Why I love Tuesdays

It seems like no matter how late I stay up Monday night, Tuesday morning I'm awake at 5:30am, bright-eyed and bushy-bangs. So I go to the gym, and it's wonderful. I like getting to the gym really early...really early...when the stars are still mixed in with that arriving light of dawn... And when there are about four other people total, one of which is already dedicated to her cycling machine... already sweating, turning those magazine pages, iPod ear buds in place... I could get there at 5:02am and someone's already on their second treadmill-mile... (you thought I was crazy).

But I like that. I like seeing fellow early risers. I go in and give the head-nod... cycling girl nods back... treadmill man lifts a couple fingers ("heeeyyy..."). It's like this kinship we have. Mark wishes me well as I gear up for my cross-trainer (cleverly stamped "X-trainer"...cause it's extreme like that). Shoes tight? check. Socks un-bunched? check. iPod secure? check. Bathroom? (....wait, did I go to the bathroom yet?) no. K...back to the bathroom (the empty bladder is key here for maximum achievement of cardio endurance building) .....NOW I'm ready...
Ready? check.

So begins my Tuesday. I love Tuesdays.

After spending time in the gym "world" (yes, it is one of my many), I pop in a good soundtrack-to-a-sunrise type CD and cruise on downtown to my awesome breakfast club. No mistaking it, this lifegroup rocks! Today, we revisited the message from Sunday night, and I have to say, there was so much to think about, be convicted about, receive grace for, and just love Jesus because of. I love these women's thoughts...and I love the Bible...and I love that we get to think about the Bible together on Tuesday mornings...

Anyway, I was SUPER hyper, so the other half of Meghan's oatmeal and the start of my cultural anthropology chapter are all kind of blurred together in this somewhere. I think I might have gotten into a debate about Star Wars movies with Danielle at some point... And I'm pretty sure I said that Sean Connery was the reason that Indianna Jones: The Last Crusade is the best one of the used-to-be trilogy. I DO know that I left everyone with this recommendation: Derrick Webb's CD, Mockingbird. Really good. A bit controversial, but if you want to prep yourself for the Stirring's "Elephant" series... it may contribute.

Mockingbirds and elephants.... animals that were part of my Tuesday today...

Speaking of... I haven't even talked about Tuesday staff meetings yet... that's a whole blog in and of itself.

Another reason why I love Tuesdays.

My Many Worlds

I live in about six different worlds. One is school. One is home. One is church. One is past. One is present. And one is my future and all those dreams I have about it...
These worlds are composed of "subworlds," if you will, splitting my already di- (wait, what's the prefix meaning "six"?) hexchotomized life into about 17 worlds total. No big deal though. I mean, who doesn't have a bazillion different aspects of life that they must learn to balance, connect, and interweave with each other? The hard part for me is the switching over... how do you get to 17 different worlds in one day... ok, one month even? Physically is hard enough (if you can figure out how to get me from a meeting ending at 6:30 to a life group starting at 6, on time, let me know), BUT the hardest is mentally... My mind is like a nail... it's all about the depth, people. Start driving it into something and the goal is to get deep enough so that whatever needs to be connected (or hung) is CONNECTED (or HUNG!). Sometimes I wish my mind could be more like that wide packaging tape... so much surface area... "let's just get all the bases covered and focus on the next destination"...ya know, that kind of thing.

But no. I dig. And to uproot me just when I'm getting started...? shoot, talk about getting hit on the head with a hammer over and over again all day long. It's not a SUPER huge deal--I just haven't found my groove yet. I just need to figure out this "dance of life" (was that a song?). Anyway, Heaven help me, my many worlds WILL get more than whatever can just connect them at the edges!!!
uh.... well, only if Heaven helps me that is...
Maybe that's why I'm writing this... let's all just pray that Heaven helps me.


Oh.

And if you're wondering...

I LOVE those wonderful worlds in which I dwell... In the "school" arena: I LOVE my classes (almost all of them!), my friends, worship for chapel (my team and my supervisor--Travis O--you rock). In the "home" arena: I LOVE LOVE LOVE my family (my parents, sisters, and niece and nephew !), my long-time friends, even my highschool. In the "church" arena: I don't even know where to start--worship, lifegroups, friends/family, dreams and visions, realities--I LOVE the Stirring!

So this is the part at the end of it all where I just say, "My many worlds... ROCK." And I wouldn't trade them for... the world...???

We love.

Gotta admit... I'm having a hard time with the fact that it's my own voice I'm listening to in this thing... but the cinematography of/heart behind this video has me obsessed. Awesome job, Nate.

I love.


We love. from the Stirring on Vimeo.

Broken Lives are Made New

This line is from a song we sang tonight at the welcome chapel: "In Your Kingdom broken lives are made new...You make us new." It's a familiar song--"Hosanna" by Paul Baloche--but it just became one of my favorites. There are songs you sing to God that describe attributes of Him; there are songs you sing to God that praise Him DIRECTLY. There are songs that narrate our own journey, there are songs that request and pray... and then there are the songs that do all of those things--and in a way that flows naturally from the heart of the worshiper. "Hosanna" was one of those songs tonight that, as a leader of songs sung to God, I found flowing out of my heart, mind, and mouth as a genuine praise and prayer for our Simpson community this year. I came to find I'm not the only one who lifted up the "broken lives are made new" phrase over our campus tonight. A few of us recognize this call for God's Kingdom to intersect and heal the oppressed of this generation--and indeed It does. We recognize that He is stirring up hope and turning eyes to Himself; we know that we are yearning for Him. We know that "Hosanna" means "Save!" and that He most assuredly is our Savior...


We see the story of His heart seeking out ours,
We hear the sound of His praise rising from crowds,
We recognize His saving power and ask His Kingdom to come...
For He IS the God--He is the ONE.

When we see Him, we find strength to face the day--In His presence all our fears are washed away.
Hosanna! Hosanna! He is the God who saves us, worthy of all our praises.
Hosanna! Hosanna!

"Come have Your way among us...
...We welcome You here, Lord Jesus."

May this be the praise on the lips of Simpson this year. May this be the prayer of the incoming class.

Why does the hall smell like poo?

There are many smells we encounter throughout our day. Take a moment to think about some of your favorites... warm, freshly baked bread, clean laundry tumbling out of the dryer into your ready basket, the shower room after your roommate has obviously used her soy-and-almond-butter body wash in it, or (if you're a guy) something manly like... aftershave... (I obviously wouldn't know). My guess is that whether you added to this list in your head or have decided that, "Yes, soy-and-almond-butter body wash aroma is DEFINITELY on my top ten," a hall that smells like poo is probably NOT considered a "fav." of yours. Well, then don't come over to third floor Morgan right now. I have no idea what happened (though I am imagine "it" would have happened in a nearby resident's bathroom), but when I stepped out into our hall this afternoon the first thing that popped into my head was, "Why does the hall smell like poo?" In a very detective-like but non-anticipatory way, I scanned the floor and ceiling for some sort of sewage evidence. Maybe I thought I'd see a pipe sticking out of the baseboard--leaking, dripping, a small acidic pool forming and eating a hole through the carpet...
But there is no pipe sticking out of our wall. My imagination can sometimes get a little crazy...
So I wonder if the world has turned upside down and, suddenly, it is the girls' residence halls that will be known for their smelly-ness! Surely, this cannot be! I mean, we have our days, but "flowers and fruity body spray" MUST remain the staple scent of female living quarters! Boys' dorms smell like poo! Not Third-Floor Morgan-Sharpe.

So I'm grabbing the Glade "Ocean Blue" from my (non poo-smelling) bathroom...

Here's to "1 hour!" of the world being right again.

"What's gonna happen next?!"

It's approximately 8:26pm, and I'm sitting on the first-floor lobby couch watching an old episode of LOST. Libbie is FREAKING OUT because, as of three days ago, she'd never seen them...and now I'm wondering if I really should have given her my Season 1 to borrow. But, almost to Season 2, she's knee-deep in constant thoughts and a determined mindset concerning these characters, who've yet to have their full stories told. I think about how we get caught up so easily in such things.... strange adventures, broken lives, stories...stories...STORIES. Don't we love stories? the Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, Star Wars, (and up and coming) the Host... plus, there are all those TV series. We live in the land of "TV Series Galore." But what would we do without them????? (maybe engage in our own lives more often? ...nahhh)

Well anyway, the TV people know what they're doing with this whole "series" thing. I think they caught on to the pattern of humans liking some kind of movement towards the unknown... the unknown of someone's past, the unknown of someone's future... maybe we would call it "potential," because it is a reality that "could be" but that has not yet been realized. And it's all UNFOLDING... ahhh, the unfolding... like a nice little suspense-filled gift. Except, the unfolding of a TV character's potential could end in a reality that none of us would ever really want... or, it could be the ending that all of us would hope for. Either way, it is not OUR unfolding story, so we're not stuck with the conclusion if we don't like it. Maybe that's really why we watch these so much... to get the unfolding without the fear of it ACTUALLY being our own lives that such terrible things are happening to. And then there's the part of us that lives vicariously through the extraordinary feats and treasures discovered in their "lives." Which makes us a tad jealous--but the vicariousness satisfies for the moment. Which makes me think... ya know how people say, "That'll never happen to me"? Maybe it's cause they're too busy watching it happen to a character instead...
...Of course, I'll probably never kick-butt like Kate, or "heal" like Claire, but the more real things--of broken lives being redeemed, of victories, of love, of humor and unlikely friendship--those could happen to me....if I engage in a TRUE story (one much greater than myself).


...But for now, at 9:13pm, I'll just let Hurley have all the bad luck--cursing the numbers that made him wealthy--and still watch Libbie freak out as that burning question stirs her mind... "What's gonna happen next?!"

Here's a question...

...As asked by Jesus:

"What do you think?
There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.'
'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.
Which of the two did what his father wanted?"
--Matthew 21:28-31



I was just thinking about this question today. And I'm not going to use literary technique as a scapegoat. Plain and simple--quite literally in fact--I do not do what the Father wants very often; but I tell Him "I will" just as much.

Of course, I'm not perfect. But I bet Jesus would like me to give heed to His words sometimes. Even the hard ones. Maybe ESPECIALLY the hard ones. So that's what I'm doing right now.