Giving Thanks.

In honor of the upcoming holiday, I decided I’d write a post about what I’m thankful for.

God’s beauty. It’s overwhelming and it’s everywhere. The world is just a drop in the ocean of his awesomeness, and I only see a fraction of it. But it’s enough to keep me going for a lifetime.

Chuck. His love mirrors God’s, and it frees me to be who I was made to be.

Family. If you’re lucky, they teach you about God. Mine did.

My church. Looking back the past couple years I can see that I’ve changed for the better in some areas, and some of those areas are a direct result of being in a good church community. I’ve never experienced that before.

Am I starting to sound too spiritual? Here’s a quicker list.

My daughter.
My sister.
Freedom.
Food.
Autumn.
Hiking.
Lookout Mountain.
Vaccines.
Hot showers.
The internet.
Mocha frappachinos.
Learning.
Books.
Libraries.
Museums.
Music.
Art.
Being an artist.
Being connected to other humans.
People who “get” me.
Native Americans.
Photographs.
Education.
Being a stay at home mom.
Apple picking.
St. Louis.
Christmas Midnight Mass.
Stories.
Inside jokes.
A clean house.
Cars.
Chuck’s cooking.
Lists.
Snow.
Being forgiven.
Forgiving someone else.
People who listen.
Having enough money.
My backyard.
Walks with Ivy.
Socks.
Shopping.
Coupons.
Glasses.
Naps.

I could go on for a very long time. Maybe I’ll write some more soon. But there’s my list for now. Now write your own! :)

This is kinda lame. Oh well.

You’d never know it, but I’m pretty vain about my hair. Being a mom is kind of incompatible with that but it doesn’t mean the tendency isn’t still lurking in me waiting till it can come back out again.

People talk about bad hair days. Well, I’d like to talk about a bad hair year. It all started last December when I went to get my hair cut. It was a drastic cut. But I wouldn’t know how drastic it was until I walked out of the salon. I went in with hair that was fairly long. Probably halfway down my back…maybe even longer. I wanted it cut to about chin length. I wasn’t nervous; I’ve had drastic cuts before that went well. It’s fun to me for some reason. I like to make drastic changes in my appearance sometimes. That’s why hair is so great. It grows back. Unfortunately, though, this isn’t a fast process. Anyway, so I told the lady what I wanted and let her get to work. She cut and cut and cut. And I guess I zoned out for a little too long because it was like all the sudden I looked at myself in the mirror and realized my hair was much shorter than I wanted it to be. Like inches shorter. She seemed like she was almost finished so I just sat quietly, but I was also preparing myself to have to tell her to stop cutting. Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary, but the damage was already done.

It wasn’t a big deal. I mean, I wasn’t like mad about it or anything. But a couple days later I realized that one side was longer than the other. So I had to go back and get that fixed. Then came the job of waiting for it to grow out. This whole year I’ve gone through day after day of awkward hair do after awkward hair do. I’ve never disliked my hair for such a long time. It doesn’t matter who I go to (I even resorted to going to my old stylist back in St. Louis while I was there a month or two ago). To no avail. What the original stylist did to my hair, I’ll never know. My only hope is to keep growing it out, cut it all even, and start anew.

I’m never into New Year resolutions because they never work, and I always pick something too difficult. But perhaps for 2010 my goal will be to have a better hair year.

"Quiet time"

At some point in time I stopped having a “quiet time”—you know, the time that us Christians are supposed to spend following our acronyms through prayer (ACTS—Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication—we learned it school, remember?). At some point, I’m not sure exactly when, I threw that idea in the trash—not just the acronym, but the whole “quiet time” business. Honestly, it was during a time of spiritual drought in my life. I was tired of doing the Christian thing. I was tired of the bullshit that American Christianity can sometimes be. I was tired of everyone around me claiming to be Christians, yet being the same as any other person walking down the street. I had spent a lifetime trying to follow what the Christians around me were doing and it wasn’t working. I lived under religious guilt for years—decades even. I was so determined to have a “quiet time” like all the other Christians around me were having and they seemed to be on course, so why wasn’t I? So I stopped. It wasn’t doing me any good anyway. I just felt empty and like there was something wrong with me—or God. Chuck and I are always talking about faith and God. We are constant doubters. I don’t’ mean doubting in a negative sense. I think that doubt is a necessary part of faith. If you never doubt what you believe, how is it faith? If you’re 100% sure about God 100% of the time, I don’t think there is room for faith. But mainly, I don’t believe you can believe in God 100% of the time. But anyway, that was a little tangent. Chuck and I were talking and I don’t remember the specific conversation, but through exploring certain ideas through him, I kind of came to the conclusion that if God made so many people who are all different from each other, then there is no reason why I should feel like my way of relating to him should look like everyone else’s. I am a completely unique being. Therefore, I can communicate with God in a completely unique way if I need to. So as I was coming back to faith, I didn’t bring my “quiet time” with me. I decided that God was bigger than quiet time.

And, really, I’ve never looked back. I don’t have a scheduled time to talk with Jesus and I don’t necessarily talk to him everyday. But I will tell you that I do talk to him, and its real, and its close, and its more heartfelt and meaningful than it has ever been. I can’t say it’ll always be this way, but that’s where I’m at right now. And it’s a heck of a lot better than where I was before.

Screens

My sister and I recently went to two Hanson shows together. We had a blast. And half the fun is sharing the pictures and videos with our friends afterward. But part of the experience made me ponder the downside to living in the digital world.

The first time we went to see them live was last fall. We were *beyond* excited. I mean, we made homemade t-shirts, we planned out exactly how the day was going to go, and we spent the whole day down in the Loop just hanging out and hoping for a glimpse of our favorite band. I brought my video camera to document our exciting day and Caroline brought her nice, small digital still camera. We made a pretty funny video and got some great shots of the show. I really cherish the memories we created.

But here’s what makes me sad about our society. We were in the front row for the first show. There were girls next to us that were hardcore fans who had been to like 36 shows or something. That’s cool, I guess. But like 75% of the show, they were busy texting people (about what was happening at the concert? I don’t know) or taking pictures with their phone and saving them or sending them or whatever. My point is, they missed seeing the show *with their own eyes*.

Last month Caroline and I went on “The Walk,” a one mile walk through SLU’s campus that Hanson does to raise awareness to poverty issues in Africa. (Okay, we didn’t actually do the walk this time because we had Ivy with us and it was rainy and cold). But anyway, it’s very cool. Afterward, they performed an acoustic song in the bookstore. Tons of people were there with their video/still cameras or cell phones. They all documented the moment. Caroline and I did the same thing. But the sad thing is that people were watching the song through their electronic device—you know, the display that shows you what you’re recording. It just boggles my mind…you are here LIVE with this awesome band and you choose to watch them through a SCREEN? You can do that at home for crying out loud. Live in the moment, see things with your OWN EYES.

Caroline and I both reminded each other to intentionally watch the concert and enjoy it without letting our desire to document it get in the way. Really, when you think back to a concert, you don’t remember what you took pictures of—the pictures you took just spark the memory you have of seeing the band. The pictures are just a reminder of what you remember, not the memory itself.

So all I’m saying is, get your head out from behind your camera/phone and experience life!

Didn't have a camera by my side this time / Hoping I would see the world through both my eyes / Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm / in the mood to lose my way / but let me say / You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes / it brought me back to life

3x5--John Mayer