reverie

My Greek professor edited our work with a green pen because green is gentler than red. Red is stop. Stop screwing up. Stop being inadequate. Stop failing to get it right. Green is go. Go toward learning. Go toward answers. Go toward understanding. Keep going. Keep up the work of becoming. We’re all in the midst of that process. Don’t miss the next draft because you got too comfortable in the current one. Mark up your life with a green pen. Give yourself permission to keep growing. And then go do it.

A brief history of the last three-and-a-half years. 2017 Texas hit by Hurricane Harvey. 2017 Moved. 2017 Lost a job. 2018 Moved. 2018 Lost another job. 2019 Lost another job. 2020 A friend was murdered. And her sons. 2020 And then the rest of 2020 happened. 2020 Moved back to my home state. 2021 Moved again. Sprinkle in a significant amount of relational and religious turmoil, and I am not okay. My friend's memorial nearly a year ago was the last event I attended and the last time I would hug anyone for seven-and-a-half months. We all knew the risks of attending. COVID was confirmed to be in our county. No one was wearing masks yet. No one had any. A few friends had to skip due to health concerns. COVID shutdowns began shortly after. Seven-and-a-half months without a hug while grieving and navigating physically alone. Friends were as present as possible and I cherish the socially distanced hangs and the phone conversations. But I am not good at taking up space. And sometimes when y...

I am slow at things.  Sometimes I'm being methodical.  Sometimes I'm giving in to fear.  Sometimes I just don't know what to do, so I don't until I figure it out. I've always been this way.  Sometimes it shows up in really nice & intentional ways. Sometimes it looks and FEELS a lot like failure.  Like today.  I had been planning to go check out a new church this morning.  And this morning came and I just kind of panicked.  I panicked about what I was going to wear & if I'd feel cute enough to feel confident enough to meet new people.  I panicked about driving somewhere unknown.  I panicked about having to figure out parking.  But mostly I panicked about going by myself. I do so many things on my own, and I enjoy my autonomy so much most of the time, but this morning I just couldn't.  And I cried, and I went back to bed, and then I showed up late to my current church. Pushing past what's known & what's comfortabl...

It's been 10 years since I've been in a serious relationship.  There have been a handful of dates since then, but nothing meaningful, and no second dates primarily (fairly certain entirely) at my choosing. God has been doing a lot of untangling in my heart of late--one of the friendlier ways my verse of the year has been playing out in my life. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.  Exodus 14:14, NIV All I ever wanted to be was a wife and mom.  Any other ambition I had outside of that was extremely secondary.  Until now. Details to come, but I'm pursuing something with my art that would be far more difficult if I had a family.  And the truth of the matter is that I know myself well enough to admit that I almost certainly wouldn't even try to pursue it if I had a family. I'm confident I'm on the right path for a number of reasons, but the most important is that God keeps whispering peace to my heart and hope & joy to my s...

It's been a minute.  Somehow we're 25% through 2018.  Somehow I've been at the paint studio I manage for 5 years.  Somehow time marches more swiftly by the minute.  I've heard that has something to do with getting older.  If so by the time I'm 50 a year will feel like 5 seconds.  Apparently time travel is a real thing. Good Friday is the unofficial anniversary of when I started at the paint studio.  Unofficial only because I started on Good Friday, but Good Friday does not fall on the same day every year.  :) I love Good Friday.  It's the day that we all need.  Obviously in the very real sense of we all need Jesus and Good Friday marks when he died for our sins.  But also in the sense of how crucial perspective is. If we look at Good Friday on Friday, we see defeat.  We see that moment where you just stop breathing because this can't possibly be happening.  This can't be real.  If Jesus is the Messiah how did he...

As with every new year, 2018 invariably brings along oodles of resolutions to lose weight, diet, join a gym.  If this is you, I have some words of encouragement and some pleas for you.  If that isn't you, most of these things still apply. 1. Don't approach 2018 with the mindset of punishing yourself.  Your body is amazing and wonderful.  Whether you're 100 pounds or 500 pounds or anywhere above, below, or in between, you are amazing.  You are created by the God who made the stars and mountains and trees and snow and hummingbirds and Northern Lights and pineapples.  That same artist made you.  You are a masterpiece, so please treat yourself (and everyone else) as one.  You do not deserve to be punished for not meeting the modern notion of how your body should look.  Your body is capable of marvelous things, work toward achieving some of those, like rad yoga poses or learning to dance, rather than beating yourself up. 2. Strike the wor...

Why do I believe in impossible things?  Because snow in Texas.  Because the Red Sox won the 2004 ALCS (and WS).  Because without fail the expectant yet weary hope of advent yields the birth of the Savior. I stood outside waiting for it to snow tonight.  From the first moment anyone dared mention the possibility of snow in the forecast, if all of the the variables lined up perfectly of course, my hopes skyrocketed.  I was certain it had to happen.  In a year of freak weather events, certainly snow had to be among them. I gasped as the snow started in earnest.  No matter how many times I see snow, it's always magical.  But it's especially wonderful in Texas where it "doesn't snow."  I had to hold back happy tears so they wouldn't freeze on my face.  But I delighted in this gift.  Thank you, Jesus. At youth group last night we talked about something in our lives that feels impossible or unimaginable.  As I sit here wrapped in s...

Why can't we put the nativity on the mantel? Because the nativity is too big and it wouldn't be stable. (Credit to my 14y.o. niece for inadvertently coming up with this joke!) Yep, there are pineapples on my Christmas tree.  I ❤️ pineapples.  And while there was nothing particularly spiritual involved in my decision to put pineapples on my Christmas tree, if you pay enough attention, you'll start to see Jesus in everything. Pineapples, in addition to being the finest fruit in all of creation, have long been a symbol of hospitality.  If you recall the Christmas story, hospitality was lacking when Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem.  The best the innkeeper could do was offer them a stable.  And so the King of the world was born in the humblest of places. If we're really honest with ourselves, though, how often do we resemble the innkeeper?  How often do we try to shove Jesus off into a small place in our lives and our hearts while we go about our business...

I don't know how else to process the events of the past week and a half other than to write about them.  I recognize how absolutely fortunate I am to have gotten through the worst flooding event in American history with the scantest of trouble.  I do not write any of these things to complain, merely to process.  I am only choosing to share this publicly with the hope that my working through some of these things may help someone else. Tonight at 6pm I finally mustered the will to head out to the grocery store.  The sky was mostly cloudy, which was a bit unnerving.  I headed to the store closest to home.  It's a fine grocery store, but I typically shop elsewhere with better prices and/or selection, but I really didn't want to go any farther than I had to.  Thankfully, in the wake of Harvey they actually had everything that was on the list in my head: coffee, kombucha, pizza, breakfast.  I didn't have the wherewithal to make a more useful...

Okay, friend Are you searching for purpose Then write something yeah it might be worthless Then paint something and it might be wordless Twenty One Pilots "Kitchen Sink" Absolutely love this song by one of my favorite bands.  It's not available for purchase, but you should look it up on YouTube. I'll wait . . . You know what, it's so good just go ahead & put it on repeat & then come back here. You're welcome. As a writer & a painter I really dig the lines above. You know what the most important thing a writer can do?  Write. You know the most important thing a painter can do?  Paint. Notice I didn't say write the most amazing novel the world has ever seen, or paint the greatest masterpiece of all time.  Simply write or simply paint.  One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever received was to write everyday & don't expect that everything you put on paper is going to be worth keeping. The s...

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. - John 1:5 When the world is in turmoil, which is always even if it seems less bearable on some days than others, all I really know to do is to point people to truth.  When things are dark, the best thing anyone can do is to bring light to the situation.  I don't know of any better source of light to offer than Jesus, after all He has already defeated the darkness. "Well you can't just throw Bible verses at someone's pain and go about your merry way."  I know that.  I also know that I have greater power to walk in compassion (literally suffering with) with those directly in my sphere of influence.  And you bet I'm going to point them to Jesus.  Because here's the reality, I can't heal their pain.  I can listen; I can be a friend; I can buy them coffee; but the only one who can begin to lift the burden of the injustices that everyone will face in this world to some degree or a...

Have you heard the tale of the two wolves?  One wolf represents hope, one despair.  One good, one evil.  One light, one dark.  Look it up if you haven't, there's a few different versions from various sources, but the outcome is always the same.  The wolf that wins is the wolf you feed. I love this tale.  And while I fully champion feeding the white wolf, it's not quite that simple is it? The wolf of despair is satisfied with scraps.  He will devour any bit of crumb that you drop in his general direction.  And even if the wolf of hope keeps him somewhat in check, the wolf of despair shows up in ruts, in doldrums, in drudgery.  The wolf of despair is satisfied with stagnation. The wolf of hope on the other hand, she is bright and shiny and she requires more care to thrive.  She isn't satisfied with scraps.  Her brightness is easily dulled if she isn't tended to.  She can be hard to see in the ruts.  She demands daily a...

I didn't know much about human trafficking until 2 years ago.  I had friends who were passionate about fighting it who would post on Facebook, but it took too long until I started paying attention. In 2014 Remedy Drive released an album of "songs of freedom to shine a light on the trafficking of human souls."  That album is called Commodity. On Commodity is a song called "Under the Starlight."  The title of this post comes from that song, and so do these lyrics: What's this I see it's just a race for property My God no, this is not the way it ought to be We'll take back, daughters from the heartless Maybe we can tear a little corner off the darkness Here is the full song. I don't post this to judge anyone who is still in a place of indifference like I used to be.  I only post to share that once I started paying attention, I couldn't go back to ignoring the darkness. There are more slaves today than at any point in human history.  Tha...

I started writing this post nearly a year ago, prior to the 2016 presidential election.  And while we know the results of the election, everything else in this post is still relevant.  Actually, it feels quite timely at present. No matter if you vote for or against the circus peanut or the pantsuit, your vote won't save the world.  The next president will not have the power to enact racial reconciliation, justice, equal access to quality healthcare, life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.  No matter the policies your preferred president puts forth, the power to bring about meaningful change in the world will remain where it's always been, with you. I hope you find that more encouraging than daunting.  The choices you make day in and day out and the way you treat the people you encounter have greater power to change the world than anything Washington decrees. So what does that look like?  It begins where slacktivism ends.  That means what you do i...

We have a habit of single-handedly bringing back awesome things to the public sphere in my family.  If you've enjoyed a box of Cap'n Crunch's Christmas Crunch in the past 10 years, you're welcome.  I'm certain our scouring of grocery stores and the interwebs and our hoarding of this sweet seasonal treat has everything to do with the relative ease with which it can now be located during Christmastime. Fun fact: one year, prior to the resurgence we ushered in, I found Christmas Crunch at the Ralph's near my first apartment in Los Angeles, so I stocked up on it, filled my carry on, and brought it to our family Christmas celebration in Texas.  Just in case you didn't believe me, we are serious about this. Another thing I'm serious about?  The most whimsical and delightful holiday that most people know nothing about: May Day!  You've maybe heard of May Poles, or if you're a Gilmore Girls fan even a "maybe not pole!"  Thank you, Kirk.  Bu...

On Sundays, I tend to do my Bible reading before bed.  Sunday mornings prove to come to quickly and too early for me to manage it then.  Tonight as I headed for bed, I saw my Bible sitting there and I didn't want to pick it up.  I just wanted to watch some tv and fall asleep.  I didn't want to read and then pray the same prayer about what God has in store for friends and for me in terms of marriage.  What if no answer is the answer, right? I picked up my Bible anyway.  Thanks for the nudge, Holy Spirit.  I turned to 1 Corinthians where I've been reading, and found where I left off.  Oh good, a short chapter, I thought with my still bad attitude.  Then I realized what chapter it was, 1 Corinthians 13.  The love chapter.  The chapter that you've probably heard at weddings, "Love is patient, love is kind . . ." It was like simultaneously Jesus was saying, I see you and I love you, and the Holy Spirit was saying, don't be a brat!...

I was born in the wrong decade, or maybe even the wrong century.  I am sure of this.  Just as sure as I am that God doesn't make mistakes.  How can both be true?  How am I living in the age of social media when I feel so much more drawn toward the age of sock hops?  Very often in this life we are called to live in the tension between what should be and what is.  The tension between the eternal and the temporal, the holy and the worldly.  This tension allows us and encourages us to approach the world how it is and do what we can to make it a little more like how it should be. In a world where courting has devolved into "talking" or "hanging out" or "hooking up," those of us who are old fashioned can try to help pull things back from that ledge.  I'd rather be single and steadfast in my values than get caught up in a world where guys are afraid to say the word date let alone actually ask a girl to go on one.  Hopefully by expecting to be trea...

I take comfort in knowing that if God has marriage in mind for me it will be better than my daydreams.*  If He doesn't, that will be better too.  It's been a long road to get to a place where I trust God enough with my future and my heart that I can write this, believe it, and not delete it out of fear it may actually come true. God knows my desire to marry and raise a family.  If you've been around here much, you know it too.  But I know that God can shape and refine the desires of my heart for my good and the good of His kingdom. I'm realizing that it's no mistake that we often talk about comfort in terms of "finding" or "taking" it.  Comfort isn't something that accidentally appears in your life.  Comfort requires action.  Sometimes that action is on the part of others through prayer, hugs, shoulders to cry on, or ears to hear. I wrote that first part over a year ago.  As it turns out, I could write it, but not quite post it y...

Me about 11:50pm this evening: Lalala, I'm just going to go take the sheets out of the dryer and dry the next load. *Open dryer.  See cockroach inside.* Ahhhh! Being nearly midnight at the time, my "Ahhhh!" was whispered.  I ran back to my room to regroup, leaving the dryer open and only briefly considering how much worse it would be if the cockroach relocated. Several minutes later I put on some shoes, regrouped, and went back to face my foe.  The nasty creature was still in the same place.  I won't go into details, but I was victorious.  It helped rather significantly that the cockroach was already dead.  Dry roasted, as it were.  Perhaps a delicacy to some.  *Heebie jeebies.* Is tilting at cockroaches character building?  I think it might be.  Though, I wouldn't be sad if I had a husband around who wouldn't be mad that I woke him up at midnight to vanquish a bug.  Do men like that exist? I'm kidding. Mostly. Prior...

This morning I had the opportunity to attend a church service that was also the church's 25th anniversary celebration.  Such a joyous celebration of God's glory, faithfulness, and provision seemed so fitting for Palm Sunday.  Maybe it's just me, but it seems Palm Sunday is so easily overlooked.  I remember celebrating Palm Sunday as a child with palm leaves in church and shouts of "Hosanna!"  People celebrated Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem.  And even though things would take quite a turn over the course of the week to follow, I think it is important to remember all of the parts of Holy Week. This is a week that starts with joy, moves toward fear & sorrow, and ends with hope.  Because of Jesus' crucifixion, death, and resurrection, we can have hope.  We have the hope of salvation.  This can be a heavy week as we reflect on the sacrifice Jesus made to save us from our sins, but it's also a week of joy and hope.  I love this week because God...