Long time ago……

Hi WordPress.   How are you doing? Its been a while……

I should apologize for never finishing blogging about Hollywood.  The problem with that is that there was SO MUCH that we did, and SO MUCH that happened on that trip every day.   I just didn’t have enough determination to write about everything because it was too overwhelming to try to process it like that.  It was easier taking pictures to remember it by.  Words, just didn’t work, because I didn’t have enough of them.

Not mention, after a while life got in the way.  (That always happens.)

Writing just hasn’t been my thing lately, let alone blogging.  (Couldn’t tell, could you?)

Anyways, just thought I’d drop in and say hi, and let you know I’m still alive.

And as for blogging? I think its just going to be one of those things that comes and goes in spurts, in seasons.

Maybe sometime soon I’ll come to another season of writing.

Until then, cheerio!

Hollywood Day 2…..

After a good night’s sleep we awoke to head out for a whole day of Universal Studios.   We all felt much better that morning, since we’d gotten sleep and there was a definite air of excitement.  Our drive out to Universal was beautiful, because we drove through the mountains and saw some lovely scenery.  Universal itself is set way up on a high hill overlooking a valley, and the location is just gorgeous.

We took the VIP tour on this day, and we had a phenomenal tour guide named Tim.  He obviously loved his job, knew his stuff, and went out of his way to take care of us and make our experience enjoyable.

We started by going inside a building to wait for our tour to start.  Tim went around and wrote down all our names so he wouldn’t forget them.  (Yeah, he was THAT good.)  There were light breakfast snacks and then at last, we were off.  There were also other people in our tour group including a couple from London.

The first half of the day we spent in the theme park and tried out some rides.  It was incredibly exciting for me since I’ve never been in any sort of theme park before this.  I only ended up going on one ride though.  I know I have a tendency towards motion sickness sometimes, and so I was wary of many of them.  The first ride I did do however was the Mummy ride. I found if I was freaking out for whatever reason, I could close my eyes, and I’d be fine.  It was intense.  I’ve never been on rides like that before.  (I’ve never ever been to an amusement park of any kind.) Of course I had no context for that ride in particular, but I felt a sense of accomplishment (small as it is), that at last I could say I’d ridden a “wild” ride at a theme park.

I didn’t go on any of the others.  Perhaps it was fear, though it was more fear of what it would do me physically then the actual experiences themselves.  (I didn’t want to spend the day with a queasy stomach.)The others in my group tried out the Transformers ride, the Simpsons ride, and the Jurassic Park ride.  I wanted to go on the latter because I did have context for it however it had a rather large massive drop at the end of the ride and so I chickened out on that one too.

I did however, get to have my first haunted house experience.  We went through Universal’s House of Horrors and it was so much fun.  I’ve always wanted to try a haunted house, but never wanted to waste the money on it.  This time however, it was “free” (all accounted in trip cost), so of course I had to try it.  It was dark, and creepy, and I got a little jumpy.  But I loved it.  I think for the first time in my life I finally understand the “fun” of allowing yourself to be spooked and “scared.”  Its easy to have fun with it when it isn’t “real.”  And so, I went through, and got a little creeped out, but loved every minute of it and laughed at it all afterwards.

The coolest thing about that House of Horrors is that at the end of it you walked through Dracula’s lab set from the film Van Hellsing.  Having seeing said film, I could definitely appreciate that I was on what was once an actual film set.

As we walked through Universal, we passed a wall of a building that had a huge picture on it of what looked like a New York street.  The incredible thing is that the picture was so realistic, and melded so well into the wall, it made you feel as if you could right into it and be in New York.  I felt as if I should be hearing all the traffic and the city noise.  It was quite incredible.

We also visited a little props/costume museum at Universal that morning.  I saw costumes from Le Miserables, the car from Back to the Future, a couple Gladiator props, and other misc. remnants from other Universal films.

We also got to see a motion capture demonstration.  I totally geeked out about this.  Being a Lord of the Rings fan, and having watched Andy Serkis blow away the world of motion capture with his performance of Gollum, I got giddy over seeing the process presented right in front of my eyes.  They had a guy come out in the suit with all the bright little dots all over him, and they then projected on the screen what happens in the computer in relation to the guy in the suit.  They literally created a motion capture creature on the screen as we were sitting there.  (Ironically said creature ended up being a troll of sorts). I have a rocky love-hate relationship with technology most of the time, but this was definitely a moment of incredible love and genuine awe at what we can do when we combine technology with imagination.

After our fun filled morning, we had a phenomenal fancy lunch where we truly ate like kings.

Then, in the afternoon we had our grand old tour of the studio area itself.  Universal is without doubt my favorite studio, primarily for the fact that they cater to the public and go out of their way to make it fun and interesting to the average person.   We saw so many wonderful things that day.  We saw lots of backlot, which included so much more than the typical New York back lot that most studios have. We saw an animatronic Jaws shark pull a diver under the water.  We saw a demonstration of rain and flash flooding.   We encountered Norman Bates putting a body in the trunk of his car and then he came after us while up on the hill “Mother” sat the window.  We went through the King Kong 360 experience which was totally another geeking out moment for me (Peter Jackson TALKED to us!!)  We walked on a set or two and saw all the sound stages.

We also walked through the biggest more glorious props warehouse in the world.   So many times I’ve done props for theatre and many of the experiences were stressful enough for me to think, “Never again!” But when I walked into that warehouse at Universal, I remembered why I tried props in the first place.  I love the tangible hands on details.  And walking into the Universal props warehouse reminded me of a treasure trove.  This where hundreds and hundreds of tangible hand-on details for film are stored.   Abostlutely glorious.  I feel that if there is anywhere I would dream of working in Hollywood it would be inside that building.

At the end of the tour we saw the Waterworld show which was fantastic.  I’ve never seen the movie of Waterworld, but I found I was still able to pick on the story elements.  It was like watching theatre, only it was outside with massive stunts and water and fire and all sorts of affects including a plane crashing and bursting into flames.

At the end of this glorious fantastic day, we had dinner at the Bubba Gump Shrimp CO. Resturant.  It was yummy and then after being good little tourists in the studio store, we finally left Universal.

We finished up our night walking around a bit in Hollywood, and stopping by a 3 level Barnes and Nobles.  Being film people, we of course all invaded the film section.

Pictures from Day 2: (An album of the whole day can be found on my FB page).

A view on the way to Universal.

At Universal.

The House of Horrors.

 

Norman Bates.

 

 

The props warehouse.

 

2 Months Later….. Hollywood Day 1.

We left Grand Rapids in the wee hours of the morning.  After traveling for what felt like all day, we finally arrived in L. A.  in the confusion of a four hour time change.  We were all exhausted, with little sleep and hours of sitting on a plane.  We were also running late.

Our first excursion after arriving was a tour on the Paramount Studio.  So we got our rental car, dropped our luggage off at the hotel, and grabbed a hamburger on the way.  (We hadn’t really eaten much for hours.) The only thing we had time to really notice was the sunshine.  After leaving cold Michigan, it was a blessed relief to be in a green, warm place.

My memories of Paramount aren’t  exactly the clearest.  While I spent that night and the rest of the week journaling like crazy, during that first tour, I didn’t write much of anything.  It was our first studio, so everything was fresh and new and exciting.  Despite the haze and the feeling of grubbiness after traveling all day, we launched on our adventure as soon as our feet hit the ground.

I remember Forrest Gump’s bench and our first view the traditional tall Hollywood palm trees gracing the entrance into Paramount. (Those are real by the way.) I feel like I was in a hazy wide-wonder state; worn out, and in awe of the fact that I was really there.   There were lots TV shows talked about.  We had our first experiences with back lots and sound stages.  We were wearing head phones that connected us to our tour guide and she talked to us through the head phones.  This was annoying at times, as the sound would fade in and out, and the things felt rather useless.  But there was one moment, when we walked into a sound stage on a set, and our head phones picked up audio from the sound stage next door where they were actually filming something.  People were calling out cues, and it was kind of crazy to be able to hear what was going on.

But a lot of Paramount is a blur to me; a blur of green, sunshine, stucco buildings, huge sound stages, and trying to comprehend the world and life inside a studio lot.

After Paramount, we visited two incredible people who head up the Hollywood Prayer Network, a ministry within Hollywood. These two people work at building up community for the Christians working within the industry, as well as reaching out to Hollywood and encouraging the church at large to pray for Hollywood.   I wrote furiously during this meeting.  I LOVED this discussion. They talked passionately about Christians in the industry, the role of the Christians in the industry, Hollywood as a mission field, how Christians have failed Hollywood in the past, and the spiritual needs that are there.  I could write a whole essay on this one subject, (I could talk your ear off passionately about it as well), however, for time being I will share this video that gives you a glimpse into what we discussed that night, and what HPN is doing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSnGyi7mvyY

(Here is their website as well: http://www.hollywoodprayernetwork.org)

The rest of the evening is also a blur to me.  We went to this fancy dinner on a studio lot (I think it was CBS?) with a group of people who work in the industry.  The purpose of the gathering was primarily networking of which we were to partake in.  This was a challenging night for us as a group.  We were exhausted from being up and moving for hours, still wearing the clothes we’d all traveled in, and we’d hardly had eaten for most of the day, and were definitely not at our best.  We ate wonderful food, listened to someone speak, and then, came the networking part.  I found it especially challenging.  The tables in the room were split into different departments, directing, producing, writing, etc….and whatever area you were interested in, you were able to go sit and talk to the professionals who work in that particular area.   It’s a wonderful opportunity, but challenging when you are not sure what role you want to be in.  I ended up at the writing table because at that point I was beyond exhaustion and didn’t really know where to go.  Again, my memory of that night is quite hazy, and unfortunately always will be.

So we fumbled our way through our exhaustion and interacted with all these fancy Hollywood people and then FINALLY at last, the day was over and we went back to our hotel and literally collapsed into our beds with great relief.

A few pictures from the day: (If you are my FB friend, you can see the whole picture album).

The Paramount entrance.

The actual bench used in Forrest Gump.

Green, sunshine, and stucco buildings.

Ah yes, there is that well recognized sign.

And, the hotel we stayed in for the week.

Processing…..slowly…….

So, I should be blogging about my trip to LA.  And I will. My excuse for not doing it yet is a multitude of things.  Things like coming home and starting a new job and getting used to a new schedule and plunging back into my “real life” immediately and still trying to process the trip and not feeling like I’ve been able to take the time to truly put words to everything I experienced. But I’m getting there.

I went on this trip with a group of film students, for whom the trip counts as a credited class to their education.  Part of that class process is writing some responsive papers post-trip. I am participating in this activity because while I’m not getting credit for anything,  I want the full rounded learning experience that the trip has offered.  I’m currently in the process of working on that.  Its a good activity but also challenging.  It is good because it is forcing me to sit down and focus and find my words.  It’s challenging because its been years since I’ve written a “paper” for anything, and I’m so far removed from the academic rigor of college life that my brain is not in college mode and I’m afraid it has gotten a bit lazy.

I’m striving to write it well and am grateful it isn’t a big massive ridiculous research paper of any kind, but truly a heart-felt personal response to the trip as a whole.

So, while I’m working on that, I will be thinking about blogging and probably pulling stuff from the responsive papers to use here.

It will come. And by posting that here, I feel like it will keep me more accountable to actually doing it.

Yey for activities that push me to write!! (I could do with a lot more of those.)

In the mean time, I have do have a little something for you.  We were given little mole-skin journals for the trip and encouraged (required) to journal while on the trip about everything.  The beauty of these little journals was that they were small enough to fit into our pockets and can easily be carried everywhere.

I filled that little journal to the brim with everything I possibly could, especially in the places and moments where I couldn’t or chose not to use my camera, and was determined I had to write everything down so as not forget anything. Along the way with the journaling, I accumulated various quotes from various different places and people that we meant.

I’ve pulled some of my favorite quotes and would like to share them.  I think most of them can be understood even without context.  At any rate, these are quotes, words, and phrases that stood out to me, and most, if not all of them, taught me something:

“Hollywood is driven by worldview.  The only difference between us (the church) and them is worldview.”

“Wherever you are, be your best.”

“If you pray for someone, you can’t hate them.”

“The more we distance ourselves, the less influence we have.”

“If you can’t change the heart of the artist, you can’t change the artist.”

“Media is the pulpit for the culture.”

“Story, beauty, and process.”

“Everybody on this film is a storytelling assistant.”

“Hollywood is brutal.”

“Do more with less.”

“Sometimes the audience doesn’t know what they want.”

“Just tell a good story.”

“Your faith is not fragile.”

“It is a privilege to feel pain.”

“Do something that’s never been done before.”

“The things buried inside every good story: Belonging, belief, and becoming.”

“Great films can be terrible and terrible films can be great.”

“Look at the last shot of the film to know what the filmmaker is saying.”

“Your aesthetic is informed by your worldview.”

“If you watched any scene from any film without sound, you should be able to tell exactly what’s going on.”

“The filmmaker always shows you exactly what he wants you to see.”

“The problem when Christians ignore a need is that it is still there.”

“We (the church) are at fault for the problem of Hollywood.”

“How you choose to represent Christ is how you represent yourself.”

“Nobody is going to make a perfect film.”

Your angels will go free…..

Life has been crazy hectic for the last three months. I haven’t had much time to think about blogging.  But I thought I’d at least pop in and say hello. 🙂

There is a lot I could write about, but I don’t have all the words right now.

In a little over 24 hours I’ll be embarking on a trip that I’ve been wanting to take for the past 4 years.  I feel like all the crazy stuff that has happened in the last few months, and even in the last few years have led up to this point, up to this trip. This trip is going to be important. I don’t know how exactly.  But I know I’ll come back changed. I know that something, however small or big, is going happen in the next week.

I have a feeling I’ll have many words to share when I come home.

In the meantime, I’m going to leave you with a song that a friend shared with me tonight.  It’s a song that I feel emcompasses everything I’ve been feeling lately as well as the emotion I’m feeling about the trip plus some.

Often, I find, music says things better than I can:

“Oh Los Angeles we leave you now
At the setting of your skies
As we leave the comfort of your ground
With your angels we will fly

Well you carried us in broken dreams
Like a mother does her sons
We were scattered ‘cross your dirty streets
We were dying one by one

And you held us in your city lights
When our eyes had lost the stars
And we made our peace with lonely nights
And you healed our broken hearts

Well they say the Big One’s gonna come
And you’ll fall into the sea
We will know that then your work is done
And your angels will go free….”

2012…..

2012 has been a long and crazy year   I’m definitely ready for it to be done with it. But like any year its taught me much.

I always feel like a new year is a clean slate. All the trials and mistakes of the old year are gone, and settled in the corners of memory.  The New Year is like a breath of fresh air, a time in our calendar to find our way forward in life again.

So, this my homage to the 2012 in my life, and to embracing the beginning of a brand new year.

(In no particular order….and in random combination of serious and not so serious)

-This year I was able to settle on what I think about certain issues in the world and in the culture.  I found that I do feel strongly about things, and that I do know where I stand and what “side” I’m on.  Granted, I still have much to learn, and even settling myself in those places, doesn’t mean I’ll never question them again. I have also learned that there is a time and place for me to express how I feel about something.  But it is possible to have wisdom in knowing when and how I say things, and I have discovered that I can say things without fearing what people think.

-I’ve learned there is no way that everyone will always agree on everything.  I’ve begun to accept this more and more easily.  I can always learn so much from those that I don’t agree with.  This is a gift, and this has been a significant part of my life this year. I am grateful for it.

-While I have settled myself in some areas, there are other things I have questioned.   I am thinker and I do question.  This year, I have questioned a lot of culturally accepted things that I have been told my whole life.  Things that I’ve always sort of taken for granted.  But I don’t anymore.  Some things are American cultural things.  Others are church cultural things.  I can’t just accept them for what they just because my culture (both “secular” and church) tells me this is how it is.   Asking these types of questions help me find where I stand.  It sharpens what I truly believe or don’t believe in. I embrace this process for in it I know there is growth and hopefully a better understanding of my world and the place that God has for me in it.

-I have learned how much of a community of love and support I have around me.  I have seen and experienced the love of true friendship, and the beauty of knowing all the people in my life that I do.   I will not ever again, take for granted the friends that I have or the family that I was born into.   I cannot thank God enough for these people and the blessing that they are.

-I have experienced things spiritually that I never have before.  I spent a short period of time late this past summer into fall participating in a ministry that broadened my spiritual horizons.  I saw the power of the Holy Spirit, and the genuineness of a passionate faith truly lived out.  I saw people healed, physically healed by God’s power used through his people.  (Yes, it happened.  I saw it with my own eyes.  There is very little anyone could say to convince me it’s impossible or that it can’t or doesn’t happen.) For the first time, through this experience I made a stronger connection to truly living out a life of faith.  I’ve always treasured the intellectual, philosophical, academic side of faith.  I’ve grown up in a tradition that emphasized that type of knowledge.  I treasure that deeply, and believe strongly in that side of the equation.  But, now, I also have seen firsthand a strong example of living your faith out in an emotional, daily, genuine manner.  I’ve made the connection between the two.  I sort of knew what it was before, but now I’ve seen it in a tangible way.  This has challenged me.  I want to live with both sides of this equation equally manifested in my life.  I know I won’t do it well, and will probably fail a lot. But, I want to try. While I am no longer a part of this ministry, (it was only meant for that small period of time, I believe), I will not ever forget what it taught me or how God used it in my life.

-I’ve learned to trust God, and rely on him when I’m at a complete loss as to what else to do or unable to understand what’s happening.

-I’ve found my faith is real, even when the circumstances of my life make it feel like everything is falling apart.  My faith has not been shaken by some of the events of this past year.  It has stayed.  It has not faltered.  It has tightened and not been shaken.  I pray that this will always be true.

-I’ve begun to really delve into what the desires of my heart are.  One of those things is to live a life of fearlessness.  To do things I’ve never done before; to challenge myself to do the hard things and to do things that scare me.

-I went tubing for the first time in my life.  It was terrifying.  But it was amazing.

-There are all the random shenanigans and random adventures with friends. The memories made, the laughter shared, and the relationships deepened.  Millions of moments, that I can’t remember all of, but I do remember the large memories, the faces and the events that stay with me.

-I was hurt this year.  I was hurt worse than I’ve ever been hurt before.  I was hurt by the words and actions of a friend.  The relationship was broken.   The whole thing was a mess.  I found out what it meant when someone’s actions did not line up with their words. I learned that I could walk away from a person, from a relationship.  I learned I could walk away and say no.  I learned that I could also give it a second chance, but when that second chance fell apart again I learned that I could say no again, and this time for good.  I learned that my trust in a person could be shattered so deeply, I’m not positive it could ever be truly repaired with that person. I learned how much I could hurt. I learned that I am perfectly capable of feeling resentment and wanting revenge, even when objectively I know that’s wrong and I truly don’t want to feel that way. I’ve also learned that while my trust can be that broken with one person, it doesn’t ruin my trust in my other friends.  I’ve learned that I don’t have to lose other relationships just because one failed.  For this I am grateful.  I’m grateful that God in his grace has taught me enough to know that I would never make the one messed up relationship an indicator of all my other relationships that do work.  I’m grateful for this, and I’m so grateful for the love that I have in these other relationships.  Where there is one betrayal of trust, there are many others where trust and love has grown stronger and has not wavered.

-I’ve learned that I get overwhelmed by party planning, especially if there is more than one at once. At the same time, I’ve found that I would do it again, just maybe one, once in a while, and smaller. I have found that my heart does love hospitality and I would love do it more than I do.

-LOTR never changes.  No matter how old I get it will always be a solid, friendly, unchanging story that never wavers no matter how much I change.  I’ve probably said this a million times, but it’s true.  I’m thankful for Tolkien and for LOTR for the way which the story has transcended time and is still impacting its world even years after it was written.

-My love of doing theatre has diminished.  I kind of wondered when this day would come, if ever, and I think it has arrived.  I got worn out by the last two shows I did.  The fall season came and I barely realized it.  No, I still love theatre.  I also treasure every single show I’ve ever done, and I don’t regret any of them, even the ones I never want to see again.  You have no idea how much I’ve learned from my theatre experience or how much doing it has shaped me as a person.  I’ve loved every bit of it.  I just think, for many reasons, it’s not going to be such a prominent part of my life anymore.  Doesn’t mean I’ll never do another show.  It just means I’m more reluctant and less likely do as many.  I will always support it.  I always remember certain shows with a great deal of affection. (Others, with a great deal less affection).  But just as the community of Cornerstone theatre has been changing (a lot), so I am changing and moving on to other things.

-I didn’t really travel at all this year. I hate that.  One of the few things I did do was go to Chicago for a day. It was exhausting, but I loved every bit of it. I also went to a friend’s cottage for a night which was lovely and quite memorable.

-I feel better physically then I ever have before.  It’s still an imperfect, on-going, life-long process, but I’ve tried to make at least some small changes in my lifestyle to make it healthier. As a result, I feel way better and I find myself more aware of what my body is telling me, what it needs, and what I put into it.  This awareness comes from a changed mindset.  I feel like the way I view “healthy living” has been completely transformed from what it used to be.  I still have a long ways to go, and I’m still weak in many areas.  But I’m better than I was. And that, while small, is a victory.

-There were many weddings this year.  A couple of them were for amazing people and I reveled in being able to share such a momentous occasion with these beautiful couples.

-Pastor Mark left West Cannon this summer.  That was a hard goodbye.  He was an incredible pastor and a solid role model, someone I respected and loved dearly.  But he went where God called him, and while I still miss him, I know he is thriving and blessed where he is.

-Another friend moved across the country. This was hard too.  It was one of those things that I did regret….regret not spending more time with her while she was here, not pursuing the relationship more intentionally with someone I love, admire, and respect.  But we are still friends. And I’m so grateful for that.

-I went to JAFAX, the anime festival in my area.  I loved it.  It’s a grand thing to be in a place where people are more nerdy than you are and therefore you can be as nerdy as you want to be with no shame.

-The Hobbit arrived, FINALLY after over 10 years of waiting since the trilogy.  And the world went wild with anticipation. I went to opening night and dressed up with ears and a costume.  It was a fantastic night, and it more than made up for the lack of attendance to opening nights for the trilogy.  The world in which The Hobbit has arrived in, is vastly changed from the world that the trilogy arrived in.  Such an event made me feel more aware of being in the middle of history-making.

-It was the year for movies.  The Hunger Games, The Avengers, Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit, and the ending of the infamous Twilight saga.

-I went camping for the first time in my life.  I slept in the back of a car in the midst of early November.  Yes, it was cold, BUT there were no people and no bugs and we took an epic hike in the beautiful woods of upper Michigan.

-I went to help film students on a film shoot for an ENTIRE day.  I LOVED every minute of it.  I’m still wondering why I don’t do stuff like this more often.  I know what my heart is passionate about, and this experience was like the hand in the glove for that passion.  I’ve learned how little I use that particular passion, and how badly I want to use and express it more than I do.  Perhaps, this is something to look towards in 2013.

-The world went crazy in 2012.  It’s always been crazy, but it keeps getting crazier.

-We had an awful, nasty, mean presidential election.   The politics bit hard and were vicious and the end result made it all seem incredibly futile and pointless.

-It was the year of OCCUPY.  It was the year of continued economic down turn, of bigger governmental fingers being where they shouldn’t be, of “women’s liberation” and getting down to the nitty gritty of homosexual rights.  It was the year of the world ending, and the year of death, including little children shot in their own classrooms. It was the year of upheaval and hurricanes and disasters and war.   It was a year of history-making, really no different than any other year in past time.

-I lost my grandparents.  Both of them, one right after the other, leaving me with only one grandparent left after an entire childhood of having four of them.  They died within two weeks of each other, having almost made it to 70 years of marriage.  The weariness of sorrow was incredibly challenging for my family, especially during the Christmas season.  But I am grateful for the legacy of my grandparents, and for the amount of time that they were in my life.

-It was hard this Christmas to enter into the jollity of the season and to truly enjoy it.  But one thing I did feel was the importance of the people in my life and how much I should not take them for granted.  Ultimately, in that sense, it was a good Christmas, because I was more in tune with the fact that the greatest gifts I have been given, next to the Christ-child, are the people in my life, and they are more important than all the trappings and trimmings of Christmas.

-I’ve made some beautiful new friends this year, while strengthening the bonds of the beautiful friends I already have.

-I’m turning 27.  And I’m totally good with it.

I feel…..

I’ve never hated anyone. I mean truly hated anyone the way some people in the world do.  A deep dark hatred that consumes your heart and turns it black.

Oh, I’ve been frustrated.  Sometimes I feel that sense of “righteous anger” over certain things in the world.  But true, deep, dark hatred? No.  Indifference? Been there.  But not hatred.

I’ve never had a hurt that went deep enough to birth hate.  I’ve never had a “breakup” strong enough to shake the deep lover out of me and turn it inside out.

Till now.

I’m not there yet.  I’m not really hating too deeply.  But I’m wrestling with resentment.  I’m teetering on the edge of something I do not want to fall into.  I’m fighting against the desire to want pain to be caused to the person that hurt me.  I can see nothing but red behind my eyes when I think of this person.

I’ve just come out of the worst relationship I’ve ever been in.  (Not with a guy, with a “friend.”) Worst, in the sense that it was the rockiest, and it ended badly, and it brought out things in me I never fully realized I was capable of.  It brought out the worst in me.

I could blame myself for a lot of things in this relationship.  Mainly, I held on to it WAY too long, WAY past the point that any sensible person would. And who knows what else.  I’m past the point of truly comprehending anymore what went wrong in the first place.

This relationship fell apart.  It broke.  It broke beyond fixing and one of the reasons I finally did walk away again (yeah, I gave it a second chance) is because I got to the point where I had no idea how to make it work anymore and all I could feel was pain and resentment. I could not listen to the other person nor communicate with her.

So I gave up.  Because I’ve got to heal. Because I’ve got to put things into my life to check the pain, to hold it in place, and let it heal so it doesn’t fester into something far worse.

I need people in my life that fill it with love, and bring that out in me, bring out the best, so the worst doesn’t get a foothold.  So that slowly, with time, the worst diminishes and is over ridden by the best, by love.

If there is anything at all I’ve learned from this, it is all the things I do not want in a relationship.  Also, that I can say no.  That it’s okay to walk away from a friendship that is no longer fixable.  That’s it okay to stand up for myself when I’m treated certain ways and say no.

Just pray for me.  Pray, that God in all his infinite grace keeps my demons at bay, and heals my broken heart.

And that maybe someday, I’ll be able to love this person again. Forgive her. Wholly and completely holding nothing back.

Because, right now, I really can’t on my own.

Things I’m grateful for…..

1. Sunlight.
2. The physical body God gave me and everything that it is capable of doing.
3. Feet to go barefoot in so I can feel the earth beneath me.
4. Hobbits.
5. God’s graciousness in allowing certain people to be a part of my life.
6. Water and the freedom it gives me when I’m in it.
7. The hard things in life because they can bring the greatest meaning.
8. Things that are well fought for.
9. Wisdom.
10. Magic.
11. A paycheck.
12. Walking in to work on a Monday morning and having all my co-workers greet me with a smile.
13. A job that makes me feel like I’m doing something meaningful.
14. The God-given ability to love life and accept it for what it is.
15. Adventure.
16. This big beautiful world.
17. A pastor that authentically shepherds his people.
18. Sharing meals.
19. God’s patience, firmness, and gentleness to his children.
20. Faith and the freedom it brings.
21. Holidays.
22. Christmas.
23. Cheap clothes that I love.
24. That I actually cared more about this past election than I ever cared before.
25. A car to drive.
26. People that shake up my world and keep me from being stagnant.
27. Books.
28. Christians who have genuine, real, and passionate faith and aren’t afraid to live it out.
29. Questions.
30. The gift that some people have of putting words together.
31. The gift that other people have of looking through a camera and seeing the greater vision of a story.
32. Real, live, natural, organic, earthy things. (And food.)
33. A country that is kind of falling apart by the seams because sometimes you have to fall apart to rebuild again.
34. Superheroes.
35. Color.
36. Dogs.
37. Maps.
38. Unshakable bonds.
39. That mysterious, crazy, messed up, wonderful, enduring, indomitable human spirit.
40. Autism.
41. My biological family because they are my heart.
42. Silliness and laughter.
43. Fuzzy things.
44. Music.
45. Shenanigans with good friends.
46. The things I’ve learned this year and am continuing to learn.
47. Snow.
48. Leaves.
49. A warm, soft bed.
50. My pillow.

……..and a million other things…….

Crazy world…..

Tonight is one of those nights when my mind is whirling.   There is so much going on in my life. And there is so much going on in my world.

I wonder what it will be like when my children pick up their history books and read about it all.  “In November 2012, a week after one of most intense elections of the century, several thousand citizens from all fifty states signed petitions asking for secession from the United States.  This was the first time since the Civil War several hundred years prior…. ”  What will the next sentence be? What will the historians say in that paragraph?  Whatever it is, it will affect the kind of world our children will be living in when they read those history books.  They’ll be reading about us.  Because it is us.  No matter how diverse we are, how varied, how divided, we are still the United States of America. We are still connected.  What one of us does (or one state) can affect all of us. We are Americans.  We are tied together.  And together we fall, together we rise, as we follow the path of our own history and its place in the big wide world.

God have mercy.  We need it badly.

……

It is a beautiful thing to sit down with families and eat together and just be and talk and laugh.  We talk about our little lives and what’s going on in them.   I’m convinced that sometimes the greatest “rebellion” we can do is just by living our lives out daily, to the best we can, and loving on each other, and communing together and being united and bonded together.  Sometimes that is the greatest threat to the darkness.  The darkness would rather we cower in fear and isolate ourselves.   Sometimes we have to go out there and be daring and be on the front lines and voice our ideas and fight something that’s wrong.

But then we come home.  And when we have home to come back to, it is our greatest weapon.  To live, and love and breathe despite the darkness; to do our work with gratefulness, to plant our gardens, to raise our kids, to bake our bread, and to chop our wood.  Sometimes that is all we need to do. Living out the idea of home and hearth and all that it means can be the greatest protest.  The darkness wants to disrupt that. It wants to tear that apart.   But home is where we find our strongest weapons, because home, true home means love.  And love is the most powerful weapon of all.

So hang on to your homes.  Hang on to your kids, your spouses, your family, and your friends.  The world is crazy and it’s going to get crazier.  Kings will rise and fall.  Governments will change for better or worse.  But keep living your little lives in spite of it all.  Keep changing those dirty diapers and pulling those weeds (both metaphorical and literal).   Keep living, loving, breathing, investing in, and cultivating your little spot of space.

…….

I am thankful…

…..for my church family.

…..for finding that I can be fearless and braver about even the small things, like my words.

……for the people that see world through different lenses than I do.  Through them, I am refined, sharpened, shaped, changed, and impacted by.

……for the country I live in and because of that for all the things I have the freedom to do and to be.

……for the problems of a world that is falling apart, for it reminds me that history is happening and that God is writing it.

…..for my blood family.  They are my heart, my blood, my love, and my home.

….for my friends.  They are glue that God uses to hold me together. Through each of them, I see His love constantly manifested.

….for Christmas and for togetherness.

….for books, and words; for film and storytelling; for artists and storytellers, for they are the true movers and shakers of culture.

…..for everything that is beautiful and good and genuine in this world.

…..for you who are reading this. Because you are human, and you are the most beautiful creation in the universe.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower…..

I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower back in the spring of this year. I remember loving it. I remember feeling every part of it in my heart.

The thing is sometimes I feel movies more deeply than books because I am so visual. I can feel a book, but not cry over it. I watch a movie of the same story and I’ll weep over it.

Today I saw the film of Perks.  And it got to me. Even more than the book.  I’m still inside the film even 2 hours after I left the theatre.  I’m still feeling every inch of emotion it gave me.

It’s hard to describe.  But it’s the kind of film that makes me love life dearly when I walk away from it.  It’s the kind of film that makes me want to be fearless and crazy and random.  It’s the kind of film that reminds me that just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean I can’t be ridiculous sometimes.  It’s the kind of film that reminds me how much deep hurt can affect the choices a person makes.  It’s the kind of film that reminds me how much we can hurt each other and how much we can love.

It’s kind of the film that makes me feel infinite.