I love cheesy quotes and retail…

While at work this morning, I found an activity that combines two of the “best” things about my job: cheesy quotes and retail. Now, I was opening boxes of these adhesive wall quotes, so you can have a big stupid quote across your whole wall! How wonderful! I was thoroughly appalled by the quotes-mentally taking note so as not to forget them when it came time to blog about it. Of course, I should have written them down, but I do remember some of the best ones:

Where there is love, there are always miracles.
Laughter is like the sunshine that sparkles upon water.
Faith is believing that a ray of sun will eventually shatter the darkness.

I should mention that the first quote, about miracles, was on a piece of framed art with the pink breast cancer ribbon on it. That just made me mad, and I don’t even know anyone who has died of breast cancer. I believe in miracles, I really do. But to say that wherever love is, miracles ALWAYS follow is complete fallacy. This quote implies that people who have had loved ones die of breast cancer because they did not receive a miraculous healing simply died because they weren’t loved enough. Or maybe they didn’t love others enough- is that it? To top it off, this quote is by Willa Cather, whom I revere to be a great author.

Onto the second quote: WHHHATTT? I’m just not seeing the comparison between laughter and sunshine on water, other than both are…pleasant. This is not an inspirational quote at all, much less something that I could ever see someone putting up on a wall of their home. It’s a simile, simply put, and a weak one at that. It reminds me of one of those paradoxes that Buddhist monks-in-training must solve before they can become full-fledged monks.

Third quote: What a shallow and disgusting view of faith! To put your faith in the sun is fruitless. Even less fruitless would be the act of putting your faith in a SINGLE ray of sunlight. Taken as a metaphor (as I’m assuming it’s meant to be understood) it doesn’t quite make sense either. I’d boil down to something like this: Faith is believing that good will eventually overcome evil. Now, I do believe that eventually good (Jesus) will defeat evil (the devil) once and for all. But then, faith would be placed in Jesus, not in some impersonal force of good. But even if you don’t believe in Jesus, even if you do just believe in the force of good, this is still so far stretched from the original quote that there is very little meaning left.

Which brings me to retail. The only place where this stuff could possibly be sold. It’s STUPID! Who would want it? If you really believed that a ray of sunshine would shatter the darkness, then maybe you would donate the $10 you would have spent on that cheesy quote for your living room wall to a worthy charity or taking an upset friend out to lunch. Something worthwhile at least! SHATTER THAT DARKNESS!

Another ironic thing I found at work today: We received Thanksgiving stuff. TONS of it. Pallets full to toppling point! It’s past the point of being funny, and actually starts to get really sad. Some of it is so stupid, so incredibly stupid, yet it sells. The ironic part is that it is Thanksgiving stuff. Hey! Great idea! Let’s fill our house with stupid crap to show how thankful we are that we have money to throw away on useless, ugly stuff! I’m so THANKFUL that I’m not one of those people that has to worry about making house payments, or paying for college, or helping others with my extra money! No, no, no, I can buy useless stuff! THANKFULLY!!!

Can you tell I’ve been bitter thinking about this all day? And that, dear friends, is why I just love retail.

Weeping like a baby…

over Adoption Story. It has the cheesiest narration, laughable quotes in stellar effects, and even a little bit of slo-mo. I don’t care. I love adoption! I cry at EVERY episode. SO happy we have Discovery Health 🙂

A Rant on Phony Thankfulness

Whist discussing international traveling with a woman at work, she said this: Everyone who can should have an experience with traveling internationally-it just makes you so thankful for what you have. Now, let me preface by saying that I do not outright disagree with that statement. In all of my traveling experiences I have always returned home with a sense of relief and thankfulness. However, I think my problem with her statement (it’s not really only “her statement”-I have heard it plenty of times before) is that it assumes that you cannot have a full and satisfying life outside of the U.S. The statement really makes me ask, “Thankful for what?” Thankful that you don’t have a dirt floor? Thankful for your ipod, computer, car, tv, wii? As if you couldn’t possibly ever be happy in life if you had a dirt floor, or only had one shirt, or even never had the opportunity to get an education. In all of my travels I have met people who don’t have cars. Gasp! No car! Wait, where would you drive it in the bush of Zambia? WOAH…so are you telling me that there are people who are happy WITHOUT a car??? Mindblowing!) I have met kids who don’t have shoes OR video games. GASP! No cars, shoes, or VIDEO GAMES? Cars and shoes maybe, but how, HOW could you possibly be happy without video games???

When I was in Zambia I, naively, asked one of our host kids what he wanted more than anything in the world. I, in my pretentiousness, expected him to gush on about going to the US, video games, or even plain old money. Nope. “All I want”, he answered quickly, “are a pair of black shoes so I can go to school”. He didn’t even want shoes for the sake of the shoes themselves. It wasn’t about the shoes at all. The shoes were his lucky ticket to school. See, kids aren’t allowed in school without the full uniform and for most families, the shoes are the clincher as they cost more than the clothing. This boy didn’t want shoes, he wanted to go to school. More than anything in the world! Then to top off my idiotic questions, I asked if he wanted to visit the U.S. one day. He shrugged and said nonchalantly, “Uh, I guess…maybe some day…” Then he kind of wandered away, our conversation clearly over, probably wondering why he was expected to want to visit the U.S.

My other problem with the statement is this: It negates the importance of traveling altogether-the point being to experience and learn about other parts of the world and cultures, and help in truly meaningful ways. It implies that the purpose of travel is all about YOU. Vacations aside (my co-worker and I were talking specifically about service and mission trips), these trips should always be about other people. When you are going to serve a group of people, they should always get more out of the relationship than you.

Brought to my mind are silly student groups full of kids who don’t want to get dirt under their fingernails, who are more concerned with figuring out how to ask their crush-of-the-month if he is done with the hammer, or who in their naivete somehow think that they are saving the day. My point is this: you are not helping anyone if you are there for you. You aren’t going to create lasting change if the people you are “serving” aren’t there serving with you. If you go and paint a church in Costa Rica (just an example…) but no one from the local congregation is painting with you, that’s a problem. Where’s the ownership? Why are you really there? Do they not have arms and hands with which to paint the church themselves? These trips are so much more valuable to everyone involved if there is partnership on both ends.

That’s the kind of experience I want to facilitate for the Westwinds kids. Not some cheap “we’re so great, and you’re so poor, we’ll help you!” kind of a trip, but rather a real partnering, relationship-building trip. Not a trip where we return feeling so great about ourselves, but rather a trip where God builds meaningful connections between people from different parts of the globe. I want to give them a trip where they return, not with thankfulness that their parents are rich enough to give them an ipod for their birthday, but with an understanding that you don’t need the ipod in the first place to have a good life.

You don’t need running water, tile floors, or even a house at all to be happy! Believe it or not, huts with dirt floors and holes in the ground for toilets (OMG GROSS!) work just fine for billions on this planet. Believe it or not, not everyone wants to live like we do in the U.S., as my Zambian friend made clear to me. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be thankful, we should always be thankful for all that we have. I am saying that there are more important things in life (i.e. relationships with God and other people) than having a big house or having the latest and hottest gadget that money can buy.

#70!

This is my 70th post! This is honestly a major accomplishment for me, seeing how I have a stack of wayward journals laying around here somewhere.

Last week Kev and I bought Edy’s Mint Chocolate Chip with Brownie Bits ice cream. I quickly declared it my favorite ice cream ever. For that reason, it didn’t last very long. I was dismayed to find that Polly’s only sells about 5 different kinds of Edy’s, they mostly only have Breyer’s. Kevin and I both agreed that Breyer’s ice cream is much too icy-tasting (although it is good if you are thirsty as well- it’s thirst-quenching)! So, out of desperation and intrigue, I grabbed Pillsbury Chocolate Peanut Butter and Brownie. I didn’t even know Pillsbury made ice cream! This is giving Edy’s a run for it’s money, but I still think Edy’s comes out on top. Nothing beats that creamy taste! Except maybe Blue Bunny…

I’m LOVING having Discovery Health and National Geographic Channel. Tonight, there’s a show on about the little girl in India who has four arms and four legs. The people believe she is a goddess. Fascinating!

Big Time Laughs. Big Time Caucasian.

I found these to be pointedly accurate, and pretty much all funny.

Thank You Joy.

FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY…

have internet! Email me! Write on my facebook wall! Comment on my blog! I can now respond. Feels so good to be connected to the world again!

The Great Chicken Fiasco

Last night Kevin declined my offer to go running together, opting instead to make dinner. I went running by myself and came home to a completely wonderful smelling kitchen, chicken and rice casserole cooking in the oven. Now, Kevin doesn’t “bake” too often. In fact, he informed me before I left for my run: I don’t bake. However, with some encouragement, he agreed and upon my return I knew he had succeeded in baking!

When the timer went off I took the casserole out of the oven, set it on the stovetop, and got a trivet. When I went to lift up the hot, deliciously-smelling casserole, the bottom completely fell out. Completely. Whoosh. In an instant, our beautiful, aromatic dinner was in a pile on the stove…atop broken glass. I just stood there, utterly confused and stunned. Had that really just happened? Had my glass casserole dish really just broken? Where those chicken breasts and rice really piled upon broken glass? Kevin came rushing in, looking just as shocked as I was. Then he rushed to get the camera (“We’re getting a free dish!”) and I began to clean up the mess. That was our dinner…now what? Applebees!

Lost treasures

This seems to be the theme of the week: recovering lost treasures. Lori returned “Eat Pray Love” to me, and even though it wasn’t truly lost, I had completely forgotten I had lent it out, completely forgotten that it is one of those books where the words become gems in your mouth. She had a few pages marked, pages that had moved her in some way, so I naturally flipped open to them. It seems an intimate thing, reading pages that really meant something to someone else, a glimpse into the soul almost. What I found was a particular page that I particularly remember from when I read the book myself. Here’s the best part:

“I couldn’t care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside of me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.”

Without really realizing it, these words are my internal mantra while I’m outside. I think I just had this revelation when I rediscovered this passage. When I’m running or walking alone, out in the beautiful woods, seeing the sparkling water, feeling the wind, that’s what I’m saying to myself. I just want God. God be with me. Let’s just be together, absorbing each other, whispering to each other. Let’s just be quiet together, communicate through the wind and the water and the trees. See how the branches sway? That’s God waving hello. Hear the birds singing? That’s God’s good morning song to me. God, let’s just take this walk together; run with me…

The Greatest List Notebook Has Been Found And Returned to Regular Use

While organizing my “office” space today, I happened to flip through an old notebook. Not just any notebook, but one of those little ones that I love to use for writing lists. It used to be employed during college as an assignment book, but of course other lists crept in. I didn’t just find my old notebook, I found an old friend.
There are lists on “what to bring home”, shopping lists, to-do lists, a Christmas list, and even a list detailing the life of Abraham (can you tell I was a Ministry major?). Yet, this list right here takes the cake. A list of ideas for the greatest movie never made. Pardon me, it was made, but we had so many more ideas that it had (has?) the potential to be a full-length film. Here we go, as it appears in my notebook:

Eliza: The Crazy Roommate
Shoots people from behind
Crazy with knife
In shower with clothes, singing
Lay face down on table
Freezes in front of fridge
Stethoscope
Drinks fabric softener
Talks to herself
Sleeps in clothes heap under desk
Nervous glances
Meditates
Watches TV in weird positions

My favorite unperformed item on the list would have to be “crazy with knife”. That one or “drinks fabric softener”. I’m not quite sure what I meant when I wrote that, or what we were thinking when we came up with that idea…Di or Randi, do you remember? Also, as a sidenote, I laughed alound when I read “sleeps in clothes heap under desk”. Hmmm, I wonder where the inspiration for that little idea came from?

I also found this short, but thought-provoking list:

Vest
Hat and gloves
7 Principles…
Pete Yorn cd

I just thought it to be an odd collection of nouns. And for the life of me I cannot remember what “7 principles” were…or the last time I listened to my Pete Yorn cd.

This little notebook has spurned quite the interesting blog entry, eh? I’m a tad disappointed with myself for ripping out so many of the pages. Undoubtedly there were some good lists upon them and now they are lost forever!

The Longest Strings

I’m wearing Steph’s sweatshirt right now, as I’m at my parent’s house in Brighton and typing in the frigid basement, and I just noticed how incredibly long the strings are on it. I mean, they are really really long. They hang down to my mid-thigh. It’s a cool sweatshirt and everything, but what’s the purpose of the mile-long strings?

I didn’t really set out to write about that. But unfortunately we have to go drop Steph off in Ann Arbor for OnGoal, so there’s no time to write anything else!

Any thoughts on the purpose of the long strings would be most appreciated.