Refridgerator Rights

This was posted on Coffeehouse Christianity and it got me thinking:

"refrigerator rights". These are people who have earned the right to open up our lives (our refrigerators) and see what's inside. Sometimes they will even need to tell us that something stinks and needs to be taken care of." - Chris and his colleague borrowed this idea from Craig Groeschel.

Gretchen talks about these people in terms of drop-by friends. These are the people who simply drop by...for no "reason"...whenever. Sometimes they bring food or the kids or news but mostly they just bring themselves. There's an informality that illustrates more respect and greater intimacy than with those call-first friends who need a reason or excuse to come over.

I think we also have people who found themselves important enough to be on the outside of our refridgerators. Granted, this is a much easier group to get into, especially around Christmas when our fridge is usually covered by families dressed in coordinated outfits and forced smiles. But how many people to we allow ourselves to brag about authenically (verses those we brag about to make ourselves look more important)? How many people to take pride with when they accomplish something great?

And on the other side, who are those people in your life that you really allow to mourn with you and feel your pain? I just recieved news from a friend on that shock, stop everything level and, while I certainly can't feel the same level of loss as she is going through, I certainly hurt for her and her family. This is a person who, if there was only hundreds rather than thousands of miles between us, we would be in the car in a few minutes to be with. Have you offered yourself to someone in that way recently? Have you let them come to you?

I guess I'm in a wishful mood right now, looking forward to that time when we will be in a more permanent place and can have that level of intimacy and proximity with friends again.

Sucking face...book

So Pete has introduced me to yet another time-suck: Facebook. In order to see his pictures from his recent trip to Hawaii I had to get an account. And once I got an account, I just had to make sure I had some friends. And once I started looking, I realized that there were a lot of little features which, if I spent a ridiculous amount of time on, I might one day understand.

So if I haven't posted in a while, look up my name there -the one with my slightly girly middle name - and see what I've been up to. (But I do still plan to keep this as my primary blog site.)

Oh, and when you sign up for an account, you'll learn that you can get addicted after just one hit.

What earthquake?

Just wanted to let you all (both? you - singular?) know that yes, there was an earthquake somewhere in Asia earlier this week. And, no, it wasn't close enough for us to feel it.

As far as tsunamis are concerned, we currently live halfway up a mountain so there's little risk there either. Our new home, Big Coastal City, will be near the water but is along a shallow, protected coast so there's still little risk.

Thanks for your concerns but we're fine.

Dedication

For the past several months, we’ve been reusing pages from various drafts of my English thesis and the hundreds of pages of research that went into it. Mostly this means using them for printing out our daily language assignments or using them for scratch paper. Our houseworker keeps @ entertained by making them into paper airplanes. @ normally draws on them. Today I found the following on his desk:

Dedication:
This paper is dedicated to my amazing wife, Amanda. Thank you for loving me through ten years together, three continents, a political expulsion, a broken leg, the birth of our son, several concussions and countless promises of “don’t worry, the thesis will be done soon.” Without you, Amanda, all of this would just be silly.

Or, you can read the final draft when you get my thesis through inter-library loan from Eastern’s library.