The Giver lives in Our Town

In Mrs. Vavra's sophomore American Lit. class, we gathered into small groups and read certain plays from the past century during our "20th Century Theater Month." My group read Thornton Wilder's obscure play "The Skin of our Teeth," in which Sabina and a host of other colorful characters crash historical events on the stage. Many people don't know this wonderful play, because many have only heard of Wilder's more widely known play "Our Town," which semi-inspired "Dogville" (the movie by Lars Von Trier, starring Nicole Kidman). Anyways, so right before I left L.A. I found a copy of "Our Town" for a quarter (oh I how I love thrift stores in L.A.---I miss them already) and decided I'd add it to my summer reading list (a list I have laughably yet to really even officially start).

So now I'm reading "Our Town," and it is simple but lovely. It may seem strange that I'm reading a play before I go to bed, as it's not your typical Mary Higgins Clark or Dan Brown summer fiction reading type-of-a-book, but for me---honestly---I love that I'm finally getting to read it and so many other classics like it because I feel like I robbed myself back in high school by sliding through and hardly reading a thing! If it weren't for Miss Smith, my senior year A.P. English teacher, I might have even escaped high school having not read "Hamlet!"

But back to books I'm reading or have been reading: "The Giver" by Lois Lowry...I skipped it in 5th grade but came across it recently and said "I need to read this Newberry medal award winner!" and so I did, and again it made me so happy. I don't know if I would've appreciated this book or many others for that matter, had I read them when I was "supposed to." So perhaps now is my time---as the writer of Ecclesiastes would probably agree---and today is the day when I will see the beauty in so much literature that I blindly and foolishly scoffed at during my early childhood years.

So here's to a summer reading list sprinkled with bits and pieces of the classics! And by the way, don't be surprsied if I start quoting famous dead literary geniuses and turn into a high school english teacher by the end of July. As you all know, I tend to get caught up in whatever it is I'm currently reading and someeeetimmmes take my happiness a little too far.

Hospital hugs

My first day back working at the hospital yesterday went wonderful minus a few things. I enjoyed seeing many old faces, scrubbed out in their appropriate hospital uniform attire. Since I've been gone, Robin gave birth to her first baby boy and he's almost six months old now! I saw pictures and ooo-ed, and awww-ed respectively. And then there is Pat, who since I last left has chosen to die her hair a very horrible brown color and at first sight, I was tempted to tell her that I much rather preferred her beautiful silver-colored hair, as opposed to her present choice, but instead I say nothing and hug back. Some thoughts need to be spoken; others must be taken through the ringer before coming out of the huge hole in one's face. Otherwise, there probably would be very few people with friends here on planet earth.

Case in point: nurse Jenny saw me and didn't recognize me at first. So when it clicked in her head, "Yes, this is Neville. From last summer. You remember!" she gasped and blurted, "Oh my gosh! I saw you from behind and I thought you were an old man! What with your receding hair and all!"

She said it like it was Kalamazoo Gazette front page news. Like it was the given common sense we all really must recognize, and point out. She hugged me tight, laughing and giggling, and I have to admit, my gut reaction was to give her a noogie while trying to rip chunks of her own hair out of her head---you know, just so she could feel what it's like to have "receding hair." But then I thought, 'she's probably right.' After all, my hair...styled with gel and sticking straight up, and getting longer every new day, probably resembles a 42-year-old doctor's head more than my own 22-year-old one. And so, I keep hugging Jenny back, and I smile, and I think of how fun it is to be 22 years old and already losing your hair.

I guess I should've never made fun of all those Rogaine commercials I saw when I was young. God is surely getting back at me...in a very smart, and clever way. Oh well---that's life: God-1, Neville-0.

And yes, I AM keeping score!

Only seven more to go.

I already have three movies lined up to go on my top ten list of 2005, and while this may sound dorky and lame, I feel like a big burden has been removed from my life because of this. It's usually so stressful trying to dig through all the cream and the crap when it comes to narrowing down all the movies I've seen in one year, but this year seems to be looking up as it isn't even July yet (e.g., Most of the "good" movies don't come out till' summer or fall or around December 31st)!!

So here we go, if I had to make it up right now:

1. "Millions"
2. "Crash"
3. "Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room"

I'm such a dork. Goodniggggghhhhhhhht.

Power, please.

I've been thinking about power a lot lately, and how so much of what we do everyday really comes back to our need for it. I don't like to think that I have this problem too, because really, it's much easier to look at the corporate criminals tied up in the Enron scandal and see them as the real power addicts. But essentially, that is to fall into what Madeleine L'Engle dubs judgmentalism and it is too crowded of a road to walk down already. Every time I feel the urge, the need, the must-ness to be right, I'm struggling with power. Every time I look at someone else, and envy and and envy and envy whatever it is they have that I don't, I'm struggling with power. And every time I let control lead, and allow certainty to continually pave my way, I'm giving in and buying into whatever lie power is marketing and advertising.

It is indeed everywhere we turn here in America. You don't have to look too long or too hard before you find it or see it. Power is what so many of our conversations are really about and it's sad to see and understand and comprehend how this very thing can rip the Church apart--and the world too, for that matter.

But still, life seems worth the risk. The risk of living for love is a "fearful gamble," (again, Madeleine L'Engle's phrase---not my own) but it is one I'm ready and willing and wanting to repeatedly make.

Come into my pole barn, please.

The garage sale / yard sale / pole barn sale signs are all over town today. I guess you know what that means: I'm not in California anymore.

Here's to frenzy Friday garage sales and much fun-in-the-Michigan-sun. And as Kelmo "Moselle" Blomgren would like to say...."Boo-yeah!"

The bread, the wine...the pretzels, and diet coke.

There's something about the Eucharist that transcends into all meal times I think---as long as people are open enough to sense it.

Tonight, after flying back from David and Kelly's wonderful wedding in Minneapolis, I had a two-hour plus conversation wtih Dot, a sixty-something-year-old Catholic who was exactly who I needed to talk with after these past few crazy weeks. It was the first real, amazing, transparent, affirming, Catholic / Protestant background dialogue I've ever had where it never turned into any sort of debate or argument. As we sat there, me in seat 16D and she in 16E, we said nothing until the breaking of the pretzels and the serving of diet coke. Up until then, we had both been reading or in our own little American Airline world...trying not to make contact with one another I think. But then, the food came and the pretzels were broken and the diet coke was served to both of us, and we couldn't hold back any longer. And God, I think, had something to do with all of this.

She shared with me about the rich tradition and meditative worship of the Catholic faith, and I shared with her my sunday school class Protestant upbringings, and told of how much I valued these memories today. She needed help with her parish in these ways, while I needed guidance in Protestant problems and it went on and on like that until our plane landed in California. We said our goodbyes, blessed one another and gave the kind of hug Jesus would be proud of, no doubt, and when our own little ways.

And after that wonderful moment, I thought again of how wonderful it is to be apart of something as radical and as breathtakingly beautiful as the Church of Christ. And I thought about the bond Dot and I shared---both spiritually and emotionally---and the common ground we walked on and talked on together. And I thought about the way we laughed at ourselves and joked about the silliness God must look down upon at us in---so often and so frequent. It was the perfect ending to two near-perfect weekends of two events where close friends were pulled together as one by God and by the Church.

I usually never say things like this, but I'm so looking forward to meeting Dot again--wherever and whenever that may be. If it won't be till' heaven, I'll be just fine with that.

And so, the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine proves to be more than just an act or sympbol or practice we meditate on when we remember Christ's sacrifice for us---for really, whenever there is a meal being shared by the people belonging to the open-wide-arm hold of God, and there is fellowship and food and laughter exchanged, there Christ is...affirmed and remembered in spirit, in act, and in action. And the world is really, as Bjork would say, "full of Love"---again.

My paper from heaven!

I don't think I've ever had the freedom to write a paper this random.

I like when the professors are open to ideas and are not as strict as to where you decide to take your paper. For me, I wanted this one to be crazy---something no one had ever written about before---and so, I'm writing a missiological and theological discussion (written both informally and formally) about Lesslie Newbigin (the great India missionary / evanglelical / theologian), the Church and its relationship with the film industry, AND drawing from three films ("Amelie," "Pieces of April," and "Millions") as springboards for theological dialogue and discussions.

It's either going to be really cool or really bomb---I'll let you know how it goes once I'm done with it. Good night.

The Playboy Mansion

Yesterday for work, I had to run something to and pick something up from the Playboy mansion. Yes, that's right---I was actually there (not inside the mansion itself, but on the premises). I entered the gate, I saw the little white bunnies (yes, actual bunnies---not women) playing in the fenced-in dirt sections near the entrance and I realized that it really does take up half of a mountain off of the infamous Sunset blvd.

My mom and dad will be so proud, for sure.

After 7 years, Nate & Erica are one.

Nate and Erica Shorb. It's official. And it's done. And it was beautiful. And it was very, very good. And I think I just fell in love with Coopersburg all over again. And yes, I cried when "One April Day" by Stephen Merritt was played as Erica walked gracefully down the aisle. And yes, I suppose that makes me somewhat of a strange groomsmen. But I don't care. There was too much of an affirmation of love in the room to react any differently I think.

Some people make getting married easier. I know that marriage itself is not easy at all, but I do know that some people are blessed to enter into the union of marriage having already practiced quite beautifully what it means to be one. For Nate & Erica and their wedding this past weekend, I kept thinking about how I never thought of them as two and wondered whether or not that was why this wedding seemed so unique and special to me. Perhaps it has more to do with this being the first wedding I've attended where a very close friend was the groom---I don't know. Whatever it was though, somehow I'm not worried at all for Nate and Erica. I'm just anxious to see what God will bring into their lives and to see how much love they can keep giving away.

Some people are just better at being selfless I think.

I hope you know!

Contrary to what some people may think, the previous post regarding palm trees, too much sun and Tom & Yvonne Shorb was not in any way written with the intent of receiving something in return. I know Yvonne makes the meanest and yummiest cheesecake I've ever had (and believe me, I've had a lot---just look at my gut)...but my love for these two people is not because one of them makes delicious food; it is because they are truly two of those kind of people who you really need to meet and once you do, begin to fall in love with immediately.

So Yvonne especially, take that for what it is: a compliment and nothing more. I'm not expecting a cheesecake out of you this weekend (wow, that sounds a little strange now doesn't it) so if you try and pull a fast one and make one, rest assure you'll be wearing it before I'll be eating it.

Good night all...and good morning to the rest of you.

Burnt by the Sun

The title of this post is borrowed from a Russian film that won the Academy Award for best foreign language film a few years back, and although I never saw it, I always wanted to and liked the title of the film---despite its implied simplicity.

Yes, I was out in the sun yesterday for Memorial Day. Yes, I was out a little too long. I hate whenever I happen to want to go outside and read under the sun, and then get the suddenly immediate feeling of being really really tired. And then, time gets fuzzy...and I can't seem to remember if it's been two minutes or two hours since I last looked at the clock. Time is very weird sometimes. It must be its own entity or something because I swear sometimes, it's just playing me for the necessary fool that I am.

This weekend is Nate and soon-to-be Erica Shorb's wedding, and as I've told them already, I think I'm getting a little too excited for it. I'm a little worried what I might do at the reception, as it will be the first time in quite a long time that I've been around any Taylor people or my beloved Tom and Yvonne Shorb---two of those wonderful people that everyone in the world should meet at least once. And I think the fact that I'm taking a red eye flight from California to Pennsylvania makes it even more exciting. There's nothing more thrilling than going to sleep in one part of the world and waking up in another. Obviously, I realize this "change-of-worlds" is happening from within the U.S. borders, but still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited about it. I know it may sound like America is the world as I know it, but believe me when I say that's not at all true.

The sun is out today and the palm trees are trying their best to look beautiful. I never knew this until I moved here, but there are many people---especially mid-westers and east-coasters---who find palm trees especially ugly. Why? I haven't the faintest idea. To me, they seem to be pretty cool and beautiful too. I can think of few sights more beautiful than the gazing up at the L.A. night sky, while driving on the 110 freeway...where the palm trees silhouette themselves into the dreamy, starry heavens. After experiencing several of those moments, I think maybe this is why God made palm trees so unusually tall and awkward. Because other than mountains, there's not a whole lot in creation brave enough to face the sun and the clouds and the stars so closely, and so beautifully.

So please, give palm trees a break. They may be no "maple" or "oak," but they're still pretty wonderful even if some people don't particularly care for them at all.