Grab your Snuggies and run!

The end is near, you guys. I know, I know. Somebody's been saying that for the last 2,000 years, but now there's a new fiction series out about it, and that MAKES IT TRUE.

If any of you, like me, were blessed and cursed to grow up surrounded by Christian commercial culture in the 90s, you probably remember the "Left Behind" book series. For the unfamiliar, the 264 or so books (I think there were actually 12) chronicled a fictionalized account of the time described Revelation from the Rapture, through the tribulation to the second coming of Christ on earth. When I was in junior high or high school, I read the first four or five books and then gave up (or grew up... I think the two went together). 

Maybe you've been thinking, Gee, I wish there was a new series of fear-mongering, dread-inducing but creatively-bland and therefore Christian bookseller-approved books I could jump into for the summer. You're in luck! Tim LaHaye has returned, and they made a preview for the series! 

Please, please watch the trailer on YouTube. Shame his publisher couldn't get his name right.

We're living in the end times, also frequently called last days! Yes. this is true. People in the 1960s lived in the end times, too. As did people in the 1860s, the 1200s and the disciples, one week after Jesus took off back to heaven. The end times are nothing new. 

Don't get me wrong. I love Jesus. I believe in the truth of the Bible. I went to an evangelical seminary, for crying out loud. But these "prophetic" novels drive me nuts. Jesus could return at any moment! But probably not before you have a chance to pick up LaHaye's latest book. Still, you never know. Better get it soon, just in case. 

But what concerns me most about this is when LaHaye says, 'People intuitively believe the Bible...when push comes to shove, like it did on 9/11, people en masse turned to God.'

I have a few problems with this. One, I don't think people intuitively believe the Bible. I do believe that people intuitively believe in God, or at least often want to, but the Bible is another matter. Maybe it's just that I'm too cynical--maybe I've been in Portland too long. (Evidence of this: Portlanders, remember the PDXBoom last month? Classic tweet from that night, via @msfour: "best #pdxboom theory: it was the Rapture, which is why all of PDX is still here")


Two, I am really tired of 9/11 getting invoked for absolutely everything. 


Two-b)(or not two-b, haha) the fact that people turned to something en masse is not an evidence of its validity. 


To wit, here are some other things people have turned to en masse, just in the past, oh, century or so:

• the Macarena
• pet rocks
• sea monkeys
• goldfish swallowing
• bowler hats
• the Twilight saga 
• perms

I don't offer up this list to mock God. But what I do offer it for is to show that the fact that people can turn to something in large numbers doesn't mean anything if it doesn't last. I'm sure some people had life-changing spiritual experiences on 9/11/01. Others prayed because they panicked. And a week later, when their city wasn't attacked, they forgot the prayers. 


We don't pray to sea monkeys for protection, and we don't carry pet rocks as talismans to predict the future. Yet, if this video is to be believed, we can treat God that way. 


Third and final thing: LaHaye has built a career based on fictional stories about future events, and, again, from what I see in the video and my knowledge of the Left Behind series alone, has built a theology around a very difficult and obtuse section of the biblical text--a theology that states that your fear is warranted, and that God exists to pluck us all from peril. 


Time and time again, the Bible showcases stories of people who are in terrible shape.Their lives are falling apart, sometimes as consequences of their actions, and sometimes by no fault of their own. And what we see time and time again is not a God who raptures His people away to set them on streets of gold, but a God who refuses to abandon them, even when they have cursed and denied Him with every breath they have been given. And we have. People don't intuitively believe the Bible, they don't run to God instinctively. They (we) run away, and because He's good, He pursues us.


Whew! That got a bit more preachy than I had intended, but like everything, I think it's all connected. Please don't be sucked in by end times paranoia. It's unnecessary, it's typically commercial, and it's designed to frighten you into belief, which is no belief at all. 


I would love to hear your thoughts on this, especially if you come from a different background than I do. What do these kinds of stories do for (or to) you?

"Your hands! They're like biscuits with sticks jammed in 'em!"

I haven't posted in over a week (Apologies, as I'm sure you are all sitting around waiting for me). It's been a strange week or so; I've been intermittently grumpy, and who wants to read the grumblings of a grumpy me? I don't even want to write them.

That doesn't mean the week was terrible--there were plenty of good times, lots of friends, and countless things I wish I had written down but didn't. So, here's a couple highlights, if they can be called that:

Ben came and hung out this weekend, and we were at Powell's at Hawthorne, and I was searching for a book (there's a story there, but first...). Ben was talking to me, and this guy came up behind him, trying to go down the aisle. He was probably in his early 20's. But here's the thing. The guy was wearing a bowler hat. Like a proper, It's-1901-and-it's-time-to-hitch-my-horse-in-town-or-whatever-guys-in-bowler-hats-did-back-then hat. And then, when Ben moved aside to let him pass, the guy gave us the tiniest of bows, complete with one of those weird rolly-hand waves, and said, "Pardon me," in a voice that I honestly couldn't tell if it was silly, or just his normal voice.

It was my favorite moment of that day.

Here's the thing about the books: Eric's books hate me. I think they've all talked to one another, and signed a suicide pact. If they get sent to my house, they know the kamikaze mission is on. Last summer, I sent him a text that said, "I have to buy you a new copy of Cloud Atlas because I just smashed a bug in it."

Seriously. I was minding my own business, reading, and a GIANT bug of unknown origin landed on the page. I shrieked, slammed the book shut, and then...blech. Bug guts all over the page, luckily on a paragraph I had finished. So I own that copy now, and I'm pretty sure there's still some kind of brown spot somewhere around the middle.

I don't think these things happen to normal people. Case in point, the death wish that had me in Powell's in the first place:

I've been reading his copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. The other day. I set the book down on my bed, and when I sat down, I bumped it, and it fell. Could have happened to anyone, except that this book is clearly part of the suicidal insurgency. So rather than falling gracefully to the floor, it tumbled partway, and then allowed pages 41-51 (and only those pages. I smell a plot afoot) to catch on my bedframe, ripping them three-quarters of the way down the page. I am pretty sure I said, "You're kidding me," out loud. So that copy's mine now. Eric gets a new one.

I'll probably, hopefully be blogging more regularly from here on out. At the moment, I have had too much coffee, and it's making me jittery and I kind of feel like my brain is clicking too fast. Please tell me someone else has felt that way. :)

And before I go, a friend of a friend saw these restroom signs in Vermont. I think they should be universal:

and then...

"Can you guys hear me? Am I deaf?"

Oh my gosh, so many silly things. But first of all, a one-woman dialogue:

*h*: Hey, self?

*h* (self): Yeah?

*h*: I'm really not a fan of this whole "Let's not sleep at night" thing.

*h* (self): Yeah, I know.

*h*: So... yeah. A memo, is all. (Get it?)

*h* (self): Got it. How are you feeling?

*h*: Actually, I feel kinda funny.

*h* (self): Uh oh. Need a bucket?
*h*: Not that kind of funny...more like 'I keep giggling aloud at my own thoughts' funny, so let's run with it.

Ta da! Thank you. I will accept my Pulitzer and other baubles of appreciation via UPS.

So, my tv's been broken since I moved in here (and when I say "broken", what I actually mean is "I can't get the universal remote to work which means I can't get the tv to switch to video mode which means I can't get the converter box to work which means it's sorta kinda broken." Seriously, if you can fix it, you're welcome to do so at nearly any time.), which means that I don't watch much tv, and when I do, it becomes this wonderfully exciting thing.

I tried to watch a couple summer shows via Hulu, but I gave up, and I feel better about that now that I know Kevin Skinner won America's Got Talent. I mean, the guy's talented, no doubt, but he's so backwoodsy that I'm just afraid that two weeks into his Vegas show he's gonna go on a coke-fueled rampage, swimming in the fountain at the Bellagio, pointing out hookers and slapping transvestites. Take care of yourself, Mr. Skinner. Meanwhile...

The Office had its season premiere last night (and yes, so did Parks and Recreation but I missed it so ssshhhh...), and if there is one show I will always find a way to watch on the night it airs, it's The Office. And I learned something last night. I really like watching that show with people who love it, and like watching it with people who are sometime casual observers a lot less. Since one of them may be reading this, let me say for good measure, I love you and I think you're great and I will not let our varied levels of devotion to this show affect our friendship, apart from the fact that I might not hang with you Thursday nights.

But usually, if someone doesn't love The Office, but also doesn't dislike it strongly enough to not watch it if it is on somewhere they happen to be, the following will happen: They will laugh some (but not as much as me), they will become a harmless and unintended peanut gallery, from which will be heard statements such as, "Um... okay..." and "Oh my gosh...." and "Wow. He's kind of a jerk..." and all of these will be made with slight (I think mostly unintended) hints of disdain. And usually, if you ask a casual observer of The Office if they are a fan of the show, they will say something like, "It's funny sometimes, but it's so awkward. Like, I know it's supposed to be, but sometimes it's just too awkward."

This is usually the point where I will announce that I love the show, and I will feel like a heathen and a failure. But the fact is that the casual observer is right, the fact that it's so awkward is what makes the show, because you either see moments like that (hopefully to a milder degree) all the time and feel like you know people like the characters in your own life, or you don't. But I'm sorry, I find the idea of Andy describing his maybe-gay maybe-not-gay fantasy about Brad Pitt to his gay coworker hilarious (ask someone who's gay, and I can almost promise you they've had a mellow form of that conversation with a straight coworker). And Jesus still loves me, and I'm sure he would love Andy Bernard, too, were he real.

After that, this new show Community was on, which stars this guy named Joel McHale, who used to be on this show on the E! network (or maybe still is) called The Soup, where he stands in front of a flat-screen tv and talks about clips from all the different talk shows and reality-tv shows.

Please don't ask me why I know this--I can only suggest that my brain is and has always been a sponge for useless trivia and has no room for practical things, such as how to live--but there have been at least three other hosts of the talk show show, which used to be called Talk Soup, and they are John Henson, Aisha Tyler, and GREG KINNEAR, YOU GUYS.

So John Henson is now kind of a cartoon of his former self, and he did the narration on that dumb Wipeout show and I think DirectTV commercials or something, which makes me kind of sad. Aisha Tyler was on Friends way back when, long after I had stopped watching, and I'm sure she has done other great stuff, I just don't know what it is. But still, she's funny, she seems awesome, and I think we'd be good friends. Call me, Aisha!

And Greg Kinnear, like way, way, way back. I love Greg, and no matter how many Little Miss Sunshines he is in, I will always hear, "It's high times for you, isn't it Melvin? The gay neighbor is terrified!" in my head when I see him, and this will make me want to hug him and take him home. And by the way, if you are in the sad position of never having seen As Good As It Gets, that should be fixed immediately, because that movie is hilarious and sad in a great way, and Greg Kinnear is perfect.

Whew! All that to say that Community was actually pretty funny, and then Jay Leno's "new" show came on and everyone got kind of quiet and sad, because it's Jay Leno, which means it's not funny.

Okay, before I go, I feel like I need to share something that proves I still have a working brain: literature! I finished Franny & Zooey, which I loved and want to read like four more times, and just started Love in the Time of Cholera. And in defense of why I love novels, check out this first line:

"It was inevitable: The scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."

Are you kidding me? That's the kind of first line that makes me a total mess: I don't know whether to curse, or pray, or make out with the first man I see. And I'm only 30 pages in, but the whole book is like that! It makes me read it slow, not because it's particularly difficult, but because the words are so lush. His sentences go on for days, but they manage not to waste a word. I usually like prose that really clips along fast, but those 30 pages were kind of heavenly.

See? Brain still works. Maybe I shouldn't fix my tv... having this much to say about it is kind of great.

"I don't know what my type is...liars, maybe."

I have started reading Franny and Zooey and am absolutely loving it (though I am finding the effort to hold the old book in Eric's spine-saving fashion ridiculously difficult. I like letting books flop open in front of me, like setting them down, open to my place,). Like everybody else, I read The Catcher in the Rye in high school, and loved it, and read Nine Stories in college (but for fun, over a summer, because that's how I roll) and loved that even as it depressed the hell out of me. It's been a long time since I've read any Salinger, and it's a little like meeting a high school friend at the ten year reunion, only to discover that you still think they're great, but in a completely different way.

(In an unrelated, overly nerdy grammar-whore moment, I think all these book titles are technically supposed to be underlined, but I'm not certain AND I don't like the way that looks. And this is MY blog, dangit.)

The job hunting hasn't been quite as fruitful or a focused as I would hope it to be this week, but I did get several more applications off. And we'll start again, maybe as soon as tomorrow, but not before I have a wonderful visitor! My dear friend Laura, who graduated from the seminary with me in May, is in Portland as of tonight, and we're having (late) breakfast in the morning. So, so excited to see her.

I keep having a dream that's not exactly recurring, but the theme and motif are the same: there's some kind of robbery going on, in a bank or a home, and I show up late. Sometimes I know the robbers, sometimes I don't. but every time, I sneak in the midst of the chaos, grab some stuff, and then leave without anyone saying anything (when it was a bank robbery, I had three full sacks with big dollar signs on them, like in the cartoons, that I just picked up off the floor). I leave, and about five minutes later, I am overwhelmed with guilt, looking at my spoils. I have stolen these, I think. I'm officially a theif.

I never repent or return what I have taken, though, because that's always when I wake up. I view dream analysis with a very untrusting eye, but I'd be interested to hear thoughts.

"There will be no babies getting pushed out of THIS [expletive] anytime soon."

The best part about the quote above is that it came to me just like that; the "[expletive]" was in place, no editing necessary.

Apologies for not posting til now... but I will say it's nice to know that many of you share my love of Mr. Williams.

I came home last night exhausted and headachey, and had to wake up at 5 am for a missional community training with Emmaus. I must love this church or something, because nothing gets me out of bed that early. And it didn't, technically; I hit snooze for 20 minutes, and then sat on the edge of my bed utterly motionless for another ten. That's my typical morning routine, but it's so much more painful when it's still dark out.

As sleepy as I was, and as much as I yawned, I enjoyed the time, as I always do. One of the things I love about it was evidenced at one point when two members of the group, one of whom is the pastor, had a disagreement. The details aren't reallly important, but here's what I loved about it. It was allowed. It was discussed and not ignored, it was promised that it would be discussed more soon between the two people who disagreed, and then it was put aside for the moment. No arguing, no disrespect, no deciding that the person who was not the pastor should just shut up and take the pastor's word as the only view. This is so rare in so many churches and faith communities, and it made my heart for Emmaus grow that much more.

The only other thing of note to happen since I was here last is I got to hang out with Eric for the first time in what felt like forever. When he got back from his vacation, I texted him and said, "I am inviting myself over to hang out Wednesday or Thursday, you pick."

As soon as I sent it, I regretted it. I have this complex that I have been fighting against for the last few years... I don't tend to be the inviter, organizer, etc. of any social events, be they parties or general coffee hellos, because my stupid brain tells me that people will come hang out more out of guilt and duty than real desire. So, says Heather's stupid brain, if you wait to be invited, they obviously really want to see you.

Stupid, right? But if inviting people out doesn't happen, you can imagine the impact inviting myself into somebody else's house, even a good friend's, would have on my neuroses. So then I got this text from Eric yesterday: "You should invite yourself over tonight around seven. We can have a little wine and order a pizza and watch Arrested Development."

And my whole life was better. Friends are great.

Before I left his house, I grabbed a couple of his books (Love in the Time of Cholera and Franny and Zooey, if you feel like keeping track), complained that he hadn't given me mine back, and got a lesson in How to Hold a Book when I flipped through Franny...

We're readers, and we're dorks. This is what we do. The conversation went like this:

H: (flip)

E: Aaaack.

H: What?

E: You're holding it wrong.

H: (pause) What?

E: You're bending it.

H: (looks at book, then the weirdo on the couch) It's a book.

E: Yeah, but you're gonna bend the spine.

H: It's a book. (My power in debate is unmatched, clearly.)

E: Yeah, but it's old. and the pages will fall out.

H: Eric, it's a book. (You're in awe, I know.)

E: Here, gimme it.

H: Yeah, please, show me what I am doing so horribly wrong. How else do you hold a book?

E: (holds the book open, like a 'v') Like this.

H: That is TOTALLY what I did.

E: Nuh-uh, you went like this: (he bends the book back dramatically, making it look like an 'm')

H: Fine, keep it then, if you're so sure I'm gonna ruin it. (Maturity is my best feature.)

E: You can read it--just don't kill it.

H: (rolls her eyes)

For the record, I have now gotten the book home, and have decided it is, in fact, very old, and the pages may, in fact, fall out. So I'm going to go read it very, very carefully. I promise.

"It's your birthday? Well, happy f&%$!g birthday!"

People are actually reading this, and I think that's completely wild. You know who you are (mostly because you are here right now, reading as we speak), and I say hello, thanks for being here, and feel free to say hi.

You know, I keep having these phenomenal days, and I'm afraid they're going to spoil me. The first mild, uneventful day I have may send me climbing the walls, afraid I have somehow lost my capacity for good, interesting times forever. Check me tomorrow, will you?

Today started off with lunch with Robin and Gabe, which then led into our friend date time, started by a run through the Powell's on Hawthorne (Baby Powell's, as I affectionately call it). Robin was looking for a book to take with her on her honeymoon, and I was just trailing behind, happily awash in the glow of so many books I will never remember to read. Though I had just praised Nick Hornby's "How to be Good" to the sky for her, and told her to read some Zadie Smith at some point, I didn't feel that either of those were really honeymoon-appropriate books. As we wandered up and down the aisles, asking one another if we had read this or that (usually responding with "no"), I confessed that Powell's makes me extremely lustful. I want to wrap the entire place in my arms and take it home, and more often than not I just end up talking myself out of it. I remind myself of the large, full bookcase at home, and all those stories waiting to be read.

I usually will have more than one book going at a time, as what I want to read tends to change with my mood. I keep a mix of novels, short stories and non-fiction around most of the time. This is the same reason I have so many cds in my car. If what I'm doing doesn't fit the mood I'm in, it won't work, or at least it won't work as well.

I also like to pass books along, unless they are my favorite. I have been keeping more and more books lately, though. I don't know for sure, but it feels like, since I haven't read for pleasure in so long, my brain has decided it loves everything. Or maybe, if I want to give myself more credit, I've become such a discerning reader that I know what I will love before I read it.

Robin ended up with some Umberto Eco, some David Sedaris, and some book I had never heard of that she swore everyone else had been talking about. I felt a little ashamed that I had recommended the Sedaris and not the Eco, but that's always what happens. In the face of the literary, political and poetic, I will almost always go for the starkly comic and honest. I'm not sure why this makes me feel less cultured, as I believe humor is as much a talent and a gift as any other kind of art, but comedy as a whole has been so diluted by the cheap and the easy that it can often get written off as an entire form. Personally, I hope Robin reads David Sedaris on her honeymoon and leaves the others behind...

We continued the conversation at Sound Grounds, where I am happy to say we had the best service we've ever had. There's a stereotype about Portland restaurants and cafes, basically that the servers will treat you like they hate you, and like you have interrupted a deep meditation or a private party when you request service of any kind. I hadn't been to Sound Grounds in almost a year because they had seemed to fit the stereotype so perfectly... I had stood at the cash register and waited for the staff to finish their conversations or tickle fights or whatever too many times, and so I stayed away. This time, I am glad to report, the coffee, the service and the conversation were all delicious.

Robin asked some more about the blog, and I updated her, and told her about my early paranoia about writing at all. We talked about Beer & Blogs (she's set on attending when she comes back from the honeymoon), and we talked about the impulse to compare ourselves to the creativity of others (see yesterday's blog). I realized, after picking this blog and my language apart in my head, that what people most say they love about my stories is not their eloquence, their freshness or even their wit: they say they love the storytelling. And so then, I decided, I should just be faithful in telling the stories, the mundane and the glorious alike (and so often the same). The rest will take care of itself.

After I left Robin, I picked up my friend Ashley and her new roommate, whose name I do not know how to spell properly and so I will not butcher it here. We headed down to Fernhill Park for Emmaus' first ever free hip hop concert. In the interest of being honest, I have to say that I drove there with some trepidation. Brand-new things are always hard, and no matter how much you promote them, there's always the potential of plenty of things not working out. When we got there, things were running a little behind, and I thought, "Oh, my goodness, this is gonna be a mess." I was proven so wrong.

I had only ever heard two of the five performers (Ragen Fykes and Theory Hazit) in action, even though all five of them attend Emmaus. But every single one of them (Da'rel Jr., Propoganda and Odd Thomas were the other three) did an incredible job, and the crowd grew as the evening progressed. I was manning a table with chips and water for people, and it was so fun to watch people enjoy themselves. I don't know how many people were there; Courtney came out for it, and she thinks there were between 100 and 200 people. While I think those numbers seem high, the point remains: the turnout was incredible.

I have never been a big fan of hip hop, have never followed the culture or had reason to do so until now. But two things impressed me about today. Firstly, it was clear that this type of event does not happen often, and so it was special for the people involved, both the performers and the crowd. And secondly, I found myself with a new respect for these folks as artists. The music was good, the rhymes were smart, and I honestly enjoyed every moment of it.

Today was Christina's birthday, and she had told me that she wanted to go to this live-action Star Trek re-enactment at the Baghdad, and we had laughed and laughed. So, shortly after the concert ended, Courtney, Christina and I and some other friends found ourselves at the end of a very, very long line to get in. I grumbled inwardly and shuffled along, posting from my phone onto Twitter, asking how I got here and announcing that I felt very, very lame. And then guess what happened?

(Photo courtesy Courtney Durham)

I laughed my face off. I have never liked Star Trek, and somehow I have always had friends who were fans. But I had no idea the cultural significance of the episode we were witnessing, replayed in simple, post-high school senior play fashion. For any of you Star Trek dorks (and I use the term affectionately) out there, this was the episode where Spock needs a wife, and at some point he and Kirk (who is not only his o captain, my captain, but also his BFF) are in a fight to the death for some Vulcan girl in a gold dress.

Trust me, it was hilarious. The movie followed, and I have to admit, it was the second time I have seen it, and I really like it. J.J. Abrams somehow managed to make Star Trek sexy and fun, which I would have told you was a feat that was utterly impossible. Watching it with this crowd, however, was an experience. Every new character that appeared, every knowing wink to the original show, got hoots and hollers and such a dorktastic ruckus that I leaned over to Courtney and said, "What am I doing here?"

It reminded me of the time, in college, when the second Lord of the Rings movie came out, and my friend convinced me that we needed to go to the first showing on the first day that it opened. We ended up sitting in the very front row, directly in front of two guys who were dressed in full chain mail. As they clinked and clattered through every moment of the film, I leaned over to my friend and whispered, "Who ARE these people? Does the fact that we're here right now make us like them? We're not like these people, are we?"

The fact is that I am exactly like these people, which is why I found myself in a crowded theater laughing at a bunch of people being silly on stage. I'm like these people because while I may not embrace the culture as they do, and I may in fact be a total stranger there, we're all there for the same reason. We're there because we like the ridiculous, the fantastical, and maybe the oddly familiar. And who doesn't like laughing?

In a sense, I was in two unfamiliar territories today. The hip hop culture and the Trekkie culture may appear to have nothing in common (aside from me not being a massive fan of either), but today showed me that both will make space for whoever comes in, however they choose to do so, and for however long they plan to stay.

There's probably science fiction rap somewhere, right? I hope I never find it...