Unleashing My Inner Shauna

I have a confession: I’m obsessed with Shauna Niequist. The woman is incredible: She loves Jesus; she loves her family; she’s a chronic overcommitter (which means I totally relate to her); she writes about food every chance she gets.

I’m not saying she calls up her girlfriends and rehashes every calorie she consumed each day. I mean she has a dinner party and she describes the food in detail; she has a simple lunch and makes the sharp cheddar and grainy bread an adventure to live, not just another box to check.

Shauna has struggled with food the way most of us (certainly I) have, and she’s lived to tell the tale in an epic and delicious way: with garlicky tandems and spicy side notes.

The other night, I had a group of friends over to celebrate a last night in town before one of them was deployed to the Middle East. They walked into the house where I was already cooking (reading between the lines, that means my hair was in a messy top bun and all the makeup had been steamed off my face) and I put them to work, slicing cheese, setting the table, arranging the salad and getting out drinks.

As the dinner was set and we all sat down to eat this final meal together, with old friends reconnecting for the first (and last) time in a long time, no one really paid much attention to the little shrimp swimming in couscous and pine nuts or the way the creamy avocados perfectly coated the spinach salad. They made a polite remark or two and, of course, had seconds, but the main point of the evening wasn’t about the food.

And yet, as I sent them off to the backyard for some male bonding (did I mention it was all guys because all of the girls bailed out last minute?) while I did the dishes, I realized something important:

This same group of guys can (and does) meet in other circumstances, but there’s something missing. When they’re all sitting around a table with candles and sparkling glasses of red wine, something magical happens and there’s more to the story than may at first meet the eye.

They walked back inside as I pulled chocolate chocolate-chip cookies from the evening, the smell filling the house.

It’s in these moments, as my parents came to hang out with us and the clock ticked later and later, as nothing serious was said except goodbye as we all prepared to go back to our “normal” lives: one to school, one to an accounting firm, one to write a book and one to the Middle East, it’s here in the mundane that we get to cross paths, where lives intersect and stories unfold.

Shauna taught me that all of life is beautiful and mysterious, and that it’s the little, seemingly insignificant moments where all the weight of the world rests. Those moments tend to be over a meal- a good, healthy, filling meal. Not just food filling the stomach, but a meal filling the soul.

That night I unleashed my inner Shauna to the room full of wandering boys.

Tomorrow, who knows? I may unleash her on the world.

Cops and Christians

What do cops and Christians have in common?

For those of you outside the DC metro area, I would like to offer up a warning before you drive here: be careful. There are cops everywhere (and I do mean everywhere). I can’t remember the last time I got on the road and didn’t see at least one (usually more than three) out and about.

I take it back: they’re usually not “out and about.” Typically, the cops I see are sneaky. They hide behind trees, hills and houses; they wait for their moment to bust you. That’s right: speed traps. These clever little cop cars have hideouts the whole way from my parent’s house (where I work) to my grandma’s house (where I sleep), and they prowl the area like fruit flies on a rotten banana.

Tonight, as I was driving home, I saw the other kind of cop, the one I sometimes forget exists as I make absolute certain not to exceed 25: the kind of cop that speeds off down the highway, doing at least 20 over and clearly annoyed when you’re driving so slowly (chill out, I was in the right-hand lane!).

This brings me back to my original question: what do cops and Christians have in common?

They’re both perceived as self-righteous hypocrites.

These Fairfax County cops have this glaring double standard. They’re allowed to zoom past those white rectangular boxes, ignoring the little black numbers as they zip along home. But woe to anyone else who dares inch a few miles per hour past the limit: whammo- ticket time.

And I’m talking to the tune of $200.

Meanwhile, Christians are seen much the same. They go to church only to come home, fight with their families, gossip with their friends and get their weekend party on, only to clean up nicely for church again the following week so they can sit in the service and judge all those sinners who aren’t present, who are so lazy as to sleep in on a Sunday after the undoubtedly wild and crazy night they had had the previous evening.

Confession: I’m no fan of the cops around here. But I’ve acted worse than cops when I’ve hoity toited my butt to church, only to use it as a bargaining chip to boost my ego and blast anyone who didn’t live up to my standards of perfection.

And they called Jesus the friend of sinners.

He loves people, not because they clean up nicely on Sunday mornings, but because He created them and endured hell on their behalf.

That’s like saying the cop who never speeds sat through traffic court for my (totally deserved) speeding ticket and then paid the whole thing off when the judge (in justice) condemned me “guilty as charged.”

My ticket meant an eternity separated from God- that’s a little bit pricier than a mere $200.

With a love like that, I don’t want people to see me as self-righteous. I never want to be compared to a cop. When people look at me, I want them to see Jesus.

Because He loves them, and because He deserves them- for He endured hell for them.

For us.

Doesn’t Jesus deserve those for whom He suffered?