tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84491362024-03-23T12:50:51.862-05:00passagec.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.comBlogger198125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-49364379515362951902008-01-04T15:11:00.001-06:002008-01-04T15:11:48.039-06:00moving my blog<p>After three-plus years of Blogger, I decided it was time for something new. Besides, this little redesign I did a few months back didn't turn out too prettily.</p> <p>In a few days, this page will automatically redirect you to my new blog site -- <a href="http://www.clbeyer.wordpress.com">clbeyer.wordpress.com</a> -- but I wanted to give a heads-up to any of you who subscribe to my feed rather than visiting my blog page.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-53503905787767540922008-01-03T20:55:00.001-06:002008-01-03T20:55:24.433-06:00tradition<p></p> <p>In the church I grew up in, there was this beautiful time of fellowship after the Communion service, when all the members – all 150 or so of them – would lace their way through the pews of the church and greet every other person there. The line would start at the front, with the ministers, and every bench would play “follow the leader” until every person had been greeted by everyone else. It was so beautiful because no one could avoid anyone else. They were – at least for that evening – one body in social unity.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-13391361887739668862007-12-06T10:00:00.001-06:002007-12-06T12:10:10.986-06:00my sweet drugs<p>(Disclaimer: I'm feeling a little rusty in the writing arena, so please pardon my cliches and badly flowing prose. It feels like I have something to write about.)</p> <p>As of Tuesday night, the cable internet at our new house was turned back on, and I indulged in Internet Explorer after being sober for so long. Of course, I got my fixes of connectedness in the past week and a half... like when we stole our new neighbors' wireless signals, and when our dear Peruvian friends lent me their web-connected computer along with the rest of their house.</p> <p>I was a basket case two weeks ago. We had three days to be out of our house, and we had nowhere to move. The new rental kept being "not quite ready," and despite my optimism in the workers who were supposed to be getting it done, it just wasn't happening. My other sweet drugs of comfort and having a home to ourselves were going to run out at the end of the weekend.</p> <p>We stayed the week with our Peruvian friends. I had been wanting to get to know them more, but if I could have had my way, God should have made that happen in a convenient time, when we weren't living out of suitcases.</p> <p>I think I realized that God had better ideas than I when I was sitting down with Mili at her kitchen table in the middle of Friday afternoon. Our conversation drifted beyond "how was your week?" and "how many siblings do you have?" She taught me about money and family relationships. She taught me about being a gracious host to two homeless kids and their baby. She taught me about praise.</p> <p>And now we're in our own place again (as God would have it, a much nicer place than what we would have had if the first rental had gotten done on schedule). We have our privacy and our internet, and I'm telling myself to control my addiction to comfort for so many more reasons than I've ever had.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-3612249435767455492007-11-01T21:37:00.001-05:002007-11-01T21:37:14.573-05:00trudge, trudge, trudge<p>I hate squeezing through books. Or whatever you want to call it: plowing through rock-hard-soil books, suffering through agony-books, straining under the weight of books. And it's worst when you <em>know</em> the book is supposed to be good. At least that's what people wrote all over the cover.</p> <p>I am scraping my way through <em>The Ragamuffin Gospel</em>. What a pathetic book to call drudgery, but <em>it is</em>! It's so thin, not even an inch thick, and I'm sure it's just smack-full of truth that I could relate to, but I just can't seem to absorb it.</p> <p>And the worst part is that I won't let myself stop. C.S. Lewis keeps saying in <em>Mere Christianity</em> that if a chapter doesn't work for you, just skip it. For some reason, that just freaks me out. You can't skip! What abomination!</p> <p>So, instead, I read at an excruciating pace, hoping, hoping, I won't be 30 when I finally finish.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-75190078937445166062007-11-01T21:19:00.001-05:002007-11-01T21:22:20.933-05:00november challenge: loving Kyle<p>Well, look at me, posting my challenge on the first day of the month! Uh. We won't talk about how I skipped last month. I've been berating myself all of October for that one.</p> <p>First, a report on the living healthily challenge from September: I did pretty well. I slipped up on the exercise thing a couple times because I forgot. I started to adopt the trading-in-something-bad-for-something-better thing as a regular habit during that month, so I don't know if I did it every day, but I think that's okay. I got sick for a few days, so I laid off on the vegetable and fruit thing because all I really wanted was chicken noodle soup. I learned that feeling gross and headachey after a bad meal has more to do with my overdosing on sugar (pop, in particular) than overdosing on greasy pepperoni pizza. I think that's an important discovery that I should have figured out before now, beings I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant. I am feeling dense and boring tonight, and I think it has more to do with running around after a one-year-old all day than my having just eaten a buttery scone. So, for now, I have no monumental nuggets of wisdom gleaned from my month of living more healthily.</p> <p>As for November's challenge, it's all about romance. Whoopee! </p> <p>I missed Sweetest Day. I've never celebrated it before, but I heard on the radio that it was coming up, and I <em>wanted</em> to do something fun as a surprise for Kyle, but things were busy, and I got tired, and, and, and... I missed it.</p> <p>In general, things are crazy once you have a kid. Even if he goes to bed at eight, you still feel like a sopping dish rag by the time you're finally alone as a couple. At least I do. Really, I feel more like a <em>dry</em> dish rag right now -- the kind that's all crusty and molded into its previously soppy shape. Sexy. Very sexy.</p> <p>I have no more details for you tonight on my incomparable sexiness, but I'll fill you in on the challenge. (Yikes. It's November. That means I start today. And it's already after 9...)</p> <p>I resolve to do something romantic for my husband every day. I can't give details because he reads my blog. But I want to surprise Kyle, look and feel beautiful for Kyle, and be nice to Kyle more often.</p> <p>Okay, I admit, even at 9.14 p.m., this challenge sounds like it could be just a little bit... fun. ;)</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-61911648959807024482007-09-25T08:48:00.001-05:002007-09-25T08:57:05.377-05:00grocery shopping with isaiah<p>I line the grocery carts with my padded cart cover. I bought it when I first suspected that Isaiah got sick from sucking on a cart at Target. Using the cart cover meant I didn't have to say "no" every other second when Isaiah was in the peak of his sucking-on-things stage. As a mom, you choose your battles.</p> <p>We walk down the freezer aisle at Kroger, and Isaiah decides to stand up in the grocery cart, just in time for the Kroger floor sweeper to see him.</p> <p>"There are straps. You should buckle him in," he tells me.</p> <p>"Yeah, I should," I say, wrestling Isaiah into a sitting position. "I've just never tried to figure out how the straps on this cart cover work."</p> <p>The Kroger man sets aside his broom, and fits the backpack-looking straps over Isaiah's shoulders. Isaiah stares at him. I watch the Kroger man figure out the easy buckles that I've never once thought about buckling. I feel dumb, so I play dumb.</p> <p>"I guess it's not too hard," I say. "Thanks."</p> <p>"You gotta buckle 'em in," he says. "Especially the climbers."</p> <p>Two aisles down, Isaiah tries to stand up again. No problem. He just takes the cart cover with him. With that big, navy cloud strapped to his back, he looks like he's about to go parachuting out of there. I laugh. Take that, Kroger man!</p> <p>But then I notice the Kroger man heading toward us again with his broom. He sets it aside again. He shows me how to tie the cart cover onto the cart. Isaiah stares at him again. I should probably remind myself how kind it is of the man to stop and help.</p> <p>"I guess if all else fails, Mom's gotta hold onto him."</p> <p>"Yeah, I guess so," I say. Duh.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-38828747552748345822007-09-24T16:43:00.001-05:002007-09-24T16:55:43.714-05:00the curse of anonymity<p>There are pieces of me I'm afraid to tell, out in the open like this. I'm afraid to tell of my jourrney in the Apostolic Christian Church, afraid to tell of my journey away from it. I'm afraid to talk about my family too much, except the parts that exude joy. I'm afraid to name names, to describe deep hurts, to delve into the details of marriage and money.</p> <p>But I am a writer. Sometimes I think I can only be a true writer when I am willing to lay it all out on the table. In a way, to describe my deepest thoughts and pains and longings is to expose my jugular for anyone who comes along. Or maybe it's more than that. Maybe it's also exposing the jugular -- or the private parts? -- of the people closest to me. My family, my husband, my former churchmates -- they didn't sign up to be written about like any old fictional character.</p> <p>I wonder if creating is the most vulnerable profession in the world. There is no taking back, no unpublishing, no privacy. Unless, of course, you don't write with full abandon.</p> <p>Sometimes I wish that the stuff I wrote for others didn't have to have a sense of anonymity about it. I wish I could write whatever was calling to be released from my soul.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-7006206893315288802007-09-24T16:07:00.001-05:002007-09-24T16:07:30.970-05:00awe<p>We took Communion in joy-- <br>for once-- <br>drinking that bitter cup <br>with jubilation. <br>"Drink and enjoy." <br>And I did, <br>looking up at my Saviour <br>with adoration.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-586165811834166432007-09-12T11:08:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:01:31.459-05:00in celebration of Madeleine L'Engle<p>Madeleine L'Engle died last week, at age 88. There are so many quotations from her I love, but this one is enough because it magnifies two of the biggest themes in all her writing -- love and faith:</p><p>"In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come."</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-41502242547415179992007-09-08T15:14:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:01:07.966-05:00september challenge: honoring my body, my physical temple<p>An hour or two ago, I ate a Schlotzsky's pepperoni pizza for lunch, along with a Barq's root beer. Now I feel sluggish, and a headache's coming on. Maybe they're not related, but the idea that they could be inspired (if you can call it that) my September challenge. I'm going to let this one go till October eighth, to fairly give it a full month.</p><p>If you read my blog, it's pretty clear I'm on an <em>Omnivore's Dilemma</em> kick right now. Michael Pollan isn't a Christian, and his book doesn't preach that you should eat whole, unprocessed foods in order to honor Christ and your body and the earth; but for me, the book was all about that. Implementing what I've learned has proved to be a whole 'nother baby. It's just too easy to live unhealthily in this culture. A girl's got to go to great lengths to eat whole, healthy, locally grown food from sustainable farms.</p><p>(Completely unrelated sidenote: A pick-up pulling a trailer just drove by our house. The trailer had a lawn mower sitting on it. The lawn mower had a man sitting it. I laughed out loud. You don't see that every day.)</p><p>My spiritual challenge this month to honor my body through eating right and exercising is a bit of an experiment. I want to see if some of my grogginess (which I've been attributing to being a mother) dissipates. I want to see if I have more energy to do the things I "should" be doing.</p><p>Rules for the month:</p><p>1. No pop!<br />2. Exercise for 15 minutes every day, even if it's only a walk.<br />3. No fried fast food.<br />4. Eat fruits and/or vegetables at every meal.<br />5. Every day, substitute something not very healthy for something healthier (e.g. whole grain bread for white bread).<br />6. Limit sweets and fats. <p>I didn't do much research on these rules, but they seem to make sense. Please leave a comment if you have suggestions for me. </p><p>To good, God-honoring health!</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-4052651084126077412007-09-06T10:31:00.000-05:002007-09-24T15:01:48.719-05:00sustainable?Last week, I ate a 100% grass-fed New York strip.<br /><br />It came all the way from Australia.c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-64848172654048707292007-09-06T09:44:00.000-05:002007-09-24T15:02:34.187-05:00giving milkIn a world literature class in college, I read "Breast-Giver" by Mahasweta Devi. It's Bengali literature -- a story about a Brahmin-class woman who nurses babies at the temple so their mothers can keep their youthful figures. Jashoda's only role is to give milk -- life -- to babies, and "[her] place in the house is... above the [sacred] cows." She is like a goddess.<br /><br />In my notes I wrote that because of her class and her gender, she becomes lower than the cows when her breasts stop giving milk.<br /><br />The end of the story is gruesome and sad. Jashoda develops breast cancer, and the story says her breast explodes with infection. It "becomes like the <em>crater</em> of a volcano. The smell of putrefaction makes approach difficult." Jashoda is rejected by the people whose babies she nourished. She's rejected by the babies themselves. Even her doctor -- one of the babies she had suckled -- is not present at her death. She dies alone.<br /><br />I had to return to the story and to my notes to remember all these details. I remembered the breast-giving -- the suckling -- but I didn't remember how she was revered at the temple. I remembered the cancer and the rotting breast, but I didn't remember the rejection.<br /><br />When a baby is feeding from your breast, you feel like your heart is swelling with affection. At <em>every single feeding</em>. (Sidenote: this does not happen when you express milk with a pump.) I have only breastfed my own child, but I believe it would happen with any child. Jashoda gave more than milk to the babies she nourished; she gave them her heart and her emotions. And as her breast erupts, I believe her heart is breaking too. I wonder if she regrets the suckling, as she's dying alone. I have never been fully rejected; I have never suffered in that kind of pain. But I still don't think I would regret having given milk to babies. I hope Jashoda didn't either.<br /><br />I get advertisements for baby formula all the time. The ads sing the praises of formula. It has DHA! vitamins! minerals! These are essential for your baby's development! But, the fine print reads, breast milk is always best for a baby's health.<br /><br />I have said I would nurse another mother's baby. I think people in our culture might get wigged out to know that, but it seems like a natural sacrifice -- something any woman should be willing to give another. And I call it a sacrifice because there <em>is</em> a connection of flesh and hearts in breastfeeding, a connection I would probably have to sever day after day, and eventually forever, when the baby is weaned.<br /><br />I remember Jashoda because of how she gave. She kept giving and giving, even when she was suffering alone. If I could be remembered for one thing, I would want to be remembered for giving like that.c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-80279740268568391522007-08-15T20:20:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:13:48.813-05:00getting angry<p>The whole creation groans. Me. The poor, the widows, the orphans. The trees, the cattle, the chickens, the cornfields (okay, maybe not the cornfields; corn is king).</p><p>I've been reading about social justice and food. I've had this perpetual pressure in my sinus area -- tears ready to burst at the injustice in the world. If being an environmentalist means I care about this world and everything in it, yes, I guess I'm an environmentalist.</p><p>It started with reading <em>Justice in the Burbs</em> by Will and Lisa Samson. It's only been a week, and I already feel the wisdom of that book slipping from my memory. But I still remember the assignments I gave myself: to open my heart and arms (and not just my checkbook) to the suffering people of this world. Why? Because it's <em>right</em>.</p><p>There was an interview on our local NPR station today that made me mad. This lady was trying to convince women that it was too <em>risky</em> to forsake their occupations and stay home with their babies. "Because what do you do when divorce or death claims your husband? You'll have no way to support yourself!" Well, number one, if women kept their vows to their husbands, divorce wouldn't be in today's epidemic proportions. As for the widows, followers of God have been commanded to care for them, so wives shouldn't be left in dire straits even if their husband does die. I could go on and on, but the point is: the system is <em>broken</em>. This is a <em>broken, broken</em> world. Women shouldn't be made to feel like it's <em>risky</em> to be a stay-at-home mom.</p><p>Let me change gears.</p><p>Reading a book about the history of food -- <em>The Omnivore's Dilemma</em> by Michael Pollan -- didn't seem to be something that would call that slow, dull ache back into my throat. But as I read it, I keep asking, "God, what are we doing to your world?" As for our production and consumption of food, we're so deep in poisonous cow manure (that literally coats the floors of our super beef-producing factories in America's "heart"land) that we can't even find a conceivable way out of it. </p><p>I'm so angry with the people who tricked our nation into believing that corn-fed beef is something wonderful, when in fact, it sickens creatures God made to eat grass (the cows, not us). But when <em>you</em> have your plate full of that "prime" corn-fed steak, you're feeding yourself a long, slow death, too. Beef wasn't meant to be poisonous. </p><p>I'm fed up with the industrialization and materialism in America, with the lie that says that you can have it all. I'm angry I don't know how to practice the attribute called <em>sacrifice</em>. I'm frustrated that I, who grew up proud to say, "I'm a farmer's daughter," feel my agricultural background crashing in on me, slicing away my idealism that my daddy farmed perfectly. I'm angry that he probably didn't have that option, and I'm angry that I don't have the freedom to do things the best way possible because of how our nation's politics work.</p><p>I'm tired of standing in front of the display of bread and being upset because all the healthy-looking hamburger buns cost twice as much as the bleached-white ones. I want eating "natural" to <em>come </em>naturally. But instead, it requires research, money, and... sacrifice.</p><p>I want to open a farm. I want to grow things without poison and sell them for the prices they're worth. I want to invite people to work there who need love and a job and someone to pull them up (because they haven't found those bootstraps everybody keeps talking about). I want to know an orphan; I want to know a widow. I want to stop being a glutton for fast food, gasoline, and cheap relationships.</p><p>I want to stop being a hypocrite.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-8714596312972627632007-08-15T09:52:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:04:06.712-05:00august challenge: hospitality<p>Well, the month is half over and I haven't posted my monthly spiritual discipline challenge. I've had one in my head; I just haven't told you all about it.</p><p>Yesterday I delivered a basket of goodies over to our new next-door neighbors Ross and Lindsey. I took Isaiah on a sweaty walk to drop another one off for a man whose wife had just died yesterday morning. I tell this to my shame because in the three-plus years we have lived here, I have <em>never</em> given gifts to people in my neighborhood. I've <em>wanted </em>to, but I've learned that that doesn't count for much in the sheep-and-goat separation.</p><p>This month, I want to learn what hospitality really is. I always think it's about having people over and being a gracious host, but I've heard there's more to it than that.</p><p>We're having a group from church over on Saturday, and I hope that will be the first of at-least-monthly parties at our house. I want to fling open our doors and invite the whole world inside. If I can't run a coffee shop now, our house will have to do in the meantime.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-8861775391992315172007-08-02T21:26:00.000-05:002007-09-24T15:04:26.039-05:00one hundred things about c.l.beyer<ol><li>I am Carrie Louise.</li><li>I first wanted to be a writer when, as a little girl, I read a biography about Louisa May Alcott.</li><li>The most memorable scene in that book was when Louisa’s dad made her and her sister take their bowls of soup to a poor family for complaining about the food.</li><li>I love to read Anne Lamott, Madeleine L’Engle, and C.S. Lewis.</li><li>I want to be a missionary and a mom to lots of babies.</li><li>There was a notice for a job opening posted on the library door today, and I almost drooled over the possibility of being a librarian.</li><li>My favorite root beer is Barq’s.</li><li>My favorite pop is root beer.</li><li>I’m from a part of the country where people call soft drinks “pop.” And there’s nothing wrong with it.</li><li>I get nostalgic thinking about wide open fields.</li><li>I was the best bunter on my softball team when I was little.</li><li>It drives me nuts when people don’t know how to spell “Isaiah,” and when they don’t listen when I tell them how: “a… i… a…”</li><li>I wish I took more artistic photos.</li><li>I can be frugal when I want to.</li><li>Being frugal gives me a sort of high.</li><li>I think we’re getting new neighbors today.</li><li>I could be pregnant right now.</li><li>But I don’t think I am.</li><li>I worry that that was too personal.</li><li>Unloving, critical people bother me.</li><li>I have a pimple on my forehead. Well, a pimple or two… or three.</li><li>I have four big sisters, but they’re all littler than I am.</li><li>Opa is my wonderful Serbian grandpa who was a Nazi in World War 2.</li><li>I know how to cook and clean and fold laundry better than most American women.</li><li>Texas taught me how to cook pretty good Mexican food.</li><li>I used to be an email-checking junkie.</li><li>Okay, I still am.</li><li>Suburbs drive me nuts. Maybe I’ll blog about that sometime.</li><li>I am in the middle of writing four novels, but I haven’t worked on them in almost a year.</li><li>In elementary school, I always got goosebumps when we sang the national anthem.</li><li>I still get goosebumps when I hear touching stories, but not when I hear or sing “The Star Spangled Banner” anymore.</li><li>There are 195 (now 196) posts on my blog, and I’ve been blogging since 2004.</li><li>I ache for American Christianity because so much of it seems superficial.</li><li>I wish I had a larger vocabulary.</li><li>I am reading <em>Honey for a Child’s Heart</em> right now, and it’s wonderful – a resource I’ll use all my life.</li><li>I love baking sweets but hate cooking supper.</li><li>My clean house gives me a high.</li><li>My house is dirty right now.</li><li>I want to run a coffee shop where people are addicted to the love they feel while they’re there.</li><li>Outside my family, I have two very good friends with whom I would feel comfortable sharing almost anything.</li><li>When people ask where I met my husband, I say we’ve known each other our whole lives.</li><li>My husband is sensitive, helpful, handsome, and driven.</li><li>To relax, I read books, watch movies, take baths, and accept massages.</li><li>I don’t like shopping.</li><li>I feel like a strong, accomplished woman when I mow our lawn.</li><li>I grew up on a farm in Kansas, but I didn’t have help out with the farming, except to hold piglets and cats while they were neutered.</li><li>I got engaged in high school.</li><li>I love chips and queso.</li><li>I like to support the little independent restaurants instead of the big, chainy ones.</li><li>I’ve been to Haiti, Mexico, and St. Lucia.</li><li>I’ve been to England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein.</li><li>I speak a little German with a pretty good accent.</li><li>I hate pickles.</li><li>I’ve been in Colorado, California, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Florida, Georgia, Connecticut, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Pennsylvania.</li><li>My baby’s awake now.</li><li>I am so thankful when Isaiah wakes up happy.</li><li>My philosophy is to get rid of anything I don’t use, even if it’s in perfectly good condition.</li><li>My mom is almost perfect.</li><li>I love being in the mountains, but I’m a weenie about hiking.</li><li>My first car was a stick-shift red Ford Tempo.</li><li>In high school, my after-school pit stop was Sonic for Ched-R-Peppers with ranch dressing.</li><li>Growing up, we had desserts called Bear Boo Boo, Goose Gaggalie, and Boob Cookies.</li><li>I made Goose Gaggalie Monday.</li><li>My Bear Boo Boo never tastes as good as my mom’s did.</li><li>I have never made Boob Cookies.</li><li>I play the piano, trombone (used to, anyway), and banjo (sort of).</li><li>We had the best cat names growing up: Sugi, Olga, Dunstan, Godfrey, Hooga, Ooga, Big Dirt, Little Dirt, Pork, Beans, Reuben, Peter, Muriel, Beetrice, Something…</li><li>Music I love: bluegrass, Texas blues, hearty jazz (not elevator music), old country, classical, rock oldies, folk</li><li>Song that most recently was stuck in my head: "Wide Eyed" by Nichole Nordeman. Good lyrics.</li><li>I have had one traffic ticket in my life – for going 74 in a 60 mph zone.</li><li>I have worked at a home for handicapped adults, a lumber yard, two schools, an Italian restaurant, and a scrapbook store.</li><li>I have never made more than $10/hour.</li><li>I am currently learning how to shop grocery store sales wisely.</li><li>I have been in hospitals to get stitches on my face (twice) and have a baby.</li><li>Dar Williams’s music is playing right now.</li><li>I wish I could buy more books.</li><li>I would consider breastfeeding someone else’s baby if its mother couldn’t.</li><li>When I was a kid, I could stick my belly out really far. I used to act like it was bread dough rising; then I’d punch it down.</li><li>My dad used to ask us kids to scratch his back, but he didn’t like us to plug his nose.</li><li>I think Edith Pargeter and Annie Dillard have the most beautiful styles of writing of all the writers I’ve read.</li><li>Books I love: <em>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</em> (Harriet Beecher Stowe), <em>Blue Like Jazz</em> (Donald Miller), <em>A Wrinkle in Time</em> (Madeleine L’Engle)</li><li>I have 23 nieces and nephews.</li><li><em>The Catcher in the Rye</em> made me laugh out loud when I read it.</li><li>I would rather be a nun than the President.</li><li>I have emotional conversations with invisible people when I’m alone.</li><li>A few movies I love: <em>The Spitfire Grill, One Night with the King, The Shawshank Redemption</em></li><li>I publish an Aberle family newspaper called <em>The Genuine Giraffe</em>.</li><li>Being a mother makes me feel important.</li><li>Recycling stuff makes me feel responsible.</li><li>In fourth grade I wrote and acted out a skit called “Always Pay Those Taxes” with my friend Anna Tennal.</li><li>One of my good friends from high school just moved 20 minutes away from me this week!</li><li>I am ridiculously fond of getting the mail.</li><li>My current car is a 2002 burgundy Honda Accord.</li><li>Kyle’s current car is a totaled 1995 tan Honda Accord that’s still running great.</li><li>I was driving the car when it was totaled.</li><li>But Kyle totaled his red Ford Escort two days before, and it’s not running anymore.</li><li>My sisters and I all have different noses. (That is, they don’t look alike.)</li><li>I have a beautiful nine-month-old son.</li><li>I have the most wonderful husband in the world.</li><li>I’m in a lifetime love affair with Jesus Christ.<br /><br />The End.<br /><br />p.s. Let me know if you want to see blog posts on any of these factoids.</li></ol>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-10182369688082119882007-07-19T20:27:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:04:47.536-05:00my lonely existence<p>Withdrawal pains are coming on strong. I thought I could quit e-mail and the internet any time, but I miss them so much. Is it only Thursday? Four whole days to go. </p><p>Day one was okay. I was busy on the computer, so that was like eating fake sugar. Kills the cravings without the calories. </p><p>Day two I thought to myself that this fasting from the internet was a good lesson because I could determine what I really need the internet for -- bank account information, for instance -- and deem everything else as wasting time. </p><p>Day three I called some people, but they didn't answer. So I sulked a little and felt very isolated. I came to believe that I <em>need</em> the internet to stay connected to people since I have so few friends with regular, in-person relationships. But I was kind of mad at the world we live in, too, that has become so connected in technological ways that real relationships are often superficial or nonexistent. If I were in a little village, and took all my laundry to the river to wash it, Isaiah would get the grandma-love he needs on a daily basis, and I would get some adult time. </p><p>Today it all just got harder, and I began to dread the weekend when I'll have to say "no" to our Friday or Saturday night movie because I just <em>had</em> to add that to my list of things from which to fast. Why am I such an overachiever? But today was good because I got return phone calls from a couple people, so at least I didn't feel so isolated.</p><p>I write this so <em>you</em> don't feel isolated, dear readers. If new blogs posts kill some cravings for you, be thankful for Windows Live Writer, by which I can post to my blog without using the internet. It makes me feel pretty generous.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-2002756137672141702007-07-18T12:16:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:05:13.544-05:00dollars<p></p><p>I was Sapphira and kept back a dollar<br />Because I wanted to buy a can of Coke.<br />It cost me seventy-five cents,<br />And it didn’t taste good.<br />The rest I gave to the Latino man<br />Who dried off my car.<br />And I felt so generous that I expected<br />A thank you<br />Or something.<br />The quarter I put in my secret stash<br />Of money to give away<br />Because I couldn’t keep it to spend. </p><p>I want a thousand dollars to give to the single mom<br />Who waits on my table some years hence.<br />It’s called grace, charity.<br />I ought to know because I’ve been given it.<br />She went and got herself knocked up.<br />She screwed around. She messed up.<br />And now she’s fighting hard to make it.<br />So with my thousand dollars in my purse,<br />I remember the times I screwed around,<br />And somebody showed me grace.<br />So I hand her the cash. </p><p>Or I will, provided I don’t keep a dollar back<br />To buy a can of Coke.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-69878490389082236632007-07-11T18:58:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:05:27.764-05:00expanding my boundaries<p>I just got my baby to finish eating his supper by singing "Who Let the Dogs Out?" over and over and over.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-70134331661738745782007-07-09T22:09:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:05:51.569-05:00july challenge: redeeming the time<p>My tardiness in posting this month's challenge is all the proof you need to know how much I need the assignment I'm giving myself.</p><p>Over the weekend, the house got clean for the first time in who-knows-how-long. As Kyle and I cleared away clutter and swept up the evidence of my post-pregnancy hair loss from the carpet, it was amazing: I started to feel sane again... like I actually could focus on something besides taking care of Isaiah and catching up on sleep! I know, I know, clean houses aren't everything, and the Bible does not say "cleanliness is next to godliness" (does it?). But a dirty house is enough to make me believe I'll never, never, never get ahead. It makes me feel guilty for reading books, it distracts me when I worship, it makes outreach seem unreachable.</p><p>So, step one is to try to keep the house (pretty) clean. But even if I fail in that, I've gotta move on to step two: redeem moments in the morning to worship through prayer, Bible study, and quietness. And then, step three is creating goals for the day, so I don't get overwhelmed with the (not just physical) clutter of life.</p><p>To me, redeeming the time means capturing it from the Devil's clutches -- to claim it for Christ instead of for self. Instead of giving my moments to the sins of pride, anger, or laziness, I claim the time for joy, for pursuing worthwhile passions.</p><p><span style="color:#808080;">One last thing: For confidentiality's sake, I am not reporting specifically on last month's challenge. As far as my assignment was concerned, I completed it. But it's not enough, I've learned. Walking across the room to one person in a month is not nearly enough. I'm compelled to stretch out my hands and my heart to the lost, to desire their fellowship for eternity.</span></p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-108896559341068552007-07-08T22:10:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:06:24.637-05:00the hurting<p></p><p>Last night, I heard my neighbor yelling. He’s divorced now, living with another divorced guy. Isaiah woke up around four, so I was waiting for his crying to subside by reading <i>Mere Christianity</i> in the front room. One of the guys’ trucks pulled up, and before long, I heard my neighbor yelling, presumably at his roommate: “Get it out of here! <i>Get </i>it <i>out </i>of here!” I heard something large and metallic clanking. “I swear…” he yelled, but I didn’t hear the rest. A truck roared away, came back five minutes later. Yelling again. Isaiah cried out again with the disturbance. <p>I ached, even amid my peeking through the blinds into the darkness. These poor men – families ripped apart. They see their kids only part of the time. Moms probably have custody. I once watched my neighbor’s son circling around the tree in our front yard. <i>Ring around the tree, around and around and around</i>. What’s on the little boy’s mind? <i>Why don’t Mommy and Daddy love each other anymore? What’s gonna happen to </i>me<i>?</i> <p>I ache, too, because I haven't reached out to them. I never do. But then, maybe it wouldn’t have helped. I tried to reach out to the lady across the street but she left her husband anyway. Divorce is all around us, and I still wouldn’t consider it for myself. Why do they? Where is the point where they give in, give <i>up</i>? <p>We watched <i>Homeless to Harvard </i>last night. True story: a girl who barely attended any elementary or middle school is out on the streets by age 15, after her drug-addicted and alcoholic mother dies of AIDS. Her grandpa doesn’t want her; she has nowhere else to go. So she sleeps on trains, raids dumpsters for food, stinks. But she’s brilliant, and gets herself enrolled in a high school without them knowing she’s homeless. The <em>New York Times</em> gives her a scholarship to Harvard when she applies by telling her story of self-preservation. But she’s a loser, a real loser. <p>In elementary school, in middle school, I never reached out to Angie Brown, Heather Huninghake, the Fryes, the Marc What’s-his-names, the Jeffrey Beldens. Maybe if I had, Jeffrey Belden wouldn’t have committed suicide. <p>In high school, I came to a point of politeness with John Koch, but I wonder if it was only for public image. I think I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, but behind his back, I wrote – for my entertainment – “John Koch wants to be a computer scientist.” It was a joke – my own personal laughing point – because I knew awkward, chubby, dirty, stinky John could never be a computer scientist. I didn’t seem phased by the fact that I didn’t even know what a computer scientist was. <p>In middle school science class, John had told us, his tablemates, of things from his home life. I only remember him saying that one of his parents – I don’t even remember if it was Mom or Dad – had thrown dishes across the room in a rage. He shrugged it off with a laugh, but now I think now he was crying out for help. <p>And I didn’t do anything. I didn’t tell a teacher. I didn’t tell him I was sorry, or ask him if he was scared to go home sometimes. <p>Kyle says I can’t blame myself – that I wasn’t taught to reach out to the rejects, the “gross people.” But I think I had an innate sense that these people needed love, and I was capable of giving it.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-7268547978068294942007-07-07T18:01:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:09:27.008-05:00one of the fallen<p><span style="font-size:78%;color:#400000;">"There ain't no money in poetry. / That's what sets the poet free. / I've had all the freedom I can stand." -Guy Clark in "Cold Dog Soup"</span></p><p>She gleans hundreds of comments because she can <em>write</em>. I feel like an imposter when I scan her <a href="http://ingliseast.typepad.com/ingliseast/">blog posts</a> like they're any old cheap, chatty update on life. I read her latest post from the end to the beginning because I caught a line and tasted the quality, and I had to have more. One doesn't skim poignancy. So I moved up, up, up, and saw how she had molded her thoughts into art.</p><p>I had to admit I'm a little like the poor, lost, fallen people our waiter was talking about last weekend. He used to be an artist; now he just works at <a href="http://www.jackstackbbq.com/">Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue</a> -- which, if you have to be a waiter, at least that's a place with food worth its salt. But our waiter said he's not an artist anymore. People don't care about beautiful things. They only want ugly things -- that's what he said. He said we live in a fallen world where beauty isn't valued. But it'll be redeemed. <em>It'll be redeemed</em>. And then he walked away with our smeary plates of bones and barbecue sauce.</p><p>I cling to my words, and I hope for art. But on the days when I'm feeling weak and tired, when I'm in subordination to tasks instead of Beauty, I just serve my tables and wait for redemption.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-1825820704200708932007-07-02T16:06:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:07:35.324-05:00i'd rather be reading...<p>...but I feel like I owe something to the two beautiful people who deposited comments in my inbox after nearly a month of blog silence on my part. I definitely didn't deserve three comments this morning [last Thursday], so it was like a handful of grace extended to a woman in desperate need some verve. So, my dear commenting friends, I give you what may be my day's most valuable moments: <em>naptime</em>.</p><p>I just laid Isaiah down in his crib after he fell asleep in his carseat. (He's in such a chatty stage right now. "Da-da-da-da, ta-ta-ta, buh-buh-buh, pbpbppbpb [blowing bubbles, a.k.a. spitting]" are his favorite things to tell me these days.) I was thinking, <em>Please don't wake up. Please don't wake up, </em>when he opened his eyes and said, "Da-da-da-da," and then went right back to sleep. It gave me a good laugh. That's the kind of thing that keeps me going.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-82020632437394847482007-06-06T23:09:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:00:35.976-05:00of books and babies<p>Yesterday I opened the cover of <em>Middlemarch</em>, the first book I had tried to read for pleasure in probably a month. I made it through the introduction, but my brain was already hurting. In that moment, I told myself that I would never be this era's great American novelist. If I can't read George Eliot on my worst of days, I can't write timeless fiction on my best of days.</p><p>Today I settled for <em>The Adventures of Tom Sawyer</em> instead. Eliot will have to wait for another day -- maybe a day without diapers and nursing and chasing after a baby who's much too young to be pulling himself up stairsteps.</p><p>I read the first three chapters out loud to my little boy, rolling out the Missouri twang like no one was listening. I imagined days when I'd lie in bed with all our little children, reading it again when they're old enough to actually understand. And I decided it was okay if I"m never a famous writer.</p><p>I might survive motherhood to pump out some readable nonfiction. I might even try to finish those novels I started in the days when pumping didn't bring breasts to mind. And I'll fall back into reading books like a natural, I'm sure, wondering what I ever found so difficult about <em>Middlemarch</em>. But in reading and writing and feeling intellectual again, I'll be thankful for having done more important things with my life -- things relating to diapers and nursing and chasing after a baby (who's much too young to be pulling himself up stairsteps).</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-61335712656352250722007-06-06T22:27:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:07:56.687-05:00june challenge: evangelism<p>As I complete each month's challenge, I realize how I can never stop developing each of the spiritual disciplines I've tried to tackle. Committing myself to prayer has revealed to me how much more I need to communicate daily with God in a genuine and humble way. Focusing on loving my neighbor as myself has not closed the door on ways to give of myself but rather opened a flood of new ones.</p><p>And now this -- evangelism. I'll complete my monthly goal and move back to life as usual, right? I doubt it. I hope not. If I thought about what giving myself to evangelism might mean for my future, I might back away at the whelming pressure. But the most daunting of disciplines begins with a single step. That single step is all I will try to commit to this month: reaching<em> one </em>person.</p><p>Our small group from church is walking through a study series called <em>Just Walk Across the Room</em>, based on the book by Bill Hybels. Hybels argues that it's not a Christian's job to present a four-point gospel message to every unbeliever she knows (or whatever her preferred method is). Instead, a Christ-follower should simply be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's promptings... <em>maybe</em> to present that four point message, but maybe not, too. Maybe it's just walking across the room to introduce myself to a stranger or inviting someone to church. The point is that I'm available, not to do all the work myself (I'm not capable of converting a soul anyway; that's God's job!), but to do the job God wants me to do -- speak a word, lend a hand, extend an invitation.</p><p>I don't know what part of the evangelistic journey God will call me to take, but I'm praying to be open to His opportunities, starting this month.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8449136.post-68004575411540903862007-05-18T15:15:00.001-05:002007-09-24T15:08:16.550-05:00grains for hope<p>I'm proud of my hometown today, doing more than I've ever done to wipe out world hunger. I'm proud of the people brave enough to move an idea past conception into production. I've <em>met</em> these people. Hey, I'm even <em>related</em> to some of them!</p><p>Sometimes I'm hard on Sabetha. I count the people in it as closed-minded -- far from progressive. I figure most of them can't see past their little corner of northeast Kansas. Well, let's just say I've been proven wrong.</p><p>God bless Mrs. Spangler, a woman who cared enough to get my high school involved. Because of her, students did the research to discover the needs of people in Mozambique, and now Sabetha businesses are partnering with these kids to package and ship vitamin-fortified rice to Africa.</p><p>Watch this Topeka <a href="http://www.49abcnews.com/news/2007/may/17/grains_hope_feeds_both_body_and_mind/">ABC news</a> broadcast or check out the Grains for Hope <a href="http://www.grainsforhope.com/index.htm">website</a> .</p><p>They're really doing it -- and all in my hometown of 2500 people. You wanna change the world? Move to Sabetha.</p>c.l.beyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04955291674161015300noreply@blogger.com1