risks calculation/pains scale

-People get hurt, they shut down.
-Till the pain goes away?
-I don't know. Maybe you just learn to take it in like everything else.
-the movie Message In a Bottle

"Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness."
-Matthew 25:28 (The Message)

 

Physical, emotional, relational - there are different kinds of pain. Sometimes our pain comes from a single wound and sometimes it can just hurt all over. Sometimes our pain is obvious and clearly visible and other times it's hidden so well that even a close observer wouldn't know just how much we're suffering. Sometimes pain is inflicted upon us by others purposefully or by their unintentional negligence. We can at times compound our pain, adding to it blame and self loathing that we should have known better, we should've done things differently, not allowed ourselves to be so vulnerable. Upon our beating we beat ourselves; the initial blow can't match the punishment we self inflict. 

 

Pain is real. It's not all bad. Hurt instead of being a curse, can be a clue. Without pain telling you that you've cut your finger or that you've touched something that's too hot - the damaged caused could be more severe, even life-threatening. Pain in many ways is a gift. It indicates that something needs attention. If we shutdown to avoid feeling pains hurtful sting, we also miss feeling loves hopeful light. 

 

Our pain speaks. What is yours saying to you?

blue to take away the blues

I like spontaneity, it doesn't always work out for me when I attempt it but I do like it. I also like structure and events that are planned. Putting thought into something, the implication of intention that shows in plans well made, means a lot to me. I don't need or want every second to be mapped out; I have experienced the pleasure surprise at times can bring. I guess I'm pretty normal really.

I say all that because one should be cautious with saying let do this or lets do that. Words frivolously uttered and not followed through become a promise broken. Doesn't matter how small or large the event, saying something will be done that wont, is a lie. Everyone hates lies but this one really gets to me. I have experienced the betrayal of other peoples words and promises. I take great caution to not perpetuate that experience onto others; I try to always mean what I say and say what I mean.

I understand one can get caught up in a moment and find themselves unintentionally making promises without thinking. The only advice I can give all of us is to tame our tongues. If you want to do something with someone else and mention it to them - follow through with concrete plans. Don't leave someone open to question the trustworthiness of your words or motives. Everything always being the last minute can make someone feel used, like a backup plan kept for when nothing better comes along.

Yesterday for the first time I saw a pair of bluebirds while I was taking my walk. I don't know if they were blue jays or some kind of blue finches but they were amazing. Today I awoke to a cloudless blue sky and a feeling of blessing that still hasn't left me. May you feel not lucky or even merely happy but I hope you feel blessed today as well - I promise you, no matter what you think, you are. xo

wait, what?

my new boss: "Ask for what you want."
me: "Wait, what?"


I recently had a interesting interaction at work. We were talking about the summer hour schedule and how it will fit with my college course schedule. We had it worked out until my second boss interjected their two cents, which actually turned out to be a helpful thing. Sorry, that really is still shocking to me. How messed up is that I find a bosses input actually useful? Wow, that's telling.

My years in the private sector taught me two things: (1) Working for a husband and wife "team" sucks. (2) Expect nothing good from wanting things from management. My old boss was a svengali from the pit of hell, who lived to exert his imagined and maybe even real control over certain my aspects of my fate. "Yes you can do that." "No!! You idiot, you cannot do that exact same thing you have done for 5 years anymore. Are you mad?!" "You have to look out for yourself first." "The company comes first you peon." Yeah, he was bipolar. My point is, I have gone through really 10 years of mind games, manipulation, and bullshit - basically what we all call employment in America - and now I work for a public community college as a student worker in a nameless office. The pay aspires to horrendous but so did my other jobs pay.

What is different and miraculous about the job at the college is that basically it's a stress free job. No pretending I care that deeply about it because after all I am student and working towards another career down the line. None of that working for the man kind of thing. The problems that come around are few and frivolous.

I love (and by love I mean loathe) when people ask what you want only to tell you that's not possible. Why ask?! Seriously. My current boss asked me flat out, "What hours do you want to work?" I answered. They said, "Ok." That was it. She said to me, "If you want something, ask for it." Such a simple concept yet it blew my mind. Ask for what I want?? Can those words be used all together like that?? What I want? Wow.

I'm still processing why this concept is so awesome to me. Partly it's because being able to simply ask for what I want, means I don't have to do a dance for it anymore. I feel like I've had to dance around asking for what I want or need (work-wise, life-wise, family-wise) for so long that just being normal is an adjustment, one I am thrilled to be faced with. (The image of Marty Mcfly from Back to the Future III is in my mind right now, random.)

Something to consider. In our world where manipulation is common, subliminal messaging present, and advertising constant - don't forget the power of simply asking for what you want or need. Plainly. Clearly. Simply. I know, I know, wow. Now that I blew our minds, I'm going to go eat a cookie. xo

pigeonholed: breaking free

pigeonhole: to assign to an often restrictive category

 

 

Wouldn't it be great if the those closest to us were also the ones who were best for us? Wouldn't it be nice if the ones we lived with, if the families we were born into, if those we loved - were full of people who challenged us in a good way, gave us a push when we needed it, believed in us always even we didn't believe in ourselves? 

 

It's easy to be blind to the things that make us who we are. I have been thinking about my family a little over the last couple days. It occurred to me that sometimes they tie together what they call "love" with blind compliance, sort of "if you love me you will do what I ask" kind-a-thing. It's not right. It's not fair. It's not normal. It's not okay. I don't ever want to equate or confuse love with some sort of compliance litmus test. There are plenty of fine people who might not do what I want, how I want, when I want - it doesn't make them bad or any less loving.

 

Here's the thing, this mentality of complete compliance being love, is dangerous and foolish. I don't control the universe (pause to fake gasp) and I'm also not the center of it. Just because I'm right once in a while doesn't mean I'm always right. Just because I do something one way, doesn't mean everyone has to do it that way. There's often more than one way to get to the same place. I will not be a person that confuses love with selfishness.

 

I don't know where it all got so tangled. I don't know why love became a noun and not a verb. I don't know why we stop seeing those closest to us multifaceted. I don't know a lot. All I know is that sometimes breaking free from the pigeonholes people keep us in, may mean we may have to sacrifice a few of our own feathers. To soar we have to leave the ground and those on it behind; may that not deter us. xo
 

 

going it alone

I decided instead of running away from the idea of a life alone...I'd better sit down and take that fear to lunch. 

-"Waiting for someone?

-"No, it's just me. Thanks."

So, I sat there and had a glass of wine...alone. No books, no man, no friends, no armor...no faking.

-Carrie, Sex and the City

 

I just finished booking plans to do something that I want to do. I couldn't find anyone else that wanted to go and instead of telling myself I didn't really want to go anyway, I've bought a ticket and I'm going - alone.

 

The above quote is from an episode of Sex and the City where Carrie comes to grips with being single and alone in what can sometimes feel like a world of couples.

 

The ability to go somewhere alone isn't a new experience for me, it's just every time I go to an event that is usually seen as a couples/group thing, I have to sort of psych myself up for it.

 

a reminder to me and all of us:

You can do it. You aren't paralyzed. Look at all the places you've gone without the buffer of knowing anyone else. Remember all the times you had courage in the past and take heart; you're braver than you realize. 

noticing neon: when it hits you

Summer Break: Day 3 of 16

My summer break is really short. Summer classes start on May 28th and I got an email from the program director yesterday saying I should start reading the textbook assignments now. Depressing. I'll buy my textbooks tomorrow when I am campus for work (not that anyone cares about that).

I don't understand people. I know, that's the introvert's slogan, but really, I don't. (I acknowledge my lack of understanding is more of an umbrella life statement than anything to do with school specifically.)

Sigh. I refuse to go back into the cloud of despair - I'm over it. There is light. I know it's there, I feel it. Not all the time but more than I did before. All that was me discouraged, depressed, doubtful, unhappy - I've let so much of it go. I remember things hopefully as they really happened, but more important is that I see things now as they really are.

What I love about the sunshine and warmer days is the chance to enjoy nature more fully. I've seen ducks create long ripples that stretch across the length of the pond, yellow fiches flying, robins hopping, tiny gofers freeze like a statue at every sound, heard the bright red cardinal sing - I love Spring. Today as I walked my 3 miles, it was the Baltimore oriole that I saw - a pair of them to be exact. Like a neon sign blinks to be noticed, their fluttering neon orange called for attention. It's something to think, that noticing neon wasn't our idea but God's; we mortals really do take credit for too many things.

I had a dream last night. It's not the first night that conflict and confusion in my life has been solved by a dream. As nonsensical as dreams often seem they have meaning. They've helped me in the past with my relationships and the one last night was no exception. This may be a rather bold leap, but in the problem that I'm having, I don't think I'm the problem. Just sayin'. Shrugging shoulders. I could be wrong, stranger things have happened, but I've looked at this situation for too long from every angle and I just don't get it. Or maybe an even bolder leap would be to say, after all my stress: there is no problem. I'm done using my overactive intuition to try and sense things not plainly stated. From now on, unless someone tells me there's problem, there's not.

Don't let neon have to hit you to notice it. The bright colors of God's creation show us it is possible for life to be about fun, otherwise, wouldn't everything be gray? xo

my tangled neurons

Are the images, words, and impulses that scatter through the mind like petals off a flowering tree, connected somehow together, or is it all just the random firing of neurons not known?

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” -Albert Einstein

 

 

"God, your Redeemer, who shaped your life in your mother's womb, says: "I am God. I made all that is..." Isaiah 44:24 (The Message) How long have we existed? Is the mind of God not infinite, does it not hold all things in time and out of it? Maybe we really are infinite...

virtual rule #12

virtual rule #12 - Oh no! I'm one of them now: Say hello to smartphones and goodbye to life as you know it.

“At one time, I hated the iPhone – but that was only before I used one for the first time.” – Chris Pirillo

 

“Three objects were considered essential across all participants, cultures and genders: keys, money and the mobile phone.” – Jan Chipchase, Nokia

After years of avoiding entering the modern era, I recently got a smartphone for my birthday. Let me just say, life hasn't been the same since. I have enclosed a link from EmilyPost.com to help all of us from becoming dreaded smartphone zombies.

Link to full article: EmilyPost.com: Smart Use of Smartphones and Tablets

Here are some big picture things to keep in mind as you and those around you sort out the new etiquette of these brand new technologies:

As we all get connected faster and faster over greater and greater distances, it's good idea step back once in a while and ask how the technology we are using affects the quality of the very important human interactions that are happening face-to-face all around us. The answer to these questions will vary from person to person and place to place, but the very act of considering them brings awareness and reduces the risk of unintentional bad behavior.

1. Is this the right place to use my device? Are you in a restaurant, theater, or other public place where atmosphere and environment matter to those around you? Is a personal environment the right place for a work related connect? Is a work space appropriate for taking care of personal business? Sometimes the location matters as much as the company you are keeping when deciding how to use your smartphone or tablet.
2. How is the person I am connected to perceiving this interaction? Are they likely to be distracted by the buzz of your companion's chatter, the roar of the crowd, or the flushing of a toilet? On a video chat, what will the viewer see? Does the location make sense for the purpose of your call? If you are texting, maybe the person on the other end can't hear the sarcasm in your voice. If you are e-mailing, consider if you will be available to answer the reply when it comes. Take a second to play out the anticipated response chain before you initiate communication to avoid confusion and upsetting your interlocutors.
3. How are my actions affecting others and how am I perceived? Both are important aspects of good etiquette. If you are perceived as being disrespectful it can be as damaging to a relationship as actually disrespecting someone. Be clear with the people around you about how you are using your new device so they don't assume the worst. For example, if you are using your tablet to take notes at a meeting, it might be a good idea to let your boss know what you are doing. If you are leaving your phone on during a date because you can get fired for missing an important e-mail it might be a good idea to explain this at the beginning of the evening or even ask if it is still a good idea to go out at all. An ounce of prevention...
4. Am I in control of my device? Any behavior can become habitual and start to escape notice. It's up to you to actively manage your device. Keep your wits about you and your etiquette radar fine tuned. Have fun and take good advantage of all that these new technologies can do.

Or to phrase all the above in simpler terms, put IT away. (Yes, that's what she said.)

competitions ugly side

Thinking of the recent college basketball coach that was fired, the scandal with Neil Armstrong, and the soccer referee that was killed in Utah - competition can be an ugly and even lethal thing.

I like a little competition...but only if I'm winning. Shocking said no one ever. Winning sort of is the point of competing. Makes me wonder if a lot of our problems don't come from the ingrained desire not just to compete but to conquer.

Competition is all about comparison - comparison of skills, abilities, looks. Competition is more often than not a soul sucking adventure but maybe it doesn't have to be that way. In my class there are people who are simply better at things than I am and instead of my trying to compete with them, it would be better if I rejoiced at what they excel at and seek to learn from their expertise. Competition has an ugly side, let's rise above it with some help from The One who never felt any need to compete with anybody.

Galatians 5:16-23 (The Message)
^16-18My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
^19-21It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom. ^22-23But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

iron man, tin man, God man

  A horrible and shocking thing
has happened in this land—
  the prophets give false prophecies,
and the priests rule with an iron hand.
Worse yet, my people like it that way!
But what will you do when the end comes?

-Jeremiah 5:30-31 (NLT)

 

From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will release the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, like juice flowing from a winepress. -Revelation 19:11-15 (NLT)

 

It's a remarkable thing, extraordinary, inconceivable to the human mind, that God, a Being above and beyond all that be fathomed, would enter into time and take upon himself all human limitations to salvage what He hadn't destroyed.

 

If you were going to make a god wouldn't you make him strong like iron, magnificent beyond what marble can capture, powerful and blatantly feared? Really if you were going to make a god would you make him like Jesus? Poor, humble, patient, obedient, homely, able to be wearied, compassionate, weepy, friend of the marginalized, out on the fringes, gunless, swordless- does that sound like a king man would invent? I don't think so.

 

Yet Jesus as the opposite of what we in so many ways expect, is exactly what we need. He isn't ironman, superman, or sandman - He's the God-man. "Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens.You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?" (Psalm 71:19)

 

parenting ourselves

 

why

why

why don't you communicate with me
is it that i just don't let things be

why doesn't your version of making the most of the day
include any care for what i might have to say

why do you make me guess
don't you know my tendency to think of me as less

why are we unknown all our lives
sometimes it feels like the souls not alive

why compare me to those you knew before
what is that makes you search for more

why am i left with loose ties
is it to be spared playing a game of lies?

word of the day: navel-gazing

Webster's navel-gazing: useless or excessive self-contemplation

Link to click: I'm still here: back online after a year without the internet

"I want this next year to be about other people than just Paul Miller. There is only so much navel-gazing that one guy can do...there's people in the world with real problems other than that they use reddit too much."

An actual voice in our generation. I hope he keeps writing, working on his writing, and just keeps being Paul Miller. xo

 

One blog said, "Navel gazing is a really a meditative practice: you're to gaze at the navel to remind yourself that you have always been a dependent creature - from birth, umbilically connected, and now even when the umbilical cord isn't visible."

From Wikipedia: Omphaloskepsis is contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation. The word comes from Greek omphalos (navel) + skepsis (act of looking, examination). Similar words are omphaloskeptic (one who engages in the practice) and omphaloskeptical (related to contemplation of one's navel). Actual use of the practice as an aid to contemplation of basic principles of the cosmos and human nature is found in the practice of yoga, of Hinduism, and sometimes in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

That was just some stuff that came up from a preemptive Google search. All sounds deep and even beautiful..."you have always been a dependent creature...connected..." How often do we really think about our belly buttons besides the very random "innie or outie" question? Hmmm... :)

an app for that

I installed Sprint's Drive First app on my phone today. By using GPS the app automatically activates when it senses the phone is in motion. It's a good idea - I'm trying it for 15 days free - shame they want to $2 a month for it.

Anyway - the app got me thinking how everything has a price. There is that old quote from somewhere, "nothing is free and anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something." We live our lives and there is a cost for all we have and we all do.

What a miraculous time to be alive. Truly. Wow! We have cars, planes, radio, air conditioning, smartphones, literature-on-demand, Starbucks... :) It really is amazing all we have that didn't exist not that long ago.

As I was keeping up with traffic at 75 miles an hours traveling from WI to IL this afternoon I thought about God and love. John Piper in a message said this: "Here is the key question about love… what is it? How does love function as one of the parts of the moral compass that gives you guidance for what to do in the knitty-gritty of your life? Most Americans don’t know what love is… I’ll state a definition that they might agree with... Maybe you would find people who would agree with the definition: “Love is doing whatever you have to do, at whatever cost to yourself, to make people as happy as they can be forever." I buy that definition of love."

Psalm 51:4 "Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just." I Googled "synonyms for sin" and this is what I found: anger, covetousness, crime, damnation, debt, deficiency, demerit, disobedience, envy, error, evil, evil-doing, fault, gluttony, guilt, immorality, imperfection, iniquity, lust, misdeed, offense, peccability, peccadillo, peccancy, pride, shortcoming, sinfulness, sloth, tort, transgression, trespass, ungodliness, unrighteousness, veniality, vice, violation, wickedness, wrong, wrongdoing, wrongness. 

Sin among us mortals is the most real things about us. It's our biggest problem. Not Syria, not recycling, not politics, not cigarette smoking - these are problems yes - but behind all our problems stands sin.

When I don't get my way I can be extremely petulant. I know this about myself. I hate the quality yet it persists more often than not. "I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. And I
know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it." Romans 7:15-20

"You were sorry and humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I said against this city and its people—that this land would be cursed and become desolate. You tore your clothing in despair and wept before me in repentance. And I have indeed heard you, says the Lord." (2 Kings 22:19) "...if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness." (1 John 1:9)

Some apps can keep us safe and some can put us in danger. It would be nice if their was an app for every real need deep inside us. Be grieved by sin; it's the only grief that can lead to life.

an unplotted feeling

I feel unplotted today. Maybe it's the yucky weather, maybe it's the stress of finals, maybe it's the reality of how fragile life is - but I feel really alone today.

I fight against my existentialism and melancholia. Some days it's easier to battle against, but today is a tough one. I hate the feeling that comes over me - I feel like the giant chasm that exists in myself is right there to be seen by anyone who looks, but no one looks and really sees, and even if they did it wouldn't matter. A conundrum of misery. I hate feeling fragile and I hate that I hate it. It seems there is no safe place to be vulnerable and that just irritates the raw wound.

Everywhere I have gone today I was on time yet I feel absent from every place.

Yesterday the patient I had was dying from cancer - metastasis of breast cancer to bones and organs, only in their sixties. Their family was "present at bedside." Husband, mom, kids. So lucky to have that in her life and I felt envious and grieved at the same time.

Who's will be at my bedside at the end?
Who's bedside will I be at for theirs?

Morbid thoughts but maybe the most poignant and true of all... sorry if this is a downer of a post... I just feel like I said, really alone today in all the ways that matter...

"Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame? You said, 'Woe is me! For the LORD has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.'" Jeremiah 20:18; 45:3

 

Oh God, You are said to be compassionate, merciful, longsuffering, and love itself. Change my incorrect perceptions, take my heart of stone, my mind of mush and fill it with assurance of all I have and am in You. I'm naked and alone in the darkness of my thoughts and emotions, I need You to be my Light and a clothing that pentrates past even my skin. Be not far from me, Abba. I have no plotting on a map, timeline, or graph - make Your love for me what defines me. xo

bears weight: a check box

"Bears his own weight"

Read that phrase today on a nursing practice test. It was talking about patients and crutches but the phrase can mean so much more outside the context of nursing. I don't have much time. Need to get my scrubs on and get going. Errands to run before class tonight. I just need to get some thoughts down.

"Bear his own weight" - I think the burdens that weigh upon each of us can sometimes never really be known by others. Maybe that's cynical of me. I don't know. I just don't think that being totally known is always possible. Some things it feels like just can't be shared. But that becomes scary with add words... "he is unable to bear his own weight."

There are tools to help one who struggles with balance and strength physically. I wonder if we offer enough tools to help mentally, emotionally, relationally. Our weights are many...

Do you know that I want nothing more than to know you? All I truly want is a safe place for knowing - in all the many contexts and dimensions that knowing can involve. Why will you not listen to me? What is it that holds you back? Why are you most repelled by what doesn't reproach you?

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us." Hebrews 12:1