why is it that every sermon, book, movie about being in an intentional community, a mentoring relationship, a close-knit relationship, even a romantic relationship makes me want to seclude myself for a while?
anybody else?
no? just me?
alrighty then...
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Monday, September 17, 2012
here's to the future
I've sought out a mentor. I really hope she accepts. I'm so ready to get some help and perspective and guidance.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Sometimes it's just not that easy... part 2
This is how much of a none-writer, and avid avoided of this particular topic, I am... It's been, what, two weeks since the initial post? C'est la vie...
Okay, so where were we? Jeremiah 29, particularly verse 7... "Make yourselves at home there and work for the country's welfare. "Pray for Babylon's well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you."
What if Knoxville is my Babylon? Have I been sentenced here?
I know that sounds rough... I mean, I love Knoxville! This is an amazing place! But I can't seem to leave... Being a tent stake in the ground. I don't feel so much as a stability as I feel stuck and unable to get out. I have dreams, ya know.
But what if I can't leave for a reason? Can we hurry up and get to that reason?!? Because I'd really like to be done here...
Again it sounds awful... I have friends here.
I grew up with the shows Friends, Seinfeld, 90210, Dawson's Creek, Cheers, even Saved by the Bell, Living Single, The Cosby Show, A Different World. And now we have How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Parenthood, even Two and a Half Men, King of Queens, Scrubs. What do these shows all have in common? Community, family, a sense of belonging.
I lived in a community and that was a flop... I had a group of friends that are family to me who lived here for a while... Now most of them live in different states.
I'm not saying all this to complain. I say it simply for the fact that I'm lonely here. I don't have those few friends that I always hang out with who I can be ME with.
On top of that, I want to be traveling. But I want to be traveling with a community.
Back to Eat Pray Love, I've often look for ways to plan a trip like that. Seriously, I've looked into the Peace Corp multiple times (started the application twice), came up with various places I could go spend some time just working and living and visiting old friends, considered a few different organizations that are meant for sabbaticals of sorts, and even thought about different communities around the globe that I could live and work with for a year or so. To be able to take a hiatus from life, live simply, and deal with myself. I long for that more than you can know.
But something always stops me. Traveling alone is not my cup of tea. I firmly believe there was a reason Jesus sent his disciples in pairs. And the fear of not really fitting or belonging, well I have enough of that here in Knoxville, why go elsewhere to be that way with complete strangers?
A tent stake... A tent stake? I'm a bitter tent stake if that's the case. I've become quite bitter and jaded. I find myself being negative and complaining. That's not who I am! I told myself a long time ago that I wouldn't become that way and here I am.
However, no one is to live a life of bitterness and jadedness. We're to live lives of love. I have it tattooed on my left forearm for goodness' sake! Being bitter and jaded is a good way to squash love.
So now what? This whole blog has been one big mess of BLAH. I don't have a pretty conclusion, either. Because I don't know. IF God wants me to be tent stake, IF my welfare depends on the welfare of the place in which I live, then I guess I have some work to do here. And this is what makes me cry. Because my heart isn't here. My loneliness is here, my bitterness is here, and my jadedness is here.
I feel sentenced. I feel hurt. I know it's not about feelings alone, but when what makes me happy is so attainable, yet so unattainable, it's hard.
But I'm tired of being miserable, and negative. It's not easy for me to live in Knoxville. It's not easy for me to see others so happy and full of life here. It's not easy to see them not affected by the things that are changing here...
But I'm here, through the good the bad and the very very ugly. And if I'm here some things have got to change.
I can't think straight anymore... We'll come back to this later... I'll leave you with a verse to this song I heard for the first time today.
"Will your grace run out
If I let you down
‘Cause all I know
Is how to run"
Okay, so where were we? Jeremiah 29, particularly verse 7... "Make yourselves at home there and work for the country's welfare. "Pray for Babylon's well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you."
What if Knoxville is my Babylon? Have I been sentenced here?
I know that sounds rough... I mean, I love Knoxville! This is an amazing place! But I can't seem to leave... Being a tent stake in the ground. I don't feel so much as a stability as I feel stuck and unable to get out. I have dreams, ya know.
But what if I can't leave for a reason? Can we hurry up and get to that reason?!? Because I'd really like to be done here...
Again it sounds awful... I have friends here.
I grew up with the shows Friends, Seinfeld, 90210, Dawson's Creek, Cheers, even Saved by the Bell, Living Single, The Cosby Show, A Different World. And now we have How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Parenthood, even Two and a Half Men, King of Queens, Scrubs. What do these shows all have in common? Community, family, a sense of belonging.
I lived in a community and that was a flop... I had a group of friends that are family to me who lived here for a while... Now most of them live in different states.
I'm not saying all this to complain. I say it simply for the fact that I'm lonely here. I don't have those few friends that I always hang out with who I can be ME with.
On top of that, I want to be traveling. But I want to be traveling with a community.
Back to Eat Pray Love, I've often look for ways to plan a trip like that. Seriously, I've looked into the Peace Corp multiple times (started the application twice), came up with various places I could go spend some time just working and living and visiting old friends, considered a few different organizations that are meant for sabbaticals of sorts, and even thought about different communities around the globe that I could live and work with for a year or so. To be able to take a hiatus from life, live simply, and deal with myself. I long for that more than you can know.
But something always stops me. Traveling alone is not my cup of tea. I firmly believe there was a reason Jesus sent his disciples in pairs. And the fear of not really fitting or belonging, well I have enough of that here in Knoxville, why go elsewhere to be that way with complete strangers?
A tent stake... A tent stake? I'm a bitter tent stake if that's the case. I've become quite bitter and jaded. I find myself being negative and complaining. That's not who I am! I told myself a long time ago that I wouldn't become that way and here I am.
However, no one is to live a life of bitterness and jadedness. We're to live lives of love. I have it tattooed on my left forearm for goodness' sake! Being bitter and jaded is a good way to squash love.
So now what? This whole blog has been one big mess of BLAH. I don't have a pretty conclusion, either. Because I don't know. IF God wants me to be tent stake, IF my welfare depends on the welfare of the place in which I live, then I guess I have some work to do here. And this is what makes me cry. Because my heart isn't here. My loneliness is here, my bitterness is here, and my jadedness is here.
I feel sentenced. I feel hurt. I know it's not about feelings alone, but when what makes me happy is so attainable, yet so unattainable, it's hard.
But I'm tired of being miserable, and negative. It's not easy for me to live in Knoxville. It's not easy for me to see others so happy and full of life here. It's not easy to see them not affected by the things that are changing here...
But I'm here, through the good the bad and the very very ugly. And if I'm here some things have got to change.
I can't think straight anymore... We'll come back to this later... I'll leave you with a verse to this song I heard for the first time today.
"Will your grace run out
If I let you down
‘Cause all I know
Is how to run"
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Sometimes it's just not that easy... part 1
So I don't have a lot of time to write right now... I have to leave for work in about 45 minutes, which means getting ready in about 30 minutes. But I had to start this...
Back story:
I'm an Bible major with a concentration in Missions. That's what my transcript says at least... I am a BA; I like to think I'm both the academic and the street kinds of BA, but that could be debatable.
I have wonderful, loving parents who have introduced me and taught me about mission work all around the globe from an early age. They have both lived outside the country for a time, prior to meeting each other, for work-related reasons, but I think that really helped their scope of mission work as well.
I've visited other cultures since I was 14, and have learned about working in other cultures since before I can remember. I've been outside the country 9 different times, visiting 7 different countries.
My plan for life was live oversees. It still is, actually, eventually, hopefully. I want to go back to at least 3 of the countries I've visited and stay for a few months. And I want to see so many more. My BIG dream is to visit every single country. I want to live in New Zealand for a while.
You know the book made into a movie Eat Pray Love? First of all, read the book, it's ALWAYS better. Second of all, watch the film - Julia Roberts deserves her accolades. Anyway, I really envy Elizabeth's (the author) life. To travel for a living? To take a year long sabbatical to help clear her mind, heart, and soul? Now I wouldn't want to write about it all; I'm not a writer (ironic since I have a blog, but if you look, I don't really write on here a lot - i.e. at all). But anyway, I'll tie this in later.
So then, a few years back, I lived in this community in Knoxville. That's a story for another time and place, but this one event is significant. A friend of one of the community members is a prophet. Take that for what you will, but he was wise and quite insightful. Now I was really trying to not be a part of it. I made myself busy in the kitchen; we had like 20 people over - dishes add up fast (I sound like Martha...). But in the end, the other core community members brought him to me and thought it was important that I hear what he has to say. So I did.
You know what that man told me?!?! He said that God was showing him a stake in the ground, like a tent stake. That then the winds came, I needed to stayed grounded, stay still. I needed to stay steady and stay put. Now not all of that were his exact words (it was a few years back - I'm lucky to remember last week), but that's the idea.
SAY WHAT?!?! No. HA. I travel. That's what I do; that's who I am. As I'm writing this, I haven't been out of the country in 3 years and it's KILLING me! Figuratively of course; that's really an awful saying. It PAINS me - much better.
A stake in the ground, like a tent stake. I mean, I've stayed in Knoxville, slightly against my wishes.
But as my friend Mr. Bob likes to remind me, I move around a lot. I'm living in my 4th house in 4 years since college. Now I've been at the same Church, mostly, since after college, but in college, especially when I didn't have a car, I would go where people were willing to give me rides to. I left the Church I had been attending since college for a little while, but ended up back there. I help at another Church one Sunday a month though, and am looking at checking out a Church in my neighborhood, because they do awesome things for the community and I really want to see this neighborhood be seen as amazing as I know it to be (let's just say it has a bad rep. and leave it at that). This is my second time in this neighborhood though, so I came back... The community lived a few blocks from my current house. I left the community after 5 or 6 months, and the rest disbanded 6 or 7 months later. All that to stay, I'm not like a tent stake at all.
That brings us to today. When Alan Bradford had the nerve to use Jeremiah 29:1-7 as part of his sermon. (I love the Bradfords, by the way - awesome family! Susan, Alan's wife, was one of my small group leaders before they even came to our Church. Much love for them.)
Ok, we're almost at the 45 minute mark when I have to leave, and I haven't even gotten ready. So I'm going to leave you with the text of Jeremiah 29:1-7 and come back to all this later.
4This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel's God, to all the exiles I've taken from Jerusalem to Babylon:
5"Build houses and make yourselves at home. "Put in gardens and eat what grows in that country.6"Marry and have children. Encourage your children to marry and have children so that you'll thrive in that country and not waste away. 7"Make yourselves at home there and work for the country's welfare. "Pray for Babylon's well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you."
Back story:
I'm an Bible major with a concentration in Missions. That's what my transcript says at least... I am a BA; I like to think I'm both the academic and the street kinds of BA, but that could be debatable.
I have wonderful, loving parents who have introduced me and taught me about mission work all around the globe from an early age. They have both lived outside the country for a time, prior to meeting each other, for work-related reasons, but I think that really helped their scope of mission work as well.
I've visited other cultures since I was 14, and have learned about working in other cultures since before I can remember. I've been outside the country 9 different times, visiting 7 different countries.
My plan for life was live oversees. It still is, actually, eventually, hopefully. I want to go back to at least 3 of the countries I've visited and stay for a few months. And I want to see so many more. My BIG dream is to visit every single country. I want to live in New Zealand for a while.
You know the book made into a movie Eat Pray Love? First of all, read the book, it's ALWAYS better. Second of all, watch the film - Julia Roberts deserves her accolades. Anyway, I really envy Elizabeth's (the author) life. To travel for a living? To take a year long sabbatical to help clear her mind, heart, and soul? Now I wouldn't want to write about it all; I'm not a writer (ironic since I have a blog, but if you look, I don't really write on here a lot - i.e. at all). But anyway, I'll tie this in later.
So then, a few years back, I lived in this community in Knoxville. That's a story for another time and place, but this one event is significant. A friend of one of the community members is a prophet. Take that for what you will, but he was wise and quite insightful. Now I was really trying to not be a part of it. I made myself busy in the kitchen; we had like 20 people over - dishes add up fast (I sound like Martha...). But in the end, the other core community members brought him to me and thought it was important that I hear what he has to say. So I did.
You know what that man told me?!?! He said that God was showing him a stake in the ground, like a tent stake. That then the winds came, I needed to stayed grounded, stay still. I needed to stay steady and stay put. Now not all of that were his exact words (it was a few years back - I'm lucky to remember last week), but that's the idea.
SAY WHAT?!?! No. HA. I travel. That's what I do; that's who I am. As I'm writing this, I haven't been out of the country in 3 years and it's KILLING me! Figuratively of course; that's really an awful saying. It PAINS me - much better.
A stake in the ground, like a tent stake. I mean, I've stayed in Knoxville, slightly against my wishes.
But as my friend Mr. Bob likes to remind me, I move around a lot. I'm living in my 4th house in 4 years since college. Now I've been at the same Church, mostly, since after college, but in college, especially when I didn't have a car, I would go where people were willing to give me rides to. I left the Church I had been attending since college for a little while, but ended up back there. I help at another Church one Sunday a month though, and am looking at checking out a Church in my neighborhood, because they do awesome things for the community and I really want to see this neighborhood be seen as amazing as I know it to be (let's just say it has a bad rep. and leave it at that). This is my second time in this neighborhood though, so I came back... The community lived a few blocks from my current house. I left the community after 5 or 6 months, and the rest disbanded 6 or 7 months later. All that to stay, I'm not like a tent stake at all.
That brings us to today. When Alan Bradford had the nerve to use Jeremiah 29:1-7 as part of his sermon. (I love the Bradfords, by the way - awesome family! Susan, Alan's wife, was one of my small group leaders before they even came to our Church. Much love for them.)
Ok, we're almost at the 45 minute mark when I have to leave, and I haven't even gotten ready. So I'm going to leave you with the text of Jeremiah 29:1-7 and come back to all this later.
Jeremiah 29
Plans to Give You the Future You Hope For
1-2 This is the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to what was left of the elders among the exiles, to the priests and prophets and all the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon from Jerusalem, including King Jehoiachin, the queen mother, the government leaders, and all the skilled laborers and craftsmen. 3The letter was carried by Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah had sent to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. The letter said:4This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel's God, to all the exiles I've taken from Jerusalem to Babylon:
5"Build houses and make yourselves at home. "Put in gardens and eat what grows in that country.6"Marry and have children. Encourage your children to marry and have children so that you'll thrive in that country and not waste away. 7"Make yourselves at home there and work for the country's welfare. "Pray for Babylon's well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you."
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Live Simply
That's the first part of the title for this blog. Live simply. And yet it's become almost a foreign concept to me. Ideally this is how I would live.
My dream is to live in Christian community. To live either in a neighborhood together or a large house. A place where everyone desires to grow together. Authentic, vulnerable, real. Structure would be needed, but not in a stifling way. In a way of keeping communication open and responsibilities shared. There'd be a garden, a large vegetable garden. And fruit and herbs... We'd all work in the city.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
friends
my friends are the most important thing to me in the world... really, they are my family... we would do anything and everything for each other in a time of need... i love my tight knit group of friends... and i love how we include anyone who wants to chill with us... anyone and everyone is welcome...
but just like all families, we have our fights, our disagreements, our petty arguments... this summer has been hard on us all...
it should have been the happiest summer for us, really... 3 weddings, of the many that took place this summer, were in our family... 6 of us got married... they married their best friends... some of our closest friends found love in each other... beautiful, right?
this has been the most stressful summer... planning, traveling, preparing, fixing, and marrying... it has caused divisions among us... mainly between the brides, if we're honest... i'm not sure them living together before their weddings was such a good idea...
yet, we're family... and i cannot give up on us... no matter how much we fight and bicker over things, we're family...
i want to remember this time as it was... because, well, it'll be easy to look back at the weddings and think of the beauty of them... and i want to remember what we've learned from this summer... small simple weddings... elopement... little to no financial obligations on our friends (including traveling)... loving each other is more important than the small stuff... and celebration...
but just like all families, we have our fights, our disagreements, our petty arguments... this summer has been hard on us all...
it should have been the happiest summer for us, really... 3 weddings, of the many that took place this summer, were in our family... 6 of us got married... they married their best friends... some of our closest friends found love in each other... beautiful, right?
this has been the most stressful summer... planning, traveling, preparing, fixing, and marrying... it has caused divisions among us... mainly between the brides, if we're honest... i'm not sure them living together before their weddings was such a good idea...
yet, we're family... and i cannot give up on us... no matter how much we fight and bicker over things, we're family...
i want to remember this time as it was... because, well, it'll be easy to look back at the weddings and think of the beauty of them... and i want to remember what we've learned from this summer... small simple weddings... elopement... little to no financial obligations on our friends (including traveling)... loving each other is more important than the small stuff... and celebration...
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