Mr. Intentional

Recently, I was driving home (imagine that) and I drove past a school that was being built. It was just the basic structure of what would soon be a building, and what would some day be a classroom.

There aren’t adequate adjectives to describe my general dislike for customer service–and yet, that is my current occupation. It has been several of my occupations. Everyone that knows anything about me, knows how I feel about it. (Which, is probably not a good thing). Every now and then I catch glimpses of its purpose, but I confess I often view its purpose and the role that it plays in my own life, as opposed to my purpose in it for God’s Kingdom.

God’s best for me is where He has me right now. By my words I would claim a lot of other plans that I see more fit for my own life, but I find that more and more difficult to believe as I can’t even get the coffee pot to make coffee on time…or at all. I’ve not the slightest clue if my eyes will open the morning for another day, but sure–let me complain about how I could do it better.

Frequently, I get wrapped up in the significance of my actions. Typically, I don’t see the significance in what I do. I understand, it is contributing to a great company–a company that treats their employees well, and I’m blessed to have a job. Everyone wants to believe they’re a part of the big picture. Contributing to the big picture–in some way. Any way. What does that look like?

When I looked at the shell of the new school building, I thought about the construction men working on it. I thought about the way they utilized their minds and the gifts God had given them to know where every part of the building goes. I thought about the time and effort they put into creating a building that was safe for children to spend time in every day. Those men might have gone to work every day wondering why it mattered, but they made a building that little minds could come and be challenged. They’ll make friends, grow up, and be challenged. They will learn new things. Sometimes they will like it, sometimes they won’t.  For some, it might be the only part of their day when they feel safe. The construction worker might not ever see that, but I don’t think we’re supposed to. It’s not about us. We don’t need to know how everything pans out. It’s not our job.

I talk to various types of customers every day. There are some students, some professors. There are a lot of professors. There are some that…I wonder how they obtained a PhD. Let me be the first to assure you that, bookstore managers…are not gentle kittens. I’ve always been a little sensitive though. What does any of that matter for God’s kingdom? I don’t really have any idea. I do know, I can do little things to help. I can do my job. I can make sure the professor has everything they need to teach a class to their students. Some are just trying to finish, some are eager to learn. Some might go on to do really great things. Some might go on to do small things. Their professor plays a part.

It’s not about any of us. Our greatest mission is doing each day well. Some might call it mundane, but I’m starting to believe it’s perspective. We see a single thread—but it’s actually a thread that is woven into the most extravagantly beautiful tapestry. You might feel like an insignificant thread, but each thread matters to the One weaving it all together, and to be honest–there is no requirement that God would let you be a thread. It’s the greatest gift that we get to be a part of this. Be a great thread.

Who knows, maybe one of the professors I get to help has a student that goes on to be a teacher in that new school. I’ll never know.

I’m okay with that. I’m excited about that.

“It’s a Good Day,” Brett McCracken

I found this on Conversant Life. Enjoy today, the curtain is torn!

I always wondered why it was called “Good Friday.” I mean, Jesus was brutally tortured and hung on a cross. There were dark skies and earthquakes and torn veils. Seems more like “Bad Friday,” doesn’t it? Really, has humanity ever had a worse day? The one time the God of the universe was actually walking around in human form on earth, and what do we do? We kill him. That’s pretty bad.

Yet we call it Good Friday. And sure enough, it is a good day. In spite of the horrors of the crucifixion, in spite of the horrors of our own sin and depravity, it is a good day. Why? Because of the last words Jesus uttered before he gave up his spirit: It is finished.

These are words to remember.

In the darkest hours of the night, when nightmares and migraines and monsters keep us from sleep. When car crashes and hospital bills and blood tests make us fret. When sirens and helicopters and cancer loom in the background.

It is finished.

On the days when you don’t want to wake up because you know there is way more to do than can be done, when you feel like you’ll never make a dent in the checklist. When all that you wish you were is exactly what you cannot be. When you say the wrong things and love the wrong people. When you long for the good ole days. When scotch is the only way you can make it through. When you look at the world and it hurts your gut.

It is finished.

When it all comes crashing down: bones, taxes, therapy, pottery, dishonesty, Sunday School, workman’s comp, babysitters, yoga, coffee, car insurance, insecurity, vitamins, piano lessons, treadmill, facebook, failure, success, love, loss… remember that all the trouble we’ve seen has been seen before, every hardship endured on some other rocky road. Christ took it upon himself and assumed the burden. Friends: it is finished.

“In this world you will have trouble,” said Jesus on the night before he died. “But take heart!” he continued. “I have overcome the world.”

Overcome the world? You better believe this is a good day.

May This Cheetah Prosper

Shell Shock

All in favor of call centers moving outdoors when the weather is beautiful, say I…

 

I.

I took a lame (because it was five questions, and suddenly I am defined) personality test on Facebook and it said I was a sanguine. I really, really enjoy the word. The description was pretty accurate, and I enjoy it more because it sounds a lot like penguin. I am five.

One of the great hindrances to our spiritual life is our ability to be distracted. (I posted on this previously, but hear me out). As technology advances, our attention is demanded in even more directions. We’re in a hurry. We are entitled to immediacy (thank you, Google). Facebook, Twitter, blogging, text messaging and on and on and on.

I enjoyed the message of the movie Crash (I don’t think it should have won best picture) because I think in all of our busyness we forget to notice each other. I wonder how it will affect our ability to communicate effectively. I wonder how it will affect emotion. I wonder how many conversations and thoughts are completely misconstrued because of how advanced we have become. I wonder if we can even consider it advancement in the long run? Maybe I am dinosaur in my thought process…

I believe there are ways to be intentional in the way we Facebook…I just have not figured that out yet. I will say, today I found my long lost cousins and I find that small amount of time was completely redeemed.

The last time I saw my cousin Peter, I was around seven or eight. My family lived in Connecticut at the time, and we visited the city pretty frequently. My dad’s brother Ronny (my father, times ten) and his wife Joanna lived in an apartment in Manhattan. They had three sassy dogs, a winding staircase, and I loved visiting their home.

On one particular visit, Joanna decided to teach me varying ballet movements in the living room. Little did she know, I lacked all patience and coordination for anything resembling choreography, so our dance session was short lived. I felt like a grown up that weekend. I have no idea where my dad was (nice, Dad). Wearing a long, dark floral skirt and a lacy black long sleeved shirt (which sounds scandalous, but was not. Hello, I was seven), I felt like a princess living in New York City learning to become a ballerina.

Later in the day, my cousin Peter decided to take me out for an adventure. We hurried to the local grocery store to purchase a bag of peanuts. I was confused. I figured he wanted to go to a restaurant and throw the shells on the floor like my dad preferred. At the time, that was the only association I had with peanuts.

We walked and walked, and ended our trek in Central Park. Peter opened the bag and we waited just a few moments before squirrels started approaching us from every direction. This may sound kind of terrifying, but for a seven year old that loves animals, this was like a Disney movie. Varying gray and black squirrels came right up to me to snatch the legumes from my little hands.

The situation was potentially dangerous, mostly because of rabies and disease. The joke’s on danger! We were fine. I left with a precious memory, and now thanks to Facebook and wordpress I could be nostalgic today.

Turn and Face the Strain

Yesterday, it was sunny. It was sixty eight degrees outside. I wore heels without fatigue.  Today, it is cold and precipitous (in a less desirable sense of the word), and I am exhausted. What a sudden turn of events!

My mother is convinced that my job is not really a job, but a fun house. Today, they are giving out free hot dogs and chips in honor of opening day for the Cincinnati Reds and there is a floor-wide bingo game going on. I am beginning to think she is right.

Remember last week’s VTO harangue? I remember…because I wrote it. Last Tuesday night, I had a dream that my name was called for VTO. The dream was vivid, and I watched my name being pulled from the jar.

Wednesday morning I woke up, confident it was my day. I expressed said confidence to my mother and packed my gym bag, ready to leave work before having been there.

11:00am rolls around, and my name was pulled from the jar and inserted into the precious VTO email announcement. I wish I could say I hesitated, but I took one last call from an irritable professor and decided that was my cue. I had some iced coffee, went to the bank, and then realized I had no one to hang out with because very few other people get VTO and actually stay at their jobs during the day. I took this opportunity of solitude to move my body in the gym, because I plead total insanity and signed up for the duathlon.

Note, I said duathlon, not triathlon. The angels in heaven rejoice as I will not be going anywhere near Sunlite Pool this year. I will take my huffing and puffing elsewhere and enjoy being dry for the duration of my ridiculousness.

After my prophetic VTO dream, on Saturday night I am surprised my brain did not combust during my REM cycles, as I had another evening head trip in which I had an extended, dramatic encounter with a man that claimed to have written Paradise Lost. I have never read Paradise Lost. I believe we have a copy in our house, and wondered if this came about from passing by the book on the shelf and the title leaving an impression. In the dream, I was extensively aware of the book’s content, and chose to believe the urgent message of this man that was definitely not John Milton.

He told me that the end of the world was coming, and I was to bury a copy of Paradise Lost in the ground to save it for all of human kind, because the answer to saving the world was in this particular copy of Paradise Lost.

Hopefully this is not prophetic…should I write a rough draft of the screenplay?

And here we are, Monday. With as often as older generations look at the younger and see no potential, there are just as many that see a passionate group of people that want to change the world radically for Christ. I have a tendency to think of this on a very large scale.

Why am I not living in an orphanage in another country right now? Why am I working at a forty hour a week job? This is not to say big things won’t happen, but I could understand what might be discouraging to some right out of college when the direction just doesn’t seem right. It is hard to see the bigger picture when I am taking calls to see if a book is available. It is easy to believe I am wasting time with gifts God gave me for whatever reason, and time is not slowing down at any point.

“When you don’t have a mission, you’re just waiting to die.”

I am not saying it is correct to think this way. I am grateful for these thoughts, because God shows me what is good when I make the choice to focus on what is good. I have been discontent quite frequently over the past two years. I say frequently, but not consistently.

There’s a sour taste in my mouth and an aching in my heart when I see how similar my attitude is to an Israelite’s. I was reading an article today about happiness vs. joy, and I was blown away.

“Happiness and joy are two different things. Happiness is when the sun shines and nobody’s done you wrong. It just means that life’s going your way today, and tomorrow you could be dead!

…So I’d rather have joy. Joy is when everything is a mess and I cry from a broken heart. But through my tears I say, ‘God is good and Jesus saved me and heaven is waiting.’ It’s a lot harder than happy. But it’s a lot more worth having.”

He goes on to describe how much we focus on circumstances. When we are thinking circumstances, we are thinking happy. From what I can guess (I have great deductive reasoning), Paul was not happy being chained up in a prison, and Jesus was not happy taking on all of the depravity of the world and the pain accompanying it as he died a gruesome painful death on a cross. They saw the bigger picture. He loved and trusted His father.

“…it was a choice, based on radical trust.”

I’m not for a second comparing my restlessness or my hoping for other things to the great work accomplished by God’s hands through Paul or Jesus.

“Let your conduct be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have. For He himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.”–Hebrews 13:5

I just hope we can encourage one another in moments of restlessness that God has put his children in difficult circumstances, but we are not forsaken and that is enough to get us through every day until our final day. God’s love needs to be shared with the professor I speak with on the phone for five seconds. God’s love needs to be shared with the woman in the grocery store that hands you your change. God’s love needs to be shared with the driver that cuts you off. God’s love needs to be shared with the person that drives you crazy. I am excited about that. That is huge.

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all time, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”–2 Corinthians 9:8

When I was in counseling, I remember us briefly talking about this verse. For some reason, the other day I was suddenly blown away by it. There is so much wrapped up in this one promise. In every moment we are tempted to choose our desire to be apathetic or complain, we have the choice and the freedom to believe that the moment we are in may abound as a good work because God says that He will do it.

It’s true or it isn’t, and I know it is the former. I am excited it is the former. I am resting in the former.

Alpaca Up and Leave

Well hello, ebb and flow.

This week was painfully slow. I attribute this to several factors:

1. My mother and two sisters trekked (in a Camry) to Virginia to spend a week befriending bees, and holding hanfuls of very tiny goats. Some goats had beards. There was a goat that looked like a terrifying hybrid of cow and sheep, but I felt overly compelled to hug it. I am certain that had I made eye contact with one of the alpacas, I would not have come home. I actually started tearing up when I saw the pictures of the five day old nigerian dwarf goats. This is my life.

2. When the phone isn’t ringing, and your body isn’t moving, graphic images begin to creep into your mind as you recall how many “food days” take place every week paired with sedentary employment (oh, pardon…not sedentary, I move my forearm in guiding the computer mouse). You start thinking….

Derriere before call center:

(____ ____)

Derriere after call center:

(___________ _______)*

Thankfully, I work in one of the largest buildings in Northern Kentucky and when it is warm and I walk around it, I am not sitting.

3. Tuesday felt like Thursday, and my precious VTO never came. VTO is Voluntary Time Off…as in, there are too many people working, if your name is pulled out of the jar…PEACE. You can leave for the day. You will not get paid. You will not care. You leave…which requires standing up, and walking to the door…and out the door, and to your car…where you are sitting again, but eventually you will get out…EXERCISE, PEOPLE!

I guess those were the only reasons. Those aren’t very many.

The above picture is of my family in Virginia. From left to right we have Marci, Camille, and Carynn…standing on the farm and trying to remember if they knew anyone named Fran.

Below is a picture of me:

Yes, I am ready for Spring. I realize my skin is translucent. Thankfully I have been using some Dove Energy Glow lotion upon exiting the shower. This picture doesn’t do my radiance any justice.

 

*You’re correct. It is both wide and uneven.

Do You Lilac It?

Some sun! Some bloggings! We’re almost through the wilderness of winter…without a blog post in sight.

I’ve been at a new job that after six months can no longer be considered new.

I was on blog hiatus in some daring attempts to write out my stories in memoir form.

The following occurs when trying to accomplish the above task:

…………………………………………………………………………..(Please note this is an ongoing ellipsis. This ellipsis represents a blank stare, temporary paralysis and a head full of cobwebs). Welcome back to that.

This little baby was published a couple of months ago. Published! To be viewed in a bound and paper form! While the book is available for download in electronic format, I am standing strong against the printed word becoming obsolete.

Pick up your book! Fan the pages and smell the story! I cannot begin to fathom how the hours of staring at our screens will affect our eye sight. Think long term, people! If your eye sight has diminished from staring at your Kindle, how will you go to a park when Spring has sprung and enjoy your classic novel? We need to have a little perspective.

In Tom LaVilla news, I received the following letter in the mail yesterday (look, someone believes in the tangible letter!)

Fran–

Thanks for dinner on Saturday. Your hair was outstanding!

You are the cat’s meow.

Love you,

Daddy.

Yes, in case you were wondering–my father just told me that I am the cat’s meow. You just don’t receive real compliments like that any more.

This is the picture I found when doing a google image search of “cat’s meow.”  Someone please buy me those cookies.

The wedding count for 2009 is already up to six. I better start sewing my dresses.

Since my last post, we lost another pup. Marley left us in December and I’ve yet to bring myself to give him a proper blog post. Yesterday we got a new dog. He’s a low rider, and his name is William Wallace. His personality is slightly remniscent of the late chihueagle we all knew and loved.

Spooks is still alive. We think he forgot to die. He’ll be nineteen this year. His life is the greatest testimony of irony.

Yes, we’re still the weird family that loves animals too much.

On a brief, fleeting, (and shallow) note, I’ve gone a little crazy for some OPI.  If I had my way, I would be employed on their marketing team just so I could come up with the ridiculous polish names. I would only be employed there for a couple of months—naming nail polish would get kind of old.

Stay posted for more posts! Girl’s back.

Le Petite Stinker

Oh, look! A baby skunk. It’s pocket size!

Sales Associates on a Soapbox

Today marks the commencement of my one year (to the day) at Dinovite, and my subsequent departure.

I walk away with every bit of knowledge a person would ever need to know about pet nutrition, as well as how corn ruins lives, and that Omega 3 fatty acids could potentially save the world. 

Dear children, whether you are calling customer service and you speak with a man in India with broken English and claims his name is Mark, be kind. His name is probably not Mark, and he is doing his best from a continent away. When there is an error in your bank account, and you speak with a representative from the bank, remember they didn’t do anything to personally jack up your checking. 

The most important thing I can impart to everyone is to make freaking eye contact with the people that serve you. They are people, and they matter. Now, this is not to say you must ask them to go grab their billfold to show you pictures of their grandchildren whilst the other kind employee is bagging your groceries and there is a mile long line of people behind you, but care about them! Ask how their day is going. Smile at them. Pretend like you are in customer service (this will be easy to do joyfully if you don’t actually work in customer service. Your joy will immediately spout out of every chamber of your heart in gratitude that you do not, in fact, work in customer service).

I understand. Sometimes, we all just have a bad day. This happens. It should not happen that your own bad day must wreak havoc on everyone else’s day. You are not the only person in the world.

The drive thru at Starbucks is not the place to catch up on your correspondence. Make eye contact with your barista, and acknowledge their presence as a human being. You are not sticking it to the Man by ignoring the real man (or woman, obviously). Yes, you are tired I am sure. I understand, you might not be a morning person, but please remember your barista started brewing coffee five hours before you rose from your bed. They probably cried when the alarm went off. The lining in their stomachs have probably been eaten away from the damaging acidic content in the unhealthy amounts of coffee they had to drink in order to smile at you and hand you your latte.

If your phone call is important, there are parking spaces to pull into. Your lack of compassion may potentially lead to your barista having vivid thoughts of tossing your hot beverage into your car and walking away. 

Today is International Quit Being a Butthead Day. Let it continue forever. Now, go notice people.

Like Them Apples