thoughts...and blogging on my phone sucks.

i'm at the hospital right now.
times like these always cause me to ponder. I
i came across an idea of media and thought i'd share.

"Marshall McLuhan once quipped that anyone who tries to make distinction between education doesn't know the first thing about either. In typical fashion, McLuhan breaks down the high and low culture distinctions that sometimes get in the way of grappling with what's in front of us. A story (whether in a book, a thirty-second ad spot, a sitcom, or a song) isn't merely entertaining. It's telling you something. It has content. It seeks to feelingly persuade. It will colonize your imagination as you're sitting there laughing to yourself.

The media we admit into our lives are alive and signaling. Do we engage, or are we merely engaged? When we talk about literature or rave about a film, when we write something down or commit a line to memory, are we looking to open the doors of perception? If we don't talk about what we're taking in, why is it worthy of our energy? Have we lost the notion that Shakespeare is tying to tell us what's going on? Do we find the writing of Zora Neale Hurston trustworthy? Is Emily Dickinson a good intelligence gatherer in her poetry? Literature is a public broadcasting system. What is being proposed, made plain, revealed?"
-david dark

this is making me wonder at what I am taking in.
what am I able to talk about and why am I filling my time with the unnecessary?

heart transparency + nyquil = blog

"For a heart is the treasure of any person's life - the heart enables us to love, to know God, to laugh, to play, to have friendships and romance, to feel passion, to fight injustice, to take in beauty, to live. So when the heart is wounded, bound, held captive and dying, everything in life withers. Every relationship - especially our relationship with God. Every work we are called to do. All the glories of life fade away." -John Eldridge

the heart of my loved ones, my friends, my family and my own has been pressing on the forefront of my daily comings and goings for some time now. questions of worth and what moves me into a movement, a tiny blip on the screen of my heart have been penetrating the surface of the doing.

over the past few days i have had one conversation with many people. their heart. there is a stifling mandate that the american culture has brought on, in that we are not allowed to go deeper into another's existence than a surface level. we daily interact with (in some cases) up to hundreds of people daily. we commoditize them. seeing them as a product instead of a person. i am one of the first on this list. in no way am i blaming a people, without being the first to admit this is my issue too. i see people first by what they can do for me, then what they actually are doing for me and maybe eventually asking them who they actually are.

the thing that saddens and sickens me the most? the people i would call the closest to me, i know the very least. there are people in my life when push comes to shove i have no idea who they truly are, and yet i see them monthly, weekly, daily, they are my brother and my sisters, my friends and my mentors. i believe that elizabeth summed it up best for me the other day, in relating a story about her living situation she told me that her roommate made the assertion that, "they weren't intentional in not knowing each other." elizabeth responded with "no, but we were not intentional in getting to know each other, either." 

this cuts me down. how many people have i complained about not knowing, but in reality what am i doing about it?

enough about me.
what about you?

who have you been blessed with in your life?
how well do you truly know them?
not just the assumptions you have about who they might be.
how well do you know their hearts because they shared it with you?
how satisfied are you to have people in your life you don't know?
are you willing to do something about it?

i believe that it is time to start asking questions. deep ones. the only way to know someone is for them to share it. maybe we don't know others hearts, not because they don't want to tell us, but because we are unwilling to ask.

this would be a perfect seg-way into living a transparent life, how we are called to it, and it is part of being a bearer of the GOSPEL, but i am feeling the effects of my sinus medication kicking in, so i leave that for another day.
my moral of this story?
if you are in my life, be prepared for intentional knowing.
i want to know your heart.
i will not be satisfied with anything else.

questions peirce my soul

                                                                                                                   http://www.flickr.com/photos/camfirephotos/

questions make me uncomfortable.
questions cause me to think.
questions allow me freedom to attempt a search of the unsearchable.
questions haunt me.
questions liberate me.
questions keep me from becoming stagnant.
questions move me.

the reason i fell in love with Christ?
because i asked enough questions.
my life didn't make sense.
when i was at church i had to live a life of doing.
when i gave that up, my life still didn't make sense.

if you ask enough questions you are bound to find truth.
often, though our observance of reality is only one-sided.
sometimes truth causes you to change what you see.
i don't believe that truth changes.
just the perspective of how you see it.
that is often the problem we have with making assumptions based on our perceptions.
we hardly ever see the whole view.
that is why i adore questions.
for i cannot ever see the whole picture on my own.

                                                                               http://www.hikingintherockies.com/hiking/hike%20reports/raspberry/pikespeak.jpg

unless you have a bigger perspective, just by seeing these two images you would not understand that this is the same mountain, simply from two different views. what are the mountains in your life that you might need a deeper perspective of?

i heard this following song, the other day and it covered me in life-bumps.
this is my story as it is many others.
don't be afraid to ask big questions.
don't be afraid to get a bigger view.
don't be afraid of freedom.
the only one who hurts from a small perspective is you!

not without love - jimmy needham

i tried Lord

i tried Lord
i tried hard to be Your good little boy

chin up, head high
all zeal and no joy
thinking all my good deeds could please Jesus

boy, was i wrong

though i knew the right songs, all my cymbals and gongs played the melodies wrong
and it wasn’t long ‘til i saw my disease
a life spent wanting to please

on hands and knees
to make right, to appease
God help me please

this can’t be christianity, it can’t be
the whole thing’s like insanity
where’s the rest of eternal security?

where’s the hope of a God big enough to cope with all my hang-ups and insecurities?
certainly this isn’t breathing
my chest burning and heaving

it’s like my pulse is ceasing
like my heart quits beating

yet this i recall to mind and therefore i have hope:

You died, Lord
You died, Lord

assuredly, like the coming of the dawn, the Father’s love song goes on
drowning out my bitter songs
and breaking through walls and barriers

Christ swoops in, removes sin, picks up His bride and carries her
so i can sing in agreement with the King this thing:
there’s only one thing that pleases the Father

the God-man on the tree in the midst of the scoffers

now i finally see that Christ is what Christ offers

and i’m finally free in the love of the Father

read, reflect, blog, repeat: covenants, love, relationships and perversions. oh my!

some people have weird quirks about them that, in all honesty, make them who they are.


some people eat with their mouths open, others can only eat m&m's if they are even numbered and color coded. there are those who sleep with the light on after they watch a scary movie and (my favorite) those who must have their shoes on while in the house.


ok, ok, yes these are all admittedly weird. but hey, some of us *ahem* are just weird!


i am currently once again aware of the small things that make me who i am, and am realizing that there is one tick i have had my whole life. i always read more than one book at a time.


currently at the top of my rather large stack are the five love languages by gary chapman and the sacredness of questioning everything by david dark.


these two books together are reshaping the way i think.


the first idea i want to point out, is one about love. mr chapman, before going into the different types of how we communicate love, as he sees them, opens his book with a few thoughts on the idea of real love verses the "in love" experience. these three things caught my attention:

• falling in love is NOT real love as it is not an act of the will or a conscious choice. we cannot force it to happen nor can we deny it when it does, making it an emotional over-reaction.
• falling in love is NOT love because it is effortless. there is no discipline or conscious effort when you ride this emotional roller coaster. we rely heavily on our instinctual capabilities rather than our reasoning and logical rational, causing us to sometimes do outlandish and unnatural things for each other.
• falling in love usually is selfishly driven. our motives are not to help cultivate or grow the other person rather we are trying to end our own desires to kill the loneliness we feel at the very apex of our being.

i have sat on the idea of community for almost a year now as i am trying to grow into a healthy self. i have had to turn the way i think about relationships completely on its head. i have given up on many relationships and have been cultivating new healthy friendships. i still though am a very selfish being and i believe (though this has no available proof and my debate teacher in high school taught me to never make logical conjectures as i am now going to do) that if this applies to the communion of marriage then this should apply to the community of believers.


i believe that paige benton puts it best in her essay: singled out for good

"Singleness is never carte blanche for selfishness. A spouse is not a sufficient countermeasure for self. The gospel is the only antidote for egocentricity. Christ did not come simply to save us from our sins, he came to save us from our selves. And he most often rescues us from us through relationships, all kinds of relationships. "Are you seeing anyone special?" a young matron in my home church asked patronizingly. "Sure," I smiled. "I see you and you're special." OK, my sentiment was a little less than kind, but the message is true. To be single is not to be alone. If someone asks if you are in a relationship right now, your immediate response should be that you are in dozens. Our range of relational options are not limited to getting married or to living in the sound-proof, isolated booth of Miss America pageants. Christian growth mandates relational richness.

The only time folks talk about human covenants is in premarital counseling. How anemic. If our God is a covenantal God then all of our relationships are covenantal. The gospel is not about how much I love God (I typically love him very little); it is about how much God loves me. My relationships are not about how much friends should love me, they are about how much I get to love them. No single should ever expect relational impoverishment by virtue of being single. We should covenant to love people--to initiate, to serve, to commit.

in trying to understand myself and others better i am at a loss on how to accomplish such a task. in this day and age a covenant means next to nothing to the vast majority. we have become people who have lost the art of intimacy and have no idea how to relate to people, much less love them, if they can't offer us something in return. the sickening thought is not that we do not know how to love, for we love ourselves deeply, the issue is that we cannot love another soul besides our own.


i am re-reading the chapter entitled "spot the pervert - questioning your passions" in david dark's book. he defines the word perversion as: a failure of the imagination, a failure to pay adequate attention. he continues to amplify this thought:

"we, the people, are always more than our use of value. like the GOD in whose image people are made, people are irreducible. there's always more to a person - more stories, more life, more complexities - than we know, the human person when viewed properly, is unfathomable, incalculable, and dear. perversion always says otherwise. perversion is a way of managing, getting down to business, getting a handle on people as if they were things. a person reduced to a thing has been, in the mind of the perverter, dispensed with, taken care of, filed away. perversion is pigeonholing."

in light of this my heart is heavy, for i am a pervert.
the last time i made an assessment on someones character, by the clothes on their frame, puts me in this box.
the last time i had a conversation with someone and was already forming the words that i was to say next, before they were finished, puts me squarely in the hole.
the last time i took a situation and blew it out of proportion, by assuming details and character flaws about a person without taking it to them, and talking it over with others, zings the arrow into the bulls eye.


how many times do i read into situations, or take people for granted?
i would say daily.
my motives for desiring some people in my life and purposefully shunning others is completely self-driven.


i only want to be known by certain people because they fill a physical/emotional/spiritual need in my life.
i don't want to be known by certain people, because i am afraid of being hurt.


ouch. seems like the words of JESUS are a lot harder to accomplish than i could have ever imagined. when asked what the greatest commandment, "He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself. (luke 10:27) as a child i knew this to be impossible. i tried and tried, oh how i tried. i failed over and over. the reality is a covenant is deeply rooted in the one who created them. GOD himself. there is no way to understand or accomplish this without HIM. i cannot love any other than myself. it seems that to even be a christian and to love the GOD of the universe properly i am going to need his help.

i was directed to a beautiful thought on covenantal love the other day. the journal entry entitled: "beloved" by mike of tenth avenue north, made my heart leap with joy, as the love of something bigger than i can imagine was put into layman's terms (i seriously do not understand why i have not heard this before!!!). i do not see any way to put it here without butchering it to pieces so please make time to read it. it truly broke into my perverted heart and made some things click.

lastly, today i received a blog update in my inbox this morning from: "merely theological - blog", detailing the difference between true community and the antithesis of it. besides feeling a bit creeped out that this is the exact thing i needed to hear today, i was utterly grateful to hear another side to this topic that has been tugging at my heart the past few months.

all in all i am trying to see the awe of my maker in the realities of humanity. i am so saddened by people and they utterly frustrate me at times, but only because i am exactly like them. i tend to hate the things that are most like myself in others. i am trying still yes, but only with the help of the ONE who can love you as you truly aught to be loved.

i will be

oh tomorrow...
*ahem, let me rephrase.
oh this morning, when i wake up, after i go to sleep.

• i will be sewing (skirts, aprons, and the like).
• spray painting my shoes.
• drinking some coffee.
• listening to a sermon or two.
• helping suzan pack.
• doing my laundry.

i will be.
oh how i love that.
yes i will be.

regardless if the list gets done or not!
ha.
sweet dreams.

my love language is...

i went to bed and tried to sleep.
this is impossible as my entire life keeps flashing before me.
not in a bad way,
this is a breakthrough.

one that i cannot contain.

i recently have unearthed two lies that i believe about myself.
one. i am too much.
two. i am not worth it.

these lies have been with me since the dawn of my existence.
i have, until tonight, had no idea where they stemmed from.

i got into a conversation the other day with the pruitts about love.
as always this convo turned into the five love languages.
we were trying t explain it to zach and it made my reasoning turn inward.
what is my love language?
i stopped before i let my presets out.
i took a deep breath and found my answer:
i have no idea.

i know that i am a creeper and will find out every one's love language so that i can love them.

but.
i.
don't.
know.
my.
own.

again my lies are obvious in this...
i believe that i am to much when i love people,
i believe that i am not worth love.

since that day i have been reading the 5 love languages book and although it is geared toward marriage, i have been trying to glean as much info and insight as i possibly can.

the first thing i noted was that children who have had traumatic pasts will repress their love language if they were not able to "speak it".
the second thing i saw, was that the first chapter (words of affirmation) meant absolutely nothing to me.
weird because i have said that my love language is words of affirmation, since i heard about this whole love language thing.

last night my heart felt something for the first time in a long time, when i got to what i call the "being" chapter.
today i found the way i receive love.
i am quality time.
i have always felt that this was a burden to those around me because it caused them to actually look up from their newspaper to see me, or to turn the tv off to be with me, or stop washing the dishes and listen to me.
i have never felt secure in this because it requires a LOT of work from those around me. it also makes people uncomfortable. everyone i know loves to be busy. being quality time with me, requires them to stop.

i felt that this was to much to ask for.
so i believed that i was to much.

this is an easy segway into the reason i am so adept at finding out how to love you.
my logical way of reasoning thought that, if my love language requires you to move mountains to love me, then maybe if i love you the way you receive it, you will do the same for me.

nine times out of ten, i loved you, and you never even saw me.
nine times out of ten, i bent over backwards, and you never gave an inch.
nine times out of ten when you received, you never gave back.

nine times out of ten my heart was broken.

so i am trying to go to sleep, but my life is flashing before my eyes.
i am gaining so much understanding about my past, present and future relationships.
i am gaining insight on why my heart is stone cold towards my earthly father.
i am realizing why it is so hard to trust my heavenly father.
(how can you receive love from GOD if you can't receive love from anyone?)
i am seeing why i hate to do hair.
i am listening to my heartbeat.
i am learning that i am not to much.
i am feeling that i might just be worth it.

i am learning how to be loved.

this is going to be quite a journey.
healing is at hand.
joy will come.
oh bless, this is so exciting!!!!!