made a few decisions and took a few steps that brought me to a really positive place. Life was great and I was happy and content. <strong>Participating in the <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List Project</a> felt like a natural way to honor the happiness in my life and focus on the good.</strong>\r\n\r\nThen, a few weeks ago, my grandmother passed away unexpectedly. In the midst of all of the family chaos and sadness, I found it difficult to concentrate on anything positive. My own Love List took a back seat to my grief. I wondered if it even mattered anymore.\r\n\r\nThe answer, of course, is that it does matter. Life moves on. <strong>We grieve, yes, but the good things don’t go away just because something bad happened. Deliberately holding on to the good things in life is just as (if not more) important now. </strong>\r\n\r\nWhen my grandmother passed, my entire immediate family was together, either by coincidence or divine providence, on a previously-planned vacation. And though I think of it at the time, I was also in the middle of doing something I loved, something I put on my Love List: playing board or card games with my family, especially when we’re all crowded around a table together and there’s an equal sense of camaraderie and competitiveness.\r\n\r\n<strong>Grief won’t vanish overnight, but knowing that I was doing something I loved, surrounded by the people I loved, has helped intertwine that sadness with joy.</strong> So has continuing to add to my Love List. When I initially started my list, I wasn’t thinking ahead. I was simply creating a catalog of the things I loved, adding to it organically over time.\r\n\r\nTo my surprise, <strong>my Love List ended up providing comfort and giving me a way to honor my grandmother. </strong>During the last few weeks, when things haven’t been so positive, my list has been a tangible reminder that (to quote a little red-haired girl) the sun will come out tomorrow. <strong>And while I may not be able to make my sorrow disappear magically, I can pay tribute to my grandma’s life by living my own life to the fullest—a life that doesn’t take anything for granted and celebrates the wonderfully good things I’m blessed to have.\r\n</strong>\r\nIt may only be words written on a sheet of paper, but my Love List has come to be so much more than just words and paper. It’s a visible symbol of the things and people in my life that are worth holding on to, in good times and in bad. And that’s certainly something to love.\r\n\r\n<strong>What does your Love List symbolize to you? What has been the most surprising part of this journey?</strong>', 'What in your life is worth holding onto?', 0, '<em>Grief makes hanging onto what we love even more important.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'what-in-your-life-is-worth-holding-onto', '', 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472', '2009-11-06 14:02:57', '2009-11-06 18:02:57', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=525', 0, 'post', '', 8),
(526, 1, '2009-11-06 13:09:44', '2009-11-06 17:09:44', '', 'lovelist', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'lovelist-2', '', '', '2009-11-06 13:09:44', '2009-11-06 17:09:44', '', 525, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lovelist.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(527, 1, '2009-11-06 13:10:12', '2009-11-06 17:10:12', '', 'lovelist3', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'lovelist3-2', '', '', '2009-11-06 13:10:12', '2009-11-06 17:10:12', '', 525, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lovelist3.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(528, 1, '2009-11-06 14:02:44', '2009-11-06 18:02:44', '', 'lovelist31', 0, '', 'inherit', 'open', 'open', '', 'lovelist31', '', '', '2009-11-06 14:02:44', '2009-11-06 18:02:44', '', 525, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lovelist31.jpg', 0, 'attachment', 'image/jpeg', 0),
(529, 1, '2009-11-09 14:16:49', '2009-11-09 18:16:49', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/2433460284_c4557f9f27.jpg" alt="" />\r\n\r\nLast week my ex-husband and I went to parent-teacher conferences for our sixth-grader, Q. By now, after years of hearing teachers describe our child, we pretty much know what to expect: She''s bright as well as kind, helpful, and respectful—the at-school version of herself that we don''t see quite enough evidence of at home.\r\n\r\nBut at our first middle school conference, we were surprised by a comment made by each of the four teachers we met: Q is self-assured and actively engaged in class. She freely offers answers, ideas and questions. She is emerging as an academic leader.\r\n\r\nThis surprised us because throughout elementary school, the single "complaint" teachers had of Q was that she wasn''t raising her hand or speaking out. She wasn''t the least bit shy in the lunchroom or on the playground, but she seemed shy and unsure of herself in class, even though teachers knew she had much to add to the discussion and the learning.\r\n\r\n<strong>As Q''s mom, what I find most interesting about this is how quick we were a few years back to just accept "this is how she is"</strong>—socially outgoing but unwilling to be in the spotlight when it comes to performing, in the classroom or on stage. It didn''t occur to me to ask her sixth grade teachers about class participation, because I assumed I already knew the answer. When they offered the information, as one of their favorite things about having Q in class, we were stunned.\r\n<h4>Total acceptance that doesn''t lock anyone in</h4>\r\nHere''s the tricky parenting balance: <strong>We want to demonstrate to our kids that we accept and love them for who they are</strong> (and we definitely <em>should</em> do this). I''ve known many people over the years who clearly heard their parents telling them that they should be someone else, even if they never actually *told* them in so many words.\r\n\r\nBut in the process of saying "I love you just the way you are," we need to be careful to not let all that affirmation put them in a box. <strong>Is it possible that we stifle them in the process of unconditionally loving them?</strong>\r\n<h4>I was the unaffectionate child</h4>\r\nMy mom used to tell me stories about my toddler disposition. Rather than being warm, trusting and affectionate, I found most adults I didn''t know well highly suspicious. If they instantly wanted to hug me and lift me into their lap, I balked. My mom responded in the right way, I think; she told people (even my own grandmother visiting from California) to give me some space and let me warm up to them in my own way, when I was ready. <strong>Just think—by the very young age of two I had already developed a reputation for being standoffish!</strong>\r\n\r\nWhen Q was a baby, I noticed some of the same tendencies in her, and was quick to explain it to myself and others as "just the way we are." After Q''s very cuddly, affectionate baby sister was born, though, Q began to change. She watched baby sister sitting on laps, snuggling in, and being rocked before bed (things Q had never enjoyed the first two or three years of her life), and she decided "I''m gonna get ME some of that!" And she did. <strong>The person I thought she was hard-wired to be changed before my eyes. And years later, the "new" her has stuck.\r\n</strong>\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, what about me? <strong>As it turns out, I was internally starving for a type of physical affection that I had always assumed wasn''t my style.</strong> I''m sure that misconception played itself out in complicated ways in my first marriage. Now, two years into my new marriage, physical closeness is the super glue.\r\n<h4>Be accepting, but don''t carve it in stone</h4>\r\nSo here''s what I''m thinking: It''s good to be accepting of our kids, spouses and ourselves, and to not try to change everyone. But that <strong>acceptance should be penciled in, not written in ink and certainly not carved into stone. When we carve a personality trait into stone, we don''t leave room for new possibilities. It can also be an enabling device—an easy way to make excuses for ourselves or others.</strong>\r\n\r\nCan you see how you''ve been impacted by someone being too controlling or two accepting? Have you written out too much of your own character in permanent ink? Do you see yourself falling into that pattern with others?', 'Are we too accepting of the people we love?', 0, '<em>Our complete acceptance just might be putting our kids/spouse into a box.</em> ', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'are-we-too-accepting-of-the-people-we-love', '', '', '2009-11-17 13:35:29', '2009-11-17 17:35:29', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=529', 0, 'post', '', 12),
(534, 4, '2009-11-20 11:22:23', '2009-11-20 15:22:23', '<div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist5.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-513" title="lovelist5" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/lovelist5-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="403" /></a>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I''m not sure how Dave found my blog, but he was one of my early devoted readers. I could count on him to regularly chime in with something thought-provoking—something that made me look at what I was trying to say in a different way, whether it be about parenting, faith, or just the challenge of finding our way in the world.</em></p>\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<div>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>In addition to his loves for writing and photography, Dave is an engineer and a dad of four kids, which means he''s super busy and spends much of his time in the kitchen and at the elementary school. Dave also told me, though, that one of his favorite Love List items is "sitting on the early morning porch with a chill in the air, coffee in the mug, and an open journal." Considering how thoughtful he is, I''m not surprised he makes time to process his thoughts. Please welcome Dave to Halfway to Normal and be sure to check out his blog <a href="http://orangeshirtguy.com/">Orange Shirt Guy</a>.</em></p>\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n____________________________\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\nAbout four years ago, an engineering friend told me that she and her son journaled their "Top 5" things each day. I think that may have been their whole journal''s contents—gratitude for simple, normal things that each of us can find each day. A few months ago, I saw Kristin''s <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List concept</a> and immediately connected and saw the value of a love list. To me—the male engineer who had been doing Top 5 lists for years—I saw the value in objectifying those things that I really like, those things that give (good) chills. <strong>Simply, my love list makes it easier to know the things that are somewhere near the core of my being.</strong>\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\nAs an example, some of my non-tweeted love list items include listening to evening crickets, looking at photos and recalling their memories, reading a good book, and the huge communication that comes via non-verbal communication.\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<strong>And so, as I reflect on even just this partial list, I hear it [God?] telling me, "Dave. Slow down. Everything doesn''t need a solution right away. Things don''t always require analysis. Aren''t crickets amazing?"</strong>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\nFor me, that is the beauty of my love list. It is not necessarily an item to keep score of how much love is present around me, it is a tool wielded by me to make my life better.\r\n\r\nHere''s an example—a reflection I wrote after making an addition to my love list.\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<div class="im">\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n<span style="font-size: 12px;">_______________</span>\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\nI heard the siren—we all did.\r\n\r\nI slowed and pulled to the side so that my right tires were now on the grass. As my younger three kids turned to find the firetruck, my eldest asked why I was pulling over.\r\n\r\nIt was then that I got that feeling—that stomach falling, mouth opening, air being forced from my lungs, eyes watering, and the tugging at my brain and my heart feeling.\r\n\r\nBack about thirty years ago, I was watching M*A*S*H with my dad. The opening credits were playing and the nurses—the brunette with hips and the others just behind her—were running to the helicopter pad. The corpsmen were running up the stairs. The doctor was looking down at the soldier with the helicopter blades rotating overhead.\r\n\r\nI looked at my dad—his eyes were watering and his brow was tightened a bit. I, the eleven year old, asked him why he was tearing up. What was wrong?\r\n\r\nHe answered that he was always touched by the people that were racing to save lives, to help people they didn''t know.\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\nSkip forward thirty years.\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n<strong>"I love that people pull over for ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars."</strong> That was the love list tweet that started this whole post.\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\nIt is another objective tool in my love list tool box. This tool lets me know why I tear up when I explain to my daughter about people rescuing animals in New Orleans, when I see a guy (not a dad, just a guy) catching a kid from falling back on the escalator, or when we (yep each of us) pull over when we hear sirens. I tear up because . . .\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\n<strong>It proves to me that people care about neighbors—known and unknown.</strong> It says to me that each and every time we pull over for flashing lights and sirens, we figuratively kneel on the shoulder of the road, and a part of us—even some little, tiny, insignificant part of us, says "Godspeed Paramedic. We care about that person. Do your best."\r\n\r\nI love that . . . and I get why I love it because of my love list.\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>', 'Why sirens sound like hope', 0, '<em>A story about uncovering not just what we love, but why.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'why-sirens-symbolize-hope', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472', '2009-11-20 13:33:57', '2009-11-20 17:33:57', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=534', 0, 'post', '', 8),
(530, 1, '2009-11-11 13:04:57', '2009-11-11 17:04:57', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/t-shirt1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-112" title="t-shirt1" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/t-shirt1-300x286.jpg" alt="" width="402" height="383" /></a>\r\n\r\nWhen Jason and I first came up with the idea of creating a Christians Against Christians T-shirt, I thought it was brilliant, in that ironic, witty way we think we are brilliant at some point around midnight.\r\n\r\nNot only does the slogan make people stop and think, scratching their heads and asking questions, it says something that I feel personally called to communicate: <strong>Not all Christians are like that. It''s deeply important to me—not that everyone decides to think Christians are great, but just that they don''t put us all in a box and dismiss us immediately because of what we believe.</strong> We''re not all socially conservative Republicans. We''re not all judgmental. Some of us are just trying to figure out what it means to try to live more like Jesus, because we believe that''s the only way to make ourselves—and the world—better.\r\n\r\nSome people along the way have questioned my use of the Christians Against Christians phrase, but I have defended it, suggesting that it''s not an idea meant to be dissected, just one to grab some attention and propel people off into thinking more deeply about related issues and ideas.\r\n\r\nBut recently, I''ve started to wonder about it, myself.\r\n<h4>A slogan that can too easily be turned around</h4>\r\nIn the small group Jason and I lead, we''ve been studying Ephesians; the last time we met, we looked at Ephesians 4, which has this as its overarching headline in my study Bible: <strong>"A call for unity in the body of Christ."</strong> <em>Harrumpf!</em> I thought.\r\n\r\nAs I prepared the study, <strong>I was feeling pretty bitter about the possibility of that kind of unity.</strong> In fact, it was a Christians Against Christians moment for me. Earlier that day I had read two blog posts that made me furious. Both were written by Christians I feel some sense of alignment with, about other Christians who were attacking them in some way.\r\n\r\nIn a post at <a href="http://adventuresofthecalled.blogspot.com/2009/10/letter.html">Adventures of the Called</a>, Becca writes about a letter that arrived from another church in her community, regarding Becca''s upcoming installation service as a pastor in the Lutheran Church (ELCA). In the letter, the leadership of this local Baptist church quoted Bible passages about how women are to be kept silent; how Becca, by seeking to become a pastor, is "shameful;" and how the church that has hired her should cease to call itself a Christian church. It''s been a couple of weeks since I first read this post, but I still can hardly type these words without feeling a seething anger and even hatred for the men who wrote this letter, in the name of the God I believe in.\r\n\r\nImmediately after I finished reading Becca''s post, I read a post (Escape from Zombieland) by Mike over at <a href="http://comingtolife.blogspot.com/">Awakening</a>. He had just returned from Christianity21, a conference in Minneapolis I desperately wanted to attend, and described the way many other Christians were responding to those gathered at the conference:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Indeed, at that very event, there were folks gathered outside in the cold to ''preach the truth'' over against (what they understand as) the message  of C21 (which they understand as a coherent, evil whole).</em></p>\r\n<strong>While these stories made me want to claim the Christians Against Christians slogan more than ever—they were perfect examples of the type of extreme Christian that is dominating society''s understanding of what Christians think and how they act—I also realized this: They, too, are Christians Against Christians.</strong> They, too, think they''re right, and are determined to show those "other believers" how they''re wrong. And it feels evil.\r\n<h4>A different approach to unity</h4>\r\nIn <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+4&amp;version=NIV">Ephesians 4</a>, Paul shows us what unity looks like, and it doesn''t necessarily look like a group of people who agree on everything:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  ~ Eph. 4:2-3</em></p>\r\n<strong>It''s about humility and patience, not proving right and wrong. It''s about relying on the Spirit to bring peace and unity, not on our own skills, intelligence and strategies.</strong>\r\n\r\nI want to believe that approach—my own humility about my stance, and being more patient with other Christians—can change things more than my outspoken frustration and anger. But sometimes it''s really hard to imagine.\r\n\r\nAnd at the same time, I feel called to speak out—not to condemn Christians who anger me as much as to open the minds of those who don''t believe. But maybe my Christians Against Christians approach isn''t quite the right way. Maybe there''s an approach that blends the speaking out with the humility and patience. In fact, it seems to me that''s what Jesus modeled.\r\n\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.\r\n~ Eph. 4:31-32</em></p>', 'Christians Against Christians', 0, '<em>A slogan I thought was for me can also be against me & against unity.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'christians-against-christians', '', '', '2009-11-11 13:04:57', '2009-11-11 17:04:57', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=530', 0, 'post', '', 23);
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(531, 1, '2009-11-13 12:27:23', '2009-11-13 16:27:23', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lovelist.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-526" title="lovelist" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lovelist-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="403" /></a>\r\n\r\n<strong>I arrived, kicking and screaming, in this cornfield-framed town in the summer of 2001.</strong>\r\n\r\nActually, by the time I arrived and settled my two small girls into a new home and life, I had already done all the kicking and screaming and resisting there was to do, back in Michigan. By then, I felt resigned and slightly hopeful. We moved for my husband''s exciting new teaching position at the university, and I thought maybe something unexpected and good would be here for me, too.\r\n\r\nWithin two years, not only had nothing good emerged, but our divorce proceedings had begun. It was hard to not see this place as inherently tainted.\r\n\r\nFast -forward six years, though, and I couldn''t be happier with where I live. Sure, some minor things have changed about my town—some of our favorite restaurants, bars and shops have opened up since I moved here—but essentially, the town hasn''t changed. My perspective has. I stopped feeling like I was stuck here against my will and started actively embracing why I would actually<em> choose</em> to be here. <strong>I stopped thinking only about geography—where I was on the map—and started to focus on benefits—how the features of this place translate to real benefits in my life.</strong>\r\n<h4>The connection between community and living the life I love</h4>\r\n<strong>It wasn''t surprised to discover, as I started keeping a <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List</a>, that many of the items on my list are directly tied to the type of town and neighborhood I live in.</strong> The town is Midwestern, affordable, and easy to get around in, yet it''s full of diversity, culture and interesting people. My neighborhood is within walking distance of a downtown business district, where the food co-op, farmers'' market, French bakery, library and co-working space are located, yet we can easily drive to Chicago when we''re craving a bigger city.\r\n\r\nHere''s a glimpse at how those features translate to my Love List: "<span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5594467519" class="msgtxt en">just did a bit of shopping, locally &amp; leisurely. small independent stores for gifts &amp; staples are the best," and "</span></span><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5471735687" class="msgtxt en">it''s so good to have a home I love coming home to after being away—a place that defines contentment," and "I love living in a neighborhood where people who know my kids are looking out for them as they walk to school."\r\n</span></span>\r\n\r\nA tweet I wrote earlier this week probably sums it up best:<span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5594467519" class="msgtxt en"> </span></span> <strong>"</strong><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content"><strong>Champaign-Urbana is considered a leading example of micro-urbanism, and I am SO glad to be living, working &amp; raising my kids here."</strong> (</span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content"><a href="http://www.micro-urbanist.com/">Micro-urban</a> is generally defined a town of less than 250,000 that possess a highly uncommon set of desirable attributes normally found only in big cities.)</span></span>\r\n\r\n<span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5594467519" class="msgtxt en"><strong>What do you want your life to look like? How does <em>where</em> you live affect <em>how</em> you live? If you''re not happy with that equation, what can you do about it?</strong>\r\n</span></span>\r\n<h4><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">Now some of our recent additions to the <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List Project</a>:</span></span></h4>\r\n<em>(If you''re on Twitter, please remember the hashtag is now #thelovelist! I don''t want to miss some of your Love List items because of the confusion about the tag!)</em>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@remtobreathe <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5438095573" class="msgtxt en">Ignoring the chaos and just enjoying my family life ... and recognising just how entertaining our brand of chaos can be</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@MoJoJules <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5477618011" class="msgtxt en">So tomorrow I am doing a goal of sorts I said I would do as I started life over.All due to a new friend.Loving it.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@jenluit <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5478529439" class="msgtxt en">Kids out of school today. Guy coming to install new floor. Kitchen exploded. On the other other hand, love having them here.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@c_w_s <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5497838494" class="msgtxt en">meeting someone new &amp; finding a kindred spirit? serious #thelovelist</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@lje2me being home.</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@kt_writes <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5541208923" class="msgtxt en">late-afternoon autumn sun slanting over the rocking chairs on the front porch.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@remtobreathe <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5471971322" class="msgtxt en">The kids are all eating broad beans fresh out of the pod ... love my vege garden</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@McMer314 <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5514621532" class="msgtxt en">I love that I still get excited over the little things, like a new book from the library or the leaves changing color.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@MoJoJules <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5526214777" class="msgtxt en">buster is lovingly laying on my foot. I don''t want to shift to laying down cuz its such a sweet moment. I love him.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@kt_writes <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5575312916" class="msgtxt en">I love watching my kids talk on the phone to my parents as much as I love listening to them.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@TrinaMb <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5575554372" class="msgtxt en">Reading about others happiness makes me smile. </span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@mrschicken <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5590394986" class="msgtxt en">Filthy house, no shower, first cuppa joe not drunk yet .... but I got me one sweet Babyman to spend time with... </span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@kt_writes <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt5634231875" class="msgtxt en">J is several states away, but we just enjoyed happy hour together, via phone, sharing bits about our day &amp; generally unwinding.</span></span></p>\r\n<strong>What''s on your Love List? If you''re not on Twitter, feel free to share with the rest of us here!</strong>', 'Love where you live', 0, '<em>How does where you live affect your ability to claim what you love?</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'love-where-you-live', '', 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472', '2009-11-14 02:39:40', '2009-11-14 06:39:40', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=531', 0, 'post', '', 8),
(532, 1, '2009-11-17 11:12:24', '2009-11-17 15:12:24', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/coffee_cup.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/007bond/">[jRa7]</a></h5>\r\n<strong>Jason and I go to church pretty much every Sunday. Sometimes I wonder why we do.</strong>\r\n\r\nI''m not saying it feels like a waste of time—that deep down I''m wishing I was home, instead, with a muffin and The New York Times (although that sounds pretty nice, too). I''m wondering what particular aspect of church motivates us to go.\r\n\r\nIs it out of habit? We both grew up going to church regularly, so maybe that''s just what we do on Sunday mornings.\r\n\r\nIt could simply be that we''re social, and we like the idea of a weekly gathering of a variety of people, coming together to think, sing, support each other and drink coffee.\r\n\r\nWhat I really wonder, though, (and am sometimes afraid to honestly ask myself) is this: <strong>Do we go because we can clearly see that we''re growing and changing, living with more grace and forgiveness and becoming "better people?" Is there any evidence of that?</strong> Or maybe we don''t really see the growth and change in any tangible way, but we sense that it might be there, gradually building in us, so we go to church based on that <em>hope</em>.\r\n\r\nUltimately, I''m sure we go to church for a variety of the reasons I mentioned, plus some I haven''t thought of. But somehow I still end up wondering, from time to time, <strong>what''s the point?</strong>\r\n<h4>Doing justice is one really good answer</h4>\r\nTo be truthful, I haven''t <em>always</em> gone to church. In 2005, after leaving one that made me question the whole idea of church, I floated for several months, wondering what was next. When I finally decided to visit the fellowship I''m a part of now, I was drawn to their commitment to what we call "mercy and justice issues" in the community and world.\r\n\r\nI''m sure it was attractive to me, in part, because I had grown up in a justice-oriented family and church. But there was something else, too. <strong>In a subconscious way, I felt like I could be safe with a group of people focused on brokenness—the imperfections of the world and its people. </strong>And having a mission like this helps church "make sense" to me. It''s a big piece of the "why we bother coming together" puzzle.\r\n\r\nSure, you can point out that you don''t have to believe in God or that Jesus is the son of God to gather together and help people. And that''s true, but that''s not my point. I don''t go to church because it''s a base for doing mercy and justice. I go because I believe in God, and I believe gathering as a fellowship is an integral part of living out that belief. The question I''m left with is this: <strong>What do we do with that belief and with each other once we''ve gathered together? How do we make it real in the world?</strong>\r\n<h4>Helping people and welcoming people</h4>\r\nI''m beginning to catch glimpses at my church of why we should bother gathering. Recently we began hosting a weekday soup kitchen in our building, which has been feeding over 100 people a day. More and more of the people who frequent the soup kitchen have also started joining us for worship on Sunday morning, sitting here and there among us, mostly in the back, but still heartily singing the songs and leaning forward to focus on the teachings.\r\n\r\nI need to pause here and be clear that I''m not always thrilled with my church—I always love it, but I don''t always like it, if you know what I mean. We do a lot of things right, but we fall short in many ways and nothing is perfect, not even our mercy and justice efforts.\r\n\r\nThis past Sunday, though, I''m pretty sure I caught a glimpse of some heaven-on-earth.<strong> After the service there was a fellowship potluck—not to feed "hungry people," but to be a family together. I looked around our fellowship hall and saw all kinds of people with all kinds of needs (including me, and my own needs), sitting and eating together. </strong>\r\n\r\n<em>That''s</em> when the soup kitchen goes that extra step and becomes real—not just when we''re willing to "help" those who need help, but also when we''re willing to invite them to share our space and spend time with them. And that''s an example of when church becomes real, too. That''s one answer to the question "Why do we bother?"', 'Why bother going to church?', 0, '<em>Sometimes I wonder "what''s the point," then I see glimpses of an answer.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'what-were-all-hungry-for', '', '', '2009-11-17 14:11:05', '2009-11-17 18:11:05', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=532', 0, 'post', '', 17),
(533, 1, '2009-11-19 02:08:23', '2009-11-19 06:08:23', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/kids.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/9399948@N05/">Frerieke</a></h5>\r\n<strong>As a parent, the Golden Rule comes in handy.</strong>\r\n\r\nDo unto others as you would have them do unto you. Practice empathy and put yourself in the other person''s shoes. Don''t treat your sister that way unless you would want her to treat you that way.\r\n\r\n<strong>It seems I''m forever falling back on that old standby, asking my kids "Well, how would you feel?"</strong>\r\n\r\nMaybe S doesn''t feel like sharing with her sister some of the delicious-looking brownie she brought home from a friend''s house. I don''t force her to share, but I do ask "How would you feel?"\r\n\r\nThe Golden Rule is effective, but not always. Because then there are moments like this: Maybe Q questions her younger sister''s outfit choice, so S starts second-guessing herself and gets upset that her sister is being critical. If I asked Q, in such a scenario, "How would you feel?" she would respond "It wouldn''t bother me at all." And that would be true. It wouldn''t bother her, because she''s different. Her circumstances are different (she has the edge of being older) and her personality is different (she''s more sure of herself and less sensitive).\r\n<h4>Are we teaching our kids enough about difference?</h4>\r\nIn a conversation recently, I told someone that <strong>I think one of the most important things we can teach our children is this: Not everyone is like you, and that''s OK.</strong> Not everyone shares the same background, solves problems with the same approach, looks at things through the same lens, or responds with the same complex combination of emotions. <strong>It''s not about a right way or a wrong way. It''s just about different ways.</strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>When I think about the Golden Rule in the light of our differences, I start to question its value.</strong>\r\n\r\nDon''t get me wrong—empathy is an absolutely critical skill to teach our children and to make sure they practice. The world is short on empathy, so we need to help our kids step outside of themselves.\r\n\r\nBut at the same time, <strong>we shouldn''t give them the idea that they can <em>accurately imagine</em> how someone else might feel in any given situation. Suggesting that''s the case implies not only that everyone is like them, but also that it''s the "right" way to be.</strong> If you personally want a how-to macrame book for Christmas, do you decide that would be the best gift for everyone on your list? Umm, probably not.\r\n<h4>The Golden Rule with an important addendum</h4>\r\nSo what am I going to do with my new suspicion of the Golden Rule? Well, I''m definitely not going to declare it useless and throw it out. I''m just going to sprinkle in lots of disclaimers whenever I pull it out of my parenting tool kit.\r\n\r\n"Imagine how you might feel if you were in her place, my daughter, but also remember that no one else sees the world exactly like you do."', 'The imperfect Golden Rule', 0, '<em>What could be wrong with teaching our kids to "do unto others"?</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'the-imperfect-golden-rule', '', '', '2009-11-19 01:09:44', '2009-11-19 05:09:44', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=533', 0, 'post', '', 13),
(535, 1, '0000-00-00 00:00:00', '0000-00-00 00:00:00', 'Don’t get me wrong—empathy is an absolutely critical skill to teach our children and to make sure they practice. The world is short on empathy, so we need to help our kids step outside of themselves.\r\n\r\nBut at the same time, <strong>we shouldn’t give them the idea that they can <em>accurately imagine</em> how someone else might feel in any given situation. Suggesting that’s the case implies not only that everyone is like them, but also that it’s the “rightâ€ way to be.</strong> If you personally want a how-to macrame book for Christmas, do you decide that would be the best gift for everyone on your list? Umm, probably not.\r\n\r\nNot only do you not want to buy gifts for others based on what you would like best to receive, but discovering the best gift for someone requires that we take the time to really know them. In general, the better you know and understand a person, the easier it is to buy them the perfect gift. In an odd way, gift-giving can be a form of empathy.', 'the art of giving gifts', 0, '', 'draft', 'open', 'open', '', '', '', '', '2009-11-20 13:38:04', '2009-11-20 17:38:04', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=535', 0, 'post', '', 0),
(536, 1, '2009-11-23 02:48:51', '2009-11-23 06:48:51', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/2815496282_3854b5816d.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/pa1nt/">pa1nt</a></h5>\r\nI''ve finally reached a point in my life where I like myself far more than I dislike myself. I guess it can take a while to get there, can''t it?\r\n\r\nAlthough I''m no longer stuck in that cramped, uncomfortable love-hate place with myself, <strong>I still manage to dismay myself from time to time. Even at church, no less, where you would think I''d be on my best behavior!</strong>\r\n<h4>A not-so-pretty behind-the-scenes look at me</h4>\r\nI''d rather not get into the nitty-gritty here, so I''ll just stick to the basics. I help lead the music at our church about once a month, and let''s just say that I''m fairly <em>particular</em> about music. There are songs I don''t like—theologically, musically or both—and tempos that feel wrong. I''m picky about sound quality and balance, particularly because I sing harmony and play viola by ear, so I need to be able to hear what''s going on. And...I have issues with the tambourine. I''ll leave it at that.\r\n\r\nUsually in these situations, I manage to monitor my opinions, control my tongue and choose my battles. But yesterday morning, when I arrived early at church to practice with the others, everything rubbed me the wrong way at once. I got it in my head that I needed to communicate my thoughts. I started with just one, but once I put myself out there, I couldn''t stop. I had to share it all (well, I did manage to keep a few opinions to myself).\r\n\r\nGuess what came next? That''s right—<strong>I felt terrible. I hated myself for acting like my opinions matter so much, and for sharing them so bluntly.</strong> I hated the attitude I had put on, like expressing my opinions was some great gift for all the other people who were thinking the same thing but were too nice and considerate to speak up. And then there was the whole "I''m only doing this to make worship less distracting and more worshipful for everyone here" excuse in the back of my mind. Maybe that''s true in part, but of course I was really thinking about myself more than anyone else.\r\n\r\n<strong>It''s depressing. The very things that I often like most about myself—that I have ideas and opinions and am able to articulate them—can so quickly turn into the things I like least about myself.</strong> Why can''t I be kinder and gentler? Why can''t I be more flexible and less sure about what I think is right?\r\n<h4>Repentance, grace and all kinds of thanksgiving</h4>\r\nThis story takes a good turn, though. I apologized to the others who were leading worship with me. We prayed together for the service, and it went really well. I felt the Spirit moving in that place. I even gave my all when we sang the song I don''t like, and I liked it more than I ever have.\r\n\r\nAfter our initial set of music, our pastor began his Thanksgiving teaching, which led into three different people sharing their own versions of gratitude. We gathered around a man who is a devoted volunteer at our soup kitchen and was recently baptized, and we gave thanks for him. Then a woman who is a wonderful, humorous storyteller, shared her experience wrestling with what God has recently been trying to tell her. Then a man who in the 1970s played drums with jazz and blues greats became a one-man blues band, expressing his thanksgiving through percussion, bugle and voice.\r\n\r\n<strong>To be honest, it was a crazy worship service, in the most wonderful, eclectic of ways. And I was truly filled with thanksgiving.</strong> Not just because I have a church community who accepts and forgives me in all my faults, and still wants to have me around (although that is huge). <strong>I am also so very thankful that not everyone is <em>just like me</em>.</strong> They look different and have their own way of experiencing the world. They tell their stories and express gratitude  in different ways.\r\n\r\nAnd yes, they can even be deeply moved by songs that don''t move me, played in a way I wouldn''t have chosen. <em>That''s</em> a beautiful thing.', 'Thankful (even for the dreaded tambourine)', 0, '<em>Annoyance with church music and myself leads to gratitude.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'thankful-even-for-the-dreaded-tambourine', '', '', '2009-11-23 02:48:51', '2009-11-23 06:48:51', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=536', 0, 'post', '', 5),
(537, 1, '2009-11-25 17:32:38', '2009-11-25 21:32:38', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/2376599062_acc7a193c1.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/erix/">erix!</a></h5>\r\nI''ve been in a downer of a mood the past few days—no particular reason. It''s never a fun place to be, but it''s particularly a pain Thanksgiving week, when you''re supposed to be all grateful for everything.\r\n\r\nIt''s not the first time in my life I''ve felt a bit cynical about gratitude. Well, maybe I''ve never been cynical of gratitude itself, but I''ve definitely been suspicious of the people who seem to go through life with such an abundance of it. <strong>"Give thanks in all things" is a concept that hasn''t come naturally to me, particularly after my divorce.</strong>\r\n\r\nCounseling helped, but after a while I began to feel like I would forever be reaching back into my past and producing all the negatives, to examine one more time. It felt like a very grim, long-term exercise. I needed a new approach.\r\n\r\nI stopped going to counseling, found a new church and started meeting with one of the pastors, who brought up the idea of gratitude, and pointed me to this <a href="http://www.acfnewsource.org/religion/gratitude_theory.html">Gratitude Theory</a>. I didn''t know how much it would really help, but I knew it couldn''t hurt. I decided to try being deliberately thankful for the good things in my life. As it turned out, it triggered just the paradigm shift I needed.\r\n\r\nHere are a few things I''ve learned about gratitude since:\r\n\r\n<strong>1. Gratitude is just as satisfying when it''s gathered up in small crumbs.</strong>\r\nThis is the lesson that has stuck with me most since reading one of the books my pastor suggested, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tree-Full-Angels-Seeing-Ordinary/dp/0062548689">A Tree Full of Angels: Seeing the Holy in the Ordinary</a> (by Macrina Wiederkehr). Macrina writes about how often we go through life looking for the "big loaf" (the dream house or job, the perfect relationship or church),  passing up the many delicious crumbs along the way. <strong>If you gather up the crumbs, she says, you will soon have more than a loaf''s worth to feast on.</strong> From my experience these past few years, I can confirm the truth of this approach.\r\n\r\n<strong>2. Gratitude is about more than just recognizing what you''re thankful for.</strong>\r\nSure, you can notice what you''re thankful for, write it all down and call it good, but I''ve discovered that taking that gratitude a step further multiplies its value in my life. The main way I''ve done this is through the <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List Project</a>. Some important change takes place when you ask yourself "What do I love?" rather than just "What am I thankful for?" <strong>It becomes not just something you''re looking outside of yourself for, waiting for it to pop into your life, but something you recognize <em>inside</em> of yourself, that you can shape your life around.</strong> You become less passive and more proactive about what you love and how it plays out around you.\r\n\r\n<strong>3. Gratitude can be stored up for the winter.</strong>\r\nI used to fight it and feel guilty, but I''ve finally come to accept that <strong>there are going to be days and even stretches of weeks when the last thing I feel like doing is counting my blessings.</strong> Maybe several things have gone wrong, right in a row, or maybe I''m just feeling generally depressed and pessimistic. Whatever''s at the root of it, I can expect to have seasons of drought or stretches of dark, cold winter. Sometimes I can shake myself out of those seasons enough to find something in the moment to be grateful for—like a day of bright sun piercing through weeks of grey—but not always.\r\n\r\nThat''s OK, though, because <strong>I think the gratitude we claim in our plentiful seasons can be stockpiled and accessed later, to sustain us.</strong> And this is something I can be truly grateful for on a Thanksgiving eve when I''m feeling a bit down.', 'Three things one cynic learned about gratitude', 0, '<em>Gratitude comes in many sizes & can even shine through the cracks.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'three-things-one-cynic-learned-about-gratitude', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472', '2009-11-25 17:32:38', '2009-11-25 21:32:38', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=537', 0, 'post', '', 5),
(538, 1, '2009-11-30 12:12:59', '2009-11-30 16:12:59', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/2855361793_0ea6f7b6ff.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 330px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/amylovesyah/">Amy Loves Yah</a></h5>\r\nI love the feeling of anticipation. There are many things, big and small, that I anticipate, but nothing encompasses the feeling quite like Advent—that season when waiting is perfectly wrapped in anticipation, and presented as the best of gifts.\r\n\r\n<strong>Anticipation is what makes the waiting delicious, satisfying and bearable.</strong>\r\n\r\nAs a child, lighting Advent candles, creating a handmade Advent calendar, and following the well-worn path of other rituals and traditions leading up to Christmas worked its magic on me. The anticipation and excitement built until I could hardly stand it, culminating at the Christmas Eve service, in a sanctuary full of candle light and beloved Christmas hymns. Each year, the service at my home church ends with Silent Night, perfectly timed so the final acapella verse—"Jesus Lord at thy birth"—fades at midnight...a pause...then the organ triumphantly begins its postlude, the lights are turned on, and everyone hugs, exclaiming "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" <em>That</em> was the moment I had been waiting for.\r\n\r\nLater, as a college student, I waited for that moment when my last final exam was handed in and I could hurry through the Michigan winter back to my dorm room, finish packing, and head home. The date was on my calendar, and my parents knew in advance exactly when to pick me up. After college, I counted down weeks and days to my wedding. Five years later, I owned a book that described, week by week, exactly how the baby in my womb was forming—the ears are fully formed, and the toes, now the baby has finger nails and knows how to suck!\r\n\r\nWaiting. Anticipating. Counting down the days to a known end-point, a known result: <em>Christmas will come. Exam week will end. This baby will be born.</em>\r\n<h4>A less certain type of waiting</h4>\r\nNow, as I reflect on the idea of "waiting" at the start of this Advent season, it feels like a different creature, one void of the comforting certainty that breeds anticipation.\r\n\r\nSure, there are still specific moments I wait for with anticipation: our upcoming trip to visit my family for the holidays, the completion of a work project, the vacation we''re planning for the summer. <strong>So much of my waiting, though, has become more complex. I wait for a sign, for a change of heart. I wait for inspiration and direction, for complete healing and reconciliation. I wait for the life I live each day to align with the life I envision in my head and crave in my soul.</strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>In other words, the things I <em>really</em> find myself waiting for can''t be marked on the calendar.</strong>\r\n\r\nThere aren''t four candles to light, one each week, as I grow nearer to that point of arrival. There isn''t that building of excitement as the moment inevitably draws close. The anticipation is stripped away, and I''m left with the waiting—periods of hope clouded by periods of doubt: <em>Am I waiting for the right things? </em><em>Am I hoping for too much? Will I even know when the waiting is over?</em>\r\n<h4>Promises to fuel our waiting</h4>\r\nAs I sat in church this first Sunday of Advent, though, I realized that''s exactly the kind of waiting we''re actually doing, as Christians. I mean, it''s important that we observe Advent as a journey toward December 25, the specific day we celebrate God becoming flesh and dwelling among us. It''s important to teach our children that waiting can be exciting and so rewarding, and to demonstrate it with wreaths of candles and special calendars with small doors to open, gradually revealing the full picture.\r\n\r\nBut it''s that full picture—the really big one—that we''re actually waiting for. <strong>We''re waiting for things on earth to be as they are in heaven, and we don''t have a date on the calendar for that, any more than I have a date for when I''ll stop feeling hurt about difficult things in my past.</strong>\r\n\r\nIt''s true, sometimes it feels like the most futile of waiting games. We do have God''s promises, though. One of the scriptures read at my church yesterday was Jeremiah 33:19-26, where God tells Jeremiah that he can count on God''s covenant promises as much as Jeremiah counts on the rising of the sun following each night.\r\n\r\n<strong>Those promises take what seems so abstract and uncertain in our waiting, and wraps it in the kind of anticipation we need to keep moving forward in hope.</strong>\r\n\r\n_________________\r\n\r\n<em>This post will be a part of a series at Christine Sine''s blog <a href="http://godspace.wordpress.com/">Godspace</a>: What Are We Waiting For This Advent? If you''re celebrating Advent or would like to learn more about it, you should definitely check it out.</em>', 'Waiting without a calendar', 0, '<em>The big things we wait for don''t always have a clear arrival date.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'waiting-without-a-calendar', '', '', '2009-11-30 12:12:59', '2009-11-30 16:12:59', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=538', 0, 'post', '', 7),
(539, 1, '2009-12-02 03:50:55', '2009-12-02 07:50:55', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/photo-1.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" />\r\n\r\n<strong>My youngest daughter has started carrying around what she calls a Survivalist Kit.</strong>\r\n\r\nI don''t know if it''s a subconscious reaction to our times of war and uncertainty, or if she just has an overactive imagination and wants to be prepared for any adventure or mishap that might arise. (I do know it was inspired, in part, by Kate, her favorite character in the series of books <a href="http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/features/mysteriousbenedictsociety/index.html">The Mysterious Benedict Society</a>.)\r\n\r\nWhatever the impulse, she has gathered an amazing array of resources that all fit magically into—or attach onto—a small, red drawstring pouch, about four-by-four inches. First aid supplies. String. Miniature working tools. Bobby- and safety-pins. Vitamin C and Fanta Grape chapstick. A very small strobe light. A needle, thread and scissors. A tiny notebook and pencil stub. Candy, quarters, and a miniature water supply, contained in a reclaimed 3.4-ounce Pure Michigan Maple Syrup jug. Everything is somehow bundled up and attached to her belt loop, and she''s ready to go.\r\n\r\nExcept for the final two items she recently declared she was still missing: Her miniature book of prayers and some Tobasco Sauce. <strong>Because what hardship or unpleasant bind could not somehow be addressed with prayer or hot sauce?</strong> Just think—everything from seriously bland food to a run-in with the enemy could be handled with either prayer, hot sauce, or both.\r\n<h4>What happens to our Survivalist Kits when we grow up?</h4>\r\nI love this kind of intense imaginative play. It often crosses my mind how much I would have LOVED playing with my girls when I was 9 or 10.\r\n\r\nSince I''m nearly 30 years past that point, I''m left looking at the adult I became, which leads me to wonder <strong>"What might I want in my Survivalist Kit today?"</strong>\r\n\r\nI realize many women would claim they carry such a kit with them every day, in the form of a purse. It''s true, we''re often well-prepared, but I would suggest that our imaginations are a bit too limited when we decide what should go into our purses. <strong>We don''t fully envision all of the sticky situations life might throw our way, beyond the unwelcomed headache or broken fingernail.</strong>\r\n\r\nOr maybe we carry many of the right tools but we are too traditional about how they can be used. Lipstick, for instance, is only thought of as something that brightens our faces, but couldn''t it also be used to mark a clue or leave a secret message?. And what about gum? Is it only a portable breath freshener, or also a handy adhesive? Or even a way to leave a signature scent trail?\r\n<h4>What happens to life''s challenges as we grow up?</h4>\r\nWhat I''m really finding, though, as I consider my Survivalist Kit, is this: <strong>For the most part, the world throws grownups curve balls that are just as unexpected as the ones in my daughters'' favorite books, but much less imaginative and adventuresome.</strong> My real-life plot twists come in the form of things like lost friendships, bouts of discouragement and flailing hope. Rather than picking locks or leaving clues I''m just feeling vaguely down as I go through a typical day.\r\n\r\nSo maybe my Survivalist Kit would just hold a bunch of slips of paper, almost like fortunes. Each one would contain something loving and supportive my husband has said to me, a poem or drawing created by my daughters, an encouraging comment left on my blog, a quote by a favorite author, or one of God''s great promises. I think such a collection of words would see me through a lot—that and a prayer book and some Tobasco sauce, which never hurts.', 'Pack a Survivalist Kit fit for life''s mishaps', 0, '<em>What do you want on hand when you face life''s unexpected turns?</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'packing-a-survivalist-kit-fit-for-lifes-mishaps', '', '', '2009-12-02 13:23:50', '2009-12-02 17:23:50', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=539', 0, 'post', '', 8),
(540, 1, '2009-12-04 22:22:42', '2009-12-05 02:22:42', '<img src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/lovelist7.jpg" alt="" width="557" height="419" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Illustration by Jason Berg</h5>\r\nWe’re in the thick of it—that extra-extra busy time of year. This year it''s not just holiday preparations and celebrations that are crowding every spare moment of time. I have more work deadlines than usual pressing in on me. Earlier today I tweeted that <strong>I am feeling overwhelmed and under-inspired</strong>, and I jokingly asked if the two might be related. They definitely are, as far as I can tell.\r\n\r\nWhich means it’s a perfect time to be focusing on my <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">Love List</a>, right? But life and human nature have a way of ganging up against us at these moments. <strong>Often the very thing you need most is the thing you can’t seem to make happen.</strong>\r\n\r\nIt''s not that making a Love List takes significant time that I don''t have. It takes a certain awareness and connectedness to your heart that I don''t seem to have right now. My own Love List seems to have nearly stalled over the past month, leaving me contemplating a chicken and egg situation: Has the list stalled because I have been stressed and down, less open to what I love? Or am I stressed and down because I haven’t taken my list seriously enough?\r\n\r\nJust the other day, though, after reading some tweets and a few blog posts, I did add something to my list:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I love it when people put into words what I want/need to say. reminds me why writing is such an important vocation. #thelovelist</em></p>\r\nSometimes I just have thoughts floating around in my head, in abstract forms I can’t tidy up enough to articulate. When I find someone who has given form to my loose ramblings, it’s such a relief.\r\n\r\nBut other times I just feel too stressed, overwhelmed and generally down to express myself. I feel uninspired, and begin turning inward, a particularly scary, spiraling pattern for extroverts like me.\r\n\r\nWhen I’m feeling like that, I need other people, more than ever, to step up and speak or write for me.\r\n\r\n<strong>Watching other peoples’ Love List additions filter in on Twitter and reading other Love List-inspired blogs have really helped me travel through my own little drought.</strong> To all of you who have embraced this project, thanks for carrying me—and probably many others—along.\r\n<h4>Some recent Love List contributions, via the Twitter hashtag #thelovelist:</h4>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@OSG I love Gutenberg’s invention and its descendants…and bi-folcal glasses. #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@lje2me Sitting on the porch swing watching the leaves, like children, chase each other down the street. #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@MoJoJules I love seeing how my twitter buddies are now over lapping. Such a cool family I have here. #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@starxlr8 My mom just baked us individual fruit hand pies (apple, strawberry-rhubarb &amp; strawberry) for midnight dessert #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@bridgeout Hope, DVR, Inspiration in the early morning hours, The look on some1s face when they are truly happy to see me #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@lizdyer Love it when my son has friends over and they are little loud and rambuctious - it brings life into our home #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@TrinaMb I love the ''cozy'' of Christmas #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@c_w_s RT @livingsexuality "Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash." -Leonard Cohen #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@dtatusko watching kids play and run outside my window unaware of the corruptions of our world. they give me hope. #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@kt_writes I love it when people put into words what I want/need to say. reminds me why writing is such an important vocation. #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@lje2me Not much better than having lunch w a good friend when you are feeling down. #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@chambanamoms My pup is curled up with her head resting on my leg. She will always be my first "baby." #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@c_w_s In the car this AM, 4 yr old says, "I need to hear Defying Gravity." Yeah, that''s my kid. #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@kt_writes I love when I’m able to throw myself into something, and then a few hours later I can clearly see the results of my efforts. #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@TrinaMb Love my tween son’s giggle. Reminds me of his boyishness, of ways he’s starting to leave behind. #thelovelist</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">@kt_writes we decorated the tree tonight. I love doing things w my kids that I remember loving as a kid—my traditions overlapping theirs. </span></span>#thelovelist</p>\r\n\r\n<h4>And some Love List-related blog posts you should check out:</h4>\r\n- Ordinary Mer (@McMer314): <a href="http://www.ordinarymer.com/2009/11/my-love-list-part-2.html">My Love List, Part 2</a>\r\n\r\n- The Wonderer (@MoJoJules): <a href="http://mojojules.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/the-love-list-project-perfection/">The Love List Project: Perfection</a> and <a href="http://mojojules.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/the-love-list-project-new-community-breathe-in-and-out/">New Community...breathe in...and out</a>\r\n\r\n- God and the Single Girl (@techlady09): <a href="http://godandthesinglegirl.blogspot.com/2009/11/illustration-by-jason-berg-have-you.html">Love List</a>\r\n\r\n- Mothering (my guest post for @CandaceWalsh): <a href="http://mothering.com/candacewalsh/uncategorized/guest-blogger-halfway-to-normals-kristin-tennant-on-the-love-list">Tweet your love, feed your soul</a>\r\n\r\n<strong>What''s on your Love List? Or have you written a related blog post? Share it here!</strong>', 'I''m leaning on your Love Lists for a spell', 0, '<em>When I feel overwhelmed & under-inspired, your words are there.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'im-leaning-on-your-love-lists-for-a-spell', '', 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472\nhttp://mojojules.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/the-love-list-project-perfection/\nhttp://mothering.com/candacewalsh/uncategorized/guest-blogger-halfway-to-normals-kristin-tennant-on-the-love-list\nhttp://mojojules.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/the-love-list-project-new-community-breathe-in-and-out/', '2009-12-05 01:24:14', '2009-12-05 05:24:14', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=540', 0, 'post', '', 6),
(541, 1, '2009-12-07 02:48:05', '2009-12-07 06:48:05', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/3278629664_73ce68bf60.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/lbarreto/">Luis Barreto</a></h5>\r\n<strong>I grew up associating church with perfection and predictability.</strong> That doesn''t mean I loved it as a kid, it just was what it was: well-groomed and dressed people, a choir in matching dove grey robes singing Bach and Hayden, the perfectly cadenced Lord''s Prayer, and a service that ended promptly an hour after it began.\r\n\r\n<strong>As an adult, I have tended to gravitate toward churches that are, shall we say, much less predictable. And I love them madly <em>for</em> the quirkiness, while </strong><strong>simultaneously</strong><strong> getting all anxious <em>because</em> of the quirkiness.</strong>\r\n\r\nYesterday morning, I was veering sharply toward the fidgety, anxious, <em>oh-no-what-could-possibly-happen-next</em> collection of feelings about my church. It was partly that everything seemed a bit more chaotic than usual, like we were on some wild ride that could end with a big, fun exclamation of joy...or could end very badly.\r\n\r\nBut I''m sure the main reason I was holding my breath half the service is because a casual friend/acquaintance who has been wanting to visit my church was sitting next to me. I was suddenly seeing everything through her eyes (or how I <em>perceive</em> her eyes, because I really don''t have the slightest idea how she sees things). <strong>All of those people sitting around me, all the quirks, all the imperfections and raw beauty I''ve become so accustomed to and have grown to love, suddenly seemed harsh, awkward, and cringe-inducing.</strong>\r\n<h4>Human nature defies logic (yet again)</h4>\r\nWhy do we do that? I know we all do. We love our kids, our spouse, our siblings and parents dearly, not just in spite of their quirks, but even <em>because</em> of them. But then suddenly we find ourselves in a new situation, more formal or more exposed, with different people, and suddenly all those endearing behaviors are less like odd happy melodies and more like fingernails on a chalkboard.\r\n\r\nThis is the part I don''t get: We all <em>know</em> that no one is perfect, and if asked directly we are willing to give  allowances and decent measures of grace. Yet somehow we expect individuals—and even whole collections of people like extended families and churches—to be adept at polishing themselves to a high gloss and putting on a proper show.\r\n\r\n<strong>So we''re all sitting there, knowing people aren''t perfect, but feeling pleased they can successfully <em>pretend</em> like they''re perfect.</strong> And if they can''t pretend convincingly enough (even though we know they''re just putting on a show) we''re disappointed in them. Maybe we even decide not to get into a deeper friendship with them, or we decide not to visit that church again.\r\n\r\nWhat is that about?!? I ask this not pointing fingers, but knowing full well that I do it! <strong>I was sitting there in church this morning doing it, wishing these imperfect people I love so much could do a better job at pretending to be perfect!</strong>\r\n<h4>Luckily, it all comes back to Jesus'' love</h4>\r\nIn case you''re wondering, the friend who visited my church this morning didn''t seem phased by the quirks. Maybe she''s just good at pretending, but she seemed to actually enjoy the worship service and the people. She said it was refreshing because it felt so real (and when she said it, it didn''t at all feel like an backhanded compliment!).\r\n\r\nAnd also, in case you''re wondering, I know Jesus doesn''t see people in the messed up way we do. He doesn''t want us to put on a show. But sometimes I forget that—not because it isn''t clear to me, but because <strong>I''m so used to associating church with both Jesus and perfection.</strong> I forget to stop and think about it again.\r\n\r\nThankfully, I got the message loud and clear at a congregational meeting last night. We happened to be discussing future plans and directions, and Brian, who has been a part of the fellowship for decades, felt compelled to share his experience from that morning''s worship—the very service that made me all tense.\r\n\r\nWhat Brian said, in essence, was this: He was standing in the back of the sanctuary toward the end of the service, observing all the chaos around him. Suddenly, he had this strong sense that Jesus was saying "This isn''t a church, it''s a family, and I have so much love for it." Later, when I emailed Brain to ask if I could share his revelation on my blog, he added this:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>...during that half minute or so of revelation, I felt deep, passionate love for every person I looked at. And I felt for that short time that the "chaos"...was something that caused deep joy and laughter in the heart of our Lord. I got the feeling that it wasn''t the disorderliness per se that gave him joy, but rather the fact that <strong>we were all, young and old alike, simply being ourselves and letting others be themselves,</strong> and I think he really likes that.</em></p>\r\nI think so, too.', 'Perfection (do not attempt at church)', 0, '<em>Why do we pretend church is a perfect place for perfect people?</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'perfection-do-not-attempt-at-church', '', '', '2009-12-07 02:48:05', '2009-12-07 06:48:05', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=541', 0, 'post', '', 14);
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(542, 1, '2009-12-09 19:28:15', '2009-12-09 23:28:15', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/3561050613_5de7111f36.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/pinksherbet/">Pink Sherbet Photography</a></h5>\r\nWhen you were a kid, were you told again and again how completely unique you were? And then did the grownups say something about snowflakes or fingerprints and maybe even God "fashioning you in your mother''s womb"?\r\n\r\n<strong>I guess being completely unique is supposed to be comforting—a way of saying "You''re OK, exactly the way you are. You don''t have to be like so-and-so."</strong> It was a big theme in the 1970s, when I was little. I remember Sesame Street episodes about being one of a kind, and Mr. Rogers in his cardigan looking me right in the eyes, telling me how special and unique I was.\r\n<h4>These days we''re all a certain "type"</h4>\r\nNow, in the age of personality tests, the theme seems to be "You (and thousands of other people almost exactly like you) belong to one of a handful of ''types.''"\r\n\r\nI narrowed in a bit more on my "type" the other evening, when a friend who was at our house for dinner told Jason and I about this personality test she had recently taken. I''m usually not a sucker for online tests and quizzes, but I was intrigued by Jen''s description of this particular test, the <a href="http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/dis_sample_36.asp">Enneagram RHETTI type indicator</a>. So I bit and took the 10-minute quiz. Jason did, too. Then we sat around for the next hour or two laughing, cringing, and shaking our heads in amazement over how dead-on right the results were.\r\n\r\nFirst I was reading all the positive generalities, feeling warm and fuzzy toward my type (Type Seven):\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>They are bold and vivacious, pursuing what they want in life with a cheerful determination....Sevens are frequently endowed with quick, agile minds, and can be exceptionally fast learners.</em> (I''m not sure that describes me, but I like how it sounds!)</p>\r\nThen I started reading descriptions of me that are so dead-on it''s almost creepy:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Their thinking is anticipatory: they foresee events and generate ideas “on the fly,â€ favoring activities that stimulate their minds—which in turn generate more things to do and think about.</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Sevens are not necessarily intellectual or studious by any standard definition, although they are often intelligent and can be widely read and highly verbal. Their minds move rapidly from one idea to the next, making Sevens gifted at brainstorming and synthesizing information.</em> (That''s what I do for a living!)</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>[Sevens] are able to pick up many different skills with relative ease.... As a result, they also do not always value their abilities as they would if they had to struggle to gain them.</em> (The story of my childhood and adolescence, for sure.)</p>\r\nIt''s a very curious experience to see your "type"described in detail on some page on the Internet, and to know that the person who wrote the description has never met you (and doesn''t even know you exist). It makes you feel very small and not special, while at the same time making you feel understood and more OK with who you are.\r\n<h4>Looking those less-than-stellar traits in the eye</h4>\r\nIt''s also strange to read about traits (especially negative ones) that you inherently recognize in yourself, but have never articulated. When you read those things out loud to a friend or spouse, like I did the other night, <strong>you quickly realize these "deep dark secrets"—the ones that you figure you''re done a pretty good job of covering up—aren''t secrets at all to the people who love you.</strong>\r\n\r\nOne of the things that''s most fascinating about this test is that the results describe how your specific personality characteristics are played out when you''re at your best, at your worst, and at a variety of stages in between. The reality is that the bad stuff is bad. No way around it.\r\n\r\nBut that''s true for each of us, no matter what our personality type. It''s not that some types are superior, while other types are destined to always struggle along through life. <strong>We each have the potential to offer wonderful contributions to the world and those around us, and we each have the potential of doing significant harm to the world and those around us.</strong>\r\n\r\nAt our worst, we all suck—in horrifying ways. To see it articulated in black and white is shocking, without a doubt. <strong>But it''s freeing in a very real way, too, especially when you can read that mess out loud to people who love you.</strong> You can laugh together about it, and then hear them relay their best and worst parts.\r\n\r\nIt''s not that these tests should be taken too seriously, but the good ones can offer an affirming way to know and fully embrace yourself and each other, which might help us move beyond all the pretending.', 'You are a type. Cringe and embrace it.', 0, '<em>Reading truth about yourself—the best & the worst—can be freeing.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'you-are-a-type-cringe-and-embrace-it', '', '', '2009-12-09 19:29:25', '2009-12-09 23:29:25', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=542', 0, 'post', '', 11),
(543, 1, '2009-12-11 13:09:37', '2009-12-11 17:09:37', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/11.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-520" title="11" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/11-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="403" /></a>\r\n\r\n<em>This is an interesting time of year to be thinking about your Love List, isn''t it? On one hand, there''s so much to love about the season, but at the same time, so much to be stressed about and distracted by. What have you been focusing on and adding to your Love List lately? Here''s something I''ve added to mine: I love giving gifts.</em>\r\n\r\n_______________________\r\n\r\nLast night, Jason and I pulled out all of the Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers we have for the girls and spread them out on the bed. It was time to take stock.\r\n\r\nI LOVE that moment.<strong> I love buying gifts for people I love—thinking about who they are, what makes them unique, and what I love about them.</strong> I truly enjoy thinking through different gift options and considering what will spark each family member''s imagination and joy, and make them feel <em>known</em>.\r\n\r\nFor as long as I can remember, my immediate family has devoted tremendous care and thought to gift buying and making. We don''t get extravagant. It just feels like a true expression of love—a time to turn your thoughts to the people you love, and then give them a tangible symbol of that love.\r\n<h4>The less lovely side of holiday gift giving</h4>\r\nAt the same time, though, <strong>I was feeling twinges of guilt</strong> last night, when all of the gifts were laid out on our bed. <strong>Part of it comes from having so much when others have so little. Part of it comes from being a family that celebrates Jesus at Christmas, and knows how the commercialism of the season distracts us.</strong> I tried to push the guilt away, reminding myself that we don''t go for those big-ticket items, we make many of the gifts we give, our kids aren''t spoiled and greedy, etc. But there is still that inner conflict.\r\n\r\nI''ve been thinking about this for a couple of weeks, <strong>trying to reconcile my love for gift giving with my spiritual and social justice concerns.</strong> It''s not an easy balance to strike, and I was very glad to see this post by one of my favorite bloggers, Magpie Girl: <a href="http://www.magpie-girl.com/20091210/8things-generous-gifts-for-trying-times/comment-page-1/#comment-32357">Generous Gifts for Trying Times</a>.\r\n\r\nI love the free and inexpensive gift ideas she shares, but this is what really struck me about the post:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Even when times are tight, there is part deep within us that longs to give presents to our loved ones. Not just because it is “the thing to do,â€ but because <strong>generosity is an impulse that cannot be denied – a part of our deep humanity</strong>. If we are made “in the image of God,â€ then perhaps generosity is a Divine attribute which longs to shine out from our core. If we are followers of the Light, then we can see this impulse as something which contributes to the glow we want to nurture in ourselves and others.</em></p>\r\nSometimes to feel good about embracing something we love—something that''s at the heart of who we are—we have to dig a little deeper, to understand where that impulse comes from. Magpie Girl''s perspective helped me do just that.\r\n\r\nNow, rather than just penciling "Giving gifts" onto my Love List, I can write it in ink.\r\n\r\n_________________\r\n<h4>Some recent seasonal, holiday-related Love List additions via Twitter:</h4>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6360190709" class="msgtxt en"><a class="tweet-url hashtag" title="#thelovelist" href="http://twitter.com/search?q=%23thelovelist"><strong></strong></a></span>@McMer314 <span id="msgtxt6376212475" class="msgtxt en">The baking fairy attacked the kitchen! I love the way certain holiday smells stir up specific childhood memories. </span></span><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6360190709" class="msgtxt en">#thelovelist</span></span><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6376212475" class="msgtxt en"> </span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body">@starxlr8 <span id="msgtxt6434410907" class="msgtxt en">so thrilled for visible snow! i look forward all year to winter drives in the country w/ my sweetie. </span></span><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6360190709" class="msgtxt en">#thelovelist </span></span><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6434410907" class="msgtxt en"> </span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@kt_writes <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6505862304" class="msgtxt en">power''s out but I''m thankful 4 a gas stove, tea, leftover lasagna &amp; a daughter @ home to eat lunch w on this wintry day. </span></span><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6360190709" class="msgtxt en">#thelovelist</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@jenliut <span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6566234451" class="msgtxt en">Love the idea of a full Saturday of kids'' activities. </span></span><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6360190709" class="msgtxt en">#thelovelist</span></span><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6566234451" class="msgtxt en"> </span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span id="msgtxt6360190709" class="msgtxt en">@kt_writes we decorated the tree tonight. I love doing things w my kids that I remember loving as a kid—my traditions overlapping theirs. #thelovelist</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@TrinaMb I love the ‘cozy’ of Christmas #thelovelist</p>\r\n\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">@McMer314 I love the magic of the first snowfall of the year. It makes me think anything is possible. #thelovelist\r\n</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@kt_writes thinking about the people I love—&amp; what I love about them—as I buy them gifts. #thelovelist</p>\r\n<strong>What Love List additions has the winter/Hannukah/Christmas season conjured up for you?</strong>\r\n\r\n<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/gifts.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by Kristin Tennant</h5>', 'The love & guilt wrapped up in gift-giving', 0, '<em>Sometimes to embrace what we love, we have to locate its source.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'the-love-guilt-wrapped-up-in-gift-giving', '', '\nhttp://www.magpie-girl.com/20091210/8things-generous-gifts-for-trying-times/comment-page-1/#comment-32357', '2009-12-11 13:25:57', '2009-12-11 17:25:57', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=543', 0, 'post', '', 4),
(544, 1, '2009-12-14 15:30:46', '2009-12-14 19:30:46', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/516950374_ec1a0d3e23.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/d_lee/">lmnop88a</a></h5>\r\nYesterday my girls came home after spending four days with their dad. <strong>Sometimes these transitions are seamless, and other times I end up feeling emotionally spent within an hour of their arrival.</strong> Yesterday was one of those exhausting days.\r\n\r\n<strong>First, one of my daughters bombarded me with a dozen things she wanted me to help her do.</strong> The list included everything from crafty Christmas projects she needed a hand with and a shelf she wanted installed in her room to ways to soothe her achy tooth. She was back in her other environment, and her mind was racing with possibilities as she readjusted.\r\n\r\n<strong>Then my other daughter needed to pour out all the sadness of her heart to me.</strong> ALL of it. It was as if her heart was a cup that she had been slowly filling until it reached the brim. Then she had spent the last couple of days carrying it around <em>very carefully</em>, attentive not to spill a drop. Now that she was home with me, she couldn''t bear to carry it another step. Out it poured.\r\n\r\nMy stepdaughter, who also returned to our house yesterday, is dealing with her own stresses as she wraps up semester projects and prepares for finals at her rigorous school.\r\n\r\nThe house was emotionally packed.\r\n<h4>What is "x" in those tricky parenting equations?</h4>\r\nEarlier in the day, before all of the drama, we were out for lunch with friends. I told B, who has an 18-month-old son, about our weekend dinner guests, who have twin toddler boys. "Can you imagine having twins?" We began speculating whether twins are twice the work as one child (twice as many diapers), three times the work (they''re in cahoots), or maybe 50 percent more work (if you''re giving one bath you might as well give two). No one at the table had real experience with twins, so we left it at that.\r\n\r\nLast night, though, I had a realization. I had just folded stacks of laundry and then realized at 11 that I still needed to make lunches. When I finally climbed into bed, I recognized that my exhaustion was far more emotional than physical. And this was suddenly very clear: <strong>The work of parenting more than one child (at least once they hit school age) has very little to do with their physical needs.</strong> It''s not about "triple the laundry" or "three breakfasts and lunches to make instead of one." Making three sandwiches, after all, is not three times the work of making one.\r\n\r\n<strong>No, it''s not that we have three extra bodies in the house to care for. We have three additional hearts and minds to care for. And they''re each in need of completely different things, at different times.</strong> We can''t line them all up and assure them everything will be OK in the same way we can line them up and trim their toenails. Their needs are each so unique—they require specialized, individual attention, and sometimes we even have to try experimental, unproven approaches. What has worked for one daughter won''t necessarily work for all.\r\n\r\nSometimes, it almost feels like a full-time-job—one that requires a daily nap (of the parents, not the kids!). But it also feels like the most worthwhile job there is, and it''s good to know that others are out there devoting themselves to it, too. Sometimes just acknowledging that something is hard, and knowing you''re not alone, makes it all less of a struggle and more of a joy.', 'Double trouble? Parenting more than one', 0, '<em>What makes parenting multiple kids so exhausting? It''s emotional.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'double-trouble-parenting-more-than-one', '', '', '2009-12-14 15:30:46', '2009-12-14 19:30:46', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=544', 0, 'post', '', 11),
(545, 1, '2009-12-16 13:53:36', '2009-12-16 17:53:36', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/newlife.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-297" title="newlife" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/newlife.jpg" alt="" width="433" height="454" /></a>\r\n\r\n<strong>This is the time of year when waiting tends to be an exciting activity.</strong> There are so many traditions to look forward to, so many presents and delicious food to anticipate.\r\n\r\n<strong>But waiting can be a miserable state, too.</strong> I''ve been witnessing that sort of waiting in my nine-year-old daughter lately. Her very best friend is moving away at the end of January. S has been crying periodically ever since she learned about the impending move, a few months ago. As the date grows nearer, though, S has become overcome with sadness—almost paralyzed by it.\r\n\r\nAs we talked about it a few days ago, I told her that I have the same tendency. I conjure up so much anxiety anticipating things I''m dreading or worried about, that I can no longer do anything productive with my worry or sadness. I can no longer focus on what <em>is</em>, rather than what will (or might) be.\r\n<h4>What waiting in hope looks like</h4>\r\nLast week, after reading my Advent post <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=538">Waiting without a calendar</a>, my mom shared this with me in an email:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I just read two good devotions by Henri Nouwen about waiting. Here''s one quote: <strong>"A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, believing that this moment is </strong></em><em><strong>the moment,"</strong> He refers to the Advent people in Luke''s gospel as "waiting actively ... knowing that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing." </em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>In another place he says, "I have found it very important to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. <strong>When I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God, something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me.</strong>" He talks about "choosing to hope that something is happening for us that is far beyond our own imaginings. It is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life. It is living with the conviction that God molds us in love, holds us in tenderness, and moves us away from the sources of our fear." Isn''t that powerful?!</em></p>\r\nSo powerful. And so true.\r\n<h4>As we wait, are we pointed in the wrong direction?</h4>\r\nBecause what S is waiting for, really, isn''t for her friend to move, even though that date looms large in her life right now. She''s waiting for hope—that she and her friend will stay in touch and get to see one another. That she will find a new friend who understands her and enjoys playing and pretending in the same ways. She is waiting for evidence that her life is "precious and meaningful in the eyes of God." And in the meantime, she needs to pull some mind-over-matter tricks to try to be "present to the moment."\r\n\r\nOf course, that is a lot to ask of a nine-year-old. It usually feels like a lot to even expect of myself.\r\n\r\n<strong>But I have seen evidence that my life is precious to God, and I''ve seen it through exactly what Nouwen describes: <em>"...something really new, something beyond my own expectation."</em> </strong>So I told S about how lonely I felt before I met Jason, and how absolutely certain I was that there could be no one out there to love and appreciate all the different aspects of who I am.\r\n\r\nGod had a different story in mind for me, though, and he brought Jason to me—growing right "from the ground on which [I was] standing." (Here''s <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=6">some background</a> on that story.)\r\n\r\nAs a parent, I can hardly stand to see the pain my daughter is going through, but I am also looking forward to waiting, with her, to see what God will grow in her life.', 'Hope growing from the ground you''re standing on', 0, '<em>Waiting without hope means we''re often looking toward the wrong things.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'hope-growing-from-the-ground-youre-standing-on', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=538', '2009-12-16 13:53:36', '2009-12-16 17:53:36', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=545', 0, 'post', '', 3),
(546, 1, '2009-12-18 18:25:28', '2009-12-18 22:25:28', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lovelist31.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-528" title="lovelist31" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lovelist31-538x403.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="403" /></a>\r\n\r\n<strong>I have a plan for <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472">the Love List Project</a></strong>—at least for the time being.\r\n\r\nIn the next month or so, I''m going to stop writing a Love List post every Friday, and will instead move the project to its own tab here at Halfway to Normal. You''ll be able to access all Love List posts, find links to posts others have published on their blogs, and we can continue to update and support one another in the comments section there.\r\n\r\nAs we move toward that transition, I''m eager to hear from more of you. I''ve already invited some people to write guest posts; their perspectives have really added depth and breadth to the project. <strong>Now I''ve decided I''d also like to include some interviews. Being asked questions, directly, always makes me think more about the "why" and the "how" behind the day-to-day "what."</strong> It helps me connect the dots, and see the bigger picture more clearly.\r\n\r\nAnd that''s the kind of clarity I''d like to see around our Love Lists. <strong>I don''t want them to just be lists that make us feel warm and fuzzy. I want them to be action items—guides that help inform how we live.</strong>\r\n<h4>Let the interviews begin!</h4>\r\nI have already lined someone up for next week''s interview: A woman who was making important life decisions based on who she is and what she loves, long before she started keeping a Love List.\r\n\r\nBut <strong>here are some questions for you to ponder</strong>, too. If you feel like responding to just one or two questions right here in the comments section, I''d love that. If you feel like you have a bigger story somehow tethered to your Love List, please let me know, and I will get in touch with you.\r\n\r\n<strong>OK. The questions:</strong>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1. Think back to a time when your day-to-day life was markedly different in some way than it is today. What made it different? How did you feel about it? What did you enjoy/not enjoy about it?</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2. Can you think of any pivotal moments, when you knew you had to change something negative or claim something important to you? What happened in that moment, that made it pivotal?</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">3. Even though you probably weren''t creating a formal Love List at the time, when you look back, when were major life decisions impacted and driven by what you love most in life? When did you find yourself setting aside what you loved?</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">4. What does your life look like today? Better, worse or just different? What''s responsible for making it better/worse/different?</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">5. How does compromise come into play? (What have you given up, and what have you gained? How do you know you''re making the right choices?)</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">6. What kinds of things have been showing up on your Love List these days?</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">7. How might you make real changes in your life, based on what you love?</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">8. Do you have any wisdom or advice to share with others?</p>\r\n<strong>Thanks for your involvement in the Love List Project. I can''t wait to hear from you!</strong>', 'And now a few questions for YOU', 0, '<em>Moving from the "what" to the "how" and "why" of our Love Lists.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'and-now-a-few-questions-for-you', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=472', '2009-12-18 18:26:30', '2009-12-18 22:26:30', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=546', 0, 'post', '', 5),
(547, 1, '2009-12-23 01:45:04', '2009-12-23 05:45:04', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/2328471638_ffb7ae2e23.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/deadling/">Eric</a></h5>\r\n<strong>"Merry Christmas." That''s the phrase most commonly used this time of year, but the season sure has a way of highlighting the misery in our lives, along with the merriment.</strong>\r\n\r\nWe become acutely aware of what we have and don''t have—which aspects of our lives have improved and which have gotten worse since the Christmas before. Adults are particularly good at this, but children learn it at an early age, too, especially when it comes to expectations and presents.\r\n\r\n<strong>Even when I''m not feeling particularly sad in the moment, Christmas and the New Year have a way of prompting me to dwell on what has been sad in my life.</strong> I guess there''s something about seasonal traditions that unearth memories, and something about memories that bring to mind those much darker times in my life: unhappy Christmases during my first marriage, those years I did my best as a single mom, and how I still spend every other Christmas without my girls, so they can be with their dad.\r\n<h4>The light is warmer and brighter next to the dark</h4>\r\nI probably shouldn''t even be thinking about those things this year, though. After all, I''m sitting at my parents'' house in Michigan, with Jason and all three of our girls. My brother is here from Portland, too, and I will get to spend time with both of my grandmothers. On Christmas Eve, Jason''s parents, sister and nephew will drive from Chicago to my parents'' house. How many couples get to bring together both of their families for the holidays (and can honestly say they''re looking forward to it)?\r\n\r\nI feel very blessed right now (and just wish there was a less-trite way to say that). I still feel that encroaching darkness, though, so I''ve finally decided it''s OK to give it a curt nod, one that says "I see you there, darkness, but I will not embrace you." Because yes, <strong>the light <em>does</em> overcome the darkness, but it still seems important, somehow, to acknowledge that darkness at Christmas. It helps us more fully acknowledge and celebrate the light.</strong>\r\n\r\nMaybe that''s really what this season is about—not just the bridge, God''s grace through Jesus, but also the chasm itself. <strong>Without the chasm, after all, there would be no reason to celebrate what bridges it. There would be no need for a bridge at all.</strong>\r\n<h4>Joy to the dark world</h4>\r\nAnd that''s what the joy we sing about requires, too: darkness, fear, a chasm. My mom mentioned the idea of joy to me this morning, in reference to an Advent devotional she recently read. We typically use the word "joy" to express happiness that rises above average, but the devotional pointed out that the biblical use of joy tends to involve some darkness, at least in the background.\r\n\r\n<strong>Joy isn''t just happiness, it''s happiness that emerges out of the darkness and fear.</strong> It''s what the shepherds were feeling when the angels appeared, bringing good tidings of great joy. And think about what the teenager Mary must have been feeling when she first held her baby. Just a day before, she had faced a chasm, knowing Jesus was about to be born but not having a room for privacy and comfort, let alone an experienced mother or sister there to help her through the ordeal.\r\n\r\nI''m thinking if true joy requires a nod at the darkness, we should try it, and see what happens. I think just writing this post, rather than pretending to ignore the darkness, has already helped me to really see and appreciate the light of this season.', 'Bridging dark to light', 0, '<em>Christmas requires not only basking in light, but recognizing the dark.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'bridging-dark-to-light', '', '', '2009-12-22 23:46:49', '2009-12-23 03:46:49', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=547', 0, 'post', '', 13),
(548, 1, '2009-12-28 13:58:30', '2009-12-28 17:58:30', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/3247396267_f16a3fa06a.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/spjwebster/">spjwebster</a></h5>\r\nMaybe it''s just me, but when I think about a life situation snowballing, I tend to think in the negative. Someone loses a job, then their house, then their marriage. Someone tells a small lie, which requires them to tell a bigger one, which results in an enormous falling out. Or a feud between two family members seeps out all over until the extended family is forced to take sides and be at odds.\r\n\r\n<strong>The crap of life is sticky, indeed; once it starts rolling it quickly gathers more crap, increasing its surface area and growing exponentially.</strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>But the best things in life are sticky, too, I''ve discovered.</strong> I usually think of good things as separate entities—gifts falling from heaven in perfect, complete form for us to enjoy, as is. I''m beginning to suspect, though, that many of those best gifts start very small, like a flake of snow that gradually gathers more goodness to it, continuing to snowball and grow. And we help move that goodness along when we give it a push, sharing it with others and making it grow even more.\r\n<h4>Two families joining to be a bigger, better one</h4>\r\nLast week was a beautiful illustration of this. Just two and a half years after Jason and I married, Jason''s parents, sister and nephew drove from Chicago to join my family in Michigan for Christmas.\r\n\r\nIt was a wonderful few days. We ate well, shared in good conversation and laughed much. Many games were played, the kids were enfolded by many loving adults. Some hilarious karaoke was even sung (I''ll never forget my mom and mother-in-law singing together—with plenty of attitude—These Boots Are Made For Walking). Our last evening together, all 12 of us sat around the table playing a game my Grandpa grew up playing with his family in the 1930s (Tip-it, a game that requires only a button and some good poker faces).\r\n\r\nHow many people can spend three days with their extended family <em>and</em> their in-laws, and not just survive it but actually <em>enjoy</em> it? Jason himself is goodness beyond what I could have ever envisioned, but this too?\r\n\r\n<strong>This is how I see it: My life was redeemed when God began creating something beautiful out of the mess about four and a half years ago.</strong> It was to that newness that Jason was drawn, and then our three girls were gathered in as a new family, and then our friends and the small group at church that we lead.... And then you have our extended families, who don''t just "get along fine," but ultimately multiply the joy when we all come together to celebrate Christmas and all the surprising turns of life that brought us together in this place.\r\n\r\nDo you know what the best part is? <strong>From what I can tell, it just sort of goes on and on</strong>—even after the actual snow has all melted. Analogies are flexible like that.', 'Sometimes life snowballs in a good way', 0, '<em>The best things in life attract more goodness when you give them a push.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'sometimes-life-snowballs-in-a-good-way', '', '', '2009-12-28 13:58:30', '2009-12-28 17:58:30', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=548', 0, 'post', '', 7),
(549, 1, '0000-00-00 00:00:00', '0000-00-00 00:00:00', '<div style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">May I invite y’all to my table?  I suggest getting a cup of great coffee, tea, or a nice hot chocolate. That is what I’m doing as I enter this interview, because that is one thing I love when just talking and answering questions to dear friends about my journey.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">1. Think back to a time when your day-to-day life was markedly different in some way than it is today. What made it different? How did you feel about it? What did you enjoy/not enjoy about it?</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">My mind goes back to before I came out and went through the journey of just accepting myself. That time in my life was about shaping </span><span style="color: #111111;">myself</span><span style="color: #111111;"> into everyone else. What they loved and who they were, I put on myself. It was my way of being OK. </span><span style="color: #111111;">I did things that others enjoyed and never understood why I just wasn’t as happy as they were. </span><span style="color: #111111;"></span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">2. Can you think of any pivotal moments, when you knew you had to change something negative or claim something important to you? What happened in that </span><span style="color: #111111;">moment, that</span><span style="color: #111111;"> made it pivotal?</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">I’m going to speak about two different phases. The </span><span style="color: #111111;">first,</span><span style="color: #111111;"> is what I was speaking about above and part of why I was so moved by the love list project. The first: The pivotal moment in my life back then was becoming so depressed that I had to claim something about myself. It was, not to be dramatic, about life or death. I either had to continue to live life for everyone else—living as though I was any one else but me—or I had to dig deep and fight for myself. I knew I had no other choice at that time in my life. The second: This pivotal moment was when Kristin wrote about something she had found, and the need to claim things she loved outside of her every day constraints. I was in that some place. I was frustrated with working full time and going to university full time. My life seemed to be about work and studying. When I read that entry I realized I needed a new pair of “glassesâ€ to look through. I needed to claim things that were good and promising about my life. I needed to find things that made me happy and </span><span style="color: #111111;">in essence made me, me. To claim those things </span><span style="color: #111111;">that make</span><span style="color: #111111;"> the working and studying, well, worth it. </span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">3. Even though you probably weren’t creating a formal Love List at the time, when you look back, when </span><span style="color: #111111;">were</span><span style="color: #111111;"> major life decisions impacted and driven by what you love most in life? When did you find yourself setting aside what you loved?</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">I think this started within my first revelation. My therapist at the time started drawing a tree. He looked at me and said, “I think it’s time we find what roots you.â€ As he drew the tree and made roots we started listing things that root me. Things such as people, but also</span><span style="color: #111111;"> things</span><span style="color: #111111;"> that make me happy. Things I like to do that bring me happiness alone. Nothing connected to anyone other than </span><span style="color: #111111;">myself</span><span style="color: #111111;">. In those moments I started setting aside things I loved and made me </span><span style="color: #111111;">confident within myself. This is when I chased my dreams, such as finishing my degree. Realizing that there are things I do that are claiming back myself so that I can be happy within myself, and do what I feel God has called me to do as well. I don’t mean that in a cookie cutter Christian way, but in a way that decisions I make are exactly what God put in my heart to make me tick.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">4. What does your life look like today? Better, worse or just different? What’s responsible for making it better/worse/different?</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">My life is different today in that I work hard for things that matter most to me. There is no looking at others for how I should be (although I do look to others for help, maybe mentoring would be a good word). Some days I think things are better, and other days they feel just worse, and other days they are neither, they just are. I</span><span style="color: #111111;">’m learning that when they are indifferent and “worseâ€ it is the lens I’m choosing to look through. That is what is good about the love list project, it stops you for a moment and sometimes longer to see what is right. </span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">5. How does compromise come into play? (What have you given up, and what have you gained? How do you know you’re making the right choices?)</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">I’m not sure how to vocalize this and I’m not sure that I’m even doing this right. Even if I am it almost feels it would by pure accident. </span><span style="color: #111111;">The biggest thing I have learned to do is to drop something so that I can reconnect with myself. For me it is easy to get involved in getting an A in a class and mostly just trying to balance a full time job and being a full time student. I have learned I must be honest enough with myself to do something fun, to take in a simple moment that refreshes me to move on.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">6. What kinds of things have been showing up on your Love List these days?</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">What </span><span style="color: #111111;">has</span><span style="color: #111111;"> mostly been on my love list are things that are connected to my job and things that are community oriented. This isn’t by accident. My job is a rough one and sometimes I forget that there are things </span><span style="color: #111111;">it is teaching me. My students are unique in the lessons they teach, and to embrace them through the love list is an amazing journey for me. I have also been looking for community. The love list has inspired me to be aware of moment that I have entered that space. </span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">7. How might you make real changes in your life, based on what you love?</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">As I said above I find that I’m pursuing things </span><span style="color: #111111;">that go with what I have found I love. I have hit a bump in the road in this and it has been frustrating I still find myself driven to do things that match what I love. I love bridging people, I love being an activist for those who cannot speak for </span><span style="color: #111111;">themselves, and the list builds from there. In other words, my love list has pushed me to go beyond the surface things, but to do things that truly make a difference.</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 18.45pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #111111;">8. Do you have any wisdom or advice to share with others?</span></span></p>\r\n<p style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I would say don’t give up. I have gone through a week of disappointments and what seems to be a failure. It is important to find those moments that drive you to things you love so that you can find ways to walk in a world that sometimes tells us to find what we love so that we can be happy in our independence. I personally have found by pursuing what I love I can impact people around me without that empty feeling or feeling my energy zapped. Look in the places you think cannot hold things you love. Things you love and that help you recapture your life are sometimes richest in the place you think is a pit of darkness. Put on a new pair of glasses that allow you to see things you never thought you would before. </span></p>\r\n\r\n</div>', 'Jules'' Love List experience', 0, '', 'draft', 'open', 'open', '', '', '', '', '2009-12-29 16:51:12', '2009-12-29 20:51:12', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=549', 0, 'post', '', 0),
(550, 1, '2009-12-30 18:09:01', '2009-12-30 22:09:01', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/3500587633_30d07e92e1.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 330px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/booleansplit/">Robert S. Donovan</a></h5>\r\nEveryone''s doing it this week. Newspapers and magazines, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and every type of blog imaginable—they''re all focused on the rapidly-approaching new year. Some are busy looking back at the year we''re about to kiss goodbye, writing top ten lists and reflecting on momentous events. Others are scanning the horizon, looking ahead to the year we''re about to greet—making predictions and forming resolutions to be better individuals in a better world.\r\n\r\n<strong>And what am I doing? Nothing.</strong>\r\n\r\nWell, nothing when it comes to looking back or looking forward, pondering or speculating.\r\n\r\n<strong>Everything that''s crowding my head seems to be all about NOW</strong>—today, and maybe tomorrow: My house needs a serious cleaning—all the remnants of travel and Christmas are scattered about, dashing any hope for a relaxing, enjoyable home experience. I need to do something about the rug I ruined <em>as I was trying to clean it</em>, and the sofa the dog ruined after she discovered and devoured half a can of bacon grease (I''ll spare you the details). Every time I walk into the living room I am annoyed.\r\n\r\nAlso in my head: The client deadlines pressing upon me this week and on into the next month; the stack of official mail I need to take to my accountant because it''s a mystery to me; and the perpetual nag of all those things I keep putting off. Oh, and my car isn''t working again, even though we just put $700 into it. That''s a logistical pain as well as a financial one.\r\n\r\n<strong>So no, I don''t particularly feel like pondering what the past year has taught me, or trying to come up with resolutions and practical methods for becoming a better, more productive person in twenty-ten.</strong>\r\n<h4>It''s OK to hang out in the moment (even this week)</h4>\r\nMaybe that''s why I was drawn to this recent tweet, from my online pal @JebDickerson:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">I think my NY''s resolution will be to stop reflecting &amp; start enjoying the glimpses. Anywhere &amp; everywhere they happen.</span></span></em></p>\r\nI don''t actually think it''s healthy to stop reflecting entirely, but <strong>sometimes the weight of being reflective is too much.</strong> I always feel like I have to process everything, expound on it, learn from it. Then I feel the need to look ahead and figure out how I can be more efficient and more loving, less self-absorbed and anxious.\r\n\r\n<strong>Those goals might be good to strive toward, in general, but not necessarily when we try to cram all the reflections and conclusions into one short week. </strong>\r\n\r\nI happen to be distracted by other things this week, and I''ve decided that''s OK. I''ll have plenty of time to write posts about what I''ve learned from my experiences, as those life lessons occur to me. And I''ll have all year to "start enjoying the glimpses. Anywhere &amp; everywhere they happen."', 'An anti-reflection, anti-resolution post', 0, '<em>Everyone else is looking back or ahead, but I''m stuck in the now.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'an-anti-reflection-anti-resolution-post', '', '', '2009-12-30 18:09:01', '2009-12-30 22:09:01', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=550', 0, 'post', '', 10);
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(551, 1, '2010-01-05 12:15:37', '2010-01-05 16:15:37', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/3277580894_1d59bc38aa.jpg" alt="" width="561" height="420" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 420px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/jaredmoo/">Jaredmoo</a></h5>\r\nHappy New Year, friends. I didn''t exactly go the resolution route this year, but it does seem like a good time to come clean with people, right? So here it goes: <strong>I''m not as open and transparent as I appear to be. </strong>\r\n\r\nSure, everyone has some secrets, and everyone <em>should</em>. A blog is not a place to spill all, all the time. There are several things about me that only my husband knows, which is the way it should be, I think.\r\n\r\nBut there are other things that I keep secret for the wrong reasons: I don''t want people to know something about me because I''m embarrassed—it doesn''t fit the picture of me I want to paint. Or maybe it''s something I''d rather be in partial denial about. Sharing it makes it more real—then I have to face it.\r\n<h4>When we keep it to ourselves, we face it alone</h4>\r\nI know how important it is, though, for people to know they aren''t alone. I was reminded that again last night, when I went out on a limb with this tweet:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">I am typically a decisive person. Indecision is a clear sign that I''m inching toward depression. Anyone else have odd red flags like that?</span></span></em></p>\r\n<strong>It was the closest I''ve come to openly sharing this truth: I have struggled with depression.</strong>\r\n\r\nAnd as soon as I shared it, people rushed in to fill the scary void. Several people responded with their own red flags. Others supported me with care and concern. A few even sent me private messages to reach out with their own struggles and fears about depression.\r\n\r\nI immediately knew I needed to start blogging about this part of my past, and how it touches my present.\r\n<h4>I''ll start by sharing the bones of my story</h4>\r\nI certainly can''t cram it all into one post, but it feels good to at least bring the subject up. I blog about my divorce, my parenting struggles, my complicated feelings about God and faith. <strong>Why has depression been the big taboo subject—the one I am most ashamed of, and least able to examine rationally, with hope and even humor?</strong>\r\n\r\nMaybe we should start a Depression Anonymous group. I''ll go first:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I''m Kristin, and I have struggled with depression. <strong>I was probably borderline depressed for many years in my teens and twenties, but after the birth of my second child it hit me full-force.</strong> It was like the tectonic plates had been gradually shifting over time, and everything was poised waiting for the one significant hormonal event that would trigger the earthquake. It didn''t help that I was in a lonely, unhappy marriage, or that we moved away from friends and family a year later.</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>I''ve been taking anti-depressants since 2003, and they''ve made a world of difference.</strong> They probably gave me the energy and hope I needed to make other important changes in my life. Once I thought I could taper down and stop taking antidepressants, because I didn''t like the idea of being so dependent on drugs. I quickly discovered, though, what an enormous mistake that would be. I guess I will take them for the rest of my life, if I need to.</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I don''t think I''ve really been depressed since the drugs kicked in, but <strong>every couple of months or so I get a twinge of some weighty mood or feeling that takes me right back to those darkest days.</strong> It''s a really scary feeling, and I have to shake myself as a reminder: I am not there, I am here.</p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">January has been the most difficult month of the year for me, ever since January 2000, when I was seven months pregnant with my second child. <strong>But I will face this January with the support of my community, rather than facing it alone.</strong></p>', 'Bringing a dark secret to the light', 0, '<em>The problem with secrets like depression is that we face them alone.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'bringing-a-dark-secret-to-the-light', '', '', '2010-01-05 12:15:37', '2010-01-05 16:15:37', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=551', 0, 'post', '', 32),
(552, 1, '2010-01-07 17:37:55', '2010-01-07 21:37:55', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/378209707_dcc50d7d0e.jpg" alt="" width="454" height="456" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/txd/">txd</a></h5>\r\n<strong>We just entered the church season of Epiphany, and guess what? I had an epiphany!</strong> How cool is that?\r\n\r\nAnd how lame am I to be surprised when God speaks to me? Somehow I never expect it—I keep it all locked up in Bible times, with the prophets and saints.\r\n\r\nEpiphany began yesterday, January 6. I "celebrated" by  maniacally taking down our Christmas tree, packing up the ornaments and putting the living room furniture back in its rightful place (all while drinking a beer and listening to very non-Christmassy music).\r\n\r\nAccording to the most basic <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epiphany">dictionary definitions</a>, the day celebrates the "manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi" or the three Wise Men. In its lowercase version, <strong>an epiphany is "a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience."</strong>\r\n\r\nMy epiphany today has to do with a significant, defining factor of the book I''m writing; the "commonplace occurrence" that sparked the epiphany was my struggle with "January blues."\r\n\r\n<strong>The epiphany itself felt like a sentence delivered straight from God, into my entire being.</strong>\r\n<h4>As usual, the dawn is preceded by darkness</h4>\r\nI''m no expert in epiphanies, but I can say this: They are the brightest, most hopeful jolts of spiritual energy I have experienced. <strong>They scream "God is real! He knows you! He cares! He is in you and is guiding you, even when things seem most dark!"</strong>\r\n\r\nAnother thing I can say about epiphanies, based on my own limited experience, is that <strong>they tend to emerge out of our lowest, darkest places.</strong> Is that because when we hit those low places we stop trying to control everything, and we''re more open to listening? Or maybe because God is patiently waiting for us to experience and learn what we need to learn, so we can be most receptive to what he wants to say?\r\n\r\nI''m not sure, but I do know I was feeling very low and dark on Monday night. That mood led to a classic "why not—what do I have to lose?" attitude, which freed me up to write <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=551">this blog post</a> about my struggle with depression. <strong>It was that form of surrender that opened the flood gates of support and shared experience from others, which in turn opened up how I see myself and my life, which in turn led to my epiphany.</strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>So take that, darkness!</strong>\r\n<h4>What about you?</h4>\r\n<strong>I believe there are epiphanies waiting for all of us.</strong> And don''t worry—I also think there are other ways to open ourselves to them, besides hitting (or at least grazing) some kind of rock-bottom. For me, having a community and spiritual individuals to talk to helps a lot. My blog community really helped me open myself up this week. Conversations with my mom or Jason help, too.\r\n\r\nIf you don''t have that kind of community right now, or even if you are feeling unsure about God, I have good news. My friend Rachelle Mee-Chapman (aka <a href="http://www.magpie-girl.com/">Magpie Girl</a>) has just started <strong><a href="http://flock.magpie-girl.com/">Flock</a>, a "soulcare safe haven" dedicated to “finding a spirituality that fits.â€ </strong>There are so many good things being offered at Flock, but my favorite is the opportunity to ask questions of the "dream team of  life coaches, spiritual directors, therapists, and more."\r\n\r\nAnd guess what? <strong>Rachelle has given me a six-month membership to give away here at Halfway to Normal. </strong>All you have to do to enter in the drawing is to leave a comment on this post. Tell us about a dark place you know, or an epiphany you''ve had. Share how you think God speak to us, or maybe why you fear he doesn''t. Just get your comment in by noon CST on January 14, when I will draw the name of a new Flock member.\r\n\r\n(By the way, I''ve never done a giveaway here before, and I certainly don''t plan to do many, but this opportunity seemed just right for so many of you. If you want to leave a comment but don''t want to be entered in the drawing, just let me know.)\r\n\r\n<a href="http://flock.magpie-girl.com/"><img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/flock_banner.jpg" alt="" /></a>', 'An epiphany. (Take that, darkness!)', 0, '<em>A story about God speaking through low moments & good community.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'an-epiphany-take-that-darkness', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=551', '2010-01-07 17:39:32', '2010-01-07 21:39:32', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=552', 0, 'post', '', 48),
(553, 1, '2010-01-11 13:07:45', '2010-01-11 17:07:45', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/4197477188_5a8b6a8579.jpg" alt="" width="397" height="529" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/koekiehaas/">Jolante</a></h5>\r\n<strong>"When L moves away, I won''t have any true friends!"</strong>\r\n\r\nAs the move date for S''s best friend speeds toward us, the angst grows by leaps and bounds. My first instinct is to tell S "That''s not true! You have lots of friends," and then start naming them. "What about so-and-so? And don''t forget about that one, you always have fun together. And that one—you just went to her birthday party and had a great time."\r\n\r\n<strong>But I know how important it is, as a parent, to acknowledge and respect how she feels, whether it makes sense to me or not.</strong> The way she''s experiencing her life in this moment is not up for debate. It just is what it is.\r\n\r\nAnd anyway, I know what she''d say if I started listing all of her friends: "I know I have lots of friends, but I don''t have any other <em>best</em> friends. There''s no one else who understands me, and who likes to pretend, and who <em>always</em> wants to see me. We never get tired of each other."\r\n<h4>It''s not just a childhood experience</h4>\r\nWhen it gets down to it, the biggest reason I can''t discount how she feeling, because I''m right there with her: <strong>I have loads of friends, yet most of the time I feel like I don''t have any friends.</strong> Being in that state leads to the most bizarre, circular arguments in my head, with one part of me playing the lonely child and the other playing the all-too-matter-of-fact mother.\r\n\r\nClearly, it''s not an argument that can be brought to a conclusion without a clear definition of "friend," or at least a clear understanding of the different categories of friends.\r\n\r\nFor kids, it''s pretty simple: They have Category 4 friends they enjoy seeing and interacting with at school; Category 3 friends they have an occasional playdate with; a small handful of Category 2 friends that they would invite to their birthday party; and then one or maybe two Category 1 friends: True Friends. Best Friends. The sort of friend that fits the description S would use for L.\r\n<h4>Breaking it down for grownups</h4>\r\nHow does it translate for adults? Pretty much the same way.\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Category 4 friends</strong> are people you say hello to and maybe stop and chat for awhile if you run into them at the cafe or bar. They''re probably friends of yours on Facebook, but <strong>if it weren''t for Facebook, they would have almost no clue what''s going on in your day-to-day life.</strong></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Category 3 friends</strong> encompass a lot of people like co-workers, members of your broader church community, the parents of your kids'' friends, and others you see and talk to regularly but don''t necessarily go out of your way to get together with. Every once in a while, you might decide to call them up and see if they want to meet you for lunch, or you might invite them to a big party you''re having, but <strong>the expectations of your relationship are low and the interactions are casual.</strong></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Category 2 friends</strong> can get more complicated, because the relationship is deeper, but the expectations often aren''t clear. They''re your go-to friends when you feel like getting a group of people together on a Saturday night, or you want to go out to dinner to celebrate a birthday, or you feel like inviting someone over for dinner. <strong>These are the friends you spend time with once or twice a month, but I also think we keep ourselves (or hearts?) at a bit of a distance, to protect ourselves from feeling left out, hurt, or disappointed when they don''t come through.</strong></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;">And <strong>Category 1 friends</strong>? I think I would describe them exactly the way my nine-year-old daughter would: <strong>They understand you—they <em>get</em> who you are at your core, which means you can completely be yourself around them, without worrying what they will think.</strong> Category 1 friends like to spend time doing the things that you like doing best. <strong>And they always want to see you.</strong> Whenever you feel the urge to see them, they''re ready and waiting, thrilled to see you if they can possibly make it happen.</p>\r\nWhen I lay it out like that, it makes more sense to me that I can have SO many friends and yet feel like I don''t have any friends. My first-tier category is empty, at least when it comes to people who live in town that I can regularly spend time with. And that means my heart feels a little bit empty right now, just like my daughter''s.', 'Unpacking the four levels of friendship', 0, '<em>When it comes to our longing for friendship, adults are a lot like kids.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'unpacking-the-four-levels-of-friendship', '', '', '2010-01-11 13:08:39', '2010-01-11 17:08:39', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=553', 0, 'post', '', 17),
(554, 1, '2010-01-13 11:31:12', '2010-01-13 15:31:12', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/flock_banner.jpg" alt="" width="558" height="144" />\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>If you''ve been curious to learn more about Flock, my interview with its creator, Magpie Girl, will shed lots of light on this very unique "soulcare spa" concept. I also slipped in some of my own favorite topics surrounding spirituality: What are people longing for in their lives? Why do so many have a difficult time feeling at home in organized religion? Let us know what you think, and don''t forget you have until noon CST tomorrow (January 14) to <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=552">comment on my post about epiphanies</a> and be entered to win a Flock membership!</em></p>\r\n\r\n<h4>How did you come up with the idea for Flock?</h4>\r\nI’ve been a soulcare provider and community builder for many, many years. Two years ago we moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, and a consistent community base has been hard to come by. I miss having a physical soultribe to turn to, and in its absence I am grateful for the online tribe that has formed around me while I lived abroad. I am fan of Ecourses, but wanted something that was more ongoing, something where we could all sink a little deeper into relationship with others. So I decided to try forming an online soultribe.\r\n<h4>Flock has several components. Did they all come to you at once, or did the idea begin as a specific component and then grew from there?</h4>\r\n<a href="http://flock.magpie-girl.com/current-classes-clubs/">Everything I offer</a> in the Flock has emerged organically from topics and practices that have been in embryo at Magpie Girl. I wanted to start with the High Holy Days, to provide an anchoring rhythm to our seasons. The Ask an Expert feature emerged out of the guest interviews I’d been organizing at <a href="http://www.magpie-girl.com/">Magpie Girl</a>. The rites and rituals in Priestessy Things are part of the work I’ve done ever since my days as the Urban Abbess. And the Read-a-Longs…well, who amongst us doesn’t have a stack of books they’d like to talk about with their friends? You know that saying, “Nothing is ever wastedâ€? I’m finally seeing the truth of that as my seemingly random blogging matures into what is now being offered at Flock. Someone recently said to me, “At Magpie Girl, you feed us great stuff, but the Flock is where the real meat and potatoes happen.â€\r\n<h4>You have been blogging and interacting with readers for a long time. Are you able to pick up on certain questions and needs that lots of people seem to have? How did those themes translate to the creation of Flock?</h4>\r\nOh yes! The more I live in the blogosphere the more I notice recurring themes and questions among the women I read and follow, and who read and follow me. <strong>There’s a deep longing for a non-institutionalized expressing of spirituality. There’s also this intuitive need to tell our stories</strong>, which I think is intertwined with the outpouring of photography, mixed media art, fabric art, and poetry that is flooding the web. <strong>And there is a desire to have withmates on the journey.</strong> Perhaps that is the deepest felt need of all. I truly feel that is why the Flock has come into being.\r\n<h4>Language around spirituality can be so confining, and can easily box us in. Was it difficult to find the right way to talk and write about what Flock is?</h4>\r\n<strong> </strong>\r\n\r\nFlock is a pretty unique approach and concept, so we are letting the language around it develop as we go. I’m guessing that our description of Flock will remain fluid and evolve as we live out a life together. That’s why I didn’t include a tagline in the header. <strong>Right now we are using “soulcare spaâ€ because it expresses nurture.</strong> And the “nesting placeâ€ concept is because so many of my Magpie Girl readers kept expressing the need to find a place to call home. <strong>Hospitality and a generous spirit are dominate values for me</strong>, and that’s what “soulcareâ€ and “nestingâ€ communicate to me.\r\n<h4>Why do you believe things like rituals and creativity are integral to spirituality?</h4>\r\nMmmm. I couldn’t get by without rituals! To me, <strong>rituals access an un-seeable reality and make it physical, tangible.</strong> This helps us process and experience numinous things in a more full-bodied way. I also think rituals help us embed positive messages into our be-ings. They integrate important truths about ourselves and our living into our bodies and minds.\r\n\r\n<strong>Creativity, to me, is at the heart of the Divine.</strong> In the Jewish and Christian tradition, it is the first thing we learn about God: “In the beginning, God created...â€ When we access our creative selves, we touch the Divine within us and reach out to the Divine beyond us. It’s also a HUGE part of accessing the Feminine Divine, or womanly aspects of God, because birth and procreation is so heavily weighted towards the feminine. (Plus being creative is fun. Don’t you think? “Why so serious?â€ I like fun!)\r\n<h4>Why do you think people end up leaving churches/more organized forms of religion?</h4>\r\nOften it is because they cannot be their fullest, truest selves within an organization that demands acquiescence to a creed. It’s hard to sign on 100 percent to someone else’s charter for living. <strong>In many organized religions there is a lot of assessing one’s “walkâ€ and judging one’s practices. That’s hard to live under.</strong> And if you disagree with your pastor or small group leader, you have to remain silent or your belonging is jeopardized. <strong>If you cannot live your most open, truest self, you do damage to your soul.</strong> Some organized religious bodies avoid this. But it can be very hard to find.\r\n<h4>Is Flock very flexible and customizable? What if a person doesn''t have lots of time, or doesn''t know for sure what they believe about God, or doesn''t see themselves as particularly creative?</h4>\r\nFlock is very flexible in regards to time. There are several practices—and even variations on each practice—each month. There’s no pressure to do all of them. Think of yourself as a kid in a candy shop. You get to choose! You can stop by every day and visit in the chat rooms, read an article, listen to a podcast, or write about some concept you are chewing on. Or you could just visit on the weekends and get some nurture for the week ahead.\r\n\r\nSome of the things we offer do involve the concept of God in a general way. And we also work with the idea of spirituality in general, and with the idea of connecting with the power of the Universe, or the created Order. And there is no guilt-based teaching or “bad sinnerâ€ ideology.\r\n\r\nI love art-based spiritual practices, and there will be quite a bit of that in the Flock. But you don’t have to be an artist, or even be particularly creative to get involved. Honest.\r\n<h4>You say Flock is "dedicated to finding a spirituality that fits." What is your philosophy on this, and why is helping others in this area so important to you?</h4>\r\nI spent a lot of years wearing religious clothes that didn’t really fit me. I kept trying to hitch them up with a belt, squeeze into them sideways, or hold them together with safety pins. But ultimately, I realized I had outgrown some of them, and that my style had also changed. Deconstructing my religious and spiritual beliefs was a challenging, brave, and sometimes scary task.\r\n\r\n<strong>I see a lot of people (men and women) doing that same deconstruction process. Often they get stuck at the deconstruction stage and never manage to reconstruct something that suits them better.</strong> They remain hungry for some sort of spiritual practice, disillusioned and discouraged. I think that if we as ministers, spiritual directors, and soulcare providers are going to encourage people to think creatively about their beliefs, and possibly deconstruct them, then we are responsible for helping people reconstruct them as well. <strong>I have a passion for walking with the people who are in that process. It really stirs my soul.</strong>', 'Finding a spirituality that fits', 0, '<em>Magpie Girl discusses the importance of rituals, community & reconstructing faith.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'finding-a-spirituality-that-fits', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=552', '2010-01-13 11:31:12', '2010-01-13 15:31:12', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=554', 0, 'post', '', 2),
(555, 1, '2010-01-15 13:33:47', '2010-01-15 17:33:47', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/4274633484_3244a01034.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 210px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/37913760@N03/">United Nations Development Programme</a></h5>\r\n<strong>This has been a really long and difficult week.</strong> On Tuesday morning I woke up feeling like certainly it must be Wednesday or Thursday by now. Then the earthquake shook Haiti, and the week became indefinitely longer.\r\n\r\nOf course, the thing that''s difficult for me—being an action-oriented problem-solver with my hands tied—doesn''t begin to compare to the horrendous, painful reality the people of Haiti have been facing.\r\n<h4>What do you do when there''s nothing you can do?</h4>\r\n<strong>I have been thinking a lot, lately, about what it means to feel helpless and powerless.</strong> The feeling has hit me on so many levels: My daughter is sad about her best friend moving away at the end of this month. Two of my closest friends, who live several states away, are going through really difficult times in their personal lives (and one has withdrawn to the point of not responding to emails, etc., so I really feel helpless).\r\n\r\n<strong>And then there''s the overwhelming needs of people in Haiti.</strong> I can hardly bear to listen to NPR correspondents describing the scene. "Why does it take so many days to get water to these people?" I ask Jason, my emotions at the breaking point. I lose all common sense and start thinking "If only I could get over there with suitcases full of bottled water," or "If only I could convince someone with a private plane to go pick up the babies in that orphanage." I want to DO something. Donating money to Red Cross and World Vision doesn''t seem like enough.\r\n<h4>Can average individuals begin to counter enormous forces?</h4>\r\nWhen Pat Robertson made this terrible situation worse, by saying the Haitian people have brought this devastation upon themselves, I sort of lost it. My heart broke, unleashing a helpless anger. <strong>What can a person like me do to counter a person like Pat Robertson, and all the people who wholeheartedly follow him?</strong>\r\n\r\nThe last couple of days, Twitter has been abuzz with people tweeting "Pat Robertson doesn''t speak for me," while others, like my friend Cody, tweeted <span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">"It''s people like Pat Robertson &amp; his idiotic comments about Haiti that make me steer clear of Christianity." </span></span>\r\n\r\n<span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">When a pastor on Twitter suggested that all the outrage over Robertson''s comment was a waste of time and energy, it made me stop in my tracks. Was it? <strong>Is it a waste to publicly denounce Robertson''s comment, if it doesn''t change a thing about what he thinks and does? Is it a waste to give $50 to a relief organization, if the water and medical supplies can''t get to the Haitian people? Is it a waste for President Obama to tell Haiti "You have not been forsaken," if injured, thirsty and hungry people keep dying?</strong></span></span>\r\n<h4>Words do matter</h4>\r\nI suddenly knew that no, it isn''t a waste. It is important. I''m not talking about empty words alone, followed by no sincere action. That is not enough. But statements of support do matter. <strong>It''s important to stand behind what we believe, and to say "It''s not OK to say that," or "Our hearts are breaking for you."</strong>\r\n\r\nOf course, it doesn''t feel like it changes much. It doesn''t change the fact that the world has been ignoring the people of Haiti for far too long, or that Christians haven''t worked hard enough to visibly counter ideas like Robertson''s, in word and action. An email of encouragement to my friend doesn''t change what''s going on her her life, any more than hugging my daughter will change the fact that her best friend is moving away. <strong>But it''s still important, and it''s important for the "doers" among us to remember that, and be OK with that sometimes. </strong>Maybe not to stop there, and leave it at that, but at least to recognize it as <em>something</em>.<strong>\r\n</strong>\r\n\r\nAnother Twitter friend, @hughlh, put it just right this morning:\r\n\r\n<em><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">The message of Jesus is not that God will get you out of crap. Rather, it is that when you are in crap, you are not alone.</span></span></em>', 'Words in the face of tragedy and brokenness', 0, '<em>I''m feeling helpless and powerless in action, but I believe words do matter.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'words-in-the-face-of-tragedy-and-brokenness', '', '', '2010-01-15 13:33:47', '2010-01-15 17:33:47', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=555', 0, 'post', '', 12),
(556, 1, '2010-01-19 02:12:36', '2010-01-19 06:12:36', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/hearts2.jpg" alt="" width="572" height="429" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by Kristin Tennant</h5>\r\nOn Friday I wrote a post about how helpless I''m feeling about Haiti, and my anger toward Pat Robertson''s take on the disaster. How does God want Christians to respond to the overwhelming needs of hurting people? How does God want us to respond to a fellow Christian who piles more hurt on the situation, and (in my opinion) misrepresents the God I know?\r\n\r\nOn Saturday, Jason and I were at a retreat with members of our small group from church. We each shared something we''ve been reading, thinking about, and in some cases wrestling with. One of the topics we grappled with for a while was death, but I didn''t feel a sense of peace or answers when we were done. I was left wondering "How does God want us to think about death, and heaven? And how little faith must I have if I can''t get to that ''right'' perspective?"\r\n<h4>An understanding of God that resembles an anxiety dream</h4>\r\n<strong>I was completely stuck in that place where I''ve spent too much of my life—a place where there''s one right way, one correct answer, and it''s my job to find it and adhere to it.</strong> The whole scene resembles an anxiety dream: You''re sitting in a final exam that somehow will determine your future—happiness or misery, life or death. And you''re looking at a question that seems so foreign, but you''re <em>sure</em> you must be able to dig the answer out of some remote corner of your brain, so you try and try and try, panic increasing as the minutes tick by.\r\n\r\n<strong>Thankfully, I''ve woken up from that dream and realized that''s not at all what life with God is about.</strong> I woke up from the dream in a big way almost five years ago, when I was on the verge of deciding I didn''t need God or church, and I woke up from it again this past weekend.\r\n\r\n<strong>Why do we spend so much time trying to figure out exactly what God wants from all of us, as a collective whole? Why do we think there''s one right answer, one right way?</strong> Why do we puff up with pride and judgment toward others when we think we''ve landed that "right way," and why do we beat up on ourselves when we feel like we haven''t?\r\n<h4>There might be one truth, but different responses to it</h4>\r\nHere''s something I''ve learned: God didn''t make cookie cutter people—he certainly didn''t make cookie cutter hearts. <strong>I think we each have a response to Haiti and to Pat Robertson that is right for us, as the individuals God created us to be.</strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>I think we''re wasting our time trying to determine whose response is right, and whose is best, and who got it all wrong.</strong> Instead, I should be focused on knowing the heart God gave <em>me</em>, and you should be focused on knowing the heart God gave <em>you</em>. We should each be praying and listening, and following the spirit moving within us.\r\n\r\nAfter this revelation was once again firmly rooted in my head, it was further solidified by <a href="http://davesfaithblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/comfort-in-aftermath.html">a blog post</a> about how we should respond to Haiti. Listen to this:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I urge you to use this opportunity to develop a relationship with Jesus. Talk or pray with him to find out what you are supposed to do right now and take comfort that whatever that may be is enough even for something as overwhelming as this.</em></p>', 'God doesn''t make cookie cutter hearts', 0, '<em>Following God shouldn''t feel like a test in an anxiety dream.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'god-doesnt-make-cookie-cutter-hearts', '', '', '2010-01-19 10:54:33', '2010-01-19 14:54:33', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=556', 0, 'post', '', 8),
(557, 1, '2010-01-20 12:39:10', '2010-01-20 16:39:10', '<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/gmac.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-115" title="gmac" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/gmac.jpg" alt="" width="436" height="582" /></a>\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 150px;">Grandma June with my daughter S. June in 2003</h5>\r\nMy Grandma June died yesterday morning. It was not a surprise. She was 94, and had been living with alzheimers for many years. Last Saturday morning she turned a corner and we knew the end was near.\r\n\r\nI spent time talking on the phone to my mom when she called with the news, and then tried to process my own mixed feelings. But what filled me with the sharpest sadness was the thought of telling my girls when they came home from school.\r\n\r\n<strong>What do you tell your kids when someone they knew and loved has died?</strong> As <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=556">my post earlier this week</a> suggests, there is no "right way" to approach it. There''s only the most honest, true way you possibly can.\r\n<h4>What I told my girls about Grandma June</h4>\r\nI told my girls that Grandma June died, and their grandma (my mom) was sad, but she knew Grandma June was ready to go. I told them their grandma had sung some hymns to Grandma June that morning, and then had said "Everyone''s waiting for you, Mom. Your mother and father and brothers and sisters are all wondering what''s taking you so long."\r\n\r\n<strong>I tried to help them grasp the Grandma June I knew most of my life, before she slipped into alzheimers. I told them how the two words I think best described Grandma June were "joyful" and "feisty." </strong>She was able to see so much beauty and joy in everything around her, and yet she never let anyone walk all over her. When something mattered to her, it mattered deeply. I told them how determined Grandma June always was, and that she never wanted to give up, which was probably why she took a while to die. I said that Grandma June''s faith in God was stronger than anyone''s I knew.\r\n\r\n<strong>And finally I told my girls how confused I felt about Grandma June dying</strong>—that I was very sad, but I felt like I wasn''t feeling as much grief as I should. It had been so long since she was able to really enjoy her life, and respond to the love her family gave. <strong>I told them it was OK to feel whatever they were feeling.</strong> They might feel confused about their sadness, or about not feeling sad enough, but whatever they actually felt was just right.\r\n<h4>Some of Grandma June lives on in me</h4>\r\nThis morning I looked up <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=114">a blog post </a>I wrote about Grandma June more than a year ago, in the form of a letter to her. I want to share it with my girls, especially this part, which says so much about who she was and how she can live on in us:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I have always recognized in you a sizable portion of who I was and am, as well as a significant aspect of who I wanted (and still want) to be. I could relate to your love for words and music and clothes, and to your quirky sense of humor. I could also relate to your feisty response to anything that ruffled your feathers, and to how that feisty attitude sometimes got you in trouble. You were transparent and opinionated, and you took life head-on.</em></p>\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>What I couldn’t always relate to, but was always drawn to, was your pure joyfulness in all circumstances, and your unwavering trust in God’s goodness. You were always a true light to those around you; somehow you managed to bring sunshine to people without ever downplaying life’s darkness and storms. You were a realist, without being cynical. I wanted—and still want—to be more like you.</em></p>', 'Talking to my kids about death', 0, '<em>Kids need honesty and a context, love and some stories.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'talking-to-my-kids-about-death', '', '\nhttp://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=556', '2010-01-20 12:39:10', '2010-01-20 16:39:10', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=557', 0, 'post', '', 15),
(558, 1, '2010-01-22 14:44:57', '2010-01-22 18:44:57', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/150235994_bd3e76d2af.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/aribakker/">arriba</a></h5>\r\n<strong>I''m happy to report that this week I''ve learned something about how to disengage.</strong>\r\n\r\nI realize that for some people, to disengage is the problem, not the solution. They tend to avoid difficult situations and issues so much that they almost never get to the heart of the matter, where so much of the important growth and resolution happens.\r\n\r\n<strong>But other people (like me) have a way of scrambling to the heart of the matter too quickly, every time a situation makes their heart-rate increase a notch.</strong> I get worked up emotionally. My logic-based mind kicks in and begins building my case. I forget to listen as carefully as I should, to test the waters, to choose my battles.\r\n\r\nFor people like me, learning when and how to disengage is critical. <strong>It''s too easy for me to become consumed and bogged down</strong> by a frustrating email I receive from my ex-husband, or by an opinion I hear on the radio or online, or by some random thing a friend says in passing. While some are good at shrugging those things off with a glib "whatever," I am always poised to dive in to the heart of the matter. It gets exhausting.\r\n<h4>Learning from good role models</h4>\r\nJason is a great partner for me in all of this, because he completely relates to my feisty nature and <em>why</em> I get so fired up, but he''s also extremely adept at diffusing situations that need nothing more than a simple response. <strong>He knows how to provide closure without pushing more buttons.</strong>\r\n\r\nLast night, I practiced his technique in my response to two different emails. In both cases, I not only neutralized the interaction, but I diffused my internal frustration. I went to bed and slept well.\r\n\r\nToday, I tried this technique on Twitter, where someone was intent on debating my stance on a mercy and justice issue I happened to mention. I debated for a while, trying to clarify my point, but I was growing increasingly frustrated by the interaction. Finally, I said <span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">"debates are fun, but there comes a moment when you realize their world view is so wildly different from yours it''s a waste of time," and I respectfully bowed out of the discussion. </span></span>\r\n\r\n<strong>It felt good, and healthy! I was able to let go of the emotional side of it—let go of the need to follow something to its bitter and probably pointless end.</strong> By doing that, I''m not letting others use my emotions to hold me captive. I realize it will take some time before this becomes a natural response for me (and maybe it never will be my first impulse), but I know it''s a path I can choose. That''s progress.\r\n\r\nSo what''s your tendency when things get intense? Do you over-engage or over-avoid? Or maybe you''ve discovered a good balance?', 'Learning to disengage', 0, '<em>Choosing battles & diffusing tense situations have never been my strengths.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'learning-to-disengage', '', '', '2010-01-22 14:49:07', '2010-01-22 18:49:07', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=558', 0, 'post', '', 9),
(559, 1, '2010-01-25 13:12:41', '2010-01-25 17:12:41', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/3351247547_8d011859bb.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/jamesrbowe/">James Bowe</a></h5>\r\n<strong>Jason and I went to a party over the weekend where they served limes, lemons, and whole fresh cranberries for dessert.</strong>\r\n\r\nOur hosts were not as cruel as they sound, though, because first they gave us concentrated miracle fruit tablets.\r\n\r\nMiracle fruit, as this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/dining/28flavor.html?_r=2">New York Times article</a> describes, "...<strong>rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors </strong>for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy....The cause of the reaction is a protein called miraculin, which binds with the taste buds and acts as a sweetness inducer when it comes in contact with acids...."\r\n\r\nOK, whatever. We dove in. <strong>After the tablets had dissolved on our tongues, we all stood around the dining room table sampling foods we thought we knew and understood</strong>—many of which we wouldn''t typically enjoy eating straight at all, let alone for dessert. Lemon and lime wedges tasted as sweet as citrus sorbet. Whole fresh cranberries tasted like they do after we add cups of sugar to make a sauce at Thanksgiving. Eating wedges of fresh tomatillo were like eating the ripest, sweetest plum.\r\n\r\nThen we moved on to more bizarre experiments: Salt and vinegar potato chips. Sips of vinegar, espresso, and dry red wine. Wasabi peas. Everything was altered. The straight Tobasco sauce was probably the most taste-blowing experience—there was nothing hot or piquant about the taste, but the burning sensation on my tongue was still very much there.\r\n<h4>Mind over matter is harder than it seems</h4>\r\nUltimately, the experience was just a whole lot of fun. How often do we get to try something completely new? As a writer, though, I had to go and ponder the broader connections and life metaphors. I am not scientifically minded, and to be honest, the "how" and "why" of what was happening on my tongue did not intrigue me.\r\n\r\n<strong>But the disconnect that was happening in my mind was SO fascinating. Every time I put something different in my mouth, I was surprised.</strong> Even after I had experienced the altered taste effect several times, and I prepped myself mentally for how this next flavor would probably come across, it messed with my mind. Practicing mind over matter just didn''t seem to be an option, no matter how hard I tried.\r\n<h4>Here it is: The miracle fruit metaphor</h4>\r\nIt made me realize how set in our ways we become—how easy it is to slide into auto pilot and think we know what''s happening around us, and how we will experience it and react. <strong>We are so sure we know how something or someone will impact us, that we don''t allow ourselves to remain open to the unexpected and new.</strong>\r\n\r\nIn a way, that''s how stereotypes work, right? We look at someone and think "Oh, I know your type. I''ve met several like you before." Then we predetermine how that person will "taste" (so to speak) and how our senses will react, before we''ve even made any real contact. I see a lemon, I already know how that lemon will taste, and I brace myself against it before I consider the unexpected miracle that might be at play.\r\n\r\n<strong>And let''s face it: A lot of people and experiences come across as lemons. Now if we can only figure out a way to rewire how our palettes perceive the world.</strong>', 'When life gives you lemons, get miracle fruit', 0, '<em>Truly being open to what you least expect is a miracle, for most of us.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'when-life-gives-you-lemons-get-miracle-fruit', '', '', '2010-01-25 23:55:21', '2010-01-26 03:55:21', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=559', 0, 'post', '', 5),
(560, 1, '2010-01-27 12:03:57', '2010-01-27 16:03:57', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/2898020303_635ed6118d.jpg" alt="" width="417" height="556" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/barelyfitz/">BarelyFitz</a></h5>\r\n<strong>I''m a grownup. I''m pretty sure I know by now that the world doesn''t revolve around me.</strong>\r\n\r\nNot only do I know it intellectually, but life has given me plenty of examples. For starters, I have two kids (and their lives each began with 14 months or so of breastfeeding). I''ve also been through a divorce and survived single parenting. Yes, it''s pretty clear the world isn''t revolving around me.\r\n\r\nBut still, there''s this thing I do that''s really been getting to me lately (to be clear, I''ve been doing it for a long time—it''s just lately that it''s been getting to me). <strong>I allow the unintentional minor infractions of others to annoy me. And when I''m annoyed, all I can think about it how the annoyance affects me.</strong> Right—as if it''s all about me.\r\n\r\nIn church Sunday I was distracted by a highly energetic child and by the high hum of someone''s uncooperative hearing aid. When I drove across town in the snow the other evening, I was annoyed by the people who were driving SO cautiously that they were bound to cause an accident, not avoid one. When I checked on my LinkedIn invitations last night, I was annoyed by the number of people I''ve never heard of who wanted to add me as a connection (the site only works, after all, if you know someone well enough to be able to vouch for them in some way).\r\n<h4>Being handed an attitude check</h4>\r\nIn each instance, though, I was gently asked <strong>"Where is your compassion?"</strong>\r\n\r\nWhen I complained about the LinkedIn situation on Twitter, someone mentioned that it''s easy to inadvertently send requests to everyone you''ve ever had an email exchange with. My attitude softened. Maybe they didn''t mean to send requests to everyone, and they''re feeling annoyed and stupid about it themselves.\r\n\r\nWhen I complained about the bad winter driving, my 11-year-old said "There are probably some people who moved here from places that don''t get any snow, so they''re really worried about driving in it." Oh. Maybe I should think of how stressful the situation might be for them. (Don''t you love getting schooled by your kids?)\r\n\r\nAnd as I sat in church, trying to concentrate on worship and the teaching, trying to block the hearing aid whine and the restless child, the Holy Spirit asked "Where is your compassion?" I''ve never had to parent a super high-energy child. I''ve never had problems hearing or seeing or getting around how and when I want to. <strong>Why should I be focused on how the struggles of others impact me?</strong>\r\n<h4>To assume the best of others is to offer grace</h4>\r\nLast night before bed I tweeted this:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">I need to be less easily annoyed, less critical. I need to assume the best of people—realize their circumstances are unknown &amp; offer grace.</span></span></em></p>\r\nWhen I started writing this post I wasn''t sure which of my three categories I would file it under. Now that I''m at the end, it''s clear it should be categorized under "Belief, hope &amp; doubt," because <strong>I think this sort of daily compassion is one of the main ways I should be different as a follower of Jesus.</strong> I also think that while some people are more naturally compassionate, I''m sort of hopeless at it without some help from the Holy Spirit.', 'I need a Holy Spirit chill pill', 0, '<em>I''m finally getting annoyed at myself for getting annoyed with others.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'i-need-a-holy-spirit-chill-pill', '', '', '2010-01-27 12:03:57', '2010-01-27 16:03:57', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=560', 0, 'post', '', 9);
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(561, 1, '2010-01-29 12:54:39', '2010-01-29 16:54:39', '<img class="alignnone" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/055011561616.jpg" alt="" width="586" height="440" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 420px;">Photo by K. Tennant</h5>\r\n<strong>See that adorable girl right there? That''s my baby.</strong> If you''re thinking "Wait a minute—that looks like a kindergartener, not a baby," I have even bigger news for you: She turns 12 this weekend.\r\n\r\nExpressing shock that your kids are aging and growing up fast seems like such a cliche, but it''s one of those mind-bending experiences you simply can''t describe or explain. I guess that''s why we keep trying.\r\n\r\nBut I''m not going to try, today. I''d rather write a post celebrating who Q is, what it''s like to be her Mama, and how all her life she has been preparing me to parent an adolescent.\r\n\r\n<strong>Q is a cheerful optimist, who takes life as it comes, adjusting to less-than-perfect circumstances with grace. </strong>In this particular way, she puts me to shame.\r\n\r\nAfter she broke her arm while we were on vacation last summer, Jason and I often joked "Well, if one of our three girls had to break a bone, she would have been our choice." She was brave all the way to the hospital, managing her emotions, and somehow her pain, too.\r\n\r\nQ spent the next two days in the cottage, her arm elevated on a pile of pillows and towels. Her sisters spent time playing cards or doing puzzles with her, before quietly heading down to the beach, where they would do two of Q''s favorite things: Swim and work on their extended fairy village in the sand. Q certainly wasn''t happy about her situation, and she expressed as much a couple of times, but she was determined to not let it ruin anyone''s week. A couple of days after the accident she was wading in the water with her grandma, and serving as general contractor from her beach chair at the edge of Fairytopia.\r\n<h4>The exquisite art of being an outgoing introvert</h4>\r\n<strong>Q is confident and outgoing. She naturally attracts every type of friend, warmly welcoming them into her life. </strong>Although I dreaded her transition last fall to the enormous middle school (over 1,000 students), she threw herself into it without an apparent care in the world. Her closest friends from elementary school weren''t in any of her classes or lunch, but within a couple of weeks, she had a great group of new friends.\r\n\r\n<strong>But Q is also an introvert—she knows herself well, and knows when she needs to be alone.</strong> Once her day has contained enough interaction and stimulation, she often excuses herself and heads to bed, glad to leave a house full of people and fun behind her.\r\n\r\nIt took me a while, as a brand-new mother, to understand what  baby Q needed when she was crying, which seemed to happen a LOT at the end of the day. <strong>The more she cried, the more I tried to comfort her.</strong> I rocked her and walked with her and sang to her, but nothing worked. Finally I read in a book that some babies get easily over-stimulated and wound up as they grow tired. The best thing to do is to give them space. So I tried putting the wailing Q in her crib and walking away. It worked—wonderful, of course, but also a difficult thing for all of my maternal instincts to accept.\r\n<h4>I''m a Mama in training, and Q is one of my best coaches</h4>\r\nAs I think of Q turning 12, it strikes me how, in many ways, her personality has been great training for me as I transition into the role of mothering older children.\r\n\r\n<strong>I have to learn to trust that she knows herself</strong>—yes, even better than I know her. When I trust that, I build up that confidence and power in her, helping her to be even more independent, strong and wise in her choices.\r\n\r\nI should certainly protect her, but not too much. <strong>I have to trust that she can handle life as it comes to her. </strong>Every time she faces disappointment or hurt—although it might be painful for us both—I need to remind myself that she can handle it, and she''s learning and growing along the way.\r\n\r\n<strong>And I need to try my hardest to worry less. I am her mother, but I am not God. I can''t fix everything, prevent everything, or even understand everything.</strong> I guess that''s a lesson I began to learn 12 whole years ago, when against all instinct I laid my crying newborn in her crib and walked away.', 'Some of the best parent training is kid-to-mom', 0, '<em>As my daughter turns 12 I realize how well she has prepared me for this.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'some-of-the-best-parent-training-is-kid-to-mom', '', '', '2010-01-29 17:17:33', '2010-01-29 21:17:33', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=561', 0, 'post', '', 12),
(562, 1, '2010-02-02 11:15:23', '2010-02-02 15:15:23', '<img src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/4281195146_d025bbb753.jpg" alt="" width="465" height="500" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/notionscapital/">NotionsCapital</a></h5>\r\nHave you examined your "usuallys" and "shoulds", lately?\r\n\r\nI hadn''t, until yesterday. They''re easy to ignore.\r\n\r\n<strong>The usuallys and shoulds of our lives are like that random vase you set on a shelf somewhere,</strong> thinking you''ll figure out where to put it "for good" later. Two years later, though, there it sits, in the same place. Now it''s blended in, a part of the scenery you pass through daily. If one day you''re dusting it with any clarity of thought, you might realize you never really intended for it to stay there. You might rethink it, and find a better place, a better use. But you might just figure it''s been like that long enough, it might as well stay.\r\n<h4>"Usuallys" can distract and overwhelm us</h4>\r\nYesterday morning I started the week out in the worst way: feeling overwhelmed. My client deadlines are pressing in on me, and staying on top of this blog is one of those loving-yet-sometimes-burdensome tasks that''s always hovering over me. "I usually blog on Mondays," I kept thinking, trying to figure out when I was going to squeeze it in.\r\n\r\nSuddenly, I thought "So what? So what if I <em>usually</em> blog on Mondays and <em>usually</em> post three times a week? This week I might just post twice. Or I''ll post on different days. Whatever. It will be fine."\r\n\r\nThere was never any question that it wouldn''t be fine—that somehow I have hit some magic blogging formula, and to break it would be to break my stride. <strong>It''s just that I fell into a certain way of doing things, a pattern. Without realizing it, that pattern had became imprinted on my brain.</strong>\r\n\r\nHow often do we do that? Probably a lot. Sometimes it''s with little, day-to-day habits. Other times it''s bigger: <strong>family traditions, social norms, and the decision-making process of organizations all have a way of becoming "usuallys" and "shoulds."</strong>\r\n<h4>"Shoulds" often involve other people &amp; guilt</h4>\r\nWhile I think of the "usuallys" as my own little habits and ruts, the "shoulds" are something bigger. Not only is guilt involved, but other people tend to be, too. <strong>The "shoulds" often represent what others expect of us, or at least what we <em>think</em> they expect of us.</strong>\r\n\r\nI was pondering that larger issue as I read <a href="http://beckyandhollee.com/?p=1498">this blog post</a> Monday afternoon. The post is by a mom who would really like other moms she knows to sign a "no-thank-you-note-pact" with her, so they can all be relieved of that particular expectation after kids'' birthday parties.\r\n\r\nPersonally, I happen to think it''s important to teach our kids about gratitude—both recognizing it within them and expressing it to others. But the post stirs up an opportunity to ask important questions like these: <strong>"Why, exactly, do we go through this (or any) ritual? Is it meaningful? Are we just going through the motions or are we saying something affirming and real about community?</strong> Are we really teaching our kids to express gratitude or are we teaching them that certain people will get all mad if we don''t sign our names to these generic cards and put it in the mail?"\r\n\r\n<strong>Maybe by examining your usuallys and shoulds, you''ll shake things up a bit in your world. But who knows? Maybe in the end, after asking yourself all the right questions, you''ll decide to do pretty much what you were doing before.</strong>\r\n\r\nBut at least you''ll know <em>why</em> you''re doing it, and you''ll feel intentional about it—like you have some control over your life, rather than the other way around.', 'Not minding your "usuallys" & "shoulds"', 0, '<em>It''s good to take stock of our personal and societal ruts.</em> ', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'not-minding-your-usuallys-shoulds', '', '\nhttp://beckyandhollee.com/?p=1498', '2010-02-02 11:15:23', '2010-02-02 15:15:23', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=562', 0, 'post', '', 6),
(563, 1, '2010-02-04 17:36:29', '2010-02-04 21:36:29', '<img src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/images/3418857871_9503304e81.jpg" alt="" />\r\n<h5 style="padding-left: 330px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/3059349393/">Emilio Labrador</a></h5>\r\n<strong>It''s been five whole years since I was a part of a church that extended more judgment than love.</strong>\r\n\r\nThe judgment showed up during and after my divorce. It sort of took me by surprise (the judgment, not the divorce). I numbly coped with it for another year or so before coming to my senses and walking away from that church.\r\n\r\nSince then, <strong>divorce and church have become two topics I write about fairly often, both separately and as a intertwined, tangled mess</strong> (as in my essay in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ask-Me-About-My-Divorce/dp/1580052762">Ask Me About My Divorce</a>). Being able to write about those two things is a good sign that I''ve pretty much healed from that pain, thanks to my new church and God''s redemptive grace. My new church has a "loving you for who you are, where you are" attitude. It''s where I met Jason, who was also divorced. Strangely enough, it''s also where I met his ex-wife, who became my friend.\r\n<h4>Two realities, both needing to be checked</h4>\r\nWhen you''re enfolded in a community like that, it''s easy to forget what happens every day in many other churches, among many other Christians. Maybe that''s why<strong> I sometimes get confused and wonder if church-and-divorce is still an important topic to be writing about.</strong> Maybe my experience was isolated. Do most churches and Christians still have big issues with divorce? Really?\r\n\r\nBut then I hear or read something that brings me back to reality, like <a href="http://www.patrolmag.com/arts/1976/matthew-paul-turner-hear-no-evil">this excerpt</a> from the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hear-No-Evil-Story-Innocence/dp/140007472X">Hear No Evil</a>, by <a href="http://jesusneedsnewpr.blogspot.com/">Matthew Paul Turner</a>. The subtitle alone produced a visceral response: "When the publisher of CCM forced me to force Amy Grant to apologize for her divorce."\r\n<h4>Good news covers bad news</h4>\r\nThe story was painful for me to read. But it''s also full of good news. Amy Grant doesn''t apologize "for disobeying God''s command to stay married," as Turner''s boss puts it. Turner describes that tense moment of the interview, after he brought up the topic of divorce:\r\n<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em> ...it was obvious she wasn’t beyond feeling sorrowful about her divorce. But..she clearly had found redemption for the decision, and she held onto it. My question couldn’t steal that away from her.</em></p>\r\n<p class="MsoNormal"></p>\r\n<p class="MsoNormal"></p>\r\n<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>The good news is that when you have God''s redeeming love, other people can''t steal it away.</strong> In fact, that love seems to have a way of multiplying. Later, Turner was in the studio listening to Amy Grant sing and her producer, Brown Bannister, said, "I have to get right with God nearly every time I hear that girl sing.â€</p>\r\n<p class="MsoNormal">What more do you need to know? God''s love for this divorced Christian singer seems evident.</p>\r\n\r\n<h4>Focus on the fruit</h4>\r\n<p class="MsoNormal">Sure, there''s always going to be bad news, too. Lots of churches and church people want to spread the guilt more than the love. Sometimes they focus on shame and apologies, while turning their backs on many people who are really hurting (and not because Amy Grant got a divorce).</p>\r\n<p class="MsoNormal">But the good news is bigger than the bad: Apparently Amy Grant doesn''t have to apologize for God to do amazing things through her, or through any of us. <strong>Perhaps that''s all the proof that we need to know the church doesn''t always do the best job figuring out what God really wants.</strong></p>\r\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good trees bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.</em> - Matthew 7:16-18</p>\r\n<p class="MsoNormal"></p>\r\n<p class="MsoNormal"></p>', 'Is divorce something we need to confess?', 0, '<em>God cares more about today''s fruit than about yesterday''s mess.</em>', 'publish', 'open', 'open', '', 'is-divorce-something-to-confess', '', '', '2010-02-04 19:11:56', '2010-02-04 23:11:56', '', 0, 'http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=563', 0, 'post', '', 7);

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