long story for a goofy punchline

I sat down to write a simple "well said" post, because Will's comment was just SO DANG FUNNY, but then I realized I really wanted to give some context, and that context was a post in and of itself. So keep that in mind when you read the comment at the end and think, "Now what did that have to do with anything?" Nothing, really. Nothing at all.

Last week while at The Other Place on Sunday night, I somehow got on the kick of saying, "Show me your sexy face!" and snapping a picture. It turned out being absolutely hilarious, and an impromptu photo project was born. Since the pictures were taken in terrible low lighting at ISO 800, they're blurry and red and grainy—too terrible to be displayed on Flickr, but totally worthy of laughing at on Facebook. So I made an album on Facebook entitled "Sexyface," and it's been the source of much laughter and ridiculous commenting.

To give you a small peek:



Anyway, last night we were continuing the project, and when I put the camera in Will's face he made a few weird faces and then said, "I don't know how to do a sexy face." I said, "Well, just do the face you do when you're holding Sam." Will laughed, and Justin said, "Is Sam a boy or a girl?" (This is where it gets funny...)

Will replied, "He's a cat. A little, male cat."

blogroll

Hi Internet,

Please add to your blogroll my friend Tyler's new blog. Born out of random conversation on a ten hour road trip, he documents the most absurd and ridiculous Facebook statuses of the week.

Added bonus? He posts on Mondays. So you can check out his blog, and then Person.

You can thank me later for bringing such entertainment to your world.

xo,
Amy

this is a new year

Yesterday I finally, way too late, bought Charlie's latest record. I know it's been out for a good while, but it's one of those things I never quite got around to, and I think it's because it wouldn't have made its full impact on me until now. Like Jon's record Hallelujah, it's a record written out of grief—and those are usually more riddled with hope and redemption than any other record written from a happy heart.

Track #2 struck me musically at first, but then lyrically it blew me away. I think it's a combination of both elements—the music gives the words a power that resonates really far down inside. "Where hope can hold my hand of sorrow ... this is a new year, this is a new day to rise. Shine and lift up your eyes."

It's not necessarily that it's January, a new year of 2009, but it is more that it is a new season. This has been a hard year—a lot of tears, a lot of questions, a lot of growing pains, a lot of being left behind, a lot of realigning priorities, a lot of difficult trusting God in the middle of incomprehensible circumstances. But last night I was sitting smoking cigars with a dear friend who's been through more grief this year than anyone should in a lifetime, and we were both just ... excited. About the person of Jesus, mostly, and how we've sort of had this reignited love affair with him. It's hard to put words to joy, but that's what it was.

So here we go, stepping forward. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." Redemption is a slow process, we stumble and get disoriented, but that is all part of the beauty of it all.

All things are new. And this is a new year.

i think you had to be there, but i'm going to at least try

Winter retreat was fun, my friends. It never fails ... at some point I find myself standing somewhere silently looking on with a huge smile on my face. Glenn asks me what I'm smiling about and I tell him, "It's worth it." It's true. It's worth all the work, always.

Now, this may not be the absolute funniest thing that happened on Winter Retreat this year, but it is certainly in the running. I had people coming up to me for the next 24 hours saying, "Was that you? Because that was FUNNY." Yes, friends. It was me. And Rachel.

This is Rachel and me. In our most natural pose.



For starters, if you haven't seen the Saturday Night Live Lawrence Welk Show skit, click here to watch it. It's pertinent to the story.

A little background ... Ryan and I had been telling Rachel about this hilarious video that she needed to watch on the internet. Straight away after dinner, the three of us had planned to go down to the big room where we do the worship/teaching part of the evening where I had my computer hooked up to do the slides. It was perfect because no one was in that room just prior to the evening program—the band and program team were praying in a room across the hall and everyone else was just hanging out after dinner.

So the three of us got up from dinner with full intentions of heading down the hall to watch the video. Ryan ducked into his room quickly, and while Rachel and I were standing on the steps waiting for him we got into a conversation with Mark and Alec, so Ryan went ahead down the hall without us. A couple minutes later Rachel and I made our way down the hall, and as we passed the room across the way, sure enough there were people praying in there, and since Ryan was nowhere to be found, I assumed that he'd joined them.

Still hyper from supper (where the photo above was taken), Rachel and I were singing the tune from the aforementioned SNL skit. Loudly. We entered the sound booth (where my computer was) from the back door, still singing at the top of our lungs in unison, "WITH MY BY MYSELF!" No one was in the sound booth so Rachel asked, "Where did Ryan go?" "Prayer," I answered quickly. "Oh," she said, as if it were disgusting. At that exact moment we happened to notice the very quiet circle of people praying in the middle of the program room. All our friends looked up at us about to burst into laughter as the two of us immediately hit the floor, halfway out of embarrassment and halfway out of the fact that we were laughing SO HARD that our legs quit working. I could barely get out through gasps, "Door. Out," as I pointed. We army-crawled out the door and into the hallway where we just lay on the floor laughing hysterically. I couldn't catch my breath and both of us had tears streaming down our faces. At least ninety seconds went by and then Jon stuck his head out the door and whispered, "Hey. We can still hear you." I looked up at him through my tears, still laughing, and said, "I'm so sorry Jon."

To which he laughed, "Don't be. It was really funny."

Later I found out that they'd all been silent for about five minutes when we burst into the room, and as soon as we left Jon said, "God? Thank you for joy."

january 4, cari's birthday

Today is Cari's birthday, and it's the first one since we've met that we haven't spent together. Normally we are both on Winter Retreat, but this year I'm at Winter Retreat and Cari is at home.

If you want to read the famous story from her 27th birthday, click here.

Two years ago, on the drive to Colorado for Winter Retreat, "Build Me Up Buttercup" came on the ipod during a shuffle, and Cari, Tarah, David and I all sang along and Cari took video of it with my camera. You can view that one here.

So this year on the drive out, I was listening to my ipod on shuffle, and "Build Me Up Buttercup" came on. I immediately grabbed my camera and started recording. It's embarrassing, but yes, Cari ... for you I am putting this on The Internet.

Happy 28th birthday, my friend.