The Lenten Diet

I used to give up something for Lent every year. I usually switched between desserts, fast food, and soda. I want to believe I had good intentions, that I wanted a good spiritual discipline, but let's be real, it was a diet. The only difference between my Lenten practices and health kicks I would go on before summer is that I would actually follow through during Lent. For God. And hey, wouldn't it be a fun bonus if those pants I've had at the bottom of my drawer fit again as a result of my faithfulness? I can't say that there was no helpfulness in my fasting practice, but I had mixed motives at best.

So, instead, I'm picking my blog back up again. Last year when I did this, it helped me be creative, a little vulnerable, and lighthearted (and disciplined!) every day. That feels a bit more faithful to me. So, that's what I'm going to do, while eating cake. Read it if you want. :-)

I'm scared of talking about politics.

When I started this Lenten blog project, I made up a list of topics so that I could just pick one instead of having to come up with a topic AND something to say in the same day. I've used up most of the titles and there are just a couple left. This is one of them. There's a reason it was one of the last ones. I almost didn't do it, because I really AM scared of talking about politics, including talking ABOUT being scared of talking about politics it seems.

I have friends and family members all over the political spectrum. I love to learn from other people- about their experiences, their perspectives, and their beliefs. Sometimes they help me see a fuller picture, sometimes they even change my mind.

I appreciate thoughtful discussion that excludes name calling and arrogance. The kind of conversation that regards other people's thoughts and feelings with respect and care. I appreciate when people seek to understand each other, even and especially when they disagree. I appreciate when people are mindful about what words they choose to use. Not for the sake of just saying the correct thing, but for the sake of being kind and considerate to others who may see and experience the world differently than you do. And, I appreciate when people understand that we see and experience the world differently.

I have been blessed by many people who will have these kind of thoughtful and respectful conversations with me. I'm not as scared talking to them. We don't necessarily have to agree. Some of the most holy conversations for me have been with people that have widely different views from me and I have had the opportunity to learn from them and they from me. And the best part? We even liked each other afterwards!

A lot of the time though, these are not the political conversations that I see happening, particularly on the inter-webs.

I see a lot more yelling, And louder yelling over the already yelling people. Including the sneaky kind of yelling, which is to just shut down everyone else who disagrees with you.

You know what I want to do when you all are yelling? I want to scream really extra super loud or not talk at all.

Guys, please stop yelling. I don't hear you when you yell. And you definitely can't hear me. Why are we all so scared of listening?

And while we're at it, let's maybe own that those condescending political memes we've liked, shared, smiled at, texted to someone else, etc. don't help, either. We can do better.

Here's some good advice for when we're tempted the next time, which will be in the next 3 minutes or less:

If you're nice to me, I might even be brave enough to talk politics with you. No promises.

You should read Brene Brown's books

You should. It could change your life. If you haven't read any of Brene's stuff, I won't be able to describe it to you in a way that will necessarily make you want to read it. She's a shame researcher and has done a lot of work around shame and vulnerability. See what I mean? I get if you don't *want* to read her stuff, but if you push through your own resistance to words like "shame" and "vulnerability" and to my pushiness, you will be grateful you did it.

Here's what will likely happen if you read one or more of her books:

• you will cry
• you will want to be be braver or more brave, either or both
• you will understand why you get crazy mad or sad about things that don't matter as much to other people 
• you will understand when other people react like that, at least more often 
• you will face your deepest fears
• you will want to have a more thoughtful way of communicating with other people
• you will want stop making wide and shallow descriptions about people as often
• you will laugh a lot because she's super funny
• you will have some good perspectives to help you be a better leader, friend, sibling, co-worker, etc.
• you might even be more honest and more of yourself
• you will find that she says a lot of things that connect to faith too
• instead of trying to fix other peoples' problems, you might be empathetic instead.

If you don't like reading, she has two TED Talks you can watch: THIS ONE and THIS ONE.

Brene Brown is probably why I started a blog.

Things that I'm nostalgic about

I get super nostalgic about almost everything. I love tradition. I love remembering good days and seasons in life. In a weird way, I love missing people and good memories.

Here's a list of just a few things that make me feel this way:

1. Looking at old pictures
2. Christmas decorations
3. Changes in the seasons
4. Hot chocolate
5. Sitting by a fireplace
6. Looking at the sky- especially when there's a bunch of clouds or stars
7. A book, coffee, and sweatpants. That's also just a good day. It's nostalgic because it makes me miss one of my fav roommates and drinking coffee until noon with her most days. Although we had class, so it likely wasn't actually most days, but that's how I like to remember it happening.
8. Grandma and Grandpa's house
9. All the Christmas traditions
10. Family get-togethers
11. Hymns
12. When Harry Met Sally
13. Gene Autry Christmas songs 
14. Being with any friend and saying, "remember when...(insert funny thing that happened)"
15. Being in the sanctuary of almost every church, especially the small ones that smell like old books
16. Old books in general
17. The camp Jesse used to work at
18. CLU
19. The swings at CLU right next to the old football field.
20. Dad's dishes songs (these are the songs that my dad would jam to with his boombox while doing the dishes, shirtless, in front of the window) including: Journey, REO Speedwagon, Queen, Richard Marx, and Boston.
21. Mr. Big's jam, "I'm the one who wants to be with you"
22. A zillion other songs from various stages in life
23. Twinkly lights
24. Disneyland!
25. Sitting outside on really sunny, beautiful days

Well, that's only 25 things. But hang out with me for an hour and you'll know about a zillion more things. 

A Short Story

You’ve never heard of the Pipsqueaks? You’re kidding? No, it’s not just a silly name for short people. Where else would they have come up with that name? The word Pipsqueak derived from the tiny gnome-like people that were told to have lived long ago, but most people have misplaced their history. Otherwise you would have known. If we’re lucky enough to been heard of, most think we’re just folklore and to be categorized with the leprechauns, unicorns, and jackalopes. It’s a shame, really. We’ve existed for thousands of years.

Oh yes, that’s right. Let’s get on with it, then. I must be the first Pipsqueak you’ve met, then, yes? Should I just tell my story then? Is mic loud enough? It better be, it’s about the size of my head. Right, right, let’s get on with it.

Good afternoon. My name is Mr. McDougal.

My whole life, I’ve wanted to have an opportunity to speak to you all. Since I was little kid even. I remember seeing these two kids about my age and they were playing in the woods and building a fort. They were laughing and teasing each other and I just wanted to join in. But we were to be in hiding. It was the Pipsqueak way. It was understood that we were never to be seen by you all, or our safety would be compromised.

Sir. Yes, you. In the second row. Don’t look so surprised! How were we to know what you all would do?

Where was I? Yes, I remember that day so well. We were living in our underground home at the time and I must have had my head poking out just a few inches to see what they were doing. Mother whacked my head faster and harder than I ever saw coming. She looked at me and she said, “Don’t you ever, ever, ever let them see you. Do you understand? They will hurt you given the chance.” She never had to tell me again. But, I never stopped wanting to meet you all.

Why am I here? Why now? I said I’ve always wished to meet you all, but you could also call it my dying wish. I know, that sounds dramatic, but it’s true. The end is drawing near for me. We all know it. I’m an old man and my bones are getting brittle and my body’s weak. And, I’m just plain tired.

I was lying in bed just the other night. The arthritis was particularly bad that day and I just felt so old. You know there are some days when you know you in your mind that you’re getting old and other days where your body can’t keep quiet about it. My body could not keep quiet, it was yelling from my joints, my back...

It dawned on me. I could die. Believe it or not I hadn’t thought about it much before that. One thing lead to another and I started to think about my life and moments along the way. My daughter marrying her sweetheart. My boy holding his momma’s hand. Or playing ball with him, and then his son once he became a father himself. I saw my bride take her last breaths after 48 wonderful years together and smiled with gratitude for getting to know her for so long.

But then I looked around at the walls of my modest home. Six feet under the surface.

Why are you laughing? Six feet under? Is that a phrase you use? Oh! Oh you’re kidding! What irony! Well, it is six feet under the ground. That’s pretty standard for Pipsqueak homes. We’re not very tall, we don’t need much more than that.

Why was I talking about my house? This is why I must meet you now, so I can at least remember you all for a little while.

The house...was underground. Why I was I telling you that? It was underground, that’s right! It was underground. What I’m trying to say is it dawned on me that so many of my memories, so much of my life was underground or out of sight. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a wonderful life. But now that my wife is gone and my kids are grown and having babies of their own, I’m starting to wonder if I don’t want the next months or years or whatever I’ve got left to be hidden anymore.

That day I told you about earlier about my mother again smacking me on the head telling me to stay out of sight, well I thought about that again. And I thought, I’ve only got a little time left to find out if she was right.

So here I am. I want you to know who the Pipsqueaks are... or at least me. I think the rest of them are still a bit timid. Might be for some time.

I’m here. And I’m real!

When you forgot about us, you turned our name into a word to describe someone as small or insignificant. Perhaps you were right. Ha ha ha, well definitely the small part… or perhaps you all are just too tall? Have you thought of that? I can’t say that you should think us significant either, with us being hidden so long.

All this to say, Hello. Nice to meet you. Finally. Thank you for seeing me.

Seasons

One of the things that I love most about living in the Midwest is that there are seasons. I had never actually seen fall before I moved to Minnesota. It's beautiful.

Here's some pics of seasons that I took over the last 7.5 years of MN and WI. I'm starting with spring, because it's spring.

I want to be...

I think it's good to want to grow and stretch and see potential in ourselves. Here's some things I want to be- all the time or just sometime or just more of:

1. Brave
2. Someone trustworthy
3. A good friend
4. Someone that makes people laugh, maybe even someone that makes people cry laugh
5. An astronaut, if I didn't get so motion sickness. And if I had money for astronaut school.
6. A barista
7. Pastor/Bartender. No one would ever believe me. Plus side, they'd have to stop asking me if I were old enough to be a pastor. Maybe. Or maybe I'd just get asked twice as often in various contexts.
8. A mom
9. An Auntie (wink wink, nudge nudge Kris)
10. Someone who stands up for other people
11. Co-creator of a camp or retreat center with Jesse
12. Co-creator of a sandwich shop with Jesse
13. Co-creator of some other kind of awesome ministry with Jesse
14. Co-creator of some bar and grill that has a sweet (sweet as in awesome) fry bar with Jesse (believe it or not, we have many many other business ideas, including "rent a dog")
15. A Grandma!! 
16. Someone that has made a difference in other peoples' lives (like in a good way)
17. Less selfish and/or like attention a little less
18. A rollerblader. Not like a professional. Just someone who rollerblades around town for fun. 
19. More like my super awesome sisters
20. Someone who knows how to play guitar and will occasionally and casually sing in coffee shops
21. Advocate for the marginalized
22. Someone who shares
23. More grateful, less needy
24. Owner and user of a gym membership
25. Able to give to others without expectation
26. An author. Just of one book probably. Just to say I did it. And because I have a cool idea for a book. I would have to stop writing in fragments. That would be tough. 
27. A better listener.
28. Number three, but even better.
29. Optimistic 
30. Hopeful
31. Faithful
32. A Great Grandma. That's a double meaning. I mean both.
33. Someone who is not scared to offer sympathy and care to those who are grieving, even if I don't know what to say. If there's anything to say at all.
34. Someone who is willing to have hard conversations.
35. Joyful
36. Creative
37. Gracious
38. Spanish speaker. I thought of that because I wrote the word gracious and thought it looked like gracias. But I really want to be fluent in Spanish one day. Necessito practicar con duolingo en mi telefono. 
39. A supportive wife
40. Someone who reads the newspaper every day

Things I miss about home.

I love so many things about being in the Midwest, but I also miss so many things about my first home in California, like:

• Chilly mornings that turn into hot afternoons
• Hiking all the time
• Not needing to own a real coat
• Hot sauce at every table at every restaurant
• So many of my best friends from growing up and from college
• My mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins and all the family
• Good Mexican food
• Sunshine all the time
• The sound of cars going by at nighttime
• My BFFs' families that are like second families to me
• Ascension Lutheran Church
• California Lutheran University
• The ocean
• Mountains
• DISNEYLAND
• Hot, dry summers
• Togo's Sandwiches, specifically the number 24 on sourdough
• Family birthday parties where inevitably someone will crumple up the wrapping paper and we will all throw it at each other for like 20 mins
• Grandma and Grandpa's house, especially their fireplace, patio, and den.
• Eggs n Things
• The possibility of running into celebrities
• The beach, again
• The 118 just before Granada Hills
• Sitting outside year round
• Good guacamole
• Avocados on everything
• Not having to dry my hair before walking outside
• Flip flops as nice shoes
• The Coffee Bean
• In and Out. I don't miss In and Out as much as I miss the opportunity to go to it.
• So many oak trees (it makes sense since I grew up in Thousand Oaks)
• Ventura Harbor

There are lots of things that I don't miss (like traffic, rude people, everything is the most expensive), but that's not what this post is about.

Pizza Luce Brunch

Tonight I went to Pizza Luce with my sis and it was delicious. I had one of the best sandwiches of my life. It was a meatball sandwich on focaccia bread. 

Pizza Luce is great for a lot of reasons. Particularly three reasons. 

1. It's where I met my husband.

2. They have a bunch of non-dairy options.

And most importantly,

3. Their weekend brunch.

They make the best breakfast burrito in the world. It's also the most expensive breakfast burrito in the world. But when you take your first bite with chorizo and some kind of spicy sauce, you'd be willing to give up your paycheck for this burrito.

I always get mine with fake eggs and dairy because I'm allergic and they are so accommodating that they have substitutes. I always ask for the vegan option but with real meat. It's never not been confusing and they almost always make it wrong the first time. But the second time is so good it makes up for waiting forever.

For a side item, you get jalapeño hash browns. Those exist. They also have pretty cheap mimosas if you like needing to nap most of the day after brunch. 

I can pretty much only speak to the meal that I order when I go, because I like it too much to try other things. I'm sure other items on the menu are good too, but I'll probably never find out for sure.

Sermon Writing Process

I'm preaching this weekend, so I will tell you about my sermon "writing" process.

When I first started preaching, I would spend somewhere around 20 hours writing. It's possible it was more. I learned that I'm a perfectionist. I didn't know before, but I definitely am. Also, despite starting a blog, writing doesn't come easy to me, so I'd go over it and over it and over it and pick at it until it was right. Then I'd read it mostly word for word in front of the congregation.

One time in my senior preaching class, I caught senioritis. I had to present my sermon to my small group in class that day and I just couldn't think of anything to say, and the whole senioritis wasn't inspiring me to try very hard. Finally it was like thirty minutes before class and I really didn't have a sermon. I wrote down a few bullet points of where I was hoping to go, prayed, and then gave a more extemporaneous/ slightly impromptu sermon. One of my friends in the small group said, "That was one of your better sermons!" And I said, "you've got to be kidding me." Turns out that my delivery is a zillion times better when I'm not reading. I haven't preached from a manuscript on a Sunday morning since that class. 

I don't want to wing it like I did in my seminary class and I don't think I should be spending 20+ hours writing, so I've come up with a different way that seems to work for me.

Here's what I do:

First I read all the assigned bible verses of the day and see which one grabs me the most. Sometimes I'll incorporate two readings, but usually I try to stick to one so we don't all get too confused. Then I read it a bunch and think about it a bunch.

At our weekly worship planning meetings, we try to hone in a particular message/theme/idea to focus on for the day. We usually do this a few weeks ahead of time, but I don't really flesh it out until the week of when I'm working on the sermon. I keep thinking about the text and theme for days. 

Thursday I'm usually mulling through commentaries, online discussions in the Young Clergy Women Project Facebook page, looking at Greek words, and talking through some ideas. In a perfect world, I would be done and practicing it at this point, but so far that's happened only once or twice in 7 years.

Friday is my day off, so I try really hard to not work on my sermon so that I can have rest and good boundaries, even if it makes me anxious that I'm not finished. I still think about it every other minute though.

The next step in the process is called, "pacing". This step almost always happens on Saturday right after a cup of coffee and an episode of House Hunters. We have a 5:30 service on Saturday, so I have to figure it out by then. Pacing is when I pace around a room talking to myself. Usually it's my living room and kitchen. Instead of typing words on a computer screen in a way that I could imagine them being said, I write it in my head by saying sentences to myself until they sound right. 

I try to put all of the pieces that I've come up with in the right order. Sometimes I'm talking to myself for hours until it seems right. I practice transitions and stories and the introduction a lot.

I write out a few bullet points and include a few sentences that I can't forget to say so the transitions work. 

When I give the sermon, I know where I want to go, but I'm not always sure how it will come out. I pray a lot. I think some of that not being totally certain of which words I'll use leaves more room for the Holy Spirit to get the words right for people to hear. I hope anyways.

My sermon endings can be a little abrupt. Part of that is because I figure, once you've said it, you don't need keep saying it for 5 more minutes. Also I kind of like that they're abrupt. You know how when you're listening to a song in the car and you just can't get yourself to get out of the car until the song resolves or ends. If you don't wait, the song just kind of lingers with you. You sing it all day. I want the message to linger. I kind of want this discomfort of missing this perfectly beautiful ending. Maybe they'll even keep being bothered by it all day? And then have to think about it? Maybe!

The last step is "the nap". This is tiring (and so fun!), so sometimes I've got to sleep for a while! 

THE END!