rejoice.

someone said something in my spirituality in social work class today that really struck a chord in me. it wasn't anything too terribly profound, and i had definitely heard something along those lines before. (it's kind of one of my greatest hopes in life.) i guess it was just good to hear someone else say it out loud. "you don't have to be a product of what you came from. your story can be different." i've recently been hanging out in a group setting with some people for which that statement has definitely been true for their lives. they have become a living hope for me cause i want it to be true for me too. so bad. i've come to realize lately that there are a lot of things in my life that i thought i could control. now i know that i just can't. sometimes i just have to let my story play out. just because i come from a lot of brokennesss doesn't mean that i will always be broken. i'm trying to learn to change and mend what i can and accept and heal what i cannot.

rejoice.

joy, where have you been?

another school year has started. i'm glad the summer is over. mine was a little bit crazy (to put it mildly), and i think it'll be good to have the routine again... maybe. i guess we'll see how it goes. i only hope this year will be better than the last, though i don't really see how it could get any more ridiculous. all i know is that i'm trying to have a different attitude this time around. i'm trying to let go of certain relationships that aren't so good. and i'm also trying to embrace some others that i've kind of been afraid of. i'm trying to just let things be as they are because in the past when i've been scared or something, i've missed out on some really potentially beautiful things.

i've also decided i'm going to do more things for myself to let out my creative juices. i just shut down too often, and i'm tired of that. i just hope that things will start to look up cause honestly... it's about freakin time they did.

peace to you all.

you matter.

i have been thinking a lot lately about how i believe that one of the things people want most in this world is connection. i don't know… maybe it's just me but i so desire to connect with someone or to feel like i belong with the people i've surrounded myself with.

maybe i think this because i haven't been feeling very "connected" lately, but i think that we in our society are such a disconnected people. we're disconnected from each other, from creation (which is why we tend to not be good stewards of the earth), from ourselves, and (if you so believe) from God. and again maybe i'm just projecting here, but it just seems to me that everyone is just searching for ways to reconnect. to fill in holes. and i've really been noticing it everywhere lately, largely in myself but also in the people i've come in contact with…

at cornerstone i saw bands that were anxious to connect with an audience for whatever reason… maybe they had a message to spread. maybe they needed to sell merch. maybe they just want to play music and have people listen. but i also saw people in these bands looking for a place to call home and for people to be consistent for them and present to them as they traveled across the country.

i've also seen people struggling because they've lost part of themselves so that they wouldn't have to lose a connection they'd made with someone else (or with a group of people). i guess it's hard to find someone to connect with and trust completely. it's kind of scary. (but maybe that's just me and my lack of faith.)

i've also seen people trying to connect with those who will love them like their parents should have loved them but probably did a really crappy job of doing. it's amazing how much the way you were raised can affect your ability to connect.

even in the movie i just saw, which was a collection of stories in paris, every single story was about how someone was wanting to either connect or reconnect with someone, whether it was an old lover, a lost son, a new lover, a city, a father, or a friend.

so i guess i just babbled all that stuff out (and who knows if it even made sense) to say that maybe we should all just be aware of the fact that we are a broken, disconnected people. that way we can be there for each other and have some grace for each other as we figure out what it means to reconnect to everything we've lost.

musings.

i was driving with someone who knows me very well the other night and he asked me a question that kind of caught me off guard. he asked me if i knew how to be happy. i didn't really know how to respond. so i just began to think of the things that bring me joy. one of the things that came to mind was playing music, i guess in general, but especially with the sawgrass boys. music and very dear friends... it's a great combination.

tonight we had our first show in like six months or something crazy like that. i can't explain how good it felt. and the people who opened for us were very dear friends as well. i mean... there were a few things that went wrong or were not so great. but for some reason it just didn't really matter. i thought it was perfect. i haven't felt that truly happy in i don't even know how long. i just felt at home in the music...

a wise man once said that the only thing he needed to prove the existence of God was music... judging at least by the way i felt tonight i think he might be pretty right on about that.

things i'm trying to learn from a hellish year...

everyone suffers. seriously, everyone. i feel like this has been a hard year for a lot of people. for some reason it all just kinda hit the fan. it’s been really overwhelming because i don’t know how to reconcile it all in my head. it’s kind of like a flannery o’connor story in that we are faced with these big moments that come, and in those situations we are given a moment of grace. we are presented with these obstacles, and how we deal with them or react to them makes all the difference. the pain can eat you alive, consume you, make you forget to breathe, lead you to bitterness and mistrust. or it can lead you to become the kind of person you were always meant to be. going through the pain can lead to becoming whole again. embracing and dealing with the hurt has a tendency to transform. it is in suffering that we learn how to love. we can humbly rely on each other for comfort and the strength to live. when others come to us, we can reach out, knowing what it’s like to feel alone and in pain.

the conclusion i’ve come to is that suffering is not something to avoid. avoiding it just doesn’t work or help solve anything really. you can’t ignore it by watching lots of tv, playing music, drinking, avoiding relationship with people who want to help you, looking to relationships that are shallow but seem to, at least temporarily, fill some kind of void…

the question at least for me, though, is what does it look like then? what will it mean for me to deal with the pain? do i just chalk it up as a loss and forget about it? do i try to pick up the pieces? i mean i know i’ve learned a lot. i know now what my tendencies are with people. i know now what to push against within myself. but is it all worth it? what good does that knowledge do me if i can’t actually get past all the crap? will "my people" have patience with me and still be around when i come out of it all? i hate that i’m stuck, but i am. some of it’s relatively new sticky, but i feel like a lot of the stickiness goes way back. there are so many layers, and i feel a little lost in them. i need help but don’t know who to ask or even how to ask for it.

countdowns.

thinking about these things is what's keeping me going right now. i'm hoping summer will bring a little change of pace. maybe things will get better.

about a week - classes done.
about 2 weeks - finals done.
about 3 weeks - my friends finally start to come home.
about a month and a half - up to chicago to retrieve allison.
less than 2 months - janelle in nashville! finally!
about 3-4 months-ish - kenz is back.

thank you.

a man without a country.

today humanity lost one of its great contributers. mr. kurt vonnegut was not a man to stay inside lines. he challenged. pushed boundaries. pissed people off. but he was right on in his thinking and diagnosing of society. so much so that it scares me a little. i read his memoirs this summer, and i was totally blown away. it came at just the right time in my life too. i found it exciting that i could connect with someone who thought about a lot of the things that i did. even though our connection was just through words and scribbles on a page, it was a profound one for me. when i think of people like him, it gives me an ounce of hope for society. maybe we're not completely doomed. i'll leave you with some of his thoughts that i've collected here and there cause he says things a lot better than i ever could...

"Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone."

"I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours."

"I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke."

"People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say."

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."

"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."



thank you for who you were and are.

echad.

tonight was one of the best nights i've had in i don't even know when. i hung out with katherine and margaret and her siblings. (allison and rachel were present in spirit.) and i know i talk about these people all the time, but whatever... these people... i can't even explain how much these girls mean to me. when they are home, i feel like a more complete and whole person. we think each other's thoughts. we feel each other's emotions. maybe that's weird and bad... i don't know. but i do know that they bring beauty and hope back into my life, which i desperately need. even after all these years and years, even after we've each grown up a lot, even though we've each experienced some parts of life in such different ways, even though we don't agree on everything anymore, there is still that closeness that i cannot understand but am oh so grateful for. oneness and unity through our differences are great things.

this all also makes me excited cause i think i know what my next tattoo might be.

thinking out loud...

if you know me well, you will know that community is a big deal to me. if you're in a healthy and good one, it's in community that you can find beautiful things like redemption, healing, honesty, forgiveness, love... i think that one way the gospel is shown is in how we have relationship with one another. it is no easy task, though. it is so difficult to not want to judge or be vindictive. but when lived out well, it can be the most incredible thing you've ever been a part of. i am who i am today because of the people in my life. there are certain people who are a big part of who i am.

but then that is also becoming really scary to me. i mean it always has been, but i guess i'm just realizing more and more how essential community is. but it's scary to me cause what happens if someone leaves? what if for whatever reason some person is either removed from your community or has to play a different, lessened role? maybe i'm just super sensitive, but i think that kind of change can be so hard to process. maybe i just don't deal with change well. (well. ok i know i don't deal with change well.) but that thought is just really scary to me for some reason. it leaves me feeling empty and unsure.

i guess the risk is part of what makes it so good, though. and to me it is so worth the risk. to have people in your life that know you, and i mean really and truly know you, and love you and have patience with you despite and even because of everything... it's unreal.

thank you.

i really like my major.

ok, this probably won’t make much sense to you if you don’t know me that well, but that’s ok. and i’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable to read this, but i think sometimes discomfort might not be such a bad thing. this is just me processing a book and how it made me feel…

so for my child welfare class i had to read this book, a child called it. it was undoubtedly the most intense thing i have ever read in my whole entire life. it’s the story of this boy who was severely abused by his mother. i mean severely. his case was the third worst reported child abuse case in California. (that kind of terrifies me cause i don’t even wanna imagine anything worse than that.) now i know my experience growing up was nowhere near as bad as that. but i still was able to relate to him in some ways. one of his greatest longings was to feel like he belonged somewhere. (one of the ways his mom abused him was to basically make it so that he was this sort of non-person in the house. his brothers were even forbidden to associate with him.) he just wanted to be a part of a group, a family, that loved him. unconditionally. that seems so huge to me. to not feel like you had to be a certain way for your mom to love you? that would be incredible.

i was talking to a dear friend tonight, and i was saying how it always surprises me when people really do care about me. i can never really understand it. this is especially true with women who are older. i feel like it’s weird for them to be even taking an interest in me. i got to see one of these women this weekend because she was in town visiting her son. i cannot begin to describe to you how it felt just to have her ask me how i’ve been. and then when i was talking about stuff i’m learning in my classes, there was almost a glint of pride in her eyes. (maybe i’m just stretching there, but at least that’s what it looked like.) i kind of didn’t really know how to handle it, but it felt pretty great. one thing i do know, though, is that all of this makes me so excited for my future…

i cannot wait to be a social worker. i wanna work with kids so bad! (special needs kids and kids who have been abused… my mind changes all the time.) (and i’m not saying this to be cocky or come off as some great person or whatever cause i know i’m not. i just get really excited about it.) i want to share in the suffering of the people around me. i want people to have hope. i want people to know unconditional love. i want to encourage. and even more than in social work… i cannot wait to do that as a mother. i can’t wait to be a different kind of mother. it scares the shit out of me cause i don’t wanna be like my mom, but i don’t think i will. redemption is a sweet thing.

probably the reason i'm single...

so i was flipping through channels last night, and landed on a Christian tv channel. i won’t say the speaker’s name cause i don’t wanna come off as too much of a jerk. but just know that he’s pretty popular in some parts of the Christian culture world. anyways, he starts talking about being grateful in all situations, which is probably a good point, but this guy just took it and ran. he says something along the lines of…

“so you married folks out there, you all just need to be so grateful for what you have. not everyone has someone to look out for them, someone to love. and even if you have a bad relationship, it’s ok. just ignore what’s wrong with it. ignore the bad, and focus on the good. it’ll eventually work itself out.”

then he said some other stuff that i don’t remember, but here comes the fun part…

“ladies, you may have a husband who is not treating you very well. that’s ok… just focus on the good. be grateful that you have someone. ladies, just be grateful that you have a man in your life to provide for you. and really all you need to do as a good wife is make sure the pantry is stocked with groceries.”

who knew it could be so simple?

Dr. King

This man is one of my most favorite people who ever lived. When I think of who he was and how he lived out his beliefs with his community, I hardly know what to do with myself. The man was amazing. He and the people who followed his lead did so much to demand that this country and its people actually live up to its ideals that it so proudly claimed. So in light of celebrating his birthday today, I will leave you with a few of my favorite quotes. I hope you find them as inspiring as I do.

"Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness."

"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute understanding from people of ill will."

"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."

There are oh so many more great things that he has said and done. I urge you to read about him and be inspired.

perhaps...

this is something i wrote last night. i don't usually share my writing unless it's in prose form. but perhaps that will change...

empty

noises all day long
a broken vessel
torn apart piece by piece
i try to fix and mend

start over?
again?
i've tried that once before.
it isn't working anymore
and i'm just so tired.

silence in the darkness
an empty vessel
stripped bare to the core
i venture out to sea

start over?
again?
i've tried that once before
it isn't working anymore
and i'm just so tired.

it's the ebb and flow that kill me.
is there really calm after a storm?

so this is a new year.

before i say what i am about to say, i will ask that none of you take offense at what i say. these, my words, are merely a source of comfort for me. they are not meant to stab or point fingers. they are just my thoughts and feelings needing to be said aloud.

so a new year is upon us. i've spent the past few days thinking about the past year, as i'm sure most people do. generally in looking back on the past, i've tried to always have a mindset of not regretting anything. yes i make mistakes. we all do. and i just try to learn and grow from them. maybe i'm just overwhelmed by life lately, but for some reason i wish i could have a "do-over" for the past six months or so. i almost think that if i could relive the past six months, i would. there are many things that i would do the same, but there are also many things that i would like to do differently. i wonder how different things would be now. would they be any better? maybe it's the romantic in me, but i kinda think they would. i know it's foolish to think like this, but oh well. unfortunately i've been a little overwhelmed by this lately.

how is it possible to be so overwhelmed and full of anxiety or whatever and yet feel so empty?