Opps. I crafted.
Over.
And over.
And over again.
Until I made enough pins, clips, handbands, and necklaces to open a small shop.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
LOGAN GET'S MARRIED
Before Neil and Heather got married, Claire got married. This meant a trip out east in early September to be part of something beautiful. This trip also meant a visit to my Alma Mater and a weekend with my big sister form Alpha Sigma Alpha and her twin sister. I then headed down to Blacksburg to visit with Kendall, another ASA sister. We then traveled to DC together. I was then passed off to my BFF. We then meet my twin sister from ASA for dinner, before making the trip to Richmond the next day for Claire’s wedding. Before the wedding we visited with Angela, who is one of my favorite sisters and also a fellow Iota in ASA.
There was a lot of sorority love. Claire was also an ASA and one of my college roommates senior year. Her wedding was beautiful. It showed her love for the tradition, dance and of course, Justin.
But before we even got to the wedding, Joanna and I curled our hair in the bathroom at the Richmond Art Museum, even though the lack of hair spray had my hair flat immediately. The only outlet was as soon as you walked in the door. The variety of expressions we received was worth it, especially when we had a curling iron dive into the trashcan. But you see, our adventure did not end here. We ended up getting dressed at a Kroger, a grocery shop.
I love the East Coast. I love the reunions with friends. And I love road trips with best friends.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
MEGHAN'S STORY
I was sexually abused every day for six years, I suffer depression, I have tried to commit suicide three times, and I have a drug problem that started even before I was born. I have been taken away from my mom for the final time and have been kicked out of my grandmom’s house for good. I am a lesbian in a church that isn’t ready for me and I am an age that no one is there to respect me.
This was just the beginning of Meghan’s story.
We all sat there speechless.
I asked my small group to share who they were and who they weren’t. Knowing only a little about Meghan I thought she would have shared something more like this— My name is Meghan and I am in 10thgrade. I made the varsity basketball team my freshman year and I like biking. But I then realized that these things didn’t make Meghan who she was.
All these heartaches were just steps on her journey. She mentioned with almost every experience that she felt lonely or not loved. She shared that she tried to kill herself because she didn’t have anyone to love her or even know her. And she was dependent on drugs, because it was the only thing she had to be dependent on.
Meghan went on to say that she was in a foster home that prayed before every meal. She told us about this experience, saying “I knew nothing. I knew that people prayed in this world, but I didn’t know why. But with this family something clicked. And now I am a different person. My story continues on today knowing that I am loved and I should never feel alone. I take every step knowing that I have someone on my side. That I have a partner in crime and one that isn’t going to get my in trouble. Knowing that I am God’s child is the most important thing I now know.
Meghan got it. Her story was not all bad, because now she saw that she had hope. Hope that tomorrow will be better, even if she is still in and out of hospitals and foster homes due to continuing struggles. She got it. She knew that she was a Child of God and her story portrayed that in the most sincere way.
Three weeks later I was at Meghan’s baptism. She smiled the biggest, most beautiful smile when the pastor said, “You are a Child of God.”
This was just the beginning of Meghan’s story.
We all sat there speechless.
I asked my small group to share who they were and who they weren’t. Knowing only a little about Meghan I thought she would have shared something more like this— My name is Meghan and I am in 10thgrade. I made the varsity basketball team my freshman year and I like biking. But I then realized that these things didn’t make Meghan who she was.
All these heartaches were just steps on her journey. She mentioned with almost every experience that she felt lonely or not loved. She shared that she tried to kill herself because she didn’t have anyone to love her or even know her. And she was dependent on drugs, because it was the only thing she had to be dependent on.
Meghan went on to say that she was in a foster home that prayed before every meal. She told us about this experience, saying “I knew nothing. I knew that people prayed in this world, but I didn’t know why. But with this family something clicked. And now I am a different person. My story continues on today knowing that I am loved and I should never feel alone. I take every step knowing that I have someone on my side. That I have a partner in crime and one that isn’t going to get my in trouble. Knowing that I am God’s child is the most important thing I now know.
Meghan got it. Her story was not all bad, because now she saw that she had hope. Hope that tomorrow will be better, even if she is still in and out of hospitals and foster homes due to continuing struggles. She got it. She knew that she was a Child of God and her story portrayed that in the most sincere way.
Three weeks later I was at Meghan’s baptism. She smiled the biggest, most beautiful smile when the pastor said, “You are a Child of God.”
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
DEEP IN MY HEART...
OBSERVATION OF NATIONAL CHILDREN’S SABBATH
One of my favorite question as a child was what do you want to be when you grow up.
I had dreams of dancing across the stage at Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York, New York as Belle in Beauty and the Beast. I would carry every emotion and note with sheer perfection. At the end of each night I would look out to a packed theatre, everyone on their feet, clapping and wooing for me, the star of the show. And just a few short months later I would be walking across a stage accepting my first of many Tonys.
I had dreams of being a Princess. A castle of extraordinary proportions would be built in my honor just down the street from my parent’s suburban Philadelphia home. There would be a moat and golden retriever puppies that would never grow-up. There would be a prince that would come home every night with flowers in hand and stories of how he slayed the suburban dragons. And he would protect me from the meanest of them all, my older brother.
I had dreams of being a doctor. I would fly past the other students in my program as I found a cure for HIV/AIDS as a first year resident. I would then give my life to living in subserian Africa. A medical facility would be named in my honor, and all the village children would great me on my walk to work.
I had dreams of being an artist. I would spend my day in my loft with ceilings that raised 12 feet high. I would have paints and supplies of every color organized in shelves and cupboards. Out my window I would see the city, my inspiration. My paintings would be known throughout the world and my personal assistants would have to feed calls from places like the MET and the Louve. People from all over the world would come to look at my creative passion that came alive on canvas.
In one of my favorite books from high school, Boy’s Life, the main character, Cory looks to his father and says, “I’d like to be everything in the world. I like to live a million times. He father responds, “That would be a fine piece of magic, wouldn’t it?”
You see, I didn’t just want to be a princess or a doctor. I wanted to be it all. And in the native nature of being a child, I had a plan to make it happen. I could be an artist on Monday and have plenty of time to live in Africa while staring on Broadway. And like Cory’s father, my parents would live into this all, because they did not want me to loose my magic.
Just earlier this morning, I may have gotten a glimpse into what it would have been like if I could have been everything I wanted to be once. We had a ballet dancer and Irish dancers. There were basketball players and soccer players. There was kung-fu and karate. There was poetry and origami. There were the children of Calvary doing it all. They were living the million lives I dreamed of, all at once.
Today as we celebrate and observe National Children’s Sabbath, I cannot help but live into my childhood dreams. The imagination that I held that I could do anything. I remember the people that never said never. They lived into my magic.
But soon imagination and magic replaced reason. People surrounded me begin to ask questions. Are you sure you want to be a princess? Are you sure you are ready for the extra pressure of applying to medical school? Are you aware of the financial burden of being an artist could ensure? Are you sure you are good enough to make it to Broadway?
And just like that, I saw my dreams slowing disappearing. I had been tricked out of dreaming. I could no longer be a princess or an artist. Now when I was faced with the question of what I wanted to be when I grow, my answers had to be different. It was that horrible period in all of our lives when reason begins to trump imagination.
These people that once believed in me, that told me I could be anything in the world had turned their back on me. Those who joined me in my joy of my dreams had now decided that I need to think practically about this all. I saw myself being surrounded my hypocrites. And they all seemed to be old.
What in the world were they trying to accomplish. Why me?
I would then fight them all back, my feet would start to stump and my voice would start to raise, and like a professional, the tears began to flow. And with this winning combination, all the adults were back on my side, allowing me to live, once again, in my childhood imagination.
Well, that is how I wish it would have happened. Instead, I would see the embarrassment or anger in my parent’s faces, and next thing I knew I would be on my way up the stairs, taking each once with a loud thump. It was then a sharp turn to make it down the hallway. I would then walk in to my room and with all the power in the world, I would slam my door.
And so now, when approached with the question what do you want to be when you grow-up, I got scared. Do I make something up or do I say I want to be real-live Princess. And so, I answered with the answer no one wanted to hear.
Um. Ah. Hum. I don’t know?
It is an answer to a question that shows defeat, failure and instant frustration.
In the Gospel today, we see Jesus being just a little snarky. Here we have the Pharisees, hoping to trick Jesus one more time. And this time they think they got it figured out. They have crafted the one question that is going to trap Jesus. They say to Jesus? Is it right to pay taxes to Casesar, the emperor, or not?
Clearly they think Jesus has to answer yes or no. If he says, yes, it is right to pay taxes to Casear, Jesus is siding with the Romans, and against Israel and most of the Jews, including the Pharisees, who would consider him a traitor. If he answers no, he could be labeled a Rebel who opposed authority of Rome and the Herodians would be against him.
Could Jesus have continued in his snarky attitude and answered, I don’t know, what do you think? But instead he crafts up a cleaver answer to a rather cleaver question, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
This is one of those times I wish the faces of the Pharisees could have been captured on film. I imagine some raised eyebrows, some dumbfounded looks, probably quite similar to those I got when I shared what I wanted to be when I grow up.
So, what is Jesus’ answer saying. Is it warning the Pharisees about the separation of church and state? Or is Jesus saying that we owe absolutely nothing to false gods, like Caesar and should reserve all things for God?
We don’t know. I don’t know. But there is an inclination that Jesus is trying to make clear is that we cannot ignore politics and we cannot ignore the economy. These are things that surround us and in some way, claim part of our identity.
Jesus wants us to think.
He wants us to think and wonder the great questions like…
What causes do I support?
Who do I vote for?
How will I dedicate my time?
How can I use my gifts?
And even the question, “What do I want to be when I grow up?”
I could give an answer to all of these questions, even if it is as complex as I don’t know.
What causes do I support? I don’t know
Who do I vote for? I don’t know
How will I dedicate my time? I don’t know
How can I use my gifts? I don’t know
What do you want to be when you grow up? I don’t know.
There is always an answer to the question, but what does our identity in Christ, our faith in the triune God and the love of the community play into our answers.
This is the part that makes us think. We begin to wonder what does being a Christian mean in all of these questions? And maybe our answer is very simple, I don’t know, but that does not mean the conversation ends there.
We begin to answer these questions together in community. We wonder together. We question together. We remind one another to take on the imagination of a child. We need to step in to that realm of the impossibility and just sit and ask what if.
In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians this morning, we hear how the people first received the word. The story involves Paul coming to Thessalonica and proclaiming the word to the people. The people hear what Paul had to say, and some are filled with joy.
And like a fictional fairy tale, the letter ends with they lived happily ever after.
Yet just like us, there had to be the period where they had questions to ask. They needed to wrestle with who is this character of Jesus. You mean, I have to give up my other identity as a Gentile for something else. There had to be more.
As, we gather today as a community, everyone has the opportunity to hear the word proclaimed, and just like the people of Thessalonica, it is not always and they lived happily every after.
We, too, need the chance to wrestle and figure it all out. We even get asked questions and have to answer, I don’t know, but, what comes next.
As we celebrate our children today, there is something extremely special about this question. They may be able to tell the elaborate dreams of what they want to be when they grow up. They may be able to share a story from earlier in the week, but they also may not be afraid to answer a question with “I don’t know.”
And there is something beautiful and unique about a child’s, “I don’t know.” I think it goes a little more like this, “I don’t know, but teach me.”
Yet the word teach also gives us the space for something more. There is an old, and very common classroom model that is fully Lecture based. A teacher or professor gets up in front of the classroom and talks as the students are thought to be learning. There may be time for questions, but rather typically, at the end of the time together, both parties go their separate ways.
That’s not the kind of teaching we need to see.
It’s a teach that allows for mutual curiosity with the one’s faith, especially a child’s. It’s that living in to their dream, instead of discouraging for an answer or solution that seems more plausible or socially acceptable. It’s answering wouldn’t that be magical, like Cory’s father when he said he wanted to be everything in the world.
It is so easy for us to think of children with the social norms placed on them. Things like rowdy, young, misbehaved, and even smelly all seem common. We think of them different then us. We think of ourselves as the ones with knowledge, with the answers to the questions, but we all have the places in our lives where we answer the question I don’t know, but do we neglect our child like curiosity to know more.
May we continue to live into the community of questions of doubt and being not so sure. May we continue to wrestle with our Christian identity like the people of Thessolonica or the Pharisees. And through this all may we continue to ask questions and know it is okay to say I don’t know.
For we have a God that has not limited those dreams to what is practical or safe. But she has given us the gifts to look further, dream bigger and brighter. And some of those greatest gifts are the children who allow us to live into the imagination we thought was left behind.
I had dreams of dancing across the stage at Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York, New York as Belle in Beauty and the Beast. I would carry every emotion and note with sheer perfection. At the end of each night I would look out to a packed theatre, everyone on their feet, clapping and wooing for me, the star of the show. And just a few short months later I would be walking across a stage accepting my first of many Tonys.
I had dreams of being a Princess. A castle of extraordinary proportions would be built in my honor just down the street from my parent’s suburban Philadelphia home. There would be a moat and golden retriever puppies that would never grow-up. There would be a prince that would come home every night with flowers in hand and stories of how he slayed the suburban dragons. And he would protect me from the meanest of them all, my older brother.
I had dreams of being a doctor. I would fly past the other students in my program as I found a cure for HIV/AIDS as a first year resident. I would then give my life to living in subserian Africa. A medical facility would be named in my honor, and all the village children would great me on my walk to work.
I had dreams of being an artist. I would spend my day in my loft with ceilings that raised 12 feet high. I would have paints and supplies of every color organized in shelves and cupboards. Out my window I would see the city, my inspiration. My paintings would be known throughout the world and my personal assistants would have to feed calls from places like the MET and the Louve. People from all over the world would come to look at my creative passion that came alive on canvas.
In one of my favorite books from high school, Boy’s Life, the main character, Cory looks to his father and says, “I’d like to be everything in the world. I like to live a million times. He father responds, “That would be a fine piece of magic, wouldn’t it?”
You see, I didn’t just want to be a princess or a doctor. I wanted to be it all. And in the native nature of being a child, I had a plan to make it happen. I could be an artist on Monday and have plenty of time to live in Africa while staring on Broadway. And like Cory’s father, my parents would live into this all, because they did not want me to loose my magic.
Just earlier this morning, I may have gotten a glimpse into what it would have been like if I could have been everything I wanted to be once. We had a ballet dancer and Irish dancers. There were basketball players and soccer players. There was kung-fu and karate. There was poetry and origami. There were the children of Calvary doing it all. They were living the million lives I dreamed of, all at once.
Today as we celebrate and observe National Children’s Sabbath, I cannot help but live into my childhood dreams. The imagination that I held that I could do anything. I remember the people that never said never. They lived into my magic.
But soon imagination and magic replaced reason. People surrounded me begin to ask questions. Are you sure you want to be a princess? Are you sure you are ready for the extra pressure of applying to medical school? Are you aware of the financial burden of being an artist could ensure? Are you sure you are good enough to make it to Broadway?
And just like that, I saw my dreams slowing disappearing. I had been tricked out of dreaming. I could no longer be a princess or an artist. Now when I was faced with the question of what I wanted to be when I grow, my answers had to be different. It was that horrible period in all of our lives when reason begins to trump imagination.
These people that once believed in me, that told me I could be anything in the world had turned their back on me. Those who joined me in my joy of my dreams had now decided that I need to think practically about this all. I saw myself being surrounded my hypocrites. And they all seemed to be old.
What in the world were they trying to accomplish. Why me?
I would then fight them all back, my feet would start to stump and my voice would start to raise, and like a professional, the tears began to flow. And with this winning combination, all the adults were back on my side, allowing me to live, once again, in my childhood imagination.
Well, that is how I wish it would have happened. Instead, I would see the embarrassment or anger in my parent’s faces, and next thing I knew I would be on my way up the stairs, taking each once with a loud thump. It was then a sharp turn to make it down the hallway. I would then walk in to my room and with all the power in the world, I would slam my door.
And so now, when approached with the question what do you want to be when you grow-up, I got scared. Do I make something up or do I say I want to be real-live Princess. And so, I answered with the answer no one wanted to hear.
Um. Ah. Hum. I don’t know?
It is an answer to a question that shows defeat, failure and instant frustration.
In the Gospel today, we see Jesus being just a little snarky. Here we have the Pharisees, hoping to trick Jesus one more time. And this time they think they got it figured out. They have crafted the one question that is going to trap Jesus. They say to Jesus? Is it right to pay taxes to Casesar, the emperor, or not?
Clearly they think Jesus has to answer yes or no. If he says, yes, it is right to pay taxes to Casear, Jesus is siding with the Romans, and against Israel and most of the Jews, including the Pharisees, who would consider him a traitor. If he answers no, he could be labeled a Rebel who opposed authority of Rome and the Herodians would be against him.
Could Jesus have continued in his snarky attitude and answered, I don’t know, what do you think? But instead he crafts up a cleaver answer to a rather cleaver question, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
This is one of those times I wish the faces of the Pharisees could have been captured on film. I imagine some raised eyebrows, some dumbfounded looks, probably quite similar to those I got when I shared what I wanted to be when I grow up.
So, what is Jesus’ answer saying. Is it warning the Pharisees about the separation of church and state? Or is Jesus saying that we owe absolutely nothing to false gods, like Caesar and should reserve all things for God?
We don’t know. I don’t know. But there is an inclination that Jesus is trying to make clear is that we cannot ignore politics and we cannot ignore the economy. These are things that surround us and in some way, claim part of our identity.
Jesus wants us to think.
He wants us to think and wonder the great questions like…
What causes do I support?
Who do I vote for?
How will I dedicate my time?
How can I use my gifts?
And even the question, “What do I want to be when I grow up?”
I could give an answer to all of these questions, even if it is as complex as I don’t know.
What causes do I support? I don’t know
Who do I vote for? I don’t know
How will I dedicate my time? I don’t know
How can I use my gifts? I don’t know
What do you want to be when you grow up? I don’t know.
There is always an answer to the question, but what does our identity in Christ, our faith in the triune God and the love of the community play into our answers.
This is the part that makes us think. We begin to wonder what does being a Christian mean in all of these questions? And maybe our answer is very simple, I don’t know, but that does not mean the conversation ends there.
We begin to answer these questions together in community. We wonder together. We question together. We remind one another to take on the imagination of a child. We need to step in to that realm of the impossibility and just sit and ask what if.
In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians this morning, we hear how the people first received the word. The story involves Paul coming to Thessalonica and proclaiming the word to the people. The people hear what Paul had to say, and some are filled with joy.
And like a fictional fairy tale, the letter ends with they lived happily ever after.
Yet just like us, there had to be the period where they had questions to ask. They needed to wrestle with who is this character of Jesus. You mean, I have to give up my other identity as a Gentile for something else. There had to be more.
As, we gather today as a community, everyone has the opportunity to hear the word proclaimed, and just like the people of Thessalonica, it is not always and they lived happily every after.
We, too, need the chance to wrestle and figure it all out. We even get asked questions and have to answer, I don’t know, but, what comes next.
As we celebrate our children today, there is something extremely special about this question. They may be able to tell the elaborate dreams of what they want to be when they grow up. They may be able to share a story from earlier in the week, but they also may not be afraid to answer a question with “I don’t know.”
And there is something beautiful and unique about a child’s, “I don’t know.” I think it goes a little more like this, “I don’t know, but teach me.”
Yet the word teach also gives us the space for something more. There is an old, and very common classroom model that is fully Lecture based. A teacher or professor gets up in front of the classroom and talks as the students are thought to be learning. There may be time for questions, but rather typically, at the end of the time together, both parties go their separate ways.
That’s not the kind of teaching we need to see.
It’s a teach that allows for mutual curiosity with the one’s faith, especially a child’s. It’s that living in to their dream, instead of discouraging for an answer or solution that seems more plausible or socially acceptable. It’s answering wouldn’t that be magical, like Cory’s father when he said he wanted to be everything in the world.
It is so easy for us to think of children with the social norms placed on them. Things like rowdy, young, misbehaved, and even smelly all seem common. We think of them different then us. We think of ourselves as the ones with knowledge, with the answers to the questions, but we all have the places in our lives where we answer the question I don’t know, but do we neglect our child like curiosity to know more.
May we continue to live into the community of questions of doubt and being not so sure. May we continue to wrestle with our Christian identity like the people of Thessolonica or the Pharisees. And through this all may we continue to ask questions and know it is okay to say I don’t know.
For we have a God that has not limited those dreams to what is practical or safe. But she has given us the gifts to look further, dream bigger and brighter. And some of those greatest gifts are the children who allow us to live into the imagination we thought was left behind.
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