I'll Have to Spill Some Spaghetti Sauce on My Shirt for a Nice Touch

I took Lori’s birthday card with me to work this morning. It wasn’t a typical size envelope, not large enough to make it anything exciting, just large enough that the top said, “requires extra postage.” I think Hallmark has a deal with the Post Office to get a little bit of extra funding. Maybe Hallmark takes a little bit off the top. (Now watch me get nasty letters from Hallmark and the Post Office. They won’t mail them in an oversized envelope, I’ll tell you that much.) Anyway, I had to go to the Post Office to figure out exactly how much postage we were talking. Throw in “extra postage” when you’re talking international stamps and it gets very confusing. Generally I just stick tons of stamps on things and they get there alright, but I was running low in my stamp supply, so I decided to actually check the price. I went to Starbucks on the way, because, well, you don’t really need a reason to go to Starbucks, you just do. But in the process of addressing my oversized envelope, I managed to spill iced coffee all over it. How embarrassing. I marched to the post office in some very uncomfortable high heels and just at the moment I thought all hope was gone and I should never get there before my toes became little stubs at the bottom of my shoes, I saw the eagle. Thank goodness. A very nice postal employee helped me buy my stamps and assured me that he thought it was just an artsy envelope that was supposed to look like that. (“That” being the coffee spilled all over it.) He said, “Well, she’ll just be excited about getting a letter from so far away.” So Lori, be excited about getting a letter and don’t mind the coffee. ;0) I noticed a most exciting thing as I waited for him to measure my oversized envelope. There are currently Jimmy Stewart stamps for sale at the Post Office. Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorite people. I mean, of the favorite people that I don’t actually know and are currently dead, that is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jimmy Stewart in a movie that I didn’t like. So if you are buying stamps any time soon, buy some that say “James Stewart” on them. They’re very exciting.

I Finally Saw Condi :0)

This afternoon I headed over to Main State to hear Condoleezza Rice speak to all of the Department interns. It was amazing. She is so down-to-earth. And small! I thought she was so much taller than she actually was. Condoleezza Rice is definitely one of my heroes, I mean, the woman speaks Russian for crying out loud, and it was really great to hear her talk with us. People asked a lot of great questions. She was so…approachable. I mean, she looked like the sort of person you could run into and have lunch with. That was a nice contrast to a lot of the upper level people I’ve come in contact with in the Federal Government. She spent some time answering a question about her heroes- she said her parents- and she said that they were people who never saw limits. She said that she grew up in segregated Birmingham where someone who was black couldn’t go down the road to order a hamburger, but being the president was a perfectly attainable goal, according to her parents. She’s come pretty darn close. And if she ever ran for president, she’d have my vote. :0)

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Everyone!

In a bit of a surreal, Washingtonian moment today I watched the Presidential helicopter zoom in over my head and head for the White House yard a couple blocks away. Today was the St. Patrick’s Day parade in downtown D.C. Thankfully, it stopped sprinkling just in time to save the ticker-tape. I seated myself in front of the Washington Monument to get a good view and watched a throng of Irish stepdancers and bagpipe-playing firemen. I am convinced that Americans have more Irish pride than the Irish- with the exception of maybe during soccer season. It seems that the melting pot of America feels an intrinsic need to celebrate their heritage with more veracity than the actual home country. I observed it yesterday as I shielded myself with my computer to avoid being trampled by the green, drunken mass that entered the train at Metro Center. The inebriated do not fare well with the stop and go motion of a metro. Listening to them argue about what stop they are currently approaching is somewhat amusing. Watching them attempt to help their friends up who have fallen on their faces is even better. I’m almost certain I was the only sober person on the yellow line yesterday evening. Although, I have to say that after spending eight and a half hours working on a paper in Panera I was not exactly of sound mind either.

“I have found almost everything ever to be written about love to be true. Shakespeare said, ‘Journeys end in lovers meeting.’ What an extraordinary thought. Personally, I have never experienced anything remotely close to that, but I am more than willing to believe Shakespeare had. I suppose that I think about love more than anyone really should. I am constantly amazed by its sheer power to alter and define our lives. It was Shakespeare who also said that ‘love is blind.’ Now that is something I know to be true. For some, quite inexplicably, love fades. For others, love is simply lost. But then, of course, love can also be found-even if just for a night. And then there’s another kind of love. The cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims. It’s called unrequited love. Of that, I am an expert.” -Iris in The Holiday

Happy ?St. Patrick's Day? Everyone!

“No, no, no. I know this one,” you say. “St. Patrick’s Day is March 17th every year.” Apparently things are different in Alexandria, Virginia, where St. Patrick is celebrated the first weekend in March. And celebrated he is. I’m convinced that every kid in Alexandria goes to Irish stepdancing class. There were five different stepdancing schools represented in the parade. Cameron and I think that we had deprived childhoods because our parents didn’t send us to Irish stepdancing class. There were also a dozen or so bagpipe bands. The firemen had pipe bands, the marines had pipe bands, the army had pipe bands, the notre dame alumni had pipe bands - pretty anyone who is anybody has a bagpipe band. Where is the Washington Center bagpipe band, I would like to know. There was lots of music, lots of green, lots of Ireland. In essence, it was the best ever. :0) I’m a sucker for anything Irish. The month of March is a redheaded kid’s dream. Red headed kids seem to come out of the woodwork during St. Patrick’s Day parades. Maybe they stay in hiding the rest of the year. They’re like Jeep drivers and Mac users. You see a redheaded person and you give the “oh, what’s up?” nod. Carli knows what I’m talking about.

After the parade, Cameron, Becca and I walked down King Street and found something amazing. Bread and Chocolate. This is the name of a restaurant. It took way too long for someone to decide that this would be a good idea for an eating establishment. I mean, what else do you really need in life? Bread. Chocolate. Put them together and it equals something beautiful. I was not actually hungry, but I plan on visiting this place as soon as possible. Sarah, I think you and I will go here. You can just buy a bagette and some chocolate and go to town. Absolute bliss.

You Harry Potter haters can skip this next paragraph. Kelsey spent the night last night and we had a Harry Potter III evening. I think we’d seen the movie 30 times between the two of us, so it was fun to talk through it and make intelligent conversation about the intricacies of the book plotlines. It was like watching with Lori.

Well, I think we are going to spend our evening with the 80’s has-beens, PoP! Everyone needs a little Hugh Grant in their lives. Arrivederci.

“Yes, LORD, walking in your truth we eagerly wait for you because your name and your renown are the desire of our souls.”

Isaiah 26:8

About two weeks ago I was on the phone with my good friend Tamara Stringer and she was telling me all about the Passion conference in Dallas she had gone to the weekend before. I listened jealously as she recounted points that Louie Giglio had made and as she tried in vain to express the amazingness of worshipping with David Crowder and Chris Tomlin. At one point I mumbled, “Man, I wish they would come to DC.” Her response was, “Calyn, they’re going to be in DC next weekend.”

Fast forward one week. I am on my way to the conference. The conference in Washington DC, right? Well, sort of. Although it was advertised as being in Washington DC, the Passion Conference was actually at George Mason University, a school in the town of Fairfax, Virginia. Now, had I owned a car, this would have not been a problem. It might have taken me about 45 minutes to get there from my house. However, it was three hours before I finally darkened the door of the Patriots’ basketball arena. This is like telling someone, “Oh, yeah, it’s in Tallahassee,” and it actually being in PENSACOLA. Fortunately I ran into two girls who were also using public transportation (there were a total of five of us) and we became fast friends with so much time to get to know one another. I probably would have died without Marlene and Kay. I mean that literally. Being at metro stations that connect with the green line at one in the morning by yourself is never a good idea. But the three hour commute was totally worth it.

For those of you who have never heard Louie, I would encourage you to listen to one of his podcasts. Louie has a way of making Christianity so simple and profound. The theme of the conference centered around the idea of “making God famous with your life.” When I told my roommate this she said, “What do you mean, ‘making God famous?’ Everyone knows who He is.” This is a good point and fortunately there was some clarification. :0) Louie and Francis Chan really pounded into us that life is short and we only get one shot. We should be using our lives to bring God as much glory as possible. There are some important things in life. Careers are important. Friendships are important. Health is important. Family is important. But if we’ve decided to follow Jesus then He is the thing that is most important. And to chase after anything else is not only second best, but it’s missing out on what God has really called us to – to know Him and make to Him known.

Passion is doing conferences in 17 world cities starting in May. They include Jakarta, KYIV :0), Kampala, Sydney, Paris, London, Hong Kong, Cape Town, Sao Paulo, and some other places that I can’t remember but are equally cool. We raised about 30,000 dollars for the conference in Kampala (that 30,000 people are coming to! They have a soccer stadium rented out!). We also got to hear the story of a girl named Sam Lu from mainland China. She shared her testimony with us and is so excited that Passion is coming to Hong Kong. They made it very clear not to put any pictures or videos up of Sam because she could get into a whole lot of trouble with the government.

Something kind of small but important that I was convicted about this past weekend was how I represent myself to other people. Interning in DC, the question you probably get asked the most is, “So…what do you want to do?” So as not to have a bunch of awkward turtles in the room, I generally just say, “Oh, I want to do international relief work,” and avoid the parts about wanting to work with a Christian organization or talking about how I want to work somewhere that I can meet spiritual needs as well as physical ones. The truth is that I want to fulfill Paul’s words to the Colossians, “Whatever you do…do it all in the name of the Lord... as if working for the Lord and not for men.” I want to take the love of God to the ends of earth where people need it most. And I should just say that when people ask.