A funny thing happened on the way to saving the world...

As all of you faithful readers know, I have been embarking on an Oprah-inspired mission to save the world by writing a letter to someone each day for a month. Let me tell you how things were going at the half-way point in the project: stinky. Really stinky. Like, limburger stinky. You see, one of the criteria was that each letter should be sent to someone who wasn't expecting to hear from me, so I wrote letters to missionary friends I haven't spoken to in way too long, friends who (sadly) had to drop out of seminary because of particular hardships in their lives, people I used to work with who had been facing challenging times when we last spoke, etc. Writing the letters was no problem, but then they started reappearing in my mailbox - shocking amounts of them - stamped with messages like, "address unknown" or "forwarding expired" or some other cryptic postal euphamism for "you've-allowed-these-people-to-drop-out-of-your-life-and-now-you'll-never-find-them-again". So many were returned that I was becoming a bit dispondent about it. Cut to the chase: I quit writing the letters.

But then yesterday as I was rifling through my mail, I discovered a letter from someone I've never met before. In her note she told me that she is the daughter of a very good friend and she thought, perhaps, that I would like to know that she is praying for me. This simple note from someone I've never met was very dear and immensely encouraging and completely, completely unexpected.

And it changed my world.

*Sniff*

I hab a cold in by dose. Bummer. Yesterday I suspected that I was coming down with a cold, but when I woke up at 2:30 this morning, all doubt was removed. So I'm sniffling and sneezing my way through the day and I'm actually pleased for the timing. My body usually waits until the inconvenience of finals week to cash in all of its "sick cards", so a mid-September cold is rather fortuitous.

The superglue did such a dandy job of fixing my thumbnail that I thought I might try the same remedy for my cold. But then I saw that the tube advised against internal use which made absolutely no sense to me since veterinarians use the stuff to perform surgery all the time. I think maybe they're in cahoots with the pharmaceutical lobby.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could solve all of our problems with a $2.00 tube of superglue?

Engagement Announcement

For all of you fellow seminarians and recent UDTS alums, Tony Oltmann is getting married! He called me yesterday to share the happy news and asked me to pass along his joy and excitment to all of you since he can't figure out how to find any of you anymore (he's still Tony, after all). It seemed the most expedient way to share the announcement was to blog it. So here it is, in my own little homage to craigslist.com (dawnslist?) - a public proclamation for all the world to hear!

Tony and Kristin will be getting married on February 16 somewhere in Minnesota - he told me exactly where but I was cruising down the interstate at 75 mph when he called, so I failed to write down the particulars. If you want more details, drop me a line and I'll let you know how to hook up with Tony again.

Caught Up In Evel

I almost missed church this morning and it was totally Evel Knievel's fault. As I was getting ready for church, I glanced up at the TV (yes, I was watching TV on Sunday morning) and saw that Evel was hanging out with Robert Schuller at the Crystal Cathedral. Who could argue that such an eclectic mix makes for some compelling viewing? So I turned up the volume in time to hear Evel give his personal testimony - turns out he found Jesus a couple of weeks ago - and get baptized by the good Dr. Schuller. It was actually kind of a nice little thing.

BUT THEN...

On the heels of Evel's baptism (that has an interesting ring, no? Evel's baptism?) the junior Schuller invited EVERYBODY in the Crystal Cathedral who wanted to get baptized to come forward for this huge, sweeping, on-the-spot mass baptism. No questions asked, no discussion of personal faith, no counseling, didn't even matter if they had already been baptized previously. I nearly fell out of my chair! But I mustered up all of my most decent Presbyterian sensibilities and pulled myself together.

UNTIL...

After baptizing hundreds (yes, hundreds) of people totally on-the-spot, the junior Schuller decided that the baptisms were enough of a church service for the day, so he didn't need to give a sermon after all. I talked to the TV in my sternest voice giving it my most grave liturgical advice; "No, you can't end the service like this. If you're going to baptize hundreds of people totally anonymously, you at least have to give a sermon. You're a minister of word and sacrament, not just sacrament! For the love of everything holy, GIVE THE SERMON!!" Alas, he simply shed a few weepy tears of joy and ended the service. At that point my head completely popped off my body and rolled around on the floor.

Sundays: not just for armchair quarterbacks.

Drop Numero Dos

So I dropped my second class today, and no, it wasn't Hebrew (nuts on it all anyway). I dropped another elective. The thing is, I always register for way too many electives and then end up having to drop some of them after the syllabus hits my hand and the reality of expectation sets in, but I just can't help myself. Each semester, when the new schedule of classes comes off the printer, I'm like a kid in a candy store! All of those shiny new classes are just calling my name! And if I take the classes, I get to buy more BOOKS to add to the bookshelf! And what could be better than that?? New books with pretty pages and interesting thoughts just waiting to be thunk! The theology of St. Augustine? Sign me up! Models of prayer in the ancient church? Schwell! Who could possibly resist??

Now don't y'all start e-mailing me to tell me how pathetic I am. I already KNOW how pathetic I am! I'm a HUGE FREAKING NERD!! I'm a HUGE FREAKING NON-HEBREW SPEAKING NERD! I like to think that it's part of my charm, but mostly I think it's just a sad, sad cry for help and I'm actually in dire need of a twelve-step program.

And the worst part is that since I have now dropped two classes but still have more than enough hours to qualify as a full-time student, I have to tell mom that she was right and I was wrong - I was taking way too many hours. So happy birthday again, mom.

Meshugana Hebrew!!

It's a good thing my give-a-crapper broke on the first day of the semester or Hebrew would have me ulcerated eight ways from Sunday by now.

Stupid Hebrew. Stupid, stooopid Hebrew.

The Weekly Mailbag

As many of you have noticed, I'm running a day late (thanks for keeping me honest) so let's just hit the ground running and get to reader e-mails without further delay.

Question 1: "I noticed that the time stamp on your September 7 entry was 6:35 a.m. Are you really blogging at 6:30 in the morning?" In that particular case, no. The blogger software automatically time stamps my entries, much like when you send an e-mail. But about two weeks ago I noticed that the time stamps are never correct, nor are they ever off by the same amount or even in the same direction (early or late). I thought about resetting the dashboard to see if it would clear the bug out of the system, but then it seemed both more prudent and more amusing to me to keep y'all guessing about the hours I'm keeping.

Question 2: "Are you sorry you caved after two weeks and went back to watching TV?" First of all, it was two weeks and two days, thank you very much. I know our salvation isn't dependent on "works righteousness", but just in case the Apostle Paul is wrong, I want to make sure I have those two extra days on my record. No, I don't regret my return to television, but I also don't regret my time away from television. The truth is, a girl with even a moderate amount of ingenuity (i.e., me) can find countless ways to waste time even without the assistance of television (browsing Pottery Barn catalogs, smelling all the different flavors of coffee beans at the HyVee, putting new bookplates in all my books - cripes, I'm such a nerd). TV is just the path of least resistance; plus, it helps me keep up on my pop culture references. However, I find that I'm now much more intentional about what I watch. I never have the TV on just for the sake of having it on, nor do I turn it on and surf the channels. I look at the TV listings, see if there is something I actually want to watch, then turn on the TV.

Question 3: "Are you really writing letters every day?" Well, as you may have heard, I had to take an injury time out. While the thumb is coming along nicely, I had to suspend all non-essential writing and typing commitments for several days - in other words, everything but signing my name to a receipt. So I asked the officials to restart the game clock yesterday and got back down to business. My apologies for having to delay the saving of the world for a few days. Boy will my face be red if Jesus comes back before I've written all 30 letters.

Question 4: "How's Hebrew class going?" I have two words for you: oy vey.

Okay, the little clock on the wall says that it's time for Iron Chef America which I ALWAYS choose to watch! (Hooray for TV!) Time for me to jet so I can go spend the next hour of my life with Mario Batali. Have a super swell week, everyone!

Injury Time Out

Sorry for being MIA for the past two days, but as the subject line states, I had to take an injury time out. Indeed, I have suffered the first critical injury of the season. It all started like this...

We were having a seminary picnic Wednesday night (brats, dogs, frisbees - thrown, not eaten), and I'm not sure exactly how it happened except to say that it involved a cooler, a frozen block of ice, and a bottle of water, but I ripped off the top half of my thumbnail. Not entirely, mind you - it was still holding on at the edge - but the carnage was great enough to cause the four guys who were standing by me to fold like cheap suits. Bummer, eh? I wanted to snap a picture of it to post on the blog, but nobody would look at it long enough to take the picture (what a bunch of babies!), and my spare hand was occupied with containing the river of blood that was pouring from the end of my thumb. Still, that would have been COOL!

Anyhoo...we got a bottle of superglue and epoxied the nail back in place. Yes, it stung like a bear and I used all of my least pretty words, but now it's nearly right as rain! I have to say, I'm very impressed by the restorative properties of my thumb. So I will not be going on the injured reserve list - I just needed to take an injury time out followed by the mandatory one-play stint on the sidelines. But I'm back in the game now. It's all good.

So come back tomorrow and we'll open this week's mailbag.

The Semester Begins

Today was the first day of the semester and I decided to hit the ground running by dropping a class before I ever walked through the door. In the past I've noticed that there comes a point in each semester when my academic give-a-crapper breaks and I decide that the classes and the books aren't nearly as important to me as having coffee with friends or getting caught up in the dramatic competition of Iron Chef America. However, this is the first time my give-a-crapper has ever broken on the first day of the semester. Now, I could brood about this new development and the prospects that it might hold for the remainder of my semester, but instead I've decided to embrace this proactive turn of events and see where it leads me. That's right - this is a good thing! That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Besides, it will come as very welcome news to my mom who has told me many, many times during the past several days that I'm taking entirely too many hours. Happy birthday, mom.

Because I had nothing better to do...

This weekend I found myself in an extremely rare situation - with ords behind me and classes not yet started, I had three days with absolutely no obligations hanging over me. No reading that had to get done, no papers to write, no sermons to preach, nothing. So since I had nothing better to do, I decided I might as well save the world.

So I pulled out the latest issue of the Oprah magazine (that's right, I'm about to go all "Oprah says..." on you) because every month she includes a column of suggestions for saving the world that have been collected from people who apparently ought to know a thing or two about it - generally notable authors, activists, nobel laureates and the like. It seemed like an interesting hobby to take a few of them out for a road test and share my observations and opinions about them with all of you. So I put on my bullet-deflecting bracelets and my cape and got down to business.

(Before all y'all go e-mailing me, I KNOW Wonder Woman doesn't wear a cape. I just think it adds a certain panache to the ensemble.)

The first world-saving suggestion came from an environmental activist who claimed the trick was to purchase "green energy" credits for renewable energy sources from your gas/electric provider. Yeah, I don't really know what that means either, but I grabbed my trusty laptop and surfed out to Alliant Energy to sign up. Except for knowing that each month I will have an additional $2.50 green energy charge on my bill, after two days the world still seemed mostly the same to me. So I decided to move on to the next item on the list.

The next world saver was submitted by Jane Fonda (I'm as puzzled about her credentials as you are) who said that we all need to help our boys become emotionally literate. Well that confused me even more than the green energy credits, so I decided to leave the boys to their own devices and move on to the next item.

The third world saver was submitted by a children's author who believes that we can save the world by writing a letter to someone each day. I'm not sure exactly how it's suppose to save the world, but I decided that it's a task that I can tackle for the next 30 days. So I've armed myself with postage stamps and some of the finest stationery Target has to offer and will write a note to somebody each day for the next 30 days, then we'll see what kind of shape the world is in a month from now and draw our conclusions from there.

So if you receive and unexpected note from me, don't wonder about my motives. I'm just saving the world is all. I don't expect anything from you. But if it should turn out that the note does, in fact, change your world somehow, it would be super swell if you would drop me a quick e-mail or "blaze me up on the celly" to let me know. You don't even have to tell me how it changed your world - just let me know how to tally it in the results column.

I hope your holiday weekend was as thought-provoking as mine!

Ordination Exams - The Epilogue

First, y'all are some serious worriers. I really didn't expect so many people to think that my three day absence from blogging was a certain sign that I had met an untimely demise. But it's nice to know that you care so much in an odd, stalker sort-of way.

I turned in my exegetical exam paper on Thursday. It really went down to the wire and I turned it in at the last possible minute. Several of my test-taking cohorts were leaving the office as I showed up with paper in hand. When they saw me hoofing it toward the door, they all looked at their watches and said, "Geez, Dawn, you're cutting it awfully close." To which I could only respond, "MOOOOOVE!!!" Turns out, if this whole ordination thing doesn't work out for me, I might have a very promising career as a linebacker. Anyway, the exam is off to be reviewed by a committee of readers. God speed, little paper. God speed.

As a result of that experience, for the past three days I haven't written so much as a check; hence the absence from the blog. But I'm alive and well and back to blogging like a house on fire.

Oh, one more thing...

As a special treat to myself for finishing the paper, on Thursday night I laid in bed and watched The Daily Show and The Colbert Report before drifting off to a peaceful slumber. So those of you who wagered that Dawn would last 16 days without television, you're in the money!