Monthly Archives: December 2004

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My Little Piece of Heaven

I’m sitting in Nina’s living room, and pilfering someone else’s wi-fi! And Nina and Toby don’t have wi-fi… I’m picking it up from a neighbor two houses down. Two houses down!! Oh, how I looooove my Mac!! Thank you, Larry, for helping me pick it out! And thank you, Cassie, for convincing me with just you’re Mac-crazy attitude that Mac is the way to go.

We’re just sitting here, Nina, Stephen (her son and my nephew) and I — Toby’s gone to bed — with a small fire going in the fireplace, "Jack Frost" keeping the temps down and all Christmasy outside, and "The Bishop’s Wife" playing on the dvd. Life is good!

We just passed the scene where the Sylvester (Cary Grant) and the Bishop’s wife were visiting with the Professor, and the sherry bottle and glasses keep getting magically refilled. After Sylvester (the angel) leaves, the sherry bottle refills again…. and I made a comment Stephen insisted I write down. I said, "That must be quite an angel. He must be Episcopalian."

If you have to ask what that means, you’re not a Baptist. šŸ™‚

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Finding Neverland

A place grownups say doesn’t exist. A place some would say you can only go in your mind. A place children visit everyday. And laugh and play and live as children ought to be able to live.

No, not the ranch, God forbid I talk about children visiting there!!

I’m talking about the place James Barrie created in "Peter Pan".  Tonight Nina, Toby and I went to see Finding Neverland, a film inspired by the events surrounding the writing of the play. It’s an amazing story, a beautiful, sweet, filled with great performances, two-tissue movie.

I left contemplating Neverland, the possibility of its existence and what it really looks like. I wasn’t ever enthralled with the movie versions of Neverland, either animated or live-action. Perhaps that’s why I never bothered to read the book it came from. Now, however, I think I might like to. I’d like to see what kind of images the words conjure in my own mind. Would I see fairies and pirates and mer-people the way the movies make them look? Or would I see creatures far beyond the ability of artists to capture on celluloid.

I’m pretty convinced it’s the latter more than the former. Mom used to tell me all the time I have a very vivid and creative imagination. I’m not sure she always meant that as a compliment, but I always took it as one. šŸ™‚  I don’t know how my imagination compares to others. I can’t crawl inside their heads and see…. but I do know I can imagine quite a bit, and always have. As a child, I lived more in my imagination than in the real world. I thought that I would outgrow that once I became a "grownup". I never did. Is that a bad thing??

I don’t visit Neverland like I used to. For many years I left my "adulthood" at the door and stepped into a world of magic and mystery. It’s amazing how adulthood can eventually steal you away from Neverland and keep you tied to the "real world". I was immune to that theft for most of my adult years, with only small bouts of adult-ness. Until last year. "Finding Neverland" points out that the death of someone you love, more than anything, can steal a person away from Neverland and leave them forever trapped in the Land of Adult. But it also brings up a question that has haunted me for ages: when does "believing" in magic and mystery become folly? When does imagination turn into pretense and/or denial of reality?

Can one live Neverland and in the real world? The movie would have us believe James Barrie did. He was Peter Pan, and also playwright J.M. Barrie… boy leader of Neverland’s lost boys and society’s man of the theatre…

But is it just more movie trickery, or can it really be done?

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Failing Forward

I started reading this book today. It’s by John Maxwell.

I’ve only gotten through chapter two so far, but man is it good! And challenging.

I’ve always struggled with a fear of failure, and taking risks. As long as I can remember I’ve felt I needed to be "perfect" at something. If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t even try it. It took me many years to get to a point where I’d risk looking like a fool, or worse, a failure, by stepping into things I didn’t think I could do.

For the most part, as I look back over the eight years or so since I started taking those steps, I see failure after failure. But I also see a difference in how I responded to those failures. It doesn’t keep me down as long as it used to. And it doesn’t scare me as much either.

I still have a few things in my life, however, that I look at as personal/ministry failures. India and Cyprus. I struggle with my own opinion of my time as co-team leader in India. And I have a love/hate relationship with my memories. I wouldn’t exchange the experience with a different one for all the money in the world. Yet at the same time, it was a deeply frustrating and unsatisfying one. The thing that frustrates me the most even now is that I cannot identify what exactly would have made it satisfying.

And Cyprus. I still cannot escape the deep sense that I failed because I didn’t return to the field. No amount of logic or reasoning or Scripture or God’s voice or… anything has yet to erase that sense. I just don’t know what to do with it all, how to view it.

Am I a failure? I don’t believe that question can be answered until I’m nearing the end of my days…. or perhaps until after I’m dead, for my story isn’t completely written yet. But, I must confess, there are days when I fear I am a failure. There are days when my mistakes and mis-steps pile so high that it’s hard to see past them and into my strengths. There are days when I feel I’m spending all my time in things that are not my strengths. It’s hard to not feel like a failure in that atmosphere.

That’s what I experienced that year in Cyprus. I felt so often I was not working in my strengths, and I despaired that I ever would be allowed to do so. In fairness, I cannot say that is the truth. For I don’t know if I would have been, nor do I truly know if I wasn’t working within my strengths. I have lost sight of "objective truth" (if such a thing exists) in that time period of my life. Its all a jumble of emotions and thoughts, struggles and spiritual warfare.

John Maxwell defines success in this way:

Knowing your purpose in life
Growing to reach your potential
Sowing seeds that benefit others

I wish I knew my purpose in life. I’ve read "Purpose Driven Life" and know all the churchy answers to this, about glorifying God and being a witness for Jesus to the world. But… it just seems to me, knowing God as I do, that I am not a random piece of Christ-tissue, here to just be one in a thousand. Perhaps that’s arrogant, but… dang, the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that I have a specific purpose, just as every cell in my body does. Sure every cell is here to keep me alive and well. But each one does it in a unique way. Even those with the same design have a specific purpose — whether that be to carry oxygen from my lungs to my heart, or to protect my soft parts by being a harder outer "shell"… every cell has a distinct, specific purpose. I’m convinced I do too. I just wish, with all my heart, I knew what it was (is)!

I’ve heard Erwin say on many occasions that for someone to say you have potential when you’re in your 20s is a compliment, but when they say it when you’re in your 40s, it’s an insult. As I read tonight, I came to the conclusion he’s wrong.

People in their 40s and 50s, even 70s and 80s, need to know there is still something in them that can be refined, seeds that still have yet to be sown and parts of them that still can grow.

But more than that, as I stare 40 in the face, I realize that, if I believe Erwin, then I condemn myself, as a failure, and to a life of mediocrity. There are still mountains to climb. Just because most people climb them in their 20s doesn’t mean that I can’t do it in my 40s. Just because I didn’t do it in my 30s doesn’t mean that I’ve missed my window of opportunity. Yes, the climb will be harder. I’m older and my body doesn’t respond as well to challenge, nor does it bounce back as quickly from fatigue and injury. It may take me longer, I will have to work harder. But I can still do it.

I’ve heard that the people who live the longest all have one thing in common: they never quit learning. They were always trying, learning, doing something new. I don’t want to live long. Right now I’m fighting an on-going fear of growing old. I don’t want to be alive when I’m 70 or 80, or, God forbid, even older. No, I’ve seen what age does to a body. No thank you. I’d like to die young please. But if I must grow old, and live well into those undesired ages… well then, I want to know there are still mountains I can climb. Okay, so those young’uns call it a "hill", but dang, it feels like a mountain to my legs!!

I like John Maxwell’s definition of success. But it’s a hard one for me to apply to my life, since it seems to me that all three go together and everything hinges on the first: "knowing your purpose in life."

I’m going to bed now, and perhaps my dreams will help me sort through all this and give me a little clarity…

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Snow Day!

Today I played in the snow! I danced and sang and threw snowballs…. it was so beautiful! I don’t think there’s anything more magical than falling snow. All of nature gets quiet when it snows, as if it knows something sacred has entered the scene.

I started my Christmas vacation week with a crowded flight to Charlotte Saturday morning. Then we drove up to Boone, NC — up in the Appalachian mountains — for Nina and Toby’s annual "Longjohn Christmas Caroling". And, yes, I did don a pair of longjohns and join in the singing. They’ve even re-written some of the carols, things like "Walking in Our Winter Underwear," to mark this special 32-year tradition.

I feel more up for celebrating Christmas this year, though there are still many times I struggle through the day. There were moments even as we carolled and I put on my best holiday smile that the words were pinging against my heart and leaving marks in its softest places, especially those raw, empty places where mom and dad live. I guess the holidays will always be bittersweet for me now. I have yet to decide if the bitter makes the sweet all the sweeter, or if it just makes it different.

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Choices

Every day I make them. One choice naturally leads me down a path to another. And another. When the alarm goes off, do I turn it off and crawl back in bed, or stay up and stretch, awaken my mind and get the day started? On and on it goes, till my mind shuts down and I fall asleep.

Then my subconscious takes over and begins making choices of its own, showing me in dreams those things I ignore, rail against and enjoy in waking life.

This morning’s dream was vivid, the taste of it remains even now, hours after waking. In it I made choices to leave the past in the past, even though it was tempting me to revisit. I made choices to decorate a new home, to patch holes in broken windows (hey, it worked in the dream), and begin — or continue — new conversations. I’m not in a mood to delve into the deep meanings of the dream. What remains of it is mainly a feeling of forward movement.

I’ve got many choices before me. I guess in that I’m very fortunate. There are people, even in this country, who’s choices are very limited. Some feel they don’t have any. I remember a time, not too long ago, when I felt the same. I don’t think it was the reality, because nothing in my circumstances has changed for the better; if anything my circumstances are grimmer this Christmas than last. My earnings have dropped substantially and my bills have grown.

What has changed is my perspective. I see the plethora of choices before me, whereas even a few months ago, I couldn’t see many, if any. That tends to leave a person feeling hopelessly stuck.

Seeing all the choices laying before me, I can’t help but sing. Even knowing that the choices I want to make each day will create more choices, and will take a lot of energy and determination to see through to the end… even still, my heart sings.

"Through the heartfelt mercies of our God, God’s Sunrise will break in upon us, shining on those in the darkness, those sitting in the shadow of death. Then showing us the way, one foot at a time, down the path of peace." — Luke 1:78-79

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Decisions

Life is an endless string of them. Why is that? Why is it that just when I think I’ve got it down, I’ve made my decision, the universe leads me around a corner and smack into another choice.

Grrr…

Some decisions I’ve made over the last few days haven’t led to new choices. Yet. Some decisions are in front of me right now because of choices made by others, which then requires that I make a choice. Kind of like a never-ending game of chess. Move. Counter-move. Counter-move to the counter-move… Ai-yah! My head hurts.

I suppose most people would find all this decision-making exciting, and grown-up-ish. I find it all quite annoying right now. I’d really like my life to settle down for a while, get a little normalcy going. I’ve been living like a nomadic nerfherder for so long it’s hard to remember what stability feels like. I have just enough memory of its taste to make my heart salivate for more, and cause my mind to insist its only a mirage.

Bill Sackheim once gave me a piece of advice — well, actually Bill was full of advice — but one nugget he gave me when I first started working with him came back to my mind with brutal force recently. He regretted having his name attached to a particular piece of… um, well, a movie… He could tell me exactly the day, hour, even minute that he knew the project was going south. But he kept his name attached, and, as Bill always did, worked his butt off desperately trying to salvage a once-decent script. It didn’t work. He hated the movie. And he hated the fact that his name was now forever linked with something that in his mind was a piece of garbage. His advice to me was, "the moment you smell the winds change and see the project headed in the toilet, get out. As fast as you can, get your name off the project and keep it off. Don’t let your name or reputation (and in Hollywood the two are synonymous) be soiled by a project you no longer believe in or like."

For many decisions I make, I write my name in pencil, because I’m just not sure. Some, I write in pen, because, while there are still a few lingering questions, I’m ready for that dotted line, and all that comes with it. Only one decision have I written my name in blood, because I was willing and ready to shed mine for that decision. That’s my decision to follow Jesus, no matter what it costs me. There is no other decision I will ever make in my life where I will sign in blood. None.

In Hollywood, contracts are signed in pen — though I’m sure some felt like they’d been in blood, for all the bloodletting that preceded the signing. Even the most binding of those contracts can be broken. To pull your name off a project may cost you a pretty penny, but it won’t cost you your life.

In the world of Christians, we usually don’t sign contracts. At least not officially. Yet, the commitment made on the part of one party to another can sometimes be confused with the commitment made to God. One, or all, of the parties may have unspoken — even subconscious — expectations that all signers have signed in blood, because, this is, after all, "Kingdom Work". What happens then, when a few, or even just one, of the parties isn’t happy with the direction the project is going? Can you pull your name off, or are you bound to it, even knowing that it is not the kind of "kingdom work" you want your name attached to?

And, most vexing of all, once I’ve signed in ink, can I erase it and go back to pencil?

The chess game goes on…

Perhaps after a year or two of what the rest of the world might call boring — you know, working the same job, living in the same country, that sort of things — I’ll be ready for some more turn-my-life-upside-down kind of stuff. But please, can I just have a year or two off the merry-go-round? I’m feeling a little nauseous.

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Oh What a Night

Man, did I pack a lot into tonight… and not on purpose.

First I went to Mosaic… that took a couple of hours — eating, talking to people, then listening to John talk and Lindsay sing.

Then shortly after I got home Nina called. We talked for nearly two hours (a "short" conversation for us). While talking to Nina, my oldest sister Paula called. I called her back after talking with Nina and talked her ear off for about an hour and a half. During all this talking and listening, I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned up the kitchen and straightened up my room (can I get a hearty "WooHoo! We love headsets!!")…. I would have cleaned the bathroom too, but that would’ve been too noisy to really hear either of my sisters.

The last half hour or so I’ve been contemplating a variety of issues ranging from should Scott Peterson get the death penalty — while I’m pro death-penalty, I’m also pro-life… how do I balance these two convictions??… and, in the end, which will ultimately be the harshest punishment to fit Peterson’s crime? I gotta tell ya, I’m very, very glad I’m not on that jury! — to states rights, which I recently found out is a real hot-button phrase here in the South….

I wanted to, and planned to, go to bed early tonight, because I need to be into work early tomorrow. But I can’t get my mind to quiet down. It’s very excited about all these things that got churned up over the last few hours and it wants to chew on them. I wish I could convince it they could be chewed on while I sleep. Of course, that might make for interesting dreams….

Speaking of dreams, I had quite a crazy one this morning just before waking. I had fuzzy memories of it just after waking, but later in the day something triggered a memory of the dream, and I ended up spending all afternoon writing it down, picking it apart and sorting out it’s meaning. Afterward, I checked out a couple of "dream dictionaries" online, just to see if I could get more clarification on it through a few "universal" meanings of elements in my dream. Pretty much everything I read confirmed or backed up what I sensed was the meaning. On occasion it clarified some things… but mostly I look at those dictionaries a more fun than fact… dreams, like people, are highly individualistic. While I believe there are some things we universally identify with subconsciously, I don’t believe in that sort of thing happening across the board.

I won’t go into the details of the dream, but I will tell you that by the time I was done "analyzing" it I felt pretty confident that yesterday’s post wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky I’m-ignoring-reality-and-living-in-my-own-fantasyland stuff. My dream, to me, confirmed that my subconscious even believes I have turned a corner, that I’m getting rid of negative feelings, old patterns and moving into new, more positive ones, that I am conquering obstacles in my life, that I’m going through an inner transformation and have an internal passion that is being fanned into flame.

It was a wild dream, and took me on quite a series of adventures. Even just after awakening, as just the fuzziness of it remained, I felt… refreshed, is the best way to put it… like inhaling deeply of fresh mountain air early in the morning. Refreshing and invigorating. Later, when the whole dream came back and I was typing furiously to get as much detail out before it faded again, I felt even more invigorated. A good chunk of the dream had to do with something that would sound gross if I were to describe it, yet it’s something so very common to all our lives. So it was quite odd to have such a positive feeling and affect from dreaming about it.

Okay, just so you don’t go wading into the deep end and drown wondering what in the world I was dreaming… the portion I’m referring to had to do with pooping. Here’s what the dream dictionary had to say about this:

To dream that you have  a bowel movement, signifies that you are successfully getting rid of your  old habits/ways and thinking patterns.

I also dreamed of fire,

"Depending on the  context of your dream, to see fire in your dream can symbolizes  destruction, passion, desire, illumination, transformation, enlightenment,  or anger. It may suggest that something old is passing and something new  is entering your life. Your thoughts and views are changing…. it is a  metaphor of your own internal fire and inner transformation. It also  represents your drive and motivation."

flying over and being in the mountains (specifically a mountain village),

If you are flying with ease and enjoying the scene and landscape below, then it suggests that you are on top of a situation. You have risen above something. It may also mean that you have gained a different perspective on things.
"To see mountains in your dream,  signifies many major obstacles and challenges that you have to overcome.  If you are on top of the mountain, then it signifies that you have  achieved and realized your goals. Alternatively, mountains denotes a higher realm of consciousness, knowledge, and spiritual truth."

…and George Clooney… don’t ask. šŸ™‚

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Peace and Love

There are some days I’m in love with my life.

Today is one of those days.

I live in Nashville. I live in freakin’ Nashville, ya’ll!! How cool is that! I love this town! I love the weather outside. It feels like Christmas, like the way I want Christmas to feel. It’s my favorite kind of weather, ever… very overcast and cold, and been lightly raining on and off all day. The Christmas lights shine warmer and sweeter in this kind of atmosphere.

But most of what’s caused me to fall in love with my life — or remember how much there is to love — is a sense of finally getting to a place of normalcy… a place where I’m coming to grips with who I am right now, what I want and that I’m finally ready to start loving and taking care of me.

I’ve been hanging out at home all day. It’s nice not to have to be somewhere. Just kicking back in my comfort clothes and watching a marathon of "America’s Next Top Model". I know, you probably think this is all just a bunch of "reality" tv tripe. But actually, I’m really learning lots about myself as I watch these episodes back-to-back. I’m learning a lot about how my own insecurities about myself have affected my life and the things I’ve tried to accomplish. I’m also see how I’ve sabotaged myself at times through either those insecurities or through my own nasty habit of avoidance and passive tendencies.

I’ve also realized how much of a ham I am. šŸ™‚ I’ve been posing with the models, from my little perch here on the couch. People often comment that I’m very photogenic and I’ve realized much more as I’ve watched how little of that has to do with my looks and how much of it has to do with my determination to allow my personality and that "sparkle" I have inside come out through my face, and especially my eyes. I have a tendency to sort of "pose" my insides on my face every time I see a camera — something Tyra Banks comments is very important for models to do, btw! I don’t know what it is I do… it’s not something I think of as much as it is an attitude I pull from within and "pop" onto my face. It’s just a small thing, but it’s part of who I am. Part of me that I like. And that’s an important step forward for me, as I rediscover myself and work to regain a peace about me.

I had an ultra-fine day yesterday, which adds to my peace and love today. I finally saw Jamie again after nearly three months. I’d seen him briefly in late October. But I hadn’t spent significant time with him in ages, There are just some people who make life totally worth all the agony. Jamie is one of those people. Something in his spirit, his soul, his personality — or all three — creates an incredibly warm atmosphere where ever he is. Not just warm, but "real". Jamie doesn’t play games, or wear masks. He is real, authentic. He absolutely knows who he is and he is completely at peace with that. Not that he doesn’t work at "becoming", he does. But he’s also very comfortable and happy in his own skin.

Maybe that’s why I love being around him, why I feel so much healthier, emotionally and spiritually, after being around him. One of the things I’ve been learning the last few months is how important it is for me to be at home and happy in my own skin, to be at peace with who I am right now. When I’m around Jamie, his peace just naturally rubs of on me. And life is just better.

I want to be like that. I want to be comfortable in my own skin. I want to be happy and at peace with myself right where I am, even while I’m working to better myself. And I think I’m finally on my way. This last couple of weeks I’ve been even more introspective than normal. I’ve been chewing on a lot of things, things about myself and my life that I’ve hated for a long time… my weight, for example, or where I find myself career-wise. Something has happened in the last few days. I’m not sure what exactly it is — though I’d like to figure it out because I’d like to repeat it — but I’m finding myself more at peace with who I am. I think part of it is just being real about who I am. Not just the weight issue. That, I think, is only one small piece of the whole picture.

There are many parts of me, of my personality, that I’ve either run from, denied or been embarrassed about. I’ve seen them as unfeminine, or unChrist-like. As I’ve been doing more digging into myself and being honest with myself, I’m realizing that my view of these things has been skewed either by others’ opinions and/or my perceptions of others’ opinions.

I’ve always admired and wondered how people live their lives without concern for how others perceive them or what others say to them about them. For so many years I’ve allowed what other people say, and my perception of what they mean by what they say, to impact my opinion of myself. I’ve lived this way as long as I can remember.

I know this blows the mind of some people who know me. Nina, for example, told me a few months back that her experience with me was always one that left her with the strong belief that I didn’t care what others think about me, that their opinions don’t affect me. But the truth is, their words and opinions have a power over me that frightens me.

So I adopted an attitude very early in life, as a way to protect myself. But people’s opinions of me matter far more than is healthy I think.

God’s  opinion of me is the only opinion that’s important. That’s the Truth. But putting that truth into practice and making it a reality in my life will take time. I’m now re-evaluating many things I’ve come to believe about me based on old opinions of others. I’m learning to "judge" myself based on what God says about me. I have to "reprogram" my mind. And, FINALLY,  I’m feeling up to the challenge.

Today has been good. I’m falling in love with myself and rediscovering all there is to love about my life. I’ve had a great day, relaxing, enjoyable and rejuvenating. Today it’s been good to be me. Thanks, God!

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Still Cranky

But Nina would be proud. I’m not taking it out on anyone… just sitting quietly in my office, and occasionally banging my head against the wall for fun…

Pilfered this from another blog’s archives…

last cigarette: early ’80s… I tried it, but couldn’t make sense of it so I quit trying
last car ride: this morning
last kiss: oh, let’s just don’t even go there…
last good cry: a few weeks ago, I’m due for another
last library book checked out: I haven’t checked out a library book since I graduated from high school…
last movie seen: The Incredibles with Nina and Toby
last book read: Egads! I can’t seem to finish a book these days…
last cuss word uttered: sh@#, or some variation thereof
last beverage drank: water, but I wish it was diet coke
last food consumed: mac ‘n cheese
last crush: Phil, in LA
last phone call: Wendy (on voicemail), Jamie – live and in person!
last tv show watched: West Wing
last time showered: this morning
last shoes worn: cool black boots I got last year at Norstrom’s rack
last cd played: Rita Springer
last item bought: Harry Potter 3 dvd from Target
last downloaded: updates for my Mac
last annoyance: my alarm clock this morning
last disappointment: Sunday night
last soda drank: diet coke
last thing written: blog post
last key used: car key
last word spoken: Bye
last sleep: midnight to about 7:30am
last im: Don’t use ims…
last sexual fantasy: hmm…
last ice cream eaten: Wow, I can’t remember!
last time amused: earlier today, as I broused a few Holidailies blogs
last time wanting to die: about a month ago
last time in love: too long ago… thanks for the reminder
last time hugged: A few weeks ago, by Nina before I left her house
last time scolded: a couple of weeks ago, via voicemail
last time resentful: See above
last chair sat in: nasty work desk chair… hate this thing
last lipstick used: Mocha Blast
last web page visited: India Tourism Site