God’s Will, Without A Machete

08/29/2007, 3:45 pm -- by | No Comments

“When [the people of Ephesus] asked [Paul] to spend more time with them, he declined. But as he left, he promised, ‘I will come back if it is God’s will'” (Acts 18:20-21).

I used to look at God’s will as a path, and it was my duty to hack my way through the jungle of choices with a machete to find it. It was terrifying because I thought there was one right way, yet I had so many choices in front of me, particularly for college. I worried that I was serving myself, missing the signs, and ruining God’s plan for my life by going to this school instead of that, or majoring in writing rather than, say, religion. But when I read Paul’s declaration in Acts, I was struck with how calm and assured he sounded. From that simple sentence, one could sense Paul’s certainty that God would reveal the proper path in due time, without a machete.

How did Paul achieve such a profound trust in God, though? Well, as a Pharisee, he studied the Torah and respected writings on it for years and years. The Word of God was part of his very being, even more so because of his revelation of Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. He had seen the Truth, he had suffered for it, and so he rarely doubted it.

When I was deciding what to do with my life, I doubted, and often. I wanted to write, but I was sure God wanted me in missions, and I just knew God couldn’t use my writing in missions. After all, why would He let me do what I found enjoyable? (It sounds ludicrous, I know, but this is really what I believed.) I finally came to the conclusion that I had to major in theology and go on to seminary. To some, this may sound fantastic. To me, it was a death sentence.

My pastor watched me go through the agony of making this decision and others, then sat me down and gave me some guidance that I will forever be thankful for. Among the verses he showed me were Psalm 37:4 and Isaiah 30:21 — “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart,” and “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.'”

He explained that God’s will isn’t a question where we figure out the one right choice. God doesn’t turn our lives into a daily search for a needle in the haystack. What He wants is devotion. If I delight in the Lord, if I devote myself to Him, I will want His will. There’s a big difference between committing to go somewhere for God and committing to be God’s person, no matter where you go.

Paul was God’s person no matter where he went. When he was in prison with Silas, they sang praises and prayed to God. When he was being arrested, he told the mob shouting for his death about the glory of Jesus’ sacrifice and how they too could be saved. Paul realized that when he traveled from city to city, he had to keep moving as God led him.

Even though the people of Ephesus begged him to stay (and I think he probably wanted to stay a little, too, given the poor reception he’d been receiving in other cities), he said, “Only if God wants me to.” Paul laid down his desires at God’s feet and made God’s desires his own. Paul leaned on God’s understanding and allowed God to direct his paths. And as a result, more people joined the church every single day.

Depending on God is not easy. Wanting His will is not always a party. For some, that has meant forfeit of their very lives, or the lives of loved ones. But just as in Paul’s case, what will come of it is a fantastic harvest of souls, the price of which we cannot comprehend.

Rain in the Desert

08/22/2007, 10:30 am -- by | 1 Comment

Best of Chloe, originally published on April 25.

It’s raining, the first raindrops to fall on Las Cruces since October, and all I can think is, Praise God. The rain mesmerizes me as the sun peeks from behind black clouds to turn the beads into the precious jewels they are to us.

Las Cruces has been in a drought for nigh on ten years now. I have walked across the great Rio Grande with my bare toes and heels sinking into the hot sand, reluctantly conquering that once proud and powerful course. I have watched each summer as Elephant Butte, our last resort, grows smaller and smaller while the islands in the middle grow taller and taller.

Is there hope for our scorched land, hope apart from the fickle sky and erratic wind? We could say that we find hope in our farmers, who will pump their wells dry and dig again to sustain crops of cotton and chilé, corn and tomatoes. We can find hope in those surreptitious reserves underground that feed our fading trees and pesky mosquitoes alike. We find hope in Colorado’s rainy weather, snowy weather, and anything else that may produce a runoff into the Rio Grande’s branches and sources. We may even find hope in the news that the ice caps are melting, because that means more water for everyone, and perhaps we’ll finally be allowed to scrub the dust off ourselves when the waters come roaring in from what used to be California and Arizona.

Just as quickly as it began, the rain now stops, and the droplets gleaming on my window are fast in drying, leaving only spots of dust in their stead. And yet the strikingly blue New Mexican sky is still obscured by those black and promising clouds.

The whole of the Mesilla Valley heaves a sigh and leaves the porch chairs set out specially to watch the rain color a brown and yellow landscape green. Not today, the wind sighs, reforming and dispersing the clouds. Not today. And the people turn away, removing hats with brittle hands to wipe away the sweat.

Will we find relief? Or will we dry up and turn to dust to be thrown by the idle winds to the north, where rain falls to the point of people’s loathing and grass is green in the summer? Or will we, perhaps, continue to live as we’ve always lived, skimping here and there with the dishes and the showers, saving water in landscaping and laundry alike? We have persevered thus far, proven that water is not as vital as we were told. Some of us have lived our whole lives covered in dust, wondering in awe at the rain, and some of us have grown thirsty for our old emerald fields of England or Ireland, where even the bark of the trees is green. But all of us have learned to sacrifice our fascination with water to the sun god, all of us have learned to accept — yes, even enjoy — the hot wind and the grit in our teeth.

We are tough like that, tough like dried meat and leather, tough like rock and bone, tough like the dry, dry river bed. Our water lies deep beneath all that, just as the desert’s water conceals itself beneath a cactus’ needles or a camel’s hump.

And we can live for a millennium like this. We already have.

The Proper Way to Treat Your Waitress

08/15/2007, 9:30 am -- by | 4 Comments

We have been called to be servants to those around us, slaves for Christ, and yet so often we scorn those who serve us. One waitress wrote that church groups were usually the ones who treated her poorly, then left a small tip. How do you treat those who serve you? Do you show them God’s love, or remind them why they don’t go to church? Here are the four most common types of people I’ve come across in my two months as a waitress. Try to guess which one you are and which one you should be.

Robot
This type of patron is usually on the higher end of the economic scale, or he doesn’t have much in the way of a personality. Friendly banter is lost on him, and he avoids eye contact. He may talk on his cell phone while ordering, or completely ignore the waitress because he wants to finish his conversation. He rarely tips, and he’ll send the waitress back for things one at a time — water refill, coffee refill, hamburger not well done, ketchup, more napkins — rather than asking for all that he knows he needs at once.

Imbecile
This type of patron could either be on the high or low end of the economic scale. The richer patron generally assumes that anyone in such a dead-end job must be an idiot, and deserves the treatment he’s dishing out. Who knows? Maybe he will inspire her to actually do something with her life! The poorer patron believes the world owes him something, and considers the waitress below him, because everyone else acts like he’s below them. This type of patron leaves a tip in relation to how hard the waitress worked — the harder she worked for him, the smaller the tip. He also abuses the waitress for what is usually the cook’s fault; shoot the messenger, and all that.

Piece of Meat
This type of patron is a man (though if the server is male, the patron will be female), and is usually the age of the waitress’ father or grandfather. He thinks she’s there for his viewing pleasure. Sometimes he’s younger and unattractive, but fancies himself God’s gift to women. More often than not, he’s looking for free food. He doesn’t realize she gets hit on about twice a week, and asked out once or twice a month. He also doesn’t realize that he looks like a lobotomized pig compared to her crush/boyfriend/fiancé. No matter how he flatters her, she doesn’t feel pretty when she’s working. She feels sweaty and sticky and covered by the stench of French fry grease and dried ketchup. His phone number will line the trash bin along with all those other dopes, and he will be ridiculed in the kitchen.

Friend
This type of patron is kind, has probably been in the waitress’s shoes before, or just realizes that her job is not easy. He is gentle, tells her it’s fine if she messes up, and he leaves the proper tip (but doesn’t overly flatter her). A variation of this patron is the one who comes in often, and has both a “usual” and a sense of humor. This patron knows why the waitress looks stressed and will be sure to ask how school is going and how her family is doing. This patron tries not to leave too much of a mess on the table. Once in a while, he might even pray for the waitress.

Your waitress is a person. She has emotions, bad days, fears, and a life outside of work. Her dog gets hit by a car, her grandpa is dying of cancer, but she has to come to work anyway. She will usually do her best to keep you happy (if only because she really needs that tip), but she isn’t perfect, and she can’t always bend over backwards for you. And more often than not, she really, really doesn’t want your phone number.

Serve those who serve you. Please, respect your waitress.

The Next C.S. Lewis?

08/8/2007, 9:30 am -- by | 9 Comments

“Every time I’ve been asked if I believe in God, I’ve said yes, because I do, but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that, and I have to say that does suit me, because if I talk too freely about that I think the intelligent reader, whether ten or sixty, will be able to guess what’s coming in the books.” — J.K. Rowling, Vancouver Sun, 2000

***Warning!***
Spoilers ahead!

I just finished the last Harry Potter book. I know, Harry Potter is evil, the scar on his head is the mark of the beast, and we must all burn the books and fight to have them banned. As a Christian I should not be filling my head with such filth.

Except that Harry Potter, as it turns out, is an allegory for the gospel.

What?! Don’t stop reading. It’s not ludicrous, and I’m not just another English major trying to fit a square peg into a circular hole by taking things out of context. I’ll prove it (but I will be giving away the plot).

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in the series, is largely focused on the destruction of seven “Horcruxes,” mundane objects in which Voldemort, the Dark Lord, has deposited pieces of his soul, ensuring that though his body might be destroyed, he will not die. While searching for them, Harry and his two friends (isn’t three a holy number in the Jewish tradition?) learn of the “Deathly Hallows,” three objects that, when united under one person, will give him dominion over death. During the search, Harry’s friend Ron, a rash but devoted boy, leaves Harry — but then comes back to become a great help to him. I smell a Simon Peter lurking under Ron’s skin.

At one point, Harry faces an elf, forced to serve him, who hates him beyond words. Harry believes that if he just treats the elf well, it will come to love him. And he’s right. After pouring out kindness and love to the angry elf, it becomes eternally loyal to Harry.

Harry’s mentor and guide, Dumbledore, was killed in book 6, soon after giving Harry the task of finding and destroying the Horcruxes. Throughout book 7, Harry is tormented with doubts that Dumbledore sent him on a hopeless mission, and sorely tempted, by a journalist of questionable integrity, to think Dumbledore was a fraud. Not to twist the book around, but that sounds like Jesus being tempted, and his pleadings in the garden of Gethsemane.

Before I get to the big one, I’ll point out some small things that are commonly related to the gospel. Throughout the book, the numbers seven and three keep popping up. These are commonly revered numbers in Jewish and Christian beliefs. At one point, someone gets their ear chopped off. Lily, the name of Harry’s mother, is also a flower commonly associated with Mary, mother of Jesus. Harry saves the life of his nemesis, showing forgiveness though the boy tried to kill both Harry and Dumbledore.

The most powerful “spell” in the book, the only one that will ward off evil “dementors” is the Expecto Patronum — Latin for “I wait for the savior.” The Bible is quoted twice in the book: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” and “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” There are also prophecies about Harry, whose last name, I might add, is also a description of God. And Voldemort tries to kill Harry as a baby, after which he is secreted to a location that will protect him.

But the ultimate connection to the Gospel is near the end, when Harry Potter walks to his death in the forest. He dies willingly at the hands of Voldemort, to save his fellows being slaughtered in battle and hopefully vanquish the Dark Lord, but he learns he had united the three Deathly Hallows, conquering Death. After death, he travels to King’s Cross, which could be interpreted as a direct representation of the cross — but is probably a coincidence, since King’s Cross is the largest train station in London and widely known as a crossroads.

Anyway, dead Harry meets Dumbledore at King’s Cross, and he explains that the part of his soul that had been mixed with Voldemort’s (don’t ask) when the Dark Lord tried to kill him as a baby had now been destroyed. Harry is pure. So he returns, pretending to be dead, to watch the Dark Lord and his minions celebrating in vile ways. His friends, though mourning, do not give up; they wait and hope for a miracle.

Then Neville, faithful friend of Harry, cuts off the head of Voldemort’s snake with an ornate sword. This snake was the last Horcrux, and so Voldemort’s soul is destroyed. Harry jumps up and pursues Voldemort, killing him in a magnificent plot twist. Feasting and joy ensues, along with the forgiveness of the three bad guys who repent.

If you’ve read Dante, Lewis, Bunyan, Eliot, or many others, you’ve caught the symbols and metaphors commonly used in Christian literature. The willing death, the transition, selflessness, overcoming temptation, dominion over death, the battle between good and evil, the short, unholy celebration of evil, the snake being crushed, forgiveness, the wedding feast, etc. — they’re all here.

You may disagree (but don’t unless you’ve read the books; you’ll just sound ignorant), and that’s fine. But J.K. Rowling said back in 2000 that her Christian beliefs were quite possibly the foundation for the end of the series. Maybe she isn’t the whore of Babylon after all…

Conservation Theology

08/1/2007, 9:45 am -- by | 2 Comments

When I was in second grade and living at my grandparents’ house, their well ran dry. I remember walking around the property with a witching stick that was supposed to be pulled toward the ground when it passed over an underground stream, and I remember the inescapable roar of the well driller digging deep into the ground when Grandpa finally found a dependable water source.

From then on, my grandparents’ house became one of extreme conservation. They had always been careful, throwing waste food on the compost pile and recycling what they could. After the water scare, however, Grandma and Grandpa looked into ways to prolong the new well’s life.

Even today, in a new house and with a more dependable well, Grandma adheres to her system of conserving water. She saves the dishwater throughout the day to water her flowers. She only runs the water in the shower if she’s rinsing. If she takes a bath, she’ll haul the water to put on the grass, rather than letting it go down the drain. Recently, she had rain gutters put in with an 80-gallon rain barrel at each spout. She uses this water to wash the dogs or the car. We’ve even joked about the possibility of washing our hair in rainwater, since apparently it makes hair softer than groundwater does.

Because of my grandma, I’ve developed habits that are crucial to preserving the beauty of where we live. She taught me that respecting and protecting the environment is just as much part of being a Christian as treating other people as children of God. The planet is God’s, it is his artwork, and it is a testimony to his power and glory.

You may live in the desert like I do, and my words may resound with the concerns you have about water. Or you may live where it rains often and for days, and the idea of conserving water is ridiculous, what with it coming out your ears half the time. That privilege may not last forever. The Rio Grande ran dry once, after all.

I’m not asking that you go to extremes like my grandma and I have. I’m simply suggesting that you live responsibly, consider how much you throw away and try to cut back, and be considerate of the amount of pollution you produce.

In short, live as if you were guests on someone else’s planet. You are.

Best of Bweinh! — Grammar and Anticipation

07/25/2007, 2:00 pm -- by | No Comments

Originally published on April 17, 2007.

My grandfather gave me my first grammar lesson when I was seven years old, after I had asked him if I could play on his old green Chevy truck. “I don’t know, can you?,” he asked, home from his bike shop for lunch, an empty plate and half a can of beer in front of him.

“Yes,” I said slowly, wary of my grandfather and his tricks: how he gave me something shiny and yellow and called it fool’s gold only after I had told him all the things I would buy with it, and how he convinced me that I could buy a miniature collar and lead for the tarantula I had just captured so I could show it around town as my pet.

My grandfather took a final swig of beer and swiped his sleeve across his mouth, which earned a sour look from my grandmother, who did his laundry.

“Yes, you can.”

“Thank you!,” I yelled, already at the back door.

“Chloe!” I reluctantly returned to his chair and waited as attentively as a seven-year-old in the summertime can wait. My grandfather pondered me for a moment, scratching the peppery stubble on his chin. I waited patiently because I knew instinctively that something important was going to happen, just like when he let me help him mix concrete and put up the dog pen, even though as a rule, he preferred to do work around the land alone, and a little girl would only get in the way. Though he firmly believed a woman’s place was in the kitchen, we eventually completed many projects together, the last a door installation cut short after he severed most of the top part of his thumb and bled all over my mother’s white carpet because he was too manly to feel pain.

“Chloe,” he repeated after several long tick-tocks of the grandfather clock, “I’m trying to teach you something here. You say ‘can’ when you are able. You say ‘may’ when you want permission. So:” He waved his hand at me and the smell of the oil he used on the chains and gears in his bike shop wafted towards me. It smelled like a car. Or a big green Chevy.

“Can I go play on your truck?” At this point I was fidgeting like I was about to wet my pants, but still he spoke slowly, in a gravelly voice that sounded like he had worked hard his whole life, and would continue to do so until the day he died. “You are able to play on my truck, but you have to ask me if you may get permission to go do it.”

“M…may I…?” I trailed off, and he nodded encouragingly while my grandmother audibly rolled her eyes. “May I go play on the truck?”

He folded his newspaper and stood. “No, I have to go back to work. But you can give my plate to your grandmother and throw my can away.”

Prophets of the Rain

07/18/2007, 10:15 am -- by | 1 Comment

I won’t waste your time telling about the rain. You know the rain, its monotonous drip, drip, drip, its messy puddles and leaks. The rain is boring. It’s the oracles that are so alluring and stunning, the way they turn the storm into an electrical mess that muddles your senses and leaves you waiting for something both life-threatening and satisfying.

They come in the evenings, when it’s finally cool enough to go outside and work. If there’s a shed to be painted, a deck to be oiled, or lumber to haul, I can count on the clouds that hover like an alien ship to come crawling over the mountains in the south. These clouds aren’t blankets, oh, no. They are mountain ranges, arroyos, Grand Canyons flipped upside-down to create a skyscape that looms overhead and promises quite the show.

That’s how it starts, with the clouds. And then the birds begin to sing. I’ve heard that birds are most active before a storm, and the ruckus reminds me of an out-of-control high school class.

After the birds come the wind that, when it blows through the pine boughs, sounds like the tide on the wet sand. The wind brings with it the scent of the rain, that dusty metallic aroma of ozone. Then the air changes, an electrical charge that starts the birds off at a whole new decibel and pulls me further outside to feel the coming of the storm. Now the air is a rosy brown like old pictures and the wind chimes sing something familiar in the key of G and any moment now, any moment now, any…

The first drop is teasing, as if the clouds are demanding proof that I really want this deluge they’ve been dangling in front of me all evening. I reply with a shiver that can only come to a person who has been glorying in three-digit temperatures. Another drop falls and the old picture fades into a fog as that strange sheet comes tearing across the valley straight for me.

I won’t waste your time telling you about the rain. It is a disappointment, ten minutes of downpour that will evaporate in half the time. It wasn’t the rain I came out to see, though. It was the prophets of the rain.

To Know and Be Known

07/11/2007, 10:00 am -- by | 2 Comments

When I was in London, there was an unspoken rule to avoid eye contact. Looking people in the eye was some kind of invitation, depending on the person, to badger me for money or scream profanities. I learned that when I went into the city, I should look straight ahead and walk with purpose, like I owned London, in order to be free of the grasping hands that would have my soul with one look in the eye. As a result, I saw little of what the people of London looked like. I was autonomous in that huge metropolis, but I didn’t know anyone except for my classmates and the people at my church. It was lonely.

Here, in Nowhere, New Mexico, I’ve had to unlearn that habit of isolation. Here, I chat with everyone I come across — the post office lady, the gas station clerk, the person who lives at the end of the lane. Here, I don’t just drive by other cars — I wave to the people in them, especially if it’s another big truck with a cowboy hat and/or a dog in the flatbed.

Here, I don’t just serve my customers. I ask their names and where they’re from, what they do for a living and how they like the heat. In return, I give them bits of my life — why I’m here when I live in New York, who I’m related to, what I’m studying, and yes, that fine truck outside is mine, for two more months, anyway. Here, eye contact is as unavoidable as skin contact in church.

When I decided to go to Western New Mexico for the summer, I thought I would be lonely, what with only knowing my grandma. Now, after throwing candy in a July 4th parade and hearing at least three people yell, “Oh, there’s Chloe! Hi Chloe!,” and learning the faces of customers who not only remember my name, but also ask how my boyfriend’s studying is coming along, I question why I ever thought I liked the independent blinders I put on in London. This small-town familiarity is growing on me.

Stupid Bull!

07/4/2007, 10:00 am -- by | No Comments

The first time I saw him was last week, on the dirt road up to my grandma’s house. His behemoth head was in the lane and I almost hit him with my Dodge. When he stood up to avoid the growling diesel, I realized he was bigger than my truck, and I thought he was going to pulverize the passenger side door. That was the beginning.

We called him Fernando. He left two-inch holes in the packed dirt and gravel of the walkway when he wandered into the yard. He drank half the water in the brimming sixty-gallon rain barrel. When I talked on the phone, the person on the other end could hear him braying from ten acres away. “Shut up, bull!,” I would yell. He didn’t know English.

The last straw was Sunday, when Grandma and I couldn’t walk the dogs because Fernando was only about fifty yards from the porch. We took a big stick with us and watched him carefully while the dogs did their business close to the house. Then it happened. Grandma passed by her flower bed, and her eyes fell on the remnants of what had started out as a bunch of beautiful sunflowers. They had been eaten.

“Get the shotgun and clear out the freezer, Chloe,” she ordered. Only a few flowers had been decapitated, but when you live off well water in New Mexico, your flower bed is meager at best, and a few lost flowers is a big empty space.

After dinner, Grandma and I went to the front yard and, protected by a chain link fence, yelled insults at the bull in a sort of vengeance for the fallen flowers. We encouraged the dogs, who had gotten used to Francisco’s presence and even started taking their tea with him in the afternoons, to bark at him. We also said a few things about his mother.

Then we called Alvin, a friend of Grandma’s who had already removed other wayward cattle from her property. He assured her he would send someone soon.

So how do you get a gigantic piece of armed beef out of a fenced-in area of land? Why, with a horse and a Stetson, of course.

In they rode, dressed in cowboy boots, button-down shirts and ten-gallon hats, looking as though they’d been born on their horses and never bothered to get off. The sun was just beginning to set behind the mountains as the men reached the fence, and I swear I heard a harmonica play somewhere as the older one tipped his hat to Grandma. “Evening, Ma’am. Where’s that bull?”

We watched them drive Fernando off into the distance as the harmonica swelled into a triumphant crescendo and the sun disappeared behind the mountains in a satisfyingly conclusive manner.

Well, no, that’s not true. The bull kept breaking the drive and running off. Plus, there was no harmonica. But the sun did disappear behind the mountains.

So it wasn’t directly out of a Western. Still, how cool is that?

The Desert at Night

06/27/2007, 10:15 am -- by | No Comments

Have you ever heard a pack of coyotes howl and snarl so loudly that you could swear the next bark would be at your window? Or the soft pattering of something digging in a corner or burrowing in the closet?

I’ve become familiar with these and other noises the last few nights, now that I’m living with my grandmother in rural New Mexico. We’re mere yards from the national forest, so isolated that, as Grandma put it this afternoon, “If something should happen to us, who would hear us scream?”

Therefore I have decided that I hate the desert at night. In the daytime it’s fine — the temperature is high enough that all the dangerous things disappear and the sun bright enough that the beauty is impossible to miss. (Little known fact — you can actually touch the sun in some parts of New Mexico because it really is that close. You heard it here at Bweinh!)

But as evening simmers into night, that vast blue sky that so awes me during the day becomes my enemy, Eliot’s “patient etherized upon a table,” sprawling and lifeless. Looking outside makes me feel blind. The darkness can be felt in the hairs on the back of my neck as they tingle and rise. It is a darkness that nurtures paranoia, and the certainty that something with sharp teeth and quick venom lurks just beyond the window pane is what makes my grandmother cover every window in the house after twilight surrenders the sky.

The worst thing, though, is the noise. When the coyotes bark and yip in packs, I know a rabbit will soon be devoured. When I hear something like the desperate scream of a woman, I know it’s a cougar on the prowl. And when I hear that clicking on the roof, like an alien in the movies preparing to dispose of its prey, I know something is skittering around on the roof, and any minute now it will come crashing through the window to eat me. I don’t care how hot it is — I’m a firm believer in that age-old superstition that my thick down comforter will protect me from the monsters outside, and so I will bear the stuffy heat and burrow deeper until the sun rises again.

Visiting Juarez, Mexico

06/20/2007, 10:00 am -- by | No Comments

There are rules to visiting Juarez. Don’t drink the water. Don’t eat the food. Don’t put anything in your mouth unless you want a staph infection. Don’t make the Border Patrol mad, even if you are whiter than a bleached albino. And don’t be nice to the street vendors.

The street vendors are like piranhas. Stick one toe in the water and they’re biting up to your neck, showing wares, suggesting prices, and enticing the tourist with anything that might catch their attention. The worst thing a tourist can do (besides listening to every single vendor) is tell a vendor that he’ll come back. When the tourist does come back around that way, the vendor will remember him and say, “You said when you came back you would buy my hammock. Now you are back. You must come in and buy one!”

It’s very annoying.

Generally when I go to Mexico, the best policy is to say, “No, thank you,” in the coldest voice I can muster, paying mind to look straight ahead.

After being in Mexico for several hours in 100-degree weather on Saturday, Steve and I decided to rest outside a shop while my mother and godparents looked around. A man sat down beside us and said, “I have been told by a cab driver that you are looking for prescriptions. I have many medicines that are not available anywhere else in Juarez.” He handed me his card and continued to speak about all the prescriptions he could offer us.

We had no idea what he was talking about. I had a feeling that, “No, thank you,” wasn’t going to cut it. I needed something a little more potent. “Je ne parle pas anglais.” My French accent never rang so true.

“Oh, yes!” he exclaimed, and for a moment of terror I though he was fluent in French. I’ve only taken up to French II, after all, and while my accent is deceivingly natural, my vocabulary borders on abysmal. But then I noted the confusion knitted in his brow and realized he had no idea what had just happened. Nevertheless, he continued on pitching his sale like a good soldier.

So I said, “Je parle francais. Je regret. Tu parles francais?” I handed his card to Steve. Steve does not know much French, so he examined both sides of the card, sniffed it, shook his head and handed it back to me. I gave it back to the man, who was at this point resorting to “Percocet!! I have Percocet! You know Percocet? You get it from me!” — all the while waving his hands around in mock sign language.

I said, “Il fait chaud. Eu, hot?” Some frustrated waving of the hands. “Eu, rest? Tired. Je regret, non.”

“I was told there were four of you, and you want medicine. I have Percocet! No one else has Percocet!”

“Non. No, eh, sorry.” At that that moment my godparents and mother emerged from the store. “Ah, bon!” I exclaimed, rising. “Ma famille!” and we walked away, leaving the bewildered salesman sitting on the steps with his business card in hand.

Which, by the way, advertised his acupuncture business. Yikes.

New Mexico!

06/13/2007, 10:00 am -- by | 2 Comments

It’s been six months! I haven’t been home in six months, and as you read this — if it’s still Wednesday before 18:35 MST — I am on my way there.

I can’t wait to see the sky. You haven’t seen the sky until you’ve been out West.

In New York I can see maybe ten miles to the horizon, tops. At Houghton I see only patches because the trees and buildings block it all out. But in New Mexico the sky isn’t a blanket or a strip. It’s what I can only call “the adventure.” It seems like the earth’s curve is visible on that vast horizon, and every degree on the 360 is calling out for exploration, for someone to touch those places where the sky touches land. There’s a chance, too, that no one has been to that place before; there is that much wilderness in New Mexico.

I’m going to have my own set of adventures by the end of this summer. I’ll be living with my grandma, and all I’ll have to do is step off the porch and walk fifteen yards to get to the national forest.

From here on out my Bweinh! posts will be mostly occupied with New Mexico, and if you don’t want to go there now, you will by September.

The Drive-In

06/6/2007, 9:45 am -- by | 2 Comments

I went to the drive-in this past Saturday to see Pirates III. I hadn’t been to a drive-in since my dad passed away when I was seven, and the experience made me wonder why they’re slowly disappearing.

We got there about half an hour before sundown so we could get a good spot — not that we needed one, because my friend’s boyfriend has a huge truck that guaranteed a good spot no matter where we parked.

There were eight of us, and we ordered two pizzas for dinner, which we ate on the truck. I didn’t know most of the people who were with us, but the atmosphere made us all easy friends in minutes. It was like any other tailgating party, except something I was actually interested in was to follow!

Then the movie started. At the same time, a light breeze picked up, just cool enough to stir the warm evening air into what we all imagine a night at the drive-in should feel like. A stray fly or mosquito visited me every so often, and once a giant moth swooped down over the truck. I watched the sun set, the moon rise and the stars come out, all while the movie played in front of me. There was no whispering or people kicking my seat, no crying babies, chronic coughers or cell phones ringing. And if the movie got a little boring, I simply turned around and watched Shrek III, which was playing at the lot behind me. (Pirates III, however, did not get boring often.)

The movie ended at midnight and I went home, to dream of swashbuckling and keel-hauling, and to wonder why we don’t go to the drive-in more often.

The Whole Word of God

05/30/2007, 9:30 am -- by | No Comments

Last week at an awards ceremony in a university chapel, I sat near a plain square box with a gold Star of David painted on the front. It was a Torah ark. I hadn’t seen one of those in years, not since I had been to a special shul with my mother, during which graduates of a Hebrew class were honored. My mother was a graduate with her friend Damon, a Messianic Jew who sat beside her with a yarmulke covering his mostly bald head. He sang the Hebrew in a strong and liturgical voice and made me wish I knew how to sing the words so I could join in.

The Torah ark at the synagogue I had attended was huge, painted with rich hues and accented in gold filigree. The wood was carved and the metal molded into complex designs that no doubt told a story I would only understand if I were Orthodox like the people around me. Everything in the decorations had meaning because that is how the Jews look at the world. God created the universe; therefore it is imbued with His symbolic meaning. If we unearth this meaning, we draw a little nearer to God.

The rabbi took the Torah out of the ark for the reading. As he carried it from the ark to the bima where it would be read, the members of the synagogue kissed it as it went by. The part of this that struck me as most profound was how reverent everyone was as the rabbi walked by. This was the Word of God passing through their midst, and their quiet demeanor showed that they would not forget that.

In the Jewish tradition, the old scribes who copied the Torah had certain rules that governed their discipline. For example, they would only write the secondary names of God (El, El Shaddai, Elohim, etc.) with a brand new pen, no matter how fresh the first pen had been. And YHWH, the name God used to reveal Himself, was an entirely different matter. “Before they wrote this highest and best name, [the scribes] rose from their seats and went into their personal quarters. They took off their robes, bathed themselves, clothed themselves with new, clean garments, and returned to their work. There they knelt down, confessed their sins, took a new pen, dunked it once into the inkwell, and wrote those four letters.” (Dr. D. James Kennedy)

Quite a few of my Christian friends tend to avoid the Old Testament. Some of the reasons I’ve been given for that decision include that it’s boring history, or that it’s hard to spot God’s grace and mercy through all the gore on David’s sword. Worse, it has been called outdated, the old law that isn’t important anymore and shouldn’t be bothered with — except for the Psalms, of course, and anything to do with Revelation and/or Messianic prophecy.

But I was enthralled with the Old Testament when I read it. I mourned with Leah over her husband’s neglect and yelled at David for not going to war in the spring, when kings were supposed to go to battle, not play peeping tom. I fell in love with the poetry in Job and sobbed when Jonathan died.

Most importantly, I discovered something that is denied by all those excuses for not reading the Old Testament. I discovered, as we’ve seen in our weekly Bible study, that Jesus was and is everywhere, saturating the narrative with His presence and reaffirming His role as the fulfillment of the law.

Francis Bacon

05/23/2007, 11:30 am -- by | No Comments

I read a few essays by Francis Bacon last year, and while revisiting some notes I took on them, I found some of my favorite quotes. I hope they convince you to read Bacon’s essays, since his brilliant philosophy and theology has influenced so much of how we think today.

They that deny a God, destroy man’s nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts, by his body; and if he be not of kin to God, by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.

God never wrought miracles, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the senses, the last, was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed light, upon the face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth an inspired light, into the faces of his chosen.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Read not to contradict and refute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously [i.e., with great care]; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

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