Monday, January 23, 2012

Stay Tuned for God’s Version of My Life

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I’m India bound.

February 8 I will board a plane that will send me halfway around the world and approximately 8,226 miles from home. This trip is the culmination of a journey that began just over a year ago, when I first started developing communications for As Our Own.

I didn’t realize that working for As Our Own would become one of those major section dividers in the story of my life. Never in my wildest dreams did I think the story of my life would include the topics of India and fighting child exploitation or that I would get to write about the transforming work that God is doing in places I’ve never been. How grateful I am that God is the one writing my story, because His version is way better than mine.

Although I’ve posted here at The Patch about As Our Own many times, you may not have read those entries . . . in brief, As Our Own works in India, standing in the gap for children who are at risk for life-long bondage, in treacherous situations that would lead to exploitation in the sex trade, organized begging, or bonded labor.

This work takes several forms. First is the immediate rescue of children who are in danger of exploitation and enslavement. They are adopted into the lifelong As Our Own family where they become beloved daughters, for life.

Another aspect of the work addresses the systemic, long-term issues that put children at risk. Without the transforming power of God’s love, there will always be another child to rescue. As Our Own fosters root-level transformation by equipping the Church and leaders to build strong communities where predators can no longer prey upon the innocent.

This is the beautiful work God is doing in the beautiful country of India. I cannot believe I get to be part of it. And I cannot believe I get to go there!

Many of you are curious what I will be doing on my trip. The goal is that I would see with my own eyes what I have been writing about for the past year! I want to be a sponge, soaking up everything I might need for future writing projects. I want to be a curious reporter, full of wonder and probing questions about a country and a people and a culture I have grown to love. I want to be a servant, willing to pour myself out in love and humility in whatever way I am prompted.

As far as day-to-day happenings, these are the sorts of things I will experience:

  • meet the 70-plus daughters in the As Our Own family
  • lead devotional sessions with the girls
  • meet the girls’ live-in staff, caretakers, and care directors
  • gather story leads and information for future communications
  • learn all I can about India’s society and culture
  • visit As Our Own’s Hope College, meeting the professors and students
  • visit an As Our Own–supported Lighthouse Church, meeting the pastor and congregants

This brief overview surely won’t do my trip justice! I don’t know how to explain a trip I’ve never taken to a land I’ve never visited to meet people I’ve only heard about, read about, and written about. I will be learning as I go, and I plan to post reports here during my stay.

I hope you will visit The Patch February 8–18 to discover what I am discovering. This is one story I don’t want to miss! (Thank You, God!)

 

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Which Word Wednesday: Metonym vs. Synonym

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Thanks, Peter!

Happy Thesaurus Day! Today is the day we observe the word treasury that was written by Peter Roget, born January 18, 1779. Roget’s Thesaurus was first published in April 1852, which begs the question: What did writers do to find synonyms before then?! I, for one, am happy to be living on this side of 1852.

How will I celebrate this felicity? I just may crack out a gift the Hubster gave me last year, The Thinker’s Thesaurus. It’s a mega-Thesaurus. I highly recommend it.

Another merriment on tap here at The Patch is Which Word Wednesday. Isn’t it fun that Thesaurus Day falls on Wednesday this year?! We get to celebrate the holiday and a word match up all at once.

In honor of the Peter’s birthday, we’ll consider metonym vs. synonym. Here are the definitions from The Oxford American Dictionary:

metonym :: noun
a word, name, or expression used as a substitute for something else with which it is closely associated

synonym :: noun
a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language

Both nouns refer to words that can be used to substitute other words. Word association is key—you should be able to use one word or the other with the intended meaning remaining the same.

A metonym is the term for words that are more general or loosely associated with each other. The OAD expounds: “For example, Washington is a metonym for the federal government of the U.S.”

A synonym is the term for words that are near substitutes for one another. Once again, the OAD provides insight: “For example shut is a synonym of close.”

Roget’s Thesaurus as well as The Thinker’s Thesaurus are sources to turn to when you need help finding that perfect word to communicate clearly. But I see the classic version as the source for synonyms and the lesser-known version as the source for metonyms. For example, if we look at the word creative, we find the following entries:

The Thesaurus offers 11 options for substitution in its entry:
inventive, imaginative, innovative, experimental, original; artistic, expressive, inspired, visionary; enterprising, resourceful

The Thinker’s Thesaurus offers two loosely related words in its entry:
(1) and/or original adj.: Promethean [Prometheus was the Titan god of forethought, who, based on some legends, was entrusted with the task of molding mankind out of clay.]

(2) as in resourceful person n.: debrouillard [French].

What’s my WWW verdict? If you are looking for basic substitutions to avoid repetitive speech, use a Thesaurus; if you need a witty term or reference, check out The Thinker’s Thesaurus.

What’s your verdict? Are you a Thesaurus reader? Will you celebrate Thesaurus Day? Do share in the comments.

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Check out previous Which Word Wednesday verdicts here.

 

Monday, January 16, 2012

Knowing and Not Knowing

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Snow has finally descended upon us here in central Illinois. It was late coming. The snowy streets make for unpleasant driving (and running!) conditions, but there is something calming about it.

Landscapes cloaked in sparkly white whisper, “Hush, be still.” And so I did just that—I watched the flakes fall and gather, building up along the window frame and in the crooks of the now-barren branches. The stillness builds up in me, and I am humbled by the wonder of it all.

I rest in knowing that He is God, and I am not.

This knowing what I know, and knowing I don’t know it all, is a gift. Call it wisdom, maturity, humility—whatever it is, without it pride and arrogance take over, making a wreck of the stillness.

I cannot claim knowledge about the world when there is a world of mystery swirling about within me—of all things, shouldn’t I be most aware of who I am? In the stillness, I am confronted with how little I know, about the universe out there and in here. I know I am not God but at times I live like I am.

It wasn’t just the falling snow that has stirred these thoughts. I’ve been reading The Social Animal by David Brooks for the High Calling book club (you are welcome to join the club—get the book and participate in discussion each Monday). It is a fascinating mix of fiction laced with psychological fact. Brooks is using fictional characters as a backdrop for explaining how relationships make us who we are. Although the main character is a guy named Harold, Brooks couldn’t being with Harold; Harold begins with his parents and the relationship they built together which produced this guy. After getting a good picture of the parents, we can see how they raised Harold and how that shaped him.

Our reading for this week takes us through chapter 6; Harold is yet a young boy, but we are beginning to see his personality emerge from events he will never remember. The daily relational interactions make us who we are . . . but we won’t remember them specifically. Brooks says:

This is why all biographies are inadequate; they can never capture the inner currents. This is why self-knowledge is limited. Only a few remarkable people can sense the way early experience has built models in the brain. Later in life we build fictions and theories to paper over the mystery of what is happening deep inside, but in childhood, the inexplicableness of the world is still vivid and fresh, and sometimes hits with terrifying force. 1

The inner currents within my own heart and soul often rush me down rivers I would rather not travel. They are powerful. It takes mere seconds for currents to overwhelm whatever stillness I had found. That’s why I have built my own fictional sense of reality to make sense of my inner universe—because I cannot control it. Giving it a label, naming the mystery, makes me feel more at ease with it. I know the Johari Window is true.

Truer still is that God knows me in all my quadrants. He knows all mysteries that current inside me and throughout the universe. And that’s why I can be still, knowing what I know . . . and what I don’t.

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Read other book club participant posts from this week.

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Sources
1. David Brooks, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement (New York, NY: Random House, 2011), 85.

 

Thursday, January 12, 2012

The Heart-Body Connection

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Hey, gals, this week’s Mixed Signals column over at Christ and Pop Culture is all about our obsession with weight, body image, and character—and how companies attempt to help us in our pursuit.

Special K cereal has a new campaign addressing these things. It’s called “What Will You Gain When You Lose?”

I’m wondering . . . how does your physical condition affect your heart/mind/soul? How does your heart/mind/soul affect your physical condition? The insides are connected to the outsides, for sure—we are whole people. Work on one, the other is impacted. But which do you work on first? Do you work on both equally?

Click over to read more: Mixed Signals: Special K’s Lose-Gain Philosophy.

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Mixed Signals is my weekly musing about marketing miscellany in advertising, branding, and messaging hosted each Thursday at Christ and Pop Culture.

 

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Which Word Wednesday: Geek vs. Nerd

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When I was in junior high and high school, TV shows and movies highlighted the awkward lives of the socially inept. These were lovable-yet-dorky characters like Sarah Jessica Parker’s Patty Greene in Square Pegs.

At that time, being nerdy or geeky was not something to strive for. Today, being quirky in a nerdy or geeky way is better than conforming to some standard of cooldom. So which sort of quirky is which? That’s the word quandary for today’s Which Word Wednesday between geek and nerd. Here are the definitions from The Oxford American Dictionary:

geek :: noun
an unfashionable or socially inept person

nerd :: noun
a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious; an intelligent, single-minded expert in a particular technical discipline or profession

From these definitions, geeks are inept but don’t draw attention to it; nerds are inept and lets everyone around see it in all its glory.

Ron Evans takes a different tact his The Artful Nuance: “A geek is any intelligent person with an obsessive interest, as in computers, science fiction, comic books, politics, or even sports. . . . It can be used almost neutrally or sometimes even positively.” 1 (Based on this definition, I could be classified as a grammar geek. Is that neutral or positive?) Evans continues: “A nerd is a socially inept or awkward and often unstylish geek.”1

Does that mean all nerds are geeks, but not all geeks are nerds? hmmm . . .

I found this great infographic (from dailyinfographic.com) depicting the differences between geeks and nerds. It says that people self-identify as geek more so than nerd. I think that’s because being geeky is not socially damaging. You can be geeky but cool. Being nerdy is not as socially acceptable because the nerdiness causes foolish or embarrassing behavior. (Click the image to see the infographic in full.)

What’s my WWW verdict? We’ve all got a little geek-and-nerd in us; it just takes the right topic and a demanding social situation to bring it to light.

What’s your verdict? Do you make distinctions between geeks and nerds? How do you tell them apart? Which do you tend to be? Do share in the comments.

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Check out previous Which Word Wednesday verdicts here.

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Sources
1. Ron Evans, The Artful Nuance: A Refined Guide to Imperfectly Understood Words in the English Language (New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2009), 106–107.

 

Friday, January 6, 2012

2011 Adventures at The Patch

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Writing a recap post each year gives me a chance to review my blog and remember what I wrote about and what my life was like during the past twelve months. The words I would use to describe 2011 are travel, running, and writing. The three are connected: I traveled a lot, some because of running, and wrote about both.

WordPress sent me the following fun fact about my blogging life in 2011:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Thanks for attending at least one of the four sold-out performances! Who knew that so many would sit through random musings about travel, running, and writing?! If you are an infographic fan, you can read the complete WordPress report for my blog here. I hope you will visit again in the New Year!

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Picks of the Patch 2011

As usual, I’ve pulled some of my favorite posts from 2011 as a reading sampler. If you are new to The Patch, you will get a good taste of what I tend to write about here.

faith
A Case for Mealtime Grace
Mega Memory Month Wrap-Up: Linear Thinking Would Be Helpful
Spring Cleaning
How to Wait for a Spiritual Sunrise

language
It’s a Grammar Party! Dullards and Pendants Welcome
Which Word Wednesday: Flair vs. Flare
Which Word Wednesday: Height vs. Heighth
Resting in Common Words

culture
Recovering Life’s Margin
Enchantment Leads to Great Delight
Snap Judgments of the Positive Kind
Overcoming Evil with Good

Stats from The Patch

All-Time Views: 50,346
Total Views in 2011: 12,336
Average Daily Views in 2011: 34
Total Posts in 2011: 96

Most Popular Posts in 2011

#1: Gifts from My Mother
#2: Which Word Wednesday: Hoedown vs. Hootenanny
#3: How I Won the 24th Erin Award at the Hot Chocolate 15K

2011 Blog Adventures

Some space at The Patch was reserved for The High Calling book club commentary. We read and discussed The Spirit of Food (a collection of essays) and Enchantment written by Guy Kawasaki.

In April, Christ and Pop Culture added me to their writing team. Mixed Signals is my weekly musing about marketing miscellany in advertising, branding, and messaging and how Christians can navigate all that. Among other things, I’ve written about the marketing of Sharpie pens, the American Heritage Dictionary, the Obama brand, Ikea, The Fresh Market, and Nutella.

In May, I was asked to write a guest post for Revive Our Hearts. I love that ministry and the people I’ve gotten to know! What a blessing to be connected to them.

 

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Which Word Wednesday: Epee vs. Foil

Posted by erinstraza under language | Tags: , , , , |
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Over the Christmas holiday, I got to visit with my honorary niece (hey Miss Hannah!) who is home from college. She mentioned that she is giving the fencing team a go, and that led to a discussion about the swords. Both épée and foil are common crossword puzzle answers, so I was familiar with the terms and asked which she was using . . . but neither of us knew the difference, so I said I would have to look them up.

Hence, today’s Which Word Wednesday duel (pun intended), the match up between épée and foil. Here are the definitions from The Oxford American Dictionary:

épée :: noun
a sharp-pointed dueling sword, designed for thrusting and used, with the end blunted, in fencing

foil :: noun
a light fencing sword without cutting edges but with a button on its point

Ron Evans gives us more detail in his The Artful Nuance: “An épée is a fencing or dueling sword having a bowl-shaped guard (to protect the hand), a rigid thirty-five-inch blade” and a foil is a weapon “resembling an épée but weighing less and having a flat guard and a more flexible blade.”1

From these sources we can summarize the differences as follows: The épée has a rigid blade with a bowl-shaped guard whereas the foil has a flexible blade with a flat guard.

What’s my WWW verdict? Whether it’s an épée or a foil . . . on guard!

What’s your verdict? Did you know the difference between an épée and a foil? Have you ever participated in a fencing match? Do share in the comments.

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Check out previous Which Word Wednesday verdicts here.

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Sources
1. Ron Evans, The Artful Nuance: A Refined Guide to Imperfectly Understood Words in the English Language (New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2009), 87.

 

Friday, December 30, 2011

Bible Reading Based on Alliteration

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Each year I include Bible reading goals in my New Year’s resolutions. I am always excited about digging into the Word and meeting my God for a feast in the year to come.

Some people may think that starting a Bible reading plan on January 1 is trite. Lots of people give the read-the-Bible-in-a-year a go when the New Year rolls around. The popularity of New Year’s Bible reading challenges isn’t the problem. The problem is that so few of those plans are seen through to the end. I know this pain firsthand.

Even so, I am not jaded. I’m all for Bible reading plans. I say it’s better to read and fall behind than to never read at all.

Here I am once again, with January just hours away, and I’m getting ready for another year of Bible reading. Although there are plenty of reading plans available, I wanted to go simple this year. So I have crafted a plan that is a bit more loose, consisting of two elements I’m calling the Daily Drink and the Sabbath Soak (alliteration is key to this plan). Here’s how it will work:

The Daily Drink
Supposedly it takes the average reader 75 hours to read through the entire Bible. That’s 4,500 minutes (whoa!) or 12 minutes a day (well, that’s not so bad). My plan is to go book by book, reading for 12 minutes each day. I’ll mark my place after 12 minutes, mark my spot, and pick up from there the next day. Simple enough, yes?

Now, I don’t plan to read from Genesis to Revelation . . . I want to mix it up a bit. I’m actually thinking about reading the books in alphabetical order. That means I’ll be starting in Acts, followed by Amos, then I’ll move on to Chronicles (1 and 2).

The Sabbath Soak
In addition to reading through the Bible in full, I also want to study some passages a bit more in depth. Sundays typically offer a bit more time for me to read and reflect. So each month, I’ll choose a different book or passage from the Bible to concentrate on.

The first Sunday I’ll read through the book/passage in my usual translation; the following Sundays of the month, I’ll choose other translations. Shorter books I could read in full each week; longer books I will likely cover for two or more months as needed. Ephesians will be my pick for January because that’s the book my pastor is teaching from right now.

What do you think? Would you like to join me for this year’s Bible reading? Maybe even for a month or two? Let me know if you plan to join me. We can encourage each other to stick with the plan . . . and maybe we will make it a bit further into 2012 then the average Bible reader.

 

Friday, December 30, 2011

For the Tomorrows of 2012

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How grateful I am to have a few days this week to decompress! I get to read, rest, reflect—three of my favorite R-word activities! It seems that 2011 was in short supply of all these, although some changes throughout the year just may be culminating into a fresh New Year. Let me explain.

Last year, I was blessed with too much work. So blessed, in fact, that the first four months consisted of regular all-nighters. Something had to go . . . but what? After much prayer, I decided to remove my editing/proofreading contract with a communications agency. It was one of those sad but good decisions. But it still took me months to feel like I was digging myself out of the hole I had gotten into. The months of irregular sleep, household neglect, and responsibility shirking towered and took its toll.

Let me stress: God has been good to me. He held me steady through my emotional ups-and-downs and has taught me more about who He is and my need for His grace and love and mercy. My life with the Hubster is sweet, more than I could ever have imagined. I have dear friends who know me through and through, who pray for me, cry with me, laugh at me (in love, of course). I have work that is of the pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming nature.

Life is good and sweet. I am grateful. But some stretches are rougher than others, and 2011 was rough in the work-and-responsibility sense. But now that I’ve had some time for the three Rs, I feel mentally ready, able, and excited to meet my life in the days of 2012. I think they call this hope. And hope makes me dreamy! This is why I love the start of something new—a new day, new week, new month, new year. New makes me dream of what could be.

In all this hopes-and-dreams discourse, did any of you think of the Walt Disney Carousel of Progress theme song, “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow”?!

(Well, that may be a bit too sunshiny. Let’s move on.) Here are my hopes and dreams for the big bright beautiful tomorrows of 2012.

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1. For the Love of God
Fill & Empty is what I’ve been calling my morning check-in with the Lord. Basically, it’s getting more of who Jesus is (His Spirit, His power, His Truth—Him!) in me as I empty my soul in prayer and worship. Each month I plan to take a morning retreat to rest and rejoice in God’s grand rescue of me, a sinner. Both of these (the daily time and the monthly retreat) were spotty during 2011, and I’d like 2012 to be more consistent so that I do not let spiritual drift set in.

2. For the Love of Reading
Reading is a true joy for me, and it was in short supply in 2011. When I had time to sit still to read, I was often too tired to do so. For 2012, I have several reading challenges and goals set. These are, of course, in addition to the other books I am reading . . . :

The High Calling Book Club: We’ll be reading David Brooks’s The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement. It kicks off Monday, January 9 with chapters 1–3 and will last a few months.

Bible Reading Challenge: This a challenge of my own making, so we’ll see how it goes! It’s a two-parter. Part 1 is the Daily Drink (reading some Scripture every day). Part 2 is the Sabbath Soak (taking a deeper look at a particular book or passage each Sunday for a month). I’ll write more on this is a separate post in an effort to encourage others to join me.

Classics Challenge: Years ago I started reading some classic literature and decided I would select books according to author’s last name. I’ve read books by Austen, Bronte, Carroll, and Dostoyevsky, crossing off the first five letters of the alphabet. I’ve read other classics covering letters I, L, O, and S. Needless to say, I have plenty more letters to cover. I’d like to read four more in 2012: The Great Gatsby, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Scarlet Letter, and The Fountainhead.

3. For the Love of Writing 
A positive for 2011 is that my work shifted primarily to writing projects. Most of my time is spent writing, rewriting, and thinking about writing. [joy!] I started a weekly column called Mixed Signals for Christ and Pop Culture, which has stretched me in many good and painful ways. Which Word Wednesday is still going strong right here at The Patch. But generally speaking, my blog was neglected in 2011. In the year ahead, I would like to spend more writing time here and possibly give the site a facelift.

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So that does it! Three resolution-like visions for 2012.

What sorts of resolutions are you making for the year ahead? I’d love to hear all about it! And watch for more information about my Bible Reading Challenge—I’d love to have your company.

 

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Which Word Wednesday: Tetchy vs. Touchy

Posted by erinstraza under language | Tags: , , , , |
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I got a new word for Christmas. It came to me while playing Cranium with the family. A trivia question presented to the guys’ team asked for the proper definition of the word tetchy. I had never seen that one before, and I wondered if the more commonly used touchy had usurped it. That was enough to give me today’s Which Word Wednesday duel (weapon-free, of course—it’s Christmas).

Definitions from The Oxford American Dictionary:

tetchy :: adjective
bad-tempered and irritable

touchy :: adjective
(of a person) oversensitive and irritable

The words are very similar: adjectives describing temperament or an emotional display. Although I could find no basis for this conclusion, it seems that a tetchy person is grouchy due to anger whereas a touchy person is grouchy because he is overly sensitive to the perceived slights of others.

As for the connection between the two words, Julia Cresswell tells us (in The Insect That Stole the Butter? Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins) that “touchy, ‘easily upset or offended,’ . . . was probably originally an alliteration of tetchy.”1

The OAD tells us that usage of tetchy can be traced from the late 16th century, whereas touchy is a bit newer, from the “early 17th cent.: perhaps an alteration of tetchy.” So the connection between the two words is likely! Good enough for me. Another word mystery put to rest.

What’s my WWW verdict? Some words stick better than others. Why does touchy get more use than tetchy? I think it’s because we the root, touch, is in regular use (tetchy has no familiar root).

What’s your verdict? Why do we use touchy more than tetchy? Did you get any new words for Christmas? Do share in the comments.

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Check out previous Which Word Wednesday verdicts here.

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Sources
1. Julia Cresswell, The Insect That Stole the Butter? Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002), 452.

 

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