Reentry

In which Robin welcomes herself back with a grand announcement...

I'm pregnant.

And the long and short of it is that that is the reason I haven't been blogging.

I quit my job back in May, and my last day was July 6th. And very shortly thereafter, I got pregnant, spent three weeks traveling up and down the eastern seaboard and the following weeks feeling very ill indeed. So here I am, in the middle of my 14th week of pregnancy and starting to feel slightly more human in the moments that Jason and I manage to keep me hydrated and fed (which--let me tell you--is a never-ending battle for a person who normally enjoys a constant state of dehydration and does not enjoy eating).

In addition to the whole building a baby thing, I have actually gotten a lot done in my absence. There's so much making and living and processing that I haven't told you about, and it started to feel overwhelming. So I put it off. And then it was really hard to re-enter the electronic universe when I had been away for so long and not only had to catch up on writing my blog but also on reading everyone else's, not to mention email and facebook and etsy trends and mod cloth new arrivals and playing family feud. *phew* Back when I worked in an office and didn't have enough to do to fill the lonely hours, I built a very complex and time-consuming electronic universe. It was my lifeline. But now that I am not confined to my office, it's a little harder to motivate myself to stay connected online, especially with such a backlog. And that--in addition to being pregnant, and maybe moreso than the excuse of feeling sick--is why I have not been blogging.

But that just about catches us up on a personal level, and I trust you will forgive me for being m.i.a. these past months. I'm officially back now. I promise.

With the exception of August and September, I actually have been pretty consistently diligent on the making front. Here is all I have done in my absence:

• Compiled a recipe book of all my favorites
  

• Finished the massive (5 ft x 5 ft) granny square blanket I started back in February
• Finished Megan's birthday (last November) felted gnome
  
• Finished Amy's birthday (last December) crochet purse
• Made a crazy quilt pillow for my friend Thais's high school graduation present
• Made dolls with a few ladies in my church for a charity
• Learned a new recipe (Avacado Salad) and mastered a few that have previously given me grief (Pizza Dough and Guacamole)
• Wrote an extensive manual for work
• Designed a new crafting space
  
• Made a tote bag/road trip kit for my neighbors who moved to Mississippi

I've decided that that is sufficient for a catch up. I'm not going to write separate posts for the above projects because that's just too overwhelming a task. But if you have any questions or want to hear more about any of them, let me know.

I also:

• Hosted my in-laws and brother-in-law for a weekend
• Moved into a 1-bedroom apartment
  
• Saw Mary Poppins on Broadway
  
• Spent a week at Delanco Camp, during which I was a teacher, craft lady, dean of women, and on the music team
• Spent a week in South Carolina playing with my 4-year-old nephew Jesse and meeting my newborn nephew Micah
• Took a side trip to Williamsburg with my mom on the way back up the coast
• Spent a few random days in Jersey with my family
• Found out I was pregnant

I spent the next two months feeling sick and overwhelmed, but now with the help of bullet points and the start of October, I am turning over a new leaf:

• I'm very close to being finished with a crocheted blanket I started for my dad's birthday (back in April). I finished all the squares last week, and now I just need to hook them together.
• Last Friday, Jason and I played at another Kalos Coffeehouse. This time, we got to be in the front scheduled half of the night instead of the open mic section, which was a nice little love-pat for my ego and also a lot of fun. We played Run That Darkness Down, Orion, and Ebony. Jason played piano on the last two, and I LOVED what he was able to put together. We also figured out that in order to have fun practicing music together, I need to eliminate the phrase "can you do something that sounds kinda like [insert ambiguous semi-musical nonsense]." All in all, despite the fact that our actual performance was a little shaky, I think that it was a great success, if only because we actually enjoyed playing music together during practice, which just might be a first.
• Last night, I did some drawing/coloring to help reconnect with my imaginative self. I drew a morning glory, a little sailboat on the ocean, a scene with assorted fairy tale abodes, and a ballerina playing a 3-stringed mandolin. While I was drawing, I listened to a Seabear album, which was totally relaxing and good for my soul.
• I finally joined Ravelry, which is a huge network of knitters and crocheters. And I found some lovely and exciting free patterns that I really want to make along with some good crochet book suggestions and overall inspiration to start spreading my hooks beyond the realm of the beloved granny square.
• In 4 weeks, I get my first ultrasound, which--if little lemon is cooperating--should reveal the gender of my baby, at which point, I will begin a flurry of baby-themed-making that is gender appropriate and the results of which I have absolutely no room for in our new apartment.

So there you have it. Robin is back.
[hooray! confetti! streamers! hallelujah chorus! cake for everyone!]

A Dress for Daisy

Once upon a time, two of my very good friends were getting married. It was an evening wedding, and I knew that the bridesmaids dresses were floor length, so I figured it would be on the formal side. I scoured by closet and could not find a single thing to wear. It seemed that every dress I owned was either white or not formal enough or too tight or lacking an appropriate accompanying cardigan or didn't fit right or just not in style. The real problem is that I have become addicted to Mod Cloth. I spend hours on this site cataloging favorites that I will never ever be able to afford to buy. (It's not all that unreasonable considering it is a site that hosts independent designers. I'm just not the sort of person who drops $50-100 on a dress.) Anyway, due to the hours I spend daily on Mod Cloth, for the first time in my life, I have a solid handle on what sort of styles are "in." And there is nothing in my closet even remotely close.

So I figured I would make something. I had tons of jersey fabric I bought last year about this time. I think what happens is it gets warm outside, and in my rejoicing that I don't have to wear sweaters every day, I decide I want to be cute and trendy. But I don't have the money or the peace of mind to go clothes shopping when my dresser overfloweth. So I decide that I should make myself a new wardrobe. Naturally.

Remember back when I got Daisy Dressform? I altered an existing skirt I would never wear into something cute and wearable. Here is the post. I learned a lot from that project, and I listed out all of the little lessons I would take into making clothes in the future. The first lesson was, "When it comes to clothes, it is wise to follow patterns, learn your way around, and earn the right to improvise." So I searched through all my books of patterns looking for just the right dress. But...I had a vision. And of course there was nothing in my pattern books that met my vision. So I improvised. Naturally. (Funny that even in my list of lessons from Daisy's Debut, I said, "Will I follow this advice in the future? Probably not. I have too many exciting ideas." Well, at least I know myself.)

I did start with a skirt pattern I had lying around (Simplicity 4236). Unfortunately, I cut the pattern out in the wrong size. (Note: if you are a 2-4 in real life, you're a 10-12 in simplicity patterns. I have no idea why they do this except to screw with you.) Thankfully, I noticed this before I cut my fabric, but it meant I had to guesstimate what size I should actually be, which meant that I ended up with a bunch of extra fabric in my skirt. Noted. Lesson learned.

Next I needed a top. But of course I didn't have any sort of pattern for the kind of top I wanted. So I took some extra pattern paper left over from my skirt, laid it over my dressform, and cut out the shape I wanted, cutting and taping paper together as needed, like so.


This was absurdly fun. It was kinda like a cross between sculpting and putting together a puzzle. My dad says that to carve a duck decoy, you take a block of wood and carve away whatever isn't duck. (I doubt that concept is original to him, but that's where I learned it.) That's kinda how this felt. I pinned the paper on Daisy and cut away whatever wasn't dress. If I cut too much, I just taped on some extra paper and tried again.

Once I had the shape how I wanted it, I cut out my fabric. I now have the dress fully assembled and pinned to Daisy. And here it is:


And that's where it stopped. I realized that the wedding was 2 days away, and there was no way I'd be able to finish it in time. So I went to H&M and got a $13 dress that was perfect.

Nevertheless, I really do want to finish this dress. It will be gathered a bit at the bodice, and it will get ties at the waist to bring it all together. I'm not sure if it will be stretchy enough as is or if I'll have to add a zipper (*terror*). I also have never sewed with jersey fabric before, so this should be interesting. Also, the other fabric is not jersey, which I'm sure is probably against the rules. But it's just so pretty!

I'm finally beginning to understand how to dress and accessorize in colors. Like Stacy and Clinton say, "It doesn't need to match. It needs to 'go.'" So I chose a complimentary color to the green in this bright reddish pink. It kind of reminds me of a watermelon. And I really like it. But I'm not sure how often I'll wear it. So I need your help here. Should I use all green instead? Or maybe a patterned fabric that has the green in it? Or maybe a royal purple? I just don't know. Which is part of the reason this dress remains unfinished (you know, besides that face that I have no idea what I'm doing and I like it so much now that I'm scared that sewing it will ruin it).

But there you have it. At the very least, it is currently an outfit for Daisy, who has been naked and hiding in a corner since I finished that skirt back in June. How embarrassing!

Breakfast Pizza

Remember the Great Goat Vote from back in September? Of course you do. Well, as you know, my mom did not win the goats. But that little contest did get me reading the blog that sponsored the contest, and I still read it to this very day. No hard feelings. Okay...a few hard feelings, but I read it nevertheless. Every once in a while, the blog author posts posts called "Probably Something You Would Like." They are little collections of goodies and curiosities and whatnot found online that she thinks her readers will be interested in. Here is an example of a PSYWL. And that just happens to be the very post that inspired one of my weekly makes: Breakfast pizza. Here is the link to the actual website where the recipe is found (sorry...lots of links today) and the picture from that website:
I saw that pizza with the eggs and the cheese and the yummy crust, and I knew that this would be a craving I would not forget. Sure enough, one lovely Saturday morning--the first that Jason and I had together in a very long time due to prolonged weeks of youth group trips and extensive paper writing and whatnot--Jason and I made breakfast pizza. Ours didn't look nearly as good as the original, but seriously...it was amazing.

I changed the recipe somewhat. (Surprise, surprise.) Here, for your duplicating pleasure, is the recipe:

1 pizza dough*
3-4 strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled
Olive oil
2 Tbs butter, melted
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp Italian seasoning
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup mozzarella cheese, grated
4 eggs
Whatever other seasonings and toppings you desire

*Yes, I realize I could/should have made my own. But I actually wanted this to happen, so I just bought some pizza dough from the store. You can generally find it in the bakery section.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Spread a bit of olive oil on your baking sheet/pizza pan/baking stone. Then sprinkle it with flour. Dip your hands and the ball of dough into the flour. On a lightly floured counter top, pat the dough into a disc with your fingertips, then drape the dough over your fists and carefully stretch it from beneath to form a 12-inch circle. (That's probably the right way to do it. But if you're feeling more adventurous, you can try tossing the dough like they do in pizza shops.) Place the dough on your oiled/floured pan. Form a crust by folding the edge over all the way around.
Combine the melted butter with garlic salt and Italian spices. Brush this over the entire pizza, crust included.
Then sprinkle the surface with the Parmesan, then the mozzarella, then the bacon.
Gently break the eggs right onto the pizza. (It helps to do this close to the surface, otherwise the egg will plop into your pizza, sending your cheese flying.) Gently puncture the yolks and spread the eggs out just a bit.
(I know if looks gross. Just run with it.)

Top with whatever else you want. I added some fresh parsley just for color. But I think fresh basil would have been fabulous. You can also try mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, onions, ham...basically whatever you like in an omelet would be excellent.

Bake for 5 minutes, then rotate the pizza. Bake 2-3 more minutes. If your crust is looking dry, brush it with olive oil. Bake 1-2 more minutes. (Total baking time 8-10 minutes)

Cut the pizza into approximately 3 inch squares with a pizza wheel, and enjoy!
I highly recommend this recipe. It's really easy and fun and very cheap to make and will easily feed 4-5 hungry people.
Another fun variation to try would be to split the dough and have everyone make personal breakfast pizzas with whatever toppings they like. How cute would 4 little pizzas with an egg in the middle be! Also, just because it's called breakfast pizza does not exclude it from being a very satisfying go-to dinner selection. There is no bad time for breakfast!

Will You Put Me Back Together?

It had been a lonely 4 weeks. Jason took the youth group for a week-long missions trip to New York City. This meant he was missing the last week of his semester, so the week before and the week after the trip included heavy paper-writing. He finally finished everything, and then we had 3 evenings together before he went to Wheaton for his brother's graduation. So between all of that and sitting by myself in my office all day every day, it had been a very lonely 4 weeks. I think I handled it pretty well, all things considered. I am generally pretty bad about being by myself. But it was good to spend some Robin-time, to have some space to myself outside of my office, to repeatedly watch Jane Austen movies, to catch up with my family, to think. It was good, reflective time. But it was also exhausting. Being by myself completely drains me. I am not a very outgoing person, but I am very much an extrovert in that I feed off of other people's energy. It's something I have a hard time creating on my own. When I am alone, simple tasks like eating dinner become daunting. And ambitious plans for crafting fall by the wayside. And the idea of blogging...writing entries that would be littered with loneliness and sadness...it just was not at the top of my to-do list.

A few weeks ago, I had a large personal disappointment. I can't really share it explicitly here at this point. Most of you already know. I was handling it quite well...being very logical and reasonable about it. Bottling my grief and putting on a happy face to share the news with my family and friends and small group. But after the initial shock of the disappointment, and after my prepared speech, I had to deal with the difficult and overwhelming question: "What now?" This is something I was not prepared to face, for all my planning and preparation. How do I move forward? How do I readjust the vision I had thought God had cast for me of this happy little future? How do I reconcile myself to the idea that God gave me a vision that is now not going to be fulfilled? What does that say about God? What does that say about what I should do now? What will my life look like now that I don't have this thing to look forward to? What will happen to my hope, my newly recovered good spirits, my reestablished bounce?

I faced these questions, and I'm still facing them. It has not been easy to continue with life as normal, especially when I have had to spend so much time by myself. I am not completely devastated. I have not lost all hope. But I do feel discouraged, disjointed. I drew this picture as a prayer:

It's based loosely on the style of Emily Martin, one of my favorite etsy artists. (Here is her blog and her shop.) It's not exactly my vision, but my drawings rarely are. Even so, I think it made my point, and it was cathartic in its way.


There have been very few times in my life when a door has been definitively closed. I suppose that makes me lucky. Twice it was my own doing, and twice the decision was made for me. Those four instances have sent my heart wandering down paths that the rest of me does not get to follow. It's an ugly little monster who at best is called, "What if?" and at worst is called "Regret." And as my imagination follows my heart along its own little adventures to undiscovered worlds, I sit in an office. Alone. I don't know when it will all make sense. I don't know how the pieces will come together to reveal a master plan. I fear to be reunited under the current vision of my life, scared that I am doomed to mediocrity. But the fragmentation is painful. It's hard to know who I am with so many unconnected pieces. This most recent disappointment has surely been the least dramatic of my four closed doors. But it has left me raw. It has left me scrambling to recover my carefully guarded survival mode, all the while fearing the zombie as much as the hurt. So I am currently in limbo once again. I am in the waiting. I'm looking forward to a much-needed change one way or another. And in the mean time, I'm up and down. Most of the up has been fueled by the Phoenix Suns sweeping the San Antonio Spurs on their way to the western conference finals. I know it's silly. But I literally cried tears of joy over their victory on May 9th. For all their being beat down by the Spurs over the years, the Suns finally and decidedly defeated their Goliath. And that has given me a strange sort of disembodied hope that good does win over evil, and everything will work out in the end.

There are some exciting things coming including pictures of the long-awaited and now completed granny square blanket, new recipes, a recording, and updates on several UFO's (UnFinished Objects). I hope that today finds you basking in the sunshine or at least heading towards the sun. I'm doing my best to turn my face in that direction.

A Little Dish

I have a friend named Lexi who I love. She is fun and creative and just a lovely person. One of our most favorite things to do together is to paint pottery. You may remember the Harry Potter pitcher and the pear plate. Both of those were done at Glazed pottery painting studio in Gloucester with my dear friend Lexi. It had been ages since we'd gotten together, so we finally set another pottery painting date back in April. I was hoping to paint a travel mug for my mom like one I had made for her two Christmases ago that has since broken. But Glazed was out of travel mugs, so I decided to paint a little dish instead.

I have a sickness for cutting boards and little serving dishes. I swear I have at least 7 or 8 other dishes that house crackers and some sort of spread. But this little dish will be used for crackers and homemade preserves when I do my next craft show. I have no idea when that will be or what preserves I will have made. But when that day comes, I will be ready because I now have this little number:I painted it to match the display cabinet my parents made me for Christmas. It includes my business name and a secret little sparrow that will be revealed when it's time to refill the preserves. It turned out a little more lime-y than I intended, but such is life. It's so hard to tell what color something will be once it's fired and the ceramic paints take on all their shiny brilliance. It's also hard to photograph shiny things. But I love how my mosaic coffee table is reflected here:
Overall, I'm quite happy with how it turned out. So happy that I am determined to do some craft fair research so I can use it. Which will also mean making some more inventory to go along with it and a subsequent etsy shop (hopefully coming this summer). Finally. Crazy what a little dish can spark, don't you think?

Vanilla, vanilla and...vanilla

I have quite a bit of catch up to do since we're approaching May's midpoint, and I left my blog dormant through most of April. I think for now, I'll just plod along and leave the posts up on the day I post them for a bit, and I'll backlog them later. Here's a post I actually wrote back around Easter weekend but never posted because I couldn't get a camera and a cord and a computer all in the same place at the same time. But I have finally triumphed on that count, so without further ado, here is a very old post for your reading enjoyment:


I have so many baked goods in my apartment right now it's ridiculous. I have The Best Fudge Brownies Ever that Jason made for me. Those are enough to satisfy my every culinary desire. But several special occasions this weekend required my baking skills. And here I am to tell you all about them.

The first occasion was Jason's brother Josh and Josh's friend Justin were coming for a visit. There were driving out from Chicago to visit a couple of schools on the east coast, and they were wondering if they could crash with us. All they needed or asked for was a place to sleep. Yeah, like I could have guests coming into my house and not make sure that they were well-fed. And on top of a family visit, it was Josh's birthday. So of course I was going to make him a birthday cake, right? Right. So Jason called his mom and asked what kind of cake Josh likes: vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. Of course. Talk about my nightmare dessert. Not the slightest hint of chocolate to be found. Oh well. It was Josh's birthday, not mine, so I made him what he would like.

I used a recipe from Megan's mother-in-law that is known as "Mrs. Benson's Cake." It is an excellent doctored cake mix recipe with the perfect texture. (Before you yell at me for not posting the recipe here, rest assured that I am working on a full recipes page, and it will be included therein.) It called for two 10" cake pans, but I only have 8" cake pans, so I used those thinking it wouldn't make too much of a difference. But when the cakes were done they were quite high, and layering them on top of each other would have made for a very tall cake indeed. So I decided to make 2 mini-cakes instead, cutting each cake in half horizontally to add a layer of frosting. Vanilla frosting. I only made one of the two and saved the 2nd cake for later frosting.

Josh and Justin and Jason all really liked the vanilla-vanilla cake. I thought the pillsbury vanilla frosting on a vanilla cake was kind of gross. But they were happy, so one chocolate-less dessert success.

Before my victory could settle, I had to think ahead to my Easter lunch. Jason and I were invited to have lunch with our neighbors, Megan and John (who we LOVE), and a few of their friends we didn't know very well. I volunteered to bring my mom's from-scratch mac'n'cheese (again, recipe forthcoming) and a dessert. Megan was making some sort of chocolate pie, so once again, I felt that I had to make a non-chocolate dessert. "Well, fine," I thought. "At least I already have a good cake to start with. But I am NOT frosting this one with store-bought vanilla icing because it will be gross and I've never met some of the other people we're having lunch with, so this is my chance to make a good impression." So I searched madly through my cookbooks for a good vanilla frosting recipe, which I found in trusty old Better Homes and Gardens. I headed to the grocery store to pick up a box of confectioners sugar.

We were also invited over to my pastor's family's house for Easter dinner. It took me a very long time to get back to them because I wasn't sure what time lunch would be. When I finally worked out the timing, all of the primary dinner elements were covered, so I volunteered to bring...you guessed it...a dessert. But there was no way I would be compelled to make yet another chocolate-less dessert. So while I was at the grocery store, I picked up the ingredients to make Robin's Chocolate Raspberry Bundt Cake of Deliciousness. (That's what it's called in my family traditions cookbook.) I got everything I needed, and when I got back to my parking spot, I decided it would be a good idea to call and see if it was alright for me to bring a chocolate cake. I expected an answer along the lines of, "Heck yeah! Your chocolate raspberry bundt cake is delicious! No way we're turning that down." But instead I was met with, "Someone else is already bringing chocolate cake." I was crushed, thoroughly discouraged and slightly perturbed and indignant that someone else would dare to make a chocolate cake when I was coming to dinner. Then the small rational voice interjected with, "They probably don't know you're coming and that you're on dessert duty." Okay, okay. Fine. I won't make my chocolate cake. But I am NOT going back to the grocery store. So I trudged inside with my now useless groceries.

I spent the next several hours in a mad search through my cookbooks, trying to find something that was not chocolate (so my dessert wouldn't completely put the chocolate cake to shame, so grand was my indignance) and not vanilla (because I most certainly was NOT going to make 3 chocolate-less desserts in 3 days). After hours spread out on the living room floor with the boys trying to watch March Madness over my indignant huffs and puffs over vanilla desserts, I finally settled on my mom's Cape May squares from my family traditions cookbook. Surprise surprise. I don't know why I have so many books of recipes when I almost always end up making something from my mom's arsenal. I had everything I needed to make them. Except that I'd have to use the confectioner's sugar intended for my homemade frosting. Good thing I bought some chocolate frosting at the grocery store just in case. I hoped Megan wouldn't mind and was somewhat relieved that there would be some chocolate in my weekend.

So I frosted cake #2 with chocolate fudge chip frosting, made my best batch of mac'n'cheese ever, and set to work on the Cape May squares. How can I describe Cape May squares? They are a layered bar with yellow cake on the bottom and...a sort of sweet, cream cheese custard on top. They are way better than they sound. But I wanted to add a little interest so I mixed in some of my homemade strawberry jam with the cream cheese layer. I cut up the squares and put them on a plate so I could test one and make sure they were edible. The result was subtle and delicious. And my presentation of the bars, all arranged in a diamond configuration and covered in powdered sugar and adorned with strawberries and freshly picked flowers, was quite impressive. But I forgot to take a picture. Of course.

So here are the remnants of the vanilla x's 3 Easter weekend.
And here is what I learned: if you're going to make dessert, claim chocolate early.

Good Friday

Now that I'm all caught up, I figure it would be good to not wait a month before posting again. Consistency...that's the goal...

Two weeks ago was was Holy Week. Church wise, Holy Week is my favorite week of the year. It is power-packed with goodness. Sure, I love the Christmas pageant, the Christmas Eve service, the general spirit of Advent, the deep mystery of the Incarnation, the Christmas carols. There isn't much that tops Christmas. But it's Holy Week that houses my favorite service of the year: Good Friday.

Maybe that's weird. Maybe it's strange that I look forward to a service that centers around the death of Jesus, that focuses on His agony and barely even glimpses to Sunday morning so as not to rush too quickly from death to resurrection. Historically, I have not enjoyed Good Friday services. I much prefer the Easter Eve vigil type of service, one that is triumphant and celebratory and even somewhat raucous in its exultation. But for the past two years, my church has celebrated Good Friday in a very particular way. Last year we went through the 7 words of Christ from the cross. This year, we did 8 stations of the cross, following Christ's journey from Pilot's sentence to Jesus' death.

I've been to 3-hour-long Good Friday services where several local churches come together and the pastors each share a mini-sermon on one or two of the last words of Christ. From what I remember, those services were dry and dull and intentionally depressing. Granted, I was young. Even now, I don't really do "sad" well and even less so then when I would rather be skipping around sheep fields in my pigtails than sitting inside a dark church on a beautiful spring day that I had off of school.

But my church goes through these meditations through the eyes of lay people, each sharing their insights and gifts in a different way. Each person has a different perspective, a different way of looking at Good Friday. And even though each person and each reflection is so unique, the service flows together seamlessly, a perfect tapestry displaying the beauty of the body of Christ. It is deeply beautiful and profoundly powerful. This service models what I think the Church should look like, each person using his or her gifts to benefit the rest of the community.

This year, we included several art-based reflections: two drawings and a song. Music is a staple of any Christian gathering, but I loved the presence and valuing of physical art in the service. Recently, Andy Crouch came to Gordon College and spoke about culture-making and the need for the local church to encourage and promote all sorts of making. This is an issue that is very close to my heart. I struggle a lot with what it means to be a Christian artist...not a person who produces art that has outright Christian themes and messaging, but a Christian who is also an artist (or an artist who is also a Christian) and the intersection of those two classifications. I struggle with how so labeled "Christian art" is often of a lesser quality than what those outside of the church are producing. I blame this somewhat on limited resources but Christians are plugged into the ultimate resource: an infinitely creative God. So that is really no excuse. I think the bigger issue is that the church is very good at accepting people's "offerings" of their gifts and encouraging them for trying. This is evidenced by church camp talent shows where the people who get the loudest applause are those who are trying rather than succeeding. We celebrate their courage and their effort. We're good at doing that, and that's good. But I think we fall short in two equally important and equally compassionate areas: 1) guiding people who are not gifted in certain areas toward areas in which they are gifted, and 2) training up and encouraging people who are gifted in certain areas to become more excellent and promoting excellence as a worthy and God-glorifying value. Okay, I'm going to end my soapbox rant there and go back to the Good Friday service...

Last year, I put together a masterpiece I entitled "The Blood Medley." It is an arrangement of all of the best good old Methodist blood hymns: Nothing but the Blood, When I Survey, Hallelujah What a Savior (Yes, I used a song with Hallelujah during Lent. All you good high church people, know that I struggled with this and found it to be unavoidable.), There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood, Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and And Can It Be. Because I was working with such quality source material, The Blood Medley is nothing short of brilliant. Solid gold.

My pastor asked me to do The Blood Medley again the next time we did Communion at church. Sadly, though brilliant, The Blood Medley is also very vocally challenging, and it requires two voices, and every time communion rolled around (which is sadly only once a month), either Jason or I was sick and incapable of producing the necessary vocal range for a performance worthy of The Blood Medley in all its glory. This was the case for this year's Good Friday service as well. Sorry, Blood Medley. You'll have to lie dormant for at least another month.

This year, I was asked not to provide a bonus musical number but rather to give one of the actual meditations in song form. My station was the crucifixion, Jesus being nailed to the cross, the thieves on His right and left, the mocking of the crowd. I've been thinking about the song for weeks. I wanted to write a hymn. I had the opening line of each verse and a haunting melody that is probably a combination of several hymn melodies already in existence. I had a framework for what I wanted each verse to communicate. I had a few ideas for words and lines that fit in my rhythmic scheme. So I figured it would be a relatively easy song to write. I would string together some of the best loved phrases from the classic hymns and paint them into a new story. Well, an old story but told in a new way, like those photo mosaics that use tiny photographs to recreate a classic image (like this one)...existing pieces of art used together in a new way to display a grander scheme. So with so many puzzle pieces in hand, I thought this would be an easy song to write. Just put it all together and fill in the gaps. Easy peasy, right? Wrong.

I had the hardest time bringing it all together. I just couldn't communicate what I wanted to communicate. I spent a long time bashing myself on the head with this song. I asked Jason for help. We talked through the significance of the crucifixion, the depths of Christ's suffering, the deep realities of the cross. And the song just wouldn't write. So I walked away from it for a few days, weeks, whatever. And then Good Friday came up and I still didn't have a song for the service that night. So I sat down and I tried again.

It's generally hard for me to get in the spirit of Good Friday. There is a part of me that minimalizes Christ's suffering on the cross because I feel like anything is endurable for a short amount of time, especially when you know it won't last forever and something good will come out of it and you'll be fully restored in the end. In a season marked by an unclear future and purpose--a season in which I feel like swiss cheese and uncertainty is the holes--the cross does not stir the proper emotions of compassion and conviction because Jesus knew it didn't end there. He knew the victory to come. He knew the pain wouldn't last forever. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe His scars still burn with the sins of the world. I don't know. Maybe that's completely theologically off-base. But all that being said, I had a very hard time writing a stirring song about the crucifixion.

So I decided to scrap it all, all the partial verses I had trudged through, the neat little framework I had built. And I added a chorus. A simple, "Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy on me." I ended up scrapping the chorus for the final performance of the song, but it was a necessary starting point in writing the song...the pencil lines behind the sketch that made the whole thing meaningful for me. And I started writing.

As I wrote, I was called to remember that the hands and feet that bore the nails belonged to a Person. And not just any person...a Person who performed miracles with those very same hands and feet. I thought about the people He healed, the children He encountered, His gentle touch as He imparted healing and love and forgiveness for sins. I remembered the places He walked, the dust He gathered on His sandaled feet and the hems of His robes. I remembered that He was a person. A person who went places and did amazing things. And how tragic it was for His followers, His friends, the world, to lose such a person as that to a bloody and humiliating death.

I remembered the mocking. I condemned the mockers for their impudence and audacity. How dare they shout curses at a dying, seemingly helpless man, let alone a man they bowed down and worshiped days before? I was angry at them. Disgusted. Ready to call down fire from heaven.

I wanted to remind those people about just Who it was that they were crucifying. I wanted them to know that they were killing and cursing the Person who gave them life and held more power than they could imagine. I wanted them to know that He was innocent and they were guilty. And that's why He was dying before their eyes.

And then I tried to imagine the baseness and hardness of heart that would stir those people to be so angry and cruel. I thought about their expectations of Messiah, their oppression from the Romans, their hope that He would come and free them from years of subjection and derision and restore them to a favor with God that would be witnessed and feared by their captors. They wanted justice, violent and triumphant justice. They expected a conquering King. And He was finally there. They knew the kind of power He had displayed. And then they saw Him hanging on a cross, giving up on the cause, not fighting back...silent like a lamb being led to slaughter. Powerless. Weak. A failure. Their deepest longings, all their hopes and expectations, all the ways they dreamed the prophesies would be fulfilled, were hanging on a Roman cross. And to them, that meant that this man was not the Christ as He had claimed to be. And to lie about something so sacred, to manipulate their deepest and most heartfelt expectations, was a sin guilty of a public and torturous death. I don't know anger or indignation that would compel me to mock a dying man. But I do know what it's like to have an expectation of what it will look like when God shows up, to feel as though He has promised me grand deliverance, and to have my hopes thoroughly disappointed. I know that it doesn't make me sad. It makes me angry. It makes me question who God says He is. It makes me feel as though I am entitled to a more powerful God. And now I know, that when I demand anything of God other than Who He is and what He does, it makes me just like those people shouting at Jesus to come down off the cross and save Himself. He could have. But He didn't. And those people are the reason. I am the reason. He cared more about saving me than about sparing Himself. His desire and passion for a restored relationship with His creation was greater than the pain, the shame, the death. And that is why the cross is a symbol of strength and of victory. Because He was able to forsake and restrain His power and to love a twisted and corrupted people and to say, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing."

And it is in that spirit that I wrote this song and that I now share it with you. Without any further ado, I give you my Good Friday offering...

"They Nailed My Jesus to a Cross"


They nailed my Jesus to a cross.
They nailed His hands and feet,
The hands that made the leper clean
And caused the blind to see,
The feet that walked upon the waves,
Those wondrous feet and hands
now covered with Messiah's blood.
Behold! The Son of Man.

They nailed my Jesus to a cross,
A thief on either side.
And all around the crowd demands
My Lord be crucified.
He could have called the angels down
So justice would be served,
But He Himself bore all the wrath
Their guilty souls deserved.

They nailed my Jesus to a cross,
God's one and only Son,
Light of the world, the Word made flesh,
The Christ, the Holy One.
Behold Him now, the mighty King,
His glory veiled in shame.
My Lord was broken and condemned
Though I deserve the blame.

I nailed my Jesus to a cross.
'Twas I who drove the nails
With all my sin and all my pride
And all the ways I've failed.
Yet Jesus looks down from the cross,
So ready to forgive.
He says, "My child, do not fear.
I died so you could live."


Once again, this is a weak and partial half-disclosure. Without the intro, the melody, Jason's brilliant piano accompaniment, this is just a poem, and not an excellent one at that. I felt bound, limited within the constructs of the song. There's so much more I wanted to communicate. I found myself repeatedly complaining, "There just isn't enough room!" Maybe the chorus would have helped that. Maybe not. But there you have it. Another song. My 3rd in 8 weeks of this 2nd year of weekly makes. I've had one awful, one brilliant, and one good enough. Which is exciting to me after a full year of creativity unmarked by music. I might finish this song with a resurrection verse. Maybe not. We'll see. I think if I went back to it, I would feel the need to edit, which is not fun for me, so I probably won't. But the song served its Good Friday purpose. And it gave Jason and I another opportunity to play an original song together, which I just loved. So I am satisfied.