I’m past the one month mark of my self-created sabbatical.  The first few weeks were wonderful.  It was a slow sloughing of accumulated stress through simple living, almost like shedding dead skin with a gentle exfoliating lotion.  I was surprised at how quickly I recovered from the pressure of my job, my subsequent resignation, and then some frantic packing and moving across the country from Pennsylvania to Arizona. 

It’s an extravagance to be able to leave work behind and just be.  I don’t do much that matters these days.  Besides paying two monthly bills, there is nothing I have to do.  I’ve built a loose structure for my days: breakfast, exercise, shower, read, lunch, read, maybe some TV or computer time and then make dinner for my parents.  It’s a pretty simple set-up and the repetition makes it soothing.  I need soothing because all this mundane, as nice as it is, is making me antsy.

When I left my job, I decided to take a sabbatical until July.  By definition my sabbatical would be marked by the absence of work, giving me the time, space and quiet needed to heal.  I told myself I didn’t have to job hunt for short or long-term work, especially since I have plenty of money saved.  It sounded great, a release from the strain of employment, from the anxiety of unemployment and the thousands of have-tos and shoulds that swill in our stomachs and can make us sick.  I’ve discovered that sabbatical is a wonderful gift but it is hard to indulge in – it’s like being served a whole cheesecake after years of rationed meals served from unmarked tin cans.  It feels sinfully decadent, selfish, and partially irresponsible to give myself so much rest. 

A starving person who stuffs themselves at the first sight of food often gets sick, throwing up all those desperately needed nutrients.  The image is a little graphic, but I often feel the urge to regurgitate all this good rest and replace it for the scraps of busyness, stress, responsibility, and expectation that kept me (barely) alive for so long.  I’ve limited job searching to a casual surf of the web once or twice a week, but a dangerous undercurrent of anxiety whispers that if I don’t search more I might miss a great opportunity, maybe even my dream job.  Maybe it is just the stark contrast of life pre and post-sabbatical that is making me uncomfortable.  Maybe it’s the news reports about continued high unemployment that gives me a rising sense of urgency.  Was I deluded to quit my job in this economy and am I even crazier to stay cocooned in this sabbatical for another month? 

What calms me when I get dizzy from all these considerations is the belief that time is a unique and necessary gift that I’ve given back to myself.  This rest is good.  With a simple daily life I have unlimited space to care for myself.  But simple is not always easy.  The lack of stuff in my life leaves a subtle layer of unease, especially when I drive past the employment office on the corner or the day laborers grouped in abandoned parking lots. 

I’m breathing deeply these days.  On the exhale I remind myself that I will leave this safe place soon enough and be a responsible citizen again.  I inhale and resist the urge to push this sabbatical away.  I’d never give back my family, my education or my KitchenAid mixer, some of the best gifts I’ve ever received.  So I’m determined to not reject this rest, however indulgent it feels.

I’m 29, unemployed and spending Saturday night watching “Twenty-Seven Dresses” with my parents in a two bedroom apartment that the three of us share.  That could be the opening line of a drugstore novel, but this is my non-fictional life.  In March I gave two weeks notice at my job of four years, said many tearful goodbyes and left Pennsylvania.  There were a few places that I could have gone to live, or I could have traveled around for a while.  Instead, I packed up and moved across the country again, this time to Arizona, and into a small apartment with my parents. 

I haven’t lived with mom and dad since I left for college twelve years ago.  I wondered what it would be like to live with them again.  Starting life from scratch in four different cities has shaped me into a very independent person.  I’m used to living on my own with things just the way I like them.  I wondered if I, or they, would have trouble adjusting to living together again – three adults, one bathroom, stubbornness, quirks and preferences all stuffed into 840 square feet. 

Three and a half weeks into our new arrangement and I’d rank this an A+ experience.  Why in the world was I concerned?  These are the people who not only enjoy my company, they love me unconditionally.  Through countless points on my life map, my parents have given me true consideration, honesty, wisdom and support.  They may not always fully understand or agree with me, but at the end of the day, full understanding and agreement seem unnecessary fringe benefits to the core of life, which is love. 

Pam and Kim have given me an abundance of love.  Today we took a mini road-trip to the mountains and we saw a man rinsing out a car seat liner at a rest area because his daughter had “an accident.”  My parents chuckled and reminisced about potty training me.  Apparently I loved to wash my hands so I would ask to go to the bathroom everywhere we went.  That must have taken a lot of patience.  Mom and dad loved me enough to let me move from Ohio to California for college; they never hold me back from any adventure, even when it takes me far from them.  When I totaled their car and called home sore and distraught, dad’s only concerns were for my safety.  There is a ton of love in our relationship, but it doesn’t always have a warm fuzzy feeling.

When I had my first loose tooth, mom tackled me to the living room floor and held me down for fifteen minutes trying desperately to get her fingers in my mouth.  She was strong and firm.  I fought back with stubbornness fueled by terror.  I wouldn’t open my mouth to any of her requests, commands, or force.  Finally she let me go and told me she was going to the grocery store and that I better have that tooth pulled out by the time she got back or I would be opening my mouth.  The deal was struck with the close of the garage door and I ran to the bathroom mirror.  Over the next half hour, I slowly pushed the tooth back and forth, only far enough to touch the edge of pain.  As the time ticked down my desperation and wiggling grew. I got the tooth out before mom got back, thankfully, but I had no pride in winning our battle of wills.  Mom would have hurt me when she yanked the tooth, but her way would have been less physically and emotionally painful than my self-inflicted agony.  Instead of forcing me to her will, she stepped back and gave me space which allowed me to (eventually) learn an important lesson. 

The people we love hurt us.  We hurt the people we love.  But there are no true relationships without pain and hurt.  Love means recognizing the good intentions of others and sometimes you have to look really hard to see love.  It may be the cause or result, or both, of pain.  Acceptance, challenge, support, difficulty – all these things can be love.  I could probably write a book about what I have learned about love and much of the heart of that book would be stories about my parents.  On this Mother’s Day weekend, I’m happy that I made a home with my parents again.  The love here is good.

I planted my feet in the mulch at the bottom of the telephone pole, tightened my helmet for the tenth time and firmly set my hands on my harnessed hips.  I expelled my breath slowly and leaned my head all the way back.  Thirty-five feet is a long way to climb straight up, especially when all you have to get you to the top are some rungs that look like human-sized staples and your own strength.  I took another deep breath and watched two co-workers Andy and Ben play around at the top like monkeys.  It was August and I was part of a group of ten professionals at a high ropes course for a team building experience.  Though it looked fun, I was uncertain because I didn’t know if I would make it to the top.  I hadn’t exercised regularly in months.  I spent the summer working as a hospital chaplain, which requires strength and endurance, but a very different sort.  Would my meager physical resources be enough to heft me to the top?

There is little use puzzling or worrying over a challenge before you begin – generally challenges are only fully understood and met when engaged.  So I took a few more deep breaths, gave myself a final pep talk, and began my climb.  It was a steady ascent for the first twenty feet.  The staples were just far enough apart that I had to use both my upper and lower body strength to climb each rung.  Half way up the pole I took a little breather and smiled down at my co-workers and friends.  I was encouraged.  Even though my heart was pumping fast, my hands felt a little raw, and my feet ached against the metal ledges that supported me, I was impressed that I made it this far with relative ease.  With my friends calling their support, I looked up again and resumed my climb.  Only fifteen feet to go. 

The farther I climbed, the more challenging the climb became.  My heart’s pumping turned into pounding.  My hands felt swollen and clumsy and became so sweaty they couldn’t securely grip the staples.  The balls of my feet screamed against the weight of my body.  But I kept going.  After twelve more feet, I had to rest again.  By now my face was bright red and my breathing labored.  The platform mocked me even though it was closer than ever.  The calls from my coworkers on the ground had changed from “wow” and “great job” to “you’re almost there” and “keep going!”  My optimism faded to sheer focus and determination.  Only a few more feet.  “I can do this,” I told myself.

I reached up with my right hand, strained with my legs and made it to the next rung.  That one step took more effort than the first twenty.  Gritting my teeth, I reached up again, pulled and pushed, and this time let out a yell.  I made it to the next rung with my heart slamming against my sternum.  I started to feel nauseous.  My mouth was dry, my vision blurry.  I heard nothing but my own grunts and the blood that pumped passed my ears.  My muscles started to quiver as I strained and screamed my way to the next rung.  I was just below the metal platform.  Ben’s hand was stretched toward me, just beyond my reach.   I wanted to get to the top, to complete the challenge, but my shaking legs couldn’t hold me up anymore and my arms were wrapped around the pole in a death grip.  My friends on the ground kept yelling that I only had a few feet to go.  They all believed I could make it; I knew I couldn’t.   I had reached the limits of my strength.  Between gasped breaths, I yelled to the instructor that I was coming down.  I peeled my arms and legs from around the pole and slowly walked down its length to collapse on the ground. 

I lay there with my eyes closed and limbs stretched wide, feeling spasms work their way through each muscle group.  Friends leaned over me, offering to help me up.  I assured them that I was okay, but that I couldn’t move yet.  I had to focus on breathing and recovering.  The mulch was my gurney for a good five minutes.  I slowly sat up and pulled myself into a nearby chair where I watched as seven other people climbed the pole and reached the platform.  I felt shaky and worn and completely satisfied. 

The temptation was to believe that I failed.  Somehow our culture or something else ungodly has convinced us that only perfection or completion are acceptable and worthy of praise.  Perfection and completion are weighty absolutes and if we live only by these standards most of us are doomed to feelings of failure and inadequacy.  If we push ourselves too hard to win or succeed or be perfect, we risk wounding ourselves in ways that we may not recover from.  I could have looked up at that pole and told myself that I failed, that I was weak, a quitter and been ashamed for giving up.  I could have continued to push myself physically just to prove something I didn’t need to prove and hurt myself.  All this would have been a waste of time. 

In loving myself, I focus on the success of every one of the thirty-four feet that I conquered.  I believe in the wisdom of recognizing limitations – I am healthy today because I listened to mine and stepped down.  I remember my high ropes adventure with satisfaction because whether I view the thirty-four feet from the top or the bottom, it is the same, great distance.

My friend Joni recently sent me a prayer.  It’s a beautiful prayer, a poem really, reflecting things I have been thinking through and experiencing.  Clearly Joni understands me and can empathize.  It is good to have such friends.

Circle me, Lord.  These words begin three stanzas of Joni’s prayer for me.  Her words made me think of old western movies in which pioneers cross the frontier, a vast, uncharted and unfamiliar wilderness.  The pioneers were vulnerable to attack of all kinds – other humans, strong storms, snake bite, starvation, accidents, stampedes.  The iconic image from western movies is the wagon circle.  If pioneers circled their wagons, they were protected from external threats.  Inside the circle, they fellowshipped.   No western is complete without a scene where a few women and men sit around a campfire in the middle of a wagon circle and share their stories, offer encouragement and comfort for the arduous journey.

Last week I took a trip to Boston to visit my friend Karen.  I drove eight hours through a Nor’easter with pounding rain and winds so high they pushed my little car toward the shoulder and then back toward the median.  When it got dark, it was hard to see lines on the wet road.  After eight tense hours I reached Karen’s house knotted and exhausted.  I stood in the rain on her back porch with my bags hanging off my shoulders and wrists.  I rang the bell and Karen came running out of the living room into the kitchen.  I could see her smiling through the glass door.  She opened the door and then her arms.  I dropped my bags, stepped out of the rain and into her hug.  Karen is one of the best huggers I know.  When her arms come around you they say something.  Her embrace said, “Welcome.  I’m glad you are here.  I love you.”

If you read my last post, you know that life has been challenging lately.  I’m burned out and with that come tiredness and mood swings.  I’ve had lots of difficult conversations and there have been more tears shed than I would like.  What usually restores me for a week sometimes only helps for an hour or two.  I’m craving quiet, peaceful sleep, laughter, a cuddle with my nieces, worship and most of all the nourishment of Communion.  Three weeks ago, in a meeting with a spiritual director, I was asked what I thought God’s message was to me in this wilderness.  I didn’t know the answer then.  I do now.  Sometimes a message is action, not words.

I’m circled by the love of God.  It’s a feeling as real and wholesome as the bread and wine that I eat and drink each Sunday.  God’s arms are wide for me as he welcomes me in from the storm.  I drop my baggage and walk into his embrace.  God wraps me in his arms, gentle and firm, and protects me from harm.  God sits across from me, hears my story, shares his own and offers me comfort.  Don’t think this is metaphorical.

Jesus circles me along a dangerous and draining journey.  God’s embrace proves his words – I am the bread of life.  You will never hunger or thirst.  I will never drive you away.  I will not lose you.

My thanks to so many of you who have circled me – Joni, Karen, Kim, Pam, Brandon, Holly, Ashley, Stephanie, Amber, Eldon, Jen, Amy and Doug.

Five days into Lent, two hours after lunch and all I can think about is how hungry I am.  I’m not craving bread or chips or chocolate.  I’m want things much more important and satisfying than food.  I’m hungry for things to be different, to be better, to be whole.

I encounter a lot of ugliness in my job.  Slander, malice, deceit, harassment, abuse, assault, prejudice, racism, addiction and drunkenness – that’s a long and very dirty laundry list of things to not only witness  but to deal with on a regular basis.  Usually I deal with these things with a good measure of compassion and a generous dose of care.  This week I’m discouraged and anxious.  I feel shriveled, weak and very, very hungry.

I’m hungry for truth.  I want to see someone with the courage to be honest – to simply admit when they have made a mistake, even if it’s a really huge mistake, even when consequences are looming.  I want to be confident that when I ask what happened, that I hear the truth rather than a story.  Don’t give me shaded or slanted truth – that’s not really truth.  I want clarity and straight answers; instead, I’m fed lies.

I’m desperate for justice and right relationship.  Far too often I see people tearing at each other, leaving a path of destruction everywhere.   Why, after four years of honest confrontation and difficult conversations have I seen so little change or positive outcomes?   Faithful servants are far too often kicked and bruised for their integrity.  There is a wolf in pit of my stomach.  It’s growling, uneasy, stirring.  It’s far from satisfied.

I’m starving for reparation.   Apologies are inadequate.  Anyone can say the words “I’m sorry” and mean nothing.  Can these two words heal the defamation of being called a schizo or a whore in front of a roomful of strangers?  Does an apology mean anything to a person who has been cursed at and physically intimidated?

I’m famished and frustrated.  Sometimes I think that the risks of work in the trenches far outweigh the potential gain.  I know this is not true, but it feels true.  It says something when my optimistic and joyful spirit is diminished.  It means something when we mourn more than we celebrate.  Scripture says that there is time for everything, a time for both mourning and celebration.  Mourning seems to be reigning lately.  That feels defeating.

I can’t sit here forever, feeling wasted and wanting and raw, but I don’t know what else to do.  Without sustenance, where do I get the energy to pursue the other, to hunt for something better, to chase after things that are whole?  This hunger scrapes and claws at my guts.  Inside I’m aching, with deep hollow spaces and an abiding hunger.

Is this what Jesus felt like in the desert, alone and hungry for forty days, tempted and attacked by his Enemy?  Maybe Lent this year is an opportunity for me to discover that hunger, though painful and awful, is not pointless.  Perhaps what we hunger for, and just how deeply we crave it, can be signs of a healthy spirit?  Right now, in my Lenten desert, all I know for sure is that I’m ravenous.

We’ve been told lies about ourselves.  Depending on our frame of mind when these lies are told, we may or may not be able to respond in a healthy way.   Sometimes, in unfortunate times, we take the lies to heart and they change our lives.  Lies can shape our self-perception and determine what we believe ourselves capable of.   Lies limit us and belittle us; they make us fear and doubt.  Lies are powerful because they parade as truth.  Lies have enough of the sheen or smell of truth to make us believe that they are real, like a scarlet carnation placed brazenly in a bouquet of lover’s roses.  It takes a discerning eye to distinguish between what is true and what is false.

When I was a little girl, I rode the bus to school.  My relentless bully G.W. rode the same bus.  Whenever he was near, G.W. teased me, threw crabapples at me, sang mean songs about me, called me names and made the other boys laugh and point at me.  He was nasty and cruel but somehow lots of our classmates like G.W..  One unfortunate day we had to share a seat on the bus.  To my everlasting shock, G.W. struck up a friendly conversation.  Surprised that he was talking to me like a real person, I talked back.  I even made him laugh.  At the end of our conversation G.W. said, “You know Corrie, you could be really popular if you hung out with cooler people.  You know, just got different friends.”

All of the sudden life seemed pretty rosy.  Here was one of the “coolest” kids in school telling me that I had what it took to be popular.  A few seconds later reality hit me like the stench of last week’s garbage piled in a hot garage.  G.W.’s comment was a big, stinking lie.  The lie was not that I could be popular, but that being popular mattered.  Though G.W.’s words courted me with visions of life being loved and admired by everyone, he offered me a worthless promise.  I loved my friends; they were kind to me and we always had fun.  If being popular meant abandoning loyal friends for cruel G.W. and his pack of meanies, then I wanted nothing to do with popularity.  For a few moments the lie tempted and flattered, but ultimately, I saw it for what it was.

The ironic thing is, not all lies are meant to deceive.   Some lies are obvious and their purpose is to intimidate, to harm and to maim.  These lies are like giant clubs swinging toward your head at the hands of a herculean warrior.  Even if you sense danger, there isn’t time to get out-of-the-way.  Suddenly you’re hit, knocked to the ground, breathless and wounded.

When I was a young woman I made a friend named Alice.  Though we were absolutely nothing alike, Alice became my best friend.  She loved me, cared for me and understood me better than any friend I’d ever had.  Like all relationships, ours had its difficulties.  A series of squabbles left underlying tension.  Then one week Alice was sick and I was overwhelmed with schoolwork.  I stayed away so Alice could rest and sleep and so I could get some projects done.  I didn’t know that Alice expected me to take care of her.  My friend felt abandoned and was so upset that she refused to speak to me.  Instead, she wrote me a letter.  Alice said that I was a horrible friend, that I could not call myself a Christian because I didn’t stay and take care of her.  She wrote several hundred slicing and hateful words.  Instantly, I knew that she wrote out of anger and misunderstanding.  I knew her words were lies not to be taken into account, but they hurt.  I cried for hours.  I was numb for days.  I was sad for weeks.  I never imagined that my best friend could say such horrible and untrue things about me, to me.  I kept telling myself that they were lies, but I couldn’t shield myself from the hurt they caused.  Despite many attempts at mending, our friendship never fully recovered from that incident.  We quickly drifted apart and are no longer friends.

It seems that the older I get, the more I understand the power and potency of lies.  They can change the course of our lives, sometimes for good, but often for bad.  Lies are everywhere – spoken by friends and strangers, hidden in all forms of media and advertising.  I wish there were special contact lenses that I could wear to discern between the truth and lies.  I wish I had a magic force field that protected my heart from the destructions that lies have caused in my life.  Often, I’m blind and weak.  But I’m fighting back.

These days, I teeter like a seesaw between confidence and uncertainty.  I’m job searching and about to make a career change.  After four years as a college student development professional, I’m looking for a pastoral position, hopefully in a church.  That sounds like a drastic and random switch, but if you know me well, it’s not so surprising.  Job searching is a nerve-wracking time vacuum that can cause a lot of self-doubt.  Generally, I’m a confident person, but these days, uncertainty seems to linger close by.

This is a bad time to be looking for work.   The economic crisis has hit almost every sector of the American workforce.  Professional ministry is no exception.  There are fewer churches with openings across the country but lots of eager applicants.  One church that I applied to emailed to say that they received “an overwhelming number of applications” and would soon begin the phone interview process.  I wonder how many is “overwhelming?”  40?  70?

Then there is the disheartening question of qualification.  Do I have the experience, skill and gifts to become a pastor?  Yes I do.  I know who I am.  I’ve received affirmation and encouragement to pursue a pastoral position.   I’ve been profoundly shaped by challenge and struggle and experience within the church but still want to serve the there.  I understand and live out a clear sense of calling.  I’m qualified.  But, how do I show potential churches that I am qualified when I only have three measly pages of space to make myself stand out among an “overwhelming” number of applicants?

Add to this mix my unconventional path to the pulpit.  I didn’t go to college to become a pastor; I went to college to become an actress.  My education and professors pushed and prodded me to consider another type of drama – the drama between God and humanity – and to act in a different way, to encourage and help broken and hurting people.   I changed my major from Theatre to Biblical Studies.  A few years later, I went to seminary.  Attending seminary was not a means to the pastoral end for me, as it is for so many.  I did not view my education like I would a train ticket, as though I could simply buy my passage and ride my way from lay person to pastor.  I embraced my education as a wonderful and privileged opportunity to continue studying the word of God while carefully wading into the turbulent waters of ministry.  After I graduated, I worked at a greenhouse and made minimum wage.  Then I got a job as a residence director at a college.

I’m confident that along every turn and twist of my path I have lived out my calling.  However, few things about me and my journey have been conventional when compared to other pastors.   I have worshipped and worked in a variety of denominations.  I don’t have a decided, biblically backed-up opinion on all theologically controversial topics, which many churches (and pastors) seem to expect pastors to have.  I don’t love C.S. Lewis, nor do I feel it is my Christian obligation to read all of his work.  I believe that pastors should be paid a fair, living wage according to their experience and education.  Oh, and did I mention I am a woman?

Being a woman makes this pastoral job hunt feel almost futile.  Picture this:  I’m an adventurer dropped deep in the Amazon jungle.  Survival here means that I must catch wild game.  No matter how fast I run, how silently I stalk, how sharp my machete, how exact my aim, or how agile my attack, I’ll never succeed.  It doesn’t matter that I have a calm head and all the right tools for the hunt.  Why, you ask?  Look down and see why it is nearly impossible for me to succeed – someone has cut off my hands.

I have no qualms about being a woman and a pastor.  God made me female and knit me together with skills and gifts, particular experiences and desires.  God has called me by name to serve, to lead, to nurture, to teach, to pastor.  But perhaps you can imagine that my job search is much more challenging because I am female.  If you can’t imagine, take twenty minutes and search a Christian career website and read a few pastoral job descriptions.  You’ll quickly see how many descriptions either subtly suggest or explicitly say that only men need apply.

I keep searching.  I’m frustrated; I’m hopeful.  I’m excited; I’m scared.  I see my unique experiences as an asset, will others?  Yes…no…maybe…uh, I don’t know.  I can’t control the thoughts of other people, the economy, or the outcome.  Even if I could, I wouldn’t go back and change the route of my life.  Each bend, straight and narrow on this road have made me who I am.  I really like who I am.  I can only walk ahead and do what I can do.  Maybe along the way I’ll learn to trust.  Hopefully.

There are only two hours left this decade.  I’m sitting at my grandparent’s dining room table with 25 nutcrackers looking over my right shoulder.  Over my left shoulder, a group of 12 miniature carolers, circa 1950, are wrapped up in their winter woolens along the corner table.  One of the carolers, a young girl at the edge of the group, is tilted back against the miniature street lamp, her mouth hanging open in song.  I wonder if she had too much grog before she took to the streets?  The living room has been transformed into a city of glowing miniature cottages surrounded by snow made of cotton batting.  Despite every corner of this house covered in Christmas, it is New Year’s Eve and time to reminisce.

Top Trips of 2009…in no particular ranking order

1. January break’s annual “girl’s weekend” with my female coworkers.  This year we ventured down to Williamsburg, Virginia. 
2. A thriving friendship with college roommates Monica and Elizabeth had me eagerly hopping a plane to California in March.  I got to meet Monica’s daughter Signey and the four of us spent days gabbing, laughing and visiting all of our old haunts.  I also got to spend a few days in Yorba Linda with Kirsten, a good friend that I made my sophomore year of college.  Kirsten was the first person to ever call me “Gus.”
3. Spring break, Thanksgiving and Christmas in Michigan with Brandon, Kara and my nieces.
4. In July, my cousin Krissa and I took a road trip together to see our grandparents.  My parents met us in NE Ohio and we had a great time laughing, playing quadruple solitaire and chatting over a mammoth jigsaw puzzle.
5. My cousin Jessie took some precious time off and came out to visit me in PA.  She’s a busy nursing student and it meant a lot that she would make the effort to come and see me. 
6. A long weekend with my parents in Columbus.  My days visiting the Buckeye capital are numbered as they prepare to move to Arizona in 2010.
7. Baltimore X 3: a day trip with my neighbor and friend Ashley, an evening with college friend Nicole and her husband, a weekend with my aunt Marcia including a baby shower for my cousin Linsey.

Foolish Moments, 2009

1. Kara loves to tell the story of how I forgot to stretch after we attended a grueling conditioning class at her gym.  I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain.  I couldn’t lift my arms for two days.  I’m not kidding.  I was so stiff and sore that I couldn’t shampoo or brush my hair, it was difficult to put in my contacts and I couldn’t lift my nieces.
2. I took my cousin to my favorite Chinese restaurant.  During the meal I put way too much hot mustard on my egg roll.  I cried for 10 minutes.  I used both of our napkins to staunch the flow from my nose.  I couldn’t taste a thing the rest of the meal.
3. While playing a trivia game with friends I made a few blunders.  One round was about the Taj Mahal and clues hinted this “thing” was built entirely by hand and listed its construction dates in a previous century.  I yelled, “The Hoover Dam!” 
4. Same trivia game.  The answer was “porpoise.”  Clues were that it was a large mammal, often mistaken for a whale, lives in shallow water, travels in a pack, etc.  I had the word porpoise on the tip of my tongue.  Instead, I yelled, “platypus!” 

Top experiences of 2009

1. Giving up my summer to learn a hundred lessons as a hospital chaplain.
2. Being with my new niece Kherington, born September 11th.  It’s a tie between having her fall asleep in my arms or smile at me. 
3. Dancing with my nieces Kennedy and Kingsley.  Kingsley and I came up with a signature move that would impress cirque de soleil choreographers.
4. Winning a free cruise to the Bahamas!
5. Women’s lunch.  Every Tuesday I meet up with my female coworkers for lunch.  We laugh, share, encourage and eat.  We also play with my niece Seraphina, which makes it extra-special.
6. Spending 11+ hours each week with my wonderful staff of students. 
7. Celebrating my 29th birthday with friends Ashley and Nicole.  We had Indian food (my favorite) and rented movies.
8. Climbing to the top of a 50 foot tower.  I wasn’t sure I would make it 10 feet, let alone to the top.
9. Starting a blog.
10. Helping teach a First-Year Seminar called “That’s What Little Girls Are Made Of”

Times up…my grandparents’ grandfather clock is striking the new year.  Here’s 2010.  I’m looking forward to all of the opportunities and adventures it will bring.  I’m so thankful that you have been a part of this year in my life!

I hate snow.  That seems harsh, hating snow of all things.  It’s pure, it floats, it falls from the heavens, each flake is unique, you can play in it: there are so many reasons to love snow.  But, I hate it.

When I was little, my mother taught me to never “hate” anything because hate was a strong word reserved for really, really bad things like satan and murder.  When the “H” word slipped out, my mother would ask, “Do you really hate that?”  I eventually learned to amend my statements and say I “disliked” the distasteful thing of the moment.

I’ve given it lots of thought, Mom, YEARS of thought, and I really think I hate snow.  I can’t come up with a compelling reason to like snow, or at the very least, to not hate snow.  I’ve tried, I really have, but I’ve failed.  I’ve come up with lots of reasons to dislike snow, but my feeling go far beyond dislike.  I’ll tell you why.

I don’t remember complaining about snow when I was a child.  Snow blankets Ohio every winter.  There was nothing I could do about that, so I guess I tolerated snow for the first 18 years of my life.  There were even moments when I enjoyed snow – I made snowmen, snow forts and snow angels for hours ignorant of the biting cold.  The golf course nearby provided our local hills and we would trudge through the snow for 10 minutes hefting our sleds behind us so we could slide down the greens.  If you had the right gear — the  snow suit, snow boots, thick gloves, woolen hats, long underwear and hot chocolate waiting inside — snow wasn’t so bad.  Occasionally we had “snow days” when school was canceled and snow became every child’s hero and playground.  Clearly there was a time when snow was not my enemy.  Times have changed.

When I was 18, I moved to California for college and discovered the phenomenon of warm winters.  In Santa Barbara, where I lived, you never need a down-filled winter jacket or lined boots.  A fleece or sweater will get you through the coldest days.  You can eat outside 12 months a year, which I discovered that I loved doing and annoyed my friends by insisting we eat most of our meals on the dining hall’s patio.  Winter in southern California consists of a rainy season and temperatures from the 50s to the 70s.  One year we had a “freak” January with multiple days in the 90s.  Weather in California was so idyllic that I forgot about snow for most of the year.

When I went home for my first college Christmas, I was shocked at just how cold winter could be.  Those first steps out of the airport and into the parking garage were like being struck by lightning, a cataclysmic shock to my system.  My breath was snatched away by the freezing air.  Then, needing oxygen, I fought expand my lungs and that hurt.  I had forgotten the sting of taking cold air into your lungs.  Everything in me wanted to shut down.  My brain screamed not to get into the cold car with its frozen leather seats and to run back in to the warm airport, jump back on the plane and return to sunny California.  But being home for the holidays meant I had to “brave the cold” as people say.  That winter was the first time I realized that I might need to actually be brave to survive winter.

We got some flurries that year but not much accumulated.  By then I was probably too dignified to play in snow even if we got a foot, so what good would snow do me?  The flakes that floated to earth on Christmas Eve were sentimental at best.  For the first time, snow seemed a tease, as though it beckoned me outdoors where I might enjoy freezing my fingers or toes (or something larger) off.  No thank you.

After college I moved to Vancouver, British Columbia.  Americans often hear “Vancouver” and assume that because it is north in Canada that it must be very cold and snowy there.  Much of Canada is, but Vancouver, being just 30 miles from the US border and on the coast, is a pretty temperate city.  Thought not warm like southern California, Vancouver winters were mostly rain with some slush.  It was cold, but never bitter cold.

I think Vancouver was a major turning point for me hating snow.  One winter we got a “big” storm which delivered perhaps six inches of snow and freezing rain.  Vancouver sprawls out over seven hills and what flat spaces there are, are of human construction.  Six inches of snow brought the city to a halt.  There weren’t enough plows to efficiently or quickly clear the snow.  The bus system was in chaos, many of the drivers unable to keep the buses from sliding down the giant hills or off their electrical lines.  Typically, I rode the bus to school, but first I had to walk a quarter-mile to the bus stop.  When it snowed, residential streets were not plowed as a rule.  Each home owner was responsible to clear their own sidewalk, but few did.  One morning on my commute, post snowstorm, I fell down three times before I reached the bus stop.  When I finally got to school, half my pant legs, my shoes and socks were soaked through.  Wet socks stay wet for hours and mean cold feet.  Cold feet make for a distracted and disgruntled student.  In Vancouver, snow taught me how to growl.  It rarely stayed below freezing long, so the snow quickly became a black slushy mess.  Being a regular pedestrian on bustling urban streets meant I often had slush sprayed on my pants from passing motorists.  Lovely.

I briefly lived in Michigan in 2006.  In Michigan snow is everywhere all the time, but they know how to deal with snow, so it is rarely inconvenient.  One morning it was particularly icy on my way to work and I slid through a red light.  Those cautious and experienced Michigan drivers waited till I cleared the intersection and continued on their way.   Michigan had little impact on my malicious feelings toward snow.  Surprisingly, Pennsylvania is the place that sealed my hatred of snow.

I’ve lived in central Pennsylvania for almost four years.  We don’t get tons of snow, but when it comes it paralyzes us.  Officially, I live in a village.  When you drive along the local highway there is a little white sign that says “Village of Grantham” just before our one exit.  This village is tiny enough that when you go to the polls you usually know the person voting next to you.  (When I voted in the recent presidential election, I was in a booth next to the President of the college I work for.)  In this village we maybe have two plows but we have lots of windy, hilly, country roads and single lane bridges.  Two weeks ago we had a winter squall that doused us with snow and ice.  I literally could not get out of the village because the hills that border us on all sides had become sheets of ice.  Cars were sliding down the hills doing 360s.  There was a five car pileup at the bottom of our biggest hill.  I was stuck in Grantham.

By now you’ve heard of the east coast blizzard of 2009.  It was just a few days ago.  My village got more snow than I have ever seen here, about a foot.  I live on a small college campus in this village.  The college was closed by the time the snow fell on Saturday.  I was stuck on campus all of Saturday and most of Sunday before the grounds crew plowed me out.  It was the second week in a row that I missed church.  I got a severe case of cabin fever.  I watched three TV movies and then cleaned out my closets.

Every time I look out the window at the swirling, heaping snow, I get angry or frustrated.  Snow in PA comes with a wind so cold it burns the skin.  When you live on a small college campus in a village, you walk everywhere; it’s not pleasant.  Pennsylvanians freak out when they hear snow is coming.  They run to the store and stock up on food and water similar to America’s infamous behavior to the threat of Y2K.  (Of course there are some sensible Pennsylvanians, but most of those I have met, grew up in another state.) Few people here know how to drive in snow.  Some of my fellow Ohioans and I discuss how it is not the snowy roads we fear, it is the Pennsylvania drivers.

I hate snow.  That’s the cold, hard truth.  It might look pretty at first but it quickly becomes a nasty, dangerous mess.  It brings out the ridiculous in people.  It’s fun for kids but annoying for adults.  Snow isolates, especially when you are single and live alone.  I don’t like feeling disconnected from the world beyond my little village.  I want to get out of here, out of my apartment, out of my village, out of Pennsylvania.  Unfortunately, I’m snowed in.  Maybe I should invest in a plow for the front of my Civic?

It’s hopeless.  I hate snow.

This short story was printed in “Treasures of the Heart: An Advent Devotional Reader.”

Years of routine Advent celebrations had left me frustrated.  I’d look at the purple and pink candles, listen to the readings, sing the hymns and the most it stirred was a mere, “That’s nice.”  I knew Jesus’ birth was more than nice.  It was glorious, miraculous, an indescribably brilliant part of God’s redemptive plan.  But the meaning seemed distant from my spirit.  Shouldn’t I feel more anticipation?

Appropriately, it was a birth — that of my niece Kennedy — that finally made Advent come alive in my heart.  I was slated to finish graduate school in December 2005, after which I planned to live temporarily in Michigan with my brother Brandon and his wife Kara, who was pregnant, with a due date of December 11.  Few things give me quicker delight than babies, and the opportunity to live with my niece for at least six months had me flushed with excitement.

By late November, my brother had strict instructions to keep me updated.  “Brandon, I’m serious.  Call me as soon as you know; at the first sign of contractions.  I don’t care if it is the middle of the night.”

“Corrie, I’ve got it,” my brother responded, patient and amused.

Even the worry and headaches of final exams could not outweigh the constant, aching anticipation I felt for Kennedy’s arrival.  I finished my exams and packed for my move to Michigan; I hardly left the house for fear of missing the call.  Finally, when Kennedy was nine days overdue, the doctor decided to induce labor.  Brandon called to tell me that Kennedy should be home from the hospital by the time I landed in Michigan.

Kara’s labor took two days to progress to the pushing stage and I got caught between storm fronts and was rerouted all over the country.  Nothing was according to plan.  At each new airport, I would call my mother for an update.

From a Vancouver pay phone — “Is she here yet?”  “No, not yet.”  We placed bets on the hour of her birth.

From Cincinnati, “Mom, is she here yet?”  “No, but Kara is pushing.”

Delayed in Detroit, I called my mother.  “Any news?”  “No, we haven’t heard from Brandon in two hours.  Hopefully it will be soon.”  I boarded my final flight.

During the forty minutes in the air, I anxiously tapped my feet and carelessly paged through Sky magazine trying to relax myself with articles like “Visit Aspen for Less Than $400” and “Atlanta’s Best Meals.”  Dissatisfied with one distraction, I turned to another, chomping through the huge pieces of ice in my complimentary beverage.  I kept looking around the plane as though I expected to hear Kennedy’s first born cry.  I wondered, is this the minute that she is being born?

A friend greeted me when I arrived in Grand Rapids and told me that Kennedy had been born a few hours earlier.  We reached home at 2 AM and despite deep exhaustion, it took me several hours to fall asleep.  The anticipation of the last nine months and eleven days, and the excitement and drama of Kennedy’s birth had me buzzing with joy.  Holding her the next morning was one of the most tender moments of my life.  When the final Advent candle was lit that Sunday I was beaming — a proud aunt and a humbled child of God who finally understood a little bit more about anticipating the miraculous birth of my savior.