Hokay. I have decided that this blog thing is hard to keep up with! I don't know if it is just because I have a hard time finishing something I start or if I just don't have a desire to put all my cards on the table all the time. So the things that will be written about today will be. 1.) My winter commute. 2.) "Lets grab a Beer" 3.) Disappointment.

Incipe! (Begin! in Latin)

1. So I live about 30 minutes from where I go to school. This is fine in the spring and in the early fall when there is no snow on the ground. Occasionally, during the winter here in Denver we will go for a week with temperatures in the 60's. This is a great week of driving for me... Here's why: If I'm really good, I can time it so I hit every green light and avoid all traffic. Really, its wonderful. 2 weeks ago I got to my 8AM in 15 minutes... Ok, I was speeding too, don't tell anyone. The problem with the rest of the time (when its not sunny) is that apparently, even though it snows here ALL the time, people in Colorado actually forget how to drive. This past week, a drive that on a mediocre day takes 30 minutes took me an hour and a half. The last 10 minutes of the drive were the worst. There are about 3 stoplights several hundred yards apart from eachother... it took 40 minutes to get through all three.

Really people. You live in Colorado. Wake up, get a car that is not front wheel drive and get out of the way! Maybe I am being unfair. But I don't think so.

2. So I had a fight with a friend. And its really awkward now... Like one of the pictures I posted earlier. So we finally decided to fix things. This is what I am picturing:

I am not really sure why... Other than the fact that we are having a beer tonight. Neither of us are black, or a world leader, or old. But thats what its going to look like, mark my words. I think that I am really learning what it looks like to not just give up or dismiss people who aren't easy to deal with. I think that really by seeking peace and restoration and trust, I am seeking a small part of the Kingdom. I hope that people will take this risk for me too because its a little scary, although I am not sure why. Maybe I'll tell you how it goes.

3.) Why do girls get so disappointed and hurt from hope? I recently had friend, lets call her Shakira (she would enjoy that.) So Shakira and I have had very similar experiences in the dating realm. For both of us it takes a lot to open up and trust someone enough to have hope for something to work out in that relationship. She recently had begun to have this hope for a boy. The boy openly encouraged it and there was promise. Boys why is it that you play with our hearts. Do you mean to? All it takes sometime is that little bit of attention... the bringing of a muffin, the glance, a soft touch. Its not all your fault though. We realize it. That is not the topic of this part of my thoughts however.

What I really want to know comes out of us, women. Shakira said to me, "The worst part of this is the hope that I allowed myself to have." Since when is having hope ever been a bad thing? We have attached this idea of hope for deep love, friendship and "knowing" with relationships. I think that truly, at least for myself and possibly for Shakira as well, that we don't try to protect ourselves from hurt, but from hope. If we never hope we can never hurt. We see hope as the enemy. WOMEN. I sit here in front of my computer today saying, hope is not the enemy.

What it we attached hope to how we even have any of it? I think if we realized that hope is the result of the reconciliation in our relationship with Christ. The only reason we can have relationships with others. We must attach our hope to him instead of this faulty thing that is still in the process of being redeemed. To have hope is to be resilient and resistant to all things that seek to hurt us. Sometimes we may be touched by them, but to give up on hoping is a clear denial of our faith. To lose hope is the breaking of our souls and the ignoring of all things that are good from the Redeemer. If we listen to what we tell ourselves about relationships, that HOPE is our enemy then we will never see that HOPE is actually the remedy.

Thats all I have to say for now. I was just thinking about this stuff because it feels so common to our experience.

Pax.

A Hidden Door

Carl Jung said once, "The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night..." and this is what I have to say today: last night I walked through a hidden door. This was my dream... and I will perhaps tell you a little bit about it.

In my dream, I experienced a desire to go for a drive. So i got in my car and had a bunch of friends in it, way more than I could actually fit in my Honda Accord. We decided to go up to Clear Creek and jump in the river. I was beginning to want to be alone while I was driving, without all of the extra people in the car so I dropped them all off at the river. As I was driving, it was a sunny day and the windows were down. I began to realize as I was coasting down the beautiful hills and valleys of the mountains in the summer time, my breaks were worn down. This was not a scary feeling. I knew that I could slow down, however, I could not fully stop.

I wasn't really alarmed but I realized that I really needed to get the brakes fixed so that, just in case, I could stop. I pulled into the next town and somehow coasted to a stop. As I walked through a municipal building I passed court rooms and weddings, nurseries and the the motor vehicle department. I didn't exactly know who I was looking for but it became clearer and clearer to me that I was looking for someone. I knew that whoever it was could help me fix the breaks so I could come full stop. I looked and looked and couldn't find him so I left the building and got back into my Honda. We started driving around again, and again, I had a strong desire to put on the breaks and make the ride stop. Not because I was afraid but because I though it was something that I should do. I got out again and was looking for the boy once more. I had this feeling that even if I found him, he wouldn't want me to fix the breaks. So I got back in the car and started driving once more to pick up my friends. That is the end of the dream.

What I think I need is in many ways, is someone steps up and rescues me sometimes, whether its listening to me complain about a girl I work with or filling my tires with air when they are low. I think I need someone who I can trust not to let up on the breaks and coast through the valleys and the peaks with, and trust that everything is going to be ok.

The Beloved

Ok, so, usually I don't admit to watching silly television shows, in fact, I only watch 2 of them. Both, (and I can admit to you only because I already told you some dark secrets) are really girly and neither require thought of any sort. One of them is the Bachelor. Now see I am watching the show right now, on rerun and thinking... This is what our dating standards have come down to. Not that every girl is dating 5 guys or vice versa, but this has become acceptable and applauded by a large female audience.

If you don't watch the show, right now, the bachelor, the pinnacle of the average man, is visiting 4 families this week. What is funny, is that one of them has made the comment, " I don't want him to love me right now, I just want him to think I'm unique and special." The mom of the said (gorgeous) woman had also said, "I just hope he is the one to heal her heart and whisk her away." This got me thinking of course.

Along the same lines, I was having a somewhat satirical conversation with some men in the Caf, which simply means we were being extremely sarcastic. The conversation in question was centered on why men are all such jerks and women are so crazy. While bantering, I said, we (women) run into the arms of the male chauvinist simply because we are looking for attention and they are clearly the only ones who are willing to give it to us. Why!?

I think these correlate into one and the same thing. There is something broken in us, ladies, that needs healing. And the more we try to be healed by someone who is not the healer... the more the symptoms of the wound are treated, and not the wound itself. A speaker I heard said something similar: "Its like putting a Bandaid on a gunshot wound to the chest." Its not just going to be alright if we let people like "The Bachelor" keep trying to heal us. What we need is living water, and unconditional love. There is none that can give these things to us but Christ. Instead of turning to the Giver, we turn to mediocre ass-holes, and maybe all of them aren't that bad. But we turn to them anyway, not for love, we have come to regard that as unattainable, but for the feeling of being unique?

There are 20 women who make it onto the first round of the Bachelor. All of these women are gorgeous and special and have huge holes in their hearts. Whether these holes are from fathers, mothers, or past boys, they have them and it is tragic. And the rest of us watch their pain and struggle as they strive, not for love, but for being special. That is the saddest thing I have ever seen.

If someone reads this, and you're a woman with a scar or an open wound, you are beautiful and you are the beloved. Thats it for now.

When We're Friends

So what happens when you are completely honest about everything that is troubling you. What happens when you are honest even if it is in confronting someone? If I was to consider how I deal with conflict, I would say my fighting style looks more like running away sometimes. Often, however, I am left hurt or mad for a long time. Its not good to let the sun go down on your anger. So I stepped up. I had courage and I confronted someone last night. Now what I thought would come out nice and calm, really came out in a spastic and harsh manner. If words could be a picture, I would have sounded like this:Honest. This is how I sound when I don't a. think about them b. plan on saying them. At confrontation time last night, I both, didn't think about what I was saying, and didn't plan on saying what I did. Which brings me to the other part of this complex thought I am having...

Now that I have made a huge fool of myself while trying to call someone else out, I feel the time had come for an apology. So thats what I did. Now imagine this painfully awkward drive home. I in the driver seat, him in the passenger side, and complete silence spanning the distance between us. Yeah, it might have looked a bit like this:

Or... this:

So, in short, thats what confrontation looks like when you become friends with me.

The First in Weeks

Originally Posted 3/22/09

So I usually dream very vivid dreams... and I really haven't had a solid dream that I can remember for several weeks until last night and it was really crazy so I thought I would share it... G-mama P, maybe you can decipher it for me! :) here it goes...

In my dream I was at school, CU Denver school downtown. Only, the school itself looked more like a ginormous church church with sketchy elevators and St. James pink walls. I saw, as I walked down the halls, many people who I haven't seen for years. There was much celebration when I ran into these people. I realized however that I could not stop because I had been called to complete a task. I was holding a clear Starbucks cup and knew that I needed to collect all of these so I could fill them with water and take them to the group of African orphans in the "village" nearby because they did not have any water and were dying. I also stole plates of cookies to take to them from some sort of kitchen.
Originally posted March 22 2009

Once I had delivered them, I started the walk back to my urban home. As I was walking, I came upon a bar. I walked in. I sat and talked to a woman behind the bar who was delegating tasks to many men behind her. I told her of why I had to take water to orphans. As we conversed, a drunk man came and sat so close to me that I had to use a ninja move to throw him on the ground. I decided it was time to leave the bar.

When I walked outside, I saw Nathan sitting on a bike holding out another bike to me. We got on the bikes and started back towards the light-rail station near my school. We did not talk, however, it was very clear where and why we were going to the light-rail station. AS we started moving, I realized that as we peddled through the town, we were in a park filled with beautiful blossoms of pink and white. It had become the season when things grow again. The more I traveled, I saw 3D silhouettes of army men and commanders doing battle on the lane I was moving on. I was continually dodging these shadow figures. The trek took longer that it should have but I did not seem to mind.

Once we got back to the station, Nathan H. was waiting for me. I looked down and realized that I was not wearing any shoes! I knew with complete certainty that I was wearing shoes only seconds before because the peddles of the bike would have hurt my feet. But now they were gone. I felt completely confused. Nathan stated that we couldn't get on the train until I had shoes on and so I began to frantically ride around the city to find them. Then the dream ended.

It was so crazy and real that I was shocked when I woke up out of it.

Time and Space

Originally posted 12/16/09

Ok, So I have been thinking a lot about this year. Actually while thinking about how fast time has passed by, I had a small crisis. I was all of the sudden all alone in this journey of time and I could see the end of life clearly and felt this overwhelming sense of the finality of time here on earth. It was such a strange vision and idea that I could not bear the weight of it. I couldn't understand how this life ends and the idea of the after was almost frightening. Then in this little breakdown of my understanding of time, I felt this overwhelming sense of peace. I thought to myself, oh yeah, I don't have to worry about this. Its true that my existence is wrapped up in the here and now, physical of this world; however, my existence is no longer bound in death.

I must also relate a very oversimplified version of a dream that I recently had. In short, I was told that I possessed great beauty by an old lady. In response I began to read until I was called to help in a great mission. On this mission, a group of people including myself had to sneak around these WWII German military-esque guards to save a group of people located on a mountain. It was towards the end of the mission, half of my "team" was being held in captivity, and I had been spotted. I was running and dodging the guards and made it to the mountain. I heard a woman say that i needed to be standing on a rock. My response, "I am on a Rock". As I began freeing the captives, I heard, clearly, a verse that has been ringing in my head for a while now.

"But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved." Hebrews 10:39

In my thinking about time, it is only natural that I should think about what exactly I am doing here. I have had such a dramatic seeming change of direction, almost every single semester. I haven't been able to tell what exactly the point of all these changes that I have been enjoying. I think slowly I have been understanding why I have been thinking about being a teacher and why I have this remaining love of missions and also why I have still been wanting to remain in youth ministry. I have this nagging feeling that while I would really like to see the culmination of all of these loves, all will not be revealed to me only in the unfolding of time. Which is Ok, because I don't have to fear time. What I do realize though, is that I am meant for the revealing of Christ to people. Many of my dreams and desires in life lead to this and I don't think that there is anything I am more likely. Thats all for now.

A Little Un-Philosophical

Hokay, the first real post. SO I work in a library... Not a fun job on a Sunday night. Lets just say that not too many people come into the library. Right now is a perfect time to really think about what it means to desire another person in one's life. Now, I have impossibly high standards. The problem with that is that I either seem to settle, or I am alone.

Right now however I am head over heels for just one boy in particular.Really, this is an impossible situation where I am certain that the boy in question is not interested. How do I know this? I just do. Also, I think he is bipolar. Why are you such an ass sometimes?Seriously, if I have done something wrong or offended you (don't be such a pansy) and tell me. Because I am really tired of how you can make me feel, and then flipping the switch.

Now before you simply dismiss me as this stupid girl who should just move on... I have literally given up on this before... looked around... decided to focus on other guys... and have sadly come full circle. Now, while I sit here I wonder to myself, what is it about this guy that has you so captivated. Is he so incredible that the world stops moving? Is it the softness of his voice? Is it how he seems to be so confident but then you see when he is really insecure? Is it that he reconsiders things when you ask him hard questions? What the hell makes him so special that you cant get over it?! Men out there... Really what is it that you do to us?

I don't know what the solution is for the dilemma of mine is, however, I know that I am meant for great things. And this is not the end of the world. I've been disappointed before and I've regretted relationships before. I know that I am not going to waste my time anymore when I have a great path before me.

pro·le·gom·e·na

So, sometimes I have a lot to say. And then there are times that I have things to say and the words just wont flow. Its in these silences that my head clears, after I have worked things out so deeply inside of my own head that I can finally let go all that I wish to say. I was once asked why I cry so much, and in reply, I said, I feel everything so intensely, not only my own emotions but those around me. There is a lot to cry about in the world, but if we only stop there, there would be no glimmer of the hope that had been bought for us. This is my hope for this series of musings, that I can get outside of my head every once in a while and write about those things that plague my heart enough to stop me from moving into action. Out of stasis into dynamic motion. If you get offended easily, I'm going to warn you. I am a Christian. I will talk about my faith. I will not try to persuade you to believe what I believe, but I will dialogue with you. I may say things throughout that may sound harsh or wrong, but please be understanding. Following Christ is not easy. I make mistakes and I am learning how to do what I believe. These are just the humble musings of a woman trying to figure things out.

Thats all for now.