Bible Quiz Coaching: An Incident

Before I tell you this story, you have to understand a few things about my church. Let's start with my church's floor plan. First, there are two floors: the downstairs used to be a bar, and has an open floor plan you'd expect of such a place. It has two entrances, one can be unlocked from outside, the other must be unlocked from within. The second floor, only reached from the outdoors, used to be a small apartment and includes a bathroom, kitchen, and three rooms we use for Sunday school. It's a warm place you might enjoy holing up in if you're without a home, and you happen to find the door unlocked.

It is also useful for you to know that some people attend my church who are homeless, and homeless for diverse reasons. It has been a matter of course, though somewhat unnerving for me, to leave the Sunday school rooms after Bible Quizzing practice of a winter evening, and find the luggage and detritus of a homeless person, though only once did an owner thereof accompany his few belongings. (It was -20*F with the wind chill, and I fussed at him to go to the shelter to find safety. It briefly occurred to me that it would be nice if he could inhabit the Sunday school rooms, but the plan died right away: way too complicated.)

That one rather simple incident with all its implications made me forever-after hesitant to arrive to Quizzing practice alone. The very next week, though, found me arriving alone, at 6:50 pm. We were going to celebrate our first victory with ice cream that night, so I unlocked the downstairs, which includes the kitchen, though we usually have practice upstairs. I went to unlock the other door, but found it already unlocked. I paused, knowing that I might not be alone in the building. I checked the bathrooms and storage room, turned on more lights, and began to feel that I was alone. But, ah, I had left the Quizzing lights upstairs. Outside, I tried the door handle to the upstairs, and found it already unlocked. Again, a bad sign, what was it with our lackadaisical security? Most of us live in the city, and know that you lock your doors. And if not your own, surely the empty church building's doors!

I turned on the light, fairly certain that I would meet with some desperate person - whether in or out of their right mind was the question. "Hello?" I called.

At the top of the stairs, I opened the door, and saw no lights except for the TV, which displayed only static. "Hellooooo?" I called again, but was arrested at the faint sound of children's voices singing. A kid's worship CD was playing. What the hell was going on here?

Chairs had been strewn about the room, and the other doors in the room were closed. Everything was wrong with this picture. I was suddenly and overwhelmingly certain that this was the scene of a grisly murder, and that if I were to open the door one inch more, it would be caught on a corpse lying just beyond my line of vision. The killer was probably still in the room.

I went downstairs, to the sanctuary, telling myself I could wait until another adult arrived to survey the room. Then I heard it, just above my head, footsteps treading right where I had been not a moment ago. So this is how I die, I thought. I went out to the porch to confront the stranger and warn off the quizzers. I knew I couldn't run away, because the quizzers would be arriving any minute, possibly to encounter a dangerous person. I also knew I couldn't call the police. In the worst case scenario, they might use excessive force; in the best case scenario, they would have far too many questions.  I decided to call Pastor Josef. Someone should know how I died. 

"Hello, Carolyn!"

"Hi, Pastor Josef, how are you?"

"I'm good! How are you?"

"Well... I'm not great..." I quickly explained how I had found the doors unlocked, and the creepiness of the upstairs, and most importantly, that there was still someone up there, and I didn't feel safe.

"Do you want me to come over to the church?" he asked.

"No," I said, "I'm sure someone will get here soon." Whatever was going to happen would be finished long before he could arrive. Right then, the door from the Sunday school rooms opened, and Pastor Josef heard a desperate scream come from the other end of his phone - this was the end, surely!

"Are you okay? Carolyn? Who's there?"

"Pastor, I'm fine. I'm... I'm just fine," I was shaking as I tried to explain, "I am so sorry to scare you... I'm fine. But I am going to have to kill the quiz team. I know it's been a lot of work getting a team together. But I am just going to have to kill them. At least, Tyler and Isaiah. Sorry, Pastor. But I'm going to kill them."

---

Tyler and Isaiah had been dropped off early, and a dad with a church key had let them in to the upstairs, and gone his merry way, incorrectly assuming that they would use the time to study the Holy Word of God. And maybe Tyler and Isaiah thought they would do that, too. Until, after 33 seconds, one of them slowly closed his scripture, and said to the other, "Wouldn't it be funny if ..."

Checking Out at the Grocery Store: My Best Line Yet

Please forgive me. I have re-written this introduction enough times to acknowledge that what I am about to share here is likely to become more fodder for an ever-growing list among my friends and family: Reasons Carolyn Will Never Marry. But those who have ears, let them hear. When it comes to weak game, a girl should take no prisoners.

I had gone to the grocery store late at night for the simple reason that it was my turn to do household grocery shopping, and my day had been full of responsibilities and intense conversation up to the very minute I stepped into the store. I was a ragged, mute specimen of humanity dragging myself down only the necessary aisles. I managed to avoid any gazes and any banter in crowded areas; not even an "excuse me" passed my lips.

The checkout lay ahead, my last obstacle of interaction before the freedom of driving in darkness and falling into bed.

The problem: both the high-school aged cashier and the high-school-aged bag boy seemed eager to talk to me; so eager, in fact, that I wondered if they were in some sort of competition with one another. Their zeal annoyed me. The cashier attempted a thought, to which I responded with silence.

Then the unfortunate bag boy ventured a purposeful observation: "Sunflower seeds. Cool. What did I make recently with sunflower seeds?"

A beat.

"Was it an attempt at conversation with a woman in your checkout line? 'Cause I think I was there for that."

Scenes From Single Life

Setting: Four women live together in a house on the edge of a small city.

Scene I: The Hallway

The office door is open in the upstairs hallway, casting a rectangle of light into the dark hall. Keyboard tapping is audible, as the first young woman walks up the stairs. She stops in front of the open door to exclaim some news of the day to the occupant. In a few moments, the young woman sits down, and in the office doorway, another young woman, the keyboard-tapping one, leans out. A few minutes of animated conversation pass, and a third young woman joins the two. The orchestra's decrescendo leaves traces of a conversation, "...on NPR today," "...no, not next August, this August!" "...he actually did say that, I promise" before swelling again. Lights darken.

Scene II: The Kitchen

A young woman with a messy pony tail, dressed in professional clothing, enters the shared house. She is clearly withered from the day. She hangs up her coat laboriously, takes off her boots laboriously. Beyond, the light of the kitchen is visible, and laughter between two, now three people erupts from there. The messy-pony-tail woman perks up and joins the kitchen to make four. Pans fly on and off the stove, burners are turned on with a click. The sink is filled and emptied, filled and emptied with dishes: clattering into the sink, running water, steam from a hot pan searing parts of primary and secondary conversations. Two chairs are occupied by rotation at the table; one woman stands and moves about, another sits for a moment on the stair, another gets up to continue the heating of foodstuff; for a moment, all are holding dishes of supper, and seated in various comfortable poses. Then, one must go; two, three. The young woman with the messy pony tail is last at the sink, leaving dishes in the drying rack, hanging up the dishcloth, turning out the sink light with a smile.

Scene III: Cleaning House
A black and white cat is chasing an imaginary thing up and down the stairs. In the bathroom, a young woman in a ragged band t-shirt is spraying cleaner and wiping surfaces. The black and white cat bolts downstairs, scared by nothing, or something, perhaps. The cat's reception is met with no fanfare beyond a harsh eyelock from a young woman wielding a broom and dustpan, tending to the corners and frames of the downstairs.  

Onward travels the cat, into the kitchen, to find a third young woman who, rag and bucket in hand, is giggling to a voice on the radio. This woman appears neither to see nor hear the skiddish cat now skirting the edge of the basement door, descending with speed into its dark depths.

Creative Energies Transformed

"Why haven't I been writing?" I ask myself, and one or two of you have asked me, too. One part of not writing has been the fear of it. If you refuse to stop and reflect, you don't have to make any changes to your life. You can just keep going forward until you hit a roadblock.

So I let myself fill up my schedule with visiting. (I've been around. You've seen me.) And while that's mostly been a positive change since this time last year, the lack of quiet for my mind has crippled my ability to compose creatively.

When I do become introspective, cataracts of thought open wide, and out flows something different than before: a desire to sing, to play an instrument, to run, to laugh with you, to do something brave, to call you, to finally get back to watching Lost, to coach a Bible Quiz team, to plan a friend's wedding, to visit my sick grandpa and my outspoken grandma, to see a good friend far away, to plan a baby shower, to read that book... by the way, it was Wuthering Heights this month, and it drew me in like the sea, and rescued me, too.

It occurs to me that time is short; if I want to do any of those things, I had better do at least one right now.

I do still write, though, in my journal a few times a month. I write emails. I write advertising copy. I write quiz questions. All taken together, it is satisfying me for now.

A Very Specific Survey (or, General News With a Particular Focus on Sleep)

What food have you been eating the most?

Squash from Joella and Carmen's garden. Sweet, savory, with bread, without bread, in a stew, in a pie. Always delicious.

What is your current relationship to sleep?

Aw, yeah. Every time I get in bed at the end of the day, a feeling of euphoria sneaks over me, and I giggle a lot, and squirm and am so thankful to be going to sleep. With all that joy and love I associate with going to sleep, you'd think I'd be in bed half the day. I'm not in bed half the day. I'm rarely in bed the allotted third of the day. 

In fact, this past week, I needed a holy reminder of the sacred nature of sleep. At an extended prayer meeting on Thursday evening, let the record show I had come a half hour late anyway, I was falling asleep during the group prayer time. Then, Luis sent us off to spend time with the Lord, listening and in quiet. Wow! What an opportunity to reach out to God, to listen. I didn't want to miss it, even though I couldn't seem to think straight. The world's edges were blurring; I was losing perspective and becoming more miserable by the moment. I kept thinking of the many things I'd left undone, the endless "to do" list I sometimes torture myself with. I went outside and put on a song I'd been thinking about, attempting to turn my eyes upon Jesus. Failing.

Out came Michelle and Troy and their baby son. "You're going home?" I asked. 

"Yup. The little man's gotta get to bed," Michelle responded. Then she stopped, "I wanted to sing this during the meeting, but I didn't have the guts in the moment. It's a song I was thinking about, and maybe it's for you..." And she sang a beautiful lullaby of God calling his child to rest in his presence. Too tired, I said, "That's it. I'm going home, too." I went inside and grabbed my coat, explaining my leaving to but one soul, and not attempting to excuse myself, feeling that God himself was calling me to rest. I went home, and to bed. 

What good things happened today?

One roommate announced her engagement. Another roommate announced her brand new nephew's birth. And after Chelsea had lost her phone all day, I found it in my car!

What upsetting thing happened last week?

A good friend lost her job. 

What question has been floating in your head recently?

What does it mean to finish well?

I Think This is Why I Haven't Been Writing

3 Prayers: Desert, Ocean, Home

I dream of the desert

where winds sun stone

Red orange yellow--

blue purple black.

I dream of the desert

where breath catches slow

round swirls on the ground

every touch pays water of its own.

The desert does not dream of me

it knows what I can’t know,

and doesn’t care that I will never

be carefree indifferent windblown.

---

You are unmoved by me

unchanged by me

in you I see

my Creator

---

The cat is bathing herself

again.

Her snuffly breaths anchor me

with a sense of belonging:

this is right, to be at home of an evening,

cooking something, playing something,

straightening here and there,

and finally turning off lights, and bowing

face down, to say "thank you, God. Won't

you bring such security to the whole world?"

"God, may the young women have a moment to stop and think,

a space to breathe in.

"May the young men have a purpose they can believe in that

will earn their self-respect.

"May the old ones have families.

"May the young ones have dreams.

"May all have the food they need.

"Amen."