Throwing away the scale

Now that nanowrimo is over, well almost over, there are still almost twelve hours to go. I've not written in my novel for a couple of day but i do plan to go out with a bang later after church by hanging out in the nano chat room and cheering on my fellow writers till midnight, and maybe getting another thousand or two words in before the deadline as well.

But this blog post is not supposed to be about fiction writing, or my future plans for that which are bouncing through my head, distracting me as we speak. I had resolved that once nano was over I would try to write a blog post a week, that is not a copy paste from my live journal, most likely on sundry mornings (*cough* afternoon) because that's my generally calm and quiet time, sitting around the house in pajamas, drinking coffee, and just puttering. A 7:15PM church service is a beautiful thing. I figure if I could pound out 50 thousand words of drivel disguised as fiction (and many scenes of people drinking coffee, or tea, or debating the relative merits of coffee versus tea - I think I should just call next year's novel 'Scenes from a Starbucks' and have done.) then I can pound out a few hundred words of blog post a week, surely? Though the blog will not be immune from coffee references, because coffee is love. Especially with pumpkin spice creamer.

Mixed up in my nano notes in the notebook I've been carrying around since mid October are lots of little ideas for blog posts, and the challenge today is to try not to cram them all in to one, because I am in the mood to write something not related to adventures on the moon, the coffee is flowing (see?), it's raining and I have the house to myself.

No. Must stay on track. Yes.

Right, so today's blog post will be about idols.

I've been reading and hearing quite a bit lately about idols - in books, sermons, podcasts, etc. When I think of idols, the first thing that pops into my head is a silly statue, like the falling fish god, the golden calf, or Jabu in the movie 'Major League' who gets offering of rum, cigars, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I always think, so self righteously, how could anyone be so stupid as to worship something like that?

Of course, we wouldn't. Two thousand plus years after Bible times our idols have become way more sophisticated.

If this year of no clothes shopping has taught me anything, it's that clothes are not my issue. Finishing my eleventh month of no clothes shopping today, I still don't really feel it. I wonder where on earth I found the time to go shopping for clothes, and I'm not really looking forward to resuming it. I could almost go another year, except that I really need a new raincoat, one that does not absorb water. Did you know Gortex wears out? Apparently after a few years, it does. And proper running shoes, from the store where they watch you run on the treadmill and look at your old shoes to see where you wear them out... But this post was not supposed to be about clothes.

My idol is the scale. I decided this after about two years now of weighing and recording, obsessing about numbers changing, counting and recording points, trying to hyper organize everything I eat in one day, blowing it, feeling guilty, and then blowing it some more. And then last year, trying to fit training into the mix, calculate how many points I exercised and need to replace, so as to not pass out during a workout, which would be bad. Discovering the the weight watchers site has no clue about energy bars and sports gels and drinks didn't help.

So I threw out my scale. Well, actually i didn't because I would feel guilty throwing out a perfectly good appliance. It, they actually, are in the top of my closet, if anyone would like them. I have one old fashioned and one digital that supposedly also calculates body fat and percentage of water. I have decided to accept my body as it is. I'm not *really* overweight. I did a triathlon this year, for crying out loud. Okay, it took me four and a half hours, but still. And with no new clothes, everything still fits from this time last year.

I had a wonderful time this past month with all the write-ins, making healthy choices as best I could from the menus at Panera and Cosi, and then indulging a little bit if I wanted to, to reward myself for my word count. I'm also having fun experimenting with cooking, and continuing my training, which are other blog posts.

so I shall leave you with a picture of my thanksgiving leftovers, and go make pancakes. And perhaps catch up on the blogs I've not read all month. My rss reader just might be about to explode...

For the win!

And now to get back to my Thanksgiving preparations!

Today I thank God for:

-tissues
-Blistex
- Chicken soup
-NyQuil

*wanders off to drink more fluids*

Advent!

Taking a short break from NaNoWriMo to celebrate the first day of ADvent, which according to my prayer book, Celtic Daily Prayer, starts today. Celtic advent is the forty days before Christmas, matching the forty days in the liturgical year of Lent from Ash Wednesday to Easter.

From the book: Advent is traditionally a time of preparation for Christmas. It is said that the door to the stable where the Christ-child has been born is very low - only those who kneel find access. being ready for Christmas should mean that our thoughts are focused on not just letters, cards, and presents, but on repentance, humbling and interior 'housecleaning'. John the Baptist warned his hearer to prepare a way for the Lord - to make a clear and level pathway. This involves removing any boulders that stand in the way, and filling in any potholes. The boulders are the things we have done that we should not have done; the potholes are the things we have failed to do which we obviously should have done. The more, as individuals, family or congregation, we are focused in this way, the less we will be overwhelmed by the commercialization of Christmas.

For this advent season, I am reading Forty Days of Living the Jesus Creed, by Scot McKnight, in part because I got it for my birthday and don't want to to save it till spring.

I'm also taking some more steps against the commericalization and frenzy of Christmas by not sending Christmas cards, or gifts outside of small ones for my immediate family. Instead throughout the new year I intend to be more vigilant about remembering people's birthdays (If they want them remembered that is!) And this year I am using the money I would have spent shopping on buying clean drinking water. Everyone should drink more water.

Join me at The Advent Conspiracy!

And now to head off to the city to get some writing done - 31k words and counting :)

NaNoWriMo time!

I know it's been about a month since I posted last. I had resolved to start writing a blog post a week. The best laid plans... I have about three half finished posts in my notebook, so if I get bored or am in procrastination mode, we'll see what happens.

Otherise this month is reserved for NaNoWriMo!

Here is my widget so you can follow my progress:



Now back to writing.

Renovare "Life With God" Conference

Spent the weekend in Houston at the Renovare "Life with God" conference. I had an amazing time, and learned enough to keep me thinking for about a year. Also the books I bought will keep me busy for quite awhile - see the last post for a pic of the books.

I am sitting here at the airport waiting for my flight and sipping a sugar free nonfat mocha, and eating a carrot muffin to make up for it. There is no free internet to distract me, so I thought i would type up some of the thoughts from my notes for posting later.

I can't do justice to any of the speakers, so just a couple of bytes from each of them on how they affected me.

Dallas Willard: I've heard much about this man, quotes from various other books that I've read, but I confess I've never actually read anything by him. I also confess that I didn't not buy any of his books this time either, as I was already trying to figure out how I was going to pack what I bought, but there is always Amazon later. The main things I took away from his presentation are that emphasis needs to be on what type of person I am becoming, and then routine easy obedience will come. In other words the emphasis on character transformation rather than behavior modification. Of course it took nearly two hours to unpack those points, so for more I recommend the cd!

John Ortberg: I really liked his way of speaking and need to see if his church does sermon podcasts. Of course him starting off with a Monty Python joke didn't hurt! He made the point that modern evangelism reduces the gospel to the minimum entrance requirements to heaven, and as an example compared the entrance to Heaven to the bridge at the end of the holy grail where the characters just have to have the right answer to get across, whereas if they don't, they plunge down into the chasm. He compared being an admirer of Jesus to being a follower of Jesus, and brought out the point that our core beliefs are not necessarily what we say, but are demonstrated by our actions, how we respond to certain situations, etc.

Chris Webb: A Welshman who likes books! (I stole that quote from Larissa. *waves*). Chris is the new president of Renovare, an Anglican priest, and absolutely delightful. He dressed in a monk's habit on Saturday for the feast day of St Francis, and introduced himself first as a Jedi Knight. I wanted to ask him if he had heard of the Jedi Chefs, but didn't get the chance. We took his workshop on Friday on reading the spiritual classics. He explained a bit about the process of Lectio Divina, and that we should read classics "not as we read John Grisham" (which in my case would be Tad Williams, Carol Berg, Stephen Booth, etc) but slowly and relationally. The purpose of the classics, and indeed the Bible, is not to give us entertainment or information, but to draw us into the presence of God. He gave us a lovely reading list which is going to make my wishlist explode.

Lauren Winner: Lauren is exactly how I pictured her, in a good way! She started off by saying that she was intimidated by sharing the stage with people like Richard Foster and Dallas Willard, but if Sarah Palin could share a podium with Joe Biden then she could do it. She said she tried to get her hair in an upsweep which didn't work, but she thinks her glasses are cooler than Sarah's. (I agree). Her talk was on the Trinity, which was very deep. What I took away was her illustration of Jesus' baptism as a trinitarian event - Jesus of course being present, the father's voice from above, and the spirit in the form of a dove (hey that rhymes!) all converging, so to speak in one place. She also had the criticism that many churches in America are functionally unitarian - emphasizing one aspect of the trinity over the other two.

After Lauren's talk we had an evensong service, which was a really nice end to the day, considering how much I had swimming around in my head, the periods of silence were especially welcome.

Saturday started with

Ron Sider: who gave a talk on social activism, and how the good news of the Kingdom of God does not end with salvation.

Todd Hunter: I took Todd's workshop on spiritual formation as the new evangelism. He started out by talking about how the culture has changed, the church and Christians no longer get automatic respect, and actually more the opposite. Coming from NYC, nothing he said was new or shocking to me, but I could tell it was to those around me. His main point was that the only tool of evangelism that will work is the authentic lives of Christians.

Richard Foster: was the last speaker, and I didn't take any notes during his presentation as he had given us an incredibly detailed outline in our packets. He has a ponytail down to his waist! Gorgeous, actually. Chris Webb teased him that he had been growing it since he was called to minister to the Woodstock generation, and the complained that no one ever asks him about his hair (Chris has crewcut shorter than my brother's). Richard is a powerful presence, strong and yet gentle, with a terrific sense of humor including about himself. He spoke on the importance of spiritual formation, sort of summing up what all the others had been talking about all weekend, and then we had a time where all the leaders prayed for us.

The conference as a whole was wonderful and I will definitely go to another - I wish they'd have some closer to home! Now, I need to decide which book to start...

Renovare Conference

Just finished the Renovare conference here in Houston Texas. I have tons of notes to type up, not that I could do anything justice, but I will not be doing that tonite. Maybe tomorrow as I wait for the SuperShuttle to take me to the airport.

Tonite I will leave you with two pictures that sort of sum up my weekend.

A few books managed to find their way into my bag....



And a statue of St Francis, in a Presbyterian church garden!