Weekend Word 5

Time to re-evaluate our weekly routine. Perhaps I've been too hard on you, my choices too challenging. Ok, weenies, I'll go easy on you this week.

Rules: Brush oil on the kabobs, enter the fountain of youth, and use the word below in a sentence. Display your mastery of our language by posting your sentence in the comments section below. On Sunday evening, at 10 pm est, the envelope containing the name of the winner will come to my home via armored car. After the retina scan, I will obtain said envelope, open it and post the name of the lucky duck who, yes, can give a long and tearful acceptance speech in Sunday's comments. Click this word:

hugger-mugger

Have at it writers!

Things Philadelphians say

"These are my new shoes. They're good shoes. They won't make you rich like me, they won't make you rebound like me, they definitely won't make you handsome like me. They'll only make you have shoes like me. That's it."

-Charles Barkley

Agent Contest

As long as the three million of you promise to participate in the Weekend Word contest this week, I will tell you about another fun contest you may want to check out. My agent, Rachelle Gardner, has a blog and she is having a writing contest. A complete story in 100 words or less. Short, fun, and challenging. She provides a photo as a prompt.

Oh, and if you stop by, say GLOWING things about me. Use words like "immense talent" and "not the least bit neurotic" and "I have a network of thousands that will read Wendy's book" - you know, the basics.

CLICK HERE

I would love it if one of you won.

No need to call a HOTLINE

At the risk of my three readers thinking that I have fallen into a depression (I haven’t), I am going to add to this week's somber tone by doing a gratuitous, sappy and emotional post about friendship and moving away. Please cue the violin player now. Something by Rachmaninoff.

I know a family that, quite literally, lives down the street. I am desperately in love with these people and they are moving away next week. Not just away, far away. They are moving to a place where cacti actually grow outside!

Hear me out. It’s not as if I see them everyday. I don’t even talk to them everyday. They are busy and we are busy. But, up until next week, I always knew they were there.

Yesterday morning, I got up very early and headed for the bathroom – the same place everyone goes when they first get up, unless they have older pets. I sat down to pee in my sleepy, out of sorts state, and remembered that my friends were moving away. I cried and cried and used far more than the one square of toilet paper my mother always told me to.

I won’t bore you by dictating the countless conversations (even screaming matches) we’ve had. I will not list all the things we’ve borrowed from one another and forgot to give back. I cannot even begin to translate all the things we’ve learned from each other. Suffice it to say, they are in my system and under my skin.

When God cements people together it is no joke. Real, live, breathing community – the place where you are loved and challenged and healed – is like a deep and endless gift. Sometimes it feels great and at other times it hurts like hell, but I have been blessed to have it with these great people.

Ed, Vickie, Kristopher and Kelsey: You will be missed. And even though you are far away, every time I pee, I will think of you.

Funny that its nemesis is a serpent

Obama?

Upping the Ante

Yesterday, I told you I was out of sorts. That is still true, but I discovered something very interesting. I looked up the origin of the phrase “out of sorts” because I realized that even though I know how I feel, I don’t know why.

There are several theories about where the phrase came from, but one of the more probable explanations is that it has something to do with playing cards. A pack that hadn’t been shuffled was said to be out of sort and not suitable for playing with.

Of course, being the pastor type, I immediately thought of the fabulous sermon illustration here. “Open your Bibles to the book of James. Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds, because if your deck does not get shuffled from time to time, you will end up out of sorts.” Sheer genius.

I am not much of a card player. My cousin’s son (my second cousin? once removed? I can never figure that out) keeps inviting me to play poker with him on Facebook, but I doubt I’d fare very well. I like Pinochle, but I hardly ever play and must be reminded of the rules every time I do. Gertrude, my maternal grandmother, was an avid Bridge player, but she never taught me and then she died.

I am, however, a betting girl. I don’t actually do it with cash, but I almost always have little wagers going on with myself or I say to my husband and kids, “Wanna bet?”

If I were to wager on my current mood, I would bet that something is going on with me, something more than just a bad day. I have no idea what it is yet, but being out of sorts is kind of exciting, isn’t it? Beyond the funk and distress, after the questions and searching, past the fear and angst, there is the thrill of being different as a result of it all. As corny as it sounds, when my life feels wrong, God always shows me a new way to be.

Does God do the shuffling so that I will see? You ask a great question. I don’t know. There is evidence that proves He reaches His long arm out of the sky and plays Tonka toys with our lives and there is evidence that insists that He set the world (and His plan) in motion and does not intervene.

But, just in case it's the long arm thing, “Hey, God? It's Your turn. Go fish.”

I'm going for it!

via bits of life

Snob Kabob

You know those moments when God deals with your inner brat? I remember one time when I was verbally abusing Thomas Kinkade, painter of light, in front of my friend and his wife. I used words like “corny” and “cheesy” and generally acted as if I had a Picasso above my mantle. Naturally, the first time I was invited to their home, I learned that she was a Kinkade enthusiast in a matter of seconds. His framed prints were hanging in almost every room. I stood in the middle of all those streams of light and felt like each one was skewering me. My friend teased me about it for years, but never in front of his wife.

I used to have conversations with another friend, Ed, about these elitist tendencies of mine. I would look at him and say, “Who really wears chartreuse pants?” to which Ed would calmly reply, “That’s why there are vanilla and chocolate and 29 other Baskin-Robbins flavors,” as if chartreuse was a perfectly normal color and it could be served on a sugar cone.

The word “tolerance” has become a bad word for some Christians. Unfortunately, it has become associated with selling out, or failing to defend truth in the midst of a truthless culture. I’d like us to reconsider.

Christians should be the most tolerant people in the room. We should not only endure the screaming child on the airplane with patience but we should be the best listeners on the planet. I do not mean the kind of listening that includes thinking of a rebuttal while the other person is still talking. No, I’m talking about the kind of deep listening that hears what people are both saying and not saying, the kind of listening that leads to understanding.

One of my favorite pastor buddies sent me a fascinating quote that I’d like to share with you. My friend is reading Doug Padgitt's book, "A Christianity Worth Believing.” Here is what he offered me:

"That goodness extends into our integration with other people. Because each of us is connected to God, we are connected to each other as well. Christians like to talk about community, yet the dualistic assumptions surrounding our theology make it almost impossible for us to experience true community. As long as we hold on to 'us' and 'them' categories of seeing the world, we live behind a barricade that prevents us from joining in with God and others in real and meaningful ways. And it doesn't really matter who we decide 'them' is- the non-Christians, the sinners, the liberals, the conservatives, the Jews, the Catholics, that weird church on the other side of town. Division is division, no matter how righteous we want to make it sound."

Our insistence on defining and categorizing may just break God’s heart. I also suspect it leads to defending, which further separates us from one another. Jesus just may have meant the things He said about judging those who look, think, and live differently. WOW - what if He actually planned to change the world using love?

We have an inner brat. I think God wants to take a stab at it because it's a little tough to tolerate.