A Decade of Fifi

This little girl made me a mummy ten years ago. Baby Fifi, born a tad early, with complications that would have killed us both 100 years ago, was cut out into this world ten years ago.

She turned this guy into a daddy. She cried a lot and refused to settle for him but managed to wrap herself around his little finger regardless. He worried for her life on that day and still worries for her today, ten years later.

She took two kids and turned them into parents. She taught them how to love something greater than themselves, how to fear all the bad in the world, how to be patient and control their tempers, how to be good at parenting while only seeing how bad they are at it.

And she became her own little person very quickly. A girl who loves learning, loves people and is wise beyond her years.

She became a young woman with ambitions, goals and dreams. She is not afraid of a world that wants to hold women back; she wants to defeat that world and achieve mighty things.

Today she turns ten. A decade of Fifi has made this mummy wiser and yet more aware of how much I have still to learn. This girl teaches me so much. She is an unrelenting yet gracious mirror reflecting all my strengths and weaknesses, all the good in the world and all the challenges. She is strong and tender, honest and careful, teetering on the brink of womanhood but still an innocent child.

I am so honored to be this girl's mother. If I could take credit for her amazing nature, compassion and intelligence, I would. But it's all her. I'm just thankful to the stars I get to love her.

The Pregnant Tree

The Pregnant Tree we called her
belly bloated, bark stretched across a hallow womb.
Lifelessly pregnant
she still stands, through the decades,
refusing to bend to the ground
rooted to dirt by a spine of rotted wood.
Does she feel the hallow, wide open hole?
Does she know she is empty, a pitiful tree
by a road no one drives and no one will cut down
since she matters nothing?
Does she feel the sorrow of her existence?
Does she choose to live out of ignorance
or of womanly determination?








I don't normally share poems until I've performed a full autopsy on them but today you get a sneak peak - a raw poem, one too prosaic for me to love, fresh out of the box, with too many adjectives, one I'll hate in a few hours for its mawkishness and didacticism. But I'm feeling mawkish and didactic today. You're welcome.

Dear Wayback Machine

Dear Wayback Machine:

Thank you for helping me unearth some of the most cringe-worthy pieces of writing I've ever committed to paper and for capturing my barely passable web and graphic design skills and for reminding me once again just how unbearably pretentious and annoying I was in college.

It all started with Geocities...

Unfortunately, there isn't much archived from that page. Pity too. I had tabs called "art", "poetry" and "jesus". Although actually the Jesus link still works, and so does "quotes". And how about that awesome copyright?

geocities.com/dj_xia - about me page

Then I entered the world of domain names and Dreamweaver and voila. Superlori.com was born.

superlori.com

Then I got married and two websites (well a website and a Xanga) became one.  Meet the original scottandlori.co.uk.  This might be the most cringy thing I've ever seen. Complete with a "Books to Burn" list in the sidebar. Puuuuke.

scottandlori.co.uk - 2005

The site progressed, as websites do...

scottandlori.co.uk - 2006

These were the days of interactive images. (Go ahead, scroll over.)

scottandlori.co.uk - 2007

And everything was in web frames.

Finally I got tired of designing my own sites with Dreamweaver and resorted to using Blogger's own templates. Which I still use today because I finally realized I'm really not a web designer.

scottandlori.co.uk - July 2011

And to bring it all full circle, we finally managed to catch scottandlori.com after vying for it for years. The previous owners released it, and we snatched it up. We became a dot com.

scottandlori.com

Through these sites I found not just bad web design and embarrassing blog posts. I also found some essays I'd written in college. I'd like to share them with you, but I don't have it in me to be that self-deprecating.  My essay on the Jonathan Edwards' sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" for instance made me want to punch a baby penguin. My "creative non-fiction" piece about childhood imagination made me gag and roll my eyes and cry a little for what a terrible writer I was.  But I will give you this - the least cringe-worthy piece of them all - my creative response to John Donne's poem "The Flea".

Thank you, Wayback Machine. No really, I can't thank you enough. I now marvel at the fact I had any friends at all.  Ta.

Lori Arnold

WLIT

April 26,2001

The Flea's Response: A Letter To the Editor

Dear Editor:

My name is William J. Bennet, more infamously known as just "the flea". I am writing on behalf of a highly offensive poem published by Mr. John Donne. I am an upright citizen, who believes in morality and decency; this man has carelessly involved me in all sorts of indecorous deeds. I would like to state that I would never engage myself in the fornication or seduction of which he has accused me. In this letter, I would like to publicly state that I had nothing to do with the conspiracies of this man to entangle his mistress into the act of pre-marital lovemaking, and to correct any and all fallacies presented in his poem, "The Flea."

First, I would like to comment on his insulting remark regarding my size. He states "How little that which thou deny'st me is". Excuse me for having self-confidence, but I believe that, despite my size, I have worth. However, for the sake of argument, let us agree that I am quite small. Mr. Donne would like to imply that the act of fornication bears no more importance than a flea. This is simply not true; sex is created for marriage, and in my opinion, to take it out of that strict limitation is a far bigger ordeal on the Scale of Importance than what he perceives a flea to be.

Now I will admit that, yes, I did indeed bite both of them. However, Mr. Donne blew that mild and God-created instinct out of proportion. I bite because I am a flea; I bite because I am hungry. This is my humble rank in the food chain. I do not grumble over my existence; nay, I eat for survival and expect others to do the same. He is correct in saying that this is neither "a sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead." Yet, he then goes on to accuse me of enjoying the blood in a sexual manner. I, in no way, had the foul intentions of creating a "marriage bed", when in my stomach their "two bloods mingled be." I am a flea. Yes, I enjoyed my meal, but the implications made were simply horrifying. Mr. Donne goes even further to say that what I have done was so crass that it was more than what his mistress would do with him. These accusations are so humiliating that I am red-faced just addressing them.

Mr. Donne seems to have the idea that three lives now exist within me. Before I go on, allow me to point out the ludicrousness of this point. If he would like to believe that now they are "more than married" because his blood was mingled with hers, then he must also believe that he is "more than married" to the ten other people who I had bitten within that same period of time. But to remain on topic, Mr. Donne tries to convince this chaste woman that in me lays their only "marriage temple," of which I have already stated was purely coincidental. I would like to say that no "temple" has been crafted inside me that would compromise anyone's morality, as would be the case in this particular circumstance. I shall never approve of pre-marital intercourse, and therefore would never help others to facilitate it.

I must commend this woman for staying true to the morals instilled in her by the church and her parents. Mr. Donne seems to ridicule her for it, and perhaps even shame her, comparing the provision of her parents to a prison of darkness. I can even forgive her for her murderous intentions, for at least they were sincere. Mr. Donne shows no sincerity when he beckons her to resist. His only argument was that if she killed me, she would not only be committing one crime, but three: two murders, and a suicide. He reasons that he and she live in me, and I adamantly refute that. I am outraged by the despicable and cunning techniques he uses in his attempt to convince her to participate in his debauchery. He has turned her own convictions against her, causing confusion over which deeds are ethically better or worse. If this were not wicked enough, he involves me, an innocent passer-by, in his vile machinations!

I must now clear up yet another misrepresentation. His lady did not kill me. On the contrary, I promptly left the scene after biting the couple. I had a stomachache and needed a respite. Hours later, I was informed that a dear companion of mine, Donald McNeil, was mistaken for me and "purpled thy nail" of Mr. Donne's mistress. Truly it was the "blood of innocence." I weep now, remembering my friend and how his life could have been spared had not Mr. Donne brought us into his extended metaphor, his conceit. My pain increased when I read his careless remark about the situation. The only thought on this man's mind was sex. He had asked her before to spare my life, even though for selfish gain, but that was put-on. I realized he did not care whether I lived or died when, instead of rebuking his mistress, he uses the opportunity to make another point for his defense. He has the audacity to tell her that by murdering the flea she mistook for me no harm was done, similar to the harmlessness that would ensue after an unbridled sexual experience with him. I find this purely offensive.

I took this poem to be a personal assault on my character. I do hope that in writing this letter I have sufficiently cleared my name and regained my dignity. Once more I declare that I am innocent of these accusations brought before me in this poem by Mr. John Donne.

Thank you,

Mr. William J. Bennet

Sunday Sermon: Give Blood and Save a Life

The first place I ever gave blood was in the Fine Arts Auditorium at my high school, when I was a junior or senior. I felt proud to be a part of something that felt bigger and more important than me. I went on to give blood any time there was a blood drive, usually on the high school or college campus.

After college, I didn't get the chance to donate for a while due to a series of temporary deferments - tattoos, piercings, pregnancy. I mistakenly believed I couldn't give while breastfeeding as well, though that turns out to have been untrue.

It hadn't occurred to me to give blood again until I moved back to the US in 2013. In April 2014, a series of tornadoes swept through Arkansas, leaving a path of destruction through the nearby town of Vilonia. My neighbor and good friend Amy had close friends in Vilonia, so the relief efforts became personal to me. She and I went to the disaster site to help clear the wreckage, and we collected donations of clothing and other supplies for the victims of the tornado. It occurred to me then to also give blood.

I had two kids not in school yet, so I prepared Lolly with a fully charged tablet and a bag of snacks and toys for Jaguar, put the stroller in the trunk, and drove the kids to Little Rock so I could donate blood. When I got to the blood donation center, I was handed a clipboard with forms and a checklist of criteria to meet. I started to fill in the forms when I saw some information I had not expected; because of my time living in the UK, I was deferred from giving*. For life.

Trying to stay composed, I returned the clipboard to one of the workers and took the children back to the car. I turned on the ignition but before I could back out of the parking space, I burst into tears. I sobbed into the steering wheel, devastated that I would never be able to give blood again for the rest of my life. Deferred for life. I cried for a solid five minutes before composing myself and driving back home.

Now I work for the American Red Cross, and every day I feel sadness over my inability to donate blood. I was good at donating; I could give a pint fast with no side effects, no dizziness. I've learned since working here about platelet donations too, and my heart hurts knowing I could absolutely give that kind of time to give platelets (it's more time consuming, so platelet donations are harder to come by).

The Red Cross has issued an emergency appeal for blood and platelets due to a severe winter shortage. With holidays and bad weather, fewer people are able to get out to donate and blood drives can often be cancelled due to weather. This year, with Hurricane Matthew, many blood drives were cancelled. Right now, blood is being distributed to hospitals faster than it's coming in.

Another thing I've learned in my new job is the need for blood to be already "on the shelf" in case of an emergency. After donation, there is 24 hours before the blood is ready to be given to another person. When disasters like tornadoes or Hurricane Matthew occur, blood needs to be ready and waiting right then. People tend to flock to donation centers after disasters, which is fantastic, but those blood products are not available until a day later.

Blood and blood products help emergency victims, cancer patients and all kinds of people with other life-threatening illnesses or undergoing surgeries. When I had my c-section, with the risk of hemorrhage I was under (the placenta was going to have to be cut through to get Fifi out), the surgeons had blood waiting for me right there, should I need it.

It breaks my heart that I am not able to do my part anymore in donating blood. So I implore all of you reading this, in whatever country you are in - if you are able to donate blood or platelets, please do! Roll up a sleeve and save a life. Do it on my behalf. My friend Elizabeth, during the Vilonia tornado, heard my story and donated blood for me. It made me cry all over again. If you decide to give blood after reading this, please let me know. I may not be able to give my own blood, but if I can urge multiple people to go in my place, I'll have done more than only I could have done to start with.

That's my sermon for this Sunday morning. Let's save lives and give now. If you can't give blood yourself, ask someone else to donate in your place. I truly believe that together, we can make a difference around the world and save innumerable lives.

For a list of blood drives in Arkansas, visit the Arkansas Red Alert blog. For other blood drives across the US, visit redcross.org/give-blood.


*While writing this blog, I did some additional research into eligibility criteria, and I am starting to wonder if the information I was given that day was incorrect or has since changed. I will be finding out first thing Monday morning when I arrive to work! Our office is also a blood donation center, so I'm going to be getting some clarification! 

Lost In Just Living - Tripping Daisy Revived

We swung open the doors to Vino's, and there he was. His back was to us, but we'd know him anywhere. Jeans, t-shirt, messy hair - it was Wes Berggren of Tripping Daisy. This felt like a dream. It was my first time at Vino's, and Tripping Daisy was without any shred of doubt my favorite band. And here they were right in front of me.

I wasn't there to see them play though. My parents had forbidden me to go see the show. Even though Vino's was an all-ages venue, and Tripping Daisy were a totally non-controversial band - they barely even cussed in their songs - I was not allowed to see the show.

I probably could have flat out lied, but I chose the slightly more honest route. I wouldn't stay for the show, but I'd show up early, meet them, and listen to sound check. It was the best I could do without having to lie.

Oswald's Pool

Lane, Patrick and Alex were in a band called Oswald's Pool. Lane was my boyfriend, and he was the one to introduce me to Tripping Daisy. In fact, he introduced me to music. Before Tripping Daisy, I listened to whatever my folks had on the radio. I had a few CDs I'd inherited from a friend - Sublime and 311, if I recall correctly - and several Contemporary Christian Music tapes (DC Talk, Point of Grace, Lisa Bevill, Petra, Stephen Curtis Chapman...). Then Lane introduced me to TD, and my world was flipped inside out. TD, along with Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros, became the soundtrack of my life, but Tripping Daisy was by far the band that opened up a new world to me. I knew every song and had every album and knew all the trivia, and though the internet was still a baby, I'd searched it up and down for photos of the band that I could print off and tape to all my notebooks. 

And now, there we were, Lane, Patrick, Alex and I, standing in Vino's, ten feet away from the guitarist.

A few minutes later, we spotted Tim DeLaughter, the singer and frontman. The guys had met Tripping Daisy before, and assuming my memory isn't telling lies, Oswald's Pool had even opened for them once with the theme tune from Muppet Babies. They introduced me to Tim, and later Mark Pirro, Philip Karnats and Ben Curtis, and eventually Wes. Tim signed Lane's cup "Love, Tim" with a heart and arrow and let us stick an Oswald's Pool sticker on one of their amps.  We sat in the front tables during sound check, and nothing in my life came anywhere close to euphoria of hearing them sing tunes from Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb right there in front of me, live. I bought a poster. And then, like a good little girl, I went home before the show started. I was heartbroken.

A few years later, Wes Berggren died, and Tripping Daisy was no more.

T-shirt still fits

I never got to see Tripping Daisy play a live show. I had t-shirts, posters, albums, bootlegs, and when Tim DeLaughter started his new band Polyphonic Spree, I was in the fan club and got the first release of the album, back when the songs didn't even have names, just numbers. In college as a radio dj for the student station KXUA 88.3 I did a feature show on Tripping Daisy in which I played two hours of Tripping Daisy, filling in the gaps with trivia and taking requests from fans over the phone. I also wrote a research essay about them in my Folk and Pop Music Traditions class entitled "Lost In Just Living". 

Several years later, while living in Scotland, Polyphonic Spree came to Edinburgh. I got the chance to see Tim, Mark and Bryan Wakeland play in their new band. I stood in the front row, sang every song along with them and left that night feeling like a little part of something I'd missed out on had been restored. After all, I'd never have the chance to see Tripping Daisy live, so Polyphonic Spree was the next best thing.

Y'all, until now. Yesterday I found out that Tripping Daisy are playing at the Homegrown Festival in Dallas in May. This will be their first show in 17 years. And I now have tickets. 

It's time to pull out Bill, I am an Elastic Firecracker, Jesus Hits, Tops Off Our Heads, Get It On, Time Capsule and the self-titled final album Tripping Daisy. (I never did score the Hook Music EP, but Lane had it.) I have a lot of listening, crying and reminiscing to do. 

See you in May, boys.

Brokenness: I Write My Way Out

Brokenness, brokenness is what I long for

Brokenness is what I need

Brokenness, brokenness is what you want for me.*

That praise and worship song was usually played with the lights of the sanctuary low, the guitar soft, eyes closed and hands raised. It was often accompanied by tears, salty drops catching in the corner of my mouth, tears of either pain, longing or shame. Either I was broken as I sang or I wasn't broken and I wanted to be. To be broken meant the Lord could work in me, change me, "take my heart and mold it, take my mind and transform it, take my will and conform it" to his. This was my desire.

This is the desire of so many evangelical Christians, and this was my desire my whole life, most specifically through my 20s. Certainly from college to 30, I set my mind hard on Christ, set my heart steadily on loving and serving him and set my will solidly to do whatever he asked of me. I did not always succeed though, so in those times of selfishness and sinfulness, I longed and pleaded for brokenness. 

And I usually found it. As it turns out, I spent at least a decade, a good third of my life, being broken. This was something I believed was good and right and pure. This is something the church, nay, the Bible, taught me.

A Sunday morning in brokenness meant I was truly finding God. I left those services for a Sunday afternoon of renewal, as if leaving those lowered lights into the sunshine was clarity and a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit, powering through me to give me strength needed for the rest of the week. If I could live in a state of brokenness before the Lord, I would be living in the light, becoming more like Jesus, the most broken of us all. 

I spent most of my life in brokenness and wearing it as a heavenly and meek badge of honor. I lived most of my life seeking weakness, for it is in our weakness that he is strong. When I did not feel weak or broken, I was ashamed and cried out to God for it. I could only feel strength if it was Christ's strength in me, not my own. Nothing good could come of me, a depraved human being undeserving of Christ's love and sacrifice. I had nothing of myself to be proud of or to find strength in. Only the strength given to me by God could count as strength I could depend on. These principles were clear in Scripture, and I took them deeply to heart.

And I was happy. I truly felt happy. I was not a sad, pathetic, depressed woman moping around, feeling broken and weak. No, I was clothed in the robes of righteousness, I was empowered by the Holy Spirit, I was made whole by Jesus' sacrifice on the cross! When I did find myself in bouts of depression, I cried out for deliverance, begged for the Holy Spirit to make me whole again. I never believed Marilla's line that to be in the "depths of despair is to turn your back on God" (Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery). Rather it was an opportunity to rely on his strength and accept my weakness and turn something bad into something that would make me grow.  Growth is painful, I believed. The growing pains of becoming more like Christ and shedding my earthly flesh is uncomfortable but will be eternally worth it when I approach those pearly gates at the end of my time on this earth.

All of this was the mysterious paradox of Christianity. In our weakness we are made strong. When we empty ourselves, he fills us up.  There is no condemnation, even though we are evil in our innermost being and deserve eternal damnation. In our brokenness, we will be made whole. If we submit ourselves to Christ, we will be free. 

I've been separated from Christianity for about three years now. As the scales fall from my eyes and I dig deeper into who I am, I am finding that a lifetime of brokenness has, well, broken me.

A lifetime of trying to be weak has made me now despise any sign of weakness.

The way I made my religion the sole focus and purpose of my life, with all other things bowing down to it, was not, as I had always believed, a healthy way to live. It was damaging.

Striving so hard for brokenness did not lead to health; it led to illness.

Believing so strongly that I was worthless and my only worth was found in a spiritual being was not salvation; it was destruction.

I am only just beginning to discover my own worth and my own strength. I am only just starting my journey towards healing and wholeness out of brokenness.

And when my prayers to God were met with indifference

I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance.**

I only know how to take this journey through writing.  My words may hurt, sting, offend, break hearts. They may stir the longing in many to correct my understanding, to tell me I went about my faith all wrong, but I didn't. If in your church you sing that brokenness is what you long for, then you know all of this is true. If you have read Scripture, you know that we are considered unworthy, sinful, evil in our hearts, and the only way to find salvation is to submit everything we are and have to God. We are to completely discard our flesh and live in the spirit. We are not of us this world, just living in it. Following the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength is what is required of us. 

It's taken me years to realize just how much it required of me. It required too much. For too long I surrendered "all of my ambitions, hopes and plans...all I am and ever hope to be"*** to a belief system.  So I write my way out.

Running on empty, there was nothing left in me but doubt

I picked up a pen

And I wrote my way out.****

It won't be all I write about this year, but there is a lot of psychological, emotional and mental unpacking I plan on doing this year. For the first time in my life, I am looking at myself and my own needs and desires to figure out the right way to handle them. I am discovering that having my own ambitions, hopes and plans, finding strength in myself, sometimes putting my needs first, and trusting that I am good in my innermost being is actually a healthy way of seeing myself. And the only way I know how to uncover these truths is through the written word.  So as 2017 unfolds, I plan to write my way out of a broken and damaged spirit. I apologize in advance to anyone who may be hurt or offended. And I reach out now to anyone struggling with the same issues. I believe we can be made whole.

* "Take My Life" - Micah Stampley
** "Hurricane" - Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
*** "All For Jesus" - Robin Mark

**** "Wrote My Way Out" - Nas, Dave East, Lin-Manuel Miranda & Aloe Blacc, The Hamilton Mixtape