Rudolf + Inception

My good friend Joe Jones is the master of seasonal comedy. Enjoy!

The Mentoring Project

"Whether we become merciful people or killers depends very much on who tells us what life is about.” -Nouwen

Some facts:

There are 30 MILLION fatherless children in America.

Children without a father are 20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders.

63% of youth who commit suicide grew up in fatherless homes.

71% of high school dropouts grew up in fatherless homes.

Same deal with 85% of youth who are incarcerated and 90% of youth who are homeless or run away from home.

__________________________

A desperate need exists in our own neighborhoods, on our own streets, in the apartment next door. Those facts above are true, but they don't tell the whole story. The Mentoring Project seeks to respond to the American crisis of fatherlessness by inspiring and equipping faith communities to mentor fatherless boys.

Watch as these lives show you the other side of the story:

The Mentoring Project - Rewriting the Story from The Mentoring Project on Vimeo.

Seth Godin notes: "Mentoring is rarely about the facts of the deal...but instead is a transfer of emotion and confidence."

This is a crisis that is solvable. Investing your life and your own story can rewrite the story of a young kid who otherwise would likely end up increasing the statistics listed above. You can transfer confidence. You can give emotion, and love. You can help one kid understand that he matters.

For me, it's really easy to get caught up in this "season of giving" by purchasing material items for family members out of some misguided sense of obligation. But I think we have some greater- some higher- obligations. Deuteronomy 10:18 says, "He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow."

I want to be a person who is constantly about the business of God. And I believe that the business of God is about redemption. I exist within a deep, unfathomable grace that I don't deserve. These fatherless kids, our neighbors, the teenager bagging my groceries so he and his mom can buy dinner-- these people need that grace.

Will you consider supporting this vision to change the face of America?

Learn more about The Mentoring Project on their website. Learn more about the fatherless crisis in TMP's President John Sowers' book, Fatherless Generation.

Happy Birthday, Scout!

Your darling mommy delivered you one year ago today.

We are so glad for your short existence on earth, for your life.

We celebrate you today, Scout my girl.

Happy Birthday, dear one.

*Read Scout's story, told by her mommy, Tara Beth Warrick, here.

Legacy & Tradition & Christmas

The holidays have definitely arrived—the lights are twinkling, the malls are bustling, and the nostalgic vibrato of Bing Crosby hangs constantly in the air. In my family, this season is one of tradition—driving up the mountain to pick out a Christmas tree, picking out new pajamas for Christmas Eve, giving new ornaments each Advent Sunday, and protesting my mom’s insistence that we smile politely for her Christmas card photo. (You can see how well that went last year… That’s right, parents—it actually doesn’t get easier as your kids get older.)


This year, I’ve thought a lot about how these traditions play into the bigger idea of creating a legacy. Seven years ago last Saturday, a woman I met on a handful of occasions saw the face of Jesus for the first time. At the end of a full life, what must that be like? I came to know this woman through one of her grandchildren—one of many who seek to advance the heritage she and her husband initiated. I remember his recognition of his grandmother’s spiritual gift to him, to his offspring. Even as a teenager, he felt her encouragement, her prayers, her legacy. I sat beside her in the kitchen once, and watched her love and life’s work manifest around her in the laughter and embrace of her growing progeny.

This woman’s life stood on the profound belief that as children of God, we have inherited God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

And so I wonder, in this season of life, how do I emulate my friend’s grandmother? How do I perpetuate the prayers of my own parents and their friends who have invested their legacy into my life? Are there traditions I can begin today that will lay the foundation for a family yet to come?

Who will you invest in this Christmas? What legacy will you give?

“O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.” Psalm 71:17-18

Friday Music.

LOVE this.

I am afraid I will forget.

It’s been almost a year since an earthquake shattered Haiti. In fact my birthday, January 12th, will be the first anniversary of the devastation, and by the time that date passes, thousands will have died from the cholera epidemic that hit the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere just one month ago.

I work for an international disaster relief organization whose people have been laboring around the clock in Haiti these ten months. Most of my work revolves around marketing, social media, and creative input in various communications projects. I make sure our supporters know what our international staff is up to and I work to gain the awareness and support of still more individuals. Haiti, though, has changed the way I think about these things.

Cholera hit nine months after the earthquake, and two weeks into the outbreak, most Americans had all but lost interest. Even now, the highest levels of response and engagement come when we report that the number of deaths and infections has risen. The statistics are always repeated and my organization is viewed as a reputable source for information. And yes, those are goals I have in my line of work. But.

But will the 200 people in the 125-bed clinic live to see tomorrow? Will the nurse be able to get IV fluids into the two-year-old girl who is so severely dehydrated that finding a vein is proving impossible? Will the man who was driven to the clinic on a motorcycle, while unconscious, ever open his eyes to see the bright Haitian sky again? Will the boy who’s playing soccer in Cite Soleil take a swig of cholera-infected water when he flops down to break from the heat?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, and to be quite honest with you, I don’t think about these questions as often as I wonder how I can use that picture of the dying child to get you to care enough to follow our updates on Facebook. Yes, it sounds shallow.

But I don’t really care about the tweets or the status updates or the number of views on YouTube. I care that there are thousands of people infected with a disease that is alarmingly preventable. I care that relief supplies are being held useless and that manipulation of last Sunday’s election could stall aid for desperate people. I care that a lot of organizations collected money in January and only a few are doing the large majority of actual work.

I care that most of you didn’t know these details, but that these facts are pushed into my face day after day; they are told beside pictures of mothers cradling their sick children, filmed by friends who’ve just returned from the clinics, spoken through the clenched teeth and tear-filled eyes of exhausted medical staff as they hydrate one more patient, sing to one more sick babe.

I care that I am at a loss for how to make America give a damn.

Since 2001, I’ve pitied people whose birthdays or anniversaries fall on the eleventh of September, a date that will forever pass in infamy in the minds of American people. I can tell you from experience, that kind of shadow will not always fall over January 12th—indeed, most people today could not name the date the ground cracked beneath an already broken land.

I am afraid I will forget. I fear that January 12th will pass for me as another year I’m single, or another year I’m not where I thought I’d be in life. I fear wishing I had a little more money in my bank account, rather than wishing I could save a few more people from death by waterborne disease.

I’m afraid I’ll never be capable of adequately conveying the urgency of this situation to a population who may not hear about it anywhere else. I’m afraid Haitians will keep on dying, and I’m afraid we could be stopping it.

Haiti Cholera Edpidemic - Urgent Appeal from Matt Powell on Vimeo.

I am young and I am clumsy.

I suddenly find myself very happy with my job. This was not expected.

I baked in my cousin’s café in Colorado after college, and I loved it. Even though I struggled in my growing up that year, the season held joy, and now I understand well the necessity of that battle for maturity. While my cinnamon rolls were rising, peace began to take root in my soul. It was right to leave that place when I did, but in the years between then and now, joy in my work has not been something I’ve experienced much.

To be frank, this town where I live is not my favorite. It’s small—which I don’t mind so much, except that most residents are college students or retirees. It’s charming, and it is lonely. However, I happily stay late at work, accomplishing more in the quiet of shared space when others have returned to their families. When I pack up my things at the conclusion of the workday, I feel satisfaction. As I walk to my car, weary of high heels by now, I am content in the freedom my night holds. I can go to the gym, stop for take-out or a movie. I could pick up a new book, or spend time at home brainstorming creative ideas for tomorrow’s day in the office. I might bake cinnamon rolls, throwing flour all over my inadequate kitchen, and leaving the dishes for the next day. I can stop over at a friend’s house, or meet someone for coffee, enjoying long stretches of conversation without care for the late hour.

I speak often of the seasonality of life, the way relationships ebb and flow with changes in circumstance, but I have failed to apply this basic life framework to my vocation. The problem is, I’ve long espoused the belief that my greatest purpose is to be a wife and mother. Regardless of what else I do before/after/during that time, I’ve believed that will be the most meaningful part of my life. Even as I have maintained that I have the right and ability to “be more” than a homemaker, I have approached my work as a way to kill some time, make some money, pay some bills. Sure, I’m decently good at what I do. I’m using gifts God gave me, but not like I will when I’m a wife and mom… at least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself.

But that’s an awfully limited perspective. As I said in my last post, I believe God is vast. I believe he puts infinite God-dreams into finite human hearts. As the meaning I find in my work has grown, so has my understanding of seasons. There is purpose in this season of work, and it speaks to bigger dreams than I’m able to imagine.

For one, I’m learning a lot about myself within my interactions with coworkers. I am humbled, often (like yesterday when I over-simplified an explanation in a pretty big-deal meeting and thus misrepresented the entire mission of one our projects…in front of its director and VP). I’m listening more. I’ve picked up on cues between rivals and discovered how to maintain peace.

Yet, I am young and I am clumsy. I misstep. I push forward. I’ve found that this season isn’t just about my own growth. I am a piece of a changing organization. I fight every single day for new approaches I believe will work—are working, even now. This moment in history is the precise turn of the clock in which my work and my attitude towards that work fit, just exactly right, into the puzzle of my company.

So my point, dear friends, is to keep your heart open. Don’t think you know everything. Don’t believe you’ve got it all figured out. We’re all in process, you see. We’re all growing and changing and showing up into stories we never expected, only to find ourselves playing roles and reading lines we hadn’t practiced. So we improvise, and the words might come out wrong, and the cadence will be off. The comic timing could be 3 seconds too late and the wardrobe might malfunction (note: leggings are not pants!), but the whole point is, you’re here. You’re on the stage of your life and you’re playing your part, however awkward. Dance to the symphony, even—and especially—when it’s not what you planned.

Messy Bits

“The world needs your messy stories.”

Ann Voskamp said this once, and probably a few more times. I am encouraged by her simple admonishment.

I spent several days last week working at a women’s blogging conference. Last Wednesday evening, I sat in a ballroom filled with women who, if asked, would not have known which teams were fighting for the pennant, but they could have given you an extensive background for any one of the mommy bloggers who would step to the microphone in the days following.

In a room filled with two hundred and fifty women, nearly every last one of them is a stay-at-home mom who (sometimes) earns a second income via her blog, dedicated to some form of homemaking. I struggle hard against the claim many of these bloggers made—that as women, we are simply meant to be homemakers. I want to end this paragraph in bitter snark, but I can’t. I respect stay-at-home moms; I was raised by one. Such deep dedication to raising children is noble and it is a high calling. I suppose my problem with the whole thing is that I do not believe it’s a woman’s only calling.

{Here come some of my messy bits.}

I have known for as long as I can recall that I want to be a wife and mom. When that day arrives, I hope to have the financial freedom to stay at home with my kids, but I’ve also always imagined that I will pursue some sort of career within that context. That’s what my mom did and continues to do, successfully. I have learned from her that as her child, I am a top priority. But I’ve also learned I’m not the only priority.

You see, our Creator put passions and dreams and abilities into my mom that are vast and expansive and life-giving in ways that are not limited to her offspring. My mom is an artist and her heart is enlarged by her work. Many are blessed by her creative calling. Therefore, she pursues the gift of artwork that God has put within her to do. This pursuit is never at the expense of her children’s needs—the opposite really. Listening to her actions, I have learned that the dreams God has put in my heart matter. The passions exist with purpose. The abilities should be developed, and employed.

Now, to be fair, I should say that maybe these mommy bloggers are diverting their passions, dreams and abilities into something that makes sense within the context of their current world as homemakers. But maybe not. You have to question so many women being gifted at coupon cutting, and I have very serious doubts about God putting the dream of saving money at the grocery store into so many hearts. There’s nothing wrong with it—being a good steward of the money God’s given you is biblical. But as far as dreams go, it’s just so small. From where I sit, our Creator is not one to put small dreams in hearts. He’s a God of great glory, of mighty acts, and of miracles. He is vast.

My issue with this also (clearly) stems from the fact that I am neither married nor a mom. These facts prompt questions: If that’s all I’m meant to be, I suppose I have no purpose until I am married…? What if I never get married? Is there something wrong with me? Should I just go ahead and settle for someone who won’t necessarily create a Christ-honoring marriage with me, if only because at least I’ll be fulfilling my purpose as a woman? Would that be glorifying, or would it be me trying to fit God into my box of an idea for how my life “should” play out? If I marry only for the sake of marriage and family, but against my gut judgment about the man, isn’t that doubting God? Wouldn’t I then be failing to trust him with my life’s purpose? Aren’t these mothers who raise their daughters to be homemakers precisely because they are female, limiting their daughters’ and their own understanding of our infinite God?

For many years I had a very specific picture of what my future would look like with a man I thought would be my husband. It matched much of the day-to-day these women live. But that particular future didn’t happen, and even after I knew it wouldn’t, I held on to hope for it, to my detriment. Rather than strive for an imagined life with that man, I had to move forward with my own life, on my own.

I want to live a life that is open to the changes God puts before me. He works in seasons and so “I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes,” as Don Miller once wrote. Sometimes that means letting go of expectations or very specific dreams; sometimes it means opening your heart to the bigger dreams of God. It’s my experience that God doesn’t ever play my life out the way I imagine it. His ways are better, and they’re also vastly different.

But different in the hands of an incomparable and infinite God is a different I can embrace.

Scouting for Hope

Friends, today's the day.

Tonight at 7:30 men & women who have lost their children will gather to celebrate life and to 'scout for hope' together.

Will you please join me in praying for them?

We'll be preparing all day, and we covet your prayers. Thanks in advance.

Scouting for Hope

Waiting for Superman

Much has been said in recent weeks about the state of our country’s education system. A lot of that talk has to do with the release of a new documentary by Davis Guggenheim called “Waiting for Superman,” which releases in some cities this Friday.

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote a column on September 11th in which he presented the claims of Michael Hirsh of Newsweek, who says the United States is number 11 on Newsweek’s list of 100 best countries in the world, beside statements by Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post who says that today’s students in America are far less motivated than past generations.

Friedman argues that student apathy is a symptom of the larger problem—America is facing a values breakdown that is a result of the pervasive “get rich quick” attitude and our recent propensity as a culture to choose the gain of something for little or nothing, rather than choosing to sacrifice for the sake of our own futures. Friedman is supported by David Rothkopf, a Carnegie Endowment visiting scholar, when he says Americans do not take responsibility for these issues, but instead attempt to place blame anywhere else.

I’d like to add a point that Seth Godin makes in his newest book, Linchpin: business is no longer conducted the way it was in the recent past; management and labor no longer rule. Godin says “the death of the factory means that the entire system we have built our lives around is now upside down.” One of the biggest hurdles Americans will face in making this change is the way we have been educated within our own culture. The author goes on: “We’ve been taught to be a replaceable cog in a giant machine. We’ve been taught to consume as a shortcut to happiness. We’ve been taught not to care about our job or our customers. And we’ve been taught to fit in…We’ve bought into the model that taught us to embrace the system, to spend for pleasure, and to separate ourselves from our work. We’ve been taught that this approach works, but it doesn’t (not anymore). And this disconnect keeps us from succeeding, cripples the growth of our society, and makes us really stressed.” (Italics mine.)

I want to argue that there are many, many teachers in the public school system in America who engage their students well on a daily basis, but who are stuck in an outdated system, designed to create “factory workers” rather than develop creative minds. The film “Waiting for Superman” is accompanied by a social action campaign that is addressing this issue. The fact that the United States ranks 25th in math and 21st in science among other nations should be more than enough to tell you this isn’t just a problem for parents of current students, or teachers of current students, or even the students themselves. This is a problem for our entire nation. This is our collective future.

What do you think? Teachers, I want to hear you weigh in. What’s the biggest problem you see in your classrooms? For those of you in business, how do you see America’s collective functionality in business changing? How would new workers be best served in their education?

Help us keep this conversation going, won’t you?

And go see "Waiting for Superman." Here's the trailer:

What She Wants You to Know

Today, Kristen Howerton, over at Rage Against the Minivan, featured my (now familiar) friend Tara Beth's words on her blog. Kristen prompted her readers:

I want you to tell us – what do you want us to know about your particular circumstance? What is that burning thing that you wish people would “get”?

And Tara wrote about stillbirth, and she wrote about it ever so beautifully.

Go, read my friend's brilliance--

What I Want You to Know: Stillbirth

P.S. We found out today that while Angie Smith will be speaking at Scouting for Hope, her husband Todd, lead singer of Selah, will be singing there as well! We are PUMPED!

Payday Picks

Today is payday & my Amazon wish list was getting rather long.

Here's what I'll be reading in the coming days:

Permission to Speak Freely by Anne Jackson

I'm realllllly excited about this one. Anne blogs at flowerdust.net and she's truly a great voice of authenticity and truth in the church today. The book stems from a question she once asked on her blog: "What's the one thing you feel you can't say in church?" Anne says the book's purpose is "to show you that you're not alone in your secrets." I like that so much.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Almost every artist I know recommends this book. I recommend it even though I have yet to read it. I believe it will be that good.

I Will Carry You by Angie Smith

Angie happens to be the keynote speaker at Scouting for Hope. (Just sayin'.) I could keep talking about her forever, but I won't. You're getting tired of it, aren't you? BUT! You can read her blog here.

What are you reading right now? Help me make that Amazon wish list long again!

Marchin' for the Wee Ones

So I've been talking a good bit about my friends Tara & Trey Warrick and the upcoming event they're putting on, Scouting for Hope that happens on October 1.

On October 2nd, we'll all be gathering at Shelby City Park to participate in the March for Babies, which is a project of the March of Dimes. The mission of March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality.

I'd love it if you'd join me to raise funds for the research March of Dimes accomplishes throughout the year. Funds raised in the March for Babies support research and programs that help moms have full-term pregnancies and babies begin healthy lives. And they will be used to bring comfort and information to families with a baby in newborn intensive care.

As Tara & Trey have learned to navigate life as parents without a living a child, they've been surprised to discover just how many other parents there are like them. Pregnancy doesn't always go easily, and it isn't always joyful. That's not fair. It's not fair that Tara and countless other women will always feel worry over pregnancy rather than elation. The research funded by March for Babies aims to change the future, making healthy pregnancies and healthy babies a more constant reality.

If you're interested in learning more, or want to donate towards the cause, please visit:

www.marchforbabies.org/HopeBlaylock

Help us honor the life of Scout Warrick.

Today? Not the best.

On repeat: You Are Love

A mind full of questions
And a heart full of pain
Can’t understand why we are here again
But there’s grace in this season
Not just to see us through
But to renew us

You are love Lord
And Your ways testify
You are love Lord
Perfectly defined
Through the suffering or joy
We will confide in Your perfect love

A mind full of questions
And a future unclear
But Your perfect love scatters fear
‘Cos Your will is to build up
And not to harm
But to complete us

It’s time to stretch these legs of faith
And run into this unknown width
With truth of Your love for us

-Rend Collective Experiment

Back to School, Dear Teachers

As an adult, I really miss the whole spirit of back-to-school. It’s like Christmastime for geeks. And social butterflies. Both are categories into which I fell. (Fall—who are we kidding?)

Despite missing out on the euphoria of smelling freshly sharpened pencils, I’m able to feel the excitement from the plethora of my friends who happen to be teachers. It’s really a little ridiculous actually. You get them all together on a good beach vacation, drink of choice in hand, ocean washing over freshly painted toes and all they want to do is talk about school—class sizes, budget cuts, this principal and that administration. I typically roll my eyes and change the subject to something like the physique of the man running (oh so nicely) past us, followed by an inappropriate joke or two.

Even though all this talk, to my teacher friends’ chagrin, makes me roll my eyes (which, coincidentally, my actual teachers were none too fond of—hi, Mrs. Fain!), the truth is that I’m thankful they care so much. During this moment of my life, I am writing because I had teachers (and parents) who encouraged me with obscene amounts of praise for the way I crafted words.

I had teachers who took the time to show me how to think, who unveiled the adventures of classic literature with hot debate and pointed questions. I understood apartheid more deeply when my high school English teacher/basketball coach asked me for my passbook in the middle of after-school practice; if I didn’t have it stuffed into the back of my sports bra, I was punished. I was taught that my gifts were valued when my middle school music teacher who (recognizing my inability to sing on key) gave me the lead speaking role in the spring musical.

The teachers in my life cared about me—my learning, my spirit, my growth— a very great deal. They saw what God had created in me, said it was good and called it forth. The lifelong gifts they have given me are boundless. I can only hope that my gratitude will be shown to the end of my being as I continue to learn and change and grow.

And so my teacher friends, I toast you at the beginning of this new school year. I pray for your patience, your wisdom, your rest, and your knowledge. I pray you learn from your students, even as they learn from you. I hope your days feel full and accomplished. I hope that when that girl with the big brown eyes rolls them heavenward because she think you are just sooo boring, that you will laugh and keep going, blessing her heart with your unrelenting insistence that she stop writing notes and PAY ATTENTION! (Remember that she’ll be grateful.)

Thank you, friends, for giving so much of your lives to other people’s children. Thank you, Mrs. Petree, Ms. Austin, Mrs. Jolley, Mr. Jolley, Ms. Biser, Ms. Callahan, Ms. Nordin, Mr. Seipel, Mrs. Jones, Joe (a different kind of teacher altogether), Ms. Young, Ms. Clonch, Mrs. Hsu, Mr. Sheek, Mrs. Keeler, and the rest of you I’m sure I’m forgetting.

Happy School Year!

Things that don't matter in life...

...are sometimes a nice distraction.

I would like this pillow for my apartment.

Available at Furbish Studio Online.

That is all.

A million minuscule decisions in a line

In December, one of my dearest friends and her husband lost their first baby, 20 weeks into a pregnancy that was wrought with sickness and all manner of things gone awry.

I don't know how to follow that sentence. It's heartbreaking. Because not only did Tara lose the baby, but she had to deliver him or her. And that part hurts too, because the precious little baby was so ravaged by the process of delivery and illness that they could not tell if its body was that of a girl or boy. Tara & Trey Warrick could not hold their first child. They could not take photos with their baby. Everything went downhill so quickly, they had not anticipated making arrangements for giving birth and leaving their child's tiny body behind at the hospital. I walked beside Tara’s wheelchair as we exited the hospital and I heard the cries of newborns behind closed doors. It isn’t fair, I thought.

They named their baby Scout, and a couple of months after the delivery, we gathered in a church to celebrate the twenty weeks of life whose heart beat inside Tara’s belly. These months have been a battle for the Warricks, but never have I witnessed two people in such fierce pursuit of healing.

Early in January, Tara asked me to be her pen pal and we have written each other at least once per week ever since. I write from my back porch overlooking an ages-old mountain range, in my single-bedroom apartment with a poor excuse for a kitchen, cicadas singing sweet Southern lullabies all around. She writes from the front porch of her farmhouse, surrounded by two prissy puppies, a floppy and big-footed farm dog, a tall, dark and handsome husband, and row after row of carefully cultivated trees. Sometimes we dash off emails—I from the office, she from her BlackBerry en route to conduct another occupational therapy visit.

Tara is a childless mother. Her deep fear is that she and her husband will never hold babies of their own, or that all her pregnancies will end this way, or that childbirth will never be a joy for her. I am a single woman. My deep fear is that I will never have a husband, or the opportunity to create a family, or people of my own to give all my love.

When Tara’s husband called me late that Sunday night in December to tell me they were going to the hospital because “something’s wrong,” I did the only thing I knew to do—I emailed the rest of our friends to get the information out, and I prayed. From that moment forward, I did only what came by instinct. On Monday I left work midday to drive across the state. At the hospital, I kissed Tara’s head and I held her hand while she labored. I made stupid jokes, per usual. I cried when she cried. And so it went.

Our dearest friends are a group of nine women, with a few husbands and boyfriends in the mix now. But among us all, none knew how to handle the loss of a child. We didn’t know what to say or do, or what not to say and not to do. We wanted to be supportive of Tara, to give her hope, but she was fragile, and oftentimes choosing words that did not cause more pain proved difficult. Grief is a strange and unrelenting beast and everyone feels pain differently.

As my letters to Tara and hers to me have piled up, we have both learned how significant the actual writing of words to one another can be. We have learned that while our circumstances are different, the roots of pain can be the same; camaraderie is found there. As it turns out, walking together through life—the good yes, but most surprisingly, the bad, the “ugly cry” parts of life—is a privilege.

A great story involves a character that wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. This one involves two, or many, depending on how you want to look at it.

Our friend Tara Beth wants to give Scout’s short life meaning. She wants to help other women who have lost children; it is a unique grief that is only fully understood by those who have experienced it for themselves. She is a daily encouragement to many such women. This October, she will host the event Scouting for Hope, to which she has invited women of all shapes and sizes and types of grief to come together, to share in their hope. (Details will be posted in the coming weeks, for those interested.)

I want to give the friends of these women hope as well. The other eight of us who have yet to be mothers, we don’t fully understand, but we walk beside Tara anyway. When I wrote to and about Scout in February, I was surprised by how many people were connected to women who had lost children by stillbirth or miscarriage or death. So many of these dear hearts long to encourage their friends, but feel confusion when they try to figure out what, exactly, to do.

Together, Tara and I plan to write a book. We want to use this friendship we’ve been walking together to tell a better story with our lives, to create something good where once there was only heartache. The book will be about grief, about the seasonality of life and its friendships. We’ll share from our own letters and we will be frank about our individual struggles. I believe there are times when people need an affirming voice to say: “Hey, I’ve been there too. It’s hard, but it will be okay.”

I want the story of my life to be that voice—that voice that encourages, gives hope, sympathizes, and tells it like is, even when that’s hard to do. I say that my deep fear is not having people of my own to give all my love. But I have those people. I have friends who belong to my heart and who I can pour love into constantly. Right now, that looks like writing a book with Tara, giving voice to the hurt of women who have walked those paths of grief, giving practical advice to friends who want to bring light straight into that grief, saying “it’s okay to talk about this,” and preparing the way for great hope to take root.

I’m writing about this because putting it out there makes it real. We really want to do this book-writing thing, and we’ve really started to do it. I’m also writing about it to enter a contest for which I could win a trip to Don Miller’s Living a Better Story Seminar. I want to go to this conference because, while I like to encourage people, I need that encouragement as well. I need practical advice. I need clarity of vision for my life and for my work—whether it’s writing in my spare time or sitting in my cubicle in an office building. I want to spend time around people who are motivated to live better stories themselves, and I want to hear those stories.

Imagine spending two days in a room filled with hundreds of people, each dedicated to living every day in a better story than the day before. You would leave encouraged. You would leave ready to take action. You would leave and you would actually live a better story. That’s something I can get behind. If you want to register, go here.

Here’s Don Miller to tell you more about it:

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

*Blog title is a line from an Andrew Peterson song, Many Roads.

Progress in Haiti

It's been a bit over six months since the earthquake in Haiti, and all the news most people are hearing is negative. Progress isn't being made, the streets are still filled with rubble, thousands remain homeless, recovery is paralyzed.

A lot of these things are true in some ares of Haiti. But there's more. The reporters saying these things are primarily in Port au Prince because that's where much of the destruction took place. There were more buildings before the quake and thus, today there is more rubble. There's a lot of red tape involved in relief, and in many cases it's easier to get things accomplished outside of the cities. There's space available to construct temporary shelters, there's land to create shelter communities, there are people who escaped the chaos of the city-- there's room for progress-- and I assure you, that progress is being made.

This video is a bit long, but you can see for yourself, good things are happening.

Oregon Trail, the movie

If you grew up in the late 80s/early 90s, this video is going to make your day.

Thanks for sharing

I live in an apartment building that isn't terribly old, but it's at that stage where it's settling into its bones, so that things have a tendency to crack here and there. For example, during my first week here, I was sitting in the living room reading when I heard a loud POP!, followed by a dramatic pause in which I cocked my ear towards the disturbance, followed immediately by the shattering of my kitchen light fixture as it crashed into the tile floor. I had just moved in and had yet to purchase a vacuum cleaner or broom, as my former roommates had owned both. I spent two days walking around with shoes on at all times.

Another surprising delight of this little community is the fire alarm system. There was the most fantastic summer thunderstorm a couple of nights ago, and once when the lightning struck, our power surged. Next thing you know, the fire alarm in the basement of the next building over is chirping precisely every three-mississippi. And so it has gone for the past thirty-six hours (which is 43,200 chirps, in case you were curious).

At the end of long work days, I enjoy an evening spent lost in a book filled with beautiful and/or snarky words, and on this particular night I was on my back porch enjoying this one. (Read it! It's like word candy!) Now this is where I've been getting to all along, so pay attention. I'm in the middle of one of the single greatest sentences ever written ("Jimmy Stewart is always and indisputably the best man in the world, unless Cary Grant should happen to show up."), when the repair man pulls up just below my porch and hefts his belly-heavy load out of his station wagon, meanders on over to the utility door, unlocks it, opens, steps in, pauses, steps back out, hacks, hocks a loogie, clears his throat, and proceeds back through the door to investigate. Mmm, delicious.

Within minutes, the clanging is interrupted by a gargling burp. And yes, as a matter of fact, it did echo off the walls. This is when I decide to go back inside, but as my windows are all open, the clanging continues. As does the chirp, chirp, chirp every three seconds on the dot. Oh, there's a big sigh. Apparently we have the wrong tools to quiet the little birdie.

Our darling repair man proceeds to relock the utility closet, waddle on back over to the station wagon (whom you may call Nellie), and toss his tools into her backseat (that is not a euphemism-- although, funny!). Never one to disappoint, and always the pinnacle of grace, he opens the driver-side door, turns towards my building, and punctuates his efforts with a belch that can only be described as monumental.

And that's been my evening.

Complacency has replaced gusto...

That's what my friend Sarah said and feels, and wants to change.

So she's doing something that could be deemed radical, is definitely challenging, perhaps a little dangerous.

But rewarding?

Oh, yes.

Shane Claiborne's non-profit, The Simple Way, made a list called 50 Ways to Become the Answer to Our Prayers. Sarah is going to spend the next year doing one thing from the list per week. This week, she's eating only a bowl of rice per day.

Sarah is blogging about this adventure, and I do believe you should check it out.

You'll be challenged.

What I Want in a Man

Old Spice, you can bet your ass if I had a man to buy soap for, I'd buy yours. This is one beautiful piece of advertising.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Sometimes you need a new haircut.

And sometimes you need to change the way your blog looks.

It might look weird & mis-matchy around here for awhile. Umm...sorry...?

Haiti, 6 months later

Monday will mark six months since the earthquake in Haiti.

Do you want to see hope on the faces of children?

This is my favorite-- the mischief in those eyes!

Photo by David Uttley

This photo blog will give you a bit of an idea of what it's like there now. There should be updates from him all week. I'll be linking from Twitter (@HopeNoelleSays).

God Bless Afghanistan

When I was a kid, the subtext of Independence Day was that Christians love America, just like they love Jesus. I grew up in a Southern Baptist school that was also one of the largest churches in my city. Every July 4th weekend the entire Sunday service would be dedicated to patriotic songs and over sized American flags. Similarly, earlier today I was shown a video that was a photo montage of troops related to my coworkers; God Bless America was its soundtrack.

While it's great if God blesses America, and I pray for the troops and fully support their dedication to our freedom, I have to wonder how it is that we so easily and directly equate Christianity with American patriotism.

June 2010 was the deadliest month yet for foreign troops in Afghanistan. War is dragging, raging, sustaining, and to be honest, I think we should pray for God to bless other countries, like Afghanistan, and all the people within her borders-- whether they are American troops or Taliban insurgents.

Look at these photos, and see. See the children, the boy being questioned about a dead body. See the girls with schoolbooks & the boys with skateboards. See that our American citizenship does not make us any more deserving of freedom than those without it. See that there are other people in the world who need to know freedom. See the faces God loves. See that freedom is less about politics and territory lines, and more about the Spirit of God.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3:17

I'm a Mac, and I've got a dirty secret.

Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times posed the following scenario:

An ugly paradox of the 21st century is that some of our elegant symbols of modernity — smartphones, laptops and digital cameras — are built from minerals that seem to be fueling mass slaughter and rape in Congo. With throngs waiting in lines in the last few days to buy the latest iPhone, I’m thinking: What if we could harness that desperation for new technologies to the desperate need to curb the killing in central Africa?


Let's be aware. I'll be the first to admit, I love my BlackBerries-- both of them. They allow me to stay connected with my life and my work, and often they make that connection more fun. Smartphones make my life easier, but they don't make my life. And I don't think any piece of technology that I have is worth ending life of someone else, even if it's just a small piece of much larger puzzle.

There is so much more going on in our world than the bubbles we hide ourselves in. Pop your bubble-- there's a lot going on out here.

______________________________

*You can find Kristof's full column here.

Manifest the Glory

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others. “

Nelson Mandela

I heart Twilight

In a way that (I believe) is completely out of character for me, I love love loooooove Twilight. My fourteen year old sister introduced me to the books last summer and I read all four during my week-long beach vacation.

In case you hadn't noticed, I also love love loooooove Jesus. (Significantly more than I love Twilight, by the way.)

So when one of my favorite bloggers, Jon Acuff over at Stuff Christians Like, writes about having faith like Robert Pattinson, I'm in.

And I think you should be too.

Read it.

Rain.

I can hear the rain pounding on the leaves a mile or two away, but it isn't here yet.

I can see the clouds, the confusion of precipitation bundled together, pushing on the verge of release, rolling, spilling towards my mountaintop.

It is like a dull roar, and a whisper all the same.

The drops of wet plop on the trees just over the ridge, for moments, and then recede, as though the clouds have realized we don't need them here. And so I hear the pounding roll away, but staying steady, beating the earth with its food, its drink. The leaves sway in gratitude and I hear the thunder roll its acknowledgment.

Too Much

Do you ever feel like sometimes your memory is too much?

I don’t know what triggered it. I was sitting out on my glorious porch, reading while the sun set gracefully over the mountains. My neighbor was watching a movie, Notting Hill, and I recognized the dialogue wafting through the open window. The last scene came up, the song “She” playing loudly when suddenly it hit me.

I got caught up in remembering one of the most glorious feelings that is mixed with so many emotions, I cannot tell which parts were real once, and which parts I made up in the recollection.

For all I can come up with, that movie has nothing to do with anything in my past.

This is the problem. I remember some moments so vividly and with such full-on clarity that, in the second of recall, I forget that the emotions spring from so many breaths ago, it's as though they should only come up as whispers, as shadows, rather than as expectations. Other moments I can scarcely bring into my periphery, even those that quite possibly changed everything.

How do our brains choose? How do our minds separate, categorize? Why will some things become reality, and others remain, long-distant memories?

You are not the only one who feels like the only one

I live in a town where I do not belong.

Sitting here, in this coffee shop where the windows are open wide and the man on the side porch is smoking weed, I do not belong. Sitting here, where the long-haired men in their tie-dyed t-shirts talk about climbing mountains and the women discuss their eco-clothing, sans bras, I do not belong.

Of course there are others here. Yes, the hipsters behind the coffee bar, in their plaid button downs and designer glasses-- a calculated carefree. He looks like Buddy Holly, but without the smile.

In my seersucker pants and monogrammed sterling bracelet, I do not belong.

But to tell you the truth? I love it here. I love to watch the people, to hear the conversations and the perspectives that do not match my own. I love the dogs sitting in the shade of the tree, a rough rope acting as a leash. I love that air conditioning is as unnecessary as makeup, and the way old ladies in over-bright outfits mingle with dirty-headed college students.

I don't belong necessarily, but I don't think they do either. I wonder at the beauty and divergence of humanity. We look at each other, stolen curiosities veiled as sweeping glances about the room. We judge, and perhaps we think we are all so very different; you in your dreadlocks, me in my carefully angled bob.

You're not the only one who feels the loneliness. You're not the only one who feels out of place. Don't we all feel that way? No, certainly not all the time. And no, certainly not in a way we speak aloud. We feel that way in the dark corners, in the blankets of night, in the quiet of our personal spaces.

Sometimes I feel like the only one, but it isn't true.

We share our humanity, and we are not alone.

Happy 5th Birthday, YouTube!

This one always makes me laugh.

We are a people with high expectations

So.

I was going to write a post about how friendships are seasonal, but Sara wrote something similar and deeply challenging, and I think you should read that instead.

Her thoughts on Expectations, here.

Then read her story because it will make you think twice, and probably even thrice, about complaining.

Emotional Porn

I read some really great articles today that have me wanting to expand on some of yesterday's comments, where I basically said that I find myself (and some of my friends) believing that a man will complete me. I didn't really get into the "why" of this concept, but here's an interesting theory:

Emotional Porn.

Uh huh, you heard me. Emily Timbol posits here that people--particularly women-- turn romantic comedy films into a source of emotional fulfillment, rather than turning to God for fulfillment.

Similarly, Cole NeSmith asks here: Is there really much of a difference in the hyperbolized sexual imagery of typical pornography and the hyperbolized momentary emotional high felt in a romance film or romantic comedy that sends us looking for “love” that doesn’t exist?

I am guilty of these things. We live in a world where healthy, godly, biblical relationships are a rare thing to behold. I'd guess that many of us did not grow up in families that we perceive as exactly what we want for our own futures. But we have images of what we want-- am I right? We have pictures in our minds of the kind of love we want to find and the kind of family we will create within that love. Are these fantasies based on biblical marriages that we witness or on our culture's interpretation of happily ever after?

I don't believe in soul mates, but I do believe in the kind of love that is challenging, the kind of love that asks you questions, that forces you to put someone else first, that has you giving more than you're taking. I believe in love when you don't feel like it. I believe in love that chooses.

There is hope for great love, adventurous love, captivating love. But I don't think it will play out like the movies, and in fact, I kind of hope it doesn't.

Suspension

About a month ago, I started a new job and last weekend I finally moved into my new place in this new town, and I'm spending most of my free time unpacking boxes and moving the sofa around to various locations. I like this change, I like my new place and I absolutely adore its view. My job is going well-- I feel challenged, encouraged and stretched into professional growth.

The mental transition, however, is not going so well. And this is precisely how I roll, which is not to say that I like it. Historically, I have enjoyed moving into new stages of life. I like settling in, decorating, discovering new places. I appear to handle it all so smoothly. I moved 2,000 miles across the country after college and acted all firm in those decisions, but in reality, there was a lot of turmoil involved.

Here's how this is playing out today: I'm in a new city, with a new job, with no friends in the area to speak of (yet) and suddenly I'm wondering what the hell I'm supposed to be doing with my life. I'm not even finished unpacking and I wonder what my next move will be. Not because I want to move, but because I do not yet feel the comfort of being settled. I spend a lot of breath telling my fellow single girlfriends that having a man, a husband, will not complete us. They will just be men and we'll have to spend a lot of energy and give a lot of love to make it work.

But, whenever I feel this odd suspension during major transitions--this aimless sense of wandering, I am extremely tempted to believe that once I'm married and we start having children, start settling into a particular life, that I will never feel this way again.

But that can't be true. Change and transition will always happen. Even, and probably especially, within marital and familial relationships. So feeling suspended will continue to happen to me in some form or another, no matter what human connections are built in the future of my life.

Is there a way to rid myself of this feeling? I believe the only way is to let myself feel it and then to move forward. For the moving forward part, I've made a list (loooove a good list) of practical things to do for myself, and another list of practical things to do within my community. Sometimes catapulting myself into projects is the best way to think through things.

Do you ever feel this suspension? How do you move beyond it?

Moving

I'll be moving in 6 days. It's for work; I have a new job, and I love it. These past weeks have involved a lot of driving though, and I'll be very glad for that part of the transition to be over. My mind feels as though it has no place to land. There is no settling point for my thoughts and the blank pages I'm used to filling in the early morning hours have remained sadly vacant. Conversely, my mind is full-- the pages of my thoughts are bursting with information-- considering, turning, changing, asking.

The new job has meaning-- eternal meaning-- so it's very different than my job before. And the new job is in a different town, a place I lived once for short while, so that everything will still feel new and hopefully like an adventure. All this different means things are changing, it means new beginnings, but it also means I'm thinking about some things, some people, who I've not been able to let go of. I've been realizing, slowly, that hard work might be necessary for me now. I mean the hard work of asking myself why? Why do you hold onto this?

In his recently re-released book, Father Fiction, Don Miller puts it this way: "I don't actually like thinking about this stuff, but I have a sense wounds don't heal until you feel them."

So I'm wondering what these feelings are that I have tucked neatly away these past years, the way I am packing my dishes and wine glasses, carefully wrapping them tightly, slipping them into the dark and safe corners of boxes and forgetting exactly where they are. I'll figure it out later, I tell myself. I'll figure it out when it becomes absolutely necessary, but only then.

But what healing is waiting for me if I do the work of broaching the questions? It is so easy to avoid hard things. It is so easy to avoid pain, to avoid grief. It's so easy to put off difficult conversations, even if they have the potential to change everything. And is it better?

I fear that I lack the courage and the self-discipline to go searching into those shadowed spaces.

To Be Loved

There's a woman I met in high school. She's about my age and her family is rather famous. You wouldn't know her, but if you heard her family's name, you'd know exactly who I was talking about. I remember the first time I met her; we had some mutual friends and we were all out to dinner. I felt annoyed by her assurance, ticked off by her assumption that her opinions were so relevant.

Looking back, it's clear that my insecure, young, unsure self was jealous. This girl may have grown up in an important family, but more to the point, she grew up with a concrete understanding that she was loved, that she mattered and that her opinions were relevant. And she lived and operated solely out of that love.

I don't mean to say that I didn't know I was loved-- I was, I am, and well. What I mean is, rather than living consistently out of that love, I have lived out of the need to impress, to be better than you, to have it altogether, to put on a front that is not authentic to what's going on inside.

If it's true that "in him we live and move and have our being" and yet I am still disposed towards these narcissistic shortcomings, how do I change? How do we begin to live out of the love of the Father? How do we begin to understand what that love really is?

*To Be Loved is a reference to the oh-so-fabulous Thad Cockrell. Have a listen.

But what the hell do I know?

I heard someplace that the idea of soul mates started with the Greek philosopher Aristophanes. The tale goes that originally, human beings existed with four legs, four arms, and two heads. Once upon a time, humans made the Greek god Zeus very angry and he split the one into two-- thus we have our present form. And thus we spend our lives searching for the other half who will complete us. It's like a romantic little dream and it's a total crock.

I love the way Matt Chandler debunks this idea (for audio, go here, and scroll to 10.25.09). He says that if one man way back when chose the wrong mate, mistaking her for his soul mate, then the next guy would have to end up with the wrong woman and so on, until we're all screwed because one guy picked wrong. So the idea that Aristophones put forth-- and that modern culture buys into and propagates-- is completely absurd. There cannot be one perfect person for each of us. No, it's not romantic to say that, but it is a relief, really. Rather than worrying about finding the one person who will complete us forever, we just have to make a choice.

Yes, choice. We choose one person to walk life with forever. We choose one person to help us seek sanctification. We choose one person to try to love unconditionally, even though we know we will fail. Essentially, we are choosing to fail.

Why?

Because we are made for relationship. We are meant to share life. I don't mean that marriages are guaranteed to fail. What I'm saying is, as human beings we are selfish to our core. When we choose to love an individual for better or for worse, we are saying that we desire to be sanctified, to be made holier, to try to put another's needs and desires above our own. What an amazing responsibility we are choosing then. What a beautiful picture of Christ's love for us.

At the foundation of the earth, God knew we would fail to live in right relationship with him, and yet he chose to create us, to breathe life into Adam's dry bones and to fashion Eve from his side. He chose us, knowing we would fail him.

How humbling it must be for a man to request to spend his life trying to love you unconditionally, with the full knowledge that you will fail him, he will fail you, and the most you can say is I'm committed to being sanctified by our God through a life spent with you.

How much more humbling then, must it be to know that the Creator of this universe, the God of perfect plans, the mind which fashioned all others-- that Being chooses me, chooses you, knowing full well that we will fail him, but also, knowing he will never fail us.

It seems like a lot of people have been writing lately about this whole idea of us as humans expecting other humans to complete us, to be our soul mates, as Aristophanes theorized. And I guess I am relieved that we're all kind of on the same page here-- we're all thinking that being complete can't happen here in this broken world and feeling whole can't come from another person.

I don't know if my thoughts are coherent to you, but I want you to think these things through, especially, especially if you are young and about to be married. Or if you're old and about to be married. Or if you're already married for that matter. Or if, like me, you want to be married someday (even when someday seems very far away). Think about what happens when we expect a person to complete us who was not designed to complete us. We are making demands of people that they will always be unable to fulfill, and I think that leads to bitterness.

I don't want bitterness and I don't want a relationship that is grounded in unfair expectations. It never works.

What do you think? Have you considered these things? Do you disagree? Tell me why. I want to know, I want to explore this, to grasp it and turn it over in my head.

The way eyes see

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
Isaiah 55.8

I have a friend named Kate* whose eyes see the world differently than mine. It is baffling and beautiful, the way her eyes see. Kate's husband thinks our faith is like a fairy tale, and he works in advertising.

When I started to look for a new job, I used a lot of words to say that I craved meaning in my work. But then, I applied to work for an ad agency. Kate told me not to do it and she sent me links to websites for companies who go to third world countries and change the futures of the people there. But I was more interested in changing the future of my bank account, so I let myself get excited by the time I finished my 2nd round of interviews with the ad agency, and I filed the links away and didn't look at them again for awhile.

But when the earthquake in Haiti happened, I remembered about wanting the meaning, about how I want my life to tell a better story and about how Don Miller might be my soul mate*. I still thought I was getting the agency job and I was still excited, but I thought I might give some money to people who were in Haiti, so I perused some websites, eventually landing on Samaritan's Purse. I saw they were doing some great work in Haiti, and then I noticed "Employment Listings." There were jobs all over the world, but there was one up in the mountains of North Carolina that was listed as "Writer."

So, I applied. And then I kind of forgot. After all, I was going to work in advertising as soon as they called me back. About a month later, after another round of agency interviews but still no word, I got a phone call from some pretty excited people who wanted me to drive up those mountains to see if maybe I'd like to work with them at Samaritan's Purse. I agreed to come up the following week.

Two hours later, an email popped up on my Blackberry informing me that I had not gotten the ad agency job.

*I don't actually believe in soul mates, but we can talk about that later.

*I changed her name-- you know, just in case.

25 years

Me: "I've noticed most of my friends have smile lines around their eyes now."

My mom: "I've noticed most of my friends have had facelifts now."

#blogFAIL

I was really proud of myself for blogging semi-regularly for awhile, which of course just goes to show what happens when you get really proud of yourself. My life is a constant process of God humbling me, and here you have yet one more example of that-- my notable absence from substantive blogging.

But it's a really cool story that I will tell you once all this biz is wrapped up. And I literally mean BIZ-- I resigned from my current job yesterday and will be starting a new one in two weeks.

I.AM.SO.EXCITED!

And SO busy. I have 3.5 days to wrap up two years of work and to leave something for my successor to work with, and because I created my position out of nothing, that's a little bit challenging. Oh and I'll be moving. So please forgive me if my blog content is limited to silly photographs and Family Guy clips for a little window of time.

Today, please enjoy the photography skills of my BFF's husband.

Ladies & Gentlemen, Cade Bowman Photography.

*This is one of my favs, and homeboy in the photo is also an amazing photographer, Brett Arthur. Brett might tell you I am the best bridal portrait assistant he's ever had. Or he might not.

These gents have skills + fantastic wit & sarcasm, the both of them.

Enjoy & Happy Friday.