Why I need a wife...

While getting ready to go out for New Year's Eve, an actual conversation had between hubby and I:

M (after coloring my hair, returning it to close to its natural color and spending time fixing it in a new hairstyle): What do you think of this?

H: It's poofy. On that one side. Ya know, Frizzy. (I hear: you look like a q-tip)

M: Where?

H: There (demonstrates the location on his own bald head)

M: (Grimace..return to bathroom mirror).

H: I am never answering that question again..ever.

M: Come show me where.

H: (Walks to bathroom) I shouldn't have to show you. It's obvious.

M:(blood pressure rising) No, show me.

H: There. It's poofy.

M: Whatever.

(It was poofy. But he didn't have to say it.)


Advice for other husbands, boyfriends and lovers: "That looks really nice, just make this part have a little less volume."

Note to self: Next husband should be a woman.

What about me, what about my, what about number 1...

So, I've decided to do it. You know. That 100 questions things about yourself that all the self centered bloggers are doing. If you hate this type of thing, come back next week when I'll be focused on some other self-centered topic other than myself.

1. Nicole is not my first name.
2. I have one sibling
3. My parents have been married for 30 years in February.
4. I grew up in a town of 900
5. My high school was twice as big as my town.
6. I was valedictorian.
7. There were 10 valedictorians.
8. I played softball and basketball.
9. I was a catcher.
10. I had bad knees.
11. I moved to third base my senior year because of that.
12. I have been married 3.5 years.
13. I used to be proud of being a Republican.
14. I'm not a Republican anymore.
15. I had my first kiss at 14.
16. His name was Matt.
17. It was at the Christmas dance.
18. I had a crush on a guy named Kevin in the 8th grade.
19. My best friend in college was a (different) guy named Kevin.
20. I married (another different) guy named Kevin.
21. The best friend Kevin and I had the same last name (maiden name).
22. The longest hike I have ever done in one day is 18 miles.
23. I love to hike.
23. I was 8 when I went on my first hike.
24. I got stung by a yellow jacket.
25. I fell into the river while wading.
26. I was not happy. Said I would never hike again.
27. My ethnic identity is "Eastern Tennesseean"
28. If you don't think that's an ethnicity, I think you're wrong.
29. My first major was English.
30. I was going to be a Forensic Anthropologist.
31. I decided to help living people instead of dead ones.
32. I changed my major to youth ministry.
33. I got mad at my home church.
34. I went into psychology.
35. I now study the integration of psychology and theology.
36. I found a new church.
37. I had many long term boyfriends.
38. Every guy I dated in high school was in the chess club.
39. I wasn't.
40. I love books.
41. I love that my husband loves books.
42. In high school, I wanted to be a primatologist.
43. Primatologists study primates..apes, ya know.
44. I have a collection of stuffed monkeys, apes, and gorillas.
45. They are in a box in storage.
46. I will display them in my office some day.
47. I clap like a little kid and spend hours in the primate house at the zoo.
48. I sleep with my husband and a stuffed gorilla named Alice.
49. No, I am not lying.
50. I have been to 8 countries.
51. Germany was my favorite.
52. Or maybe Poland.
53. I secretly fear my family won't make a big deal out of it when I graduate with my doctorate.
54. I will be the first ever doctor of any type in my family.
55. I am a first generation college student on my father's side.
56. All my grandparents are living.
57. I've never met my maternal grandfather.
58. His loss.
59. I painted my own bedroom when I was 15.
60. My parents painted over it last month.
61. I am 25.
62. My favorite color is purple.
63. It used to be blue.
64. My first car was a 1988 Ford Tempo.
65. The horn didn't work
66. My next car was 1992 Plymouth Sundance.
67. It was stolen twice.
68. It was found twice.
69. I named it "boomer," short for boomerang.
70. I traded it in 2003.
71. I really want a Subaru Forrester.
72. My brother blacked my eye when were kids.
73. Twice.
74. I put my tooth throught my lip my junior year of high school.
75. Playing softball.
76. I broke two teeth in half during 8th grade.
77. Playing basketball.
78. I dislocated my kneecap two summers ago.
79. Working in an office.
80. When we were dating, I went swimming in a pair of my husband's boxers and a tshirt.
81. In the mountains.
82. I don't think I would do that now.
83. I'm old and boring.
84. My husband proposed using a scrapbook.
85. I think he's sweet.
86. He gave me a stuffed dog on our first date.
87. It was around my birthday.
88. I named it Kev-dawg.
89. When I was a kid I used to put pennies on the railroad tracks to flatten them.
90. I had water balloon fights with my brother.
91. He got on the roof and dumped a 5 gallon bucket of water on my head.
92. He missed and hit my friend Jamie.
93. I have a medical condition.
94. I take medication three times a day.
95. I forget to take it more often than not.
96. People say I don't have a southern accent.
97. That makes me sad.
98. I wear toe socks, even though my husband hates them.
99. I grind my teeth at night, so I wear a mouthguard.
100. I like to clean closets.

My next career...

According to experts, my adult industry job would be... Stunt Ass Not all adult actors want to have their backsides on camera. This is where you come in and stand in. Your perfect job is a Stunt Ass Take the Adult Industry Job Quiz

Drunkard's Prayer

So, tonight hubby and I went out to dinner at a new place. It was pretty good. I had gumbo and a caesar side salad. I brought most of the gumbo home. I also had this:

Classic Mai Tai
Taste the drink of the islands! Key Wester’s recipe using only the freshest Caribbean tropical juices in a 22-ounce souvenir cup

The waitress took a sidelong look at me. "That's really strong you know, and very tart." With a wave of the hand I cried, "Bring it on, Biznitch!!"

By the end of my salad, I was as loopy as the Mind Bender at Six Flags over Georgia. Then hubby let me finish his Hurricane, because he was driving.

Following the meal, the hubby and I decided we could wait no longer for the newest Derek Webb release. Because the college's bookstore is closed until Jan. 3rd, and Best Buy didn't have said CD, that meant we had to find a Christian bookstore. Luckily (?), a Berean is located right next to said restaurant where I was getting toasted over some gumbo.

Here's our conversation:

Me: "Is it a sin to go to a Christian bookstore while drunk?"

Him: "Well, it's probably a sin just to go to a Christian bookstore."

Me: "Think they'll notice?"

Him: "Eh, you're going to Hell."

Let's just say that a Christian bookstore is even more nauseating after a Mai Tai from a heavy handed bar tender. Then, when they didn't even have the Over the Rhine album "Drukard's Prayer." I knew I didn't have a...um, prayer.

So, I just went and made fun of all the books in the Women's Interest section, the Xtreme Teen section, and the Christmas Clearance (where they always put the price tag on the baby Jesus). Other great finds were a pink road sign that declared, "I'm waiting for my prince." GROAN! How much more, "Jesus is my boyfriend" can we get? Oh yeah, we also made the puppets say inappropriate non Jesusy things in a sing song voice. That was fun.

No one seemed to notice I was toasted. But hubby did have a nice smirk on his face the entire time. He was just thinking about that beer he had waiting in the fridge at home.

Wait! There's one more great conversation that puts my husband and I in the lowest dregs of the uptight fundamentalist heirarchy of Christians. See, there was this one time when we were in another Christian bookstore, before we came to our senses. We were engaged and hubby gave me a kiss while we were shopping. A clerk came around the aisle and said, "Now, don't be playing kissy face."

So tonight I remembered that fateful occasion:

M: "So you think it's a sin to play kissy face while drunk in a Christian bookstore."

H: "Are you kidding me? We're married now. We've upgraded to intercourse, baby, intercourse!"

I'm cleaning out our closets. How do we get so much shit? Tell me that. I must admit that a lot of it is mine. (Even though my husband has contributed his fair share, I will say. He's the pack rat of the family.) Just what made me think that I needed another wool sweater when I lived in Tennessee? Hmm? (It ain't cold there ya'll.) And what do you do with oodles of pictures from college? That penguin I painted my senior year of high school? That second SNES console we're keeping in case the other one breaks the one freaking time a year we might actually play it.

Ebay here I come....

All I want for Christmas...

Really, it isn't too much to ask. C'mon. Please? I'd even settle for just the down payment. (Click the picture for more info).

Why I am NOT necessarily going into academia...

Because tonight, after posting my class's participation grades and daily reflection grades, I received 22 emails in the span of 2 hours. Some were accusatory (why did I get blah? I did blah, blah, AND blah!). Others couldn't seem to handle certain portion of the final exam that actually didn't explicitly tell them exactly what to write and that (GASP) let them choose some things for themselves. Others implied that I am entirely incompetent and can't add/subtract correctly.

Actually, when I think about, the annoying thing isn't the students, it's the fact that I am merely the purveyor of bad news, enforcing the standards of the prof. If I were teaching by my own yardstick, this wouldn't be so bad...

Wahoo!

I'm an official Licensed Professional Counselor. This has absolutely not bearing on my life, the way I practice, or my financial situation. But I passed a pointless test to get an expensive piece of paper...go me.

I went Christmas shopping...

I so rarely shop that I am inebriated on the frothy goodness of a dark ale of consumerism.

Sadness...

This week, ideas about women in the ministry have been all over the blogosphere. We've been discussing with Natalie, Kristen, Zalm, and even over here a few months ago. And it's easy for me to get riled up, angry and indignant. But, for me, I am usually not pure enough to have any truly righteous anger. But I am learning to know hurt, true anvil on the chest, hurt and sadness. And a conversation today made me sad, very sad.

My older brother and only sibling, who is an amazing man, turns 28 on Wednesday. He was my role model growing up. I adored him, as many younger siblings do. He helped teach me how to throw a softball, play football, let me play football with his (male) friends (even on his all guys flag football team in college). He never dumbed himself down to compete with me. It was always full force. I never got kid gloves because I was a girl. If anything, he'd be the one to get pissed off and exploit the stupidity of the other teams that would assume they didn't have to defend against me. The same goes for intellectual debate, my brother never dumbed it down for me. He also never denied that, frankly, I'm better than him academically, that I am an awesome teacher, and that I could do anything that I wanted or felt called to do.

Now, we're all grown up. He still lives 700 miles away in Tennessee, has his master's degree in Environmental Engineering and works for a Fortune 500 engineering firm. He's no dimwit, that's for sure. He read Einstein one summer for FUN. Our relationship has always been built on respect. We even went to the same undergrad and had weekly dinners to make sure that we remain close.

So, tonight, we were having a theological discussion. We had an actual 45 minute conversation, which is miracle length for big bro. I brought up corporate sin, and he had never heard of it. (I hadn't either oh..three years ago). He disagrees that God is going to hold each of us accountable for something that isn't individual sin. I disagree, but considering my brother's very communal approach to life, especially on environmental issues, and his constant disdain for America's overindulgence, I can agree to disagree.

We mutually agreed that our faith background twisted us to fear God. We talked about how both of us truly struggle with solitude and a deep sense of shame in the presence of God. He told me what he is teaching in his (SBC) Sunday School class, and it sounds like really great stuff. My brother lives a life I wish I could live, struggling through is doubt, tithing regularly, volunteering with the homeless, and the type of man that makes others just like him, naturally.

But then we got on the topic of women in the ministry. I mentioned the info from Natalie's blog that some SBC missionaries aren't letting women teach men in any context. And there was silence on his end of the phone. Long pause. "Well, I don't know Nicole.." He did say that he wasn't sure but as the conversation went on, it was clear that my brother doesn't think that the leaders of the SBC are too far off on this one.

And my heart hurts that a man who is so egalitarian in his relationship with his girlfriend(she's in vet school, for cryin' out loud), who helped me to become a strong woman, doesn't think that I could be called to ministry.

I said something about feminism and egalitarianism, something about women and men being equal. Brother says that women and men aren't equal. And my heart sank more.

I don't know if it's shown on my blog here, but over the past several months, I have been feeling strongly called to teaching within the context of the church and have been trying to discern what this means through some prayer and scripture reading, and a bit of spiritual guidance. Still, I am really hurt by the fact that my brother can't affirm the one area in my life that brings me the greatest sense of meaning and purpose. He can't..or won't..see me as anything other than deficient, in my eyes.

I hate that my femaleness is seen as shame and not glory. That my leadership seen as sin rather than giftedness. My calling seen as self promotion rather than the work of God in my life. That who I am, how God made me, may never be affirmed by one of the very people that guided me to be where I am, who I am, and helped me face the fear of seeking God's will on my life.

Praise God, my parents, though sometimes warped and fallen like all of us, do not feel this way. There were mixed messages in my family...messages to be docile and manipulative, but not powerful in the face of a powerful mother who is in the ministry. But when it comes down to it, my father and mother have mellowed and support my calling, and that women are appointed to positions of leadership by God. They believe that men and women submit to one another, not one to the other.

Yes, I see the contradiction in my brother's life and philosophy, but I can't fix them. I can pray. I can talk to him. Maybe one day I might be able to coherently share with him how he hurts me, and I'm working on that. But tonight, I am sad.

Hot under the collar...

I've spent a lot of the morning raising my blood pressure over the inane and moronic teachings of the SBC, posted about by Kristen over at the McCarty's and at The Parish. I was reminded of when I was 18 years old (Wow, 8 years ago) and a member of the SBC church, and the convention declared that women weren't fit for ministry. At that time, I was so irate, having just experienced a call into the ministry and getting only sideways glances and absolutely no support from my pastor, the congregation where I had grown up, and even from some family members.

So, I wrote a diatribe about it then. Then I went forward during the end of the Sunday evening church service and read it aloud to the church. No one said a word about it to me. They acted like I hadn't said anything at all. I think that was worse than fighting me. It confirmed what I already knew...that relationship no longer existed there..if it ever did at all.

Below is the diatribe I did write and subsequently read to the congregation. God has since transformed a lot of my ideas about "perfect will" and other theological concepts, but the spirit of the speech is the same.

The Southern Baptist Convention has “spoken clearly its conviction that while both men and women are gifted and called for ministry, the office of senior pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture."

I stand at the brink of entering my career in the ministry, a decision that took great concessions and submissions on my part. Just as I'm ready to jump, the Southern Baptist identity that I ascribe to my faith is pulled out from underneath me. I am a Christian first, and in the end, God will only care if one is called by His son's name not by some petty denomination, an invention of man.

To me, Southern Baptist is more than just an institution to which I am connected. It is also a label. Two words, spoken to an informed individual, and that person is aware of my beliefs, my moral convictions, and the largest part of who I am. I no longer feel qualified to say those two words so quickly when asked to identify myself.

The first aspect that concerns me is this: Where does the job of pastor end and "regular Christian" duties begin? Does this include pastors of youth, music, children, etc.? What makes one a pastor rather than a minister? Where is the line? Are we delegating technicalities into the statement of our faith and message? Isn’t gender is a moot point when it comes to the glorious and true conversion of a lost soul to Christ?

Secondly, as a denomination, we must consider the image we portray to the outside world. While we may not be concerned what the world believes, it is our concern to consider our portrayal to the world. As a Christian organization, we are under constant scrutiny. When we quarrel about an issue that affects less than one percent of our ordained ministry staff, then we are far from the scriptural teachings.

Timothy 14-15 reads:
"Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value and only ruins those who listen. Do you best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth."

Also in v. 23-25:
"Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. The Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.”

These verses tell me that arguing such a point is futile. It also tells me that we are boxing up God and shipping Him to the world via UPS. The world is getting a boxed version of Christianity from our convention rather than the entirety of the Awesome God we worship. At the rate we're going, we’ll be lucky if even a small portion get through the packing peanuts to the real package of salvation. If we believe that salvation is a personal relationship with Christ, we should see that one repercussion of that is a personal calling to the ministry of Christ.

We talk of the perfect Will of God and what He would have us do with the short time we each walk this earth. Only a minuscule number of us stay close to the wishes of God. We all fall down, some of us more than others. When we fail to fulfill our place in His Will, God calls someone else to fill the spot. Having women pastors may not be God's perfect plan, none of us can really know with our finite minds. However, I'm sure that somewhere there's a church where a woman is filling the shoes of a Jonah that's cooling his runaway heels somewhere in the belly of a big fish.

So what about me? As a woman, I feel the need to stand up for myself and others who feel called into the ministry. However, I realize that God doesn't need me to defend him. No matter what obstacles the world may construct, God won’t allow them to overcome His Will. If that Will is placing a woman in the position of pastor, He'll do it. I also know that he will move mountains, seas, and Baptist Conventions if they get in the way of His Will for me or any other of his children, male or female.

I’m not going to focus on technicalities but on letting Christ live in me. If the convention leaders want to spend time arguing theology at conventions, let them. I can’t even begin to comprehend the Will of God, much less put myself in a position to delegate it to an entire denomination. Because of this, I resolve myself to simply pursue a closer relationship with Christ and let Him take care of the rest.