GIRLS ARE NOT FUNNY

Easter Eggs and Captain Morgan

Orlando, FL

Five years ago I spent the night before Easter with some SDSU friends taking shots out of plastic eggs, peeing on someone’s lawn, throwing up into a little trashcan that I am sure many other college students have thrown up in time’s past and blacking out. I then spent Easter morning at my mom’s house hung over and throwing up some more in which I overheard her asking my brother, “Is she pregnant!?”

So when I say – I am convinced if there is any good in me, it is because Christ claimed me, reconciled me, justified me and sanctified me all at Calvary – I mean it.

Happy Easter everyone!

Teachers 3 v. Jessica 2

San Diego, CA

I am certain that humans are naturally depraved. Nothing has convinced me more of this than my relationship with teachers.

This Teachers v. Jessica is brought to you by my 23 year old self. This is not about me in middle school nor high school. This happened no less than two months ago. Here goes.

Last semester I had a raging, Italian, female, borderline verbally abusive Political Science professor. Personally, I thought she was brilliant and not to mention hysterical. But any interaction she had with students typically left them using foul language under their breath. And forget about disagreeing with her – she would cut you off and tell you off. One time a girl in my class, while exiting together, looked me in the eye and said, “I hate that f***king b****.”

She made sport of kicking people out of class and incorrectly pronouncing people’s name wrong. Still to this day, I can’t tell if she was just too self-absorbed to learn people’s name or if she just did it on purpose.

The more they hated her the more I loved her. I sat back thinking, thank you God I am a Christian, if I weren’t, I’d be all bent out of shape like these people.

We started with a completely full class of 50 and somehow a little over 20 brave souls held out for the entire semester.

So one day I was rather stacked on classes and decided, out of scholastic strategy, after referring to and making sure it was okay according to her syllabus, that I was going to skip a test and make it up later. That was a mistake. When I showed up to take my test the following class period, she not only told me that I couldn’t take her test but that I needed to leave her classroom immediately. She didn’t even quite her voice a little. Just right in front of everyone, she kicked me out. I was finally one of those students I thought I was too Christian to ever become. I made eyes on my way out with the guy she continually called Staten, instead of his real name Stateton, those eyse were communicating – well, we’ll never see you again.

Surely, I have been kicked out of classes in my day. But in college? College? Who gets kicked out of a class in college?

Me.

I was now one of her victims, and her victims, they never came back. But we were three weeks out from finishing and not coming back was no option at all. So I thought and I thought. I conjured up excuses and partials lies to get myself back in that class. Strategies, plans of sabotage, tales full of tears and heartbreak – you name it. But after the dreaming was done, I did the only thing no one else had done yet – I was simply, nice.

I composed the most brown-nosed email of my entire life.

No partial lies, no crying, no excuses, none.

After that email and an awkward conversation that entailed her telling me I had an “over-confidence issue,” because of my overtly nice yet honest email, I not only got back in but snagged an A for the semester.

Teachers grab the total depravity point for this one.

Read another Teacher v. Jessica

Rook Beport: Why We Love the Church

Orlando, FL

I used to have an ish with this mega church in Southern California. From the shallow preaching to the equivalent of a jumbotron at a baseball game that would capture unsuspecting church goers right in the middle of the teaching – I hated it. From people ditching service early during the alter call so that they could miss all the traffic to ministries spheres as outlandish as “Quilting” and “Dog Lovers” – I hated it. From the camera guy crawling on stage getting close ups of the worship band to millions and millions of dollars being put into the building – I hated it. I criticized that church like it was my job.

It took a few years, but the Holy Spirit changed me. The first step was MS’s father became its Executive Pastor, the next step was that it became Impact’s new base church, and well the last step was good ol’ truth. So attitudes like hating the people that leave church early and literally get in the way of people trying to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior, turned into, okay I’ll just pray for those selfish people, which finally turned into, okay I’m just going to stop judging them altogether because sometimes you’ve just got to leave church early. And other attitudes involving hating the camera angles I am getting of the band because that guy is seriously on his back, turned into, I’m just glad that guy has a job and that all these peoples tithes are contributing to that. I say these peoples because Lord knows I wasn’t tithing to that money grubbing place – I was too busy self-righteously “tithing” to the tuitions of 194 students.

So when I could no longer rely on 194 as a church anymore, I had to woman-up, face reality and ask myself – do I go to Mega Church? My community, my friends, my ministry – it was all there. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to real bad. I no longer hated it – in fact, the good outweighed the bad, tremendously. I just still didn’t want to go. And that’s when I started reading Why We Love the Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck.  

What DeYoung and Kluck, a couple of Reformed dudes from the Midwest, do well is remind us that church is not only biblical but goes hand in hand with relationship with God. Basically, if you don’t love the church, you don’t love God, wholly and rightly. This is truth, this I love. And the way you love church is being it, in the most traditional and boring of senses. These two gentlemen also do a great job at debunking the leading ideologies and men who seem to be the perpetuating force behind the degeneration of the church as well as the people flocking behind them. “Church-leavers” and “church-bashers” are constantly referenced, dissected, psyhco-analyzed and exhorted throughout the entirety of this book.

Ironically though, DeYoung and Kluck don’t get away with, but do make room for making fun of and complaining about the things they don’t like about church, particularly and generally, all the while convincing you that unless the Gospel is being compromised, stop complaining yourself, and get better at church.

So I guess this is my final advice: Find a good local church, get involved, become a member, stay there for the long haul. Put away thoughts of revolution for a while and join the plodding visionaries. Go to church this Sunday and worship there in spirit and truth, be patient with your leaders, rejoice when the gospel is faithfully proclaimed, bear with those who hurt you, and give people the benefit of the doubt. While you are there, sing like you mean it, say hi to the teenager no one notices, welcome the blue hairs and the nose-ringed, volunteer for the nursery once in a while. And yes, bring your fried chicken to the potluck like everyone else, invite a friend to church, take a new couple out for coffee, give to the Christmas offering, be thankful someone vacuumed the carpet, enjoy the Sundays that click for you, pray extra hard on the Sundays that don’t, and do not despise “the day of small things.” (Zechariah 4:10)

Though the urgency to get churched didn’t come but any earlier than a few months before I left for Florida, I still, enthusiastically, with much conviction, went to Mega Church, every Sunday. I even tithed. I finally realized the problem was not church – just simply a problem with commitment – a commitment to love the body, precisely how the Bible tells me to. And now I belong to a church that needs my love, support and consistency just as much. I’m probably more out of place than ever before. I don’t know if I have entered a worship gathering or a fashion show. Literally, everyone is twenty-something, hip, uber creative and constantly hyping up what they’re passionate about. I struggle with this because at face value, I see this as self-serving. But no! That’s not true – the Spirit is working, the Gospel is going forth and I can either choose to be committed to this body, or be deliberately disobedient. I choose obedience, gladly.

I Kissed Nannying Goodbye

San Diego, CA

Tomorrow I am driving across the country with Mj, Madi, and Danielle. I will be living in Orlando for the next five months, then onto Chicago for the summer and lastly, a college town somewhere in the Northeast for the Fall (all is subject to change).

I am hoping this will make for exciting blogging. However, I am not hoping for this blog to turn into some sad attempt to be the more poorly written Christian version of Eat. Pray. Love. At that I would fail miserably. My locations are less exotic and I will get laid about a 100% less than she does.

I will miss my friends. I will miss my stellar community. I will miss my family. I will also miss my boss lady Jen and her family – so here is a glimpse of a day at work with them.  

Every Thursday I take E to swim class. And one time, seriously one time I forgot a change of underwear in which she refers to as, “nice warm panties,” and she had to go commando. So now every time I walk into the house on Thursdays she has a pair of nice warm panties in her hand in fear that I will forget again.

“E honey, are you ever going to forgive me for forgetting your panties? I’ll never do it again!”

Later that day after swim class I am looking in my bag and realize I have forgotten something – the towel. Even worse. I take E into the bathroom to break the news to her. “Look E, your nice warm panties!” I say as I am slyly grabbing for a roll of paper towels on the sink. She smiles at the sight of them.

“I’m told (cold). I’m told.” She replies.

I begin patting her down with paper towels as if I don’t have to explain myself to her. It was a nice try.

“What are dose (those)? What are you doing?” she begins crying.

“It’s okay, E. They’re just like the paper towels at home. I’m so sorry I forgot your towel. Stand under this. This will make you warm.” I turn on the hand dryer and place her under. Her OCD is now fully inflamed and she is completely mortified.

“You always do dis (this), nanny. You forget eberyding (everything)!”

I calm her down, and she, her younger brother and I head to the car. Sometimes, when in the car, it takes me a long time to figure out what I want to listen to. So if the kids have to wait longer than a minute they begin yelling, “Doe (go)! Doe! Doe!”

Usually I ignore it, but this day was different. “Tell me to doe one more time and I’ll leave you both here, at this pool, and you’ll have to turn into mer-people just to survive.”

“Mer-people?” She askes.

“A mermaid.” I reply.

“I don’t want to be a mermaid; I want to be a dolphin!”

“Touché.”

We arrive at the park after I finally get the car “doe-ing,” and go to get the kids out.

“E, why can’t you just keep your shoes on while you’re in the car? Look, your two year old brother still has his shoes on.”

“Somedimes nanny, you just need to give your shoes a rest.”

“Touché.”

Somewhere on the southern coast of California is a park, right on the beach, where snow cones are abundant, and not a single bad looking person exists. It’s ridiculous. This is where I like to take the kids. And this is also where E has been brutally attacked by a seagull while eating snacks on two different occasions. So we all kind of go into defense mode when I bring the snacks out. Sure enough a seagull swoops down at her, heading straight for her banana – which she aborts before he makes contact. Impressed by her reflexes but bummed about the barely eaten, fallen banana in which she refers and says, “You can have the rest, nanny.”

“Oh thank you!” I reply to her utter, life-changing generosity. Yet I still shamelessly break off the sandy part and scarf the rest just as she must have predicted I would.

Later that day, I begin to break the news to her about leaving and no longer being her nanny. “So E, you know when Nina (her all-time favorite nanny) used to be your nanny? And then she moved and I became your new nanny? Well, I am leaving, just like Nina did.”

Silence.

“E? Do you get it? I’m leaving.”

Her face contemplates this for a second. “Ohhhh! Does that mean Nina is coming back den?!!!!!!!”

“Thanks E.” I reply.

Later I ask Jen to explain it to her.

“Honey, your nanny is leaving and you’re never going to see her again.” Boss Lady dramatizes.

Silence.

“Mama?”

“Yes honey?” Jen gears up with an explanatory tone to her voice.

“Can I play with my iPad right now?”

“Oh my gosh!” I yell. Jen is cracking up.

Cheers to new adventures.

Another Rook Beport: Severe Mercy

San Diego, CA

Before he loved Jesus, Garrett referred to the rather needy women in his life as “stage five clingers.” The reference is from the movie Wedding Crashers. Apparently there are five stages of clinging to a man and ranking in at as a fiver is the worst you can be. Though derogatory, I always thought it was pretty funny, so it was no wonder when I added my own spin via the book Severe Mercy.

Severe Mercy is, basically, a memoir written by a man about his love for his wife. It’s pretty deep, like real deep. I know my last sentence really painted the depths of which I claim – but just bear with me.

This book got flung my way twice. Both of those times, my love life was not quite going in the direction in which I truly hoped – so I became a tad embittered and did what I always do – made a joke of it. Though I couldn’t get myself to finish the book – let’s just say, I still got far enough. Inside the book there is a concept called the “Shining Barrier.” The barrier was put in place to protect the love these two people shared by choosing to like everything the other liked and for not allowing anything to come in that would divide them – to put it simply – they handled it much more passionately and romantically than I am giving credit for.

Nonetheless, I’ve watched numerous couples try to recreate this “Shining Barrier” concept. I’ve heard everything from a guy scolding another guy for having both a girlfriend and female friends indicating a breach of the barrier, to a girl actually saying in response to me inviting her to party only if her boyfriend wanted to come, “Of course he will want to come, because I want to come! We’re really into that Severe Mercy, Shining Barrier thing. Have you heard of it?”

I had had it! So I added to Garrett’s derogatory comment and made it, “Stage five Severe Mercy clinger.” I’d drop that whenever I got the chance – putting down hopeless romantics, the victims of unrequited love, as well as the overtly in love. “Oh! Your boyfriend called you like three times today? Ew. What a stage five Severe Mercy clinger!”

I probably rode that one out for a year, unfortunately, and it was so unbecoming. But like most things, that one just came right back around to get me.

All it took was a rainy Sunday afternoon and me flipping to the middle of the book as opposed to the beginning where all the intense romance is occurring – to get me hooked. There in the middle you will read about their time spent at Oxford, their interactions with C.S Lewis, and their fascinating conversion to Christianity.

I couldn’t stop reading. And you better believe my friends were watching me, pointing, and laughing at me in a way that indicated what they were seeing was not only ironic, but hypocritical and that I deserved it. A week later, I’m sitting at home, finishing the book up and Madi comes home and finds me crying and drinking red wine. Again, just more laughing and more teasing.

At the book’s end, I slammed it shut and internally yelled, “Okay! I get it! I’m sorry all right!”

Honestly though, I still didn’t read the beginning. And I’m not sure you can ethically write about a book you didn’t fully read, but hey, I graduated from high school, didn’t I?

What’s so wonderful about my reckoning of Severe Mercy, is that when the author, Sheldon Vanauken reaches out to C.S. Lewis for some answers to Christianity, Lewis answers them and then at the end of a letter says:

But I think you are already in the meshes of the net! The Holy Spirit is after you. I doubt you’ll get away!

I used to say that very same thing to Garrett before he decided to love Jesus. Much less cleverly though, of course.

Overall the book is poetically written, the love story is enticing and the author has a way of making you evaluate the passion as well as the effort you put into your own life and relationships. So the verdict is, read it.

Check this excerpt:

It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it – how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren’t adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home.

So it appeared to me. It appeared to me that Davy and I had longed for timelessness – eternity – all our days; and the longing coupled with my post-mortem vision of the total Davy whetted my appetite for heaven. Golden streets and compulsory harp lessons may lack appeal – but timelessness? And total persons? Heaven is, indeed, home.

The Coldest House in all of Southern California

San Diego, CA

Early this afternoon I was enjoying an extended morning and by which I mean lots of reading and lots of coffee. Cheers to cancelled classes! I was looking extra dapper, trying to stay warm. Clad in flannel pajama pants that were strategically tucked into my socks at mid-calf, a men’s size large brown flannel shirt that I bought at Kohls (don’t judge me) to have as some sort of “boyfriend shirt,” (that’s pathetic), and a blue Hanes sweatshirt that could probably fit two of me and was purchased by my mom at Target circa 1994. This pitiful showing was induced by a broken heater. So it’s no wonder why a strapping man came ringing our door bell to come check it out.

“Did you hear that?” Brittany asked.

“I think it was the doorbell.”

Brittany opens the door and says nothing. I couldn’t see her but I could certainly envision the poor guy wondering what to do while this rather petite, wide-eyed young woman stared at him waiting for him to explain his existence at our door.

“Hi. I’m here to look at your heater.”

“Oh good!!!!!!” Brittany yelled. Realize that we have been painfully surviving in a heater-less house for a couple months now, is what fueled her enthusiasm. “I mean, oh good.” She restated, slightly embarrassed.

He went to work. Thankfully his back was to me so staring at him wasn’t so weird, which I did pretty much the whole time.

“You know, you’re making the lives of five young women right now. We live in the coldest house ever.” I said.

“Yeah, it’s like we live in some old, abandoned castle in Scotland or something.” Brittany illustrated.  

“Have you ever been to an old, abandoned castle in Scotland?” Gabe asked.

Pause. I knew a cheeky response was on its way.

“Yeah, I’ve been to this house.” Brittany stoically stated.  

“Heh.” Gabe took it.

He continued working, and even began cleaning the heater. Brittany and I kept watching while he started pulling things out. First it was a set of headphones. Weird. And then he pulled out a sharpie. Brittany and I glanced at each other and began silently laughing, hands over our mouths trying to keep in any giggles that might have escaped.

“There’s all kind of treasures in here.” He said dryly.

Brittany and I just kept laughing and staring.

“Can you tell me where the thermostat is?” He asked.

“What’s a thermostat?” Brittany counter-asked.

“Oh gosh, I’ll show you.” I responded, even though I hoped the moment of me coming out from under the blanket hiding my hideous outfit would never come. “Well, I dressed up for you today.” I said as I started guiding him into the hall.

“Well that’s how we have to dress to shield ourselves from the cold bitter winds blowing through our corridors.” Brittany defended ever so poetically.

“You girls should write a book – The Coldest House in all of San Diego.” Clearly poking at our unwarranted complaining.

“There it is,” pointing to the thermostat.

“Uh, actually that’s your carbon monoxide alarm.”

“Dang it!”

“I think it’s in the garage.” Brittany offered.

“Uh, it’s definitely not in your garage.” He informed.

The lack of intelligence being tossed around was disconcerting, but kind of cute, in a girl needs a man kind of way.

Gabe worked a little longer, I stared even longer. He wrapped up. We exchanged names and I thanked him abundantly as well as named him Mr. One-Liner because of my appreciation of his comments that were peppered throughout all my staring. “No problem, I normally do this for 90 year-old people, so bantering with you girls was nice.”

It took Brittany no less than a couple seconds after he left to say, “Well thank God I washed my face and polished my pimples before stud muffin gas and electric dude came walking through our door. “

Read more on Brittany.

That One Time I Saw my Teacher Naked - Teachers 2 v. Jessica 1

San Diego, CA

I am certain that humans are naturally depraved. Nothing has convinced me more of this than my relationship with teachers.

There is some sort of irreverent, fearlessness that develops within a 16 year old girl. You are willing to do and say a lot of things all in the name of fun and expression. Expression especially, I think that’s when I began writing poetry regularly – who writes poetry? Fortunately though, by the time I was 16 I feared God. While some 16 year old girls were tapping into this irreverent fearlessness through sex, substances and whatever reckless, self-destructing activities you can think of – I simply couldn’t, or wouldn’t. So my friends and I filled our time and need for fun and expression in other ways, let me assure you.

Let me introduce you to Naki Time – one of the ways my friends and I coped with being 16 and loving Jesus all at the same time. If you haven’t guessed, naki is short for naked. Naki Time was actually a tradition I adopted from my brother and his friends believe it or not. How totally dysfunctional, I know. The title really gives away the actual activity – just spend time with your friends, naked. We mostly kept it private, other than swimming out past the break at Marine Street and ripping our swim suits off. It is safe to say that we loved, reveled and exploited Naki Time to its fullest extent. Though one time, it went too far.

For some reason Christian kids usually go to camp all the time. You’ve got Summer Camp, Winter Camp and some sort of Spring Break project. And seeing that I went to a Christian High School, I even got a week of school to go to camp with them – it was called Wilderness.  So you better believe we brought Naki Time to Wilderness. My junior year, when I was in fact 16, Naki Time made its way toward violating a faculty member.  Her name was Miss O.

I hate to say it, but Miss O kind of deserved, or at least brought it upon herself. She was our cabin leader and quickly became familiar with our beloved pass time. A group of fun loving, expressive, irreverent and fearless girls can only hear their young, naïve English teacher tell them so many times, that if she tried to do this with her girlfriends, that they would think she was a lesbian. Miss O was so off put by our conduct that she avoided our cabin like the plague. The comments and actions made by Miss O only perpetuated a plot that involved Miss O, naked.

The whole week at Wilderness, we kept telling Miss O that we were going to get her. She rolled her eyes and blew us off. Finally, our time came. It was free time and Miss O was in the shower. Fittingly, I immediately told the few girls with me that we should barge in on her shower, open the shower curtain and, well I didn’t really know what would come next but at least we would have gotten her. We worked up the nerve and went for it.

The door was locked. Duh. What a prude.

I quickly changed tactics and knew if we couldn’t get in – we simply had to pull her out. I began banging on the door yelling, “Miss O! Come out here, we need you! Now!” through a voice of suspicion, she asked, “Why? Can’t it wait?” we replied, “No Miss O we need you now! Come out!”

Sure enough, we heard the curtain swing open and a couple steps later Miss O had slightly opened the door wearing only a loosely draped towel across her body. “What is it?” she asked. We stopped for a second, glancing at one another, realizing we hadn’t thought things out this far through. And simultaneously, Danielle and I busted through the door and began grabbing for Miss O’s towel.

I’d like to say she put up a good fight, but unfortunately she did not play her cards right. She held onto that towel for dear life. To the point that it became a game of tug-a-war, and soon enough Miss O was in the middle of the room, losing to four 16 year old girls. We finally yanked the towel free and Miss O was in the middle of our cabin, on our Wilderness trip, naked. We had gotten her.

Immediately we dropped to the floor laughing and it had only taken a few, “ahs,” and a couple awkward naked skips to get Miss O back to the bathroom. After the laughs subsided a bit, Miss O still quietly sat in the bathroom, probably crying, so we decided to leave the room due to the uncomfortable mortification we knew she was experiencing in the bathroom. And to finish out our free time, rightfully so.

By dinner, the pure implications of what we had just done began to impress upon our souls. We knew we were facing some serious consequences. Finally, in walked Miss O, dressed as though someone had just seen her, naked – large jacket, scarf to her chin and showing no skin. The girls and I hesitated for not one moment to literally get our knees and ask forgiveness. Clearly still shaken, she granted forgiveness and that was that.

I’m taking the total depravity point.

Read another Teachers v. Jessica

Britty Bralazer

I met Brittany, a roommate of mine at a Bible study the gang and I started about a couple years ago. The girls got together to pray and she stopped us and said, “Isn’t it just so great that we’re daughters of an alien King that will one day separate us from our mortal bodies and unite with us in His alien Kingdom?”

The flabbergasted faces of our group were inconceivable. The thoughts of future quoting of this exact moment were reeling.  The laughter - borderline offensive.

This quote is but a snippet to the character that lies within Brittany. She is truly lovely, and certainly, unparalleled in the way she sees life.

Brittany also happens to be a great roommate. Look at what she offered all of us today:

Yes. Someone does want this Bralazer (bra-blazer). A fourteen year-old back in 2005.

Danielle had to try it on.