so it's easter

it's been awhile since I've written... as per usual

I've been thinking a lot about my standards and the way I choose to live lately. It's been crazy and hard all at once; I mean, suddenly I find myself away from all the influences I'm so used to - in a familiar and yet new place all at once. Now I find myself wondering why I choose to live the way I do in a world where it could seem so very unneccessary and even foreign.

Why does it matter?
The word 'religious' has always bothered me. Today I was thinking through why - especially in light of it being easter this sunday. I always view religious people as those who inflict all sorts of difficult and awkward rules on themselves for no apparant reason except that it makes them somehow better than everyone else. I don't want to be that.
I don't want to have different standards and morals just because it makes me 'religious'... and I never want to be strange and intangible to the people around me. I would hope that folks see me and want to be around me because something about me excites and draws them.
That's not religion. Religion turns me off and pushes me away. it stinks of coming hypocrisy. Shoot. Now this is all symantics isn't it? It's how I connotate the word, not necessarily it's dictionary meaning. But I can't help how I feel when I hear the word.

So Easter is kind of exciting for me because it brings a kind of freedom- religion is what the world had before Christ... it was our only option... trying to live a set of rules that would make us perfect even though our very nature is to put ourselves first, thus hurting others and making us imperfect. Because a truely perfect human lived, died, and was raised to life by the power of God - being punished for a sin he didn't commit - I now can have grace in my life. A hope and a reason to live. Is that not worth protecting?

And so that's why I choose to live the way I live. Religiously working to clean out the self-loving nature that causes me to hurt others so that I can love more purely. Impossible.

But then the impossible is an easy thing. A finished work in the eyes of God. Glad to know I'm not alone.

sweet hope

He is risen, He is risen. Hallelujah. Like the sun on the horizon. Hallelujah. All my doubts were so unfounded, all my hopes alive again.

I guess it's so easy to forget hope. So easy to forget to reach out. So easy to forget that we have the battle long since won.
Lets put the belt of TRUTH around our waists.
Lets know that our God reigns! That we can be free!

Free.
I like images and things - good ole Jack Sparrow always longs for freedom - it is the most desireable thing for him beyond women and wealth. Imagine having freedom from the need for THINGS - a full belief that my God owns all the wealth of the world and I don't need to hang on to things or jobs or plans for the future.
It's really easy for me to forget what matters in life and how sweet it is to be loved by God and to not need to be dragged down by anything. I want to understand this more. To understand what it is to be grafted into a vine.

I often imagine a white glass tree with silver leaves - the smell around it is very clean and fresh and the tree itself is so very fragile and yet there is something that flows instead of sap that is unbreakable. It is powerful as it goes to and fro throughout the branches and twigs and intertwined roots and it produces the sweetest most wonderful fruit that gives people a sense of health and eternity... a taste of what can be. I belong in this tree - grafted in - and all that gets in the way of that sap flowing through me is this desire to please myself - but as I crucify it I find real LIFE. Giving up what I cannot keep to gain what I cannot lose. The mystery of the cross becomes slightly more clear and I can hear the sweet music of heaven. I hope you join me.

a problem of meaningfulness

Sometimes I miss what it is to just chillax with my friends - do you know what it's like to be bothered by something that you know doesn't really have an answer... and so you just kind of want to be distracted, but not by a silly distraction, but rather by something or someone quite meaningful so that the meaningfulness of that part of life will overshadow and overcome the inanswerableness of the problem?

and yet... how does meaningfulness happen? It seems like it's usually a very sudden gift, given when you least expect it by someone who has no idea that you're in

this is a bit from an e-mail I just wrote to a friend. I wonder if that's what a good friend is... someone who adds those bits of meaningfulness and helps you see what the bigger picture of life is!
How much do I need a grasp of the bigger picture so often in life - to catch hold of VISION rather than wallowing in what I feel I'm incapable of or bound to.

Other than that, life IS going well and I am thankful.
shalom

my lips hurt real bad!

so remember the part in Napoleon Dynamite when he calls home to Kip asking for lip chap because his lips are sore? I'm on office duty this evening and I honestly had a 19 year old guy come in and ask if I had lip chap he can use!!!!
"NO you girl!" Didn't seem like the appropriate response as much as I wanted to use it!

So life is going pretty good for me... I am lonely for my family and friends - I miss everyone a lot... but I am loving instructing and the change of pace and the chance to do outdoor pursuits because I want to and not because I MUST all the time.

spiritually things are good - I've been learning a lot about how much I judge situations and people unconsciously... and then am wrong. It's so not worth allowing myself to form negative opinions about people because I always end up eating humble pie!
*sigh* Maybe Jesus does know what He's talking about in the Bible eh?
shalom.

colossal time

heya to you faithful few who still check this dealio!
I guess since i fell into the dark hole of mass mailing people, this whole blogging thing has been pretty harsh. I thought to myself though, "self, what WILL you do when your life becomes dull and boring and people don't want to get mass e-mails from you anymore? How will you go back to informing them of the things that are going on and filling your mind?"
since it would be cruel and unusual punishment to put people through mass mailing them my thoughts, I figured I'd post them on the big wide world out there and allow you to still read them... but actually, I'm still mass mailing, so if you want to be on that list, let me know!

Otherwise, life continues in a raging torrent of climbing, paddling, biking, walking, wishing I could do things that I'm weak in, and thinking how great it would honestly be to be fit.
today i was so tired that for the first time in a long time, I sat at a table and heard three different accents speaking and couldn't understand a word being said to me! It was a great feeling of satisfaction when Christy came and visited me from Colorado and I had to translate so many things for her that I can easily understand but she couldn't!
I also drove past the Glenfarclas whiskey distillery today - apparantly it's good whiskey.

Really, I'm learning a lot about finding my worth and value, not in what I DO and what I can ACHIEVE, but rather in God. The One who made me and has been excited about who I am ever since the word "go" and wants nothing more than for me just to love Him the way He loves me! That's a lot to want... but it's something I think I would give with all my heart if I can... and so I will continue.
I talked about love with a guy on the way here... he described it as volunatary dependancy to me. I've never really thought about it that way before. He said he saw the first attraction as often being the filling of your own need (hence the reason it can be so dangerous when you're just in a relationship for yourself)... but that LOVE - the kind that lasts and sticks for a lifetime - happens when you CHOOSE to be vulnerable and to depend on someone else.

I don't know that that's the whole story... or that's what it all is... but if we think about God as love (which I think is a basic fact of Christianity and life) and think about how much He has chosen to be vulnerable... baring His heart to us, allowing us to be in a relationship with Him, wanting our love so desperately that he honestly would die just to make it POSSIBLE not to mention giving us the choice and risking rejection.
hmmm.

well, it was just a thought or two on my mind lately.
shalom.

Been a wee while!

if you still come and read this little dealy-bob, I'm terribly sorry!!!! since coming to Scotland and having so littl e-mail, I haven't bothered to update my blog and have mostly just been lazy and been sending out the dreaded mass messages... if you want to get news from me, drop me a line and let me know!

otherwise, things are good... life is crazy and good and bizarre and unbelieveable... full of adventures and fun experiences and hard trials and "shaping" experiences... oh boy.
let me know if you want more news of my life!

shalom

tea?

Hello!!
well, here I am in England... things are good here - humid and sunny! What happened to the rainy, foggy weather I bought all my clothes for? Well, maybe I'll have it soon enough eh?
Things are good here... I've decided that first thing in the morning I need to always make the decision to just be happy with life - generally after I spend time with God I am (because I start seeing things from HIS perspective), but it's so easy to start off my day thinking about the day before or disappointments or frustrations... and that never starts the day off well. It's like I'm incapable of seeing life positively sometimes!! Oh well.
So here I sit. Yesterday we went to Cambridge - lots of old buildings there... the whole town felt very... transient... intelligent... full of culture and history, and yet somehow not very friendly either - it kind of reminded me a little of Banff... if you're there, you either BELONG or you don't... and no one really fits because everyone's on their way out eventually. It was a strange tone. But I love just driving around here and seeing the trees with vines - and all the different kinds of trees! And seeing the narrow roads and the farmland - at one point we could have been on highway 20! It was cool..
and I've been drinking a lot of tea. mmmmmm.. tea... yup.
well, I better head out! In a couple of days I'm up to Scotland - exciting and scary and sad all at once - exciting to know that I'm going to be plunged into a new adventure... scary because I've never been there and it's... SCARY! And sad because I really want to be established somewhere - I'd love to get to know this place and these people better... but I guess there will be loads of time for all of that right? #ah well.
See y'all lata!