Review of Ted Dekker's Green

I read Green because it was the recommended starting point in the Circle series and because I loved Three. My expectations were high when the author compared his work in this series to Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings. I was expecting poignant, touching, thrilling, encouraging, even funny in places.

I was sorely disappointed. I found the characters annoying, and in Janae and Billy's case, cliche. Do we really need yet another vampire story? The dialog was high handed in many places, and the only characters I could care about were Chelise, Qurong and Patricia. There was such a focus on evil, gore, violence and sin that at the end of the book I felt hopeless and like I needed to take a shower. I feel something is wrong when a Christian author focuses more on these things than God's goodness and love.

I did think it was clever that Billy's name kept changing as he lost more and more of himself, and I was able to see many Biblical parallels, but these didn't redeem Green. I won't be reading the rest of the series.

Musings...

Last night I spent hours talking to T about things that we're currently going through in our walks with the Lord and our relationships with others, and so much that I've been dealing with has finally been put into words although barely any of it makes sense to me. We've talked many times over the years about the "perceiver" gift that both her husband, R, and I share, but it's coming out in ways right now that I don't necessarily know how to respond to all the time. God nudging me to pray for someone? Got it. God nudging me to encourage someone? Got it. That someone being a single man that I don't have a close personal friendship with? WHOA baby. Tread carefully. Or not at all. How to proceed with any sort of propriety, with no underlying motive, with no appearance of anything selfish? I have no idea. So I've remained quiet. I notice, I wonder, I pray, and I keep quiet because I don't know what to say.

Today I was walking through B&N looking at the Denise Hunter books. (Another writer of Christian chick-lit that I always expect to be light and fluffy, but instead is using a relationship to show aspects of God's love for us. She's not light and fluffy. She's entertaining, funny, touching, and has a gift for using an approachable genre to teach spiritual truths.) My favorite author of this genre is Denise Hildreth, who is to blame for my somewhat recent vacation to Savannah, Georgia. While walking around with my triple grande nonfat caramel latte, light whip please, I felt God nudging me to pray for Denise Hildreth, so I did. I used to be accustomed to these nudgings, but they'd been gone a while... probably because God knew that He couldn't trust me to actually pray when He told me to.

Tomorrow I'm going to pick out yarn. There is an incredibly sweet little lady at church that I need to make a scarf for. I don't know why she needs a scarf, but she does.

This is what I mean by having a hard time reconciling things with me right now: I want to get married sometime. I want children. The only people that I really want to be around are married couples, old women that I go to church with that have no idea who I am, and books. And I want new dining room chairs so that I can have the pastor and his wife over for dinner without worrying that the chair will disentigrate from underneath them.

I've also come into contact with so many old friends, which has been wonderful. What's crazy to me is that all the people that I keep connecting with are people that I've always considered as being superior to me somehow, but the needs that I'm sensing are similar and I feel there's a reason that we're reconnecting. Why would God use me to touch any of their lives? Why would He use me at all? I am inferior, unworthy, broken, splintered, confused and feel more than a little overwhelmed and lost.

I so struggle with practical things that I always feel that "real" grown ups have under control. Good example - I'm still up and I have to be at work at 6 a.m. I swear I fight sleep like a 2 year old at naptime that has a No-Doz addiction.

If I had a million dollars I'd be asleep rather than doing laundry.

It's 2:05 a.m. on a work night and I have to get up in three hours. Why am I awake? Apparently I'm awake because LAUNDRY NEEDS TO BE DONE.

I went to bed fairly early for me - a little after ten, just enough to give me 6 1/2 hours of sleep. But there was this book. And since there was a book, and since books are for reading, I read it.

No problem. Midnight. Still enough for 5 hours of sleep. Then I started praying. You see, I'm getting a little nervous about this whole A getting married thing. I love A, I think D is fabulous, and I think A+D is a wonderful idea and am terribly happy for them. But it means that I lose a roommate that I adore. I feel left behind. But God and I are dealing with that. So a few shed tears and a prayer later and I'm ok.

Then, the age old question, "What would I do if I won $1,000,000?" pops into my head. (After taxes of course, since the math would just be too confusing to take taxes out in day dreams. And of course, it was NOT won by playing the lottery.) I don't know why this popped into my head; it simply did. (One modestly sized three bedroom home that is beautifully decorated with a fenced in back yard for Harvey and Genevieve (my two boxers) and a little Maltese named after a princess that I'll keep inside. A brand new Toyota because they last forever. A new computer that lets me hold it on my lap without the little arrow thingy becoming possessed and moving around of its own volition. Cooking classes. No debt.)

Then, CMI (Current Male Interest) pops into my head. Well, now I've had it. My new strategy is this: CMI pops into my head, I pray, "Lord, bless him and help me not think of him at all." You see, I'm simply not good enough for someone like CMI. Not that he's perfect, because he's not. But there is simply too much in me that needs to be fixed and he does NOT need a fixer upper. Not to mention that the man is just too cute for words and although I'm not bad to look at there is quite a bit of padding that needs to be removed.

Lord, bless him and help me not think of him at all.

So, thoughts of CMI were replaced by thoughts of LAUNDRY and suddenly any attempt at sleep seems like a pointless endeavor. So here I am, 2:22 in the morning, typing a blog, drinking Sleep Time Tea in vain hopes that it may do some good, and listening to the sound of the washer.

Oh, and you will all be proud to know that I have not baked ANYTHING for CMI at all. My other new strategy is the Do Nothing Approach.

DOH.

Lord, bless him and help me not think of him at all.

Words that I love

Affinity
Island
Cherubim
Grace
Willow
Starry
Sorrowful
Jubilant
Blue
Lithe
Anchor
Coriander
Christmas
Cinnamon

Karaoke...

at work! Awesome! That DEFINITELY makes up for all the insanity of the past couple of weeks! Singing at a bar is one thing. I have to see these people every day. That last guy sounded like he was singing in a bar. Wonder where he went for lunch.

I haven't been on a date in nearly 2 weeks. Proud? I am.

I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD! 364 days. My Tina and co. are all going as well. I get to see the boys have a ball.

I'm attempting to give up Dr. Pepper. I will defeat the crack habit.