being disappointed by people you respect...

so...most of you that know me know that i love donald miller's writing...i love the way he expresses truth...i love the way he makes you think...i love the way he paints pictures with words...

i have been so excited about the release of the movie "blue like jazz" based on his book by the same name...i told all my friends about it...i bought my tickets and went over the weekend...

i talked about it on twitter...i talked about it on facebook...i talked about it to anyone who would listen...i loved the movie...and was happy to see it doing really well in certain markets...

all day long in my twitter feed i kept seeing updates from donald miller about how the film was doing in different markets...doing well here...not doing so well there...

well...then it came to alabama...and his statement was "Alabama is doing well for a movie not about football."

i was rather annoyed by the statement...not offended...not mad...not up-in-arms...just bothered because people are always portraying alabamians as a bunch of backwards hicks who have not clue one about anything other than rebel flags, football and marrying our cousins...

my response was this: "@donaldmiller wow! degrading people of an entire state with blanket judgements may not be the best way to drum up support for your movie!"

he responded with an apology...saying he didn't mean it like that...he didn't mean to offend...and that was cool...i appreciated that he meant it as funny and didn't think of it being taken in another way...

so, i responded: "@donaldmiller no hard feelings...just feel like alabamians are too often characterized as a bunch of rebel flag wavin, fball lovin rubes..."

at which time he blocked me!!!

now, for me, this is a huge disappointment...because this is someone i respected...someone i believed to be level-headed, open-minded...reasonable...real...someone who would err on the side of grace, not retaliation...

this experience threatened to taint what i have taken from all of his books (yes, i have read and recommended every single one of his books)...to taint all i have heard him say in the lectures i have attended...to taint the blogs i have read...to taint everything i have thought about donald miller or read by him...

and i wanted to extend grace...to believe that somehow there was a reasonable explanation for what seemed like a very unreasonable response...it seemed there should be room for grace on both sides...

disappointment...

and so i am trying to let go of the disappointment...because, i know donald miller, at the end of the day, is, like me, a flawed human being...and as much as i want to say "i don't think jesus would have blocked me"...i also think jesus would have taken being blocked with meekness...

and so i shake off the dust of hurt and disappointment and move forward...leaving it in the hands of a God who is ever so much better at this grace thing than i...

and seriously...go see "blue like jazz"...it's a really good film

little things

tonite i opened the french doors that lead out to my deck, turned off the lights, lit a candle and have been sitting listening to the sounds of happy birds singing their little hearts out

and a slow, steady rain...

it has made me think of porches with swings, clotheslines and the smell of sheets dried in the sun and how it wraps you up in a hug that seeps all the way down to your soul...about screen doors on a spring that slam shut behind you...about the sound of my grandmother sweetly humming as she bustled about the kitchen...

it has made me homesick for a home i've never had...for someone who cares about your day...someone to tell you about theirs...someone to sit on that porch swing with, drowsily listening to the sounds of the crickets and tree frogs and life all around...

sigh

moving and changes

so i officially moved to nashville right before new year's. we emptied my storage unit in dc and drove the truck here...unloaded and now this is my new home...for a time, at least...

this is a strange move...i am here for school and though i am sure that is not the only reason, it is the only thing in my line of vision right now...

i usually enter into change with trepidation, but anticipation of all the great things that could be there for me...not so this time...

i worry that i am losing hope and that is why i don't see this as anything more than the need to go to school...finish the program...get my license and get a good job...

there is no long distance dream or vision tied in with this...and that is not my norm...

so i wonder what is going on with me...and why i can only see this as doing what is before me...but i press on and i intend to finish or at least do all that is within my power to finish...

in this place of displacement, body and soul

the price of an adventurous life...

recently, i was spending the day with dear friends and we were discussing life...something was said about trading lives with me...i immediately responded, "you don't want to trade lives with me...trust me, you don't want my life..."

i made that statement, not really as a complaint...but more as a means of clarifying...one of my friends responded, "people don't realize the cost (or price or something like that) of an adventurous life..."

that really caught me off guard and struck at the core of things i've been sort of mulling over in my own heart and mind...

this adventurous life that everyone thinks i have and to be honest, i know i have..is not all it's cracked up to be...yes, i've been blessed with many wonderful opportunities to travel, to learn, to meet many amazing people and do many fun and wonderful things...but is easy to look from the outside and see a person's life as adventurous and enviable...and never really know what that life has cost them...

as i have spent some time now reflecting on my life, i realize it has cost me stability...the opportunity to put down roots somewhere...the privilege of belonging to people, to places...it has meant that meeting all these amazing people came with goodbyes i wasn't ready to say and friendships left still in their seeds of promise...it has meant not ever quite feeling "home"...

every road of risk-taking is a road of pain...because for every leap that brings the soaring, there's hundreds or more that only end in "thud!"...

it has also cost me being settled...having someone to come home to...to talk over my day with...it has meant that most of these incredible experiences i've enjoyed alone or with practical strangers...i don't have many people i can reminisce with about all the great times...

and as the years wane, i find i long for the porch light...for the someone waiting for me...someone to come home to...someone to come home with...

don't get me wrong, this is not discontent rearing its ugly head...just reflection from a grateful, but somewhat wistful heart...because i guess whatever kind of life...the grass always seems greener...

Psalm 130:5-6 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.

we grow weary, waiting...i am really impatient...i mean, i am fine to wait for a bit...particularly if it looks like what i am waiting for or hoping for is actually going to happen...it is the waiting when i don't know what is going to happen or when...waiting when i am not sure what is coming down the pike...waiting when i am watching things turning in a way that scares me and makes me wonder if anything is ever going to work out...that's the hard part...

we wait for the sunrise, because we know it is coming...we know it is coming...the night may be dark...and scary...sounds from things unseen may startle us and set our very hair on end...but light will come...the first, faint glimmer of the sun will illuminate the darkness...and so we wait...because we know the sun will rise...

oh to wait on GOD like that...to know the breakthrough is coming...to know something good is coming...to know HE is going to come through for us...the sun is going to rise on our lives...it is...because that's just the way it is and we know...

ah..there it is...the child is gone

i love the line from "finding neverland" when johnny depp (as j.m. barrie) comments "ah...there it is...the child is gone..."

that moment when "reality" sets in and we no longer believe in santa claus, the easter bunny...magic...when we are far too sophisticated to be "duped" by such "nonsense"...

but i must admit that the older i get, the more i believe we are "duped" by logic and "common sense" and not be any sense of the wonder of our childhood...

as a matter of fact, i believe there is a reason jesus said you have to approach the kingdom of heaven as a little child...because they are the only ones who still see clearly...before their great "minds" get in the way...

i read this earlier today:: “Soon the child’s clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions, and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, we become seekers.” —Peter Muryo Matthiessen, courtesy of Parabola Magazine

so i challenge you to say to the bullying voices of "common sense" and what "everybody knows"..."shut up you big meanies!" and approach this season with the wonder of a child...open your mind, your heart, you soul to its magic...and see what impossible things you might discover...

saying yes to God...

i love the christmas song "mary did you know"...the lyrics are so poignant and powerful::


"Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you.

Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.

The blind will see, the deaf will hear and the dead will live again.
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak, the praises of the lamb.

Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you're holding is the great I am."


how very many things mary could not have known...i think we assume that the people in the testimonies contained in the bible knew the whole story that we know...but i am sure that, like us, they only knew a very small bit of what GOD was doing...mary knew she had a visitation...she knew this child was like no other...but she could not have fully known all that it would cost her to say "yes" to GOD...

my favorite story from the christmas account comes when they take JESUS to the temple...and they encounter a man named simeon...i love simeon...here's the story::


LUKE 2: 22 When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”[b]), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”[c]
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss[d] your servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”
33 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”


i marvel that simeon was able to recognize JESUS as the promised child in the large crowds and in the number of children he must have seen come through the temple in his time of waiting...and i wonder what mary thought of his words, "and a sword will pierce your own soul, too."

i wonder if mary remembered those words as she watched the horrific death of her son by crucifiction...i am not a mother, but i cannot imagine the agony of that experience to a mother's heart...i wonder if mary every doubted...if she ever told GOD, "this isn't what i thought i was signing up for."

she couldn't have known all it would mean to say "yes" to GOD in that moment when the angel appeared to her and told her things too impossible to be true...i wonder if we would say "yes" to GOD given the same opportunity...

mary, did you know...did she...do we...