What a lovely Christmas it’s been. I spent so long looking forward to it that sometimes it just seems so crazy that it’s already here and gone. Everything was exhausting. Every time I come to Colorado, I think, “This will be the time that everything is quiet. This will be the time I can sleep in and stay up late and watch good movies and drink cups of tea.”
But it never is. It’s always exhausting. It’s always simply wonderful. There are days and days of family and Maggiano’s rigatoni D and Christmas light looking and homemade spaghetti marinara and chicken piccata and nights of Vietnamese food with sangria and old friends. There’s Christmas trees and new music and the feeling of being home. And I love it. I love it.
But tonight, I’m sitting here watching Julia & Julia with my family after waking up sick this morning. I hate that sometimes it takes me getting sick before I stop running. I feel like this is becoming a commonly recurring refrain in my life. I never stop. Ever. Why is that? Everything is coming to a head… and I’ve finally realized that I’m either going to have to stop of my own free will – which is harder, but less painful – or I’m going to be stopped – which will most likely come at the worst and most inconvenient of times. So now I get to make the choice. Stop? Or be stopped?
I suppose that with 2010 just around the corner, my New Year’s resolutions should be coming together. But somehow it seems even deeper than that this time around. I want to stop for a moment. But it goes deeper than that. I want to live a life that doesn’t drain me every day. I want to be present for the people in my life. I want to be flexible and open and alive. I’m tired of being tired. But the truth is – it has nothing to do with what I’m actually doing. I love my job. I love church. I love my friends. I love writing. And of course – I’m crazy in love with Luke. 
This exhaustion comes from how I’m doing everything. I have to learn to stop and rest. I have to learn to be present in the moment – looking ahead to what is coming but learning to be content where I’m at. So perhaps this is going to be the goal of 2010. A journey into learning to fully absorb every moment of life. A journey into the life of a recovering perfectionist. A journey into the life of a recovering busy-aholic. (Yes, I get to create my own word.) I know God has more for me than this life I’ve been trying to create.
I know I will be a better wife. A better friend. A better writer. A better PA. A better cook, if we’re really honest about it. I’m going to write about it throughout the year. Because I’m not perfect, and I never want to look like I am. I hope that I will become more honest. More authentic. More God-loving. More alive.
And I want to invite you along in the journey. In the meantime, I’m going to drink a fresh cup of tea and curl up with Luke. Now this is a journey I could get used to.
Because I love Banksy and his art, I just wanted to share this with you all… Click here to see all his 4 new works that were just discovered in the UK.
Grace finds us often when we are at our most broken and wounded. But not always. Sometimes it shows up in our happy-go-lucky moments. And unfortunately, that’s when it’s the easiest to just breeze on by.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately (among many other things) – and I love what I’m seeing! I am a grace-giver… I love when people show grace to me for the times I am imperfect. But I started realizing just how often I’ve overlooked those moments. And they’re always just that. Moments.
There’s a sweet grace when I come home to find my husband making me dinner, after he’s had a longer day than I did. The other day, I was at Starbucks getting coffee for the writers, and though I probably could have opened the door on my own without spilling, a woman got up from her comfy chair and held the door open for me. She didn’t have to. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it if she had never moved from her chair. But now, several days later, her simple act still makes me smile. A situation presented itself a while back in my life, where I could reestablish a broken friendship or simply let it fade away entirely. No one would have thought anything about letting it fade. There was so much hurt there. It would have been easier. Instead, I wrote an email. And I got a response. So I wrote back. And the lost friendship was suddenly found again. Because she had grace and so did I. It just kept going back and forth, and then hope popped up, alive and new. And it was gorgeous! Looking back, it would have been easy to maintain the status quo. But there would have been so much I missed. And that wouldn’t have been worth it at all….
Grace is naturally an inequality. It means that even when we don’t deserve something, we are still given it. It means that even though a division of labor doesn’t add up, you have what you needed in that moment. Grace is a ridiculous miracle in this world. There’s no way to pay it back.
Grace in it’s very nature keeps moving forwards. If you are constantly shown grace in any form – large ways or small – and yet don’t do the same for others, it becomes ugly almost immediately. We become black holes that just take-take-take-take and never give anything back. We become the ones people try to avoid. We get a reputation by taking advantage of every situation (in a bad way), and that lingers long after we’d like it to. Grace moves forward because it stays fresh and alive that way. It’s like the difference between a stagnant, gooey, messy puddle on a hot summer’s day when compared to a fresh brook, trickling merrily down the side of the mountain. They’re both just collections of water. But I guarantee you’d rather drink from one rather than the other.
I long for grace because I long to give it. I long for the knowledge that, while I may be imperfect, I will still be loved. I want freedom from the constant need to prove myself over and over – to make up for the grace that I’ve already been shown. I need to realize that it will never happen, that each grace-moment was a gift. I can’t ever make it up to those wonderful people who were my grace-givers. But would I want to? Would it then morph into an obligation rather than delight? I imagine myself carrying the grace-moments in my heart, ready to give them away as quickly as I was given them. I long to make the world a better place, just as my world has been made better by you – you know who you are.
All because of 5-second grace-moments. I’m keeping my eyes open now.
I know it’s been a while. I have a lot to share. So many things…
I promise I’ll have lots more soon!
I crave … days built around writing, reading and time spent with family and friends.
- Dana Jennings, New York Times
I know what I want to be.
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
- Dr. Seuss
A dear friend of mine posted this quote, and I had to share it.
How often as we grow up do we forget the simple joys of being silly? There’s a time and a place for “grown-up” life, of course. But it doesn’t have to be every minute of every day! Sometimes, the very best thing you can do is fall down laughing hysterically. You can have a root beer float with extra ice cream. You can dare to dream of a world that doesn’t look like the world you currently see. You can imagine a place where people can fly, where they can turn invisible, where they can leap tall buildings in a single bound. There’s joy in stories like that.
And just think about it. If no one imagined the nonsense of people flying, would we have airplanes?
If no one imagined the nonsense of being able to communicate instantly over thousands of miles, would we have the telephone?
If no one imagined the nonsense of other worlds, would they have stopped to look through telescopes and discover them?
If no one imagined the nonsense of a man on the moon, would Neil Armstrong have made history?
You see, because nonsense sometimes becomes reality, but only if you’re willing to imagine something bigger and grander and crazier. Sometimes, wacky is wonderful. You never know where it might lead you. Sometimes, my stories are full of nonsense. I write about worlds that don’t exist today. But maybe one day, they will.
At the very least, I hope my stories make people smile and imagine a different place, a different time, a different life. At the very least, I hope they do what stories are meant to do – entertain. In the meantime, what nonsense are you thinking about? What if it became a reality? Just something to think about…
Sometimes, despite my best efforts, I forget that today is not forever.
The last few weeks have been particularly difficult ones, for a variety of reasons. I’m on the job hunt (being a writer isn’t exactly the most stable of careers) and I’ve been trying to start a new community and I’ve been staying up way too late for my own good… just to name a few. And being the staunch optimist that I am, I have a tendency to throw off difficult days and say, “This doesn’t matter! In the long term, this will be relegated to a tiny little sidenote if it’s lucky!” And then I throw in a smile.
But the truth is, sometimes those days from hell do matter. They overshadow the good things in life, and for some ridiculous reason manage to turn their whispering voices into booming shouts that overwhelm my ability to say, “This moment is not forever.” Sometimes those days seem like they’ll be eternal. This is life. It will always be like this. It’s an insidious little thought that takes up residence far too easily sometimes.
But I’m slowly realizing something. I’m not there yet, and I’m sure it will take me a while to fully grasp it. When I face bad moments of life, my tendency has always been to look for the good that’s still there hiding. But sometimes, it’s okay to just stop and say, “This is not good. This is not what I signed up for. And I want off the roller coaster, please.” Somehow facing the problems makes them a little smaller. They’re not as scary. It seems a little counterintuitive. Instead of resorting to my sunny optimism – I become authentic. Sometimes I cry.
And then I can figure out how to work through difficulties. Because really, why would you want to overcome something good? It’s only when you establish that something is bad, that something is out of order or general sense of “rightness,” that you can finally move on. You can only overcome something by noticing that it’s something to overcome in the first place.
And so I’m slowly becoming a more authentic person. While I haven’t lost my optimism yet, and hope that I never do, I’m sitting here at my kitchen table with breakfast and the beginnings of a new perspective.
Today is not forever. Good things are yet to come… and how grateful I will be when they finally arrive.
I’m beginning (or re-beginning, if you will) a community of Spoken Word artists at Mosaic. Last week, I encouraged them to write about community – what it looks like, what it feels like, what it brings to your life. And what sort of leader would I be if I didn’t also write the same things?
The problem with community is that it tends to defy explanation. You can’t imagine if it you don’t have it, and oftentimes, it sneaks up on you. You realize that you’ve been living in community and you didn’t even realize it. But on the flip side, community isn’t something that just happens. A lot of times, it takes a lot of purposeful thinking, and a lot of semi-awkward moments before it develops. But we were never meant to be an island, living this life fully on our own. We were meant to live life surrounded by others – people to laugh with, cry with, be held accountable by.
It’s one thing when you’re born into a community. That’s easy. I was so lucky to have that be the story of my life. My parents had lots of friends, wonderful friends who just happened to have kids my age. Today, at 24 years old, I have several friends I don’t remember meeting. They’ve just always been there, and always will be there. I can’t imagine my life without them. These are the friends I would fly halfway around the world to visit without batting an eye. I grew up with them, and we all grew together. In so many ways, we’re still the same people we were in kindergarten. I’m still naturally on the quiet side. Some are still some of the most adventurous, outgoing people I know. And yet, it’s so wonderful to be able to look back and see how different we all are – how much we changed. I love not having to explain childhood stories to them. They get it. They were probably there with me!
Building community doesn’t just happen, though. It takes time and space. Lots of coffee. Lots of movies and dinner. But it is so incredibly worth it! Because suddenly, you wake up one day laughing at something a friend said the night before. You tell them about your day, and listen to their stories. It becomes a second family. The point is not that you have someone to listen to you now. The point is that you listen to others. Remind them that they are valuable and important. Remember that you are never alone. You have the honor of having a front row seat to their celebrations and joys.
And the struggles of life – while still incredibly difficult – will be wrapped up in balance and hope. Imagine a seesaw. Struggles on one side, community on the other. Friends to remind you that you are more than the worst parts of yourself.
Because tomorrow, when they’re in the same spot, you will have the honor of doing the same for them. That’s the beauty of a community. There’s always someone there saying, “You belong here.”
One of my favorite artists ever!
So here’s a sentence I never thought I would say – Jennifer Knapp has returned!
Jennifer Knapp, with her lovely voice and incredibly literary lyrics, was an enormous part of my musical life after God finally caught my attention. After several years, she decided to take a break and simply disappeared from the musical landscape. And now, quietly, she has re-emerged, 7 years after the release of her last album.
To listen to her new song, click here.
So, Thursday night in Los Angeles, I was honored to be in the audience at Hotel Cafe as Jen Knapp took the stage for the first time in 4 1/2 years. She opened her set with “A Little More,” the only song she played from her previous albums. “I figure you guys have had seven years with the last three albums, so I thought I’d give you something new.” The next several songs were her brand new music, songs that she’d written over the last few months. And they were beautiful… heart-wrenching… amazing.
There’s something so inspiring and encouraging about new Jennifer Knapp music! For so long, her music belonged in my past, reminders of a time where I was not entirely put together. And now, just as I am finally working towards wholeness, as I’m finally becoming the person I was created to be, even her music is becoming new. I’m so grateful for what has transpired in my life over the last few months.
Now I have a new soundtrack to go with it as well!
It’s a happy Sunday morning. And as I sit, drinking coffee and reading the morning news, I’ve come across such a crazy story in the LA Times. (You can read it in it’s entirety here.)
In Santa Fe every year, an enormous crowd gets together and stuffs a huge wood and wire figure – Zozobra – full of everything they’d like to forget and move on from. Hurts. Sorrows. Paid off mortgages. Old wedding dresses from failed marriages. Some are simply written on paper and stuffed in. But then, the crowd waits until evening, gathered up together with their picnic dinners, bottles of wine and good friends.
And then the party begins.
They burn the enormous figure stuffed full of their sorrows. The hope is that, in the morning, they will wake up freed from the pain they’ve been living with. It’s a beautiful and somehow strange image. How amazing, that no matter how different we are from each other, no matter the paths our lives have taken, we all live with a desire to be free from sorrow. And somehow that freedom almost always includes a community around us, friends who will sit with us, hold our hands through the pain, and then sit with with us as we watch a huge bonfire. They want our freedom just as much as we do. Where there’s people, there’s always good food and perhaps a bottle of pinot nearby.
I’ve been guilty of trying to be an island so often. I can do this on my own! But it’s never true. Now, I’m wondering. Instead of waiting until we’ve lived through so much difficulty before we let anyone else sit next to us, what if we started out with the community around us? What if we started with the picnic baskets and good friends rather than ending with them? How much different would our life be?
We were never intended to do this life alone. Never intended to try to make it by ourselves. No matter how hard we fight, there will always be sadness and difficulty. But it’s so much easier to deal with if you’re making s’mores with others around a bonfire on the beach.
And so I hope that my life is one where community and love are the beginnings of it all, never the last resorts.
Just my thoughts on the day. And to all of you who’ve stood by me, holding my hand as the fires burn – thank you! I mean it when I say I could never have done it without you.
