Oh Happy Day

That's what today is! I just feel happy.

I officially became the Kolb Family Nanny (which is a sweet deal because I can do this and student teach next semester, it's a stable source of some income, and it's fun!)

I talked with Chris (youth pastor) today and he's gonna try to start a skate park ministry (heck yes!) and allow me to help. Which, if you didn't know (you, being whoever the heck reads this crap) I love ministering to cultures like the skate culture - the fringe people that others don't reach because they don't come to church.

And although these are really the only two super cool things... it just makes me so super excited to be involved in two things I love. And life is looking up! Thank ya Jesus!

PS:
YOU: what ever happened to the Nouwenisms?
ME: .....yeah.....

"Stephanie, take a trip to India with today's Books newsletter!"

In my e-mail a week or so ago, I received an e-mail from LivingSocial: Books. The subject line read, "Stephanie, take a trip to India with today's Books newsletter!" Hello! Duh! If anyone ever wanted my attention, that's the way to get it - India and books! I read it and thought it was pretty interesting (I own two of the books mentioned, but haven't read either... and now I'm intrigued.)

Lately, there’s been a cultural love affair with India. From Slumdog Millionaire to sari-inspired fashions on the Ports 1961 runway, India’s religion, décor, and food has become a subject of intrigue to popular culture. So there’s no doubt that fascination has extended to the literary realm. Books for years have tapped on the unique culture of one of the most populated countries in the world, one which has existed through centuries of empires, ornate architecture, trades with the Western world, Bollywood, and cutting-edge technology.

Author John Shors wrote one beloved book about India, a novel about the building of the Taj Mahal. The story, Beneath a Marble Sky, is a love story, both gruesome and endearing, that sweeps readers away into a world of war, passion, oppression, art and Hinduism. Robin said the book “made me want to travel to India and the Taj Mahal” and it “kept me turning the pages.” Sara describes it as “disturbing, painful, yet utterly beautiful” and Kaitlin was impressed with the book’s “really inventive spin on what happened during the time” a historical fiction that could define the genre with its ability to fuse plot and historical accuracy.

Set in New England rather than India, The Namesake, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, follows a Bengali boy into manhood and his struggle to accept his Indian heritage and newfound Americanism. A gripping story with elegant, descriptive writing, The Namesake gives readers a peek into the strict traditions of Indian culture and the balance first-generation Indian Americans must find to succeed in both worlds. Jason says it “really brings home the immigrant experience, both good and bad, across multiple generations” and Douglas cited that there are “beautiful comments on the nature of being a foreigner.” The prose here, however, really sets the book apart. As Joseph explains, “It’s clear that [Lahiri’s] strength lies in compact and incisive observations about characters in flux. In just a few short lines, she paints fully developed figures with rich pasts and heading toward and uncertain future.”

You can hardly talk of the Indian love affair without including Salman Rushdie and his novel, The Enchantress of Florence. Following a European traveler to the Mughal emperor’s court, the plot involves power, desire, treachery, and self-discovery, the type of story you can’t put down, especially with Rushdie’s writing. Jessica was delighted by “Rushdie’s clever, humorous style” and Cristoforo appreciated his “seamless incorporation of real world historical figures with an elaborate fiction of epic proportions.” Kailash rediscovered her love of Rushdie, calling him a “magician of words” and it made her “marvel at the heights to which human imagination can reach when at its inspired best.”

PS - the bold names of those quoted are just names of LivingSocial: Books members.

Lindemans Pêche

If you haven't tastes Lindemans Belgian Pêche Beer, you must. Serious!
I'm not a big drinker, and I really don't enjoy very many beers. This beer, however, is beautiful. It's sweet enough to convince you that you're not drinking beer at all, and it's pretty too! I can't find the alcohol content listed anywhere, but I can tell you that it's not a high alcohol level at all. It's perfect for an after dinner drink. Yum Yummy!

 

I buy it from Trader Joe's but wherever you can find it, buy it!

Now for some Nouwen

Today I discovered a Henry Nouwen book called "The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom." With an understanding that I have been experiencing an emotional lostness and loneliness recently, providing the description from the back of the book should explains why I am so intrigued:

This is Henri Nouwen's "secret journal." It was written during the most difficult period of his life, when he suddenly lost his self-esteem, his energy to live and work, his sense of being loved, even his hope in God. Although he experienced excruciating anguish and despair, he was still able to keep a journal in which he wrote a spiritual imperative to himself each day that emerged from his conversations with friends and supporters.

For more than eight years, Henri Nouwen felt that what he wrote was too raw and private to share with others. Instead, he published The Return of the Prodigal Son, in which he expressed some of the insights gained during his mental and spiritual crisis. But then friends asked him, "Why keep your anguish hidden from the many people who have been nurtured by your writing? Wouldn't it be of consolation for many to know about the fierce inner battle that lies underneath so many of your spiritual insights?"

And in response, I've decided to reflect on these "spiritual imperatives" and record my reflections. Let's call them Nouwenism.

Nouwenism #1
"Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected. People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you expect from people's response to your experience of abandonment, the more you will feel exposed to ridicule."

Wow, what a way to start this process of reflection. Did he write that directly to me? Recently I've been mourning the fact that I don't have many people to talk to about the grief I feel for my family situation. I feel lonely because I only have myself (and that God guy) to sit with in my sorrow and self-pity. But I think Nouwen offers a truth that I've never faced: "People cannot give you what you long for in your heart." Later in the note, he writes, "God will send to you the people with whom you can share your anguish, who can lead you closer to the true source of love." The important part, and most missed by me, is the hope that God will send someone who can lead you closer to the true source of love. Someone who can show me God is still there, He still cares, and He's still worth hanging onto. For that - I'll wait! Till then, maybe it is best to "close [myself] off to the world so [I] can enter [my] own heart and the heart of God through [my] pain."

Just a Thought

Chenoweth... Adoption... and Other Thoughts

It's true. For those who didn't know: my mother is my biological mother and my father, the only man whom I've ever called Dad, is not my biological father. My biological father left my mother when I was not yet born or just out-of-the-womb (I actually don't know which... but I know I can't remember a thing about him). I've always called Mike "dad," though. And yes, he did take me to court and he adopted me - changing my name to Stephanie Marie Stafford at the age of two. I've never really had any desire to seek out and contact my biological father - whom I believe is named Tim. I've been comfortable (all things considered) in the family that I was given.

Today I started reading "A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages." It's Kristin Chenoweth's autobiography. I may have known before I began, but did not remember knowing, that Kristin Chenoweth is adopted. She tells her story about being adopted in glorious words of praise for her adoptive parents and her biological mother that bravely decided to give her child a better chance at life with a complete family. She describes her feeling about being adopted in a way that somehow makes me feel connected to her:

"However, since the question always gets asked, no, I have no interest in contacting or being contacted by my biological mother. I've never felt the slightest frisson of something missing in my life, and the whole medical-record thing doesn't concern me much. I'm vigilant about my health. (In my profession, you're either vigilant about your health or you're Janis Joplin.) I do vaguely wonder if my biological mother suffers from Meniere's disease like I do.
... The light haze of curiocity isn't enough for me to risk disrupting my life or the life of the woman who gave me up for adoption. She made a difficult choice, and I have profound respect for that. In 1968, abotion was still illegal in the United States, but she apparently had the money (and the flight bennies) to go wherever she needed to go to get it done. She chose to have me instead, and thank you does not begin to cover how I feel. But that's all I'ver ever really wanted to say to her."

Really, I'm thinking aloud and you're reading it, so I go on to say: Aaron and I recently talked (very briefly) about adoption as an option for our path to parenthood. Before, we had spoken (again, very briefly) about it and he wasn't so sold on the idea. He really liked the idea of combining a little bit of me and a little bit of him to create the thing(s) we'll love most for the rest of our lives. Who doesn't think that's such a cool idea!? But all my life (ask my grandma) I thought I'd like to adopt. I told my grandma, back when I was in early high school years, that I will adopt. She said, "I'm sure your plans will change." She was adamant about my ideas changing when I got married and thought about the-little-bit-of-me-little-bit-of-him thing. And... yes... I do like the idea more now... but I can't say I've lost the love for adoption. Anyway, back to "Aaron and I recently talked (very briefly) about adoption as an option for our path to parenthood." We did. And Aaron said to me something very similar to, "we could adopt if you really want to." He doesn't know it (till now, I guess) that his comment broke me open and pulled out all sorts of dreams and images, overwhelming excitement and nervousness, like a clown pulling a colorful, unending scarf from his pocket... except mine came from my heart. I had always wanted to hear that! I always wanted to know we could look into that.

And when I think of my own feelings, and when I read Kristin's (lets go by her first name only, because, without her know, I feel that connected to and inspired by her) memories and feelings about her childhood, I think, I want to be a woman who gives a young mother (who may be too young to care for a child, or too poor, starving in a third world country) a chance to do good by her child. I want to be a mother that my child adores despite the difference in our skin tone or medical-record. I want to be a wife that is brave enough to embark on this journey, carrying the title 'a partner in passions.' I want to be a daughter that honors her father (despite the mistakes) by replicating the choice to be a parent to a fatherless child. I don't know if that's really what will happen. I don't know if we'll adopt and I don't know if we'll even be parents at all. But I do really like the idea of it being an option. I like knowing that, maybe, we could adopt.

Stuff White People Like

Have you seen this website? I'm not sure I'm supposed to like it... but I do think it's quite funny. The following is a funny (and horribly true, in my book) account of why white people DON'T like books turned into movies.


#127 Where the Wild Things Are

July 13, 2009 by clander

It is a guarantee that whenever it is announced that a popular book is being turned into a movie, white people will get upset. This is partly due to their fear that something they love will be made accessible to more people and thus enjoyed by more people which immediately decreases the amount of joy a white person can feel towards the original property. Yes, it’s complicated.

The other problem is that these announcements create a ticking time bomb where by a white person must read the book in ADVANCE of the release of the movie. This is done partly so that they can engage in the popular activity of complaining about how the movie failed to capture the essence of the book. But more importantly, once a book has been made into a movie, a white person can no longer read that book. To have read the book after the movie is one of the great crimes in white culture, and under no circumstances should you ever admit to doing this. Literally dozens of white friendships have imploded when it was revealed that someone read Fight Club after 1999.