I spied the soft curves of a glossy, white base peeking out from beneath a moss-green toile shade, and that was it. Game over. The little sucker reeled me right in. Even though my home is at lamp-capacity, I fished out my checkbook.

So, for now, said lamp is perching on a filing cabinet in my den, still sheathed in her plastic overlay, cord wound neatly, bulb-less. I just stare at her and smile. Can you love an appliance?

Over dinner, I want to tell my aunt about my little splurge. I’m a bit of a zealot about the budget, though, so I’m embarrassed to admit I bought something I can’t even plug in. My rational brain reminds me that, no matter how great a steal (she was only $10!),  if I can’t use her I’ve ultimately overpaid.

But I have to gush. She is so lovely, I tell my aunt.

My aunt just laughs. “Your grandma had a thing for lamps, too.”

And then, my aunt goes on to chronicle the lamps in Grandma’s house, and I begin to recall them, one by one – it’s like someone is blowing the dust off a stack of old photographs.  There is the Tiffany-style one that sat next to the sugar bowl on the kitchen hutch.  And, the emerald one arching over Papa’s desk, with the gold cord you could yank on and off (and on and off).  Then, there was the one with the shepherd figurine as the base, his hand raised to his brow as he blocked the sun, inspecting his flock.

And now, as I’m writing, I remember my favorite of all: the touch lamp from Grandma’s “smoking-room.” You had to tap the metal base one, two, three times and it would slowly glow brighter, brighter, brighter. I loved it so much that,  for my thirteenth birthday, she gave me one just like it.

At 26, I do some quick math and see I have lived just as much of my life with her in it as I have without her.  Time has dimmed my memory, and I have begun to forget. But in a small way, realizing this quirky passion for lamps is something I may have “inherited,” part of her is back, brilliant.

And so now, as  I pass my toile-shaded beauty, my smile bubbles up from somewhere even deeper. I am not another victim of a compulsive shopping disorder; I simply have the “light gene.” 

Grandma and I are philophosphorers, we’ll call it. Lovers of light.

See, when I reached out to grab my high school diploma, I was determined to study chemistry. I was (maybe still am) 100 percent geek. I spent so much time in the science lab that my bell-bottoms were acid-washed before acid-wash was cool.

But it wasn’t the goggles, tongs and titrations that sucked me in. It was the relationships – atomic personalities fascinated me. Why some were so generous at sharing their electrons, while others a bit more possessive? I marveled at how they came together into things that were new and different. I found it poetic that they were more stable when coupled up, tripled up, connected – a molecular family. Unbreakable.

I loved seeing these small connections, these microscopic marriages, and the beautiful order that dictated them; part math, part mystery.

But I have left that world behind. And words, you see, are to blame. They stole me.

Even more than I love watching how 117 known elements can link up together to create the material world — clouds, wax, blood, Pepsi, my Snuggie, Jell-O, wood,  diamond, the very computer keys I’m hammering — yes, even more than that, I love words.

Because with just 26 letters (if you’re English-speaking, at least), I think there is even more power. You can tell stories; you can create whole worlds out of nothing. Want it to rain chocolate syrup? Want to see what would happen if the planet skidded just slightly out of her orbit?  Do it,  and then watch. But  what’s even more mind-boggling is your prerogative to create people, characters — the ones you’d love to meet for coffee, even the one who you’d hate to drive behind. You can hear their innermost thoughts, know their hearts, and best of all: you can move them around like puppets.

Is reality more your cup of tea? Well, in my opinion, even better. You can move real people, too. You can craft an apology that mends a friendship — or a zinger that obliterates one. You can lead a heart toward truth, or plant just enough doubt to keep it frozen still. Your praise can be the gust of wind that carries a ship into shore, your harsh critique the current that beats it back.

You can woo a lover, or withhold your words and starve them. You can ask questions on paper that make other minds hungry.

So, when it came time for me to choose art or science  – the laptop or the test-tube – I knew what I had to do.

I chose words.

When God made me, He carved out a part of me that will always ache for the right words, and the skill to string them together to capture perfect truth; to lasso a dead-on description, to tether down a fluttering feeling before it flies away.

This day in age, we’re told to revel in our youth, shun real commitment for the bulk of our twenties, and “live it up.”

Travel. Become financially stable. Find yourself. 

Facebook, Twitter, and let’s be honest, even blogs, only compound the problem…we are constantly self-monitoring, gazing into this electronic mirror, reinventing ourselves. Our brand. All these gadgets and platforms parade around as democratizing tools, built to help us “stay connected.” But ultimately, they’re so wildly successful because they prop up a sexy (if ancient) little lie – that maybe, just maybe, it really is all about me.

But, boy do I know, it’s not.

And I know that if I’m to truly grow up, then I have to keep growing outward…that is, I need to make a valiant effort to begin focusing on people and purposes outside myself.

For starters, my goldfish.

So…how are you going to grow outward in 2010?

Then, a romantic friendship blossoms where Sadie least expects it — between her and wealthy California businessman Kade Saunders, who is renting the spare cottage on her back property. This forbidden relationship raises a lot of eyebrows in the community, as well as a lot of questions in Sadie’s heart. But slowly, Kade (and his autistic son, Tyler) begin to shatter her prejudices both about outsiders and about God’s designs for her future. 

This book was romantic  (especially since I read it in December, with the snow falling in Rochester, NY), and moved quickly, with a few sharp turns, and love triangles (interestingly, in some cases, with a long-lost lover).  A couple characters (Milo, Sadie’s pen pal, for one) fell a little flat, and a couple emotional points (Kade suffers a major loss in the book as well, but barely grieves it) could have been better explored — but all in all, I’m glad I took the time to snuggle up with this novel. It’s biggest messages to me are important ones: That Christians are not immune from pain, doubt and worry, and that the occasional second-guessing of God’s concern or God’s swiftness-to-act does not nullify out faith. Rather, if we let Him, God uses these trials to builds our trust and equip us to later counsel and comfort others.

If you can, snag a copy.

Last night, I confessed to this new circle of friends that I jokingly refer to myself as a ”control freak.” 

And when I’m declaring this tight-fistedness, this desire of mine to be the queen, here’s the funny part: if you listen closely, you’ll hear I’m almost proud of it.  I’m not admitting a flaw; I’m proclaiming it, almost as if I actually think it’s an enviable trait.

Isn’t it? Isn’t my desire to micro-manage a natural extension of me being a responsible person? Isn’t it diligence, raised to the sixth power? I see things through to completion; I care about details; I work hard.

Naturally, I care about outcomes. If I exert enough force on most situations, I can shape them.

What I fail to admit is that some things aren’t within my control. In fact, quite a few things. And so, when I’m done working, my brain refuses to stop along with my hands, and it keeps turning ideas and scenarios over, test-driving solutions, trying to manage situations. Most people call this worrying, but that’s a euphemism. It is something much more ludicrous. It’s telekinesis. I’m trying to move mountains, to undo situations,to rewind missteps, with nothing more than my mind.

As if this cerebral-energy can somehow nudge or tip the scales in my favor. As if my fretting, my obsessing, can change a single thing.

What I fail to say is that, in these moments when I refuse to let go, I am not simply embracing my inner “control freak.” I am sending a much louder message — I am holding a megaphone to my mouth and announcing that I can’t trust God to handle this. World, I don’t believe that He cares. I doubt that His solution, His answer, will ultimately be the best one for me in the long run.

That’s not the message I want to send, because it’s not what I believe. But getting my head and heart in synch is hard.  And living out a lack of faith in His goodness, His power, His true concern and interest in even the trivial froth of my life…it is exhausting.

The car can make so much as a gurgling sound, and my day is derailed. Worry, in so many ways, consumes me.

I need to check my worries at the door and let go to God’s capable hands. When my planning is done, when I fold my hands, I need to do just that. Fold my hands. To pray. To trust. To rest.

But for me, autumn has always been the real chance to reinvent myself, to be different, to recharge, to dream anew.

I remember being a teenager. Each year, as August slipped away, my sisters and I would start to pore over Sunday ads, carefully sketching out lists, projecting costs and deciding how we were going to stretch the $100 that mom would mete out (as soon as we could handle the back-to-school shopping ourselves). There were late nights cuddled up on our twin beds, strategizing, proudly unveiling our lists as we plotted how we would infuse our wardrobes with new shoes, a cool purse, a few pairs of slack and new sweaters.

I knew that new jeans wouldn’t change me. Neither would a new haircut, or a new line-up of classes. But the prospect of change, however false — it thrilled me. I love new beginnings. I am a sucker for the plasticy smell of new binders, new shoes; I love cracking open a new book and fanning the pages to kick up the paper’s scent. And don’t even get me started on the first silky swipe of  a new tube of lipstick.

Why do such small possibilities seduce me? Why the desire, each fall, to become someone different, someone better?

Someone driven. Someone who sticks to plans, who drags herself onto the treadmill each morning — not this Teflon version of me who smacks the snooze button. Someone with clockwork consistency, not this woman who fritters nights away surfing the net and then laments that she ”hasn’t enough time” to be serious about her writing. Someone who gets to work a half hour early, already caffeinated. Someone who will be better about calling her friends.

I am not sure. And even if I could lay a finger on it, I could not cure it. Somehow, the first fiery blush will light up the trees; the first leaves will waft down to settle on the cold, wet morning grass; the smell of a smoky fire will warm my nose on a crisp night, and something in me will flutter, enchanted by the possibility that maybe, just maybe, this year it will be different. I begin to hope that something is coming, that I can grow, that I can change, that my life’s purpose is within reach.

Praise God for Septembers; for rekindled passion for new hopes, new desires, new dreams.

For about a year, we tucked that money in a savings account earmarked for Walt Disney World. When we’d hit our magic number, we hopped a flight, stayed at the cheapest motel off the resort, and grabbed drive-through Egg McMuffins before storming Cinderella’s Castle.

One exhibit stands out tonight. I can’t recall which park we found it in (maybe Epcot?), but it felt as if you had shrunk to the size of a ketchup bottle and stepped inside your refrigerator, only to find it was a Broadway stage, and a carton of milk was two-stepping with a slice of bread, serenading its whole-wheat sweetheart about its nutritional virtues.

And then, that act was quickly followed by a singing strawberry, belting out a strange remake of the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” — my memory is sloppy, but it was something along the lines of “Every Bite You Take…Becomes a Part of You.”

So, why this very absurd blast from the past, complete with crooning fruits and veggies? Because it’s absolutely true.  Because every single thing counts, whether it’s a stick of gum or a fish-oil supplement or a Boston-Cream donut or a slice of salami. What you put into your body matters, because our digestive tract is designed to yank it apart, draw strength from it, then shove it out or store it somewhere. Our food fuels us; often, it even becomes part of us.

But it’s not just food intake we have to consider. It’s what we read, what we watch on Monday nights, what we download to on our iPods, what friends we surround ourselves with. Our mind is made to digest ideas, too, and to pull bits and pieces from our daily lives, extract strength from them, shove some out and store others. What we read, watch, listen to, and who we consort with, not only fuels us — it, too, becomes part of us.

But friends and books and TV shows and songs don’t come with a handy panel decoding their “nutritional value.” The major “nutrients” that promise a strong and healthy thought life — qualities neatly laid out in Philippians 4:8 — are rarely parsed out, measured, and served up in “percent daily values.”

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

This said, I’m trying to pay more attention to what I feed my mind. There’s a whole technique for weight-loss called “mindful eating,” and it more or less boils down to, drum roll: being cognizant of the fact that you’re shoving  food in your mouth.

Seems insultingly simple. But apply it to your thought life for just a moment and you’ll see that, ironically, we’re not very “mindful” at all about what we consume. Almost mechanically, we go through motions, unaware of what philosophies we graze on, attitudes we fill up on, what truths we’re dangerously starved for. We’re oblivious, all too often, of the reality that there are repercussions for these hundreds of tiny decisions. Major repercussions, actually…like the sobering fact that, little by little, these thoughts start to define us.

As part of my effort to be more aware of what I read and watch, of what ideas I gobble down, I’ve signed up with Thomas Nelson Publishers to be a book review blogger (see the widget on the sidebar). This is just one small way I can practice living out my conviction that I really, really believe that what we read is important. I want to start analyzing the “nutritional” merits and the mind-molding power of books with a more critical eye.

I also want to score free copies in the process.

The first (a novel) comes in about a week. I’ll keep you posted.