Than A Thousand Elsewhere

Ultimately, to really find yourself saying in the middle of an afternoon:

Better is one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere

is when you know you're less than a mile from home.

Risk, Act

Risk! Risk anything!
Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices.
Do the hardest thing on earth for you.
Act for yourself.
Face the truth.

-Katherine Mansfield

There is such an amazing world out there.
There are things I haven't seen yet that will fill my heart with light.
There are people I should not trust out there.
There are foods that one day I will eat again that will amaze my taste buds.
There is love.
There are celebrations.
There are deaths.

But risk it all.
Take it all in.

All I Am

What a strange bunch of days in a row.
How wonderful.


I forget all
I am
I don't understand that
I am
I fail to acknowledge
I am

running
swimming
laughing
falling
responding
misunderstanding
fighting
resting
turning

I am

Mistakes

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
- Oscar Wilde

Done Experimenting

I'm working at my old office again until I go back to school. The great part of being back in my old office is the intensely spiritual moments you end up having by accident. Like today, a local pastor was in the office and he came into the office where I was working when he saw me. We got into the topic of marriage and relationships because he's a pastor and the three things that evangelical pastors talk about are: marriage, parenting and money. I guess that's because those three things are the things we care most about.

However our conversation steered into it, he was saying how lucky I must be to be at the beginning of such an exciting adventure and to have so much going for me. He started talking about how lucky I was to be such a woman because any man would see me as the penultimate greatest woman alive. Funny guy. I corrected him, of course, and said that most of the people I run with, particularly the men, would not see any of that. He just laughed. I promised him that Nashville had much hotter and much charming-er women to offer--that I have personally seen what Nashville has to offer and it bewilders even me.

He stopped me and said that he was surprised to hear me compare myself to any other woman because I have what no other women have: An unusually bright mind, a sincere love for the Lord, the ability to hold discussions on any number of topics and real beauty. I was astonished by the compliments because this is not one of my great admirers, honestly. He and I have had a number of rough arguments over the last five years. But then again, that's why I trust him. He never tells me what I want to hear.

He was funny because he was saying funny things like: "If she's the right woman for a man, she doesn't have to do a thing--not even brush her hair. The man just knows."

We talked about what happens when a woman rejects a man and he changes to win her over. Sometimes it works for a little while but eventually the woman sees who he is underneath all the fraud and rejects him again. The pastor said that the worst thing a man can do is reject himself, because then everybody else will reject him eventually, too.

I think he was surprised to end up saying everything that he said. But it's funny how conversations happen like that and how important they end up being. Today I remembered again that I have a calling that I've always felt was distinct and important. That there's something that matters deep within me--and it regards not only the job I intend to work at, but also the type of relationship I would want to be a part of. So many years ago that it's hard to remember, my friend Cortni and I took a communications class in Bible college and I felt certain that one day I would teach classes like that in a church setting with my husband. Strange as it seems now, it was one of the most destiny-like sensations I've ever known.

In a lot of ways, because of some things that happened in 2006, I wanted to forget any ideas of calling or destiny. I wanted to be able to just be human and to enjoy being young and female and stupid. Of course, when I say it like that it doesn't have the same attraction as it did then. Then it seemed so authentic to want to be animal rather than angel.

Today I was reminded that living like an animal isn't that authentic after all. There's a higher calling for each of us, something that requires development and patience. And faith to believe in yourself when the animals around you don't. ;)

Pleasure

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Scraping

As I was going about my day, praying and reading and blogging and gymming, I had this picture in my heart over and over again. At one point I just realized that it might be a picture that God was giving me as a metaphor. The picture is of a drinking gourd. You know the ones from elementary school history books on early civilizations.

The picture I got was that my life is like a drinking gourd and that the things I've surrounded myself with over the past two years have been like a dark wine inside the gourd. No matter what I do now, I feel as though the inside of me has been stained by some pretty defeating experiences with people and situations.

I saw the inside of the gourd being sanded and scraped out. Some things you can't water away, and I know that better than anyone else.

So much of Nashville is cool, rather than good. I want that scraped away from me, too.