snow!

what is it about snow that makes me turn into a five year old? i think that all that's good in the world is caputured in a snowflake. a friend and i wrote this poem when it snowed about this time last year. and i haven't written anything in a while, so i feel like maybe this will get me back in the swing of things. i hope you enjoy...

the city is lulled into sleep by the gently falling snow,
a white treasure for the blue collars keeping watch at night.
alas it has come and gone, a white wondrous whisper.
it has shared its secret, leaving no trace for the dreamer.

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.