gizzoogled

my site, gizzoogled.  stinkin’ hilarious.  I can’t stop laughing.  If you are easily amused, check it out.

Julie… love you!

The last three weeks have been packed. I am trying to catch my breath. Ahem: Kevo moved out, Amanda moved in. Seven days found me in Seattle. I made some good music with good friends. I quit an internship and took on a second (monster of a) job (that I happen to love). I stood beside my dear friends as they got married. At the wedding, I got asked out on a date by a total stranger. (It’s tonight. I shall regale you with tales of the requisite painful awkwardness soon… Why, exactly, did I say yes to this? Gosh… idiot!). I got a wicked cold.  As we all know from yesterdays pathetic post, I saw him. And tomorrow, the event I dread the most, more than my bro moving to Seattle, more than seeing the ex-boyfriend, more than a near-blind date… will take place.

Jules is moving.

I’ve known for months that this is coming. I’ve been privileged to watch this step of faith from its first moments til now; from the that-would-be-so-cool-but-could-never-happen stage to the I-just-quit-my-great-job-to-work-for-free-what-the-heck-am-I-thinking stage. To now. She’s packed. And leaving on Saturday morning for Oregon. Six hours away. (thank goodness it’s not farther).

Julie is moving to Oregon to follow a dream that has God’s fingerprints all over it. I’ve heard her explain it so often to people that I think I have the description memorized: She’s going to work at a ranch that takes in abused and neglected horses, restores them, and pairs them up with abused and disadvantaged kids, as a therapy for both. Working with horses was a peaceful escape for Jules during more turbulent times in her own life – this step is so very right.

Like I said, I’ve known for months. But it didn’t really hit me until last night. We watched Alias (I taped it the night before), and as I yelled my admiration of how hard-core Sydney & Jack Bristow are… as I let out shrill screams during the suspenseful parts… yelled at the TV when the ending left us hanging (watching Alias with me is an experience, lemme tell you)… I realized that, next Wednesday, she won’t be there to enjoy it with me. We talked about how we need to rent such-and-such a movie, and then realized, nope, not going to happen.

Julie, you can’t leave! You still have ice cream in my fridge!

I’m not stupid. (Well, I’m mostly not-stupid). I know that friendships like this one don’t come along very often. Just a few things I love:

–Whether we are chillin’ out on our couches watching movies, wandering the grocery store, camping, road-tripping, or getting all dolled up for some fancy to-do… we are always having more fun than it makes sense to be having. There are always memories and laughter.

–We are able to be fully honest with each other. Even about the hard stuff. I trust Julie to give me a straight answer when I ask her what she thinks; in a world of b.s.-ers, she tells the truth – the truth I need to hear, even if it’s not exactly what I want to hear.

–I can shoot a glance at Julie and know that she knows exactly what I’m thinking (and that she, too, is thinking very sarcastic things and laughing on the inside).

–I am able to be myself. Fully. Without any need for apology, or even explanation. Whether I’m happy, heartbroken, angry, goofy, whatever. I don’t have to stop and think – “how will I come off?” This is priceless and rare… and so freeing.

I could go on… but what I really want to say is:

Jules: I love you, my dear and precious friend. I’m going to miss you. Be well, be blessed. Bless others. You’ve already blessed me more than you know.

Oh, and I’ll be down for a visit soon.

the things we want but can’t have

It is so, so hard to want something and not be able to grasp it. Especially when you had yourself convinced that you didn’t want it anymore… The ache, in this case, has a strategic advantage – surprise. It can nail you pretty hard.

Saw Jeremy for the first time since December last night. I didn’t seek it out; he found out about a mutual friend’s going away party, which I’d planned, and called out of the blue to ask if it would be ok if he came; said he’d like to see me, and wish our friend good luck. I didn’t have the heart to say no.

He was kind as ever, we got along and laughed as much as ever.

But as far as I know, he’s hung up on someone else just as much as ever.

It was fine; a few awkward moments, but completely void of drama, as I wanted it to be. I think I turned in a pretty good performance. (Only his roommate, who knows me well and can read me like a book, saw straight through it, knowing that beneath the happy face, there was some aching). I was kind, I was my goofy self. But I went home sad, and annoyed to have to admit to myself that maybe I’m not as far along in this whole process as I’d like. I’m particularly annoyed that I don’t get to dictate the timeline. Maybe it’s my pride that hurts more than anything; I’d much rather be strong than, well, like I feel right now. Vulnerable.

For the most part, I am ok. I’ve accepted it, and taken every step I can take toward moving on. I think I handled it well. And things are good. I’m amazed at some of the cool things that are happening in my life right now.

It’s just that the part of me that’s not quite ok is being pretty loud at the moment.

It will pass.

This is just one of those times where I’m forced to trust, despite how I feel. That what I want might not be what’s best for me; that there’s a plan in place that I don’t fully see or understand right now; that there is Someone working it all out for good, even for better, though there are moments where it still hurts deep down.

Trust, especially in moments like this, seems kind of a weak leg to stand on, but in every other circumstance in which I’ve found or put myself, it’s always been enough. So trusting I am. And despite that ache, I know (the way you just know things) that I am never alone.

sickie…

I’ve got a wicked cold. 

But I made it through the wedding (as did the groom, the groom’s dad, and another chunk of the wedding party, who also were sick).  We all had an amazing time.

Lots and lots of dancing.

A few pics:

This would be me and the bride, Gracie, at the rehearsal dinner… a few seconds before we took another picture, me smiling, her licking my unsuspecting face.  I’ll spare you that one.

Andy & Grace right after their first view of each other.  I love these two people very much… today was a special day.  I don’t say this often, but I think these two were made for each other.

Gracie and I about two hours before the wedding…

Props to Grace for picking good dresses.  Time for me to take some more Day-Quil and return to the couch… hopefully I’ll be human again soon. 

various thoughts on art, faith & culture PART ONE

Someone said to me recently that genius is really just obscurity of source… but I have to credit some of these ramblings, genius or not, to Rory Noland, and his book, the Heart of the Artist.  I have lost track of where his thoughts end and mine begin, or if mine are simply just responses to what he’s written.  Regardless, I owe him a great deal… reading his words, I began to believe, at last, that my strange concoction of gifts and my sensitive nature might have a home in the faith community after all.  (Thanks for the millionth time, Matt, for the introduction.  I have never been the same since our little group met).

Dan and I have been trying to come up with a name for me, my “official title.”  I’m working on the meet our team page of the website, and we figured it might be time.  To quote the Bobs: What would you say… ya DO here? 

Communication and writing: I write small group materials, discussion questions designed to get people – churchy types, complete heathens, all kinds in between – talking to each other.  My major project right now is designing and writing content for newlife’s brand-spankin’-new website.  (I would link to our current one, but I’m embarrassed).  It’s looking like part of what I do will involve editing an online mag… which has a lot of exciting possibilities. 

I just write a lot in general.  There is so much going on between my ears that it has to get out somewhere.  I started writing regularly in July.  I truly and honestly wonder how I stayed sane before that.  Wonder how my friends did.  Before then, my only outlet was talking, and me being the quintessential verbal processor – I did a lot of it.

(SIDENOTE: People around the office looked at me like I had a third eyeball when I first began referring to my blog in conversation… there was always a wrinkle of the nose, a creasing of the forehead: “Your… what?  Blog?”  Now that it’s sort of becoming commonplace, I’m no longer looked upon as horribly nerdy – I’m cutting-edge cool.  lol.  Yeah right.  I know the truth.)

Music:  I’m a freak.  Both in my consumption of music, and in my love of creating it.  I’ve been singing since I was in the womb, I’m fairly sure; and have been involved in musical worship and songwriting since I was about fourteen.  Specifically, I love leading people in worship.  Although a band is nice, although the rockin’ out can be fun, I could really care less… my favorite place to be in the world is on a grand piano, in a room with a small group of hungry people, singing the slower, contemplative, more naked songs, attempting to allow an unhurried time to truly and honestly commune with God.

I’m also curious to learn what speaks clearly to our culture, what mediums bridge the gap between the acknowledged faith community, and the rest of the world.  If there’s a conversation involving those elements, I’m in.  I don’t claim to be one of the great elite coffee-shop-frequenting deep forward-thinking postmodern philosophical giants of our age… I’m SO not that cool.  But I fit in a little more on the outskirts of this particular world than I do anywhere else, so I continue to hang around.  (I’m a fraud.  I wear my dark-rimmed glasses, and a great deal of black, in attempts to disguise myself as a fellow intellectual).

As a joke, I sent Dan an email, and as my signoff, wrote:

staceyrich

resident artsy type, newlife church

I laughed as I sent it, but more than any of the other words that had come up – creative communications and the like – these seem to fit.  Artsy type.  Hmmm.

There were less kind ways of putting it when I was younger… typically the term was “oversensitive.”  If you’ve been there, you’re laughing right now, because you remember it well.  Your heart moves to everything, you have such strong sentiments and feelings, and your head is full of a million thoughts in response to what’s happening all around you – but there’s nowhere for them to go.  No outlet.  You may have the beginnings of the gifts you’ll use to someday express them… but you haven’t grown into them yet.  And the rocky emotional sea you find yourself adrift in, well, you haven’t yet learned how to stay afloat in it very well… at all.  Hence: “She’s oversensitive.”

Anne Lamott wrote about similar feelings: “I suspect that [my father] was a child who thought differently than his peers, who may have had serious conversations with grown-ups, who as a young person, like me, accepted being alone quite a lot.  I think that this person often becomes either a writer or a career criminal.  Throughout my childhood I believed what I thought about was different from what other kids thought about.  It was not necessarily more profound, but there was a struggle going on inside me to find some sort of creative or spiritual or aesthetic way of seeing the world and organizing it in my head.” 

Career criminal.  Nice.

To be honest, I hated the way I was.  The advice I often received was to “flip the switch,” “grow a thicker skin,” “buck up.”  I would firm up my resolve, and try to fake a toughness the best way I knew how.  (I sucked at it).  There was a piece of me that, deep down, cursed God for making me with such a deep, gaping hole in my armor.  I envied the tough, the popular, the beautiful, the main-stream, those who “fit.”  It seemed that there was no use for someone like me.

Now that I’ve grown into myself a bit, I’m finally seeing a blessing to accompany the curse.  Seems there’s a use for us artsy sensitive types after all, a unique role, a calling.

More tomorrow.

heh heh… a (late) v-day cartoon for you, kevo

I got very very bored last night.  So I made a cartoon, inspired by my bro’s love life and TGS.  There you have it.

For the whole cartoon (whole story), please see the album at your left.

“I made you a drawing.  It’s pretty much the best one I’ve ever done.  Took me like three hours to finish the shading…”

:: free ::

Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

…When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

(FROM GALATIANS 5, the message)

*****

One of the best things about being a part of staff meetings is our time spent reading scripture together. We read a chapter at a time (right now we’re in Luke), and then discuss what stuck out to us, what we have questions on, what hits us hard and what encourages us. It’s amazing the many different perspectives I get to hear… how much I learn. I always have to leave early to go to work, but even that small time spent… it refreshes me.

Part of the reason it’s so refreshing is that, quite frankly, it’s the only time during the week I read it.

I used to get real guilty over my lack of regular devotions. I’d make a plan, usually some plan that involved me getting up at some unholy hour before work to "get my time with God in." I’d do well for about a week during my most fervent attempts… and every time it ended in complete shambles. Which sort of made me feel more guilty, and even less likely to try again.

Because if there’s one thing we all know about God, it’s that he’s up there looking over our time cards to see how many hours we logged– when we clocked in, when we clocked out– no doubt shaking his head in annoyance at our lack of discipline.

Ugh. God is not about ritual, could care less about our checklists; he’s about relationship. How long will it take me to get it? This time, I’m just going to let it be about trying to get to know God better. Not about trying to appease some imaginary anger.

Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you… Reading this as a younger me, I always thought that this was in reference to the slavery of sin. Reading it now and catching the context, I’m pretty sure Paul’s not talking about that here. His subsequent discussion of circumcision and legalistic rituals shows his concern is not about sin here, but about outward attempts at showing the world you have it all together spiritually.

The to-do list; the don’t-do list. We’ve always been pretty big on each. The church of my youth had one; yours had its own. I don’t know about you, but mine made me feel like crap, more often than not.

You’ll never hear me say that prayer and bible reading are things to be avoided. The thing is, I really want to learn how to regularly read what can help me get to know Jesus better. (The whole beginning point of this post was to say, "Hey, I’m wanting to grow here, so I’ll mix my devotions with what I already do regularly – writing – and lucky you, you get to come along for the ride.") But the reasons for why we do whatever we do… they count for everything. Mine used to be guilt, and a desire to look like I was doing all the right things. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day got reamed – not for their actions, but for their motives. They thought that because they had the checklist down, they were somehow made righteous, and more pure than all others. Jesus came down pretty harshly on them for it: "Frauds!" He then compared them to whitewashed tombs and really pretty sparkling cups with nasty insides (in that characteristically subtle way of his). They knew every scripture, every rule, and probably followed all of ‘em– and were about the most loveless, faithless people on the planet. I know that might be hard to picture, that it might be hard to find a mental example of that in our culture today, but… (heads up: your sarcasm monitor should be off the charts right now).

In Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything… Our little signs of holiness mean absolutely nothing to God. Something I heard not too long ago that rocked my world: the things we think are standards are really just bare minimums. We check off things on our to-do list, feeling really great, feeling like we’re doing pretty good (no need of God’s grace… that’s for that other guy with all the issues). But they’re really just the bare minimums.

– We sing a few songs at a Sunday service… worship, check! Nevermind that God wants our whole lives to be lived as a gift back to him. Even Monday morning.

– We spend an hour listening to someone talk, staring at the back of someone’s head, wondering if they know their tag is sticking up… community, check! When all our days are meant to be lived in gracious interaction with people around us… whether they’re on the faith journey, far from faith, or just maybe far from church… whatever, whoever.

– A half hour spent reading the Bible, and then off to our day… devotions, check! God’s like, "Hey, I’d actually really like to be invited into all of today."

What God asks of us… is much harder than what we ask of ourselves. It actually requires God’s help, God’s grace, God’s mercy to be able to live it. And not one of us will live it perfectly. Which drives us back to the needing him all over again.

What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love. I may not have things down in my life as much as I’d like, people might not be too impressed with my checklist… but I am gradually learning what it means to live a life of faith lived out in love.

I’m finding that this happens a whole lot easier when I let go of my checklist and take hold of His hand. So here we go. I begin again.  Free.

pet peeves of the day

PET PEEVES OF THE DAY:

1. "Updating My Address Book." 

Is there some sort of illness going around, whose main symptom is a compulsive need to have people spend ten minutes of their precious time updating their addy… which you will never use to write them, and their phone number, which you will never use to call them?  A very nasty plague, indeed.

I figure, if this is the only email I’ve received from you in the last year, you probably don’t need my home address and phone number.  And you probably don’t give a rat’s patoot about my birthday either.  As Strongbad would say, BELETED!

(Nat, for you, because we are friends and you always show up for Alias parties, I will update.  But only for you.)

2.  Ice on my windshield.  Ice on my neighbors’ windshield.  My neighbor’s car who won’t start until after six tries.  At 5 am. 

It was spring here two weeks ago.  And now, ice?  I’m out of de-icer spray.  I’m sure I look a sight, out there scraping an inch of ice off my windshield with my debit card.

My neighbor, who leaves at 5 am, is out of de-icer as well, apparently.  Scrape.  Scrape. Scrape.

After he’s done scraping, his car never starts. Ignition turning… ick-ick-ick-ick-ick-ick… sputter.  ick-ick-ick-ick-ick-ick… sputter.  Repeat twelve thousand times.  ROAR TO LIFE!  Radio on full blast!  Speed away.

Every.  morning.  At FIVE a.m.

Have I mentioned that I’m not a morning person?  That I hate any conscious awareness of my existence at any time prior to 7.30 a.m.?  And that even 7.30 a.m. is a little sketchy?  That I start thinking bitter and violent thoughts toward anyone who dares to wake me prior to that time?

(Have I mentioned that phone calls from Waco at 8.15 a.m. have a way of cheering me up and helping me be less of a bear during said morning?  Thanks.)

found

"How did faith find you?"

Having coffee with my friend the other night, I posed this question, a favorite out-to-coffee-question of mine. I’m always big on stories. And these stories specifically, although we share them so rarely, are among the most beautiful.

He began to unpack the broken pieces of his childhood; his was a family far from faith, with plenty of what people politely call dysfunction nowadays… but his grandma talked just enough about God and things like God’s love for him to know there was a God, the way kids know things deep down, even if they don’t understand them all the way. He was the lone ten-year-old walking the sidewalk five blocks to church on Sunday mornings, to a building full of people he did not know, who did not really know him. God only knows why. Later, reeling from the abrupt loss of a friend, he was the angry teen who no longer whispered those childish prayers. He ran long and hard, trying to find a way to numb the hurt of those crushing disappointments life seems to like to deal you, especially when you’re young and soft and can’t know that the pain doesn’t throb in your chest like that forever.

A betting man wouldn’t put much down on this kid ever being found.

Then, when he was about 17, a friend who’d invited and invited and invited him said to him once again: "You have to come, I’m speaking tonight." So he finally went. His friend appeared to speak to a crowd that night, but he knew (the way people know things, deep down) that the message was for him, and him alone. As the tears fell, faith found him. Grace made itself real.

I was sitting there, just amazed at all the different stories we carry around with us… all the creative ways that we end up found. God, an artist? Just maybe.

My story couldn’t be more different, at least in the details of setting and plot. My broken pieces were a little harder to see, at least from the outside, though they were no less jagged. I was born on a Thursday, in church on Sunday, my parents having crossed the line of faith in Jesus right around the time I showed up. I was the sunday school poster child, singing solos in pretty dresses, my hair still in pigtails. I was the kid dragged to church every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, every Wednesday night, and then sometimes more, just for good measure. I was the lonely kid, lonely because I didn’t fit in with kids out there, and lonely because I never fit in with the church kids either. I thought about things WAY too much, even as a kid, and for some reason pleasing God with my life was high up on the list even early on. But I never fit – even the churchey kids wrote me off as a goodie-two-shoes – nothing more. In all the sermons I’d forced myself to stay awake through, I had heard – loudly and clearly – the "don’t let yourself be made a slave to sin" stuff, but had somehow missed the "don’t let yourselves be a slave to legalism, either – be free in Christ, live in grace" part. Everyone seemed so concerned with the outside, whether or not you said any bad words, whether or not you listened to the right music, how uncomfortable your clothes could possibly be on a Sunday morning. So I tried and tried and tried never to be a disappointment. And knew, quite consciously, more often than not, that I was utterly failing.

I remember lying awake at night, counting up all the ways I’d failed, said something dumb, did something clumsy or just downright wrong… I pictured God, Strict Teacher, with his cosmic chalkboard, having made a tally mark for every mistake. I would then make a mental list of all the ways I’d fix my messed-up self. "I promise I’ll do better tomorrow God, please forgive me," was a fairly common mantra.

Deep down I knew (the way you know things) that I was missing it. Luckily my parents didn’t just introduce me to Christianity, they introduced me to Jesus too, and I think that’s what held on to me in those moments. As much as I pictured God as pissed off at me, all the stories I had heard about Jesus made me think that he might still accept me, at least a little bit. Maybe he’d be able to see that in my heart, I really wanted to please him, and maybe that would matter, just a little… This hint of grace was so obscured by all the need to try, however, that it was nearly invisible.

A betting man would have laid down quite a chunk of change on me. And would have lost it all. Everything looked really good, but I was so far from grace. Had things continued, I probably would have been churched right out of knowing Jesus.

Luckily, when I walked out on my church and its awful youth pastor at seventeen, I didn’t feel quite okay with abandoning church completely. (At least the guilt served some purpose, in retrospect). So I checked out Wes’ youth group, and although the message was spoken to a crowd that night, I knew deep down that it was for me, and me alone. As the tears fell, faith found me. Grace made itself real.

Being found… I am still amazed at God’s willingness to go to such crazy lengths to love us, to pull us in close. I still love to tell the story, I love to hear it.  God seems to have written countless versions of it; the story never gets old.

More than anything, I want to be a part of it.

God! Use our stories, use our healed and still-broken pieces, use us – humanity and all – to tell the bigger story you long to tell. Help us to continue to be grateful that we are, amazingly, surprisingly, against-all-odds – found.

you can’t write stuff this good

(Well, I guess you could try).  Kevin, it seems, went on a wild and destructive rampage this morning.  First he kicked a dog, not once, but twice; gleefully rejoicing in its shrill, painful yelps.  Then he urinated in public.  He followed this up by snatching an old lady’s purse, screaming wild obscenities at her and her grandson, Tyler, age 3.  He ran, purse in hand, to his car, pulling out of his parallel parking spot, where he promptly collided with a deaf-mute named Kevin, casually riding his bicycle to school.  On his birthday. 

For the real story, go here.  (I will tell you that part of the above is true). 

Some kids have all the luck.  The O’Rich’s seem to have it in abundance.