process!

if someone were to ask me right now if I find my life exciting, I would think about it, and then say, "yes."

I am learning so much about music, I am seeing new and wonderful things in the nature around me everyday, I am learning so much about the people surrounding me, learning to fully love, and all of that.

my friend Mika and I have talked a lot in the past about how we feel so compelled to live different lives. no status quo for us - that's already been done. it's like there's something in me that just refuses to live this simple little life of graduating, getting a job, a house and kids and saving for retirement - I need to revolutionize, I need to travel and do, I need to create. this isn't new news for you, though! you already knew that.

but, I'm on this journey, you see.


so, I've stated my case. this ailment, this syndrome; a fear of feeling like I've not lived my life to the fullest if I don't DO something spectacular with myself. it probably doesn't help that so much of our worth and the shape of our identity seem dependent on our vocations and the decisions we make in life.


this is where I respond to my now-expressed afflictions; allow me to preface this response by saying that:


Relationships are beautiful things.


my boyfriend, Jesse, has this ability to love people in a pretty quiet and magnificent way. he is easy to talk to, easy with which to relate, he accepts people as they are.


having said that, I have realized that I am a terribly judgmental person, generally mostly to those who I perceive that have it together - whether it's spiritually, emotionally, or financially.


what I mean by that, is that I find myself judging those who seem to live very comfortable lives, because I perceive that there can't be a trust for God if their bank accounts are full of money. if someone lives in a really nice house with lots of nice things and speaks really well and dresses really well, then they're probably unaware of all of the poverty in the world because they are so comfortable.


they're not doing enough; they can't be.


I've been starting to see the huge connection here.

a) I don't think of myself as DOING enough, therefore
b) other people are never DOING enough, either.

this is huge!


this is monumental! I mean, I guess it's fairly simple. the more I judge myself, the more I judge others.

and I don't want either, at all, ever, really.


I have been spending time with God alone, disciplining myself to just be in his presence and to completely banish all of my worries, to not think about anything that needs to be done that day or later, but to picture myself, sitting cross-legged in his hand, being completely useless in terms of my performance, and literally telling myself that God is completely pleased with me.


I have found this incredibly freeing.


to release myself from the need of doing, to create a space for myself and for others where we are free to be more of who we are, and less of what we do. this is a good chapter of life. I am liking these themes.


there's this line from the movie Before Sunrise. the character, Celine says:

I had worked for this old man and once he told me that he had spent his whole life thinking about his career and his work. And he was fifty-two and it suddenly struck him that he had never really given anything of himself. His life was for no one and nothing. He was almost crying saying that.

man! the stuff that lasts, the stuff that is exciting, is stuff that involves relationships. because, I think, these relationships point us to the richness and to the total goodness of God.