The dish ran away with the spoon [and my heart].

I've decided to buy myself a nice set of dinnerware. This is a very big deal.

If you're not a single twenty-something female, recent experience has taught me that you probably won't relate to anything I'm about to say. Thus, I've decided to approach this topic by sharing real life examples and including my responses below:

Example 1:

Me: Guess what? I'm going to buy a new set of dinnerware!

Male: Can I give you some dating advice?

Me: Um . . . yes.

Male: Buy a flat screen TV instead. Oh, and a PlayStation.

Me: Why would I do that? I don't even watch TV. I use plates every day.

Male: Just trust me.

Example 2:

Me: Hey, come look at these plates I'm going to buy! Aren't they beautiful?

Male2: Why don't you buy these ones instead? It says they're chip resistant and oven safe up to 350 degrees.

Me: Why would I need my plates to be oven safe?

Male2: You know, so you can keep a plate of dinner warm for your husband when he comes home late from work . . .

Me: I'm going to leave now. 

Example 3:

Me: Which set of plates should I buy?

Male3: I'm going to need a lot more information than that.

Me: What do you need to know?

Male3: Who are they for? What's the occasion? What's their style like? When's the wedding?

Me: No, no - these are for me. I want dinnerware.

Male3: Oh, well then go cheap. Just buy the cheapest ones possible.

Response 1:

There comes a point in every woman's life when she realizes that she must transition from playing house to keeping one. 

For women who get married young, the transition is obvious and sudden. One day you're using multi-colored plastic plates that you bought from Target during your freshman year of college, and the next day you're updating your wedding registry at Crate and Barrel.

For the rest of us, the transition is more subtle. You graduate from college, find a job, move to a new city, find some roommates, and gradually fill your bare first apartment with whatever necessities your paycheck can cover. After food, rent, and utilities, matching plates seem ridiculously high up the hierarchy of needs. You can get away with hosting dinner parties on paper plates for the first year or so; everyone understands. But after the novelty of being young and poor wears off, you start to look around and think, "I wish this place felt more like a home." And that's it: you need plates.

Perhaps getting a "real" TV serves some kind of analogous function for men. Knock yourselves out. I'm buying plates.

Response 2:

Right, the husband thing. This is actually a huge mental block for a lot of single women. At least, I know it was for me. Real plates belong in real kitchens; real kitchens belong in real homes; real homes belong to real families. Why start collecting dinnerware when the matching "completer set" can't be purchased in stores?

Look, the party has to start sometime. The appetizers have been served. If prince charming decides to show up for dinner, I'll pull up a chair. But I don't think his absence is a valid excuse for holding up service (metaphorical or otherwise). I want to have a home where people feel welcomed and relaxed. I want to do that now. Let's hope he makes it in time for dessert, but if not, at least my coffee mugs will be coordinated.

Response 3:

Going cheap makes a lot of practical sense. I could buy a sixteen piece set from Bed, Bath, & Beyond for less than I'm going to end up paying for a single place setting of the pattern that I chose, and I feel a bit guilty about this.

I could justify the financial aspects of my decision to you in great detail (quality v. quantity, etc.), but instead I'll just say that I want my investments to align with my values, and I value hospitality. The kitchen is the heart of every home, and you ought to take care of it.

Friendship with windows.

This sermon series was recommended to me by a very wise friend earlier this week, and I've been listening to it during my commute. It's about marriage. I honestly can't remember how it came up in conversation, because we weren't talking about men at the time (though I suppose it's likely that I slipped in a bad date story or two). Regardless, I'll see her recommendation and raise you mine.

I listened to number 5 ("Marriage as Friendship") this morning. Somewhere between Pentagon City and Farragut West, part of my heart sang, and part of my heart died.

In this sermon, Tim Keller describes the Christian world as a world with windows. Our lives are firmly planted on earthly soil. But every once in a while, when something beautiful or hopeful or redeeming occurs, we catch a glimpse of eternity. 

Blarney Castle, November 2009

Thus, getting-to-know a Christian is "kind of like looking for a mountain on a cloudy day." You can't see the peak because it's hidden by fog. But when the winds shift and the sun peeks through, you get an occasional glimpse of who that person is becoming. You're not there yet, but you know where you're headed, and every once in a while you see not just their potential, but their destiny.

This, Keller says, is friendship with windows - a calling forth and celebration of the other's "glory self."

Friendship between Christians is constantly looking beyond time, saying, "I want to be your friend for a few billion years."

Westward [Ida]ho!

Beauty is to the spirit what food is to the flesh. 

 A glimpse of it in a young face, say, or

 an echo of it in a song 

fills an emptiness in you 

 that nothing else under the sun can.

Unlike food, however,  

 it is something that you never get your fill of. 

 It leaves you always aching with longing 

not so much for more of the same  

as for whatever it is, deep within and far beyond both it and yourself, that makes it beautiful. 

"The beauty of holiness"

is how the Psalms name it (Psalm 29:2) and

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee" (Psalm 42:1)

is the way they describe the ache and the longing.

(Frederick Buechner, Whispering in the Dark)