Big news!!!

To all the friends and family who have been part of this journey with us,

Jeffery Jonathan Coleman and Vicki Lin Vaags are proud to announce that we are engaged!

We are so excited to be taking this next step together after four years of dating, and we are so thankful for the many people who have walked alongside us through it.  Our plan is to have a small, intimate wedding before the Colemans leave to go back to Ethiopia at the end of June; and then a larger reception in the fall so that our many friends and relatives will have a chance to celebrate this momentous occasion with us.

For all those who have asked: we are combining two households’ worth of things into a cozy apartment already, so we have only a very short gift list at www.just1registry.com/jeffandvicki but financial gifts will also be put to good use and bitcoin gifts are welcome at:
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Thank you so much for all the prayer and support that has enabled us to step confidently into this next adventure!  We may be consumed with details for the next couple of weeks, but we are eager to share our excitement with you all as we’re able.

Happily,
Jeff and Vicki

I un-am

I am a paradox
I am the un-me
I am an impossible
I am the un-be

The testing of a hero

In those stories of great lives which are already written, when there comes a time of great peril, and our heroine is truly tested, we can feel a great anticipation of the justification that experience will grant them.  When the story is your own, however, and you find yourself in that moment, the feeling is somewhat different.  You see, you do not know whether this event will be the testing of a hero, or whether it will be the messenger of his demise.  And in the end, whichever outcome you are confident in will find its way to the light.  For there are heroes which come to unwholesome ends untarnished, and there are villains formed in the hubris of their own success.  Be the hero, whatever the outcome.  Let history write the rest.

Unexplaining it to myself

Is it possible to forgive someone for something that they didn't even do?  We were two small ants caught in a storm.  Curse my small mind for finding someone next to me in it and blaming them for what I couldn't understand!  But I still need to let go of it.  My soul and my mind nearly split, and I could not have borne it.  I lashed out at someone who was innocent, and for this I feel wronged.  The anxiety, the fear is a plague on the face of humanity--can you blame someone for having the flu?  But I have.  I was scared that if I didn't, the storm would be my fault; the virus would be inside me.  And that was terrifying.  What would I have done at Salem?

I'm sorry, and I forgive you.  They're not so different.  Two sides of the same paradox.  Foolishness, and wisdom--not so far apart either it seems.  No easy fixes.  It's an odd thing how much growing up feels like being ripped in half.  Every day.

inside out

down in the trenches
of the universe that is me
all the beautiful messy pieces
as far as the eye can see
it's a different sort of awe
from deep down under here
where the only truly terrible thing
would be land that's completely clear

a hymn of sorrow

thank you
for hearts to feel sadness
and tell us it mattered
to carry its meaning
tenderly, deep-sorely inside
gravity, significance becoming integrated
shaping my soul
in delicate peels of the woodwhittler's blade
thank you for tears to purge the poison of shame
thank you for words without sounds in the night
and love without regret

The Invention of Advertising

Ever see the movie "The Invention of Lying"? I was always disappointed that the filmmakers never took the chance to show what internet ads would look like in that world. I can guess, though:

"You have won! This is not a joke--it is a lie.'

"IQ 106--Can you beat this score? (hint: your chances drop dramatically if you click on this ad)"

"Pictures of stock models have had your geoip location inserted below their pictures in order to make you think that you can talk to hot girls in your city now!"

"Shoot 5 iphones, win the opportunity to have something sold to you!"

"What do you see in this picture? Is it 1) a duck, 2) a bunny, or 3) an appeal to the delusion that seeing both makes me special and will make people finally love me?"

"Teeth whitening exposed! Don't be ripped off by the dentist--be ripped off by us! As advertised once in a late-night slot on CNN."

...and so on