a happy dog kind of life

I have been on vacation this week. My plan was to spend one day in bed being lazy, another day out running errands and doing work around the house, and the third day applying for jobs and revamping my business plan for The Fainting Goat. In reality though I have pretty much spent three days in bed being lazy, got a little bit of work done at the house, ran no errands whatsoever, and spent some good times with some good people. Today, literally between naps, I took my dog for a walk at Kennesaw Mt. She absolutely loves being outdoors and around people, and today was the perfect day for it. After a while we stopped in a field and took a break under a tree. I sat and thought about life and listened to Damien Rice sing while she explored the six foot radius that her leash would allow. I thought about my life lately, how happy I have been in some ways and how miserable I’ve been in others. I thought about my business and what it will take for it to be a success one day. I remembered a time when in college I had come and sat under the same tree and struggled with many of the same issues that I still deal with now.

After about two or three songs worth of these meandering thoughts, Annie got tired of the ants and bees and came and sat next to me. I started scratching her back, which of course she loved. She started wallowing on the dry grass and dirt at my feet, then on me, until we were essentially wrestling on the ground. When it was over, we were both covered in dirt and my black tank top looked gray from all of her white hair clinging to it. We sat there and just enjoyed the sunshine and the breeze a little longer. I looked at her, dirt on her face, dried grass and twigs sticking in her hair, tongue hanging out and breaths heavy. It was the picture of pure joy. I knew she was so happy in that moment, she had her mama and sunshine and dirt, and in her world that is everything.

Monday night I heard myself say that if I’m not happy with a situation in my life, then I just change it.. Today as I sat and stared at my happy dog, I started to wonder when the last time that I felt like that was. What is my “everything”, and what is keeping me from it right now?

Last year was pretty rough for me. I learned some hard lessons about patience, trust, and friendship. I had my heart broken by someone that I thought was a friend. I suffered through an impossibly painful situation that I felt would never end. Then in December, I experienced what I am hoping will be the loneliest day of my life. I truly believe that season of sadness has ended though. In the past few months, I’ve taken steps to change things. I signed up for an online dating site to remind myself that dating can be fun again. I’ve interviewed for jobs that I knew I would never get just so that I could say I tried. While some of the main situations and relationships that caused me pain last year are no longer in my life, others still are, and I’m learning how to deal with those in a healthy way. Even though it feels like a lot of these steps have been reactive ones, I’m proud of myself and my ability to get back up and keep going in life.

Having said that, I feel like its time for me to start taking steps that are more proactive. I know what I want my life to look like, and its not there yet. Even if it means that I rent out rooms in my house or take a job behind a bar somewhere, I know that I have to be willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen if I really want to see change. I want to have my everything moments on a weekly or daily basis. So many people live for vacations or holidays to embrace joy. I want a life that embraces it on Wednesday afternoons.

I don’t have a plan yet, but I have the desire and drive for one now, so I know it will come together quickly. I do have a timeline though. Tomorrow is April 1. In almost exactly 5 months I will turn 30. This seems like the perfect milestone to start the next chapter in my story. Five months is a do-able timeframe, but it also doesn’t allow time for dawdling. I want this spring and summer to be one of the happiest and fullest seasons of my life.

One big element of my plan will be The Fainting Goat. I’m taking it in a new direction (or it’s taking me there). Who knows what exactly it will look like on the other side of this facelift, or if it will even still be called The Fainting Goat. I do know that I will be unloading a lot of my current inventory though, so if you want to come shopping for vintage deals I’ll let you know when and where.

I’m also going to start blogging again. I realized that the only time I post anything that I write now is when it’s something serious or profound. I miss my ramblings on mall cops and time travel. Even though life can be serious some times, I can’t take it so seriously all the time.

Time to go bake for a while. I’ll leave you with a little Emily Dickinson. (Does it make it sound less serious if I tell you that I came across it in Glamour magazine tonight while waiting on my hair dye to process?) :

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

the father who ran

Today is Sunday. At church this morning, the scripture passage that my pastor was to preach on was from the book of Luke, the parable that Jesus tells concerning the prodigal son. (See Luke 15:11-32, in case you are not familiar with it.) Rather than expounding on the possible interpretations and applications of this passage, my pastor chose to simply explain the parable, offering insight into the cultural facets that impact the events of the story in Jesus’ time. He then challenged us to leave and allow the story to sit with us, so that that the story Jesus offered to the people way back then could speak to us today as well.

Now to be clear, I have heard this story before. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was covered exhaustively in a seminary class I took once. There have been times when I have felt like the wayward son, having chosen poorly, forced to crawl home with my head held low in shame. There have also been times when I could associate more with the older brother, who despite his faithfulness feels unseen and forgotten by his father. Today however, I tried not to see myself in the story at all. I played the role of the audience, one of the “sinners” that Jesus was speaking to that day. I let the story be a story and the characters just be characters in that story, not necessarily people that I need to associate myself with. I listened, and then I left with an open heart to understand what Jesus was trying to say that day.

There is another story that I have been sitting with today as well. As much as I hate to admit it, there are times when I am a silly girl whose thoughts get stuck reliving past mistakes and unfortunate incidences that I would love to erase from my personal history book. In my case, these usually involve “relationships”. Now I use that word loosely because I don’t necessarily mean romantic relationships (although there are definitely plenty of incidences there I would like another shot at). No, I unfortunately struggle with all facets of human interaction at times. Take for example a conversation I had once with a very dear friend of mine. While driving cross-country together, she began to open up to me about some very personal issues she was struggling with at the time. I felt so honored that she felt comfortable enough to share these inner secrets with me, and arrived in Texas feeling the bond of our friendship tightened immensely. A few days later though, it somehow came out that the conversation hadn’t gone nearly as well as it had in my mind. Apparently you see, while she poured her heart out to me, I sat silent. Completely silent. And after she finished baring her soul to me, I didn’t respond. At all. When I did finally say something, it was to comment on the scenery. At the time, I didn’t realize I was doing this at all, but in hinds sight I could see that she was right. I was completely engaged in the conversation, in my mind, but never actually spoke the words that I was thinking. No acknowledgements, no comments, no questions, just silence and inner processing.

This hasn’t been the only time that I have been guilty of miscommunication either, not even the worst in fact. Having suffered in the past due to my social ineptitudes, I have become increasingly more self critical of myself in this area. I relive even simple conversations in my mind, searching for mistakes or omissions. Those that know me well know that a random apology or clarification two days after the fact is not uncommon. Maybe that is why I like writing so much, it allows you the chance to review and edit before putting your words out there.

Anyway, to get back to where I began, today something unique struck me in this parable that Jesus told. Today I was struck by the role of the father in this story, specifically how he interacted with each of his sons. It was as if he knew what they were going to say before they even said it. The image of the father was not compromised by the actions of his sons. He was an ideal father, not limited by the chains of pride, self-image, hurt, and loss that real men (and women) deal with. One point that my pastor made when explaining this story was that in that culture, this story would never have happened. From beginning to end, the cultural norms at that time and place made a scenario like this impossible. So then what is the message in an unfeasible story? Today, for me, the message was a reminder of the grace of God.

As I mentioned, I struggle with my words sometimes. I know that I have hurt people who are very dear to me by careless things that I have said. Relationships have ended over things that I haven’t had the courage or insight to say until it was too late. Sometimes I just cannot figure out how to express the things that I feel, be it love, gratitude, hurt, sympathy, even excitement or happiness. As silly as this may sound, while some people’s greatest struggles are with lust, substance abuse, greed, pride, mine is with words. It kills me to think of the power that my words and action possess, and it breaks my heart that I just cannot seem to get out of my head sometimes and engage with those around me. If there was one bad habit that I could break it would be this endless cycle of stunted interaction and painful self-critique.

The day when I first truly understood the grace of God was the day that I realized that he knew me. Not the Me that the world saw, but the Me that I saw. That day I realized the beauty of this grace: my words can’t screw it up. The relationship between man and God is built on grace, which allows us freedom to live. Like the father in the story, God’s grace towards us is an ideal; it is not impacted by the flaws and misgivings of man. I can fail miserably at life, yet I always have a home with God. This is one relationship in my life that my words cannot break.

Today, this story reminded me that even though my words have the potential to destroy me, I have a Father who is more powerful than my failures, more influential than my words. I will never escape the frustrations I have with relationships, and unless I become a hermit living in a mountain cabin somewhere, I will still continue to say and do things that I later regret. But I will always have a Father who will run to me when at my lowest, no matter how great the distance that I have put between us, and he will great me with restoration, not condemnation. Then he will walk with me down the path of reconciliation and guide me in the ways of love.

#21: The story behind my tattoo

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father… So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31

I’ve always liked the idea of having a tattoo. Beautiful embellishments on what God has created; man’s way of etching a little bit of what’s inside on the outside. What has kept me from getting a tattoo for all these years has not been the fear of pain, fear of needles, fear of what my parents may say; rather it has been the fear of my own torturous indecision. It seems every three or four years I feel the need to totally reinvent myself: new job, new home, new circle of friends, etc. With this history of change, who’s to say that what I feel on the inside now will still be true in ten, twenty, thirty years? I always told myself that when I found a design that I could live with for the rest of my life, then I would get a tattoo. As I set out making my list of things to do in 2009, I realized that, like many things on this list, if I just waited for a design to come to me I would probably be waiting forever. So I decided to just do it, and pray that it would all come together by the time the date rolled around.

I started my search for my first tattoo design by making a list of words and images that have had meaning in my life over the years. The first two images that came to mind were birds and flowers. Here’s why:

A few years ago, I found myself starting over in life. The path that I had been on had come to an abrupt stop and I found myself unmarried, unemployed, and living alone in a house that used to belong to my great-grandparents. I had moved there so that I could live rent-free while figuring out what I wanted to do next. The house had this great screened-in porch on one side. Every morning, I would sit out on the porch with a cup of coffee and my journal and just write. I journaled about my sense of loss, my failures and disappointments, about the dreams that I had watched die along my journeys. I also spent a lot of time just sitting. I would watch the sun rise, drinking in the stillness of the early morning air, embracing the peace that is so powerful during those hours. As I sat, I began to notice the little details of my new surroundings. Mainly I noticed an oddly high number of birds that seemed to call my yard home. Red birds, blue birds, little birds, big birds, they all fed off the trees and bushes around the porch. I watched how they flew from branch to branch, sitting, singing, eating. I could see them up close, the brightness of their feathers, the sleek lines of their beaks and wings. It was amazing to me that I had never noticed how magnificent of a creation birds were! They are everywhere, yet how often are we really still enough to take in how beautiful they are? One day I realized that I was spending more time watching the birds than I was writing. Then I realized that I was better off for it. Don’t get me wrong, the journaling was good for me, I needed to get all that stuff out of my head. But what I really needed was a break from the madness. I needed to sit and take notice of the beauty that surrounded my life and not just dwell on the crazy that lived in my head. We live everyday in a magical creation, but how often do we really see it? I needed to learn to trust that a force greater than myself was working in my life and that it was not my job to plan my days, it was just my job to enjoy them.

There was another lesson that I learned during this time as well. As I mentioned, the house I had moved into was my great-grandmother’s. She was a gardener, one of those little old ladies whose goal was to have the prettiest yard on the block. She had spent hours laboring in the yard planting roses, lilies, azaleas, you name it. She had passed away about thirteen years prior to my moving in, during which time the house had been a rental property. The most recent tenants prior to my arrival, the Meth-Heads as I called them, had done little to take care of the house and even less the yards. The flowerbeds were overgrown, the shrubs uncut, the rose bushes left to grow wild. Since it was still early spring when I moved in, we decided to just cut everything down and see what came back. What happened was amazing. Through the rambles of years unkempt sprouted beautiful flowers, the likes of which I had never seen before. Everyday was something new, tulips, roses, and lilies all around. The most magnificent were the azaleas. Lining the front porch like a barrier to the outside world, the bushes bloomed bright pink and white. I would cut bunches every day to fill bottles and jars placed throughout my home. One day I realized the powerful message these blossoms had for me. For years they were neglected, ignored, starved, yet still they could produce beauty. Whereas I had spent years toiling and striving with nothing to show for it, I suddenly had a home filled with beauty that had required no toil. I saw this as a message of hope. Hope that God didn’t need my efforts to make something beautiful out of my life. Not that I was off the hook completely, just that He could take up the slack where I fell short, which seemed to be in a lot of places. That spring, those pink blooms became the symbol of a promise that there would always be beauty in my life no matter how bad I screw it all up, because God’s power is not contingent on me and my actions.

There it is, flowers and birds. It was these truths, these images, that gave me the strength to move on, to start over, to find a new path for the next journey in my life; therefore, a logical choice for a meaningful tattoo. So that’s where I started in my design search. I found a bird, found a guy, and had him draw it on my back. I won’t go into the details because this story is long enough already, but let’s just say that the only time I cried during the entire process was when I looked at the finished product for the first time. It was absolutely perfect. This artist who I didn’t know and had selected based on his watercolor rendition of a machine gun that he was working on when I came into the shop to set up the appointment had put into imagery stories that existed only in my mind. I can’t really explain it, but when I saw what he had drawn, the picture spoke to me of trust and hope. Flowers and birds.

I love my tattoo and I love what it stands for in my life. Here’s the problem though… I don’t believe it. Sure, from time to time my attitude is one that can embrace hope, that can accept that the beauty that surrounds me is enough to sustain me. But most of the time I am still that scared, broken girl who sat on the porch and wept over her losses. Sometimes I am so full of anger and bitterness over the hands I have been dealt in life that birds and flowers are the last things I could give a damn about. Other times, the crippling chill of loneliness makes me loose all hope that spring will ever come again in my life. It is the lack of control that characterizes both hope and trust that I just cannot seem to accept.

One night, a few weeks after I was “branded”, I found myself in this place of sadness yet again. As I walked past a mirror in my bedroom, I caught a glimpse of my back and immediately felt regret. What was I thinking getting something so hopeful permanently emblazoned on my shoulder? If I wanted an image that conveyed my temperament, a black hole or an empty bowl would have been better suited. But it was too late, I was stuck with this symbol of hope forever reminding me of a peaceful life I wanted but would probably never find.

I love my tattoo. Most tattoos (ones gotten while sober at least) are a symbol of where a person was at a point in their life. These markings can tell a story of who we were, what we liked, who we loved. Through no device of my own, I wound up with a picture of a promise that I have never truly lived and of a place that I may never know, yet I do know that as long as I live, I’ll never stop dreaming of it. Rather than finding a symbol that I would believe in for the rest of my days, I chose one that most days I deep down cannot believe in. But one thing that both promises and tattoos have in common is that they live outside of us and outside of our sense of time. Flowers and birds. Trust and hope. If I have to live with something everyday for the rest of my life, I can think of nothing better than this promise, a truth that I know I will want to believe in as long as I live. And that, in itself, gives me hope.

“Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!” Luke 12:27-28

rusted fairy tales and a journey close to home

I grew up playing in the woods. We lived on about 100 acres of land; my grandfather's farm took up about a third, our house and surrounding cow pastures another third, and then there was the back third, all woods and "swamp," as my dad called it. As children, we were only allowed to go so far by ourselves, but from time to time we would sneak past the "boundary line" and go exploring through the thickets, over creeks. Mostly though,we camped out in tree houses and forts built by human hands and the vast imagination of children,in which a rusted box spring becomes a gate and an old hubcap a shield.From time to time,my dad would take us out for a walk and we could go exploring without the fear of being missed. As I got older, I started taking these walks by myself, exploring not so much the land, but the inner sanctum of silence and reflection that the woods provided.

I do not have a single memory of every feeling lost while in these woods. I remember once my mom thinking we were lost and sending my grandfather out to find us, but we knew where we were the whole time (we were just hoping that she never would). It seemed like no matter how long you walked or how far you got away from home, there was always a familiar sight or sound to remind you that you were still home: a fence, a barn, the sound of my grandpa honking the horn on his truck to let the cows know it was time to come and eat. I think mostly this sense of security came from the knowledge that you could never go too far. The boundaries of our land were clearly defined, a road on three sides and a single barbed wire fence along the back. There was a sense of safety in these boundaries, knowing that as long as we were at home, no matter how deep in the darkness of the woods we were, no real harm could come to us, no matter how much adventure we managed to find.

There have been many times over the past few years when I have found myseld truly and utterly lost. Days when I woke up not knowing whether to expect blessings or disasters. Nights spent having to talk myself down from the ledge of a full on panic attack as I lay in bed, bombarded by the loss and pain that each day seemed to bring. Countless times I felt like I had set out down a path with complete certainty as to were it led, only to discover too far into the journey that it led to a place that I would never willingly go; other times, shortly before reaching my destination I would encounter an obstacle that could not be overcome, forcing me to turn around and go back the way I came. And then there were the days when fear just kept me glued to my front porch.

Having just lived through a really crappy week last week, I took some time this weekend to regroup and repurpose myself. Somehow, this led to me remembering those times I spent as a child safely lost in the wonders of my backyard and realizing that now, even through the worst, darkest days, I still carried with me that inner sense of safety, of peace. I realized that even now, when each day I'm faced with a bit of uncertainty, a bit of heartbreak, a bit of confusion, I don't feel completely lost because I know that there is a boundary to this life I'm living. It may extend to China, Cuba, Colorado, or some obscure former Soviet nation that even gets left off of a lot maps, but it's there nonetheless. It's the peace of knowing that no matter how far I wander, how lost I feel, I am never more that a breath away from God's hand. Even when I choose the wrong path and have to turn around, he's there as soon as I do.

As children playing on our farm, we knew that even if we didn't know the land, our dad did. There is security in that knowledge. A safety that lets your imagination run wild and gives you the freedom to play in a magical world where a little girl can become a queen and an old rusted chicken coop can become an impenetrable castle, complete with a golf club scepter and a little brother for a servant.

Thoughts on Belief

I've been thinking a lot lately about belief. Maybe it's because I just finished teaching a study on the Gospel of John, which is all about belief. Or maybe it's because I've been going through a bit of an identity crisis for the past few months, causing me to question if I still want to believe what I believe, namely concerning God, and life, and the point of it all.

Sometimes life takes us down unexpected paths from which there is no going back. A choice is made, a commitment is spoken, and from then on, our reality is changed. It goes without saying then that when life gets tough, the first thing to be challenged is that choice that got us there in the first place. And that's where belief comes in. That choice was based on belief, and since belief is intangible, it’s easy to second guess.

I guess it’s because of this toughness of life that I often find myself dreaming of a life that is totally different from the one I live now. A new city, new relationships, new passions, new values. And I wonder if the Elizabeth living in that life would be any happier than the one living here.

Other times I find myself dreaming of another life that, while also being totally different from the one I live now, is more of an extension of my current self rather than a depart from it. Deeper connections, passions pursued with determination, values not just espoused but lived by. A life where the things that I say I believe are magnified through my actions, my thoughts, my words, and my choices. And I’m pretty sure that the Elizabeth living this life would definitely be happier. So what’s stopping me then from making this dream a reality?

There’s a passage towards the end of the book of John concerning one of Jesus’ disciples, Thomas. Jesus has just been executed, buried, and then miraculously come back to life. He appears before the disciples when they are gathered together, only Thomas isn’t there. When the others tell him what they saw, he can’t believe it. His reaction, which he will be forever known by, was to state that until he felt Jesus’ wounds himself, he would not believe it to be true. So, when Jesus appears before them again, he goes to Thomas and offers him his hands to hold. He tells Thomas to reach into the wound where the arrow pierced his side. Whatever it takes for him to believe, Jesus offers it. For Mary it just took hearing her name spoken by her Lord; but Thomas, he needed something tangible, so Jesus gave it.

There are days where, like Mary, I can get by just hearing my name whispered by the gentle wind, spoken in a beautiful sunset, or just emitting from the stillness of a Sunday afternoon. Mostly though, I need the tangible. I need proof that my dreams aren’t crazy, that my choices, my sacrifices, haven’t been made in vain. I need to know that choosing to continue on this path is worth all of the dreams I’ve had to watch die along the way.

Jesus tells Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you believe; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” Blessed is such a funny word. We don’t use it a lot now, except for in certain religious circles. I think I would substitute the word lucky. Lucky are those who have not seen and yet believe. Lucky are those who don’t live with doubt. Not a Las Vegas type of luck, more like a “The test was negative, you don’t have cancer” luck. A luck, a blessing, that leaves you sighing in relief and thanking God that you don’t have to go that way. But in the end, the believing is what matters; it’s just a hell of an easier ride if you can trust the one you believe in, unconditionally.