What Life Looks Like on the Wild Side

Just recently, I did something I’ve never done before.  I walked the cows.  They were on one side of an electric fence, and I was on the gravel road.  I went for a walk.  They came too.

In terms of dangerousness, I think I’d place it right up there next to hugging a grizzly and swimming with sharks.  Think about it.  There they are, these hairy, hard-hoofed, one-ton, diarrhea-ridden (too many turnips) monstrosities.  And nothing but one little tiny strand of wire separating me from them.  Sure, it’s electric, but all it would take is a single emboldened cow, and electricity wouldn’t count for much anymore.  I’d call that pretty precarious.

Good thing these particular cows liked me.  They followed me the whole way on my half-mile walk.  I was mooing at them.  That might have had something to do with it.  I don’t know what they found more fascinating: The idea that they’d found a cow on two legs or the fact that I could also whistle. (I wasn’t actually trying to walk the cows.  It was the dogs who needed the exercise.)

Whatever it was they liked about me, they were pretty adamant about it.  Have you ever seen a cow run?  It looks like this:

Picturesque, aren’t they?

That’s pretty much what they did every time I mooed at them.  Kicked up their heels and ran straight at me.  Maybe I should watch what I’m saying in cow language.  Maybe I should stop mooing.

I’m not sure what my point is with all this.  Maybe I just wanted to give you an example of what life looks like on the wild side.  No inhibitions.  No fear.  The things we do here in Nebraska that are comparative to skydiving in other places.  What I can get away with living out in the cornfields that you’d get arrested for if you tried on the street where you live.

Whatever it is, I’ll tell you one thing: At my house, we might be strange . . . but we’re never bored.

My Grandma

I’d like to tell you about my grandma.  Most people wait for funerals and obituaries to write things like this.  Before I scare anyone too badly (aunts, uncles, and cousins!), let me say that my grandma is still very much alive.  She’s had diabetes for as long as I can remember, she’s been in an ambulance a lot more times than I have, and she doesn’t feel exactly healthy most of the time.  But she’s very much alive.

I like my grandma.

I like my grandpa too.

They’ve been married now for 64 years, if I’m doing my math right . . . and I might not be.  My grandpa was 18 when they married.  Grandma was 16.  They eloped.  I was in their house this morning.  They still have their Marriage License in a frame on their bedroom wall.  Sixty-four years later.  That alone is impressive.

They had eight kids (my mom being the oldest), and they’ve got so many grands and great-grands by now, I think they’re the only ones who know the real number.  I lost count somewhere around 30.

They love telling stories of their growing up year.  “We were just kids playing house,” Grandma always says.  Their first house was a tiny little thing that didn’t have any running water.  They had to go outside and pump it from a well by hand.  They lived for a couple years in Hawaii and had a house there with a whole long flight of stairs you had to climb down before you could go out and up before you could come in.  Grandpa was in the Marines.  Grandma ran a knitting shop.

Grandma owns more cook books than anyone I’ve ever met.  She’s made an astounding number of tacos, survived a house fire, trained several German Shepherds, and shot the “King of the Crows.” (Don’t worry; it really was just a bird.) She likes old hymns and listening to the Gaithers.  African violets flourish in her house.  She has an iPad, and she knows how to use it.

And she’s proud of me.

I know.  She tells me all the time.

It’s rather nice having someone tell you they’re proud of you.  It’s especially nice when it comes from someone like Grandma.  It makes me proud of her too.  I don’t know many women of God like her.  I don’t think there are many who pray like that, love their husbands like that, give thanks like that, and cheer on the next generations the way she does.

So, thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for being the grandparents that you are.  I love that you live a mile down the road from us, and I get to be here at least for a little while longer to see you.  I am so proud of you too.

Announcement #2

I would like to try an experiment.  Get out some paper and write a 0 on it.  Then I want you to go down a line and put a 0 there.  You see, the 0 is a magic number, as it is -well- 0.  You can’t get better than that!  Now, on the next one, 0 isn’t enough.  7 is the number to put here.  Why isn’t a 0 good enough here? 0 is not magical now.  Once great, a 0 has been reduced to being nonsense.  Now, take your paper and throw it away, then turn your computer sideways.

(Note: This will be much easier if you are reading this from a laptop.  I apologize to those of you who aren't.)

Look closely at the paragraph above this one. (Or, uh, I guess since you turned your computer sideways it’s the paragraph beside this one.) Regardless, you might be able to see a face in the numbers in the paragraph - 0s form the eyes, the 7 is the nose, and a line of 0s form the mouth.  It’s smiling at you because you’re holding your computer sideways, and - as everyone knows - that’s not the way to read a computer screen.  In fact, how are you reading this paragraph, anyway?  Turn the computer around.  You look silly.

(Note: The next paragraph is written in upside down letters, and I couldn’t figure out how to do that on a blog, so I’m skipping it.)

You may be thinking right about this time that I’ve gone off my rocker, blown my top, and suffered a conniption which I handled very poorly.  I may agree with you.  However, before we go too far, let me say that I can’t actually claim ownership over the above indented paragraphs.  They're from a man by the name of Brandon Sanderson, one of the few authors who can make me laugh no matter how bad my day was.

Yes, I know.  This is why sometimes I worry that I’m going insane.

Now . . . back to the original purpose for this announcement:

Announcement #2:

The above picture is a very small selection of various jewelry I’ve created over the past few months.  This jewelry is currently being sold in the online world HERE.  I’ve told most of you this before.  Just thought I’d let you know that it’s still alive, and there’s lots of new stuff for sale.  Thanks to the terrifying world of online businesses, it is now possible for me to take this jewelry shop anywhere in the world I go . . . Which might come in handy some day. :-)

Oh, and I’m hoping to expand soon into physical locations and not just virtual ones.  If you have any ideas, you’re welcome to let me know.

Thanks!

P.S.  Just in case the smiley face was hiding from you:

I would like to try an experiment.  Get out some paper and write a 0 on it.  Then I want you to go down a line and put a 0 there.  You see, the 0 is a magic number, as it is -well- 0.  You can’t get better than that!  Now, on the next one, 0 isn’t enough.  7 is the number to put here.  Why isn’t a 0 good enough here? 0 is not magical now.  Once great, a 0 has been reduced to being nonsense.  Now, take your paper and throw it away, then turn your computer sideways.

Announcing an Announcement Relevant to the Announcements

I would like to share with you a list of announcements split up into bite-sized pieces so you don’t get bored . . . and I don’ t either.  However, before making these announcements, I am starting off with this very important announcement before the announcements about the announcements.

Is everyone with me so far?

Good.

Now that we’ve got that sorted.

Announcement #1:

(Which some of you know already.  But some of you don’t.  Because I am very good at communicating inside my head and not quite so good communicating outside of it.)

The eight songs that I recorded with my band last spring are now available on the Internet.  I believe they call this going public.

This is not your chance to make me famous.  It would be rather fun, wouldn’t it?  But your support isn’t going to make my CD go from gold to platinum.  It probably won’t even take it from paper to plastic.

Whatever that means.

What it is going to do is show you my heart.  The flabbergasted heart of a Bohemian who frequently wonders where she’s going and if she’s doing what she needs to do to get there.  A soldier waiting to follow her Captain’s lead.  A pilgrim headed home.

That’s what “Yours Alone” is about.  If you’re interested in that, click HERE.

Or HERE.

Or HERE.

Or you can be a rebel and ignore my links, get on Itunes, and search “Rebecca Johnson Yours Alone.”

(P.S. To all you who have heard this announcement already, I apologize.  I promise to spice things up a bit next time and say something completely unexpected.  Squirrel!)

Walking Into the Wind

The wind is blowing across the plains of Nebraska today.

Which is a typically normal state of being.

What might be rather abnormal is going out to take a walk in it.

Twenty degree weather with the wind blowing at 30 miles an hour, so it feels more like negative fifteen.  The good news is the sun is shining . . . Not that it’s making much difference.

I pulled on my four layers, two hats, gloves, and a double pair of socks, and set off.  My dog likes to go for walks in this kind of weather.  Sometimes I like going with him.  We set out straight east.  The wind often comes from the north when it’s cold like this.  I figured east would be our best bet not to get blasted.

Turns out I didn’t figure very carefully.

Actually, the wind was coming out of the northwest.  At 30 mph.  Meaning I was good to go the whole time I headed eastward, but as soon as I turned back for the house, I met a rather nasty surprise.

It was cold.

And that, my friends, is called an understatement.

I gritted my teeth, tried to convince my four layers to somehow feel more like six, and walked head-on into our lovely 30 mph Nebraska wind.  “It might not look pretty,” I mumbled under my breath, “but, darn it, I’m making it back to the house anyway.”

While I was being blasted over the next half mile, I started thinking about how much this looked like my life.  Me all hunched over, gritting my teeth, plowing forward while varying degrees of torture explained to me why I should turn around.  “It’s too hard.  You’re not doing it right.  You ought to be more prepared.  Someone else would have done this differently, and probably better!  You’re never going to make it.  It’s all meaningless.  Why are you even trying?”

While the sun shone bright and gold and cheerful millions of miles away.  Heatless and utterly aloof.

So, what did I do?

I made it back to the house.  And sat down at the computer to tell you all how cold it is in Nebraska.  How hard the wind blows.  How far away the sun is.  But I’m sitting next to the heater as I type this.  My cheeks are red, but they’re not really frigid anymore.  And I’m not feeling any wind at all.

Apparently, I made it.  Apparently, frozen fingers and icy eyelashes and 30 mph winds aren’t the end of the story.  Apparently, a little opposition doesn’t have to mean giving up after all.

The Way We Duel

I walked through the front door this afternoon to this:

 Yes, that does say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

And, yes, it is spelled correctly.

This is my family’s newest and most interesting way to duel.  It’s a spin-off from the game Bananagrams (like Scrabble on steroids).  My sister Kristi did it.  She used all the letters in the bag. (Just don’t look too close at how she spelled some of the words.) She said it only took her about ten minutes.

That was it.  I consider myself an expert (eh-hem) in the art of English language usage.  I got straight A’s in that class when I was in school.  I breezed through Crime and Punishment and suffered through Shakespeare.

The duel was on.

Kristi challenged me to sit down and write a story.  A story using all the letters from Bananagrams.  I rolled my shoulders, scooted into a chair, and started in.

Five hours later (Okay, really, it was less than 30 minutes), this was the result:

I didn’t cheat at all, except for a Z or two turned sideways when I ran out of N’s.

This is what we’re doing in my house these days.  This is how we spend our time.  If anyone out there still believes in dueling, here’s your challenge right now: Come up with a better story than we did in half an hour or less.  You’re allowed to turn Z’s into N’s and W’s into M’s, but you have to use all the letters, and you can’t misspell any words ... Unless the dog’s name is Jef.

:-)

P.S. If you're planning to visit my house any time soon, I advise you to bring some chocolate and a dictionary.

I Would Rather Not Die

Sometimes I think I don’t make much sense.

(I know at least one person who’s laughing right now.  It’s not funny.)

I mean, it might be funny if I was a professional comedian, a politician, or a lawyer.  But when I’m trying to be a very practical, down-to-earth missionary, it gets a little annoying.  Aren’t missionaries supposed to know what they’re doing?

I’ve read about Gladys and Amy and George and Katie and Elizabeth and Jim and Megan and Eric and all sorts of others, and they jumped on planes, boats, buses, cars, or into a nondescript pair of shoes.  And they went!  Just like that.  Without looking behind them.  Forgetting it all.  For the glory of God and the sake of His lost children.

So . . . what am I doing here still?

Cause I am.  Here.  Still.  I think I forgot to tell some of you, and if you’re not within a 15-mile radius, you probably don’t know.  I’m in Nebraska.  Central City.  Little place.  Lots of cornfields and cows.  Not much else.

I will be here until . . . well, until God opens the next door.  I don’t really know when that will be.  Some time between today and the end of the world.  Sorry if you were wanting something a little more specific.  Sometimes waiting on God is confusing.  Sometimes it’s downright frustrating.

I’m not writing this so you’ll feel sorry for me and send me chocolate.  I mean, you could send me chocolate, but that’s not why I’m writing.  I just wanted you to hear from the human side of trying to be a missionary.  We’re human too.  We get impatient.  We get discouraged.  We get lost.  Or at least, I do.

But I keep forging ahead - or, in this case, sitting here in a bright yellow chair in a house surrounded by cornfields while a large portion of the people I know stare at me and wait for me to DO something.  I’ll wait as long as it takes.  Because no matter how little I’ve managed to accomplish in a day, my prayer is still the same:

I would rather cry before You with wounds
Than sing before You with walls.
I would rather my heart be torn to shreds by You
Than keep it whole and turned to stone.
I would rather be pierced by Your sword
Than pick up a shield and side with the enemy.
I would rather hear one whispered word from You
Than the cheers of human praise.
I would rather lose it all to You
Than win the world from anyone else.
I would rather be crushed under Your hand
Than be held safe in the hand of any other.
I would rather weep in Your house
Than dance in a house You’re not in.

I would rather not die.

But since my living life
Can only come by dying death,
I would rather die with You
Than live with anything less.

Flying Purple Cats Vs. The Administrators

I am a visionary.  Isn’t that a profound, beautiful word?  I can dream up elephants in the clouds and flying purple cats and waterfalls that pour upside down and all sorts of other cool and unusual things, and not a single one of them actually exists.  I can do this because I’m a visionary.

It means I am in the regular habit of looking at beads and seeing necklaces.  I stare at a blank computer screen and envision a 250-page novel.  I see a white flower and dream up ways to make it blue.  I look at an outline or a budget sheet, and I see bonfire kindling.

Apparently, being a visionary is basically another word for being impractical.

I’ve been a visionary for the past 29 years, and I’ve just discovered this downside.  Twenty-nine years.  That’s a long time to go without knowing you’re idealistic.

The good news is I’ve finally figured it out.  The bad news is . . . it’s still true.

Which is rather an awkward thing when you’re trying to get to Haiti.  And the church asks for an outline.  And your supervisor is waiting for a budget.  And management wants a team job description.  And your mother is wondering where you’re going to live.

And I, in all my visionary, impractical impulsiveness manage a very blithe, uncaring, “I don’t know.”

Which, I have discovered, is very grating on the ears of those people who are not like me.  The other half of this world that lives in the logical, practical, realistic, un-cloudy side. (I.e: No flying purple cats.) The people I like to call “administrators.”  I’m sure they have a real name for their personality type, and I’m sure they know what they’re called.  But I am a visionary, and that’s not one of the things people like me remember very well.  We make up our own names instead.

I was talking to someone recently about this, and he said he knows just what I mean.  He has an administrator in his life whom he doesn’t understand at all.  They don’t get each other.  A.k.a. they annoy each others’ socks off.

What did they do?  They found an intermediary.  A go-between to translate all communications so no one dies, and everyone gets to keep their socks.  A link to connect the visionary’s creativity with the administrator’s logic.

So, what am I doing about my problem?

I’m praying.  I’m praying for God to send someone who annoys my socks off.  Someone who has the logic I lack.  Someone who actually enjoys creating outlines.  Someone who knows what a budget is.  Someone who likes to administrate.  Several someone’s who are ready to jump on a plane and move to Haiti for two years and learn Creole and put up with me saying, “I don’t know,” a lot.

I am praying for a team.  A body.  A family.

Cause that’s the Church of Christ.  This is who we are.  This is what we do.

We annoy each other.  We pick out each others’ faults.  We think we’re weird, but the other one’s weirder.  We read each others’ thoughts and know how to make each other laugh.  We are stronger when we work together.  We complete each other.

I like the way my mom said it in a little song she wrote for us to sing when we were kids.  Verse three goes like this:

    I’m not like you, you’re not like me.
    We’re very different, you see.
    But God made you, and God made me,
    And we are a family.

My Family Christmas

I have an amazing family.  A big, comfortable, fun, crazy family.

I ought to know.  I spent the last two weeks crammed in a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house with them.

There are 22 of us.  I finally got the number straight.  It’s due to change in another month here, and again at the end of July.  But right now, the number is 22.  Twelve adults, ten kids, six of whom are under the age of two.  For seven days, all 22 of us were together under the same roof.

It was chaotic.  It was loud.  Most of the time, it smelled like dirty diapers.  We were stealing each others’ chairs, tripping over each others’ shoes, spilling each others’ drinks, and spending too much time in the shower when four more people were waiting in line.  It was obnoxious.  It was stressful.

It was beautiful.

We didn’t kill each other.  We didn’t even fight.  We’re still looking forward to our next family get-together.  The kids didn’t have to sit in time-out all day, and our indoor dogs managed not to bite off any fingers (not even when the babies were pulling their eyelashes).

People look at my family, and they’re amazed.  Open-mouthed.  Blinking.  Wondering how we manage to be so big and insane and ridiculously unplanned, and still like each other.  They’re impressed.  I don’t blame them.  I am too.

Not that I really have much to do with it.

I’ve said it’s because we have a Grandma who prays for each one of us every day.  I’ve said it’s because my mom stayed at home when we were kids, and my dad taught us to love the Bible.  I have a blessed, blessed heritage.

But the bare truth is simpler than that.  Because, at the end of the day, we each make our own individual choices.  And we’ve chosen.  We’ve chosen to love each other.  We’ve chosen not to be selfish.  We’ve chosen to enjoy the packed house, the loud dinners, the screaming children.  We’ve chosen to follow Jesus.

He came from a big family too, you know.  Four brothers that we know of, and at least two sisters.  I bet His family meals involved crying babies and flying peas.  I bet His parents’ house sometimes smelled like dirty diapers.

I think God loves big families.  I think He loves the loudness, the togetherness, the chaos.  I think He likes all the little, daily chances to watch us give up ourselves and die.  I think He wants us to go and invite more people in.  I think He wants our houses to be fuller.


I thank God for the full house I was a part of this Christmas.  It was a gorgeous, unorganized, deafening thing.  I really enjoyed it.  It was a little taste of Heaven.

(Enjoying the chaos in lovely weather - thank You, God! - outside.)