Odd Year Out

So it's been a long while...

2011-12-01T10:49:00.001-06:00

Hello Friends!

I'm not even sure if I have some correct email addresses, but I thought I would give this a try, since it's been so long since I wrote an update or heard from many of you! I'm sitting in the purgatory of jury duty, where you have to wait but you don't know if you're on a jury yet, giving me plenty of time to sit down and write this.

I hope December finds you well. I can't believe we are already at the end of another year. And I can't believe that I've been in New Orleans for almost 3 years.

I've noticed that my life moves in sets of three years. Every three years, I undergo some unbelievable change in life that sets me on a new road for life. In 2002, I graduated from High School and started my years at UW. In 2006, I had a major awakening to the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. And in 2009, I started my adventure in New Orleans. The year 2012 is the next in the series of three, and I am nervous and excited for the possibility of continued change.

Michael and I are doing well. Some of you may or may not have heard about our fall out with the church we were attending. It's a long story, but we are still recovering and healing from that experience. Needless to say, we are a little down on church right now, but excited about finding a community in the Church. We are finding more and more people who are fed up with the leadership of many of the churches in this area and in need of going back to basics. We are not sure what that is going to bring, but we are sure that God has something that He is brewing up. Please continue to pray for healing for us, though, that we might forgive the community that hurt us. It has been a struggle, and I find myself, in particular, much more bitter about it than Michael does.

Michael is doing well. He stays very busy with his constant changes in positions at work. He is incredibly adaptable and so the bank that he is working for now (and for the past year and a half) moves him around. They are a small, local bank, growing themselves into a larger bank with more modern approaches. It's a pretty cool position for him, as he is so gifted in so many areas and he gets to utilize all of those talents that God has given to him. Other than that, he does a lot of projects around our house, attempting to merge our styles into one home. He loves very modern, and I'm much more quaint and whimsical...making our house a conundrum to figure out. We are still living in Central City, attempting to love on our neighbors. It's slow going, but we are seeing some pretty awesome changes in the neighborhood, for the better. It's even been a couple of months since I heard gunshots! One of our neighbors, who had some bad experiences in the church, is even reading one of our books about serving the poor well, by a man called Bob Lupton. He is one of our models for what we are trying to do in the neighborhood and his books are fully of awesome stories about how he messed up neighbordhoods and succeeded in helping to bring love and redemption to other neighborhoods. They're great, shorter books, and if you are interested in what we are trying to do, you should give them a read. One thing that we do know is that we are going to be here for a while.

That is one thing that I have been struggling with since we moved down here. I long for winters and changes in seasons. I long for mountains and woods and places to play outside. I worry about our future children not having green space to run around in. I worry about the friends they will make and if they will be safe. My selfishness is battling with my heart and the knowledge that serving God is not easy. It's not comfortable. And I need to learn to be ok with that. I think far too often we forget that truly following Christ should hurt us. It should diminish who we are and what we think we want for our lives until there is nothing left but Christ's love and plan for redemption. And we we open our lives up to that possibility, we can see so many awesome things. We are welcomed into a part of His plan for the redemption of the world.
What a beautiful thing to be a part of...It is not just about me and spending eternity with Him, but rather that the whole world could spend eternity with Him, if we just gave up our selfish endeavors for the sake of Him.

I struggle with it every day. It hurts. I cry often about it. But I know in the end, this will all be worth it because I will be able to stand with my neighbors rejoicing in and saying "Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty!"

Anyway, little tangent there...

School is going well. Turns out, I'm actually pretty decent at this whole teaching thing. :) God has blessed me with talent in this area. I have no claim over my abilities because there are far more people who should be better than me. I have adapted well to the tasks at hand and managed to not freak out under the pressure too much. My kids are doing well and growing and truly have opportunities now that they would never have had if they would have remained in the schools they were attending. We see miraculous changes in some of these kids that is nothing short of the hand of God.

I hope you all are well and enjoying this holiday season! I would love to hear from any and all of you!

Love you all,
Rae

Just keep digging that hole deeper...

2011-02-21T21:32:00.003-06:00

So I've tried to stay out of this issues as much as possible, but after a few conversations, I can't really seem to keep my mouth shut anymore.

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HAPPENING IN WISCONSIN!?

As a teacher, I feel I have a place in giving my opinion on this topic.

First of all, to anyone who says that teachers make too much money or don't do a good job, I invite you to fly to New Orleans and teach my class for a week. Let's see if you survive. I will thoroughly enjoy watching you attempt to do my job. It is a skill and a craft that can only be developed and never perfected. Yes, teachers can always improve, but so can our civil engineers and lawyers.

Next, I have to say that I am severely disappointed in many people's reactions to this. What ever happened to "Give to Caesar what is Caesar and give to God what is God's." I believe that this is the exact scenario in which that parable was used, was it not? Yes, there is something to be said for standing up for rights, for sticking up for the little guy. But when dissension like this is created, can we really say that this is "what Jesus would do?"
I know all of the Madison-ians get a kick out of storming the Capitol like the Bastille, and I even enjoyed it from time to time, but having gotten to view this situation from a distance, I can't help but wonder if that is truly what a Biblical stance would look like. Especially when the teacher absences are creating even more debt, and oh, yeah..that little thing that is AFFECTING OUR CHILDREN THAT WE ARE THERE FOR ANYWAY.

What in the world has happened? Is it actually that difficult for us to just relax and know that God is in control of this situation? That He is the sovereign God of the universe that He created? That He cares more for us than any sparrow?

But what do I know? I'm just a born and raised in Wisconsinite who is now a teacher in New Orleans. I don't have any clue what I'm talking about...

Sometimes I forget...

2010-11-04T21:23:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I forget what the breezes felt like on my long rambles in Wisconsin. More than anything else, it scares me most when I can't remember the joy of those rare southerly winds blowing wildly across the farmlands and over the hills.
Sauntering seems to not exist in this city. Aside from the safety issues of zoning out while you are walking by yourself, the city doesn't give itself to the wildness of the world like it does in Wisconsin.
We are coming home soon for a short while and when we do, I plan to take in my fill of the snow covered hills and the still quietness of the snowfalls at night. It seems like a dream, the night that 3 of us went wandering into the woods to cut down a Christmas tree, and as we did, lost each other and didn't seek to find one another. We just played alone amidst the trees and the bright darkness that comes with the moon reflecting off the snow.
How I miss the seasons changing and marking the years and time as it passes! There is nothing but the same down here. And though I know this is where I am for a while, I can't help but wonder if that part of my heart that I left with the Wisconsin land will ever return to me, for there are many beauties and wonders here also, but they seem to not replace the sanctity of the Falling leaves or the floating snowflakes or the bubbly clouds right before a storm.
Return me to that place someday, I can only pray.

...I've been reading way too much Thoreau.

The patterns in the trees

2010-09-12T19:32:00.003-05:00

I decided to take some time to write. It's been a very long time since I've been able to just sit down and do this, but I'm taking the time to do it. I wish it hasn't been as long as it has been. I'm sure you all have had great changes within the time: it seems that everyone is popping out babies or getting married up there! I try to keep up with it a bit on Facebook, but would really love to hear what is new with all of you!

Life as a teacher in a classroom all on my own is proving to be a challenge. My class is amazing, though. I love them, though I am pretty sure that I fail to show that a good chunk of the time. There is absolutely NO time, however, to yourself when you are a teacher. I eat lunch standing up, I spend my nights writing lesson plans and tracking data that my students have produced through assessments based on standards they need to know. I develop systems that make my classroom run more smoothly. And then I redevelop those when the 1st set fails. I work at least 10-14 hour days. To say the least, it is a lifestyle...not a job.

Marriage is wonderful. We had a rough go of it for the first few months, but we seem to be hitting a stride now that we are almost 6 months in that is comfortable, yet still challenging. It's amazing to think of where we were and where we now are and I can't imagine what our relationship will be like in 25 years, God willing. :)

We were able to take a trip recently to Savannah, GA to see the lovely Delaina Paasch (some of you know her from Madison) become Delaina Hooks. It was an 11 hour drive there and back that we had to make in a 3 day weekend, which made it not quite a vacation, but the drive time left me with ample enough time to reflect and think on the things I have not been able to think on often. All through northeaster Florida and into the coastal areas of Georgia, there are reforestation projects happening. I love reforestation; not just because it's good for our environment, but because of the aesthetic beauty of the young wildwoods. As in any forest, the chaos of the trees sporadically placed is reminiscent of the beauty and power of our God. But when reforestation is looked at from multiple angles, a pattern emerges. The trees are actually planted in rows...and there is comfort in the order of the rows of trees that were planted with a purpose. Stepping back from that thought, really, all trees are planted in their place with a purpose. Nothing goes unseen by the omniscient God we serve.
It is in those forests that I so long to wander through again that I see the good and perfect plans of God. And I am comforted by the seeming disorder.

In other news, please be praying for us. We have decided to hold off on continuing with the implementation of our nonprofit for at least a year. We feel it is the wise decision for now, as we feel like we need to reassess the development process of the neighborhood. It's not like we can just plant a church, like you can in so many places. We have to invest in our neighbors more than we have and God is really challenging us right now to strive to know Him more, to know each other more and to know our neighbors more.
I am nervous to get out there and unsure of what is going to happen now.

But I guess I just need to get back to those thickets and trees...

I love you all and miss you very much. I hope you are doing well and that I will hear from you soon.

whoa been a while

2010-07-07T19:26:00.002-05:00

It has been a busy summer. The day I got out of work for the summer, I also started summer institute for TeachNOLA. I will be starting in just 2 weeks as an official 1st grade teacher with my own classroom. I want to say that I feel ready for this, but when push comes to shove, I can't believe that they're putting me in charge of a classroom. I guess we'll see what happens.

I was digging through some ollllld photos tonight. Pictures from the Garf and the summer after graduation. Pictures of old lifegroups and my internship at Blackhawk. Pictures from Brewers games and weddings. Pictures from running through the Arboretum in winter, spring, summer and fall.
We will be returning to Wisconsin in just a couple of days for a little vacation before I start school. I feel like every time I go back, I go back to a different world. People have gotten married. People have had babies. People have moved away. I sometimes pine for the old life...for those days that used to be so easy. I miss friends who were always there to piss you off and support you. I miss chilling at the Terrace and on the porch. I miss runs to Trader Joe's and playing pranks on Becca in the office. I miss a lot. Sometimes, I miss it so much that it actually physically hurts.
But there's no way to go back. My life is not what it was. And even if there was a way to go back, I'm sure it wouldn't be better. I wanted to get away, remember? I wanted my life to be uncomfortable.
Well, I got that wish. Don't get me wrong, the life I have down here is very fulfilling. But sometimes I long for the ease of those days.
In Wisconsin, I was Rae. I knew everyone. I did everything.

In New Orleans, I am Rachel. I am married. I have a real career.

What the heck happened???

In a year, I made every huge transition possible. I am not sorry. I am still, however, a bit overwhelmed.

New Sounds New Trials

2010-04-26T19:33:00.002-05:00

I'm sitting as we speak at the desk that my husband (yes. husband. weird.) built for us to have. After digging out a little space from the paperwork of name change papers, bills and a mish-mash of other things, I think I may have a nice little spot for writing. I need a better chair, but this one will work for a bit.
I've got the new home-recorded sneak peak versions of the next Over the Rhine album that has yet to be recorded and it has put me in a mood for chatting with myself and the pinkish-grey version of the sky this evening.
I've often thought recently about how weird it is to have this mid-summer weather in the middle of April. I guess that's the perk of moving to a tropical region (though I pay for it in July). But Over the Rhine and the kiss of a cool breeze after a hot day has always been one of my favorites of a Wisconsin summer--only now it is marred by the sound of angry men, police sirens and the view of deteriorating houses outside my window instead of the accent of the scent of peonies wafting in my windows and the sight of lighting bugs dancing across the front lawn.
I miss home...

As you can see, New Orleans has still not completely become "home" yet to me. Some days I resent it and other days I rest in its weary arms, but we have not built up a relationship enough yet for me to truly love it here. I feel pressure to love it. But you can't force love, can you?

Marriage is interesting. There are days that I love it and days that I feel completely baffled by every aspect of it--and some days that the bafflement is the exact reason why I love it. It is not at all what my idealistic imagination had envisioned it to be. It is more work than I have ever done. I don't know why no one talked to me about this before I got married. I mean, it had to be out there. Are people really so afraid to admit the bad with the good? Yes, marriage is beautiful. It has exposed things in me that diminish me everyday to be less of Rachel and (hopefully) more of Christ...though I know on most days, I am just a really ugly version of me and not anything like Christ.
But really, why do people not talk about this? Are we really so afraid to admit that our marriages are hard? That we communicate poorly? That sex is an odd thing and nothing like it is in the movies? That we hurt each other without even knowing it and are so self-involved to even notice? That some days we would find it easier to be single?
Because the reality is that this IS reality. Marriage is not pure bliss. It is hard. It is flippin' hard.

I do love him, though, so it makes the work worth it. He is the best man I have ever known. He is the most difficult-to-understand man I have ever know, but he is also the best man I have ever known. We all knew I'd end up with someone that was a puzzle.

Anyway, in more tangible news:

School is winding down. I will be teaching 1st grade next year and will have my own classroom. It should be hard, beautiful, insane, and amazing all at the same time. I am excited and nervous.

We got the paper work for our non profit.

We are officially urban farmers. We have 4 adorable little chickens and all sorts of vegetables and flowers growing in different spaces around the yard.

I think that about sums it up for now. Leave me a little message if you find the time. I miss you all greatly. :)

Love y'all!

:)

2010-03-25T22:43:00.001-05:00

And we're married :)

Thank you to everyone to came down, who sent cards and letters and emails, who made phone calls and who helped make our day incredibly special.

We're off to relax in Asheville, NC for a few days.

:)

I'll write a better update when we are back. Hopefully with some pictures!

Just like the Hydrangeas

2010-03-01T23:15:00.002-06:00

Hello friends,
Again, it's been a while. You will have to excuse my tardiness of my updates. As I'm sure you all can guess, life has been insane. Michael and I are officially down to 18 days until we will be Mr. and Mrs. Wong. Go ahead. Laugh. My name will be Rae Wong. Say it 4 times fast...bet you can't do it! We've gotten a good number of laughs out of that new name, but I am very excited to obtain it.

In the midst of wedding-madness, I got into a teaching certification program, so that's made life extra interesting. Life in the church plant business is picking up, as we prepare to do our hard launch as Harbor Community Church. Systems are taking form and teams are being built. It's a good thing and exhausting to know what work goes into building a healthy church. All of you who are in an established church, BE THANKFUL. You will never know how it happens until you see it happens. You can hear the stories and see the ramifications of early decisions, but you will never know the toil and work that goes into building it until you do it.

As for me personally, I am overwhelmed with transition. Seems to be the story of my life lately. While it's a good thing, I find that I lose hope easily, which is hard for me to admit. Tonight, I am discouraged (though somewhere deep in me knows that joy will come in the morning.)
Let me try to relate this...

A previous roommate and friend of Michael had a dog named Abita. This past Fall, excited for the ability to grow flowers in November and December, I purchased a bunch of pre-established flowers from a gardening organization in the city that was practically giving them away. I purchased 4 hydrangea plants, beautiful in color, and hurried home to plant them in bigger pots to get them started. Abita, though a wonderfully dog, did not know that she should not eat my lovely new hydrangeas. And ate she did. The barely formed new plants were snapped off here and there, gnarled from her teeth. I thought that they were done for, but Michael convinced me to hold onto them, as he thought they would bloom again.

So I waited for their inevitable death.

A few weeks later, I noticed buds starting to come off of their still mangled branches.

The next night, we had a hard freeze, which is pretty rare for the tropical climate of New Orleans.
Surely the brown, withered leaves were tell-tale signs that these plants were done for.

Again, Michael convinced me to hold on a bit longer.

And then, this past weekend, I walked past my hydrangeas... And they were full of new buds and leaves. Sprouts of color were popping out on even the mangled branches. A new hope filled me. Those branches would see beautiful blooms yet!

It wasn't until tonight that I realized the likeness between the hydrangeas and myself.
Since I have arrived in New Orleans, I have felt like it has been one thing after the next, making me give a bit of myself up. A snapping of a twig here, a bite off a leaf there. Little by little, I have given up my creativity. I have given up my time. I have given up the things that allowed me to worship fully.

The eaten hydrangea. The frozen hydrangea.

And then tonight, whilst in the middle of a breakdown that resulted in a discussion with Michael about the possibility of having to give up the one last thing that connects me to my old self, playing music, I realized how wrong I have been all along and the perspective that I have viewed the hydrangea from.

Since I have arrived in New Orleans, it has felt like a constant battle to not give up who I am. The transition to a full time job. The transition to a boyfriend to a fiance to a husband. The transition to a church plant. It has all left me with the remnants of what was once, sure, a lovely little flower. But through the work of the Gospel and the promise that He works for the good of those who love Him, we are assured that the eaten and frozen hydrangea will once again grow. But not only will it grow. It will flourish. Through the mystery of the resurrection and the promise that those who lose their life will gain it, I will live life more abundantly than anything I could have imagined.

Though I do not feel like myself right now, what good was myself? What good was what I knew of myself? What does it matter...when the life I lead is not my own, but the taking up of a cross.

Through the brokenness comes restoration and through that restoration comes the hope of a good and fruitful life that will be more than my creativity or ingenuity or time could have ever produced.

But that doesn't mean I won't suffer growing pains to get there. It just means that I will need to learn to be joyful in the affliction of the freeze and the pruning by the dog.

WHO DAT NATION!!

2010-02-02T22:07:00.003-06:00

Hello, Old friends!

It's been an incredibly long time since I was able to write. Here is a newsletter that I just wrote for RefugeNOLA. More to come soon. And pictures!

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is In Her, and our land, Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. Isaiah 62:1-4

Hours before the Saints won the division championship game, sealing their spot in the Superbowl, I was able to participate in my first Second Line. (For those of you who don’t know, a “Second Line is a tradition in brass band parades. The "main line" is the main section of the parade, or the members of the actual club with the parading permit; those who follow the band just to enjoy the music are called the "second line."—Thank you Wikipedia!)
The experience left Michael, Dan and I with a newfound love for this city. All of the elements of New Orleans culture combined into one migrating city block—dancing, brass bands, gold and black, and apparently, Heineken beer. For me, being there FINALLY gave me a glimpse of my capacity to love this city. Prior to this experience, I had a hard time really finding anything good about this city that was worth fighting for, aside from a very non-personal conviction to be here. But something struck a chord deep within me while I marveled at the smells of bbq’ed chicken, saw the incredible dancing, and watched grown men climb up stop lights on one of the busiest streets in the city. I felt like the Grinch when his heart grows 3 sizes too big. Where else would one ever find this kind of celebration (for something that hadn’t even happened yet…)
I knew that this was not something to be taken lightly. After 8 months of living in this foreignness, I finally felt a draw to the city I am living in now. I finally felt the desire to fight for it and not just nonchalantly care for it. I had been praying for this desire for months, and now it stared me in the face.
destruction and devastation. In what other city do people dance in the street and celebrate for any given reason. No where in the world is like New Orleans in this respect—and the way that Scripture describes what our heaven on earth will be like is very similar to the way people celebrate here; it will just be without all of the bad.
My heart explodes with excitement to see God work in this city. My joy is overwhelming when I see one of my kindergarteners truly grasp a concept at school that makes them proud of their ability to learn, despite a failing school system that tells them that they will never amount to anything. My happiness is indescribable when I see Michael take a couple of kids fishing, which leads to their uncle coming by to talk to us one day, opening up other opportunities in the neighborhood to have an impact.
This life that we live is not our own. And this City that we want to see built on our Earth is within reach. We are hopeful and we know that day is coming when He will return and we will all be second lining in the street.

Redefining Beauty

2009-11-03T19:52:00.003-06:00

Update Sprint

In case you haven't yet heard, Michael Wong has asked me to be his wife and I have accepted. We will be married on March 20, 2010 and are busy planning the wedding!
Michael started a new full time position at a bank as a special projects manager, as well as a few other things there, that no one else knows how to do. (I have somehow found someone to marry who is even more inquisitive than I am...)
School is going ok for me. The kindergartners are learning a ton and it's amazing to see these little people forming! It has been very tough the last few weeks, but I am constantly growing and refining and am very fortunate to work on the staff that I do. I will soon be applying for teaching programs so that I can get certified.
I have been working to help develop new and effective systems at our church with my roommate and maid of honor, Lori. We are very excited about starting to implement and I have discovered that I have a real passion for healthy church systems! (Wait for the phone call, Nancy Lindroth!)
RefugeNOLA, the non-profit (501-C3) that we are trying to give legs helped to pull off a rather large event in Central City for Halloween. (More in this update following, as well as a newsletter that will come soon to all of you!)

Please pray for...
Please pray for me, as I am feeling stretched especially thin lately. Pray that I would learn to set good boundaries for myself and for my future husband (whoa, that sounds weird!) Also, please pray that the people that are feeling snubbed by me would no feel hurt and that I would be able to find the time to make them feel loved and appreciated.
Pray for all of the things I mentioned above!
Pray that true community would develop with our church, that we would be able to come together to bring impact to other parts of the city--God is doing something at Sojourn Lakeview Baptist Church (soon to be Harbor Community Church) and we are very excited about it. Pray that the leadership would continue to seek after the heart of God in all matters and that they would make decisions that will bring about community and love.

Sit down and rest a while

Well, the weather in New Orleans has finally taken a turn for the better. October brought us some still humid temperatures, but for the most part, the season of "Fall" settled in about halfway through the month, and there was a sigh of relief that was heard around the whole city.
I heard birds chirp for the first time since I'd been down here.
I thought I saw a tree near my school start to change colors. (Ironically, I was then informed that it was actually a flower that blooms in the tree in the Fall...)
It has been no Wisconsin Fall, but nonetheless, I have found some amount of Beauty in it.
The beginning of October was hard. As the month set, tension just seemed to build. My disdain and selfishness against this city kicked in and I began to become discontented in regards to the physical location that I now found myself. I have spent the last month trying to figure out why and I believe that my questions have finally been answered:

Solitude.

In this city, there seems to be no solitude. Sure, there are times that I find myself alone, but never times when I feel really alone. You know, that feeling when you are standing in the middle of the woods at down on a rock, feeling the sun warm your face as it shows itself at the dawn. The feeling of walking down a train with all of the colored leaves of the Wisconsin Fall around you, crunching under your feet. Standing on a hill that looks out over a lake.
In New Orleans, there are no woods. There are no large rocks. There is no Fall. There are no crunching leaves. And there definitely isn't a hill that looks over a lake unless you go to the levees, which are brown and dull looking.

Solitude is where I find beauty. Because solitude is when I commune with God best. It is my respite. Believe it or not, I think I have become more of an introvert since I've been down here. I hear that is what working in a school will do to you.
Either way, there is a deep connection between God, solitude and my ability to see beauty.

But I'm coming to realize that I may have something backwards. Since solitude is so hard to come by now, perhaps I need to redefine beauty, if that is when I commune with God best. Or maybe when I commune with God best, I see beauty more.
I guess I don't have it all figured out yet.
But something tells me that I need to redefine beauty.

Sure, there is something to be said for the typical beauty of the Wisconsin Fall. For the solitude of the trails. For the hills and the trees. It is creation...How do you not find God in that?

But I'm guessing that He wants me to start being a bit more creative like He is... Being a bit more imaginative, if you will.
Plato said in Symposium:
"Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may."

Or, rather...

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

This past weekend, we (RefugeNOLA.org) and a slew of other partners hosted a block party-type event for Halloween in Central City and were floored by what God did with it. In a neighborhood full of broken homes and broken relationships, teenage parents and rampant drug use, we saw a community come together. The event was just a simple block party that enabled kids in the neighborhood to trick-or-treat with the reassurance of safety, as we organized houses and games, even giving houses candy that couldn't afford to buy it.
We expected to see kids out and about, running around, getting candy, but as 5pm came and went, we got a little worried that they weren't going to come. And then, as the sun slowly went down, they came out...but not just the kids. Their parents, with strollers and trick-or-treat bags in tow, were out with them. Teenage fathers with their kids on their shoulders bobbed for apples.
My favorite story of the night:
A mother was trying to do our reverse bobbing for apples game (reverse bobbing for apples is when you hang an apple from a string and you have to try to bite off the apple in the air). She was having a heck of a time and her kids were all joking with her about it. Her cellphone rang and the typical language that you hear in the neighborhood came out as she described to her friend across the phoneline what she was doing: "I'm trying to get the damn apple off the stick!!" I can only imagine what her friend thought, but I laughed so hard at that, I didn't know what to do with it! Even more, striking, though, was that the mother kept trying and soon, her daughter chided that she could do it better. So teenage daughter gave the apple a go...and still failed. Soon, mother and daughter were attacking the apple together, one on each side, and were, eventually, successful!
It was such a normal thing to see...if you weren't in Central City. It was something my mom and I would do.
I have yet to figure out whether that fact reminds me of my own brokenness or whether it reminds me that these broken relationships still have a way to be redeemed. I'm sure that it's both.

But isn't that the real reality of beauty? Something that reminds us of how small we are, but at the same time, gives us hope?

And so, I am being made to be more creative. I am being made to be more imaginative.
I am being made to be more like Christ--finding the ability to see value and beauty in everything that He has created.

The Everywhere Person

2009-09-08T21:36:00.002-05:00

Drive-thru Update:
School is in full swing! The kindergartners are settling in nicely, though I still feel rather awkward in my teaching. Though I am still learning boatloads and loving it!
I have started helping to lead worship at Sojourn-Lakeview church and am VERY happy to have music back in my life. Leading worship is one of my favorite things that I have done in life to date, so to have this back is a wonderful gift. On the topic of church, our little church plant has exploded over the last few weeks!! And having come from a church with a lot of great ideas on connecting people and hospitality, I have been given the ability at Lakeview Sojourn to help spearhead this! It is a need and I am very excited to be on the team and helping out!
The non-profit that we are working on starting is getting a bit more shape. I think the legs are starting to form and more people are interested in helping out every week! We are currently working on fixing up a house across the street to turn into intern housing and a sort of community center. If you are in the area and want to help, please let us know!!

Sit-Down Update:
In Madison, it's a widely known fact that everyone has an Everywhere Person, if not more than 1. In college at UW-Madison, one of the things I looked forward to every year was walking to my first week of classes and figuring out who my everywhere people were. Some of them spanned the 5 years I was in school, while others were more short-lived, but there was not a time in Madison that I did not have one. And there is something about them that has always struck something inside of me--something deep and unexplained. I think it made me stop to look at the deeper complexities of life, and to wonder about this person; to think about their life and what was happening to them that made me cross their path the times that I did. Surely, these run-ins were not just coincidence.
When I moved to New Orleans, I thought I had left my everywhere people behind. I thought that a city the size of New Orleans would never allow me the opportunity again of seeing the same red coat or checkered hat again. But on the city bus one day about a month and a half ago, an older man got on the bus. He had puffs of white hair that stuck out under his straw hat with the faded fabric around the brim. His sweat-stained bandana was wrapped around his neck and his tshirt clung to him in the Louisiana heat. His thin, long leg that faced me as he dropped his coins into the ticket dispenser looked as if it had never felt brush of his twin leg. He laughed out loud to himself, revealing a mouth full of missing teeth, as he sat down and pulled out a can of beer in a paper bag. I sat and watched him until he got off the bus, not sure what to do with what I had just seen. I chalked it up to the odd personalities that live in the neighborhood in which I work and went about my day.

But a few days later, he got on my bus again. Same story. Same white puffs of hair. Same long legs. Same beer in a paper bag. Coincidence.

And then I didn't see him again.

Until I was biking home from work the other day and a pickup truck with an old busted refrigerator turned the corner right in front of me and who else was in the back of the truck, holding the refrigerator but the old man. I almost waved, I was so excited.
And then sadness came over me. The reality of my Everywhere Man is that he has probably lived in this city, uneducated, and unable to get out of the cycles of this city, for his entire life. It reminded me of the betrayal that this city leads you into. You are overcome with the history, with the beauty, with the culture of New Orleans when you first visit it. But soon, the true colors come out... Broken relationships. Broken systems. Broken cultures.

And yet, there is so much beauty in the possibilities of redemption for this city...and for the world. The days that I see parents give their kids hugs and show excitement to see them after school...the days that I see affordable decent apartments going into low income neighborhoods...simply, flowers in a pot outside of a house in the hood...lets me know that our God is sovereign and good and will have His way with the people that He loves.

I still feel small here. I still feel like I can't make a bit of difference in the deep, penetrating problems within these lives. But i serve a big God who will bring justice in the end. I serve a God who loves all. And all people have dignity and value because of this. My only role is to live a life that looks more and more like the life that Christ lived, because it is only through that life that Paradise Restored is possible.

Please Pray For:
-An ability to see the glories of God. I am struggling to see beauty in the mess of the world, but I know it is me that is blind to them and not that they are not being revealed to me.
-Stamina to keep trucking forward and to continue to keep God in the forefront of my mind and heart as I try to care for some of the people of this city
-Wisdom as we move forward with various projects
-RefugeNOLA (nonprofit) in Central City with Michael Wong
-We need volunteers and funding to finish off the house we are remodeling for kids in the neighborhood to be
able to hang out at, as well as housing for interns who want to learn more about serving in Central City.
-Sojourn Lakeview Church
-As more of the Lakeview neighborhood returns to New Orleans, our church is growing rapidly. Please pray for
wisdom and and ability to discern what God would be having us do (or not do)
-I am doing better with missing home and people so much, but I still have moments of sorrow (but not regret). I miss everyone and everything still and long to see everyone and to feel the cooler Wisconsin night breezes. (For some reason, my big thing recently is not hearing birds ever.)
-Continued learning about what it means to love sacrificially and to give of myself until there is nothing of myself left.

Changes Come

2009-08-13T20:43:00.002-05:00

Part 1:
I began work on July 20 at a school called ARISE Academy. It's a wonderful school that works in the Bywater/Ninth Ward area. This is the first year it is open (That's right...I'm helping to start a school! How cool is that?!). Our student population is 199 black students and 1 white girl, ranging from Pre-K to 2nd grade. Every year after this year, we will add a grade until we get to 8th grade. I love the team I work on. Everyone is incredibly social justice minded, despite whatever the deeper source of that mindset is. The kids are great and we are implimenting teaching techniques that are proven to work in areas such as these to bring these children up in an atmosphere of scholarly learning. We have a very rigorous curriculum, and though that freaks me out because I do not have a teaching degree, I am co-teaching with a girl about my age who is a first year Teach for America hire (so we are both freaking out a bit right now!)

Please pray for stamina. The days are long and exhausting, but I love that my LIFE has become a ministry. This is why I moved here. I wanted this. I asked for this. And my prayers have been answered. But it means giving up a lot of things for myself (most days I don't even have time to run. Please also pray that I would continue to learn to love sacrificially and to learn more how to love the unloved.

Part 2:
I have been in New Orleans for two and a half months now.
Within that time, I've had no job...one job and then another job.
I've lived in one apartment...and then moved to another.
I've made friends...said goodbye to friends...and made more friends.
I've gained 5 pounds...and then lost 10.
I turned 25.

And in those two and a half months, I have become a new person. Those in Madison would see the difference. Those in New Orleans might. I definitely do. My experiences in New Orleans have forced me to grow, kicking and screaming, and change. I have come to understand the Gospel in a way that never even dawned on me previous to this placement change. I understand so much more brokenness and grace and hope and love. And I am grateful for these lessons, though I am homesick for comfort.

It's amazing how much you take fore granted when you are in the position to have it. Michael and I were driving me home, past all of the dilapidated and condemned homes of Central City and I almost broke into tears. Driving through that neighborhood (and really the whole city in general) I was blindsided by yet another reality:
The people who "have" never quite realize all that they do have, yet the "have nots" can not escape the fact that they don't have. They are constantly reminded by their discomfort. To alleviate that pain, they turn to things that will reduce that pain. They turn to alcohol (bars are open 24 hours a day here), drugs (one of the worst crime issues in this city, robbery (a huge issue in this city), and murder (the news doesn't even report on murders here because the rate of them is the highest in the nation).
Our comfort blinds us. It numbs us. It separates us from the world.

Life down here has made me realize how much I never appreciate what I have. The kids I work with make me realize that I have an education that I didn't work hard enough for. They make me realize that I have a family that loves me and would do anything for me. They make me realize that, during the times that it was important, my life was stable (which, coincidentally is what now gives me the ability to not have stability). For whatever reason, I was given things easy--and I still am. But the blinders are being taken off.
I see the some of the depth of the pain in this city and my heart aches for redemption and for restoration. I was biking to work this morning as the sun was coming up. It was beautiful and peaceful and calm still. The day had not yet started for most and there was a cool breeze. I breathed a sigh of relief. I prayed as I biked for patience to deal with my students and work well on my team and to bring salt and light to the people around me. And then I saw the same homeless man that I see every morning sleeping on a different stoop and cried out for it all to be over. When will that day come when the world will be restored? When will the hurt of people stop? My hands feel so small here.

The dichotomy of it all is that I still ache for my own comforts. I feel so removed. Life goes on in the rest of the world without me. Friends get married. Friends have babies. Nieces have birthdays and so do Dads. The warm nights of summer in Wisconsin pass with the cool breezes and live music and fireflies. All of the things that I miss so much keep spinning on without me.
I feel torn between two selves.

"The biggest lies are the little ones.
Angel or demon? You know that they could share the same bed.
I've laid awake so long, I've got them both inside my head." ~OTR

And yet...
I feel cooler breezes in the afternoons. They say that it starts to cool down in September. Hope and redemption are around the corner. I can feel it coming.

Vagaries and Vantage Points

2009-07-05T20:56:00.003-05:00

I have been in New Orleans for just over a month now and I believe that I have learned more [painful] lessons in this time than I have in the last year combined. James 1 is ever a comfort to me and never fails to remind me that, yes, this sucks, but it is good and I am growing and becoming more like Christ because of it...

In my last post, I talked about letting go of my notions of community. Not only have these thoughts gone deeper, but the chasm has opened wide and I now see a bigger picture that not only entails my community, but my life as a whole.
I sat down at a coffee shop yesterday for a while and listed all of the things that I feel that I "need" to feel like Rae. My list wasn't as superficial as I thought it would be--or so I thought.
My list:
Community
To be utilized well
Mental stimulation (ie. good conversation/music/art/etc)

Not bad, right? Well, then I went through the realizations from the last post--These are never promised to me. I have promises for good and joy and peace. But never a promise for the things listed above.
Anyway, so through this, I realized that He is bringing me to a place where all I need is Him. Well, that seems simple enough, right? Sure, all I need is God. That's what I thought before I embarked into this craziness, anyhow.
Now I am realizing that the stripping away of everything in which I once found comfort is the most ridiculous painful thing that I have ever experienced. My friends and family-a major source of comfort-are all 1,000 miles away. The internship that utilized me well and engaged me is no more. Even the ability to connect with God in nature has been taken from me, as it's incredibly difficult to see God in nature in the middle of a cement Island that is 8 feet below sea level.
So the question remains:
Where do I seek comfort? Because the fact that I feel that I am not me because of a lack of these things would reveal that it is not God from whom I seek my comfort. I heard a sermon today that shook me up a little bit. He talked about our short-sightedness. We desire things and He longs to give us SO MUCH MORE (If I could somehow relay the Southern Baptist accent in writing, it would make it so much more effective!). Everything in us wants our comforts and our routines, but Jesus has called us to GO (Matt. 28). We are not meant to be comfortable in this world, but only through Him.
The Holy Spirit should create in us a ripple affect--it should wake us up to desire that our hearts and our wills and our desires be crushed and that His replace them.

This then begs a question, though. I have the desire for my will to be crushed, so why doesn't it happen? Why do I constantly have to fight against myself to move anywhere?
Up north, I was often told that I had a servant's heart. The reality that this is nonsense has never been truer than what I see now in myself. A servant's heart does not just entail picking up the hymnals after the meeting or serving a meal at the shelter once a month. If that were a servant's heart, NONE of us would have any ability to live the life in Christ that we do now. A servant's heart cares for other people sacrificially. But what does it mean to live sacrificially? Here is the true message of the Gospel! A sacrificial heart lays down itself so that others may flourish. A sacrificial heart dies to its desire and its will and its need for the sake of the other.

This is the desire of my heart. I long to learn to love people sacrificially the way that Christ did. I long to learn how to die to my own will and desire for the sake of other's comfort and assurance that they are loved and cared for. And I realize that by asking for this that it will be granted to me because Psalm 37:4 reminds us that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart. (Funny how the reality of that verse is that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, HE becomes our desire. Sneaky Sneaky, eh? It's the Catch-22 of falling in love with this God.)

The desire is there in me; the implementation is weak.

So the reality is this:
I long for comfort, but comfort cannot be found because He is teaching me about what it actually means to love the way that He loves us. He is teaching me what it means to love sacrificially. And that lesson begets no comfort unless comfort is Christ because everything that was once comfortable has been stripped away.
But in the lesson, the beauty of Paradise Restored resounds just a little bit more in this world.

It's all so beautifully interconnected.

Play by Play

-The job is going well at the Seminary's preschool, although it is, I hope, a stepping stone. I have an interview with a charter school this coming Wednesday for an Associate Teaching position, which would be wonderful. If you would pray for that, I would really appreciate it!
-I am now a member of Sojourn-Lakeview Baptist Church--I have never been a member of a church before, so this is an interesting experience and really only a couple of hours old.
-I got to visit with a great friend Andy Camann this weekend when he came in to town from Houston!

Growing Curves

Please also pray for these things that I am discovering or being shown to me:
I need to learn to be a better listener and to truly learn to show care for the people talking to me. I may intake what people are saying, but I do a poor job of relaying that. There is usually so much happening in my head that I sometimes zone out or shut down. This absolutely needs to change.
I also need to learn to slow down under pressure and make better decisions in that pressure.
Both of these things are not new discoveries, but down here in this context, if I do not learn to do them, major things are affected.
Please join me in praying for a change in me to be more like Christ in these areas--I appreciate it.

An Attempt at Standing Up

2009-06-12T00:05:00.002-05:00

2 Part Update!
I decided to do this one as 2 parts: The first part is just the basics of what is going on. The second is bigger things there are going on in my head. I figure that not everyone wants to read the second part (oven people vs. microwave people :P )

Part 1:

I have a meeting with a woman tomorrow about a possible job. We will see how that goes.
I am also the midst of still digging through jobs and sending out resumes. I am feeling slightly unmotivated it in, so please pray for stamina and perseverance.
We are also looking for an apartment for August 1 that will be cheap and in a good location, but I am currently the only one around, but I do seem to have at least 3 roommates to live with now.
I am melting in the this heat and can't eat enough popsicles! :P

Part 2:

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
- Henry David Thoreau

I read this quote today and it hit me pretty hard. I function in writing. The way I write and the amount that I write is a good indication of where I am at in life. The times that I am learning the most and processing the most are the times when I am writing the most. So I can relate pretty well to Henry up there. I don't have anything to write about unless I've bothered to pay attention to the world around me.

But to be honest, I've been in survival mode for the last bit of time here. This move has been the hardest thing I've ever done. And like the already oppressive heat of New Orleans that I have experienced thus far--this has not been the worst of it.

The first 5 days here were distracted, with my parents being down here. The next few were just fine because Michael and I were spending quite a bit of time together, so I wasn't really lonely. Piece of cake.

And then yesterday and today happened: Too hot for me to really want to leave the house but desperate to not feel lonely.
It has got me thinking quite a bit though. And in conjunction with the sermon that I heard at the church I attended on Sunday as well as with the community group that I went to based off of that sermon, I believe my world might be turning on its head.

For the last 3.5 years, I have been surrounded by amazing fellowship and community. Let's face it, I have been spoiled, like the youngest child that I am. I loved every minute of it and miss it terribly. But I think that it might have crippled me a bit. The sermon and small group tonight focused on sin and we talked for a bit about idols. This was a challenging topic for me because I began to be more convicted (I had already started thinking about it a little bit) because I believe the good community that I had up there became an idol to me--I found worth in it. I found comfort in it. It fulfilled me. While God has such joy in community for us, there is a line we can cross, as with any good and perfect gift that comes from Him, where it becomes a crutch to replace instead of a gift to receive. Sad, huh?
Community is nothing unless it is fulfilling the will of God by inviting other people in to share in His goodness. But what does that mean? Something I recently realized is that we have such a tendency to trick ourselves into believing that we are doing His will with community when really we are not. We invite people into our community if they are like us--we have an application that needs to be filled out, screen tests that need to be run, and background checks that need to be gone through. God's purpose for community is that EVERYONE should experience Himself through it. But we, as consumers, have infiltrated the true calling for community. Instead, we make community fit to what we need, not to what He needs to be accomplished.
We make it our idol.
We are fulfilled by it, so long as it fulfills what we need.

Tonight, I felt a little bit like I understood God more.
In a conversation about spending time with people and the motivation for doing that, I got blindsided by a reality.
I am an extrovert to the core. I get fed off of being around people. But this can easily trick me into believing that I need people. But it's not the case. If my relationship were right with God, all I would need was Him.
And aside from that, the bigger thing that I understood Him more in is this:
The situation has occurred where I have been lonely and people have wanted to be there for me, so despite knowing that they need alone time, they hang out with me because they know that I need it. It is out of care for me and a genuine desire to be there for me--but I can always tell when they are doing it out of duty and when they are doing it because they really want to.
And then I realized that this is what God must go through all of the time with us. Our constant knowledge that we should hang out with Him, as opposed to a real desire to spend time with Him.
There is a sadness that comes along with the former situation and it made me remorse over all of the times that I have spent time with God out of duty, rather than spending time with Him because I actually care about the relationship and want it to grow. And it stems from a deeper issue than I care to write about tonight, so I will have to come back to it later.

A place to call home?

2009-06-05T00:31:00.001-05:00

Well, I have now been a New Orleans resident for 4 days.
I settled into the sublet that I have through July. By settled, I mean, got the boxes arranged along the wall so that I can walk around the room without tripping every 5 seconds. No point in unpacking completely if I am only going to be in this apartment for 2 months, right?
Since we arrived, I have basically just been doing the tourist thing with my parents, which has been good, but draining at the same time. My legs are tired from walking around, but it's great to be able to spend time with my parents as they experience my new city for the first time.
I am almost starting to learn my way around. The Mississippi River curves around in New Orleans about 3 times, making it difficult to tell which direction is where, not to mention, everything down here is just wacky. Uptown is actually down river while Downtown is up river. At least there is some semblance of a grid system that actually makes some logical sense, as opposed to everything working it's way out from the capital building... :P

I was talking to a man at a concert in Lafayette Square yesterday (they have a version of Concert on the Square down here too. But get this! They do theirs in the spring and fall because the summer months are actually the icky ones! (Have fun, suckers! I get double the amount of concerts than you do now! :P) Anyway... Felix runs a job center down here and we got to chatting after an introduction. His center focuses more on jobs for people with not as much education as I have, but he was helping me come up with ideas, nonetheless. He asked me why I was in New Orleans--A question many of you (and I) have asked myself. But then he asked a really interesting question--How long will I give myself before I pack it in if this doesn't feel like home? I didn't really have an answer to this question. I have focused this whole time on getting down here and have known for a while that I would probably be down here for a long haul. But the idea of "home" really got me thinking. How long will it take for New Orleans to feel like home?
Certainly, sitting here in my room, surrounded by everything I own that is packed up in boxes currently makes me doubt that this will ever happen. And after checking the Blackhawk website a few minutes ago just to see what was going on and seeing a picture up on the main page of me and a group of girls from Study Day, that reality cut a little deeper. Will anything feel as much like home as Madison, Wisconsin does?
I don't know the answer to this. But I know that when I got out of the car in the neighborhood of Central City the other day and a woman named Tess yelled across the street to me, ran over and gave me a hug, it felt like this could be home. And sitting on a blanket in Lafayette Square, listening to jazz music in the Louisiana sunshine, a little bit of my heart opened up more to the idea of it. Joking with the cop and the clerk at the counter at the local Winn Dixie grocery store certainly made big New Orleans feel a little smaller.
Will New Orleans ever feel like Madison did? Probably not. But do I believe that God is going to bless me with a feeling of home and community within this community? You can bet your parking spot at the 10:45 service on it.

As for the coming days, I will say a sobbing goodbye to my parents tomorrow night. This is the goodbye that I have tried to put off the longest, even making them drive me down here and stay for a week with me. :P It will be awful and I am not looking forward to it.
I will start really diving in and looking for a job when my parents leave. Please pray that God will teach me the things he needs to teach me in this time of uncertainty. I look forward to the challenge of a new job, but am also just anxious to secure something.

Thank you again for all of your prayers and words of encouragement!

terrified

2009-05-29T01:51:00.002-05:00

1 day out from moving to New Orleans and I am half regretful and half excited.

right now, all I can see is the regret in leaving everyone I love so much here. I know this is just emotion, but it's consuming right now.

So long Madison....

emotions run high...or low

2009-05-09T00:27:00.002-05:00

The emotional toll of this move is finally setting in. I was at Paul's cd release party tonight with all of the people that I now consider to be just as close to me as family and I lost it toward the end of the night.
I know where I need to be. I just hate leaving to go there.
Oh that I could be in both places at once.

Life will go on without me. People will keep going on. Lives will change. I will miss it.

My heart is a little broken right now.

The Most Important Thing

2009-04-28T16:31:00.002-05:00

It's been a while. Life has been overwhelming. And it is my fault that it has been overwhelming.

I am a words person. And when I can't find words, I get all mentally constipated. But we all know that constipation eventually leads to one massive explosion...

(Ew.)

We've been going through a sermon series at Blackhawk called Resurrection Now. It has been challenging and growth producing and I've loved it but, like most growth, it has made me encounter pain also.

In the midst of all of this--A completion of an internship, The planning of a move to New Orleans, The packing up of a life-- I have discovered a deep, dark problem within myself...

I have a complete and utter lack of trust in the One who created me.

This is humbling and sad all at the same time. How could I have gone this long and never known this? Thank God for the work of the Holy Spirit who makes us aware to these things.

I have pain in my past that debilitates me. It has become abundantly clear that this is the case over the course of the last 8 months. But the fact of the matter is that everyone has pain in their past that debilitates them. I am no different from the next person. The difference that exists between me and the next person is that my faith is in Christ who takes away that pain...but not only takes away that pain! In that weakness, He is made stronger! What kind of God takes all of the ugliness of who I am and turns it into beauty? A good, faithful and loving God...that is who.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul speaks of a thorn in his flesh--a messenger from Satan to torment him. And he speaks of the 3 times that he asks for it to be taken from him. But the Lord says to him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." And then Paul says the most incredible thing: "Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
What kind of logic is this?! When Kate first pointed out this chapter for me to read today, my mind was reeling trying to understand it. But again, once I stepped back and looked at it from a peripheral view, the image began to come together a little bit.
I am not supposed to have it all together. It's ok. In fact, it's the best thing that can happen. --as long as I can learn and rest in the fact that it is in that weakness of mine that Christ can do His work. His grace, through the work that Jesus did on the cross by defeating death and sin, is sufficient. And not only is it sufficient, but it is everything. It can sustain us.

And because of that--because our lives can be different because of Jesus--I will boast in my inability to let people in fully. I will boast in the fact that I am emotional. I will boast in the fact that I have had my heart ripped out and broken. Because in those things, with dependance on Christ, the one who makes weakness perfect, mysteriously through the work of the Holy Spirit working in my life, I am made strong. My complete lack of ability to do any of these things are the places in my life where Christ can shine through. People know that I can't trust and that I am emotional. And if I begin to let people in and use my emotions in a productive manner, to who else COULD the credit go other than the only One who has the ability to change that? Glory to Him!

...which is what it's all about anyway, right?

Lord, help me to embrace my thorns. To use evil for your glory through your work on the cross. Let it be tangible in the way I live and love, affecting all those around me. Help me to live with reckless abandonment. Be glorified in my life, God, because you have the ability to change the mess that I am.

direction

2009-03-30T13:04:00.001-05:00

so in order to make sense of this...

the 3 posts below this one were written in consecutive order, but on here, they appear in reverse. so start with the bottom post from 3/30 and work your way up.

no more confusion. :P

Waiting for Noon

2009-03-30T10:09:00.007-05:00

A long time ago, I wrote about the "beauty of ugliness," and that has stuck with me ever since. I see it everywhere now. A few days ago, I wrote this on a post-it note:

"The beauty of ugliness directly plays into the Gospel and God's response to us when we mess up. His response is not anger but to devise a plan to reconcile us to Himself. 2nd Samuel and Romans 5."

So the obvious gap that I had been experience was no doubt some unconfessed sin in my heart. But what? I had a gut instinct that it had something to do with my lack of trust lately, but was a lack of trust really a sin? It seemed pretty fundamental and something that I should have understood by now, but let's be real. I didn't know.
So I googled "sin" and "trust."

I clicked on the first website that I came across. It was helpful and brought me back to the verse(s) that I have been stumbling on all year.
Mark 12:29-31
Jesus said the Commandments are summed up in this: Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.

Somehow I missed it the whole time. I have spent so much time concentrated on the second that I have forgotten about the more important one. There is not a second without a the first. Oh how blind I am.

So I spent the next 2 hours looking up every verse in the Bible that mentions the word "heart." I know... But I was desperate. I really wanted to break down the Greatest Commandment. It seemed pretty important.

545 verses later, this is what I discovered... (And I have scripture to back it all up.)

The heart is evil from childhood. The heart can be hardened on purpose by God or by our own doing. The heart can be discouraged. The heart remembers. The heart can be proud and forget. The heart can despair. The heart should be circumcised in order to love God fully and live. The Word is written on it. It can rejoice. God has a heart. The heart can change. It can be wicked and conceited. Terror can fill it. It has desires. It can discern. It can be joyful and glad. It can have integrity and wisdom. It can turn from God. If we follow it and keep His commands, we will always do right in His eyes. It can respond. It can seek. It can be tested. It can be sad or faithful. It can hide sin. Your heart can be one with someone else's.

Ok. A ton of cool things learned came out of this. But basically, the heart is everything. It is the connection between you and God. But at the same time, the heart is deceitful. I drew a couple of diagrams to help me. I'll see if i can do them on here.

God
(His heart)
I
I
My heart
I
I
Who I Am (My heart, soul, and strength)

So God has a heart. (1 Sam 2:35) And it connects directly to my heart. He speaks to us through our hearts. His Word is written on our hearts. And His Word is exactly that...His words to us. He speaks to us.
So my heart then is the source that connects to God. And that feeds into all the rest of me.
My soul: Who I am at the core. I am an artist, a thinker, a questioner, a student, a teacher, a troublemaker and a peacemaker.
My mind: My thoughts and the processing that happens.
My strength: What I am capable of. What I am good at. My gifts, talents and ambitions.

So basically, my heart is everything. But at the same time, it is deceitful. So somehow, we must trust God in order to get past ourselves so that we can have that direct and close connection. Let's break that picture down a little more, shall we?

God -----> Heart (With sin) /\/\/\/\/\-> Me

God -----> Heart (confessed sin) -----> Me

Again, a poor picture, but it does the job in my head. It's the same pathway, but sin distorts the message so that it either doesn't get through at all or it gets through garbled. And that message is vital. Purify the heart to remove the barrier.

Ok. But we're still basically at Square 1 here.

What does it all mean? It means to love Him with all you are because everything else comes from the heart. But what does this look like in my life now?...

I am not trusting God with all of my heart. And this is in defiance of a commandment, yes. But more importantly, it causes a garbled message. I have been loving God with my mind and soul and strength, but my heart was left out of the equation. It is the reason I can run through the motions. But without the heart, it is nothing because everything must flow from the heart. Not the other way around. Without it, we are but "clanging drums" because we are to glorify God and reflect back God to Himself, not ourselves.

So to trust God with my heart...
To trust Him with my fears. My anxiety. My joy. My desires. My plans. My creativity. My gift for connecting to people.

I have given into the seemingly elementary lies that we all seem to think we move past and become immune to. But we are not immune! GAR! What lies!! The lies that we think we have covered when we hit a certain point in our depth with God. "What are you talking about? I can do it this. I've got it in the bag. I know how to trust Christ." It's amazing, really, what an intricate and cunning and smart ability Satan has to deceive us if we are not continually reliant on the grace of God.

I was striving. Not trusting.

Good intentions are not enough. Only the sacrifice of Christ allows me into the connection that I desire and need for life. That connection is my life source--my air supply. It is what I must have to survive. I am fully dependent on it for survival, but sometimes I stubbornly hold my breath, believing that my lungs will produce air -oxygen and nitrogen- on their own. It is a silly thought, isn't it?

My Jesus, I am sorry. I was wrong. Restore to me a clean heart and do not tun your face from me any longer. Like the sun rising and shedding light on the tree branches, from the top to the bottom, renew me. Transform me into your beauty.

I stand with the trees, and I wait for noon.

I Stand with the Trees

2009-03-30T09:32:00.005-05:00

I woke up at six this morning.

The realities of last night still with me, I opened my Bible, desperate for anything that could possibly bring hope. I opened to Ephesians 3:17 and read "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
I mourned for the days that I knew and felt that fullness of the love of God--the love that I didn't understand and was so happy in that mystery, despite my desire to understand everything. But the question popped into my head: What does it mean to be rooted and established in love?
And then I remembered the words from someone who cares greatly for me last night..."There must be some unconfessed sin causing this gap."
Truth.
But what was it?

So I got up and took a walk. The morning was cold and felt appropriate to what I was feeling inside. As I walked, I listened to the words of artists who put their feelings and passion into words and musical notes, and I let them wash over me. My brokenness revealed itself. I seemed to blend into the ugliness of the brown, dead-like trees around me, with pieces of themselves strewn about and surrounded by their fallen counterparts. I kept walking, and the sun began to glimmer over the horizon. The color of the radiant, warm light made the trees seem even more the color of a bleak and benumbed inner tomb.
And then I looked up.
The uppermost tips of the branches were taking on a glowing hue. The sunlight was coming to reconcile the trees to their true color. The darkness had only given a distorted image of what they really were. The upward slope of the branches stretched themselves toward the light that was beginning to cast itself. I watched for what must have been fifteen minutes, the whole time a desire growing in me to be like those lucky scepters that sparkled like jewels had been embedded in them. I wanted the light to touch me. I wanted to shine in my truest color, too.

I climbed a rock to get higher. The sun, once devising where it would deposit its light upon was now hurling and scattering it on everything. The light hit the tip of my head and I felt its warmth start to seep and drain. I planted my feet on that rock, lifted my eyes, and waited to be transformed.

And there I stood with the trees.

The Depth of Dissension

2009-03-30T09:17:00.005-05:00

It has been a long time since I've been able to sit down and write. I could go on with a list of how busy it has been (It has.) and how much I have wanted to write (I have.). But it would be futile in the contrast of the reality that I have simply felt dried up with no ambition or inspiration to be able to even write words on a page. I haven't wanted to talk to anyone (What?!) and I have simply become a lazy ball of complacency.

And yet, this was not what I wanted. Often, I would sit down alone and try to contemplate what was happening to me. There were times when it literally felt like I could not breath...as if my air supply was cut off from the source. It has affected relationships. It has affected work ethic. It has permeated me. Or maybe I have permeated who I am to be with Him who created me.

Over the last week, since I got back from New Orleans, I have had the chance to actually realize the depth of the dissension that has been occurring at the core of who I am.
This weekend, during Pulse--my favorite weekend at Blackhawk that pulls together artists for the sake of learning what it means for the artist to serve God and the Church, emphasizing our call and vocation in regards to this--all I could realize was how disconnected I was, how little inspiration I had and how much that is affecting me at my core. The move to New Orleans has been sucking a lot of time from me, with all of the little details that need to take place. I am simply too busy.
But at Pulse, I began to realize how far, after all of the business, I was from true restoration and redemption. The reality of who I am without Christ began to set in. The chasm became clear as I stood in the back during communion, not even able to go up to the first few rows and sit with everyone else during worship. All of my striving...all of my trying...everything I had tried to do had pushed me further from the goal and the reality of that was evident.

But what to do about it? Anger. Frustration. Defensiveness. Blame...On everyone but myself.

And then, last night, I broke. In the darkness of my bedroom, I quite literally cried out. I pounded my fists on my bed. I mourned my inability to make my strivings work. And I reconciled myself to the knowledge that I can't do it.
And so, I sat. And sobbed. And was left unanswered and unhopeful and fell asleep with the knowledge that I was further than I had been from my sweet Savior that I quite possibly had ever been. (I am beginning to think that the more knowledge that we gain of Christ, the further we can be separated from Him if we allow our hearts to do it.)

holy changes, batman!

2009-03-11T00:05:00.002-05:00

Welp! I'm feeling pretty exhausted, but I wanted to update quick.

I got back from my first New Orleans trip. I leave for the second one in 3 days.

The interview was phenomenal. To all those who were praying: It was obvious. I absolutely knew that you were all praying and saw the power of that in several very real and tangible ways. I feel really confident about the interview. We will know within 2 weeks whether I got it or not. I will keep you all informed. Above all else, though, I learned about the goodness of God this weekend and how incredibly faithful He is. I saw example after example of His hand in situations.

The experience of being in New Orleans in general was amazing too. Great people. Great city. So much to do though. I am feeling more and more of a draw to the city and my passion to go down and just pour myself into it is getting stronger. I am excited for the move.

Other things have now also emerged that are rather exciting, but I'll wait to really say much about all of that.

:)

To bed now!

quick update

2009-02-24T22:28:00.002-06:00

Ok. It's been a while but I've been seriously out of the writing loop. Things have gotten unbelievably crazy around here.

I got an interview with TeachNOLA down in New Orleans, so I will be flying down in 11 days...and then 4 days after that, turning around to drive down to lead the CAM trip with 40 college students in tow. :) Should be amazing.

Alas, with all of the stress, I've been freaking out. But God is incredibly faithful and has placed amazing people in my life that support me and pour into me when I need it.
Today started out awful, but as I am nearing the end of the day, I realize that I'm so blessed. I love my friends and family more than they will ever know.

And I will miss them with a great pain when I am far far away.

...But I am also excited for the crazy things that they will be doing for the sake of the Gospel.

I love you guys.

Redemption and Slush

2009-02-10T19:11:00.003-06:00

Today was beautiful.

February 10th and we hit a high of 60 degrees outside. This is almost unheard of in Wisconsin.

I took advantage of the opportunity to be outside without freezing. After work at Blackhawk, I took a walk in the arboretum. It couldn't be too intense, as I was in moccasins and had no time to change clothing. (I was in between afternoon activities.) This was actually a blessing.

I drove into the arboretum the furthest that I could go. Grabbed my keys and my ipod and left everything else in the car. I knew that I needed to spend some time with God with no distractions.

It has been an intense week or so. I feel like I did almost 3 years ago when I was on the spring break trip during which I truly learned to abandon what I thought was best for my life in exchange for the plan that God had for me. There is this unquenchable knowledge happening within the deepest part of me that knows there is something I need to let go of before God can do His next work in me.
I wrote a bit ago about the imagery I've been getting with the little girl and the broken vase. This has grown to be more detailed as time has progressed.

The Blackhawk Staff retreat happened last week. There was 2.5 hours set aside the first afternoon for us to spend some time with God. I spent a good portion of it hiking around the land of the camp that we were at out in western Wisconsin, along the cliffs and through the untouched snow. I could feel that I wanted to connect with God but was butting my head against a wall. I pegged it as the fact that it was time that was set aside for me to do this rather than me setting it aside and moved on with the retreat. However, that night, we had an intense time of worship, confession and communion. I was left with this knowledge that I do not know how to forgive. This grand concept that is a cornerstone in the faith I profess is a concept that I do not get. I hide behind the hurts of my past, turning them into what seems like strength, all the while terrified that someone will dig deep enough to realize what I know:
I don't know how to forgive.

I am, in fact, that little girl. I am the girl, who in her own carelessness, knocked the priceless vase off of the table and shattered it. I tried to hide the pieces for a while. But I know full well that the only person who can fix it is the one who created it to begin with. And now I have to, with the admittance that I was wrong to be so careless, give back the broken pieces. And so I present it. And I cry and say that I'm sorry and that I was wrong. And I am comforted and told that it's ok. It can be put back together... but it won't look exactly the same. And I mourn those cracks that will never be smoothed out. That I will look at 15 years from now and say "I wish I would have been more careful with that. Imagine what it would be if I had been."

When I was walking, I was pondering this. I was praying about it. I was mourning the cracks that are now in my heart, despite the ability for Him to put it back together.
It was as if even Creation was mourning with me. The grove of beautiful green fir trees had one tree growing in the midst of it that was dead and ugly...and yet somewhat beautiful. It was a beautiful day, with what you could tell was a warm breeze. But every time a breeze hit me, it was chilly. The snow cooled the southerly breezes so that by the time they reached me, they were cold. It was trying to get me, but was slowed down and inhibited. It hit the brick wall that I had been hitting for weeks.

I eventually got back to my car and pulled out my journal. I let the words from 1 John 1:9 speak to me. "If we confess, He is faithful to forgive us and purify us."
And it just poured out from me. The snow melted into slush and water. The breezes blew warm as I sat there in the car with my windows down and myself heart begging for restoration.

And as that snow turned to slush and turned to water, redemption happened.

Cleaning out the Closet

2009-02-02T22:39:00.002-06:00

It has come to my realization that God is doing some serious cleaning of my rhetorical closet these days. It is good. It is healthy. And like all things that are good and healthy for growth, it is also painful. You prune the bush to allow it to grow more, right?

Recently, I've been playing an ugly game of wack-a-mole with experiences and hurts in my past. One by one, they are being drudged to the surface and one by one, I'm having to recognize, analyze, and legitimize (which has, coincidentally or not, lead to a lot of exercise too. ---hey! it's a near rhyme. I was close.)
So this involves seeing that these things in the closet exist, analyzing the effect and causes of them and then dealing with them in the present and all of the things that it has affected. This has lead to a lot of freedom with some things but a lot more of a nauseated feeling within my stomach.

A lot of it, being the girl that I am, has to do with histories with guys. Friends...past boyfriends...past almost-boyfriends... You name it: If he could grow a five o'clock shadow, I'm dealing with it now.
I am realizing that forgiveness is something that I have to chose to do on a regular basis until it becomes a lifestyle. But that lifestyle looks differently for every situation, so right now, it's just way too much thinking and I am a bit overwhelmed with it. I have one good success story, so there is actually a standard to set the others against.
I am learning the significance of that ever-present but ever-foreign concept of "guarding your heart." What the crap does this even mean, right? Well. I now have an answer for you. Without even realizing it at points, I was able to give away little chunks of my heart here and there...Without even a knowledge that I was doing it or an ability to stop it. I was told to guard my heart, but not ever given specific avenues on how to do that. And because of this, I am now having to pick up the pieces of a badly beaten heart. Now I have to present those pieces to the One who created my heart in the first place, like a little girl who has just broken her mom's precious vase, so that it can be pieced back together.

And the more daunting aspect that I am now faced with is this question:
Am I willing to rest in the pains of my past benefiting another woman?

Ouch, right? There is no black and white with this one. It's another grey area. On one side, there is the beauty that he is a better man because of what he learned in the painful circumstances with you. On the other side, your heart got broken.

And yet, in that question, I find that I feel incredibly close to Jesus. The pain of my heart benefits someone who might not even have a knowledge that it happened or that this is why things are the way they are. It is simply an innate circumstance to them.
There is freedom in that for me.

panic sets in

2009-01-27T19:05:00.003-06:00

Alright.
If this is how it's going to be for the next 6 months, I am going to be an emotional wreck in about 2 more weeks...

Still more affirmation that I should be moving. It just keeps coming. Cool.

Realizing more and more what I'm leaving and the situation I'll be putting myself in:

t.e.r.r.i.f.y.i.n.g.

My friends up here are amazing.
My family is amazing.
I could get a job in a non-profit and I'm sure be fat and happy.

But I couldn't.

The risk involved is great. I'm pretty sure I will wake up at least 3 days out of a week wondering why I made the decision. I have no idea what I'm doing as far as teaching is concerned. I am throwing myself into the rhetorical snake pit here. What chance do I have to make it out alive when there are snakes with fangs dripping with venom all around me?

Ok...maybe a little dramatic.
I think I am just overwhelmed by everything at the moment. A lot is going on right now. A lot is moving really fast. What is weird is that, usually, I'm the one who dives in head first without looking back. But this time, I am nauseated when I look forward and nauseated when I look back.

Pastor Chris gave a sermon about Hannah and 1 Samuel on Sunday. At first, I didn't get it. I sat through the sermon. I went the rest of Sunday evening and through Monday night pondering what made Hannah so great. Sure, she gave up a son. So what? Plenty of mothers did it throughout Biblical history. So why was Hannah so special?

And then it dawned on me. Hannah was special because having a child was who she was. Samuel was her life. And she gave it to God. With high amounts of pain, I'm sure, but she did it willingly. She gave up who she was for the sake of the Kingdom. And from her willing heart, Samuel grew up, anointed King David, from which came the lineage that lead to Jesus.
No small feat... And apparently that is what God does with a willing heart.

So the question remains:
Am I willing to give up myself and who I am? Am I willing to stick my money where my mouth is?

Good gosh, I hope so.

A Decision and a Doubt

2009-01-26T18:47:00.004-06:00

Mom and Dad, If you are reading this, stop now...

Last week, I made the final decision (99% sure) that I will be moving to New Orleans this summer. Depending on if I get the teaching fellowship that I want, I will either leave in June or in August.
You may be thinking, "What?? Where did this come from?" But the reality is, I have been thinking about it for a while. It was on the top of my list for Teach for America (which I didn't get) and as I began to plan the trip in March for CAM more, my heart just kind of broke for this city. I was down there last March and saw first hand that it is a city that is in dire straights and just needs people down there pouring into it. And specifically the neighborhood that we worked in, and will be working in, Central City. New Orleans is now considered the most crime-ridden city in the U.S. and Central City is the considered the most dangerous neighborhood in that city. But, having some friends down there, and a heart for it and a knowledge that the Kingdom of God is in our hearts and the way that it comes is by people going into the world to bring it. As hearts accept Christ, the Kingdom spreads. Redemption is possible.
So I was flying pretty high there for a while on that decision.

And then I started to think about what this actually means. I started to think selfishly about saying goodbye to my family and my friends and moving 18 hours away from anything I have ever known. I thought about leaving the changes in seasons that I love so much for a humid climate. And I thought about my personal safety. Here is an article that I stumbled across while reading some of the news down there today:

http://www.wdsu.com/news/18455053/detail.html

How in the world is this even possible? How could someone slit the throat of their child to get out of paying child support??? I read about shooting after shooting. And I am terrified. I am a girl. I am from a small town. What chance do I have??
And yet, if I don't go, I will be missing out on what I feel that God has called me to. I have always known that I would never live a normal life. I will never have nice cars and that big house in suburbia. I would hate that.
But I also never expected to be here.

But I guess this is where we separate the boys from the men, so to speak. Am I willing to put everything on the line for what I believe in? Am I willing to put my money where my mouth is and love people, even if it kills me? I want to know that I would and will. God has blessed me (or cursed me...I supposed depending on how you look at it) with a willing heart. And it is going to take me into the most challenging situation I could possibly imagine.

And yet, I know it will be a beautiful experience that will teach me how to trust and love God more.

So. 6 months...

Jasmine Tea on a [Fake] Spring Day

2009-01-21T18:08:00.002-06:00

I woke up this morning and it was sunny. That wasn't that out of the ordinary. Appreciated, but not incredible.
But then I walked outside to my car to go pick up Kate...
It was warmer. The snow was slushy and making my pants wet. And there was a sound that I haven't heard for months...wait for it....

birds chirping.
yes.
There were birds singing as if it were the break of spring. And I could help but feel relief. Even though I know there is still a good solid 2 months of winter left, it was a
Welp.
It's been a little while since I sat down to write anything. I feel like life has thrown me some curve balls lately and it's been interesting.

the rest of this was typed out but then blogger went down. i had a whole conversation typed out about me telling my dad some pretty big news.

but now i'm lazy and don't want to retype it.

so. you'll have to wait.

January is not a good time for extroverts

2009-01-11T16:31:00.003-06:00

The sun was out for a bit today, so I stayed outside and did some things to my car that needed to get done after getting back from my run. The run was an attempt to get some energy. It usually helps but today, I'm not sure what happened. Within a few minutes of getting back, I was tired again. January just does this to me in general. February too. In December, winter is still new and exciting and I love it. January/February is the time when it gets a little too cold to do much outside. March promises spring.
The thing I've always liked least about January is that it seems to be the loneliest month of the year. Logistically, students leave, people aren't outside, everyone is cold and lazy. But being someone who really thrives off of being around people, this really gets to me. Especially now that I live with less people and more people leave.
It would be fine if it made me want to get work done, but it makes me pretty lethargic too. I spare time that I have has been getting spent on..well...not much at all. I've been researching a lot of new music, which has been good. But reading makes me more tired and writing has been like pulling teeth because I simply don't want to think.
Maybe I need something new and exciting to pull me out of this? It's just a little bit of a slump. It'll pass.
We checked out the Chris Koza show last night and celebrated Steph's birthday. Good times, although it was really crowded in there, which wasn't like the other shows of his that we've been to. I was slightly annoyed with the territorial girls standing next to Reina and I but we trudged through it and managed to really enjoy the show. I wish he would have played longer, though. It simply wasn't enough!
Little Evangeline is here. Gotta love that. :)

I've had a lot of passing thoughts lately. It's weird. It's like these really deep, difficult to think about things, but I'm too lazy to really think more about them. I have a feeling that they're all connected but I don't feel like making the connections. I'm positive this is a bad idea and I should start up with it.
I'm also positive that I should be writing more and writing with intention instead of all of this rambling crap. Could 2009 be the year of the book? Who knows. I have nothing permanent on the agenda yet.
I find out about my 2nd round for Teach for America on Tuesday. I'm nervous. But it'll be good. I think either way, I won't be in Madison next year. I need to get out. Move around. Do something. There's just not enough here right now to convince me otherwise and I feel like there's something bigger out there. I just wish I had a clue what that was.

Anyhow, I really should be reading my chapter assignment for Tuesday and working on some other stuff.
Procrastination: 1. Rae: 0.

wisdom from a 5 year old girl

2009-01-06T21:06:00.003-06:00

Today wasn't one of my better days. I was tired from not really having slept because I was distraught over a situation. And the worry over the situation carried into today. It was one of those days where I wore a hoody and kept up the hood for the first 4 hours of the day. I just wanted to burrow and crawl into my place, but luckily I didn't. So the work that I've been putting into pushing throw my emotions that usually cause me to shut down is paying off a little. Which is good. It has not been easy. I just am just a really deep feeler, and that's just fine, but I need to function in the world still.

Anyway, I made it through coffee break and a 3 hour meeting with Becca and Kate to talk about the next couple of weeks and what needs to get done...and to tear a book apart that we all are not liking, but are reading together as staff. Got quite a bit done for the New Orleans trip...and then headed off to tutoring, really really tired and definitely not feeling like being there. Emotion shown through, as it always does...and then turned up a little when I found out my sister was in labor with my new little niece. (# freakin 9 on the niece/nephew front).
But the reality of coming back to tutoring and the fact that I still have no idea what I'm doing sunk in to real ramifications because I turned in my application for Teach For America on Saturday. YAY! But cripes. What am I thinking? And yet. I've never wanted to do anything more. It comes from a deep spot in me, which sounds horribly corny. It's the same spot that gives me excitement when I talk about Local Impact stuff and getting college students excited about the idea of serving in their community. Same spot. Different things. Well...not really?

Anyway, so tutoring..

I ran a girl down the road to a meeting she needed to be at and when I got back, everyone was eating dinner in the other room. But Jasmine, the 5 year old daughter of the woman who cooks our dinners for the program, was eating Tuna Helper by herself at the table. So I sat down next to her and started asking her about her Christmas. She humored me for a little while but then stopped and looked at me.
Then she said "Your skin looks like white chocolate." (Jasmine is, although a handful at times--what 5 year old isn't?--, a beautiful little black girl.)
I smiled and asked, "Is that ok?"
She stopped for a little minute...long enough for me to wonder what her answer would be. Then she said, "Yeeeeah...."
She went back to eating her dinner and I looked down at the table, taking in the beauty of the situation that had just occurred and how much it had just come directly out of some sort of ridiculous inspiring movie about the success of integration.
And then, while still looking down at her plate and eating, she said these little words of wisdom:
"You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."

I had a hard time containing the laugh. It was adorable. And then the reality of what she had said set in. Here she was. A 5 year old girl with incredibly more wisdom that the 24 year old sitting in front of her.

If that doesn't humble you, I don't know what will...

2009-01-06T00:15:00.005-06:00

Obligatory New Year Post

2009-01-02T14:29:00.002-06:00

January 2, 2009.

Crazy.

Well, New Years Eve didn't completely disappoint this year. I think it's because I had no expectations on it. Which is a good thing, but severely making me question the expectations that I put on things in general and how it consistently sets me up for disappointment. What do you do with that? It seems like a rather bleak life to not put any expectations on anything or anyone, but when you set yourself up for failure, something needs to change. Oh well. Another year to learn. :)

I got to bring in New Years Day with lots of good friends too. Had brunch and debated deep theological complications with Lindsay. Laid around and watched a movie. Took the annual New Years Day walk in the cold. And then proceeded to binge on Toppers with Andy and Adam and watch what I believe is now my absolute favorite show, Freaks and Geeks. It really couldn't have gotten much better.

I got to go home for about a week total. Pretty great. Got to see some old friends that I hadn't seen in far too long. Nieces and nephews are getting ridiculous big. Brothers and sisters are getting grey hairs. (It pays to be the youngest.) Got to spend some time with my parents. (I have a great story about them, but I'll have to put it up later. I have to get to work now.)

But. All in all...

2009, I have no expectations on you, but confidence that you will deliver, if nothing else, learning, as years past have always done.

freeze week

2008-12-30T00:22:00.002-06:00

Merry Late Christmas.

I would have written sooner, but obviously, as the youngest of 6 kids (all of the siblings being married with kids) Christmas around here was insane. I drove home last Tuesday for the holiday. It should have taken an hour and a half but ended up taking 3 hours due to the fact that I couldn't go above 40 mph because of the condition of the roads. Not good.
Mark and Jill got here the next day with Alden and Micah (2 year old girls, you will be eating your hearts out in 10 years...). It was awesome to see all of them. Everyone else rolled into the house at will, as per the usual. Christmas always whirls by me and before I knew it, I was driving back on Friday afternoon to be at work by 3pm.
I worked Friday and Saturday nights and then on Sunday had a much more enjoyable ride back home to my parent's house. I talked to Rob, my eldest brother for a good chunk of the trip, which was nice since he didn't make it home for Christmas this year. It had been a while since I had sat and had a good conversation with him, so there was a lot of catching up to do. Not to mention, the cross-generation translating that has to take place! (I love you, brother Robby :P )

I hung up with him as I was coming over the last hill into Burlington, the land where people older than you are still referred to as "Mr./Mrs. SoandSo." Every time I drive home on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I get a little bit nostalgic and somewhat swept away with the romanticism of the moments. I was driving southeast into town so the warm hues of the 5 o'clock setting sun were hitting me through my review mirror and reflecting off of the golden cut fields of corn. I passed Mormon Road and that little white house on the right that seems to grow more and more dilapidated every time I drive past it. I'm never really sure if the house is getting older or if everything else around it is getting newer. It's probably both. I passed the bridge that Carolyn and I got stuck under in a canoe when the water was too high. I passed the church I grew up in and remembered the oppressive heat of summer sermons on my mom's lap, chewing old sticks of Extra bubble gum from the man in front of me and playing with my dad's dove tie pin. Every once in a while, she would get out her nail file and let me push her cuticles back to keep me occupied. I drove past the old library, where I used to go with Cassie from the house across the street to Book Night. We would come home after dark on those first nights in October when the sky is slightly covered by spindling clouds that chase each other past the moon and my imagination would run away with me to the thoughts of scary stories and the cemetery behind our neighborhood.
And then I pulled into our driveway. And mom and dad were there to greet me like they always are. And I was home. And the thousands of thoughts that had attacked me driving in left themselves rest on the doorstep so that I could just relax and slink down into the warmth of a blanket and our deep purple couch.

Carolyn's 25th birthday was today and so I headed over to her parent's house for the Annual Fondue dinner. Every year, her parents have family and me over for Carolyn's favorite meal...fondue. I have been participating in this since her 12th birthday. We joked about her cat. Filled her inlaws in on old stories. And then, a newer addition to the evening, sat outside in their hot tub and talked and watched the stars. Jean and Larry joked about how I would still drop everything on her 40th birthday to come back for the dinner...and he's right. Carolyn is the friend that I will always have no matter what happens, where I go or who she marries. :P She's like the 7th child in my family. I'm their other daughter. Everyone should have that 2nd family. It teaches you about your own.

Anyway, it's back to Madison for me tomorrow and back to the reality of Freeze Week. I have this theory about the week in between Christmas and New Years that it is sort of the black hole week. In the midst of it, I realize it's happening but it always seems like it doesn't happen. Sort of like Vegas...what happens in Freeze Week stays in Freeze Week.

Snow Frisbee

2008-12-21T06:26:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I played a game of Ultimate Frisbee --tackle style in the 10 inches of snow that we got up here. I think I am better when we play in the snow. And actually, it makes sense--I'm not afraid of the lay out process because there is something soft and pillowy there to catch me. All in all, it was a good time.
I got to see Dunkin while we were playing though. It was so good to see him. I didn't know he was going to be in town, so the surprise was excellent. We sat in the snow for a bit and chatted about his TFA experience thus far. He seems to be in a completely different world. Well, he IS in a completely different world, I guess. But it's odd--when he's bad, it doesn't seem like it's actually happening. I'm not sure if this happens with all of my friends that move away and then come back to visit or what, but it's an odd little feeling. But we got to talk about the difficulty of being a friend to students and a figure of authority, which was interesting because it's something that I've been thinking about also with tutoring. It's a hard line to walk and very often, I don't know which side to default to. But I think, more often than not, I want to drop on the authority side, which is good to know if I get into TFA. (I really should be working on that essay instead of writing this.)

Whoops...I had to leave to go to Christi's graduation dinner and forgot about this so I'll just throw this up now and come back to another post later.

Appalling

2008-12-19T10:36:00.002-06:00

So another blog that I read brought this video to my attention. It's from a church in Kansas.

So much for Advent Conspiracy, eh?

I am not even sure what to do with this. I know that it makes me incredibly sad. It would be easy for me to say that these people are the reason why so many people hate the Church. But I know better. This doesn't help, but when push comes to shove, we're all at fault for the way people view the Church today.
I guess some are just a little more public about it...

Also, it's a snow day so look for more posts from me today :P

Escape

2008-12-12T00:47:00.002-06:00

I'm not sure if it's just the fact that winter is closing in on me (despite loving the change in seasons) or what but I am feeling continually more and more like I am being backed into a corner and need to escape from it. I'm not sure where it's stemming from yet. I guess I'll have to figure that out more as I go.
We had our annual Holiday Family dinner tonight. It was good to be with friends, though it was entirely different from last year. And that's fine. I don't mind change. In fact, I welcome change.
I just wish I felt like I was changing with it.

Under the Overpass

2008-12-08T00:16:00.001-06:00

Good gosh.

Read this book immediately.

More to come...

This could potentially get me in some trouble

2008-12-06T11:53:00.002-06:00

Ok. I am about to rant about something that could potentially get me into a lot of trouble, but I really want some feedback on it, so here it goes.

So relationships are tough. We meet people, we like people, we date people, and we inevitable break up or get married. Right?

So there is a view out there (and this may carry over for guys in specific ways, but I'm not sure, so for the sake of argument, I'm going to stick with the feminine view) that we deserve this and that out of a guy. I am thoroughly bothered by this view. When did we gain such entitlement?
There is so much wrong with this view! I can't even stand it sometimes. I've succumbed to this so many times and I'm fairly certain that it has created what people now call "Peter Pan syndrome" which is basically that men don't want to grow up and become men, along with all of the responsibility that it carries.
The idea that I deserve someone who will be good to me, love me, desire me, etc. is one that flirts with a dangerous line.
It sets girls up with the idea that there is a "perfect" guy out there for you. This idea is trite and inaccurate.
And it sets guys up for failure. The day that they don't do a good job loving me or being good to me, they fail.

I'm not saying that we should up and be with guys that are awful to us. This is not at all what I am saying. There is a small but HUGE difference, though, in saying the previous area of entitlement and saying "I deserve someone who is right for me." This we, as all people, do deserve if we chose to go the marriage route.
Saying that someone doesn't live up to your standards puts a label on them that doesn't neccessarily hold true for the next girl. Maybe the next girl brings out different characteristics in him that are better for her, innately creating in him the ability to be the right one for her.

Not to mention, the idea that we deserve this can carry over into our attitudes toward grace. We deserve nothing that we are given. It all flows from the source of all good things. And not just good things...but good things that are right for us.

I realize this last paragraph is a little vague but I'm not sure I feel like delving into the correlation's right now. Maybe I'll come back to it later.

Ok, feel free to rip me a new one now if I am wrong on this.

i love this

2008-12-05T11:09:00.002-06:00

http://www.tomsshoes.com/

For every pair of shoes bought, they donate a pair to a child who needs shoes. How awesome is that??!

Shoes.

How ridiculous is that? How often do you put on one of your 4839208 pairs of shoes and think about the fact that you have them? How often do you look at where your clothing was made and wondering if it came from a factory in China that tried to organize a union only to have the union director taken outside and his knees broken? How often do we look at our fruit and wonder if it came from a sustaining community in Honduras (Dole...grr...) and wonder if the people in the field for 14 hours a day are making enough to feed their own family. Ironic, right?

I sure don't think about it enough. And it makes me mad that I don't.

7 degrees of separation

2008-12-04T22:58:00.003-06:00

I feel like everyone I have met for the last year has been from the Fox Valley area. Some of them have been connected but for the vast majority, they have been separate from one another.
Are you all multiplying or was there just a mass exodus?

Written for Advent Conspiracy

2008-12-03T00:36:00.000-06:00

Grow Pregnant with God

I've been pondering the 4 aspects of the Advent Conspiracy fairly consistently over the last week or so, as it seems to be coming up a lot (go figure) and seem to be caught in the mud on one in particular. "Spend less" and "Give more" are fairly easy to grasp. "Love all" will always be one of those lofty concepts to me. But "Worship fully" is another story.
Around this time every year, a discussion inevitably arises about how exactly Mary became pregnant. I'm not sure why this continually comes up around me, but it's lead to some rather humorous discussions at times. And still, at other times, it has lead to some of the greatest, most thought-provoking ideas.
In Luke 1, we hear the story of Mary finding out the news that she is going to give birth to the Son of God. What is so special about this account, though, is that it is the only place where we hear Mary's reaction to the news. And what does she do? She worships God. She glorifies and rejoices in the Lord. She is not facing easy circumstances, but she reflects on the joy of Him.
Thomas Hoffman writes much better about this than I ever could in A Child in Winter:
"Standing at the threshold of another Advent we begin our season of growth and expectation - a time to secret ourselves with Mary, to join our hearts with hers, and to grow pregnant with God together. God invites us to a quiet place of reflection and bounty. This Advent, choose some time for silence. Make space within yourself to grow large with the abundance of God's favor. Make this a time to fill your lungs deeply with God so that you can breathe Christ into the world."

May we take time to reflect on Him this Advent and learn what it is to worship fully.

Knots

2008-11-28T22:49:00.002-06:00

I've had a knot in my stomach all day. It could either be a malfunction of my tummy after the Thanksgiving holiday or some other big stuff happening.

I went to Barnes and Noble tonight with Amanda. There aren't many people in town tonight, so we figured we would go wander. I ended up leaving with two things:
1. The next installment of my personal journals. I went the smart route this time and bought the journal that is basically just a leather cover and you can refill the notebook on the inside. In the end, this will be much cheaper and will save me the hassle of going out every year for weeks leading up to the end of my journal to find the new good one.
2. A workbook for building vocabulary. Yes. I know. I'm a complete nerd. But if I told you that I've been reading a dictionary every day to account for the fact that I crave words, then you would think that I was more of a nerd. At least this way it looks like I'm preparing for grad school or something while I sit in the coffee shop instead of just that freakish girl in the corner reading the dictionary for an hour. Plus, it quizzes you and I'll retain more of the words.

Dictionaries are my default. When reading isn't enough, but I can't write, I read the dictionary. Words are amazing and they possess so much potential. Kind of like an 8 year old. They're so developed already but they're abounding in possibility.
Words do for me what music does for me. They make the world more colorful and 3 dimensional. They evoke moods and perceptions that were previously not touched. With the right word or chord, it's like the near discovery of a new galaxy or mathematical proof.
I'm excited to crack it open and start to work in it.

After B&N, we came back, made some cocoa and watched Christmas Vacation. It's officially ok to do that now that Thanksgiving is over. I love the Christmas season...well, I love the nostalgia of the Christmas season. But I am a strict believer that one cannot do anything involving Christmas until after Thanksgiving, unlike 89% of the rest of the world now. But it's ok now and that is a relief!

Anyway, I should get some sleep. I work early.

Wow...check me out. I've written a ton in the last couple of days! Unfortunately, it's been nothing of great significance or relevance.

Never Wait

2008-11-27T21:39:00.002-06:00

Way to go, Islands. Your song is absolutely stuck in my head. It's a good thing you write good music or I would be livid with you.

It's 9:45pm on a Thursday night and I'm lying in bed...well, I guess technically it's Thanksgiving, which accounts for the fact that I'm tired and no one is in town. But I'm in the mood just just be alone and contemplative right now anyway, so that's just fine with me.
I'm perfectly happy lying in bed right now. I took all of my bedding off of my bed before I went home and washed them at my parents house while I was there. One of my favorite things growing up was when my mom would hang my sheets on our clothes line in our yard and then I would get to crawl into these cool, fresh sheets that smelled like outside. I helped her hang them on the line like I always used to do and in order to do it, I put on my dad's huge boots to go outside because my Chucks were tied up and I was too lazy to put them on all the way. Immediately, I was thrown back to being 6 years old and playing in the clothes that blew around on the line. We would play hide and seek in them and the breezes would push the sheets against my face. Then later that night, I would lie in those sheets and sleep the best sleep that I'm sure I will ever have.
It's all part of that idea of "simple pleasures," I suppose. There are so many of them though. In light of Thanksgiving, I think I will make a list of as many that I can think of. (I have no idea why this logic would follow. I guess I am thankful for them?)

1. Sheets hung on the line and then put immediate on my bed
2. Dictionaries
3. Minor Chords
4. Hoodies
5. Cold cheeks
6. Fat Squirrels
7. Ducks
8. Veins in a leaf
9. Street lights shining through trees on foggy nights
10. Finding old notes from Erin and Carolyn from 6th grade
11. Mittens
12. Dad's hugs
13. Friends that you don't see for 2 years but nothing has changed except the world around you
14. Lindy with Jon
15. Pens that write smoothly and don't smear
16. Post it notes
17. Driving backroads on warm nights with the windows down
18. Smelling like a campfire
19. Old Spice True Sport
20. Fresh apples
21. Buttercup flowers on the side of a road
22. Dragging your hand through the water out the back of a boat
23. Weighted keys
24. The red glow of Dark rooms
25. Dissonance -- In tastes, sounds and smells
26. Thinking hard
27. Cards with the Gillen Girls
28. Tracks in the snow
29. Bear Mound Park
30. Pealing sunburned skin
31. Mandolins, banjos and an upright bass
32. The sound of shoes on a wood floor

I guess I can add to this later. I'm going to go read my dictionary for a while.

Weird? Yeah.
Welcome to me.

another one

2008-11-27T09:43:00.003-06:00

So not to get down on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but I was suddenly just struck with something that I wanted to write down quick and my computer was the closest thing to me.

They had the giant white rhino float and the commentators were discussing how they were just in Africa last week with the Today show doing a special on the need for the preservation of the animal. They were so happy that the float was in the parade, raising awareness to children about the need to preserve the white rhino. Now, let me start by saying this: absolutely. We should protect our resources and the natural inhabiters of those areas, but I'd ask this question:

How come they never show the homeless guy around the corner of the parade? Shouldn't our children learn the importance of preserving humans? You never see the float depicting the child in Africa starving and taken away from their family to fight for a rebel group.

I *am* incredibly thankful that I am American and I get to celebrate the fact that I can go through life without having to think about anything but the preservation of the white rhino.
...[/sarcasm]

Sorry guys, I know that it's Thanksgiving and this should be all full of happy thoughts. And I am thankful for so many things. But this year, more than ever before, I am plagued by the fact that there is a need for redemption in the world.

On a happier note, I have never been so thankful for the people and things that I do have in my life. You are all incredibly important to me.

<3

also

2008-11-27T01:01:00.001-06:00

i am officially fed up with trying to understand things.

analyzation is overrated.

rum runners and french onion dip

2008-11-27T00:28:00.002-06:00

i drove home yesterday to chill out at Mom and Dad's for a couple of days for the glorious turkey holiday. I have to go back tomorrow night because I have to work on Friday morning, so I wanted to get as much time at home as possible.
I gave Megan, one of the students on my team, a ride to Elkhorn and we had a good time just talking and listening to a talk from a conference (you may think that sounds awful, but to her and I, this was incredibly exciting). I got home, had some dinner with my parents, and Cari stopped by. We went to grab some coffee with Joe at White Fox.
For those of you who have never been to Burlington, this is THE thing to do. And it was surreal. I hadn't seen either them in about a year. Life was different. We were different. But we were doing the same thing that we did in high school. We were talking about what we did in middle school. And when we had met in grade school. These are those people that, though you don't talk for a year, when you finally do see each other, nothing has changed and they still know you as the girl who pretended to have a black eye during that wrestling match with that boy you had a crush on. Which, by the way, he got me back for. We talked about homecoming senior year and how many guys Amy made out with as the queen. We talked about our old scary movie nights. And we talked about how our lives had gone in completely different directions than we thought they would. Well, maybe not Joe's, who will still go out to L.A. to make movies.
I got to spend today bumming around Burlington and the surrounding area, picking my Brianna from the high school, tromping around the backyard in my dad's too-big-for-me boots in order to hang my sheets on the clothes line outside, making dinner for the family and playing cards with my sisters...and perhaps having one too many rum runners with them. We got in trouble from mom for laughing too hard and being too loud, which just made us laugh harder.

I love my family and the holidays.

I just hope I don't pass out after eating too much turkey on the drive home tomorrow. And honestly, I can't wait until Christmas when I will be home for a solid 6 days. :)

lil' darlin'

2008-11-22T01:48:00.002-06:00

I remembered tonight a funny little list I had made in my head ages ago about the silly things I wanted in a boy when I got "older."
Among them was a mandolin player and someone who called me "Darlin'." Obviously, these are quite possibly not going to be true of someone I "end up with." (I have no idea why that is in quotations...) But it was that list that ever little girl makes up. Mine just happened to be a little bit more eccentric that my other friends around the neighborhood.
Ah well...

I just got back from a pretty great night. I got off work, went for a run, and then met up with Steph for a bottle of wine before Andy and Tyler met us for the William Fitzsimmons and Slow Runner show.
It.was.awesome.
Musically, they were all so incredibly talented. Lyrically, Bearded Man was a little depressing, but it was entirely balanced out by the fact that he was hilarious in between and even during songs. Plus, getting to hang out with Steph was so great and I had a blast with Andy and Tyler, too. It was one of the best nights I've had in a while.

Things have seemed to balance out a little bit in life again. Although, whenever I say that, I know it's not completely true and that it's really just me repressing something that I feel like is balanced out. Or maybe it is balanced out and I just jumble it up when I want a little excitement. Or maybe I just push things out of the forefront of my head. Either way, stuff has simmered down now, but I know there's still something boiling beneath the surface. But this is on several accounts.

Nonetheless, I am enjoying this time of blissful ignorance.

Waking up too early...

2008-11-12T11:10:00.002-06:00

Thanks to the prequel to one of my favorite blogs, Waking Up Too Late, I couldn't fall asleep until about 3:30am-ish and I blame Andy entirely for it!
Really, I just have a hard time falling asleep regardless. It is hard for me to get into bed and slow down enough after the days that I've had for the last few months in order to fall asleep. But oh when it happens, it is glorious time.
Lately, though, even when I can fall asleep, it's not been very good productive sleep. I'm not sure what's going on but I'm a little worried about it.
Lying in bed, though, after having read 3.5 year's worth of blog entries (I know..) my mind just started darting from worry to worry to worry. In an effort to get them out of my head, I grabbed a pen and paper and just started writing them down without even turning on a light, which made for some pretty interesting interpretations of what I actually wrote. Upon review, some of the worries were legitimate worries and some of them were simply outlandish and ridiculous.
In the process or writing them down, I actually wrote down that I was worrying about the fact that I thought I might be going crazy because I was writing things down in the dark and probably wouldn't remember doing it in the morning. But then there were those real worries...the ones about my fear that I am losing my quirkiness and creativity. The ones about the world and countries that I really don't know enough about to worry accurately about. My generation of 20-somethings who have all the potential in the world and are at risk for falling into complacency. I worried about that I'll never think as hard as I did in college about the world and never laugh as hard. I worried about the fact that it's getting colder and so many people were out on the street last night.
I mean, we're talking in a matter of minutes, all of these things flew through my head and I got so jittery that I had to get out of bed because I couldn't lie still.

This is what Matt was talking to me about last week. This is where I have to learn to live more lightly and to take things less internally. I can't solve all of these worries. I can only worry about so many things without actually going insane. And I definitely don't want to live like that. I mean, I want a realistic view, but when it's a detriment to my sleeping patterns, I draw the line. This is where the rational needs to kick in and I need to just roll with the punches, so to speak. And this is simply where I need to be silly again. Silliness, I'll say it time and again, is something I crave but it comes full circle because my silliness was powered off of my creativity and, like I said, something of that feels like it's leaving me.

Overanalyzing. It is the the thing that will diminish the most of who I am...but innately, I am an analyzer.

So. I am back to square one.

New rules for life:
1. Live lightly. Things on my scale that are often a 7 or an 8 are usually a 2 or a 3 on another person's scale.
2. Laugh more. Choose joy.
3. Watch more ducks. (Crap. They all went south.)
3b. Watch the video that I made about ducks sophomore year until spring.
4. No more coffee after 4pm.
5. Create sentences that make no sense.
6. Re-learn the washboard.

Mother of Pete, that moth is HUGE!

2008-11-12T00:11:00.004-06:00

So my roommate needed to grow a caterpillar into a moth for one of her classes. The caterpillar itself was beautiful: bright teal and huge. I had no idea what it would grow into in just a few short weeks, though while watching Silence of the Lambs on Halloween with Pete, I got a glimpse at it, as they used the same moths for that movie. But it was nothing...i mean NOTHING compared to what this thing would end up being.
She called me into the kitchen as I finished washing my face and brushing my teeth tonight before bed and asked me if I wanted to see something. "Well, sure I want to see something!" ...Only to walk into the kitchen and see the biggest freaking moth staring me in the eye with only a plastic bottle in between myself and it. Bugs do not normally freak me out at all. But the shear size of this thing's legs were enough to make me freeze up with thoughts of it crawling on my skin.
Ew. Even now, I'm grossed out. I really hope she remembers to take that thing into the lab tomorrow.

The meeting last week went well and things are really looking better. I'm headed down a long road to figuring everything out, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel, for lack of a better cliche and I'm moving towards it. The rest of my life is in complete disarray, but what's new? At least I'm learning how to handle it all differently.

Service Day is coming up a week from tonight. Our team is doing a great job putting it all together and I'm so glad that I'm learning to delegate because it's entirely less stress for me and so much better for them to be allowed to run with those roles and their own creativity toward an old task.
I'm nervous though. Not for the event really so much as I am for the same reason I get nervous before we have one of these any time: will we hit our target?

Advent Conspiracy at Blackhawk is bringing the target more into people's thoughts. My lifegroup is definitely starting to act on the itch.

But here's the kicker: I am still wondering if I am doing enough? Am I where my passion is? Sure, I love working with college students. And I love leading this team. And I love learning all of the immensely valuable things that I am learning. But where am I going? What am I doing? Am I making the impact that I know I'm capable of doing?

Is medical stuff where I'm headed? I feel more and more disconnected from that every day. The idea of working for a non-profit gets me more and more excited, even despite all of the crap I know I would end up being put through if I did that. Would I feel like I was doing enough if I were to do that--would it be denying my original passion of caring for people both physically and spiritually. Am I passionate enough about becoming more of a leader and about developing leaders?
I've always been a do-er: the one who loves getting dirty in the midst of a mess. Right now, I sort of feel like I'm sitting on the side lines while I watch friends to go to med school...apply and work for Teach for America...move to Africa with the Peace Corp (for goodness sake!)
Am I, by coaching, doing what I was intended to do?

Cripes. How many paragraphs of questions can I possibly write?

oh also...

2008-11-05T11:24:00.001-06:00

The day feels different.

I attribute it to President-Elect Barack Obama.

That's all I'll really say on that.

Perhaps some sort of political post will come later.

too scatter-brained to even write

2008-11-05T11:15:00.003-06:00

Well, last week was hell.
I worked 65 hours on top of some volunteer stuff that I love doing, but still sucked a lot from me simply because of the way last week went.
This week started out fantastic--a day trip up to Devil's Lake to buy apples and hike around all day on one of the most beautiful days that we've had so far this fall--but it quickly plummeted into what seemed to be the aftershocks of last week. I wish that my emotions didn't involve my health so much. It's like every time I get incredibly stressed out, I get nauseated and can't handle what's going on because I feel sick on top of it. There's got to be some sort of trick to making that stop. At least I've figured out how to not always act on those emotions. Even if I'm feeling sick, I am learning how to step away from the situation for a bit, get my head on straight and come back to it all. I've never seen more of a discrepancy between the rational and irrational. But at least I see it, which is more than I can say for myself a couple of years ago. I'm sure I'm much more of an enjoyable person to be around now because of it.

I've now begun the thoughts of what I will do when this internship is over. Do I apply at some churches to do the same work I am currently doing? Surely Blackhawk will not be able to hire me on. Does that mean moving far away? Does that mean leaving all of my friends and family? Do I apply for a non-profit in the Madison area? There are some great ones.
I feel like I am starting at square 1. It's not necessarily bad. Just daunting.

Anyway, I have to go into a meeting that I am not necessarily looking forward to. But I think it will be ok.

...as long as I can keep my emotions from getting the better of me.

The only political rant you will see me go on

2008-10-30T08:16:00.003-05:00

Ok.

So Obama is pretty much killing McCain in the polls right now. It would take a major upset for McCain to win at this point.

And yet, Obama's campaign decides that it is a good idea to run a 30 minute commercial, airing on a number of different channels.
The cost of running is by no means cheap. The cost of running a 30 minute add on 3 stations nation wide: a staggering minimum of $3.5 million, with it more likely being in the $4-$5 million range.

I'm sorry but for someone who is talking so much about poverty and ending this war because of costs to the nation and dreaming of the possibilities for that money to be used elsewhere, you sure are spending a lot of unnecessary money, are you not, Mr. Obama?
The cost of campaigns is disgusting to me as it is, but to do something like this makes me rethink my as-of-yet undecided vote.

bah bah

2008-10-25T02:19:00.002-05:00

i haven't updated this in a while but it's been busy and my head has been hurting. This usually means 1 of several things:
-i'm getting sick
-i'm thinking too much
-i'm wrong about something
-i'm listening to the jazz that makes you head want to explode

i'm pretty sure that all 4 are happening, so that's definitely cause to make my head hurt.

i'm currently in the midst of a pity party, but there's not much to do about it besides yank myself out of it and tell myself to move on. i don't think i'll really delve deeper into it on here simply because then the 3 people who read this would know without a shadow of a doubt that i am, in fact, insane. :P we'll just save the ranting involved with this one for my actual journal that is almost done. i need to start searching for a new one.

for as much as i think, you'd believe that i'd be able to control my mind with stuff like this, but it's not possible.

(don't worry, i'm not in any real danger here.) i am however concerned a little for the sake of some things, but it's nothing that i haven't been through, pulled myself out of and moved on from before.

i'm not even sure why i'm still typing about this. probably because i don't actually feel like writing about it yet, so i'll just beat around the bush until i decide that i need to pick this apart in my head.

silly rae.

on another note, it's almost november.

...and that's why they call me "rae-dhd"

Am I a Bad Person for this?

2008-10-18T00:40:00.003-05:00

So it's 12:40am the night before Sarah's wedding and I am literally hiding out in the lobby of the hotel because I simply needed a break. Twelve weddings in 6 months has finally worn me down. Like I have said, I am so so happy for them, but I am so tired of the emotional roller coaster that each one is.
I decided to come down and write a bit to try an process some stuff.

The woman at the front desk is older. She will be here until 6am and was very helpful to us, but seems sad. So I wanted to come down and write, but I also just wanted to sit in her presence for a while because I feel like not many people talk to her. So when I got down here, she was mopping the floor and we made small talk for a bit. It came out that her husband died last November. She talked to me about the cot that she is sleeping on tonight that has springs that stick up.

And she made me want to cry.

So I have one friend 3 floors above me who is ready to give her life to a man that is completely wonderful. And I have another friend who gave her life to a man and he is now dead and she is sad. And I don't mean just the emotion of sadness, but the type of sadness that seeps out of you and makes other people aware of their own sadness.
The idea of that terrifies me.

But Sarah is so happy and so excited and I am all of those things for her. I am glad that she has found someone that makes those fears pale in comparison to the love that she is feeling from him. We should all be so lucky.

And tomorrow, I will be even more excited and I will dance and I will laugh and this feeling will go away.

That, and I won the lemon-sucking-stairing competition against Eric, Casey, Heidi and Erik. Awwww yeah.

Peanut Butter Puffins

2008-10-16T09:48:00.002-05:00

This is the first time that I've woken up and wanted to write for a while. Usually, the inclination to do so hits me a while into the day and by that time, it's too busy to do anything about it until late at night (and then I usually get sucked into an episode of Grey's. (Thank God that's over since I got through all of the seasons now and don't have any more to watch. I could really care less about this season. I just wanted the immediate satisfaction of knowing what came next.)
Sarah and Ken are getting married this weekend out in New Glarus and it's the last one that I am going to for the year. I have a break until May when they start up again, but I don't think I'll have a summer as nearly as packed as this one was. Don't get me wrong, I love all of my friends that were married this summer/fall and I'm so excited for them, but I'm just emotionally checked out. I simply can't handle any more. The amount of thinking that comes with each of them is just too much and, let's face it, emotional drainage. I'm not anywhere near being ready for any such commitment like that and to watch it makes me freak out a little more every time. But I am beginning to realize that that is good. I should be scared. It means I value what it is. It means that if I ever do stand up in front of all of my friends and family in a white dress and say vows to someone, I will do whatever it takes to be committed to that person. In fact, I am glad for this summer. I am glad that I am understanding the depth and solemnness of those vows. I am sure I will understand them more and be less terrified when I am actually looking at the person I will do that with, but for now, it's an ambiguous, amorphic concept.
And I'm ok with that. I would not be learning the things that I am learning -- I would not be doing the things that I am doing -- if that were the case.
I am glad to be where I am. And I am glad my friends are where they are. That they can go before me and show me the way. That I can watch and learn.
It's a beautiful thing.

I have the morning off and then I have to go into TJ's tonight. I always dread Thursday nights. I would so much rather work the mornings, but for now, this is how it has to be until I can work up the guts to talk to my boss and ask him for Thursday nights back. We'll see if I ever get the courage to do that.
After that, it's a shift tomorrow morning and then off to New Glarus for the rehearsal. At least it'll be a beautiful fall weekend and I can get out of Madison to enjoy some of it!

Some sort of semblance of thoughts on poverty (Blog Action Day)

2008-10-15T20:05:00.003-05:00

Blog Action Day happens to fall on World Hunger Day. A day when people who are deeply committed to the fight against poverty make a huge push to raise awareness in any way that they can.
I understand now the frustration of this sort of endeavor; to try to raise awareness on a topic to have a handful of people jump onboard to join you in the fight, but for the most part, to raise people's awareness for a day or a week or a month, but only to have them go back to their day to day lives where they live in America, get in their cars, drive to their jobs, go out to grab food because they forgot to pack a lunch, come home, make dinner, sit down and watch a couple episodes of Grey's Anatomy on dvd and then head to their beds. I know this because this is what I did today.
I go through phases of being more aware of the world around me, but for the most part, I am a girl completely devoid of any social responsibility to those who are in situations that are not as good as mine. The sad thing is that as a whole, Americans are plagued with this affliction of complete unawareness. And you can't really blame them. Most of them have never experienced anything other than their norm.
I hadn't either really...
Until a year and a half ago when I went to Honduras, but even now, I still do not understand the extent of what I saw there.
Let me just tell you a little bit about Honduras.
Honduras is a country in Central America that has boarders with the Caribbean, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. It is about the size of Tennessee. The terrain is mostly mountainous on the interior and has narrow coasts. You can start at the coast and within approximately 10 miles, be in the heights of a mountain range. The government of Honduras is a democracy. Life expectancy is approximately late 60's. And the literacy rate is approximately 32% illiterate. Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere with an extraordinary unequal distribution of wealth. Most of the country is below the poverty line with 44% living with less than $2 a day and 23% living with less than $1 a day. 22% of the population is undernourished and there is less than 1 doctor for every 1,000 people.
That is compared to the U.S. where only 9.8% of our country is below the poverty line (which is still appalling, but not nearly as bad.)

Ok. So that was a crap load of statistics. But the reality of Honduras is that it is a beautiful country with unbelievable people. They are dirt pour, but they are a joyful people, always ready to laugh and joke around (though they don't really understand sarcasm..)
They have nothing, but because of that, they seem to have everything.
The family we were building for down there was an amazing family that we got to work side by side with, as well as people from around the neighborhood who just wanted to lend a hand because they were family. Every morning, we would arrive at the worksite and work through the day moving and laying bricks one by one in the repulsive heat and humidity, praying for rain to fall for some relief. We must have moved a house worth of bricks 3 times across the yard.
But every morning, the dad would send out his girls to the local store to buy 2 liters of Coke for us because it was the only thing he could afford to say thank you to us. None of us wanted to drink it because all we wanted was water, as we were sweating our body weight out by the hour, but it was how he knew how to say thank you.
And as we built with them and got to know them across a language barrier, we became part of their family. We laughed with them and danced with them and cried with them when it was time to leave.
And through it all, I saw that all I wanted to do was create a family across boarders; across languages; across economic differences; across social differences.
And even now, I look at pictures and wonder how my family is settling into their new home. I wonder if I will ever be able to go visit them again (they said we had a home to stay in any time we visited!)

But you don't need to go to Honduras to do it. There are people ride along side of us on the sidewalks as we walk to the coffee shop who would love a chance to know what it's like to go home, make dinner, sit down and watch a couple of episodes of Grey's and fall asleep in their warm beds.

So. What do we do?

We start small. We make it happen, one brick at a time.

hiatus

2008-10-09T11:21:00.002-05:00

I think it can officially be deemed *fall.*

This is my season. I love fall. I love the smells. I love the colors. I love the way the grass looks when it is wet in the morning and it gets my shoes all wet. I (sometimes) love the mood it puts me in. I love the October night skies that only seem to form this time of year. The ones that are beautiful but kind of creepy at the same time, with the patchy clouds and waning moons.

And I'm struggling more now that I have with this than ever before...

side note

2008-10-08T16:38:00.003-05:00

At a coffee shop, eavesdropping on what appears to be a 30 something's first coffee date and discussing politics.

"Palin is a sorority girl who is in over her head," says the man.

My question to him: What presidential or vice presidential candidate has ever NOT been from the greek system with no clue what they are getting themselves into??

I'm not saying I will vote for Palin. I'm simply saying that presidential candidates are drawn from a particular type of people, despite being man or woman, black or white, democrat or republican. And if I were the woman having coffee with this man, I would have stood up and walked out by now.

Then again, who am I to talk? I group people into categories all the time.

Strengths Finder 2.0

2008-10-08T15:51:00.003-05:00

So for the internship, Kate and I had to take a strengths finder test to determine...well, what our strengths are.

Mine hit dead on. In fact, they all work together too, which is interesting.

Also, many of my strengths also work with many of my spiritual gifts, often almost being the same thing, if not being the exact same thing.

So without further ado, here are the results for my test and a basic premise of what each one is (They start at my strongest...some explanations are longer than others):

1. Ideation

"You are fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the best explanation of the most events. You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface of an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection. Yours is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections. An idea is a new perspective on familiar challenges. You revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. You love all these ideas because they are profound, because they are novel, because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, because they are bizarre. For all these reasons you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you. Others may label you creative or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps you are all of these. Who can be sure? What you are sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And on most days, that is enough."

2. Activator

"You are impatient for action. Only action can make things happen. Others may worry that there are still some things that aren't known, but this doesn't seem to slow you. If the decision has been made to go across town, you know that the fastest way to get there is to go stoplight to stoplight. You are not going to sit around waiting until all of the lights have turned green. Action is the best dvice for learning. You make a decision, you take action, you look at the result, and you learn. This learning informs your next action and your next. "

3. WOO

WOO stands for Winning Others Over. You enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like you. Strangers are rarely intimidating to you. On the contrary, they can be energizing. Some people shy away from starting up conversations because they worry about running out of things to say. You don't. Not only are you rarely at a loss for words; you actually enjoy initiating with strangers because you derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection. Once that connection is made, you are quite happy to wrap it up and move on. In your world there are no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet--lots of them."

4. Communication

"You like to explain, to describe, to host, to speak in public, and to write. You feel a need to bring ideas and events to life, to energize them, to make them exciting and vivid. You take the dry idea and enliven it with images and examples and metaphors. You want your information to survive, despite a person's short attention span. You want to divert their attention toward you and then capture it, lock it in. This is what drives your hunt for the perfect phrase. This is what draws you toward dramatic words and powerful word combinations. This is why people like to listen to you. Your word pictures pique their interest, sharpen their world, and inspire them to act."

5. Connectedness

"Things happen for a reason. You are sure of it. Certain of the unity of humankind, you are a bridge builder for people of different cultures. Sensitive to the invisible hand, you can give others comfort that there is a purpose beyond our humdrum lives. The exact articles of your faith will depend on your upbringing and your culture, but your faith is strong. It sustains you and your close friends in the face of life's mysteries."

Rainy Day Ramblings

2008-10-07T16:55:00.003-05:00

I think that I have decided that at some point in my young adult life, I want to live in Nashville. I think it would be a city that I fit into really well and that would love me.

We'll see. I'm not sure I'd be able to handle living more than an hour and a half from my family.

But who knows...

A Break in the Clouds

2008-10-05T20:52:00.005-05:00

Today was a cold, rainy Sunday.

It reminded me of being young, going to church and then coming home and curling up on the couch (tucked, of course, behind my mom on the couch because it was the only place left in the room to sit) with a bowl of soup and some crackers with peanut butter and putting in a good movie.

I went to Fountain of Life today with Andy and a girl from his lifegroup for the first time. It was incredibly out of my comfort zone, but I was grateful for that. I would go on a more regular basis if I could carve out a 3 hour chunk of time from my Sundays more often. But that's not likely to happen often. I started tutoring there on Tuesdays and it's been really great to be serving, as well as setting up service opportunities for college students. It was starting to feel a little bit weird not doing what I was making paths for others to be able to do. The service was very different from Blackhawk. I was a minority. I was quiet. I moved a little bit during worship, but not nearly as much as I'm sure the people around me were moving. It was very freeing at the same time that it was intimidating. But the way these people approached worship was inspiring and reminded me of my inheritance in Christ.

I was sitting in a coffee shop with Brent after the disheartening Brewers loss that booted them out of the playoffs (sad). There was a break in the rain clouds that cast a beautiful and interesting light upon the street outside as I was reading through Erik Dunkin's blog that he is keeping while he is doing Teach for America on the southside of Chicago. Oh goodness. He is in over his head, and I'm pretty sure he knows it. But he is keeping with it despite that, which is inspiring and unbelievable. But I was reading through a letter that he wrote and posted an excerpt on. And I realized that Erik was asking the same questions that I have been batting around for some time now.

So with that, I was able to ask more questions. Here is what I wrote back to him:

It’s an interesting thing.

I was just talking with one of the pastors at bhawk about this. The Grace Works series was great and inspiring and everything. But I can’t help but feel like a vast majority of people may have missed what is truly happening at this point. That they will jump from doing nothing to doing something, but never stopping to know *why* that something is being done…without contemplating the reality of their salvation and the reason why it creates a reaction of wanting to serve the poor and the lonely and the downcast. Could it be that we have created too much of a pendulum swing? Will we create a culture where everything is purely based off of a check list now?
It’s a fine line.

And if this is truly the heart of God and this is the reality of our salvation; and if this is what it takes to truly know who Christ is and to have a relationship with Him, then the road to Him is even narrower than I originally anticipated.

And then there’s also this question: If good works are the result of a transformation in Christ, does it mean that if there is no such reaction that we really don’t trust God for our salvation just yet? –Does it mean that we never had it to begin with? Or is it more that good works are a result of a salvation that has matured?

This is something that has been developing for a while in me. These questions are central premises to everything. Let me try to describe to you how I feel about this:

I feel like I am looking up at this ceiling. And on this ceiling there is a beautiful painting...we're talking Sistine Chapel here. But there is a fresh coat of solid blue paint over the top of the whole thing. And every once in a while, I reach up and run my finger across the paint to reveal a glimpse of the masterpiece underneath. But the ceiling is so big. And the paint is so thick. And I know that no matter how much I try to clear off, it's too vast and even if I could, the image beneath would be blurry, smeared and cloudy.

So I settle and am content to just grasp a small sight of the bigger picture whenever I have the opportunity, but I'm dying to know what the bigger picture is. Day after day, I get a piece of the painting...a new image...revealing to me how ignorant I was yesterday on what is truly the image beneath.

Naivety

2008-10-01T22:30:00.003-05:00

To begin with, the Brewers are in the playoffs and had their first game today. They lost, but I have faith that they will redeem themselves tomorrow for game 2 against the Phillies.

So after a very odd weekend camping in western Wisconsin, I came home with an odd looking rash on my leg that has since developed into several nasty blisters with red streaking, which can really only signify that I got into some poison ivy/oak/sumac/some other stupid weed that has no practical purpose. One of the blisters looks like a Mike and Ike is stuck to my leg. The fortunate thing is that it doesn't itch: it just burns. The problem is, though, that I don't have insurance right now due to the fact that I just switched jobs, so I can't really have a doctor look at it. But, if it is poison ivy, then it really shouldn't require a doctor, since it will just dry up on it's own hopefully. Mark (My brother, the PA) will be home in a couple of days and he can look at it then. Until then, I'm stuck debating whether I should pop the blisters or let them go. But I definitely have a lot of laundry to do, as I don't know exactly what was contaminated, including the brand new sleeping bag, the sheets I slept in that night, jeans, pjs, socks, Chacos, any clothing that may have come in contact with it... So pretty much anything in my hamper. Pain in the butt. Especially with coin operated laundry.

It was dumb on my part to go hiking through the woods, off the trail, in nothing but my Chacos and jeans rolled up.

That isn't the only area that I have been naive though. But at least I am learning. I feel like I may be going through a period of growth right now, which is good, but it's a little disconcerting to know how silly and inexperienced you are.

So due to my blisters, I couldn't run this morning, but I decided to attempt a walk instead because it was a beautiful morning and I wanted to get some amount of exercise. Because I was walking, I was able to stop and think more. I miss the long walks to class, especially on beautiful fall mornings like today. At any rate, I was walking and one thing that I always seem to do when I walk is to pray. It is just a nice time to reflect and have quiet and I always enjoy it.

But as I was praying, I realized lately that my prayers have been severely lacking in sentiment or even content lately.

I have been incredibly hard-hearted recently, which I think has caused a great amount of naivety in me, and therefore, a frustration of other people because I am not teachable. I realized that my prayers have severely lacked confession, or even a desire to want things that I should confess to be brought to the surface. After thinking about this a bit more on the walk, I realized that confession used to be much easier for me. When I was not such a 'moral person,' (please note the amount of sarcasm that you would have heard in my voice if we had been talking face to face) confession used to be much easier to come up with things. "God forgive me for getting drunk last night and making out with that boy" is much easier than "God forgive me for judging that person because I don't think their way of serving is as good as mine" or even "God forgive me for not being willing to see areas in my life that I need to confess to you."

It's an interesting thing to realize that you are just like the Pharisee you read about in Mark that morning... when you figure out that the way you think is wrong... that you are not at all good enough on your own and that you have a constant need to be lead by the one who created you.

And it's a nauseating thing to know that just when you think you are so good, you are probably at a time when you are the worst.

On my walk I also thought about the last 4 sermons that I heard at Blackhawk, all on Grace and why we are saved and the reaction in us that this should cause. (Ephesians 2:4-10) As I was thinking about it, or rather, as I was thinking about all of the things that I have been thinking about for 4 weeks, and even before that, I was struck with this idea that I had missed it entirely...and that many people may have missed the message entirely. It is not that we are saved to evangelize people and to "spread the kingdom of God." We are saved for the reason that is much narrower and cooler than that. We are saved to show people the love of Christ, and BECAUSE of that, the kingdom of God is shown to those who need to see it. It is a fine line of distinction. And if this is also what it takes to know Christ and therefore, to receive eternal life, then the idea that the "path is narrow" takes on an even realer reality. First, the line must be identified, and then it must be followed.

And how often am I actually able to make that distinction in my life?

Ouch...

discontentment

2008-09-25T12:38:00.002-05:00

I'm not really sure what I'm doing at this point.

I'm sure I just need time to adjust, but I'm really not sure that I'm going to like this whole switch to Trader Joe's. Everyone keeps telling me that I'll love it and that I'm fortunate to have it along side of this internship, but I can't help but feel...well...not excited about it. Everyone keeps asking me how I like it and I feel like I'm constantly putting on a smile and saying "Yes, I like it." I mean, let's be honest here. It's a grocery store. A glorified grocery store. And I can tell myself all I want that I am happy to have a job that doesn't require much thought processes, but at the end of the day, it just feels like a waste.

Maybe my brother is finally getting to me. Maybe I need to give up and just look for some sort of job that pushes me. But the internship is doing it. I LOVE this internship. I want to pursue this internship.

I really miss having my nights. I mean, if it's a grocery store, why do they really need me to work nights? I'm sure there are plenty of other people that work there that love working nights. I hate it. I hate 2nd shift. My life happens right during those hours. And I'm afraid of them. I'm afraid to ask off for the 2 concerts that I want to go see coming up. I am afraid to say that I want Thursday nights back because of a Bible study that I'd love to attend, not to mention, once a month, I have meetings.

Maybe I'm being selfish? Starbucks gave me nights off. At least I had that. Ugh. I do not regret the decision to leave though. Those early mornings were awful. If I didn't have to worry about insurance, this would be so much easier. I could just work somewhere fun and cute on Monroe street.

Well, I have my first night shift tonight.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Andy Camann played his first solo show last night at the Frequency. It was a great show. He's really very talented and passionate about what he does and it's evident and inspiring. Plus, getting to hear a slew of his songs again was just fun. The only other time I'd seen that was when we hulled up in his apartment and I begged him to play songs for me. :P

After that, Eric and I ran to go get some food and watch the Brewer game at the Local Tavern. Good little place, though ridiculously hot.

On the way to grab food, we were walking and a guy turned around and asked us where we were heading. We informed him that we were going to grab some food and he gave us tickets and said "Well, you should double back and come check out the show I'm doing at the Majestic with VH1." So we took the tickets, went to dinner and during dinner realized it was a comedy show. Christian Finnigan was the headliner comedian and we made it with plenty of time to see him. I've never gone to see a live comedian, but I have learned that I would so do it again. He was hilarious and I laughed so hard that Eric thought I wasn't getting air at times.

Not to mention, any time I get to hang out and laugh with Eric gets chalked up to "nights that I love life more than often."

Self-awareness is a pain

2008-09-17T22:40:00.002-05:00

Do you know that feeling?

The one where you wake up in the middle of the night, knowing you forgot to do something.

The one where you leave your house and as your walking out the door, have the absolutely unquenchable feeling that you are forgetting something...that something just isn't right.

And then, at about 1:42pm, while you're sitting in Olive Garden with the friend you haven't gotten to catch up with in months, it hits you.

Self-awareness sets in. You get that knot in your stomach, put down the breadstick and the words that your friend is saying slowly fall into the distance as you figure out that the reason you have felt so oddly for months is now staring at you in your mind's eye, screaming for an explanation.

It's amazing. The more I try to learn to be more like Jesus, the more I see how far I am from being like Him. Times like the self-awareness explosion are the most humbling experiences that I can think of to date. They are the times when I realize that I have been judging people without intending to, which is even worse than judging people with the intention of judgement. It means that this act of judgement is innate in me. It is part of who I am. There is no escaping it, without help of course...

Grace is a beautiful thing. I don't always know that people will offer my grace when I wrong them. But I know one place where I will always find grace and forgiveness. And hopefully, grace is working in the person that I wronged, too, and rectification takes place.

The Beauty of Ugliness

2008-09-14T23:05:00.002-05:00

This weekend brought out a depth of beauty that I haven't seen in a while. It was by no means a nice weekend as far as weather was concerned. It rained a lot and was pretty chilly. Maybe I am simply emotional because a very good friend got married today. But I really don't think so.

Yesterday, I woke up on my day off and it was raining. Bummer, right? No way. I got up, got dressed, and went to the farmer's market, which was lovely in and of itself. Today, it was cloudy, windy, cold, and still threatening rain, though it wasn't wet just yet. But the colors of the farm fields have turned to this golden yellow and against the stormy, steel-blue colored sky, the colors stood out and took my breath away.

Tonight, as it rained on the way home from Becca and Andy's wedding, the raindrops formed this beautiful blur of street lamp light through the soon-to-be fallen leaves on the trees. I put in a Nickel Creek cd and listened to Pastures New while I went to get some gas and just enjoyed the beauty of something that did not seem to be innately beautiful. But it was.

Somethings are strikingly beautiful and everyone knows that they are such. Becca walking in the back door of the chapel today was a stunning sight. She was the first bride to ever literally take my breath away. And the love they have for each other is obvious and evident and beautiful in that.

But then there are those things that are beautiful that get passed by every day.

The chocolate color of the ground only takes on when it has been raining for 3 days straight.

The yellow and browned leaves trickling onto the sidewalk below a series of oak trees.

The unresolved chord at the end of a song played on a fiddle.

The wrinkled and burden-beaten hands of my dad.

The way in which people choose to love each other in relationships, friendships and romantic alike, despite the ugliness of human nature. The commitment to love people and show grace will always be the most beautiful and astounding thing in the world to me. And it is always something that I will strive to be better at because I am saved to do so. The beyond-beauty of the reconciliation of the world to a God that loves it because people understand the bigger picture that it is not what they are saved from, but rather what they are saved for. (Thank you, Tim Mackie, for explaining something so concisely that I have been trying to figure out how to say for months.)

Incredible...

Thoughts slowly start trickling back

2008-09-14T02:06:00.002-05:00

I simply have just not been making enough time to write and it is sad. Creative thoughts are something that come naturally, but you have to take the time to stop and look at the world in order to be inspired. I learned that today.

Today was my first completely unscheduled day in over a month. I didn't have work. I didn't have anything to do for the internship. I didn't have a wedding. I didn't have a meeting.

I woke up and it was raining. I went to the farmer's market in the rain and was overtaken by the loveliness of all of the peppers, apples, melons, carrots and other yummy produce, glimmering in all of their rain-soaked glory.

After that, I headed over to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art with Amanda. They've got a wonderful piece up right now. If you have never seen the art museum, let me tell you first of all that on section of it is entirely walled in by floor to ceiling (3 stories, I blieve?) by glass. They currently have ribbons of all colors hanging down from the ceiling to the floor, waving in the breezes. It's really stunning. And inside the museum, there is a maze of color and you can walk through it and run through it. It's truly breathtaking.

I went to see a George Segal exhibit that I've been wanting to see, though. He is a sculptor, and an amazing one at that. He really was able to capture the essence of a person in his work. I know that sounds trite, but really. He's great and if you are in the Madison area, you NEED to go see this. I teared up at a couple of the pieces. And he just has great thoughts to go along with this work.

"I think that every minute of existence is miraculous and extraordinary." -G.S.

It really comes out in his pieces.

I have more thoughts to process, but I need to go to bed because I need to be emotionally prepared for Becca's wedding tomorrow. Joyousness! :)

Everything I learned, I learned from my roommate's copy of the first season of Grey's Anatomy

2008-09-08T23:19:00.002-05:00

Ok. This may seem a bit odd. But let me explain.

Life for the last week or so has been nothing short of insane once again. But I'm starting to get used to the schedule. And the schedule alone. When I think I've got it, I get pushed farther. My patience and ability to keep an even keel in a stressful situation was tried this past Sunday and I could see myself losing it, but managed to pull through with only a stumble instead of a 'fall flat on my face fest.' I see how much I can learn from everyone around me, though, and more importantly, I can see how relying on God for everything is just essential.

But moreso, this week, I realized something. I am currently really considering to avenues for my life: something in the medical field and ministry. I love the hands on activity of both of them. Idleness in either one simply does not exist. While watching an episode of Grey's tonight (ummm...I don't normally actually get into shows, but I was in need of zoning out for a bit) I realized that they are actually similar and this explains why I am drawn to them both. Upon first glance, you might wonder what in the world I am talking about. Ministry and nursing?? What could they possibly have in common besides the obvious cliche of the "healing power." (Ew. I hate cliche metaphors.) But, after looking at the broader picture of both of them, I figured this out:

Both of them are life encompassing. They are not black and white. They are not jobs that you simply leave at work. They are messy.

They deal with people, so this is bound to be a fact.

Apparently, there is something in my nature that takes to this idea of the submersion of my life within a vocation.

annnnnnnnnd

2008-09-05T12:46:00.002-05:00

All of that tantruming has now lead to the overwhelming feeling that I am a silly silly girl.

Sorry for that outburst...

oh cripes

2008-09-04T20:45:00.002-05:00

Wow. I am incredibly emotional and incredibly angry right now. I know that I am being completely irrational and a total "girl" but for real. I might be having a panic attack.

I don't understand people. I hate being an extrovert. I hate that people don't understand for a while until they get to know me that I simply like to be around people. And I'm really sick of having to deal with them being overwhelmed and me feeling like there is something wrong with me because of it.

Seriously. What the crap is indeed wrong with me? I'm to the point where I don't even want to have close friends. Keeping people at a distance would be much easier for someone like me. I can feel myself shutting down again.

This might be incredibly selfish. This might be incredibly foolish.

But either way, I'm pissed off about it right now.

Domesti-rae

2008-09-03T22:28:00.003-05:00

I had my first little dinner party in our new place tonight. I had the guys that helped with the move over to say thanks for helping. I liked having people in the apartment. Val stopped by before hand and I just hugged her. I miss her tons, even though she is just across town. It's amazing: if you're not within blocks of each other in this city, you don't see people. (Or you have to spend 3 hours cooking a meal to coax people over....)

I love hugs. I don't think that I receive enough hugs anymore. So if you're reading this (all 3 of you) and you see me, give me a hug. I give good hugs back and it will pay out more than you give. I promise.

So it's official. I've got a major case of writer's block. I could fumble over a piece of beautiful language even if I wanted to. Everything that I write seems to drip on the countertop like the moldy tomato juice that I had to scrub off the cabinet today.

But I find solace in the fact that other people are still writing magnificent turns of phrases, even when I can't. For instance, I read this today:

"We're still picking plenty of late-coming ripe tomatoes out of the garden, both yellow and red. (I'm still convinced that cupping a hand beneath a plump, vine-ripened tomato in the summer is a particular pleasure that the church must have forgotten to forbid.) But the golden rod is yellowing, and will soon announce in earnest that ready or not, fall is coming. You can hear it out there in the night orchestras of insects: Sing like your life depends on it, it won't last forever." (Linford Detweiler, OTR update letter)

Man, it's just an alluring paragraph. It makes me want to wander the garden at my parent's house as the sun goes down, which is getting quicker and quicker every day. There's a reason OTR has been my favorite band for 13 years...

Around this time of year, panic sets in: Those insect sounds that I do hear out my window will shortly be replaced with the snowy silence. While the silence is beautiful, the favorite by far is the chorus of crickets and breezes meandering past the leaves.

I think I need to find a pen pal.

A lamp, a shoe and an allergy pill walk into a bar...

2008-09-02T23:11:00.002-05:00

So yesterday was the (unofficial) last day of summer. Technically, we still have 19 days left of it, but everyone knows that summer ends after Labor Day. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to not having a summer vacation anymore. By this time when you are in school, you're entirely ready to get back into it and for there to be cooler weather and the colors of fall.

I don't regret this summer at all, but it did feel a little bit devoid of any substance. There were definitely high points. But I understand the monotony of the working grindstone now.

Every day that I go further into this internship, I love it more. It has presented me with challenges that I never thought were possible.

I love these challenges.

I love that I am utilizing actual mental capacity.

I love the team that I work on.

I love that I fall more in love with Jesus because of everything that I am being presented with.

I love that I can't do any of the stuff that they have me doing on my own, and yet I am specifically created and designed to do it with my gifts and passions. (conundrum)

I love the passion and creativity of students and the people I work with.

It is definitely something that I feel like I could do for a long time. But I am asking questions. I am struggling. I am nervous much of the time. I am tired much of the time.

I am, however, a little confused at how things are turning out. By this time, according to my plan (joke, right?) I should have had a nursing assistant job to go along side of this. But, despite my pretty decent resume, I have not yet found a job.

The thing I am having a far more difficult time with, though, is the fact that I simply can't seem to find anything to write about. I would seem that I have writer's block in a most severe way. I'm not sure what's going on. Perhaps it is as simple as the fact that I have just not made time for it. But I can't even seem to find things to want to write about. Perhaps I just need to take more time to really take in the world around me. It's never been a problem before. Then again, I've never worked 60 hour weeks before.

Fall always makes me acutely aware of my desire to write, so maybe that will be enough to push me along. But I have not had that overwhelming beauty drown me with it's splendid covering in a long while.

I guess I'll have to learn to carve out time for that too.

my favorite nights

2008-08-30T02:44:00.003-05:00

I sat and chilled around a campfire with Eric, Pete, Dave and Delaina tonight and it was one of my favorite nights in a really long time.

There's something to be said for sitting and enjoying a beautiful, brink-of-fall evening with a small group of people who know you really well. Granted, none of them have known me beyond 2 years ago, but in that time, I feel that they have really come to know who I truly am and I love that I can just be with them.

Anyway, it's almost 3am and for whatever reason, I'm not asleep yet, despite having been up for almost 24 hours.

Oh, also...

Welcome Aston Pierce Gillen into the world. Niece/nephew #8. One more step in the process for Gillen world domination.

Getting Dirty

2008-08-28T21:20:00.002-05:00

It's 9:20pm on a Thursday night and the only thing that is keeping me from going to bed right now is the fact that I have laundry in the drier downstairs and need to wait for it to be done.

It's been a really intense week and I'm exhausted, with another really long day to go yet tomorrow.

I was running over to the other girls' apartment (which is really just across the grassy knoll in between our buildings) but in order to get there, I had to climb through kind of a muddy mess in the rain. In the process, I slipped and fell into the mud, but a piney bush caught most of my fall. But I did end up fairly muddy. (Which sucked because we don't have hot water right now to be able to take a shower. The shower today was ridiculous.)

I laughed and shook it off, but it was the perfect topping to the day. In general, it was just one of those days that you kind of want to shake off completely. ...Except for the meeting I got to have with Autumn, who is an awesome girl working with Fountain of Life church on the Southside of Madison. This girl gets it and my meetings with her are always encouraging and challenging for both of us.

2 weeks into this internship, I'm experiencing the excitement and frustrations of ministry. It is wonderful and painful all at the same time. It is the biggest contradiction I've ever experienced. I love being a part of the team. I love the work that is happening in my heart and in the hearts of the students on my team. I love the creativity and passion involved.

But along with that comes frustrations... along with that comes emotions and complexities that I never even knew existed.

One of the most daunting things that I'm experiencing right now is this:

Square one: Service is essential. How many references in Scripture are there that tell followers of Christ to care for the margins of society? Good deeds and Good news go hand in hand. They do not separate. They are essential to one another.

The problem: The church (generalized Church) has built up walls. We no longer move toward our neighbor, but hull up in our big buildings and run our programs for ourselves with very little thought as to the welfare of the guy living across the street from us.

Luckily, some people are making amazing strides to bust those walls down and it's creating a revolution among what should be the "body of Christ." We are being pushed to become the Church once again. This challenge is both exhilarating and ridiculously difficult at the same time.

Why is this daunting to me? Because of this fact: The question with this internship that arises is how in the world do we get people, specifically college students in my case, to stop seeing service as part of a check list and start seeing it as essential? How does that heart develop? Obviously, God works in the hearts of people, but to some extent, it is our responsibility to respond out of obedience, due to the Greatest Commandments: Love God. Love others. All others fall under those two.

But how do we move toward the fatherless and the widow...the man recently released from prison...the drifter who needs a place to sleep for the night that isn't a park bench...the single mom trying to make ends meet and keep her children out of trouble? How do we move toward the woman who has been sexually abused and the family that has hit a financial snag due to their father's illness? Jesus loved them. Jesus didn't see them as part of His checklist. He was there with them. He hurt with them. He healed them. And, in doing so, people believed.

Good Works. Good News.

There's no disconnecting them.

Time Spent Alone

2008-08-27T17:42:00.003-05:00

I've spent more time alone in the last couple of weeks here in this new apartment than I have ever spent alone in my entire life. But I think the adjustment is going fairly smoothly, though. I've just been so incredibly busy and the time that I do get alone just gives me time to get more stuff done or to do other stuff.

But it's been a crazy couple of weeks.

I've learned how to nap. We never thought it would happen, but I have successfully taken 3 naps in the last 2 weeks. And I actually slept. It wasn't just a doze. We're talking out completely...fire alarms would barely wake me up. This is a good thing to learn, considering that 3:45am wake up times have happened in recent days.

I've also learned what it's like to get paid for something that you like to do. What in the world?? Is this what it's like to have a job that you enjoy? Sure, it's been a tough transition to working on a team, spending some amount of time in Cubeland (though really not much...) and getting work done in a productive manner, while still attempting to be creative. Starbucks has even taken on a new glimmer because the internship just jazzes everything else up. Finding a job as a CNA is still a priority, though. It's proving to be a little more difficult than what I thought it would be. I thought that they were in such high demand? Apparently I am either not cut out for it or I'm shooting way above my head. Who knows. But I can't even seem to get an interview.

The one thing that has gotten to me a little bit in the last couple of weeks is my lack of time to write. My actual paper journal hasn't been touched in a long time either. And I don't feel like there is really an creative fun thoughts coming to my head anyway. But maybe that's because it's all being used up on the internship. I don't really know, but I would really like to creative writer in me to come out. Or maybe it's because my muse has seemingly disappeared.

Anyway, I hope something entertaining happens soon, or I will lose what few of you actually read this. Hang in there...I'm bound to embarrass myself sooner or later.

Tirades

2008-08-25T23:55:00.002-05:00

I went out with my friend Brent tonight and sat and talked for a while about all different things. One of the things to come out of the conversation was this...

Maybe it's just the fact that I'm transitioning again.

Or maybe it's the fact that I've gotten, for all intents and purposes, no sleep in about a week.

Or maybe it's the fact that I've spent more time alone this week than I have ever in my life and about to embark on a year where that will be the case.

But I am irrevocably and quite unapologetically crankier than normal. Which leads to tirades from me.

First of all, I think I will freak out on the next person who gets that assertive "I'm better than you" look in their eye the next time they ask what I do and I say "I work at Starbucks."

1. I chose this position that I am in. I have 2 degrees from the school that is ranked 30th in universities (by some magazine..who knows.) Either way, I'm not hurting in the education department. If I wanted to have a better paying, less flexible job, I would.

2. The next time someone says that it's not a "real" job, I don't think that I will freak out. I know it. Who defined this so-called "real job" anyway?? Because when you really stop to think about it, which is the harder worker: The person who sits at a desk on facebook all day feigning work or the person who works up a sweat and knows how to get customers to calm down in even the worst of situations.

Now, I'm not saying that any job is better than another here. And I'm really not saying this for my benefit. I am simply saying that to the woman raising 3 kids and working 2 jobs that are both similar in stature to my Starbucks job, this is a REAL job. And people should stop and think about that before they open their mouths. Because while I chose to be there to give me flexibility while I pursue other endeavors, that woman needs that job and she may not have any other option.

I just can't handle the assertion of one person over another anymore. It's time that we get off of our high horses and start to try to understand our fellow people. So the next time you go get your Venti Skinny Vanilla Latte and you want to be rude to the person taking your order, think about someone coming into your place of employment and telling you that everything you do is wrong and that the product you just produced is crappy.

Also, I am tired. And really really stressed out.

gar

2008-08-23T02:39:00.003-05:00

I didn't have time today to really do much of a post

but we'll go with this:

i just kind of suck at people. i'm too much of an extrovert and i simply overwhelm people. and honestly, i don't know how to fix it because it's completely innate in me.

that's pretty much it.

whirlwind

2008-08-21T23:31:00.002-05:00

So it's been a week.

I really can't stay up too late at the point because I have to get up at 4:20am and I probably should just wait until tomorrow to even write anything here, but why not?

We're all moved into the new apartment...we'll touch on that tomorrow.

I started my internship...we'll touch on that for the next year.

Hints of Fall are beginning...this will cause me to want to write more.

My brain has definitely been working overtime. I'll come back tomorrow.

lying on sidewalks in the middle of the night

2008-08-13T23:41:00.002-05:00

Today was a long day.

I woke up and started the packing/cleaning process that is move out and the day just kind of went downhill from there. Being sick and breaking your toe as a combined circumstance does not generally make for a very fun move out day. Plus, there was just a TON of stuff to do, and for a good chunk of the day, not a lot of manpower to do it. But just when I was getting tired and slap happy, the second round of roommates came through and are pulling their part so that I can pick up 1st shift again tomorrow.

I'm sad to be moving out of this house. As I look back on the year and the things I went through here, I am nostalgic. I have come to know my best friends, I think, this year. And it's a weird paradox because while I'd love for it to continue to remain the same, there's just no way it can. Marriages happen, med schools happen, and jobs in far off countries happen. And we just have to continue to push forward with it, looking for those good things as we continue on.

Interesting discussion with Tyler last night about puzzles. This is merely a note to myself to write on the topic later...

I should really sleep. Slap happy Rae is kicking in.

Waning Moons

2008-08-13T00:19:00.002-05:00

It's not even clear out tonight, which is a sever disappointment, considering that there is a meteor shower happening the last 2 nights.

I guess a waning moon just feels a little bit like kin tonight, though. It could very well be the fact that I am really sick with an awful head cold right now or the fact that I'm pretty stressed out with moving on Thursday, but I think this is previous to all of that. I just don't feel like myself lately. The prospect of new adventures don't seem to have any sort of flare right now. Major life upheavals are about to happen and where I should be excited and happy for these opportunities, instead I am apathetic.

I just feel like I'm slowly losing my grip on myself. Is this good or bad? Not sure...

But I know that I'm crabbier than normal.

And I know that I'm less patient with people.

And I definitely know that the sarcasm had taken a bitter tone as of late.

And I definitely know that people are noticing and I hate that they are noticing because, let's face it, I care about what people think about me and I want them to like me and to think I'm an amazing girl.

Oh good gosh. We're back here.

I need to start serving again somewhere immediately. The focus has shifted too much to myself yet again. It's like that's my default mode and I just constantly pick on myself and other people and then have horrible interactions.

Bah. As many times as I've been through this, you'd think that I'd learn to not even let myself get here, but I guess it's all a learning experience and that takes time.

I just don't want to be one of those people that is a burden on other people. I want interactions to be an uplifting experience. But right now, it's just not happening.

And it's probably not a coincidence.

6 days until the internship starts...

Something to Write about

2008-08-05T22:28:00.003-05:00

So I got quite a bit of alone time today while painting our living room back to its ugly state of sterile, white washed walls. I'm sitting in it right now and it just feels completely different and less like home.

It is interesting to think about how much this house became a home to me this year. But I guess the catchy phrase is that home is where the heart is, and if that's the case, then home is coming with me as I move out of this house next week. Although, I really think that phrase is bull because there's also the phrase "if walls could talk." So really, I guess it's how you choose to see it. I've grown a lot this past year and learned a lot about me, the world and the people by which I am surrounded. But more importantly, I've never grown more than this year in my pursuit of God.

And this can be demonstrated yet again in something that I learn again and again and again:

Two dear friends of mine lost their father 2.5 weeks ago to suicide. This rocked me more than I really would have expected it to. I had never met their father in person, so there was seemingly no reason why it should have affected me as much as it did. My emotion in the situation really came down to 3 things, I think. First of all, as much as I am not experiencing their pain, it was painful to watch such good friends go through this and ask questions that no one should have to ask and to deal with things that no one should ever have to deal with. My heart breaks every time I think about the ramifications that they have faced and that they will continue to face because of this. Second, I believe there was a projection of myself into the situation. The big question of what will happen when my own father dies has been plaguing pretty severely for some time now and I think this hit a little close to home. Lastly, I realized recently that not only am I mourning for my friend's father. But I am mourning for my friends...because I really am not sure that either of them will ever be the same after this. A bit of who they were quite possibly died with their father. This is not to say that they will not be good people, but rather, this is something that will rock them and change them and I loved both of them so much as they were, so it is accurate to say that I am mourning the loss of who they were.

There was also the big question of suicide victims that went through my head. Their father was a believer and that is huge comfort to both of them, and now to me, but at first, honestly, I had some doubts about what happens when someone who commits suicide is a believer. How is that reconciled? And the answer that I got was absolutely the most incredible thing I have ever logically known.

I had to literally sit down and work through this like a philosophical proof (If .... then.... And if that...then....). Let me give you a little hint of this process:

I looked up suicide in my concordance, only to realize that there were only 5 mentions of suicide in the Bible and none of them contained any pertinent information for me. Well, this stumped me. If the Bible didn't say anything about it, how the crap was I supposed to answer these questions?

So then I started digging deeper and looking at it from a different angle:

Thought: The Old Testament would say that suicide is murder...self murder.

Conclusion: Suicide is a moral sin because it is murder and we are commanded against that.

Ok. Well, maybe the memory I have from Sunday school when I was little that suicides don't get to go to heaven was true? Oh. Stay tuned if this resonates with you because you're about to get your socks rocked off.

Thought: Well, even murderers in prison turn their lives around and come to know Jesus and accept His grace.

Conclusion: But they get the chance to repent that suicides don't get.

Thought: But Christ died once for all, for past, present and future sin. Scripture speaks of this death as our salvation in regards to the past, present and future.

Conclusion: By accepting Christ once as our true Saviour, ALL of our sin (past, present and future) is covered by that. Romans talks of nothing being able to separate us from the love that is found in Jesus.

So with that logical, very well thought out array of proofs, the rediscovery that Grace covers all of this shone through. Their father is very much with Jesus now, despite his choice to leave life early. Suicide doesn't change salvation. It merely expedited the process. Sure, I believe there are consequences for this. The things that their father could have done on Earth for the sake of God's kingdom here are altered. But to say that he is not with Jesus now is to say that what Jesus did on the cross was not sufficient.

And that, my friends, is the one of the most joyous discoveries I have ever obtained. (Heidi said my eyes were flying around the room while working on this one!)

And so, despite the tragedy that has happened, there is hope. And more importantly, there is grace.

Stranded

2008-08-03T21:55:00.002-05:00

I've been sitting with a blank screen for the last 15 minutes here, so I just decided to start writing about that. I have been stuck in a writer's block for the last 2 weeks or so and I can't figure out how to get out of it. But Andy sent me something today that just talked about how you should keep creating, even if it's not quality, so quantity, here I come.

I spent the day sailing with Brian, Lindsay, Rick, Monica and Delaina yesterday. We weren't going to go, but at the last minute, I thought there was enough wind, and sure enough, there was plenty. So much so, in fact, that on the other side of the lake, one of our lines snapped and we had to jimmy rig it to get it back. But we made it and had a good time. Lindsay is moving up to Minnesota on Saturday, so that kind of sucks for us here. I'm going to miss her like crazy. But I guess that means I'll have one more person up there to justify the trips up there. Slowly, as people start to drift in and out of Madison, I'm realizing more and more that I need to keep moving. This time of life is not the time when my friend pool will be steady, which I guess eliminates the possibility of stagnant relationships.

I just feel like I'm in a constant state of adjusting. Everything feels relative. Measurements are fleeting because the point at which you being to measure is never accurate.

Most of me really hopes that life evens out after a while, but part of me is afraid for that. We all know how non-committal I actually am.

I've also hit a little dry spot with God. I'm pretty sure it has everything to do with the fact that for 2 months, I haven't really been serving anywhere. And that is where I saw God and where I grew and developed the most. So I guess, I'm looking forward to students to come back so that I have a place to serve again. Or maybe I've actually hit a road block here.

But the only way to combat that is to just fight against it...

Settling into 24

2008-08-01T23:26:00.002-05:00

So yesterday, I turned 24.

All in all, it was a good day. I went to go see Dark Knight with Kelly, David and Ben, played a horribly hot frisbee game in which the girls had to go savage the whole time, showered up, went to the Dane to share some food and pitchers and then went off to see Shoeless Revolution with Andy and Palma.

Other stuff has been going on. I don't think that I can really articulate it on here so I'm not going to try. But as soon as I can update with something more thrilling to read, I will do so.

Until then, thanks for the birthday wishes. I love you all :)

a curiosity?

2008-07-25T23:03:00.002-05:00

Does every guy have a girl that no other girl will ever live up to?

I think this may very well be the most frustrating thing that I have come to realize about guys. Sure, girls may not have it all together. But guys, it's time to let go of the idealistic girls that you have up on pedestals. Sooner or later, they're going to fall off.

The paradox of every ideal is that there must be a dismissal of the ideal in order to achieve the "ideal."

Brewers, beer, burgers, and boys

2008-07-25T22:30:00.002-05:00

I had the day off today and I was so glad to have it. I woke up, cleaned the part of the house I was responsible for, got ready, ran some errands, came home and worked on some writing stuff for a while and then rested for a bit. After that, Pete, Dave, and Grant came over for some burgers, beer and Brewers. Dave was going to help me transfer some stuff onto my new computer, but just like always, we failed to get it done. While the day was very productive, I feel like it was a slightly wasted day. Which is interesting because on Monday, after I got off work, I literally sat around and read for 8 hours before going for a run and then to a bbq with my friend Brent. Oddly enough, that day felt like I accomplished more than I did today. I'm not really sure what the deal is with that. But either way, today was a nice respite from the emotion that has been taking me over the last week.

I think a couple of things popped into my head today as I was running around trying to avoid my thoughts, though. When I signed up for this whole believing in God thing and giving my life up to what He's doing, I signed up for everything: the good the bad and especially the things I don't understand. But it seems that when push comes to shove, the things that I don't understand are a little more difficult to figure out than what I expected. And when I say 'figure out,' I don't really mean understand, but more simply (or with more difficulty) I mean trying to discover a means to continue on in the world knowing what you know now; To adjust and to adapt to the knowledge that increases with each thing that is pulled into question. And the more interesting thing is that the knowledge isn't necessarily bad knowledge, but very often, an understanding about something good. How do you reconcile the world, which makes me sick sometimes, to the knowledge that you gain?

How do you come to a place where it's ok to see the good in a horrible situation? It's innate to not allow yourself to do that.

The other thing that I was thinking on today was pretty selfish compared to the other thing, so I don't really think i'll think about it again right now. Perhaps tomorrow when I'm not so crazy-brained, I will allow myself to think more about it.

tomatoes, basil, mozzarella

2008-07-23T22:48:00.002-05:00

Today was a decompression day. I felt like I finally stopped trying to grab onto the fire hose that life was last week and simply turned off the water instead.

I started thinking through some big things in the last couple of days in dealing with what I have been writing lately. Mr. C recommended that I sit down and see if I could find a pattern in any of it and I have. And I think I have found some semblance of organization too. But we'll see what happens when I finally start laying it out on Friday, as tomorrow is taken up by a trip to Green Bay to stand next to some friends that recently lost their father. (That right there is another huge thing that has me thinking...)

But tonight, I rested my brain. I got home from work after going to the Red Cross to donate blood, which they didn't take because they couldn't find my appointment and weren't actually open at the time. Weird. But I have O- blood so they are always calling me. Anyway, after that, I sat around for a bit, which was followed by a run. Roommates came home and I got to hang out with them for a bit, but the better part of the night by far was the time spent wandering our yard and neighborhood. One of my favorite things to do in the summer has always been sauntering around a yard. This usually was my parents yard, but we actually have a smaller one this year and I have some plants growing around the house, so I watered them and checked to make sure the bunnies weren't getting them.

There is something about a yard in the twilight of a summer evening--especially a cooler one like tonight is. It just seems to erupt in character. And the colors are always somehow more vibrant without direct like on them.

This then lead to quick shower and a stroll around the neighborhood. Amy came with me for the first bit of it, but I went off on my own after I dropped her off. You see, I have a really funny habit of picking other people's flowers. Now, sure, this might be considered stealing, but I like to think of it is them sharing the beauty that they have the ability to plant since they own their houses. So I will usually pick one flower from every big patch of flowers that I find and this way, no one really notices. Well, the bouquet that I got to night was absolutely stunning and incredibly fragrant. I'll post a picture later.

I should really go to bed, as we have a long day tomorrow. And I am also pretty sure this will be the last of my "not fairly intense" thoughts for a bit. I realize these posts haven't contained much for content as of late. But I've got a feeling that's all about to change again.

blue mailboxes

2008-07-23T00:34:00.002-05:00

So I was having a bit of dry spell in every way possible last week and probably before that, but I hadn't really noticed.

But due to some tragic circumstances, I have somehow had a wellspring open up from within me and thoughts are coming out in an organized fashion. So much so that I think this whole blog will look a lot different starting tomorrow...that is, if I can find the time to write tomorrow. But I will. Because I have to.

Because this has now become a part of who I am. (Not the blog..but writing.) Or maybe it hasn't become a part of me, but rather has always been a part of me.

I think the latter is the more likely answer.

Damage Control

2008-07-18T18:25:00.002-05:00

Today was one of those days where you pick up the pieces of your week after it has been ravaged. It was like a twister ripped through this week and scattered debris and farm animals everywhere. To make a long story short, my mouth wrote a lot of checks this week that my butt couldn't cash. And now I'm picking up the pieces and tentatively stepping around people to test the waters of their attitudes towards me.

So. Things learned this week:

1. Think before you speak.

2. Double think everything that you just thought before you speak.

3. Get more sleep so I can maintain emotional stability.

4. Don't procrastinate 2 huge life-altering steps of a process toward a goal that fall in the same week.

5. If you think you should go home, you should probably just follow that gut instinct and go home.

6. Don't take things so personally, even if they are personal.

7. Take time to write. The little experiment of testing out how I function if I don't write for a week really didn't do me any good.

8. Learn to take advice with sincerity.

9. Wait it out. Patience is a virtue for a reason, and impulse usually leads to a tasty foot in the mouth.

10. Swallow the pride. It's good for you and full of fiber.

Oh man

2008-07-14T00:26:00.002-05:00

This really was a great weekend.

Friday, I took a drive out to Waukesha to Jen and Eric's new house to celebrate my mom's birthday. Jen cooked a phenomenal dinner and then we all went downtown Waukesha because there's live music and goodness that happens on Friday nights there. We found 2 of the bands and then got distracted by the coffee shop on the corner.

Saturday, I woke up and went sailing. I was able to get my next rating, allowing me to get trained on the rest of the boats. (I've got another lesson tomorrow and will hopefully come out of it with a rating) After that, I came home and hung out on my own for a bit and then Jon and I made dinner while putting together a playlist for the Jumptown dance. We hit up the Jumptown dance and I remembered how much I really like dancing with him. We just have fun together doing it because we can read each other pretty well after a year and a half of dancing together. After that, we walked around State Street, as it was a beautiful night and grabbed some food at the new calzone place that is also a little bit creepy due to the sexual innuendoes that are everywhere, which is just weird. But we got a good laugh out of it and had a pretty great discussion that got me thinking about a ton of stuff.

I then hit up the Irish Pub with Chris and Eric, where I owned 3 games of Cutthroat. Awww yeah.

Today, I was supposed to have another sailing lesson, but it was cancelled due to too much wind. Yes...I realize that sounds a little odd, but learning to sail in high winds is just scary. So I jumped on my bike, made it home, jumped in the shower and then got out to church where the service was just awesome. I think it was my favorite service that I've ever been to there. It was on worship and what it means.

Hannah, Will, Hannah's brother Dan, and I grabbed lunch at Frieda's after church and checked out Art Fair On The Square all afternoon and then I went back to Blackhawk to work on internship stuff, during which, I ran into Brent and we decided to go grab some coffee afterward.

Then I came home and Heidi was still up so we sat and hung out for a while.

The best weekends for me are the ones where I get good quality time with people and I got a ton of that this weekend, as well as simply having fun. :)

Tomorrow, I write and get my internship letters out. Productivity!

I will have a more content filled post after that. :P

You Want Whatever's Not in Front of You...

2008-07-10T23:13:00.002-05:00

I got out sailing on my own for the first time of the season.

After a bit of panic due to not having gone out with my own rigging all year, I finally shoved off and got out on the water. And it was amazing. There's something about being out in the middle of the lake...no one else in the boat with you...no sound of a motor....hardly even the sound of the sail if I'm doing it right. It's beautifully lonely. This isn't something I'd say about a lot of things. There aren't many things that I find beautiful that I also find lonely, being the extrovert that I am.

I'm getting antsy. I think I need to do something about some things...

Lastly

2008-07-08T23:11:00.000-05:00

I am in love with Strange and Beautiful by Aqualung.

Also

2008-07-08T23:07:00.002-05:00

You know in movies when you see people standing on the side of the road and they get splashed by the car driving through the huge puddle?

Yeah. That happened to me 4 times today.

I road my bike out to Blackhawk and on the way back, it dumped rain and I managed to seek shelter in the Shopko garden tent, but as I road on and had to stop at intersections, the puddles that had formed were quickly run through by cars and disposed of onto my body. 4 times.

It was one of the most productive days I've seen in a long time. And everything about it should have put me in a bad mood.

But I'm doing well with it all. :)

Feeling Sick For the First Time in Months

2008-07-08T22:45:00.002-05:00

Yup. I feel sick for the first time in months. Like that actual "Wow...I might be coming down with something" sick.

Then again, it could just be the fact that I biked out to Blackhawk and back today and then played a full game of frisbee since we only had 3 girls again. By the end of the game, I was starting to see spots and really not feeling well. The Brewers win took my mind off of it for a little while, but now, as I am lying in bed writing, I am feeling it more than ever and am sore on top of that.

Ok, I'm done complaining.

Cornerstone was amazing. 77's and Over the Rhine on Friday night. Shane Claiborne spoke and the 25th Anniversary Party Celebration featuring all sorts of goodies happened on Friday night. Charlie Peacock and Lost Dogs on Saturday night. There's nothing that takes me back more and has more memories wrapped in it than listening to those bands at Cornerstone. Amazing... There were a lot of great new bands in there too. Not to mention some pretty exciting other things that went down that I'm too tired to actually divulge into right now.

I had a lot of great thoughts that I will eventually get to working through while I was down there, but I'm too nauseated right now to think that hard. I'll wait until I can actually address the thoughts with the depth that they deserve.

Waiting

2008-07-03T13:18:00.003-05:00

I figured that I would write a little bit while I'm waiting for Therese to show up. She is over an hour late, which really isn't that out of the ordinary for her. Although, I do wish I could get ahold of her to find out an approximate time of departure. We're trying to make it to an 8:15pm concert and it's about a 5 hour drive down there.

Oh yeah, we're headed down to Cornerstone. Whoa, right? Some of my favorite memories from middle school/high school are directly from the 1 week spent living in a tent, caked in dust and on absolutely no sleep, hanging out with Phil the Raging Homosexual Sea-monkey. All we need is a van with a couch bolted into the back of it and a real doozie of a storm.

I'm excited to be going back though. It will be a different experience from anything that I ever knew before. For one, I will be over the age of 18. Also, I'm hopefully going to be having a couple of conversations about possibilities for some writing opportunities, or at least how to make those opportunities happen.

I feel like my everyone I know is getting blindsided by life right now. A year and a month out of college now and everyone is realizing that what they have been doing the last year is simply not adequate. But it's not that they are looking for adequacy. They are looking for something deeper than that. The grittiness of life. I'm not even sure. Something.

I had a conversation with Kari yesterday just getting to know one another a little better. She and her family moved out here from California and have started to help out with CAM also. It's weird to me that whenever I have a "get to know you" conversation with someone, it usually results much more in an opportunity for me to externally process more so than as opportunity for someone to get to know me better. Although, I guess they go hand in hand. It does feel a bit selfish on my part, though. Anyway, she asked me what I went to school for and I told her: English and Religious Studies, which resulted in the inevitable "Well, that doesn't seem entirely applicable" look that I get from just about everyone.

But she let me ramble for a minute and I realized something. I am really glad that is what I went for. I went for something that I was really interested in and that helped to develop me as a person and my my mind. I spent my time in college investing in me...not a degree. Because, let's face it, the average person probably switches careers 2-3 times in a lifetime, so to invest in a $40,000 education that will eventually be wasted doesn't seem so rational. Maybe this is just a way for me to justify what I majored in, but it seems entirely possible that I made a really good decision in this matter.

I can do anything with those degrees...even go back to school if I have to.

Anyway, hour and a half late. I wonder where she is.

Hot Summer Nights

2008-07-02T23:31:00.003-05:00

I got to experience The Modern Antiques live for the first time tonight. I only got to hear a few songs, but it was a good start. Great stuff! :) A perfect way to start the weekend...

I feel like July is going to be good.

Nearly 24 years later...

2008-06-30T00:03:00.003-05:00

I'll write more tomorrow, but for now, I just wanted to tell an interesting story:

I was talking to my friend Aaron tonight. Granted, I don't know Aaron entirely well, but the times that I've talked to him, I've found that I've enjoyed the time, so we'll let that slide.

Anyhow, Aaron was telling me how he is doing an internship in Racine and I mentioned that I was from Burlington, which is very close. He then mentioned how he has family in Burlington, and slowly, 2 and 2 started to come together. His last name....Burlington...

So I asked if his grandpa was a doctor and sure enough, he was, but retired about a decade ago.

As chance would have it, his grandfather was the man who delivered me into this world almost 24 years ago. We are talking the first human touch that I ever felt was this guy's grandpa.

It's almost serendipitous, isn't it?

didn't even make it 3 days

2008-06-24T23:20:00.002-05:00

My attempt to not think for a week has failed. I guess I should have gone with a more realistic goal. A week was just something that was not attainable. I simply set myself up for failure.

I'm not going to lie. I feel like crap. It's just been a bad few days.

And I've slept 2 hours out of the last 40, so that's just making things all the worse. And it doesn't look like there's too much hope in sight for a whole lot more sleep tonight.

This is one of those times when I'd really like to find a way for myself to escape myself.

Hopefully this will all pass quickly.

2008-06-24T15:19:00.003-05:00

what.the.crap.

2008-06-24T15:19:00.002-05:00

is it really only tuesday?

i'm really hoping that this week takes a turn somewhere.

the pesky mosquito in my room

2008-06-23T23:22:00.003-05:00

there is currently a horribly pesky mosquito flying around my room. i can't seem to kill it but it has bitten me about 6 times.

oh what a metaphor for life right now...

i suck at this. what "this" is...well... yeah.