so i started reading rob bell's "love wins" yesterday, and i'm about half-way through now, but a blog was just absolutely necessary. too many pent up thoughts to keep swirling inside my head. i'm not going to lie, i was nervous about this one. "sex god," "velvet elvis," and "jesus wants to save christians" were absolutely monumental in my history, and i try to read them each at least once a year because i always take something mind-boggling away from it. but, i was scared that all the rumors and hype would be true and this incredible man and author who has changed the way i view life wouldn't be as credible. so far, so good, and this book has been just as good. and i hope it stays that way.
somehow rob bell gets it. he gets that things can be different. he gets that the church is a stuffy clique. but most importantly, he makes me re-think jesus perhaps in the most raw, honest way i've ever seen. he is anointed, and he is part of a group of true preachers who will continue to raise up a new generation and change our community for the better.
we have outcasted our entire world. we think ourselves a superior people. the "chosen." that somehow because we once spoke a very specific set of words that it doesn't matter how we treat others, or if we live out love, or if we learn charity. but, my friends, i can't help but think hypocrisy and surprise will be the key pronouncements on judgment day for us. those who claim to be lovers of jesus, but miss the point completely. we're doing something so wrong.
i hate that we let our prejudices and our mis-guided rules keep us from loving. name one christian you know that doesn't judge. that is truly optimistic. that respects people. that is patient enough to wait in line a little bit longer to let a tired mom through with that one pack of diapers. that isn't so self-absorbed that they slam the door in the face of the grandpa with a stiff back at the gas-station. that goes out of their way to help the guy in the next desk at work have a slightly easier day. that will serve their family. that encourages. that doesn't keep score. that serves with joy. that treats neighbor and stranger and lover and friend alike.
name one church as a whole that makes you proud to be called a christian.
i can name one. that is sad, friends. and i don't know an immediate way to fix it, or how to change millions of viewpoints, but i do know this: impact starts with one. and reading that passage today made me realize- it's between me and jesus. not the grief that people give me, or the annoying little questions of where i've been, but the fact that something in my spirit has felt off for so long. and maybe, just perhaps maybe that has been a blessing in disguise. because i am seeking a community that connects with that and appreciates it. i yearn for it, and my heart aches for it, and i can't wait for the moment when i finally find it, because i will know. my soul will relate. for now, i am learning who i am. who he is. and what he meant when he picked me to live on this earth. and all i will do today is be striving for that. for more. for deeper. for transparency. for straightforwardness lived out. that's the only thing that will get people to jesus. that's the only thing that gives us a chance to get this thing right.
maybe that, at the bottom of it all, is why i'm so obsessed with the topic of love. because this whole idea makes me so sick to my stomach. no matter how annoying it is i just can't help but believe that love is really the only thing that matters. that relationship is the vitality of this life. without it, we live in portion, and in the end we will be the only ones that are missing out. not the ones we try to reel in with cheap bribes and glorified promises of easier life. we miss the gift. and we are the ones that will lose.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
snags and barricades.
hey there. i know. back so early. i'm going to try to stay on top of this thing for once and get writing. it's healthy for me, even if i don't want to admit it.
i was reflecting back on a blog i posted directly after my birthday last year, since another has just passed and i had my yearly hour of self-analyzation. last year i stated: "zelda fitzgerald said, ' i don't want to live. i want to love first, and live incidentally.' that's going to be my goal in this next stage, stuck in between 23 and 24. to embrace loving for what it is." and it's slightly comical because this blog had gotten deeply lost within the folds and crevices of my brain and the details of my day-to-day life, but that's exactly what this year was for me.
this was a year of learning how to run hurdles that have kept me down for far too long. for twenty-three years my existence was based on relationships. who i was with was who i was. but, this past year, i learned me. who i am, who i want to be, who i will be. my dreams, my inspiration, my purpose. the weight of my life became not on who i was loving or the events we schedule together or the memories i treasured of the past, but about what i want to create for my future, and the possibilities of my now. the "goodness" or "badness" of my days is no longer based on the affirmation or contentions i receive from someone else, but they come from the attitudes that stem within me. this year, i realized i hold value.
god, that's such a huge lesson. probably the truest one i have learned yet. it's going to get deep now, peeps. i realized just sitting here, for the first time, that mentality comes from being a kid still, at twenty-four years old, reeling in the effects of divorce. it sickens me that our culture doesn't place any value on marriage anymore, because i've seen the devastation, yes, but most because i know there is such beauty within a vow that allows you to prove love to someone even in the hard days. when you live your word out for a lifetime. and no divorced kid likes to talk about these things, but someone should. it's something that never really leaves. like a scar where the immediate pain slowly subsides, but you will always look down and see the wound. you learn to service and to process smoothly, and to accept and to even enjoy the love and the new relationships that are built within a split family, but you're still that little kid searching for an identity that was not made to be stripped away. i've learned that in my younger years i placed anyone there. friendships, mentors, status', hobbies. anything that could become my "safety." but here's the catch: because you're kicked out of that harbor so early on, you try to swim your way back in, instead of leaving a healthy, independent adult with your sails ablaze and your heart confident. now, i'm not saying kids from unbroken families age and mature perfectly. seriously, we all know that's not the case, and a lot of times we divorced ones are so much more careful with our actions and choices because we've lived out repercussion, but i'm just saying there are adults actions and emotions that are dealt with far too early. and it ripples. like a cold, cold creek on your summer toes you feel it. and it stings.
i do want to say this: there have been many positives for me about being from a broken home. i realize without a doubt and have been proven that my parents both love me individually. they have provided. they have supported. they have had my back. they have listened. they have encouraged. they have been vulnerable about hard, hard things. they have related. they have let me deal in my own way and in my own time. they have known without speaking. they have probably psychoanalyzed. they read me. but they're still here, for me. every day. every time i need them. i know. and i get that.
another gift i have received is that i truly value relationships, and i think that's something that many people blindly take for granted. now, i know we all know my stance on relationships and love because it's seriously all i babble on about on here. but at the end of the day, whether we want to admit it or not, this life and this crazy invaluable experience is not about possessions, or things, or dreams, or titles, or accomplishments. it's about the relationships we build. the lives we impact. those we're involved with. we can take nothing from this life with us, but we can certainly leave something here that will live on.
and this year, i realized that legacy is incredibly tied to the value that we hold within ourselves. you can never really truly love someone unselfishly until you learn how to love yourself. and i'm excited, incredibly excited, to see in the space between 24 and 25 that direct connection between the things i've learned and those i hold dear. perhaps, i will finally break away from the identity i've tried to redefine and become the me that i know i can be. it's time to start putting the building blocks into place to build new character. a safety, that is strongly supported by an individual belief in myself, but most importantly that is no longer afraid of risk, change, or transformation.
this year, i want boldness. to jump. experience. taste. breathe. value. trust. interfere. break open. seek. most of all, i want vitality. no more ho-hum. no more status quo. we only have one life to live, and i'm going to start living mine. toes in the sand, running with the tide, i plan on being alive. and i pray that next year, when i look back that's exactly what i'll be: a fearless explorer ready to leap into whatever time brings my way.
i was reflecting back on a blog i posted directly after my birthday last year, since another has just passed and i had my yearly hour of self-analyzation. last year i stated: "zelda fitzgerald said, ' i don't want to live. i want to love first, and live incidentally.' that's going to be my goal in this next stage, stuck in between 23 and 24. to embrace loving for what it is." and it's slightly comical because this blog had gotten deeply lost within the folds and crevices of my brain and the details of my day-to-day life, but that's exactly what this year was for me.
this was a year of learning how to run hurdles that have kept me down for far too long. for twenty-three years my existence was based on relationships. who i was with was who i was. but, this past year, i learned me. who i am, who i want to be, who i will be. my dreams, my inspiration, my purpose. the weight of my life became not on who i was loving or the events we schedule together or the memories i treasured of the past, but about what i want to create for my future, and the possibilities of my now. the "goodness" or "badness" of my days is no longer based on the affirmation or contentions i receive from someone else, but they come from the attitudes that stem within me. this year, i realized i hold value.
god, that's such a huge lesson. probably the truest one i have learned yet. it's going to get deep now, peeps. i realized just sitting here, for the first time, that mentality comes from being a kid still, at twenty-four years old, reeling in the effects of divorce. it sickens me that our culture doesn't place any value on marriage anymore, because i've seen the devastation, yes, but most because i know there is such beauty within a vow that allows you to prove love to someone even in the hard days. when you live your word out for a lifetime. and no divorced kid likes to talk about these things, but someone should. it's something that never really leaves. like a scar where the immediate pain slowly subsides, but you will always look down and see the wound. you learn to service and to process smoothly, and to accept and to even enjoy the love and the new relationships that are built within a split family, but you're still that little kid searching for an identity that was not made to be stripped away. i've learned that in my younger years i placed anyone there. friendships, mentors, status', hobbies. anything that could become my "safety." but here's the catch: because you're kicked out of that harbor so early on, you try to swim your way back in, instead of leaving a healthy, independent adult with your sails ablaze and your heart confident. now, i'm not saying kids from unbroken families age and mature perfectly. seriously, we all know that's not the case, and a lot of times we divorced ones are so much more careful with our actions and choices because we've lived out repercussion, but i'm just saying there are adults actions and emotions that are dealt with far too early. and it ripples. like a cold, cold creek on your summer toes you feel it. and it stings.
i do want to say this: there have been many positives for me about being from a broken home. i realize without a doubt and have been proven that my parents both love me individually. they have provided. they have supported. they have had my back. they have listened. they have encouraged. they have been vulnerable about hard, hard things. they have related. they have let me deal in my own way and in my own time. they have known without speaking. they have probably psychoanalyzed. they read me. but they're still here, for me. every day. every time i need them. i know. and i get that.
another gift i have received is that i truly value relationships, and i think that's something that many people blindly take for granted. now, i know we all know my stance on relationships and love because it's seriously all i babble on about on here. but at the end of the day, whether we want to admit it or not, this life and this crazy invaluable experience is not about possessions, or things, or dreams, or titles, or accomplishments. it's about the relationships we build. the lives we impact. those we're involved with. we can take nothing from this life with us, but we can certainly leave something here that will live on.
and this year, i realized that legacy is incredibly tied to the value that we hold within ourselves. you can never really truly love someone unselfishly until you learn how to love yourself. and i'm excited, incredibly excited, to see in the space between 24 and 25 that direct connection between the things i've learned and those i hold dear. perhaps, i will finally break away from the identity i've tried to redefine and become the me that i know i can be. it's time to start putting the building blocks into place to build new character. a safety, that is strongly supported by an individual belief in myself, but most importantly that is no longer afraid of risk, change, or transformation.
this year, i want boldness. to jump. experience. taste. breathe. value. trust. interfere. break open. seek. most of all, i want vitality. no more ho-hum. no more status quo. we only have one life to live, and i'm going to start living mine. toes in the sand, running with the tide, i plan on being alive. and i pray that next year, when i look back that's exactly what i'll be: a fearless explorer ready to leap into whatever time brings my way.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
the blogs are back in town.
yes, i have made my return. this blog is like a long, lost friend to me. it will always be there when i need to emotionally vomit up some situation and try to sort out the puzzle pieces into something understandable. it's been a continual place for me delve into the world of adult-hood, processing and feeling my way into an unknown that i sometimes feel so unprepared for. and i know, oh how i know, that i haven't written on here in a long time. my relationships have been uncommonly steady these last few months and therefore i haven't had to run to my electronic paper and pen, but, whew, i totally got grand-slammed this week. these calm waters have turned into a tsunami overnight and i find myself more drained than i have been in a long, long time.
i was talking with my deranged circle of bests earlier this week about how parenthood is something you can never figure out. (SIDE NOTE: READERS, DO NOT READ INTO THAT- I AM NOT CURRENTLY PRODUCING OFFSPRING.) anyways, we were talking about how even if you read up on it, and you study other families, and you analyze your own upbringing, it's not something you can ever be prepared for. you're constantly making decisions, battling your actions, exploring the process, and just praying to the baby jesus that you and your other will get something right and you will learn how to love the little person that has popped into your hands and your heart and is your responsibility FOREVER. hello, that paragraph is scary.
but, the really scary thing is that my experiences of late have taught me that life, as a whole, is exactly like that. it's not something that ever slows down or that you get a niche for. you can't make "being good at life" a hobby. there isn't anyone that is "good at life." some choose to determine their own attitudes and that makes all the difference. but, we all make mistakes. we all have hard days. we hurt other people sometimes unintentionally, and sometimes intentionally. we are sometimes content, and sometimes discontent. we have ups and downs, and we ride this roller-coaster because it's here, and it's growth, and the experience is what creates the value within the beauty. one of my wisest comrades told me last month, "bec, if you could control life it wouldn't be valuable." and she was right, per her normal insights, but nonetheless that hit home with me. the incredible mr. dave barnes has in one of his songs "i wish it came down to just desire, i wish it came down to just my will." but it isn't about what we want, or what we think we need, or what we even think we would choose for ourselves if it was that simple. it's all about what we're willing to fight for.
and the big question of my week is: how do you choose what to fight for? i'm questioning a lesson i never really wanted to learn, and that is- is love conditional?
trust me-i hate that i even just said that. i am probably the most optimistic believer in love out there. but, it's a possibility that i have run entirely too far from. i've been afraid to even state that question because it has caused havoc on my heart in the past. but, is there a moment, in the deepest of trusts and feelings, that you have to say "we've run our course?" where and how do you choose- "i can love you to a point, but no more."
my visions of love have always been too grandiose and self-sacrificing at many stages. but, that's something i struggle with- if you love someone, truly, truly love someone, then where and when is it ever acceptable to say- "i cannot sacrifice for you anymore", or "i cannot stand next to you within this tangled mess," or "i can't invest myself in any more situations with you that will break my heart."
and then it comes down to an entirely different ball-game when other obstacles such as trust, commitment, time, distance, depth are involved. do these variables change the decision? do they make it okay on one hand, and not okay on the other?
adult emotions are crazy, people. they are hormonal and intense and awkwardly life-changing, determining far too many things within one spoken answer. and then there's the in-between: when you're stuck in the middle of what should be, what could be, and where you are, and you have to decide the pace, the time, the route, and the distance to your chosen outcome.
it's so very complicated, this thing called love. i haven't figured it out yet. i honestly don't think i will. i simply know that i one-hundred-percent refuse to live in a state of not knowing that i gave my all. i don't want to ever have to question "what-if" or to live with regrets. that idealism has caused me many, many pains, my friends. but, if i'm lucky enough, i will die happy and rich in emotion with my crazy previously-mentioned children telling me how i drowned them in the words "i love you" and annoyed them with displays of affirmation and affection in their most embarrassing memories. and just maybe, somewhere along the line, i will teach them through action, and get in their beautiful little skulls, that love is the greatest gift we have. it's the greatest accomplishment we will ever hold. and if you're going to make one mistake in your life by choice, let it be loving.
i was talking with my deranged circle of bests earlier this week about how parenthood is something you can never figure out. (SIDE NOTE: READERS, DO NOT READ INTO THAT- I AM NOT CURRENTLY PRODUCING OFFSPRING.) anyways, we were talking about how even if you read up on it, and you study other families, and you analyze your own upbringing, it's not something you can ever be prepared for. you're constantly making decisions, battling your actions, exploring the process, and just praying to the baby jesus that you and your other will get something right and you will learn how to love the little person that has popped into your hands and your heart and is your responsibility FOREVER. hello, that paragraph is scary.
but, the really scary thing is that my experiences of late have taught me that life, as a whole, is exactly like that. it's not something that ever slows down or that you get a niche for. you can't make "being good at life" a hobby. there isn't anyone that is "good at life." some choose to determine their own attitudes and that makes all the difference. but, we all make mistakes. we all have hard days. we hurt other people sometimes unintentionally, and sometimes intentionally. we are sometimes content, and sometimes discontent. we have ups and downs, and we ride this roller-coaster because it's here, and it's growth, and the experience is what creates the value within the beauty. one of my wisest comrades told me last month, "bec, if you could control life it wouldn't be valuable." and she was right, per her normal insights, but nonetheless that hit home with me. the incredible mr. dave barnes has in one of his songs "i wish it came down to just desire, i wish it came down to just my will." but it isn't about what we want, or what we think we need, or what we even think we would choose for ourselves if it was that simple. it's all about what we're willing to fight for.
and the big question of my week is: how do you choose what to fight for? i'm questioning a lesson i never really wanted to learn, and that is- is love conditional?
trust me-i hate that i even just said that. i am probably the most optimistic believer in love out there. but, it's a possibility that i have run entirely too far from. i've been afraid to even state that question because it has caused havoc on my heart in the past. but, is there a moment, in the deepest of trusts and feelings, that you have to say "we've run our course?" where and how do you choose- "i can love you to a point, but no more."
my visions of love have always been too grandiose and self-sacrificing at many stages. but, that's something i struggle with- if you love someone, truly, truly love someone, then where and when is it ever acceptable to say- "i cannot sacrifice for you anymore", or "i cannot stand next to you within this tangled mess," or "i can't invest myself in any more situations with you that will break my heart."
and then it comes down to an entirely different ball-game when other obstacles such as trust, commitment, time, distance, depth are involved. do these variables change the decision? do they make it okay on one hand, and not okay on the other?
adult emotions are crazy, people. they are hormonal and intense and awkwardly life-changing, determining far too many things within one spoken answer. and then there's the in-between: when you're stuck in the middle of what should be, what could be, and where you are, and you have to decide the pace, the time, the route, and the distance to your chosen outcome.
it's so very complicated, this thing called love. i haven't figured it out yet. i honestly don't think i will. i simply know that i one-hundred-percent refuse to live in a state of not knowing that i gave my all. i don't want to ever have to question "what-if" or to live with regrets. that idealism has caused me many, many pains, my friends. but, if i'm lucky enough, i will die happy and rich in emotion with my crazy previously-mentioned children telling me how i drowned them in the words "i love you" and annoyed them with displays of affirmation and affection in their most embarrassing memories. and just maybe, somewhere along the line, i will teach them through action, and get in their beautiful little skulls, that love is the greatest gift we have. it's the greatest accomplishment we will ever hold. and if you're going to make one mistake in your life by choice, let it be loving.
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