new digs! new digs!

In an attempt to have a better site, and/or to destroy what steady readership I had, I'VE MOVED. Please go here.

Please, please, please update your links: srich.blogs.com.

Muchas gracias. See you there!

new digs! new digs!

In an attempt to have a better site, and/or to destroy what steady readership I had, I'VE MOVED. Please go here.

Please, please, please update your links: srich.blogs.com.

Muchas gracias. See you there!

messy (there's that word again)

Julie and I had a great weekend... Corey (my friend and Kevin's roommate in less than a week) met up with us over in Seattle for lunch and joined us as we checked out a little church in Fremont called Church of the Apostles. (I'll have to write a post on that soon, describing the experience, because it was so good for us to be there that night, and I'll be back again).

We then met up with Bethany, the first random internet contact I've ever had the privilege of meeting face to face. She's great! We had such a good time getting to know each other; I walked away happy to have made a new friend. After church, Beth invited Jules and I to a birthday party, where Julie and I ended up singing karaoke in front of an entire room of people we'd never met. Good times. Good times. She was brave for letting us crash in her living room; we were brave for showing up. I think it paid off. Random-as-all-get-out weekend, but sometimes that breath of fresh air is exactly what I need. Thanks Bethany, hope to hang out again soon!
*******
OK. So here's where I'm at. (This will not be a pretty post, I can tell now). Ministry relationships are proving really really hard. They're not so very different from any other kind of relationships, I guess, but somehow they still surprise me with their capacity for messiness. I don't know why I'm shocked - these relationships, just like all other connections, have one ingredient in common: they have people in 'em. And "ministry types" are no less human and no less flawed than any others. (Sometimes I question whether we're even more messed up).

It's not that I thought doing this was going to be a cakewalk. It wasn't easy when I was younger, and simply volunteering; and I knew it wasn't going to get any easier the more I became involved. Which is probably why I fought it for so long before finally giving in. The closer you get a magnifying glass to an object, the better you see the dirt on it. Its flaws and rough edges take on startling clarity. Ministry as vocation is still worth pursuing; it's an amazing journey and I am still awestruck that I get to be doing what I'm doing. I'm just getting close enough that I can see the dirt. Dirt on my heroes; dirt on me. We are so incurably human.

What makes it hard is that you sometimes feel like that dirt shouldn't be there. You feel like there should be this impenetrable unity, such clarity of vision and focus, that these petty little personal things wouldn't even show up on the radar. We're going to go on this lovely mission with Jesus; and all will be daisies and roses, right? Just like it was 2,000 years ago... hmm... If I remember correctly, the disciples were always jockeying for position and admiration, Peter was always blurting out something stupid (apart from the few brief shining moments he stumbled upon something profound); and half the time they all had little-to-no idea what the heck Jesus meant when he was talking. Even working directly with Jesus didn't seem to make everything run smoothly. (Which is kind of a relief and a bummer at the same time. We're no different, and yet, hope remains).

The other thing that has been a major wrestling match for me is that everything is so intertwined in this community of people, more so than in just a regular business. Boss is pastor. Coworker is accountability partner. Pastor is mentor. Coworker is friend. It's all so complicated. Issues in one realm tend to affect all the others. (This is true across all areas of life, it's just blatantly, painfully, ridiculously obvious here).

For me, it works out this way: whenever I get frustrated, along with it comes a very potent guilt. (Lethally toxic: guilt on top of frustration). It's hard to feel okay when I find myself on opposite sides of an issue with someone I admire and respect. If it's a person who is "above" me in leadership, double or triple the dosage. A Sunday School poster child, I grew up with a very powerful need to please people, especially those with whom I worked in the church... I count myself lucky that at least that need was to please people who were doing right things, people who loved God. A lot of that desperate need for approval has faded. But even now, at twenty-four, there are still moments, very painful ones, when I'm put through the wringer figuring out when I need to stick to my guns, and when I just need to shut up and humbly accept the startling revelation that I'm not always right. (and if I can't humbly accept it, at least I'll have shut up).

Lately, it seems like I find myself in that wringer all the time, in one particular arena, with one particular relationship. And I have no idea what to do. Am I following my heart, being true to who God made me to be, or am I being a stubborn jerk? Is the (more likely) combination enough of one or the other that I can have peace about what to do or not do?

For now, I've decided to say nothing, decide nothing, do nothing. It has occurred to me, in all my frustration, in all my weighing of potential decisions, that I haven't asked for any help from the One who understands this situation better than either of us ever could. I've been stubbornly trying to figure it out on my own, and God has always seemed more than willing to let me wear myself out until I remember Him. It occurs to me: the reason the disciples did great things even though they so often seemed borderline retarded is that they were with Jesus. There is hope yet.

I need to ask for, and begin to rely on, the grace I so often talk about trusting in. Simple as that. So, for now, I'm going to be still & remind myself that He is God (and, consequently, that I am not).
********
(I'm open to thoughts on this, especially if any of this sounds a little familiar. Thanks).

the adventures of Stacey & Kevo

Here's an album chronicling our many adventures. Enjoy.

http://www.hpphoto.com/servlet/com.hp.HPGuestLogin?username=staceyrich1&password=90992815

So yeah, Kevo I know I said I'd write you a post, but it took a REALLY long time to find and download these priceless little treasures. So another day. Til then, you are immortalized in this album.

Gosh! You people and your freaking demands! Write a song about me. Send Trogdor over to my house. Put on a purple thing and dance around!

Ok clearly it's time for bed. Laters.

best week ever

This past week was the best week ever here... had 1156 hits. (WOW. Some of you REALLY got bored at work this week). So thanks. :)
**
In honor of Monday and my best week ever... I give you... a not-very-hard quotes quiz. Hope it, at the very least, makes you smile a bit on this most painful of weekdays.

1. He’s in-famous? In-famous?

2. … and then you lick your palms. It’s a little childish and stupid, I know, but then again- so is high school.

3. The conceptualization, the whole abstraction, the obtuseness of this production to me was what was interesting. I wanted the audience to feel the heat from the fire, the fear, because people don't like fire, poked, poked in their noses…

4. A: What happened to that nice girlfriend of yours?
B: Oh, she got hit by a car, she’s dead.

5. [On answering machine] At the beep please leave your name, number and a brief justification for the ontological necessity of modern man's existential dilemma and we'll get back to you.

6. You know I used to wait two days to call anybody, but now it's like everyone in town waits two days. So I think three days is kind of money. What do you think?

7. This has been a very good … conversation.

8. I'm pond scum. Well, lower actually. I'm like the fungus that feeds on pond scum.

9. What am I gonna say? "I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How've you been?"

10. This'll be fun. We'll stay up late, swapping manly stories, and in the morning... I'm making waffles.

11. …if I ever lost you I don't know what I would do… (pause) ...I would probably move on, get another clone but there would be a 15 minute period there where I would just be inconsolable.

the surreal life

I find myself not knowing quite what to say, but knowing all the same that something should probably be said, so please bear with me and allow me grace as I just lay out some thoughts buzzing around in my brain tonight. If you're new, just skip this and come another day; if you have no idea what I'm talking about, just nod and smile; if you know what I'm talking about, well, please read sentence one again.

I first discovered this whole blogging phenomenon about six months ago... and have been about as avid a participant as you can be. It's been a good place to share my thoughts and feelings - an amazing outlet - and I owe a lot of my growth as a writer to this little space in which I type.

And I've found community here. There's a certain kind of person that enjoys looking at their life in a deeper way, that enjoys trying to make sense of the everyday moments - large and small - that make up their existence. A lot of these people, seemingly normal enough, end up sucked into the blogging world and find themselves writing on a regular basis. (I am always a little defensive... YES, I have a blog, but I'm STILL NORMAL and only a little bit of a nerd...) I have met some people I now consider friends -- one, I met this weekend as she and Julie and I goofed off in Seattle. Another seems to have a really hard time remembering the time difference, but is actually a (usually) welcomed wake-up call. Some just happen to drop little emails here and there, who brighten my day out of nowhere. There's a kindredness about this whole thing; it's easy to feel close. For the most part, I fully enjoy the comeraderie. It's no substitute for time with friends and my bro, but it's still a welcome addition to my life.

But, as with many of the forms of communication we so often rely on in our technologically driven lives... there are limits. Feeling close and being close are very different things. For some reason, it's so much easier to type things than to say them. Anyone who's ever sent an email they regretted in an emotional moment, or who shared something more personal than they meant to in an IM, knows exactly what I'm talking about. We type things we'd never say to a person face to face.

Here's the deal, as honestly as I can spell it out: I don't want anyone feeling closer to me than they are. The whole reason for this not-so-elegant post is just to make sure that doesn't happen. It's not to be prideful; but simply to be careful.

Guys have joked about me being their online crush. (It's fine; no one has done anything wrong. I can't emphasize that enough. This is not rebuke, simply caution). I typically laugh it off, much the way I did a few years back when one of my brother's friends used to propose to me on a regular basis. I'd laugh, pat him on the head, be flattered for half a second, and wouldn't think another second about it. Because it wasn't real.

The thing is, I try to be as honest about my life as I know how to be on this thing. I don't toss all my laundry out for the world to see -- there is plenty that remains unsaid and that's as it should be -- but I try to be me, questions and insecurities and all. No matter how authentic I tried to be, however, a person will never know me - the real me - simply by my words. It just doesn' t happen. My life is much more messy (and much more full) that that. I am more than that. (God! that my life would be as simple as it tends to be here. Where you can just craft all the chaos into pretty sentences and pretty words and wrap it up neatly in a nice ending line!).

Most importantly, I am more human than that. In real life I don't get hit on very often, and when I do, it's typically more creepy than anything. In real life, I get dumped. I get my heart broken sometimes. Not because life is unfair or because guys in the NW are jerks. It's because I'm human. Faulted. Just me. (And, because I just haven't met the right person yet). Here's me: I talk too much. I'm still a lot less secure than I'd like to be, still not wholly comfortable in my own skin. Sometimes when I get mad, I get really loud. (Just ask Kevo). If I'm really ticked, I clean like a maniac. (Kevin likes this aspect). I yell mean stuff at people while driving, because I know they can't hear me and I feel better (ask Julie). And that's just the stuff I feel comfortable sharing because it's a little bad, but not the deep dark variety.

Maybe knowing the yucky stuff would help paint a better picture, but does anyone really want to read about the mold that I had in my coffee pot last week because I forgot to dump the leftover coffee in it?

(Don't worry. My self esteem is fine. I'm not worried that I'll never find me a man, and I have great friends who love me even though (because?) I'm me).

A friend and I were joking a while back that I have much better luck with admiration from the guys here than in real life. I had several theories: perhaps I have a completely awful personality offline; maybe the real-life lens adds 10 or 15 pounds; maybe it's easy to toss something out there, knowing I'm far away. The first, I hope is untrue; the second, I suspect is true; and the third I know is true. These dudes, sweet as they are and well-intentioned as they may be, would never say the things they do if I lived in their apartment complex or if I went to their church or if I worked in the same building. I am far away; I am safe.

But still -- I am not real.

So please... let's all be friends, let's share our thoughts and the moments that make life beautiful. But let's make sure we keep aware of the limits inherent in this crazy little place we choose to meet.

[operator error]

Notes from all over, because it is Friday and 3.38 p.m.:

I locked myself out of the office again the other day and had to wait for Bob the Lawyer to return from lunch and let his blonde secretary back in. I worked here a year and a half before I ever locked myself out, and it’s happened twice in the last month and a half. I’m slippin’.
***
That same morning I woke up in a slight panic because I had taken out my nose ring in my sleep and had to search for it in my bed. Some sleepwalk, others remove their facial piercings. Hmm...
***
I am drinking an extra mocha mocha at the moment, and it’s really good. Be jealous.
***
During dinner at Buca de Beppo’s the other night, I got the following message on my phone, which proved quite entertaining:

"Stace, it’s me – I’m trying to figure out how to get your stupid windows up on your car... I put them down– I can’t get... now they’re all down, and I can’t get any of ‘em up, so if you get this message, give me a call..."

The backstory: My mom, driving my car back from Seattle after Gracie’s bridal shower (we couldn’t get her to stay for the bachelorette ;) ), stopped and got her own cup of coffee at a drive through. She then couldn’t figure out how to get the window back up. She drove on the freeway (now dark) pushing random buttons at will, still with no luck. Except now all four windows were down. On the freeway. Wind in her hair.

SO, she pulled off the freeway, pulled into a Home Depot parking lot, and attempted, for another ten minutes, to put my car’s windows up. Finally, seeing a young man of decent intelligence gathering shopping carts, and hoping he lacked violent tendencies, she yelled, "Hey, could you come here for a second?"

After he suppressed his urge to bolt from the scary redhead lady yelling at him from the empty end of the parking lot, he came over, and my mom described her plight. Hoping she lacked violent tendencies, he agreed to help. It took our young hero about ten minutes as well, but eventually he discovered my Mazda’s secret: to put windows down, push down on the button. To put windows up... PULL UP. PULL UP, YOU SILLY SILLY PERSON. It ain’t rocket science.
***
I am meeting, in person, my first ever internet friend tomorrow. I’m going to go to Seattle, visit Church of the Apostles over in Fremont, and then hang out with Bethany. Julie might come. She doesn’t know that yet, but she checks this blog every five minutes, so "Julie, hey, wanna come? We can talk about it at the rents’ place later." (My mom, although she can’t put up car windows, makes great burgers. Yum).
***
In the words of Kip, "Peace out." Have a great weekend.

[Bible Jim and me, part ii]

Backtrack to September 2001. Our scene: College, take two. After taking a year off recuperating from my disappointing performance at Bible college (maybe I’ll have the courage to post on THAT sometime…), I enrolled at Western, and, knowing no one in Bellingham, was forced to move into the dorms. I must admit, dorm life held much more allure the first time I tried it. Now I found myself moving in with a bunch of crazies who were in eighth grade when I was grabbing my diploma to Pomp & Circumstance.

I had, in a moment of later-appreciated wisdom, requested a single room. Western housing terms this a “Super-single” accommodation. “Super-closet” would have been more appropriate, as the room’s width was the length of my twin bed… one long skinny rectangle. The flooring? Think junior high cafeteria. Then think cold. (No one warned me of the glories of Fairhaven housing. I think I handpicked the ghettoest housing on campus. But hey, at least it was my own private corner of ghettodom, just below the laundry room). But I digress…

The first day, as I was getting things set up in my room, more specifically, shelving my massive collection of Christian non-fiction, Allie walked in. I’d already met some of the girls with whom I shared a suite (two shared rooms + a super single + bathroom = suite), and to be quite honest, thought she was one of their brothers for a brief moment before it clicked. Our eyes met, and it was that classic deer-caught-in-headlights look… from both of us. I can’t know her perspective for sure, but I could guess her thoughts as she caught my Bible on top of the shelf: I’m living with a Bible thumper. She’s going to hate me. Mine, as I caught her spiky hair and carharts: I’m living with a lesbian. She’s probably been given plenty of reason to hate me. We managed a polite, hello, how’s it going, but I know we both walked away thinking oh-crap-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into kinds of thoughts.

That night, as I lay there in bed, my nose stuffy from the potent combo of pot and incense wafting in from the celebratory festivities next door… I wondered again what I’d gotten myself into. I’d said that I wanted to be out of the bubble of sheltered surreality that was Bible college. I’d said that I wanted to be in touch with what was really happening in the world, to know people different than myself. Well, between Allie and her polar-opposite roommate, a Britney-ish cheerleader who was quite proud of her contribution to a Girls Gone Wild video… I’d say we were there. I would continue to be stretched in the months to come, as Allie’s girlfriend entered the picture, and as my allergies became fairly regular.

It was strange. It wasn’t that I’d never been exposed to any of this before… I’d been working with youth for a while, and after a while things sort of cease to shock you. But working with the kids, they’re on your turf. They’ve chosen to come, at least for the most part. I was on foreign turf; I knew I was far away from home, from familiarity, and felt it keenly. And the last thing I wanted to be – the thing I was most scared of – was that I’d be one more Christian earning the reputation of hatred and bigotry so far from the heart of who Jesus was.

So in those first few weeks, I decided something important: I decided to shut up. To just shut up and be as kind as I knew how to be; to let people be themselves, without being judgmental and condescending. Sometimes my former tendencies would have been to be harsh, to be unwilling to associate with people who were living certain ways, but things had changed. I think partially it was that I was out to prove something: All Christians aren’t jerkfaces. But for whatever reasons, I just wasn’t willing to be that person anymore.

Growing up, I’d always been taught – subtly -- that it was about what you’d SAY to people far from God, that one day you’d have this talk where you knew all the answers, and they would be just SO hungry to hear how right you were, and that would be it. Uh huh. Yeah right. Only within the confines of the Christian college bubble does that kind of thinking survive.

For me, it didn’t take long to find that people already knew where I stood, what my life was about, simply by the way I lived it, imperfectly but graciously. I didn’t need to say anything... it wasn’t necessary to communicate my values. To say something would have wrecked it, I think. Yeah, I got teased sometimes. Especially at first, but as time wore on, it was nearly affectionate.

Allie, running into my room: “Stacey! Turn on channel 12! It’s Destiny’s Child! They’re singin’ about God & Jesus & stuff! You’ll love it!”

Me: falling off my bed laughing.

I don’t think I ever once talked to Allie about the Bible, or my beliefs vs. hers, or anything like that. Some would say that I was foolish, others would say that I did the right thing… all I knew was that I cared more about being able to laugh with her than I did about being able to out-debate her. What we did talk about was English. English, and Saturday morning cartoons. Allie was dyslexic, and admittedly was terrible at writing. Me, I wrote for fun, so it worked out for me to proofread her papers and help her get her essays started. I like helping people write in general, but getting that chance to build a friendship with someone so seemingly unlikely through something so simple… meant a lot. Saturday morning cartoons… everyone would pile onto my twin bed some Saturday mornings and we’d sit there and watch Flintstones or Jetsons or whatever else was on as we ate unholy amounts of breakfast cereal. You couldn’t have come up with a more assorted crew if you tried, but there we were.

One thing they did teach me at Bible college was true, however. I had always thought it was total myth, but it turns out it still happens every now and then. Sometimes people really do ask you what’s different about you. Emily, one of my other suitemates, asked me that once as we were hanging out in my super-closet. After I recuperated from passing out that she’d actually ask me, we talked. And talked. And talked.

During one such talk, she asked me about how I’d felt when I first met Allie. I was honest… saying that I was afraid she wouldn’t like me. Emily said they’d talked about it, and that Allie had feared the same thing. And then Emily said this to me, which I will hold on to forever: “Yeah, but then she got to know you. We were talking about it not too long ago and she said, ‘Stacey’s not like any other Christian I’ve been around. I actually like being around her.’”

(I smiled for like a week. People liked being around Jesus too).

***
No one “got saved” on my floor during the few months I lived on campus, at least not that I know of. All I can say is that I attempted to love people like Jesus did… that I tried to live truth in front of them, and let them open up the discussion. While I’m not concerned with my knowing the outcomes – those are up to God -- I do hope that because I lived there, people realized that God is nearer and more gracious than He sometimes has been portrayed.

Some more zealous types would no doubt think me an absolute failure. But that’s ok with me. Those zealous types were up in Red Square, yelling and screaming about who makes Jesus sick.

The prayer I prayed under my breath as I walked away from Red Square that day was that, when Allie thinks of a Christian, she doesn’t see Bible Jim. I hope she still sees me.

[Bible Jim and me]

Luke 5:31,32 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
***
I still remember the first time I saw the man campus veterans referred to as Bible Jim. (2001 found me no longer at Bible college, but at Western Washington University in Bellingham WA, just to clarify...)

He was a little hard to miss as he hopped out of his panel van, wearing a bright blue sweatshirt emblazoned in huge white letters with the following subtle message: REPENT HOMO!

A little band of fellow crusaders braved the darkness of our campus alongside him: a woman I assumed to be his wife, with long scraggly, graying hair and a flowing skirt to her ankles; a boy and a girl (his kids?), probably around 10 and 13; and a man in his thirties with an equally subtle message on his own sweatshirt.

Running late to class as usual, I wasn't able to catch their full intentions in visiting our campus, but as I walked through Red Square an hour later, it was impossible to miss. Red Square is normally a great place to be, a center of campus life: other punctuality-challenged students such as myself trying to hustle to class without being horribly conspicuous, caught in a very awkward sort of half-run; friends catching up on the latest, laughing and joking; people on break enjoying a quick bite to eat, sitting on the ledge around the fountain; the occasional goofballs taking a run through the fountain.

On this day, I'm not sure what hit me first – the twenty-feet-tall signs held by the little group as they stood firmly and resolutely in the center of the Square, or the very tangible, seething rage that threatened to boil over at any moment. It seemed less like a crowd and more a hornets' nest.

The signs: one of them had to do with Hell, and how most of us were destined for it, I remember that much; and another, a huge monstrosity (probably hand-made by Mrs. Bible Jim), said this:

YOU MAKE JESUS SICK:
dykes on bikes
fags
lying penteco$tals
people who love their pets more than God
computer freaks
sluts
liberal liars
money-mongers
winos
perverts
etc.
etc.
etc.

(I can't remember the entire list because it consisted of about thirty types of nausea-inducing people). But you get the general idea.

The rage: I'm not sure who was more angry – the majority of Western's very liberal campus, or the Christians, who felt that they were being set back about a century in their efforts to show grace and love to those they lived and studied with. Some entered the fray, debating with Bible Jim, yelling verses back and forth. I found myself among others who sat down a little behind the huge crowd, mourning what was happening and silently praying that it wouldn't get violent. (Although I was so angry inside that I honestly wouldn't have minded if someone had given Bible Jim a fist or two).

If being a Christian meant that I was identified with these folks, then I was ashamed to be one in that moment. My heart ached to realize that these people would drive off in their van, feeling they had done an awesome work for the Kingdom; that they had stood up for Jesus and for what was right. They would never realize what a mess they'd left the rest of us with – what damage had been done; what hatred we'd have to attempt to undo. I remembered standing in Red Square a month prior with my friend Dustin, handing out free coffee in CTK cups to people cold and on their way to finals. We'd felt good about giving "a cup of cold water" without needing to convert anyone, without needing to talk about anything other than finals with people. People were like, "Really? Just coffee? That's all?" Now, I felt more than a little defeated. What was free coffee going to do against rabid hate? What would people remember more?

And then I thought of Allie.

Tomorrow: part 2.

[thoughts on gratitude]

Thoughts in Solitude was my favorite book in my Faith in Contemporary Lit class with Debbie Pope five years ago when I was in Bible college in Kirkland. It still hasn't let go of me. Reading some of it this morning, it hit me again. As a friend of mine would say, "That's some good chicken." Enjoy, and may you walk in gratitude today. Be well, be blessed.

**********

There is no neutrality between gratitude and ingratitude. Those who are not grateful soon begin to complain of everything. Those who do not love, hate. In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate. That is why tepidity (which seems to be indifferent) is so detestable. It is hate disguised as love.

Tepidity, in which the soul is "neither hot nor cold" -- neither frankly loves nor frankly hates -- is a state in which one rejects God and rejects the will of God while maintaining an exterior pretense of loving him in order to keep out of trouble and save one's supposed self-respect. It is the condition that is soon arrived at by those who are habitually ungrateful for the graces of God. A man who truly responds to the goodness of God, and acknowledges all that he has received, cannot be a half-hearted Christian. True gratitude and hypocrisy cannot exist together. They are totally incompatible. Gratitude of itself makes us sincere -- or if it does not, then it is not true gratitude.

Gratitude, though, is more than a mental exercise, more than a formula of words. We cannot be satisfied to make a mental note of things which God has done for us and then perfunctorily thank him for favors received.

To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything He has given us -- and he has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of his love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful man knows that God is good, not by hearsay, but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.

-Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude