Casting My First Ballot

I recently got talked into being interviewed for a local newspaper's piece on first-time voters. It didn't take long to realize that I was the only one in the piece who was 23 years old. That's right; do the math. I was 19 during the last presidential election. So why is this my first time voting?

Brace yourselves. I'm about to utter the words that most political or faux-political people hate to hear: I CHOSE to not vote.

Unique is the new Normal

I have the magnificent pleasure of volunteering with a rambunctious group of high schoolers twice a week. We get together and talk about theater. We play improv games. We plan how to make the school administrators clean up the stage. We even put on small plays for the entertainment of the faculty, staff, students, parents and friends who choose to come. (Well, we have only done one to date, but I speak in good faith that we can do another one. We've only been at this for one full school semester, after all.)

But we also get to have some pretty deep conversations, too. For example, today when I asked the question why they wanted to do theater and be a part of drama club, one of the answers that came up was that they felt like they could be themselves when they were in our club meetings. They could be wild and crazy and not have to worry about what people thought when they acted silly. One of the students observed that "normal" according to our society was the person who walked through life knowing no one's name, doing nothing of note and living in a generally neutral manner. It made me start wondering (and allow me to place some emphasis on this):

Since when did we start conditioning ourselves to believe that "normal" is this robotic lifestyle?

Bless those who persecute you...

When I sit down to write on this blog, it is usually because something has been constantly filling my brain for hours (sometimes days) at a time. I actually sat down to write this blog yesterday and had to walk away because I just wasn't ready. Here's hoping I can do it justice this time around.

My mind has been overwhelmed lately with the various reactions I have seen to the alleged attacks against American Christians (mostly political in nature).  I say alleged simply because I do not know enough about the situations to make legitimate assessments. I noticed the reactions of one particular gentleman who I follow on various social media sites because he and I are alumni of the same university.

In studying the reactions of him and his followers to the political actions of recent days, I noticed a trend. Indignation, entitlement, and sometimes even pure malice filled many of the posts. It made my heart ache to read so much anger from people who openly said they held their opinions because they were Christians. It just didn't seem right.

I started mulling over it in my head. No matter how I tried to analyze it, my mind kept returning to the same thing: a Bible verse about blessing those that persecute you.

The saddest thing in the world

I have a good friend who loves to ask me hypothetical and philosophical questions (mostly to divert the conversation from talking about himself, but perhaps he also genuinely wants to hear what I have to say; I guess only time will tell). The other night, he asked me what in this world made me saddest. After bantering about why in the world he would want to know the key to making me as sad as possible, I finally settled back and thought of my serious answer.

Spontaneity, Solitude and Starlight

There are few things in life as calming to me as a clear sky on a summer night in the mountains of Tennessee. Tonight, as I was driving home, I had the sudden urge to see the stars, so I kept driving. I drove about 45 minutes to Chilhowee and wound my way up to my favorite overlook.

Never go back the way you came

It was a cool night in Cleveland, and the greenway was beginning to darken rapidly as the sun set on the western horizon. The electric lights left a haze in the air as a friend of mine and I stumbled upon a new section of the paths that neither of us had ever explored. 


We walked for a little while, simply taking in the amusements to be found along the new path (various exercise stations that made for great fun and hilarious photos). As we started to head back to our car, we spotted one more path we'd never taken and decided to see where it led. 


We emerged on one of the main streets in Cleveland, just a few blocks from the parking lot from which we had started. It was a much shorter walk than the meandering paths we'd left behind, so we started walking down the bustling street. 


As we started walking, we talked about what we'd learned about the greenway that night, and our conversation arrived at an interesting consensus that I've thought about a lot since that night: Never go back the way that you came.

Parcheesi'd

Playing Catch-Up: A Year in Review

In the past 10 months since I last posted on this blog, a lot has happened. Consider this the "catch-up post" that will allow me to start sharing my stories and lessons and musings again, now that life is finally getting back to normal and I can actually spend time writing again (Praise the Lord!).

Many significant things have happened, but there are 5 important ones that will be flavoring my stories from this time forward, as they have changed my life completely.

Following the Yellow Lines of Life

I love rain. It's fun dance in. It's a perfect veil under which to crying. It can be as soothing as a mother's lullaby yet it is powerful enough to change the entire landscape in which we live. But the thing I love most about rain is I always seem to learn something from it, and tonight's rainstorm was no exception.

Valentine's Day

I've never really understood how the martyrdom of a saint became a holiday where we buy all of our loved ones copious amounts of flowers, chocolates and heart-shaped antacids that say "Hug Me." But I suppose that stranger things have happened (*cough* Resurrection Sunday and the Easter bunny *cough*).

It is no secret to anyone who has known me for more than a year that I honestly have never liked Valentine's Day. Even in elementary school when we passed out little paper cards and had parties, all the holiday ever did for me was remind me that I was not the popular kid, that I didn't buy the valentines that everyone else thought were cool and that love in this world was full of nasty strings.

One could easily say that I hated Valentine's Day with a relentless passion (slightly ironic, but very truthful), but I guess everything must end eventually. Here I am on February 14, 2011, surprised and yet relieved that I can say that my hatred is gone.

Oh, I'm still very single. I'm still not popular. And I didn't buy a single gift for anyone this year. So what changed?

Pacing

Life has a funny way of slowing us down sometimes. I haven't written in a little over a month because I always told myself I didn't have the time, that I would do it later. I've had so many ideas, but they've all just culminated in vague memories of thoughts and random tidbits of epiphany saved as text message drafts in my cell phone.

So why did I decide to write at 4 a.m. on a Wednesday morning? Well, the answer is simple, yet complex. Suffice it to say that I am at present sitting in an ER waiting room with a very dear friend who has gotten sick to the point of dehydration and needed a ride to the hospital. Suffice it further to say that I wasn't going to let her come alone in an ambulance, which was her only other option at such a late hour.

So here I sit, in quite the contemplative mood as we await our turn to see a doctor who will hopefully provide answers and relief for my friend. As I wait, though, I am apt, as always, to do a bit of observation.

Not long after our arrival (at around 2 a.m. or so), I noticed out of the corner of my eye that a woman who had just entered the ER was suddenly leaving again. On first glance, I thought she worked for the hospital, as her khaki pants looked vaguely like scrubs and her coat obscured her shirt. She carried a plastic grocery bag with what appeared to be a blanket of some sort folded up in it.

The lady reappeared in the doorway just a few moments later. I thought nothing of it, dismissing the action as her having forgotten something in her car perhaps. This time, though, I decided to watch exactly where she went, hoping to confirm that she did indeed work in the hospital. To my surprise, she perched on a chair for a few seconds, then rose and walked back out into the cold.

This process was repeated about eight times before the woman approached the sign-in desk, gave the necessary information, then proceeded to sit in the same chair in which she had always perched.

Perhaps she was just nervous about asking for help. Perhaps she was really not sure if she needed help. Perhaps she was mentally impaired. Whatever the case, there she sat in the ER waiting room. I thought to myself, "I'm glad she's getting help, whatever help it might need to be."

But I guess even thoughts can come too soon. After about five minutes of waiting, the woman stood. grasped her bag tightly in her hand and plunged into the frigid February air one final time.

Between the time she left and the time we were called out of the waiting room, I didn't see her again.

What is the moral of this story? Is there even a moral here? I'll leave that for you to decide. And while you're deciding, if you think about it, say a prayer for those who need help and, for whatever reason, never receive it, be it physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually.

And to that mysterious lady in the ER, may you find the help you seek.

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot..."

Did you know that the famous little ditty we sing every year at midnight New Year's Eve started as a poem in 1788? Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote the poem "Auld Lang Syne" to the tune of an old Scottish folk song, and it soon gained popularity as a New Year's song in Scotland, Britain, and eventually America. Now it is sung around the world every year. I wonder if Robert Burns had any idea the magnitude of what he was crafting...

Speaking of the old ennui, I've been doing some reflecting on 2010 and the implications of it as I try to fathom what 2011 will have in store for me.

"This our hymn of grateful praise..."

I know that Thanksgiving is technically behind us now,but I feel like every day is a good day to learn the true meaning of thankfulness. Today, I've been reflecting on how that lesson can be learned and applied in my current life.

I've been thinking lately about attitudes and how they affect our interactions with those around us. More importantly, I've been reflecting on how sometimes I do not choose to have the most gracious attitude with people because of the physical pain that I've experienced of late in my own life. I sometimes translate that pain into my interpersonal relationships, which is completely unfair and altogether not Christ-like.

In order to truly explain this lesson, though, and how I am learning it, I'll need to tell the story of my current life as it pertains to this post.

There's no place like home...

Have you ever had one of those days that is going so perfectly that you can't believe how wonderful it really is?

Well, this is the story of the other shoe dropping on one of those days.

Friday, Nov. 12, was honestly a great day. I had officially finished my practicum observation hours in TESOL, worked on homework, attended a great class discussion in Spanish with our guest speaker and discovered that I had a paycheck in my mailbox, all before 2 p.m. I found myself walking back to my apartment after class wondering how the day could possibly be any better!

In hindsight, I sometimes laugh at my own optimism.

If I could turn back time...

Have you ever wanted to just turn the clock back on a portion of your life? You know, hit the rewind button and record over that mistake you made or that word you said in anger?

Sadly the closest thing to turning back time that I've ever been able to accomplish comes once a year when the world returns to normal and Daylight Savings Time ends. Ironically and perfectly enough, that time is tonight (at least in the USA, that is). I'm actually typing this in anticipation of seeing whether I need to manually reset my cell phone clock or if it will handle the change on its own (as so much technology seems to do lately...who needs humans anymore? But that's a completely different topic).

Speaking of things I haven't done this semester...

I've had quite an adventure over the past few months, that great adventure called "senior year".

Thus far, I have experienced probably every feeling possible on the spectrum of human emotion and have been stretched physically, mentally and emotionally more than I ever thought possible in a three month period.

Here at the climax of my final fall semester as an undergraduate, I find myself in a calm before a storm. Within the next week, I am expecting e-mails, phone calls and professional opinions that will directly decide what my experiences of the next 6 months will be, which will then ultimately snowball into my post-grad life.

The atmosphere is charged with anticipation as I watch and wait for decisions to be made and information to surface that will allow me to continue in the decision-making process that will determine my future, both next semester and after graduation.

Sunglasses in the rain

A rainstorm is the last place one thinks about seeing illumination, but the impossibility of this idea was disproven to me the other day.

I was driving on the interstate, Murfreesboro-bound, after a long day at work, when I ran into a torrential downpour. Insistent to reach my destination, I pushed on, though at a much slower rate than the 70 mph speed limit.

The further I drove through the storm, the more the clouds began to change. Little by little, they lightened from a blackish-grey to a lighter and lighter gray. Eventually I could see beams of sunshine breaking through the clouds.

But the rain never ceased. It became lighter at points, but not once was I able to turn my windshield wipers off. In spite of this, I soon found myself reaching for my sunglasses. What a silly notion, wearing sunglasses in the rain!

And yet the brilliance of the light reflecting against the rain made those shades so necessary to drive safely.

Isn't this like life sometimes? We complain about going through storms and torrential downpours unaware that the potential for brilliance at the end of it all is magnified by that rain that we so often curse. After all, how do you think rainbows are formed?

I think next time I'm going through a storm, I'm not going to curse the rain. I'm going to wonder how God is going to use it to completely light up my life.

Stories. We've all got 'em.

Upon learning that I would be returning to work the day after our flight back from Argentina, a fellow student on the trip made an observation that I have been reflecting on for the past few days: we never can fully know the stories of the everyday people with which we come into contact.

Who knows if the store clerk has just returned from a wonderful adventure? Who knows what is happening in the lives of the people we pass on the street?

Working behind a cash register gives me a chance to talk to some people that I would otherwise probably have never noticed. Just in the past few days, some amazing characters have come through my line.

One old man purchased a cart full of items and could remember the exact price of every item he placed on my counter. I wonder what his story is.

One woman was buying sunless tanner for her husband, who was preparing to embark on a trip to Pakistan with another man from their church. He was changing his entire appearance in order to blend into the culture. I wonder what their story is.

One man had an amputated arm. Another was missing multiple fingers. I wonder what their stories are.

Another lady bought five or six large bags of M&Ms, each a different kind. Upon further questioning, I found out that she was using them in a team building exercise, comparing different personality types to different kinds of M&Ms. What a neat story!

The stories are endless. Everybody has a story. I wish I could listen to them all.

Wallflowers are pretty, too...

Have you ever felt so completely out of place that it made you want to cry?

Have you ever been the only one in the group to not receive a compliment on your appearance?

Have you ever been that one girl whose dress came down to her knees and actually had sleeves?

That was me the other night.

I already know that I'm not the most beautiful thing to grace the surface of the earth. I know that I'm quite honestly not that pretty by American standards: I'm "plus-sized," I don't have much of a chest, I refuse to fry my hair to get it perfectly coiffed, I don't wear three tons of makeup, and I'm not too keen on the latest styles and trends (especially the whole leggings as pants thing, but that's a whole other topic). I've slowly decided that the only redeeming quality I possess is my eye color.

Basically, I'm not the American beauty. Never have been. Never will be. And I've known that for a long time now.

So why does it still bother me when I have to go out with a group of "normal" people? Why do I still feel the need to compare myself with those around me? It's a curse of the human mind, and I absolutely hate it.

Here I was, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, about to go to a professional tango show and have a wonderful night, and I was worried about how I looked compared to other people.

I slowly realized reasons as to why I can't compare myself to other people, starting with the things that really shouldn't matter (such as how a size 16 can't compare to a size 2...) and ending where it should have started: God's love.

God honestly doesn't care what I look like or how big I am. He doesn't care if my hair is frizzy or my face is broken out. He loves me anyways, so much so that He thinks I'm worth dying for! He loves me enough to want to spend eternity with me. He loves me so much that nothing in this world is big enough to separate me from His love. And I'm worried about what the girls down the hall think?

In the big picture, physical appearance really doesn't bear much weight at all, does it?

I'd like to say that I'm never going to worry about what I see in the mirror again, but the reality is this struggle isn't over. Because I'm human. It's one of those things that I have to daily crucify in order to focus more and more on Jesus every single moment of my life.

No, I'm not going to be a slob. I'm not going to stop wearing makeup completely and never comb my hair in an effort to completely divorce myself from the stigma of society. That's just kinda stupid.

What I am going to do, though, is stop comparing myself to those around me: the styles they wear, their personal expectations of beauty, their opinions about what I should be doing. They don't matter. Yes, if I ask for your opinion about how I look, I want a genuine response. But I'm going to attempt to let myself get continuously bogged down by the comparisons that my own mind loves to make.

I'm a wallflower. I'm not really much to look at. But I'm pretty, too, in my own special way...because God loves me. I'm His princess, and He never lets me forget it.

Musings of a Wide-Eyed Traveler

Yesterday I said goodbye to the green corn fields, abundant Queen Anne's lace and humid sunny afternoons of Tennessee. I crossed paths with the setting sun in Atlanta, Georgia, and when we met again, I was landing in South America.

I write to you tonight from a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I and 24 other Lee students will be living and studying for the next month.

The city is very much different from what I am used to, but it vaguely reminds me of Nashville. Keyword: vaguely.

There are trees lining the streets, and many of the apartment balconies are also bejeweled with green vines and flowers. It's slowly changing to winter here, so the leaves outside my window are all turning shades of brilliant orange. In spite of being a city of 13 million people, there is so much in the way of grass and plantlife. It makes the human life surrounding me seem that much more vibrant!

Much of the architecture has a very European style reflected in it; some of the buildings are quite gorgeous, albeit they are also quite tight fitting in the streets.

Speaking of streets, they all seem to be one-way. And there are no lines painted to differentiate the different lanes. I asked one of the guys from the seminary if that was the case all over the city, and he assures me it's not, but still...needless to say, I'm thankful to not be driving here!

I've seen beautiful buildings carved to perfection with Baroque-style ornamentation. But I've also seen homeless people curled up in the doorways of those buildings trying to get a good night's sleep.

I've seen opulent shops with the trendiest fashions from all over the world. But I've also noticed the street vendors who are probably just scratching out a living selling their wares on la Calle Florida.

Yes, traveling is wonderful, but it also makes me reflect on how blessed I am to be an American, to have grown up in a small town with a nurturing family, to know that I don't have to worry about my next meal or what happens if I get a hole in my shoes. It's nice.

And it makes me so thankful for the things that I've been given. May I soon be at a place in life where I am able to give back and provide even just some of those opportunities to others.