thankful.

at thanksgiving every year, we always take time to go around the table and tell what we are thankful for. this year, my dad decided that we should first tell what we are thankful for in terms of "sensory experiences." meaning, of touch, taste, sight, sound, smell...what are some of our most memorable ones (when it comes to things in our lives) that we're thankful for. i shared one but wanted to mention 3 here b/c i thought it was such a good thing to think on this year.

1. The Upland, Indiana night sky...where the stars are so full and scattered it makes the city life just a tad more sad. there's no replacing the beauty of blackness with specks of shiny whiteness seeping through to the surface. it's one thing i miss a lot being in california...stars are more of a rarity there (thanks to the smog).
2. Every Halloween in middle school and high school, my mom would make this apple cider stew of good smells, and it would simmer low on the stove creating one of the most beautiful Fall smells i've yet to encounter.
3. Although I'm not a big fan of running, I must admit that running at night, where the air runs through me as I gaze up at the mountains between the Valley in California, it's really an overwelming sight and sound and touch that i experience. my ears hear the breeze, my arms and legs and shoulders feel it and when i close my eyes tight enough, i like to think that my eyes can see it.

The mystery and beauty of creation. This year, it's pretty high on the list.

there's no place like home.

i'm not sure what that means but just as zach braff's character in "garden state" muddled through his own life wondering what "home" really was to him, i continue to do the same.

the time reads 2:45 a.m., and yet, my body thinks it's 11:45 p.m. i feel a certain peace here in michigan...a kind that comes when i'm alone and no sound but the living room mantle clock lingers to and through my ears. i love this peace and think that it probably won't be there forever. i've talked to friends recently about this idea of "home," and how the older you get the more it seems to be just a sad, imaginary place that you can never return to really. i don't want that to ever be the case, but i think it just might be inevitable.

of course like many people my age, i am not without my fare share of bad childhood memories. however, one good memory came to mind tonight and i couldn't make it go away (nor did i really want to, i think). the image of my siblings and i, double-buckled up in our big, brown, ugly, 1985 station wagon, headed off from greenville, south carolina to houston, texas. i sit in the back back seat (we called it "the caboose") and stretch my feet up high enough to rest them on the bottom of the back window. my sisters do the same, our toes greeting passing cars with chorus-line-sways back and forth with the help from our heels. there's a cassette tape of 'wee-sing-a-long' songs playing and of course b/c of that, we all are singing along, knowing every lyric and beat in between the catchy rhymes and age-old lullabies. our lives are uncomplicated, as our greatest fear seems to be "what we will do for fun now?" we are free to imagine, unlimited in our traveling adventures and on the road for hours and hours and hours. i look back and wonder how the time passed by so un-noticably by all of us. our smiles were mutual and seemed to strengthen one another as we'd put on shows for passing cars, or short SNL-like acts we would "get" but they would not. i remember pretending to be a mannequin-statue-like human, seeing if we could fool drivers into believing we weren't real human kids. like somebody picked us up at a local garage sale or something and decided to just throw us in the "caboose" and let us klunk and clink around for awhile with our facial and physical expression/motion held ever so solemn and still. i miss these days. i miss them b/c they are a part of my definition of "home." perhaps home isn't just a place but it's something more. all i know is, i'm missing it more and more every new day.

did i mention i love brennan manning?

i got to hear brennan speak for the first time this morning at azusa pacific's chapel and he was all that i thought he should be. i think i'm always needing words from him to bring me back into focus with Christ and the centrality of His message for our lives. it's just funny how quickly i seem to forget them. maybe i'll revist "ruthless trust" or "a glimpse of jesus," sometime soon. his books were part of my spiritual wake-up call last last spring while in L.A., so perhaps i should bring them back into my life a bit.

his big message/theme (as it always is) were these two questions: "do you believe God loves you?" and "do you believe God likes you as a person...just as you are and not as you should be?". i'm still dealing with that second question day by day.

happy friday. happy weekend. by the next post, i'll be cozying up in my home back in michigan. i'd be lying if i said i wasn't thrilled.

jump God, jump!

it's funny (and sad, to be honest) how often i find myself quietly hoping and praying for something from God and expecting it to miraculously come my way with no will or action on my part. it's like praying to run into someone at Starbuck's who's really cool and yet, never going into Starbuck's to begin with. and then, on top of this, i find myself getting angry at God asking, "why didn't you let me run into any cool people at Starbuck's?"

obviously, this is not what i'm asking for and i hope you catch my very poor analogy on the subject of what i'm really talking about. it's like we hold these very very unreasonable expectations over God's head and we say, "come on God...just do it (i.e., "jump God, jump!")!!!" and we wholeheartedly expect He should. like we deserve it or something. it reminds me of a taylor philosophy professor and how he recalled always praying that he wouldn't run out of gas when he was getting very low and in the middle of nowhere. he couldn't believe he, of all rational people, would expect God to produce some magic extra gas just b/c he willfully allowed it to get that low in the first place. i'm all for faith, believe me...but it seems sometimes, i can get way to wrapped up in the extraordinary and forget that much of what i do depends on what i choose to do. i know i know, it's called free will...but isn't it funny how a lot of the time we don't want the free will to choose but want someone else to decide for us so we can still complain about how crappy and bad and horrible the circumstances in our lives really are?

"i would NEVER wear somebody else's pants!"

ah, the joys and wonders of substitute teaching at a bratty, inland empire southern california christian high school. today, mr. williams was out sick (because of his students? possibly) and today, i decided to wear my grandpa pants that look very "in" and 60's-retro-urban-fashion-conscious and hold that "polyester is not dead!" flare to them. anyways, just when i thought it was okay to wear such a thing in such a workplace, i was told "those are some cool pants! i'm gonna have to get me some of those!" (NOTICE: at first, i thought this little stuck-up sophomore was being facetious, but then i realized he really wanted to know). "Oh, actually I got them at a garage sale in Michigan last summer for $2. i think they belonged to this grandpa but since they have a small hole in them they wanted to get rid of them," I replied. and that's when it happened.

the boy's post-pubescant face turned sour with disgust, and he took a step or two away from mr. william's desk while beginning to whine and cry out, "Oughahahgh! You're wearing some old guys' pants! that's sick!!" i was "slightly" surprised and taken a back. "excuse me?" i asked him. "You're wearing some other person's pants! How can you do that! I would never be caught dead wearing someone else's pants!"

Now, I must be honest...a huge part of me wanted to take this little kid out. I wanted to expose something about him in front of his peers (i.e., maybe "oh yeah, well the kid in the abercrombie sweatshop who was making and sowing your shorts together ran around with them on naked for hours and hours before shipping them to the store!") or something like that. i wanted to tell him how silly and pious and ridiculous and snobby it was of him to hold to such a position. i wanted to give him directions to the local goodwill and force his parents to buy him nothing but clothes from there from now on. i wanted his little stupid high school mind changed, now!

BUT, my reactions were reserved into a kind "that's ridiculous," while the rest of the class explained how stupid that was of him to think. after a person offered up the "you can wash clothes, you know?" idea up to this kid, i felt like my mind raves were not needed anymore and so, decided to think about other things. was it just being around high school kids that made me so angry? or was it the fact that this was a christian high school and i was hoping (stupidly?) for a little more humility among students?

maybe after overhearing a conversation in a previous class where this was uttered by one senior student..."my bible teacher said that if you say 'oh my God,' it's the only sin that God won't forgive! and the only reason you all don't know that is b/c you're just freshmen!" while i then try to intervene and say "i think that's a misinterpretation of Matthew 12:32," and they all look at me like, "what's a misinterpretation????" or maybe i've finally lost my little mind. if that's the case, it seems sort of funny i guess...that it took a christian high school to do it for me. like, THAT was what made me go 'over the edge!'

yet, now that i think about it, i guess that's not so shocking or crazy after all. is it?

snowing leaves in southern california.

Southern California is often knocked for its near seasonless seasons but i would beg to differ. For instance, this afternoon--after running errands what felt like all morning and all day--i went for a run down 18th street, where the leaves have all basically turned to either red, yellow or an off-green color and are falling as we speak. the longer i ran, and the more windy it got, the more the leaves fell to the ground in huge sweeps...slow like snowflakes yet so much more beautiful in their own way then snowflakes. their huge, big, bright shapes bursting with color cluttered the sky on 18th street, blowing into cars and onto sidewalks alike. i ran through the falling leaves and felt a few land on my head, until a wind would catch them and blow them down to the ground. as i looked up in awe, seeing the sky turn bright behind the falling leaves, i felt grateful. Grateful to be in California, to be watching a sight like this, to be breathing in the crisp Fall air, and to be moving through time and air and spaces as the leaves fall from trees they've been connected to for so long. it was a very beautiful moment...quite possibly the highlight of my week.

thou shalt not dance. thou shalt not drink.

I'm just curious but do you think it's "okay" for a church to regulate what its leaders and small group leaders can do (i.e., let's just say for example the regulation of alcohol consumption or dancing at weddings)? Like, is it biblically-based to hold to such standards especially if persons under such standards feel they're extra-biblical and therefore, not necessarily essential?

Last night at small group we got into this discussion after I found out that the southern baptist denomination has these types of rules (or variations of them) and that just scared me a bit. I'm all for people being "above reproach" in living out their lives but I'm not sure it's biblical to set standards that YOU believe to be above-reproach-living that the Bible doesn't really ever address. We didn't get into a real deep discussion about it but many of them (new believers, so this seemed foreign to them) were wondering why in fact our church does hold this to be true. Is it just b/c of our southern baptist affiliation? I don't know. All I know is that my church may appear to be adding stuff to the Church standards and then telling everyone it is one of the essentials (which it's not)! Oh well. I'll be dancing some tonight in the car on the way home but thankfully, I'm not with my small group from church and so therefore, it's not wrong. However, if we all were in the car dancing together, then THAT would be a TOTALLY different story!!! (sense the sarcasm mixed with cynicism?)

Yikes.

those wonderful teenage years.

i went to a play yesterday where i used to intern at (my supervisor hooked me up) and sitting next to me was this family (parents and two kids: one boy, one girl) which was a little odd b/c most people attending this show were anywhere from 40-65. the son was 17-ish, the daughter was 12-ish, and as i listened to their pre-show talk and intermission family discussions, i was pained to see something that troubles me so much nowadays: a parent trying to get to know their teenage son/daughter. now, when i say this i mean that it breaks my heart basically to see high schoolers basically ignore and scoff and roll their eyes at their parents' honest attempt to understand their lives. for instance:

"Who are you doing your senior project with?" mom asks.
"I don't know," son replies.
"When is it due?"
"Not sure."
"Didn't that girl Tracy say at church she'd want to help you out with it?"
"Maybe."
"Well are you going to ask her?"
"I don't know."
"Well it's coming up right?"
"Yeah."
"How long do you think it will take you?"
"I don't know mom!"

at this, the mom's face is overwelmed and frustrated to say the least. the dad looks over at her, disappointed...as the son slouches into "ignoring mode" and puts his hand up near his face to communicate nonverbally that "this conversation is over."

i've seen this happen a lot lately, and i don't know why it bugs me so much. i was like this to some extent in high school and so part of me wants to just talk to these kids and listen to their lives since they feel like their parents just "don't understand them." it's hardest i'm sure for the parents, who feel that their yesterday little 9-year-old beloved son is now the one person in the world who can't stand being around them. why this causes me such distress and makes me sit and think and try to understand what's going on here..i'll never know. are the parents just too controlling? overbearing? suffocating the kid? trying too hard to connect? not listening enough? i don't know. i know most parents mean well, but i also know that there still is a general generation gap that comes once one hits that certain age. i just wish i could understand it a little better...and i'm sure most parents do too.

thank God for tears.

okay, you know i'm an emotional person and that i cry at some things that not even a little four-year-old girl would cry at, but today i was walking to class and was wondering why we, as humans, cry. it's really odd when you think about it..that such deep sadness produces a form of salt-water liquid that comes from our eyes (what we use to "see" things) and that they pour out of us when our emotional well-being is set off balance. i was thinking how fascinating it was that tears came from our eyes and not from our ears or nose or anywhere else. if i'm listening to a song and for some reason, the words or the way the piano keys are touched, makes me start to cry, why do the tears come from my eyes? is it so other people can see part of who we are...the frail part that so often try and guard? are we simply vulnerable little human beings running around pretending not to feel anything that would make us care or feel or move us to tears? does it come from our eyes because with our eyes we can communicate so much sadness or so much joy? i don't know. i have no idea. i'm not a psychologist or therapist or expert in emotions, but like i said...as i was walking in downtown pasadena today, with eyes red from crying in the car minutes prior to this, i began to really feel grateful for tears. i remember the scene in "IN AMERICA" that has touched me repeatedly...the scene where finally, the father cries for the first time in years for his lost, now-dead son. there's something freeing and terrifying about that moment. although i can't explain it, i guess i can feel gratitude for yet another one of God's many emotional gifts to us that we definitly don't deserve.

mr. "W" is back.

i was wrong i guess. i thought kerry was going to win and yet, it looks like "W" made a much more comfortable win for himself this time around. i'm happy he won the popular vote (and technically, the majority of americans' vote---even clinton didn't get that, but that probably had to due with voter turn out...but still) and i'm also happy it's not going to go on for another 2 months. hopefully, the news media will catch the "election is over" drift, and stop reporting on it. i'm not sure about you, but since it started early this spring with Al Sharpton claiming he was gonna run, i've been waiting for it to end and just be over. go "W," and let's start turning things around for the better. au revoir.