Be a Modern-Day Abolitionist

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It's been a long time coming, but here is some information about modern-day slavery and how alive and well it is today. This article says it way better than I ever could, plus the writer is someone we met at the Wilberforce conference, so I know she knows what she's talking about. :)

Article on Wilberforce and the march to end modern-day slavery

Tomorrow, over 5000 churches across America will unite in singing the hymn "Amazing Grace" for Amazing Grace Sunday. Pastors will share about the film and the modern movement from the pulpit, and people will sign the petition to end slavery, in its many mutilated forms, now, once and for all, forever. You can be a modern-day abolitionist and sign the petition, too, by visiting the Amazing Change campaign website.

The film opens this coming Friday. We hope 7 to 10 million people go see it. To be more specific, we hope you go see it . . . and walk away changed, with great hope in your heart for the way small groups that band together can really change the world. Perhaps you, too, will belong to one such band someday.

Rumoriffic

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I just found out a rumor's been spreading about me back home: that I am pregnant. Ha-ha-ha. That's hilarious! But so not true.

It's weird to find out people are talking about you when you're not around. Kind of like an entity separate from yourself has gotten up and begun a new life for itself in the world without your knowledge or even your input, having an effect nonetheless on other people. It feels kind of icky, actually.

Of course, true friends, like the one I talked to today, go straight to the source, and heck if I should care what all the rest should think. But still, it's odd. Has that ever happened to you?

Three Tickets in 30 Seconds

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When I was talking to my friend Laura on the phone last night, I got pulled over for what must be the most violations one person can rack up in 30 seconds.

Violation #1: Driving with one Starbucks in hand and another between legs. This is the real reason I thought he had pulled me over because I had just attempted to make the sharpest right-hand turn into our neighborhood with only one hand on the wheel, and I overshot it real bad. I figured he thought I was drunk. So as he approached my car, I rolled down my window and waved the frappuccino and venti iced chai out the window.

"I'm driving with two Starbucks," I said. "That's why I was so clumsy on that turn." At least I knew I could pass any breathilizer or walking test he may throw at me, since I was as sober as a stick.

"I can guarantee that's not why I'm pulling you over right now," he said.

Oh. Hm. What, then?

Violation #2: "Your back tailights are out," he said.

"Really?" I asked, incredulous. "But I just got them both replaced!"

"Well, they're out. I even checked your headlights when you were turning at the light, in case maybe you'd just forgotten to turn on your lights in the first place, but those ones were on."

Ah. There's the problem, I thought. "My headlights go on automatically when I turn on the car." (I drive a spunky white 2001 Jetta.) "But how long have you been following me? Because I was talking on my cell phone and forgot to turn on my lights until just a minute ago."

Violation #3: Driving without lights. "Oh, so you mean I have to give you a moving violation, too?" he asked.

Shoot. Crud. DARN it. I looked at him helplessly. "I'm so sorry," was all I could say.

Plus, nestled in that last exchange was Almost-Violation #4: Talking on cell phone while driving. Thankfully, this is not (yet) a crime in central Florida. But it did make me worry that I'd been doing something wrong on that count, too, that I didn't know about.

"Just don't forget to drive with your lights on," he finally said, easing up on me. "I wouldn't want some drunk person hitting you, even though your car is white."

And with that, he wished me a good evening and stalked back to his car. I'd never felt so thankful in my life. Well, that's a gross exaggeration, but it was incredibly relieving. Laura and I got quite a great kick out of it. Don't you?

Also, thanks to Laura for the great idea for this post's title.

Five Hours on the Tarmack

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For the past few weeks, Kirk and I have been enrolled -- pretty much against our will -- in something we have come to call PTP, or the Patience Training Program. We have encountered far too many situations within this short period of time -- and often in multiple forms at once -- that, taken as a whole, seem too bizarre to blame on human ignorance or obliviousness. We've concluded God must be storing up deposits of patience in us for the future.

Oh, boy. I wonder what that means about our future.

It was encouraging, however, to discover that He's made progress in us over the past few weeks of this after seeing the way we responded to the five -- count 'em, five -- hours we spent on the tarmack in Baltimore this past Sunday night, trying to get home from the conference.

When we boarded the plane at 2:45, it had begun to very lightly snow. It was pretty. We watched it blow softly in the air from our seats by the window. But after everyone had boarded within the next half-hour, they decided they needed to de-ice the plane. This required waiting for the de-icing truck. And then finding out, after we'd been sitting there for about an hour, that the buildup of the very light snow (which was not so light anymore) would require a second session of de-icing the plane.

Only then the de-icing truck broke.

What happens when a de-icing truck breaks? According to the flight deck, it means you call the authorities and find out about getting a new truck dispatched over. And then waiting and waiting for them to come. Only to find out there isn't another truck to be dispatched, and then waiting some more to find out what we're supposed to do now.

At this point, we'd been sitting on the tarmack over 2 hours. It was about time for all of us to be catching our connecting flights in Atlanta. Some people, like those going on from Atlanta to Germany or Tel Aviv, wouldn't be able to catch a different connecting flight and so decided they wanted to get off the plane. Which our flight crew allowed, but this meant harnessing another jetway and ground crew to get them all off the plane. Chalk this up to another hour of waiting.

Finally, finally, finally we heard back from the authorities who said we could make our way over to the de-icing station and get our plane hosed off from there. Hooray! Cheers erupted from every row. Except that when the flight deck spoke with the de-icing station directly, they found out the station didn't know when they'd be able to fit us in. Delta flights don't come to the station itself, they told our pilots. Trucks go out to meet those planes at the gate.

Well, of course they do. Except, of course, when the only truck available is broken. What now?

We'll see when we can fit you in, they said. Which meant more waiting. When finally they had a spot for us, we pedaled our plane on over there, only to find out that after a 10-minute wait for the plane in front of us to finish, it was going to take another 45 mintes to get ours de-iced. Argh!

I should probably tell you that at least there were no screaming babies on this flight. However, there was a group of about 12 high school girls sitting directly behind us who not only started out trying to solve the crossword puzzle at the back of the airline-provided magazine as a collective group (complete with calls across the aisles and rows about their guesses to each query on the puzzle) but also proceeded to call their parents after every announcement -- and we got announcements about every 15 minutes -- to reiterate the news we'd just gotten. Usually this news was that we were still waiting. Which all of us already knew. We were pros at this waiting game by this point.

Finally, after the 45-minute de-icing session, we made our way to the runway. Our pilot said we were third in line, but we were able to watch six planes go up ahead of us before we finally hit the runway with a vengeance and got ourselves on up into the air. But at least we were in the air finally. Hooray! More cheers from every row.

All told, we caught a new connection in Atlanta and made it home in Orlando by 1:30 in the morning, just six hours after the time we were supposed to be home on the original plan. Whew!

I say all of this quite tongue-in-cheek because all of us on the plane were intoxicated with a little hilarity by about the third hour of the wait, but actually it didn't seem altogether that terrible for Kirk or myself. We were surprisingly calm. Though the gaggle of young girls had been disruptive and somewhat annoying at the beginning, pretty soon I grew to find them intensely amusing. I started laughing at their attempts to make up dialogue for the movie on the screen that no one was watching, for instance.

And all Kirk and I could do, after we realized we weren't at all freaked out about this situation, was shake our heads in amazement and say, "God must be making some good headway with us on this whole PTP thing." Thank goodness. I don't think I would have responded with even half as much amusement and grace if this had happened in December.

And We're Off!

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Kirk and I are off to Maryland today to attend a Wilberforce Weekend honoring the life of William Wilberforce, the parliamentarian who was responsible for eradicating the slave trade in Great Britain in 1807 -- after a 20-year battle with Parliament to get it approved.

The movie Amazing Grace, releasing February 23 on the exact 200-year anniversary of the abolishment of the slave trade, tells the story of his life. It is a truly great film on multiple levels, and I'll share more about that soon. For now, you can check out more information and even watch the trailer by clicking here.

Wilberforce has been a longtime spiritual hero for Kirk, so part of this weekend is a birthday gift to him. (His birthday is today; mine was yesterday.) The other part is that it's going to teach us a lot about the issue of modern-day slavery, which is more prevalent now than it was in the days of the "old slavery."

When we get back, I'll share some highlights with all of you. Until then, we will be at this beautiful place at Osprey Point in Maryland. Ta-ta.

All of Creation Groans

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Tonight I was sitting alone in my house at our kitchen table -- the kitchen table we've pulled out of the kitchen and placed smack-dab in the middle of the big main room. (We live in a very small space.)

I was sitting there by myself, and Kirk wouldn't be home for an hour. I was worn out, tired, pooped, and yet stirred up inside my spirit. I've had a somewhat discouraging 48 hours of life.

Where else could I go but the source of life? I cracked open the Bible and continued my reading of Matthew. In the way that it has of doing, it moved my spirit beyond exhaustion and confusion unto the point of praise, so I started singing. That's just what I do. I can't help it sometimes.

As I've written in a previous post, my cats get, um, a little stirred up in their affection for one another when I sing by myself in the house, and this time was no exception. Thankfully it didn't get too out of hand this time; though I think they moved toward the inevitable scratch-and-claw two times total by the end, the exertions were brief and at least stirred them out of their all-day lethargy of sleeping themselves into comas on the bed. Maybe Solomon even lost a few calories out of it. (And goodness knows he could stand to lose a few thousand of them!)

Eventually, though, after I had read some more and the cats had settled back on the bed, I decided I didn't want to sing old psalm melodies anymore so I popped in a CD. I started singing along with Jennifer Knapp and Mac Powell the words to a song that goes, "All creatures of our God and King / Lift up your voice and with us sing . . ." It's a great song; very earthy and sultry and raw.

So there I was, singing it out with the J-Knapp and Mac, my eyes closed and arms eventually raised to the ceiling, even, until at one point I wondered how the cats were doing with this one. I opened my eyes and looked over toward the bed. Diva, who had hitherto been laying on the bed in her lethargic state again, was perched with an astounding alertness on the corner of the carpet by the bed and facing me, her paws placed just so in perfect cat-watching stance. She was staring straight at me with her blue, blue eyes, like she was sincerely listening to me sing. Like she actually understood the words behind the song: "All creatures of our God and King / Lift up your voice and with us sing . . ."

Spooky.

But also thrilling.

Could it be that when I sing praises to Jesus, my cats actually respond to Him too? This may be something of a stretch, but I think it's also highly possible, for "all of creation groans to sing His praises; they eagerly await the day of His return" (my paraphrase of Romans 8). Who knows? This may be what their always-predictable friskiness when I sing is ultimately all about.

Other Great News

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Our friend Kenny, the one who rents us the little studio where we live, gave us a very generous Christmas gift in the form of a $300 giftcard to the Ritz Carlton Spa in Orlando. (This is linked to the JW Marriott resort where we did our second Navigator's Council in September, if you recall from this blog post here.)

We're stoked!

We decided to use it this weekend, so today we are going in for massages at 1pm. Kirk is getting the 50-minute hand and foot massage; I'm getting their 50-minute full body signature one. After that, we get to use the spa facilities for the rest of the day. This means pool. This means jacuzzi. This means gym. This means yummy natural foods cafe. Woohoo! :)

Then next weekend we're flying up to Maryland for a William Wilberforce weekend conference, hosted through the Trinity Forum. I'll explain more about William Wilberforce in an upcoming post, but suffice it to say that he has been a longtime spiritual hero to Kirk for many years. Kirk is even a graduate of the Wilberfoce Centurion program put on by Chuck Colson in Washington, DC! This conference next weekend is a precursor to the release of the Amazing Grace movie, which maybe you have heard about that releases in late February by Walden Media, a Christian-based film production company who also produced Narnia and Charlotte's Web. I'll be posting a review of the film in the next couple days so you can get the word out early within your own spheres of influence.

So this weekend and the next should be filled with quite a bit of goodness: one for the body, and the other for the soul. Looking forward to it.

Post-Christmas Reflections

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So, Christmas Eve was hard. It was the hardest of all the days leading up to Christmas, as it was the day I turned from gleeful to moody, happy to despairing almost every half-hour, like a mood ring turning from green to blue to green again at any fantastic or ordinary moment. It was also the day I finally broke down and sobbed my eyes out. I even called my mom to let her know how hard things were going and had to repeat myself through sobs three times before she could figure out why I was calling and what was wrong. Nothing was wrong, really. I just missed home at Christmas.

Christmas day was much easier. It was fun, really. Kirk and I exchanged gifts on the sofa, and Solomon and Diva made quick to join us. Diva sat sweet and calm and pretty between us, amid our pile of gifts, while Solomon, in his penchant for all things paper or plastic, made a mess of the pile of wrap strewn about the floor. He dragged some of it to the bed. He also chewed through all the ribbon.

One thing cool to discover about our exchange of gifts was how zeroed in both of us were on the heart of the other person. For example, I got Kirk two gift subscriptions for the upcoming year: one for a great, relatively new journal my friend Sara told us about at Thanksgiving, called Conversations, which is a deep and fantastic exploration of the formative life of the heart and how spiritual transformation happens or doesn't happen in human beings, headed up by David Benner, Larry Crabb, and Gary Moon four years ago; and the other for Paste Magazine, which is a very engaging, with-it, yet tasteful pop culture mag we just discovered that is owned by a believer Kirk has known for years and deeply respects. In the span of two small gifts, Kirk got slices of manna for a year that will feed his inner life of the spirit and his outer journey toward impacting culture through creative media and the arts.

As for me, I told Kirk a few weeks ago that I want to master two things in 2007: the personal essay and the Italian language. (I took two semesters of the language in 2004 but still have a long way to g0.) What did he get me, then? First, a boxed set of resources for Italian, which includes 10 CDs, a common phrasebook, a workbook, and a few other things; plus a beautiful photo-box-sized striped box with a whole handful of tools inside for mastering the personal essay. These "tools" include two striped journals that match the box -- a small one for "thoughts on the go" and a larger one for "deeper musings" -- as well as a book of essays on the personal essay by people who've already mastered it, such as Eudora Welty and Annie Dillard. With that group of masters, plus the works of Anne Lamott and Donald Miller to "mentor" me through the process, I'm sure to get some full-length essays finished and out the door by the end of 2007. Maybe I'll even apply for the low-residency MFA at SPU I've been dreaming about for years, too, through the course of it.

Kirk also found me an amazing book of poems called The Wild Iris by a poet named Louise Gluck, who, among other recognitions, won the Pulitzer Prize for this one. These poems riveted me from my first glance at its pages, and the first thing I did once we finished exchanging presents was settle deeper into the couch and read the book from cover to cover. The poems in this book are so deep and profoundly, spiritually moving that it will take many, many reads to plumb the depths of them, and I can't wait to get started. Here's just one example for you to enjoy. Maybe you'll stagger under the weight of it, like I did.

The Red Poppy

The great thing
is not having
a mind. Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me. I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human? Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again? Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do. I speak
because I am shattered.

Missing Mama's and Padding Around at Christmas

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I was at church this week and overcome so suddenly with a massive wave of homesickness that I had to course it out with tears outside. I've lived in Florida six months now; not too long, but not too short, either, and with a transition that's been incredibly easy by most people's standards, I'm sure. I haven't felt homesick much. I love Florida's weather. I love Winter Park's pure adorableness and am still finding things within a mile's radius of our house that I never even noticed were there, almost every day. I love our little cottage, and I love our little life. Learning to be "in life" with Kirk has been pretty much the single easiest thing I've ever done, with a few snags here and there, of course, and I'm reminded every day of the blessing a true marriage made in heaven can be. This is life like I never knew it before, and I know enough to be incredibly thankful for this. We both are.

But, the homesickness this week. It should have been expected, especially at Christmas, I know. Some might say it should have been expected sooner, even. But I think the excitement of transitioning here to be with Kirk after over a year of living apart, plus the fact of our great compatibility and the adventure of making a new life in a new place and all the discoveries that come with it, kept me from experiencing much of this homesickness.

Here's what got me to the sad place: realizing how much I love Christmas morning at my mom's house, with my siblings there or on the way, coffee brewing in the coffee pot, coffee cake and other brunch fixings warming up the house as they cook in the oven, and the presents laden 'round the Christmas tree. I'm really going to miss padding around my mom's place in my PJ's and socks on Christmas morning, a coffee mug in hand and a smile on my face, laughter bursting out of my mouth when Bobby makes a joke. Plus, I don't get to voice that "This is the best Christmas ever!" which is what invariably pops out of my mouth without my even realizing it every year after all the presents are done.

Darn it. I guess there's no way to have them both: the old life and the new. I'll try to learn from this bittersweet moment, though, without wishing it away, because it teaches me much about the love inside my heart for those I've left back home. And soon I'll get to share about the things I'm learning from this first Christmas here, in the home and life that we have made together.

Christmas Tree? None for Me

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Or, I should say, none for us. That just didn't rhyme with "Christmas tree."

There's a bona fide Christmas tree forest about 45 minutes northeast of our house. You can actually chop down your own tree! How many of those places are left in this less-and-less green world? Not many.

The place had a petting zoo, too, with ponies and rabbits and lambs. You could take a hayride out into the forest, and they'd even pick you up on the way back so you didn't have to cart your tree by hand all the way to Santa's cash register.

We don't have any room for a tree in our little place, but there was definitely room for a wreath made of Christmas tree cuttings! A large pine wreath, all bright and sparkly with a brilliant red bow, now hangs next to our front door (which, consequently, is also right next to our bed). Smells great, and makes the Christmas season draw near!

I'll post pictures of the forest and cute little downtown Winter Park at Christmas soon.

For those of you especially interested in dialoguing about the state of green life on this earth, and perhaps striking upon some unusual but promising ways our world might remedy this crisis, check out my friend LL's blog, Green Inventions Central.

Not Quite Home Anymore

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As we pushed through the clouds on Wednesday night, nosing down into L.A., Kirk and I stared at the never-ending crisscrossing web of lights extending in every direction, and he asked me, "How does it feel?"

When I plopped onto the middle of the pale green-and-white couch in my mom's living room on Friday night, clutched near to a suffocation I would gladly endure by Hannah on the one side of me and Kate on the other, both wrapping their tiny, strong arms around my less-than-tiny frame, both of them planting me with kisses and squeezing me with giggles, they asked me, "How does it feel?"

As we sat down with my good friend Sara at a table on the outside patio at Market City Caffe in Brea on Saturday afternoon, preparing ourselves for our regular round of their delicious Insalata Allison with vinaigrette dressing, gorgonzola cheese, garbanzo beans, shredded chicken, and diced salami, plus their yummy, cheesy, pepperoni pizza and those famous long pipes of fresh bread with oil and perfect balsamic vinegar dressing just for dipping, Sara folded her arms on top of the table and asked, "So, how does it feel?"

The only word I could find to answer each one of them was this sterile, surprising one: familiar.

Just familiar. Not like home. Not terrific or fantabulous. Not like everything I never knew I'd been missing all this time, plus more. Familiar. That's all.

The truth is that the trip was fun, filled with many of the people I love and more time with some of them than I could ever have hoped to get, but the truth is also that I missed home, a home that has so clearly become Florida to me in these six short months. I missed our home and I missed our life and I missed our cats and I missed our street and our charming little town. There I was, hopping on and off freeway ramps, interchanging multiple highways in the space of fifteen to thirty short minutes, careening down little-known sidestreets, and calling out lane changes in a place I know better than any other place on the face of this planet, yet now a visitor in that place, no longer able to call it home.

Heading to CA

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Kirk and I are leaving for Thanksgiving in California tonight. It's our first "big holiday" as a married couple, plus the first time we'll spend time with my family and friends since we got married almost 6 months ago. (I can hardly believe it's almost been 6 months, but at the same time I can hardly remember my life without him in it!)

I'm fully looking forward to Thanksgiving with the fam. We live all over the place now -- us in Florida, Bobby in Arizona, Dan and Mitch in Los Angeles, and Mom and Beth in the Inland Empire -- but somehow we're all making it to the same house on Thanksgiving day. This is especially special because none of us will be together on Christmas (which is weird). Anyway, I'm looking forward to lots of laughs -- especially with my big brother Bobby being there, who is always the life of the party -- and good connection.

The other thing I'm really looking forward to about this experience is getting to share "me and Kirk together, as one" with everybody else. I don't quite know what to expect about what that will be like, but I'm fully looking forward to experiencing the feeling of this: my oneness with him while with those I most love.

What Tale Does Your Shelf Tell?

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I was brushing my wet hair on the couch this morning and noticed a pile of books sitting on top of the printer in front of me. They were Kirk's books -- he'd placed them there to clear a space on the coffee table at the end of our bed, no doubt -- and I suddenly realized: our books say so much about us.

First, they say so much about our habits. Kirk and I live in a studio apartment. It's about 800 square feet and houses a full kitchen, bathroom, living space, and sleeping area, surprisingly. We love it. We call it Ashford Cottage, after Ashford Castle, where we spent the first night of our honeymoon.

I mention this because, for two bibliophiles like us, we can't fit all of the books we own into this house. Kirk gave three-fourths of the books he owned away when he sold his house last year, yet he still owns probably two hundred books. I gave away bunches to students before I moved, too, though not nearly as many, partly because I've never owned near the number of books he has, and partly because I'm just plain stingy when it comes to keeping my books. Yet even after all that charity, we've had to make good use of storage. And despite our best efforts to pare down our collections, the collections keep growing, almost of their own accord.

When we first started living here, we appointed the main kitchen cabinet as our bookshelf. We don't do much cooking, so it's not like we needed the space for normal kitcken purposes. Plus, the cabinet has two sides with two shelves each, so it made for a perfect "his" and "hers" delineation. Yet without our even realizing it -- which is to say, without our thinking much about it, since we both understand the need to keep books close by -- new homes for books sprung up all over the interior life of this house. My books have landed in droves on, under, and beside my nightstand, plus I can pull handfuls out of the different bags I cart with me to work or the nearest coffee shop on weekends. Kirk's books end up on his nightstand, too, but it's safe to say he has officially taken over the kitchen. Two crates full of books have ended up next to the kitchen table we never use, and they seem intent on staying there, it seems, for good.

Let's make this personal: Given this challenge for space in your own house, which books would you choose to keep close by? That is a question I find very interesting, as it's really what struck me this morning when I was brushing my hair on the couch. The books on top of the printer were a hodge-podge of titles, but they were so . . . well . . . so Kirk. There was a David Whyte book on finding the soul in business. There was a book called The Tao of Writing. There was an Excel for Dummies book, the discarded remnant of his latest class, which was a horrifically difficult class on statistics.

I started thinking about the books covering the kitchen table and his side of the makeshift bookshelf we've created in the cabinet. He's got tons of spiritual classics in there, plus books on Zen Buddhism, books by Thomas Merton, and contemporary books about the spiritual journey. He's got books on entrepreneurial business, terrifically creative books about creativity, and books that combine the spiritual life with enterpreneurial ventures in the creative arts. All of these these speak so much of who Kirk is, the unique heart implanted inside his body that's moving every day toward the wondrously courageous life God created him to lead.

Which got me thinking about what my books might say about my own heart. What do I value? What do I choose to own or not own, when it comes to books? I guess the titles I own -- which can be catalogued into the four categories of books on writing, travel narratives, spiritual memoir, and literary novels -- would say that I value the well-written word, the life of the heart, and quirky, reflective adventures.

What does your shelf say about you?

The Yearling Trail

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Kirk and I decided to take advantage of the glorious fall weather we've been having and head out for a hike. About one hour's drive north landed us in the Juniper Prairie Wilderness of the Ocala National Forest, where The Yearling novel (and its film version) took place.

I've never read the story, so Kirk filled me in on the details during the first few minutes of our hike. That conversation was set aside quite quickly, though, when a scrub jay bird flitted across our path. This is a pretty rare bird that looks brown when it's sitting and facing you on the tree but when flying betrays itself to be a full and glorious blue. This trail must be their secret hangout because soon we saw one more, and then one more -- three scrub jays right in a row! -- not to mention at least 10 more in the whole of our hike.

Soon we discovered a snake hole. Diamondhead rattlesnakes, I was dismayed to discover, abound there, too. "Don't worry. They'll stay off the trail," Kirk said. Oh good, I thought, until he continued, "They'll stick to the brush on the side of the trail." Yikes! The brush on the side of the trail was still too close to my feet for my liking. Thankfully, they stayed away.

A few minutes later, we crossed into the second section of the hike, and who should be standing guard on the top of a leafless tree branch right beside the entrance? None other than a stout male scrub jay. I almost bowed in deference to it. "This is your home, I know," I said aloud. "Thank you for granting us passage."

We spied a redwing blackbird next. Then, "Look!" (As usual, I was watching the ground in front of me as I walked.)

I looked up. About 50 yards ahead of us stood a deer that had heard us and was standing very still, looking off to the wood on the right. We, in return, stood still as cardboard cutouts -- and stayed that way at least 5 minutes, while the deer tried to discern our scent and sound. It stepped off the trail and into the wood, then paused and stuck its dainty nose into the air. It stepped backward onto the trail again and looked our way. We kept standing still as cardboard, holding our breath.

Then another one stepped behind it -- and then a tiny third! The three of them meandered within a few steps of each other, the first deer stepping more cautiously than the rest, having been warned we were there before the others had arrived, until something frightened them away a few moments later.

The rest of the hike included finding a cardinal bearing his bright red colors proudly as he bounced and danced from branch to branch, leading us as we crept along behind it, and a forsaken wood that had been charred in forest fires some time ago. The whole time, we kept scanning the sides of the trail for our deer. Of course, we never found them, and this made me sad.

That Is So Chicago

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Only in Chicago is there an I-55 West and 55th Street so near the airport that you get lost and have to backtrack at least three times before you're sure -- at least, pretty sure -- you're on the right road and heading in the right direction, finally.

Only in Chicago, while you're stuck in aforementioned lostville, could you encounter three prisons, one courthouse, a lawyer, two hospitals, a Catholic church, a Polish neighborhood, a Mexican neighborhood, a Harlem-style church piping its choir hymns to its neighbors, and seven prisoners plucking trash from the passing lane, all in the driving space of ten minutes.

Only in Chicago would a homeless man play 70s-era songs on his gold saxophone in 40-degree weather with a looming prediction of snow, just to get his supper.

Only in Chicago will you find pigeons plump as plums.

Only in Chicago will you find all kinds of things you won't find in combination anywhere else, simply because it's Chicago. My friend Ginny tells me this city developed with an "organic" urban planning style, which means it pretty much sprung up with what it needed as it went. Houses stand next to laundromats. The same families frequent the same grocery store and convenience store and laundromat and church within the two-block radius of their homes like they have been for years. Two-story brick buildings abut ajoining residences with naught but three inches between them. Whole families walk to the Catholic church on the corner and merge into folds of other families, streaming into the building like fish in a fast-forming school. It's a strange world, but beautiful in its own haphazard but organized virility.

In the Dark

in

There was a huge storm in central Florida yesterday, and I have a few reflections to share now that I survived it.

1) When the weather people warn for days that there will be a thunderstorm on Tuesday, it's a good idea to bring your umbrella inside with you to work, as the one tucked safely in your trunk will be of zero help come 6:00 when the rain is pelting down and your car is parked on the other side of the lot. At that point, all you can do is stand in the lobby, staring out at the rain, longing for the safety of your car that's parked in the far corner of the parking lot all by its lonesome, and waiting for the rain to let up. Which, of course, it doesn't for a long time because it's a big thunderstorm. I grew impatient after 15 minutes of mournful staring out the glass-walled lobby windows and decided to brave a run for it, dress clothes and puddles and squeals and all, and arrived at the car only mildy soaked.

2) How did people survive before electricity was invented? I came home to a blacked-out house and had to pick up on a Little-House-on-the-Prairie life. I changed out of my work clothes in the dark. I pulled my hair up in the dark (why did I bother standing in front of the mirror?). I couldn't watch Felicity episodes, which is what I had planned to do since Kirk was at school. I couldn't read. I couldn't make dinner on the gas-range stove. All I could do was light the one big candle we have left, carry it with me into the kitchen while I poured my cereal, then carry it back to the living room with me while I sat on the couch and stared at nothing. I decided it was God's way of being funny by forcing me to write, since the only thing working was my battery-charged Dell laptop that had a bright-white screen. I gave that a go until everything started whirring and clicking when the power came back on about 30 minutes later. At which point, I promptly abandoned by laptop in favor of Felicity.