variations on a theme

read this morning:

"The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease.  Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.  I say to myself, 'The Lord is my inheritance; therefore I will hope in him!"

The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him.  So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord."

--Lamentations 3: 22-26

email doppelgangers

i get emails for other "bstaffords" on my gmail account on a fairly regular basis.  there's a bev out there, i think.  and a brian.  i get a lot of emails for brian. he gets invited to a lot of great parties in san francisco.  if i lived there, i would totally show up to some of them.  

and today, i "met" him. this morning, he sent his itinerary for a flight from london to dublin to "his own" address.  i emailed him back and let him know that, as much as i'd love a trip to ireland, i doubted i could pass for him.  he wrote back to say thanks and to say he was glad to know who was first in with the bstafford gmail address.

it's funny to finally have contact with this person i get mistaken email for all the time. i don't know him at all--but i kind of know a fair bit about his life.  and, i'm kinda proud to have been first in line for that gmail address.  hehe.

do you have an email doppelganger?  have you met him/her?

calibraskan

"calibraskan."  that's what i've decided i am.  and i think the events of the past week prove it.

saturday, october 3, i was in san francisco with my brother and sister-in-law at the hardly strictly bluegrass festival in golden gate park.  it felt like home.  which, technically, it kind of was for a lot of my life.  growing up an hour south of san francisco, we went into the city a fair bit.  when i stepped off the plane and looked at the hills, the traffic, the trees...i knew that this place will always be a pretty big part of me.  here are some highlights:

you can spot gillian welch (with david rawlings) being her amazing self, the golden gate bridge, ralph stanley charming the crowd, and old crow medicine show as viewed from our spot in the woods.  aaaaaaah.  sigh of satisfaction and joy.

fast forward one week to saturday, october 10.  omaha, nebraska.  outside, it looks like this:

yep.  snow.  4-5 inches of it.  and my calibraskan self actually enjoyed it.  and went to the last farmer's market of the season in it.  without gloves.  without proper shoes.  and had a great time.

needless to say, it's been a good week.  plus, all kinds of fun things happened in the middle of the week.  i'm exhausted, but i'd do a week like that again any old time.

read this morning before the dawn's early light

an oldie but a goodie:

The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows tired or weary.
No one can measure the depths
of his understanding.
He gives power to the weak
and strength to the powerless.
Even youths will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.
But those who trust in the Lord will
find new strength.
They will soar high on wings
like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.
                                       --Isaiah 40:28-31

Sometimes verses like this, that are so familiar that they can (for me) lose their power, just strike home in a new way.  These did that for me this morning.  The day was still long and I feel tired now that I've reached its end.  But the promise of renewed strength is a good promise.

hard times, hard times. come again no more.

so the end of last week was not the best time ever.  but the weekend was filled with good friends and good food.  and what a difference that makes! 

and now, i'm sitting here with my computer, my coffee, and one cat.  it's early on monday morning, a cool breeze is causing the curtains in the living room to billow in just the way i like, and the sun is beginning to rise.  birds and crickets are chirping and the neighborhood is starting to wake up. it's a new beginning.

thank God that we get these new starts in all kinds of doses--new days, new weeks, new months.  who needs to wait for a new year?!

this monday morning feels hopeful.  and for that i am glad.

a funny thing i heard in sunday school this morning.

from the mouth of the pastor's 5 year old daughter:  "i've got a Bible of Satan."

that. made. me. laugh.

we understood what she really meant.  but still.

isn't it strange...

how the spelling of a name makes it seem totally different from another name that sounds just like it?  i'm reading a book in which a character is named janis.  i don't even associate that with "janice" but it sounds just the same.  it's funny to me how much i associate the mental image of the name spelled out with the person.  does everyone do this?

so then i started thinking about how many folks i know have names like that and how i can't imagine if their names were spelled otherwise.  anne is not an ann.  marc is not a mark.  cheryl isn't a sheryl.  ali is not an allie.  christy is not a kristi. and caron is not a karen.  and vice versa.  you get the picture.  anyway.  random thoughts.  they abound.

Paradise Lost

i love this book.  but dealing with it at 6am, might be less than ideal...  okay, okay.  dealing with it at 6am, IS less than ideal.

better planning ahead will happen in the future...

ps.  every time i read this, i confront the issue of how Milton makes satan kind of appealing and sympathetic.  he gives such good speeches.  the power of words is really quite amazing.  i'm constantly struck by Milton's genius.  reading this does more for me in terms of sparking interest in and thought about big issues like free will, predestination, sin, salvation, grace, justice, etc. than many a theology book i've picked up.  it's pretty incredible stuff.

the first day

so, the first day of class for me was thursday the 27th.  and, it was a good one.  i really enjoyed getting to meet each of my classes and to begin to get to know who my students are.  they seem like a lively and engaged bunch so far.  i feel like the semester will be a fun one, once it gets started.

first days are always hard for me.  there's a lot of talking and "entertaining" that i have to do, and the whole thing just lacks momentum.  that takes a few weeks to start to really build.  so then i end up in a kind of limbo--all that remains to be done over the course of the term seems so daunting, but there is relatively little work that has to be done immediately.  so, here i am.  pressing through the limbo part and eagerly anticipating the part where the gears click in and the ride of the semester really begins.

it's really rainin' out

a storm just arrived and now my windows are open and i'm listening to the rain pour down and the thunder rumble. i love it. especially since today--the first official day of classes--i don't have to be on campus.

it almost always storms on the first day of classes. pathetic fallacy? i think so. usually, i teach on tu/th and don't have to be there, but part of me feels a little sad for the freshmen, many of whom have probably thought long and hard about their "first-day-of-college-classes look" and now have to walk to class through torrential rain, ruining whatever impression it was they wanted to make. poor little rain-soaked freshmen. at least they'll be joined by rain-soaked teachers!

the strength of my convictions...

got me out of bed at my new "new year, new you" time. now i'm sitting in the kitchen, drinking my coffee, reading, and listening to NPR as it plays softly in the background. any wagers on how many mornings will go like this?

a new year

i met my freshman advisees for the first time yesterday, just hours after they moved into the dorms. i made them all write a letter to themselves, reflecting on how they felt on their first day on campus and what they hoped the semester would hold for them. seems like it might be good for me to make myself do the same thing.

the start of a new school year always feels more like a time for resolutions, etc. to me than a new calendar year ever does. it's also a time that i try to remember what i want my life to look like and who i want to be-come. this year, i think my sense of a need for balance and groundedness is stronger than ever. it's my 6th year in my job. it's time to apply for tenure, which involves a lot of looking back and a lot of looking forward. and, in the midst of that, i feel like it's easy to feel off-kilter and a little bit crazy. so. balance. groundedness. these are my goals for this school year. i want to try to include things like hobbies (embroidery, learning to play the guitar, cooking, etc.) and exercise into my schedule on a more regular basis. i want to be in the Bible more consistently and more deeply. i want to remember that, at its core, my job is FUN. i like what i do. i want to give in to my creative side and my wacky side. i want to embrace and express exuberance. (how's that for some fun alliteration?!) sometimes i wonder if that would be easier to do in a place like the cool school/church/house i saw in wisconsin this summer (pictured above). doesn't it just make sense that all of those things could/should be in one place? nice, i think.

we'll see how it all goes. my students get the letters they wrote back at the end of the term. i'll have to come back here, re-read, re-think and reflect on how the semester has gone. hopefully i'll be in a place that feels more grounded and not less. watchword for the term: God is in control. i guess, really, that should always be my watchword. but right now, it feels like i need to be even more mindful of that than usual.

oh. and i want to listen to NPR more. how's that for a resolution?

catcher in the rye. again.

so, i just finished reading j.d. salinger's catcher in the rye. this is a book that i've read, oh, maybe 4, now 5 times. i first read it when i was in high school. even though it was required reading, i loved it. but i didn't "get" his angst. i didn't "get" his anger. i didn't understand how or why anyone would flunk out of school. especially not why they would do it repeatedly. holden was my peer, but he felt like a stranger more than a friend. holden was that kid who smoked by the lockers and who i looked at with curiousity--but not with understanding.

then i read the book a few more times when i was in grad school. it was a lovely change of pace from my steady diet of renaissance and early american lit. and, to be truthful, i hardly even thought about what i was reading. i just read it. and i was glad it was in a modern font and that it used language in it that was pretty much like my own. i liked phoebe.

having just read it again, i found that it broke my heart in all sorts of new ways. i realized that i am twice holden's age. a sobering realization. and i realized that holden and i probably had more in common when i first read the book than i could recognize then. he rebeled. i pleased. but, in effect, we were both in search of our more authentic selves. and i think that search, which was terrifying then, is compelling and encouraging to me now. holden knows things. he knows that we encounter a lot of "phonies" in this life. he knows that he wants to be comfortable in his own skin. he knows that some guys are dopey--but he also knows that maybe, just maybe, they are also terrific whistlers. and, more than anything, holden knows that sometimes we can all be madmen (or women). sometimes we know what we know, we know what we value, we know what we want to be--and we mess it up anyway. madmen.

midnight in the garden of...good and green? an update

garden update: the thing has gone nuts! it's getting to be quite the jungle in there. and i'm eating its fruits as fast as i can, trying to share them with friends along the way. here are some pictures, because it's too late to actually write anything, but not too late to mess around on the internet, posting some photos.

gardening. groundedness. God.

i've been having conversations about gardening with several friends lately. about our obsession with putting things in the ground, watering them, tending them, waiting for them to yield their fruits. and i've been thinking about how, when things are difficult, when i feel down, when i feel overwhelmed, i turn to my garden. it seems so cliche, but i think there is truth in the idea of the therapeutic power of a garden.

in one of these conversations, a friend said that he thinks gardening is holy. and i think he's right.

i've been thinking about how, when i garden, i feel a satisfaction in taking a task from start to finish and in being able to see the results of my labor. i feel a connectedness to people as i consider the produce that will grow from what i plant and how i can use that to feed my friends. i feel a closeness to God as i consider how He is a gardener of souls and how He set adam and eve to the task of gardening and caring for the animals in eden. at the end of a day of working on my garden, i feel like things are more right in my world.

it's amazing the joy i feel as i watch my peas add length to their vines and climb the tripods i made for them, as i watch my bean plants begin to blossom in anticipation of the beans they will produce, and as i watch little tiny beet sprouts emerge from the dirt i sprinkled seeds in just days before. and i think about how this all requires patience. about how i have to keep tending my garden until late june or early july before i'll get to eat anything grown from these plants.

i guess, really, i'm grateful to God for the gift of gardening. it wears me out, it produces real joy, and it teaches me a little something about the care He takes with me. the joy He must feel when my soul shows a little growth or a small blossom emerges. and it helps me to take heart, even when life seems overwhelming.

the thing itself: