Through a Glass, Darkly

There are a lot of things that formed this year and made it unique for me personally, but one of the biggest is something I’ve not really mentioned on here: Mike and I quit our small group back in April. We joined that small group about a month after we got married, and I did not know a definition of our marriage that did not include that group in some form or another. We took trips with those people, laughed and cried with them, and learned a lot about how to be married with them. And now it’s gone. Rather, we’re gone and the group has continued without us. That’s been hard at times, especially when they go on vacation together and we’re not there (I hate feeling left out), but we started going to a different church, so it was time for us to move on and invest more in that community. So Mike participated in the male bakeoff, we started going to Wednesday night services, and he’s even agreed to be liturgist in the new year. It was the right decision, but it was not made lightly.

This year was also shaped by Mike’s school schedule, with both of us still learning what it looks like for me to be working and for him to be in school. It was shaped by his new job and the wonderful people we got to know through it. It was shaped by all the time we spent with Scott and Kelly, by Gilmore Girls, by Harry Potter, by my wisdom teeth surgery, by applying for The Amazing Race, my new position at work, my Rumor Forum Girls, Mike turning 30, our fifth anniversary. And, of course, this was the year of the flood and subsequent downstairs remodel. It made the summer seem long and frustrating, but I am pleased with the results after all.

Sometimes a year can be defined by a single word or phrase, but that isn’t really the case this year. I struggled with some relationships and some relationships grew. Mike and I had a good year as a couple, but I feel like I was sick or under the weather for a lot of it. It flew by, but certain things from January seem as if they happened yesterday. I read a lot, maybe too much, and we cut back a lot of our TV watching, even as I got more devoted to my favorite shows. The highs were very high and the lows were low. But I don’t have a particular word that comes to mind when I think of this year. It was very . . . varied.

I think I personally learned a little about forgiveness and letting things go. There was one issue in particular with which I wrestled for much of the year, and I ultimately came to the conclusion that I had to quit worrying so much about what other people thought about me. Never mind that I came to that conclusion about three times. I think as long as I keep coming to the conclusion, trying to make it stick, I’m doing okay. This year I wasn’t as sorry for myself, I didn’t whine as much about lost friendships, I was more content. I look at where I was a year ago, and I feel like I’ve made some clear steps in the direction of the Kari I Was Created To Be, who is kinder and more full of grace than the Kari I Currently Am, Who Is Still In Progress. Sometimes it’s easier to think of a “theme” for the year if the theme is “dark clouds of discontent.” This year wasn’t like that at all. It felt . . . settled. Maybe that’s it - other than small group, we didn’t have big changes this year, and that was nice, especially after the year before, when we bought a house and Mike quit his job and started school.

I would like to have some wise thing to say to close out this entry, but the only thing I can think of is just that when I think about this year, I’m grateful, even for the hard stuff, because I see where it’s brought me - personally, spiritually, and in my friendships. Thanks for hanging in with me this year.

It seemed like a companionable silence. We sat together, watching the movie, lost in our own thoughts. Maybe that’s all it was. Maybe the tension was only on my side - the words I wanted to say kept threatening to spill over, but I could never figure out how to introduce the topic, to tell you what’s been on my mind for so many months. I don’t know what you think, exactly, because I’ve never been brave enough to come anywhere close to the subject, and you’ve certainly never mentioned it, but I wish I could explain things from my perspective. Instead, we talk of this and that, and the wall formed by my silence makes it harder and harder for you to really know me.

Maybe you weren’t thinking about it at all. Maybe you had no idea that, for me, the room was full of unspoken words. But as we parted ways, I wished I had known what to say.

Part one is here.

Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning . . .

One of the nice things about celebrating Advent is that the songs in the services are chosen with care, not just any old Christmas carol. During Advent, we sing Advent songs (of which there are not that many in the Baptist Hymnal). We have a concert after the Christmas banquet so people can get their fill of Christmas carols, and we sing carols at the lovefeast, but we don’t sing carols in a service until Christmas Eve. This year, we were lucky that we also got a service on Christmas morning, so we got to sing carols twice!

Sunday morning, we headed for church. I had found out the night before that our pastor wasn’t speaking again, which was kind of disappointing, but when I was actually at the service, I didn’t mind so much. It was a good group of people, and the staff had made a big deal about how we could all come in our pajamas if we wanted, so several people did. Some of our friends called Mike, begging him to also put on his pajamas, so he put on a robe over his jeans and t-shirt. The relaxed atmosphere gave it a homey, family feeling, and everyone was all smiles. We sang more carols, people shared some of their favorite Christmas memories, we had prayers for the people, and one of our friends spoke about how the birth of his son had changed the way he looked at Christmas this year. It was very sweet. I know that the way that I look at Christmas has changed over the years as more and more of my friends have babies. We also got to goof off a little with baby Isaac during the service as his dad stuck him between us while we were singing, “What Child is This?” What child IS this?

A special time of caring, the ways of love made clear . . .

After church it was on to my parents’ house for lunch and presents and relaxing. We beat them home from church, but we thought my brother was there, so we went ahead and unlocked the door. And realized that the alarm was set. However, I managed to drag the code from the dark corners of my mind so that the police did not have to visit the house on the holiday.

When they got back, we had lunch and then spent two hours opening presents. That’s not an exaggeration, I don’t think. A lot of families seem to do one big thing for Christmas: “I got an iPod!” “I’m going to Europe!” My family does several small things, which means there’s more to open. And we go around the room and each open one present, so it takes a while. Other traditions include my dad saying, “I knew what that was,” after opening each gift, Mike and Joseph using the tools they receive on each consecutive gift (most notable was the year they received magnetic pointers - the kind you can use to pick up a nail you dropped, for example, to test every present that followed for its magnetism. It was our own version of Bill Nye’s “Magnetic or Not?”), Mom getting lots of clothes from Dad, and Joseph needing to wrap his presents that morning. None of us got one big present this year, but we all got some very nice things. Mike’s favorite present was his SnoPal penguin.

You use the things inside the package to make a penguin, kind of like the corncob pipe and button nose you need for a snowman. Mike, for many years, has been a snowman kind of guy, and our tree is covered in snowmen. But suddenly, out of nowhere, he is declaring that he wants to be a penguin guy, that penguins are his new love. This is the official announcement that we have enough snowmen for a while, and if you want to get Mike an ornament (or some pajama pants), you’d better make it penguins. You can see the penguin joy on his face. That joy is real.

The most exciting present of the day was certainly the moment that Joseph, Mike, and I all opened our very own marshmallow guns. At which time we went outside and shot marshmallows at each other for many minutes. Mom even had one of her own and participated in the carnage. While I have no actual pictures of the marshmallow war (because they are on Joseph’s camera), I do have this picture of myself and my gun.

Do NOT mess with me.

The rest of the day was spent watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith (surprisingly entertaining, but it felt too long) and eating Mike’s famous lasagne. Mike and I headed home, where we went to bed, planning to head to the mall in the morning to do a little shopping.

As the shoppers rush home with their treasures . . .

Monday morning was the first time Mike and I had been to the mall together in a long, long time. I hadn’t been mall shopping in ages. I hate shopping. However, we had Christmas money and giftcards to spend, we knew there were going to be sales, and we had specific things we were looking for: we both wanted sweaters, we had BN money, the guilt of not sending out Christmas cards this year led us to buy some on sale, that kind of thing. Overall, I think our trip was very successful - we were home by early afternoon and spent some time watching my new movie (Fever Pitch) and Friends. The one thing Mike and I did sort-of do for Christmas this year was that we used an Amazon.com giftcard and bought seasons 4-8 of Friends. After we received them, we realized that, if we had one more season, we could get a rebate of $50, so Mike bought season 9 at Costco. Not counting the giftcard, do you know how much we paid for six seasons of Friends? $20. We have been working our way through them, watching our favorite episodes and finally getting some of the storylines straight (I never knew how many parents Phoebe has!). I have to admit that we may have overdosed, because I watched a LOT of Friends this weekend.

Yesterday the USPS delivered my Gilmore Girls season 5 DVDs and Mike’s movies. He got March of the Penguins and King Kong, and we watched MotP last night. It helped to feed Mike’s new penguin addiction. Just great.

Overall, we had a peaceful and relaxing holiday, and yesterday was a good day to plan the week’s meals, do lots of laundry, watch the extras on my Gilmore Girls DVDs, iron, watch Friends, and generally chill out. Now it’s back to real life once again.

Our church put out an Advent devotional this year, and today was my day.

Hebrews 2:10-18

I once knew a guy who said that every year in the last few days before Christmas, he would read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ last week on earth to remind himself of Christ’s purpose in coming here. I thought of that, reading these verses, about how important it is to keep the crucifixion and resurrection in mind as we are singing Christmas carols and putting out the crèche, that the miracle of the Incarnation is not the end of the story.

Every year during Lent (at other times, too, but especially during Lent), I try to remember that, as these verses say, Jesus came and suffered and is able to help us as we are being tempted. That he was like us in every way, and that we can bring our struggles before him. That he understands and will not reject us. That he is not ashamed of us, despite our faults. The Incarnation means not only that Jesus came here to earth as a child but also that he lived here just as we do, as the song says, “Like a child born to pray and to show us the way, like a child here to stay, Jesus comes.” I am thankful to have a God who understands the struggles I experience because he actually walked this earth, and who, as the scripture says, by his life and death set us free from the power of death. It’s not just the birth and the death that are important - the life of Christ, the way he shared in our humanity for our sake, his teachings and example, are important, too. This year I’m trying to remember to focus on Jesus’ life not just at Lent, but also at Christmas, and at all the times in between.

And it’s over for another year. Well, not quite over, because the tree is still up and the decorations are scattered around the house, but there aren’t any more presents to be exchanged, no more church services for a while. It’s been several days since I wrote about anything, so this isn’t a comprehensive list, but the things I would like to remember about this year’s holiday.

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,
I miss you. I wish we could sit down and talk about things. I guess I will keep wishing.
Love, Victoria

Victoria is Mike’s niece, and Grandma and Grandpa are his parents. Victoria has not seen them in over four years. She is eight. She wrote that letter last year. Mike’s sister showed it to me and it broke my heart. As hurt as I am, as Mike is, as his sister is, it breaks my heart to think about a little girl who can’t understand why the adults can’t put things aside so she can see her grandparents. It breaks my heart to think that they have hardly met their five-year-old grandson, that he wouldn’t even be able to write a letter like that.

Other than that, we had a nice time visiting with Mike’s sister and her family. We played Candyland (Winnie the Pooh version) and watched The Polar Express and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When I got home, I pulled our copy of The Polar Express (the book) off the shelf, and, flipping through it, I confirmed my belief that I had never read it before. Want to know why I had never read The Polar Express? It’s pretty shameful. I remember that people were always trying to get me to read it, but what I wanted to do was read books that had a lot of words, not books that had really pretty pictures. (I am still this way. Mike says this makes me a snob.) So, after we got home Friday night, I read The Polar Express to Mike. I have now read it. (If Kelly made it through that last paragraph without having a heart attack, well, I will be very surprised.)

“This picture here is of Nancy, but it represents all six children, because you all looked pretty much the same.”

My mom’s family gets together at my grandparents’ house on Christmas Eve, and, traditionally, someone has shared something about the year or the holiday before the great present extravaganza takes place. It used to be the responsibility of the kids, but somehow that has changed over the years. I was Mary in a nativity scene, I helped write a “play” that featured the Ghost of Christmas Presents (who had to be told the real meaning of Christmas), and I helped write a poem about Christmas Eve at Grandma’s. This year, though, Grandma got out her “Special Memories” book and shared things from it with us. It was embarassment for all! My poem was even in there. hehe. My favorite part, though, was when Grandma said the above quote. Nancy is the oldest child in the family, and there are four brothers and one sister (my mom). When Grandma said that she had a picture of Nancy as a stand-in for all six of her children (in the book. She does have pictures of the kids elsewhere), my mom tilted her head to the side in a, “What the heck are you talking about, woman?” kind of way. It was exactly what I would have done, and that’s exactly why I knew to look at her at that very moment to see her response. For the record, there were pictures of all eleven grandchildren. I guess we don’t look so much alike.

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

After leaving Grandma’s house, we went to church for our Christmas Eve service, which is usually a very important part of the Christmas season for me. This year was no exception, but it was very different than other years. It was busier and less peaceful for me, somehow, and the singing of Silent Night by candlelight was nice, but not as nice as in years past. The meditation, though, made up for all of that.

When the young man from our congregation died in Iraq, Mike and I were both very sad. After we’d had a few minutes to digest the news, Mike turned to me and said, “I’ve never been in a small church when someone died. What’s going to happen? I mean, we’ll all be so sad. Are they going to cancel Christmas?” Of course, he knew that Christmas couldn’t be cancelled, but I appreciated the heart of his question: How much can life go on? I think, in a Christian community, since we know that this life is not the end, it can be easier in some ways for us to allow life to go on as it should. The rhythm of the seasons (and therefore the church calendar) makes sense, because we know the One who is ordering the seasons. But things still seemed a little muted this year. The sermon on Christmas Eve talked about grief and loss a little bit, and in the middle of it I realized I’d been going about this Christmas thing all wrong. I’ve been kind of sad all month long, and I’ve been trying really hard to be Christmasy, and it was a big failure, mostly. During the sermon I realized that I had completely missed the point. I don’t have to get all happy and in the Christmas spirit in order to be able to celebrate Christmas. In fact, that’s why Jesus came, not to fix my problems, but to help me in the midst of them.

After all, there’s only one more sleep ’til Christmas!

After the service, we had fondue with two other couples from our church. That was a real blessing for us, because Christmas Eve used to be when Mike and I would exchange our presents, and we didn’t exchange presents this year, so it would have been a little bit “how do we fill the time?” Also, since we’re not in touch with Mike’s parents, we have learned to make our family where we can, and I appreciated the “family” that we’ve been given at church.

This is a meeting of heaven and earth. For the child in the manger is also a spark from the great beacon behind those weak lanterns in the sky.

And so Mike and I headed home to finish The Christmas Mystery. The above quote is from the book, which I love more every time we read it. Each time, it strikes me in a new way. This year, I found the chapters on Mary and Joseph and the Christ Child to be very moving. I love it when the Godly company arrives in Bethlehem and each of the members goes to perform his or her role: the inkeeper, the angels, the shepherds, Quirinius, Augustus . . . they each have a part to play so that all the prophecies can be fulfilled.

We also read a few pages from one of my most hoped-for Christmas presents: The Glorious Impossible by Madeleine L’Engle. I had pretty much resigned myself that I was not going to get a copy, as the book is now out of print, but my aunt searched for a used one and gave it to me, much to my glee. We read about the Annunciation and the Nativity, and I am looking forward to reading it more over the next few weeks.

Mike said I was going to have to split this up, and it looks like he was right. So, further Christmas thoughts to come: what it’s like to see lots of people at church in their pajamas on Christmas morning, what it’s like to have a marshmallow gun fight with my family, and who is to blame for my lack of Gilmore Girls DVD-age (hint: this is exactly why I always order from BN.com instead of Amazon).

There are very few things in my life that I’m more insecure about than my glasses. I can’t really explain this to someone who has never worn glasses as thick as mine, but it’s true. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was four years old - thick glasses, the kind that give people permission to say whatever they want to you, or to stare. Let me tell you, when people feel free to say what they want to you, well, you’re just one step from feeling humiliated. “Four eyes.” “Coke bottle lenses.” “Can you see to the moon? Can you see the future?” “Why don’t you get the thin ones?” Well, these are the thin ones. This is as thin as it gets. Thanks, though. My mom and I have talked about our frustration with that: I have a disability that requires corrective lenses, and yet people have no qualms about commenting on it. The lesson? People can be pretty rude.

When I was ten, I got contacts, and I’ve had those since, and things have been better. Contacts, though, dry out my eyes and make them red. In high school trigonometry, the boy who sat in front of me would turn around and say, “Your eyes are red again. How was the weed this weekend?” No matter what I do, I never seem to be able to get rid of the redness in my eyes. This is always a great source of frustration, because I clean my contacts every night, I change them after two weeks, and I don’t sleep in them, while I have friends who ignore all three of the above rules, and their eyes look fine. No redness whatsoever.

When I was a little girl, on into middle and high school, I would close my eyes very tight and pray that God would fix my eyes. I still had a childlike faith, the faith that’s commended in the Bible, but it didn’t mean my eyes would get any better. These days, my conversations with God regarding my eyes take the following form: Why, God, why? Why do my eyes have to be so bad? Why do I keep getting that inflammation on my eyelid, even when I do everything right? Why can’t I have corrective surgery yet? Why do I think you even care?

A few years ago, I had my eyes checked to see if I was a candidate for corrective surgery. I was told that my eyes were too bad to have it done, and to check back in a year or two. In the weeks beforehand, when I still had hope that I might be able to have it done, I thought about how different my life would be if I could see without assistance. Waking up in the middle of the night being able to see the clock? Would be a miracle. Not a feed-the-five-thousand kind of miracle, but a miracle nonetheless. A whole new way of life for me. And maybe that will be my reality one day. I will continue to hope in the midst of my frustrated questions.

So, why am I talking about all this today? Well, the inflammation on my eyelid has returned, and I’ll be wearing my glasses for the next few weeks. I happen to really like my glasses, but I still get the stares and the questioning looks. I try to pass it off, “I’m going for the sexy librarian look,” or, if that’s not an appropriate answer, “I’m trying to look smart.” But inside me is still the girl who is afraid you are going to tease her, who is afraid that you think she’s ugly in her glasses. I think it’s a good thing when I have to wear my glasses, because she needs to be confronted from time to time, forced out of the back corners of my mind. She needs to know that those things aren’t really true. She needs to stop being so afraid.

My goal for the next two weeks is to love wearing my glasses. To rock them at every holiday event, to play them up every possible way. To get as many pictures of them as possible. And maybe one day I’ll get to have the surgery after all, and I will look at those pictures and say, “I prayed for my eyes, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.” Maybe that’s a foolish dream, but a girl can hope, right?

I hadn’t gotten a compliment on my diamond ring in a while. Maybe I don’t clean it enough, or maybe I don’t walk in that, “My left elbow is constantly bent so you’ll notice my ring,” position that the newly engaged often sport. Maybe it’s because I’m much less conscious of it than I used to be, so I don’t make other people as aware of it by constantly glancing at it or letting it catch my eye. Whatever it is, the compliment I got this week caught me off guard.

“What a sparkly ring! You must have been really happy to get it.”

I didn’t know what to say, exactly, except to agree. I was happy to get it. I’m still happy to have it. I don’t think about it all that often, except to put it on in the morning and take it off when I get home, but I’m glad it’s there.

Maybe that was what made me think of a long-ago conversation I had when I was engaged, in which my friend (who was also engaged) was talking about some of the problems she was having with her fiance, problems that I felt were very serious ones and had hurt her deeply, and she sighed and said, “But I think God has told me that this is as good as it’s going to get.” I am not exactly sure how I responded, but it was probably incoherent. I didn’t say what I wanted to say, which is that I don’t think God works like that. Sure, he does give us difficult situations, and we are often called to not-so-easy relationships because we need to help and we need to learn. But I have never seen any indication that God calls us to settle, that we should take what we can get and not hope for any better. Especially in a spouse: that relationship is supposed to mirror that of Christ and the church, and I would hate to think that any thought of “settling” would enter into the discussion. Whatever I said, it wasn’t that, and I have always regretted it. I should have made the time to discuss whatever it was she believed about God that made her say that, and whatever it was about marriage that made her think that she didn’t deserve any better than a guy who was hurting her in so many ways.

Christmas is a time to draw near to those you love, as well as a time to do that end-of-year evaluation. For those reasons, I’ve been thinking about how Mike and I are doing lately. This has been an interesting year, with the crazy flooding over the summer, some difficult relationship issues (not with each other), and the busy-ness of both our lives with work and school and church and friends. Things have been hard circumstantially, but being married five years seems to have smoothed more of our rough edges than I realized, because our problems lately haven’t been with each other.

I look at my sparkly ring, and I think about Mike and all the things we’ve gone through in the past seven years, and I am thankful that I have never for an instant considered being with him “settling.”

I realized last week that the juxtaposition of my thoughts on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and what this year’s Advent theme is teaching me made for an interesting contrast. In my Narnia post, I was lamenting the lack of magic in the movie, especially compared to the book. While I also love realistic fiction, there’s a special place in my heart for fairy tales, and I am glad to say that I never outgrew them. I like believing in that kind of magic, that it’s just under the surface waiting to be discovered. I like keeping a sense of wonder about the world, and I think fairy tales help me to do that.

And yet, when it comes to my faith and Christmas, I often approach those things in a clinical way. I talked in that post about needing to see Christmas with fresh eyes because I get so jaded and cynical. However, when I read the Bible, I don’t see God operating by some formula. I see him creating humans from the dust and parting the Red Sea and sending fire down from heaven. And what are the things that we celebrate this time of year? A virgin gave birth to the Son of God! Yesterday during the children’s sermon, our pastor was telling the kids about the Annunciation. I turned to Mike and said, “This stuff we believe? It’s crazy! But I love believing it.” I don’t want to approach my faith or the Christmas season in a detached way. I want to embrace the fact that God chose to send his son to earth in this crazy way, and that we should celebrate.

At church yesterday, one of our friends read this poem, and it brought all those things I’d been pondering the past few days to the surface.

O Lord, you were born! by Ann Weems

Each year about this time I try to be sophisticated
and pretend I understand the bored expressions
relating to the ‘Christmas spirit.’
I nod when they say ‘Put the Christ back in Christmas.’
I say yes, yes when they shout ‘Commercial’ and
‘Hectic, hectic, hectic.’

After all, I’m getting older,
and I’ve heard it said, ‘Christmas is for children.’
But somehow a fa-la-la keeps creeping out.…
So I’ll say it:
I love Christmas tinsel
and angel voices that come from the beds upstairs.
And I say three cheers for Santa Claus
and the Salvation Army bucket
and all the wrappings and festivities
and special warm feelings.
I say it is good,
giving,
praising,
celebrating.

So hooray for Christmas trees
and candlelight
and the good old church pageant.
Hooray for shepherd boys who forget their lines
and Wise Men whose beards fall off
and a Mary who giggles.
O Lord, you were born!

O Lord, you were born!
And that breaks in upon my ordered life like bugles blaring,
And I sing, “Hark, the Herald Angels”
In the most unlikely places.
You were born and I will celebrate!

I rejoice for the carnival of Christmas!
I clap for the pajama-clad cherubs
And the Christmas cards jammed in the mail slot.
I o-o-oh for the turkey
And a-a-ah for the Christmas pudding.
And thank God for the alleluias I see in the faces of people
I don’t know and yet know very well.

O Lord, there aren’t enough choirboys to sing what I feel.
There aren’t enough trumpets to blow.
O Lord, I want bells to peal!
I want to dance in the streets of Bethlehem!
I want to sing with the heavenly host!

For unto us a son was given
And he was called God with us!
For those of us who believe,
The whole world is decorated with love!

So, this is the last week before Christmas. I’m going to read with Mike as Elisabet and the angels, Wise Men, sheep, and shepherds travel back in time toward Bethlehem. I’m going to sing along with Christmas music and turn off all the lights except the ones on the Christmas tree and spend time with friends and family and sing “Silent Night” on Christmas Eve by candlelight with the congregation and drink hot chocolate and exchange presents and rejoice! For the Lord was born in Bethlehem!

The baking is done, we have one more present to buy, and there’s still time to spare! I will still have to figure out how I’m sorting the baked goods, but the baggies and ribbons have been purchased, too. I am feeling very efficient this year. I like this whole “baking for Christmas” thing.

Yesterday I made two kinds of cookies: Earl Grey Tea cookies (thank you, Martha Stewart) and Snickerdoodles (I just used the recipe in my handy dandy Betty Crocker cookbook). Mike once again brought up the tiny crunchy brownies and pointed out how far I’ve come as far as baking is concerned. (Again I say, the tiny crunchy brownies were not my fault.) I zested an orange for the first time! I used cream cheese instead of shortening (we haven’t purchased any after the disappointing cobbler incident in which I used old shortening) in the snickerdoodles and it was fine (Betty suggested it, and I liked it pretty well, so I take back all the mean things I’ve said about her in the past). I ignored some of Martha’s instructions (I had no desire to roll the cookies in parchment paper and stuff them in a paper towel tube, so I just rolled them on the counter and cut them out in small circles) and my cookies turned out just fine, thankyouverymuch! Although, I still can’t figure out how anyone could get eight dozen from that recipe. Luckily, I didn’t need eight dozen.

Anyway, I am pretty proud of myself about all this baking. It’s been a stretch for me, but I am proud to say that I did not freak out when I realized our lack of Crisco, that I felt confident enough to add more sugar to Martha’s recipe, and that I tried two new recipes in one day! I have never tried cookie recipes on my own, without knowing what they’d taste like!

I had envisioned the Christmas baking thing as something Mike and I would do together, but now I’m glad I did so much of it myself. Sometimes I feel like I lean on him to do too much of the cooking, so this is about more than just the baking. This is about me conceiving the idea, planning and making sure we had the ingredients (except for the Crisco, which I consider acceptable since I made the snickerdoodles on a whim, at Mike’s request), and actually baking five different kinds of cookies, two different kinds of bread, and some muffins since Thanksgiving. Hooray for stretching.

The past few days I’ve been channeling Elizabeth Bennet and thinking quite often of the quote I used in the title. She was speaking of Jane’s engagement, while the issue I was struggling with had nothing at all to do with romance, but, finally, a great source of frustration seems to have come to an end, and if it’s not the happy, wise, reasonable end that Jane got, I feel happy that the situation seems to have ended at all.

As I have mentioned before, this year’s Advent theme at our church is “Like a Child,” which, to be honest, I wasn’t all that jazzed about. However, the Advent devotional our church put out has helped me reconsider my feelings about that. Reading what so many of my friends and fellow congregation members have to say about the topic has helped me to approach the Christmas season with fresh eyes. I’ve been reminded that I get too cynical and bitter and let those feelings dictate too many of my responses. The past few days I have been thinking about what it means to be childlike, and, to no one’s surprise I am sure, I thought about it in terms of forgiveness. Kids seem to get over fights and forgive so much easier than adults do, so in that way I would very much like to be like a child. I’ve been reminded that, when issues and frustrations do come to an end, I should let them go. I hope this end sticks. I am sure I will struggle with it from time to time, but I am going to do my best to let this be the end of it, at least for my part.

(Another happy, wise, reasonable end took place last night on The Amazing Race. A good ending to a crappy season. I am looking forward to February.)

Below are my thoughts on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

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I don’t tend to try to get people to read my favorite books. I figure that the best thing to do is to let the book stand on its own merit, and if you won’t be convinced by the book itself, you certainly aren’t going to be convinced by me. I myself don’t tend to read a book just because everyone else is reading it (but neither will I refuse to read something just because it’s on the bestseller list). I have never talked to Kelly about Madeleine L’Engle, my mom has never read Pride and Prejudice, and I no longer try to get people to read Harry Potter by talking of his many fine qualities. There are some of my favorites I’ve asked Mike to read, but many I have not. My old best friend once asked me why I had never recommended LotR to her, and I thought but did not say, “I gave up on recommending books to you after you hated Anne of Green Gables.” I understand that everyone’s not wired the same way, though I think it’s a shame when wiring makes one miss out on a great story. But I am sure you have favorites I’ve never read. That’s how it goes.

Before the backlash begins, for the record, I don’t love The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because everyone else does. I love it because I remember devouring it for the first time, and how much I loved the Beavers and how Mr. Beaver gets all the best lines and how cute their house is and Mrs. Beaver’s sewing machine and Father Christmas and the Pevensies and the Professor. And Aslan, but I still feel like I don’t have the right to have an opinion about Aslan because he’s so . . . Aslan. I love it because, thankfully, I never outgrew fairy stories. I love it because I believe I can still get to Narnia, if I keep my eyes open.

I love it so much that I’m a little afraid to go see the movie, to be honest. I feel more apprehensive about it than I did about LotR, because I read those in high school. Narnia is childhood. I was seven or eight when I read the Narnia books for the first time, and so Narnia is my childhood in a box set. (After Narnia, Anne was my next passion. You can see why I wouldn’t want to recommend other books to my friend.) There is no way it’s going to live up to my imagination, and it’s going to be hard to go in and accept the movie on its own terms. Usually I don’t have trouble with that, but there are so many details I love about this book . . . I don’t see how a movie won’t be a letdown. Some people felt this way about LotR, some have felt this way about the recent P&P. I feel this way about Narnia. I didn’t know I felt this way until the past few weeks, when I realized how nervous I am about this movie. We’re going to see it tonight, and I’m excited, but I desperately want it to be right.

Sometimes I forget that other people also read the same books I do, and that the books that are so important to me also have meaning for other people. I forget that the Pevensies and Anne and Lord Peter and Vicky Austin don’t belong to me. I think a little bit of my apprehension about the movie is that . . . anything they get right (in my eyes) means that I have to share what’s in my head with the rest of the world. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is one of those books that I don’t want to share at all.

One of the reasons I hate driving Mike’s car is because I can’t get the stupid stereo to do what I want it to do. This morning I didn’t want to listen to my iPod (not that I would have known how to get his car to play my iPod), so I thought I’d turn the radio on and listen to NPR. It took ten minutes to figure out which button to push. I just wanted to listen to the radio! It shouldn’t be that difficult!

I did finally get to listen to NPR, but in doing so, I pushed every button at least twice. My revenge is that I probably destroyed whatever settings Mike had in my attempts to get his dumb radio to work. I’m sure he’ll be really pleased with me.

I hear that the first step is to admit you have a problem.

Last night, while Mike was studying, I decided to bake cookies. I baked almost five dozen chocolate chip cookies and made the batter for some cream cheese cookies before deciding I was done. While I was doing that, I had the Pride and Prejudice miniseries on. In the past month, I’ve seen the movie four times in the theater. And read the book. I am ready to admit I have a problem.

But why is it a problem, really? A little (okay, a lot) Jane Austen never hurt anyone. Plus, there are lots of people who are way more addicted than I am. Plus, laughter is good for you! Stop looking at me like that!

(I plan on finishing the miniseries tomorrow morning. What? I didn’t have time to finish it last night!)

The setting: a lovely cool December morning. Kari is at home, Mike has already left for the day.

MIKE: Hello?

KARI: Be careful when you go out the side door. It’s slippery.

MIKE: Did you fall?

KARI: Yes.

MIKE: Are you laughing or crying?

KARI: Both? I’m not sure.

MIKE: Are you okay? I can’t see your face. Are you okay? I forgot to tell you it was icy on that porch this morning.

KARI: That box of oranges we had left? I didn’t think we were going to eat any more of them, so I thought I’d throw them out. When I stepped on the porch, I fell down a couple of steps.

MIKE: There are only a couple of steps.

KARI: I bounced.

MIKE: I’m so sorry!

KARI: (makes noise between laughing and crying)

MIKE: I can’t tell if you’re okay.

KARI: My shoes are still outside.

MIKE: What?

KARI: My shoes are still outside.

MIKE: Why?

KARI: They fell off. It was like on TV, where the box came open, oranges went up in the air, my shoes fell off. I need to go get them.

MIKE: Hee.

KARI: I know.

MIKE: Are you laughing or crying?

KARI: I can’t tell. I’m shaking all over.

MIKE: I’m so sorry. I know it hurts.

KARI: I’m gonna have a big bruise.

MIKE: The sidewalks had ice on them this morning.

KARI: I know.

MIKE: I know you know. I have never heard you sound so hysterical. I still can’t tell if you’re okay.

KARI: I’m sorry. It’s funny. And it hurts. I’m just going to sit on the bed for a few more minutes.

MIKE: Call me if you need anything.

KARI: I need my shoes.

MIKE: You’re going to have to get those yourself.

KARI: My socks are all wet. And my pants are dirty.

MIKE: I’ll take good care of you when you get home tonight.

KARI: Will there be ice cream?

MIKE: I don’t think anything with “ice” in the title is a good idea.

KARI: Frozen yogurt?

MIKE: Also sounds dangerous.

KARI: Sherbet?

MIKE: As long as you take your shoes off before you try to eat it.

I have been having a hard time getting into Christmas so far. I mean, I know it’s early, but I was so excited about Christmas music and decorating, and then Thanksgiving came and went, and the wind just went out of my sails. Part of it has been that I’m still not completely recovered from surgery (I have been trying not to complain, but my lip and chin are still numb and it just wears me out), part of it has been the weather, and part of it is general Christmas stress. Yesterday in Sunday School, we talked about how Christmas can be a depressing time instead of a joyful time, and why we can have hope despite the stress.

My constant refrain around holidays is that I’m worried about making the holiday special for Mike, since his parents aren’t around and he doesn’t have a large extended family. And Christmas reminds me of my old best friend, because of the constant Amy Grant on the radio. There are lots of reasons to get sad listening to Amy Grant (or that listening to Amy Grant might make you want to stab yourself in the eye with a pen), but that’s mine. I also hate shopping, as evidenced by my annual holiday shopping crying meltdown this weekend (it took place in the china department of Belk’s, if you were wondering).

Maybe I’ve been trying too hard, with the shopping and the baking and the decorating and the Christmas music and the Advent devotional. This morning I’m listening to the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack instead, and last night I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (which always puts me in a Christmas mood, maybe because I got the set for Christmas one year). We’re trying to do more quiet things instead of filling each evening with Christmas activities. Tonight I plan on baking some more and reading a bit more of The Narnian, which I have been enjoying so far (though it was nice to take a break from it and read TLTWTW). I guess I have to stop forcing myself to feel a certain way, and just let the holiday unfold as it will.

Advent, along with Lent, is a time of preparation. During Lent, we accompany Jesus into the desert; we face the wilderness of our own inner landscape to prepare ourselves for the Easter journey of death and resurrection. During Advent, we go with John into the wilderness to prepare the way to welcome Christ into our hearts and lives anew at Christmas. We have the opportunity to explore the inner geography of our lives for areas of dead wood, thorns, or tangled knots. Twisted relationships, the dead wood of old hurts or habits, the confusion that sometimes comes when we feel we can’t see the wood for the trees–all these are wilderness areas, and they need to be cleared away before growth and new life is possible. Or perhaps there are desert patches–arid, dry areas where nothing can grow or blossom, parts of us which have almost withered away from not being used or tended or tested–some tenderness, some care, some talent, some forgiveness, some humor–that need the water of life to bring them bursting into flower. -Kathy Galloway

I was tapped by Alisa.

Seven Things to Do Before I Die (Lord willing):
1. Go back to Prince Edward Island.
2. Attend Mike’s college graduation. Cry a lot. Take lots of pictures.
3. Go to the United Kingdom.
4. Visit the western part of the United States.
5. Read The Brothers Karamazov.
6. Write a book.
7. Read my favorite books with my kids.

Seven Things I Cannot Do:
1. A cartwheel.
2. Throw a softball correctly.
3. Dance.
4. Sing on key.
5. Understand Mike’s parents.
6. Shop for very long by myself.
7. Heal (physically or emotionally) quickly.

Seven Things that Attract Me to My Spouse [romantic interest, best friend, whomever](not necessarily in this order!):
1. His sense of humor.
2. The way he looks when he’s asleep.
3. His passion for life.
4. His courage.
5. The way he capitalizes words to emphasize them.
6. That he watches chick flicks and Gilmore Girls with me.
7. His good looks.

Seven Things I Say (or write!) Most Often:
1. “like”
2. “Let me transfer you to circulation.”
3. “I don’t know.”
4. “baby”
5. “Help!”
6. “Twenty cents per page.”
7. “I love you.”

Seven Books (or series) I Love:
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling
3. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
4. The Austin Family Series by Madeleine L’Engle
5. Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner
6. Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
7. The Mary Russell Series by Laurie King

Seven Movies I Would Watch Over and Over Again:
1. Miss Congeniality
2. You’ve Got Mail
3. The new Pride and Prejudice
4. The Pride and Prejudice miniseries
5. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
6. Sabrina (the one with Harrison Ford)
7. About a Boy

Seven People I Want to Join in:
1. Kelly (so you will blog again)
2. Emily (so you will blog again, too)
3. Mom (who doesn’t have a blog, but who could email me her answers and I would post them for her)
4. Shelby (also needs to blog again) (her answers)
5. Sarah Cozart (needs to blog again) (is anyone sensing a pattern here?) (her answers)
6. Sarah Shearer (needs to blog again)
7. Geof (because he made me do one of these things over the summer) (his answers)

Last night Mike was talking about purchasing the DVD of Mickey’s Christmas Carol, and I was reminded of a sad, sad story. You see, I have never seen the end of Mickey’s Christmas Carol. I didn’t know it was on every year, but I do remember starting to watch it one evening when it was on TV when I was, oh, seven or eight. That particular evening I happened to be very sick, probably with a cough. I had bronchitis a lot as a child, and I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. And I was coughing so much that my dad decided to take me to . . . I guess it would have been the emergency room? Maybe some kind of late-night clinic (keep in mind, I was small, and it was dark outside, but that doesn’t mean it was all that late. I’d guess maybe 8:00-ish)? Anyway, I had to go to the doctor. I was desperately trying to keep from coughing, just so I could see the end of the show. But I had to go anyway.

What I remember is being in the waiting room for a while, and then getting into the examination room (which, for some reason, I was really hoping would have a television so I could see the end of Mickey’s Christmas Carol even though I have never seen a doctor’s examination room with a television) and waiting for the doctor. And at some point, I said, “Daddy, do you think the show will still be on when we get home?” He said, “No, I don’t think so.” And I was really sad. I think I might even have told the doctor about missing it. And I think if my dad had known how much I wanted to watch it and how long we were going to have to wait, he might have just let me see it and taken me to the doctor after it was over. But maybe not. I might have been really sick. I don’t remember how sick I was, but I do remember desperately wanting to see the end of the show.

Of course, by the time we got home, it was indeed over, and for some reason my family never watched it again in later years. We watched Charlie Brown and Rudolph, but not Mickey. Maybe Mickey got moved to cable, which we didn’t have, or maybe it’s just because my dad doesn’t really like cartoons. I remember seeing a Mickey’s Christmas Carol book and wanting to read it, but knowing it wouldn’t be the same. Somehow I got to the age of 26 without ever having seen the end. And every time I think of it, I think of that night and how desperately I wanted to see it and how hard I tried to keep from coughing and how sad I was about the whole thing. At this point, I think I should deliberately avoid it, because it makes a much better story, don’t you think? So don’t tell me how it ends, because I’d really rather not know.

Last weekend, for the first time, I watched Almost Famous. Checked it out from the library and watched it on VHS, even.

And I was disappointed.

I mean, it was fine, I didn’t hate it or anything, but I had heard so many great things about it that I was expecting to like it more than I did. I liked Patrick Fugit, I thought he was very good, but the movie didn’t do anything for me. From the way people talk about it, I thought it was going to move me more than it did. I was just getting frustrated by the end - “Let him get his freaking interview, so this can be over with!” And the way it ended, well, of course Russell called Rolling Stone. I mean, what else was he going to do? The movie had to end that way. Kate Hudson . . . I like her okay, but mostly I don’t. And I didn’t like Penny Lane at all. Except at the very end, when she did the right thing.

Maybe a lot of my indifference has to do with the fact that I have no desire to hang out with a bunch of rockstars and tour with them. I like my ordered, boring existence, at least compared to the alternative. I like having time to myself. I like my house, and reading, and things being quiet. And I like music, but I’m no buff, so I don’t have any connection to the passion that the characters felt about music. When I was a big Caedmon’s fan, it was about knowing all the facts behind the lyrics as much as the songs themselves. I couldn’t relate to most of it, to be honest. I couldn’t relate to the being on tour part or the music part, I didn’t like the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll atmosphere, and I kept wondering how long they were in the bus and if they ever got to stop and take showers in between the hotels they stayed at.

I actually think Mike would have enjoyed it a lot more than I did, because of the guys I know who liked it so much. There were definitely scenes that I thought were good, and at least I can cross it off my “to get around to seeing eventually” list.

My family has never been big on Christmas baking (at least that I remember), but the combined influence of Kelly and my Kitchenaid mixer make it hard for me to claim that it’s not easy to make things from scratch, so last night I did a round of Christmas baking. We are planning on giving baked goods as many of our Christmas presents, so I did sugar cookies in the shape of stars, candycanes, snowmen, trees, and stockings. Then I made four small loaves of banana bread. After all of it cooled, I put it in the freezer to have ready when needed. All in all, not a bad couple of hours of work.

Normally when I bake cookies, I do it with Kelly, so I made Mike come down and study with me so that I wouldn’t be alone (even though I couldn’t talk to him while he was studying). He has a presentation and a final today, so he did not help at all (except with the eating). My next plan is to bake pumpkin chocolate chip bread, and probably to make some chocolate chip cookies. I also need to make cream cheese cookies. It’s nice to feel like I’m prepared, especially since I have done pretty much no shopping at all.