Crafting is probably the one area in my life where I have learned any semblance of patience, and also where I seem to glean some of the most profound spiritual truths. This weekend I buckled down and went to town on the felted musk-oxen slippers I started, oh, two months ago.  When I saw the slippers, they were so cute that I had to make them.  Never mind that I had never made footwear or felted anything before...must...have...musk oxen!


I borrowed the appropriate size circular and double-point needles from my school's resident knitting guru, and went to work on the slippers.  I'm pretty good with reading patterns by now, but it was still intimidating to roll a cuff and open the heel.  I soldiered on, however, and finished the slippers a few weeks ago.  As you can see, they were huge and awkward when I took them off the needles...

You can't tell from the picture, but these are about 14" long.

Being an ecomaniac, I decided that I wanted to felt the slippers and other pieces by hand because I didn't feel like running a whole washload of water for just a few little pieces.  From my research, I knew that felted pieces were supposed to shrink and the individual stitches would disappear in the process, but I had no idea how long it would take.  I did the off-white piece first, since it was just a rectangle, about 30" by 7" to start with and it was supposed to get down to 20"x5.5".  According to the website I consulted, heat and agitation are what cause the wool fibers to felt, so I filled a washbasin with hot water and a little bit of soap and proceeded to do my best imitation of a washing machine with my hands.

After losing most of the feeling and outer epidermis of my hands for the rectangle, I tried using other implements for the slippers but ended up using my hands at the end anyway.  Thank goodness for Mary Kay Satin Hands treatment!

About half an hour in, I started to feel despair creep into my heart.  The website had been kind enough to mention that after the first one or two 5-minute intervals, the piece might actually look bigger, so that had not worried me at all.  But after thirty minutes of making "twinkle twinkle little star" motions in the hot water, all I had to show for it was a wet scarf.  The stitches were still clearly visible and the piece was definitely the same size as when I started, if not larger.  Was this going to work or not?

I know it's much easier to felt things in the washer, but I'm almost glad I did it by hand the first time because I literally got to feel the fabric forming.  At about forty minutes, I finally noticed a change.  The fabric stiffened and felt heavy in my hands, and the stitches melted into each other. That 40-45 minute interval must have been the inflection point because it went quite a bit faster after that.  The last fifteen minutes were mostly spent shrinking the piece to the right size, since it already looked quite felted.  It took about an hour for both the rectangle and the slippers to felt to the appropriate size.

Here they are felted and now 10.5" long...still too big for me, but supposed to be size 10 women's.

The spiritual implications were readily apparent.  (You know I'm coming into a good place when the metaphor machine starts running again.)  Unfelted pieces are loose and soft and shapeless, and they can be unraveled if you just cut the right strand.  After felting, however, you have one solid piece of fabric that can hold its own shape and be cut into useful shapes without fraying to bits.  How is felt made?  Heat and agitation, as I said before, which pretty much describes how I've felt for the last year and a half.

And the process of felting unfolds stepwise rather than in a steady slow burn.  I think of boiling sugar for candy, or supersaturating a solution, or an acid-base titration, or the punctuated equilibrium of evolution.  It looks like nothing is happening for the longest time, but once things get moving--hard crack! precipitate! the awful magenta bloodstain of phenolphthalein! speciation!  I wonder if my life isn't like that too, periods of frustration, suffering, loss, stagnation, through I am nonetheless constantly moving to the place where things can change very quickly and very profoundly.  I was at that place two years ago, and it was glorious.  Might I be approaching another such peak...or is it the bottom of the valley?

I was studying Romans 3-4 this morning and was struck by the theme of transaction. We are conditioned (and perhaps naturally inclined) to use a transactional paradigm in life: trading, buying, selling, earning. But God upends the entire system...our lack of faith leads to His gain in righteousness, even though He is not unrighteous...therefore, He must be infinitely righteous (Romans 3:3-4). We are finite, though, so to some extent we have to stay within the confines of transaction. We cannot generate evil (which I like to think of as insufficiency) in order to achieve good (Romans 3:8). I sometimes fall into the psychologically comforting habit of justifying a bad situation by saying God will redeem it. He may do so, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't avoid sin in the first place. (In the words of Mufasa, "Being brave doesn't mean you go looking for trouble!")

I am hopelessly behind in blogging, so I won't bother trying to catch up the past two and a half weeks. School started and with it came all the hullaballoo of Welcome Week, and that is the primary reason I haven't written more. It was admittedly stressful and I probably didn't cope with it as well as I could have, but there is always grace and a new day tomorrow.

Last night I started writing a fictionalized account of my first relationship, but I began from the perspective of my wedding. That was a little scary to put down on paper, but I've found that writing is a handy way to "download" thoughts that are eating at me and this time was no different. In the story Mary Jane is getting married in the fall even though her favorite season is spring because that is when the trees are the most colorful. As I was writing, I realized the profoundness of that truth. The most arguably beautiful season in the forest precedes the bleak winter when there are no leaves at all. The rich green chlorophyll must fade in a sort of death in order for the flaming zeaxanthins and carotenoids to come through. (Don't worry, I don't write like this in the story!)

Perhaps the central tenet of Christianity is to show how death can enrich life. It's not just knowing that our time is limited and we must make the most of our time on earth. It's letting the old self die with Christ so that the new self can live. Each season of my life seems to bring this cycle of something dying to make way for something to be born, which I still struggle to remember sometimes. But it's comforting to know that, in many respects, death is not the end of the journey.

"I am Cosette." This was the somewhat strange word I received through prayer during a support group meeting back in April. Cosette is a character in Les Misérables and a striking literary counterpart of me. She is the illegitimate daughter of Fantine, one of the destitute proletariat in nineteenth-century France. Forced to keep her daughter hidden for fear of losing her job, Fantine boards her daughter with the Thenardiers, who abuse Cosette horribly while pocketing the money her mother sends for her care. After losing her job and hiring herself out as a prostitute, Fantine is unfairly arrested but pardoned by the mayor, Monsieur Madeleine, aka Jean Valjean, the main character of the book. He promises the dying Fantine that he will fetch her daughter; when he goes to the Thenardiers he quietly pays an exorbitant price to take her away. He then dedicates his entire life to raising this girl.

Sin had me captive, but Christ was willing to "pay what I must pay to take Cosette away" (from the musical). The passage where Jean Valjean keeps handing over money to the greedy Thenardier is incredibly moving. After rescuing her, he nurtures her and she becomes a beautiful young woman, though sheltered because of the danger that stalks Valjean.

At the very end of the book, however, I saw a new dimension of Cosette that really hit home. By now, she has married Marius, with whom she fell in love at first sight. ("A Heart Beneath a Stone" is a love letter from Marius to the yet unknown Cosette and is possibly my favorite chapter in all of literature.) She is so wrapped up in her new husband that she fails to see her adoptive father's heartbreak at losing her. His sacrifices for her never stopped: he risked life and limb to rescue Marius from the barricade, slogging four miles through the sewer to bring him to safety so that she could be happy, but he never tells her any of it for fear of giving away too much information that might incriminate his past. (The Valjean/God metaphor is, of course, far from perfect.)

How often do I do this, falling in love with some happy circumstance, some bit of creation, to the neglect of the Creator? Let me never again be like Cosette in this respect! I once prayed that God would keep away anything that might tempt me to forget Him, and I'm sure He's done that in some situations, but He lets others pass, to give me the chance to remember Him freely. There's a difference, I'm realizing, between never being tempted and being tempted but not giving in. It's hard, but I'm slowly learning to feel honored to be deemed worthy of trial.

I lived an object lesson on Wednesday while I was driving to visit my fall placement school. The road I was driving was under heavy construction and it was hard to see the street signs. I saw a sign reading Clime Rd Detour, and I knew Clime was past Briggs, which was the road I was looking for, so I turned around before the stoplight. The next road I came to was Eakin, which I knew was before Briggs, so I was extremely confused. I stopped at a Kroger store to ask directions, and the clerk told me that the next stoplight--the one I had turned around at--was, in fact, Briggs. The sign meant Briggs was the detour for Clime. If I hadn't turned back too soon, I would have saved myself about ten minutes of going in circles.

Right away I realized God was reminding me not to give up right before I get where I'm going. I'm conflict-avoidant, so I usually just run away. You'd be hard-pressed to accuse me of being stubborn because I grew up with a parent whose M.O. often seemed to be, "My way, or the high way." But I guess I just need to trust my Directions to get me where I need to go. I know this is a general lesson, but there is also a specific situation currently that this might apply to, but I haven't gotten directions for that yet except to wait...

And the LORD said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day, because on that day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, 'Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. He shall surely be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on him. Whether man or animal, he shall not be permitted to live.' Only when the ram's horn sounds a long blast may they go up to the mountain." (Exodus 19:10-13)

We discussed this passage in church on Sunday and our pastor pointed out that God set limits even as He was about to reveal Himself. Now that actually did not strike me as terribly incongruous because I have accepted, intellectually at least, that God is God and I...am not. But as I was thinking about it, here is the metaphor that came to me.

Tonicity is a relative measure of solution concentration. If Solution A is hypertonic to Solution B, there is more stuff dissolved in Solution A, and therefore Solution B is hypotonic to Solution A because it has less stuff dissolved in it. Water, or any solvent, has a tendency to move from a hypertonic to a hypotonic solution to "balance" the tonicity. (This happens as a result of the second law of thermodynamics, there is no intentionality or volition for the water's movement.)

Living cells are mostly water, but there are lots of solutes dissolved in it. If you place a cell in salt water (hypertonic to the cell's interior), water will rush out of the cell and the cell will plasmolyze, or shrivel. If you place a cell in pure water (hypotonic to the cell's interior), water will rush into the cell and possibly cause it to lyse, or burst.
























We are cells, literally and figuratively. God is like pure water, and if He were to surround us fully, that purity would destroy us because we are not pure. So in His wisdom, God has put limits on us (and how much He reveals of Himself) so that we don't a'splode. The biological analogue would be the cell wall that is around plant cells; the rigid wall allows water entering the cell to cause it to swell without bursting. In fact, a plant's mechanical strength comes from billions of cells full of water pressing against the cell walls, a phenomenon called turgor. If millions of Christians were full of God's spirit, within the limits He sets on us, what strength we might have!

I picked up a note that had been left on the stairs in my department building this week (because I never learned as a child not to pick up things left by strangers!). On the outside, it read, "Will you make the decision to pick me up?" and inside the author had written, "To say yes to one instant, is to say yes to all of existence."

For most of my life until now, I've been saying No. No, I can't come hang out. No, I don't want to go to the prayer meeting. No, I can't go on a missions trip. No, I don't know who God is or what He wants for me, at least not really. And I've also been saying Yes. Yes, you can tell me how I should and should not feel. Yes, I will believe the lies you tell me about myself. Yes, I will let you decide what I wear and what I eat. Yes, I will take responsibility for your feelings, but not my own.

I've had to learn a new set of Yeses and Nos since coming into a personal and devoted relationship with God. Sometimes I am to say Yes to things I am to say No to the next day. This doesn't mean that God is fickle or inconstant, rather He is so majestically the same that in my own endless frenzy of activity, I am always overshooting and coming back to center, like a sine wave. People criticize God for being too harsh and too lenient, too big and too small, too pessimistic and too optimistic, too restrictive and too lax...but maybe that means He is the norm past which we are constantly swinging like some mad pendulum. (This is a concept I borrowed from a chapter in G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy that forever changed the way I see God and myself.) One day I hope to reach a sort of equilibrium with God in which I track with Him more steadily, not saying Yes or No too much or too little. Homeostasis, the steady-state, in which an organism is truly healthy and best able to grow and reproduce.

For the world we live in, it is not possible to say yes to all of existence, because not all existence is right, but there will be such a world one day. To say yes to one instant, when God calls us to Him, is indeed to say yes to all existence, that is in Him. Will you say Yes?

"Love the pitcher less and the water more." -a description of Sufism (Islamic mysticism) in Islam: A Concise Introduction

I definitely have a more mystical bent than many people I know, and sometimes I wonder if that doesn't leave me vulnerable to fickle changes in sentiment. I also wonder about the other mystic traditions out there. Why should God be limited to a certain name if His character remains the same? (Of course, that distinction is very hard to tease out.) I think mysticism is less concerned with the outward differences between religions (the pitcher, to use the analogy above) and more concerned with the God behind it all. I also think the world's mystic traditions are more similar than the corresponding orthodox and radical religious traditions. Is all truth God's truth? A few weeks ago in Sunday School Pastor Nick alluded to people who are saved but don't know it, and I wonder how that is possible. Natural theology? Innate morality? Jiminy Cricket? I have no idea...

Another book, Essential Sufism, explains that, "Mysticism breaks through the boundaries that protect the faith of the typical believer." But I don't suppose that it is a good idea to start with mysticism because the foundational truths have to be there. Thomas Merton puts it this way: "But the truth is that the saints arrived at the deepest and most vital and also the most individual and personal knowledge of God precisely because of the Church's teaching authority, precisely through the tradition that is guarded and fostered by that authority." (New Seeds of Contemplation)

Contemplation requires a truth to contemplate, and that is what church teaching brings to the table: a conceptualization, a vocabulary, as it were. And while no human words or ideas can perfectly spell out the nature of God or his revelation, I think we have to start somewhere and words are the medium of choice. My Hebrew professor pointed out something that is very "Duh" on the surface but carries deep implications: the Bible is written in human language and meant to be understood that way. There are certainly many ways in which God reveals Himself, but the choice of words as a medium is important for transmission. Language can corrupt meaning, but it can also clarify. (An excellent example is Father Merton himself, who always seems to be good at putting into words what I feel or think but cannot express!)

After we have the words and the language, provided by the Bible and the church, then we can transcend. It is like learning to speak and read verbally so that one has the means with which to learn how to read and play music. I am at the point now where I want to go beyond words, even though I will always love communicating verbally, to know and contemplate God, but I'm not sure how that will happen or if now is the right time for it. I'm just always searching, always hungry...

Two weeks ago Joe preached a sermon titled, "The Garden" about how our spiritual lives are like plants, referring of course to the parable of the soils. As a take-home reminder, he let us plant seeds in paper cups. I chose basil, with visions of homemade pesto dancing in my head. I had tried to grow herb cuttings from the Porostoskys' garden in the fall, but they died after about a month.

This time I started from seed, and within a week I had three tiny seedlings poking their heads out of the soil. A few days later I noticed the paper cup I had planted them in was getting pretty skanky, so I transferred them to a plastic cup I had punched drainage holes into. I tried to be careful in the process, but was terrified I had somehow damaged the root ball (all 10 mm of it). For days after the transfer I kept checking them to see if they were dead...they weren't, but they didn't seem to be growing either.

A few days ago I noticed that the sun no longer shone directly in my window at any point during the day. (My apartment building is shaped like a U and my unit is angled so that it is shaded most of the time.) I had mentioned my basil plants to my supervisor Ryan and he'd said that they need full sunlight. Today, I finally put two and two together and wondered if maybe my basil babies weren't getting enough light. So I stuck them under the light near the sink. Six hours later, I looked and they were decidedly perkier.

I wish I had thought to take a "Before" picture, but I had no idea they would react so quickly. The new position of the light source is to the left in the picture; before they were both kind of bent over to the right. When I consider what I know about plant cells, that they can't move and must change shape in order to change the plant's position, and that this involves the coordinated movement of thousands of cytoskeleton molecules...wow.

The metaphor couldn't be clearer. In order to grow spiritually, we must be illuminated by the Light of the world. Plants seek light because they need the energy to generate food. We have to look for Jesus or else even the Bible is just a lot of dead words. Lately I've been feeling that, no matter how much I love words and how much I need them to process the world, God is still bigger than that and I want to reach an understanding of Him that transcends even my preferred method of communication.

I just love my ceramics class this quarter. I like to think that I'm not half bad at the wheel and I can't see why I was terrified of throwing while I was in high school. It's certainly an example of "Practice makes perfect," and I'm happy to report that I've basically mastered centering the clay, which of course, is the most important step.

I discovered that it helps to sit on a slightly higher stool because the extra inch of elevation helps me better see if my clay is wobbling. In the same way, it's much easier for God to center us because He is so much higher than we are.

It's also a lot easier to center soft clay, and I've discovered that I much prefer working with reclaimed clay. This is clay that's already been thrown before, but didn't quite make the cut. I break it into pieces, water it down if it's too bone-dry, spread it on a plaster board to dry a little, then throw, pummel, and wedge the heck out of it to get a soft, pliable clay. Some people don't like using reclaimed clay because they don't like wedging it to get the air bubbles out, so they just use the ready-made clay available for purchase. (Which I'm pretty sure is also reclaimed from the communal slop buckets, but it's been pugged and processed so it's bubble-free.) My problem with the prepared clay is that it's just too darn hard, and it takes a lot longer and a lot more water to center.

I think you can guess where I'm going with this. The analogy isn't perfect, because God didn't make any "mistakes" with me, but I have certainly had the old me broken, thrown, pummeled, and wedged in the past few months, and I've been reclaimed. And now I'm ready to be reformed. For the first time in a long time I am reconciled to my body and to God. The Spirit of God is near and I am the closest to whole I have probably ever been. I still have some air bubbles that need to be popped, and I know that things will not always be this smooth, but I have faith in the Potter to make good use of me (Rom. 9:21).

Ezekiel 11:19
I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.

"Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand." Isaiah 64:8

I now have a far better understanding of this verse than I ever did before, thanks to just a week of ceramics class. After I went home the first day I remember thinking, "Oh, yeah, this is why I avoided the wheel like the plague in high school!" But with a few days of intense practice, I went in for about an hour and a half today and threw three cylinders and only one reject! Somehow they all inevitably wind up the same diameter, differing only in height, but hopefully I'll be able to branch out a little bit.

The most important thing I've learned is the importance of centering. This was always what tripped me up in high school, so I was a little concerned when I still couldn't do it right after four hours of practice. But it is absolutely essential to have the clay centered, because if you open an uncentered lump of clay and try to shape it, the entire piece will be off. (I have finally gotten this skill down fairly well, though sometimes I cheat and manage to coax a marginally off-center piece to completion.)

I'm seeing the same pattern in my life: my efforts at ministry seem to have been constantly frustrated for the past few months (or maybe I just feel that way, but that feeling is real enough to have rather serious repercussions for me personally and those around me) and I think it is because I am not able to focus on the right Person. There is an old problem resurfacing that I thought I had buried, but obviously not deep enough. A lot of what I've done in the past twelve months, even the "good" stuff, has been me trying to ignore that off-centeredness and forge ahead anyway. To a certain degree, God let me go with it, even as far as Taiwan, but now things are spinning out of control and I am on the verge of collapsing. And I can only pray that He can and will bring me back to center.

This is the sterilized version of "things". I wrote a much rawer entry last night but accidentally deleted it before posting. I believe that was God guarding my privacy better than I am able, so I'm not going to try to rewrite it, but if you read this, please pray that I can receive forgiveness and healing from what I have dubbed spiritual diabetes. Thanks.

"We are the feet! We are the feet! Lalalalala!" --the lyrics of a song I made up with Maureen in fifth grade...man, I was cool.

This is not so much a well-reasoned metaphor as it is a word association that popped into my head while doing my devotions this afternoon. I was thinking and writing about a friend...

Let him not think he has lost everything...but believe that you can and will restore everything to him and more if only he accepts obedience to you. Lord, we are all like Job at some point or another, when the fire is at our feet and the question is asked, "Will you still follow?" And you know my answer is yes even though it's darn hard to walk on burnt feet, but that's when you carry us, God. Help me to be a firewalker, "With feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace" (Ephesians 6:15)--the foundation on which I can "stand firm" (v. 14).

I remember reading about firewalking in a book about unsolved mysteries I had as a kid. It's a ritual practiced in traditional cultures around the world for thousands of years, more recently co-opted by American motivational speakers and corporate team-building exercises. The ritual involves walking barefoot over a bed of hot embers or stones and is used rites of healing, initiation, and faith.
In most cases, it is simply a matter of the stones' relatively poor heat conductivity, but you still have to walk quickly. "Hesitate, and you get burned." I remember that exact line from the book I read as a kid.

I am pathologically indecisive, so making the decision to stay at OSU for grad school has taken a lot of anxiety out of my life. A lot of times indecision is more paralyzing and scary than any possible consequences of choosing either way, and I think I see this in the friend I was writing about above, only he's made a choice that I don't agree with and has hurt me a lot. I guess I do have to respect him for making and sticking to that choice...but it is still possible to make a different choice...

My hopes are like embers lying around inside a firebed and
Your mind is a firewalker, it steps on them like they are dead but

I can grow
In spite of all you know
You might not recognize me tomorrow
Yes I can change
In spite of all they say
Become something strange and beautiful
Like joy, like joy
(Liz Phair - "Firewalker")

...I'm not sure why I wrote this. I guess I just hope someone who reads this will be encouraged.

Planarians are flatworms, but these primitive little critters have the amazing ability to regenerate their bodies from a 1/279th fragment. The catch is that this fragment must contain a type of cell called a neoblast. Basically, the neoblast is the precursor of all other cell types and forms a structure called the regeneration blastema. Cells in the blastema differentiate, establish patterns for the new body parts, and coordinate remodeling of existing cells in a process called morphallaxis. Eventually, the regenerated body parts reach fully functional homeostasis.

Jesus is the neoblast. When life has cut me to pieces, He can regenerate me. I was reading Romans 12 today and verse 2 instructs us to "be transformed by the renewing of your mind." My Bible commentary said that regeneration (salvation, in theo-speak) is instant, but transformation (sanctification) is a process akin to remodeling...or morphallaxis. That, I think, is the hard part: ripping down old habits, thoughts, feelings that have been hijacked by sin and changing them for better use. I've never renovated a house, but I'm sure there are times when it is so frustrating it might seem easier to just buy a new place. But that's not an option when it comes to life (as many times this week as I wish it were so!) I have to work with the broken bits that I have, but with Jesus as my neoblast, it'll happen.

The neoblast is capable of generating many, if not all, types of cells; that is called pluripotency (or totipotency, in the case of embryonic stem cells which can generate an entirely new embryo). I am not totipotent...only Jesus is. I was reflecting on Joe's sermon about "One Body, Many Parts" (Ephesians 4) when I realized that I am often trying to be too many parts, to be the blastema, as it were. But the magic of the blastema is that it can generate all sorts of differentiated cells. If it never differentiated, all you'd have is a mass of tissue, maybe with some teeth or hair poking out in weird places. Differentiation is crucial, and maybe the reason I feel so off-kilter is because I'm trying to be too many things and just winding up a big ball of stress. I think, deep down, that this is so I don't have to rely on anyone else. I was always taught to be independent, to take care of myself, and it has definitely been difficult learning how to trust others to do things for me. And I am still unwilling to reach the point of needing someone else. After all, aren't I supposed to rely on God to supply my needs? But on the other hand, sometimes He works through people. Then there is the pride that comes with self reliance and sustainability. Where is the balance? I don't know yet, but I better figure it out because I'm sick of being a mutant mass of whatever.

It's so wild that Joe preached on this topic this week, because during our prayer meeting on Sunday I felt compelled to pray that our members can find out what it is that they uniquely have to offer this particular body. I've been thinking about it more as we start the transition to next year's leaders, and while part of me is a little scared to be "replaced," a larger part of me is afraid there will be no one to step up. But maybe that's okay, after all, no one says that XA has to follow my particular vision, and maybe it's time for me to bring that somewhere else. I still pray that everyone can know what part they are supposed to be, though. Knees, for prayer. Shoulders, to offer comfort and strength. Arms, to carry through mercy. Hands, to help, heal, and hold in solidarity. Feet, to move the Gospel and march for God's justice. Toes, to wiggle in worship. Ears, to hear God's spirit and listen to people's hearts. Eyes, to see God's children and past people's masks. Noses, to detect the stench of sin before it spreads. Mouths, to proclaim, preach, and praise. Minds, to think and to teach. Hearts, to drive our actions. And of course, Jesus is the head. (The analogy gets even crazier, since embryonic patterning happens in an anterior-posterior direction, but I think I'm already treading the Lunatic Fringe with this one, so I'll back off. ...I have been studying for so long I think I may be clinically insane.)