Like, I totally agree with this poem

Totally like whatever, you know?
By Taylor Mali


In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences - so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It's like what I've heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like . . .
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we've become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

Me & Julio

Here is my baseball bragging story.   (If you have heard it, ssh.)

One Saturday night several years ago, Dennis and I went to an Atlanta Braves game.  Barry Landis gave us the Time Warner box seats for the game.  WOW.  We were on the front row, in the seats next to Ted Turner and Jimmy Carter.   (Although they were not there.)  The players were three feet from us when they came on deck.

So, here is my story.  I had been enjoying seeing all these GORGEOUS extremely young athletes up close for six innings, and then Julio Franco came on deck.  Julio was in a whole 'nother class of cool. Julio also happened to be one of my favorite Braves.

Unfortunately, Julio did not get to bat because somebody on the field screwed up and got the third out.

The game continued. It was a beautiful night.

During the eighth inning, I had gone upstairs for the traditional eighth-inning-race-to-the-bathroom, and when I came back to my seat, Julio was on deck again.  As I sat down, I said,  “Oh no, I almost missed Julio hit!”  At that moment  some Braves player screwed up royally again and got the third out, so Dennis said, “Looks like you won’t get to see him hit this time, either.”  And I said, “No, I have to see Julio hit!”

AND THEN....Julio turned to ME with a multi-million dollar grin and said,

“Not tonight, babe.”

Time flies

This week's quote of the week comes from Ben Worley, age 8.

Ben and I were the only two people at home one day.  I was downstairs at my computer writing, and Ben had been upstairs working away on something - probably taking something apart and building something entirely new out of spare parts.  I like to call these things "Ben-ventions."  Over the years he has created some stunning Benventions.  The best was probably a riding thing made from an old shopping cart, a bicycle and the handlebars from an Ab Blaster.  Oh, how I wish I had a picture of it.  It was crashed into the ditch by our driveway many times by Ben, his brothers and neighbor kids.  Surprisingly, no one had to go to the emergency room.

On this day, 8-year old Ben had been up in his room absorbed in his work, as I was in mine, and the afternoon had passed and the house was growing dark.  Ben came downstairs.

"Mommy, it's dark already," he said.

"I know, Ben.  The day is almost over," I replied.

Ben sighed happily and shrugged.

"Time flies when you're loving life!"

So it does, and Ben Worley has taught that his philosophy is a true one.  No one loves life quite so much as Ben Worley, and it is a joy to watch him.

This Sunday is Senior Recognition day at church, and Ben Worley, who is 18 now and graduating from high school, will be among those honored.   He was the baby on the cul de sac, the youngest of all the gang of kids who grew up in these yards and houses together over the past 20 years.  All of those neighbors still live here.  Only one family has moved away, and new neighbors have moved in this year.  This weekend, Nate and Brittany will bring home their new baby girl, Sadie.  They don't realize it, but before they can blink, there will be a Senior sign in their front yard with Sadie's name on it.

Time flies when you're loving life!

What you can become

Never be afraid to give up what you are for what you can become.

I don't know who said that.  When I was a freshman at Baylor University, it was on a poster on the wall of the BSU, along with a butterfly. The day my parents left me on the steps of Collins dorm and drove away, I knew I was giving up everything I was and becoming someone entirely new. I was terrified. 

That poster resonated so much with me that I embroidered the quote and a butterfly, framed it and kept it on my dresser for years. Tonight I found it as I was rummaging through a drawer. I put it back out on the dresser. 

It's funny, I've lived here in the same place for more than half of my life, but I've constantly given up "who" I was to move on to the next thing placed before me. And right now there is change in the air.  Ben is graduating. Matt is moving away to college. I'm about to be a grandmother again. Of a girl!  Today I bought a pair of pink baby leggings. It was so strange to stand there in the aisle with those pink baby things. 

What will the next part of my life look like?  I don't know. But I won't know if I'm not willing to give up this part of my life. 

Life is changing on some of my friends, too. I suspect they're afraid. I just want to say with all my heart:  Don't be. 

I remember when I was pregnant with Ben; my mother-in-law was with me when I went for the sonogram and found out it was another boy. Not the girl I was so sure I was meant to have. Alice Ruth was quiet all the way home. Just as we pulled in the driveway, she asked, "Honey, are you disappointed?"

No, I was hacked. I always got what I wanted, and there was nothing I could do about this. 

But look what I got. And all that has become since then. 

Eighteen years ago I could not imagine my life today, just as you could not imagine yours. Becoming requires faith and courage and risk. Endings and beginnings. Death and new life. And kindness. And time. 

Today I finally bought pink baby clothes. So who knows what could be next?

A beautiful readiness

Each day is an opportunity to live in agreement with God's choice to make you self-evident in the world, to change the world by dropping you, His living being, into the middle of the action.  There is a beautiful readiness in peace and contentment.

Oh what a great friend, follower, and citizen you are if you are at peace just being you.  From there, you can go anywhere.  

-Charlie Peacock, The Art of Being

Weirdly joyful

From Donald Miller's blog 4-19-11:


I was having lunch with an accomplished surgeon recently who told me the two words that will kill the heart fastest are the words “ought to.”


The reason I was having lunch with the surgeon was because I was interviewing him for a potential book. He’s a head surgeon at a nationally renowned hospital and does an enormous amount of charity work, even advising the American military on how their hospital ships can be more efficient while being used in disaster relief. If the average doctor saves hundreds of lives in the span of their career, this guy has likely saved hundreds of thousands.


When I asked why he desires to help so many people, his answer surprised me. He said “because it’s fun.” And then he went on to say “I like helping people because I enjoy it, I’m the opposite of an evangelical.” I don’t know if he knew I was a Christian, but the comment came like a curveball and I had nothing to say. I was so accustomed to the passive guilt complex so many of us hear week after week and in book after book that I knew he’d have no shortage of evidence that Evangelicals are constantly being made to do good things they don’t really feel like doing.


In contrast, as I read through the book of Acts, a defining characteristic of the early church is they felt joy in their work. I don’t see a lot of shame and guilt manipulation in Acts, just a bunch of people who act like they are weirdly in love with each other and with God. And I want to emphasize the word weirdly.


Continuing with the question, "Why do I live the way I live?" I have to ask myself in light of Donald Miller's blog:  How much of what I do is fun?

Parenting Worley boys is fun.
Doing life in partnership with Dennis Worley is fun.
Feeding people is fun.
Making a home a place where people are loved and welcomed is fun.
Working in the garden - making things grow - is fun.
Studying the Bible is fun.
Teaching the Bible is fun.
Helping people know and make sense of God is fun.
Leading people to worship God is fun.
Figuring out life together with friends is fun.

And by "fun" I mean these things make me weirdly joyful.

Doesn't mean these things aren't hard, sometimes complicated and frustrating.  But they are things to which my heart says a resounding, "Yes!"  Things I would get up and do all day and come back swinging the next day.  And hearkening back to the question of the week, Meg Ryan's question, "Do I do it because I want to, or because I'm not brave?" I would say these are things I do because I want to, things about which I would not hesitate to be brave, even fierce.

Wouldn't this be the best thing to be known for?  "She was wierdly joyful."