Why I hate when you smoke, a poem

How I hate when you smoke

Revised with a new title and everything. A special thanks to Mary Brown.

On the rare occasion I want to
stand outside with you
while you hold and light, inhale and exhale in puffs    puffs     puffs,
I stand close to you.
I breathe out slow, like you do.
I pretend the cold air’s my secondhand smoke,
while I inhale yours.

I’d never smoke.
D.A.R.E. taught me a thing or two about the tar, the nicotine
that addicts you,          traps you.           I wouldn’t even
dare try to light one. (You’ve seen me with one of those things.
I nearly burn my finger off letting
the butane out of its yellow, plastic trap.)
So most of the time I stay inside
while you find a friend to smoke with.

You ask me what’s wrong.
You think it’s the cigarette itself.
“I only smoke one a day, maybe less.”
I tell you I don’t care, and mean it.
Those surgeon general jokes I make are only meant for laughs.
Because the truth is             I think smoking’s hot.
You’re like Gatsby.

It’s the way you hold it,
the way your big hand handles something so small –
so delicate, so intimate.
Put to your mouth like a kiss.

Jesus Wore Klash

The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.


--


Kurdish men wear these funny shoes called klash. They're handmade, hand-sown clogs with a hard sole and white top. Ever since Lydia and I first arrived at the Sulaimania airport, we saw dozens of men wearing these shoes with their juli kurdi, traditional Kurdish garb.

During my internship with Preemptive Love in Iraq, all the intern guys bought one or two pairs of klash. Jeremy and Gigs, the photographer, have klash too.

--

When Jesus came to earth 2,000-odd years ago, he didn't come in a sparkly white robe with a glowing orb surrounding him.

He wasn't the son of a king or religious leader. He wasn't hot. He wasn't a different race than the other Jews; he was from the tribe of Judah.

He was born next to sheep. He grew up learning a trade like all the other boys his age.

He was Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph. He lived among the people he wanted to help. He didn't elevate himself to a higher position. Philippians says, "he made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant."

People didn't know him as that outsider coming in to change their situation. He didn't market himself as a savior.


I wonder what would happen if Jesus acted like a lot of Americans doing development work overseas.

What if he only came for two weeks? What if he came with certain tools useful in his homeland, but not this one? What if his knowledge of the Hebrew people came from Disney movies or what he heard on the news?

I love that Jesus came and lived as a human among humans for 30 years before starting his ministry. He didn't come out of the womb proving to be an expert. He lived like us. He worked like us. He dressed like us.

I'm convinced that if Jesus came to the Kurds of northern Iraq, he'd wear klash. If he came to America, he'd wear Converse or flip-flops.


And he wouldn't talk like he knew everything,
without living in the culture for a while.

--

I spent two months living and working with Jeremy and Jessica Courtney, two development workers in Iraq. I saw how their way of living affected PLC's work in Iraq. Locals respect them because they live like their neighbors: in similar clothing, in houses among other Kurds, they know the language.

Spending a summer with the Courtneys has taught me a thing or two about God.

We say that we have a LORD that empathizes with us. I get that now. Empathy implies experience. It doesn't mean Jesus gets how we feel because he's GOD and that's what he does. It means that he gets it because he lived it.



Ezek.

* photo by Lydia Bullock

Jeremy Courtney is legit.

I've had this blog in my head for a while. I didn't want to write it until I was home in the States. I didn't want anyone to think Jeremy coerced me into writing it. I promise: no coercing took place.

--

My friends and those of you who follow my blog know that I am very critical of "Christian organizations." Can an organization possess faith? Is that even possible? Preemptive Love Coalition, though founded by a couple Christians, does not call itself a ministry or a "Christian organization" - it call itself a coalition of people, an NGO. PLC is devoted to eradicating the backlog of Kurdish and Arabic children waiting in line for lifesaving heart surgery and creating cooperation among communities at odds.* No secret agenda. It is what it says it is.

If you go on the PLC website, you'll see pages and pages of company and financial information. PLC has no secrets. They have a very in-depth core values page, written by CEO Jeremy Courtney himself.

PLC is devoted to local solutions to local problems. The staff isn't only using foreign money to fund heart surgeries, but takes donations as well. And Aram, our Klash maker, is a local business owner. All the shoes and all the scarves we make are made or bought in-country.

Jeremy, who was not only my boss for the summer but my mentor and Iraqi dad, is an incredibly intelligent, well-read, thoughtful friend, father and husband. He is legit.

--

The week or so before I left for Iraq, I got coffee with Dr. Perry, my professor and mentor. He told me I have unrealistic expectations for companies like RELEVANT that calls themselves Christian. But he told me to stay idealistic, and not succumb to cynicism.

PLC has renewed my hope.

Jeremy and the other PLC staff would not admit perfection. They're broken people too. But they're honest and transparent about it. They don't put up a front. There's nothing I respect more.

Working with Jeremy this summer reminded me that though not all ministry and "Christian organization" heads have integrity, some do.

--

I'm not done blogging about Iraq. I have a hard time processing anything when I'm in the middle of it. Now that I'm home, I'm starting to comprehend what this summer meant for me as a student, as a comm. major, as a writer, as a Christ follower and as a woman.

So get ready.

--

* Funny side note: the actual mission statement says "between communities at odds," but PLC does not just create cooperation between only two groups, but many. Grammatically speaking, the word should be "among." Thus, in the year-end review, I changed the mission statement to say "among." Ha, sorry Jeremy.



Lauren

Happy (belated) America Day from Iraq

It's fun celebrating an American holiday abroad. I highly recommend it.

I love that no one understood why we ran to the basement Ferdos market to find sparklers; or why we made a makeshift American flag and saluted to it.

I've never been a huge fan of America. Ha, it's sad but true. I hate her materialism, her ethnocentrism, her arrogance. I've never really appreciated our rights because I lived without them. You know, until now.

How I celebrated the Fourth of July, Iraqi style:

At 9 a.m., on our way to work, we bought cans of Coca-Cola and drank them for breakfast. What is more American than coke - except drinking coke with bendy straws? (Which we did.)

In the office, before our morning meeting, we played American music from our computers - Yankee Doodle, the Star Spangled Banner, etc.

(For lunch we ate Kurdish food instead of American. Whoops.)

At home, someone made a paper American flag and Micah, the two-year-old, waved it over his shoulder like a Continental solider.

We made cheeseburgers for dinner and ate cookies and brownies for dessert.

We played Bon Jovi and sang along.

But more than anything, we taunted our British housemate Anna for losing the war. A Revolutionary War reenactment:

Thank you, Joshua Gigs, for playing the humble colonial soldier.

--

In all seriousness, living in a country that doesn't have a Bill of Rights has makes me appreciate, if nothing else, the First Amendment. At home, journalists don't get killed for speaking out against the government. Thank God.

I have privileges in the States that I don't have here. As a woman, I can speak up in America. I can choose whatever career I want. I can join a union! I can petition.

Despite some of my issues with the American attitude, I cannot forget how blessed I am.

So the first and only time I'll ever say it, and perhaps the last time I'll ever say it again: God bless America.


Haha.



Lauren

Nom nom nom

I think I've grown out of my picky eating phase. Unlike 8-year-old Lauren, I now eat mushrooms, onions, thin crust pizza, Subway, most fruits, etc. I still won't eat tomatoes, but that's beside the point.

Finding food in Iraq that I love has been easy. (Good thing I love carbs!) Here are my Top 3 Food Preferences in Iraq:

1. Sara (long a sound) is my favorite restaurant in all of Iraqi Kurdistan. Claire, who wrote a blog post solely about her love for Sara, would agree. We eat there somewhere between 2-4 times a week - no exaggeration.

What I eat at Sara:

• Sada - beans, rice, and mystery side (you'll either get cooked eggplant or cooked apricots)
• Naan - delicious flat bread. Fun fact: Kurds don't like the fluffy edges of the bread; they eat the dry insides. We Americans do the opposite.
• Chicken tikka - chicken kabob. First of all, note the Kur-English. The word for chicken is mareeshk but if you order mareeshk you'll get a whole chicken. The owner of Sara knows us - though, we can't talk to him because we're women - and he knows what we mean by chicken tikka. But seriously, this chicken kabob is the best chicken I've ever had in my entire life! It's cooked with yogurt and tons of delicious spices. There's no way I can replicate this at home.

2. Pizza Plus. Alex, Claire and I found this gem a few weeks ago. First of all, the cashier is a hunky half-Kurd half-Arab that flirts with usgirls. But not in a creepy way, I promise. Secondly, there's only one English menu and it has the oddest spelling. Gaseous = soda. We still don't know what a "sheet" is.

The atmosphere's the best. Pizza Plus has huge TV screens, perfect for watching the World Cup, and country flags hanging from the ceiling, A/C, banisters, etc.

What I eat at Pizza Plus:

• Roll chicken - chicken, peppers, onion and tomato rolled into a delicious naan wrap with special mayo-based sauce
• Chips - the BEST French fries I've had anywhere. Perfectly seasoned.
• Cheeseburger - decent, but not worth the 6,000 dinar. French fries on top
• Margarita pizza - wonderfully cheesy pizza. Worth the 6,000 dinar between two people
• Coke in a bottle - ultra fizzy
• Smoothie - they make incredible fresh smoothies and freshly squeezed juices
• Cake - when I got my cake from Pizza Plus, the nice man behind the counter put an L on it, just for me!

3. Cookie's Attack [sic]. This is the best ice cream I've ever had. It's your basic cookies and cream in a tiny carton. (Side note. "Tiny" is an adjective we use a lot. That and "small." Tiny water. Small brother.) The cookies taste like Oreos and the ice cream tastes like the inside of an Oreo - not plain ol' vanilla ice cream. When Ferdos (the market down the street) runs out of it, chaos ensues. We're stuck eating the less-tasty Magnum bar.

Honorable Mention:

• Magnum bar: ice cream covered in white chocolate and some sort of nut. Tastes like a Dove bar. 
• Bravo: the exact same thing as a Magnum bar
• Nut City: think Nutella, but BETTER
• Melody cafe: free Internet, but kind of smoky. Their ice cream is delectable.
• Blue cafe: delicious kiwi milkshakes, but kind of pricey. Free internet.
• Food Land: conveniently in PLC's building, but the food is just so-so. A hamburger is cheap, so is pasta. If you order chicken and rice you get a big piece of chicken, rice, beans, soup and bread - totally worth the 6,000 ID.

Lauren

Baghdad

Last Friday I met an girl named Shahoda who's a university student in our city. She's one of the first Arabs I've met since being here, which immediately piqued my curiosity. I got lunch with her, Claire, Elise and Sarah Monday, before taking Shahoda back to the office to meet Jeremy and the interns.

I learned that Shahoda was born in Baghdad and lived in Lebanon and Jordan for a few years before moving to Kurdistan. She lives with her parents, but when she graduates college - she's completed two years - she's going to move back to Lebanon, the "Europe" of the Middle East.

For the past week or so I've been interested in the culture of Baghdad, before 2003. From Shahoda, and ESL students, I was reminded of what Baghdad's like now:

• It's dangerous. It's a war-zone. Shahoda couldn't go to school without a guard.
• Professionals are leaving. No one with a Ph.D wants to stick around that city - they're all emigrating.
• Americans are not your next door neighbors - they're soldiers. They've come not to play soccer or drink tea; they're not CEOs of an NGO. 
• It's hot - much hotter than northern Iraq. (If I've learned nothing else this internship, it's that Kurdistan's summer is nothing compared to Baghdad's!)

But what's most fascinating to me is what Baghdad used to be. At ESL last week I made a list of what used to populate this infamous city:

• parks
• museums
• libraries - once the biggest in the Middle East
• malls
• amusement parks
• entertainment
• roller coasters
• buses/trains (efficient ones at that)

I talked to my stepdad Russ about it a little to, since he's so well-versed in ... everything.

The only thing I know is that I remember Baghdad being considered a very cosmopolitan and wealthy during the 70's. When the OPEC cartel formed and pushed itself out strong after the 73 Arab-Israeli war, oil prices skyrocketed.

Iraq was a major producer, on a par with Saudi Arabia. Lots of money. I remember a TV show about it. Lots of construction, parks and running water. Jobs like crazy.

Then Saddam took over completely and decided he wanted to be an emperor also, started the war with Iran which destroyed a lot of the oil fields. War went badly and things got worse because the money dried up slowly. That’s why he started the Kuwait war in 91 thinking he could get away with taking over theirs. We threw him out of course and the rest is history.

I wish I could visit Baghdad. I know there are a million reasons why that'd be a bad idea - see list above. But I don't want to judge a culture without experiencing it myself. Maybe I'd be a target because I'm a little white girl with red hair - clearly Amerikim - but that doesn't stop my curiosity.



Lauren

Life in Iraq: education

Yesterday afternoon, Claire and I visited Zeba and Amir in their office, two floors below the Preemptive Love office. One of Zeba's friends was at their shop and we conversed with him about womanhood in Iraq, life in Texas, PLC, autism and education.

He told us that when he was a student, back in the 1980s, the schools were very good and his teachers very knowledgeable. Coincidentally, this was during Saddam Hussein's regime.

Claire and I were confused: why would Saddam invest in education - especially for Kurds - when he was such a tyrant? We thought that most dictators liked to keep their people uneducated so they can't revolt.

We went back upstairs to an empty office - it was past five and the interns had gone home. Jeremy, our boss/friend/PLC visionary, was still around so we asked him if what our Kurdish friend said was true. After a quick Google search, we had our answer.

--

In the early 1970s during the oil crisis, when Americans were lining cars outside gas stations, handing over exponentially more money for gas than they had the previous year, Iraq was getting rich. Off of our money. This isn't a political statement, it's a fact. Because of the oil crisis of 1973, Iraq got wealthy.

Saddam Hussein, who was the vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, used this newly gained money to fund domestic projects. A big part of this was the education system. He established a campaign for "Compulsory Free Education" which made all education - primary through higher ed - free. This is still true for Iraqi public schools today.

The school systems were so good that he won an award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

--

Today, public schooling is still free for Iraqis. It's free to go to college if your grades are good enough.

Classes are large with 25-40 students. Primary and secondary teachers aren't trained for their jobs. Teachers, like Media, whom I wrote about last week, aren't allowed to teach outside their assigned curriculum. If they are, they're punished. Students aren't punished for bad behavior like cheating, but teachers are punished for their ambition.

When we asked our ESL students if they wanted their kids to attend public schools, all but one emphatically answered, "No!"

--

So what happened? We learned from our ESL students that the public schools in Iraq are not good. How did we get from point A to point B?

Jeremy had some ideas. The Iran-Iraq War started in the early 80s. Since so much money was put into the war, not as much was put into education. The focus shifted.

Or maybe Saddam got scared, like many tyrants do, that his people would out smart him and revolt.

I'm sure there have been books written about this, or at least lengthy essays.

--

When discussing education in our ESL class, one student noted that people don't value what they don't pay for. I read an essay about this, regarding the environment. I see it as the same.

Who's going to invest time and energy into something that has no money invested into it?



Lauren

To be human

people are just people
they shouldn't make you nervous
the world is everlasting, it's coming and it's going

--

People are just people.

I read in George Orwell's "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius" that people are not just people, that people in England aren't the same people in America or in Germany or in South Africa. But I don't believe George Orwell - and I wonder if at the end of the essay he doesn't refute his own opinion.

I joined Preston and Claire who taught English last night at the Life Center. I had met a few students last week at the party, including Van's brother Ahmed, Zeba and her husband Amir.

The two-hour class is organized into two parts. It's an upper-level class centered on conversation, so each half of each class has a different discussion topic. The first topic was marriage.

What surprised me about our conversation about marriage with Kurds, primarily Muslim Kurds, was that nothing they said surprised me. Every answer sounded American. Everything sounded Christian, and not even ultra-conservative Christian. It sounded like something I've said about marriage or I've heard said about marriage.

Several of the students talked about respect: the husband respecting the wife, and vise versa; the wife respecting her husband's friends, etc. They talked about what they look for in a spouse: education, values, looks, honesty.

--

I'm writing this to expose my ignorance. I assumed a lot about this culture because of the books I read (A Thousand Splendid Suns) or movies (I'll be honest: Aladdin), but I've been wrong.

It's hard to know a culture without being immersed in that culture. I can read all I want, and still not grasp what a people group is all about. I can talk to Jessica and Jeremy about life in Kurdistan, without understanding what life in Kurdistan is really like.

I can't stop thinking of the Incarnation, and what it meant for God to step into our world in order to empathize with us.

He didn't just read about the world or watch movies about it.
He lived in our houses; he "moved into the neighborhood" as Eugene Peterson says.
He put on our skin; he put on our culture (he wore Klash!).
He died a death that we die: political, religious.

So when God says to me, "Girl, I get it. I know what you're going through."

He means it.


I'm beginning to understand that now.





Lauren

[* photo by Lydia Bullock]

"Why I Write" by George Orwell

Two observations:

1. I like George Orwell's thoughts on writing more than I like his writing.
2. I may own every book on writing ever printed.

--

I've noticed that I have a really hard time blogging when there's nothing to blog about. I've spent my last few weeks in the States reading, hanging out at Starbucks, watching movies and editing magazine articles -- nothing's really "blog material." But I have to keep writing. Must ... trudge ... through. Ugh.

--

"[The writer's] subject-matter will be determined by the age he lives in ... but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature stage, or in some perverse mood: but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write." p. 4

I find this so, so true. Dr. Allison warns us that if we establish our voice too early in our writing career, we risk "writing ourselves in a corner." If I only write snarky-meets-prophetic blogs, will I be able to write anything else? But if I deny myself this pleasure - hey, it is my favorite kind of writing - will I want to write at all?


Ah, what a dilemma!


"I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. ... 1. Sheer egotism." p. 4

No kidding. This reminds me of Don Miller who said (paraphrase) that if he were honest with himself, he writes so that people will like him. I do the same. It's definitely not my top reason for writing, but it's always in the back of my head. Who doesn't want to be a famous writer, though, really?


"2. Aesthetic enthusiasm." p. 5

I do like words. A lot. So much so that I've been playing "Words with Friends" on my iPod for the last five hours. And let me tell you, I've been kicking butt. I'm so much better at this than I was at Scrabble for Sentence Strategies.

"3. Historical Impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity." p. 5

Meh. Whatever.


"4. Political purpose-- using the word 'political' in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people's idea of the kind of society they should strive after." p. 5

Ding, ding, ding! That's it, Mr. Orwell! That's why I write! Yeah, there are a couple parts of #1 and #2, but a big chuck of it's #4. I write because I want to change the world. Is that lame? Too IWU-World-Changers for you?


It's true though.


"It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such [political]  subjects." p. 8

Ol' Orwell wrote this in the mid-forties, but I think his words are even more relevant today. Shall I list: genocide, AIDS, poverty, hunger, child soldiers, forced prostitution, sex trafficking, congenital heart disease in little Iraqi babies. 


How could we avoid writing of such subjects?


"What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art." p. 8

Thanks for putting to words exactly what I believe, Mr. Orwell. This is, essentially, why I'm a writer. Not just to write politically (to "push the world in a certain direction"), but to create art that challenges people.


Throughout the rest of the essay Orwell despises journalism which takes the art out of prose - which is true, which is why I added a double major. (I think we've learned in Practicum that journalism doesn't have to be boring - you can be creative with it - but in journalism, facts trump the creative license.)

"If poetry is not truth, and does not despise what is called license, so far it is not poetry. Poetry is the highest form of the utterance of man's thoughts. ... Prose is but broken down poetry." George MacDonald

I'm starting to think that Orwell's "Why I Write" is the same as my "Why I Write," only written more eloquently.




Thanks, Mr. O.

Title Track: Thanks, Postman

I find myself in a bit of a pickle.

See, it’s the middle of the semester: the time everyone just wants to give up and quit, letting grades slip and procrastination kick in. It’s almost spring break – one more day! – and I’m burned out.

So I watch TV. I want my brain to take a break from reading and writing to laugh at Jeff Winger on “Community” or get swept up in the drama of “Heroes.” I’d like to stare at the black box in front of me for an hour and detoxify from everything school-related.

But I can’t. I blame my major.

You know how professors warn you that “this class will kill your love for [insert your favorite major-related activity]”? I’ve heard it more than once. But as a communication major, my love for the media not only gets killed, but beaten relentlessly, kicked around and spit on. So much for detoxifying.

In my media and society class, we’re reading Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” which is about how this generation’s prominent form of communication (the media, specifically television) affects the way we think and the way we discover truth. Because television is the predominant medium of our culture, we have become conditioned to certain things. Like, we expect information to be given to us in quick sound bytes and we expect to be entertained.

This doesn’t really sound like a problem, until you really start to think about it. It’s fine to want TV to be fast-paced and entertaining, but if you expect everything to be fastpaced and entertaining, there’s a problem.

Postman argues that our attention spans have been shortened by TV (and, though he wrote the book prior to the Internet, I’m sure he’d agree it has played a part). We can’t stay focused if the content isn’t entertaining.

Take sermons for example. During the school year I go to a liturgical Presbyterian church. The service bounces from prayer to song to Scripture-reading to homily pretty fast – only 20 minutes maximum for each section – yet still I find myself getting fidgety. I’m not the only one, either. The lady in the pew in front of us always does the kids’ word search in the bulletin.

The longest I have to stay focused is only 20 minutes, and still I cannot handle it. TV, what have you done to me? Or think about class: How long do we listen to the professor before we start perusing the Internet? Not very long.

Even as I write this, I see the truth in this. Every time I get writer’s block, I check my Facebook. I can only handle homework for short periods of time before I look for entertainment.

This is why I’m in a pickle. I feel too guilty to watch TV, but know no other way to rest my brain from school work. I wish I had never read Postman and could back to ignorantly blaming my lack of attention on undiagnosed A.D.D.

I’m left to wonder what I should do. How can I rest my brain without damaging it more with television?

I could read – but even I, an avid reader, don’t want to look at tiny print after I’ve spent hours writing a paper. I could play Sudoku – but even that involves a certain amount of math.

Maybe the problem is our time frame for rest. Most of us take sporadic breaks throughout the day between homework assignments. We spend Saturday mornings doing homework then have fun Saturday night.

What if we tried it the Jewish way – what if we worked really hard six days a week and left a whole day for rest, for Sabbath? Instead of taking minor breaks, what if we took one big break.

We wouldn’t need to squeeze in a television show here and there, but could spend the day shopping in Indy or taking a road trip to see friends.

Whenever I think about Sabbath, I get really uneasy. I’d much rather take smaller breaks every day than have one whole day of rest. But when I think about what I’m taking my breaks with – mindless television shows that do more damage than good – the idea of Sabbath becomes more appealing.

Because even though I like watching shows like “Community” after several hours of homework, I don’t feel rested once the episode is over. Most of the time I want to watch another episode and forget about homework completely.

So what do you think, do we try setting aside whole days for rest? Or do we continue bouncing from activity to activity to keep ourselves amused?

The post was originally printed in Indiana Wesleyan University's The Sojourn newspaper.

Title Track: sXe

I used to think I was hardcore. If you know me at all – and even if you don’t – you can probably find the irony in that statement. I am not even close to being hardcore. I don’t dress hardcore (note the cardigan in my mug shot), I don’t listen to hardcore music and I don’t act hardcore. I’m quiet and conservative – nothing about me is hardcore.

But in high school, I thought I was hardcore. It started freshman year. My friend Katie, who was legitimately hardcore, always went to shows to see her friend Cam play in a band called Chinese Express. As a sheltered 14 year old, this blew me away. I didn’t know teenagers formed garage bands anymore. It seemed so 1980s. I kept thinking about that episode of Doug when he starts a band with Skeeter. Who knew kids actually did that kind of stuff?

I decided that I was going to love this band too. I adored Katie and her hardcore clothing and scene hairstyle and musical knowledge, so I played copycat. Katie burned me Chinese Express’s CD and I pretended to enjoy all the screaming. (Though, I did listen to a lot of semi-hardcore music at the time – lots of Emery – I didn’t really care for all the screaming.)

I would talk about all the local bands as if I knew anything about them: “Oh, the lead singer of SaidHe is awesome, but their music is too raucous for my taste.” Or, “Japan with an E is the worst band ever. I’d rather gouge my eardrums out.”

My junior year of high school I dated a boy in a hardcore band. Luke was the guitarist for Hanacoda, a band that broke up because its members couldn’t decide if they wanted to play for God or for rock-and-roll.

The first hardcore show I attended was at this sketchy local in downtown Fort Wayne. My favorite hardcore poet, Bradley Hathaway, was reciting some of his work and I was dying to see him. My best friend Ashley and I went together. I told Ashley, who looked even less hardcore than me, that we can’t go to this show looking like we usually do. Ashley and I typically wore bright colored polo shirts and neon headbands in our hair. I told her that we needed to look cool and tuff.

So Ashley and I wore matching shirts. We looked infinitely less-cool than we would have in polos.

At the show, Bradley recited one of his most well-known poems called, “The Annoying Hardcore Dude Who Goes to Far,” about, well, an annoying hardcore dude who goes to far. In the poem, he rattles off all the things hardcore kids stand for – animal rights, manliness, not being emo – then exposes their contradictions.

The poem says, “Somebody told me hardcore was a place to share what you believe, but I didn’t like what dude said, so I flipped him off and told him to leave.

“I’m mad at society because my parents won’t buy me a new computer, even though I asked politely. My Playstation 2 is broken, but my Xbox works. When that breaks though, something will hit the fan and I’ll express myself with rage and anger, just like a man. ‘Cause that’s how it’s done, right? You get mad and start a fight, right?”

Bradley argues that these kids are quick to stand up for trendy issues, but not for things that matter – like combating materialism or hatred.

Some hardcore kids call themselves “straight edge” (sXe), which means they are hardcore kids that are socially softcore. This is the category my friends and I fell into. We didn’t drink, we didn’t do drugs and we didn’t have sex.

I think what Bradley was hinting at in his poem is that lots of sXe kids stand up for things, but not always the right things or the best things. There’s a lack of consistency.

And I don’t think this problem is unique to the so-called hardcore or sXe kids.

I think it’s interesting how quick we Christians are to rally against something like gay marriage because homosexuality is forbidden in the Bible, but get drunk on weekends, even when there are more verses forbidding drunkenness. We boycott abortion clinics but cheer on the executions of our enemies.

When I was in high school, I really wasn’t hardcore, I was just ascribing to a culture I thought was cool. I wanted to be trendy; I wanted people to admire me.

Christianity isn’t something we can put on like that. We don’t get to pick and choose who we’re going to love or what truths we want to stand behind. If we believe in a faith that transforms us, that makes us new creations, we have to become more consistent in what we stand for.

Title Track: Musical Pride

Be thankful that I was not A&E editor last year.

I say that for many reasons, I suppose. I think Jocelyn did an amazing job with the section, and I’m proud to be her successor. Not to mention that last year at this time I hardly knew what AP style was – the journalist’s version of MLA or APA – despite my year on staff at my high school newspaper.

But last year the A&E section, had I been the editor, would have been filled with a lack of variety and integrity. Because last year, folks, I was a music snob.

I would have said that with pride because the bands I’ve been listening to for years are the same ones loved by professional music enthusiasts. Bands like Franz Ferdinand, Kings of Leon and Manchester Orchestra became my most played on iTunes. I learned that rap music can be cool and ironic like Gnarls Barkley and Jaydiohead. And most importantly, I shunned all “Christian” music, except for Jars of Clay.

Back in May, my friend Adam and I would sit in this little locally-owned coffeehouse in Fort Wayne, sipping tea and talking about what real music is. We’d rattle off names of musicians no one else knows about (Great Lake Swimmers, M83, Eef Barzelay). And Adam would tell me about the time he played secular music through the church loudspeakers when he ran the soundboard, and I would say something snotty about the lack of musical variety my own church offers (Chris Tomlin or Matt Redman, take your pick).

Last summer I remember flipping through my friend Jacque’s CD collection during our road trip, seeing only Switchfoot and Sanctus Real, wondering how I was going to survive the next 300 miles.

So, I never knew that the sin of pride could infiltrate my music like this.

Because that’s really what this is: a pride issue. I think that because I listen to cool music and you don’t, I am somehow better than you or more tasteful or more cultured.

It works the other way around too. This is the same reason why I get so offended when my roommate Lindsey makes fun of my music. It’s not that you’re dissing what flows through my ear buds; you’re dissing me for choosing to press play.

My friend Abby loves Coldplay. Whenever we drive together, she switches what I am currently playing (the Decemberists, fun., Andrew Bird) to Coldplay’s song “Lost.”

I hate that song. I hate that album. I hate how much everyone loves Coldplay so much.

“Then why do you have them on your iPod?” Abby has asked me more than once. And honestly, the answer is kind of pitiful: I have songs by Coldplay to make my musical tastes seem cooler. Because, apparently, Coldplay is the epitome of “good music.” (Really?)

You know that phrase, “Keeping up with the Jones’?” Some people like getting fancy electronics to show off to their friends. Some people dress in only brand names. I fill my iPod with catchy music – whether I like the songs or not, apparently.

I shouldn’t find my identity in the type of music I listen to, but I do. I know I’m not going to be shunned for liking or hating a certain band. I’m still friends with Matt who listens to Creed, so he can still be my friend when I blast Miley Cyrus.

Even writing this column has been a struggle for me. You can’t imagine how hard it was admitting I listen to Miley Cyrus. I’ve tried to make up for it by placing other cooler musicians in parentheses throughout this column. (Like this: M. Ward, Animal Collective, Kings of Convenience.)

I want to know what you think. I know taste in music is subjective, but do you find yourself acting like me, letting your favorite music define you? Do you do it with other forms of media?

And if so, what should we do? Humble ourselves and listen to lame music, or suck it up and try to not let music define us?

Continue the conversation online at my blog: www.broken-downpoetry.blogspot.com.

Inspired by Buddy Glass

I'm finishing up Salinger's last novella about the Glass family, "Seymour - an Introduction," written in the point of view of Buddy Glass.

Seymour, whom Buddy writes about, is a poet; Buddy writes in prose. It's brilliant, really, how they're contrasted. Anyway, Buddy has a lot to say about prose ... and since I am a fan of prose (as broken-down poetry), I thought I'd post some of my favorite quotes.

Thanks, Buddy.

"And while I think an economically happy prose writer can do many good things on the printed page - the best things, I'm frankly hoping - it's also true, and infinitely more self-evident, I suspect, that he can't be moderate or temperate or brief; he loses very nearly all his short paragraphs. ...

Worse of all, I think, he's no longer in a position to look after the reader's most immediate want; namely, to see the author get the hell on with his story." -- "Seymour," pp. 98-99

"It is, then, as if this clerical error were to revolt against the author, out of hatred for him, were to forbid him to correct it, and were to say, 'No, I will not be erased, I will stand as a witness against thee, that thou art a very poor writer.'" -- Soren Kierkegaard, epigraph to "Seymour"

Other well-written passages by Buddy Glass:

"Her voice sounded strangely levelled off, stripped of even the ghost of italics." -- "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters," p. 85

"I said I didn't give a good God damn what Mrs. Fedder had to say on the subject of Seymour. Or, for that matter, what any professional dilettante or amateur bitch had to say. I said that from the time Seymour was ten years old, every summa-cum-laude Thinker and intellectual men's-room attendant in the country had been having a go at him. ...

I said that no one Goddamn person, of all the patronizing, fourth-rate critics and column writers, had ever seen him for what he really was. A poet, for God's sake. And I mean a poet." -- "Raise High," pp 59-60

with Love and Squalor,

Lauren

Title Track: A Backstage Christian

Whenever I read a book, I always assume the writer and I would make good friends. F. Scott Fitzgerald and I would share a (nonalcoholic) cocktail, J.D. Salinger and I would probably ride a carousel together in a park – and Don Miller and I would, of course, get married.

But knowing my luck on things like this, I bet that most authors are jerks.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet a few published authors. My mom is a writer and she’s made friends with a lot of other writers in the romantic inspirational genre (yes, there is such a thing). I wouldn’t call her friends jerks, but they are definitely their own breed.

But author Jason Boyett is not a jerk or weird like my mom’s friends – at least not weird in a stop-eating-the-paste way. He’s a nice guy, and he definitely knows how to write.

Jason is the master of taking fact-loaded information, bringing it to our level, and explaining it with humor and irreverence. He even took four weighty issues like the Bible, the afterlife, the apocalypse and sainthood and made Pocket Guide books out of them. And you know what? I could tell you more about the patron saint of beekeeping than you’d ever want to know. (Thanks, Jason.) His blog, www.jasonboyett.blogspot.com, which helped inspire the theme of my blog, is hilarious and reading it is an integral part of my day.

I only say all that to build Jason’s credibility. Anyone could tell you that Jason’s a good writer, but not everyone knows that Jason’s a good guy too. And I don’t know about you, but I would really like to read a book by a guy I could drink a nonalcoholic beverage with.

But unfortunately, this isn’t always realistic.

A few months back I uncovered a bunch of dirt about a publication I loved, a company that boasted of a Christ-focus. It turns out calling yourself Christian doesn’t mean you maintain a level of integrity or view profit gain differently – it’s just a matter of appealing to a certain demographic. I am still a little bitter.

I’m not saying that you should only read books by Christian authors or listen to music by Christian bands. Because honestly, I have a healthy mix of Christian and secular entertainment. Rather, I’m trying to argue that bands who claim a faith shouldn’t act like jerks behind stage.

Maybe that’s too much to ask.

I recently had a phone conversation with a guy who used to work for a Christian magazine and a Christian record label. He told me how he met a lot of recognizable Christian figures who were doing pretty slimy things.

He met vain musicians and money-hungry businessmen. He refused to give me any names – but ooh James Dobson, I’m suspicious of you! Though he did assure me that Toby Mac is not the (insert derogatory noun here) that you’d think he’d be.

I’m not saying we should boycott all books, magazines, CDs and movies by superficial Christians – I’m not saying that at all. I just know that I don’t want to have the same fate as these guys. I want my actions to line up with my professed devotion.

We talk a lot about becoming world changers here at Indiana Wesleyan, but I wonder if there’s more to world changing than just building a Christian company or calling yourself a Christian doctor or a Christian writer or a Christian football coach.

I wonder if world changing has more to do with being a pleasant person to work with, to have patience with coworkers, to live as though you recognized God’s blessings.

Grace (revisited)

I wonder if this is our view of Christianity.

Some questions:

1. Does God punish us for our sins if we're under Grace?

2. Does God ever take his protection from us?

3. Does physical unhealthiness reflect God's wrath or our healthiness reflect his approval?

(Side note: This comic [via JesusNeedsNewPR] is hilarious. Jesus spanking a little girl? I mean, those anti-corporal punishment guys are probably having a hay-day right now.)

But really, that's beside the point.

Prof. Perry and I were talking about this yesterday, in regard to Dan Merchant's "Lord, Save Us from Your Followers" screening Wednesday night. Christians have an easy time pointing the finger, telling you what's wrong with you, warning you of consequences, but not showing any bit of love.

I got to sit down with Dan on Wednesday for a one-on-one chat about his book (and my Don Miller marriage plans). We got on the topic of homosexuality. I mentioned my column from last week's issue of the Sojourn and the conversation that arose at Starbucks a week or so it was published.

I let Lindsey read my column, to make sure it didn't sound like a rant or that anything I said could be mistaken for heresy. As we discussed it between the two of us, the rest of our group overheard and started their own dialogue. Soon six of us were engaging in this debate (should this even be a debate?) about homosexuality and the church.

Lindsey and I came to the conclusion that, despite what the Bible says about homosexuality or any so-called "lifestyle" sin, Christians shouldn't tell people what they're doing wrong. We should just love them.

No strings attached.

No I-love-you-ifs.

Just ... I love you. We're all human. We are all depraved. We are all the image of God. We are, as I love to say, glorious ruins.

Dan and I talked about this for a while. We mulled over Jesus' words, how he never, ever, ever, ever condemned a sinner. He stood up for them; he risked his life for them.

In John 8, when the Pharisees bring to Jesus a woman caught in idolatry, despite the law he stops the men from stoning her, dusts her off and tells her to go leave her life of sin. No "you're a dirty whore, you deserve hell" or the less extreme - "I disapprove of your lifestyle choice."

Dan also used the example of the thief on the cross. What good deeds did that man do to deserve paradise? Absolutely nothing.

So why in the world do we keep condemning people to hell?

Really, though. Why?

When we read the Gospels, and we call ourselves Christians ("little Christ"), then we flippantly blame the divorce rate on gay marriage or our addiction to pornography on the liberal media ... there's something disconnected. There's something not right.

If we could spend a little more time on the first two commandments - love God, love others - maybe people would stop hating us Christians so much.

I believe in Grace. I believe that God forgets my sins before I commit them. ("Forgiveness precedes repentance.") I believe that God cares more about people than he cares about their sins.

There's a story in Brennan Manning's "The Ragamuffin Gospel" that exemplifies this. A woman claimed that she was having visions of Jesus, so the archbishop of the area decided to test the validity of this. He told her to ask Jesus to tell her what the last thing he confessed was (in her next vision). And she did. Jesus' response? "I don't remember."

He doesn't remember.

God is the god of Present Tense.

I believe that acting righteously comes as a response - a response to God's love and grace. But if you've never experienced that love and grace from his followers, why the hell would you want to live morally?

We talk about "speaking the Truth in love," but what we're saying isn't with love. And love, real honest-to-God love is Truth.

--

I want you all to converse about this. I know half of you disagree with this. Half of you are going to say things like "but God hates sin!" and claim my doctrine is flimsy. But is it? I urge you all to challenge me, but please back it up with the words of Christ.

with love and squalor,

Ezek.

Title Track: Antihero

Last summer I created one of those obnoxious “How Well Do You Know Lauren Deidra Sawyer?” Facebook quizzes – the kind that notifies you every single time someone takes it. “Samantha answered 60 percent correctly.” And my response: “Wow, my own sister should know me better that that.”

But I put a lot of thought into this quiz because I wanted to stump my test-takers. I mimicked that one college professor who makes impossibly hard quizzes that stresses out his students to the point of crying. Or dropping the class.

I threw in a few easy questions like, “What color is my hair?” (orange), and “Where do I want to live when I grow up?” (Portland). But the majority of the questions were tough like, “What’s my favorite McConn beverage?” (Cuban latte with a shot of hazelnut), and the question that led me to write this column: “Who is my favorite character on the show ‘How I Met Your Mother’?” (Barney).

Barney Stinson is legen – wait for it – dary.

Barney, played by Neil Patrick Harris (from the just-as-legendary “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”), is the comedic drive of the show. He has the best lines. He is the best dressed.

But he is also the very antithesis of everything I believe in as a woman.

Barney treats women like meat. He prides himself of having sex 200 times with 200 different women and celebrates “Not a Father Day” with his other proud-to-be-promiscuous buddies.

But … I love him.

Despite our opposite values – even if he is a fictitious character – I watch “How I Met Your Mother” for Barney.

But why? I want to believe that there’s a bigger answer than “he makes me laugh.” Because though Barney is a hilarious character, this doesn’t explain my gravitation toward the “bad guys” in movies and TV shows. Barney isn’t my only “bad guy” favorite; he’s one on a list of many.

So let’s think this through:

1. We love the “bad guys” because of their dramatic and mysterious nature. You’ve heard that people “fear the unknown,” but sometimes I think we like the unknown – a lot. It keeps us stirred and on our toes. Why do high school students love drama so much? It’s because nothing exciting is actually going on in their lives. When it comes to characters on TV or in the movies, we tend to like to those who aren’t like the everyday people we know.

2. We love the “bad guys” because Hollywood casts hot actors to play them – to be blunt. My favorite character on NBC’s “Heroes” is Sylar, played by the oh-so-good-looking Zachary Quinto. Minus those caterpillar eyebrows, I know that part of my fascination with this villain is because of his looks. This is shallow, I know. But honestly, I think most of us would agree.

3. We love the “bad guys” because we believe in redemption. I found this true after watching “Blood Diamond” for Globe Fest last year. Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Danny Archer, was throughout the entire movie nothing less than a jerk. He used people; he lied to get his way. But in the end, when he’s dying on that mountain (spoiler alert!), I can’t help but bawl. Finally he learned that people have value. There’s nothing more satisfying than a bad guy turning good.

I’m not trying to over-spiritualize this, but I did promise in my first column to seek the truth in the media. In this case, I would say as humans it’s not that hard to sympathize with the “bad guys.” Sometimes, we act just like them. Maybe we mistreat the opposite sex like Barney Stinson, or stir drama like Regina George.

I also think that for most of us, we desire to see the Hollywood thieves, whores, murderers and drug dealers redeemed, for the same reason we want to see our non-Christian neighbors redeemed. I hope this doesn’t seem like too hyperbolic, because I don’t think it is. I believe it is engrained in us as Christians to want to see lives transformed. Even in fictional characters. Even in Hollywood.

The post was originally printed in Indiana Wesleyan University's The Sojourn newspaper.

Title Track: Everything is Spiritual

I never cry at songs. Sure, I sometimes cry during worship music, but I don’t think it is the lyrics or the melody that makes me cry. Jesus makes me cry – as a means of humbling me (not sadistically).

But while I first listened to Thrice’s song, “Beggars,” off of their album of the same name, my tear ducts began to fill and was just a stanza away from weeping.

This song – about how we have no claims in the world (not our name, not our possessions, not our job titles or careers) but must rely on the grace of God to give us purpose – knits the rest of Thrice’s album together. Grace. The world may be mad, as another song on the record screams, but there’s grace.

This got me thinking.

The title track of a CD is, by definition, the song that shares the same name as the album itself. Though I like to believe, and maybe you’ll agree with me, there’s more to it than that.

Some of my favorite albums of this year have title tracks like, “The Hazards of Love,” “Mean Everything to Nothing” and, as mentioned earlier, “Beggars." To say that the band decided to name the album off of the song, or vise versa, just for its name’s sake seems thoughtless. It’s a little lazy.

There must be more to it than that.

There’s a connectivity involved here. The band is saying, look (or listen, rather), there’s something I want you to get out of this album. I want you to catch a theme.

--

It took all summer to decide what I wanted this column to stand for. Because on the one hand, I want to entertain you, and even more, if I were to be honest with myself, I hope this column will convince you I’m cool, or at least entertainment savvy.

But on the other hand, I want to grow. I want to become a better writer and a better Christian and a better media-consumer through writing this. So after some prayer, and God’s humbling, I decided upon a theme for my column, a “title track,” if you will: everything is spiritual. I admit I stole the name from Rob Bell, but I really like the concept.

This is the belief that everything – what we do, what we say, what we watch, what we read, what we hear and what we think – has spiritual implications.

Spirituality is God’s title track. It’s his common denominator. He says that we must do everything to the glory of God and that every good and perfect gift is from him and that he is the creator of everything.

I invite you all to journey with me the rest of this school year as I grapple with the media and its messages – the good and the bad. I ask you to challenge my theories, and to give feedback. Yes, this is a learning process for me, but I want it to be the same for you.

This is a column about the media – about movies and about music and books and art – but more than that, it’s about how God is speaking to his people through the media. It’s about how even secular entertainment can teach us about our fallenness. I want you and me to learn how to look at the media with a knowledge of the Truth, discerning what media is “safe” to consume, and what to stay away from.

Maybe this is a lot to ask of a weekly column, maybe it isn’t. One thing I promise you, my dear audience, is that I will do my best to implement the 1 Corinthians 10 command to do everything to the glory of God, and to hold to the standard that everything – even the entertainment industry – has spiritual undertones.

The post was originally printed in Indiana Wesleyan University's The Sojourn newspaper.

on love and hate

As promised, here's another blog about Grace.

I was watching the Today Show this morning and more than one segment was dedicated to the 1989 Jaycee Dugard kidnapping. For those not on top of the news, Philip Garrido had kidnapped and locked Dugard inside a shed for 18 years. The big debate now is whether or not Garrido's wife Nancy is also guilty.

Everyone can agree -- and everybody does agree -- that this was a heinous crime, worthy of some sort of sentence. The world wants justice [mishpat] served; we want things "made right" for Dugard and her family.

But I fear that in the meantime, we forget that the Garridos are human; that God has called us to love them, even.

Jacque and I were talking about Grace (of course) a little bit on Sunday after church. We want so bad for our Christian brothers and sisters to love and to show Grace to people whose lifestyles differ from theirs.

We want Republicans to love Democrats.

We want patriots to love immigrants.

We want Christians to love non-believers.

But when it comes to loving the rapists, the murderers, the drug lords, the hatemongers, the slave traffickers, we limit Grace.

Love can only be given to these people.

Grace can only be shown to the well-deserved.

While watching the Today Show this morning, I made myself look at Philip Garrido without smirking or glaring or damning him with my thoughts. I tried to look at him the way Jesus might -- with overwhelming compassion, forgiveness and with a realization that the world is fallen.

But then I found it not so difficult.

Because really, I don't have a hard time not loving criminals.

But there are people I find hard to love,

people I find hard to show Grace to.

--

I find it easy to justify hatred when I hate people who hate people. It makes sense though, right? If you hate someone, shouldn't I have the right to hate you back?

I hate racists, but that's okay, isn't it? I mean, racism is a sin, so hating people who discriminate on the basis of skin color and nationality is justified. I hate homophobes because they refuse to see gay people as human. I can justify that.

But I shouldn't.

To allude back to Pastor Tony once again, Jesus' mission was global -- it was for everyone -- which means we are bound, we are called, to love one another. We don't get to pick and choose.

And though we may love the people most find hard to love, that doesn't exempt us from loving those we don't.

Author Anne Lamott said that you know you've successfully created God in your own image when he hates the same people you hate.

So are we loving people the way we are called to? Or are we hating people because found a way to justify it?

To all the purple states.

I wrote this blog back in November, after Obama was elected. I don't know why I never published it -- it's very clever. ;-)

But with all this health care hoo-hah I decided to go ahead and publish it with the same message. Obama is not God, but nor is he Satan.

Ha, enjoy.

--

God willing, I will do this in an unbiased manner. But I am human and I clearly have certain opinions that you may not agree with. That being said, I hope you all take what I say to heart.



Last night Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. Some of you are cheering, some of you are booing. That's fine. If all Christians were to vote the same way, I think we'd have a problem. There are certain issues I stand for that most of you might not. And vice versa. That's okay.

But please, now that our president has been elected, I ask that we put a few things into perspective:

One: Obama is not our Savior.

Two: Obama is not the Devil.



Maybe that's obvious to you, maybe it's not. But based off of some very dramatic Facebook statuses, I'm not too sure you all get the picture. (And maybe even I can put myself into the first category.) I'm trying to do this with the gentleness and respect that I can, but bear with me because my passion can get the best of me.

There's a problem when we think that we have elected a Savior as president. There is. If we are to say that we worship a Savior of the world, then bow our knee to a savior of our country, what does that say to the world? That we're idolaters maybe? That sounds a little extreme, but when Christ calls us to follow Him, He kind of make it exclusive.

And yes, we are supposed to obey our authorities, I'm not telling you to do otherwise. But don't say that Obama is the Hope for the world or anything like that because he is just a man.

Let's flip the coin.

So if we AREN'T going to worship Obama, does that give you permission to hate him, rally against him, hate those who support him, call him rude names, etc.? Since you are a follower of Christ, you answer right away should be "no." But I'll assume you need more proof than that.

Paul writes this to the Romans:

"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves." Romans 13:1f

Some interesting tidbits: Paul wrote this during Nero's rule in Rome. Now, Nero was notorious for killing Christians. Early Christians (and some modern historians) were convinced that he was the anti-Christ.

But Paul still urges the Romans to obey? And that Nero's reign was "established by God"?



Now, that verse has been thrown at Dems and Repubs a lot through the years, I know. And it never makes me feel too hot either way. Especially when you take that verse and apply it to jerky bosses or profs. Submission sucks.

So let me give you another story ...

Zedekiah was king of Judah just years before Babylonian captivity. Fifty-some years of captivity awaited them. And they all knew it. Jeremiah told them all.

So a lot of the people got mad. They hated Nebuchednezzar, king of Babylon, because he was going to take their freedom away. (Or maybe they called him a socialist!) Nevertheless, Jeremiah has a message for the people of Judah.

He tells them if they don't obey Nebuchadnezzar, they will be punished via plague, sword, famine, etc. Why? Because God CHOSE Neb to rule. Chose him. God even calls him His "servant" (Jer. 25:8). That's a pretty powerful title for a jerk of a king.

And think of ol' David who had an opportunity to kill King Saul several times, but didn't. He was the "Lord's anointed."



Perhaps I am being a little dramatic. None of you threatened to kill our president or anything, but I want you to understand the implications. God has a control in the election process just as much as you do. (Actually, with this electoral college thing, he has MORE of a hand than you. lol)



For all of those I ticked off, I'm sorry if I did. I just know that what's on God's heart right now is NOT lower property taxes or socialism-esque policies.

His heart is for the poor.

The mistreated.

The voiceless.

The dying.

The sick.

The abandoned.



Our passion and rage should be devoted to causes God cares about. Not just about who will work in the Oval Office for the next 4 years.

Dear Sex,

A from-the-heart commentary.

February 2, 1998

Dear S-E-X,

I am scared to say your name. Teacher says it’s a bad word so I don’t want to get in trouble. I just figured out what you are today. You’re gross.

Mommy took me to see Titanic and I think Jack and pretty girl had S-E-X. They weren’t wearing clothes in that car. Mommy said that’s what you are. I think they looked cold. It was like a bazillion degrees cold in that car. There was an iceberg.

Mommy also said that people shouldn’t have S-E-X until they’re married. It’s bad when people like Jack and pretty girl have S-E-X before they’re married because that’s what Mommy says. And I think that’s where babies come from. Mommy said that babies come when a boy and a girl sleep together. Jack and pretty girl slept together. I bet they’re gonna have a baby.

At recess a boy asked me if I was a virgin. I said I didn’t know because I don’t know what a virgin is. I think a virgin is someone who doesn’t have S-E-X until they are married. I think I am a virgin. The boy at recess said that this brown haired girl isn’t one. I laughed because that’s funny. How can she be a virgin if she isn’t even married?

With love,

A virgin

(I think.)

June 12, 1999

Dear S-E-X,

My sister got pregnant and she isn’t even married. My stepdad got really mad at her and she has to move out and get married. There was a lot of crying at our house today. I cried too because everyone else cried. But I’m kind of excited. I really want a baby niece or nephew.

I figured out what a virgin is, and I am one. It means I haven’t had S-E-X. I haven’t. I’ve had a boyfriend though. We talked on the phone once. He sent me a watermelon eraser in the mail too. I haven’t talked to him since I started third grade though. I’m kind of shy.

My mommy asked me if I knew what gay meant. I think she said that it’s when a boy has S-E-X with another boy. I thought it meant that a boy acted really girly. Sissy said that there’s this boy on the bus that’s gay, but I don’t think he’s had S-E-X. He is only in the third grade! People don’t do it until they are like 19 or something. That’s how old my sister is. The one that’s pregnant, I mean. She’s 19.

With love,

A virgin

March 13, 2001

Dear Sex,

I can get pregnant now—I started my period.

In school we learned all about you. We even had to look at a diagram of a boy’s thingy. (You know what it’s called.) It was really gross. I wanted to close my eyes the whole time but I actually thought it was interesting.

We learned that we have these things called hormones that make us want to have you really bad. I don’t know if my hormones are working yet because I don’t really want to have you. If I did though, I’d tell you.

With love,

A virgin

November 19, 2002

Dear Sex,

You’re very romantic. My sister and I watch the show Friends all the time and Chandler and Monica make love a lot. But it’s okay because they get married I think.

I bet it would be really romantic to make love on my engagement night. I mean, I’d be getting married so it’d be okay if I did. My boyfriend would sprinkle rose petals from the doorway of my house all the way upstairs to my bedroom. Then he’d be there with a ring and I’d say, “Yes!”

I really hope the guy I marry is romantic like that. I’d probably have to drop him a few hints about the rose thing, but he’d catch on pretty fast.

With love,

A virgin

June 20, 2004

Dear Sex,

This boy I like asked me if I masturbate. I didn’t know what the word meant so I looked it up in the dictionary. No, I do not masturbate. I think he might though because he said it all dark and mysterious.

That same boy told me about this dream he had that he had sex with his girlfriend. He probably shouldn’t have told me that. I know his girlfriend and she’s really sweet and wouldn’t have sex when she’s still in junior high. But that boy told me he and his girlfriend had this thing called cybersex where they actually do it on the Internet. I don’t really know how that works, but I think *NSYNC sang a song about it once. Sounds kind of weird to me.

With love,

A virgin

July 31, 2004

Dear Sex,

I kissed a boy for the first time! Well, he kissed me. We were leaving a party and he kissed me on the cheek. It was really sweet.

We kissed mouth-to-mouth like three days later. We were riding home from a youth group trip and he decided that it was a good time to make a move. I kind of didn’t want to kiss him in the back of a van, but I couldn’t really stop him.

Don’t make fun of me, but I really didn’t enjoy kissing all that much. It’s kind of gross if you think about it—germs and all that. I won’t tell him that though. Well, I couldn’t tell him if I wanted to because we broke up.

Yeah, a week after we started kissing he broke up with me for my best friend. I was kind of mad, but not really too mad because I liked having the freedom to crush on other boys. Besides, as I said before, kissing was not that big of a deal.

With love,

A virgin

April 11, 2005

Dear Sex,

Today I decided to remain abstinent until I get married. I bought a purity ring to prove my commitment.

I think that sex needs to be special and between a husband and wife. That’s what my youth pastor says anyway, and all those books I’ve read. There’s this one author I read that said that you shouldn’t even kiss before you’re married! That’s a little crazy.

I started liking this guy who is three years older than me, but don’t tell anyone. I think that I’m going to marry him; he’s basically the hottest guy ever. He’s dated a lot of girls that are S-L-U-T-S. (Well, my sister calls them that. I don’t like to cuss.) I wonder if he likes me.

Anyway, it’s a lot of fun daydreaming about him. Don’t worry, I only think about clean things like holding hands and hugging. I would like to kiss him though, but not yet. I would want to wait like a month or two after we started dating. I think that’s a good amount of time.

With love,

A virgin

October 30, 2006

Dear Sex,

My boyfriend of three months broke up with me. I feel really dirty.

We didn’t even kiss and I feel dirty! I think that he liked to touch me too much. He didn’t like touch me in the wrong parts, but it still didn’t feel right.

With love,

A virgin

September 13, 2007

Dear Sex,

Two girls from one of my classes last year are pregnant. They’re juniors in high school! It’s hard to believe that someone younger than me is having sex before I am. Crazy.

I guess a lot of people have sex in high school, I just haven’t realized it until now. People are just lonely; they want some sort of fulfillment so they go to their boyfriends. Guys must love it. I mean, teenage girls are so naïve and desperate. Not me, though, or my friends.

I think Christianity’s the difference. I forgot to tell you that, Sex, I am a Christian. That’s why I want to wait to have you. I’ve still been told a dozen times that even Christians have sex outside of marriage, but I don’t believe them. If I were truly committed to Christ I would not have sex. Period. That just seems so obvious.

So like I said, those girls in high school who are having sex (and getting pregnant) are just lonely and void of something—Jesus. Someone should evangelize to them.

With love,

A virgin

December 2, 2007

Dear Sex,

I found out that one of my first boyfriends was caught having sex with his girlfriend—in their house! How sick is that? I am kind of not surprised, though, because he’s not really a Christian anymore. His sister (my friend) is mad at him and I doubt she’s going to talk to him any time soon.

I have friends at school who talk about having sex … or about doing it in the near future. It still seems so foreign to me. I guess I never believed that high school students did anything bad at all. Man, I remember when I first realized that my school has a drug problem. It was only a few months ago.

I think I’m ignorant to a lot of things, but I am okay with that. I’d rather stay the sweet pure Christian I’ve always been.

With love,

A virgin

June 8, 2008

Dear Sex,

My closest guy friend is a sex-addict. I wrote a whole essay about it once—about how I thought he was one even though he’s a virgin. But he really is a sex-addict. And he’s not a virgin.

He’s a Christian too, which is why he repented of it. He sat me down at a coffee house tonight and told me how he regretted it so much. He felt so empty inside and he wanted to get his life right again. I really admired him. Yeah, he messed up, but he’s ready to own up. I’m so proud of him. Even though he is a sex-addict.

With love,

A virgin

December 11, 2008

Dear Sex,

My closest guy friend never stopped having sex. I guess it’s one of those things that you start and never find the will to stop. He is an addict, I suppose.

I have decided to remain indifferent to it all because that will keep me from yelling at him. He no longer calls himself a Christian, so I guess it’s okay if he still has sex. It’s still a sin, but at least he’s not defaming the name of Christ. Does that sound cold-hearted? It seems that way to me. I should try to be nicer.

I found out that a lot of people I love and respect have been sleeping around, but I’m trying not to let it work me up. My sister tells me that my moral standards are different than a lot of people’s and I shouldn’t impose them. I am forced to agree.

With love,

A virgin

January 17, 2009

Dear Sex,

I guess Christians have pre-marital sex after all. Today I learned that two of my Christian friends slept together. They love Jesus but still have sex.

Sin is sin, no matter what. I tend to forget that. I find myself damning those who have sex outside of marriage or drink underage or do drugs more so than I damn myself for being proud or selfish or judgmental. There’s a plank in my eye that I have continuously ignored.

But I cannot help but view you, Sex, from my perspective. I cannot help but see you as something peculiar, something designed for a certain time and place. And when I see people from my school and my friends who have engaged in you, I don’t see what the media makes you out to be—I don’t see romance or fun or commitment or beauty. I see a lot of sad people searching for something. And instead of finding happiness, they’ve found the day-after blues: when he leaves to go to work or she grabs her clothes and drives away.

Sex, I don’t want to get to know you yet! I want you to remain a mystery until my wedding night. Then I will appreciate you, then I’ll get to experience that romance and fun and commitment and beauty. But not until then.

A lot of people throw you away. They waste you on people they will never truly love. They waste you on a night of passion or a night of loneliness. But that’s not fair. That’s not fair to you.

But don’t worry, Sex, I still think you’re special.

With love,

A virgin.

Don’t get worked up on the dates or people in this story. Bits and pieces I had to change for the fluency and understanding of the commentary. Just take it for what it is. Am I trying to be edgy? Not really. I’m just still learning about love and sex and pain and God and everything in between--and this is the result. In love, Lauren.