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Of Toddlers, iPhones, and Rice Alright.  So I get the point, ok?  I know that I'm hopelessly addicted to technology.  I know that, specifically, I have a pretty major issue with my unhealthy love affair with my iPhone.  I feel...

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New song.... I spent last weekend in Fredericksburg leading worship for a women's retreat.  Had some free time and decided to play around with my new laptop... I. love. Garageband. Anyway, here is a little something...

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exchange Lord Jesus, I can’t; You never said I could. Help me to get that through my heart. The exchanged life is a theme that has been running through my life for almost two years now, and I...

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Papua New Guinea and Me “…and Neemaw was buried…alive.” (key dramatic music) I’m ten years old. It’s Wednesday night in the throes of Texas summer, and I am at church. My mother has just delivered me to my classroom...

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Fire We are driving through the Mohave Desert, and I never knew such a barren place could be so rich in color. The pale tans, blues, purples, and a black that is the exact color of cocoa decorate the mountains...

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Of Toddlers, iPhones, and Rice

Posted on 09-06-2010 | By: lady jane grey

Category : family

Tags: ,

Alright.  So I get the point, ok?  I know that I’m hopelessly addicted to technology.  I know that, specifically, I have a pretty major issue with my unhealthy love affair with my iPhone.  I feel ridiculously guilty now that I’ve read that studies show that our dependence on technology is changing our brain chemistry and giving us all ADD.  Fine.  I’ll chill out on the iPhone and find ways to keep my children from becoming examples of technology-addicted lumps of flesh.  Cool.

And now, this morning, I’ve been forced into an iPhone fast in the cruelest way imaginable.

See, we’re having one of those weeks in which I can’t get anything done around the house because Ashleigh is a bit clingy.  I go into the kitchen to do the dishes, and five seconds later, she’s under my feet, clinging to my legs, wanting me to hold her.  I give her a toy, forget about the dishes, run upstairs to take a load out of the dryer, come back down to start dinner, and she’s pulled all the pots and pans out of the cabinet.  My life is ADD enough having a toddler; couple that with an iPhone addiction and unconsciously stopping to check my email/Twitter/Facebook/Hotair.com for the gazillionth time, and I’m getting NOTHING done!

And then I sit down at night and bemoan the fact that my house isn’t as tidy as I had planned on it being that morning.

So this morning, I was beginning my morning clean-up while Ashleigh was temporarily distracted by Elmo.  I got one dish in the dishwasher, and in she came, wanting to be held.  My enterprising brain, which had already determined to get the house clean today at all costs, came up with a brilliant plan:  give Ashleigh the iPhone so she could play with her “Old MacDonald” app, I’ll get the dishes done, and won’t be able to run to my otherwise occupied phone every 30 seconds.

It was all fun and games until I turned around a few minutes later to see Ashleigh, who has a weird fascination already with the cat food bowl, standing over the water dish and staring at her “Old MacDonald” game as it played… underwater.  Yeah.  She went there.  Iphone got a bath.

Horror!  I pulled it out.  David grabbed it and toweled it off as I ran upstairs to get the hairdryer.  I dried it on cold in the headphone jack and charge port, and then yanked a bag of rice out of the pantry and promptly placed my beautiful, 3-month-old, now voided-warrantied phone, into a tupperware coffin of Mahatma brown rice and closed the lid.

This is supposed to work, so I’ll let you know in 24 hours how it all pans out.

(In the meantime, have I gotten more housework done?  No.  I’m on my laptop.  Blogging. But hey, blogging is one of the things I’ve been neglecting lately, so that’s something, right?)

Ahem.  I must go.  The house awaits.

Part two tomorrow.

New song….

Posted on 26-02-2010 | By: lady jane grey

Category : music

Tags: , ,

I spent last weekend in Fredericksburg leading worship for a women’s retreat.  Had some free time and decided to play around with my new laptop… I. love. Garageband.

Anyway, here is a little something I came up with during my first Garageband session. Click on the link to listen.  Enjoy.

Psalm 42.mp3

exchange

5

Posted on 26-12-2009 | By: lady jane grey

Category : God, exchanged life

Tags:

Lord Jesus, I can’t; You never said I could.

Help me to get that through my heart.

The exchanged life is a theme that has been running through my life for almost two years now, and I don’t feel that I have a grasp on it at all. Mentally, yes, I get it. I get that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” I get that I should allow all of Christ to live in all of me. To control me. To live through me. To die, that He might infuse me with His life. Christ-life.

And I know that that doesn’t mean that I become sinless, or that life becomes super-easy and I live in this state of blissful ecstasy. It means that I am surrendered, yielded, ever stepping aside to allow Him to use me, my body, my faculties, as a conduit. That is the meaning, the essence, of Romans 12:1-2.

But how quickly I revert back to living in my flesh! And then weeks — months! — go by and I am exhausted, feeling like I’ve done nothing but spun my wheels, and, having gone nowhere, I run out of fuel and wait by the side of the road, finally willing to let someone help me. And when Jesus comes walking by and offers to not just fill me up and let me go, but to actually be the fuel and do the all the driving, the navigation, and the maintenance, I wonder why I ever left home without Him in the first place.

Lord Jesus, I can’t; You never said I could.

But You can; and always said You would!

The Christian life isn’t about “getting saved” and then using Christ as an accessory, something to dress up with every now and again. I can’t wear Jesus only when He matches my outfit. It’s not about making a decision for Christ and then adding Him to my life when I feel like it. Oswald Chambers said, “The phrase we hear so often, ‘Decide for Christ,’ is an emphasis on something Our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him – a very different thing.”

There it is. The key to the Christian life is daily yielding myself to Him; reminding my flesh daily that it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me; saying to Him day by day, moment by moment, “Lord Jesus, I can’t, and You never said I could. But You can…”

Major Ian Thomas wrote, “Unless we are prepared to die, we will never become what we were intended to be. Once the willingness to die is there for us, there are no more issues to face, only instructions to obey.”

What freedom! That means that I no longer have to do for God, only that I yield to Him, go where He tells me, and let Him do through me. Simple availability. That’s it. All of Him in all of me.

Those of you who are attempting to walk this out:  how do you activate this truth in your life in a practical way?  How do you step aside daily and let Christ live His life through you?  What does this look like?

Papua New Guinea and Me

Posted on 31-12-2008 | By: lady jane grey

Category : God, life in the subculture, memoir

Tags: , , ,

“…and Neemaw was buried…alive.”
(key dramatic music)

I’m ten years old. It’s Wednesday night in the throes of Texas summer, and I am at church. My mother has just delivered me to my classroom where I normally attend Pioneer Girls, a Christian Girl Scout lookalike organization. We all gather Indian-style on the floor to wait for our plan of action for the evening when our teacher, a jolly lady with a moon face, claps her hands and says, “Girls! We have such a treat for you tonight! A missionary is visiting from Wycliffe Bible Translators, and we are all going to join the big people in the sanctuary to watch a movie about the exciting things the Lord is doing in Papua New Guinea!” We all look at each other, trying to decide if this is an exciting development or not. One one hand, it’s something different, and it’s a movie, and when you got to watch a movie in school it was always fun. On the other hand, it’s a movie about missionaries. We aren’t really that excited as the realization sinks in that this is probably a “big people” movie, and our “big people” Pioneer Girls leaders are only taking us in to participate because they want to see the “big people” movie; thus we will be bored to tears.

We enter the sanctuary quietly, herded in by our leader who is shushing us all the way down the aisle, and file, giggling and whispering into the only remaining row — the front row. The sanctuary looks weird to me, because it is dark and cool, the narrow windows blacked out by fabric, the late summer evening glow still oozing through the gaps like liquid gold.

The movie, projected on a portable reel-to-reel machine, flickers the story of this lone missionary woman who lives with the natives in Papua New Guinea, learning their strange language that has no written form. This missionary’s job is to learn the language, and then to create an alphabet and a written language for them so that the Bible can be translated into their language and, ultimately, they can be taught to read about Jesus.

The missionary is a wisp in the tribe. She is small, and ghostly white against the beautiful espresso-black of the people she is trying to reach. The grainy film sputters and stutters as it shows her eating with them — grubs and ants and some sort of white paste out of a leaf — and walking among them, holding their children, listening to their stories, trying to understand their tongue. The language barrier is great, but she manages to live as a fairly accepted citizen among these strangers. She stands out in her missionary clothes, a long skirt and a long-sleeved canvas shirt, while loincloths and black breasts and naked little children’s buttocks fill the movie screen. We giggle at the nudity. Breasts being shown in church! We are embarrassed because we know our parents are somewhere in the room. They know we have seen the naked people. We squirm at the thought.

“The lack of common language can be frustrating and often heartbreaking,” says the missionary in a voice-over. “One night, I was awakened by the sound of wailing. Neemaw, a grandmother, has been sick with fever. Her family was now wailing in the night in the hut next to mine. I rushed out of my hut and asked what was happening.” The movie shows half-naked women weeping and wailing and the white lady trying to communicate, but they are not hearing her. She continues, “One of the women finally told me that Neemaw had died, and they must bury her. I rushed over to where Neemaw was lying, and, upon closer look find that she was still alive, but in a deep coma. She was certainly breathing. I tell this to the women, but they do not listen, but continue to cry for Neemaw.”

The movie shows pandemonium as the crowd presses in, a sea of people crying and mourning as they place Neemaw on a stretcher and raise her still-alive body on a makeshift stretcher. She is haphazardly waving one of her hands around like some sort of crazy conductor, directing the throng as they wail their funeral song, delirious, eyes lolling back in her head, mouth open and drooling, obviously still alive. Then the movie depicts, to my horror, the whole crowd lowering Neemaw into a hole in the ground, Neemaw still flailing her hands around, the missionary woman in the back of the tribe screaming, desperately begging them to understand that she is alive. The crowd doesn’t listen, but begins to throw dirt into the hole, covering Neemaw’s face and body, until her hand stops moving. Soon she is completely covered with dirt and still. The missionary woman is crying and tearing her way into the center of the crowd, but she is too late.

The movie screen cuts to black as the missionary narrates the horrible words:

“…and Neemaw…was buried….alive.”

I am sickened, horrified, my young mind terrorized by the travesty of Neemaw and by the savage stupidity of these naked natives on the missionary’s film. I look down the row at my fellow Pioneer Girls; some are sleeping, some are giggling, one is drawing on an offering envelope. I feel guilty and weird at my reaction to the film. I am, apparently, the only one who is really bothered by Neemaw and her mean family.

This is one of those moments in which a tiny sliver of the slab of childhood is chipped away, another part of innocence lost forever; this, the process by which we become adults. When enough of the marble has been chiseled and cracked and broken off throughout our childhood, we find that underneath is an adult person who has been both hewn and uncovered by this process. Sometimes it is brutal; other times it’s just mildly shocking.

Many of my moments of “minor” chiseling came from films like these: bad 1970’s church films about the Rapture; “safety” films at school about fiery bus crashes and about predators who wanted to sell us all LSD-laced Mickey Mouse stickers that would make us jump out of windows and kill ourselves; horror films I was forced to watch while spending the night with friends; that made-for-TV movie called “The Day After” that came out when I was in 5th grade about the Commies nuking us; and Driver’s Ed films from the Ohio Highway Patrol that depicted bad drivers ending up in fiery crashes with steering wheels impaling their bodies. It was very traumatic growing up during the 80’s — the adult world was apparently obsessed with all things apocalyptic, and felt it was necessary to frighten us all into good behavior. I was constantly ambushed by these films, and they surprised and traumatized my feeble, trusting, sheltered mind each time. It’s a wonder that I didn’t turn out to be, at worst, a psychotic lunatic bent on mass destruction, and at best, an anxiety-riddled freak afraid of her own shadow (well, okay, maybe the last part is true). Each scene stole another tiny piece of my innocence, and each time, I came away feeling sick and regretful…as well as a little ticked off that I had been duped again. And these movies certainly didn’t help my already-neurotic, anxiety-ridden thoughts which had begun to plague me at that time in my life due to my father’s battle with an unknown illness.

Punky is wired like me — innocent, wide-eyed, and not a little fearful of disastrous things. I see the same chipping away at his marble slab happening before my very eyes these days. As an adult who experienced the same innocent horrors of childhood, I am torn between wanting to constantly cover his eyes and wondering if too much sheltering could turn him into a weirdo later. We do our best to balance his fears by instilling faith in God, but he still hasn’t quite figured out how his faith will protect him from tornadoes and Osama Bin Laden. I don’t think that component in our faith walk comes into play until later, maybe, and the small chiselings are baby steps in faith; maybe in realizing that our house is not going to be taken over by Islamic terrorists who come through our bedroom windows at night and steal our toys, we learn to trust in God with the real stuff. Maybe by the time we get to the real stuff, we’re ready for it because our faith has been hewn out of the stuff of apocalyptic-missionary-Driver’s Ed-films, and as adults, our fear of the unreal is replaced by a faith in that which is Real. It’s a confusing way to grow up: having to practice trust in an unseen-yet-real God while trying to understand that all the rest of the stuff we worry about is imaginary, unrealistic, and unlikely.

My childish fears were quickly replaced by the harsh realities of life when I turned 11 and found out that my dad was going to die. Neemaw and the Rapture films quickly became impotent against the very real knowledge that my very worst fear was coming true, and I was thrust into the deep waters of trusting God, sink or swim. I can’t help but think, though, that Neemaw and her cinematic cronies were early lessons in faith for a fearful swimmer like me.

Fire

Posted on 27-10-2007 | By: lady jane grey

Category : God, family

Tags: , , ,

We are driving through the Mohave Desert, and I never knew such a barren place could be so rich in color. The pale tans, blues, purples, and a black that is the exact color of cocoa decorate the mountains on the horizon in perfectly layered lines, while the bleached sand in the foreground is dotted with scrubby trees that are surprisingly green, complementing the color palette perfectly. The sky is awash with a pinkish haze – whether from smoke from the fires in California or dust, I don’t know – and it blankets the landscape, softening the edges.

We were in California for 10 days, but as we make our way homeward, I feel as though I am leaving behind a lifetime’s worth of emotion.

When we began our trip, we left home a family of “four”… the three of us and the hopes of a new baby, whom we found out I was carrying the week before we left. Now, on the way home, we return as a family of three, the dreams of a new baby left behind in San Diego.

Having miscarried at the beginning of the trip, I allowed myself to grieve very briefly during the two days of limbo when we didn’t know whether or not I was going to be able to keep the pregnancy. Like King David, I spent those two days crying, praying, and asking God for healing and deliverance… and waiting. I was sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

On Sunday, then news came. It was over. The first four days of our vacation had been colored with worry, fear, and grief. I – we – decided, like King David, to wash our faces, get out of the sackcloth, rise from the ashes, and enjoy the rest of the week. We did so for Punky, because he deserved to have a good vacation, and we did so for ourselves, because we had looked forward to this trip for a year.

After the hospital drama, we enjoyed another day in San Diego, and then the fires came. We were oblivious to the sheer scope of the flames; we frolicked on the rocks of La Jolla cove as the smoke rolled in and masked the sun, turning the sunset a deep tomato red, and we smelled the smoke and wondered at the ash. We had no idea the fires were so close.

As the latter part of our vacation began, we headed up north towards Los Angeles. The fires in San Diego were raging, and when we left the area, we drove through smoke and ash as the hot Santa Ana winds whipped the fires into a frenzy. Evacuations had taken place ahead of us on our route, leaving the middle class suburbs where we stopped for gas and food quiet and empty, like modern-day ghost towns. The freeway route we were traveling literally closed in our wake as we headed north.

We arrived in Fontana where we stayed with my former youth pastor and his wife, Dennis and Karen. Seeing them felt like home. It was so amazing to get to hang out with them and catch up – we’ve seen each other just 3 times in 20 years. We cherished our time together, and it was water to my soul. Dennis and I sat up till 2:30 am our last night there, and when we left yesterday, my heart was breaking.

Last night we stopped by the Grand Canyon at sunset and stayed long enough for the full moon to rise all orange and plump like a pumpkin over the South Rim. And now we are headed home, and I hear that autumn has finally come to South Texas. This year, it rained more than it has in our whole lives, and the Indian Paintbrushes bloomed all the way through September. They say it will be a mild winter. I hope so.

loss

Posted on 23-10-2007 | By: lady jane grey

Category : God, family

Tags: , , ,

I haven’t blogged in a few weeks because I was pretty busy preparing for a two-week vacation to California. You know how it goes: there’s mountains of laundry to be done, cleaning, and then the setting of the office in order so that things will (hopefully) go smoothly while I’m gone.

In the midst of trip preparations, we found out that I was pregnant. We were shocked and excited at the prospect of having a baby after so long (our son is 11 now, so we’ve not had “baby” on the brain for some time). We started thinking baby thoughts. We started looking at baby clothes. We started thinking about converting our guest room into a nursery. And when we got back from vacation, I was to have my first doctor visit. We were looking forward to that first sonogram and that first heartbeat.

We began our road trip without a hitch and arrived in San Diego on Thursday. I was looking forward to taking Punky around San Diego while David was in his conference. We planned our next few days in the car on the way out to California: one day we’d go to the zoo, one day we’d see downtown, and one day we’d go exotic car hunting in the fancy areas of town.

As soon as we got into the hotel room, though, I had just gotten settled when I noticed that I had started spotting slightly. I immediately began to panic: this didn’t happen when I was pregnant with Punky. This can’t be good. I called my mother-in-law and she eased my fears a bit. A little spotting is normal. Don’t worry about it. I called my doctor in San Antonio, too, and they told me the same thing: Don’t worry. Just take it easy, but as long as it doesn’t progress, you’re fine.

The next day, Punky and I took the train into downtown to look around. I tried to enjoy myself, but in the back of my mind, I was concerned. We walked around for half of the day, and when we returned to the hotel that afternoon, I was exhausted. I laid down for a bit, hoping it would help to be off my feet.

When I got up, though, I knew things weren’t right. The spotting had progressed. I went outside to find David, who was waiting at the rental car for AAA — the van had a flat tire! — and told him that we needed to get to the hospital.

So we hired a cab, got to the hospital, and spent exactly 6 hours in the E.R. waiting for the doctor. They took blood, told me to come back in two days to take more blood so that they could compare the levels, told me that I was to be on bed rest, and sent me on my way. Oh, and the doctor said, “If you do miscarry, it will probably happen sometime next week, so you’ll need to find another hospital in LA just in case that happens.

I spent all day Saturday in bed, and it was a very low day. Why had God brought us all the way to California for this? Why had we had such a surprise pregnancy — gotten pregnant on the pill, no less — for it to end in miscarriage? Why, when we had spent a year talking about this vacation, looking forward to it, and talking it up to Punky… and now, it seemed, all we were going to be able to do was sit in the hotel room and in hospitals, mourning? Why? My heart was broken.

I picked up my Bible and prayed through Psalm 139. It didn’t help. It only made me cry more. I set my Bible in my lap and wept, flipping randomly through the Psalms, asking God for some help.

Then my eyes fell to Psalm 116.

” 1 I LOVE the Lord, because He has heard [and now hears] my voice and my supplications.

2 Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live.

3 The cords and sorrows of death were around me, and the terrors of Sheol (the place of the dead) had laid hold of me; I suffered anguish and grief (trouble and sorrow).

4 Then called I upon the name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech You, save my life and deliver me!

5 Gracious is the Lord, and [rigidly] righteous; yes, our God is merciful.

6 The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He helped and saved me.

7 Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

8 For You have delivered my life from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling and falling.”

I breathed it in. My self-pity began to vanish. Indeed, God has dealt bountifully with me. And then I read this:

“15 Precious (important and no light matter) in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (His loving ones).”

Reading this through the lens of Psalm 139 gave me a revelatory perspective on my situation. God saw what was happening to me at that moment. He was right there. He knew, and was grieving with me.

What a relief. I decided at that moment that I was going to trust Him, and whatever He allowed, I would choose to trust in His perfect sovereignty.

And as I gave it to Him and read the rest of the Psalm, I discovered how I needed to respond:

“17 I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call on the name of the Lord.

18 I will pay my vows to the Lord, yes, in the presence of all His people,

19 In the courts of the Lord’s house–in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)”

I had been in bed all day. I made my choice: I got up, washed my face, got dressed, and went to the evening worship service at the National Youth Workers Convention with David. I knew that my going was symbolic act of trust. I went… and I paid my vows to the Lord in the presence of His people. I offered, through an abundance of tears, my sacrifices of thanksgiving to my God. Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.

The next evening we went to the hospital and found out that we had lost the baby.

And while it has filled me with sadness, while I grieve for my lost baby, I know that God has a plan. He is the author of life. I have to trust Him.

While I may never know the whys, I know the Who. And if nothing else, this was a fierce reminder to me that I cannot do anything apart from Him. I am His, He is God, and I am not.

At the conference on Sunday, Steven Iverson led us in Taize-style worship. We sang one line over and over again, and I wept as it penetrated my soul:

“Your way, Your will, Your heart… not mine, Sweet Light, not mine.”

the end.

Posted on 01-10-2007 | By: lady jane grey

Category : music

Tags: , ,

Live in New York

Live in New York

Last night was officially our last Lady Jane Grey show.

And I’m typing that and feeling sad, surreal, angry, happy, relieved, and excited all at the same time.

David and I have been in this weird place for several years… we put out this killer album, expecting to reach a broader audience than the first, and then heard crickets and the whooshing of tumbleweeds through our music career for the next several years.

San Antonio is not the place to live if you do original music that requires people to actually listen at your shows… there are just no venues to support such music anymore.

When the gigs came around, we played them, but the audiences weren’t there anymore, and so we ended up playing just for the sake of playing, to empty chairs.

I can’t tell you how excruciating it is to play the same, beat up old songs to empty chairs. It’s demoralizing. It sucks.

We have been wanting to do something different… we’ve been wanting to change things up artistically… but every time we’d play a gig, we’d look at each other after every song and go, “Dude! Why are we doing this? No one even cares about our music anymore! We don’t want to sing these songs anymore! No one wants to book us anymore!”

So last night we made the decision to end it. We’re beating a dead horse. It’s time to put the horse out of its misery and move on.

What’s ironic is that The New Yorker called this week and is giving us a mention in an article… a good way to go out, I guess.

And we’re very sad to see the end of LJG. It’s very much like saying goodbye to a lover… LJG has been a huge part of our lives for 12 years now. I still don’t feel like we accomplished what we wanted to accomplish, but we also don’t feel like we’re supposed to force the issue. It’s time to move on.

Those are the negatives… and I am going through a grieving at this decision… and that’s okay.

Here’s the bright side: When we started playing music, it was all we had together. It gave us something to work for as a couple. In many ways, it saved us. It fulfilled us then. And because of LJG, we have been able to do some really cool things: being in the finals for Lilith Fair, getting to play twice at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and then at the Living Room in NYC, getting to play with October Project, playing California, being on national compilations, getting to share my music with Mary Black, and most of all, getting to touch so many hearts and lives with our songs. It’s been a great run, and we are so grateful for the opportunity to live the dream.

But today, as I sit here and write, we are in a new place of blessing and fulfillment. Our passion is no longer to “hit it big.” Our passion is now working with the teenagers that we’ve been entrusted with. And every Wednesday night, as I sit and listen to their tragic and desperate stories — parents addicted to Ice, abuse, divorce, feeling like their parents hate them, death — I know that we are supposed to be giving ourselves to these amazing kids. God has called us to do this, and this is where our fulfillment is found, and this youth ministry thing has eternal value. Our investment in these lives will live on long after our CDs have turned to dust and our songs faded from memory. This is where our focus is right now, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s where our focus is supposed to be.

Creatively, I am finding meaning in my writing, and I am planning to go back to school to further myself in this medium. David is honing his skills on drums, keys, and exploring the world of scoring for films and TV.

And our decision to end LJG DOES NOT mean that we stop doing music together. What it means is that we are praying and seeking God about what we’re supposed to do with the gifts He has given us. We do not think our music making days are over; we do believe that God has something else… something better… something new. We’re going to commit the matter to serious prayer, and trust that God will use us as He sees fit.

Let me end this with a big HUGE thank you to those of you who have followed us, supported us, prayed for us, and walked with us through this amazing journey. Thank you for buying our CDs, for coming to the shows, and giving us the opportunity to be part of your lives in a small way.

Please keep us in your prayers as we figure out the next chapter of our musical journey. And remember, this is not really the end, but the beginning of a new adventure, and we’re looking forward to discovering what that is going to turn out to be.

And hey… if Jay-Z can retire and then make a comeback six times, who’s to say we can’t either?

:)

I love you all. Thanks for listening.

Survivor Christianity

Posted on 21-09-2007 | By: lady jane grey

Category : God, life in the subculture

Tags: , , ,

Okay, I admit it: I watch “Survivor.”

It’s one of my guilty pleasures. I mostly only watch shows that have some writing merit (”Lost” is a surprising example) — I’m a sucker for a good story. But Survivor is just one of those mindless shows that I watch because it requires absolutely no intellectual investment.

Last night was the Survivor China season premiere, and as they introduced the new contestants, they made particular note of one, whom they described as “the Christian talk-show host.” They immediately contrasted her with the next contestant, a “gay Mormon flight attendant.” Oh boy, I thought. Here we go….

Sure enough, not ten minutes into the show, the contestants were required to commence their adventure with a “traditional Buddhist ceremony.” The host made a point to assure the contestants that this was not a “worship” ceremony, but instead, a cultural tradition.

All of the contestants entered the Buddhist temple and filed up to the gigantic statues of Buddha. They were to kiss some sort of offering and bow to Buddha as they laid their offering in the bowl at his feet.

The Christian girl was, of course, uncomfortable with this, and quietly stepped outside of the temple.

After the ceremony, the group gathered as the host talked to them about their experience. He pointedly asked the Christian girl why she left, and she said, “Because, regardless of what you said about it not being a worship ceremony, I refuse to bow down before anything or anyone except Jesus Christ.” The blonde waifey waitress from New York rolled her eyes. The tanned surf instructor with perfectly capped white teeth smirked. There were other murmurings, and then the host asked, “So, do you think that this is going to harm your chances of winning?” She replied that she didn’t care, that her beliefs were more important to her than winning a million bucks.

Watching this, the thought struck me that if she had been Muslim, or Hindu, or even Mormon, I suspect that everyone on the show would have lauded her as brave and uncompromising. They would have all nodded and said, “Oh, yeah, like, wow, I totally see how you would want to stand up for your beliefs. That’s, like, so amazing!” It was another frustrating reminder of the total hypocrisy of our “open-minded” society.

David and I were in New York a few years back and had the opportunity to hang out with one of our favorite bands. They are Yale-educated musicians, excellent songwriters, they have a gold record under their belts, they’ve toured with the likes of Sarah McLachlan, etc. I was invited to play cello with them for a show, and we spent the day with them learning their songs and sharing music. It was amazing.

We went out for dinner, and the post-dinner conversation turned to spirituality. They shared with us their beliefs, gushing on and on about their meditation time and psychic energy how it helped them as artists. They were a married couple like us, and they talked of their Fridays together in which they would meditate together and then would write and paint, having gained inspiration from their meditation time. We listened intently and respectfully, and then David got up to get a drink, leaving me alone at the table with them. As soon as he left, the woman asked me, “So… do you guys meditate? Because if not, you should really try it. It’s amazing.”

I shifted in my seat. My heart began to pound. Great, I thought, here’s my chance to look like the idiot fundamentalist right-winger from Texas. I really wished David was there to bail me out. I swallowed and said, “Well, yeah, sort of. See, David and I are Christians, so we do meditate, but it’s a little different than your meditation. Our meditation is on Scripture, so it’s more of an active meditation, and we pray, so….yeah, that’s what we do,” I finished quickly, knowing full well that my words sounded so… Ned Flanders. I looked at them. They were looking at me blankly. Crap, I thought. Now I’ve gone and done it. The gig’s off for sure.

Then, something amazing happened: they both smiled and nodded. “Oh!” she said, “that’s so cool! We have so much in common!” I breathed a sigh of relief. For once, my honesty was rewarded with some respect. The conversation shifted to the writing process, and I told them about my morning pages and even threw in how it was very zen to write morning pages, and they heartily agreed and smiled more. I walked away feeling conflicted: on the one hand, I felt like I had passed the test; on the other, I was beating myself up for even caring about their opinion of me.

Of course, we’ve been warned by Jesus that the world will hate us, and (surprise!) they do, and that’s that. There are certain things we can do to be more Christ-like when we come in contact with the world and its agendas (Richard Muow’s latest blog addresses this), but ultimately we just aren’t going to be “normal,” and, you know, so what?

I’m not sure how the rest of the season of “Survivor” will play out… for the moment, the token Christian girl isn’t overly preachy or impossibly “holy”…not yet anyway. But I was challenged by her simple act of devotion, and I will be watching with interest with the hopes that she is able to hang in there and be the best dang token Christian “Survivor” has seen.

the “D” word

Posted on 20-09-2007 | By: lady jane grey

Category : God, writing

Tags: , , , ,

I want the body of an athlete, the mind of a poet, the soul of a pilgrim.

Instead, I have the body of a sloth, the mind of a dullard, and the soul of an amoeba.

I need to be more disciplined. I try, I really do. My new routine is supposed to be to rise at five o’clock in the morning, pray for half an hour, write my morning pages for half an hour, and then go running. It’s a nice thought. When I do it, I enjoy it. I mostly want to sleep, though. It’s very difficult to get my runner self, my writer self, and my disciple self to agree to getting out of bed all at once. It is amazing the bargaining I can do with them when I am in a semi-conscious state.

This was the conversation I had with myself this morning when my alarm sounded:

Runner Sarah: “Ugh. 5:00 already? Okay, just…hit the snooze. Just once.”

Disciple Sarah: “But if you sleep for nine more minutes, that cuts into prayer time.”

Runner Sarah: “It’s just nine extra minutes. And anyway, I really don’t know if I can run today. I mean, I am pretty tired. I was sick on Friday, and well, my body is still probably trying to recover. I probably should take it easy.”

Writer Sarah: “Gah! Shut up! I’m trying to sleep! How can I be brilliant if my subconscious isn’t allowed to process? Just chill out!”

Runner Sarah: “…and anyway, you haven’t done laundry all weekend, so there’s no telling where your running clothes are. You’ll probably spend all your time looking for them. You really aren’t going to have time to run today…”

So lucid, reasoning Sarah takes control, tosses off the covers, and puts both feet on the floor. That’s the only thing that makes the other three shut up. That, and the promise of coffee.

So now I am up, and my coffee is in hand, and I am two-thirds of the way through my morning ritual. My inner selves are still whining, though they tend to taper off as I accomplish my tasks. Writer Sarah stops whining and is happy the moment I begin writing my Morning Pages. Runner Sarah will continue to whine throughout the run, until I finish and she says, “See? Now don’t you feel great?” Even now, as I am writing, she is whining. Time to go run.

8:45 am

And so I forced Runner Sarah to put on her shoes and get out there. “But I’ll get blisters,” she protested, “and you know how much it hurts when I get blisters mid-run…” “Tie your shoes,” I ordered.

Walking out the door, hand on the knob, she said, “It’s going to be cold. I’m going to get cold!” I retorted, “Well, won’t it be nice not to die of heat exhaustion for once?” I forced the headphones onto Runner Sarah’s head, tightened up the arm band on the mp3 player (she complained about the music, of course), and pushed play. The first song was “Since You’ve Been Gone” (so okay, it’s my nine-year-old’s mp3 player) and Runner Sarah was off, fueled by the angst in the song. The run was very good.

I am not a disciplined person. I really just want to do whatever feels good at the moment. Sleeping feels good; running does not. Eating feels good; dieting does not. Wandering aimlessly feels good; praying does not. Watching TV feels good; writing does not. There are so many things in life that just don’t sound fun when the time comes for me to have to do them, but I am learning that once I set my mind to it — determine in my heart that I am going to participate — I feel so great afterwards. The first two hours of my day are filled with such activities. I hate drudgery, and sometimes these activities seem like drudgery at first. But the reward is in the consistency. I have remained a spiritual infant for ten years because of inconsistency in my devotional life. I haven’t written a thing worth mentioning because I’ve never committed myself to my gift and made the choice to write every day. I’m getting fatter by the month because I can’t keep an exercise routine going.

I had a counselor tell me once that I needed to pick one area of my life and bring discipline to it. I melted into a pile. As an artist, I hate discipline. He told me that he goes running every day — and he admitted to hating to run — because he found that if he disciplined himself in one area, it seemed to bleed over into other areas of his life quite naturally. I am finding this to be true. One foot in front of the other; one pen stroke after the next; one prayer at a time. I may not ever become FloJo or Elizabeth Bishop or C.S. Lewis, but the reward is in the process, and in the knowledge that my Creator is pleased with my meager efforts.

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