Fifteen ways to say I am blessed....Those who know me, know that I usually hide my true feelings behind sarcastic jokes and jabs, but forgive if I get a little mushy for a moment. There are times in a person's life when they stumble along not quite knowing why they are where they are doing what they do. And then there are times like Saturday. As I watched my students on stage, I became overwhelmingly aware of the fullness of my heart and the reason I do what I do. I do what I do so I can go from telling people--students--what I need to see, to sitting in the audience and watching in awe, realizing they don't need me anymore.
So....I am blessed fifteen different ways:
Jessica: for making lists of my lists, thinking when I can't, and running a show like she is paid to do it.
Matt S: for being "Happy" on and offstage, moving heavy objects, and knowing the answer to that mean judge's question when she thought he didn't.
Colton: For knowing that showing a character's weakness is a reflection of his own strength, and constantly seeking ways to be better.
Kyle: for being so good natured that it still catches me off guard when he makes mean jokes about teachers.
Matt "Pause" L. : for being just creepy enought to be interesting, but not creepy enough to have to get rid of him...and for patiently rechecking his equipment when I make him do it for the tenth time.
Katie: For coming out of her shell, cutting herself out of the play, and running lights like the Rainman of the theatre world.
Haley: For taking one line and building a scene around it, wanting to do everything well, and just being so darn funny without even saying anything.
Kaylee: For coming in late, and jumping in, realizing that 1940's Letta is just as beautiful as 2007's Kaylee.
Cana: for being the reason I know patience is a virtue, and coming through when it counts. Oh, and for funny faces and dancing like it is his job.
Jaysin: for being cocky enough to know he is good at what he is doing, but humble enough to want to always improve. Oh, and for finally getting over the chicken :)
Zachary: For knowing Bernard well enough to know not to go too far.
Trey: For thinking he was coming onboard to run lights, but jumping in with both feet. And for being willing to bring a bucket to clinic when he had the flu (thank goodness his mom kept him home)
Sonya: For wanting to be part of us and making the best of one year. And for being smart enough to know when the judge called her "naturally loose," it had nothing to do with morals, but everything to do with grace.
Lukas: For channeling Sean Connery, knowing how to sew on buttons, constantly suprising me (who carries a hatchet and a saw in their car?), and always getting my jokes (even though he doesn't always think they are funny).
Chelsea: For knowing that a beautiful performance doesn't depend on a pretty dress, it depends on truth, willingness to cry the ugly cry if a scene depends on it, and going to a place that isn't always pretty, but very, very real. That is more beautiful than any frilly dress.
So...these are just fifteen of my many blessings. I hope to travel far with them. They know "One must go in to seek a diamond out."
July 18, 2007
Consider yourself warned: if you ever borrow a book from me, you may find one or more of the following: coffee, tea, and/or food stains, dog ears, brackets and exclamation marks, highlighting and/or underlined passages, and perhaps a few question marks.
I'm not exaggerating when I say my life resembles many of the books on my shelf. But I am really okay with the fact that it looks less like a first edition, and more like something on the half-of-half cart sitting outside the front door of Half Price Books. It seems I spend my time drawing question marks in the margin of my life and sometimes, if I'm lucky, I come across a passage in a book that lets me replace those marks with exclamations. Usually, these are the passages, sometimes whole paragraphs, sometimes just a sentence or a phrase that makes me think, Me! I knew that! I believed it. Why didn't I write that first? Usually I get over that initial reaction—my very human jealousy-- and just marvel in the beauty of the words, the lyricism, or the great truth expressed so simply and beautifully that all I can do is nod my head and whisper yes.
I like to relive books. Good books, or books with good words, good ideas. It feels like a great conversation with a friend I haven't seen in a very long time. I believe all good books should be read that way: as conversation. And those conversations should be shared. So even though he doesn't know it, Donald Miller and I had a great conversation late the other night. This is a triple exclamation mark with highlighting—I can honestly say it helped me replace more than a few question marks in my life:
"I've learned, too, that I don't really know very much about anything. I mean, I used to have all these theories about life. I thought I had everybody figured out, even God, but I don't. I think the woods, being away from all the clingy soot of commercialism, have taught me life is enormous, and I am very tiny in the middle of it. I feel, at times, like a droplet of water in a raging river. I know for a fact that as a grain of sand compares in size to the earth itself, I compare in size to the cosmos. I am that insignificant. And yet the chemicals in my brain that make me feel beauty when I look up at the stars, when I watch the sunset, indicate I must be here for a reason. I think I would sum it up this way: life is not a story about me, but it is being told to me, and I can be glad of that. I think that is the why of life, and, in fact, the why of this ancient faith I am caught up in: to enjoy God. The stars were created to dazzle us, like a love letter; light itself is just a metaphor, something that exists outside of time, made up of what seems like nothing, infinite in its power, something that can be experienced but not understood, like God. Relationships between men and women indicate something of the nature of God—that He is relational, that He feels love and loss. It's all metaphor, and the story is about us; it's about all of us who God made, and God Himself, just enjoying each other. It strikes me how far the commercials are from this reality, how deadly they are, perhaps. Months ago I would have told you life was about doing, about jumping through religious hoops, about impressing other people, and my actions would have told you this is done by buying possessions or keeping a good image or going to church. I don't believe that anymore. I think we are supposed to stand in deserts and marvel at how the sun rises. I think we are supposed to sleep in meadows and watch stars dart across space and time. I think we are supposed to love our friends and introduce people to the story, to the peaceful, calming why of life. I think life is spirituality."from Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road by Donald Miller
Yes, yes, yes.
July 20, 2007
Call me simple minded but no matter how much I try to comprehend them, there are just things I just don't understand.
Time.
The universe---It is just so big!
The sun—a ball of fire?!?!
Okay, fire.
Gravity--I don't know, I just don't get it.
Where weight goes when we lose it.
Algebra—letters are numbers?!?!
The internet—sending email to a computer right next to me blows my mind!
The telephone—especially cell phones.
Fax machines.
Language—we all agree this sound means that object…amazing!
Flying.
Tears.
The human heart—the actual heart, not the figurative one.
The ocean—that is a LOT of water.
Poop—I mean, I understand it, but it is just really odd.
Flatulence—same as above.
Freeway systems and the automobiles that travel on them.
Eyeballs.
Clouds.
Rainbows.
Rocks—especially big ones.
July 31, 2007
"…it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out." I read these words on the first page of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I'll go ahead right now and say EVERYONE should read this book. It changed my life, which isn't necessarily unusual for a book. Sometimes all it takes is one really good line to make me think a little differently, shift my perspective, or the person I am becoming. But this book did more than that. It completely changed not only the way I see the world, but the way I want to exist in it. And it made me sad. And hopeful. And regretful. But more than anything, very, very angry.
Good books should make you think and as I read this book, I kept thinking about the state of affairs in our country. And the place our country occupies in the world. And where I fit in to all of it. And I couldn't help feeling ashamed. Of myself and my country. For what we have become and what we refuse to see. For being soft and squishy not only around the edges, but on the inside. It seems that as a country we have gained ten pounds. Then ten more. And ten more. And ten more. And then one day, we realize that what we thought were only a few vanity pounds that make it a little difficult to bend over and tie our shoes, are actually a silent assassin that is very quietly and systematically smothering our heart.
We are a supersized country. And I am not just talking about food. We like our stuff. The bigger, the better. And I am part of the problem. While I was worried about acquiring more stuff and living a "good" life, people were—are—dying with honor. And killing without it. There is nothing good in that.
I was talking to some friends last week over lunch and we were weighing in on inaction and our own place in the world. I said that I get angry at myself when I think about what I used to say I was going to do: travel the world, make a difference. How sometimes I just want to sell everything and go. They said I was being too hard on myself. But they said this over coffee and dessert in a really nice café, surrounded by lots of other people doing exactly what we were doing. And I couldn't help but think I wasn't being hard enough.
August 13, 2007
I often find myself talking and thinking about the same subjects over and over. And I can't even begin to tell you how excited I get when I find people who share my enthusiasm for these topics. Even though I have been told that I was pretty quiet as a child, I honestly think that I must have emerged from the womb with an internal dialogue already running. I just don't ever remember not thinking about a lot of stuff. So this is some of the stuff I think about, and let me just apologize now if we ever meet up at a party. Don't maintain eye contact, just evasively smile and nod, and politely excuse yourself. No need to apologize, I'll understand.
1.God, faith, and spirituality and having real conversations about these topics, but not with people who only speak Christianese.
2.Health and the amazing ability to shape and influence the workings of the human body by what we do to it, with it, and put in it. Of course, this doesn't mean I always shape my body for the better—well, round is a shape!—but I love what I can do when I set my mind to it.
3. Books, music, and theatre and how a "made up" story can speak truth in a way that can change the way we think and live in the world.
4.How absolutely beautiful words really are. I think I have always loved words. In fact, my first memory of writing is taking one of my brother's Golden Books and a crayon and writing in the margins of the book. My words were only a series of blue loops, but it was my first real physical expression of written language.
5.Nature and how absolutely overwhelming it can be to just sit quietly someplace beautiful and listen to the lovely nothing.
6.Our capacity to live such incredibly large and meaningful lives even though we so often choose not to.
7.CHANGE. Personally and globally. This is the good stuff we should be doing, but we so often dimiss it as hard or scary and feel okay about it.
There you go. The things I love to think and talk about—often to the point of exhaustion. In fact, I may go take a nap now.
December 26, 2007
Lost and Found: 2007 Edition...So let me recap and reflect as I sit here drinking my second cup of coffee.
Lost: Daisy, our 17 year old Dachsund.
Found: An even greater appreciation for our furry children.
Lost: Several inches of hair off of my head.
Found: Less hair all over my house and inside my car, and more time when I get ready in the morning.
Lost: Perhaps all hope in a peaceful reconciliation to the war.
Found: A new hope in some potential presidential nominees of the Democratic Party.
Found: A herd (yes, herd) of cats who decided to find us.
Lost: The freedom to dig in my flowerbed without uncovering squishy landmines.
Found: A new church to perhaps call home.
Lost: That jiggly, wandering feeling on the inside.
Found: A part-time job at a nursery during the summer, and a reminder of how much I love to dig in the dirt.
Lost: That feeling of being a lazy slacker during the summer.
Found: A desire to get my master's degree.
Lost: Any hopes of taking exciting, exotic vacations—at least until it is completed.
Lost: Actually, still losing my fear of the unknown.
Found: An appreciation for my own strength.
Found: A few renewed friendships with old friends.
Lost: Okay, still losing…my inability to trust people who hurt me.
Lost: My fear of coming in last in a race.
Found: The realization that finishing at all can be the greatest prize.
Found: A renewed appreciation for the delicate balance of life.
Lost: Any semblance of order in my house as we undertake yet another construction project.
Lost and never recovered: that one really big fish on my line.
Lost several times, but recovered every time: my keys, my cell phone, my husband in a store, and my pride after doing something stupid.
Never lost, and refusing to be lost: my stubborn gray hair, several pounds, my caffeine addiction(almost beat it, but just gave up), my fear of snakes (faced several times, but never conquered), and my obvious lack of gracefulness.
Not sought out, but appreciated nevertheless: a couple of life changing challenges, several very difficult conversations, more than a few servings of humble pie, and life, itself.
That is it. My year in a box…Happy New Year everyone!
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