Something Beautiful

One of my greatest joys in life is making things beautiful. Maybe not necessarily in a typical way, because not everyone perceives beauty in the same way. But the more I discover what beautiful is to me, the more I realize that I hold it as one of my highest values. I don’t think this is superficial. The Lord himself values beauty. After all, he created it! He created His children with different opinions, personalities, & interests, and He meant for us to sparkle and shine for Him in unique and beautiful ways. As children of the King, we see His world through individual eyes. In many ways, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Over time, I have come to decide that beautiful is hand-crafted. Beautiful is so much more than this, but hand-crafted is one aspect. I absolutely love making things. Pretty things. This is not to say that I can’t look at things that are dark or masculine or outside my normal realm of thought and find them beautiful, because I can and often do. But when I have in mind to make something beautiful, it’s usually something that will speak to my personal aesthetic.

My personal aesthetic takes center-stage when seen in the light of my secret career aspirations: toiling away all day in the sugar heaven of a cupcake shop or surrounding myself in a sea of florals as a florist. (Don’t fret, friendlies, I love ministry and am not going anywhere soon! These will hopefully be my old lady jobs.) My yearning to be the one who coordinates the outfits of the Ann Taylor LOFT mannequins totally makes sense to me now, as does the delight I find in painting my nails. I am not super artistic, but I do think I was born to create. And every so often, I indulge in a little bit of hand-crafted, creative fun that I hope will translate into something beautiful.

Today I decided to do just that. I went to the diva of craft stores, Hobby Lobby, in search of the items needed to create the perfect wreath for my new place in Tuscaloosa. In my mind it was a early housewarming gift for myself and Rachel for when we report to campus (which Lord willing will be soon- I'm 75% of the way there!), kind of like the joy of an early paycheck, only prettier.

In the neighborhood where I lived in Birmingham there was a wreath on almost door for just about every season, and the crafter in me dreamed about the day I’d have my own house with my own wreaths. Now, before you judge me as a crazy crafting-wreath-lover, you must know that you’ll never catch me with one on my door for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Columbus Day, George Washington's birthday, or any other seemingly insignificant holiday. So Christmas, Easter, Fall (cause it’s my special season) and Fourth of July (for my patriotic BFF) it will be. If I get that far. Today witnessed the creation of the standard Fall wreath and nothing else. We’ll have to see what the Rachinator says before baby wreath gets some friends.

Not at all where you thought this blog was going, eh? From a narrative on one facet of beauty to my most anticipated craft project of the year to date, my train of consciousness (much like my creative energy today) is on the loose!

After 30 minutes of strategic browsing in crafter's paradise, I emerged with these raw materials.

And after 1 hour of careful assembly, my wreath was born!

You likey? It's cool if you don't, really. But I can venture to say that most 70 year old ladies around the world will.

Miss Rosa

Back in my hometown, I have this neighbor named Miss Rosa. Well actually, that’s not true. Miss Rosa is my neighbor, but Miss Rosa is not really her name. Miss Rosa’s son told me once that he thinks her name is Maeying, but before I or my family was privy to this information we had already started referring to her as Miss Rosa. Looking back, I don’t even know how we came up with that name, but somehow we did and it stuck. It just fits her somehow, and I mean that in the most endearing way possible. I think Rosa is a rather sweet name, but maybe that’s because I associate the name Rosa with roses. Come to think of it, Miss Rosa gardens a lot, which subconsciously may have influenced the choosing of our new neighbor's new name. Sweet Miss Rosa, she has no clue that according to us, that is her name.

When I really think about it, it is pathetic that this woman has been our catty-corner neighbor for 12 years and we still do not know her real name. It is not that we don’t care. Well, I don’t know if I can honestly say that for the rest of the family, but I for one do care. With the realization of caring comes this confession: I am a bit ashamed that I don’t know something as important as my neighbor’s name.

I know you’re all dying to know how we could possibly not know our neighbors name, and I believe there are two main reasons for our ignorance. The first of these is that Miss Rosa’s English is pretty terrible. I do not say that to be harsh or cruel, because I know she tries. She never lets her language barrier or thick accent stand in the way of trying to chat. She’s actually very friendly, more friendly in fact than most people on my street. But in the 14 years of being co-residents of Festival Drive, the only person I know who can understand her well enough to hold a conversation of some significance is Rachel. I joke that they have that Asian connection, even though Rachel is only ¼ Chinese. The second reason is that perhaps we chose to be big dummies. What I mean by this is that we, like most Americans, didn’t take the time to understand.

I have aspirations of living overseas one day, preferably in western Europe because I’m fascinated with most (but definitely not all) European people… but we’ll see where the Lord takes me. It’s much more than the superficial cool factor that takes my heart there. Seeing nations of melancholy people who have the gospel at their fingertips but have no idea where to find Truth makes my heart break. My job with Campus Crusade for Christ took me to Italy for nine days last spring, and it was during those nine days that I became convinced I could totally kick it in Europe. Of course there is always the risk of wasting away during the first couple months due to the fact that I’m not banking on high language proficiency, and you need to speak the language to order food, but hey, I’ll take that risk. Italy, of course, would be the exception to this rule, because after a week there I became quite the expert in ordering gelato and Coke on tap (the best Coke always comes from a fountain) and if forced to return for an extended period of time I may end up becoming a little too plump for my pleasing. All joking aside, to someone who wants to live overseas someday, this whole conundrum serves as a huge wake-up call. I feel so Carrie Bradshaw as I write this, but the question I find myself asking is: Will I someday be someone else’s Miss Rosa?

Miss Rosa’s daughter once told me that their dog, a brown toy poodle, was named "Twigs". But Miss Rosa calls "Twigs" Brownie, so to us "Twigs" is Brownie. Miss Rosa and Brownie walk up and down the street every night at dusk, whether for exercise or leisure I’m not sure. I don’t know much else about my neighbor, other than that she has beautiful gardens in her backyard that border on being a jungle, that she goes to church every Sunday, that she drives her Saturn up the street entirely too fast, and that every time someone passes Miss Rosa and her Brownie by, they will be met with a friendly greeting and a sincere smile. In many ways, I admire this woman I don’t know much about.

I’m praying for a greater language proficiency, but I also pray that wherever I may live, I will be have the courage to step outside myself to be someone else’s Miss Rosa.