Stratoz's Interview, Part II: Radio

My first response to Stratoz's great (and not intended for me!) interview questions is here.

What radio station do you listen to and why?
I listen to WITF (our local NPR station). I particularly love Nina Totenberg's reporting on the Supreme Court, and Kai Ryssdal's Marketplace. I love the full background of a story that I get with NPR's news. NPR's stories are like word problems to me: every single time, I could get the answer to a math question right if it was a word problem. It made sense. I understood what was going on, and what the objective was. Plain old equations, though, with no context-- hopeless. I like putting things in context.

I also listen to WXPN, the NPR station out of Philly (also broadcast here). They play a lot of indie rock, which I love, but which I am not cool enough to find on my own.

When I'm not listening to one of those, I channel surf a lot, stopping on whatever station happens to be playing classic rock that I can belt out.

Amputation of Anxiety

For the last few weeks, it's felt as though my mistakes have been made with a Sharpie, and my successes in invisible ink. I've been wandering around muttering to myself, "Where is the invitation in this?" (a favorite spiritual direction question). There are a lot of answers to that, but one of them is this: all day long, from friends, families, coworkers, clients, and strangers, we each get a barrage of "you're not doing things well enough." All of us. So I'm thinking about how absolutely necessary it is that when we share God with one another, we share God's grace, perspective, and patience. But even when we know that God is patient, kind, and keeps no record of wrongs (God being love, and all), the hailstorm of criticism, impatience and fear continues, and we continue to internalize it.

Which brings me to NPR. During my morning commute today, I heard this incredible story about phantom limb pain, and how it can be resolved. People with amputated limbs sometimes experience feeling, and even pain, in limbs they no longer have. You can imagine how frustrating this might be-- how do you treat an imaginary injury? Neurologists decided to try tricking the brain with a mirror, and this gave some relief. After continued treatments, though, the phantom limb disappeared! In one case, 11 years after an amputation, the phantom limb was finally gone.

As I listened to this story, I thought about the things we carry that don't need to be part of us-- anxiety, perfectionism, etc. I thought about the mirroring of God's love that a good spiritual director does, and how it teaches us first to interact with the phantoms, and then to let them go.

What a joy it is to give and receive the love that brings relief from pain.

Fantastic Find

I was listening to NPR this weekend, and stumbled across one of those delightful gems that make me a coffee-mug carrying public radio station member.

Do you all know about Ben Sollee? His music is fantastic. I love cello, I love folk music, I love singer-songwriters, and I love tall, lanky men with senses of humor.

I'm tell you, he's worth looking at into.

My new running buddy: the iPod Shuffle

Tee hee! As a birthday present, Mr. M got me the teeny tiny green iPod shuffle. It's just exactly the same color as my first car (may she rest in pieces), so I'm calling the shuffle "Little Sally" in honor of all the fun places we went together. I'm looking forward to totally different journeys with this machine.

I've already found, via the brilliant RevGals, the pray-as-you-go podcasts, which are really fantastic. I'm madly downloading a bunch of public radio podcasts-- Speaking of Faith; Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me; Car Talk; Splendid Table.

BUT I'm eager to hear other suggestions. Friends, these podcasts are going to get me through a lot of runs. What do you love to listen to?

God Bless the Lit Majors, One and All.

Garrison Keillor is, as we all know, fantastic. This morning's offering from The Writer's Almanac is also wonderful. I present to you Mr. Philip Deaver's "The Worrier's Guild," from his collection entitled How Men Pray.

The Worriers' Guild

Today there is a meeting of the
Worriers' Guild,
and I'll be there.
The problems of Earth are
to be discussed
at length
end to end
for five days
end to end
with 1100 countries represented
all with an equal voice
some wearing turbans and smocks
and all the men will speak
and the women
with or without notes
in 38 languages
and nine different species of logic.
Outside in the autumn
the squirrels will be
chattering and scampering
directionless throughout the town
because
they aren't organized yet.

Ain't it great?

I had a "wow, it's fun to be married" moment this morning.

Actually, it may have just been a "wow, it's fun to know Mr. M" moment.

At about 7:20 this morning, Mr. M was in his car and I was in mine (today was not a carpooling day), and we both called each other as soon as we heard on NPR that Karl Rove is resigning.

Simultaneous geekiness. Gotta love it.

I Need My Fix

Because I'm a serious NPR junkie, I'm seriously considering giving in and saving up for an iPod.

Because there are NPR shows that my local station doesn't get. (Speaking of Faith? Splendid Table? Countless others!) Plus, sometimes I actually have to work, rather than listening to NPR (gasp!). So podcasts would be a blessing (and a curse).

But here are my questions-- does iTunes work for all MP3 players, or just iPods? Could I go with a cheaper version, or is Apple really my best bet? And am I honestly going to be able to figure out how to subscribe to podcasts?

Somebody help me make the transition.

Worry-- The 8th Deadly Sin?

While it might not be one of the fatal infractions, I think I'm on the verge of fretting myself into the grave.

I blame Mr. M.

OK, that's not really fair. It's not his fault, but it does have to do with him. I'm finding that making decisions now (as opposed to a year ago, before we got hitched) is much more stressful for me. I can't believe this didn't occur to me before we got married, but I worry a lot about how things will affect him: moving for seminary, moving to different parishes, maybe having kids later than planned, my mountain (scratch that, mountain range) of debt from undergrad.

I came to the conclusion a couple of days ago that the best way to handle it was to make sure that I do my best at everything; that way, his sacrifices won't be wasted.

I haven't stopped worrying.

I feel extremely responsible for our well-being (financially, socially, etc) because I'm making a lot of the major decisions. He's supportive, which is amazing, but I'm the one initiating changes.

What exacerbates everything is that I don't feel like I have close friendships with people of strong faith right now. I need to find people to buoy me up, and I've had such a hard time with that since I've moved here.

In completely unrelated news, check out this story from NPR on Iranian women's fancy underthings. I love it.