the rose of kiev

A few weeks ago, I sat up late with my landlady talking and drinking cheap moscato wine. Our two-hour conversation strayed all over, from stories about her Chilean upbringing to the story of how I met Dave. Halfway into our second glass, God and Evil wandered into the conversation. She gestured with her wine glass toward the windowed walls, admitting that because of Nature's beauty she believes in God, but she has a problem with all the evil happenings in this world. She reached up with both hands and repositioned her glasses, and looking at me over the rims she told me story after story of the things she has seen: a single mother dying of cancer and living alone with her mentally handicapped son, friends' daughters raped, people shot. "How can I believe in a good God?" she asked, words slanted with her Chilean accent. Every time this kind of question comes up in conversation I have the same answer. I swallowed a sweet mouthful and replied, "It's the cost of ...

I sometimes hate the linearity of life. Some days I am irritated that I can only be in one place at a time, and how long it takes to get from one place to another. This usually happens when I'm hungry but the meatloaf still needs 40 minutes to cook, or I'm speeding down Henderson and running late to work. Do you know how much of my day is spent sleeping and eating and cleaning and traveling? When there is much to be done, having to stop for a sandwich or a nap is grumblesome. The interstices of life are strange, though. They seem to be built for developing relationships. Road trips to vacation destinations are often crazy glue for relationships. Some of my best conversations with Dave happen on the drive to Home Depot...or Lowe's...or Harbor Freight...or Ace Hardware. We share meals with people when we have to stop and replenish. Most of us share our bedroom, our kitchen, and our home with at least one other person. But sometimes the thought of all that time maintaining our...

The past five months has had some, well, huge changes to say the least. This is (roughly) my old schedule before June: 25 hours of work + 15 hours of school + 5 hours of homework + 10 hours of church meetings + 8 hours of weekly hangouts + 3 hours of Arts Group = 66 hours of scheduled activity On June 13th, Dave and I graduated from college. He returned to OSU for graduate school in the fall; I, however, maintain the part time job at the lawyers' office. And 2 weeks ago, after many months of deliberation, Dave and I made the decision to leave the church I've called home since July of 2005. Dave has been here even longer - since 2003. He was the one who first brought me when we started dating in June of 2005, and I had been coming ever since. My new schedule: 25 hours of work + 3 hours of Arts Group + 2 hours of (a) weekly hangout = 30 hours of activity