Jessica Snead died on Wednesday. A couple of months ago Sharon Kelly determined that Wave Women were going to be women of who put love in action. I signed up for the cooking team and was assigned Jessica Snead's family.
Today we celebrated her life. It was one of the most supernatural events I've ever been a part of. It was beautiful and touching, convicting and convincing. Jesus is real and Jessica displayed him with her entire life, and even as she passed it off.
I am so glad that I was a part of it. Love in action was bigger than just making some dinner and dropping it off. It was a team, an army of faithful believers, and we helped carry her home but at the same time she brought home a little closer to us. I am looking forward to it now. It somehow has made it less scary and more beautiful when you know where you are going.
I am so blessed to have been a part of this. I am so thankful that I'll never be the same again after it. God makes all things beautiful, and he turns everything to perfection.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Blind Date pt 1
Jami and I met the summer I was 21. We waited tables at a cheesy themed restaurant at the Waterside in downtown Norfolk that summer. I don’t remember the moment we met, I just remember being friends with her immediately. She is my longest girl friend. I have traveled with her more than any other friend and we are the most opposite out of any of my relationships.
Jami works at a lovely casual fine dining place where she hangs behind the bar once a week. I work at a travel agency doing admin support for the Learning and Development department tackling projects that provide days that make me want to stick my finger through my eye, into my brain, and swirl it around. The other day unveiled itself to be such a day so after work I took off to see Jami for dinner at the great happy hour price!
I figured that it would be a quiet night at the restaurant especially at the bar, we’d get to catch up and chat while she served libations and spirits to the tables in the restaurant having dinner. As soon as I was settled in my bar chair an older brunette woman with a very bright cheery smile sat down about four chairs three chairs down from me She ordered a glass of white wine and kept smiling. Jami’s coworker that makes THE best cakes I’ve ever eaten was making flat breads and pizzas down by the stone fire pit in the wall. He was scooping them up with large broom handle length spatulas looking like Uncle Buck making pancakes.
Jami asked the lady if she was meeting someone and she says, “Yes.” A few minutes later a gray man with a mustache came in and introduced himself to her. They sat down with only one seat in between us. Were they on a blind date?
Another couple came in at the other end of the bar, out of ear shot. When Jami came back to me I told her, “I think they’re on a blind date.”
“I think so too, and so are these people.” She turned her back to the couple at the end of the bar and pointed to her chest as she said it.
I glanced over, “No way?!” Jami giggles and moves about taking care of her patrons and I immediately start to twitter that I am at a bar with not one but TWO blind dates happening at the same time. My self talk is out of control, wondering why people did those services and what triggers that. I’m feeling immediately uncomfortable and nervous, despite the comfort that no man was coming to meet me at the bar.
Jami comes back to me and I ask her, “What are the odds that two blind dates would happen at the same time?”
“Oh we partner with a service.” She tells me.
“Really? What is it something like, ‘It’s just for drinks?’”
“Yeah it is.”
Every once in awhile Jami comes back to check in and we update each other on the conversations of the couples. My couple is talking about cruising vacations and Jami says her couple at the end of the bar is talking about travel as well. Both couples are older. One is in their late fifties and the other about ten years their junior. The couple to my right talk about politics and religion. They talk about religious theologies in their life and views on the church. They cover the major topics quickly.
Jami works at a lovely casual fine dining place where she hangs behind the bar once a week. I work at a travel agency doing admin support for the Learning and Development department tackling projects that provide days that make me want to stick my finger through my eye, into my brain, and swirl it around. The other day unveiled itself to be such a day so after work I took off to see Jami for dinner at the great happy hour price!
I figured that it would be a quiet night at the restaurant especially at the bar, we’d get to catch up and chat while she served libations and spirits to the tables in the restaurant having dinner. As soon as I was settled in my bar chair an older brunette woman with a very bright cheery smile sat down about four chairs three chairs down from me She ordered a glass of white wine and kept smiling. Jami’s coworker that makes THE best cakes I’ve ever eaten was making flat breads and pizzas down by the stone fire pit in the wall. He was scooping them up with large broom handle length spatulas looking like Uncle Buck making pancakes.
Jami asked the lady if she was meeting someone and she says, “Yes.” A few minutes later a gray man with a mustache came in and introduced himself to her. They sat down with only one seat in between us. Were they on a blind date?
Another couple came in at the other end of the bar, out of ear shot. When Jami came back to me I told her, “I think they’re on a blind date.”
“I think so too, and so are these people.” She turned her back to the couple at the end of the bar and pointed to her chest as she said it.
I glanced over, “No way?!” Jami giggles and moves about taking care of her patrons and I immediately start to twitter that I am at a bar with not one but TWO blind dates happening at the same time. My self talk is out of control, wondering why people did those services and what triggers that. I’m feeling immediately uncomfortable and nervous, despite the comfort that no man was coming to meet me at the bar.
Jami comes back to me and I ask her, “What are the odds that two blind dates would happen at the same time?”
“Oh we partner with a service.” She tells me.
“Really? What is it something like, ‘It’s just for drinks?’”
“Yeah it is.”
Every once in awhile Jami comes back to check in and we update each other on the conversations of the couples. My couple is talking about cruising vacations and Jami says her couple at the end of the bar is talking about travel as well. Both couples are older. One is in their late fifties and the other about ten years their junior. The couple to my right talk about politics and religion. They talk about religious theologies in their life and views on the church. They cover the major topics quickly.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Fishy Lies Part 2
“They won’t come this close to shore. They are pretty far out.”
“Come on ma, they can’t hurt you.” I said to her. I was always teasing her about her lack of guts when it comes to animals and things consisting of slime. I had yet to achieve “girly.”
My mother relaxed a bit and we continued our frolic in the waves when all of a sudden about a hundred fish the size of a ruler bombarded our Saturday jaunt. The events that followed, to this day still go through my head in slow motion.
My mother, with a look of disbelief, wrenched free of my father’s grasp, turned, and looking like Richard Pryor from the piranha scene in the movie, “The Toy,” proceeded with Christ-like ability of running On water. The laughter had already taken over our bodies as we watched our poor defenseless mother try and outrun a school of attacking fish running through the waves in a desperate effort to get away from them. She was about a third of the way from shore when my mom suddenly stopped in mid-stride. We stopped with her and watched intently. I will never forget what happened next. My mother stopped, looked down for a brief moment, and grabbed the right leg hole of her one-piece bathing suit. She proceeded with dramatic force to pull her bathing suit up to her throat pulling it away from her body at the same time; exposing lord knows what to god knows whom.
Then it happened…a single fish flopped back into the sea.
We roared with laughter again and my mother let her bathing suit slap back against her leg and just as quickly as she stopped, she started her descent to the sand.
My mother never went back in that water again. It was one of our last times going to Ferry Landing Beach. But it sure was worth it.
“Come on ma, they can’t hurt you.” I said to her. I was always teasing her about her lack of guts when it comes to animals and things consisting of slime. I had yet to achieve “girly.”
My mother relaxed a bit and we continued our frolic in the waves when all of a sudden about a hundred fish the size of a ruler bombarded our Saturday jaunt. The events that followed, to this day still go through my head in slow motion.
My mother, with a look of disbelief, wrenched free of my father’s grasp, turned, and looking like Richard Pryor from the piranha scene in the movie, “The Toy,” proceeded with Christ-like ability of running On water. The laughter had already taken over our bodies as we watched our poor defenseless mother try and outrun a school of attacking fish running through the waves in a desperate effort to get away from them. She was about a third of the way from shore when my mom suddenly stopped in mid-stride. We stopped with her and watched intently. I will never forget what happened next. My mother stopped, looked down for a brief moment, and grabbed the right leg hole of her one-piece bathing suit. She proceeded with dramatic force to pull her bathing suit up to her throat pulling it away from her body at the same time; exposing lord knows what to god knows whom.
Then it happened…a single fish flopped back into the sea.
We roared with laughter again and my mother let her bathing suit slap back against her leg and just as quickly as she stopped, she started her descent to the sand.
My mother never went back in that water again. It was one of our last times going to Ferry Landing Beach. But it sure was worth it.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Fishy Lies Part 1
The water was always clear and there was never any sand – real white sand. The one beach on our “tropical paradise” was a beach names “the Ferry Landing.” We had been stationed on the rock known as Gitmo – known to the rest of the world as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for the last two years with at least another two in our sites. Family day consisted of a jaunt to the beach or the pool, cleaning rooms, picnics, whatever the mood struck. For 40 miles of space including the bay, there was only so much one could do with their free time. My mother and father always seemed to be creative. A day at the beach was always something fun and exciting, even when it was just our family who went. For only 40 miles we certainly had a number of beaches to choose from. Each coined with a cute nickname for some physical characteristic. Glass Beach was named that because it was the best beach for snorkeling and diving. Once you were snorkeling, you could go to the bottom of the water, where a multitude of worn, smoothed glass shards danced in the light under the waves.
My brother would collect these great treasures and put them in a cup. My mother would ooo and ahh over them like a good mother would and then when unloading our gear and treasures from the day she would gently and slyly discard my brother’s treasure chest of a cup until the next adventure to Glass Beach, when he would do it all over again.
On one particularly quiet Saturday my family, consisting of Ma and Pop, my 5 year-old younger brother William, and I, loaded a lunch and our beach gear in our car and took off for Ferry Landing beach.
Ferry landing beach was the only beach on the windward side of the island that had sand. There were a few beaches on the leeward side but you mostly had to take a boat to get to those. The Ferry Landing was the port for the ferry that took you from the windward side to the leeward side. A bay of water separates Gitmo. The majority of the families along with the commissary, Navy Exchange, movie amphitheater, pools, and the McDonald’s were on the Windward side of the island. On the Leeward side of the island, freedom lay in wait. The airport, along with military combat training was located on this side of the island. Guantanamo great to live there, but everyone missed the comforts of the main land. So unless you were on your way to the airport or your neighborhood was called to travel for Defex (practice for when Castro could attack), you pretty much stayed windward.
The other appealing aspect of Ferry Landing Beach was where the brine overflow and wastewater concentrated water would drain back into the ocean from the desalinization plant that made our water as drinkable. The best water you’ve ever tasted. I, to this day, have never tasted water as clean and sweet as the water there. It was a large long spout averaging at about 7 feet in width that sent warm water back out. It was like going to a hot spring to lounge in the water. You could float off its current and the amount of salt.
This particular Saturday my family and I were floating in the current, laughing and joking around. My mother, who has always and remains, squeamish sat perched on my father’s lap. My brother and I were bouncing childishly around them. The sun was high and the sky as always was so blue you felt you could get lost in it. We looked out from the shore and saw lots of splashes.
“Gary, what is that?” My mother asked a little on edge already.
“Oh, it’s just a school of fish being chased by some Red Snapper.” My father answered her, tightening his grip around her.
My brother and I thought it was cool.
“Ok, well I am going in. I don’t like fish.” She tried to get away from my father’s tight grip around her, but he wouldn’t budge.
My brother would collect these great treasures and put them in a cup. My mother would ooo and ahh over them like a good mother would and then when unloading our gear and treasures from the day she would gently and slyly discard my brother’s treasure chest of a cup until the next adventure to Glass Beach, when he would do it all over again.
On one particularly quiet Saturday my family, consisting of Ma and Pop, my 5 year-old younger brother William, and I, loaded a lunch and our beach gear in our car and took off for Ferry Landing beach.
Ferry landing beach was the only beach on the windward side of the island that had sand. There were a few beaches on the leeward side but you mostly had to take a boat to get to those. The Ferry Landing was the port for the ferry that took you from the windward side to the leeward side. A bay of water separates Gitmo. The majority of the families along with the commissary, Navy Exchange, movie amphitheater, pools, and the McDonald’s were on the Windward side of the island. On the Leeward side of the island, freedom lay in wait. The airport, along with military combat training was located on this side of the island. Guantanamo great to live there, but everyone missed the comforts of the main land. So unless you were on your way to the airport or your neighborhood was called to travel for Defex (practice for when Castro could attack), you pretty much stayed windward.
The other appealing aspect of Ferry Landing Beach was where the brine overflow and wastewater concentrated water would drain back into the ocean from the desalinization plant that made our water as drinkable. The best water you’ve ever tasted. I, to this day, have never tasted water as clean and sweet as the water there. It was a large long spout averaging at about 7 feet in width that sent warm water back out. It was like going to a hot spring to lounge in the water. You could float off its current and the amount of salt.
This particular Saturday my family and I were floating in the current, laughing and joking around. My mother, who has always and remains, squeamish sat perched on my father’s lap. My brother and I were bouncing childishly around them. The sun was high and the sky as always was so blue you felt you could get lost in it. We looked out from the shore and saw lots of splashes.
“Gary, what is that?” My mother asked a little on edge already.
“Oh, it’s just a school of fish being chased by some Red Snapper.” My father answered her, tightening his grip around her.
My brother and I thought it was cool.
“Ok, well I am going in. I don’t like fish.” She tried to get away from my father’s tight grip around her, but he wouldn’t budge.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Mona Lisa
I was sitting in a coffee shop waiting on a friend. I came in and sat down at a table next to a woman who was well put together. Her nails were short and round with bright red nail polish. She kept putting more and more jewelry on. First it was a bracelet and then it was a large costume ring. Then she put on another bracelet.
She ordered her coffee and some food and came back to her seat. I was reading the bible and taking moments to reflect on what I had read and this lady started to catch my attention. At first I thought she was just talking to herself randomly. I am guilty of doing that from time to time, but her body language changed. Captivated, I spied on her from the corner of my eye. She turned her body to the right at an angle as if there were a person there to focus her attention on. It was then that I realized she was talking to someone.
Whomever she was talking to I couldn't see; I know the guy at the table next to mine couldn't see them either – but this lady legitimately saw someone. She spoke with intense expressive hand gestures and she responded with laughter, sometimes a louder laugh. She wasn't disruptive, had someone actually been there the conversation was quite normal for the environment and she seemed very content with herself.
I started to wonder who she was talking to. Not in a judgmental or accusatory fashion, but out of genuine interest. Were they male or female? What they are talking about? Does this person, that I can't see, treat her better than any other relationship in her life? Are they the only one that can see her, just as she is the only one who can see them? Is she talking to God? Is he that tangible to her that I sit back in my chair and assume there is something deeply troubled; all the while the Lord is who she is talking to as she works it all out for herself just like I’m doing? I don't know what this woman's story is. I don't know if she is from money or has always been hungry. Is there someone that worries for her safety and waits till she gets home at night?
Is the devil trapped in her mind to isolate her from her destiny and in that conversation is the Lord reminding her that she is a child of God and that he is always with us even when our mind is different from everyone else's? The least will be first and the first will be last…is she first?
She looks at me and tells me that she likes my hair, this, on a day when it's raining and nasty and I'm dressed as a homeless person in protest to the on coming winter. I tell her, "thank you. It's my rainy day hair." She starts to rapidly run her hand from her forehead to the back of her neck over her hair, back and forth telling me that her rainy day hair solution is to cut it really short. And our conversation ends.
I want to ask her who she is talking too. It haunts me and I start to pray that the Lord will open an opportunity for me to talk to her. To provide a door for me to step through if only to see what I am supposed to learn from her through His eyes.
It never comes.
What comes is my coffee date. We talk and share and explore our revelations of God. I tell her about the lady and the conversation that she has been having with the person only she can see. And then we start to dig into each other's worlds and the lady is forgotten.
Now I am thinking about that woman and wondering about her. Wondering where she is and what she’s doing. Wondering. Wondering about God and his plans, wondering why some of us are healthy and some are sick, why some are called and some are not. Why some can chose the wider road and some of us can only imagine the narrow one. Wondering about how big the world is and how small we are, and how we can spend our whole life in a little microcosm of the universe and miss the big picture and how much we just don't know.
I pray for my eyes to widen and my vision to expand. Expand to see more and experience things beyond myself; to get the words in the right order, to get my life in the right order. However, who defines what order looks like? To the lady in the coffee shop order looks like a figment of your imagination that has coffee with you and makes you laugh.
I’ve spent too much time bound up and boxed in to the belief that order must look like a particular picture, a paint-by-numbers where I have to paint the right color on the right number…but my order is yellow when it should be red, it's green when purple is assigned. I've had to give that picture up. I can't paint in the numbers when I don't hold the brush. Once I’m reminded of that, I see my own definitions of order. It's unorthodox, a little messy from time to time, but the end result is still a well formed picture. I have to strip the paints that I think I should have and let them be painted on their own. I'm not Michelangelo, my Mona Lisa is different and I don't HAVE to make it look like anything but Glory.
She ordered her coffee and some food and came back to her seat. I was reading the bible and taking moments to reflect on what I had read and this lady started to catch my attention. At first I thought she was just talking to herself randomly. I am guilty of doing that from time to time, but her body language changed. Captivated, I spied on her from the corner of my eye. She turned her body to the right at an angle as if there were a person there to focus her attention on. It was then that I realized she was talking to someone.
Whomever she was talking to I couldn't see; I know the guy at the table next to mine couldn't see them either – but this lady legitimately saw someone. She spoke with intense expressive hand gestures and she responded with laughter, sometimes a louder laugh. She wasn't disruptive, had someone actually been there the conversation was quite normal for the environment and she seemed very content with herself.
I started to wonder who she was talking to. Not in a judgmental or accusatory fashion, but out of genuine interest. Were they male or female? What they are talking about? Does this person, that I can't see, treat her better than any other relationship in her life? Are they the only one that can see her, just as she is the only one who can see them? Is she talking to God? Is he that tangible to her that I sit back in my chair and assume there is something deeply troubled; all the while the Lord is who she is talking to as she works it all out for herself just like I’m doing? I don't know what this woman's story is. I don't know if she is from money or has always been hungry. Is there someone that worries for her safety and waits till she gets home at night?
Is the devil trapped in her mind to isolate her from her destiny and in that conversation is the Lord reminding her that she is a child of God and that he is always with us even when our mind is different from everyone else's? The least will be first and the first will be last…is she first?
She looks at me and tells me that she likes my hair, this, on a day when it's raining and nasty and I'm dressed as a homeless person in protest to the on coming winter. I tell her, "thank you. It's my rainy day hair." She starts to rapidly run her hand from her forehead to the back of her neck over her hair, back and forth telling me that her rainy day hair solution is to cut it really short. And our conversation ends.
I want to ask her who she is talking too. It haunts me and I start to pray that the Lord will open an opportunity for me to talk to her. To provide a door for me to step through if only to see what I am supposed to learn from her through His eyes.
It never comes.
What comes is my coffee date. We talk and share and explore our revelations of God. I tell her about the lady and the conversation that she has been having with the person only she can see. And then we start to dig into each other's worlds and the lady is forgotten.
Now I am thinking about that woman and wondering about her. Wondering where she is and what she’s doing. Wondering. Wondering about God and his plans, wondering why some of us are healthy and some are sick, why some are called and some are not. Why some can chose the wider road and some of us can only imagine the narrow one. Wondering about how big the world is and how small we are, and how we can spend our whole life in a little microcosm of the universe and miss the big picture and how much we just don't know.
I pray for my eyes to widen and my vision to expand. Expand to see more and experience things beyond myself; to get the words in the right order, to get my life in the right order. However, who defines what order looks like? To the lady in the coffee shop order looks like a figment of your imagination that has coffee with you and makes you laugh.
I’ve spent too much time bound up and boxed in to the belief that order must look like a particular picture, a paint-by-numbers where I have to paint the right color on the right number…but my order is yellow when it should be red, it's green when purple is assigned. I've had to give that picture up. I can't paint in the numbers when I don't hold the brush. Once I’m reminded of that, I see my own definitions of order. It's unorthodox, a little messy from time to time, but the end result is still a well formed picture. I have to strip the paints that I think I should have and let them be painted on their own. I'm not Michelangelo, my Mona Lisa is different and I don't HAVE to make it look like anything but Glory.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Sydney's
Here it is! The next installment of the video portion. I told you I would introduce you to the people in my world.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
@donmilleris Manuscripts
@donmilleris's book Blue Like Jazz changed the way I looked at the dream in my heart. Donald Miller was someone who's writing style was much like mine and he had a New York Times Best Seller. You could get published writing the way that I did.
When I read his books it was the first time that I connected to a writing the way I connect to music. I am in love with the way Donald Miller puts words together. It has opened my eyes to certain aspects of life and how to represent Jesus, and God has used his writing to speak directly to me in an answer to life changing circumstances. Read just the Author's Note in Through Painted Deserts! If you want that story ask and I'll tell you. It's pretty amazing!
Hopefully, by now I have demonstrated my passion for Donald Miller's writing. I need you to understand this as to it is important to the next part of the story.
Miller has a new book coming out this month. Last month he kicked off a contest to promote his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The contest?
The Hidden Manuscripts. His concept was to hide 60 manuscripts in cities scattered around America. Each day he would twitter and/or Facebook the locations of two manuscripts and whomever got there first got to keep it! Each manuscript came with a letter from Miller which contained a cell phone number that the winner would call at the completion of the book.
People make fun of Twitter. But I LOVE Twitter. @gnay is hilarious and it promotes this blog etcetera etcetera! In August the contest took off and each day my cell phone would vibrate with the text that contained the coveted location. And each day I would hope that it would come to a town where someone I knew lived and could go get it.
Memphis: I sent an email to my Aunt Linda in Cordova and asked her if she was close to the location would she go get it?
The text came and she was across town. STRIKE ONE!
Nashville: Yeah right, it's the home of Thomas Nelson it took like four minutes for that one to be found
Washington DC: THE best person lived in DC for this challenge and she was one board. She was following @donmilleris and waiting for the tweet...it came...but only stating that it had already been claimed! STRIKE TWO!
One Monday I got a tweet to my phone saying that VA was tomorrow. I was like cool...in my heart though I was convinced that it would be near Liberty or DC or Richmond. Tuesday morning I was in a meeting in my boss's office. It wrapped up a few minutes after 11am and I came back to my desk. I checked my phone and there it was! The location of today's manuscript: 508 Central Dr, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 Suite 106. It was 11:04 and the text was time stamped at 10:47 - had it been too much time? I quickly Googled it and it was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET.
I told my boss I needed to step out for a few minutes and being awesome she said, sure thing. I hit print, grabbed the paper off the machine, and was out the door, praying for favor the whole way there.
When I pulled up it was a little strip building in an industrial/business district. I got out and meekly stood just inside the door. There was a man on the phone walking around who smiled at me and knocked on a door jam just up the hall as he passed. A blonde woman walked out with a warm smile and asked if she could help me.
"I don't suppose you still have the manuscript do you?" I asked her.
"Actually, we do."
"Really?"
"Yeah, we've been waiting since 7:30. We didn't know how it was going to happen."
She and I chat back and forth and tell our sides of the story, all the while I am smiling from ear to ear. She hands me a giant manila envelope and tells me there is a letter to hang on the door once it was found. I smiled at her and thank her as I leave.
I got in my car and tried to text my girls who had been believing and trying to help me get it in other cities. I was shaking so badly out of excitement all I could get out was, "GOT THE MANUSCRIPT!!" Then I called my friend Matty, who I think we became as good of friends as we are due to mutual love of Blue Like Jazz, and hollered into his voicemail that I had gotten the manuscript!
I can't wait to call him. I can't wait to ask him how he does it. How he decides what goes in and what doesn't. I'm so excited to talk with a writer that I love and understand and see what ideas come out of the conversation. I received a lot of flack in college for my content and his content was a best seller. I can't wait. It's like a musician being able to pick the brain of Bono!
I still find myself saying, I can't believe that I found it. That I got there first. But I did and it's exciting and I wanted you to know.
Big week of marriages and engagements...CONGRATS TO ALL!!!!
When I read his books it was the first time that I connected to a writing the way I connect to music. I am in love with the way Donald Miller puts words together. It has opened my eyes to certain aspects of life and how to represent Jesus, and God has used his writing to speak directly to me in an answer to life changing circumstances. Read just the Author's Note in Through Painted Deserts! If you want that story ask and I'll tell you. It's pretty amazing!
Hopefully, by now I have demonstrated my passion for Donald Miller's writing. I need you to understand this as to it is important to the next part of the story.
Miller has a new book coming out this month. Last month he kicked off a contest to promote his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The contest?
The Hidden Manuscripts. His concept was to hide 60 manuscripts in cities scattered around America. Each day he would twitter and/or Facebook the locations of two manuscripts and whomever got there first got to keep it! Each manuscript came with a letter from Miller which contained a cell phone number that the winner would call at the completion of the book.
People make fun of Twitter. But I LOVE Twitter. @gnay is hilarious and it promotes this blog etcetera etcetera! In August the contest took off and each day my cell phone would vibrate with the text that contained the coveted location. And each day I would hope that it would come to a town where someone I knew lived and could go get it.
Memphis: I sent an email to my Aunt Linda in Cordova and asked her if she was close to the location would she go get it?
The text came and she was across town. STRIKE ONE!
Nashville: Yeah right, it's the home of Thomas Nelson it took like four minutes for that one to be found
Washington DC: THE best person lived in DC for this challenge and she was one board. She was following @donmilleris and waiting for the tweet...it came...but only stating that it had already been claimed! STRIKE TWO!
One Monday I got a tweet to my phone saying that VA was tomorrow. I was like cool...in my heart though I was convinced that it would be near Liberty or DC or Richmond. Tuesday morning I was in a meeting in my boss's office. It wrapped up a few minutes after 11am and I came back to my desk. I checked my phone and there it was! The location of today's manuscript: 508 Central Dr, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 Suite 106. It was 11:04 and the text was time stamped at 10:47 - had it been too much time? I quickly Googled it and it was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET.
I told my boss I needed to step out for a few minutes and being awesome she said, sure thing. I hit print, grabbed the paper off the machine, and was out the door, praying for favor the whole way there.
When I pulled up it was a little strip building in an industrial/business district. I got out and meekly stood just inside the door. There was a man on the phone walking around who smiled at me and knocked on a door jam just up the hall as he passed. A blonde woman walked out with a warm smile and asked if she could help me.
"I don't suppose you still have the manuscript do you?" I asked her.
"Actually, we do."
"Really?"
"Yeah, we've been waiting since 7:30. We didn't know how it was going to happen."
She and I chat back and forth and tell our sides of the story, all the while I am smiling from ear to ear. She hands me a giant manila envelope and tells me there is a letter to hang on the door once it was found. I smiled at her and thank her as I leave.
I got in my car and tried to text my girls who had been believing and trying to help me get it in other cities. I was shaking so badly out of excitement all I could get out was, "GOT THE MANUSCRIPT!!" Then I called my friend Matty, who I think we became as good of friends as we are due to mutual love of Blue Like Jazz, and hollered into his voicemail that I had gotten the manuscript!
I can't wait to call him. I can't wait to ask him how he does it. How he decides what goes in and what doesn't. I'm so excited to talk with a writer that I love and understand and see what ideas come out of the conversation. I received a lot of flack in college for my content and his content was a best seller. I can't wait. It's like a musician being able to pick the brain of Bono!
I still find myself saying, I can't believe that I found it. That I got there first. But I did and it's exciting and I wanted you to know.
Big week of marriages and engagements...CONGRATS TO ALL!!!!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
My Hippos
These are my hippos. I've had the guy one for about a year. This week I came into work and found the girl hippo on my desk with the dude. I have no idea who gave me the girl hippo, but I'm glad they've found each other. I'm happy for their love.
I haven't written because I have been moving. Here is a shot of my new walls, in my super cool new home, that a team of friends helped me paint. BTW...I LOVE IT!
And lastly, a shot of my headboard that I made with the invaluable help of my friend Matty Turley that was brilliantly mounted on the wall by my Structual Engineer friend Brian Felker. They both were amazing and oh so vital to the success of this mission in their own rite.
Couple other things to look forward to. I got my next writing outlined last night. I had to pull over on the side of the road and get it all down. Thinking it's time to invest in one of those recorders that I can keep in the car; seems to be the place a lot of my writing topics are coming at.
I also got my next video blog. It's hilarious and I am going to introduce you to my sister friend Sydney. I love that girl! It's gonna be hilarious!
Stay tuned good stuff coming SOON!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
cabrio
My friend Darryl suggested after reading my blog, I should make a video section. He talked about how people want to know about the person behind the writing they are reading and with all the reality tv it's evidence that people watch it.
So per his suggestion and all my friends who are funny and do silly stuff we decided to go with it.
Here is the first intro video. It's rough and raw. No make up, no practice just here it is!
Stay tuned. Sillier events to occur.
So per his suggestion and all my friends who are funny and do silly stuff we decided to go with it.
Here is the first intro video. It's rough and raw. No make up, no practice just here it is!
Stay tuned. Sillier events to occur.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Process
If I was told that I had a brief time left on this planet what would I want to make sure I told the next generation to come behind me? We listen to stories and fables that are passed down from generation to generation. The statements that are quoted at weddings, in speeches, in research papers, and in the front covers of books that reflect an encompassing comment resonating deep within our human spirit.
I have always been an idealist, believing in the goodness of life. I am swept away at times with the wonder of this world, and a majority of my “formative” years were spent daydreaming about the type of adult I would be. I wanted to change the world. I had dreams I chased down every corridor of possibility and once exhausted another appeared.
A part of me has always believed there was something deeper within me. My freshman year of college I tired to explain to a friend my feelings of a lion living deep within my chest wanting only to be out. For a season I let myself get philosophical, allowing the naiveté of believing I had even the barest thread of a clue to what life was all about. Always believing that fire in my belly, the lion that longed to break free was just teenage angst. I do believe a large part of the feeling was spurred on by unsettled hormones and growing pains. However, that feeling, no matter how much I tried to calm it, is still alive and well inside. I think I’ve just learned to balance the burden of it and know that things are a process.
This process is what I would want to leave behind. A detailed map to leave that doesn’t necessarily provide direction, but more as a cheerleader to encourage during the processes of the process.
What I would want others to know is they aren’t in this alone. The thing about the process is, at times it can seemingly isolate you. The aloneness taunts you with long strokes of pity, offering you a modicum of pride with a lie. The lie? You deserve to feel this way as you are the only one.It is the greatest enemy to our dream and in the process we hit a really hard wall. It’s like life kicks you in the face and then, you keep it to yourself bathing in the misery of it. Before you know it you’re at a pity party for one and everyone else has gone home.
The problem with the isolation during the process is it’s doesn’t begin to complete the cycle until you let someone know what’s going on. At some point most people hit a point and start looking for something else. They determine that life is short and there should be something more to it. There is something that woos us in a grandiose style and creates a craving to see what could be. We stop wondering and start finding out.
And though these processes are meandering and at times repetitive they are building character and displaying grace.
Things change. Time makes dreams from childhood look different when you are actually living them. When I was a senior in high school I bought a gimmicky scrapbook that you fill in with memories and memorabilia to keep beyond high school. I actually did it and I worked on it all year, still have it 13 years later. There is a page in it that asked for an answer to the quintessential, Where do you see yourself in 10 years? question. So I diligently filled it in.
Education: a master’s in psychology and religion working on my PhD.
Career: pastoral counseling
Family: husband no kids soon but not yet
Home: Whatever God grants me to afford
Car: a better one NO Chevettes!!!
Other Important Goals: close with my family still. My brother close to me.
Mom still my help. (Gracious some of this makes me cringe to put it in here) to still be following God, to have been to Amsterdam to see Anne Frank’s house. Not to be ordinary.
Ten years later…
I was about to graduate from college with my undergrad, I was living with my parents, and working at my mother’s bead store. Not much like the picture I had all those years ago.
It is this contrast that brings me to what I would want to leave to the generations. More importantly, if and when I have a daughter this is what I would want to tell her:
I am a daydreamer. The more I tell women about my daydreaming habits they start to share theirs, old stories that lie deep with in them that were all but forgot. They creep out and remind them of the girl they once where. I know that my daughter is going to be a dreamer. I am like my grandmother, and I know that she will dream about life and plan at being older and in one breath I want to tell her not to daydream her life away, because the time when life leaves you carefree and without responsibility is very short. I don’t know why we always dream about when we are older, because honestly, the older I get the more I realize how much fun I had, and how fast life is going now.
But this is great too – the figuring it out part. Where you find yourself at a place where it’s time to start making the choices on your own. When you are facing monumental life changing directional choices that only you can make and no matter how much you want someone else to tell you what to do, it’s all up to you this time. It is there where you realize that it’s hard and each one has a consequence that could change tomorrow no matter what.
In high school I thought I knew what the dream looked like and you know, I honestly thought that was what I really wanted. And in part it really was. I still do not want to be ordinary. I still do not want to live an ordinary life. So I didn’t go that path? This is so much better.
So I would tell my daughter that I know she’s going to dream, but if you’re going to dream, dream BIG. Make the next dream bigger than the last. It’s the dreams that propel you through the seasons in your life. They are your rudder and they steer. Challenge yourself to live bigger, to dream bigger, to laugh bigger, because as you do that you see how amazing life is. How diverse we are and how much we mold the person next to us. Have your daydreams and make your plans, but always remember that dreams are simply the outline of your story. We connect the points and change the direction.
So baby, dream big! Because Life is so much better than I ever could have dreamed it to be. It's real and it’s raw, tragic and beautiful, and it unfolds and flows to the next adventure.
I have always been an idealist, believing in the goodness of life. I am swept away at times with the wonder of this world, and a majority of my “formative” years were spent daydreaming about the type of adult I would be. I wanted to change the world. I had dreams I chased down every corridor of possibility and once exhausted another appeared.
A part of me has always believed there was something deeper within me. My freshman year of college I tired to explain to a friend my feelings of a lion living deep within my chest wanting only to be out. For a season I let myself get philosophical, allowing the naiveté of believing I had even the barest thread of a clue to what life was all about. Always believing that fire in my belly, the lion that longed to break free was just teenage angst. I do believe a large part of the feeling was spurred on by unsettled hormones and growing pains. However, that feeling, no matter how much I tried to calm it, is still alive and well inside. I think I’ve just learned to balance the burden of it and know that things are a process.
This process is what I would want to leave behind. A detailed map to leave that doesn’t necessarily provide direction, but more as a cheerleader to encourage during the processes of the process.
What I would want others to know is they aren’t in this alone. The thing about the process is, at times it can seemingly isolate you. The aloneness taunts you with long strokes of pity, offering you a modicum of pride with a lie. The lie? You deserve to feel this way as you are the only one.It is the greatest enemy to our dream and in the process we hit a really hard wall. It’s like life kicks you in the face and then, you keep it to yourself bathing in the misery of it. Before you know it you’re at a pity party for one and everyone else has gone home.
The problem with the isolation during the process is it’s doesn’t begin to complete the cycle until you let someone know what’s going on. At some point most people hit a point and start looking for something else. They determine that life is short and there should be something more to it. There is something that woos us in a grandiose style and creates a craving to see what could be. We stop wondering and start finding out.
And though these processes are meandering and at times repetitive they are building character and displaying grace.
Things change. Time makes dreams from childhood look different when you are actually living them. When I was a senior in high school I bought a gimmicky scrapbook that you fill in with memories and memorabilia to keep beyond high school. I actually did it and I worked on it all year, still have it 13 years later. There is a page in it that asked for an answer to the quintessential, Where do you see yourself in 10 years? question. So I diligently filled it in.
Education: a master’s in psychology and religion working on my PhD.
Career: pastoral counseling
Family: husband no kids soon but not yet
Home: Whatever God grants me to afford
Car: a better one NO Chevettes!!!
Other Important Goals: close with my family still. My brother close to me.
Mom still my help. (Gracious some of this makes me cringe to put it in here) to still be following God, to have been to Amsterdam to see Anne Frank’s house. Not to be ordinary.
Ten years later…
I was about to graduate from college with my undergrad, I was living with my parents, and working at my mother’s bead store. Not much like the picture I had all those years ago.
It is this contrast that brings me to what I would want to leave to the generations. More importantly, if and when I have a daughter this is what I would want to tell her:
I am a daydreamer. The more I tell women about my daydreaming habits they start to share theirs, old stories that lie deep with in them that were all but forgot. They creep out and remind them of the girl they once where. I know that my daughter is going to be a dreamer. I am like my grandmother, and I know that she will dream about life and plan at being older and in one breath I want to tell her not to daydream her life away, because the time when life leaves you carefree and without responsibility is very short. I don’t know why we always dream about when we are older, because honestly, the older I get the more I realize how much fun I had, and how fast life is going now.
But this is great too – the figuring it out part. Where you find yourself at a place where it’s time to start making the choices on your own. When you are facing monumental life changing directional choices that only you can make and no matter how much you want someone else to tell you what to do, it’s all up to you this time. It is there where you realize that it’s hard and each one has a consequence that could change tomorrow no matter what.
In high school I thought I knew what the dream looked like and you know, I honestly thought that was what I really wanted. And in part it really was. I still do not want to be ordinary. I still do not want to live an ordinary life. So I didn’t go that path? This is so much better.
So I would tell my daughter that I know she’s going to dream, but if you’re going to dream, dream BIG. Make the next dream bigger than the last. It’s the dreams that propel you through the seasons in your life. They are your rudder and they steer. Challenge yourself to live bigger, to dream bigger, to laugh bigger, because as you do that you see how amazing life is. How diverse we are and how much we mold the person next to us. Have your daydreams and make your plans, but always remember that dreams are simply the outline of your story. We connect the points and change the direction.
So baby, dream big! Because Life is so much better than I ever could have dreamed it to be. It's real and it’s raw, tragic and beautiful, and it unfolds and flows to the next adventure.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
$9 People
It's 4:43 am. I woke up to worry and anxiety over the sad truth that I am only five days after getting paid and have $9 to my name until payday. The nagging worry of, “how will I do this for the next 10 days on $9?” found me striving in my prayer. To distract from the worry, attempting to convince myself of the submission to the worry I started praying about church, life, a job, and my new housing arrangements. As I was laying life at the feet of Jesus, it dawned on me and I had to laugh at myself.
I realized I'm more worried about my $9 than I am about the guy who sits next to me at work who doesn't believe in Jesus. It got me to thinking, what are you worrying about? How distracted are you by your circumstances? How crafty life is that it can get us distracted to obsess about things that aren't going to follow us. If I choose to chase the dollar instead of people how much will really follow me to Heaven?
The revelation of Jesus will show you more and more how much you love people. You can't love Jesus purely and not have a heart for people. I used to not feel this way. I would get annoyed when this truth was preached from the pulpit, but then as I got to know Jesus, really know him in a way I never knew he could be is when I realized I was all about people. When Jesus walked around he saw people, the lowest of the low, the ones that no one wanted to talk to.
Women who are trafficked in the sex slave trade is a large burden in my heart. Through a story about a political prisoner in Nicaragua two years ago, my heart came to the truth that I abhor injustice and was convicted to be a better fighter of it. The other night at a movie with a friend, which got out pretty late, we were walking to the car and an Asian woman with very poor English approached us by shoving a laminated card in our faces indicating she was raising money for something. I brushed her off and kept moving; it was after two in the morning! After I had gotten a good distance from her, I stood back and looked at the women in the parking lot that were trying to raise money. Then the statistics of trafficked people who are also trafficked for servant/labor work flooded in and I noticed a van with a man to the side waiting on the woman.
It was late and time to go home, my friend insisted that I get in the car and go, so I did, but I couldn't shake that woman. The next day the conviction of the evening was gnawing away at my heart and my stomach.
For all my declarations and pronouncements of loving people, seeing them, I failed the woman who approached me. Now, I couldn't even tell you what her face looked like. I didn't even look. I just shoved her past and kept moving. The next day I called the police and made them aware that I was concerned about trafficking, but was still torn up about the girl who approached me. In telling a friend about the conviction, she tried to comfort me by saying I probably did all that I could given the circumstances and she's probably right.
But the part that kills me – I could have seen her. If for only a moment to look at the woman's face and remember it. I could have seen her. If she is being victimized, who is praying for her? Who is fighting against the injustice she is being served? Who is believing for her release and her freedom? Did her parents sell her into this? Was she taken?
By not seeing her did I add to her victimization? Did I add to her misery? Am I a part of the problem?
I can say I love people all I want, but if I don't see them how am I really doing anything but making empty declarations that carry no real power or resolve? It changes nothing.
Everything fades when you start getting to the business of people. My $9 is more than that woman in the parking lot had. My house is comfortable, and I have a super cute convertible car that I LOVE! I am blessed and can't let my $9 dictate lack, but instead I choose to let it dictate abundance.
I have this note in my bible at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 that says, "Insert name for love," it's powerful when you do it... Ginny does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Ginny never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
I can never give up in my pursuit of loving people; Jesus didn’t give up in seeing me from the cross. I will never lose faith that God loves people more than I do and is making me a better see-er of people. My $9 motivates me to go back to work where I do have the opportunity to sit next to a guy who doesn't believe in Jesus.
Print that section of the scripture out, change all the Loves and pronouns to your name, post it at your desk, in your car, tattoo it on your arm if you have too, but see people. When we see people the way Jesus does, we are literally bringing Christ's love to the masses and the guy I sit next to will realize it one day.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
They Will Know Us by Our Fruit
I'm off today. I am standing in the post office waiting for a teller to assist me in my lost parcel pursuit. I've come to a post office I am not used to coming too. It's not the closest one to my house, but it's near where my mom works and I want to pop over to see about getting something printed. I am in a line of about 9 people with two tellers working, thinking to myself that I am going to be here an hour and I'd like to Twitter gnay: I hate government agencies. In my head I am thinking DMV, USPS, Financial Aide offices, etc. I decide that with out that info a Twitter of I hate government agencies may be too radical for this day and age and one day I may have to account for that statement, so I'll go against the urge to Twitter.
I look behind the counter and there is a man standing in the second help carol on the right at the room length counter. He is smiling. His eyes are crinkled at the edges and his hair is slightly greyed, he's wearing glasses. but he's sparkling. His entire countenance is radiating around him. His face is awesome. His smile is so genuine and I hear "They shall know us by our fruit..."
I really do dislike going to cattle herded rope-lined agencies and having to wait in line. The Post Office by my house is always so stressful. It's stressful in line and it feels long. Here I have moved to the front of the line in less than five minutes and people keep coming. When I think about the attitudes of the agents at the post office by my house they are very edgy and polite, yet curt. They move the line but not like this one. This post office feels peaceful. The patrons in line are more relaxed and more calm. It's here I notice that this man is affecting the atmosphere around him. I am next in line and I hope he waits on me because I bet he is a Christian.
There are two people at the counter in front of me and they are finishing up with in seconds of each other. I hope that he finishes first....
"Next!" He says.
I request his help on my missing package, he is going to go do some research. I stop him quickly and explain that I am a writer.
"I noticed something about you. Are you a," how do I ask this? "believer, sir?" I finish in a hushed tone for privacy from the man standing to my left filling out a card.
"All day long ma'am." His head is dipped low and to the side against a shoulder, timidly glancing at me from the left.
"I knew it. I am writing my next piece about you. Thank you." I think I've scared him. He nods at me and excuses himself to go find my package.
I immediately pull a piece of paper out of the pad I have been scribbling this event on in line and draft a quick note:
You've inspired a Christian writer who was spending all day thinking about what my next piece was going to be. It's going to be called: They Will Know Us by Our Fruit. http://www.ginpaynter.blogspot.com/ love it if you check it out. Thank you. You've blessed many more today that you know.
There, that will do. I hope it doesn't scare him when he comes back...if he ever comes back. There are another 9 people in line behind me waiting again. He brings blessing to this place.
He returns with my answer about my package, which appears to still be an anomaly, and I slide him the note. He's reading it.
"Thank you, I will check it out. Thank you it means a lot."
"No, no. Thank you."
I move about my business and I walk away knowing that I have just seen the gospel preached with out a single word. It has me thinking, I wonder if people feel differently when they leave being with me? Do I change the atmosphere when I am somewhere? And if I do, what am I changing it to? I knew him by his fruit. He didn't use a word, he didn't tell me a story, he simply stood behind a counter and smiled. He was sowing joy, he was bringing peace.
By what fruit are you known? Are you sowing joy? Are you bringing peace? What story are you telling and how are you telling it?
I am challenged by Bill the postman. How much more must I let the grace of God reign over my life. I don't need to stress and struggle. I don't have to stress out about what I am going to write about. God's grace is sufficient. It validates. It is the substance that allows me to fall more in love with Jesus, and to see people more. The revelation of His grace is powerful enough to change a post office.
I pray that Bill does read this. I pray that he is encouraged. Kevin Brett preached last night that when you encourage someone you are actually placing courage with in them. I hope it does deposit courage within him. I pray that it builds him up and spurs him to come with even more purpose in the post office. We are all part of the body and it has many different parts. There is power in the everyday. What is your everyday looking like?
Power in the everyday...that's a whole different writing.
I look behind the counter and there is a man standing in the second help carol on the right at the room length counter. He is smiling. His eyes are crinkled at the edges and his hair is slightly greyed, he's wearing glasses. but he's sparkling. His entire countenance is radiating around him. His face is awesome. His smile is so genuine and I hear "They shall know us by our fruit..."
I really do dislike going to cattle herded rope-lined agencies and having to wait in line. The Post Office by my house is always so stressful. It's stressful in line and it feels long. Here I have moved to the front of the line in less than five minutes and people keep coming. When I think about the attitudes of the agents at the post office by my house they are very edgy and polite, yet curt. They move the line but not like this one. This post office feels peaceful. The patrons in line are more relaxed and more calm. It's here I notice that this man is affecting the atmosphere around him. I am next in line and I hope he waits on me because I bet he is a Christian.
There are two people at the counter in front of me and they are finishing up with in seconds of each other. I hope that he finishes first....
"Next!" He says.
I request his help on my missing package, he is going to go do some research. I stop him quickly and explain that I am a writer.
"I noticed something about you. Are you a," how do I ask this? "believer, sir?" I finish in a hushed tone for privacy from the man standing to my left filling out a card.
"All day long ma'am." His head is dipped low and to the side against a shoulder, timidly glancing at me from the left.
"I knew it. I am writing my next piece about you. Thank you." I think I've scared him. He nods at me and excuses himself to go find my package.
I immediately pull a piece of paper out of the pad I have been scribbling this event on in line and draft a quick note:
You've inspired a Christian writer who was spending all day thinking about what my next piece was going to be. It's going to be called: They Will Know Us by Our Fruit. http://www.ginpaynter.blogspot.com/ love it if you check it out. Thank you. You've blessed many more today that you know.
There, that will do. I hope it doesn't scare him when he comes back...if he ever comes back. There are another 9 people in line behind me waiting again. He brings blessing to this place.
He returns with my answer about my package, which appears to still be an anomaly, and I slide him the note. He's reading it.
"Thank you, I will check it out. Thank you it means a lot."
"No, no. Thank you."
I move about my business and I walk away knowing that I have just seen the gospel preached with out a single word. It has me thinking, I wonder if people feel differently when they leave being with me? Do I change the atmosphere when I am somewhere? And if I do, what am I changing it to? I knew him by his fruit. He didn't use a word, he didn't tell me a story, he simply stood behind a counter and smiled. He was sowing joy, he was bringing peace.
By what fruit are you known? Are you sowing joy? Are you bringing peace? What story are you telling and how are you telling it?
I am challenged by Bill the postman. How much more must I let the grace of God reign over my life. I don't need to stress and struggle. I don't have to stress out about what I am going to write about. God's grace is sufficient. It validates. It is the substance that allows me to fall more in love with Jesus, and to see people more. The revelation of His grace is powerful enough to change a post office.
I pray that Bill does read this. I pray that he is encouraged. Kevin Brett preached last night that when you encourage someone you are actually placing courage with in them. I hope it does deposit courage within him. I pray that it builds him up and spurs him to come with even more purpose in the post office. We are all part of the body and it has many different parts. There is power in the everyday. What is your everyday looking like?
Power in the everyday...that's a whole different writing.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
snippet
I have had a whirl wind week and just got back to life yesterday! It was so great. A trip to Bermuda, two Mat Kearney shows, a day visit with a friend I haven't seen in awhile, a hilarious movie, and another show at Busch Gardens where I laughed so hard I thought I was going to die!
Still working on Heroic Verse. It's not coming as well as I want it to. When I am thinking about it falls into place, when I finally get to sit down and work on it, I fumble all over the place. I am working on it though and here is a snippet of it.
"When I was in the tenth grade my English teacher and Young Life leader introduced me to Indigo Girls’ “Rites of Passage” album. That album got me through some hard times. I have purchased that album more than any other singular album. I am moved by their music. It soothes my heart and for some reason it empowers me. Indigo Girls emitted a strong female character with out being too overwhelming, more so empowering. I don’t even know why it did either. Some of their music actually makes me feel more beautiful when I hear it. It is as if the lyrics are telling a deep secret that whispers recognition and encourages solidarity and isolates the isolation for the three minutes and thirty seconds that it permeates the barriers. Until the next song picks ups its own rhythm and leads its parallel within me."
We'll see how it goes. Something will be up this week though. Something of substance one way or another.
Thank you for reading.
Still working on Heroic Verse. It's not coming as well as I want it to. When I am thinking about it falls into place, when I finally get to sit down and work on it, I fumble all over the place. I am working on it though and here is a snippet of it.
"When I was in the tenth grade my English teacher and Young Life leader introduced me to Indigo Girls’ “Rites of Passage” album. That album got me through some hard times. I have purchased that album more than any other singular album. I am moved by their music. It soothes my heart and for some reason it empowers me. Indigo Girls emitted a strong female character with out being too overwhelming, more so empowering. I don’t even know why it did either. Some of their music actually makes me feel more beautiful when I hear it. It is as if the lyrics are telling a deep secret that whispers recognition and encourages solidarity and isolates the isolation for the three minutes and thirty seconds that it permeates the barriers. Until the next song picks ups its own rhythm and leads its parallel within me."
We'll see how it goes. Something will be up this week though. Something of substance one way or another.
Thank you for reading.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Counterfeit
I am one to pick up the “hot new thing” after it’s not so hot and the next thing has started. I recently picked up a book series that a few of my girlfriends were into, because I had some down time and figured I would check it out. It really started so innocently. I was at a girl friends house and we were talking about which movie we wanted to watch. The first movie of a highly anticipated teenage book series was out on DVD and we decided to watch it. A free movie is a good movie in my book!
The movie wasn’t bad. Actually, it was highly romantic and intense, so much so I physically responded to it. I could feel a deep longing pulling from inside my stomach. I decided the movie wasn’t too bad and it left a lot of unanswered questions so I would just check out the first book, I needed something to read anyhow. I read that book in 24 hours. All 580 pages of it.
I could tell why millions of teenage girls were in a frenzy about this series, and I’m twice the age of the targeted age group. It was a mythological story about an intense immortal love that was full of the fairy tale dream that all girls want. It was a girl being pursued by a man who made her his whole life and neither felt they could live without the other, even though one was dangerous to the other.
I finished the book and felt an immense tug in the part of my stomach that’s just below my breastbone and right above my diaphragm. It ached and left me feeling lonely and longing for romance and intimacy.
It was in that place of longing that I found how dangerous those books were. It wasn’t dangerous because it was unethical or profane, actually it was well written with great language usages. The danger I found in it was the counterfeit, stirring up a great longing with emotions that if not identified can leave you feeling empty and lonely.
The thing with counterfeit is that it’s a forgery. If you really think about it in monetary terms it looks like it, it smells like it, it even feels like it, but when you try to cash it in there is no worth in it. The book did that to me. It felt like what I want in my relationship, the intensity, the idea that every girl wants a man that would kill or be killed for her. We dream from a young age of the grand example of a man who is noble and looks at her with an intensity that makes your heart race and your palms sweaty. We dream of his selflessness and his protective perfect ness, knowing that he will never leave and never hurt us.
The problem with that is no man can fully live up to this unrealistic expectation that life tells us we should be looking for. No woman can live up to it either for that matter, we are human, imperfect and relationships of any sort take commitment and work. This desire is so great and so deep that when you really start to unpack the dream it is a supernatural desire, desiring a supernatural response.
I have daydreamed about my husband since I was a little girl. I want the guy on the white horse who shows up at the bottom of my window with a boom box in his hands with “In your eyes” blaring from it. I have daydreamed about him showing up in places where you never would expect to see him. He’s strong and mighty with big dreams and supernatural abilities to appeal to all my female whimsy. It’s almost like playing Barbie’s in your head. I have dreamed for him to be ruined after falling in love with me. I have had numerous crushes and have found myself falling in the trap of, “Could this be the one?” and the truth is that it’s always the same dream, just a different face to fill in the blank.
I learned with the book that the longing it stirred within me was a longing that could never be filled by a boom box blaring-horse riding-movie-star-hottie. That longing was a dream that could only be satisfied by one.
How perfect to incapacitate a generation of women by feeding them fraudulent truth? Whispering in our ear that we all long for this and it’s a natural feeling and we should go look for him. Only, accepting the counterfeit will always leave you feeling cheated, robbed, empty, and duped. So we roll in the dream and soak it into our skin and let it permeate everything that we are. Only, once you go to redeem that desire in anything less you find there is no value in it, because no one can really live up to that expectation all the time.
The devil is a shoplifter. If he can get us to accept the counterfeit then he can keep us from really cashing in on the true thing that God has for us. A genuine authentic romance of love and intimacy, the truth is that He already did die for us. We have that great love story already unfolding in the fibers of our creation; it is actually defined by our creation. By realizing that the creation of Eve for Adam was not as a completion but as a compliment, it frees our individuality up to freely flow in the confidence of our identity. I think that makes us better partners anyway. Imagine a generation of women who are empowered by who they are, who aren’t afraid to wait for the authenticity of relationship and maintain the purposes God intended in a wife.
I am valid. My dream is valid, but the security in that dream is knowing that we both are deeply in desperate need of a savior to develop our relationship and that neither of us will fulfill the great longing that lives in the secret spot just under the breastbone and right above the diaphragm. That’s a reserved spot that developed by a great God who loves us and created it to be the fulfiller of it.
The movie wasn’t bad. Actually, it was highly romantic and intense, so much so I physically responded to it. I could feel a deep longing pulling from inside my stomach. I decided the movie wasn’t too bad and it left a lot of unanswered questions so I would just check out the first book, I needed something to read anyhow. I read that book in 24 hours. All 580 pages of it.
I could tell why millions of teenage girls were in a frenzy about this series, and I’m twice the age of the targeted age group. It was a mythological story about an intense immortal love that was full of the fairy tale dream that all girls want. It was a girl being pursued by a man who made her his whole life and neither felt they could live without the other, even though one was dangerous to the other.
I finished the book and felt an immense tug in the part of my stomach that’s just below my breastbone and right above my diaphragm. It ached and left me feeling lonely and longing for romance and intimacy.
It was in that place of longing that I found how dangerous those books were. It wasn’t dangerous because it was unethical or profane, actually it was well written with great language usages. The danger I found in it was the counterfeit, stirring up a great longing with emotions that if not identified can leave you feeling empty and lonely.
The thing with counterfeit is that it’s a forgery. If you really think about it in monetary terms it looks like it, it smells like it, it even feels like it, but when you try to cash it in there is no worth in it. The book did that to me. It felt like what I want in my relationship, the intensity, the idea that every girl wants a man that would kill or be killed for her. We dream from a young age of the grand example of a man who is noble and looks at her with an intensity that makes your heart race and your palms sweaty. We dream of his selflessness and his protective perfect ness, knowing that he will never leave and never hurt us.
The problem with that is no man can fully live up to this unrealistic expectation that life tells us we should be looking for. No woman can live up to it either for that matter, we are human, imperfect and relationships of any sort take commitment and work. This desire is so great and so deep that when you really start to unpack the dream it is a supernatural desire, desiring a supernatural response.
I have daydreamed about my husband since I was a little girl. I want the guy on the white horse who shows up at the bottom of my window with a boom box in his hands with “In your eyes” blaring from it. I have daydreamed about him showing up in places where you never would expect to see him. He’s strong and mighty with big dreams and supernatural abilities to appeal to all my female whimsy. It’s almost like playing Barbie’s in your head. I have dreamed for him to be ruined after falling in love with me. I have had numerous crushes and have found myself falling in the trap of, “Could this be the one?” and the truth is that it’s always the same dream, just a different face to fill in the blank.
I learned with the book that the longing it stirred within me was a longing that could never be filled by a boom box blaring-horse riding-movie-star-hottie. That longing was a dream that could only be satisfied by one.
How perfect to incapacitate a generation of women by feeding them fraudulent truth? Whispering in our ear that we all long for this and it’s a natural feeling and we should go look for him. Only, accepting the counterfeit will always leave you feeling cheated, robbed, empty, and duped. So we roll in the dream and soak it into our skin and let it permeate everything that we are. Only, once you go to redeem that desire in anything less you find there is no value in it, because no one can really live up to that expectation all the time.
The devil is a shoplifter. If he can get us to accept the counterfeit then he can keep us from really cashing in on the true thing that God has for us. A genuine authentic romance of love and intimacy, the truth is that He already did die for us. We have that great love story already unfolding in the fibers of our creation; it is actually defined by our creation. By realizing that the creation of Eve for Adam was not as a completion but as a compliment, it frees our individuality up to freely flow in the confidence of our identity. I think that makes us better partners anyway. Imagine a generation of women who are empowered by who they are, who aren’t afraid to wait for the authenticity of relationship and maintain the purposes God intended in a wife.
I am valid. My dream is valid, but the security in that dream is knowing that we both are deeply in desperate need of a savior to develop our relationship and that neither of us will fulfill the great longing that lives in the secret spot just under the breastbone and right above the diaphragm. That’s a reserved spot that developed by a great God who loves us and created it to be the fulfiller of it.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Digital
I think I may need to delete my Facebook page. I was just playing around on it when I am supposed to be spending time with God. It's been over three days and I can tell by my grouchy mood that I need to be reminded who I am and to whom I belong.
I spend a considerable amount of time on Facebook reading status and looking at pictures. I love to look at the pictures. All of them. They reveal things about my friends and teach me things that I didn't know. I love pictures though; I'm pretty passionate about them.
I don't often do any quizzes or applications, but once in awhile one will get my attention and if it gives me results that I think are worthy to share I will post them to my page. Tonight, I was stopped by one that was titled, "What Bible verse fits you best?" So I took it. My results were Matthew 22:37-38 about loving the lord your god with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. The write up said that I abound in love and compassion, even for those who may not deserve it. I love that it brought that verse up though because my first thought is that I would find myself lacking in compassion for others.
But then I think about how much I love people. I think about the things that are deep with in me and how they sort of tear me up. I never tell anyone those parts, at least, not very often. Today I was at work and we have a waste water lake behind our building and there is a microcosm of wildlife happening back there. We have egrets, ducks, geese, turtles, and hawks. Today, said hawk was diving for food. I have always found it fascinating to watch the hawk dive into the water to catch its food. However, I have never seen it actually catch anything. A lady at work told me she saw it take a baby duck one time. Well today was my day. Said hawk was hovering over the water like a helicopter which was amazing to watch and it took its dive and came out with a rather large fish! I know it sounds silly but I felt really sad for that fish, I wished that I had not seen it get caught. I don't think that they should make movies where animals take on human roles, because those kids grow up to be people like me who almost shed a tear over what the fish must be feeling as it was suffocating in the air. The gravity of the sadness was heavy and then caused me to see all parts of life. Death is a part of it and no matter what I don't like to think about it.
Dark topic I know, and I could make it light and get a giggle out of you, but the truth is, that is what I feel on a regular basis. I get moments where my heart breaks for the violence of life and for how much I love to fight and take ground, the reality of debris that life leaves lying around me can be emotionally overwhelming at times.
But...
Maybe that is my compassion. Maybe by feeling the raw emotion of it I can pray and use it to motivate the fight in me to push forward toward truth, and justice, and the grace that surrounds us all and overflows. Maybe it can propel me to change the earth just by knowing how to pray for it. It may be those scales I was talking about before dropping off for a few moments to truly see the Father's view and hear his heart beat. The steady rhythm of all come, love all. I think I need to take the verse on and realize that it's a lifestyle not a destination. The ownership of it takes the striving out. Am I loving the Lord my God with all my heart? Probably not. Am I going to keep praying that I will? Absolutely. I am also learning to love myself which is teaching me how to love others. There is an appropriate balance there in between the two. You can't do either really well without the understanding of the other.
Cool. Good revelation. Maybe Facebook isn't that bad. It inspired some time for me to really seek out an idea about his word in my life. He'll use any means to get to my heart. I love it.
I spend a considerable amount of time on Facebook reading status and looking at pictures. I love to look at the pictures. All of them. They reveal things about my friends and teach me things that I didn't know. I love pictures though; I'm pretty passionate about them.
I don't often do any quizzes or applications, but once in awhile one will get my attention and if it gives me results that I think are worthy to share I will post them to my page. Tonight, I was stopped by one that was titled, "What Bible verse fits you best?" So I took it. My results were Matthew 22:37-38 about loving the lord your god with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. The write up said that I abound in love and compassion, even for those who may not deserve it. I love that it brought that verse up though because my first thought is that I would find myself lacking in compassion for others.
But then I think about how much I love people. I think about the things that are deep with in me and how they sort of tear me up. I never tell anyone those parts, at least, not very often. Today I was at work and we have a waste water lake behind our building and there is a microcosm of wildlife happening back there. We have egrets, ducks, geese, turtles, and hawks. Today, said hawk was diving for food. I have always found it fascinating to watch the hawk dive into the water to catch its food. However, I have never seen it actually catch anything. A lady at work told me she saw it take a baby duck one time. Well today was my day. Said hawk was hovering over the water like a helicopter which was amazing to watch and it took its dive and came out with a rather large fish! I know it sounds silly but I felt really sad for that fish, I wished that I had not seen it get caught. I don't think that they should make movies where animals take on human roles, because those kids grow up to be people like me who almost shed a tear over what the fish must be feeling as it was suffocating in the air. The gravity of the sadness was heavy and then caused me to see all parts of life. Death is a part of it and no matter what I don't like to think about it.
Dark topic I know, and I could make it light and get a giggle out of you, but the truth is, that is what I feel on a regular basis. I get moments where my heart breaks for the violence of life and for how much I love to fight and take ground, the reality of debris that life leaves lying around me can be emotionally overwhelming at times.
But...
Maybe that is my compassion. Maybe by feeling the raw emotion of it I can pray and use it to motivate the fight in me to push forward toward truth, and justice, and the grace that surrounds us all and overflows. Maybe it can propel me to change the earth just by knowing how to pray for it. It may be those scales I was talking about before dropping off for a few moments to truly see the Father's view and hear his heart beat. The steady rhythm of all come, love all. I think I need to take the verse on and realize that it's a lifestyle not a destination. The ownership of it takes the striving out. Am I loving the Lord my God with all my heart? Probably not. Am I going to keep praying that I will? Absolutely. I am also learning to love myself which is teaching me how to love others. There is an appropriate balance there in between the two. You can't do either really well without the understanding of the other.
Cool. Good revelation. Maybe Facebook isn't that bad. It inspired some time for me to really seek out an idea about his word in my life. He'll use any means to get to my heart. I love it.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Honeysuckle
I remember a two-story wooden house with a balcony patio off the second floor, set off the road by at least an eighth of a mile of gravel drive. A tobacco farmer lived on one side of us, and his fields wrapped around our back yard where he would bail hay every year into those large round bails. Upstairs in his two-story barn, a large door on side hinges opened, aerating gigantic draping me-sized tobacco leaves hanging from their stalks – dark pungent curtains swaying ever so slightly in the gentle Kentucky breeze.
Opposite the tobacco barn lived a family of five, with a son my age. Next door to them was a brood of seven whose youngest was five years my senior. This memory of the two-story wooden house is my first childhood home and the family of seven our first family friends. The oldest son found a lost two-year-old, wandering the cornfield separating our homes. Our families have been friends every since.
There were collectively about nine children living within a radius of four houses on a long country road that had no proper name. Though the wooden house set off the road wasn’t a farm house and only produced children, the memories of that place are potent and happy — attempting to ice skate in sneakers on a pond the size of an above ground pool, farm animals, tobacco, corn, surrounding woods that went on endlessly littering the bluegrass — all sound tracked by John Denver’s “Country Road.”
Things happen in the woods – fantastic, magical, majestic things. Secrets are made and left in the woods. It’s where stories find their settings, adventures develop their characters, and princes find their princess. Within my woods after a clouded memory of a five-minute walk, trees gave way to space and a gigantic sand bar. Here, I became a grand conqueror whose mission was to battle the enemy amongst fallen tree trunks and large truck tires left behind from a lost generation with their prehistoric antiques.
Memories of the sand bar are faded, viewed through a soft focus lens now. My memories of it are long lasting; I still see what it looked like walking along the trail coming through the clearing. However, my clearest memory of this place is honeysuckle.
The trail was lined with honeysuckle, and the summer fragrance of the blooming plant mixed with adventure and the wonder of a preschooler, lacing itself around my mind and enveloping nostalgia. It was a smell of purity and a definition of childhood.
Honeysuckle is the aroma of my childhood.
Honeysuckle smells to me how silk feels: soft and angelic, lightly caressing, and slowly embracing my memories. It is as if God romances me with flowers, and his gift to me is honeysuckle. Honeysuckle evokes excitement in me, reminding me of possibility, of purity, and rightness in the world – the wonder of a child and the excitement of what could be just through the clearing. In the spring when the buds are starting and give way to summer, honeysuckle wafts through the air and arrests my attention, flooding me with memory full of adventure and excitement, lightening bugs, and summer. It focuses my attention and allows me to submerge myself in the possibility of my daydreams and let the smell wrap itself all around me once again like an old friend hugging me in reunion. It smells of hope and reminds me I am still that little girl in God’s eyes. It reminds me to keep dreaming, to keep seeking out the trails that lead to the next clearing, encouraging me to keep seeking what could be with in that clearing. It reminds me no matter how old I get I will always be that little girl ready to go on a grand adventure and scale the mountain! No matter where the trails traversed, there will be little things like honeysuckle lined along the way to remind me I am greatly loved and never traveling alone.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Blink
I've been playing around with this thought in my head. A concept or maybe a lifestyle change...not really sure. Whatever it is, it is forming itself to be the platform of my life. What I want to focus on and how I want to encourage others to live.
I have spent the better part of my life too afraid to look at who I really am. Second guessing how I spoke, what I said, what I wore, and how other's accepted me. Somewhere along the road, God grabbed me and said if you are really going to live for me and with me then you have to understand who I say that you are. You have to live in that and be comfortable. It wasn't until I stopped looking at who I wanted to be and what I wanted to accomplish that I realized it's always all about me.
This is where this change has come. What if we all took a day to look at the person next to us. What if we were to spend our time looking for the absolute best in each other instead of letting the lies that tear us apart hinder us from pulling each other forward? How much time do I spend sitting inside my head thinking about how I can make my life perfect or better?
I've decided to live a life dedicated to others. To make sure that I am always looking for the best in each person. Really what's the point at looking at anything else, it isolates us, hurts us, and binds us in a lie that we have no hope.
If I love others beyond myself and I see only the good then I am free to live my life powerfully unapologetic loving others and encouraging them to love the person next to them. I fully believe that as I love others scales of brokenness and distrust will fall off of people's eyes and they will start to love the person next to them. I truly believe that Love Covers a Multitude of Sins and when we choose to see the best, the love that is produced through that choice covers the ugly and causes others to not see their ugly but to see their light and to pass it on.
I have spent the better part of my life too afraid to look at who I really am. Second guessing how I spoke, what I said, what I wore, and how other's accepted me. Somewhere along the road, God grabbed me and said if you are really going to live for me and with me then you have to understand who I say that you are. You have to live in that and be comfortable. It wasn't until I stopped looking at who I wanted to be and what I wanted to accomplish that I realized it's always all about me.
This is where this change has come. What if we all took a day to look at the person next to us. What if we were to spend our time looking for the absolute best in each other instead of letting the lies that tear us apart hinder us from pulling each other forward? How much time do I spend sitting inside my head thinking about how I can make my life perfect or better?
I've decided to live a life dedicated to others. To make sure that I am always looking for the best in each person. Really what's the point at looking at anything else, it isolates us, hurts us, and binds us in a lie that we have no hope.
If I love others beyond myself and I see only the good then I am free to live my life powerfully unapologetic loving others and encouraging them to love the person next to them. I fully believe that as I love others scales of brokenness and distrust will fall off of people's eyes and they will start to love the person next to them. I truly believe that Love Covers a Multitude of Sins and when we choose to see the best, the love that is produced through that choice covers the ugly and causes others to not see their ugly but to see their light and to pass it on.
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