Taryn R. Hutchison's Blog: The Glorious Muddle, page 33

Light Eternal

Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday also known as the Festival of Lights, began this year on Saturday at sundown and continues for eight days. It commemorates the rededication of the second temple in Jerusalem after the Jewish rebel army, the Maccabees, revolted and regained control of Judea from the Seleucid Greeks. This happened about 165 years [...]

Aftershock

After 18 days of feeling sick, not sleeping through the night because of coughing and missing a full week from work fighting a bad case of bronchitis, I finally hobbled back to the office, not quite healthy but starting to mend and with no more sick days left to take. I jumped off the deep end into a very full week, arranging important meetings at the office and even speaking at a late-night Cru meeting. And my cough has lessened.



However, I've developed an extremely annoying, intensely itchy, red-hot sunburn-looking rash all over. I guess after the double dose of antibiotics finally quelled the bronchitis it had to attack something else. And my skin seems to be the target.



Today is Day Five of the Rash. And I am so over this.



Why do we so often get kicked while we’re already down? An earthquake strikes and while devastated victims are trying to cope, an aftershock hits which can be almost as bad as the original tremor. After the landslide comes a tsunami. What happened to the idea of calm after a storm?



The sickness or bad circumstances or whatever seems to rear its ugly head for one last sputtering attempt to keep you down. Is it the enemy’s vindictiveness? Or just the unpredictability of life? Whatever its cause, I know I have less resistance to fight back or laugh it off.



The day I was diagnosed with bronchitis and our tree fell down, I actually did see humor in it. But by now I’m tired of it. I’m ready to get out and enjoy the beauty of my favorite season in the mountains without coughing or itching.



What about you? How do you deal with nagging problems that refuse to leave you alone?

A Change of Plans

I’m a list maker. I’m convinced that if I don’t write something down, I’ll never remember and it’ll never get done. My To-Do list has grown to a massive length, taking on a life of its own. Things that I know I won’t have time for until I retire still have a spot on that list.



Each week I take my list of undone things from the week before, mix in the new must-do items, and mentally pour them out in front of me like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I pick up one piece at a time and hunt for a spot where it might fit; and if  I can't find one, I move on to the next piece, sometimes jamming pieces in where they’re not supposed to be.



And then God interrupted my plans. I got bronchitis. And it got worse. And my list disintegrated.



As usual, I had more things I wanted to do last weekend than hours. I had to let them all go. About all the energy I can muster today is to write this blog. To give you an idea of the depths to which my insanity has plunged, here’s a sampling of just a few of the things I hoped to accomplish:


Go to the big annual homecoming weekend at a Romanian church nearby. That means speaking Romanian, which is very taxing this many years since I left. Letting this one go hurt the most.
Plant pansies and mums.
Go out to dinner and a movie with my husband.
Get some exercise - a walk or bike ride.
Chat with my neighbors. Get coffee with one who’s having an especially difficult time.
Work on a talk I’ll be giving soon for the girls in Cru.
Meet with a young woman from my church who I mentor.
Visit my parents.
Take a drive to see the emerging fall colors.
Clean the house and do laundry.
Work on my next article for the newspaper.

Everything on that list is a good thing. Many involve ministering to other people. Put them all together and it's just too much. Do you have too much on your list?



God freed up my schedule, against my will. Maybe He’s trying to tell me something.

 

Some Days are Funny Like That

Some (most?) days just don't turn out the way you expect. All week I've anticipated today. My chance to regain some strength. A perfectly restful, stay-at-home-all-day type of Saturday. After two weekends away, and long weekdays at work, I needed it.



Especially this weekend. I've been battling a cold - or so I thought - for over a week. I felt crummy every single day, coughed my lungs out every single night, but still, I continued to trudge off to work. (OK, so I came home early a couple of days, but I still got up in the dark, got dressed, and left home at 7:15 each morning.) Why? I'm not sure. I mean, I know the world won't stop if I don't sit at my desk to answer phones. Administrative assistants are not exactly emergency room doctors.



When co-workers - especially the ones who infected me - come to work sick, it irritates me to no end. And yet, when it came down to calling in sick because I had a cold, well, I felt like a wimp if I did that. It's only a cold. So I limped along. 



Last night, however, I coughed harder and longer than I ever have before. I knew I had to change my plans and spend my Saturday morning in the clinic with all the other sick people. And I found out I have bronchitis. A bad case, the doctor said. He chided me for letting it go so long. (But . . .  don't colds last 7-10 days? And in Europe, the doctors laughed at Americans who take antibiotics so often they become immune to them.)



When I opened the door to leave for the clinic, this is the sight that greeted me.



Today did not prove to be the restful day I hoped. My husband sawed tree limbs all day. And I coughed. And took my antibiotics. But don't tell the European doctors.

Defending the Defenseless

Our lives matter. Even our small lives can make a difference when we surrender them to God and seek to follow His agenda for our days. What’s His agenda for us?



"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:7-9.)



He wants us to be His arms and His voice in the world, to defend the widows and orphans, to stand up for those who have no voice and are defenseless. Like babies.



This week, I read about one woman who has made a big difference in a dark land. Chai Ling is a Chinese activist who led student protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989, landing her on her country’s Most Wanted list. More recently, she founded a group called "All Girls Allowed” which fights the Chinese one-child policy.



And recently won a major victory. According to the September 13 article in “The Christian Post” by Lillian Kwon, China's Population and Family Planning Commission recently issued a ban on forced abortion to enforce its one-child policy, largely credited to the international outcry generated in part by Chai Ling's influence. I will let Kwon's article speak for itself:





Under China's one-child policy, family planning officials have long dragged women pregnant with an additional child to hospitals where they were forced to have an abortion. . . .



One case that drew international attention and widespread media coverage in June involved a 7-month pregnant woman, Feng Jianmei. After being beaten by family planning officials, she was forced to sign an abortion "consent" form and toxins were injected into the brain of her unborn daughter. She gave birth to her deceased child on June 4. A picture of her lying on a hospital bed next to her baby was released. . . .



"If there had been no graphic picture of her (Feng Jianmei), no media firestorm, no global outcry, and no anger voiced by social media users in China,  then the central government might never have done anything," Lewis (All Girls Allowed spokesperson) told The Christian Post. . . .



Despite progress, there are still other forms of coercion that the government is utilizing to keep families from growing. This includes the huge fines that families are forced to pay for an additional child. . . .



"Human rights will take a back seat as long as the government continues to use family planning fees as a major revenue source. China cannot genuinely claim that the policy is 'coercion-free' until it no longer threatens parents' livelihoods and ability to provide," Ling said. . . .



More than 13 million abortions are performed each year in China. Family planning leaders claim that the one-child policy has prevented 400 million births over its 32 years.





Read more: http://www.allgirlsallowed.org/chines...

 

The Perils of Punctuation

Today is the ninth annual National Punctuation Day, the fun-filled holiday that reminds America that a semicolon is not a surgical procedure, nor is an ellipsis when the moon moves in front of the sun.



Ignoring my husband’s pleas of “pleeeeease don’t write about punctuation again,” I am reminding you of this date because: 1) I applaud it; and 2) I couldn’t think of anything else to write.



National Punctuation Day reminds me of my favorite late columnist, Herb Caen of San Francisco Chronicle and “Pullet Surprise” winning fame. Caen bestowed deputy status on an Apostrophe Posse of civilian grammarians, endowing them with the authority to make citizens’ arrests for crimes against punctuation.



Like Caen, my pet peeve is the improper use of the apostrophe. When apostrophes are used to make nouns plural (as in “two shirt’s for the price of one” or "come get your video's here"), my usually calm Dr. Jekyll-like persona morphs into Mr. Hyde. My husband will verify this. Regretfully – for the state of my marriage as well as the literacy level of America - this occurs much too often.



And leaves me to wonder: 1) do people not see the green squiggly line on their computer screen which signals grammatical error; and 2) have English teachers been cut out of the education budget altogether?



Perhaps you have read about Old Navy’s recent mishap, printing a line of collegiate and NFL apparel that read “Lets Go” instead of “Let’s Go.” This issue was brought to the Collegiate Licensing Company’s attention which said, in a nutshell, bad grammar is part of the game. In other words, it is OK at a university level to use incorrect punctuation.



This year's National Punctuation Day challenge - writing three sentences correctly using 13 different punctuation marks - revolves around the 2012 presidential election. The highly punctuated paragraph is to campaign for which punctuation mark you believe to be most "presidential.”



I tried to sell the period with my entry, highlighting the period's ability to unify us. Don't we all wish candidates would reach it sooner?

Writing about Writing: not my day job

I’m biding my time, hoping to hone my craft well enough that when I retire from my day job, I can finally and unapologetically call myself a writer and actually write. I’m not sure what it’ll take for me to be able to say, “Yes, I am a writer” without looking over my shoulder for the Exaggeration Police to pounce. I have one book under my belt (a book that was even translated into another language); I’ve published stories in three more books; I regularly meet deadlines for the local paper, my own blog, and guest blogs. And yet when asked what I do, I default to being “just” an administrative assistant at a small university.



Why even bother trying to pursue such a difficult and elusive dream? There are aspects of the modern writing life that are anathema to me. I loathe the self-promotion, the incessant marketing, the maintaining an online presence, the selling! Daily, my inbox is accosted with blogs and tweets from other writers who use their platforms to preach and persuade to their (often political) point of view – with the bottom line being to buy their book. Maybe you feel that I do that, too. I hope not. When I do succumb to the pressure from fellow writers that I must do more to publicize, I feel that I am selling my writer’s soul.



I need to return often to the joy of writing. This past weekend at the beach, I finished Pat Conroy’s “My Reading Life” as I drank in the ocean’s majesty. And I remembered why I write.



Why do I bother? Hopefully these words from Conroy that excite my heart will answer that:



“The idea of a novel should stir your blood, and you should rise to it like a lion lifting up at the smell of impala. It should be instinctual, incurable, unanswerable, and a calling, not a choice.



“Here is what I want from a book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence: I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer’s heart.



“Now, when I pick up a book, the prayer that rises out of me is that it changes me utterly and that I am not the man who first selected that book from a well-stocked shelf.



“That’s what a good book does – it puts readers on their knees. It makes you want to believe in a world you just read about – the one that will make you feel different about the world you thought you lived in, the world that will never be the same.”



And from Robert McKee:

“Write . . . despite fear. For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage, courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.”



That’s why I write. I strive to become that kind of writer some day.

Mercy, Everywhere

Last week, I blogged about the charge all of us who are followers of Christ have to spread His aroma to a world in need of Him. I’d just come from an exhilarating meeting with college student leaders who are reaching into every corner of their campus to do that, with amazing results of lives being transformed.



The day after I posted that, I visited another place where I heard from believers in Christ who are also being that pleasing aroma bringing life.



That place is prison. Those believers are youth inmates. Roughly the same age as college students, they are worlds apart. 



I feel their differences acutely. God put college students on my heart over 30 years ago, and I can’t shake it even if I wanted to. He also indelibly etched inmates on my husband’s heart. We’ve tried to do ministry together, but we keep defaulting to what we know - where our passions reside.



And in the process of encountering Steve’s ministry, God is lovingly reshaping me to be more merciful – not a trait that comes naturally to me.



I love college students because they are future leaders who can impact our society and change our world. During these pivotal years, their values are being shaped and their future course set. They are also current leaders, full of enthusiasm and unencumbered, willing to take risks to bring the gospel to their classmates and to the uttermost parts of the earth.



Steve loves inmates because they need to be loved. Yes, they’ve made bad choices, but they are paying for their mistakes. People and society have failed them and cast them aside. But from their rock-bottom vantage point, they can more clearly see their desperate need for a Savior because the only direction they can look is up.



The Lord who freely gives second and third and fourth chances is able to make new creatures out of them. And to raise up people like Steve to help them shake off their cocoons.



Is the college student with her limitless opportunities really all that different from the prisoner? Only from the outside. Both have the same fundamental need that only Jesus can meet. Both need His mercy. Both are imprisoned behind bars of sin that can only be opened by another.



“But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.” (II Cor. 2:14 – emphasis mine.)



Where is your everywhere?

Mercy

Last week, I blogged about the charge all of us who are followers of Christ have to spread His aroma to a world in need of Him. I’d just come from an exhilarating meeting with college student leaders who are reaching into every corner of their campus to do that, with amazing results of lives being transformed.



The day after I posted that, I visited another place where I heard from believers in Christ who are also being that pleasing aroma bringing life.



That place is prison. Those believers are youth inmates. They are roughly the same age as the college students.



At first glance, the two groups are worlds apart. I feel that difference acutely. God put college students on my heart over 30 years ago, and I can’t shake it even if I wanted to. He also indelibly etched inmates on my husband’s heart. We’ve tried to do ministry together, but we keep defaulting to what we’re each passionate about.



And in the process of encountering Steve’s ministry, God is lovingly reshaping me to be more merciful – not a trait that comes naturally to me.



I love college students because they are future leaders who can impact our society and change our world. During these pivotal years, their values are being shaped and their future course set. They are current leaders, full of enthusiasm and unencumbered, willing to take risks to bring the gospel to their classmates and to the uttermost parts of the earth.



Steve loves inmates because they need to be loved. Yes, they’ve made bad choices, but they are paying for their mistakes. People and society have failed them and cast them aside. But from their rock-bottom vantage point, they can more clearly see their desperate need for a Savior because the only direction they can look is up.



The Lord who freely gives second and third and fourth chances is able to make new creatures out of them. And to raise up people like Steve to help them shake off their cocoons.



Is the college student with her limitless opportunities really all that different from the prisoner? Only from the outside. Both have the same fundamental, desperate need that only Jesus can meet. Both need His mercy.



“But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.” (II Cor. 2:14 – emphasis mine.)

What's Your Aroma?

Some days, it’s easy to get discouraged. Our world is riddled with a plethora of problems. The fabric of our society is rotting and decaying around us and that doesn’t smell so good. As Christ-followers, we’re supposed to be the salt that preserves and slows the decomposition. But it doesn’t always feel like we’re making a difference.



But then there are days like today when I get a whiff that’s beautiful, appealing, and pure. I smelled the aroma of Christ today.



“But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.” II Cor. 2:14-16.



This morning, I sat in on the servant leadership meeting with the Cru (Campus Crusade) students. On our small campus, these students have boldly planted their stake in the ground and declared their allegiance to Christ. There is no turning back for them; no anonymity. They are all in positions of influence around campus where their faith in Christ is known and observed to see if it’s real. Students approach them to talk about Jesus. During a brief sharing time today, I heard stories of sorority girls filing in and out of their sister’s room to talk about spiritual things; of a football player beginning a relationship with Christ last week; of a student with a heavy burden coming to his RA for prayer; of freshmen students thronging to the first meeting.



Everyone of us has people who watch us, people who we can influence. We can spread the aroma of the knowledge of him wherever we are: in our small jobs, in our families, in our neighborhoods.



The sweet smell of Jesus draws students to these servant leaders. They are making a difference in their corner of the world, helping to reverse some of the decay on campus. They are the aroma that brings life. We can be that aroma, too.