happy new year from the jones family.

a few days ago, seth introduced me to this man. since becoming a widow when cs lewis died, i've been closed off to romantic love.
until now. i'd like you all to meet the new love of my life, mr. indiana jones.
the coolest part is that he folds up and fits in my luggage that is flying to South Africa in about 5 weeks.

So, what do you think? Karla says we look good together. I think I agree.

hand the man his shades.

I find it to be no small thing that all of the following 3 people are Irish in descent:
1. CS Lewis
2. Bono
3. Ashley Lovell
Hear me now--I do not AT ALL place myself on some hierarchy of talent and fame beside these people. I am the one running the cotton candy machine at their theme parks. I am the face-painted fan at their concerts. I am the one who kinda wants to be a librarian so I can have access to more information about them. I am not like them at all.

Now, that being said, what the crap--we are all Irish? (Not to mention Damien Rice, who actually has relevancy to this story.)

So my incredibly cool mother stuffed my stocking with the latest TIME Magazine.


I know Bono is cool, and U2 is an amazing rock band, and I'm one of the many who claim some special connection with them. But there has been this book at Border's that I've wanted for like 6 months now, an in depth interview between Bono and Michka Assayas. My super cool mom ALSO got me this book for Christmas! So, tonight I am reading the magazine and finding Bono to be someone I need to be paying more attention to, because he loves Africa. There is a picture in the article of him hugging Nelson Mandela that I'd pay some serious money to have blown up and hung in my bedroom.
Anyways, I'm just saying that all the inspirational famous men in my life are Irish. And U2's song "walk on"?---it's about The Lady of Burma...the one Damien Rice wrote "Unplayed Piano" for. Tell me you see the significance of this! It's like this summer when I found out Ghandi spent 22 years in South Africa. All these worlds collide!

The following quotes should interest you:
""The key to some extent is faith," says Mike Gerson, the President's assistant for policy and strategic planning. Gerson and Budget Director Josh Bolten are evangelical Christians who believe there's a biblical imperative to help the world's poor."

Bono--"I try to live (my faith) rather than talk about it because there are enough secondhand-car salesman for God. But I cannot escape my conviction that God is interested in the progress of mankind, individually and collectively."

Go read the article. I feel like a 5th grader trying to be cool by promoting Bono. He's just a reason to exhale for people like me who still hopefully hold their breath when it comes to a worldwide apathy to genocide & lethargic governmental responses to 3rd world plights: disease and death, poverty, and human rights.

pronto viene, Jesus Cristo.

He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon."
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Revelation 22:20

Lord Jesus Christ, Help us not to fall in love with the night that covers us but through the darkness to watch for you as well as to work for you; to dream and hunger in the dark for the light of you. Help us to know that the madness of God is saner than men and that nothing that God has wrought in this world was ever possible.
Give us back the great hope again that the future is yours, that not even the world can hide you from us forever, that at the end the One who came will come back in power to work joy in us stronger even than death. Amen.(the hungering dark, frederick buechner)

oh! the suffering in my heart. would you, god, if you are there and if you are god, would you come. come now and bring the hope you promised. oh, that the darkness would open itself like a curtain, and that the glorious light of our hope would shine through.
how long will we wait for you, oh god? how long will anger and hurt and self-loathing and failure and defeat and hopelessness and despair and loss be the fodder upon which we tired and hungry beasts must feed? how long till our eyes do not behold the suffering near and far, our ears do not retain the painful gasps of a world writhing and cowering under the blows of our enemy's club?
silence will surely befall us, and quiet will surround us, and our heads will tilt backwards and our eyes will look into the sky and find you. find you coming in all your glory. the curtain will surely be drawn back and your truth will be revealed. upon this we surrender our ways, within this we invest our talents, from this we draw our hope, because of this we give our lives.
come, lord jesus.

all this time it's like god was trying to tell me that the shadows on the wall were not what was real.

"these things -- the beauty, the memory of our own past -- are good images of what we really desire: but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. for they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we hve not heard, news from a country we have never visited."--cs lewis

i really enjoy plato. maybe i'm a mainstream fan of the obvious, but i really like his writings. in particular, i was really moved by Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave when I read it in Burma a few years ago.
"Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is."

I didn't realize just how greatly both of these men, in the quotes above, are describing something god as been saying to me my whole life.

"now we see only puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. my knowledge now is partial; then it will be whole. like God's knowledge of me." 1corinthians13.12

and arley is 22 now...

this is arley. as a zombie.


this is arley's art. (www.noiseboxmedia.com)


this is arley. as a seamstress.


and this is arley's haunted art show.


i love this girl very much. because, through her, i see a new way of looking at the world in which we live. she brings opportunity in my life for me to feel many emotions to a fuller extent. she has something to give the world, something misunderstood by some, and treasured like a rare jewel by others.
me? i'm the one treasuring it like a jewel.

arley, i wanted you to have a really beautiful birthday. i hope that happened.

if god had a subtitle...

anticipation.

✠ A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him-- the spirit of and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD--
and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious. ✠

"may the peoples praise you, o God; may all the peoples praise you." (ps 67.3)

are you joking?

I really get to live here?

and, I really get to work for this man?

This is Pastor John Thomas, of Cape Town South Africa.
My first real encounter with John Thomas occured this past summer when he and his wife Avril were visiting church in America. He and I sat down for a long time and he shared about Living Hope with me. After we prayed and finished our discussion, he invited me to come and work in South Africa. At this time, I was going to Burma, but a few months later that all changed.
Now, this man has again invited me to South Africa, and I am leaving in Feburary. He is totally amazing.
Please listen to his radio interview with Jars of Clay. In this segment, he is explaining the recent connections established with President Bush and his administration. It's absolutely mind-blowing. And I have been given an opportunity by God to work under this man. I am so in awe of this whole thing.

To hear the full interveiw, visit THIS website.

ps--The United Human Rights Council has reorganized their website. It looks really good! I like the bright colors--it is much better than that old black and white they used to use. One needs bright colors when one is reading about mass murder and governmental denial of human rights violations. Take a read...

a timely pilgrimmage.

This past week I spent an amazing 4 days with someone I've grown incredibly fond of, whose presence makes my moments of life more full of the richness found in real friendship. Amanda returned for a whirlwind visa run after having lived in Barcelona, Spain for nearly 6 weeks now.
Spending time with Amanda, as most all of you know, is one of the things I enjoy the most. I cannot recall a single time that we've been together when I didn't find an unforgettable memory in the making. We've gotten into lots of trouble together, but it's always been in good fun and with innocent intentions! Somehow, we just find adventure, and our recent time in Chicago didn't have an option of being any different.

For those of you who know nothing about me, one of the first things to know is that CS Lewis helped lead me to Christ, just as if he'd been alive, sitting there next to me on the plane to San Diego--the moment when I think I "believed God was God", as Lewis phrased it. I was reading Mere Christianity, after about....oh...7 years of sinful living with little proactive pursuit of God on my part. Having just been removed from a relationship gone bad which began five years earlier (judgement is lacking when one is intoxicated for years at a time), and having just graduated from college, I found myself all alone on a plane ride to a city where I knew one person, hoping to find escape from my pain.
And so, to make that long story short for all of you who know my verbose tendencies, I surrendered my life to Christ at the end of that trip to California: December 31st, 2002. Not a drop of former behavior (or substances symbolic of said behavior) has found its way into this jar of clay.

Coinciding with the recent release of Lewis' beloved classic onto the big screen, a certain fondness for my CS experienced revival. A few years back I made it a point to always be reading one Lewis book, amongst the 4 or 5 others I am usually tackling at once. Due to the backlog of suggested reading from friends, books bought for me to read from others, and my own personal reading list ever-growing and making itself more and more unattainable, I have reinstated this Loyal2Lewis rule, as I like to call it. I have begun with "CS Lewis: A Biography", published in 1990, written by A.N. Wilson.

It just so happens that, in the Acknowledgements section of this book, there is a hearty "Thank you" from Wilson to Wheaton College's Marion E. Wade Center, located in none other than "a suburb of Chicago". As I flew to O'Hare last Saturday, my eyes found this information quite "timely", and here the story continues...

What you are about to experience is a Chronicle of my pilgrimmage to the Marion E. Wade Center, documented in photo by my dearest Amanda. Join us in our journey to Wheaton, Illinois.


ashley, upon learning of the whereabouts of the original Lewis wardrobe, carved by grandfather Lewis for his 2 grandchildren--Jack and Warnie ashley, eating the bagel that nearly made us miss the train heading out of Union Station for Wheaton, Illinois. somewhere between this photo and the next, we entered our own narnia: the surrounding changed from tall buildings, brown and grey buildings, and factories on the outskirts of town to heavy woods laden with snow. for those of you who have seen the movie, you will appreciate the image of us on a train, traveling through a wood, to see a wardrobe
amanda's joy unleashed as we exited the train and began the part of our journey which required us walking through snow covered land
a brief glimpse into the side of amanda i find matched no where else
the entrance to wheaton college, home to alumni such as jim and elizabeth elliot, billy graham, and others who i don't know but i'm sure i'd like very much
i recognized the building from 2 blocks away. this is marion e wade center, where many precious pieces from the lives of CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, George MacDonald, and others are kept
THE MOMENT: my first glimpse into the wardrobe lewis grew up writing stories about. on the door was a sign that read something like "we are not responsible for children lost in the wardrobe". i found this to be quite clever

the man of my dreams, receiving a kiss from one of his many fans

aslan sneaks up on amanda.

After receiving CPR due to the initial shock of such events, I enjoyed a quiet afternoon in the library where copies of all of Lewis' letters to his fans, family, and friends are transcribed and organized in a wall of 3-ring binders. Because I am a dork, and I know that in late September of 1931, Lewis had that late night dinner and conversation with Tolkien and Dyson, where he realized the imaginative component required to understand the "mythical story of Christianity" as the one myth that actually describes real events in history, and being challenged by Tolkien that to understand Christianity, one must exercise a keen imagination. I also know that 9 days later, Lewis, while on his way to the zoo with his brother Warnie, found that he did indeed believe in Christ ("when we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did"). Through this information, which completely exposes me as the supreme freak that I am (although I give you my word that I don't practice idol worship), I was able to find THE ORIGNIAL LETTER Lewis wrote to his best friend Arthur Greeves, tucked amongst about 79 other large black notebooks in the archive room of the library. Alongside my great friend, we jointly read the short but sweet version Lewis gives of these events.
How I held back tears was a gift from God, because he must know how hard it is to cry and read at the same time.

And so it is...

...I'm completely wacky.

chi-town and wardrobes

"It's a 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes; it's dark and we're wearing sun glasses. Hit it!" --The Blues Brothers




Tomorrow: an "l" trip to Wheaton College's Marion E. Wade Center, where the original wardrobe from CS Lewis' "Little Lea" home is now on display.
What perfect timing God has, I must say! Just after viewing Narnia for the 3rd time!!!!

chinese backstreet boys

watch this video.

I LOVE CS LEWIS.

Today is the best day I've had in a long time. I didn't realize how excited I really was about this movie coming out. I haven't allowed myself to view a single trailor, read a single article or newspaper, listen to a single commentary, or discuss the movie much at all. I spent most of the past few years knowing Narnia and knowing Lewis through his various writings.

The story is a long one...the story of Lewis and I. For me, Narnia is not about NARNIA...the books, the memories of childhood, or some attempt at liking a movie just because it's hyped up. Those things don't lead me to love this movie.
The reason I love Narnia is for Lewis, Aslan, Edmund, and Lucy. This man met me in December of 2002, as I was preparing to graduate college. I was on a 4 hour plane ride to San Diego, California when I fell in love with CS Lewis. I remember, I was sitting in the middle of the seats, unable and unwilling to get up. I was immersed in Mere Christianity. Next was A Grief Observed, as my roommates mother died. Then came the Chronicles, followed by Suprised by Joy and Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, the Problem of Pain, the Chronicles again, Mere Christianity again (and again a few more times). For about 5 months, all I read was Lewis. Ok, ALMOST all I read was Lewis! You all know me better than that.

And somewhere in that time, my life returned to Christ.When I think of my return to Jesus, CS Lewis is there. I know lots of people claim him and love him, but I am just another one of those people, I guess. This man helped me see Jesus again.

And when I think about Jesus, I cry with thanks and joy.
Today, I cried with thanks and joy. I saw the movie in a prerelease for EMI, the company who did Narnia's soundtrack. I was volunteering today at a Sweet Sleep benefit sponsored by EMI, and they offered us all free tickets for the 2:00 showing today.

A few moments later, my friend called to offer me 4:30 tickets to see it with Dave Ramsey's crowd, since they had rented a theatre. Thanks, Keith!

Tonight I am viewing the movie at the IMAX with church people. Thanks Amy-Jo and Jay!

Tomorrow night I am viewing it with Nicole for my Christmas gift!!! What a perfect gift to give! Thank you Nicole!

So, if you need me in the next 24 hours, check the theatre. I'm there for a while!

This blog really stinks, and I know it. I am so filled with thoughts that don't feel organized. I just had to say "I LOVE CS LEWIS" to the world, and this was the best way to do it. I'll write something more intelligent and thoughtful later.

Thanks for reading this. It was random and kinda pointless, but I really cannot explain to you why this is so significant. I tried telling the group I viewed the movie with today.

ok...more later.

the invasion of stevie nicks.

i am in this wierd StEvIe NiCkS wOrLd these days.
It started last week when I frantically searched for "The Dance" album in my old stack of cd's from my hippy days. Fleetwood Mac is up there in my top 5 favorite musical groups list. I heard one of their songs on the radio and immediately felt my ears being sucked into this place of hunger and craving for thier music.
It's been a week and I haven't listened to much else. I've started researching the band more, reading about Stevie, Stevie and Lindsey, and about the origin of some of their lyrics.
Rhiannon. Rhiannon has my attention.

I was driving to Jason's house the other day to show him all my photos from China, since he is now there helping Clay Crosse as he adopts a little chinese baby, Sophie May. (p.s.--she's the cutest thing ever!)
So I was driving to his house and track 4 started..."Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night, and wouldn't you love to love her?" On and on it went, strining along Stevie's deep, rhaspy voice..."She is like a cat in the dark and then she is your darkness"..."Would you stay if she promised you heaven"..."dreams unwind, love's a state of mind."
Ending with her famous petitions: "Take me now. Take me by the sky."

Something very specific came from God, to me, through Stevie. God spoke the finale of Truth to an issue I've been really struggling with since, well, forever that I can remember. I put the song on repeat and listened again...doing that thing where you try to catch every word in your heart and dig into it for a deeper significance, which never works because you either get caught on the first verse or you just get distracted, and so you start the song over, saying "Ok, quiet. You have to listen to the words."
I did this about 5 times.

And God spoke. He's doing that alot lately.

Like Mary, I hid his promise in my heart, I treasured what he said deep in my soul.

And yesterday a guy at work who I've been really feeling burdened for, a guy who wears his hurt on his sleeve and I ache when he aches, even though I never know what's really going on in his head--this guy and i were brewing coffee at 545 am. And "rhiannon" came on the speakers in the quiet of the morning. Inside, I smiled and thought to myself "This song = God's voice directed to me".
And my friend Chris, the guy at work, said EXACTLY what God had said to me about this song and it's significance in my life. EXACTLY. Like God spoke through his lips to my heart.

Stevie has changed me. This song has changed me. It's a greally good change.

God keeps me on my toes. Something I've wrestled with for a long time hit the mat in KO defeat through the inspiration experience by stevie nicks 30 years ago.

Visit from the Moldovites.

Left to Right: Olga, Ash, Bill, Carol, Dorel, Jen Gash.

Olga and Dorel are from Moldova. They are vising America for a few months, attending many meetings related to Sweet Sleep and BCFS/CERI. Over half of the people in my life are connected to Moldova in some way, and we owe so much to Dorel and Olga. They are the hardest workers. They have constant needs to meet, because they are the only hands and feet of these american organizations in Moldova.

I hope you get the chance to meet Dorel and Olga one day, either in America or Moldova. Dorel is hilarious and Olga is sweet and gentle. I got to hang out alot with them, including Thanksgiving day when they tried sweet potato casserole for the first time! The day this photo was taken, I got to go to a Titans game with them and eat bbq! It was such a fun experience!!!

So, here they are, the moldovites you can only hope to be as cool as!

michelle, my friend, has risen today.

Today I had the awesome priveledge of spending 2 hours with my dear friend Michelle Kobosky.

And one reason I hate PC computers is because I am on one right now and am unable to drag a photo of happy michelle from her blog onto my own. My Mac would let me do this in a second.
Anyways, she's the happiest, smiliest, glowingist, most encouraging person I have ever known. And i really mean that. She speaks nothing but joy, even when in pain and isolation.

Today Michelle and I laid on her bed talking. This was the first time I have seen her with her jaws unwired, which happened on Tuesday. So, she's in lots of pain b/c the pain meds give her an allergic reaction, so she's only on Tylenol. But she's so glad to have freedom to move her mouth that she doesn't seem to mind the pain so much. She said the entire left side of her face is still numb, and watching her drink a "Boost" drink, I can testify to that!
Michelle would grab my hand and run it across the scars and bumps on her new face. "It's metal. All titanium.", she'd say as my hand timidly rubbed against her face. "Will they ever take it out?" I ask. Michelle's reply, with a hint of trauma unit attitude, "No, I have no face otherwise." Then she smiles and says "God gave me a new one."

We laughed about lots of things. We reminisced and we joked. We thought it was not coincidence that her sister was on the phone with someone in Africa while I was visiting today! She literally sat up in her bed and pumped her arms in excitement at my news about Cape Town. She said, "Finally, I have a reason to go to Africa. Marcie, I'm going to Africa!!!" Marcie, her twin sister, smiles and continues her own conversation.

As I laid there with Michelle, about a million thoughts raced through my head. At first I was afraid to say certain things, for this is definately the first conversation I have had with Michelle where I knew she was cognizant enough to really invest in our time together. And that intimadated me. What do you say to someone who has just had one of the closest brushes with death imaginable? All alone on that bike, in that Vandy life-flight helicopter, in those weeks of drugged incoherence and recovery, in those late night terrors and sweats, in the quiet of her mind as she begins to awaken from this horrid dream. What do you say? There was so much I wanted to ask, and looking into Michelle's wild eyes, I knew I could. I knew that no part of her story that she could remember would she keep to herself. It's too powerful to remain a secret. Michelle will speak this to the world, and God would have nothing less from her.

"It's been the scariest thing I've known, Ashley. Only recently do I remember things that happened since the accident. For weeks I have been like Lazarus. I've been dead. But God has been with me. Satan can only attack my mind now because my body is healing. And it's the scariest thing to battle him during my low points."

Michelle is learning many things again. Today she walked 100-feet, which might seem like nothing to a marathon runner like Michelle. Recently she came to the realization that her mind is not what it once was. Memory. Speech. Normal tasks and mental activities. She's relearning many things.

"It's the remaking of Michelle", she says. "The old sins and desires--they are gone. Like physically, they are gone. I don't even want them anymore. Watching TV, seeing sinful stuff around me, I cannot even handle watching it. I sit with the TV off most of the time. Just praising God instead."

Michelle is beginning to realize something I blogged a few weeks ago, when I had a nauseating encounter with Michelle during one of her lowest points. Today she articulated is like an old hymn being sung, with strong conviction, deep wisdom, and simple idea: "Why am I alive, Ashley? I should be dead. I should be dead but I'm not. Sitting here, meeting nurses and doctors and therapists, watching my family take care of me, I realize that God could take us out in a second, but he hasn't yet. I used to go to work, hang out, live my life--all the while thinking that we were just kinda hanging out until God did something with us. But now, now I realize fully that the only reason any of us are still here today is because God is determined to use us for a serious and specific purpose that no one else could fulfill.
"My lips are ready. Lips once used carelessly are unable to say anything except "God saved me". Hands and feet are ready to share him with the world. I sit in the down times of physical therapy, and I just start talking about God. I don't care anymore. I don't care what people think. I have a story and I have an audience. What else shoudld I do with these 2 things?
"Ashley, is God getting the glory he deserves."

Tears run down my face as it warms from the excessive heat being cranked in the hotel room. Tears drop onto her wrist, covered in a cast after suffering a fracture some months earlier. I look up at Michelle, I close my eyes and spread my arms out real wide, and I say "Like a ripple in a vast ocean. Everyone is different."

I open my eyes and Michelle's crooked smile is quivering. "Then I'd do it again in a second."

And another life changed for good. Another sinner brought to the feet of her savior. Another broken heart on the mend. Another life spared for a reason.
I don't get it. It doesn't make sense to me why some people die and others don't. Suffering is ever-present, and to accept this makes believing in Christ a whole lot more significant.

What would we do if we each realized we really had a purpose that irreplaceable? How differently might we treat our neighbors, handle hard situations or uncertainties, share love with those around us, if we saw in our own lives what Michelle has found in hers?

a few words from michelle
michelle's blog

AIDS Awareness Day.

Today is National AIDS Awareness day around the world. Today, 40.3 million people are living with HIV and AIDS.
Please read more about this today and say a prayer for those around the world who are suffering.
Forbes on AIDS, Dec. 1