Category: Personal

So I’ve been tagged – (thank you Rick). The game this time is if you’re tagged, you are to share five things others may not know about you. I’m assuming “others” excludes close family and friends – or else I have nothing to talk about. So here goes.

1. Let’s start easy. For those of you who really don’t know me – to whom I am just an internet personality – lets start with physical oddities. I’m tall – 6’1″ to be exact. I have a metal rod and 6 screws in my back from scoliosis surgery in high school. And I am missing my left arm below the elbow (hence my blog title). Since the missing arm is how I am often remembered by acquaintances and people I minister to but don’t know personally its been very odd making friends online who don’t know that about me, so I thought I’d share.

2. I’m generally a very introverted person. (INFP on Myers-Briggs). I’m uneasy meeting new people, I like to hide in the kitchen during parties, and I prefer not to impose myself on others or offend people with my opinions when we are face to face. But I have noticed all of that changing recently. The internet gives me an outlet to have a voice and a more dynamic personality. That and the necessity of extroversion in ministry have forced me to open up and change. Or perhaps as was recently suggested to me, I am finally becoming who I really am instead of hiding behind who I thought I was supposed to be.

3. I am a huge Star Wars nerd. I grew up watching the movies repeatedly, playing with the action figures, and creating new adventures in the SW universe. I knew I was going to grow up and marry Luke Skywalker (maybe that’s why I chose MaraJade as my screenname in a lot of forums, living out my dreams through her??). My biggest disappointment as a child was discovering that 1. Star Wars wasn’t real and 2. because it wasn’t real, I could never get a prosthetic limb like Luke Skywalker’s (I think I was 5 or 6 at the time). But I’m still a huge fan. I read all the novels, my Christmas tree is covered in SW ornaments, we have a SW poster in our family room, and often discuss the philosophical and religious implications of the Jedi system.

4.My top three completely selfish and indulgent dreams currently are to –
1. Visit Greece and stay in some villa with breathtaking views.
2. Eat at some exquisite gourmet restaurant without having to think about the cost.
3. See U2 live in concert.

5. Even though I am generally a pacifist I am drawn to violent things. We collect swords. I love Lord of the Rings and other fantasy related war movies and books. I like reading murder mystery novels. I watch all those crime dramas on TV. Its weird. Perhaps its a justice thing – all of those things paint the world in black and white which is attractive although not realistic. Real life is complicated, so I guess I turn to those other things for my easy answer fix.

Hey all – so I’m back from the Emergent Gathering in New Mexico. It was a great event and a very refreshing time. I found it very freeing to be around like minded people who could go deep in conversations. Not having to spend the entire conversation defining terms or defending why I’m not a heretic was a blessing since we could then talk about stuff that actually mattered. Anyway, a lot of great stuff happened and I promise to share more later – but I need time to process and recover from a physically, mentally, and emotionally intense week (as well as a late night last night).

Yesterday was a bit crazy. I flew back from NM yesterday and was lucky enough to get on an earlier standby flight. Well all flights into Chicago were delayed over 3 hours. Our pilot told us it was because of high winds and the travel reports on Orbitz blamed it on high congestion. People on the ground in Chicago said there were no winds. So we knew something was up. A flight attending finally told us that the real issue was that Air Force One was on the runway and no planes could land. Apparently Bush and Bono were meeting on the plane on the runway and shutting down the busiest airport in the country for a few hours!!! So planes all over the country were delayed, people missed their connections, the airlines had to spend tons of money in vouchers for new flights and hotels so they could have a meeting on the freaking runway. Not only that but apparently the policy of TSA is to LIE to the public about the real reason their flight is delayed. Needless to say it was a late night – if I hadn’t gotten on the “early” flight I wouldn’t have made it home until after 4am if at all.

Anyway – just had to share about that since I’m still too tired to really think and reflect. More will come later!

So I just got a call from my mom telling me that one of my closest friends from high school was killed last week when he was hit by a car as he crossed a cross walk. Read about it here He was in grad school at the University of Arizona, and I didn’t even know it.

I met Tim Morris in 6th grade after my family moved to Austin. We went to the same church and through jr. high and high school were close friends. By our junior and senior years we would do everything together. We had a lot of interests in common and generally had fun together. We were even each others default friend date to events and dances.

We went to different colleges and a couple years into college Tim “came out of the closet.” It really wasn’t a surprise to me, but it shocked a lot of our church friends. Perhaps because of those reactions and the stir it caused at our conservative church, Tim distanced himself from us – all of us. The last time I saw him was at my wedding open house nearly 7 years ago. And of all the people I lost touch with from high school, he was the one I always wished I could find again. I wondered if he assumed I condemned him. I wanted to get back in touch, find him, assure him I still wanted to be friends – but as time pasted the weirder it got and I did nothing. I had no clue he was in Arizona. And now he’s dead. I wish I had tried to find him, to let him know his choices didn’t matter to me – and now its too late. I’m sorry Tim.

Hey world (or the small slice of it that reads this blog…)

So I’m in the middle of my super psycho three weeks. We spent part of this past week down with family at South Padre Island Texas. I had a great time. Being with family was wonderful and the warm beach weather was great. Mike and Emma got food poisoning on the trip and so had some miserable days (and a really really long flight back – you don’t even want to know how bad I smelled after being hit with multiple types of body fluids) Emma is still trying to get back to normal, but is a lot better. I’ll try to post some of the fun pictures (chasing seagulls…) later.

I leave tomorrow for the Emerging Women East Coast Gathering. I’m really excited to meet a lot of the women and converse with them. I’m “presenting” on the Samaritan women, Deconstructing what has come before, and Feminine metaphors for God. I’m a bit nervous and feel totally unprepared. I’ll let you all know how it goes.

Then the next week I’m going to the Emergent Gathering in New Mexico. This should be an amazing time. I may be leading a session on emerging women – we’re still working out the details. So I’m sure I’ll have a lot to report on after all this travel.

In other life events, I’ve been reading all of Anne Bishops novels. I just finished her World of the Fae series. It had a lot of themes about women and the fear of women that leads to oppression. They are good reads, so if you like fantasy novels I highly recommend her books.

Also I mini rant… why do some people think that they are above to rules and norms of society??? on the flight back from Texas we were sitting on the front row of a Southwest flight (best place if you have kids). In that row was another mom and little boy and then an elderly man. The man had to be at least 70, dressed in a suit. Throughout the flight, he continued to make calls using his cell phone (a big no-no on airplanes). Then he pulls out a PLAYBOY magazine to read – where everyone (including the young boy next to him) could see it. So where does he think he gets the right to ignore the rules and norms of society? He scared me – I made all types of judgements about him and it frightened me to think of the number of creeps out there who are like him… anyway, just thought I’d share…

So I finally got a blog. I gave into the fad. My husband, Mike, has been posting on his blog for awhile and it seemed like an interesting hobby. I want to be able to put thoughts into words. Too often I find myself wanting to express ideas but have no outlet to do so. I hope this will be such an outlet — if I can manage to actually find the time to post! What will I post about? Books, faith, the Emerging church, family, random stuff – basically whatever I want. Enough rambling for now – I’ll formulate purposeful thoughts later.