http://www.passioncitychurch.com/watch/#20110918
i stumbled across this...not sure how, even...but something's going on...don't know quite what, yet...but...it's got my attention...
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
insomnia=new blog post
i am awake...wide awake...it seems this is becoming a not-so-great new habit of mine...i've had only one good night's sleep in about a week's time...and so, kids...this means you're gettin' a new blog!
some of you know i've toyed with the idea of becoming a professional makeup artist for years...recently, in the time that i have had to be away, i've been able to think...a lot...sometimes too much...the idea that i should look into makeup and esthetics training as a serious move on my part began to be more persistent than just a passing thought...so, i began to research schools in the southeast and sort of "put the feelers out."
in the last month, i began to really make phone calls to schools and do extensive research...after many closed doors (either the schools no longer offered esthetics or they didn't offer night classes or they were too expensive...or all the above)...i have finally narrowed it down to a few schools in the southeast that i need to actually visit and see which one might be a good fit...
most of the programs would start in november and run a max of one year...and then, after passing my licensing exam, i could actually have a real job...imagine that!
so i am cautiously optimistic about all of this...fighting the fears of things ending in disappointment as they have so often seemed to do for me in the past...but moving forward and hoping...praying that this would be something really wonderful for me...and a good path for my future...
some of you know i've toyed with the idea of becoming a professional makeup artist for years...recently, in the time that i have had to be away, i've been able to think...a lot...sometimes too much...the idea that i should look into makeup and esthetics training as a serious move on my part began to be more persistent than just a passing thought...so, i began to research schools in the southeast and sort of "put the feelers out."
in the last month, i began to really make phone calls to schools and do extensive research...after many closed doors (either the schools no longer offered esthetics or they didn't offer night classes or they were too expensive...or all the above)...i have finally narrowed it down to a few schools in the southeast that i need to actually visit and see which one might be a good fit...
most of the programs would start in november and run a max of one year...and then, after passing my licensing exam, i could actually have a real job...imagine that!
so i am cautiously optimistic about all of this...fighting the fears of things ending in disappointment as they have so often seemed to do for me in the past...but moving forward and hoping...praying that this would be something really wonderful for me...and a good path for my future...
Sunday, October 2, 2011
upside down is right side up and other revelations
so over the course of...well, if i am being honest here, years...i have been struggling...hmmm...maybe wrestling is a better term...trying to reconcile what i had heard about religion, faith, God, life, people, right and wrong and everything in between...trying to understand God and Jesus and Faith and how all of those things fit into my life or more importantly how my life fit into those realities...
i've read books...listened to speakers (of all faiths, backgrounds, religions and non-religions)...i've cried and prayed and screamed and kept silent and pondered...i've tried and failed...had times of striving and times of doing nothing...
donald miller wrote, "i began to believe the christian faith was a religious system invented within the human story rather than a series of true ideas that explained the story." that resonates with me...
i was wanting to know...to understand the why's of so many deeper questions and challenges...wanting to really find the God i'd been told and believed is Good and Loving...wanting redemption...wanting purpose...wanting...LIFE...
saint francis of assisi once said, "true progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice." and i believe that is what has been taking place in my life...a progress that has been moving along quietly...on the surface it seemed to be a very stormy process...but underneath it all...in the stillness of my soul, the progress has been there...the changing...the solidifying...the LIFE...the faintest spark being fanned into flame by the loving persistence of God...
there was a time i thought i knew it all...had the handle on the truth of God...and in the faithfulness of testing and hardship...in the crushing blows of rejection, defeat, disillusionment and disappointment, i found that i knew nothing, really...because if the truth that we know cannot withstand the hardships and the questioning, perhaps it is not truth we know, but opinion we have formed, that we have donned like a sassy new coat that looks fantastic, but doesn't keep us warm in the harshness of winters's chill...
i decided to study the life of Jesus...as much as i could to understand this central figure in the faith of my fathers, so to speak...and i found that i fell in love with a radical man...one who caused trouble by being kind...whose very existence rattled people, even when he wasn't saying a word...he spoke of an upside down world...about loving those who hate...about being a peacemaker...a world of opposites, which flew in the face of every rational thought of society and made the best of that culture look like a filthy thing...
and then i began to rattle cages...just by asking questions...it was funny that the people who hated the questions were the people who were supposed to be following the same Jesus i was talking about...for some, i was an annoying gnat, buzzing around and they just swatted at me and walked away...for some i was a dangerous bug to be crushed...too radical...not educated enough to really understand such a grand concept as Jesus (even though the band of men Jesus called his disciples were a bunch of blue-collar, rough-around-the-edges societal outcasts)...
but in all of this, my greater struggle was with hopelessness...when every area of your life seems to fall apart suddenly, without warning over and over again with alarming predictability, it's hard to believe that a Good God loves you...and that a God who is Able to do anything would sit back and do nothing...i questioned whether i was maybe the "esau God hated" and struggled to find the magic button to push...the perfect thing to say or do that would turn the tide in my favor...i longed for direction and purpose and found every bit of light i ran toward ended up being a train that flattened me...
deep down, i know that i believed that God was Good and that God loved me...i just wanted out of all of the pain...i just wanted a happy that would "stick"...
it took an auto accident to "ground me"...to make me stop, be still and listen...to get me quiet enough to hear God whisper...
there is a phenomenon called "spacial disorientation" which causes many unseasoned pilots to crash...they ignore their instruments which are accurately reporting the plane's position and fly based on their feelings...
this was me...all the circumstances of my life were causing me to think my "plane" was out of control...that i needed to find stability...that bad was good and good was bad and i lost perspective and direction and worst of all, hope...
the auto accident caused me to see how God was taking care of me...ordering my steps...caused me to be reminded of the very dear people in my life...to allow myself to be loved and cared for...to allow myself to stop...to just be still...to find God's presence in my life...and to allow myself to be healed...and to be reconciled...to see the smile of God in the sun on my face and the love of God in the hands of a friend...
to breathe deeply...to rest completely...to smile from the inside, out...
my story is unfolding just as it should...crazy as it may seem, at times...it is woven with happy and sad and glory and failure...triumph and tragedy...but if it is to be an epic story, it must contain all of these elements...for the joy is in the overcoming...
my story is not finished, though the pages turn faster than i would like, at times...i think it will take a chapter or two to learn to trust my "instruments" and fly with confidence...but i am learning upside down is really right side up and God is Good and my story will be beautiful yet...
i've read books...listened to speakers (of all faiths, backgrounds, religions and non-religions)...i've cried and prayed and screamed and kept silent and pondered...i've tried and failed...had times of striving and times of doing nothing...
donald miller wrote, "i began to believe the christian faith was a religious system invented within the human story rather than a series of true ideas that explained the story." that resonates with me...
i was wanting to know...to understand the why's of so many deeper questions and challenges...wanting to really find the God i'd been told and believed is Good and Loving...wanting redemption...wanting purpose...wanting...LIFE...
saint francis of assisi once said, "true progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice." and i believe that is what has been taking place in my life...a progress that has been moving along quietly...on the surface it seemed to be a very stormy process...but underneath it all...in the stillness of my soul, the progress has been there...the changing...the solidifying...the LIFE...the faintest spark being fanned into flame by the loving persistence of God...
there was a time i thought i knew it all...had the handle on the truth of God...and in the faithfulness of testing and hardship...in the crushing blows of rejection, defeat, disillusionment and disappointment, i found that i knew nothing, really...because if the truth that we know cannot withstand the hardships and the questioning, perhaps it is not truth we know, but opinion we have formed, that we have donned like a sassy new coat that looks fantastic, but doesn't keep us warm in the harshness of winters's chill...
i decided to study the life of Jesus...as much as i could to understand this central figure in the faith of my fathers, so to speak...and i found that i fell in love with a radical man...one who caused trouble by being kind...whose very existence rattled people, even when he wasn't saying a word...he spoke of an upside down world...about loving those who hate...about being a peacemaker...a world of opposites, which flew in the face of every rational thought of society and made the best of that culture look like a filthy thing...
and then i began to rattle cages...just by asking questions...it was funny that the people who hated the questions were the people who were supposed to be following the same Jesus i was talking about...for some, i was an annoying gnat, buzzing around and they just swatted at me and walked away...for some i was a dangerous bug to be crushed...too radical...not educated enough to really understand such a grand concept as Jesus (even though the band of men Jesus called his disciples were a bunch of blue-collar, rough-around-the-edges societal outcasts)...
but in all of this, my greater struggle was with hopelessness...when every area of your life seems to fall apart suddenly, without warning over and over again with alarming predictability, it's hard to believe that a Good God loves you...and that a God who is Able to do anything would sit back and do nothing...i questioned whether i was maybe the "esau God hated" and struggled to find the magic button to push...the perfect thing to say or do that would turn the tide in my favor...i longed for direction and purpose and found every bit of light i ran toward ended up being a train that flattened me...
deep down, i know that i believed that God was Good and that God loved me...i just wanted out of all of the pain...i just wanted a happy that would "stick"...
it took an auto accident to "ground me"...to make me stop, be still and listen...to get me quiet enough to hear God whisper...
there is a phenomenon called "spacial disorientation" which causes many unseasoned pilots to crash...they ignore their instruments which are accurately reporting the plane's position and fly based on their feelings...
this was me...all the circumstances of my life were causing me to think my "plane" was out of control...that i needed to find stability...that bad was good and good was bad and i lost perspective and direction and worst of all, hope...
the auto accident caused me to see how God was taking care of me...ordering my steps...caused me to be reminded of the very dear people in my life...to allow myself to be loved and cared for...to allow myself to stop...to just be still...to find God's presence in my life...and to allow myself to be healed...and to be reconciled...to see the smile of God in the sun on my face and the love of God in the hands of a friend...
to breathe deeply...to rest completely...to smile from the inside, out...
my story is unfolding just as it should...crazy as it may seem, at times...it is woven with happy and sad and glory and failure...triumph and tragedy...but if it is to be an epic story, it must contain all of these elements...for the joy is in the overcoming...
my story is not finished, though the pages turn faster than i would like, at times...i think it will take a chapter or two to learn to trust my "instruments" and fly with confidence...but i am learning upside down is really right side up and God is Good and my story will be beautiful yet...
Thursday, September 15, 2011
car accidents...waiting...caretakers
headed to atlanta last saturday for a visit...it was in the plans to head to dc on monday...car accident on saturday night sidelined me in atlanta until wednesday night...no major physical injuries...but left me with lots of time to try to think (even though my brain kinda shut down on me for a while)...
thought a lot about waiting...waiting for direction...waiting for change...waiting for dreams...about how life is really made up of lots of beautiful small moments...strung together by this thread we call time...and those magical moments, though fleeting, are there to remind us that the suffering...the hardships...the longing for something we don't know were not how it was supposed to be...that we are living in a broken world...and the collective sigh of humanity is for redemption...for healing...
and we wait...for the small moments to meld together and become our one big reality and then mope around in disillusionment when they don't...but they're not going to...the secret is in cherishing, living, diving in and drenching ourselves in the little moments...
and so, as i waited in atlanta for my body and soul to catch up on rest...and for news of my car...i also enjoyed the small moments...and kindnesses of dear people in my life...grateful for the support, sanity and care that were being lavished upon me with tenderness and grace...for the friend who kept calling, worried that my texts didn't sound like me...for the persistence of those who insisted on me letting myself be cared for...savoring a glass of iced (counter culture) coffee...lying in the sun in a local park...yummy thai food...movies...music...conversations and silences...
taking stock of it all...i was filled up...filled up with the beauty of the gift of such a wonderfully full amazing life...made so by the dear people in it and the small moments of quietness and peace...it's a remarkable thing when you think of it...that our lives could be so full of wonder and we miss it more than we see it...
so...look around...find the small things...and cherish them...think of the true people in your life...solid gold...and treasure them...breathe deeply and fill your soul with the dizzying sweetness of it...your best life is right here...right now...
thought a lot about waiting...waiting for direction...waiting for change...waiting for dreams...about how life is really made up of lots of beautiful small moments...strung together by this thread we call time...and those magical moments, though fleeting, are there to remind us that the suffering...the hardships...the longing for something we don't know were not how it was supposed to be...that we are living in a broken world...and the collective sigh of humanity is for redemption...for healing...
and we wait...for the small moments to meld together and become our one big reality and then mope around in disillusionment when they don't...but they're not going to...the secret is in cherishing, living, diving in and drenching ourselves in the little moments...
and so, as i waited in atlanta for my body and soul to catch up on rest...and for news of my car...i also enjoyed the small moments...and kindnesses of dear people in my life...grateful for the support, sanity and care that were being lavished upon me with tenderness and grace...for the friend who kept calling, worried that my texts didn't sound like me...for the persistence of those who insisted on me letting myself be cared for...savoring a glass of iced (counter culture) coffee...lying in the sun in a local park...yummy thai food...movies...music...conversations and silences...
taking stock of it all...i was filled up...filled up with the beauty of the gift of such a wonderfully full amazing life...made so by the dear people in it and the small moments of quietness and peace...it's a remarkable thing when you think of it...that our lives could be so full of wonder and we miss it more than we see it...
so...look around...find the small things...and cherish them...think of the true people in your life...solid gold...and treasure them...breathe deeply and fill your soul with the dizzying sweetness of it...your best life is right here...right now...
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
sabbatical
many of you know i put my stuff in storage and have been taking a sabbatical for the month of august...i've been telling people i'm homeless which is a statement weighted about its neck with the millstones of many emotions...
there is a freedom in having nowhere to go and therefore everywhere to go...there is a longing for the happyness of a settled life...and a mysterious sadness for something not yet found...fears that i will never find my way...and fears that i will settle and get stuck in some place i will come to resent and regret...
the lessons are really only the hints of lessons...strange vapors that wrap around my heart and mind and whisper stories and thoughts and hopes and dreams and discoveries and condemnations...mometary clarity and nothing more...i know less now than when i started and i didn't start with all that much...
what in me stirs this dissatisfaction...what keeps me longing for something more...i don't know...i've been reading "on the road" by jack kerouac...and except for all the drugs and the sex...i find myself in the story...the longing for home...and search for the place my heart can settle...and the seeming insatiable desire to discover the world, to open my heart wide and drink it all in til i drown in the wonder of it...
i find myself more mindful of the places that have been wrong...the places that though i can't quite put my finger on it, i know that there is a deep sickness in the community...something not true...something not real...like smoke and mirrors...crazy people, if you spend enough time around them, will start to make you question your own sanity...i don't want to go back to those places...
i've reflected on the friendships, or supposed friendships...finding the deep truth of who is a real friend and who was simply using me for whatever they wanted at the time...again...those who make you feel like it's your fault that the friendship faded...those who believe the lies of others about you...those who spread the lies themselves...
and the friendships that have been true...tried by fire and come out shining as pure gold...the people who are thoroughly convinced of my intrinsic value...and who by their loyalty and kindness, have convinced me of their own great value...those who have checked in with me in my journey...reminding me they are praying...those who know how incredibly difficult this time has been, not because i told them, but because they care enough to pay attention and to ask about me...
i have joyed over the deep love of friends and family...and grieved over the betrayal and abandonment of users and frauds...
and i have been battling...waging war against complacency...apathy...trying not to settle for the easiest way...i want the road less traveled...i want this journey of my life to mean something...i don't want to exist in a space...i don't want to simply take up space...and i don't want to just work to fund that kind of existence...
all the great stories are not ones where the main character plods safely and easily along, following the path of least resistance...the great stories find conflict and challenge and the desire for more...the drive to take life by the horns and channel its power...like jacob wrestling with the angel in the desert...refusing to let go until you get the blessing...
so what is my story to be...where is the "happily ever after?"...who knows...i don't...but i gotta believe there's something good coming...i gotta believe if i keep holding on and wrestling through this black night...i will get the blessing...limp and all...
there is a freedom in having nowhere to go and therefore everywhere to go...there is a longing for the happyness of a settled life...and a mysterious sadness for something not yet found...fears that i will never find my way...and fears that i will settle and get stuck in some place i will come to resent and regret...
the lessons are really only the hints of lessons...strange vapors that wrap around my heart and mind and whisper stories and thoughts and hopes and dreams and discoveries and condemnations...mometary clarity and nothing more...i know less now than when i started and i didn't start with all that much...
what in me stirs this dissatisfaction...what keeps me longing for something more...i don't know...i've been reading "on the road" by jack kerouac...and except for all the drugs and the sex...i find myself in the story...the longing for home...and search for the place my heart can settle...and the seeming insatiable desire to discover the world, to open my heart wide and drink it all in til i drown in the wonder of it...
i find myself more mindful of the places that have been wrong...the places that though i can't quite put my finger on it, i know that there is a deep sickness in the community...something not true...something not real...like smoke and mirrors...crazy people, if you spend enough time around them, will start to make you question your own sanity...i don't want to go back to those places...
i've reflected on the friendships, or supposed friendships...finding the deep truth of who is a real friend and who was simply using me for whatever they wanted at the time...again...those who make you feel like it's your fault that the friendship faded...those who believe the lies of others about you...those who spread the lies themselves...
and the friendships that have been true...tried by fire and come out shining as pure gold...the people who are thoroughly convinced of my intrinsic value...and who by their loyalty and kindness, have convinced me of their own great value...those who have checked in with me in my journey...reminding me they are praying...those who know how incredibly difficult this time has been, not because i told them, but because they care enough to pay attention and to ask about me...
i have joyed over the deep love of friends and family...and grieved over the betrayal and abandonment of users and frauds...
and i have been battling...waging war against complacency...apathy...trying not to settle for the easiest way...i want the road less traveled...i want this journey of my life to mean something...i don't want to exist in a space...i don't want to simply take up space...and i don't want to just work to fund that kind of existence...
all the great stories are not ones where the main character plods safely and easily along, following the path of least resistance...the great stories find conflict and challenge and the desire for more...the drive to take life by the horns and channel its power...like jacob wrestling with the angel in the desert...refusing to let go until you get the blessing...
so what is my story to be...where is the "happily ever after?"...who knows...i don't...but i gotta believe there's something good coming...i gotta believe if i keep holding on and wrestling through this black night...i will get the blessing...limp and all...
Friday, August 5, 2011
what we need is here...
"horseback on a sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. in time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. we open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. abandon
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. and we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. what we need is here."
wendell berry
this poem has been on my mind alot...i have repeated the last line like a mantra..."what we need is here"...
as i begin my sabbatical month of august...a month of traveling and of reflection...i find my self struggling against the fears of new things...the fears of the unknown...the fears of losing all that is dear to me...but it is the loss of those things that has driven me to take this time...a time to search out home...
i told a friend that it hit me that i was officially homeless...and i let the heaviness and emotion of that pour over me...and then i thought that i've really been in search of a home all along...even while paying rent and calling many places my "own"...
i feel like i have had moments of happiness, pregnant with promise that have fallen apart or been torn from my hands, from my heart, just as i was getting used to the idea that this might be the time i get to just rest in the happiness of something and breathe...and i've grown weary of beating my head against a wall...of having doors slammed in my face...of being abandoned and rejected...and i don't want to try anymore and i don't want to hope and take chances...my heart...my soul...have had enough...
so i decided to put all my stuff in storage and take the month of august to travel and try to find answers...to try to find healing...to try to find home...
but as i prepare for this time and struggle through the goodbyes i've said...the one's i wish i could say and the one's i haven't gotten to say...i am trying to center myself in the moment...i don't want to miss anything because i am too long looking back or too much looking forward...i want to be fully present in every moment of this month...
and wendell berry reminds me that everything i need at this moment is here with me...even the seeds of things that i will need and want in my future...it's all here...right now...and i don't have to find the tree...just water the seeds that are here...
and so i pray to see my way clear...to remember what i need is here...and to find my way out of the deep sadness and weariness of soul and to somehow find my way home...
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. in time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. we open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. abandon
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. and we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. what we need is here."
wendell berry
this poem has been on my mind alot...i have repeated the last line like a mantra..."what we need is here"...
as i begin my sabbatical month of august...a month of traveling and of reflection...i find my self struggling against the fears of new things...the fears of the unknown...the fears of losing all that is dear to me...but it is the loss of those things that has driven me to take this time...a time to search out home...
i told a friend that it hit me that i was officially homeless...and i let the heaviness and emotion of that pour over me...and then i thought that i've really been in search of a home all along...even while paying rent and calling many places my "own"...
i feel like i have had moments of happiness, pregnant with promise that have fallen apart or been torn from my hands, from my heart, just as i was getting used to the idea that this might be the time i get to just rest in the happiness of something and breathe...and i've grown weary of beating my head against a wall...of having doors slammed in my face...of being abandoned and rejected...and i don't want to try anymore and i don't want to hope and take chances...my heart...my soul...have had enough...
so i decided to put all my stuff in storage and take the month of august to travel and try to find answers...to try to find healing...to try to find home...
but as i prepare for this time and struggle through the goodbyes i've said...the one's i wish i could say and the one's i haven't gotten to say...i am trying to center myself in the moment...i don't want to miss anything because i am too long looking back or too much looking forward...i want to be fully present in every moment of this month...
and wendell berry reminds me that everything i need at this moment is here with me...even the seeds of things that i will need and want in my future...it's all here...right now...and i don't have to find the tree...just water the seeds that are here...
and so i pray to see my way clear...to remember what i need is here...and to find my way out of the deep sadness and weariness of soul and to somehow find my way home...
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