Clarity

I've had an obsession since...always. Even before I really understood what made a design good..back when I actually found it confusing...it was still just this push to make things right, whatever that meant.
My friends found this irritating, especially if I criticized a professional artist, as I frequently did.
"You couldn't draw it better, Melody."
"Yes I could. I will."
And I'd be obsessed with figuring out how to make it better, for however long that took.


Then I got older and I noticed that the more expensive a product was the better designed the advertisements and the packages were. It really didn't take me long to notice that the things associated with church had a dime store quality about them. Sunday school pamphlets had cheap illustrations, bulletins are lucky to have correct spelling and punctuation - forget about being well typeset, posters with bible verses or little morals almost always featured children dressed about 10 years out of style. It really distressed me.

And then a friend invited me to Acquire the Fire (ATF) and I was blown away by it's inherent coolness. They designed cool t-shirts and hats without ripping off major ad campaigns. The people in photographs were dressed as if they'd walked out of a Delia's catalog. Maybe they had. So I was comforted that being a Christian didn't have to mean being an aesthetically challenged loser.

Fast forward ten years. My boss burst out laughing today because he saw I'd labeled a gradient fading from army green to eggplant purple as "nightmare". A church was doing a poll and was very specific on what the colors and font should be. The end result was that I could do nothing to save it. And this, combined with their poor wording, means that few people will notice their poll (which is designed to gauge the needs of the community), much less take the time to answer it.
The people who do will not be the unchurched community they desire to reach If they're like most churches they're looking at that disenfranchised 18-34 year old crowd. The people who answer will be seniors who appreciate the effort, but already have a home church.
I wanted to call the number and beg them to let me redesign it.

Now, I'm not 14 any more and I have mixed feelings on advertisements and the church. A snazzy design does not mean that a church has good theology. It doesn't make them love God more.

On the other hand, good design is not about being snazzy. It's about saying what you need to say clearly. That's why typesetting is important. If you make it hard or painful to read no one will read it. Your message doesn't get out. Design is, essentially, getting your message out as best you can. If your design is bad, the message is lost.

The church isn't about being cool. It isn't about the latest styles or colors. I know. But it does have a message. Shouldn't it be clear?

Forgive or Else?

A grew up under the assumption that forgiveness is a choice. It is the advised course of action for many good reasons, but you can't hold someone at knifepoint and force them to forgive someone else.

Certainly if you've done something to someone else you can't force them to forgive you. All you can do is be sorry and try to make it right, when possible, yes?

So I have to say that it baffles me the number of people who insist that I have to forgive them. It's happened before and it happened again last night. I was on aim and got a message from an old roommate who told me I had to forgive her for what happened (she stole some of my stuff and some other people's stuff and said I manipulated her into doing it) because she'd learned to forgive herself.

I haven't really thought about her or the events in quite some time. I suppose that really I forgave her a long time ago. But her demand that I bury the hachet made me want to tell her exactly where she could get off. I didn't, I told her there were no hard feelings - because there aren't. But whatever happened to asking for forgiveness?

No, "Will you forgive me?" or "Can you forgive me?" or "Please forgive me," just, "You have to forgive me."
Do I? I should. It's healthy. Do I owe it to the person who's hurt me? Can they demand it?

Another friend in college had been a huge jerk for months. I'd finally talked to him about it - he was horribly sorry, yada, yada - but when I wasn't a-okay in the next couple days he got angry with me. I wasn't angry, but I was still quite hurt. He told me that wasn't acceptable, he couldn't keep feeling bad about what he'd done - he had a paper to write and I had to forgive him & forget about it.

I've encountered other variations on the demand, "You can't ignore me," "You have to spend time with me," "You have to understand," "You can't not trust me,"...I'm sure you can come up with others.

Who told these people they were entitled to any of these things? I guess I find it particularly offensive because I would be traumatized to even ask for any of these thing. I hope people won't ignore me, I hope they'll spent time with me and try to understand my quirks/issues, I hope they'll find me trustworthy...but how could I even ask it of them? Isn't that their choice? Isn't that something people will decide on their own based on how they percieve me? Shouldn't I leave that up to them?

What, if anything, do people have the right to expect from other people?

Remembering to Breathe

I like reading other people's blogs - I have rather long list of blogs that I check with frequency that depends on how often those people tend to update their blog/how often their blog is interesting.

I read the blog of one Mr. Longbrake, partially for the lovely photos and partially because I think a lot of what he says is bunk - but fascinating bunk.

This is his latest post, uncharacteristically short:

"Of the few things I feel I have begun to learn in the last year, one of the most profound to me has been this: It is ok to suffer. It ok to be in the midst of pain and hurt and to simply sit under it. I (and you) do not have to push the everything is fine appearance all the time. I have discovered that covering up pain and burying it can be altogether much more detrimental to my soul in the long run. And because of this, I must not only accept pain, but in some way embrace it."

Not an original thought. I remember when I was in highschool Nicole Nordeman came out with her first cd and her songs "Burning" and "Why?" made my friends and I stop and say, "What?" because they weren't the typical Christian answers to pain - at a time when the typical answers had really stopped being effective for us.

On the other hand it frustrates me when people talk about just going ahead and letting ourselves hurt, as if we had some choice in the matter.

It reminds me of being 12 years old with a broken leg and facing surgery and everyone kept telling me how brave I was, as if I'd chosen a broken leg. As if I'd chosen to have a tumor.

And its kind of funny, really, because I was very good at getting out of things I didn't like. I manipulated and lied my way out of uncomfortable situations and I remember waking up the day after I broke my leg, in so much pain that I had spent all night dreaming about pain, and all I could think was, "I can't get out of this one. I can't make God fix my leg."

So the idea that I was somehow brave in taking on this broken leg, it made me laugh even as a 12 year old and the grown-ups never seemed to understand why.

Years later I spent my college fall break in the hospital waiting room while my little sister had a brain biopsy to determine exactly how maglignant her inoperable brain tumor really was.

Before my sister had gone into surgery my parents had, had the pastor in to pray for her. After the prayer Holly demanded that our younger sister Bethany do a magic trick she had been practicing for sometime.

"Everyone always says, 'I need that like I need a hole in the head,' well..." Bethy started, before appearing to pop a quarter in the top of her head and cough it out up again second later, "My doctor hates it when I do that," she finished.

Holly, Bethany, Daniel and I laughed like anything and our parents and pastor smiled uncomfortably before asking us why we were laughing so hard at the fairly lame joke. Holly rolled her eyes and laughed again, "I need a hole in my head."

The adults remained mildly confused as my sister demanded funny stories from each of us. The nurses loved my sister, she was in excruciating pain, facing cancer and maybe death, but always cracking jokes. It wasn't being brave. It wasn't embracing pain. It wasn't burying it either. My sister loves to laugh. She couldn't do anything about what was in the center of her brain. If she could have opted out I have no doubt that this is what she would have done.

Do we really have to embrace pain?
Is there some need to experience it as fully as we possibly can?

I think we embrace our pain a little too much. We cling to it and we take it out an examine all the little nuances and cry over them.

That's kind of natural. When I broke my leg I instinctively would hold my breath and grit my teeth whenever the doctor's moved it to wrap it or x-ray it. More pain was on its way and I was bracing myself (they dropped my broken leg three times while I was in the hospital - I'm lucky I still have a leg). But the doctors kept telling me, "You need to breathe, it hurts less when you breathe."

Its true kids. The doctors will spout some kind of smart sounding business about oxogyn flow, but I think its because when you're in that kind of pain you have to concentrate just to keep breathing and when you're focused on breathing you can't focus on the pain.

I think that's true in life. It is going to hurt - you can't change that. You can't make God take it back.
Don't forget to breathe.

At work this week my co-workers were talking about this guy who killed himself. Apparently he's part of a christian comedy duo...I'd never heard of them before, but they're popular with some people. You know, the Gaither listening type.

Anyway, the question is always "why?" Sometimes it's obvious. The person loses their job or their spouse or child dies and they don't think life is still worth living. But I thought my co-worker's reaction was kinda odd because they kept on talking about how the duo's schedule was already booked. Yes...and? Somehow I can't imagine that he was going to come up on a convenient time to kill himself.

Then they were wondering about why he wasn't on medication. I've known alot of depressed people...I've never known anyone that medication actually helped. I know there are those people out there...I just don't think it's that simple. Besides, in most cases people kill themselves over real events, not a chemical imbalance in the brain. My friends little brother killed himself after their father was convicted on child molestation charges, I don't think medication was going to help him.

I don't know anything about the guy who killed himself, but I find myself empathizing with his family and friends. They most wonder why it had to be this way. If they could have done something different. How far back they would have to rewind to start a path that didn't lead here.

So Long My Friend

It's time to say goodbye to my bank account. I had a little collision with an SUV today (not my fault, but the police refused to say whose it was) and I have a feeling that my insurance is not for collision coverage. The other people say its' my fault and have witnesses who concurred with their assessment.

Originally I was pretty calm about this, but that is rapidly disintegrating into shakiness and inability to keep my lunch.

Do you ever notice that when you talk about relying on God's strength that you don't really do it? Somehow I just try harder and feel like that counts. In reality...I'm not even sure I know what relying on God looks like. Usually I just disolve into panic, God fixes everything anyway and I say thank-you or I try real hard to make things work out...finally give up...and God fixes everything anyway and I say thank-you. Either way it seems like this scenario should look different.

So, I have to file with my insurance company and apply for a credit card (so I can pay for the numerous repairs to my car - and possibly a rental) and...it's really frustrating...and not what I had planned for today.

Probably my boss is going to loan me his truck so I can get to work tommorow...reason number 5083 why I have the best boss ever.

Well children...have a better day than me.

Love has frostbite.

I spent Saturday morning and early afternoon helping a bunch of Jr. High and High Schoolers sell Nelson's Chicken. The youth group is raising money to travel to Mississippi this summer and help repair Katrina damage. I wasn't going sell chicken, but a meeting got canceled so I was available.

If I had realized how utterly frozen we were going to be I probably would have told Andy that I could help till a certain time...and then jetted off to a coffee house where I could be warm (which is what I did do after we'd shut down) and plan for youth group (which isn't happening tonight anyhow). But it has been warm lately and I thought it would be fun to help the childies raise their funding.

When I got there they were already on street corners waving signs and screaming desperately at passing cars. One girl had bravely donned a chicken suit.

We were fortunate to have a convention going on in the next building over...because there was a lot more traffic than there would have been. But for most of the day we weren't even covering our costs.

I was put to work at another intersection. Holding a sign that said "$5 Chicken - Send us to Katrina" I wasn't quite sure what to do, but I began making eye contact with all drivers without tinted windows and smiling at them while I held out the sign. I probably smiled more in those two hours than I did all last year. People smiled or waved back. Some of them laughed. I'm pretty sure it was out of pity. After I'd had a lunch break one man stopped and rolled down his window...worried that we'd been out there for quite some time in the freezing cold.

Towards the end of the afternoon we finally made some money on our investment...Celeste announced that were five dollars ahead. Totally worth all that time.

We did have some really good moments. Several people tipped us for Sara's dancing around in the chicken suit and one man bought$100 worth of chicken...and then came back for more. Twice. We got kicked out of the convention building, but they couldn't keep out the smell and vendors came to buy lunch from us.

At one point, I was watching the kids on the other corner. They were jumping and screaming. They cheered when people turned in to buy chicken and they kept screaming when they were ignored. They got down on their knees and raised the signs above their heads...still screaming of course - but in pleading tones.
My lesson tonight was going to be on love...how we love God...how we love each other. At the end (as prescribed by the handy book I bought -I'm not this good) we were going to write down one way we could love people this week, with the idea that they would commit to doing that one thing. And I thought: Jumping around in the bitter cold to raise money for people you've never met has to be love. And then I wondered if it really was. I know I wasn't there because I love the people in Mississippi. I was there because I love the kids in my church and because it's a good cause. So why were the kids there? Was it because they have a burning passion for the people Katrina hurt...or was it because it's a good cause or because their friends were there?

Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying we should only do things if our motives are pure. For one, it's impossible. For two, what is right and what is wrong are not defined by our motivations. But, this whole thing of figuring out what love looks like is complicated to me. Perhaps it bothers me because I, like most people of western culture, define love as a feeling rather than an action. Maybe it is helping people no matter what the day is like or no matter how you feel about them...maybe it's doing the right thing because it's right.