Finally. It's one o'clock and the sun is shining. And I'm going to go in a few minutes and change from my front desk dignified and conservative persona into something more girl next door. Then I'm going to grab some chips and a pop, maybe a sandwitch and some kettle corn, and take my journal and a blanket to the park. It seems like that kind of day. A weary, nap in the park, warm-snuggle in the sun kind of day. If I knew what the weather was like south of me, it would be a loll on the sand by the water day. Should I take the chance?

I was going through my old beat up sermon notebook, transferring it to my new shiny Sermon/Prayer Requests Journal, and I found a sermon from a month or so ago that got me thinking.

I went to a church that is in the process of changing names. The sermon was on the importance God places on names, his own and other people's. I took his challenge and used my concordance to look up the word name. It's in there a lot!

The point of his sermon was that our names are not an accident. Even if our parents only chose them for the sound, God has given them special meaning unique to each of us. I'm not sure what I think about a divine mandate about my name, but then I remembered how in Perelandra Ransom's name was chosen before ransom was a word. Before his ancestors morphed their name from Ranolf's son. Before ransom mean to act as the redemption for someone else. (BTW, did anyone else go back and catch in Out of the Silent Planet that Lewis says the name Ransom is a pseudonym? Nitpick!)

So I bought a baby names book and looked mine up.

Rachel: (Hebrew) Ewe, Lamb of God, Innocent.
LeAnn (Either a combination of Leah and Hannah, or Lee and Hannah)
Leah: (Hebrew) Weary.
Lee: (Old English) Meadow
Hannah: (Hebrew) Full of Grace, Mercy, and Prayer.

I kind of like going with Leah over Lee, because then I have an all-biblical, Jewish women of faith sort of name....But then, it is a lot to live up to!

(Over at Marla's Musings she has a link to name origins and meanings...Go find your own names)

After Great Pain

After great pain, a formal feeling comes--

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs--

The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,

And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round--

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought--

A Wooden way

Regardless grown,

A Quartz contentment, like a stone--

This is the Hour of Lead--

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow--

First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--

~Emily Dickenson~

Tired again. Three days of double shifts in a row takes it out of you. How did I ever work five days through the holidays? I can't do this for too much longer...If I make it through the month-of-spring-breaks, maybe I can make it to May. After that I think all the EmergenC's and sleeping aids in the world won't be enough.

This has been a good year. A year of healing old wounds simply because I wasn't around the things that ripped them back open and made them bleed afresh. Sheer physical exhaustion is much to be preferred to mind and heart numbing depression and false hopes and never-quite-attained resignation. So I can't complain too much (though I do) about all of the working and too little sleeping. It's been a good year.

I take it all back

At least I have a job, in fact more jobs than I know how to manage.

An older gentleman walked into the Inn yesterday. Well dressed, well spoken. He had been well educated and worked as a consultant in the area of financial planning, projection, something like that. His entire life savings had been invested somewhere, and whoever did the investing ran off with it. His car was repossessed. He had no money to pay bills, much less groceries. He came to beg for a job from a man he'd met as a business associate once, and hoped could help him. He didn't want a handout. He needed work.

How ungrateful do I feel for griping so much about my jobs?

*The gentleman came back this morning trying to get an employment application. I gave him one, and directions to my church which has a deacon's fund for these types of emergencies. I hope there is someone at the church... it's saturday, and there are no receptionists on...why don't I think of these things? I got more of his story, too. There was an add in the paper for $8,000 off a new car with a trade-in. As it turned out later, the new car promised was actually a used car, with a huge downpayment and another huge monthly payment. Of course, if you were late in paying, there were huge fees and the threat of reposession. So he has no recourse. How do companies get away with stuff like that?

I'm tired today. Of the endless monotony. Of working two jobs. Of having hours so slow that once bills are paid, there's nothing leftover. Of wanting to pay off more loans, but not being able to do more than the minimum, not from poor management of money, but because there is none. Of not being able to eat out. Or splurge. Of having time, finally, to myself, but no excess funds for gas even just to drive someplace. Of having life up in the air and entirely variable. It's been exciting for a while, but now I'm sitting around (figuratively, since by my tally you can see that I am auditioning and sending out resumes) waiting for some of my other prospects to surface. Hoping that I won't be waiting tables forever. Hoping that the agent who wanted me last year will want me now. Hoping that the touring cast I have a contact with will call me back. That PCPA will hire me for the summer season so I can at least put some shows on my resume. That someone somewhere will see me perform and want me for something. I feel like Eliza Doolittle after the ball, wanting to shout, "What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for?" I'm so specially trained that my options are narrowed. If I don't get to sing, I'm left competing for jobs with people who have never gone to college. I wish I could sell my degree back and pay off these darn loans. What good is a worthless degree? I could have just taken voice lessons...

I'm tired of going every Thursday night and singing my heart out. It's great experience, and the most valuable part is getting feedback from other performers. But then the inevitable happens. The after show schmooze. "Why aren't you performing? When will we see you on Broadway? What on earth are you doing here? Why aren't you out there? Doing things?" And when I try to explain life's amusing little curve ball they "Wish me the best" and can't wait until they can "tell people they knew me when I was just a cocktail waitress/Front Desk Clerk/ Singing on Thursday nights." And they invariably end with "Well you're great, you need to just get out there and I'm sure things will happen for you."

It brings to mind the phrase "damning you with faint praise." Not quite. But its all well and good for all these people to wish me the best and all, but really I wish they wouldn't. I leave every time feeling like I have all the talent in the world, but I'm wasting it here. Don't they realize that the phrase "starving artist" isn't a kitsch metaphor but a blatant reality? It costs money to put together the demos, the headshots, the videos, the CD's, the resumes on nice quality paper, the packets, the postage to mail the packet, the postage to mail the packet again when the agent didn't look at it the first time, the postage to mail all of the "I hope you got my packet, here's what I'm up to now, and I'm going to keep bugging you until you represent me/give me a job/ let me audition for you" letters. Not to mention gas to get to the auditions, and air fare to the far away ones, lodging, food while you're there. And before you go you have to get a haircut and your nails done so you look professional.

I'm not complaining (well I am today, but most days I accept it as part of the business), but I do with all of these people would stop "well wishing." The honest admiration is very heartening. I really appreciate people who tell me they enjoyed the performance, or that I'm comparable to any performer they've seen when they traveled to _____. What they could knock off is all of the comments about "why aren't you ......?" If they really want to see me "get out there/up there/over there and perform then they need to put their money where their mouth is or shut up.

I'm sorry for all of you who are getting the brunt end of today's discouragement. On the way home last night Grandma started talking about I just need to pray that God's will be done. Which I do. And I trust that his will is the best for me. But the interminable waiting is discouraging...

The Prayer of Jabez

This is OLD news, but I was in a craft store yesterday and they had the 'Prayer of Jabez' cross stitch. I hate that prayer...Or, not the prayer itself, but the cult following it seems to have generated. My grandmother has the plaque in her living room, and gave me a copy of the book. Pam and I discussed it when I was in Waco, and came to the same conclusions. Most of the "blessed company" don't like it either. Here it is in all its glory:

And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying,

Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." I Chronicles 4:10 NIV

(The NKJV translates it as keep me from harming others and causing them pain -- which actually makes the prayer better, in my opinion)

I'm not going to do a major pan here, because I haven't read the book yet. Maybe I'll borrow my sister's copy -- I chucked mine. Marla, did you or the Thinklings take that one on?

Here's the prayer I think should be substituted:

"Two things I ask of you, O Lord;
do not refuse me before I die:
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches; but give me only my daily bread*
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the LORD?'
Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God."
Proverbs 30:7-9.

Here's the link to what the Thinklings had to say about the Prayer of Jabez. Read the comments too.

*I missed transcribing that line. It's my favorite because it's also in the Lord's Prayer.

"Don't associate with her. She's a social climber." (Spoken with the same inflection as: "Their uncle is in trade, and lives in Cheapside.")

Says the woman sitting with her two standard poodles to her obviously older and slightly infirm husband.

Today is going to be another somewhat stream of conscience entry.

Lent is going by really slowly. I gave up reading anything but my Bible and various commentaries. (Except on Sunday...I'll allow myself some leeway -- last Sunday I spent an hour or two skimming through the "Jane" Sections of C. S. Lewis' Third book in the Space Trilogy. (Oh why is the name escaping me?) He has a lot of insight into the modern woman's views of marriage, and I like to read them. I identify with Jane quite a bit. It helps that she's my age.

Speaking of book characters, I am now older than most of my favorite heroines. I'm older than Anne of Green Gables until she goes off to teach, I'm way older than Jane Eyre, somewhat older than Elizabeth Bennett and Emma Woodhouse. I'm not older than Valancy Stirling (from another L. M. Montgomery Book), but she was an old maid until she turned thirty. It's a shock to re-read your favorite books and feel ancient! I'm also older than every girl in every musical I'll ever do...Except maybe Eliza Doolittle. I think they say she's twenty five.

That Hideous Strength. That's Lewis' third book.

My sister is happily situated in her new place. I've been by every other day or so to hang out. Last night she and one of her landlord's daughters helped me turtlewax my car. It looks so nice now! And slippery. I keep losing hold of the door handles. We then watched "Return to Me." I didn't like that movie the first time I watched it, but its growing on me. It seemed to be missing something. I love the old guys. They make the film. My thought after last night was, She flies all the way to Rome to stay for less than a week?

My friend is very upset today. Her daughter is leaving for college next fall. Recently my friend has been beside herself because her daughter is up in arms about being treated "like an adult," but still wants to live at home and have her parents pay for everything, and watch her dog when she goes to visit her boyfriend out of town. She left town this week, skipping school and missing work, and my friend's husband said that she needed to either come home, or move out. She's opted to move. My friend is very upset, and her husband is upset. They both want to do the right thing, and they want their daughter to become a mature adult. Keep them in your prayers as their house is in turmoil.

Oh, and I have to sing the praises of my beyond-friends, Pam and Ken in Waco, who spent several days sorting my stuff, drying it, and putting it back together again. I don't know what I would have done without them there, as the "faithful stewards" of my meager possessions. I owe them about four days of labor, several tanks of gas, and at least one dinner for two. I know "stuff" isn't that important, but if I ever have a stable life again, I'd like to gather my few things around myself. I was most worried about my scrapbooks -- the only irreplaceable things in the whole unit -- but thanks to their foresight, they were wrapped in plastic trash bags and escaped any damage. Thank you Thank you Thank you. Anyone who lives in Texas and wants stay at the best bed and breakfast in the world with the nicest owners, go to Valley Vista Bed and Breakfast in Valley Mills. I've stayed there myself, and it's a log cabin with a great view of Hill Country Texas. There's my plug. But really, Pam and Ken are the best people (Ken is so nice he endured six hours of Pride and Prejudice the last time I was in town...And Pam is always kind enough to humor my endless opinions on every subject, and then get me to actually look at what I think I'm saying. I guess you'd have to have been there for our three hour talk about marriage.), and founding members of "The Blessed Company."

Golden hour has hit. Everything is so pretty! It was 90 here today--unseasonably hot. I don't own anything except for work clothes anymore. I may have to go find a sundress or something for the few hours I'm not in a suit, or a tacky hoe-down cocktail outfit. Circle skirts and western shirts may look alright on some, but they make the petite look shorter and dumpy. Blargh. They are changing out uniforms soon...To different blouses and western skirts...

So that's all I can think of today.

I was reading a little more of William Barclay's Commentary today at lunch. I bought two new ones at a book sale at a local church...so I'm now working my way through the letters of John, Jude, Peter, and James. I came across this quote, "A man's own character will necessarily be necessarily determined by the character of the god whom he worships."

What does "my" god look like to other people, and how does "my" god affect my own life. In the Bible I find a God (old testament and new) that goes out of his way to find people, go where they are, and bring him back into relationship with Him. I often feel that I'm running around in circles trying to find him with little measurable success. I often fear a god who doesn't want me, and stands back with his arms folded waiting for me to mess up so he can guilt me into knowing how horrible I am, and how far away from his standard. God has told me that he will help me with my weaknesss, supplying me with his own strength to overcome them, or using them to let himself shine through.

There's hope. The more I read of my Bible, and talk to mature Christians, the more I'm able to see who God really is, and how far off this god is in my head. It takes a concerted effort each time to push away that god, and remind myself who God has revealed himself to be. Maybe I'll never "feel" God's love or forgiveness on a regular basis, but I'll be able be able to trust that he has given it. And I hope that the other god will someday get out of my head...