Songs in my head...

I often wake up with a song in my head. (I don't wake up to an alarm--I generally wake up around 6 or 7, and that's good enough for this time in my life.)

Yesterday I don't know if I woke up with it in my head, but the song I couldn't get rid of was, "Tears on my guitar." Well, and Mr. Eighteen Years Ago did break my heart. Broke it so well that I have been searching for pieces of it in every nook and cranny. And filling up the holes with not so healthy substitutes.

But Mr. EYA (eya, I like that!) wouldn't have been able to break my heart if I didn't have a longing to be loved. Which goes back to other stuff--no offense, Sis, but it was hard to be a teenager in a house of toddlers. I do not blame my parents, who did the best they could, but I longed to get out, to get to college, where I could have conversations at dinner. (The rule was we could only discuss what everyone could discuss.) (When I was fifteen, Sis was five. Bro was four. You do the conversational math.) (So all those people that think, "Oh, SL, your dad was with the govt, I bet you had heated political debates...No. Every night, I said, "This is a good meal," and that was the end of me talking aloud. Inside I was planning my escape.) (Sorry for all the parenthesis...)

These were the words I woke up with in my head this morning: "To know and follow hard after you." Thank you God for the Internet, I was able to dredge the rest of the lyrics:

Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You (lyrics here)

Lyrics later in the song (I feel like a detective, piecing this all together) are these:

This world is empty, pale, and poor
Compared to knowing you, my Lord
Lead me on and I will run after you

I keep having to relearn this one. I know it, but I often don't act it out. Lead me on is one of my favorite Amy Grant songs, but I won't go off on that tangent right now.

So what is my morning routine? (I knew you were going to ask!) (Well, I'm telling you anyways!)

I get these emails from Suzanne that are portions of books. You choose which kind of book you want, and they send you the equivalent of five emails of that book. Knowing me, c'mon, you aren't surprised that I chose "Christian non-fiction."

So Thomas Nelson sends me portions, and Suzanne tops it with her little column every day. She had a doozy of a day yesterday. The mosquito repellant she used attracted mosquitos by the droves and to calm the welts on her legs her husband gave her toothpaste instead of hydrocortizone cream. "So--I'm still itching, but at least I smell minty-fresh and my legs are tartar-free." She ends each column with her tagline: "Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends."

So this week the book I've been getting portions of is God at your wits' end by Marilyn Meberg. It's the story of her child with spina bifida and how people kept saying "It's your sin (as parents) that has caused this disability in your child." I love how she says "NO WAY JOSé!" (Figuratively. I don't think she said it literally.) In yesterday's portion she said if that was the case, EVERYONE'S child would be in crutches. And today she really brought it home. She started with Abraham, went through to Moses, and then finished off with Jeremiah, Ezekial, and the letters of Paul. This woman knows her stuff! I'll give you a little synopsis.

(Tell me you didn't see this coming--I mean, I woke up with "to know and follow hard after You.")

Okay, so Abraham gets the promise. "I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an ever-lasting covenant"
(Genesis 17:7 NASB).

Then Moses gets the law. God said, "Now if you will obey me and keep mycovenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the nations of the earth; for all the earth belongs to me" (Exodus19:5).

The people think this is great. We know the rules, we're gonna follow them. But they discover that while they can decide to not steal their neighbor's wife, they can't stop thinking about her.

Marilyn puts it this way:

But all the people found it impossible to keep from breaking the rules having to do with their minds, perhaps thinking thoughts such as, "I can stay out of my neighbor's bed, but I can't keep her out of my head. I can keep myself from stealing my neighbor's kinnor, but I can't help coveting it." (Sorry. I had to throw that in when I found out a kinnor had ten strings that were tuned pentatonically without semitones. Mercy! If I can't have semitones in order to tune pentatonically, I don't even want a kinnor!)

I'm sorry, but that gave me a giggle.

So here's the thing. God saw they couldn't keep his commandments, so he gave them a new covenant:

The new covenant promised divine enablement. It promised the Spirit of God would literally be poured into the hearts of His people, giving them power to obey.

This comes in Jeremiah 31:33: "I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people."

and Ezekiel (Lilly's favorite book.) "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your
filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so you will obey my laws and do whatever I command."

She goes on to quote Paul:

This second covenant points to the future role of Jesus, not only for salvation, but for victory. It is clearly stated in Romans 8:1-4:

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ
Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through
Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of
Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature. But God put
into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a
human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed
sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully
accomplished for us who no longer follow our sinful nature but
instead follow the Spirit.

How's that for great news? You and I can't keep God's laws. Not keeping God's laws is sin. The wages of sin is death. Jesus died for that sin. We are not condemned for what we can't do. Mr. Davidson liked to say, "God will punish them for their sins." Jesus says, "Not over My dead and risen body!"

I like that. Jesus saying "Not over My dead and risen body!" It did, it gave me a giggle. The good news is so good.

Rules aren't going to un-break my heart. But the love of God, the love of Jehovah Rophe (the healer, rophe means to mend, stitch by stitch) can work at it. And stitch by stitch takes longer than SHAZAM! but I'm pretty stubborn, so I guess it's good that God doesn't just zap me. He takes a long time because I take a long time.

Oh, look at the time. If I'm gonna walk, I have 10 minutes!!

Eclectic...

I love discovering new blogs, new authors, new music, new...but I also love the old, the familiar.

I have been told all my life that I'm good at writing the middle but I need to work on my introductions and conclusions. So-be-it.

I look at other people's blogs and see their blogrolls, all alphabetical, or in one format and think, oh, it looks so clean, so organized, and yet I know that while I might borrow some of what they do, I will probably have some that don't fit a format because I'm fairly eclectic.

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ec·lec·tic [i-klek-tik] –adjective
1. selecting or choosing from various sources.
2. made up of what is selected from different sources.
3. not following any one system, as of philosophy, medicine, etc., but selecting and using what are considered the best elements of all systems.
4. noting or pertaining to works of architecture, decoration, landscaping, etc., produced by a certain person or during a certain period, that derive from a wide range of historic styles, the style in each instance often being chosen for its fancied appropriateness to local tradition, local geography, the purpose to be served, or the cultural background of the client. –noun
5. Also, ec·lec·ti·cist [i-klek-tuh-sist] a person who follows an eclectic method, as in philosophy or architecture.

(from Dictionary.com)

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So, my taste in music, my taste in movies, my taste in books...all eclectic. I even have an eclectic taste in friends. I am a children's librarian and I love kid's books, but I love working half-time in Tech Serv where I get to work with AV (DVDs, CD-ROMs) and non-kids books ("adult books" somehow insinuates something else...)

Do I like Madonna? Yes. Do I like Patty Larkin? Yes. Do I like Martina McBride? Lucinda Williams? Christine Lavin? Yes, Yes, Yes. I love Johnny Cash. I own five Menudo LPs from the early 80s. I adore Carole King.

I like Home Alone, Twister, Enchanted April, A Knight's Tale, Metropolitan, Men in Black, and Flushed Away, to name a few movies.

So my blog doesn't fall easily into a category either. I'm not really a library blogger, though I am a librarian. I'm not really a kidlit blogger, though I am a children's librarian. I'm not really a literary blogger, but I do often write about books. I'm not a mom blogger, though many folks on my "roll" are. I have bipolar disorder, but this blog isn't really about that either. I love crafting, but it's not a craft blog... I'm Presbyterian/Emergent/Christian but my blog isn't just about that experience either. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Eclectic.

My life has been enriched by time spent in the Americas: Brazil, Honduras, and the U.S. (mainly Maryland, Virginia, and Pittsburgh, PA) and Europe: Germany, Poland, and traveling all over the Continent as well as a short trip to England when I was 8.

My life has been enriched by my siblings: born when I was 10 and 11, my world has expanded to include them and their eclectic tastes, although my sister is pretty straightforward in her reading: she likes Regency period romances, Jane Austen, and all the classics (she asked for The Hunchback of Notre Dame for her 13th birthday--the book, not the movie.) She watches old movies. My brother is into music and listens even to Bessie Smith. He loves Bob Dylan. They both are huge U2 fans.

My dad likes country music, and I do too. My dad reads the New York Times and at least two other papers online DAILY, and often will email articles that he thinks I'd be interested in, from obits of children's authors to articles about libraries.

My mother is a nature lover. She gardens. So I have tulips in front of my house in Pittsburgh, planted when I was in library school. For her birthday, I bought her a huge bag of bird seed.

My parents aren't big readers (of books for people their age) -- my mom knows a lot of kid's picture books as she currently teaches second grade but has also taught first, third, kindergarten and preschool. My dad, like the protagonist in the movie Metropolitan, reads book reviews, but not books. He'll tell you what a movie is about, but 9 times out of ten, he hasn't seen it. He is also well versed in children's books, and his favorite, if pressed, would probably be Daniel Pinkwater's The Big Orange Splot. "My house is me...it looks like all my dreams."

Um, so in conclusion, I'm eclectic. Or, as a card I once bought in college said, "I'm glad you like me. (inside:) I'm too wierd for anyone else."

On the bookshelf right now: The Restless Heart: Finding our spiritual home in times of loneliness. As a person who spends WAY too much time by herself, this book is incredibly insightful and in some ways like looking into a mirror that says, "You are okay. You are human."

Signs of the Times...

The Riverside Tastee-Freez isn't Tastee-Freez anymore, so it's just Riverside, and their sign thing is empty because they're closed for the season.

I thought it was Experienced Smiles, as I sat at the light at Craig and Bayard. Hmm, is that like a polite way to say Geriatric Dentistry? No, as I went through the intersection, I saw that it's Exceptional Smiles. Well, that makes more sense. It's where the old Dental School office used to be.

Pittsburgh Veterinary Dermatology--is that like if your cat gets eczema?

I was behind a car whose license plate read GFT--which of course made me think of who else I have to remember...I spent 15 min too long at Target before work...

At Target, I couldn't resist this card--I may give it to Sis: I want romance. Other cards were miss you or stud.

Oh, and did you know that KFC is returning to their roots? Kentucky Fried Chicken, yes ma'am!

I thought there was one more, but it's escaping me...

I remembered!! It's a automotive place on the way to work. "Under New Management...open DAILY." But what I see as I drive past is Under New Management DAILY. Gosh, that must be hard on the staff...