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Kicking the Caffeine Habit

By Jim Spiegel

It was 2 a.m., and I awoke in a literal cold sweat. The room was warm, and I was layered in covers, but I felt freezing cold. My body ached as if wracked by the flu. But it wasn’t the flu. It was withdrawals. Not from heroin or some other hard narcotic. It was caffeine withdrawals, and this was the price of my finally kicking a two-decade long addiction. Well, at least part of the price. The next morning would bring a massive headache, which took several days to finally taper off. It wasn’t until day nine that the withdrawal symptoms fully abated and I felt that I was finally free.

220px-Koffein_-_Caffeine.svgMy love affair with caffeine began in the Spring of 1983, motivated by my second-semester Organic Chemistry class. (Thank you, Dr. Kelly.) At first, it was tea, but then I tried coffee and realized that I actually liked the flavor, unlike my father who had an innate distaste for the stuff. From there, I drank coffee periodically until the mid-90s when I slipped into a morning routine that featured coffee and cereal. Then came the Starbucks explosion of the late 90s and I was on-board for the ride, my standard choice being raspberry mocha. A few years later, the dirty chai became a favorite as well. Few things brought me more gustatory delight than these drinks.

So why quit? Why subtract from one’s life such a wonderful culinary aesthetic? It certainly wasn’t because I came to any conviction that caffeine consumption is morally wrong. In fact, now that the dust has settled and I know longer “need” my daily caffeine fix, I do drink the occasional Coke or decaf coffee or tea, which contains small amounts of caffeine. The problem was simply the fact that I was addicted, physiologically dependent on a chemical. The Bible says, “a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him” (2 Pet. 2:19). And caffeine had mastered me, as Amy had pointed out to me several times, usually when I suffered from headaches after going to long without my fix. And reading some classic spiritual works from the early church fathers (e.g., Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, John Cassian) this summer only reinforced the incentive to challenge my physical appetites. I began to fantasize about the idea of being free from the burden of supplying my body with caffeine every day. What would that be like?

So I decided to do it, beginning with a few days of decreasing my caffeine intake and then quitting altogether, which is what brought on the flu-like symptoms. Now that I’ve been addiction-free for over a month, it still feels strangely liberating. I do sometimes miss the morning ritual, which in recent years has featured tea rather than coffee. And I miss the full-bodied flavor of caffeinated coffee when I occasionally drink a decaf alternative. But it’s been worth it.

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Spiegel’s Extremely Excellent List of All-Time Greatest Redundancies of All-Time

By Jim Spiegel

One of my pet peeves as a reader, writer, and conversationalist is redundant expressions.  Over the years I’ve accumulated a mental list of some of the more annoying redundancies.  When I realized my list had grown to about ten I knew it was time to post a top-ten list, so here it is.  Some are very common, while others are not.  If you are guilty of using any of these, please know that, yes, I am judging you.  But I am not rejecting you as a person.  I simply want to call you to linguistic repentance.  And, of course, this also constitutes an invitation for you to alert me to any such transgressions in my own writing or speaking.

10. “Component parts” — All parts are components.

9. “Rise up” / “Raise up” — To rise is to move up.

8. “ATM Machine” — Unpack the abbreviation and you get “automatic teller machine machine.”  U2 uses this phrase in their song “Moment of Surrender,” and the line spoils the mood for me every time I hear it.

7. “Answer back” / “Respond back” — To answer or respond is to communicate “back” to someone.

6. “Completely annihilate” — Its hard to imagine anything more “complete” than annihilation.  When I hear someone use this phrase, its tempting to suggest that the event to which they refer was only a “partial annihilation.”

5. “Please R.S.V.P.” — The French phrase for which “R.S.V.P.” stands is répondez s’il vous plaît, which means “please reply.”  I suppose one could claim that their use of the phrase is not a redundancy so much as a double emphasis, as in “please, please reply.”  Nice try.

4. “I remembered in my mind” — It amazes me how often I hear this.  I want to say, “Where else could one remember something?”

3. “Past history” — The appalling thing about this one is how frequently it is uttered by academics.  Shame, shame, shame.

2. “Don’t be unnecessarily redundant” — This is not a common redundancy.  In fact, it appears to be unique to a particular occasion, according to a friend of mine.  What puts it so high on this list is the context in which it was used:  A high school teacher said it when correcting one of her students.

1. “Added bonus” — If I hear this one more time, I think my head might explode…thus spreading the component parts of my head all over my living room…or perhaps completely annihilating me altogether.

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A Weekend of Contrasts

By Amy Spiegel

Last weekend, I left Indiana in all its blustery glory, along with my four kids and a husband willing to fly solo for a few days. Three friends and I headed south for a girls’ weekend. Other than a few women’s retreats and a weekend with my mom and sister, I can’t remember many other girls’ weekends in my past. It’s so much work to organize everything for the kids and I am not really fond of a lot of traditional girls’ weekend activities. No offense to shopping trips and manicures, they just aren’t my cup of tea. Fortunately, I found three other women who aren’t so traditional in their hobbies either and the three days we spent eating, talking, hiking, and eating some more were ones that I will treasure for a lifetime.

The lack of Macy’s bags and fingernail polish weren’t the only non-traditional elements of our weekend. Our relationships are a bit unique due to the differences in our ages. Two of the “girls” are college students and two of us are, well, not. I will even admit to being older than my fellow non-college student friend Michelle, whose kids are still in that no-one-ties-their-own-shoes-or-independently-buckles-into-the-carseat phase. But our relationships aren’t those of mentor and mentee. Sure, we have given them some insights into marriage and motherhood, probably more insights than they ever wished to have. But these insights are part of a bigger conversation. The conversation of friendship, of equality. Certainly we are aware of the age differential and I must confess to having held my breath once or twice, fearing that someone was going to make a comment about my “daughters.” More than once, I commented to the “girls” how much I appreciated them taking time away from friends and classes in order to hang out with us older folk. They laughed me off and said they felt the same way about us.

While it feels as though the differences in age and stage of life should be a gap to bridge, I have found the diversity refreshing and sweet. By seeing things from different perspectives, our view is broadened and stretched. I think it is a crime that modern evangelical churches seem determined to categorize and separate their congregations by age group. Something is lost in the homogenous nature of “Sunday School for the Older People” and “Small Group for the Not Fully Developed.” Intergenerational relationships seem to be relegated to more artificial settings rather occurring naturally.

Rocky Road is my all-time favorite ice cream. I love the mixture of crunchy almonds, squishy marshmallows, and creamy chocolate. All the different flavors and textures taste so much better together. Just like my weekend away, its sweeter for the contrast.

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Stranger Than Friction

By Amy Spiegel

One benefit of homeschooling I never anticipated is that in the process of educating my kids, I have learned a great deal as well. My knowledge of ancient history, sentence diagrams, and a myriad other missing pieces in my own education have filled in quite nicely over the years. Just recently, while studying science with Maggie, an insight bopped me on the head rather like Newton and his gravitationally driven apple. The lesson regarded friction and simply stated that every time two things rub against each other there is friction and that this friction is what causes things to slow down. There are, of course, instances in which there is very little friction, which is why I spend many winter months picking my sorry carcass off the ice-covered ground. But even as I go bottom up, friction is still present, a small but ever present grace that prevents me from skidding into infinity.

While I certainly appreciate the force that keeps from careening into oncoming traffic, I am often less grateful when it comes to friction of a more relational nature. Sometimes the objects that rub against one another aren’t my rear and the frozen tundra but rather my own will, desires, and personal quirks and those of my family and friends. It doesn’t feel much like grace when it is my plans that are being slowed down by the plans of others pulling in the opposite directions.

Though I usually view this friction as something to be avoided or at least ignored, something in the simplicity of second grade science tells me that friction, whether physical or emotional, has been carefully woven into our world with a purpose in mind. When my body encounters friction with, let’s say, pavement, it is my skin that generally gives way. When my willful spirit encounters friction with, let’s say my husband and his willful albeit generally more rational spirit, it is my flesh that comes off. Not my physical flesh but the flesh of my sin nature. This friction slows me down so that I can be changed into something new. Again it is often painful, but if seen as grace it can be a transforming pain that brings to life a new creation.

One day, gravity will release its hold on this battered and bruise shell of mine. I will rise to Heaven and be greeted by my King. On that day, He will make sense of all that seems senseless now. He will take all those friction-inflicted wounds and make them beautiful.

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Layers

By Amy Spiegel

A few months ago, as fall wound down and the air turned from chilly to just plain cold, I began to prepare for winter. Just as the squirrels store up acorns for the barren months ahead and the bears settle in to their dens to hibernate, I too make careful preparations that will ensure my surviving another winter: layers (lots and lots of layers) and not leaving the house unless it is absolutely necessary. Having been born south of the border (the Kentucky border, that is), my body struggles to maintain a normal temperature throughout Indiana’s long months of snow and ice. So between November and, say, June, I cocoon myself in as many layers of clothes as possible without restricting my basic mobility—undershirts, shirts, sweaters, vests, wool socks, scarves and hats, not to mention a little extra body fat (I don’t care what the diet magazines say, if blubber is good enough for walruses and polar bears, it’s good enough for me!). I may resemble the Michelin man, but at least my toes aren’t frost bitten. I also avoid the outdoors with its biting wind and grey skies. If the temperature is below, oh let’s say, 70 degrees, my muscles form knots that even Houdini, much less a strong muscle relaxer, couldn’t undo, as they brace for the onslaught of frigid air. An ideal day in January is hunkering down with a cuppa and the kids and simply refusing to go anywhere. (However, for my children, who seem completely immune to the cold, I will go sledding—which means driving them to the sledding hill and then staying in the idling car with the hot chocolate and cheese balls.)

Since I am forced to endure this frozen purgatory, I have decided to rise above whining and at least find something metaphysical to ponder while my teeth chatter. Okay, maybe not rise above whining, but in addition to whining I am looking for some meaning beneath the layers, so to speak. I think this use of layering to protect ourselves against the elements serves as a great illustration of our tendency as to wrap ourselves up in figurative layers.

There is a strange tension within the hearts of many people I know, especially women, between our desires to have close fellowship with one another and our fears of being rejected or judged. So we construct an outward identity for ourselves using for materials our accomplishments, duties to family, work, etc. in order to avoid the potentially painful experience of being found lacking in some way. After bundling ourselves so thoroughly it would require a bloodhound on steroids to locate our true selves, we lie on the couch moaning about how lonely and isolated we feel.

Of course, there is a fine line between the authenticity of honest sharing and overstepping socially accepted boundaries of decorum into the land of TMI. I genuinely desire to extend grace to you in your everyday struggles but in a culture, both secular and Christian, that values polished accomplishment (or the appearance thereof) over humble admissions of failure, “being real” can definitely be awkward. And there is the flip side of the excellence coin where confession becomes a celebration of mediocrity rather than a starting point for excellence.

So as much as I like to bundle up for the occasional arctic expedition to say, the mailbox, when I am at home with the heat cranked up, I will forgo my layers or at least some of them. I have a place to warm my toes and prepare for the next round. And that’s what we should be for one another—an oasis of warmth and acceptance that gets us ready for facing the world again. That’s what I am striving for—being someone who knows when to shed my parka of self-protection and encourages others to do the same. After all, walruses may be warm, but I bet they have a hard time snuggling.

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Kipling’s “If”

By Jim Spiegel

The speaker at Taylor University’s commencement this past weekend closed her remarks by reading the Rudyard Kipling poem “If.”  A colleague of mine  (a professor of biblical studies) who was seated near me not only had memorized the poem himself but required both of his sons to commit it to memory “before they could get the keys to the car.”  Having three sons of my own, and especially given the profundity of the poem, this struck me as a pretty good idea.   Take a/another look at this classic, which is chock-full of wisdom:

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

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If I Could Turn Back Time

By Amy Spiegel

Next month will mark a milestone birthday for me. I have approached the midway point between 30 and the big 4-0, and many moons have passed since dictates of Western culture have deemed it appropriate for me to meet birthdays with anything but sackcloth and ashes. While I regret this attitude towards aging (I prefer to think of it as ripening, like fine wine or really good cheese), as another anniversary of my birth approaches I have taken the opportunity to take stock of my time on earth thus far. So, rather than keep my failures and regrets to myself, I thought I would share a bit of my wisdom…and folly. Hopefully you can either relate to the errors of my ways or, even better, learn from my missteps. Without further ado, here are eight things I wish I had done differently.

#8—I wish I had had better taste in men—or boys, really—in high school. Better yet, I wish I had not sampled that particular dish at all until the opposite sex was given a bit more time to “ripen.” As the mother of three boys and the wife of a great man, I hate to say it but most males under the age of 25 are like tadpoles, not really hatchlings but most definitely not yet frogs. Also, I knew some great gals in my early years, and I wish had given them more of my attention.

#7—I wish I had taken my studies in college more seriously and given more thought to what I enjoyed learning about. When else in your life do you get to hang out with such learned people whose express purpose is to help you to become learned as well? Luckily, I am married to one of them so all is not lost.

#6—I wish I had figured out earlier how wise my parents are. It would have saved a great deal of trouble for me and many sleepless nights for them. I know it’s a cliché but it’s true. Hopefully I am making it up to them now.

#5—I wish I hadn’t confused politeness and kindness. Recently, I have realized the damaging effects of not speaking your mind and being up front with others. If nothing else, it often leads to gossip when, out of a desire not to give offense, you “speak your mind” to someone completely unrelated to the situation. I have learned that it’s better to ruffle a few feathers than to stab the bird in the back, so to speak.

#4—I wish I had said “no” to the tattoo. Nothing more needs to be said on this subject.

#3—I wish I had figured out earlier that being morally good and being interesting are not mutually exclusive. Thank goodness I met my husband who dispelled this myth but a lot of morally upright and fascinating people passed me by before he came along.

#2—I wish I had learned to balance my check book at 20 rather than 30. It’s only money, but the daughter of a banker should know better.

#1—I wish I had thought more about what I should be doing than what I wished to be doing. I have never been happier than when I was doing the former and never more miserable than when pursuing the latter. Getting older may have given me a few more wrinkles and slowed my metabolism a bit, but my experience has also taught me to be less selfish and more eternally minded. So this year, when I see all those candles burning on my birthday cake of choice (chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting, since you asked), I will choose to see marks of maturity rather than the fires of doom. The old grey mare may not be what she used to be, but that may not be such a bad thing after all.

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Faith and the Friendly Skies

By Amy Spiegel

Have you ever noticed how everyday activities that you do without much thought seem rather odd when you step back and examine them? I have shared my love for carbonated beverages with you and while I am still very much attached (some might say addicted) to my Polar Pops, it is a bit absurd when you think that each day I drink a mixture of food coloring, bubbles and sugar and pay for the privilege. In my recent travels with our nine year old, I had one of those re-evaluation moments. Bailey and I were settling in for our long, overseas flight. The flight attendant was going over the emergency instructions, and I suddenly realized that I was getting ready to travel over a very large ocean for hours on end inside a flying metal box with my precious first born at my side. What was I thinking?!? You can quote all the safety statistics you want; they all seem a bit meaningless when a smiling, well-groomed young woman is explaining the procedure for hurling yourself into shark infested waters. (Okay, so I don’t know if they were actually shark infested, but at this point I don’t think I was at my most logical. Plus I watch a lot of Discovery Channel.)

While highlighting some of my submerged irrationality, this also provided a moment of clarity that was very encouraging. As I played through the scenarios of destruction, I tried to think of what I would say to Bailey if we did indeed face a life-threatening situation. Of course, in reality, I might have some difficulty being eloquent while plummeting from the sky. Still, something did strike me like a plastic bag on the head from the overhead compartment. If in fact the cabin did lose pressure—after first securing my own oxygen mask and then assisting my child—I could look him square in the eye and with all honesty say, as best one can while breathing oxygen through a plastic bag, “Buddy, we are going to see Jesus. We have absolutely nothing to fear.”

This statement may seem terribly Sunday School basic to you, but for me it marked a huge step in my faith. For though I have been affirming the happily-ever-after that awaits those who follow Him since I was knee high to a grasshopper and have seen more flannel-graph depictions of God’s plan for our salvation than you can shake a stick at, I am constantly plagued with the what-ifs that you face the other six days of the week. This especially pertains to my kids. Forget questioning whether or not I am instructing them correctly in the Gospel. Most days my prayer is that I am not convincing them of the opposite. The awesome responsibility of forming someone’s worldview from the ground up is too often a task I feel completely inadequate for. But as we placed our trays and seats in the upright position and perused the movie selection, the simplicity of it all settled over me. It reminds me of the story told of Karl Barth, the great Christian theologian who was asked by a student to sum up the most profound truth he had discovered in his life. Barth responded with the words “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” We may not know much more than that, but thankfully that’s more than we will ever need to know.  So just relax and enjoy the flight.

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Dairy Queen Deserts and Christmas Disappointments

By Amy Spiegel

Many years ago, when it was just Jim and I (it actually seems more like a lifetime ago), we took a second honeymoon tour of the Southwest. We drove through Louisiana and then Texas, visiting friends and family along the way. One special friend that we visited as often as possible was our dear friend, Dairy Queen. As fond as both Jim and I are of milk products, locating these gold mines of lactose-loaded delights quickly became a daily tradition. As we started our long leg across southern Texas, however, our mid-day pit stop at a roadside DQ became more of a challenge. We had entered a Dairy Queen desert. Like thirsty travelers in search of an oasis, we would eagerly await each exit food sign, quickly scanning the edible options. If there was no Dairy Queen, we would laugh a bit to ourselves and light-heartedly say “Ah, there will be one at the next exit.” And so it would go, Dairy Queenless exit after Dairy Queenless exit. With each passing hour, our disappointment mounted and disbelief turned to desperation (we might have settled for a Baskin Robbins just to get through the day). Then, somehow, it became funny. It was so tragic, this lack of ice cream, that one had to laugh. And we did. It became a standing joke for the rest of the trip and even now. Of course, it didn’t hurt that upon entering the great state of New Mexico, we found Dairy Queens aplenty.

This week, I felt a bit like a wanderer in a desert with no oasis in site. My family will tell you that I look forward to Christmas even more than I look forward to a perfectly dipped chocolate cone (especially because Jim always bites the tip off my dipped cone, perfectly dipped or not, as it passes from the drive-thru window to me. Not that I am bitter.) I especially love arriving at my parents’ house a week or so before the big day. My mom always does a great job decorating the house and we usually have several special events planned for the kids: ice skating downtown with my dad, going to Dollywood for the shows and lights, and hosting friends and family while a fire crackles in the fireplace. This week, however, my kids have hardly left the couch as bad colds have kept everyone homebound. No one has slept well and Sam ended up with pneumonia. It’s enough to make a girl go “Bah, hum bug!” While laying beside my kids at night, rubbing their backs as they hack in my face (why don’t they write about that in Mother’s Day cards?) I have prayed that God would heal the kids in time for them to have a little fun. Is that too much to ask? I felt like I was back in our little Toyota Corolla all over again, driving down an endless highway, just looking for a little relief. And relief was granted but certainly not in the form I expected or frankly wanted. No, the kids didn’t leap from bed and say “Hallelujah, I’m healed!” But they didn’t complain or whine much about missing out on all the things we planned. Yes, I still had to get up over and over to get them water, fix their covers and rub their chest with Vic’s Vapor Rub (again). But God granted me more patience than I usually have and a great husband and parents who got up every morning so I could sleep in. It’s such a cliché that God always answers our prayers, just not always in the way we hoped, and yet it is a truth that too often seems to take me by surprise.

So this Christmas, be prepared. You will be disappointed, either by something that is or isn’t under the tree or more likely something someone does or doesn’t say or do. In your disappointment, however, try to remember just what you are celebrating. We recognize the birth of Jesus as the great gift-the deliverance of mankind from bondage and death. But for some who had looked forward to his birth, it was the greatest disappointment of their lives. Sometimes the greatest blessings come in forms you don’t expect, whether you are looking for the Dairy Queen or the Messiah.