Colliding Strollers, Albino Families, and Dressing Room Thieves–In Other Words, the Strange Experiences I’ve Had At Malls

I was out shopping yesterday, when I saw the oddest thing: a young mother, carrying a baby in one arm and a dog in the other arm. While attempting to shop. And talk on a cell phone.  

The kicker to this all? We were at TJ Maxx.  

Ok--Mischa Barton can actually pay for the things her dogs may piddle on while at the mall...

It might be one thing if I saw this in an upscale department store in Orange County. Or Vegas.  

But seriously–a TJ Maxx in St. Louis? Who are we trying to kid here?  

I tend to think that you should only bring your dog shopping with you for one of the following reasons:  

 A) You actually need a service dog  

B) You have enough money to pay for whatever your dog urinates on with cash  

C) You’re shopping for your dog (which puts you in a class of your own–a special one, where they have cute little white jackets just for you)  

This serious breach of petiquette only served to remind me of the other very odd things I’ve seen while at shopping malls…  

While shopping at a Nordstrom Rack in Costa Mesa, California, I saw two mothers literally run across the store towards the designer jeans display and smash their strollers (babies inside!) headlong into each other. The babies screamed while the women swore at each other. I stood and watched from a few feet away, horrified and slightly amused that neither one of the women even bothered to check and see if her crying baby had been harmed in the head-on collision.  

While shopping at the Galleria in St. Louis a few months ago, I spotted a family of albino African-American women. They had pink eyes and everything. I felt a little like I was trapped in a strange M. Night Shyamalan movie, and that any minute a fantastical creature would come soaring out of the rafters and disappear into thin air (which would probably make a more cohesive story line than The Happening, really).  

As a high schooler shopping at a mall in Minnesota, I had a very creepy sensation that someone was watching me as I piled up my arms with sale clothing from the teen department. I furtively glanced around, and noticed a middle-aged blonde woman watching me like a hawk. Disregarding my personal safety for the sake of fashion, I ducked into a dressing room to try on the clothing I had acquired. I tried everything on, and had carefully organized the clothes I was planning to buy onto one hook. Leaving my shoes and clothes, I walked out of the dressing room stall and grabbed another size of the shirt I was wearing. When I returned–less than a minute later–I found all of the clothes I had just tried on gone.  

Of course, not being the type of person that gives up easily, I staked out the dressing room in a fury and waited until the blonde woman stepped out herself to grab another size. Then I stole all my clothes back and ran across the store to another dressing room.  

A few years ago, I saw Dennis Rodman walking through the Spectrum in Irvine, California. He was dressed in bright purple with a gigantic fur-rimmed hat, and had about a dozen screaming children running around him–each bouncing  a basketball and weaving around other people in the outdoor shopping center. The outfit itself would’ve been weird on its own–but the screaming basketball-playing munchkins were the icing on the cake.  

I was shopping with my friend Kelsey once in Minnesota, when we heard the store alarm go off and saw a man sprinting out the door. The saleswoman helping us–a young blonde girl–almost started crying as she realized it was an attempted burglary. Store security guards immediately ran over, and found a black garbage bag packed to the brim with expensive designer purses totaling several thousands worth of dollars–which prompted me to wonder exactly how a twenty-year-old guy spent enough time in the purse department to gather up all these purses without attracting attention, and how not a soul noticed him dragging a gigantic trash bag all the way from one side of the store to another.   

After watching the frustrated security guards attempting to pump the useless store clerk for descriptions of the would-be thief, I finally gave them a complete head-to-toe description of the man, including the color of his shoes, clothes, and the design on his hat. I guess that’s one time when my overactive, hyper-aware  people-watching radar actually paid off.   

Sometimes I wonder how writers and directors get ideas for their zany characters. Apparently, one needs to go no further than the local mall in order to get a veritable cornucopia of different case studies.  

Oh, the stories I can tell my grandkids someday…

My Nearly-Blind Eyes Have Been Opened…

I can’t ever remember a time I was so relieved to have a week over.

Ok, maybe that’s not entirely accurate–I definitely looked forward to finishing up two weeks of Discovering the Arts Camp amidst moving into a brand-new apartment last summer.  I also couldn’t wait to finish up finals and graduate from college  a few years ago. And getting my braces off in high school was something I looked forward to for a long time. 

But, I digress.

On Sunday evening, 44 confirmation students stood up and publicly proclaimed their faith in Jesus Christ to 350 friends and relatives at our Confirmation Banquet. This is the very first class I’ve worked with from start to finish, and I couldn’t have been prouder. All of the kids did a great job speaking, and so many of them had heart-wrenching stories of how God’s been working in their lives and how they’ve grown spiritually through these last two years of confirmation. I heard so many great comments from parents, grandparents, and friends…and as one of the girls in my small group said, “I’m so glad I got to give my testimony–I have friends at other churches who wish they would’ve been able to do something like this, because it’s so important!”

Our small group: you can tell they just finished their testimonies, because they're all smiling!

Now that the stress of planning, coordinating, and feeding 350 people is over, I have some time to reflect.

God has certainly been at work mightily in the last few weeks. I don’t mean to say that He hasn’t been working powerfully all along–but I feel like my nearly-blind eyes can lately see the ways in which He’s moving more clearly than I usually can.

By the way, when I say “nearly-blind eyes”, I mean it. If I take my glasses off, I can’t see my toes. I mean, I can see the rough outline of a foot, but that’s it.

Through an incredibly traumatic week, I’ve seen our middle schoolers and parents throwing themselves into prayer. I’ve seen kids who wouldn’t normally talk to each other hugging each other fiercely, mutually sharing their sorrow without speaking a word. I’ve seen leaders and staff members living out their faith and shouldering difficult responsibility, all for the sake of reaching hurting students. It’s been incredible to see how the Holy Spirit is working through people.

At the same time, I’ve felt so uplifted at a time when I’ve been completely exhausted and drained. I don’t want to sound like a crazy person, but there were times last week when I actually felt like someone was praying for me–as one of my students described it, it felt like the Holy Spirit was “filling me up”.

During the last few hectic days, I was so strengthened by the love and encouragement poured out to me by so many people. I received about a dozen very sweet emails and messages, a bouquet of flowers from Kelly, and a hand-delivered cup of my favorite ice cream (Ted Drewes’ “All Shook Up”–who doesn’t love bananas and Reeses?) from Jane and Michelle. I can’t explain enough how much all of it meant to me, and how much it lifted me at a time when I needed it most.

I have a hard time comprehending how people cope with loss outside of Christ, and outside of a Christian community. Sure, I’ll be the first to admit that there are some people in church that drive me bonkers. And yes, there are plenty of times when all of us miss opportunities to be compassionate to each other. We’re not perfect, by any means.

But, in the times when I need my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, they are there for me. They lift me up when I need it. They pitch in and make amazing things happen in our community, and in the lives of so many people.

When I lose faith in humanity, humanity always rallies and redeems itself. And I think that’s evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in our world.

God in the Midst of our Community Tragedy

I’m struggling with how to possibly start explaining the events I’ve been through in the last week.

To begin with, I was already swamped. Our gigantic confirmation banquet is this weekend, so my schedule was packed every day with meetings with confirmands and more things than I could actually do in a workday (i.e. I didn’t eat lunch every day this week). Add to that the fact that all of the pastors and two-thirds of the rest of the staff were out of town at a conference, and you begin to see where this is going.

On Wednesday afternoon, one of my confirmands came in from school with the news that his cousin–a seventh grader named Chelsea who attended school with him right down the road from our church–had committed suicide.

I was shocked. She was only 13 years old.

In the ensuing hours, my cell phone buzzed with texts and phone calls. All afternoon and all evening–until 11:00 at night–I fielded phone calls from parents and students, Facebook messages, and texts. Students were incredibly shocked, and many didn’t even know how to process.

No one understood why…and no one had a clue that it would be this girl.

As I took a moment to breathe, I heard the church bells from the chapel across the road ringing out one of my favorite hymns: “Abide With Me.” I listened to that song, with a fresh understanding of what it meant. Abide with Jesus. Be in constant communication with Him as you go through something like this.

In the most chaotic moments, and in the moments in which I was comforting upset students, I truly think He was guiding me–without me even realizing it.

In the course of that evening, an idea began to take shape in my head. I felt compelled to open up our student center, the Hangar, as a safe place for students to come and grieve together. After a few phone calls to the staff in Florida, we set things in motion. I posted a message on my Facebook page, inviting students to come to the Hangar after school the next day.

By the time I woke up the next morning at 6:00 am, several of my students had reposted that message on their own page. I hastily sent several emails to staff members, explaining what was going on, and sent an email to my confirmation leaders, asking them to come pitch in that afternoon. I then headed to the middle school to see if they needed any extra help.

I hadn’t even pulled into the parking lot when I saw one of my seventh grade boys sitting on the playground, bawling his eyes out. I rolled down my window and talked to him, and then parked and ran inside.

As much as I had steeled myself for what I would likely face, I wasn’t even prepared.

The school was like a war zone. Students were sitting on the floor, standing, draped in stairwells–all sobbing. Some kids were just blindly wandering around, crying by themselves. I ducked into the office, and could barely squeeze in the door with the number of students congregated there with tears streaming down their faces. The secretaries were frantically answering call after call.

I sought out one of the adults standing in the office and managed to say, “I’m Cassie, I’m here from Faith Luth…”

They didn’t even let me finish. I was immediately grilled for information about the after-school open Hangar time, and then led downstairs by the guidance counselor.

As we were walking down, she quietly said, “This is nothing, upstairs. We’ve told everyone to come downstairs to process, down here in The Pit.”

I walked into The Pit, and was floored. All I could see was a sea of middle schoolers in this cafeteria, all in various stages of grief and distress.

I barely made it in the door before I heard, “Cassie’s here!” and had a whole swarm of Faith kids launch themselves at me. Even my eighth grade boys threw themselves at me and hugged me fiercely.

Literally every kid who had ever stepped foot at Faith or attended a youth event there came up and hugged me. Several wouldn’t leave my side.

I cried with them, seeing how devastated and heartbroken they were. In my mind, I pleaded with God to give me the right words to say to these kids.

I spent most of the school day there, comforting not only the Faith kids, but plenty of total strangers. The school was doing a great job handling the chaos. Everyone I saw, from the teachers to guidance counselors to the school police officer to even the janitors, were busy talking and counseling kids.

All day, I heard kids talking about coming to Faith that afternoon. Before I left school, the principal actually got on the intercom and made an announcement about it. I was stunned–not only that an announcement about our church was being made in a public school, but what I pictured as a small gathering of students was turning into something the entire school was talking about.

That afternoon, we had hundreds of students pour into the Hangar, and dozens of parents come in. Some arrived even before school had ended. In the end, Chelsea’s father and one of her brothers even came.

I was so thankful for our incredible staff and amazing leaders. The tiny staff that was left–Mary, DeeAnne, Andy, Steve, Wayne, and Dave–pulled together and made signs, slides, assembled tables and chairs, and prepared the Hangar for the giant onslaught of kids. The preschool sent over all of their staff to pitch in. Pastor Tim Wesemann came and brought tons of helpful resources for kids and parents. Randy King came and was our in-house counselor, and was able to give me some great advice on handling the kids. We had tons of middle school leaders–and a few high school leaders–come and spend time with these hurting kids. With little notice, they did an awesome job and were a great help.

I was drained–but so strengthened and appreciative of the many leaders who came up to me and whispered, “I’m praying for you!”

It was an amazing event, and we were able to pray for and connect with so many kids. God was so clearly working through so many people, and a lot of hurt kids were able to hear the saving Gospel message–straight from Chelsea’s grieving father himself.

To me, one of the most powerful ways God worked through this whole experience was how He prepared me. Several weeks ago, the editor of the LCMS youth ministry publication, the ESource, asked me to help her out and write a resource for suicide. The person who was going to do it apparently backed out at the last minute, and she needed it done in a week. She actually offered up two different topics I could write about–either suicide or handling grief in general. For some reason, even though I knew it would be the harder topic to research and write about, I was drawn to choosing the suicide topic. I researched like mad for a week, talking to every expert I could get a hold of to write this piece.

Originally, it was only supposed to be a Bible study on suicide. Instead, I opted to write an additional resource, a guide for parents and leaders to help youth cope with suicide. At the time I was writing it, a few weeks ago, I remember thinking that this would be the most helpful resource I could picture handing out to parents and leaders, if I were ever to encounter a suicide situation.

Amazing how God works, isn’t it?

I wrote the resource, and ended up being the very first one to use it.

Just a few weeks earlier, and I would’ve been wholly unprepared as to what to say and how to answer the “tough questions”.

We printed off copies of that resource, and every single parent I saw walk through the doors took one. Just being able to offer something to confused and emotional parents was evidence to me that God was so powerfully at work through this whole experience.

As I write this, exhausted and emotionally drained, I still marvel at how I’ve seen God work through all of this–in our leaders, in our staff, in our students, and in the situations that have played out. I know this is just the beginning of a long healing process for many kids and families, and my heart goes out to them. It’s no easy thing to handle suicide at any age, let alone when you’re as young as 11 or 12.

As I write this now, the church bells are softly ringing out, “O God, Our Help In Ages Past”. I know from memory the most poignant lines of that song:

“O God, our help in ages past,

our hope for years to come,

our shelter from the stormy blast,

and our eternal home.”

As one of my leaders said simply yesterday, “God is good.”

Like Newborn Kittens In the Ocean…

I’ve said it time and time again: our youth are facing incredibly huge issues today.

Over the last few weeks, our 8th grade confirmation students have been writing and preparing their faith testimonies–their stories of what they believe, how they’ve seen God work in their lives, and what sort of relationship they have with their Savior.

As the confirmation program director, I daily tackle the complex issues surrounding the leadership of 100 youth and over 30 adult leaders in our confirmation program. But, for these brief few weeks, I get to sit back from the heavy administrative side of that job and spend some serious time with many of these kids, as they walk through their testimonies with me.

Hearing what these kids have gone through in their relatively short lives is inspiring, and sometimes jaw-dropping. I’ve sat in stunned silence, listening to kids tell me about the death of parents and the impact of divorce on their lives, about diseases and depression, and about dealing with constant bullying and aggression directed towards them.

I’ve been shocked to find out that some of my biggest “headache” students (those that my kinder friend, Tam, would label “EGR” people–”Extra Grace Required”) have walked through situations that would likely rattle my adult faith. Yesterday, I met with a student who confided to me that he has spent his life dealing with Asperger’s, a syndrom that he tells me feels like he’s “constantly searching for a missing file in his brain” to come up with even the simplest response to a question–but since he’s been in school, he’s been mercilessly taunted and shunned for this. Yet, his identity rests so securely in God that he told me he refuses to respond to these cruel bullies, and instead reminds himself every time they tease him that “he’s a child of Christ” and it’s a “privilege” to suffer on this earth just like His Savior did.

Wow. Get me a box of Kleenex.

The more I immerse myself in the youth world (even when it requires painful things, like listening to teenie-bop Justin Bieber songs), the more clearly I see the challenges that our youth are facing daily. It’s like throwing a newborn kitten into a dangerously murky ocean teeming with ravenous sharks–they are doing their best to save themselves with their limited knowledge, but everything around them tempts them to succumb to the dark waters and the carnivores waiting for them.

Does that mean it’s any easier for me, a 24-year-old? Not necessarily. I had to tread a lot of those same dark waters–as did the many generations before me.

But do I think it’s gotten worse? Judging by the middle schoolers I spend the majority of my time with, yes. When I was in 8th grade, it wasn’t normal to have friends who cut, tweens who were suicidal, and boys who had access to porn on their cell phones. We didn’t have our own private lives via Facebook, and didn’t spend every waking second texting our every thought and emotion.

But, at the same time, I see so many of these kids navigating these dangerous waters and keeping their heads above the water. I see them clawing at those sharks and slowly looking heavenward more and more often.

It’s an exciting time to be a part of these kids’ lives. They’re growing up so fast, and grabbing hold of their faith as their lifeline right now. As one of my boys put it, “It’s like my faith used to be a little piece of yarn…but in the last two years, it’s grown to a giant coil of rope that you can’t cut easily.”

Now, if only I could convince them to listen to some real music…and now I sure sound like a crotchety oldster, don’t I?

A Plate of Spaghetti in My Path

You know you’ve had a stressful few weeks when the first thought upon waking up in the morning is, “Take me out, Coach! Put in a sub! I need a breather!”

Trust me: I can’t make this stuff up.

Who was I talking to? I don’t know. It was early (5:45 am, to be precise–thank you, you horribly energetic dogs who somehow learned that it’s acceptable to pounce on your loving owner’s back and sit on her head if she doesn’t immediately respond).

Oh,  boy–I’ve been battling deadlines, schedules, and trying to singlehandedly motivate and educate hundreds of people through a menagerie of various letters, flyers, posters, emails, and postcards. I’ve raced to finish articles for publication, plan youth events, and schedule meeting dates with all of the 8th grade confirmation students, who are currently finishing up their faith testimonies and meeting with staff members here for their sort of “final interview” before sharing their faith testimonies with the world.

Ok–when I say meeting with “staff members”, that’s actually code for “all of the pastors are going to a conference next week and I’m doing all of the meetings myself”.

Add to that a couple of serious crisis situations going on in my students’ lives, and some difficult challenges in my own personal  life, and I think it’s understandable that I would wake up with such a wacky plea on my mind.

Eek.

I was walking the dogs the other night, since it’s been such perfect weather around here lately. We were just finishing a long walk and ducking back through the courtyard at our apartment complex, when suddenly we turned a corner and discovered a large plate of spaghetti sitting in the middle of the sidewalk.

Fresh spaghetti, on a nice dinner plate. In the middle of the sidewalk. At night. Not a soul in sight.

Like I said before–I can’t make this stuff up.

Tucker, our hungry hippo of a dog, immediately strained against his leash, trying to launch himself into that plate of spaghetti. It was literally right in front of him–almost like it had plopped down from the sky, directly into his path.

My first thought was, “Wow, what a powerful illustration of temptation. Satan drops things right in front of us–things we love and crave–as we walk through our lives. So many times, I just give right in and indulge in that ‘plate of spaghetti’ right in front of me, even though I don’t know who or where it came from. I could be scarfing down poison, for all I know.”

(Moment of truth here–I’ve discovered that I no longer think much like a normal human being, but that I think in terms of object lessons all the time. In an alternate universe, Cassie Moore would’ve kicked at the plate and thought to herself, “Who leaves a plate of spaghetti sitting on the middle of the sidewalk? What’s wrong with my neighbors?!”)

For some reason, this plate of spaghetti has really stuck with me–usually an indication that there’s a deeper lesson there, that I haven’t yet clued into.

This afternoon, it hit me–what if I’ve been looking at this plate of spaghetti backwards?

What if that plate of spaghetti actually represents the good things that God drops into our paths? The delightful surprises, the unexpected phone calls of encouragement from friends just when I need it the most, the kind emails from co-workers, and all tangled snarls of my life that God smooths out without me lifting a finger to resolve myself?

God has certainly dropped some plates of spaghetti into my life this last week–just when I needed those uplifting little meals the most.

Thanks, God.

And don’t worry, I’ll make sure Tucker doesn’t chew on the plate when I’m done with the spaghetti.

What A Weekend…

Sometimes I’m just in complete awe of how much God has blessed us.

We just wrapped up our “marathon weekend” of church services: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and a total of 6 services between 3 sites on Easter Sunday. It was an amazing weekend, and hands-down some of the most meaningful, Holy Spirit-filled services I’ve ever been a part of in my life.

The Good Friday service, in particular, was incredibly moving. Between the heartwrenching drama, the beautiful dancers, the live sand art, the band and the awesome songs, and the men’s ensemble singing the Lord’s Prayer at the very back of the church in complete darkness, I think most of the congregation (including me!) were in tears most of the time.

Equally moving, though, was the way I saw God working through so many people this weekend. It was like getting a little glimpse of heaven on earth…like He allowed us to step back from our busy weaving of the tapestry of life, and see a tiny sliver of the Big Picture that we’re all contributing to.

We had over 40 youth and several leaders come to a Saturday morning prep event for the Flowering of the Cross, a Faith tradition where rough wooden crosses are transformed into head-to-toe flower bouquets before the eyes of the congregation at every Easter service. These kids and leaders gladly gave up their one “free day” of the week to cut and arrange thousands of flowers for the services the next day.

At the same time, there were musicians practicing in the Worship Center, decorators prepping the stage with flowers, lighting and sound techs running through their configurations for the services, maintenance guys cleaning every inch of the church, and plenty of staff running to and fro with their last-minute preparations.

We have so many wonderful servants here at Faith, and this weekend they were all at work. It was amazing.

We have been so blessed by these faithful people.

It’s hard for me to even comprehend how someone could’ve gone to church this weekend and not seen God’s hand in everything there. To me, even the fact that the greeters were not only willing to show up at 7:30 am (and be on their feet all morning), but also excited and friendly is a testament to the fact that the Holy Spirit is at work in people.

The flowered crosses are placed outside after the services

What a privilege it is to me to call this church my home.

My Wake-Up Call to How Depraved We Are

Posing for a picture at Disneyland with my friends on that fateful day

Yesterday, my husband laid out on the sunny porch with his sunglasses on. He angled himself backwards and closed his eyes for several minutes to enjoy the feeling of the sun on his face.

When he opened his eyes, he found our nine-month-old puppy, Tucker, craning his head up, confusedly trying to figure out what Tyler was looking at so intently in the sky. Even when Tyler laughed and told him that there was nothing there, he wasn’t convinced. He kept looking up, trying to figure it out.

This reminds me of a prank my friends and I used to pull at Disneyland all the time (hey, when you’re the owner of an annual pass and spend three nights at week at the park, you start losing interest in rides and gaining interest in torturing tourists instead).

We’d stop in the middle of a crowded section in Disneyland, and all stare at one particular point in the sky. Sometimes we’d point, and look like we were discussing that thing in the sky. Keep in mind, there was absolutely nothing there.

You wouldn’t believe how many dozens of people we could easily fool into staring at nothing for several minutes. Sometimes these other people would point at the same nothingness, convinced that they saw something.

I wonder quite often if sheep aren’t actually smarter than some of those Disneyland tourists.

Sadly, this behavior often evolves into something much more sinister. A big story that’s been circulating for the last few weeks is the fake French TV show, “Zone Xtreme”–in which contestants deliver near-fatal electric shocks to victims. Incredibly, 81% of the contestants delivered the most severe shocks, despite screams of pain from their victims (whose faces and bodies they could see!)

The show is actually an experiment, part of a documentary aimed to expose how far television will go (read the story here).

Oh, they want an answer to that? Simple: check out MTV, any time of day.

Going with that Disneyland theme, you wouldn’t believe some of the sordid things we saw happening there. One time, as I stood with some girlfriends in a large crowd, waiting to watch the fireworks, we began to get bullied by some older twenty-somethings. They started by calling us names and saying nasty things about us. When we turned around and politely but in no uncertain terms told them to cut it out, it escalated.

In vain, we tried to catch the attention of the security guards–but we were so far away in the middle of the crowd, that they didn’t even see us. We did our best to ignore them, but we ended up getting sworn at, called horrible names, and pelted in the head with chicken fingers (one of which hit a very pregnant lady next to us). I had an entire cup of ice-cold Coke poured on me.

Despite the fact that there were literally hundreds of people around us, watching this happen with wide eyes, not a single person stood up for us and told these three monsters to back down. No one helped us flag down the attention of the security guards. We were stuck in the giant crowd, unable to even escape. We silently endured their torture, miserable through the entire fireworks show, and finally turned around to find those three twenty-somethings sprinting through the crowd away from us–like the cowards they were.

That was a wake-up call for me.

If something like that could happen in front of thousands of people at the “Happiest Place on Earth”, and not a single person could bother to say, “Stop!”, then it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that 81% of people could essentially kill a fellow human being on live television. It doesn’t shock me that people laughed and enjoyed the bloody ripping apart of fellow citizens in the Coliseum, as part of the gladiator games. It doesn’t make me wonder how people complied so easily with the Nazis and Hitler’s evil agenda.

We are weak, and easily led astray.

As I think forward to Good Friday tomorrow and realize the sacrifice that Jesus made to save this world of idiotic, selfish, weak, miserable people, I do wonder.

I can’t imagine the depth of His love.

That He would want to save us. This ungrateful, uncaring, apathetic population.

Despite the fact that it’s April Fool’s Day, it’s no joke.