Silencing my Ideal Self.

I have a little problem. It's called "I want to be perfect so as to never let anyone down". If I'm by myself doing my own thing, or just hanging out with people for fun, I have no problem. But I've learned recently that if the relationship shifts to where there is a task involved, or where expectations come into play, or anything of that nature, I become frantic, obsessing about how to be perfect. If I am at any point less than what the Other hopes for or expects of me, I feel so small.

So as a background to the outflow of this blog, here's what you need to know. I have a friend from church that I have been a part of the worship team with and who I now work with (kinda *for*) at a full-time job.

The other day at work, I came into his office, frantic about something work-related, frustrated and embarrassed/disappointed that I didn't know the answer and irritated that I had to ask (and that he would know I didn't already know whatever it was I was asking about). I must have had a deer-in-the-headlights look, because before I can get the question out, he stops me and says, "On a scale of 1-10, how scary am I?"

I chuckled and said, "Uhh, I don't know, like a 1 or something." He looks at me, conveying that the answer I gave did not coincide with my reaction when I walked up to him. He asks if I'm intimidated by him. I stammered, "No, yes, well... I'm intimidated by everyone, I don't know." And I moved on to ask my question. I kinda brushed aside his question because I didn't know what to do with it or what to do with the inconsistency of what I believed versus my own reaction.

But it reeled in my mind for the next few days. On a scale of 1-10, he is about a 1. Not scary, very affirming, slow to anger, quick to laugh. At most, maybe a 2. But I realized I don't feel that way at work. When the relationship shifts, when there are expectations, when there is a framework for me possibly (and at times almost certainly) being a disappointment, he's at about an 8. It has nothing to do with his person or his character. He's consistent. But my perception changes as a factor of that shift of situation.

It hit me that God could easily pose the same question, and man, my answer would be just as confusing. As a Being, as one I pray to and sing to, as one who watches over me and protects me, God is at about a 1. When I realize he has these ideas of where I will be, where I could be, he's at a 10.

Hope becomes a fearful thing for me because if someone has hopes for me beyond where I am in the moment, I see only how I am a disappointment. I am fearful of confirming negative beliefs they may have about me. I'm terrified that they have hopes, and I'm terrified they might decide that I can't live up to their hopes.

I was thinking about it, and I realized that I'm not used to people have expectations for me that exceed my own. Who expected me to make straight A's in both high school and college? No one but me.

For a while, I thought that was it. "I must get freaked out when others have expectations that exceed mine." But that didn't make sense either. One lesson that I learned a few years ago is that I have this "ideal Emily" I've made up in my head. I don't compare myself to other people much. But I compare myself to her constantly. And I assume everyone else is doing the same. When I let myself down and am not living up to "ideal Emily", I expect that the disappointment I feel must be what others experience too.

I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, people who have hopes of where I will be aren't comparing me to her as though she were an actual being. Maybe, just maybe, their "ideal Emily" if they had one, looked a lot more like me than my own "ideal Emily" does. Maybe they are looking at my successes and not counting my faults against me. Maybe the places where I am not quite "there yet" are not adding up as reasons to lose faith in me, but are only reasons to have greater hope for me.

I have a tendency to get defensive when others see me fail or fall short. I feel like I need to justify why I did what I did so that they know I'm not just stupid or ignorant. I never assume that people already know I'm capable of better. Or if they do, I think they assume that I don't know I'm capable of better. Either I feel I have to prove that I am capable or I have to prove that I have a self-esteem that can absorb the impact of failure (which turns out only to be true when no one but me is involved).

At church, my preacher (also a friend) has said a few things the past few weeks that struck me, and I didn't realize until that question was posed to me earlier this week, WHY it stood out to me so much. One thing is his interpretation of the story of Job. In his view, when God speaks to Job, he starts speaking, seemingly asking Job, "Who do you think you are?!" But by the end of his lengthy monologue, God flips the question on it's head saying, "Wait... Who do you think I am?" Job assumes God doesn't see or care about him, but God counts down the days till baby goats are born.

Or, "On a scale of 1-10, how scary am I?" Or "Do you really think I don't care for and see you?" This is JOB. The man who was so righteous that God put so much faith into, who finally caved. What a major letdown! But God turns the expected response on its head and shows Job what the real question is, and the real question is based in the nature of the relationship.

Another thing that came up in a sermon today is that we don't have to "trick God into loving us". I never would have worded it that way, but I realized that that's exactly what I do when I become defensive. Or what I try to do. I try to prove or explain why my lack of perfection shouldn't influence his love for me and that it shouldn't really be held against me. Another thing that strikes me is something that comes up in the sermons a lot. When Jesus is dying on the cross, he looks down at those who have just put him there, who are gambling over his underwear, and says to God, "Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." He doesn't only forgive them, but he provides the excuse. It would never occur to me that anyone, God or others would do that for me. I don't want to be one that needs them to.

I am so grateful that I am in situation at work and in the band that pushes me to need to trust that others' love for me or faith in me is not dependent on me not falling short. I don't know how to believe it yet, and I am still so defensive. Even that doesn't impact how my friends have related with me. Even challenging my false perceptions is done in love, in a non-threatening way.

I have just begun practicing guitar with another friend of mine, and it is yet another context where this thought-process I have is challenged. I'm facing it daily now, between work, church, band practice, and guitar practice. My hope and prayer is that I can grow in my understanding of how God loves me through these friends who are challenging my paradigm. And that their relationships with me will help me better to see and relate to God in healthier ways, and that my relationship with God will help me to better see and relate to others in healthier ways. In a community of Christ-followers, I think that's how transformation happens. I am so grateful for all of those who are so patient with me as I learn to walk in this freedom, and I am thankful to God that he has provided me with people that can demonstrate his own love for me in a way that is concrete and present.

Also, quick sidenote - don't know where I could fit this in with the blog, I realized that the perception I have of relationships shift when:
1. People have expectations of/hopes for me.
2. When the relationship is secondary to the task.

I dealt with point 1 in the earlier part of the blog. Point 2 is a little trickier. I don't know how to work that out with humans, but it reminds me that with God, the relationship is the primary foundation which empowers the task. They work together, but the relationship is the springboard. I think ideally it should be with people too. At least for people of God who are united in spirit and purpose. I haven't lived into that reality with God or with people fully, but I aim to walk more into that each day.

The Quandary of Knowing God.

Not so much the quandary of knowing God, but the quandary of knowing if you can know God, and to what extent.

Just the phrase "knowing God" means different things. If someone comes up to you in the mall and says, "Do you know God?" what do you think they mean? Do you think they are wondering if you've heard of him? If you pray to him? If you are in a "personal relationship" with him (which typically translates into "going to church every Sunday" for many who ask)? Maybe it usually means: if you know and agree with the same ideas of God that the asker of the question has of God?

It seems interesting to me that the feeling of certainty one has of knowing God and of knowing his will often becomes arrogance and domination in practice. The most twisted, horrendous parts of church history seem to come from people groups claiming to know God (and his will) perfectly and their attempts to enforce it. Though most of the evils come from the "enforcing it", it seems a logical jump that if you 100% know God's will, that you would bring his will to pass so far as it is within your power. If you weren't 100% sure of his will, couldn't you easily be persuaded by a group of like-minded people of what it is and what to do with it?

It's a dangerous path. Yet, if we can't know God really, how do we live? How do we not become paralyzed in fear? How do we navigate changes? Scripture isn't sufficient for explaining our modern world. Scripture isn't a map or a Grand To-Do List. It was written is a historical context that is far removed from our own and to a people that were in a different position than we (especially White America) are in. Though I agree that the principles of faith and love are steadfast through the ages, how those principles are navigated changes. How that is navigated even within the pages of scripture changes. Within the pages of scripture, we have people who let the Gentiles become a part of the movement, a disciple who states that there is no "slave or free" in Christ, and we have unclean foods that are "made clean". Things that had previously been made to seem permanent, overturned in an instant.

In John 17:3, Jesus prays saying, "Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." 

He isn't talking about heaven. Throughout the book of John, eternal life begins now. It is a way of life we enter into presently. It is not reserved for life after death, though it may include it. So eternal life, defined as "the Way of Jesus we enter into now", is defined as knowing God and knowing Jesus as an extension, revealing in a human form who God really is.

I contend that we grow into learning and knowing God. Scripture is helpful, but I contend that scripture is perhaps more helpful to understanding historical interpretations of who God is through a human lens. There is always an interpretive lens at work - even within the pages of scripture. Meaning that Jesus himself was the only true representation of him. Even the gospels don't reflect him perfectly because it was interpreted by humans who didn't know Jesus fully, though they walked with him.

Some of you are going to hate that I'm using this quote (and especially in this context), but it really connected this idea for me. In Good Will Hunting (my favorite movie), Sean - Will's therapist - comes to a stalemate with Will. Will previously tried to read into Sean's life and to make assumptions about who he was. Here's what Sean says to him:

You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what - I can't learn anything from you [that] I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you. Who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in.

What is troubling to me is that the Pharisees, Sadduccees and just the general "followers of God"  did not recognize Jesus. Would they claim to know God? I'd wager that even if they didn't say it, they believed it. Everyone had ideas about who Jesus would be. The Pharisees in particular studied the scriptures. They knew of the coming Messiah. But they interpreted him wrongly. They were wrong about him long before they realized he was God-incarnate, which was *not* part of the original prophecies. They only experienced those truths by walking with him. 

Jesus testifies of himself and says to the people, "You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." Basically echoing the idea in Good Will Hunting. My hope is that I take that step to talk about God with God, and about who he is. I hope that we would be fascinated and that we would say, "I'm in." That the word, the scriptures, might be the entrance but not the end. The end is knowing God - beyond the words, knowing the "Word" which was made flesh in Jesus.

Another thing that strikes me is that even the followers of Jesus interpreted him through their own lenses. It seems very strategic to me that Jesus selected followers who were very different from one another. A tax-collected, a Zealot, so on and so forth. Each of them had their own ideas about what it meant to follow God - especially the Zealot. How weird it must have been for him to presumably be the only Zealot among the twelve. 

We develop a better idea of who God is in a community of people where not all the members are like us. Can you imagine the difference between Simon the Zealot and Nathaniel, the "True Israelite"? I hope and pray that we would be a part of communities that are so varied in thought and perspective. That we wouldn't feel threatened. Especially knowing that God's view is always better than each one of ours. As we stumble along in those communities, bumping heads with the Zealots and the fishermen, we ought to unite more in humility and grace. Through that humility, God makes himself known - through the scriptures, through the true Word which is Jesus, through prayer, and through life among community. And not just through the Church community. Isn't it true that the disciples view of God expanded rapidly (albeit not without bumps) when the Gentiles were included in the promise of Life?

It seems to me that to move forward in faith, we must have some level of hope that we can know God intimately. To continue growing in that faith, we must have humility to grasp that "for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now [we] know in part; then [we] shall know fully, even as [we are] fully known." 







And to trust that we may well see Jesus in the faces of those we thought of as furthest away from him. Praise be to God.

The Lies We Believe

This topic has been on my mind for a while now, but I only now feel like I can write about it because I have recently become intimately re-familiarized with some of the lies I buy into.

I started a new job three weeks ago. I was told from the beginning that there is a sharp learning curve, that it's incredibly difficult and that after the first few months I might start feeling comfortable there. It was weird, because the first week I exceeded expectations - others' expectations of me and my own of myself. I felt great and was energized at the end of each work day. The second and third week things started getting harder. I had more expectations of myself. I became more aware of my deficiencies. Doing things right was no longer enough unless I was doing everything right and efficiently.

I have a problem.

I have this false belief that I must be unfailingly competent in all that I do. It's not that there's no room for error. I have had many hobbies over the years and have made lots of mistakes and done things imperfectly. Most of my hobbies, though, are done in the private realm and only presented when I have developed a level of competency.

Art pieces are made in the quiet of my own room, without the weight of peering eyes assessing every stroke of the brush or every scratch of the pencil. Crocheting, clay figurines, wood-burnings... All presented in wholeness, their mistakes and flaws long forgotten and resolved, before they are ever seen by another pair of eyes.

Other weird hobbies like unicycling... Most people who see me unicycle now are amazed at my "skills". They never watched me struggling to develop those skills. Guitar - I play on my own because I don't want to open that world to anyone until I have developed a certain level of competency. Any who have seen me play multiple songs are people who I trust to let into my vulnerable little world.

It's difficult for me to be seen as a work in progress. When it comes down to it, I like vulnerability, but only when I choose it. I don't like vulnerability that is forced upon me by having to be exposed unfinished, unperfected, unclothed.

I have no issues with looking like I don't have it all together. My issues come from my assumptions of how people may interpret those things I don't have together. I don't assume that if people see me make a mistake, they are thinking, "Well, she's capable. She just has more to learn." I assume they think the worst. I assume that they think, "Wow, I wonder if she knows how bad she did on ______." I actively throw myself under the bus before they can confront me. I want them to know that I know I could have done better. My entire demeanor changes to this apologetic refrain, "I'm sorry for the ways I'm not perfect." My entire focus shifts to how I can prove to them that I will get better, that I can be good at what I'm doing, that they shouldn't give up on me yet.

It comes out in everything. Work, band practice, dancing (when I have gone a few times), relationships. In the end, somehow a part of me believes that I am only loveable insofar as I am useful to someone and inasmuch as I am efficient and good at something. And the degree to which I am not useful or perfect at something is the degree to which I am a burden/annoyance to another person.

I have no idea where I picked this up. They certainly weren't ideas that my parents conveyed to me in childhood. But somehow these ideas did creep in and they infiltrated my self-perception and my relationship with God and others. I feel really great about myself until I bring God or others into the picture.

I remember journaling at one point that in the years that I didn't actively pursue God I felt better about myself and about my life than I did when I was. For the most part I no longer feel that way, but I do when my lies define how I view and interact with God.

My friend hit the nail on the head when she told me that I saw God as someone who gave me tasks to do, left me alone while I went out and did them, then met back up with me afterward to assess the job I did. Maybe I clung to that idea because I rather liked to serve a God who didn't see me in the struggle. In the end I ended up with a God who had expectations that required me to act within my own power and then judged me on the basis of the end product. I ended up with a God that spoke to me only when He had things for me to do for Him, who didn't really care to know me in any other capacity, who didn't care to see my struggle and who used His Son as a divine measuring stick to show me how I didn't measure up (see my previous blog "Jesus: Mary Poppins?"). His tone was always one of exasperation with me.

In the end, I was a busy bee, who needed no personality to function - in fact who was more efficient without one. I was only useful insomuch as I was efficient and only worth interacting with insofar as I was useful. The very things that made me human were the things that stood in the way of what I saw my purpose to be.

In the past few years, I have become more aware of these subconscious beliefs that I passively inherited. I have become more aware of how to challenge them. This very blog has been a major outlet documenting the ways my mind, heart, faith, and life have been changing as I come to understand who God really is and who I really am. Though many of my conscious beliefs have changed, I still have the same inclinations and fears I have had all along that exhibit themselves from time to time. I am waiting, hoping, and moving towards a place where I trust what I believe with my life, in a way that transforms me, changing the way I interact with God and others on a fundamental level. But for now I am living in the tension of knowing what I believe but not knowing/trusting it enough to embody it yet on the automatic level.

I am forced to be a work-in-process, exposed in the unresolved state to God and to those who are close to me. And I am learning that my God and my community are a lot more full of grace for me than I would have imagined. That is the realization and the place that causes the transformation I yearn for. In the end, love has the power to change me in a way that my fears never could.

An Honest Reflection - Faith and Doubt

This blog is comprised of some bits that are drawn directly from a journal entry that I wrote at the beginning of the month, some of it is adapted to further explain myself. Most of it will be word-for-word. This is simply an honest reflection of faith in doubt, doubt in faith, and navigating the two when the struggle is all you see and feel.
_________________________

Finally. Finally I can cry. I've tried. I tried watching movies to elicit a good cry, but I still just couldn't muster it up. I think I've been running from feeling anything since I've moved here. Even faith. I haven't felt "close" to God consistently (or even really intermittently) since before graduation.

What's opening me up right now, finally bringing some release, is watching Calvary Chapel's Praise Jam. It reminded me of my faith then and I missed it. The physical space of that church. The people. Mostly the feeling of worshiping in that space.

Man, the pendulum swings. I have had so many different experiences of faith and conceptions of who God is over the years. Youth group, Calvary Chapel, Mission Year, Holy Trinity, South Lawndale, Prayer team, IHOP (Int. House of Prayer), Missio Dei, Reba Place Fellowship, Redeemer Anglican, North Park... Each with their own unique presentation of God and how we live out the faith individually and communally. I hadn't anticipated that with all of that, this is where I'd end up - crippled by fear, confusion, and guilt. I don't know how to reconcile all I have seen and experienced in these places, or if they even can reconcile. I feel like a reed in the wind, blown each way.

Maybe the fact that I have held onto faith through all these experiences is a sign of its strength and tenacity amidst it all, but really... What has remained of my faith from each transition to the next? Has anything been held solid and maintained? I feel like I'm grasping at fine sand. Finally it all falls through and I'm standing here with a clenched fist, and what remains can't build a dwelling - it can't even build a sandcastle. It's all I can do to keep the few grains of sand in the crevices of my clenched fist. All the remaining grains serve to do is to remind me of what I once had.

I'm so afraid. I'm afraid to believe anything about God anymore because my faith has been scarred and become more fragile for believing too much too easily, because at each stage I threw aside all my faith had been built on to discover news ground on which to build. I'm afraid to open my hands in hopes of more for fear that the few grains I have left will slip away.

I'm afraid to even speak of God as though he's more than a principle or concept, not because I don't believe he's more but because I'm afraid to put a stake in who I believe he is if he's more. I'm not afraid of God. I'm afraid of disfiguring him, following something other than him that I think is him and having my soul slowly diminish as I give more and more of myself to something less than or different than God as he truly is. I don't think my faith could survive that again.

I get anxious talking about God. I'm terrified to speak anything and attribute it to God or to his work. I'm not afraid of what God will say or do when I open my hands. I'm still afraid of little old me blindly ravaging my own soul and possibly hurting others in the process by feeding them ideas about God that are false and are more reflective of our broken vision than of his actual character. Any broken ideas I hold onto about God don't actually change God's character, but my perception of his character, making him less and less familiar to me, as though I don't know him and never have.

Like an old memory retrieved after years of non-use is tainted by every experience thereafter and is altered as details are forgotten or misplaced, so I feel with God. Like all I have are memories of God that have been twisted, changed, and disfigured as a result of all the experiences and ideas I have gained over the years. Some are right, some are wrong. Some are beneficial and some are destructive. I no longer know how to sift which is which. Or how to separate ideas that were good but have become destructive over time by misapplication or misunderstanding.

I could ask God how to sift. I could pray for greater understanding. In the end I still only hear God through this vessel, through myself, my interpretations. And my interpretations can't be trusted because I'll always be interpreting through the lenses of my experiences.

When it comes down to it, I have two choices. I can stay in this place, perfectly preserved, my cramped hand holding to the few grains of sand I have left. Perfectly preserved in what I hold onto. Perfectly preserved in this fear, this yearning for more with the certainty of remaining "as is". Or I could risk it all, again. I could risk unimaginable damage to my faith that could reduce me to less than I imagined possible, with the possibility that perhaps I might experience restoration, whatever that holds. I want to take that risk.

God, this is what I've got. If any of it is useable, will you use it to build something new? Something whole that integrates who you've revealed yourself to be in truth?

If you could feed 5,000 with a few fish and loaves, if you could keep a widow's jar of sustenance from running empty, if you could provide manna in a barren land, couldn't you build a dwelling from these grains and the ones that I have foolishly let slip between my fingers?

I am Belle. Supposedly.

This is such a departure from my typical blogs, but I've decided to blog about whatever stands at to me as it does. And in this exact moment, it's Disney. Disney princesses, nonetheless.

I know Disney has received a lot of flack for portraying women being helpless without a man (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella). I have read studies about their body types and the effect that their physical perfection has on young girls. I get all of that.

My focus in this blog is very different. It is gender-related for sure, but it takes a very different view.

When I was a kid, I went to see Pocahontas in theaters. The soundtrack to Pocahontas was the very first CD I remember owning. I loved it. I had a Jasmine T-shirt that I loved. It was my favorite T-shirt as a kid. It was a sort of tie-dyed pink and purple with sparkles. Jasmine was on it in her green silky outfit holding a bird close to her. My mom reminds me that I loved Beauty and the Beast when I was a kid. I watched it constantly for a while. I remember very clearly watching it with my Uncle (he brother) when I was very, very young. I remember that scary scene when the Beast is on the roof and being glad that my uncle was there to watch it with me at my grandma's house. One of the two Disney songs I connect with the absolute most belongs to Ariel though, in "Part of Your World".

By far, these were my favorite Disney princesses. Pocahontas, Belle, Jasmine, and Ariel. Had I watched Disney cartoons much longer, I am quite certain Mulan would have been up there too. As it is, I haven't seen it all the way through.

Why these four? What is the same about them? What distinguishes them from one another and from the ones I don't like as much? What admirable qualities do each possess? Do any of them possess any qualities that aren't as admirable?

Jasmine. Jasmine might have been my favorite princess for years. She had a subtle compassionate nature. Like all Disney princesses, she loved animals. She cared for her pet Tiger and some random birds. She liked Aladdin's monkey, though the feelings weren't initially returned. 

She had a boldness that she asserted quite intentionally often. She didn't trust easily. She sought freedom. She desired to turn her back on her privilege. She was acutely aware of her sexuality. She was very independent.

Pocahontas. Probably my second favorite princess at the time. Perhaps my ultimate favorite now. Again, she had a strong connection with animals. She took it further though, feeling a kinmanship with all nature, which rang true for her culture. Though she was wise and independent, she was humble and was subtle and perhaps even more thoughtful in how she undermined false perceptions. She was the boldest when she stood up against the wrongs of her own culture. She also didn't sit as a victim when her own culture was under threat.

She was both gentle and stern. She was sacrificial and she challenged people in love. She chose loyalty and commitment to her people over the immediate gratification of love at the end of the movie when she would have accompanied John Smith. She has the most qualities I would like to emulate.

Belle. I connected with Belle a lot because of her fearlessness. Or, not so much fearlessness, but for her courage. I don't think she intended to challenge societal structures as much as she did. She did so by being herself, but "herself" didn't fit in well with those norms at all. I admired her for reading and seeking intellectual pursuits. I admired her for standing up for her father when everyone in her town demeaned him. I admired her for not letting herself be reduced to a man's simple pleasure. I admired her for being disgusted with Gaston's antics when all the other women swooned.

Of all the princesses, Belle was the *most* sacrificial. Unlike the early Disney movies where the men were sacrificial, Belle was a woman who sacrificed herself for not one, but two men - her father and the beast, her love. She looked beneath the surface of what could immediately be seen. She chose a life, which she assumed would be doomed for the sake of her father. And she allowed her perspective to change. She easily could have hated the beast forever and actually accepted a doomed life. But her openness allowed her to see things in a new way and transform her surroundings by being an agent of change.

I didn't watch this movie a lot as I got older. Some of the scenes and emotions were too intense. These days, Belle might give Pocahontas a run for her money in terms of qualities. They are both very high up there.

Ariel. Oh Ariel. What shall we do with you? Ariel is a strange one. I like her and I am annoyed by her. Her disrespect to her father is not so noble as Pocahontas's gentle but stern approach to her father. Ariel isn't challenging a way of life that is wrong. Nothing's *wrong* with her life or her culture. I appreciate her though for trying to extend the vision of those around her. She sees a world that no one else sees and maybe in a way belonged to that world from the beginning. I, too, have felt that the world I'm a part of isn't the world I was born into. Which makes me an easy candidate for buying into the Kingdom that Jesus spoke of. A world that could be here and is kinda in reach, but only in an obscured way.

Ariel annoyed me because she foolishly made a deal with Ursula. She gave up that which she was gifted with. I have fought all my life to be heard. Nothing makes me feel more belittled in life than to feel that people don't hear me, or don't care to hear me. I know I have things of value to say. I don't say that arrogantly. I just know I have ideas and feelings that need to be heard. Not being heard is the biggest insult to the essence of my character. I resent Ariel for trading her voice for legs when she had so many things of value to say. Like Ariel, I have a little "room" in my mind with all these ideals stored away. It is a room of longings unfulfilled for a world that can only be seen in part in my world. I so relate to her song in that little room. It is the very song that inspired this blog, as I began to cry when I watched it on youtube.

I disagree with her approach. She's more cynical and disagreeable. She's unwise in her hastiness. She clings to independence until she feels threatened, then she clings to the nearest thing to provide security. I don't like the way she dealt with what she felt, but I understand her feelings deeply.


These are fictional characters. Except for Jasmine, each of these women are the stars of the movies they are in. I am so, so pleased that cartoon women, despite their physical perfections, have been represented as pillars of strength. Their compassion has been celebrated as strengths rather than being used as signals of the "weaker sex". They are characters that I easily relate to.

I write all of this as a defense of them. Revisiting these songs and these characters has helped me to revisit my own character and the development thereof, since these characters informed my development as a child. It's no wonder that I turned out to be a sort of feminist when even cartoons presented me with this view of women. I know that if I wasn't such an introspective person, especially as a child, these movies could have been harmful to my self-image, as several psych studies confirm. But being who I am, the characters in these movies give me a model of qualities to aspire to, and maladaptive ways of coping that I actively wish to avoid.

I have taken multiple "Which Disney Princess are you?" quizzes. Other than one that put me as Cinderella (*gag*), the one that has popped up the most consistently is Belle, and I am elated. I think I prefer the movie Pocahontas, but these days, I admire Belle's character the most.


I can't decide if this blog is supremely silly and pointless or if it's interesting and fun. But it's been fun to write. I'm not a very "princessy" person. I've not been one to idealize Disney princesses (before this blog anyway). I actively disliked the color pink until I was in college. I often wear a Rosie the Riveter necklace. But this struck me and I wanted to write about it. So here it is, for your reading pleasure.

What do you think about the way women have been portrayed in these Disney movies? Which character are you the most drawn to? Which do you most want to be like? What are your thoughts on anything I have touched on here? Comment and share your thoughts!

Learning Love through [Inter?]Dependence.

One rap song I used to love in high school was the song "Independent" by Lil' Boosie and Lil' Phat. Like a number of songs that came out while I was in high school, it decided to make spelling an active part of the song by spelling out the word independent in the lyrics.

I liked it because it was a song that was all about women being independent and that being an attractive quality. One of the qualities I hold dear to me is independence. It makes me anxious because I truly believe that interdependence is the ideal in the Kingdom of God. But I sure like my independence. I'm beginning to learn that independence is a quality that I can embrace, so long as I don't use it at the exclusion of the Kingdom. One of my dearest friends told me point-blank that I was probably the most independent person he knew. He clarified that it wasn't in a bad way, but that it was true in his experience and that he meant it.

I'm beginning to realize that the theme in my life right now, the theme that has been building up but has come to an ultimate head in the past few weeks, is the theme of dependence or interdependence. Moreso, learning how to be trusting enough to rely on interdependence in times of need, where the balance of give and take is not equal (is it ever?).

Looking at where I am now and how I've gotten here, I realized that it has been the result of others lifting me up. Every single aspect of my present life. Living situation, job, support in my job, the car I am driving, etc.

The most recent thing that has revealed this to me is all that has resulted from a mishap with my car. Long story short, my car stopped working properly while I was a good two hours from home on a mini-road trip.Someone close made all the arrangements so that I would be taken care of immediately. Then I was at the mercy of the two-truck driver named Tony. He had just finished his work for the day when he received the call about me. He happened to be in the area and knew that no one would be willing to take me 1.5 - 2 hours back to where I was trying to go.

Not only did he agree to take me, but at some point he asked me if he could stop at a gas station to buy a drink. I replied, "For sure. I'm actually going to get something too if we stop." When I picked up a Vitamin Water and set it on the counter to pay, he put his stuff on the counter too, looked at me and said, "I got it."

Since my car has been in the shop, I have had to rely on folks for rides constantly. I am currently driving a car that a friend lent me for the time-being. Friends have offered me a place to stay, recommended me for jobs (a few have even hired me for various odd jobs), supported me at my jobs, shared their event tickets, cooked for me, hosted me, paid for me, provided me with transportation, lent me clothes that were needed for specific occasions, and have walked with me where I am.

I began truly learning interdependence in Mission Year. I learned it in a different way in college. But now, in the stage of life I am in and in the place I am in... This is the first time that I have felt like I have nothing to give back. I may provide laughter and smiles and company at times. But I know without a shadow of a doubt that I have been given more than I am currently capable of giving any of them.

This has always been a difficult position for me. But rather than convincing myself that I am leeching off of people and that if  were a better person I'd be more independent and doing more for them, I am accepting this as my life right now. I know that I am being shown love and mercy and that the appropriate response is love and gratitude, not guilt and stress. My time to give more will come, but for now I'm on the receiving end of an outpouring of love. And all of these people have made it easier than I could have imagined to simply accept it.

They have helped me to understand Jesus a little better. They have helped me to be more accepting of His love. I can accept it regardless of my worthiness, regardless of my efforts, regardless of all of it. Why on earth would I bathe in guilt and stress, self-demeaning thoughts and hopelessness, when I could simply accept what I am being given and find even greater hope and joy in that?

Thank you. Thank you family. Thank you friends. Thank you all. I thank God for you and I thank God for his love for me and you have expressed his love to me so clearly.

Seeing Art in a New Light

As some of you know, I have a job now that allows me to create paintings and to teach others to replicate them. Along with that, I have also been doing some works for friends of mine (on commission and once in a while as a gift).

What fascinates me most about art is how art pieces develop as a sort of conversation between you as the artist, and your materials. The materials you work with have their own rules and their own ways of working. Sometimes as you paint, elements aren't consistent. Sometimes you can't mix the exact shade you had before, sometimes your brush is wet still and the paint applies thinly. Sometimes you are working with multiple brands (and qualities) of paint.

I have come to discover that no art piece turns out the way I envision it in my head. It used to bother me because I always thought what I had created was worse than the beautiful image I imagined. After several years, I began to see that sometimes I created pieces better than I imagined them being and sometimes worse.

I am finally coming around to recognize that to compare the two is demeaning to the piece you created, to yourself as an artist, and to the creative process as a whole. What the creative process delivers is an art piece that is fully of meaning, intentional and unintentional, conscious and subconscious. What I imagine in my head doesn't ever involve me. I'm not necessary to the process. I like to take a backseat - I don't like to assert myself into my works for the most part. For the longest time, I thought my art could only be good so far as I was completely distanced from what I was creating.

Now I realize that art is art because of the artist. I still don't sign my works. I still don't want a name embedded in my works. I'm happy to get recognition for my work, but I want my art to stand on its own, acknowledging me with a nod or with a deep connection, but no longer subsisting off of me and my name.

I was thinking today about how the relationship of artist to their artworks are like the relationship of parent to children.

Sometimes I look at my art, the way it communicates ideas and what ideas is conveys, either intentionally or unintentionally. It reflects me, but is beyond me. It contains elements of me, but it reaches for something else and contains other elements that I don't possess. Sometimes my art pieces say things that embarrass me. Sometimes they say things that I am astounded they can say, because they are things I've never said before. Sometimes I have to take a second, longer look and wonder, "Is this element a reflection of me or is this reflecting something different?" Sometimes I have ideas of what I think it should say. I have goals and hopes for its purpose. But in the end, it's going to be what it's going to be. And even as I form it, it also forms me.

For example, I just finished a painting called "Easter Sunday". It is a pastel sunrise over rolling hills with a big white church built atop of it. As I was creating it, different things stood out to me.

1. Admittedly, I made this piece because I think it will sell well as an idea. I had no inclination to paint a church and to paint in pastel colors. I had no inclination to paint cartoonishly bright rolling hills. Easter is one of my least favorite holidays. I enjoyed making the painting, but I would not have made this painting for any other reason (at least not at this point in my life).

2. The sky was the most beautiful part of the painting.

3. The church was the most time consuming. I took the most care with it, using varying brush sizes, painting multiple coats of white to make sure none of the sky shone through beneath the church.

4. The hills were exceedingly bright and childish.

________

Given these details, two different interpretations of what I created began to emerge in my mind.

1. This was a childlike view of Easter - exaggerated colors and styles. Innocent. The backdrop existed only to showcase the beautiful church, which took the most amount of time. 

2. This was a critical view of every aspect of the set-up. The most beautiful thing, the sky, took the least amount of effort and it was hidden/obscured by a church. The church was meant to be the centerpiece, but it asserted itself there boldly and distinctly as the sky, the beautiful sky was reduced to a supporting role.

It began in my head as the first interpretation. But I realized that I didn't buy into it. The image I wanted to create was one that would sell. Because I was playing to an idea that I had no draw to to begin with, it turned into satire.

What gave it away? The hills. They were a bright, commercialized Easter green color. Like the color of the plastic grass that people put in Easter baskets. It looked plastic. It looked so  and empty against the complexity of the sky. It all felt so manufactured, created to elicit feelings which I myself didn't feel.

The painting spoke to me, showing me my own cynicism in regard to a "manufactured church", commercialization and consumerism, and the value of a "pretty picture". At that point I responded to what my painting was telling me. It felt disingenuous to begin with, but it wasn't too late to express truth.

I took the image more seriously. I put in more details to the church. The windows were no longer left as black gaping shapes. They were given lines for the window-frames. The roofing was given more texture. It was still no match for the sky, but it was no longer standing as its own satirical representation of a church.

The hills. The last thing I did was to fix the hills. At first I intended to cover up that plastic green altogether. But upon second thought, I wanted that story, that dialogue, and the gradual revelation of truth to be present. I painted a darker, shaded-looking grass color, leaving that bright green on the sides of the hill that the sunlight would reach. I mixed an even darker green and filled in the darkest areas.

And the painting was done. Does it look manufactured now? To me, yes, it does. But it is honest. It no longer mocks the fact that this is the case. It takes itself seriously. It may still have the manufactured appearance, but it's meaning is fuller than that now as a result of the dialogue I had with it. It even looks more beautiful and appealing than it did before. And now it poses questions that it didn't before.

Maybe no one else would see those things if not for this blog. But I do, and that's enough for me. Again, I am formed as I form my work. And had I only been wishing to paint what I envisioned, if I removed myself from the work entirely (if it were even possible), it wouldn't achieve the depth it now has and/or have the effect is has had on me.

Anyway, just an introduction to my world. I know this makes me sound crazy, but I'm okay with that. I'm an INFJ. Everything we see has worlds of meaning. It's the only way I know, and I hope my art, this blog, and my interactions with others are the better for it.