I’m back! Our online juices are flowing once again, thanks to the technician-with-brains from AllTel. Being without internet connection for six days has been, well, interesting… I’d love to say that I was a more productive person during the last week, but that’d be a lie because (dum da da dum!) we’ve got cable again! So I’ve been lazier than ever, enjoying the television trash that we’ve been without for several months now. My guiltiest pleasure? Dawson’s Creek reruns in the morning. Today Jack came out of the closet and Pacey had his English teacher fired — good stuff.

Life continues to roll right along with school starting soon for many of my friends, work at Zion picking up pace from a slow summer, and Halloween candy and costumes already being sold en masse from store shelves. But I will not yet admit that summer is over. Next weekend I head to a fantabulous weekend on a Minnesotan lake with great friends… After that I will concede to cooler temperatures (okay, not so much here in Nebraska — we tend to enjoy freakishly hot days in September), warm drinks and falling leaves. But today I leave you with a few Summer Favorites:

Beverage: diet cherry coke
Garden Vegetable: grape tomato
Movie in Theater: T3 (I haven’t gotten out much)
Movie on the Green: Wait Until Dark (the only one I saw!)
Book: a tie between Life of Pi and Bel Canto

Just got back from a weekend in St. Louis — so good to return to our home and stomping grounds of three years. Some things inevitably changed… There were buildings where there had previously been pastures and green lawns, new students and workers at the seminary replacing those who had moved on, and freshly paved roads on I-70 (which we greatly appreciated).

Some things did not change. The rolling hills of St. Louis are still beautiful with their trees and old houses, unique neigborhoods thriving with life. Pho Grand in the city still has the best, and cheapest, Vietnamese food, just as World’s Fair Donuts on Shaw and Vandeventer still boasts cheery service and the best glazed donuts anywhere. Covenant Theological Seminary is still a peaceful place, filled with people who are kind and generous. Best of all, the tanned old man, who waved at me from his perch on his John Deere riding mower as I drove from Missouri Baptist College to the seminary, is STILL there… This man, old as the hills several years ago, still perches, still waves, still greet passers-by on Conway Road.

As one who appreciates stability and predictability, I, of course, waved back.

I love it! It’s political races like this that make life interesting. I’m putting my money on Ahnuld.

I’m reading In His Image by Paul Brand and Philip Yancy (Zondervan, 1984). Dr. Brand is a surgeon and it is his thoughts that are recorded in this book, the companion to Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Last night I read with fascination this description of blood and had to share it here:

“What does my blood do all day?” a five-year-old child asked, peering dubiously at his scraped knee. Whereas the ancients would have responded with elegant references to ethers and humours borne in that “pure clear lovely and amiable juice,” perhaps a technological metaphor would serve best today. Imagine an enormous tube snaking southward from Canada through the Amazon delta, plunging into the oceans only to surface at every inhabited island, shooting out eastward through every jungle, plain, and desert in Africa, forking near Egypt to join all of Europe and Russia as well as the entire Middle East and Asia – a pipelines so global and pervasive that it links every person worldwide. Inside that tube an endless plenitude of treasures floats along on rafts: mangoes, coconuts, asparagus, and produce from every continent; watches, calculators, and cameras; gems and minerals; forty-nine brands of cereals; all styles and sizes of clothing; the contents of entire shopping centers. Four billion people have access: at a moment of need or want, they simply reach into the tube and seize whatever product suits them. Somewhere far down the pipeline a replacement is manufactured and inserted.

Such a pipeline exists in each one of us, servicing not four billion but one hundred trillion cells in the human body. An endless supply of oxygen, amino acids, nitrogen, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sugars, lipids, cholesterols, and hormones surges past our cells, carried on blood rafts or suspended in the fluid. Each cell has special withdrawal privileges to gather the resources needed to fuel a tiny engine for its complex chemical reactions.

Okay, two more paragraphs on blood that amaze me. The first is amazing due to sheer numbers. The second relates to the truth of living with diabetes. I prick my fingers and test my blood sugar levels about 12 times daily… and every time I do this I’m surprised by how quickly the blood clots. For all the things wrong with my diabetic body, the clotting factors work beautifully! Our bodies are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made. Read on:

What the telescope does to nearby galaxies, the microscope does to a drop of blood: it unveils the staggering reality. A speck of blood the size of this letter “o” contains 5,000,000 red cells, 300,000 platelets and 7,000 white cells. The fluid is an ocean stocked with living matter. Red cells alone, if removed from a single person and laid side by side, would carpet an area of 3,500 square yards.

When a blood vessel is cut, the fluid that sustains life begins to leak away. In response, tiny platelets melt, like snowflakes, spinning out a gossamer web of fibrinogen. Red blood cells collect in this web, like autos crashing into each other when the road is blocked. Soon the tenuous wall of red cells thickens enough to staunch the flow of blood. Platelets have a very small margin of error. Any clot that extends itself beyond the vessel wall and threatens to obstruct the vessel itself will stop the flow of blood through the vessel and perhaps lead to a stroke or coronary thrombosis and possibly death. On the other hand, people whose blood has no ability to clot live short lives: even a tooth extraction may prove fatal. the body cannily gauges when a clot is large enough to stop the loss of blood but not so large as to impede the flow within the vessel itself.

Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-grumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.

– Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic

I’ve been wondering when it was that I became an adult…

Was it when I became overjoyed at our purchase of a Whirlpool dryer, endorsed with the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval? Or was it before that, when I learned how to manage employees while Supervisor of Guest Services at Covenant Seminary? Was it the moment I said “I do” on the cranberry steps of the Worship Hall at Zion Church? Or was it when I almost defaulted on a student loan after transferring to Covenant College… and had to call the loan people myself and clear up the whole mess?

After reading Lindsay’s blog entry (on not fitting in with the men and their hunting conversations or the women and their kitchen talk) I realized that this trek into adulthood is very subtle. It kind of sneaks up on you really! Yes, there have been moments where I’d rather talk with the guys about the inconsistencies between The Lord of the Rings books and movies, rather than chat about more girly topics with my good friends. But overall I’m kind of surprised by my ability to carry on long conversations with other married women about kitchen utensils and new recipes, garden tools and landscape ideas, child-rearing techniques and methods of diapering. To be fair, the mundanity of daily life is not all we talk about; in no way does it define adulthood. But it is a part of it.

I think I became an adult when I learned to get along with people who are very different from myself. High school was all about hanging out (and competing with) peers of similar interests. College and “the real world” were training of a different sort and I quickly learned that friends don’t have to think or behave exactly like me. In fact, if I had waited to find friendship by similarities, I’d be a very lonely person. Every different person that has stepped into my world has influenced me in some way or another, and expanded my thinking accordingly. They’ve pulled, stretched and challenged me into adulthood… and it’s been a good ride thus far.

What’s Mel been up to recently? The Passion trailer can be viewed here. Turn up the volume on your computer and be prepared for goosebumps.

in the thick summer heat
a storm brewed

and the winds came
propelling the chimes into pandemoniac euphony
and the sand blew
driving the soccer players and picnickers from the park
and the rain poured (horizontally)
scattering the girls and conversations from the porch
into their air-conditioned houses

into the night
flashing, thundering, blowing
the storm continued

Ha! A federal judge in New York has refused to order a jail to serve three inmates vegan meals, requested because “non-vegan diets conflict with Jewish mandates to preserve the welfare of animals.” The three are serving time on charges including rioting, criminal mischief and resisting arrest. Hmmm… wonder what the ol’ Jewish mandates had to say about that kind of behavior?

[LJS, 7/16/03, 4A]

O for spiritual eyes to see for a moment the work for the sake of Christ that goes on daily here in Lincoln, Nebraska! What would I see if I could really open my eyes and take in the efforts of the saints? A law student debating issues with honesty and integrity… A custodian humbly cleaning windows and carrying trash bags… A pastor praying for his flock… A child bringing her neighborhood friends to Sunday School… A fast food employee treating customers and coworkers with kindness… A Young Life worker giving her days and nights to relationships with high school students… A mother casting up prayers for her children while scrubbing dishes…

Sometimes my view of the Church is so narrow, so hindered by physical sight that I lose spiritual vision and neglect to see the greater work that honors Jesus Christ. For now I can only imagine my brothers and sisters as they go about their days within my city, but one day I’ll be able to see their work fulfilled in glory. And it will be a beautiful sight.