Hand Written Correspondence

 

I have been doing well on my New Year’s resolution number one: reading fiction. Today, I institute resolution number two: corresponding with my loved ones. I have been terribly remiss in not faithfully calling or writing those I love or even returning calls. It is not lack of care or love. It is both laziness and inconvenience—two things I will not consider valid obstacles any further. Laziness, because it takes a lot of time and effort; and inconvenience, because of the time difference (I am early to bed and early to rise) and the CA time difference poses a boundary (-3 hours), and the annoyances of the cell phone reception and awkward phone-shape situation.

Rather than email correspondence which is both less romantic and more immediately burdensome because of the pressure to send an instant response, I want to take up, or rather re-take up, letter writing. It will allow me to spend time getting to know my family beyond a simple five minute catch-up phone conversation. I can take my pad and paper anywhere, and there are plenty of meaningful cards to send to people. I do find that letter writing makes it sometimes difficult to ask questions, because they stand rhetorically unanswered…a lonely question-marked clause.

In some ways, letters are a strange mechanism for sharing and communion.  They are the ultimate in self-reflection, because they are all one-sided. Me, putting my life and my thoughts, upon you. And then you get the chance to talk back at me, uninterrupted. However, through the ages somehow sharing and interaction effectively result from the intimate pages. Anyway, I am resolved to keep up a letter campaign with several people: my grandparents, extended family, and friends. And the nice part is that letters come back answered and then you respond again. The timing seems to be an appropriate distance apart, and you are not obliged to respond until the letter is returned. It sets a natural pace.  

I hope to send one today, or at least have one written. I may even compel my little Sunday school students to write love notes to themselves from God today. I cannot wait to see how my relationships grow in this arrangement.

Charmingly Gift-Wrapped, Ancient Evil

When I was home for a few weeks over the winter break, my mom and I spent a lot of time window shopping in beautiful boutiques in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, and Solvang. One of the objects that we saw and piqued our interest was a little, charmingly bound, small red book titled, “Fortune Telling Book of Birthdays.” The book had a description of a personality for individuals born on each day of the year. It struck both of us as amazingly accurate analysis of both the noble and less-stellar parts our our personalities on our respective birthdays. Neither of us purchased the book, but we both noted it.

A few days later, my mom mentioned that she wished she had purchased the book because it was so spot-on and she wanted to remember what it had said. So, I stored that away in my memory and went and purchased the book from my local Anthropologie in Georgetown, with the intent to send it to her. Before I sent it, however, I showed it to a few friends of mine to see what they thought about their own birthday fortunes. I found that many of them also thought it was pretty accurate, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I then took it into work intending to send it.

Before I did send, it, however, I tucked it into the desk in my office and forgot about it. That night, I was thinking about the “Fortune Telling” aspect of the book, which is really in title only, as the book only offers a personality description…nothing prophetic or beyond reason except its broad generalization. I justified the “spiritism” of its premise by the fact that, like with Chinese medicine, there are ancient civilizations that have been on the earth infinitely longer than our modern western, Christian era, and therefore they have a much larger scope of knowledge to draw from. Perhaps, then, there is nothing to “Fortune telling” rather than assessment of characteristics and data over millennia and millennia, where patterns could emerge that actually make sense. For example, maybe in the past thousands of years, there were enough millions of individuals born on my birthdate that had similar personality characteristics to me that generalizable patterns could be drawn about people who are born on 23 December. Therefore, I despiritualized the fortune telling aspect of the book in my mind and went soundly to sleep….

…ONLY to be awoken rudely in the middle of the night with a horrid nightmare. It was evil and scary and terrible. I shook my head and tried to settle back to rest, when an image of a nefarious snake entered my mind. I knew it symbolized evil and Godless spirituality. I just knew deeply in my core that it was a warning of the dark spiritism of that aspect of life. And I needed to get rid of the book. No, I cannot send it to my mom. I cannot return it to Anthropologie for another person to buy. I must get rid of it. Throw it in the dumpster where no one can rescue it.

It’s not the book itself that is evil, but what lies behind it. I was so ready to accept the “fun” and “Gimmick” of the novel book. But evil and sin is not, not ever, novel. It is the oldest trick in the world. Thank you Lord for showing me this.

Intimacy with Christ

Psalm 63

A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.

1 You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.

2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

6 On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 I cling to you;
your right hand upholds me.

9 Those who want to kill me will be destroyed;
they will go down to the depths of the earth.
10 They will be given over to the sword
and become food for jackals.

11 But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God will glory in him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

Jane Austen and Chocolate

• Who: You, and your friends of a female, stylish, literary, and fun variety
• What: Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (movie) and Chocolate
• When: Saturday, January 22 from 7-10pm. The movie will start promptly at 8pm.
• Where: Juliet’s house on Capitol Hill
• Why: Jane Austen and Dessert are brilliant and only other women can adequately appreciate them with you.

I will be making a few chocolate desserts, but your sugar contribution is welcome if you feel like baking for an appreciative crowd.