Momento Mori

I went to a funeral today. For a dear friend, and also the mother of a dear friend and also the mother of a child I've, often, in the last six months, halfway thought of as my own, and also the wife of a gentleman I've worked closely with for a long time.
This lady was a spectacular human being, and it was an honor and a privilege to gather with others who loved her, from her family, to her friends, to her coworkers, and celebrate her life.
But one wonders, why do we as a culture deal with death the way we do? There was no part of this girl's being who wanted to join the procession to peer down into the coffin at the empty shell that used to contain the soul that is my friend. This empty shell, not only no longer contained her, but, after a long battle with cancer, didn't even resemble the bright, joyous sunflower that was my friend. And I walked, and I kept my head down, and I peeked, and I hope that my face showed nothing of what I was thinking.
I dug out my black slacks and I ironed them and I drove to the church and I waited a minute so I didn't have to walk in alone, but I sat alone in the back and I didn't cry. Honest. And I stood and I sang and I sat and I listened and I smiled, because it was nice to be able to think about my friend again. I think, for a long time, I haven't been thinking about her, not directly, not as a person and as my friend. There's been so much up and down and worry and fear, not so much my own as the people's around me, that it's been easier to just not think. Today, I thought, and I remembered, and it was sweet. And I shuffled and I peeked and I shuffled out and I hugged and I talked and I saw friends I haven't seen in ages and I ducked out before everyone could leave for the graveside. And I went to a funeral all by myself for someone my parents didn't know. My own mom's never done that. It's surreal.
Tomorrow, everyone will say it was a beautiful service. They'll talk about how many people came, how many people loved her. And then the rest of us will keep moving forward. Her family, they'll be a bit longer. I can't imagine the hurt they're going through right now.
And maybe that's the point of the pomp and circumstance we surround death with. Maybe it's all an attempt at closure and finality, a trying to attach meaning so something that can so often seem meaningless. It's for the family, so that they can have something that they have set behind them, even though they have to keep on carrying the pain of it.
I've talked with my dad on the subject at some length, in the last couple of days. And he spoke of overcoming his own aversion to funerals, of learning to view them as important, sobering, and significant.
Momento mori. It's Latin. Translated roughly, "Remember your mortality," or "Remember, all must die."

If I Could Just Focus OR On Dizziness

Only I would have a stomach virus my very first day off of work. My immune system sucks. And I haven't seen any of the others in days, and I don't have my cell phone anymore, so I can't text them to find out if anybody else is sick. And being sick makes it hard to enjoy your first few days of school, even though you should be having the time of your life. And it's possible that I've never felt so alone or isolated in my whole life. I miss my friends. I miss my kids. I miss being busy. I miss my job.
Daddy said (and voiced the inside of my head when he did) that maybe I wasn't actually sick - maybe it was just my body picking a ridiculous way to react to a violent change in circumstances - a kind of emotional toxic shock syndrome that my body didn't have a way to cope with.
It's hard to not feel directionless. To, after so long of not having time to ask questions, wonder why I'm doing anything and how it's all going to work out in the end. All of these feelings are things that need to be sorted through, identified, catalogued, and set aside. I need to have a nice long talk with my mom. I need to go out to dinner with my friends and remind myself that I'm still a person. I need to talk my little sister to go see a movie. I need to breathe. But right now, I just feel too tired and too out-of-phase to focus for a minute together and it's hard to make things make sense, and I'm hoping that it's just that I'm still a bit ill and everything'll be easier after another good night's sleep.
Right now, this girl is sitting in a Starbucks that smells more like motor oil than coffee. She's finished her studies for the day, and it's still a half an hour before she needs to walk across the street to after school program, and it's vertigo to be slipping out of my new world into my old, but here's to hoping that it'll keep me sane (and hoping that the vertigo isn't just still-not-recovered-from-a-day-worshipping-at-the-porcelein-altar dizziness). And it's kind of nice, just sitting here. There's so many other people here, some of them in groups and clusters, talking about life, some of them every bit as alone as I am, and none of them are questioning my right to be here. None of them have looked at me sideways. I'm sitting here with my overpriced iced tea and my macbook, come for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission. Breathing and listening to people breathe. And I'm going to fall into a rhythm and life is going to start making sense again and everything is going to be okay.

Also, I applied for a job at Starbucks. Actually at about six Starbuckses. And you'd think I would've heard back from one of them by now. This girl really needs a job.

On In-Betweens OR Did You Ever Notice that the Sky is All the Way to the Ground?

This girl's always been obsessed with horizons. With in-the-middles, with midnights and sunrises and sunsets and half-finisheds and works-in-progress. But now that she's got a couple of halfways and almosts of her own, she isn't having as much fun.
Tonight, I'm standing in the middle of the last year of my life (and the kids and the chaos and the My-God-is-So-Big and the buses and my director watching every move) and my forseeable future (and orientation and textbooks and webadvisor and professors and student IDs and I think I accidentally picked the dumb English class). And multiple hats in one day make the head spin and a foot in both worlds just feels torn in two.
And the lingering in the old is making me tired and antsy, and the fear of the new makes me want to drop anchor, and the feeling-bad-for-leaving gets worse when the boss pokes fun, but I read my syllabus and I'm just. so. excited.
And maybe I don't like in-betweens as much as I think I do.
But like I read yesterday on my favorite blog, it's the in-betweens where God's presence is found. It's in the present moment, between the sky and the ground, between yesterday and tomorrow. And it's the rushing-through and the looking-back that can unplug us from being Spirit-empowered, but now-living keeps us in tune with God. I'm trying to be grateful for each day as it comes.

We're having a revival this week. Three nights, kid's program, guest speakers, whole nine yards. Last night was the start, and we had all of the kids and none of the help and things got a wee bit crazy. They do that sometimes. I'm usually okay. Actually, I was okay tonight. We talked about Jesus and nobody got hurt. 100% success.

If the Wind Could Blow Through Me

Blow away everything that's adling my brain and spinning my head and making me sick, I maybe could think straight. Blow away the fact that my job is going away in a week, and with it my cell phone and my best link to the outside world. Blow away the fact that I think I've got an ear infection, but I know I don't have insurance to go and see a doctor and medicine for it. Blow away the fact that a dear dear friend is flying through next Monday, but if I want to see her, I have to ask for time off on my last week of work, and my boss is going to make a stink. If only the wind could blow straight through me, blow away the fears and the frustrations and the facts and only leave the excitement and the joy and the hope and the hunger. But I've stood out in the wind and caught nothing but a chill and lost nothing but time, and the world still feels like its spinning too fast. And I still need to register for classes and buy school books and find a job and now a cell phone plan and I still have to say hard goodbyes and be honest with some folks about some things I've been half-truthing about and figure out how I'm going to keep some promises I've made. And today maybe I'm wishing the wind would blow and take me away with it.

On Self

Because it's been the sense of self that's been hurting here lately. When my boss does my job for me or leaves me out of the loop on something, it feels like he doesn't trust me; when the other boss takes my presence for granted, makes me work through the flu and then doesn't give a flip what I do all day, it makes me feel underappreciated; when my friends make plans without me or don't offer the right kinds of comfort while I'm hurting, I wonder if they care about me or if they'll miss me when I'm gone; when the boy I thought was headed for something significant flirts with the wrong girl across the dinner table, I wonder if I'll ever have anything certain. But, contrariwise, when somebody spends all day trying to make me laugh, I feel significant; when my row at church fills up with kids just like my moms back in Carolina, I feel like I'm doing something right; and when I get to say that I absolutely have to go in on my day off, I feel important. See, all of these little uglinesses that sit on my heart and distract me, it is the sense of self, of the promotion and the preservation of self that makes me care what people say and think, care when things go the way of my dignity being preserved or the way of my name being dirt, or, worse, forgotten. This self-ness, sometimes, works to my favor. It makes me better at my job, it's why I work hard to know all the answers to all the questions, to always be in all of the places at all of the times, to forsee what will need doing and do it before it becomes pressing. Often, though, it works against me. Every bad mood I'm ever in is because something has happened that trod on the toes of that sense of self. Every time I'm acting like a spoiled child, it's because somebody ignored me or treated me poorly and my self-ness didn't like it. And, if we call it what it is, self-ness is selfishness and self-centeredness and self-serving. And yeah, we all do it, but that doesn't make it right or safe. And it's self keeps us at each other's necks trodding on each other's backs and rat-racing into the black. It's self lets us talk bad about each other and try too hard and hurt othe people. And if we could just lose the sense of self, it seems to me like everything else would fall into place after it.



Anybody else struggle with this? Or is it just me?

When Everything Hurts

They tell you that things that are worth doing are hard. But how can something that is supposed to happen feel this much like getting torn limb from limb, shaken apart on an atomic level? It all leaves me with this general sense of wanting to run away, leave everything behind me, and not look back. Be the bird I'm getting tattooed on my wrist after Christmas or the butterfly whose wing I'm buying myself a necklace of (both to remind me that when people hurt me, I have the ability and the right and the responsibility to fly away). And then I'm reminded, that that was what I was doing when I came here. I was running away from complicated and into the great blue yonder...and then life happened. I became a person, and the people around me wouldn't submit to being the scenery in my epic adventure, but stubbornly insisted on being people themselves. And anywhere people are people together, life happens and things get complicated.
I'm hurting more than I can say right now. Maybe that's selfish, maybe life's not supposed to be about me, and maybe that's my whole problem, but knowing those things doesn't make the hurting go away. One boss is treating me like I'm already gone, the other like I'm a wasted investment. My coworkers are talking about each other behind their backs, which only leaves me to wonder what they say when I walk out of the room.
And then I get through women's Bible study and ask the friend for a ride home, which turns (halfway against my will) into grabbing dinner along the way and communal griping about our days and our jobs and it's a rough environment. A playfully abusive one. It isn't healing or comfort. It isn't recharging. It's draining. And then I get home after my family has gone to bed and it's too quiet, which is almost easier than getting home when everybody's still up and bustling and I can't figure out to save my life where I fit in with them anymore. And when I feel like one tightly compacted ball of pain and hurting, loosely contained by too-thin, easily-bruised skin, it's hard to enter into their conversations and their playing and their tv-watching; but when they ask what's wrong, I can't communicate, I can only complain, and so they don't understand. All Mom can say is "at least it's almost over." And I don't know how to make her understand that that's half of the problem, even if it's 100% of the solution. Quitting this job that has been my life, my waking and my sleeping and my eating and my breathing for three-hundred and twelve days (7,488 hours, 449,280 minutes, 26,956,800 seconds) is like quitting a drug. Is it what's best for me? Yes. Is it God's will for my life? I think so. Is it easy or walking on rainbows or fluffy bunnies? Um, no. It feels like lying and betrayal and cowardice and losing a vital organ and losing everything I've worked for. It feels like losing friends I love and kids I love and work I've let become a part of me and a world I've fought tooth and nail to become an integral part of and someone I legitimately care about, faults included. It feels like everything is upside-down-inside-out-backwards and I can't get my bearings.
I'm already gone from the place I have belonged for a year, even though I haven't gone anywhere yet. I don't feel like I belong yet or anymore in the place I have always been and have always been able to return to, until now. Doing the math, that adds up to a whopping zero places where I feel at home right now, and that's starting to really take its toll on me.

Below My Feet

There's a wise blogger who's been on about Thanksgiving all month long. Longer, maybe. And she told her readers to let every step (every time your feet touch the earth), to let it be a kiss of gratitude to the God who makes the road rise up to meet you. That, as gravity binds you to the ground and the soles of your feet touch the dirt and the pavement, thanksgiving is the only answer. That the best and surest way to happiness is to thank and praise God in the good and in the bad. It turns blessings and curses into miracles and marvels.
Today has been a day of blessings and curses and miracles and marvels. The church-cleaning and the tomorrow-preparing and the Christmas-tree-hanging happened quick and painless this morning. Then it was back to the mission and moving 4,000 boxes of stuffing and cranberry sauce to be delivered to families tomorrow morning and a human chain stretched three blocks to save steps. And it was cold but not freezing and the sun was on my back and a school group on my right and a bunch of Catholic teenagers to my left and it would've been amazing (easy gratitude), except that I'm a girl. And sometimes that means that I am sicker than ibuprofen and water can manage and sometimes I throw up and sometimes I pass out and sometimes I just hurt. Today, I hurt. So I'm sitting in the breakroom, slumped against the wall, waiting for the magic pill a friend gave me to kick in. And I hate sitting still when everybody else is spinning and I'm asking God how this can possibly bring Him glory? Me down for the count with work to be done? I mean, sure, if I was the soldier who could stand up and get back to work and grit my teeth and grin through the pain through the power of God, that could please Him. That could be worth something. But I'm not. When this girl hurts, she hurts.Soldiering wasn't going to happen. (Difficult gratitude is less fun.)
But eventually pills kick in (to some extent) and I stand up and everything's alright and don't ask me why, 'cause I don't know, but I'm thinking and thanking.
The rest of the day was great. A friend is in town unexpectedly and I got to help with different-than-usual things and little league baseball teams make any job go faster and I don't usually get trusted like that, but I did today and it was fun.
Tomorrow is the day that all of this has been working towards and I should be nervous, but I'm mostly excited and it's going to be perfect.
And I want you, reader, to have fun tomorrow. To be grateful for good things and bad things. To enjoy your family and your friends. Happy Thanksgiving.

"May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rain fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand."

A Day for Duck-Duck-Tic-Tac-Toe

It's been the kind of day where duck duck goose and tic-tac-toe get mixed up and crossed around each other, and bags of cocoa puffs get gobbled and traded and dropped in the mulch under new picnic tables. It's the kind of day where Supergirl discovers the view from the top of the world (in the branches of a tree) but big brother wants to get down 'cause he's a little bit 'cared (but wait just a minute and look up and see how the sun comes down through the leaves, and look out and see how high up you are, and enjoy the view for just a minute, I promise I won't let you fall). A day of almost-skinned-elbows and almost-splinters and almost-bumped-heads and grace. A day of no, we're not brothers, just really close friends, and no we don't have any homework, and can we just have some snack before we go back to playing. A day of I'm sorry, I know you tried to say hello yesterday, and I just kept my head down, and we've just been going through so much lately. And a day of sorry, I can't come to the door, I've been in the hospital this weekend, and can you pray for me. It's been one of those days when I remember why I love my job.

On Choosing OR How To Breathe

Did you ever have that moment when your heart starts beating again? When you find that the self you had thought was shrinking away to nothing was really there all along, waiting for you to remember it.

When the person who probably loves you the most of anyone alive tells you you're in danger of disappearing, you listen. You sit up and fly starlight. You cry, because you realize, like knife points, the truth of every word. And you change.

And when the person you thought was to blame tells you they're on your side, tells you you have to do what's right for you without worrying about anyone else, tells you they could tell you weren't breathing, well, that helps too.

When I came here, I was running scared. Since halfway through high school, the thought of there being an ever after to this girls story seemed inconceivable. I don't know why, or if that's my fault, or what it says about my mental health, but it's true. So when I got here, it felt like clambering onto some sort of tenuous reality. I needed it. For a moment, it kept me sane. But it it isn't the only reality. More of a pocket universe on the larger bubble of the rest of my time on planet earth. 

Good things have happened here. God has used me for good here. I've met people who will never not be a part of me. I've learned things about myself: like the reason that I will love teaching-I love meeting new kids, like I don't mind shouldering and consuming and swallowing more than my fair share of the world's bitterness and ugliness and negativity-as long as I have ample time and opportunity to release it and enough tying me down that I can return to myself after it's all over. It's a useful human being to have around-one who doesn't have to have the upper hand. And beyond that-I'm braver now, just in the silly things. In the making phone calls and  the answering phone calls and the talking to people and the saying hello in the grocery store and the running into acquaintances in Starbucks and the ordering what I actually want for dinner. My brother was saying just the other day, 'You're so good at that. Talking to people, looking like you know what you're doing.' That's something I used to be incapable of, and now I'm not anymore. I'm less the scared child, more the self-assured adult. I'm braver.

But there's more to it than that. I needed the time to become brave enough to choose the rest of my life, to choose the person I want to be, the person I'm supposed to be. I had to find the courage to decide, for myself, to go after my existence with everything I have. I needed  to find the place inside myself that wants to be me badly enough to keep trying it. And when you choose that, when you make that decision, the decision to love yourself and keep trying, you're heart beats again and your lungs fill with air and art happens again because "art is what happens when you dare to be who you really are."

Today? I chose. I choose.

("Wrote 'love' on arm. Saved self.")

And maybe it takes time and maybe changes don't happen tomorrow, and maybe the struggle isn't over yet because there's going to be hard conversations and some people won't understand (but hopefully the ones who matter will and the ones who won't don't matter) and maybe you never wander far from a mission you believe in with your whole self, and maybe you can't live in this town and not participate in what God is doing through it, and maybe you come back sometimes, and maybe the only somebody who could tie you here makes up his mind and reaches for your hand and then some things (but definitely not all the things) are subject to change (or maybe he doesn't and life goes on and maybe you don't really care that much anyway). And maybe there are other changes that will be hard, maybe living at home again, even as much as you ache for it, won't be without challenges. And maybe you're going to have to look for a real job, and maybe having a drivers license isn't much good without a car, and maybe your cell phone is on a company plan, and maybe life is complicated.

But everything is going to be alright.

Wise Comfort

So we all have that friend, don't we?  The fixer. The one who you take your issues to, and they tell you how to fix them. The well-meaning, good-intentioned friend who cares about you and wants what's best for you...and knows exactly how you should get there. If you don't have this friend, it might be wise to examine yourself: this could be you.

Maybe, we know taking our troubles to this friend isn't going to end well. Maybe you try not to. But maybe they'll be hurt if you don't open up to them. Or maybe they're the only ones still listening. Or maybe you care about them, and you're hurting, and you need them to tell you they care that you are hurting, however clumsily they do it.

One way or another, you wind up holding a nice neat answer to everything you're going through that does you...absolutely no good at all.

I wonder what we're hoping for, when we spill everything that's hurting to somebody whose problems they...aren't? Because our negative reactions to easy answers shows that that sure isn't what we want. Does it help just to hear our own voices? Or maybe sometimes we just hope that another set of hands helping to carry what we're shouldering might make things a little lighter. Maybe sometimes we just want comfort and a friend. 

Either way, hurting hearts don't need easy answers. Hurting hearts don't need band aids and aspirin. Hurting hearts need other hearts to bend when we break and dip when we dive. And while, yes, sometimes we need that friend who can tell us that we're wrong and say hard things without icing and sprinkles, tonight, friend, I just needed you to tell me that you care about me.

On Daylight OR To Have and to Hold (A Lover of the Light)

It's been a day (week, really) of songs about light. Worming our way from a conversation last weekend about Snow Patrol's Crack the Shutters ("as the rays tangle up around your face and body...cause the daylight seems to want you just as much as I want you") and the darkened days that song pulled me through, all the way to tonight and my favorite Mumford and Sons video and the way he reaches out his hands to play with the sunlight he feels but can't see. And the way we think about light, as a thing to be seen, to be caught and refracted and reflected and shone into dark rooms and dark mazes at a fall festival for the four year old clinging to your sweater sleeve and tripping up your feet and scared - and it's true. But it runs deeper, more than x number of dimensions- the way that light tumbles through cracks in shutters like flowers up through cracks in pavement. The way it strains towards you to fill up every crevice and tangles up around you like waking up to slept-in-late sunshine under your eyelashes and bed sheets tangled around your ankles. The way it slips like sand between your fingers to rejoin the rest. The moment you step out, light accepts you, takes you in, an honored member of reality, part of your surroundings, earth below your feet and light swimming around you and pulling at you and holding you down. It believes that you are where you're meant to be, authorized personnel to clump about on planet earth and do stuff and make art and say the right words and say the wrong words and breathe air and laugh and touch things and like things and dislike things and learn to ride a bike. The daylight is warm on your face. You are welcomed, accepted, protected, believed in, beloved. Take comfort. Have heart. Be brave. 'Go boldly in the direction of your dreams.' Forgive yourself for existing, the sunlight already has. Accept yourself as you are, but expect yourself to be the best that you can be. Be kind to yourself, beloved child of the God who hung the stars in the sky and gave his very life for you so that by His light, the Light of the World, darkness may be driven back for good. "Look to the future and stand in the sun."

On Having Unfair Expectations of People OR Boys Are Dumb

So a long time ago, at a youth lock-in, a speaker held up a balloon, and he filled it up with air, and he let it go. And it flew around the room and deflated itself with as much noise and fuss as it's little rubber self could muster before it drifted to the floor, stretched out, spend, and disheartened.

And he told me that that was me - that when I am upset by a person (whether that person is a dear friend who has said or done something to cut me deep or a barista at Starbucks who got my drink order wrong), it's a sign that, deep down in my heart, some part of me was expecting that person to make me happy. Was looking to that person for my happiness. Was holding that person up against an ideal formed in my head by selfish desires and outward influences. Was expecting that person to fill a void in me created to yearn for and be satisfied by God alone. 

Do I agree with every word of that? Not necessarily. But do I believe that, when I expect people to live up to my unfair expectations of them, I'm setting myself up for hurt and disappointment? Every time.

The Devotion I'm Giving Tomorrow

So once every few weeks I get a little piece of paper in my mailbox at the office, informing me that it's my privilege and duty to lead staff devotion one weekday morning. Thursday, October 10th (read, tomorow) is the next time that's happening. So while I was preparing something to talk about, I figured I might as well post it here:

There’s a sticky note, at my desk, on the corner of my computer screen – and it’s the word and the dictionary definition of “steadfast”.  And the dictionary definition of the word “steadfast” is: “fixed in direction, steadily directed; firm in purpose, resolution, faith; firmly established or fixed in place.” And I traced it back a little further, into the history of this word, and it literally means “able to stand.”

The reason I have this sticky note, is that Monday of this week, this word was popping up everywhere. First in a devotional I receive by email every morning, and then throughout the day, until I finally looked it up and wrote it down and stuck it where I could see it, because apparently, I’m supposed to remember this word. Steadfast. Able to stand.

So I look it up in an online concordance that turns up literally every use of the word in every English version of the Bible, and just kind of see how it's used throughout scripture.

Some verses have to do with us: Joshua 1:9 reads “be strong and steadfast” in some versions. Psalms 51:10 begs of God “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Isaiah 26:3 promises “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.” In the new testament, it mostly refers to the early Christians: Paul or Peter advising them to be “steadfast” in faith and “steadfast” in prayer and Romans 12:12, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer.”

Then some are all about God. Hebrews 6:19 says that we have the God’s hope as a “a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul.” Proverbs 20:28 talks about God’s “steadfast loyalty.” And then there are innumerable times in the old testament that God’s “steadfast love” is referenced, in Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and how God took care of Abraham’s family, up through First and Second Samuel and Kings and Chronicles and the Psalms as God was faithful to King David and his descendants, and even throughout the prophets as God is passing judgment on the nation of Israel for their sin and idolatry.

So I’m probably going to be chewing on this little word for a while. But I feel like the message is pretty clear. First off, in the midst of this world where everything shifts and changes throws us off course, God is faithful, firm, fixed, and steadfast; we are able to stand on him, his promises, his Word. The salvation he offers us in Jesus Christ cannot be taken away. God’s love is endlessly steadfast. Then building on that foundation, God calls us to be steadfast, even though it’s in our nature to change. To stand firm in faith. To be faithful in prayer. To love like he loves: steadfastly, even though undeserved, regardless of harm done to us. And it all seems to come back to that idea of just loving well, of investing joyfully in others, of giving of ourselves .

Most of the times I choose [Come Thou Fount] for devotion, I pick it because it’s my favorite, not

because it has anything to do with what I’m talking about. But this time, it seems appropriate. "O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be! Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above."

Fifteen Minutes Until Devotion

This is becomming a regular part of my day. And it's awkward and uncomfortable and I don't like it. And everybody's bustling around me in three-million different directions and I'm sitting here, acutely aware of how very still I'm being, waiting for it to be 8:00 so that it's time for devotion and my day can start.
Because I don't really have anything I'm supposed to be doing right now. Or could be doing right now. And so? I blog. And wait.

On Barometric Pressure

...or whatever it is that's turning the inside of my brain to jello.
So you know those moments when you look at Facebook and realize that everybody but you still talks to each other. Like, people from middle school, people from high school, from old social groups, from old special events. All still liking each other's photos and commenting on each other's statuses like everything's still the same. And you're over here in a corner, having blocked and hidden most of them, having to remind yourself that you don't want to be a part of these little interactions. No? Just me? Alright, then. Moving on.
Is anybody else totally addicted to Colormania? Dumb iPhone app, takes notable images, logos, carton characters, flags, insignia and etc, drains them of color, and makes you fill in the blanks? Except everytime you guess the wrong color, you lose a life, and every time you run out of lives, you get locked out of the app for twenty-five minutes, and every time the app decides to let you back in, it crashes your phone and you have to restart the phone entirely in order to play again. Vicious cycle, and I'm officially stuck in it. Bah humbug.
Also, Pandora!! This magical machine that tells you all the music you like but you've never heard of, like Stateless and Mat Kearney and the list just goes on and on and it's really really fun.
There's been this dumb cold going around, everybody's been passing it from one to another, and I was one of the first to get it and then it was over and I got to laugh as everybody else slowly passed it along the line. It was funny. Until I woke up this morning. Now my head is stuffy and fuzzy again. Guess I probably deserved that, huh? And also, I should probably start taking a multivitamin.
It's Wednesday. My longest, slowest, busiest day that goes out with a barely-survivable two-hour children's ministry bang before I can make it to Starbucks with my girls for what I've come to think of as 'debriefing.' Except now, I even need to debrief from debriefing, because things with our little friend group are starting to stress me out too. Which brings me to the question: how many areas of your life can explode before the problem is officially you? And everything, from my work and my coworkers, to my friends on nearly every level (the big everybody groups and the little girls-only groups), to my life at the place where I live (limited time for cleaning and everything upside-down with my roommate), is stressing me out right now, and I can't seem to get a bit of peace and quiet inside of my head.
And, in case that doesn't communicate to you clearly enough my present state of mind, I'll be more forthcoming. I'm wound just a little tight today. I feel like something's off today, like when you're watching a 3D movie and you take your glasses off, and all the reds and blues shift away from each other and blur a little bit and make you kind of sick. Everyone seems to be saying here lately, something big is coming. Don't know if it's a paradigm shift or a catastrophe or the dawn of a new age or what, and maybe it'll be like in the old movies, where the monster was scary until it got around the corner and we got a good straight look at it and bad special effects just made it laughable.
Or maybe it's only me, and barometric pressure and ragweed season, and maybe I've had too much coffee and not enough sleep.

A Carnival AND A Realization

With popcorn and snow cones and hot dogs and bounce house and soccer cage and bean bag toss and children running around everywhere, sugar coursing through their veins.
A carnival we put on for the residents at one of the apartment complexes last night.
My first real carnival with the little mission where I work.
Carnivals are crazy. Like, really crazy.
But we had a fabulous time.
I worked the bounce house, which was a constant stream of "three more minutes," and, "take your shoes off!" and, "be careful of the little kids," and, "wait your turn." But it was also a chance to talk to and get to know just about every child that was in attendance, and hang out and spend time with some I've known for a long time but rarely get to see anymore. It was fun, and I get to do it two more times. We have two more carnivals at two more places, the last of which is the place where I do Bible study: of course I'm most excited for that one. The residents at my little place, I'm positive, will come out en masse and have a great time.

The Great Gatsby

Hit dvd yesterday. Was purchased by yours truly last night. Was watched by yours truly last night. Will likely be watched again by yours truly, accompanied by various assortments of friends, at least once more before the week is out.
Last night was the time I got to watch it with my copy of the book in my lap, and go tearing through looking for the direct quotes and the tiny references and the, if we're being completely honest here, the things they left out (I love this movie. I still will not admit it is anything other than perfect, even for its imperfection). Last night was the night I got to fly off the couch, pause the movie, explain things to my roommate (who hasn't read the book since high school) and provide textual evidence. It was fun.
Tonight or tomorrow night will be the watching of it with everyone so that everyone can see this thing and enjoy it and love it like I do.
Also, Daisy's song is still my favorite.

On The (Sometimes) Difficulty of Accepting Grace

There's a kind of person who'll say she knows she's a sinner saved by grace, but then work her fingers to the bone in such a way that it sure as anything looks like she feels she still has to earn it.
There's a kind of person who, though she's believed in and followed and served the God of illogical forgiveness all her life, though she spends her days telling people (and legitimately believes) that no sin is so great that you are beyond the grace of the God who made them, at the end of the day, though she'll never own to it, feels like that God could love and forgive anyone but her.
There's a kind of person who, after all these years, still sometimes has a hard time accepting grace.
"You refuse forgiveness, like it's something to be earned," or so the song goes.
Sometimes, I'm this kind of person.
Good news? I'm not the only one.
There's an army of us, men and girls who can forgive anyone, extend grace to anyone, believe that God could love anyone, except for themselves. This is sin, it is doubting God's love, it is to say "the infinity of God's grace and power ends here." And there's a kind of pride in this, too, that will not be seen by the untrained eye, but that quietly sits on the heart whispering 'any sin but mine.' And it's often those of us who have been in Christ's camp the longest, who have the fewest scars from their days before salvation, who were saved out of the sins of a child, who have this difficulty hanging onto the reality of grace. It's those of us who have been the Elder Brother far more often than the Prodigal who stray into this way of thinking: not careening wildly off of the correct theological path, but slowly and by degrees until they find themselves far from home without ever having decided to leave.
The good news? There's still hope. And the grace of the God of unfathomable forgiveness has no limits, no final straw.
There's one effective weapon against lies, and it's truth. The belt of truth buckled around our waist to hold everything together and to keep us firmly in place.
Truth is the things we've known all along: You, child, are not stronger than God. You could not commit a sin so grand as to shock or push away the love that ascended Calvary. Even the quiet, creeping sins you hide cannot stand before the light of the love that conquered death. You are a child of the risen Savior, bought with blood and made right before the Father. You. Stand. Forgiven. Loved. Grace has found you and made you new. Now go and sin no more.

On Not Always Being My Own Favorite Person (Or, Alternately, Despicable Me)

My roommate had a bit of an existential crises of self-awareness last night. Messy. Which is not the topic of this blog post.
The topic of this blog post is that, well, sometimes I'm not my own favorite person. Sometimes I'm a bit of a doormat. But really more like this doormat:

 

than a normal doormat. A doormat with a bad attitude. A doormat that, even though it doesn't like to have other people's dirty footprints on it, allows itself to be walked on anyway. Which is compounded by the fact that I'm a naturally implosive person: I'd sooner grumble about the dirty footprints than to ask someone to wipe their muddy feet elsewhere.

Sometimes I stand up for people who don't deserve my devotion. Sometimes I let relationships that validly could've been normal, healthy friendships deteriorate into passive aggressive, emotionally unhealthy, static-charged messes. Okay, so maybe I had a little bit of help on that front, can't take total credit for that one.

Sometimes I create problems where there aren't any. Sometimes I bring out the worst in people. Sometimes I'm anything but graceful under pressure. Sometimes I run my mouth when I shouldn't. Sometimes I'm a bit of a cynic. Sometimes I'm jealous and petty. Sometimes I want what blatantly isn't mine. Sometimes? Sometimes I don't know what I want.

And, sometimes, I can be a bit too hard on myself. I'm still learning to work on my flaws without wallowing in them or drowning under them. And, gratefully, God's not finished with me yet.

 

Also, we were going to watch Despicable Me at Bible study tonight. Now, we are not going to watch Despicable Me at Bible study tonight. What are we going to watch? Beats me.



 

On Life Imitating Art (Or, In This Case, Big Bang Theory)

So, seen this episode of Big Bang Theory? If not, or if the show's not your thing for one reason or another, just stick with me for a sec, I have a point here.
In the episode, Sheldon and the gang have traveled to a  hotel and convention center for some sort of science-ey-convention thing, to give a panel on the topic of "Science and Society." Unfortunately, the state of things deteriorates quickly as jealousies come into play, old conflicts are unearthed, and arguments break out among these not-so-professional young professionals. Most of their "panel" is spent arguing and insulting each other. (This scene from the episode is available to be viewed on youtube under the search terms "Big Bang Theory Science and Society." I elected not to link to it here for reasons of language and content; however, if you wish to catch the full drift of my meaning and are not in mixed company, feel free to watch it.)
Now, as for my point, and this is a point I've been making for a solid six months: we're people. I'm people. The folks I work with are people. Those I call my friends are people. We're allll people. Can't help it, nothing we can do about it, stuck that way. And, people? I can't tell you how often I feel like this scene in this sitcom! We've got our super-important, super-professional job to do, as super-professional people, and yet at any moment we could devolve into a handful of squabbling sixth graders. Especially where I'm at in life now, where there's always something riding on my relationships when it comes to my public testimony, I often find it impossible to set my person-hood aside long enough to do my work. And sometimes I'm scared it's all just going to come barreling through my mature-adult exterior. Sometimes, some days, some nights, it does. These are the nights I bite my tongue until I can get myself home and go to bed.
This is something I'm still struggling with, though it's something God's been working on me on for ages. How do I learn how to put my work first and my personness last. How not to let my complicated, sometimes chaotic interpersonal relationships interfere with my ability to receive and process information objectively. Am I starting to sound a little Vulcan? Not meaning to. Just trying to find the answers to something that's been on my heart a while now. Thanks for bearing with me.