PROFOUND TRUTHS FROM PROVERBS

When I was in college, I used to post funny quotes, printed out forwards and other themes on the inside of the bathroom stalls in our dorm.  Sometimes, I’d type out more serious, introspective ones, like this one… verses I found reading through Proverbs that I thought were unique:

*Happy is the one who is never without fear… One who is apathetic will fall into calamity.  (28:14)

*…So a person is tested by being praised.  (27:21)

*Better to be despised and have a servant, than to be self-important and lack food.  (12:9)

*Sometimes, even in laughter the heart is sad.  (14:13)

*Whoever rebukes a person will afterward find more favor than one who flatters.  (28:23)

*He who forgives an offense seeks love, but he who repeats the matter separates close friends. (17:9)

*A scoffer, when rebuked, will hate you.  The wise, when rebuked, will love you.  (9:8)

*The wicked flee when no man pursues… (28:1)

*Like a maniac who shoots deadly arrows, so is one who deceives a neighbor and says, “I am only joking!”  (26:18)

*The scoffer is an abomination to all.  (24:9)

*Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent. (17:28)

*Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor’s house, lest he become weary of you.  (25:17)  ha!

*Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need, or I shall be full, and deny You, and say, “Who is the Lord?” or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God.  (30:8-9)

*The clever see danger and hide, but the simple go on, and suffer for it.  (22:3)

*The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge.  (1:17)

*Strength and dignity are her clothing.  She smiles at the future.  She laughs at the time to come!  (31:25)

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OUR LITTLE FRUIT BAT

My roommate and I got a puppy! It’s my first pet outside of family life growing up. Her name is Lula (full name: Lula Belle May Scooter) — that, or one of the 10 different nicknames based on whatever animal we think she looks like at the moment.
She’s a Yorkie Pomeranian, 4 months old, and we’re in the house training and “chew everything you see!” stage. Woo hoo!

As I type, little Lula is lying paws-up, buried in the couch pillows next to me, fast asleep.
This happened when she excitedly jumped on the couch, fell over sideways, and sank into the hole beside me. Then she decided she’d give up and just stay on her back, all 4 paws up and touching, and go to sleep.
She is the cutest.

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TEXAS, THE COUNTRY (HOW THE TOUR WENT)

Touring in Texas is absolutely…cool. Elizabeth and I have taken what I like to call a “horseshoe route” of Texas… from Lubbock (northwest) to Del Rio (southwest), the San Antonio area (south), near Austin (central), Beaumont (southeast), up through Tyler (northeast) and north of Dallas.

I feel like we’ve been to ritzy exotic places—sometimes looking like Brazil or Hawaii—as well as “country bumpkin” towns complete with aproned women on porches, broken appliances and roaming babies and chickens in front yards. Last night we stayed in a guest house that looked like the love child of an Old West museum and a vacation home for Queen Victoria. The perfect end to this widely diverse tour!
By the way, if you’re not familiar with Elizabeth Hunnicutt, she is a (goofy, fun, talented) indie artist from Minnesota with a similar style (www.elizabethhunnicutt.com) and we got together by way of my friend Mark suggesting that we tour together. This was by far the most common question asked to us… By the end of the tour it started feeling like we were married (“How did you two meet??”)

Well, let’s see… highlights of the tour…

I don’t know if I should call this a highlight, but an experience that should be mentioned is the Lubbock wind. I’m talking nearly hurricane winds with tumbleweeds flying all over the road, corn husks and sheets of sand chasing behind, and birds flying into our windshield. Yes… we don’t think the bird actually flew into us. We’re pretty sure the wind just carried it, much like the cows in the movie “Twister.” We’re
going to think it survived.

In San Antonio, we played in a pumpkin patch! It was the coolest outdoor concert setup… pumpkins and fall decorations strategically placed all over the hill in front of the church, and we actually sang on a stage that looked like the porch of a saloon, complete with the swinging doors behind us.

The scenery changed significantly as we headed closer toward the border to Del Rio. Mesquite trees, cactus…sort of like a desert with tall grass. After the show at “Fiesta De Amistad” (outdoor festival), the church took us to MEXICO to eat dinner! Mmm, authentic Mexican food…there really is a difference!
I was amazed by the evangelistic drive at Del Rio Christian Fellowship. They were sharing the gospel to individuals at the festival, individuals on the street as we walked to the restaurant, and even a bouncer who used to be a youth pastor and nearly broke down in tears out of a longing for those days. He was encouraged not to feel shame and that God would still and always want to use him…not to give up. I think in this day and age it’s easy to make fun of people who go around sharing the gospel through street evangelism, when really, some people are so self-less that they will reach out and literally change lives, whatever it takes. And they did, right in front of my eyes. A couple who was witnessed to became believers that weekend.

In Kerrville, our concert was recorded on Live radio (no pressure…) and we got taken out to breakfast by the morning show co-host. Woo hoo! I do have to mention that I got to ride my aunt and uncle’s Harley to dinner after the concert the night before. That is a highlight. 😉

Back to San Antonio, where we had a free day! We ate at a restaurant called “The Magic Time Machine” where the servers dress up like any character they want (think Halloween continuously) and they have to stay in character the entire time. We got Westley from “The Princess Bride” who rather enjoyed picking on Elizabeth most of the night. I do believe she may have reminded him of Princess Buttercup. At this restaurant, they like to do things like announce very loudly and repeatedly when someone is heading to the restrooms…among other harassments. Oh, and he blew fire from his mouth. Yep… stood in the middle of the restaurant and spit out alcohol in front of a lighted match. Captain Jack Sparrow then grabbed his shot glass and exclaimed, “Oh goody! A little bit left for me” and staggered out of the room.
That night, we stayed in my sister’s “Rainforest Cafe” apartment. I make no exaggeration by the nickname! Kristi proceeded to show us around San Antonio the next day as we went to Alamo, explored the Riverwalk, rode the Riverboat, and ate beside the river. Beautiful! I think if I didn’t live in Nashville, I’d want to be in San Antonio.

On the road again… I believe it was on our way to Galveston that Elizabeth spotted a smoldering patch in the median of the interstate – which suddenly turned into a flame! I wish I had gotten Elizabeth’s call to the police on video, but alas… one of those moments you just stare wide eyed and do nothing else. We are also going to believe that situation turned out ok. (Just spiritually and physically saving lives, that’s what we do. *Stretch, yawn* …that’s just what we do.)

The scenery changed to palm trees, canals, and Spanish style buildings… probably my favorite scenic part of Texas.

I would also like to mention that we played a show in Katy, TX. It was nice of them to name a city after me. Even before I was born…the overall anticipation of the event… very nice of them.

Sunday was a very interesting, exhausting day! After 4 hours of sleep, we followed a friend to a cowboy church in Telephone, TX (what, you ask?? Telephone. This is the hay stacks and chickens in front yards part of Texas) We got lost a few times but eventually arrived, set up, and played for those who stuck around to hear a couple of city girls. I got to ride a horse around the ring a few times! I called it my blue heeler horse, cause that’s what it looked like… very cool. I wish we could have stayed longer. There was so much we could have done at the cowboy camp, but we had to pack up and head to Tyler, TX for our last show! Tyler is where we got to stay at the Cowboy Museum/Victorian mansion after the concert. I would like the lady who lives there to be my interior decorator someday…mental note to log that away in case I’m ever rich and famous. :-p

Today…just now…Elizabeth dropped me off at the Dallas airport. We didn’t want to see the tour end! I’m sure one reason for this in Elizabeth’s mind was the 15 hour drive to Minnesota that she IS going to drive today (*flashing light* crazy ~ crazy~ crazy~)! So I’m here a little early.

Whoa, this guy at the airport just paid for this massage chair in front of me and then left after a couple of minutes… the chair is now massaging nothing. It still has 5 minutes left on the timer!!
The chair should be massaging me.
I am SO taking advantage of this!
…Complete with headphones of gentle streams and rain sounds.

So basically, Texas rocked, very much so. Later! 🙂

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WHAT IF I’M NOT ____ MATERIAL?

(What if I’m just God’s material?)

… “Just God’s material.”  Only someone who the King of the Universe has formed and given breath for the sole purpose that it pleased Him to have my personality, talents and “who I am” on the earth, if only for a short time.  “Just God’s”  …just His.
I don’t know why I base so much worth on what Popular America deems as worthy. Even the things that I have accomplished, the love I have shared, and the friends I have made, get forgotten about in a quick moment of failure.  I start feeling sorry for myself, start feeling like there is little purpose for my life if I am “not even ______ material.”
I’m being vague… on purpose. This blog is written 99% for me, because I need to hear it, not because anyone else does. But it applies so well to all of us. We think: “I am not junior executive material” when we don’t get the job. “I am not marriage material” when the relationships we’ve had haven’t worked out. “I am not star material” when the fame never comes.
Maybe it won’t come. For several possible reasons. Perhaps it was ordained from the beginning of time that it won’t. Perhaps it will come, but it wasn’t the right timing. Perhaps we didn’t do our best or we made wrong decisions and that’s why. Perhaps neither is correct, but “life happened” and God didn’t intervene. Maybe he didn’t care if he intervened or not because he knew our purpose would still be achieved without it.
Sometimes I forget that the purpose of life isn’t just to be happy all the time. (Even if it were, we don’t achieve it so well.) Those who live out that anthem – who have complete fame, tons of money, who party all the time, have unfathomable amounts of sex, and who use drugs that make them feel blissful for hours or days on end… they usually end up as the most depressed with one or more suicide attempts. And we know… those are extreme cases.  We don’t all want to be the most famous, have the most money, and most of us want love more than meaningless physical touch.
We just want a little…we don’t want it all.  However, we say that… and then years or months later, we forget that that’s all we wanted.  Because now we want something different, or better.  It is so hard to stay happy.

I believe when God formed people in his image, the purpose of our lives was just that: for our actions to look like him, for our words to sound more like him, and for our hearts to care more about what he does, and that the point is to tell that story with any and every achievement we do have.  “Well of course,” we say. “Of course we’re supposed to be good and love people, but that’s so generic and isn’t helpful in times of failure.  Besides, if God had wanted us to be just like him, why didn’t he make us that way to begin with?  If he wanted to reveal himself on this earth, why doesn’t he just do that himself, instead of granting that huge, unachievable task to us and making it so un-obvious?  Is the goal of ‘being godly in daily life’ supposed to make me feel better, even if don’t get the job/spouse/fame?”

Hmm… it may not be the best pay-off (right now), knowing that sometimes, those accomplishments aren’t thought of as great by Popular America and are only appreciated by God. But it certainly makes us some of the more defined characters in the big story…and sometimes it is the best pay-off. (“But that is just another way of wanting fame and wanting happiness.” — Not necessarily… it’s a way of knowing we have purpose). Donald Miller wrote in “Blue like Jazz” that every great story has a setting, conflict, climax, and a resolution. We get to be in a story that God created, and like every good movie, there are good guys who usually do all sorts of noble things that only we (the audience) sees…that no other character sees, and then there are those who care about their own fame, wealth and importance; either having little to do with the overall story or who are trying to sabotage the story (knowingly or unknowingly).  I feel like, if I remembered at all times that the point of my life is not to tell my own story, but to help the plot of the whole movie, then getting that extra step up the ladder wouldn’t mean so much to me. This, of course, depends on what I believe about heaven, and/or how important helping other people means to me.  It also depends on my view about God and if I want to help his story be told.

“Who is it being told to besides God, though? What’s the point of that?” – It’s being told to us, by other people…and we’re telling it to whoever we’re around.
I don’t see God enough in daily life, and I forget what the story is supposed to be. I don’t think of God very often, because even the good that people do, is usually selfish and is never attributed to God (or Jesus, the one who taught us how to live in flesh and be like God). So the storyline gets lost.
I have a friend who once said that sometimes she envies the journeys of other people, i.e, the story they get to tell and experience. I thought that was profound.  I often think the same thing, and the funny thing is, I have tons of interesting things to share about my life, several accomplishments, and experiences (luck or otherwise) that have happened to me that haven’t happened to many people at all… and I’m mostly unsatisfied.  Am I just spoiled?  Yes, partly.  And I think it’s just our nature.  We’re worth something for a while, and then after a while, we’re not anymore.  How sad.  I’d rather be content being someone he’s shaping into a key part of the big story and not just someone who is preoccupied with myself.  It’s not to say that being junior executive or the next great movie star is not telling God’s story.  If we are star material AND God’s material, that’s great and can sometimes be marvelous.  But if we are only star material, then we don’t have much purpose.
How incredible, to be chosen as an actor in God’s movie… to be hired by the Creator.   To be God’s material.   To be God’s.

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STILL SEEING

I don’t know why it surprises me sometimes… There are months I stare at a blank spiritual canvas, wondering where the colors are, and if they still exist to be found…and then I find them where they always were, before I hid them.
Sometimes I put the brushes away so the colors can’t be painted. Because I like the comfort of knowing that I won’t mess up…so I don’t start.
Sometimes I start coloring and get scared that the bright colors are too little-kiddish…too child-like, too happy to be taken seriously… And there are days I want everyone to see the finger-painted, beautiful mess.
Sometimes I hide the buckets, the easel and every trace of that world, because I’m too busy with crafts that are colorless and yet promised the brightest display.
Other days, I paint a beautiful masterpiece…but the colors run together from the lack of primer, and I throw away what was so entirely done by me.
And sometimes I can faintly see someone else paint, and I love Him.
And I’m surprised that I can still see the colors. I love those colors.

 

Currently reading :
Reaching for the Invisible God
By Philip Yancey

 

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IF GOD HAD JUST NOT LET THIS HAPPEN…

Wow, here’s a blog I meant to post more than a year ago.
This is actually an e-mail I wrote a friend who was going through a hard time, and I think I actually encouraged myself in the process…because it’s something I have struggled with over the years.  My email to her:

Hey, I was thinking about what you said.  I think that way a lot.  Like: “God, you knew this was going to happen, but you let it happen anyway” …and “if you’d never let that happen, I wouldn’t be the way I am” (or I wouldn’t have done what I did).
Actually, just the other day, someone said something about Adam and Eve being very much the same way… “God, the woman you made for me enticed me to eat the fruit” (and Eve:) “The serpent in the garden deceived me, or I never would have eaten.”
(And I would take it a step further and think, yeah, and God made up the rule about the fruit in the first place but knew they were going to break it.)
It’s hard sometimes not to want to put blame on God, especially when you think he’s angry with you about whatever happened (that could quite possibly have been avoided if HE hadn’t allowed ______).  Now, I’m not saying God is the cause of all things, but he definitely allows whatever actually ends up happening.
I’m sure Adam and Eve had to go through that tension for the rest of their lives: “You know, God let this happen…” and on the other hand: “We’re such rotten sinners, he’s probably still so disappointed in us.”  It’s a constant contradiction that I’m sure they struggled with, being completely human.  I wish the Bible recorded how they handled that.

It gives me comfort to know that I don’t look at their story and think , “Yeah, God probably didn’t even want to talk to them anymore; he clearly stayed mad at them.” Cause I don’t think he stayed angry with them, and especially not where he’d be disgusted if they tried talking to him or getting close to him again.
Often times, I think of myself totally differently than how I see other people in cases like that.
I think we tend to look at ourselves and think, “God is so mad at me/disappointed in me.” and yet when others sin and say God is angry with them, I’m like, “it’s ok… He understands and wants to help you through this.” I think we’re harder on ourselves than anyone else would be… including God.
On the other hand, sometimes we “give God too much credit” for the wrong things that happen (ME, first and foremost).  He clearly allows wrong things to happen, even knowing we’ll make bad decisions (and really big messed up decisions), and yet he seems so calm when it happens…waiting everything out to see how we react to it and work with him to make it better in the long run.  Not meaning to trivialize sin… but to know that when we do sin (because he knows we sometimes will), he’s there waiting for the repentance and a call for help.
I sometimes get annoyed with God for this…and other times I’m grateful that, like Adam and Eve, he knew what was going to happen…and after they sinned, he kept on loving them and was content with them obeying him *from that point on.* Cause it was all they could do.

 

*my side note (not part of the e-mail, but reading this again, having gone through several decisions that I’m pleased with a year later:)

Maybe the thoughts could be shifted from “Why did God?!” to “What will God…if I trust that he means good for me…and what if I (let him)?”

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CONSIDER THE SPARROWS

So 3 weeks ago was the coolest drive home from work ever.  I work overnight shifts, so I’m used to getting off work before the sun comes up. But this particular day, I had to be at work late, and I left with the sunrise.  As I drove home, I noticed something that amazed me.

Thousands upon thousands of birds in the sky, all traveling north…pink filled sky, warm weather…I drove 7 miles with bird-filled skies; all of them flying in gleeful abandon in a pre-springtime parade.
They would swing up high to the left, then swoop back to the right, and criss-cross other birds, and each one would go a different way, but it was this “chaotic dancing in the sky” kind of pattern. As I pulled into my apartment lot, I shut off the engine and just sat there and continued to watch the sky.  They kept coming.  There was never a break and they kept coming…probably hundreds of thousands had passed by this time, and no end in sight.  It was a little creepy, yes…like Alfred Hitchcock’s crows meets Cinderella’s singing canaries.  But at the same time, this beautiful thought came to me.
See, it had snowed 2 days before. The day after it snowed, it was slightly warm (you Nashvillians probably remember this day, it was so random). Then this particular morning (day after), it was completely sunny and 60 degrees at dawn.

What if those birds thought it was already spring?  …that winter was over and it was time to return from the south… joyfully welcoming themselves back home?
I’ve never seen anything like it. After 5 long minutes of sitting in my car staring at the birds, I finally gave up and realized there would be no end for a long time, and I needed sleep…so I went inside.

What’s so cool about those birds, is that I could relate to them at that moment (and still do, to my surprise).
OK, I’m not obsessed with springtime, I promise…I know I have the song that proves that I am… but here’s the thing.  Once again, a season has changed in my life, and a winter I never thought I’d get out of, has melted away. I am ecstatic about it. Will it stay that way?  Will it be sunny for a long time? I don’t know.  But I’m going to start living with my heart again (not only my brain), and I’m not going to be afraid of having joy, and being optimistic.  Call it getting in touch with your childhood…I just think it’s how life should be lived.

The problem with joy is that it’s naive.  If you put stock into joyful feelings, you will be living as if the future looks bright, as if life will work out as it should, and have faith that the sun will continue to shine, even on cold days.  Now, I was in the same predicament those birds were in 3 weeks ago.  They were taking a huge risk, making the trip all the way back home after hearing about one day of sunshine (however they do their communication).  Well, I was marveling at their faith, wondering if the sun would really stick around. …And it’s 28 degrees right now, and cloudy.  I don’t know where the birds are.  But the cool thing is that they came, parading back into the city in all their glory, and really lived…*really lived* for that whole dramatic dance in the sky. (for all the minutes, hours, and days that it took them to travel).
And it will be spring soon enough…and perhaps they will laugh at themselves down the road and just chirp about how much fun that parade was. (…work with me, people.)

What I’m realizing is that really living is worth it… and it means shutting off my brain to the cynicism that’s ruled it for so long.  To live life with intelligent happiness…(even if it seems like a paradox, to make that my goal).  To actually chase (like fly with gleeful abandon) after my dreams, instead of moping around with guilt and insecurity and being ok with this soft nest I’ve built for myself…to hide in.
For me, it meant getting in touch with the whole reason I exist again… to shine.  And to only have to please one person; that is, the One who pursues me the most, who can’t wait for me to get started on actually trying the abundant life.
Because when you’ve tried everything else, it’s funny how the thing you thought would give you a boring life – ends up being the way to freedom.
…God is hidden like that. 🙂

 

Currently reading :
The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God
By Brent Curtis
Release date: By March, 2004

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JOY, NOT HAPPINESS

You know, I used to get so sad over change, wishing happy times would always stay happy. But sometimes my happy times aren’t actually joyful, just a series of shallow happy events that I try to hang on to, piece together and pretend the quilted pieces are making up a good life.

I think God is in the process of taking people away from happiness. More toward joy…even if it takes weeks being miserable, or years, to bring it about.

I’m finding that joy… is a foundation, on which other events and emotions are stacked.  Happiness is sifted on top of everything that’s built, but eventually it blows away or gets lost in memories.  But if someone has joy, it will be there waiting underneath it all.

I’m learning to let go of bad habits, and realizing just how pathetic some of them have been. #1 — reverting to the past to make me feel happy, and safe. (the past is not real anymore…most are romanticized versions of what used to be real.) #2 — trying to make people like me all the time, often at my expense. (if I don’t want to go somewhere, my first concern should not be “what if people get insulted if I say no?” More than likely, these events will all be forgotten shortly, and time will go on, and what matters is my close friends and family. Family…who I hardly ever talk to because I’m so busy doing things I don’t want to do and hanging out with people I’m half-hearted about and events I don’t enjoy. #3 — Having to get a record deal. (…Do I love writing songs? Yes, when I’m inspired. Do I love performing? Sometimes, it’s a love-hate relationship. Do I want to eat, sleep, and breathe music? No! Do artists who have record deals eat, sleep, and breathe music? Yes! So why have I been living for so long like I need to get a record deal?? Because, like living in the past, living in the future is also a romanticized illusion, and I want the record deal as I see it… with snapshot moments that are fun and satisfying, and music already written, and plenty of days in between interviews and concerts and promoting myself.
Is that what people get when they’re signed? No. Are they also able to have the dream with marriage and kids and a normal day-to-day life? –Not without nannies, daycare, rich husbands or hit singles. So is that what I want? No! …If I didn’t get signed, could I have a more normal life, still singing and writing, having my most important dream of getting married and having kids? Yes! (assuming I get married and am blessed with children… ha) …Another dream I hope for, but can’t force to happen.
So yes, this sounds like a huge risk, but I’m not giving up on a record deal… I’m just going to be content as an independent artist, which means I’m doing what I can in the moment and doing what God wants me to do. No more record deal idols on my shelf. So, #4 — Being pessimistic. Being cynical. Blaming God and others instead of just moving on and doing something about whatever situation went wrong, or whatever emotional state I’m in. Maybe, as a Christian, I should follow what Jesus teaches about trying to be truly honest, thinking “lovely thoughts,” not being offended, not being greedy or wanting fame, not pursuing or needing the “love of others,” and not holding on so tightly to things that are of this earth.

I thought a while ago about the question people often get asked in interviews. “What motivates you? What are you passionate about?” I thought about what I was passionate about. Well, I’ve been driven in many different areas of life, whether spiritually, physically, or career-wise, at different times in my life. But two weeks ago when I was wondering this, I couldn’t think of anything.

Then it hit me… 1) making sure people like me. 2) making sure I do just enough good to where God won’t dis-like me.

As I sat on the plane back home, pondering this…I realized just how sad those two answers are. How incredibly sad.

Thoughts came to my mind from scripture. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” Maybe Jesus’ way would make me truly content (again) if I would maintain living and thinking what he actually says, hungering after a right relationship with him and a positive outlook on life. Because then, no matter what the circumstances, success or failures, that joyful foundation will still be there…and will not be so covered up that I can’t feel it anymore.

“Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight.
We have to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.”

-Bruce Cochburn

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CONTRADICTIONS

So I have these thoughts tonight that are all very contradicting, but that’s usually how my thoughts go.

A background of sorts…

I grew up mostly fundamental Baptist (though my parents were never that strict…we were kinda “the sinners of the church,” in a way). <

random tangent (that has a point):

I love spiritually dramatic movies. Like “Luther“… and even tonight watching “The Poseidon Adventure” which isn’t even overtly spiritual (and which my friend and I decided should be The Poseidon Escape… would make more sense), I realized I like the bravery and focus the main characters have.  It’s very motivating… I guess I want a really courageous, selfless leader to look up to, and I don’t see many people like that these days.  So watching movies like the Ten Commandments and seeing Moses be who he was (in all his dramatic movie glory), and seeing Joan of Arc be steadfast in her beliefs and motivated and courageous… it’s a good place to set the bar, even if that’s not always attainable in every day life.

I used to be very strong in everything I believed, and I do miss that. I used to be more reverent toward God and Jesus, and I miss that.
I don’t like thinking of God as “hey buddy” and sometimes yelling at him like I have a right… but I tend to do that anyway.
I’m glad I’m not as judgmental toward people…but I don’t like being able to identify so easily with unbelief and anger and fear.
I don’t necessarily think it’s better to be in the middle (not really knowing, but at least not looking like a fanatic)…and yet in a way I do.
I know Jesus said he’d rather have people be hot or cold.  I also know he didn’t scold his own disciple who had doubts.  I know God loved those in the Old Testament who kept messing up and sometimes had anger toward God. But I also know they had strong faith and strong reverence.

I’m full of contradictions… I don’t like fanatics and yet I wish I still were one.  I don’t bet I helped as many people (as I thought I did) then, but I was trying to do much more for God then and I certainly felt like I was helping more.

I guess we can only do what we can do now, with the faith that each of us has at the moment.

 

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I LOVE NASHVILLE

So I was driving to work and veering all over the road, simply because the sky looked particularly awesome and I was staring at it.
It was changing so fast…the clouds were surrounding the moon, but they were tiny symmetrical little puffs, and it looked like a rainbow was circling the moon between the clouds. It honestly looked like the moon was surrounded on all sides, like it was floating in a bubble of rainbow kaleidoscope clouds, with green and blue, white and pinkish colors…but the rest of the sky was black. Then in about 2 minutes, all the clouds were above it and looked like regular clouds, and the moon was alone again (poor thing).

This is what I love about Nashville. Although one of these days it’s going to cause me an accident. Usually in the spring and summer, I’m staring at the grass and the flower-trees, wondering how in the world the grass got so bright green, and why everything looks like a video game. It really looks like cartoon grass to me (in a good way) See I’m from Colorado originally and we didn’t have grass like that, and certainly not trees made entirely of flowers! The wintertime is cool because the trees have all lost their leaves, but at night time, all the tiny branches still make the trees look full and the frost on them makes it look soo cool… but it looks unreal! Most of the time Nashville scenery reminds me of paintings…and it makes me think twice whenever I’m watching a movie and thinking “Oh my gosh, that’s such a fake background,” (this is usually when I think the colors are too bright to be real, or the trees look like oil paintings)… See, cause many times I’ve looked at trees in Nashville and thought, it looks like a charcoal drawing (or, in the fall, the colors look like bright paint)… or I’ve seen the grass and flowers and thought it looked like cartoons, or I’ve looked at the moon when it takes up the entire road on the horizon (and it looks like it’s right in front of you, and way too detailed) and I’ve thought it looked like a huge paper cutout they used in old B movies (“as if the moon could look that big”) It’s so crazy.

Well on a less poetic note, there’s a beetle at the radio station exercising around my legs.

…(Seriously, he’s been doing laps in a perfect circle ever since I got to work… from the computer desk to under the console to around the base boards by the window, past the bookshelf and back around to the computer desk. It’s been at least 20 laps, maybe more.)
Why don’t I squash him, you ask?   … Because I hate the crunch.

/by