"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."  
Martin Luther King, Jr. 


It is so easy to make "I will never" lists based off of one's experiences with the actions of others.  I made a few recently.  And while I'm sure when I get to where they are currently standing, my feet will get stuck in the same mud. But in the meantime, I'm going to write in my journal why I want to do something different.  I'm going to tell a few people around me who I think will be honest with me in 5 years when I start doing the same. But then, after I've written it down, vented and prompted and hoped  to safeguard myself from the inevitable "someday" - it's time to look at how I'm measuring up today.

A similar process had lead me to evaluate how I converse.  I used to think I was a pretty good conversationalist. You could drop me on a couch next to a drunk gay man by the end, we'd be friends.  Equally entertained.  Equally respected.  Friends.  You could bring me to a house party where I knew 3 people and I'd have new jokes and drinks and phone numbers as I closed the door goodnight.

But either I was wrong then, or I've just fallen into the comfort of talking about myself too much, for too long.  It's easy when you have exciting stuff happening - first, everyone is asking over and over and over again, "You just graduated?! What are you going to do next?"  Then it's about your first job, your broken dreams, broken hearts, new dreams, new starts.  You get used to the same questions. The same answers.  The same conversations over and over.   And it's easy - you can ask many of these questions from most friends and strangers alike.  Soon, you forget how to be a conversationalist.  You lose the skill of interesting questions.  You might even lose the habit of asking questions all together, as I have.

It's not that I mean to.  I don't think I'm self-obsessed.  I'm genuinely curious about people and their lives.  I know some of the most exciting young adults - running their own businesses, chasing dreams, traveling, having hilarious and amazing first dates and freak accidents.  But, I just forget to ask them now.  Other people ask, them, or me.  I listen when they talk.  I answer when they ask.

But I'm sick of the same conversations.

I'm sick of walking away realizing, "I didn't ask them how their day was."

And while I know Martin Luther King Jr had a lot more in mind when he penned those words and the danger of perishing together as fools - I'd hate to never learn to really live well with others and perish as a fool, repeating the same conversations over and over, never learning how to draw change and inspiration out of the ones I love.

One of the most incredible feelings is an exhilarating conversation with a like-minded person who sees it all differently - where neither try too hard to drive or stuff the creature into some pre-conceived and pre-desired destination. Co-creating a conversation, two people dropping in all the unique items they brought along and grabbing out what catches their fancy. Together shaping something unexpected, discovering right there on the spot, watching it arrive and take form. Trying to keep up, not with each other, but with this third thing that's feeding off of their minds. Dear God - that feeling makes me feel the blood in my toes!

I'm going to work on conversing. I will have something worthwhile to say and I will seek better answers with better questions. I'll have an answer for the hope that lies within me, and a question for the inspiration hiding with you.



“With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.” 
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

November is here!  And I feel like we just barely made it.  Here's to the long awaited 30 days of saying no to all the extras - to things we love and time with those we care for and almost always give first spot to - at the expense of so much.  Here's to a month of us re-centering, finding where we are and where we should be today, of resting, of re-figuring how to live. Of putting first things first and not ignoring dreams and long term goals.  Of being still.

The first time I heard this song, it got me.  I've played it over and over since.... I think it's my November mantra.

Let's be still.

[Uncertainty is so uncomfortable]

Starting a new job next week, I don't know when.  I don't know what time I will wake up each day, arrive to work, head out.  I don't know what I will do or how I will like it.  I know they hired another new marketing person as well - I don't know if they are my age, younger, older - man or woman.  I don't know if they'll be my boss or right beside me on that ladder.  I know so very little about this new world I'm heading in to in just a few days.  

In a relationship that is moving forward, but that definition ("forward") is yet to be discovered.  We just know we aren't stuck.  And we know we aren't going back.  But there is a lot of unknowns in any human relationship as you build. 

I like to plan.  

Maybe I'll go do my taxes so I can at least feel like I know something about what's coming - even if it's just an approximate number on a check in the mail.  

Sometimes this is where we grow.  When we see no walls. 

Choosing to be excited.  This is what I've wanted.  It's just also really, really uncomfortable.  

But, it will be good.  

It gets better.

I have two beautiful things in my life:  a new job and an amazing relationship.  And just enough unclarity to keep me moving, learning, stretching toward these two beautiful figures in my future.  

Last week, in the middle of my work day I realized that everything was well.

I just sat in it for a second.  Life is good right now.  How rare it seems we can say that ore genuinely feel it.  And I'd typically shy away from posting "My life is good."  But, sometimes it's good to hear. Sometimes, it doesn't make us frustrated, jealous or annoyed  - sometimes it encourages us.  Reminds us.  Life can be good.  Not perfect.  Not easy.  But truly, good.  I'm not even going to balance this with the truth of all the things so dear and near that still ...hurt.  Life is good and all is well with my soul.

You didn't say anything about the new background and header.  I figured it was past time to make a change.  I'm in this odd "staging" season in so many aspects of my life - and I feel my blog even reflects that.  But I've always been about transparency in the process, so here you are (again).

Many thoughts right now, and among them all is gratefulness for the people in my life.  I've never been afraid of hard work really.  Well, not never.  But hard work doesn't deter me.  And at this point in my life, I'm looking around and really grateful for the people who are willing to work hard with me. 

I'm seeing the power in our response to situations.  (Which is also hard work sometimes.)

I'm not sure what's next.  I'm not sure how to get there since I don't know where "there" is for this season.  But I also feel strongly that I'm not supposed to just start moving in order to feel progress (a danger to my personality - I love feeling I'm accomplishing something).  So with that, I'm seeking the Lord right now for direction and trusting He will direct my steps. 

I'm valuing counsel in a whole new dimension.  And also recognizing that ultimately - I'm responsible for my life.  Which is exactly what keeps pushing me more and more into seeking counsel. 

I'm learning to listen and not speak sometimes.  I'm seeing new facets of who I am, and how I want to grow.  I'm practicing encouraging more than advising.  I feel like I'm watching myself from the outside - where I'm developing and where I'm lacking.

And also - I'm throwing out that 25 for 25 list.  There are still things I want to do and I will do, but over the last three days I've been praying about it and considering it and I think it's not helpful any more.  It's a distraction.  It's sending me in a dozen rushing directions.  It's purpose was to get my out and going - help me live who I am and step into adventure right where I am.  It's done that.  It's been a success.  And I want to keep that perspective.  Thanks to my 25 for 25, I've pierced my nose, moved out with one of my best friends, payed off my car, read more current authors (strategic for my writing dreams), and opened up to the unknown that has lead to me beginning to build with one of the greatest men I know.  I'm going to ride on a train, float up in a hot air balloon and backpack in the Olympics before the year is up.  I'll visit a new city, hopefully the hometown of my beau.  I've met dozens of new people.  Made new friends.  Learned better responses.  Healthier perspectives.  New motives.  I've learned more about what I like and what I don't like.  How I function best at work.  And I'm working on being less "particular."  My way isn't always the best way and it's always not the only way.  Thanks largely to my "list" I've learned and grown and changed and risked and pushed myself outside of comfort and common.  But I've only really done about 8 of those 25.  I could either spend the next 4 months running every which way on a scavenger hunt of tasks, or I can be grateful that the list accomplished it's goal, even if I didn't accomplish all 25 of mine. 

And that is exactly what I'm going to do.  :)   I'm 25 and this year my life has changed - and as always, the best changes were the ones I couldn't have written for myself anyways.  I'm going to spend the next 4 months enjoying that and flourishing where I am, with those I'm joined to.

[I know.  It just works so well to end with that darn preposition.]

I have 4 months to:

Ride in a hot air balloon
Start a 401K
Visit a new city
Submit a poem for publishing
Submit a short story for publishing
Ride on a train
Get my concealed weapons permit
Read (most of) the New Testament
Read 12 (?) more books
Finish Don Quixote
Visit the Olympics
Get better at getting ready before leaving the house
Run a half marathon
Get my domain/website up
Learn a real piece on my violin (that I haven't touched in months)

...and the list goes on...

This year was about pushing myself out of my comfort - jumping in and living the life I've been "meaning" to live for so long.  I have accomplished so few of the goals I outlined for myself.  And I'm trying not to get too hung up on that.  Because looking over the things I have done, this has been a big year.  An exciting year.  And overall, I'm thrilled with how it has turned out and what my list of goals have pushed me into - all the risks and moments and gifts.  I've been being that person on the outside and in action, that I've been dreaming up on the inside for years.  I set out at the start to dream big, write down dozens of fun and wild things, and do them.  Things I love.  I dreamt wide.  I think next year, I'll still be dreaming bigger, but also more precise.  The word I'm hearing in my heart is "single-minded."  Focused.  I won't be setting 25 goals next year.  I may have five.  Or just one.  We will see.  Until last year, I always had goals for "four years from now"  or "five years down the road".  I turned 24 and it became a wild season (as many of you remember if you were following my blog) of no longer knowing exactly where I was going - not in the details at least.  I was done with school.  I wasn't even within earshot of marriage. The door to grad school closed.  For the first time, I didn't have a clue where I'd be in one year - physically, mentally, what my life would be surrounded by and spent on.  Nothing was as I'd anticipated.  And I didn't feel like the Lord was giving me the next step or releasing that "five year plan" to me any more.  I'd finished the semi-current goals I knew He'd told me to - and I had no idea when the long-term dreams He's given me would become reality.  Just this past week, I've felt that changing.  Maybe it's just because I'm soon to pass 25 and start looking forward to "30" - it's just 4 years away (oh my GOD! what?!!).  Or maybe it's just time to dream again - time to set out a 4 year plan.  Time to seek a longer season and no longer this day to day He's been keeping me in.  Time to set my gaze.   The past couple years have been about becoming who I am, in today.  Whatever today looks like.  And I can feel that heating up.  But I also sense something in me shifting that it's going to become a lot more about where I'm going.  It will always be about who I am.  It always is about our identity.  But, it's almost as if I can tell the next 4 months are a season to cement those qualities I've been fighting for, and recently feel so strongly struggling with - because whoever I am, there's somewhere to go next.  And I'm finally going to know a big piece of how to get there.   It's exciting.  And it's frightening, because somewhere in the back of my mind I know if there's a new piece coming - there's first a big test.  And there's 4 months left in this year.  Power is guarded by problems -  to ensure we are ready for the responsibility.  If I know anything - I know this is true.  And it's a blessing that He prepares us through these troubles.  In one light, the past couple years have been the trouble... but somehow I know it's about to get forged.  Because everything I want to be, feel called to be, or think I am seems harder to be suddenly.  And all the inconsistencies in me are bubbling up.

It's easy to start complaining.  Lately, I've been realizing I'm "annoyable."  By a lot of things I don't want to be.  I've suddenly realized my inner conversation has begun to sound something like a garbage disposal.  And I'm choosing to change that.  I used to be pretty unaffendable and I wasn't bothered by a lot.  I'm going to be like that again now.  Not sure how or when it happened, but I think it's our natural tendency to drift toward it.  You hear people complaining all day long and you start to replicate it too.  Gas is expensive.  People are lazy.  Politicians are crooks.  Bosses are unappreciative.  Friends are entitled.  And on and on as it circles in to your personal lives and syphons out your gratefulness, joy and compassion. 

This week, I've been making a choice to replace complaints with gratefulness.  I don't want to become the woman who's impossible to please and easy to annoy.  I want to be the one others feel ease and comfort around.  And I know that starts with my own thoughts, in my own inner conversation. 

I want to always see beauty - where others may miss it.  Those who grumble and complain are those who are most blind to all the lovely and worthy things and people around them. 

To know that a choice will bring you life, and also bring you tears, and to choose it anyways - that is courage.

This is what I am learning from a particular couple of people in my life right now.   To choose pain in order to bring you closer to another, or loneliness to come closer to a dream.  Neither can be done without great strength, great love, and courage.  To know this will hurt, and decide it is worth it.

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own', or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life—the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one's 'real life' is a phantom of one's own imagination.


—CS Lewis, from a letter to Arthur Greeves, 20 December 1943

Before I tell you this question, I'm going to tell you something even more important.

I'm not sure there's really an answer.

That said, I've been thinking a lot about investing.  How to invest in a way that lasts.  I won't be all coy about it, I'll just come out and say it:  We never know which relationships in our lives will last forever, and which will end tomorrow.  What seems most important today, may end up not tomorrow.  And what seems less important may in fact become a sort of lifeline to us one day. 

We can weigh the past.  We can consider who has stood beside us in previous trials, who has held our hand when we cried.  Who has woken us with coffee and who has fallen asleep to our most honest mumblings.  But ultimately, that is no promise.  And that's not even considering wrongs - just truths.  That some times we are called to be close, and sometimes we are not.  Some friendships are for seasons, and while our heart may ache for them one day we might be called different ways.  That's not to say our hearts won't stay close maybe, or that we wont look forward to a renewed friendship in a different season.  Or maybe we wont. Who knows.

I'm faithful.  I love long, deep, true friendships.  I have many that I've had all my life.  And they've looked different in different seasons.  This isn't out of hurt, distrust, or disappointment that I say it.  It's just the truth that we don't know what tomorrow will look like, or who will be standing beside us.  And therefore, how do we know how to invest?  Who becomes the priorities in our life?

As I said, I don't think there's an answer.  Except that, to some degree, it's not about worrying if they will be there forever.  It's about investing today because you know God placed them in your today.  And that frees you both up to not put weird expectations on one another or act out of fear of losing each other.  Our investments reap broader than in that one direct line held on one side by you and the other by a friend.  We reap in our hearts so much more - so many lessons, so much change.  We learn to love and to forgive. We learn how to be a friend.  We learn how to listen and how to share.  What is our business and what is not.  What is our fight, and what is not.  And our friends learn the same.  We become blessings in each other's lives each day - and if we are lucky, we get that for the rest of our lives with them. 

But we don't know.  So from time to time I think we have to ask, how do I invest in a way that lasts?  And I think we do that by loving them in a way that will leave an investment in their life and in our own, even if we find ourselves in two very different places a year down the road.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I think healthy relationships grow when we focus on the other person and serving them, not so much on the relationship itself.  Because that relationship will change. Guarantee it.  But if your focus is on the other person, loving them, that relationship will almost always remain - and with the freedom to grow and change through the seasons as it must.  It will become a blessing to you both, rather than a rope that strangles you. ;)

I could be wrong - and some of you have relationships that have lasted 20 years longer than any of mine - so I'm more than eager to hear.  How do you invest in a way that lasts, especially through a time as turbulent as the twenties?

(I really like her^ )

When Hurt Heals

I was pulling into my parking space this morning at Evergreen and I started crying.  Not ideal when you need to be inside in minutes checking in.  I wasn't even that worried about the appointment, but it was pulling on so much more.  I began reflecting on the last 6 months.  Last November I found something that concerned me, and scheduled an appointment with my doctor.  I was sure they'd tell me not to worry, but I needed to hear that.  Instead, after an exam, I was encouraged to make an appointment at the Breast Cancer Center, assured they'd probably just need to do an ultrasound.  The ultrasound turned into a biopsy, which happened to be two biopsies.  I didn't really care to tell people, and I don't really care to now either, except that I don't know how to share what I was feeling in the car this morning without giving an example. That process was scary, and hard, but a hundred times more because it mirrored a very similar process I went through in High School that I felt changed my life drastically.  There was a lot of hurt that I don't know that I even understand or can explain... and eventually, when all of this second round was finished, I broke.  I literally fell apart on Christmas Eve.  And I didn't understand why then, once I knew I had nothing to be afraid of, once I'd finally told my family, why was I now a mess? Because of the process that was going on still, and had been, everything had been pulled out front and center inside me.  Things I could easily ignore, and had. 

So this morning, as I was pulling into my space and once again facing those fears, in this parking garage I've sat in at many hard times in my life... I couldn't help but think of all the people who love to ask "Why is there pain?"  If God is good, why is there pain?  I've always believed pain had nothing to do with God's intentions, it was our actions, our mess, our sin that has made pain a part of this world.  There is pain because there is the potential to feel and the potential to create - two things I don't think any of us would choose to go without could we tell God how we would like mankind to be made.  When we can feel, and we can create, and we can be selfish, of course there will be pain.  But for the first time I had another thought today too, only with a good God could hurt heal.  Only God could use hurt, to heal us. 

It's hard to explain - really hard actually.  But, I feel like a lot of pain I have felt in the past 6 months, and even in the past 24 hours, has been healing me.  And I really can't figure out how to break it down or make it make sense, but in the midst of a dozen powerful emotions, I also became in awe of a God who can heal me of my hurts, through hurt.  I feel like that is mercy.

say whats true.

.