The things you learn on HGTV.

This goes out to the 10 or so of you that are getting married this summer/fall.

Good luck!!
-----------------------------------------

So, I pride myself in the fact that I once planned a wedding with roughly 400 guests for just at (read: barely under) $10,000.

However, there were doubts. Perhaps $10,000 is too much to spend on a wedding... logically, one would think so. $10,000 is quite a bit a money... But when churches charge a minimum of $600 and invitations start at $300... it all adds up pretty quickly, even with just the basic, basic things.

So, imagine my intrigue as I sat channel surfing today while babysitting and I ran across a special on a couple planning a wedding for $10,000! This I had to see.

Would they too struggle to make budget? Would they work to stretch the money as far as it could possibly go? Would they cut item after item after item and still feel guilty and girly planning a big day while secretly wishing they could throw a fun party, without worrying about the money, and really celebrate their love and Gods work in their lives with their families and best friends?

Lo ho ho! The show started with everyone in shock over such a small budget..but they did it. They managed the wedding for $10,000...

...one small difference though..

They had 70 guests. SEVENTY!

They got married in a friends backyard, they had cupcakes instead of cake, and they invited 70 people and they somehow still spent $10,000. AMAZING. Even more amazing: that budget did not include anyone's attire.

I am a thrifty woman! I worked off the same budget, (which I came in under!) and I had more the FIVE TIMES as many guests to deal with!!!

Granted, they served dinner, they had a bar, they had dancing, a dj, all that fun excessive stuff... but still. Aren't weddings supposed to be a celebration of the work that God ahs done? The joining of two lives, two families? Shoudln't you try and spread it out among as many friends and family as possible before piling on the extras? I dunno. ANYWAYS...I worried about being excessive.. I went through the budget over, and over, and over again. I eliminated tons of things that weren't entirely necessary: no dinner, no bar, no dancing, no limos, no rented cars,no personalized napkins, no save the date cards, no RSVP cards, no consultants or planners, lots of fake flowers.. etc. We even made the decorations by hand rather than buying, renting or ordering them because though it was time consuming, we found would could save a lot of money in the end.

Never again can anyone tell me that "huge amounts of money were being spent on things that were so unnecessary."

No.

No.

The truth is, no matter who you are, where you are from, or where your wedding is happening: when it comes to weddings, or any big event really (you should see the price of funerals..$15,000 and up. No joke.) HUGE amounts of money START in the thousands. So how could I have spent "huge amounts of money on things that weren't necessary" if I never in fact spent more than that on any one thing? This just doesn't make sense. At first I thought it was just me, but now the entire Home and Garden network has confirmed it!

In addition, this site: www.costofwedding.com states that:

On average, U.S. couples spend $28,800 for their wedding. This does not include cost for a honeymoon, engagement ring, bridal consultant or wedding planner.

They even offer an estimator that provides an average estimate for weddings depending on your city. FYI, for those of you in OKC, your estimated cost is: $23,900. For those in Nashville yours is: $27,650 and those in San Diego... sorry, but yours is: $31,970. Damn that California cost of living! (really you should all be getting married closer to me anyhow!)

I had 2 things in my planned wedding that cost $1,000: the photographer and the catering. Period. Nothing more expensive... in fact, the freaking CHURCH was the next most expensive thing. Not the dress, not the decorations, not a liquor tab, not a musician fee, Nope. I suppose the church may count as "unnecessary" for some people.. it all depends I suppose.

It's crazy, and you really don't know until you are there yourself.

I've been to a lot of weddings, all across America. Only 1 of which was done for under $10,000.... and that was in Oklahoma obviously.

But it can be done. There's hope, I did it! And apparently so did the couple on HGTV.

Funny thing is, the name of the HGTV show? "Designer Weddings FOR LESS" hahaha they say that $10,000 = for LESS! Wow.

Anyhow... just thought I'd put some actual statistics out there, along with some real life experiece from someone who apparently defied the statistics.

Don't stress, and let me know if you need anything. =)

June 8th.

Today is my last day at work.

Unbelievable!

I sit here, eating some cheese popcorn, drinking my Diet Dr. Pepper, blogging for you dear reader, and I ask myself: Why is it that I am quitting this job?

Oh yes, that's right.. because it's boring, it barely pays the bills and most days I want to cut myself. Not to mention the guilt that stems from doing the aforementioned things while avoiding all the data entry I should be doing. Alright, I suppose that's reason enough.

Anyhow. It's hard to believe that I've been at this job for 7 months. SEVEN MONTHS. It seemed so slow, but now looking backwards, I can't believe that 7 months have gone by. Where did they go? What was I doing? Seriously.

Alas, now I move out into the land of self-employment. the land of "freelancing" the land of "self-solicitation." The land of "part-time work." Ughh. I hate that land too. I have lived in that land before. I was in that land for 6 months after graduation while planning a wedding and being uninsured. Hard times.

But not impossible times. I did it before and I have a feeling it won't be as difficult this time. After all, this time I am insured, and I only have me to worry about. I don't have to stress about supporting 2 people. I don't have the added joyful stress of planning a wedding, or the emotional turmoil of "unplanning" one. I've been paying all my own bills for the past 7 months, so now I have a better idea of my finances and what's required each month. Before it was all sort of ambiguous.. but now that Sallie Mae and I are like next of kin I pretty much know how to handle all of that. I've been writing as if I were a freshman in college again (remember those days?), the band is forming and working things out, I'm an ASCAP member now, and I've got some leads on some session work. I wouldn't say that things are "falling into place" necessarily, but hopefully they are headed in the right direction.

So we'll see what happens.

I've decided this is my new beginning.

Fasten your seat belts, here we go.

Cheers!

Lonely.

"Love. We all crave it. We were made for it, and if we don’t receive it, some essential part of our hearts undoubtedly fades away. To love and be loved are not just innate desires, they are life or death needs.

In North American society and culture where looking "Calm, cool and collected" is considered an asset, the need for love is often believed to be a weakness instead of appreciated as a quality of one’s humanity—made in the image of the God who loves. And so, like the black notebook hiding underneath a seemingly neat and tidy bed, one can put on a mask that asserts to others they, "Have it all together" in an attempt to hide their cavernous inner hunger to be treasured, understood, held, heard ... loved. Whether one is successful at hiding their eternal heartache for love, the fact remains: We all desperately crave love, to give it and to receive it."

I've been pretty lonely lately.

Lonely at home. Lonely at work. Lonely alone. Lonely with groups.

Not debilitating lonely... just, achey lonely.

I miss the friendships that I have lost; and having to accept the fact that they are broken, that they will never be fixed, that they are never coming back has been a hard thing to deal with.

Now I know: I have had an amazing life. I've been to amazing places. I've experienced amazing things. I've done amazing things. I've met amazing people. I've lived out a fabulously tragic love story. Kudos to me.

And yet I find myself lacking. Detatched. And lonely.

Lonely.

Lonely for those friendships that just "are." Those friendships that just "work."

Of course, I'm beginning to wonder whether any of that is true anymore. 99% of those friendships I've experienced have fizzled, faded and died. So maybe they are nonexistent, or perhaps just short lived. Who knows.

All I know is this: I miss feeling protected. I miss having a person to call home. I really miss being able to take care of someone. I miss having someone to tangibly see and sit and talk with at any time on any given day.

And I realize what I miss.

I miss love.

Not in the "I love you." "No, I love you" "no I love YOU" ooey gooey kind of way... but in the comfortable kind of way. The kind of love that is two people sitting together not having to say or do anything, sometimes doing 2 completely different things.

And I know that Jesus is all of those things. But let's be honest, sometimes that just doesn't feel like enough. Sometimes I just want to be held. Tangibly, physicaly held. Most days I need to hear that I am loved. I need to audibly hear it, and from someone other than my family. Of course my family loves me, of course Jesus loves me, they have to! Is it so much to ask to hear it from someone who is choosing to? Someone who will choose to, who won't change their mind later? Does that even exist?

I don't do relationships, but even with friendships I still want someone to walk with me so I'm not walking alone with my thoughts for 2 hours a day. I want someone to watch movies with, to discuss books with, to go get coffee with, to go to church with. I want someone who can sit in front of me and tell me I'm being ridiculous, impulsive and impatient in as loving a way as possible. I want someone who will cry with me. I want someone who will laugh with me. I want someone who will make me laugh. I want someone who can write with me, play out with me, record with me, inspire me, push me to work harder, tell me to take a break, and help me relax. I want someone to go exploring with, someone who can help me understand God and what He's doing, someone who will encourage me, someone who believes in me, someone I can call repeatedly at 2am, someone who will randomly surprise me, someone who will hold me, someone I can fall asleep with on the couch while watching a boring movie...etc.

And I want to be that someone for somebody else. I really do. Oddly enough, I could probably feel fulfilled if I could just be that for someone, even with nothing in return. But I know that's not how it works. That it would work for a while but fail in the end.. and it would be wrong for me to take that road.

Again, I know Jesus Himself is all of those things (and should be all of those things to me), but I guess I just wish he was physically here. After a while, praying and conversing with the people upstairs starts to feel a lot like talking to yourself.

Danica Is:

wondering if anyone else even remembers.

So, I finally watched it.

Young Allie: You arrogant son of a bitch.
Young Noah: Would you just stay with me?
Young Allie: Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we're already fightin'
Young Noah: Well that's what we do, we fight... You tell me when I am being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you are a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.
Young Allie: So what?
Young Noah: So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day.

Sigh. Why can't movies be real life?

I am my own person.

I am my own person. I pay my own bills. I set up my own schedule. I have a degree. I have a job. I have benefits. I have my own friends, my own car, my own computer, my own pets. I live in a house that I picked out and set up the lease on. I go about my day doing both what I need to do, and what I want to do. I feed myself. I pump my own gas. I pick out my own clothes. I set up my own insurance plan, both for my car and my body. I open my own doors. I assemble my own furniture. I make sure my car stays healthy. I set my mind on something that I want and then I do everything humanly possible to make it happen. I am not in need of a missing piece. I am my own person.

That being said,

Sometimes I really just wish I had someone else who is their own person to chearlead for now and again.

Not to mention a cheerleader for me...

This just in:

I put in my notice today.

I just quit my job.

As of June 18th things are going to start looking pretty different around here....

Record Straightening...

The other night I was talking with some friends and RUF (one of my favorite debatable topics) came up. Someone mentioned '..the people that go to RUF are negative." And it was all I could do not to immediately diverge into a dissertation over the various reasons why such a statement is false. This, in and of itself, surprised me because I believed that very statement for quite a while... and sometimes I still do.

When I first went to RUF, I hated it. I went once and never planned on going back. I thought it was boring, pretentious, and a little too fixated on traditionalism. A year or so later, after having become friends with several RUFers, I decided to give it another shot.

I should preface all this by saying that I suppose the church had been leaving a bitter taste in my mouth for a while, and I was constantly struggling with being fed the Joel Osteen spirituality that said "pray for good things and good things will happen." Not that there isn't some truth to that at times, but I don't think it's a commendable (or true) view of the Gospel. So when I came to RUF and met people who were interested in putting their faith into practice by learing what the Bible really had to say, eploring who Jesus really was, working on behalf of the poor, fighting aginst injustice, questioning poor theology, working towards building true communities,and really striving to understand and act out love; I was immediately attracted.

Now I won't lie. I still had (and sometimes still have) issues with some of the elitist overtones and cynial attitudes that I found floating around RUF. And I knew a lot of people on campus had a negative opinion of RUF, so I always made it a point to stay open-minded and understanding as much as possible, because really, it bothered me when I would hear an RUF person start bashing some christian artist or their work or some other denomination. After all, God uses all kinds of things and all kinds of people, why beat your brother down with the plank coming out of your face when you'll only be rejoicing in heaven later? For the love of all that is holy, can't we all just get along?!? But the longer I stayed with RUF and the more people that I got to know on a deeper level, the more I began to realize that a lot of the cynicism and negativity that I found at RUF had more to do with people's personal issues than it did with RUF. Sorta like causation versus coincidence... just because the highest number of deaths and the highest number of ice cream cones sold occur on the same day in the same city, does not mean that one caused the other... it may just mean that it was hot that day, which made some people irritable and some people crave ice cream. I find this to be true of some RUF folks.

It seems that a lot of people find their way to RUF at a time when they are tired of church. They are tired of being fed watered-down half truths about christianity and they are tired of feeling that they are being sold some sort of emotional religious experience in their journey toward learning about God. It may sound stupid, but I was blown away at RUF when I heard that I wasn't a sinner because I sinned, but that I sin because I'm a sinner. I mean, it made so much sense, it all seemed so simple. I wasn't a sinner because I just couldn't seem to make the right decisions at all the right moments, I was a sinner because I was helplessly flawed from the beginning! It wasn't a matter of my failed efforts as much as it was a matter of my flawed character. And who else is capable of redeeming flawed character, but Jesus? Such good news! Now that is the gospel, not: "positive thinking breeds positive results." Not "the more you work on it, the better you'll be."

I think the reason most RUFers are so "hard core" and sometimes viewed as "negative"(toward other denominations especially) is because they have finally found a truth that they feel is worth holding onto, and anything that says otherwise feels like heresay. Do I think that sometimes some people get carried away? absolutely. Just like republicans, and democrats and southern bnaptists and catholics, we are all capable of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But that doesn't make all RUFers "elitists" or "cynical" or "negative."

Cynical people don't offer Jesus or hope to people in despair. Elitists aren't willing to sit with you and listen to you talk out your spiritual questions without any form of disdain or haughtiness. Negative people don't drive halfway across the country bawling their eyes out with a friend who is grieving. Negative people don't reach out and offer hope and prayer and kind words toward someone who has sinned against a fellow brother or sister in christ. Negative people don't bother with calling friends out on their idols and holding them accountable.

I'd say it's far more likely to find negative, cynical people standing at a distance judging things that they themselves haven't fully seen, or running away from something they never took the time to truly explore.

...and who hasn't done that at one point or another?

Avelut

What churches often do less well is grieve. We lack a ritual for the long and tiring process that is sorrow and loss. A friend of mine whose husband recently died put it like this: "For about two weeks the church was really the church - really, awesomelly, wonderfully "the church." Everyone came to the house, baked casseroles, carried Kleenex. But then the two weeks ended, and so did the consolation calls." While you the mourner are still bawling your eyes out and slamming fists into the wall, everyone else, understandably, forgets and goes back to their normal lives and you find, after all those crowds of people, that you are left alone. You are without the church, and without a church vocabulary for what happens to the living after the dead are dead.

Mourning, maybe, is never easy, but it is better done inside a communal grammar of bereavement...Judaism understands mourning as a discipline, one in which the mourner is not only allowed, but expected, to be engaged. Rather than asking the mourner to paper over his grief, the Jewish community supports him in mourning.

Jewish bereavement marks the days, and then the months, and then all the years after a death...The central commandment of mourning is to say Kaddish, a short prayer that begins: "Magnified and sanctified may God's great name be." It is a prayer, actually, that appears at several places in the daily liturgy - once, twice, and then a special time again, the so-called mourner's Kaddish. it is one of the prayers that requires a quorum of10 adults- you are not allowed to say Kaddish alone in your house; rather, you are permitted to recite it only with the commmunity of believers. The mourner is obligated to say this prayer twice a day, every day, for one full year of mourninng.


This calendar of bereavement recognizes the slow way that mourning works, the long time it takes a grave to cool, slower and longer than our zip-zoom Internet-and-fast-food society can easily accomodate. Long after your friends and acquaintances have stopped paying attention, after they have forgotten to ask how you are and pray for yyou and hold your hand, you are still in a place of ebbing sadness. Mourning plateaus gradually, and the diminishing of intensity is both recognized and nurtured by the different spaces the Jewish mourning rituals create...

...Not only is the community present for one's mourning. God is present too. God is ubiguitous in Jewish bereavement because of the Kaddish. Countless commentators have observed that the Kaddish is a curious mourner's prayer, because it says nothing baout mourning. it is rather a prayer about God, describing Him as magnified and sanctified and worthy to be praised. It is not a prayer of rent garments and commemoration, but rather simply four verses of praise to God. "Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, mighty, upraised, and lauded be the name of the Holy One. Blessed is He beyond any blessing or song." As one mourner noted, the Kaddish is really "a Gloria." Even in the pit, even in depression and loss and nonsense, still we respond to God with praise. This is not to say that the mourner should not feel what he feels - anger, disbelief, hatred. he can feel those things (and shout them out to God; God can take it). You do not have to feel praise in the intense moments of mourning, but the praise is still true, and insisting upon it over and over, twice a day every day, ensures that eventually you will come to remember the truth of those praises...

...Like all mourners...none of us who mourn really know what to do. It is all so shocking and unexpected and ridiculous and awful... I found, in the weeks after Clementine's death, that I did not want to listen to music, that I could not, in fact, tolerate celebration of an kind. I even found it faintly annoying when a passerby whistled or hummed. Then, perhaps 3 months after Clementine died, some voice in my head told me that I was overdue, that I had been sitting in sackcloth for far longer than the thirty days of shloshim...

I have not said Kaddish.

...I have purchased a yahrtzeit candle and closeted it away in my linen closet, and on October 19 I will pull it out and find some matches and remember my dead." -Lauren Winner Mudhouse Sabbath

So I ran across this book by Lauren Winner (she's also the author of Real Sex) "Mudhouse Sabbath." It's about the practice of spiritual disciplines from a Jewish standpoint. (winner was raised Jewish and converted to Christiantiy in college)

Needless to say, I found it (it being: what I've read thus far) very interesting. Especially the chapter on mourning.

Over the course of the last 7 months I have heard a great deal of opinions on mourning. Some have been helpful, some have been horrible, and most have been unsolicited. I've received books (some with terrible titles), e-mails, cards, you name it I've seen it. It's been interesting, to say the least.

Growing up with a funeral home as the family business, you would think I'd have a better grasp on how to deal with grief... but I do not. Unfortunately I think that sadness and pain are things that eveyone expects in their lifetime but at the same time, they are things that no one can really prepare for.

I've found that for me when I am "mourning" I basically become a walking contradiction. One day I don't want to talk about it at all. Ever. The next day I can't seem to shut up about it. I sleep all the time for days, and then not at all for a week. One day I am starving, the next day I am starving myself without even trying. I become easily distracted, and incapable of focusing. I find myself irritable wanting to have fun and stay busy but lacking the energy to do so. I want to be around people, but I want to be left alone. I feel lonely in a crowd, I feel suffocated alone.

It's quite frustrating.

Reading Lauren Winner's take on the Jewish traditions for mourning made me feel that perhaps I am a little closer to normal than I thought. While it sucks that grief takes time, it is nice to know that it should. I think the hardest part of mourning is that it always feels lonely. Even if you are mourning with other people, or if you have the greatest friends in the world, there is always that feeling of lonliness that surrounds the heart and soul of one who mourns. The feeling that convinces you that no one else could possibly know your pain and your grief. While this is true at times, I think it is important to recognize the communal aspect of mourning, the part the community plays. We mourn alone, but we mourn together. "Ubuntu" at its purest.

I guess I really don't know what else to say about this passage, other than it was helpful to me when I ran across it. I appreciate the Jewish tradition of recognizing the stages of grief and having various actions and responses regarding each one.

The older I get the more I learn how tricky grief is, and the more I recognize how we often don't mourn as we should, or mourn the things that we should for that matter. Often I feel as though I mourn all the wrong things, and that I try to escape mourning the things that I should.

But here I am, caught between the ebbs and flows of it all, wishing the moon would simply fall out of the sky so that I could float silently in this water for a while.

Maybe someday.

But for now I will continue to grieve in my own way, at whatever pace life chooses for me. I will practice saying Kaddish. I might even purchase a yahrtzeit candle, and on September 29th I will pull it out and find some matches, and I too, will remember my dead.

My life, work aside.

So at work I basically pass the time doing one thing or another, like making business cards for myself. I gotta say, they look pretty darn nice too.

I also spend time perusing the net. Finding interesting articles such as this one: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/007286.htm
Or uncovering great videos like this: or this: or this:

Sometimes I even go on facebook and join groups like "Thomas Kinkaid should Crawl Back into His Cottage and Never Come Back." (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2211816560) and then force all my friends to join. I've been pretty successful!

But aside from work and my evening musical musings and all that... I do in fact, have a life. Surprising I know. Crazy to think that I used to actually talk about my life on here! We're going to try to do that now and again. I've had this post in limbo for almost 4 weeks not, but I finally wrapped it up so here it is:

My life over the past month:

-I went to the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College up in Grand Rapids Michigan back at the end of March. It was as good as I remember it being the last time. Sufjan was great (to put it lightly). He played for over 2 hours and his show involved flying blow up Santas and Supermans, a huge projector screen behind him running throughout the show, and of course he and the band all had wings on...the band in butterfly wings, and Sufjan in bird wings.

It was kinda depressing, it was that good.

It made me wish I had 1/4 of his talent and creativity.

Anyways, it was a good weekend I guess. Nice to be away from work, though I probably shouldn't have gone seeing as how I haven't worked a 40 hour week in I don't know how long. Oh well, what's done is done.

We went through Chicago on our way back. Ran through some sand dunes at Lake Michigan. Got some pizza at Giordano's. Walked the streets for a bit in the rain. It was nice.

-The following weekend found me home alone as Emily went camping for Easter break. I babysat a couple of nights, and then Saturday when Emily came home we hosted an Italian Dinner at the house. It was basically awesome. We made 3 different types of pasta, my favorite tomato and mozzerella salad, fine wines, gelato, and luscious appetizers. I think I'm still trying to lose the weight. It was that good.

-Easter sunday found me attending a sunrise service outside in the 29 degree weather followed bt hiding 50+ easter eggs at Kristins house for what we call "Easter Feaster." There was church again that evening, then sushi at PM, followed by cookie dough eggrolls at Jackson's for Sharee's 21st birthday. Good times.

-Then a surprise came. My grandparents gace me a call saying they were going to be in Memphis for the weekend and they would love to have me come stay with them at The Peabody hotel. So I took the weekend off and drove to Memphis and spent the weekend in Memphis's nicest hotel, visting Beale Street, enjoying ribs at Rondezvous Ribs, and watching the ducks in the hotel lobby. Fun!

-This past weekend involved game night with the post-college crowd at Jordan's house, my first Hot Yoga experience (sweat, yum), AFI movie night at Robert and Charissa's (North by Northwest), and yesterday: Wendy's annual Tea Party, Church and dinner at Logan's.

In other news: I've recently been working through a book called "Bold Love." I think it belongs on my "Life's Required Reading" list. It can go right up there with "My name is Asher Lev," "Real Sex, (another great book.. though that's another post)" and "Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life." I also just finished Rob Sheffield's "love is a Mix Tape." So good. So sad. So.. so right. It's funny, some of the things he says about dealing with death are equally applicable to other life situations. I highly recommend it.

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you, and I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire, and I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
-Thomas Merton

sent.

"On the cross, Jesus, on the cross looking out at the people killing Him. His enemies. The people rejecting Him. He says, "Father forgive them." And then He died. In other words, He blessed, the people who were killing Him, and broke. He broke." -Tim Keller

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." -Luke 6:27-36

"...And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floor boards
For the secrets I have hid."
-SS

sometimes...

post cleared by author

Love is a verb.

Lately I've been thinking about how 'love' is a verb. I suppose I've always believed it, but it seems that more and more I am realizing the consequences of love being a verb. If love is a verb, then it is a choice.. It is an action (action words are verbs.. the song, remember?) So what does it say when someone says, by word or deed, "I don't love you anymore."

If love is a verb, then they are basically saying: "I'm choosing not to love you."

Mward and I used to say that we didn't believe in love. This of course is silly, because if love weren't real than most peoples lives would be a little less complicated. But the more I think about love as a verb, the more I think that Mward and I were onto something... "Love" as a noun is certainly alive and well... but perhaps love as a verb really is dead. Nonexistant. Only Jesus ever truly lived love as a verb and look at what happened to Him: the people He loved betrayed, denied and killed him.

Yeah.

So I'm left wondering what hope there is at all. When we live for ourselves and treat love as if it were something that comes along now and again...a simple emotion.. what a joke. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jer.17:9)" That means you can't rely on anything you think or feel.. in the end it comes down to the choices you make, and the actions you take. Otherwise, why not have an affair when you meet someone who connects with you better than your spouse does? Why not abandon your marriage when it becomes too hard and you no longer feel adequate and your wife/husband has turned into a total bitch? Why not ignore that lonely friend of yours that just can't seem to leave you alone?

God calls people to love with the verb form of love. To choose to love. To love at all times, and in all circumstances. It wasn't a request either....Does anyone else realize the enormity of what this means? This means we can't just walk away from people who rub us the wrong way... we can't ignore our friends when they piss us off.. and .. well, just look at the divorce rate.. good gracious, if love is really a verb, and God really meant for it to be that way, then we can't just go around breaking our commitments to love because we've started feeling differently about the situation... are you kidding me? I don't think God's strolling around telling people to end their marriages because maybe they really shouldn't have gotten married in the first place, or, maybe there's something more exciting out there, or, maybe it's just not going as planned.

When loving doesn't come easy, it becomes easier to see where our hearts lie. Do I act in my own interest, or in that of others? Do I abandon the situation? Do I pursue those who are difficult to love, or do I blow them off? If you are like me, and most people, then you probably act out of selfishness when the rubber really meets the road. We are such selfish creatures. At the end of the day, we really only love ourselves. And yet God demands that we love. That we choose love... He must have known that love, whether romantic or otherwise, wouldn't always be stars and fireflies otherwise why the emphasis on really choosing to love others?

Ultimately, love is never gonna do it for you. You'll fail. You'll be failed. Your marriage will come up short. You'll screw over your friends. Your loved ones will hurt you more than your enemies ever could. You'll manage to return the favor. You'll love poorly. You'll refuse to love. You'll choose to be selfish. You'll fall victim to anothers apathy. And then what do you do?

I dunno... I would figure you repent. You hold on, you keep your commitments, you trust, and you keep on loving. You remember that it's God who completes you. Not your spouse, and not your friends, so you can let them off the hook and stop expecting so much in return. You remember that it's God who makes you feel alive so you no longer have to go searching for excitement and newness when times get mundane because surely the God who created the universe will bring change when it's time. You remember that receiving love is as important as giving it, so you let yourself be loved, and you vow to continue loving despite what the unknown future may bring. You choose not to wallow in sin or self-pity. You refuse to be bound by pride. You humble yourself and prepare to get dirty because you remember that love is work, and it wasn't God's recommendation, but God's command.

In summation: Love is a verb, and this makes love harder than we thought, so expect turbulence. Don't expect your friends, loved ones or significant others to be for you what God is supposed to be for you... they will never succeed because they were never meant to.. be thankful that they (and you) fall short, if we didn't, what would we need Jesus for?

I'll be honest: when I think about how cavalier humans are with love and relationships... it really scares the crap out of me. People are so fickle... we are easily swayed and easily satisfied. Personally, I don't do relationships. I honestly believe I would be divorced if I ever got married, but suppose that weren't true and I felt differently: Even then how could I be sure that my husband wouldn't get bored or tired and leave me to wake up one day and find him gone? There are no garauntees... who's to say I wouldn't marry a godly man who loves me but will one day unexpectedly leave me for someone else who has something to offer that I don't? Or someone who is less work than I am? I'm just one woman... I can't possibly be all things at all times. I'm only human, and I'm not so hot at that half the time as it is.

I would have to hope that my spouse found their worth and full satisfaction in Jesus, so that I wouldn't have to fear being left because I was too difficult, or because we fought, or because I wasn't as exciting and fulfilling as they may have expected to the point where a life without me seemed more fulfilling. I'd have to pray that I would marry a man with a strong faith who trusted God daily with our future so that our financial troubles, unforseen obstacles or other typical difficulties wouldn't be seen as reasons to leave. I'd have to believe that he would be in tune enough with God to refuse to doubt the truth when times got dark.

But even then... people change. We all do. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Oftentimes you don't even see it coming. There is no such thing as "sure." why else would so many marriages fail after years of commitment? No one has a garuntee that their spouse won't wake up one day and just decide they'd rather be alone, choosing to throw them, their relationship, their collective past and their collective future away. So people should pray for increased faith and trust in God... and that's harder than it sounds. After all, who's to say God hasn't planned a divorce for certain people? It's important to pray for faith either way, so that even if your loving christian spouse leaves you for other things (themselves, someone else, a career, etc), your faith in Jesus will be strong enough to pull you through it and give you rest. Granted, I've yet to hear of anyone feeling that way after being left, but I think it's still something to hope for.

A friend of mine once said it best, I'll leave you with his words:

Yes it is true that we are not "made complete" through our girlfriends, or our wives. True completeness only comes through Christ when we will finally be unified with Him as His bride. And this story about the man in the moon and venus is a powerful one because so many people, it seems, do believe that we can simply fall in and out of love. They don't realize that love is a choice, and the passion we feel is a gift. A gift that God does not always allow us to enjoy, so that it will be made plain to us who we really love by the choices we make when we do not feel this passion.

However, with this in mind, the woman that God does have for you, should "complete" you in certain ways that no other human relationship can. Meaning that if she was to leave, you would feel incomplete in certain ways that your friends would not be able to fulfill. We were made for relationship, mainly relationship with God, however, since that cannot happen in all perfectness while we are here on Earth, God allowed for us to be able to experience a lesser form of that intimacy with our significant others so as to gain a taste of God's amazing love.

In other words, it is your job to let yourself be loved by your spouse as they try and imitate God's love for you, and at the same time (and more importantly) it is your job to be the best portrayal of Christ to them as you choose to love them everyday by being willing to sacrifice your life in whatever way neccessary so that they will know that you love them with a love that will not fade, whether the passion is there or not. I am not trying to diminish the importance of not dating to those that have decided not to date (that is between you and God), however, if you are waiting until you know you are ready, then you never will be because the love you have to give is being compared to the love God has already given, and you will never match up.

You will hurt her (or him), you will screw up, you will face temptation that you can never really prepare yourself for. And that is why it is so important for us to fully rely on God in our relationships because the strongest relationships are not the ones in which the two people really prepared themselves for beforehand (although, there is some truth to that as well), but the strongest relationships are the ones in which everyday both the man and the woman recognize that they must choose to love, apart from their feelings, apart from their passions and apart from the expectations that are not met by the other person. It is these relationships that are able to face the rockiest of times and not only survive, but come out even stronger on the other end.

The Man in the Moon and Venus didn't make it because their relationship was based on the expectations that come from selfish love (which really is not love at all if you ask me), and that is true of too many relationships. However, this is not because they didn't wait long enough before getting together, or because God had someone better out there for them, or because they just weren't compatible. No, this was simply because their love was built on an extremely weak foundation of conditions rather than on the perfect foundation of Christ. And that would have made all the difference.

Let's hope we can all believe and act accordingly.... Lord knows most days I can't.

tell me about it.

"I see all throughout the Bible descriptions and promises of what life can look like for people who follow Jesus. They are presented as things that are very possible for a very ordinary person like me. This promised life is described as one filled with hope, with peace, with beauty and joy. It is a life of love and grace and mercy and forgiveness—a life of contentment and fulfillment and satisfaction. And yet I find that my life is often far removed from that. I’m not sure about you, but I often find in my own spiritual journey this great divide between the potential of what could be and the reality of what actually is. ...I so clearly see where I want to be but have such a difficult time actually getting there." -Jason Johnson

"Made to be Known" by Constance McIntosh

(taken from http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life_article.php?id=7391)

One of the greatest complaints heard from those of us in the post-college vacuum stems from the feeling of being alone—really alone. We just left the world where you live with three other people in order to afford rent and see another thousand or so every day on campus—where “résumé builder” activities force us into contact with dozens of unexpected people and class projects turn into uninvited bonding experiences with miscellaneous classmates. We live in a world where, as “grown ups” we’re supposed to find our own way to work, live in our own place and decide for ourselves who we want to spend time with. We move (or our friends move) to find jobs, and suddenly we find ourselves falling through the cracks of the relationship world. No classmates, no family, no school friends. Just us and whoever we manage to collect.

Now, don’t get me wrong, most of us can spark a conversation with an interesting acquaintance and sometimes manage to turn it into coffee or a date, but most of us still feel alone—if we let ourselves.

In college, I lived with four other girls. I was highly involved in my church’s campus ministry, and pretty much every spare moment I had outside the classroom (and the homework drill) I had somebody to talk to.

Then I graduated.


My friends moved away or got married. I lost contact with those who were still in college because our schedules had become so drastically different. I was still a 10-hour drive away from family, and my highly populated community fizzled out. By the end of the summer after graduation, the only people I really talked to anymore were my boyfriend and one other friend.

I quickly spiraled into serious depression. Everyone had let me down. Not one of the many friends who promised to stick with me had actually done it. I had stayed in Orlando to follow God and found myself completely abandoned.

This has been hitting me hard the last couple of months, as my boyfriend and I have been going through some rough times, and I have had no one (except, periodically my one other friend) to talk to about it. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, my other friend called me on it. She asked why don’t I at least try talking things out with one of the few friends I still have contact with from college.

“I’d scare her,” I replied. “I’m too messed up right now.”

She just looked at me. And that’s when it clicked.

We live in a world where success is being polished, put-together and cutting edge. Even our junk, if we admit to having it, needs to be of a certain type—needs to be cool, extreme or counter-cultural. Nobody wants to just be a mess. We have to spin our stuff just right or figure out which tone of voice to say it in, to make sure that when people hear us, we come out looking good. So we learn the tricks. We pick up a vocabulary that makes our struggles sound mild (really, we have it all together) or interesting (don’t you just wish you could be as cynical/jaded/messed up as me?), and we shade everything we say just right.

So nobody ever knows us.

I’m the queen. I wear black and scowl from underneath my eyebrow bar, make sarcastic comments and listen to angry music—and I get off as the cool, counter-cultural, artistic type. People miss the part where I get in my car at the end of a rough day and start crying like a girl. (I am one of those though I don’t always like to admit it.) They miss the part where I sometimes just want somebody to tell me it’s going to be OK, because I feel lost and sad. All the jokes and the funky clothes and the rock music just become the wall I use to keep people out—when all I really want is for them to come in.

So, finally, I tried talking to my friend. I told her that things were rough and that I didn’t know how it was going to work out and how scared I was of a good thing going bad. And she didn’t get scared, and she wasn’t overwhelmed by my mess. She sat there, across the table from me at Chik-fil-A, and told me that God knew what He was doing either way and that I could call her anytime because she loved me and wanted to be there for me.

At the end of the day, the places where we most need people to be there for us are the places we’re most scared to let them into. We buy into the lie that says that people will only stick with us as long as we can sell ourselves just right, and we hide our real wounds so that nobody really knows us.

But the fact is that we were made to be known, both by God and by other people. Allowing others to know us is terrifying, and sometimes we get burned, but the alternative is worse. Because without the vulnerability and openness that real relationship requires, we live our lives cold and alone, starving for community that we just can’t find any other way.

Don't wish. Don't start. Wishing only wounds the heart.

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it's so hard.

"Cynicism seeks to take the place of wonder. I have concluded it is nothing more than soul-rot. Our world is full of it. I spent most of my twenties succumbing to it's charm. It seems sophisticated and perceptive. But really it's nothing more than a coward dressed up in a tweed blazer smoking a Peterson pipe. Cynicism is dismissive and disengaged while looking invested and astute. For the last several years I have been fighting this bent to have a clever dismissal for things, people, politics, religion, etc. I have fought to keep the wounds of my past from informing my view on life. I refuse to be the sideline spectator who rests on his vain pontifications of everything that's wrong with the world. There is a lot that is wrong with the world and there is no need to pretend that everything is OK. However, we are made, as Cornel West puts it, to 'love our way through the darkness of the world'-this is what I choose to be about." - MPJ

Really,

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"I've got a heart full of rubber bands that keep getting caught on things..."

Well here we are.

My head is all over the place.

Maybe I should jsut leave it at that.

Does anyone have any mace to spare?

A story for you, dear blog reader:

So last night I started feeling tired rather early on in the evening, so I got into bed around 11 and actually fell asleep without having to take any sleep medication. This was rather exciting as it's the first time in a very long time that this has happened. So there I was, in my unmedicated slumber when suddenly I was jerked awake by the sound of my doorbell being rung several times in a row. I looked at the clock and it was past 11:30 at this point, so I hadn't been asleep long. I figured it was Emily and that perhaps she was locked out or something. So I roll out of bed, yell "I'm coming! I'm coming," run into the living room turn the lights on, and then (thank goodness) used enough common sense to look through the blinds before opening the door. There to my suprise stood a strange scruffy man with a hat on staring at me smiling.

And there I stood, in my pj's, home alone, half asleep and about to pee my pants.

So I quickly closed the blinds and tried to pretend that there was someone else in the house with me by calling out for "jack" to come to the door. (don't ask me where "jack" came from... my subconscience must be ready for LOST) Then I went in my room and sat crouched in the corner away from view of the windows, hoping that the strange man would soon leave once nobody returned to the door.

But I hoped in vain!

He continued to ring the doorbell for half an hour.

And I sat in my corner freaking out, because by now it had to be obvious to the man that I was still inside and I was alone. And let's face it, if he really wanted to come in all he had to do was bash in the glass, and by this time I was afraid he was going to try it.

So he rang every few minutes and I fished out my cell phone in the dark and turned the sound off and started texting friends to see where Emily was and if she would be driving home soon.

This went on for a while until finally he left.

And then I felt really guilty because he was probably just cold and hungry, or lost, or needed to use the phone, or needed cash or something like that. And I guess I could have spoken to him through the door, but I dunno he just took me off gaurd when I first saw him and it really creeped me out. And I had no idea who it was. And who goes knocking on strangers doors at midnight?

Oh well, at least I went to the door.

Hopefully he figured I was scared of him (and not that I am some witchy woman) and then went to another house.

Needless to say, I missed out on the sleep I was hoping for.
=(

Course, thinking back on it now it all seems very silly. For all I know he could be my neighbor or something.. I don't know.

Sigh, maybe this can serve as the excuse Emily and I need to get a dog.

Moral of the story: Danica is a weenie!

Life After God

"Being alone here now, all of my old fears are erupting...: fear of lonliness; fear that being in and out of love too many times itself makes you harder to love; fear that I would never experience real love; fear that someone would fall in love with me, get extremely close, learn everything about me and then pull the plug; fear that love is only important up until a certain point after which everything is negotiable... A few years previously, a similar situation would have had me sweaty with anxiety, but lonliness had of late become an emotion that I had stopped feeling so intensely. I had learned lonliness's extremes and had mapped its boundaries; lonliness was no longer something new or frightening- just another aspect of life that, once identified, seemed to disappear. But I realized a capacity for not feeling lonely carried a very real price, which was the threat of feeling nothing at all...And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something that nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened...After a while you understand the way that things can go wrong in people's lives; you learn all the patterns and temptations; you recognize the ways people use other people. The glamour of corruption disappears; the learning is no fun anymore. You don't want to waste the energy, so instead you learn tolerance, and compassion and love- and distance- and these are hard words for me to say. All of this is hard for me to say... Now- here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God- that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love." -Douglas Coupland

Would someone please read this book and then come hang out with me so we can talk about it?

Beauty, where to find it? Can't be far.

"Little girl don’t be so blue
I know what your going through
Don’t let it beat you up
Hitting walls and getting scars
Only makes you who you are
No matter how much your heart is aching
There is beauty in the breaking...."

...and laugh they do.

Moons and Junes and ferris wheels,
the dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real;
I've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show.
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know,
don't give yourself away.

I've looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall.
I really don't know love at all.

525,600 minutes,

lost and gone forever.