Monthly Archives: July 2006

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The Craziest Thing Just Happened

"[…] A strength begins with a talent, so let’s start there. A talent is a naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. […] A strength is the ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a given activity. […] Talents are like "diamonds in the rough," whereas strengths are like diamonds that show brilliance after they have been carefully cut and polished. Your greatest areas of talent, your most likely sources of potential strengths, are identified by the Clifton StrengthsFinder." — StrengthsQuest: Discover and Develop Your Strengths in Academics, Career, and Beyond (2002)

I’m getting ready to go back to school, to get a college degree. I’m currently researching different schools and programs that are for working adults.

As I was looking through the myriad of papers I have on schools, I remembered a conversation with my friend Jamie about StrengthsQuest (a version of StrengthsFinders that is geared toward students). I checked out the website and decided to sign up, even though I’ve taken StrengthsFinders three times now, because I wanted the specific focus on students and learning StrengthsQuest offers. I figured that, as with the last three times, my strengths would end up being the same, with perhaps a small variation of one dropping off and another coming on.

Something completely unexpected happened. Only two of my strengths stayed the same. And those two changed places. Three new ones, strengths I’d never considered, appeared in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th places.

I like these new strengths. A lot. The feel like the fit me better than the others that dropped off (Command/Learner — depending on which time I took it — Restorative and Intellection).

Could it really be true? Do your strengths — "the natural talents through which you can fulfill your personal potential" as Gallup defines it — change through the years? I’ve been doing a lot of "work on myself", as the cliche goes. I’ve learned much about myself, about my own dysfunction and that of my family’s. Things that affected how I see myself and how I feel about life and the world around me. Most of all I’ve learned about how God sees me and how He sees my past, as well as my present and my future.

Not everything about me has changed. But some things deep in my core are in the process of being transformed by God — some even eliminated — into something completely new. Is it possible this whole process, this journey I’ve been on for the last few years, has so changed me that even my strengths, my natural talents have shifted, that the real talents are finally emerging from behind the shadows of my complex defense mechanisms I set up long ago?

I don’t know. I have no answers. But I sure like the new results.

Here are my signature themes as of today:

Connectedness
Things
happen for a reason. You are sure of it. You are sure of it because in
your soul you know that we are all connected. Yes, we are individuals,
responsible for our own judgments and in possession of our own free
will, but nonetheless we are part of something larger. Some may call it
the collective unconscious. Others may label it spirit or life force.
But whatever your word of choice, you gain confidence from knowing that
we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on
it. This feeling of Connectedness implies certain responsibilities. If
we are all part of a larger picture, then we must not harm others
because we will be harming ourselves. We must not exploit because we
will be exploiting ourselves. Your awareness of these responsibilities
creates your value system. You are considerate, caring, and accepting.
Certain of the unity of humankind, you are a bridge builder for people
of different cultures. Sensitive to the invisible hand, you can give
others comfort that there is a purpose beyond our humdrum lives. The
exact articles of your faith will depend on your upbringing and your
culture, but your faith is strong. It sustains you and your close
friends in the face of life’s mysteries.
Empathy
You
can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are
feeling as though their feelings are your own. Intuitively, you are
able to see the world through their eyes and share their perspective.
You do not necessarily agree with each person’s perspective. You do not
necessarily feel pity for each person’s predicament-this would be
sympathy, not Empathy. You do not necessarily condone the choices each
person makes, but you do understand. This instinctive ability to
understand is powerful. You hear the unvoiced questions. You anticipate
the need. Where others grapple for words, you seem to find the right
words and the right tone. You help people find the right phrases to
express their feelings-to themselves as well as to others. You help
them give voice to their emotional life. For all these reasons other
people are drawn to you.
Ideation
You
are fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the
best explanation of the most events. You are delighted when you
discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to
explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection. Yours
is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so you
are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an
obscure connection. An idea is a new perspective on familiar
challenges. You revel in taking the world we all know and turning it
around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening
angle. You love all these ideas because they are profound, because they
are novel, because they are clarifying, because they are contrary,
because they are bizarre. For all these reasons you derive a jolt of
energy whenever a new idea occurs to you. Others may label you creative
or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps you are all of these.
Who can be sure? What you are sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And
on most days this is enough.
Strategic
The
Strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the
best route. It is not a skill that can be taught. It is a distinct way
of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This
perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see
complexity. Mindful of these patterns, you play out alternative
scenarios, always asking, "What if this happened? Okay, well what if
this happened?" This recurring question helps you see around the next
corner. There you can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles.
Guided by where you see each path leading, you start to make
selections. You discard the paths that lead nowhere. You discard the
paths that lead straight into resistance. You discard the paths that
lead into a fog of confusion. You cull and make selections until you
arrive at the chosen path-your strategy. Armed with your strategy, you
strike forward. This is your Strategic theme at work: "What if?"
Select. Strike.
Input
You
are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect
information-words, facts, books, and quotations-or you might collect
tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls,
or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it
interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things
interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite
variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily
to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your
archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers
novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away.
Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to
say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they
might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really
don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring
and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your
mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.



            Copyright © 2000 The Gallup Organization. All rights reserved.
            StrengthsFinder is a trademark of The Gallup Organization.

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See My New Glasses!

Lus_new_glasses_third_tryI took these tonight (umm, last night…) with my cell phone camera. That’s why they’re grainy. But I wanted to show off my new glasses!

I’ll try to remember to take one in the morning of my new sunglassesLu_from_phone — first time I’ve gotten prescription sunglasses. I like ’em. They’re tre-cool. And I look cool in them, if I do say so myself.

Please ignore the black smudge on the bottom of this one. I forgot to remove the belt clip before taking the picture… guh.

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The Reality of War – And a Rant for Good Measure

Has anyone noticed that we seem to be headed for global war number three?

North Korea launches rocket tests on our Independence Day, in defiance of warnings from several nations (including us), but with silent support from Russia and China. Trains in Mumbai are bombed. There’s still a war in Afghanistan, with passive support from Pakistan by hiding terrorists in in their mountains. Iran is building their own nuclear arsenal and thumbing its nose at America while Russia quietly stands behind them. Iran and Syria are supporting, both monetarily and with materiel, the continuing terror attacks on Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah. Saudi, Syria and Iran are supporting the terrorists still wreaking havoc on the Iraqi people under the guise of an "insurgence" against the infidels. The UK says there are at least 20 different terror cells somewhere within their borders. And then we’ve got the 8 American citizens (that we know of) who were plotting and planning terror attacks on their own country. (What are they thinking?!?!?)

If the world isn’t on fire yet, it soon will be; blazing like those out of control wild fires in Southern California.

I have friends who live in Israel. I have friends who live in Beirut (well, not any more; now they are fleeing north or west). Three years ago around this time I had planned to spend two weeks in Lebanon and Syria, and Christmas in Jerusalem. Those plans were canceled by my parent’s deaths. But I had hopes of visiting some day. Even now, everything in me wants to go there and do something. But what would I do?

To see the dead and wounded, on both sides, hurts my soul more than I can express. It breaks my heart to see the devastation and know that the rubble on the screen was once someone’s home, or someone’s place of work and income.

I received an email last night from some of those friends, telling of their narrow escape from Israeli bombs in their own neighborhood. It told of how their friends and neighbors reacted as the bombs fell. Among those were a 20 year-old who had a nervous breakdown even as the the rockets fell and bombs exploded; and a five year-old who, "crawled into a corner with fear on his face and froze there for the whole time.”

Oh, my heart grieves for the children! For everyone who must live through the horror of war.

How blessed, and how spoiled, we are here in America. We haven’t seen a war on our shores since our own Civil War over a hundred years ago. Yes, we were bombed  at Pearl Harbor, and yes we were bombed in New York and D.C. One-time attacks — which we swiftly exacted retribution for, btw — that are nothing in comparison to daily, hourly bombing runs of jets and rockets. We no nothing of real war.
Especially my generation.

My parent’s generation knew war. They lived through the first world war, through the depression and through the second world war. They knew what it was to suffer through desperate hunger, extreme unemployment and sorrowful loss of son after son after son. But most of them have now died.

We are left with the Boomers, and my generation and the one after.

Only our soldiers know of war now. And too often they receive our "national scorn" over battles and wars fought far away for freedoms we are so accustomed that we completely forget the rest of the world does not have them. We blame them for the decisions of compassionate leaders who choose to send our soldiers into harms way to liberate and offer the freedoms to others who have never known them in their national/ethnic history.

We whine about $3/gal gas yet buy another gas-guzzling SUV and drive 800+ miles on our various vacations through the year because airline prices are "too high". We cry about high healthcare costs, rising interest rates and increasingly expensive groceries yet we still eat too much (I’m preaching to myself here too, fyi), live beyond our means and insist on getting a battery of tests and a round of antibiotics every time we sneeze.

We obsess on conspiracy theories about JFK (I mean, come on! Put it to rest already), demand our rights be respected and insist on having everything our way, and cry "Global Warming"  while at the same time are completely oblivious to the  deep ongoing needs of the poor and oppressed of our world, trash any group who stands up for their own beliefs and convictions with the new hip epithet of "religious right" and label them "intolerant" all while driving our SUVs the 20 miles to work and 20 miles back, carry our groceries home in plastic bags (obviously you’ve never been to India or Ethiopia and seen how those plastic bags collect in rivers and lakes and cling to every desert plant; they don’t just disappear when you throw them away people!), and veto every public transportation bill because it’s too expensive or "it will create too much noise and draw ‘undesirable’ people to my neighborhood," or "bring down the value of my home."

Yes, we are a spoiled people, America. But I think our time is just about up. I think the rest of the world is about to give us a good swift kick in the ass.

Oh, we’ll kick back.

And beat the living crap out of them. But we will still pay a high price.

And perhaps, just perhaps, we will finally be humbled enough (or is that humiliated?) to finally see what our forefathers knew their whole lives: we have it really, really, reeeeaaally good; we are blessed beyond measure and its time we appreciated that instead of taking it for granted.

Okay, I’m stepping off my soap box… for now.

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Why Nashville? Why London

It seems I started a fun little trend with my last post. I guess we are all just looking for the place where we truly belong. The place we really fit it, with our true selves, not the people we pretend to be — whether purposefully or not — or the people we wish we were. But who we are, really, under all the masks we’ve learned to wear through pain we’ve experienced in baring the Truth of our souls.

The question that’s dug at my mind as I’ve watched the flurry of comments at Alex & Niza’s place is why London? Or for that matter, why Nashville? Why not where I was, my home, LA, where all my friends and my community and my passions were? Why do I feel compelled to move, and move, and move again?

I could point to the fact that I spent the whole of my childhood doing just that. I moved every two to four years until I was in high school. I think I’m the only one of my siblings to graduate from the same high school I started. I went to four different elementary schools, three different ones in fourth, fifth and sixth grades respectively. Two different junior high/middle schools round out my edumacation — I moved from Northern California to Southern California two months before 8th grade graduation.

My sister and I often joke with each other about how we don’t have a "seven-year itch", we get the "three-to-four-year itch." An itch to move. Not so much move to a different city. Usually a move across town or to a different house will do just as well. When the move doesn’t happen, well, we get itchy. And just like a mosquito bite, we’re not satisfied till we get a good scratchin’ move done.

However, After having spent most of 2001 in one country, most of 2002 and 2003 in another and then the rest of 2003 homeless and carting luggage from one friend’s home to another till I found a place to park, I was ready for a very long stay in one place. My moving itch had been scratched raw.

But God — gotta love God’s buts — But God, in His infinitely confusing and crazy love, had other designs on my life. He made sure I wasn’t content in LA. Oh, I had my friends. I had my cherished home church again. I had my beloved City of Angels and Adventure. But I had no peace. I no longer "belonged". Like a puzzle piece that’s the same color but not the same cut I just didn’t "fit" anymore. And everyone close to me seemed to know it. My Life Group, the God-send of my life, the first time I’d found such an eclectic group of people who really did just fit like family, a Mosaic version of "Cheers" where everyone knew my name, in that soul sense of the phrase, they all knew I was restless in my spirit, that I wasn’t in the right place, though none of them wanted me to go.

All my relationships and yet no "belonging". I thought that was what belonging was all about, relationships?

God moved me to Nashville. Here I struggle with relationships. I’m not used to the Church Belt culture of everyone going to church yet so few being followers of Jesus, or the shallowness of spirituality or interest in spirituality.

Yet I Belong. Every fiber in my being shouts that this place was made for me — or I was made for it. I’m not sure which. Even when things have been screamingly painful, I loved Nashville. I never had a thought of abandoning it. I knew beyond knowing that I belong here.

It was the same with London. A very, very hard year came to a joyful and fulfilling end with my visit to that amazing city of lights. Even when every train I took was delayed and kept me from seeing most of the sites I’d planned, and my umbrella broke into three pieces as I emerged from my first underground stop, leaving me drenched in the constant rain of the day, I still danced under Big Ben’s resounding chimes and shouted praise to my Jesus for such creating such an incredible city. I belonged there. With everything in me I knew it. I belonged there.

I cannot define what it was, exactly, about London. I just felt like I was home. Finally home. It was one of the greatest Christmas gifts God has ever given me. Our time there, His and mine, was magical.

Just like Nashville. Magic. Magical cities. Where I belong. Inextricably, inexplicably, undeniably Belong. I am home.

So why? Why Nashville? Why London? My heart wants to say God created them just for me. Why not? He once told me He created the stars and flung them into space just because He knew I would spend my life staring up at them in awe and wonder.

I know life with Jesus is about more than just belonging. There is a mission He longs for me to accomplish. But I’ve found that mission is a lot easier to live out in the hardest of hard times when I am enchanted with the world around me; when I know I belong there, that I fit in not just in color but in shape.

Does that make sense?

What do you think? Do you Belong in your city?

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Walking in Memphis

I spent last weekend (30th-2nd) in Memphis with a couple of friends from LA. We had such a blast! Not so much because we were in Memphis as that we were finally together again after six-odd years. I had not seen one friend in that long – she moved from LA in 2000. And the other I’d not seen in three years.

We spent most of the weekend talking and laughing and crying together. Catching up on each others lives and dreaming of the future, both near and far.

But we also got in a little tourist time. Memphis is such an interesting city. It’s got a rich history and incredible rhythm. I highly recommend taking a horse-drawn carriage ride through downtown. The guide we had was very knowledgeable of the city as well as just a wonderful person to get to know.

I also highly recommend eating at Cafe 61. BEST food I’ve had from a restaurant in quite a while. And while you’re downtown, definitely stop by The Peabody Hotel and wander through their lobby a while. They’ve got several areas where they tell of the history of the hotel and Memphis.

Lastly, you can’t go to Memphis without a little trip down Beale Street. Talk about a wild street party! Three blocks of nothing but club after club after club. Some are just dance and drinkin’ places but most are music clubs — kind of like Nashville’s many honky-tonks, except these are jazz and blues and a little rock. Great music. Cuh-razy vibe on the street. We didn’t go in any place. I’m not a big fan of clubs like that. It’s nice for about 5 minutes and then I get tired of having to text-message the people I’m with because no one can hear a thing. Loud music is one thing, but, yikes, club music is in a whole different decibel category.

The best part of our time, in my opinion, was spent at the wonderful Bed & Breakfast we stayed at, Magnolia Grove in Hernando, Mississippi. Tom, the owner, and his wife are wonderful people and cook up an incredibly tasty breakfast. They are also warm, welcoming people who treat you like royal guests in their home. There’s no standing on ceremony or legalistic sticking to the "rules". Just a smile and a "turn off the lights when you’re done." I will definitely stay there again.

They seemed to get a kick out of these three 40-ish (okay, Conna’s not there yet, but you will be soon…!) women talking and crying and laughing and carrying on like three teenage girls at a sleep over.

What a blast! Good times with good friends. God is indeed good to me.

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Remembering Why

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” — Greeting to All, Statue of Liberty

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will
give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle
and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” — Invitation to All, Jesus

HT: Joe Kennedy