I decided to steal a meme from Chilihead. You can read her answers here.

1. If you had to choose one vice in exclusion of all others, what would it be?

Coffee addiction. I have had three pregnancies in four years, with months of breastfeeding, and I miss my old coffee addiction. It was comforting, like a friend who will eat cheesecake with you.

2. If you could change one specific thing about the world, what would it be?

“Change the world” hypotheticals scare me a little, because they seem a closeted way of asking “In what way would you like to bully people?” I am not sure. Universal literacy? AIDS vaccine? Reliable, affordable, solar-powered transportation? Perfect harmony?

3. Name the cartoon character you identify with the most.

On a bad day? I think I’ve already explained that.

4. If you could live one day of your life over again, which one would it be?

I remember a moment when I was studying for my comprehensive exams. I focused harder on studies than I ever have in my life, and Az was very supportive. One day we were both sitting in arm chairs in the living room of our apartment (we didn’t have the couch yet), reading our books, with our feet just touching each other’s. I was working so hard, but I remember feeling washed over with contentment, sharing this quiet life with this good man.

It’s not a full day, but I would be happy to live that moment over and over again. I guess in some ways, I already do.

5. If you could go back in history and spend a day with one person, who would it be?

I mean Elizabeth Tudor, not Glenda Jackson.

6. What is one thing you lost, sold or threw away that you wish you had back?

My old leather coat, which was stolen when our apartment was burgled. It was thick and beautiful, soft and faux furry on the inside. It kept me warm like nothing else. It was the most fashionable article of clothing I had, and I could wear it anywhere without shame.

7. What is your one most important contribution to this world?

I know when to be silent. Sometimes.

8. What is your one hidden talent that nearly no one knows about?

I am excellent at picking out books for people.

9. What is your most cherished possession?

10. What one person influenced your life the most when growing up?

Obviously my parents, but I don’t think I could pick one over the other.

11. What word describes you better than any other?

Pieces started a new regular feature a few weeks ago, and I keep meaning to contribute to it, but usually forget. The idea is to post once a week about some project you completed or finally got started.

I am a lousy cake decorator, but JellyBean, who adores Beatrix Potter, wanted a hedgehog cake for her birthday (”Like Mrs. Tiggywinkle!”). I found a picture in a cookbook that looked possible even for someone as unskilled as I am, and this was the result.

The frosting was the easiest I have ever made: a whipped mixture of Nutella and heavy cream. The quills of the hedgehog are chopped pieces of chocolate bars. The cake is just two layers of 9-inch round layers, cut to a point on one end. The legs are the leftover pieces cut off. No doubt some of you skilled crafters could make the same cake look even better, but I was satisfied with the results. JellyBean loved it and talked about it for weeks.

Last night I dreamt we were still living in our old apartment, and had only one child. I was pregnant, just like I am now, and had decided to take JellyBean to our old church for Bible School. In the dream we were still driving our pre-parenthood Geo Metro, a tiny tin-can of a car with excellent gas milage. I got JellyBean hooked into her car seat, and tried to climb in.

I did not fit. No matter how I tried to twist and turn, I could not get my pregnant belly past that steering wheel. My top half could not enter the car. No amount of squeezing helped. It was like seeing a grownup try to climb into one of those plastic cars on the front of grocery carts.

Even in the dream, it was humiliating.

I hope you will all forgive the belatedness of my last two Days of Christmas posts. I simply could not keep up the pace. You can read them now, if you are so inclined, by scrolling down, or by clicking Eleventh Day or Twelfth Day.

I was full of good intentions to get them finished in time, but found it was impossible to get the posts written and the house ready for our annual Twelfth Night party. We had about a dozen people over, and it was low key but enjoyable. Everybody but me drank a festive amount of alcohol (a definite down side to pregnancy - I have actually started dreaming about Long Island Iced Teas) and we all talked and laughed a lot.

We planned to have an Open House with the realtor on Sunday. I decided I would take a quick solo trip to the library, then finish the cleaning and write my posts.

Wrong. On my way down the big hill from our house, the brakes on the car almost stopped working. They had been getting progressively worse over the last week, and I kept forgetting to attend the problem. At the bottom of the hill I pushed the pedal to the floor and it still took me thirty yards to stop. Very scary.

I called Az from the library, asked him to cancel the Open House, and said I would drive up to a mall that had a Sears Automotive Center open on Saturdays. We use them as our back-up mechanic for weekend emergencies. I took the city streets up to the mall (no way was I going to risk the interstate), and I don’t think I drove over 25 mph the whole way. I keep things civil on the blog, but I have never been so tempted to give a driver the finger as I was when an obnoxious SUV tailgated me and honked because of my slow speed.

My speed with almost no brakes. ‘Cuz it really would have made his life better if I had caused an accident with my nearly brakeless car. I did not resort to rude gestures, but that was less from any innate virtue than it was a fear of getting shot.

Turns out it was a cheap and easy fix (the best kind!), but it wasted my whole day, and left me even further behind on blogging. On the positive side, I can now drive my children around in a car with perfect brakes, so I guess it was worth it. Somehow brakes aren’t really optional.

God calls people I don’t expect and in ways I don’t approve of. And if that makes me sound like a proud old hypocrite, it is meant to.

Perhaps the most mysterious characters in the nativity story are the Wise Men, also called the Magi or the Three Kings. They were astronomers before astrology and astronomy became separate subjects. They studied the stars, and were convinced the stars told them things.

Now if there is one variety of religious belief that I have trouble respecting, it is astrology. I don’t mean the silly indulgence of reading horoscopes and pretending they mean something, but actually believing that the stars and planets have spiritual signifcance for who we are and what we do. Walker Percy’s grumpy retort that the person standing next to you exerts more gravitational force on you than the stars makes satisfying sense. I confess I even like his rudeness.

But God used the astrological endeavors of these scholars to bring them to the newborn Jesus. These mysterious men (by tradition three, but the text never says how many there were; Matthew lists three gifts, not three givers) came from an unspecified country to worship someone else’s king. They were foreigners; why did they care so much about “the one born king of the Jews?” The Wise Men appear in the birth narrative as the first Gentiles to worship Jesus. From the very beginning of Jesus’ life, they show God’s love reaching out to unexpected quarters.

God finds value in people we snub. God stoops to human weakness, and “lisps to us like a mother to her child,” in John Calvin’s words. God reaches out to meet us when he chooses, no matter where we are. God runs to us when we are still far off. The love of God bursts the boundaries. It crumbles down walls. The love of God went to the extreme of the cross to tear down the wall of sin between us and God. What are other boundaries compared to that?

I do not like to use this language. It feels like wearing a dress that someone borrowed and returned crumpled and stained. This is the language sometimes used to express a popular fashion that says all religions are equal paths to God. I do not believe this. It is an idea without rescue or revelation; it suggests people make religion and know God through personal effort and achievement, a notion that, if true, would make the atonement of the Cross as significant as a deflated balloon.

But I have to use the words I have, no matter how they have been used before. The love that brought to Jesus an unexpected handful of absent-minded professors (Seriously, the way they spoke to Herod? Clueless.) continues to bring equally unexpected others to worship the incarnate king today. God’s love is broader and higher than I can imagine. God’s love cannot be limited by my prejudices, or by my rigid ideas of how things should be done.

One of the names on my list of possible middle names for my daughter is Mage, chosen for the Magi, to remind me of this very thing. God will meet my daughter in places I do not foresee, in ways I might not necessarily choose. The name is a reminder to me that I do not plan her life; God does. I do not settle her calling or vocation; God does. I do not get to choose the kind of life she will have, but I can trust God to do so.

God’s love for my baby girl is deeper and richer and more limitless even than my own. The infinite God is closer to my baby, even now when she rests inside my body, than I can ever be. God reaches into hidden places where I cannot see, and knows her sorrows and joys and failures and successes. The God who called the Wise Men to himself through their books and study of the skies can call my daughter to himself through ways I can’t even think of.

May we so live that our children learn the immensity of God. May we live knowing the breadth of God’s reach. May we know the humility of following a God who is not held back by our discomfort. May we revel in the joyous call and welcome of Jesus Christ, wherever it is extended. May we not rebuild the boundaries he has torn down.