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7 Amazed Takes

7 Amazed Takes

Last updated on: December 16, 2016 at 12:30 pm by Anne Kennedy

7 Amazed Takes 2016-12-16T12:30:00-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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One
I’ve had a bit of a strange week. If you wanted to know why my blogging was at a more garbage than usual level it’s because I was completely preoccupied. Yesterday, Thursday, I got to go meet some people who I have long thought must walk in the sphere of the gods. The Kim Ks of my world you might say. I was very nervous for many weeks leading up to that auspicious day–obsessing over what to wear and how to keep myself from appearing to be who I really am, which, as I said to Matt, is essentially a Haggis. Why a haggis of all things? Go read 44 Scotland Street. Alexander McCall Smith gave me the All language I was groping for.

Two
Insecurity is a pretty powerful motivator. It drove me to lope around the house for a week staring at the laundry, staring at my ruined desk, staring at my desecrated school room, staring at the kitchen, and then wandering in a daze into the living room to faint back on the couch, my fingers moving relentlessly over my Facebook feed. I Could Not put my mind to anything. I couldn’t conceive of the words necessary to respond to email. I couldn’t hear the sounds of my children shouting in the background.

And now I am basking in a similarly ruinous glow of amazement. Can’t believe I came and went without perishing in high wind on an airplane that seemed to be beating its way through a snowpacalypse. Can’t believe all those people were in one room. Can’t believe I got to be there too. If you want to know what it was and why I was there, I can’t really give a good answer. I’m pretty sure it was just to come home with these.

Three
If you’re on Facebook you know that we had a dog run into our kitchen on Wednesday morning, frozen and exhausted. A big beautiful dog. The children immediately decided he was a Christmas miracle. Fortunately for all concerned, the true miracle is that all our posting on various boards led someone to recognize the dog and call his true owner who came over yesterday while I was gone. It was an older gentlemen who, along with his wife, had been completely beside himself. I am So Grateful for the Internet, for Facebook community pages, for the kindness of people who look at those pages even when they aren’t missing an animal themselves. Dog and Owner reunited in time for Christmas is truly a wonder and a joy.

Four
I posted up an irate comment a couple of days ago on my Dear Baby God post. The person is upset that I would suggest that we not all freak out. We shouldn’t freak out, he suggested, but we shouldn’t sleep well either, and what about the years before WWII when Hitler was on the rise. I’m trying not to be unfair, but I did want to reiterate, Really, We Should Try Not To Freak Out.

And yes, theology does let you sleep at night. Trusting Jesus enough with the problems of the world so that you can go to sleep (he sleeps in perfect peace whose mind is staid on thee y’all) may be a hard thing to do but it’s a really good thing to try.

And also, more importantly really, observe the modern necessity to signal one’s level of freak out. I get on the Internet and suggest that we not all freak out, because the freaking out isn’t really that productive, it doesn’t actually make things better, and the reader parries, “Oh no no, you must freak out.”

Except that nothing is bettered by all of us freaking out. The only thing that is achieved is that I signal to you my emotional fealty to the freakouts of this age. I let you know that I am A Good Person because I am Freaking Out About The Right Things. I probably won’t do anything about them, because in many cases I can’t (really, I hope you’re not excepting me, on this blog, to end the war in Syria through all my feels) but also, you are discounting the possibility that maybe I did bring those terrible things to God in prayer and that maybe I was comforted and that then I went to sleep because that was the sensible course. That’s how it’s supposed to work, or was until this year, when hyper active virtue signaling finally and completely took the place of rational engagement in the political sphere.

So no, I don’t think we should freak out. And I don’t think it’s useful for me to signal all of my feelings on every issue on this blog so that you can know what a good person I am. You, dear commenter, noticed I used the word Frappuccino in the post. That, in context, was a little joke. It was acknowledgement of the reality that even though this life can be terrible, God is still God and this isn’t all there is, and so we can sometimes make some jokes, we can lighten the mood, we can laugh a little at ourselves. I understand that this is cultural heresy, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Five
So, it’s almost Christmas. Oh dear heavenly saints above. Oh my word. Oh no oh no oh no oh no. I need to run around in a screaming panic. Cough. Which is not the same as freaking out.

Six
My children were sure I was going to die on the airplane. They all said a meaningful and sobbing goodbye before they went to bed on Wednesday night. And then just now, Egglantine snuggled up next to me and whispered, with just a hint of sadness, “I fought you were going to die on the aiwplane.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t die,” I said.
“It’s ok,” she said, and went to have a second breakfast.

Seven
And now I will arise and go wander around in a stupid circle of tired and wonderment. What day is it? Who am I? Oh! That’s right! A haggis. A happy haggis because I get to have another Alexander McCall Smith book today, and because I didn’t die, and because the laundry is all sitting there which gives me purpose and meaning. Go read better takes! Pip pip.

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