Most of you know that my brother and sister-in-law recently moved to the UK. This is fabulous for several reasons, including the fact that it somewhat justifies my reading the BBC news every morning as I have for several years now. Don’t mock. It’s important to stay informed, and BBC, NYT, CNN and IMDB (ok, I’m kidding about that last one…mostly) help me do just that.

As I perused the haps over my coffee and granola this morning, I came across this story and it made me smile. Enjoy.

Today is one of those days where I feel like I’ve got it all together. It was one of those blissful 70 degree days (you know, the ones where when they happen in April you don shorts and tank tops, and when they happen in August you wear jeans and a sweatshirt?), and I took a couple of books, a drink, a laptop and a blanket to the backyard and spent the afternoon in the sun. While reclining blissfully in the grass I: ordered 2 super cute swimsuits, finalized filing for insurance, e-filed my taxes, paid all my bills, made plans to journey to CA again this spring, read a bit for pleasure and for school, and caught up with several friends via email or facebook. Meanwhile, inside, laundry was running, and I’m now a mere 2 loads from everything I own being clean.

Again, allow me to reiterate – yippee!!

Last Sunday morning I was reprimanded for my lack of posting, so I’m posting now out of fear of punishment come the morning.

My facebook status for today says “Loni has heard two great lies: ‘the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die,’ and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican.” It’s a quote from a Derek Webb song that I found thought provoking. I’ve been listening to that album (Mockingbird) a lot lately. The album is pretty political, or anti-political depending on how you look at it, and it’s been a welcome respite for my brain from the political jibber-jabber that seems to have taken over our country for 2007 and 2008.

I have to say, I’m beginning to tire of politics in the same way I’m tiring of the Church. Seriously, the whole process makes me want to shake some sense into people. Like the Church, this political season seems to be more about fighting against things that don’t matter rather than taking a stand for things that do. I can’t say I’d be thrilled with any of the three candidates taking office; I can say I simultaneously embrace and abhor stances each of them has taken on various issues. The whole thing makes me a little sad, to tell you the truth.

It’s not that I believe one person should embody all of my ideals. If all of us thought like me, well…nothing good would come from that. I do think, though, that the ideals of a person should be consistent, and I haven’t seen a whole lot of consistency lately…in politics or in the Church. Christians are quick to bad mouth the hypocrisy and liberalism of, let’s face facts, all three candidates, but have any of us stopped to evaluate our own hypocrisies? Where are we “doing to the least of these” on a micro (individual) rather than macro (corporate) level? Are we whining about tax season or “giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s”? We’re wrapped up in the sanctity of life of the unborn, and yet take no interest in the quality of lives already here. We consume ourselves with providing universal health care to every American, when people are dying of things we’ve been able to cure for more than a generation in other parts of the planet. We’ll rant against the loss of life in Iraq, but only blink at the atrocities of Darfur when a celebrity makes an appearance. I mean, if we’re approaching stewardship from a Biblical perspective, then nothing that we’re clinging so tightly to is really that significant.

The bottom line is this: I don’t care that McCain has a temper, or that Obama’s pastor made some really unfortunate comments, or that Chelsea Clinton thinks her mom will be a better president than her dad. None of that is really relevant. I don’t care how many mission trips we’re going on or how many people will be in house churches this morning. It’s good, but if it’s allowing us to pat ourselves on the back for how great we are in comparison to someone else, then we’ve missed the point.

I think that’s my problem. I feel like my entire society has missed the point by such extremes that we’ve forgotten what the point looks like. Allow me to elucidate. The point of our democratic political system is not to pass laws and create infrastructure, but for someone elected by the people, for the people to oversea the system of the people already in place. The point of the Church is to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world (which may mean getting some blisters and touching some leapers), not to be a social club and the morality police for society.

I love this country, and I love the Church, but I’m starting to wonder what both of those would look like if Christians would set aside our own agendas and be about our Father’s business. That is, after all, the point.

At my office one of the clearest ways to discern to which department someone belongs is the presence of head phones. The creative and production departments are all but surgically attached to their head phones. We’re most productive when our iTunes libraries are coursing through our ears and into our brains. I spend a minimum of 6 hours listening to music every day and I’m falling in love with it all over again.

All that to say, that may be why my last few posts have been so music driven.

There’s a song in the musical Wicked called “Thank Goodness.” It’s not even close to the most popular song of the musical, but it may be the most pivotal. The climax stanza says this…

But I couldn’t be happier
Simply couldn’t be happier
Well – not “simply”;
‘Cause getting your dreams
It’s strange, but it seems
A little – well – complicated.
There’s a kind of a sort of…cost.
There’s a couple of things get…lost.
There are bridges you cross
You didn’t know you crossed
Until you’ve crossed.
And if that joy, that thrill
Doesn’t thrill you like you think it will
Still – with this perfect finale
The cheers and ballyhoo…
Who wouldn’t be happier?
So I couldn’t be happier.
Because happy is what happens
When all your dreams come true.
Well, isn’t it?
Happy is what happens
When your dreams come true!

The end of February and the beginning of March have been interesting to say the least, and haven’t been at all what I expected them to be. In that time, I’ve reconnected with 4 different significant friends that I’d lost touch with for about a year. I’ve also started a couple of new relationships. In all of these conversations, be they mid-day or late into the night the reoccurring theme seems to be “things weren’t supposed to turn out this way” and the above stanza from Wicked keeps swimming through my brain.

When you’re little, you paint this mental picture of what life will look like when you’re a “grown up.” It’s this fabulous happily-ever-after kind of picture that includes all your dreams of love and life coming true. There are parts of that picture encapsulated in the reality of adulthood, and I think it’s that more than anything else that makes the parts that differ hurt so much. It’s more than the fact that Glinda never had to write a rent check or file income taxes. We’re all dealing with heavy things: broken hearts, deaths of friends, abuses of people we love, loss of jobs, relationships with potential crumbling before they’re given a chance…some of it’s beyond our control, but some of it’s self-inflicted. On top of all that, few of us are living where we’d envisioned or doing what we’d envisioned or loving who we’d envisioned.

At the same time, we all lead pretty remarkable and enviable lives. God is doing extraordinary things in and around us, but it’s not what we expected. I’m left wondering if the smudges and chips on the ruby slippers keep us from seeing the gloriousness of the fairy tales in which we do live, or if the expectations of a simple fairy tale keep us missing out on our epic adventures…adventures that are bound to come with heartache and pain coupled with ecstasy and joy along the way.

I heard once that the greatest lie in cinema is the most famous line from The Wizard of Oz – “There’s no place like home.” When you think about it, “home” is a farm in a gray, tornadic, depression era dust bowl where some old lady is trying to kill your dog. Oz is a place of vibrant Technicolor where you’re constantly making new friends and you’re everyone’s heroine. Sure there are difficulties, but they never seem insurmountable. For what exactly are we longing? Why aren’t we looking for ways to enjoy the adventures we’ve been given rather than focusing on the obstacles?

I don’t know why this makes me so happy, but it really, really does.

It probably has something to do with my love for movie musicals, or for movies in general, or for ridiculousness. Or, it may have a little to do with the insane girlcrush I have on Kristen Chenoweth in all her 4’9” glory.

Embrace the cheese and enjoy.

I can’t get this song out of my head. I don’t know if that’s because Feist is addictive (which she is) or because the lyrics reflect such great imagery (which they do) or because it’s so indicative of the female psyche. Argue with me if you want, but if you do, you’re going to have to explain “On My Own” from Les Miserables and “Not That Girl” from Wicked and Norah Jones’ “What Am I to You?” and Deena Carter’s “How Do I Get There?” and countless others. Seriously, the list could go on for ages. Guys, you may need to catch a clue, but girls, we may need to get a grip.

Goes down easy
It goes down easy [7x]

Brandy Alexander [4x]

Normally, I’m not big on the “this is what happened in my life today” blogs. Other people do them well (my friend Paula, for one), but I always feel like I’m either bragging or coming off as self-depricating…neither of which is attractive. That said, this is one of those blogs. It’s not that anything happened to make an interesting story, it’s just that lots of things happened today to make me smile. I enjoy smiling; lately I can’t stop doing it, and so, without further ado – things that were fabulous about TODAY:

• Waking up with 2 dogs in bed with me. My lease doesn’t allow pets, and I wouldn’t do it every night, but it was fun to wake up this morning at my parents’ house and be able to snuggle with my giant puppies.
• Using my new soniccare tooth brush and having amazingly clean teeth.
• Being really comfortable and really happy with who I am, where I am, what I want to do, and possible potentials for who I could end up with (or not) and cherishing that that’s totally a God thing.
• Getting to work and feeling official because my “Loni Fancher” name plate is hanging outside my door.
• Spending my day looking at cute boys in expensive clothes as I worked on the men’s fall catalog.
• Realizing that my French is better than I thought as I searched for a bathing suit by a French designer on the server. The suit hasn’t been photographed yet, and the item names and descriptions are all in in their rough forms and in French. For future reference piscine = swimming pool, poisson = fish, medusas = jellyfish, tortues = turtles, plage = beach, and cabines = grass huts. Yes, I am that awesome.
• Figuring out I may actually enjoy this job as I finish and planning how to decorate my cubicle.
• Having the Target shoes on my feet mistaken for $1000 designer shoes by someone wearing $1000 designer shoes.
• Experiencing the dawning realization that I’ve actually let go of something I’ve been holding on to for a long time and finding exhilarating freedom in that. God is good.
• Discovering that one has to work at Neiman Marcus for 3 months before you receive holiday pay and that the first applicable holiday is 3 1/2 months away.
• Going to the kick off party for my 14th Wake Up Weekend (Disciple Now) at FBCA and my 25th overall.
• Contemplating spending the weekend with a group of 11th grade girls talking about love and sex and loving every minute of it.
• Getting a wedding invitation addressed to “Loni and Guest” in the mail and getting excited that I’ll have a good time whether I ask someone to go with me or go alone.
• Adding all of my music to my iPod set to disk mode so that I can load it on my work computer tomorrow and share the wealth.
• Logging into facebook and AIM all day long and using my downtime (aka – the time each hour the server backs up) to check in with friends rather than sitting and getting frustrated.
• Adding some pretty awesome quotes to my facebook profile.
• Being tagged in pictures with my fabulous friend Lindsey.
• Not desperately missing California for the first time in a week, but being able to look forward to visiting in the spring/summer.
• Praying my way from work to my parents’ house to church to my house to the gas station with my gas light on because I forgot my wallet at home this morning and then putting 15.3 gallons in my 15 gallon gas tank. *note: I don’t condone this as a general practice, and do take better care of my vehicle than this. Don’t yell at me.
• Thinking about how I have spent more time during Lent looking to God…which is, after all, the point.

My friend Lindsey posted the following poem on her blog late last week:

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
              i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

 i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Anyone else noticing that whatever (or whomever) you gave up seems more present now than before Ash Wednesday? I mean, it hasn’t even been a week. We have a month to go and I’m already tempted. I suppose, though, that that’s entirely the point. Jesus had 30+ years to avoid committing to the cross and chose us over that immense sacrifice. The least (and I do mean very, very, very least) we can do is choose him over what we gave up. I may need you to remind me of this next week…or tomorrow.

My face hurts. It’s taken me two days to ascertain why, but I finally figured out why – I’m smiling.
Those of you who know me are thinking, “but she’s always smiling,” and while that’s true – there’s a significant difference in smiling with your lips and heart and smiling with the abandon and whole self I have been the last two weeks.
I’ve been having fun. Ridiculous fun. Nothing extraordinary, just playful fun, but it’s been exhilarating. Going on vacation to a place you love with people you love kind of fun. The kind of fun that gives you new understanding to Colby Caillat’s Bubbly. Cruise commercial kind of fun. So much fun that if I hadn’t gotten a job right before I came, I’d be moving here when my lease ends.
It’s a freeing kind of fun that’s stemmed from being immersed in a place where people are like in heart and mind and mission. I’ve found myself resting in who God is and in who I am with more abandon than I’ve summoned in a while. Of course, it might help that I’m sleeping on the floor of someone with whom I share bizarre and eclectic tastes in music, ministry, and men. We’ve commented more than once this week that we may be the same person. Not bad for a facebook friendship.

So…my face hurts. Leave it to me to over analyze it…