It Was JUST A Box of Cookies People!

September 16, 2009

I’m taking this opportunity to talk about me because at this moment others are talking about me. My blog buddy, John Shore wrote a story about me, or more specifically, John wrote about my cookies (that’s to be taken literally and not euphemistically) in a blog post entitled Nothing Says Love Like a Lesbian Christian Minister With an Oven, and then just as things were calming down in the comments section John followed up that post with today’s Helping Christians Be Bored by Homosexuality Since April 2007 where I appear in a feature role.

John said some really nice things about me and were this post about him I could easily return each kind word for word but in case you’ve already forgotten, this post is about me, not John. He only gets a passing mention. I’ll reserve accolades on his fine character and dashing good looks for another time.

It’s true that John’s compliments about me don’t carry a lot of weight since his motives are suspect. Is he speaking from a place of sincerity or is he trying to work me for another batch of cookies? A girl in an apron has to wonder. But even given the neutralized status of John’s comments, many of his readers, who haven’t had so much as one bite of my most awesome Nutella Oatmeal Thins have added comments of their own that are equally generous in spirit with only one or two wandering into the familiar terra firma about my so-called homosexual life.

In the end whether the comments are words of praise for my Betty Crocker ways or words of peril for my eternal soul, all the attention has made me uncomfortable. I was touched that my friend John would blog about the box of cookies I sent him since they were indeed blog-worthy in their own right but I didn’t follow it through to the end, that being that at some point the spotlight would turn from the cookies to me. It feels strange because whether the comments are thumbs up or thumbs down, these good people don’t know me, and so for the sake of accurate information let me tell you something about Anita Cadonau-Huseby from the perspective of Anita Cadonau-Huseby.

I forget my friend’s birthdays, I don’t call my mom as often as I should, I took piano lessons but I can’t play the piano because I never practiced, my preaching is completely unremarkable, I’m not a great conversationalist, I admittedly do less than my fair share around the house and I’m still working without much success on that whole notion of “be slow to anger.”

I procrastinate (I’m suppose to be doing something else right now). I get fed up. I can be selfish. Getting my way is a default switch I’m constantly trying to avoid pushing. When I stub my toe I swear before I can stop myself. There are times when I struggle with forgiving or even the idea of forgiving. There are times I find myself walking the line between inflated pride and low self-worth. There are times when my intentions are less honorable than in my heart I want them to be. I give money to people with cardboard signs that read “Will work for food” even when I know they’ll probably just use the money for drugs or a bottle of cheap wine. I talk to my cats more often than adults probably should unless their last name is Doolittle which mine is not. I don’t floss as often as I tell my dental hygienist I do.

I make mistakes. I fall short. I make attempts and a few times more than I succeed, I fail. I want to be better than I am (for further information see Fruits of the Spirit) but for today what I am is all I have to work with.

But here’s where I excel.

I love God with all that I am and then some. I am in love with God, in that all consuming way that makes your knees so weak you can’t understand how you’re able to keep from going horizontal. I love my wife with all my heart. For ten years I have loved her with a love that grows with every new revelation of her; a love that will continue to grow and endure until my last breath on this earth, but God I have loved always and will always love long after this world is nothing but dust and ash and if I fail at everything else in my life but this one thing I do extraordinarily well, then I’m okay with that. I’ll die with no regrets. Not one.

Please don’t miss that the last little paragraph above says far more about the goodness of God than anything of merit it might say about me. In fact, it says nothing about me other than I’m just bright enough to respond to God’s all-consuming love with the fullness of love this human heart can hold. Brilliant, insightful me.

So now that you know a little more about me, maybe we can all shift the topic of our attention to the One who deserves center stage more than I do.

And besides, don’t think sweet-talking me will secure you a box of cookies. I’m so over that.

Posted in Anita