The Tale of the Tahoe

so as many of you know, on the evening of july 30, our tahoe was stolen from our supposedly secure, gated parking deck at our apartment. this being atlanta and all, we assumed it was gone for good.

well, last friday, david gets notification that our tahoe has been recovered. in none other than illustrious college park. so after a few phone calls, we were informed that we owed $480 to retrieve our stolen vehicle because it had been impounded for about a week without our knowledge. when asked if they could tell us what condition it was in they just said "no."

needless to say, i am ticked. i am not about to pay almost $500 to get my car that was impounded - because it was stolen and then abandoned - back. no, sir. i'm already mad because i am just imagining us getting there and our car is in perfect condition except it smells like pot and somebody pooped in the back of it. and we are stuck with it like that.

so we start out at the atlanta police station - the scariest building in the old fourth ward - to get a copy of the police report. after being misdirected a few times, we finally make our way through the parking deck to a separate part of the building. i felt like we were walking into a speakeasy where we would be met by a man with a tommy gun expecting us to know the secret knock and code word. anyway, we finally get the police report and make our way to the impound lot out by the airport. we get there and walk into the trailer and tell the guy we are there to see our car. we just want to look at it, to see if it's damaged.

"ok, but you can't take anything out of it until it's paid for."
"thank you, but i seriously doubt there's anything left to take." little did i know how right i was.

so, we hold our breath and walk to the far back corner of the lot. we turn the corner and the large man who escorted us out there releases a wounded "oooh." as we see the fate of our beloved tahoe.

at least no one pooped in it.

He's Not a Good King, but He's a Safe King

"...if a good God made the world, why has it gone wrong? and for many years, i simply refused to listen to the christian answers to this question...

"my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. but how had i got this idea of just and unjust? a man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. what was i comparing this universe with when i called it unjust? if the whole show was bad and senseless from a to z, so to speak, why did i, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? a man feels wet when he falls into water because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. of course i could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. but if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole reality was senseless - i found i was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. consequently, atheism turns out to be too simple. if the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. dark would be a word without meaning."

mere christianity by c.s. lewis (pg. 38-39)

A Story About My Grandfather

don't ask me why i'm choosing to share this story now. i'm really not quite sure what has impressed upon me to tell it but i am. a few months ago, my friend jeanne stevens asked me my top 3 transformational moments in my life. this is one of them. I told her then, and I will tell you now.

when I was probably in 8th grade, my grandaddy - my dad's dad - was diagnosed with alzheimer's. my grandparents were by no means professing christians. as little girls, my sister and i, being the good little evangelicals that we were, fervently tried to convert my granny - apparently grandaddy at that time was outside our realm of concern - but we were usually met with a polite "I know about God, honey, but thank you." my parents never encouraged or discouraged this behavior. i'm not sure where it came from, other than liz's penchant to worry combined with my need to tell people what was right.

anyway, we had genuinely close relationships with both my granny and grandaddy. granny was much more hands on while grandaddy preferred to sit back and observe or let us climb up in his lap 2 at a time. his only real involvement came on saturday mornings when he woud make his famous cat head biscuits and, in the process, cover the kitchen and himself in flour. but those biscuits were good. I can't imagne what went through that man's head - a man that raised 4 of the strongest men I know - when his house was overrun by all his granddaughters. i think he handled it pretty well.

well, it seems about the time i was old enough to really get to know and appreciate him - about the time I was really starting to fall in love with my mom's daddy - we started to lose him. for a man who was usually quiet, it wasn't extremely noticeable at first. he just didn't laugh as much anymore. when he stopped calling us by name, we really started to feel it. I remember one night, liz was worrying and asked if I thought he had missed his chance - she has more concern for the eternal soul than anyone I know. but I told her I didn't know. how were we to know that he didn't already know the Lord. after all, he was a quiet man and it's not like he would take such things up with granny.

one day, a few years later, we came home from school and dad was there. he said he needed to tell us something. usually when phrased like that , you think it's going to be bad. we sat down in the stairwell and daddy stood in the foyer and told us that the previous sunday grandaddy had gone to church with my aunt and uncle who lived out by them. you know, just one of those courtesy things to get them out of the house and take em to lunch after...break the monotony. but afterwards, grandaddy had told my uncle he liked what that man was talking about and asked if he could talk with him some more. so my uncle decides to set up a meeting with his pastor for that week, not really sure what to make of it.

they go to the meeting and for a few precious moments, according to my uncle, my grandfather came alive again. it was as if someone had turned a light on in his mind and he carried on a two-sided conversation about the message from Sunday and all that stuff about salvation. it ended with my grandaddy saying he realized he needed Jesus and he reckoned that was the right time to accept him.

my sister and I cried on the steps as my dad - my grandaddy's oldest son - stood there proud. either of his father or that that his two teenage daughters would care, or maybe both. now I know some people are skeptical of such stories. all I know is that I know my uncle. my father and all my uncles take after my grandaddy in a number of ways, not the least of which is that they are men of few words. if they don't feel the need to talk, they won't. and they won't tell you a story unless it is the God's honest truth. it is amazing the way the Lord moves and if it took my grandaddy losing his mind to find life, then i'll take it.

Mad Man Yourself

Have you seen this? To promote the new season, AMC has created Mad Men characters you can customize to look like you. Amazing.

(that's me in the pink) you can too here. really need to catch up on season 2 before season 3 starts.

Oh, Atlanta

so i'm reading "all over but the shoutin'" by rick bragg, who - as earlier mentioned - is from my home state of alabama. in his last section of his first book he writes about when the new york times moved him to atlanta to cover the south as a national correspondant. his quote sums up how I feel about this place so well i laughed out loud and then immediately had to share it.

"i knew, from reading about it, that it was about as southern as a snowmobile, a pretentious city striving for some kind of ridiculous national or interntional acclaim, or - as one native son once said - just a lot of really nice conventions. I have always been uncomfortable around people who are somehow ashamed of their heritage, who went to speech school to get rid of their accents. atlanta is like that. it tears down it's history with wrecking balls, and builds something bland and homogenized in it's place."

but don't be offended. he goes on to say some nice things too. and then he talks about traveling the south and he mentions my first food love:

"i write late intothe night at the tutweiler in downtown birmingham, and try hard to turn down that second cheeseburger at milo's over by uab, which has the best one in the whole wide world."

I laughed out loud again.