Fun Friday–It’s the Thought That Counts
Happy Black Friday, everyone! I hope all of my U.S. friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving, filled with family, food, and football! I’m having a wonderful time here in Arkansas with my parents—though I’ve spent most of it “locked” in the back bedroom trying to get Ransome’s Crossing finished. (About three chapters to go!!!!)
For Fun Fridays between now and December, I thought I’d share some clips from some of my favorite Christmas movies and TV episodes. Today, I’ll start with a new favorite, a clip from last year’s Christmas episode on The Big Bang Theory. (To put it into context, Sheldon is a huge Spock fan and Leonard Nimoy played Mr. Spock in the original Star Trek series and films):
Sometimes, the best gift is one that doesn’t cost much—or anything—but speaks volumes about the giver and/or the receiver. What’s one of the best no-cost gifts you’ve ever given/received?
Guy Fieri Roadshow in Nashville!
So as a treat, and because I have people in my family who would jump at the chance of going if Guy Fieri came to their cities, I went to the Guy Fieri Roadshow at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center Sunday night. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that photographs were allowed (good thing I’d decided to sneak my camera in anyway). I took more pictures than probably anyone who wasn’t there would be interested in. Given that it’s almost midnight when I’m posting this and I’m getting up in the morning to drive six hours, I didn’t try to label all of the photos in the Flickr folder. (If you really want to see all of them, here they are in a slideshow format.)
Here are a few highlights:
Hayden “Woody” Wood, master mixologist, gives a little “flair” as the warm-up act.
It was really hard to get a picture of Guy behind the stove. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what he cooked, because that wasn’t really the point of this show.
Guy took several volunteers from the audience to go up on stage and sing something for him. This little girl wailed on a Taylor Swift song, and as the “winner” of the Guido Karaoke competition, Guy took the sunglasses off his head and gave them to her.
This is why I have no idea what was cooked (by the sous chefs and Anne Burrell)—because Guy spent most of his time pacing/dancing/gesticulating across the front of the stage telling absolutely hilarious stories.
Fun Friday?
Between spending four solid days on an editing project, spending yesterday setting up my new laptop, and spending today running all kinds of errands around town getting ready for the trip to my folks’ house for Thanksgiving, I haven’t had any good ideas for a Fun Friday post except for this one:
Share a link to something you posted/saw online this week that made you laugh. It can be a post from your own blog, a picture or cartoon you saw, an article from another website, or even a video.
Here’s my contribution. Since I’m always complaining about people’s fake accents on TV and movies, this was right up my alley:
Your turn.
Sunday Dinner
Growing up, one of the things I looked forward to on Sundays was not Sunday school or church service. It was Sunday dinner. During the school year, when I was at home with my parents, that meant going out to eat with family friends. During the summer, when my sister and I stayed with my grandparents for a couple of months, that meant a good, old-fashioned Sunday dinner that my grandmother had spent most of Saturday evening putting together (my two favorites are still to this day Roast Beef and Chicken-and-Rice Casserole).
Once I moved to Nashville, aside from attending church by myself and having to witness everyone else there with their families/spouses/partners, one of the changes that was hardest on me was that big, empty, yawning gap of Sunday afternoon spent alone. For me, Sunday-dinner time is family time, whether it’s a home-cooked meal or at a restaurant.
For a few years, when there were large singles groups at the churches I attended, I once again had people to share that time with. I’m not sure if it’s that we’re more spiritually open after attending church or what, but there’s something special about the time spent around the Sunday dinner table that provides a kind of bonding that isn’t found at most other meals/social times. It’s a time of affirming, “This is my family. These are people I care about and who care about me.”
So in addition to being bombarded with the “you’re alone/not part of a family unit” message at church for a couple of hours on Sunday morning, eating lunch alone afterward is part of what started making Sunday one of my least favorite days of the week . . . and one of the reasons I started avoiding going to church altogether. If I didn’t go to church, I wasn’t slapped in the face with my aloneness there . . . and then I didn’t have to acknowledge that “everyone else” was leaving the church to have Sunday dinner with their “family” while I was going home to, once again, eat alone.
Something I always made an effort to do, back in the days when I was a leader in the church (whether officially or unofficially) was to invite visiting singles out to lunch with the group. Not only was it a time for me to start getting to know newcomers, but it was also a time for me to make them feel included, make their day not quite so “alone.” And that’s been one of my problems in recent years with trying to find the motivation to go to church. At the church where I’m still officially a member (but haven’t attended in at least a year), I was going to a Sunday school class where everyone else was at least fifteen to twenty (plus) years older than me, married, with teenagers, twentysomethings, or even offspring my age. We had great theological discussions in that class, but I never really felt like I was a part. I was just allowed to be there. Then, I would go sing in the choir—because it’s much less obvious, to me and everyone else, that I’m alone when I’m sitting amongst 40-or-so other people in a homogeneous blob of green choir robes. Afterward, I would go back to the choir room, disrobe, get my stuff, and leave. I might pick something up on the way home, or I might have actually planned ahead and had a meal in the Crock-Pot. But I knew I would be eating it by myself.
This church broadcast its services on a local cable TV station. So if I could get up an hour or two later, not have to iron something or put on pantyhose (okay, so I rarely wear hose even when I do dress up, but still…), sit in my comfortable recliner, and have my coffee while watching the service on TV—and feeling as much a part of it by “participating” that way—what was the point in actually making the effort to go? No one seemed to miss me, anyway (based on the lack of contacts/phone calls when I stopped going).
So anyway, the whole point of this post was not to devolve into whining about my past church experiences, but to talk about my current church-visiting experiences. I visited another Sunday school class this week—and I should have started with it, just from the name: the “Friendship” class. It’s more of a median-adult age level—I guessed most people to be in their mid-40s to mid-50s, so a little closer to my age—but I think I was still the only unmarried person in the class (of about 30 people). However, the discussion was so good that I couldn’t help but chime in several times (especially to break the awkward silences when the guest teacher would pose a question and everyone was suddenly more interested in the carpet than in him)—good enough that we only got through two of the three scripture passages prescribed by the Lectionary (Mark 13:1-8 and 1 Samuel 1:4-20; we never got to Hebrews 10:11-14).
Oh, I forgot to mention that before class started, the leader actually acknowledged that I was a visitor and let me introduce myself (by name only, but still, an acknowledgment). After class, several people came up and introduced themselves to me and welcomed me and invited me to come back to their class. Once down in the sanctuary, seated by myself on what’s quickly becoming “my” pew, a gentleman from the class came up and introduced himself to me and invited me to ask him any questions I have about the church, about the other Sunday school classes—and ended up sitting with me during the service, along with another lady from the class. After service ended, he made a point of introducing me to one of the ministers and letting her know that I’m interested in finding a group of thirty- and fortysomethings to get involved with. He encouraged me to consider attending the church-wide Thanksgiving dinner next Sunday. And not only that, but we’d exchanged business cards and he e-mailed me yesterday reiterating his welcome and the encouragement to attend the Friendship class again as well as Sunday dinner this week.
So I called and made a reservation for the dinner this morning. And for the first time in several years (except for when I’ve been visiting my family, of course), this week, I won’t be having Sunday dinner alone.
Radio Interviews!
Over the past few months, I’ve had the chance to do several interviews with Victor Gentile of the Kingdom Highlights internet radio program. They’re now available online!
Victor interviews me about Stand-In Groom. (April 2009)
- It’s missing the last few minutes—something happened during the session and when he cut to commercial, apparently the equipment never started recording again. 😦
Victor interviews me about Menu for Romance. (October 2009)
Victor interviews me about Ransome’s Honor. (October 2009)
Fun Friday: Holiday Time = Movie Time
Anyone who’s a consumer of movies—especially if you actually go watch them at the theater—know that blockbuster films release in the summer (with Memorial Day and July 4 being the two big weekends) but that the second big film-release season begins the weekend before Thanksgiving and runs through the first week of the New Year. There are three types of film that release during the holiday season: family-friendly (holiday themed or not), minor blockbuster (wouldn’t have competed during the summer, but now it’ll be the BFOC—big film on campus), and art/award film (those positioning themselves for Oscars, Golden Globes, etc., and those that would get lost at any other time of year). So, with that in mind, I thought I’d list a few films I really want to see in the next six to eight weeks. (Click on the title to view a trailer.)
- This is one of those films that falls into that third category (art/award film), and I happen to be going to see it tonight. It’s not one that I would have rushed out to see on my own, but it’s a girls’ night out, so I’m going. You can read the summary/review of it here.
- Unless someone decides they want to go see this one Friday evening next week, I’ll be going to an early show of this one on Friday. Y’all know me, I love football, and combining football with a feel-good movie (Sandra Bullock’s horrible southern accent notwithstanding) is a great way to get me to pay the moolah to see a film in the theater. Can’t wait!
- I know, I know, so sue me. But I enjoyed the first movie a lot more than I expected to. I may not go on opening weekend, but I’d like to see this one while it’s in the theater.
- This is the first Disney animated movie I’ve wanted to see in a very, very long time. I love it that they’re exploring new territory not only with a non-traditional fairytale like this but by using a majority African-American cast and setting it in Jazz-Age New Orleans. Of course, this, then, brings up the concern over the fake accents, which I know are going to bug the crap out of me. (I mean, really, it’s a cartoon—even if they’re unknowns, let’s cast people who are FROM New Orleans to voice these characters. People don’t go see these movies because of the actors who voice the characters!) But still, I’m really looking forward to seeing it.
- I think this is one I may wait for on DVD, because I’m not sure about the whole “Susie’s in the ‘In Between'” thing (reminds me a little too much of the movie What Things May Come from several years ago), but the whole murder mystery part of the story looks interesting.
Did You Hear about the Morgans?
- I’m not a huge fan of Hugh Grant or Sarah Jessica Parker, and this movie probably doesn’t break any new ground when it comes to the fish-out-of-water plot. And it’s likely that all the funny bits are in the trailer. But it still looks cute enough to at least make it onto my Netflix queue.
- American Anglophiles have been waiting for this movie to release throughout the U.S. for at least a year now. It’s supposedly going to release in December (limited—which means NY & LA only) but will hopefully then see a wide release a few weeks after that. Just based on the previews, this is one I will preorder as soon as the DVD gets listed on Amazon. I just hope I get to see it in the theater before that happens!
- I already know that Robert Downey Jr. and Rachel McAdams can NOT give a decent British accent, but the rest of the cast is so strong, and, though bordering on fantasy, the story looks great, so this one will probably be a theater-see for me.
When Did PLAIN Become Synonymous with UGLY?
I love it when an idea for a blog post gets dropped in my lap on Thursdays when I read the Dear Prudence column from Slate magazine.
The letter that piqued my interest today is from a young woman who feels she’s too plain to flirt, yet she wants to meet someone and fall in love. Here’s her letter:
How do I find out whether I am attractive? I have always believed that I am plain. I try to dress well and take care of myself, but my face and body simply aren’t going to stop traffic. I have a good sense of humor, am a good conversationalist, and have lots of friends. I have had romantic relationships, but not in a very long time. I chalk that up to circumstance, timing, chemistry, and (honestly) my plainness. Men are visually oriented, and I think I have an honest understanding of what society considers attractive. As a result, I don’t flirt. To me, there is little more pathetic than an unattractive woman flirting as though she is hot stuff. But my friends want me to find someone, so they tell me to engage in behaviors that I don’t think jibe with what I look like—dress provocatively, flirt, try to be seductive. They tell me that I am attractive, but they are either lying or trying to make me feel better. How do I find out? And does it matter whether I am objectively attractive?
There were several suggestions running around in my head, questions I’d want to ask about where she hangs out, what her social circle is like, etc., before I read “Prudence’s” answer. But here’s how Prudence (Emily Yoffe) responded:
I’ve never seen you, yet I can guarantee that you are much better looking than you think you are, and your friends are sick of your unstyled hair, your baggy clothes, your unflattering glasses, your comfy shoes, and your face untouched by makeup. Don’t be surprised if they have discussed having an intervention and nominating you to be on What Not To Wear. You probably have striking eyes, or great bone structure, or lovely legs, and they can’t understand why you want to go through life presenting yourself as a walking Hefty bag. I think you’re protecting yourself from rejection by your own pre-emptive approach of daring any man to find you attractive. If you actually made an effort to look and act alluring, and men didn’t respond, that would hurt. So you do everything you can to scream, “I am not interested in an encounter with the opposite sex!” And when they get your message, you proudly say you will not be the kind of woman who humiliates herself by using the devices of seduction. I say, listen to your friends when they tell you it’s time for a makeover. That doesn’t mean you have to come off like some desperate hussy. It means using the expertise of a makeup artist and a personal shopper to polish up your exterior so that you can draw in potential suitors who will then be delighted with your sterling qualities.
Unless there was part of “Plain Jane’s” letter that was deleted, or a picture she sent in with it that only Emily Yoffe had the benefit of seeing, the response really confused me. “Plain Jane” stated that she tries to “dress well and take care of” herself, and that her concern with her friends’ advice is that they want her to wear more provocative clothes, flirt, and try to act seductively. How did Emily Yoffe take those statements and jump to the conclusion that this girl has “unstyled hair” and “unflattering glasses,” dresses in “baggy clothes” and “comfy shoes,” and doesn’t wear makeup? There’s nothing in this girl’s letter to indicate any of that. 
Is it merely Yoffe’s own prejudice against women who see themselves as “plain” that she would automatically assume this girl dresses like Ally Sheedy’s character in The Breakfast Club? To me, there’s a HUGE difference between dressing “well” (as “Plain Jane” described her sartorial choices) and “baggy clothes.” I actually pictured P.J. in nice, tailored clothes that may (or may not) be more modest than what most women wear when out on the prowl—skirts to the knee, tops that aren’t cut-to-there and are long enough that her midriff doesn’t show, understated (and tasteful) makeup and jewelry, and shoes that wouldn’t show up on a street-walker. In other words, nice, modest, and appropriate for who she is and how she perceives herself.
I felt quite a kinship with “Plain Jane,” as I’m someone who also has a quite clear understanding that I’m not most men’s definition of “attractive,” and that I’d only be making myself look and feel ridiculous if I tried to ape the flirting behaviors of women half my weight/with great bodies—even if they may not have the “pretty face” I’ve always been told I have.
And then, the more I thought about this, the more I realized that this is a lot like the response to Anne Hawthorne’s size from one of the readers of Stand-In Groom that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. While that reader felt that Anne could not be attractive because she’s described as being a size 18/20, I’ve had lots of other readers comment on how thankful they are that I portrayed a woman of that size as being beautiful, in the eyes of more than just George.
So, of course, my imagination took these two letters and started developing a scenario in which “Plain Jane” ends up meeting “Prudence,” who realizes that her knee-jerk reaction to the description “plain” as meaning “messy, homely, doesn’t take care of her appearance” is WAY off base.
I’m really thinking about using “Plain Jane’s” description of herself and incorporating it into one of my upcoming contemporary characters (I may turn it on its ear and use it for one of the guys, though).
What about you? What was your initial image of “Plain Jane” when you read her letter? What did you think of Prudie’s response? What advice would you have given “Plain Jane”? How could you use either/both of these letter-writers’ attitudes in a story?
We Can Never Thank Them Enough
It is easy to take liberty for granted,
when you have never had it taken from you.
~Author Unknown
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
~John Fitzgerald Kennedy
The most persistent sound which reverberates through men’s history
is the beating of war drums.
~Arthur Koestler
I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask,
“Mother, what was war?”
~Eve Merriam
But fame is theirs—and future days
On pillar’d brass shall tell their praise;
Shall tell—when cold neglect is dead—
“These for their country fought and bled.”
~Philip Freneau
Today’s Show Is Brought to You by the Number 40
I sleep with my radio on at night, tuned to NPR (WPLN here in Nashville, of which I am a contributing member) because they play classical music all night, and then I can wake up listening to Morning Edition and find out what’s going on in the world. This morning, I woke up to the strains of the Sesame Street theme song and hearing one of the correspondents wish this “experiment in children’s television” a happy 40th birthday. Yep, that’s right. Big Bird, Oscar, and friends have been on TV for forty years!
Now, I haven’t watched a full episode of the show since the early 1990s (back when I was in college and we didn’t have cable and there was nothing else on TV during the day but SS and soap operas), and I know there are tons of new characters and that they’ve even “updated” the theme song. But I thought it would be fun today to share our memories about growing up watching Sesame Street (or watching it with your kids now—how has it changed?).
Here’s the piece that was on NPR this morning.
And here are a couple of my absolute favorite memories from Sesame Street:
What’s Your Ministry?
I haven’t consciously set out to blog about my journey of finding a new church home, but as that’s a major part of my life right now, it’s only natural that I should share some of that journey here. As those of you who’ve been regular readers for at least the last few months know, I’ve been struggling with trying to find a church where I feel like I fit in, where I feel like I belong and am not just an observer—whether it’s as a single adult in a congregation where marriage is the key to fitting in or whether it’s as a “recovering Baptist” attending churches of different denominations/worship styles.
Yesterday marked the third week I’ve visited the church I’m feeling increasingly called to. (I don’t see myself making a decision to join before the end of the year, because I want to make certain that this is definitely the right church, a long-term church, before making the commitment to joining this church as well as going through whatever red-tape I have to go through to become a member of a different denomination.) So I figured it was time to start visiting Sunday School classes. I read through the list of classes on the church’s website and chose one of the first listed. Here’s part of the description from the website:
. . . We share values of love for “family” (including our biological family
as well as family as defined by close, caring relationships).
We value respect and tolerance for others while working toward
justice for the disenfranchised, responsibility toward the global
community, and the search for truth. As we strive to follow the
example of Jesus, we welcome all people to our class regardless
of age, race, gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation,
culture, socio-economic status, political position, disability, or any
other defining characteristics. We have members of 35 years,
and we also welcome newcomers throughout the year. . . .
Now, what I did not realize was that the statement “We have members of 35 years” was not referring to age but length of membership in the class. But still, it was quite enjoyable as the guest speaker (this class apparently does not have a regular teacher but a succession of guest lecturers) was teaching out of Jonah. (Oh, and I’ve been told by several life-long members of this denomination that they don’t consider themselves as very strong when it comes to knowledge of the Bible. It was amazing to me how many of these people ages 55+ had to “pass” when the teacher asked the class to go around the room and tell the story of Jonah, even after she’d been teaching from the book for three weeks!)
The Sunday School lesson made a very interesting juxtaposition to the sermon, which was on finding our call to service. As you probably already know, the crux of the story of Jonah is that God called Jonah to serve—by going to Nineveh and telling them that God was going to judge them for their sins. Jonah tried to run from God and the calling, but as we all know, you can’t run from God. So Jonah got to chill out in the belly of a great fish for three days before being belched back up onto the land and the next time God called, Jonah went to Nineveh. (Observation: the book of Jonah does not record the actual message God gave Jonah, only the message that Jonah gave the Ninevites—that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days if they didn’t repent, but not what would happen if they did repent.) When the Ninevite king heard Jonah’s message, he dressed in sackcloth and repented, and he ordered every person and animal in the city do the same. God relented and withdrew His judgment from the city because of their repentance. Jonah, who’d wanted them to be punished (total annihilation) was furious when it didn’t happen. And he sulked. (“This is exactly why I didn’t want to come in the first place. I knew You were going to make me look a fool!”) Like a child, he sat down and pouted. God looked on him with compassion and made a plant grow up overnight to provide him shade. But did Jonah thank God for it? No! So God sent a worm that ate the plant and it withered the next night. Jonah got even angrier. And then God did something that I love. He started in with the sarcastic, rhetorical questions*: “Who are you to get angry with Me? Did you cause the plant to grow? But you cared more about the fate of a plant—which came to life overnight—than Nineveh. Shouldn’t I have more compassion for 120,000 people (and the animals), whom you were willing to see destroyed, than you do for a plant?”
Jonah didn’t want to do the service God called him to do. God not only had to call him twice, but had to go to extreme measures to ensure Jonah would go the second time God called him. One of the most interesting contrasts in the story of Jonah is Jonah’s prayer in chapter 2 and Jonah’s reaction to God’s saving Nineveh in chapter 4. He goes from saying, “But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; that which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the LORD” at the end of his prayer from the belly of the fish to saying, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death,” when God asked him why he was angry about the plant withering away.
So I went from this lesson about someone who went and performed his service reluctantly—and then got angry with God about the compassionate and loving result—into the worship service in which the message drew from 1 Corinthians 12:4–12, which discusses the ways in which we are each uniquely gifted by the Holy Spirit for service. I’ve taken many spiritual gift surveys in my adult life, and they always come back with the same results—my top gifts are administration, teaching, and leadership; my bottom/non-existent gifts are mercy, hospitality, and giving. So, logical areas of ministry/service for me are as a teacher, on committees, or as an officer in organizations like the choir or my writing groups. The two main points the pastor made were that we are all called to ministry and we are all gifted for ministry. But we cannot allow ourselves to be browbeaten into thinking that any area of ministry is more important/more glamorous/more spiritual than any other. We must be fully attentive to God’s presence in our lives and what our gifts and talents are and what God’s given us a heart for.
“God calls us to those places where the world’s greatest
needs and our greatest joys intersect.”
He is not going to call us to do something of which we are not capable. Nor is He going to call us to do something that will make us miserable. It was not God’s calling upon Jonah’s life that made Jonah miserable. It was Jonah’s attitude toward the Ninevites and response toward God that made Jonah miserable.
I’ve mentioned many times that it was not until I was in my late twenties that I realized God was calling me to pursue publication. And while others may see my writing as a ministry, I see it as a vocation—because for me, it isn’t the stories I’m writing that is my ministry. It’s the connections I’ve made with people—the people I’ve been able to mentor through the writing groups in which I’ve been involved and through the blog. It’s the people I’ve come to know because they contacted me after reading one of my books. It’s the opportunities I’ve had to go out and meet people I never would have met before through speaking engagements and book signing events. It’s the new venues of opportunity I’ve had to meet people from all over the world that I see as my main ministry (in addition to my local writing group and, hopefully soon, being an active part of a local church congregation).
So what is your ministry? Where are you seeing God at work around you? To what do you feel God is calling you? Where are you encountering Christ? What gives you your greatest joy?
*For my favorite list of God’s sarcastic, rhetorical questions, see Job 38–41.
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