I bless the rains down in Aaaafricaaa

That ridge in the background is my knuckle.

There are some wonderful things about the changing of the seasons. Scarves, soup, Christmas carols, Christmas trees, and vegan green bean casserole to name a few.

However, as with anything there are some things that don't make the list. For some reason, when fall/winter hits, skin gets...dry doesn't cover it. Have you ever seen one of those nature shows, where the camera pans across a desert, so completely dry that the earth has cracked until it looks like a really boring, really difficult puzzle? Think that, minus cacti.

The same thing happens when I fly, and as I've flown to and from cold places this week, I've been considering using the back of my hand on dishes instead of a Brillo pad.

Which is why I'm grateful for lotion. It smells like coconut--I know, seasonally incorrect--and it shimmers and most importantly, it falls like a warm rain on the Serengeti of my winter hands.  Now I won't have to worry about snagging shirts or causing rug burn during handshakes.

Me: 1
Winter: 0

Thank you, Jesus, for lotion and whoever first thought of scenting it. Thank you for fall and yes, even winter, and that along with sandpaper hands, it also brings fireplaces fires, green bean casserole, tights, and best of Christmas. All my love.

The Miraculous Landing of the Flight 'O' Death: Told from my admittedly skewed perspective.

It was a bright and sunny day when I boarded my flight to Chicago, but it didn't take long to become a dark and stormy night. Yesterday, as winds and cyclones tore across the Midwest, I boarded a plane for Chicago.

The pilot cancelled beverage service, which was mildly annoying. I sat there thinking of the tomato juice I wouldn't have, and felt superior to all the thirsty passengers for having brought my own water. About twenty minutes in to our one and a half our flight, the jiggling started.  It wasn't too serious, though the guy next to me would disagree.

I couldn't find a picture of a plane in darks stormy skies, so
just imagine the light blue is an ominous gray-navy,
then pick up your laptop and shake it vigorously,
and you'll get the idea.

I continued reading, trying not to fall asleep lest I flop onto one of the guys on either side. (I fly Southwest so I'm always in the middle seat.) My seatmates weren't hard on the ol' peepers, so I wouldn't have minded making either of their shoulders a pillow, but I don't think they would have appreciated drool on their shirts.

We jostled along, the flight attendants trying to tell the thirsty people they had to stay seated, while the thirsty people--whose last beverage had worked its way through their system--weighed the pros and cons of ignoring them to risk a broken limb on the way to the bathroom, or obeying and wetting themselves. Most chose option A, for which, I admit, I'm grateful.

It wasn't until we neared Chicago that the jiggling turned to jostling. More and more people went rigid and clung to arm rests. I praised Jesus for Dramamine and read on. Then the jostling turned to bumping, and the bumping almost immediately turned to that roller coaster sensation when you fall several hundred feet and your insides refuse to go with you.

I love turbulence about as much as I love mosquito bites, or realizing first thing in the morning that I'm out of coffee. But I was doing alright.

Until.....(insert dramatic musical riff) I peered past my terrified seatmate and out the window.  There, maybe 100 yards below our steeply angled wing, a little house sat with its lights on. We were so close I could see a dog burrowing under the fence. Okay, it was dark, but if it were lighter and a dog had been burrowing under a fence, I would have seen him.

I had just finished thinking, "My, that house is close," when, with a Six Flags-worthy drop, we were suddenly much much closer to the house. I think we scraped a few tiles off the roof as we passed.

This must have scared my hand because it clung to the arm rest. And while I think reading is as good as any activity to be caught up in when you die, I couldn't concentrate. I decided to ignore the window, thought about those inflatable slides and how I'd have to remember to go feet first, and reminded myself that lots of pilots had landed already in this tornado-force gale. I prayed ours was skilled.

Well, we wobbled all the way to the runway, hit hard, but we stuck the landing. Hallelujah. The plane broke out in applause and we all gave each other that knowing look you get when you feel a near death experience has enlightened you.

The weather is still rough today, I just hope it gets better before I return. Unless you're a burglar reading this. Then I'm home already with my two pit bulls, Jellybean and Buckley.

Thank you, Jesus, for airplanes, water bottles, Dramamine--oh, thank you for Dramamine--and the lovely Christmas tree I found waiting at the hotel. Please be with all of those affected by this storm. All my love.

Insert some clever pun with the word "Fall" or "Leaves"

Yosemite.
Maui.
The moon.
Northwest Arkansas.

What do these places have in common? Very cool landscape.

What do they not have in common? Cool sounding names. Sorry, Northwest, Arkansas.

But it truly is beautiful countryside. I drove home today through the Ozarks. They're just on the cusp of turning all the rich colors of autumn. It was a nice drive, one I always enjoy. But in a few weeks it will be breathtaking and I hope I have a reason to head that way and see it.

Which made me think how much I like change. It's weird. It's one of those things that is intimidating. I don't go out of my to find it. I cringe a little when I see it coming. Cover my eyes. But once I get the nerve to peer out from between my fingers, it's....good. Interesting. Even if it's not the change to vibrance that fall brings, having things be different makes those fall colors seem so gorgeous.

So, I'm going to have to remind myself of this at some point when I get freaked out because something is about to get different, but I really am grateful that the only thing that's consistent in life is change.

Thank you, God, for variety and change, for fall and colors and trees designed to vary throughout the year.  All my love.

Time is on my side. For once.

I believe in miracles, but some are a little wackier than others. Like mud making a blind guy see, and walking on water, and fishes that never run out.

Some are a little easier. For instance, there's a story in the Old Testament about how God made the sun stand still so Joshua and his peeps could route the enemy. I have no trouble believing this.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I experience it on a regular basis.

Every afternoon at work between one thirty and four thirty, I write reports, review reports, analyze reports. And instead of passing, time just oozes. Like molasses flowing uphill on a cold day. I'm pretty sure I could defeat a few armies in the afternoons and still have time to paint my toes. If I didn't have to write reports, that is.

Well, today was the exception!  I came back from lunch at 1:15ish and started grinding out those reports.  When I glanced up, expecting it to be, oh, 1:16, it was already after 2:00!  And then a mere blink later it was going on 3:00! And in less time than it would take to take down an Amorite, the work day was over.

Hallelujah! It's a miracle indeed.

Thank you, God, for a fast workday. Thank you for time. Please keep making it go fast during work and slow all the other times. All my love.

Charge!

There are a lot of messages I like. For instance the email from Starbucks that I've earned a free drink, or the note in my mailbox saying I have a package at the apartment offices.

There are also messages I don't like. One of my least favorites is this.

photo from mons-diary.blogspot.com 

Okay, so it's not exactly like that, but you know what I mean.  In my habit of jumping on bandwagons just as a new bandwagon takes off, I bought an iPhone 5 mere weeks before the 5s was released.

I like it. I really do. And I have the cutest blue polka dot cover.

But the battery lives as long as your average fruit fly. And if I play Pandora, its cut even shorter. Like a fruit fly with a bad nicotine habit.

Which makes me grateful for car chargers. While I would like to be the kind of organized that always has a pen in her purse, a plan for dinner, and fully charged electronics, I'm just not. Even with a car charger my phone does die on occasion and its misery. I mean, I just know that the pivotal call/text/email/facebook message/tweet/retweet that never comes while my phone is on will soar through cyberspace and hit the brick wall of my dead phone leading to nebulous but serious consequences.*

Okay, yes, I do have control issues.When I think back to the pre-cell days when you stood tethered by a cord to the kitchen phone counting twenty-two rings before you decided the other party must not have an answering machine, it's all hazy like a bad, low-tech dream. Less stressful, but still.(Shiver.)

While walking around with a dead phone is probably a good exercise in letting go, its a lesson I don't have to learn, thanks to my lovely blue car charger. And for that I'm grateful.

Thank you, God, for whoever put the cigarette lighter in cars that now serves to charge things. Thank you for portable technology, for my phone and its cute blue cover, for all the crazy apps it lets me use. Thank you for friends who send me texts, tweets, emails, and messages elevating my phone from an electronic paperweight to a means of connecting. All my love.

*Note: I have no qualms whatsoever when my work blackberry dies. In fact, I gloat a bit over its still form.

Fortune

Long ago, an industrious restaurateur realized he had a bunch of extra cardboard coasters he didn't know what to do with. After a bit of thinking and fiddling, he discovered that if he folded them into a U-shaped pocket and slipped a piece of paper inside, he could give them out as cookies to grateful patrons.

Okay, I made that up. But I am not convinced anyone actually likes fortune cookies. They are to cookies what charcoal is to gems. But, that little scrap of paper inside makes us crack it open anyway to see what our fortune is, and then eat the halves because it would be wasteful not to.

Tonight at P.F. Chang's I got this:

Not really a fortune, P.F., but trueish. I would amend that by saying summits. As in, plural. And then I agree, even if it's still not a fortune.

Thankfully, we don't climb alone. This past weekend at the American Christian Fiction Writers conference I got to spend time with my peeps.  I left my day job behind, including my blackberry (suck it, blackberry!) packed up my favorite outfits, and jetted off to Indianapolis.

It was fabulous to catch up with old friends and meet so many new amazing writers.

But even in Indianapolis,  I was approaching the summit. I couldn't leave the hard bits of life behind, which I thought would be a liability. But, even though I didn't know it at the time, this was the very reason I went this year. Because I talked with two dear friends who helped share the load. Who can look over the other side of the mountain, can see the view that I can't yet envision, and help me continue to climb. 

Rachel Hauck and Reba Hoffman are two people I want to be when I grow up. Both had their own biz goin' on at the conference, but each took time to stop, talk with me, pray with me, and exhort me. To help me free my feet from the cold packed snow and start to climb again. These are the encounters that change you. Give a fresh view of the world that cannot be taken away. After all, that's really all that changes at the summit. You're still on top of a mound of rock, but the perspective is wide and long and beautiful.

Yes, I pitched and learned and pitched and learned. And that was fabulous. But the most lovely of blessings is seeing that God had prepared these two and gave them to me. Just the gifts I needed right when I needed them.

Thank you, God, for your people who you have been generous with. For painful/wonderful writing. For hope.  All my love.

Dream Day

It's Dream Day.  Fifty years ago, 250,000 people flooded the National Mall  for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech, then went off book and shared his dream for the future of our country in what became the anthem for Civil Rights.

Looking back, it's amazing to see the impact one man had. But it cost him. What I love is that he knew the cost and he stepped up anyway.

These days in the Young Adult genre is dominated by high stakes stories in which a teenager has to risk everything to save the world. These stories resonate with our common desire to have a cause bigger than ourselves to fight for, and to put our whole selves behind it. They make me wish to be a warrior with a clear mission. And yeah, if a hot guy is battling alongside me, I think I could find a way to deal with that.

But I wonder, would I really fight?

I'd like to think so, but I don't know.

It takes a special something, a special courage and commitment and focus to fight like that.  And I'm grateful for all those bright souls throughout history whose light has shown a better path for the rest of mankind.

Thank you, God, For Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for how far we have come and for how far we will go. Give me the courage of conviction to fight injustice and evil everywhere I see it, without letting the weight of personal cost stop me.