little ponds v. vast oceans

things have been insane lately. and by lately i mean since approximately the last weekend of july.

nonstop. draining. completely invasive of my valuable spare time. all out ... madness.

and, usually, i wouldn't have it any other way.

i mean, let's face it. when i get bored ... things just get ugly. i find it much easier to doubt my self worth when i'm not contributing to the DGP in an substantial way. and i find motivation difficult without having to multi-task 'important' details of my career and social life.

but when vince and i took a little trip to tennessee last weekend on a complete whim, i realized how worn out i've become.

in general.

i'm not sure if it was the fresh air, open roads, southern hospitality or the exciting thunderstorms we made our way through ... but something about that place made my soul at ease.

things were busy but not overwhelming. there seemed to be a rhythm to how things operated that echoed what humans should be able to thrive within. and i liked it.

i'm not sure if i'd last there for long before getting the itch to move to another big city, but it got me thinking.

maybe people here [l.a.] try to hard. i mean, i love l.a., don't get me wrong. but there is something that just doesn't seem quite right about the way things have been lately. and it made me wonder if there is more to life ... if maybe there is a happy medium. a place where all the people who have traveled the world and did their time in big cities go to live. can you imagine? a place where sojourners and adventurers and thinkers and artists go to breathe when they're content with what they've experienced.

i just wonder if there's a happy medium. that's all. and maybe that happy medium only exists in the intangible depths of your soul ... when you can make any place a place where you find peace. who knows. i'm starting to think it's a part of 'growing up' ... that weird time bomb inside my body that says it's about that time to settle down and take it easy instead of wearing the weight of the world on your shoulders and questing to 'save the planet.'

i hate that i'm even saying i may like to throw in the towel and start living a more simple life because it doesn't seem to sit right. but i do know that things are changing for me ... and i'm seeing the value in less being more. and that ... well ... that could lead to an entirely new outlook on the trajectory of this little life of mine i've been trying to strategically plan for so long.

just say something

i was reminded yesterday why it's so important that i devote time and energy into mastering the art of authentic communication.

when i first started my job at chapman, a particular woman on my team took me under her wing and guided me through some uneasy situations that were occurring in our workplace.

we ate pastrami sandwiches for lunch and talked about family, what life was like for her 'back in the day' when she was a student at this university and what we felt about our jobs.

we looked out for each other because our relationship was more than just an 8-5 kind-of relationship.

she became a friend ... someone i could trust to tell me the truth.

but then her relationship with someone who was less than kind to me made me feel unsafe. insecure. and while it sound childish, i was threatened by their positions in the organization and didn't feel that i was needed anymore.

my posture changed.

and i stopped pursuing the relationship for fear that, just by association, she had become like her new friend.

and i wasn't until yesterday ... more than a year later ... working within hundreds of feet of one another ... that she confronted me.

she was hurt and i was shocked.

and it was in that moment that i realized the combination of my own insecurities, built-in mechanism for assuming the worst and lack of relational intelligence had - in a split second decision over a year ago - damaged a relationship.

so today, i walk with a mission:

to have the hard conversations that are necessary for healthy relationships with the people around me. to speak up and ask the right questions before making assumption. and to stop caring so much about what other people think of me that it hurts the people i care about most.

amazing how difficult we make communicating.

greatness

i heard a song on my way into work by the fray.

when i heard the song, i jumped to a moment a few months back when someone said at a band rehearsal, "i used to sing with the fray when they were just a local band back in colorado."

which then led me down a quick path of remembering how annoyed i get with name dropping. which then led me down a path of the countless number of times i've done the same thing ...

which then caused me to think, "why do we do that? why do we feel that being associated with recognizable people makes us cooler? are we really that desperate?"

and then it occurred to me: people are attracted to talent. people are also attracted to fame ... no question. but more often than not ... i think people are genuinely attracted to greatness.

it happens with music a lot. because music moves people. and for most women ... musicians seem to take on this irresistible quality that, had they just been a passerby on the street, would not warrant a second glance, let alone our bras, fanatic tears and screams (don't judge ... i've never thrown a bra on stage, but i've seen it happen. and when i was a teenager, i certainly had my fair share of crying and screaming at more than one teeny bopper boy band appearance. again. don't judge. you know you did it too.) but it also happens with film, business, medicine, academe, firefighters, humanitarians ...

and that's how my mind works. in less than 2 minutes, my mind was able to process the first two bars of a song, that then triggered a walk down memory lane, that then led to irritation, that then led to self-reflection and an ultimate conclusion about humanity that i think is at least worth blogging about.

greatness.

we want to be associated with those who have seemed to mastered the art because deep down ... we know that we are capable of it too. and maybe, just maybe, if we spent enough time around those who have been able to exercise their greatness ... it'll unleash ours in the process.

view

i've heard that what you see depends on where you sit.

that couldn't be more true for my spiritual journey.

what i saw from my comfy, predictable life in my hometown ... where everything and everyone i knew was within a 12 mile radius ... was a God who cared deeply for me. a God that was passionate about the local church and sunday services. a God that really enjoyed showing up to our church because, let's face it, we had the best music in the city and most hip, young preacher at our innovative post-modern service.

from where i sat ... God really loved me and created me to do something special for humanity. but the closer i seemed to get to Him, the more disenchanted i became with the place i had grown to know Him. it seemed so ... not-the-only-part-of-the-equation. something was missing. i just had no idea that spending more time with Him would actually place me in a different seat that would inevitably cause me to see Him in a completely different way than when i had before.

i'm not going to pretend that i've been spending a lot of time with God. because i haven't. and it's not because i don't want to ... it's just that i'm not really sure how anymore. which i've said before ... but i still think these things take time. you know ... the change paradigms.

i'm not into the idea that burying myself in the bible is going to bring the hope to humanity that Christ intended. i mean, Jesus didn't have the bible. and neither did the disciples (not sure if they were literate anyway ... which brings up a good point ... how do all the illiterate people of the world "draw near" to God?). i digress. per usual.

the point is ... i'm thinking that perhaps we're supposed to be the story of God in the present. erwin talked about this at mosaic this weekend in reference to one of our core values: mission is why the church exists. some of these comments of his got be thinking:

sometimes we underestimate what God can do for us as humans (in regards to spending so much of our spiritual journey talking about the 'after life').

when you're with Jesus, your world gets much bigger.

i don't think they [disciples] expected to care about the world.

my prayer is that i will be so connected to you that it will be easy to connect others to you. that that connection will connect us to humanity and their needs.

forgive us for replacing your presence with presentations ... intimacy with techniques.

so this is where i am. with my world being much bigger than when everything i knew was within a short drive (or walk). when everything i knew about God was housed in a church building and select christian sub-culture conferences.

i'm not saying that my world is bigger because i'm with Jesus ... although perhaps that's what has happened i just haven't quite given Him the credit yet. but i am saying that what i was hearing from Him before i moved here was that the world was much bigger than what i knew. and what i've seen and continue to experience on a daily basis requires more of me than nights alone with my bible, trendy worship services (that i won't lie ... i still have an affinity for) and small groups that meet to talk about how we can reach "them."

from where i sit ... my world needs me to show up. because, so long as i'm connected to a God who cares about humanity ... my life will be the way they know He exists. now if i could only find a way that feels most natural to me from this seat to connect ...

it's happening

it has been nearly four months since vince and i became the engaged couple that we are. you'd think that the proposal weekend, the new house and the wedding planning would usher a collective sense of, "i'm going to be a bride."

but it hasn't. at least ... not really.

until this weekend.

at our engagement party, both family and friends spoke of our love from their varying vantage points. there were tears, laughs and moments of complete and utter awkwardness for vince and i as we waited in the silence between 'speeches.'

the unexpected showering of words made me feel exposed. naked. i was reminded in that moment that people are watching us. and who we are together will either spark a sense of hope and genuine love or, at the very least, only remind them of all the relationships they have witnessed to date.

something that was repeated multiple times in the speeches of our friends and family was, "i hope to some day have the love that you have." and with each repetition of that phrase, slight flashbacks of times when i thought the same thing of my friends who had found love raced through my mind.

and i realized ... i'm the bride this time.

the following day was spent looking for 'the dress' with a two of my bridesmaids and my mom. as i stepped out of the dressing room and onto the 'pedestal' in front of the giant mirror, i couldn't seem to communicate to my brain that this was actually happening. my friend sarah was far more enthusiastic about the experience than i until i stepped out for the last time in a dress i felt represented me and all my confused wonder.

i smiled and hopped onto the pedestal and watched as the girls snapped their cameras furiously. no tears, no drama, no gasps ... just a collective agreement that this dress made me look like a girl who was about to walk down the isle.

the experience wasn't what i always thought it would be. and that's probably because it was so surreal (and, honestly, a bit overwhelming). by the time i had gotten to the final dress, i wanted to walk out of the store with it and check it off my 'wedding to-do list.' but more than anything ... i just wanted vince to be there. i wanted to share the experience with him. i wanted him to tell me what he thought of the gowns. and i wanted to pick the one that made his face light up ... because that's all i care about.

so when we all went back to the new house later that night, nothing made me happier than to open the gifts we received from our party the night before ... with him.

i realized (in between the cards and wrapping paper) that this whole wedding thing doesn't interest me near as much as being with the guy who started this circus with a simple little question a few months ago. ;) and i think i'd be more than happy to forgo my chance at a big white gown and all that comes with it, if it meant that i could go home to vince tonight, have a nice dinner, watch a movie, fall asleep on the couch and start our lives tomorrow morning.