Lose It

Normal isn't working. We've suspected this for a while but with things falling apart in our world the way that they are, I'm stepping out on a limb to confirm. So do something crazy. Something crazy stupid that you have been wanting to do for a long time. I'm not talking about coloring your hair purple or getting a tattoo or having your tattoo removed. I mean take the job offer you think is too whatever for you or finally make the move you've been fantasizing about. Please. It could save your life.

Some people never go crazy; What truly horrible lives they must live
                                  -Charles Bukowski

Clothes-minded

Fashion and the way we look are a part of our human condition. It's tribal and social and personal. I don't think it's superficial; it's quite profound. - Helen Mirren

I love fashion and I love a woman with style. Some people move and are moved by a work of art or literature or music. I am moved by those things also. However, I have little to no skill in creating music, literature, or art. I do know how to put an outfit together. It's how I express myself and how I get a bit of understanding of others. I love the textures, the colors, the prints, the proportions, and disproportions. When I get dressed, I'm not just putting on clothes, I'm telling you how I feel today and who I am everyday. So, you can imagine how irritated I become when someone tries to give me attitude about my love for fashion. The other arts have a legitimate spot as art in the world, but fashion is still looked on condescendingly by many. It is often seen as excessive or silly or a waste of money, time, and care. How sad. Though, to be fair, the fashion world is demanding of society and also sometimes condescending. However, they are giving as good as they are getting. Fashion is art, except you get to live your life in it. We could spend our lives in black and wear the same things so that we can concentrate on the really, really important things like saving the children and the dolphins. But I think we can do that just as well and probably, more happily in suede platform wedges and a diaphanous blue dress with flower print. It's like John Muir once said, "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread."

Love Like a Rhino

All cowardice comes from not loving, or not loving well, which is the same thing.

                                                - Ernest Hemingway's character in Midnight in Paris

A Rhino can run 30 mph (some up to 45 mph) and can see 30 feet in front of themselves. At 30 mph, they cover half a mile (2640 ft) a minute, 44 feet a second. This is why rhinos are so dangerous when they get spooked. But the deeper statement here is that every stride they take is a step of faith because they can't see what's ahead of them when they're running. The rhino perhaps embodies 2 Cor 5:7 which says "For we live by faith, not by sight," better than any other earthly being. So, I want to encourage you (and myself) to love like a rhino. 1 Cor 13:7 says "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." This is a verse that implies going beyond what you can see. Belief is only necessary when you can't see or it isn't plain for you to see. To love like a rhino is to go for what's 31+ feet ahead without assurance or knowledge of whether you will run into open arms or a wall. Such love is not about the result or the reception on the other side because, after all, love is not self-seeking. It's dangerous; but there are worse dangers. As C.S. Lewis once wrote:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.... The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Take Heart

The heart is a lonely thing to lose in the dead of the night; The heart is a sad thing to lose in the throes of a fight.... The heart is the dream, and the kiss, that there could be more than this, to keep it burning.
                                                        -Caedmon's Call

     I believe that battles are won and lost in the heart. For example you can say you forgive someone and know that you ought to and have determined in your mind to, but unless it reaches your heart, the peace which comes from forgiveness is absent. Similarly, you can say you love someone and make up your mind to go about doing so but unless your heart is in it, the declarations and actions feel hollow to you and to the recipient. And how many times have we seen athletes walk off the field after a lackluster match and thought regarding the performance, "no heart." After all, all issues of life flow out of the heart. So, if you're fighting for something, but your heart is not in it, it will show in the way you do or don't fight. That's why the lyrics above from the Caedmon's Call song "Manner and Means" resonated so strongly within me. If you're believing for something, then realize that the battle is going to be won on a realm that is unseen. When we are in tough situations- and we will all face tough situations, we need to guard our hearts and ensure that we are surrounding ourselves with faith via the Word and people who speak the Word into our lives. In Proverbs 24:10 it says, "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small." I was at a conference when I first came across that verse and the speaker explained it by saying that adversity reveals how strong you really are and how strong you think God is. This really challenged me about how strong I think God is. If I really believe in the God of the Bible, the God who parted the Red Sea, provided the Israelites with manna from Heaven, calls things into being, raised the dead, and led captivity captive, then I need to do more than believe. I need to plunge into His promises. The Bible says that same power lives within us. (Romans 8:11) So what if we acted like that was true? Boldly approach the throne of the Father with confidence; It's a throne of grace from which we can receive in a time of need.

                                                        Much Love,

It's Not Over Yet

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. 

                                         - John Barrymore

      I was watching Peter Pan (the 2003 version) today and the struggle in the movie between holding on to youthful dreams and growing old struck a chord with me. Why does growing old have to mean letting go of our dreams? I think we need to re-examine that position. Growing old is technically an automatic thing, while growing up is optional. There are a lot of older people who let go of their dreams, put on a proper suit for a proper job in a proper office, and still manage not to grow up. You've seen many of the high-profile, male members of this group on the front page of newspapers after getting busted in an affair or some other scandal. What I want is to grow wiser and to always be dreaming and making bold moves in accordance with those dreams as I grow old. Enter the John Barrymore quote from above. It is an encouraging quote for those whose timelines are busted or who are wondering whether it is too late. If you don’t have children who need to be taken care of, it’s definitely not too late to take a new path, pursue the desire you dropped by the wayside, or restart and finish the project you were too rational to defend. Our world is desperately in need of people who are alert and whose hearts and ears are tuned to what is going on around them. In order to be that sort of person, one would have to have taken a path in life that did not cause them to ignore their God-given calling and desires, because those are the people whose hearts are still open and responsive. It’s as Howard Thurman once said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” As long as you’re still breathing, you can turn those “I wish I’d…” statements into, “I’m going to…” So, friend, keep on keeping on.

                                     Much Love

Broken by New York

        They say New York is a city that will either break you or make you. Well, it has definitely broken me. I came here full of dreams of what my life would be like having finally finished graduate school. I would come and find a nice place to live within my first two weeks and then spend the month after that looking for a job. A month was all it would take to find a job because, after all, I had a degree. If you live or have ever lived in New York, you’re laughing at this point. In retrospect, I am too.

       I have been here a year (give or take a few days) and nothing has gone as planned. I do not have a job where I work in a corner office of a tall, impressive building. I don’t even have my own apartment much less my own room. I have gone to sleep some nights not knowing where I would lay my head down the next night and moved more times in one year than some people move their whole lives. All of this has broken me, but in the best way possible. When I came here, my goal was to rock at life, but in my magnanimousness, I would not forget the little people on my rise to the top. Now my heart is moved by the things that break His heart and driven by a desire to live a life where I help others rise. When I came here, I envisioned myself moving in my own strength as I made my dreams come true. Now, I live in the reality that it is not by might, or by power, but by God’s spirit or will that we accomplish anything, whether we bow to His will or not. Having teetered on the precipice of ruin and being blessed, saved, by the intervention of friends and family, the issues of the homeless are closer to my heart than ever before. I see the world differently and understand that no man or woman is an island; No matter how capable we are, we are relational beings and our lives flourish when we live, give, and receive in that knowledge. I seem to have had a heart attack, figuratively speaking, followed by an Ezekiel 36:26 heart transplant. [I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.] I am beyond glad that the last year in New York has not gone as planned; Life is boring when it goes as planned. God’s plans for us are always better, grander, more challenging, and more fulfilling than our plans.

                                Much Love

Romanced by God

The idea of God as a lover or bridegroom (old testament word for fiancé) is a baffling and awkward thought for most people. Most people who have read Song of Songs would probably admit to feeling a bit uncomfortable the first time they read it. It’s a book of the Bible that is essentially a series of love letters or poems between a lover and his beloved. The lovers are decadent in their praise and expressive in their appreciation for each other. The woman says of her beloved, “I delight to sit in his shade and his fruit is sweet to my taste.” (Song of Songs 2:3 NIV). The man says to her, “Let me see your face, let me hear your voice. For your voice is soothing and your face is ravishing.” (Song of Songs 2:14 MSG). There is no over-theologizing their physical attraction for each other as they revel in each other’s bodies and express anticipation for coming together. It’s beautiful. The love in Songs is representative of the love God has for us. Jesus refers to himself as the bridegroom (fiancé) in passages such as Matt 9:15, Matt 25:1-10, and John 3:29 and the church as the bride he is coming back for. The powerful bond between two lovers and the feeling of being in love are a strong representation of our relationship with God. There are several levels of intimacy in that relationship, starting with clay-potter, but the greatest level of intimacy is the lover-beloved level which we see played out in Songs. God wants us to know him that deeply and he wants us to rest in his love much like the woman in Songs. So, that was my challenge over the past couple days. I challenged myself to rest in his love and to feel him delighting over me. We all want to be loved and delighted in like the couple in Songs, but God already loves us that much. We know He “so loved the world,” but we sometimes forget that He super loves and is delighted by the individual. (John 3:16). So, instead of listening to praise and worship music like I usually do in my times with God, I made a playlist that reflected the love and adoration in Song of Solomon, but from the man’s perspective. I picked love songs I’ve heard that I wished a man would sing to me and listened to them as if it were coming from God. It was amazing. I walked around for the rest of the day with the kind of glow of a woman who is in love and in return is deeply and passionately loved, because actually, that’s what I am. 

Check out the bottom of the blog page for my "Romanced" playlist.

                                            Much Love