today I know I have something to say

but I don’t know how to say it

(seems to be the story of my life)

raging words

and silence

but no more

I stand under the shower

and hot water pounds on my mind

and slowly beckons

the rhythm and meter and

then

the words

unexpectedly

never forced

utter grace

“It’s easier,”

I think,

“To live with your

hands

mind

and heart

open.”

dust clouds had gathered for days

I felt listless

searching for meaning

it takes strength to walk through the mundane

as if it did not exist

as if it doesn’t have a hold on me

as days go by and nothing seems new

(but all things are)

and so I choose to live inside this pattern of words and cadence

I live

and know

I don’t need a mountain view

a foreign landscape

a near-death experience

to do what I do

“It takes bravery,”

I think,

“to live with your eyes

this open.”

Anything before my teenage years is mostly a blur. I remember my 5th birthday because there is an old VHS of me wearing my burgundy flowered shift and an awful mullet-ish haircut. My dad dressed up like a clown, a creepy clown from 1990. My friend Hannah was terrified of him. I knew he was just my goofy dad so it didn’t bother me.

My mom made an organic carib cake and gave the girls potted flowers for a party favor. The boys got hot wheels.

Everyone I knew that was between the ages of 3 and 9  was at that party. We played pin the tale on the donkey and had balloon relays.

My 16th birthday my boyfriend got me a hamster. Yes, that is what I asked for. That night I had a girl’s sleepover with my best friends. This meant prank time. We were all nervous to fall asleep because we couldn’t handle the cruel and hilarious things we would do to each other. My friend Leah fell asleep first and  ended up with inappropriate things written in pink cake frosting across her face. She wasn’t happy when she woke up with a rash.

The year I turned 18, I was in Romania. I danced with gypsies in the tower of a restaurant that was  the birthplace of the evil ruler from whom the legend of Dracula was formed. This was before vampires were cool.

On my 23rd birthday, I jumped off a white limestone cliff into the depths of Lake Whitney.

My 24th birthday I woke up in Texas after a few months in New Hampshire  being in a whirlwind dysfunctional relationship I knew deep down wasn’t going to last. I was staying at a friends who picked me up from the airport the night before, and saw a book about Mother Theresa on my bedside table. Something in me shifted, and said “That’s what I’ll do. I’ll go to India.” Suddenly, I was free.

A few months later I met the (real) man of my dreams. A year later I came home from two and a half months in India, a different person. I spent that birthday on a rooftop overlooking the city at night, eating delicious gourmet Tex-Mex after living on rice and dall.

My 26th birthday, I outran a tornado. I was at the movies and the power went off. I went outside to see black swirling clouds. I was with my boyfriend and his parents and we quickly raced back to the house, seeing the destruction from the Tornado on the way.

A week later, I left the ministry I was working at. For the first time since 2004, I wasn’t under some sort of umbrella of a ministry.

And so I spent the year writing. I found myself, a writer. In nine months a book was formed. This is what I’ve wanted ever since before I was that 5-year-old running around popping balloons eating carib cake.

I tend to favor even-numbered years, but I have to say they are all pretty amazing.

Last night I was driving home from work after a long rather frustrating day. I was emotional and on edge. I’d been looking for a dog for months and nothing was working out.

I walked in the door to my apartment right as the clock turned midnight and it was my birthday.

My boyfriend and roommate were standing there. So was a perfect Boston Terrier puppy with a red ribbon around his neck. He ran to me and I dropped to the floor and cried, the puppy kissing my face.

When I was thirteen my parent’s gave me Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. I am sure I would laugh at it now, but at the time, it spoke in a language I didn’t realize my soul was parched for.

I remember one essay well, about how we grow old in layers like an onion.

So when we are 12 we are 11, 10, 9, 8.. etc, etc.

I carry all these ages in me. Having a puppy makes me feel 10, like the little girl who wanted nothing more than to be with animals because they taught me how to be human.

All these ages I carry inside of me. It has made me who I am.

That is why I no longer fear growing old.

There are beautiful things in life to grow alive to, and many of them take time.

Love. A sense of community and home. Being ok with ones selves. My writing. A deeper sense of the presence of God all around me. Daily thankfulness and contentment.

I look forward to growing into these things as these things grow into me.

So bring it on, 27.

I don’t look at him. My tears are hot, formed by some unknown frustration and anger.

He knows me. Well. We’ve had this conversation more than once. It used to be often. Not lately though, lately I’ve been fine. 

But something made it’s way into my soul, some discontented itch I can never scratch.

That deep seeded longing, that feeling like something needs to change.

It’s a feeling I’ve grown to hate. I don’t know how to shut everything up and just go through life happy.

I start to feel trapped.

“But what about…”

I start blaming him, blaming my time in ministry, blaming my own fear,  blaming the future I was so sure of when I was 19 or 22.

———————————————————————————————————————

When I was small, I made up stories in my head constantly. While I ate cereal, I would picture whole groups of tiny people living in my bowl, a cheerio as a flotation device like in the terrifying scene from Honey I Shrunk the Kids. But a bite wouldn’t kill them, it would just force them to move, to set up home inside my stomach like Mrs. Frizzle’s class in The Magic School Bus learning about digestion.

Lying in bed at night, I’d stare into the darkness until I saw shapes and colors. I convinced myself I saw things, people, spirits, other worlds. I was sure that that’s what was real.

When I took a bath, I’d put my ears under the warm water close my eyes, leaving my nose in the air to breathe. The world would fade away and the only thing I’d hear was a deep methodic pounding, like ancient drums calling out to me. Sometimes I’d think if I listened hard enough I would be able to decipher it. Those thumps would quicken and I was convinced that it meant in my sleep I’d meet some horrible monster or be stuck in a pit without being able to get my legs or my voice to work.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized it was just my own heartbeat.

—————————————————————————————————————–

I still make up stories in my head.

I project myself into a future where I am blissfully happy, or exceedingly miserable.

I romanticize moments in my past where I think I was more myself, more alive because I was doing this thing in that place, having some adventure.

Of course, I exclude from my memory the times my heart ached, the times I wanted to give up, the times I just couldn’t wait for it to be over.

———————————————————————————————————————

I turn to him, frantic.

“Life is so short… I just want to have an adventure.”

He smiles.

“You are an adventure.”

He reminds me of the good, shows me the beauty.

Slowly, I open my eyes wide.

Writing sometimes feels like riding a stationary bicycle. You approach it with resistance, maybe a little boredom. You don’t really feel like you are getting anywhere, but later you feel the ache coupled with a sense of accomplishment.

You are getting stronger.

On better days you feel more like Captain Cook traversing over unknown lands, embarking on great adventures to go where no human has gone before.

At least, that’s what it seems,  until you see footprints in the snowy tundra.

Because really, there is nothing new under the sun.

But I don’t say that cynically.

The world can always be seen as new, it’s all a matter of whether we open our eyes or not.

So, as writers and artists we dare to portray ancient truths in new light. To make connections, build swinging bridges over deep and dangerous chasms.

We write to make sense of life. 

When you forget this, you begin to live like life isn’t very extraordinary. You begin to get into this routine, chugging through hours and days, waiting for something exciting to come your way.

You forget that being a writer and being an adventurer go hand-in-hand.

You realize you can make your own way,  so you do, slashing through thick proverbial jungle green, pointing out that bright yellow bird along the way.

“See that? Look at the way his feathers shine. Look! Look how those droplets of dew glisten in the sun on that green bud!”

And the party you are leading, (because you are never on this journey alone) “Ooh” and “Aww” because they were so focused on the mosquitos and overwhelming foliage they couldn’t see the beauty right in front of them.

And so eventually you come upon a clearing in a valley. Inevitably, somebody starts a fire. The weary travelers take off the loads they have been hauling and rest, staring into the flickering flames.

And you all feel like maybe you are just like  generations of people who lived this way, who found themselves journeying and  suffering and reminding each other of bright birds and water droplets right in front of them.

Then someone stands up, energized by thoughts of those that have gone before them, and speaks, those sacred, exciting, life-giving words,

 ”Let me tell you a story…”

Then all goes silent.

Words tumble out, dancing upward with the firelight.

And the world becomes new.

I roll my windows down.

This, my soundtrack:

The lights are soft, even slightly blurry because of the tiredness in my eyes. Luckily, the drive is only fifteen minutes and the air is cool on my skin.

I look around at the lights, at this familiar road that has quickly become a well-worn path.

and I know I don’t have to run away.

the thought splits open something inside of me, something deep and painful.

Some longing, some dissatisfaction I have always known to be there.

I have always just thought it was a part of me,

that it was my lot in life to wander,

that I couldn’t be me without constantly changing locations,

that I could never ever settle down.

but lately, I’ve felt a rare sense.

A sense of coming home.

And I know it has nothing to do with my “status” in life.

It has nothing to do with my location I set on my facebook, having a job, or whether my suitcases remain packed or stored in the closet.

It has little to do with a steady, committed, loving relationship, though I know that has changed me in ways I can’t even describe.

I know I don’t need to run away because I am finally ok with myself.

I am at peace.

I have everything I need.

Because you see, this Grace that found me, it swallowed my life-long fear.

It has settled my anxious wandering heart that is always hunting for the next thing, the next place, the next person that I thought would ease my pain.

“You don’t have to run away,”

I whisper to the night air on the highway, to myself, to the little girl in me that longs for home.

And I finally believe it.

Like when you are trying to find happy.

There is a waiting in patience for things to come,

But there is also a taking a holding and receiving now.

Lately, I’ve been asking myself this question:

If you can’t be happy now, when will you be happy?

When you are married?

When you live in a certain place?

When you have a dog or a child or a new job?

When you are a legitimate published author?

When childhood dreams finally come true?

I am sorry for this kind of thinking. I battle it every day, and yet I am sorry for it. It’s part of being human but it doesn’t need to rule your thoughts, haunt you, turn your discontentment to misery.

Some would say, “You want to be happy? Be thankful.”

Thankfulness is necessary, but it can’t be forced. When you feel obligated to count your blessings, or you try to use it as some kind of formula to feel better about yourself, you seldom move much farther from where you started.

How can you be thankful for that which you do not see? Or maybe it’s there, right in front of you, but you can’t believe that it’s yours.  Or maybe you feel like you owe someone something for the good things in your life.

Blessings are not blessings if they come with a sense of guilt, the weight of feeling indebted. Because then your thoughts turn back to you, the receiver, instead of the Giver.

“Ok, I understand you gave this to me… now what do I have to do to pay you back?”

This sounds offensive but the Giver is never offended. He just reassures you,

“Nothing. Life is a gift.”

Unhappiness comes because you wish your circumstances were better, but what if everything was already the best it could be?

Discontentment comes because you wish you had something that you do not, but what if you already had everything you need?

Not just everything you need, but everything you as a human being could ever want or dream of.

I am not talking about an object itself, but the  joy that object can bring once you lay hold of it. Only this joy is not fleeting.

I am not taking about selfish desires like power or fame, but the root of those desires before they turned rotten, the need to be known, to be loved, to partake in some kind of glory outside ourselves.

What if we had love that was complete and full, that brought out the best in us, that never manipulated or had one bad motive?

What if we felt fully alive in every sense of the phrase because we were?

Then, maybe, happiness would finally be ours.

It feels to good to be true, and that’s exactly what makes it good news. It is true.

Jesus has given us his life. 

The very life of God.

The very life of Pure Love.

It is there. You don’t need to do anything. You don’t need to conjure it up.

You just simply need to believe.

When you believe, a death will come. It will be a beautiful death, not the sort of death we mourn, however painful it may seem at the time.

It will be the kind of death where a seed has to die and fall to the ground for life to spring forth.

The kind of death where a shell of a person is exchanged for a radiant, glorious, perfect being.

Where there is complete satisfaction at the core of who we really are.

Where we are not waiting for “someday,” in the “sweet by and by,” because new life begins now.

It goes without saying I am not promising material wealth or that all your problems will be no more. There will be pain. There will be heartache. But deep down there will be a security no one can shake. A joy. A peace. You will know you are loved.

This is why, after years of struggle with this weird broken thing called Christianity I can say that I still believe. This is why, even after years of “being in ministry” and seeing a lot of broken promises and broken dreams, seeing people get run over and turn their backs on the church, going through real pain and despair, I still have hope.

This is the gospel. It’s Jesus. He is what makes living worthwhile.

He is living.

He is what we are all searching for: joy, happiness, glory, love.

He is it.

There is nothing else.

I am talking about feeling tiny and extremely awkward, like you are the last person in your class to go through puberty. Like you haven’t figured out how to grow up yet.  Like you stop in the middle of signing tax forms or picking out shower curtains and say,

“Wait… I am a grown woman…?”

For me it happens the most in social situations. I spent a lot of time avoiding them. Certain people might be surprised by that statement. If you really know me, you won’t be at all. In certain situations I have forced myself to be friendly and outgoing, but it can be very painful and frightening. Sometimes I just don’t know what to say.

So I shut off. Or run away, mostly.

Sometimes I fear I come off as being a snob. I’ve had people who later became my friend nicely say they thought I thought I was too good for them. 90% of the time it was really because I am insecure and don’t know how to make friends. If I get the slightest vibe that someone may not like me I back off immediately. Even if you are friendly, it takes a lot sometimes for me to let you into my inner world. I am very much an all or nothing person with relationships. I have this wall I guess, and you are either in or you’re not. Once you’re in, there is nothing to hold me back from telling you everything. I guess it is a strength as well as a weakness.

If you have known me for more than a few years, you will also know how far I’ve come. I spent my childhood not talking to anyone. This is not a cute exaggeration. I literally was too afraid to talk to grown-ups as well as a lot of kids. I wouldn’t even answer the phone, because I didn’t know who it was.

I am thankful for friends in my life who have helped pull me out of my shell and for Jesus for freeing me from the fear the choked the life out of my for so long.

Anyways, I am not trying to make this post all about me and my weird social habits. I am just trying to say that,

I need people. Really. Not just one or two, but a whole community of people that come from different places in life and may see the world opposite then I do. As much as it’s easy to write that, it’s another story to live it. I know the word “Community” has been thrown around a lot especially in Christian circles.

As an introvert, I don’t always feel the need for people. More then often, it’s the need to be alone that overwhelms me and makes me feel like an insane person until I have some solace. I need to be with myself and write to figure out life. I forget that often the same thing can happen in an open honest conversation with someone. I forget I need people.

Quote by Bishop Desmond Tutu. (What a cool guy. And what a cool name)

I put this picture on my bathroom mirror to remind me every day that I am not an island. I need to engage with people and truly see them. Those moments that I do, it’s really like choosing life. It’s choosing to see God in people. I can’t survive without it.

I know this is nothing profound. But often I forget to live like it’s true. I forget that I actually need you.  That life is about people.

Loving people.

Taking care of people.

Letting people love and take care of me.

Experiencing God through our interactions.

Through a hand, a glass of water, a washcloth, a smile, a hug.

Thanks for listening to my rant on Friday the 13th. I needed someone to listen.

The best things in life are asymmetrical

They are curved and covered with beautiful flaws

life doesn’t give itself in perfect boxes

smooth and white

everything in rows, accounted for

the real world is wild, undulating

growing into odd shapes and bursting forth

it’s the crooks that form between locked hands

waves and snowflakes

the jagged lines on a belly that has birthed children

a half smile or quarter moon

the rough edges of nature

swaying boughs and broken limbs

brilliant chaos

it’s not organized

it doesn’t come with an easy set-up manual

you can’t just unplug or restart

despite our attempts to categorize

to tidy up

to sanitize and remove all the danger

and unpredictability

we may approach this in fear at first

our flat world is safer, neater, more controlled

but we’ll die there locked in square coffins

the best things in life are not symmetrical

they can’t be boxed

they are rounded and covered with beautiful flaws

In 2008, on his cross-country bike ride.

I am a long time fan of Donald Miller. Seven years ago, I got a hold of  Blue Like Jazz. It was one of those books that came just at the right time. I was in the middle of  touring with a youth ministry, and many of my life-long beliefs were beginning to unravel right in front of me. I remember reading Miller’s words and feeling  free in a way I didn’t think was possible.

He gave me permission to question my faith.

He helped me begin to realize life wasn’t neat and tidy, that like jazz music, it doesn’t resolve.

Through his books, I also began to find my voice as a writer. I realized I too could write in a way that was deeply personal, exposing the mess that was me, so that other people could feel like they were not alone and come on this journey with me. For years my one goal was to be a “female Donald Miller.” I don’t claim to write as well as him, or in the same hilarious self-deprecating style, but I just wanted to be honest. I wanted to be free from the fear that because I believe in Jesus and feel “called” to be a writer, I have to give people step-by-step Sunday School answers.

Miller opened up a new conversation in the church that has become mainstream. (Even the phrase “open up a new conversation” was unheard of before 2005!) Blue Like Jazz beckoned a whole subculture to come out of the woodwork: us 20-somethings who have grown up in church and became disillusioned. He voiced our struggle with re-learning to love Jesus after cynically abandoning our parent’s religion.

That being said, I think my expectations were a little too high when I went to the pre-screening of Blue Like Jazz the movie last night. I had followed Don’s journey of trying to make his life into a movie through his most recent book, A Million Miles in A Thousand Years, so I already knew facts were going to be changed. I mean, they had to be, right? Even the best producers can’t take a rambling poetic memoir and turn it into a 90 minute watchable story, right?

I tried to disconnect myself from my love for Don’s words when I watched the movie but I just couldn’t. I was still taken by surprise by a few things, both positively and negatively.

1. Most of it was fictionalized. This is the part I had a hard time with. I love fiction, and I believe it holds a deeper truth that helps us understand life, but I think because the book was such a personal memoir, I almost felt cheated, like a friend was lying to me about their life. I know, I know, maybe I took it too personally. Trust me, I wanted to disconnect myself and see the movie as it was: another story in itself, a separate piece of art, but I found it almost impossible to do so. I am usually pretty opened-minded when it comes to seeing that a movie needs to be different from a book, it is inevitable. But again, maybe because I felt so personally connected to the memoir, I felt annoyed that it was so fictionalized.

2. It was hilarious. I know Don is funny, but I wasn’t expecting the movie to be a comedy. I mean, I laughed during most of it. The comedy in it was random and quirky, almost giving it a Napoleon Dynamite feel. I mean, I almost peed my pants at a few parts.

3. It was not cheesy. Despite the fact everyone has said that this is different then any “Christian” movie made, I was still expecting maybe some bad acting or cheesy dialogue. The dialogue was as witty as heck, and the acting was good. I was honestly more impressed with Claire Holt (Penny) then I was with Marshall Allman (Don.) But, overall it was convincing. They didn’t try to tame down or Christianize the reality of a party college which was refreshing.

I wasn’t a fan of the random animation spots though, I think it would have been better without them.

4. The entire story of making the movie made it more meaningful. Hearing from the director Steve Taylor share that this project has been six years in the making, knowing that it was dropped by financial backers only to be saved by some ordinary fans who started a kickstarter page and raised $345,992 from 4,495 backers. Realizing this was a completely independent movie in every sense of the word, made it extra special.

It gave me hope for all the story-tellers out there that love Jesus but hate that when the words “christian” and “movie” are together, most people cringe.

People came together and made something happen. They told a story that is more than just the life story of one guy who grew up  fairly sheltered in Church, then lost his faith in college, only to find it again through the most unexpected means.

It’s about people’s misconceptions of God, and the power of simply letting people know He is so much more loving than us flawed humans portray Him as.

It’s a story that resonates with so many, and that’s what made Blue Like Jazz worth saving.

I watched the Kony 2012 video today, as many others did (20 million and counting.)

Of course, it touched me deeply.

But I wrestled with a few things, including feelings of cynicism, questioning if the video’s popularity isn’t more due to the fact it was brilliantly done and manipulated my emotions, than because of the issue at hand.

This is too complex to be this easy, right?

Or maybe we make it complex.

Maybe it’s as simple a 4-year-old sees it: the bad guys need to be stopped.

But what struck me with this video was something on a  larger scale, something incredible that is hard to put into words.

It wasn’t just about one man and his 20+ years of crimes against humanity.

Yes, the atrocities he has committed are horrible, and he needs to be stopped.

Yes, the lives of those children are precious, and they need to be saved.

But what got me excited was something bigger than Invisible Children, than Kony, then the country of Uganda.

What I saw was:

People are coming together for good to try to change something without getting anything in return.

99% of us will probably never meet a Ugandan child that was rescued from being a forced soldier. Yet people care.

People care. That’s what makes me hopeful.

Throwing aside political arguments and agenda, and actually focusing on something everyone agrees on: Children everywhere deserve a chance to have an innocent childhood.

What amazes me is the sheer power of this facebook age, globalization, a world without borders.

Suddenly, it’s no longer about how different we are, but how connected we are.

Invisible Children has tapped into this. This is what makes it powerful. Unifying under a cause of love.

If  ”ordinary” middle-class collage kids from America can stop a warlord in Africa, what else can happen?

What if every pimp that led children into sex trafficking was treated like Kony?

What if social justice is just a trend? So what? People are doing something. They are looking beyond their own selfish desires and actually caring.

They are joining the winning side, because good wins. Love wins. Actually, it already has because God is love. He’s won, we just get to be a part of making that reality in heaven match the reality on earth.

I am the least competitive person in the world. I am also a pacificist by nature. I hate any sort of conflict and I want to believe the very best about people, even the most evil people.

Trust me, in an ideal world, I could sit down and have lunch with Joseph Kony. Maybe after lunch we’d go on a safari. As we spotted some lions, he would tell me about his childhood and how it was stolen from him. He would open up about how he is so filled with hate and rage that it eats him up, how he doesn’t see a way out. How he sees people as nothing more than bullets in a gun, how it’s all he’s ever known.

And then I would tell him he is loved.

That he doesn’t have to fight anymore. That he doesn’t have to run anymore. That he can stop using people. I would look him in the eyes and say,

“You are better than this. You were made in the image of God. You can be free.”

And grace would wash over him and all of a sudden everything would be new.

If I can’t believe this could happen, I have to question the core of my faith in God. Because love is enough to overpower the worst kind of evil.

Now, I know it’s not a perfect world (yet) and I am not suggesting the soldiers go and love him. They probably wouldn’t get the chance before they were murdered.

My point is, in all things, I want to choose hope. I want to believe that people truly want to choose what is good, and right, and that (by the Grace of God) the world can become a better place.

And we have the power to choose to make it better.

We were given the authority to bring hell to earth like Kony does, or to bring heaven.

So, instead of skeptically questioning and picking things apart, I want to rejoice with any human being regardless of their beliefs or background, who is doing what they can to bring heaven to earth.

You can call me naive, but that’s ok. I choose to believe the best.